RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Writer's Block HR#14 Obsidian Illumination 2: Smith's revenge

"The work never ends around here," Dr. Henry Quantos muttered under his breath as he finished sweeping up the mess in the recuperative room Mick Harrison had been in. The blow from the outside walls should have been stopped by this durable exterior panelling meant to stand up to such things, but everything had its weak points. The explosion of the walls bursting into the room, had created a big mess which the good doctor had been cleaning up. Local Perditian workers had already taken away the large chunks of wall and put in a temporary wall-filler, but the dust still had to be swept up. Maybe it wasn't his job, after all, and maybe he had much more important things to do than sweeping. But it gave him a chance to get away from the lab's infirmary and the hospital across the street for a while.

The more-than-middle-aged Canadian doctor was trying not to think about it. The pit in his stomach that had begun when he sent Chance off to Mandelovia to rescue his daughter had become worse over the last few hours for some reason. There was something wrong. He had heard the Vanguardians arriving back at the Complex some time ago, and he knew he should go to meet them, but something held him back. Did he want to hear what they had to tell him? Whatever it was, it would be bad. There was no sound of laughter or joking around as often occurred after other missions. Everyone was far too quiet.

Still, it was strange that Kristofer Schanz had not yet come to him with news of his daughter. That must be it, he realised. His daughter was dead. There was no other explanation. Which was why he now found himself on his knees, carefully sweeping the same spot over and over, afraid to rise and go back to his lab to face the news. He didn't want to hear it.

"Damn," he said under his breath as he looked at the backs of his hands which were covered with wrinkles and veins of blood, "I really have gotten old, haven't I?"

Dr. Quantos finally placed the broom and dustbin onto the bed and slowly rose, his knees making a popping sound as he did so. A flap-flap-flap sound could be heard in the opposite corner as Mandy began wagging her tail as she saw her master finally get to his feet. She was up in a second and went to lick his open and dusty palm as she made whimpering sound.

"I know, I know, Mandy," he said to her as he petted her and scratched behind her ears, "I really screwed it up this time. You and I were much happier back home, weren't we? Sure, it wasn't as exciting there as it gets here some of the time, but... well, sometimes life throws you a curve-ball."

He found himself suddenly back on Barbara Townsend's front porch in North Vancouver, British Columbia on that day last January as he left for the Caribbean.

A hug.

"Come back to me, sweetheart."

A kiss.

"I will."

A lie.

Henry Quantos never did return to Barbara as he had planned. Miss X had asked him to stay on at the island for a few days until she was settled in at her new position as chief executive at what soon became known as Vanguard. There would be a transition period as Kit Piper had stepped down from his former position, though he was still very much a part of the company and had several engagements lined up that he would attend in the coming weeks, after which Victoria Xiang would take over full duties.

Henry had kept in close touch with Barbara for several days, calling her and sending e-mails back and forth with her, all the while promising her that he would be back soon. As things kept coming up and as the team needed his attention on a frequent basis more and more, however, those days stretched into weeks, and finally into months. The several phone calls and e-mails with Barbara that had originally been a few times a day now began dwindling to a few times a week, and finally only once every weekend. Like his early failed marriage, his relationship with Barbara was unintentionally put second to his work, and it began to wither just as a plant does when given no water. Finally, as if an epilogue to the brief affair they'd had together, Barbara told him that she had begun seeing another man, and that she could no longer take care of Mandy for him.

And now Henry found himself on a Caribbean island nation which should have been like a permanent vacation for him, but which felt like an exile. Thus he did the only thing he could -- he threw himself into his work and prayed that his Vanguard "family" was all right. If his daughter was dead, then so be it. To all extents and purposes, he was dead in her eyes long ago.

"Come on, girl," he said as he took the leash and clipped it onto the dog's collar, "I'll take you out for a walk."

Dr. Quantos opened the door and sealed it once again with the security lock Grissom Montag had installed for emergencies such as this. If the outer wall was breached, an intruder would still have to get through the final defenses of the security doors. He followed Mandy as she led him back in the direction of his lab, but he stopped suddenly as he realized Mandy had begun moving in the opposite direction.

He looked at the dog and saw her ears flat against her head, which was itself bowed. "Mandy? What's wrong, girl? There's nothing to be afraid of..."

"Doc," a deep voice said from the direction of his lab. Mandy struggled with the leash and finally pulled away from Henry's grasp so quickly that he couldn't grab it again before she went scurrying down the corridor, her tail between her legs. Henry looked up to see the silhouette of a huge figure in a black leather bomber jacket, the ceiling light blocked as his shadow fell across Henry's face.

"Grimm!" Dr. Quantos realized. His heart had begun beating suddenly faster before he'd recognized him as the Vanguardian. Even without a glimpse of his unusual face Grimm was an intimidating bastard. "I thought I'd heard you fellows get back. So what's the word? Was the mission successful?"

Grimm was silent for a moment as if considering his words more carefully than he usually did. "Doc, I don't have good news for you. Maybe you'd better take a seat in your lab or somethin'."

"All right," he replied as he passed the figure, a puzzled look on his face as he noted the bundle Grimm held in his arms. A bundle which, as Henry sat down on a stool by a table, the Vanguardian laid down on one of his collapsible metal examination tables. Henry looked at it once again and then back at Grimm's inscrutable face. "I suppose Kristofer must be returning the Stormloader to its hangar?"

The huge Vanguardian sat down on the stool opposite him, still silent. Finally he spoke, "There was a tragedy in Mandelovia, Doc."

Henry Quantos tried to retain his stoic expression but failed horribly. He put a hand over his mouth and did his best to speak without choking, "Oh God... was it my d-daughter?"

"General D'goon is a real bastard," Grimm went on as if not having heard him. "Though I guess you should know that already, havin' worked there for years an' all."

Dr. Quantos' eyes kept straying to the bundle laying on the examination table behind Grimm. He frowned as he tried to figure out why the shape seemed so familiar...

"Even after we'd taken out those Strikeforce thugs and saved his worthless hide, he didn't seem satisfied with letting us leave in peace. Gave us three hours to get outta Dodge."

Now that he thought about it, the bundle on the table had made a bit of a flopping sound as it was placed there. A sound like a side of beef wrapped in cloth, or...

"But Chance was nowhere to be found. Velo told me later he'd been on a mission of his own, somethin' about finding your daughter. Well, it was a relief when he finally showed up, strolling outta the Presidential Palace carryin' some kind of device. And you'll never guess who was walkin' next to 'im, Doc..."

"What..." Quantos found himself saying, his voice barely a whisper, his mind in a daze, "...what's in that bundle, Grimm...?"

"It was Pete! We couldn't believe it. I mean, I'd only met the guy a couple'a times before whatever happened to him happened to him, y'know? But there he was. Chance had some words with D'goon then. And the General didn't look happy. Still, he let him go after Chance said somethin' to him. I don't know what it was -- he never mentioned it to any of us."

"Grimm..." Quantos said again, his voice to hoarse to be heard, "Grimm... what's in that bundle...?"

"So Chance came strollin' back to us, a funny expression on his face. Kind of like a feelin' of triumph, y'know? But mixed in with that was tragedy. Or a mystery left unsolved, I guess. Somethin' like that. Chance said that everything was copacetic. We were good to go. And after the mess we'd left there we were more than happy to do so."

Henry couldn't speak any longer, his throat gone dry, his eyes locked onto the wrapped bundle on the examination table. It was strangely long, yet it wasn't solid like a piece of wood...

"We headed out, Velo flying us on a course south over the Adriatic towards the Mediterreanan. We were plannin' on heading straight back here to figure out our next move. Everyone was just jokin' around -- typical post-mission stuff, y'know? Chance was fairly silent, though, just lookin' at this techno-gizmo on his lap. The guy must'a picked it up somewhere along the way, I guess. We never did figure out what it was. I guess you would'a come in handy then, Doc. You're a lot more familiar with Mandelovian tech than anyone else outside the country. Anyways, we figured the first part was over. We were home free."

What the hell was in that bundle? It wasn't -- it couldn't be a -- no... oh, no... oh, God, no...

"Then the hovercraft just started rockin' back an' forth. None'a us could figure out what was goin' on until I saw Chance. His eyes were buggin' out as I saw that weird device press into his stomach towards the wall. We tried to get it off'a him, but it's real hard to get much leverage in an aircraft when it's buckin like some kind of bronco. Finally Pete started shoutin' something about getting the door open. Chance was starin' at him like he was tryin' to get him to read his mind or something. We just did it. We got the door open, and would'a thrown the thing out of it if it hadn't been lodged in Chance's stomach. The chief just motioned for us to toss him out with it -- none'a us knew what the hell we were dealin' with, here, but a mere fall from the air wasn't gonna hurt Chance. At least not for long."

Henry tried to speak again as he raised his arm to point at the bundle. His eyes reflected the Avatar of Death in them as horrific realization suddenly came to him. Still, though, there was a chance, wasn't there? There was always a chance that it was something else... that it wasn't as bad as it looked... a one-in-a-million chance...

"We got him out. But just as suddenly..." Grimm stopped speaking for a moment. "He must'a known something we didn't, y'know, Doc? He must'a known that the thing was gonna blow an' kill almost everyone in the hovercraft. It's all I can figure right now. I jumped out after him, but there wasn't anything I could really do by then. After the others landed, Velo had a word with the General. Better him than me, I guess. I would'a done the obvious thing if I'd been in his place, even though D'goon said it wasn't him that did it. The rest of us looked around Mandelov Square for somethin', but..."

The Avatar of Death rose from the stool and went over to the bundle. With a tug, he let it unroll onto the exam table. "This was all we found of 'im."

Dr. Henry Quantos had seen death many times over his career. He'd used cadavers in medical school and had held dying men in his arms before. But it had always been easy to impersonalize all of it before.

"It's strange, Doc," Grimm went on, "I saw something in his eyes when we were talking on the way to the Palace after we'd arrived. Somethin' about his eyes seemed darker than usual. It was like... it was like I could see what would happen to..." He stopped himself suddenly. "Well, that's not important. Not any more."

Dr. Quantos looked at the decapitated arm. It had been muscular in life but now looked flaccid and grey. Yet the identity of its owner was unmistakeable. Henry found that his throat was still parched as he tried to speak and gave up trying.

"I'm sorry, Doc," Grimm said. "I know you knew 'im longer than any of us." The Vanguardian turned after a long pause and walked back to the door. He stopped then and turned around again. "Almost forgot. After all the action was over someone realized Pete was gone. We figured he must've gone back to his spirit form again when Chance died, I guess. We never got the whole story behind that, either. Oh, and Velo wrote this for you." He pulled out a piece of paper from a jacket pocket. "Hope it helps."

Henry took the note and read it as Grimm left. It said:

quote:

---

"Chance told me that he couldn't find out exactly what happened to your daughter, but that she's no longer in Mandelovia. Sorry, but that's all I know. --Kristogar Velo."

---

If Dr. Henry Quantos had been his usual self, he would've reacted in the most natural way possible and given in to the grief that he should've felt. But beyond the sheer horror of the knowledge of what occurred in Mandelovia to the young man most like a son to him and the mystery of the fate of his daughter which seemed never to be solved, he could feel nothing. He was just numb. He had sent Chance on that mission to find his daughter. It was his fault Chance was dead...

*************

Grimm walked along the corridors in the Complex, the heavy bundle finally lifted from his arms. Yet the burden of leadership that Chance had left him in his death and Danny's absence laid heavy on him in the wake of recent events.

He made his way into the office, where he knew no one was to be found. And he sat down on an old couch in the dark.

"Grimm?" a soft voice said from the open door.

"In here, Shirley."

"I just heard about Chance," she said. "I'm sorry... for all of you. I-I guess I really didn't know him too well. He always seemed so... reserved around me." A pause. "Grimm, I don't know if Henry said anything about it to you, but... Mick is gone."

"....What?" Grimm replied. He could hear the urgency in her voice though she tried to keep calm.

"It happened not long before you guys got back. He just broke in here and took Mick away. It was Naecken, Grimm. Naecken was here!"

The man who was the current leader of Vanguard in Daniel Hearn's absence got up quickly from the couch and went over to the girl, holding her by the shoulders as he looked at her.

"Shirley, are you sure? Are you sure it was Naecken?"

"Grimm, I've been with the team since almost the beginning, and I'd recognize that devil from a mile away. It was him. I'd stake my life on it."

"Fuck." The fool's mission in Antarctica had suddenly taken on a new urgency...

"Fuck..." Grimm repeated, "...FUCK!"

Suddenly Shirley realized that Grimm seemed more alarmed than usual, even for a situation like this.

"G-Grimm...?"

"We HAVE to save him," Grimm said with urgency.

"I know!" Shirley exclaimed.

"No, you don't know!" Grimm replied, "We HAVE to save him!"

With that Grimm stormed out of the room, leaving Shirley confused.

Then she started thinking.

"Oh, no..." she said, breaking into tears.

Mr. Smith sat in the small waiting room near the meeting room. Grimm had just called an emergency meeting. Smith wasn't allowed in.
Smith was about to pick up a National Geographic, when the meeting room's door opened and Tayden came out to the hall. Tayden stood there for a moment and looked at Smith. Then he walked to the waiting room, sat in front of Smith, picked up a Good Housekeeping, and started reading it.

"Heh heh heh..." Smith laughed. "They couldn't leave me alone without my chaperone, could they?"

Tayden ignored him.

"All that Heavenly training... all those years serving God Himself..." Smith leaned closer to Tayden, a mockingly serious expression of fake concern in his face, "all that priceless knowledge and potential... and you end up babysitting a mere mortal?! A remarkable one, but a mortal in the end..."

"Oooh! There's a Quiz!" Tayden exclaimed, as he took a ballpen from his pocket.

"How do you think He feels about this situation? It can't be easy seeing one of His favorite sons lower himself to this..."

"'Do I try too hard to be liked by people?' Well, I guess I do..." Tayden said, marking an x on the magazine.

"...boy, He must be really dissapointed in you..." Smith said, nodding slowly to give emphasis to his words.

Tayden put down the magazine and smiled at Smith. "He's not," he said, with total confidence.

"Oh? And why are you so sure about that?" Smith asked.

"Because He loves me," Tayden answered, "and, believe it or not, He loves you too."

Smith stared at Tayden for a second, geniunelly confused. Then he opened his mouth and started laughing. And he continued laughing. And then he laughed some more.
Smith threw his head back as his face turned red. His laughter got harder every second. After a while Tayden returned to his magazine and ignored him.

When Smith was finally done, he raised his dark glasses and passed his finger under his eye. "Little angel," he said, "you've made me cry for the first time since I was reborn. Thank you."

Absalom hesitated as he stepped up to the familiar-yet-unfamiliar front door of the Dawson Apartments. It was called "The Complex" now, but it would always be the old reliable "Dawson Apartments" in his mind. After some moments of deliberation, he finally pressed on the buzzer connecting to the main office.

No answer.

He pressed it again, then waited. And again.

Just as he was about to press it a third time, a voice came over the speaker: "Is there something I can help you with, son?" It was his voice. A fatherly kind of voice which sounded so very tired and sad. Absalom's heart jumped as all the memories played back in his mind...

quote:

---

"--so ever since our mom died, she's just been real quiet. Doesn't say a word any more. Dad's kinda worried, and so am I," Denyce said as she sat next to Absalom on the front steps of the quiet City Hall building. They both had perspiration on their skin, not only from the tropical sun but from the active day they'd had together. "I really, really miss her. But Latisha was there when mom died. She saw it happen. I think she just doesn't want to talk about it."

Absalom sighed and said after a long pause, "My mom died, too... when I was young."

"I'm sorry," Denyce said, looking at him for the first time since they sat down.

"It's okay, I guess," the boy went on. "I was only five, and I can't remember her too well any more. I know she was beautiful, but I don't remember... what her face looked like."

"What about your dad?" the girl said in a soft voice, almost a whisper.

"I-I never knew my dad," Absalom replied. "My mom always said I didn't have one."

"Well, that's silly. Everyone has a dad."

"Not me."

Denyce couldn't think of anything to say for a moment. Then she said, "I think you'd like my dad, Absalom. He's really funny."

"Really?"

"Yeah. He's a 'salesman with a mouth that just don't quit'," she said laughing. "When he took me to get checked out by Doctor Quantos, he kept on making me laugh so hard I couldn't br--"

"WHAT?!" Absalom exclaimed as the name jumped out at him. "What did you say?"

"Huh? I was just saying how my dad made me laugh during my doctor's appointment so much I didn't feel anything."

"No, no -- what was the name of the doctor? Did you say... Quantos?"

"Yeah. That's one of my dad's business partners. They're also good friends."

"Dr. Henry Quantos?"

Denyce giggled. "Yeah. You know him, too? He's a real nice old guy." She looked at him and saw tears suddenly running down his face even though he was smiling. "Hey, what's wrong? Was it something I said?"

"I can't believe it... I didn't know he was on the island," Absalom said, smiling and crying at the same time, his emotions suddenly at the forefront. "Mason must've known he was here. It's why he brought me back here. Back home."

Denyce watched as Absalom got up and began running down the steps of City Hall towards the hill. "Hey, waitasec, Absalom! Where are ya going?"

"I'm going to see Doc Quantos!" the boy replied, waving back at her excitedly.

"Okay, then..." the girl muttered, scratching her head. There was something strange about that kid. And for some reason or another she somehow knew he was going to become her best friend...

---

Absalom had almost run out of breath as he ran up the hill toward the old Dawson Apartments which was now called the Complex, knowing that Doc Quantos could only be there, at the headquarters of MBL Consulting. Or as they called themselves now, Vanguard International. Standing here in front of the door now, though, it somehow felt unreal. Surrealistic.

"Son?" the voice said again. "Son, can you hear me?"

"D-Doc..." Absalom's choked voice said as new tears began running down his already-slick wet cheeks and he looked at the video camera above the doorway. "Doc, it's me. It's Axel."

Quiet. Dr. Quantos racked his memory, trying to figure out why that name sounded so familiar.

"'Axel'?" he said, considering the brown-haired youth who had been a blonde when the protectors of La Perdita were still active. "You were the youngest member of the PSI-Unit, weren't you? Son, everyone thinks you're dead."

"I'm not dead," Axel laughed. "But don't you remember, Doc? Don't you remember how you saved me?"

"I-I don't know what you mean..." Dr. Henry Quantos said, his voice trailing off as his memory tugged at him. Something about this pre-teen boy was so damned FAMILIAR to him, but he couldn't remember WHY! "Stay right there, son. I'm coming to meet you."

Axel couldn't have been happier about it.

Axel found himself sitting in the huge laboratory Dr. Quantos resided in. When Dr. Quantos met him at the front door and brought him inside, he kept on looking at Axel with a strange look on his face. It was twice as strange to Axel, because he couldn't figure out why Dr. Quantos didn't remember what he'd done for him more than a year ago! It was like his memory of that had been erased or something.

Mandy remembered Axel, though, and when Dr. Quantos brought the boy to the lab, the dog came out of her hiding place and ran up to Axel, her tail wagging as she jumped up at him and licked his hand, almost demanding him to pet her.

Dr. Henry Quantos just stood there leaning back against a work-table, his arms folded as he shook his head in wonderment. "Very strange. I've never seen her act that way with a stranger before. She's often fairly shy when she meets new people."

"Stranger?" Axel said in an offended tone as he tried to stop Mandy from licking his face excitedly. "I'm no stranger to either her or you, Doc! She remembers me, but why don't you?"

"Hmmm... this is the second time you've mentioned a previous meeting between the two of us, but I can't figure out what you mean," the Canadian doctor said. "Though I recognize you as Axel of the 7-member PSI-Unit, son, I've never actually met you in person before."

Axel just gaped at him as he realized something very strange had happened. Yet it was not unfamiliar territory to him, a child born with natural psychic abilities who had used those abilities as a hero and protector of this island nation. "They must've put mind-blocks in you somehow, Doc," he said. "Have you had other memory problems?"

Dr. Quantos wore a skeptical look on his face, but he finally replied, "Well... yes... but I don't see what that has to do with--"

"I can help you, Dr. Quantos."

"Mmm. Perhaps you can. I'm not sure I can trust your method of doing so, however, son, until it's been properly studied."

"Just let me see what's..."

"Axel, what are you...?" Dr. Quantos frowned as the boy reached out and grabbed hold of his hand...

...and the world faded away.

Axel entered the mind of Dr. Quantos in search of the familiar signs of memory-blocks placed through hypnosis in this afflicted mind. He expected to find familiar territory, but he found something else entirely. Something that had never happened before.

He saw a memory.

Or at least, it seemed like a memory. He saw a picnic bench covered with food and could smell roasted hamburgers on the grill. Tall mountains blocked the horizon on every side, and from a small mountain lake just a few feet away could be heard children's laughter. The picnic bench seemed lower than it should have, however, as if he was levitating a few feet over the ground. He looked down at his hands. They were HUGE! He looked down at himself, and he realized he was still standing on the ground.

"Axel, how about another burger, son?"

Axel turned his head. And he saw Dr. Quantos. The Canadian doctor was different, though. He seemed older, with more wrinkles on his face... a face which looked happier than it had in the present.

"Come on, Axel," Quantos said, laughing, "your old dad can't eat as much as he used to, and we don't want to have to throw these patties away, do we?"

"'Dad'?!?" Axel said, suddenly stopping himself as he heard his own voice. His own, suddenly DEEP voice.

It was then that it hit him. He was seeing a memory, yes, but it wasn't a memory of the past...

...it was a memory from the future!

Just as Quantos began laughing again, everything faded away...

...and Axel found himself back in the present as he let go of the grasp on Dr. Quantos' arm as if an electric shock had run through him.

He looked up at the old doctor, who returned his gaze with an astonished look on his face. "I don't know what that was, son," the doctor said in a slow, almost wavering voice, "but that was really very strange."

"You saw?" Axel said, still shocked at this strange new manifestation of his psychic abilities. "The picnic bench? The mountains? ... The future?"

"'Picnic bench'?" Dr. Quantos said, somewhat confused. "No, no, Axel. It's just that there's a memory tugging at the corner of my mind right now that I can't quite grasp." He placed his hand on Axel's shoulder and bent down to him. "But I think... I think maybe we have met before. Maybe... maybe if you told me a little bit about it, my memory will be jogged."*

At first, Axel could only smile at the kind face of the man who would become his adoptive father. After growing up in an orphanage along with the other orphaned kids in the PSI-Unit, he would finally have a father. A father!

quote:

---

(*) see future installments of Twists of Fate - starring Dr. Henry Quantos and Chance for the first meeting of Axel and Dr. Quantos... as well as the explanation of what happened to Axel at the end of issue #10...

---

[ 12-04-2003, 03:31 AM: Message edited by: TheTimeTrust ]

The complex was now buzzing with a new energy, urgency, though the weariness of battle still hung over many of the Vanguardians. Adem sat in the computer room, information being uploaded into his brain by Jym.

Ozzy Baxter walked through the door. He seemed lost. Lost in the "I don't know which room I'm in" lost. Not the "I don't know where my life is going or what I want to do with it" lost. Though, there may have been a smidge of that too. "You.... you wouldn't happen to know where the bar is? I mean, this is an old hotel or something, right? There is a bar, right?"

Adem shrugged his shoulders. "I really don't know. I'm new here myself."

"Damn," Ozzy grumbled as he ran his fingers through the white strands of hair. "I could really go for a drink or twelve." Ozzy stood in silence for a few moments before realizing that he was staring at the six foot eight inch tall Adem Different sitting in the chair, pouring over the information scrolling past the screen. "So, did you use to play basketball or something? Because you look like this guy who played center at Harvard. Great player. Wound up missing a lot of free throws his softmoore year. That was the same year I went to Cancun for Spring Break. How are you at free throws?"

"I haven't the slightest notion of what you're talking about," Adem finally replied.

"Don't know about basketball, eh? You talk a little strange. Are you a foreigner?"

"In every sense of the word."

Grimm stood outside of the meeting room, talking into a small mirror he held in the palm of his hand. "Alice, you there?"

"I am always here, avatar of Death." a voice that sounded of desperate resignation came from the mirror.

"Is Turkish around?" Grimm asked.

"The Prophet is on the far reaches of Afterthought, alongside the other members of the Order. There is trouble among the outerinner planes. Do you wish to join them?"

"Uh, no, just tell him I called." Grimm pocketed the mirror and turned to walk inside the meeting room. He was greeted by Phil Smith. "I'm in mental contact with Tayden. I can relay everything that happens to him without Smith knowing." the telepath said as they walked into the room. The two men were greeting with expectant looks from the assembled field team of Vanguard International. Seated around the meeting table were Velo, TC, Banshee, Leslie,
Michael Ringo, Drake Marshall, and the full membership of the B Team.

"They're all looking at me." Grimm said as an aside to Phil.

"You are the leader." Phil whispered back.

"Dammit, I'm not-" Grimm began. "Nevermind. What's so funny?"

"You sound like Danny." Phil smirked, trying not to laugh.

"Go sit down." As they took their places at the table, Grimm addressed the group. "Gentlemen, ladies, we are about to, where's Priest?"

"He's hurt. He can't go on this one." Phil responded, thinking back to Mandelovia and the battle with Shock.

"Damn. We could use his power. All right, then, as I was saying. Phil and I have made out a plan of action, and we've divided the team up into groupings. Our first grouping will be as follows: Phil, Tayden, Velo, and TC. Your job will be to attempt to reach Naecken to see if there is anything left of the Naecken we knew. Also, to see if you can discover where he is keeping Mick. Tayden will use his empathic ability to attempt to sooth Naecken. Phil will use his telepathy to send Velo inside Naecken's mind where he will attempt to reason with him and find out what he's done with Mick. TC will then find Mick and free him."

"The next group," Phil began taking over, "will be Leslie, Banshee, Dr. Huerta, and Bates. Your job will be to find any captives that may be held inside Naecken's compound and get them to safety. If this means bringing them back to the island in the hovercraft, do it."

Leslie began to object, but was cut off by Grimm. "This is not light detail, people. We remove any civilians first. Then rejoin the main teams as you're able. I don't want any tragedies on this one."

Phil took over again, "Our final team will hang back as a brute force team, with Grimm, Vengeance, Blackwulf, Luchadore, Drax, and Mr. Smith. If we are unable to communicate with Naecken, they will move in and take him out."

"No holding back, people. When we move, I want no hesitation. We leave in an hour." Grimm finished.

::Interlude::

In the backroads of Afterthought...

The powdery gray skies held the silence of, what should be, perpetually shifting dunes. The gray sands that marked the horizon matched the skies so inexorably, as to confuse one's sense on where the ground ended, and the sky began.

Wiry-thin gray lifeforms, each only five-feet-tall, remained motionless scattered across the dunes. They had no appendages. No faces. They were simply called 'O'; slivers of philosophical consciousness gained sentience.

And, at the moment, their entire world was on the brink of suicide.

Graham Wells stood ridgid, high on the perch of a still dune. His eyes closed, the avatar held back the flow of time throughout this world; the eeiry stillness of the millions of lifeforms littering the land, the only statement to his power.

Not all were enthralled in the temporal-freeze, however.

At the bottom of the dune, Z stood still, her arms wide. Waiting. Ready to puncture three-dimensional space at a moment's notice. The few O in front of her continued staring her form down with a faceless silence.

In front of her, Lady Greystoke stood poised, whip in hand. Her teeth grinding back and forth with the anticipation of a possible conflict, she too faced a number of the lifeforms holding similiar stances.

Friday Tallmoore and Artemis Cross stood back to back, facing the silent O surrounding them. Friday's hands out, he held a ready defense, even as Arthur stood perfectly still, bow drawn with three gleaming silver shafts.

"You realize, of course...this close to the pan-sublime Unreal borders...any individualistic impulse introduced into your social belief structure must, due to the very nature of your world, be mirrored by your entire species..."

Turkish Stringfellow.

Standing before one of the O, his hands remained clasped together behind him, draped in the folds of his robes.

~~it is my belief prophet~~it is only right that the world should conform to my perception~~

The 'voice' of the O was like having a surround-sound speaker system in your brain. Turkish could hear the words, drifting as in a memory. But, he could also smell them. Taste them. His fingertips rolled with the feel of the voice.

"That is not in debate. However, do you truly want to eradicate your entire existence?"

The O stared at the imposing ambassador of Haven.

~~you will not lecture me on belief structures prophet~~much of times passage have we allowed as a stagnant existence~~as a parasitical compliment to the consciousness of other races~~why must you oppose our freedom from expectance~~why should we not be allowed to form conclusions of our own~~

"I would never consider imposing my beliefs on anyone else..." Stringfellow replied with the utmost diplomacy. "...but, you must understand that, your presence itself is a defining factor. If you cease to believe in yourselves, you will, effectively, un-write your own existence. The belief structures of millions of species throughout the Multiverse will be shattered beyond repair."

~~so that is our role in the scheme of things~~we must exist so that others might have the ability to believe~~as slaves we are~~shackled to the grinding engines of quasi-universal law~~

"You must understand..." Turkish explained. "...the effects of you, alone, beginning this belief of un-existence, is already being felt outside the borders of your realm. Even as we speak, the avatar of life itself has begun to fall into a depressive malaise..."

"She can't even get out of bloody bed!" Tallmoore half-yelled. As with everyone, his patience was beginning to fray with the stalemate.

"Friday." Turkish glanced at him briefly.

~~be that as it may prophet of haven~~our lives must be given the chance to grow beyond our original design~~

"Of course." Turkish nodded. "However, might I suggest an alternative to yo--"

prophet of one
brother grimm
requests your council

"...I'm busy, Alice..." Turkish replied cooly, more than a little bit irritated at the intrusion of such a delicate situation.

danger comes
to the earth of man
against the dark lord naecken
he prepares his final stand

Stringfellow sighed, staring at the obvious priority before him.

"...for now..." he began, his voice coming heavy with worry. "...he stands alone..."

::End Interlude::

The Hospital

The small Hospital sponsored by our team of adventures and heroes has had quite a history in its short time of existence. Alpha level meta battles, kidnappings, murders and the collapse of a wing on opening weekend. Yeah, like everything else, life moves on.

Third floor room 313 lies a close friend to the team. Samuel Dawson, once know as Shift of the MBL Consulting, lies in a coma. Unable to move or speak, but trapped in his own reality of mind.

Sara Jones, a nurse in the hospital, does her daily routine of checking his vitals and fixing his pillows. Even though the young man is in a coma, that doesn’t mean he should be uncomfortable.

A whisper falls from his lips, “...Michelle...” This too has become a daily routine. Every time Sara hears her name, she can’t help but feel pity for the two souls who have been split up by circumstance. Never has he spoken a last name, nor has Sara been one who would break one’s privacy by checking into their personal details.

Sara gentally touches Sam’s scars. When she was younger she remembered hearing about the Dawson Complex fire. Until recently, it was one of the Island’s worse tragedies. A kind and gentile family, they were.

So sad.

“...Michelle...”

Sara leans into speak into Sam’s ear. “Wake up for her.”

With one last look, Sara goes about her business and moves to the next room.

Spaceship Nibiru, orbital headquarter of the Strikeforce

Jack Merlin keeps his eyes over the monitor with the satellite feeds from la Perdita.

"Why they don't leave?" keeps repeating to himself.

"We have the press release ready, Jack" says Mindgame. "Do you authorize the transmission?"

Jack turns from the monitor. "No, suspend it. Tell just that Hero has died valiantly. Before we reveal the world who has killed him, first I must ask the Vanguardians to join the Strikeforce. We'll use the video only if we'll have to coerce them."

Meeting Room, Vanguard International Complex, La Perdita

"We leave in an hour" Grimm said, when in that moment Grissom Montag voice was heard in the communicator.

"Grimm, I have got it. Satellite images from D'Goon coordinates. Take a look"

The giant screen on one of the wall of the meeting room flashed with light, and then a zenith view of an iced wasteland is seen. At the center, there is something resembling a huge ant-hill, with lines of thousands of ants coming inside and outside the nest.

"What's that?" asks Grimm.

"It's the fortress" respond the voice of Grissom, and the image began to zoom in, revealing an entire mountain made of ice mined out of the Antarctic iceshelf, by thousands, maybe hundreds thousands of robots. "The stange thing is that only the feeds from the Mandelovian satellites give this images, from the others, Russian, American and European ones, there is just ice".

Kristogar Velo stood up. "It's really like a nest of ants. Just before they swarm"

The warm ocean breeze caressed her face, a few random strands of raven-black hair tossing in unison with the tall, swaying palms of the estate. The granite bannister was warm, almost soothing to her touch. Lightly dragging a lone fingernail along the texture of the gray stone, her eyes remained perched straight ahead.

"I know what you are thinking..." the voice of Miss Xiang came, drifting up behind her as with the breeze.

Nuriko said nothing, continuing her stare out the private third-story balcony.

Xiang stepped up next to her, staring out at the imaginary spot with her.

"You want to go with them." she added calmly.

Nuriko's eyes flickered briefly, reasserting their stare once again.

"It is the only honorable thing to do." she finally answered.

"This is about more than honor, wouldn't you say?" Xiang replied.

"Yes..." Nuriko said, hesitating but a moment. "...it is about saving this planet."

Miss X nodded.

"Of course...", her voice came with a hint of disbelief.

Nuriko turned towards her.

"Miss Xiang....I respectfully ask that I be assigned to the--"

Victoria's raising palm halted her words, the older lady barely smiling.

"No need to ask permission, Nuriko..." she replied. "You must follow your heart."

The two women stared at each other silently for a moment.

Nuriko bowed slightly.

"...my life is...as ever...yours, Madame Xiang..."

"Come back alive, Nuriko..." she asnwered.

Her eyes suddenly gained a gleam of fiery passion.

"...and, if you do not...." she added, "...then die with the honor you so deserve..."

The two age-old friends stared at each other with knowing smiles.

************

The cooly-lit hangar echoed with hushed voices, and stilted laughter, as the assembled metahumans scurried to prepare for the coming conflict. Small waves slapped the interior of the canal walls, the Stormloader docked motionless against the personnel ramp. Every so often, a reddish-gold blur darted to and fro, as Tobias Christopher's hyper-accelerated repairs neared completion.

Phil wrestled with a dark, naval-blue set of fatigues, pulling with a drastic irritation at the thick jacket zipper...

"...damn...shit...damn..." he muttered, grunting with the stubborn zipper.

Without warning, an enormous pair of purple hands suddenly grabbed the bottom of his jacket, as well as the zipper. In one hard yank, the hands zipped the jacket up completely.

"Ah!" Phil jerked with suprise, as the grinning form of Blackwulf stood over him.

"There!" the boisterous faux-Russian dialect coursed easily above all other noises. "Prettyinpink, Phillip Smith! The Wulf will be lending strong hands toiled with wheat to being helping heroes of mighty MBL!"

"Uhh...yeah...okay, thanks Wulf..." Phil nodded with a crooked smile, straightening the thermal fatigues a bit. "But...uhhh...it's 'Vanguard', now, you know?"

Blackwulf arched his head back in an obnoxiously boisterous chuckle.

"Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Brave Philsmith, you honor the Wulf with the humor of superior western nations!"

Phil just stared at him with a confused expression.

"But!" Blackwulf said, suddenly breaking off his laugh. "It is being time for serious posture and exposition, da' ?"

He suddenly placed a brief palm against Phil's cheek.

"...uhh..." Phil began, even as the mighty giant removed the hand.

Blackwulf's purplish-hue suddenly altered, flowing with a lighter, tan pigment.

"Ahhhh....da....da...." the Wulf nodded, as the metas genetic imprint copied down into his DNA chain. "....the power of thinking now flows through the Wulf...."

The giant turned, walking away.

"...if we were only that lucky..." Phil said, still a bit confused by the entire incident.

Further across the chamber, a ball of fiery-red flame suddenly flared over Drake's ducking head.

"HEY!!" he yelled with supreme irritation.

"Shit! Oh! Sorry sir!" John Bates replied defensively, his fingertips still flickering with a hint of flame; his thermal jumpsuit still laying half off his body.

"...dumbass..." Luchadore remarked, pulling the jacket...across...his chest.

He turned, the jacket...obviously to all others....on backwards.

"Now, zip me up, bitch..."

...neither man noticed as Blackwulf strolled past them momentarily touching their shoulders...

"Dude...where's your bra?" John asked, working to get the zipper up on Luchadore's back.

"With this ensemble?" Luchadore replied. "Faux paux, my good man."

"The cold's gonna spike your nipples, dude..." Bates said, finally getting the zipper up.

Luchadore turned to him.

"It's thick material, man." he explained.

"...slut..." Bates sighed, trying his zipper once again.

His fingertips slipped suddenly off, inadvertently igniting his pants on fire.

Even as Bates' girlish scream began echoing throughout the hangar, Brianna and Leslie struggled with their own suits in a shadowed changing alcove.

"...what is this for, anyway?" Bri asked, staring at the thermal gear questioningly.

"Its Antarctica, sweetheart..." Leslie replied, stripped down to her undergarments. She began hoisting the pants onto her slim frame. "...coldest place on the planet..."

...Doctor Huerta strolled by carrying a fire extinguisher...

"Temperature does not usually affect me..." the Irish lass replied, trying to figure out how she was supposed to get the jacket on over her wings.

"Oh...so that's why you always go flying around in a dress?" Leslie asked, a wry smile lining her lips. "The guys love you for that, you know..."

"I...do not understand..." the winged beauty replied.

Leslie opened her mouth to explain, noticing Bri's back was still to her.

"You know...it's annoying to talk to your back..."

"Oh..." Bri said, turning around to face her.

She stopped, her eyes widening a bit.

"Begora!" she gasped, slamming her lids tight.

Leslie stared at her, buttoning her pants.

"You okay?" she asked.

Bri squinted one eye open, quickly shutting it again.

"You....you are not dressed..." she replied in a near whisper.

Leslie paused, looking down at her half-naked self.

"...uh...sweety...have you ever...you know...looked into a mirror?" she said, beginning to adorn the rest of her outfit. "...I have all the same parts that you do..."

"It...it's not right..." she replied with hushed reverance.

Leslie began chuckling, pulling the zipper up on her jacket.

"...heh-heh-heh...oh, you poor, poor thing...." she laughed. "...we are so going to corrupt you, aren't we....?"

Suddenly, both women jumped with a startled turn, each feeling a hand. The smiling face of Blackwulf met their shocked gaze.

"Thanking you lovelyladies..." he bellowed, walking on.

Across towards the far end of the hangar, Tayden sat, perfectly suited-up, patiently resting along one of the prep-benches. Standing near his sprawled form, Smith stood leaning against the wall...

"...do you smell their fear?" his dark voice creaked out from the vague shadows. "Do you sense their despair?"

Tayden hummed to himself.

"...to fight....to kill an old ally..." Smith continued, drinking in the dark essence of those around him. "....the world is against us..."

Tayden continued to hum, reaching up to high-five a passing Blackwulf.

"...we are all going to die..." the dark being smiled maliciously.

Smith stared at the ex-angel, even as Tayden continued to hum pleasantly to himself.

"Well?!" he asked, growing impatient with the old seraphim's fortitude. "Don't tell me that you can find a silver lining in THIS one, oh-cursed-of-the-light!"

Tayden smiled.

"I sense only hope....courage...." the soothing voice came.

"They are fools." Smith replied with a sullen demeanor.

Tayden turned towards him with a wide smile.

"You know what I like to do in moments like this, Smith?" he asked with a subtle glee.

"I do not care."

"I always....look on the bright side of life..." he began, his voice dropping into the Python melody. "...dee-doo...dee-doo-dee-doo-dee-doo..."

Smith stared at him with a dark gleam.

"...always look on the right side of life....dee-doo...dee-doo-dee-doo-dee-doo..."

"Stop that."

"...when you're feeling down....and life makes you frown..."

"Shut up!"

"...dee-doo.....dee-doo-dee-doo-dee-doo..."

Near the hangar entrance, Grimm sat heavily on one of the benches, re-wrapping the leather bindings along his axe's hilt.

"You ready for this?" Velo asked, adjusting the sleeves on his thermal gear.

"Silly question." Grimm responded.

"Yeah...I know." Velo nodded. "I'm nervous."

"Then stay behind." the avatar of death replied.

Velo stared at him for a moment.

"Was that a joke?" he asked.

"I always wanted to try new things before I died..." the giant responded with a straight tone.

Velo just grinned.

The hangar door slid open, Nuriko walking in with a strident calm.

"Miss Xiang has assigned me to this mission, Mr. Grimm." she explained. "I am at your service."

"It's going to be dangerous..." he replied.

"I am a dangerous woman." she answered, unflinching.

Grimm nodded, Velo handing her the gear.

Suddenly, the hangar door slid open again, Ozzy Baxter bursting in with a nervous energy.

"Okay, okay!" he said to, really, no one. "Sign my ass up. Let's get this over with."

Grimm and Velo turned towards each other briefly, looking back at the man.

Grimm stood fully up, his chest coming eye-level with Baxter.

"You are not required to partake in this mission, Baxter..." he began.

"I know, okay? I know..." the man explained. "But...gobdammit...I'm bored. And, I don't want to be the butt of rookie jokes after all this is said and done....okay?"

Grimm stared at him briefly.

"Are you sure?"

Ozzy took a deep breath.

"...no..." he said. "...but...it's something I've got to do.....okay?"

Grimm slowly nodded.

"Now....you better have boots in a nine-and-a-half..." Baxter said, staring at the thermal gear Velo was handing him.

"Nine-and-a-half...?" Grimm asked incredulously.

"I got small feet." Ozzy shrugged.

"You know what they say about men with small feet, right?" Grimm began, the obvious joke rising in his voice.

"Yeah!" Ozzy began, pointing a finger at the dark giant. "They're willing to risk their fucking necks for strangers they barely know! Now don't give me any shit, Skeletor!!"

If Grimm could have smiled, he would have been all teeth.

"Hello!"

"Ah!!" Ozzy jumped, Blackwulf reaching his hand out.

"I am being the Wulf! You are being new, da' ?"

"Uh...yeah...Baxter...Ozzy Baxter..." he said, grasping the man's handshake.

Contact.

"Thank you BaxterOzzyBaxter!" the Russian said, turning and walking away.

Ozzy just stood there with a confused expression.

Adem Different walked in behind him, looking around.

"...curious..." he said to himself.

*************

In the communications hub, Grissom Montag monitored digital traffic from around the chaotic globe. Multiple screens flared at random, his expert eyes scanning the data before him.

Suddenly, a new blip lit up on the tracking radar.

"...whot' the fock'..." he mumbled leaning in towards the screen.

*************

The hangar was now quiet, bustling with a low expectancy. The assembled metahumans stood silent, staring at the imposing figure of Grimm before them.

"Gentlemen...ladies....others...." he began, his voice coming clearly through the clean accoustics of the room. "I'm really no good at speeches. That was always Dan's forte'...."

His voice dropped into a reverant tone.

"...or, even, Chance's..."

A low hush fell over everyone, as the fresh memory burned their hearts.

"...but, then again...that's my point." he continued. "Here we are...assembled....ready to face the unknown again....ready to face down one of our old teammates against impossible odds. And we have to ask ourselves....why..."

The metas stared at the man, his words finding their center.

"Is it the right thing to do? Perhaps. But, I would like to think it's more than that...."

Velo nodded slightly to the words.

"It's our duty." Grimm announced. "Naecken was one of our own. And, he has taken Mxy from us. As Kristofer was always fond of saying, 'we watch each other's backs'."

Ozzy stared on with a wide-eyed stare.

"Naecken is our responsibility. He is ours to protect...."

Grimm paused, looking out over the assembly.

"....and...to destroy..."

Everyone nodded with understanding.

"We know what we have to do. We know that...some of us...may not come back. Just like Chance." Grimm said. "Kristofer is gone. He died making sure that we could be here today."

Leslie stared at the ground solemnly, even as Phil wrapped a comforting arm around her.

"And, I say this to you now, Vanguard...." Grimm continued. "...if Naecken is our responsibility....if Mxy is our responsibility....then, it is also our responsibility to make sure that Kristofer Chance did not sacrifice himself in vain..."

"Naecken is powerful..." he added. "...well.....alone, we are powerful..."

...Grimm raised his axe high...

"...however......united.......we are FUCKING LEGION!!"

Everyone roared with triumph, raising their fists into the air.

"...Vanguard.....it's time to call down the thunder on this son-of-a-bitch..." he growled.

And, even as everyone yelled again, turning to load the hovercraft, Grissom's frantic voice burst over the comm speaker...

"This is Montag....I've picked up an unidentified flying object nearing La Perdita..."

The group paused, Grimm staring up at the speaker.

"...and they're broadcasting a message on all available frequencies....digital....audio..."

"Pipe it in, Montag..." Grimm responded.

There was a series of audible clicks, and, immediately, a voice resonated throughout the chamber. A calm, cool familiar voice....

"Attention, citizens of La Perdita....this Charles Walker of the EPS..."

Velo's eyes narrowed.

"...Walker..." he breathed.

"...your time has come, my metahuman brothers...." the voice continued. "...even as we speak, an EPS transport is nearing the downtown square. I implore you all...those of you with abilities beyond the normal scope of man....hear my words! La Perdita needs you. Earth needs you. A danger looms for us all. A threat emanating from Antarctica that shall encompass our entire planet, if not dealt with. A dark being of immense power has threatened our existence...our very way of life. I ask you all....in the name of peace, prosperity, and the freedom from tyranny....I ask you....join us! Help us!"

"...sonofabitch..." Phil gasped.

"...the EPS needs you..."

While the assembled Vanguardians and assorted metas were still reeling from the shock of the EPS' announcement, a large gust of wind blew through the hangar bay. The powerful winds almost forcing everyone back. As suddenly as they came, the winds died away.

A deep, powerful voice sounded in the hangar. "By request of the Prophet, the Pantheon has come to aid the Vanguard in their hour of need!" The metas looked in the sound of the voice. They saw a dark skinned man standing at the head of an assemblage unfamiliar to them. Well, mostly unfamiliar. The Vanguardians recalled the cyclops, Arges, from their previous encounter with Project: Omicron. Grimm had gotten the chance to know Arges' strength and power firsthand in Malta, as well.

The dark skinned demigod spoke again. "I am Aeolus, master of winds. Allow me to introduce my partners." He turned towards the cyclops. "Many of you have met Arges before."

"Yeah, we know him." Grimm began to feel a little uneasy. "There is no need to worry, Grimm. We come as friends today." Arges held out a massive hand towards the biker. Grimm hesitated briefly, then shook the cyclops hand. "I guess we need everyone we can get."

Aeolus continued. "The twins, Castor and Pollux." The dark haired Pollux and light haired Castor stepped forward as one. "Hello, Give Mr. Montag. . ." Castor began, ". . .our regards." Pollux finished for him.

"The god of sleep, Morpheus." Aelous continued his introductions. Morpheus yawned and offered a drowsy "Greetings." Of course, afterwards, no one present would be able to agree on just what Morpheus had said or done, or even what he'd looked like when doing it.


"Stheno, the last Gorgon." Aelous continued. A veiled woman offered a reticent wave to the grouping. "Please respect her wishes for privacy and do not ask her to remove her veil."

"Medea, the sorceress. . ." Aeolus began again. "I can introduce myself, thank you." Medea interrupted, with contempt. "This is not the time, Medea," Aelous cautioned her.

"I must ask you all to be wary around Echo, she has unusual abilities." Aeolus began, standing next to a small, quiet young woman. Echo. . .unusual abilities A voice came from the girl without her moving.

"I must ask you all to be wary around Echo, she has unusual abilities." Aeolus began, standing next to a small, quiet young woman. Echo. . .unusual abilities A voice came from the girl without her moving.


"I must ask you all to be wary around Echo, she has unusual abilities." Aeolus began, standing next to a small, quiet young woman. Echo. . .unusual abilities A voice came from the girl without her moving.


"AArrghhh!" Aeolus pulled himself away with a great effort. "I. . .trust. . .that little demonstration is not lost on anyone."

"And finally, Pandora. Yes, that Pandora." Aelous motioned to a tall, attractive woman with dark, curly hair and an olive complexion. She seemed to have a look on her face of massive responsibility. She held a small wooden chest close to her as if afraid of being separated from it.

"We the Pantheon, will stand by your side in this battle."

In an abandoned tool-shed out in the alley behind the Vanguard Complex which had been remade into a low-budget "hero headquarters," two strange men sat playing Hearts. That is, if one could call them men: The furry one, whose name was Uncle Otto, resembled nothing less than a brown bear, while the other was completely headless, his head resting between his arms on the table, looking at his playing cards. This was Annikin Cobb, better known as Head-Fall-Off Boy to the locals at Jake's Place.

Suddenly, a strong breeze caused all the cards in the two men's hands to flutter off into the corner.

"Hi, Drag-Racer..." they said in unison, not bothering to look up at the newcomer, a speedster who, though he was male, was wearing make-up and was dressed in a tube-top and hot pants.

Drag-Racer: "Hey, did you hear?"

Uncle Otto: "What?"

Drag-Racer: "There's some kind of big shindig going down in Antarctica?"

Uncle Otto: "So?"

Drag-Racer: "And Vanguard asked the B-Team to go along with them."

Uncle Otto suddenly rose to his feet, saying angrily: "And we weren't invited?!?"

Head-Fall-Off Boy: "But didn't you just say...?"

Uncle Otto: "This is our chance, team! Our chance to make prove ourselves to the big boys! Come on, what do you say? Are we Antarctica-bound, or what?"

Drag-Racer: "Surrrrre... I guess... uh, as long as I get to wear one of those cute parkas with the bunny-tail."

"..."

Drag-Racer: "IT'S MY LIFE!"

Head-Fall-Off Boy finished adjusting his head to his neck and said: "I dunno. I'm not really into the whole 'cold weather battle' thing, y'know? My Head of Steel™ freezes too quickly in sub-zero temperatures."

Drag-Racer: "I heard Banshee is going..."

A *THUD!* could be heard as Cobb's head fell off.

In a moment, Head-Fall-Off Boy was already at the door, his head in his arm like a football. He looked back at the others and said: "Well, what the hell are you two waiting for? C'mon, guys!"

Uncle Otto just shook his head and grinned: "So... should we give 'the new guy' his big break?"

Drag-Racer returned the grin: "I think so. Six months is a long-enough probationary period, I think. I think he's learned his lesson."

Uncle Otto: "Don't let him hear you say that. He's the official team rookie, after all. Every team needs one."

Drag-Racer: "Just keep Bates away from me, OK? The last time he got that goop all over me I had to shave my head and bathe myself in tomato juice."

Uncle Otto: "You should try getting it out of fur..."

Victoria Xiang's office:

The office which Miss X had occupied for almost a year was decorated in a somewhat Spartan (compared to Kit Piper's office) but elegant Asian style. A large painting of a dragon given her by an artist she had grown up with in her native Hong Kong adorned one wall, several large fans painted with symbols adorned the other wall, and between them was her large desk, behind which was a large bay window.

Victoria Xiang stood there now, dressed in a black silk dress, as she watched the gathering figures outside, outwardly calm and collected as always. Inwardly, however, she was in turmoil. She did not want to place her faithful assistant in any unnecessary danger; nor did she wish to see the team which she had grown accustomed to in her own detached way destroyed as Kristofer Schanz had been. Too much was at stake, however, and each player added to the game could be the crucial player needed to win this risky gambit. The fate of the world depended on victory. Though she had spent a lifetime perfecting control over her physical, mental, and emotional self, it was difficult to help but worry at a time like this.

Breep-breep-breep

A single eyebrow shot up from the timelessly-beautiful Miss X as she recognized the signal, her face betraying emotion despite herself. She sat down at her desk and held her palm on the green sensor-panel that had been a fixture of the desk for more than half a year now.

"[[Shi-Gong!]] she spoke in Cantonese in a respectful but excited tone as the holographic image of the ancient man stood before her with a smile. He was impressive despite his shorter-than-average height, a couple of inches over five feet tall. His scalp was completely without hair, while his thick, bony brows -- hiding eyes that spoke of a keen and knowing intelligence -- currently held the only hair upon his head. The last time she had seen him he had grown a beard as befit his ancient name of Myrddin, but he was currently clean-shaven. His face was thus all the more fascinating because of it. It was powerful, primal, and held great strength within it despite the lack of the prominent chin so common in Homo Sapiens. His head was larger than a normal man's despite the much-lower forehead, and his neck was very thick. His body was thickly-muscled and trim, and he was dressed in modest dark clothing unbefitting (in Xiang's opinion) his honorable elder stature.

He was the last of his kind, the last Neanderthal on Earth. And legends were spawned in his wake: the wizard of King Arthur, Merlin; the bringer of fire and knowledge to humanity, Prometheus; and under many names the companion of the Eternal Champion throughout the ages. He had been as hated as he had been loved and followed, his name becoming the reviled word merde by those who sought to destroy him. He was the one man throughout history who had been dedicated to keeping the balance between the Hoods and the Capes, between mankind and the gods, between the angels and the demons:

MYRDDIN.

"[[You honour me with your presence, grandfather]]" Miss X continued as she rose and bowed, the "grandfather" meant as an honorific, not an actual blood relation.

Myrddin's hologram returned the bow and said, "[[There is no need to stand on formality, Vickie. You have ever been my most worthy of graduates.]]"

"[[I thank you, Shi-Gong. And I wish that the circumstances for this meeting were... different.]]"

"[[As do I, granddaughter.]]"

"[[Is it not possible for Ameristar, or even Crasher to assist in this perilous mission?]]"

The ancient man sighed. "[[Crasher will never return to this world which had treated her so roughly, I fear. And Ameristar is unwilling to leave her side in her sister's pain even should I ask her to, something I cannot do.]]"

Victoria Xiang considered this and said, "[[Then they must rely upon the resources that have already been allocated to them.]]"

"[[You underestimate my own not-inconsiderable resources, Vickie. Ameristar and Crasher were two among my best agents in this world, along with Nadia, it is correct, but my organisation is larger than you may realise. I have found one agent who can be spared from the wars on the other Earths to lend her assistance to the battle.]]"

"[[I thank you, Shi-Gong. Can one agent possibly be enough aid for so great a task, though?]]"

"[[Trinity is one, yet she is also three. One soul in three bodies. Her assistance will be invaluable to the mission.]]"

"[[You have been most generous, grandfather. However, at the risk of seeming ungrateful, is it not possible to grant our side more help?]]"

"[[Do not worry about what will happen tomorrow, granddaughter. The warriors who have gathered for the coming storm will be... enough. My errant son may even prove to be the hero he portrays himself to be in this task, though I fear what he will do when the play is over. Your team is at risk, I fear.]]"

"[[I know it, Shi-Gong. I spend my days and nights picking up the pieces left behind after Vanguard's sometimes-foolhardy actions, while none of them truly realize the volume of work I and the rest of the staff put into ironing out all those wrinkles they cause while simultaneously keeping them in the government's favour. With this business in Mandelovia being so well-publicised, the team is barely hanging on by a thread to this island as its headquarters. All of my efforts to professionalise this company are going down the drain as we speak, though it scarcely seems to matter at such a harrowing time for the world as this. I wonder, sometimes, Shi-Gong, whether it is all worth it. Can Vanguard International possibly become the world's protectors as you believe they can?]]"

"[[Surely you must see how the team is advancing from adolescence towards adulthood. Such is never a simple process. There will be bumps along the road.]]"

"[[I think, grandfather, that my idea of 'bumps' may differ from yours somewhat...]]"

The hologram of Myrddin chuckled. "[[You will succeed in your task as always, my dear Vickie. After all, I have entrusted to you my own small financial investment in your company, and I would not see that go to waste.]]" The old Neanderthal winked at her as the hologram faded out of sight.

Victoria Xiang slumped into her chair and allowed herself a tear, though for what emotion she did not herself know. Reaching into a desk drawer, she pulled out a photograph of two people: a young, strong-looking man wearing a security uniform with a Malvan-X, Inc tag that said the name "Bibowski" beneath it. He had one arm around the slim waist of the other figure, an exotically-beautiful Asian woman of indeterminate age who was smiling happily as she held her lover in a caressing pose, and wearing a bright green silk dress -- herself two years ago. She was a stranger to her now even her lover was long gone to parts unknown. That part of Victoria Xiang had left with him...

**************

In the Communications Room, Grissom Montag took a swig of brandy and kept a watchful eye for any changes on all the monitors he had installed. In an hour or two he would be too busy to be able to take a break such as this one. And to keep Shirley's mind off of her fiancee, he had asked her to prepare a meal for him. He even kept a bucket next to his chair just in case he couldn't reach the toilet in time before the action began.

One of the regular computer screens made a ding!, and Montag glanced over as the screen said: "You've got mail."

A few clicks on the mouse, and Montag was reading an e-mail that said a single word.

"Agreed."

Three blocks away from the Complex, a young man sat in a rented car with the engine running, inwardly debating with himself whether or not he should drive three blocks ahead or just turn right and head back to the Airport.

The decision was no easier once he'd seen and heard the loud calls from what seemed to be the E.P.S. It was funny -- he didn't remember the E.P.S. ever acting so publically before.

"Just go home, man. Just go home," he said to himself. "Just turn the fucking car around and go home. They don't need you. They haven't needed you for almost a year now. And your team is long gone, man. You won't know any of the newbies. Just go home, man. Go home."

The man wore a determined expression on his face as he put the car in gear and put on his right signal lights to make the turn which would lead him back down the hill to the Airport. However, he kept his foot on the brake.

"Aw, fuck," Larry Lance finally said as he started driving towards the Complex. "FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK" was all he kept muttering to himself as he drove towards the Complex and parked his car in the parking lot next to three company cars.

Larry Lance got out of his car and wore a fake smile on his face as he began walking towards the crowd that was packing up the Stormloader. "I'm gonna die," he muttered under his breath as he waved to a certain super-speedster he recognized, "I just know it. They're going to wrap me up like a Christmas present and give me to the Prince of Hell. And here I am presenting them the ribbon." He sighed. "Oh well... once over and twice-twisted it is, then..."

Leslie Kline was brushing her hair out as she sat in front of the mirror in the ready room adjacent to the loading area. Phil came in and set his weather-immersion suit cap down on a nearby table. "Hey."

Leslie turned. "Hey."

"Pretty crazy stuff, huh?"

Leslie nodded. "I'm a little nervous."

The telepath smiled. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't. But I'm not too worried." He put a hand on her shoulder. "I've got someone coming along to take care of me." Phil bent down and kissed Leslie's cheek. "I wish there were some way to make up for all that lost time."

Leslie smiled at him. "Maybe later." She gave him a mischievous wink. "Right now, I'm gonna need your help getting adjusted to all these people."

Phil chuckled. "I'm still trying to catch up with all these newbies. I'm planning on concentrating more on the objectives - especially this connection between Naecken and Velo."

Leslie frowned. "You can do it, right?

"It's not that." Phil looked down, lost in thought. "I'm not sure if my own defenses would be adequate to handle a being like Naecken."

"You fought the Jabberwock," Leslie insisted.

Phil nodded. "The Jabberwock was powerful, and it took a lot to beat him, but as twisted and bizarre and meta-enhanced as he was, he was still human, or at least not far removed from it. Naecken - he's, well, supernatural. I'm just not sure if I can handle a mind on that level."

Leslie ran a hand through Phil's close-cropped hair. "You just do your best," she replied. "And if you get in over your head, at any time, just call me."

"I'll do that," Phil said with a smile. He leaned over and kissed her gently.

The two were interrupted by a lightly-accented voice. "Mister Smith? Miss Kline?"

The pair turned to see a nondescript man in the dove-grey uniform of a former Soviet submariner. "I am Lieutenant Kozlov of the submarine Korystnyj."

Leslie stood up, alarmed. "I remember you."

The Russian held up one hand. "No, Miss Kline, I am not here to apprehend either of you. The terms of that contract expired some time ago. We had heard of the situation in the Antarctic, and Captain Tsulygin felt obligated to offer whatever assistance we can." He paused. "I hope forty-two KGB-trained commandos and an armed nuclear submarine can be of use to you."

Phil nodded, speechless. "That'd... that'd be fine," Phil stammered.

The Russian nodded, turned on his heel, and left the room, presumably to notify his superiors.

Phil and Leslie looked at each other.

"Do you think I should tell Grimm?" Phil asked.

Leslie pulled the ready room door shut. "He'll find out," she said coyly. "But we've got some spare time. Show me if you can use that mouth of yours for something other than strategic planning."

The hell with strategic planning Phil mused as he kissed Leslie passionately.

The two of them would be in harm's way soon enough. This might be the last time they could enjoy each other's company. Although with a team like this, and with this many allies, there was always a reason to hope.

Spaceship Nibiru, orbital headquarter of Strikeforce 1

"Merlin, our sleeping agent in La Perdita is communicating an unusual insurgence of activity around the Vanguard hangar at La Perdita International Airport. It seems a massive presence of metahumans is registered in that place. ...Wait... I have incoming news..." the voice of the Brain was loud in the earpiece of Jack Merlin. "It seems an EPS carrier has appeared on the sky over Puerta Mibela, asking for volunteers..."

"Bingo" whispered Merlin. "Order the agent standard procedure, Brain".

And then, turning to one of the officers at the consoles: "All men to combat stations. Monitors over the Vanguard hovercraft!"


Vanguard hangar, La Perdita

A sleek, tall woman entered the big hangar, full of activity and of metahumans, and walked steadily toward Grimm, which was giving orders about the upcoming leaving.

"Hi Grimm!" said the woman.

"Rose Biggles. What do you want now?"

"Lend my help. I heard the talk from that carrier... so I guessed if a stranger is coming to enlist metas for fighting that devil, you couldn't be behind... have you a place for me?" responded Rose Biggles.

"Why do you think a fortune teller should be of help?"

"I have been of help to you, with that Patrik. Besides, I do something more that seeing the future."

"I know. Velo told me about what you accomplished in New York this summer. Impressive. But I have to ask this to you: I need someone to keep an eye on Walker and the EPS, so, enlist with them. Besides, we have not spare seats on the Stormoloader".

Another track of the Airport, La Perdita, a few minutes later

The line of metas going toward the big carrier is impressive. Not much for his length, as for the colorful variety of people composing it: furry bear-men, people carrying their own head under arms, transvestites, guys with extensible arms, eel-peoples, a girl dressed like a gypsy and such.

At the end of the line, a perfectly normal man, middle aged, grey hairs on his temples, await for his turn.

When he finally arrive at the carrier, a large and heavy man, with a chicagoan accent asks him: "Name and powers".

"Name's Constantin Goodmorning. And I have a... well.. extremely developed sense of smell. May I join up?"

The Stormloader was filled to capacity. Metas were jammed into its interior like clowns in a small car. The more resilient ones sat or stood without restraint. They were all bundled up for the harsh cold of the Antarctic even as they stood in the middle of the Caribbean. {I am happy that I turned my olfactory sensors off.} Jym said from the device in Adem's hand.

Many of the people inside the hovercraft couldn't help but stare at Adem. It wasn't the fact that he was an astounding six feet, eight inches tall. Nor was it the dark blueish hair that covered his head or the strange orange orbs that sat in place of eyes in his face. It wasn't even the fact that he was having a steady conversation with some kind of Game Boy or something in his hand. No. The reason the other occupants of the Stormloader could not help but cast their gazes upon the visitor from another world was due to the fact that, as they sat bundled up for the sub-zero temperatures of the southern pole, Adem Different sat in a shorts and a t-shirt. Clothes that was more suitable for their current tropical climate.

"He's on my side!" a yell from a masked man came.

"Am not!" replied the hairy man sitting next to him.

"Of all the times....," the impatient man sitting across from the masked man said as a father on a cross country vacation would. "Could we please not go through this right now? Can the two of you just try and act mature just this once?"

"I am," the masked man replied. "Just as soon as Johnny gets off of my side." He pushed the hairy man's arm off of the armrest sitting between their seats.

"Screw you, Luchie!" the hairy man replied. "This is a free country, and I can put my arm anywhere I want."

"Anywhere but here! This is my armrest!"

"You've got one on the other side! Use it!"

"No! You use it!"

"That's enough!" the other man shouted at the two men.

"How can I use it if it's all the way over there, passed you?" Johnny continued.

"That's your problem!" Luchadore yelled back. They were both in each other's faces.

The man across from them reached over and grabbed each of their hands. The skin around his touch turned slightly red, as if reacting to poison ivy or some other irritant. Johnny's arms fell loose around him. Luchadore's eyes seemed glazed over. Both men stopped speaking.

"Thank you, Dr. Huerta," Grimm said from the front of the craft.

"Oh, great," Johnny spoke as though he'd said this line many times before. "Now I can't move my arms again."

"My eyes!" Luchadore replied. "What do you keep doing to my eyes?!"

"Keep this up and I'll make sure neither of you will see or feel your arms again. Understood?" Huerta's voice was forceful and unrelenting.

"Yes," the two men replied like scolded children.

"Get us out of here," Grimm ordered as he turned to Phil. "The quicker we take off, the less we'll have to deal with this. And this trip is going to be long enough already."

The Stormloader defied and finally broke the laws of gravity as it slow began to ascend in the blue and white oceans of the sky. Its departure was being watched by many that day. Crowds had gathered around the Vanguard complex to watch them depart. Perched high upon the slopes of La Perdita's volcano, two more witnessed the event.

A middle aged man stood in a brown suit. An elaborate cane rested in his right hand. His appearance was unspectacular, but his stature was miraculous.

Beside him stood a man dressed in a finely tailored white suit. His appearance was one that defined a man weathered through experiences that would fill the lifetimes of any ordinary man as well as many extraordinary man. "Should we....?" his authoritative voice began before the hand of his companion called for silence.

"No," the middle aged man replied. "This is none of our affair. Everything is moving as it should. It is they who shall decide their own fates. Not us. We have not the right."

"A fate so terribly stacked against them," the man in white replied. "The odds in this game are not hardly fair."

"I believe there is an old saying that fits this. 'It's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game.'"

"You are a harsh rules master. Besides, I've never known you to enjoy losing."

"You've never known me to enjoy winning, either." As the craft turned into a spec and then a memory, the man in brown laid his cane across his shoulder as he began to walk away. "Of course, my rule only applies when you are working for me. You are a free man at all other times. I merely ask that if you do decide to lend your aid that you use the utmost discretion."

The Stormloader sliced across the sky above the waters of the Atlantic, headed on it's way to the Antarctic. Following closely behind were the EPS' massive transport carrier, loaded with various metas, and the nuclear submarine Korystnyj. They were soon joined in formation by the discs launched from the Nibiru, headquarters of the UN sanctioned Strikeforce.


Larry Lance sat in awe at the massive force gathered around him and his once teammates. For the first time he could remember, norms and metas were gathered together to battle a common, unifying enemy. If only they could see this. He thought to himself.

"Grimm. Wulf. You guys aren't going to put on your chutes?" Phil asked, holding out a pair of parachutes to the two Vanguardians in question. Grimm and Wulf looked at each other and then back at Phil as Blackwulf chuckled loudly and said, "Comrade, who is needing parachute?"

"Michael, you ok?" Tayden asked the man who hosted the being called Vengeance. "Yeah, I'm ok. Your empathi-whatsis or whatever it's called is still keeping Vengeance in check." Ringo smiled at the angel.

"Well, when we reach the Antarctic, I'm going to have to let him go. Orders, you understand." The angel replied a little nervously.

"It's cool, man." Ringo hummed a little tune to himself. "What is that? Kinda catchy." Tayden asked. "Paranoid. The truth in metal begins with Black Sabbath, my friend." Ringo started tapping out the beat on his legs as Tayden merely shook his head.

*****************

Naecken's Fortress

Saros approached his master with some trepidation. "My lord, the T5 robots have picked up an incoming radio signal. There is a veritable army of metahumans approaching our fortress."

"Excellent!" The demon lord howled with laughter. "The metas come to acknowledge me as their master!"

"Actually," Saros nervously began, sweat dripping down his cheek, despite the cold. "They're asking for us to surrender."

"WHAAAAATTTTT??!!!"

An immense horizon of white spread out before the peircing gaze of Kristogar Velo, as the Stormloader dropped through the last bank of clouds.

Velo glanced down, hitting a few buttons, and back again, staring intently through the cockpit windshield.

Across the massive wasteland of ice, a hazy film of black seemed to decorate the land as far as the eye could see. A moving inky swarm, surrounding an immense artificial moutain. It took Velo a moment before he realized the dark haze was, in fact, a quarter-of-a-million metallic figures.

Droids. Attackdroids.

He studied his sensors briefly. The massive number of statue-like figures measured, each, thirty-feet tall.

"So..." Grimm asked, one hand clutching a support brace as he leaned forward in the cockpit. "...did we get their attention?"

Almost on cue with the words, multiple blips of light began flickering on one of the sensor screens. Through the transparent titanium windshield, hundreds of flaring pinpricks began to appear in the skies ahead.

"...you could say that..." Velo replied, slapping a few switches, and locking the pilot's body-brace across his chest...

"...all hands...brace for evasive manuevers..."

Velo's voice echoed throughout the ship, even as the pinpricks of light began to reveal themselves as missles.

"...EPS transport, drop altitude, and prepare to go dead signal for three seconds..." Kristogar's voice chattered away into his helmet-mic, hurriedly adjusting coordinates. "...I'm going to do a slow-burn on the Loader...draw their heat-trackers--"

"Stormloader...this is EPS-1..." Walker's voice came over the comm. "...cut engines, and fall back....we will cover you..."

::WARNING::-Thirty seconds until impact:: the mechanized voice announced.

"Walker...you've got civilians..." Velo replied. "...we will lead the missles away--"

"Trust me." the voice cut through, simply.

"Do it." Grimm said.

Velo jerked his view up at the avatar.

::Twelve seconds until impact::

"Are you mad?!" Velo asked.

"DO it!" Grimm barked. "If there is one certainty in this universe, it's that Charles Walker has his own safety in mind. And, since he's on that ship, he's not about to risk his own death..."

::Five seconds until impact::

Velo huffed, throwing the stick up with a sharp jerk.

The Stormloader's engines flared with a high-pitched whine, as the ship cut straight up, allowing the EPS transport to sail directly under it.

Inside the EPS-1 cockpit...

::Impact imminent::

"...do it..." Walker nodded to the pilot.

And, even as the massive spread of missles neared the ship, a sudden flash of white erupted from the nose-cone of the EPS-1.

Immediately, the sky was ablaze with the hundreds of missles detonating their payload simultaneously.

"...son of a bitch..." Velo said, amazed, even as the flaring lights burst all around them. "...EMP..."

Grimm held onto a support strap sticking out from the ceiling of the cockpit.

"That's one thing I'll say for that bastard..." the avatar of death replied. "...he's always prepared..."

Grimm turned, walking down the interior of the craft, past all the cramped metahumans. He stopped in the rear, slamming a single button. The back cargo bay began to rumble open.

"OKAY...VANGUARD..." he yelled above the turbulence. "...LAST ONE ON THE GROUND IS MY NEW BITCH..."

And, with that, Grimm leapt straight out into the open skies...

Inside Naecken's fortress, a small chamber toward the top of the artificial mountain...

A giant window made of perfectly clear ice dominate soon to be battleground, where the thousands of T5 droids are beginning to morph into flying machines.

Looking trough the window are two figures, deeply immersed in conversation that both of them would have preferred to avoid.

"Look, Saros..."

"Don't call me Saros, Merlin. Call me with my true name, the one that for millennia the slaves your ancestors have used with fear and respect. I am En-Ki, the Lord of the Earth."

"I call you loser, Saros. I have destroyed your organization, the Hoods, and your adversaries, the Capes, succeeding where my father has failed for 40.000 years..."

"Ah, Merlin, how stupid you are. You really believe that what your father was trying to do was destroying us? He merely wanted to keep a balance between Hoods and Capes. He never even thought hat destroying us would have been a smart thing to do for our... your... planet. But what do you know about it? You that have never looked at the sky, always tampering with the affair of the multiple Earths, to think that humans are not alone in the Universe... you will see, now, that the science of the Hoods and the magic of the Capes have been thrown away... you'll see how Earth have lost his shield... how fangs and claws from the deep of space will come to clutch this planet..."

"Pffhhh! Look down there, Saros. Look at those men and women... they are the future. You, your Hoods, the Capes, my father... are the past. Them, is what the Earth needs... an army of gifted peoples, under my command. Why do you think I am simply not nuking this whole place? I want those metahumans win their war. Feel proud. Create confidence in their qualities. They will join my Strikeforce, and the Strikeforce will be invincible."

"And then your iron fist finally will bring order to Earth, eh, Merlin? How fool you are. You never learned that the power is in complexity, never in simplicity. You are just creating a single target big as an elephant... destroyed it, nothing will stand for the planet..."

"Saros, open your eyes. I am the winner, here."

"No, Merlin, you aren't, even if you will win this battle. Oh, how can you be so blind? I am creating the right defense for this planet. Selling it to the forces of the underworld, at last we'll keep the planet protected from any outside interference. My pact with Naecken is that in exchange for our help, he will restore the worship for the Annunaki. But what he doesn't know, is that when we'll be Gods again, we'll thrown him and his acolytes down in the pit again."

"And what, Saros, should prevent him to destroy you and your people after he has gained the power?"

"You don't know about him, eh, Jack Merlin? You think Naecken is a demon... but Lord Kwaizel is just one of the five beings composing him. He is not just a true demon... his goal is much more complex than basic domination over the world... that's why he needs us... he doesn't understand the thinness of politics... and he doesn't want to create wasteland over the planet... he wants to be a conqueror and a ruler... he doesn't want to reign over a mudball."

"And that will not happen, I will assure you, Saros. What he's doing? Trying to open the gates of Hell? I heard what happened when he arrived on Earth..."

"How?"

"It happens that looking for metahumans, Saros, my organization stumbled over a peculiar Voodoo cultist... Kalunga, she's called... that was with Naecken at the time the transdimensional being with the Vanguardians, the one called Mxy... tricked Naecken cutting him from the Underworld realm. I guess he is what is trying to do... opening back the gates... and let his armies loose on the planet. And your involvement in this... obviously... is to concentrate your traces of godhood powers into giving him the strength to do that..."

"Very acute, Merlin... what you don't know is that we are just inches from the success. Naecken right now is about to open the gate... that's why we are letting the T5 robots to swarm... they will keep the army of the various countries... and your stupid metahuman batallion... occupied... while demons will invade the world. You still think you will be the winner today, Merlin?"

"Loser I called you, and will call you again, Saros. There are Gods on our side, too. Don't think those gates are open, until you'll see demons around. And I don't see any, nowhere. Hear me, Saros, I consider you and your experience very precious for my goals. Leave this place, ally with me, I will grant you a big role in upcoming events. For you and your eleven companions."

"No, Merlin. You have cheated myself before. I never repeat the same mistake."

"Ok, then, Saros. Don't tell me I have not advised you. Farewell!"

And with that, the hologram of Merlin vanished, leaving En-ki alone.

A blast of Antarctic chill filled the cabin of the Stormloader. “You should have put on something a bit war.....,” Phil began to scream above the howling wind whipping around the craft to Adem Different. His statement was put on permanent hold as he noticed that the alien was now wearing a thick thermal coat of some strange design. “That’s going to take some getting used to.”

Adem found himself near the edge of the bay doors. “You are being next, comrade,” Blackwulf said. His large, massive body was barely covered at all; yet, the giant didn’t seem to be bothered by the cold.

“A question. How does this thing wor.....,” Adem was not given the opportunity to finish his question before he was plummeting to the white, cold ground below. “That was both rude and unfortunate.” Different fished into his pocket and pulled out Jym’s palm display. “Jym, I need to know how to operated something called a parachute.”

{One moment.......... A parachute is a primitive device used to slow the descent of....}

“I don’t need a definition. I just need to know how to make it work.”

{My apologies. I understand the peril of your current situation. I am merely giddy with all the new knowledge that I am capable of accessing.}

“Jym.”

{Sorry. There should be a cord on the front of this parachute. To activate it, pull.....}

Adem’s hands fought for a grip on the metal craft that had intercepted his decent. His fingers grasped onto a rise in the robotic body. He pulled himself up to better examine his situation. The robots were covering the sky and attacking. Adem was sure that no one had previously considered this circumstance.

The nanites making up his outer aura began to work on the metal covering on which the alien hung. An opening to the interior gave way before him, and he climbed through. “Jym, can you uplink with my nanites and analyze this machine?”

{Can I?!}

The wires and cables coiled and stretched before him as Adem crawled through the robot as it flew in battle. {It is of a highly advanced design. For this planet, anyway. The main cerebral core should be just up ahead.} The alien continued on until he found what he was looking for. The central hub where all the wires and cables came from. Or led to. Depending on your point of view.

“Time to shut this thing down,” Different said as he made a connection with the core. “It’s being controlled by something else. They all are. This is only a remote unit.” The nanites rearranged many of the connections in the core. One was bound to cause a problem. He disconnected and made his way back towards the opening. “I hope you guys have this one programed into you,” he said to his nanites as he grabbed hold of the wiring and metal shell of the robot. “We’re only going to get one shot at this.”

“Lucha Libre, AWAY!” the Luchadore shouted as he soared through the air, swatting the attacking robots. Though the punches weren’t enough to destroy the machines themselves, they were more than strong enough to cause horrible damage.

As he approached another robot, the back exploded off of it. Adem Different rocketed out with a strange apparatus wrapped around his body. The robot shattered into shards of metal, clouds of flames, and wisps of black smoke. Different dodged blast after blast as his body was propelled by the magnificent machine that his nanites constructed out of the metal and wiring of the now defunct robot. His course was directed at the very source of the robots themselves.

As the Vanguardians dropped one by one from the Stormloader, Tayden turned towards Michael Ringo and said, "It's time."

"Ok, do it." the biker said. The angel released his empathic hold on the spirit contained within Michael's human form. A low mist began to rise around the biker and covered his form. "Hey, no smoking back there! I'm trying to fly up here!" Velo shouted from the cockpit, momentarily blinded by the mist.

The mist died back down and in Michael Ringo's place stood a red helmeted, white coated figure called the Spirit of Vengeance. Vengeance turned to his left and gestured. Another mist rolled up from nowhere and when it was gone, a massive, vicious looking motorcycle was in it's place. Vengeance straddled the bike and began to gun it's unearthly engines. The sounds coming from the bike resembled screams of pain to those remaining the ship.

"Clear the way! Get out of his way!" Tayden screamed as Vanguardians moved away from the hatch. Vengeance rocketed off towards the open hatchway and drove directly out of the ship. He was burning a one way path towards Naecken. . .

Naecken watched the fight from the safety of his ice castle, standing, with his hands held on his back, near a wide pillar made of stone hard ice.

"They came faster than I had anticipated... but the important thing is that they came. They're so predictable, don't you think..." Naecken said, turning to the pillar, "...Mick?"

Mick Harrison's hands and feet were tightly covered by the hard ice coming from the pillar, that kept him attached to it leaving his body in an uncomfortable 'X' position.

Naecken's face neared Mick's, as the composite being examined the human. "It's funny... part of me considers you a friend. You, and Euro, and Turkish... and Mxy, of course."

Mick looked right into Naecken's red eyes... and spat, aiming at it's face. However, the saliva was too thick and didn't split, falling on Mick's chest and ruining what could have been a very cinematic moment.

"Aw, shit..." Mick said, as Naecken started slowly walking around the pillar as if nothing had happened.

"It's a small part of me," Naecken continued, "but it's there, and it'd be foolish not to acknowledge it. That's why it had to be one of you."

"What the fuck do you want with me?!" Mick yelled. "I won't turn into M-X-Y, if that's what you want me to do. I couldn't even if I wanted..."

"I know, that's precisely why I took you..." Naecken replied. "Euro's current whereabouts are unknown to me, and kidnapping The Prophet is out of the question. When I heard you were weak and couldn't turn into Mxy I knew for certain you were the one I had to take. I was so eager I went there myself... oh, you should have seen the look on Shir's eyes... I have never seen the poor girl like that, not even in the caves in Mandelovia... remember?"

Mick was furious. "You're not Naecken, you fucking piece of... red... hellshit... or something... DON'T YOU FUCKING PRETEND YOU'RE HIM!"

"I'm the Naecken you knew and I'm also not him. That's the beauty of it, can't you see? Oh, this is why I liked you so much, Mick. You were never the sharpest tool in the shed. We had so much in common..."

Since this seemed to be 'conversation time', Mick decided to try and see if he could get Naecken to tell him what his plan was. You know... like in Bond movies.

"So, uh, you said you had to take one of us and you decided to take me... But what for? I mean, what's the big idea?" Mick asked.

"I took you to attract the rest," Naecken answered. "To make sure that they came here."

"Well, the joke's on you, red... They were coming anyway!"

"Oh, I'm sure I'll figure out some other way to take advantage of having you here, old friend..."

Grimm ran over a peak covered in ice, helping himslef with his big axe. From the top, he gave a look around, to see the hundreds of metas, norms and even Gods fighting with the hundreds of thousands of T5 robots.

“This will be a massacre” though the Avatar of Death. Then, talking inside his mini-mic: “Griss, you hear me?”

“Loud and clear, boss” was the answer in his ear-piece.

“Can you also see me?”

“The satellite image is perfect. I can see each one of you, and, man, your situation looks desperate.”

“Well, not for much.” Grimm jumped far, toward the Stormloader which had just landed behind a rim of iced roks.

“Velo, Velo!” yelled Grimm, “bring me a visor”.

From the hovercraft Kristogar Velo fled toward the Vanguard leader, bringing a complex helmet under his arm.

“You want to keep your eyes over the satellite images? Look at the battle from top?” asked the ex-intelligence agent.

“Not me. You, find Phil and begin to scan the mountain for Nae. If we can help, we have to do it before Vangeance finds him.”

And said that, Grimm jumped away, toward the just landed EPS carrier.

Just exited out of the cargo, small groups of men and women were running toward cover, ready to began their impossible fight with the hordes of robots.

It took just a second, for Grimm, to recognise the figure of Rose Biggles, and to jump next to her.

“Grimm, you startled me!”

“I have something for you. A very important role.” He puts the helmet on the girl.

“This visor is connected to our monitor room at La Perdita. Grissom Montag will feed you images, datas, suggestions, and will repeat you my orders. I want you to create a mental link to the field leaders of each groups here, so that they could be co-ordinated. Ok?”

“I have done it before, I guess it’s OK”.

Grimm ran away, axe raised.

In the helmet the voice of Grissom came to life: “How could I have missed a beautiful lady like you at La Perdita? The island is so small… anyway, are you ready?”

“Mhh… I guess so” responded the girl, and suddenly a veritable inundation of images and data hit her brains, fed by the complex visor, trough subliminal images, to her cerebral cortex.

“Argghhh…!” screamed the fortune teller, but then the data began to makes sense.

A minute later, the voice of Grissom arrived to Grimm not through the earpiece, but directly inside his mind, accompanied by images of the fortress, blueprints of the robots and many more processed data.

“Suggestion?” asked the Avatar of Death.

“Not yet” responded Montag, “let me some more seconds. MY agent has just entered the mountain”

"Your agent?!" Grimm exclaimed in confusion. "What do you--?"

"Just trust me, mate," Grissom replied. "Have I ever let you down before?"

*************

Footprints in the snow.

Were it not for the blizzard of snow and biting cold winds covering up the footprints in the snow almost as quickly as they were made, one would have cause to wonder what made them, for there was no one to be seen anywhere around.

The footprints were moving in a certain direction, however, towards the fortress of ice built into the Antarctic mountain. And as they approached near the mountain, they just as suddenly ceased.

A sentry-bot which had been scanning the infrared channels as it guarded the entrances blasted a powerful laser in the place where the footsteps had been made, yet it was momentarily confused as the heat-signature it had registered just as suddenly vanished. Whatever it was had been invisible to the visible spectrum of light, but had radiated heat like a living creature. Yet it seemed to cease existing a moment later. The sentry-bot filed the occurrence away into its inactive memory as a possible glitch or ghost-image and continued scanning for anyone approaching the area.

The cause of the footprints had shifted out of reality and into a realm existing alongside it yet invisible to all but those specially attuned to the spirit realm. From his perspective the solid walls of thick ice and rock beneath that now looked as insubstantial as a wispy cloud, as did the sentry-bots crawling around everywhere, but some very powerful sources of light could be seen from further within. One glowed a fiery red and as a result of his brightness obscured the less-visible lights around him. Looking back from where he had come, several very-dim lights could be seen, a couple of them brighter than others. While in this form, he could literally see people's souls.

It was dangerous, however. Since he could be seen by the sentry-bots while merely invisible due to his heat signature, he had shifted into his insubstantial phantom form thanks to the eldil-stone embedded in his skin. Yet he was now visible to anyone who could see spirits with eyes of the soul. The Prince of Hell was one such being, and he had no desire to attract attention from a hellspawn such as he, the most malevolent of the bright ones. The only thing he could do at this point was move beyond the outer perimeter where the sentry-bots stood guard and hope that he would not be seen by the enemy while he searched for an inner chamber unguarded by robots. Montag had assured him that there was such a place in which only a few humans had been placed.

The sentry-bots were behind him now, as he moved towards a locked chamber. He had no need to use his feet, but movement in this phantom form was difficult as it required an intense concentration of will. Should he stay in this form for too long, he would lose his sense of self and drift in the gentle phantom wind like a lost soul. He moved himself with great difficulty towards the huge chamber door and passed through it effortlessly into an inner chamber.

Within, a small number of scientists could be seen moving about with a determination not their own. The phantom shifted into physical invisibility and landed soundlessly on the floor, able now to make a full investigation. He moved to a subsection of the chamber in which none of the scientists could hear him, and he tapped a wrist-communicator as invisible as he was.

"Montag. I'm inside as agreed," said a nasally-sounding voice in an English accent.

"Fantastic!" came the voice from the wrist-communicator in a similar accent. "Will there be any trouble installing the cameras as planned?"

"None whatsoever. There's nothing but civilians here, and they're all a bunch of bloody zombies."

"And the second part of your mission?"

"I haven't forgotten, you old bastard. This is payback for that incident in Mecca, innit?"

"How would you have liked being left stranded in the middle of 2000 angry Muslims in a temple utterly forbidden to westerners after having been involved with the theft of a priceless holy relic? You're damned right this is payback, old chap!"

"Heh-hehheh... Well, you can be sure I'll complete the contractual mission. I am a professional, after all, eh, mate?"

"Never doubted it for a moment. Have to go now, though. Got a lass on the other line."

"As always, thinking with your 'mutton dagger' again? A-heh. I'll be off now, too -- places to go, people to kill -- you know, the usual. Griffin out."

The invisible man began wandering around the inner chamber he found himself in and set up several tiny cameras which would rely information back to La Perdita. They were invisible while in his cloaking field, but even though they became necessarily visible away from him, they would not be seen by human eyes.

This was the easy bit, though. It would be more difficult to find the chamber in which Naecken intended to open up very gates of Hell like the maws of a wolf. Griffin wondered if he was in over his head...

Interlude: La Perdita

The morning sun was hidden behind a vale of grey clouds in the skies above La Perdita. The streets, every road and alleyway, were virtually deserted of all people. Instinctively, everyone stayed indoors and home from work, glued to their television for sporadic news updates on the situation in Antarctica, though nothing had been mentioned. There was simply no news about it anywhere. Still, people stayed home and gathered around their loved ones as if there was no tomorrow. It was the same almost everywhere in the world, but moreso in La Perdita due to the uproar caused by the strange flying crafts controlled by an organization identifying itself as the E.P.S.

Thus, Axel found himself wandering about on a street empty of nearly all. It was literally a ghost town, the only Perditians visible walking anywhere around the streets being the actual spirits of the dead. Had Axel gained the ability to see the spirits of the dead in adulthood, it would likely have frightened him out of his wits. As it was, though, he was conditioned by the sightings ever since he was a small child to believe it normal. When he realized that no one else could see the things he saw, he wondered why everyone was so blind to the "superreality" around them. There was the tangible, the physical plane of existence -- the reality -- but alongside that in a symbiotic relationship was the spiritual. When his friends at the orphanage suddenly gained the same abilities he'd had all along, and they became the PSI-Unit, it was as if he'd finally found a real home for himself.

Now that all that was gone, and the last year and more was little more than an abstract nightmare in his mind -- the horrific memories having been repressed into his subconscious for his own protection -- he was once again thrust into the world to find his way. Doctor Quantos seemed to genuinely care about him as a father for a child, and Axel was sure that he could trust him completely. However, the team of Vanguard International was a different story. It was true that they were strange -- like he was -- but unlike his PSI-Unit there did not seem to be any true closeness between its members. There was little "family" atmosphere in the walls of that cold Dawson Complex. Each of the Vanguardians were so independent of each other, leading separate lives which coincided only in their work. There was precious little trust between them, and virtually no affection whatsoever. Perhaps that was a result of all the changes in the membership of late, but Axel didn't think so. From what he had learned of the team when they'd first arrived in La Perdita, they were a band of fugitives on the run from various authorities. Axel had met his share of fugitives in his three-year career as a PSI-Unit member, and if there was one thing that unified every fugitive he came across, it was a lack of trust. Somehow, the Vanguardians had never learned to truly trust each other -- their guard was always up, which was why they could only seem to foster friendships outside of the actual team. Could that change? Maybe. Maybe...

Axel found himself thinking a great deal about this lately. He had found a father in Dr. Quantos, it was true, but to the other Vanguardians he knew he looked like a nuisance, a child in a world meant only for grown-ups of their own kind. He wanted desperately to make friends with this new group, but he wondered if there was anything at all that could make that possible. After all, he was just a 12-year-old kid -- well, almost 12, and not really an ordinary kid after all -- and the others were all so different, both from him and from each other. It wasn't the age difference so much -- after all, before he'd met Denyce Piper he had never had a friend his own age or younger than him -- it was the difference in life experience, or lack thereof.

His musings brought him back to the front door of the Complex. Dr. Quantos had given him a visitor's authorization code which he now entered in order to gain entry. From outside the Complex looked imposing and solid, impenetrable -- kind of like a prison. Not at all like the homey apartment building it had been during all the years Axel grew up on the island. It looked somewhat futuristic but cold.

The Complex was built in a circular radius at the base around the original Dawson Apartments which was wider at that base and became narrower a few floors up. The apartment building itself, which had apparently sustained a great deal of structural damage, had been reinforced and painted white like the rest of the building rather than the old brick look that Axel had liked. While the base was circular and rounded -- which was, in an engineering sense, more stable and able to withstand and equally distribute greater pressure than a square could -- the top of the building was generally in the same cubic shape as the old apartment building had been. The builders had taken great pains to keep the essentials of the old apartment building intact while adding on to it as a greater whole. Axel had no doubt that the older part of the building was now just as reinforced as the rest of it was.

Behind the Complex on its eastern side was a large courtyard built from the remains of two warehouses bought up by the company. The courtyard was larger than a football field and was used for exercise and training purposes. It, too, was walled in, giving it the look of a prison. Vanguard may have been paranoid, but they had good reason to be. Still, on a quiet-though-unusual island like La Perdita, it was strange to have such a fortress built upon it. What in the world were they defending themselves against?

Axel entered the building and felt that he should have felt safe within, given all the security systems and such, but strangely enough he didn't. For all its vaunted security, the Vanguard Complex was, essentially, a big white target in the middle of Puerta Mibela. Yet that wasn't exactly why he didn't feel safe. It was something else.

The boy walked along the outer circular corridor towards the rear of the building where Dr. Quantos had his laboratory and infirmary rooms. He shivered suddenly as he felt a draft coming through one of the rooms. Peering through the open door, and sensing someone in there, he stuck his head into the room and said, "Hello?"

His voice was cut off suddenly by the sound of a power-tool, and he jumped back.

"Whoa, there, kiddo," a female voice said from behind him as he knocked into her.

"Sorry," Axel replied, looking up at the pretty face of a young woman wearing dusty work-clothes, her dark hair pulled back under her cap. Though she had a slight smile on her face, Axel could sense pain coming from her. She had lost someone... Kristofer? That was the first name of the former leader of the team, Axel remembered. The one who had... died.

"You're Axel, aren't you?" Charley Montoya said as she brushed a bit of dust out of the boy's brown hair. "Hank's young prodigy."

Axel almost smiled as he realized she was referring to Dr. Henry Quantos, but he replied seriously, "Yep. I'm just looking for him now."

"I haven't seen him for a couple of hours, kiddo," the Vanguard maintenance person replied. "Maybe he's taking the dog for a walk or something?"

"Okay, thanks," Axel said, walking away from her and waving briefly. He had to get away from her. Though she was hiding it through her calm demeanor and throwing herself into work by supervising and taking part in the reconstruction of the damaged wall, she was in deep, almost deadening pain. Fresh, raw pain which radiated from her mind like a scream. It was excruciating to one with an empathic nature.

Axel walked down the corridor and reached the laboratory. As he expected from his brief conversation with Charley, Dr. Quantos wasn't there. It was very quiet in the lab, the only sounds that could be heard being the construction workers where he had come from. It was very, very empty. The Complex itself seemed so much quieter since the team had left. Only the support staff had remained behind.

The boy jumped suddenly, then, as if spooked by something. He turned around and saw nothing, but he was beginning to think that the Complex wasn't as empty as he had believed. Was there an intruder somewhere?

End Interlude

Drake Marshall stepped out of the back of the Stormloader and surveyed the area. There were a lot of giant robots engaged in battle both with metas in the sky and on the ground.

"Looks like we've got our work cut out for us, Drax." Drake said outloud. Indeed. Well, shall we then? "Oh, we shall, my large, furry friend, we shall." Drake rolled up the sleeve on his left arm and touched the oddly shaped tattoo found there. As he did so, he vanished to be replaced the white dragon, Drax. "Aaaahhhhhh," the dragon sighed, stretching itself. No time to rest, Drax, we've got work to do. "Yeah, I'm going, I'm going. . ." the dragon muttered as it took flight and aimed a blast of lightning at the nearest Quadnik robot drone.
******************

Inside Naecken's Fortress.

Two of the Annunaki watched the events with growing excitement. "There, cousin! Do you see? Is that what I think it is?" Nergal asked with glee. "It would appear to be a dragon, cousin." Nabu answered. "How long has it been since we last slew a dragon? 400 years? 600?" Nergal rubbed his hands together excitedly. "So long I have lost count." Nabu answered him, watching the dragon closely on their screens. "Let us go out and play. . ."
*********************

"Greetings, Lord Kwaiziel, or do you prefer Naecken these days?" the shimmering image of Clive Collins appeared before the demon lord, still lost in the thought of torturing his once friends.

"I prefer to be addressed as MASTER. What do you want, lowly mage?" Naecken addressed the man contemptously.

"I understand you seek to open a portal to the underworld. I could help you, for a price." Collins smiled.

"And how could one such as you be of help to me?" the demon sneered.

"Ahh, quite simple. You see I am a collector of rare. . .artifacts. Behold! The Oculus Infernum! More commonly known as "The Eye of Hell." Collins held a small round amulet in front of him. "This little beauty is rumored to be able to open gateways like the one you seek. All you need to do is bathe it in the blood of one who is pure, so to speak. . ." Collins answered, dangling the amulet in front of him.

"And where would I find a soul who is pure in the Antarctic?" the demon answered, his curiousity piqued.

"Are there not two of them among your former allies?" Collins gestured with his free hand and images of Tayden and Banshee appeared before the red demon.

"Yessss. . .I think there are. What is this price you ask? Power? You mortals never tire of it. . ."

"I have power enough, Lord Kwaiziel, I ask only that you destroy the Vanguardian called Grimm. . ."
************************

"RRRAAAAAAAUUUUUUGHHHHHH!!!!!" With a primal roar, Grimm's axe sliced through one of the leg supports of the giant T5 drones. The drone toppled and slammed into two of it's brethren, smashing them together into a giant heap.

"Grimm? Still there?" Montag's voice came through.

"Sorry, a little busy here at the moment. . ." Grimm jumped forward burying his axe into another robot's leg supports.

"The guy could at least yell "Fore!" "Timberrrr!" Something!" Larry Lance shouted as a robot passed through his phased form.
********************

Vengeance drove up the sides of one of the fallen robots, ramping up and off of it's body flying through the air in an arc straight for Naecken's fortress. The Spirit of Vengeance was intercepted however by a large metal hand as another of the robots grabbed his bike in mid air. The robot began to squeeze his hand together, attempting to crush the otherwordly motorcycle.
**********************

Drax gracefully arced through the air, firing bursts of lightning at robot after robot. He did not notice the small forms watching him.

"Do it, Nergal." Nabu nudged his cousin.

Nergal closed his eyes and concentrated. His form began to distend and grow larger. White hairs sprouted up on his body as his teeth and nails grew into pointed fangs. Nergal grew to several times his normal height. He now resembled a beast from legend: the Wendigo.

Nergal easily reached up and grabbed the dragon, pulling him down and slamming him into the ground with powerful force. Drax, dazed, looked over at his foe, easily his equal in size. "So, you like to play rough, do you?"

"Velo, standing here behind a chunk of ice rock is not my kind of war effort" said Phil Smith, looking at the battle taking place a few hundred of yards away.

"If we'll manage to put some sense into Naecken, we'll STOP this war. Without too much blood shedding... oh.." Velo suddenly stopped to talk, as the images from inside the fortress began to be fed directly inside the brains of both Vanguardians, through a complex path from the camera in the hand of Griffin, through satellites to and from La Perdita, to the augmented reality visor of Rose Biggles, finally to the brain of all the field leaders and all the Vanguard members on the battle field.

And what they all saw was something completely apart from any previous experience all of them endured before, exception made, maybe, for the surviving Greek gods of the Pantheon.

They saw a big vault, kilometers under the mountain of ice, well inside the crust of Earth, its stone walls engraved in the form of countless human beings, screaming and crying like tortured souls condemned for eternity. And the engravings where shaking and twisting, like being alive.

At the far side of the vast chamber, there was a massive door, its two leaves made with the eons-old wood of the tree Yggdrasil, cut in the chilling north by the jealous god of the shepherds of the Palestinian deserts, to make way for his own global spanning cult.

In front of the door, engraved in the polished rock floor, there is a wide pentacolus, a five point star inscribed inside a pentagon and a circle. At each point stood the five female Annunaki, all naked, their bronze skin, aspersed with oil, glowing under the flickering light of hundreds of torches.

And, at the center of the pentagon, kneeling under the massive struggle of commanding the door to open, is a towering demon, his skin, hard like leather and red like blood, his eyes as fire, his horns shimmering in the alive light, saliva burning like acid dripping from his open mouth.

Naecken.

"That... thing... was your friend, Velo?"

"Not really him, I fear. Are you ready, Phil?"

"And you, Velo? are you really ready to go into that head? Don't you ask yourself what you'll find there? I will not step back, but do you think what will be opening a link with the mind of a demon? With a being that could wrestle gods?"

"Sorry, son, I don't believe in gods or demons. They are just beings of other dimension, that sometimes finds a way to arrive in ours. But they are made by the same matter we are, they live and die... just like Mxy or Ktl... or Tayden, too."

"Sometimes I think that's just your way to piss off your fears, Velo" remarked Phil, while his mind began to taste the multileveled mind of the demon... "I have to advise you: if that big goat overcome my mind, you could remain trapped there forever, Velo".

"I know. But he was one of us, Phil. We owe him at last one tentative".

"Ok, then, I am ready" said the unidentified, touching lightly Velo's temples.

Velo felt hilsef pierced into thousands of mental rays, becoming nothing more than sentient snowflakes... and he was there standing in a chamber made of fire, and each flame was the suffering soul of a dead man.

"WHO COME TO DISTURB LORD KWAIZEL?" yelled a harsh, rasping voice. from behind the flames, the red body of Naecken appeared.

Velo stood still. "I come to see a friend. To see Naecken"

"NAECKEN IS NO MORE. I HAVE THE CONTROL. LEAVE THE PLANET NOW THAT THERE IS STILL TIME, VELO. BRING THE OLD FRIENDS WITH YOU. ED, TC, DANNY, LARRY... THE BRITISH LOON, TOO..."

"So, you still care for your old friends, eh? What they would mean to Lord Kwaizel? You can't fool me, you are still Naecken... you have just to find your path back to reality, man! There was another friend at the circus... do remember him?"

"THE TRANSDIMENSIONAL ONE... I HAVE GOT HIM..."

"Why, Nae? He is your friend, like us... free him, you like him... you don't want to harm him, right?"

"MXY... MICK... I HAVE CAPTURED HIM..." the face of the demon had a strange expression, like the stupor on the face of a very little kid... a face that to Velo brought the memories of the black, ingenue Naecken of two years before.

But suddenly the face of Naecken changed expression, his mouth grimacing, his eyes narrowing: "MXY IS MY INSURANCE TO VICTORY, VELO. ANY OF YOU STEP INSIDE THE FORTRESS, I SHRED HIM INTO TINY PIECES OF DELICIOUS MEAT. IS THAT CLEAR?"

Velo shook his head. Facing Kwaizel would have been just a waste of time. His only hope was finding the other entities forming Naecken. So, when the trident of the demon fell toward the spot he was standing, he took flight, and thrown himself trough the wall of flames, in search of the other four beings.

"Phil, bring me trough memory lane!" though louder the ex-special agent, as the surrounds changed toward a long, seemingly endless highway sided by two rows of road signs.

Flying as faster as his jet boots allowed, Velo's eyes danced from sign to sign, trying to find something familiar. The first ones had images of the Antarctic, the fall of the meteors, the treachery of Raptor, the death of Zvedi, the arrival of Saros, the war to the scientific bases.

Then the image shifted to what seemed a desolated wasteland, and scenes of battles among demons, memories of his conquering invasion of Hell. And then, further along the road, the past life of Naecken unfolds, the moment in which Ma Kalunga pushed the trident in the chest of the black incarnation of the composite being, the fight with the angel in Uruguay, the talk with Turkish Stringfellow on the roof, the defeat of Azazel at la Perdita, the escape from Mandelovia, the short trip in the future, the first fight with the Scorpion brothers, the destruction of the Tri-Vex building dressed as Santa's reindeer, the sacrifice to stop the beast in Chicago, the attack of Agent Turner to the circus van, the arrival at the circus, the temple under the water, the battle at the waterside cabin, the apparition at the Chicago Airpoirt,,, and finally the nuclear explosion in the Pacific.

There, the road stop.

There, like Velo predicted, Lord Kwaizel didn't venture, fearing the memories of good days.

There, chained to a pillar of though, were the young boy, the Quadnik alien, the otherdimensional old wizard, the female angel. All the four of them looking at Velo with sharply eyes.

"How can I free you?" he asked.

"You..." said the young boy.

"...can't..." continued the Quadnik.

"...let the..." whispered the old wizard.

"...evolution continue" concluded the angel.

Velo stood perplexed. "So, then how can we... accelerate... the evolution? Kwaizel is in the process of destroying the world as we know it."

"The evolution..."

"...must take..."

"...her time..."

"to complete".

"You don't understand, the planet is in peril if we don't stop Naecken. And we can't stop him... stop you... without killing."

Do what you have...

to do...

...because...

... there is no life without death.

Velo's face, for once, didn't hide his stupor. "Ok, then. Farewell, friend. Phil, take me out. Let Vengeance loose!"

“Ok,” Johnny said to himself. His heart was racing and, despite the harsh cold, he was sweating. “This is it. This is go time.” T5 robots and foot soldiers crossed the ice towards him and his allies. Johnny took in one last deep breath and let out a yell of, “OH, YEAH!” His hands began to glow with red flames. The world became somewhat fuzzy as his body began to spin in a circle. Soon, his form was nothing but a blur as it spun faster and faster. Balls of flames shot forth and hurled themselves towards the oncoming force.

Luchadore darted around in the sky above. Landing on one of the robot’s shoulders, he used his awesome strength to tear it’s head away from the rest of the body. The limp metal frame fell to the ground and Luchie hovered in the air. Using his entire body, the young man tossed the head like a bowling ball. It slammed into an oncoming bot, knocking it off center. It twisted in the air and crashed into a nearby bot which, in turn, did the same and followed a long chain reaction. “This is more fun that miniature golf!” Luchadore beamed as he looked for another target.

“Man! I don’t know if my powers over static electricity will do much here,” Ouchman said staring at the oncoming mechanized horde.

“Good thing you have Download here,” his friend said in great amusement. “Don’t sound like such a bad name now, does it?”

“Now I understand why the gave us a pardon to come here. They didn’t expect us to come back.”

“Don’t worry, Dawg! I’ll just download my mind into those walking Transformers and all will be dope thanks to me, Download.”

Ouchman turned to his friend. “Wait. Don’t you have to be touching it to download?” The both turned and looked at the massive machines of destruction that lumbered towards them while constantly spitting forth devastation.

“Shit!”

"Looks like Plan A's a bust," Phil said as he and Kristogar both blinked and shook their heads several times to free themselves of what Phil called the 'tele-buzz' that always lingered after his and at least two other minds were telepathically linked. "What happens now?"

The ex-agent shrugged. "You're the number-two man in this show. I was hoping you could tell me."

Phil thought a moment. "Well... I suppose now is the time to kick some ass."

"We going in, then?"

"One second." Phil brought up his comm. "Griss, is this channel secured?"

<It is now, mate>, the mercenary replied.

"See if you can put me through to Grimm on a multi-encrypted line," the telepath requested.

"Why not just use the link?" Velo asked.

"I don't trust the link," Phil replied. "That visor the girl is wearing? As sophisticated as it is, an eighth-grade math nerd with a solar-powered calculator could decrypt any transmissions it's sending." Phil shook his head. "You have to assume the opposition has a counter for everything you're doing. I'm not about to let any schmuck with a walkie-talkie in on our strategy."

He paused. "Grimm? Yeah, I'm sure you're busy." Phil winced at some sound Velo couldn't overhear. "Sounds nasty. Plan A is a no, repeat, no go. Requesting permission to approach the compound..." He shrugged. "To buy Vengeance some time, primarily. If we can thin the ranks of these 'bots adequately, we might be able to allow a more sizable force to infiltrate the fortress, at least enough to keep Naecken occupied." He nodded. "Yeah, occupied. Listen... Naecken - or whoever it was we ended up talking to - says he'll kill Mxy if any of us enters the fortress. If nothing else, I'd like to create a diversion long enough for some heavier hitters to get in there, bust Mxy loose, and deal with Naecken." He listened. "Alright. Understood. Smith out."

Phil turned to Kristogar. "Grimm's got a rendezvous point for us to meet up with some more firepower, but it's gonna be kinda tough to get there." He pointed across the expanse of ice to a shallow indentation surrounded by hundreds of the T5 droids.

"Get down!" Velo grabbed Phil by the collar of his immersion suit and dragged him behind a boulder.

Four T5 robots were approaching. Phil peered around the edge of the boulder. "What do you think?" he asked.

Velo took a look for himself. "We knock the two on the ends into the middle two, then bumrush them when they're all tangled up."

Phil nodded as he slid an insulated magazine into each MP5. "Gotcha."

Suddenly, the T5s powered up their weapons and started shooting at some target behidn Phil and Velo. The pair stayed down as faint blue energy bolts whizzed over their heads and struck the robots squarely.

THe robots stood there motionless for a long moment... until they were blown to bits from within.

Phil jumped up and spun around, to be met by two dozen men in KGB-issue arctic fatigues brandishing odd-looking guns.

"Mister Smith!" The leader called. "I am Lieutenant Karpotsyn of the Korystnyj. We have just arrived and are awaiting orders."

Velo examined the Russians' weapons. "Tesla cannon."

"Never seen one before," Phil said. "At least not that I recall."

"It's basically a controlled electromagnetic pulse," Velo explained, "channeled into a beam of accelerated ions. Against organic matter it'll give you a nasty static shock - nothing life-threatening unless you're standing in a pool of water. But against electronic devices..." Kristogar grinned as he realized the Russians' plan. "Catastrophic. The Tesla beam shuts down electronic sytems, and also sets off any unused ammunition in the vicinity. In the case of these T5 robots, it zaps 'em and sets off any ammo or weapon power supply they're carrying. Might as well stick 'em in the microwave."

Karpotsyn nodded. "We anticipated that you might need to cut a path through these robots."

Phil let a wicked grin spread across his face. "Do we ever."

The telepath turned to Velo as Karpotsyn barked an order and the Russians took up formation around the two Vanguardians. "Let's get there."

The swarms of T5 robots massed on the plain surrounding Naecken's fortress threatened to overwhelm the army of heroes gathered there. Although the metahumans were dealing plenty of damage, there were just far too many robots to deal with.

One lone metahuman surveyed the scene from atop a low hill. If he was going to make a difference at all, now would be the time.

And, standing there at the peak of the hill, BHAGHHH-RUPTH made up his mind.

Tucking into his shell, the turtle-man-creature-thingy screamed "BOMBARD!!!" at the top of his lungs, then rolled down the hill, smashing into robot after robot after robot.

Elsewhere, Philip was trying frantically to hold back the advancing robots with his amazing static-powers, but for some odd reason he wasn't as effective as he had hoped. He ducked as a falling T5 toppled past him, then dodged out of the way as a Russian commando dove onto the snow behind him, out of the hail of fire from another robot.

The Russian got to his feet. "What are you doing here???"

"Oh, that's easy, my Russkie friend," Philip replied. "The name's 'Ouch-Man'. See, what I do is..."

"Shut your damned mouth," the Russian said. He fished in his pack for an extra weapon. "Take this. And stay out of the way." He got to his feet and headed off after another cluster of robots. "Canadians..." he muttered.

Philip inspected the weapon. "Hmmmmm..."

He pointed it at the snow and pulled the trigger.

A brilliant bolt of energy emerged from the barrel of the Tesla cannon.

An ear-to-ear grin spread across the face of 'Ouch-Man'. "Ooooooooooooh!"

The heat stuck to the side of Adem’s face. Explosions were going on all around him. He did his best to dodge the blasts. He was more accustomed to the gravity now, but still needed to calculate his movements to make sure he didn’t move too far in any direction. The metal and wiring of the T5 robot, when broken down, reorganized, and re-bonded by his nanites, made for a perfect anti-gravity propulsion suit. Good thing that his nanites came pre-programed with several of his planet’s military advances. Otherwise, he’d been screwed.

The entrance to the T5 compound was littered with T5 bots of differing sizes pouring forth from it. There was no way for him to get in through that way. Different was scanning the horizon, trying to deduce another way in when a sharp pain ran across his back. The impact caused him to fall towards the machines waiting below. He jerked his body and sent himself into a snow drift a few hundred yards away. His body embedded itself deep into the snow only a few feet from the hard ice it covered.

The tip of Adem’s nose, which some may describe as a Roman nose, became numb with intense chill. Frantically, he dug himself out with his flailing arms. He had his nanites ignore his minor injuries so that they may accomplish another task for him. As he emerged, a large man stood waiting.

The man stood about six feet tall. His body was encased in a armor that glowed a faint yellow. A strange rifle lay draped over his shoulder. “You’re odd. Even for a meta,” the alien known as Utu said. “Maybe you want to rethink which side your on.”

“Is this the part where we try to convince each other that our side is right and will win?” Adem asked as he ran his fingers across the back of his scalp, through his dark blueish hair.

“Heh! I believe it is,” Utu replied. “Why? Do you not want to go through the formalities?”

“It just seems like a waste of time. I know I’m not going to change my mind. I doubt seriously that you’ll change yours. Conversation at this point would more than likely only increase our impatience and hostilities with one another. Considering how high tensions are now, do we really need that?”

“Fine by me.” Utu leveled his rifle at Adem. “Let’s skip straight to the part where I kill you.”

“Now, there’s another aspect of this confrontation that I’d like to discuss with you.....”

All during the conversation, Utu failed to notice that Different’s anti-grav suit was morphing. The nanites were reforming it into a durable armor. The energy bolt that flew forth from the rifle slammed into the armor. Adem was thrown back into the drift. The armor, though, had absorbed much of the force of the blast.

Utu stepped towards the snow drift to claim his trophy. He began to dig into the collapsed snow, searching for Adem’s dead body. Yet he could find nothing. A fist connected with his chin and sent him to the ground. “Ah-ha!” Adem yelled in triumph over his opponent. Snow still clung from his body where he had dug himself a way out through the side and snuck around to the blind side of the Annunaki.

The smile on Adem’s face faded as Utu pulled himself up from the ground with eyes on fire. {This does not seem to be the desired result of your plan, sir.}

“No, no it’s not,” Different was able to get out before receiving a tremendous punch to his chin. The alien went airborne for a moment. The snow didn’t offer enough cushioning for his impact back on the ground.

This is like when I was in Siberia thought Banshee, as she flew over the white snow. She was well insulated in her thermal gear. Like the Russian Artic, Antartica was a frozen wasteland. Brianna exhaled and could see her breath, like fog.

But that's where the similarity ended. There was no Raptor here anymore. This wasn't some simple spy mission -- it felt to Brianna that Heaven and Hell had ripped open and angels and demons were clawing at each other like wolves. Gone were the simple fights of heroes and villians. This was so much bigger. This was about survival.

And Brianna? She was different from the girl that flew with Euro over Siberia. She was stronger. No more simple Irish lass, no more ignorant child...Brianna was now a lady...a very powerful, dangerous lady.

And she wasn't afraid.

Grim wanted her to 'take care' of those T5 robots. Easy enough. Brianna flew towards the machines casually. The muscles under the wings were insulated by her feathers, so flying wasn't too difficult. The trick was to dodge any weapons they threw, then to unleash her scream. Predicably, she dodged the first missle, then let it all out...

***

"I've just sent Banshee," said Grim to Phil over the com-link.

"Bri?" asked Phil. "Grim, last time I check, her voice was kind of raspy. Are you sure she's not on a suicide mission?"

Grem could see Brianna flying in the distance. "Skreeeeeeeeee!" T5 robots were falling over, and even from a distance Grim could see Brianna was not tiring as usual.

"Phil, I get the sneaky feeling she's doing just peachy."

Ouch-man trudged through the snow with his newly aquired gun. He couldn't wait to try it out. He followed in the footsteps of the Russian soldiers who had handed it off to him. The legion of varied function T5 robots rolled towards them. "Take this!" he yelled as he let loose a blast!

"AAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGG!!!!" one of the soldiers in front of him screamed as his body convulsed and fell to the ground.

"Um..... ..... my.... my bad," Ouch-man apologized embarrassed.

<Comrade, I can't feel my fingers,> the injured soldier said to one of his companions in their native language.

"It's just that I've never really fired a gun before."

<You'll be fine,> the other soldier said. <It'll wear off in a few minutes.>

"And the trigger is a bit loose. I didn't expect such a loose trigger." Ouch-man became quiet as another soldier approached him. The man ripped the Tesla gun from his hands and replaced it with a .22 pistol. "Yeah. This... this will do just fine."

He raised the pistol at an oncoming bot and fired. The metal shell dinged as the bullet bounced right off of the heavy armor. A Russian soldier dropped his gun, grabbed the left side of his head and screamed in pain. The English translation would have something to do with his eye and Ouch-man parentage. "You know," he announced to the disgruntled detatchment of Russian soldiers, "they seem to need some help fighting evil robots over there. So, if you don't mind, I think I'll go give them a hand. Good-bye!"

As Ouchman joined his partner, Download, and the two began another typical conversation, they were unaware that they were being watched. Watched from a high vantage point by a small group of metas who had as yet, stayed out of the battle.

"Those two look like perfect additions to my new evil group. Thus says The Mastermind! With my metahuman ability to momentarily control the mind's of others,we will be unstoppable! " The Mastermind, resplendent in his purple military uniform and matching purple hood, cackled with glee. The Gorilla Brothers sat behind him scratching their heads. A very tall, redheaded meta stood at the side of The Mastermind, looking confused. "Then what, Mastermind?" he said.

"Then, Redwood, once you've used your metahuman ability to grow very tall, we shall destroy any and all who stand in our way! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!"

********************

Vengeance slipped from the hand of the T5 robot and dropped to the ground. His flaming sword and pain pulse would be useless against these unliving foes. Better to continue towards his true opponent. As the robot attempted to crush Vengeance's cycle, the cycle turned to mist, dissolving and vanishing from it's grasp. Reforming beneath it's master, the cycle roared to life with a snarl that sounded like the howling of some unearthly creature. Vengeance drove off toward's Naecken's fortress with seemingly impossible ease.

**********************

Tobias Christopher raced forward, blasting several of the T5 droids with sonic booms in tandem with Drag Racer. As the two speedsters raced for Naecken's fortress, another of the Anunnaki appeared, waving his hands back and forth and chanting under his breath. TC and Drag Racer were momentarily covered with multicolored flashes of light. As the speedster's passed through the flashes, they felt their speed ebbing. Bereft of their kinetic energy, they fell forwards into the snow.

"What the hell. . ." TC thought to himself. Looking up, he saw the Annunaki standing over him, a broadsword drawn. "The best way to stop an opponent faster than you," Ishkur began, "slow them do-" Ishkur's cryptic comment would never be finished as his head fell forward, separated from his body.

The head rolled and landed in front of TC. A shadow fell over the Vanguardian. He looked up. "Yurmnetokilllll. . ." Amuck stated, before speeding off into the distance.

"Fuck. . ." TC said, helping Drag Racer to stand up. The Luchadore landed next to the two. "Whoah. Good work. How did you do that?" he said, amazed.

"Oh, it was nothing, really." Drag Racer said, bending over to clean snow off of his pantyhose. Standing back up, he saw the Luchadore staring at him.

Luchadore: Hi.

Drag Racer: Uhh. . .hi. . .

*******************

Drax wrestled with Nergal as the two giant behemoths slammed into several of the robots, their grudge match destroying many of the Quadnik drones. Nabu watched his cousin intently, energy flaring around his hands in the form of ankhs. "Come on, come on, closer. . ." he said, attempting to get a shot at the white dragon.

Before he could do so, however, the alien was blasted by a chill Antarctic wind. As he doubled over in an unsuccessful attempt to stay warm, Aeolus landed in front of him. "You've never been much for fair fights, have you, Nabu? None of your kind are." The dark skinned leader of the Pantheon said as he mentally turned up the force of the winds striking the Annunaki. "This time, I'll finish the job I began a long time ago." The winds began to freeze Nabu from his very insides.

The inner sanctum of the fortress echoed softly, the ravages of war escalating outside. A dim haze of dirty gold light hung in the air, drifting as with the whim of chance. But, with a purpose as insipid as doubt, fear, or disgust. It was the wraith-light of the eternal dark. The sunset of the abyss.

It was the light...of Hell.

Doors...as tall as the Eiffel Tower...four city-blocks wide...rose up the main core of the hive-like structure. Mined from the despair of rotting souls, the ashen, metallic frame moaned with the wails of damned seraphim.

Naecken's wide nostrils flared, drinking in the endorphin devouring musk that seeped through the barely open gateway.

"...delicious...isn't it?" his rasping voice commented. His arms wide, the dark lord stood before the massive structure staring into the tiny cracks of oblivion.

"It's madness, Naecken..." Mick responded, his pale face squinting against the tainted forces creeping along the light.

"One man's madness, is another man's genius." he replied, turning from the writhing light towards his bound captive.

"No, man....this is no one's 'genius'!" Mick half-yelled, head lurching away from the stone column his body was forced to embrace. "No one wants hell-on-earth! No one! Ask around, and, I promise you, NO ONE will say 'Sure, unleashing the forces of hell is a cool, and can I say, smart, thing to do', okay?!"

Naecken opened his mouth to speak, pausing as the fortress shuddered slightly.

"...this has gone just about far enough..." the former MBLer muttered, turning back to the trans-dimensional gateway.

"Naecken! No! Listen to me, man!" Mick pleaded.

"No...no more listening....no more waiting..." he replied. "...my army awaits me....on the other side...."

And the massive doors began to tremble...

****************

"Believe it or not.....I'MMMMM walking on air...." Luchadore sang horribly off-key, even as he dove to miss a flare of energy.

He twisted completely around in mid-air, arching backwards.

"...I never thought it could feel so reee-heee-heeeaal..."

He paused, gritting his teeth as he caught one of the massive androids near the ankle-area. Grunting with a single burst, he tossed the android into two more. Spinning upside down, the flare of the explosion roared under his body.

"...flying away ONNN a wing-and-a-prayer..." he sang, turning hard-left.

Three more droids sailed past him, as he altered course just in the nick of time.

"....whoooo could it beeeeee..." he sang, looking back over his shoulder at the near collision. "...believe it or not---"

That is, of course, when he ran head-first into the mountain-like fortress.

His body flipped end-over-end, as he tumbled with an aboslute defiance to grace, straight down the side of the titanic structure. Face-planting into the hard, icy earth, Luchadore just lay there for a moment. Then, with an audible moan, lifted himself up.

"...it's just meeee..." he sighed, jumping to his feet.

Across the battlefield, Dr. Huerta skimmed across the frozen wasteland. Not so much leaving footprints, as more of a continous flattening effect on the ice in his wake, Vanguard's resident 'meta-shrink' slid neatly to a halt behind a large boulder of ice and rock. Kneeling down to catch his breath, Huerta hugged the boudler tightly as another explosion ripped just on the other side. The shower of muddy flakes slipped easily off his friction-less field.

Unfortunately, the man's nerves had no such field from which to wipe away the chaotic panic he felt.

It was a battle unlike any he had ever witnessed. And, even as he used some basic text-book psychological skills to reassure himself, he could not help but feel like a man out of place here. On this field of battle. Of war. Of death.

He was a doctor. Just due to his very nature, he was about helping people. Not fighting them.

Certainly not killing them.

He sighed with heavy frosted breath, realizing that attacking former teammates-turned-demon-lords was just outside his field of expertise. Lost in his own thoughts, it was a moment before he realized something odd. The boulder, on which his gloved hands still gripped, was......soft.

He glanced up at his right hand, seeing that the icy stone ended about halfway up his palm. His fingers ran across, what looked to be, a rough, naval-blue material.

The thermal gear. It was a...sleeve? Embedded in the rock?

The good doctor slowly stood up, even as the din of battle roared across the plains. Wiping away excess ice and snow, Huerta came to find the figure of a man, face-down, imbedded in the surface of the boulder.

Sliding his fingers under one of the shoulders, Huerta's face began to turn red from the strain as he attempted to pull the body free. It took another two or three tugs, and, finally, the body ripped free, falling back into the snow with Huerta.

The doctor lay there, briefly, panting from the exertion. He looked over to see the body sit up.

"...ow...dammit..." the man muttered.

"You...you're one of the new guys...right?" Huerta asked.

The white haired man looked over at him.

"Yeah. Baxter. Ozzy Baxter." he replied, cracking his neck a bit.

Huerta looked at the boulder, and back again.

"What happened?"

"Well, I wasn't about to be biker-boy's bitch, so I bailed out with everyone else..." he replied, watching as four more androids swarmed overhead.

"...and you fell, crashing into that boulder?"

"...yeah..." Ozzy nodded, slightly embarrassed.

"Why didn't you just use a parachute like everyone else?"

Baxter jerked his right hand up, showcasing a ripped pull-string from his still attached parachute.

"I DID!" he barked.

"Oh." Huerta replied, even as Ozzy tossed the cord.