Post by redsycorax on Apr 9, 2022 1:17:46 GMT
Before the Third World War and a nuclear attack on their native Seaboard City obliterated Earth-109's Justice Guild of America on October 28, 1962, the august organisation had its early own run-in with travellers from an alternate universe.
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PROLOGUE 1: EARTH-99:
Earth-99 underwent a singular apocalypse in 1934, and it was not one of human provenance. Slumbering miles beneath the Southwestern Pacific, in a desolate temple that predated humanity and even the rise of life itself on dim, dark ancient Hadean Earth four and a half to four billion years ago, while much of the newly formed planet's surface was a desolate, poisonous wasteland of rock and volcanic fire, bombarded by outer solar system cometoids from the coalescing and turbulent Oort belt, a vast inhuman entity had awoken. With a deafening roar, the tentacled, many mawed obscenity rose to the surface as its unleashed appearance caused tsunami to arise and surge across much of the Pacific, inundating adjacent New Zealand and much of the Southwestern Pacific island chains. Spontaneously, churches, synagogues and temples combusted as this gargantuan offence to nature and morality had no patience for contending deities. And then, from the skies above, in response to the cacophony of the emergent obscenity, other abominations began to rain down on Earth from the skies. The earth quaked, skyscrapers fell, volcanos long dormant erupted, further tsunamis surged forth, the air was filled with acrid smoke and flame and tentacles and gaping maws made short work of the unprepared, utterly helpless mass of humanity on the wracked and dying planet.
But before the entity known as Rthulhu could assault a small cottage in the hamlet of Arkham in Miskatonic County, Massachusetts, three figures vanished from it in a burst of blinding blue Cherenkov radiation. They were hardly noted as the transdimensional hordes feasted on the formerly dominant species that tried futilely to flee their onslaught. Within days, all humanity was extinct on Earth-99. But where had the three women in that cottage gone? A sightless blonde-haired female djinni in a two-millennia -old simulation of a green silk harem costume would never tell, as it gradually dissolved into mist, the sacrificial being for the women's flight from their wounded and dying Earth.
PROLOGUE 2: EARTH-109: NEW YORK: MAY 1962:
Two months ago, the Justice Guild and their loved ones had buried the organisation's sixth member, Cassandra Astriides, the heroic precognitive. However, that wasn't on the mind of suburban advertising executive Steve Darien as he stepped from the bus stop adjacent to his home and eagerly walked toward the door, looking forward to surprising his newly wed wife, Sabrina, after he had come home from his business trip to Los Angeles early. However, he was the one who would be surprised, but then, there is a last time for everything.
He was unprepared for the darkened curtained interior as he stepped across the house's threshold and the black candles that burnt around the trio of figures in their ebon robes- his wife Sabrina, his mother-in-law Enora and Sabrina's cousin Serafina. Or the inverted pentagram and the obsidian statue of the androgynous lord Baphomet. And then, the women descended on him, hitting him with sharpened sticks, tearing off his clothes and biting him, until his wife pressed a chloroform-impregnated rag over his throat.
When Steve Darien awoke, he was naked, bleeding and spread-eagled across on an altar, gagged so that he could not cry out in bewilderment or mounting horror. As his sight returned, a black-robed figure moved to stand over him and removed her cowl. He tried to scream Sabrina's name, but she was oblivious, sneering as the dagger thrust down and impaled him in the heart repeatedly. As he strained impotently against his bonds, oblivion and death began to descend on him. Sabrina Darien exulted as her mother and cousin bowed to her, over her sacrificial husband's ruined and ravished body.
SEABOARD CITY:
Irene Allon put down her grocery bag, noticing that the new neighbour's moving track had left from next foor. From neighbourhood gossip, she'd been told that the new resident of Petrie was a young widow, Sabrina Darien, whose husband Steven had been found murdered and horribly mutilated several weeks ago in a New York alleyway. Jake wouldn't be back from his Justice Guild meeting for an hour yet and their children were on holiday with their maternal grandparents in Boston.
And so, by four o'clock that afternoon, her apple pie was ready.
As Sabrina Darien answered the door, Irene was surprised to see her new neighbour was so young and clad in such a short skirt, funereal black though it was:
"Hi. I'm Irene Allon, your next door neighbour and I thought I'd welcome you to the neighbourhood." Sabrina was startled to witness the strong ward around her neighbour and her house next door. Evidently, this woman and her husband were friends of the late action heroine Cassandra Astriides, given that the provenance of the strong protective charms and wards around Irene Allon's person and home was recognisable as grecopagan. Irene Allon was impervious to her darkmagick and she would have to watch out for it. However, she smiled:
"Why, thank you, Mrs Allon. That smells delicious. How thoughtful of you. Please, come inside."
As Irene stepped inside, she became aware of the inner darkness and the contradictory vivaciousness of the young widow. She hardly seemed to be in mourning over the tragic circumstances of her husband's death, but given the horrific nature of that event, perhaps Mrs Darien understandably wanted no reminders of the life that she had been torn so violently from.
Actually, Sabrina had been assigned to Steve as a prospective Beltane sacrifice to Great Baphomet, in thankfulness for rescuing the coven that her mother, her cousin and self belonged to from the apocalypse of the Great Ancient Ones. For her, marriage to Steven Darien had been a mere preparation for his dark consecration and sacrifice to the Unholy Androgyne and love was irrelevant to the necromantic equation and rituals. She had proven herself. She was now the Blood Rosemary Coven's High Priestess.
"Allon. Oh, you're Jewish. Would you like a Martini?" At that moment, Sabrina was startled to hear a sonic boom and realised that it was too close to be a fighter jet from Ryerson Air Force Base in the intermediate distance. Then her enhanced daemonic senses saw a momentary crimson blur as it entered the home next door. Well, well. So Mr Allon was the Streak, then. Across the fence, Jake's compressed Streak uniform slid back into his signet ring as he dressed and smelt Irene's apple pie from the kitchen. And abruptly, his JGA signal device activated:
"Guys, I've just gotten back from coastal patrol. I'm off duty now. Can't this wait?"
Tom Turbine's voice echoed from the signaller: "No, Jake, I'm afraid it can't. Could you get irene over, this involves her as much as it does the Guild. Lyra's already with me. It's about your new neighbour. She isn't who or what she seems."
Making his excuses to a bewildered Irene and Sabrina, Jake changed back into his Streak uniform and carried his wife in his arms over to the Justice Guild brownstone, where Tom Turbine, Lyra Lewis, Catman, Black Siren and Green Guardsman were already there, awaiting their arrival:
"So what's all this about Sabrina Darien, our new neighbour?"
"Remember I told you that I was working on an interdimensional portal device to access parallel universes? I made momentary contact with one a fortnight ago. What I saw horrified me."
The Streak nodded: "So, how does this affect Sabrina?"
"Lyra and I witnessed the devastation and destruction of an alternate Earth by a monstrous, unholy creature. I was able to undertake a spectrographic analysis of the displaced rock when it first appeared. It looked like it was probably Hadean era zircon deposits from the earliest period of Earth's geological development, from the first five hundred million years after its formation. It had been deliberately summoned there by a trio of powerful women who were utilising anomalous but powerful unexplained radiation sources to resurrect it. One of them was your new widowed neighbour, Mrs Darien."
Irene gasped: "But... Sabrina Darien is so young. Even if there are some strange anomalies about her behaviour and self-presentation, she's mourning the loss of her husband."
"That's the point, Irene. She and Steven Darien were only married for two years before his untimely end. And that occurred on May 1. Exactly the same energies that we witnessed on that nightmare alternate Earth were present when Sabrina moved into your neighbourhood. What's more, they still are."
"So what are you saying, Lyra? That Sabrina Darien is some sort of witch or sorceress? This is the twentieth century, for goodness sake! People don't believe in that stuff and nonsense any more!"
"We think her presence on our world is no accident. She and her relatives must have detected the energies that I was using in my portal experiments." Lyra commented.
"There's only one problem with this, Tom. You said those creatures were resident, if dormant, on that alternate Earth before its destruction. Surely human technology would have detected if analogous beings were present on our own world? Geological residue? Elemental or chemical remnants? Signs of anomalous radiation or catalytic conversion?" The Streak objected.
"It's not as if we haven't come up against devil worshippers before. Remember when Cassie was still with us and we took on that "Anointed Hierarchy" cult with Norma Bates in it back in London?" Black Siren remarked.
"I don't blame you, Irene, I'm sceptical about all this too. It's all too reminiscent of Cassandra's end of the world obsession, even if questioning about it made her reticent to discuss it with the rest of us in detail." Green Guardsman said.
"However, Scott, you have told us your ring hasn't been operating optimally."
"Except the power ring operates according to specific scientific laws and was derived from a stable transuranic element originally. It's nothing to do with 'magic' or 'the supernatural.'"
"Now, this is only a tentative hypothesis and you're free to disagree with it. However, what if humans like Sabrina Darien and her relatives are members of an alternate human species somehow able to tap undiscovered natural energies- call them homo magii, if you will." Tom persisted.
"Yes, that makes sense. I caught sight of her watching me as I sped toward home earlier today. There's no way she should have been able to do that. To all intents and purposes, my speed renders me invisible to human scrutiny. At least, normal human scrutiny." The Streak mused.
"All right, you've convinced me. But despite what you're saying, she is still a widow. Oh, wait a minute. You're not saying... you can't be implying... that Sabrina deliberately sacrificed her own husband?"
Tom nodded: "No, we weren't, but the NYPD called me in as a consultant earlier this month after Steve Darien's body was found. The trouble is, exactly the same energies that surround Sabrina Darien were specifically high in an insertion above his heart. As if he were deliberately stabbed. Yes, I know it's supposed to be a criminal murder case related to theft of some of his personal assets. But. Irene? They were consistent with a knife wound. Or to be more precise, a dagger."
Irene shivered: "All right, so what is she doing here? Could she and her relatives have sought sanctuary here from those abominations on that alternate Earth?"
"She may be planning some sort of ritual to open the dimensional barriers and bring those beings here in turn, to destroy our own world in its turn."
And at that news, Jake and Irene Allon stared at one another in grim recognition. While they didn't want to believe what Sabrina Darien had done and was capable of, the couple were still the only ones who had believed the late Cassandra's prophecy about an imminent and inescapable nuclear war only several months from now, in late October 1962. Lyra caught their moment of shock and nodded in agreement, due to her own interview with Cassandra several months ago. It was obvious to all of them what would probably happen. Sabrina and her relatives had travelled here for a reason- and that motivation was the same as the "Anointed Hierarchy" cults in London with Norma Bates had been. They wanted to take advantage of the nuclear holocaust and open a portal to their home alternate Earth and bring across the monstrosities so they could feast on the survivors as they had done on the now extinct humanity of their obliterated home world. One way or another, Sabrina Darien had to be stopped. But how?
PETRIE, SEABOARD CITY: THAT AFTERNOON:
As Sabrina watched the shirtless Scott Mason busily fixing the hole on the Allon's garage roof, she smiled to herself and prepared some lemonade with a specific addition. As Scott looked down at Sabrina, part of him felt only an empty void because his own real affections lay elsewhere. However, it had to be done and if Sabrina Darien was to be halted, he had to carry through this facade. He should be good at it by now, he laughed to himself. Sabrina called: "Hey there. You look hot and bothered. Would you like some lemonade?"
"Sure I would. I'm Scott, by the way, a friend of Irene and Jake."
"Well hello there, Scotty. Would you like some ice with that?"
"Lady, that's music to my ears. What do you reckon? Is this the last of the summer?" As Scott climbed down the ladder, he clearly realised that Sabrina was savouring the view. He also guessed what else she had in mind for him. And at that point, Black Siren vaulted silently over the backyard wall, ready to catch the other woman in the act. She blinked at the spectacle through the open window, where, out of sight of Scott in the kitchen, she was adding what looked like a relaxant to Scott's drink. She signaled to Scott, whose invisible power ring shone momentarily. As it wasn't damped, Green Guardsman guessed that his act was working perfectly. Unknown to Sabrina, whose drink was now harmless, the chemical had been nullified as she turned to remove an ice tray from her fridge. At length, as Scott downed the lemonade, Sabrina made small talk before she touched his leg:
"Hey, handsome. D'you want to go somewhere more...private?"
"That'd be great. Phew. I must've gotten too much sun." She guided him into the bedroom as, undetected, Black Siren crept into the house. As Sabrina kissed Scott and pushed him onto the bed, her hand closed on her dagger. As she loosened Scott's jeans, he leant back and closed his eyes. She brought up the dagger and prepared to strike- at which moment, Black Siren appeared in the doorway with a minaturised version of Tom Turbine's interdimensional phase apparatus and fired at her. Nothing more was left but a silhouette, as Sabrina Darien abruptly vanished from Earth-109 and with her, her quantum-entangled relatives. However, shortly after they were dispatched, the experimental transmatter relocation gun began to smoke and fuse and, after Donna had hastily abandoned it, inverted itself out of existence.
And thus, whatever else would happen on October 28, 1962, it would not include survivors of a nuclear holocaust having to face ravenous elder demonic deities from beyong time and space, descending on Earth-109 en masse with no home of rescue or salvation from their plight, as had occurred on Earth-99.
EPILOGUE: EARTH-99: 1934:
Sabrina Darien didn't even have time to scream as the everpresent marauding tentacles of Rthulhu fastened on the sorceress and her sister satanists and, as they futilely kicked and screamed, swept them into the monster's endless rows of razor sharp teeth. A single high pitched scream rang out and then all was forever silence and darkness. Apart from the unearthly cries of Rthulhu and its kindred ancient demonic deities from beyond space and time, nothing else ever moved or lived on accursed Earth-99, claimed for the dark forevermore.
THE END
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PROLOGUE 1: EARTH-99:
Earth-99 underwent a singular apocalypse in 1934, and it was not one of human provenance. Slumbering miles beneath the Southwestern Pacific, in a desolate temple that predated humanity and even the rise of life itself on dim, dark ancient Hadean Earth four and a half to four billion years ago, while much of the newly formed planet's surface was a desolate, poisonous wasteland of rock and volcanic fire, bombarded by outer solar system cometoids from the coalescing and turbulent Oort belt, a vast inhuman entity had awoken. With a deafening roar, the tentacled, many mawed obscenity rose to the surface as its unleashed appearance caused tsunami to arise and surge across much of the Pacific, inundating adjacent New Zealand and much of the Southwestern Pacific island chains. Spontaneously, churches, synagogues and temples combusted as this gargantuan offence to nature and morality had no patience for contending deities. And then, from the skies above, in response to the cacophony of the emergent obscenity, other abominations began to rain down on Earth from the skies. The earth quaked, skyscrapers fell, volcanos long dormant erupted, further tsunamis surged forth, the air was filled with acrid smoke and flame and tentacles and gaping maws made short work of the unprepared, utterly helpless mass of humanity on the wracked and dying planet.
But before the entity known as Rthulhu could assault a small cottage in the hamlet of Arkham in Miskatonic County, Massachusetts, three figures vanished from it in a burst of blinding blue Cherenkov radiation. They were hardly noted as the transdimensional hordes feasted on the formerly dominant species that tried futilely to flee their onslaught. Within days, all humanity was extinct on Earth-99. But where had the three women in that cottage gone? A sightless blonde-haired female djinni in a two-millennia -old simulation of a green silk harem costume would never tell, as it gradually dissolved into mist, the sacrificial being for the women's flight from their wounded and dying Earth.
PROLOGUE 2: EARTH-109: NEW YORK: MAY 1962:
Two months ago, the Justice Guild and their loved ones had buried the organisation's sixth member, Cassandra Astriides, the heroic precognitive. However, that wasn't on the mind of suburban advertising executive Steve Darien as he stepped from the bus stop adjacent to his home and eagerly walked toward the door, looking forward to surprising his newly wed wife, Sabrina, after he had come home from his business trip to Los Angeles early. However, he was the one who would be surprised, but then, there is a last time for everything.
He was unprepared for the darkened curtained interior as he stepped across the house's threshold and the black candles that burnt around the trio of figures in their ebon robes- his wife Sabrina, his mother-in-law Enora and Sabrina's cousin Serafina. Or the inverted pentagram and the obsidian statue of the androgynous lord Baphomet. And then, the women descended on him, hitting him with sharpened sticks, tearing off his clothes and biting him, until his wife pressed a chloroform-impregnated rag over his throat.
When Steve Darien awoke, he was naked, bleeding and spread-eagled across on an altar, gagged so that he could not cry out in bewilderment or mounting horror. As his sight returned, a black-robed figure moved to stand over him and removed her cowl. He tried to scream Sabrina's name, but she was oblivious, sneering as the dagger thrust down and impaled him in the heart repeatedly. As he strained impotently against his bonds, oblivion and death began to descend on him. Sabrina Darien exulted as her mother and cousin bowed to her, over her sacrificial husband's ruined and ravished body.
SEABOARD CITY:
Irene Allon put down her grocery bag, noticing that the new neighbour's moving track had left from next foor. From neighbourhood gossip, she'd been told that the new resident of Petrie was a young widow, Sabrina Darien, whose husband Steven had been found murdered and horribly mutilated several weeks ago in a New York alleyway. Jake wouldn't be back from his Justice Guild meeting for an hour yet and their children were on holiday with their maternal grandparents in Boston.
And so, by four o'clock that afternoon, her apple pie was ready.
As Sabrina Darien answered the door, Irene was surprised to see her new neighbour was so young and clad in such a short skirt, funereal black though it was:
"Hi. I'm Irene Allon, your next door neighbour and I thought I'd welcome you to the neighbourhood." Sabrina was startled to witness the strong ward around her neighbour and her house next door. Evidently, this woman and her husband were friends of the late action heroine Cassandra Astriides, given that the provenance of the strong protective charms and wards around Irene Allon's person and home was recognisable as grecopagan. Irene Allon was impervious to her darkmagick and she would have to watch out for it. However, she smiled:
"Why, thank you, Mrs Allon. That smells delicious. How thoughtful of you. Please, come inside."
As Irene stepped inside, she became aware of the inner darkness and the contradictory vivaciousness of the young widow. She hardly seemed to be in mourning over the tragic circumstances of her husband's death, but given the horrific nature of that event, perhaps Mrs Darien understandably wanted no reminders of the life that she had been torn so violently from.
Actually, Sabrina had been assigned to Steve as a prospective Beltane sacrifice to Great Baphomet, in thankfulness for rescuing the coven that her mother, her cousin and self belonged to from the apocalypse of the Great Ancient Ones. For her, marriage to Steven Darien had been a mere preparation for his dark consecration and sacrifice to the Unholy Androgyne and love was irrelevant to the necromantic equation and rituals. She had proven herself. She was now the Blood Rosemary Coven's High Priestess.
"Allon. Oh, you're Jewish. Would you like a Martini?" At that moment, Sabrina was startled to hear a sonic boom and realised that it was too close to be a fighter jet from Ryerson Air Force Base in the intermediate distance. Then her enhanced daemonic senses saw a momentary crimson blur as it entered the home next door. Well, well. So Mr Allon was the Streak, then. Across the fence, Jake's compressed Streak uniform slid back into his signet ring as he dressed and smelt Irene's apple pie from the kitchen. And abruptly, his JGA signal device activated:
"Guys, I've just gotten back from coastal patrol. I'm off duty now. Can't this wait?"
Tom Turbine's voice echoed from the signaller: "No, Jake, I'm afraid it can't. Could you get irene over, this involves her as much as it does the Guild. Lyra's already with me. It's about your new neighbour. She isn't who or what she seems."
Making his excuses to a bewildered Irene and Sabrina, Jake changed back into his Streak uniform and carried his wife in his arms over to the Justice Guild brownstone, where Tom Turbine, Lyra Lewis, Catman, Black Siren and Green Guardsman were already there, awaiting their arrival:
"So what's all this about Sabrina Darien, our new neighbour?"
"Remember I told you that I was working on an interdimensional portal device to access parallel universes? I made momentary contact with one a fortnight ago. What I saw horrified me."
The Streak nodded: "So, how does this affect Sabrina?"
"Lyra and I witnessed the devastation and destruction of an alternate Earth by a monstrous, unholy creature. I was able to undertake a spectrographic analysis of the displaced rock when it first appeared. It looked like it was probably Hadean era zircon deposits from the earliest period of Earth's geological development, from the first five hundred million years after its formation. It had been deliberately summoned there by a trio of powerful women who were utilising anomalous but powerful unexplained radiation sources to resurrect it. One of them was your new widowed neighbour, Mrs Darien."
Irene gasped: "But... Sabrina Darien is so young. Even if there are some strange anomalies about her behaviour and self-presentation, she's mourning the loss of her husband."
"That's the point, Irene. She and Steven Darien were only married for two years before his untimely end. And that occurred on May 1. Exactly the same energies that we witnessed on that nightmare alternate Earth were present when Sabrina moved into your neighbourhood. What's more, they still are."
"So what are you saying, Lyra? That Sabrina Darien is some sort of witch or sorceress? This is the twentieth century, for goodness sake! People don't believe in that stuff and nonsense any more!"
"We think her presence on our world is no accident. She and her relatives must have detected the energies that I was using in my portal experiments." Lyra commented.
"There's only one problem with this, Tom. You said those creatures were resident, if dormant, on that alternate Earth before its destruction. Surely human technology would have detected if analogous beings were present on our own world? Geological residue? Elemental or chemical remnants? Signs of anomalous radiation or catalytic conversion?" The Streak objected.
"It's not as if we haven't come up against devil worshippers before. Remember when Cassie was still with us and we took on that "Anointed Hierarchy" cult with Norma Bates in it back in London?" Black Siren remarked.
"I don't blame you, Irene, I'm sceptical about all this too. It's all too reminiscent of Cassandra's end of the world obsession, even if questioning about it made her reticent to discuss it with the rest of us in detail." Green Guardsman said.
"However, Scott, you have told us your ring hasn't been operating optimally."
"Except the power ring operates according to specific scientific laws and was derived from a stable transuranic element originally. It's nothing to do with 'magic' or 'the supernatural.'"
"Now, this is only a tentative hypothesis and you're free to disagree with it. However, what if humans like Sabrina Darien and her relatives are members of an alternate human species somehow able to tap undiscovered natural energies- call them homo magii, if you will." Tom persisted.
"Yes, that makes sense. I caught sight of her watching me as I sped toward home earlier today. There's no way she should have been able to do that. To all intents and purposes, my speed renders me invisible to human scrutiny. At least, normal human scrutiny." The Streak mused.
"All right, you've convinced me. But despite what you're saying, she is still a widow. Oh, wait a minute. You're not saying... you can't be implying... that Sabrina deliberately sacrificed her own husband?"
Tom nodded: "No, we weren't, but the NYPD called me in as a consultant earlier this month after Steve Darien's body was found. The trouble is, exactly the same energies that surround Sabrina Darien were specifically high in an insertion above his heart. As if he were deliberately stabbed. Yes, I know it's supposed to be a criminal murder case related to theft of some of his personal assets. But. Irene? They were consistent with a knife wound. Or to be more precise, a dagger."
Irene shivered: "All right, so what is she doing here? Could she and her relatives have sought sanctuary here from those abominations on that alternate Earth?"
"She may be planning some sort of ritual to open the dimensional barriers and bring those beings here in turn, to destroy our own world in its turn."
And at that news, Jake and Irene Allon stared at one another in grim recognition. While they didn't want to believe what Sabrina Darien had done and was capable of, the couple were still the only ones who had believed the late Cassandra's prophecy about an imminent and inescapable nuclear war only several months from now, in late October 1962. Lyra caught their moment of shock and nodded in agreement, due to her own interview with Cassandra several months ago. It was obvious to all of them what would probably happen. Sabrina and her relatives had travelled here for a reason- and that motivation was the same as the "Anointed Hierarchy" cults in London with Norma Bates had been. They wanted to take advantage of the nuclear holocaust and open a portal to their home alternate Earth and bring across the monstrosities so they could feast on the survivors as they had done on the now extinct humanity of their obliterated home world. One way or another, Sabrina Darien had to be stopped. But how?
PETRIE, SEABOARD CITY: THAT AFTERNOON:
As Sabrina watched the shirtless Scott Mason busily fixing the hole on the Allon's garage roof, she smiled to herself and prepared some lemonade with a specific addition. As Scott looked down at Sabrina, part of him felt only an empty void because his own real affections lay elsewhere. However, it had to be done and if Sabrina Darien was to be halted, he had to carry through this facade. He should be good at it by now, he laughed to himself. Sabrina called: "Hey there. You look hot and bothered. Would you like some lemonade?"
"Sure I would. I'm Scott, by the way, a friend of Irene and Jake."
"Well hello there, Scotty. Would you like some ice with that?"
"Lady, that's music to my ears. What do you reckon? Is this the last of the summer?" As Scott climbed down the ladder, he clearly realised that Sabrina was savouring the view. He also guessed what else she had in mind for him. And at that point, Black Siren vaulted silently over the backyard wall, ready to catch the other woman in the act. She blinked at the spectacle through the open window, where, out of sight of Scott in the kitchen, she was adding what looked like a relaxant to Scott's drink. She signaled to Scott, whose invisible power ring shone momentarily. As it wasn't damped, Green Guardsman guessed that his act was working perfectly. Unknown to Sabrina, whose drink was now harmless, the chemical had been nullified as she turned to remove an ice tray from her fridge. At length, as Scott downed the lemonade, Sabrina made small talk before she touched his leg:
"Hey, handsome. D'you want to go somewhere more...private?"
"That'd be great. Phew. I must've gotten too much sun." She guided him into the bedroom as, undetected, Black Siren crept into the house. As Sabrina kissed Scott and pushed him onto the bed, her hand closed on her dagger. As she loosened Scott's jeans, he leant back and closed his eyes. She brought up the dagger and prepared to strike- at which moment, Black Siren appeared in the doorway with a minaturised version of Tom Turbine's interdimensional phase apparatus and fired at her. Nothing more was left but a silhouette, as Sabrina Darien abruptly vanished from Earth-109 and with her, her quantum-entangled relatives. However, shortly after they were dispatched, the experimental transmatter relocation gun began to smoke and fuse and, after Donna had hastily abandoned it, inverted itself out of existence.
And thus, whatever else would happen on October 28, 1962, it would not include survivors of a nuclear holocaust having to face ravenous elder demonic deities from beyong time and space, descending on Earth-109 en masse with no home of rescue or salvation from their plight, as had occurred on Earth-99.
EPILOGUE: EARTH-99: 1934:
Sabrina Darien didn't even have time to scream as the everpresent marauding tentacles of Rthulhu fastened on the sorceress and her sister satanists and, as they futilely kicked and screamed, swept them into the monster's endless rows of razor sharp teeth. A single high pitched scream rang out and then all was forever silence and darkness. Apart from the unearthly cries of Rthulhu and its kindred ancient demonic deities from beyond space and time, nothing else ever moved or lived on accursed Earth-99, claimed for the dark forevermore.
THE END
