Issue #006 – – – – – controlled by Sarah Saunders – – – – – Credits 9

I ran like the wind.  Imo and Drake Chapterhouse tried their best to keep up, but on several occasions I had to stop and wait for them.  Drake was puffing and wheezing but I urged him to keep running.  I didn’t have great experience with vampires but I was fairly sure of two things; they had a strong appetite for revenge and they didn’t tire quickly.  Or at all, actually.

We were four blocks away before Drake demanded we stop and I had to wait there while he gasped for oxygen, bent double to his knees.  “You need to do a bit more cardio,” I told him.”
“Thank you for that,” he replied between heavy breaths, “It’s not every day that I get chased by the undead.”
“Really?” I asked.  “I can tell you don’t live Downtown.”

I’d kept my eyes open for something I could use if Knight caught up with us.  At my instruction, Imo snapped a wooden fence post to act as a pretty functional stake.  I’d hoped to see an Italian restaurant (if only to find out whether you can stop a vampire with a garlic bread) but there was no chance of that in this area.  Even the McDonalds was burnt out and looked like a bombsite.  “Is there a church near here?” I asked, with sudden inspiration.
“Yes, on the corner of 12th and Carlton,” Drake replied.  “But if Knight is more than a simple bloodsucker – and I believe he is – he’ll be able to enter.  It will hurt him, but not enough to stop him.”
“Really?  He wont burst into flames or something?  Huh.  Shows what I know.”
“Some would,” Drake confirmed.  “But not a vampire like him.  He’s a Master and on top of that I think he’s also an Abnormal.”
“He’s a super-powered vampire?” I gaped.  “How is that fair?”
“I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of this new drug that’s on the market, it’s called Joy.  It’s addictive properties are off the scale.  I was fairly sure that there was something supernatural about it because some of the users have demonstrated low level super-human strength and enhanced senses.  Some of them have just died, too.  It’s that sort of drug.  The trail led to Knight and that’s when I was captured.  I think he’s the source of the drug, though I don’t know how he makes it.”

“Are you ready to run again?” I asked.  “Because we can’t hang around here.  As a last resort, I have an ally who might be able to give Knight something to think about.”
“An ally?”
“Yes.  Another spellcaster, a bit like you only much more powerful.  No offense.”
“Hey!”  Drake complained.  “You don’t know how powerful I am!”
“Come on,” I told him, and we were off and running again.

I don’t know if we just outran and evaded Knight or if he didn’t actually bother to make much effort to chase us – but an hour later we were back in the familiar territory of Downtown and there had been no sign of him.  “Looks like we’re clear,” Drake said.  Imo rumbled, which may or may not have been agreement.  “Thanks for what you did.  You got me out.   I don’t think I was looking at a happy ending in there.”
“No problem,” I said.  “But it wasn’t an accident.  I was sent to get you out by the ally I was talking about.”
“What’s your ally’s name?” Drake asked.
“Melderact.  He’s a wizard, I think.  Old guy, grumpy, a bit of a villainous ‘conquer-the-world’ type.”
Drake’s mouth dropped open.  “Melderact?  The dragon?”
“Huh?” It was my turn to be confused and surprised.  “What do you mean?”
“Melderact is the name of a six thousand year old magical dragon.  He’s mentioned a lot in the Book Of Ages and also in the Chronicles of Kepul Na.”
“The what now?” I asked.
“Doesn’t matter.  Dangerous times call for strange allies, I suppose.”

“I’m glad you’re reasonable about it.  I wasn’t so quick to accept the situation.  Melderact has a bit of a yarn to tell you and he wants me to recruit you to save the world, or something.”
“I thought you said he was the conquer-the-world type?”
“Yes,” I nodded.  “But one thing at a time.”
“Okay.  I don’t really get that.  But okay.”
“So he thinks that you’re somebody that we need to have on side.”
“Who is we?  You, the Dragon Wizard and your quiet monstrous friend here?”
I nodded.  “That’s the team so far.”
“Well, look.  You saved my life tonight and I owe you.  I’m certainly not going to miss a chance to save the world, but you’ll excuse me if I don’t immediately trust the Evil Reptilian Mastermind?”
“I’d be disappointed if you did,” I agreed.
“I may need some help in return,” Drake Chapterhouse said, seriously.  “This drug.  Joy.  It’s terrible.  It’s destroying hundreds of lives and it’s spreading fast.  At the moment it’s confined to a few areas of the city, but once it really catches on we’ll never stop it.  I’ll need your help to do something about that too.”
“Isn’t helping the helpless what us unlicensed Abnormals do?” I grinned.
“Unlicensed?”  Drake Chapterhouse said.  “I don’t need a license.  I don’t have powers.  What I do is powered by knowledge.  Even this city can’t insist you have a license for learning.”
“Not sure the Bullies would take precisely the same view,” I pointed out.

Later, we were sitting in the living room of Melderact’s rental.  Drake and Melderact were staring suspiciously at one another and for about ten minutes they’d been indulging in a kind of low level battle of “who’s the biggest man” only with magic instead of testosterone as it’s primary fuel.  “You may understand the Ninth Circle of Summoning,” Drake said, “But that’s what everybody thinks until they have a demon slurping on their eyeballs.”
“Bah!  Demon?  I eat demon’s for breakfast,” Melderact countered.
“Well then dealing with a lowly vampire should be easy.  Why was it that you didn’t want to go after Knight again?”
“It is not so simple…!” The Wizard raged.
“But surely one of your summoned demons could easily…”
“Stop!” I shouted.   Imo rumbled in agreement from the dark corner of the room.  “Gentlemen.  This is getting us nowhere.”
“You’re right,” Drake agreed.
Melderact nodded ruefully.  “We must begin picking at the truth of the world’s realignment,” he insisted.
“No.”  Drake countered.  “First we must stop the spread of Joy.  I wont be a part of some grand plan of yours until that’s taken care of.”
“Then we will find another!” Melderact roared angrily.
“We wont,” I said, stopping them both before they got started again.  “We need Drake’s help, and he is right.  If this drug is half as terrible as he claims then we have a responsibility to act and stop its spread.”

Melderact’s face was so red that I was worried he might blow a gasket.  But he calmed himself before grunting an assent.  “Very well.  We will take care of this matter, then we will be about the rather more serious issue of putting the world back as it should be.”
“We’ll look into that,” Drake said, clearly still doubting that the wizard was providing the full truth.  “After the drug operation is closed down.”
“But this will mean taking on a vampire drug lord, on his home turf.  We’ll be up against both his vampiric resources and his drug ring,” I said.
“It all boils down to Ivan Knight,” Drake explained.  “Take him out of the picture and the rest will come tumbling down.”
“Are you sure?” Melderact sneered.  “Surely he will have subordinates who are trained to run aspects of his business?”
“No,” Drake said.  “Not really.  Like most criminal masterminds, he doesn’t trust people enough.  He does much of the top level work himself.”
“Well killing one vampire lord amidst his drug empire sounds doable.” I grinned.  “How hard could it be?”

Issue #005 – – – – – controlled by Fraser Machin – – – – – Credits 2

The inside of the industrial complex was a ruin.  Some of the halls and rooms were empty, others were full of smashed and broken furniture.  The place smelt odd, a cross between a garbage dump and a old hospital, the combination being fairly unpleasant.  Nevertheless, it proved to be as useful as Lionheart had hoped.

The group were gathered in a large room that had once been a canteen.  Lionheart had split them into teams and sent them out to search the complex.They had light thanks to Fe Guerrero who had secured a small generator and fuel during their brief search of the building for useful items and had turned out to be quite an experienced electrician while connecting it all up.  Truck and Neanderthal had returned with heavy wheeled gurneys and bedding which meant that they all had something comfortable to sleep on.  Man Mountain found some food – though it was limited to some dried and tinned goods he’d turned up in an old store room.  They weren’t going to be dining fine with powered custard and milk, chunks of fruit and tins of stewed steak in gravy, but neither were they going to starve.

“Anybody see any weapons?” Lionheart asked.
“Nothing boss,” Sally Slab confirmed.  “But this place is immense.  We’ve barely seen a fraction of it.”
“We’ll explore more later,” Lionheart said.  “Right now I want to talk to you all.”
“What about?” Neanderthal rumbled.
“We’ve got a safe place to hole up,” Lionheart said, “But what do you all want to do next?  What’s the plan?”
“If we had a plan,” Fe Guerrero said bitterly, “We wouldn’t have ended up fighting in the Gentleman King’s arena.”
There were nodded assents from around the table.  Then Truck said: “What do you want to do?”
Lionheart frowned a moment and then said:  “Something weird is going on with me.  I don’t know what it is.  But at the same time I don’t like what you are telling me about the city.  I don’t like it at all.”
“Who does?” Sally asked.
“So I think we need to try and shake things up a bit.  Stop some of the crime, both that committed by the bad guys but also the crimes committed by the authorities.  I guess what I’m saying is that we have a team here.  We’ve all been through the ringer.  I think there is safety in numbers and it’s good to have friends.  So why not stick together and try to do something good?  We’ve got a lot of combined power here in this room.  Others have not.  Maybe we have a responsibility to help those who can’t help themselves?”
For a moment the others said nothing.  But then Truck said: “You got my vote, buddy,” and Sally Slab clapped his shoulder and suddenly the whole group were cheering.

Another few hours and the canteen was looking more homely.  They’d found a radio and an old TV, a bit more food, blankets and chairs.  At Lionheart’s instruction, Truck and Sally Slab had set up some basic traps through the building so that they might at least hear if anybody was approaching.  A system of watches was set up at the front of the complex to keep an eye out for intruders.  Man Mountain and Area51 were tasked with searching deeper into the many rooms and corridors that had not yet been investigated.  Fe Guerrero had gone out to try and “secure” some more fuel and had returned with a large metal drum full of it.  Nobody asked where he’d got it.

Lionheart had spent his time mapping out the parts of the building they were using.  He had four alternate routes of escape from the canteen – which was a useful base of operations since it had access to several areas and it was difficult to get bottled up if enemies tried to trap them there.   He had seen that this group, while powerful and dangerous, genuinely had no Alpha personalities to lead it, which is why they had so comfortably defaulted to him.   He’d made some notes about each of them.  Neanderthal was almost child-like, quick to anger, quick to forgive.  He was happiest when he was simply doing as he was told.  Sally Slab was clever and friendly and seemed to have fallen into a second-in-command position with casual ease.  Fe Guerrero was very smart and practical, though he had no time for bullshit whatsoever.  Area51 was something of a mystery, keeping to himself most of the time.  Nevertheless, he was perfectly reasonable and easy enough to get along with.  Man Mountain was the most problematic of the group.  He had a bit of a mean streak and could be surly and difficult.  But he generally did as he was told.  Truck was the most affable of the group, with a very positive attitude.  But he was also somewhat naive.  Lionheart imagined people had been taking advantage of that his whole life.

“Hey look,” Neanderthal looked pleased with himself, “Look what I found!”  He had in his arms a huge pile of old materials.  Curtains, linen and the like.
“Great,” Man Mountain scoffed, “Some old cloth.  The world is saved.”
Neanderthal frowed at that but then said: “Boss said to find this stuff.”
“I did,” Lionheart confirmed.  “We are going to need costumes.  Can’t make costumes without cloth.   But we need other materials too.”
“There’s loads of it where this came from,” Neanderthal looked very pleased with himself.  “A whole big room full.”
“Any leather?” Sally Slab asked, hopefully.
“There’s old clothes too.  Some leather jackets,” Area51 confirmed, walking in behind Neanderthal and sporting a biker’s jacker.  “It’s a storeroom, but it looks like it was also some kind of lost property.  There’s plenty in there.  We should be able to do a lot with it.”
“Great!”  Lionheart nodded.  “Well done.”

“Hey!”  Fe Guerrero interrupted them.  “Listen to this!”  He’d been tinkering with the radio and trying to tune it to a station.  Apparently, he’d been successful because a news reporter was crackling out of the speakers.

“Breaking News!  The City Center has been brought to a standstill by the appearance of what appears to be a flying pirate ship.  The police confirm this may be the same ship that was responsible for the murders yesterday.  Individuals dressed in pirate costumes had dropped down on ropes and are presently ransacking the City Mutual Bank.  Police had secured the area but have not approached due to the apparent presence of a number of super-powered individuals.  The cities licensed Abnormal operatives have been contacted but none are as yet on scene.  If they do not arrive soon, these villains may escape with their Pieces Of Eight.”

“Pirates?”  Man Mountain said.  “Really?”
“Apparently,” Lionheart agreed.  “What do you all think?”
“What do you mean what do we think?”  Fe Guerrero asked.
“There’s an old truck at the back of the parking lot.  I found it earlier while I was mapping our escape routes.  It’s in poor condition, but it runs.  Do we want to get involved? We could be there in ten minutes.”
“Get involved?” Area51 tasted the words, like some new delicacy.
“We have to start sometime,” Lionheart said.  “But it’s up to you.”
“No boss,” Sally Slab told him, accenting the word deliberately.  “It isn’t.  It’s up to you.”

Issue #006 – – – – – controlled by Bill Treadwell – – – – – Credits 10

Hourglass probably thought she could drink, but Cassandra had spent years with the Helix City Police Department and this had properly prepared her.  So it was that she awoke the next day – feeling rough but functional – while Hourglass was still slumped on the couch beside her.  At some point in the evening the All-Seeing Eye had made his apologies and left but Cassandra had done her best to get more information out of them once the pair were thoroughly lubricated.

In truth, Cassandra felt that she had been given the straight facts as they understood them.  She wasn’t yet convinced that they were right – all this talk of alternate realities and “other selves” just sounded like some bad movie, written, produced and directed by the Science Fiction Channel.  But then again, she did have a costume and powers and really had no knowledge how any of that had happened.  Uncomfortably, she had to admit that their story seemed to fit what she felt and had observed.

The pair had finished an extensive drinking session near dawn at Hourglass’ home, a small flat in one of the old apartment blocks overlooking the bay.  It wasn’t much to look at, but it was a place to rest.  Cassandra had not yet decided if she was ready to give up her job – and by definition her home and her life – so she phoned in sick to avoid the need to attend her shift.  Given that several of her colleagues had been killed the day before she knew she could take some time off before anybody began asking questions.  They would presume she was dealing with the shock of the incident.  They had no way to understand that her feelings for those colleagues were oddly blank – as though the people who had died had never been her friends, but characters in a work of fiction.

“Come on,” Cassandra shoved Hourglass.  “You can’t sleep all day.  We’ve got recruiting to do.”  Hourglass stirred on the couch and opened bloodshot eyes to peer up at her.  For a moment it looked like she had no idea who she was looking at, but then she smiled weakly: “Head is pounding.  Feel sick.”
“Lightweight,” Cassandra told her.
“Give me a couple of hours,” Hourglass choked.  Her voice was hoarse.
“I don’t want to sit about here for hours waiting for you.  If you’ve got another Misfit to bring in, let me go and check them out.  I’m fairly experienced at investigation, after all.”
“Okay,” Hourglass said.  “Give it a shot.  There’s a place on Monmouth Avenue, number 1250.  All-Seeing Eye says there’s a young man there, unlicensed, may have powers.  Worth checking out.”
“1250 Monmouth, got it,” Cassandra said, grabbing her costume.
“No suits in the daytime,” Hourglass said.  “Help yourself to clothes from my wardrobe.  Keep your costume in a bag in case you need it.”  With that she turned over and buried her face in the cushions.

She arrived at the address she had been given a little before three PM.  The neighbourhood had seen better days but wasn’t a complete bust and the house itself was well kept in comparison to some of the others along the road.  She approached the front and knocked on the door.  It opened and a grey-haired woman peered out: “Can I help you?”
“Officer Stormsov, Helix City PD,” Cassandra told her, flashing her badge.  “I’m investigating a disturbance in the area and hoped I could ask you a few questions?”
The woman blinked: “I don’t know anything about a disturbance.”
“Perhaps not, ma’am,” Cassandra said, “But I’d just like to ask you a few things which may help with our enquiries.”
Nodding, the woman let Cassandra into the house and guided her through to the lounge.  There were two people already there – an immense man and a youth.  The big man was huge in every respect, perhaps six foot five, broad-shouldered, massively overweight.  He rumbled as Cassandra came in: “Who the fuck is this?”
“This lady is a police officer,” the Woman said.  Something passed between them – a look.  Cassandra noted it.  She also noticed how skittish the younger man became.

“This is my husband Ralph and our son Tag.”
“Nice to meet you,” Cassandra nodded, staying absolutely professional.  It was common for there to be an atmosphere when a cop was brought into a home, she’d experienced it many times.  Sometimes it meant something criminal was going on, sometimes it was just a hostility to the law.  But here it was so strong that it was tangible.  Something at the back of her mind was tingling and buzzing – like some kind of warning.  Like some kind of sixth sense.  Cassandra recognised it for what it was immediately, as if she had always had this power and had just briefly forgotten it.  It was like meeting an old friend and feeling like no time at all had passed.

“What ya want?” Ralph rumbled.
“She says she is investigating a disturbance,” the woman told him.
Ralph gripped the arms of his chair and pulled himself up to his full, awesome height.  He filled the small room like some ancient colossus.  Jesus, Cassandra thought, he must weight five hundred pounds.  “What sort of disturbance?” the big man rumbled dangerously.
Cassandra improvised: “There was an incident  last night.  Somebody was stabbed.  I wondered if any of you had seen anything?  Heard anything?”
“Nope,” the Big Man growled.  “None of us seen nuthin’. ”  He crossed his huge arms across his barrel chest, resting them on the top of his enormous belly.
“How about you?” Cassandra asked the young man.  He had said nothing so far, but he certainly looked worried about something.
“Nobody was stabbed last night,” He said.  He looked terrified.
“I can assure you they were,” Cassandra told him.
“No,” the young man shook his head.  “I would have seen it.”
“Shut up, boy,” the Big Man warned.
“Why would you have seen it?” Cassandra pressed.
“You asking too many questions,” Ralph took a step closer.  The older woman backed out of the room.  The younger man, Tag, seemed to sink into his chair.
“I’m a police officer,” Cassandra said cooly.  “It’s my job to ask questions.”  But Ralph wasn’t listening. Instead, he was charging at her, his eyes full of rage and fury.
“No, Ralph, no,” the other woman screamed.  “She’s police!”
“Don’t care if she’s the  President,” the Big Man roared: “She’s about to be minced.”

Issue #006 – – – – – controlled by Keith Nixon – – – – – Credits 107

Got Gal sat on the comfortable leather couch in the old man’s lounge.  The house was a rambling old building set back from the main run of the suburbs in a leafy lane which seemed less organised than elsewhere.  They’d made it safely back without challenge and Got Gal was enjoying some iced fruit punch and a cheese sandwich.  She’d intended to ask for pickle with it, but the old man had provided exactly what she wanted without being asked.

As she watched her host take a seat opposite her she began her opening gambit: “You’re a bit of a brain yourself, aren’t you?”  By brain, she was using the slang term for an abnormal with psionic-based powers.  The man smiled, “Actually, no.  Though I can see why you’d think that.”
“You seemed to pick up on things I was thinking earlier,” She pointed out.  The old man nodded as he turned his left hand over to reveal a green gem atop the ring that sat on his middle finger.  “This,” He said, “Is the Ring Of Eyes.  I’ve been its carrier for most of my life. It has a number of low-level abilities including a certain level of predictive power.  I can see possibilities of how things might pan out in the near future.  They don’t always happen and its possible to prevent them, they are just one of the many paths that reality can take, though usually one with a high level of probability.”
“So you’re a Foci?  A mage?  What?” She asked.
“A Foci, I suppose, though I’ve never been one to stick labels on things.  I used to be called Looking Glass, back when I was active.”
“You were a hero?”
“I’m afraid not.  I fought for the other side, though never involved in anything too serious.  I was a member of The Heartbreakers, a criminal superteam out of Boston.”
“How long ago was this?”  Got Gal wanted to know.  “Can I trust you?”
“Oh yes.  I am long retired and spent the last five years I was active behind bars doing time for my crimes.  I have paid my debt to society and am just trying to live quietly now.”

“So Captain Courage killed your wife?  How did that come about?”
“She was The Flashing Blade, a swashbuckler on the same team.  Our final job involved stealing some works of art from a historical museum.  As we emerged with the loot a Boston hero by the name of Savage was waiting and with him was Captain Courage.  Some kind of team-up.  We knew that we had no chance against two Type A blockbusters like them and so we surrendered.”
“They didn’t let you surrender?” Got Gal asked.  Looking Glass shook his head, sadly.  He stared at the ground and for a moment she didn’t think he would say anymore, but finally he began speaking again:  “Savage was really brutal, well-known for a very high level of violence against criminals he caught.  But we thought we were safe with Courage, the man’s reputation being like a giant super-powered kitten.  We were wrong.  The two men waited until our weapon-master, Talon, put his arsenal down and then they attacked.  Killed five of the seven members, including my wife.   Both my legs were broken, but I survived and was arrested.  My colleague Nightwish escaped but was later captured by Courage.  He was beaten so thoroughly that severe brain damage was done.  He lives in a secure care home for the criminally insane, in Maine somewhere.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Got Gal said.
“Young lady, we were criminals.  The public thought we got what we deserved and maybe we did.  But I didn’t think heroes were supposed to act that way?  Particularly not against disarmed and surrendering opponents.”
“We’re not,” Got Gal agreed.
“But never mind that.   Perhaps you are wondering how, precisely, I identified you?”
“Yes.”
“My ring no longer has the functionality it had in my youth.  I cannot summon mirror images with it anymore and I cannot become intangible, which it used to allow me to do once each day.  But it retains some of its shielding power and some of its prediction power.  This morning I had a vision that I would meet you and that if I did not bring you back here you would almost certainly be killed.”
“Killed?  Who by?”
“The Brain tasked with finding you is called Bloodhound.  He works for the Bull Corporation as a special operative and he is very, very good.  His powers including psionic tracking, clairvoyance, nudging, emotional manipulation and power dampening.  It is this last which makes him particularly dangerous to you.”

“Can I stay here?  I need to work out what’s going on.  In my head.  In the world.  I’m suffering from amnesia of some sort.”
“That explains why I’ve never heard of you before, perhaps you don’t come from here?” Looking Glass observed.
“I do come from here.  But the city I remember was totally different to this.  I think.  The problem is my memory is really kinda hazy.  Everything has changed, I’m sure of that.”
“A memory wipe, or psionic tampering, or some kind of supernatural thing?” Looking Glass suggested.
“Maybe,” Got Gal agreed, though she did not sound convinced.
“Well you can stay here.  My ring should shield the house from psionic sweeps and if there is a danger that it wont it may well give us a preemptive warning.”
“Thank you,” Got Gal said.  “But you do realise this might bring a lot of heat down on you?  If they’re after me as badly as you think.”
“They are,”  He replied.  “They’re calling you a new supervillain and saying you killed a cop.  They hate Class A abnormals out and about but not under their control.”
“I’m not a supervillain,” Got Gal protested.
“I know.  I can tell.  I’ve known enough.  You’re clearly on the hero side, but nobody in authority will want to accept that.  For the time being you are a fugitive.  If they catch you, those big Class A powers will earn you a swift trip to The Institute.”

“Well, I don’t know what my intentions are from here.  I do know that I want to try and recover my memories.  I also want to make contact with other heroes and see if they can shed any light on what has gone on.  Finally, it wont do the authorities any harm to know there’s another unlicensed hero out here trying to do some good.”
“Well you’re welcome to shelter here for as long as you need to.  It’s been a long time since I’ve had the company of a young woman,” He smiled impishly.  “Don’t worry.  I’m not a creepy old stalker.  While you are here you’ll benefit from whatever insights the rings predictive power can grant me.  Though, these days, that doesn’t amount to much.”
“It may have saved my life today,” Got Gal said, draining the last of her juice.
“Yes, perhaps.  But mostly it gives me nothing useful.  I don’t know if its the ring which is losing its power, or its carrier.”

Looking Glass went out to buy some extra groceries and seemed to have no concerns about leaving Got Gal to potter around in his house.  She switched on the TV and caught several news alerts talking about her in dark terms, calling her a criminal.  She channel surfed, trying to catch something else of interest.  Suddenly, she stopped.  A face on one of the channels had caught her attention.

One channel had a “Breaking News” banner and was depicting a stand-off  at Helix Point.  There, two heroes she had never heard of called Dragonfly and Hummingbird were facing off against a terrible and dangerous villain that she had certainly heard of.  The Devastator.  Her memory may be mostly gone, but she remembered that infamous big hitter’s name very well.   She was fairly sure from what she remembered that those two little heroes didn’t stand a chance.  Without help, they were as good as dead.

Issue #006 – – – – – controlled by Wayne Gildroy – – – – – Credits 86

There was no time for careful reflection.  Oakheart had to make a snap decision and make it he did.  Reaching out to another tree he snapped off a huge branch.  He didn’t feel bad about this.  Other trees were not sentient in the way he was.  In fact, Oakheart didn’t think of himself as a tree at all.  He may look like a tree but under all this he was a human of sorts, albeit a very, very abnormal one.

On the street the cop and the lead ganger, Carlos, were facing one another like two gunslingers from the wild west.  A small crowd had gathered, seemingly from nowhere, and unusually the sight of the guns had not caused them to run screaming into the distance.  Rather, it was as if they were trapped in the unfolding spectacle, drawn to see its outcome in whatever grisly way it may resolve.

“Go long,” Oakheart thought and hurled the branch high and far.  His aim was true and the hefty piece of wood went spinning way over the gang and landed in a crash behind them.  The sight of the branch spinning above them and the sound of it smashing into the street behind them proved a dangerous distraction.  Their instincts caused them to turn – including Carlos – and the cop used the moment to his advantage.  A single gunshot cracked in the air and the side of the young ganger’s face exploded in a splash of crimson gore.

Oakheart hadn’t meant to take sides.  His choice to aim the branch behind the gangers was meant to break the tension and create enough temporary confusion to enable the little girl to pursue the cat to safety.  In a way it worked, as the cop’s aim proved accurate enough to score a hit while the girl ran safely past the unfolding drama.  But Oakheart hadn’t reckoned on the bloodthirsty opportunism of an officer of the law.  How could he?  He’d never seen cops act this way before.  At this point, everything went wrong.  Several of the gang, clearly caught up in a powerful mixture of shock, terror, anger and grief, pulled more guns from hidden places in their clothes.  The second cop now had his gun in his hand too.  The air was filled with whistling, screaming, deadly bullets.

Young Louis, who had taken the taser hit, looked down to see a ragged crimson hole in his stomach.  He clutched at the wound, but his fingers could not hold back the pouring blood. Another young ganger tried to help him and took a bullet in the arm, sending him spinning across the pavement.  He landed just inches away from the still body of a woman, the mother of Josie the cat chaser.  She was alive, but her breathing was ragged and shallow and her eyes were glazed.  Blood pooled beneath her.   The taser cop was hit twice, once in the arm which caused him to scream in agony, then again in the left eye which stopped him screaming forever.

Now the bystanders did panic.  In roughly two halves, one group fled in every direction while the other charged the cops, or the gangers, or both and began kicking and punching.  Two men picked up a youth and rammed his head through the window of a parked car.  Another hit the second cop on the back of the head with his heavy briefcase, then began stomping on his face as he hit the floor.

Off to one side a woman had found a piece of concrete from somewhere and, almost casually, swung it side-on into the face of a passer-by.  The teenage girls used a trash can to smash a shop window and began grabbing goods from the display shelves.  The shop owner came charging out shouting and was immediately set upon by an old man with a cane and two further teenagers.

Oakheart had planned to blend back into the foliage like just another tree if his intervention had worked.  Instead, he appeared to have sparked a confrontation that was in imminent danger of tipping into a riot.  In just a few short chaotic seconds lots of people were dead or injured and the violence was still escalating.  Several cars were honking their horns and some drivers had climbed out of them to walk threatening towards the fighting.  Sirens could be heard distantly.

Amidst it all, Oakheart could see the little girl.  She had lost the cat and was now huddling behind a park bench as two men beat each other senseless with their bare fists just above her.  Oakheart spied one of the young gangers, who had a short but wicked-looking knife in his hand, heading her way.  He had seen the little girl and there was blood lust in his eyes.  For no reason Oakheart could ascertain, the young man was clearly heading towards the child to do her harm.  Something was very wrong about all this.

It was at that moment that Oakheart noticed his sixth sense.  It was throbbing urgently, trying to alert him to something.  Amidst all the fighting and action Oakheart had not recognised it’s urgent pulse.  Or perhaps it was because he was out of practice, having spent so long in some strange sort of hibernation.  Whatever the case, he recognised it now.  His eyes were drawn a little further along the street to an elderly woman standing alone as the crowd surged around her.  There was nothing startling or even notable about her appearance.  But Oakheart could feel the energies emanating from her.  Wave after wave of low, subsonic pulses.

He knew what this was.  The woman had happened upon a tense situation and she was using some kind of power to escalate the emotions of those in the area.  Those pulsations for whom she was the apex were waves of fury, or spite or of pure aggression.  She was some kind of abnormal and she was deliberately causing this orgy of violence and hatred.

Issue #002 – – – – – controlled by Junius Stone – – – – – Credits 6

The woman who may or may not be called Amy considered her options.  (Actually, she was pretty sure that her name was not Amy at all, but Mandy.  But one thing at a time.)  The door looked strong, sure, but she was confident that a bit of the old Iron Maiden treatment would remove that particular obstacle.

Iron Maiden.

Yes.  That name sounded exactly right.  It was her name. Or rather, her other name.  Her superhero name.  Memories began flashing back.  Deep space.  Giant golden robots.  Some huge surprise and then … nothing.  What the hell?  How had she gone from space battle to lab rabbit without remembering the transition?  Probably she should be concerned about it, but Iron Maiden wasn’t big on worry.  Instead she grinned cockily, her silvery lips parting revealing silvery teeth beneath.  The grin was both mirthful and predatory at once and had caused many a villain to blanch.  “You think you can make me a victim?” She asked the world around her.  “We’ll just see about that.”

The woman came through the lab door like a sledge hammer through a china plate.  The metal simply exploded outwards as the silver-skinned woman strode through and into the corridor beyond.  It made a lot of noise.  Iron Maiden didn’t care.  Let them come.  She was going to take a look around and introduce herself to the locals.  She didn’t plan to do it gently.

Truth was, she knew she should probably just escape.  The set up in this place didn’t say “two bit c-list villain” to her, but rather “powerful wealthy evil mastermind.”  Nonetheless, she was intensely curious.  What did they want with her?  How did she get here?  What was all this about?  And curiosity had always been one of Iron Maiden’s weaknesses.  Just one of them.  There were others.

Iron Maiden strode through the corridors, smashing things that got in her way.  When nothing got in her way she casually trailed her fingers along the walls digging deep rents in the pristine metal plating there.  Twice, a team of armed guards came at her.  The first time she laughed as their bullets bounced off her skin before she knocked them senseless without breaking a sweat.  The second time, the team carried some huge electro-weapon.  The enormous device took three men to wield and hummed with enormous power.  She took a shot in the chest.  It stung.  So she took the toy from them and wrapped it tightly around the ranking officer’s chest.  She intended to use the other men as boxing practice, but they fled in terror.

At the end of one corridor she found a fire exit and considered leaving.  But something drew her to another door on the far side of the corridor.  She pushed it open and peered within.  A laboratory, of sorts.  Or it had been.  The room was trashed, glass and broken furniture everywhere.  Against the wall opposite the door in which she was standing several steel plates had been screwed into place against the brick like some hasty patchwork repair.  “Strange,” Iron Maiden muttered.
“Hello Amy,” Came a voice from behind her.   Spinning on the spot she saw the geek girl from earlier, standing beside a very scary looking robot.  Like her, the creature was metal skinned, but where she was all shiny attractive metal this thing was bulky and dull, with heavy bolts driven through its arms and legs.
“Ran out of money in the security budget?”  Iron Maiden asked.  “Couldn’t afford to make it look good?”
“This robot may not look impressive,” the geek told her.  “But it is powered by a Cobalt Seven Fuel Core and it’s brain is a C-Calc Omnibus 1000x Processor.   It can process information one trillion times faster than any human brain and it is many times stronger than you are.”
“What do you know?” Iron Maiden growled at her.  “You didn’t think I could break my bonds.”
The doctor blanched: “How did you do that?  Did somebody help you?”
“No, missy.”  Iron Maiden laughed.  “You just aren’t as clever as you think you are.”

Iron Maiden watched the robot move towards her.  She could feel the sheer power in the construct by the way the ground shook as it took steps her way.  She could see that immensely powerful C-Calc Omnibus 1000X Processor assessing her, judging her movements, calculating the possibly variations of action she may take so that it could counter her.  It was very effective.  When she went to punch it straight in the face the Cobalt Seven Fuel Core powered up and granted the creature the sheer might to block her attack.  Sadly for the robot, she punched through its defence and knocked its head off.  The geek woman’s jaw dropped as her devastating war machine was casually decapitated and its iron head bounced along the corridor floor making head thud, thud noises as it did so.

“Where were we?” Iron Maiden asked.
“I.  Uh.  I mean.  Um.  Can we talk about this?”
“Are you able to tell me anything about why I am here and what is going on?” Iron Maiden asked her.
The woman shook her head: “That’s classified. You’ll get nothing out of me.”
“Are you sure?”
The doctor tried to look brave, but her courage was failing.  Still she did manage: “I don’t know anything.  I’m just a junior here.  I’m just doing what I’m told.”
“Just what you are told?” Iron Maiden snarled.  “That’s all is it?  The protest of every nasty sidekick throughout history.”
“Really, I don’t know anything.”
“Then,” Iron Maiden grinned wickedly, “I think this conversation is over.”

It wasn’t that Iron Maiden minded being naked.  After all, when you have metal skin its really not the same as normal people’s naked. Also, she looked fantastic and she knew it.  But while being a shiny metallic naked female was kinda fun, there was a time and a place.  So she took the lab coat from the doctor, who lay unconscious at her feet with a really nasty pair of black eyes already beginning to blossom.  “That’s gonna hurt,” Iron Maiden declared.  “But girl, you brought it entirely on yourself.”
It was time to get out.  Though she wanted to know more, she already had a feeling that she’d stretched her luck thin.  A few corporate guards and an old robot could not possibly be the entirety of the defences in this place.  As much as she wanted to smash the place up some more, get some answers to her questions, she knew she shouldn’t hang around until they managed to wheel something or someone out that could give her a fight.  Brave and sometimes a little foolhardy she may be, but stupid she was not.

She came out the fire door of the building into bright sunlight that caused her to squint in pain.  It felt like she hadn’t seen the sun in years.  Perhaps she hadn’t.  Iron Maiden did not know what had happened or what to expect, but she was reasonably sure she would be able to fill in the gaps once she found some friendly faces.  After all, she may have been a prisoner but she still had friends, right?  She could go to the police, or the FBI or another superhero.  Whatever had occurred she could resolve once she got her bearings.

Moving quickly, she trotted through some light trees and skirted a small man-made lake.  Little more than a giant water feature, really.  On the far side she headed up the hill, recognising the area.  She was fairly sure she was up in the hills overlooking Madden Heights.  As she reached the peak of the hill which looked out over the sprawl of the city and the bay beyond her jaw dropped in surprise.  Everything was different.  The buildings were different.  The lay of the land was different.  The metropolis was different.  This was, clearly, Helix city. And yet it was not.  In that moment she realised that things weren’t as simple as she’d hoped.  By loud buzz of several approaching helicopters, they were about to get significantly less so.

Issue #003 – – – – – controlled by Ewan Farris – – – – – Credits 8

“I want you to understand something,” Dark Star said.  “You need to pay attention, because if I am not convinced that you understand I will kill you.”
Chu Kwai quailed before him.  “Yes, yes,” it said, desperate, supplicating.
“Do you understand how easily I defeated you today?”   The demon nodded.  It did.
“If you come back here, to those children, I will destroy you utterly.  Do you understand that?”  Again, the monster confirmed that it believed him.  Dark Star nodded, pleased.  It seemed the creature was terrified enough to listen.  Dark Star didn’t get this tough too often, but he really didn’t like demons.  In his view, they had no redeeming features.

“Now,” Dark Star said, “I may let you live.  But this relies upon you answering the next two questions quickly and truthfully.  If you do not, do you know what will happen?”
“You will destroy me utterly?” Chu Kwai acknowledged, fearfully.
“Indeed,” Dark Star recognised.  “So, first, who is this Coven of which you spoke?  The people who have created the True Gate?”
Chu Kwai rumbled and Dark Star wondered if he might think keeping this secret of more importance than his life.  But the creature was thoroughly cowed and did answer the question: “They are five sorcerors of this world.  They have used the power of Five to cast a spell greater than any individually could achieve.  They have opened the True Gate.”
“Why?”  Dark Star said.  “Why would human beings do something so stupid?”
“They believed they were only allowing one demon in, who would serve them.  But the deal struck was clever.  The contract was very well observed.  One of the Old Ones has fooled them into this and now they are fully ruined by their actions and bonded to their fate.”

“How can I find this gate?”  Dark Star asked.
“You must go to where the river flows out to the sea.  There is a place there, an old church, now disused.  This is the location you seek.”
“Do you mean The Port?” Dark Star asked.  “We are already in The Port.”
“By the river,” Chu Kwai said.  “This truth is for you, human.”
“Okay, an old church.  What is its name?”
“I do not know human names,” the demon told him.  “It is by the wooden platform that points at the moon.”
Dark Star thought about this for a moment then said: “You mean the Old Pier?  The moon rises on the bay so I suppose that points at the moon.”
“As you say,” The Demon agreed.

“Okay,” Dark Star commanded.  “Go.  But trust me to my word, monster, if I see you here again near these children I will end your evil life.”
Chu Kwai rose to its full height and for a moment Dark Star thought it might try him again, but then it turned and scurried off into the darkness.
Dark Star looked back at the door.  Lily was there, terrified.  “Don’t worry,” Dark Star told her.  “Keep the house locked up, you’re safe now.  I’ll be back as soon as I can.  I have to check this out!”  The young woman nodded her understanding and, for a moment, looked like she might say something else.  Finally she settled for a brief: “Be careful” and then she closed the door.

Dark Star didn’t doubt the craven monster’s fear, but he’d had a run-in or two with demons in the past and he knew that you really couldn’t trust a word they said.  Or, for that matter, a word they wrote.  They always found some way to twist the words back on you or to claim some different meaning.  Which is why this Coven had been utterly foolish to attempt some sort of pact.  Dark Star hurried after Chu Kwai, following the creature as stealthily as he could.  As he did so he pondered.  The fact that this coven had tried to make a deal was evidence of their naivete and inexperience.  But then they had been able to open what appeared to be a very advanced gate – and you couldn’t do that without a lot of power.  Dark Star didn’t like the sound of this at all.  It had the ring of an amateur with a lot of natural talent.  Which was terrifying.

Dark Star was very agile, but he wasn’t particularly quick.   Luckily, neither was Chu Kwai and the demon proved easy to follow as it lumbered through alleyways and quiet streets – keeping carefully to the darkness in precisely the same way that Dark Star himself usually did.  The chase came to an end outside a used car lot emblazoned with the name Jack Bennett.  A sign proclaimed, “You’ll always come back if you deal with Jack!”  Chu Kwai wasn’t going into the building though.  He hefted the manhole cover in the street outside and dropped silently into the sewers.  Dark Star sighed.  He hated the sewers.

It didn’t take a very great deal of thinking to decide to let Chu Kwai go.  He didn’t appear to be heading towards the bay and Dark Star was of the opinion that this True Gate business was the first order of importance in tonight’s festivities.  So he regretfully turned his back on the manhole and padded off in the direction of the old pier.  Ten minutes later he was standing by the river.  Helix City was almost on the coast.  The ocean gave way to a wide bay which in turn become a huge river and it was here, a few miles inland, where the water met the city.  It was a perfect inlet for maritime trade and pleasure craft alike, though the former was more common than the latter except in the heights of Summer.  The Old Pier was no longer in use.  Ten years earlier it had been set on fire during a battle between several abnormals and nobody had yet managed to repair the ruin that was left.  Apparently, nobody could quite agree on who owned it and no benefactor stepped up to pay the hefty bill for repair or demolition.  So there it sat, blackened and festering, forgotten for all but a few drunks who slept under it and a handful of wild teenagers who occasionally partied on what was left of it.

The Church the demon had spoken of was easy to find.  Almost directly opposite the pier’s entrance it stood, dark, forboding, silent.  The main sign that hung outside had been fly-postered so extensively that it was impossible to read.  Even the posters were so faded as to be illegible.  Dark Star peeled them away and looked.  The name that was revealed was “City of Hope Family Worship”.  Dark Star thought that sounded evangelical.  But who knew?  Could be anything really.  He crossed the overgrown lawn and peered into one of the filthy windows.  It was utterly dark inside.  He couldn’t see a thing.

“Oh well,” Dark Star muttered.  “No time like the present.”  He walked around to the rear of the building and carefully, quietly, he prised open the door there.  His superhuman strength made this a fairly simple task, though it was nowhere near as quiet as he would have liked it to be.  “Just as well I’m a good guy,” Dark Star muttered to himself.  “I’d make a terrible burglar.”  Once inside the church he found that it was not as dark as he’d thought.  What had seemed black from the outside was quite different within.  Shafts of silvery moonlight sliced down from the skylights and from the high windows, lighting patches and areas of shadow.  The place was a wreck.  The pews were smashed and broken, the victim of time, neglect and vandalism in equal measures.  The altar was gone, though a dark patch on the ground marked where it had been.

“Hmm.  No True Gate here,” Dark Star muttered.  Then, he heard a sound to his left.  A sort of scuttling sound over there in the darkness.  He didn’t like that sound at all.  Didn’t like the way it made him feel.  It had a chitinous quality about it which left him  unsettled.  Seconds later the sound was repeated on the right.  Then again.  And again.  Dark Star brought some spectral energy into his hands.  Not enough to do any harm, but enough to bathe the room in his starry ambience.  He swallowed.  Every inch of the darkness was now populated by cockroaches.  Not normal cockroaches.  Oh no.  These were the size of a house cat.  Dozens  of them scuttling over one another, crawling on one another.  Dark Star knew these could be mutated by radiation or the abnormals gene.  They could be the result of some mad scientist’s insane experiment.  They could be illusions, or robots, or aliens, or any of a host of other weird stuff.  This was the world he moved in.  But Dark Star didn’t think these fat insects were any of those things.  He had a hunch – just an hunch – that they’d come through the True Gate.

This was good news in a way.  It meant that the gate itself was close – which meant he didn’t have to waste days searching for it.  Perhaps he could handle it quickly, before the problem escalated?  But it was bad news because it meant that this couple of hundred giant cockroaches that were – even now – beginning to quest hungrily towards him weren’t just really nasty-looking party-sized bugs.  They were demonic really nasty-looking party-sized bugs.  As they surged towards him, Dark Star just had time to think: “Could this evening get any worse?”  Unfortunately for him, it could.  And it was going to.

Issue #005 – – – – – controlled by Ken Thompson – – – – – Credits 32

The Midnight Runner sat in the control chair in his office and let the massage function roll out the knots and tension in his back.  The painkillers were already easing his migraine away and he had taken a shower and changed his clothes.   He was feeling better.  None of this made it any easier to face what he had to do, but he knew it was time.  For the better part of a year The Midnight Runner had been the keeper of a secret.  A huge, impossible secret.  He knew this, but he did not know what the secret was – and there was a reason.  He had deliberately erased the information from his mind.

A little more than a year ago, something had happened.  The Midnight Runner had encountered a problem he needed to deal with and while he had tried to handle that, things had begun spinning out of control.  The Midnight Runner did remember a few fragments of what went on.  He knew that the creation of the Deep Storage Area dated back to that incident.  He knew that his migraines were just one of a host of symptoms that had made him very ill at the time.  He also knew that the event was so vast that he had struggled to deal with the consequences.  To save his own sanity he had been forced to take dramatic action.  But he’d built in a safeguard.  Xara could reveal the truth to him.  The computer knew the secret and could fill in the blanks in his mind.  He knew this was dangerous.  But he also knew that Dark Future’s breakout was a game-changer.  He had to know, or how could he deal with it?

Taking a breath and steeling his nerves, Midnight called Xara: “You awake?”
“I am a cybernetic construct,” Xara reminded him.  “I do not sleep.  What do you need?”
“I think it’s time, Xara,” he said.
“Time, sir?  For what?”  Xara asked.  Though her synthetic voice had taken on an unfamiliar edge.  It appeared that even computers could be concerned.
“It’s time for you to tell me everything I never wanted to know,” he told her.
For a moment the computer was silent, though a series of red lights blinked on panels around the room.  The hero wondered for a moment if the computer was going to disobey him and refuse to reveal the information.  But then the light display ended and Xara told him the truth.

One year Ago:

The explosion ripped out one side of the laboratory and the explosive decompression sucked furniture and people out of the room.  For some reason The Midnight Runner was not pulled towards the rent in the wall with quite the same force as the others, which probably saved his life.  “Help, help,” one of the white coated scientists screamed.  Midnight tried, but he was gone out of the hole in the blink of an eye.

He’d been tasked with securing the lab from assault and he’d done his best to make sure the security was tight.  But there was no way of predicting this.   It should have been that the missing section of wall revealed a small private lake and some green fields but instead there was just black empty nothingness.  He spied one of the doctors clinging to a table that was, luckily, bolted to the floor.  “What’s going on?” He shouted over the strange whistling wind that buffeted the lab.  “What is this?”
“It’s a hole in reality,” The doctor shouted.  “We have to close it, or it will keep growing and growing!”
“You probably should have considered that before you opened it,” The Midnight Runner told him.  But there was no point moaning about it.  Scientists will be scientists.  They just can’t help themselves.  “How do I close it?” He called.
“You need to go out there,” Was the reply.  “You should see a small orange globe, the one that was in the lab before the rip happened?”  Midnight remembered it.  The scientist continued: “It wont have gone far.  It’s anchored to the real world.  Just find it and bring it back.  We can use it to close the hole.”
“You want me to go out there,” Midnight said, “Through a hole in reality?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be sending a bill for extra services,” The Midnight Runner snarled, before walking towards the growing drag of the strange black hole.

Once through the hole into the darkness The Midnight Runner found that his stomach was tied in knots, his head was screaming in pain and, just to make things interesting, there did not appear to be any air.  Luckily his force field was on and it’s small bubble of oxygen would sustain him for a minute or two.  He could not see any of the scientists or officers who had been dragged through.  They were just gone.  But it took The Midnight Runner only seconds to find the orange globe.  As the scientist had predicted it was hovering near the hole.  From out here, floating in nothingness, the side of the building looked strange.  The complete absence of light or colour in the void gave way to a flash of reality and the effect was to make the lab look almost cartoonish by contrast.  It was as though he were in an utterly dark room staring at a page of a comic book under the glow of a torch.  Trying to avoid projectile vomiting and hoping that his head would stop trying to explode he willed himself towards the orange light.  It worked, he floated slowly towards it.

It was when he was only seconds away from the globe that he noticed the other things floating in the darkness.  They were hard to see because they were black and were floating in blackness.  But as he closed on them he could make them out.  A series of what appeared to be floating coffins of various sizes hung in the air.  The orange globe appeared to be attracted to them.  Feeling horribly sick and knowing his air would not last long, The Midnight Runner was nonetheless curious enough to float over the boxes and take a closer look.  There were people inside them.

Now:
The Midnight Runner sat up in his chair.  “What the hell, Xara?  I asked you for everything.”
“I’m sorry sir,” Xara said.  “The hard disk has been erased past that point.”
“What?”  Midnight shouted.  “How?  If something or somebody is erasing our disks why haven’t you reported it?”
“That is a high security question,” Xara told him.
With a dangerous edge to his voice The Midnight Runner said: “You are my computer, Xara.  This is my system.  The data we are talking about is my data.  So whether it is high security or not is not an issue.”
“I am sorry sir.  I am your computer, this is your system and the data is also yours.  I am operating precisely as you instructed me to.”

The Midnight Runner could feel his migraine threatening to return.  “Okay then.  I instruct you to reveal the high security answer to the high security question you are trying to avoid.”
“Very well, sir.  The hard drive was deleted by you.  You also instructed me to demand permission to reveal the high security information in this instance.”
“And when, precisely, did I do this?”
“The last time you gave the security phrase and asked me to reveal everything to you.”
“The last time?  This has happened before?”
“This has happened six times before, Sir.  Dark Future is the seventh escapee from Deep Storage.  They appear to be waking up, one-by-one.”
“Why would I not want to remember this?”
“I believe you have a plan sir.  You can find out by accessing the backup files.  I think the other half of the First Incident is still stored there.”

Issue #005 – – – – – controlled by Rene Sawatzki – – – – – Credits 0

Countdown was pleased to look normal again.  Not that he minded being a superhero, but when you’re trying to be stealthy and subtle a discrete appearance is usually the best plan.  After his long (and very refreshing) sleep, Countdown had made his way to the nearest store and purchased himself a simple non-heroic outfit.  Black shoes, grey slacks, light blue shirt and tie.  With the superhero costume stashed safely in his room at the hotel, he set about gathering information.

First port of call was the library where he looked up the address of the Blue Star Casino.  It wasn’t too far away on the edge of Downtown.  He planned to follow Old Father Time’s instructions and pay it a visit this evening.  But first, he wanted to check out some other details.  He used the internet to look up Officer Phil Lawrence and identified the man as a city law officer.  His career was chequered with a couple of awards and a couple of disciplinaries.  Two years ago he’d been promoted to Special Operations, whatever that was.  A news story from yesterday revealed he had been badly injured in a fight with a new super-villain who had identified herself as Got Gal.  This was odd because Countdown remembered Got Gal from the old reality.  She wasn’t any sort of villain.  Had she changed so utterly in the brave new world or was something else going on?

Next, Countdown looked up the Bull Corporation.  That turned out to be a rather bigger proposition than he had expected.  This gigantic corporation, one of the ten largest in the world, owned holdings, interests and shares in everything from A to Z.  Although it was originally a German company, it’s base of operations was Helix City and it’s public headquarters was the Bull Building in Helix Point.  The C.E.O of Bull was a man called Doctor Hans Stier.  Countdown cocked an eyebrow when he read that the police across America were now privatised and that the entire force in Helix City was owned and run by Bull.  Apparently the corporation also controlled two dozen other city forces in other states and a fair portion of the F.B.I.  Clearly, he’d need to tread carefully if he was going to mess with this monolithic organisation.

After picking up a spicy vegetable sub and a Coke, Countdown made his way to the address he’d found for the Blue Star.  As evening closed in the purple and red lights of the casino flickered uncertainly in the approaching gloom.  This was not an expensive joint.  Several rows of motorcycles outside suggested it might be quite a tough place (though Countdown preferred not to believe every stereotype in every circumstance, stereotypes did happen for a reason.)

Inside he bought a light beer from the bar, planning to nurse it and sip it in order to make sure his head remained clear.  Then he strolled down towards the open casino area. Sure enough, tough-looking tattooed men and pierced women in leathers and chains played at the slots and the tables laid out before him.  A biker’s casino?  Well, why not?  His outfit, carefully purchased in order to fit in, no longer provided quite the level of anonymity Countdown would have liked.  Still, he hoped he wouldn’t be here long.  He took the remaining sixty bucks he had left over and placed a bet on the roulette table according to Old Father Time’s instructions.  The bet did not come up and he lost all his money.

“Oh,” Countdown muttered.  “I’m pretty sure that wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“I’m sorry?” A young lady who was standing nearby asked: “Did you say something?”  She was dressed in leather trousers and a tight white t-shirt with the words: “Hell Bitch” on the chest above a flaming skull.   Her soft voice and educated politeness were a surprise.
“No, no,” Countdown explained.  “I was just thinking aloud.”
The girl laughed: “I do that a lot,” she grinned.  “Any luck tonight?”
“Nope,” Countdown said.  “I was just going to leave.”
“But you only just got here,” The girl said.  “You’ve only had one bet.”
“I bet all the cash I had and I lost.  I’m not much of a gambler.”  The girl chuckled and placed chips on the next spin of the wheel, duplicating the exact bet she had just seen Countdown make.  It came in!  “Looks like you missed your luck by one spin,” She told him.  “Your loss, my gain.”
“Do it again,” Countdown said, with a flash of inspiration.
“Huh?” The girl asked.
“Place the same bet again.”
“It’ll never come up again straight away,” She pointed out.  “The odds against it are immense.”
“The odds are the same,” Countdown told her.  “The odds of predicting two in advance are greater, but the chance of a repeat now after the fact are unaltered.”
The girl shrugged and put some chips on the same bet.  “More,” Countdown said.  “Bet more.”

A group of other bikers had gathered around the girl and were watching events.  “The man likes to roll the dice,” Said a huge bearded biker.  He put a mound of coins on the bet.  Half a dozen other bikers also stacked their cash on the bet and, belatedly, the girl pushed her entire pile of chips over.  “Okay then,” She told Countdown.  “I hope you’re right.”
“I’m right,” Countdown said.  He wasn’t though.  As he watched the ball bounce around the roulette wheel it was pretty clear that it was wasn’t going to fall as he had expected.  He didn’t need to use his linear powers to know that his newfound biker friends weren’t going to be very happy about that.  So Countdown froze time.

Putting a freeze on such a wide area and so many people was really taxing.  Countdown had an immense energy pool for this sort of thing but every well has its limits and he could feel his power depleting very quickly.  The hero had to move fast.  As the people around him stood locked in their paralysed stasis he nipped over, picked up the ball and dropped it into the right slot, being sure to press it down and quell the kinetic energy that was driving its movement.  Then, gently, gently, he let time take up its normal pace.

“Yes!”  Shouted the bearded biker while the others leapt and jumped and roared their approval.  It wasn’t Countdown’s finest work, to be fair.  To everybody in the room it looked like the ball had jumped erratically from one side of the wheel to the other and fallen straight into the winning place.  It was not a natural movement and given that quite a sum of money was probably going to be involved, Countdown thought he should probably make himself scarce.  Casinos didn’t take well to cheating – and he had a feeling that in a place like Helix City they’d have see their fair share of abnormal action.

His fears were confirmed when a trio of burly security men led by a woman in a smart white business suit began cutting their way through the crowd.  The bikers saw this too and he could feel the angry mood come on fast.  Clearly they didn’t take well to authority (which wasn’t a huge surprise) and any attempt to confiscate their not-inconsiderate winnings was going to meet with violence.  Countdown considered using his powers to get the hell out of Dodge, but something kept him back.  He had been instructed to come here and participate in this.  Perhaps he needed to see how it played out?  The question was, which side to take?

Issue #005 – – – – – controlled by Frank Devocht – – – – – Credits 11

If Nelson had needed to secure the use of a warehouse himself it would have taxed his limited budget.  Luckily, Wild Thing did not suffer from the same sort of financial constraints.  Barely batting an eyelid, he had rented a fifteen thousand square foot industrial space with a high roof out near the city center.  The heroes had spent some time, at Nelson’s instruction, blocking doors, windows and other exits.  “I don’t get it,” Wild Thing said.  “Death, Esquires minions just appear and disappear in clouds of smoke.  How is blocking the ways in and out going to help us?”
“We don’t know their method of movement yet.  Is that magic, teleportation, some other strange ability?  We may not be able to stop them escaping but we need to try.  That way, if something surprising happens we may have countered it already.”
Wild Thing shrugged: “Fair enough.  Whatever.”

“I could set up some explosive mines,”  Wild Thing said.  “I don’t use gizmos and traps much, its not really my thing, but we get a lot of neat toys from the City Board and they may come in handy.”
“First of all,” Nelson told him, “I very much doubt that anything that is harmless enough to leave this rented warehouse intact is going to bother the supernatural minions we are expecting.   Secondly, these things need to be done up close and personal.  If you want it done right, anyway.”

Wild Thing placed the tracking device – the business card Death, Esquire had given him – onto the floor in the middle of the empty warehouse.  Then the two heroes withdrew to a dark alcove and waited.  “This is how it goes,” Beast Nelson said in a hushed voice.  “When one of these fellas appears, I am going to club it into submission.  As soon as its down you are going to hog tie it and drag it into the back office.”
“It’s a very simple plan,” Wild Thing pointed out.
“The best ones always are,” Nelson agreed.

The first creature appeared at close to midnight.  A shimmering yellow cloud swirled near where the tracking device lay and a form began to appear.  “Ready?” Wild Thing asked.  In response, Beast Nelson grew to his full size – nearly twelve feet – and hefted the steel girder he had prepared for these encounters.  Wild Thing was impressed: “I didn’t know you could get that big!  No wonder you wanted a warehouse with a high roof.”
“Local people aren’t in love with property damage,” Nelson grinned, “So I don’t often get to really cut loose.”
Nelson strode across the warehouse as the form coalesced into a solid shape.  What stood there appeared to be a woman dressed in a grey cloak with a deep hood.  He knew it was a woman from the curve of her body but that was where her humanity appeared to end.  Deep inside the hood Nelson could just made out the blackened empty eye sockets of some supernatural entity.  Good.  It wasn’t alive.  No need to hold back.

Nelson swung the girder very, very hard indeed.  It swooshed through the air and should probably have clubbed the Eyeless Hag into oblivion, except that she was rather more swift than the hero had expected.  Spinning backwards, the woman avoided the steel beam and, raising her withered old hands like claws, she came in fast.  Nelson noticed two things.  The first was that her hooked fingers didn’t seem particularly dangerous weapons.  The second was that the air around the Eyeless Hag was chilly, like the inside of a meat locker.  As her hands touched his tough furry skin, Nelson had a good idea what was coming.  Back in his brief days as a hero he’d fought Northern Light, a villain with an ice-based energy attack, and he’d had this same cold aura.

Wild Thing knew he was supposed to hold back, but as Beast Nelson’s left arm and shoulder iced-up and froze he knew he had to act.  Flipping and somersaulting across the room he finished his athletic charge with a two-footed kick straight into Eyeless Hag’s chest.  The attack worked, sending her sprawling backwards, but Wild Thing also paid a price.  Where he had struck her, the hero’s feet and lower legs were chilled to the bone.  As he tried to land from the kick the numbness caused him to stumble and fall to his side.  “Ouch,” He muttered.  “This gives a new meaning to the word frigid.”
“No,” Nelson corrected him, “That’s the original meaning.”  With a roar the huge hero flexed his arms and the ice shattered, spraying cold crystals in every direction.  His arm felt okay, though he had a feeling it might be a little sore once the adrenaline rush was gone.  For the moment, he hefted the girder like a quarterstaff.  This way, he could use it with shorter, faster movements.

The Eyeless Hag shrieked.  It wasn’t a human shriek and Beast Nelson felt the hackles down his spine rise.  Eery.  “I’m not a big fan of that noise,” He told her, honestly.  The woman didn’t seem interested in communicating.  Or perhaps she wasn’t able to?  Either way, her response was to rush at Nelson with those freezing hands raised again.  This time, the hero was ready.  He clubbed her in the face with the left hand side of the girder, then again up under the chin with the right.  The power of the second blow was such that it sent the Hag flipping backwards in a complete somersault to land on her chest.  For a moment she lay still and Nelson closed in to finish the fight when she emitted that same horrible shriek again.

Wild Thing came out of nowhere, the numbness in his legs receding so that he felt able to pitch into the fight once more.  He kicked the woman in the face as she tried to rise and the monster once again tumbled across the floor – though not with anything like the same urgency.  “Yaaaarrghh,” She shrieked hauntingly, setting Beast Nelson’s teeth on edge.  The two heroes watched as – impossibly – the monster began to rise once more.  Her movements were twitchy and strange, like some refugee from a Japanese horror movie.  The hood had fallen back to reveal the whole hideous visage beneath.  Her sunken and withered skin was like a dried apricot.  Purple veins etched every inch of her face, pulsing weirdly.  She had no eyes at all, just huge blackened holes where they should be.

“We can’t stop her,” Wild Thing said.  “She just keeps coming.  We need to get out of here.”
The woman shrieked again – and there was something triumphant in that terrible, terrible sound.
“I don’t think so,” Beast Nelson was resolute.  “I didn’t come here to run away from some oriental monster cliche.”
The Hag shrieked again, a sound so awful that it caused the heroes’ stomachs to roll and clench.
“I told you to stop shrieking like that,” Beast Nelson said.
The hero strode across the intervening space, holding the girder by one end and raising it vertically into the air so that the other end was near the ceiling.  With a roar, Beast Nelson swung the steel beam down, using his full strength and height to accelerate the heavy bar.  It smashed into the back of the Hag with a colossal impact, pulping her head, crushing her chest and near-flattening her into the floor.

The two heroes waited with baited breath.  She didn’t try to rise.  She didn’t move at all.  “I thought you wanted to interrogate it?” Wild Thing asked.
“Changed my mind,” Beast Nelson growled.  “Let’s interrogate the next one.”
Almost as though it were a reply to his comment, the center of the warehouse began to glow again.  But this time there was not one, but six shimmering yellow lights.
“Incoming,” Wild Thing said, nervously.  Beast Nelson laughed.  Truth was, though this situation placed him in deadly peril, he felt good.  He felt better than he had in some time.  It was as though he had been sleeping through his life and something had abruptly awakened him.  He clapped Wild Thing on the shoulder.  “We’ll be fine,” he said.  “Just get ready to kick some ass.”
“We’ll be fine?  How can you possibly know that?” Wild Thing asked, watching the yellow glows begin to solidify.
“I don’t,” Nelson acknowledge with a grin.  “But it sounded good, right?”