Superhero Adventures, UK Style

In collaboration with Ant L. (Team Archivist)

For the last two weeks the Balance had been working 18 hour day assisting with the rebuilding the city of Wessex. It didn’t help that Akira had been suffering regular migraines and now he was starting to hear voices that no-one else heard, or at least one incomprehensible yet familiar voice with a distinct French accent…

The city was slowly recovering – with the Omega-Drones deactivated, the decision was taken to cremate their corpses immediately and ignore the requests from the families of the Birmingham disaster to try and identify their family and friends’ remains, if any, from amongst the off-world dead. Thankfully the damage to premises wasn’t as bad as it could have been and emergency services were responding to the best of their ability.

The ex-Protector Gismo meanwhile had found a way to deactivate and power down all the power suits used to fight Terminus to prevent their possible abuse.

As they were about to set off to work on the latest task assigned to the team, X-Ray noticed an unique energy signal that he was convinced was inter-dimensional in origin and Banshee’s Ban Sidhe had begun to howl inside her even as reality collapsed around them; Akira saw the landscape around him melting into crimson rivulets, and  they found themselves seemingly swimming in a red ‘river’ that seemed to be composed of an unknown energy flowing through a massive, organic-looking tunnel. Banshee and Akira recognised it immediately; they had been psychically transported to the mystical realm that existed between dimensions known as the Convergence…

As they adjusted to their sudden displacement, Akira received a psychic communication from Wildcat who was still leading the rebellion on Terminus – despite the message breaking up a bit, it seemed that the destruction of the Portal Generator on Terminus had revealed that not all the citizens of the Birmingham landgrab years before had been killed when the tractor beam had snatched a massive chunk of the city and had begun to transport it back to the Dyson Sphere. It appeared that when the tractor beam had been attacked by the Protectors, causing it to malfunction years before, it had displaced its ‘cargo’, including those who’d survived the initial disaster, by teleporting the stolen segment of the city to a closed sub-dimension where time and physics functioned differently. With the portal generator now offline, Forté had been able to receive a psychic message from one of the survivors saying that they had survived but that their pocket dimension was now collapsing.

Wildcat’s teammate Forté was convinced that a pathway had to exist that would lead them back home but it would likely be dangerous and the Birmingham survivors would need help to get back to their own Earth. Would Akira and the Balance be willing to guide them home? They couldn’t do it themselves as the war still raged on Terminus.

Forté was sure he could telepathically implant the trans-dimensional co-ordinates in Akira’s mind to get them to the survivors but that path would be too volatile to use to get so many potential survivors back. They would need to find another way home, possibly using existing permanent ‘wounds’ in the multiverse or portals, to do so.

The three agreed to undertake the rescue mission as the vision ended and they psychically resurfaced in the real world once more. They just had to figure out how to get back with all of the survivors.

No time like the present; Akira used the psychically implanted co-ordinates to direct the Airts of Ahgrasul to the pocket dimension and opened a portal to it. While they could reverse the path for themselves if necessary, they lacked sufficient mana, the mystical energy needed to hold a gate open, for others to return by that same pathway.

They stepped through and seconds later arrived on a half-globe consisting of a wrecked and apparently deserted city; its very existence defied the laws of physics. It was floating in a void without a sun but surprisingly the ‘island’ had gravity and wasn’t completely frozen; there was air to breath, though it seemed thin, and parts of the landmass at the edge of this island in space were tumbling away into the emptiness. It was only a matter of time before this whole section of the city was scattered to the void.  They recognised parts of the city as Birmingham’s architecture but with most of the taller buildings having collapsed under the strain of the tractor beam that had snatched it.

As they looked around they could see the occasional spark of light within the buildings, fires, showing that the city wasn’t deserted. They could also see that there were some hydroponic gardens, lit by banks of lights presumably running off car batteries and portable generators around the centre. They had to wonder how many people had managed to survive.

As they looked down on the city, X-Ray used his infrared vision to identify that there were several hundred, possibly as many as a thousand survivors encamped around the city. The number of possible survivors came as a shock to them all. They had to try and gather the survivors together and quickly as fragments of the under city were already breaking off and floating away. How to broadcast a message to gather together, though?

Akira thought about advertising a free Taylor Swift concert at the Bull Ring and using his Illusions of Idolon spell to project it in lights in the sky to gather everyone together as though it was an illuminated sign being pulled across the sky by a sky-writing plane. The other two weren’t sure whether or not he was being serious, so X-Ray offered to create a light beacon and message to read “gather here, rescue” as a more realistic alternative. He also made a radio broadcast using his Meta abilities as well and was surprised when he received a handful of weak and mostly garbled responses.

A rescue would require them to engage in Circle Magic and personal sacrifice, similar to the magic the original team had previously encountered in Jerusalem as practiced by Dr Bathsheba She’arim of the Watchers. At that time it had been used to purify the city by acting as a mystical amplifier allowing a cleansing spell to be powerful enough to cure millions of the plague and mystical malfeasance.

There was several elements to such magic; they first was to identify and prepare a suitable location for the circle ritual and then gather enough power to cast the summons. Thankfully, Mary was a practitioner of Celtic rituals and had the skills to identify a suitable site as well as prepare the circle to hold the magic. Before the circle could be used there would be a test of some sort to prove they were worthy. What that would be was unknown but would be a test of their fortitude and worthiness. Finally there would be a cost, a sacrifice (hopefully again temporary) they would have to each make of one of their powers or abilities to initiate the spell.

Mary and Akira had selected the Birmingham Bull Ring as both stable enough (the outer edges of the landmass were starting to cascade into the void at an alarmingly increasing rate) being that it was located at the centre of the landmass and suitable for the work to begin.

The Bull Ring had been a major shopping area in central Birmingham and had been an important feature of Birmingham since the Middle Ages, when its market was first held. Two shopping centres have been built around a circular open area surrounded by a ring of roads and was ideal for their purposes.

The intention was to magnify the Airts of Ahgrasul to guide them through the winding coils of the Convergence to their own dimension and world while holding the portal created by the blade pendant open long enough for everyone to leave.

It was unlikely to lead them directly home and they had to consider what powers to sacrifice and what the consequences might be of their temporary sacrifice. They also didn’t have much time left.

From the initial arrivals at the Bull Ring they discovered that time worked differently in this pocket dimension and only a couple of years had passed here since they had been taken compared to several years back on Earth. It appeared that about two thousand people had initially survived the landgrab but about half of them had subsequently died before the survivors could manage to adapt to cope with its relocation (growing their own food, creating their own energy, recycling water) It helped that time appeared to run slower in their sub-dimension but with the portal generator offline their access to leeched extra-dimensional solar energy has been severed and they were slowly freezing to death.

Oh, and they were all currently stuck in an insubstantial state. How do they change them back? It also explained in part how they had survived so far.

The team explained that they were the Balance and were there to rescue them but then discovered that the people had been taken before they had formed as a group. It was X-Ray that hit on the idea of explaining that they worked with the Protectors and were sent to help rescue them. They’d all heard of the Protectors!

They set about creating the circle amplifier spell. Meanwhile Akira set about using the Illusions of Idolon to create a illusionary concert to focus their audiences emotions onto the mystical area on the circle they were preparing with Akira acting as a mystical magnet channelling their emotional energy.

Banshee created a suitable environment while X-Ray poured light energy into the circle. This initiated the first challenge and three familiar figures stepped out of the light between the three of them and the circle.

In front of them stood an earlier incarnation of the Balance; this version of them had glazed eyes, looked disorientated and didn’t or couldn’t speak. Their version of Banshee looked unchanged but Akira looked younger and they were accompanied by a version of Paragon. Was this them snatched from an earlier part of their own timeline that they somehow didn’t remember or had they been snatched from some parallel universe?

It didn’t really matter as they were clearly attacking.

Akira-2 multi-attacked first.  He blasted X-Ray who was caught without his shield up but who managed to dodge; he then blasted at Banshee and Akira who both dodged.  Akira blasted the other Akira multiple times but again missed, almost as though the attack was anticipated.  Banshee-2 unleashed a wail at their counterparts and dazed both X-Ray and Banshee.  Banshee responded and staggered Paragon while X-Ray blasted Akira-2 with a radiation blast while erecting his force field.  It hit the counterpart Akira and left him also stunned.

The fight continued for several minutes with Akira-2 multi-blasting the team; Akira managed to anticipate the attacks and dodge every time but the others were not so successful as the battle grew fiercer. The arena rang with the sound of multiple wails from both Banshees and the others blasting at each other. Banshee-2 attempted to use her bo-staff to try and pierce the insubstantial Banshee and then change its state to enable her to impale her opponent. Thankfully Akira was able to blast her before she could turn insubstantial and pierce her double. Meanwhile Paragon had been so dazed by repeated attacks on him that he had been physically unable to land a punch. Over time the alt-Balance were successfully banished and they vanished though both X-Ray and Banshee had been injured and required time to recover before carrying on with the ritual. The first test had been successfully defeated but they knew there would be other challenges.

As he recovered, X-Ray couldn’t help but wonder why a counterpart of him hadn’t appeared.  He decided it was basically an amalgamation of two factors.  Firstly, he hadn’t been a part of The Balance for very long and, secondly, magic was tosh.

Having managed to defeat the other version of the Balance, it was now time for their personal sacrifices. Banshee surrendered her power of flight to the flames, Akira his ability to transform things from one substance into another while X-Ray sacrificed his gravi-kinetic ability, all of which were torn from their bodies.

X-Ray did one last check using his enhanced visual powers to search for survivors who hadn’t yet gathered. While it was impossible to be completely sure, he failed to find any more heat signatures in the ruins.

Seconds later the flames in the braziers turned blue. Akira cast the Airts spell and then used his blade pendant to open a path between worlds stepping into the red fluid of the Convergence. To everyone’s surprise, their rescues began to turn solid once more, their intangible state reversed to normality as they all breathed in the mana of the neutral dimension through which they now passed.

Up ahead their mystical compass indicated that a festering wound in the wall of the tunnel was to be their next destination. Akira directed their convoy towards and through it. Mere moments later they arrived on a dusty plain, the three enhanced members of The Balance surveying the landscape for threats, followed slowly by the long line of Birmingham survivors reluctantly stepping through the gate.

There was something familiar about this place, Banshee thought as she looked around its blood coloured dusty plains and red sky surrounded by a ring of tall hostile looking peaked mountains; the location seemed recognisable as though she had been there before. A river of lava flowed across the plain in front of them.

A horde of demons suddenly appeared all around them, led by a winged being straight out of mythology, replete with wings and horns on his head. This demon lord stood a good ten metres tall and towered over his army. Behind the horde was another glowing scar that was clearly a permanent gate to yet another world or realm, assuming they and those they were rescuing could get to it unscathed.

The major demonic creature heard Akira appeal to let them pass only to demand a tithe, presumably of all those that were present. Akira pretended to not understand what it wanted a tenth of and tried to joke about not wearing a ‘tie-th’ while X-Ray threatened a tenth of his heat blast if wanted by the demon lord. He requested one tenth of their population and Akira responded by offering one tenth of their fingers instead and demonstrated by holding up his middle finger.

The horde began to move on them, and Banshee responded with an aura of fear that caused about half of the demonic ‘foot soldiers’ to scramble back, opening up a path towards the portal. X-Ray immediately indicated that their civilians should run towards the gate while unleashing a massive blast of light towards the horde causing many of the remaining demons to back away from them in terror.

Akira followed it up by casting Lamal’s Rebuke on the demon horde and the demon lord. Lamal was part of the Modrossus trinity, the one known as the law giver. This powerful spell reflected Lamal’s hatred of creatures of chaos and forced the remaining demonic foot soldiers to part, leaving the way to the portal open for the Birmingham survivors to run towards the gate. Banshee’s wail and X-Ray’s blasts of pure light meant that even the bravest of the demons didn’t dare risk trying to stop them. X-Ray was the last to go through the gate, his Hippocratic oath a moral standard that he would never renege on.

The scarlet effluence of The Convergence seemed to pass quicker than previously, and, when they stepped onto terra firma once more, they had crossed over into a twilight realm that looked scarily familiar this time to both Akira and Banshee.

They were seeming gathered on a plain covered in bleached leaves and dead mummified plants, the trees surrounding them were small, stunted and gnarly, and completely bare of leaves. There were two suns in the sky; one far off and fainter than they were used to. Its companion Sun was much smaller though brighter and was seemingly permanently setting on the horizon. It didn’t stop the feeling of cold they were all experiencing, including the Birmingham survivors who, now that they had become substantial again, were feeling the effects of having physical forms and all the pain and discomfort that came with it.

“My homeland…” X-Ray heard Banshee whisper, her breath a vapour in the cool unflinching twilight air.

‘Ah, well, there you go,’ he thought, ‘Nothing magic about Banshee at all, just a different sort of meta-human from another dimension!’            

The ground beneath their feet was covered in dead and decaying leaves, bleached of all autumn colours as though someone had blanched the chlorophyll out of them, leaving a sea of disintegrating white dust and ancient white leaves. Akira and Banshee recognised that this was the Autumn Lands in the realm of the Fae, and something was moving beneath their feet…

They were standing on a raised path surrounded on both sides by a decayed ‘sea of leaves’, and it was this unusual lake that seemed to be occupied as the team watched lots of giant escapees from their Earth’s Carboniferous Period wriggling around just beneath the leaf mulch. A giant millepede suddenly vanished, eaten by what appeared to be some form of large shark! There was no water beneath the deep leaf fall so how were these creatures able to swim and breath? 

To add to their worries, a few of their rescuees, especially the younger ones, had wandered off the path and into the sea of leaves which quickly covered their lower torsos. Akira screamed at them to get back on the path but several of the younger ones were finding it hard to move.

Then he saw a fin darting towards one of the younger children struggling to get free from the mulch; launching himself into the air he immediately cast an illusion of sixteen more human ‘meals’ dancing in front of it and its companions, hoping to distract it. On crocodile-like legs the creature immediately changed direction to clamber onto one of the raised mossy mounds to try and attack the non-existent target. Akira immediately christened the lumbering creature a ‘Sharkodile’.

X-Ray flew into the air and targeted any of the beasties that were liable to attack the real humans in their convoy. He had to confess, to himself if no-one else, that it was less for the convoy’s protection and more because he feared sharks!

As more fins surfaced above the mulch, Akira began to make his illusions dance – the Conga of all things – hoping to attract their attention and give more time for those who had wandered to return to the relative safety of the raised mounds that the rest of the rescuees were gathered on.

Banshee was sure that Akira, and her, had been here before; the shape of the gnarled trees looked familiar. She immediately turned insubstantial then began to lead their convoy away from the leaf-filled crater, relying on her ‘bump of direction’ instinct to guide them towards what she hoped would be relative safety.

They were not fast enough. One of the Sharkodiles surfaced near a mother leading her two children and lunged for the toddler. X-Ray immediately blasted and cooked it only for the others in its ‘pod’ to begin to attack it in a grisly feeding frenzy. To everyone’s surprise and disgust Akira flew in and grabbed a handful of cooked shark meat and took a bite. Even if he had not been a vegetarian, the sight made several watchers feel sick.

Banshee urged them forward, away from the Sharkodiles and their feeding fury, only to stop short as the convoy was assaulted by a series of familiar-sounding screams near identical to Mary’s terrorising wail, and a number of distorted, spectre-like figures began to rise from beneath the white, almost snow-like leaf-covered ground. Banshee realised that they were what happened to Ban Sidh spirit’s who’s mortal families had died out.

While the banshee screams had no effect on the three of them, it was causing their convoy to scatter in panic. To counter the fearsome effects of the cries, Banshee turned back into Mary, manifested her harp, and began to play a calming lullaby, while X-Ray and Akira again began to organise the convoy to head away from the banshee’s final resting place and the still feasting Sharkodiles.

The safest place was likely the now abandoned Terminus base they had attacked when here previously so Akira and Banshee began to herd the convoy towards where they thought the base should be. However, instead of the camp appearing through the mist where the burnt down Terminus camp used to be there was, in its place, a single palatial building.

Though the Balance didn’t realise it until later, each person saw something different when they looked upon the building; Akira saw a duplicate of the Royal Palace of Oz, a massive, towering edifice formed from a giant emerald, X-Ray saw a towering aethereal-looking, turreted palace ripped straight from the Parisian version of Disney World, while Banshee saw a pink multi-towered castle.

The palace was guarded by inhuman Fae trolls, three metres tall and over one-and-a-half wide at the shoulders, with multiple eyes in a bullet-like head, and muscular bodies covered in thick grey skin. The three heroes turned to discuss what to do next and, to their dismay, saw their convoy of rescued humans turn into writhing clouds of mist, echoing with a cacophony of screams both of pain and horror, that began to flow towards the palace only for all of their ghost-like essences to vanish inside the Palace walls!

X-Ray immediately checked for heat signatures and found none; even the guards were indistinguishable from the background heat signatures. He began to wonder if they really existed at all, but Banshee explained that despite their appearance when around humans they were alien shapechangers who only became more human-looking when in the presence of mortals and as such they were not warm blooded or simian descended.

The faerie palace still echoed with the screams of the missing people, mostly upset about being alone in the dark. X-Ray and Akira took to the sky and headed towards the palace entrance, forgetting that Banshee was unable to join them as the power of flight had been the gift she had ‘sacrificed’ to the flames as part of the circle ritual. She was forced to run after them both as they approached the hulking guards. Before the two men could do anything, one of the trolls had jumped high into the sky, landing beside Akira and punching him clear across the gate-approach and into the palace walls, leaving him with a nasty bruise forming on his chest.

X-Ray immediately activated his force field even as he unleashed a massive gamma blast at Akira’s attacker only to discover it appeared to be immune to the effects of the radiation blast! It fell back towards the ground even as the other two trolls immediately jumped towards the pair of them and again tried to slam them into the palace walls. Despite his force field, the power of the trolls punch left X-Ray feeling bruised and battered even as Akira managed to dodge the blow directed by the other troll before it too dropped back down, earthbound.

Akira used his Insight ability to access a memory he possessed of an earlier visit to the Autumn Lands.  At that time, he learned that the Fae were able to use their landscape to form new bodies for themselves, and even to heal themselves of injuries. A drawn-out fist-fight with the troll guards would inevitably lead to The Balance getting worn down, or even killed.

Akira shouted out, “Follow me into the Emerald Palace!” X-Ray flew in after him muttering, “It’s a Disney Castle, for goodness’ sake!” and wishing, with some regret, considering his teammates abilities, that magic was not so confusing.

Back in her Banshee persona their other companion trotted towards the entrance, turning insubstantial as she did so, so the blows from the trolls passed right through her, as she tried to catch her companions up.

Inside, they found themselves standing underneath a grand balcony in a magnificent hall. The door through which they had entered had vanished. The expansive hall was filled with tall, inhuman beings – in fact, many looked like bipedal insects – in formal 18^th century frock coats and elaborate gowns, dancing in sync with each other despite the screams and shouts permeating the walls, the cacophony of ‘music’ and incoherent noise that failed to match the elaborate steps and twirls of the dancers who were, quite literally, dancing everywhere; on the floor, walls, and ceiling of the chamber. Hundreds of large chandeliers and candelabras lit up the room.

The three of them stepped forward and could now see a bejeweled stately Fae female with her extensive faerie entourage standing on the balcony above them. The stately lady looked down at them and smiled as though she recognised them. Then she turned and, with her retinue in tow, left the hall.

As she withdrew, all the doors vanished and the large windows on the outside walls changed to paintings of the countryside outside, as the screeching noise that masqueraded as music got louder. Akira and X-Ray grabbed Banshee’s arms and flew her up to the balcony. It was only later that Banshee worked out that it must have been Queen Maub of the Unseelie with her servants and entourage that they had seen leaving as they entered.

Dozens of Dark Fae, now glamourless, were gathered in the main hall dancing and gyrating in sync with each other. The tempo of the music become more intense as the gathered Fae began to morph into a more human look. It appeared as though none were actually making the music. It got more and more entrancing and the team found themselves struggling against the compulsion to forget everything and just join the dance.

Then, Banshee’s leg began to twitch rhythmically, as though she was responding to a different tune to the cacophony echoing up. A second later she had started to perform an Irish jig!

As the compulsion took hold of Banshee the dancers all turned their heads as one to stare at the balcony that The Balance occupied, and smiled, revealing mouths filled with shark-like teeth.

The dancing was clearly contagious and both Akira and X-Ray felt their legs twitch as the urge to join the dance washed over them, but they both managed to resist the call of the Fae music. In desperation, X-Ray grabbed Banshee’s arms and shouted above the din, hoping to snap her out of the trance she seemed to be in, to no avail. She was firmly under the spell of the Fae.

Akira elected to call forth the Bidding of Bal’hemoth despite being fearful of the possible contaminating effect of using such dark magic. He began the summoning and then watched as the spell washed over Banshee, ensnaring her will and forcing her to stop dancing. Akira’s will commanded Banshee to become Mary, then to use her harp to play a calming Irish lilt, hoping to change the mood within the great hall.  The dancing had ceased completely, though the discordant music continued to play, grating on their nerves, threatening to overpower their minds and will to resist.

Unfortunately, the Unseelie court were unimpressed with Mary’s newfound independence; they smiled their sinister smiles and began to advance on the team, closing in from all around.

Akira ordered Mary to change back into Banshee, then to turn the three of them insubstantial and phase them through the wall where the door had been, the door through which the stately Fae lady and her servants had exited the chamber, and to do so quickly before the Fae court reached them.

Unable to fight the compulsion, Banshee did as she was ordered and to their surprise they found themselves outside in the bleached forest behind the faerie Palace. They were surrounded by their convoy of rescued civilians once more, physically present but clearly disorientated and confused as to what had happened to them.

In front of them a large dark maelstrom was manifesting. X-Ray immediately responded by unleashing a brilliant burst of blinding white light at it. The blast failed to do anything to the chaotic circle of darkness in front of them but did succeed in shocking the convoy out of their trauma and scatter the creepy crawlies scuttering beneath the leaves under their feet.

“Might be a gateway,” muttered Akira as he consulted the Airts spell once more and confirmed that they could travel through it, though where it exited he wasn’t sure. Akira took point as he instructed the civilians to hold each other like a massively long conga line and, no matter what happened, to not let go of each other. Banshee took centre position in order to catch anyone who broke the line with X-Ray taking up the rear. Akira informed them that they had to remain clutching the person in front of them at all costs otherwise they risked getting lost and there was no way they could leave the ‘convoy’ to come and rescue them if that happened.

The conga line began to step through the portal and found themselves swimming in the otherworldly red fluid that was the Convergence. Dozens panicked but quickly realised that they could breathe the fluid safely and could pass through it with easy movements, despite the fluid flowing against them. Akira consulted the airts once more and began to swim upstream, with the conga line hanging on behind him stretching for some distance.

They had finally got the last of the convoy through the portal, and calmed down enough to realise they could breathe, when they heard the sound of howling that froze their blood.

Looking back X-Ray could see that a creature, humanlike with stag horns growing out of his head, was in a chariot being drawn by four blue-glowing beasts that were hunting them and advancing faster than they were able to move. He conveyed this to Banshee and Akira and both elected to drop back and act as rear guard while urging the convoy to flee upstream as fast as they could swim, but to stay in a line holding on to each other at all costs.

As the chariot and its small pack of hounds got closer it was clear to Banshee and Akira that they were being hunted by Cernunnos of the Wylde Hunt (though Banshee knew him as Herne the Hunter).

Cernunnos was a god-like creature who had tamed, or at least captured, several Hounds of Tindalos to pull his chariot and follow his prey through dimensions.

The Hounds inhabited the angles of time, while other beings (including humankind and all common life) descended from curves and dwelled in Einsteinian-curved space time. Moving between the two states was normally impossible for the Hounds, until a curved-time dweller closed a perceptual connection between the two geometries. This rendered the creatures in a state where they flexed back and forth from a substantial state back into insubstantial having viewed their ‘prey’. One second insubstantial and unable to affect the substantial, and the next becoming substantial and thus unable to affect the insubstantial, and so on.

If, as some mages thought, the Convergences were the Circulatory system of a God’s body, then the Hounds were its antibodies, designed to seek out and destroy alien organisms from outside its reality, and when they spotted (or are spotted by) any prey, they will follow it through time and space. In this case, slaved to his chariot as they were, the hounds were pulling the entity known as either Cernunnos or Herne with them as they hunted. It is said that he was a powerful sorcerer who bound these Hounds to his own perception, linking human and inhuman geometries. The Tind’losi Hounds hunted the corridors and dimensions of angled time waiting for an opening into Einsteinian time. It is said that they would lead their masters, the Old Ones, through the weak points in geometry when the stars come right.

Regardless of whether or not this was true, they had to figure out some way to either lose them or defeat them before the conga-line convoy found a rip in the dimensions that would lead them home to their Earth, otherwise a lot of them would die horribly and potentially unleash the Old Ones on the planet.

Unfortunately the convoy was swimming too slow and it was only a matter of time before the Hounds and Cernunnos caught up with them.

X-Ray unleashed a radiation blast at the lead hound, but either it was insubstantial at that moment in time and the blast failed to do enough damage, or they were immune to a radiation attack. He suspected the latter, given that he saw the blast hit the creature squarely in its chest. Over recent weeks, X-Ray had learned to decrease the wavelength frequency of his electro-magnetic emissions, a ‘tweak’ he had practiced in order to affect insubstantial beings – in truth, he had spent hours on end doing this in order to affect vampires when they entered their mist forms; all the better to rid the world of the forces of Anti-Life.  It was difficult to tell how much effect his blast had had upon the lead Hound, but it wasn’t enough.

Akira’s follow up blast passed straight through so it had to have been insubstantial at that moment. Damn!

Akira could sense the power radiating from Cernunnos; he was a demi-god, capable of feats far exceeding his own meagre talents on Earth, but, here in the Convergence…maybe, just maybe, things were more even than the Lord of the Wylde Hunt could conceive.

Fate dealt The Balance a kinder hand, and their next blasts slowed the front beasts down and left them dazed and disorientated, confirming that the superheroes could hurt them after all. A glancing ricochet proved that Cernunnos might be immortal and almost god-like, but he wasn’t able to turn insubstantial and could also be hurt.

Banshee unleashed a focused wail on him that clearly affected him. Akira followed it up with a multi-attack of mystical blasts as X-Ray joined in, the combination of magical and natural earth-energies leaving Cernunnos unconscious but still on his chariot, being pulled along by the spectre-like hounds.

X-Ray knew he had to stop them before they reached the next gate and began to target the leading and still dazed hounds. Between the three of them they brought down the leading two hounds, causing them to dissipate; it seemed that it was impossible to kill them, at least here, where they had been given a new home by Cernunnos. A follow up wail from Banshee took out another of the ‘beasties’ leaving X-Ray to take out and dispel the last of the hounds, causing the chariot and its passenger to dissipate with it. They were free now to catch up with the civilians and for Akira to identify a wound in the wall of their tunnel (artery?) and lead the conga line through.

To their surprise, and the surprise of the residents, they found themselves exiting in the main reading room of St. Catherine’s Private members library in London. It seemed that when the Future Outer Circle had travelled back in time previously they had left an unhealed dimensional rift active and they had just used it to invade the mystical library, much to the consternation of the members. Thankfully, the survivors were too glad to be back home to wonder at what was going on around them, and most quickly exited out into the street.

The head Librarian, Dr Bradbury, cigarette still in his hand, appeared on the stairs and demanded that The Balance lead the non-members outside, threatening to expel them if they did not do so immediately. It was the librarian, Jamil Hassan, who immediately recognised some of the rescued and asked them to wait while he summoned his assistant, Mazhi Kamran Khan (the Pakistani descendent assistant librarian who had accidently gained the powers of Gawaine), to come upstairs immediately. No sooner had he done so than he rushed across the floor and began to hug a family standing by the entrance. The Balance had done the impossible and had reunited the young man with his long lost and believed dead family!

X-Ray was extremely impressed with what he could see of the library, and Akira explained that the place occupied a mystical realm that latched onto the earthly plane, and that portions of it had formerly been part of the Library of Alexandria.

X-Ray smiled warmly at the young magician, before pursing his lips and nodding thoughtfully, then wandering off to follow the Birmingham refugees, his large, powerful form dwarfing the humans milling around him.

“It’s all Greek to me, Akira…”

As soon as they were out of the building themselves, the team contacted Inspector Stranger at New Scotland Yard and asked for his assistance in reconciling their new arrivals after their misadventure in the Void.