New Mages #4
"Anti. Gravity. Climax"
(Still Act IV)
by Jacob Milnestein

The first atomic bomb detonated at 5: 30 a.m. on the 16th July in 1945 above the skies of a desolate expanse of desert named Trinity in New Mexico. That single event, that first birth of a new power previously realised only in the hearts and minds of alchemists and mages from times past, scarred the world in a way that nothing since the meteor impacts that had brought about the terrible floods during the reign of the megalithic cultures in Europe and abroad, had.

It was that tremendous power that had changed the world so completely and utterly that many of the old ideals and preconceptions about humanity and its role on the small blue green planet it inhabited had to be redefined. No longer were battlefields destined to be littered with the proud detritus of civilisation, trampled beneath hoof and wheel: now entire cities could be effectively removed from the map within the blink of an eye. It was this power that forced humanity to redefine itself and thus paved the way for the logical dissection of the once noble traditions and secrets to which the mages and their forefathers were privy.

Culture, society, history and tradition; nothing was left untouched by the devastating power born in Trinity and so it was, with a heavy heart, that Johann Weisz, forsaken son of the former Science Hero, Magenta the Magician, was also forced to deal with his place in the world and his role as a magician when confronted with a desert of not dissimilar proportions to that forgotten earthly expanse.

Slowly he opened his eyes, willing himself to wakefulness. The nausea of their journey through space, courtesy of the shattered remnants of the Cybernetic Man still lingered, his head pounding and stomach churning. With an effort he pulled himself up from the smooth black sand and looked up. The sun filled the majority of the sky, its sheer size and brilliance causing him to wince and bow his head almost the moment he looked up. He closed his eyes, trying to force the illness from and seeing nothing but spots of colour in the darkness behind his eyes.

"Marvellous isn't it?" A soft, educated voice murmured at his side.

His tired body tensed immediately, his thoughts collapsing into chaos. The voice was not Manly's, that much he was certain of. It commanded too much unspoken authority and conviction to be that of the failed second generation Science Hero.

Slowly he turned, forcing his eyes open despite the brilliant luminance of the sun above him. Sitting upon a rock, his elbows resting lazily upon his knees was a thin aristocratic looking gentlemen dressed in a remarkable uniform of what looked to be 18th century design. It was immaculately white despite the surroundings and decorated with a simple circle of yellow upon the chest. Around the padded shoulders was an elegant cloak of dark red velvet that trailed back into the dark sand beneath his black boots. His face was clean-shaven and his nose arched whilst a tangle of blonde hair rested disobediently atop his brow.

And yet Weisz couldn't help but think that there was something odd about the stranger's complexion.

Hesitantly he took a stop forwards, ignoring the stirring form of Michael Manly lying at the other's feet.

"I dare say you've got an awful lot of questions to ask," The stranger remarked, his accent so perfectly English that it betrayed his birthplace as someone utterly alien. "All of which I shall endeavour to answer in the time allowed us once your friend awakens from his slumber."

Weisz took a few more steps forwards until he was standing directly in front of the other and it suddenly occurred to him that the problem he had detected with the complexion was its colour.

The other seemed to detect this and smiled warmly.

"You noticed that did you? Yes, well, I suppose I should explain a little. My name is Ura God, I am - or rather was - the guardian of Braeburn's capital city."

Weisz regarded the stranger's soft blue skin with a disturbing sensation of awe and fear, his head moving softly from side to side in the subtlest of unconscious denials.

"You're one of the Millennium Men aren't you?" He whispered, looking down at the symbolic sun that adorned the deity's uniform.

Ura God nodded slightly.

"Yes and no. I suppose I am a Millennium Man in that such a title would be the most convenient reference point for you, but I prefer not to think of myself in such terms. It puts such awful limitations on one's day, I feel."

Weisz pulled his eyes from the symbol and met the other's gaze.

"Did the others send you? The armada, I mean? The ones that are in space?" He asked anxiously.

Ura God smiled in a comforting manner.

"Goodness gracious, no. I can safely assure that I'm in no way associated, or even particularly interested, in the politics of that band of ruffians and scallywags." He paused, a momentary expression of uncertainty crossing his pale blue features. "I am however, slightly worried about the fate of your friend, Mister Manly. This is why I established contact with that awful Romanova monster."

A smile crossed Weisz's face despite himself.

"Not a fan, I take it?" He asked.

"Indeed not." Ura God responded and his face suddenly darkened. "I could tell you things about Romanova that would ensure you never sleep well again, Mister Weisz. In fact, upon your return home I strongly urge you to settle whatever matters you have in that forsaken city and move out for good."

The familiar rebelliousness, cultivated early in his youth, surfaced once more and Johann Weisz found his smile twisting with arrogance and defiance.

"And miss all the fun? I don't think so, friend."

Ura God shrugged. "On your own head be it, Mister Weisz. But let's not sour the mood with such matters. I believe your fellow traveller is awakening, in which case it'll soon be time for me to tell you both my little story."

Upon the dark sands, Michael Manly slowly opened his eyes.

* * *

Yehovah Vehayah's mouth opened in a silent scream, her hair fluttering as if caught by some wind despite the absence of any elemental forces in the deep recesses of the vacuum.

The wreckage of the Serpent Road floated before, trapped in the orbit of the flame that surrounded her and signalled the charging of her awesome power whilst the enemy - the angel that had once been Tanya Clandestine - hovered smugly in the void beyond, her arms folded across her naked chest and her expression one of extreme satisfaction.

[Please, Yehovah, refrain from such displays.] The enemy's voice whispered within the turmoil of her mind. [I am no Imperial Magistrate that you can simply scare with parlour tricks and transformations.]

The flames about Vehayah flared even brighter and she threw herself forwards, her burning sword rising up above her head.

Her sword slammed into the enemy's own blade and, despite her best efforts, ceased to move forwards despite how hard she pushed.

[Who are you?] Vehayah demanded, screaming out with her mind. [Tell me your name!]

A smile cracked upon the enemy's face.

[I'm hurt you don't remember me, dear. I wonder how much of you remains in that frail human body you've locked yourself in.] Without blinking she pushed back against Yehovah's attack and sent her opponent spiralling backwards amongst the wreckage. [But for old time's sake I'll grant you that one request before I kill you.]

Vehayah steadied herself against the pull of the abyss and brought her head up, meeting her assailant's calm and patient gaze with sheer hate and contempt.

[My name,] The voice whispered softly in her head. [Is Raguel.]

* * *

Mikael laughed softly to himself, his breath laboured and awkward. Beneath the torn flesh of his bleeding feet the metal felt cold and insubstantial, the wounded moonbase lacking in substance and conviction. The unconscious body of the enemy child lay sprawled upon her back some distance where he had dragged her from the corridor, her face bruised and bleeding from the sheer force of his attack but otherwise unharmed and ignored. Her life was insignificant, all of their lives were. In the moment that Tanya had ascended into her angelic alter ego, Mikael had realised that no one was going back home.

This terrible understanding had driven him to the brink of sanity, his one sanctuary of the past years stripped away from him and leaving nothing but hatred and resentment. At last, after so many years of suppression, he was going to inflict that terrible emptiness on the rest of the world.

Laughing softly to himself, a line of spittle running freely from his lower lip, Mikael, last of the Malachim, opened the heart of Churchill's ailing computer network and dug deep inside with the sheer force of his battle-ravaged mind.

Moments passed as the dying computer tried to resist as he stood immobile before it, his brow furrowed in concentration and then with a last cry of victory, the fallen angel slumped forwards over the console and slid onto the floor. A minute later and the entire structure of Moonbase Churchill exploded, tearing it free from the surface of the moon and shattering its life support systems.

Silently, the insane angel drifted wordlessly towards slumber.

* * *

"I've waiting for you both for a very long time and now that you're finally here I must confess I'm somewhat concerned that we won't have as much time together as I would have quite liked." He announced, snapping his silver pocket watch shut and dropping it back into the folds of his uniform.

"Hang on, what do you mean you've been waiting for us both?" Weisz protested, pointing accusingly at the stunned figure of Manly. "He's the hero, not me."

Ura God smiled knowingly.

"Quite so, Mister Weisz, quite so. However at this point I'm afraid that you're destinies are so entwined together that it's somewhat troublesome to see quite where one ends and the other begins." He offered a mock sigh and a slightly effeminate flutter of the eyelashes before recommencing his speech: "In fact the reason why we're in such a predicament is due to the terrible amount of cross-pollination we have going on in your little corner of the world."

A frown crossed the bewildered Science Hero's face as he rose unsteadily from where he had landed on the soft black sand.

"I'm not sure I follow you, sir." He murmured, glancing momentarily at Weisz, whose expression offered no reassurance whatsoever.

Ura God smiled knowingly but failed to bring his eyes up to look at them.

"Think of it as a garden." He said, his voice dropping in volume slightly as he studied the sand beyond his boots. "The future is like a cradle of plots and possibilities, each one wound tightly about the other. Sometimes it's hard to work out which path is an actuality and which is just the expansion of a healthy neighbour." He paused and smiled, seeming to shake off the momentary sadness that had settled over him. "Of course the existence of Pacific City helps the cause slightly. Without that it might be impossible to casually inspect the strands, however, due to the lack of an equivalent metropolis on any of the other Earths, we have at least been given a head start."

"You make it sound like a race." Manly commented, his tone betraying his uncertainty.

Ura God met his gaze.

"It is, I'm afraid." He replied with sincerity.

"A race against whom?" Weisz chimed in.

The alien kept his eyes focused on Manly. "Millennium Man." He said in a sudden tone of absolute emotional absence. "All six million of him."

* * *

There was a moment of silence, the dim light of the small planet beyond illuminating one half of the space station Utopia whilst the rest remained clouded in the shadow of the moon. Then, suddenly the entire heavens exploded with brilliant light as two warring angels slamming into the surface of the small grey rock beneath them.

The ground shattered, leaving a giant scar on the terrain of the barren rock whilst the shockwave was so powerful that it caused the remnants of the Serpent Road to rain down upon the space station Utopia in a shower of destruction. Metal twisted and buckled against the bombardment of the man-made asteroids before finally collapsing beneath the impact leaving the interior of the station exposed to the cold pull of the vacuum.

A moment of terrible emptiness passed before the station began to fold, thrusting its interior out through the sizeable wounds in its side as it crumpled in upon itself.

Trembling from her cuts, Yehovah pulled herself slowly from the crater of ruination that extended around her, eyes darting back and forth as she searched desperately for a glance of where the other angel was hidden. Blood seeped from superficial wounds upon her person, drifting through the air in a semi-solid state, attracting satellites of dust and chunks of displaced moon rock.

A flicker of motion at the corner of her eye suddenly warned her of the other angel's presence and a fraction of a second too late she glanced upwards to see Raguel bring both her fists down in a forceful, downward arc that was little more than a flicker to the human eye due to the fluidity the moon's gravity added their movements.

The fists smashed into Yehovah's face and sent her sprawling backwards, tearing a trench upon the moon's surface several miles wide. Staggering, the angel picked herself up once more, wiping the slow, wayward beads of blood from her face before they gathered in a dribbling collective before her.

[You can't beat me, Raguel,] She called out angrily. [Though I appreciate your efforts none the less.]

Raguel descended from the dark heavens, her feet hovering above the ruined rock and her body wrapped in the ethereal ghost fire of her powerful aura.

[I don't have to beat you, Yehovah,] She answered with a faint smile. [All I have to do is make you lose your concentration and revert back to your human form. After that nature will do the rest.]

The sudden shock of realisation caught Yehovah off guard and in that moment, Raguel made her move. In the flash of an eye she brought her sword down, carving it into the soft snow-white flesh of the opposing angel's shoulder.

Yehovah screamed out in agony, her eyes spinning in their sockets as a million terrible and all too human emotions and experiences flooded back into the cerebral cortex of her host mind. She felt herself withering and dying before the force of the woman-child's memories, images transposed over her own personality.

[Father...] Spirit and host gasped in unison as the image of her own creator coalesced with that of Burke's own father.

The words responded in the space between her and the human. Desperately she struggled, trying to resist the sheer grief of the host's irrational mind and failing. Forcing the mouth of the creature open she cried silently into the vacuum and then crashed to the barren ground beneath her, her entire consciousness driven back into the evolutionary remnants of reptile brain.

Dust particles blossomed around her fallen body and Raguel towered over her, her hands sliding slowly from the blade's scarab handle as the weapon twisted in the wound with the violent motion of collapse.

[It is over.] She whispered softly.

* * *

Jeffery Carter glanced at the desolate hallway behind him, the red lights flickering deep within the bowels of the dying installation. The weight of the curious 'supervillain' rested heavily on his shoulder, her eyes flickering in and out of consciousness.

"Wow, if these guys were hoping to recoup their losses with tourism I think they're going to be really disappointed." He said, aware of the utter pointlessness of his glib comments but trying to give the girl something to focus on, anything to keep her from slipping into sleep. "We should write a letter to the management and, you know, complain and stuff - try and get our money back or something because I really don't think that they thought this whole military base on the moon thing through."

The woman smiled through gritted teeth, the wounds inflicted by his fellow team member still raw and troublesome.

"What's your name, boy?" She asked, her voice a dry whispered between ragged breaths.

"Bush43," He responded instinctively. "Or Mister President, if you'd prefer."

Her strangely lupine eyes remained fixed on him and again she asked: "What's your name?"

He bit his lip underneath the mask, suddenly compelled to throw away the entire pretence of his hidden identity and simply confess. He could almost imagine Alfonse's disapproving glare fixed upon him as the thought gestated within his tired mind.

"Bush43," He answered again. "At least for now."

She nodded slowly but kept her eyes fixed firmly upon him. "Bush," She said, spitting the word out as if it were an insult. "Be quiet."

He opened his mouth to protest and then closed it shut again, nodding firmly.

Without warning she suddenly shoved him away, twisting around and stumbling under the weight of her injuries. Carter crashed into the wall and allowed himself to fall down against it. He opened his mouth, ready to launch into a verbal assault upon the woman that he had been trying to assist, until he finally saw what had frightened her so.

Standing in the corridor behind them was Anna Romanova, a cigarette hanging loosely from the left corner of her mouth and a great sword swung awkwardly over her shoulder.

"I hope there's a very good reason for why you're helping this animal, Jeffery." Romanova announced, her voice dark and threatening.

"Christ, so much for the secret identity." Carter murmured as he picked himself up and swiftly put his own body between the girl and the approaching Pacific City figurehead. "I don't think that she's our enemy." He said loudly, hoping that his voice carried a tone of authority that he really didn't feel.

"I beg to differ, Jeffery." Romanova continued, her dark eyes fixed upon him and her pace remaining unbroken. "I think she is our enemy."

"But she hasn't done anything!" Jeffery called out, panic rising within him.

"That you know of." Romanova smiled disconcertingly.

Desperation filled his mind.

"That's crap, I can't argue against that! How do you expect me to convince you if you come out with stuff like that? Christ, that could apply to anyone."

Romanova stopped directly in front of him, her cold eyes looking down at him whilst still capturing the crouched form of the other woman in her gaze.

"I don't expect you to convince me." She said firmly. "Now kill her."

The woman's eyes flickered from the form of Romanova to the masked man that had previously saved her.

"I'm not going to kill her." Carter whispered quietly, his fists clenched. "There's no need for it."

"Kill her, Jeffery." Romanova whispered, her voice soft and soothing. "Kill her now."

His vision clouded, the other's distant words filling his mind. He felt lost, alone within the warm comfort of that securing voice.and then an image flashed before him, the sudden and final destruction of his apartment building and the smouldering corpses of his family.

"I'm not going to kill her." He snarled, his teeth grinding together beneath the constraining latex of the novelty mask.

Romanova smiled sadly and her eyes gleamed.

"Then you're useless to me. After all, what good is a soldier that won't kill?"

He looked up, his eyes clouded with rage. The mammoth blade of the sword caught him squarely in the chest, its great length reaching as far back as the woman he had sought to protect, knocking them both backwards.

He scrambled desperately, looking down at his shirt and expecting to see the grotesque manifestation of some terrible wound but there was none. Slowly the realisation dawned that she had hit him with the flat of the weapon rather than the edge. The same sword that had decimated the Siege Engine and Cliff Jerrod had spared not only him but also the woman behind him. Awkwardly he dragged himself up from the floor and watched as Romanova turned away and began to skulk back down the vast corridor.

He opened his mouth but once more words failed him.

Silently the form of Anna Romanova turned the corner and disappeared from sight.

* * *

"Six million Millennium Men?" Manly questioned, his eyes wide with shock and horror.

The old god nodded curtly and waited a moment before finally elaborating: "They are the most confident and powerful of thousands and thousands of Millennium Men, amassed from millions of possible timelines and gathered together in this dimension to prepare for their eventual conquest of all reality."

"H-How long have they been there?" Manly gasped.

Ura God sighed and cast his eyes downwards. "The first one arrived 64 years ago from Earth #1. He is the most powerful avatar of the Millennium Man mythos that has ever existed and he is the only one, aside from yourself, that does not correspond to the three usual candidates experienced in the infinite expanse of other dimensions."

"Wait a minute," Weisz interjected, beginning to wish that he had had the forethought to bring his hipflask with him. "I thought Burke was the only first generation Millennium Man."

"No," Ura God said, his voice suddenly full of sorrow. "Burke is the only first generation Millennium Man bar one. His subordinates are always Bruce Todd and Alexander Chrysostom who often replaces Todd as Millennial Boy but just as you, Michael," He turned his gaze to Manly once more. "Are the first example of Todd's failure to become Millennium Man so Burke is, in fact, a corruption of the original scheme of things. Perhaps if the candidate for the original Millennium Man had been the same on your Earth as it was on Earth #1 then there would have been no need for Winters to act in the way that he did."

"So who the hell is the grand exception to the rule then?" Weisz demanded, aware that he was shouting. A trembling terror had risen in his stomach and threatened to take hold of his entire body.

Ura God looked away once more.

"He...he is the most powerful creature I have ever faced. I instructed him here on Braeburn - or rather the Braeburn of another reality - and dispatched him to Earth #1 myself." Tears welled up in the corners of the alien's eyes. "He was the apple of my eye, my pride and joy."

"Who is he?" Weisz screamed, driven close to the edge of madness by the sudden terrible feeling of dread.

Ura God looked sadly up, his face marked heavily by the power of his emotion.

"He is my son," He whispered. "His name is Millenius."

* * *

Raguel remained patiently on the edge of the dust cloud that surrounded her fallen opponent, her arms crossed and her feet hovering just above the tired and barren surface of the giant rock. Her face remained expressionless, the emotion that she had always exerted now conspicuous by its absence.

Like Mikael, she had been exiled from the Host, bound to a simple talisman and cast out into the cosmos. Her extradition had occurred millennia before Mikael had been cast out of the bastard society the angel Akathriel Yan Yehod Sebaoth had founded within the folds of the dimension she had been sworn to protect. Not that the Magistrate had been the first messenger to take advantage of her placement as guardian but she was, the last Raguel had heard, the most successful.

She sighed wearily, a reflection of her symbiosis with the human host she wore. Azrael, Basileus, Hadranel, Uriel, Yahriel - all of them were lost to her now.

A sudden flash of movement brought her back to the present and with a sudden explosion of warmth and pain she realised her failure. The warmth in her belly subsided, giving away to icy pain and slowly, through the cloud of moon dust, the features of her opponent loomed forth, pale fingers wrapped around her own sword as it twisted in her gut.

[Vehayah...?] She called out, suddenly fearful upon the dark horizon of the alien rock.

The face of the angel emerged from the dust however behind the eyes was another intelligence, a mind with more terrifying secrets than Raguel had ever encountered.

[No.] The other replied firmly. [My name is Victoria Burke.]

[How...? How can you exist...how is it that you can use Vehayah's powers?] The forlorn angel gasped.

Victoria Burke smiled but her eyes remained harsh.

[By being stronger.] She whispered, revealing her sharp predator's teeth and twisting the sword. [By being stronger than you, by being stronger than Manly and Winters and Weisz and everyone who has ever stood against me. By being stronger than my bastard father!]

With a final savage burst of energy she tore the sword in an upward arc and shredded the impaled angel's insides, dividing the corpse messily down the middle. Lumps of clotted blood spilt languidly forth from the moist interior, equal parts Raguel and Tanya Clandestine.

Silently, Burke withdrew the sword, watching as the blade retreated into the handle of the silver scarab. For a moment she wondered what would happen if she were to use the silver object to ascend once more whilst already in possession of Yehovah Vehayah's powers but the thought died before it was even born. The trauma, she knew, would be unimaginable.

Silently she turned from the slow blossoming flower of Raguel's corpse and drifted back across space towards the remnants of Moonbase Churchill and the waiting figure of Romanova.

* * *

"The New Mages of Earth #746364 have been labouring under a misconception, I'm afraid. Pacific City is not an anomaly - it's simply unusual. Like your own planet, Earth #1 once had a Pacific City. Originally the trinity of Millenius, Aristotle Licuan and the spirit, Yehovah Vehayah, protected it against its myriad enemies. For many years it prospered until eventually, upon the 29th of October 1929, Heinrich Goethe murdered Licuan.

"Without its guardian, the city collapsed. Vehayah was torn from her host and returned to the scarab which, in turn, was cast out into the cosmos and Millenius was forced to retreat to England." Ura God paused in his oration and waited for the frown upon Weisz's face to become a question.

"Are you saying that the scarab Mysteria uses doesn't originate in this timeline?" He asked, his voice dangerously low and level.

Ura God nodded slowly.

"That is correct. Yehovah Vehayah's scarab arrived on your Earth centuries before the first apes pulled themselves upright and began to carve secrets on the wall however its true heritage is with that of the people of Earth #1. Of all the various scarab artefacts scattered over the many Earths, Vehayah is the only one that has seen the same cycle of time rise and fall on two separate variant planets." He smiled caustically. "You might even say that Vehayah's scarab was adopted by your Earth despite its extra-terrestrial origins. Of course whether Vehayah knows this or not is another matter - there seems to be a certain habit for travelling angels to become rather forgetful of their previous escapades. Of course some seem to remember better than others but, for the most part, it would appear that angels aren't very good of keeping track of themselves."

"So there's another scarab - one that was made on our world." A frightening smile crossed Weisz's youthful features, his expression betraying the fact that he had ignored the old god's theorising on the nature of angels. "That's all I needed to know."

Placing two fingers to his forehead, Weisz closed his eyes and surrendered his body to the fiery manifestation of his spiritual aura.

"Wait!" Ura God called. "Please, Mister Weisz, don't do anything rash."

Hesitantly, Manly took a step towards his awkward travelling companion.

"Johann, please don't leave without all the facts. This is bigger than your dispute with Mysteria." He said quietly, sounding more like his former occupation as Millennium Man than he might have realised.

Weisz's eyes snapped open.

"Nothing is bigger than my 'dispute' with Burke." He responded, his voice cruel and vicious. "Why the hell do you think I signed up to be a part of this sham? It certainly wasn't to protect some godforsaken backwater Australian city. Everything I've done since I arrived in Pacific City has been part of the processes of reclaiming my heritage and if there's another scarab out there that I can use as a stepping stone to obtaining the one that is rightfully mine then I'm going to use it."

The flame flickered and his muscles tensed as he prepared to launch himself into the vacuum. Manly reached out and placed a firm hand on his shoulder and the flames began to undulate erratically because dissipating completely. Weisz's eyes fell accusingly on his companion.

"H-How did you do that?" He whispered fearfully.

"It's the planet." Ura God murmured in awe. "The planet is rebuilding him."

Both Weisz and Manly turned to glare at him as his eyes flickered excitedly, punctuating his speech with hand gestures and over-enthusiastic body language.

"The planet is rebuilding him!" He repeated. "Essentially there's no difference between Millenius, Henry Burke and yourself - you all have the same power, born on Braeburn and driven by the sun. It's only the varying degrees of imagination that separate the extent of your abilities. The planet is responding to your abilities and healing you."

"B-But I don't have any abilities." Manly protested as he turned away from Weisz. "Not since...not for a while now."

"Poppycock!" Ura God snapped. "You still have the ability to use your powers, you're just too stupid."

"But the planet's making him stronger isn't it?" Weisz countered.

"No! There is no way to become stronger, the power bequeathed to him has its limitations, as I've said before."

A faint rumble echoed through the alien world, the ground beneath them trembling.

"Then what is it doing?" Weisz shouted.

"It's...it's turning him into Millenius."

* * *

The crippled moonbase seemed to blossom once more into sound, the sudden screech of the alarms echoing through its ruined corridors as a series of low rumbles sounded in the distance. The lights flickered and then died, replaced by a hideous blood red glare from the emergency alarms.

Nervously Jeffery Carter glanced over his shoulder before turning back to the wounded woman leaning against the wall.

"You know, I don't think I caught your name." He murmured beneath his mask.

She looked up with a wry smile.

"Mmm. Your little friend was too busy trying to fit her fist inside my mouth when I tried to introduce myself." She smiled wryly. "My name is Eldritch."

He paused as if waiting.

"Anything else to that?"

"Eldritch," Genuine warmth emerged from her careful smile as she mimicked his earlier words. "At least for now."

He glanced over her shoulder and the three large depressions imbedded in the wall she leant against.

"Well, listen Miss. Eldritch, I think I'm going to have to do something you won't like."

She arched an eyebrow playfully.

"And what would that be, Mister President?"

Slowly, his heart racing insanely within his chest, Jeffery Carter placed a hand palm down against the wall and reached up with his other to pull the mask back, revealing his dishevelled hair and the beads of sweat on his forehead.

She smiled and he leant in closer, so close that he could fell her breath upon his face. Slowly, she closed her eyes in expectation.

"Listen, my name's Jeffery Carter," He murmured urgently, their lips almost touching. "I need you to do something for me," He paused, a sudden sharp stab of guilt hitting him between the eyes. "When you get to Pacific City come and find me and I promise I'll make this up to you."

Her eyes snapped open and swiftly his hand darted across the wall panel next to him. The wall behind Eldritch slipped open and she fell awkwardly back into the cramped confines of one of the station's escape capsules. He smiled weakly as the door slid shut leaving her no time to get up, and apologised wordlessly through the glass panel.

Within the capsule, Eldritch's face warped with anger, her fury at his condescending attempts at protection all too obvious upon her face. A hundred expletives tumbled from her dry lips; all of them directed at Carter as he smiled sadly and keyed the release for the capsule.

There was a tremendous hiss and she was slammed back into the curved nose cone of the capsule. The image of Jeffery Carter faded into nothing and silently she watched the moon and the vast and silent shape of Utopia recede into nothingness.

* * *

"You have to understand, Michael, that Millenius is really not a villain in the way that you understand it." Ura God whispered urgently. "He is powerful beyond anyone you have ever faced before and is certainly immoral enough to place his own agenda over that of his planet's but he is not a supervillain, you can't define him as such."

"And this planet.that is what it's turning me into?" Manly responded in a concerned voice.

"Yes. You both have the same point of origin, all of you, every single Millennium Man that has ever existed, has entered the game with the same extent of possible power. Some have been successful in tapping the furthest reaches of that power whilst others have not."

"How much power did Burke tap?" Weisz interjected.

Ura God turned patiently to look at him.

"The Henry Burke of your world tapped only the faintest amount of the entire power available to him." He turned back to look at Manly. "But you, Michael, you have the potential to become as powerful as Millenius himself," He paused, his eyes searching Manly's face. "Which is why I want you to stay here and learn from me. Only then will you be able to go to him and put an end to this fruitless gathering of armies. You two were destined to be two halves of the same entity."

"We don't have time for this." Weisz hissed in Manly's ear.

Manly glanced at him uncertainly but said nothing.

"If you leave now you may never become able to understand who Millennium Man really is, Michael."

Michael turned his eyes to the black sand beneath his feet.

"There is a situation occurring on the moon, sir." He said, calmly and patiently. "We have to attend to it but." He paused and looked up, his face twisted in concentration. "But I will try and return."

"Idiot." Ura God spat quietly. "You won't return. You can't."

"Hey!" Weisz shouted. "Enough of the Yoda routine, already. We're leaving so why don't you tell us how we can get off this rock."

Ura God smiled quietly.

"You'll have to fly home, I'm afraid. I do so hope you have enough happy thoughts to sustain you."

"Son of a bitch." Weisz responded and glanced at Manly.

"You were very eager to try earlier. I can't see what's changed, Mister Weisz."

Manly stood between them, his hands clenched into fists.

"You say I still have the power - the same power I accepted from Burke, the power that you misdirected Burke into giving me." He closed his eyes. "Despite all the damage, despite the loss and the heartache, you believe I have this power." His body flared with a sudden explosion of ghost fire and he opened his startlingly blue eyes. "I figure that's got to count for something."

* * *

The angel's soft white feet alighted upon the cold ground before the patient figure of Romanova.

"Victoria." She whispered quietly, gazing at the angel's features.

"H-How did you know?" Victoria Burke murmured, transfixed by her employer's large eyes.

Romanova smiled warmly.

"I have a knack for these things." She reached out and placed her hands upon either side of the fearsome visage of the younger woman's face. Her warm smile swelled and her eyes glistened. "That's magnificent, Victoria. To have achieved complete control over Yehovah Vehayah's powers, to have asserted your personality against such overwhelming resistance." Her voice trailed off in awe.

Victoria blushed, an expression that Yehovah's translation of her own flesh was obviously not built to accommodate as it came out more like a half-grimace.

Romanova pulled back and looked up finding herself comforted with the hard eyes and short sand coloured hair of the woman's counterpart instead.

"I'm impressed, princess, really I am." He murmured, wearing Anna's smile. "You've come a long way since we first met. I'm proud of you."

"Thank you." Victoria responded awkwardly, her eyes turning away from him. "Can I speak to Anna again, please?"

Romanov smiled darkly.

"Business first." He held out the flat of his palm and waited.

Still avoiding his gaze, Victoria Burke dropped the silver scarab that Clandestine had used for her transformation into his hands.

Romanov hissed sharply, drawing air in through his closed teeth in delight as he turned the scarab around, observing it from every angle in the dim, red light of the dying station. Dark shadows seemed to spread beneath his sharp eyes and he looked up, fixing the shape of the naked woman with his cool gaze.

"It's time to leave." He announced suddenly.

Burke looked up, startled.

"What about the others?"

"They can find their own way home." Romanov smiled. "It'll be their first real challenge, getting off this base before it detonates and surviving." He titled his head. "After all, Victoria, you wouldn't want to be leading a bunch of incompetents, now would you?"

She looked up suddenly.

"Me?"

Romanov smiled his sister's smile again.

"Yes, you. I'm appointing you the leader, sweetheart. You brought the scarab back, which showed initiative. Once the rest of them show a similar level of intuitiveness then they'll have proved themselves and if they don't," He shrugged casually. "Well, I'm sure we can find someone else who can fit into their spare costumes."

With a grin he dropped the scarab into the deep folds of his coat pocket and held out his hand again. Hesitantly she reached out to him and placed her milk white hand in his. White light engulfed them, flaring viciously in the blood red light of the corridor and in a moment they were gone, the moonbase left far behind them.

* * *

Ura God looked upon them with sad eyes; Weisz standing agitated, murmuring mantras and incantations to assist in his flight through space, and Manly, flames of incandescent energy shrouding the details of his expression.

"Go, if you must." The older deity declared with a pout. "But you'll need a lot more energy if you wish to draw up the embers of your powers."

"How much energy?" Manly asked firmly.

Ura God kept his eyes fixed upon his wilful opposite.

"As much as this planet can provide. In order to take flight, Mister Manly, you will have to destroy this world."

* * *

The station's alarms were screaming by the time Carter reached the main console area, searching desperately for his supposed colleagues. The heat in the compound had grown so intense that he had torn the rubber Bush mask from his face. His hair was damp with sweat, pushed back from his forehead and his suit was stained with the blood of Eldritch's wounds.

As the control room doors slid open it took him a fraction of a second to recall Romanova's chilling promise and reconcile those words with the sight before him. Slumped over the console in feverous slumber was the last member of Eldritch's New Mages cell whilst Lin Tsang Hsia lay face down on the ground a short distance from him, unconscious and wounded.

His eyes darted from the two injured rivals to the flickering images of the view screens and the flashing of the erratic red lights and slowly he realised what was happening. His stomach twisted in fear but still he forced himself forwards, carefully sidestepping the fallen Malachim and placing an arm under the young Chinese girl's body, dragging her up from the cold ground.

She whimpered but her eyes remained tightly closed, a grimace of pain etched firmly on her youthful face.

"Hang in there," Carter murmured. "We'll get you out of this, I promise."

Shouldering her weight, he began to stagger awkwardly towards the doors, his feet moving slowly, one after the other as his heart pounded in his chest. One step, two steps, three steps, four steps then the hideous retching noise of movement behind him.

Adrenaline exploded like an internal time bomb within his heightened physiology. He turned, horror written upon his face, to see Mikael rise up from his slumber, his body torn and sanity shattered, feathers falling like autumn leaves from his great wings.

The sound of the doors slamming shut registered in his ears and then suddenly the bastard angel lurched forwards.

* * *

The flames flickered and died.

"I can't do it." Manly whispered, turning away.

"What do you mean you can't do it?" Weisz snapped, trying to keep his subconscious focused upon the mantras that would allow him to breath in the vacuum beyond the planet.

"I can't destroy this planet." He looked up, his watery eyes fixing firmly on Ura God. "It would mean too much death, too much responsibility."

Ura God smiled with understanding, like a patient teacher at a nursery school. "Responsibility always entails death, my dear Mister Manly, at least in your chosen profession. Please, if it's me your concerned about then I wouldn't worry yourself." He tapped a gloved finger against his head. "This body is one of many. It's a fabrication of sorts designed to make my meeting with you slightly easier."

"And the native animals of this world?" Manly questioned.

Ura God frowned and then looked up. "They are dead."

Manly blinked.

"Excuse me?"

"They're dead." Ura God reiterated. "I just killed them. Beastly scavengers anyhow." He shook his head in distaste. "Now, seeing as you refuse to remain here and learn anything of merit that may preserve your short life I suppose its up to me to send you on your way, what with your sudden moral conviction, and so to that end." The voice trailed off and Ura God's entire body seemed to collapse in upon itself, turning to ash in a matter of seconds.

The stylised Millennium Man uniform he wore collapsed in a heap before them, soiled with flecks of grey and black.

[Be seeing you, gentlemen.] A ghostly voice echoed in their heads. [Do take care.]

Weisz and Manly exchanged glances.

"That would appear to solve that problem." Weisz commented sardonically from beyond his veil of blue flames. Carefully, almost experimentally he rose up into the air. "Time to leave, Mikey. We've got a world to save...or something."

Manly nodded and grunted a reply, watching as Weisz ascended into the heavens till he was little more than a tiny speck in the clouds.

Silently he clenched his fists and the fire exploded from his body again, a forgotten friend returned once more. The ground shattered in a crater and the flames of his aura grew stronger, his mouth stretching in a scream as he drew in the planet's energy. His muscles bulged, veins standing out like thick knots of blue beneath skin stretched tight and for a moment he was reminded of the image of Majestic Man all those months ago.

The planet screamed in protest as entire continents cracked open, giving ways to rivers of molten lava. Winds hallowed and the fragile eco system shattered. He closed his eyes and smiled and then with a last burst of strength he threw himself out into the cosmos, the small and incidental world of Braeburn exploding behind him.

* * *

Mikael screamed furiously, throwing a flurry of wild punches that pushed Carter so far back that he was pressed firmly against the closed doors, heavy fists slamming into the metal behind him as he struggled to dodge the speed of his opponent's fists.

The young Silver Shadow lay where he had been forced to drop her, silent once more, drifting perilously close to sleep. He glanced over at her and regretted it instantly as Mikael's fists made contact with his face, slamming back into the metal and rattling the teeth in his mouth.

Blinking water from his eyes, he tried to focus but to no avail. Another flurry of punches and he lost balance and without missing a beat, the Malachim's hands were around his throat, choking the life from him.

His vision dimmed, clouds of black forming at the corners of his eyes and for the first time in ages Jeffery Carter feared that he might lose.

* * *

Manly tore through the endless expanse of space, stars and worlds glinting behind him, unnoticed and unaccounted for. Despite having travelled via the dimensional gateway of the Space Hammer on the way out, the return journey was even shorter, taking moments to cross from the depths of space to the familiar if under-whelming sight of their native galaxy.

They paused over the isolated ruin of Moonbase Churchill and parted ways, Weisz signalling with a halfhearted salute that he had no intention of returning to the desolate battlefield the moon compound had become. Manly nodded his understanding, if not his agreement and turning away, descending down into the wreckage of the wounded station.

* * *

Desperately he pushed back against the weight, bringing his foot up in a swift and vicious kick to the enemy's gonads. The hands did not loosen about his throat. Clawing from breath he kicked out again and again, feeling the crush of broken organs between the other's legs with every subsequent attack.

His heart throbbed painfully behind his rib cage, the ceaseless attack presenting a clear challenge to his invulnerability. Then, miraculously, he felt the enemy abruptly let go.

Breathless he staggered back and fell, finding the iron doors had slid open. With swimming eyes he looked and saw the outline of Millennium Man, his fists clenched.

"Take the girl and get out of her." The older hero announced without even sparing a look for his floored colleague.

Mikael, blood running down his legs, remained hunched before him, preventing his advance.

"W-Who are you?" The Malachim stammered.

Millennium Man glanced over his shoulder at Carter.

"Now would be a good time, Bush." He said.

Carter nodded and crawled across the floor, struggling to pull himself and the fallen Silver Shadow up. Mikael and Millennium Man remained motionless, their eyes locked together as the two remaining members of Romanova's New Mages headed towards the escape capsules.

Glancing back Jeffery Carter saw the doors slam firmly shut behind them.

* * *

"You're not him...you can't be." Mikael murmured in his ravaged voice.

Manly shook his head with controlled patience. "No, I'm not. I'm Millennium Man but I'm not Henry Burke." He said calmly.

Mikael looked up with pleading eyes. "That can't be...I-I don't understand how that could happen." He muttered.

"This is not your world," Manly continued. "Things are different here, they have their own flow and ebb and a different tide."

Something snapped in the Malachim's mind and he looked up suddenly, his eyes burning with passion. "No! This world is not real; it's nothing, just a stepping-stone. At all costs we must return; we must go home."

"Your home is dead. You can't go back, can't change time." Manly answered firmly.

A howl of grief rose within Mikael's being and he threw himself forwards. Manly darted forwards to meet him, his face sorrowful as he registered what must happen.

They slammed into each other, both men holding their ground for a moment before Manly's strength overpowered the other completely and they were driven forwards, puncturing a hole through the cracked dome of Moonbase Churchill and heading directly towards the Earth.

* * *

Jeffery Carter watched the dull flare of light expand and contract suddenly on the surface of the moon from the spinning interior of the escape capsule. He watched as the two entangled figures of Mikael and Millennium Man tore through space and hit Earth's atmosphere. With a faint feeling of nausea he watched as Mikael burnt up in re-entry leaving Millennium Man to close his eyes and dive towards Australia and the vast expanse of nothingness beyond the cities.

Without comment he turned away and watched the sleeping form of Lin Tsang Hsia. She was still young, he reflected, there was still time for her to get out. Silently he closed his eyes and wondered about his own chances of escape.

With that thought in mind he drifted willingly into dreamless slumber.