Based on The Jordanów Mystery by Alexander Thomas
Akira was trying to “spy” on Lady Tabitha Holmwood, and Lady Jennifer Caedmon-Davis, using his remote viewing abilities. Frustratingly, he still hadn’t been able to confirm or deny Banshee’s theory that they were both the same person; seemingly both might be Faerie glamours used by the Fae witch known as the Morgaine of the Court of the Unseelie Sidhe, when in the mortal world. To succeed in this, he needed to be able to concentrate without any interruptions, and he had therefore retreated to the safety, peace, and privacy of Ffrwd Dylluan, his family home. He was therefore not present when the rest of the team received a call from the headmaster at the nearby Claremont Academy, Mr. Summers.
“A group of twelve young people and four teachers from the school, have mysteriously disappeared 48 hours ago on an ill-fated trip to Poland, near the town of Jordanów to be precise. Recently the group passed through the area on a simple hiking trip that would take them to a campsite in the forest. Unfortunately, following an unexpected storm, all contact was lost with the group after leaving the town, as had several local young people who went to check on them afterwards. It’s the second time in the last few months that people have vanished in the mountains. Locals mind, not tourists; people who knew the area well and were unlikely to get lost.”
X-Ray asked, “We might be looking at an unnatural storm, then?”
Mr. Summers shook his head; “Oh, there’s no way of telling, but sudden violent storms in this region are not unusual.There is a worry that this might be connected with a nearby training camp for international AML (Anti-Metahuman League) affiliated groups that had reportedly been terrorising the town and harassing local people for months. Unfortunately one of our students, Rachel Izaaksi, is visually very obviously a meta.
Local ‘Policja’ (ah, police) are apparently too afraid of the AML camp and its Purifier patrols to carry out a proper search for them in the nearby forest and mountains.”
Again X-Ray interrupted to ask, “Are the AML outlawed? Are they illegal?”
Mr. Summers paused before replying in a quiet voice. “Not in Poland. AML-affiliated groups are not illegal in Britain at present either. The Purifiers are prescribed over here, but officially they’re not connected to the AML. It gets more shady throughout Eastern Europe.”
“So, we can snap a few bones if they’re a Purifier, but we have to be careful with the other ones.”
Summers shook his head at X-Ray’s comment and predatory smile and continued. “Since the storm, parents, and the school had tried, and failed, to re-establish any contact with them and any trace we’ve found of them has led nowhere and only resulted in frustration, and confusion.
I hang on to the hope that there may yet still be time. Now, even a mere trace or clue would be highly appreciated in our search for the missing students and their teachers. Please, we implore you, help us find the missing children. To add to the worry, last night all contact with the town disappeared, and a sudden unexpected second severe storm has totally isolated the region.”
A man in a well-worn leather jacket stepped into view of Summers’ camera. His face was hard and there was unknowable pain in his eyes.
Mr. Summers continued, “This is Sergei Bronkowski. He’s a resident of Jordanów, who is visiting the UK on business. His son, Szymon Bronkowski is one of the missing local youths who were carrying out the search, and he has offered his services as a guide if you can get him home. He’s encountered the AML in the area before and our new Polish friend seems to think they might be looking for something in the region. His familiarity with the area will be an asset to you.
According to Mr. Bronkowski, the AML appear to believe there’s an entrance to some mystical other world near Jordanów. Now, they may be crazy, bigoted bastards, but Mr. Bronkowski says they aren’t necessarily wrong, and we have had sightings of armed cyborgs, the Purifier’s new monster squad, in the area. You all are proof there are stranger things than we imagined out there in the world. Whether this is somehow connected with the missing people is unknown, but it’s a worry. Can you help?”
They agreed immediately, and when they were unable to contact Akira they decided to go without him. After all it was just a simple search and rescue operation they were about to undertake. Celestus was for setting off now and flying there unassisted, letting the others catch up, but Banshee persuaded him to wait and go with them in the Crate.
Frankie downloaded the Polish translator program to Banshee’s and X-Ray’s Commdots to aid local communication while Celestus relied on his ability to speak and understand all languages. As a final thought before they set off, Banshee placed the two freezer guns onboard as a ‘good luck’ gesture. “Tradition!” she muttered under her breath, as she loaded them into the overhead locker.
They picked up their Polish passenger, Sergei Bronkowski, and requested that he strap in tightly as Banshee was piloting. As soon as they were back in the air, Banshee engaged stealth mode as they had no desire to officially request permission to enter Poland’s airspace, or engage with the country’s Law Enforcement, if they could avoid it.
As the Crate neared the Jordanów region they felt a strange tingling sensation as though something in their bodies was being rewritten, or a ghost was setting up camp on their graves but they each put it down to nerves. Only their passenger Bronkowski seemed unaffected by the strange sensation.
Jordanówwas a small town in southern Poland, on the Skawa river. According to Frankie the town had a population of over 5,000. 10,000 eyes that failed to see a near invisible ship drop silently from the sky on the town square and park ten metres above the ground ready for deployment.
It was agreed that Bronkowski would stay onboard until the team had investigated why there was no-one around except for a dozen males in Purifier armour seemingly searching for something, or someone, in the town below. The armoured figures, armed with shop-bought Katana’s, were rudely barging inside people’s shops and houses before focusing on a nearby hotel and the medieval church on the edge of the town square. The local Police were perhaps unsurprisingly, nowhere to be seen.
Celestus stepped out of the Crate in his costume, seemingly materialising in the airspace above the town square. He was accompanied by Banshee in full stealth mode; both invisible and insubstantial. Something felt different as she activated her powers, both more powerful and yet restricted somehow, she just didn’t know why.
In the square the Purifiers freaked at Celestus’ sudden appearance in the air. Katana’s were drawn and waved in his direction and obscenities screamed into the air in several languages, but primarily German for some reason.
Celestus called out, “Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Englisch?“
They looked surprised, but for the most part they seemed to just accept it. Several of them marched towards him, screaming as a couple elected to throw their swords at him like spears. Celestus just smiled as they fell short, clattering to the ground as one of them screamed, “Sie ändern ihre Natur.” Mutant scum eh? He replied, “Don’t be rude, it reflects badly on your species.” He ascended slightly higher, folded his arms and look down on them. He heard one of them saying something about their ‘Monster Squad’. What would these racial bigots define as monsters that would be acceptable to their prejudices? Instead of responding he asked in German, “What have you done with the missing children? We’re looking for them.”
“You’re also searching for the mutie girl?” one of them responded before his companion thumped him in the shoulder and shouted at him not to respond to the mutie scum! “You’re really very rude, small-minded people, aren’t you?” shouted Celestus.
“You’re not the one that’s putting humanity at risk.” was the response.
“I am the prince of an alien empire. Do you have any conception of the real risks to humanity that exists out there, in the dark?”
X-Ray tried to calm things down a little and contacted Celestus over their Commdots; “I’m not trying to talk you out of a fight, but do you fancy popping off and having a look around the countryside for the missing kids? That has to be our priority. Banshee and I can look for the girl they’re searching for, presumably Rachel?”
Celestus nodded and shouted down, “I fear this conversation is serving no purpose. See you later if I’m unlucky…” and immediately headed into the sky and began looking around. Even more Purifiers were now gathering outside the church. He relayed this information to the others then headed towards the forest, looking for the school camp.
It occurred to him as he flew that their passenger might know the camp location, so he asked X-Ray to ask him if he knew where the campsite might be. Sergei Bronkowski assumed that they would have been heading towards the mountains and the campsite there, but he didn’t know for definite. There were several possible locations they may have planned to use. Meanwhile, Banshee headed, still in ‘spook mode’ towards the gathering Purifiers. It appeared as though their suspicions were aroused by the fact that the church doors were clearly locked when normally the church would be open to all.
Meanwhile, an invisible and insubstantial Banshee flew towards the church, noting as she passed that several Purifiers had gathered in a local hotel or bar and there were two shadowy figures inside that everyone, locals, and bigots alike, were avoiding.
She flew through the walls into the dim interior of the church. Inside, a solitary figure sat near the altar seemingly praying (or silently sobbing?), head down.
Banshee materialised and stepped forward. The grey faced female with prominent ears jerked her head up, relief on her face as she recognised the famous Banshee from the Balance,
Over the next few minutes the girl, Rachel Izaaksi, explained that the school party had been hiking through the forest, having got lost due to the storm, when Purifiers had turned up and tried to capture them.
She had got separated from the others when they had been attacked. She assumed her presence was the reason for the assault, and now she was being hunted by them after blockading the town, terrifying the locals and apparently had blocked internet access to the outside world while they searched for her, forcing Rachel to try to hide. She had no idea what has happened to the rest of the party.
The meta, Rachel Izaaksi – Smiler as she was known to her classmates – had thought it best to head back to the town. She’d assumed that would have been the safest place to go, but… The rest of that sentence was left unsaid. The presence of Purifiers in the town made any further explanation unnecessary. Running from danger she had sought help in the parish church. The local priest had agreed, admittedly reluctantly, to grant her sanctuary, had locked the doors then left her alone in the church as he fled.
Despite her physical alterations and a lack of any compensatory powers, Rachel was still smiling though there was a sadness and pain beneath her ever-present smile when she finished talking. The banging on the church door was getting louder and Rachel was clearly scared despite Banshee’s presence. Banshee gathered the girl into her arms and turned insubstantial and invisible then they left the same way she’d arrived, through the wall and headed for the hovering, invisible Crate.
Now some distance away, Celestus had quickly scanned the forest from above and hadn’t found a campsite or the missing school kids. He decided rather than drop down and search the forest floor properly to head over the river and search the sides of the nearby mountain; having seen what he assumed were signs of movement halfway up the slopes. The occasional flash of white, possibly clothing against the snow, never seen at the same spot twice but slowly ascending up the mountain side. Could just be Terran herbivores, he thought they were called ‘goats’ or possibly ‘sheep’ but he wanted to check it out anyway.
Meanwhile in the town square, X-Ray with a still invisible Banshee by his side having previously dropped off the girl at the Crate, headed towards the bar. From the doorway he could see the terrified bar staff trying desperately to avoid the attention of the Purifiers gathered inside as well as two costumed figures, cyborgs by the look of them. One, a female, was dressed in white armour over her cybernetics while the male was covered in clusters of obscure gadgets all over his mechanised body.
The cyborgs were speaking quietly to each other but not in English or Polish; he thought it was likely German but had no translation program for that language, though he thought they were calling themselves Alpengeist and Gerät. He later found out that translated as ‘Alpine Spirit’ and ‘Device’.
That’s when he noticed a cache of guns, pistols and automated rifles, lying on a nearby table and Alpengeist was heading towards them. Naughty, naughty!
He was torn between searching for the missing people and dealing with the town invasion but a quick call to Celestus convinced him that the search was in hand, he’d spotted what looked like a possible campsite above the snow line of the mountain and was heading there now. Celestus finished with “I will investigate what has happened to the young people for now. If you feel like dealing with these armoured idiots, go ahead.”
Satisfied, X-Ray turned back to dealing with the escalating situation in the bar.
Celestus landed next to the campsite he’d spotted from the air. There were indications that Somebody has camped there within the last couple of weeks but no indication of anything more recent than that. Having said that, the recent weather conditions had wiped away most of the evidence of recent habitation leaving only the burned wood where the campfire had been. He was sure that this was not the campsite they were looking for. He looked down the side of the mountain and could now clearly see that the flashes of white he’d seen earlier were men, soldiers in arctic combat gear and armed. He took to the air again and flew down to meet them. As he got closer a bullet skimmed past his head, a warning shot. He stopped, dropped lower raised his hands above his head and in Polish said, “I am not an enemy, stop shooting at me.” That’s when he noticed the leader of the group was wearing a stylised helmet in the shape of a foxes head…
They responded by firing more bullets, this time directly at him!
Back in Jordanów, a seemingly solitary Meta stood by the doorway of a bar and smiled. X-Ray raised his force field as he entered the building. Better safe than sorry he thought as he started to raise his hand to summon his gravitic powers even as he asked in translated Polish “Is there is any trouble here, does anybody need ejecting from the inn?”
The citizens looked scared. X-Ray didn’t waste any time. He focused his gravi-kinesis on reversing the direction of localised gravity so that down was now facing towards the door and to his surprise found his focus was better than ever. The two cyborgs found themselves pulled towards the door at great speed and strength causing the female to crash into the ground outside while the male crashed into and cracked the door frame before joining his compatriot outside in the street.
The remaining Purifiers immediately fled out the back door or through the kitchen even as Banshee materialised. She immediately unleashed a series of shattering shrieks at the two cyborgs which left them unconscious and speeded up the departure of the remaining Purifiers, including those still gathered at the nearby Church doors trying unsuccessfully to gain entry. They were helped on their way by another gravitic blast from a now smiling X-Ray.
Both attacks were much more powerful than they had anticipated, and an unexpected electric surge ran through their veins as though an extra battery had been added to their meta-abilities.
The locals gathered round them, thanking them for their intervention. Amidst the thanks they also learned that another group of Purifier-affiliated cyborgs had set off into the nearby mountains looking for something. Interestingly, Jordanów had never been a major point of interest before.
Up the mountain Celestus dodged the hail of bullets fired at him. He concluded that this intervention was a waste of his time. It was clear that whatever reason these soldiers had for being here, rescuing children was not part of the plan. He headed away, back up the mountain not convinced that the school kids were up there but better to check now than be sorry later. He looked at the likely destination of the men in white and saw a near invisible pass, what looked like remnants of shredded cloth that might have once been tents and flew towards them. The pass was near the summit and would have been totally invisible until you were either a mere 50 metres away or could see it from the sky like a floating Cerberus viewed it.
It was a sort of clearing along the cliff face. Fifteen tattered and ruined tents were scattered around, along with a couple of long-dead, snow covered fire pits.
There was a massive stone edifice like a gigantic altar, as though built for giants at the top of the clearing. There were some unknown symbols carved into its sides. Unfortunately, his ability with languages did not extend to translating their written versions.
He flew down and landed amongst the decimated remnants of several tents, old but with new guy ropes and erected beneath the overhanging rocks. The most outstanding item was the roughly hewed chunk of granite that had mysterious carvings on the sides. It resembled an altar, but one carved for a race of giants, the top was easily six feet up from the ground. Celestus, frustrated at being unable to read the carved symbols memorised them so he could possibly reproduce them later. That’s when he noticed the now reddish brown stains, dried blood, in the snow around the stone, but not a single drop on the stone itself. The large, deep depressions in the snow that seemed to indicate giants, heavy bipeds, had walked here recently and which the recent fresh snowfall had been unable to cover. Although the footprints were everywhere throughout the pass not a single one was to be found beyond the altar stone! They just stopped in front of it despite the path continuing up the mountain, to the summit itself.
He walked back and checked on the soldiers. They were still heading in this direction and would reach the pass in about an hour. He took the opportunity to examine the remnants of the camp. He found tins of food with Polish labels, an empty bottle of Polish ‘Wyborowa brand’ vodka and in the remnants of one of what he now confirmed as shredded tents a scroll written in Latin; water stained and very fragile it had to be over a thousand years old. Unfortunately, while his abilities would have allowed him to understand any spoken language he heard, it did not allow him to read unfamiliar languages. He would need to wait to understand what it said.
He checked. There were no weapons or other equipment lying around. He went back and checked the stone one more time; about half a pint of blood had been spilt but not a single drop had apparently dripped onto the stone itself. The deep footprints seemingly made by size 20 bare feet did not pass beyond the front of the altar and despite the violence done to the tents there was no blood anywhere else other than around the altar.
He was tempted to hang around and see what the soldiers did when they arrived but was more concerned about finding the kids or at least discovering what had happened to them. He flew up, scroll tucked under his belt and estimated he still had time before they arrived at the pass, judging by the speed of their climb.
Heading down the mountain and back to the town, he still kept looking out for signs of the school children, convinced that the camp he’d found related to the earlier disappearance that Summers had mentioned rather than the more recent vanishing. As he passed the still climbing squad of soldiers-in-white a single shot rang out as a warning shot skimmed past his ear.
Back outside the bar, the two cyborgs thrown out by X-Rays’ gravitic assault were getting back up despite the bruises. Their ears were bleeding from Banshee’s sonic attack, but the female was reaching for a glowing object when X-Ray unleashed a radiation attack on her that left several of her servos offline and her staggering to stand. Banshee followed it up with a sonic blast that shut down her non-essential mechanisms and left her trembling on the ground even as the grenade rolled from her hand towards X-Ray and exploded. The blast passed through Banshee’s incorporeal body, but tore apart X-Ray’s force field and almost ripped apart his own meta-enhanced physical toughness leaving him shocked and temporarily stunned as he fell down and felt his head rattle with the impact.
Banshee responded with a powerful shattering shriek.
As Celestus arrived X-Ray was following up the spectral scream with an energy blast. Celestus ignored the responding yelp of pain emanating from the cyborg and addressed the companion he could see.
“Hmm. I’ve found something potentially interesting some distance from the town, near the top of the mountain.
there are the remains of a ruined campsite. I don’t think it’s the children’s though. There are some odd large footprints and blood at this campsite and the large footprints leave off to a strangely sized altar stone with carvings on it. Almost a stone pillar, it’s obviously artificially created. I think it might be linked to the earlier disappearance that Summers mentioned. I also found this in the camp.”
Banshee materialised behind X-Rays’ shoulder as Celestus passed over the scroll for X-Ray to open.
“It’s definitely in Latin and dated 106 CE if my knowledge of Roman numerals is right but my medical Latin’s not up to reading this… Mary?”
Banshee scowled, “Nah, I’ve no Latin, most o’ the time I can barely read English, don’t ya know.”
X-Ray smiled and tried again to reconnect communications via the Crate with their A.I., Frankie back in the BASEment, still without success.
“Hmm, that’s a pity. I suspect that regardless of what has happened to the children, something is going on with this mysterious stone. Oh, I forgot to tell you that on the way there I passed soldiers wearing white who fired at me.”
Banshee turned and pointed at the fleeing Purifiers with a questioning look on her face. Celestus shook his head “No, not Purifiers. These were troops of some kind. They fired at me. I tried to talk to them in Polish and German, but they didn’t seem to understand, they just kept shooting at me, so I left them alone, but they did appear to be heading for the wrecked campsite.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” said X-Ray.
“Any chance our young scholar in the Crate has a workin’ knowledge o’ Latin? We couldna’ be that lucky, could we?”
They flew back to the Crate where Sergei and Rachel were sheltering. Neither one knew Latin, but Rachel did look embarrassed as she produced some papers she’d ‘acquired’ from the Church that seemed to be connected to her hunters. She’d overheard The name Straussler spoken almost reverently by the Purifiers searching for her and one of the papers mentioned him by name.
It made sense to her that they were either his people or connected to him somehow as before he had fled, the priest had said that a Karsten Straussler had been their leader or at least someone they revered, or possibly feared? He had seemingly spent several days reading the church archives when the Purifiers had first started terrorising the town.
Personally she hadn’t understood them, but had squirrelled them away just in case.
Looking at the torn page and the notes, it appeared that someone, possibly this Karsten Straussler himself, had accidentally left them behind. Had this Straussler been an archaeologist or scientist that had accompanied the Purifiers when they had first arrived here? Interestingly, the papers were both written in English.
Banshee read them. The first was a page torn from a diary (undated);
“… he passed along any information pertinent to Agartha, the world that resides beneath the surface of our own. I have rounded up as many locals as I can. Some young men, have been pressed into excavation on Babia Gora. Their elders believe that there is something magical on that mountain, they report strange lights occurring on several nights of the year. One talkative fellow allegedly saw an angel in one of the Eastern passes when he was a youth. It could have been a Deva, or it could have been dementia. We won’t know until we find an entrance.
We are definitely on the path, not only to Agartha, but the capital city of Shambala. Alpengeist (Alpine Spirit) and Rattenkrieg (War Rat) were attacked by a group of Asura during one of their guard shifts at the excavation site. Martin says that they appeared in a flash, spouting nonsense about our unworthiness. Rattenkrieg was burned fairly extensively and the Asura managed to slay several of my Purifiers. The devils even burned down the labourers’ shack, before Alpengeist managed to defeat them. I will send Bianca up tomorrow to see if she can uncover the location of the portal they crawled out of. We will not be deterred from this mission.
We have found something. One of the Jordanow villagers was of particular interest to the Asura on their most recent attack. The attacks have been coming more frequently and all across the mountain. They ambushed a squad of diggers and Purifiers, slaughtering all but one young man. The devils carried this boy up the Western pass before we managed to rescue him. His name is Szymon Bronkowski and according to Bianca he has some sort of mystic heritage. She thinks that she can open a portal to Shambala using his blood to bypass its magical wards. We will attempt this from Diablak in a couple of days. We will have our victory.”
Celestus responded, “Someone was trying to open the portal. But what about the big footprints? They were much bigger than an average human’. Maybe something came out they didn’t expect?”
The next was a partial draft research document, written by the scientist that Rachel had mentioned.
“The Cintamani Stone – Research Conducted by Karsten Straussler, PhD.
The Cintamani Stone is an object of immense power that is supported in the theologies of many Oriental religious doctrines. In Buddhism the Chintamani Stone is said to be one of four relics that came in a chest that fell from the sky during the reign of King Lha Thothori Nyantsen of Tibet. The king did not understand the significance of what he had received, but according to legend two strangers appeared in his court claiming to be from the Sky Realm of Atlan. Strangers who explained that the stone was a magical jewel, which manifests whatever one wishes for. According to one’s desires, treasures, clothing, and food can be manifested, while sickness and suffering can be removed, water can be purified, etc. It was also believed that the stone could grant one the wisdom of the Buddha.
Within Hinduism, it is connected with the gods, Vishnu and Ganesha. In Hindu tradition it is often depicted as a fabulous jewel in the possession of the Naga king or as on the forehead of the Makara… The Hindu Vishnu Purana speaks of the jewel, “bestowing prosperity upon its owner, encapsulates the Yadu clan system.” A Hindi guide once explained it to me as being analogous to the philosopher stone in Western lore.
I believe that the stone was moved to Shambala for safekeeping by one of the gods after mankind abused its power. I can scarcely imagine the power that could be in my hand if I merely find this stone. We could sweep across the world, conquering with impunity, creating a world that is completely safe for the next generation. We must find that jewel.”
What had a town in the South of Poland got to do with Indian and Tibetan legends? Who or what were the Asura? The Cintamani Stone? If only they had Akira with them, he would likely know given his expert knowledge of Eastern religions and philosophies, never mind the occult.
Banshee spoke up, “I’m not an expert on oul’ legends, but even meself knows Shambhala an’ the Asura are from India, nah Poland. What’s goin’ on?”
Celestus picked up the ancient scroll and said, “We could do with having this scroll translated, as it seems to have some association with the mysterious pillar-like altar. Could this be the entrance to this Shambhala realm?”
X-Ray was for scanning the scroll and trying to send it to Frankie to translate. The problem was, as X-Ray reminded them, that they were having difficulty making contact with Frankie at the moment. He took photos of the text anyway and sent them to Frankie on a loop hoping that contact would be made eventually.
Sergei knew of the possible excavation site mentioned in the diary entry. It was an old mineshaft dating back to Roman times and was unlikely to be connected to this portal the diary writer had mentioned, but legend had it that ghostly figures attacked anyone who climbed to the Devil’s Pass, which seemed to be the campsite that Celestus had found. None of the town’s folk would have gone there willingly as it was believed to be cursed. If his son had been taken there then he had to go with them up the mountain.
Celestus looked around the Crate, searching for something. Rachel’s curiosity asked him what he was looking for, and he responded, “Okay, while we’re on this subject, have we got anything I can draw on? Because I’ve memorised the inscriptions on the stone. I believe I could attempt to draw them. and it might be worthwhile, when we re-establish contact, to see if anyone can make anything of them.”
Rachel pulled out a notepad from her tiny backpack, passed it over with a rubber troll-topped pencil and Celestus began to sketch.
“This isn’t where we think the children are probably, is it?” muttered Banshee.
Without stopping his drawing Celestus responded, “No, I saw no sign of anything to do with the children. I suspect they might be in the forest somewhere. The children, not the mysterious soldiers, must remain our priority. They could have vanished from the pass same as the locals so worth another look.”
The decision was taken to take Sergei and more reluctantly Rachel with them, rather than leave them in the Crate in case the Purifiers returned.
They set off trying to follow Rachel’s hesitant directions through the forest, heading for the place where the Purifiers had attacked the school group, eventually finding a couple of dropped backpacks belonging to the children. There was no sign of where the children had fled to though. Thankfully a quick check of the site showed that it was free of any blood stains and there were indications that some of them had headed towards the mountain from here, but it was impossible to say who.
Again Celestus flew above the forest canopy searching for signs of where the other children had fled to but without success. The only clue was the signs that someone had pushed through the scrub heading towards the mountain that towered over them all.
Had the Purifiers rounded up the rest of the group when Rachel had fled or had they too managed to escape? It was impossible to say. Meanwhile, Sergei was urgently urging the group to head to the mountain and search for what had happened to his son.
The team reluctantly considered breaking into two groups with two of them continuing to search the forest and the rest heading to the pass, where it seemed those who had been captured previously had apparently been taken.
The one bit of good news was that they briefly managed to make contact with Frankie, and she had managed to translate the Latin in the photos they’d sent through previously. It appeared to a Roman explorer’s account of an encounter on the mountain of Babia Gora during the Dacian campaign. It mentioned encountering a group of monsters that called themselves the Asura and their weakness to radiant damage. Before she could say more, contact was lost again.
It wasn’t clear what was meant by radiant damage – light, radiation or possibly a holy blessing?
The scroll had included a description of the Asura themselves. They were apparently gianthumanoid figures with four arms and three heads. It smacked of the mythological rather than a real encounter.
X-Ray joked that “Three heads are clearly better than one.”
“Okay, well, I’ll tell you what. I’ll accompany X-Ray while we finish a quick scout down towards the village through the forest, and then I’m going to go back up the mountain and see what’s happening at the campsite and see if I can see anyone else around.” Muttered Celestus, leaving Banshee with Sergei and Rachel to head off in the direction of Babia Gora and what Sergei had called the Devil’s Pass.
Twenty minutes later Celestus and X-Ray returned, having been unable to find any traces of the kids and their teachers. It was clear that they’d either been captured and marched off towards the mountain or had fled in a disorganised way and would likely need a much larger search party to track down individuals separated in the forest.
It was X-Ray that suggested, “Given Sergei’s state of distress it might be best to stay together and eliminate the Mountain option first, starting with the mine, before moving onto reinvestigate the wrecked campsite at Devil’s Pass.”
They caught up with Banshee and while Celestus carried Sergei up towards the old mineshaft, X-Ray carried young Rachel back to the relative safety of the Crate before hurrying back to join the others.
As they got closer to where Sergei thought the mine entrance should be, X-Ray noticed some heat signatures up ahead; three large signatures. Climbing up towards them were several smaller, more stifled heat traces, that X-Ray assumed were human. One of which was radiating the trace signals that identified one as ‘anti-life’; something dead yet still moving – like the Terminus’s Omegadrones, but different somehow. A corpse was still moving, climbing towards what? An ambush?
Back in the United Kingdom, a frustrated Akira had temporarily given up on his attempt to remotely view his targets, as he had been unable to breach their psychic defences. It did prove that something wasn’t normal as few mundanes had such formidable mystical protection and never psychic shields that were always functioning.
He walked outside and activated his Commdots to see what his teammates were up to, only to reach their A.I. Frankie instead. Frankie was growing concerned that the others had headed off on a search and rescue mission to Poland, but communication had been blocked, apart from a request for a translation of a scan of a parchment written in Latin! Frankie was worried and Frankie as an artificial person was rarely worried.
Akira agreed to head over to Jordanów and check that all was well. Surprisingly, he discovered that projecting his astral body in advance to his teleport targets enabled him to jump to previously unvisited locations and using this technique (something that previously he’d been unable to do) he arrived in Jordanów after a series of multiple ‘jumps’.
He appeared in the town square below a hovering, stealth-enabled Crate. He flew up and discovered that a young Meta, Rachel, was encamped inside. Her initial fright at someone unexpectedly appearing inside the craft was almost immediately replaced at discovering her visitor was another famous member of the Balance; the mystic Akira.
Over a lunch of pickled vegetables and fresh sour dough bread, provided by the grateful town folk, Rachel informed him about the team chasing away the Purifiers and a couple of vicious cyborgs who had been terrorising the locals before heading up the mountain in search of a portal. Surprisingly, local communication via the team’s Commdots was functional even if ‘something’ was still blocking wider communication, and he was able to link though to his teammates. Celestus in particular, was convinced that the missing children had come across a portal in the mountain and were now likely trapped ‘somewhere else’.
The team arranged to meet up close to the ancient mineshaft, informed Akira of the potential conflict unfurling beneath them and advised him to be invisible when he approached. He left Rachel safe inside the Crate in case the Purifiers elected to return.
In the company of X-Ray, Akira flew up the mountain, intending to examine the mine first before proceeding to the pass and the Giant’s altar with its carved symbols. The Purifiers were still working their ways up the mountain.
One of the figures trudging through the loose snow gave X-Ray the jitters; they radiated death and unlife. She was a walking zombie, in some ways similar to the reanimated Omegadrone corpses that had composed the bulk of the forces of Terminus, yet this was darker, more unnatural and not technological in origin as far as he could tell.
Akira shivered. What had these idiots done? He thought as he experienced the presence of a necromancer amongst them and felt the cold darkness of a reanimated corpse trudging through the loosely packed snow.
Akira was joking with Celestus over their Commdots that he had joined them because “I knew you’d be in trouble without me!” even as he rendered both himself and X-Ray invisible. Celestus muttered something about resurrected corpses likely being immune to psi attacks if X-Ray was correct.
He resumed explaining to Akira that, “We have found what may be a portal into another dimension. It’s a mysterious stone.” X-Ray muttered to Akira, “This should be right up your alley, but first we need to check out the ancient mineshaft.” Celestus continued, “Judging by some documents we found, it has to be opened with blood.”
Akira shivered in disgust. “Yeah, I can’t be doing with blood magic.”
Celestus continued, “It looks like there was blood on the ground around a stone altar, so it looks like someone at least tried to open it. We suspect that the Purifiers and their friends know about it, and are trying to exploit it for their own purposes. I think that creatures from another realm might well be involved.”
“that this is entirely possible, depending on where this portal leads to.”
Celestus went on to explain that there are these Purifiers around as well as some much nastier characters who appear to be cyborgs that they’d recruited. He went on to explain that he’d also sighted a small group of what appeared to be soldiers in white camouflage climbing up the mountain. The’d fired at him when he’d tried to speak to them in Polish and German, and they just carried on shooting, so he’d left them alone, for the moment at least. Who they were, he didn’t know.
They got closer to the mine entrance and the three figures standing remarkably still. It took a few seconds to realise this was an ambush in waiting. A glint of light from a rifle barrel concealed in the snow banks made it clear that at least a couple of the soldiers Celestus had seen earlier were waiting to ambush the Purifiers on arrival. A close inspection revealed no insignia on their uniforms, though it was clear that badges and patches had recently been removed. Akira did overhear one of the men mutter, “Черт, как же холодно!” under his breath; he recognised it as Russian though was unable to translate.
An invisible Banshee and Akira flew down and confirmed that the three large heat signatures were fake, roughly shaped dummies with activated heating packs stuffed beneath cloaks. The area was littered with abandoned equipment, pickaxes, shovels, and the like, clearly scattered in such a way as to slow down and hinder the Purifiers escape. It was an ambush that their face masked leader and a couple of his soldiers had set up to take out the cyborgs, and their compatriots.
Clearly, having been unable to activate the altar they made their way down the mountain and found the second camp next to the mine then saw the remaining cyborgs and six of the Purifiers heading towards them and had decided to set a trap. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel, the mine entrance was the only safe place to hide on the plateau, but to reach it they would have to run across an open stretch of snow covered ground.
Next they flew across to the group trudging up towards the mine; There was one cyborg, a female. Her eyes were glazed over, she appeared to be moving mechanically. And there was a half dozen Purifiers. These aren’t just armed with katanas, they were armed with some sort of modern-looking firearm. Energy weapon of some sort they assumed. They clearly were heading towards the mine and would be ambushed if they failed to interfere. There was a part of them that felt letting the ambush go ahead would not necessarily be a bad idea, but they were supposed to be the good guys weren’t they? Could they live with themselves if they allowed the ambush to proceed?
Sergei had been of the opinion that there was nothing in the mineshaft. He’d been in there before, the altar stone on Devil’s Pass was a different matter.
Celestus joined in, “We know that the Purifiers and their… Cyborg assistants are hostile, and we’ve assumed that the other guys in white, are hostile, because they fired at me, but I tried to speak to them in German and Polish, I did not realize they were Russians. So it might be worth trying to establish why they’re here, if they will talk to us. If they’re all hostile, then I say let them fight it out. Their ambush would no longer work, and it was just be both groups fighting each other in a fair if deadly combat situation… I can live with that!”
Banshee smiled, “You’re the only one that can speak the Russian. Go ahead but be ready…”
Fully visible, Celestus flew above the men in white and shouted down in Russian, “Hold your fire, I am not hostile.” He was prepared to fly fast and furiously if they opened fire once more.
The fact that their cover was blown by this intimidating, flying figure that was now talking to them in pure unaccented Russian resulted in panic amongst the soldiers, unsure whether to run now their ambush had been exposed or shoot at the apparent Meta addressing them.
Dressed in thick white uniforms, the soldiers erupted from the snow, submachine guns at the ready. Their leader rose from the pack. He was a massive man in white body armour, wearing a white cape and stylized helmet. He drew his own weapon and aimed it at him.
Down the hill, the Purifiers were suddenly aware of Celestus’ presence and the fact that he was clearly talking to someone hiding above the mine meant they stopped their march and readied their weapons, well outside the soldiers’ planned kill zone. Only the zombie cyborg failed to react immediately.
Above them, one of the soldiers recovered enough to aim his rifle at Celestus. “Oh dear, here we go again.” He thought as he prepared to dodge. Having given away their location and confirmed their obvious hostility to the rest of humanity, it was time to leave he thought. As though in response, several bullets skimmed past his body as he weaved through the air and elected to see if he could possibly persuade the other group to retreat.
Shots rang out around him as he weaved and dodged whilst still heading down the mountain towards the Purifiers who had dived for cover, some of whom were unleashing energy weapons at him as well. He was now getting fired at from both sides.
X-Ray had followed after Celestus but had elected to stay several hundred metres behind him. On seeing him being attacked he sped up and joined the conflict. Suddenly a series of shattering shrieks echoed around the mountain top and the cyborg collapsed to the ground, several of its leg and arm servos smoking. An invisible Banshee had elected to join them. X-Ray suddenly backed it up with a high energy radiation blast, and it went offline; the dead creature was once more just a corpse lying in the snow. In response the Purifiers opened fire – at Celestus and X-Ray!
Meanwhile, Akira was trying to view the recent events in and around the mine, seeing if this was connected to the giant brutes that Celestus claimed must have been at the pass or just a red herring. Viewing something so ancient was both tiring and very confusing, but he quickly concluded that despite its antiquity there was nothing magical about the location.
There was a fairly recent psychic echo, fear, and panic. People had been grabbed, captured, enslaved here fairly recently – within a day or so and a short time before that as well. Swords, armour, Purifiers… a mingling of fearful images flowed through his mind as he realised that at least two groups of people had been captured here in relatively recent times and marched away, up the mountain, before the impression faded.
Seemed the Purifiers had captives, or hostages. The diary entry that Banshee had shown him backed up by his vision.
Back on the path the Russians elected to retreat, leaving the Purifiers to continue their futile assault on the two team members they could see; X-Ray and Celestus who immediately flew out of range of their taser-like weapons even as Celestus shouted down, “Your cause is futile, you can’t harm us with your puny weapons! Go away!”
They heard it first, a few seconds before they saw the avalanche. The Russians shots (and possibly Banshee’s scream had caused the snow and ice to break away and gravity had done the rest. A mountain side’s worth of deadly white was cascading down towards the soldiers and Purifiers alike. As the loose powdery snow enveloped them in a cloud of icy particles the team flew higher, above the avalanche as it buried both sides in natures cold embrace.
Seconds later the tidal wave of snow stopped having buried both sides beneath it. X-Ray acted immediately. He used his gravi-kinesis to locate and drag them out of the snow and leave them sputtering and freezing but alive on the top of the snow. Again and again he pulled out a soldier, disarmed them and checked they had no permanent injuries before continuing his search for the next one.
One of soldiers, not yet disarmed managed to get off a shot at Celestus before X-Ray could disarm him hitting him in the ribs. He felt a rib crack, but thankfully the bullet did not penetrate his inhumanly tough skin as he gave out an involuntary soft moan of pain but elected to carry on, relying on his healing factor to resolve the damage in time.
Meanwhile, Banshee was using her sonic abilities to echo locate the buried Purifiers, leaving it to Celestus to dig down and recover the near frozen and almost suffocated while Akira transported both sets of survivors inside the now buried mine shaft and then created the illusion of a fire for them to huddle round and prevent fights from breaking out – while they were there at least.
The authorities could recover them after the team returned to the town. In the end, apart from a broken wrist and some fairly major bruising, all from both sides had been found, disarmed and discouraged from continuing the fight with threats by Akira to not reveal their location to search parties if they did.
The helmeted Russian soldier (Officer-in-charge?) approached Celestus and in a quiet voice thanked him for saving their lives and admitted they were there searching for a mystical device, a portal had, he believed been activated recently. He refused to say how he knew this or what they wanted the portal (or find something beyond the portal?) for. He promised on his honour as Arctic Fox (he seemed to assume the name would mean something to Celestus and was taken back when he failed to impress) that he would prevent any further fighting between the two groups.
Celestus nodded, knowing that the Russians at least would likely escape before any rescuers arrived, but hopefully they would now abandon their mission and flee back to Russia empty-handed even as Akira proceeded to cast the Phantasms of Phoros spell, creating floating orbs of light which were visible to all present and allowed them to light up the entrance to the mine for the next few hours at least before teleporting out.
Outside, the orbs radiated a brilliantly bright blue light through the snow into the sky acting as a beacon for the town’s rescue teams to find them.
They debated whether to take and wear Russian uniforms in case there were more soldiers further up the mountain but gave up on the idea and began their journey flying up the mountain towards the stone altar and the Devil’s Pass.
They finally reached Diablak, the Devils Pass and to their surprise, they could hear loud guttural grunting noises coming from up ahead. A group of eight tall, humanoid figures, easily eight feet tall were poking around the abandoned camping equipment scattered about the out cropping. They each had dark brown skin, four arms, and three faces on their heads. There were six soldiers in white being both attacked by the creatures and, surprisingly, beating each other up as well. It was clear from their injuries that the fights had been going on for some time. Why fight each other unless..? That was when one of the creatures noticed them and started roaring.
To his surprise, Celestus was unable to understand what they were saying as they all turned and began running towards them in a coordinated manner. They appeared to be communicating with each other somehow, but not by language.
Both Akira and Banshee had elected to turn invisible as they approached the pass leaving X-Ray and Celestus visible and the primary targets for the creatures’ immediate attention. X-Ray immediately erected his force field and prepared once more for battle even as the words Frankie had translated from the ancient scroll came to mind, ‘radiant damage’ eh? Time to test what that meant on these ‘mythological creatures’.
X-Ray unleashed his strongest radiation blast at the nearest of the eight. To his surprise, delight and abject horror the creature turned to sparking dust before his eyes. At first, he assumed he’d killed it only to realise it was never alive to begin with. Seemingly composed of nanites, the creatures took the programmed form of the three headed, multiple limbed creatures out of myth deliberately to strike terror into anyone who came here.
He shouted out, “Don’t hold back, they’re androids, ancient, formed of nanites but not alive…” as he prepared to strike out against another. The radiation blast obviously weakened their molecular bonding causing each individual dust-like nanite to deactivate and separate, resulting in their ending up as a cloud of metallic dust. Pity he was the only member of the Balance with radiation-based powers.
He heard Celestus beside him murmur, “Not as tough as they look then! Means my psi-blasts are useless though…” as he unleashed a brilliant burst of light energy at the next creature, grateful that they weren’t the last of their species being rendered extinct by their actions.
No effect, he punched it instead even as Banshee unleashed a shattering shriek. It collapsed and like the other began to turn to dust though this time segments of the creature began, slowly, to join back together creating larger segments each time. It only stopped reforming after X-Ray blasted another one that was standing over its remnants with a radiation blast.
Their attack, however hadn’t stopped the Russians from still attacking themselves. If anything, their assaults on each other was getting even more vicious that before. “They are under some sort of illusion or compulsion” said Akira as he called forth the Shining Sun of Carrion and planted it in the midst of three of the beasties and watched two of them explode. Another escaped utter destruction by being partially sheltered by the other two but still lost half its body in the inferno.
Two (and a half) of them were left, and they responded with programmed fury. One of them unleashed a fireball at Celestus, which hit him and caused him to collapse to the ground as his body began sapping his life energy to bring about his physical restoration.
Then the Russians stopped brawling even as X-Rays’ eyes glazed over, and he turned and blasted Celestus in the back. It seemed that the compulsion that the Russians had been under was now focused on X-Ray, and he was being forced to attack his own team members, starting with the injured Celestus!
Banshee unleashed a shattering shriek at the two still fully functional androids before materialising behind X-Ray and unleashing a corrupting touch to his head, hoping she could scramble his mind and break the compulsion, even as Akira shot the remaining Asura with his mystical blasts.
A confused and deeply apologetic X-Ray, his mind now restored, blasted the remnants to ensure they were incapable of resurrection.
As the final monster fell, turning into copper coloured ash on the mountain side, a sudden stillness fell across the peak. The injured Russian soldiers vanished, seemingly teleported away, but by who or what it was impossible to say.
Then a stone pedestal rose slowly out of the ground beneath the centre of the outcrop. They could almost feel the electrical discharge in the air and taste the copper on the wind, its sides carved with the same symbols as on the altar but in a different sequence.
Akira reached out with his mystical senses. There were faint background traces that something mystical had once been present but the events that had just occurred wasn’t mystical in themselves.
Celestus was convinced he was viewing technology, admittedly highly advanced; at levels he’d only previously seen in artefacts created by the mysterious race known as the Ancients. The tech was indistinguishable from magic to most, being solid state and composed of traces of purified Computronium.
Akira reached out with his mystical senses. He was sure the altar held the power to transport people in contact with it somewhere, he just didn’t know where. What was certain was that the carved symbols on the giant stone altar correlated with runes on the pillar, he just didn’t know why. Same symbols, different sequence he noted. Finally, there was the frozen blood around the altar. A necromancer appeared to have used blood magic to override the portals controls recently. For some reason he sensed that it took a special blood type or gene to bypass the gates’ activation sequence, and the stone of the altar had somehow absorbed the blood spilt on it hence the only blood on show now had been what had been spilled around the stone.
X-Ray examined the symbols “Do you think it’s a bit like modern touchscreen technology? If you touched a symbol would you be able to move it across the rock?”
He reached over to the altar and tried to move the first symbol. The carved symbol was unmoved. Next they tried pressing the symbols on both the pillar and altar in order. Nothing! Then Celestus tried pressing the symbols carved into the stone in the order shown on the altar into the pillar, Again nothing. In frustration, he pressed the first symbol shown on the pillar on the altar – it glowed green and moved of its own volition across the stone surface to replace the symbol on the far right and that symbol now appeared on the left-hand side. Smiling, he touched the second symbol shown on the pillar onto the surface of the altar and it to transposed itself next to the first symbol. Amazed (they were clearly solid stone carvings) yet they moved to replicate the sequence shown on the pillar when pressed.
When he had completed the sequence, he stood back and waited. They didn’t have to wait long.
There was a crack like thunder as the pillar began to hum and vibrate. The runes along its shaft began to glow with ethereal green light as warm, tropical air rushed over them. Sergei immediately cried out in agony, his eyes rolling back into his head, as he fell to the ground. Energy emanating from between the pillar and the altar coalesced into a grid that rolled across their forms as they were pulled into the light.
An effervescent tingle passed over their skin as everything snapped back into place. They were standing in a white void, completely bereft of space and weight. It seemed to exist somewhere between reality and not. They could feel oblivion at their backs and infinity in front of them. A female voice echoed through the void. “Who dares to bring my bastard back to this sacred place?”
A woman in her late 30’s, dressed in ancient Greek-style apparel and unearthly beauty stepped into view in front of them. Her body was radiant with light.
Celestus was sure that the figure in front of them was no ghost, but an A.I. controlled solid light hologram whose responses were directed by a databank of responses recorded when the person represented had been alive so it could respond to questions as though a living person was present.
It reminded Celestus of his visit to the Hall of Wisdom with his father, The Emperor, as a young boy to consult with, and gain advice from, his ancestors. The Hall of Wisdom, located deep beneath the Eternal Palace had consisted of eleven Ss’mitkr; artificial ROM Constructs created by a race called the S’mrii, which mirrored the personalities and knowledge of the last five Emperor’s as well as that of their most influential advisors.
These holographic ‘Seeds’ had been Gen 6 pseudo-personality computer complexes containing replications of previous Emperor’s personalities as well as an intelligent expert system database designed to advise and help the current Emperor reach decisions that would accord with the wishes of previous Emperors. Only a few, select people were allowed access to these holographic ‘Seeds’ but he was convinced that was what now ‘stood’ before them.
The ghostly apparition identified herself as Aditi, Sergei’s mother. She went on to explain that she was but a memory of Aditi and that her sons betrayal had killed her and her other sons.
Aditi went on to say, “You keep dishonourable company, yet your mission in the Golden City is honourable. I will allow you to prove whether you are worthy. I will test your minds and your hearts. Each test will unlock one of the keys to the portal. If you can open it, you will find the entrance to Shambhala. Fail this test, and you will remain trapped here with my bastard for all eternity.”
Afterwards they were unable to remember precisely what they were asked or what they had replied. X-Ray thought they had been given puzzles to solve, while Banshee was sure their moral characters had been tested and Akira was convinced they had all had a nice chat about their motivations. Whatever they had been asked or had to solve, they appeared to have satisfied their interrogator and a highly ornate puzzle box now lay at their feet.
Inside was a slip of paper with the word “Mârtânda” written on it.
Taken by surprise, X-Ray said the name aloud and suddenly Sergei’s form rose from the floor and hovered in place. White light filled his eyes and mouth as he cried out in pain. His worn, creased skin smoothed, and he immediately grew in height, becoming beautiful and otherworldly. He stood for a moment blinking in the void. His voice was like music as he said, “I remember now. I know who I am, Mârtânda. We have to save Shambhala!”
Sergei, now the God-like Atlan Mârtânda, admitted he had placed mental blocks on his memories when he had taken the form of Sergei, hoping to finally live an ordinary life. A penance for allowing mortals to enter the realm of Shambhala despite the command to allow none entry. He explained briefly that long ago, a fabulous kingdom known as Shambhala existed in a realm beyond, but connected to, Earth. Its reality was visionary or spiritual as much as it was physical or geographic. Shambhala was a Golden City, once home to a pantheon of ‘gods’ or more accurately god-like immortals from the far future – The Atlan.
That peace was shattered when humanity arrived in the Golden City. Explorers from far-away lands, seeking not enlightenment, but conquest, found their way through the veil and he had, in his ignorance, allowed them entry to the hidden realm. These would-be conquerors brought death, corruption and evil with them.
The Asura, the city’s guardians, had managed eventually to kill all of the invaders, but the damage was already done. Shambhala had fallen. The Atlan killed or scattered, never to return.
For centuries since, darkness had ruled Shambhala, and all who had gone there seeking wisdom or treasure had only found death. The last powered son of Shambhala, the youngest child of the goddess Aditi, and keeper of the Gate on that fateful day, Mârtânda was stripped of his divinity and sentenced to live forever among the mortals without access to a resurrection cradle.
Mârtânda, as Sergei, eventually settled in the village of Jordanów and quickly fell in love with humanity. He placed a block on his memories, time-locked to prevent him remembering his origins until such time as needed to be ‘reborn’. He sired a line of children, (his son Szymon being the only one of his children to be immortal), but at the end of what was his “normal life”, his memories were programmed to return and he had to retreat to the mountains for fear of his true nature being uncovered. He kept a watchful eye on the town as it progressed through the ages, keeping would-be archaeologists and wizards away from the gate to the Golden City.
Mârtânda steepled his fingers and pulled apart an opening in the white void. With a pop he revealed a window to the Golden City. It took their breath away as lush jungles and towering, sparkling buildings sprawled out before them. Mârtânda pointed to a tall tree in the distance. “The Cintamani Stone, the city’s reality replicator, is buried in the base of that tree,” he said. “We have to stop the Purifiers from accessing it. Due to my spiritual unworthiness I cannot go into the grotto, but I can try to keep the Asura away from you. Please, stop Straussler or his followers from using the Stones’ powers.”
One by one they stepped through the portal and found themselves on the warm stones of Shambhala. They immediately began to race through the ruined Golden City, ducking as Mârtânda swooped down to pull Asura out of their path. On closer inspection, the trees of the jungle were rotting, and the gold chipped and tarnished in spots along the buildings. They could feel the corruption in the air, a fetid stench in their noses. They ducked through the thick underbrush enclosing the Cintamani grotto and found themselves face to face with a middle-aged man with a neatly trimmed beard and steel in his eyes. Surprise crossed his face, but a calculated smile quickly replaced it as he glanced down at a glowing, gold coloured jewel tablet in his manicured hand.
“I am Dr. Straussler, I had hoped to meet all of you under better circumstances. I am a fan of your work, half-measure though it may be. I trust you don’t mean to stop us? Should I take your presence here as an act of defiance? I’m sure you see that we can use this power to ensure a future for our kind. The AML are just a tool to get here, together we are the new Übermensch. Join me and, with the Cintamani Stone, I can make that world a reality. It’s just one wish away.”
As one, they refused his offer and Straussler frowned. “Very well, if you will not work with me for the betterment of our kind, then you are an obstacle to be removed. Before we begin, you should know that the school children and youths from the village are hidden throughout the city with explosives primed to send this home of the gods straight to Hell. You can fight us or save them. Your choice.”
A bluff or a real threat? He hadn’t expected their arrival, or anyone else’s arrival, so why would he have prepared explosive and hostages in advance? Thanks to his having obtained what they assumed was the Cintamani Stone, he had the ability to kill everyone with a single wish, why rely on such a mundane threat? No, it was a bluff they were sure of it.
The Balance reacted first and fired their strongest blasts together at him; mystical blasts, radiation bolts, sonic screams and unleashed energy hit him together. To their amazement the stone absorbed it all, leaving Straussler uninjured. The stone sparked with life as though in response, and Akira could feel reality being re-written. Changing reality to one in which Straussler was, had always been, Emperor of the world and in which the Balance had never existed. Only their unwavering will power anchored them in the here and now.
In a last ditch attempt to save his friends Akira called on the Judgement of Modrossus; in response time stopped, reality altered – for him.
This was a fearsome invocation, calling upon the highest mystic order to appear and judge his worthiness. The judgment rendered by the triple-power was always fair but dispassionate. Before him floated the Three-In-One, the Triluminary known as the Modrossus; an amalgam of three potent mystic entities: Abbridon, Heshem, and Lamal, appearing as a glowing being with three heads: male, female, and androgyne, each with a glowing rune on its forehead. The Modrossus was the single greatest force for positive and protective magic known to earthly magicians, and they often invoked its name and power in their duties, but few sought to enter their presence. This was no casual invocation though. No words were spoken, yet the judgement was clear, if a little vague. <<One must remain to rebuild, the other must go…>>
Time restarted.
Akira resurfaced. His voice raw as he screamed “I choose to remain…” his body ablaze with unearthly power. Suddenly the Balance’s powers flowed back into them and Straussler’s shields collapsed allowing the overload of attacks to overwhelm him. His wish, his desire to remove the Balance from reality rebounded on to himself as he turned into dust, blown away in the wind.
Nothing remained of Straussler and now the remaining Asura stopped attacking Mârtânda and stood stock still, as through deactivated or powered down.
Mârtânda entered the grotto behind them for the first time in centuries. There was pain on his wise face as he surveyed the scene. “Mortals were never meant to bring their corruption here. The city is sick and will take considerable time to heal.” He stopped as he spotted the crowd of innocents starting to gather around the grotto. Banshee was glad to see that they were not wearing any explosive devices. They seemed to be confused and unsure what had just happened. It seemed that they had been kept in a nearby derelict building guarded by the Asura, having been sequestered there after the Cintamani Stone had been found and handed to Straussler.
They’d risked venturing out when they realised that their guards were no longer functional and seeing the Balance and the floating god-like figure of Mârtânda, had started to head towards the central grotto where they were gathered.
One of the captives, a young Pole in his late teens, pale faced and with a bandaged arm pushed his way to the front of the group and stepped forward.
“Szymon?” A mercury tear fell from Mârtânda’s cheek. “My son.”
“Father? What?”
“Never mind that now, I’ll explain everything in time. I’m just so glad you’re safe.” The two men embraced before Mârtânda pulled away, even as Akira scooped up the Cintamani Stone.
Mârtânda examined his son’s arm, anger crossing his divine features as he realised that someone, possibly Straussler, had used his son’s Atlan-descended blood to manifest the portal and gain entry to the city,
“For now, the rest of you mortals must leave this place. I know that the task of repairing the damage now falls to us. My mother is gone, my brothers are gone, but I have a new brother now, and we are the only ones who can carry this burden. Please, watch over my son. I fear he will need guidance when the time comes for his powers to surface. Thank you for keeping this sacred place safe. Both of our worlds will be the better for it.”
While the local people were present in the crowd, there was no sign of the school party. According to the now freed captives, the Purifiers had seemingly never found the kids, though Straussler had sent his Purifier escort back through the vale in search of them.
Akira made his goodbyes, explaining that he had made a bargain with the Modrossus, which meant he had to leave the team for a new path, rebuilding the city and finding the scattered original inhabitants and bringing them home.
Sad at the unexpected decision of their friend and colleague, they were happy that he’d found something that made him feel enthusiastic…
Mârtânda then returned the team and the still confused civilians to Jordanów using a portal, where they discovered the school group safe and well. They had turned up shortly after the team had left having escaped the Purifiers only to get lost in the forest. They had undertaken a search for the missing Rachel only to return to the town and reconnect with her. The teachers had elected to stay in the town and wait until communications could be restored rather than re-enter the forest and risk getting lost again or worse, meeting up with the Purifiers.
As soon as the team reappeared in the town square, the telephone, and communication contacts were re-established, as though by some miracle.
The local Police arrived soon after and requested the assistance of the remaining members of the team in approaching the AML camp and arresting the Purifiers, though their masks make it impossible to prove who had actually attacked the town and school party.
The beam of blue light guided a team of rescue workers to those trapped in the mine by the avalanche though only the Purifiers were found, the Russian soldiers having escaped somehow before the rescue team arrived.
Szymon, forced to leave his father, elected to go with them. As a Homo Deus, an immortal Meta, whose powers were yet to activate, they decided to ‘recruit’ him as a potential candidate for their new Dalton-funded team currently being formed under their wing. His father had assured them that his powers would activate soon, and he would be a real asset to the proposed team tentatively named the Vanguard, alongside Etheric, Singularity and possibly Seven.
Dalton (or Bethany?) could resolve his immigration status once they were back in the United Kingdom and he could stay with Etheric in the accommodation wing of their proposed new headquarters, at least for now.
Nothing however would, could, replace their own loss – Akira who had ‘elected’ to remain behind in Shambhala, rebuilding the Golden City and then searching out those Atlan still able to be found, both on Earth and beyond. His decision to remain behind left a hole, both in the team and in their hearts that would be hard to heal.
Mary insisted on holding a ‘wake’ and inviting everyone who really knew Akira to attend. They held it at the new Vanguard base and despite the ‘boy’ not being dead they celebrated his memory until dawn.
Superhero Adventures, UK Style 