Superhero Adventures, UK Style

(Part 5 of the Faerie Realm Odyssey – The Journey Home Continued)

From below street level the team stared out of the drain gutter. They could see the Library building opposite was well guarded – there were at least twelve armoured figures (vampires presumably) guarding the entrance and they had to assume there would be other guards round the back and on the roof.

The Library’s windows in this era were opaque and had the steely glint usually associated with armoured, bulletproof glass. They obviously must also filter out UV rays if vampires were moving freely around inside.

They had previously found the nearest street exit for their sewer a hundred metres back, up a rusty and very narrow ladder, which took them to a manhole in a side street opposite the old station building. That seemed the easiest way to get to street level if they wanted to risk a frontal assault.

As the group crouched behind the grate, Banshee – having temporarily reverted to her Mary form – was thoughtful and distracted, rather distanced from the on-going discussion of how to proceed to the next step.  She was deeply upset by this vision of a miserable and benighted future, and by the glimpse of the losses her people have sustained just to survive at a bare, minimal level.  It felt strange that those she once thought of as the future, the coming generations, were now all past and dead – or worse, like Adam converted to ‘the dark side’. She felt oppressed by the feeling that The Balance might be responsible for what had happened – unleashing the vampire hordes and then disappearing for half-a century; all done in ignorance of course, but that did not help alleviate her guilt.

At last she turned to her companions, breaking-in on their, oh so practical, talk. “I know it is a ‘Bad Thing’ to meddle with the time-stream – we’ve got in trouble for that before, but then… we did get away with it.  We changed what happened!  Can we not try that again?   If we can go back to our own time and place with the aid of the Emerald Blade – (and, I know it’s a big “if”!) – With what we know about consequences, could we not do things differently?  Possibly just being there would be a start!  Then, maybe, stop the Library from allying with the vampires, possibly try to get Dalton to co-operate and play as a team-member, just generally be prepared….  Can anyone else remember something significant that we could alter, do differently?”  She looks eagerly around.

Akira merely muttered, “Let’s get home first and leave the philosophising until we know we have a future?” Mace agreed, “We need to figure out how we can get inside the Library and find the key.” However, Sam was thoughtful and seemed to be considering the idea.

They discussed a frontal assault exiting the sewer by having Akira transform the grate into something they could easily break through (“like chocolate” murmured a hungry Mace) through which they could clamber up and out onto the street but elected instead to see where the other tunnels led first. Stepping back from the street, they began to explore. The Library had hinted previously that there might be underground escape routes from the building and it was likely that if that was the case, immortal beings would have retained them in case they ever had to flee.

They went looking for some form of subterranean passageway that headed into or under the building opposite. It took only a few minutes of exploring before they found a sealed, heavily fortified metal door with a Central London Railway legend cast onto it. There was no obvious lock, but it was rusted solid and sealed from the other side.

Mary thought it likely that when the underground was being built, they may have included maintenance tunnels that ran alongside the tracks to allow for emergency escape in the event of a train breaking down in the tunnels. This sealed passageway apparently ran above and parallel to the tunnels that now formed the Library’s vaults. Could this be a way in?

Turning insubstantial, Banshee tried to phase herself through the heavy iron door and failed. It was too thick and something was protecting it, deterring her in some way and making it difficult for her to force herself all the way through. She got about half way in before she had to abandon her attempt. Something was deterring her yet she hadn’t felt anything mystical about the door. Stepping back, Akira elected to try using his transformational power on it. As he touched the door, he asked what substance or medium would Banshee prefer to travel through. He expected her to say sand or air. To his surprise, Banshee suggested he try blancmange.

Laughing, Akira focused and tried to alter the metallic elements of the door into a pudding consistency. After a couple of seconds and a lot of effort on Akira’s part, a section of the door transformed into a white wobbly consistency like blancmange but even his abilities were insufficient to alter the whole door. However, the transformed metal had started to flow down the other side and away from his touch before it had resumed its natural form leaving a large gap that an insubstantial Banshee could use to flow through, it was enough.

In the dark of the other side, Banshee could hear something skittering around. Then there came the sound of more skittering in response. Whatever was moving around in front of her was not alone.

Out of the dark stepped a nightmare; man-height it was a large spider-like creature, with pincers, fangs and with some sort of orange blisters on its back. A cluster of more normal sized spiders accompanied it on the ground beneath. What little light entered through the gap in the door shone on the multiple eyes of others still hidden, deep within the dark. Thin, glistening webbing covered large sections of the tunnel.

Akira heard the sound from the opposite side of the door and said to the others that it sounded like spiders, rats or possibly ‘Thing’ from the Addams family. Banshee however didn’t see the humour and unleashed an Aura of Fear at the creature’s moving towards her, hoping it would be sufficient to drive them back. It worked, at least partly as they slowly backed away but only for a short distance into the mass of webbing.

Hoping they creatures couldn’t jump, Banshee resubstantialised herself, turned and saw the lever that bolted the door. Pushing it up with all her strength, she began to pull at the door, helped by the others pushing from the other side. Together they managed to get the door open sufficient for the others to wiggle through into the tunnel.

Inside they could see that there were at least five of the oversized arachnids in front of them, each of which was making a sinister purr-like sound and seemed agitated.

Akira suggested Sam unleash a blast of his fiery breath on them but Sam was hesitant, “Do we really want a horde of flaming large spider things running around?” Akira nodded, “if it drives them away I’m ok with that and hopefully it will also burn the webbing as well.”

Sam moved to the front and unleashed a blast which caught the two foremost arachnid’s, causing them to panic and try and flee, burning the gossamer webbing which smelted but thankfully didn’t retain the flames. In addition, all of the smaller spiders were also fleeing away from the flames.

One of the spider creatures turned and jumped straight at Sam in absolute panic as the smoke began to flow out of the gap in the door into the corridor beyond.

Sam stood his ground until the very last second then dodged it, resulting in it crashing to the floor. Mace raised her wristbow in response and skewered it with a standard bolt to its head, immediately following up with a second bolt at the other flaming creature. Despite the increasing smoke from the sizzling webbing now filling this end of the tunnel, the bolt flew straight into its abdomen and pinned it to the wall.

Banshee grabbed the nearest burning arachnid corpse intending to throw it at the remaining three creatures still gathered beyond the flames. Seeing this, Sam was just grateful that he was fireproof.

Banshee managed to lift the creature up without burning herself on the now smouldering corpse but lacked the strength to throw it far enough to reach the others, leaving her holding a burning arachnid at arms length.

Akira shook her head and elected to try and unleash a series of mystical blasts at the remaining ‘tunnel guardians’ through the smoke and flames. The first bolt hit, snapping a couple of the creature’s legs; unfortunately, the next two bolts missed their targets completely.

One of the remaining spiders leapt straight at Sam trying to bite him with its jaws. Its fangs closed on his arm and it bite down. His scales stopped the bite from piercing his arm but he knew he’d some bruises to show after this was over. He unleashed a fear roar at his attacker.  The roar was so close that it couldn’t flee and collapsed unconscious at his feet.

Unfortunately, the roar also echoed round the tunnel and through the open door.  “This has become Jurassic Park for sure”, Sam muttered as he tried to work out what to do next.  Akira glowered at him, “We were all trying to deal with this quietly, Sam” “I’m not trained for quiet,” he whispered back realising that any damage from their assault was already done.

Meanwhile Banshee had a similar problem as another of the large spider-like creatures scurried straight at her, deciding to fight rather than flee. Banshee threw his still smouldering dead spider at it. It dodged, as Banshee used the opportunity to turn insubstantial. The creature jumped at and through her, hitting the door behind.

Dazed, it turned on Mace. “Bring it on,” she muttered. She’d never had a fear of spiders, even man-sized monstrosities like these. Akira shouted out to her to “skewer it” as her bolt flew true straight between its multiple eyes. She immediately turned on the spot and fired at the last one. The bolt took of a couple of its legs as Banshee turned substantial and hit out at it with the burning corpse, knocking it unconscious as he dropped the fiery corpse on top of it.

Smoke from the burning corpses and webs were still billowing out the door and into the tunnel and  potentially out of the street grate. Akira and Sam immediately slammed the door shut as Akira again used his transformation powers to try to reshape the molten metal into clay and use it to fill the gap he’d made earlier. As soon as he stopped modelling it, it resumed its metal molecular structure. Hopefully the door now looked undamaged from the other side. at least on a cursory glance.

Through the door, they could now hear voices in the distance so they had to assume that at least some of the smoke had made its way out onto the street. They bolted the door and headed as fast as they could in the darkness, down the smoke-filled tunnel, which thankfully headed in the general direction of the old underground station beneath the Library building.

The undamaged webs were immensely strong, forcing them to duck and dive round those that were still unburnt, swiping away any smaller spiders that fell on them as they shook the webs in passing.

After a few minutes, they reached the end of the maintenance tunnel and again found themselves looking at a metal hatch with a trigger-like mechanism.  Listening for about a minute, they could hear nothing from the other side so they risked opening it. Beyond was the well-lit middle landing of the stairwell that led up to the ground floor of the Library proper or down towards the old rail platforms and the tunnels that had been converted into the Library’s various vaults and storage stacks. There was no sight or sound of anyone at this level, which surprised them.

Would the Emerald Blade be stored in one of the vaults, or? Akira checked his Topaz Pendant. It appeared to be pointing away from the vaults and up the stairs to the next landing, but there were definitely voices coming from that level.

That’s when Sam remembered that when they’d first met Og, whilst he was in possession of Akira’s Doppelgänger, he’d had his Library card ‘revoked’. He had a moment’s panic wondering what to do if one of the Library guardians came upon him while he was cardless.

They began to head up the stairs as quietly as they could and stared over the top step of the ground level at the deserted enquiry desk and the reading rooms opposite. There appeared to be two occupants talking quietly inside. What they also noticed was that all of the bookshelves had been stripped bare, the room itself was in disarray and the crystals that had formed Ophelia’s mystical data network had been shattered and allowed to just lie where they had fallen. As well as the two figures speaking animatedly but quietly in the main reading room, there were at least five figures in full featureless metallic face masks, dressed in ornamental uniforms as well as two guards in the scarlet power armour they’d seen previously either standing in the foyer or on the staircase to the first floor. The two in full power armour were presumably vampires though for some reason they didn’t think the figures in the face masks were. One of the uniformed figures seemed to be in charge of all of the others, his only difference was some sort of star-like symbol of the shoulder of his uniform.

Akira was sure that the female inside the room opposite was a vampire. It was less obvious that her companion was though as he held himself like a soldier, with his dark skin, close-cropped black hair and dressed in featureless body armour.

“I don’t like it,” muttered Sam. Akira however was more worried about the people in the full anonymous face masks. It was hard to be sure of exact numbers from their current location ‘below stairs’ without standing up or getting closer. They already knew many more were standing guard outside.

Akira again looked at his scrying pendant for confirmation that its emerald companion was on this level and to his surprise, it was quivering on his palm and seemed to be pointing upwards still.  Did that mean it was on a higher floor?

They had to try to go up the stairs and hope they could sneak passed the guards above. Again, Banshee turned Mace and himself insubstantial and invisible as Akira forced the air around him to mirror and divert light rendering him invisible even as Sam activated his chameleon ability. They needed to try and sneak passed rather than risk an out and out assault.

As they moved up the stairs as sneakily as possible, they heard one of the figures address the one with the badge of authority as ‘keeper’ who nodded and referred to the other as ‘Acolyte’.

The two armoured guards were clearly focused on watching the two figures seated in the reading room. A definite tension existed between them, the Keeper and his gathered acolytes.

As the others headed up as quietly as possible to the next level, an invisible Akira elected to sneak into the reading room to see what he could learn from the conversation of the female vampire (as he was now convinced she was) and the man sitting opposite her.

As he got as close as he dared, he could hear that the two of them were obviously arguing, though it was clear now that the male was subordinate to the female, though that did not prevent him from disagreeing with her opinion. As he tried to listen in. he realised that she appeared to be demanding that the male (who was apparently called Boire?) carry out some form of mass slaughter for her. He got the impression that this massacre had some sort of mystical purpose that she wanted or needed, and he was trying to persuade her not to do it. “We can easily afford to lose a block or two of humans without putting our feeding at risk,” she quietly explained. Boire was still advising against it saying, “It could be a step too far, Mi’Lady. Some of the other ‘sheep’ could feel that they too are at risk of being butchered and could end up rebelling. Why risk our food supply and peaceful rule for something we don’t even know will work? Is a rebellion worth the possible benefits?”

He seemed less concerned about slaughtering so many humans as he was about the possible impact on their control. As Akira tried to sneak a little closer, he noticed the female seemed to be turning her head in his general direction every couple of seconds as though she sensed something was amiss. He quickly but quietly backed out of the room and joined the others on the landing of the first floor.  As soon as he felt it was safe to do so, he shared what he’d overheard with the others sub-vocally over their commdots.

There was nothing they could do about it, though secretly Banshee was convinced this was further justification for them to get back to the past and stop this nightmare from ever occurring.

At the top of the next landing, the pendant twitched until it was pointing at the Chief Librarians study that Akira had last visited when he’d been trying to figure out what had happened to his missing teammates. There did not appear to be any guards or acolytes on this floor that they could see, but through the open door in the room next to the Chief Librarians study, there appeared to be three individuals gathered.

There was a middle-aged man in a red dress shirt and grey suit that immediately made Mace think of Pierce Brosnan from that musical, or at least he would if he wasn’t constantly leering and his eyes weren’t quite so cruel.

Beside him was a woman in her early thirties with short, white hair and wearing a raincoat and lastly a slightly younger woman dressed very casually with caramel-coloured skin, reddish-auburn hair smoking a cigarette. There was a sense of both power and darkness about all three of them. No one was talking but the tension was such that you could cut it with a knife.

The quietly moved to the entrance of the other room. In front of them and set onto the study door was a black symbol that looked as though it had been moulded onto the wood in some way. It showed a Pentagram enclosed within a circle, “Celtic-ly interlocked” muttered Akira on seeing it clearly, then admitted he’d just made up the term.

The others hadn’t seen the symbol previously but Akira had, in a book at the Library. It was the symbol of a group that referred to itself as the Court of Shadows. There had also been another group briefly mentioned, one opposed to the first, known only as the Parliament of the Dawn. The symbol in front of them apparently represented a coven of powerful dark Mages. The passage in the book had been extremely vague about what their overall intentions were however the members of the Parliament had been referred to as ‘light-bringers’.

Next door, the three people had begun quietly arguing about something. The good news was that the acolytes and guards on the stairs appeared focused on guarding the two people below rather than the three on this floor.

Turning back at the symbol, Banshee and Mace considered phasing through the door but Akira stopped them and whispered that he was unhappy about them going through the door whilst that symbol was present. The symbol was mystical in nature, of that Akira was sure and it had a dark aura about it that left him uneasy. He wanted to try his “old blancmange trick on it first.” They nodded their agreement as Akira focused his meta-ability to alter its structure into sand. The symbol immediately  turning into flakes of paint or whatever the substance was as it fell away from his outstretched hand with a tell-tale shimmer of magic. Only when the whole symbol was completely removed did he step back and allow Banshee and Mace, still holding each other to step through the wooden door.

Inside, the study was full of shadows. The bookshelves were again empty. As they looked around they saw that on one side of the room was a statue of an armoured figure, its hand outstretched and in its palm were two pendants, their gold chains entangled. One was a dark coloured glyph, the twin to the symbol on the door. The other was a small green-coloured blade. It was only later that Akira realised that this was the same pendant that the Chief Librarian had used to unseal the vaults below after the others had been banished to the Realm of Faerie.

They turned substantial and Banshee reached over to grab the tangle of chains and pendants. As she touched them, the statue let out a loud scream and began to move towards them both with a metallic, clanking sound.

Banshee responded with the Wail of the Banshee. The sound enveloped the room, causing Mace to put her hands over her ears but it had no effect on the golem-like statue pursuing them slowly but inevitably.

Mace slid her current arrowhead magazine out of its sheath selection mechanism on her arm then reached down and pulled out a replacement magazine marked experimental from her boot. Time to see if this would work she thought as she placed the new cartridge into the sheath and selected an arrowhead. She raised her arm and unleashed the bolt. The bolt flew straight and released its payload. The experimental electromagnet in the arrowhead activated as soon as it hit, causing the armoured figure to magnetise and shudder to a stop as its arms and legs slammed together. She just wasn’t sure how long the effect would last.

Outside, the statues scream followed seconds later by another terrifying wail had alerted the people nearby that something was wrong. The three figures in the room rushed out, followed a second later by the sound of footsteps from the acolytes and Keeper. The guards in power armour remained at their post.

Akira was still invisible and Sam remained in camouflage mode but that wouldn’t protect them if the others rushing their way were actively looking for them. Akira was convinced that the three from the room next door had to be powerful mages, possibly even part of the Court of Shadows itself. This did not look good for them.

Before Akira could do anything, Sam ‘uncloaked’ himself and immediately ran towards the stairs heading up to the next floor, hoping that everyone would chase after him shouting as he did so, “Hey you, over here. Your uniform’s suck! They’re just so very ‘Am-Dram’. Come on, time to stop that dragon!!!”

He headed towards the stairs and ran up to the next floor, followed by the acolytes. He reached the next floor when, in his haste to lead the anonymous-looking figures chasing him in a merry dance, he collided with a man. He looked as though he’d just escaped from the 70’s or 80’s, with his long brown hair, a waistcoat over a half-unbuttoned red shirt that was open revealing a number of archaic pendants round his neck. In his hands were a lit cigarette and an open bottle of beer. To Sam’s surprise he leered at him when they collided.

Sam tried to grab his beer bottle which began a scramble when ended with both of them still holding the beer. Sam closed his hand tighter and the bottle shattered, spilling its contents and shards over both of them. There’s more than one way to annoy someone, he thought.

To his surprise, the man just smiled and said, “I have a deal you would love. What’s your heart’s desire, young visitor. Perhaps we can come to some sort of arrangement?  Would you like to at least consider it?”

“I love deals”, Sam muttered before realising that this had been a delaying tactic and a couple of the acolytes had now caught up with them so he was now partially surrounded.

A mystical blast emanated from one of the people behind him. Sam ducked and it hit the man he’d been talking with a second before. To his surprise, his dealmaker was relatively unaffected by the attack but was clearly annoyed at being fired on, even if it was accidentally. He was obviously more powerful than he appeared. Sam angrily explained, “he shot you, not me…” but immediately followed it up by grabbing him, intending to hold him hostage as he spun him round so he was between himself and the acolytes, his claws held at the man’s throat. To his surprise, the man still remained calm.

Below, an invisible Akira realised that he was about to be surrounded as the three exited their room to investigate the noise from the study. He hoped he was still as nimble in this form and able to dodge their advance. He really didn’t know what this elderly form he now occupied was still capable of.

Inside the study, Banshee grabbed for the two entangled pendants from the now-unmoving statues’ outstretched hand. They both radiated mystical energy, but each was so very different from each other – one dark and selfish while the other had a tinge that he recognised as faerie-like. It would take too long to untangle the chains so he grabbed both. The only way out of the room was through the door they had come through. The statue-like golem creaked. She grabbed Mace, turned insubstantial and invisible again and headed back through the door.

They emerged back in the corridor facing the three from the room next door. To make things worse the male and the white-haired female seemed to be able to ‘see’ them both, or at least appeared aware of their presence as they tracked them with his eyes. Damn! She unleashed a terrorising scream. To her surprise, only one of the woman and one of the uniformed figures were affected. The female dropped her cigarette and stepped back slightly dazed by the attack. The acolyte though staggered back and had to lean against the wall to retain his balance.

The other female leaned over to support her companion as she called out her name, “Whittard!”

Akira didn’t appear to have been seen yet, so decided to see what would happen next. Mace unleashed a couple of standard bolts, which materialised as soon as the bolts left her wristbow.

The first bolt flew at ‘Pierce Brosnan’s’ head but it was suddenly engulfed by a dark portal that appeared in front of him then it reappeared behind him and continued its flight, slamming into the far wall. Seems he had some form of teleportal shielding. Damn!

A second bolt immediately followed, its target this time was the white-haired female. This thankfully hit, caused her to stagger back as the bolt struck close to her heart and pinned her to the wall. She snarled, revealing canines.

Other acolytes now appearing from the top of the stairs seemed confused by the attacks, given the attackers were still invisible. The white haired woman gestured, muttering quietly and a pulsating, dark purple shadow suddenly appeared from her fingertips, which surrounded the three of them. As it touched, their outlines became visible, sparkling with energy.  Akira was sure that some form of reveal aura spell had been unleashed against them. It also affected their opponents, which revealed their horrific natures to those with mystical sight.

Akira unleashed a series of mystical blasts at the pinned woman. The discharges hit causing her to collapse but even as he watched, she appeared to be physically recovering.

‘Pierce’ gestured and a series of teleporting disks appeared, spinning towards them. Whatever they hit seemed to teleport part of the object away, cutting them in half, as the remaining sections of the objects they hit crashed to the floor.

As they spun closer, Banshee unleashed a series of shattering shrieks as she tried to dodge while trying to keep herself between the deadly energy disks and Mace since she wasn’t sure her insubstantiality would work against them. She still instinctively dodged as did Akira through he lost some of the skin on his back as a disk grazed past. Mace was forced to dodge a teleporting disk that skimmed passed her.

They couldn’t face another attack. Banshee and Mace, still insubstantial, backed into the study, passed the struggling statue and phased through the shimmering window. Outside the armoured figures were obviously aware something was going on inside and to Banshee’s paranoia several appeared to be staring straight up at them. They at least still had the emerald pendant.

Meanwhile Akira used the confusion to rush towards the stairs where he found himself standing behind the Keeper and an Acolyte, staring up into the callous eyes and smiling face of Sam’s inhumanly calm ‘hostage’. Despite his invisibility, he felt trapped. He levitated over the heads of the costumed acolyte and Keeper and headed to stand beside Sam whispering, “We need to get the hell out. The others have already left the building and I don’t think your hostage is going to do us much good. We need to go.”

To the Akira’s utter surprise, Sam’s hostage turned his head to stare the invisible Akira in the face, despite it meaning Sam’s claws cut deeper into his neck. He smiled at him as well, the grin inhumanly wide as he spoke, “Hello.” Immense dark energy, even more than he’d felt from those three below, radiated from him. Despite appearances, there was something very inhuman about him. He was also too calm and that left Akira spooked. He needed to get out of there. He dropped his invisibility and manifested a teleportation portal back to the sewer behind the drain grill they’d used to view the Library previously. Sam pushed his captive towards the figures on the stairs and jumped through, followed by Akira. Seconds later, they reappeared in the sewer. As Akira had entered his portal he’d ‘noticed’ with his psychic ‘third eye’ a fragment of dark energy split away and follow them through. Was this some sort of mystical tracer? He had no idea how to dispel it if it was. A second later it dissipated (or turned undetectable?).

Outside, several of the armoured guards were still gathered at the grate, and a couple of others were making their way through the tunnels towards them, having been attracted over by the smoke from their actions earlier. Worse, they were both currently visible. Three armoured vampires walked round the corner. Sam responded by unleashing a blast of his fiery breath at the intruders. The narrowness of the tunnel meant it funnelled up the tunnel and hit all three of them, dazing them and driving them temporarily back.

In the street Banshee and Mace headed towards the roof and turned substantial so they could listen to their commdots, finally hearing Akira’s call that Sam and he were currently back behind the grill though they were under attack. As armoured figures rushed towards them across the rooftop, Banshee again turned the two of them insubstantial and immediately headed towards the opposite side of the street, phasing through the grill and pavement. They appeared visibly beside them as energy blasts hit the roof of the sewer and rebound through the tunnel from the three attackers behind the wall of flames generated by Sam.

Akira responded with a series of mystical blasts through the flames. The first two shots missed their intended targets but the last hit, slamming its target into the sewer wall and rendering him unconscious.

Sam and Akira suddenly found themselves facing an instantaneous migraine as some sort of emitter was being used against them. Sam clutched his head as he tried to focus through the intense, debilitating pain hindering his ability to maintain his flaming blasts or even think clearly. Akira however managed to use a series of mantras to bypass the pain and focus.

Sam forced himself to focus and tried to use his draconic persuasion on the attackers in the tunnel. He succeeded in taking control over one of them and ending the mental attack. “Bob, I need you to protect us now!” as he reached forward to touch his new ‘pet’ on the shoulder and reinforce the suggestion. “Damn, he’s named him, that means he’ll want to keep him now,” muttered Akira only half joking.

A fight broke out between the remaining two armoured figures as his companion realised the other had been compromised. Banshee turned substantial and rushed forward using her corrupting touch on the remaining attacker as Sam pulled ‘Bob’ back out of the way. Her touch warped the armour’s servos, freezing and trapping him inside the suit which collapsed against the wall.

Outside the one they’d nicknamed ‘Pierce’ and the ‘smoking woman’ Whittard, had come out of the building onto the street and simultaneously began to mystically gesture as they turned his attentions towards their hiding hole. He then directed the remaining guards towards the sewer drain.

Mace rushed to the grill and unleashed a series of standard bolts against ‘Pierce’. Caught by surprise, one of the bolts hit its target, knocking him to his knees. Meanwhile ‘Vampire Bob’ was still trying to break free of Sam’s compulsion and failed. Mace turned and muttered “Sam, just deal with him, we’ll get you another pet, a dog, when we get back to the BASEment.” Suddenly Akira remembered that Annie had been talking about getting a pet, but he was sure she’d intended to get a cat not a dog.

Trying to focus, Akira reached over and looked at the two entwined pendants. He was sure the black pendant was dangerous, given the evil emanations he could feel from it. He touched the pendant and immediately transformed it into sand.

Outside the sun was going down as the white haired female stepped into the street. She looked weaker, older. She reached over and grabbed the nearest acolyte and physically dragged him into her arms. As she held him, he shrivelled up and died leaving a drained husk that she dropped to the ground as, revitalised, wound healed, and once again young she joined her companions.

Suddenly the bars of the drain grill began to rapidly rust as a black, vile smelling mould suddenly began to spread over all the bars and on the pavement around it causing the concrete to begin to crumble. The blight continued to rapidly spread.

They needed to find a large mirror and fast (or a large reflective surface might work though they couldn’t be sure). Someone outside shouted “that sewer has to come out somewhere so keep on looking.” Time was running out. They backed away from the expanding blight and considered heading back to the entrance they’d come in, though it would take them a couple of hours to get back there. Akira tried to persuade Sam to get rid of his new ‘pet’ as he considered trying to transform something into a mirrored surface and using that but realised that then he wouldn’t also then be able to focus on using the blades to transport them through time.

Sam reluctantly sent his captivated ‘Bob’ away, down the tunnel as Akira suggested they all teleport back into the library and try to find a mirror in there. But where?  The only large mirror he remembered seeing was the one in the reading room he’d seen when spying on the two figures. He immediately opened a portal back to the room and the team jumped through.

Inside the room, the female vampire and the man in body armour suddenly found themselves sharing the room with The Balance. Akira was reconciled to the possibility of dying in the ‘here and now’ since he was sure he would need to stay and maintain the gateway in this time to allow the others to escape. It was his plan to hopefully return them to the library just after their fight with Og, Gog and Magog and they’d vanished. He had to admit he hoped his earlier self would meet up with them though, probably, without any of his recent memories. It was a sacrifice worth taking, even if this body didn’t survive.

Ignoring the room’s occupants, Akira rushed over to the large mirror, the one he hoped had also existed back in their own time and began preparing his makeshift ritual hoping that his logic would make sense since he was sure he needed to use both keys of power, though how and in what order he would have to guess.

Banshee unleashed a Wail of the Banshee at the two occupants. The man seemed badly affected by the attack and staggered back but recovered fast. The woman was clearly affected less but she kept her distance with the male obviously trying to shield her. Banshee was aware that the scream had also alerted the others outside.

Mace immediately followed it with a bolt at the woman. It missed as she moved out of its path with inhuman speed. Mace activated the homing circuit but the female vampire grabbed it in mid-air and snapped it in two. Meanwhile Mace had unleashed a second bolt straight at the man. The bolt hit, causing him to snarl as he pulled the bolt free from his leg. The body armour had limited the targets available.

Meanwhile Akira had pulled the mirror off the wall and began to forge a mirror path back on itself using the expanded Topaz Blade. A slice of brilliant light manifested itself in the mirrored surface. He hoped it was enough as he transferred the partially immersed blade to his left hand and tried to use the Emerald Blade in his other hand to pierce the gap and again cut down as he tried to will the path to travel back to the day when they had entered the faerie realm.  The tear in space and time immediately turned green.

The female vampire retreated and scurried up the wall before manifesting  an energy round herself that caused her to turn into a mist, which drifted towards them. Behind her, the other four non-costumed people they’d confronted previously had begun to gather at the door to the study in preparation for an attack.

The misty figure suddenly fled the room even as the other five advanced forward. Akira forced himself to maintain the pathway, as he explained, “I think I’ve created a path back to your own time now go. Leave me, this is my time and these are my people, let me deal with it, now go… Go!”

Banshee and Mace jumped into the mirror and vanished. Sam realised what was about to go down and muttered, “That’s some weird timey-wimey stuff right here. Thanks Akira. Be well. I’d like to see you again. I mean you, not just the past you” and kissed him on the cheek before jumping through into an overpowering cacophony of light and sound that astounded and overwhelmed them all.

Back in the room Akira tried to pull the blades free and turn. only for the green energy to explode out filling the room and enveloping him and the five advancing on him. His last conscious thought was a single “damn”.

The three members of The Balance found themselves apparently alone in a familiar room, surrounded by shelves overflowing with books. The room appeared empty and dark. Then, behind them in the gloom, they saw a massive, white furred ape-like creature lumber towards them. It opened its mouth revealing a set of sharp canines as it let out a cry that was almost unintelligible. “Caaard” it wailed as its outstretched claw gestured for them to produce their authorisation for being in the Library. The creature towered even over Sam as he remembered his Library card had been ‘revoked’ by Ophelia just before they had left this realm and now one of the guardian Yeti’s was demanding they show they had the right to be in the Library in the middle of the night. Banshee quickly returned to Mary, pulled out her card and raised it up so the creature in front of her could read it. It growled deeply but stepped back into the darkness allowing them to leave.

Behind them, darkness formed in the mirror a second before it shattered into a million fragments. The Balance quickly exited without a backwards glance.

Back in his bedroom in the BASEment, a much younger Akira awoke and immediately realised he had to get to the Library. Outside the other members of Balance 2.0 were returning from their most recent mission as he realised he’d succeeded, he’d gotten the original team back but six months after he’d planned. Still they were back. He grabbed his clothes, dressed quickly and rushed out to find Adam. He’d need to get to the Library and confirm his expectations. He’d better also ask him to load up Mace’s bike. She’d appreciate seeing that it was still in good working order.

As he rushed down the corridors, he couldn’t help wondering what the time explosion in the future had done to the gathered five people who’d been present, after the rest of The Balance had escaped?

He failed to notice he still had a small Topaz pendant in the shape of a sword round his neck or that it was twitching against his chest.