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

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.

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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."