RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Writer's Block WHEN WE WERE HEROES: a tale of times past.

Thunder City, USA. October 1999.

"Here is Buzz E. Randall for TCNW live from Thunder. Not more than thirty minutes ago, four horse riding metahumans have started to wreak havoc in the city..."

The image from the helicopter mounted camera shows a path of destruction that cut across the financial district of the town. Big buildings are leveled, and from under the debris many half destroyed cars emerges. There are many cadavers, and the streets are tinted in red.

"The four knights aspect resembles the traditional description of the four Horsemen of Apocalypse: Death, War, Famine and Pestilence..."

Running like mad across the scared crowd, the four horsemen creates chaos in the heart of the metropolis. Riding a white horse, Death, armed with a bow, sends hundreds of arrows toward the harmless people. No one miss its mark. War rides a red horses, and with a long sword of magical attributes destroys everything that stands on his path. The third, Famine, rides a black horses, and has a balance in his hands. Having no weapons, and keeps himself far from the carnage, but seems busy nevertheless. The fourth, Pestilence, rides a greenish horse, and is followed by a pack of hellish dogs of war, that feeds over the cadavers (and the not yet dead bodies) of the fallen.

And then, walking slowly in the newly created path paved with bodies, appears a colossal being.

"It's... it's a giant. Taller than three men... Thunder have never seen before such a menace..."

The being, sporting a complex all black armor and a heavy helm with big, curved horns, advance slowly, looking around and enjoying the sight.

"Why they don't arrive? Only them can save the city! Where is the... oh, they are here! I see them! I see..."

Flying faster than a speeding bullet, a tall, muscular man appears on the scene, landing on top of a building just in front of the giant. Dressed in a purple costume with a red X across his chest, a red mantle, his face hides behind a red, thick mask.

...Rypta Gud'n! Thanks God he has arrived!"

"Warlord, take your loony henchmen and go back to your dirty hole! I'm tired of smelling your fucking shit in my city!" yells the tall superhero at the address of the giant.

"RYPTA GUD'N! BEARER OF THE FORCE! YOUR DAYS ON THIS PLANET ENDS TODAY!" shouts the Warlord.

The hero smiles. From the sky others superbeings arrives on the scene.

A dark haired, blue dressed hero with a high tech gauntlet lands at Rypta's left side.

"...Zod, the lone survivor of a dying universe!..."

Instantly, at the right side of Rypta materializes a tall, red haired, tan skinned woman, dressed in a form fitting all white costume, with a silver lion on her left breast.

"...and the Lioness, the sorceress from a parallel dimension!"

The four horsemen stops. There are other heroes appearing on the opposite side of the street. On one side a massive, muscular man advance with his arms raised and the hands closed in fists. A gemstone glows on his belt.

"...it comes Smasher, the hero just returned after a period of inactivity..."

Just behind him, ten foot tall and made of rocks, with lava burning like fire through his eyelids stands a man impossibly dressed with a trenchcoat and fedora...

"...Monolith, the Hawaiian lava elemental..."

On the other side of the street, a another muscular man, with curly soft white hairs and unusual big pointed ears, dressed in an orange jumpsuit appears...

"... it's The Captain, but that the media world has lovingly nicknamed The Carrot for his bright costume..."

...followed by a very young man, dressed in blue, with white boots and gloves, armed with a long rod...

"...and lastly there is Disco, the younger member of the fabled...

...Metahuman Brotherood League!"

Th Warlord raises an hand, and everyone, Knights, crowds, and heroes, stops, looking at the giant. "RYPTA, HEAR ME. I AM NOT HERE TO CLAIM THIS CITY OR THIS WORLD. I AM HERE JUST FOR REVENGE, TO KILL YOU AND THE DAMNED MBL. MY MEN HAVE PLANTED MANY NUCLEAR EXPLOSIVE DEVICES IN THUNDER. IF YOU AND YOUR MEN DON'T SURRENDER, I WILL WIPE OUT THUNDER. WHAT IS YOUR ANSWER, LITTLE HUMAN?"

Rypta smiles, and says just: "Fuck!"

"I THOUGH YOU WERE SMARTER, MAN. YOU HAVE NO CHOICE. YOU DIE TODAY WITH YOUR COMRADES, OR YOU DIE TODAY WITH YOUR COMRADES AND THUNDER CITY!"

Rypta shakes his head. "Are you deaf? Fuck off!"

"BWAHAHAHAHA!!! VERY WELL, THEN!" The giant produces a big detonator, and pressing a red button over it, he yells: "BYE BYE, THUNDER. ADIEU MBL. IT HAS BEEN A PLEASURE..."

The crowd screams in terror.

CLIK!

And nothing happens.

"HOW'S THAT POSSIBLE!" exclaims puzzled the Warlord. His eyes go to the horsemen, that simply shrug.

"MBL, let's party!" shouts Rypta, and like one single being, the seven members of the League attack.

Orange laser blast shoots out of Rypta's hands, hitting the Warlord on the front, while lave flows out of Monolith eyes hitting the Warlord on the back. Meanwhile, Zod creates a big, heavy hammer that falls repeatedly over the Warlord head.

Disco rod clears the path toward Pestilence, sending the dog of war to fly away, allowing Smasher to take down the knight with his superforce; Lioness' magic raise a big chunk of debris from a fallen building, and let it fly over Death. Finally, the Captain reality altering powers makes the horse disappear under War, and turning his long blade in a big serpent, that wraps itself around the knight's neck.

"WITHDRAWING, WITHDRAWING!" yells the Warlord. Suddenly a big portal opens, and he and his horsemen disappears into.

Only Famine remains behind, on his black horse. The MBLeaguers gather around him, but the horseman doesn't seem alarmed.

"Good work..." begins Rypta as Famine grabs his own face, and throws away what is revealed to be a mask...

"...Agent 57!"

The eight member of the MBL gets off the horse, smiling.

The action news 'copter lands nearby. Buzz Randal, half bent down, runs toward Rypta and the others, followed closely by his cameraman.

"Mr. Rypta, Mr. Rypta! What happened exactly? Was the bomb just a bluff?"

Rypta frowns at the camera, covering it with the palm of his hand, and then turning his back to it, to protect his secret identity, as if the mask was not enough. "It was not a bluff, Randall. We saw that the horseman called famine was always away from the action. So Agent 57 captured him, and then, posing as him, discovered that he was in charge of a series of bombs. So, he cut them from the detonator, and whebn the Warlord pressed it, nothing happened."

"Plus" continues the Agent, that now sports a disturbing featureless facemask, "I have also reprogrammed the teletransporter, so that now, instead of the secret hideout of the Warlord, they have ended up in Limbo. Possibly forever!"

The camera closes over the smiling face of the newsman. "This was Buzz E. Randall live from Thunder, for the latest stunt of the Metahuman Brotherood League!"

"Who is for a burger?" asks the lava elemental, Monolith, entering the meeting room of the MBL headquarter, a dismissed military base lend by the USA government after the previous one was destroyed during the battle with the Hypertime Entity.

"I am!" yells "the Lad", the young mascot of the league. The tall boy stands up, and with an ample gesture sends an empty can of beer across the room to end precisely in the dust bin. "I am the best, Johnny!" he says, talking to Monolith. "Let's go!"

"Wait, Lad!" says the imperious voice of Rypta, as the Australian superhero enters the room from the open window. "With Gooz, Velo and 'Wing on leave of absence, and Kid, Renegade and Morpheus quitting, we are shorthanded like never before. You are assigned on permanent monitor duty until the next recruitment drive!"

"What? I have to eat, Dan!"

"Eat? I though you diet was just on liquids! Anyway, you will eat in front of the screens. We can't let that any of our enemies will begin to level our city again." Rypta takes seat at the oval table at the center of the room. Johnny Monolith left, just to returns a minutes later with a pack of oreos. He sits down, throws one of the cookies to the Lad, and start munching over one himself, with a long face.

One by one, the other members of the league arrive, taking their seats, waiting for the meeting to be put to order. The silence is broken only by the crunch-crunch of tooth over over-backed biscuits. All the eyes goes to Dan, who is looking at his wristwatch. When the time is exactly 4 PM, he raises his head. "Ok, guys and gal, let's start this meeting. As I was saying to Lad, we are really in bad shape as a team right now. Our headqurters had been destroyed. Twice. Our ranks right now are nearly halved. I dare to say it, as we all know how things turn out when we do one, but I fear it's the time for a recruitment drive..."

"Now? Sorry, Rypta, but I don't think it's the right moment" says Zod. "We are stuck in this remains... we don't have even a training room! A fully geared training room, I mean. I'd say let's wait for the next assignment of federal founds, before crowding this place with hot headed kids without any preparation..."

Agent 57 leaned forward. "I see your reasoning, but we are really at a low, now. Today was easy because the Warlord is just a uberpowered loon, but what if Rai shows up again with the IBG? If the Anti-Monarch returns, maybe WITH the Hypertime Entity, like last time? or Viper? I say better to be many superheroes, even if not fully prepared, than just us eight!"

"Nine!" shouts the Lad.

"Nine. Whatever!" grunts the British secret agent.

Dan E. Boy, the ageless man behind the mask of Rypta, sighs. He knows that in the end the decision will be just on him, as he is the wiser and the oldest of them all, in the game long before the Second World War, that he fought along the Metahuman Brotherood Society. Simpler times, think Rypta.

"Steve? Lorena? Patrick? Any opinion?" asks Dan, a quick glance at the eyes of Disco, Lioness and Smasher. "Captain? Can you express some though instead of sipping that damned carrot juice?"

Suddenly the lights of the room begin to flicker, and then to dwindle. until a complete obscurity wraps the oval table and its surrounding. A white, blinding cone of light illuminates the center of the table, like a spotlight over an acting stage.

"No... not now..." whispers Dan.

"I come through the ephemeral mists that separate the universes..." A deep, yet musical voice comes from the white nothingness. I...COME TO WARN YOU ALL......the future ..GONE...whole timestreams ERASED.......I...CAN'T STOP HIM!

There is a flash of primordial light as 7 galaxies flare in defiance, followed by a cosmic wail that shudders the foundations of a million worlds....the veil between universes ripple and pool...a hand slowly emerging through into the physical plane of existence...

And Prometheus X appears. Tall, wrapped in a gray overcloak, his usually piercing neo-purple eyes now are open in agony, looking blindly in the dark.

"...SO MUCH.....DEATH...must warn others...NO!!! ANOTHER one IS DYING ....HE'S COMING..."

The stranger turns slowly, facing each member of the league without really seeing.

NO...I am BEING DRAWN away AGAIN....MILLIONS OF timestreams..SCREAMING in AGONY...A DEATH knell......HE'S COMING.....HE'S COMING.............you MUST SAVE your universe...YOUR WORLD......

And with that, the stranger turns and melts through a nonexistant doorway, as the lights returns in the meeting room.

Rypta is sitting with the eyes closed, his arms on the table, his chin resting over his hands. Then his eyelids slowly open, to looks at his teammates. "It seems we have an emergency, people, the meeting is adjourned. Prepare for leaving. Lioness, you know what you had to do."

Less than one hours later, Dan is in the Lioness quarters, looking at the otherdimensional witch performing one of her enchantment. The white dressed woman sits in a lotus position in the dark room, where the only light is shed by perfumed candles. The woman is still, just her head rotates slowly in an orbital movement.

"Yesss...." whispers Lorena. " I... see it. The barrier... a solid wall that dam the timestream."

"When?" asks Dan.

"Two... two years from now... I can't see on the other side..."

"Try, Lorena. We need to know who is behind this. The AntiMonarch again... Gerald Forrest..."

"Nooo.... I cannn't. Wait! There is a portal! I can go through! Arghhhh!"

The Lioness jumps on her feet, screaming, her eyes wide open.

Dan takes her between his arms, trying to comfort her. "It's Ok, Lorena, it's all OK!"

The door opens, and Agent 57 appears. "Lory, what happened?" asks the British agent, worried. The woman leave Danny's arms to hug the man. "Nothing honey, nothing."

Agent 57 looks quizzically at Danny, who just shakes his head.

Lorena sits down again, over her oriental cushions. Agent 57 opens the windows, letting the sun rays to light the room.

"There is a sort of time barrier near the end of the year 2001. I couldn't see on the other side, but there is a huge portal. Time exist on the other side, just I couldn't see it. But I can travel there, bringing you along."

"Ok, then" said Danny. "There is nothing much to plan. Prepare a spare costume, your civvies and the toothbrush. We are going in the future!"

"Don't tell me you are leavin' me behind even this time?" shouts the Lad, squeezing the can of beer in his right hand.

"Yes, I am. You are still on monitor duty. You are the one appointed to call in the reserves if problems arise. You are in charge, here, while we are away, Lad. The safeness of the world is in your hand... and you would exchange all of this with being the last wheel on our expedition?" Rypta's face is deadly serious.

"Uhmf, no, I didn't mean... but, Rypta, you see... I would like to move sometimes... I am always here..."

"Because you are the best suited for this role, Lad. No one other could do this as perfectly as you are!"

"Well, Rypta... thanks". The tall and goofy meta, on hand scratching his own head, went toward the monitor room.

Rypta sighs. "Ok. Are you all ready? Let's go. Lioness, do your work".

The tall, dark skinned superheroine begins to whispers the arcane words of a complex spell. Slowly, the world around the eight MBLers begins to fade, like a morning mist at the rising of the sun behind the horizon, revealing a disturbing reality.

"I don't like this" whispers Steve.

"Me neither" says Zod.

It was like seeing though just cleaned spectacles. You see the same, but more clearly, more crisp. with all the textures, the wrinkles, the roughness the patina of dust over the glass smoothed away before.

"The colors are wrong... too muted" says Johnny.

"And the contours... like gone" observes Patrick.

"What kind of place is this?"

"It's the future, Dan. If you were expecting a post holocaust world, I guess it's a big surprise" whispers Lioness.

"It's lot worse, Lorena". Rypta wipes the dust away from one of the small windows, looking in the direction of Thunder City. "Looks there. No skyscrapers at all, only small buildings. Seems Thunder City is not the big town it was in our time." Suddenly Rypta turns back, to face Lioness. "By the way, what day is today?"

The woman closes her eyes for an instant, and then reopens them, looking straight at Dan. December the fifteen, 2003." The face of the woman express marvel. "I don't know why we landed so later. wait, I will try to bring us back at the precise spot!"

"Wait" order Dan. "We can use this... deviation... to our advantage. We can study the past of this present... so that we can go back to the 2001 knowing what we have to expect."

"Excellent idea" says Zod. "What do you suggest?"

Rypta snorts. "Let's pout your civvies on. We are going to Washington".

__________________________________________________________

Washington, DC, USA. December 2003

The fingers pass slowly over the name engraved in the stone.

"Patrick Walker. Died 10-24-1972."

A thin, cold veil of water freezes the finger. Smasher retract them, closes the hands in fists and put them at the bottom of the pockets of his jacket.

As he walks away from the Vietnam Memorial, his eyes crosses Dan's own.

"The past... is all fucked up, Rypta. I have died in Saigon!"

"Yes. We have found it. Let's go, Zod and 57 have returned from the Congress Library. We have to heard what they have discovered."

A few minutes later the eight MBLeaguers meet around a bench in the Park. The big obelisk looming in the distance.

"Johnny" Monolith sits on the bench and chews a hot-dog, trying to hide his rock like skin under the turned up collar of a brown . Disco "Steve" sits next to him, drinking a coke. The others, Rypta, Agent 57, Patrick "Smasher" Walker, Zod, the Captain are standing around the bench. A few yards away, beautiful in a long white coat, the Lioness looks at the steel-grey waters of the bay, her long, black hairs ruffled by the wind.

Spare snow flakes begins to fall.

"It's confirmed, guys" says Agent 57. "It's not the future that has changed, it's all the timestream. it's worse than what the words of Prometheus X could have let us to suspect."

"The past... it's completely different. There were no metas in the Second World War. No Mysterymen Brotherood Society, no All Adventurers Squadron, no Young Smart-ass. And no Seven Soldiers of Virtual Reality more recently. There were no superheroes at all before the 90'. The metagene has been discovered only in 1996!" explains Zod.

"And it has caused panic across the world. Metas are feared and hated. There are discriminating laws even here in the USA" adds 57.

"Impossible!" exclaims Steve.

"No, that's true! Even now, that there is a global superheroes force, they claim to not have metagene carrying people among their ranks." The face of Zod, as he tells this, is disgusted.

"And nobody remembers the MBL?" The raucous, inhuman voice of Monolith seems out of place in the nearly desert, peaceful Park. "There is not a MBL?"

"That's not true." Lioness speaks without turning, keeping to watch the snow flakes dying in the waters of the bay. "There is a MBL. The Metahumans Brotherood for Liberation. Brutal murderers that hides behind false claims of freedom their thirst of blood."

"How do you know, Lory?" asks Dan.

The witch turns back. "I went to an internet cafe, and surfed for less than an hours. This MBL is a terrorist group that has done small robbery, killing many peoples, and then did a spectacular terrorism act in Orlando, Florida, earlier this year. Easily enough, I have tracked their origin to a little band of misfit that hide for some time in a traveling circus, whose presence in cities coincided with big robberies at banks and museums. After the circus was destroyed in Mandelovia, those people created a sort of firm specialized in archeaeological expeditions, called, you know, MBL: Metahuman Business League. I discovered an old internet site advertising the company. Then, all of a sudden, at the time of first strike of the terrorist, they changed name to the company. But their faces and powers are the same, at last for some of them."

"And you think they can be behind the damage to the timestream, Lorena?" asks the Captain, while nibbling a fresh carrot.

"I don't know. But they are the MBL, they are the counterpart to us in this new reality, so there must be a connection."

Rypta nods. "It's true. It's always like this, it's like when we had to face the Dark MBL. Ok, people, let's go. Lorena, where are they based?"

"The Caribbeans. The island of La Perdita. They call themselves, now, Vanguard."

The swimming pool of the tourist resort facing the gulf of Del Mar is full of pale skinned yuppies from the north. People from Chicago, baltimora, New York and many other USA cities, spending their fourteen days of holidays to catch that sun that has abandoned their land months before.

Hiding among them, six men and a woman from Thunder City. A Thunder City that, for this brave, new world, never was. They talks, sipping drinks on the border of the deep blue pool. Like good old friends.

"Two hours remaining. Lorena, is the car ready?" asks Dan, floating on his back in the swimming pool.

"Yes. The only Testarossa on rent on the island." Lorena Burgos, the Lioness, looks at the golden Rolex at her wrist. "I gotta go, or I would be late. Bye guys, good work." The transdimensional sorceress stands up, and as a multitude of eyes turn to look at her white, minuscular bikini, she bends to take her pareo from the floor. The sight gives one sixty years old businessman from Philadelphia an earth attack.

Rypta turns to the other guys. "Patrick, have you checked on Johnny?"

"He's fine. Actually, he is enjoying the vulcan" says Smasher.

"Good. I am sorry that he has to hide there, but a ten foot man with rocky skin was impossible to bring here. Even if metas are tolerated on this island. 57?"

The British agent is found distracted, his eyes following the swinging hips of a tall girl with a big, back mass of curly hairs.

"Heh, Lorena is gone, eh, Agent?" says Steve, winking.

The face of agent 57 turned at the young man with a serious expression. "Talk about women when you'll know what women are, Disco." and, facing Rypta: "I am ready, Dan." The British jumps outside the water, to sit on the border of the pool, and then standup. "I am outta here, see you later".

Rypta looks at the remaining MBLeaguer: Disco, Smasher, Captain and Zod. "we don't know if this fucking Vanguard IS this evil MBL, and IF they are related to the changing of the timestream. I am sure there is a connection, but it could be not direct as it seems. Actually, they could have changed their name because those terrorists choose an acronym identical to their own. we can't jump to conclusion. This is a test: we must keep the damage to a minimum. Carrot, have you studied those tapes?"

"I have spent three days with that damn tape, Dan. You know it perfectly. I was in the room in front of the TV, and you were here in the pool sun-bathing!"

"Hey, I was right next to you!" says Zod, splashing the Captain slamming the surface of the pool with his open hand. "If only I could wear my gauntlet here!"

_________________________________________________

"Kristopher Schanz gave his life to save a country and the people that inhabited it, regardless they were enemy or ally. That sum who Chance was: a true hero. Maybe, the truer hero of us all.
I know how he felt. He rarely confided it to someone... and mostly it was Euro or Doc, with which he shared a common vision, with the former, before he lost his way to the soulsword... and a scientific and curious mind, with the latter. In fact, Doc was maybe the one who should have held this speech... but I asked him to let the honor to me... because me, too, knew well Chance... as I know well everyone of you.

It's not my fault if I hear your thinking... I am a telepath... and if I keep training myself to exclude your though from my mind, not always this work... sometimes your thinking is a loud noise I can't exclude... and Chance was the one of which his though were louder.

And clearer.

He was a man of a purity of though exemplary. Perfectly focused, he knew always, in his mind, what was good and what was bad. There was no grey zone for him, as the difference between right and wrong was clear cut. But far from making him a sanctimonious preacher, this peculiar vision of the world did him very compassionate with the weak, and pitiless with the evildoers..."

THUD!

Phil Smith words die in the air, as an expression of marvel, mixed with fear and excitation appears on the face of the Vanguardians attending the burial ceremony. But, strangely enough, being him the one to give his back to the cause of that reaction, he is the first to come into action, his guns ready in both his hands before he turns to face the menace.

Or maybe not strangely, because as his eyes registered the marvel and the fear on the faces, his mind read directly the image causing those feeling from the brains of the same persons.

And when he turns, he doesn't feel the minimum surprise to see the Leviathan, the giant dinosaur like figure of Zachary Knell, the mad scientist one time nicknamed Doctor Clone by his employees.

But finally even him is taken by surprise, and a subtle feeling of fear, a chilling drop running down his spine, when one, two, three other Leviathan, identical to the first, jumps in the cemetery.

The sky is a deep blue dome, the sea green as jade, and the palm dance in the breeze, while Grissom Montag does his daily workout on the strip that join the Complex to the outskirts of Puerta Mibela. In less than one hours, the memorial function for his fallen teammate Chance will beging, and he don't want to be late. But first, he will have to do his routine check over the security system of the Complex.

As he jogs toward the Vanguard Headquarter, the sight of a tall, curly haired woman standing next to a Ferrari with an obvious flat tire warms him up. He take a look at his wristwatch, and smiles. There is still a lot of time...

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

The instant of stillness, surprise, fear, for the Vanguardians, lasts just that. One instant.

Suddenly all the Vanguard members jumps at the four Leviathan clones.

Grimm, the death Avatar, field leader in the absence of Danny Hearn, charges at the nearest of the reptilian giants, hammering his double headed axe like mad.

Banshee, Brianna Finnula, takes flight, waving her big, white wings fast, and screaming her deafening cry at the sight of another monster.

Priest, firing a torrent of bullets from his guns, runs toward another of the big lizard, ready to come in contact with the beast to stole its energy.

Ozzy Baxter runs head down toward the fourth, ready to hammering it with his nigh invulnerable body.

Drake Marshall leaves place to the otherdimensional dragon, Drax, that roars at the sight of the Leviathans, ready to scar them with his longs claws.

Tayden, the fallen angel, sends peacefully, calming though toward the brain of the beasts.

Adem Different, the alien detective, directs the other people gathered for the funeral, like Leslie Kline, Doc Quantos, Shirley Francis and Charley Montoya toward safety.

Phil Smith, the super agent with telepathic abilities... simply stops. And begins to watch the battle, puzzled.

The charge of the Vanguardians is powerful, as they fall over the four monster like furies. But to no avail.

The beast aren't affected by anything. Not the axe, not the cry, not the claws, not the gun-blasts nor the sheer impact of an indestructible body.

Phil frowns, and watch the beast's answer.

The tails of the monsters wave in air like whips, sending the Vanguardians to scatter all over the cemetery. Then, they begins to run, roaring madly in a big, frightening display. Frightening and useless. They got fangs, they got claws. They don't use them.

Phil nods. And yells: "It's a fake! They have no brains patters. THEY DON'T EXIST! Stand still!"

Grimm runs toward Phil, and then stand in front of him, pointing at the beasts. "They don't exist? They have tail whipped all of us. Minus you that sit here! Move your ass, Smith". Grimm jumped away, landing directly over the back of one of the big lizard, and beginning to rodeo-riding it.

Phil shakes his head, and, guns in his hands, run to a group of trees and from there toward the group of peoples cut from the exit by the monster presence. from there, he sneaked into a crypt, looking for peace and tranquillity.

There, he sits, and focus his mind. The though of fear hit his mind like a raring thunder. Coming from the people gathered by Adem, they are loud and primeval. Fear of losing life, fear of suffering... Phil concentrates harder, to bypass them.

Behind that wall, Phil finds the scattered toughs of the Vanguardians. Strategies... instincts... fears... sense of inadequacy... just plain tiredness...

The sea of feelings carry away Phil, sympathetic for his friends.

He gives little "mind-push" to reinforce the will of some, to help focus some other... then, the sense of his effort come back at his mind... he has to focus harder, to find the mind behind that...

... and finally he gets it. A mind pattern like he never sensed before, a mind full of the images he witnessed before. A perfect replica of what is happening above ground, closed in the mind of one man. A virtual reality world.

Phil has found the target. The spot to dart.

A simple mind-shake. The images simply get off.

Phil runs above the stairs, to leave the crypt, but trough the eyes of the people he is mind probing, see the lawn, the scattered tombs, the puzzled Vanguardians... and a single figure lying on the ground, dressed in a gary orange costume.

And suddenly a rush of adrenaline kicks him, as the toughs of new people yells in his brain. Focused minds, thinking at the unison.

"Regroup, regroup!" shouts Phil at the Vanguardians, coming out of the crypt entrance, but too late... as five new colorful dressed men appears on the ground, taking Smith's friends by surprise.

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

Grissom Montag looks at his wristwatch and smiles. The laser scanner peep at this iris, and then a metallic voices announces: "Welcome Mr Montag." The British man walks toward his own apartment, where the security monitors are located.

"Hi Griss!" says Tobias Christopher, the speedster still sporting a cast on his leg, after the battle in Antarctica. "Hi!" responds Grissom, entering his door. Once inside, his fingers begins to dance over the keyboard. Inserts a CD, pushes again over some keys, wait for it to come out and put it in one of his many pockets. Then, he redirect some satellite cameras, to take a look how the ceremony is going. His eyebrows arches up at the sight. "Fuck!" he exclaims, and runs out.

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

The Vanguardians reaction, this time, is quicker. The strange costumes, the masks, the ability to fly don't make a lasting impression. They are attcked and they have to defend themselves.

Brianna screams and Grimm throws his axe, but both means got reflexed by a orange force field. Ozzie charge, only to be pushed back by a giant baseball club, produced by the gauntlet of the one dressed in blue.

Brianna charge again, just in the moment Priest begins to fire. Grimm axe flies, to hit Priest's gun to deviate the bullets, while Banshee beats his wings faster to gain quote. "Are you mad?" yells Priest, and no one understand if he is talking to Bree or Grimm.

Ozzie get on his feet, and charge again, only to stops at the curved face of the force field, which glows of an orange tint.

Ozzie looks at the faces of the people on the other side. Fiery, hard faces. He sees motivation, skills, discipline. And begins to hammer the bubble with his fists. "Come out, bastard aliens, come out!" he yells, frustrated.

Priest runs there, throwing away his guns, and opening his palms to touch the force field. As he touches it, the force field begins to flickers... as Priest's body starts to grow to big proportions... four... five... six feet taller. At one point, Priest screams, and get pushed away from the field. He is ten feet tall, now. But the bubble is intact.

"Ozzie... stand back!" orders Phil. Baxter quickly retrocede for five or six meters, Phil get two steps further... frowns, his right hands going at his head...

... and the force field fall, as one of the mysterious men, the one with the red cape, falls to the ground.

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

"A bloody mentalist!" roars Smasher, as the force field fades.

"Get airborne!" shouts Zod, taking flight, followed like Smasher.

Monolith charges at Priest, who, affected by the gravity, is not able to get on his foot, while a cloud of rotating razor sharp discs, thrown by Disco, made the other Vanguardians to retreat momentarily. And then, a rain of fire comes down the sky, as Smasher dive down, blasting laser from his bare hands.

A blue ambulance appears out of nowhere, and two all blue auxiliaries get off to take Rypta and the Captain in. The ambulance takes flight and disappears.

Johnny Monolith kicks Priest in the belly; throwing him toward Drax, makes him to fall over the ground; Smasher personal force field reflects Brianna's scream toward herself, making her losing her senses; the axe of the Skull face one hit Monolith skin, making lava to erupt. Steve, which has disappeared before, jumps down one of the tree, holding his staff, and attacks the mentalist, making his guns to fly away. The agent responds with a bare hand attack, at which Steve respond with the same skill, knowing that until he has to fight, without concentrating, he can't attack him mentally. Then Smasher, passing low on one of his flying raid, hit the telepath on the head, causing him to pass out.

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

"Can't you make them tranquil, Tayed?" asks Adem, worried for how things are turning?

"I sense no evil in them, Adem. I don't know why they are attacking us, but I know they believe they are doing the right thing."

"Uhm. In fact they are trying to defeat us without doing much harm. But why?"

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

As Smasher lands right in front of Grimm, ready for a final duel, Grissom Montag arrives in the cemetery, followed by a tall, dark skinned woman. "Hey guys, sorry if I am late..." His words die in his mouth, as the scene of the battle becomes evident to his eyes. "What the hell..."

But his expression of marvel doubles, as he sees himself running in, shouting "I got it! Let's go!"

"Perfect, honey!" Grissom hears the woman exclaiming at the copy of himself, and then he sees her whispering something.

The mysterious attackers literally fade out of the cemetery, leaving the Vanguardians with a lot of questions.

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

Thunder City, USA, one hour later.

"And with you, you are all new!" says Rypta, after having used his healing powers to cure the wounds of the various MBL members. "And you, 57, can change back, I guess!"

Agent 57 grabs his own face with both hands, and tears it away, revealing a featureless, odd, mask. "One of my best creations. And in so short time".

"Yes. Good work. Putting a mini camera on Lorena necklace to film Montag iris was a smart idea".

"It was the only place where I was sure he would have looked at" replies Agent 57, smiling.

"The man is a pig" notes the Lioness. "With a lot of class, but a pig nevertheless."

"And that worked for us. Agent, what did you find?"

"Sadly, just confirmations". The British agent push the CD in the slot-in of his laptop, sitting on some wooden boxes found in the empty, abandoned military base. "See here."

His seven teammates go behind him, looking at the 17 inch wide screen, bought in Washington days before.

"See what I have found? Rants about metahuman superiority... tests of admittance in the MBL, with DNA evaluation... the plans for the Dysnewyworld massacre... Vanguard is the public face of the Metahuman Brotherood for Liberation!"

Thunder City was one of the grayer, monotone... boring... cities of the USA, until two years ago. In fact, even if it is just whispered by some of its citizen, Thunder City was an experiment... a big experiment of genetic and mind control... that was ended by a bunch of runaway, clandestine metahumans on the night of Christmas eve, 2001.

After that, the city and its inhabitant found freedom and joy to live. And even if no one ever declared it freely, Thunder City is still grateful for what happened that night, and, alone in all the USA, has opened its arms to the metahumans, that here live without persecution and discrimination.

But this doesn't mean there are no problems... metahumans are gifted with uncanny powers... but not always they are used for good...

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

The swat men take position behind the wreaked cars that form a big wall across the street, pointing their rifles at the two giants battling on the other side. Covered in armors, one predominantly white, the other red, they both carry long, curved swords, and each time the blades meet, lighting illuminates the dark street.

One of the policemen is frantically typing over a laptop connected to a cellular phone. His face illuminates for a moment, as he has found what was looking for. "Captain, captain! Bingo!"

The corpulent man with the brown trenchcoat spits his cigars and turns: "Well?"

"Scorpions brothers. Europeans. Last seen in Mandelovia two years ago. Big league, sir. They are indestructible. Bulletproof."

"Shit!" yells the man, his face reflecting the sudden glows of the battle.

Then, a policeman points his finger to the sky. "Looks, it's the winged man!"

A figure appears above the street, sporting two impressive wide brown and black wings, as long feathers sprouts out of his arms. The metahuman dives, wings closed, falling like a meteor toward one of the two massive metas. The winged man rolls on himself just a moment before to hit the Red Scorpion, so that are his foot, and not the head, to impact over the giant.

The red Scorpion fall flat on his back. The winged man turns quickly, raising a short, hawk-bill axe to stop the blade of the White Scorpion. The giant is powerful, but the winged man is quicker, avoiding the sword of his opponent with relative ease. Until a hand grab him from behind, and slam him to the wall of a nearby wall.

The man fall on the street, barely alive, blood coming out from mouth and nose. The two brothers raise their swords at unison, and with an ample, displaying gesture make them fall over the head of the winged metahuman.

"Not quite, friends" says a voice from behind. At the same time, the swords are cut in half by a giant, blue, scissor.

The two Scorpions turns, to see eight colorful dressed people, six men, a woman and a vaguely human giant, surrounded by a orange tinted dome.

It's the last thing they see that evening. A sheer barrier of fire invests them like a torrent in flood, like a charge of buffalos. Laser blasts from Rypta, energy blasts from Smasher, razor sharp circular shuriken from Disco, wracks of cars pushed by Lioness telekinesis. The two massive meats are buried under a pile of scrap metal.

But then, much to Rypta's dismay, a flood of bullets from the swat men begins to hit the force field dome that wraps them.

"Why they are firing at us?" cry Lioness.

"We have just saved their butt!" remark Smasher.

"Take the winged one and leave!" order Rypta Gud'n. Zod encases the wounded meta in a sort of blue glass coffin, and then Lioness makes the whole group to fade away.

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

"What's your name?" asks Rypta, as the winged metahumans opens his eyes.

The man get up, to sit on the makeshift bed. There is a lot of blood on the floor, but as he touches himself over his whole body, wounds and scars have disappeared altogether. "I.. was dead! How...?"

"You were not dead. We saved you in time. I have healing power" explain, somewhat laconically, Rypta. "Your name, please."

The winged man turns his head around, looking at those face with marvels. Bright costumes, masks, symbols... Then shakes his head and looks at Rypta. "My name is Edulcore Cicciotto. And I have to go!" The man stands up, and go toward the door.

"Wait a moment! We need to know..."

"I left my son with father Sean! He will be worried by now!" Waving his arms, Cicciotto pushes away Smasher, which tries to block the passage to the man.

"Rypta! Stops him!" says Zod.

Edulcore Cicciotto instantly turns to face Zod. "How did you called him?"

"Rypta Gud'n. It's his name... well, codename. Why...?" begins Zod, by Rypta makes him to stop, posing the killing question: "Have you heard this name before?"

Edulcore is still, his eyebrows arched, finally facing the possible answer to an old, unsolved mystery.

"Yes, I did" he whispers, nodding in a very slow movement.

"Where?"

The eyes of Edulcore now seems to focus past Rypta, past the wall, very far away. In time and space.

"Rypta... G'udn. The leader." He shakes the head and turns, facing the MBLeaguer one by one. "Zod, the one with the power gauntlet". "Lioness, the sorceress". "Agent 57, man of one thousands faces". "Disco Steve, the young warrior." "Monolith, the lava elemental." The face of Edulcore lingers for an instant over the next man. "Smasher, right?" The other nods. "And finally, Captain Carrot!"

There is a general laugh, and then the garish costumed man lends his hands to Edulcore. "It's just <The Captain>. The rest is a joke over my habit of eating carrots and drinking carrot juice. I have a severe myopia, beta-carotene helps a lot. And contact lenses, obviously." The big man smiles.

"So, Edulcore, answer my question. Why you alone on this world remember the Metahuman Brotherood League?"

The man shakes his head. "Sorry, but I don't remember any of you. I know your names because I had a... friend... that kept talking to me about you for months. At the time I... we... me and my comrades, I mean... considered him a loon. Just, he was exceptionally skilled, like he had years of training as a crimefighter. He was sure reality had been altered by some event, and that the true reality was the one he was remembering. He stayed with me and my friends for some time, trying to convince us that we were what was left of the Metahuman Brotherood League and that we had to bring back the true, old reality. After I seemingly died, and went MIA, he disappeared too. Before joining us, he was living in Chicago. I have still the address..." The man takes a little notebook from one of his pocket.

Rypta frowns. "How he was called?"

Edulcore raises his head from the pocket notebook. "He never revealed us his true name. He called himself... Nowhereman."

Chicago, Michigan, a few hours later, the same evening

"Are you sure this the place?" asks Rypta Gud'n, looking around in the darkness.

It's an underground garage. There is a twenty years old Ford Fiesta , surrounded by tons of garbage… stuffed animals, toy guns, old Halloween costumes, an inflatable dinosaur, a big poster with the picture of a penny. And a long line of portraits, hanging from one of the wall.

Zod goes toward them. They are many copies of the same photo, each one altered slightly in a different manner with a felt tip pen. One of the man has a pair of moustaches, one a seventeen century wig, another a domino mask, and so on.

"Seems a parody of the generational line of Nowheremen of our world" observes the blue dressed hero.

The other are looking around, puzzled at the bizarre collection.

"Yes, it's the place. The address Cicciotto gave us" observes the Lioness.

"RYPTA?" A voice from the darkest corner of the garage makes all the heroes to turn at once.

It's tall and muscular man, dressed in black, with a pair of all black sunglasses.

"Nowhereman?" wonders Rypta. The man lack the costume, but the face is unmistakable. Nowhereman, last of a long tradition of crime-fighters harking back to the seventeen century Britain, whose father was a teammate of Rypta during WW II, in the Mysterymen Brotherood Society.

"Rypta! It was time you fucking MBL got to me. Reality's gone all crazy!"

"We noticed" says Rypta, not sure about the sanity of the man. "Cicciotto pointed us to you. He says you are the only one to remember the truth."

"Cicciotto of this time?" asks Nowhereman.

"Why? There is one in our time, also?"

Nowhereman frowns. "What fucking period are you coming from?"

"1999. October" hisses Rypta, tired of the arrogance of the man.

"Hum... just weeks before I joined up."

"You joined the MBL?!" exclaims Smasher.

"Biggest mistake of my life" answers the British crimefighter.

"Ok, ok" says Rypta, "better if we stay on matter. Do you know why you still remember the old reality? Do you know who is behind all of this? The AntiMonarch, the HE, Viper?"

Nowhereman laughs. "If it would be so simple". He shakes his head. "No, guys... and gal... the cause of all of this is Prometehus X... or Gooz!"

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

Thunder City

"Hallo! Vanguard? Charley? Yes, I am... I need to talk with Grimm. No, wait, Tayden it's better. Ok, I wait..." Edulcore Cicciotto, the Raptor, the phone in one hand, looks outside the windows of his room near the church of Father Sean, at the full moon rising above the roofs of the city. In a little bed Eddie is sleeping.

"Tayden! How are you... yes, I am fine. I... no, I don't know if and when I will return.. wait, this is urgent matter. Hear me. here in Thunder have appeared a bunch of metas that claims to be from an alternate reality... the same which Nowhereman was always speaking about, before you joined. What? The one that seems the leader has red capes and boots, a red masks and a x shaped thing on the chest. Then there is a giant with rock skin... what? Yes, yes. So they have appeared there before? Well, let me speak. They saved my life, but then I said them that Nowhereman talked about them, so they asked me it's location. I gave him the old address where I found him in 2001. The problems is what I have heard them say before they left... they want to transform the reality back in what they think it one was! Our reality! They want to cancel our lives! You are tho only ones that can stop them..."

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

Back at Nowhereman's place

"The story is very complex... and long. I will give you only the short version... and I am not even sure I should, as you come from further in the past. Anyway, I think it's better if you all take a seat" says Nowhereman. "It started in 2001... or maybe even before, with the Triarchy War. Anyway, what happened was that Hell got loose on Earth."

"What?"

"Yes, literally. It was something that many predicted... and that others worked hard to let it happening. A complex scheme involving magic, aliens, alternate dimensions... all conjured up to opening the gates of Hell. Many cities were destroyed... Mandelovia, Thunder... . There was a huge battle, where basically all the heroes of Earth fought, right in Thunder. The city was leveled, many died. Many tough that was the end, and that the war was won. Even Prometheus, that by then had renounced to the X godhood, and his son Ry-Chard, had died then.

Eurostar, our reality's Cicciotto, brought the announce... he was a fallen angel, at the time... that the heroes had to bring the war in Hell, to defend Heaven and assure a future for Earth. We where gathered in the MBL Headquarter, to hear what Gooz, the MBL leader by then, would have organized, when he came with the most unexpected declaration.

That fateful day, when Eurostar asked to prepare two teams, to invade the Hidden Realm of Sir Justin, and Hell, he shook his head and said:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Gooz X.

“No. I have finally given up. Over the last few years, things have just got worse and worse, up to a point where things don’t make sense, like some higher beings are just trying to fuck us over. The League is dead. TOMB is gone. Maybe, just maybe, it is better that way. I died along with the League.”

---

In that moment, he finally made the decision he left on suspension for many years, from that fateful day Promethus X revealed him that they were the same person, and that Ritchie Steven was destined to become him.

That revelation never really tempted him. It frightened him, because he never feared anything most than loose his humanity, to become the cold stranger called Prometheus X.

And when, years later, he met the now human Prometheus, enjoying his now found mortality, happy among men that he finally could call friends, his destiny become more and more a burden to heavy to sustain.

And after the vanishing of Prometheus, the destruction of Mandelovia and Thunder City, the suicide of Avatar and the death of so many heroes and peoples alike, he simply gave up. He never could have been Promethus X. That future could go literally to Hell.

In that moment, Prometheus X never existed anymore, in any point of the timeline, in any segment of the Hyperboards.

And without Prometheus X there would never have been a Message Board League, Edulcore Cicciotto would have never travelled to America, the Eurotsar would never have been created and never would have gained uncanny powers to become Continuity. And the War of Light and Darkness would never have started.

Our reality changed, becoming this one. What once was a paradise for metas and norms to live together, fighting together toward oppression and evilness, has transformed into an incubus where mates are hunted, killed, captured and experimented upon.

The new reality has been born out of that fateful day at the end of 2001... complete with a cohesive past. But the true past is not lost... your existence, your arrive here shows that the TRUE past still exist, with a definite end."

Rypta frowns, behind the mask. "It's incredible... but I still don't get how you can remember that."

"Because those fucking morons of the Courts of Light... the gods... gathered us all in the Phantom dimension to explain what was the range of Gooz's decision. It was unexpected even for them... in fact, they too... where affected by that, and would have been altered by the event. So, they told us what would have happened if things would have followed the established path... as always incensing themselves with the wisdom of their plans. And while they were talking, and talking, and talking,

Quote:

---

originally posted in MBL: Resolution, 12/14/2001:

The last thing [...] is a dark dressed hero, the Brit known as Nowhereman, pressing a button on a strange device connected to his helmet…

---

I built a cronoscrambler device out of some spare parts in my utility belt. Nothing powerful enough to stop the altering of reality, but enough to stop myself to be changed. And that's why I am remembering"

Rypta stands up. "Ingenious. So, what can we do, now? How can we re-establish the correct flows in time? We get to the 14 of December of 2001? We lead the MBL instead of Gooz into Hell?" The Australian superhero looks at each one of his teammates, uncertain on what to do.

Nowhereman shakes his head. "That would be overcomplicate. The war was not won because Prometheus X was not around. His power lessend, mixed with Viper's one in the Watcher, Rychard. It's just my guessing, but the old reality disappeared because Gooz did not accept his fate to become Promethus X. I think what we'll just need is to convince him of his mistake."

"Who, Gooz?"

"Yes."

"And how?"

"I don't know. But, after more than two years, I have finally found where he lives in this reality. Under the name of Ritchie Stevens"

"What are we going to do? Knocking to an apartment door asking for Mr Nowhereman?"asks sarcastically the skull faced leader of Vanguard, the death avatar, Grimm.

Euro raises his head, to look at the comrade. "I don't know what else we could do. His old address it's the only tie we still have to him". And, said that, he lowers his head, toward the paper knife Grimm has handled him a few minutes before, when they lift him up the Stormloader in Thunder. A paperknife made with a small piece salvaged from Ladnikia's blade, as a memento of the past. A sort of eternal warning.

The Stormloader flew fast across USA airspace, undetectable thanks to his alien technologies. Vanguard arrived in Chicago in less than thirty minutes.

"Waiting for them on a roof isn't exactly what I had in mind... although it reminds me of the good old days" whispered Drake Marshall.

"It's chilling up here" observed Brianna, wrapped up in her long, white wings. The other Vanguardians were looking down. "I don't understand what are waiting for. You said his liar is the underground garage of this building, so why it's fifteen minutes we are waiting here, Ed?" asks Ozzie.

"This is not our territory, sir. We have to wait for the lords of this place, before we could venture in. I wouldn't be happy to be caught in narrow spaces... by them" said cryptically the Italian hero.

"You changed a great deal, Cicciotto. They are words of wisdom" said an unexpected voice from the darkness.

The Vanguardians turned at unison, to face a pale man, coming out from behind a corner. Behind him, a tall man on his early thirties in a black coat and a younger one, dark skinned and with a leather jacket.

"Mr. Walker" greeted the man Cicciotto, as just the extreme side of his mouth bended up, in the colder smile ever produced.

"Vanguardians" saluted back the man. "What brings you here, in my town. Our pact has been fulfilled, I hope you have not any other pretense."

"We are here just to meet an old friend of us. We meant no harm. We'll be gone in two hours. It's global security matter, I fear" said Grimm, stepping forward. Adem, Ozzie, Tayden were looking puzzled and somehow fascinated at those men they never met before. Priest, on the other hand, was looking in the opposite direction, like fearing an attack from behind.

Walker stood silent, frowning at the direction of Cicciotto. Then he turned briefly toward the man in black coat, his lieutenant Mr. Turner. He unnoticeably nodded, so Turner looked back at Grimm and simply said: "Granted", and the three disappeared altogether.

"Good" whispered Euro, taking the door to the stairs, followed by the others.

The garage was dim lit, and stuffed with what seemed just garbage. An old, small car, toys, pictures and posters at the wall. Nothing was changed fro when Euro got there two years before. The Vanguardians were looking around, more disgusted than surprised. "It's strange" said Tayden. "It feels like a hypertimelines nexus point... but seems closed. Like there is just a remembrance of the nexus":

"What do you want, Vanguardians?" Out of the shadows Nowhereman appeared.

Most of the Vanguardians looked puzzled at the man they saw before only in pictures hanged to the wall of the Complex. NObody had met him before, only Euro.

"Hi Nowhereman" said Euro, raising an hand, and lending it at the vigilante.

The man didn't raise his own. "Nowhereman is patrolling the city. What do you want, Cicciotto?" the voice was quite different from the one Euro knew.

"Close your fucking mouth off, Howdy!" said Nowhereman again, with a different tone. "You shout up, Nasty!"

Euro was not new at the three split personalities of Nowhereman. "Jack, I need to know if the MBL has been here. The world existence is at a stake" asked Edulcore, softly.

"Don't tell him! You'll see I'll tell him. It could be my chance to be in Vanguard You fucking moron. Close your mouth! Eurostar, the MBL came here. They want to find... Shaddap! Prometheus X! The one called Ritchie Stevens! In New Jersey! He knows how to bring back the true continuity Bastard! Nowhereman will kill you when he'll return, if I don't kill you first!..."

The Vanguardians looked at the unbelievable scene with a mix of amusement and sadness. The monologue soon was indecipherable, and Euro turned toward his colleagues. Shrugging, he said: "I don't think we'll get much more from them... ehm... him. Better leave. Hope there is just one Ritchie Stevens in Jersey."

Looking back at the black dressed man, each Vanguardian left the garage for the roof, where they called back the hovercraft from hovering in the sky above the city.

Meanwhile, back in the garage, the man known as Nowhereman looked agitated, as his true persona plus one more had resurfaced, and the resulting monologue became more and more incredible.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by the one and only Nowhereman:

Jack:"Fuck all this shit,I`m gonna take the bastard down!"

NM:"What the fuck did you just do to Jack?"

AJR:"Do not worry unjustly,I havent hurt Jack,he is just fulfilling his destiny!"

Cap:"What the fuck do you mean by that?"

AJR:"Why do you idiots insist on such crass language?"

Cap:"Are you taking the fucking piss?"

NM:"Shut it! Rimmer what the HELL do you mean by destiny?"

AJR:"Here,this should explain a few things!"

"The American West by Dee Brown"

NM:"You want me to read about cowboys & fucking indians?"

AJR:"Page 62!"

AJR:"Look carefully at the picture!"

NM:"Yeah,I see a masked man who is one of my predecessors!"

AJR:"Look carefully!"

NM:"Its Jack,the Nowherekid is Jack!"

AJR:"As I said,he had a destiny to fulfill,as do you both. Now onto you Captain Howdy!"

BANG!

---

The body of Nowhereman, now empty of any identity, fell to the floor. A pool of blood enlarged under the tall, muscular black dressed body.

Out of thin air, the massive body of a man in jumpsuit formed. A smoking gun in his right hand.

He shook his head. "I don't know if you hold really the secrets to changing the course of the timestream, man... but you are too fucked up to let you live, if that is even just remotely true."

The man put the gun back in the holster, then vanished again. The agent known as Boss Tweed returned to the EPS Headquarters, his mission completed.

New Jersey, early morning of the next day.

Sitting at the computer in his home studio, independent film-maker Ritchie Stevens' fingers dances on the keyboard, putting the final touches on his last small (zero) budget movie. Working in a TV production crew by day, he can devote to his true passion just the first hours of the morning, or the late evening. A mug of coffee now cold sat on the desk; outside the window, the snow fell across the cones of light of the street illumination. His eyes gaze trough the glass, across the snow fall, to the row of two story houses lined along the street, behind the silver maples masting.

The snow was falling since the previous evening, and the cover was inches thick. And perfect, at least on the small patches of gardens... Suddenly Ritchie stood up, his eyes widening at the sight of a multiple tracks of footprints leaving a spot in the street, straight to his own door. "Jennifer, Jennifer, get up!" he shouted, to wake up his wife, not even knowing what those footprints meant, but with a deep fear chilling his back.

"Your wife is sleeping, and will stay dormant, Ritchie."

Ritchie Stevens froze, his own hearth-beats booming over his eardrums. Eight people in colorful costumes were standing in his living room. One was a woman, the one which spoke.

One was a living stone statue.

Some wore masks.

Tears began to form at the corners of Ritchie's eyes.

His head began to slowly shook.

His mouth grimaced, his tooth grinned.

His hands closed in fists.

And the memories returned.

"GO AWAYYY!!!" he shouted with all the air in his lungs, the tears finally running down his cheeks.

Ryta Gud'n stepped further, raising his hands. "Gooz, you remembers us, right? We need your help to save the future..."

Ritchie wiped sweat drops from his forehead with his right arm. "What future? Your future? The one where Thunder is destroyed, demons are free on Earth, alien races invade the planet?" He gave a silent look at the eight MBLers. "There I was killed two times. Here I live... I have always lived... in peace. There my son became the container of Viper's vital force... he was doomed to be a god... and then sacrificed by Heaven. Here the Richard my wife is carrying in his womb will be a normal kid for all of his existence."

Smasher stepped further. "How can you say so? The Gooz I knew was never so selfish. What about the metahumans of this time? Discriminated, persecuted, killed and experimented upon? With the only chance for a better life to join a band of renegade terrorists? Is that what you want for your kind, Gooz?"

"Is that what you want for Richard, pal?" remarked the Captain.

Ritchie Stevens shook violently. "You ... you don't understand... you don't know... what I went though... I died... so many times... I can't go trough that again..."

"You must!" shouted Rypta. "Becoming Prometheus X is your destiny! It's the fate you must accept. The live of billions of men and women depend upon it!"

"Accept the X, Gooz" added Lorena Burgos, the Lioness. "Accept the X, and bring back the true future!"

"NEVER!" The main door of the house cracked, splintered by a double axe. On the opening stood Grimm, behind him all the Vanguardian. "To change the timestream, you'll have to kill us!"

Razor sharp disks flew without notice toward the just arrived Vanguardians, that were grouped behind the cracked door.

The hissing weapons got struck on the door frame. "Not a step further!" shouted Rypta Gud'n, standing between the La Perditian heroes and the astonished film-maker.

Grimm raised his axe. "Stranger, we mean no harm, if you let that man to go. I don't know how you hope to change the course of time, but this is OUR universe. We well not let you to change it!"

Rypta Gud'n raised his right arm, the hand closed in fist, glowing of an orange aura. The Captain suddenly posed his hand over Rypta's shoulder. "No, Dan. Let me show them..."

Reality around the assembled metahumans became fuzzy, and everything vanished in a white mist; then the mist dissipated, and all return exactly like before.

"Well?" asked coldly Grimm. "Batteries drained or what?"

The red and yellow dressed Captain smiled. "Look behind yourselves." Across the river, the skyline of Manhattan sported the see once familiar sight of the Twin Towers. "Can you see our point of view? Can you see the evil we could have spared to the world?"

Grimm grunted.

"A though nut" observed the Captain. "Zod, please..."

At the request of the Captain, the MBLeaguer dressed in blue created, with the power of his gauntlets, a big spherical force field, encasing all the presents, and then had it levitating above the suburbia, to fled straight across the city and further, over the plains and up the mountains.

The sight was surprising. There were metahumans everywhere. Not patrolling the city as costumed crimefighters. They were doing "real" job. Building houses with bare hands. Extinguishing fires with simple blows from their lips. Ploughing fields without plows or tractors.

And then the bubble, gaining momentum, set off for space, heading at incredible speed toward the moon. The satellite got bigger and bigger, and the bubble seemed to crash over the surface. Much to the Vanguardians surprise, it phased trough the white, spectral surface, to reveal a hollow inner.

There was a city stretching for hundreds of kilometres, wide as a continent. And it was composed by dozens of real Earth cities, transferred by Gob knows what accident over the internal surface of the Moon. And above it, at the exact centre of the satellite, stood, suspended just by gravity and centrifugal force, a spherical building, gleaming and shining of silver and platinum, with the letters MBL, kilometres wide, engraved on the surface.

No one of the Vanguardians was able to say anything, mesmerized by the impossible vision. And the MBLeaguers, too, were dazzled by the trip to what they would have become in mere five years.

The bubble containing the two teams of heroes hurtled inside the gleaming sphere, across levels after levels containing incredible looking apparatuses, until it found rest in an ample room, of the size of a football stadium, where hundreds of costumed people sat in circles around a central stand.

And there were rows of infinite numbers of monitors, where the life on Earth was flicking through, in front of the eyes of the superheroes of the MBL. And when something bad appeared on one of the monitor, the heroes of a certain sector fled to the central stand, to disappear and suddenly reappear right in the scene in the appointed monitor, ready to take care of that particular situation.

The Captain looked at all the Vanguardians, one after the other. And then said: "Have you seen the true present. Do you still believe yours is to preserve? A present where metahumans are discriminated, haunted and experimented upon. Where warfare has reached intolerable level. Where AIDS is consuming a large part of third world population. Where there is no food for everyone. Where simply walking across certain sectors of the cities of the world would be dangerous that venturing in a jungle. We offer order. A new world order. Where no human, be normal or meta, has nothing to worry about".

"Bullshit" grunted Grimm.

"And who watch the watchers?" added Adem.

The MBL Headquarter faded around them, and they found themselves again on the door of Ritchie Stevens apartment in New Jersey.

"You really can't see the truth?" wondered dismayed the Captain.

"Enough" shouted Rypta, stepping further. "This present is simply wrong. All of yourself will gain from changing the course of the timestream to it's proper bed" he said. "Put down your weapons and we'll mean no harm". The other seven MBLeaguers backed their leader, stepping further toward the Vanguardians.

Grimm swung his axe. Only six Vanguardians were visible behind him, across the cracked door.

Grimm stepped further inside the apartment. He was now vis a vis with Rypta. They had the same eight, and their noses were dangerously near, as they were facing each other.

"Leave the place" hissed Rypta.

"In your dream!" replied Grimm. And a powerful, orange-glowing fist crossed path with a blue glowing axe.

They met with the clap of a thunder. It was the signal the missing Vanguardian was waiting for.

In a rain of debris falling down, the roof of the suburb house collapsed, as the big, white furry face of Drax appeared just behind the row of MBLeaguers and above the lonely figure of Ritchie Stevens.

"Sorry, pal" said the dragon, taking the indie director by the collar of his shirt, and then springing powerfully into the sky above.

"Fuck!" yelled Rypta, and Jersey shook like in an earthquake.

"Got airborne!" ordered Rypta Gud'n to his men. Smasher, Zod and Rypta himself propelled up in the sky like missiles, on the trail of the fluffy dragon.

Brianna spread her wings, and jumped in air. "Take me with you" shouted Tayden "I am the lighter". The Irish girl, carrying the fallen angel, heavily beating her white wings, took air behind the MBLeaguers.

On the ground, meanwhile, Lioness using her magic made a whole portion of the collapsed roof raising at ten metres above the ground, and then threw it toward the Vanguardians, still grouped. The piece of roof fled toward the La Perditian heroes, but when it was mere inches from them, it stopped. "You are not the only one knowing this trick" said Phil Smith. Then, he let the roof to crash over the ground, making a big cloud of dust and debris to kick up, and began to firing bullets from his .45 at the position of the woman.

"Wasted bullets" said a voice from above. Smith raised his face, to see a blue dressed youth falling down, holding a long staff in the hands. "Lorena can teleport" completed the phrase Disco "Steve".

Smith jumped on his side, to avoid the young man. He somersaulted as soon as his feet touched the ground, letting some disc to fly at the Unidentified. Smith had just the time to deviate them with a burst of telekinesis.

Grimm's axe sliced the wall where Disco stood an infinitesimal of second before.

"You will not harm my friend, skull-face!" shouted a cavernous voice. Grimm felt something hard and rough as a rock posing over his shoulder. He turned, and Johnny Monolith was standing in front of him, tall as a temple column.

And the hand closed over his bike rider jacket collar, and raised him feet above the ground. "Stupid man" whispered the rock skinned meta, and throw the avatar of death far away. But he didn't landed, instead he stopped at midair, caught by Phil's telekinesis.

"Ready, Grimm?" asked the Unidentified, and the skull faced meta was thrown back at Monolith.

Grimm raised his axe above his head, and upon contact with the meta let it fall, slicing one rocky arm away.

"Shit!" shouted Grimm, as a torrent of boiling hot lava flowed outside the open wound. The cry from Monolith's mouth was like the thunder of an erupting volcano. Grimm raised again the axe, ready to push it in the wide chest of the meta.

"What you did to him? Bastard! Bastard!" Lioness, enraged, her long red hairs waving around her head like having a life on their own, raised her hands. The axe lifted slightly away from Grimm's hand. His steel gauntlet hardened his grip over the axe haft, but still he was feeling it moving by millimetres away.

As this battle of will was taking place, the rest of the MBLeaguers and Vanguardian still over the ground were chasing each other in the remnants of the destroyed house.

Priest had been cut from the others by the collapsing of the roof. He was alone, under a roof beam. Massaging the back of his head, he pushed away the beam with just one hand. And then, he heard a cry. Moving away other debris, he found a desperate woman, curled up in a niche among the rubble.

"Miss, can I give you an hand" babbled Priest, surprised by the unexpected found. The woman raised her head. "Who are you? What do you want from me and Ritchie? Why? Why?" and began to cry louder.

The tall man from the future pushed away more debris, to reach the woman. She fought back, shocked, nailing and biting and the large, black hands. He ignored the small pain and took her outside, noticing her was pregnant.

He was back on his feet, holding the woman, when an excruciating pain made him fall over his kneee. The woamn rolled on the floor. He turned, and in front of him were three MBLeaguers, the one with the orange glow, the one in blue with the power-gauntlets and the one with the gemstone on his belt.

Priest smiled. "Hit me with all your juice!" shouted, while raising over his knee.

The three metahumans raised their fists, bathing the African-American Vanguardian in a large beam of radiation.

The smile on Priest face faded away quickly. His enhanced body metabolism didn't absorbe, as it should have, the energy he was receiving. Instead, he felt being drained of all his power. He tried to move, but it was like it was glued to the ground. The fingers, and then the arms, and the feet and then the legs became colder. His vision was fuzzy, the mouth drier. The brain was hurting, the fever burning his whole body. He felt the junctures to loose, he felt the bones to crack. His teeth fell, like the hair of his beard.

In the sky above, Drax was ducking the blasts from Rypta, Smasher and Zod. The three MBLeaguers were hardly keeping the pace of the dragon, but they had many powers at disposal to try to stop it. Only chance for Drax was to reach the secret spot on the mountains where the Stormloader was hidden, turning back into Drake, and pilot the vessel, with Stevens onboard, back to La Perdita, before being reached by the superheroes.

The white-pinkish wings of the mythological beast were beating hard, trying to gain more velocity, but the three costuned men were keeping up. Then, Drax saw, flying toward him from directly his opposite direction, Brianna. He instantly dove down, leaving the three flying men right in front of Brianna.

And she screamed.

She took them by surprise. There was no time to react, to raise the force field that the three men, each with his different implementation, were gifted with.

The sonic blast took them completely. With arms down.

They simply fell. From one mile high in the sky.

Priest knew it was his death. His mission failed, Danny Hearn now would have the chance to become dictator of the world. Nothing would have been different. The previous century passed in front of his eyes, the time spent with Walker, the coming to power of Danny, the arrival of the Vanguardians in the future, the war, the resistance lead by Dirk Bell. The endless training. The travel to the past, the incredible pain he had to sustain. The arrival on the island, the pact with Kit Piper. The diffidence at first, the growing friendship with many of his comrades. That was ending that day. That precise moment. he felt life flowing outside his body.

That was the moment of his death. Something he avoided, escaped so many time.

Now it was time.

With a supreme effort, he commanded his eyelids to slid open. He would have die looking at his killers.

The eyes burned, and the vision was obfuscated by the tears and sweat, but he got a glimpse of the three men. And then, they were no more.

"Jon? Jon!" a voice called from the darkness. The pain was still excruciating, but the radiation beam has stopped. The eyes opened wider. The three MBLeaguer had really vanished. In their place, lying on the ground, was the yellow and red costumed one that they called Captain. Out of the darkness came the familiar faces of Ozzie and Adem.

"Ozzie... Diff..." whispered Priest, and then loose consciousness.

"Drax? Pay attention! You are loosing height! the voice of drake Marshall, inside the head of the dragon, warned.

"I have been shot, Drake! I fear I will loose conscience very soon!"

Resist, Drax! You can't faint before changing place with me! Or the universe is doomed!"

"I will try, Drake. But I am so tired..."

The dragon managed to reach the secluded spot in the woods of Connecticut where the Stormloader was concealed.

Still hundreds of metres away, Drax recognised the familiar face of Tayden near the cockpit. And fainted, overwrought.

The giant, furry beast fell to the ground, but Ritchie Stevens landed safely in arms of Tayden.

The axe fell to the ground. Grimm roared, frustrated, but then glanced at the woman. I don't need that fucking blade, though to himself, and jumped at the Lioness. She vanished into one of her portals. When she returned, metres away, a bullet pierce her right through her heart. From behind a corner came Ozzie, Different and Phil, holding a gun still smoking.

Grimm looked at them puzzled.

"I saw a constant path in her coming and going, so I supposed the right place for her return" explained Adem. "Phil saw it in my mind, and shot her before she could sense our presen..."

The alien fell to the floor, his neck sliced away by a razor sharp disc. "Bastards! You killed her!" shouted the young blue-dressed Disco, tears coming out of the eyelids of his mask. He jumped in the middle of the Vanguardians, waving his staff with expertise. Phil Smith was hit before he could swung away, and fell to the floor. The staff fell then over Ozzie, which was hurtled away.

"You fucking death-face" Steve hissed, raising his staff toward Grimm.

The Vanguardian didn't move a single muscle.

"Bhoo!" A voice said from behind.

Disco turned suddenly. There was Ozzie Baxter, still on his feet. A single punch sent Disco Steve on the gorund.

Grimm nodded to Ozzie. "The count?" he asked coldly.

"Phil and Diff down, Priest killed. The woman and the human carrot killed too, and this kid down" said Ozzie, somehow disbelieving such a massacre could really had happened. "Ah, and there is also Tayden knocked down up above. There is also a pregnant woman in shock.

"Add these ones to your list, assassins" said a voice from above. The dead bodies of Brianna and Drake fell down, rolling on the floor until they stopped at the base of one of the walls.

Grimm and Ozzie, horrified, looked up. Rypta, Smasher and Zod were lined up along the rim of the hole in the roof. Next to them, Ritchie Stevens was held captive by... Tayden?

Ozzie frowned. Grimm would have.

Tayden's hand went to the face, and ripped away his skin. It was just a mask. The featureless face of Agent 57 was revealed.

The man pointed his index finger at the two Vanguardians left. "You killed my woman, you fucking piece of shit".

Agent 57 jumped down. "No, wait!" shouted Rypta.

The axe swung across the British special agent like butter. The head rolled away, resting finally over the dead body of the Lioness.

"This means war" hissed Rypta. He jumped down, followed by Zod and Smasher.

It was a massacre. The axe swung, opposing blasts of energy of various nature. Laser bolts died over impervious skin, and powerful blows did not anything toward force fields. It was like the powerful forces of nature had decided to challenge each other, to see if the floods of a river were dangerously than the landslides of a mountain or the eruption of a volcano.

The fought. And they stood. And the land around them was the only thing to suffer from their blows.

Powerful shock waves centred over the destroyed house of the Stevens ripped through Jersey, taking down buildings, bridges and hundreds of human lives.

Ritchie Stevens was the mute witness of all this destruction. He was shaking heavily, looking at his world falling apart. Helpless, his face twisted in a painful expression, his mouth slowly opened in a mute scream, until his determination finally broke down.

The mute scream transformed into a roaring thunderclap.

ENOUGH

The sky turned red, the air took life in the form of a irresistible tornado. The earth shook again, sending the surviving Vanguardians to roll on the ground.

Debris and rubble levitated in the air, rotating and spinning like satellites above ground zero.

It was night AND day, hot AND chilling, light AND darkness.

Stars collapsed, planets were born.

Entire civilisations formed out of simple words, and galactic conquerors dim out of existence on a blink of one eyebrow.

Because the power of the Universe itself was crying of joy, ready to find life again.

Ritchie Stevens lips moved, silently, forming few, powerful words. "I. AM. READY!"

All the forces of nature coalesced, coagulated, bonded, over the twisting and shaking body of Ritchie Stevens. The body levitated slowly above the ground, like a puppet in the hand of a mad puppeteer.

It began to twirl in the earth of the tornado, until the sky went totally back.

Al the living beings heard a laugh. A long, joyful laugh.

And then the blackness flows outside the sky, over the body of Stevens, taking the form of a long, tattered black coat.

The body stopped to shake. It stood firmly above the ground, bathed by sun and stars, by novae and black holes. Human, animals and plants breathed relieved.

Prometheus X had returned.

Prometheus X had returned, for the first time.

The ageless being, the first light of creation, the smiling god that walked over Earth before dinosaurs or mammoths, he who taught men fire and music, art and love, opened his eyes for the first time in that precise moment, when Ritchie Stevens finally, after so many refusals, accepted his final fate to incarnate the spirit of Light.

"Heroes of the Earth, you have been deceived. You gave your life to accomplish a false task, that a malevolent mind set up for you. The mysterious being turned his shadowed head to right and left, slowly. "Look at your fault... what the pervert brain of an evil being has managed you to perform... lives of innocents taken... that has to be repaired".

Prometheus X simply blinked... and the Universe itself was put on rewind.

An entire stare reduced to dust reshaped in it's former image... buildings collapsed reformed from their rubbles... dead bodies stood up and smiled.

And the dead and wounded Vanguardians and MBLeaguers, too, stood up, their life infused in them again, their wounds sealed, their minds soothed.

"The wrongs have been repaired, incomprehension has been settled. Now it's time to work together. Prometheus opened his arms, the margins of his coat in his hands, embracing in the gesture all the presents. The heroes were engulfed by the impossibly big coat, and then they vanished altogether, leaving behind a silent house, where Jennifer was sleeping quietly with her unborn child.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

La Perdita was hit by a fierce wind coming inland from the Ocean, and hard pouring rain washed the steel exterior of the Complex, Vanguard hi-tech headquarter.

Inside, unaware of the chaos of nature, three ingenious minds were at hold with the worst virus infection the Complex computer mainframe system had ever experienced. Something was hiding the correct load of information stored in the multiple servers, replacing it with false information.

Grissom Montag, a cigarette half smoked with all the cinder hanging from the tip, was heavily fingering over the keyboard in front of the set up of multiple monitors in his bed room.

Behind him, Doctor Quantos was surveying all the moves by the British, nodding every few seconds. But the real player was the third, Jym, the synthetic lifeform in charge of Vanguard security and alien companion of Adem Different. What was happening was a chase. A game of hide and seek played across the virtual information highway inside of the internal network of Vanguard, between the alien software and the virus... something uncannily similar to Jym, but of terrestrial origins.

Basically, the virus was running away. And Jym was following him, to metaphorically capture him. What Griss, with Quantum support was doing, was shutting off one by one the "doors" by whom the virus was trying to escape, confining it into spaces each time reduced. At first, he was cut from the Internet. Griss teleported all at once all the plug between the infranet and the world wide net. Then, when Jym had let the living virus to escape in the server farm, he shut off all the hubs. And now the chase was hard disk by hard disk, with the quick fingers of Griss dancing over the keyboard performing Unix commands letting, sector after sector, the HD to die off after the virus had left one for the next.

It took just minutes. Grissom Montang was sweating madly when finally his three fingered hands closed in fists and shook the desk. "I did it!"

"WE did it!" corrected Jym, who had downloaded himself over the handheld computer of Griss, an infinitesimal of second before the virus would find that way out. Teleported away, the Palm cable disconnected from the server port, leaving the virus caged into the last hard disk alive.

Grissom breathed relieved, stood up and went to the server farm, a few level below. Took the HD from the server, took it back in his bedroom, connecting it to his own laptop, not before having physically dismounted any wireless device.

It took hours to break the codes. But at the end, printed black on white paper, after having erased any trace of the virus and of his code, the truth was in front of Grissom's eyes.

He stretched his arms, massaged his neck, and then stood up, taking the papers and going down to the assembly room, looking for Quantos.

Quantos was not alone, though. There was the colorfoul assembly of people he saw since the last time he had been in Rio for the carnival. Like nothing had happened at the funeral of Schanze, his comrades where befriending their mysterious assaulters.

"Grissom, we have been framed..." said Brianna, moving toward Montag as soon as she become aware of his presence.

Griss waved his paper. "Yes. And I know by whom"

A few minutes later, the assembled members of Vanguard International and of the Metahuman Brotherood League sat around the long, rectangular meeting table of the society.

At one end, right in front of the screen on which the virus listing was shown.

Grissom cleared up his throat and began to explain: "Our computer network has been resulted violated by something that we can describe as a virus, but that it is something much more complex. A sort of living program, a software being able to move across the internet and local networks. Nothing new to our time, we have fought similar thing... but much more sophisticate, and of a peculiar nature that make it to seems not descending from existing tech. It's filename is Lexicom."

Smasher stood up. "Lexicom!!! That's one of the IGB tricks!" Grissom frowned, and raised his open hands.

"Please, calm. I have been... we have been able to crack it, although it has required a complex efforts, so to decipher the mission of the virus itself. what we found was amazing. It contained the plan of the complete set up, because it was the Lexicon, controlling the computers in our present and your past, to direct the entire mission."

Rypta raised an hand, then, like being surprised by his own action, put it down and simply raised his voice. "What mission? Who is behind this?"

"Who is he, it's something not revealed by the code. What he's trying to do, yes. Look, I don't really understand part of that. It is cosmic stuff that doesn't really suit my knowledge" he said, looking at Tayden. "Maybe here there is who can help me with that..."

Rypta whispered to Smasher, next to him: "If only Prometheus would have stayed with us, and not disappearing like he always do..."

Tayden nodded at Griss, without saying anything. Grissom shrugged, perplexed, and then continued: "The plan basically was to bring the MBL of a past we forgot about, in the year 1999, to our present, to fight Vanguard and destroy it (and be destroyed in the process)."

Agent 57 frowned. "But this doesn't explain why we ended up in 2003 instead of 2001. Lioness has never, never failed at identifying the precise spot for her travels!"

The woman smiled at her man. Rypta nodded: "Yes, that's true. Something must have diverted our trip here..."

Grissom pointed at some lines on the listings. "That's true. It was a being called the Hypertime Entity."

"The HE! We should have guessed it was its fault..." shouted Smasher, standing up again.

"Its not his fault. He is just an ally of the mysterious man behind this. He has won the HE help granting him a passage to this continuum, while in your he was destined to be destroyed by the sacrifice of your time Edulcore Cicciotto. Or, at least, that's what is codified in the file listing" said Grissom.

Lioness looked at Rypta: "But... how it is possible that in 1999 Prometheus would have led us into a trap? I couldn't believe it..."

Grissom opened his arms. "It wasn't the true Prometheus, whoever he would be. It was a metahuman from our present, brought back in time to deceive you. A shape-shifter called Mimic. An old adversary of us."

Adem Different moved uncomfortably on the seat. "This means... that the plan failed just because you met Cicciotto in Thunder, and he recognised some of you from what Nowhereman told him at the time of the Revolutionaries... else you would have attacked us again, and we would have destroyed each us in the process, like we were doing in New Jersey."

Rypta smiled. "Mhh... maybe. Or maybe not. What Nowehreman told us... about the chronal scrambler that allowed him to remember the old reality... it's not the thing that even an ingenious inventor like him could have created in minutes with spare parts from his utility belts. I bet it was a failsafe created by Prometheus before the changing of the timestream. He prepared in advance the failure of this trap."

Grissom shrugged. "I don't know. What I know is that in this moment, according to the Lexicom code, somewhere in the present our mysterious enemy is allowing the coming of the Hyperboard Entity into our continuum".

Smasher stood up for the third time. "The HE... will be unstoppable here! It is a nearly indestructible force in our time... here, with so few and frail metas there will be not way to defeat him. We have to find him before he completely set feet in this present!"

Zod hit the broken desk with his gauntlet covered fists. "Patrick is right! There is no time to waste!"

Grissom shook his head. "Sadly, mate, there is no reference to the place for the translation of the being into our time in the listing... could be everywhere! We'll not know until it will manifest!"

Lorena Burgos, the Lioness, stood up. "I can find it... if that man will help me" said pointing her index finger to the direction of Phil Smith. The Unidentified frowned. "What do you want from me?"

"Just your mind" responded cryptically the white and silver costumed woman. "And a quiet place!"


A few minutes later, Lorena and Phil met in the greenhouse on the roof. Luscious vegetation filled the place. The level of humidity was intolerable for Smith who was wearing his usual black shirt.

"Please, can you unzip my costume?" asked Lorena, turning her back toward the man, and raising her long red hairs with both of her hands.

Phil hesitated. "I... what have you in mind?"

The Lioness turned her face back, looking at Phil from above her shoulder, with a mischievous smile. "Just undressing. I must feel the bond with the green world. And the costume is a heavy barrier..."

Phil shrugged, and moved the zip handle down the back of the latino woman. Without turning, she took off the costume, revealing a sumptuous bottom, simply framed by the strings of a thong. Smith gulped.

The woman sat down, in a lotus position. She closed her eyes, and began breathing deeply. "What I have to do?" asked Phil, cautious.

Lorena opened her eyes, and smiled. "Sit comfortably. Loosen up. And open your mind to me".

Phil's lips twisted, reflecting his perplexity, but he did like request. Soon, he felt his mind invaded by twigs and lianas. It was strange, and far from being violated, he experienced a peaceful sensation. Along that twigs, his mind wandered along the green... the vegetal life of the planet, and he felt his mind growing, like a seed that germinate and become something else, and become bigger, and stronger, and wider... wider as the whole planet. And then he felt the Lioness presence, like a white butterfly that fled along the branches of his own mind, exploring the connections, the diversions, embracing the same consciousness that Phil had found, that Phil had become.

And meanwhile his knowledge was still growing, like branches extending and diverging, and producing gems, and flowers, and fruits and seed. To colonise new territories, finding new way to reach distant spots, where the green was frail and sparingly. Across the ice, the rock, and finally, the sand.

"I've got it!"

Phil opened his eyes all of a sudden. The naked woman was smiling triumphantly. "I have found it, Phil. Thanks to you"

Phil nodded. He felt just the loss for all that peace.

A few minutes later, the MBL and Vanguard rejoined again in the Meeting room, where Kit Piper had the table replaced in the record time.

"Have you the co-ordinates?" asked Grimm, dryly.

Lorena smiled, shaking her head. "No, it doesn't work this way. I have not seen the place, or read the latitude or longitude. I felt the HE. And now I can bring all of us there."

"But you don't know what is waiting for us there?"

"No" said Lorena shrugging. "But I doubt they are waiting for us. They believe us destroyed, no?"

Grimm didn't frowned just because had no eyebrows. "No, I don't think. Things here are always more complicate than that. I think your world was fairly simpler."

The Vanguardian (Grimm, Priest, Banshee, Ozzie, Adem, Tayden, Phil and Drake) and the MBLeaguers (Rypta Gud'n, Smasher, Zod, Agent 57, Disco, Captain, Monolith and Lioness), who had vanished a moment before from the meeting room of the Complex in La Perdita, reappeared after a moment in a huge dome shaped space, something so wide and tall that would have contained many airport hangars. Exactly in the middle of the circular base, there was something shaped as a mini-volcano, 100 yards of diameter, 30 yards tall, metallic and with myriad of intermittent lights of many colours.

Erupting from the man made volcano was an ectoplasmic substance, continually changing shape and texture and colour, but also growing bigger as the seconds were passing.

Around, dozens of scientists with lab coat where busy working over controls, hitting keyboards and turning knob and pushing buttons. Armed guards were at the many gates located at regular distance around the base of the dome. They were facing the interiors, like they role was not to stop people to come in, but instead to avoid the personnel of the
uncanny laboratory to escape.

The assembled heroes materialised right in the exact centre of the dome, at 100 yards above the ground, inside a floating bubble created by Zod. It was a lucky circumstance, because no one noticed their apparition, so they had all the few seconds needed for make out the situation.

Suddenly, the sirens of alarm began to buzz. "Alert. Intruders in gate area. Repeat. Intruders in gate area. Ground forces to converge over gate area." After a small pause: "Cadets are required to get ready and get in action. This is not a drill. Repeat. This is not a drill".

Inside the bubble, the heroes were trying to figure the action to take. They had not a plan. They had no time to prepare one, nor they knew where they had to go in. They had just one resource: Phil Smith's telepathy. All their mind where connected, all their though, considerations, ideas were simultaneously shared, evaluated, kept or discarded by everyone. A plan could be formed out of seconds, instead of minutes.

"Military facility. No private could sustain so many billions worthy devices"

"The HE's still not managed to travel here. There is still time to destroy the gate"

"Few guards. Could be taken down easily"

"Flying heroes shot from above at the guards. Heavy duty ones destroy the gate. The others take a look around and figure the enemy"

"Ready?"

More guards swarmed in. Hundreds, coming from all the reinforced doors lining all the base of the dome.

"Still easy"

"They carry simple weapons"

"Not really many. Should fall like leaves in autumn"

"Ready?"

"Ready!"

"WAIT!"

Too late. The warning of Rypta arrived too late. The bubble was opened, and the sixteen heroes were falling or flying at their appointed destinations.

But right in that moment, the changing form sprouting out of the central gate stabilised his shape. It was an enormous humanoid being, black and cold as the void of outer space, dotted by millions of stars and by gaseous multicoloured stripes. Looking at is, was like to gazing at the heart of the galaxy itself. And in what seemed the being head, a black hole opened, and a maniacal, hear-piercing laugh was released. "BWAHAHAAH... I AM FREE, FINALLY! BORN AGAIN, IN A UNIVERSE SO EASY TO CONQUER!"

"The Hypertime Entity!" shouted Rypta, sending blasts of energy over the alien being. "The transition has been completed! Regroup, regroup!"

The dome was in a total chaos. High above were flying Rypta, Zod, Smasher, Drax, who had just exchanged place with Drake, and Brianna, dodging laser blasts from the guards on ground, and trying to figure what to do.

Below, on the floor, Grimm, Ozzie, Priest, Carrot and Monolith where charging madly at the guards themselves, while Agent 57, Lioness, Disco, Phil Smith, Adem Different and Tayden were fighting the guards near a door, to find a way out of the dome and inside the rest of the mysterious facility.

"Regroup!" was shouting Rypta, fully aware of the threat that the apparition of the HE was meaning. "REGROUP!" he shouted again, when he felt his body becoming heavier... and fell all of a sudden to the ground, impacting the floor very hard. If not for his own force field, he would have been seriously wounded.

"Pyro! I have took one down!" was shouting a man in all-black spandex running toward him, and when he was nearer, Rypta saw he was nothing more than a kid.

Rypta looked around. There were other eight of those kids in costumes, some flying, some running on ground. Some of his comrades, too, were on the ground, hit by the newly arrived costumed fighters. "Smith. SMITH! Share the minds!" ordered the fallen demigod.

Instantly the link between the mind was activated, and a whirlwind of sensation hit Rypta's mind. He opened his mouth to shout louder, that he shook the head and just concentrated. And with all the decades of experience at leading superheroes, he ordered: "MBL! Take down the metas! Vanguard! The HE is yours."

The answer in his mind was a complaining choir. "The HE is too powerful for them!" "We don't know what that thing is" "We are better suited" "Leave the metas to us"

Rypta looked around. When his eyes locked into the sparkles into Grimm's empty eye-sockets, he felt relieved. The Vanguard leader was not protesting. He was ready.

Standing up and firing a laser blasts to the incoming meta, Rypta ordered again: "Vanguard on the HE! The beast doesn't know their powers, while he perfectly knows us!"

Monolith was running toward Rypta, followed by a flying man in black that seemed able to send shock-waves on the ground. Monolith loosed balance and fell to the ground, but instead of crashing heavily, he was able to roll up to Rypta position. The rock-man raised his head. "Rypta, they are too underweight! Only us can stop the HE!"

Rypta smiled. "They nearly killed us all. I know can do it!" Hundreds of meters away, Grimm raised his axe, while around guards were firing lasers at all directions, and in the space above the flying heroes were fighting with some of the men (and women) in black. The skull faced leader of Vanguard looked around, and then shouted. "You heard Rypta! VANGUARD, MOVE YOUR ASS!"

The avatar of Death ran to the main console in front of the central gate, where the giant being was shaking and twisting. Phil was there, a few men in lab coat reversed on the ground. The Unidentified was quickly typing over the keyboard, looking at the lines appearing on the monitor.

Adem was next to him, having just downloaded Jym into the computer.

Phil glanced at Grimm. "There is a containment field around the gate, that should contain the being. But Jym calculations shows that it will short circuit in less than ten minutes. The electrical activity of the HE is too damn powerful. Seems to tap into inexhaustible sources..." explained the Unidentified.

"Seems connected to the core of the galaxy itself" pointed out Adem.

Grimm raised his head, looking at the gigantic being. "We can't wait for the force field to collapse. Then, if we wouldn't stop that thing, he would break loose around. We have to get inside now, and push it back before the field will cease to function. Can you command the device from inside, Phil?"

The young man frowned. "Yes, I guess so..."

"OK, then. Deactivate it, we'll jump in, and then put it on again. On my three... Vanguardians... get in! One... two... three!"

Smith lowered a lever, and catapulted himself inside the gate rim, with a burst of telekinesis, at unison with the other seven Vanguardians who jumped or fled. The force field closed behind them, as he raised the lever with his mind.

Inside, the Hypertime Entity screamed and roared in frustration. "PUNY LITTLE HUMANS! WHAT DO YOU THING YOU CAN DO TO THE MASTER OF THE TIMELINES?"

The Vanguardians looked at the giant... and then at themselves. The space inside the force field, where they now were, was under the influx of the power of the cosmic monster... and their own look was now constantly shifting, jumping from the aspects each of them sported in different timeline.

"What do we do now?" asked Phil Smith, dressed in a long white tunic, a turban covering his head.

Grimm, which was covered in a heavy steel armour, raised his axe and said: "I don't know you, but I am going to slice that thing like a salami."

"Leave a piece for me, honey" said Brianna, who had very short spiky hairs, tinted in blue, and was wearing form fitting black leather robes.

But the laugh of the monster froze them for an instant. "YOU ARROGANT FOOLS! YOU WILL NEVER SET FOOT WITHIN TEN METRES FROM ME!" That words said, he opened his palms, and from within the darkness came dozens of people. It took just instants before the Vanguardians, that now sported all clowns costumes, like their parallel versions that never left Mr. Wong Circus the home of the Revolutionaries, recognised in the swarm of aggressors many of their enemies, captured across time and space and brought there, all together, with the only goal of killing them.

There were KTL and Mà Kalunga, Kell in Leviathan form, Mr. Smith, the Scorpion Brothers, the Chicago Demon, a few Mastiffs of War; Aurochs; Agent Turner, Agent Tweed, Agent Owen, Agent Reynolds, Agent Milton, Agent Lochlan; Agent Richards, Agent Curie; many vampires; Johnny Omicron,X-Acute, Arges, Rose, Mimic, Sheik, Pneuma, Some Clockmen, the Jabberwock Killer; the SideShow freak; Tripps; Rothman; Captain Ekorre; Agent Albino; Agent Hero; Agent A.C.K; Agent Darkstar; Agent Inventor; Agent Mindgame; Agent Morphina; Agent Eden; Agent Digigirl; Had Agent O'Ken, Agent Shadow; Amuck; Agent Fire, AgentShock; Agent Fangs; many T5 robots, some Annunakis and the red Naecken.

"They are all the adversaries Vanguard, in all its previous and current incarnation, had faced!" observed Jym, which by now had the form of a little hovering robot, rounded with a T shaped head over a long flexible neck, not unlike one of those aerodynamic vacuum cleaner of today.

"Mierda!" said Priest, from behind. All turned to look at him: he was wearing a Zorro costume, only hi-tech, was white skinned (but tanned) and sported a long pair of moustaches.

"Probability says they'll destroy us in less than five minutes, twelve seconds" said Adem. He was wearing a very cheap blue t-shirt, had long, pointed ears and a very stupid looking haircut.

"Fuck probability!" shouted Grimm, which now was looking like one of the Who, just bald, raising his axe. But one step after, he was a true skeleton, cloaked in a tattered black mantle, and raising high above his head a very sharp scythe.

"Kreeee!!!" screamed the Banshee, an old looking woman floating like mist over the rest of the Vanguardians. The first line of enemies fell down.

"Strike!" shouted Smasher, outside the force field, on the battleground around the central gate where the Vanguardians were facing hordes of old enemies. One of his energy blasts had just sent on the floor two dozens of armoured guards. Suddenly, his body took fire. Smasher screamed, the pain unbearable. He tried to raise his force field, but to no avail. It was his body to burn, it was not an external attack.

"Patrick, jump in the portal" cried the Lioness, opening a shaft to another place for her friend. Smasher jumped in, still reeled by flames, but instead of disappearing, he simply bounced back. Lioness looked around surprised, and saw a girl, not older than seventeen, pointing her hand at her. "Call me Padlock, sis!" the girl said. Lorena created a portal to jump away, but she was unable to get in. it was like being locked. The girl smiled.

Zod, who was flying, shooting energy darts at the guards with a giant bow created by his gauntlets, saw the scene, and fled down to attack the girl. She raised her arms again, and the gauntlets of Zod went off. The man, lone survivor of a dead universe, fell to the ground from twenty metres. The fall it would have killed him, if not for Lorena, who stopped his fall at mid air with her telekinesis, and then posed her down.

Then, she turned to the girl, raising her hand to push her away, but the power didn't manifest. Agent Padlock smiled again. "I didn't knew they were two distinct power. No prob, it just take two locks. Then, the ground shook under Padlock's feet. She turned, to saw Johnny Monolith to ran at her. She waved her hands, but nothing was happening. "I haven't power to lock, young girl... I am just done this way!"

But before he could grasp her, an heavier quake let him to fall. He turned, to face his aggressor from before. "Sledgehammer, thanks Gob you have arrived!" the girl shouted.

The young man in black pressed his hands over the back of Monolith, and before he could do anything, powerful shock-waves put him out of commission, while his rock hard skin crumbled like sand.

"Arghhh! He's killing me!" screamed Ozzie Baxter, his adamantium gleaming body beginning to crack under the heavy lighting-bolts coming from Agent Turner. The pain was put to an halt by Drax, an humanoid with green skins and fins, who set the EPS Agent on fire with his natural flamethrower.

Brianna, a feathered harpy, dove toward Grimm, now completely human in his aspect, wearing a black T shirt with a white skull and crossed bones. "We can't defeat all of them" the mythical bird shouted, but the avatar of death smiled, and replied: "Why not" opening fire with his machine gun. An entire row of Strikeforce Agents was killed, but Grimm, changed into a Japanese woman dressed in a long white kimono and sporting a long katana, would have been trampled by a mastiff of War if not for the timely intervention of Priest, literally a Catholic presbyter armed with S. Martin's sword and S. George's spear, used for cutting the legs of the Mastiff, actually destroying it.

"Thank you pal" whispered Zod, standing up, at his nearly killed friend, Johnny Monolith, and was ready, although powerless, to get in the fray, when an hand over his shoulder stopped him. It was the kid with the fire power, that previously hit Smasher. He winked at Zod, and ran toward Sledgehammer, who was in the process of killing Monolith. He went near him, and all of a sudden kicked him in the face, making him falling down, senseless.

He then looked around, to search for other enemies, but found another black dressed Agent, a short but beautiful girl, who was looking enraged at him. Her fiery eyes lit up, and he screamed, as his face began to vibrate, until the face of the young Agent Pyro vanished, leaving the featureless face of 57.

Meanwhile, Disco was running and jumping like mad between the guards, avoiding their lasers and hitting them with his staff, until a bullet shot across his left arm. He fell to the ground and rolled away, behind a forklift truck. A blast of bullets nearly hit him from behind. Someone was able to shot over the rounded wall of the dome with the exact angle to have the bullets reflected over him.

Steve unleashed a series of disc, and then jumped over the forklift, and from there again up in the air, to land as far away as possible. There was another black dressed youth, this one the same age of himself, aiming his big rifle at Disco. For the youngest MBLeaguer, there was no way to avoid being hit, as he was still in air. But the bullet turned at ninety degree, hitting the sniper in the hand.

Steve smiled. Only one could do that. The Captain, master of the virtual reality. he looked around, but the Captain was on ground, sleeping hard. Near him, another girl in black, smiling at Disco. "He has a too fervid imagination, so I put him to sleep. Cause I am Valium, pal, and I don't tolerate my man, Hunter, has been harmed."

"No liar can survive Truth!" shouted the girl, who just exposed Agent 57, laughing madly and running away. The British was left out cold on the floor.

Lioness, powerless ran at him, repressing the tears that appeared on the rim of her eyes. But remained petrified at the sight of another Agent, that simply staring at the senseless body of her lover, caused the British to began to decay, like an active necrosis were eating him alive.

"Noooo!!!" screamed Tayden, the only Vanguardian not to be altered by the HE powers, being him one and only across the different timelines, being a creature of the choir of creation, seeing Rothman torturing Phil Smith, dressed in a black tuxedo and obviously depleted of his mental powers. But then, he reshaped into the look of a bald middle aged man over a wheel-chair. Rothman laughed, and was ready to blow up the man with a single punch, when a mental blast sent him far away. But then, for one villain defeated, ten more showed up, charging simultaneously at the mind-reader.

Dodging the assault of a vampire, Adem looked around, observing Grimm, Priest, Banshee, Ozzie, Tayden, Phil and Drax nearly submersed by the flood tide of villains, but still fighting with deadly determination, killing enemies after enemies with their axes, blades, sonic screams, mental blasts, pulse charges and mere punches. But the villains were countless, and they were fairly near to complete victory. Then, his eyes went to the Hypertime Entity, who was standing still, like in deep concentration while villains after villains were coming out of the darkness of his mind.

"We can't win this way. we need teamwork" though Rypta Gud'n, healing the burned skin of Smasher. "They are perfectly matched for our power, Patrick. They are a sort of fail-safe if the original plan would have failed, and we would have survived the fight with Vanguard."

Smasher nodded. "They have been chosen to counteract our powers one by one..."

"Yes. But they are young. They have no experience" continued Rypta.

"What have you in mind?" asked Smasher.

"You'll see. Now, create a diversion" ordered Rypta.

Smasher activated his force field and took flight. The dome was now sealed. All the doors were shut, and no soldiers alive were left in the enormous space. In the middle, encased in a force field like fishes in a fish-tank, the gigantic form of the HE and countless men and women were fighting for their life. Outside the central gate, very few people were still on their feet.

The count was winning on the side of the baddies. Sledgehammer and Hunter were down, but Pyro, Necrosis, Gravity, Truth, Valium and Padlock were fine.

In the MBL line, Smasher observed desperately, he and Rypta were the only ones more or less in shape. Zod and Lioness were powerless, but still on their feet, although under the aim of the adversaries. Agent 57, Disco, Captain and Monolith were senseless on the ground.

Smasher took velocity, and dove. He couldn't use his energy blasts, or they would have harmed Lioness and Zod, so he simply fled around as quickly as possibly, like to challenge them. And they fell for it. The one called Pyro fled over his trail, and began charging at him. But the force field was protecting him from the telekinetic fire of the young meta, and Smasher continued to fly across the dome space.

"Let me succeeded where you failed, Cal" said the one called Gravity, talking to Pyro. And took flight himself, facing Smasher directly. And before he could shot his blasts, he felt himself much more heavier and fell to the ground, where he found himself unable to return over his feet.

The six young metas came near the MBLeaguer, looking at him from above. "He's still alive" said Valium. "He will not be after I burn him up" said Pyro.

"Cal, you set him on fire before, but he healed so quickly" said Necrosis.

"James, it has been Ryta to heal him" said Truth

"Rypta? where is he?" asked Gravity.

"Rypta? He's there, Frank!"

Rypta Gud'n, who had waited all that time to attack, was now charging directly at the assembled metas. He was flying at Mach 3 at them, and hoping Smasher force field was still on, he would have simply created a crater where the six enemies where reunited.

But Gravity raised his hands, and Rypta flight bent in a much less wider arch. He crashed just metres away from the youths in black. Pyro used his telekinesis to raise his body, and put him next to Smasher. Then, he looked around. One by one, the MBLeaguers, the two still fine, although powerless, and the four senseless, were put all together, lined one next to other.

"Annabeth, deactivate Smasher's force field" asked Truth.

"Done, Joska" said Padlock.

"Cal, set them all on fire" said Truth, again.

Ignoring the screams and begging of Lioness and Zod, Pyro started the fire. An unbearable smell pervaded the place, but the kids were trained to ignore it.

After some time, some were dead, but others, their skin much more impervious, thanks to the metagene, were still alive. Burned heavily but alive. "James, your turn" said Valium.

"With pleasure, Lorraine" said Necrosis, and starting from the few deeper wounds, began his work, making the tissue to die, cells after cells, making the body decaying libs after libs, muscle after muscle, until the hearts ceased to beat.

"It's done" they say at unison. They then turned toward the central gate, and went to the edge of the force field. Inside, the Vanguardians were no more, submersed by a true invasion of old and future adversaries.

"All it's done" they said again.

Truth spoke. "In a few minute the warriors from the alternate timelines will be absorbed again by the HE, which will remain trapped inside the force field, until the Master will feel it useful for the invasion. It's done, really. let's go report to the master."

Inside the force field, the Vanguardians were literally sucked into the growing mass of enemies. Adem had found a way to reach Grimm, now a robotic being equipped with weapons of mass destruction, that were nearly unusable with all that indestructible bodies crawling over his body.

"Grimm, I guess I found a way to defeat the HE" whispered Adem, now half a metre tall, naked, grey skinned and with wide, big black eyes.

"H.O.W?"

"I have noticed that in the moment you did the hardest attack over the assaulters the creation of new ones slowed down. They are not really actual people taken from the timestream... they are more like copies, that are directed by the HE... like puppets. It takes a great deals of concentration for him... so I think if we manage to concentrate our attack into the same moment, then at the same time the HE should become vulnerable..." explained the reptilian looking alien.

"O.K" agreed the robot, changing into a cloaked men with the eyes of an owl. "I need to find Phil" said, killing the villains around him with a wide beam from his eyes.

Mere seconds later, the whole mass of villains was shook from side to side. Drax, Ozzie, and Grimm with great effort charged from within the mass of villains, in opposite directions. Phil Smith locked his mind to Tayden's and fed his peaceful taming though directly in the cerebellum of all the villain, right in the moment they were taken by surprise by the co-ordinated attack of the three powerhouses. As they stood still, all the Vanguardians ran outside the fray, while Brianna hovered above.

And screamed.

The Hypertime Entity shook. In that precise instant, Priest found his true look again. He pushed his fist inside the ethereal substance of the HE, and began to pump in the cosmic energy.

The tall soldier from the future doddered, not expecting such powerful wave of energy, but gritted and kept on, sweating madly.

The HE was becoming smaller and less distinct, screaming in rage. Priest continued to pump out juice from the beast, until it finally got sucked inside the gate and disappeared. The vanguard villains had from long, by then.

"We did it" cried Brianna in joy. "Not yet" said Grimm, looking at the enormous, distorted figure of Priest, containing an uncanny amount of energy. "He is going to explode, if we don't let him expel it" explained Adem.

"Phil, open the force field!" ordered the Vanguard leader.

The field faded. On the other side, the eight Vanguardians stood smiling. "You did it!" said Lioness, smiling.

"And so you, it seems!" replied Brianna, looking at the hundreds of guards lying on the ground, like the eight black dressed kids equally reversed on the floor.

"No time for cheers!" shouted Grimm. "Open the portal to La Perdita, Lioness!" ordered the Vanguard leader.

While the MBLeaguers and the Vanguardian, one after one, were lefting the place, Grimm stood next to Priest. "Discharge NOW".

The future soldier let his energy loose, aiming it over the central gate. The flood of energy waves melted totally the uncanny device, and the nearby floor for hundreds of metres.

"Chain reaction!" announced Jym. Adem was still there, with is two comrades. "Go , go!" shouted Grimm. The three last heroes left, and the portal closed behind. Sparkels began appearing all over the devices in the dome. Before the portal closed behind him, Priest, now returned to normal proportions, heard distinctly a loud explosion.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"...And we opened the force field" concluded the narration Brianna. "Your turn, now".

Vanguardians and MBLeaguers were sitting around the meeting table at the Complex, sharing the stories of how they defeated the mysterious organisation.

"Eh, well, it's a little complex..." began Smasher. "Me and Rytpa were the only ones left, so he had this great idea. Send me to create a diversion, calling all the kids behind me. Meanwhile he went to heal the Captain, and had him creating a virtual reality set up, where the kids were beating up me and Rypta easily, and then killed all of us. The truth was that Rypta knocked down them all, while they were thinking of winning the day. Then, he did heal all of us".

"You did a good job with us, also" said Brianna, looking at Rypta.

"Yes, for this time I had not to open the infirmary after the return from a mission" said Doc Quantos.

"Too bad you weren't able to collect any data about the where-about of that dome, and about whom could have controlled it" said Adem Different.

Zod shrugged. "It's enough that we have stopped the HE and brought life back at home, pal".

Grimm looked at Grissom. "But there are no sign of huge explosions on Earth surface?"

Montag shook the head. "No. Neither on the moon. Probably the place you were was underground. There have been many quakes today, and it's impossible to say if one was artificial..."

Grimm shrugged. "I guess we'll never find who they were. Luckily, with Priest job, it will take years to rebuild that base, if ever they would try again..."

They shared laughs, until Smasher stood up. "Well, we have paid who framed us with interests... but that doesn't change the fact that the future is still altered. What are we going to do?"

"Again?" shouted Grimm, hitting his steel gauntlet on the desk. The desk did not break, but deep cracks enlarged from the impact point. Kit Piper, that was present, looked up, thinking about the check for another new meeting table.

Agent 57 gave grimm an hard look: "What does it mean, again? Whoever was in charge of that dome, he simply took use of the changing of the timestream... we could have defeated his schemes, but that doesn't change a pound for us. Our future has been cancelled. We are all destined to die... no, not to die... to vanish, to be erased from existence, in mere three years... and with us a world and six billions of humans... and a whole universe, too... replaced by this reality... that is far worse than ours"

"Far worse? A fascistic global state of superheroes would be better than this? Are you really sure?" said Drake, who had been silent all along.

Rypta stood up. "Don't you dare to call us fascist, kid! I fought Hitler and Mussolini when your parents were not yet born!" he shouts.

Ozzie slammed his open hand over the desk, finally cracking it. "You don't know who you are talking to, aussie! That man is a living legend!"

Lorena laughed. "You don't know who YOU are talking to. Rypta is the embodiment of heroism, not your small town vigilante!"

Baxter stood up. Lorena raised her hand toward the ex-pugilist. "Freeze, luv!" said Grissom, pointing a just materialised revolver at the latino woman.

"Put down your gun!" ordered Zod, pointing his gauntlets to Griss. Suddenly, he felt a cold and sharp arrow tip stinging his neck. "Hands raised, man!" commanded Brianna, pointing her armed crossbow at him, from behind.

Guns, axes, and bare hands able to shoot laser bolts where pointed at each one, across the two sides of the splintered table. And the determination of each hero overcome the pacifying though s of Tayden, who was feeling totally helpless.

The air was filled with anxiety and rage. It would have taken just the buzz of a fly, to let the first shot to depart. Rypta spoke: "There is no reason to be worried. Gooz has accepted the X, it will just take hours before the timestream will realign itself. With Gooz not renouncing to the X, in 2001 all had happened as Continuity planned. The heroes won, the Courts of Light and Circles of Darkness will be defeated, and a age of prosperity for Earth had begun."

In that exact moment the lights flickered and dimmed, and out of the darkness coalesced the familiar yet chilling presence of Promethus X.

He looked at the heroes with his piercing neo-purple eyes. And much to the surprise of all the presents, a gleaming tear, a single drop shining like silver, run down his cheek. He gritted, and then whispered: "I... renounce... it".

The Earth was shaken, the sky become instantly clouded and rain began to pour down. Nature was crying.

Where Prometheus was standing, now was Ritchie Stevens. Outside, clouds dissipated and the sun returned to glows over the island.

The MBLeaguer were looking at their former member in shock. The Vanguardians breathed relieved.

Ritchie looked at his former allies with a sad look. "I... can't... change my mind, guys. What I choose three years ago was for the best. I... know how you can feel, but the War was something too... big... evil... unbearable for the world. Hell got loose on the surface... many land were totally destroyed... and people experienced the eternal damnation during their normal lives. You understand? There was no possible redemption! People went mad! All!"

Smasher frowned. "we saw the future... the right future. It was an utopian world, not what you are telling us!"

Gooz smiled, and shook his head. "What you saw was the year 2003, yes... but after the War! It took two thousands year to rebuild a civilisation... and it was a civilisation of only methumans. The descendants of those few metas that would have survived the war colonized the planet. The humans... the normal humans... all die within one generation.
Is that the future you want for the planet, Patrick?"

"You choose out of an egoist point of view, Ritchie. You choose personal peace at the cost of humankind. We could have fought back the damnation. Rypta could have healed the mind and body of all humankind if necessary..." said Smasher, sweating.

"And who say Rypta was still with us?"observed with a sad expression Ritchie. "I choose this pact. I have chosen a normal life, with a woman and soon a son, renouncing to godhood. I had the power to reshape galaxies, now I edit videoclip in my spare bedroom. do you really thing it's an egoistic choice, Patrick? This new history is experiencing a bad moment for the methumans, that's true, but humans, with and without the metagene, have the resources to overcome this. But here Hell has never walked over the surface, and the only time it tried to do so, it has been stopped. It cost valiant lives, but it was just like a bad dream for the people. The soul of the human kind had not to suffer, Leaguers. He went to the windows, one of the few looking to the outside of the Complex. He looked at the sky. "You really think a world where the Warlord, the Anti-Monarch, Rai or the Hypertime Entity are on the loose, is better than this?"

"It's our world, Gooz!" said Lioness, desperately.

He opened his arms. "So is this! Each of you lives or have lived here. Things were just different... but what was important... friendship and love... were the same" he said, looking at Lioness and at Agent 57. "You must understand that how much the timestream can bend and twist, it will never took away your life. And be aware... " he said, looking first at the MBLeaguer, and then at the Vanguardians..." be aware, that if time change your life into the one of normal peoples... you have not to despair.... because there will always be new heroes."

All of them stayed silent. Ritchie Stevens looked around, whispered a farewell, and crossed the door, leaving their lives, heading for his "normal" life.

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The MBL returned to 1999, with the knowledge that always the time travels makes the memories fuzzy, and soon the bitterness for knowing their destiny would left their minds. The only good was that strange future was in the hand of deign successors of themselves.

Vanguard happily began the arrangements for both the metahumans parade and the parties for Christmas and New Year. The adventure with the MBL was one of those things out of the ordinary, that seemed so frequent those days, like the mission with Paragon and the Clockmen, or the merging of the Earths with TOMB. But remained the good sensation of having accomplished something really big, next to the regret for not having discovered who was behind the experiment to bring the HE into our continuum.

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The man was looking at the wreckage. What was standing in front of him, at an unaware onlooker, would have been rocks and ravines in the middle of the sand, like every other part of the Sahara. But he knew that it concealed the larger, advanced scientific laboratory of Earth, and now that it was destroyed.

The man shrugged. Another defeat at the hand of Vanguard. Luckily the cadets were saved -by himself- just before the explosion. And although they were senseless all was taped, so them would remain faithful to him for the rest of their life...

But Vanguard... ah, Vanguard... what power, what resources hidden into those men and woman... if only they would agree to be directed by him... trained by him... becoming the bone of his Strikeforce.

Jack Merlin looked at the desert one more time... and then walked away, leaving the mess behind himself.

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The sun was setting over the Gulf. Two men of middle age sat at the table of a little bar, on-looking the beach and the sea behind.

"A carrot juice!" ordered one of the two. The other looked at him smiling, finding in that request so many memeories of the past.

"And for you, sir?" asked the young waitress.

The man though for a moment, and then shook his head. "The same, thanks".

The other one exploded into a fat laugh. "I though I would have never seen you drinking carrot juice!"

"Things change" he said. Then, looking around, with a bitter tone in his voice: "Things change, really".

The other man nodded. "But not for the worst, Zod. Not for the worst. I really can't say my life today is less entertaining... or worthy... than the previous one."

Zod nodded at the waitress that returned with the juices. He sipped his own, and then asked:"What do you do, now, Cap?"

"What I do? I am a researcher at MIT. Working over virtual reality systems for recreating a vision for blind peoples. And you?"

Zod leaned back on the chair. "I am a fireman."

THE END