Post by redsycorax on Jan 29, 2023 2:14:21 GMT
Captain Thunder (Willie Fawcett) and his sister Lightning Girl (Bella Fawcett), gifted with awesome abilities by the Monhegan shaman Merokee on Earth-964, found sanctuary on Earth-500 after a nuclear war destroyed all life on their home world. But apart from their nemesis, the evil scientist, Dr Atticus Svoboda, they assumed that they were the only survivors. Until now...
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PROLOGUE: LINCOLN, AD 1255: EARTH-964:
The little boy was roughly shoved in front of the black, funereally robed sinister figure, quaking as he looked up at him. The eldritch newcomer made no other motion than to throw a bag of coins at his greedy, grimy and grasping parents, who made gap-toothed grins at the man, before they were hurriedly marshalled out of the presence of the man who towered above the nine year old boy:
"What is your name, child?"
"H-Hugh, sir."
"Aye, Hugh of Lincoln, named for a saint, yet only nine years of age. And what do you imagine you are here for, Hugh?"
"May the Holy Mother of God protect me! Ritual sacrifice! By the Giwen! As happened to the Blessed William of Norwich?!"
But the newcomer threw his head back and laughed, and Hugh could see his teeth were sharpened to razored edges:
"Nay, lad. I am not of the Hebraic faith. I hight Klingsor and I am from far Allemagne. I want to offer you a new life. It does not involve your sacrifice or corruption. Indeed, your obvious faith and piety will prove a literal godsend for our mutual benefit. Come, drink of this chalice."
Although he was still nervous in front of this stranger, Young Hugh of Lincoln did so. He found the concoction odd, like mead and wine admixtured, but when he put down the goblet, the room cavorted around and crackled with strange and eldritch energies. And then, as if for a distance, Klingsor intoned:
"Young Hugh of Lincoln, I anoint you with the benefices of Saints Sergius (of Rome, and his prowess in battle); Titus (the Martyr and his valour); Odo (of Cluny and his wisdom); Romulus (of Rome, defender of those martyred, who suffered that fate himself) and Mark the Evangelist (and his great strength). Lo, I endow you with the power of the Storm!"
Lightning crashed around the startled child and he disappeared within it. In his place stood a tall, blue eyed blond figure, now taller than the sorceror. Dressed as a medieval knight, he sneered down at the the town below the gap within the tent in which they were situated. Then he looked at Klingsor:
"What is your will, My Eminence Klingsor."
With his sharklike teeth, the sorceror smiled at his new emissary:
"Your piety and contempt for the Giwen made me certain that you were the ideal partisan for my Great Cause, Young Hugh of Lincoln. You have been supernaturally gifted to obliterate the threat to Christian childhood, purity and faith that the Giwen pose."
"It is a holy mission, Your Eminence. I long to embark upon it and obey the dictates of Holy Mother Church. They shall be scattered before me."
"Young Hugh of Lincoln, there is something else. In order to foment the outcome that we both earnestly desire, I have sent a vision to certain receptive souls of faith and reknown. The vision makes it seem as if you, in your mortal childly body, were executed and your blood made into food offerings."
"Be it as you desire, My Eminence. Shall I embark on my mission now?"
"Do it, my boon companion and honoured, anointed charge."
And as the creature soared to begin its unholy mission of terror and destruction, Klingsor was left behind, hoping that the Storm Boy's mission would be effective. If he could delay the coming of scientism and secular rationality as a result of his minion's crusade against the Hebrews, then it would prolong his power and might and belief in supernatural and magical workings. He could offset it by decades, perhaps centuries. He toasted his new pawn: "Here's to you then, Young Hugh of Lincoln, my Storm Boy. May your new name prove prophetic and true!"
INTERLUDE:
And true to his malignant origins and the lie that accompanied them, Storm Boy presided over pogrom, misery and massacre across medieval Europe, tainting and contaminating its soil for centuries to come. In distant America, the benign shaman Merokee learnt of this malignant entity and decided to inaugurate a noble lineage of champions of virtue and protectors of the oppressed over the time that followed, against the day that Europe would come to the Americas and then beyond it. Finally, in the twentieth century, his empowerment fell on two young Americans, William and Isabella Fawcett, who became the latest to earn the sobriquets Captain Thunder and Lightning Girl. And one day, when the United States and its allies were pitched in mortal combat against the murderous blood-stained behemoth of Nazi Germany, Captain Thunder and Lightning Girl encountered their antithesis and nemesis, Storm Boy, over the skies of England. Fortunately for posterity and the Allied cause, the two American action heroes were triumphant, tricking Storm Boy into appropriating an enchanted talisman whose purpose was not as it was labelled in the British Museum. Storm Boy was torn away from the Earth, entrapped in an amber sphere of anomalium, which protected his envisaged prey from his attention. But on Earth-964, the darker currents of Klingsor's irrationality, hatreds and subborning had become too deep and entrenched for the ultimate fate of that world to be denied. And thus, in November 1964, nuclear war descended on that doomed planet. Within two years, all life on it had been poisoned and obliterated as radiation levels became too high to permit the survival of first humanity, then any life whatsoever.
But because of their valour, heroism and mercy, Captain Thunder and Lightning Girl were spared this doom and found their way to the sanctuary of the Justice Alliance on Earth-500 and the love of Kalel and Kara Kalel, two Kryptonians known as Superman and Superwoman to the world that cherished them. But unfortunately too, the obliteration of human life on Earth-964 had a secondary effect and over time, the anomalium sphere that imprisoned Storm Boy steadily weakened. One day, it shattered altogether. Storm Boy accelerated away to his now irradiated, silent home and then realised that while he had been imprisoned, life there had been extinguished. And then, suddenly, transparent in the void before him, Klingsor was there:
"They survived this, the children of Merokee."
"On the worlds of another star, My Eminence?"
"No, my charge. For in His Wisdom, the Almighty has ordained the creation of many worlds and many universes."
"I dare not place human limitations on the intent and mysteries of Our Lord."
"On a fallen world, the accursed Captain Thunder and his witch-sister the Lightning Girl are to be found. I will facilitate your travel there."
"Be it as you desire, My Eminence Klingsor. And finally I shall achieve my holy purpose, the extirpation of their pagan poison from the cosmos around us..."
And then, as Klingsor gestured, Storm Boy was on his way...
WHITE HOLE: EXIT TERMINUS UNIVERSE-500:
White holes are the opposite terminii to objects that enter black hole event horizons or singularites. Just as matter is pulverised by the infinite gravitational stressors at the black hole event horizon, it then passes through a superspatial conduit through space and time and then emerges in another universe, reconstituted and ejected from a white hole event horizon at translight velocities. However, and despite his invulnerability, Storm Boy had failed one particular aspect of Universe-500 that Klingsor had neglected to brief him about- which was that Universe-500 itself was sapient. It became aware of the provenance of the intruder and altered the anti-gravitational tensile strength of the white hole that Storm Boy sought to depart from.
JUSTICE ALLIANCE SEABASE: EARTH-500:
At which point, the Justice Alliance 'inconveniently' became aware of what was happening due to the Supercomputer in Superman and Superman's Fortress of Solidarity. It analysed the tachyon egress upsurge from one particular white hole, came to the conclusion that an entity was attempting to enter Universe 500 and obtained an emission imprint of the intruder. It correlated the image with its database content, identified the intruding entity as Young Hugh of Lincoln from Earth-964/Storm Boy and accordingly sent an urgent alert to the Justice Alliance Seabase.
Captain Thunder and Lightning Girl looked up as the holographier image appeared above them:
"No! No, Willie, it can't be him! Not after all this time!"
"That's the problem, Bella. If we survived the destruction of Earth-964, then there's no real reason why he couldn't have broken out of that anomalium sphere that Merokee imprisoned him inside."
"Phew. Have to say I don't like the insignia that character's sporting..." Green Arrow observed.
"Did Merokee give that kid powers akin to yours?" Robin asked.
"No, Helena. Merokee had nothing to do with Hugh of Lincoln, or as he was known back on our native Earth, "Storm Boy." He was given his abilities by a darkmage named Klingsor."
Robin raised an eyebrow: "Wagnerian much? Hang on, isn't that the same sorceror that held Gundra the Valkyrie captive as Gundriggiya on Earth-Two?"
Lightning Girl nodded: "That's a true account, more or less. Unfortunately, like Merokee the Monhegan shaman, Klingsor is apparently dimensionally transcendent. However, in terms of personal morality, he's his antithesis. He created Storm Boy for no other reason than to aid and abet anti-Semitic pogroms and thus delay technological development through killing off those who might have contributed to the increased store of human knowledge, maintaining medieval superstition, ignorance and fear. He was created in the thirteenth century, but lingered on until the twentieth, at which point Willie, Merokee and I threw him into an anomalium sphere, outside Earth-964's conventional space/time."
"Dude's a Nazi. Does he have no moral compass of his own at all?" Green Arrow grimaced.
"Merokee believes that Klingsor encountered anti-Semitic mythology about Young Hugh of Lincoln elsewhere in the multiverse and had the idea to actually locate someone who might fit the description on one alternate Earth- which, unfortunately, happened to be ours. Hugh's brash, ignorant, violent and brainwashed. If he'd remained a twelfth century peasant, he would have died later that century only about thirty or so years later. He believes that because of that, he owes Klingsor his loyalty and life. Bella and I both hoped we'd seen the last of him."
"But hey, you two got rid of him before. And it looks like Universe-500 is trying to keep him out itself."
"That's the problem. Klingsor is eventually going to realise that his pawn isn't making much headway and try to overwhelm the preventative barriers that our sentient universe has established to keep Storm Boy out. And to answer your questions, Mom and Dad, no, you can't come with us this time. Our abilities, and those of Storm Boy, are magically based, so you'd be vulnerable to any assault he launched." Superman and Superwoman looked at one another, and then away.
"If only we had a mage within the Alliance who could provide back-up for you. I don't like this." Wonder Woman exclaimed.
"We do, however, have some tech support. One of the advantages of coming from a highly advanced alternate universe is that I'm quite familiar with some precautions you can undertake." Hermes Trismegistus offered, as the two ultra-terrestrials nodded and entered conversation with him.
WHITE HOLE EGRESS: UNIVERSE-500:
"Hugh!"
Storm Boy's brow furrowed:
"The half-breed and the Big Red Noise! How did you get here? No matter- you will not stop me. This universe must be purged and purified!"
"After all these years, you still haven't learnt anything. Did you see what happened to our own Earth?"
"It failed in its destiny. The Bolshevik-Jewish conspiracy destroyed it as His Eminence Klingsor and I feared. No matter. You will not stand in our way!"
"After all these years, still a stupid brat." Lightning Girl retorted.
"Hugh, we don't want to kill or injure you."
"Then you are all the more weaker, for I am determined to do so to you."
"It's no use, Willie. He's wholly corrupted. Newsflash, Hughie? We won't let you in here, darkmagick or not. We stopped you once, we can do that again."
"Silence, n-" Captain Thunder backhanded him.
"You don't get to call my sister that vile name, fanatic!"
"Purity and the triumph of the gentile will will prevail!" Storm Boy snarled, spittle flying from his lips and floating in the superspatial void.
"Do you really believe that bargain basement conspiracy theory drivel, Hugh?" Lightning Girl responded, hitting him hard and throwing him further back into the void.
"Well, he's not the smartest meta in the neighbourhood." Captain Thunder joined his sister in her onslaught.
"I will not relent!" By now, Storm Boy's face was bleeding, but Klingsor's thaumaturgic endowment of his acolyte did its work and repaired it. Scowling, the Nazi metahuman retreated to a distance and then rushed onward, with supernatural lightning crackling around him. And this time, the barriers that Universe-500 had erected against him were failing as Klingsor threw everything he had at the egress event horizon from the white hole. But then Captain Thunder and Lightning Girl felt corresponding energies crackling around them as Merokee brought his own transcendent and virtuous provenance to bear and his champions sped forward, faces grim in determination. And once more, there was a flash of light and energies beyond human comprehension. At the end of it, though, as a radiation pall cleared, Captain Thunder and Lightning Girl floated in the void beyond their universe:
"Honored Elder? W-we didn't kill Hugh, did we?"
"No, William my child. What you did initially with Atticus Svoboda came to mind and I decided to take advantage of it. Elsewhere in this Infinite Multiverse of ours is a barren alternate Earth where life never arose. It is a vast number of probability sequences away from Earth-500 and its universe. And there Hugh of Lincoln will remain, for the iniquity of Klingsor cannot reach him there."
EARTH-DUODECILLION:
On this Earth, the Hadean era had never ended. This Earth was a firepit, still incandescent with the prodigal energies of its formation, without a large planetary satellite and with a cyanogen atmosphere, runaway volcanism and continual bombardment from residual cosmic debris. Storm Boy/Young Hugh of Lincoln blinked awake, as molten rock debris fell on his invulnerable cheek. He snarled, levering himself from the molten ground and soaring aloft. He soared into Earth-Duodecillion's atmosphere and beyond it, then stopped. He became aware of something icy cold and fearful, the absence of Klingsor's imprint from him. Nor was that the only difficulty that faced him. This was a closed universe, where black and white holes did not exist. Moreover, it was a non-zoetropic universe as well.
Life did not exist here.
Anywhere.
Bewildered and more alone than anyone from his world had ever been, Young Hugh of Lincoln howled in rage, fear and panic.
But nothing was there to hear him. Nor would anything ever be.
THE END [2.30 PM, JANUARY 30, 2023]
++
PROLOGUE: LINCOLN, AD 1255: EARTH-964:
The little boy was roughly shoved in front of the black, funereally robed sinister figure, quaking as he looked up at him. The eldritch newcomer made no other motion than to throw a bag of coins at his greedy, grimy and grasping parents, who made gap-toothed grins at the man, before they were hurriedly marshalled out of the presence of the man who towered above the nine year old boy:
"What is your name, child?"
"H-Hugh, sir."
"Aye, Hugh of Lincoln, named for a saint, yet only nine years of age. And what do you imagine you are here for, Hugh?"
"May the Holy Mother of God protect me! Ritual sacrifice! By the Giwen! As happened to the Blessed William of Norwich?!"
But the newcomer threw his head back and laughed, and Hugh could see his teeth were sharpened to razored edges:
"Nay, lad. I am not of the Hebraic faith. I hight Klingsor and I am from far Allemagne. I want to offer you a new life. It does not involve your sacrifice or corruption. Indeed, your obvious faith and piety will prove a literal godsend for our mutual benefit. Come, drink of this chalice."
Although he was still nervous in front of this stranger, Young Hugh of Lincoln did so. He found the concoction odd, like mead and wine admixtured, but when he put down the goblet, the room cavorted around and crackled with strange and eldritch energies. And then, as if for a distance, Klingsor intoned:
"Young Hugh of Lincoln, I anoint you with the benefices of Saints Sergius (of Rome, and his prowess in battle); Titus (the Martyr and his valour); Odo (of Cluny and his wisdom); Romulus (of Rome, defender of those martyred, who suffered that fate himself) and Mark the Evangelist (and his great strength). Lo, I endow you with the power of the Storm!"
Lightning crashed around the startled child and he disappeared within it. In his place stood a tall, blue eyed blond figure, now taller than the sorceror. Dressed as a medieval knight, he sneered down at the the town below the gap within the tent in which they were situated. Then he looked at Klingsor:
"What is your will, My Eminence Klingsor."
With his sharklike teeth, the sorceror smiled at his new emissary:
"Your piety and contempt for the Giwen made me certain that you were the ideal partisan for my Great Cause, Young Hugh of Lincoln. You have been supernaturally gifted to obliterate the threat to Christian childhood, purity and faith that the Giwen pose."
"It is a holy mission, Your Eminence. I long to embark upon it and obey the dictates of Holy Mother Church. They shall be scattered before me."
"Young Hugh of Lincoln, there is something else. In order to foment the outcome that we both earnestly desire, I have sent a vision to certain receptive souls of faith and reknown. The vision makes it seem as if you, in your mortal childly body, were executed and your blood made into food offerings."
"Be it as you desire, My Eminence. Shall I embark on my mission now?"
"Do it, my boon companion and honoured, anointed charge."
And as the creature soared to begin its unholy mission of terror and destruction, Klingsor was left behind, hoping that the Storm Boy's mission would be effective. If he could delay the coming of scientism and secular rationality as a result of his minion's crusade against the Hebrews, then it would prolong his power and might and belief in supernatural and magical workings. He could offset it by decades, perhaps centuries. He toasted his new pawn: "Here's to you then, Young Hugh of Lincoln, my Storm Boy. May your new name prove prophetic and true!"
INTERLUDE:
And true to his malignant origins and the lie that accompanied them, Storm Boy presided over pogrom, misery and massacre across medieval Europe, tainting and contaminating its soil for centuries to come. In distant America, the benign shaman Merokee learnt of this malignant entity and decided to inaugurate a noble lineage of champions of virtue and protectors of the oppressed over the time that followed, against the day that Europe would come to the Americas and then beyond it. Finally, in the twentieth century, his empowerment fell on two young Americans, William and Isabella Fawcett, who became the latest to earn the sobriquets Captain Thunder and Lightning Girl. And one day, when the United States and its allies were pitched in mortal combat against the murderous blood-stained behemoth of Nazi Germany, Captain Thunder and Lightning Girl encountered their antithesis and nemesis, Storm Boy, over the skies of England. Fortunately for posterity and the Allied cause, the two American action heroes were triumphant, tricking Storm Boy into appropriating an enchanted talisman whose purpose was not as it was labelled in the British Museum. Storm Boy was torn away from the Earth, entrapped in an amber sphere of anomalium, which protected his envisaged prey from his attention. But on Earth-964, the darker currents of Klingsor's irrationality, hatreds and subborning had become too deep and entrenched for the ultimate fate of that world to be denied. And thus, in November 1964, nuclear war descended on that doomed planet. Within two years, all life on it had been poisoned and obliterated as radiation levels became too high to permit the survival of first humanity, then any life whatsoever.
But because of their valour, heroism and mercy, Captain Thunder and Lightning Girl were spared this doom and found their way to the sanctuary of the Justice Alliance on Earth-500 and the love of Kalel and Kara Kalel, two Kryptonians known as Superman and Superwoman to the world that cherished them. But unfortunately too, the obliteration of human life on Earth-964 had a secondary effect and over time, the anomalium sphere that imprisoned Storm Boy steadily weakened. One day, it shattered altogether. Storm Boy accelerated away to his now irradiated, silent home and then realised that while he had been imprisoned, life there had been extinguished. And then, suddenly, transparent in the void before him, Klingsor was there:
"They survived this, the children of Merokee."
"On the worlds of another star, My Eminence?"
"No, my charge. For in His Wisdom, the Almighty has ordained the creation of many worlds and many universes."
"I dare not place human limitations on the intent and mysteries of Our Lord."
"On a fallen world, the accursed Captain Thunder and his witch-sister the Lightning Girl are to be found. I will facilitate your travel there."
"Be it as you desire, My Eminence Klingsor. And finally I shall achieve my holy purpose, the extirpation of their pagan poison from the cosmos around us..."
And then, as Klingsor gestured, Storm Boy was on his way...
WHITE HOLE: EXIT TERMINUS UNIVERSE-500:
White holes are the opposite terminii to objects that enter black hole event horizons or singularites. Just as matter is pulverised by the infinite gravitational stressors at the black hole event horizon, it then passes through a superspatial conduit through space and time and then emerges in another universe, reconstituted and ejected from a white hole event horizon at translight velocities. However, and despite his invulnerability, Storm Boy had failed one particular aspect of Universe-500 that Klingsor had neglected to brief him about- which was that Universe-500 itself was sapient. It became aware of the provenance of the intruder and altered the anti-gravitational tensile strength of the white hole that Storm Boy sought to depart from.
JUSTICE ALLIANCE SEABASE: EARTH-500:
At which point, the Justice Alliance 'inconveniently' became aware of what was happening due to the Supercomputer in Superman and Superman's Fortress of Solidarity. It analysed the tachyon egress upsurge from one particular white hole, came to the conclusion that an entity was attempting to enter Universe 500 and obtained an emission imprint of the intruder. It correlated the image with its database content, identified the intruding entity as Young Hugh of Lincoln from Earth-964/Storm Boy and accordingly sent an urgent alert to the Justice Alliance Seabase.
Captain Thunder and Lightning Girl looked up as the holographier image appeared above them:
"No! No, Willie, it can't be him! Not after all this time!"
"That's the problem, Bella. If we survived the destruction of Earth-964, then there's no real reason why he couldn't have broken out of that anomalium sphere that Merokee imprisoned him inside."
"Phew. Have to say I don't like the insignia that character's sporting..." Green Arrow observed.
"Did Merokee give that kid powers akin to yours?" Robin asked.
"No, Helena. Merokee had nothing to do with Hugh of Lincoln, or as he was known back on our native Earth, "Storm Boy." He was given his abilities by a darkmage named Klingsor."
Robin raised an eyebrow: "Wagnerian much? Hang on, isn't that the same sorceror that held Gundra the Valkyrie captive as Gundriggiya on Earth-Two?"
Lightning Girl nodded: "That's a true account, more or less. Unfortunately, like Merokee the Monhegan shaman, Klingsor is apparently dimensionally transcendent. However, in terms of personal morality, he's his antithesis. He created Storm Boy for no other reason than to aid and abet anti-Semitic pogroms and thus delay technological development through killing off those who might have contributed to the increased store of human knowledge, maintaining medieval superstition, ignorance and fear. He was created in the thirteenth century, but lingered on until the twentieth, at which point Willie, Merokee and I threw him into an anomalium sphere, outside Earth-964's conventional space/time."
"Dude's a Nazi. Does he have no moral compass of his own at all?" Green Arrow grimaced.
"Merokee believes that Klingsor encountered anti-Semitic mythology about Young Hugh of Lincoln elsewhere in the multiverse and had the idea to actually locate someone who might fit the description on one alternate Earth- which, unfortunately, happened to be ours. Hugh's brash, ignorant, violent and brainwashed. If he'd remained a twelfth century peasant, he would have died later that century only about thirty or so years later. He believes that because of that, he owes Klingsor his loyalty and life. Bella and I both hoped we'd seen the last of him."
"But hey, you two got rid of him before. And it looks like Universe-500 is trying to keep him out itself."
"That's the problem. Klingsor is eventually going to realise that his pawn isn't making much headway and try to overwhelm the preventative barriers that our sentient universe has established to keep Storm Boy out. And to answer your questions, Mom and Dad, no, you can't come with us this time. Our abilities, and those of Storm Boy, are magically based, so you'd be vulnerable to any assault he launched." Superman and Superwoman looked at one another, and then away.
"If only we had a mage within the Alliance who could provide back-up for you. I don't like this." Wonder Woman exclaimed.
"We do, however, have some tech support. One of the advantages of coming from a highly advanced alternate universe is that I'm quite familiar with some precautions you can undertake." Hermes Trismegistus offered, as the two ultra-terrestrials nodded and entered conversation with him.
WHITE HOLE EGRESS: UNIVERSE-500:
"Hugh!"
Storm Boy's brow furrowed:
"The half-breed and the Big Red Noise! How did you get here? No matter- you will not stop me. This universe must be purged and purified!"
"After all these years, you still haven't learnt anything. Did you see what happened to our own Earth?"
"It failed in its destiny. The Bolshevik-Jewish conspiracy destroyed it as His Eminence Klingsor and I feared. No matter. You will not stand in our way!"
"After all these years, still a stupid brat." Lightning Girl retorted.
"Hugh, we don't want to kill or injure you."
"Then you are all the more weaker, for I am determined to do so to you."
"It's no use, Willie. He's wholly corrupted. Newsflash, Hughie? We won't let you in here, darkmagick or not. We stopped you once, we can do that again."
"Silence, n-" Captain Thunder backhanded him.
"You don't get to call my sister that vile name, fanatic!"
"Purity and the triumph of the gentile will will prevail!" Storm Boy snarled, spittle flying from his lips and floating in the superspatial void.
"Do you really believe that bargain basement conspiracy theory drivel, Hugh?" Lightning Girl responded, hitting him hard and throwing him further back into the void.
"Well, he's not the smartest meta in the neighbourhood." Captain Thunder joined his sister in her onslaught.
"I will not relent!" By now, Storm Boy's face was bleeding, but Klingsor's thaumaturgic endowment of his acolyte did its work and repaired it. Scowling, the Nazi metahuman retreated to a distance and then rushed onward, with supernatural lightning crackling around him. And this time, the barriers that Universe-500 had erected against him were failing as Klingsor threw everything he had at the egress event horizon from the white hole. But then Captain Thunder and Lightning Girl felt corresponding energies crackling around them as Merokee brought his own transcendent and virtuous provenance to bear and his champions sped forward, faces grim in determination. And once more, there was a flash of light and energies beyond human comprehension. At the end of it, though, as a radiation pall cleared, Captain Thunder and Lightning Girl floated in the void beyond their universe:
"Honored Elder? W-we didn't kill Hugh, did we?"
"No, William my child. What you did initially with Atticus Svoboda came to mind and I decided to take advantage of it. Elsewhere in this Infinite Multiverse of ours is a barren alternate Earth where life never arose. It is a vast number of probability sequences away from Earth-500 and its universe. And there Hugh of Lincoln will remain, for the iniquity of Klingsor cannot reach him there."
EARTH-DUODECILLION:
On this Earth, the Hadean era had never ended. This Earth was a firepit, still incandescent with the prodigal energies of its formation, without a large planetary satellite and with a cyanogen atmosphere, runaway volcanism and continual bombardment from residual cosmic debris. Storm Boy/Young Hugh of Lincoln blinked awake, as molten rock debris fell on his invulnerable cheek. He snarled, levering himself from the molten ground and soaring aloft. He soared into Earth-Duodecillion's atmosphere and beyond it, then stopped. He became aware of something icy cold and fearful, the absence of Klingsor's imprint from him. Nor was that the only difficulty that faced him. This was a closed universe, where black and white holes did not exist. Moreover, it was a non-zoetropic universe as well.
Life did not exist here.
Anywhere.
Bewildered and more alone than anyone from his world had ever been, Young Hugh of Lincoln howled in rage, fear and panic.
But nothing was there to hear him. Nor would anything ever be.
THE END [2.30 PM, JANUARY 30, 2023]
