by The Eurostar
Edulcore Cicciotto:
The meeting room looks like... well, I haven't any word to describe it. It superficially looks like an M.C. Escher engraving, one of those pictures of stairs intersecting at any possible angle. But if in those the walls are rendered as if they are made of stones, here they are like cybernetic entrails of some gigantic alien.
In the middle of the room, large as a cathedral, stands the little rounded wooden table where we met the first time, in the log cabin on Lake Michigan. On the rough surface, the letters MBL burn with an inextinguishable mystic fire.
"Too New Age for my taste, but, hey, this is the twenty-first century, right?" says Nowhereman, who, since the moment he has crossed the main entrance of the temple, began sporting a costume dark as the night. The same thing has happened to me. I have now a fitting red costume, with white flaming trunks and a little white cross over my nose and eyebrows, decorating the full red mask that covers my face.
Nowhereman stands near the table, while the others take the seats. I sit near the angel. In a low voice I ask, "Where did all this crap come from, Naecken?"
"The fire from Hell, the clouds from Heaven. The building from the Quadinc quadrant."
"Quadinc?"
"A realm, or dimension, high above you and your planet. You are three-dimensional, M'xy is five-dimensional. The Quadinc dimension is described by a complex number. Should I...?"
"No! Don't talk to me about mathematics. I had a friend -- Brian is his name -- who was good at this sort of thing. Me, not so much."
"Please, silence. You with the wings -- are you the Changeling?" asks Nowhereman.
"My name is Naecken," responds the hybrid being.
Nowhereman raises one eyebrow. "Another new member? But where are the powerhouses? The Indestructible Man, Zed, Rhyme Guardian, Marv Velo?"
"I don't know who the others are, but I'm here!" We all turn to the entrance, where a masked man in green armor has just appeared, radiating an iridescent energy from his gauntlets. "Marv Velo at your service... but you can call me Velo."