by The Eurostar
Edulcore Cicciotto:
Chicago. The last time I was here, I was on the run. On the run from the MCCA, TriVext and Malvan-X. Only a few months have passed, and none of those organizations survive to today.
But the world is pretty much the same, and it hates metahumans maybe even more than before, stirred up by governments that would use metas for their own dirty purposes.
Something is changing, though. The gifted people, metas, are starting to lift their heads, sensing the breeze of the upcoming revolution, a revolution that me and my friends began, but that I suspect others, many others, are preparing.
But this time, I have another mission. This time I am here to free my son. My little creature, cloned from a cell of my blood by a mad monster, whose destiny was gifted with a fate so horrible that sometimes I feel sorry for him.
My son is deep down beneath the city in the secret base of the EPS, the Enhanced Procurement Sanction, an elite squadron of metahuman hunters, renegades that capture and kill their own kind. Knowing their location is part of the gifts granted me by Tempus for the help I gave Hir. I don't remember anything about those missions, since the relative memories have been wiped away by the talos, the artificial man, being potentially harmful to the safety of the time continuum.
One of the same gifts is the companionship of my comrades, the three men around me on this roof. Another gift is the new body I have. Looking very similar to my previous one, it was created out of the Earth itself. Because when I lost my body while I was saving Mandelovia from the fallen asteroid, I fell, in ghost form, underground. And, unconscious, I fell through the entire planet, emerging, days after, in New Zealand.
I have a new body made by the elements of Earth that my ghost form -- my soul, so to say -- has absorbed with a little help, although I am not sure about this, from Tempus. Minerals, metals, organic compost, if you talk in scientific terms. Earth, fire, water and air, if you, like me, are more inclined to the spiritual. "You are the most powerful meta the Earth has now, Edulcore," were the words of the talos that were waiting for me at the point of my resurfacing on the other side of the world.
The most powerful meta of the whole world? Well, maybe. There is another one that could claim the title. And unfortunately, although I doubt it, his own powers could be very harmful to me. He works for the EPS. John Doe, they call him, an avatar of great power.
So we have given him a distraction. A demon that appeared weeks ago in Chicago has been frozen in time until today, when Tempus has freed him. Now fires are glowing in the darkness from downtown, and the noise of dozens of police car sirens scream from there.
"He's there!" confirm one of my associates, who has just arrived from the spot.
"Let's move, gentlemen," says the second.
"Okay, Ed," says the third and last of my helpers. "Do you have the necessities?"
"Yes, I have brought the flour."
The descent into the headquarters is easy. Each of us can move undetected by our own means. I turn into a gas, while my friends... well, one moves at supervelocity, one turns invisible, and the last one is cloaked by a mantle of invisibility straight out of a fairy tale.
But deep down, in the heart of the sanctuary, the level of security must be superior, and many klaxons begin their noise, not that we were not expecting it. But we know the exact location of the child, and we are there in a matter of seconds.
Eddie, my son, is in a cradle. There is a blond woman in a green jumpsuit next to him: Vidalia Owens.
"Edulcorael," I say, "she's yours! Ed, Edulcore, get ready!"
While the angel in the black coat prepares to confront the woman, the bald professor and the young superhero open the big sack of flour and spread the white powder on the floor.
Suddenly, over the dust appears a series of footprints. "Guys, it's Tweed!" I shout, but Ed has already hit an empty point at mid-air with a baseball bat. On the ground, then, appears the large, unconscious body of Boss Tweed, packed tight into his white jumpsuit.
Meanwhile, Edulcore has charged at supervelocity at the incoming Andy Reynolds, and just before he could blind all of us with his flashing glow, the superwhistle of the superhero, aimed precisely at the rogue metahuman, knocks him down.
I run to the cradle. Vidalia is screaming at Edulcorael. "No man has ever resisted me!" she shouts.
"I am an angel, woman, not an ordinary man. Cry for your sins!" he orders, and tears start to run from the eyes of Vidalia.
Inside the cradle, my son Eddie is sleeping, unaware of all that is happening. I have never been so close to him.
And, finally, I hold him.
He opens his eyes, and a large smile appears on his toothless mouth. I have never felt so happy, or so important.
"I.G.O.R., who are they?" shouts a voice. It's Walker, the head of EPS, with his little flying robot.
"Genetic readings confirm the four target beings are all Edulcore Cicciotto," explains the metallic voice of the tin toy.
"That doesn't make any sense!" shouts Walker.
"Yes it does, Walker!" I say, smiling and holding my own child. "I split in four to take back my son."
"Cicciotto, I will find you wherever you try to hide."
"I wouldn't bet on it, Charles!" And saying that, I evaporate, and my son with me, finding my way to the surface.
A few minutes pass, and Edulcorael, the angel, Edulcore, the young superhero Eurostar, and Ed Cicciotto, the detective of the occult, join me. Three incarnations of myself from parallel universes, each different and each amazingly similar to me.
"Thanks," I say. I have no other words to express my gratitude to them.
"You are welcome," says Ed. "Maybe one day, one of us will need your help. Be prepared for that day."
"I will," I whisper.
And while they dissolve, Tempus of the Time Trust appears. He briefly smiles at my son and then says, "Your third and last request has been answered, Edulcore Cicciotto. Your hiding place has been set. Until the day you choose to manifest yourself back, Walker and his men will not find you or your son. Are you ready to go?"
"I am ready."
Chicago dissolves around me, and a new, safer place begins to appear. Walker knows that I am alive, but he can't reach me or Eddie in any way until the day I return.
My friends, sadly, think that I am dead, and I cannot reveal to them where I am.
But before I disappear from the scene, with the last help of Tempus, I have set a replacement for me in the Revolution, another incarnation of myself, brought just moments before the destruction of a universe wiped out by a strange turn of events. A female incarnation of myself, yet more similar to my true self than the others named Edulcore that have helped me tonight.
The name? Nadia.