Dead Man's Tale

by Faux Ray

A Korpsman, who has spent his entire life honing the art of death, is transported to a world full of life and without an Emperor to guide him. With no foreseeable way to return, he is forced to cooperate with an odd crew of criminals and antiheroes to unravel the mysteries behind his coming to this brand-new world.

4. Chapter 2: A Distant Land

There walks a stranger from stranger lands. He walks alone with Death in hand. He walks to where he sees the light. He walks to where his Lord demands.

---

"What the fuck?"

"Shit. You think our other stuff survived?"

"It's… some kind of World War One cosplayer."

"Really? How can you tell?"

"Well, first, right? you'd think it's all German, but actually, you can see from the gas-"

"Aw, your nerdiness is sweet, boss, but, no, that wasn't really an invitation to explain."

"Listen, kid-"

Lance prepared a retort that quickly died in his throat when the man on the ground stirred. Sighing, Lance stepped forward, reaching a hand out to check the stranger's pulse. However, the moment he made contact, he was thrown back in a static shock of purple electricity. "What the hell?" Lance yelled as he stood back up, shivering from the feedback.

The man on the ground groaned and shakily stood up. He seemed drowsy as he glanced around the road, eyes sliding past the duo, not seeing them. For a moment, Lance felt a pang of anxiety in his chest. The way the moonlight gleamed off the reflective orbs and the skull-shaped plate made Lance tense up, tightening his jaw. Before he could react, however, the masked man finally focused on them. In an instant, Lance and Felicia found themselves each directed with a barrel of strange-looking guns. "Whoa! Calm down, no need to kill us, mister, uh, masked man," Lance said, raising his arms and stepping back.

The stranger said something, muffled through his gas mask, clearly some interrogative, but Lance could not understand. The words coming out of the masked man's mouth were warped. It could have been English, but it sounded like a bit of everything; alien. And the accent was even harder to place down: it was a cacophony of pitches as if accents from all around the world had merged into one voice, discordious to their ears but naturally harmonious. There was a slight Germanic edge to it that stuck out amongst the rest, but Lance was not sure if he was just imagining that due to the prejudice his uniform might bring up. Lance blinked and glanced at Felicia, who shrugged wide-eyed at him. "What? Don't look at me," she said.

The voices these strangers talked in was, in a word, strange. He did not know where he was. For all he knew, this was the afterlife. Or, more likely, a trick from the Daemons, although he did not ever hear of the spawn of Chaos to induce such senseless hallucinations. Whatever the case was, the tongues these people talked in were unknown to him. The male spoke in an accent that he imagined to be from Praetoria. 393-1024-0830-Jeneth could not be certain. He had never met one of their Guardsmen after all, but he had heard recordings from a distance. As for the words this false Praetorian spoke, it could have been Low Gothic, but all the syllables were wrong, placed in a weird order, and then run underneath the tracks of a Leman Russ.

Damn you uneducated primitive fools! 393-1024-0830-Jeneth thought. Then he stepped back with a start as his vision swam and he realized he was understanding their incomprehensible words. It was a delayed understanding, their prior spoken syllables crawling through a muddy dugout before finding purchase, as if some vile magic was transforming them into a recognizable form of Low Gothic. Or perhaps it was more similar to an automatic translator matrix the Mechanicus regularly employed, one that was faulty. Last 393-1024-0830-Jeneth checked, however, he was not cybernetically enhanced like the red denizens of Sacred Mars. "Where am I?" 393-1024-0830-Jeneth spit, and he found himself once again reeling in surprise that he spoke in this other manner. He carried on; answers first. "Who are you? Identify yourself in the name of the Emperor!"

Lance blinked again. It was English, a language he could recognize. The sound was still off, and that menagerie of accents still wreaked havoc on his ears, but at least he could understand. In fact, Lance swore that the Germanic edge he placed earlier faded back into a British, more specifically, English tone, much like his own. "Uh… Earth?" Lance asked while cursing in his mind, his hands slowly traversing to his holster; damn, he thought, is he an alien after all?

Earth. Earth, where is Earth? 393-1024-0830-Jeneth thought, his eyelids growing heavy. The word bounced around in his mind until something sparked and this foreign language clicked with another word he knew in both Low Gothic and High. Impossible, he thought. "Hol-... Terra?" 393-1024-0830-Jeneth whispered, slurring.

Then his world went dark and he collapsed.

Lance edged forward. "Right, so we all heard it, right? English?"

"He sounds… young," Felicia commented.

"He sounds fanatical. Do you know an emperor?"

They heard footsteps running up from behind them. "Yo, man, what the hell is going on?" DeMarr asked. Lance gestured. "Oh," DeMarr said. "Okay. That, I guess. What is that?"

Lance sighed, ignoring the question in favour of his own. "How is everyone?"

DeMarr looked back at the wreck, shaking his head. "Miss Celeste can't walk. She said the lightning shorted out her legs, but it's going to fix itself or something. Uh, Fredric is fine, but he says that the comms are down. He can't talk to Poker. But, man, Charles, man, he's acting all weird. What did you mean he got shot?"

"Listen, forget about Charles for now. He's walking around and he's still, well, mostly here, so we're going to assume he's fine, right? Right now, we have this thing to worry about." Lance was silent for a moment. "I thought he said that the Atrion wasn't a portal," he spit. DeMarr glanced at him. "We're going to need to have a little chat with PF."

"We don't know if that's a portal, or if he's an alien," DeMarr said.

"What more evidence do you need? It doesn't have to be as obvious as a big blue fucking hole in the sky, does it?"

"Then how do you know he's an alien? Look at him, man, that's like, all the signs of being human."

"The Chutari looked humanoid enough, from a distance. Slap enough layers on them, and they might look human."

"They're not-"

"I'm not saying they are. I'm saying they could be something other than human. All we know is that alien bastard lied to us, but whether or not something's going on, we have to ask him anyway, yeah?"

DeMarr looked away and have a slow nod. "Yeah, man," he said quietly.

"We have to get out of here," Felicia said. "Talk or not, we're on an open road."

Lance sighed, inching cautiously toward the fallen masked man, touching his coat carefully. He pulled back quickly but no spark jumped at him this time. Lance sighed in relief but tsked in mock annoyance. "Aw, man, he's all dirty. Look at him. It's gonna ruin this suit."

He kneeled down and placed the two guns on the masked man's chest, the stranger cradling his own weapons while Lance cradled him. He grunted, straining his arms under the weight and adjusting his hold to be more comfortable. Lance squinted his eyes at the stenciling in the upper corner of the mask man's armor, its silver color glinting in the moonlight. "Three niner three, ten two four, oh eight three oh, Jeneth."

"What's that?" DeMarr asked.

Lance shrugged. "No idea. His name?"

"That's not a name, man," DeMarr said.

"That's too much of a mouthful," Felicia added.

"Does it matter what it is?" Lance asked. "It's probably a service number."

"Do you want to keep calling him Stranger? Does your British ancestry have some Wild West blood in it?" Felicia said.

"Fuck- Call him Jeneth then, I don't care," Lance replied.

"Maybe Jeneth is peaceful," DeMarr said.

"Are you ki- Look at him! Besides, name one show where a space emperor was nice."

"Don't you have a Queen," Felicia asked. "God save her and all."

Lance didn't answer. He looked at the battle standard. "Jesus, that thing's designed to be stared at. Doorman, do us a favour, will ya?"

DeMarr nodded and picked up the flag as the trio, plus the newly christened Jeneth walked back to the van. They found Fredric carrying Jane and Charles looking around. "Who's that?" Fredric asked.

"Jeneth, apparently," Lance said.

"What the fuck's a Jeneth?"

Lance shrugged again. "How far's the switch vehicle?"

"Two miles."

"We have to walk three fucking klicks with all this? Damn it."

"Hey look," Felicia called from inside the van. "All our stuff survived."

Felicia came out of the back with the sack and suitcase. Lance shook his head. "Any luck with the radio?"

"No. I still can't raise Poker Face."

"Whatever. No use in trying. We'll stick to the tree line. Let's go." Lance gave another audible grunt as he began walking.

"That thing heavy," Charles asked snarkily.

"Oh great, you got your asshole back. Look at him and tell me what you think."

Charles gave a weak chuckle. "I think it'll be funny to watch you struggle."

"You boys never give it a rest, do you?" Felicia asked.

"No, he doesn't," Fredric replied. He looked down. "Are you comfortable?"

"Ah, as comfortable as I'll get," Celeste replied.

"Where is it?" Charles asked Lance as they started walking.

"Pocket," Lance replied as he angeled his body.

Charles took out a detonator, flipped open the cap, and pushed down the button. There was a quiet beep from where they came from. There was a hiss and a flash, followed by a miniature explosion, burning away any biological trace the group may have left in their very short time with the van. Charles pocketed the useless detonator with a head cock. They continued, making their way underneath the thick coat of branches and leaves, obscured from the road via shadows. "Charles, I'm not carrying this guy all three klicks," Lance said after a while.

"Yeah, yeah," Charles replied. "I'll take my turn when it's my time. But you're the one using a bridal carry. Did the Royal Marines teach you nothing?"

Lance sighed. "It was the SAS."

"It was the shut the fuck up."

Lance dropped Jeneth's legs and repositioned himself, grunting with effort as he flipped the masked man over onto his neck and back. "God, if the service didn't fuck with my spine, this guy sure will," Lance said.

"You get used to it," Charles said. "Be glad this ain't the boonies."

A car went past and everyone quieted down. There is not much for the group to say. Conversation between them had always been scarce and arguments were quick to arise, but they had the same goals, so cooperation was mandated. The excitement of the lightning strike had worn off and the fatigue of walking, slinking in the shadows, hiding, was getting on them. It did not help that the auction heist had not gone exactly according to plan. Charles rubbed his exposed skin, cursing at each brush of a leaf or branch or bug. Felicia had more energy in each step, but she was the most unburdened and the most used to darkness. "What are we going to do?" Lance asked, finally breaking the silence.

Crickets chirped, hidden beneath the grass under the cover of darkness, a jarring musical ensemble as they sang their song in the nearby fields, past the treeline. Light winds caressed their hair. They trudged through the submarine moonlight, freezing at every minuscule purr of an engine, listening to the far-off echoes of a siren that they assumed was called to the scene of their accident. "What are we going to do about what?" Charles asked.

"Don't play coy with me," Lance said.

"There is a nonzero chance that the Atrion we were sent to retrieve acts as the homing beacon for a hostile alien army," Jane supplied.

"Hostile?" Felicia piped in. "Jeneth over there seemed really confused."

"Yeah, well," Fredric said, "maybe space teleportation does that to you."

"PF said that it was nothing more than an incredibly rare and powerful power source. It's obviously more than that," Lance said.

"Maybe he just didn't know, man, I mean, man, we asked him about the New York incident, remember? He said he hates portals."

"Yeah," Lance said sarcastically. "Because aliens can't lie like humans can."

DeMarr shut his mouth. "Don't bully the boy," Charles said. "We'll just ask Poker when we get back."

"Ask him? If it is a portal, he's just going to kill us to prevent us from telling anyone!"

"Tell? Tell who, buddy?"

"I don't know, the government? That, uh, the group, the spy Shields? The Avengers!" Charles barked into laughter and everyone ducked. "Shut the fuck up!" Lance said.

"The government?" Charles whispered loudly. "What the fuck do you think they're going to do? Hell, Shield existed for this long. They obviously know a lot more than we do about aliens. And even then they failed to stop the army. They had to rely on a mishmash team of fools, folktales, and a literal nuclear warhead to stop what amounted to their scouting force!"

"Better than anything you can do!" Lance shot back.

"Better than anything any of us can do," Fredric said tiredly. "I mean it. If it is true and he doesn't kill us instantly, let's say we shoot him. He's invulnerable, remember? He showed us. All those bullets didn't do nothing to him."

"Weren't you the one who said we should ask him?" Felecia asked Lance.

"Yh- I- I mean, yeah, but that was kind of before I realized how dumb it was."

"You mean after you realized how dumb you were," Charles retorted.

"Boys!" Felicia hissed as Lance opened his mouth. "Immediate problems first?"

"The fox is right," Charles said. "Besides. Man could be watching us right now, what, with all his gizmos and tech. Who knows if he's got a bird up there."

Everyone took a moment to glance up at the sky at this comment and they continued on in silence as each member pondered their uncertain steps. "Shield has fallen off the relevance wagon anyway," Celeste said after a while.

"Aren't they the biggest thing after the Avengers in the news right now?"

"They're nothing more than Cold War era spies playing as heroes. Stuck in the past."

"They helped save New York."

"They fired a nuke at New York."

"Exactly my point," Charles said. "They're a government entity and their first move isn't to send in soldiers to reinforce the Avengers and National Guard but to send a thermonuclear weapon at the largest US city. What is that if not incompetent?"

"It's not incompetency," Celeste replied. "It's negligence. A lack of care. A weapon like that would have slowed the alien advance down considerably. There were simply other options they could have taken."

"Well," Demarr said. "Man, I mean, thank goodness Iron Man saved us, right?"

"Ha-

Iron Man's nothing more than a guy in a tin can who got lucky he had gods and monsters on his side," Fredric snarled.

Stark's just an egomaniac playing with his Warhawk father's money," Celeste spit.

Felecia gave Celeste a side glance from the front but didn't say anything. From behind, DeMarr gave a hushed gasp of realization that echoed in Fredric's helmet through his enhanced sensors. Fredric gave a noncommittal quiet hum. "Whatever. He better give us our damn money for this, extra, if he doesn't kill us," Charles said.

With that heartfelt message, the group set off in silence once more.

"You know, man, what if the nuke was the only option?"DeMarr suddenly said after a while.

"Hey, Door?" Felicia started in warning.

"What?" Charles said, rounding on DeMarr.

"Whoa, man, just, you know. Aliens, is all."

"Don't you start referencing pop culture bullshit on me now, son," Charles said.

"Man, even without any of that, what if they got like, a beachhead? And they became unstoppable. We clearly weren't winning."

"Are you even hearing yourself?" Charles asked.

"I-"

"If anything," Felecia piped in, "they might have been trying to off the Avengers."

Silence.

"What?" Lance asked.

"What, you guys don't read conspiracy blogs?"

"No. What?" Lance repeated.

"A bunch of guys are saying how the nuke was meant to wipe out the Avengers as much as stop the Chitarui."

"And risk losing assets like that?" Celeste said. "No."

"Then why didn't they pull out their major league heroes?"

Celeste struggled for an answer. "Bureaucracy. Even the Director has to answer to someone."

"Government or not, the motive is still possible."

"That's even more of a dangerous ground to argue than what Davis was talking about, Miss Hardy," Fredric said.

"Give me a better alternative to the thing that no one's talking about."

"Yeah, man, how about-"

"Ah, bugger off. We're here."

The car was parked inside a small abandoned roadside gas station, covered with a tarp and protected by small hidden turrets. Charles went ahead to try the door but huffed. "It's stuck again, damned thing."

Fredric walked up to the doors and raised a leg. The servos in his knees hummed and he kicked forward, smashing the rusted hinges off the crumpled door. "Sure," Lance sighed. "Just go and do that then."

The turrets were nonlethal, designed to shoot a taser dart at any passerby that might have had the intent to steal the ride or simply find a place to sleep for the night. Fredric tore the tarp from the car with a single pull. Felicia wrinkled her nose at the dust as DeMarr set about collecting the turrets. The car was of a turquoise color, with silver-rimmed wheels and black highlights. "The question is," Lance began, staring at the car, "where are we sticking him?"

"In the trunk?" Fredric suggested.

"And when he wakes up?" Lance asked.

"Take his weapons off him then," Charles snarked.

"I don't know how this shit works!"

"The back has room for four. Lay him on your laps," Felicia said. "If he wakes up, whack him on the head and hold him down. Didn't you boys grow up on wrestling?"

"Oh for crying out loud." Lance groaned.

"I call shotgun then," Celeste said at the same time as she hobbled over and opened the door.

Charles rounded on the driver's seat but Felecia was suddenly in front of him and placed a gentle hand on his chest, smiling. "Nuh uh, not so fast. I'm driving."

Charles scoffed, brushing Felicia's hand away. "You?"Felicia's hand came up as she jangled the keys in front of Charles's face. Charles's hands shot towards his pockets. "Oh, you-"

"Ah, don't start with the lass," Fredric said.

Charles turned to the others and saw DeMarr sitting quietly in the back. His eye twitched and he sighed. "So that's just it then," he said, one hand on the top of the car as he leaned in the back. "Load the stranger into the back and drive off to meet our potentially invasion-spearheading alien overlord who can't be killed."

"Weren't you the one complaining about me saying that?" Lance protested. "When, you know, I was saying that?"

"Didn't mean I like it."

"We all have to give this a chance," Fredric said. "Get back to base, confront the man, and ask him to tell us everything. Because we have no other options."

"Sink or swim, right?"

"Yeah, well, in this case, it's more like 'sink or get eaten by sharks'."

"Sheesh, no need to be so morbid," Lance said.

"Can it, shitbirds."

The garage door cranked open, its joints creaking and cracking like the bones of an old man. The night once more spilled into the unnatural darkness of the old garage room and the car rolled forward.

In the back, the men started to poke and prod at the masked man and shift uncomfortably in their seats. They complained and argued with each other, Lance bugging Charles especially about him not taking the load halfway across the trek. Felicia rolled her eyes and pulled out her iPhone. The screen stayed black no matter how much manipulating Felicia did with it. With a defeated sigh, Felicia reached into her other pocket and pulled out an MP3 player. "You should get an iPod," Celeste commented.

Felicia shrugged. With one hand on the steering wheel, she flicked her earbuds into the audio jack and put earphones inside her ears. She then selected her playlist, set it on shuffle, and leaned back into the headrest.

"Wha- Hey, don't drive with earbuds," Charles said, leaning forward.

Felicia ignored him. "

"Ah, keep your hair on, mate."

"You need all faculties to drive. You can't drive with…"

Charles's words faded into the background as the music began. A sitar thrummed the melody. Percussion came in quickly to usher in the lyrics.

I see a red door And I want it painted black.

The waxing crescent leered at them from above the clouds to the sound of drumbeats as the trees danced to the rhythm.

---

He did not dream. Perhaps he did, but if he did, he did not remember. After all, what use were the insipid and tedious tales the mind might weave for a soldier? A distraction. An entryway for doubts and delusion. For Daemons. The real world required meticulous attention. Even in unconsciousness, one must be ready to wake at a moment's notice, for the blade of the enemy never stopped. And yet, now he dreamt. He dreamt of a world that he could not quite place. It was a golden world and it was beautiful. No. It was disgusting. It was… confusing. He felt forlorn and yet so drawn to its surface. The light was blinding. It hurt, and yet the flames that burned alongside it were comforting as it was mutilating. A voice. What was it, cutting through the indecipherable glare? Another dreamer. Another one in that deathlike slumber, that sleepless sleep. What did he dream of? What did he feel? What was it that he is trying to relay? Pain. Such pain. A silent scream of agony. A chilling call of despair. Ten thousand years of suffering pooled into a single piercing cry.

His mind shattered. The light, the flames, it was an exploding star. How could he bear the brunt of such heat? He was spiraling. Something touched him. A glancing swipe on his soul.

CGKCTP AUOHOR NARIOO NRPLLD ODSDU NSMC FMAT OAN DN D E R

SON OF KRIEG

"Mine Emperor!"

Jeneth panted as he threw his arms into the air, outstretched to grasp what he most desperately wanted to seek. His eyes opened to the familiar light of his polarized lenses and his lungs reminded his brain of the taste of the recycled air he was so familiar in breathing. In an instant, he calmed down. However, while he had regained his mental faculties, his senses were not so lucky as to be restored just yet. His vision swam, his ears buzzed, and his head pounded. The dream, this vision he had seen, still weighed on his thoughts, the burning golden starlight etched into his mind like a brand. No, not a vision. How foolish have I become to believe that He would reach out to someone like me? His head drooped but jerked upwards as he finally realized what he felt, or rather, what he was not feeling.

The weight of his weapons. Someone or something had taken his tools from him. The startling shot of adrenaline cleared, only temporarily, his nausea as he focused on his surroundings.

The room was illuminated by bright golden lumens, two columns of three lumen strips attached to the roof above. The bars, he knew now he was in a cell, were a white-leaning silver, with sharp edges instead of rounded ones, etched with a nondescript flowering pattern, and secured to the property with golden bronze caps. He was on a cot raised onto the walls with what he assumed were simple bolts. It was a thin but soft mattress, with a blanket way too thick for the overall size of the cot. Jeneth did not like it. He was not used to the comfort, and now this luxury was uncomfortable to him. His unstable state also meant that it felt as if the mattress was sucking him down, creating a sinking sensation that only compounded his nausea. Jeneth stepped off the cot, stumbling and almost falling face-first into the bars.

When he looked up, he saw some type of cogitator terminal. It was hung on the wall and not in any pattern that Jeneth recognized. Slowly raising himself, he limped over to the terminal and observed it further. How… primitive, Jeneth thought as he pulled the keyboard forward from its slide underneath the monitor. The screen danced to life as the keyboard fully extended. Neon green symbols danced on a black screen, each letter rigid and heavily pixelated. Jeneth realized he could not read the words, and yet he realized he could understand them. Eyes gliding over each clump of letters, his brain picked from a pile of Low Gothic vocabulary, throwing them into discernable meaning. Those meanings fed themselves to another section of his conscious understanding and formed syllables and sounds. Like that, he was able to read… English, his mind supplied. "English," Jeneth repeated.

There were only five options listed on the screen, and the selected option was highlighted by a green box. They were: lights, food, bathroom, general assistance, and unlock cell. Narrowing his eyes, Jeneth pressed the down arrow until the 'unlock cell' option was selected and pressed enter. A secondary selection popped up to the right of the option, prompting Jeneth to select 'Y' or 'N'. Jeneth entered 'Y' and growled in muted frustration. The screen flashed and displayed 'You are not able to select this option. Thank you for staying with us.' "Yeah," someone said and Jeneth slowly glanced to the right. "I don't know what that option's for.

I think she likes to play with people. No wonder she's single, eh?"

This was when Jeneth first felt the wisping reaches of unease. He was a soldier of Krieg. A Korpsman. And he was still alive. He had escaped a battle he should not have ever left and the means of his escape were unknown to him. Upon first glance, the man in front of him was clearly human. The architecture and technology utilized screamed human. And this human was talking nonchalantly to him with none of the fear and agitation that he had come to except. He wasn't treated like a warrior on the same side, nor an enemy, not even a potential chaos spawn.

Simply a prisoner.

Jeneth had nothing to relate his situation to. What few prisoners the Death Korps captured were either executed soon after or taken away and never to be seen again. Confusion aside, assumptions had to be made. "You are obstructing the sacred work of the Emperor's Imperial Guard. Return my arms and surrender yourself and any collaborative colleagues for summary execution."

Charles blinked and chuckled as he crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. "So, you speak English. That Brit was right, wasn't he? You do sound weird. Hey, speak up." Charles shook his head. "But speaking of those weapons of yours, whoo, are they something. I'll tell ya what, we test-fired that laser blaster of yours. Evaporated the paper target, took quite a chunk out of the wall.

The Rich Bitch was not pleased. So we agreed that we'll not touch your things for now. So. What's your deal, alien?"

Alien? Jeneth was stunned into a moment's silence. They misidentify the lasgun as if they had never seen one before and now they call me alien. "I am no Xenos," Jeneth said, the slightest hint of disgust flavoring his tone. Are they nothing more than primitive and ignorant civilians? Did I enter a warp portal that deposited me on some lost Hive World? "Your ignorance does not excuse you from disrupting the Emperor's work. Release me."

"Look, man, I don't care what kind of alien you are. I'm cool, you're cool, we can be chill, yeah? Right now, there are bigger things to discuss, and you have to listen, because, well, what else can you do?"

Charles took a deep breath in and furrowed his brow. "Now, see," he began as he raised his right pointer finger to his forehead. "I've been thinking," he said as he tapped and then pointed at Jeneth. "You, you are proof. You are proof that this world is coming to a new era and that the things of old must be replaced. You are proof that the people who should be leading us forward are just holding us behind." Charles started pacing around. "See, this world has just had its doors opened to a larger universe. And everyone's clamoring over the Chitauri and the Avengers that no one looks at the government and thinks, gee, why did the government hide all this?

Perhaps that big disaster could have been avoided if they told us common folk about what they knew. And now they have the Avengers. The Man's little private team of bullshit action figures at their beck and call. Who can stop them now? What it must do to their ego to be able to control a god. It's obvious, isn't it? That every attempt to help the country is only coincidental. Any positive outcome only pertains to their need to keep themselves in power. Politicians.

Their first goal is only to enrich themselves. And whether or not their policies help or harm the country is a secondary concern. So where do you come in as an alien? Well." Charles leaned in. "I know what I said probably doesn't matter too much to an alien-like you. But. Looks like you're all alone, eh? Whatever that stone was, whatever your plan was, you can't really do anything by yourself.

So why don't you help me? Help me and I guarantee you live. Let me use you, your origins, your abilities, to shine a light on our so-called leaders. Blow away the fog they wrapped around themselves." Charles paused them, his eyes flickering around as if just now realizing how incomplete his train of thought and plan was. Snorting and pushing himself off the wall, he continued. "Trust me, it's the best deal you're going to get."

Jeneth took a chance to blink as he studied the strange professing man in front of him. These people were not worshippers of the God-Emperor, that much was clear. Cultists? No. They lacked the hatred of the Imperium and obvious signs of chaos mutation. The way this man talked about the government, it was clear that they were not loyal Imperialists either. Incompetence had to be rooted out and destroyed, however, his views were clearly anti-establishment. To overthrow the incompetent leaders of a world was not the job of the people, but rather one for the High Lords and their Astra Militarum 'representatives'. Wherever he was, Jeneth knew that this world needed correction.

Conclusion?

"So?" Charles asked.

Something clicked. Charles had keyed in the passcode on the console outside. The cell buzzed and the door bounced lightly off the wall from the loss of tension. Charles slid the door open and stepped back. "What do you say? Do you dig it, man?"

"Heresy."

"Wha-"

An armored elbow smashed into Charles's face. Charles felt something crack as he spit out blood. He had no time to register his bitten tongue as the onslaught began. Another elbow strike was launched at Charles's throat while at the same time, a fist came barreling toward Charles's liver. Disoriented from the head blow, Charles's hands instinctively started to glow. It was only after the shock of the elbow to the neck that Charles regained himself. Charles's off-balance feet hit the ground and he sped backward, "You bastard…"

Jeneth felt his head clear. The rush of adrenaline, or perhaps the blessings of the God-Emperor, though more likely his soldiered mentality upon his altered genetics, had allowed him to overcome his nausea rather quickly, obviously catching the rambunctious thug off guard. Watching the man before him use some strange power to retreat from the engagement, Jeneth knew he was outmatched in a straight melee engagement. He organized a priority-tasking list in his mind. Usually, killing the enemy no matter the cost would be the primary mission. However, given the state of the world he found himself on, he knew that it was more appropriate to find an astropath or some high-powered Vox station and send a broadcast for reinforcements. That thought gave him pause; he wondered if this primitive world even had those. Regardless, for the first time in his life, Jeneth had to prioritize his own survival. Charles drew the M1911 strapped to his side.

"Witch," Jeneth muttered, and Charles moved his head back, his brow furrowed in mild confusion.

Jeneth refocused his attention on the threat before him. The psyker was obviously inexperienced with his powers or else he would not need to rely on a rudimentary stub gun. However, trying to escape would likely end in death, no matter what the psyker's abilities were or what level his competency was. The optimal task, then, was to try to deal with the psyker now. The chance of death was high but better than an unprepared retreat. "Tch," Charles said.

I need a weapon. Jeneth charged. Charles brought up his firearm and squeezed the trigger habitually, the .45 ACP rounds hitting center mass. He cursed, reminding himself that he wanted the alien alive. God, we better be able to patch this ratshit E.T. up, Charles thought. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the steel-jacketed lead bullets simply deformed and ricocheted off of Jeneth's carapace armor. Well, fuck, Charles thought as Jeneth entered at arm's length and grabbed his hand. With a pull Jeneth broke Charles's hold, his index finger blocking the hammer and his pinky blocking the trigger. However, instead of pushing the gun to the side and twisting, Jeneth simply elbowed Charles's wrist and pulled.

What the fuck? Charles thought as his wrist went static with the shock and his grip loosened. No one fucking disarms a man like that! Gritting his teeth, Charles grabbed the gun as Jeneth turned it around on him. The Colt glowed white and flickered. Jeneth's eyes caught the visages of an eyewatering amount of dimensional shaping before the gun shattered into a hundred flat pieces and fell to the floor like leaves. In response, Jeneth dropped to his knees and threw a punch at Charles's knee. Charles saw this coming, kicking out with the leg that Jeneth was targetting, and caught Jeneth right underneath the chin with his shoes. The Korpsman fell backward, dazed, and wasn't given a chance to rest as Charles jumped on him.

Charles got behind Jeneth and wrapped one arm around Jeneth's neck, the other coming behind to cradle Jeneth's head, locking the masked man in a rear naked choke. From behind his mask, Jeneth let out a startled cough. Charles smirked. "Just relax, right? Let's all ca-"

A fist smashed into Charles's face. Charles's grip loosened as his head flung back, his eyes rolling into the back of his head. Gritting his teeth, Charles regained himself instantly and tightened his choke before Jeneth could pull away. What the fuck? Charles thought once more. An ordinary man, even an ordinary soldier, would panic, or otherwise waste precious oxygen by squirming and scrabbling. Jeneth did not. Pulling himself closer, Charles quickly released his lever hand to wrap underneath Jeneth's right arm, immobilizing it. His awkward distance then prevented Jeneth's free arm from having any detrimental force. Now it was a battle of consciousness, whether Charles would pass out from blunt force trauma, or if Jeneth would fall to asphyxiation.

Jeneth decided to introduce a third option. Although Charles's leg hooks kept Jeneth's thighs immobile, his lower legs still had enough mobility for him to maneuver to a standing position. With a heavy grunt, Jeneth bent forward and threw Charles over his back. Charles flickered and faded away, reappearing a few feet away and standing, his knees bent and panting as Jeneth allowed himself a rare moment to examine his neck. "Okay…" Charles swallowed. "Okay."

With a snarl, Charles bum-rushed Jeneth again and performed a Superman punch with a very light jump. It was slow and telegraphed and Charles expected Jeneth to block it: it was only the precursor to another move. Charles blinked. His fist met no resistance and sailed into Jeneth's face, scraping hard on the leather-like material of his mask and the metal of his face plate. Jeneth's head snapped to the side but his arms did not stop, inflicting two continuous jabs straight into Charles's abdomen. Jeneth's head whipped back and for the first time, Charles felt a chill down his spine. "Okay," Charles said again, circling around Jeneth as he clutched his stomach. "So you're hot shit." He spit out a mixture of blood, saliva, and mucus, snarling. He cocked his arms and raised them.

"Don't make me actually hurt you."

Jeneth said nothing and advanced. Stepping forward, Charles rotated and delivered a high three-sixty spin kick, his feet missing Jeneth's neck as the alien ducked. Regaining his footing, Charles took the opportunity to gather his fists and slammed down a double hammer fist. Jeneth fell on all fours, barely a gasp escaping his gas mask. Pushing himself off the ground, Jeneth collapsed the distance between them. The closed-in armored shoulder charge broke through Charles's guard, and his defense was destroyed. Ah, shit- "Oof!"

Jeneth unleashed a shower of blows. Knee to the stomach. Hard kick to the shins. A boot to the back of the leg. Then, finally, an elbow to the side of the head. Charles hit the ground hard and became subject to two gloved hands on his throat. He scrabbled and clawed at the figure above him, his nails finding no purchase on the ceramite or the heavy fabrics. "Hrk! Keh… Kurgh!"

So Charles switched to something he found more effective in his lifetime. His hands swept across Jeneth's face, weaker than he'd like, but consistent. Jeneth's head flew to and fro but the choking hands stayed, growing ever tighter. Charles started seeing stars. No mercy. This was a killer. "Suffer not the witch," the masked alien muttered.

Cold steel.

Fuck you. Charles's hands glowed white hot.

"Hey!"

Fredric came barreling down the corridor and skidded to a halt, one arm outstretched to clothesline Jeneth's neck. On contact, Fredric's other arm came up and he locked the Korpsman in a chokehold. Charles came up with a warning but was unable to say anything before Jeneth attacked. He punched back, aiming a fist at Fredric's face but found his hand hitting metal. Instantly, both arms came to pull Fredric's armbar away instead. "Kurk," Charles coughed, wobbling as he tried to stand up.

More pairs of footsteps. Celeste ran forward, stun gun in hand, and jabbed the prongs hard into Jeneth's neck. Jeneth seized in Fredric's arms, gritting his teeth, his eyes rolling into the back of his head. "Heri-"

The stun gun came off and Jeneth went limp. After jerking Jeneth's body a few times to make sure of his state of being, Fredric sighed and dragged Jeneth back into the cage, throwing him unceremoniously onto the bed and locking the gate when he came out. Hidden eyes focused on the panting Charles, shrouded accusations and veiled questions behind the visors. "How come even when you're not causing trouble, you're causing trouble, mate?" Lance asked, echoing Fredric's voiceless words.

Charles made to respond but leaned back in the air and fell on his back. He raised a finger. "You know. I'm gonna… wait a second. Yeah?"

Felicia and DeMarr hung around the cell, peering at the alien with curiosity. Fredric walked over to Charles, shaking his head, and extended a hand. Charles cracked a smile and grabbed it. The room was circular with one corridor leading into it and another leading away to a different circular chamber of cells. The former corridor was lined with paintings, water dispensers, potted plants, and windows for storage offices, filled to the brim with filing cabinets. At the end of the corridor were two opposite rooms for the guards, one for them to rest and one for them to monitor. "You dismissed the grunts," Celeste commented.

"Hm."

"And you turned off the cameras."

"Hm."

"Why?"

"Mm. Lends more… credibility to my authority. Negotiation tactic."

"Uh huh," Lance said.

The group would walk up the helix floating staircase, the pillar they revolved around a stainless steel while the steps were made of shining white marble. The floor above, the mansion proper, was more of the same motif as the prison. Shining and golden, soft yet angular, all in all, fabulously rich. They arrived in the middle of the mansion, a grand living space. The centerpiece was a brick firepit, exposed on all sides save for four thin support pillars that held up the chimney shaft. In a ring around the pit was a carpet, settled in a safe distance from the embers. Around the carpet were sofa chairs, each primed to watch televisions stationed around the fireplace. The entire section was indented, sunken a few inches from the mansion proper. Charles lowered himself in a seat.

Fredric walked open to the cooler they brought over and grabbed a few bottles of beer. "When are you taking that off, by the way?" Charles asked.

"I did. But then you decided to fuck around, so I had to put it back on."

"Ah."

"Yeah. I'm not taking it off that quickly. My brain's damaged enough."

"True that," Felicia chirped.

Fredric threw a bottle at Celeste and DeMarr and handed on over to Charles. DeMarr caught his with wide eyes while Celeste grabbed hers out of the air with nary a glance. Felecia glanced at the empty cooler, rolled her eyes, and walked away. A few moments later, another woman came by. "What the hell was all the commotion?" she asked tersely, hands on her hips.

"Nothing to worry about, ma'am," Fredric replied.

"A little trouble we had handled in no time, Miss Temple," Lance added.

"Trouble, huh?" the woman repeated, her eyes unceremoniously staring at Charles.

Charles took a swig of her beer and didn't answer. "It's fine, Artoria," Celeste said.

"Good. I already had that one fiasco with the damned wall, I don't need another," Artoria said. "Besides. I got a guy coming over."

Lance raised a beer in a salute. "We'll stay out of your way, Miss Temple."

"Uh-huh." Artoria turned towards DeMarr. "And no peeking, right?"

She turned around and left with her entourage of guards, some of whom made hidden and unprofessional gestures at the gang. DeMarr was sputtering with confusion and embarrassment. "Different guy than last time, I'm assuming," Celeste said.

"Ah, you know what they say," Charles said, leaning back on the sofa and closing his eyes, bringing the beer bottle down on his forehead. Lance raised an eyebrow, Celeste groaned, and DeMarr looked away. "One man's woman is another man's whore."

"So are you the woman or the whore?" Felicia asked as she came into the room.

Lance barked out laughter as Charles opened his eyes and glared at her. "Bitch," he snarled.

"That's Molly to you," Felicia snarked as she sat on the opposite sofa chair, crossing her legs over the armrest and lounging back, one arm dangling limply over the side.

"You aren't old enough to drink," Celeste said disapprovingly as Charles shook his head and closed his eyes again.

Felicia popped open the cap. "Who's gonna tell on me?" Felicia asked, pointing the bottle at Celeste.

"Ah, let the lass drink," Lance said.

"So what was that," Felicia asked.

"Hm?" Charles murmured once he realized everyone was looking at him.

"Why'd you try to set the alien free?"

"He…" Charles licked his teeth, and "seemed cooperative when he woke up." He sucked in a breath. "I thought he might try to work with us."

"Really," Fredric said.

"What can I say? I'm a nice guy."

"Who's obviously not a really good judge of character," Felicia joked.

"That's really the excuse you're going with?" Celeste asked.

"Listen. What's easier, interrogating an alien or trying to make nice with it?"

"So, did you find out anything?" Lance asked. By 'making nice'? Or did you just get fucked up?"

"No… He didn't… tell me about himself. But whatever he is, he's a weird one. And he's definitely dangerous."

"Hey, man, nothing to be ashamed of. You had a rough day. Don't make excuses now."

"Shut up. You all saw a peek of how he fought."

"I certainly saw him beat your ass," Lance laughed.

Charles's face darkened but he directed his gaze at the ground. "He fought with nothing held back."

"So he fights a bit dirty," Fredric said.

"No, no, listen to me. Every swing? Full force. And that goes opposite for his movements. No feints, no nothing, not a twitch out of place. He doesn't block, he doesn't circle. No wasted moves at all. He aims for weak spots, joints, organs, the neck, the eyes. He used elbows and knees, not a fancy kick in sight.

Every blow not made to subdue but to kill the opponent. There's nothing in his repertoire that can counter a grapple. Whatever he is, whatever they are, they're not focused on escaping. When I grappled him, he was still fighting me, still aiming to kill. The most he has is some disarming techniques, and you can't even call it that. He's not some feral. He's a killing machine. And he's not scared of dying either."

"Wow. High praise, huh?" Lance said.

Charles groaned, took another swig, and closed his eyes. "I'm being fucking serious. He doesn't… flinch. He's… I mean, I know he's a fucking alien, but he's… inhuman, man."

Everyone's smiles faded at that. "Where… the fuck does he come from?" Lance finally asked, echoing everyone's thoughts.

"Ah, fuck this!" Charles yelled after a moment, clutching his head.

Charles slipped out of his seat and wobbled toward one of the corridors, taking an angry sip of his beer. "You okay, man?" DeMarr asked.

"He's fine, he just got his silly head beat," Lance replied.

Charles did not reply, choosing instead to simply flip the whole group off as he entered the bathroom. Groaning, Charles placed his bottle on the corner of the sink and turned on the cold water. He let it flow for a few moments as he stared at himself in the mirror, disappointment reflecting upon himself in his eyes. Sighing, Charles cupped his hands underneath the stream and splashed himself, wincing. The water spilled on the floor. Charles stepped back, leaning against the back wall. "God damn it," he muttered.

He looked at his hand, his bruised knuckles already fading back into a natural color. He flexed his fingers and ran the hand through his hair, his eyes closed in fatigued ponderance. It was the recent things, the fight, the alien, the mission. But the memories made their way back on their own. He wondered if he made a mistake, joining this team. He wondered if he actually regrets meeting DeMarr. He wondered if Fredric still had any real use. And, for the first time in a while, he thought of his brother. Deciding he needed more water, he made his way back to the running sink.

His boot landed in the puddle of water, his soles losing grip, and he slipped, falling forward.

Really?

"Sh-"

He flickered on the moment of impact. Still, his head cracked against the ceramic sink. His skull fractured as his vision flashed white and he entered the realm of nonsense and reverse. There was a moment of time when Charles did not exist in any way. He twisted himself into a world of layered dimensions. It did not hurt, because it never did, and Charles was barely able to manage a thought, yet he felt as if he wanted to scream. The world flashed static and Charles was spit back out, his bruises and wounds gone as if they never existed in the first place. He lay there, unconscious. The water kept running.

---

The man was weird. Jeneth opened his eyes and sat up. Seeing that he was alone, he allowed himself to exhale once in light discomfort. The wounds inflicted on him were not serious, less than he would have gotten sparing with an instructor or a fellow Korpsman. The pain would fade, by and through steely discipline, and his wounds would heal by the Grace of the God-Emperor in around a day. Again, less than he might have needed from any training exercise. Thus, that psyker wearing a cheap imitation of a war uniform was an unfamiliar foe. Apart from the esoteric psychic abilities, he was also fighting to restrain rather than eliminate. The witch's passivity was concerning as it was confusing. Jeneth rewound his memory up until his point of unconsciousness. Another failure. It was fuzzy, given the trauma, but he had the gist of it.

One psyker. One man in some form of primitive power armor. A woman with a stun weapon. She had heavy footsteps, metallic, meaning she was armored as well. Then one or two more grunts. He could not remember. A team of five, a quintet of anti-establishment hive gangers. And they wanted him on their side. But Jeneth thought that that was not quite right either.

The Psyker did not come off right. His anti-establishment views seemed personal. Work with him, cut a deal with him. It was never in the context of 'us', of his team. Or maybe that was simply a language quirk of this 'English' he was beginning to get familiar with. Most likely, he was overthinking it, overclocking his brain that was not made for considerations best left to Inquisitors and the like. But this heresy, it was alarming in what it implied. Jeneth stepped down from the cot and surveyed outside of the cell, seeing the guards in similar uniform as the psyker standing where they were once missing. He could not escape this cell.

Fine then, Jeneth thought. Jeneth shifted and let out a small breath. The burning on his face made his mask uncomfortable to wear and the bruising on his abdomen from where the stub gun hit was not a fun addition.

If they would come to recruit him once more, he would gather as much information as possible and give no response. If they came to torture him, they would find themselves on the receiving end of Krieg steel discipline. If they would come to interrogate him for information, he would simply kill himself. His weapons were gone, suffocation was impossible, and snapping his own neck was not likely. One solution remained. He would bite off his own tongue and asphyxiate on his blood. Even if he did not die, there would be no words that the enemy could take from his mouth. And if that did not work, he would bash his head until his skull split open. Whatever it takes.

For victory eternal.

For the Emperor.

For fuck's sake. Charles groaned and got up. He put a hand on his face and rubbed his eyes. "Fuck," he muttered, letting the 'f' drag.

He coughed and put his face in his knees, trying to get his head together. For a while, he simply listened to the running water, not realizing what the sound was. Slowly, as the world bled into his ears and his nose and the chill of the bathroom carved its way into his bones, he began to think and wonder where he was. He slowly stood up, looking confused as he realized he was wearing a suit. "What?" Charles grabbed at the sink to steady himself and caught a glance in the mirror.

He did not understand what he was looking at. He stared in hiccuping short laughter as he moved his face around. His eyes darted to every detail and it finally dawned on him. "No-" With a horrible gasp, Charles leaned in and pulled at his face. "Oh, oh god," he said. "No!"

He was older. This face, this particular face with those scars and those eyes, was not as he remembered. By the very nature of his power, he did not age as others did, but he was still noticeably different, with settling wrinkles, lighter hair, and looser skin. He could not tell how long had passed because he could not judge age based on physical appearance. "What have you done…" Charles muttered.

With that, the longer he stared into eyes he barely recognized, he began to hyperventilate, gripping the sink tighter and tighter. A sharp thought pierced through his mind. "How, how long?" he whispered.

His fingers picked at the edge of the mirror and pulled it open to reveal a medicine cabinet. He muttered a thankful prayer to an ambiguous god that there was one, and grabbed at a random bottle. He turned it around, his vision splitting and unfocused. There, he thought, finally landing his fingers on a black line of numbers and letters. '08Sept2015'. Charles nodded.

"Oh, okay," he said softly. So, anywhere from 2010 to 2015…

Charles laughed. Then he was silent. Then he was wrath. "Charles, you fuck!" not Charles screamed, his hand slapping the beer bottle onto the floor.

He let out a muted, open-mouthed, closed-teeth yell of agony, his fists swinging at air. The hand holding the bottle raised into the air and he poised to throw the bottle onto the floor, breathing heavily in panic and anger. Many moments passed, the water running still. There was a knock on the door and Charles jumped. His fingers fumbled and the bottle slipped, dropping into the sink below. Scrambling, Charles shut off the sink and grabbed the bottle, staying silent and still while staring at the door. "Oi, you in there, mate?" a voice asked.

"... Uh huh. What's it to you?"

"What?"

Charles did not answer.

"Okay, whatever. PF's here."

"Yeah, PF." This guy knows him. "I'll be right out."

Charles wiped off the water on the bottle and stuffed it back in the medicine cabinet. He closed the mirror and breathed in deep. Okay, Halloran. Act like… Charles…. Halloran opened the door. Lance glanced at him. "You good?"

"Yeah…" Halloran glanced back inside the bathroom. "Might've spilled the beer though. I'll clean it up later."

Lance frowned. "What, what, wuhtuh, what's wrong with your voice?"

"Huh?"

"What's with the accent?"

"I don't- Do you know how to close the lights?"

"What, mate? It's... automatic…"

Halloran made to reply but choked on his words as his eye caught the mirror. Lance watched in confusion as Charles ran back into the bathroom, his head whirling around in the mirror. "Did the beer work you over even worse than that Jeneth guy?"

Halloran swallowed and blinked. "No, I thought I- Uh. Yeah, right? Can't even remember what year it is," he tried.

Lance just nodded and walked away. Shit, Halloran thought. He glanced back at the mirror one last time, shaking his head. No, he can't be here anymore. It's my time now… His rage-filled celebratory murmurings halted in stunned silence as he stared ahead of him. It was not the extravagance that gave him disturbance, but rather the humanoid alien standing before him. Poker Face turned to look at Halloran. "I see that you are unhappy with my presence, Charles Chandler," it said.

Halloran swallowed. The alien was, as far as Halloran saw it, a cross between a duck, a bug, and a person. He had a smooth face, golden bronze in color, but his features were sharp and uncanny. His upper jaw was like an exoskeleton. Apart from a white one-piece jacket, which extended down to his thighs, he was naked. The hair atop his head was more like tentacles than hair, like anemones. "I am," Halloran finally said. "PF."

Lance glanced at him before stepping in. "We want answers."

"I am obliged to respond to the best of my ability, Lance Hunter. Ask me."

"Are you invading us?" Lance asked.

Halloran blinked. What? "No," Poker Face responded. "I do not know what caused the unknown subject to manifest in the fashion that it did. I am unaware of such properties of Atrion."

"Atrion," Halloran whispered.

So that's what this is about, he thought. "So you're telling us that you have no idea who Jeneth is," Fredric said.

"That is correct, Fredric Woolrich. All prior knowledge and experience indicates that Atrion has no spacial warping abilities."

"How can we trust you?" Celeste asked.

"Because it would serve no purpose. We are aligned on the same goal, Celeste Conradine. My species has a particular distaste for transversal gateways such as portals regardless of our cooperative status. And we are pacifics. I am not spearheading an invasion. This I promise you."

Charles, what the fuck, Halloran thought, flexing his fingers anxiously. I have to say something, don't I? "This Jeneth then… What do we do about him?" he asked.

"Wait, wait, wait," Lance butt in. "Are we just letting this go?"

"What do you think we can do about it," Fredric said.

"All we have is his word."

"What do you think we can do about it," Fredric repeated.

Lance tsked and stared at Poker Face. The alien maintained the stare with his usual indescribable expressionless monotone. In every sense of the word, the alien was alien. Lance looked away, arms crossed. His heart pounded, and he wondered if the alien could detect that. On the off chance that Poker Face was leading an invasion, he would not just be a mercenary looking for a score, he could be a traitor to mankind. "Fine," he said, bitterness lacing the edges of his voice. "Let's talk about Jeneth then."

"Speaking of," Felecia said, "looks like old Charles boy is all fixed up."

My God, that's right! What happened to Charles that he ended up ceding to me? "Y-yeah," Halloran stuttered. "It was pretty bad, wasn't it?"

This time, the stare Lance leveled at Halloran was not subtle. "Uh-huh." Lance glanced at Fredric, trying to use him as a gauge, but he could not see behind the mask and gave up. "At the very least, we have to ask him how he got here, right?"

"You know, man," DeMarr started suddenly, "if there, you know, is an actual-" he stopped, looking at Poker Face. "An actual army on the other end, man, I mean, one of their own disappearing like that would raise a lot of questions, right? Especially if they were prepared to come over."

"So you're saying," Fredric prompted.

"What if they're trying to open the door on their side instead of waiting," Celeste finished.

DeMarr nodded. "Good," Lance said. "Great, let's go ask the alien… uh… Other ali- Jeneth. Jeneth."

Fredric groaned as he clanged his metal hand against his face plate, pushing himself up. Celeste watched as Felicia grin like a Chershire, expertly raising herself up from the couch with grace she would never be able to manage. As Celeste frowned down at her legs, Felicia grabbed Fredric's unopened beer, popping the cap open with her first bottle, and finishing the first in a single gulp. DeMarr let out an interjection of awe. Halloran narrowed his eyes and looked away. The sextet and Poker Face exited the main living space. Halloran reigned himself in. The group was silent as they crossed the mansion and finally arrived at the entrance to the underground, revealed by a lever. What kind of a place is this? Halloran wondered as they made their way down the helix staircase into the underground prison.

What kind of person has so much mon- Hell, I, what kind of a person builds a prison underneath their mansion! In this style! The degeneracy of capitalism… "PF, it's best you stay here," Lance said once they reached the corridor. "You can watch from the cameras, but whether you're working with him or not, I don't think you two should meet just yet."

The others raised no objections. Poker Face nodded. "Your request is acceptable. I will watch from closed-circuit television surveillance cameras."

"What about the guards?" DeMarr asked as Poker Face separated.

"It doesn't really matter if they see or not," Fredric said.

"They're mercs," Felicia said. "They're in it for the money. If they hear something they don't like, we can't stop them from spilling the beans."

"To who, Artoria?" Celeste asked. "You've been here long enough to see she's fostered a surprisingly tight kind of loyalty."

"Or to the world."

"Ah, they would've done it by now."

"No," Halloran said. "Never trust a man to keep a secret."

Lance rolled his eyes. He pushed open the door to the surveillance room. "Get out," he ordered. "Into the barracks, or… Go join your boss or something."

The guards looked at each other and then at Poker Face. Hesitantly, slowly, they filed out. With that settled, the group continued onward. They found Jeneth kneeling, his head cradled against his chest, his legs tucked beneath himself, his hands crossed, his thumbs entwined, and his fingers splayed like wings over his heart. He muttered inaudibly. "What, uh, what is he doing?" Lance asked.

"He's praying," Halloran remarked.

"Really," DeMarr asked.

"It looks like it," Fredric said.

"Hey…" Halloran began. "Are we sure that's an alien?"

"Huh?"

"I mean. I, look, I don't know what aliens look like, but I know what people look like. And he's like a person."

DeMarr nodded his head in agreement. "Man, that's what I wanted to say, man."

"It's… not impossible," Lance replied after a moment. "I guess he does look way too 'World War One-ee' to be an alien."

"Why don't we just take off his mask," DeMarr asked.

"It's a gas mask, dork. What if he chokes on our air or something?" Felicia said.

"He's still breathing our air," Celeste said. "It's just filtered. It can't be that bad."

"Let's talk to him first, figure out if he's human later," Fredric said.

Jeneth made no notice of them as they came closer and continued his prayers even as the group shadowed his cell. "Hey," Halloran started at Lance's prompting. "Jeneth."

Jeneth's volume rose. "... toward the Light beyond the veil, and the blessed souls of the dead may enter into His eternal embrace thereafter. The Emperor protects," he finished.

One, two, three, four, five, six. He was wrong. There was one more than he expected. The guards that were in the circular room were also dismissed. "Hey, Jeneth," Lance said. "We need to talk to you. Care to talk to us?" Jeneth did not reply. "Okay. How about you listen?" Jeneth did not reply. "Uh. Will you accept my apologies for this brute of a man?"

Jeneth shifted, staring at Halloran with soulless panes. Halloran inhaled at the focus of the reaper-like figure before him. Finally, he said something. "Your Chaos sorcery does not scare me."

Halloran looked at the crew to see if those words resonated with them; if Charles had somehow acquired magic in the years he had lost. "I… don't know what that is. Ahem. I'm sorry?" Jeneth resumed his silence. "Do you know where you are," Halloran asked. "The name of the planet you're on?"

Lance leaned in. "What?" he whispered.

"He could've made a mistake," Halloran replied.

"What?"

"Okay, maybe not. Establishing a foundation for conversation."

"Uh huh…"

"Are you here to invade us?"

Nothing.

"Are you here because of the Chitauri invasion?"

Nothing.

"Are you here because of Poker Face?"

Nothing.

"Come one, dude, give me something."

Nothing.

"Do you know what time it is?" Lance asked. "Like, when you are?"

Halloran leaned in. "What?"

"Look at him. What if he's from the past?"

"With laser guns?"

"Shield has existed for a while now," Celeste commented. "Who's to say it's not possible? Maybe the aliens built the pyramids after all."

Celeste shrugged. Halloran ignored her. There's something different about her, Halloran thought. I don't like it. "This is Earth," Halloran said. "It's the third planet from the-"

"You lie."

"- sun. What?"

Earth. The word had sparked a register in Jeneth's mind. It matched with the Low Gothic words for 'dirt' or 'soil'. But a more appropriate word, one in High Gothic, came to the forefront in context. Terra. Whatever was causing Jeneth's supernatural grasp on the English language was telling him that 'Earth' in this case was a name. And sun. The Sun. Sol.

"Do not profane the name of the Throneworld Terra with your barbarian language."

"Terra?" Halloran asked.

"That's Latin for Earth," said Celeste.

"Unde venistis," DeMarr asked. Everyone looked at him. "Quid hic agis?"

Jeneth did not know what DeMarr was saying, but he recognized the sounds. It was something like High Gothic, the old tongue of the Empire, and the standard for learned men and nobles. No, that was not exactly right. It was more akin to someone using bastardized Low Gothic with High Gothic tonality and pronunciation. Jeneth was confused. He did not know what to make of his situation and, worse of all, he started to believe 'Earth' was Terra after all. The words simply refused to be disconnected. Earth was Terra. It was branded into his very knowledge of the English lexicon.

He started to feel hate. Hateful of whatever sorcery they used to get him to speak their language. It was an invasion of his body, which was dedicated to the Emperor. "You speak Latin?" Lance asked.

"Yeah. Studied it in high school and continued it in college. Six years."

"Huh. Okay. But he's still not saying anything. Why would he, why- why would you speak Latin anyway," Lance asked Jeneth.

"Maybe the Romans were aliens," Felicia quipped.

"He said 'Terra'," DeMarr said, ignoring Felicia.

Lance slapped himself internally. "Right. So we're even more lost now. This maybe-not-alien alien comes to Earth in World War II gear, carries a multitude of space guns, and speaks Latin, and we're not really even sure if he's not maybe from the past…" Lance nodded. "What's standard space-time for twenty-twelve?"

"Well, that's not going to matter if he's not actually from space, is it?"

"..."

Twenty twelve… Two zero one two… Two thousand and twelve. Halloran shuddered, his breath catching in his throat. Fredric frowned at him and stepped forward. "Are you okay?" he asked softly.

Halloran swallowed and blinked rapidly. He knew. He calculated the range of time he must have been in already. But to get a concrete answer still shook him. It was definitive and there was no running away from it now. Only Celeste paid enough attention to Jeneth to see him seize up at the simple phrase as well. The… third millennium? Twenty twelve… Forty thousand years ago?

Did the Warp portal send me through time? It was a possibility. The Warp was not cohesive like the Materium, and even that was in constant flux. One was not a part of the Astra Militarum without learning the dangers of Warp travel. He always assumed it was more likely that the Gellar Fields would fail and he would perish to a Daemon than to be lost in time, so far misplaced from his own era. Impossible. He was not built to be a thinker, but he still had a functioning brain capable of higher reasoning. Per the prejudice of the situation, facts that did not make sense started to fall into place. Even the most backward of Imperial worlds knew what a lasgun was, yet they had called his rifle alien and unfamiliar.

And if this were true, their lack of knowledge on the Imperium would make sense. They were not cut off from the rest of the galaxy as he had thought but rather hadn't yet become the galaxy Jeneth was familiar with. It also explained why the people who so nonchalant about the sorcerer's powers. They were not aware of the potential corruption. There was much to ponder with this mind-boggling revelation that he could not fully come to terms with, but, before that, "You must," Jeneth began, "kill the witch now before he is corrupted."

The era before the Age of Strife was darkened by incognizent knowledge but Jeneth knew that psykers were dangerous no matter the time. Even if these people would not be saved by the Emperor- Wait. Was it heresy still? It must be, right? Even if one did not know the god they should worship existed, it was still blasphemy to commit a crime against Him. Right? For the first time in his life, Jeneth wished for a priest. Someone to guide him on the matters of religion.

"Me?" Halloran asked as he looked around. "I'm… not a witch. I'm an altered human. A Mutate."

"Suffer not the mutant," Jeneth recited automatically.

Halloran felt a cold finger trail down his back, the death mask painting a picture of Hades should the cell door open. He made a fist. Halloran did not like threats, especially from faceless thugs. "Alright," Fredric growled, pushing to the front. "Just tell us where you're from. Or else we might get a little unpleasant."

A threat. Jeneth would have been indifferent had it not been for another thought that caught him off guard. The god that these people did not know existed still roamed this 'Earth'. He had not yet revealed Himself but Here. If Jeneth could escape and - What hubris. To assume he had the right to approach his god and to reveal truths that the Emperor must have already known. Jeneth had no place in speaking to his god and no place in trying to alter the future. Blasphemy.

"I'm not a mutant," Halloran corrected. "My powers came from a machine. It… altered my physiology. I'm a Mutate."

Jeneth took a pause.

Psykers. Per the rudimentary knowledge of galactical history, pyskers generally appeared in the human species during the Age of Strife, thousands of years from the current date. Were there psykers before that? Jeneth thought there might have been, but to ponder through the what ifs and the could be's was out of his mental grasp as of the moment. And he did not want to. Their supposed leader, at least in Jeneth's eyes, had no reason to lie about his identity in the manner of psychic power. According to him, bountiful people received supernatural powers via technology. An impossible method. Mutants did not develop abilities through their gene mutation.

Strike one.

Chitauri. An alien race that Jeneth had never heard of before. And it seems they have invaded Earth. An invasion of Terra. Impossible. Unheard of, even in the past. The Administratum would surely have records and documents, and the filthy race of xenos eradicated from the face of the universe in righteous revenge. Tales of their expunction would be written and passed down as grand tales of glorious revenge. "The Chitarui invasion," Jeneth stated. "Explain."

"Oh, uh." Halloran looked at Lance.

"An alien invasion of our world, a few months prior."

"They were… unsuccessful in their attempt to take the planet?"

"Obviously," Fredric snarked.

"What prevented them?"

Halloran licked his lips and cast his eyes on Lance. "The Avengers," Fredric supplied.

"Militarum kill team?"

"Superheroes, man," DeMarr said.

"Six vigilantes playing god," Celeste growled.

Strike two. "Hey, man, don't diss Captain America and I-."

DeMarr glanced at Fredric and trailed off. Inside his helmet, Fredric let out an inaudible hum. "Orks. Eldar. Tyranids. T'au," Jeneth said.

"Those… are words," Lance said.

"Xenos factions."

"Never heard of them," Celeste said, crossing her arms. "Are they like the Kree?"

"What the hell are Kree?" Fredric asked.

Strike three. Perhaps the Chitauri were destroyed in the past and the records were lost to time. But if they knew of aliens, if they had contact this early with xenos creatures, they would have surely discovered at least the Eldar and Orks. And the Kree. It was something Jeneth had never heard of. This is not what I know of about the past. The discrepancies added up to one thought. The ignorance of these people was not because they were from a primitive age in humanity's past, but because possibly- "Then, truly, this is… a different world?"

"Uh. I mean. If you're not from Earth, then I guess it would be?" Lance said.

"No, you idiot," Celeste said. "You mean a different universe?"

Universe, Jeneth thought. A different existence altogether. As foreign as the warp. An impossibility, and yet… "Naw, that's a bit of a stretch."

"Atrion can split the fabric of reality?"

"Man, that's bullshit, man."

"Absolute hogwash."

"Kill me."

"The amount of energy for us to even consid-"

"..."

"What?" Lance asked.

"Kill me," Jeneth repeated.

"Why?"

I have no purpose here, Jeneth thought. The Emperor he so worshiped was cut off from him. The empire that he fought and planned to die for did not exist. He had no one to die for and he never had anything to live for. Would my soul even go to Him? "Listen, are you sure you're not from… Mars or something?" Halloran asked after Jeneth didn't respond.

"It would be heresy for the priests of Holy Mars to fuse their technology with the warp in such a disgusting manner."

"Holy Mars?"

"Come on, guys. Are we really thinking that a single rock, which is supposed to basically be a souped-up space battery, brought a person over from another dimension?"

Jeneth perked up. "Stone?" he asked, his voice taking on a raspy tone. He has talked longer than he is used to.

"Atrion."

It is connected to Chaos. "And do you have the stone?"

"No. You blew it up with your arrival. But there's more. We'll get it. In time."

"What… is your purpose? For the Atrion?"

"Wealth," Felicia said without hesitation.

"Reputation," Celeste replied after a beat. Felicia cocked her head and nodded in agreement.

Atrion. Such a stone does not exist. I must contend with the truth of my reality. Jeneth stood up. "All selfish desires must be forgotten in service before the God-Emperor and humanity. The Atrion must be destroyed."

"What? Why?"

"The stone is connected to Chaos. It must be if it brought me here. The Ruinous Powers will invade this reality should it be allowed to fester."

"The Ruinous what?" Fredric asked.

"The Archenemy. The ultimate evil. If this Atrion has the ability to bring me over, it has the potential to open the veil and keep it open."

"Listen, son," Halloran said. "Calm down. We haven't exchanged anything at all relevant enough for you to say something like that and act as if we're just going to let you go."

"We don't even know what we're going to do with you," Lance said.

"We don't know if you want to live still," Fredric added

"I…" Jeneth cocked his head as if confused with what he was about to say. Almost as if such a conscious thought was foreign to him. "I will live."

"That's g-"

"You will help me."

"Why," Celeste asked.

"This Atrion. I must see to it that it is destroyed… I am the only existing worshipper of the God-Emperor. His brilliance… must be preserved…" Jeneth looked up. "I will preserve humanity. You will assist me in the name of He Who Sits Upon the Golden Throne, blessed be His brilliance." Everyone looked at each other. A burst of static came over the earpiece as Poker Face made to say something but stopped. "The Emperor protects."

---

The guards and staff members nervously stepped aside as the officers gazed on while pretending not to be looking. He towered over everyone, but it was his bulk that the shadow was cast upon. His reputation may have preceded him; his build hammered it home. Wilson Fisk was not one to be messed with. He was followed by his lawyer and secretary on his left, while Justin Hammer and his own lawyer trailed to the right. They pushed past the meandering men and entered an office building. There were metal cabinets, tables, and a wall of screens. This was the security room, linked to most of the cameras of the building.

Any personnel that was not already standing stood up and shuffled nervously. The cops inside peered at him. "What. The hell. Happened tonight?" The guards gulped. "I want answers."

"Will, uh, William? I think you should calm down." William rounded on Justin and Justin backed up a step with his hands raised. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, let's all keep a cool head here, Mister."

"Hn."

"Answer Mister Fisk's question," James said.

One of the men, who appeared to be the ranking security staff member, stepped forward. He nervously licked his lips and pointed at a live feed to a hallway, where firefighters, police officers, paramedics, and hotel security staff wandered around. "There was a fire in room five seventeen. It was set off with charges. Thermite and the like. This was purposeful arson, Mister Fisk." He glanced at William, continuing at his silence. "We checked the records of the stay. Fake names, fake faces.

Cameras tracked the second male down to the van, so we have confirmation that this was connected to… the other interruption."

"Speak plainly," William grumbled. "You'll find these men have no qualms about what we do. In fact, they're quite invested."

The uniformed officers and the detectives in the room made little to acknowledge this point. The security manager continued. "It was done as a distraction to draw away manpower and attention from the auction. That was why our assistance was delayed. We had to start evacuating that floor and put out the-"

"The floor," one of the police officers asked. "Not the entire building?"

James looked at the speaker and the officer lowered his head. "This old man, or at least the man disguised as such. We've marked him out as Subject Alpha. The man with him, Subject Beta, went down the staircase and exited here. He was the one that provided an exit for the remainder of these unknown subjects."

"I know who one of the women is," Janice said. "What," she responded to raised eyebrows. "I follow the underground news. There's a whole network, you know. She's Black Cat. Claws and curves gave it away. She's a favorite of all the pervs in the net."

"So that's who it was," Matt muttered.

"Yeah, you got your ass beat by a goth chick in leather."

"She wasn't wearing leather," Matt protested. "And she isn't goth."

"How do you know? You're blind."

Matt tsked. "At least Melody was there to help. You were, what, sitting your ass somewhere outside."

"Aw. Don't worry, babe, I'll kiss all those boo-boos away and blow away the pain later."

"Ahem."

"Sorry," Matt said. "Sir."

"Then this was about money," Justin said.

"Well," Janice began, "if it was, they certainly succeeded… In making the Falling Spire Troupe pissed… At us."

"What are they demanding?" William asked.

"A complete recompensation for all stolen items. With extra for damages. And a very clear statement of how much they don't want to work with us in the future. They're taking everything with them. We're getting complaints from tonight's guests because of that."

"They're refusing to hand over the Atrion," James added. "Even when we offered above what we initially bid."

"Negotiate. Pay them what they ask. Whatever you need to do to retrieve the Atrion. Do you understand?"

"Of course, William. And then?"

William paused. "And then they meet an unfortunate end by the hands of hooligans. Shot and burned. Senseless gang violence in the wake of the chaos of the Incident. The people will understand." James nodded, noting it down to disperse orders to his men later. "It is… regrettable. Should they have only had enough honor to reign in their pettiness, our partnership might have flourished. At least in this way, our guests will receive what is theirs.

But they will be involved in transaction with a different party… What did the thieves take?"

"Not much. Some priceless jewels and paintings. Something you might expect for a heist of a lower class, not for one selling the things they did today. But they did manage to shatter the Atrion and take a piece."

At that, William whirled on James. His mouth opened to speak but he said nothing, pulling his shoulders back and closing his fist. Do they know what the Atrion can do? he wondered. "Is there enough remaining," he asked.

"More than enough," James answered.

"Do you have more," William questioned the security manager.

"We don't have access to street cameras. This is what we have once they exit the building and enter the parking lot."

One screen froze on the image of the van drifting across a turn on their way out.

Justin narrowed his eyes. He idly wondered why, despite the advancements in technology throughout the past few decades, CCTV footage was so bad. He made a note to replace the system with color footage. He also wondered if he should get Justine to get 'R and D' on making better cameras. Is that possible? Justin wondered. Compression, or something. Storage problem? Justin looked closer. His eyes widened.

"Oh, fuck," Justin muttered

"What is it, sir?" Janice asked quietly.

"I know who that is."

The tinted windows skewed the sense of image and color even further, but past the monochrome and the static fizzle was an unmistakable color scheme. The bulkiness of his own handiwork, a failure that he had long since disregarded. "Who," William asked. "Who is it?"

Justin rubbed a hand on his neck as he spread his legs and put another hand on his waist. He sighed. "Fredric. Fredric… something. Wolfric. Wulfin?"

"Fredric Woolrich, sir," Janice supplied.

"Right, right, Woolrich. That cheap bastard, eh?"

"And who is this Fredric Woolrich," William asked.

"Oh. Uh. A failed test subject," Justin said. "What matte-"

"Explain."

Justin inhaled and rubbed a hand on his neck. "Well," he said, sucking his teeth, "he was… a volunteer for an experimental power suit program."

"Your failed recreation of Tony Stark's Iron Man suits."

"N-ngh. No. That, this was an earlier rendition. Power armor, not his flying laser tin can. He was a pencil pusher for my company. Dead on his feet, down on his luck. I offered him something that might change his life."

"Well, you certainly succeeded, haven't you?" Matt snarked.

Justin glared at him while Janice gave him a face. Matt smirked and leaned in. "I can't see what face you're making."

Janice pushed him lightly in the arm. "Quiet," William barked. "Continue."

Justin inhaled heavily and sighed. "It was a fully environmentally sealed power suit. Heads-up display, enhanced strength, enhanced speed, bulletproof. The works. Built-in flame throwers for dedicated offensive capabilities. Heat resistant, obviously. But to make the suit work, we used a… a Nerve Plug, and to make sure that the pilot coul-"

"What is a Nerve Plug?"

Justin looked at Janice. Janice gave a nod. "Biolink. It's a small networking system between the brain and the suit."

"You reverse-engineered Chitauri technology for this prototype?"

"No! This was proprietary technology. Of our own design. And it used a concoction of specifically tailored… compounds to stabilize the conductivity and connection, as well as allow the user to have sufficient strength in the legs to operate at the suit's high combat speeds."

The officers in the room shifted, rolling out shoulders, cracking necks, and rubbing their clasped hands together. Justin licked his lips as his gaze flickered among them before he looked once more toward Janice for reassurance. Janice gave another nod. "And?" William prompted.

"His body couldn't handle it. The mixture quickly deteriorated his nervous system and his atrophied his legs. But-! That was his ow-"

"I don't need to hear your excuses. I don't care."

Justin frowned. "He ran away."

"With the suit."

"Yes, with the suit."

"And the drugs. How is he still running?"

"He's not an idiot, even if he is stupid. He knows the formula. Besides, it's self-replicating. To a certain extent. Amazing, right? And not only that, but it also carries a regenerating power core and a lightning charging station; that machine was going to be-"

"Hammer."

Justin puckered his lips. "Franklin. Heat-Ray. That was his code name. I don't know if he's still using it. And I don't know who he's running with. My last interaction with me cost me fifteen million in insurance for the asset retrieval team. I thought I was done with him. Turns out he's back for more.

Obviously trying to fuck me over because of his own mistakes."

"Marquess and Stevens," William said.

"Yes, they came after the prototype line."

"And other volunteers?"

"They had great retirement packages."

"Detective," William said without looking at the man he was calling out to.

"Yessir, Mister Fisk. I'll put out an APB on Fredric Woolrich. There was a report of a van on the side of the road up north that matches the description of their escape vehicle. We know what direction they were headed in at least. But uh, sir. This isn't the fifteenth precinct." William turned around and everyone stared at the detective. "Not that, uh, that should be taken in any way that might be… misunderstood. Just.

The NYPD is large. And so is New York. And not everything is going to go as smoothly as it might have in Hell's Kitchen."

"Then you make sure it goes smoothly."

"Uh. Of course, sir… Mister Fisk."

"Yes?"

"They took out our traffic cameras. They have someone powerful behind them."

"And you think I am weak?"

"N-no! I just think-"

James put a hand on the detective's shoulder and he flinched. "I suggest you don't," James said softly, "and get a move on before you make another mistake you might come to truly regret, Detective."

"R-right. Of course. Let's go."

The detective took the lead and hurried out of there, his men scurrying after him. William turned to Matt. "You."

"Yessir," Matt said.

"Gather the team. I don't expect the NYPD to amount to much. We will be doing our own reconnaissance. But should either or find them, only you will have the resources to take them down."

"Of course, sir." Matt looked at Janice.

"Get rid of them for me, son." Matt nodded and began walking away. William put a hand on his shoulder. "You know how much that Atrion means to me. What it's meant to do," he whispered.

Matt nodded again. "I do. I'll get justice."

"Good."

William let go and stepped back, letting out a breath as he turned toward the screens. Janice looked at Justin, who gave her a compressed sigh and a hidden eye roll, nodding. Janice gave a short bow back and followed Matt. "The team… works for me, William," Justin said, catching a glance from James.

"Are you saying you disagree with my course of action?"

"No, no, take them. I agree. We have to hunt them down. They did something unforgivable. But they still work for me."

"Are we not partners?"

"Right. Of course. Which is why I said use them."

"Then I don't think we have a problem here."

"... Why do you care so much? About the Atrion? I mean, I get the whole stealing from you part. And that it was a lot of money. But this seems like a lot for space rocks."

"Do you know what Atrion is?"

"I heard the auctioneer mention it was a power source. Are you trying to one-up Tony Stark and his Arc Reactor?"

"Clean energy… Hell's Kitchen. New York. The entire world. We have been bogged down with power consumption since the dawn of industry and before. The stone is a power source, correct. And I will use the stone as a power source. If it works as advertised, if we figure it out, our engineers and scientists could power whole cities with such small quantities, it would be more efficient than solar fusion. It would blow Tony Stark's Arc Reactor out of the water.

It would fix my neighborhood and my city. And it would make us billions…"

"But?"

"Proprietary weapons technology. Quality of life service. The advancements could propel society years into the future…"

"And?"

"That's not why I want it." Willson took a deep breath in, still staring at the screens, listening idly to the bustling workers trying to communicate between onsite security guards trying to manage the hotel visitors and auction guests. "Are you superstitious, Hammer?"

"No, not particularly. Why?"

William was silent, his hands clasped behind his back working the ring on his finger. Finally, he spoke. "I'll show you tomorrow."

---

The road was blocked off. Angry drivers were routed back the way they came and told to find a detour. Some cussed, and a few tried to bargain, but all complied. Yellow lines of police tape wrapped around the trees on either side of the asphalt. The officers looked around the van while firefighters rolled in their hoses. These men were illuminated by the glare of flashing sirens, the red and blue livening up the dead of night. In the grass, at the center of the scene, was a smoking wreckage; a van that had its roof blown open, its windows blown out, and its tires blown away.

An attack, they assumed on initial observation. Someone must have been waiting from up high, on one of the trees perhaps, and launched some kind of explosive at the roof of the car, blowing it in. They must have taken whatever things and people were inside. All traces of them were burned away. Boots on the ground started a small search in the surrounding trees. And yet, that wouldn't explain the smell of ozone in the air. A second theory was passed around, that a lightning strike caused the roof to blow in, causing the people to abandon the car. Either way, there were criminals: it matched the description of the getaway vehicle that wreaked havoc on the new hotel and casino in Manhattan. A few of the officers, then, were personally invested.

One van, a single black SUV with windows tinted to an illegal degree, slowed to a stop just beyond the line of police cars. A sergeant walked over to investigate, followed by one of his men. He prepared to knock on the window of the lead vehicle when the door opened and a man in a suit stepped out. "Who are you?" the sergeant demanded.

"Federal Bureau of Investigations, Unusual Incidents Unit."

The agent held out a badge. The sergeant leaned in with a squint to scrutinize it. The passenger side door opened and a shorter woman stepped out in the same uniform. The sergeant glanced at the tinted windows and the unmarked body of the vans. Then he looked at the face of the woman across the hood, her eyes somehow boring through him even through the polarized lenses of her sunglasses. "Uh-huh," he said. He pulled back and gestured to the scene. "You feds have fun then."

He didn't question the realization that he'd never heard of an Unusual Incidents Unit in the FBI or the lack of decals and government plates. What he knew, at least, what he felt was that they were beyond his paygrade; beyond what he was paid in general. The agent knocked on the rear seat doors. "You were right, sir," a voice said as the door opened. "We were getting fluctuations even before we stepped out."

It was a man with scruffy and curly dirty brown hair. He looked down at an electronic pad with antennas surveying the area around him with invisible rays and frequencies. Behind him came a woman, looking over his shoulder while manipulating her own detection instruments. She adjusted the collar of the white shirt she wore underneath a blue sweater and flipped her shoulder-length hair to be less of a bother. "It's already fading," she commented.

"Fragments of the remaining energy signature matches with some aspects of FTL travel and the tesseract," the first one said. "We can probably assume there was some interdimensional breach here then." He opened a button of his patterned blue shirt and let his hand drop to his side. "We'll have to get a closer look at the van, but-"

"And the object?" a voice in their earpiece said.

"Can't see one on initial observation," the man in the suit said. "I'll do a closer sweep, but whatever was used, if something was used, it's probably gone. Either taken or destroyed in the explosion."

"Alright," the voice responded. "Do what you do best."

"Is she behaving herself," the woman asked.

"I'll make sure she is. Tell me if you find anything. Coulson out."

A library of wisdom, is more precious than all wealth, and all things that are desirable cannot be compared to it. Whoever therefore claims to be zealous of truth, of happiness, of wisdom or knowledge, must become a lover of books.

---

Thank you for waiting. Relocating Ch/2.5 to the next chapter for consistency. Possible Charles art in the future.

See DMT Short 2 early and read an original short, available on PA:treon.

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