

The Chaos Splinter

Copyright 2016 Joseph Barone

Published by Joseph Barone at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This FREE ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

# TO RECEIVE DEALS ON NEW AND FREE BOOKS BY JOSEPH BARONE, JOIN THE MAILING LIST!

EMAIL allsmalltales@gmail.com with Subject: Join!

### Table of Contents

Prologue

The Current Chaos on Rhea

Malaki and Jarden

Decimus the Keeper of the Shards

Malaki, Jarden, Talon and Hellion

The Laniakea Corps

Apollo and Hermes

Hades

Damsel and Decimus

The Knight Shade

Apollo and Jarden

Decimus, Damsel and the Alchemist

The Wraith and the Money Man

The Alchemist

Apollo and Hades

The Scout and the Scoutmaster

The Money Man and the Badger

Sandy Galagos

The Second Chance Saloon

Victor Gage and Sheut Ka

Badger the BRUTE

Decimus Rex

Doran's Speech

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

#

Prologue

A long time ago, there were five Shards of Aether: Time, Energy, Order, Chaos and Magic. At some point, no one truly knows when, the shards shattered into billions of pieces and the remaining powder was dispersed throughout all the realms that were suspended throughout the Aether.

Order and Chaos affect one another, Time and Energy affect one another, and Magic both affects and is affected by the other four. For the most part, the remaining pieces of the original Aether Gem were exceedingly small, like grains of fine powder. But there were some rare, larger splinters where the powers held within were thickly concentrated. All splinters were thought to be accounted for and safe...until now.

This story begins in the middle, on a planet historically named Earth, or Terra, or Gaia. Most recently it's been known as Rhea, named after the titan daughter of Gaia. It's a familiar place that resides in an unfamiliar part of the Aether.

The Current Chaos on Rhea

The Doomsday Clock was half a second to midnight. The world was close to zero hour, after which only the rats and the roaches would have any use for time. President Martin Findlay was pacing the floor of the Oval Office, alone or so he thought. He looked down at his manicured nails facing up at him, hovering above the recently washed carpeting. "The North Koreans are forcing my hand," he muttered, justifying once again what he was about to do. "Both of us are playing 'Chicken' but neither of us is blinking. There's nothing else I can do. No 'out' but a nuclear option."

#547 and 548 were also in the room, but invisible. They had decided to wait until the last possible moment to intervene. It was their charge- to protect civilizations from destruction throughout the galaxy. However, destruction was not yet a foregone conclusion in this case. There was still a chance of avoiding it. There was still a chance of hope, small as it might have been.

General Red Adesso stormed into the office without knocking. To hell with decorum in these precarious times, the diminutive army general thought. "Mr. President, we have an hour to consider our options. But before we commit to a first strike which is sure to trigger an immediate counter maneuver, I want to show you something." The President looked at the General as if he were crazy. Maybe that was true. And yet, any distraction was a good distraction.

547 and 548 looked at one another and decided to follow behind. Rhea had come close to the brink often and had always turned things around right in the knick of time.

Army General Adesso was the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and therefore the head of the Pentagon. The Secretary of Defense was a liberal idiot according to Adesso, so he stayed out of this current situation. They walked together down a secret corridor which lead to a garage below the White House. Soldiers were waiting in humvees and jeeps. Adesso pointed to a vehicle in particular. "This one might look like the rest, but unlike the rest it can take a direct hit with a rocket. We're getting in that one. We'll be at the Pentagon in under 5 minutes." They entered swiftly and the other soldiers also entered other vehicles to form a motorcade.

They began to drive at high speed through the secret tunnel from one seat of power to another.

Before Adesso could speak, President Findlay raised his hand in frustration. "What do I do, Red? I'm the most powerful man in the world, in charge of the world's most stable country. We have no allies to turn to. Europe is in a mess of civil war. Russia's economy is balls-deep in the toilet and its people are starving. China's teetering and on the verge of collapse. In all this rubble, the North Koreans find an opportunity to mount an assault on the only country on Rhea with any scrap of order left."

Adesso didn't reply. He knew that Findlay wasn't yet done saying his piece.

"How many boats do they have? Have we found all of them? And how soon until they get in striking distance?"

Red took a deep breath. "Two hours. We've counted about 120 small boats so far. It's lucky that we intercepted that communication about them miniaturizing warheads and using fishing speedboats to try and ambush us. We have dispatched our entire Navy and Coast Guard but it will take them time to get there. Time we don't have.

"We have Air Force and Marine aircraft searching the borders of our waters. All it takes is one that we miss and there goes an American city. Nuclear war has never been so close, not even during the Red Scare." He spoke matter-of-factly. He calmly leafed through some official-looking papers.

"I can't believe they have 120 warheads." Findlay held his head in his hands.

"They probably don't. Just like in this motorcade, some might be decoys. But who's to tell which ones? We've sent out emergency signals for all friendly vessels to return to their nearest port and head away from the United States in haste."

Findlay finally raised his head. "What is it that you want to show me? What can be so important? Do you have something that can avoid an absolute catastrophe?" Lately the President spoke almost exclusively in questions.

They arrived, disembarked, and walked down another long corridor. There were many steel doors with sophisticated security equipment on each side of them. "Where are we?" the President asked. "I've never been in this sub-basement, even as a Congressman. And I come here often."

The short army general smiled. "Black Ops R&D. Specifically, Project MDNA. The 'DNA' stands for DNA. The 'M' stands for 'Mutagenic'."

He stood on a small pedestal and put his eye to a machine which apparently verified the retinal match. He put his hand on a screen and the machine again blinked green. He then keyed in a pass-code, but at that point it might as well have been 1234. No one could enter unless they had the general's eyes and hands. And could guess 1234.

"Shall we?" They walked in unaccompanied. The President had expected to see clones and embryos suspended in man-sized test tubes, but instead found something of a surprise party.

"Who the hell are all these people?" Findlay asked. They all looked back at him intently. Some indeed looked odd. One looked like a plant-man hybrid, and another looked like a half woman, half tiger.

"This group of fine specimens is what I call 'Brute Squad One', not to be confused with BRUTE, Wendy Wright's special forces. This team is run by Senator McArver, who's at the Capitol right now. It's made up of the most powerful of our enhanced humans, and some last-minute volunteers."

"Volunteers? For what?"

"They're volunteers to tip the scales in our favor. We began our program over two decades ago, getting better and better at making enhancements to an already viable genome. First we worked on enhancing regular humans and we nearly perfected that. But the real breakthroughs came when we started engineering mutagenic creatures from scratch. That gave us the freedom and the potential to really get creative."

The US President looked at everyone in a gape-mouthed, wide-eyed fashion. He then appeared to compose himself and addressed Adesso. "Who are the most powerful and what can they do? I'm sorry to have to skip over the introductions but we need to assemble a plan together in a hurry."

As if anticipating that question, Adesso organized the front line with all the most powerful 'volunteers'.

One was dressed in dazzling red, orange and white. "This here is Thermo. He can locally focus either powerful heat or powerful cold. He can burn or freeze things. He's an 8 on our scale of 12 but with practice and some more enhancement, he can be a full 12." Adesso walked past him to a large half-human, half-tiger.

"This young lady is code-named Tygress. She's an enhanced clone with the strength of at least 20 men and extremely heightened senses. We rate her a 7 out of 12."

"This green creature was heavily spliced with several different plant organisms, giving him the ability to photosynthesize, and generate useful plant material for use in combat, like healing extracts, or poisons. He's also exceedingly strong. 7 out of 12. We call him Spore."

"Now to the big guns." The rest of the crew was dressed the same, in unremarkable blue-black outfits. A short man with steam punk-type goggles was called Reroute, and could redirect energy from one source to another. His rating was 9/12, since as the general stated, the redirection efficiency was practically 1:1 on par with the source of that energy.

Another was named Organna. Her rating was an 8. She could transform her skin into any material that she touched- steel, titanium, diamond, carbon fiber. Depending on the material, it made her virtually indestructible. Once she transformed, the knowledge of that material was in her memory and she could switch to it at will.

"And now, the two most powerful specimens on the docket. The creme de la creme. This one's Takkeon. To our knowledge, he's the most powerful psychic on Earth. He can control up to six minds at once and has far-ranging telekinesis. He's rated an 11 out of 12." Takkeon nodded and smiled at Findlay, whose eyes lingered a few seconds too long.

"My personal favorite, the perfect specimen, code-name Monster." The specimen was about 7 feet tall and built very broadly. Other than some unnatural muscle and height, he looked normal, with long hair and angular facial features.

"Monster is capable of functionally unmatched strength. He can absorb energy that's directed at him, and convert it almost immediately to muscle. The more he absorbs, the stronger he gets. He can absorb immense quantities of energy- kinetic, heat, electrical, etc. We've tried to test his physical limits and have yet to find them. He is rated 12. Of course for him, it takes energy to get energy."

The President tried to soak it all in for a moment, but before he could process everything that his top military officer was saying, Adesso had more to say.

"There's more. We have not just genetically engineered help, but supernatural help as well. The United States military has known about the supernatural for a very long time. No one else in the government has been aware until just now. We have three volunteers who have come to us after the beginning of this crisis. Damsel, a vampiress. Hermes, the swift-footed messenger of the Greek gods, and the Olympian, Apollo.

"They have pledged their assistance in this trial. We can call upon any or all of these powerful soldiers to fight for us. They want to avoid a world at war." The three bowed to him.

#547 and 548 spoke to one another briefly, unheard by anyone else. "Let's see where this goes," said 547.

"It's a good thing that we're here," 548 replied. "I don't think that this will end well. Something in my gut tells me that chaos will not be appeased." They were both aliens, 547 a blue humanoid creature and 548 a more purplish-blue humanoid creature, though much larger in stature. They both had yellow eyes and no pupils.

They both also wore shiny blue space suits, which were thin and form-fitting. On their chests were five round circles (two smaller than the rest) arranged in a pentagon and on their waists were thick metal belts carrying technology from the planet Aurea. They watched the President intently. The President, in turn, looked at his new Brute Squad.

Damsel looked like she was torn straight from Victorian England, wearing a white bonnet, blue corseted dress and carrying a white parasol. Hermes and Apollo looked exactly as the old books depicted them. They were both wearing light leather armor from neck to toe. Hermes had a silver helmet with wings on the sides and those same wings were on the sides of his silver shoes.

Apollo had bronze-plated chest armor over the leather, and also held a golden spear and helmet. He had a sheath for a sword but it was empty.

"Hermes has supersonic running speed and Apollo is about as powerful as Monster. His helmet gives him vast magical knowledge. His armor is impregnable. The spear at his side can conjure up all kinds of magic, including ethereal fire. "

Now Findlay was visibly stumped, temporarily losing the ability to form a coherent expression. "Thank you, thank you all for your pledged service," he said to them sheepishly. He turned to the head of his military. "What am I supposed to do with this information, Red? With these...superheroes, I guess? How do we use them? How do we coordinate them?"

"Leave that to me. Our war planners have been on this since the intercepted message. What you need to do is puff up your chest. What prevented nuclear war during the Red Scare was massive deterrence and shows of force. Neither side would risk total destruction. You need to hold a press conference immediately. Show the world these soldiers you have at your summoning. If it's enough, the enemy will back down on their own. If not, it will still give us the time it'll take to put together a war strategy that includes these folks' vast abilities."

Findlay scratched his hairless chin. "I'm doing the math in my own head. Even if we use every resource to its full potential- the might of this entire group, the might of the US military, there would still be a small chance that a dirty rocket can get through."

"Yes."

"Then let's hope the North Koreans back down."

Malaki and Jarden

Days ago Malaki, an eagle-eyed Protector of Order watched events unfold from his perch in the realm of Elysium. He wore a suit of light dragon-scale armor and had tawny brown wings. He shook his head. He didn't have faith that an advanced team or a full military could avoid such a decentralized attack as North Korea was planning. Indeed, it did seem as if chaos would not be appeased so readily.

He suspected something else might be at play. Then, just behind him, he heard a loud "whoosh." He turned around swiftly and decked the intruder squarely in the face.

"Ouch. Dammit, Malaki. You didn't have to do tha--" Malaki hit him again in the solar plexus.

"Who are you? How do you know me and how did you get here?"

The intruder held his stomach. He wore no armor, just a t-shirt and blue jeans. He looked young. "One...question at a...time."

Malaki grabbed him by the throat and began to squeeze. "Speak! Or I shall take you to Hades myself."

"I--I'm Jarden. Jarden the...Magician." Malaki's eyes widened and he let go.

"Jarden? Master of the magical realms Jarden? Lord of the Tetragon?"

Jarden held his throat with one hand and his stomach with the other. "The very same."

Malaki's expression remained unchanged.

"Aren't you going to invite me to your...nest, wherever you live, for some tea?" Jarden joked.

Malaki folded his arms. "No." He helped his uninvited guest up to his feet. "What is it that you want?"

"I need your help. My throne is in danger." Malaki gave him a stern look.

"What does that have to do with me?" he grabbed the interloper by the collar and stood him up straight.

"The Tetragon is missing." Malaki let him go.

"How can that be?"

"I don't know. I was here, on Rhea, when it happened. As you know, a long time ago I drew out nearly all the magic from Rhea when it was called Earth and brought it back to my realm. That included magical beings and artifacts."

Malaki nodded. "Yes, I've heard the story. But you were unable to bring back every magic creature or relic. You met resistance."

Jarden no longer tended to his wounds. "Yes. And the leader of that resistance was Apollo. He was able to save himself and Hermes from being taken back with me. So recently, I've returned to Earth disguised as a regular human, in order to sniff him out and bring him back. Pure magic, with its ability to bend practically anything to the wielder's will, doesn't belong here. I'd come close to finding him when all of a sudden I sensed it. The Tetragon, the largest known splinter of Magic, was no longer under my control.

"When I tried to open a portal back to my realm, I was not able to enter. Given recent events in the world of humans, I believe that the robbery of the Tetragon is somehow connected to this global upheaval. My powers are far weakened. I worked on a portal to Elysium for days before I was able to get here. I need your help. I wouldn't ask if it wasn't dire."

Malaki shook his head. "What you ask...I can't deliver. Why do you insist on taking magic away from Rhea?"

Jarden shrugged his shoulders and threw up his hands exhaustively. "What do you need to ask that for? Of all the Shards of Aether- Time, Energy, Order, Chaos and Magic, Magic is the most subversive. It has no balancing opposite and can be very dangerous if used incorrectly." He looked directly into the protector's brown eyes.

"I was born a human. I saw the danger that magic wrought. Studying as a magician, I discovered that if I could harness that power, then I could render it less harmful. By wielding it myself and taking it away from there, I guaranteed its safety and the safety of all Rheans. But now it's been stolen. And if there is someone out there who can steal the Tetragon, then Elysium is in jeopardy too."

Malaki laughed in reply.

"Don't laugh," a woman's voice said. There was no whoosh when she entered. "Jarden may be correct."

"Talon," Malaki and Jarden said together. Eagle Talon was dressed in ceremonial Native American garb, with a small wooden bear claw hanging from an earring, eagle feathers crowning her head and a Cupid feather across her neck as a pendant. A gift from Malaki, Jarden thought.

Her eyes were the dull gray of the moon. "I sense the world in chaos, but a special kind of chaos. An unnatural chaos, although I admit it can be hard to tell."

"Of course it's unnatural. A chaos splinter was stolen," Jarden agreed.

Malaki and Talon looked at each other, and then sideways at Jarden.

"What makes you think that?" the protector asked furiously. "Such a thing is practically impossible!"

Talon grabbed Malaki's hand. "My love, I'm afraid it could be true. It would be unlikely but not impossible. The remnants of the Shards of Order and Chaos are kept in neutral territory, which although secure, is still fallible."

Jarden pretended not to notice the show of affection. "Although my powers have lessened, I still have some magical ability. I can sense that the Tetragon is no longer in my possession. And that a Chaos Splinter is missing from the nether realm of Hades. Whomever stole the one must also have stolen the other."

"Then it's time to pay Hades a visit."

"I'm coming with you," the mysterious spirit told the protector.

"I'm not sure that's wise," he replied.

"I'm a mystical spirit guide. So, let me be yours. I can't interfere in these affairs, mainly because I don't have the power to. But as a seer, I have access to things you otherwise wouldn't."

"I'd listen to her, Mal."

Malaki gave his unexpected guest a look.

"Then we shall all go. But I warn you Jarden, do not touch or eat anything while there. Everything in Hades is dangerous. And everything in Hades hates magic."

Talon took him by the arm again. "Shouldn't you consult the book first on how best to proceed in this case?"

Malaki waved her off. "The book would not explain what to do when a splinter is missing, especially one belonging to Tartarus." They were referring to the Avati Tome, a book which directed how things should go in Elysium, which many of the Protectors clung to, especially the older ones.

Jarden tapped his new friend on the opposite shoulder from which his mystical lover hung.

"Wait, Malaki. I thought it belonged to Hades. He represents neutral territory in the battle between Elysium and Tartarus, so I thought the remaining splinters belonged to him."

The protector turned to him. Malaki was not the teaching type. "After the last skirmish, it was agreed on both sides for our splinters of chaos and order to be held by a third party, supposedly guaranteeing their safety. Like a deposit in a secure bank vault."

"We'll see about that."

Decimus the Keeper of the Shards

Though this story may have begun here it's not the most important part. President Findlay, #547 and 548, the Brute Squad, Malaki, Jarden - they're important. But they're not THAT important. They set the mood. To put things in better perspective, we need to look back into the past a bit. And zoom in, on me.

I sit on a sand-colored horse with sandy brown hair walking along an ocean- of sand. A desert. I'd just jumped to another realm within the Aether and the trip left me a bit discombobulated. We walk at a leisurely pace, myself and Sandstorm, towards...a mostly unbroken desert horizon. My palms sweat and I feel the moist itch of gauntlets around my forearms. There are very smooth roundstone jewels embedded in the gauntlets in purple, red and blue.

Before I realize that this is no longer Kansas, I realize that I don't realize something else. Something important. Like my name. It's a common side effect of the jumping to have a smidgen of amnesia, but by no means does it always happen that way. Some people who possess the ability to travel can jump without getting a hangover, but for some reason I was prone to these side effects.

It's temporary, I knew that even in my forgetful state. There were a lot of things that I still remembered, like Remo, my home planet which was the base of operations for the SPQR Legion. To which I think I belonged, but I wasn't certain. The entire empire was run by the Imperator and Imperatrix, both of whom I may or may not know personally. I'm wearing light chest armor, a helmet and codpiece, not to mention a short red cape, so I get a feeling I'm involved.

As far as what I was doing here, and where this desert was situated, I had to admit that I was stumped. It's not exactly a vacation spot.

As if to punctuate that sentiment, the sand beneath our feet began to shake. It was a desert quake of some kind; it jarred my bones and made Sandstorm pull up on two legs.

Right in front of us something began rising from a dune, but before whatever it was finished its ascent, Sandstorm got spooked and ran off quicker than the wind. He'd be back. Sandstorm always comes back.

I saw the wooden structure come up and settle with a creak, sand pouring over all its edges and cracks. In the midst of this great expanse, this was either a dehydration mirage or a bar. Yep, I was right. "First Chance Saloon" were the words scribbled on the poorly carpentered sign. It had to be a mirage.

Except that you couldn't touch a mirage, and this splintery building was highly touchable. I walked in through the saloon doors and found myself deep into Wild West territory. It was very large, about a stadium in length. Everyone looked like a cowboy, with boots and hats, bandana scarves. Some had bullwhips, others had guns, but everyone was armed in some capacity.

They were drinking and playing cards. I noticed a few winners taking their proceedings and then going up the stairs with a beautiful escort. It was a good racket for the saloon, and the escorts. And I supposed, for the winners too.

Since the place wasn't a mirage, I sat myself down at the bar. I expected sideways looks because of how I was dressed but upon closer inspection, not everyone in here was a cowboy. There were some forest elves and dwarves and a troll or two. There were even some steampunk aviators, all decked out in their glory. But most were cowboys.

"Whatcha want?" the fat mustachioed barkeep asked.

"Whatcha got?" I asked back. His right eyebrow jumped up. Most of the bottles behind him looked exactly the same.

"Brandy or whiskey. That's it."

"What kind of brandy do you have?"

His right eyebrow went down but his left shot up. "What you mean 'what kind'? There's only one kind, and it's the kind we got."

"No wine? No Pinot Grigio?" Now I was just messing with him. He picked up on that.

"No."

"Then I'll have a whiskey, neat. No rocks."

"Why in Hades would you put rocks in yer whiskey?" He turned and poured the brownish liquid into a brownish cup. Not exactly 'neat', but I took it. "That'll be two copper pieces."

I reached into my money bag that was at my side and looked at what I had.

"Do you have change for an Imperial Gold Coin?" Now both of his eyebrows went up and I swore that he was salivating.

"I ain't got no change, but with coin like that, you really should go upstairs. We have the finest of the finest women up there."

Women. Women! I'd just noticed that there were no women actually in the place, except the hookers upstairs. It was odd for me, since what little I do remember about my home realm included gender equality.

"Tell you what," he said. "For the price of one Imperial Gold Coin, you can have that whiskey and I'll give you a grand tour of our First Chance backyard. It's full of enormous sculptures, and it's usually off-limits to the general public."

Why would I want to see the backyard?, I thought. And what could I possibly expect behind a rinky dinky place like this? Only sand, I guessed. I wondered if this fat barkeep might want to rob me, but he wouldn't be able to even if he tried. I felt my inherent fighting ability, and besides, I knew magic.

So I agreed. I drank my foul whiskey in one gulp and we walked back together, passing a mostly civil crowd. They paid us no mind whatsoever. Well, one person did. As we walked to the back of the saloon, an escort from the balcony of the second floor began waving at me furiously. Perhaps she spied the cost of my transaction earlier. And perhaps I'd take her up on her offer when I got back. So I waved to her and winked. But in reply, she looked puzzled.

The barkeep led me through a long, dark hallway which had smelled very musty. This must be where they store the whiskey, I thought. At the end of the corridor there was a tall wooden door with a heavy lock slung around it.

"Looks like that requires a very large key to open," I commented. "Doesn't look like you're carrying something that big with you," I told the man. He smirked and in the low light I could see that one of his teeth was made of gold.

He put his hand on the lock and after a short pause, it clicked open. "It locks and opens by enchantment, bub." Really? I thought. There was that much security for the backyard of a bar in the middle of the desert?

Removing the lock, the bartender pushed past the heavy frame and invited me outside. "After you, stranger." I guess I was strange, from his perspective.

Now I saw why there was such tight security. The backyard was beautiful. It opened out into a large garden area with many paths scattering in different directions. The natural beauty of the place was impressive, but the sculptures were even more impressive. These things looked extremely lifelike. They were Jupiter and Juno, Mars and Venus, Neptune and a few other lesser Olympians like Hercules. I'd studied them in school.

The SPQR Legion supposedly reveres them, but in reality they revere the Imperator. Noticeably missing from the collection were Pluto, Mercury and Apollo. "How did you get such amazing scultpures in a place like this?" I asked, incredulously.

The barkeep, who was now away from the bar for over ten minutes, folded his arms proudly. "You ever heard about Jarden?"

"You mean Jarden the Magician?"

"The very same. He rounded up almost all the Olympians to take them away from Rhea. Says they didn't belong there. Well, he tried to give them a realm of their own but they rose up against him after a few centuries. So now they're lawn decorations." I must have made a face because he replied, "Oh they're not dead or anything like that. They're only asleep in this kind of marble state. Only Jarden can revive them. He's kept them here for safekeeping. Probably doesn't know what else to do with them, if you ask me."

I knew the stories, but no one was really sure what had actually happened. He said something very interesting just now- he said the word, "here."

"Pardon, barkeep--"

"Annot. Call me Annot."

"Annot. Where exactly are we?"

"Can't say." I could always make him tell me through violence, I supposed- and the thought must have crossed my face again because at once he replied, "Can't say because I don't know. The pub ain't stuck to just one place. It travels through the Aether, free to move among the realms. It appears wherever it's needed. People down on their luck see it, come by, have a few whiskies with a few women and go on their way. But they always take something with them. If you find this place, it means you're lost. If you leave this place and you're still lost, then you're in trouble."

I didn't know what he fully meant but I nodded when something caught the corner of my eye. A very quick motion, like a bullet, but a bullet that changed directions and zigzagged. "What was that?" I asked.

"Oh, you saw that, huh?"

I walked over to where I'd seen the movement. It was off to the side and away from the regalia of the other opulent statues. As a matter of fact, this place was pretty far. There was no garden there, and no statues. Except for one. A figure I didn't recognize.

It was a man about my height, with a strange look on his face- maybe confusion. The hands were up as if the man had just taken them out of his pockets. He wore simple clothing. Then I saw the speedy zag again. It rushed past me and Annot, went to the statue and then shot back away.

"What in Caesar's name was that?" I asked again.

"The Bolt twins," Annot said. "There's a legend around here about these two. It says that they once found a witch encased in silver by the side of the road. She was being transported from one prison facility to another but the guards who watched her were ambushed.

"She begged them to release her in return for practically anything they wanted. They gave in to her request. In return, they asked to share whatever she deemed to be her prize possession. She said that her most prized possession was a Time Splinter, but warned them against taking it. She would give them anything but that. They insisted, and since she was already in their debt, she gave it to them. But it was too tricky for those who had no magical background. Now the one twin's time is slowed down so much that days pass like years- that's the fast one, and the other's time's sped up immensely so that years pass like a blink- that's the 'statue.'"

Hmm, that was strange, I thought. Curious, but nothing more. Part of me wanted to punch the statue in the gut to see how he'd experience it. It would hurt, but for him it'd pass in a moment.

"Hello?" A woman's voice said. It was a strong voice. We turned. She was the same woman I'd made eyes with before, the escort. She probably thought there were more Imperial Coins to go around. And she was right.

The woman was beautiful, wearing a blue corseted lace gown. "Hello," she said again. "You left the door open, so I came through. I was hoping to chat with the well-dressed patron, talk him into procuring my...services."

I smiled at her. She sure was persistent. But who was I kidding? She was gorgeous, too. On Remo, bordellos are as plentiful as wineries, indulged in several days a week. I could certainly spare the coin and the time, since I didn't remember what I was doing there in the first place.

"Okay, madam, you talked me into it." I looked her up and down. Both her cleavage and her legs ran on for days. I let her lead me by the hand back into the pub. I made an expression to Annot like, "sorry for bailing, what are you gonna do?" but he shrugged and winked at me as if to say, "don't worry, have a good time."

She was feisty. She dragged me so quickly that at one point I was running to keep up with her. That's when I realized that the woman was physically stronger than I was. The thought excited me a bit.

When we got to the third floor, we walked past several pleasure rooms, most of which were both occupied and open wide. Some of what I saw horrified me, truth be told. The escort shoved me into an empty room and shut the door.

"What in Hades are you doing here?" she whisper-yelled.

I shrugged and began to remove my gauntlets when she stopped me.

"No, no, no. You're not supposed to be here, you're supposed to be on Rhea, don't you remember?"

I put my gauntlets back on slowly. "Wait, we know each other? Who are you?"

She looked into my eyes and squinted. "You're not very good with realm-jumping, huh?"

"No," I admitted, trying to cool myself off and resign to the fact that nothing was going to happen in this room other than chit-chat.

"I'm Damsel..." she nodded as if that would jog my memory, but it didn't.

"I'm a vampire..." I didn't see that one coming, but that was still not enough information.

"And who am I?"

She laughed. "You were always better at spells of intent than spells of incantation, which is what you must have used to come here.

"You're Decimus, the Imperial Keeper of the Shards." Then she whispered in my ear, "We're supposed to help mount a rebellion against the Imperator."

That...rang a bell.

Malaki, Jarden, Talon and Hellion

Elysium was a mellow place. Order was extremely important to Elysians, and as such it was guarded by Protectors like Malaki. The floors were clean, there was a place for everything and everything in its place. Being a wide realm, wide enough to encompass all the worthy dead of Rhea, it had different landscapes.

Malaki was in the Protector's Loft, a highly situated stronghold in the center of a city in the clouds. Denizens of the cloud city were rewarded in almost every aspect of their afterlives, since they were designed to mimic the best parts of their actual lives.

There in the Loft, Protectors congregated, trained and watched as events unfolded down below. Lately they could see that order was not among the prevailing winds blowing on Rhea, but had no idea what to do about it. As a rule, they didn't interfere in human affairs unless the affliction was supernatural.

"The trip to Hades is dangerous," Malaki warned Eagle Talon. "There are dark things there that may harm us, wayward souls, not to mention Cerberus or even Hades himself. We may find him in a bad mood. I'm not comfortable with you coming along."

She rubbed his shoulder and ran her fingers softly through one set of his feathers. "Hades is a place for spirits. I am a spirit guide. Who do you think accompanied your former General Lynos down there, when the terms of peace with Tartarus were being negotiated and the splinters from both sides were handed over?"

Malaki looked down at the mention of his former general. He seemed to think it over and finally agreed. "Let us fly down to the Asphodel Meadows below- there is a cave through which we should go. Let's make haste and be done with this task." He was about to leap off of a wisp of cloud when Jarden coughed loudly.

"Ahem. Can't fly, Mal. Gonna need a lift." The protector rolled his eyes, grabbed the magician by the waist and leapt over the side. They were in freefall for what seemed like ten minutes, after which Malaki extended his tawny wings and they descended slowly, finally landing in the clearing of a glen or dale.

"There's no cave around here!" yelled Jarden. There was simply a field of flowers,

"Over there," Malaki pointed off into the distance. "It's hidden but I can see it. We're not far. Do not disturb the Meadow," he said.

They tiptoed around the flowers, taking great care not to cause any disturbance. Although Asphodel was the midpoint of the nether world, in between Elysium and Tartarus, it still had the potential to harbor danger.

The group made it several yards when they heard a great thundering sound, roaring past them to their left. It cut a scorched path in the same direction that they were headed.

"Oh no," Malaki said reactively. "It's Hellion."

"Hellion?" Jarden asked.

"From Tartarus. A General of the Tartaran army. One of the Stewards of Chaos."

"I don't think he sees us," observed the magician.

Talon sighed and pointed. "It doesn't matter if he sees us now or later, he's at the mouth of the cave. We are headed in the same direction."

Hellion was about to enter the cave when he reared his head up and began to sniff the air. Turning around and immediately spotting the group, he smiled and bellowed,

"Malaki my good protector, is that you? It has been a long time. What? Are you trying to respect the calm of Asphodel by approaching softly? Come on over here and say hello, screw the flowers." He began to stomp loudly on the ground as if to demonstrate.

Hellion was a humanoid lion, standing on two legs. He was covered in fur, with his mane and the tuft of his tail wreathed in flame. He had gauntlets around his forearms , leather boots, a codpiece and what looked like a club with a blade in it around his waist.

When Malaki remained mindful of the place he was in, Hellion blew fire in his direction, cutting a burnt path from the protector to the cave. Then he laughed.

"You know, you're a real jerk," the protector said and headed over at a more normal pace."

Hellion laughed again and replied, "It's all a part of being Tartarian. What brings you to the Meadow? And who are your friends?"

"You first."

"Well, I don't have any friends as you can tell. As for why I'm here, a seer in Tartarus believes that a Splinter of Order has gone missing from Hades. As you can imagine, this is a threat to my people. So I came to investigate and make sure it was safe. I couldn't simply come up to Elysium and ask whether any of your protector friends had taken it. No matter how much I might like you, I can never trust you, Malaki. Now you."

Malaki flapped his wings reflexively as his feathers bristled. "The Stewards think that a Splinter of Order has been taken?" He turned to Jarden and then Talon. "Then we are in trouble." He went on to explain what his group were doing, after which Hellion laughed.

"I believe we now find ourselves at the center of the same misunderstanding. Hades is one of the most secure regions in all the Aether. Let's go. The chaos on Rhea is bringing in a lot of souls and I have to be back soon."

Malaki opened his mouth to protest his frenemy's tagging along but then thought the better of it. They made their way through the cave. To all appearances it was an ordinary cave- musty, wet and humid.

The Meadow was practically on the same level as Hades' Underworld, as it also sat between the Elysian Fields and Tartarus. But it wasn't accessible in the same way. Like so many things, you could only find it if you were looking.

They walked down a long hallway, which was newly lit by Hellion's flames.

"You're welcome," he told them without first being thanked. He then smirked at his own joke.

Down at the very end of the hall there was a granite doorway with Underworld runes written on it.

Talon leaned in to look them over. "Give me some time to translate this, it will tell us how to get in. It takes the right incantation." She raised her hands over the runes as if she were reading Braille. "It's difficult, but I believe the first part says, 'There are no deals with Death, for Death always wins...'"

There was a line straight down the middle leaving a very small gap between both doors. At the very center, both doors were chipped. Hellion pushed past Talon, fit his hand in where it was chipped, and pushed hard to the right. That door slid all the way open with a thud.

"Hm, that was easy," he said. "Ladies first."

They walked in carefully, since Talon reminded them that the Underworld was full of surprises. Beyond the door was another hallway lit with torches. There were clay urns stacked upon each other in the thousands- perhaps millions, lining the hall. Each urn had its own depiction drawn on it and each had a name written.

"These must be the souls ready to ship to Tartarus," Hellion said. "Damn they are piling up. And this must be the chute that leads there."

There was a big stone well that they walked past, but instead of being filled with water, it was filled with fire and brimstone. "That is a one-way pass."

"Where are all the guards?" asked Jarden.

"Don't know."

Further along, the stacks of urns got thinner but the air got thicker. A fog was growing around them and in the low light they could see they'd reached a river. They were on the west bank and determined that they needed to head east.

"But how?"

Hellion began to walk towards the water when Talon stopped him by grabbing his arm.

"No, it's dangerous to wade in those waters. You will get lost and eventually forget who you are. Many souls who are ferried into Hades choose to plunge into the forgetting waters of the Styx in order to avoid the punishment awaiting them in Tartarus. If you look closely you will see that it's full of lost souls."

He looked over and saw ghostlike corpses floating in the mire, some faces weeping and some simply dead.

"Really? They do that to avoid punishment?" Hellion asked. "It ain't so bad in the big T. Well, not for me anyway." Then something caught his eye in the distance.

"I see it too," said Malaki. "It's a small paddle boat. It should fit us."

"Why is no one here?" Jarden asked the spirit guide.

"Perhaps they are busy with new arrivals. Chaos is ramping up on Rhea. Wars and quakes are taking many lives up there. But as bad as it is now, it has a lot of room to get worse."

"Hard to imagine," said the magician.

They decided to get on the boat and paddle to the other side, which took all of fifteen minutes. Every row of the paddle stirred the muddy waters and they heard moaning and wailing the entire trip. Once they were on the other side, the rocks were all black as onyx with jagged, gnarled edges.

In the distance they heard the low grumbling bark of Cerberus.

"Wherever that dog is, we should go in the opposite direction," declared Talon. They continued walking until they stumbled upon an open expanse. At the center there was a small pond and beyond that there was a chair made of skulls whose eyes were full of fire.

They'd arrived at Hades's throne room, his seat of power.

"Was it really this easy to get here?" commented Hellion. "What's this little pool? Is this where Hades cools off after a hard day of receiving souls?" he laughed.

Talon was not a humorous type. "It's where he sees the affairs of Rhea in real time. Like a big television set." Then the air suddenly got cooler.

"I sometimes dip my toes in it to relieve my arthritis. You have no idea how much your bones ache when you are the Greek personification of death."

Hades looked lively for what he was. He held no pallor and he wasn't a walking skeleton or anything like that. He was tall with a black curly beard reminiscent of Poseidon or Zeus. His crown was made of iron and it was engraved with skulls all around. He wore reinforced black leather armor with a long black cape.

Hellion, ever unmindful of decorum, addressed the lord of the Underworld.

"It's disturbing how easy it was to breach your throne room, Hades. What happened to your security?"

Hades sighed. "We've been busy. You were only able to get here quickly because you came from the Asphodel Meadows. If you'd have come the regular way, you would have found yourself on a very long line to get a ferry ride from Charon. Besides, you haven't breached anything considered secure here, like the Splinter Room. It doesn't matter if you come in, it matters if you go out. And that's up to me."

Malaki stepped in front of the uncouth Hellion. "That's why we're here, Lord Hades. We believe that someone may have breached your security and pilfered splinters of order and chaos. We don't know how that would have been possible, but we'd like to audit the Splinter Room, if you will."

Hades smiled. His demeanor was very different than what Jarden had expected. The underworld overlord was slightly- slightly, more cheery than his reputation.

"Of course. It is your property to audit and you have every right to check it. But you will quickly find that there is no one who can steal from Hades. Come this way."

They walked past the throne room down another long hallway. The throne room was the central hub of the Underworld, leading to many pathways. At the end of this particular hall there was an open doorway which lead into a brightly lit room. The group could see that within there were many riches- gold, silver, crowns, sceptres and the like.

Hades pointed. "These are what the dead bring. Most of the coins are what they pay Charon to ferry them over the Styx. The rest of the stuff- well they say you can't take it with you, and if you do, then it becomes mine anyway. Go ahead, try to enter the doorway."

On each side of the entrance, there were two statues that looked Egyptian. One was a humanoid crocodile with its arms folded, and the other was a humanoid jackal with its arms also folded. As Malaki approached, their eyes began to glow red, getting brighter with each step.

"Go ahead," said Hades, shooing him along.

"Be careful," Talon exclaimed.

Once Malaki crossed the threshold, the mouths of the statues opened and blew magic flames, causing him to fly back and singeing his feathers slightly. He was mostly protected by his Elysian armor and got up immediately.

"They seemed rather slow," he commented. "Maybe if I take a running start." He tried running quickly and the flames caught him again. They may not have hurt him much, but they did appear to be impenetrable.

"How about a flying start?"

Malaki ran back a long, long way down the hall. Since the ceilings of the Underworld were tall as a rule, he leapt into the air and beat his wings, gathering speed with every flap. He went higher and higher and at the very last moment, he dove into the doorway at over 200 miles per hour, but the flames of the statues remained on target.

He took a little while longer to get up this time, but he finally stood back on his feet. He stared at the room, thinking. How could anybody get past the statues? He kicked a rock that was on the ground in frustration.

"Wait!" said Jarden. "That's it!" He walked over to where the protector was stewing and then bent down to pick up another rock.

"We're wondering how any creature could get past the enchantment of the doorway. Well, as a practitioner of magic for thousands of years, I know the general answer- there has to be a loophole in the enchantment."

He threw the rock into the doorway and it landed into a pile of coins in the Splinter Room. Its trajectory went unblocked and the rock went unheeded by the guardian crocodile and jackal statues.

Everyone, including Hades, stood open-mouthed.

"The enchantment blocks any soul from passing the threshold. But not inanimate objects."

"A rock stole the splinters? I'm confused," commented Hellion.

"No," said Jarden. "A powerful wielder of magic must have been involved to do this. They must have magically programmed something inanimate to go in, retrieve the items and then return unnoticed. Whoever it was, we should hope that someone else is already after them, because every one of us here has been late to the party."

"Who could possibly stop the kind of person you're talking about?"

The Laniakea Corps

Rhea is a normal rocky planet orbiting an ordinary glowing star. That star in turn is at the center of its very own solar system, which is situated in one of the many spiraling arms of the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way has hundreds of billions of stars in it and is one of tens of galaxies in the Virgo Supercluster.

The Virgo Supercluster is one of several superclusters in the truly enormous Laniakea Realm of the Aether. Located in one of the trillions of back alley solar systems is the planet Aurea, where the Laniakea Corps is based.

The Laniakea Corps is the official peacekeeping force for the entire realm, something like a United Galaxies. Commissioner Rana is the head of the Corps, who is only beholden to the elected representatives of its member planets, all of which put their full trust in it as it had always served the cause of peace well.

She is one of the many odd creatures of Aurea, both affectionately and ethnically called the Squids. She is cream colored with a head of tentacled hair that looks like octopus dredlocks. She has a beak, large black eyes and wears a long toga like all administrative officials belonging to the Corps.

She'd just finished going through her agenda with her far ranging scouts and was about to close the meeting when one had told her about Rhea. The Scoutmaster, Oadie, was a yellow creature with large eyes on either side of his face. He was long and skinny with almost a barbed fish face.

He waited until the rest of the scouts had left in order to speak to Rana. "Rhea is on the verge of collapse, politically, economically, and biologically. I wanted to reach out to you apart from the rest of the Corps because the issue is, as you know, delicate."

"Yes," replied Rana. "The issue is that they don't belong to the Corps, not even as observer members. They are not yet even a Level 1 civilization, and we are not bound to protect them from themselves. You know this Oadie, so why have you brought this to my attention?"

"Because it could spill over to other Level 1 systems," he said, making strange globbing noises through gills in his neck. "Rhea has an unusually high level of unpulverized Aether splinters in and around it. I believe that the imminent collapse of their society is a direct result."

Rana's dreds bristled a little on their own. "So?" she asked. "We have the largest collection of shards in the entire realm in our vault, although we are lacking in magical knowledge. What do we have to fear from a few splinters? We can contain any spillover to actual members ourselves. Let them sort it out if they can. If they can't, oh well."

"Rhea is a Level 0.92, nearly a Level 1 Society. We have helped them before, the proof is in our archives. Glob glob. Aside from that, the soldiers who patrol that region of space are #547 and #548. Need I remind you that 547 is the son of your biggest political rival, Doran Canderwal? The elections are coming this next change of seasons. 547 is a rookie and something of a dolt, from what I'm told. He only got his position because of his father. If he succeeds, somehow, in quelling the violence then he's done it on your behalf. The credit is yours and so are the votes. If he doesn't the blame is his and by extension, his father's. It would lead the fickle voters to think that the glarblefruit doesn't fall so far from the tree."

"You really think that a stunt like that would hold sway?" She pushed aside some tentacles away from her face. "I'm not convinced but go ahead and order 547 and 548 to tend to the matter. Rhea is close to reaching the threshold for our protection after all." She signed a few documents to finalize the orders given at her meeting and walked off to the archives, where she spent most of her time.

Oadie headed towards the communications tower and bleeped a few signals into the transmitter. In seconds, a wormhole opened and closed in front of him but not before two tall creatures walked through.

547 and 548 were of the giant race of "Blues", so called because of their light, patchy blue skin, who formed a small majority of the population of Aurea. They both wore purple armor and large yellow belts. The belts held most of their portable weapons and technology, including the ability to open and go through wormholes, also known as "porting".

548 was a veteran of the Corps and a widow of many years. She had just lost her partner to retirement, a spot which 547 duly filled as an appointee by the Aurea Global Council, on which sat Doran Canderwal.

547 was a young man who was bright eyed and bushy tailed, but otherwise not much of a dolt. He'd graduated with top honors from all his schooling, and though a life of leisure easily awaited him had he chosen it, he instead settled on a life of public service. Following his father's example, he found it to be a greater calling.

Aurea was a planet full of advanced tech, living and breathing with the pulse of customized photonics. Shiny plated objects were everywhere, running the world while living creatures concentrated on more important things like philosophy, mathematics, or entertainment.

A small portion of the Laniakea Corps remains on Aurea while not within their assigned territory, and act as local police. 547 and 548 were on patrol with 324 when they were called by Commission Scoutmaster Oadie. On a planet full of odd creatures, Oadie was considered downright strange. He was well known as lacking any decorum, since creatures of his Pufferfish type could often control their "globs" until they were in private.

And yet Oadie and 548 at times exchanged familiarities, went on dates, and spent what could be called quality time together.

"Oad, Rhea is a crapshoot. 547 and I are gonna do our best but we're not making any promises. I've been there, it's a disaster most of the time." She put her hands on her hips. "You tell Rana this ain't no picnic in the park."

"You can tell her yourself if you wish, glob glob. She's in the archives reading up on ancient magic. As you both know, the Commission neither has magic shards or magical knowledge, and that makes all of us vulnerable." He began to peel off some dry scales on the back of his neck, which was a no-no in public.

Keeping her hands firmly set on her gargantuan hips she retorted, "She's been at the archives more often than she's been at Headquarters. The Corps never had magic before, why the panic now? I know that look, Oad, what are you not telling us? Is there something we should know? Some magical threat we should prepare for?"

Oadie stood up but he came only 3/4 of the way to her face. "If you need to know something, you'll know it. If you don't know it, then you didn't need to know." He wielded little power but whatever he had, he liked to show off. Oadie's power came from having the Commissioner's ear, since they both went through the academy together. His loyalty was not only proven, but also characteristic of his species.

547 got in between the two. "Yes, well please tell the Commissioner that we will do our best on Rhea and we will file a report from there just as soon as we can. Let's go partner, time to port on over."

They walked out of the room and towards the very tall Intergalactic Transmissions tower, which was one of the few places able to propel them all the way to Rhea in one go.

After a few minutes of silence, the young rookie addressed his mentor. "What was that all about? Lover's spat?"

She brushed aside the friendly insult. "The only perk, and I mean only- to getting close with Oadie is getting to know the inner workings of the Corps. The politics, the priorities, any other news. I know it's snooping but I want to make sure the Corps is still a righteous place for keeping the peace, like when my dad was in it. Now lately, he doesn't tell me anything. Ever since Rana started making for the archives every chance she got, he's been cold and distant. And not just because he's an ectotherm."

They reached the opening to a large, plastic-looking tube. He checked the tech in his metallic bracelets and ran some diagnostics on his belt. It checked out. She did the same, but was less thorough. Walking onto the platform, they were sucked up into the tube and ultimately deposited into a giant pod.

"Charge your belt," she said. "Rhea's far." After two minutes or so of energy transfer over the ambient air, all their devices were at 100%.

They walked into the pod and the door shut behind them with a hush.

"Do you really think we can save Rhea?" the bright eyed rookie asked.

"Rhea's fine," 548 replied. "I've been there a lot of times. Plenty of times the Corps didn't know about. And believe me they already have their heroes, whether they're aware of them or not."

Apollo and Hermes

In the modern city of Athens, war was being waged between well-armed anarchists and poorly funded EU troops. It was one of the many battles being fought globally between order and chaos. They were all small scale skirmishes with big world consequences. Order was losing mightily. Nearly all rebellions raged like a wildfire, governments only moderately capable of keeping them down.

Anarchists may have been fighting against structured society, but they were certainly an organized bunch, considering. A battalion of them had made camp for the night at a long abandoned municipal building. They had already taken Athens weeks ago, and were in a purely defensive posture.

Two guards were on the roof, carrying European issue L-22 submachine guns with them. They were military-trained, but exhausted from their fighting. They weren't as alert as perhaps they should have been.

One of the guards patrolled the east of the building and the other patrolled the west. They routinely checked in every 15 minutes. They looked at each other from across the length of the roof and raised their right arms to indicate all was well. Then they went back on patrol.

The eastern facing anarchist sat down at a rickety metal chair and lit a cigarette. His piece was at his side. He heard a very fast zip, followed by an even faster yelp from across the way. Not wanting to get up on this cold night, he simply shrugged. The wind can play tricks on yo--- and like that the zip came for him, too.

Downstairs in the main hall, the battalion of about 100 was asleep in camping bags with two more guards at each diagonal of the hall. The zip got them too. He was hard at work going back and forth in a flash, disarming the sleeping young veterans as they dreamt.

The adjoining room was an impromptu armory, and certainly not a safe place to keep weapons and ammo, which were fully out in the open. The lack of internal structure was unsurprising but horrifying to anarchist leadership. At this point in the war, rebel leadership was puzzled. How do you herd cats? How do you organize anarchists? And yet when it came to troop cohesion, they were as good as or better than the establishment.

The zip deposited all the weapons that he found, including grenades, side-arms, and of course any L-22s. The L-22 was a combat rifle designed and manufactured for NATO to be a ground superiority device. It was built with advanced sights and anti-tank capabilities.

Now however, the L-22s along with any ammo and supplemental weaponry were melting at temperatures as hot as the sun. "Keep them coming," said Apollo pointing his spear at the items. Apollo's spear had the densest concentration of magic in Laniakea outside of Jarden's Tetragon. It was capable of many feats, and at the moment it was smelting the rebel armory while making sure none of it exploded.

One of the rebels awoke at the smell of smoke and began to sound the alarm. They all mobilized and realized they were missing their pieces. "Time to put them out of commission," Hermes, the Olympian messenger god told Apollo."

"I was thinking the same thing," Apollo said. He waved his spear at the growing crowd. "Let's send them off to Detention Island. It's getting overcrowded there but it's better than Hades." He waved it again. And again and again.

"What happened?" asked Hermes. "Why isn't it working?"

"Something's dampening my magic. I can't do anything with the spear!"

"Well you'd better do something, they're coming fast." Hermes began to dart quickly at them but sputtered and tripped over himself. "My speed! What's going on here?"

Apollo picked up his friend in haste. "Powers or no, we are still among the greatest warriors in all the history of Rhea. We can beat these boys back." And beat them back they did. The spear was still a useful weapon, wielded expertly by the sun god. Hermes carried a short sword made of a rare Olympian metal that could cut through virtually anything.

As soon as they pushed back the front line of anarchists, they had enough time to run out of the building.

"There's too many of them," the messenger said. Apollo agreed. Once they were outside, the sun god rose up into the air. The fleet-footed zip began to vibrate like a hummingbird.

"Our powers are back. Head to Olympus to regroup. We have much to discuss. Somehow, the humans have become capable of much more than they ever have before. Magical knowledge has returned. This is either Jarden, or--"

"Or?"

"If it's not him, then it must be much worse."

Hades

"So what if you can throw a rock into the treasure room? That doesn't prove that anything was stolen from there! There are other safeguards within the room itself. Come, I will show you. The word of Hades is ironclad."

"Yeah, well iron melts." Hellion folded his arms and his flames bristled.

Hades, infuriated, pushed past and raised his hand to the living statues. They solidified back into stone. Malaki and Talon exchanged looks, but not without Jarden noticing.

As the lord of the Underworld walked through with Hellion right behind, Jarden whispered to Malaki, "That's another loophole. Hades himself can unlock the entryway without a key."

Although the treasures were all splayed about for the taking, in the center of the room there was a giant scale. Surrounding the scale were skeletal warriors with swords at the ready. They wore dark armor that resembled that of ancient samurais.

Turning back to the doorway which they'd entered, they saw two more living statues in the shapes of horse-men. Their bodies were human but they had horse faces, and they were even larger than the guards Malaki tried to pass before. They were each holding a tremendous staff with a sickle-like crescent at the tip.

They prevented anyone from leaving with anything taken from the room, Hades explained.

The samurai skeletons prevented anyone from taking the splinters from the scale, which was exactly level. Underneath each of the weighted ends, there was a soul jar. Should one side become heavier than the other, it'd tip and break the jars, releasing the howling souls within and sounding an alarm. Upon their release, the souls would assist the samurai in defending the shards.

"You see?" the black bearded death magnate smirked. "There are many safeguards to protect every item in here, but the jewels in the crown are the pieces of the shards of Chaos and Order, which are doubly protected. Even if you got in, you couldn't possibly take anything out. Not if you were Hercules or Zeus or anyone else you can think of."

Malaki, the most eagle-eyed among them besides Talon, squinted and bent down to observe the scale better. The skeletons eyed him suspiciously with their swords unsheathed. He raised his hand as if expecting to feel a breeze or to feel something. "There are no shards, no splinters of Order here. Whatever's in there isn't part of the Aether Gem. I don't know what it is." The skeletons invited him to move along as they poked at him with their long swords.

Hellion, less courteous, rammed through the ancient warriors with a bit of success. Among his many abilities was becoming intangible, transforming into essentially Tartarian fire. As the samurai swiped and hit him, they got burned.

"There are no pieces of the Chaos shard here either! All the splinters have gone missing! This was Tartarus' full stockpile!"

"It was Elysium's full stock of Order splinters, too! Our very last! What gives, Hades? Explain yourself!" Malaki took an arrow from his bow and bent it back, pointing it directly at the Olympian.

Hades for his part was too flabbergasted to be offended at the dual threats of Malaki and Hellion.

"It can't be. It can't! No one could have taken them from here! The soul jars are unbroken!"

Jarden casually bent down to pick up a gold piece used by some poor sap to pay the ferryman to cross the Styx. He then walked up to the horse-men and successfully threw the item past them on the first try. They hadn't even flinched.

"You should have had me set up your security system," he told Hades who was beginning to foam at the mouth like his dog Cerberus.

"I would have done a much better job."

Damsel and Decimus

"It's starting to come back to me but not completely. What are you doing in this brothel?"

"The saloon appears sporadically and travels throughout the Aether. It tours different deserts from different lands and it appears to those people who need its services the most. Like you when you landed on this planet. You're supposed to be on Rhea, or did you forget?"

I scratched my head. That part hadn't come back to me yet. "But why are you in a brothel?"

She arose and I saw her distinct paleness against the colorful pink of the room. Damsel put her hands on her hips.

"To save you the time, I'll be brief. Remo has a large vampire population, well fed by the slaves that Imperator Thanalian brings in on a nearly constant basis. Dralax, the King Vampire, is deeply in cahoots with the Imperator. There hasn't been a war in over 6 years and the steady stream of slaves has been decreasing.

"Dralax has been pushing Thanalian to conquer more people from the neighboring realms, one of which is Laniakea. If the vampires aren't provided food, they will obtain it the way they have for centuries.

"The Imperatrix, bored with the same constancy for 6 years, has also begged her husband to return to war, but Thanalian welcomes the current state of the empire as peaceful. War would be needless, since resources were plenty. His official stance had been to remain at peace for as long as possible, but the dual influence of the vampire and his wife was hard to resist.

"During this year's Gladiator Games, Thanalian reluctantly announced plans to take over the Laniakea realm, beginning with its least advanced civilization, Rhea. He told all of us in the crowd that the attack would take place in a year's time, after preparations. That was four months ago.

"You, being the Imperial Keeper of the Shards, along with several other dissenters including me, decided to form a quiet rebellion. You bring several shards with you, to be given to a champion of Rhea that you will choose after deliberation, to fight the SPQR Legion.

"And I, appearing a delicate flower yet being the most powerful vampire on Remo even greater than Dralax, can lie in wait in this saloon waiting to pick up a general, an admiral or other officer of the Legion. I can brainwash them into joining the rebellion, or at least into betraying Thanalian with my vampire glare.

"See, the saloon is also attracted to Imperial coin. It's a place that many Legionnaires frequent for its renowned gambling and whorehouse. They go into the Reman desert with many gold pieces and the saloon finds them. If you tip the bartender right, the saloon returns you to the same desert from which you started. If not, you got stranded."

I guess that made sense.

"So how do I get to Rhea?" I asked. She shrugged her milky white shoulders as her left one became bare, the shirt shifting slightly.

"I myself am an accomplished realm crosser," she said proudly. "You'll remember that eventually. But we need to get you to Rhea. If you have coin, you could bribe Annot."

I began to nod, thinking that was a good idea, but then I shook my head violently. "No! Sandstorm- he's out there on this planet, alone. I can't move forward without him. I have to find him first."

She pulled up her fallen sleeve. "That might be unwise. See, there's no guarantee that the saloon will show up again for you even if you hold up ten pieces of Imperial gold. This might be your best shot, since you're not really that good at navigating the Aether by yourself."

It shouldn't have, but that offended me a little bit. "You know what? I think I'll take my chances with my horse."

I left her pleasure room and walked past Annot towards the exit. "Very nice to meet you," he told me as he wiped down a cup without washing it first. "Maybe I'll see you again sometime if you're lucky enough to flag us down."

I told him that I appreciated the tour and headed out on my merry way when I felt like my arm was being grabbed by a bear. It was Damsel, who had headed out with me. Possessing vampire speed, she caught me by surprise.

"I'm going with you, Decimus. This is our rebellion, even if you don't completely remember. Dralax is powerful and his influence over the Legion is appreciable. But I am even more powerful. Ancient entities have granted me vast abilities far greater than those of the Vampire King. Power from Time, Energy and Magic is bound to me. And yet according to Delfina the Oracle, the shards which are in your possession right now must go to another champion to beat back Thanalian. One who is from Rhea. A human. Our success hinges on that."

The more she spoke, the more I remembered. But that didn't change my immediate mission. I needed to find my horse. Then, I had to figure out where I am so that I could get to where I wanted to be. The question was, was Delfina right? She'd been wrong before, even though you can count the times on just a few fingers. Were there heroic enough humans to be chosen?

The Knight Shade

Manorville, a suburb on the outskirts of Damask City. There were no mansions there before Dane Manor was completed just one year ago. The young job prospect followed his interviewer down to a cavernous, labyrinthine sub-basement.

"Is this part of the interview?" he asked. He gaped at the immensity of the place and also at all that it held within, though most of it was shrouded in darkness.

"You can say that," the red haired woman holding the clipboard answered. "This is actually a different kind of interview, for a different kind of job."

"Computer programmer?"

"No. Not for you. Although that position is still available, if you want it. We just had something else in mind for your skill set."

"But computers are my life! And right now there's no company hotter than DaneTech. Terminal computing is revolutionizing the entire industry!"

She stopped walking and so did he. "And DaneTech is the startup that developed the very first terminal computing software. Although it's the brand new thing out there and everyone is excited, very few people understand what it is, fundamentally. Can you explain it, in laymen's terms? If you can explain something complicated to a layperson, that's the best test of your own knowledge."

He looked around the shadowy place. He'd been on interviews before. Computer firms tended to breed eccentric people, but this woman seemed just a tad beyond eccentric. Taking him down to a lair just to ask him about computers was weird.

"Terminal computing is like a cloud made of clouds with dozens of times faster processing and higher memory than in the past. Just like a single neuron in your brain might serve double or triple duty as both a memory stick and a processing unit, a terminal computer's 0's and 1's have additional characteristics that increase its processing power and memory. They're not just 0's and 1's that determine whether a gateway opens or closes, but they have different colors and fonts that allow more parallel processing. So where a classic computer will want to know simply a 0 or 1, a terminal computer wants to know, 'is that a green 0?' Each color means something different. TC is the closest thing to quantum computing this side of A.I.R. Labs!"

The redhead smiled at him, genuinely amused. "You seem very passionate about it."

"Well, aren't you?" They began walking again.

"Of course I am. I invented it."

The prospect's mouth opened for a few seconds. "You did? I thought Thomas Dane invented it. That's how he got rich."

"He helped," she explained.

"So what job am I interviewing for, exactly?"

"Well, you say that computers are your life, and you do have a lot of talent in that area. But that's not really where your heart is. You learned programming in order to get a better life for your family. Your mother and father, Janet and Jack, lost their fortune in the last recession."

"Yes."

"But you like solving crimes. You like being a detective. You're a fourth degree black belt in tae kwon do, and so far you've made $70,000 over two years from various rewards catching criminals throughout the country. You'd make it your job of course, if it wasn't for the fact that cops are notoriously underpaid. And in this city, notoriously corrupt."

"How did you know all that?"

"I hacked your email. You chat a lot with that Stephanie girl. A piece of advice for the future, don't tell anyone too much about what you're thinking."

"Yeah, apparently you never know who's eavesdropping." He soured a bit at the revelation. She let it pass.

"Well, I've discussed this with Mr. Dane and we believe that a person of your particular skill set is very rare, and very valuable. How would you like to know that your family was always taken care of, and will want for nothing in the future? And you can put those detective skills to work?"

He thought about it for a moment, although a moment was too long. "Hell, yes I'd want that. But I'm confused. How--"

"By joining Project Knight Shade." A man came walking through the shadows, wearing a dark sweater and pants, equipped with dark hair and a dark expression on his face. It was almost as if the shadows clung to him, not yet ready to leave their master.

"Mr. Dane! You scared me, sir. I didn't even hear you at all."

"He does that," the redhead told the prospect. "I can do the rest of the interview, Bea," Thomas said. "I'll bring him back to the Cave when we're done chatting."

She nodded with a smile and took her own place among the shadows.

"It's really dark in here," the prospect observed.

"That's the point. Your eyes will get used to it."

"What about my nose?"

"Bats are a pretty strong smell, but you'll get used to that, too."

"So what's Project Knight Shade?" he asked after a pause. They walked towards a long hall together.

"It's a secret, independent crime-fighting organization based in Damask and funded completely by my personal wealth. We operate completely in the shadows. We're known and tolerated, but not sanctioned, by B.R.U.T.E."

"How can you be in the shadows if B.R.U.T.E. knows about you?"

Thomas smirked, but did not smile. "You ask a lot of questions. That's a good thing. To do what we're trying to do, at the scale that we want to do it, it's impossible to go it alone, or completely under the radar. Do you know how many construction workers and architects it took to build this sub-basement? Around a hundred. They were all migrant workers with expiring visas. All paid handsomely to never return to the States, and never say a word."

As they walked, the prospect noticed artifacts littering the hallway. "Holy crap! Where did you get that giant quarter? Or that huge fighter jet? It looks life-sized!"

"It's bigger than life-sized. In order to be able to build this state-of-the-art facility down here, I used the same contractors to build a mini-amusement park above-ground. Rich people splurge, after all. I bought nearby land from neighbors and the state, so no one would question the noise, and also so the builders could work through the night. The building inspectors wouldn't ask any questions since the construction was ongoing. But the inspectors did reject the quarter and the fighter jet from being allowed in the park. Something about the risk of the quarter rolling into people's houses, and I think they believed the jet was real. So I brought them down here instead. They brighten the place up."

The job prospect broke away slightly to get a closer look. "That jet does look real."

"It's fake. But I do have a couple of real ones stashed here. A couple of SF-13s, just in case I ever need them." He took out a remote control and clicked a few buttons. The massive replica of the F-117 Nighthawk rotated on a moving platform, which then revealed two lithe single-engine, single-pilot Sparrowfighters.

The fighters were small jets designed for speed and stealth. They were only capable of carrying two Sidewinder missiles, but sported heavy laser weaponry just below the nose. Also under the nose were advanced sensors and jamming equipment for electronic warfare.

Although small, they were intended to be multirole fighters for both air-to-air and air-to-ground superiority. The nose was reputed to have both electronic and photonic jamming ability.

The ion thruster engines ensured a top speed of nearly Mach 5, allowing Sparrowfighters to get in and out quickly while doing the greatest amount of damage possible.

"These are not in production by the Air Force yet. They're a few years away from full scale operability. How do you have two?"

Thomas smiled again and re-clicked the remote, changing the brand new military aircraft back to the obsolete Nighthawk. "I built them."

As they continued to walk, he went on to explain that he'd purchased double the amount of building materials, including steel and titanium that he actually needed for the amusement park. The surplus was stored underground. The cave or The Cave as it came to be known, was also a naturally formed mineral reserve.

"So I have the raw stuff. I can build practically anything. I have access to semiconducting material for advanced electronics at Dane Technologies. And I'm in possession of the most advanced industrial 3-D printer in America. All that's left is the blueprints. And for that- well, DaneTech invented terminal computing, didn't it? We have a back door in our software and networks that allow us to see anything we want, unnoticed. And that's how SF-13 Sparrowfighters get made in caves below mansions. Any questions?"

The hopeful hiree tried to take it all in. "I get the facility being built the way it did and why you need it. But, how do you fight crime? You haven't used those jets yet or someone would have noticed. What's the methodology?"

Thomas turned left and into the next hallway. This hall contained various components of body armor on display in sealed glass tubes. On a row of metal tables there was advanced gadgetry and a few upscale hardware-store utility belts, replete with several pouches.

"With a mask."

Apollo and Jarden

"What could have caused us to lose our abilities so swiftly?" Hermes asked the lord of the sun.

"The only one I could think of with that kind of power is Jarden, except..."

"Except?"

"Jarden's an ideologue. He doesn't mean any harm. His attempt to rid Laniakea of magic, to turn it into a magic-less realm, comes from a sense of activism and charity. He truly believes that we're better off without it."

Hermes smirked. "Are we?"

"I'm starting to think so."

The summit of Mount Olympus is in a sparsely populated mountain region in Greece. There is a portal to the mini-realm of the Olympians from there. Only Olympians are able to traverse there. The portal is at the bottom of a reflecting pool at the center of a makeshift temple.

It's been centuries since the statues that had littered the temple began to erode, crumble and fall into disrepair. Wild grasses ravaged the old pillars which have long since collapsed.

First Apollo jumped in and disappeared through the bottom, then Hermes. When they got out they were in Olympus, realm of the Greek gods and source of their power.

It was a lush, green place with rolling hills and meadows but not much else. It connected to Elysium through its sky, and to the Asphodel Meadows to its East. West was Rhea and below was eventually, the Underworld.

The Olympian palace was large, held up by several Corinthian pillars.

The back of the palace led to a beautiful garden, with trees that grew ambrosia, the reddish fruit which was known as the food of the Olympians. This food was restorative and life-giving, granting anyone who eats it immortality and vast magical power.

"We need nourishment," Apollo explained to his cohort. "We haven't yet recovered to 100%. That magical attack nearly wiped us out." The magic that a person possesses could be enhanced through several means, including ingesting something like ambrosia. However, most magical artifacts possessed all the magic they would ever have and could not be recharged, like Apollo's spear or helmet or armor.

"Great Zeus!" Hermes exclaimed as soon as he walked out into the garden. "The ambrosia trees! Someone's burnt them up!" They both stood wide-mouthed for a long time looking out at the fallow field. The grass was withered and brown and the ground seemed scorched by fire.

"No," said Apollo. "They only salted and burned the dry grass so they could never grow there again. They didn't destroy the trees. Look, they've all been ripped out from their roots- you see? The holes are deep. Someone's taken them!"

"Jarden wouldn't have done this," Hermes began.

"Jarden couldn't have done this," Apollo continued. "For one thing, he's always respected the sovereignty of the satellite realms of Laniakea. For another, he's not an Olympian. He couldn't have entered here, even with his great abilities."

Hermes looked at the charred remains of several crates worth of ambrosia fruit. "Is there any way that Tartarus could have committed a first strike against us?"

Apollo shook his head. "Not likely. They have an army. We have...you, me and Hades. If they'd wanted to get us, they'd have gotten us. Especially since Ares is a general in their ranks now."

They looked about at the wanton, senseless destruction of their orchard- bringer of life and sustenance since ancient times.

Apollo ran off and Hermes quickly caught up to him. Each of the Olympians had their own special quarters- an enclosure from where they could be close to their worshippers in times of old. Every icon, statue and symbol was connected via an archaic magical network, to each Greek god's inner sanctum.

Apollo's enclosure was his own. Only he could enter and only he could give access for another to enter. From that place, the Olympians had access to their own personal element- water for Poseidon, the moon for Artemis, and the sun for Apollo.

He remained in his own space for a matter of minutes but for Hermes it seemed ten times longer. When he exited, Apollo patted his brother and friend on the back. "They didn't get into the sanctums. So at the very least, we have this." He pulled out two pieces of ambrosia.

In ancient Greece, it used to be said that among the gods, "a little ambrosia goes a long way."

"I have one more," said the sun god. "We will share one- we're going to need it." They consumed the delicate piece of produce and instantly felt their power reach 100.

"And the last one?" asked Hermes.

Apollo eyed the garden. It had been singed and salted over, but that was only its top layer. Fire actually made the ground more fertile. So Apollo stared intently at what was left.

"I need to burn off the top salt layer." His eyes began to glow red, then brighter orange, then yellow and then nearly white. The topsoil was now charred and nearly all blackened.

With his spear he dug deep and overturned the soil, over and over and over. The embers from the top were now intermixed with all the nutrients from the bottom.

He took the ambrosia fruit and placed it a forearm's depth into the ground.

"It needs water and sunlight to grow." He went to the reflecting pool, dipped his helmet in and used it as a bucket to carry the water, which he then poured gently onto the newly buried ambrosia. Almost immediately, a small sapling sprouted its tiny leaves just above the surface.

He raised his spear above the sapling, and focused the sun's light directly on it. Then he breathed a deep sigh.

"This should grow into a large tree. And then it will be the mother of a new garden. A long time from now."

They returned to the reflecting pool. There were many such pools, one in each of the throne rooms of the kingdoms and queendoms that the Olympians once presided over, and in Olympus. Through the secure waters, they could communicate to one another.

It isn't often that they reach out to one another, but Apollo called Hades for guidance.

"Brother Hades, you look more grim than usual. And I'm afraid that I have worse news for you- someone has stolen our store of ambrosia on Olympus and burnt the garden to the ground. I am in need of your help."

Hades, folding his arms almost childishly, replied without looking into the pool, "Someone has taken the shards of Order and Chaos formerly in my possession. It appears we are both taken by surprise."

Apollo gulped reactively. "Then I hate to suggest it, but we will need to summon Jarden. He is the only person that I know with enough magical ability to counter whatever we are now facing."

"Then I have even more bad news for you, dude." Jarden was now visible in the water, to the left of the god of the dead. "The Tetragon was pilfered from me and I am at a tenth of my power."

"How--" Apollo began.

Talon made herself known and Malaki rounded out the party line. "This is all related to the chaos on Rhea. Someone or some group has managed to do these things that no one thought possible until they happened. We're going to need to talk."

Decimus, Damsel and the Alchemist

"Sandstorm! Sandstorm!" Walking around the desert and screaming left me parched. I didn't have the luxury of being dead, like Damsel who laughed off the dry heat like it was no bother. I hadn't expected her to anyway, but she had not even a single bead of sweat on her at all, not even from condensation.

I was beginning to think that it was no use. As my legs tired I strongly regretted leaving the First Chance Saloon. I hoped that Sandstorm was faring better than I was, but truth be told, he was a desert horse. He'd be fine...unless some nomads got hungry.

Heat madness began creeping into my dehydrated brain as time went on, in the form of my yelling at an undead sadist.

"Don't you run faster than the speed of sound? Why are you just moseying along with me? Go find him lickety split so we can get back to the damn saloon!"

She didn't answer, just kept moseying for a few more minutes. Then she raised her hand palm up into the distance as if to say, "voila`".

Her grand revelation was a town off towards the horizon. I couldn't tell from such a long distance but to me it looked like a tiny one-horse town. And it probably wasn't my horse. As we approached, it got bigger and bigger, thank goodness. It wasn't a ghost town, either. People actually lived there and went about their business, whatever the hell that was.

How much business can you have in a medium-sized town in the middle of nowhere?

"You've forgotten much through the jump to this planet, Decimus. Including my penchant for necromancy. There are many ghosts in this desert and they've been giving me directions to the nearest locale. There's even a well with fresh water for you."

But she couldn't have asked them the name of their planet? I thought.

"I'm also an accomplished telepath, Reman. But you're right, something odd is going on. The ghosts don't know what planet they're on. We're just going to have to ask around the town."

And so I kept my mind shut until we reached the town, whose name had fallen off a wooden archway and disintegrated into the sand long ago.

I was wrong about the number of horses- I'd seen five tied up to posts outside the saloon which was by far the largest structure. I made a bee-line for the well, which had something like a hand-cranked faucet. I cranked it until I was sated.

"Hey, the water ain't free 'round here, bub. 'Specially since it ain't rained in two months. Now you'd better pay fer at least a liter or two."

A woman in a cowboy hat, button down shirt and denim, not to mention leather boots picked me up off the ground, from where I'd been guzzling the sweet nectar of life.

"How much is it?" I asked, curious.

"Fer residents, half a pence of copper. Fer you...two pence. I don't like tourists a-stealin' anything from my town, let alone our most precious resource."

I produced an Imperial Coin. "That good enough for you?" I asked smugly. Damsel's eyes bugged out and she grabbed it from me.

"Are you crazy or something?" she asked, genuinely curious. "This amounts to a cookie trail. If anyone at all was following you, they could trace you to this town. You need to be a little smarter, Decimus."

"Hold on, Decimus?" the cowboy woman asked. "That's a Reman name. You from Remo?" I looked down and saw that she also wore a metal badge on the top right of her shirt. She was either the sheriff or a deputy.

"Great, thanks Damsel," I told my cohort. "Now she knows where I'm from. How's that for cookies?"

The sheriff's demeanor changed. She seemed more cordial. "From yer get-up, looks like you must have just been sent here recently. Well, don't worry Decimus. And Damsel. When you get here you come with a clean slate. I don't wanna know why, and I don't care to know why. Hell, we were all sent here for one reason or another. But now that yer in my town, I expect law and order, y'understand?"

No. No, I didn't understand and I told the sheriff so. She blinked questioningly at me, but I could tell she wanted to remain cordial and removed. She had no interest in my problems.

"Name's Ronda. I came here as a baby because my mom was sent here for hookin' and they weren't interested in findin' me any foster care."

"I still don't understand, Ronda, who sent your mother here? And where's here?"

She looked at me and then at Damsel. I think she saw something in Damsel that might have distressed her, namely that she was dead. It's hard to hide, even though she fakes it pretty well, and wears a ton of makeup and perfume to cover it up.

"I don't know how they didn't tell ya where they were sending you, but I guess it's no surprise. You're on Waren. It's a prison colony."

We were stuck on a damn prison colony! I began to tell her how we needed to get off-planet and had to go to Laniakea. But that's not the kind of thing you can just whip out a map for, to point to a particular star formation and say, "make a right over here, a left over there, and you've arrived".

Ronda didn't need to know why we needed to get there, but I tried to explain that we arrived at Waren by mistake. We weren't criminals. I told her that we were looking for my horse and once found we were going to get out of there, but I didn't mention the traveling saloon.

She almost laughed me off-planet. "You can't leave, I mean ya just cain't. There's enchantments galore keepin' us on this rock. You can jump in no problem, but jumpin' out's a different story. Ain't much magic to work with out here even if we did know how to use it to leave. Not to be a poet 'r nothing, but Waren's barren."

That wouldn't be a problem. I had a stash of royal shards with me that I stole from Remo. They were to be given to a champion from Rhea. But how could I get there, damn it? I was starting to feel that I'd squandered my opportunity by leaving the First Chance Saloon. According to Ronda, I couldn't jump even with a spell of intent of my own.

"Do you have any wizards or witches or anything in the town? Someone to help heal people, a shaman or something? Usually people who have some magical affinity might know more than they let on." This sensible question came from Damsel, who I was still angry with. Although I didn't want to admit it, my anger probably came from her cold shoulder at the brothel.

She scratched her flaky dry chin and thought about it. I could tell that there was some kind of internal struggle going on. The answer was most definitely yes, but she didn't want to tell a stranger.

"Nope. Ain't nobody like that here. Now I'd like to feed ya both—" she stuttered after looking back at Damsel—"and then see ya's both on yer way. Ain't like we're takin' applications fer new residents here."

Damsel, who can appear bored better than almost any reanimated corpse that I know, went out of her way to make eye contact with Ronda, who tried to resist for all of five seconds. The vampire charm is nearly impossible to resist without magic.

"Is there someone like I mentioned in the town? Anyone who might be a practitioner in the magical arts of any kind?"

"Yes. There is an old man named Kriptos. He came from the realm of Montavia a long time ago." Her speech was drab and monotone.

"Is he a wizard?"

"No."

"A mage?"

"No."

"A shaman?"

"No."

"Alright, what the hell is he?"

"He was named after a great ancient sage of Montavi for his natural ability. He is an alchemist."

An alchemist? I failed to see how that can help but figured it was worth a try. What else was there to do in this dingy hole?

The Wraith and the Money Man

The prospect and Thomas Dane made a quick right and came face-to-face with a dark gargoyle-wing cape and small-horned black cowl. The mask was black and metallic with barely perceptible holes for eyes.

"Have you ever heard of the legend of The Wraith?"

His eyes were wide but his mouth was wider. "No. No I haven't."

"It began in ancient Egypt. The Egyptians believed that when a particularly heinous crime was committed, a vengeful spirit in the guise of a half-man, half-demon, would rise at night to punish the criminal. Sometimes, mobs would form to catch someone they suspected of committing a crime. They'd have witch hunts and then give their quarry a test, not unlike Salem. In a test of innocence, they'd tie the accused to a rock and leave them there overnight.

"If they were still alive by morning, they were innocent, and The Wraith passed them by. But if they were guilty, he would accept the offering, and deliver them into a black, fiery netherworld. The creature was considered an avatar of Thoth, a god of magic and knowledge, whose punishment no wrong-doers could escape."

"Woah."

"There have also been some obscure references to actual Wraiths in history as well. All of them fought crime, and all were thought to be magical spirits of vengeance.

"The Wild West had one, who was said to have superior fighting skills and weaponry. Right after the Civil War, a Wraith was spotted several times in Damask City, said to protect the rights of freed slaves in the north.

"The last Wraith that was referenced anywhere had a short stint as a crimefighter in 1918 in New York City, until a coalition of mobsters flushed him out. They chased him down to the Hudson River and shot him up. But they never recovered the body. Only a portion of his tattered suit, which I purchased at auction."

"So you're going to take up the mantle of the new Wraith?"

Thomas smirked again. The recruit wondered whether both sides of his face would ever align into a single expression.

"I already have. It took becoming a billionaire to really get this vision going, but The Wraith has been cultivated, grown and exercised for the past fifteen years. Since we built Dane Manor and the sub-basement, we've done extensive surveillance, background and overall intelligence on the main sources of crime in Damask - Sal Vacca, Fragile Carmine and their associates.

"Last week, The Wraith paid his first official visit, to disrupt a drug shipment at The Docks. Fourteen men were hospitalized, the drugs were destroyed by thermite, and now I'm on Carmine's radar."

"It wasn't in any of the papers."

"Fragile Carmine owns the papers. He also owns the local security alarm company. The interplay of crime with the mainstream is a very delicate one. If you commit to becoming part of the team, you need to remember this: tread softly, but not gently." Thomas looked into his eyes for a moment. The recruit thought he understood what was meant by the expression, "if you stare too long into the abyss, sometimes the abyss stares back."

Mr. Dane's voice changed to serious, as did his expression. Both dropped an octave.

"Well. Are you in?" It was almost kind of him to ask. But he didn't need to.

"Yes. Yes, I'm in." They moved from the reliquary to the nerve center of The Cave.

"Good."

At the center, there was a 250+ inch flat computer screen. Some people were typing away at it from their own keyboards, while others were doing various other things. One older man was sharpening a knife. A young woman was kicking, punching and... scratching a heavy bag.

Thomas got everyone's attention, but the recruit didn't remember him "ahem"-ing or excusing himself or giving anything but a single look to get them to quiet down.

"We have a new member of our team here. He's new to the whole game but he has immense talent. I can vouch for him." He turned to the recruit and introduced the other members of the team.

"You already know Babs Dodson. Former detective, master hand-to-hand combatant, computer genius. When giving support from the Cave, her code-name is Delfina. When in the field, it's Number Three."

She nodded politely and turned back to the computer.

"Mick Strugg, martial artist, athlete, acrobat, code-name Number Five. Gloria Frankel, Number Seven. The Puma" Gloria hadn't acknowledged, and continued pounding the bag. "My step-father, Matthew Nicklesworth. Former Australian Royal Marine and combat medic. Code-name...The Butler."

"Why The Butler?"

Matthew took the liberty to reply instead of Thomas.

"Because The Butler did it, mate. It's always the butler, isn't it? Why? How could he get away with it time and again without anyone suspecting a thing? Because he's the smartest bloke in the joint."

He laughed and went back to sharpening his knife.

Thomas didn't smirk. It was perhaps a bad habit from which he'd just begun divesting. He looked at them again, commanding their attention with only his presence. They stopped what they were doing to listen to him. Even Gloria stopped to .

"Everyone, this is Alan Drake. Code-name...Sparrow."

****************************************************************************************************

"The first thing you need to remember is to always be on your guard. Protect your stance, block your weak points. Attack only when there's an opening. Got it?"

"Miss Dodson, I'm a black belt in tae kw--woop!" To the floor. He got up slowly. Babs helped him up.

"I wasn't ready for that." He was still catching his breath since he'd landed flat on his back.

"No one in the field will ever ask you whether or not you're ready."

"Kid's got a long way to go," Gloria commented from a distance. Observing Alan's unintentional pout, she walked up to him.

"Okay, kid. 'Sparrow'. Hit Babs."

A pause. Alan looked around awkwardly.

"She got you when you weren't looking. She's ready for you, look at that wide back-stance. She's prepared. Because she's always prepared. Go on, hit her. Let's see what you can do."

Alan shrugged his shoulders and then attempted a turn-around spinning heel kick. Babs ducked underneath it and punched his quadriceps, causing a spontaneous Charlie Horse. Alan fell back to the ground clutching his leg.

Gloria patiently continued the lesson. "That's a slow move, Sparrow. A haymaker. You don't start with that one; if anything you finish with it. But I say don't use it at all. Never turn your back to your opponent, even to try some fancy jiving, unless you've softened them up a bit first."

Babs helped her victim up again. "Tae kwon do is a powerful striking art. If you're advanced enough, there are beautifully complex techniques you can employ. But sometimes you'll need to have joint manipulations, sleeper holds, various throws and ground techniques in your tool-belt. Gloria's right, you have a long way to go. But with the proper training, you can get there."

"Alan." Thomas had been standing off to the side, watching the sparring in the makeshift arena, but nobody could tell how long he'd been there.

"You're in the field tonight. You too, Babs. We're going to need disguises."

Gloria lifted up her pointer finger to Thomas. "Excuse me? I've been committed to this vision, training with you for almost ten years. Now that the vision is finally coming true, you're benching me AGAIN? We've had 5 missions so far, 4 recon and one combat mission at the docks. I've been powdering my nose for each one."

Thomas stared at her. She continued. "Look, Babs is great in the field too, don't get me wrong. But she's an even better Delfina."

"Watch it, Cat Lady," the redhead retorted.

Thomas looked at Alan and half smirked again. "Fine. Babs, you're on communications duty tonight along with Mick. Gloria and Alan will be plants, and Butler will be beta team, close support. I'm alpha team one."

He unfurled building blueprints onto a nearby table. Everyone moved in closer. Alan couldn't believe how closely reality resembled the movies. He felt some exhilaration at whatever the upcoming mission was. It was like planning a heist, except as a Good Guy.

"The Leather Soul. On 79th and 3rd. It used to be a mob bar, run by mobsters and attended by mobsters. Now it's mostly a sleazy lounge, still run by mobsters but frequented by a mostly younger crowd.

"This is a retrieval mission."

He threw several pictures of a dark mustachioed man wearing a bowler cap and a pinstripe suit. He had a thin cigarette in almost each photograph.

"Luis Brujo. Zatuzzi's money man. Controls payroll, tariffs, and pays for everything from lunches to independent hitmen. He goes there every Thursday looking for tail. We're going to recover him and pump him for information. A member of the BRUTEs, our old friend Badger Jones will be doing the interrogation.

"Alan and Gloria, you'll both be at the bar already at 7pm. I'm going to arrive at 10. Gloria is going to be the distraction. Be there and look pretty. At 9, begin flirting with Luis. Once I get there, I'm going to finish a drink, slowly. Then I'm going to get up and go to the bathroom. When I do that, insinuate that it's Brujo's lucky night. When you take him to the back for a quickie, I'll ambush him and carry him out the back, where my motorcycle will be parked. Butler, if there's any trouble, be no more than two blocks away."

Alan then scratched his head. "What do I do?"

"You count how many people are with Brujo. They'll be there for his protection. When I walk in, you will put down that many fingers. If anything gets rough, you get out. Do not get involved. That's an order."

Alan nodded.

"Get your disguises ready. Gloria, you're going to be blonde tonight, since that's his type. Alan, you have glasses and a large mole on your left cheek. And Gloria-- cleavage."

She rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath. "Should have kept my mouth shut."

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They planned everything to the last detail. Gloria and Alan left together but he arrived earlier in order not to rouse any suspicion that they might be together. Everyone had two-way ear pieces which were only used for emergencies.

Mick and Babs could scramble mobile emergency and police units at a moment's notice. The Cave's terminal computer was the largest and fastest in the world, and of its many powers, its ability to hack into networks by algorithm was unmatched by any other supercomputer.

Plans, by their nature, are prone to breaking. Thomas arrived at The Leather Soul at 9:59. It had a clear glass facade, from which he could see that his plants were in place. Alan made a rookie move and checked his watch. That was forgivable.

For now.the burly, goatee'd bouncer began to ask for his ID, and then put his hand on Thomas's shoulder. "You can't come in here like that. You need to take that off."

Thomas took his leather-gloved hand and brushed off his shoulder. He then produced a letter that explained everything. It was a doctor's note, drawn up with the right stationary and signed by one of the most pre-eminent reconstructive facial surgeons in the city.

It explained that the wearer of the motorcycle helmet-like device (with fake ID in the name of Andrew Rigger) had suffered horrific burns and major damage to his nose and upper face. The helmet supposedly supported his breathing and protected the growth of skin under his skin graft.

All that was visible was the bottom of his jaw, to which was added a bulbous chin via prosthetic. Below his face, he wore a leather jacket and jeans.

The goon-like bouncer scratched his bald head and then nodded.

As Thomas went to sit at a table, 3 down from Alan, he saw Alan's hand balled into a fist. Luis was there naked. No protectors. That was good for the plan.

Gloria was doing her part, practically falling over herself in the pretense of a drunken, horny stupor, and Money Man Luis Brujo was buying it.

The Alchemist

Damsel and I headed to where we were told that Kriptos lived, on the outskirts of the midsize Wild West town, abutting a great expanse of desert.

He had a nicer shack than most of the others we'd passed by, although it was made of the same type of gnarled wood. Where did they source the wood from in the middle of a huge desert? I wondered.

We knocked on the door but it took a long time before the only practitioner of magic on Waren came to open it.

When he did, he was a disheveled drunk with matted hair, frilly shirt and cowboy jeans. I could appreciate the stupor given that my home planet of Remo was very degenerate in many ways.

"Yo," he said, sipping something that looked the same color as the "whiskey" that Annot had given me.

"I wasn't expecting anybody. I'm never expecting anybody. What could a Legionnaire and a vampire possibly want from me? Hi, I'm Kriptos, by the way."

"We were told you have some magical proficiency. We need to get off-planet, ASAP," Damsel told him, subconsciously squeezing her boobs together as she shrugged.

Instead of laughing, he raised a quick eyebrow up to his hairline.

"Why not just summon the Saloon with an Imperial Coin or two or fifty? You might have to wait a few minutes, days or years but it'll show up. The first time is when it comes the soonest. Each subsequent arrival requires a longer wait time, usually."

"We need to leave now. Well, right after finding our horse. Is there any easier way we can jump out of Waren?"

"Hell to the no, I'm afraid," he said shrugging his own shoulders. "Wouldn't I have taken that road myself if it weren't blocked?"

Then seeing the reflexive panic in our eyes (I'm guessing, since his expression softened), he sighed.

"I may be able to find out what course you must take next. I can see you both are desperate. Some kind of quest? Doesn't matter, please come in and we'll get started."

His abode was little more than I'd expected from the outside. One big room with minimal furniture made of the same wood. There were casks of whiskey and no sign of water. But he did have some stores of beef jerky lying around in glass jars.

"I have a water well in the back," he said, almost as if he were a mind reader like Damsel. If that were the case, I'd need to keep my mind shut.

But at the very least, if he did pick my brain, then he understood how dire our circumstances were.

The Laniakaea realm itself was at stake.

"I need to go get a pot, since I'll be brewing a special kind of tea for you. Please excuse me."

For our part Damsel and I just sat at the one table and stared at each other with the same look of dismay. I probably shouldn't have dragged us out of the Saloon before it landed in Rhea.

He came back and put a pot on the iron stove in the small kitchen. The central stove served as both a cooking area and fireplace used for heating. The black metal began to glow from being put directly onto the embers, and the water came to a boil quickly.

To the back of the house there was a huge wall lined up with alchemical ingredients- elixirs, potions, and other such stuff.

He only grabbed a couple of jars and added a dash of each into his teacup, which was the same as his whiskey cup.

Then, Kriptos took a several inches long thread from a spool. He cut the tiniest hair off of it and added it to the concoction. Then he put the rest of the thread back into a drawer near a spindle.

"Have you ever heard of the Tapestry of the Fates? No? I'm sure you might have- it's the tapestry of people's futures that the Three Fates weave together. The way that an Oracle gives a reading, if she's not a fake, is that she puts herself in a trance-like state to see that tapestry.

"There are three Fates, and sometimes they disagree over what the future should hold, so they draw different futures for people. Then what the mortals actually decide to do, the paths they decide to follow, determines which of the several futures they go down.

"This small piece of thread is the same Golden Silk that the Fates use. Mixed in with the other ingredients, I can see the tapestry for you. Now, dip in your finger to give it that personal touch."

I was about to protest that the mixture was still deathly hot, but I decided to suck it up and just dip my damn finger. It wasn't that bad.

"Good. And now I'll put in some whiskey and the drink will be complete."

"What does the whiskey do?"

"Adds flavor."

He swished the hot tea around and around, looked into it to make sure it was mixed enough, and then drank it all in practically one gulp.

Kriptos looked around as if expecting something to happen. After a minute or two of wondering whether the tea was a dud, his eyes widened and he put his hands over his mouth.

Then he let out a very loud, very smelly belch.

"Okay, here's the thing. In most of your futures, you fail in the mission that you're on. In three futures, you stay stuck here for a few months until the Saloon comes back. In one future Sandstorm is dead, eaten up by wandering desert nomads.

"There's eight ways your future can go. In only one do you get off-planet and arrive on Rhea in time and succeed to find your champion before chaos destroys it. The future too far beyond that is still being weaved."

"Great!" I screamed loudly along with Damsel.

"How?"

"Okay. Listen carefully."

Apollo and Hades

"The easiest way for you to come here is through the fountain while we are speaking. While the line is open. We need to coordinate what to do," said the grim Grim Reaper to his brother Apollo.

Apollo and Hermes both jumped in and when they lifted themselves up out of the water, saw that they'd arrived at the Underworld unscathed. All the Olympian mini-realms were reachable through the magic fountains in each of their throne rooms.

Sopping wet and bypassing the social delicacy of handshaking, the sun god said, "How could one of these events have happened, let alone all of them?"

Hades shook his head and sulked. "Someone got around my defenses. That doesn't explain what happened on Olympus but it gives you an idea of the planning involved. And what is at stake."

"Cheer up, Grim. We'll find the splinters of Chaos and Order. We'll guard them ourselves next time though, thank you very much," responded Hellion, who smirked malevolently at the last sentence.

His grinning expression changed as his gauntlet began to light up with Tartaran fire. "Hm, that's funny. I'm being hailed by my Lieutenant. Must be important." He raised his arm up and the gauntlet immediately burst into large flames. Malaki stepped back as the outer feathers of his left wing got slightly burnt.

"Yeah, what's up, Mardor?" Mardor's face looked unnerved.

"General Hellion. Our battalion has been defeated in a surprise attack. Ares and his soldiers overtook us and stole the Battle-Axe. Took it right out of Tartarus!"

It was Hellion's turn to shake his head. "Looks like your brother Ares is a traitor." He paused. "But we'll get the Battle-Axe back. No one but a General of Tartarus can wield it by magical law. And I hope you don't mind me saying that once I get it back, I'm chopping his damn head off."

He turned back to Mardon.

"We think Ares took our splinters of Chaos from the Underworld vault, too. Organize your men and women and get them ready for battle. Once you are ready let me know and await my commands. Let no one catch you off-guard again!"

He ended the communication and then turned to the Protector of Order. "Maybe you should do a little Bird Call and tell the folks in Elysium to mobilize too. Like it or not, we have a common enemy right now."

Malaki disagreed. "I won't be able to convince them that Tartarus wasn't involved. They will blame you and that means you might have to fight a battle on two fronts. I won't sound the alarm unless I need to. Besides, I'm just a Lieutenant like Mardon, not a General like you. Not everyone would understand."

Hellion laughed deeply and heartily, his barrel chest emitting a low grumbling chuckle. "So you're telling me that Defenders of Chaos are more reasonable than Protectors of Order? The world really has gone topsy turvy." The fire in his mane bristled slightly.

Talon, who had been fairly quiet since the discovery of the lost relics, interjected. "The only reasonable thing for us to assess is our next move.

"The splinter of Order is being hidden," said Jarden. Rhea is being shielded from it so it must be locked away somewhere else. Conversely, the splinter of Chaos must be on Rhea itself. Maybe even out in the open."

Malaki and Hellion looked at each other. Then at Apollo, who began to nod.

"Hellion, Talon and I will seek out the splinter of Order," the Elysian announced.

The sun god, waving his hand over Hermes and Jarden responded, "And we will go after the Chaos Splinter."

The Scout and the Scoutmaster

Oadie nodded his head in agreement as the guest in his shiny metal conference room said his piece.

"I understand where you're coming from, Doran. Commissioner Rana does have a rather heavy-handed, 'my-way-or-the-highway' approach. That's part of her appeal with the voting delegates. They believe the next High Chancellor of Aurea requires the leadership chops that come with the office of Commissioner, even though it's only a semi-political position. Glob glob."

He fiddled with some lights strobing on his handheld Multichannel Device and turned them off.

Doran Canderwal, Councillor of the Aurean region of Ronia, acknowledged the truth of his yellow friend's words, much to his chagrin. The robed politician took a swill of the vinegary wine before him.

"But that's exactly my point, it's a highly decorated law enforcement position, not an elected public office! In the Council, we rule by consensus. We forge relationships, make arguments, discuss things."

Oadie began playing with the lubricating mucus on his gills. "Too much, perhaps. There hasn't been new legislation from the Council in years. That's why the High Court ruled to re-register the position of High Chancellor. Have you ever noticed every political branch is 'High'?"

Doran gulped the last of the acrid libation from his chalice.

"It hadn't crossed my mind."

The lights on Oadie's MD began to strobe again intensely. He pushed a few more buttons and they turned off for a second time.

"Do you need to take that?" the Councillor inquired.

"Glob, no. It's not important. What I mean to say, Doran is that perhaps you should play up the differences in your philosophies. The differences in your experiences. Show the delegates how careful consideration of an issue is the best way forward for a world leader. Solutions by peaceful consensus, not one-minded forcefulness."

The Councillor nodded his head and shrugged at the same time. He took the steel carafe from the table and poured out more over-fermented wine. He emptied his cup in nearly one gulp.

"And just because you'll employ some diplomacy when you're Chancellor doesn't mean you can't lob a few Public Relations missiles while you're running for it. There's a lot to attack, to be honest. She sent your son on a wild goose chase in a Laniakaean backwater. They're not even a Level 1 Civilization, for crying out loud!

"Glob. And you know what else? She genuinely feels that the prattling rhetoric of the Council is wrong for the highest office in the land. She truly believes she can and must save Aurea. And maybe all of Laniakaea. That's why she studies magic in the archives. She wants to beat you, Doran. She'll do anything. You must too. Glob, glob." Those last few globs were more of a huff.

Lights and sirens began going off at Oadie's center console. He rolled his eyes. "I do have to get that. Please give me some privacy, and remember what we talked about."

Doran nodded his head and considered shaking the vile creature's hand, but thought better of it. He got up, almost grabbing the carafe of wine and thought better of that as well.

Once the Councillor left, the door swiped shut. Oadie beeped a few buttons on his console and flipped a knob all the way to the right.

All at once a burst of purple light shone in the room and a creature appeared in a plume of smoke. The creature belonged to the same race of Pupperfish except he was smaller and more red.

"139. You've been hailing me for over twenty minutes. I was busy. What could possibly be so important?" Oadie began to eat some skin flakes he had peeled during his previous conversation. His creature type was known for its resourcefulness and ability to repurpose waste into meaningful energy.

139's gills opened and closed rapidly as he tried to catch his breath.

"Scoutmaster Oadie, thank goodness you responded. I was stuck in the Legion realm where I am assigned as an advanced scout, as you know. I've been trying to get back to give you a message but my communications and my teleporter was being jammed. I was only able to reach you by rerouting power to my beacon."

Oadie seemed more interested in his skin. "Yes well, you're here now."

"Yes, thankfully. I have very urgent news to report. Where is Commissioner Rana?"

"Away. Any report you have you can give to me." He was finished eating and now focused completely on his sentry.

"The Reman empire...Thanalian means to invade Laniakaea soon. He is mobilizing for a full scale war upon Aurea. We need to marshal all our resources to protecting the realm!"

Oadie was typing something into his Multichannel Device and then pointed it at 139's belt.

"Yes, glob. I see. That certainly is something. Did anybody follow you here?"

"No."

"Have you delivered this message to anyone else? Any other scout?"

139 shook his head frantically.

"This is the first time that my comms went through, Scoutmaster Oadie. Will you tell Commissioner Rana?"

"Don't worry about it, 139. I'm on it. But I'm sending you back out to the field."

"What? Where?" His gills began to flap faster.

"Out to Rhea's moon to keep an eye on some of our guys there." He bleeped a few more buttons on his MD and then went back to his center console to turn the knob.

As 139 watched him in puzzlement, smoke began to fill the room again to ionically charge the jump. He then looked down to his belt.

"Hey! You disabled my belt! I'm going to di--" He was gone again in a flash.

Oadie sat back in his chair, reclining and looking into his computer monitor, flickering green Aurean writing. It was an invitation to a general Council meeting.

"Yup. Probably not going to make it."

The Money Man and the Badger

"Let's go to the back." She whispered in his ear and practically down his neck. "I've got something to show you."

Another man, a tall college-aged guy in a rugby shirt caught eyes with her as well. He said nothing but licked his lips in a rude way. It didn't go unnoticed by Luis Brujo, who had enough wits about him to register the unwanted competition.

"Hey, you making eyes at my girl, bro?" Luis was older than Rugby Man, perhaps twice as old as he was 42. But he was also nearly a foot shorter.

"It's a free country man, I make eyes at whoever I want."

Gloria sought to defuse the situation before it escalated any further. "Flattered kid, but you're not my type. Come back in ten years. Let's go, Lou."

Luis was just about to let it go, but Rugby Man looked unaccustomed to embarrassment. His nostrils flared. "No thanks, I wouldn't touch you with the ten foot pole that I got in my pants. But here, have a drink on m--eee--oww!"

Rugby Man sought to extinguish the flames of his embarrassment by trying to pour beer on Gloria, but she grabbed his wrist and twisted in a tried and true manipulation technique. He fell to his knees and dropped his beer, right onto Luis.

The Money Man didn't like that. He threw a punch that Rugby Man may or may not have really felt since his head barely moved.

Immediately a group of large college-aged men in rugby shirts rose from a nearby table to defend their friend.

Alan instinctively moved to rush between the two groups, putting up his dukes in the process. The result was a shoving match that began a full bar brawl. Thomas shook his head as he sat quietly, watching events unfold.

Some people seemed to be in it for the sheer joy of barfighting. As a case in point, Thomas felt himself being grabbed as his attacker tried to move him. Thomas maintained adequate pressure on the gentleman's neck and shook his finger at him. Then he tossed him across the bar onto a table of beer mugs.

The refrigerator-sized bouncer with the fancy goattee rushed inside the pub as he became aware of the rukus. The first thing he saw was Thomas manhandling a patron and ostensibly, drew his own conclusions.

"Hey you, get out of my bar!"

Thomas smirked with his hands up. The Refrigerator didn't seem to like that. He bum rushed The Wraith in disguise, with ill effects. He landed on the floor, asleep with one shot to the jaw.

As the Leather Soul descended into chaos, it was clear that Gloria, Alan and Thomas had all come out on top with nary a scratch on them. Thomas took the havoc as an opportunity to create shade as they whisked Luis away.

He detonated a smoke bomb that filled the room with heavy vapors. In a matter of seconds, he took Luis to the back and exited from the bar's backyard, where his motorcycle was waiting.

"Butler, I need an extraction of Sparrow and Puma from the Soul, now, before police arrive."

"I'm on it, Mate. Do me a favor and say hi to Badger for me."

"10-4."

***********************************************************************************************

"Hola, Brujo."

The Money Man awoke easily with a small bucket of water splashed across his face. Abruptly stirred from a rejuvenating drunken sleep, he found himself sitting on a chair that was bolted to the ground, with his arms zip-tied behind his back.

"Mmm. MMMMM!!!" He also found himself muted by duct tape across his mouth.

"Luis Brujo. The Money Man. A big piece in the dark underbelly of Damask City. Yet still somehow manages to get drunk and brawl with five guys bigger than him, without any backup of any kind. No friends."

The man circling Luis like a 6'5" vulture stopped. He bent over and smiled half-yellow teeth at the Money Man.

"I have friends, though. My friends are the most elite special forces in the world. The B.R.U.T.E Squad- some might say our methods aren't exactly legal, and they'd be right. We have what you'd call a wide latitude to do what needs to be done."

He paused again dramatically and scratched his chin. Then he stood back upright, arms folded behind him.

"My name is Badger 'the Brute' Jones. I can give you my license, Social Security number and the name of my first pet and it wouldn't do you any good. I'm a shadow. I have all the leverage here. And I'm more than itching to turn the crank.

"Now I'm going to rip off the tape from your mouth, and the first thing I'd better hear is the name of your boss. Who do you work for?"

"Ah, ow!! Oh man, Zatuzzi, Zatuzzi! I work for Nico Zatuzzi!" A whole lot of stubble came with the tape. His face instantly began to pink up and patches started to bleed.

Badger Jones unfolded from the back and refolded his arms in front. He grabbed a shaking Luis Brujo's chin and gently rocked it back and forth in a "you're so cute" kind of way.

"Adorable. But we checked it out. There is no Nico Zatuzzi, nor has there ever been one in Damask. It's a cover. Tell me for who. It's a short list of vermin kings around here, Luis. There's really only Fragile Carmine, Sal Vacca and Zatuzzi. But that last one's a ghost. I repeat again calmly: who is he?"

Brujo reflexively flinched although Badger hadn't moved a muscle.

"I, I don't know, I never met the guy. I used to work for Carmine. I was approached by a guy in a suit, someone who said he worked for a guy named Zatuzzi. I had a career change. But the thing about the organization is that nobody knows anybody else. Information is all need-to-know only."

Badger began to circle again, arms still folded. He was wearing a black muscle shirt to further the intimidation effect.

"Well I need to know. We'll circle back to Zatuzzi. Next question: what was the money for?"

Brujo made a face that Badger didn't like.

"The money, Brujo. You freed up 93 million dollars for your boss. What was it for?"

Money Man shook his head fervently. "I told you, none of us knew anything extra, we just followed orders and got paid, that's all."

Badger found a nearby wall and shoved his fist through it. The wall was relatively brittle sheetrock, but it had the right effect.

"Look, my contact in the Zatuzzi family, or what everyone believes is the Zatuzzis- his name is Sandy Galagos. He gave me the order to free up the money and I put it into a whole bunch of accounts that were in his name. He might be Zatuzzi- he was my only contact."

Badger nodded with his mouth in a false pout.

"See? Now you're helping. That's one point for you. Now, what did this Sandy person want the money for, if he was your only contact?"

A room away, Thomas, Alan, Gloria and Mick were watching the interrogation unfold through closed circuit television. Most of them had their arms folded. Alan had a smile on his face. This was action that a computer nerd with a love of detective work simply didn't get.

Thomas walked over to a terminal computer in the corner and began plugging away. Terminal computing allowed for far increased storage and processing speed, so much that the main computing system on the Cave, although the size of a room, held practically all of the internet shared over ten of its drives.

It was the world's fastest and most unknown supercomputer, with a highly concealed back door into practically any other network in the world. Including Sandy Galagos' private home network.

"We'll pick up Mr. Galalos tomorrow."

Mick turned to his mentor and told him boldly, "I'll be there with you tomorrow night."

Thomas turned to his first disciple and said flatly, "I'm going to pick him up during the day. Alone."

Sandy Galagos

Funeral services were to be held at noon, but Sandy was there at 11 making some last-minute preparatiions. He wore a black tie, pants and shoes, but a white shirt and gray blazer. He hadn't felt the need to go full black.

He was alone in the room, near his father's casket.

"Yeah, I can't locate Brujo," he whispered into his phone. "Dude's vanished, but the transfer's complete. He didn't run off with any money. He might be sleeping one off. I'll keep trying after the wake. Yeah, thanks, he was a good man--"

The lights cut out of the entire funeral parlor. Sandy overheard the funeral director's confusion from across the way as the man told his maintenance worker to head to the basement and check the breakers.

Then the cell phone cut out.

"Hello? Hello? Petros?" The door slammed shut. Then locked. Without any windows in the viewing room, Sandy couldn't see anything beyond three feet. Especially not a Shade in the darkness.

"Hello, Sandy. Your brother won't be answering your questions today. But he may have to answer mine. For now, I'll settle for you." The low guttural timbre of the demon's voice seemed to shake the walls.

The lights began to flicker and then slowly came on as the generator finally kicked in.

"Ahh!" squealed a now-cowering Sandy. "You- y-you're the guy, the...that took out Fragile Carmine's men at the docks. I heard the stories."

The black-clad horned shadow-man winked imperceptibly. "Carmine was your former boss. You and Brujo's. He wouldn't talk about Zatuzzi. Now he's dead. You will talk."

Sandy looked over at his father, hands folded and peaceful in a brown suit and tie, with make-up done to the nines.

"It's my father's funeral today!"

"Not interested," stated the demon, matter-of-factly. "Death runs in every family."

The generator kicked back out for several seconds.

When the lights came back on, Sandy and the Shade were gone.

***********************************************************************************************

Badger lifted the blindfold off of Sandy. It took a second or two for his eyes to adjust, but he saw very clearly a sedated Luis Brujo a few feet away from him.

Badger then smiled at the Greek.

"Multi-ethnic mob you guys got there. So far we have Italians, Hispanics and Greeks. Oh my. Except that one of these things is not like the others. Zatuzzi, for example. It's a made-up name."

The Second Chance Saloon

"You need four things in order to do what you came to do. First, you need that horse Sandstorm. He was loaded with splinters you forgot about when you got here. You have some on you, but he has the rest in satchels that he's carrying.

"Next you need a 'bolt of luck' and something that the Tapestry calls 'the Frozen Ones'. Lastly, you need to send the splinters out to deliver their own message on Rhea. The readings aren't always direct. The Fates often weave in riddles. And that's it, lady and gentleman."

Damsel sucked some air like she hadn't been used to it for a long time, which she hadn't been. She made some complaint about how that fortune reading had nothing to do with her.

Kriptos excused himself since he wasn't quite a pro at this whole thing. Also, he was drunk, so what could she expect?

"For you one thing only, Damsel. Get to Rhea."

"That's it? That- that's what we're both trying to do!"

As she began to protest, an earthquake knocked us all off our feet. The tremors rumbled the loose sand and Kriptos' dilapidated home shifted diagonally to one side.

"My whiskey!" Kriptos' voice trembled as the reverberations grew and grew, until all at once it stopped.

When all the shaking and quaking was over, we got up on our feet. Kriptos was more jarred than I was and I was more jarred than Damsel. She was already back on her feet.

The sand quake was not without its benefits, however. The Saloon was right on the doorstep, except it wasn't called "First Chance" anymore.

"Well," Damsel concluded flatly, "Obviously, I need to head out. Rhea awaits. So it's been weaved."

"Wait, wait," I said. "We need Sandstorm, remember?"

"You need Sandstorm," she argued. "I need to go. Now! It doesn't stay open for very long."

"You heard Kriptos!" I argued back. He'd incidentally left the conversation to save his alcohol bottles and pick out which ones were not broken in the tremor.

"We need all those things before we can head to the 'Second Chance Saloon'."

She eyed me sadly. "That's not what the sign says for me. Trust me. I have to go."

Damsel ran up to the wooden plank door, almost as run down and shoddy as the one I was standing at, and left me there stunned.

The Saloon was then swallowed up by the sand from whence it came, albeit without the fanfare surrounding its emergence.

I needed to get my horse.

The only magic that I was versed at, was conducting spells of intent. I sent out a wave of magic outward in one direction. Like radar or sonar, it would bounce back if it hit what I was seeking. Nada.

I turned slightly right and sent out another wave. Zippo. Once more yet again to the right. Nope. I did this in a clockwise direction until I hit about 4 o'clock from where I started and I heard Kriptos begin to cheer.

"It's mostly alright! Just a few bottles broke but the casks are all fine!" He was overjoyed.

As I was about to step towards 4 1/2 o'clock, I got a jolt. A rushback of energy that was the right signature I was looking for. The more time that passed on Waren, the more I remembered, especially about my own abilities. That gave me confidence and that was good, because I was now without my vampiric protector.

And not just that. I sniffed the air. What came back to me on my sonar wasn't good news. I'd found Sandstorm and the Splinters and both were in trouble. Sandstorm was captured by a band of nomads, probably led by a warlord.

I didn't want the possible future that he'd become steak to play itself out. And the splinters, though requiring proficiency in order to be wielded, could still cause problems. Destabilizing problems. If the nomads think them to be jewels and try to trade them, they could have ill effects to the people of Waren, and to the chances of the Saloon returning.

The splinters were in a protective cover that kept their power from bleeding into the surrounding area. With no one who knows how to wield them, local disruptions in Time, Energy, Chaos, Order and Magic could occur.

So I tried something risky. I tried to "jump" within this realm, on this planet. A small jump, without overshooting.

I took a deep breath and focused. When I opened my eyes I was flying face-first into a dune of sand.

It worked! I spat out some mouthfuls that I'd accidentally ingested, but I was right where I wanted to be. Shorter jumps like this wouldn't affect my memory, and as a matter of fact I remembered even more than I did earlier. I remembered that I wasn't just an intention-speller. I was something a little bit more, something closer to Damsel, magically speaking.

I was brought out of my reverie by a man in desert robes, pointing a gun to my face. I found it hard to believe that his revolver, which must have been in the desert for a while, would still be able to fire given the amount of sand that must be lodged in its many mechanisms, but I figured that the man must clean it often.

"Hi," he said with an accent. "Fancy magic ya got there." I recognized it as from the Australian continent on Rhea. What was a Rhean doing on Waren? It wasn't quite a Level 1 Civilization.

"That radar trick was smart and not so smart , mate. You forget that whoever it touches can feel it, right?"

The gun didn't scare me, but I still didn't appreciate the threat. So I neutralized it by "intending" it out of his hand and into a pile of sand, which is where it went flying.

The Australian laughed. "Good, mate. Good. Very strong. I think that's just what I need."

"What you need for what?" I demanded.

"What I need to get off Waren."

He continued, walking around me as if he still had the gun. I allowed it, since he had Sandstorm somewhere, and bashing his head to powder wouldn't generally help.

"Your horse is fine. He's with my men, safe. And he'll stay that way. So long as ya cooperate."

"Cooperate with what?" I barked.

He had another gun in his hands. He smiled and raised his eyebrows at me. Maybe he wanted me to mind sweep it away again, just for fun. I wouldn't bite. I'm not a trained seal.

"When I got hit with that radar wave, I could sense something. I could really taste it. See, when you make a spell here or anywhere, the magic you make has its own distinct flavor. Your own personal blend. I'm not that strong myself, but I know that you are both a spell caster and a conjurer. I'm a conjurer too, mate. Just not one that has so much power bubbling over like yourself."

Which begs the question, "So, why would you mess with someone so powerful?"

"Because I'm a conjurer too. And I know that if I were stronger, say, at your level for example, I could get off this rock and back to Rhea. Back to Australia."

I didn't quite understand. Conjuring is somewhat like Damsel's necromancy, except that conjurers are more like "spirit summoners". Necromancers can control dead bodies and other dead things, and they could also use the energies of the dead to make spells. But a summoner can call forth a spirit and have them do their bidding. For a short while, anyway. It's a delicate distinction between conjuring and necromancy.

"I can't conjure up a spirit from Rhea. That's too far for me. See, spirits are realm crossers. If you can summon one, you can command it to bring you back. Obviously you never thought about it."

Obviously.

"Not without Sandstorm."

The Australian looked impressed. "Sandstorm, so that's the lovely bugger's name. I'm sure my nomadic friends would love to know that their lunch had a nice name to go along with nice steak meat." His face dropped, no longer amused.

"The spirit for the horse, and safe transport home. That's the deal."

"Fine."

Victor Gage and Sheut Ka

My name is Victor. I'm a 31 year old African American operations manager at a software development company. It's not where my heart is, but it's where my wallet gets fed. My heart was far away from the office. It was in the kitchen, actually.

I always dreamed of going to a French culinary school, getting classically trained, and being the best damn chef I could be. Maybe open a restaurant or three or five.

But that was too much of a risk at this age, and it was a dream that would take too long to appear if I started now. It's hard to make yourself go without, when you've been with for years. Funny enough for a kitchen dreamer, I didn't really know anything about cooking. Well, not yet anyway.

Today was my 31st birthday. They had a cake at the office. Janice said that she made it herself, but it was an ice cream cake with cookie crumble and raspberry coulis filling, so, I doubted it.

I walked home in the rain and I took the long way there. I walked from 84th street to 103rd street. It felt good. Freeing. There was something about getting your $700 work suit soaked that helped transcend the 9 to 6 hamster dance.

I chanced to look down at my gold watch a few blocks away from home. 6:59. I was born at 7:01 pm on a Tuesday. Almost my birth anniversary on the dot. I looked around the neighborhood for a while. Bar, bar, liquor store, restaurant, bar, bar.

I mulled the prospect of going to a bar to have a celebratory drink. Hmm. Kind of pathetic, but I wasn't in the mood to be out in public without Jessy. Not yet.

The bedsheets in my one-bedroom walkup were barely cold though, so I dreaded going inside as well. Women. You can't live with them, you can't-- "Ahhhh!!!"

I felt a burning fire from the top of my head down to my hands, and then a shooting sensation from my hands down to my feet. I felt myself aflame, several hundreds of degrees hot. The cool rain did nothing to quench it.

I rolled on the floor, writhing in pain, finding myself flapping in a puddle for any relief. It helped a little. Then a lot. It went from a million pin pricks to only a few dozen. I picked myself up, dazed, drenched, and trudged forward.

I blindly walked down a narrow alley that was in between buildings and generally meant for garbage dumpsters, one of which I bumped against with my knee. My hands were over my eyes, slowly rubbing some life back into them.

"Victor Gage!" I heard from a disembodied-sounding voice ahead of me.

"Yeah?" I asked, still rubbing my eyes with some ferocity. Who in the hell could be calling my name in a dark alley in the rain and what in the frick did I just experience? It was like an acute attack of fibromyalgia or something.

And this dude must have been an auditory hallucination- I was convinced of that.

Then when I finally opened my eyes and began to focus them on the direction of the strange voice, I confirmed it. He was a hallucination, except that now he was visible.

"What the hell? Who the hell are you?" I yipped, jumping back.

The dude looked like a very good cosplayer lost and unable to find the nearest comic book convention.

He wore a dark blue and black cape, black metal body armor from neck to toe, and a charcoal gray Egyptian mask over his face, complete with King Tut - type headgear. Yet he didn't seem too ridiculous; I looked at him and thought, "I did not know I could be this creative. I should have spiraled into insanity earlier."

"Victor Gage. We have much to discuss."

They say you should indulge your figments a bit, so I did. Hell, I was probably in an ambulance somewhere getting CPR in real life, so what did it matter?

I shook the last bit of prickly flames off of me and opened my eyes wide, with some discomfort.

"Yeah. Sure. Let's talk. Are you my spirit guide or something? I mean I admit, I never knew what a heart attack felt like, and I try to eat well and exercise, but--"

"Victor. Victor, you're babbling. And you're not dead, far from it. You are safer than anyone on Earth, perhaps. Excuse me, you call it 'Rhea' now."

I didn't feel dead or dying- not anymore. And I was breathing. I assumed that souls didn't do that.

"How is it that I'm so safe?"

"Because I protect you. Until your last breath, or until you have a son."

Huh? Where in the hell did that come from?

"You have many questions. Let me answer them as best I can. You can consider me a "family spirit", bound to your lineage by blood. I defend the eldest son of each new generation. You'll find that if you trace the ancestry four thousand years back to Egypt, never have there been two boys at the same time. There have been girls, but not more than one boy."

That was several somethings I did not know. I didn't know my father's side only had one boy in each generation, and I didn't know--

"I'm Egyptian??"

"Going back that far, yes. Let me take you there now, to the Old Country." He swiped his hand from left to right and I felt that fire again for a brief but painful moment. I closed my eyes, ready to writhe on the floor if necessary, but it was over quickly.

When I opened my eyes again, I was literally in Ancient Egypt. My wet work suit had transformed into a dry tunic. The air was arid and warm, but not too hot.

In the far distance ahead of me, I could make out some blurry pyramids, distorted with the wavy lines of desert heat. Where I was currently standing, I could see that I was in a town. A large village of builders and their families.

Although the world around me was a dry, moisture-less place, I could smell water everywhere. It was a necessity here to have a full stock round the clock. There was a large trough to my right.

"Look at the reflection in the water," my figment told me.

I walked over there and did as I was told. To my surprise, the face in the stillwater mirror wasn't my own. It was Egyptian, sand-skinned, with harder features.

"My name was Chenan Ru. I was a master architect. I belonged to the royal family-ahhh!"

There was that tingly fire again, but this time it was everywhere, including Ancient Egypt and my figment. I could see it, smell it, burning a hole through this blast from the past.

Once it got consumed, we were back in the drenched alleyway and I was covered in question marks.

"Okay now, what the hell was that? Can you tell me what's going on here? I have work in the morning."

He looked down at his gloved hands.

"My power must be waning." He shook his head.

"I'll be brief. I protect the newest son of every generation of our bloodline. 4,000 years ago, I was killed by two traitors to the royal family, who were only interested in political power. They pretended to be my friends, but they murdered me in cold blood the night that the old pharaoh, Nemanhotep, died of consumption.

"I was next in line to the throne. Once dead, my spirit sought revenge, as did my family, who discovered the conspiracy. They found the two, a man and a woman, and tied them up. They left them out in the desert one night, for me to find them and bring them to justice.

"And I did."

Not wanting to interrupt the evil dead figment, but being a curious person, I raised my hand.

"That reminds me of a story I've heard before."

"A legend grew about the Shade that brings criminals to meet their end. Some wore my mask, others created their own, in honor of justice.

"I was 31 years old to the day when my life was brutally cut short. And so it is that I come to you today on your 31st birthday. Bringing wrong to justice sustains me. If you had ever needed it, if your life were ever in danger, I would have showed myself sooner."

I was trying to digest it- it was hard to believe. The easiest thing to imagine is that there was something funny in that raspberry coulis, and that Janice had it in for all of us.

"And your name is Chen-"

"Chenan Ru was my name in life. Now I am known as Sheut Ka- the Shadow Essence. I must kill at least three wicked people in order to be sated, Victor. You must guide me through."

I was still confused. I was just getting used to living life on my own without Jessy. Now this, totally out of left field?

"What do you mean that I have to guide you?"

"Point me in the direction of wickedness and I will slice a path through." He saw that I wasn't following so he condensed it down for me:

"Tell me who to kill."

***********************************************************************************************

I had no real enemies, and even if I didn't like a few people, it didn't mean that they deserved death.

"I'm sorry...Shadow, I don't think I can help you."

I couldn't see his eyes or any exposed part of him. But I could feel his glare.

"Surely there are bad people in the world? Especially now? Chaos breeds itself quite well, if left alone."

I shook my head. I was going to be principled about this.

His glare faded, and what I perceived to be some perverse version of humor replaced it.

"I find it necessary to warn you that if you don't guide my actions, the result will be an indiscriminant rampage on my part. And my controlled, reasonable minimum of three deaths would likely fly out the window."

Really? He played the "this will all be your fault anyway" card?

I didn't know where to begin. I still wanted to deny him his feeding frenzy, because I felt a moral obligation to do so.

"In our arrangement, in your curse or whatever it is binding you to me- doesn't that make me your master?"

More humor radiated off of him. He really was like a Shade. No matter how much light was on him, he was still covered in darkness.

"In some ways, I'm also your grandfather 100 times removed, and therefore your elder. That counts for something, no?"

Not in 2017.

I could see that he wasn't going to drop it. This was his whole point of coming here. And he was right- there were bad people in the world, who the world would probably be better off without.

"Okay, Shoot--"

"Sheut Ka."

"Fine. I will help you. But give me some time to find the right people."

He crossed his arms. "You have 24 hours." He started to say something, and then he disappeared in a blinding smoke mid-sentence. What the hell was wrong with this guy's powers?

Badger the BRUTE

His real name is Bruce. Bruce "the badger" Jones. Now it's Badger the BRUTE.

It never made any sense to me, why I would have feelings for him, but I have ever since we both joined the world's most elite special forces, BRUTE Squad.

Commander Wendy Wright saw the same intelligence, the same unique abilities in the both of us.

My name is Irukandji. That isn't my birth name, but it's the name I call myself.

It's what my father used to call me. My mother was Jamaican and my father Japanese. They were both stealthy operatives with the international organization, ARMOR. They were ghosts free to come and go at the discretion of the agency. In and out like a light and soft as a whisper.

Unless the winds shifted. In a pinch a soft whisper became the business end of tempered steel.

Where were they now? I'd like to think they were retired. But with the world in chaos, they're probably not sipping cocktails. They either helped start it or are helping end it.

Me? I'm following orders.

"Irukandji" is a very small jellyfish found in the waters off of Australia. It's also the most venomous jellyfish in the world. Both the smallest and the most deadly.

Truth doesn't consider irony in its formulations.

You can see my father had high hopes for me in crowning me with that nickname. Now it's my call sign. Like "Badger" is Bruce's.

"West end clear, Iru?" his voice buzzed in my earpiece.

"All clear, Badge."

"Very funny." I didn't like the abbreviation, and neither did he. Tit for tat.

We were breaking into a high-level government bio-research facility. Our mission objective was to secure two vials of mDNA, a technology at least a decade ahead of our time.

Commander Wright never gave us a reason for any of our missions, but for this one she cryptically told us, "It's so the damn things don't fall into the wrong hands."

Because I worked for BRUTE, I was aware of the mDNA program and how far our government had come with creating monsters. What I privately couldn't figure out was why we hadn't used our new enhanced persons as weapons to help bring order to chaos happening on Rhea.

I'd come to the conclusion that it was nationalistic protectionism. Don't use it til the war comes knocking from your doorstep.

What they perhaps don't understand is that so long as anything happens on-planet, it's already on our doorstep.

"How's the east wing?"

"Secure."

"Good. We have 20 minutes until security checks in to find no response. We have 25 minutes at most before they realize their footage is running on a delayed loop. Secure the packages and extract, now."

I was Badger's commanding officer. There were at least 30 BRUTEs out in the field but only two on this mission. I wasn't sure if taking orders from a woman rankled him at all, but Bruce managed to keep it professional.

And in spite of my inexplicable feelings for him, so did I.

My parents taught me how to fight. How to do what they did, and do it well. I was young, a new generation of deady assassin, covert ops agent, whatever. The mushy side of things was supposed to have been bred out of me.

I was trained to trust my gut and my brain only- fuzzy emotional baggage would only get in the way. And yet you can't fight human nature. Unless you're no longer human, that is.

As the commanding officer, I had mission specs on my arm gauntlet. Flipping through til I got to the right spec page, I read out, "Package serials are X-R749-GR and X-R667-GS. Secure those and those only. Replace with deeks."

"Deeks" were decoys. Not much more than water with food coloring in same-sized tubes. Commander Wright didn't want the facility, or the government we worked for, for that matter- to know about the robbery right away. She wanted there to be enough shade between us.

We were loosely run by a Senate subcommittee, with their implicit oversight, so I assumed that we got this information from someone at the very top of the government ladder. Some faction or other believed these vials and their recovery to be vital to national security.

I walked down a hall in the facility with my P21, a not-yet-live military weapon drawn. There was low light coming from the fluorescents above and the various refrigerated storage machines made sporadic low to high pitched humming sounds.

I heard Badger walking towards me on the kitchen-tiled flooring. Wait- that wasn't Badger. Our shoes are custom, special ops-grade. In like a mouse and out like a lion. They just didn't make noise.

These shoes were clicking against the floor. Heavy foot...definitely some kind of dress shoe. Probably a man.

It was getting closer. I crouched, skimming across the floor on one foot and one knee. My P21 could see around corners. I saw the image relayed to my Heads Up Display on my face visor. It was a man and he was wearing dress shoes. As a matter of fact, he was all dolled up in a suit and I recognized him well.

"Senator McArver, FREEZE!" I screamed. Then into my mouthpiece, "Badger, there is a breach, breach is Senator McArver, does not appear to be armed. Will woop."

"Woop" was a special ops term that meant to use an abundance of caution but to otherwise consider the situation under control. It was meant to reference a police car "wooping" once to let the driver ahead know to move along.

The spectacled, white haired senator smiled at me. "Hello, Iru, Wendy's told me so much about you."

Forgiving the abbreviation, I kept my semi-automatic trained on him.

"Sorry Senator, I can't exchange pleasantries with you at the moment. As a matter of fact, BRUTE protocol is to subdue you and tie you up to a post while we exit the premises." I reached for a pair of plastic cuffs and threw them at him. He caught them deftly, still maintaining his amusement.

"I'm not sure you understand what I'm saying, Senator." His smile immediately faded.

"Your boss reports to me, Iru. I ordered this mission that you're on. Stand down now."

I took my portable radio out from a partition on my jungle khakis. I tossed it as well to him.

"That's not the chain of command in BRUTE. We answer only to our direct Commander, and that's Wendy. If you want to give her the order for us to back off, go ahead. The reason for that, Senator, is what if you're trying to go over the Defense Secretary's head?"

McArver stared at me like I was crazy. Then he looked at Badger, who just joined us.

"What part of 'I ordered this mission in the first place' don't you understand?"

Bruce was polite but firm. "The only reason you wouldn't call Commander Wright is that you don't want her to know you're here. It's a simple fix." He waved the radio gently.

The man was on his way to some kind of gala, by the looks of it. Some black tie event.

"Charity ball for the victims of the Kokanda disaster, actually."

"How did you--"

"Read your mind?" he finished. Badger squinted at the both of us.

"Is this a put-on or something?"

Decimus Rex

I finished my conjuring spell and waited. Rhea was far from Waren- so far in fact that I didn't know where they were in relation to one another. I'd never heard of the penal planet.

The Australian snickered. "Where is that spirit, mate? I'm waiting. But I gotta say, the locals I work with love horse meat. Sandstorm is getting nothing but tastier and juicier the more time passes. And I got to check in with them in about four minutes. Else they'll think you harmed me and the steak is rightfully theirs."

"It takes a while to get here, it's not instantaneous. Check in with them anyway, tell them you're alright."

He pointed the gun at me.

"Then if Sandstorm is dead when the spirit gets here, I'll command it to kill you, that's all. What leverage would you have? Hell, I'll kill you myself, very brutally. I'm from Remo, I've been to many torturous events in our colosseums. It wouldn't hurt my stomach at all to tear yours out pinch by pinch."

He lowered the gun and I could tell that he hadn't thought it over.

"You didn't really plan this through, did you? The only scenario in which you stay alive, is you give me the damn horse right now." I slapped the gun out of his ragged hand and lifted him up by the collar, in the air with ease.

He had a highly advanced watch- stolen, no doubt, that he clicked. He was trembling. He had a look on his face that I'd seen before. I put my hand on his crotch, gently.

"You pissed yourself. I hope all this was worth pissed-up pants. Tell them to let Sandstorm go."

"Oy," he spoke into the watch. "Oy, guys, release the horse, release the horse now, send it my way!"

There was a lot of commotion in the background. The person who answered the call began to loudly shush everybody.

"Sorry, what's that, Iggy?"

Iggy? The bloke on the other end seemed to have a British accent. It appeared there were many more Rheans on Waren than I'd expected. Not many realms outside of Laniakaea even know about the tiny planet.

Remo is different in that the very founder of the planet was from Rhea and his name was, aptly- Remo. He'd fled into the Aether upon losing Rome to his brother Romulus. He learned a substantial amount of magic along the way.

"I said the horse- release the horse, right now!" Iggy seemed to be understanding the gravity of the situation, but I didn't know why it scared him as much as it did. This was a simple resolution. I was a reasonable person, and a man of my word.

"Oim confused," the bloke on the other end said. "We dun killed the 'orse and we're cookin' em as we speak."

"What, how dare you?" Iggy interjected.

"You dun told us to kill it anyway no matter what the magical visitor said, so we did. I don't understand."

I started squeezing Iggy's throat so he couldn't answer.

"You had my mount slaughtered? Then you will be slaughtered likewise."

Immediately there was a bright flash of gray light that displaced a great deal of sand and knocked the both of us back.

The spirit I'd summoned had no exposed skin, just black armor head to toe and wore an Egyptian mask. He looked around confused- he might not have ever really been summoned before.

"What in Hades?" it said. Iggy got to his feet with his hands and tried running away. I plucked him from the sand easily.

"The presence of this spirit doesn't mean anything. I'm still going to kill you." I went to wrap my hand around his neck again, when the spirit yelled.

"Stop! I will kill him. I've been without for so long. It is my charge to slay the wicked."

"Should I tell you what he's done?" I asked.

"I don't care."

This statement of fact was followed by tearing, gnashing, popping, ripping, crunching and screaming. Then, the mangled corpse released its life essence, a sadly colored amoebic blob, that immediately went into my conjured spirit, sucked in like a vacuum cleaner.

"That's better," he said. He tossed the corpse onto the stained sand.

"He killed my horse," I told the spirit.

"So?" it asked. "You're a conjurer, just conjure up its spirit. It'll be solid enough for you to continue your friendship until you join it in the afterlife. A conjured spirit retains its previous form, you know. Is that all?"

"Wwh. Jzzsh. Huh?" I didn't think about that. I guessed it wasn't that bad then, and...well, I'd never have to feed Sandstorm or let him rest. Which kind of sucked because he really loved Reman carrots.

"My name is Sheut Ka."

"Shadow Essence," I whispered. I knew a little Ancient Egyptian. I'd also heard about the legend of the Shade.

"Wow," I offered.

Just then I heard someone climbing the sand dune on which we were perched.

"Oy," that someone said, still unseen and struggling against the infalling grains. "Iggy. You said ta kill the 'orse right away, I don't wanna get in trouble if'n its master should come a-look...ing..." The bloke looked at the both of us and headed straight back from whence he came.

Before I could convincingly say, "No, don't," Sheut Ka made mincemeat of the ill-timing Aussie.

"I had to kill him," the Shade explained. "Although I came here under your power, I need to leave under my own. Life essence from the wicked gives me that strength. Will I be taking you back as well, or will your ghost horse take care of the transportation for you?"

"I'm fine with the horse," I told the Shade. "Thank you." He nodded and disappeared in a cloud of smoke, jumping far, far away from here.

It was time to get Sandstorm but I didn't have the testicular fortitude to go search the tent village nearby to find his body. I didn't want to see him reduced to various butcher cuts of meat. He was my friend and my mount since I became a soldier in the Legion.

I sent out a spell of intent to conjure him, with a message: "I'm sorry you're dead, old friend. Come find me and bring your satchel." I needed it according to Kriptos.

He shot like a light towards me, galloping through the terrain like it was paved. And he looked happy to see me. He reared up and neighed loudly, the satchel falling off in the commotion.

I reached up and hugged my friend. He was surprisingly solid. If you squeeze a spirit too hard, you feel a goo-like substance, but I didn't squeeze too hard.

"If I knew you'd be this happy, I would have killed you a long time ago!" I joked. But of course, that wasn't true. Sandy would be without oats, apples, or water for his baths, three of his favorite things. I hoped I could make the difficult transition comfortable for him.

"Now," I said, patting down his regal mane, "Take me to Rhe-- wait. Don't. Hmm."

Kriptos had said that I needed a "bolt of luck" and the "Frozen Ones"...bolt, bolt. Maybe he didn't mean "bolt", maybe he meant "Bolt!" As in the Bolt twins. And the "Frozen Ones" were obviously the Greek gods that had been frozen in time at the...Traveling Saloon.

Which I was now forced to head towards. I took out my largest denomination Emperor's Head coin featuring Thanalian on one side, the Imperatrix on the other, and small engravings which were vampire runes that spelled out the name "Dralax" on the edge.

The vampire was the third most powerful leader on Remo, head of a very large minority faction of vamps. I'd never liked them deep down, but openly I tolerated them. Else I would have been accused of "creature-classism."

Sandstorm carried me all too eagerly and zoomed across the desert at fantastic speeds. We crisscrossed the desert several times on our way to finding safe passage. But it was true- the Saloon didn't come when you wanted it to. It came when it came.

Night began to fall on Waren, and a chill nearly froze the water particles on the sand. I, being Reman, was not wearing the appropriate attire, although my cape would help somewhat. I could no longer nuzzle up with Sandstorm for his body no longer gives off any heat.

So I made a fire myself. The jewels on my gauntlets were vessels of magical energies. They were about half full. More than enough to play with.

I sat down next to my mount and closed my eyes, waiting for the Saloon to show up.

Doran's Speech

"My fellow Aureans. It is with a heavy heart that I must give you news of a great shake-up in the Laniakaea Corps, a multi-galactic organization that seeks to protect civilization throughout our great realm.

"The Corps' charter has always been in place for the betterment of the realm, as agreed upon by its political governing body, the High Council. The Council infuses the Corps with authority and a moral mandate.

"But lately, under the tutelage of Commissioner Rana, there have been many missions that are less than transparent, and some are downright questionable.

"Consider an objective currently underway on Rhea at the far edge of the Milky Way galaxy. Commissioner Rana has assigned my rookie son alone to attend to that rock on the pretense that Rhea is on the verge of global catastrophe.

"Whether that is the case or not, it doesn't matter. There are reasons that the Corps only interferes...that is, gets involved, with only Level 1 Civilizations or higher, and that is because until a planet gets to that point, it's literally full of animals. Savages. And it becomes a dangerous place for one of our own.

"My opponent has put my son in grave danger for political, not moral, reasons. And on her own mandate, rather than the Council's. There is no justice being served by such an act of aggression from one Aurean upon another.

"This in itself, as terrible as it is, is but a bit of congestion, a small symptom of the greater issue of transparency and control within the Corps.

"So the Council recently convened in order to discuss this longstanding state of affairs and decided that we must reclaim what is ours already. Transparency. Control. I approached Rana myself not as a fellow candidate for Chancellor, but as a member of a governing body.

"I issued her our resolution, which is, broadly speaking, for all material decisions pertaining to and involving the Corps to be subject to Council approval. To reach the kind of consensus that I know how to build, and that we as Aureans value so dearly.

"Ms. Rana did not comply with our order, and so after convening three more times within the past week, the High Council has reached a consensus to remove her from her role as Commissioner.

"She has been removed of rank and status within the Corps and within the Council, but she is still eligible for candidacy of the Chancellorship believe she can still run.

"As I intimated, this is not a political statement that I am making, I believe. I would have to ask several of our legal staff to make sure, but yes I do now, merely a fulfillment of my duties in my role as Councilmember.

"It's also my duty, my fellow Aureans, and my pleasure, to annouce Rana's replacement. Please join me in warmly welcoming the new leader of the Laniakaea Corps, Commissioner Oadie!"

###

