___ _____, ____ __ __ , ____ ____ ____ // ` / || /|| \\ /||\\ /||\\ | // \ // ` /|| \\ \\__ /|| /||__// /||_\\_ /|| \\| || ____ ||-- /||__// \\ || || \\ || \\ || \\ \\ || \\ || \\ `___// `--. `--. --. `--. `--. `--. --. `--|| `---' `--. --. || _____, __ __, ____ ___ `=/ / || /||\\ /|| // ` // ` .|. COHERENT /|| /||_\\_ /|| ||-- \\__ --X------------------ || || \\ ||____, \\ \\ '|` COMICS UNINC `--. `--. `--. `-----, `---' `___// #1 - The Stars Are Wrong Copyright 1995 by Dave Van Domelen \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/\/////////////////////////////////// ///////////////////////////////////\/\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ [cover is painted with an acetate overlay and shows a dimmed Constellation standing in the ashes of Net.ropolis clutching a handful of dust that blows away in the wind.] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greetings. Once I might have written stories of my own. Once I might have participated in the life of a Looniverse slightly dissimilar to the one you know. But the needs of your continuity pulled me from my life in the "real" world and forced the mantle I now wear onto my shoulders. For I am a Stranger. Once I was a writer in the fledgling LNH and with pride that exceeded common sense included myself directly in my stories as Dial "D" for Dvandom. In the rubble of continuity following the Cry.Sig, there was a need for my presence again as an observer and kibitzer, and I was pulled by another Writer's creation into this reality. That the other Writer was a shadow of myself only added to the irony. In the years since then I have taken the role sometimes of catalyst, sometimes manipulator, sometimes herald of impending doom...but most often of observer. I have witnessed events beyond your comprehension...almost beyond my own expanded understanding. I have also seen the most prosaic of acts played out over and over again on the cosmic stage. And, for purposes of the tale I am about to tell, I know of events as they happened...differently. The results sometimes remained the same, only the paths to the destinations changed. Other times, the history unfolded in an entirely different manner. On occasion I reveal these alternate realities for the edification of some net.hero who needs motivation to follow his fate. Or to find it. But now, for the first time, I will relate a tale simply for the satisfaction of the telling. Or perhaps to influence a Writer to follow his fate...or find it? * * * * Parallel to our own hierarchy of realities lies another, similar yet different in many important ways. The barrier of the Fourth Wall is far stronger there, yet ironically it was forces from beyond the Fourth Wall which doomed it. This is the universe of the Legion of Occult Heroes. There are many secrets of this world which I am forbidden to tell by powers greater than mine. But this one story I can tell. The story of how Constellation both followed part of his fate yet failed to discover his true fate in this reality. Much of his early story unfolded in a manner similar to that of the Floyd Johnsson you have known. He began his career as a supervillain named Flood in a universe that resonated with a roleplaying game campaign in the alternate Real World. This resonance is similar to yet different from the Fourth Wall separating the Looniverse from the Real World. He faced the Raiders and was jailed, much like his counterpart was, on a small island in Lake Superior where his powers couldn't help him escape. He and the other members of They Might Be Villains escaped into the Net due to the actions of Acton Lord in one of his early bids for Universal Domination. He was replaced and imprisoned by his Evil Twin, escaping when he joined with a spirit-entity from a Cursed alternate of his home reality. It is here where the story changes. As you now know, a wave of religious fanaticism swept over the Real World which both the LOHverse and this Constellation's home reality were linked to. An early casualty of this change in public sentiment was to make Roleplaying Games an object of public contempt, "tools of Satan," to a degree hitherto unseen. The gaming group Flood's universe was linked to broke up, as other members needed to hide their Roleplaying pasts in order to seek employment. The universe did not die, for it depended only on its creator for dramatic energies...as long as he thought about it, it existed. But the Raiders never travelled to the Curseworld. Lord Ebon was never driven from the body of that world's Wanderer, and he maintained an iron grip on the magicks of the world. Yet, in our hierarchy of worlds, the Wanderer had been the Right Person in the Right Place at the Right Time, a cosmic syzygy which ensured that the Curse would be broken and Lord Ebon deposed in all nearby realities. The ending of the tale had been penned, but it was up to different players to tell the rest of the story. Thus it was that when Flood escaped his cell, he arrived in far different circumstances and was to meet a different fate.... ############################################################################## ++Herehereherehomehome!++ chirped "Dot"'s voice in Flood's head. Slightly disoriented by the trip, he looked around. He was in Columbus, on High Street just across from campus, judging from the few weeks he'd spent here before the Raiders nailed him and his friends. It was winter, but oddly he didn't feel the cold. It was as if the wind just whistled through him without touching. "How long...?" he asked himself aloud. It had seemed like an eternity in that hellhole. He walked over to a newspaper machine, not noticing the fearful glances people gave him as they pulled their coats around them in the cold fog and scurried away. PRESIDENT RUSH SIGNS ANTI-SUPER BILL! screamed the headline in 36-point type. Below in 24-point letters it added, SUPERNATURAL ACTIVITY BANNED EFFECTIVE TODAY. "President Rush?! Last I checked, Quayle was president...how many years...?" He looked. March 2, 1993 was the date on the paper. He'd been in the trap maybe a week or so. How could so much happen in so little time? A new president, a radical shift in public opinion that could ram a bill like that through so fast? A harsh amplified voice interrupted his reverie. "YOU HAVE 15 SECONDS TO DAMP YOUR TESLA FIELD AND REVERT TO NORMAL OR YOU WILL BE HELD IN VIOLATION OF ACT OF CONGRESS!" it boomed from above. Flood looked up to see a trio of armored figures hovering over Long's Book Store. Their armor looked vaguely familiar...he knew he'd seen it before. Then he had it. Doublecross's Ringer agents, that's what they were. But what were they doing enforcing the law? He looked down at his arms, as if noticing for the first time that they were sheathed in black and dotted with stars. He kept forgetting how he must look now...his had always been a very easy to hide power. Not to mention useless in this situation, against fliers. And he didn't know how to turn it off, not anymore. "Dot!" he whispered. "Can you...hide, or something?" ++Whyhide?++ "Because these men will shoot at me if you don't," he hissed. ++OkayIhideinpocket.++ Suddenly the blackness shrank down into a bright spark and zipped into the pocket of his ragged clothes. The cold suddenly knifed into Flood's body and he doubled over in pain. The voice seemed to soften a little as it continued, "PLEASE REPORT TO A HOMELESS SHELTER, SIR. YOU CAN NO LONGER USE YOUR POWERS TO STAY WARM." Thankfully, traffic had stopped while people watched the Ringers (why were they enforcing laws?) deal with Flood, so he dashed across the street into the Ohio Union. As his bare feet stumbled up the icy steps, a foot shot out to trip him and he fell gracelessly against the plexiglass door. Peals of laughter slowly faded as the offender walked off. Shaking from the cold and the shock of impact, not to mention the exhaustion which returned to his body from the week of imprisonment, Flood barely managed to get the door open and stagger into the stairwell. "Hey, bum! Get the hell out of here and beg somewhere else!" shouted a young custodian from the stairs above. "Levar, what'd I tell ya about manners?" chided an older man, apparently a senior custodian. "This guy's been out in that crud without any shoes, at least let him warm up a bit before kickin' him out!" The man then turned to Flood and helped him up onto a bench. "Kids today, ain't got no manners. Seems every year we get a bigger crop of total assholes...pardon my french. Back in my day, before double-u double-u eye eye, kids had at least some manners. Ask me, the whole world's gone to, well, it's not good. I'm Carl, c'mon, I think I got a spare pair of old workboots I can let ya have. The holes for the laces are broken, but I can duct tape the things closed long enough fer ya t' make it to a shelter." Flood managed to stand with Carl's help, and the two started down the hallway to the elevator. They were intercepted by a distinguished looking blind man with a large guide dog...in fact, it looked more like a guide wolf. By his bearing he obviously belonged in such academic settings, and Carl picked up on that. "Afternoon, perfesser. Careful not to trip on this poor guy I'm helpin'." Disconcertingly, the wolf looked straight into Flood's eyes. "Ah, yes. Is he dressed in a somewhat tattered blue shirt and brown pants, with somewhat dirty blond-brown hair?" asked the professor. Carl looked shocked, about as surprised as Flood felt but was too tired to express. "Yeah, he is! You know him?" "In a manner of speaking. I was supposed to meet him at...the airport, but apparently he caught a taxi and must have been mugged by one of the many gangs working with the taxi drivers in this town." "Wait," said Carl suspiciously, "how did you know the shirt was tattered if yer blind?" "Well, his ragged breathing implied he lacked a coat, and his footsteps sounded like bare feet. If his coat and shoes were gone, it seemed reasonable he had been mugged, and hence would be in a generally tattered condition. Please, leave him to me, I can take him to a colleague's office in this building and get him some medical attention." Carl didn't seem convinced, but then...something...happened. Flood could almost smell a tingling in the air. Carl blanked out for a moment and then smiled. "Sure thing, perfesser. I'll get t' cleaning this stuff up then, if yer sure he'll be okay?" "I'm certain." There was another tingling and Flood suddenly felt a little better. Not hale and hearty, but well enough to walk on his own. He stood shakily. "I guess he's not so bad off anyway," commented Carl as he let go of Flood's arm. "Well, good luck, tho' I don't expect the cops'll catch the cruds that mugged ya." He turned and went downstairs. The stranger looked straight at Flood. "Come quickly, there is much of importance I must tell you...outworlder." * * * * The office was small, a visiting faculty sort of affair, little more than a glorified cubicle, but it gave the illusion of privacy. And after another of those strange tingles (why hadn't he ever felt this before? Was it an effect of the cold?) it became strangely quiet. "I've cast a minor spell to cloak what goes on in here. Don't worry about the NSSA men, their scanners cannot detect such subtle uses of power...I've had regrettably too much practice hiding my skills in the past decade." He paused to remove his overcoat while the wolf curled up near a heating grate and watched the pair with a strange intelligence in its gaze. Flood finally found the presence of mind to speak. "Who are you? What the HELL is going on here? Why are supervillains playing supercop?" The man sighed. "My name is Professor Perceval Happersen, I am a minor dabbler in the occult...a very dangerous occupation since Lord Ebon emerged. What is going on here is the result of a powerful curse cast several decades ago at the end of the Second World War. And I can only assume the answer to your final question is that the NSSA Enforcers resemble...or *are*... supervillains in your reality. You see, this is a twisted and blackened reflection of the world you were born in. In almost every respect it is far worse. And before you ask, I knew you were from another reality because you did not have the taint of the Curse on you, but were too young to have been born before 1945. True, you could have been an immortal of some sort, but if so you would have come to my attention...or been slain by Ebon...long before this." He paused, then started guiltily. "Oh, forgive me...you can activate that protective body sheath now, we are hidden from outside sensors and prying eyes." Flood nodded and sighed with relief as he touched the glowing spark of Dot in his pocket and felt the warm blackness spread over his body and glimmer to light with shards of icy brilliance. "How did you know about that? Are you faking the blindness?" Happersen shook his head and pulled down his sunglasses to reveal scarred and torn flesh, eyes which had been apparently clawed out. "No, I truly am blind in the eye. But I can see through John's eyes here," he nodded to the wolf. "John was once a man, with the mystic talent to project his spirit into the bodies of animals. To save me from the all-too-real Hound of the Baskervilles, he tried to take control of the hell-spawned Hound...and was trapped. But not before the Hound could rob me of my sight and slay John's original body. But enough of trivia," he ignored the snort John gave as if to say, "it's not trivial to ME," and continued, "Those untouched by the Curse are growing fewer and weaker every day. Your arrival may give us our final chance to break the Curse before Earth is doomed to self-destruction in a stew of its own evil. Every generation born is more evil and base than the one before, thanks to a curse cast with the dying breath of a Japanese mage in the radioactive ruins of Nagasaki. 'Let the world be destroyed by its children as the world destroyed my children,' was the rough text of the Curse. And I'm personally amazed that the world has survived as long as it has. We are awash in superhumans of great evil, our 'heroes' being greedy and self-centered, only fighting crime because it gives them an excuse to legally slaughter people. People are frightened, and the government recently reacted in the manner you know of now." "But...what can I do?" Flood asked. Maybe he had more power than before, but certainly it wasn't enough, was it? ++Freefriendsfreeothersfreefreefree!++ chirped Dot. "Free the others?" Flood asked, causing Happersen to cock his head. "Others?" ++Otherslikemetrappedinbaddarkman'splace++ Flood shrugged. "Others like Dot, trapped in a 'bad dark man's place.' Dot is some sort of psychic entity who forms this black covering," he explained, gesturing at himself. Happersen paused for a moment, as if dredging his memories. "Perhaps... I've heard rumors of Lord Ebon keeping the spirits of his enemies alive to torment. If your 'Dot' is one of these spirits who escaped, and if the powers she grants are typical, perhaps freeing her 'people' could prove a boon to our cause. Ask her if she knows where her 'people' are, if it turns out to be the Vatican, then it is indeed Lord Ebon who holds them prisoner." Somehow, Flood wasn't surprised that a man who would call himself "Lord Ebon" would try to corrupt a holy place like the Vatican to his purposes. "Dot, where are your friends?" ++Itakeyouwefreethem!++ "No, wait!" But it was too late, as reality shifted and rippled around Flood.... * * * * Tim shivered in the vaults beneath the Vatican, poring over forbidden texts for his master, Lord Ebon. He didn't shiver from cold, although it was dank and cool in those rooms hollowed out from old caves and catacombs. He shivered from withdrawal effects. Like many of his generation, he had been hell-bent on destruction by the time he reached college age. And like so many others, it was himself he was out to destroy. Drugs, alcohol, experimental mind-altering technology...he'd tried it all in a headlong and cowardly attempt to snuff out his consciousness in as painless a manner as possible. He hadn't even noticed that his haphazard experimentation had resulted in gaining supernatural powers until he woke up from an unusually vivid acid trip half a world away from where he had started, in an isolated region he couldn't possibly have gotten to by foot or plane. The irony didn't escape him, even in his often fevered state. He had gained the powers of a god, but no longer had the concentration needed to use them for anything but cheap parlor tricks and accidental jaunts. Lord Ebon had sensed his power and come to eliminate a potential rival, but on seeing Tim's sorry state laughed. He LAUGHED. Tim hated that laugh. Lord Ebon decided to take Tim on as an "apprentice," although court jester would be a more apt description. He even gave Tim access to the magickal library under the Vatican, secure in the knowledge that the shattered young man could do nothing with the secrets there, but had the magickal intuition to seek out anything interesting. Not court jester, then. Pet pig, digging for magickal truffles in the dirt of the library. Always pulled back before he could recognize any value in his prize or use it. Even when he wasn't pulled back by Ebon, his own addiction-wracked body prevented him from using anything too potent. He coughed, his body shaking like a hooked fish, then wiped the thin spittle of blood off the page. Something was different. The words had changed. He rubbed the blood around some more, and the page flowed into new patterns. Hellllo.... Fighting against his own short-circuiting mind, Tim concentrated on the Latin words inscribed on the page, translating them as he mumbled them to himself. "Redemption for the wicked, should they embrace it. Weal for the sick, should they need it. For the Lord provides balm for those who repent, for those who know." Gnostics. Those who know. An old Gnostic text, from the days before the Church abandoned magic. Something twisted slightly in Tim's heart. Driven so far into evil, was forgiveness possible? A slight glow suffused the page as he read on....