Superhero Adventures, UK Style

Netherwars Part 6 – Adapted from the adventure by Amber Scott

Paragon stared out their penthouses’ large picture windows at the flawless blue sky outside. It was another perfect day, as always. He suddenly wondered how long it had been since they had returned from Venice. There, they had witnessed the witch Medea, the resurrected Malador and the spirit of the near-Goddess Una dissipate into the ether when they had attempted to take simultaneous possession of the mystical Mask of Malador; a mask that Paragon had subsequently shattered into pieces. Just how long had it been since they’d returned to the UK though; had it been weeks, months or could it have been just a few days? His mind refused to work it out, caught up as he was in the prefect now.

For a moment, a strange memory surfaced. Paragon felt as though he had been somewhere else just a few minutes before. Had there been a battle? Some sort of explosion? The more he tried to focus on the memory, the faster it slipped away. Perhaps it would come back to him later?

Akira had no such doubts; he was in his element, protecting the innocent citizens of Wessex. On the massive table in the middle of the room, an old-fashioned looking red telephone, but one without any dial buttons started to ring, its shrill buzz cutting through the peaceful tranquillity of the apartment.

As he rushed over to pick up the phone, he knew that everything was as it should be. He could feel it in his bones—in his very soul—that they were where they were meant to be. Nothing upset or struck him as odd. They were the Defenders, they were in their secret headquarters and this was another beautiful day in Wessex. Thanks to the efforts of brave, bold heroes like themselves, the city and its citizenry enjoyed a sense of quiet security. The citizens know without doubt that when evil reared its vicious head, the Defenders would be there to mete out justice.

The red telephone, a direct line to the mayor’s office, rang again. Evil must be afoot!

Banshee ignored the phone as she glanced round the room, almost as though she was seeing it for the first time. They were standing in a vast room on the top floor of a skyscraper. Ad­vanced gadgets and computer terminals sat against the walls. A long, white conference table with too many chairs filled the centre of the room. The middle of the table projected a three-dimensional hologram of the City while wide windows line the walls, affording an incredible view of the urban landscape beyond.

The phone buzzed again as Akira grabbed the handset off its cradle and lifted the receiver to his ear. A familiar voice came through the line, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear: “Defenders! This is Mayor O’Connor! Something terrible has hap­pened. Sandstone is robbing the First Direct Bank! You must come at once!”

Akira immediately acknowledged the request, then dropped the handset back onto its cradle. Paragon was out onto the balcony a second later, leaping into the air heading towards the city centre, ready to test his power attack against Sandstone’s. Both Akira and Banshee followed but secretly they thought that there had been something about the Mayor’s voice, though immediately recognisable from their previous encounter with him, had been somehow off and when did the Mayor call them directly to request their help?

Akira tried to ignore the gnawing feeling in his gut that they never used to be this popular, and why did it feel as though they were starring in an episode of the Truman Show? The doubt vanished as the need to ‘save the citizens’ took priority.

Akira and Banshee stepped out on to balcony a second later and flew ‘sky high’ as they set off in pursuit of their teammate. For a split second, they noticed a bright flash and a crack appeared in the sky, but the image faded quickly, replaced once more by a sense of calm and rightness with the world.

Their flight was quick but soul affirming and their doubts vanished as they landed on the pavement outside the First Direct Bank. Through the large display windows they could see a dozen customers lying flat out on the floor as a half dozen goons in sandy coloured overalls and armed with industrial sandblasters stood guard over them.

A tremendous boom split the air, and a cloud of smoke rolled against the windows of the Bank as the window shattered into a thousand shards. Through the shattered glass, the team glimpsed a scene of destruction: Terrified cit­izens stayed huddled on the floor. Sandstone’s men pointed their improvised weapons at the inno­cents as they shouted “Stay on the ground!” at them. Past the robbers, a familiar massive, stony woman approached the bank’s now warped and twisted vault doors.

The team momentarily thought that there was something strange about the scene but couldn’t say what. Was it that the bank vault was visible from the main floor or that the large iron door with its ship’s-wheel handle seemed so old-fashioned for such a modern bank?

Before they could get inside the bank, Sandstone used her phenomenal strength to rip open the vault door before she spun round to confront them as the Defenders rushed inside the bank. Her minions started to raise their improvised weapons in readiness. She cackled, “Ah, The Country’s finest come to stop me! Well, I’ll warn you up front: people say I can be pretty abrasive! Hahaha!”

Damn, she was clearly going to make with the wisecracks! Could it get any worse?

Akira responded by raising his shield then attacked the nearest three goons with his mystical blasts. The attack knocked all three of them against the far wall with such force that it cracked their sandblasters’ cylinders, covering them in abrasive sand and shattering the wall plaster. It also rendered them all immediately unconscious. The last one was knocked against the vault door with such force that it slammed shut even as the goon slid to the floor, no longer a threat to anyone. Akira smiled. Their attack was going swimmingly.

Despite their dire situation, the customers on the ground let out a spontaneous cheer. Akira responded by bowing, enjoying his moment of glory. It didn’t last though.

Banshee immediately followed it up by unleashing a wail that caused the customers and staff to panic and scramble to rush to huddle against the back wall in abject fear, knocking the remaining gang members to the ground in their rush to escape the terror. Thankfully Paragon was unaffected by the wail this time. It seemed as though regular exposure to Banshee’s attacks had finally resulted in immunity to her influence. As the wail washed over them, the clients tried to get into the resealed vault, buffeting against an angry Sandstone in their rush to try to escape the sense of terror.

Sandstone now stood alone in front of them. Paragon responded by charging at her, fists ready to pummel. He considered shouting some sort of witty quip, but came up dry. She shouted that if he came any closer that she would strip him raw. He smiled; there was nothing worse than getting sand in your body’s nooks and crannies.

Committed to the attack, Paragon ignored the comment as he rushed in and punched her with all his might. The blow sank deep into her body as its abrasive nature stripped the skin from his knuckles. For a split second, he thought his attack had no effect on her but then she staggered back, clearly injured by the blow.

She unleashed a storm of sand at them in response. To everyone’s surprise and despite their proximity to each other, he was able to dodge the blast without further injury.

Standing back, Akira felt inspired to cast the Eight Eyes of Ios around himself. The Eight Eyes of Ios were a glowing ring of unblinking golden orbs that float around the caster’s head, invisible to all who lacked mystical abilities. They granted the ability to see in all directions, through any concealment or illusion.

Ios had been an ancient archmage who had ascended to a higher spiritual plane, becoming a guide and guardian of mystics seeking after the truth. Akira needed some of that truth just now.

For a split second, he felt sure that nothing around him, other than his two teammates, was as it seemed, as though it was just a well-crafted illusion, seeing the fundamental structure of everything as though it were overlaid over a sort of mystical wireframe construct. The building also looked wrong – why would anyone place a vault so it was so easily accessible and why was the vault lock such an archaic design? He turned and looked at the street outside. A barrier of golden energy surrounded the city.

Something had trapped them in a mystical gilded cage, one designed to be deceptively comforting and specifically designed just for them, its very nature blurred their memories and instilled a sense of calm contentment in them.

As the influence of Ios began to fade, he realised that of everyone in the bank, only the three of them were real, everyone else was a type of Tulpa; a simplistic, semi-sentient construct manifested out of magic. While they seemed human on the surface, aping their originals’ personal­ity and mannerisms, they were just simple-minded puppets formed from their own memories.

Unfortunately, without the presence of the Eyes he found this insight start to drift away.

Banshee rushed towards Sandstone and grabbed her. She was sure that she should have been faster at dodging as she unleashed a corrupting touch on her.  As the effects washed over her, she responded with a blast of abrasive sand around the room. To their utter surprise, no one was hurt as the sandstorm began to clear. The customers and staff were brushing the sand off them and none seemed to have been hurt which was miraculous to say the least.

Sandstone immediately fell to her knees yelling, “Curs­es! Once again, I am thwarted. You’ve ground me down, do-gooders!” At that precise moment a squad of police appeared. They rushed into the bank and immediately slapped handcuffs on Sandstone and her gang, and proceeded to take them directly to jail.

That was clearly not right, they thought. Sandstone should be able to effortlessly slip free of the cuffs with her Insubstantial power and the police had to know that.

Outside, a large limousine pulled up and Mayor O’Connor stepped out and walked into the bank to congratulate them. A flash mob of photographers and reporters seemed to appear out of nowhere to record the moment. “You’ve saved the bank and all these helpless citizens! We are in your debt, Defenders. The City thanks you!” He offered each of the team hearty handshakes before walking back to his limousine and pulling away.

That’s when they realised that despite the chaos of the fight everyone had miraculously avoided hitting any of the bystanders in the bank. The police arrived almost instantaneously once the fight was over and why was the mayor with them? For that matter, when was the last time they had seen it rain? Akira was sure it was all wrong, he was sure that there was something very important that he’d forgotten.

As the Mayor’s limousine left the bank, they receive a radio trans­mission via the radio watches they each wore — “Defenders, this is your faithful servant, Sallah. Congratulations on your success. If you return to the Secret Headquarters, I shall tend to your wounds and repair any damage to your suits.”

Sallah? For a moment, they could only remember him as Adrian’s partner but then they ‘remembered’ that he had joined the team years ago as their support staff. Mustn’t keep the old man waiting.

When they arrived back at the penthouse chamber of their Secret Headquarters, Sallah stood at the ready in an old-fashioned black suit and bow tie, ready to serve. “Welcome home, heroes. All has been quiet here. May I tend to your needs? Is there anything I can do for you?”

Akira muttered, “Yes we need to get back to our reality.” As Paragon asked him, “what happened, this feels wrong somehow?”

Sallah looked scandalised. “There is nothing wrong. This has always been the Defender’s task to defend the city and keep it safe. You are its premier protectors.” Paragon shook his head, “Maybe but people didn’t use to like us as much as they appear to do now. Something is clearly wrong, we just don’t know what.”

Akira reached down and touched the Medallion around his neck as he tried to read the old man’s thoughts. He could only read his surface thoughts, everything else was static but he clearly thought everything he was saying was right. This was really him, their Sallah or at least a version of him as though he co-existed in several realities at the same time. He clearly remembered being Adrian’s partner and support until recently, but at the same time, he also remembered serving and supporting the Defenders over the last few years.

One thing was clear; he was determined to keep them busy. He was desperately waiting for that red phone to ring. That was the most important thing in his life for some reason.

Akira walked over and whispered in Banshee’s ear telling her what he’d just discovered ending with “This is Wessex Mary, but not as we know it… Someone seems to be reconstructing reality around us.”

The red phone started to ring. Banshee turned her back on it while muttering, “Don’t answer it.”

Akira however reached out and picked as the handset. “We have to follow the narrative, for now at least.” The Mayor was asking for their help. It seemed someone called Captain Kraken was invading the Boardwalk area of the riverfront. “Who?” asked Akira only for Paragon to speak up.

“Captain Kraken is a modern-day pirate that stalks the coast of Cornwall. He hides his identity behind a mechanised cephalopod mask and dresses as a pirate. I knew of him because my adopted mother, Thorn, has battled him on several occasions. His schooner though was designed for ocean going, not the relative shallows of the River Thames. He’s not been seen outside of Cornwall before, at least as far as I know. What’s he doing in Wessex, though? This is embarrassing.”

Akira quipped, “Is he your father? Family resemblance and all that, hence the grotesque mask to hide his looks.”

“Never mind that, pirates Sallah, we got any cutlasses to hand? This calls for a slice and dice scenario. This should be fun and I bet he’s a nice bloke really.”

“Good!” said Akira “I like pirates.” He proceeded to tie a handkerchief around his bald head. Sallah smiled, “Unfortunately sir, I have no parrots on hand to complete the look. I will see if we have any bladed weapons to hand Master Paragon, just wait while I have a look.” He proceeded to produce a cutlass from a darkened back room, which he handed to an enthusiastic Paragon. Banshee smiled, she was sure that hadn’t been there a minute before. Seems Akira’s theory might be right.

Paragon smiled, “Well buckle my swashes m’ hearties, we’ll solve the problem of whether this is a false reality after we’ve dealt with the pirate threat.” as he swung the blade back and forth a few times.

Sallah agreed, “You must keep the city safe at all costs, the city relies on you to defend it. You’ve ALWAYS been there to protect its citizens against any threats. You must always answer the challenge.”

“Pirates! We get to make some pirates walk the plank. Come on, time to go!” said Paragon as he stepped out once more onto the balcony and flew towards the Boardwalk area of the river. The others followed.

A minute later, they were hovering above the walkway and its moored houseboats looking at a schooner swarming with sailors dressed like 18^th century pirates, sailing upriver. They were close to Jianna Delacure’s houseboat; was that their target? And how was their ship able to sail up such a relatively shallow river?

Akira spotted Captain Kraken and immediately unleashed a mystical blast at him, ignoring his buccaneers who he left for Paragon and his trusty cutlass to deal with. Again, the blast hit causing him to drop to his knees. It seemed he was unable to miss, at least at the moment.

Banshee targeted the gathered crew who were trying to target one of the ship’s cannons at her. She dived down until she was staring them in the face, smiled and said “Boo!” The crew took a step back then tried to redirect the cannon directly at her as Paragon landed on the deck behind them, waving his cutlass in the air. Six of the crew immediately rushed him. He responded in kind. Every swipe with his sword hit, as he knocked their swords and pistols out of their hands. He de-armed half the crew in a single charge with his faithful blade. If any shots hit or blades cut him, he was completely unaware of it.

He heard a shot as Captain Kraken fired at him. The lead ball hit him in the shoulder and just bounced off without penetrating his skin. “Arggh, you got me, you dastardly dog!” was Paragon’s response, as he proceeded to disarm another member of the crew.

Akira unleashed another mystical blast at the cephalopod-faced villain, which he thought might miss but surprisingly it hit its target causing him to collapse to the ground moaning. The rest of the crew were retreating towards the rear of the ship as Paragon proceeded to swash his way towards them, even as Banshee flew above them waving her arms around like a bewitched spectre. As they reached the stern, they proceeded to throw their weapons onto the deck and jump overboard, leaving them with an unconscious captain and a deserted boat still sailing upstream.

That’s when Banshee realised that someone had lit the fuse on one of the cannon that was currently pointing straight at the card shop on the shore.  She responded by unleashing a flash freeze at the fuse causing it to extinguish. On the shore, the buccaneers were pulling themselves out of the water onto the shore and into the welcoming hands of the police who once more had turned up in the nick of time to arrest the miscreants. They signalled for someone to come onboard and figure out how to stop this craft and safely moor it.

The mayor and his entourage of press once more appeared on the shore as though he had nothing else to do other than follow either them or the police around all day. Through a megaphone, he shouted his congratulations and thanks, and then once more vanished out of sight. While this was going on, Paragon disappeared below decks to have a look around. As he suspected the hold was too deep for the river; its keel had to be dragging the river bottom yet clearly wasn’t. This defied reality despite looking real. He’d seen Kraken’s ship once before, moored off the coast of Cornwell and so that’s what had been transferred here so it matched his memory. Unfortunately, his memory of the river and of the ship didn’t marry up. Another sign that this wasn’t their reality.

He headed back up top to Akira and Banshee. They quietly exchanged information as they tried to think of ways to break out of this manufactured reality. The obvious solution was to fly out of the city and see just how big this fake reality was. Hopefully they would find its boundary and be able to break free.

They flew towards the edge of the city only to find themselves flying back in from the opposite side, towards the penthouse. Reality here was somehow looped but for a split second, they had seen several pink-looking cracks appear in the sky as though their attempt to leave the city had momentarily strained this reality.

As though in response, a stressed Sallah tried to contact them over their wrist-phones to inform them that another villain was on the rampage and they were needed urgently. Tom Cyprus was apparently on a deadly rampage downtown and no one could stop him except the Defenders.

They briefly remembered that not so long ago Tom had become a reformed creature, content to be a dedicated librarian and curator in Eldrich’s library, not the half mad Frankenstein-like swamp creature that Sallah described. Who would be next to appear, Death Metal?

Banshee wondered what would happen if they elected to ignore the call? Nothing presumably and they needed to figure another way to escape their ‘golden cage’. Paragon asked Akira if he could somehow transport them away, back to their own dimension. Akira explained that he needed to know where they were now first, assuming they actually were in another dimension.

Perhaps they could send a message to Seven and she could act as a dimensional anchor to bring them back? Unfortunately, Seven they suddenly realised was also present in this realm.‘Lady’ Seven as she was known on this world currently resided in Adrian Eldrich’s elderly tenement building, premises that still housed the Nerian Nexus with all its mystical mysteries, one that had apparently never merged with Akira’s own house of Ffrwd Dylluan. Akira felt sure that Lady Seven was at least partially real and not a Tulpa, though her consciousness, like Sallah’s, might also be spread over multiple worlds and realities.

They decided to head there and meet with Seven. It was just possible that if the building contained a  mystical representation of  the  nexus that it might attract a portal to the real dimensional nexus. The mystical law of contagion stated that when two objects come into contact with each other, there is a potentially permanent exchange of properties between them.

As they arrived, Akira was glad to see the entrance mimicked the entrance to Adrian’s home, its true frontage concealed behind a glamour. This went beyond the illusions they had experienced everywhere else. As they walked up to the door, it opened to reveal Seven. Before they could say anything she asked, “Are you trapped here as well then?” Yes!

“Okay, I’m not sure whether or not this will work but…” Before she said anything else, she headed down the corridor towards the back of the house and opened a door. Inside was a universe, a room that clearly existed outside this earthly realm, situated within the Nexus itself. No illusion could possibly fake this.

Seven explained, “I, I don’t think that Sallah and I are completely here, I think we’re fragments – somehow part of us escaped so only part of us were dragged here with you. If you can find our physical selves, presumably we’re still back on Earth, and let them know about this place then we  should be able to pull all the fragments back together and free ourselves. Being here, in this place has allowed me to remain unaffected by the memory swap, but Sallah wasn’t so lucky. He was already caught up in their reality when he first arrived and was swept up in the madness. He now believes his mission is to stop you from leaving for your own safety if nothing else.”

“As you can see, from here you have access to the cosmic portals but I have no idea where here is exactly or how to find our own reality. I have to remain here, for now at least. I need you to find me if you can, the other me, she’ll know what to do to bind me to her. It’s also possible that there is no way out through this room and it is just another tantalising mystical illusion after all.”

It was clear that the fragment of her that was here with them wasn’t powerful enough to tell whether this was real or not. “Don’t worry,” said Akira as he began to manifest the Airts of Ahgrazul, which guides travellers on the winding coils between worlds, or in this case to help him to identify and navigate the multiple gates.

Paragon wondered if this failed, whether Banshee’s connection to the Fae might be another possible route out. He was shocked when he was told that when they had travelled to that realm before and that when they left a few ‘days’ later, several decades had passed in the real world and they were forced to time travel back to their own time, altering the future for good or ill in the process.

As they talked, Akira finished the spell and he felt it flare into existence. He grabbed his two companions, bid farewell and stepped over the threshold. The Medallion of Modrossus now hanging around his neck should hopefully protect them all from the dangers within.

Ahgrazul had been another mighty archmage, this time supposedly from ancient Atlantis, known as a seer and diviner. He first explored the Cosmic Coil and blazed paths for the mystics who would follow him, the same dimensional crossroads that Eldrich accessed through his cosmic room and which was linked to this dimension!

Legend said that Ahgrazul had foretold Atlantis’s fall, but he had departed for worlds beyond before the island-continent had sunk beneath the waves. It looked as though Akira and his teammates were about to follow him into that unknown.

Then they felt the spell’s pull as it guided them towards a specific portal.

Free from the confines of their prison, it was clear that someone or something had created a perfect city in a ‘bottle’, to keep them occupied and away from their Earth. Something had shunted them into a pocket dimension—a type tailored as an Elysium—created specifically for them. In this superhero heaven, the team were constantly being called on to defend a shining illusion of the City of Wessex, where simple caricatures of super­villains posed no real threat to their might. At first, the illusion seems reasonable, even familiar, but they now realised that something was very wrong with their ‘new reality’. As they flowed through the cosmos in search of a way home, Banshee could help feel a feeling of déjà vu as they had been here before, doing a same attempt to escape.

They emerged into an Earth that was darkly warped. Plumes of acrid pink smoke ob­scured the sky, rising from decimated buildings and broken streets. Shells of wrecked vehicles littered the roads. A glowing green aura emanated from the sky, suffusing everything in its putrid glow. Flocks of something large and winged roamed the skies, even as demons and grey imp-like creatures roamed the streets, hunting down and torturing its inhabitants. The sky glowed with netherworld energy, the poisons and fumes released into the foul air burnt their throats, and the colossal form of a three-headed humanoid colossus towered over the shattered remnants of the City, strid­ing through the forest of skyscrapers.

Despite the alien nature of the creature, its three faces were strikingly familiar; they were in the image of Malador, Medea and Una.

It was only much later that they realised that there were no radio signals or moving vehicles. The triune’s first act on being birthed had been to drain all electricity from the Earth, rendering all missiles and aeroplanes unpowered and earthbound. Thousands died in those first few minutes as planes tumbled from the sky and life support no longer functioned independently around the world. While mechanical devices still worked, nothing electrical, including vehicles, could.

The UK was not rendered into a radioactive wasteland as a result because every nation’s nuclear missiles remained in their silos, bomber planes remained grounded and submarine’s forced to surface. Even ground troops were forced to march to locations as every ship and lorry around the world was rendered inert.

On seeing the monstrous creature, Paragon set out to try to strike at the heads. He flew in and hit one of the faces but it appeared to have no effect. All three faces smiled as it tried to grab him. As he tried to dodge, four more arms, each working independently of the others, manifested out of thin arm and tried to grab him. Several of the limbs grabbed him out of the air and squeezed.

Before their eyes, Paragon was crushed as the multiple massive hands tightened around him, even as lethal bony spikes emerged from the multiple palms piercing his body before he was thrown hard into the ground where he lay unmoving, his chest showing no sign of breathing. Before they can do anything to help, the gigantic creature smiled then unleashed a fiery blast from Medea’s eyes that cremated the body into ash, even as it banished the others back to their pocket dimension.

They appeared in the penthouse, standing in front of a smiling Sallah, who immediately handed each of them a nice cup of tea and invited them to sit around the conference table with their teammates, Mace 2.0 (who was in reality Jeeves) and Android Annie. The two of them started to smile; the Defenders were fully prepared and were just waiting for the red phone to ring to call the team into action.

A few seconds later the phone rang, Banshee and Akira suddenly had a flash of memory that left them feeling uncomfortable as they momentarily remembered that their team had once been known as the Balance and that they used to have a partner called Peter Smith, Paragon who died. Then they found themselves forgetting everything as Mayor O’Connor called on them to deal with an attack on City Hall by the Toy Boy and his horde of deadly automatons. Time to get back to work.

A week later back on Earth

Paragon opened his eyes as though for the first time. He was floating in a thick, blueish liquid, apparently breathing it in. There was a transparent, curved wall surrounding him, he was sealed inside some sort of transparent tube and was floating, naked in the fluid. The chamber separated him from some sort of advanced technological wonder of a laboratory. He was surrounded by flashing and bleeping machinery of every kind, which appeared to be monitoring his vitals. Then he saw there was a window over to one side of the laboratory, outside which a large grey shark could be seen swimming by. Wherever he was, it was clearly located beneath the sea.

He glanced down and saw his arms were extremely pale as though untouched by the Sun and his skin was flawless, without blemish or scars. It also looked a little less muscular than previously remembered as well and his navel looked red and raw as though his umbilical cord had only recently been removed. He looked around but he appeared to be alone.

He smashed his way free, and found himself gasping for breath as the fluid flowed out of the large gap in the tube resulting from his punch and puddled at its base. It took him a few seconds to remember that he could breathe air and found himself collapsing to his knees as he vomited up the last of the blue liquid from his lungs. He enlarged the hole and climbed out of the tube. Red lights flashed everywhere but no one came to see why.

There was a sealed airlock over by one wall that apparently exited into the ocean which he ignored. He stood up and looked at his reflection in the window. He had apparently been reborn into his own but somehow younger body, as it had been when he had been about age 18 or so.

He also thankfully retained all his memories from when he’d first washed up on that Cornish beach a few years before through to his moment of death. That was good to know.

As he searched the apparently deserted base, he found several more glass coffins in connecting chambers, each containing an unconscious copy of what appears to be a child at various ages of development, though none were older than a toddler, with most of them still being between baby and foetus-stages of growth and physical development.

There was something very familiar about the babies and older children, each of whom clearly shared identical features. Clones? They seemed too identical to be brothers, more like monozygotic twins in different stages of development, features that they all shared with him.

He suspected that they were his clones, or, given where he’d awoken after dying, perhaps he should say clones like him. Did that mean the older version of him he’d seen in the Dungeon Dimension was the original, not him?

He found a set of overalls in a cupboard just as several levitating robots looking like inverted teardrops, appeared out of a concealed panel in the wall and began to attack him, calling him an “anomaly” that needed to be “eliminated”. No time to dress, he wasn’t ready for another elimination as he swung out with all his might and his fist rendered one of the robots into scrap metal. Something else that hadn’t changed then, he still had his powers. Good to know as his eyes blazed turning another couple of robots into scrap. He felt a slight pain on his naked hip as one of the robots scored a direct hit with its retractable arm and he realised he still wasn’t invincible. He managed a glancing blow at another of the attackers and was grateful to see they weren’t designed for fighting and weren’t armed, that clearly wasn’t their primary function.

He continued smashing away until all of his metal attackers were no longer functional. He then climbed into the overalls and went off in search of information. In each chamber there was a computer terminal but they needed a password to access them and he hadn’t a clue how to access them and his computer knowledge was limited to emailing and filling in his tax returns online. Frustrated he gave up after trying a number of the terminals, hoping someone had accidentally left themselves logged in. No such luck! He hoped to find a central control room but it seemed as though each chamber was self-reliant and operated independently. Their only function appeared to be growing the clones.

He did notice that the foetuses were seemingly being stored rather than being actively grown.

In addition, none of the older occupants inside their birthing chambers were at the same degree of development to each other and none of them appeared to be functioning autonomously. Did that mean the builder of this facility swapped bodies every few decades or was there another purpose? It did mean that it was unlikely that they were being prepped as a clone army.

Red lights were now flashing red in each chamber and the doors separating each chamber were in the process of locking down. It was now clear that the whole facility was automated, probably running off some kind of undersea thermal tap into underground vents. There were no facilities for staff, other than the robots, that he’d been able to find. He suspected it was some sort of automated clone factory producing just one model – him.

He decided he would leave then destroy the facility even if it meant he was no longer able to be immortal. There was something immoral about growing bodies for someone else to possess.

Ignoring the airlock, he smashed his way out of the chamber and allowed it to flood, then he turned his eye beams on and swimming round the facility took out each and every chamber, flooding each in turn before heading up towards the surface.

As he emerged from the depths, he found himself surfacing close to the beach where he had been rescued previously. The air was pink-coloured and left an acrid, bitter taste in his mouth. Smoke in the distance seemed to indicate he is still on their now-invaded Earth.

In front of him, on the shore, floating in the air was a familiar figure; it was Thorn his adopted mother.

Tears in her eyes she flew across and welcomed him, grudgingly admitting that, after hearing of his demise at the false Goddess’s hands (literally) the week before, she had taken to regularly visiting the beach where she’d found him the first time, hoping for some sort of miracle. Something told her that his death wasn’t the end.

Of course, having been visited by an older, more cynical version of himself just before the invasion by the Triune had raised questions as to his possible survival. Triune apparently was what the titanic figure called itself.

The older version of himself had claimed to be Icarus, the son of Daedalus, who claimed to have gained immortality from the Gods and passed that gift on to his son.

Thorn admitted she has used her pheromone powers to ‘encourage’ him to explain how Peter had come into being.

Icarus was as much a genius as his father and was also eternal though not immortal – he might be able to live forever but he could still be killed, rendered beyond recovery, so he had found a way to clone himself should he be murdered. His personality and knowledge would then be automatically transferred to one of several secret bases he had built around the world where it would be programmed into the body of one of his artificially aged clones.

Icarus had been compelled to tell her that a couple of years previous, he had been almost killed in an encounter with Daedalus, his father, who opposed his plans for world domination. The automatic process of rebirth was started due to a technical glitch, resulting in one of his clones being brought to maturity, but as Icarus hadn’t actually died, it never received the transfer of his knowledge and memories. When the A.I. running the Cornish base realised its mistake it had decanted the other clone but it was already fully viable and had survived, crawling out of the waves devoid of any memories of its previous lives. Seems that that clone had been her Peter.

Before Icarus could personally resolve what he saw as a ‘mistake’, he’d been captured and imprisoned by the then Warden, Gabriel Slade and placed in the Dungeon Dimension, until recently.

Apparently, Peter must have also inherited Icarus’ ability to transfer his mind and memories to Icarus’ nearest genesis base if he too was fatally injured, hence her visits to the beach she had found him on last time in the hope that he might have survived somehow.

Seeing his glances towards the smoke in the distance, she offered to lead him to the resistance. She also admitted she had heard rumours that his teammates had returned though she couldn’t confirm that.

By this point in the invasion not just London, Birmingham and Wessex had fallen to the demonic horde but they had conquered all the major cities in the UK. In the last week its armies had also captured Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam and several other cities were under attack as more and more demonic troops poured through its portals from the Nether Realms.

Paragon didn’t wait, he said goodbye to his adopted mum and set off towards Wessex.

Elsewhere

The remaining two members of the Balance elected to wait until they had fully recovered their strength before trying again to escape back to Earth. It had been about a week since Paragon had been cremated before their eyes and they had been banished back to their ‘gilded cage’. They again set out for Eldrich’s old house and the Nexus.

They repeated their actions and arrived back on a war-torn world. Again, they saw the titanic colossus in the distance but this time they avoided direct confrontation though they saw the grey-skinned demonic minions that immediately reminded them of their previous visit to the Nether Realms.

To their complete surprise, they were soon visited by a resurrected, younger Paragon in a pair of poorly fitting overalls. He’d used their Commdots and his enhanced senses to try and locate them and, much to his surprise as well as theirs, had finally succeeded. He briefly explained what had happened to him and his subsequent ‘recovery’ but decided to leave out his decision to destroy the clone factory. They persuaded him to avoid direct confrontation until they knew how to defeat this Triune.

Together they spent the next 24 hours observing The Triune and its troops. In the end, they were sure that the Triune was an amalgamation of Malador the Mystic, Medea, and Una, merged both physically and psychically, but that they didn’t appear to be working in unison. As a result their progress were slowed by their own indecision. It was extremely powerful, beyond anything they had ever dealt with before, even more powerful than the creature summoned at Dunwich by the three Bargainer-powered witches.Triune seems to be arranging their armies defensively, rather than readying them for offence or invasion; meaning they don’t want to be interrupted. They thought it likely that the three fractions making up the god’s mind must be struggling for dominance—and could be potentially be separated and thus defeated, they just didn’t know how.

What was clear was that there were numerous green glowing portals that had appeared all over Wessex and were being used to bring in their troops. Each of the portals measured six metres in diameter and emitted a shimmering green and yellow radiance visible throughout the city so they were easy to locate.

The demonic troops were apparently arriving from Una’s countless netherworlds to reinforce the god’s occupation of Earth. They had to stop any further troops from arriving if they were to have any chance of stopping this. Wessex was clearly ground zero for the invasion but it was merely a matter of time before the world was conquered completely. There were rumours that some countries intended to manually explode their nuclear arsenals in situ rather than allow their countries to be overrun and enslaved.

Akira tried to use the medallion to block travel through one of the portals and succeeded in proving it could work but it would require a massive amount of mystical energy if it were to work on them all. It might prove to be more effective if they were to block access to the portals from the other side?

The portals did not appear to allow passage of material objects from their side at least, only energy. Attempts to physically pass through a portal on their side only resulted in them being on the other side. Only Triune’s forces seemed able to physically pass back and forth bodily through the portals.

That might be how the medallion had blocked access by flooding their side of the portal with an excess of mystical energy.  Akira had to wonder if they were energy could they then travel through the portals from their side? They then began to wonder could Banshee’s insubstantial form count as energy?

They tried using various abilities and sure enough any energy temporarily blocked the portal but only while the energy was maintained. What they really needed was a universal off-switch and given the troops were all Una’s subjects from her previously subjugated worlds then the only place they might find one of those was on Una’s throne world, currently ruled over by Adrian Eldrich.

They did wonder why Adrian hadn’t done anything to stop the troop movements so far?

Admittedly as far as they could tell, each portal connected to a different world within her empire so perhaps he wasn’t aware it was happening? His contact with Earth had been extremely limited of late.

They obviously needed to identify which, if any, of the portals around the city might lead to the throne world. Una had once claimed that she needed a thousand worlds to ascend to godhood, did her assault on Earth count as her final conquest and was the Triune part of that ascension?

To try to identify what portal was the one they needed, Akira taught Mary how to summon Ahgrazul’s Compass and use it to track down the right portal. They still didn’t know how to enter the portal but one step at a time.

While this was going on, Paragon realised that their experiments with the portals hadn’t gone unnoticed as a squad of demonic entities approached their location. To give them more time, he flew towards them and engaged them in a full out brawl. Before he could engage them though, there was a massive shockwave. They managed to retain their footing only for one of the other demons to try to spew acidic vomit over him, which he dodged. He power-attacked their leader and left him dazed. Meanwhile, the other two had identified which portal led to Una’s throne world. As Paragon fought, Banshee grabbed Akira, then Paragon before turning them all insubstantial and flew into the portal but it wasn’t enough, they bounced off. Thankfully, the attacking horde was unable to hurt them as they tried again to enter the portal.

They coordinated their powers so Paragon unleashed his eye blast at the entrance to the portal while Akira tried to teleport them while insubstantial across the threshold. It worked.

The magenta radiance of the portal enveloped them, growing brighter and brighter until it blocked all of their senses. A moment of disorientation quickly passed, and the radiance faded. You’d ar­rived in an audience chamber made of solid black stone. Through the window, they spied a city, and beyond it a landscape of ashy grey plants struggling to grow in the dusty ground. Above, the sky churned in shades of orange and purple.

Now to find Adrian.

To be continued