Superhero Adventures, UK Style

Inspired by the Green Ronin Adventure – Independence Day by Jordan Wyn & Steve Kenson

Write up by Ant L. (Team Archivist)

“The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”

Albert Einstein

The 5th of May V.E. celebration (Victory in Europe) was a spectacular sight, though Celestus was bemused by the sheer variety of archaic uniforms on show. “You’ve got to love a good old parade!” X-Ray said to the alien prince, a broad smile on his face. Celestus nodded. He simply thought that to honour a historic victory in battle with something so… garish… was a little unsettling.

The procession was an impressive display of pageantry by Regiments of the Household Division and Kings Troop Royal Horse Artillery, showcasing ceremonial traditions and parade uniforms of the British Armed Forces. Thousands lined the route, cheering, waving, holding Union flags aloft, all celebrating the cessation of that terrible six-year war, “lest we forget.”

The V.E. Day procession started from Parliament Square, travelled along Whitehall and The Mall, and finished at the Queen Victoria Memorial.

There was a flypast by the Red Arrows over The Mall and Buckingham Palace. “I bloody love those guys…” X-Ray was the very definition of a pig in muck.

Akira, fresh from his interlude away, nudged Mary softly, “Remind me what we’re doing here again?”

The Balance had been invited to attend as special guests, but there were others in attendance even more worthy of acclaim.

Present on a stand opposite were the surviving members of the Crown Guard; white haired Albion, the elderly and original Britannia and not the female who has inherited her mantle in recent years, the ever-young speedster Hurricane, retired Polish hero Zbrojmistrz (‘Armourer’) and the immortal Norwegian heroine Mjölnir.

Next to the Balance were gathered several members of London Watch. Heroes past, heroes present, heroes all.

Marching bands, military regiments, parade floats, all made their way through the packed streets towards the Palace. The sight and sound was incredible, the occasion would be etched into the minds of the onlookers forever, an indelible memory of a moment etched into the very fabric of Time.

So of course the universe took precisely that moment to hiccup.

A figure appeared behind the Balance walking straight towards the gathered heroes.

X-Ray’s enhanced visual acuity, a function of his E-M power funnelling photonic packets into his eyes with ten times the efficiency of a normal human, noticed the man almost immediately, and he nudged Celestus, whom he had started to consider as the brother he’d never had, “Keep your eyes on that bloke over there. He doesn’t look like part of the parade to me.”

The man appeared to be wearing a kind of heavily padded silvery jumpsuit, with arm and shoulder-guards, and kneepads, with glowing red trim and highlights. Black gloves—part of a full-bodysuit underneath?—covered his hands. A brown hood was drawn up over his head, a pair of green-tinted goggles pushed up on his forehead.

Banshee recognised the figure as one-time team member Chrono, now apparently the time traveller and occasional opponent Tempus.

“Sorry about this,” Tempus said, “and I appreciate everything you did, but these times don’t give us a choice.” Suddenly there was a blinding flash of light and a sickly feeling of vertigo.

Nothing happened apparently.

They were still among the crowd at the edge of the parade, still watching the troops file past. X-Ray was helping Celestus to get over his nausea, “Breathe! Deep breath, that’s it…” but he, Akira, and Mary were alright.

Until Akira and Mary began to notice that things were not alright. There was no stands or Crown Guard, no London Watch present. Instead they were standing amidst the crowd.

The crowd… their clothes… old fashions, as though everyone had suddenly entered a World War Two re-enactment event, people dressed in button-up shirts, ties and suits with turned up trouser cuffs or wide-shouldered, short-sleeved dresses with skirts past the knees and a sea of trilbies and head scarfs. And the skyline… they weren’t in London anymore… seemingly. They looked around them – the buildings were smaller, the modern skyscrapers replaced with comparatively smaller terraced brick buildings. The evenly spaced windows were decorated with stonework eaves and arches.

Marching bands were still the main attraction, but on a smaller scale, and there was no sign of the Crown Guard or the flyby overhead. The troops marching past them looked distressed and tired, their khaki uniforms dirty and unkempt, having altered from their previous parade finery. Banshee noticed a handmade sign in the crowd that read “Welcome home”.

“Glory be!” Mary exclaimed, “He’s taken us back in time! This is before the Blitz!”

If their thoughts were to grab Tempus and force him to take them back it mattered not. He was gone, and they were a long way from home.

Mary spoke again, “I think this is the nineteen-forties! I think we’re seeing the troops returning from Dunkirk.”

***

Shock spread amongst the members of The Balance at Mary’s words but time was not on their side.

An explosion sounded a little ways off, somewhere down the street toward the Thames Embankment. Several women screamed, and many people visibly started at the sound. The marching band and their music came awkwardly to a halt in front of Akira and Mary just as a second explosion replaced the sound of drum and brass. Screams began to filter up the road, emanating from further along the route, and seconds later fleeing people came into view, pushing further into the city in a panic. Around the VIP stands, crowds and soldiers alike, musicians and standard bearers amongst them, scatter wildly, a sea of bodies pushing, yelling, screaming, fleeing the unknown danger that seemed to be heading in their direction.

A hundred yards or so down the road, a truck flipped into the air as it was struck by a blast of blue-white light, landing upside-down with a loud crunching and squealing of metal, accompanied by the sound of breaking glass.

The noise was incredible, the sight dizzying.

X-Ray and Celestus exchanged a knowing glance and both took to the air to get a better view from above the commotion. Mary transformed into Banshee, ready for action. Akira flexed his fingers, more than eager to get back into his stride.

Black-and-grey clad soldiers were marching up the vacated parade route, wearing armbands bearing a sigil that Banshee immediately recognised from her own encounters during the second World War: the Nazi Ahnenerbe’s notorious SHADOW Division. Supposedly funded and equipped by the then mysterious Labyrinth, SHADOW were the support troops for Germany’s Überkriegers’ (‘Super Warriors’), the Eugenics Brigade.

The Ahnenerbe were… ’are’, she thought… a branch of the SS founded by Heinrich Himmler in 1935 to research ancient cultures and practices in support of efforts to establish a coherent and superior Aryan culture. It had clearly expanded into developing weird science coupled with racial purity!

This was an invasion… An invasion that never happened!

***

“Are we in the past?” Celestus ventured, looking around him, “These vehicles seem quite primitive compared to the ones in your world.”

Akira called back to him, “We’ve gone back almost a hundred years.”

“Is this the work of the individual with the goggles?” asked Celestus.

“I think it is…” said X-Ray, concerned that this might just be a one-way trip.

“Yes,” said Banshee, “I think so.”

“Why has he done this?” asked Celestus, bemused.

“That’s what we’re going to find out…” said Banshee, with steely determination in her voice. She wondered how so many SHADOW troops could have been prepared – this was similar to her earlier adventures in wartime London, but so much more advanced than she remembered. This was clearly a plan that has been a long time in the planning.

With his enhanced vision, X-Ray could see that there were hundreds of the grey and black uniformed men swarming the area, disappearing into side roads, sowing panic and fear. The exhausted British soldiers were fighting back as best they could, but they were vastly outnumbered and ill-equipped for the struggle. The clever ones had already sought cover off the road; the weary and the unlucky littered the cobbles.

“I think this is a cue for me and you, Celestus!” yelled X-Ray, as he revised his estimate from hundreds to thousands.

“Are these the servants of a tyrant?” asked the alien prince.

“They most certainly are!” X-Ray confirmed, knowing enough about history to recognise the Ahnenerbe symbol.

Celestus set his jaw, “You have told me enough,” he said steely, “let us go!”

The two rose into the air, above the trees, gaining a good view of the chaos around them. They could not see any aircraft, which was a blessing. The SHADOW troopers were advancing in groups of five men, their blaster rifles obviously anachronistic.

“This is not how history should be!” exclaimed X-Ray.

“Then we must put an end to it!” said Celestus, matter-of-factly.

X-Ray quickly saw a clear path on the road below them, “You tackle them on the ground,” he said, pointing for Celestus to see where he meant, “I will do a strafing run!”

{FLARE} The voice came from within Celestus’s head, soft yet insistent, feminine.

Unbidden, his entire body felt as though it were about to burst open with light… an instinct told him to release the energy away from him, and the sky erupted into white light that lit the area around him like a hundred spotlights.

Unfortunately for his teammates, they all fell victim to the blinding effect, and they saw flickering spots of light before their eyes, merging with the physical pain that stabbed at their brains like daggers.

Thankfully the blast of light also affected many of the SHADOW troops nearer to the front of the advance, and many resorted to firing blindly, hitting some of their own men. The British infantrymen took advantage and felled several of the Nazis, but their ammunition was sparse, and many were already out of bullets.

Celestus was unaffected, if amazed, but while he tried to comprehend what had just happened he heard the voice again.

{BLADE} Suddenly a three-feet long sword-like energy field sprang from his right hand. He took it in his stride this time, and yelled out at the SHADOW troops, “Lay down your weapons!”

Since Celestus could speak any earthly language, the Nazis understood him perfectly.

One of the officers yelled back, “Finde ihn! Nur Doktor Morgen kann uns noch aufhalten…” [Find him! Doctor Tomorrow! He’s the only one that can stop us now.]

Fresh SHADOW troopers were already pushing their temporarily blinded comrades out of the way, advancing with fresh malice.

Celestus took the fight to them, soaring down at speed and hitting their ranks like a battering ram. He sent men flying as he ploughed through them, seeing a blinded X-Ray unleash a wayward energy blast way too high. He noticed that the blade did not kill the men, but easily rendered them unconscious. A couple of lucky blaster shots hit him head on with a burning effect, but he was not badly hurt.

“What on earth…?” Banshee spoke out loud as she tried to transform her molecular structure; something was affecting her ability to become intangible.

Akira concentrated, his hands moving with supernatural grace as he cast a spell – one not used by him until now – the Omens of Obroros. The incantation summoned an extension of Obroros itself, a tall obelisk of polished obsidian appearing out of a cloud of grey smoke.

The obelisk was invisible to everyone but the summoner. Also known as The Screaming Spire, Obsidian Ward, and Ever-Watchful, Obroros was the name given to an ancient intelligent artefact, a double-terminated obelisk of gleaming black stone that served as a guardian and gatekeeper to the netherworlds of the Cosmic Coil. Glowing eyes and mouths formed on the surface of the spire when it dealt with visitors or challengers. No one knew who placed Obroros on its eternal vigil, and the Spire remains silent on such matters. Its cries were terribly painful to dimensional intruders, driving them back whence they came.

In this case, it showed Akira a vision of a large albino gorilla, a cowboy riding a dinosaur, a human-looking robot, a cyborg dressed as a 17th century pirate, and an ancient Egyptian pharaoh stepping down from a throne, before fading even as the battle raged on.

X-Ray managed to clear his head enough to switch his visual acuity into the infra-red portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, instantly putting the world into shades of blue-green and orange-red. A second later and thirteen SHADOW troopers succumbed to a Gamma beam. More and more rushed forward to fill their places.

Celestus pulled out of his attack run and found himself near the Embankment of the Thames, where he saw several glowing circles of energy along the riverside. He saw that they were portals, and every few seconds each one disgorged another group of SHADOW troopers into London’s heart, black daggers into the very core of Britain’s resistance.

Celestus again flew down and bowled a rank of soldiers over, sending a couple of them tumbling into the river. For a time he succeeded in blocking the egress of other troops through the portals, but as he swooped around he saw that new incoming soldiers were already clearing the fallen away. It seemed hopeless… but that only spurred him on.

Akira was no clearer after seeing his vision start to return than when he first began. “X-Ray! What do you think we should do, then?” His normal sight also gradually returning.

“I think Celestus has gone to the back of the queue to try to bottleneck them. I’m working in infra-red, so I can guide you if you need the help.”

Akira heard a ‘whoosh’ followed by a ‘thunk’ – tracking the sound he saw an arrow sticking out of the power pack of a SHADOW soldier’s blaster rifle. He saw the soldier look at the offending implement just before it blew up, sending the trooper and several others sprawling, including the officer.

Akira turned and followed the flight path of the arrow, locating a rooftop where he saw an archer, clad in deep-blue, another arrow nocked and a fierce look in his eye.

Alongside him was a blonde-haired boy in a similar costume, though primarily red in colour.

“Hold them back!” the archer called before turning to the boy with him.

“Arrow, get people out of the line of fire. Save the civilians!”

Her sight now returned, Banshee noticed that the man’s costume was identical to the Bowman’s outfit from the World War Two era.

Bowman loosed another volley of arrows at the SHADOW troopers as his sidekick swung down from the rooftop to help protect civilians and cover their retreat.

***

Celestus did his utmost to block the portals, but when he threw a flaming car at the nearest circle of energy it crumpled and fell amongst the incoming troops. It became apparent that the portals were one-way only; the Nazis could come through, but nothing could get back through.

As Celestus came under heavy blaster fire, he saw that the SHADOW troops were seemingly limitless, their dark ranks spilling out in all directions. With regret, he realised that even his great might was useless against such numbers. As he turned and flew back towards his new teammates, he remembered an old proverb from his youth…

“Better I flee a coward but live for one more day, that I may return to kill you in a most unpleasant way.”

***

Akira and Banshee flew over to the rooftop where Bowman was providing an overwatch rearguard to Arrow’s evacuation attempts.

“Who are you?” he asked, “And what are you up to?”

The archer broke position and turned to Akira, “I am Bowman. The lad is Arrow. We are part of the Agincourt Irregulars.”

“Is there a lot of you,” Akira asked, “or just the two of you?”

“It’s just the two of us here at the moment,” Bowman confirmed. “We’ve got to get the civilians out of the way.”

Banshee’s mind wandered… she had heard of the Agincourt Irregulars before, from the First World War…

The Irregulars first came to notice during World War One. The Angels of Mons is a popular legend about a group of angels who supposedly protected members of the British Army in the Battle of Mons on 22–23 August 1914, at the outset of World War One. At the time of the retreat from the Battle of Mons it was reported that phantom bowmen from the Battle of Agincourt, summoned by a soldier calling on St. George, destroyed a German battalion.

Banshee was aware that, in reality, the troops were rescued by the first Bowman (a descendant of Robert of Locksley) and his ‘merry men’, the Agincourt Irregulars, with Albion and the then current St. George successfully intervening in the battle (the first occasion in modern times that superheroes had intervened, albeit covertly, in a war) to provide cover for the retreating troops.

X-Ray had stayed at the roadside, scattering SHADOW soldiers and saving a small group of British soldiers, but as the men gained the safety of the side streets, he saw Akira and Banshee talking to the archer and he flew over to them. Akira brought him up-to-speed.

“Got to love a pulp-action hero!” he said, the hugest grin on his face as he shook Bowman’s hand.

Out of the broken front window of an electronics store, with a hand-lettered and now slightly askew sign advertising the new Philoco Transitone Radio and Phonograph, a voice boomed and crackled from the display speakers, as well as through several radios in the houses and shops up and down the street.

“People of not-so-Great Britain! I am Zeitgeist. On this day, you learn the futility of that which you so ignorantly glorify. Your forces are powerless before us, while SHADOW is infinite! SHADOW falls upon you from all places and all times. We shall take this city, and soon we will conquer this nation, and the world! Without the inane interference of Doctor Tomorrow, England will fall to the Thousand Year Reich!”

A scream echoed from the ground below their vantage point, and they looked over the ledge of the roof. Two women in bright, print dresses and a little girl in a white sun dress were cornered by three SHADOW troopers. X-Ray could see that soot smudged their faces and arms, and that their hair was askew from running.

Without hesitation he plunged over the ledge, his gravity-controlled flight landing him just two seconds later gently behind the Nazis. Another second and the soldiers were flying diagonally upwards and backwards as the gravity fields around them spun and reversed without warning.

The women were shocked, but only for a second.

“Please, help us!” said one of the women, holding the frightened little girl against her.

“I’m Shannon Steadman, and this is my daughter Olivia. We heard that the Bowman has a shelter near Buckingham Palace, but we couldn’t get to it. Can you help us to get there?”

X-Ray saw the mix of hope and fear in their eyes, “Better than that, ladies. You’ll get to meet the man.” Bowman broke the stunned silence that followed, “Come on, time to go. The civilians in the immediate area are clear, and we need to make a tactical withdrawal. I will cover you, get moving! Follow Arrow.”

Celestus returned just as the team were floating down to the ground; a sonic boom heralded his arrival, throwing SHADOW troopers to the ground as the soundwaves rocked over them. 

“I cannot stop the portals through which the soldiers are arriving. They are one-way systems, and nothing can go back through them,” he said in a deflated tone, “And I have just heard a victory message over these crude communication devices called radios. It is repeating itself over and over – what a windbag!”

Akira took a moment to cast one last spell, gaining magical insight as to the nature of the portals; the energies matched those of Time Watch agent Danni and also Tempus, though altered somehow.

X-Ray wondered if the radio signals could prove useful, and he adjusted the E-M spectrum around him to allow the radio signal to flow directly into his auditory canal, then reached out with his power to follow the signal, losing it somewhere down towards the Embankment. The Zeitgeist broadcast stopped abruptly at the end of one of its repeats, and the airwaves were filled with British emergency broadcasts urging people to evacuate immediately to the west, on foot, and not to attempt to flee by car and risk further blocking the city streets.

Bowman acted as the rear guard as The Balance followed Arrow down back alleys and abandoned side-streets, losing whatever enemies might have been pursuing them.

As they travelled, Shannon spoke to Bowman, thanking him for his help. Akira’s ears pricked when he heard her say, “I am Shannon Steadman, this is my friend, Diane Holt, and my daughter, Olivia.

‘Hold on,’ Akira thought, ‘my surname is Steadman and my grandmother’s name was Olivia…’

***

The team navigated the streets stealthily, led quickly and efficiently by young Arrow, arriving eventually at the Beaumont Gentlemen’s Club, a multi-story town house on Eaton Square. Near the back-corner of the mansion’s wrought-iron fence, Arrow gestured for the group to open a metal plate in the pavement, revealing a flight of steps leading down below street-level.

A brick lined Underground passageway led them to Bowman’s lair at an abandoned station. With the new arrivals there was around a hundred and thirty people now hiding there, occupying the space under the art deco rotunda. They could still hear the noise of the advancing SHADOW army outside, as well as occasional shouts and explosions, but it felt safe… for the moment.

Strings of electric bulbs made for makeshift illumination, their glow casting a surreal tint to the scene. Someone had set up a makeshift first aid station, where a few people who seemed to know what they were doing were checking on the injured; vital signs, cleaning minor cuts, and encouraging them to drink water, making the injured as comfortable as they could. X-Ray noticed the first aid station and the wounded, pitching in to help out as best he could.

Banshee looked around, reflecting on what she had seen… twice now. She had confirmed that they really were in London on Tuesday the 4^th of June 1940, the day of the last trip over the Channel to rescue stranded troops from Dunkirk in a history that most certainly did not match what they knew. Winston Churchill was due to give his famous “We will fight them on the beaches” speech that evening.

More civilians were arriving, small groups every few minutes, it seemed. A few were suffering with serious injuries, all looked bedraggled and panicked.

A little while later, Arrow beckoned the team into a side room where Bowman stood, casting his gaze over a series of small, bulbous, black and white display screens, their flickering images shifting between different views of the city.

They showed people fleeing in droves, making their way on foot towards the Palace; SHADOW’s progression from the River Thames was obvious. Here and there, surges of running people could be seen, their faces soundlessly screaming, beams of energy shooting into view across the screen. Then, the SHADOW troopers marched into view, swarming over the streets until the same disaster the team saw on the parade route was left in their wake, again and again.

Arrow stood at the door, watching for signs that the people gathering in the lair needed additional help. The older masked hero took the opportunity to re-introduce himself and his young partner, then said, “Who are you? I haven’t seen you before.”

Akira took the lead.

“I’m Akira, this is Banshee, and the gentleman there is Celestus. X-Ray,” he gestured to the rotunda, “is a doctor.”

“We have never seen anyone that can do what you can do. You fly unaided, you unleash energies from your hands… you are wondrous people. I wish that we had more such as you.”

Back ‘home’ there had been Metas’ since they first appeared in 1909; obviously that was not the case here.

“Yeah, well… we’re looking for something that might be keeping these portals open.”

“This is where all the SHADOW soldiers are coming through? I thought they’d be coming from ships.” It was obvious that, despite his knowledge of electronics, Bowman was unaware of the level of technology currently being used in his city.

He continued, “So, what are these portals?”

Akira shifted uneasily, “I don’t know… something has appeared here that wasn’t here before and, whatever it is, it’s causing these portals to operate.”

“I’ve got to admit,” said Bowman, “there’s been a lot of unusual things happening, not the least of which is the black and grey army now invading the city. I don’t really know who’s attacking the city itself.  I was hoping you could tell me. Nazis, I would guess. I heard that voice over the radio call itself Zeitgeist. That’s German for ‘time-spirit’ or ‘time-ghost,’ I suppose. I heard Hitler’s Reich was pushing technological development, but I had no idea it had gone so far.”

“Yeah, yeah, I think that they’re, kind of, time Nazis, or something. Well, I think he’s got some help from someone more evil than himself.”

Celestus took a step forward, “We heard mention of someone named Doctor Tomorrow?”

Akira cut in, “Yeah, they seem worried about a Doctor Tomorrow. I think he’s someone who could possibly halt their advance and hold them back, though I’m not sure how.”

Bowman thought, but shook his head, “I have never heard of anyone called Doctor Tomorrow.”

“What about Albion?” Akira asked, “And the Crown Guard?”

Bowman again shook his head, “You are the first powered heroes that I or Arrow have seen. Someone needs to get past these troops and get to the Thames, look at what’s going on there, and try to put a stop to this invasion. Thankfully, the king and his young family are no longer in residence. They’re traveling under armed guard, hopefully to safety. I want to get the civilians out of the city.”

Akira nodded, “And that’s a great job for you to be doing. We can help, but have you seen anything unusual about the Thames? The Embankment?”

This time, Bowman nodded, “Oh, for some reason my cameras don’t seem to be working down there. Something seems to be interfering with the signal.”

“I shall go and take a look,” said Celestus, already beginning to turn towards the door.

“I think we all should,” said Akira, reaching out to stop the alien prince from simply walking out.

Bowman moved to a table next to the bank of monitors, and picked up some devices.

“Here, take these wrist radios. They are my own design, and you will be able to keep in touch with us on a special frequency.” He showed the team how to operate the bulky radios, allowing them to talk to each other as well as him.

The team’s Commdots had no satellite access to provide communication beyond Bluetooth range – Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances, and for building personal area networks. Close together, they noticed that the Commdots worked; earlier that morning they were useless for X-Ray and Celestus as they quickly moved out of Bluetooth range. The wrist radios would be a big help if they got separated again.

“I don’t know if they will operate when you get to the Embankment; the worst affected area is somewhere around Cleopatra’s Needle.”

Cleopatra’s Needle was an almost 3,500-year-old granite obelisk. It was made in ancient Egypt, given to Britain as a gift, and overlooked the River Thames from a spot on London’s Thames Embankment, as it had ever since the 12^th September 1878.

Akira explained to Celestus how he and Banshee could make people invisible and insubstantial if they were in physical contact with them, and that it had become commonplace for them to use this tactic to sneak around without being seen.

“The only problem is,” Akira said, “that we can’t breathe underwater.”

“I can,” said Celestus. “Can you?” asked Banshee, “that’s useful,” she said to Celestus’s nod.

X-Ray was retrieved, having treated three people suffering with burns, and the plan was quickly explained to him.

“Breathing underwater? Blinding lights and flashing blades? What else are you hiding under that silver spacesuit?” he asked, jokingly. If he understood it, Celestus didn’t let on.

Farewell’s were spoken, well wishes given, Godspeeds’ were uttered, and The Balance left Bowman to his fate.

***

Holding hands and flying unseen above the city, they could see the ruin left in the wake of the invasion.

London was burning. Blackened cars, chunks of blasted-out building corners, and shattered glass peppered the streets,

SHADOW soldiers were pushing rapidly throughout the city, smaller squads roamed the streets looking for stragglers or places to dig in, and more were coming from the riverside every minute. The air was heavy with the stench of petrol and acrid smoke, and even without being on the ground the stomp of boots and crackle and hum of blaster fire could still be heard.

Houses seemed to be untouched, and eerily quiet. Doors hung open into the empty streets, vacant shops and dwellings emptied of only the few precious belongings their occupants could carry with them when they fled. A few overladen suitcases lay abandoned on the pavements, in the road, or under trees, spilling out clothes, clocks, books, toys, and other belongings. Many homes still had their radios on, and snatches of news reports or the invader’s repeated grandstanding floated through the air, occasionally lost under the distant crackle and boom of blaster fire.

The team saw the portals opening on the Embankment next to The river. The portals were quite small, maybe seven feet tall and five feet wide, in a rough oval shape. SHADOW troopers came through in squads of five, from two or three portals at a time. The soldiers rushed through each opening, which blinked closed behind them. Several moments later two or three portals blinked in again. The Embankment itself was empty of people, but the team could see three dark boats about thirty feet offshore, arrayed in a loose ring. With his enhanced eyesight, X-Ray told the others that the three boats all had a type of plasma cannon aboard.

Following the plan the team flew lower, then Celestus disengaged and plunged into the murky depths of the Thames.

X-Ray scanned through his senses, picking up an energy signal beneath the water.

“There is something under the water, a power source on the E-M spectrum.”

Moments passed as Akira, Banshee, and X-Ray waited for Celestus to surface; the wrist radios would not work underwater, and he was out of reach for the Commdots; but suddenly he was there, flying up out of the polluted water. They released hands, becoming visible so that the prince could see them.

“There is a vessel on the riverbed. I believe they were known as U-boats in your past.”

“What? Really?” said X-Ray, “Okay, I can work with Akira on this – we should be able to lift it between us.”

“Yeah,” said Akira, “let’s try that!”

It was difficult, as they could not see the vessel, but with concentration the two heroes were able to latch onto the ship, X-Ray altering the flow of gravity, Akira wrapping telekinetic ‘arms’ around the bow. Slowly, the U-boat came into view, breaking the surface like some immense iron monster. The metal monster scattered the three defensive boats as though they were twigs.

Celestus flew under the emerging bow and dug his fingers into the metal hull, using his unimaginable strength to help lift it clear of the clinging liquid.

He contemplated smashing his way through the hull, but then he caught a glimpse of the hatch on the conning tower opening, a soldier emerging part way holding a blaster rifle.

Banshee flew down and hit the soldier with her staff; he was unconscious before he fell back inside.

Celestus flew to the hatch and twisted it at the hinge, ensuring that it could not be closed and effectively ensuring that the U-boat could not submerge again.

“Are we going to dry-dock it?” asked X-Ray, “It should just about fit on the Embankment.”

Banshee looked up at him, “No, let it settle on the surface. They can’t submerge now.”

Seconds later the U-boat was settled on the surface of the Thames, and the team made their way inside. The interior of the submersible was narrow and cramped. Sounds echoed around them, alarmingly loud, mostly clanging metal, hissing valves, and a few electric zaps; the air was warm and stale. In contrast to the crowded scene on land, however, there was not a soldier in sight, apart from the unconscious man at the foot of the ladder — in fact, the only signs of life were a flickering blue glow coming around the edges of a hatch towards the prow of the U-boat, along with the faint sound of voices.

Banshee volunteered to take a look, shifting to her insubstantial and invisible form before phasing through the metal bulkhead hatch.

The hatch at the end of the corridor typically led to the torpedo launchers of such a vessel, but this particular room was empty of weapons. Instead, a single pulsing machine occupied the centre of the space, looking like a cross between an oversized lobster trap and some sci-fi teleport pad. The thin, crisscrossed bars hummed with energy, occasionally sparking, with threads of energy coming from the machine’s occupant.

The man the team had seen at the parade in their present, right before they ended up here – Tempus – was trapped in the middle of the barely human-sized device, hanging as if exhausted or defeated. Beside him and the device stood a white-furred gorilla in a grey and black uniform, with an all too human smirk of contempt and bemusement on his face.

Banshee drifted out of the room, returning to her normal form as she began to relay the information to the other three.

A quick discussion followed about a plan of attack, and Akira prepared a mystical bolt as Celestus turned the wheel, and swung the door open.

“You’re not from around here,” the gorilla said, in the low, gravelly voice they had heard over the radios earlier.

“Have you been misbehaving, Tempus?” he asked of the prisoner. Then he mockingly bowed towards The Balance. “I am Dr. Oberst Geistmann, but you may call me Zeitgeist.”

Akira stopped in his tracks.

The machine containing Tempus crackled with energy, causing a wince of pain from him. The ape-villain Zeitgeist positioned himself between the Team and the machine.

Even though they knew what to expect, the sight of an upright talking gorilla was still extremely off-putting, and the team hesitated for a second.

Akira reacted first, keeping his composure, “Are you in charge, then, or are you following orders?”

Zeitgeist grinned, “I am in charge of this little alteration in time.”

“But you are following someone else’s orders?”

“I am… the architect.”

“You’re the top dog?”

“Top banana…” X-Ray couldn’t help himself.

Akira continued to push, “So who’s the Führer?”

“Ah, well,” Zeitgeist smiled and waved a hand dismissively, “I cannot take credit for that. I found an ally who appreciated my genius and who is going to help me realize my full potential, unfortunately for all the other simpletons like you!”

“So, this ally… would he be the guy with the little toothpaste moustache?”

“No, no, she is someone of great usefulness, but little importance now.  By all means, go and fight the forces who have made land. Exhaust yourselves with one futile effort after another. All this will happen again, and again, until I achieve total victory — over your City, country and the world! Without Doctor Tomorrow to interfere, I’ll…”

“Haven’t we heard enough?” boomed Celestus, breaking the villain’s monologue.

Akira’s hand shot up, cutting Celestus off – he hadn’t finished with the ape yet.

“So without Doctor Tomorrow interfering…?”

“I will be able to leave this body and travel into the past, to begin again.”

“And you’d like to find this Doctor Tomorrow, would you?”

“Oh, he’s somewhere, somewhen, but nowhere that he can interfere with my grand design now.”

Akira smirked at the ape, “I don’t think you’ve got an ally; I think you’re Billy-no-mates!”

“Fine, then let us fight. Let us finish this. All you can do is send me back in time…”

Akira nodded, “I know, I know, and then it’ll happen again.”

“Yes, but each time it will be improved. The rules of Time no longer exist, thanks to Gaviel.”

Got it!

“So where do we find this ally of yours? This Gaviel?”

Zeitgeist shrugged, “Somewhere… somewhen… All this is merely my dream, made reality. There may well be other times that are being altered even as we speak. She gave me him,” he pointed at Tempus, who winced as a spark bit into him, “the power to bring the past to the future, and the future to the past.”

His words were ominous, and The Balance were fully aware that, whoever this Doctor Tomorrow was, they had no way to find him.

“Okay, I think everybody’s sick and tired of this bloody gorilla!” said Akira, readying his battle stance.

Suddenly, Tempus grabbed the bars of his cage.

“I’ve got nothing to do with this,” he shouted, “I was doing my own thing getting here and there through time. I was pulled into all this! Zeitgeist said something about my being an acceptable substitute, something to do with my abilities and blocking someone he called Doctor Tomorrow from interfering with the timeline. Would he be a temporal traveller like myself? I don’t know!”

Zeitgeist allowed himself a moment to look down on the disgraced Tempus, and that was all the time Akira needed. He had the power to unleash several of his mystical bolts at the same target and these hit home against the large ape, staggering him backwards into the bars of Tempus’s cage.

Banshee followed up with a screeching wail, that had the ape clasping his hands over his now bleeding ears. When the chilling cry ceased, the ape’s demeanour had altered. Where once an intelligence shone, now the eyes gleamed of primal hatred, ferocity made incarnate. Clearly Geistmann was no longer in residence.

X-Ray was concentrating on the energy flow surrounding the cage that held Tempus. The signature was unfamiliar to him, but something else called to him, a frequency on the E-M spectrum. If he could just… his attention wavered as his peripheral vision saw the ape leap towards him, jaws wide, teeth bared, death in his eyes.

A beam of golden light struck the ape straight in its face. The beast roared briefly, but was blown back mid-leap, crashing to the grilled metallic flooring with a clatter. It lay still.

“It was a brutal thing, to psi-blast the creature in this confined space, but I believed we were out of options,” said Celestus, almost apologetically.

Tempus was freed moments later, and he seemed genuinely happy to be out of his bondage.

“Who are you?” he asked, to the bemusement of everyone present.

“You don’t know?” asked Banshee.

“No, I don’t know you,” came the reply.

Akira frowned but made light of it, “Well, you’ve been abused by a gorilla… look, have you got a sense of another time-user around here?”

Tempus rubbed his temple, “Well, I was minding my own business when I was diverted here through the Timestream. When I woke up, gorilla-man had me linked up to his machine. He’s been draining my power for his little army transport system ever since. I want to be on my way and get the hell out of here for starters. All that talk of our German friend going back in time again and again doesn’t sit well with me. It sounds like me getting kidnapped over and over and over again until he finally beats you.”

“That’s what would likely happen if we don’t find this other time user,” said Akira.

“What other time-user?”

“They keep referring to him as Dr. Tomorrow.”

“No, I’ve no idea who that is,” Tempus shrugged, “I’ve only seen Zeitgeist and his SHADOW troops. There’s something definitely wrong with the timeline, I can feel it, like someone skipping the existing path and cutting their own way through the woods with a chainsaw. I don’t know… maybe I could follow it, if you think there’s something worth finding? If so, we need to leave before Geistmann restarts everything again.”

“Yeah,” said Akira, a little too quickly, “that sounds like a good idea. So you can follow this timeline?”

“I can follow a line that seems to be connected to it. But, I mean, I’m not going after ape-boy here… I just want to get away from this timeline so we can’t catch up with him.”

X-Ray jumped in, “Can you take us with you?” He was missing Stacy, and worried about what might be happening back in his own future, if there was still a future to go back to…

“Yeah, I can open a portal, get us all in… I can follow this timeline for a while, find the nearest distortion…”

“Okay,” said Akira, “let’s do it.”

***

As the coronal energy dissipated, The Balance found themselves standing in an arid landscape, dry red clay beneath their feet, and reddish rock formations dotted the horizon. The air was hot and dry, the sand roasting.

Immediately to their left they noticed the wreckage of a vessel, now a twisted, broken heap of metal, glass, and plastic. From the damage, it looked clear that something had smashed it into fragments.

They also realised that Tempus was no longer with them. The Time Thief was nowhere to be seen.

A group of riders, dressed in late 19th century Western riding gear, complete with weathered Stetsons, came over a nearby rise and loped towards the team. However, the riders were not mounted on horses, but small dinosaurs walking on their hind legs. The dinosaurs wore saddles and bridles and were clearly trained as riding animals, although their large sickle-like claws and sharp teeth were also evident.

The Balance appeared to be in the era of the cowboys in a pre-isolationist United States of America, but time was clearly out of sync with their known history. Why weren’t there Time Watch agents here trying to restore the time line? Where was Danni, for example?

“Nice day fer it,” the lead rider drawled, spitting a mouthful of baccy onto the scorching sand, “Y’all can help us hunt through this scrap… after you hand over your valuables, that is,” he finished, as he and his men drew their guns.

To be continued…

Zeitgeist is a Nazi scientist from the future currently inhabiting the body of a mutant ape. He is self-aggrandizing, self-important, and sneeringly arrogant. Although ostensibly aligned with the Third Reich, Zeitgeist is playing a larger game of influencing history to not only ensure the Axis wins the war, bringing about the future he came from, but also ensuring he can eventually rule that Thousand Year Reich. Due to his powers, his arrangement with Gaviel, and the absence of his foe from his own paratime, Doctor Tomorrow, he is utterly confident in his victory. If it doesn’t work out in this timeline, he’ll try it again, and again, until all these nuisances are overcome. His success is inevitable.

***

The Crown Guard (in the Balance Timeline)

During the dark, early days of WWII, the existence of the Crown Guard was a closely held secret. Germany’s Eugenics Brigade was the first fully formed meta-human team in history and had the full backing of the German High Command. Hitler touted these meta-humans as proof Germany was the “master race”, descended from the Aesir of Norse mythology. Supported by an elite troop of the SS Ahnenerbe’s notorious SHADOW Division. Supposedly funded and equipped by the mysterious Labyrinth, SHADOW was the support behind Germany’s Überkriegers (‘Super Warriors’) Eugenics Brigade and with the mysterious teleporter Götterdämmerung allowing them to appear anywhere in the world at will, the Eugenics Brigade conducted special operations throughout Europe, weakening fortified positions and attacking military and political leaders as a prelude to invasion. The German high command called this strategy “decapitation” and used it with deadly effect in combination with the lightning-fast Blitzkrieg.

Indeed, it seemed no one had an answer for the Eugenics Brigade, one of many factors that gave German forces a seeming insurmountable psychological advantage. In 1940 however, Hitler ordered the Eugenics Brigade to eliminate the “warmonger”: Winston Churchill. With the escape of so many of the British military forces (along with almost 150,000 French troops) from the Beaches of Dunkirk, Germany was faced with two options for dealing with the only nation in Europe still in a position to challenge Germany: leave Britain alone while Germany dealt with Russia or engage in a massive air battle and prepare for a cross-channel invasion. Neither option appealed to Hitler, so he turned to his Eugenics Brigade to provide a possible third option.

If Churchill were eliminated inside Britain, Hitler felt he could then threaten the Royal Family and force Britain to the negotiating table. This would eliminate Britain as well as remove the possibility of American involvement in the war. And so in June of 1940 the Eugenics Brigade acted on intelligence of Churchill’s location in Britain and teleported into Britain to assassinate him.

When the Brigade returned an hour later, Hitler was astonished to learn they had been defeated by a pair of British heroes: Sword and Stone, wielding the mystic artefacts passed down from their father, the WWI hero Excalibur. Somehow these two young heroes had defeated the Brigade’s six-member team. Though they had killed one of the British heroes, Churchill had only been wounded and the aura of invincibility around Germany’s meta-human force was shattered. The Brigade tried several times to assassinate Churchill afterwards but their intelligence was never again so accurate. Their subsequent attacks only managed to kill actors impersonating the great leader.

Cunning and bravery had accomplished what force would not have been able to do and soon the Brigade attacks stopped, as Germany turned their attention toward Russia. Britain used this time to strengthen the Crown Guard. At its strongest the team would include: Albion, Big Ben, Bulldog, St. George, Esprit (an expatriate French hero), Grizzly (the lone member of the team from the Commonwealth of Canada), Hurricane, John Bull, Tinman, Doll, Repulse, the Aquan Swordfish, the Irish hero Illustrious, Britannia and Zbrojmistrz (an expatriate Polish hero) with support from the Norwegian heroine Mjölnir.​

By the end of the war, with the Allied heroes outnumbering the Eugenics Brigade by a wide margin, it was the German meta-humans who were on the defensive, attempting to help stem advances by Allied forces and protect Hitler from capture for trial after the war. Despite their original protective purpose, Churchill turned this group on the offensive as soon as possible, counting on subterfuge and decoys to prevent the Eugenics Brigade from assassinating him or the Royal Family. Along with the Commandos, the Crown Guard was ordered to “set Europe ablaze” and inflicted enough damage on German and Italian forces in Europe and North Africa that Hitler was forced to recall the Eugenics Brigade from assisting on the Eastern Front.

***

Dr. Tomorrow (Tomas Morrow / Morgen): Nazi British-born “super-man” from Zeitgeist’s alternate Earth where the Axis initially won World War II. After an apparent change of heart, he travelled back in time to prevent the Nazi victory. For some unknown reason he apparently never existed in this timeline. Instead there is the time traveller, Tempus.