Issue #23

A Time of Heroes 125:  Holidays and Heroes

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Chicago reappeared around Gryphon and Unicorn, and they found themselves standing on the roof of the Hancock building, again.  The night was clear, and cold, and the cops were still below.

“I think she sent us back to when we left,” Gryphon said.  He looked skywards.  “Thanks, Tessa.  I wanted to be home before Christmas!”

“Let’s go back to your house, hero,” Unicorn said.  “Celeste is waiting.”

“Say no more!” Gryphon said, and scooped her up.  With Unicorn loaning him her air-walking power, they were home very shortly.

Celeste was waiting for them, sitting in front of the fireplace, near the small Christmas tree Holt had put up out here.  She kissed them both, and looked horrified at the state of Holt’s ruined tunic.

“What the heck happened to you?” Celeste asked, on getting a look at Holt’s bloody and torn tunic.  “I was listening on the scanner, nobody said anything about you being hurt tonight!”

“Oh, well, that’s a long story,” Holt said.  “We weren’t gone any longer than usual, Celeste, but we were gone for about nine extra hours, to us.”

“Nine extra . . . ?” Celeste looked at the two of them carefully.  “Okay, start talking!”

Chuckling, at first, over the look on Celeste’s face, Holt and Alyssa told her of their trip to another, Earth, and the rescue of the parents of a ten year old boy, who would one day become that world’s first super-hero.

Celeste sat and listened, wide-eyed, looking even younger than the fifteen or so she usually projected, in her wonderment.  When Holt and Alyssa finished talking, she sat and stared, for a moment, then said, slowly, “Okay, give me a second to react, here . . . .

“In order, since I’m one of those ordered people:  Holy crap!  There really are alternate Earths!

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer is going to die?!  And be replaced by a sister she didn’t even used to have?!

“You met people out of a fantasy novel?!

“You fought aliens?!

And I missed it?!

Holt and Alyssa were almost rolling on the floor, laughing, when she was done.  Her excitement, wonder, and sheer indignation at having missed everything was funny, and, since she started laughing with them, after only a second of trying to keep a straight face, it was obvious that Celeste knew it was funny.

The laughing led to hugs.  The hugs led to Celeste beginning to kiss Holt and Alyssa, whichever was closer, at the moment.  And that led to clothes being pulled off, which led to the three of them making love by the fireplace, for a while.

About two in the morning, They finally slowed down, and showered.  Afterwards, Holt dressed, grinned mischievously, grabbed a huge pile of presents, and stocking stuffers, and went up to his Aunt and Uncle’s house, to add to the piles under and around the Christmas tree, and stockings.

For a little while, Alyssa and Celeste just snuggled.  After 15 minutes or so, Celeste got up, and went to Holt’s computer, turned it on, and got online.  Alyssa followed her over to the machine, and watched, as Celeste went to the Gryphon and Unicorn fan club, and posted a “Merry Christmas” message.

Afterwards, Celeste went to an online bookstore, and asked Alyssa what the title was, that Dawn the Vampire Slayer had given them, for the novel that Altairen and Naliara had stepped out of.

Fires of Justice,” Alyssa said, and Celeste keyed it in, and hit the search button.

A second later, the results came up.  Two matches, one an obvious crime-related novel, with a knife piercing a pair of ballet slippers, and a book on Texas Criminal Law, and the other . . . .

“That’s it,” Alyssa said.  “That’s Altairen, and Naliara.  I don’t know the third guy.”

“It just came out, early this month,” Celeste said.  “Hardback, list price is $27.95, their price is $19.57, plus shipping and handling.”

“How much, total?” Alyssa asked, heading for her purse, which was on a table by the couch.

“It’s $23.07, with regular shipping.”  Celeste did another click, and said, “Or, $26.57, for rapid shipping.  Be here . . . Wednesday the 29th, that way.”

“Order it, please,” Alyssa said, handing Celeste her Visa card.  “Have it sent to the apartment.  And see if the author has anything else on the site, please?”

“You got it.”  Celeste keyed in the information for shipping, and ordering, then started the search, muttering, “What the heck kind of name is ‘Castle,’ anyway?  And what will he name his kids?  Keep?  Moat?  Rampart?”

“Well, maybe it’s a nickname,” Alyssa said, chuckling.

The search results popped up, and there was only one more item, a trade paperback collection of a comic book mini-series.

Shadowcat:  Three of Nine, also published this month,” Celeste said, reading the description aloud.  “After Katherine ‘Kitty’ Pryde leaves the X-Men for the life of a college student, she discovers that the normal life she was looking for just isn’t for her.  She returns to the life of a hero, as a solo act, this time, after creating a new costume for herself.  She is pulled into a war between two psychotic serial killers, who are preying on the campus where she attends school – one a super-powered killer, the other a brilliant, if un-powered, former soldier.  Collects all eight issues of the popular limited series that has already launched a sequel.”

“Order that, too, please?”

“You got it,” Celeste said.  “Late presents for Holt?”

“Uh-huh.”  Alyssa smiled.  “And curiosity.  After all, this guy was doing a comic about us, on Dawn’s world!”

“Ooo – good point!”

Then Celeste went to her favorite search engine, and keyed in the author’s name.  The list that came up was, of course, fairly long – but the first nine hits, at least, were about the right person.

“Articles in a couple of magazines,” Celeste said.  “Other than that, nothing new.”

Dragon Magazine,” Alyssa said.  Real Heroes:  Role-playing in the Real World.”

Celeste clicked it, and was taken to the article, on the magazine’s website.  Soon, they were looking at statistics for Gryphon, Unicorn, Carl Jenkins, Alchemy, and Whitewing, all for a game system called the “Mayfair Exponential Gaming System.”

“This guy’s good!” Celeste said, after a moment.  “Really smart.”

“You know this game?” Alyssa asked.

“No, no,” Celeste said, smiling impishly.  “But, he gave you and Gryphon both this ‘attractive’ advantage!”

Alyssa chuckled, and kissed Celeste, as a thank you.

Celeste went back to the search results, and looked again.  The only other article was from Newsweek, and was titled, “Super-powered Heroes:  A Rational Look.”

“Rational?” Celeste said.  “Okay, let’s see what he says.”

The article was prefaced with a couple of paragraphs (written by the author, not an editor) detailing that the author was not a scientist, and was, in all likelihood, wrong – but that while he was no scientist, he had a grounding in physics, and had done all the research that he could.

“Wow,” Celeste said, after they had both read a couple of paragraphs past that disclaimer.  “This guy is pretty sharp.  He’s blaming most of it on telekinesis, of some sort.  I bet he’s right, probably, anyway.”

“Makes sense,” Alyssa agreed.  “Gryphon’s strength, my force bubbles, Minuteman’s strength, toughness, and flight.  Whitewing’s flight, and Zeema’s powers, as a whole.  And Pentacle . . . she might not like it, but, what he says makes sense.”

“Pentacle,” the author had written, “is a puzzle, at first – until you start looking at her powers as something besides the magic that she obviously feels that they are.

“She flies, she teleports, she reads minds, and she is openly telepathic and telekinetic.  So, stop and think, for a moment:  What has she done that can’t be expressed as telepathy or telekinesis?

“Nothing, so far as I can tell.

“There are those who would argue about two of her powers, I am sure, but, both lightning and teleportation can be explained by telekinesis, on an atomic level.  Exciting the air, to create the conditions for a lightning bolt, would not require massively strong telekinesis, only telekinesis on a very fine scale.  Excite a few atoms, shuffle a few electrons . . . bam!  Lightning strike.

“And teleportation . . . same thing.  The body is broken down to energy, per Einstein’s equations, and the mind, as a force, holds that energy cohesive, for the instant it takes to move to the desired place, then reassembles the body.  That kind of control would be, I suspect, impossible, on a conscious level – but it is well established that the subconscious mind is far more powerful than the conscious mind.

“So I contend that Pentacle does not ‘flaunt the laws of physics,’ as some scientists claim.  I feel that she simply affects the world in a fashion consistent with her worldview, personality, and belief system.  Obviously, she is some branch of Wiccan, and her beliefs seem to be quite deeply held – deeply enough to affect how her powers present themselves to the world around her, and even to herself.

“And, if you look at the other heroes in the world, and how they have presented themselves . . . personality and worldview seem to have a strong effect on how their powers manifest, in most cases.

“Gryphon is almost obsessive in his efforts to help everyone he can, and is a talented martial artist.  So, his powers manifest in a fashion that make him a better martial artist, and allow him flexibility, a wide variety of super-human abilities, to better help those who need it.

“Unicorn is obviously concerned with healing, and is, on the surface, not capable of violent offense – though a little imagination, added to her powers, obviously lessens that limitation, as she showed in her assist in bringing to justice the super-criminal T3c|<, just prior to this article’s writing.

“Minuteman?  He has admitted to wanting to be big and strong, all of his life.

“Zeema?  This one gives me some trouble, but, less is known about her personality than about most of the other heroes.  Her original appearance as a criminal, however, indicates that she may have felt a need to appear cold, and hard, to those around her.  Ice is both cold, and capable of being very hard.

“Whitewing?  The girl has admitted to having dreamt of flying for as long as she can remember.

“Personality affects powers, then, or so it would seem.  And that, in the end, says a great deal about the human mind, and the strengths and weaknesses inherent to it.

“And it is my belief that, given the powers that they have exhibited, and the personality traits, the most powerful super-powered hero out there right now is Pentacle.  As long as she believes that her abilities are magical in nature, she will be able to learn new abilities, and manifest them as her subconscious mind finds a way around the limitations of her conscious thoughts.  And I am very confident that her beliefs, as strong as they seem to be, will allow her to dismiss my words, should she read them, as the rationalizing of an over-skeptical mind.

“And on that note . . . more power to her!”

For a moment, the ladies were silent, before Celeste said, “This guy’s pretty swift.”

“Yes, and I think I’d like to meet him, sometime,” Alyssa agreed, as Celeste went back to the Gryphon and Unicorn fan club page.  “Smart, funny . . . and it doesn’t sound like he takes himself too seriously.”

“Yeah,” Celeste said.  “I can’t argue that.  He sounds like he’d be fun to have around.

“And, he’s a member of the fan club!”

“Really?  Let me see his profile.”  Lyssa leaned over, and looked at the profile on the screen.

Name:  Grey Paladin

Posts:  192

Status:  Sidekick

Date Registered:  Day 2

Gender:  Male

Age:  34

Profession:  Writer

Marital Status:  HA!

Location:  Colorado

There was more, his various messenger system IDs, and a listing for a homepage.  They were about to click on it, when Holt came back in, and Celeste, at a signal from Alyssa, killed the window, and began backing out of the web, so that Holt wouldn’t ask how they’d gotten to the man’s profile, and spoil the surprise of his late gifts.

“That took a while,” Alyssa said, standing and kissing him.

“Hey, present arranging is an art, lady!” Holt said, after parting, and bending to kiss Celeste.  “Never hurry art.”

“Okay,” Alyssa said, and grabbed him again.  “Hey, love-making is an art, too, you know.  Want to not-hurry some more art, you two?”

That suggestion met with ready approval.

_________________________________________________

Christmas was, by and large, a blast.

There was some melancholy, but it was minimal, though everyone missed Melinda, and Celeste and Alyssa both missed the deceased members of their families, and Kasey was a bit off kilter, due to missing (despite all they had done to her) her parents.

The gifts were plentiful, and mostly fun – Josh and Laurel only gave a few articles of clothing, to the younger kids, though Kelly and Kasey both got quite a lot, being of an age where clothing was fun.

Dinner was wonderful, and no one was able to feel less than at home.  Holt and Alyssa stayed in, though they did keep their beepers on.  (They also paid double time, to the employees of Legends, Inc, who were working that day.)  It seemed that even most of the criminals took Christmas off.

Claudia, who had gone home for a couple of days, called in the evening, after dinner, and talked to Holt, Alyssa, and Celeste for a few minutes each.  Holt sang, with occasional accompaniment from Alyssa, in the late evening.

It was, by and large, a perfect Christmas.

_________________________________________________

The day after was a busy one, for the heroes, and the criminals.  But, shortly after midnight that night, Gryphon and Unicorn were called to the Legends, Inc. offices, to check out a bit of good news, on CNN.

In San Francisco, California, a group of burglars who had hit several banks were apprehended by a costumed woman calling herself Ocelot.  She had gone on to take down several street criminals, muggers, pushers, and the like.

Ocelot was obviously Hispanic of descent, given her black hair, black eyes, and bronzed skin, and extremely beautiful, even though her face was partially covered by a mask.  She wore black slacks, that weren’t very slack, a gold-brown blouse, and a cloth jacket and mask, both patterned with the stripes and spots of the animal she had named herself for, and black boots and gloves.  (“Why do they call them ‘slacks,’ anyway?” Holt asked, on looking at a view of the woman from behind.  “They never are slack!”  Unicorn socked his shoulder, and they watched the rest of the story.)

She had demonstrated several powers, most notably her absolutely flabbergasting agility and balance.  At one point, she ran across a loose wire between two buildings, and never mind that freewire was much harder to merely walk than a tightrope, let alone run!

She was stronger than normal, though not tremendously so, and could jump more than 30 feet straight up, from a standing start.  Her fingernails would extend, like claws, and were dangerously sharp and tough, allowing her, at one point, to casually tear her way through a metal reinforced door, in only a few seconds.

She hadn’t stuck around to be interviewed, other than to give her name and a brief statement to a news crew that was lucky enough to catch her in the act of trashing a drug dealer who had just sold heroin to a pair of 15 or 16 year old boys.

“I’m Ocelot,” the new heroine had said shortly.  “The decent people around here got nothing to worry about, not from me – I’m not killing anyone, and I’m not hurting anyone who stays on the right side of the line.

“But the rest . . . muggers, robbers, rapists, pimps, and especially drug dealers – quit now.  Quit now, or get the Hell out of my town, you hear?

“It’s not safe no more, not for your kind!”

The story switched, after that, and Gryphon grinned.

“I think I’m going to like her,” he said.  “She’s cool.”

“And very hot,” Unicorn said.  “If we weren’t involved . . . wow!  And she sounds passionate, about her job.”

“Very,” Gryphon agreed.  “Three to one, her powers came from some sort of mishap involving drugs, or drug dealers.”

“No bet,” Unicorn said.  “No way, Tiger – you’re not getting my money that easy.

“It’s picking up, isn’t it?  The number of super-powers popping up, I mean?”

“Definitely,” Gryphon said.  He sobered, a little, and added, “And I’m not looking forward to the flipside – when the super-criminals start popping up.”

“Me either,” Unicorn admitted.  “Come on, Tiger – let’s go home.”

_________________________________________________

On Wednesday, December 29th, Holt moved into Alyssa’s condo, with her and Celeste.  That same day, he was given, as a welcoming gift, the hardback of Fires of Justice, and the trade paperback Shadowcat: Three of Nine, by the same author.  After kissing the ladies – who had decided to split the costs – he waffled for a moment, then, reasoning that the comic collection would take less time, began reading it.  Ninety minutes later, he passed it to Alyssa.

“Okay, if Brian needs to quit our comic, I nominate this guy, as successor,” Holt said.  “He doesn’t have Brian’s touch for dialogue, quite – but he knows drama and suspense.”

In the hour before dinner, he started reading Fires of Justice.

As a celebration of his moving in, that night, they went straight home, after he and his band played, and made love for as long as they could stay awake.

_________________________________________________

At about the time they were falling asleep, a jet coming in from Stockholm landed at O’Hare airport.  Tom Childers, who now thought of himself almost exclusively as Eidolon, got off the plane, collected his luggage, and went to the nearby Hyatt-Regency to get a room.

In his room, Eidolon checked the device that Teck had sent him, that analyzed his healing process.

“Recovery:  98.1% full,” it read.  Even as he looked, it changed to, “Recovery:  98.2% full.”

“Soon,” Eidolon whispered.  “Very soon, Teck, I will pay them back for you.  The Nguyen creature still lives.  I shall start with her, I promise.”

He left the hotel, and took a cab to the offices of Legends, Inc, to begin watching for the woman.  Later, he would call the man he had chosen to help him with the killing of the Nguyen creature, by distracting Gryphon and Unicorn.

Later.  There was no hurry.  She was already dead.

She just didn’t know it, yet.

_________________________________________________

Out of sheer necessity, Gryphon and Unicorn were out patrolling on New Year’s Eve.  They felt that, with the possible panic over the Y2K problem, they needed to be visible.  There wasn’t a lot of crime, before midnight, and, when the moment came and went, and there was no power outage, no interruption of any of the utility services, the city seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

“Wet firecracker,” Gryphon said, once the moment of supposed danger had passed by some ten minutes.  “Knew it would be.  If  people listened, they’d know, too.”

“People are always ready to listen to tales of doom and gloom,” Unicorn pointed out.  “But, really – I hope the people who were all paranoid, who took out all their money from the banks, and bought all the survival gear . . . I hope they feel silly.  And that they learned a lesson.”

“Doubt they did,” Gryphon said.  “ ‘Better safe than sorry,’ will be their excuse.”

“Probably,” Unicorn agreed.  “Hey, it seems quiet, Tiger.  What do you say we pick up Celeste, and go to Jack’s party?”

Jack Mixon, Holt’s bassist, had invited the whole band to the New Year’s party he was throwing, and Holt had agreed that he and the ladies might come by, after midnight.

“Suits me,” Gryphon said.  “The beepers will let us know, if we’re needed.

They weren’t.  The evening was uneventful, the party fun, and their bed warm, when they got home, that night.  It was the best New Year that any of the three ever remembered.

Five days later, their world shattered.

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