by The Eurostar
Razor-sharp disks fly without warning toward the newly arrived Vanguardians grouped behind the cracked door. The hissing weapons get stuck in the door frame. "Not a step further!" shouts Rhyme Guardian, standing between the La Perditan heroes and the astonished filmmaker.
Grimm raises his axe. "Stranger, we mean no harm, if you let that man go. I don't know how you hope to change the course of time, but this is OUR universe. We will not let you change it!"
Rhyme Guardian raises his right arm, the hand closes in a fist glowing with an orange aura. The Cadet places his hand on his shoulder. "No, Rhymer. Let me show them."
Reality around the assembled metahumans suddenly becomes fuzzy, and everything vanishes in a white mist. Then the mist dissipates, and all returns exactly like before.
"Well?" Grimm asks coldly. "Batteries drained, or what?"
The orange-dressed Cadet smiles. "Look behind you." Across the river, the skyline of Manhattan sports the once-familiar sight of the Twin Towers. "Can you see our point of view? Can you see the evil we could have spared the world?"
Grimm grunts.
"A hard nut to crack," observes the Cadet. "Zed, your turn."
At the request of the Cadet, the MBLer dressed in blue creates, with the power of his gauntlets, a big spherical force field encasing all those present, causing it to levitate above the suburbs to fly straight across the city and further, over the plains and up the mountains.
The sight is astonishing. There are metahumans everywhere, not patrolling the city as costumed crimefighters, but doing real jobs: building houses with bare hands, extinguishing fires with simple blows from their lips, ploughing fields without ploughs or tractors.
And then the bubble, gaining momentum, sets off for space, heading at an incredible speed toward the Moon. The satellite becomes bigger and bigger, and the bubble seems to crash over the surface. Much to the Vanguardians' surprise, it phases through the white, spectral surface to reveal a hollow inner world.
In the inner world of the Moon, they see a city stretching for hundreds of kilometres, wide as a continent. And it is composed of dozens of real Earth cities, transferred somehow to the internal surface of the Moon. And above them all, at the exact centre of the satellite, stands suspended only by gravity and centrifugal force a spherical building, gleaming and shining of silver and platinum, with the letters MBL, kilometres wide, engraved on the surface.
None of the Vanguardians are able to say anything, mesmerized by the impossible vision. And the MBLers, too, are dazzled by the voyage to a world that would have been in a mere five years from their time.
The bubble containing the two teams of heroes hurtles inside the gleaming sphere across level after level containing incredible-looking apparatuses, until it finds rest in a huge room the size of a football stadium, where hundreds of costumed people sit in circles around a central stand.
And there they see rows of infinite numbers of monitors, each showing a different part of Earth before the eyes of the metaheroes of the massive Meta Board League. And, when something bad appears on one of the monitors, the heroes of a certain sector flee to the central stand, where they disappear, reappearing instantly in the scene of the appointed monitor, ready to take care of that particular situation.
The Caped Cadet looks at all the Vanguardians, one after the other, and then says, "You have seen the true present. Do you still believe yours is one the to preserve? A present where metahumans are discriminated and hunted, and where metahumans are made into experiments? Where warfare has reached an intolerable level? Where AIDS is consuming a large part of third world population? Where there is not enough food for everyone? Where simply walking across certain parts of the world's cities would be as dangerous as venturing into a jungle? We offer order, a new world order, where no human, be they normal or meta, has anything to worry about."
"Bullshit," grunts Grimm.
"Who watches the watchers?" adds Adem.
The MBL Headquarters fades around them, and they find themselves again on the door of Ritchie Stevens' home in New Jersey.
"You really can't see the truth?" the Cadet wonders, dismayed.
"Enough!" shouts Rhyme Guardian, stepping forth. "This present is simply wrong. All of you will gain from changing the course of the time stream to its proper place," he says. "Put down your weapons, and we'll mean no harm." The other seven MBLers back their leader, stepping further toward the Vanguardians.
Grimm swings his axe. Only six Vanguardians are visible behind him across the cracked door. He steps further into the living room, now face to face with Rhyme Guardian. They have the same height, and their noses are dangerously close as they try to stare each other down, the Rhymer's eyes squinting behind his mask, while Grimm's eerily empty eye sockets remaining completely expressionless as always.
"Leave this place," growls Rhyme Guardian.
"In your dreams," replies Grimm, and a powerful, orange-glowing fist crosses path with a blue-glowing axe. They meet with the clap of thunder. It is the signal the missing Vanguardian have been waiting for.
In a rain of debris falling down, the roof of the suburban house collapses, as the big, white furry face of Drax appears just behind the row of MBLers and above the lonely figure of Ritchie Stevens.
"Sorry, pal," says the dragon, taking the indie director by the collar of his shirt and then springing powerfully into the sky above.
"Fuck!" yells Rhyme Guardian, and Jersey City shakes as if in an earthquake. "Get airborne!" orders Rhyme Guardian to his men. Smasher, Zed, and Rhyme Guardian himself propel themselves up into the sky like missiles on the trail of the fluffy dragon.
Brianna spreads her wings and jumps into the air. "Take me with you," shouts Tayden, "I am the lightest!" The Irish girl, carrying the fallen angel and heavily beating her white wings, takes off into the air behind the MBLers.
On the ground, meanwhile, Lioness uses her magic to make a whole portion of the collapsed roof raise ten metres above the ground and then throws it at the Vanguardians, still grouped together. The piece of roof flies toward the La Perditan heroes but, when it is mere inches from them, stops. "You aren't the only one who knows this trick," says Phil Smith. He lets the roof crash over the ground, causing a big cloud of dust and debris to kick up, and begins firing bullets from his .45 at the woman's position.
"Wasted bullets," says a voice from above. Smith raises his face to see a blue-dressed youth leaping down with a long staff in his hands. "Lorena can teleport," Disco Stave explains.
Smith jumps to one side to avoid the young man. He somersaults as soon as his feet touch the ground, letting some disks fly at Smith, known as the Unidentified Man. Smith has just enough time to divert them with a burst of telekinesis.
Grimm's axe slices the wall where Disco stood an split second before. "You will not harm my friend, skull-face!" shouts a cavernous voice. Grimm feels something hard and rough as a rock land on his shoulder. He turns and sees Johnny Monolith standing in front of him, tall as a temple column. And the hand closes over his leather jacket collar and raises him feet above the ground. "Stupid man," whispers the rock-skinned meta and throws the avatar of death far away. But, instead of landing, he instead stops in mid-air, caught by Phil's telekinesis.
"Ready, Grimm?" asked the Unidentified, and the skull-faced meta is thrown back at Monolith. Grimm raises his axe above his head and, upon contact with the meta lets it fall, slicing one rocky arm away.
"Shit!" shouts Grimm as a torrent of boiling hot lava flows out the open wound. The cry from Monolith's mouth is like the thunder of an erupting volcano. Grimm again raises his axe, ready to strike it into the wide chest of the meta.
"What did you do to him? Bastard! Bastard!" Lioness, enraged, her long red hair waving around her head as if having a life of their own, raises her hands. The axe lifts slightly away from Grimm's hand. His steel gauntlet hardens his grip over the axe shaft, but still he feels it moving by fractions of an inch away.
As this battle of will takes place, the rest of the MBLers and Vanguardian still on the ground chase each other in the remnants of the destroyed house.
Priest has been cut off from the others by the collapsing of the roof. He is alone under a roof beam. Massaging the back of his head, he pushes away the beam with just one hand. And then he hears a cry. Moving the other debris away, he finds a desperate young woman curled up in a niche among the rubble.
"Miss, can I give you a hand?" babbles Priest, surprised by the unexpected find.
The woman raises her head. "Who are you? What do you want from me and Ritchie? Why? Why?" And she begins to cry louder.
The tall man from the future pushes away more debris to reach the woman. She fights back, shocked, scratching and biting the large, black hands. He ignores the small pains and takes her outside, noticing she is pregnant.
He is back on his feet, holding the woman, when an excruciating pain makes him fall over his kneee. The woman rolls on the floor. He turns, and in front of him are three MBLers: Rhyme Guardian, the one with the orange glow, Zed, the one in blue with the power-gauntlets, and Smasher, the one with the gemstone on his belt.
Priest smiles. "Hit me with your juice!" he shouts, while rising back onto his feet. The three metahumans raise their fists, bathing the African-American Vanguardian in a large beam of radiation.
The smile on Priest's face fades away quickly. His enhanced body metabolism does not absorb, as it should, the energy he receives. Instead, he feels drained of all his power. He tries to move, but it is like he is glued to the ground. His fingers, and then his arms and his feet, and then his legs become colder. His vision becomes fuzzy, his mouth drier. His brain hurts, the fever burning his whole body. He feels his joints loosen, his bones crack. His teeth fall out like the hair from his beard.
In the sky above, Drax is ducking the blasts from Rhyme Guardian, Smasher, and Zed. The three MBLers can hardly keep the pace of the dragon, but they have many powers at their disposal to try to stop it. The only chance for Drax is to reach the secret spot on the mountains where the Stormloader is hidden, turning back into Drake, and piloting the vessel, with Stevens on board, back to La Perdita before being reached by the metaheroes.
The white-pinkish wings of the mythological beast beat hard, trying to gain more velocity, but the three costumed men keep up. Then, Drax sees, flying toward him from the opposite direction, Brianna. He instantly dives down, leaving the three flying men heading for Brianna.
And she screams.
She takes them by surprise. There is no time to react, to raise the force fields that the three men, each with his own abilities and equipment, are gifted with. The sonic blast takes them completely, unarmed. They simply fall, from one mile high in the sky.
Priest knows it is his death. His mission failed, Danny Hearn will now have the chance to become dictator of the world. Nothing will be different. The previous century passes in front of his eyes: the time spent with Walker, the coming to power of Danny, the arrival of the Vanguardians in the future, the war, the resistance lead by Dirk Bell, the endless training, the travel to the past, the incredible pain he had to sustain, the arrival on the island, the pact with Kit Piper, the diffidence at first, the growing friendship with many of his comrades. That all ends this day, this precise moment that he feels his life flowing from his body. This is the moment of his death, something he has avoided, escaped so many times. Now it is time.
With a supreme effort, he commands his eyelids to open. He would die staring at his killers. The eyes burn, and the vision is obfuscated by the tears and sweat, but he get a glimpse of the three men. And then, they are no more.
"Jon? Jon!" a voice calls from the darkness. The pain is still excruciating, but the radiation beam has stopped. The eyes open wider. The three MBLers have really vanished. In their place, lying on the ground, is the orange-costumed one that they call Cadet. Out of the darkness comes the familiar faces of Ozzy and Adem.
"Ozzy... Diff..." whispers Priest, and then loses consciousness.
Drax? Pay attention! You're losing altitude! the voice of Drake Marshall, inside the head of the dragon, warns.
"I've been shot, Drake! I fear I'll lose consciousness very soon!"
Resist, Drax! You can't faint before changing places with me, or the universe is doomed!
"I will try, Drake. But I am so tired..." The dragon manages to reach the secluded spot in the woods of Connecticut where the Stormloader has concealed itself.
Still hundreds of feet away, Drax recognizes the familiar face of Tayden near the cockpit and faints, overwrought.
The giant furry beast falls to the ground, but Ritchie Stevens lands safely in the arms of the angel, Tayden.
The axe falls to the ground. Grimm roars, frustrated, but then glances at the woman. I don't need that fucking blade, he thinks to himself and jumps at the Lioness. She vanishes into one of her portals. When she returns, mere feet away, a bullet pierces her right through her heart. From behind a corner comes Ozzy, Different, and Phil, holding a gun still smoking. Grimm looks at them, puzzled.
"I saw a constant path in her coming and going, so I guessed the right place for her return," explains Adem. "Phil saw it in my mind and shot her before she could sense our presen--"
The alien falls to the floor, his neck sliced by a razor-sharp disk. "Bastards! You killed her!" cries the young, blue-dressed Disco, tears coming from the eyelids of his mask. He jumps into the middle of the Vanguardians, waving his staff with expertise. Phil Smith is hit before he can swing away and falls to the floor. The staff then strikes Ozzy, who is hurled away.
"You fucking death-face," Steve spits, raising his staff toward Grimm. The Vanguardian doesn't move a single muscle.
"Boo!" a voice says from behind.
Disco turns suddenly to see Ozzy Baxter, still on his feet. A single punch sends Disco Stave to the ground, unconscious.
Grimm nods at Ozzy. "The count?" he asks coldly.
"Phil and Diff down, Priest killed. The woman and the Cadet killed, too, and this kid down," says Ozzy, somehow disbelieving such a massacre can really have happened. "Oh, and there's also Tayden knocked down up above. There's also a pregnant woman in shock."
"Add these ones to your list, assassins," says a voice from above. The dead bodies of Brianna and Drake fall down, rolling on the floor until they stop at the base of one of the walls.
Grimm and Ozzy, horrified, look up. Rhyme Guardian, Smasher, and Zed are lined up along the rim of the hole in the roof. Next to them, Ritchie Stevens is held captive by... Tayden?
Ozzy frowns. Grimm would have, if he had any facial skin.
Tayden's hand moves over his face and rips away his skin. It is just a mask. The featureless face of Agent F7 is revealed. The man points his index finger at the two Vanguardians left. "You killed my woman, you fucking piece of shit!" Agent F7 jumps down.
"No, wait!" shouts Rhyme Guardian.
The axe swings across the British special agent's neck like butter. The head rolls away, resting finally over the dead body of the Lioness.
"This means war," growles Rhyme Guardian. He jumps down, followed by Zed and Smasher.
It is a massacre. The axe swings, opposing various blasts of energy. Energy bolts die over impervious skin, and powerful blows do nothing over force fields. It is as if the powerful forces of nature have decided to challenge each other to see if a river's flood is more dangerous than the landslides of a mountain or the eruption of a volcano. They fight. And they stand. And the land around them is the only thing to suffer from their blows.
Powerful shock waves centered over the destroyed house of the Stevens rip through Jersey City, taking down buildings, bridges, and costing hundreds of human lives.
Ritchie Stevens is the mute witness of all this destruction. He shakes heavily, looking at his world falling apart. Helpless, his face twists in a painful expression, his mouth slowly opens in a mute scream, until his determination finally breaks down.
The mute scream transforms into a roaring thunderclap.
"ENOUGH."
The sky turns red, the air takes life in the form of an irresistible tornado. The earth shakes again, sending the surviving Vanguardians falling to the ground.
Debris and rubble levitates in the air, rotating and spinning like satellites above ground zero. It is night AND day, hot AND cold, light AND darkness. Stars collapse, planets are born. Entire civilizations form out of simple words, and galactic conquerors dim out of existence on the blink of one eyebrow, because the power of the universe itself is crying of joy, ready to find life again.
Ritchie Stevens' lips move, silently, forming few, powerful words. "I. AM. READY!"
All the forces of nature coalesce, coagulate, bond, over the twisting and shaking body of Ritchie Stevens. The body levitates slowly above the ground, like a puppet in the hand of a mad puppeteer. It begins to twirl in the earth of the tornado, until the sky becomes totally back.
Al the living beings hear a laugh, a long, joyful laugh.
And then the blackness flows outside the sky, over the body of Stevens, taking the form of a long, tattered black coat. The body stops shaking. It stands firmly above the ground, bathed by sun and stars, by novas and black holes. Human, animals, and plants breathed, relieved.
Prometheus X has returned.