by The Eurostar
New Jersey, early morning of the next day:
Sitting at the computer in his home studio, independent filmmaker Ritchie Stevens' fingers dance on the keyboard, putting the final touches on his last small (zero) budget movie. Working in a television production crew by day, he can devote to his true passion only the first hours of the morning or late evening. A mug of coffee now cold sits on the desk. Outside the window, the snow falls across the cones of light under the street lamps. His eyes gaze through the glass across the snowfall to the row of two-story houses lined along the street, behind the silver maple masting. The snow has been falling since the previous evening, and the cover was inches thick, and perfect, at least on the small patches of gardens.
Suddenly, Ritchie stands up, his eyes widening at the sight of multiple tracks of footprints leaving a spot in the street, straight to his own door. "Jennifer, Jennifer, get up!" he whispers urgenty to wake up his wife, not knowing what those footprints mean but with a deep fear chilling his spine.
"Your wife is sleeping and will stay dormant, Ritchie."
Ritchie Stevens freezes, his own heartbeats booming over his eardrums. Eight people in colorful costumes are standing in his living room. One is a woman, the one who spoke. One is a living stone statue. Some wear masks.
Tears begin to form at the corners of Ritchie's eyes. His head begins to slowly shake. His mouth grimaces. His teeth grit. His hands close in fists. And the memories return.
"GO AWAYYY!" he shouts with all the air in his lungs, the tears finally running down his cheeks.
Rhyme Guardian steps toward him, raising his hands. "Gooz, you remember us, right? We need your help to save the future."
Ritchie wipes sweat drops from his forehead with his right arm. "What future? Your future? The one where Thunder City is destroyed, demons are free on Earth, alien races invade the planet?"
He looked silently at the eight MBLers for a moment before continuing. "There I was killed two times! Here I live... I have always lived... in peace. There my son became the container of Viper's vital force. He was doomed to be a god, and then sacrificed by Heaven. Here the child my wife is carrying in her womb will be a normal kid for all of his existence."
Smasher takes a step closer to him. "How can you say that? The Gooz I knew was never so selfish. What about the metahumans of this time: discriminated, persecuted, killed, and experimented on, with the only chance of a better life to join a band of renegade terrorists? Is that what you want for your kind, Gooz?"
"Is that what you want for Richard, pal?" adds the Cadet.
Ritchie Stevens shakes violently. "You... you don't understand... you don't know... what I went though... I died... so many times... I can't go through that again."
"You must!" shouts Rhyme Guardian. "Becoming Prometheus X is your destiny! It's the fate you must accept. The lives of billions of men and women depend upon it!"
"Accept the X, Gooz," adds Lorena Burgos, the Lioness. "Accept the X, and bring back the true future!"
"NEVER!" The main door of the house cracks, splintered by a double axe. In the opening stands Grimm, behind him all the Vanguardians. "To change the time stream, you'll have to kill all of us!"