The three of them arrived at Romaine Wharf in London’s Docklands mid-morning, entered the lobby of the 50-storey skyscraper, and headed up to the 46th floor where Banshee and Akira had met Daedalus previously.
Having passed through the Challenger-Wildeman’s security they could see that Daedalus was already waiting for them in one of the conference rooms overlooking the Thames.
He was a short, stocky man with unkempt hair, salt and pepper beard and piercing blue eyes currently dressed in a tailored suit instead of his more famous power armour, which he’d modelled on the ancient Greek style. He smiled as they entered the room, but it was clear he was continually evaluating and assessing them.
“Hopefully there will be no unexpected intrusions this time” he said as he stood up and shook their hands, clearly referring to the ‘interruption’ that he and the team had encountered after their last meeting together.
X-Ray was in awe. This was Daedalus, THE Daedalus, a man that some claimed was the original designer of the Minoan labyrinth that had imprisoned the Minotaur, though publicly at least, he’d never confirmed or denied it.
Given that Meta’s hadn’t existed before 1909 (though the Russians claimed that the first Metas had appeared a year earlier), if he had been supposedly born in 1400 BC or thereabouts, he couldn’t be a Meta however his only powers, if he had any, was his incredible intellect and possibly his immortality. If he was the original he would have to have survived for millennia since his birth in the city-state of Athens.
What was confirmed was that he’d been around since powers had first manifested, having fought in both world wars and had clearly never aged in the slightest since he’d first publicly appeared in that ridiculous-looking armour of his.
X-Ray’s two teammates seemed convinced that this was the original despite this inconsistency and therefore had got the Challenger-Wildeman’s to set up this meet.
Daedalus sat back down, poured himself a glass of water and took a sip before he spoke, “So, you want to know what I know about this Lord Taurus and Minotaur’s in general, yes?” His voice had a strange, unrecognisable accent to it.
“A hybrid man-bull is impossible of course, but yes such a creature as the Minotaur did exist and yes, I encountered him many times over the centuries though whether or not you believe me is up to you.” He turned to X-Ray. “Did your colleagues fill you in on the First People, the Atlan?”
Time travelling Meta refugees from the 27th Century establishing a sanctuary for themselves back in the ancient past sounded impossible, yet his two companions claimed to have travelled both into the past and into the future, so it had to be feasible, didn’t it?
He nodded. Daedalus smiled again, a sad smile that conveyed centuries of disappointment. “I was not one of them so what I have to say may or may not be accurate but it’s what I learned from the Atlan Athena herself and I had no reason to not believe her.
According to the legends, the minotaur was supposedly born of Queen Pasiphae and a bull and represented Zeus’ displeasure with King Minos of Crete. The minotaur was punished by being cast into a maze I designed to keep him imprisoned. If you excuse the expression, that was Homer’s imagination running riot and is, to use a modern expression, a load of bull!” Akira grinned as he realised that Daedalus had actually cracked a joke.
Daedalus continued. “According to Athena, Prince Asterion was the youngest child of the Atlan who would subsequently take the name Hades. Like Hades’ shape changing sister, Zeus, he was Homo Deus; both immortal and powered.
Asterion was undergoing his Meta breakthough at the time he came through the portal fleeing into the past. Whatever blocked meta-abilities from manifesting in the past warped him, changing and morphing his body into the cruel joke of a form that resembled a man-bull hybrid while denying him any power other than his inherited immortality.
It was also said that the transformation, combined with whatever Meta-barrier existed in the past left the boy in constant, intense pain and, due to his young age at the time, he had never had his DNA stored so a resurrection cradle could only transfer him into his current pain-filled form.
I understand that his father had requested they transfer his consciousness into someone else’s clone – as I did years later for my son Icarus – but his request was refused by the Council. It’s said that was what drove Hades to rebel and well, become Hades.
Prince Asterion grew up but as an adult elected to spend much of his time away from his kin who either feared his uncontrolled outbursts of anger or pitied him. Its interesting that I understand some of those transformed by the Silver Storm nanites suffer a similar fate of painful physical transformation.
Anyway, like many other Atlan, he became obsessed with humanity and fought against the Ancients and when they departed against the ancient race we know as the Serpent people, only to then spent time amongst humanity as the God Hapi and later Apis but he found their worship unfulfilling, and his pain made him lash out and kill for no reason.
Eventually he made his way to Crete and the civilisation that developed there. There were rumours that another minotaur-type creature existed on the island but what he actually found, I have no idea. He settled there as their God. That was in the reign of Crete’s first king, Asterion I. It was said that the minotaur was named after his ‘foster-grandfather’ but in reality, it was the other way round.”
He paused and took another sip of water. They got the impression that the next part of his tale was painful to their storyteller.
“When King Minos came to the throne, it was said that their God had decided he wanted blood sacrifices, starting with the daughter of King Minos and Queen Pasiphae. To prevent this, the King or Queen poisoned their God (who did it depends on who tells the tale) and caused him to fall unconscious, though his golden blood prevented him from dying and no-one was willing to risk trying again as his father, Hades threatened to destroy them if they tried.
According to Athena, Hades suggested they imprison his son until he learnt to control his blood rage and I was sought to design that prison by King Minos. I created the Labyrinth deep beneath the palace but left when I realised that King Minos intended to cater to Asterion’s blood rages and use it to pacify his neighbouring kingdoms by demanding every year fourteen sacrifices, seven young men and women each, be sent to die in the Labyrinth, the tangled maze of corridors and chambers I had designed.
With my and Ariadne’s help, Theseus slew the Minotaur and escaped the Labyrinth.
I escaped the island and the wrath of King Minos but was forced to steal a resurrection cradle from the Atlan after my son Icarus died attacking Ra’s Sun Palace. Asterion’s body meanwhile lay abandoned in the Labyrinth by King Minos until Hades stole it back and returned it to Asclepius, demanding he transferred Asterion’s last recording of his consciousness into a clone of his dead son.
The process took years to achieve, and the recording was partly corrupted to begin with. It was partly the cause of the war between Hades and Zeus and the reason that the Atlan ‘Gods’ withdrew from human contact as such actions left them exposed and open to attacks by Hades and his inhuman allies.
Asterion however elected to turn his anger against me. At one point he even recruited my son, Icarus, but elected to remain neutral in the war raging between his aunt Zeus and his father.
By the time that the Roman Empire began to rise, Asterion had adopted the Latin name of Taurus and had formed a secret society that sought to control humanity covertly. I was his (and my son’s) primary nemesis and he declared his intention to vex me throughout eternity.
He certainly tried, only to suddenly stop during the reign of Julius Caesar, around the time he was appointed dictator perpetuo. I assumed he’d finally been killed, and his body lost. I know he wasn’t resurrected by his father as he no longer had access to a cradle, only the Council of the Gods had them now.
There were rumours though throughout the millennia that he’d survived, not that I believed them. So, imagine how surprised I was to encounter him again in 1920, just as duplicitous as before.
In the 1920’s to the 30’s the minotaur ruled over a secret society of criminals he named the Labyrinth to taunt me but vanished again during the war years. Must admit I had my suspicions that John Bull of the Crown Guard was Taurus but although both resembled an anthropomorphic bull, that was where the similarity ended and after John died in the war, Taurus returned in 1946 to rebuild the Labyrinth, this time having recruited my old battle companion Dollman back to a life of crime. He was to wage a secret war against me until the 50’s when everything went quiet again. I had heard that someone had resurrected Labyrinth but hadn’t heard anything about Asterion, about Taurus, until I got your call. Are you certain he’s still alive?”
The three of them just shrugged. Banshee asked him, “If I understood you correctly, the Atlans have acted in the past to preserve Earth from destruction and invaders, and hence presumably the motive for “Taurus” would be anti-Terminus?”
Daedalus shrugged, “I think so, though I’m sure his motives aren’t pure.” The Atlans, other than the occasional ‘stray’ like Athena, vanished just before the Dark Ages. Athena says they elected to ‘go beyond’ and certainly didn’t want to be around in the era leading up to the Meta persecutions that had caused them to flee in the first place. Those that stayed behind stopped playing gods for the most part.
Your Lord Taurus was one of those outcasts that ‘elected’ to stay behind and build a different kind of kingdom for himself though he had seemed to finally get his blood lust under control. Why the gaps when he wasn’t around, I have no idea, but the Dark Ages were not a good time to be alive and different. It was too easy to end up being executed or burnt at the stake for being unique. Being able to read Latin was a lifesaver during those centuries I assure you.
It didn’t help the Atlan that their Meta-powers had become erratic during the last two millennia, something they suspected that Hades’ allies, the Baelim and the Annu, had done before they were banished.”
“How does the Silver Storm fit into this?” asked X-Ray.
Daedalus was quiet for a few seconds before admitting, “I don’t know. They are clearly a weapon created by Terminus and are a risk in the event of another invasion. They weren’t around when the first expedition, or at least the first I know about, arrived on the 30th of December 1976. I fought alongside Max’s grandfather and the remaining Crown Guard to stop that attack.
The next assault happened when I was off world but again there was no silver storm involvement. A full invasion fleet came through above the UK, above this place and Wessex in 2009.
This time it was the kid’s family that closed the rift above but at the cost of their parent’s lives. London Watch was joined by the Nouveaux Chevaliers de Paris to defend the city of London whilst Bundesgarde joined with the Protectors and Aontacht Eire in attacking the invading forces coming through breaches across the rest of the country.
The Wessex Warriors were decimated trying to protect Wessex from the attack by Omega-drones and Omega-Destroyers. A Probot, a giant robot, materialised at what is now the Claremont Academy Facility and was defeated by teachers and a group of meta-human students who made sure all the breaches were sealed, preventing further troops coming through. The school was badly damaged during the attack and had to be rebuilt. The first silver storm we know about occurred over a hundred years after Metas appeared officially, on the 7th of Feb 2012 but then would they know what a silver storm was in 1909?”
Banshee was supportive of the Stormers not being turned into living weapons, but Labyrinth had a death toll when it came to their methods – they saw Stormers as weapons to be destroyed before they could be turned and not as victims, innocents; to be protected, channelled, preserved from Control and possibly enlisted (hopefully) in Earth’s defence rather than treated as traitors and Trojan-horses.
It was a view clearly not shared by Labyrinth and its leaders. How big was this organisation anyway? It appeared that Icarus was still involved in their schemes – another threat to them (and to the Atlans as well?) they had to be aware of…
Unfortunately Daedalus claimed he didn’t have any further information that he was able (or willing?) to share about Labyrinth and said he had to leave as he was due to return soon to Europa. He agreed to pass on their messages to Paragon and quickly left, leaving the Balance to consider what they’d just learned.
Previously Daedalus met with Akira, Banshee and Paragon in
https://mm3e.wordpress.com/2022/06/01/episode-73-goin-on-a-summer-holiday/
Superhero Adventures, UK Style 