Come on, you're almost there. You only have to stay alive for a few more hours. Get to that building, kill the darkness that's calling itself 'Daredevil,' end the world, and shepherd these people to a better place.

It was the middle of the night, and Halo Knight was flying over New York City. Paul had literally been stabbed in the back, Daredevil and Angel were in hot pursuit, and he heard sirens far below...but he honestly didn't care about any of that, right now.

A sea of buildings stretched out beneath him, and he found himself thinking about the people in them. Did they know how futile their lives were? Maybe they suspected it, but they were afraid to admit it to anyone, or even to themselves. Humanity had been trying to improve for as long as it had existed. It was time to admit defeat, give up, and let a god-or multiple gods-step in. They'd never managed to build a perfect world. Triggering the apocalypse, on the other hand, definitely seemed like something that a human being would be capable of.

Paul's gravity halos glowed with a cold, silvery light. The scientists had told him that gravity and light were connected. He was the only person that remembered the blue-and-yellow man, the one with the power of countless suns. When you added it all up, it meant that Paul was the light, or close enough, while "Daredevil" could serve as the darkness. The light would defeat the darkness, and all of this would be over.

He was in pain, and maybe even dying, but he'd never felt so alive. Paul was like a man at the end of a marathon. The end was in sight, and it had given him his second wind-or maybe it was more like his third or fourth, by now. He was heading for a building that was deep in Manhattan. The more he used his abilities, the more he remembered (or saw), and when he'd been fighting Angel, the building had flashed through his mind. He'd seen it once before, but he now knew where it was located. The blue-and-yellow man had fought one of his enemies on its rooftop. Something in his mind was shouting at him to go there, and he'd listened.

Paul's journey had taken on a dreamlike quality. The nighttime clouds looked sort of magical, the sounds were muffled, and waves of relaxation would sometimes wash over him. But that was probably the blood loss. While he'd been focused on Angel, the false light, that old man had shivved him prison-style. His suit's Space Age padding had protected him, but only partially. The tip of the blade had punctured it. So, instead of immediately dying from a deep wound, he was gradually bleeding out from a shallower one. He had no idea how he could beat either of them like this, let alone both of them...but if he was really the light, he didn't have anything to worry about. Things would happen the way they were supposed to.

The darkness and the false light were right behind him, but he could feel them when they got close, and they weren't that close, right now. He'd only discovered that aspect of his powers during his fight with Angel. Paul could sense motion, now. He didn't know exactly how it worked, but the scientists had told him that everyone and everything had a "gravitational signature," so maybe that explained it. If he got close to an unmoving object, he didn't feel anything. But, if something was coming right at him, he could feel its vibrations.

As he flew, Paul used one hand to clutch his back. He'd checked that glove a few times, and it was always bloody-it didn't seem to be slowing down.

Paul scanned the cityscape, finally spotting the building. It was a modern, flat-topped skyscraper, and it was just a few miles away. He'd reach it in no time. Just seeing it gave him hope, and helped him focus. Paul didn't want to take his eyes off of it...but the "heroes" were right behind him, and he needed to buy himself a little time.

Give 'em somebody to save.

He twisted in midair, which made his neck and back scream at him, and he turned so that he faced behind him. Angel was flying after him, while Daredevil was swinging between buildings like one of those trapeze guys. Paul fired a stream of gravity halos from his free hand-the one with the bloody glove. His halos forced them to veer off, dodging them, and it slowed them down. But it wouldn't be enough. There was a stream of cop cars below, and he fired a single gravity halo, knowing that he was bound to hit one of them. Sure enough, a black-and-white went flying into the air. Angel gave chase, trying to rescue the cops inside, and Paul turned back around. Daredevil's swinging was slower than Angel's flying; he had more of a head-start, now.

Paul reached the building roughly a minute later, and it wasn't his best landing. He bounced across the rooftop a few times. His legs were weaker than he'd realized, and he had to use a gravity halo to get back to his feet. It wasn't pretty. Still, he remembered what his dad had said whenever he'd watch football on TV: "It ain't a beauty contest."

All you have to do is get it done. If it's ugly, or messy, that's fine. All you need to worry about is kickstarting this whole process.

He took a quick look around...and was alarmed to see that it was just a regular rooftop. There was an access shed, industrial-sized exhaust fans, metal chimneys, pigeon droppings, and cigarette butts that were being tossed around by the wind. But he'd seen this place in his memories, or visions, or whatever they were. It had to be important. Paul grabbed his back, winced, and took a closer look. If not for his helmet's special visor, he never would have seen the scorch marks. They blended in with the shadows. At first, he thought that it was evidence of a past fire, but the scorch marks stretched out in certain places, long and skinny, and there were other places where they simply stopped. It hadn't been a regular fire.

Then, dully, he thought, Oh, right, the Fantastic Four fought some guy on top of this building. Yeah, the General or something. The Human Torch probably made those scorch-marks.

Paul immediately shook his head, frowning. He'd thought about it the way you'd think about some dry fact that you'd been taught in school. But, along with the Beatles and President Kennedy, the FF were the most famous people on the planet, right now. It should have been "Wow, that's so groovy, the Fantastic Four were up here, too!" Instead, it had been lodged in the very back of his memory, disguised as something boring. Almost hidden.

I'm starting to see the cracks, now. Come on: if Reed Richards so much as sneezes, there's a front-page article about it in the Bugle. We're supposed to believe that the FF fought some big-time bad guy right here, in the middle of New York, and everybody just shrugged and moved on? No way. The papers are still doing follow-up articles about the Mole Man, and that was their very first adventure. Some enterprising doorman should be charging for tours up here.

A new flash hit him...he remembered listening to the radio, and some deep-voiced news announcer said that "he" had just defeated the General. Not a group; an individual.

The General must have been his enemy, not theirs. But, somehow, when he was erased from everybody's memories, the Fantastic Four became the ones that supposedly beat him.

Paul felt a surge of uncertainty-it was starting to look like they were memories, as opposed to visions of the future, and he wasn't sure what that meant-but he shrugged it off. For all he knew, his mind could be mixing up the past with the future. Besides, Daredevil and Angel would be on him in minutes, and he needed to get moving. He floated above the rooftop, studying it. The scorch marks could have been caused by grenades, special weapons, or even the light's powers. But Paul didn't see anything else that was unusual. Had he only been drawn here because of that particular memory, or was there something else, too?

Wait...the fans...

There were a lot of industrial fans on the rooftop. They were big, spinning, noisy things, laid out in two-by-two grids. But three of the fans seemed out of place; they didn't fit the same pattern. They were all in a row, and they were off by themselves, on the far edge of the rooftop. These fans weren't spinning, either. Paul flew over to them. Hesitation was a thing of the past, for him: he shot each one with a gravity halo, and they went flying into the night.

An elevator shaft was hidden underneath. A big one, like for a freight elevator. The elevator wasn't there, at the moment, and Paul had no idea how it would work. Wasn't there usually some cable on top? Whatever this thing was, it must have worked a different way.

Paul descended into the shaft. It was as long as the building, and maybe even longer. When he got to the bottom, he heard dripping water, almost like he was under the street. Paul landed on top of the elevator car. One foot landed on solid metal, and the other hit on something more hollow. An access panel. He removed his foot and shot the panel with a halo, letting it fly up the shaft. Paul floated down into the elevator itself. It had a single control dial, and a solid steel door was standing in his way. He didn't see any way to open the door from this side.

Suddenly, a static-y voice exploded into the elevator: "IDENTIFY YOURSELF! HOW DID YOU FIND THIS PLACE?"

Paul nearly jumped out of his spacesuit, of course. But, once he calmed back down, he actually found himself laughing.

It was supposed to be a trap! The General would fight the blue-and-yellow man on the rooftop, and this was a way for him to stage an ambush. His soldiers would use the elevator to surprise-

"-the Sentry," Paul whispered to himself. But his helmet magnified the words.

The sound of a commotion came across the speaker in the elevator, and a new person must have grabbed the microphone, because a different voice came on. "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?"

"Uh, what-"

"THE NAME, THE NAME YOU JUST SAID, SAY IT AGAIN!"

"...the Sentry? You remember him, too? The blue-and-yellow man? He had blond hair, and his powers came from light."

There was even more commotion on the other side. Paul heard gasps, laughter, screaming, and arguing.

Oh my god, they remember! It's a miracle! Use it, Paul! Use it before it's too late!

"Listen to me," Paul gasped, clutching the wound in his back. "The Sentry's greatest enemy is coming. You know, um, the monster made of darkness, emptiness. He's like a living v-the Void! He and the General were rivals, right? Well, he knows that you're here by yourselves, and he's coming to finish you off. Remember how he could change his form? He's calling himself Daredevil, now. Posing as one of the new superheroes. Come on, it couldn't be more obvious. A 'hero' with a demonic name, and he only goes out at night, too. I've been sent here to kill him, but I need your h-"

The elevator door suddenly slid open. Paul found himself facing a row of green-uniformed men with...with beam rifles, or something. But their eyes weren't hard at all. If anything, they looked as if they'd just woken up from a dream. The rifles had a very unique style to them, and "energy bubbles" were leaking out of the barrels-those barrels were currently being lowered, either accidentally or on purpose. Paul watched as the soldiers blinked in confusion. Behind them, unarmed men were excitedly whispering, pointing, and elbowing each other.

Paul knew exactly what to do. He slowly took off his helmet, smiled at them, and said, "You aren't crazy. I remember it all, too."

He watched as relief washed over them. It was easy to recognize; he'd seen it in the mirror enough times. When something about your life isn't quite adding up, and you're afraid you're losing it, but something causes you to realize that you were right the whole time...yeah, he knew that feeling, and he could recognize it in others.

Some sort of officer stepped forward. He was a trim man in his fifties, and he sported a grey crewcut. Looking closer, Paul saw that the uniforms were actually green and red, and that each one had a slightly-tilted letter G on it. The symbol looked sort of familiar, but it took him a few seconds to place it. As strange as it sounded, the G looked like Russia's hammer-and-sickle, with the rounded part being the sickle, and the "bar" being the hammer.

"We...we didn't remember, actually. Not until you said his name," the officer said. "But we knew that something was missing. The General trained us to fight some powerful enemy, and our memories told us that it was the Fantastic Four, but we knew it was a lie. The General was going to bombard us with ions and give us powers. He'd been teaching us how to isolate and overwhelm a single opponent-just one man. But the enemy must have shown up before we were ready. The General was taken to jail, and all we could do was hide down here. Then, at some point after that, the entire world changed around us. Even our minds. I remember the Fantastic Four being on the rooftop, and watching the fight on camera, but I knew that wasn't how it really happened."

Well, I'm not him. I'm not the Sentry. Since gravity and light were connected, Paul had wondered if his powers would eventually turn him into the hero that he'd seen in his visions...but, no, they were memories of someone else. A separate person. Maybe he was the original light, but the darkness did something to him. Maybe I saw all that because I'm supposed to replace him.

"The Sentry has vanished," Paul said, "but the Void is still a threat. That's why I'm here. He's right outside, and he means to kill all of us."

There was a series of gasps, followed by a chorus of whispers: the men's discipline broke, and they started making suggestions to their commanding officer. Each new suggestion was louder than the last.

"Let him in, sir! We'll need his help!"

"Hey, he's the only one that remembers, we've gotta let him in here!"

"Quick, before he decides to fly off!"

"If the Void kills us, he'll probably go after the General, next," Paul heard himself saying. "We need to stop him here and now."

The officer gave him a long look, seemingly studying him. "I don't know who you are, kid...and, to be completely honest, I couldn't care less. But you just solved a mystery that's had our intelligence men stymied for months. This has been eating at me, eating at all of us. We've been losing personnel to addiction, insanity, and suicide. Thank god you showed up. Security, can we confirm that this 'Daredevil' character is outside?"

"Confirmed, sir-and he's brought another person with him. Some man with wings."

"They're working together," Paul said, feeling a sudden chill. He tried to take a step forward, only to nearly fall flat on his face. As he stumbled into the underground base, some of the men rushed forward to catch him, and he heard the officer shout for a medic. His helmet tumbled onto the metal floor. Paul went fuzzy for a few seconds, but he picked up the words "too valuable" and "can't let him die."

When the world became more focused, Paul found that he was sitting on the floor, and that two of the men were tying a tourniquet around his waist. The officer was speaking to him. "Don't worry, son-we'll get you patched up, and we'll pump some of those new painkillers into you, too. You'll be strong enough to fight."

"We'll need all of your men, all of your weapons. The darkness is...tough...almost unstoppable..."

"We didn't have enough manpower or weaponry to take on the en-the Sentry, so we may not have enough to stop this 'Void,' either. I'm starting to remember more about him, and I seem to recall that he's just as tough as the Sentry. But there might be a way. I don't know why you're against him, but, right now, we've got the same enemy. Are you willing to die to stop him? We're willing to die for the General...and this base is powered by an atomic generator. If we override the safety features and lure the Void in here, we just might be able to take him out."

"Do it. But, when the time comes, I need to be the one that pushes the button. Trust me."

The officer listened, nodding. "Understood. We'll just need to hold him off for an hour, or two at the most. Give our science people enough time to do their thing."

At that point, the officer started shouting orders, and none of the men hesitated, even though they'd just heard that they were going to die. They seemed completely devoted to the General's cause. Paul was devoted to humanity, and, for its sake, he hoped they could pull this off.

Just two more hours, Paul. You only have to make your life work for two more hours. There have been thousands of religions and mythologies...all you need is for one of them to be real, and have vague enough conditions. A light defeats a darkness, the end of the world is triggered, and we all move on to something better.

Paul was experiencing what felt like an earthquake, but no one else seemed to notice it. It was as if the world around him was shaking itself apart. At first, he was afraid that he was dying, but he decided that it meant something else, instead. The ingredients for the end were coming together, in a way that they hadn't been before. Him, the darkness, the atomic generator. They were all in the same place. The mere possibility of the apocalypse seemed to be straining the fabric of the universe, and Paul hoped that one strong pull would rip it apart.