by Jamie Hawke
“I guess you can’t expect much less than insanity when traveling through portals to who-knows-where,” Twitch finally said. She considered our situation, even tried looking at it with her screens, but then shook her head. “Lamb, please tell us what you can about this place.”
Nothing.
“Lamb?” I said, thinking maybe a different voice would help. After a few seconds of waiting, I turned to Aegriss and froze, just as she was frozen. Only, I was able to move again, and did. Approaching her where she sat staring, lifeless, the whole semblance of reality that had existed with her and the handjob-turned-blowjob now flew out the window.
“All tech is down,” Andromida said.
“But not our lights,” Charm started, then frowned. “Wait…”
“Yeah, the lighting is from outside.”
“How the fuck is that even possible?”
Harp glared at her wrist, then shrugged at Laurel.
“On that note, looks like I’m needed again.” Laurel put an arm around her friend. “Sorry.”
“Okay, but would somebody please tell me what’s going on?” Gale asked. “Because right now, I’m about to lose my shit.”
“Would help if any of us actually knew,” I said.
“Hadrian couldn’t have warned us about this?”
“He’d never been through himself, so I doubt he’d have known.” I turned to the display, considering all possibilities. “Here’s the thing though—this is where we were supposed to be, right? To find this Shadow Mystic. So… could this be part of it? Could—hang with me, here—could she be doing this?”
“What, like a test to see who we are?” Shimmer asked. “Weird test, if you ask me.”
“A test, an attack, I don’t know. But it’s possible, right?”
“It could be,” Laurel started to say, but suddenly the light flared and the ship shook, and those of us not strapped in lost our footing. All light faded, and the ship shook again. This time there was a burst of blue light from Andromida, a shout from Charm as her hands lit up, and I caught a glimpse of a pink screen before being thrown across the room to land against the far wall as all the lights vanished again.
11
I groaned, pushing myself up, and noticed the motion had stopped and a dim light was returning. My nostrils filled with a scent like pine, which felt very out of place, and a cool breeze sent a shiver down my spine.
“Everyone… okay?” When no answer came, I went toward where I’d last seen Shimmer, the closest to where I now was, probably, but all I could see in the dim light was the outline of the display, and… trees?
No, not trees now, or maybe they were but the colors and darkness were mixing like ink poured into water, and swaying. Had I hit my head? Most likely, but I still wasn’t sure that would explain this.
And then it stopped, I was in a vehicle—a prison bus—flying through the air. This felt familiar, but so distant. There was the sound of automatic rifles, a ringing in my ears, and I was flung out of my seat as the bus hit the ground, upside down, and went skidding across the pavement. We were sideswiped and knocked about some more, blood dripping down my arm and forehead.
The side of the bus ripped off with a bang and I turned to see several supers floating outside it. One was walking on the ground, coming toward me, while the others attacked anyone else who must’ve been out there trying to stop this insanity.
The walking super came to a stop at the edge of the bus, knelt, and held out a hand. I was thrust forward into his grip, where I could finally see him as I had that day when he’d arrived on the space station—Ranger. Tall and majestic, with golden eyes like Muerta, long blonde hair falling over his shoulders. Pointed ears and golden tattoos.
I hadn’t noticed it before, having not met as many supers on our first encounter, but now I was noticing the ears similar to Laurel’s, eyes like Muerta’s, and I was pretty sure Drew’s lady Sakurai had tattoos like that, though hers weren’t gold.
Was there a connection to any of this?
“You’re dead,” I managed to blurt out, and Ranger’s face contorted.
“Doesn’t feel like it.” He lifted me into the air. Power surged around us in the form of green ripples of energy that surged back on him and then through my body. Pain took hold and I shouted, arms slamming against his, trying to hit him, every power I had surging… but none coming. That’s right, I didn’t have powers here.
But also, I’d already been through this, and in the real version the moment right before death had been when Xin and Lamb managed to pull me into that space prison.
So what was I doing here?
“I’ve defeated you.” I closed my eyes. When I looked at him again, it wasn’t Ranger standing there at all, but a figure like the Nihilists, sort of. It wore dark robes, but robes that shimmered as if in they were under water, and the hand holding me only had two fingers and a thumb. Its skin was gray, scaly.
Have you?
The voice wasn’t spoken, more like the thought just popped into my head. Whatever it was came at me with its other hand, grabbing my head, squeezing… I pushed back, mentally, and shouted as I realized what it was, “She defeated you!”
This time the being growled and fell back, releasing me, but as it hit the ground my surroundings went black. A scurrying sounded, and then I saw it running away. I pursued it. Only, as a I ran, I noticed a spot of light to my left and another farther off. And then, in the closer one, Harp.
“I don’t want it,” she said. I ran closer to see what was going on. As I approached, I could see her there with a woman. “This already happened,” Harp said, looking around and right past me. Her voice was beautiful, stunning.
I tried to go to her, to call out her name, but nothing got a response. Finally, I lunged to grab hold of her arm, but went right through her.
“Laurel?” She spun around, hopeful, and then it was like a wisp of smoke, her and her surroundings vanishing and leaving me in darkness again. If I wasn’t so determined, I would’ve knelt there, head in my hands, and given up. No fucking way.
Instead, I instantly spun and ran for the next light. Here it was Gale… in shackles. I approached and she looked up, eyes full of confusion.
“Breaker, where are we?”
“I don’t know…”
She stared ahead, but not at me. As with Harp, I realized she couldn’t actually see me. She wasn’t talking to me, but calling out to me. This was some repeat event from her life. And a glance around showed other spots of light, one fading as I watched.
It was all some sort of test—it had to be. And we were going to break free from it.
“Everyone, on me!” I shouted, hoping they could somehow hear me, even if subconsciously. “Ascend!”
With that I ran and jumped, but more of a mental jump than physical. The darkness shot past me, as if I was rising through the crust of a planet, and I found myself outside. If that was the right move, I sure hoped the rest of my team had found a way out of there, too. But as far as I knew, this was just another part of the test.
I froze, watching as the light provided a better view of my surroundings… and as the light formed, what I thought was the ship wasn’t there at all, only ruins of a ship, old and rusted. Shrubbery and trees grew out of it, and there was a gleam of metal in the distance. Thudding footsteps sounded behind me.
“Get down, you fucking moron!” someone shouted, and a Marine in red armor—helmet that coved his face and all—charged over, shoving me down as a barrage of shots hit the metal. He knelt, returning fire with his rifle, and then glanced my way as he turned the rifle on me. “And what are you supposed to be?”
“Me? I’m just… me.”
He looked about to shoot me, when an explosion went off and he turned, cursed, and charged after something, several more Marines going in after him. Then ships were flying overhead. I stared, watching them move like a swarm of bees, and when I turned to see where they were going, it was worse. Fire, now lighting this place up, explosions,
dark figures meeting the Marines in combat, mechs, tanks, all manner of ships in the air.
Soon the ships started to fall, and all I could do was wonder if I’d taken some sort of hallucinogenic.
“Charm!” I shouted, turning and running against the movement, hoping not to get shot or caught in one of the explosions that were sending body parts and blood flying, raining down on me. “Twitch!”
A figure appeared from my right, grabbing me and pulling me down into a foxhole, then grabbing me tight—Andromida.
“Shhh.” One of her hands touched my face, testing me, then pulled me in for a kiss. Her lips pressing against mine made all the rest of it disappear… literally.
“What was that?” I asked.
“I couldn’t find you,” she said. “Hours, it seemed. I was running… my powers were useless.”
“Like with the Nihilists?” I asked, remembering how our powers had been nullified then.
She shook her head, the blue in her eyes gone, the blue of her skin fading. “Not at all like that. So much worse.”
“But… the kiss. Here?” I pushed up to look out and see that… “What’s going on? Where are the others?”
“I had Charm for a moment. We touched during the crash, or whatever that was, and ended up on some swamp prison and escaped, running into a bunch of space pirates, but when we got attacked they pulled us apart and dragged her away. I fought, but without my powers…”
“Where, Andromida?” I stood, ready to take on the world. “Where?”
“Not here. That’s all I know. It keeps bringing me back here, but I thought with you, maybe it wouldn’t. Here we are… but she’s not.”
“What are you talking about? Where are we?” While before the shrubbery and trees had been scattered, now we were surrounded by tall, willowy trees. I was taking this all in, the dim light like before, unnatural.
“Home.”
I turned from the lush trees back to her, our eyes holding each other, not letting go.
Andromida took my hand and put it to her chest just above her left breast, so that I could feel her heart beating double-time. Her eyes conveyed the terror I felt there, and I supposed this was her way of saying she was scared.
“We’ll get through this,” I promised, leaning back in to kiss her, trying to appear strong even though internally I was freaking out. Where was the rest of our team? The ship? “When you say ‘home,’ do you mean…?”
“This is where I was raised.” She grabbed my hand with hers. As we stood, walking through the trees to the edge of a hill to look down upon a valley, her hand ran over mine, trembling slightly. Seeing her so… so not like herself, was gut-wrenching. Not only had I never seen Andromida so vulnerable, I’d never even been able to imagine it.
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and suppose you weren’t actually raised… here. But in a place like this?”
She nodded. “Charm and I were trying to figure it out, before I was dragged back there, where I found you. My best guess is the light was some sort of time- or reality-bending vortex.”
“You’re looking for a scientific explanation in a universe where supers and more live?” I chuckled, though it didn’t hide my nervousness. “I’d say maybe, but… don’t rule out that it could be more than that.”
“Nefarious?” She nodded. “Possibly.”
“And when you and Charm were separated, did anything lead to that?”
She looked down at my hand. Looked up at me, and then took my hand with both of hers. “Only that she’d been clinging to me. But then… I pulled free.”
“I see.” Now it was my turn to clasp her hands. No way was I letting go, if somehow our connection kept us together.
“So we have to find them, somehow…
“When I found you, I heard your voice in the distance.”
“Yeah?” I looked into the valley, spinning. “So one version of all this could be that we’re all still on the ship, but are stuck in our minds. Another might be that we’ve been pulled out to other dimensions or realities, or whatever you want to call them. Either way, we have some sort of connection, mentally, that allows us to pull each other close, to fight this. Let’s use it.”
“How?”
“I haven’t the foggiest.”
Before I could suggest another course of action, the ground began to shake. At first, I thought it was an earthquake, but then fissures broke open and supers shot out into the sky, blasting the ground and valley. As they did, shimmers shone in the air, a shield repelling their blasts at first, then it started to give. It blasted apart, revealing part of a hidden city.
Andromida lurched, even trying to pull her hands free, but I wouldn’t let her.
“We have to stop it!” she shouted, then tried to pull free again, shooting out one hand as if that would do anything.
“It’s not something we can stop!” I said. “It’s already happened, hasn’t it?”
She tried again, then turned and gripped me in an embrace, her arms around my back and hands on my shoulders as if she’d never let me go. “This is how it happened. My planet… my family.”
“Not all of them,” I brushed her hair back, kissing her forehead. “You still have Hadrian.”
She buried her face in my chest. As the supers began to attack in different directions, one seemed to notice us and dove, bursts of red light shooting out behind him. I closed my eyes, leaning my head against Andromida’s… and listened.
“Charm!” a voice was calling. Definitely feminine, though I couldn’t quite place it. Then it came again, muffled, far off… but clear enough for me to realize it was Laurel.
I reached out, calling to her, somehow realizing this was all mental. At that realization, our surroundings swirled around us like dust blown around by spinning helicopter blades, and then it was all gone.
This time we were at the edge of a clearing, looking in at circle of men and women in robes, all with long, pointed ears and the glowing antennae like Laurel had. They were chanting and swaying, eyes closed. Laurel was standing there, also starting to sway, with Harp at her side.
Harp turned to us, eyes full of desperation. We ran over and grabbed hold of Laurel and Harp. I held them close, in spite of the fact that we weren’t like that and I barely knew them. At the moment, getting the team together was more important. Focusing as I had before, soon Twitch’s voice sounded and so we were gone again, following the sound.
The result was terrifying. We found Shimmer and Twitch, standing on a planet with people screaming, a large black hole opening above them.
“I didn’t mean to do it!” Twitch shouted, falling to her knees and covering her ears. “Stop the screaming! Please, make it stop.”
“Twitch,” I shouted, trying to reach her, but as we did—all of us sticking together—she kept flickering away from us, like a mirage.
Shimmer, however, saw us and called out to me, so when we got to her, she grabbed onto the group. “Please tell me you know what’s happening.”
“Not at all, but I do know we need to get everyone together. Is that—is that the real Twitch?”
“I think so, but… I don’t know how to tell.”
“She’s being tormented,” Laurel said. “You need to get her out of the downward spiral.”
“Your powers work down here?” I asked.
She frowned. “No. That’s an easy one.”
“I got this.” Shimmer interlocked her arm with Andromida’s to keep contact with us, then reached out a hand toward Twitch and shouted above the sounds of screams. “You didn’t mean to do it, Twitch. You don’t need my forgiveness, but if it helps, you’ve got it! Just get your ass over here!”
Twitch slowly looked up at us, glitched over, and then grabbed hold of Shimmer, the two hugging while Andromida ensured her arm was still interlocked with Shimmer’s.
“We need to maintain contact,” I said. “Everyone on me!”
The black hole, or portal as we knew it to be, was growing larger, faster, dar
k tentacles starting to reach… and then we were gone, focused on the voices of Gale and Charm at the same time. We found them in a prison that was morphing as we ran, the floor shifting as swampy, nasty water rose. The two were holding hands, both trying to use powers that weren’t coming.
When we reached them, all of us except Aegriss were together. Judging by how she had been knocked out, we’d find her back at the ship. Only problem was, we didn’t know how to get back.
“Any ideas on what’s next?” Andromida asked.
“Just get us away from here!” Charm’s voice shook with rage and frustration. “I don’t ever want to see this place again.”
Part of me wanted to know what the place was and why it meant so much, but mostly we needed to get back to our ship.
“Lamb, Aegriss—are you there?” I called out, not really expecting much.
“I don’t get it,” Gale said as the water continued to build up to our knees.
“A test,” Twitch stated, and then looked at me with hope. “Wait, Breaker. Try this.” She turned her face up and called, “Shadow Mystic, we’re here for your help! We’ve been told you are the only one who can save humanity.”
Everything froze, then started spinning around us first one direction, then the other before shattering outward, replaced by white light.
“Who are you and why’re you looking for me?” a voice said, and descending from the skies was a woman with metallic wings, floating down like an angel. She wore full body armor that glowed green and purple in spots, a cloak whipping around her in two parts—one around her waist, the other a hood that flashed out behind her, face exposed.
This was a woman who looked to be no older than her mid-thirties. No way could she be who we had come for.
“We’re looking for the Shadow Mystic,” I said.
She landed softly in front of us, a burst of light coming out from her and shooting in a circle, expanding to show what I imagined was our real surroundings—a metallic, oval room, like we were in the middle of a large, metal egg.
“Again, what do you want with me?” She had a sword at her side, a massive rifle on her back. The sword wasn’t your typical sword, but a black one with a greenish-blue line running down it. It looked very intimidating after the way she’d just arrived.
