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The following was originally written and posted by I'm Not Mister Mxyptlk:



"...idiots..." a weak and tired Naecken said "...they can't stop me... nobody can..."

"Are you sure about that?" came a voice from behind.

Naecken quickly turned and saw... Mr. Smith.

"You?!" Naecken asked, trying to get on his feet but failing. "What are you doing here?"

"What I came here to do," Smith replied, as he approached the beaten composite being. "Of all the things you said, you were right about one..."

Smith placed his hand on Naecken's bald head.

"...humans are predictable."

Naecken started screaming as Smith absorbed the darkness inside him.

"The last time this happened... nng... I wasn't prepared for you..." Smith said as a stream of black energy coming from Naecken entered his body through his chest, "That's why I... ugh... overloaded and sent us both to hell...*"

(* in HR#8)

"But now... Now I'm prepared for you... I've been preparing for months... nnnnggggggg..."

The black energy filled Smith. He didn't grow taller or transform into a beast... he just got darker. Even darker.

"...ggggggggggggggggggggGGGGGGGGGGGAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Smith screamed and threw his head back. Then he suddenly stopped screaming and released Naecken's head, letting his unconscious body fall. He started adjusting his suit, getting himself comfortable. "This is more like it."


As the Stormloader returned to Antarctica, Phil Smith was making sure everyone was there.

"Okay, Priest was in the EPS ship... I know that for sure, I was there with him... Grimm was in the castle, but I don't think we have to worry about the big guy..."

"Hold on," Brianna said, "where's...?"

"Smith," Tayden interrupted.

"That's right!" Phil exclaimed. "Do you know where he is, Tayden?"

"He's in Antarctica. I can feel him..."

"You can feel him?" Phil asked. "Since when can you...?"

"We can all feel him," Tayden replied. "You know that nasty feeling in your gut? That's him."

"I'm glad, I thought I was about to [censored] myself..." TC said.

Ozzy laughed. "It kills me how you guys can joke like that in a situation like this..."

"Ah, you just gotta get used to it," Phil replied. "Soon you'll be doing it too."

Phil turned to Tayden. "You think Smith is more powerful now?"

"I think he's got Naecken power..." Tayden answered.

Phil's eyes widened. "Holy [censored]," TC said.

"So? That means Naecken isn't a problem anymore... right?" Banshee asked.

"Yeah," Tayden replied, "but it also means we've got a bigger problem in our hands now..."


In the crater that was Naecken's fortress, Smith closed his eyes and concentrated. Soon, the ground started turning darker. The same thing happened all over the world. Even in La Perdita.

"What is this?" Agent Turner asked, noticing the odd change in the color of the beach where the EPS transport had just landed to unload its passengers.

"I have no idea..." Steve Richards said as he kneeled to take a closer look at the sand. Then he looked up at his teammate. "Turner?" Richards said.

"What?" the Agent asked.

"I [censored] hate you."

With that, both EPS agents threw themselves at each other and started fighting.
The same thing happened all over the beach: the metas of La Perdita fought each other for no reason at all with the same ferocity they battled Naecken's army a hours ago.

"IF I CAN'T HAVE YOU NOBODY CAN!!!" the Luchadore screamed, as he wrestled Drag Racer.

"THIS DRESS COST ME 200 DOLLARS, I'LL KILL YOU FOR RUINING IT!!!" the transvestite speedster yelled in response.

And, meanwhile, the sand turned even darker...

The exact same thing happened all over the world. Not just for metas: everyone fought everyone. People in markets shoved apples down each others throats, every congress turned into an orgy of violence, internet chatrooms and message boards were filled with insults... well, more than they usually are. And in Antarctica, Smith fed from the emotions of billions.
This happened all over the world... except for the Stormloader.

"We have visual contact with Smith," Adem Different, piloting the Stormloader, informed the rest of the Vanguardians. "He's just standing in the middle of the crater."

"Is that Naecken lying next to him?" Phil said as he looked at a small monitor. "You were right, Tayden. [censored]... Where's the Pantheon now? Where's the Order?"

"Um, I just got some conflicting reports from Griss..." Brianna said.

"What reports?" Phil asked.

"He just told me he'd slice my head off and play a soccer match with it..." Brianna answered. "Is that some kind of compliment?"

"Not where I come from, honey," Leslie said.

"This is [censored] weird..." TC said. "I just turned on the radio and all I get is people insulting each other... And I don't mean like in rap music. It's in every station."

"Something weird is going on here, and I bet my namesake is causing it..." Phil observed. "[censored], I bet this was his plan all along."

"Well, why aren't we affected by whatever he's doing?" Ozzy asked.

"Because of little old me, probably," Tayden responded. "It's either that or Smith's deliberately not affecting us."

"Why would he do that? Shouldn't we be the first to be affected since, you know, he hates this team?" Banshee asked.

"He wants us to be fully conscious when he slaughters us," TC replied. "Or something equally [censored] up, whatever."

The Stormloader kept approaching Smith. The Vanguardians realized that they were, literally, the only people in the world that could stop Smith. And their most powerful members weren't available. Nobody said anything, of course.

Phil, being the current leader, decided he had to be the one to break the ice.

"Guys, it's in times like these that I'm reminded of a quote from my favorite book:"

"...oh, man, there he goes again..." Leslie lamented.

"'Certainty of death... small chance for success... what are we waiting for?!'"

"That's not in the book..." Leslie said.

"But he's right," Ozzy said, standing up from his seat. "We've gotten this far... We're not going to turn back now. At least I'm not."

"I agree with Ozzy," Adem Different said. "It was a hard decision to come to this war. I'm not abandoning now."

Phil looked at the rest. Everyone nodded. The only one that seemed troubled, oddly enough, was Tayden.

Tayden remembered:

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In the Courts of Light, the group of omniscient beings assembled there leaned towards Tayden, who was sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, and yelled, at once:

"Do not interfere with this war!"


Well, at least that's the way he remembered it...

The Stormloader landed in the crater. Phil looked at the group once again.

"All right, team," the leader said, "let's go..."

Everyone moved, except Tayden, who remained seated...

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Inside the meeting room, the team was discussing if they should take Mr. Smith with them.
Tayden approached Chance and spoke to his ear.

"I have a way of dealing with Smith in case things get ugly," the ex-angel whispered.

"Are you sure about that?" Chance asked.

"Yes," Tayden answered.


"Screw the Courts of Light!" Tayden said to himself as he got up from his seat. He noticed Phil was about to get out of the Stormloader, followed by the rest. "Phil! Stop."


"What's taking them so long?" Smith said. He stood in the crater expectantly watching the Stormloader, as the ground on his feet got darker and darker.

"Finally!" an excited Smith yelled when he saw the Stormloader's door opening. The first to come out was Tayden. Smith's look changed to disappointment when he saw that the door closed behind Tayden. The ex-angel started walking towards Smith in his usual calmed pace, seemingly unaffected by the cold Antarctic wind.

"Of all people... they send YOU?" Smith said when Tayden was close enough to hear him.

Tayden said nothing and stood in front of Smith, looking at the dark godlike being as an equal. "I suppose it'd be useless to ask you to stop this," Tayden said after a moment.

Smith's characteristic laughter as a response to Tayden's seemingly naive attitude was absent this time. Instead, he looked at the ex-angel with an annoyed look on his face.
"You've passed from being amusing to pathetic. And terribly annoying."

Strange dark forms emerged from the ground and menacingly surrounded Tayden, who took a step back but bumped into another dark form that had emerged directly behind him.

"Good-bye, little angel."

"Okay, okay, fair enough..." Tayden said as he tried to avoid being touched by the dark forms. "But, before you kill me, please allow me to give you a present..."

Smith sighed and shook his head. "I told you I no longer find this amusing..."

"Please hear me out, it's very important. I'm at your mercy, after all, aren't I?"

Smith thought about it for a second. Then he made the dark forms stop moving. "Speak."


Inside the Stormloader, the Vanguardians looked at the scene through one of the side windows.

"What's he doing?" Banshee asked. "Smith's gonna kill him, we have to go there and do something!"

"Tayden told me he knew what he was doing, and I trust him. He has the situation under control," Phil said.

"Well, if I recall, he said the same thing to Chance and look how things turned out with this Mr. Smith fella!" Ozzy said.

"The guy was an angel. I trust him," Phil replied.

"What if he got kicked out for lying?" Ozzy asked.

"Ha!" TC laughed. "Good one, Ozzy. See? You're doing it too now."

"Doing what? I mean it!"

"Phil's right," Banshee said. "You don't know Tayden. I trust him too."


"The first time you encountered this team," Tayden said to Smith, "you were defeated when Naecken released his darkness on you causing you to overload, right?"

"Yes..." Smith said, arching an eyebrow, "But that wouldn't work this time. Now I'm prepared for absorbing that kind of energy."

Tayden grinned. "I'm counting on that."

Tayden looked at a confused Smith right in the eye. Well, right in the black shaded glass.

"What are you doing?" Smith asked. Soon, a bright white light started glowing around him... As soon as Smith noticed this he got furious. "What is this?! Stop it!!"

Smith's "aura" glowed brighter and brighter, and meanwhile the same thing happened to the dark ground on their feet. Smith tried to make the forms attack Tayden, but they crumbled to the ground and melted into it.

"STOP THIS!!!" Smith screamed as his fury turned into panic.

All the Vanguardians could see from the Stormloader was a bright white light where Smith and Tayden used to be, that increased it's size and brightness each second. Soon the light covered the whole crater and the Vanguardians were temporarily blinded by it.

When they recovered their sight, the light was gone. The first thing they noticed was that the ground had returned to it's normal color. Then they saw Tayden, and in front of him, where Smith used to be, stood a gray haired man, with a gray suit, gray shoes, and Smith's dark glasses.

"What... have you done to me?" Smith asked, his voice more relaxed than before.

Tayden smiled. "Well, I deduced that since you can absorb hate and negative emotions, you can also absorb positive ones... You just hadn't tried it yet. All I had to do was open my heart and feed you with those emotions, just like Naecken gave you his darkness that one time, and they cleaned the hate you had in your soul."

"I see," Smith said. He took off his black glasses and looked at them. Then he dropped them to the ground, and stepped on them.

"I don't think it's that simple," Smith said, as he looked at Tayden. His eyes were completely gray. "I think the brightness you fed me didn't 'clean' the darkness in me... it balanced it. I'm not good or evil now, I'm beyond that. I'm something else."

Tayden's jaw dropped. Smith was right. He couldn't feel anything bad in Smith's soul, but he couldn't find anything good either. Tayden tried to say something but couldn't. He seemed disappointed, and Smith noticed that.

"However," Smith continued, "I would like to thank you for doing this. I can understand now that you did it for my own good. I'm sorry it didn't work."

Smith opened his arms and looked at the sky. Soon he started levitating towards it.

"At least you have the wish to become good one day..."

Smith looked down at Tayden. "I'm not sorry for me, I'm sorry for you. You meant well." He looked back up. "Once again, good-bye, little angel. I'm not sure in what terms we'll find each other the next time we meet, but I'm looking forward to it either way."

With that, Smith sped into the sky. Tayden looked at him until he disappeared and then returned to the Stormloader.

"Everything's back to normal!" TC, holding a pair of earphones connected to a radio, said to Tayden when he walked in. "Good job, Tay!"

"How did you do it?" Phil asked.

Tayden smiled and tried to hide his disappointment. "I just remembered something Paul said..."

"Whoa, the apostle?!" TC asked.

"No, the Beatle. All you need is love, after all."

Everyone was ready to enter that weird limbo between posts, when Brianna said:

"Now that this is over, I'd like to finish the question I began a while ago... Where's Mick?!"

Click here or I'll bite you! The Time Trust