Soon,
Somewhere…

I see a city.

I do not recognize it, but it is large, wide and groping well into the edges of the surrounding desert.  High crystalline structures laced with steel and concrete shadowed against mountains rolling, dwindling into the distance.  It is a live and vibrant, humanity bustling within its borders, going about their monotonous, mundane daily lives.  It is unique, yet like any other.

Yet I am drawn here.  Flashes of insight clouding my vision, my Mind’s Eye littered with the fluttering confetti fragments of the future spiraling in chaotic harmony.  Leading me…

The city vanishes in a blinding white light.  The buildings become stark, black skeletons against the backdrop glare before they crumble and topple, shattering outward and blown to dust.  Fires erupt swelling to inferno, roiling in a massive wave, ripples on a stone tossed pond.  A blazing wind bowls through the crowded streets, tossing aside and asunder anything in its path.  The people look up, time only to stare, eyes wide, mouths agape before they vanish in the flash of heat and light that spreads outward in concentric rings, expanding towards infinity…

I see a woman standing up, climbing from the rubble in the center of all that is left.  She is thin, brown hair, attractively forgettable.  And a man as well, his face dark and his head flickering aflame.  The woman I do not recognize, but he I will never forget…

“Helspont,” I whisper and the future suddenly crumbles, falls away and I am drawn on…

I see him again, the Daemonite Dark Lord, eternal yet different… somehow.  Laughing, black fire erupts from his hands and I hear a man’s screams of agony amidst the rage of fierce battle.

There is a woman with a sword dancing the blade lithely, poetry in motion as she cleaves through Daemonite hordes.  So like Zealot in the way she moves, her demeanor and pride, yet haunted.

A man in black leathers curses, his face twisted with rage as he leaps forward, slamming into the Daemonites, fighting viciously and with abandon as though he has nothing left to lose.

The forgettable woman is there, and another, both fading from view as the sky bleeds behind them.

I hear voices in the turmoil, names shouted.  Shaft, Apollo, Nemesis, more and know that these are the ones that will stand against Helspont again.  These are the ones that will save the Earth, perhaps the universe from the Dark Lord’s mad schemes.

And beyond…

I see darkness; an all-encompassing, obfuscating black that stretches towards infinity, cold and void.  I shudder as I feel the tug again and time writhes about me.

I focus on Jacob.  I need him, but I feel his presence slip past as I spiral backwards.  Decades fall like dominoes as images flutter, melting like snowflakes sparkling briefly in the light before vanishing.

And there is a hole, a breech that ruptures the fine line between the here and the now, the definite and the maybe.  A sucking whirlpool that drags me in, swirling and thrashing against the flow, lost to the current of Time, the rushing river…

---

Manhattan, New York
1938

Nemesis stared at the rent, the rip in the very fabric of space that pulsated like a pustuleous wound dripping infection onto the obsidian altar.  The screams of the agonized children captured and sacrificed for Daemonite glory were drowned out by the deafening shriek of annihilation exploding from the scar.  Golden radiance burned through the cut, bleeding through into now and here.

Charis spun, her momentum ripped away as she spiraled to the ground.  She hit as the burn rolled over her, and she recognized the heat of nuclear devastation.  The rent sparked and spewed death, the slow, creeping heat of cancerous infection.  White light blinded her for a moment as she stared at the rip, a feminine form shifting into shape within.

She was dressed in silver, a bland yet attractive face wrenched in agony and terror.  Her mouth was open in silent scream as the world exploded behind her, white heat roiling and searing her lithe frame.  Charis felt the heat, gritted her teeth as she strained to see, watching as the woman flickered as though a ghost caught in the space between lightning’s flash and thunders toll.

Charis of the Adrastea… You are needed…

Charis saw a city enveloped in nuclear flames behind the silver form.  Buildings crumbled as a firestorm swept through the city, a raging conflagration bowling over anything that remained; homes, buildings, mountains and monuments.  She felt the fear as death roiled over the inhabitants, each life snuffed like a candle’s flame over and over, ad Infinatum.  There was vast pain.  Despair.  Agony.

“Goddess,” she whispered as the woman stepped from the cut, hovering in mid-air above the glossy black stone, her head tilting askew as she seemed to scan her surroundings.  Her eyes were blank white, piercing and knowing as she cast her gaze on the Coda trained assassin.

“Engel…”

Charis heard Yohn Kohl’s voice, the arrogant High Lord of the Kheribum trapped in the body of a Spartan Warrior sounding almost awestruck at the vision wavering in radiant waves of heat before them, whispering almost reverently.  She glanced aside and saw the once Kheran Lord standing beside Doctor Axel Brass, dead, moldering Daemonite Warlocks littering the floor at their feet.  The Human- the so-called Century Baby appearing just as speechless and dumbfounded as the High Lord incarnate at the sight before them.

“Spartan?”

Nemesis saw the woman’s momentary confusion as she stared at Yohn Kohl.  Her face seemed to melt, emotion twisting it from confusion to hope, then to despair as her eyes fluttered, the white giving way to dazzling, stark blue.  Charis knew of the Spartan warriors, constructs holding the personae of past Kheran lords to fight their battles.  She knew too that they were patterned after Yohn Kohl and that the android warrior that she had just fought beside held a pattern that was part of that High Lord, but why would this woman -

“The Orb,” she heard the Daemonite Dark lord hiss, his voice crackling like the fires dancing about his face, breaking her reveries.  Nemesis raised her blade, ready to strike even as Helspont surged towards the newcomer.  He had taken a single step as a high-pitched, shrill scream pierced the chamber shifting attention yet again.

“Aberration!” Elian screamed, a withered arm extended, gnarled, bony finger pointing accusingly at the silver cast woman.  “Witch!”  The corrupted Kheran Seer trembled and spat as she hovered cross-legged in mid-air.  Her long dark robes fluffed and fluttered as though alive, roiling about her as she raged and fretted.  “You are dead, abomination!  Get thee hence!  The very fabric of Time unravels with your foul being!”

Nemesis had no idea, nor did she care.  With a cry of her own she leaped forward, her blade arcing back and around ready to sweep the Daemonite’s blazing skull from his shoulders.  Helspont raised a hand, turning at her movement and black fire spewed forth, a blazing conflagration spreading and threatening to engulf her.  Charis braced, focusing on the deathblow, the killing strike.  Perhaps her last –

Something snagged her armor from behind, flinging her aside.  Arms and legs akimbo she went flying, smashing into the near wall and bouncing to the cold stone floor.  She rolled, shaking her head and saw John Colt, his own inner fire blasting against the Daemonite Lord’s.  Behind him, the bronze-skinned Axel Brass fired his mundane slug-throwers maniacally; every shot striking truly yet doing nothing but making the Hellspawn stutter and flinch in his movement.

Charis struggled to her feet, ready to charge back into the battle.  The children stolen from their all too brief lives were dead, sacrificial lambs slaughtered for the Daemonite’s machinations.  They would be avenged.  It was all that she could do.  She was named Vengeance by some, after all.

The silvery form of the woman fluttered and sparked before her.  Her eyes were vacant again, as though seeing beyond as she cocked her head at a rakish angle.

This is not…

It is before.  There is time…

“We must go,” the silver woman said, her eyes melting into brief normalcy, her hand extending.  “This is not the final battle.  You are not needed here.”

“The Dark Lord…” Nemesis shouted even as she heard Helspont’s scream.  She turned and saw the Daemonite Lord fall, his robes smoldering as the Spartan stepped up.  His hands were ablaze with energy, his eyes set to deal the final blow against the spawn.  But she saw Elian too, the Seer flailing as she leaped to the Daemonite Lord’s aid.  “I – “

Nemesis felt the light touch, the hand gripping her shoulder as fire scorched through her stomach.  Her mind reeled as the floor seemed to evaporate, the dark, dank chamber fading to dim as the world slipped away.  The last she saw was the Kheribum grasping the Daemonite Lord to her bosom, both vanishing in a flash of violet light…

---

YB Security Consultants
The Metro Tower
Chicago, Illinois
February 9, 2032

Jeff Terrel swirled his Scotch absentmindedly as he stared out at the gathering storm clouds forming over Lake Michigan.  They were swirling in chaos, roiling and torn by the winds as they grew in size and intensity, darkening the lake as they thickened.  Ships glowed, tossed on the waters. There was a massive storm brewing over the long, great lake, threatening snow and raging winds that would come cascading through the city, rattling windows and howling through the stone and steel canyons.  It was a foul winter with no respite in sight, and Chicago would suffer, gripped in frigid, icy claws that threatened to squeeze the life from the broad-shouldered city.

And though he saw the storm, Terrel’s thoughts were elsewhere…

“Fifteen years today,” he whispered, his eyes clenching shut tightly, trying to force the memories away.  He heard Badrock’s gravelly voice in his head again, stone grinding with his laughter.

What’re they gonna do?  Kill us?

They had all laughed at that.  They were still young.  Young and naive and indestructible… Immortal.

Young Blood!

Vogue had been the first, the easiest.  She had been cut down in a barrage of corporate gunfire, a hail of bullets that had ripped poor Nikola in half, then quarters, then eighths until there was little left but a steaming stain on the pavement.

Of course they had countered, fighting to the last.  Diehard had killed dozens before they had taken him out with an A.P.M.  Badrock had been blasted to rubble by then, and Combat had fallen to a stray sniper’s bullet.  They had contingencies for the bigger guns too; Photon, Riptide, Suprema…

They had taken his arm.

A kamikaze black belly had clamped a brick of C-4 to his bow arm in a desperate bid for glory.  A well-placed bullet had made a martyr of the grunt; the man who beat Shaft, blowing up Terrel’s bow arm and giving his life for God and country.  John Carver, PFC.  A name Shaft would carry to his grave.

Jeff Terrel tipped the Scotch to his lips and downed it in a swift gulp.  He felt the familiar strain in his shoulder as his cybernetic arm lurched, the alcohol burning down his throat, firing in his belly.  Shaft sighed…

He had heard that Chapel was working with I/O now.  Terrel was still trying to find the link, that Chapel had turned them.  Bastard.

Jeff Terrel stepped to the wet bar and poured himself another tumbler of Scotch.  Tonight he would drink himself into oblivion, remembering old friends.  As opposed to other nights when he just drank; to the weather, to the Market, to the traffic on Lakeshore Drive.  Like he needed a reason.

He had spent three years in the HOLE, committing his life to the N.W.O. of President Penth’s regime.  Solomon Penth; another name burned into his brain for eternity.  The senator that had pushed the Paranormal Registration Act into law and condemned the world’s supers to death or submission.  Terrel had pledged allegiance, finally, and promised to never pick up a bow or sword again.  He had sworn fealty, to become a good little citizen, one of the masses, to use his mind rather than his talents for the betterment of all.  They had given him a new arm; a bulky and metallic prosthetic that he would eventually modify with his life savings, money lost in Switzerland and Brazil.  He was not stupid, after all.

“I’m sorry,” he said, watching as lightning flared out over the lake.  “Thomas… Nikola… Daniel… I’m so sorry.”

You should not be, Jeff Terrel…

The man who was Shaft once upon a time turned.  He saw the rent in space, two women standing before the jagged rip bleeding pussy energy, black, crackling and oozing forth.  He felt his hair tingle and rise, goose bumps bubbling on his flesh.  One woman all silver and light who seemed vaguely familiar.  The other dressed in black and scarlet, darkness holding a blade and poised to strike.

“Who – “ he started to say, but the silver cast woman cut him off.

You are needed, Shaft, once again.  The fate of reality depends on you.

“Like I give a shit,” Terrel said after a few moments, shrugging finally and tipping back the last of his Scotch.  He turned back to the window as lightning flared, casting a garish glow across the city.  He felt the thunder as it shook the building just seconds later, the storm moving closer by the heartbeat, churning beyond the thick and tinted safety glass.  “Shaft is dead, ladies,” he said, his fleshy arm reaching for the almost drained bottle of Dewars White Label.  He emptied the last of the twelve-year-old contents into his tumbler and downed it.  “’Fraid you’re wasting your time, looking for ghosts.”

Terrel tensed as he felt a sudden weight on his shoulder.  It was light, yet leaden with implication.  His eyes flickered over the polished, honed steel and his appraising eyes immediately saw the quality in the katana, the steel folded again and again to be nigh indestructible.  He licked his lips, glancing back at the woman dressed in black and scarlet, her face impassive as she eyed him narrowly.

“You misunderstand,” the woman said, her lips curling slightly.  “We’re not offering you a choice.”

Jeff Terrel smirked.  He could only imagine what she must have been thinking.  The two women knew who he was- or who he used to be at any rate.  Seeing the old and crippled fossil before them however, the one with the sword was showing all arrogance and overconfidence.  “There’s always a choice,” he said as he casually flipped the lead-based tumbler in his hand.  He felt the slightest tingling course through his body as adrenaline pumped through his system.  His heart was hammering, and he could feel the dampness forming under his arms, sweat trickling down his back.  He was getting excited.  “Live free or die used to be my favorite.  Seems I forgot that lately.”

Terrel leaped forward, his toes touching the baseboard and glass as he stepped up the window running, kicking out and flipping.  His arm cocked and shot out in and arching swing, his fingers relinquishing the heavy crystal glass at the apex, letting it spiral away.  His body twisted and turned in mid-air even as the woman brought her sword up, the blade cleanly cleaving the glass just inches before her face.

The two halves of the tumbler rolled away, the woman cursing as one half sliced neatly along her cheek, blood sprouting in a short thin line.  Terrel kicked, spinning his body about and swinging his leg around, his heel aimed at the woman’s temple, the distracting glass tumbling towards the floor.  She looked up, her sword rising to block even as he connected, twisting at the impact and flailing his arms to right himself.

He landed in a wide spread squat, his hand bracing on the rich carpet even as he flexed and sprang forward again.  His shoulder slammed into the silvery woman’s stomach, the impact forcing the air from her lungs as momentum carried them back to roll and sprawl to the floor behind his white mahogany desk.  He heard the other woman even as he whipped about and yanked open the bottom desk drawer, his cybernetic hand dipping in for the .9mm Glock that he kept secreted within.

He raised up, gun in hand as the sword woman came bounding over the desk.  He fired, orange flame exploding in five quick bursts as the woman’s dark eyes widened.  Her body twisted, her sword slicing the air as she dove over him.  His own eyes widened as he heard the distinctive clink of metal on metal and saw the fiery spark of ricochet.  She had deflected the five bullets with a smooth, simple move.

He spun about, bringing the gun to bear even as the woman sliced with her blade again, cleaving through the Glock’s porcelain barrel with amazing ease.  She whipped the sword up and about, spinning it swiftly as her eyes focused on her target; him.  Terrel tossed aside the useless gun and raised his prosthetic arm to hopefully deflect the blow even as the woman swept the sword towards him…

Even as the other woman cried out and grabbed the sword woman’s arm, pulling her up short.

Jeff Terrel gritted his teeth as the silver clad woman slammed into him, her body easily tossed with the momentum of the other’s attack.  She was light, he thought, almost weightless, though enough to send him sprawling backwards.  He struggled to right himself, to get the flailing woman off of him but knew that he was too late.  The tip of the other woman’s sword pressed lightly to his throat as he shoved the silver woman aside, a pinprick of pain drawing his attention and stopping him short.  Breathing hard, he looked up at the woman standing over him, matching her cruel smile and sparkling gaze.

“As I said,” the woman cooed, “you don’t have a choice.”

“Please,” the silver cast woman almost whimpered, her hand gently resting on his real arm.  “Help me…”.  Jeff Terrel looked into her huge, pleading blue eyes and sighed, relaxing.

“Tell me,” he said, looking from one woman to the other.  The sword woman pulled her blade away but kept it poised as the other started to ramble, her words rushing out in a torrent of emotion.  His eyes grew wide, then narrowed as he listened to her tale.  Some things sounded vaguely familiar; names and places like fleeting memories lost and fading from a dream cut short.

He knew almost immediately that he would join her cause, but his fate was sealed when she explained his connection, what had drawn them to him.  Solomon Penth- Helspont.  The man was a demon of some sort, who had planned long and hard to take over the world, to bring his kind there to rule.  It seemed a ridiculous story to hear it told.  They were from the past; a past that he did not remember.  Or maybe from another world, another dimension even.  It was crazy, or maybe they were.  Or maybe he was.

But he had seen things in his lifetime that others would scoff at.  Wild things that would make lesser men mad, so what was a planet of demons to him.  One more nightmare made real, just as his world had become.  All thanks to Helspont…

He had nothing to live for here anymore.  His friends were dead, and his world was a controlled regime of allotted allowances, his day-to-day actions totally controlled by I/O and the N.W.O.  He was a pawn on the great chessboard that had been created by those in control, and he hated it.  A plastic piece moved and manipulated every step of the way.  It was not a life in any sense that he was used to.  He was dying inside.  At some point he waved her off.

“I’ll do it.”

The silvery woman- Void- stared at him as the other spun her sword and sheathed it.  She- Nemesis- offered her hand to help him to his feet.  “I’ve got nothing,” he said, splaying his hands, palms out and empty.  His cybernetic arm whirred and sparked blue light.

“You have heart,” Nemesis said with a grim smile, “and honor.”

“We’ll provide the rest,” the woman Void said as she started to shimmer and twist, bands of light cutting through her form.  Jeff Terrel felt the slightest twinge of nausea as his body began to fade, enraptured by the teleportation field of the woman, Void.  He saw the rent that they had come through originally vomit sickly energy that washed through his office, setting it aflame as the world was swept away…

---

Brazil
Soon…

Jeff Terrel cursed as he leaped aside, black flames scorching the air where he had just been standing.  He curled his body in mid-leap, hitting the cold stone floor hard and rolling with the impact.  Years of training forcing his arms out, bow stretching taut even as he found his center, arrow flying free.

“Gahgh!” Helspont screamed as the shaft slammed into his shoulder, spinning him back.  Terrel saw the Daemonite’s android hand jerk, black flame boiling into the stone floor, melting the age-old rock in an eldritch inferno.  Even as the Dark Lord hissed and clutched at the arrow, the woman Savant appeared in a swirl of lavender energy, her booted foot slamming him full in his fiery, skeletal face then stepping back and away, out of reality again.  The Daemonite screamed, spitting black blood and cursing his rage as black fire roiled over his hands and face.

“Kheribum scum!” he shouted.  “You cannot hope to stop me!  Reunification looms on the brink!  Even now the Daemonite armada stands poised, ready to strike, to grind this mud ball under heel and enslave its mundane, backwards primates.”  His hand fluttered towards the pestilent rip in space that was still bleeding sickly energy, flickering with imagery that made no sense yet sparked memories…

A giant purple-skinned creature slamming Diehard into the wall with a massive fist.  All Hell about to explode…

“Take ‘em down people! But I want them alive!” he shouted, drawing his bow back, feeling young and alive.

“Better make up your mind, Shaft…” Chapel said, the rest of his comment drifting away on tide’s currents…

…as black fire erupted about him.  Shaft screamed, his skin ablaze as he danced sideways, another arrow flying wildly.  He shrieked as the fire ate away at his skin, cursing at showing weakness, his flesh and blood hand groping for another arrow.

Focus! He thought, drawing a shaft, placing it to string that was made to withstand the worst that fire might bring.  He gritted his teeth as his skin melted away, his eyes blurring on the fiery headed figure across the room even as Midnighter slammed into the Daemonite Lord.  Black leather encased fists pounded maniacally on the blazing skull of Helspont.

“Mother Fucker!  Fuckin’ bastard!  Yer goin’ down!”

Helspont flexed, his android arm swinging wild.  The Daemonite’s essence had been implanted into a Spartan android armor, all but indestructible and powerful beyond imagination even without the spawn’s demonic magicks.  Midnighter flew backwards across the vast space of the Mayan temple to bounce off of the far wall and splud on the stone floor rolling into unconsciousness.  But his diversion was enough.  Shaft loosed his arrow…

Helspont squealed as the arrow slammed full into his chest.  He staggered back, body heaving as his hand groped at the wood jutting from his breast, obviously in agony.  Nemesis leaped forward, her blade cleaving…

…empty air as lightning erupted about her, driving her to her knees.

Nemesis screamed!

Shaft gritted his teeth, trying to focus through his own pain, trying to see through eyes seared by the black fire.  Nemesis was on the ground, kneeling and jerking spasmodically as electricity sparked over her, her skin smoldering and her armor flashing queerly, trying to reboot by the look.  Terrel had seen enough powered armor suits to recognize the signs.  The woman was alive though, or at least as alive as he felt.

Nausea turned his stomach both from his pain and the view as he shifted his gaze to the bleeding, sickly cut wavering behind Helspont, above the huge altar stone.  He saw the Priestess hovering there before the rip, the Kheran corrupted by Daemonite magicks, or so Void had explained to them all, so that her little suicide squad might know what they would likely face.  The woman had probably been beautiful once- he had not seen a Kheran yet that wasn’t- but now she was twisted and disfigured; her face scarred and moldering with greenish patches, her eyes a blazing yellow and sparkling madness reflecting the lightning that she had brought down on Nemesis.  She was not alone, either.

Two women flanked her hovering form, more Kheribum Terrel assumed by their look.  The one on the left held a katana and otherwise looked as though she had stepped out of an old music video with her dark hair pulled back into a tight tail and wearing a skin tight black body stocking under a leather trench coat.  She looked almost vaguely familiar he thought, but the elusive idea swiftly vanished.  The one to the right wore the same black suit, but sported a red cloak with the hood pulled up shadowing her angelic face.  Terrel saw the wicked smile on her full red lips, parting as she spoke-

“So sorry we are late, M’ lord,” she cooed, not sounding the least bit apologetic to Terrel.  Amused was more like it.

“Delphae,” Nemesis hissed, and the electricity holding her down doubled, energy flaring and crackling over the woman.  He saw the woman, Elian gesticulating wildly and ignoring his arrow jutting from her shoulder, the power arching from her fingertips to envelope Charis.

“This is not good,” Shaft heard a whispered voice at his ear and glanced to see Savant slightly behind him.  “They’re both Coda.  I don’t know the other, but the hooded one’s a mystic, Delphae.  Warriors both, and probably at least as good as Charis.”

“Coda bitches!” Helspont spat, yanking the arrow from his chest with a spurt of something black that was probably not blood coming from the android body.  “Kill them!” he screamed, the reinforced fiberglass shaft snapping in his fist like a brittle twig.

Terrel scanned the room, the battleground quickly and frowned.  The Mayan children that had been used as sacrifice in whatever spell the Priestess had cast were dead.  Smoldering, charred husks, their combined life force apparently burned away to bring Helspont back from wherever he had been.  Just as dead were the twelve Daemonite apostles, all crumpled to the floor and unmoving save for the occasional death twitch and evacuating bowels.  Jeff Terrel had never understood magic, and had no desire to ever try.

The kid, Midnighter was still out on the floor on the far side of the room, out like a light.  Nemesis, though struggling was held tight in the electrical vortex.  Void was hovering in the background, though as near as Shaft could tell she was not a fighter.  The Quantum girl was nowhere in sight.  Wonderful…

Shaft nodded his tactical mind sifting through scenarios in the split second that it took him to survey the room.  He knew what he had to do immediately, and despite the pain of his fire-seared body he was moving, battle-honed reflex and memory spurring him on by rote.

“Follow my lead,” he hissed even as he notched arrow to string, drew and fired, again and again as he surged forward.  He did not look to see if Savant was with him.  It did not matter in the long run.  This was his show, at least for the next few moments.

As expected the Coda to the left sliced the first arrow in half, deflecting the distraction.  His second shot zipped past within the same heartbeat, too soon for the woman to react to it as it slammed into the woman, Elian’s shoulder slicing right next to the other still lodged there.  The Coda with the sword swatted away the third even as the Priestess screamed and Shaft leaped over Nemesis, the lightning fading.

Still he cringed as he passed through the magical field, his burnt skin sizzling with a new agony as momentum carried him on.  He slammed into the surprised Coda, the bulk of his mass carrying them both to the stone.  He screamed with the impact, his world exploding in gray dots as he felt the woman struggling beneath him, trying to gain leverage to flip him off.  With another scream of pain he wrenched his robotic arm up and slammed his elbow into her face with a satisfying crunch of bone as her nose shattered.

There was a flash of lavender overhead.  Savant attacking he assumed, but he had no time to look as the heel of the woman’s palm slammed into his chin.  Terrel saw stars and thanked them, knowing that another half an inch and the blow would have driven his own nose up into his brain.  The bitch was tough.

Suddenly he was upside down and flying.  Just as suddenly he landed hard on the stone with a ‘WOOF’ as every bit of breath vacated his body.  He blinked, trying to move, to gain some control of the lump that his body had become.  A grunt escaped his lips for his efforts as he looked up at the angel of death clad in black leather and hovering over him, sword in hand.  Her smile was thin and ice, blood drooling down her cheeks.

“Almost effective,” she hissed, raising her blade before her face and tilting her head in mock salute.  “Not unlike the Grifter.  Impressive for a Human, but useless in the end.”  Shaft stared impotently up as the woman whipped the sword about in a practiced motion, dazzling and swift before it came slicing towards his face-

KLANG!

Terrel saw sparks as another blade intercepted the Coda’s just inches above his eyes, flicking it away.  He blinked and swallowed as Nemesis lashed forward, driving her heel into the woman’s ribs with enough force to send her skipping sideways.  Nemesis stepped over him, standing astride and glancing down at him with a questioning look.  She looked like hell.  He groaned a garbled thank you and she smirked, then leaped away to engage the Coda again.

A strange strobe of white and black brilliance caught his attention.  Craning his neck back he saw Void going toe to toe with Helspont, energy crackling about her in contrast and conflict with his raging black flames.  It was almost hypnotic, her grace and glare warring with the cumbersome obfuscation of the Dark Lord.  Behind them the scar in the air bubbled and oozed more filth incessantly.

He saw the Coda named Delphae battling Savant, the latter popping in and out in a series of swift attacks, teleporting and trying to keep her foe off balance.  The Coda twisted and writhed, blocking some blows as though anticipating where the woman would appear, then missing others, taking a kick to the thigh, a fist to the arm.  Her cloak swirled about her as she turned a strange and almost erotic dance as she reached for empty air.  Savant appeared and the Coda grabbed the woman’s coat, spinning wildly and slamming Kenesha to the floor with a thud.

“Crap,” Shaft whispered, grinding his teeth as he gasped in breath, forcing himself to sit up.  Every move was agony as he reached for his bow, using it to brace and rise to his knees, then his feet.  He winced as he drew an arrow, the quiver on his back almost empty.  Tears welled in his eyes as he locked his cybernetic arm out and drew; the tension in the string almost too great.  He tasted warm iron in his mouth as blood gushed, biting his lip, his body trembling and wanting to collapse.

“Focus old man,” he hissed, almost a whimper as he drew bead on his target…

Light flashed and exploded, almost blinding.  Spots danced in his eyes as he exhaled…

Loosed…

“No!” Elian screamed as the shaft whizzed past her and into the bleeding scar.  He saw her lunge forward to grasp at Helspont, the arrows in her shoulder shoving through flesh as she clutched him close, her body suddenly ablaze with black fire.  She screamed again.

Golden light erupted from the oozing black as the arrow exploded, piercing the gloom in radiant shafts even as Helspont and Elian vanished in a swirl of pink wash, erasing them from existence.  A deeper flash of scarlet showed the two Coda doing likewise, both Nemesis and Savant on the ground, left in their wake but alive.

“Fuck,” Shaft cursed even as he heard Void’s scream and turned back to her.

As the scar ruptured and the world was swept away.

Black… Darkness… All gone…

---

To Be Continued...

Next: Will there even be a next issue?  Of course.  I haven’t killed anyone yet- at least anyone important.  So come on back next time and find out just what happens next to our intrepid little band as the Worldstorm gathers in intensity.

From the Author:  I have to say that I came into this almost totally blind.  Aside from an occasional issue over the years my interest in the Wildstorm Universe ended with Jim Lee's run on WildC.A.T.s.  Never read a Mainstream issue of Authority, or Wetworks, and only recently picked up some TPBs with Alan Moore's work and Nemesis.  Her I like- a lot!

When Chris and Erik recently got incredibly excited about Wildstorm, and I saw the input to a brainstorm session that flooded my mailbox, well, I wanted to be involved beyond simply providing the web space.  But what to do?  Write, obviously, but my info was like 20 years old and Niagra Falls had gone under the bridge since then.

I had been wanting to do a Nemesis story, mini, maxi, ongoing for awhile.  Chicks with swords are way cool, and Charis of the Adrastea seemed tailor made for me.  But like I said, I had no idea what was going on.  Then inspiration hit..

Thank God for the Exiles, or at least the EIC over at Marvel that gave them the green light.  What better way for me to join in and write what I remember and know than by plucking folk out of the Time Stream ala Avengers Forever and attacking the Worldstorm at the source.  That source being Helspont, as far as Void knows.  It gave me a chance to work with characters I know, and characters I like all in one, and to do whatever I want with them, as I am messing with the Time Stream.  Those of you who have worked with me know that I hate DIBS with a passion, and always feel that all characters should be available within reason for cameos, appearances or team-ups.  I am not Stan or Jack however, and am not writing 20 issues a month, so I abide by the unspoken rules here in Fanfic

But I bend them, to my favor, close to breaking.

Expect the unexpected.  I've already dragged a kicking and screaming Shaft back into Wildtorm, and introduced a pre-Authority Midnighter to the fold.  I have ideas.  Rule of thumb, never give me free reign.

I've received a few positive comments on Issue #1.  To paraphrase...

Jae said he was enjoying it.
Mick said like me he did not know the world but liked what I was doing.
Chris said:  'Regardless, and this goes without saying, I'm enjoying the hell out of Crucible so far, Curt.  As Erik said to me a few days ago, for someone who admits to not knowing much about the Wildstorm Universe, you sure can write one kick-ass story about it, lol.'

Hopefully the rest of you are enjoying the story and will let me know.  I promise to give you a good read.

Curt
03/29/10

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