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"Bullshit!" Ozzy barked, taking another step closer to this bald stranger.

"Oh?" Prometheus asked. "You know something I don't?"

"...an entire year..." Lykopis stated, not quite sure if she believed what she said. "You're saying we're missing...an entire year?"

The bald smoker shrugged casually, gesturing with a subdued dramatic flare.

"Weellll....about eleven-and-a-half months, if you want to be specific..." he said with a nod, smoke snorting from his nostrils.

"We were just in Spain!" Ozzy half-shouted. "Now we're here!"

"No.....you were in Spain...then, something happened. Something...bad. A year passed, and now you're here."

"Did you do this to us?" Icarus finally joined in, eyes etched with shock. "Did you do this to me?!"

"No. I have nothing to do with any of this..." Pro answered honestly. "...save bring you here, of course."

"And where, exactly, is here?"

Pro looked around a bit, studying the darkness that surrounded them.

"Well...funny you should ask...it really has no name. It's a place between places. A dimension between dimensions..."

"A cliche' between a cliche'?" Ozzy retorted, his temper finding a seeming permanent grasp on the situation.

"Clever." Pro smiled. "Call it what you will. I call it 'The Chatroom'. It's a void I use when I need to have private conversations."

"A chatroom? Like...on the internet?" Victor spoke up.

"Well...no, not really..." Pro grimaced, walking up to him with a deep stare at his blind pupils. "...no...I guess I'm just lazy with names, is all..."

He paused, running a hand back and forth in front of Victor's eyes. Reilley's hand suddenly snapped out, grabbing his wrist in a halt.

"Do you mind?" Victor asked.

The bald stranger smiled, Victor releasing the hand.

"Listen...Prometheus..." Lykopis began. "We need some straight answers."

Pro paused, looking at them all.

"One year ago..." he began. "...something rather cosmic happened in your universe. A small something. But, powerful enough to cause a distortion of your reality."

He paced between them, looking down, smoke clenched between his teeth.

"It's first side-effect was this..." he stated, motioning towards Edmund. "...a stripping of his essence...and then...a subtle remolding, if you will..."

Gaunt looked up and down at himself.

"After that...events played out....and played out...and played out...all in myriad forms..." Prometheus continued. "...and all at the same time..."

He took a drag of the smoke again...

"Somewhere...a new team of adventurers with old initials has formed....looks good, too." he began. "Somewhere else...someone with my name is hellbent in his own strategy, leading a team with a rather obtuse name..."

He frowned a bit with the thought.

"...and still, more is happening. Has happened. Will happened. And all the while, you people...you're stuck in your own limbo, aren't you?"

He paused, looking around at the silent group.

"I can see by your faces you don't understand. And I knew you wouldn't..." he sighed, rolling his eyes.

"What happened to bring us here? To do this, to us? Where did this supposed year go? Why do we not remember it?" Lykopis asked.

"Questions, questions, questions....there are always questions with you people..." Prometheus responded, seemingly becoming impatient with the situation.

He walked straight up to Lykopis, looking up into her face.

"You have a beautiful face..." he said very quietly. "....but perhaps, you faced something more beautiful than you could handle?"

He spun towards Icarus.

"...he owns himself, now...his body and his ego, supercharged...upgraded...as one..."

He spun again, towards Adem.

"...perhaps he asked too many questions...and his tongue paid the price?"

Towards Victor.

"...and he saw something....something, perhaps, he shouldn't have..."

Prometheus looked back around at them all.

"Drake Marshall. Thomas Foxe. Both are dead due to the whim of the cosmos...and one being, in particular..."

"Someone killed them?" Ozzy asked. He jaw clenched a bit tighter at the thought of his friends. Dead.

"Well....I don't think he meant to...." Pro shrugged. "...but...yes...it happened because of him..."

"Who?" Lykopis demanded. "Who did this? Why? Please. Tell us."

Prometheus paused, suddenly looking at his watch.

"Time's almost up..." he said. "...I can't keep you here much longer..."

He looked up with a devilish grin.

"I'm really not supposed to be here, you know. My story is over. My time is done."

He took a final drag of his smoke.

"...this all started when your universe decided it was okay to evolve the most powerful metahuman that could ever be conceived....your missing year...your dead comrades...your transformations....those are all things you will have to discover in your own way...your own time...your own making." he said very seriously, and with a hint of sorrow. "As to why it happened?"

Suddenly, a drifting echo of voices...a chorus of minds...spoke up around them, with a baffling phrase...

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It was at this point in time that Mxy himself sneezed, with dire repercussions felt across the Vanguard Universe. . .



"Your universe still has alot of potential to explore. It's up to you to set things the way you want. To make life the way it needs to be. After all, I'm simply the narrator..." Prometheus continued.

He flicked his smoke into the darkness, orange embers exploding in a small shower of sparkling light.

"...you're the stars..."

The orange embers never fell. They swirled, and coalesced....swimming around the group...sparkling ever brighter. Prometheus simply turned, beginning to walk away. He paused, looking back at Ozzy...

"...and I'm expecting alot out of you..." he stated with a cocked eyebrow.

He turned, walking into the darkness, even as the embers burst all around them in a now-glorious rainbow of light...

".....................by the way....Chewy says 'Good Luck'..............................."

And like that....

.......they were dropped back into reality....