These Black Eyes

by P0ST

The ongoing adventures and experiences of the Teen Titans, as witnessed through the eyes of a silent newcomer.

200. Resurrection

200. Resurrection

The boughs and leaves of the cedar trees rustled in the breeze, forming a gentle ambiance that was music in itself. Nature filtered a whispery hush downwards in a spiral to the earthen floor. It was the greatest tune life could have, and it was being horrifically and ridiculously interrupted with blaring, blowing sounds of spitting breath through a mouth organ.

I held Ana's harmonica to my lips, trying in a calamitous style to perform 'Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star'. Every note I produced had the sort of rhythmic quality befitting a can of rusty nails being rolled across a gravel front yard.

The blonde-haired angel sitting across from me on the shaded grass outside the Manor was awfully patient. But her suppressed grin grew and grew until I inevitably gave up with a desperate gasp and all but dropped the mouth organ.

"Okay, you can laugh now…"

"Hehehehehehehe!"

I groaned and rolled my brown eyes. "There's an analogy about kicking a dead horse that would fit itself nicely in this moment."

"Wh-What do you mean? Hehehehe…," Ana wiped a tear from her eye.

"It's no use! I can't learn this!" I smiled awkwardly before handing the harmonica back to her. "I think drums are the only instrument ever in my future."

"That's what everyone says."

"Yup. So here I am one extra fish in the sea. Now take your damn harmonica."

She giggled and pushed it back into my chest. "Keep it."

I blinked. "Keep it?"

She gave me a proud smirk. "Don't give it back until you've learned how to play just right!"

I blinked. "You just kissed your harmonica goodbye forever, ya know that?"

"I most certainly did not!" Ana leaned back and laid herself down on the grass with her hands behind her head. "That harmonica means far too much to me! I'd kick the tushie of anyone who so much as tries to steal it from me!"

I winced with a sweatdrop. "Guess I'd better learn to master it, huh?"

"Y-Yup!"

I shrugged. "Figures." I laid myself down on the grass opposite of her. My head was by her feet and her face was near my ankles. There was about two feet between us on the warm grass. We stared up through the cedar-filtered sky and…

Breathed………

A beat.

Fourteen-year-olds and fourteen-year-old sighs.

"You know what I think sometimes, Ana?"

"What's that, Jordan?"

"I'm like an apprentice."

"Well, duh."

"……an apprentice of yours."

A beat.

Ana leaned her head up. "Huh?"

I smiled, my cheeks a bit red. "Well……it's kinda true if you think about it."

"Do me a favor and think it for me," Ana said with a confused smile. "What do you mean……'an apprentice of mine'?"

"I just……owe so much to you," I shrugged. "And you're so willing to teach me. I-I'm sorry! I can't help it. I feel like you're tutoring me and stuff." A beat. I looked at her with an earnest rise of my eyebrows. "N-N-Not that I find anything bad in that or whatnot! I think it's kinda cool, actually."

"Jordan……heheh……," Ana sat up and hugged her knees. "I've never taught you anything."

"Never taught me anything!"

She held a hand out. "Before you say anything……"

"………"

She hugged her knees again. "If anything, you've been complementing me. Just as I've been complementing you."

I leaned my reclined head to the side. Facing her. "This has something to do with Balance, I'm guessing?"

Ana nodded. "Jordan, ever since you found……f-found your part of the Spectrum, what have you noticed about yourself?"

"…………"

"About your training……"

I bit my lip. "Er……it's……uhm……," I simpered. "A……A l-lot easier……"

Ana nodded. "You're in your element, Jordan. And when you're in your element, you do that which is most natural to you."

I took a deep breath. I gazed back up at the interrupted sky. "I follow what other people tell me……"

Ana slowly nodded. She gazed aside: "And I'm natural at telling other people what to do. Giving orders. Giving strength……"

"Giving life," I winked.

"Hehehe……yeah. The Master loves to say 'Life', 'Death', and 'Balance'."

"So you're saying that it's my place to depend on you," I scratched behind my ear. "……and it's your place to point me in the right direction?"

"Not very macho sounding, I know."

I snickered.

She looked at me funny.

I gave her a smirk. "I never thought of it that way."

"Oh…g-good…," she hugged herself and stared off. There was a rosiness to her cheeks. "Cuz I was afraid……"

"Afraid of what, Ana?"

She shook her head. "It doesn't matter. As long as we just understand……," she looked at me angelically as always. "Whatever we do……however we handle things……it is all natural. For it is part of the spectrum. And we should never……ever……feel ashamed."

"Like, I should never feel bad about following others around?"

"Mmmhmm," Ana smirked. She winked. "And I shouldn't feel bad about being a female dog at times."

I laughed.

She giggled.

"That's cruel, Ana," I shook my head. "Don't be down on yourself……"

"I'm not being down on myself," she stuck a cute tongue out. "I just feel thankful that in the long run……well……"

I looked sideways at her. "?"

She hugged her knees to her chest. "As natural as it is to follow us around……being 'Black', you'll inevitably be the ones to keep me and 'Red' together."

I nodded slowly. "It'll be up to me someday to rescue Construction………if need be."

"Right."

"But of course," I glanced off towards the forest. "The Master has told me of that."

Ana nodded.

Silence.

I smirked. I looked back at Ana again. "And just what does 'Red' do?"

"Whatever the heck he wants."

"Hahahahaha!"

"Hehehehehe."

"Ohhhh man……hahaha………so true…………"

"………"

"………"

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

November 21, 2004.

12:04 pm

Groom Lake.

T-T-T-T-T-T-

"……."

My feet shifted in the desert dirt alongside the roasting asphalt.

I walked along a road in the middle of an infinite dryness.

The world spun flat around me and the sun wavered up off the ground and snaked around my limbs.

I was sweating. But I wasn't suffering. It was unlike any other 'November' I had felt before. Yet I wasn't there to enjoy an afternoon stroll.

My backpack hung over my shoulders. The scabbard to Myrkblade rested inside of my jacket. My shades were slick with a thin sheen of moisture. As my feet moved, my lungs inflated and deflated and my breath fought the warmth of the cooking air around me.

And I tried to think. And I tried to imagine.

If this was the life Terra lived.

Before she joined the Titans……

I kept my mind occupied with that. It was the best thing to keep me distracted from what I about to. From where I was about to stick my nose in….

I fingered the Key. It was in my combat fatigues pocket. As real as my bruises from Vegas were. And felt.

A deep breath, and then I stumbled upon something.

My feet grinded to a stop in the dirt.

I froze.

I looked up, an eyebrow raised.

There was the mailbox. And the mailbox was…..white. Whitewashed over. Pale against the desert landscape.

I blinked under my shades.

My lips parted some.

ZAAT!

"Heheh….I know what you're thinking."

"?" I spun and looked.

The Messenger stood beside me in the roadside dirt. He smiled and pointed: "The Black Mailbox……isn't Black…," he said.

I did a double-take at him. For he was no longer dressed…..'Messenger styled'. His usual, neon-green sweat jacket and stone-gray slacks were replaced with….well……a black jumpsuit of sorts. For all intents and purposes, it was a uniform of solid onyx. A stretching, spandex like material. He had a utility belt of dark green and what looked like shoulder-pads or crests of an ornamental green and yellow as well. A bundle of light equipment hung over his shoulders and around his torso, among which I saw bundled cable, a grappling cord, and what looked like a three-'eyed' set of infrared goggles.

I narrowed my eyes at him.

Do I……know you?

And yet, the Messenger's trademark smile was there. His soft, warm almond eyes. The green highlights to his short hairtips.

Okay……no worries.

"It once was black, of course," he gestured to the box. "But years of redneck tourists and nerdy conspiracy theorists visiting this site to scribble or sticker things all over the poor container sorta ruined that. Who can blame someone for wanting to give it a little makeup job? I mean….this mailbox does belong to someone…."

I scratched my head with a metal hand.

It's just a mailbox, I don't see what the big deal is……

I looked at the Messenger.

You watch the History Channel a lot, don't you?

He paced around towards me. Gazing down at the dirt road of the partially forbidden desert. "Ya know, Noir…the world is a goofy place. Nobody seems to want to tell people everything. And even when they do, it's always little bits and pieces of informational appetizers." He stopped and folded his arms. Smirking knowingly at me. "Sounds like someone you know?"

I gave him a sarcastic smirk.

"Heheheh," he scratched the back of his neck and simpered. "I think I'd make a good parent. What do you think?"

I glanced at his equipment over his shoulders.

Sam Fisher is a dad……right?

"I think it was Plato who said that ruling powers are entitled to make 'noble lies'," my ghostly friend gestured. "The idea that those in power—to protect the status quo of the people—can very well twist truth to their advantage. For their advantage is the advantage of all society, fruity philosopher-kings and Greek slavery aside."

I blinked.

"The long and short of it is…," the Messenger gazed at the whitewashed mailbox as he spoke, "…society for the last umpthousand years have been under the impression that our leading quacks in the high seats can and will deceive us for one reason or another. And to an extent, that is very well true." He winked at me. "And to an even greater extent, that's a big load of cat scat."

I bit my lip.

He pointed: "There's a lot to be proud of in America yet, Noir. Be pessimistic all you want. Call the U.S. a resource-grabbing first world culture or an huge-ass homefront for monopolizing corporations, but there is still a lot about this country to be respected and—furthermore—to be trusted for."

I watched as he turned about and paced circles around the mailbox. "Yes, the U.S. Government has lied about Area 51. In this universe it has, at least."

I leaned my head to the side. Listening….

"But its lies have greatly been outweighed by the suppositions of the international citizenry," he said. "There's indeed an awful lot of stuff in Area 51 that supposedly shouldn't be there. But at the same time, there's a lot of stuff not at Area 51 that—quite frankly—isn't even at any spot on Earth."

I took a deep breath.

Is this all supposed to interest me?

He stopped walking and looking at me. "What was once a subtle, safe little box of lies concocted by the government has been thrown open into the marketplace of free ideas and twisted into something, much….much larger. And the government has simply taken the fifth and allowed 'we the people' to make up stuff about Area 51 as we see fit. And over many decades, there exists a breadbasketful of cockamamie theories all deviating from the unknown truth. And that truth, Noir…," he paused for emphasis, "…is that the government knows just as much about Area 51 as the people."

I did a double take. I mouthed: 'What?'

He smiled. Almost proudly. "Yup," he nodded. "Area 51 has not been property of the American Government of the United States for at leastohtwelve and a half years now."

"……..," I stared at him blankly.

"Oh, believe me. I've done my research. The best sort of research a….'traveler' like me can make," he winked. "And things are pretty much the same in about four hundred fifty thousand and twenty-one alternate realities quite similar to this one. Area 51 has seen its glory days, but now it's gone the way of the Edsel and Sega Hardware."

I flinched and waved my hand.

Wait……wait! Hold the phone……

But he went on, pacing: "The U.S. Government is hardly the omnipotent thing that so many people presume it to be. Rather, just like all bureaucratic entities, it is subject to power shifts and intrigue and…well…buying out. And a while back, such a sale took place. And Area 51—as big or as little a commodity as any other mothballed train wreck in political history—joined the endless, global auction of postindustrial detritus. Its greatness only exists in two things. One: its legend. Two: the despotic owners of Area 51 who have used the obscurity of their purchase to turn the former Air Base into something that has brought us here today….to save something of perfect innocence from being torn from the inside out."

I exhaled.

My lips parted.

I mouthed: 'Triangular……'

The Messenger slowly nodded.

He said: "Don't be surprised, Noir, to realize that Dagger owns and has owned Area 51 like so many other iconographic things in this nation of ours."

"……," I gazed off across the flat, desert horizon.

He patted a hand on my shoulder: "Believe me. Dagger's power in this part of the hemisphere far exceeds ownership of a presumably top secret installation. He alone holds far greater weight than two first world armies combined. What he did to your City should be but ample proof of that…."

I took a deep breath. I nodded.

But why are we here, Messenger?

I ran a shivering metal hand through my hair.

Is it because of the hand?

Or the dagger?

"The reason I tell you all this, Noir, is not just for cliché 'prep' and jazz…though I do enjoy giving that….hehehehe…."

I smirked at him.

You sure do……

"But rather," he shrugged. "I just want you to know that what you're about to do….what we're about to do is righteous." He smirked. "And you shouldn't feel bad about…..breaking the law."

"………," I simpered.

Uh, yeah. Thanks.

"Leave your backpack."

I blinked at him under his shades.

He adjusted the equipment on his back as if to point out he had what we needed. "Put it somewhere where only you can find it…on the return trip from Area 51."

"……"

"When you have Terra."

I took a deep breath.

I nodded, and slipped the backpack off.

T-T-T-T-T-T-

Five hundred feet from Groom Lake Road.

Outside the Restricted Boundary.

The both of us lay flat on our stomachs on an upwards sloping crest of earth.

We peered over the brush and desert heaps towards a hindered horizon.

Beyond the dip, the earth drifted down into the plain that would eventually yield the outer barrier and structures of Area 51.

And even then, the site would be incalculably far from the visible eye.

And yet we rested there, scouting.

For reasons I weren't entirely sure of yet.

I laid with Myrkblade's scabbard exposed over my back. I had stripped of my jacket and had on a black, sleeveless shirt tucked into my tan combat fatigues. The trademark red bandanna hugged my black bangs to my forehead while the rest of the onyx locks hung back over my shoulders.

I felt hot.

Dirty.

Sweaty.

I panted, gazing through moist shades.

I glanced right at the Messenger.

He was staring through his three-lensed goggles at the obscured horizon.

After a pause, he finally lifted the goggles, smiled, and pointed out while glancing at me.

"Straight ahead, and to the right some. Do you see it?"

I squinted my black eyes. The desert landscape was so bright. So reflective. I was having a headache from the punishment to my retinae.

But I saw it. And 'it' was a lonely pole of sorts. A pole with a white box and antennae-like equipment strapped to it.

I raised an eyebrow.

"Magnetic sensors. They surround the entire site. Thousands of them. Maybe tens of thousands," the Messenger said. "It's amazing what 'wonders of the world' in international engineering the common public never hears about."

I took a deep breath. I scanned across the tan landscape. I saw a dozen more poles suddenly. All identical. All of them…..

"Yup, magnetic sensors," the Messenger said. "They detect living things, androids, cyborgs, and even—to some extent—astral projections of various physical and metaphysical beings. Basically any organism that might—for any sexy reason—try and waltz into the Groom Lake picnic zone." He pointed and spoke: "However, with the lovely Dagger dynasty throwing a twist into things, you can bet your flying monkeys that those sensors have been equipped with aeroflammable fragment expulsors."

I gave him a dumb look.

Huh?

He looked at me and said proudly: "Upon sensing invading bodies, the surrounding devices emit two things into the air. Glass dust and flammable gas. Upon detection of further movement by the foreign element, the poles ignite the gas in the air. The glass turns into solid shrapnel and shred apart all living flesh within a one hundred and fifty meter radius between the sensors. Phoom! Instant silicon barbecue."

I made a face.

"And no….," he shook his head. "Mesa no think you can 'outrun' that, maverick."

I took a deep breath. I gazed out at the landscape.

I could always teleport……

But…

For all I know, I've got countless miles ahead of me. It might be a day's worth of careful navigation before I could so much as reach the 'fence' of Area 51. That is……if Area 51 has a fence.

And even still, the farthest I've ever teleported in open air is barely half a football field in length. To go any further would be impossible, if not dangerous.

I've never given it much thought, but I could very well separate my molecules to the point that they could never come back together again if I pushed myself just a little to 'far'.

What's left then to avoid those sensors?

I could try and cloak myself and waltz past them.

But that makes me weightless, not void of temperature. Even at night, those sensors could spot me.

I could destroy the sensors, but that would only wreak havoc.

I sighed.

If only Raven were here.

She could teleport me there. She could teleport us there. Messenger included.

Her powers allowed her to shift through earth and floor and walls.

But even then—wouldn't the sensors detect that as some sort of astral projection and ignite the fiery trap at first touch of her soul self?

"The wheels in your head turning, Noir?"

I went a little cross-blackeyed. I snapped out of it and gazed at my friend.

He seemed to be watching me intently. Smiling. "Don't mind me. I find it amusing."

I frowned.

"Take it easy. Sheesh," he sat up on his knees and cracked his neck. "Well, you can think up stuff all you want. But you won't make a redeemable solution. And don't take that the hard way, it's not because of a lack of intelligence or anything. Just a lack of superpowers."

Jeez, thanks.

"Hehehe. Well, you are a quick little devil. And quickness is just what may be up our avenue right now," he said. A beat. "Especially since we've already been spotted."

I gasped. I sat up. I looked around. Desperate and panicked.

"Shhhh," he hissed at me as if it meant anything. "Calm down. There's not much they can do anyways…."

"?" I looked at him, panting.

"Back in the day," he gestured. "They'd have these bumbling dudes in camouflage drive up in Jeep Cherokees and 'binocular' visitors to death. Today, they seem to have fallen short of that. But with Dagger involved, I wouldn't doubt it if there're—like—tiny ass nanomachines whizzing around our head as we speak. Taking blood samples from our ear lobes and cornea. Ya know….processing DNA and doing all the good stuff. I bet they know your favorite boxers color by now."

I made a face. My skin was pale.

"Hehehehehehe!" He all but doubled over. "Of course you know I'm joking about half of the crap I say."

I groaned mutely.

He cleared his throat, and swiftly his face took on a certain solemnity. "The time has come. We must go."

I looked at him strangely. I hand-signed something that he most likely couldn't understand.

Though he did seem to have a good knack for reading off my 'face'.

"We can't wait till sundown," the Messenger said. "Not now. Not after all the time we took in Vegas to get the Key. Dagger has been hard at work at something…something terrible. And he's been working ever since he first pulled out of your City. Ever since he headed west and brought Terra here."

I took a deep breath.

My metal fists clenched.

"And besides…," he smiled ever so slightly. "Daytime or nighttime matters little. Cuz we'll be going underground."

"……..," I gazed southwest in the direction of Area 51.

But of course……

He stood up beside me.

I stood up too, feeling bewildered.

And just how are we going to get there?

He cracked his knuckles and planted his hands on his hips. He smirked up at me. "Now here's where I come in…"

I gazed down at him.

You don't say.

"I can get us in Area 51. In fact, I did some reconnaissance this morning while you were arriving in Rachel."

I leaned my head to the side.

"Things are just as I imagined them. Dagger's and Triangular's people are speeding things up inside. There's only so little time before all is lost. So we might as well do things with as much swiftness as possible and as little explanation as possible. Kosher?"

I took a deep breath and smiled weakly.

Yeah……

Kosher.

He pointed at a watch on his hand. 'A' watch because it was different than before. Bulkier, if that was even imaginable.

"I got me here a special order. A once-in-a-blue-moon helping hand, I suppose you could say," the Messenger said. "This thing should give me a little bit more 'oomph' while I'm here."

I squinted my eyes at the device.

Just what in the Hell is up with these funky Rolexes of yours!

"But what I'm about to do…," he said, "….is gonna take a lot out of me regardless. I can get you inside the base, Noir. But once we're inside….I'm going to have to depend on you more than you can depend on me. Though—if things go as planned—we should hold fairly even ground." He slipped on his goofy, three-eyed goggles and smirked. "I've trained with the best."

I looked him straight in the three circular objects and tried to keep a straight face.

Someone has got to find you a woman……

And then he held his hand out. "Noir, take my hand."

"……..," I bit my lip.

He rolled what must have been almond eyes beneath his goggles and smirked sarcastically. "For the love of Jocasta…I'm wearing gloves!"

I simpered nervously.

I took his hand…..

"Whatever you do…," he spoke. "Do not—and I repeat—DO NOT let go! You're used to freaky stuff, right?"

I gazed at our hands holding.

I should say so……

"Then be ready for anything at this moment more than ever." And with that, he took a deep breath and reached his free hand to the watch on the wrist holding mine. "Now….this might cause underwear stains."

I took a sharp breath.

Click.-

ZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!

I instantly tilted my head up and let out a mute scream.

And I was surprised to see green vapors streaming out of my mouth.

My black eyes widened, for I realized the entire desert was nothing but a sea of green vapors.

I was looking at the desert, and the desert was looking at me. A pair of green eyes. I froze. Two green balls of light. Three balls of light. Four. I was being surrounded by ghosts of green. I nearly slipped free of my scabbard in stumbling backwards earthward, for I could no longer feel my feet. I could no longer feel the earth. The center of gravity of all things that were was surging straight up to me, through me, and out the top of my head. My black eyes exploded and laughed into a forever-emerald oblivion.

And yet it was painless.

Like a dream.

Free floating.

Shapeless.

I took me half a second to realize that my right hand still existed before I felt it nearly-slipping from the Messenger's grasp.

His fingers tightened around my palm.

I shook, shivered, and looked at him.

He looked at me with his goggles glowing. Jade orbs. Flickering pixies.

His lips were as calm and as serene as ever in this green-wavering madness.

"Hold on, Noir!" He said. "Hold on! We're going in!"

I shuddered. I never felt so defenseless in my life.

This was not my element.

This was not my element……

He gripped tightly to the length of my right forearm in two hands……and surged forward.

FWOOOSH!

The desert land of green waves splashed between us.

FW-FWOOSH!

We passed through the sensors. Unnoticed. Untouched. Unharmed.

FW-FW-FWOOSH!

And then open stretches of desert. Tiring, tan, open stretches. Shrubbery and rocks peeling away into thinness until the barren Dead won over and we were surging over pure, green skin. Smooth as the sky. The mutated, unseen kaleidoscope of Groom Lake up close.

And then there were fences.

And there were circular, metal things in the ground.

I could see the metal things because I could see through the ground.

I could see through the earth.

I could feel the weightlessness, the impermanence of everything.

Matter, light, energy.

The bodies that swam around in between.

Like poisoned goldfish in a glass pitcher being poured off the side of a fifty-story building.

I glided along in the Messenger's gasp as the world evened out.

And the fences passed through us like streams of dust.

FW-FW-FW-FWOOSH!

Green.

Green.

Everything green.

Everything a dancing cloud that was so bright and yet it didn't blind me.

I felt the tendril energies of all the world's souls anchoring and unanchoring to me at once as we hurdled through the last barrier and—

Like a comet, everything soared towards us.

And I gasped again.

With green streams…

Area 51.

The warehouses.

The white satellite dishes.

The bunkers.

The geometrically awe-inspiring structures.

The runway.

Abandoned jeeps.

Abandoned guard shacks.

I was too busy in the thrill of accelerated descent to try and 'see' anybody.

A guard.

A henchman.

A scientist.

……alien?

We plunged towards the warehouse. Its white shell of a body was horrendously contrasting with the green waves.

I looked at the Messenger.

He smiled.

Like a surfer.

A happy entertainer riding the nose of some celestial, killer whale.

And leaping—with me entwined—deep into the bowels of the base's white entrance.

And down.

Underground.

To the Earth.

FWOOOOSH!

FWOOOOOOOOSH!

FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!

ZAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!

T-T-T-T-T-T-

"HRAAAAAA!"

CL-CLANG!

Myrkblade flew down and struck the length of Choral.

A fifteen-year-old Ana held her ivory wooden sword with both hands gripping tightly to the blade's hilt. She gritted her teeth and shoved off with a growl.

I leapt back through the forest-side clearing. I spun. I burned black smoke into my blade and came at her from the side with a rotating attack. "RGHHHAAAAH!"

SW-SW-SW-SWISH!

Ana stepped steadily backwards, her sword pivoted and held iron-still to the side.

CL-CL-CL-CLACK!

She brought a foot up and kicked me in the side.

I stumbled back.

She took a deep breath. And her sapphire blue eyes flashed a bright yellow. "Nnnngh!" FWOOOOOOSH! With a single downswing of Choral, she launched a fan of hot white steam at me.

I dove to the side, rolled, jumped back up to my feet, blurred, dashed up a tree, vaulted off, and spun at her with a smoke-trailing katana. "YAAAAAAAAH!" FWOOOOSH!

Ana kept her feet firmly planted to the Earth. As always. She gripped her sword on both ends and stretched it up horizontally at me.

WHACK!

I struck the middle of her sword.

She pushed off at me.

I flipped back.

She charged Choral with white steam.

I slid back and shot black smoke into Myrkblade. Seething. Dark smoke pouring out the sides of my brown eyes.

Ana raised her sword up. Tendrils of white mist billowed from it.

I gripped Myrkblade in two hands and held it to my side. I shifted my feet. I took a deep breath. Flexed. And sent waves of smoke surging through my blade.

Ana kept charging. Standing perfectly still. As the white steam intensified, an invisible wind billowed at the tall grass surrounding her.

"Nnnnngh……," I summoned the dark power of Balance through my center, meditated for but a second, and exploded towards her. "RAAAAAAGH!" The trailing Myrkblade cut a searing path through the waving grass.

Ana braced herself. Her legs strong. Her blue eyes glowing a brighter gold……platinum……ivory.

"HAAAAA!" I brought Myrkblade up, twirled my whole body, and teleported directly in front of her and jabbed!—jabbed!—jabbed!—jabbed!—jabbed!

Ana produced a thick shield of white mist in front of her body. The black, smoking sword splashed against the Construction. No matter how quickly I jabbed or struck, the strength of Choral and her channeled White held me back. And then

CLANG!

Our blades struck. They pressed against each other lengthwise.

I leaned into her, straining.

She leaned into me, straining.

Smoking Myrkblade.

Steaming Choral.

Black eyes.

White eyes.

A beat.

A pause.

And

……

POW!

Ana's ivory blade exploded in white intensity.

My ragdoll body was blown back as if from a giant's sledgehammer.

"Whoahhhhhhhhhh—"THWACK! I slammed back into a cedar. "OOF!" I fell down hard on the ground, dropping Myrkblade. THWUMP! CL-CLANK! "Ugh………"

Ana's white eyes melted away to her normal, angelic blue. She gasped and dropped Choral. "J-Jordan!" She rushed over and knelt by my side in the tall grass. "Oh jeez, Jordan! I'm sorry. Are you okay? I didn't mean to make you…erm……g-go kerplunk that bad!"

"It's okay, Ana……," I sputtered. Hoarse. I looked up at her with thin, brown eyes and smiled weakly. "I-I know how to take a beating…"

She bit her lip. "Ohhhh……," she hugged me. "Why do you have to be so intense when we spar?"

"Me? I'm intense? Sorry, Ana, but you get a little desperate when you feel like you're beating a giant wall of calcium!"

"Hey!" Ana frowned. "Just because I know hot to use the strength of Construction doesn't mean that—" A pause. Her blue eyes blinked. "'Calcium'?"

I simpered. "Yeah. Ya know……like teeth?"

"………"

"Big……strong……wh-white teeth……"

"…………," Ana snorted. She cupped a graceful hand over her lips as her blue eyes curved. "Hehehehehehehe……"

I smiled crookedly. "Heheheheheh……"

"Hehehehehehe!" she hugged herself and fell back on her rear in the dirt. "Is that the best you can come up with? Teeth!"

I chuckled and shrugged. "It was Ben who called my mastery the color of poop!"

"Hahahahahaha!"

I rubbed my aching shoulders and sighed. Chuckled. Shook my head.

And as Ana's giggling faded, the two of us became aware of another set of laughs. And elderly set of laughs.

We both stood up and looked as one over at the shaded spot beneath a nearby cedar tree.

Beneath the branches, the Master sat. His features hidden by the shadows. His legs crossed in a squat beneath his small frame.

His voice……laughing.

"I now know why I have chosen you young ones for your half of the Spectrum. You are like siblings."

"Siblings?" Ana blinked. "Ew."

"?" I looked at her, an eyebrow raised.

"……," Ana blushed. "Er……what I mean is—why do you say 'siblings', sir?"

I looked the Master's way again, secretly humored.

"So competitive. So much trying to outprove one another. You do well to rely on your own ends of the Spectrum. But sometimes the best way to ensure victory is to ensure defeat. You must surrender yourselves to the other colors, reach in, grab that which is only marginally foreign to you, and turn it around in your own favor. And—in the end—it will be in the favor of all ends of the Spectrum."

"………"

"………"

Ana an I exchanged glances. Blinking.

"Jordan……," the Master's voice uttered.

I winced, sweatdropped, but tried to hide it. I turned and looked at him from far away and under the tree. "Y-Yes, sensei?"

"Why did Ana defeat you?"

"Uh……," I looked at her.

Her pretty eyes fluttered. She made a show of sporting a highly feminine smile.

I refused the urge to kick her in the shins.

I looked back in the Master's direction. "Because……sh-she was too strong?"

"She is always too strong. You know that."

"Yes, sensei."

"But where she is too strong, you can be too fast. Much like where she is strong and you are fast, the Red Adept is cunning."

We both nodded at that.

"You understand strength and cunning, do you not, Jordan?"

"I do, sensei," I nodded. "I have well familiarized myself with all ends of the Spectrum including my own."

"And you understand the nature of Construction?"

I nodded

"And you still—deep down inside—favor Construction above all else?"

I blinked my brown eyes.

Ana bit her lip.

"Is this true?"

I took a deep breath. I glanced sideways at the angelic girl as I answered him: "Yes, sir."

Ana looked away, silent.

I spoke firmer. "I respect Construction the most." A beat. I added: "But I know my place."

The Master chuckled from beneath the shadows. "Heh heh heh……I do not doubt your surety in Balance, young apprentice. But I do think that—as a maintainer of Black—you must keep a focus as well on your blending of White and Red."

Ana leaned her head to the side. Curious.

I took a deep breath. "What must I do, sensei?"

"Pick up your swords. The both of you."

A pause.

We did so.

Awkwardly.

Ana graced Choral.

I fastened my fingers around the hilt of Myrkblade.

"Prepare to spar. Again."

We both nodded.

We paced twenty feet from each other.

In the swaying tall grass, we turned and faced each other.

We bowed.

Ana held tight to her sword.

I twirled Myrkblade.

But before any of us could go at it again

"Hold."

We froze.

Sideways, we glanced at the tree the Master sat under.

"I want you to concentrate on your opponent's grip on the Spectrum, Jordan. Anastasia, you too."

"Yes, sensei."

"Remember. The Spectrum can be seen from many angles. Like blind men to the many parts of an elephant, the whole has many strange and different parts. But it doesn't keep the whole from being an elephant. You, Jordan, are Black. And you, Ana, are White. Hold true to the color that defines you. But at the same time, remember that the Spectrum is but a conglomeration of many colors. Many shades. Many hues. And they are all related, while all different. There is a little White in Black. There is a little Black in White. And—even in all of that—there is always Red. And the hidden blends of the Spectrum are best felt when you are sharing as much of the energy as you are clashing together the heat of the fight. Friction is but one of many ways of fusing together, or at least showing us of little perspective where the fine lines in the universe reside."

We both nodded.

"Yes, sensei."

"Yes, sensei."

"Now……again. Engage each other," as shadowed arm beneath the tree waved a finger. "And seize that which you sense in the other. Embrace the White. Embrace the Black. And if there be Red in you as well, make use of it as the Spectrum guides you to."

A beat.

"Proceed."

I took a deep breath. I faced Ana.

Ana gripped Choral with two hands. Her feet firmly planted.

"Don't expect me to do any crazy flips anytime soon," she winked.

I took a deep breath and charged black smoke into my blade. "And don't expect me to sit around like a dumb log."

"Har har."

"Hardy har har," I winked back. FWOOOSH! Smoke danced outward from my upper body and through my blade. I blurred at her, gritted my teeth, and spun with Myrkblade swinging high. "Nnnngh—YAAAAH!"

She held her breath and powerfully brought a steaming Choral to block.

CLANG!

T-T-T-T-T-T-

"……………."

Silence.

Darkness.

"……………."

I took a deep breath.

I felt a gentle hand shaking my shoulder.

"Yoo hoo. Morning bells are ringing, brother Noir. Time to wake up."

"……….," my black eyes fluttered open. My shades were off. But as I first graced the setting, I realized it didn't matter. It was comfortably, comfortably dark.

The Messenger smiled down at me. His black-suited figure seemed to blend in with the shadows of the place, even for my obsidian vision. "You didn't handle reentry so well," he smirked. "Kind of surprising, really. I think your pansy meter just went up in my head."

I shook my head and wearily rubbed my shut eyes before reopening them again, blinking.

"Hehehehehe……I'm just joking, of course."

Whatever……

I realized I was lying down.

I sat up, rubbing my head. My solid head.

My solid body.

The solid Earth.

The solid…..

"…….," I blinked.

Where were we?

I looked around.

Dull, gray metal.

Walls and floor.

Ceiling…..

Everything was paneled like it had been segmented together with cubicle, metal slabs. We were in some claustrophobic, endless tunnel coming from pure darkness and eating into pure darkness. And everything was cold and the air was thin.

We're underground.

I looked at a nearby patch of wall. The gentle glow of the Messenger's green-eyed goggles hanging behind his shoulders splashed across thick, yellow numbers sprayed to the gray metal in an emotionless, industrial fashion. Military font.

'51.'

'51.'

'51.'

I took a breath.

The Messenger stretched a hand down.

I looked up. I accepted it with a metal wrist.

He hoisted me up to my feet.

I stood on wobbly legs at first, but eventually balanced out.

I shifted my body, feeling Myrkblade where it should have been. My possessions—of what I carried—still in place. My sleeveless black shirt. Even my bandanna….

Guess everything made it out of that green nightmare in one piece.

"I will admit," he spoke, handing my shades back to me.

I took them.

He continued: "You did handle it quite well the first time. Some of my friends back home puked for hours afterwards. Me? I take it all in stride. Cuz really, that's all it is. 'Striding'. The universe is nothing but a string of corridors separated by infinite doors. And—with a little wind under your mutant wings—you can find a way to shift through the frames without touching the doors if you like. The novelty of it all is that I've since learned to take others with me. Granted—one at a time—but it works in dire situations. Speaking of which…," he showed off his bulky watch, "…it didn't suck out half as much as I thought. Heh." He smirked proudly. "I might be able to help out a little more than I thought."

I eyed the blackness before us. I comfortably slid my shades through a belt latch on my fatigues. I took a deep breath.

The more the merrier, I guess.

I widened my black eyes to gain the most light from the darkly lit interior as I could. I perceived the corridor going onward for—at least—one hundred meters.

It was hard to tell.

This is Area 51……

"Something's wrong," the Messenger said.

I gazed at him. "?"

He simpered. "Or something's good. Perhaps one in the same."

I made a face.

"The upper tier has been evacuated. Area 51's got a tight-as-virgin-lobsters security, right?"

I shrugged, then nodded a general 'yeah'.

"Well, today it isn't. Triangular…Dagger…whoever….they've got their men gone from the outer service and the first basement levels. I was expecting to see a wandering gunman or two on the way here through the Middleverse, but so far—nada. Unless they're all out for tea or the Dead Poet's Society, I get the feeling that this place—Area 51—is being abandoned for a reason. But we can't worry too much about that. Nor can we expect everyone to be gone. The deeper we go, the thicker the security—any security—will be. Because only 'down' into the Earth of this forbidden place is where we'll find what we're looking for….what Dagger holds hostage."

I took a deep breath.

I fingered the Key in my fatigues' pocket.

The door to the hiding place……

Terra……

I stepped passed the Messenger, gazing into the darkness. I held a hand out—palm up. I produced a flickering plume of smoke. I relaxed. The plume—like a black candlelight—flickered haphazardly toward the two of us.

Air current.

The air is shifting.

I closed my hand, extinguishing the murk.

There must be an exit from this corridor somewhere ahead of us.

I turned and looked at him. I pointed down the corridor where I was facing.

The Messenger nodded. "Yeah." He smirked. "I know."

"?" I raised an eyebrow, my head tilted to the side.

"No….not just because of reconnaissance," the Messenger gripped his three-eyed helmet and switched it on to a higher intensity with a whining sound. The three green specks glowed brighter. "I've been here before. To Area 51…." His almond eyes traced the shadowed walls as if he was looking through them. For all I knew, maybe he could. "Of course…when I was here before, it was five years ago. In another dimension. My dimension." He looked at me. He smiled. "Had to bust a few of my bosom buddies out over some crazy, unfair fiasco."

I blinked. I mouthed: 'You?'

"Er…scratch that," he simpered. "I wasn't busting anyone out. But I was here. And if anything—I was at least a happy haunt at the time." He slipped the goggles over his head. The same, goofy 'spy' look again. "All right then, enough of Messengerpiece Theatre," his lips curved under the triad of green 'eyes'. "Let's do this thing J. Edgar Hoover style….without the garter straps, of course."

I smirked. I motioned down the hallway.

"What? Me lead? The only dance I do is with glow-sticks," he gestured. "Take the helm, bright eyes."

I rolled my black optics and crept on ahead of him.

He followed behind me. "Oh….and try and be quiet. Someone might hear us."

I wanted to stick my tongue at him, but saved it for later.

Crouch-walking, we hustled along through the shadows of the metal corridor.

A silent, infiltrating team.

T-T-T-T-T-T-

I saw it first.

Thin streaks of light pouring in from below.

A grate of sorts.

I held a hand up.

The Messenger behind me crouched to a halt.

I crept ahead, bending down.

When I reached the grate, I was snaking my body.

I squinted my eyes and looked down through the slits of metal.

There was a tiny alcove. About six inches deep and four feet square. Blinking lights splashed across an array of wires. It seemed to be a conduit of sorts.

"It's a switch….," the Messenger whispered.

"?" I turned and looked at him.

"Imagine a doormat. Programmed to read the biological signature of a certain, honorary guard or something. All he'd need to do is stand over it and thus trigger something to open."

"…..," I gazed around at the dull walls of paneled metal.

"Could be a secret door. A control panel. Something nearby, whatever it is. Obviously our bodily signatures don't match what the grate here needs, but….."

I looked at him. I smirked. I gazed down at the grate.

Every lock can be picked.

"It may be possible to trace where the wires from this sensor go and find the actual contraption. There, it can be tricked manually. But none of us are quite the size of mice to accomplish that, so--"

I held a metal hand up to silence him.

His whispering voice cut off.

I took a deep breath.

I can handle this……

I leaned down and pressed my body to the grate.

Right shoulder first.

I turned my head from the blinding, blinking lights.

I took a breath.

Concentrated……

FWOOOOSH!

My whole right arm turned into flickering smoke while the rest of my body stayed solid.

I carefully seeped my smoking molecules down through the grate. I surged my essence all around the array. I found the central wiring system. I followed the network. I shot my smoking limb into the tubing. And—with a breath—I teleported half of my body mass down the tube. My legs evaporated up towards my torso in flickering murk as I did so, trying to keep the last pieces of my weight solid as I reached…reached….reached….

And found the mechanism.

A breath.

A pulse

THWISH!

Click.

CHTUNG!

The corridor shook as a panel the size of a piece of wall vibrated and slid 'open'.

I took a breath and retracted—FWOOOOSH! The smoking extensions of me shot back into my solid person. I rolled over across the grate, hugging myself. Sweating…panting…and regaining my strength from the awkward—but effective 'teleport'.

CLACK!

A doorway in the side of the corridor opened completely.

As I stood up, the Messenger smiled beneath his glowing goggle-eyes. "I get a feeling your future wife is going to have the most perfect honeymoon, Noir."

Shut the Hell up.

I motioned him along as I crept through the doorway, Myrkblade held high.

He crouch-walked behind me.

We emerged into a light-gray glow….

And silvery white halls.

T-T-T-T-T-T-

It felt like some cold and depressing hospital.

A white tile floor. Polished and reflecting. Empty metal gurneys lining the hallway. Equipment on rollers. Abandoned nurse's stations. Even a wheelchair or two. It was too big to be a regular 'infirmary'. It seemed as if this underground medical center was just as voluminous and important as the rest of the 'air base' itself. Half of the overhead, fluorescent lights were off. And even seemed half as dim as they needed to be. The entire power of Area 51 seemed to be in the middle of some massive conservation. And on top of that, there wasn't a soul to be seen in the white hallways. It was like an underground ghost town.

And we were the specters…..

I rushed forward and knelt behind a gurney. Hiding myself from the rest of the hallway. I peered around from the side of the metal object, peering down the medical corridor. Checking to see if the coast was clear. I turned and looked over my shoulder. I saw an 'okay' sign from the Messenger—who was also kneeling against the wall at a corner. Half-concealed.

I took a breath.

I swiftly scurried out a few feet further down the hallway. I stopped behind a large wheelchair. I motioned at the Messenger without looking.

On silent feet, he crouch-walked to the gurney behind me. His goggles were dimmer. His lips tight in stealthy concentration.

In such textbook fashion, we slithered down the hallway and made it to an intersection. One path lead to a utility closet. The other hallway branched off to a dead end.

The Messenger crouched at my side and tapped my shoulder.

I gazed sideways at him, my naked black eyes thinned.

He pointed towards the dead end doorway.

I nodded.

I scurried over towards it.

The Messenger snaked along the wall with me.

I held my hand up.

We both froze outside the door.

I lowered my metal hand. I planted my digital fingers to the floor beneath the door frame. I took a deep breath. I carpeted the tile with murk. I sent the smoke billowing gently into the room from under the crack of the door. I 'felt' the room with spatial sense. And…

I froze.

Two bodies.

Two bodies sitting down……

Just on the other side of the door.

To the left……

I took a deep breath.

I looked at the Messenger.

He looked at me.

I held up two metal fingers. I pointed 'left' and motioned 'sitting'.

He nodded.

I gripped Myrkblade in my right hand.

The Messenger pulled out of his utility belt what looked like a standard issue tranquilizer gun.

I held up three fingers.

Two fingers.

One.

I formed a fist.

The Messenger flinched.

I twirled Myrkblade, bolted up, and—

WHAM!

I kicked the door open and blurred in.

The Messenger jumped in after me.

I spun and slashed Myrkblade at the first neck I saw.

CHIIIIING!

The Messenger aimed his tranquilizer at the other body in the room.

I froze and jumped back with a mute gasp.

Shit!

The face was pale. Without eyes. Without a mouth. Glossy. Inhuman.

And…..

Wearing a pilot's suit.

"……….," I panted. My heartbeat slowed some.

"Heheheheheh….," the Messenger chuckled. He lowered his tranquilizer gun and motioned at his 'man' with his head.

I looked.

The other sitting person was identical. Pale face. No eyes. No mouth. Glossy and with jointed limbs.

"Dummies….," the Messenger said as we stood before two seated mannequins. "For pilot tests. Experimental ejector seats and parachutes and what not. The kind of stuff people may indeed have mistaken for a crashed UFO spaceman at Roswell. I'm surprised there aren't a billion of these silly things lying about this place."

I shuddered.

Could have warned me……

I looked around the room.

What the Hell is this place anyways?

It looked to be a medical room of sorts, but at some point it had been converted to something else. Half of the walls of the place had been repaneled…as if metal plates were eating their way into the drywall. A bunch of equipment and chairs and stacks of clutter had been shoved to the far sides of the room. And at the opposite end of the interior from which we entered.

"……," I stared with thin black eyes. My jaw dropping.

It was….a door. But I could have sworn—from looking at it—that it was a waterfall in frozen motion. Like liquid mercury being strung between the ceiling and floor in rubberband fashion. Or someone taking a slab of wet concrete off a sidewalk and standing it magically on its side. I could have sworn I did and didn't see my reflection in the rectangular 'slab' at the same time. But something inside of me—human or not—told me that it was a door.

"Ah! Good!" the Messenger whispered as he walked over towards the warbling mass. "We're at the extension!"

I looked at him. Black eyes blinking.

Extension?

"Half of what Area 51 is today was built within the last fifteen years following the handover," the Messenger said. "All underground, of course. In this universe's, it's Triangular's doing. In mine, another fella's. It all goes hand in hand."

Uh huh……

He twisted one of the lenses of his green goggles and 'leaned' towards the mercury slab.

I stood beside him, cautious.

"Hmmm….thermal source on the other side….," he murmured. "The door panel is beyond the wall. This is meant as an exit, not an entrance. Sort of a one way thing. Perfect, unassuming way for us to enter the bottom tier of the facility."

I nodded.

I'll take your word for it.

"I'll handle this," he said in monotone. "Wait here."

I bit my lip.

He walked towards the slab, touched his watch, and—

ZAAT!

He was gone in a green flash.

I was alone.

I took a breath.

I fingered the Key in my pocket again.

I leaned back and forth.

A little paranoid, I turned and looked over my shoulder towards the creepy, dim-gray hallways of the underground hospital.

So I wonder if this is where they keep Rosemary's Baby……

FWFWFWFWFWUP!

"?" I spun around.

The mercury slab 'peeled' out from the center. It looked something akin to a four knives cutting out from a bar of butter, starting from the inside and exiting in an 'X' shape. Before I knew it, the liquid metal had vanished entirely as if shrinking into the frame it was suspended in, and I saw through the wall to the other side where an eagerly waiting Messenger leaned against a blinking, bright pedestal.

"You have a five second window. I suggest you—ya know—hop over!" he hissed.

"!" I blurred over as quickly as I could, just in case. I stood beside the Messenger at the top of an inclined passageway. The walls were a dark metal this time. A dark black sort, like the corridor before the infirmary. But everything here was wider and less claustrophobic. It felt……nice.

Then, behind me:

FWFWFWFWFWUP!

I turned.

The slab of liquid mercury rested shut. Again warbling. Reflecting. Solid….or so it seemed.

"We're in," he whispered.

I scratched my head.

I looked at the Messenger.

I pointed Myrkblade curiously at the slab.

"Yeah, isn't it cool?" the asian kid whispered with a smile. He tapped his goggles, making them glow brighter. "The Wriklarx make the sexiest architecture."

I mouthed: 'Wriklarx?'

"S'ok. You wouldn't know them," he turned and lead the way down the dark passage. Down…down. "They tend to keep to themselves a lot. Most Andromedans are reclusive like that. It's quite fascinating really."

"………..," I blinked. My lips parted and I gazed at the slab again. Breathless. I lifted a shaking finger

"Come on. I think I hear guards…."

I awkwardly stumbled and hurried after him.

As silent as I could be….

T-T-T-T-T-T-

"Snnnktt! Sector Charlie Zero Report to Hangar Twelve in T-Minus Thirty. Transport In Progress. Sector Charlie Zero. Standby."

The emotionless, electronic voice boomed against cold, dark walls of nondescript metal. The speakers and dim lights of the underground facility loomed two stories above a huge, open space. It looked like a hidden warehouse of sorts, complete with metal crossbeams and rafters overhead. But what could have been storage for unimaginably exotic aircraft or alien technology was instead a gigantic waste of space. The huge, yawning corridor stretched from a southern array of two-tiered metal catwalks across the way to a narrow, black corridor leading far into the shadows. On the right side—at bottom floor level—was a line of windows looking into a brightly lit control room of sorts.

Well……

This is rather anticlimactic.

But the interior wasn't empty by any means.

Finally, there were guards. The uniformed sort. Clad in dull, blue jumpsuits. They carried what looked like aerial assault rifles—quite the overkill for such relatively 'closed' quarters such as the likes of the basement bowels we were in. They were also armed with outrageously large grenades strapped to belts on their chests. They stood in formation around the black corridor on the far side of the 'warehouse', evidently guarding it. Their faces were somewhere strung between impatience and fear. If indeed there was something crazy afoot, they knew it a lot more than either the Messenger or I did.

What on earth is going on here?

"Snkkt! Sector Bravo One is Evacuated. Sector Charlie Zero standby."

The Messenger and I crouched on the top metal catwalk on our side of the warehouse. The descending corridor through which we traversed stretched behind us. We could look through the grating of the catwalk straight beneath us and see two or three guards standing shoulder-to-shoulder.

I exhaled gently. Eyeing blackly the interior. Strategizing….

"Whew…," the Messenger whispered. "All you need is some bald guy petting a Persian cat."

"……….," I slowly looked over at the Messenger.

He gazed back at me. Grinning. "Or some British chick with a black bikini and a machine gun."

"………"

A beat.

I sighed.

He suppressed a giggle. Cleared his throat. Then trained his goggled eyes towards the far away control room.

"We need to get there somehow…," he murmured. "Number one: it may help us shed some light on just what that intercom voice is squawking about. Number two: it may tell us just exactly where in this underground bingo hall they've got Terra housed. Number three…." He linked at me. A sideways tilt of the head. "Soda machine?"

I smirked. I gazed at the control room. A figure or two wandered around darkly against the light of the small, glass-cased alcove. I then scanned with black eyes the walls, panels, and floor extending outward from the room….

"We'll have to take out the morons in there too. But nicely—if possible. Every moron has a mother. Myself included."

I looked right. I froze. I squinted my eyes at a ventilation shaft built into the flat metal wall just to the side of our catwalk platform.

"…….."

I then looked over at the Messenger.

He saw what I had been gazing at and simpered. "Ah yes. Okay. The Middleverse is one thing, but that—" he pointed "—is a tight squeeze. So, uhm—"

I grabbed his arm.

He sweatdropped.

On weightless, murking feet I ran across the platform, dragged his petite body with me, and jumped.

There was the briefest of half-seconds during which random guards could look up and see our gliding bodies. But sooner than naught, we vanished as I teleported myself—and the Messenger in tow—through the thin metal grates of the panel and into the ventilation shaft beyond.

FWOOOOSH!

Then….

Silence.

T-T-T-T-T-T-

"Sector Charlie Zero Report to Hangar Twelve in T-Minus Twenty-Five."

Inside the Control Room….

Two men in uniform typed at computer stations. Monitors with scrolling DOS-Prompt text stood before them. They silently, dutifully typed away at the consoles before them. As the intercom crackled overhead and the men outside in the warehouse chamber stood at ready, the two men were unaware of a shaking motion to the metal grate of the ventilation shaft just above and behind their heads.

The screws came loose from the inside out. The grate lifted and slid into the dark interior of the shaft. Slowly….like a snake…the body of the goggled Messenger dangled upside down. A metal hand was gripping one of his thin, black-covered legs. While hanging, he aimed a grappling hook in two hands. Stealthily, he launched a dart into the neck of the rightmost technician.

Thiiift!-Thap!

The man groaned and slumped over instantly.

"?" the assistant looked over. He spun around in his desk chair. At sight of the Messenger, he jumped up to his feet and opened his mouth to shout

Thiiift!

The tranquilizer hit just to the right of his throat.

He swaggered, groaned, and fell.

THRUMP!

The Messenger exhaled. He looked 'up' and jerked his arm in the air. "Ding-Ding."

I dropped him.

He flipped and landed in a squat on the control room floor.

THWOOSH!

I teleported down and stood beside him.

He crouch-walked over and slid the bodies and chairs aside. Kneeling beneath the outside view of through the Control Room's windows and slipping his goggles off so that they hung behind his shoulders, he slithered his hands up and typed madly at the keyboards.

I murked over to the door and pressed myself against it, keeping a cautious ear to the metal frame. Listening and feeling with spatial sense for anyone incoming…

The Messenger typed and typed and typed and typed.

A string of text appeared on the computer monitors.

"Okay….," he quietly murmured. "It says here that there's an airplane in Hangar Twelve on the surface. It's a huge cargo jet of sorts. Configuration number……errr….ergh….c-can't recognize it…."

I nodded. I pressed myself against the door. 'Listening'. Myrkblade held tightly in my metal and flesh grasp.

The Messenger typed some more. He read the scrolling text and said to me: "A large shipment is being sent out. Destination…..hmmm….," he blinked. He looked at me. "Metropolis."

I leaned my head to the side. Lips pursed….

"A bunch of cylinders containing….some sort of energy. There're no details save for some indecipherable numbers," he said. "But there's a shipment definitely being flown to Metropolis, with two other passenger planes set to carry people away elsewhere. Lots of people. It would seem as if this whole facility is being evacuated! Heh….Area 51! Evacuated!" More typing. He squinted his almond eyes. "And it's all being done hurriedly. We're at the tail end of it, in fact. It looks like everyone is trying to get this place cleared out in less than twenty-two minutes from now. Something else is happening too….somewhere in the ballpark of thirty-five to forty minutes."

"……..," I took a deep breath.

I don't like the looks of this.

"We may be very well on the brink of one of Triangular's next big moves," the Messenger said. "And if Triangular is doing something big….," he thought aloud. He looked at me. "Then that must mean Red Aviary is also—"

I pulled the Key out of my pocket it held it up for him to see.

He swallowed, simpering. "But of course."

I smiled and nodded.

But of course………

I slid the Key back into my pocket.

The Messenger typed and typed and typed and brought up a schematic. He leaned forward and rubbed his chin. "Hmmm…..well, that's simple enough."

I blinked.

What?

"The dark hallway just outside beyond those guards eventually branches off into three directions. An elevator, a storage facility, and…some final extension. Guarded by a door." He looked at me. "Most likely the door." He glanced back at the computer. "Whatever it was, over ninety percent of Area 51's power reserves have been relocated to that sector of the underground base."

I slid my shades on and paced over towards him some. Looking curiously through my black lenses.

"And….heh…..it might tickle you to know," he smirked, "….none of that stuff was there five years ago…in my dimension."

How cute.

"So….now maybe—while we're here…," he cracked his knuckles and typed some more. "I could perhaps shut all the lights off and give you and I a tractical advantage over those goons outside"

CRACK!

The door burst open from the outside.

The Messenger and I spun up to our feet.

Six guards armed with AK-47s stormed in military style and formed a phalanx against us.

"FREEZE! HANDS IN THE AIR!"

Cl-Click!

Klak!

Click!

"…….or not," the Messenger grinned crookedly and raised his hands.

I bit my lip. I slowly…hesitantly raised Myrkblade in my grasp and hung it over my head.

The leader of the squad glanced nervously at the two unconscious workmen on the ground. He frowned at us: "Who sent you! Intergang! Is this some sort of recompense?"

"It's quite simple, really," the Messenger smiled. "We're Avalon Ladies in disguise. Care to suck on some mascara? It's made from whale fat!"

"Allright, you clown. Shut the Hell up. Simmons…clean 'em….," the man motioned with his AK-47.

A lesser guard marched towards me in his blue fatigues. He eyed Myrkblade and waved his own gun to hand it over.

I…..hesitated….

"Don't play any smart shit with us, creeps…," the captain frowned as his four companions and himself kept their guns trained at us. The one man reached for my gun. "You have no idea who you're screwing with."

"Kevin Bacon?" the Messenger asked.

I exhaled.

The guards all looked at the Messenger, including the one trying to confiscate Myrkblade.

"Kevin Bacon is everywhere, man," the Messenger went on. "I bet he assassinated JFK and buried him in Jimmy Hoffa's grave after making love to Amelia Earthart's clone."

"Hold it!" the captain said.

The guard beside me jolted to a stop.

The captain motioned to the Messenger. "Search him first. But be careful. He may be dangerous."

"Pfft….," the Messenger rolled his eyes. "Gawds. I'm so frickin' tired of people thinking I can kick ass just because I'm asian."

The guard walked over to him. "Shut up, before we turn you into a pincushion you lousy—"

FWOOOOSH! The Messenger's foot flew up.

THWACK! The guard's chin lost two teeth as it tilted up to the ceiling.

With a second breath, the Messenger spun and karate-kicked the man in the chest.

WHAP!

The guard dropped his AK-47 and stumbled back.

The Messenger ran forward, vaulted forward, hand-planted off the collapsing man's shoulders, and flew with a plummeting jump-kick into two guards across the small control room.

WH-WHUMP!

A fourth guard gasped, aimed his AK-47, and—RAT-A-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!

The Messenger spun around.

The bullets whizzed at him.

He held his breath and—ZAAAT!—streaked in a green bolt towards the man, solidified, and slammed a kung-fu chop into the man's chest.

WHAM!

He flew out the doorframe.

A fifth guard swung the butt of his rifle into the Messenger's back.

Without turning around, the Messenger flexed his shoulders. ZAAT! He teleported in a green flash so that he stood behind the lunging guard. ZAAAT! He gripped the man's ribs, spun, and slammed the unsuspecting gunmen into a row of metal lockers. CRUNCH! Then he elbowed and kicked him in the spine. THWACK! WHAM!

"Ughhh" WHUMP! The man fell cold.

"………………..," I blinked.

Well………

All right, then.

I gazed left.

The Captain stared. His mouth ajar.

I snapped out of it.

TH-TH-THWISH! I twirled Myrkblade and slammed it across the broadside of his back.

THWACK!

The man stumbled madly over to the computer consoles.

I spun my body and kicked him in the ribs.

THWUMP!

His body catapulted out through the glass windows of the control room.

CRASH!

He tumbled amidst a sea of glass onto the warehouse floor.

A dozen men with AK-47s ran up to the chaos. Gasping. Taking aim and shouting.

I gritted my teeth.

AAAAAAAAAAUGH!

I blurred out at them.

RAT-A-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!

I teleported through the window, streamed around the bullets in smoke form, and solidified with a maddeningly strong upswing of Myrkblade.

TH-THWACK!

Two guards went flying—screaming—up to the ceiling before collapsing down hard from my blow.

Two guards on either side of me aimed their guns at my skull.

RAT-A-TAT-TAT-TAT!

I twirled Myrkblade viciously left and right with a mute snarl.

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!

The men repositioned their weapons to fire again when—

ZAAT!—PLANT!—ZAAT!—PLANT!

A green-porting Messenger nimbly…acrobatically solidified with flying kicks impacting the chests and torsos of a handful of guards, knocking them down as he vaulted back up into the air, teleported—ZAAT!—before the bullets could pierce his body, and landed on the ground only to perform a circular lead sweep that grounded three more guards at once. TH-TH-THWUMP! Men tumbled and scrambled desperately for their weapons as the Messenger swiftly regained his footing and proceeded to take on two other guards at once with a flurry of lightning-quick punches and twisting kicks.

I had very little time to marvel

SWOOOOSH! I teleported into at thick cluster of guards and spun with Myrkblade outstretched.

CL-CLANK! SMACK! SL-SL-SLINK!

I smacked upside the skulls of two guards, slammed another in the gut, and triply grazed the arm bloodily of another.

"Auugh!" the latter gasped and clutched his shoulder.

I twirled over and slammed my metal fist into his face.

WHACK!

He fell back into another guard.

Two others hobbled up to their feet and aimed their AK-47s at me.

RAT-A-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!

I streaked over to a nearby wall. I ran up vertically, the bullets ricocheting just behind my blurring feet. As I reached a certain height, I vaulted up off the wall, gripped to an overhanging metal rafter with my prosthetic hand, and swung Myrkblade down at my feet, deflecting bullefire.

CL-CL-CL-CLANG!

The bouncing bullets streaked back down through the warehouse air at the guards, knocking a rifle out of one of the men's hands. CL-CLACK!

"Aaaugh!" he stumbled back as his partner desperately whipped out a grenade, pulled the pin, and tossed it up at me.

THWIIISH!

I gritted my teeth.

ZAAT!

In a green flash, the Messenger appeared in mid-leap before me. He grabbed the grenade as one would grab a football, fell, and teleported again—

Z-ZAAT!

In a blink, the Messenger reappeared on the left side of the warehouse while the grenade reappeared far away on the right side.

Cl-Clink!

BOOOOM!

The whole room shook.

Heat from the explosion disoriented a few guards. The Messenger leapt upon them, grappling with one man's figure, swinging his petite body around the man's torso, and sticking his legs out so that his body slapped two men across the cheeks—WHAPWHAP!—just seconds before he brought his minute weight swiftly down and slammed the body of the man he was grappled to against the cold, metal floor—WHAM!

I looked down to my left.

The struggling captain and two other recovering guards hobbled towards the Messenger with pistols raised.

Snarling, I teleported so that my feet kicked off against the metal rafters of the ceiling. Th-THWUMP! I dove down through the air, glided on murk, crossed my arms, and—with a mute shout—uncrossed them with a metal fist slamming into the skull of one guard and Myrkblade tripping out the feet from beneath a second.

WHAM!

TH-THWAP!

Both pistol-bearers fell down hard.

The captain jumped back, gasping.

I landed from my dive, rolled on the ground, hopped up, and twirled Myrkblade at him.

SL-SL-SL-SL-SL-SLASH!

I gave his cheeks to scars, grazed his shoulder, knocked the sword out of his hand, and slapped his skull hard with the broadside of Myrkblade.

WH-WHAM!

THWUMP! He fell down.

I panted. I spun around.

The Messenger was busy twisting and dancing around the arm of an unlucky guard before positioning himself behind the man's back and swiftly slamming his elbow down into the man's shoulder, dislocating it.

CRACK!

"AAAUGH!" the man shouted and rolled over onto the ground.

Another guard stumbled up and fired a pistol at the Messenger.

BLAM!

The Messenger flinched—ZAAT!—and disappeared in green light.

The guard looked around. Panting. A shadow loomed over him. He looked up.

WHAM!

Myrkblade struck him between the eyes, breaking his nose.

He coughed, sputtered, and fell down at my feet.

"…..," glared.

Cl-Click!

I looked to my right.

Two last guards stood off to the side. Pistols aimed at me. They were bruised freshly all over, and they fumed in frustration.

"Last move you ever made, freak. Dagger's got a catacomb in Hell for you."

"…..," I frowned.

ZAAT!

A little asian demon appeared behind them.

"Helloooo," he sing-songed. "Candygram!"

TH-THWISH! He spun with a graceful, high-flying kick.

WHACK! He heel-slapped the rightmost thug across the back of his skull.

"Nnngh—" the man fell down cold.

The other thug gasped and aimed his gun point-blanc at the Messenger.

The almond-eyed warrior swiftly ducked

BANG!

and lurched forward in a powerful pair of knuckles sailing into the man's gut.

THWUMP!

The guard stumbled back, wheezing.

The Messenger performed a crane-like jump kick.

CLACK!

He kicked the pistol out of the man's hand.

The guard gasped and looked up at the air-spinning pistol.

Smiling, the Messenger hackey-sacked the pistol in the air once…twice…with a giggling "Oh!—Ohhh!" at the expert trickery…

The guard lunged for the gun.

SNATCH! The Messenger grabbed it in mid-air at the last second.

Whump! The guard fell to his knees from his dive.

Plant! The Messenger held the gun barrel between the man's eyes. "Made you lunge!"

"……….," the guard suddenly shivered. Gulping.

"……..," the gun-toting Messenger smiled. "You can wet your pants now, bub."

The guard's knees began to wobble.

Two seconds….four….

The Messenger winked. "Good boy."

TH-THWACK! He uppercutted the man's chin with his foot.

"Nnnnngh….," the guard fell over. Whap! Unconscious….

"………..," I whistled.

"Yup…really sick and tired of it…," he tossed the pistol away and smirked at me. Arms folded. "The world's full of closed-minded bigots. Loveable, closed-minded bigots…mind you. But I prefer to 'love' perfect strangers with a toe to the molars from time to time. Don't you?"

He giggled…and in so doing, he was utterly oblivious to the onrushing charge of a suddenly-awake guard stabbing a combat knife into his petite back.

"!" THWOOOOOSH! I teleported forward, blurred through the Messenger, and solidified in the path of the knife.

CLAMP! My metal fingers grasped around the blade before it could so much as eat through my sleeveless shirt.

THWACK! My swordswinging hand flew straight up, and the guard's impacted body spun three times like a dramatic, midair top before collapsing ragdoll style on the floor.

And all was silent.

"…….," I exhaled. I dropped the knife to the floor. Cl-Clank! I slowly turned around.

The Messenger wasn't facing me. His shoulders were slumping and his head was hung in a sigh.

"…..," I smirked. I patted a hand on his shoulder.

He smiled weakly, eyeing me sideways from behind. "God bless you, Noir. Somebody in this world has got to remind me I'm not omnipotent."

I shrugged.

You're not omnipotent.

You're just cute.

My smile faded and I gazed off at the two and a half dozen unconscious bodies littering the warehouse-room floor around us.

I sighed.

Which probably explains why I'm being butchered up all throughout my life……

"So…..uhm….," he nervously ran a hand through his sweat-laced bangs and smiled at me. "Go time?"

"Sector Charlie Zero Report to Hangar Twelve in T-Minus Twenty."

We both shuddered.

I nodded and whispered: 'Go time'.

Swiftly, we both dashed down the dark corridor / tunnel beyond…

T-T-T-T-T-T-

There were lights in this chamber.

But for some reason….

It felt darker than all the others.

Regardless, dim red lights led the cold way on. They strobed with a gentle intensity. Like the emergency signal of evacuation. Or something even more dire.

There were no guards in this tunnel. At first, it seemed ludicrous that the only resistance would be that short-lived defense in the large chamber outside the control room.

But then again, Dagger had proven himself a man who ruled by the art of expendability.

The Messenger and I hurried down the dark corridor, and as we did so the shadows seemed to swallow us up more and more. The red strobes grew dimmer. And as the cold eeriness grew around us…

"Look!" he hoarsely uttered with a pointing finger.

My black eyes narrowed through the shades.

We came to a stop.

Gazing up.

Panting….breathing deeply….

A huge metal door. Not bulky and insanely armored like Anderson's Vault at Pompeii. But strongly reinforced all the same. There was a circular design in the center. Like an extravagant bullseye. A tiny slot formed in the center like a squinting iris.

"Noir….," the Messenger swallowed and looked over at me. "The Key…."

I took a deep breath, nodding.

Right……

I reached into my pocket.

I pulled out the flat, gray device.

"……"

I poured murk into it and switched it on.

Click.

It lit up like mad and—

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!

"Mikey….I think he likes it…," the Messenger smiled some. He 'pointed' at the door with darting, almond eyes.

Hold your horses. I'm doing it.

Taking a deep breath, I walked towards the huge slab. I slipped the diskette-like key inside.

Whurrrrrrr-Chtink!

It accepted the Key.

The door lit up. The inner circles to the outer circles strobing.

A beeping noise, louder than the Key made.

And—

CHTUNK!

Hissssssssss-ssssssssss-sssssssssss!

VMMMMMMMM-CLANG!

The door opened. Much quicker than I imagined. But….I wasn't about to complain.

I looked over at the Messenger.

He looked at me.

We both smiled.

"Well…," he said with a deep breath. "…it was good for the key. You suppose it was good for the door too?"

And I helplessly smiled.

THWIIIIISH!

THWIIIIII-IIIIIISH!

THWIIISH!

CLANK!-CLANK!-CLACK!

I jolted. Three knives had flown in from the shadows. Two were stuck—wobbling—in the metal frame of the door. And the third….

"!" I looked at the Messenger.

He stood, breathless. He lifted his arm.

I blinked.

A dagger was embedded in his watch. Digging deep into the bulky device. And it started to spark.

Zzzzt-Zzzzzt!

The Messenger began to fade in and out of my reality with a green haze.

His lips parted.

Zzzt!

He looked at me.

I gaped at him.

He spoke curtly. Desperately. With a sound that flickered out of recognition just as his body swiftly inexplicably vanished.

"I'm sorry, Noir. But I'm out. You're on your own, now. You're on y-y-your-r-r-r-r o-o-o-own-n-n-n-n….."

ZAAAAAAT!

And he was gone.

"…………..," I stared into the wall.

Utter silence reigned behind me.

Silence.

"………………!" I gasped. I spun around

THWIIIIIIIIIIISH! A fan of knives flew at me.

I snarled mutely and swung Myrkblade once.

SLAAAAASH!

CL-CL-CL-CLANG!

I deflected the knives.

But another pair flew.

I jumped backwards, desperately.

THWIIIISH!

SLIIIINK!

One blade ripped through a thick cluster of my black hair. A few strands were wripped—bloodily—from my scalp.

I fell on the ground, wincing all over. More blades landed all around me. CL-CL-CL-CLANK! I scurried through the door-frame—panting—and slammed Myrkblade up over the first wall console I could see on the other side.

BEEP!

WHURRRR-CHTUNG!

I sat in the dark.

On the other side of the closed Door.

Panting.

A drop or two of blood trickling down my forehead from my head of hair.

He's here.

He was following the entire time……

I stood up on wobbly legs.

Taking a deep breath.

Gripping to Myrkblade.

Could Red Aviary also be here?

I flexed my metal fingers.

No shivers….

I took a deep breath.

I turned around.

A faint, increasingly bright gray light appeared in a distant stream down the corridor.

I jogged briskly towards it.

Alone….

Alone with the Contract.

T-T-T-T-T-T-

"HAAAAAAH!" SWISH-SWISH-CLACK!

Myrkblade grinded down into Choral.

I pushed into Ana.

Ana shoved back at me.

We both sweat.

The cedars and the tall grass and the gray sky—

"Nnngh!" she kicked her foot out.

WHAP!

I flew back, flipped, and landed nimbly.

THWOOOOOSH! I immediately blurred at her with a flurry of jabs.

TH-TH-TH-TH-TH-THWISH!

She produced a bubble of steam that deflected each of my smoking lunges.

CLA-A-A-A-A-ANG!

She spun and slashed Choral hard.

"Nnngh!"

FWOOOOSH!

A wave of bright whiteness soared at me.

I jumped up high, flipping.

Ana repositioned herself, tilting her torso upwards.

I plummeted at her, Myrkblade sailing at her cranium.

She brought Choral up over her blonde head.

In mid-descent, I smirked.

FWOOOSH!

I teleported down and materialized beneath her with an upswing.

"YAAAAGH!"

She gasped and deflected in reverse.

CLANG!

I stumbled back, panting.

With blue eyes blazing ivory, she snarled and spun with a downswing of her white katana.

I deflected.

WHACK!

My knees wobbled. Smoke billowed all around me as I struggled up against the Construction-Pressure of her Choral.

"That was……dirty cheap……," she strained to say.

I struggled against her, panting.

"And you are……damn strong……"

"Just as strong as always," grunted she.

The Master cried out from beneath the cedar tree: "Now, apprentice! Focus on the entire Spectrum! Seek for an outlet!"

I wheezed, my smoking eyes clenched shut. "Is he…….t-talking to me……?"

Ana smirked, her optics misting. "I'm not the one being screwed."

"Search the Spectrum!" he shouted again. "Branch outward from the Black!"

"I……I-I can't!" I hissed, lowering even more on my knees from Choral's relentless pressure.

"Don't let me embarrass you more than your testosterone can handle, Jordan!" Ana half giggled.

But I wasn't in a laughing mood. I sweated and strained and shook all over. "It's……too strong! I-I gotta teleport out of it!"

"No!" the Master shouted. "That is the art of Balance! You will not win, and you will not lose that way! You will only be! Branch out! Seek and experiment!"

"I………I-I can't!" I hissed. "I'm not……b-built for Construction!"

"………," Ana couldn't help but bite her lip amidst her pressure.

"I……I-I'm not the adept of Life!" I shook all over. My upper arms felt I was going to break and let Myrkblade and Choral sail down and cut me in half like Swiss cheese. "I can only r-run away!"

"Jordan……"

"I……I-I……"

"Jordan!"

My brown eyes popped open. The black smoke settled some. I stared up, gasping, at Ana.

Not once did she lessen her strong field of steam. She took a deep breath and said: "You're the Equalizer, remember?"

"…………," my lips quivered.

Her blue-gold eyes narrowed. "More than anything, you want peace. And there won't be any peace if the spar goes on forever."

"…………"

She firmly hissed: "Break……the Balance……save yourself………Save Me."

"…………," I blinked. "………" My eyes flickered white once.

Ana jerked back

FLASH!

Something……Something exploded outward from my sword. Something gray. Like a leaning of Ebony into Ivory. And before I knew it, Myrkblade—the obsidian wooden sword—was trailing the faint residue of white steam for but a second. And Ana—the poor girl—landed on her butt a good twenty feet away.

WHUMP!

"Owie!" she winced.

I slumped down to my knees. Panting. I lifted a flesh, left hand and marveled.

Tendrils of white.

Tendrils of white were fading.

And gone just as soon as my heart skipped a beat.

"Life……the White Spectrum……," I murmured. I looked up at nobody in particular with my jaw dropped. "But how did I—"

Beneath the Cedar Tree, the shadowed Master said: "You are Balance. You are what you are because of the mixture of Red and White. Because of the other ends of the Spectrum. You won because you realized that you weren't alone. You were a part of the Whole. And for the better part of the Whole, you defeated the force of Life as it was presently crushing you."

"D-Defeated?" I murmured.

"It means that you kicked my butt," Ana smiled—wincing—and hobbled up to her feet. "And before you say it: No, I didn't go easy on you."

I simpered, my cheeks a bit red.

"Do you understand now why you are what you are, apprentice?" the Master asked. He was standing then. Pointing: "Sometimes sacrificing yourself is really just a way of sacrificing others……for the common good of the Whole."

"Yeah……yeah……I guess so……," I murmured. My lips curved ever so slightly in wonder. I then cleared my throat, simpered, and uttered: "I-I mean……yes, sensei. Yes indeed."

His elderly voice chuckled.

"Hehehehe……," Ana giggled and sheathed Choral behind her back. CHIIING! She drifted over and hugged my left arm. "Guess you got to wield some Construction after all."

"Yeah……g-guess I did." A beat. I squinted at her. "Did you two plan this?"

"Nuh uh…," she fluttered her sapphire eyes prettily. "What would ever give you that idea?"

Hoo boy……

"That will be all for this afternoon, students……," the Master said. "Get ready to repeat training with the Red Adept tomorrow. Then I shall consult you on your mission to perform blind training."

"Yes, sensei."

"Yes, sensei."

And he walked off through the waving high grass towards the Manor below the hill.

I took a deep breath. "It never fails, Ana……"

She looked at me sideways. "What do you mean, Jordan?"

"Everyday……for a full year of training here……," I murmured against the winds of Washington. "……I have not once ceased to learn something new." A beat. I looked at her with thin, brown eyes. "I wonder if any of the lower students are half as lucky?"

"Awww……Jordan……," she tugged me towards the forest. "Don't you ever stop thinking about others for once?"

I stumbled along with her. "Wh-Where are we going?"

"I'm pooped. Let's go find the tree."

"Heheheheheh……all right……"

T-T-T-T-T-T-

A circular room.

Red bricks.

A rusted, copper smell in the air.

And as everything drew closer.

There Ana was.

Floating on white bolts of energy.

Slowly rotating above a pedestal.

Her eyes a hot white glow.

Her mouth hung open.

An endless, endless scream……

T-T-T-T-T-T-

"………."

A bright chamber opened to me.

Wide.

White.

Circular.

A thick ring of computer consoles lined the bottom floor.

The second floor was a metallic cobwebs of thin catwalks, crossbeams, support pillars, and….

Arms. Robot arms. Dozens of robot limbs and tools and laser tips hanging off of locked-in-position motors.

And everything converged on the center of the circular room like the dangling can-can dance of a hundred Daddy-Long-Legs made out of silver and aluminum.

There was a distant, electric hum about the place.

And I realized that this was it.

This was where all the power of Area 51 was being relocated.

And this was where……

"……."

I crept forward.

Slowly.

Step by step.

Pacing around the dangling, robotic arms around me.

Some with blades.

Some with saws.

Laser pointers and pins.

And drills and needles.

And drills and needles.

And drills and needles, needles, needles.

Needles.

Needles.

I took a deep breath, rounding one sharp spike after another.

These shards……

They look fit………fit enough to cut through rock.

Solid earth.

Stone……

I came to a shuffling stop.

My black eyes gazed down through my shades.

And I saw…

Two desert-colored feet.

Pale.

Stone.

Boot-laden.

Severed from the pedestal.

The gone.

"……," I swallowed.

I moved forward.

I pushed two dangling robot limbs aside.

And emerged through the center of the forest on a raised ring of metal to see….

Her……

My lips parted.

Terra the statue stood before me. In one piece. Her arms still outstretched. Her apprentice outfit still emblazoned. Her hair waving in rock-hard solidity. Her glossy eyes frozen as ever.

I walked towards her.

I leaned down some.

I looked up close at her face. Her neck. Her torso, arms, abdomen.

Everything……seemed okay.

"……"

My black eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Something is terribly, horribly wrong here.

I slowly gazed around.

I looked at the robotic arms.

The needles.

The carving equipment.

It looks like all that was done to her was the earthen pedestal being broken off harmlessly from beneath her feet.

I gazed back at 'Terra' again.

Why is she still in one piece?

Why is she……alone in this room?

Unguarded?

With—

"Sector Charlie Zero Report to Hangar Twelve in T-Minus Twenty."

I clenched both flesh and metal fists.

This has got to be a trap.

A hoax.

Or something.

They couldn't possibly be handing Terra over to me like this.

Not Triangular.

Not Dagger.

"……"

I turned around.

I faced the computer console across the way.

Beyond the forest of dangling robot arms.

I took a deep breath.

There's one way to find out……

I rushed over, brushing some of the arms aside with Myrkblade.

I reached the computer consoles and sheathed my sword. Chiiing!

Many of the monitors were left on. With blinking lights and diagrams and models and the like. A dozen schematics that I could barely recognize.

I saw a touch-screen with a control for at least half the robot arms. I saw an 'up' arrow. I lingered a metal finger above it. I looked over my shoulder. I touched the screen.

Beep!

Whurrrrrrrrr-Chtung!

A good deal of the robot arms and needles and tools lifted up towards the catwalk-webbed ceiling. I saw an open view of Terra.

Well, guess I know where they 'operate' from.

I fingered a few keyboards.

I typed my way through a few windows on one of the computer and brought up a program in the background.

It was a string of miscellaneous information.

Or……

Not so miscellaneous.

My shaded, black eyes scanned the scrolling text.

Extraction Completed: 11/19/2004

Thermal Dispersal: 11/20/2004

Shipment Date: 11/21/2004

"……."

I scrolled down.

Thermal Quantity: 800,000 Units.

Destination: Metropolis

ETA: N / A

I bit my lip.

I tabbed over to another window.

I saw a note left in a saved, sent e-mail.

I swiftly read it:

Dear Monsieur LaSalle,

The Extraction has been completed and the Thermal Shipment is underway. You shall receive at the agreed location the payment for your services. We trust that you will be happy with the delivery, and shall make no mention of our partnership or your subsequent acquaintances with anyone else within Triangular.

Sincerely,

Dr. Helga Jace
Senior Staff Member of Lexcorp

European Medical Bureau

"…….."

Extraction……

Thermal Units……

I exhaled.

Thermal…………

I turned around.

I looked up.

I stared at the robotic arms.

The needles.

The spikes.

"……."

I spun around to the console again.

I typed madly.

I flipped through program files.

God in Heaven.

Everything here is like an open book.

They really didn't expect anyone to infiltrate this far into Area 51.

Or did they………?

I finally found a diagram marked 'Thermal Extraction'.

I maximized it.

My eyes narrowed.

It was a 3D diagram of a petite, female body with a dozen glowing points all around her body. As if at pressure points. The arms and limbs and tilted head of the girl's body was identical in every way to Terra's.

I found a legend that coincided with the glowing points.

Phrases like—

Thermal Extraction Point 1a.

Thermal Extraction Point 3c

Thermal Extraction point 2f

And down…

A little further below on the screen:

Capacity of 800,000 units reached.

Subject still producing further energy.

Interior extraction canceled.

Proceed with shipment.

I breathed in and out through my nostrils.

Tapping on the keyboard.

So they were……taking energy out of Terra.

But the energy isn't limited, apparently.

Then why is she still here?

If there's a flight leaving at Hangar Twelve……and headed for Metropolis……

Why not take her statue?

Why just leave her here?

Why treat her as if she's been……

Been spent……

"…….."

And then it hit me.

I gasped..

Monsieur LaSelle.

A "delivery"………

A chill ran through my body.

Oh god, no………

I frantically flipped through the windows on the screen.

Please, no……………

I found one list of text.

With a diagram.

And it stabbed me.

A sore spot formed in my throat.

Final Extraction Completed: 11/20/2004

Delivery Confirmation: Affirmative

Date: 11/20/2004

And the diagram again showed a schematic of a girl's outline, identical to Terra's.

And the glowing points….

They were all positioned around her abdomen.

I panted.

I spun around.

I blurred over to the circular pedestal.

I knelt in front of Terra's stature.

I took my shades off.

I stared up close to her thighs.

Above her groin.

Below her navel.

And—with naked black optics—I saw them.

Holes.

Tiny ones.

Positioned strategically at circular spots all along her stone-cased womb.

Jesus……

And I turned and looked up.

At the robot arms.

The needles.

The tiny, tiny drills.

The exotic, spiked-nose devices.

Like little energy rifles.

I ran a shaking hand through my hair and slipped my shades back on.

Sweating.

But how?

It wasn't a C-Section.

And Terra……

Simon Stone himself said.

She was at a month and a half.

What possible good could those……those needles do?

I panted.

I rushed back over to the monitors.

I flipped through the programs and windows once more.

Come on……Come on……

You're an open book, I know you are.

Somehow, you want to give me the answers.

'Fess up, god dammit!

I found something.

I clicked on it.

Matter Transmutation Efficiency 99.99

Date: 11/20/2005

Project: Final Extraction

I scrolled down.

And….an image.

A queer cross between an ultra-sound and a computer diagram.

It looked to me like a thick capsule lined with organic tissue.

And attached to the processed 'tissue' on one side of the transparent capsule was a pink cord attached to a floating, living embryo.

Isolated.

Remote.

And the title beneath it….

"Gaia"

My heart froze.

And something inside of me slowly seethed.

Fighting the bile down my throat all the while….

They took it.

Those sonsabitches took it……

My brow furrowed at the screen.

And what Hull said……

My black eyes wandered towards the edges of the computer monitor.

What in the blue Hell does he know!

Something reflected in the computer screen's glass. A face from behind my shoulder. Cold. Glaring. Merciless.

Dagger.

"!"

I spun around.

A body barely blurred in my peripheral.

CHIIIIIING!

I instantly held Myrkblade out.

I looked left.

I looked right.

Panting.

Seething.

A beat.

Still……

"…………….."

Silence.

"……………."

"You're too late, Jordan."

I jumped.

I held Myrkblade out ahead of me.

Facing the forest of dangling robot arms around Terra.

Feeling the hair of my neck stand on end.

My black eyes darted around under my shades.

I shuddered all over.

"Oh, you could save the girl. But it is the child that is gone. Gone….a great distance. More than you can even comprehend traveling. More than any….'messenger' can travel…."

I clenched my teeth under taut lips.

WHURRRRRRR!

I jumped.

Gripping Myrkblade, I looked directly up.

Stepping back.

The rest of the robot arms retracted and lifted upwards towards the metal-web ceiling.

And there Dagger stood.

Leaning casually against the metal railing of a catwalk.

With both hands.

My lips parted.

Both hands!

I looked at his right hand.

He applied his weight to it naturally.

It was healthy.

It was whole.

It didn't even have a cast to it.

I flexed my metal limbs…..

But……B-But I thought I—

"I said a long time ago that I wanted two things. I wanted my City back, and I wanted the earth," he frowned down at me. His eyes narrowing. "After much toil and hard work, I have succeeded halfway to my goal. I have the earth. It is inevitable now that I get back that which belongs to me. ALL……that belongs to me."

My right fingers tightened around Myrkblade.

I shook all over.

Fuming.

Dagger let go of the railing. He stepped back as if inviting me.

You don't need to, asshole.

FWOOOOSH!

I leapt to the side

Plant!

I kicked off the wall.

I flipped.

Cl-Clank!

I perched on the metal railing of the catwalk.

"……..," crouching, I stared across at Dagger.

He stared back at me. Silent. Casual. Cool.

"……." I dropped down to the catwalk. I stood a few feet from him. Myrkblade held at ready.

"……," he flexed his fingers. Ch-Ching! A dagger appeared in either palm. He twirled them slowly between his fingers.

Silence……

Hissssss! Steam from a nearby, robot joint gently billowed across the catwalk we were standing on. High above the 'altar' where Terra rested.

Terra…..the ravaged.

"……."

"……."

I raised Myrkblade in two hands. Holding it over my head.

I took a step forward.

Dagger gently pivoted, shifting his legs.

Twirling his two knives higher.

"……"

"……"

A beat.

Th-Thwish! I lunged forward.

He brought his knives together.

CL-CLASH!

Sparks flew.

The two blades grinded against the length of my smoking sword.

Chiiiii-iiiiiiing!

He shoved me off.

I stepped back.

I took a breath.

He took a breath.

A beat.

"……"

THWIIISH! I came at him again with a high swing.

He stepped back across the catwalk, deflected my slash with one blade and jabbed at my head with the other.

I ducked my head, grunted, and kicked my leg out.

TH-THWAP!

He stumbled back.

I twirled towards him with a heavy swing of Myrkblade down the center.

He ducked low, grabbed the railings with two fingers stretching out from the metal blades in his grasp, and shot his legs up.

WHAP!

I stumbled back.

He spun at me across the catwalk, a dagger jabbing with each twirl.

I held Myrkblade vertically and deflected each swipe.

CL-CL-CL-CLANG!

I shoved Myrkblade against one of his contacts at the last second and jabbed at his side.

He trapped Myrkblade between two criss-crossing daggers and effortlessly pushed against me.

I stumbled back.

I took a breath.

Staring across from him….

And he stared back…..

"……"

"……."

Hissss……the steam billowed between us again.

"Sector Charlie Zero Report to Hangar Twelve in T-Minus Fifteen."

"Tell me, Jordan….," Dagger emotionlessly droned. "…what did you feel when you saw Robin die?"

I shuddered. I suddenly didn't have the strength to frown at him.

"Did see it as history being repeated?" he uttered. "You. Your friends. A holocaust?"

I breathed heavily out through my nostrils. I paced backwards with Myrkblade raised high.

He moved towards me slowly…steadily. His blades twirling.

"You have a new scar, Jordan," he eyed the line on my cheek. "A little less mysterious than the last one. And a little less disabling. But it will never leave you, Jordan. Just like so many things—as I have tried to convince you to realize. You are who you are because of what we shaped you to be. The School of the Spectrum….your past….Balance…that means nothing. You are the Black Eyes. You are one of the last remnants of the Experiment. Running around like you keep doing will not solve anything. Look at Terra. It didn't save her."

I stopped backing up.

Mutely, I snarled.

"Are you truly so surprised? Terra was ruined to begin with. Slade saw to that when the lecherous terrorist saw it in his best interest to mark the girl far more permanently than ever we could have marked you. Rather secretly, I admire him slightly for that. Not for methods as much for his tenacity. When he was alive, he knew how to ruin lives. He just didn't know how to take them. And for that, I recognized him as a fool."

He stopped a couple feet from me. The hiss of nearby robot arms passed between us as he talked with twirling blades.

"Red Aviary….the Parasite. That is an evil that does not sleep until all that is good in this Balance of Morals is dead. Red Aviary is absolute. But at the same time, Red Aviary is subject to its own devices. When I first saw the wave of Destruction fountaining through the land, I helped establish Triangular not so much to preserve Lex Luthor and Two-Face…but instead to prepare the greatest counter-offensive in criminal history. Things are in movement here in this base, and with the appropriate things gathered, I am about to out-leech the Parasite. Red Aviary will run itself into the ground. And I—never mind Luthor and Dent—will be the one to reclaim what is mine from the ashes. You must think outside the circle, Jordan, to reign over this world. And that includes the repetitious ones."

I practically hissed at him.

I killed you once, shithead.

I can kill you again.

How's that for friggin' Full Circle?

CHIIIIING!

I charged him.

He swiftly leapt up over my swing.

SLASH!

I looked up at him.

He flipped in the air, hooked an arm out, spun around a robot arm, and flung a knife at me.

THWIIIIISH!

I raised Myrkblade with a pulse of smoke and severed the blade into shards.

CRACK!

He flipped off and glided towards the far side of the catwalk. In his descent, he unleashed a steady stream of blades. TH-TH-TH-THWISH!

I jumped back, swinging Myrkblade at my legs.

CL-CL-CL-CLANG! I hit back the knives. I struck the catwalk, rolled backwards, and reverse-somersaulted into a standing position.

Dagger swiftly ran at me across the metal platform, twirling his blades and preparing to toss a few.

I looked to my right. I swiftly slashed a 'bar' loose from the catwalk railing—CR-CRACK!—spun, and kicked the airborne shard at him with a swiping foot. THWAP!

Dagger braced himself and took the blunt impact of the bar to his chest.

WHUMP!

He slid back.

I blurred at him with a swinging sword.

He slipped the daggers into his sleeves, positioned himself, and expertly caught me while angling his torso to avoid Myrkblade's serration.

I gasped

"Nnngh!" he grunted and flung me clear over the catwalk.

I flew hard into a sea of dangling robot limbs.

CRASH!

A few of the arms snapped and fell.

As I fell…

Straight down to the metal floor outside of Terra's 'altar' ring.

CLAAAAANG!

"!" I winced in pain. I was pinned down by a pile of metal limbs. I struggled and grunted and strained to get free.

THWOOOSH-PLANT!

Dagger landed effortlessly in a crouch beside me. Twirling a knife, he walked over and rested a foot on the pile above my chest.

I winced and wheezed even more, glaring up at him.

The stone form of Terra rested frozen-still behind him. Her arms still forever-spread like trying to embrace a broken, fallen dream.

"Robin never finished his contract, Jordan," he spoke to me. "Just like you never losing your scars. And coming all the way across the country to rescue a girl who died a long time ago saving a City that isn't even hers or the Titan's to begin with…..that is so, so incredibly foolish. Especially if you think that a broken, raped maiden of stone is ample replacement for your friends long-lost 'Boy Wonder'. I asked Robin when he was still alive whether he feared the hand or the dagger. And I do not believe he realized the essence of the real dilemma here. Red Aviary and I are just the rippling surface to something far, far grander. And I'm certain you know this, Jordan. As much as you run around everyday like a bat out of Hell, you're trying to deny it. The universe is a calamity falling out of yours and the Titans' reach. And how ironic it will be….when Construction itself will yield—however paradoxically—the same effect as Destruction. I would love…absolutely love to see the Parasite's obsessive 'Balance of Morals' then."

I panted. Fuming. I fought and fought and fought to get free from my metallic imprisonment.

And then…something blinding and glowing-gold shone on me.

I stirred still, panting.

Dagger held in two, cold little fingers a vial. And—for a moment—I expected there to be something pink and glowing inside of it.

Déjà vu.

Indeed, there was something glowing. But it wasn't pink.

It was yellow. A hot, gold-platinum yellow.

"So you came to get Terra? Here….you can have a piece of her…."

He stepped back. He raised the vial over his head. A breath. He tossed it down to the metal floor.

CRACK!

An intense wave of heat.

The ground a few feet from me started glowing.

The metal began congealing.

And something beneath the surface…bubbled….bubbled….and bubbled…..

Dagger backed up into the shadows of a conjoining hallway.

"Enjoy the fruits of your labor, Jordan. Though…it really wasn't much labor, was it? As always….you were always depending on the guidance of others. Messengers, assassins, and computer hackers alike. Such an aimless thing, Balance is. Today, it may very well bury you forever…."

I watched nervously as something rose out of the metal surface. Something glowing with the same, golden-glowing intensity as the vial Dagger had tossed to the floor. The heat of the thing's proximity was unbearable. I began to sweat all over.

"In a matter of minutes…," Dagger said, "…Area 51 will change from urban icon to urban legend…as Lex Luthor's sattelite ion cannon shall level everything within a three hundred mile radius to the ground."

I gasped. I looked in his direction with twitching-wide black eyes.

"My compliments to the Earth…," he droned and bowed into the exiting shadows. "…she has served me well. Much fairer….than ever she had served Slade."

Dagger was gone. And in his hideous place, the golden-glowing figure pouring out from the metal floor took shape. Lava-like liquid cooled into a walking, stone golem. Bits and pieces of intestinal metal pipes and electrical wiring from beneath the floor coiled around the monster's limbs. I faintly recognized the beast as one of the summoned creatures produced in the City when Terra operated through Slade's power-enhancing suit during her apprenticeship. The newspaper and magazine clippings of the City's terrorist occupation well-documented the things.

And there I was with a close-eye view.

The Thermal units……

Dear God……everything is going Full Circle.

I shifted and struggled under the metal limbs.

Straining……

If Dagger can't milk Jinx for all the damn hex she can have……

Then he'll leech a pregnant little terrakinetic girl while she's frozen and helpless.

And now 799,999 Thermal units are leaving Area 51.

Undoubtedly Metropolis bound.

Christ……it'll be a holocaust the likes of which November Fourth had never seen.

CRKKKK-KKKKK!

The stone joints of the golem shifted and cracked as it loomed over the only potential victim its lumbering, infantile mind perceived.

Me.

I took a deep breath.

STOMP!—STOMP! The ten foot, glowing monster of thermal energy stormed towards me.

I concentrated murk…..

The beast raised its hulking limbs up like two meaty arms.

I let out a silent shriek and teleported—

WHAM!

The robot limbs shattered and the metal platform shattered further in a crater.

I leapt upwards in a billowing plume of smoke. I solidified, flipped through the air, and landed before a stretch of computer consoles.

CRKKK-KKKK!

The golem spun around and launched a flaming spray of rocks at me.

FWIIIISH!

I gritted my teeth. Hugging Myrkblade close to my chest, I dove and rolled sideways along the ground.

CRUNCH!

The computer shattered into sparking bits.

I leapt up, swung on a dangling robot arm, and perched by the center of the room. Panting.

CRKKKKK!

The beast lumbered about and stormed towards me. It raised its arms.

I flinched and ducked.

WHAM!

A crater formed in the ground….barely two feet away from the feet of Terra's statue.

I gasped.

Slowly, I snarled and glared at the brainless beast.

Stay away from her!

CHIIIING!

I exhaled a mute scream and leapt suicidally at the burning golem.

CL-CLAMP!

I straddled its 'head' with smoke laden legs and mercilessly pummeled its backside with Myrkblade.

CL-CLANK! CHUNK! THWACK!

CRKK!

Its arm reached up and grabbed me by the neck.

I wheezed.

The beast tossed its limb down and slammed me into the metal floor.

WHAM!

I winced all over

THWAP!

Its 'foot' pressed into me.

I wheezed. I hissed and spat for breath.

It brought its two upper limbs together and prepared to hammer down on me.

I summoned murk and teleported up the golem's leg and torso.

FWOOOOSH!

I solidified with a vault off its chest and an upswing of Myrkblade off its faceless head.

THWACK!

The beast lumbered back.

I flipped backwards, planted my feet into Terra's stone shoulders, took a breath, and shoved off.

THWOOOSH!

I slammed into the beast with my sword first.

CRKKKK!

It stumbled back as I pressed my weight into it and forced it crashing backwards into a computer console.

CRUNNCH!

It twitched and shook in the sparks….the sparks dancing all around us.

I straddled it again and jabbed Myrkblade repeatedly into its exoskeleton.

CRACK! CRACK! CRKKKK!

Snarling….

"Sector Charlie Zero Report to Hangar Twelve in T-Minus Ten. Proceed to destination spots."

Aaaaaaaaaugh!

I raised Myrkblade up high and stabbed down hard.

CRACK!

Fractures formed in the creature's shell.

CRKKKK!

It slammed its upper limb up across my chin.

Blood flew from my lips.

I fell back in a twirl

GRIP!

A tentacle of stone extended from the creature's other limb, twirled around me, constricted, and slammed me against a wall.

WHANG!

And then against another wall.

CLANG!

Against the floor.

WHAM!

And then tossed me across the room.

FWOOOOSH!—CRACK!

I snapped through two robot limbs and tumbled across the metal floor behind Terra's 'altar'. I coughed and sputtered. Aching all over….

STOMP! STOMP! STOMP!

The golem marched towards me.

I stood up on wobbly knees, leaning on Myrkblade. Wheezing and wincing all over. My black shirt was tattered at the sleeveless edges and my hair was in disarray. A bruise rested over my left black eye and I wiped a trickle of blood away from my mouth with a metal limb.

Heaving.

Seething.

STOMP!

CRKKKKKKKKK-KKKKK-KKKK!

The golem flailed its arms. Sparks of flame billowed out from the hairline cracks I had formed with my sword-punishment. Like a balrog. A taunting demon from the underworld.

I hissed.

Th-Thwish! I twirled Myrkblade and held it tightly behind me.

You……

You are not the essence of Terra.

You are corrupted.

God help 'Gaia' if Triangular perverts it too!

CRKKKK!

STOMP-STOMP-STOMP-STOMP! The golem charged at me.

The very reason you are born……

The sole reason you were 'extracted'……

Is to die today!

CHIIIIING!

I blurred at the creature. Dragging Myrkblade behind me in two strong grips. Exhaling long and hard as I ran, ran, ran

AAAAAAAAAAH!

Sparks trailed as I skidded to a stop and swung Myrkblade up in a viciously smoking uppercut.

SLASH!

A huge cut sliced up the golem's middle.

The creature lumbered back. Shuddering. Flames started to erupt from within the huge slice.

I screamed breathily and merely charged the creature, striking and swinging and slashing and hacking.

THWACK! WHAM! SMACK! CRACK!

Blow after blow after blow, I knocked the golem back on its lumbering legs till it skewered itself on the large drill of a hanging robot arm.

CH-CHTUNK!

The golem twitched all over.

I froze in place. Panting. Bleeding. My sweat-sheen black eyes followed the arm up to a glowing, blinking machine.

RAAAUGH!

I repositioned Myrkblade like a javelin, hopped-stepped-leapt forward and threw it—THWIIIIIIIISH!

CRACK!

The blade struck dead-center in the box-like machine, shredding it in two.

Sparks traveled down the arm, into the spike, and overloaded the drill. The matter transmuter pulsed and exploded into the innards of the fiery automaton of earth.

CRKKKKK-KKKKKK!

I stumbled back, panting. My black eyes squinting.

A plume of flame. Two…

The creature twitched for one last time and

BOOOM!

I fell back from the blast wave as fire and gravel and lava ash rained down around me.

An unbearable heat surged throughout the room…sizzled…then cooled.

And all that was left of the golem was a pile of partially glowing rubble.

"………."

A beat.

"………."

I stirred.

I struggled up to my knees.

I dragged, pulled, and crawled my way to my fallen sword. I picked it up…still smoking. I tried to stand….but…

I was battered.

I was bruised.

And I was….I was…..

I shuddered.

Th-Thwomp!

I lay on my back.

Staring up at the shattered, webbed ceiling.

Panting.

Throbbing in pain.

Singed in some places.

I shut my black eyes under my shades and panted…panted….panted….

I can't do it, Ana.

I can't.

Dagger is right.

I've never, ever done it on my own.

It's been the Messenger……or the Titans……or even Supergirl or Blake Glover or 'J'.

Now Hull and perhaps even……

I shuddered.

Red Aviary……

Red Aviary is a fake.

Death comes to us all.

It isn't incarnate.

It isn't alive.

Sure, the Master may have been able to tap into Destruction……

But to what ends?

I am as alone as I ever was.

We are all as alone as we ever were meant to be.

I failed to save Terra.

In the end……

In the end, Ana, the earth did bleed.

And what is there to be saved for the sky?

It is a burning place where no birds dare go.

Here, back home, Gotham, Metropolis……

Robin was just the beginning of a long, crazy fall.

And this was all crazy to begin with.

I let the Titans down, Ana.

I threw myself out of the frying pan and into the fire.

I tilted my head over.

Towards the 'altar'.

Towards Terra.

I exhaled painfully……

Less than half an hour to get out of this crummy place……

And I wouldn't even have the strength to carry a dead statue of a dead girl out of here.

What's the point, Ana?

Where's the hope?

Where's the……

"………"

My lips parted.

I slowly…shiftily…sat up on my aching rear.

Staring at Terra.

Staring at her….

Ana……

My black eyes blinked.

A breath escaped my scarred throat.

Ana……could it be?

I struggled up on wobbly legs.

I limped across the metal landscape.

Over the scarred panels.

Past the smoking pieces of smoldering, golem debris.

I all but fell into Terra's open arms.

I leaned against her.

Staring down close.

Her glazed eyes.

Her frozen face and hair.

Her petite frame.

"……….," I panted. Fading in and out. Back and forth. Forward and….

T-T-T-T-T-T-

"I still don't get why your name is spelled with one 'n'."

"It's short for Anastasia," Ana winked at me under the boughs of the cedar tree.

We were fourteen years old.

We were happy.

We were….

"………whoah."

"Hehehe………I know."

"Kinda sounds Russian."

"Yeah, I suppose."

I smiled at her. "What's your last name?"

"King."

"Oh, never mind then."

"Hehehe. Sorry to put your hopes up."

T-T-T-T-T-T-

"I owe nothing to my father," Ana once murmured. "Everything comes from my mother. This undeniable power. This feeling of Life and of……of……a blueprint, Jordan. Like the very structure of the Earth shifting through my arteries. I can't explain it. I can only feel it. And I felt it all the more when my mother was alive. And when she was gone, I felt the power lessen. I felt Construction waning."

I looked at her as she gazed off.

She looked so alone.

Like a scarab stuck in the bottom end of an hourglass.

Ruthlessly disseminated and ejected down through the pinball tilt of time.

And history…..

"But my mother lives on," she said. "In some fashion or another. I can feel her power inside of me. It's an inspiration. And when I look upon the Spectrum with blind eyes during training, I feel for her. Like yellow-gold fingers melting in and out of the White streams. I feel at one with myself and what has made me when I meditate."

T-T-T-T-T-T-

I reached a shaky hand up.

Breathing raggedly….

Shaking all over.

I cupped Terra's stone-frozen cheek.

The intercom warbled and the whole facility seemed to shake with a dark, dark urgency.

"Report to Hangar Twelve in T-Minus Five."

But I ignored it.

I was drifting.

Straight through her golden…hot white eyes….

T-T-T-T-T-T-

"The reason that you are here, Mr. Noir. The very same thing you are trying to help your friends back East with……," Hull spoke to me inside the old, dusty room of the Vegas library. "….it started over ten millennia ago. But only recently has the endless crises of eons made itself manifest in flesh. Such fragile, sacred flesh."

I listened to him.

Silent.

Suspicious.

And yet……

Curious.

"The last of the family sought asylum in Russia," he said while pacing. A gesture of the silver-tipped hand: "The power of the Earth remained in their blood……"

-T-T-T-T-T-T-

Ana said to me: "I have always known the bright end of the Spectrum. In some sense or another. It was……b-born with me……"

"B-Born, Ana?" I leaned my head to the side. Curious. Concerned.

She hugged herself. "My mother……and her mothers before her……," she bit her lip. A shudder. She said: "We are the daughters of the earth. Somehow—someway granted through time to practice this……this Construction. We never have had a name of it. We never have never had a reason to suspect anything of it until the Master discovered me. He invited me from my terrible home with my terrible father to come here. To learn after so many generations of lost and suffering women at the hearts of cold men and cold society to make good of that which flows in my arteries."

T-T-T-T-T-T-

"Markovia had been desolated…"

Hull explained.

"And what Brother Blood desired, he got. Or so he perceived. For the Queen and the Princess survived. And they scattered far west in secret transit the same way many close relatives of the Markovians had fled beforehand when the War and Brother Blood's wrath grew hotter and hotter. Westward. To America."

T-T-T-T-T-T-

"……."

My lips quivered.

I ran the hand up Terra's cheek to her temple.

The eyes….

The eyes……..

A breath escaped me sharply.

Oh God……

T-T-T-T-T-T-

Ana and I sat in the cedar tree after my training.

She handed me the harmonica.

I smiled and played a tune.

Fluently.

After nearly eight months of practice, I had it down pat.

'Bookends Theme' by Simon and Garfunkel.

I messed up one line or another.

Ana helplessly giggled.

I smiled at her, shrugged, and continued at it.

As the sun began to set on her angelic visage.

Her skin turned gold.

And her bright, blue eyes…..

How they sparkled……

T-T-T-T-T-T-

"…….."

My eyes squinted.

I started to look through Terra.

I started to see.

I started to see……

T-T-T-T-T-T-

The stars were out.

We were on the large, outstretching branch of the cedar tree.

Ana and I.

She leaned her soft, angelic head into the crook of my neck.

I rested an arm around her.

"So……'King'……huh?"

"Hehehehe…," she tiredly cooed a giggle forth. "For the umpteenth million time, Jordan, yes!"

I smirked. "I just think it's so cute."

"Cute?"

"Anastasia King. It's like you belong in Camelot or something."

"Feh. Camelot. Give me the Alamo anyday."

"Heheheh……"

She sighed. Smiling. Her eyes closed.

"Well, what's your mom's maiden name?"

"Hmmmm-mm?"

"Ya know……the name your mom had before getting married?"

"Nnnngh……," she snuggled up against me. "M……M-Mark-………." She drifted off.

I chuckled. "Say what?"

She slept against me.

I shook my head and gently stroked her short wisps of hair……

T-T-T-T-T-T-

I swallowed a lump down my empty throat.

I took a deep breath.

I half 'hugged' Terra and breathed into her stone ear.

My eyes shut.

And I thought.

I thought.

I thought:

Terra…

Terra, you are a child of the Earth.

Awake, Terra……

The lights began to flicker.

Red strobes.

Emergency signals.

I held onto Terra tighter and breathed more. I tried to use vocal cords. Vocal cords that weren't there.

Indistinguishable whispers filtered out through my numb lips.

Arise.

Arise and embrace Construction.

It is your element.

You were born with it.

As Ana was born with it.

I shuddered.

A shiver ran up my metal prosthetic.

I chased it away with a strong breath.

Ana……

Ana, your cousin……

Ana, your sister……

Ana, your blood.

I clenched my eyes shut.

I concentrated.

Smoke billowed out under my shades and the ends of my fingers grasping the statue.

The hot, glowing-gold blood of the Earth Elementals.

You are the epitome of Construction, Terra.

Wake up to it.

If you are too weak to do it……

I lingered.

I pushed off against Terra.

CHIIIING!

I raised Myrkblade.

I breathed steadily.

Smoke wafting off of me in vapors…..

If you are too weak to do it……then let me grasp the Construction inside of you……

I raised Myrkblade high.

I angled it into her.

Holding my breath.

For I am the Equalizer.

I meditated.

I am the Balance.

I released.

I found it in Ana and I shall find it in you!

CRACK!

I stabbed Myrkblade into her stone forehead.

A few chips and shards fell.

I raised the katana.

I stabbed in again.

CRACK!

Hairline fractures spiderwebbed out from the corners of Terra's rocky forehead.

Arise, Terra.

Awaken the Life within.

The White Construction.

I promised Robin at his very own 'grave' that I would finish the contract.

And I know now that I won't finish the contract.

I will do more than that.

I will be saving a life.

Moreover than the Titans.

Now……arise!

CRACK!

Arise!

CRKKK!

Arise!

CRKKKKKK-TKKKT!

I gasped.

I opened my black eyes.

There was something beneath the surface of the stone layer.

Something pale.

Something….Something….

I palmed my hand over it.

I panted…hyperventilated…

I tilted my head back.

Smoke billowed out of my face, mouth, shades, nostrils……

A plume of black mist.

Then…..

FWOOOOSH!

Everything shrunk back into my being.

For a second, I was incredibly dry and stale.

Then

A flickering of my eyes.

From black to white…..

And back again.

FWOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!

I switched into gray steam and shot….into Terra's forehead. Into the crack. Through the fractures. And disappearing beneath.

And.

Silence…….

……

……

……

……

…….

Crack!

PPPPPOWWWWWWW!

In slow motion, the girl's golden-gray statue exploded.

From the inside out.

Expanding in a bubble of flying debris.

Crumbling bits and shards and shapes.

Rock pieces of 'hair' and 'chest' and 'arms' and 'shoulders' and 'face'.

'Legs' and 'abdomen' and 'feet' and 'thigh' and 'stomach'.

Like an atom expanding.

Its particles flying out into an endless cloud.

Fine dust.

Ash in the air.

And the nucleus.

The very center….

It spun and rotated in a cloud of solid obsidian.

With tiny wisps of white light dancing on the corner.

The dust blanketed the corners of the room.

The scarred interior was pelted with rock and stone and pebble.

The shards broke into tinier shards and tinier shards.

Until everything practically faded into the thin invisibility of the underground air.

FWOOOOOOOOOOSH!

And…

Time resumed.

Wh-WHUMP!

I landed on my back in the center of circular altar.

And…

Cradled in my arms.

Naked, pale, shivering.

Her blonde hair tossed like forsaken silk over her immaculate forehead.

She coughed and sputtered over my shoulder.

Vibrating.

Skin gathering moisture.

Goosebumps.

She shivered and coughed and wheezed.

Blue eyes clenched shut.

Tearing.

A pause.

A gasp for breath.

More sputtering.

I panted….heaving.

I held her close, cradling her.

She shivered all over from the cold and clung her bare body to the only piece of warmth there was.

Me.

I looked at her face.

At her hyperventilating rebirth.

Go, Jordan.

I jerked.

I looked across the room.

Smashed computer monitors.

A dint in the glass faces.

No….

A reflection?

Her blue eyes.

Her short, angelic hair.

A smile and a deadpan solemnity all the same.

Waving.

Motioning.

Go, Jordan. Go!

Go!

I gasped.

I stumbled up to my feet.

Carrying Terra, I blurred out of the room.

Under the dangling robot arms.

Under the flashing strobes.

The cold redness at my heels.

The crimson countdown in my head.

Rrrrred Aviarrrry……

T-T-T-T-T-T-

On the surface.

Hangar Twelve.

They loaded the last of many huge crates full of yellow-glowing vials into the back of the craft.

An elevator ascended from deep below.

The doors opened to the loud noise of jet engines and vent fuel.

Dagger stepped out, his face a frozen glare as ever.

A man walked up to him, said something, and saluted.

He merely nodded back, twirling a blade.

The man gestured towards a second, smaller jet and motioned for Dagger to follow.

Dagger walked in his place.

Marching towards the smaller aircraft.

Flanked by bodyguards.

As he ascended into the craft, he paused to look behind him.

At the elevator doors.

The passageway to the world below.

"…….."

He gave an order to someone.

The person saluted and ran off towards the larger aircraft where the vials were last loaded.

Dagger's plane closed up, and rolled along the runway.

And alarms and sirens started to sound off all across Area 51.

T-T-T-T-T-T-

Up, up, up….I ran.

Winding passageways.

Staircases.

Metal catwalks.

Towards the surface.

Ascending.

Ascending.

Haloed by red flashing lights.

A crackling intercom.

An ear-splitting sound of Hell.

All the while, she shivered in my protective arms.

Shuddering like a wet animal dragged up from the deepest, coldest river.

Her silk hair settled over clenched eyes as she hugged her naked self.

Tears rolled down her tense cheeks.

Petite lips moved….shuddering….murmuring.

"B….B-B-B…Bea….th-th-they………s-so c-c-cold….th-they….they t-t-t-took………they t-took…."

"…….."

I was silent.

I was mute.

I gazed past her. Past the walls. Past the blurring madness.

I gritted my teeth and hoisted us up a flight of stairs with a vaulting pulse of murk.

FWOOOOOSH!

T-T-T-T-T-T-

Three jets.

A large black thing.

Two smaller black things.

Virtual 'Vs' in shape and contour. Emotionless, exotic aircraft.

The centermost one…the hugest….

It carried the cargo.

It approached the runway.

And in the glistening sun of a perpetual Navada, its thrusters set off.

T-T-T-T-T-T-

CL-CLACK!

The titanium panel kicked open from below.

I hopped up and found myself blinded.

Ah! Jeez!

Terra clung to me, shivering.

I panted and refocused my black eyes.

The outside world……

I was surrounded on all sides by Area 51.

The Sun glared overhead.

The heat.

The air.

The Earth.

I tightened my cradling hold on Terra.

Panting, I turned around. Holding the naked girl. Suddenly realizing that I had absolutely no clue where to go or what to do or what to rely on

FROOOOOOOOOOOSHHHHHVVVVVVVVV!

Terra gasped.

I spun with her and looked up.

My black eyes blinked.

A giant 'V' of a black aircraft soared off the runway with hideous, human thunder and rocketed towards the horizon.

I watched it…breathless.

Once it reached a certain layer of cloud cover…the 'V' vanished completely. Magically cloaking as it inevitably soared eastward.

To Metropolis.

I blinked.

Is that thing even supposed to exist?

FWOOOOOOSH!

FROOOOOOOSH!

Two tinier, black jets soared off in the same direction….banked in opposite angles, and parted ways.

Area 51 now had a population of two.

And soon I realized why.

Terra murmured something indistinguishable.

"?" I glanced at her.

Her blonde hair started to rise.

So did my black strands.

I looked down and saw flakes and pebbles of dirt on the desert floor start to rise up in the air.

A static charge filled the air. Sparks danced between my teeth and at the end of my fingers.

I looked straight up just in time to see the bright, distant flash of a green light.

Luthor's Ion Cannon.

SHIT!

I clung Terra to myself and

FWOOOOOOOOSH!

Blurred due East.

Hopping over landscapes.

Speeding over rugged terrain.

A line of fences came.

Nnnngh!

I teleported us through it.

FWOOOOSH!

Terra gasped and wheezed.

I kept running.

The metal chainlink of the fence behind us began to crackle and spark.

The wind died out over the desert.

The cloud parted.

The horizon blacked out as the sky above turned green and

PHHHHHHBBBBIIIIIIIIISSSSSSHHHHHHHHH!

The world behind us exploded.

Area 51 burst into green plasma and upshot Earth.

A mile down below the site, the soil and rock and thermal layers were instantly vaporized.

Sonic blast waves soared outward at three-hundred-and-sixty degrees across the Nevada wasteland.

A hot, fiery stream of soil, suit, and ash soared after that.

Then, a resulting plume of green, fiery plasma.

And….

I stopped running.

Because I came upon the sensors.

And already, I could smell the gas in the air from their infernal security code triggering from the presence of Terra and I.

Trapped…..

PHWOOOOOOSH!

I spun around.

Terra and I both looked back.

My black eyes wide.

Her blue eyes finally…weakly opening. And seeing with sapphire softness the face of her doom.

Our doom.

PHW-PHW-PHW-PHW-PHWISH!

The blast wave slammed through crests of earth and rock and soil and boiled towards us like the impervious Hand of Zeus.

I gritted my teeth, spun around, and pointed my back protectively against the wave of chaos. I took a snarling leap over and through the sensors as

PHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMBBBBBBB!

The wall of chaos hit.

Terra and I went flailing through the air like missiles.

And as we plummeted back towards the shattered Earth….

The wave of green plasma enveloped us.

Roasting.

And blinding out the blue sky with dust and rock.

FFFFFFLLLLLAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHH!