The Campbell Chronicles
Chapter 18
James Logan Wayne, known to the underworld as the Undertaker, entered his home in rural Canada with a sigh. Shucking off his jacket, he hung it on a rack beside the door and entered the kitchen.
He paused in the doorframe, staring at the curvaceous form of his wife, Roslyn Gray Wayne.
How was your day? The blonde asked as she placed dishes into a drying rack beside the sink.
"Quiet, since that job in Gotham."
She turned to face him, and Emerald eyes met pale blue, "Quiet is good."
Logan closed the distance between them, "it is, but it's also boring."
Roslyn leaned forward, kissing his lips. "Boring is good; it means we can finally start a family."
Grabbing her, Logan spun, pinning her to the wall, "I like the sound of that, but it may not be safe yet."
Leaning forward, Roslyn wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into a passionate kiss. As they broke apart, she wrapped her legs around his waist and began kissing his neck, pausing once she reached his ear, "Are you going to deny me?"
Logan's hands dropped to the hem of her shirt, and he slowly began pulling it upwards.
They kissed again as Roslyn's hands unwound from his neck and moved to his pants.
Suddenly, Roslyn pulled away from him, her eyes burning with pale white energy, "Someone's coming!"
Unwrapping her legs from his waist, she dropped to the floor as Logan spun, placing his back to the wall.
Three sharp bone claws emerged between the knuckles on each hand, "Where?"
Roslyn pushed off the wall, spinning toward the kitchen doorway, "Living room, five seconds."
Together, they moved forward.
Stopping in the living room doorway, Roslyn raised her left hand. A pale white outline surrounded her body, and her blonde hair flowed out behind her in a Golden wave.
Raising her right hand, Roslyn began counting down from five.
Logan crouched, his arms stretched out.
–XX –
Nicholas and Wanda emerged into a living room in a flash of crimson light.
Nicholas's head snapped around at a roar.
A dark-haired man with blue eyes flew toward him, three claws emerging from between his knuckles pointed to pierce Nicholas's chest.
Nicholas thrust his right hand forward; the man froze in midair.
A flash of white light drew Nicholas's attention away from his opponent as Wanda flew into a Brown leather couch, tipping it over.
A blonde-haired woman floated a few inches off the floor, a white aura surrounding her. Her eyes burned with the pale light, "You have entered the wrong home."
Suddenly, the couch flew across the room, slamming into the blonde and driving her against the wall.
Wanda rose to her feet, crimson power burning around her.
"Are you…" A searing pain cut off Nicholas's question as something impacted his arm, spinning him around. He fell to the floor, pain radiating through his shoulder. Warm blood ran down his arm and soaked through his jacket.
"Nicholas!"
"Focus on the blonde!" Balancing himself on his left arm, Nicholas tried to sit up, only for a body to slam into him, knocking him onto his back.
Nicholas blinked, his head bounced off the floor, finding James Logan Wayne atop him, his left arm raised. Flipping over his right hand, he curled his fingers into a fist. Branches burst through the carpet from the wooden floor beneath, slamming into Wayne and driving him into the ceiling.
The house shook, and plaster rained down from the ceiling.
"Logan!" The blonde screamed, power flaring around her.
Her aura exploded, morphing into psionic spikes.
Nicholas stepped in front of Wanda, gritting his teeth against the pain in his right shoulder as he slammed his forearms together. Pale green energy exploded from the point of impact, forming a barrier in front of them.
Most of the spikes shattered against Nicholas's shield, but one pierced the center of it, sending cracks through the barrier. Nicholas staggered back at the mental backlash, his barrier flickering before them.
Wanda stepped forward as the blonde charged, crimson power billowing around her hands like fire.
Nicholas raised his head as the two women slammed together, blinking the spots from his vision as pale white power mixed with crimson energy bolts danced around the room.
Grabbing the bone spike in his shoulder, Nicholas pulled it out. Pain exploded through his arm as the world froze and his vision shifted.
Nicholas looked around the frozen world, now able to see the souls of the room's occupants. All three possessed a familiar pattern, the same pattern he'd seen in Elias Lynn, the man reincarnated from the souls absorbed by the exterminators from his ancestor's home multiverse.
In a blink, the world unfroze, and energy bolts danced around the room.
"Who are you," the blonde screamed at Wanda, "why are you here?"
"Why don't you ask your husband?" Wanda screamed back, "He's the one that tried to kill my friend."
Logan's gaze snapped toward Nicholas, "I knew you smelled familiar. How are you alive?"
"That's not important; what is important is what Waller wanted you to do after you killed me?"
"I won't snitch on my clients."
Nicholas's eyes glowed a pale green, "I don't need you to."
"No," the blonde screamed.
A bird made of pale white energy exploded from her chest, slamming into Nicholas. Both of them froze, their eyes glowing with power.
–XX –
Nicholas appeared in a room bathed in a dim red light.
Two egg-shaped black metal tanks with glass fronts sat in the center of the room. Cables ran from the bottom of the tanks into the tile floor.
Two infants floated inside the tanks.
Information flowed into Nicholas's mind.
These were Jason Emile Grey and Roslyn Elaine Grey, who would one day become Roslyn Gray Wayne.
A blonde-haired woman and a red-haired man stood before the tanks.
The woman, Moria Cindy Carson nee Grey, placed a slender hand on the tank, splaying her fingers across it, "They're beautiful," she whispered, her Brown eyes glistening with unshed tears.
The red-haired man, Charles Addison Gray, nodded, his green eyes shining with excitement, "I can't wait to see what they become."
Suddenly, the metal door behind the duo exploded inwards, and men in black tactical gear spread throughout the room.
The room around Nicholas blurred as the scene changed.
Years blurred by, and Nicholas watched Charles push his children to awaken their abilities.
Roslyn awakened her abilities first, so Charles focused on her. However, at 16, Roslyn could no longer take the pressure and ran away. She spent the next decade being a petty thief until she met James Logan Wayne, who introduced her to the world of the supernatural.
They worked together for two years. Eventually, love developed between them, and they married. She began using her ability to track down hidden supernatural dangers for the family to hunt.
–XX –
Roslyn Gray hovered over a city made of stone. Pathways and the walls spread out below, forming the spokes of a wheel. She watched the meta-humans below move throughout the city, using their abilities to perform everyday tasks.
She marveled as ships descended from the sky and more meta-humans disembarked, walking side-by-side with Martians.
She never imagined a city like this existed in the prehistoric age. Martian and meta-human alike wore togas and sandals that fastened around their calves.
Drifting closer to the city, she saw signs of a more modern design. People wore jeans, T-shirts, and even spandex.
Information flowed into her mind from her connection to the man who had attempted to influence her husband's thoughts. This was the city of Brigadoon, a haven for meta-humans from another multiverse.
These people were, in every sense of the word, her ancestors.
The world blurred as time moved by. She watched more settlements rise outside the walls of Brigadoon; she saw the discovery of the magic users, the Homo Magi, and the early rise of the gods. She watched them teach early meta-humans how to survive. Her lips thinned as she saw them alter early meta-humans to be faster, stronger, more vital, and for their genes to breed true.
Civilizations outside Brigadoon rose and fell, and though Brigadoon had trade relations with some of these kingdoms, they never involved themselves in the political climate.
Time passed again, and disaster struck on a sunny day with clear blue skies. Black fissures like shattering glass appeared in the sky.
The people of Brigadoon stopped and stared as humongous metal fists punched through the fissures, grabbing the edges to widen the holes. People screamed as pieces of reality rained onto the city.
A barrier formed around Brigadoon, and most of the shards of reality shattered against it, but some pierced through to sever walls or smashed houses.
Massive 30-story Giants fell from the hole in the sky, their black armor absorbing the light as they smashed into the city. Beneath their dome-shaped helmets, she could see blue-skinned faces with orange eyes that burned with hunger.
Roslyn watched the people of Brigadoon attack the Giants. Their powers were absorbed into the armor as the Giants smashed buildings and inhaled, pulling the very life force of the city's residents from their bodies.
Time passed, and many escaped the city while defenders attacked. Slowly, The Exterminators began to fall, but a hundred meta-humans died for each exterminator that fell.
An invisible force pulled her gaze upward, and she watched the green-haired man, Nicholas Campbell, who had broken into her home, converse with two people she knew were his parents.
She watched the three combine their powers to take down one of the last three exterminators. She saw his mother die, passing on her gift to her son as the exterminator exploded and Nicholas was encased in a piece of its armor.
The world went dark, and when she could see again, she followed Nicholas as he woke from the armor. She saw him manipulate strings of reality and felt his hunger as he killed a Colonel. She watched as he fled the Cadmus facility and began attacking the world's evil to sustain himself. She watched him try to guide Clay Face and Poison Ivy down a better path, restoring Clay Face's human form and giving Poison Ivy a better way than terrorism to help the planet.
She saw him meet with John Henry Irons and start selling a recycler device to clean up the world. She watched as he followed a disturbance and combated the new god, Lilith Steppenwolf.
Her vision ended as he stepped through a portal made by the Auburn-haired sorceress, Wanda Nelson.
–XX –
Nicholas and Roslyn staggered, a hand gripping their heads as the psychic connection broke.
"Roslyn," Logan screamed from where he was pinned to the ceiling.
"I'm fine," Roslyn called, her gaze locked on Nicholas as Wanda moved to his side.
"Are you all right?" Wanda asked, her hand hovering near his shoulder.
"I'm fine; I just took a telepathic joyride through her mind," he nodded at Roslyn. As he looked at her, Nicholas once again saw the life energy that made up her soul, but now that he wasn't in the heat of battle, he could see where two life energies joined together.
They began as different people but merged to become someone new in this life.
Roslyn cleared her throat, "Could you release my husband? Please."
Nicholas arched an eyebrow, "The last time he was free, he tried to kill me."
"You did come into our home unannounced."
"Not in Gotham, I didn't."
Roslyn shrugged, her eyes filling with pale power, "He was hired to do a job." A flick of her wrist sent psionic blades from her hand to sever the roots holding Logan in place.
He landed behind Wanda and Nicholas, his arms out, his claws ready to rend flesh, but paused when Roslyn slowly shook her head.
"Amanda Waller told him you were a vampire, and she wasn't wrong. When you first woke from your slumber, you did feed on life force," her head cocked to the side, "but something changed after the battle at the docks."
"It seems like you learned a lot while you were in my mind."
"Enough to know you're not a threat to those who don't harm you or those you care about."
Nicholas inclined his head, "So, where do we go from here?"
Logan's claws withdrew back into his skin as he moved around Wanda and Nicholas to join Roslyn. The blonde leaned into his shoulder when Logan wrapped an arm around her waist, "You have the information you came for; we're going to let you go; call it an apology for my husband trying to kill you."
"He didn't try; he burnt my doppelgänger alive; I felt his sister's flames eat through my flesh."
"Yet, you are alive."
Nicholas's lips pressed into a thin line before he finally sighed and glanced at Wanda out of the corner of his eye, "Come on, let's go."
Nodding slowly, Wanda raised her hands, crimson energy dancing between her fingers.
Suddenly, a canister smashed through a window, sending glass flying as smoke began to fill the room.
On instinct, Nicholas reached out with his new sense. In his mind, human-shaped life signs surrounded the house.
With a twirl of his wrist, a wind blew the smoke out of the house.
"It seems like you have company."
Logan tilted his head back, sniffing the air as his claws emerged from his knuckles.
Pale power again lit Roslyn's eyes as she lifted from the floor.
Nicholas turned to Wanda, "What do you want to do?"
"All we confirmed here was that Amanda Waller was the one who ordered the hit on you; we never did find out where Logan was supposed to take your body. If I had to guess, these are her people."
Nodding, Nicholas went to the front door; clearly, he didn't fight well in confined spaces.
Wanda followed behind him; her hands balled into fists at her sides.