The Magistracy's Legion

The Chemist held in a scream as his eyeballs tried to jump out of their sockets. His hands covered his face as he staggered in the hall outside the operations center. Pain was a lava flow through his system as he concentrated on getting help.

The door slid out of the way as the magician finally was able to work a little bit of a symbol to kill the pain long enough to operate. He found a chair, and dropped in it. His spell opened a small region in his head that allowed him to ignore the roar rushing through his blood.

Then it was gone as quickly as it appeared.

"You okay, buddy?" Kevin Reilly stood over him, coffee in hand. The operations officer sipped the warm liquid, eyebrow raised at his visitor.

"I don't think so." The Chemist found that he couldn't move. His limbs refused to assist him. "Could you call Maker up here to the center? Something is wrong with me."

"I've been telling you that for a while." Reilly went over to his computers, and keyed the intercom. "Maker, please report to Operations. I say again. Maker to Operations."

While he waited, the Chemist performed several simple tests with his symbology. Everything came back that he was fine, better than a normal man of his age, and physicality. The pain hadn't come from inside.

He was afraid of what it meant to him that something outside of his body had tried to boil him alive without warning.

Maker arrived clad in her silver and black armor of tiny machines. She left her faceless helmet off, the face underneath thin but still attractive. Her gray eyes questioned him before she said a word.

"Something bad just happened." The Chemist tried to stand but couldn't. "I need you to go over any observational data for anomalies."

"Let's take a look at you first." Maker acted as the Magistracy's medic when needed. Her nanotechnology allowed her to fight things on a cellular level. The FDA had her prototype cancer cure in testing and planned to release it in small doses sometime. They worried the nanotech would go crazy in a host and wreck more than it fixed.

It hadn't so far.

Maker put her helmet together, took pictures with a camera in her gauntlet. Her manner said she hadn't found anything wrong with her colleague.

"Everything looks normal." She doffed the helmet. "What's going on? Is this some kind of prank?"

"He came in here and collapsed in the chair." Reilly sipped more coffee. "He looked bad off and asked for you."

"I think something is wrong with the world." The Chemist adjusted his sunglasses. "I just want to check on it."

Maker nodded. The Chemist was weird, but he knew things that no one should know, or be able to find out. The fact he trusted her to do this search instead of doing it himself meant more than he said.

It meant something had happened and he was scared to try to explain it since he didn't know the cause.

Maker created her helmet again, and plugged into the operations network. The teleporter the team used was plugged into a satellite relay system. Very few people knew those satellites could be used to observe the ground as they passed overhead. The capability needed to be there so the Magistracy wouldn't be reassembled in stray material in the target zone.

"All right." Maker didn't sound happy behind her featureless helmet. "I found something. There was some kind of eruption in Kansas a minute or two before Kevin paged me."

"I have to get out there and look around." The Chemist tried to stand again, and made it with effort. "Something bad is about to happen."

"We should sound an alert." Maker unplugged from the system, standing also.

"I need you to get the others ready in case I'm right." The Chemist tried to smile. "This could just be a false alarm."

"We could be having a barbecue for the pigs flying out my butt," said Reilly. He looked at them, looking at him. "I know, I know. Fire up the cannon, Reilly. We have to get somewhere as fast as scrambled molecules can go."

Cassandra Vogler worked on the crystal mosaic on a table in her living quarters in the CORPS's building. It had taken a few months to gather the chips and place them just right. When she was done, she hoped to have a picture of anything in the world. It was an investment of time and labor that should help her prevent threats to her adopted family if she made it work right.

It should work the same as the bracer she wore as Crystalmach. Hopefully it would protect the building, act as an amplifier, show her important events, do everything her personal crystals did with less effort.

Cassandra fitted the last few squares in place, gluing them down with her magic. She stepped back to admire the rainbow hues dancing in the fragmented mirror. It looked beautiful.

Pain ripped through her head. She dropped to her knees, reaching for her bracer. She needed a shield. Her crystal working shattered on her arm, spraying glass in the air. Her free hand came up in reflex to protect her face. A minor stab didn't pierce the shroud covering her brain with agony. She took a deep breath to scream and the torture was gone.

Cassandra took a deep breath. Her hand indicated something was wrong. She looked down, noticing the blood dripping from her palm. A piece of crystal she worked with had entered her hand during that strange attack.

Crystalmach touched the sliver in her hand. She concentrated. The piece of glass slid out of her flesh, closing it up as it went. The shard dropped to the floor as Cassandra examined the damage.

Both her bracer and the giant mosaic were destroyed by whatever she had experienced. Her arm had several cuts, none as bad as the stab she had taken in her hand. Her work space was littered with glass, some of the furniture resembling strange porcupines with the spines sticking out the backings.

She took a deep breath, glad that it wasn't worse than what she could see.

Crystalmach took a breath and concentrated, holding her bracer up in front of her. Chips quivered around the room as she exercised her will. The glass flew from its landing places and returned to her wrist cover, fitting back into their spaces with the aid of invisible fingers. She clenched her fist when the focus was reassembled. Magic danced as the crystal lit up from within.

I'll have to fix everything else later.

Crystalmach left her apartment. She needed to find the others and check to see if they were all right. It was possible that the event had only happened to her. She absently fixed the cuts in her arm as she changed her clothes to the brown and yellow costume she wore on missions.

Crystalmach entered the conference room the CORPS used for briefings. The Persian and Jonah Charles were already there, looking at the bank of televisions carrying networks from around the world. Charles's nasty smelling tobacco filled the air as he puffed on his pipe. One of his eyes had traces of blood marking the white.

"You felt something." Crystalmach held her bracer out and scanned her employer. Everything looked normal for Charles according to her bracer.

"Severe pain." Charles pointed at the talking heads with his pipe stem. "Some of our lesser brethren died from whatever it was that ripped through. Bodies were found. Preliminary causes reported are strokes and heart attacks."

"Too many to be a coincidence." The Persian wore his purple jacket and gold cargo pants. The purple mask that wrapped around his face and head sat on the nearby table. "Not enough to be a focused attack."

"Let's make sure there isn't one," said Charles. "This kind of thing is bad for business."

The New York underground concealed many secrets from the world. One of those secrets was the bum wandering along the lower edge of Manhattan Island, keeping to himself. Occasionally other bums would see him and wave in recognition. He merely nodded but kept walking.

"You can't turn your back on this, Buddy." His companion always appeared out of darkness, clad in shadow, walking with a stick that he didn't need. Gray hair completed his disguise as a human.

"Sure I can." Buddy kept walking. This was an old argument. "I kept my part of the deal and look what I got out of it."

"No one said it would be easy." The non-man glided after his recruit. "Protector of the universe is not flipping burgers."

"I'm sure you say that to everybody you turn into a monster." Buddy turned, heading for a subway station.

"You can't go back to your old life, Buddy." The man of darkness followed, limping fast with the help of his cane. "We've discussed this before."

"Screw you, pal." Buddy started down the steps to the subway, layers of clothing shrugging around him. "I did my part. That was enough."

Buddy paused between steps. He bent double. Then he fell down the steps to the landing at the bottom. None of the pedestrians tried to stop him as he rolled to the bottom.

"Buddy!" The advisor rushed over to the entrance as fast as his lame leg allowed. "Buddy?"

"That sucked." Buddy twisted his head back where it should be. "This is all your fault, V."

"Why is it my fault?" V patiently waited for the explanation. He knew it was something convoluted that fitted a conspiracy theory.

"If I hadn't signed the deal, I wouldn't have had a migraine put in my head, and I wouldn't have fallen down the stairs, and twisted my head around on my neck." Buddy looked up at the other man, flesh pulled tight on his skull. "It's your fault."

"We don't have time for this." V leaned on his cane, rolling his colorless eyes. "You have to find out what caused your episode, and do something about it."

"Why?" Buddy's eyes lit with fire.

"Obviously this is an event that threatens Earth, and perhaps the rest of the galaxy, if not the universe." V tapped his cane on the sidewalk. "And since you are supposed to protect the universe, it's your responsibility to find out the cause and stop it."

"I don't have to like it." Buddy climbed up the stairs, hand on the metal rail for the public.

"Quit whining and do your duty." V slid away in shadow, vanishing as silently as he came. "I don't expect anything else."

"Quit whining, Buddy." Buddy stepped on the sidewalk, flesh changing as he moved. "Do your job, Buddy. Forget your life, Buddy. Save the world, Buddy."

His clothes changed into a starry void as he walked down the street. Jaded New Yorkers got out of his way with varying looks of fear, astonishment, and lack of interest. A star field covered his face. Red suns were his eyes.

Save the world, Buddy.

Buddy walked down the street, fading with every step until he was gone. The busy walkers went about their business. If the world didn't end, they still had to pay bills, get groceries, and try to get their significant others to love them a little more.

Buddy passed through several gates, trying to track back the feeling that had impinged on his brain. He felt the pain as a wave receding from him as he slipped between realities. Everywhere he looked, he saw fractures. He wondered what caused that as he slid along.

Maybe he was going to have to save the world after all.

Higgins grimaced at the office when he stepped inside. This was going to be such a mess to clean up when the master and his son were done. Not as much of mess as the world, but still a mess he was responsible for cleaning as part of his duties.

No one wanted to make the retainer's life easy.

The Writer had taken his magically created son to another dimension after seizing the necessary ingredients from the Chemist and his allies. Time had passed faster there than on Earth. Enoch was now twelve and a considerable magician in his own right.

The mess came from the Writer's discovery of a virtual fountain of energy in that other place, and wanting to bring it to Earth. Higgins didn't know why, but thought it was a vanity and egotism that made his master want to lord it over others when he could. In any case, the magician was in the other realm, and Enoch was in his office. Both were working tirelessly to bring the two worlds together.

The thought they might be hurting billions seemed to never have crossed their minds.

"Your lunch will be ready momentarily, Master Enoch." Higgins made sure to stand clear of the swirling type dancing on the bared floor. He didn't have an urge to be stripped down to his core and sent back to the netherworlds.

"Excellent." Enoch's fair skin and blonde hair gleamed from sweat. It was hard to believe he wasn't human.

Enoch sat in a drawn circle. Letters danced around the circle then went to another circle, then danced around another one. Higgins thought of a child's drawing of a flower. The letters vanished randomly as they went along on their tour. The boy drew another letter in the slot when it worked around to his hand again.

The spell could take days to finish. Enoch was expected to stay in the circle writing and working his will until it was done. If someone tried to stop him, Higgins was expected to stop them with his own claws, and the help of Dr. Krueger's vat grown children.

It had been a while since the butler had done anything like that. The Writer preferred a small amount of denial when he struck. That kept things at arm reach for the most part. That was the best part of working for him.

It had been decades since he had ripped the heart out of someone himself.

It would be nice to do it again.

Higgins left the room, returning a minute later with a cart. Food stacked on the cart in covered dishes. A pitcher of tea sat to one side, silver glass next to it. He carefully served the food, making sure to stay clear of the moving diagram. Enoch ate, still writing his letters between bites.

After the meal was done, Higgins whisked the empty containers away with his usual efficiency. He returned to the office, taking up his station by the door.

"Father said you have been a great asset over the years." Enoch made sure that nothing marred the great design.

"I doubt I have done anything important." Higgins kept his professional demeanor. It wasn't his place to comment on the excellent butlering he had done since his real personality had been destroyed by the Writer.

He had come out the better for that, he judged.

"He may give you your own duchy to administer in the new world he hopes to establish." Enoch grinned slightly. "You might even have a separate kingdom if things go right."

"I live to serve," said the butler.

"I don't think so." The boy smiled, face becoming harsher as he regarded the servant. "You live at a whim, and any time that whim may change. All that matters is what happens to you if we should fail."

Higgins said nothing. He knew that he was connected to the Writer. If the magician were to be destroyed in some way, he would be also.

On the other hand, if something happened to him, the Writer could go on as if nothing had happened.

Higgins wondered how much it would take to kill this boy and foil his master's plans. He would certainly pay for it with his life if he followed up on such a thought.

The Lizard scratched his scaly head, wondering if he should transfer somewhere the crazies couldn't follow him. He straightened his police-issue utility belt around his waist as he walked on the river bridge, tail twitching behind him. Chicago's Gold Coast looked down on him as he went to clear the obstruction out of the way of traffic.

"You're going to have to get out of the street." The Lizard pointed with a blunt finger to the sidewalk running down the side of the bridge.

"Human scum must pay my toll before I allow them to cross my bridge." The ugly wino stood tall, taller than the reptile policeman. "Three pieces of silver and you may go to the other side."

"Only the city can charge a toll on a public bridge." The Lizard's eyes squinted at the hairy behemoth in front of him. "I'm going to ask you to quit being a nuisance and beat it."

"The Trolls of Ufgard say no." The hairy guy walked over, crooked teeth sticking out of his mouth. "This is our bridge now. Now be gone before I use you for new shoes."

"Everyone goes for the shoe bit." The Lizard cracked the knuckles on his three fingered hands, smiling like a crocodile. "If you want some, I'm taking you downtown."

The troll charged swinging a ham fist. The spikes on the bracelet he wore sliced the Lizard's uniform shirt as the arm went by. The reptile hopped back, glaring at the tear. The fairy tale outlaw laughed, drawing back to swing with the other hand.

The Lizard went for a head butt, slamming the long armed galoot in the face. He staggered back, pain shooting through his head. Gutguard had a head like a rock. At least purple blood streamed from the troll's nose and one of his twisted teeth lay on the bridge.

"I'm going to enjoy roasting you over my fire." The troll went for a clench, aiming a grab at the Lizard's neck. Strangulation seemed to be on his mind.

The policeman leaped into the air, bare three-toed feet latching on to the top of his enemy's shoulders. He swung a right-left-right combination, driving the hairy monster to the asphalt by force. He flipped the troll over and put heavy cuffs on him to make taking him in easier.

"You should have just beat it." The Lizard dragged his perp by the collar to a waiting police wagon designed to take powered passengers. "Now you have assault on an officer and resisting arrest. You're looking at jail time, monkey boy."

"No human prison can hold a troll of Ufgard." The troll strained against the cuffs holding his arms behind his back. "I shall have my revenge on you."

"Better get in line," said the human cop waiting at the back of the wagon, holding the door out of the way for the Lizard. "Central says there's another one of these guys across town, and some of the Odd Squad are chasing some kind of procession on horses along the lake. Something is up tonight."

"This guy should be booked, but we can round up his brother and take them both in." The Lizard surveyed the rip along his shirt. "He's strong as heck. I don't know if we want two of them in the same wagon."

"I'll get some back up." The cop reached for his microphone. "Maybe the other one will get the message."

"The Trolls of Ufgard fear no one." The troll strained against the heavy chains holding him to the wagon's left prisoner bench. "We will have our silver."

"Shut up in there." The Lizard slammed the back door shut and locked it. "Let's go, Marty. The Chief must be throwing a fit by now."

Marty got behind the wheel. The Lizard hopped on top of the wagon, banging on the roof to let his colleague know to go. Chicago was weird, but not usually this weird. Something was out of whack somewhere.

The Lizard watched the road as the wagon rolled through the streets. Once he was done quelling some of this trouble, he would look into what was going on.

The Chemist materialized in the middle of a street. He looked around, the letter on his blue coveralls changing as he turned his head left, then right. This was bad as far as he was concerned.

He expected to find a town, somewhere in the thousands for population. Maker's maps had indicated such. The problem was he expected a human town with modern buildings, and other accouterments of modern 21st century life.

That was not what he saw around him.

Something had changed the bustling town into a village of straw and wood. The street was dirt until it reached a city limit sign that had survived whatever had happened. People stared at him, dressed in tunics and breeches from hundreds of years ago. They seemed scared to see him walking out in the open.

That wasn't a reaction he was used to.

Maker had said there was a burst of unknown energy, then the town had lost touch with the outside. Phones and radios needed technology to function. It looked like the phones had vanished when the event had happened to revert the town.

That didn't explain why the villagers shut their doors and windows when they saw him.

The Chemist saw a sign proclaiming an inn. Maybe someone there would give him some clue what happened if they even knew themselves. He walked over and pushed his way in, looking at the small handful of people eating and drinking.

"Excuse me." All eyes turned to the magician. "I'm lost. Can someone put me on the way to New York?"

"Strangers aren't welcome here." The inn keep looked wealthy if you believed his gut and marks of drinking. "I suggest you start in one direction and keep moving until you see another town."

"That's really unfriendly." The Chemist hadn't expected anything less. He would have been more worried if they had invited him in to eat.

Someone would have surely tried to stab him in the back while he was asking questions.

"You heard what I said." The inn keep went to the end of the bar. A knife was in his beefy hand.

"No need for histrionics." The Chemist held up his hand, slowly backing out of the inn. He turned and started down the street. There had to be some kind of explanation for this.

The Chemist heard something that sounded like wings flapping. He looked up, spotting a gargoyle descending from some unseen height. A finger traced a protective rune on the sleeve of his coverall.

Maybe this is what made the people in the inn afraid.

The winged monster dropped to the ground a few feet away. A tabard, marked like a servant's livery, flapped around it as it folded its wings. Yellow eyes glared at the strange visitor.

"State your business." Its voice was smooth, almost educated.

"I'm the Chemist." The magistrate traced the rim of his sunglasses with a finger tip. "I'm wondering what's going on and where you came from. Gargoyles are rare in my neck of the woods."

"This is the Lord Scriptus's realm." The gargoyle stalked forward. "He has commanded all strangers to be killed on sight."

"That's not very nice." The Chemist backed up, holding his sunglasses to his face.

"That doesn't matter." One stone hand flexed into talons. "All that matters are my orders."

The Chemist wrote one more line on his glasses. The black plastic became shining mirrors. A burst of flame erupted from the newly made gates. It retreated back into the wraparounds, taking the gargoyle with it.

"Maybe Lord Scriptus will be easier to talk to than a simple-minded guard." The Chemist erased the spell as soon as the glasses shut their door to where he had designated.

The Chemist wrote on the air. The letters revolved into a floating arrow. It pointed him up and to the left. Something invisible was in that direction. Either that, or it was across some line in the air that cut it off from the village.

Maybe it was a castle of horrors.

Curse you, Konami.

The Chemist followed the arrow. It would take him to Lord Scriptus, and then maybe he could straighten this out.

Flapping on the air reminded him that gargoyles traveled in packs. He wrote on the palm of his hand in case he had to deal with them. It was always good to have a ready spell for trouble in case he couldn't write on the air.

He wondered why Scriptus sounded familiar as he walked.

Crystalmach looked at the shattered mosaic she had been working on. The Persian was getting the team together to go wherever they needed to be to stop this new menace. She couldn't wait that long.

She had to get there as fast as possible.

Cassandra knew that others with greater ability had sensed the warp in reality. Some of them would even be trying to use it to fuel their own schemes. A mage war was possible as far as she was concerned.

Crystalmach touched her bracer, changing the combination of colors with slender fingers. The mosaic should still have part of her magic entrusted in it. Crystal, glass, and reflective surfaces were her foci. She needed something bigger than her bracer for what she wanted to do.

The glass shards started dancing where she had left them when the magic pressure had swept through her chambers. They took to the air piece by piece, then returned to the backing she had made from some oak from a crafts shop. The fragments glued themselves in with a small rainbow sparkle.

Crys smiled, as the bracer signaled it was done with a loss of light. Luckily she had been almost done with it when it had shattered. It wouldn't do everything that she had intended for it to do, but it should still be a good scrying tool to figure out where the wave had came from in the first place.

The mosaic felt cool to her touch as she activated it. Her fingers moved the colors around like typing on a keyboard. A picture formed in the glass, a city limit sign. That's where the wave had started rolling across the planet.

That's where she had to go.

First she had to get out of the building without the Persian finding out her intentions and trying to stop her.

Crystalmach armed herself with backup crystals for her bracer, or to be used as one shot spell sources. She checked that her work clothes were okay, everything in its place. Then she left the apartment.

Only one person could help her at the moment.

Crys found Martina Horvach standing in front of a window, looking out over the city. Martina could go anywhere in the world. Watching the people go about their business below reminded her how she used to feel about things before she became empty.

"Martina, I need a favor please." Crys looked around to make sure they were alone. "I need transportation to a place called Springfield, Kansas."

"You can get Darius to fly you there in the jet." Martina played with the loose sleeves of her shirt. She was too thin to be beautiful, hair cut in ragged patches, eyes different colors.

"You're faster than a plane." Crys looked around again. The Persian would make her wait, and she didn't think she had the time for that. "I'll get you those cookies you like so much."

"You can't bribe me with Pecan Sandies." Martina smiled. "I want a dozen eclairs."

"Six." Crys knew a dozen would have her friend locked in her room for hours just enjoying looking at them. "After I get back."

"Twelve, or start walking."

"Eight."

"I will take nine." Martina made a cutting motion with her hand. "That's as low as I go."

"Done." Crys shook her head. "I'll pick them up when I get back."

Martina nodded. She spread her arms. The blackness of the empty crawled up her skin, glowed from her eyes. It shivered slightly. Crystalmach had never seen it do that.

"There's some interference." Martina's voice, changed by her transformation from a pleasant soprano to a tenor shook from effort. "I'm going to lock on long enough to let you pass. One chance."

Crys waited patiently. Something big must be happening to disrupt the empty. She had enough time to reconsider her choice while she waited.

"Go." The black sheath became a solid darkness, steady as a rock. Crys leaped into the shadow, feeling a chill wrap around her brain. Then she was out in the middle of a middle age village.

"I guess I'm in Kansas." Crystalmach started walking, looking for a clue.

Buddy walked into view, assembling himself as he came down the main street. The star field of his body gleamed in the twilight he found himself in. He looked around, wandering who put up the Renaissance fair where downtown should be.

He spotted a woman in brown and yellow ahead. He glided after her. He should have expected that someone else would be looking into this. Crystalmach was a local back in New York. Where were the rest of her guys?

Best to get the introductions out of the way. No way could he pass the buck. V would be all over him for breach of contract.

Besides she looked good, and who didn't like looking at a good-looking woman?

"Hey, Crystalmach!" Buddy kept walking. It was better to let her see he wasn't a threat. "You're a long way from New York."

"Do I know you?" The woman turned, hand touching the bracer on her other arm.

"Naw." Buddy held up his hands. He thought he could take her if he had to do it. He wasn't there to fight. He didn't like to fight unless he had to. "I'm from New York too. I was just wondering why you were here."

"I'm here about that wave of magic." Crystalmach didn't take her hand away from the bracer. "Something bad is going on, and I'm here to stop it."

"Local reality has been shattered." Buddy looked around, burning eyes taking in more than surface details. "Some other places too. My boss wants me to stop it too."

"Is that so?" Crystalmach looked at the shining glass on her arm for a second.

Buddy sighed. He wouldn't believe himself either, if he hadn't gotten screwed over like he had.

"I'm the protector of the universe." Buddy pointed up and to the right. "The guy we want is that way. Now we can talk all night, cause I don't get to talk to chicks much, or we can start walking."

"You don't get to talk to women much." Crystalmach smiled slightly. "I can't imagine why."

"Tell me about it, sister." Buddy started walking in the direction he had indicated. "I used to be okay, but nowadays, the girls scream at the sight of my face and run. The Phantom of the Opera got more action than I can now."

"Have you considered it might be your personality?" Crystalmach followed behind him, a little more relaxed. Whatever danger was there, this whiny guy didn't seem to know enough to be a danger except to himself.

"That's what my boss says." Buddy paused. "Someone is up ahead of us. He's got some kind of marker leading him."

"Let's catch up and see if he knows more than we do." Crystalmach touched her bracer again, borrowing speed and vision from it. "Maybe he even knows what's behind all this."

Lord Scriptus smiled at the dancing letters on the floor around him. It had taken some doing, but things were on schedule at the moment. The Chemist had arrived as predicted, but he could be kept at arm's length if you knew how.

His two companions were another thing. They should be taken care of before they became too much of a problem. Unfortunately he didn't have anything that could handle the protector of the universe.

He thought about it, thinking that perhaps he could use this development. It might help him shorten the length of time for his spell to run.

He just had to make it look convincing.

Scriptus wrote a symbol on the air. It should make his voice heard to his soldiers. He gave them a moment of instructions before wiping the symbol out of the air. He had to get ready for his guests.

He diverted three lines of writing away from the circle around him, the main engine of his spell. A y branch formed at the end of the new additions to his equation. A finger stroke put out the torches on the wall over his trap.

It wasn't perfect. Hopefully he could snare all three with a minimum of effort. He just had to make it look believable.

Lord Scriptus turned his attention to the workings of his dimension driver. The years he had spent training his protege had been well spent. Enoch had learned, been programmed, with the secrets that he needed to be taught at a phenomenal rate. He was as strong as any writer left on Earth. He just needed some experience in how to use his abilities.

The constant concentration required was just the thing to firmly establish his skill and abilities.

The gargoyles should be herding the wizards and their supernatural ally into the castle by now. He had ordered hit and run attacks to keep them off balance and running for cover. He didn't want to give the Chemist too much time to think of a countermeasure.

That would be extremely dangerous to his plans.

The three entered the castle. His watchdogs kept an eye on them, herding them to the central chamber where he waited. He added another letter to each of his writing tentacles as he waited, tending his brainchild.

If this plan worked, he could add more and more territory to his new kingdom until he had his own universe under his control.

The Chemist shattered the main room's door with a spell in the palm of his hand. Crystalmach fired shard daggers at their enemies as she backed into the room. The protector was at her side, depending on his physical strength and universal understanding to shatter any of the enemy who came close enough to him to touch. The magistrate turned and wrote a symbol to form a wall between the three of them and the menace outside the room.

Lord Scriptus activated his trap with a mark as he waited patiently for the three of them to notice him. He smiled as they turned to face him.

"Welcome to my humble abode." Lord Scriptus nodded at them. "What do I owe the pleasure?"

"We're here to stop you, fruit cake." The protector stepped closer, pointing his finger. "You're not blowing up the Earth. All my stuff's here."

"I don't see how you're going to stop me." Scriptus waited patiently. He needed to snag the Chemist, and Crystalmach first. An entity as strong as the protector might be able to break free if he wasn't careful.

"I think our combined talents are more than a match for you." The Chemist reached for his sunglasses, looking at the glowing letters around the other magician.

"I think you're going to help me." Lord Scriptus's writing seized the three in a death grip. Their magical power lit up a line of writing back to his wheel. The humans dropped to their knees, drained by the spell. The protector lost some of his solidity but remained on his feet. "Thank you for the assistance."

The protector slammed a fist against the side of an invisible bottle in frustration.

Jeff Ashcroft looked around the cemetery, hating being stuck at a photo op when he should be busting someone for a dirty deed. That was why he signed up for the School in the first place. He didn't like being pulled away for a job the Secret Service should be doing.

"I thought you would like the break, Jeff." Aaron Stark walked over, dressed in the rig he wore as the Watcher. He led the School's other team.

"I'd rather shoot myself." Pointer straightened his tie, looking at the crowd.

"We have trouble." Triple's voice drifted in over the team intercom. "Looks like big trouble."

Stark looked to the left, dialing up his helmet. He spotted Triple, or one of Triple, floating in the air. Something was coming out of the ground.

"Looks like zombies." Watcher dialed in a better view. "Looks like everything buried is trying to get out of their graves."

Ashcroft had argued against having both teams for the ceremony and speech making, argued against having any of them there, recommended the Secret Service wholeheartedly. Now he smiled. This was something he liked dealing with better than hot air politicians.

"We need to clear the cemetery of civilians." Pointer pointed one of his imaginary pistols at something reaching from the ground. "Fliers make that a priority. Blasters and tanks converge on the President, until he can be gotten to safety."

Triple soared down, forming a triad around the President. Each one of the parts wore a plain coverall with the number three on the chest and back. Only the three basic colors; red, green, and blue, were different so others could tell the parts apart.

Pointer felt a small amount of relief as he pulled the trigger on a corpse that finally made it halfway out of the grass. Nothing was getting past Triple. Now they had to take care of the rest of the people in the graveyard.

The problem was the two squads of the School only had three fliers among them, and Triple was one of those.

Holo, trailing sparks in the sky from his glowing body, and the Replacement, wearing stealth black from head to toe, were carrying noncombatants over the metal fence that surrounded the cemetery as fast as human bodies could bear.

Pointer moved to keep the area in front of him clear. Watcher was on his right, using the laser in his helmet to burn corpses.

Fortress and Granite had taken one side of the invisible circle, ripping up zombies with their bare hands. Fortress, holding at twenty feet tall, was scooping up the decayed bodies by the handful. Granite was a short and stocky rock. He had to wait for the undead to get close enough for him to smash them apart.

There was an explosion of soundless light in the distance. Pointer squinted. One of his guys was out there shepherding civilians. The Saint looked at a zombie and it exploded. His mystical glow was outweighed by the priest's collar around his neck.

"We're holding the other side of the grounds." Puma Sai sounded calmer than Pointer felt. "Air support would be cool."

Puma, Currenta, Poster Girl, and the Beatnik had been walking the grounds. They had been glad to be spared the boring speeches after their obligatory one picture. Now they were on their own.

"Triple." Pointer spoke into the miniature com in his sleeve. "Get the chief out of here, then help the others."

"That's a go." The triple men floated over the fence, holding the president with invisible bonds. They released their grip on the other side of the fence, then flew off.

Jerry Silver lit a cigarette, frowning over the status board. Emergencies lit up red spots all over the world. Other heroes were handling some of the problems. It just wasn't enough.

"Looks like an invading reality to me." Maker's voice drifted to him from far away, cutting through his thoughts.

"Excuse me?" Silver took a drag on his cigarette, looking at his chief technical advisor, his only technical advisor.

"The initial start up is where I sent the Chemist." Maker wore her black and silver armor without the helmet. "I am positive the outbreaks are some kind of spreading contagion from that point."

"How sure?"

Maker looked at Silver. The look itself was enough to tell him that he had said something wrong. He puffed on his cigarette to buy some time to think before he said anything else.

"Since that seems to be the source of the problem, and the Chemist is there already, I want to step over and take a look for myself." Silver congratulated himself for isolating cause and effect.

"The teleporter can't lock down over the area." Maker checked her wrist pad. "Some kind of boundary broke the beam every time we tried to recall the Chemist."

"Just put me in somewhere close." Silver took one last drag on the cancer stick before stubbing it out. "Get the rest ready and come in close enough for a rescue."

"I don't think you should go it alone." Maker crossed her arms.

"Me big chief." Silver pulled on his hat. "You lackey. Start lackeying."

"I see you and Kevin Reilly have been hanging out together." Maker raised her eyebrows. "We'll put you down as close as possible unless your pattern gets ripped apart. If that happens, it would be bad."

She paused as if in thought.

"Bad for you anyway."

"If anything happens to me, I will hold you responsible." He led the way to the teleporter control room near the operations and meeting rooms. His eyes wandered over the control surfaces, taking in the display of mechanical aptitude that he couldn't understand or imagine working as well as it did.

Maker plugged into an outlet, nodding at the computer data the machine fed her. She sighted in on the outskirts of the expanding circle. A small pulse activated the beam. Silver broke apart into his basic molecules, flew to orbit, bounced from one satellite to another, then snapped together outside of a wood and straw town straight out of a Robin Hood movie.

Silver lit another cigarette as he walked into town proper. The Chemist would have come this way, probably stopping at the inn to talk to someone, and then gone looking for the big kahuna.

Silver just needed to figure out which way that would be.

The magistrate looked around, walking along the dirt road. He spotted a pile of stone fragments, one of which looked like a hand. It looked like Chemist had started up the hill from the wrecked gargoyles. The electric man followed at a slower pace than before.

He spotted the castle appearing out of the darkness ahead. He could have sworn it hadn't been there before. That must be the place.

A guard let out a cry as soon as Silver was close enough to be seen from the battlements. He let loose a lightning bolt at the big mouth, satisfied that his primary question had been answered. The Chemist had arrived at the castle, and the people were trying to stop him from checking on what was going on.

Spears rained down from above. Silver sent a shock in the air that knocked the wood aside as he thought about how to get inside. This was where the brain was, and that was the reason he had to find out what was going on with the Chemist.

Silver pointed at the wooden drawbridge blocking his way. Lightning punched a hole through the wood. It wasn't big enough. He fired again. That gave him something to walk through. He kept an eye out as he stepped inside.

He was used to unfriendly welcoming committees.

The Persian sat at the controls of the CORPS jet. His constant checking of instruments betrayed a certain urgency to anyone who knew him. Crys shouldn't have taken off without the rest of the team.

"We're coming up on our landing zone." The Persian used onboard cameras to pick out an empty field. He flipped the wings so the engines pointed straight down.

"Ready, Pers." The Graft stood by the door, waiting for the plane to land.

The Persian checked his instruments one more time. Everything seemed ready to go for a landing. He could make out a shimmery veil and a small village beyond. Flying things filled the air. He didn't want to fly into an attack since the jet didn't have weapons.

"The Empty isn't responding well." Martina looked sick in her blue coverall.

The Persian looked over his crew. He judged they were ready to deal with the threat. He just didn't know if they had the capability.

"The mission is to get Crystalmach back and shut down whatever is causing this interference." The Persian eased the jet down on its landing gear before shutting the engines off. "We'll be crossing open ground, so we won't have any advantage of surprise."

The Persian went over his options before stating them, looking for the easiest deployment that would ensure victory.

"Cowboy, you're our front line. Believer and Blood Knife, I need you to watch our flanks. Graft will look after Empty until her powers come back up to speed. That's the best I can come up with until we know more about our enemy."

"No problem, Boss." Cowboy's voice was a rumble to match the jet when in flight. "Let's go before they try to break in to take care of us."

The Persian nodded. Cowboy, dressed like a hero from a western movie, pulled his Stetson low over his bovine face as he pushed the jet door open. He jumped down, growing another two or three feet before he hit the ground. The minotaur paused for the others to unload before heading toward a hill in the distance on the other side of the village.

Believer dropped down, hand on the long barreled pistol holstered at her hip. The white cross on her black body armor glittered as she moved to the left. Her eyes sought out any unobvious menace while she waited for the flying birds to test her mettle.

Blood Knife landed lightly, and walked to the right. His hand glowed lightly as he moved forward. His World War era fatigues turned him into a shadow moving with a round lamp in his hand. Goggles protected his eyes and worked as a mask.

The Graft grabbed the door frame with his artificial third hand, while holding Empty around the waist with one of his normal hands. He swung down gently, poncho swinging slightly around him. He needed something like that for full use of his symbiote.

A shirt meant something trying to hold his third arm to his chest.

The Persian jumped into the air, hovering over his team. He was the only member of his team that could fly. He and Charles had talked about adding several fliers to the team, but so far had been unable to agree on who to try to recruit.

Cowboy ballooned up, attracting the attention of the flying birds with his huge stature. Smokey breath snorted from his muzzle as he walked forward, each step the length of a football field. His fingers clinched into fists as big as elephants.

The flock descended, firing curlicues of fiery clouds at the giant suddenly appearing in front of them. One hand crushed several with a swing like a man swatting flies from the air. He spotted an outline of something that might be a castle. He waved at the ground forces as he stepped over the village.

The Persian pointed his wrist laser at any flying birds that tried to regroup to come after his team. He blasted a couple of them to keep them moving away as fast as possible. The burning things screamed in fury as they circled in the air.

The ground forces crossed the boundary. The Empty became a black oil covering its host's body. Martina drew the Graft in, vanishing in the night air. She returned moments later for Blood Knife and Believer.

"We're all up by this castle, Persian." The Graft's voice sounded cheerful over the radio line. "Looks like a small army is getting ready for Cowboy. Ugly things if you ask me."

The Persian dialed up his vision. He could see the four at the base of the wall, but not the castle itself. The Graft stood there, smiling under the cloth mask he wore over his eyes.

"We need Crys." The Persian considered his mission. "Get in and find her. Cowboy and I will try to keep them busy."

"Can do, Persian." The Empty took them inside the castle, out of their android leader's sight.

"Higgins." Enoch traced a letter into the marching line with a smile. "I think it's time for Dr. Krueger's latest son to provide a distraction."

"Magistracy Tower?" Higgins knew that other groups were busy across the globe. Naturally the UN's team would strike for the head if it could.

"Yes." Enoch smiled as he watched the flowing letters. "Silver and the Chemist are being dealt with as we speak. The others might as well go too. Then we can deal with the other protectors of the Earth."

"Understood, sir." Higgins nodded at the strategy. Eliminating potential threats one at a time before they joined forces was a time-honored tradition. "Is there anything else?"

"A glass of milk, please."

The butler nodded. He left the office long enough to fetch a glass of milk. Then he walked to the screens behind the desk. A snap of his fingers produced the geneticist's lined face.

"Higgins? Higgins. What can I do for you?" Krueger didn't look happy to see the saturnine face at the other end of the video phone call.

"The young master would like your latest project to demolish the Magistracy Tower, and kill everyone inside." Higgins raised an eyebrow at the wince his request had set off. Krueger seemed squeamish for a mad scientist. "It needs to be done as soon as possible."

"I'll send him, but I think it's too early." Krueger looked off screen for a second. "He should have a better than even chance of succeeding."

"We'll let you know what happened." Higgins cut the connection. "Better than even chance."

"His prototypes were less than that." Enoch smiled. "If he can kill or cripple just one, that will help us when they try to stop my father."

"What happens if they try to stop you first?" Higgins stood with his hands behind his back, looking down on his sitting charge.

"I have you here to protect me." Enoch grinned at the butler, keeping up with his work as they talked. "I expect you to be my shield. That's why you were bound after all."

"I wouldn't say that." Higgins kept his staid exterior intact. "Demons are perfect man servants."

"We'll see how perfect you are if the Magistracy stumbles on our little nest." Enoch made a dismissed gesture. "Don't think about crossing me."

"Wouldn't dream of it." Higgins walked to the door, walking through after a bow of his head.

Enoch looked at the door, moving the swirling lines along with strokes of his finger at the right place. Higgins seemed to be carrying out his duties with the same capability, but something was emerging from underneath the veneer.

The heir didn't like what he was detecting when he interacted with the butler.

Higgins was showing signs of breaking his oath and double-crossing the two writers. If that happened, their plan would be disrupted depending on where the butler applied his treachery. Perhaps he should be removed.

Enoch thought about it, but realized as long as he was helping to merge the Earth with the alternate, he couldn't act on his suspicions. One major act to break the ritual would mean everything would have to be restarted.

Surprise would be gone if he did that. Higgins would have to be watched for now. If he had to act against the butler, hopefully it would be after the spell was completed.

That was the best he could hope for at the moment.

Enoch wrote in more missing letters to change reality around the world.

Kat Friday flew through the front of the mall. She hit the tiled floor, rolling to her feet. Bystanders were running from her. If she wasn't fighting for her life, she would have run too.

The West Side Mall dominated the small town of Ulster, almost like a Wal-Mart would any other town. Almost the whole town came to the West Side for supplies of every type. Kat had come down from the mountain overlooking town to get a couple more shirts and jeans.

Now she would have to get an extra shirt to replace the one she wore.

Kat pulled the ripped sleeves off her shirt as she headed for the parking lot. She didn't look like much of a threat at 5'2", 90 pounds. Muscles moved under her tanned skin like bands of steel rubbing against each other.

Someone was going to pay for that shirt.

Kat frowned as the two assembled piles of rock shook in silent laughter. One pointed at her with a misshapen finger. Fury caused blotches of red to cover Kat's round face. They threw her through a wall, then laughed at her.

We'll see about that.

Kat ripped up a piece of asphalt out of the lot. She flung it like a discus. The piles of rock scrambled to get out of the way, rocks approximating stumpy legs throwing them into shallow dives.

"Who's laughing now?" Kat pulled up another piece of artificial stone. She flung it so she could charge behind it.

The bigger pile of moving rocks swung an arm at the short girl. One crushed tomato of a human was its intention. Small hands grabbed the loosely constructed fist. The thing made a sound of puzzlement. Then the world spun wildly, reversing earth and sky for a few wild seconds. The titan crashed on a street a few blocks away.

The smaller heap looked for its comrade with an eyeless countenance. Then it roared, charging with its head down. It ran into something holding its flight. The human had run her shoulder into it at waist level. The legs were still going, but the upper torso crashed to a landing behind the miniature titan.

"You owe me a shirt, you nitwit." Kat grabbed the head of her fallen enemy, and punted it with a sneakered foot. "Dang it. Why did I do that for?"

"You should play soccer." The familiar voice of Andy Chen drifted down to Kat. "It's out of here."

Kat looked up at her floating friend, a shimmer under the light from the mall's street lamps used to mark different sections of the lot. Almost invisible lines drew a grin and the shape of eyes against the night sky.

"Let's get out of here." Kat started across the lot, fists clenched tight. "Everybody will know I wrecked the mall. I'll have to move on before the cops come up to the house."

"Mr. Rickert might be able to gloss this over." Andy floated in her wake, a shifting outline the same density as smoke. "He's pretty good at that sort of thing."

"I was so supposed to keep a low profile." Kat gestured at the wrecked cars around them as they walked. She pointed at the hole in the front of the West Side. "That doesn't look like low profile to me."

"You stopped a public menace." Andy tried to put a hand on her shoulder. It split in two parts, then reformed as he shook his head for forgetting. "Don't worry about it."

Kat Friday focused on the mountain at the edge of the small town and kept walking. Everyone would know who she was by tomorrow. Then the trouble would follow. That's why they were hiding out in the first place. She had screwed up.

Jerry Silver wiped blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand as he stepped over another lightning struck piece of stone. He hunkered down in the shadow of a column. He had dealt with more of the things than was good for him.

At least he had been right about the brains of the operation being close by. Humming reached his ears. It reminded him of generators turning. They would be huge by the level of sound he was picking up.

The more he followed the noise, the more things tried to hack his head off.

Silver heard creeping coming down the hall behind him. He readied to launch once more in the fray. He paused when he heard someone complain about the smell.

The gargoyles didn't speak as far as he knew.

"This is Jerry Silver." Silver felt confident his name would get some kind of response. "Speak up, or I'll blow holes in you."

"This is Believer of the Corps, Silver." The voice, female, was harsh and unmusical. "We're here looking for Crystalmach."

Silver stepped out in plain view. Electricity curled around his hand. That was enough to light the newcomers who had followed his trail of bodies. The woman, dressed in black with a large white cross on one side of a breastplate, pointed a long revolver back at him. Her dark hair was pulled back in a braid. Others spread out behind her, ready to defend themselves if they had to.

Silver nodded, recognizing the group's members from file pictures.

Believer stood in front. The Graft stood to her left, third hand raised outside his poncho. Blood Dagger stood on the right, glowing knife in hand. The Empty stood at the back of the group, covered in moving darkness.

"Crystalmach came here by herself. Obviously she failed in whatever she was trying to do." The Believer lowered the big pistol she carried.

"The Chemist is here somewhere too." Silver let the electric light die from his hand. Small sconces stuck out from the stone walls above them, torches providing feeble light. "I was going this way."

Silver pointed down the hall toward the buzzing he felt.

"We'll go with you." The Believer consulted her comrades with her eyes. No one disagreed. "Any direction is good as another when you don't know where you are."

"Safety in numbers too." The Empty sounded panicky to Silver.

"Let's go then." Silver turned and headed down the hall, wishing for a cigarette.

Silver paused in front of a set of ornate doors. No guards. He didn't like that. He didn't think he had beaten them all. Where were they?

The humming, vibration, was coming from the other side of those two doors with their carved symbols. So he could wait until the party was over, or open them. He held up his hand to let the CORPS know to wait.

Why get them killed if he was wrong?

Silver took a moment to look for a door knob. He shook his head at the absence of any. One hand pushed on one of the doors. It opened with a mouse squeak as it slid back. Silver frowned at what he saw in the chamber beyond.

A man sat in a circle. Unknown letters danced around him. The Chemist, Crystalmach, and another man clad in night sky, stood in smaller circles. The letters moved around the trio, before waltzing back to their master.

"Jerry Silver." The mage wrote a letter in a space in the line, sending it down the stream. "I don't remember inviting you to my humble abode."

"Let's cut to the chase." Silver stepped into the chamber, hands blazing. "I want you to stop doing what you're doing and release my friend, and his friends."

"Or?"

"I start blasting." Silver pointed at the writer.

"I don't think so." The writer sliced the air, fingertip glowing a soft mauve almost as a counterpoint to the glaring white yellow of Silver's electricity.

Bands wrapped around the magistrate, dropping him on a clear piece of floor. Shouts told him that the Corps had been wrapped in the same way. This guess was confirmed as three more heroes were added to the pile.

"I have things to do." The writer checked the flow of his scripting. "I'm changing the world and I really can't afford to have interference right now. I'm sure you understand."

Silver pulled on the bands wrapped around his torso and legs. He wasn't surprised they didn't break. He didn't bother with repartee as he tried to think of a way out.

He wondered when the magician would notice the Empty had vanished.

Jeff Ashcroft pulled his tie from around his neck, stuffed it in a jacket pocket. Paperwork had to be written and filed on his team's actions. That was the worst part of his job.

Taking down a bad guy made him feel alive, filing the arrest and team effectiveness reports took that feeling away in a hurry.

"Reports are coming in from everywhere." The Watcher looked out over the devastated cemetery. Parts of the undead were fighting their collection and burning by regular army and marine forces. "The world is under attack and it's getting worse."

"What do the brains think?" Ashcroft rubbed his face, already deciding that the center of the cause should be excised like a cancer before they got bogged down fighting the symptoms.

This habitual tunnel vision didn't make him popular with his commanders.

"Something is going in Kansas." The Watcher looked at his friend, helmet hiding his expression. "We have two Magistracy incursions there, and the Corps's jet made a beeline for the general locale according to the intel."

"Let me make a call." Ashcroft pulled out his cell phone. "You get the others ready to go."

"We don't have authorization to move on this, Jeff." The Watcher glanced at the armed forces clearing the zombies. "We're supposed to wait on orders."

"Can't hear you." Pointer pressed a number. "I'm going, and I'm getting my team to go with me. We're stopping this."

"This is against my better judgment." The Watcher stepped away to get the two teams together and ready to move out.

The Magistracy's answering service asked Jeff to step through the system with button pushing until he finally got a live operator. A few more minutes of wrangling got him Kevin Reilly.

The operations officer didn't sound happy.

"What can I do for the School?" Reilly sounded distracted. That might be good.

"Something is up in Kansas." Potentially sharing information could be bad news, but Pointer wanted faster transportation than a plane from Arlington. "Both of the School teams want transportation using the Tower systems. Everyone knows you have the only working teleporter."

"You know I can't authorize that." Reilly's end suddenly muted. Then the crackle and rush came back on. "John Public says get your guys together in a cleared space and we'll bring you across."

"We're doing it right now." Pointer looked at his eleven colorful comrades bunching around the Watcher as he briefed them on the problem. "Give me two seconds."

"Leave your phone on."

"All right, guys." Pointer walked over to the group, glad none of the military was close enough to listen to what he was going to say. "We're leaving. Anybody who wants to stay should step over to the right about ten feet."

No one moved, not even the Watcher.

"Bunch in as much as possible." Ashcroft held the phone up, stepping in the middle of the group. He didn't know how the system worked other than what he had experienced when he helped snag the Halberdier. "We're ready."

"Go time." Reilly said something else but it was lost in the flash of light as the team appeared across the country.

"Welcome to Magistracy Tower." John Public stood to the right, next to a technician in fatigues at a control panel. "We were just getting ready to leave when you called."

"Going to Kansas?" Pointer pushed through his squads. "That's why I called."

"This is amazing." Ashcroft ignored Watcher's urge to find out how things worked as he made his way to the front, putting his phone away. "We need one of these babies."

"That's right." Public smiled. "Everybody is in the meeting room right now."

"Incoming." Reilly's voice on the intercom was followed by a klaxon. "Red Alert. Incoming."

"I guess introductions will have to wait." Public sprinted from the room.

"Spread out, and look after the civilians in case there's trouble." Pointer followed, finding it hard to keep up with the man in gray.

The School could handle this emergency. That's what they were trained to do. Still, he didn't like the timing.

Public and Pointer burst into the operations room. Reilly had a close up of something moving across the Atlantic, heading dead for the tower. It looked like a man.

"Not again." Reilly gave the go sign to unlock the defenses. "We need to hide this place instead of hanging out here in the middle of the ocean."

Ray Hammet looked at the night sky, wishing the stars meant more than lights. Hammet turned his attention to the empty crossroads where he stood. Fields of corn bordered one side of the road leading west. Flatness lay in the east.

He could see a light miles away as clear as the evening was.

Ray shifted his traveling bag to his other shoulder. He had been on the road for a while and had many more miles to walk before he got to where he was going. His head turned to check out what lay in the other cardinal directions the road ran.

Trees blocked his view of the north. House lights peeked through the branches like giant bugs. The south was the same as the east, flat and unhealthy looking.

Ray scratched his chest through his flannel shirt. He crossed the empty road and headed east. He had been in the service for most of his life. This new freedom bothered him more than he wanted to admit.

Ray had walked for an hour before he heard a car coming down the road behind him. He stepped off the side, knowing his tallness let the sky light him up as a moving shadow. He was walking because he didn't want to deal with other people. He stepped a little farther off the road.

No need to make the driver stop to talk when he wanted to be alone.

Ray kept moving, glancing over his shoulder. The car was coming fast. He could see the lights growing as the engine roar carried down the dark asphalt. Pain shot through the soldier's chest. He stopped to watch the auto advance.

Ray frowned as the car picked up speed and headed right for him. He swung his bag into a field of short grass behind a wooden rail fence. He didn't want to lose his stuff if he survived.

Ray waited patiently for the car to reach a point a few feet in front of him. He jumped up, rolled over the roof, dropped to the other side. He landed on his feet as the Charger screeched to a stop.

Funny place to run into the Duke boys.

Ray walked over to the driver side of the Dodge. He didn't want trouble. Being a vagrant made the police look at you as the trouble instead of victim. He did want to know why the guy had aimed for him.

Ray paused when he was almost within arm's reach of the car. His chest sent arcs of lightning to his brain. Yellow lights shone about where the driver's eyes would be if he were watching the ex-soldier approach.

"Got something to say?" Ray took a breath, wishing he knew what was going on.

"You're not afraid?" The driver whistled slightly. The amber beads nodded. "Still I have my quota to fill. Nothing personal."

"I don't think so." Ray stepped back, scarred hands lifting in defensive fists. "I don't know what your game is, but it's personal to me."

"Don't be that way." The Charger's door swung open. "You'll be the first sacrifice in a century. Others will follow until the demon wolf walks once more."

Tentacles exploded out of the interior of the vehicle. Ray realized it wasn't a car after all as he threw himself back. It just looked like a car. The boneless limbs scrabbled for a hold as he bounded to the side to keep out of their reach.

"It's always a monster." Ray stepped back again. The skin over his forehead split apart before bone plates emerging from underneath. A glow escaped his shirt as the transformation ran its course in a second that lasted forever. "I haven't had squid since being stationed in Japan."

The limbs wrapped around Ray. He didn't mind. The transformation had shaken the car devil like it was intended to do. The rest was up to him.

Ray kept his arms and legs together as the thing pulled him toward the open door. A mouth must be in that dark recess. The experiment braced his feet on the body of the car and pulled on the tentacles. He grabbed two of the appendages, and squeezed as he exerted dragging force on his enemy.

The limbs came apart under his pressure. He fell to the ground. The dismembered appendages flopped around him as he tried to get up.

The car door slammed shut as wheels ground grass up. The Charger veered back on the road, moving with animal grace.

Ray leaped. His fingers slid on the trunk's top until he made hand holds. He didn't know where this monster had came from, but he knew what he was going to do. Killing monsters is what he had been made to do. The lid bled as the plated hands dug in.

Ray pulled himself up the roof. He punched through with his mace-like fist. He had a moment to see fear in the inhuman eyes. That was the best part sometimes. Then he was inside the shell, swinging with everything he had.

The car rolled to a stop, pieces falling off and dissolving into mist as it slowly halted. Ray pulled himself clear of the mush. He didn't try to brush the slime off his clothes and bone skin. He just walked back for his bag. He could change and clean up at the next town.

The Persian floated in the air, using his built in weapons to fend off the flying things that were trying to stop him and Cowboy. He found that his web gun was the best option. One hit put most of his targets on the ground.

And his on board targeting gave him that hit.

Cowboy stood at thirty feet tall. Arrows were needles stuck in his double-breasted shirt. He threw his shoulder against the stone work he felt but almost couldn't see. The wall bent under the impact, cracking the air as small chunks gave way.

Cowboy backed up and charged the weak spot again. He heard cries of alarm and clear the wall as he ran forward. At the last step he threw himself in the air. He collapsed that section of the wall as he stepped into a visible courtyard.

The Persian drifted behind the bovine bulldozer, spraying the ground troops as he went. He felt they would try a mass assault to drive his giant colleague out of the castle grounds. He meant to discourage that as much as possible.

"Keep going." The Persian lit his eyes into spotlights. "We have to find the source, that's where the others will be."

"On it." Cowboy slammed into the main castle wall. He aimed for a window, arrow slot, for his charge. He drew back and hit again. A hole appeared, stone bricks falling inside the tower.

Cowboy shrank down to fit inside the tower. The Persian followed, sensors trained for the energy pattern present with the Empty. Martina should be with the others.

"We go down, Cowboy." The Persian led the way, spraying liquid nets. He took a spear in the arm but ignored it to punch the next man into his friends below.

"Let me." Cowboy pushed pass the purple and gold leader. He expanded to fill the hall. He swung one fist hard to clear the way through the hall.

"Good job." The Persian covered the upper stairwell with his web. "Keep moving."

Cowboy took the stairs in leaps and bounds. He smashed through a blockade at the bottom of the stairs. The Persian stuck the men together when he reached the devastation.

"That way." The Persian pointed down a corridor lit by torches. "I hear heartbeats and some kind of humming."

"That must be where our guys are." Cowboy started down the hall, estimating how much he could grow if he had to. "I don't see any more of those little guys."

"The rest must be up in the upper part of the keep." The Persian paused, examining the hall. "There should be more wear and tear for a standing army."

"What do you mean?" Cowboy paused too. He was aware of traps that could be used against a giant.

"It looks like no one has walked beyond a certain spot." The Persian hunkered down for a closer look at the carpet. "Your foot prints are the only ones I can detect."

"That means the mastermind is alone." Cowboy smiled. "Let's get on with it."

"You can't go any further." A black silhouette formed into a woman covered in black with her eyes burning like fire. "The others have been captured."

"What happened?" The Persian thought perhaps the army was a stall for anyone trying to get into the building now. If they happened to stop an intruder, so much the better.

"These bands came out of nowhere and wrapped around us. I teleported away. I don't know what happened to the others." Martina looked down. "I didn't know what else to do."

"We know where they are." The Persian glanced at the locator signal readout inside his eyes. "They're at the end of this corridor."

"So we go in and bust up the bad guy." Cowboy cracked his knuckles. "That's what we do."

"No, I go in alone and look around for an easy stop." The Persian faded from sight. "If I don't stop this, you come in as big as you can."

"This is a big chance to be taking, Boss." The long cow face looked miserable.

"We can't risk the others." The Persian drifted down the hall. "If all it takes is one shot, so much the better."

The synthetic man paused at the door. He readied his web gun. His captive friends were stacked in front of the door with Jerry Silver. Crystalmach stood in a cleared circle, some kind of lettering moving on the floor around her. The Chemist and someone that wasn't in his memory files were in similar circles.

The Persian fired his web gun at the only person moving under his own power in that room. The red strands struck some kind of wall, wrapped around it harmlessly. He flipped to a sonic attachment as the man wrote on the air with his finger. The Corps leader flew straight up, smashing against the roof. Stone clutched him in place.

"Hopefully there won't be any more interruptions." Lord Scriptus went back to his writing.

Kat Friday jogged up the road leading to the cabin where she and her friends were staying. Ulster glittered slightly below, sometimes hidden by trees as she ran. Andy Chen floated beside her, an outline of a young man that frowned at his friend's bad mood.

"It looks like the others are home." Andy nodded to a light ahead. "I can go ahead and tell them what happened."

"I can handle my own blame." Kat jogged a little faster once she saw the lamp glowing for herself. "I messed up so I should be the one to tell everybody we're going to have to run again."

"They'll understand about the rock things." Andy pretended to be running along too. It made him feel more human. "That could've happened to anybody."

"That doesn't make me feel better." Kat slowed when the outline of the cabin sprung out of the night in sharp relief. The wooden steps rebounded noisily as she climbed them to the wooden porch that squeaked like a potful of angry mice when she crossed to the front door.

Kat barged in, paused at everyone looking at the television. She had hoped to tell them herself. Now they were seeing it on Action News and were silent.

That couldn't be good.

"That couldn't be good." Cole Kobaine said, shape holding steady as he watched the screen.

"It's a sea serpent crashing into a ferry." Brady Baggins leaned closer, internal temperature making his skin glow cherry red. "We should be down there."

"Kat beat up some rocks in town, guys." Andy moved closer to look at the black and white television. His outline stirred Cole's shoulder into a wave that settled down.

"That's cool." Brady pointed at something on the television. "We should be there taking care of business."

"Where are Mr. Rickert and Tempest?" Kat wanted to punch Andy, but decided to let it slide. She couldn't hurt him with her hands. "I have to talk to them."

"He's on the phone." Cole pointed a greenish blue finger at the small office to one side of the living area. "He's been in there a while."

Kat went to the door, listening at the wood panel before knocking. She pushed in without waiting for an answer. At least Andy hadn't barged in to spill the news like he had with the boys. She was surprised they hadn't said anything. The news must be more compelling than Andy.

"Thanks, Randall." Mr. Rickert smiled. "I owe you one."

Kat's teacher hung up the phone. Sunglasses hid his malformed eye, but she felt its impatience when he turned to look at her. Tempest Martin stood to one side, pad and pencil in her hand. Dark, curly hair formed a halo around her heart-shaped face. Neither looked happy to see Kat as she stood by the door.

"I made a mistake and I might have exposed us." Kat felt a small wash of relief, then thorns. What would they do now that they knew they had to move again? "There were these things at the mall."

"They are popping up all over the world." Mr. Rickert leaned back in his chair. "I want you kids to stay here until I get back. I have to go to Kansas to deal with this emergency."

"Take us with you." Kat knew they were too young to get involved in her mentor's eyes, but doing something was better than waiting for news. "We can help."

"I don't think that would be a good idea." Mr. Rickert stood. "I need you here to look out for Ulster while I'm gone. These rocks aren't the only things that have been seen."

"You don't think we can handle it." Anger roared in Kat's eyes.

"I want you here." Mr. Rickert walked over to the door, frowned when Kat wouldn't move. "I won't be able to protect you, and my transport only seats one. I only have a few minutes, and I have to tell the others."

"You're going to leave us on our own?" Kat still blocked the door.

"I'll be back in a day at the most." Mr. Rickert's twisted face tried to smile. "We'll deal with any breach then."

"What happens to us if you don't come back?" Kat relented enough to move out of the way.

"I made some calls to some old friends who can help you if you have to leave." Mr. Rickert opened the door. "Tempest has the codes if you need to ask them for help."

Tempest put the pad away as she went to stand beside Kat. The two young women watched Mr. Rickert break the news, listened to the complaints, and the final goodbyes. Then their shield went to his bed roll in the corner and pulled out a pistol in a holster and strapped it on.

"I have to go wait down the road." Mr. Rickert looked at the five people he had carried with him across the country. "Don't take any chances. Look out for each other. I'll be back when I'm done."

Mr. Rickert grabbed his battered jacket from the hook by the door, and stepped out in the night. His transport wouldn't land. Instead it would hover in a clearing a mile down the road, and he would have to use a rope ladder to climb up to it. Then he would ride to an air base and catch a supersonic jet to Kansas.

Either he would get there in time, or not.

At least he had tried to protect the world for his kids to grow up in.

You couldn't do better than that.

Ray Hammet paused at the crowd of angry dwarves in armor. He kept his hands up to show he was peaceful. His eyebrows said he was puzzled.

Where were all these monsters and weirdos coming from?

This was Ray's fifth encounter with otherness so far. The elves and the pink elephant had been bad enough in their own right. Now dwarves were blocking the road, and the language they were throwing each other didn't sound too happy.

"Hey guys." Ray tried to sound friendly. "I'm going that way. Do you mind letting me through?"

One of the dwarves yammered at Ray, axe swinging in his agitation. The rest gave a shout and a mass clanking of their armor. Beady eyes glared at the taller wanderer.

"I'm having a rough day myself." Ray edged over to the other side of the road so he could walk around the roadblock. The little men turned to follow him with their eyes. "Let's let sleeping dogs lie and all that."

The head dwarf screamed. The followers screamed. Ray screamed. Then the troop charged the lone man with upraised axes. Ray ran.

How do I get into these messes?

Ray ran, clutching his bag to his chest. The open fields on either side of the road didn't give him a lot of cover to hide. He would have to fight it out with the midget Vikings.

Ray triggered his transformation again. His skin fell away as his bone plating came forward to protect him. The dwarves sang as they charged after him. They paused when their prey turned with eyes reflecting the faint star light like copper pennies.

"Let's dance." Ray smiled, throwing his bag around behind his back.

The shell juggernaut crashed into the party of reavers. Hammering fists knocked the bandits aside. Blades crunched against Ray's exoskeleton. Hammet punted one to make room to get clear of the crowd. The crashing of metal hitting dirt drifted back to the fighters.

Ray turned. He had taken out at least three munchkins. The rest charged, swinging swords and roaring their battle cries. One hand grabbed the leader's head inside his winged helmet like a basketball. A fling knocked the massed forces down, or back.

Ray started kicking to keep the dwarves down. Metal clad bodies flew for yards. The traveler stepped back, satisfied that he had taken down half of the enemy. The other half seemed shocked by the rout.

Ray roared, shaking his arms above his head. He hoped his skull face looked more terrifying than it did. The still moving dwarves ran, dropping their weapons on the road. They vanished in the grass within seconds.

Ray rubbed his face as he started down the road again. Something was going on, but he had no clue what he could do about it. He didn't have any way to get an overview.

Maybe he should call Rickert, or some of the guys from the old days.

Ray walked, fresh skin oozing over his exposed bone plates. He had been out of the loop for a while. He hadn't quit his job under the best of conditions. That was part of the reason he was walking across America like the Fugitive, or David Banner.

Ray wondered where he was. The next town he hit he needed to make some phone calls. There had to be someone who could tell him what was going on.

Then he could hit it.

Ray saw a sign ahead. Some town was two miles away. Once he reached Springfield, Kansas, he could try and get a handle on the problem. He started whistling as he walked.

Ray paused when he reached the end of the road. A city limits sign stood on one side. He looked off in the darkness, wondering where the town was.

Ray took off his bag and hid it in some bushes off the road. He made sure to memorize the location in case he made it back. He started forward.

The road had turned to dirt, leading through some trees. Then the overgrowth cleared to reveal a wide section of land with a village of planks and straw in the distance. A hill massed in the foreground.

Ray studied the scene, not happy with the fact something seemed to be on the top of the hill and he couldn't see it. Things flew in the air over the hill. More monsters were par for the course.

Ray decided to examine the hill first. Something drew the flying monsters there even if he couldn't see it. If he was wrong, he would head into town and look around. Maybe someone there had the answers.

Why else would a village that resembled pictures from a history book still be standing around a hill with monsters looping over it?

As Mr. Rickert shuttled to his plane, and Ray Hammet wandered into ground zero, the Magistracy Tower's automatic defenses fired. Energized ions and missiles cut the air with reflexes faster than a human brain could work the controls manually. Krueger's weapon sliced through the net, aiming for the foundation and support beams in the lower floors.

The mission was to destroy the black monolith and everyone inside. The fastest way to do that was cut the bottom out so it collapsed on itself.

The clone hit a wall of lightning, forcing it back. The shock didn't deter him. He slammed his fists against the protective barrier. If he kept up the punishment, eventually the shield would cease.

"As long as he's out there trying to get in, we can't leave the Tower." Public frowned as he watched the screens showing him the outside. "It looks like we'll have to take him."

"You're crazy." Pointer also looked at the screens with amazement on his face. "As soon as we go out there, he'll be on us like a mad dog. And none of my guys can match his power."

"I'm open to suggestions." Public didn't bother to mention that as long as the shield was up, they couldn't use the Tower's weapons.

"The Replacement can keep him busy, maybe." Pointer turned from the screen. "If we can keep him busy, you can get the civilians out of here. At least they won't be in the way."

"We need to get him on solid ground." Public nodded. "That'll give us more of a fighting chance if we can reach him. Most of us can't fly."

"I'll get my guys briefed and ready." Pointer reached for his transmitter.

"I'll do the same." Public started from the room. His government counterpart was already talking.

John Public stepped into the conference room. The other magistrates frowned at him, ready to fight. He felt ready too. He hoped this wasn't a mistake he was about to commit.

"Quick, I want you to start getting the staff out. Get them to the Step room, or take them to shore. Whichever is faster.

"Phaeton, you're going to help us hold this missile man off until you run out of power. After that, I need you to get clear and recharge if you can.

"Luna, I need you in the ranks to help out the School and do whatever you can.

"Maker, I need you to try to come up with some way to put this guy down. Anything you can think of will be helpful."

"I'll have to scan him for an unknown time to get enough to work on a counter agent." Maker's black and silver armor hid any doubt she might have felt.

"We'll get it for you, girl." Luna kissed Phaeton hard. "You can have all night."

"Don't take all night, honey." Public hugged Maker. He would have kissed her too, but the helmet was in the way. "Let's do what we got to do."

The group exited the room, splitting up to carry out their jobs. Quick started rounding people up from the base of the building. Phaeton headed for the roof, figuring an aerial assault would get Missile Man's attention until he ran out of power. Maker went with him, already programing the transport beam to move the solar hero across the planet to sunlight on her mark. Luna and John Public headed for the lobby, collecting Pointer on the way.

They filled him on their sketchy plan as they headed downstairs.

"Let me relay this to my guys." Pointer spoke into his radio again, moving his troops around. "What if Maker can't find a weakness."

"I'll rip his arm off and stick it where the sun doesn't shine." Luna's knuckles crackled as she flexed her hands. "Then I'll do something really awful."

Both men missed a step.

The heroes who couldn't fly assembled in the lobby. John felt their doubts, their fears, anger, desperation, and finally resolve to get things done as he walked to the front of the disparate group. He looked them over for a second.

"I'd like to thank the Metahuman Task Force for their assistance. It is my hope and desire to defend the Tower with no loss of life. If there should be any such loss, let's let it be the super soldier we're getting ready to battle." Public smiled as the resolve became more pronounced over all other emotions. "As soon as our strike team is ready, we go."

He turned to face the doors.

Phaeton, Holo, Triple, the Replacement, and Maker stood on the roof. The solar hero had already warned the other three fliers he wouldn't last long without the sun to recharge him. He just wanted to drag Missile Man to the tower's island assembled from trash by the Chemist. The other three would have to keep him down for the others.

Looking at him smash against the force dome showed them how dicey that could be.

"Quick has everyone waiting near the Step so they can be transported as soon as the wall goes down." Maker's helmet grew a monocular attachment as she readied her scanners. "You guys ready?"

"Let's do this before I run and hide." Triple's three mouths expressed the sentiment over a crackle of mental energy lifting his bodies off the roof.

The Replacement nodded his agreement.

Maker cut the wall off, at the same time activating the Step with her armor. Missile Man swung, and rotated off balance from nothing holding him back. Phaeton launched from the roof, leaving a trail of fire. He impacted the living weapon, swinging with everything he had. The two men struggled in the air.

The Replacement descended, hooking an arm around Missile Man's neck. He swung the clone into the hard stone created by the Chemist. Holo fired lasers, barely scalding the flesh of the soldier. Triple formed a triangle in the air, feeding energy into a ball floating in the center of their formation. The telekinetic shot drove the enemy into the ground.

Missile Man stood up. He blocked Phaeton's driving feet by catching the man's ankles. He flung the magistrate away, climbing to his feet. The Replacement went for another throw. His arm stopped cold against the other's arm. Holo flashed the clone's face, blinding him momentarily. Another cannonball lashed against the experiment, forcing him back.

Quick appeared, tattooing Missile Man's face to keep him busy. She stepped back, kicking hard against his legs. He swung once. The mistress of speed ducked the main blow, something that would have taken her head off if it had connected.

The Replacement kicked Missile Man from behind. That was enough to open the clone up for other attacks without giving him a chance to hit back.

The others came out of the building as Phaeton asked Holo to shoot him with his laser powers. John Public only had the strength and speed of those around him. That was enough to let him get close in three jumps. That was still slower than the Beatnik and Puma Sai.

Puma Sai, dressed like a movie ninja, lashed out with his trademark weapons, paired sais. He already knew he didn't have a chance. Still he could keep the guy busy until someone like the Replacement could put him down for good.

The Beatnik, built like a gorilla, faster than a cheetah, went for the legs. His black swallowtail coat moved around him like wings. Fighting was what he lived for. This was just the first one he didn't hope to win.

Then John Public was there, swinging for the bleachers. His punch, following the distraction caused by the two members of the School, landed like a wrecking ball. Missile Man flew toward the shore. Another Triple shot drove him into the ground again.

Then Fortress, at her full height, came down. The ground cracked as she landed. That was enough to pause the fight as everyone winced from the impact.

Luna, Watcher in his combat rig, Granite, Pointer and the Saint stood by the door. The plan was working to keep him busy. It wasn't enough. Luna schooled herself for patience. Let the others carry things for right now.

Soon enough it would be her chance.

Fortress flew into the air, arms waving as she headed up. Missile Man stood up. Phaeton, Holo, Triple, the Watcher, Pointer fired their weapons now that they had a clear shot. The combined energy powers blasted against his chest, sending him staggering back. He held up his arms to brace against the waves.

Missile Man decided that he had to punch through the defenders. Once he had killed them, he could go after the building.

Missile Man saw Quick coming from his left. He flew out of her reach, heading for Phaeton. The solar hero used up his juice in a stream of plasma. The heated air burned the experiment slightly. That didn't stop him from knocking the magistrate into the sea. The sounds of bone cracking felt good after the beating he had already taken.

Triple flew off to retrieve the casualty. That left a hole in their defenses, but there was no choice.

Missile Man turned to Holo, swinging a left faster than the glowing man could readjust his aim. The School member flew into the ocean more by chance than design.

The Replacement closed, swinging a left-right combination. His blows didn't connect as the clone dropped back slightly. Then the burnt weapon flew forward. The ram shoved the black clad hero through the tower's outer wall.

Time to deal with the ground contingent.

Missile Man felt that Quick had the most tactical significance, her speed a distraction for the others. He slammed into the ground, shoving stone up in the resulting shockwave. The Beatnik and Puma Sai jumped over the moving walls, but John Public went down. The displaced earth buried him. The clone rebounded from the fist slam, using that to send the two heroes that were up in the air crashing through windows.

"Stand away." Luna stepped forward, in front of the group at the door.

"This guy's too dangerous to take on by yourself." The Watcher reached for her arm to pull her back.

"Don't." Pointer shoved his friend to the side. "Give the lady some room."

Luna walked forward, hands at her sides. Delaying tactics were working against them as for them. The more time they wasted on this battle, the higher the chance they were going to lose the war.

Missile Man flew right at the silver haired woman. Why not go for an easy target when it presented itself? Surprise crossed his face when his fist missed. The weapon swung a barrage of killing blows at the magistrate. One would dent steel. The fighter danced ahead, smiling slightly.

"The moment you crossed me was the moment you were broken." Luna smiled harder.

"I think the boss is in trouble." Cowboy pulled his hat low over his eyes. "We should go in after him."

"I don't know." The Empty looked around. Her skin vibrated in little waves of darkness. "We should try and get help."

"There ain't no one around who can help us." Cowboy snorted. "And you can't reach back to New York. You already said so when we busted in here."

"I know." The Empty seemed about to cry, until she saw something down at the end of the hall where they were hiding. "Trouble."

More of the gray gargoyles and soldiers poured into the hall. They seemed to be on a normal patrol. When they spotted the Corps members, weapons rang from sheaths.

"Stay out of the way, Martina." Cowboy sprang forward, growing inside the hall, crashing through the floor. His arms crashed against the stone columns holding the arching ceiling up. Blocks descended in a cloud of dust on the patrol. Part of the night sky peeked through the crashing destruction.

"That was too much." The Empty stood flat against a surviving wall. Pieces of rock that happened to hit her body went somewhere else.

"Well, we can't always get what we want." Cowboy turned, and shrank enough to walk on the floor on the master chamber side of the hall. He charged the chamber, aware that he might have to be a little more careful with the boss still inside.

Cowboy reached the door, growing to swing a wrecking ball of a fist. One shot ending this was what the doctor called for. Something wrapped around him as he stepped over the threshold. He struggled with it, felt it crushing him. The bovine behemoth shrank, trying to beat it closing on him. The wrap hung on, holding him at normal size.

"Another one?" Lord Scriptus frowned. "Wait. If all the Corps is here in the building, I'm missing one."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Cowboy struggled in the wrapping.

"I don't need your help to find your comrade." Lord Scriptus filled in gaps in the line of letters dancing in front of him. "I don't need any more distractions."

"No one likes unexpected visitors." Jerry Silver worked his way to a sitting position. "You're working hard on destroying the world, and that's when people want to come over and borrow the rake, or a cup of sugar."

"Thanks for getting off my back finally." The Graft pulled himself from the knot of heroes.

"No problem." Silver tried for a spark between his fingers. He wasn't surprised nothing happened.

Silver glanced over at his compatriots. By the look on their faces, he could tell their powers had been shut off too. He worked on slipping the bands off his legs for a moment and found they were hanging on like a Jack Russell.

"So what's the plan, Stan?" Might as well keep him talking. Maybe he'll mess up his spell thing.

"The plan is to blend two realities with myself as the leader of the result." Lord Scriptus wrote in more gaps drifting in front of him on the floor. "Then I shall mold things into something beautiful. Unfortunately for you, troublemakers will be dealt with severely."

"Just our luck." Silver patted his pockets, inched his crushed pack of cigarettes out, got a cigarette that wasn't too badly bent, and flipped it into his mouth. "Got a light?"

"No smoking." Scriptus wrote some more.

"What about all of us who like the world the way it is?" Silver looked around for something to use to light his cigarette. That'll teach him to use his lightning all the time when a zippo was what he needed. "I don't remember getting a memo about this."

"Whomever has the power can do what he wants." The overlord looked up as one of his guards came in the room and saluted. "What is it?"

"Another stranger has arrived, my lord." The guard kept his face down at the floor. "He is marching toward the castle as we speak."

"Get rid of him." Lord Scriptus waved his hand in dismissal. "No one else will be allowed in the gate."

"Yes, sir." The guard turned and left the room.

"More interruptions?" Silver smiled around his cigarette. "Maybe you should have asked before you started this grand project."

"At least gotten written consent." The Graft tried to help his friends to a sitting position with his bound hands.

"The only thing keeping you people alive is I might have a use for you once I'm done." Scriptus glared as he wrote. "Don't make me close those options off."

A shadow slipped across the floor, hugging the wall. It paused next to the bound heroes before moving toward the ensnared trio of magicians. The Empty stood, reaching for the closest magician. Wrappings closed around her, dropping her to the floor.

"I wondered when you would show up, my dear." Scriptus smiled. "I'm so glad you're finally where you can't interfere any more."

Ray Hammet frowned as the ground shook slightly. He knew a shockwave when he felt it. Something big had hit the ground somewhere. He looked up at the top of the hill. Dust drifted up out of thin air.

Ray smiled at the confirmation of his hunch. Something was on the top of the hill.

Ray's smile turned upside down at the number of flying creatures descending on him. He ran, looking for cover. He had done a quick head count when he started up the hill. The members of the flying headhunters had doubled under his nose.

That should have been impossible.

Ray decided to head into the village for cover. It was the only thing he could think of in the middle of a flat heath with gargoyles chasing him. The houses and saloon he had examined from a distance didn't look sturdy but had to be better than staying out in the open like a sitting duck.

Of course this went along with all the other monsters he ran into on the road.

Ray pushed open the door to the saloon, pushing an old man out of the way. The crowd inside glared at him over wooden cups. That went with the wooden walls and straw ceiling.

"You guys might want to clear out." Ray ran to the counter, vaulted it to the other side. "Trouble's coming."

The door blew open, rammed by a steely fist. The customers started running to the back of the building. The lord's soldiers meant attention from the lord. That was always bad. Ray crouched down below the bar, pulling the skin from his face.

Ray waited, wincing at the old man screaming. The gargoyle roared. A few others answered. The walker realized they had the building surrounded. Smart monsters. He hated smart monsters. He had two options as far as he could tell. Neither looked good from his spot behind the counter.

The old man flew through the air. Ray knew this because he heard the crashing of a body against wood, then a second impact against the dirt floor. Surrendering looked really bad.

Time for option two.

Ray jumped back over the counter. Four of the avian beasts had crowded in the narrow door. They almost smiled, then they saw the bone plates of his armor on his face and hands. Then he was on the leader, swinging a gauntleted hand like a mace. The leader, old man blood on his claws, smashed a couple of tables on his way to the floor.

The second one thought it was going to grab Ray's arm for a pull in. Ray stepped in, rebounding from the first hit. Both hands smashed into the watch dog's beak. It flew back on its fellows.

Ray slammed into the three living statues, driving them to the ground. He grabbed the nearest one's throat and pulled it out. The head came of on its own, breaking the strand of rock holding the neck together.

"Next!" Ray grabbed the middle one in the pile by its head and twisted. The ugly skull turned 360 degrees before coming off.

Ray looked up. More monsters dropped out of the sky. Killing them all seemed out of the question. That wouldn't stop him from trying.

Four of the monsters piled on the walker, grabbing his limbs. They lifted him up in the air despite his best efforts. The ground receded with every beat of their oversized wings. Struggling didn't help. He couldn't get enough leverage to break free.

Ray spotted what looked like the inside of a castle as he was carried higher. All he could see was a shattered floor with a pile of rubble toward one end. It struck him because that bit of floor and rubble was all he could see. The rest didn't exist.

More weirdness was par for the course.

Ray saw a plane on the ground in the other direction. It didn't match the profile of any he rode in, or saw on the field, from his army days. Someone else must have wandered into town ahead of him. At least someone in the real world knew something was up.

That did not make him feel better.

The gargoyles released Ray's wrists and ankles when the plane had become a tiny x on the ground. The wanderer immediately spread his arms and legs out to catch the air. He had never taken such a high fall. He didn't know if his armor could take such a direct hit.

The winged beasts laughed at him before descending to patrol the area around the hill where Ray had seen that hole in the sky on his way up. Maybe they couldn't claw their way through his shell skin, but when he hit, the earth would crack him like a clam in the paws of an otter. Smack, open sesame.

Ray caught a few updrafts, allowing him time to try and think of a next move. The only thing that came to him was trying to circle back and try to hit the invisible castle. It was high, and maybe his velocity wouldn't be so fast the way he was catching the air.

He wished the experimental modifications had given him flight. Then he wouldn't be in this mess.

Ray rode the wind until it wouldn't carry him anymore. He closed his eyes as the ground charged to meet him. He hit and rolled along in a memory of his days in the service. Then everything said good night at the end of a trench.

Hope Roberts shook her head as she peered through the Magistracy Tower's lobby doors. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. She glanced over at Currenta, the naiad, standing by her side. The feeling seemed to be mutual.

Luna was holding her own against the living weapon that had taken apart their friends with a little effort. She seemed to drift away from his every move, while landing stabbing finger tips that rocked him. She hadn't broken a sweat since taking over for the rest of the teams.

She was smiling.

"I'm starting to feel sorry for the lump." Hope knuckled her eyes. The blurring speed of the fight hurt when she stared for more than a few seconds. "At least the others are getting fixed up."

The Saint worked on Phaeton on the other side of the fight. A glow emanated from the School member's hands. Pointer and the Watcher stood guard, with Triple recovering hurt and wounded for the healer.

"I think it's time we got involved, Hope." Currenta's form shimmered as she moved. "He's distracted. This might be our only chance to power you up."

"I'm a little afraid." Hope clasped her hands together. "I don't want to get hurt, but I don't want anyone to get killed."

"I'll run interference for you." Currenta smiled. "This will go just like practice back at the Office."

"Let's do it." Hope pushed the door open and stepped through. Time to hat up and ride until sundown.

Currenta slid through her friend, running at the struggling pair. Hope tried to run with her, use her liquid body as a screen. Missile Man saw the naiad, swung a hand to scatter her across the island. Pain from leaving himself open to Luna's nerve attacks made him stagger.

Maybe that's why he didn't notice Hope until she grabbed his arm.

Hope concentrated, reaching into his being for what made him the menace he was and copied it to herself. Strength and speed filled her muscles to the breaking point. Her heart-shaped face became leaner, squarer, as her eyes darkened.

"How's it going?" Hope slammed her enemy to the ground. She had grabbed some of his power but he was still stronger than she was. She had to keep him down where he couldn't use that strength. Lean hands applied an arm bar to use leverage to keep Missile Man off his feet.

"Good job, Poster Girl." Currenta pulled herself back together. "Textbook."

"It's not over yet." Luna kept out of the way, prepared if the menace should weasel out of the hold. "We need something to put him down once and for all."

"I'm open to suggestions." Hope had to keep readjusting her grip. Sooner or later, Missile Man would break free and continue his rampage.

"Maker?" John Public walked over, brushing off his torn gray suit with hand. Bruises seemed days old already.

"I have some data." Maker's voice sounded distracted over the team's links. "I think I have a solution if you can hold him for another minute, or so."

"We can do that." Luna stabbed the downed Missile Man with her finger. The spot selected lay near the vertebrae of his neck. His whole body locked up.

"You need to teach me how to do that." Public stepped back with a low whistle.

"It's easy if you have your victim helpless." Luna poked her victim a little harder. "But if you take the finger away, he gets to move around again."

"That was a nasty piece of business." Pointer held his weapon by his leg. "Phaeton is okay. He'll need to sleep it off."

"Thanks for your help." Public bent down so he could touch Missile Man's skull. "It might have gone the other way if you hadn't been here."

"One hand washing the other." Pointer leaned closer. "What you doing?"

"Questioning our villain before Maker finishes whatever she comes up with to put him down while we try to fix our problem."

Public placed one hand on Missile Man's head. He exerted his mental abilities, looking for where Dr. Krueger had built his second lab. If he could find that, maybe they could seize the doctor once and for all.

Images of the landscape around the lab flashed through his mind. Some of it he recognized. The rest might be located with aerial photos he was sure they could download from the computer once the emergency was over.

"I have a possible location we can check out once we deal with the major crisis." Public looked around for anything he might find useful in that simple brain.

"Give it to Watcher." Pointer looked around at the group. Most of them had come through hurt, but still able bodied. The only exception he could think of was Phaeton. And Phaeton wasn't his problem. "He's plugged in."

John glanced at the other field commander, standing further back from the helpless monster. The psychic could understand his reluctance to come forward. The magistrate wanted to be in Manhattan, surrounded by a potential psychic battery to move mountains.

"We need to find out what his involvement is in this." Public looked up at Pointer, still holding those pictures in his mind's eye.

"First we have to find him." Pointer waved his friend over. "Watcher can do that."

"All right." John sorted the images again. "Do you understand what we're trying to do, Watcher?"

"I think so." Stark told his equipment he wanted a link to the spies in orbit he used to help him with field missions. "You want me to backtrack our guy's route from the sky."

"That's exactly right." Public grabbed his wrist and gave him the image clues one at a time.

"Shouldn't be a problem." Watcher went to work.

Ray Hammet's eyes snapped open. Everything hurt. His vision rolled down to look at the hand in front of him. It was covered with cracked bone plates. One of the fingers looked twisted, but he was afraid to move.

Ray made sure he could move his head before he tried moving anything else. He had been dropped from a height that should have guaranteed a death at the stop. If his head moved, it might be safe to move around to pull himself together.

Of course, his spine might have snapped below his neck and he had problems after all.

Ray found he could move his head to look around. He had plowed someone's yard, but it seemed he was on his own.

Ray tried moving his arms. Pain shot through his shell. He decided to lay there a little bit longer.

Ray stared at his hands as he tried to catch his breath. The plates hung crooked, covered with blood. That one finger refused to move when he tried it. Probably broken. At least he knew he could survive a twenty-story fall.

Ray heard a crack, felt some pain in his legs. That was good. It meant he could walk when he got to his feet. That meant his body was repairing itself. That meant he could expect to get back up and think of a way to deal with those things.

Of course, they probably thought he was dead.

The crooked finger Ray had been watching wrenched itself back in place. He tested it with a little twitch. It worked better than the rest of his body. Hammet smiled, realized his jaw was hanging open. He wondered how long it would take to get back to fighting shape.

Little crackles sounded liked fireworks as the shell armor snapped back in place. Each burst of sound set a small beam of pain running through the wanderer. It was bursting bubble wrap, then a smack to the head.

Ray curled up to ride the pain out. He rested his jaw on his knees, moving it back toward where it should be. It hung loosely, until something grabbed the end and snapped it back in place. That hurt more than any of the other repairs he had suffered through.

Ray waited until he wasn't popping like a bowl of Rice Crispies before trying to get back to his feet. He decided that castle had to be the place to go. It was invisible to the outside, but stood there to give the gargoyles a place to roost. The winged beasts seemed to be foot soldiers, so maybe their general squatted inside the building.

He wished more had been revealed on his quick fly by.

Ray found he could crawl short distances. That was the best he could do until the vertigo from standing cleared off. Even then the distance of three regular steps made him wheeze like an animal on its last legs. Still he was moving, and that was better than waiting for the gargoyles to make sure he was dead.

Ray hid in a ditch near the end of town. He gasped for air as he watched the enemy soar above him. If they had spotted him, there was not a sign. After a few minutes of rest, he sounded less like a landed fish and more human.

Ray wiped the ooze welling from the cracks in his hands on his pants. The bone plates made their own glue to seal the fissures. The first time that happened, Ray thought he was going to turn into some horrible monster.

Only he was already a horrible monster.

Ray crawled over to a hut. He jammed his fingers into the wall and pulled. Effort allowed him to shove a board out of the way. Another few minutes passed before he could pull himself inside to rest.

Ray heard breathing as he lay against the wall. Its regularity and snore quality told him he could take some time and lay there while the gel dried on his armored underskin. As long as he was quiet, it should be okay.

An Ewok could kill him now as tired as he felt.

The sealant stuck Ray's clothes to his armor as it worked. It hardened into smooth scabs as it dried. He flexed his hand. The finished top layer flaked away from smooth ridges of ivory. Ray stood. A small cloud fell from the cuffs of his clothes.

The sleeper coughed, rolled over, then snored his way back to whatever dream he was enjoying.

I wish I could sleep like that.

Ray went to the door. A careful look told him he needed a plan to get close to the castle. He didn't want to repeat his high fall impact testing. The next time might not leave enough to put back together.

He also needed a weapon with some reach. He could pull one of his enemies apart, but not the whole flock at the same time. A vulcan would be handy, but he would have to settle for anything close at hand.

Ray looked around the small area hopefully.

Aaron Stark checked his facts one last time. The orbital agents had pinned the Missile Man's point of origin within some yards. It wasn't as exact as he hoped, but it was a starting point. The chance that Dr. Krueger waited for news close by made it worth looking around.

Krueger's clones had already proved as dangerous as any inanimate object.

"Are you guys ready?" Kevin Reilly stood at the control console. The operations officer looked angry to Stark.

"Let's go." Stark made sure his equipment was off. He didn't want a random surge to scramble him across the target area in a fine mist.

Reilly nodded. Light scrambled the A-team's molecules. Stark felt a moment where everything was nothing. Then he stood two feet away from where he had wanted to be.

This is something we need.

Stark looked at his group. He had selected Poster Girl, Granite, Fortress, Currenta, the Replacement from the School. Quick and Maker were along as back up. He switched on, locating his group on the overhead, and charging his laser beam.

The plan had three parts. First, they located the clone factory. The powerhouses led the raid, watching for any experiments which might be released to slow them down. Stark and Maker knew they had to seize the records with their hacking skills before anything was deleted in the second phase. The third phase was clean up, making arrests, making sure nothing was destroyed.

It always sounded easy before you went in.

"All right, guys." Stark overlaid the flight path on the overhead view. What he got was a house behind a wall, with cameras looking out on the street. He hoped the mechanical sentries hadn't seen their arrival. "That's the place right there."

Poster Girl touched the Replacement's black clad arm. The power from Missile Man had already worn off, and the gas Maker used on him prevented her from charging up with a visit to his cell. So her silent friend was the next best thing as far as she was concerned.

She flew into the air a few seconds behind him, but both were slower than Quick who jumped the wall, and used her speed powers on the door. She shook it out of the frame in a few seconds.

"It's in the pot now." Stark blasted the gate with his laser beam. "We have to get in there and do what we came to do."

Currenta flowed across the property, her liquid form slipping through the bent front gate and headed into the open door. Granite and Fortress ran behind her, the giantess already twenty feet tall. The elemental crossed the yard, setting off lasers that hadn't been set off by the speedster.

Maker glided to the camera on the corner nearest them. She pointed at it. A small sound of air said that her agent had been sent in to shut down anything that might be dangerous for her, and her allies.

All they had to worry about now were the people inside.

Fortress reached for the roof of the house, and pulled with her giant hands. The top came off like a pop top. Quick looked up, shook her head at the sound reaching her on the bottom floor. The place looked ordinary to her swift search.

Where was the secret elevator?

"What's going on, Quick?" Currenta only bothered making her head more human.

"I can't find the stupid door." Quick looked around. "The last one had one to an underground lair."

"Let me see what I can do before Fortress wrecks the place." The water woman spread her body out. The puddle reached across the floor, sliding under the baseboards. A pseudopod extended back. "There's a door right here."

Quick rushed over to the barren spot, feeling the surface of the wall with her gloved hands. She found a crack in a blink.

"I can't get this open."

"We can." Poster Girl and the Replacement hovered in the room. "Step clear."

Quick backed off. Poster Girl and the Replacement hit the wall. Metal screamed under the impact. An elevator shaft yawned open, no cab in sight. The revealed doors fell down inside the shaft opening.

"See you." Poster Girl dove down for the cab at the bottom.

"Glory hound." Quick looked down the shaft. Poster Girl smashed through the top of the car, and out through the doors at the bottom. The Replacement shrugged and followed.

Splashing water told Quick that Currenta had also descended the shaft.

"You're awful slow for someone calling herself Quick." Granite rushed by with thundering steps and jumped down the hole.

"Even the rock is talking smack." Quick shook her helmeted head. "I can't believe this."

Quick blasted down the tunnel, running on the wall with her incredible speed. She hopped through the hole in the lift's roof, then paused in the hall beyond. The others were heading in different directions, following the branches of the cross corridors locking onto the main entry. The magistrate did a complete search of the building in a couple of seconds before returning.

"Everybody's running to the back of the place." Quick pointed in the direction she meant. "I'm going to hold them off until I get some help."

Quick returned to the other side of the complex, blind-siding anyone who got in her way. Everyone must be fleeing that way to reach some kind of escape hatch. If she could keep them away from that, the team would have a clean haul.

That meant no more clones as far as she was concerned.

Fortress shrank to get inside the house, then walked down the steps to the first floor. She spotted the opening in the wall as Watcher ran in from outside.

"My power isn't going to help down there." Fortress pointed at the opening.

"I want you to grow as tall as you can and wait for a call." Stark jogged over to the opening, found a ladder he could use on the wall. "We might need you to help us round up anybody who makes it to the street."

"Will do, boss."

Stark started down the ladder, wincing at the sound of breaking timbers overhead. He reached the bottom, telling his helpers to look for anyone in a hurry. Fortress stood out on his display as she looked around. He dropped through the hole behind his team.

"Quick said everyone is heading to the other side of the place." Poster Girl hovered to one side, listening. "We were about to herd everyone that way."

"I'm going to look for the central command." Watcher blasted a camera in the hall. "Be careful."

"A bunch of mad scientists." Granite clumped down the hall. "How hard could this be?"

"He means watch out for yourself." Poster Girl took off down the hall.

Jeff Ashcroft flexed his hands as he watched the A-team ship out. He wasn't fond of the idea of scrambled molecules being converted to electrical impulses and sent all over the globe. Visions of the Fly kept dancing through his head.

"Last call for Kansas." Kevin Reilly typed in the coordinates on the control panel.

"Go ahead, Kevin." John Public straightened his jacket, eyeing the dirt on the front of it.

Jeff winced as the glow took him away. A flat plain greeted him after the wink. A partially destroyed house marked the start of a small village that looked a few hundred years out of place. Winged things hovered in the air over a hill at the other end of the village.

"It looks like there's only one place to go." Public was at Jeff's side, frowning at the hill.

"Let's do this." Jeff pulled one of his imaginary guns to life. "I have a feeling we won't be alone for long."

"Here they come." Luna started walking toward the hill.

The winged monsters soared to gain altitude, and then swooped down on the group of heroes. The number seemed to double as the gargoyles descended, claws and talons outstretched. They needed the army.

Pointer started blasting with his pistols. Triple rose up in the air, firing one of his telekinetic balls. Holo took to the air, blasting with his lasers. Phaeton fired from the ground, conserving his energy for the real battle. The partial air defense blasted some of the gargoyles apart.

Then the surviving guards reached for those on the ground, while some tried to overrun the heroes in the air. The heroes couldn't stand against so many of the stone monsters.

Luna led the counterattack, breaking any of the gargoyles that came close. Pointer blasted away, moving forward to the castle. John Public began to pull guards down out of the sky, and smashing their heads with his hands. Holo and Triple resorted to blasting anything that looked like a threat in the air. Phaeton waited for stone lizards to get close before expending part of his precious energy on blasting them. Beatnik used the gargoyles as stepping stones to get clear. Puma Sai resorted to punching through stone bodies with his sais. The Saint waited for them to touch his white coat with their claws. They collapsed in a moment of self destruction.

"We need cover." Pointer blasted the closest enemy. "There are too many of these things."

"They're coming from that hill." Luna sliced through a group with her hand in a rotating blow like a figure skater. "That's their base."

"It's also the only place that seems out of place." Public smiled. "A giant hill in the middle of flat country?"

"I also sense something going on at the hill." The Saint calmly walked forward, light surrounding him. The gargoyles left him alone now.

A few blowing up had taught them to deal with threats they could touch.

"Holo, Triple." Ashcroft didn't want to send his air cover away, but felt he had to get at the big cheese. "Get over there and do what you can."

The two heroes blasted through the pile up, the triple man using his cannonball to clear a path. They disappeared from view after a few seconds.

"Invisible building." Public punched through several of the stone monsters.

"We should get the Saint in there." Luna snapped a neck. "They don't seem to bother him."

"Any ideas how to get him there." Pointer snapped off a flurry of blasts. "We just sent our only fliers."

"Not all of them." Phaeton grabbed the School member. "I'll get him there."

The solar hero blasted off through the crowd of monsters. He rocketed through the dark sky, landing on something only he could see. Then they vanished like Holo and Triple.

"I say we join them as fast as possible." Public waded through his enemies to get to the front of the fight.

"Second that." Pointer blasted a clear area around him.

"Break off and roll out." Luna glanced around at the pile of stones surrounding her, before walking toward the hill.

Beatnik bounced ahead, and began running toward the hill. Every third step was a prodigious leap across the dirt flat. Puma Sai resorted to slicing around him to get to where he once again had a partner to watch his back.

"You guys go ahead." Pointer blasted away, so Puma could catch a breath. "We'll catch up."

"You're coming with me." Public picked them up and started sprinting. "Let's go, Luna."

Mr. Rickert grimaced as he read the instruments in the passenger section of the fighter jet he had begged passage on. He had asked the pilot to fly as fast as his baby would go. His efforts brought the Kansas flat lands into sharp relief in a couple of hours after takeoff. A few more minutes and they should be over the center of the problem.

"We'll be over target in six minutes." The pilot hadn't spoken the whole trip. His voice seemed to echo louder than Rickert anticipated.

"Thank you." Rickert checked his straps again. "As soon as I bail, get out of there."

"No problem." The pilot made sure his oxygen mask was secure. "Good luck."

Rickert nodded. He had rarely gone in the field the last few years. Mentoring the Markers had brought out his need to look out for others. He hoped they understood why he had to leave them behind.

He had risked his own life for a lot of years, first as a soldier, then as an agent. He had started risking it again helping them. They had enough problems being fugitives. He couldn't ask them to fight some menace that didn't have any connection to them. If they wanted to be heroes, they could do that after he was gone.

"Two minutes." The announcement sliced through his thoughts, made him reach for the lever.

He hoped he wasn't making a mistake.

"We are over the drop zone." The pilot brought the plane into a shallow climb to give his passenger that extra room to get clear.

Mr. Rickert pulled the release. The canopy blasted apart. Then his seat launched into space, tumbling as it flew from the jet. One hand released the chair buckles as he counted silently, then pulled his ripcord. The parachute filled the sky above him, slowing his fall into a drift with the wind.

Mr. Rickert stopped worrying about the pilot getting clear. He had more immediate problems as he descended toward what looked like a battle. If the winged things saw him as he dropped, and decided to take an issue with him dropping in, he would be dead before he hit the ground.

One hand pulled the goggles and patch away from his malformed eye. He dropped them as he floated down. He wondered where the others were, if they were still alive. Ray, Mike, and Porter, had all been in the program, had all gotten their grafts.

His eye channeled energy. He didn't know how it worked. He didn't care. All that mattered was he could blast away about five times before he collapsed from the pain. All he needed was one, if he blasted the right thing.

Mr. Rickert saw something that didn't make sense. A room stood on empty air. He aimed his parachute for it, looking for enemies as he dropped.

"I got your back, Mr. R." Andy Chen's outline appeared to his left, standing on the air.

"I thought I told you to stay home." Mr. Rickert frowned at his charge. "I think I remember that."

"I go where the action is." Andy's line of a mouth smiled like a happy face.

"We are going to talk about boundaries and listening." Rickert's face twisted. "Paying attention comes to mind."

"We have incoming, Mr. Rickert." Andy glanced down and to his left. "Looks like some guys from the School."

"Get us down on land." Rickert pointed to the exposed room. "We might be able to let things slide without getting involved after all."

"That wouldn't be any fun." Andy pushed the air in front of him, and that pushed the parachute. A few seconds later, Mr. Rickert hid behind a column of stone in a wrecked hallway. Andy hovered beside him, invisible in the dim light.

The government super soldiers landed a few feet away.

Maker walked through the digital world she had created when she hacked into the security of the secret lab. Switching off alarms and cameras were a snap. Her colleagues seemed to be having an easy time dealing with the scientists and technicians.

Changing the vault combinations certainly helped.

Maker found phone calls in a stray memory. A few moments of concentration and she knew everyone who called, where they were, and partial records except for one number who always called in. That number had to be the head honcho.

Maker turned her tech on the problem, surfing through the communications grids of the world. Node after node revealed false leads along with the one trail she wanted. Focusing her scan allowed her to pick up the scent again and again.

No one went to that much trouble if they didn't have something to hide.

Maker smiled when the trail stopped cold.

"Watcher." Maker waited for the radio to hook up. "I have a lead. I'm putting it in a file to send over where you can find it later. I'm going to track it down if I can."

"Take someone with you." Watcher was theoretically in command. He knew he couldn't stop a magistrate short of arresting him, or her. Diplomatic immunity would stop that ploy in a second.

"That's okay." Maker gutted Dr. Krueger's records and sent them back to the Tower. "Everyone is busy. Security is shutdown, and the specimen cages are locked. Have a good time."

"Be careful." Static marked Watcher's laser gun firing.

"This should be an easy takedown." Maker left a shadow to watch out for the School team and Quick before she disconnected.

Maker dialed the Tower's Step. The satellite couldn't lock on the exact location of the phone number. She frowned under the featureless helmet. That was almost the same as the spot in Kansas.

Definite connections to the problem made her happy.

Maker triggered the beam. The flipping motion left her standing outside of an office building. She looked up, knowing that her quarry must be on the upper floors. Villains tended to do that.

Maker decided to enter through the exterior after a quick scan. No sense triggering alarms while she had to make her way through the building. Busting through an outside wall should just be as easy.

Her factories built a scanner over her eyes. A beam sliced through the wall, revealing the innards to her computers. She smiled when she found a room that seemed to be an office containing one person in the middle of the floor.

That had to be her man.

Maker looked for an entrance to keep the violence to a minimum. The man in the office didn't seem like much of a threat physically. A quiet approach should work.

Maker ascended to the roof. She landed gently, already changing her finger to a lock disabler. Two turns of the knob and the door popped open without a protest. She slipped inside, calling up the glooper.

That should be more than enough until she figured the exact problem.

Maker made her way down to the office floor. She liked the way there weren't any personnel around. That made it easier for her to do her job.

Maker kicked the door in. She took aim with the glooper. The dancing letters on the floor were enough to confirm her suspicions.

"Hands up." Maker advanced into the room.

"Higgins!" The man didn't stop writing on the floor. "I need you to see this lady out please."

The butler appeared out of thin air. A cloud of sulphur drifted around his feet. The look on his face was a bland dismissal.

"You heard the young master." Higgins waved his hand, indicating go in front of me.

Maker shot him with the glooper. Two problems for the price of one were not something she had counted on. At least one was down for the moment. Time to switch up.

Higgins pulled the white stuff apart with ease. He stood up, fires burning in his eyes. He smiled.

Maker shot him with a light gun made from her other arm. Higgins looked down at the hole blown through his torso. Maker shot him again, not liking the fact he was smiling.

"That's a very lethal choice of weaponry." Higgins took a breath, letting his body pull itself back together as he walked. "Unexpected from such a lovely lady."

"Not lethal enough." Maker aimed for his legs and blew them out from under him. That was a temporary solution based on his ability to regenerate.

Time to think of something else.

Maker stepped back as Higgins braced himself on his hands, getting his stumps under his body. The laser cannon switched to something his demonic brain didn't understand. The butler looked at it with a raised eyebrow.

Maker fired a sphere of energy at the butler. He took it in the chest, sure that it would barely affect him. The bullet boiled him away as it rotated in place. The orb sank to a point and then disappeared.

"Where were we?" Maker turned her black hole gun on the sitting man.

"Go to sleep." The apprentice made a sign with his hands. Maker dropped to the floor.

Lord Scriptus frowned. The castle guards should have multiplied enough to handle the possible threats to his world building regime. Instead it sounded like they were in the castle. He should have installed Higgins as his major domo instead of leaving him with Enoch.

Time to take a personal hand in matters so he could get on with his real business.

Lord Scriptus wrote on the floor to keep the flow moving. Then he wrote on the air. Heroes had invaded his lair. A television screen in the air told him that much. That taught him to rely on gargoyles.

He definitely should have brought Higgins with him once he got started.

One group was inside the castle, using the wreckage caused by Cowboy as an entrance. The other bunch charged his front door. They didn't seem to have detected the outer wall yet.

One thing at a time.

Scriptus wrote on the air. Tentacles exploded out of the walls he was watching. The limbs wrapped around the group in the castle. The Saint touched the appendages, bursting them with white light. The Schooler went to help his comrades. The mage made a quick gesture. Stone wrapped around the man in white, locking him in place and away from the semi-living things the writer had summoned.

That seemed to take care of the intruders.

Scriptus turned his attention to the front gate. Once he dealt with them, he could go back to executing his plan. He should call Enoch and check on the boy. They were too close to foul up after the long effort to secure his training, and the rule of the other world.

What could he use that would hold the mighty School and Magistracy?

As John Public punched a hole in the gate, he decided the best ways were the tried ways. He could improvise later if he needed to do that. He wrote on the air again.

Whirling octopuses dropped on the heroes from above. As soon as they secured a grip, the trapped person in their clutches collapsed as their powers drained away and normal strength didn't equal his spell craft.

Luna stood alone. Somehow she had rammed her fingers through the summoned monster and killed it in a lightning flash.

He couldn't let that go unanswered.

Scriptus wrote on the air. The captives joined their friends out in his hall with a bend of reality. That made Luna pause to plan her next move.

That pause turned into a shattering of wood and metal as she punched through the castle's invisible gate and stepped into the revealed courtyard.

The writer smiled as he sketched symbol after symbol on air, and in his ongoing ritual. Maybe he had avoided confrontation for too long. He would do something about that when he was done.

First he had to deal with his opponent.

He watched as spears of lightning rained down in the courtyard. Luna stepped to avoid them as he knew that she would. She stepped on one stone near the middle of the yard. It gave way, sending her down a chute to a room of sludge under the castle.

"Let her try to fight her way out of that."

Lord Scriptus knew he had bought some time, just not how much. Three teams had shown up on his doorstep. He could expect the Odd Squad next, maybe the Strikers. Then the individuals might show up in their own good time.

Hopefully he would get done with his plan before he had to fight the whole planet. Once the balance had tipped far enough, any foe would be forced to deal with the new reality before they could try and deal with him.

And he wouldn't be tied down with his spell working then.

Lord Scriptus looked over his prisoners. Jerry Silver was eyeballing him. He didn't like that at all.

"Something I can do for you?" The writer filled in more slots before they drifted away.

"Just wondering how good it will feel to punch you in the face." Silver shifted on the pile, smiling at the magician.

"I don't think I have to worry about that any time soon." Scriptus smiled. "All your assistance is captured and I am able to continue. There's nothing you can do to stop me."

Aaron Stark walked the halls of the underground lab, glad that something had gone right. His people and Quick had surprised the techs. That meant their powers and weapons had herded the underlings into takedowns and on site arrests before they could escape.

Even Dr. Krueger, the big fish, had been taken with very little violence.

The only fly in the ointment was Maker taking off on her own.

Stark checked the location she had sent over. His agents in the sky had a view of a skyscraper in Houston. No people in, no people out as far as they could tell from orbit.

Stark had the local feds coming to take over for his team, bothered that Maker hadn't radioed back. He didn't know her very well, but she would have at least called Quick with information. He knew she hadn't. His combat rig sifted radio transmissions automatically, even encrypted ones.

Stark had to make a combat decision based on limited information. That was something he didn't like to do.

Someone had to stay behind to guard the scene, especially the vaults. He decided that Poster Girl would have to do it. Her limited power may, or may not, come in handy. In any case, she could catch up after the place was handed over.

Time to round up the troops and get going.

"Maker went after someone connected to the lab on her own." Stark told Quick after finding her near the elevator access. "I'm going to post a guard, then go after her."

"I'll talk to Reilly and get a step ready." Quick took one last look around for any hidden surprises. "We'll get there as soon as he can aim the beam on us."

"Right." Stark started away. "I'll get the others together so we can go."

Stark rounded up the members of his team quickly. A check with his lookouts told him that their relief was rolling along a few miles away.

"Quick is arranging for us to track down the rest of whomever was involved in this place." Stark checked Houston again. "Poster Girl, I want you to stay behind until our back up gets here. Then I want you to head to Kansas, unless you hear different before then. This place has to be taken care of first. Do not let anyone open those vaults until we get back."

"Got it, boss." Poster Girl gave a salute.

"I talked to Kevin." Quick appeared at their side. "He's ready."

"We're ready too." Stark looked over his team. He didn't like going from one battle to the next, but couldn't think of any options. "Do we have to be outside?"

"It'll make it easier." Quick disappeared, leaving a fading image to point the way she had gone.

"Let's roll." Stark tried to call Pointer to relay what they were doing. Static replied. That couldn't be good.

The School climbed up the elevator shaft and out to the ruined cover house. Quick stood out on the grass. She didn't look happy to the Watcher. A stray transmission told him she was trying to call someone on her network.

"What's wrong?" He had a feeling that she was having the same problem he just did, and not liking it.

"No one is answering in Kansas." Quick looked around. "I don't know if it's because of that field, or because no one is there to answer. I'm worried."

"No one is answering my call either." Watcher aimed his spies at the flat plains of Kansas. "I can't see anything but these winged lizards in the air."

"That can't be good." Quick tapped her foot against the ground, wearing a pattern in the grass.

"We have to check this other thing out." Stark knew exactly how she felt. "Pointer can handle his end."

"I hope you're right." Quick triggered her com. "Kevin, we're ready to go."

The now familiar flipping whirled Stark's stomach for a second as his systems paused to reboot. He held his hand up to keep everyone in place. He wanted to be able to see again before he went into a battle.

Finally his agents made their connection. He should have expected that. Nothing was really hurt by it, but he would remember next time, if there was a next time.

"I'll have to do some recon before we go in." Stark told his team. "I want you guys to spread out and get ready to hit that building right there."

He pointed to the black monolith sticking out against the skyline.

"Stick with me, Quick." Stark moved to a corner, aligning his sight on the building. "I'll need fast transport if Maker was right."

Quick nodded, rubbing her hands together as she followed him.

Ray Hammet hoped he was doing the right thing. There were plenty of those winged monsters on watch, but it looked like they were calming down. Maybe he could sneak into the invisible castle now.

The question of a disguise crossed his mind.

Ray kicked the snorer in the head to make sure he didn't wake up at the wrong time. He took the guy's smelly shirt and switched his dirty, flaked, shirt for it. His skin covered his plates again. Hopefully the big things couldn't tell one human from another.

Ray walked from the hut, using it for cover as much as possible. The idea was to act like a villager deciding to sneak up to the castle. The main problem with his plan was anticipating what the guards would do.

He needed to look like a low priority target next to everything else that had happened so far.

Ray smiled as he crossed from one shadow to another until he reached the hut nearest the hill the castle sat on. Here came the hard part. He crept along, bending over double, forcing himself to keep low, and go slow. He reached the hill unchallenged and forced back a laugh of relief.

Ray worked his way around the hill until he came to the main gate. A hole had been punched through it by someone. He pulled on the edges, glad the wood came away in his hands without much of a struggle. Silent feet carried him into the courtyard.

Ray looked for a door, avoiding what looked like a white patch on the courtyard floor. The rest of the stones were a universal grayish brown. A white patch could mean anything. He decided not to test it and find out.

Ray found a door leading into the central keep. Up and to the right was the room he had seen from the air. He didn't know if the way was clear to get up there. The floor had looked wrecked the few seconds he had been able to look at it.

On the other hand, he didn't have anything better to do, and couldn't exterminate all the gargoyles by himself. He might as well look to see if he could find steps leading up there. Worse came to worse, he could climb the outside if he had to do it.

Ray checked the door, not surprised that it opened to his touch. He entered slowly, hoping he was doing the right thing. Heroes had broken in ahead of him. He didn't hear a fight going on. That usually meant bad news for the good guys.

Ray searched the lower level, glad to find the hill of debris that confirmed his guess. He looked for a stairwell, and one presented itself in a column to the left of the collapsed floor. He started climbing, alert for any guards.

Ray reached the top. He listened before stepping out on the floor. Low voices talked to each other. He hoped it was somebody he knew.

Ray stepped into the hall, not quite activating his transformation. A man in a jumpsuit stood next to a group of wrapped heroes. Something about the free man's profile reminded him of his past.

"Stand and be recognized." Ray stood in shadow, ready to step forward and swing an arm, or to dodge back into the stairwell.

The free man turned. One eye seemed normal, the other bulged the socket. The narrow face beneath drew down in sharp angles.

Then he smiled in recognition.

"Ray! Ray Hammet." Mr. Rickert laughed like pebbles falling into water. "I thought you were dead."

"Not yet." Ray stepped out in clearer light. "I heard you still worked for the government."

"I had to turn in my notice." Rickert's good eye clouded with memory. "Something came up and I had to clear out my office."

"I thought you would be a company man until you wound up in the ground." Ray smiled.

"I did too." Rickert turned back to the man he had been talking to when Ray interrupted. "I think we have a good chance to end this."

"I don't have a problem with that." The tentacles around Phaeton squeezed as he shifted. "Break out the Saint first."

The Battle of Houston started with Watcher's go ahead. Checking his satellites showed that Maker had entered the building through the roof. She had gone to the floor where the single heat source still sat. The picture went blank from some kind of discharge. Then the guy took center stage again.

The Watcher knew that Maker's armor could be blocking his heat vision. If she was down in the room, he couldn't order a full assault. Her boyfriend would have his head, not to mention Silver.

Additionally simply bringing down a building in the middle of Houston was out of question.

"Granite, Replacement, Fortress. You three enter the lobby and roll up to the thirty third as fast as you can. Currenta. We need you to come in undercover." Watcher hoped the three heavy hitters could handle things while the elemental was getting into place. "Quick, we're going in first for an assessment. If Maker is down, you get her clear and come back."

"Everybody ready?" The heroes nodded. "Let's go."

The Replacement swept Granite and Fortress up in his arms and barreled toward the lobby. He flung Granite in front of him, letting the stone body smash through the front doors in a spray of glass.

Currenta flowed behind the man in the black, filling the slots surrounding the glass windows. She started up the outside of the building.

"Hold your breath, Watcher." Quick took three deep breaths as she watched the others. She grabbed Watcher around the waist as he fiddled with his helmet. Then they stood in the office.

Watcher was supposed to identify himself as an officer of the law, ask for a cease and desist all activities, and ask for hands up, face down.

He saw that Maker lay on the floor, writing wandered on the floor by itself, and the subject was surprised by their arrival. Maker vanished as he triggered his helmet. He'd risk a lawyer getting the guy off later.

A beam bright as a noon day sun lit up the room. Watcher didn't miss the lines of a column rising out of the floor. That made his choice of a flare better than trying to punch through with his laser.

Watcher made a split second decision based on his combat experience as a School team leader. He hoped he wouldn't be court-martialed after everything was said and done.

"Fortress, I need you to blow the floor out asap." Watcher switched to the laser, smiling grimly as the beam splattered against the shield.

Quick reappeared at Stark's side, as he went back to the flare. The mage looked like he was recovering his sight.

"Get ready." Watcher stepped back to the edge of the room.

A giant fist crashed through the floor. The office came apart. The mage looked around, panic erasing his abilities. He fell down the shaft the giantess had smashed through from the tenth floor.

A wave of lightning formed a wall as the letters exploded on the remains of the floor. Quick snatched Watcher up and fled. She carried him down past the falling floors, furniture, smashed ceiling tiles, and broken lights while they were still trying to decide which path to follow.

The mage's fall took him in the middle of that mess, random objects beating him as gravity exerted its hold. He wrote to clear a bubble of open space so he could work some magic to deal with the meddlers.

The Replacement slammed against the mage, smashing him against a wall. Gloved hands punched the writer in the face, snapping his brain around in his skull enough to induce sleep. The black marvel descended with his prize.

The debris fell into the lobby, sending Granite scrambling for cover. He winced at the huge pile of junk heading for the street. The rest of the building started down after it.

"Overkill?" Quick and Watcher stood outside the monolith, looking at the caving in of the villain's headquarters.

"I didn't think it would fold like a house of cards." Watcher's helmet didn't hide the chagrin in his voice. "We have to do something to keep it from falling on the rest of the buildings."

A huge bubble of water surrounded the black monolith. It remained in place for a minute, holding the building up. Then it slowly rained down, letting the fragments drop down without harming anything.

The Replacement followed Granite from the rubble. Fortress wiped water from the front of her tunic as she stepped out of the pile. The impromptu lake whirled into a woman's form, walking behind the rest.

"I'm impressed." Quick smiled behind her tinted faceplate.

"I'm surprised." Watcher took a look at the Kansas situation as his team reassembled. "I didn't think Currenta could do that."

"Maker's out of it." Quick glanced in the direction where she had hidden her teammate. "I think something has been done to her."

"Let's solve the rest of the problem." Watcher didn't state the obvious. If they didn't stop what was going on in Kansas, Maker's sleeping would not be that big a problem.

Lord Scriptus felt his anchor snap in faraway Texas. He closed his eyes, knowing that he had stopped one group, but the other had taken Enoch. He needed time to rethink the spell, to rework the parameters so he wouldn't burn up.

Of course the two dimensions crashing together out of control had to be stopped.

First he had to save his son.

The writer formed two symbols in the air while still filling in the slots on the floor as fast as his hands could trace the letters. The summoning brought his injured son to the invisible castle, battered but free.

He needed to rethink his strategy. He still had three sources he could use to bolster his own powers for as long as they remained in stasis. He needed to get rid of his visitors. So much for the idea of using them as templates for future soldiers.

Better a dead enemy than a live nuisance.

The writer raised his hands to sacrifice his victims where they laid bound. That would give him enough of a push to straighten the dimensional balance until he could try again. They would save the Earth, just not the way they wanted.

A wave of psychic pressure ripped up the floor in a trench, battering against the spell wall that formed the fulcrum of the merging spell. Lord Scriptus slid back under the mental power hacking up his sanctum from the door.

He must have missed one of the defenders somehow.

He could fix that easily enough, but first he had to make sure Enoch was safe.

Scriptus wrote on the air. Enoch vanished, surrounded by the letters. Everything would be told to him whether the writer made his own escape, or not, in the next few minutes. It was the best he could do while tied to the castle.

Believer rolled on top of the pile of bodies. He thought it was some desperate gesture. He sealed the door from intruders with two moves of his fingers. Buying time meant a chance to rebuild his defenses before something worse happened.

Believer's pistol roared white flame. Her arms snapped free as the bullet burned away her bonds. The dragon kept going, smashing open the Chemist's cell as it passed. He quivered as he tried to remember what he should do.

Believer snapped her pistol forward, firing two more flame throwing blasts at the writer. This was the end for the mage if she could help it.

Scriptus wrote build shield mirror wall in quick succession as the twin blasts hurtled toward him. The ground at his feet erupted into a silvery barrier in front of him. He hoped it would stop the flaming doom bearing down on him.

The two shots struck the column around the wizard. The spell craft shattered under the impact. The beams hit the mirror, crazing it over into a spider web before bouncing into the ceiling.

The barrier over the door came apart under another blast of psychic turbulence. Rocks shattered into pieces and tried to pierce anything in the way.

I have to get out of here. This is getting out of control.

Believer stood among her allies, pistol leveled, black armor highlighting the white cross on the front into a glowing mark. The Chemist stood to her left, awake and aware. A large group of meddlers stood at the door, a man with mismatched eyes leading the charge, bordered by Triple.

Scriptus summoned his gargoyles, filling up the room. That should buy him time to get away. Too bad about the Earth and Ozmikia. There were other places he could go to restart.

"Kill them all, Captain." Scriptus ordered as he prepared to follow his son into exile. "Don't let any of them escape."

"Run away, coward." Silver looked up, still trying to get his arm wrap off.

"We're easy pickings here." Graft's voice sounded from under Cowboy. "Think about it."

"I call for a duel, Scriptus." Chemist's voice cut through the turmoil as he wrote on the air. "It's time we meet on the field of honor."

The wrappings around the captives fell away, the opponents on each side froze as the dimension spell stopped flowing on the stone. The Persian dropped from the ceiling in an invisible grip. Buddy uttered profanity as his cell broke apart. Crystalmach joined her team leader, standing by his side.

"Just you and me, writer versus writer." The Chemist straightened his glasses.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing, Chemist?" Silver fished out a cigarette and lit it.

"Yes." The Chemist looked around. "This is your only chance to escape, Scriptus. What do you say?"

"I agree." The writer looked at the assemblage surrounding his soldiers. They would buy time, but he had lost either way. A duel would give him his freedom. "My freedom versus captivity."

"I agree." The Chemist flexed his hands. "Shall we?"

The two mages wrote symbols depicting the battlefield of their choice. The castle started to fall into ordered heaps, moving spectators out of the way. The gargoyles moved to one side, the conglomeration of three teams to the other side. Silver smoked his cigarette as he brushed the dust off his jacket and khakis.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Pointer stood next to Silver. "I can pop him with one shot from here."

"We can let the Chemist handle this." Silver tossed the butt away. "The problem that bothers me is what's happening while we're doing this."

"The universes are crashing together instead of simply surfing slowly into each other, young man." A man leaning on a cane seemed to step out of shadow. "I think you can do something about that, Buddy."

"Can't it wait?" Buddy's red eyes glowed. "This guy made me into a patsy. I want some kind of payback."

"It'll have to wait." V tapped his cane against the platform. "The universe is more important."

"I'm going." Buddy seemed to grow until he faded to a shadow of himself. "Give him one for me, pal."

Then the protector of the universe disappeared completely.

Fred Simpson lived in an alley in Manhattan with a space just big enough for his box. He wore clothes from mission boxes. He ate out of dumpsters when he ate at all. Sometimes he drank for the taste.

He certainly couldn't get drunk anymore.

Fred had been someone once. He traded that for the privilege of being the protector of the universe. At the time it seemed like the thing to do. He felt he was at a dead end, and needed something to lift him out of all his problems. He didn't realize how much it would change his life, change his timeline, erase everything that made him Fred Simpson.

Everything gone, but the memory of what he had signed away on a cold day at the edge of the East River.

People called him Buddy, Mac, Mister, and sometimes Wino. No one called him Fred. That was a never was.

Buddy stood as tall as a galaxy, as ephemeral as a ghost. His vision took in lines of rotating platters that were the worlds/dimensions hooked to Earth and Ozmikia. The two golden discs touched, fractures running along the edges. Any second they would shatter like clay pigeons in a shooting gallery. Then the other realms would collapse into their vacuum, possibly breaking into their parts as they went.

Let me fix that.

Buddy placed his hands between the joining plates. He pushed on them as firmly as he dared. The thought that he could pierce the envelopes of the two worlds and destroy them made sure that he was gentle. The dimensions drew back into their ordained places, falling into their slots like beads on a chain. He smoothed over any ripples as best that he could.

It wasn't perfect, but he didn't see how to improve things over what he had done.

Buddy grabbed the plate that was the universe. He entered it through the top, shrinking as he fell back toward the Earth. He made sure not to disturb other inhabitants of the vast space, some humans wouldn't see ever. His starry form merged with the Milky Way, sank to a sun as he approached the Earth, became normal height as he floated down through the atmosphere.

Buddy blinked across several boundaries to reappear over the ruined castle. He floated in midair, watching the duel without interfering. He could easily smash the area like a child with a toy. His impulse was to drop a fist like a meteor in the middle of things to express his ire. Instead he sat on the air and waited.

Maybe V was rubbing off on him.

He didn't know if that thought deserved more contemplation. He decided to not think about it and watch the fight below.

The Chemist and Scriptus formed whole words as they exchanged volleys of death rays, weird creatures, deadly things appearing out of thin air. At one point, blades of glowing letters danced between the two magicians like mad fencers. Sweat rolled from their bodies as their stage shrank, grew, became a thousand pieces of floating rock, settled to sand, bloomed into a man-eating plant. The magistrate touched his glasses with a finger tip as he seemed to stagger and fell. Buddy tensed as Scriptus approached with a gloating smile, and half-completed symbol.

Maybe he would have to do something after all.

"Surrender, Chemist." Scriptus smiled. "I'll spare your life."

"I was going to say the same thing." The Chemist stared at his opponent.

"I don't think so." Scriptus moved to stab with the rest of the letter he had created.

Weird light erupted from the Chemist's sunglasses. It enveloped the other writer. He looked around, holding his hands up as if something had slipped through his fingers. He screamed quietly as the light shut off.

Only Buddy realized what happened, maybe the glass lady from the CORPS would have if she had been able to see it like he had. A smile crossed his thoughts, but he knew the Chemist had maimed his enemy worse than simply killing him would have done.

The Chemist punched the hysterical Scriptus as hard as he could to get him on the ground. Then he put on manacles to keep him there while he dealt with the rest of the fallout. The remaining members of the School and Quick and the sleeping Maker arrived. He went into his counter spell to send everything back the way it had been. Buddy reached into the growing symbol, spurring it on.

A town grew around the gathered heroes, became a city of people wondering what had happened. Maker awoke in John Public's arms, laughing with him. Jerry Silver lit one more cigarette as he watched the battleground reverse itself around him.

Buddy blinked out. Manhattan was calling him, and he had to make sure his box was right where he liked it. He didn't get any licks in, but at least Scriptus would never work another spell again.

All of his magic had gone into the Chemist like light in a black hole.

Buddy walked the streets of his home, garbed in his rags, and gave another bum a dollar as he passed.

Time to have a better day.

epilogue

The four men convened around the conference table in Magistracy Tower, drinking coffee, and waving Jerry Silver's smoke away. Jerry, Pointer, Watcher and the Persian had taken a few days to make sure they weren't needed before working on the reports they had to file.

The Persian had already talked to his boss, and that was enough for him.

"How's the Chemist doing, Silver?" Pointer looked at his notes, hoping that he had glossed over the two strangers that had escaped into the crowd before anyone thought to stop them. A small windstorm had gotten in the way.

"He's doing." Silver puffed, sipped his coffee, and looked at the paperwork in front of him. The UN wouldn't give him a budget without a confirmed batch of notes to the threat being world ending. "Any luck finding those other guys?"

"No." The Watcher had lifted his visor of his helmet so he could enjoy drinking with the rest. "I don't know how they did it. Somehow they beat my sat network, and got away. I can't even begin to say I know what happened to that Buddy guy."

"Well, Enoch got away." Silver ground his cigarette out on the table. "I saw him before Believer busted us loose. His dad sent him away."

"Crys couldn't track him." The Persian stood instead of sitting. "She thinks he got shuttled to a dimension that she can't touch yet."

"He'll come on strong, wanting revenge for what was done." Silver sat back. "It looks like the only loose ends are Krueger and the money Scriptus owned."

"The doctor and his staff are properties of the US Government." Pointer tapped the table slightly. "They want to use him to make more things like Missile Man. Living weapons are so much better than what we have now."

"Don't start." Watcher shook his head. "Everything that Scriptus owned in his headquarters in Houston, and around the world was seized. Someone from DOT is running things until the company can be broken and sold off."

"DOT?" Silver's face tried to crawl for his hairline. "Department of Transportation?"

"Treasury." Watcher saw the blank look. "IRS, Secret Service."

"Putting the IRS in charge of money is like expecting a whole hand when you put your fingers in a meat slicer." Silver shook his head. "Scriptus still down?"

"Yes." Pointer looked at the monitors around the room. "He's locked up in a cell. Chemist did a number on his brain with that stunt he pulled."

"Couldn't happen to a better guy." Silver passed a cd over to the two members of the School and the purple and gold CORPS honcho. "Those are the tapes Maker downloaded from Krueger's lab."

"So we don't need the Nazi." Pointer started to smile. "Maybe we can get his deal rescinded."

"Maybe we can hand him over to the Israelis for trial." Watcher pulled his helmet's mask down to cover his face. "That should get some brownie points for us."

"Your director wouldn't like that." The Persian smiled slightly.

"Our director cares more about photo opportunities than doing real work." Pointer grimaced. "He's the guy we would all love to frame for something."

"Spoken like field agents the world over." Silver smiled. "Is there anything else, guys?"

"I think we got it all covered except that Buddy guy." Pointer rubbed his face. "What do we say about him?"

"Nothing." Silver pressed a few buttons on the table. A group image appeared of the assemblage at the castle. "Notice anything?"

"Our guy isn't there." Watcher leaned closer. "Why? Wait. Where did you get this?"

"I gave it to him." The Persian indicated his false eyes. "It's from my memory of what happened in the castle."

"He's not there in any of the pictures of that room." Silver waved a hand to say don't ask me. "Maker couldn't find him."

"I remember seeing him, and his advisor," The Persian said. "I can't explain why neither are in my memories, or in the downloads of memories."

"Magic." Pointer sipped more coffee. "That's what triggered everything in the first place. Magic explains it all."

"Magic is not an explanation." Watcher flushed under his dark skin. "I agree that's what happened. The Director wants a tangible threat evaluation."

"Good luck on that." Silver stood. "Sometimes the best you can do is say it's over. Let's move on to the next thing."

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