Travel through the Darkforce Dimension is infamously cold and, unsurprisingly, dark. Her teeth gritted against the discomfort, Shard Bishop wondered briefly why she could not recall the journey to the mysterious prairie. Had it been like this? Disoriented, featureless and
mind-numbingly cold? With effort, Bishop could turn her head to the side, but she could not see anything in any direction. It was like falling blindfolded, with the accompanying creepy sense that one might hit the ground at any moment.
The abrupt return of gravity and her consequent indelicate landing on solid ground alerted Bishop that she had arrived in normal space. At first, it was not so different from the Darkforce: still dark, still bitterly cold. Her feet and left hand were buried in snow, more than a foot deep. She stood, rubbing her hands together to rid them of the clinging cold. Removing her sunglasses, Bishop could make out her surroundings by starlight. The terrain was rugged, with mountains jutting up into the sky all around. Snow covered nearly every stretch and side she could see, glittering in the pale light from above. She could also see her five fellow travellers nearby, retrieving their own bearings.
As Bishop began to contemplate what their next step might be, a sharp howl of wind cut down through their midst, impressing upon her the urgency of finding some protection from the frigid alpine weather. As if in response to the TVA officer's thoughts, Doctor Storm called out.
"Everyone over here! Gather close!"
It took only moments for the others to comply with Storm's command. It occurred to Bishop to marvel at the ease with which she assumed a leadership role, and how willing the others- Bishop included- were to accept her instructions. Johnny on the Spot was the last to arrive close, clutching his coat around him as he trudged through the knee-deep snow. Abruptly, the wind cut to a muffled whine as a bubble of invisible force enclosed the group.
"Is anybody hurt?" asked Storm. Receiving no replies in the affirmative, she continued. "Can anyone give us some heat?"
"A little," answered Bishop, quickly. "The starlight doesn't give me much, but I should be able to keep us from freezing to death."
"No sweats, I got it." It was the teenaged Madeleine Beaubier-Storm who spoke. Hovering just above the level of the snow, she opened her hand and produced a foot-high fountain of multicolored flames. Immediately, the air in the bubble began to warm, and Bishop felt a tingle of life enter her skin.
For a protracted moment, no one spoke, each regarding the others in the flickering light. With a gloved hand, Johnny reached out into the night, surprised when his fingers stopped at the unseen wall. The Juggernaut broke the silence. "Should we be concerned about using up the oxygen in here?"
"I've left an aperture at the top of the dome. It will be adequate for air exchange." Doctor Storm replied.
"Invisible igloo. Cool." If the teenager's observation was intended as a pun, neither she nor her companions made any mention of it. Madeleine gathered her knees close to her chest and hovered in a cannonball pose, keeping the hand with the spouting fireworks extended toward the middle of the group.
Rogue pushed her hood back onto her shoulders and ran a gloved hand through her hair. "Can we take a few minutes to catch our breath? I'm still trying to wrap my head around… any of this." Her voice was husky but carefully level, betraying little in the way of emotion.
Bishop instinctively looked to Susan Storm, who nodded pensively. They stood in silence for a minute or more, enjoying the crackling heat of Madeleine's polychromatic firework display. Bishop pulled her 7D off of her bandolier and snapped it open. She permitted herself a small sigh of relief: at least it was working again. This iteration was not in its database, but that was no surprise. The information on its small readouts could still prove helpful.
"We're on Earth," she announced to no one in particular. "In the Himalayas, what's probably China. 2016, by Mu Calendar."
Doctor Storm stepped in close, craning her neck to look at the compact-sized computer. "This device tells you that?"
Bishop handed it to her without a second thought. "My seven-dimensional compass. TVA standard issue. Tells you where, when and in what iteration of what dimension you are-at least, the best estimate."
Susan's eyes flicked hungrily over the readouts on the small display, "Does it have information on this specific universe?"
"Afraid not. There are thousands of worlds in our database, but compared to infinity…"
"...that's essentially nothing." the physicist concluded. "Still, a very useful device."
She handed the silver box back to Bishop, and nodded to the golden Tallus on her wrist. "Do you have any idea how to use that one?" Bishop could only shake her head, tight-lipped. She returned the 7D to its hanger and examined the new ornament more closely. Apart from glittering in the firelight, it gave away nothing.
Gathering her cloak beneath her, Rogue sat on the snow. "Anyone else hoping this is just a bad dream?"
"I'll say," answered Johnny on the Spot. He pointed a gloved finger at Bishop. "Accordin' to her, I'm about five thousand miles and... a hunnert and thirty years from where I had breakfast this mornin'. I knew this world was fulla strange things, but this…" he concluded his statement with a low whistle.
"I think we're all a little out of our element, here… with the possible exception of Officer Bishop," Doctor Storm reminded them. "I believe the first question we need to ask ourselves is whether we believe this 'Timebroker' at all."
"It wouldn't be unfathomable that someone could fake this whole thing," contributed Stark. "Mephisto… or Nightmare."
"Mastermind… Mysterio…" continued Rogue, dully.
"But why strangers from alternate realities?" pressed Susan, undeterred.
"For all I know, you're all figments in this fantasy, created to confuse me." There was an edge of annoyance in the Juggernaut's voice that raised goosebumps on the back of Bishop's neck.
"Same to you, big guy," countered Madeleine with a smirk.
"Thinking solipsistically is unlikely to get us anywhere," Storm addressed them both, affecting a placatory tone. "As improbable as it may seem, I believe our best course is to trust the information of our senses and proceed on the assumption that all of this rea…"
The sound of Susan's words was lost in a crackling hum as Bishop's senses were commandeered. Stuttering snippets of words, and flickers of images like changing too fast between telesensor channels washed over her mind. "Wait… I- I think the Tallus is trying to tell me something." Shard's own voice seemed distant, but through her physical eyes she could see the others watching her with concern. Squeezing her eyelids closed, she tried to focus on making sense of the jumbled perceptions. Gradually, a message began to emerge, like a picture made up of hundreds of smaller pictures, like a conceptual symphony. When she grasped the chord, with a sharp sense of relief, the images disappeared from Bishop's senses.
"'Take the Great Refuge to the moon.' That's what it said we have to do."
"Are you alright?" The Juggernaut's millstone voice was soft with genuine concern.
"Yeah, fine, it's fine now. I'm sharp. Rotten way to send a transmission, though." Bishop gingerly fingered the Tallus on her wrist. Now it was as unresponsive and inscrutable as it had ever been. The others were still watching her. "Anyone know what it means?"
Susan Storm replied, "The term 'Great Refuge' likely refers to Attilan, the secret home of the Inhumans. The directive to take it to the moon makes sense, as a similar event occurred in my world."
"We have to take this place- Attilan- to the moon?" prodded Bishop.
"That's kinda otherwise," opined Madeleine. She stretched out her legs and traded the job of producing a flame from her left hand to her right. "In my world, Attilan's been on the moon since, like, the eighties."
"In mine the exodus occurred in 2004," added Doctor Storm, pensively.
Johnny on the Spot swept the hat from his head. Though the black dot that covered his face revealed no emotion, his voice registered pique. "Can I just remind everyone that I have no goldurned idea what any of y'all are talking about? If we're supposed to be in this together, will y'all quit talking over me and fill me in?"
There was an exchange of abashed looks. Doctor Storm took the initiative to speak. "I apologize, Mister Ohnn. We are in an unusual circumstance and I'm still struggling to make sense of it all myself."
"There's a lot we don't know, Johnny," joined Rogue, standing up and brushing snow from her legs. "For instance, before we go rushing off to the moon or whatever, I'd like to know who this team is...what they can do. The Timebroker's little newsreel didn't give us enough to put together any kind of strategy." She looked directly at Doctor Storm as she spoke.
Storm rose to the challenge. "You want to know my powers. Very well. I can emit a kind of cosmic energy that bends light, effectively making myself or other people and objects invisible to most forms of visual detection. I can also generate and manipulate solid shapes composed of force, such as the walls of this 'invisible igloo.'"
"How long can you keep it up?" Rogue pressed her.
"My precise endurance depends upon how much pressure I must exert. Against a wind like this, a long time. Perhaps a few hours, if I needed to. Against the onslaught of a Hulk or a-" She paused, momentarily casting her gaze toward Stark. "-Colossus… Seconds. A minute at most. Any other questions?" After a silence, "Very well, moving on. Madeleine?"
The teenager rolled her eyes. "Only my dad calls me that. Just call me Maddie or Skyrocket. Anglos never pronounce it right anyway. Uh… I fly and throw fire. Clearly."
Maddie had a direct, unpretentious manner that Bishop liked. The girl reminded her of her own brother. And, Bishop thought to herself, the pyrotechnics that the she effortlessly produced from her open hand were beautiful… though Shard Bishop had always been a fan of light shows.
"I'm a photokinetic," Bishop offered, not waiting for her invitation. Taking in, without surprise, the uncomprehending glances that the declaration elicited, she elaborated. "I absorb energy from light and project it back in other forms. Heat, sound, concussive force…"
Rogue indicated the silver bandolier across Bishop's chest. "Any more handy gizmos we should know about on that utility belt?"
"Besides the 7D? A voice log recorder, a couple of flashbang grenades, a smoke bomb, and spare parts for my sidearm. Which is, itself, a useful tool- it's specially made for me, and channels my energy output, so it doesn't need a battery or ammunition." Bishop drew the long-barrelled energy pistol and held it flat on her open palm as illustration.
"Nothing that can transport through time or dimensions?"
Bishop sighed. "No. We have them at the TVA, but I didn't have one on me when I got… unhinged. I guess the Timebroker didn't want us to have a way off this boat."
"Figures." The mercenary shook her head, sucking silently on her teeth. "What about you, cowboy?"
"Me? I can toss out these spots." He demonstrated by opening four circular portals in the air around the group. They hung indifferently in midair, each a two-dimensional plane the size of a serving platter at a different angle relative to the ground. Each was simply black, lacking any trace of color or the stereotypical swirling of an interdimensional portal.
"By linin' 'em up on the other side, I can make things come out wherever I want." This, he illustrated by putting his right arm through the nearest portal, withdrawing it, and then plunging it in again. Each time he did so, his hand and forearm emerged from a different one of the other portals.
"Neat trick," mused Stark. "It must kill at parties."
Without response, Johnny withdrew his arm and closed the portals. He faced the others blankly, his right heel digging idly in the snow.
"Can those portals only be used for short-range transportation, or can you go further? Say, a few miles?" Susan posed the question with the intense interest of both an experienced academic and an aspiring tactician.
"Sure, but if'n I can't see where I'm going, I'm liable to shoot pretty wide of my mark."
She nodded, considering. After a few moments of thoughtful silence, she turned to the Juggernaut. "Stark?"
"Oh, well, I'm strong and just about invulnerable, and I wish you'd call me Tony. My gauntlets and boots project repulsor beams which let me fly and can be used as weapons. Oh, and my powers are enhanced by momentum- once I get going, on the ground or in the air, next to nothing can stop me."
Rogue's eyes flashed and she almost stifled a snort. "A flying Juggernaut?"
"Your Juggernaut can't fly?" The industrialist seemed genuinely surprised.
"Nope. Iron Man can, though."
"Who?"
"I'll tell you later." The former X-Man smiled grimly to herself. Bishop watched her without amusement.
"That just leaves you, Rogue."
Rogue turned to Bishop and answered flatly "When I touch people, I take their powers and memories. Just for a short time, unless I hold on too long, but that can… it doesn't end well."
Bishop pressed her. "How long can you keep a power you've stolen?"
"Safely? Two, two and a half minutes."
"And what happens to the people you touch?"
"They're weakened, lose whatever power I take. Sometimes they pass out for a little while." She paused, waiting for the interrogation to continue. At Bishop's silence, she added "I also have eidetic reflexes- meaning that whatever I see someone do, I can do."
"Stolen from Taskmaster, like the Timebroker said? How is it you've managed to keep that ability so long?" Had she been asked, Bishop would not have been able to say why she pursued the issue so acidly. Her own voice reverberating off the invisible walls of the bubble sounded strange.
The mercenary's steely gaze became molten and she advanced on the TVA officer "I held on too long. Now his brain's a cabbage and I'm stuck with his power and his memories for good. You want to make something of it, Time Cop?"
Somehow her teammate's sudden advance took Bishop by surprise. She was certain that a fight had not been what she was looking for. Susan intervened before the situation could degrade any further, breaking the eyeline between Bishop and Rogue with her own head.
"That's enough," she scolded. "I'm sure we all recognize that we're overwrought, but we needn't indulge in the cliche of turning on one another. Tone aside, Officer Bishop was asking questions that interested all of us. We can address personal courtesy at another time, but for now are there any other pressing strategic questions?"
Maddie raised her free hand like a grade school student. "I don't know if this counts, but I have to go to the bathroom."
Unclenching her jaw for the first time since Bishop had begun grilling her, Rogue turned away with a dry laugh. "Can't get much more pressing than that."
Even Susan allowed herself a tiny quirk of a smile. "I suggest you find some cover and take care of your needs, Skyrocket. Does anyone else require a... break before we set off?"
There were no responses to Doctor Storm's inquiry. Bishop suddenly felt a cutting wind in her back as the invisible force that had been shielding the group fell. A small amount of snow that had been blown onto the wall itself scattered into the melting snow at their feet, and Madeleine Beaubier-Storm zipped off into the night like a dragonfly. When the shield rose up again, Bishop instinctively began producing heat from the photonic energy she had accumulated in the colorful light from the teenager's hands. The air inside the bubble quickly began to warm up again.
There was a long silence. Bishop self-consciously avoided watching Rogue, but found that she had nowhere better to set her eyes in the dim light. Johnny's eyes were utterly indiscernible, and Stark's were scarcely better. Doctor Storm was looking up at the stars through the invisible shield, to all appearances unconcerned with what her companions were thinking. The scientist cleared her throat.
"In my world, Attilan was in the Himalayas for a time. Unless anyone has another idea, I propose that we make our way to the location of my Attilan. It seems probable that this world's Attilan would be in the same place. In any case, it's as good a place as any to begin searching. Any objections to that course?"
There was no immediate opposition to the idea. "Good," she continued. "I was able to make out our latitude and longitude on Officer Bishop's compass, and I remember the coordinates of Attilan from the times that I visited there with the Fantastic Four. From that, all it takes is simple geometry to know that Attilan- or at least, the location it occupied on my world- is approximately five and a half nautical miles east by north… which, based on the location of the pole star, is that way."
Bishop's eyes followed Doctor Storm's outstretched arm into the rugged mountains and the starlit night. All at once, the thinness of the air at this altitude became oppressive and she sucked in a breath to stave off light-headedness. She did not relish the idea of slogging six or seven miles through the snowy mountains.
"It seems to me that we're working on the basis of a lot of assumptions," Stark mused, "but, like you said, Doc… it's as good a place as any to start looking."
A flare of colored light just outside the bubble of invisible force informed the assemblage that Maddie had returned. Bishop gritted her teeth, and the wind once again bit into her skin.
"Tony-" began Doctor Storm, her voice raised against the rushing wind.
"Yeah?" answered Rogue. She caught herself just as Susan's head snapped to face her. The beginnings of a surprising blush darkened the mercenary's cheeks. "I- never mind. Go ahead."
The Juggernaut interjected a placating voice into the momentary awkwardness. "What can I help you with, Doctor?"
"I've been thinking about how we can travel most efficiently under these conditions. Would I be right in assuming that your mystic power protects you from this cold?"
Stark flashed another wide, toothy smile. "You certainly would."
Scarcely a minute later, five of the conscripted companions were lifted into the night sky in another bubble of invisible force. The bubble perched on top of the Juggernaut like a howdah, and rocketed with him as he was propelled forward by a burst of crimson fire from the heels of his boots. Bishop pressed her hands and her forehead against the side of the bubble, and watched the landscape rush past in a dizzying blur.
The invisible wall warmed immediately under her touch, and for a moment she felt herself relax. From somewhere in the sweeping chaos of her mind, the TVA officer emerged and began to parse the situation. She was in an unknown iteration, cut off from her fellow officers and most of her tools. That much, at least, had been covered by her training at the Authority. The experience of being yoked to five complete strangers and a mission with disturbingly vague parameters was new, as was the curiously compelling agency that assigned the mission, but the essential principles of working in strange worlds and times were unchanged. Plan ahead. Practice discretion. Support your partner… partners. Complete the mission. Deep breath, Bishop. There's nothing you can't handle.
As if to give lie to her self-assurance, the landscape shook with a rumbling thrum so loud and deep as to be felt even in an isolated force bubble in mid-air. Before the astonished eyes of the assembled superhumans, a colossal span of rock and snow rose from some hidden valley out of sight and hovered at the level of the highest mountain peak. It betrayed no visual sign of the power that lifted it; only the incessant thrumming pressure that shook snow from the mountainsides. On the upward face of the rock expanse stood a city, small but magnificent. Its alien architecture had a beauty to rival the techno-skyscrapers Bishop's own time. The city hovered four seconds, maybe five, before streaking off toward the eastern sky at an incredible speed.
"Attilan! Go after it, Juggernaut! We must overtake it!" Bishop seriously doubted that Stark could hear Doctor Storm's shouted words. She could barely hear them herself over the pounding hum of the city's engines, and she didn't have to contend with the wind or a wall of invisible force between them. In any case, he must have had the same idea, because he adjusted his course and, with a flashy burst from the soles of his feet, redoubled his speed.
"Guess I shouldn't have taken that bathroom break!" Maddie Beaubier-Storm shouted, to no one in particular. Below them, the rugged terrain passed by in a desperate blur.
Bishop could see the strain that creased Susan Storm's face as she struggled to maintain their bubble of protection at the incredible speed. Her dark eyes snapped back and forth between the physicist's face and the flying city which did not appear to be getting any closer. "We'll never catch up to it," she said out loud, though she did not expect anyone to hear her.
Bishop whirled. "Johnny, can you get us in front of it?"
To his credit, the bandit was only momentarily surprised. He tipped his hat back with one thumb and gazed inscrutably ahead. "I reckon I can," he called back.
With no further word or gesture from Johnny on the Spot, a circular portal stretched open in front of them, black on the black night. Without hesitation, the Juggernaut plunged them into it, emerging a millisecond later to a view nearly identical, but notably lacking their vast quarry. Bishop, Rogue and Skyrocket rushed to the back of the bubble to see the Great Refuge behind them and gaining. Stark pitched upward and in a moment, the assemblage was over the streets of Attilan.
The Juggernaut landed in the street with sufficient delicacy as to make only a few small cracks in the stone, and the invisible howdah lowered itself to the ground before passing out of existence. The sound of the engines was somehow less overwhelming in the city itself than it had been before, but the shriek of wind rushing through the buildings was nearly as disruptive. The streets themselves appeared empty.
Doctor Storm caught Johnny on the Spot by his shoulders and shouted something that the others could not hear. She pointed to a large, high window set in the largest tower at the center of the city. Obligingly, a spot tall enough for any of them to walk through appeared over the street, and Susan waved to indicate they should pass through it. Rogue was the first in, followed by Madeleine. Bishop hesitated only a moment before following into the space-black portal.
The transition from the dark and roaring night to the comparatively silent tower room was abrupt and left Shard Bishop's ears ringing. She stepped away from the Darkforce spot and made an instinctive situation assessment of the room in which she found herself. Including Skyrocket, Rogue, and herself, there were thirteen in the room. Four she recognized as the Fantastic Four from her own world's history: Reed and Susan Richards, Jonathan Storm and Benjamin Grimm. The other six, she reasoned, must be the denizens of this city, whom Doctor Storm had called Inhumans.
They mostly looked human enough, excluding the pug the size of a DOVA shuttle. Two seemed to be women, one statuesque with an impossible volume of bright red hair, the other young and bright, with blonde, close-cropped hair. The three men were even more varied: one small and lean, his head shaved; another scaled all over like a reptile. The final Inhuman was a tall and powerfully muscled man, sheathed head to toe in a shimmering black material.
As the last of her companions hurried through the portal, Bishop stepped forward, her empty hands held out from her sides. "Everyone try and stay calm," she said, her dark eyes seeking out contact with as many of the room's occupants as she could manage, "We're here to help."
A few pairs of eyes turned to Bishop at the sound of her voice, but most were focused behind her, at the Juggernaut and, naturally, the second Invisible Woman. Mister Fantastic's neck craned forward a meter and he blinked his eyes heavily as if to clear them. "Susan? But… how?"
With a supercilious frown, Doctor Storm stepped forward. "Calm yourself, Richards," she chided. "I'm not your Susan." She left the words hanging a little longer than a standard dramatic pause. The walls of the wide room seemed to be made up entirely of windows and large banks of computers. For this time in Earth's history, the computers seemed well in advance of human technology and yet somehow terribly archaic, with spinning reels and innumerable blinking lights. "We've come from another reality, and we're only here to help you get this city to the moon," Doctor Storm continued at last. "Then we'll be gone."
Reed Richards' elastic eyes remained wide with wonderment, and for a moment the excitement of questions bubbling within his powerful brain was practically palpable. All at once he caught himself. "The moon? We aren't going to the moon. Our destination is South America, the Andes mountain range."
"It seems that someone has another idea. Medusa, Black Bolt," Doctor Storm addressed two of the Inhumans, the red-haired woman and the man in black, "we have been sent here to deliver Attilan to a new home on the moon. I can give a little more explanation, but I suspect our time may be short, so I must ask you now: are you amenable to this?"
The red-haired woman looked to the man, but no words passed between them. They watched each other carefully for several interminable seconds. The silent gaze between them was interrupted by a sudden, violent quaking of the whole tower that threw most of them to the floor. The computers that ringed the walls shrieked and sparked, and sections of lights began to flicker out. The incessant hum of the engines, already far more muffled than it had been outside, spun down and stopped. There was, for a time, the sickening sensation of falling.
Then Attilan crashed into the sea.
To be continued...