Post by redsycorax on Sept 9, 2018 0:52:21 GMT
Around the Edifice that controlled the secondary universe of Ys, the world's Warlock paced around his domain. It had been difficult re-establishing control over his rebellious world, but the events that had roiled the rest of the multiverse had provided him with an opportunity. Curiously, the crimson skies and antimatter storms that had engulfed the rest of creation had been absent from Ys. Why that should be the case, no-one knew. The Warlock had been able to establish contact with his former ally, the Druid of Cattamore, a subatomic world in a microuniverse where magick was possible. In the case of Cattamore, it had been carried into a protective shroud or brace as it was 'embedded' in Earth-One's universe. Why Ys had been almost untouched, the Warlock was unsure- perhaps because it was 'shielded' from the worst by the presence of Earth-One's adjacent universe. Earth-One's Green Lantern and Zatanna had never visited this iteration of Ys, with salutary effects on the retention of power in his context.
There had been other anomalous survivors, such as the Universe of Antimatter where Qward was situated, but the Weaponers of that realm tended to be avaricious, imperialist and uncollaborative when it came to other realms. However, in the case of Ys, 'almost' untouched was the operative phrase. Despire weathering the Crises, the Other Side of the World had been damaged. It needed to raid other universes for its resources or it would experience a rapid entropy collapse into oblivion.
Frowning, the Warlock concentrated...
Earth-490.
It had some local quirks, such as Anthony and Cleopatra VII winning the Battle of Actium and Akhenaten's monotheism becoming the dominant religious stream within the resultant Greater Egyptian Empire. Accordingly, it was no accident that in its datum twenty-first century CE equivalent, its most powerful metahuman was named Helios, a Daxamite (given that lead was almost non-existent as well). Alongside La-Gan, the New Heroic Society consisted of Razor (a Batman cognate with 12th Level intellect), Tachyon (a gay male speedster), Polychroma (its Green Lantern alternate), Titanwoman (a transposed future-Earth Saturn Girl) and Farsight (a Naltorian refugee).
The Warlock noted the recent iteration status of this world and nodded to himself. This would be useful. The planet had an ingenue metahuman population and would be highly vulnerable to any offensive from Ys. He cast a nervous glance at the distant adversarial realm of Lyonesse, consisting of those who had treacherously fought for their autonomy from his stern but providential rule. Fortunately, there was a several parsec boundary between Newys and Lyonesse now, and they could not halt his plans.
There was one slight problem when it came to his vision for the farflung corner of the Multiverse, though. His name was Douglas Giles. He had been flung from Earth-1003 when an Omega class homo magii had lost her lover and in her grief, pain and rage, obliterated his world from existence and then went on her way to destroy the rest of that universe in her all-consuming intractable fury. Douglas was in teleport transit when the apocalypse happened and he fell through the Bleed, eventually ending up on Earth-1017. That world was one of the more quotidian in the multiverse- with no metahumans, no paranormal entities, and no magii. Dreading the Second Coming of the Deathbringer, he settled into his life as an accountant in Edinburgh, capital of this world's independent Scottish Republic. Until, one day...
Doug Giles liked Earth-1017 so far. His life had gotten back into some sort of order and coherence and it was refreshing not to have to look over his shoulder during the evenings to fight off would-be predatory vampires, zombies or other malignant paranormals. Mind you, the same couldn't be said for local hardcore drug addicts or some of the dually diagnosed mentally ill, and he'd already had to fight off two would-be muggers. But otherwise, things were looking up for him. He just hoped there wasn't a zombie apocalypse or any similar mayhem lurking just around the temporal corner. And that was when it happened.
A form blurred into solidity and he took a step back:
"Whoa! Who the hell-"
"You need to come with me."
"Uh, why? Sorry, but that's one hell of a garish outfit there. Is it one of those cosplay things?"
"I so don't have time for this, Douglas. I'm Tachyon. Your world is about to experience its end and I'm here to make sure you don't get dragged into it?"
"Is it the Darkmage?!"
"Who? Nope, this character's called the Warlock. I'm sorry. I know you had a life here, but we're running out of time." The newcomer grabbed Doug and they blurred into efferverscence and then they were gone...
As Tachyon and Doug blurred out of existence on Earth 1017, the Edinburgh sky was suddenly split by a blinding blue illumination. It was not a harbinger of nuclear obliteration but something far, far worse. It descended on the unprepared city, charring its inhabitants and architecture to actinic white radiation traces before it spread across the rest of the British Isles and then its world. Mercifully, there was no time even to scream as the annihilation effect took a microsecond, and any painpulse from neuron to synapse was tardy in comparison. Nor did it incidentally ignite that world's national nuclear arsenals. Oblivion arrived and departed before anyone could comprehend it. The Moon accelerated away, its surface glowing red and orange as its crust was devastated by the gravitational stressors.
In Ys, a vastly engorged blue flame portal flickered in eerie empathy as the Warlock of Ys laughed derisively. He had no compassion for the three billion humans whom he had just exterminated, as his eyes matched the sapphire blue colouration of the flame portal. His gambit had paid off, handsomely. This would be easier than he had thought. His attentions turned to his next target.
Earth-490.
Doug and Tachyon rematerialised on Earth-490. He pushed the speedster away, aghast at what he had just witnessed; "Y-you didn't even make any effort to rescue them. Any of them."
"Look, I'm sorry. There was no time. We haven't faced anything like this."
"Who's we when we're at home, then?" A throat cleared above him and Doug looked up to see an entire group of garishly dressed intruders descending from the skies:
"I apologise for the abrupt movement, Douglas. We'd only just found out that Earth-1017 was the Warlock's target and there was no time to prepare planetary defenses. As you've just witnessed, his abilities are formidable and we lack the experience to currently halt him. And we're sorry for the loss of your adopted world." Helios said
"Wait a minute. How did you know I'm not from that world?"
"We locked into your unique molecular biology. It differs in terms of your subatomic composition from anyone else. And as for the Warlock, we'll tell you more about it if you'll come with us. We need a team mage, and you have the capabilities. If you decide to join us."
Doug settled into his new life as a forensic accountant for the California Securities Commission, He missed Edinburgh and his friends there, but he made new ones. And he winced at the 'obvious' nature of some of the 'hackneyed' parallelspeak alternative names for familiar landmarks in this world. San Francisco was "San Narciso", Los Angeles was Angel City. Instead of Washington DC, the United States capital was New Lancaster, because there had to be one to 'balance' New York.
He met a young woman named Cassie but she got the message he wasn't interested in her that way. She volunteered to introduce him to her friend Maxxie, who was a breakthrough musician from Bristol on the rebound from his lost love Jamie, killed in a Zoroastrian fundamentalist bombing in Londinium (moan) in 5157 AE (given that this world had evolved from ancient Egypt, that dating system was employed). He dated Maxxie once or twice, but there was still a dark and cold weight in his soul where Earth-1017 had been.
But then there were the heroics and they grew on him. He had a brief contretemps with the Helm of Nabu, but then he asserted his mage status and kept it under control. This surprised some of his New Heroic Society colleagues initially, but over time, they came to accept him and cherish him as a valuable element of their team.
And then it happened. Only active for about a year, the NHS encountered the Warlock for their first time...and they had their first fatality.
It was the Warlock. He had marshalled his forces and surged onto the soil of Earth-490, and battle was joined between him, his mesmerised Ys soldiers and the forces of the startled alternate Earth that was his target. The New Heroic Society rose to the challenge, with Helios delivering pacifier gas to the invading troops. As Lightmage, Douglas Giles played his role, entering thaumaturgic contest with the Warlock, stalemating him. His experience with local magicks told against that of his insurgent and presumptuous opponent, who had to prepare his sorcerous skills for the different metaphysics that prevailed in sequential big bang universes. Tachyon restrained the invaders in his turn, creating whirlwinds with his accelerated velocity, while Polychroma's powerjewel encased them in impregnable bubbles of diamond consistency. Titanwoman fought for psionic ascendancy and liberated the minds of some of the more recently enslaved Ysians. But then Farsight gasped and fell forward on the battlefield, mouth agape and eyes sightless, blood pumping from his eyes, ears and mouth. Their precognitive had not foreseen his murder and with this action, the fighting stopped as the Ysians beat a hasty retreat back to their secondary universe.
The first of the New Heroic Society had fallen and their world would never be the same. At Farsight's funeral, Tachyon and Lightmage stood, arm in arm, with the others staring down at the grave of their team precognitive. As he was lowered to his final resting place, Titanwoman beckoned to Helios:
"Look, something's badly wrong here."
"Yeah- the Warlock's steady state magicks sideswiped Farsight, enabling it to take out one of our strategic advantages. Doug? Have you contacted Justice League Incarnate?"
"I communicated with them. They were surprised about the Warlock's survival, but it seems that his universe was previously attuned to the initial iteration of Earth-One."
"So why are the Warlock and his Ysian Army attacking us?"
"Our comparative inexperience. La, you're the only one of us who has had a metahuman career for longer than five years. He clearly thinks that he can use his universe's anomalous status as some sort of touchstone and manipulate it against our particular skill sets. Except that if his universe permits the use of magick, I can adapt paraphysics theory to deal with that and still spellcast there, if he can over here. Apparently, Amara, he's also a telepath. He exercises some sort of psionic domination over his captive populace. Apparently, his original Earth One Justice League of America opponents didn't have a strong team telepath when they faced off against him last time. We do. Helios, he'll try to use lead against you."
"Except lead isn't a commonplace element in this universe. Palladium, rhodium or tungsten gets used instead usually." Helios (La-Gan) commented.
"Except that Warlock can create it ex nihilo within his steady state universe. Which may mean that the isotope that is produced is lead-210, which is radioactive, which would explain Daxamite vulnerability to it."
"Yeah, the antilead serum I and other Daxamites take uses depleted kryptonite as a trace element."
"So, therefore, a spell that would reverse the radioactive decay sequence might overwhelm his abilities. Harry. I think he'll try some sort of highspeed subatomic particle bombardment in your case, which would outpace your hyperspeed capabilities and incinerate you. So I can use the same spell in your case."
Harry Boulton (Tachyon) nodded: "It's difficult to kill a speedster in motion."
Suddenly, Tachyon spotted what seemed to be an ephemeral intruder, At blinding speed, he seized the infinitesimal form in one hand: "Well well. Hey everyone, it's our not so friendly enemy the Druid of Cattamoore."
Doug stared closely at the intruder: "Spying on us, were you?"
"I refuse to tell you."
"What you mean is that this universe is interfering with Cattamoore's ability to interface with this world. But not that of Ys, Which means that the Warlock is effectively isolated..."
The Warlock had had enough. He decided to directly confront the New Heroic Society and materialised in the midst of an array of blue incandescence, with lightspeed lead 210 bullets dispatched toward Helios. But Tachyon was already in motion, given that his accelerated sensory capacities had detected the arrival of the steady state Ysian interface with Earth 490's universe and he melted the bullets into slag and dissipated them into harmless tungsten. Titanwoman threw the Warlock back with telekinesis as Lightmage began to recite a spellcasting to lock Warlock back into the Ysian universe. In his hand, the Druid squirmed helplessly, as Doug drained the energies from the hapless sorceror. Helios used a combination of his microscopic and heat vision to superheat Cattamoore's flickering, unstable gateway to the macroverse until it fused shut, cutting the Druid off from the source of his power and standing over Doug as the Lightmage finished his incantation.
The Warlock howled in rage and frustration as the components of the spellcast gripped him in its wake and sutured shut the singularity that had let Ys interface with their universe. And although the Warlock howled and moaned in anger and defiance, he had estimated a world's greatest heroes and had paid the price- eternal incarceration within his own universe, unable to leave it. He looked behind him as spears and projectiles began to rain down- as a secondary effect, the spellcast had broken his psionic coercion of his involuntary captives from Earth's past. He tried to invoke the sorceries that had enslaved their minds originally, but found that it fell onto stony soil. The ward that now protected the imprisoned humans here was too powerful. As the crescendo of incoming fire and hostilities surged toward him, the Warlock spoke words of power and retreated to an alpine fortress, to marshall his remaining energies and to recollect what had led to this impasse, distant from his enemies within and outside his circumscribed realm.
And as for the New Heroic Society, that may have been their first triumph over those who threatened the sanctity and peace of their particular alternate Earth, but it was not to be the last. They went on to serve valiantly and courageously for the next four decades of their world's history, and after that, their descendants did.
THE END
There had been other anomalous survivors, such as the Universe of Antimatter where Qward was situated, but the Weaponers of that realm tended to be avaricious, imperialist and uncollaborative when it came to other realms. However, in the case of Ys, 'almost' untouched was the operative phrase. Despire weathering the Crises, the Other Side of the World had been damaged. It needed to raid other universes for its resources or it would experience a rapid entropy collapse into oblivion.
Frowning, the Warlock concentrated...
Earth-490.
It had some local quirks, such as Anthony and Cleopatra VII winning the Battle of Actium and Akhenaten's monotheism becoming the dominant religious stream within the resultant Greater Egyptian Empire. Accordingly, it was no accident that in its datum twenty-first century CE equivalent, its most powerful metahuman was named Helios, a Daxamite (given that lead was almost non-existent as well). Alongside La-Gan, the New Heroic Society consisted of Razor (a Batman cognate with 12th Level intellect), Tachyon (a gay male speedster), Polychroma (its Green Lantern alternate), Titanwoman (a transposed future-Earth Saturn Girl) and Farsight (a Naltorian refugee).
The Warlock noted the recent iteration status of this world and nodded to himself. This would be useful. The planet had an ingenue metahuman population and would be highly vulnerable to any offensive from Ys. He cast a nervous glance at the distant adversarial realm of Lyonesse, consisting of those who had treacherously fought for their autonomy from his stern but providential rule. Fortunately, there was a several parsec boundary between Newys and Lyonesse now, and they could not halt his plans.
There was one slight problem when it came to his vision for the farflung corner of the Multiverse, though. His name was Douglas Giles. He had been flung from Earth-1003 when an Omega class homo magii had lost her lover and in her grief, pain and rage, obliterated his world from existence and then went on her way to destroy the rest of that universe in her all-consuming intractable fury. Douglas was in teleport transit when the apocalypse happened and he fell through the Bleed, eventually ending up on Earth-1017. That world was one of the more quotidian in the multiverse- with no metahumans, no paranormal entities, and no magii. Dreading the Second Coming of the Deathbringer, he settled into his life as an accountant in Edinburgh, capital of this world's independent Scottish Republic. Until, one day...
Doug Giles liked Earth-1017 so far. His life had gotten back into some sort of order and coherence and it was refreshing not to have to look over his shoulder during the evenings to fight off would-be predatory vampires, zombies or other malignant paranormals. Mind you, the same couldn't be said for local hardcore drug addicts or some of the dually diagnosed mentally ill, and he'd already had to fight off two would-be muggers. But otherwise, things were looking up for him. He just hoped there wasn't a zombie apocalypse or any similar mayhem lurking just around the temporal corner. And that was when it happened.
A form blurred into solidity and he took a step back:
"Whoa! Who the hell-"
"You need to come with me."
"Uh, why? Sorry, but that's one hell of a garish outfit there. Is it one of those cosplay things?"
"I so don't have time for this, Douglas. I'm Tachyon. Your world is about to experience its end and I'm here to make sure you don't get dragged into it?"
"Is it the Darkmage?!"
"Who? Nope, this character's called the Warlock. I'm sorry. I know you had a life here, but we're running out of time." The newcomer grabbed Doug and they blurred into efferverscence and then they were gone...
As Tachyon and Doug blurred out of existence on Earth 1017, the Edinburgh sky was suddenly split by a blinding blue illumination. It was not a harbinger of nuclear obliteration but something far, far worse. It descended on the unprepared city, charring its inhabitants and architecture to actinic white radiation traces before it spread across the rest of the British Isles and then its world. Mercifully, there was no time even to scream as the annihilation effect took a microsecond, and any painpulse from neuron to synapse was tardy in comparison. Nor did it incidentally ignite that world's national nuclear arsenals. Oblivion arrived and departed before anyone could comprehend it. The Moon accelerated away, its surface glowing red and orange as its crust was devastated by the gravitational stressors.
In Ys, a vastly engorged blue flame portal flickered in eerie empathy as the Warlock of Ys laughed derisively. He had no compassion for the three billion humans whom he had just exterminated, as his eyes matched the sapphire blue colouration of the flame portal. His gambit had paid off, handsomely. This would be easier than he had thought. His attentions turned to his next target.
Earth-490.
Doug and Tachyon rematerialised on Earth-490. He pushed the speedster away, aghast at what he had just witnessed; "Y-you didn't even make any effort to rescue them. Any of them."
"Look, I'm sorry. There was no time. We haven't faced anything like this."
"Who's we when we're at home, then?" A throat cleared above him and Doug looked up to see an entire group of garishly dressed intruders descending from the skies:
"I apologise for the abrupt movement, Douglas. We'd only just found out that Earth-1017 was the Warlock's target and there was no time to prepare planetary defenses. As you've just witnessed, his abilities are formidable and we lack the experience to currently halt him. And we're sorry for the loss of your adopted world." Helios said
"Wait a minute. How did you know I'm not from that world?"
"We locked into your unique molecular biology. It differs in terms of your subatomic composition from anyone else. And as for the Warlock, we'll tell you more about it if you'll come with us. We need a team mage, and you have the capabilities. If you decide to join us."
Doug settled into his new life as a forensic accountant for the California Securities Commission, He missed Edinburgh and his friends there, but he made new ones. And he winced at the 'obvious' nature of some of the 'hackneyed' parallelspeak alternative names for familiar landmarks in this world. San Francisco was "San Narciso", Los Angeles was Angel City. Instead of Washington DC, the United States capital was New Lancaster, because there had to be one to 'balance' New York.
He met a young woman named Cassie but she got the message he wasn't interested in her that way. She volunteered to introduce him to her friend Maxxie, who was a breakthrough musician from Bristol on the rebound from his lost love Jamie, killed in a Zoroastrian fundamentalist bombing in Londinium (moan) in 5157 AE (given that this world had evolved from ancient Egypt, that dating system was employed). He dated Maxxie once or twice, but there was still a dark and cold weight in his soul where Earth-1017 had been.
But then there were the heroics and they grew on him. He had a brief contretemps with the Helm of Nabu, but then he asserted his mage status and kept it under control. This surprised some of his New Heroic Society colleagues initially, but over time, they came to accept him and cherish him as a valuable element of their team.
And then it happened. Only active for about a year, the NHS encountered the Warlock for their first time...and they had their first fatality.
It was the Warlock. He had marshalled his forces and surged onto the soil of Earth-490, and battle was joined between him, his mesmerised Ys soldiers and the forces of the startled alternate Earth that was his target. The New Heroic Society rose to the challenge, with Helios delivering pacifier gas to the invading troops. As Lightmage, Douglas Giles played his role, entering thaumaturgic contest with the Warlock, stalemating him. His experience with local magicks told against that of his insurgent and presumptuous opponent, who had to prepare his sorcerous skills for the different metaphysics that prevailed in sequential big bang universes. Tachyon restrained the invaders in his turn, creating whirlwinds with his accelerated velocity, while Polychroma's powerjewel encased them in impregnable bubbles of diamond consistency. Titanwoman fought for psionic ascendancy and liberated the minds of some of the more recently enslaved Ysians. But then Farsight gasped and fell forward on the battlefield, mouth agape and eyes sightless, blood pumping from his eyes, ears and mouth. Their precognitive had not foreseen his murder and with this action, the fighting stopped as the Ysians beat a hasty retreat back to their secondary universe.
The first of the New Heroic Society had fallen and their world would never be the same. At Farsight's funeral, Tachyon and Lightmage stood, arm in arm, with the others staring down at the grave of their team precognitive. As he was lowered to his final resting place, Titanwoman beckoned to Helios:
"Look, something's badly wrong here."
"Yeah- the Warlock's steady state magicks sideswiped Farsight, enabling it to take out one of our strategic advantages. Doug? Have you contacted Justice League Incarnate?"
"I communicated with them. They were surprised about the Warlock's survival, but it seems that his universe was previously attuned to the initial iteration of Earth-One."
"So why are the Warlock and his Ysian Army attacking us?"
"Our comparative inexperience. La, you're the only one of us who has had a metahuman career for longer than five years. He clearly thinks that he can use his universe's anomalous status as some sort of touchstone and manipulate it against our particular skill sets. Except that if his universe permits the use of magick, I can adapt paraphysics theory to deal with that and still spellcast there, if he can over here. Apparently, Amara, he's also a telepath. He exercises some sort of psionic domination over his captive populace. Apparently, his original Earth One Justice League of America opponents didn't have a strong team telepath when they faced off against him last time. We do. Helios, he'll try to use lead against you."
"Except lead isn't a commonplace element in this universe. Palladium, rhodium or tungsten gets used instead usually." Helios (La-Gan) commented.
"Except that Warlock can create it ex nihilo within his steady state universe. Which may mean that the isotope that is produced is lead-210, which is radioactive, which would explain Daxamite vulnerability to it."
"Yeah, the antilead serum I and other Daxamites take uses depleted kryptonite as a trace element."
"So, therefore, a spell that would reverse the radioactive decay sequence might overwhelm his abilities. Harry. I think he'll try some sort of highspeed subatomic particle bombardment in your case, which would outpace your hyperspeed capabilities and incinerate you. So I can use the same spell in your case."
Harry Boulton (Tachyon) nodded: "It's difficult to kill a speedster in motion."
Suddenly, Tachyon spotted what seemed to be an ephemeral intruder, At blinding speed, he seized the infinitesimal form in one hand: "Well well. Hey everyone, it's our not so friendly enemy the Druid of Cattamoore."
Doug stared closely at the intruder: "Spying on us, were you?"
"I refuse to tell you."
"What you mean is that this universe is interfering with Cattamoore's ability to interface with this world. But not that of Ys, Which means that the Warlock is effectively isolated..."
The Warlock had had enough. He decided to directly confront the New Heroic Society and materialised in the midst of an array of blue incandescence, with lightspeed lead 210 bullets dispatched toward Helios. But Tachyon was already in motion, given that his accelerated sensory capacities had detected the arrival of the steady state Ysian interface with Earth 490's universe and he melted the bullets into slag and dissipated them into harmless tungsten. Titanwoman threw the Warlock back with telekinesis as Lightmage began to recite a spellcasting to lock Warlock back into the Ysian universe. In his hand, the Druid squirmed helplessly, as Doug drained the energies from the hapless sorceror. Helios used a combination of his microscopic and heat vision to superheat Cattamoore's flickering, unstable gateway to the macroverse until it fused shut, cutting the Druid off from the source of his power and standing over Doug as the Lightmage finished his incantation.
The Warlock howled in rage and frustration as the components of the spellcast gripped him in its wake and sutured shut the singularity that had let Ys interface with their universe. And although the Warlock howled and moaned in anger and defiance, he had estimated a world's greatest heroes and had paid the price- eternal incarceration within his own universe, unable to leave it. He looked behind him as spears and projectiles began to rain down- as a secondary effect, the spellcast had broken his psionic coercion of his involuntary captives from Earth's past. He tried to invoke the sorceries that had enslaved their minds originally, but found that it fell onto stony soil. The ward that now protected the imprisoned humans here was too powerful. As the crescendo of incoming fire and hostilities surged toward him, the Warlock spoke words of power and retreated to an alpine fortress, to marshall his remaining energies and to recollect what had led to this impasse, distant from his enemies within and outside his circumscribed realm.
And as for the New Heroic Society, that may have been their first triumph over those who threatened the sanctity and peace of their particular alternate Earth, but it was not to be the last. They went on to serve valiantly and courageously for the next four decades of their world's history, and after that, their descendants did.
THE END