🚀 go-pugleaf

(Continued from part two, preceding...)

     Spartacus was faring badly against Antiochus.  Minor damage to his leg
from the fight outside caused Spartacus's leg to give way at the wrong moment,
letting Antiochus hit him square in the chest with a massdriver blast.
Spartacus had closed to hand combat to keep the massdriver from being used
again, but Antiochus's laser sword was a far more puissant weapon than
Spartacus's electrified spear, and Spartacus was almost backed against the
wall.
     "Spartacus, when will you see that my way is the way of nature!  It is the
right way!  Evolution is a river, and a stone that tries to bar the path will
be eroded like humanity will be eroded!  Join us or be washed away!"
     "You're a fool, Antiochus, letting some atavistic evolutionary theory
dictate your actions!  There comes a time when the blind forces of evolution
have to be <unh> countered...water may wash away a rock, but when the rocks are
built into something greater than the sum of the parts, the dam will hold back
the river...then the river can be <aaagh> di...diverted to better uses.
Humanity is worth saving.  Civilization isn't just some relic to be washed away
by nature...it is <krrzzzt!>"
     "There, I've ended your misguided prattling, and in a moment will end you.
You call yourselves Guardians...you protect what is, instead of going forward
to what MUST be!  Move ahead or die!  It's evolutional necessity!  Kill or be
killed!  Your 'civilization' is against the law of nature!"
     Civilization.  The word clicked in Constellation's head for some reason.
Maybe he'd spent too much time in the Patrol's universe.  Or was it something
more?  He had access to senses he didn't fully grasp...could one of them be
telling him something?
     --Dot, do you see anything odd about Spartacus?  Quick, before he gets
killed!--
     ++I..I don't know.  There's so many force fields around, and the
dimensional gate isn't help...wait, I think I see what you mean!++
     A star moved over Constellation's eye as fast as thought itself.  Already
Antiochus was backing up to fire his massdriver.  Constellation looked at
Spartacus's chest.  Down, past the structural defense screens and the neutrino
sieve.
     A pyramid of force.
     A Recharger.
     Antiochus fired, tearing away half of Spartacus's torso with one blast.
The Recharger was now visible, faintly glowing red against the overriding green
glow of the dimensional portal.
     Time seemed to slow down.  "Spartacus, the pyramid in your chest!  Grasp
it!" shouted Constellation as he threw himself into the way of Antiochus's next
shot.
     "Wzzktxzz?  Ma..trix ofzzz Unity?  Powerlzzzz..." crackled Spartacus's
damaged speech circuits.  Still, he reached for it, painfully picked it out of
his chest.
     Antiochus smirked.  "So, that's the mysterious pyramid that cost me so
many warriors!  It will make a good trophy mounted next to your head!  One
side, fleshbag, I have someone important to kill."  He tried to swat
Constellation away, but his hand passed through the immaterial hero.
     "Dvanders!  To my side!" shouted Constellation.  Not asking why, knowing
thet death was imminent in any case, Sig.Lad and Particle Man flew around
Antiochus and merged with Constellation, as they'd done many times before to
travel the dimensions.
     "Bah!  You waste my time!" shouted Antiochus as he stepped around the
Secret Dvanders.  Then space seemed to ripple, as the merged Dvanders created a
link between realities.  Not a gate.  Barely a pinhole.  But it had to be
enough.
     And it was.
     The Recharger flared crimson, for the first time in centuries having full
access to a dimension filled with raw power it could use.  Antiochus flinched
aside for a moment, knowing how this device had driven his warriors insane.
     Silver flowed over Spartacus's hand.  Power filled him and his wounds
closed as repair systems were able to draw power from a seemingly limitless
source.  He stood and held the Recharger aloft.  Then he spoke, his voice full
and rich once more,

     "To conquer fear, make hate no more, to end the senseless death of war,
      I place this Gauntlet on my arm, and this I swear: To Do No Harm."

     Antiochus recovered his composure.  "Very pretty speech.  But you already
can't harm me...an oath is unnecessary.  If you're quite finished, I'll be
killing you and getting on with my..-><-"
     Antiochus was suddenly silent as he was encased in a cube of impenetrable
force.  Constellation realized this was not an ordinary Recharger like those
given to the Patrollers on Earth.  This was a full-fledged Gauntlet, capable of
holding back the force of solar fury, capable of moving mountains in the right
hands.  And Spartacus had the right hands.  A will stronger than any other of
his kind, and a mind that perhaps had a special affinity for the machine
intelligence of the Recharger.
     "Boomer, give me full ComNet NOW!" Spartacus shouted, more to let the
others know what he was doing than anything else.
     Beams shot out from Spartacus's hand, beams that sought out the person at
the end of each communications link with an unerring accuracy impossible for a
human Patroller.  In an instant, the room was filled with a stream of
encapsulated MACErs being fed into the dimensional gateway, followed by
Guardians.
     Spartacus turned to the straining gestalt of Sig.Lad, Constellation and
Particle Man.  "Thank you for helping me find a way to end this without more
death," he looked down at Squid Boy for a moment, then continued, "I suspect
that once I enter the portal the link will be broken and the Matrix of Unity
will once more be only an advisor, not a weapon.  So be it.  You must destroy
the gate the instant I pass through, or they might come back.  Farewell...I
hope for both our worlds' sake that we never meet again."
     With that, Spartacus stepped through the portal.  Constellation
immediately directed the gestalt into the gate itself.  The gate rippled and
twisted at their touch, and then with a mighty explosion of cosmic energies was
no more.
     The gestalt fell apart into the three battered and worn heroes, who were
too tired to be amazed that the explosion hadn't damaged the chamber itself.
     "It's over.  We've won," gasped Particle Man.
     "No, we've tied.  We stopped them, but at a cost.  Perhaps the cost of a
life."  Sig.Lad dragged himself upright and looked at the stasis block holding
Squid Boy.  "All he wanted was a place in the sun, a little sparc of
recognition."
     Then the secret door swung open, and an all-too-familiar figure stepped
out.  He looked a trifle haggard, no doubt from living the existence of a
Gradgnome for an extended period, but his arrogance showed through.
     "Acton Lord!  I may be tired, but not too tired to make you pay for this
whole disaster!" shouted Sig.Lad, calling up the GIF of a rapier.
     "Calm down, my not-so-evil twin.  I come not to bury you, but to praise
you!  As sovereign lord of this nation, I give you my thanks for liberating me
and my people," at this he gestured at the Gradgnomes cowering behind his cape,
"from the vile robotic invaders that abused my hospitality and tried to out-
evolve me.  My only crime is that of poor choice in houseguests."
     Sig.Lad was seething.  "What about all your other crimes?  Your assaults
on me, on the Legion...trying to take over the Looniverse for heaven's sake!"
     "Ah, but I am innocent of any breaches of the law.  And I didn't *try* to
take over the Looniverse, I succeeded.  You merely shortened my reign.  But
there is no law *in this reality* againt trying to conquer all of reality.  And
many of the other crimes you attribute to me were committed by warped clones of
myself...clones *you* brought into being, I might add.  Their actions are as
much your fault as mine, if not more so."
     Acton Lord strode confidently into the midst of the heroes.  "But, of
course, if you check your records, I am not wanted for any outstanding crimes."
     Constellation realized first.  "The Multiversal Office Building.  You
erased your records!"
     "No, no...not so simple.  The Office is all about the Law.  Every
excruciating detail of it.  Cases with insufficient evidence, which were the
majority, I had dismissed perfectly legally.  Tax crimes from the time I worked
out of the Loonited States were ironed out...back FICA paid for my Gradgnomes,
penalties on late income tax, and so forth.  I have paid my debt to society.
And of course, I haven't been anywhere in this reality other than this very
Atoll for months...nothing I do here short of violations of Inter.Net.ional Law
can get me arrested.  But enough about me.  I wish to thank you for saving my
island," he said almost flippantly.  "I see you have a dead friend there.  I
could scan him into a GIF...you know how effective that can be at cheating
death, Sig.Lad."
     "I don't think he would want to be beholden to you, Acton Lord.  Even
aside from the possibility that you'd alter the GIF in some way to make him
your pawn," sneered Sig.Lad.
     "Death or Debt...normally these would be the only choices available to the
mortally wounded Squid Boy.  But I am not bound by such dichotomies...for I am
A STRANGER!"  The Dvandom Stranger entered with a flourish of his Editorial
Staff and strode to a position equidistant to Constellation and Squid Boy.
"Constellation, you have taken the long journey into your very self in these
last few months.  From your loss at the hands of Lord Ebon, to his destruction
at your hands.  Through dimensions and crossovers and major philosophical
debates about the nature of reality and identity.  You represent the balance
point between my two shades...Sig.Lad as good and Acton Lord as evil.  They are
ever opposed, and I am forbidden to choose in this matter.  You must choose
Squid Boy's fate!"
     "Why me?  Why not Particle Man?" he asked.
     "Particle Man's moment of choice will come soon, but this is not it.  You
have seen much, made many decisions about yourself and about fates of worlds.
But now you must make a decision that is perhaps the hardest of all.  To choose
the fate of a single person.  Not yourself.  Not faceless 'humanity'.  One
single person, whose face you can see, voice you can hear.  Will he die now and
be spared further pain, as you sometimes consider seeking an end to your own
pain?  Will he be healed and continue to live his life as before, until meeting
some ignominious end in obscurity?  Will you choose to elevate him to your own
status, that of a Being of Power, one who also must be forced to make the kinds
of decisions you make?"
     "But...no choice seems right?  Death, obscurity, pointless power boosts,
random changes for the sake of change?  Is this the lot for a net.hero?  Can't
he stay the way he was but be happy all the same?"
     "No...sadly, his powers made him difficult to use in a story.  Suicide
Squid rarely swims these waters now.  And he has no identity outside that.  He
must have an identity, or he faces death or worse.  It is your choice...and you
are, whether you agree with me, better suited to choose than any other person
in the Looniverse.  For you have a Different Perspective.  You have seen other
universes that work in ways entirely unlike this one.  Choose."
     ++An identity?  Like, a niche to fill?  Are there any niches left in the
Looniverse, though?  It's so full!++
     "I...think I see one.  An identity that has been assumed at different
times by different LNHers, but never consistently by anyone for long.  And he
won't even need more power to fill the role...."
     The Stranger's Editorial Staff glowed.  "It is done.  He has been Written
In."  Then everything glowed white.
     The Dvanders were back on the transport ship, a few miles off Andale
Atoll.  Squid Boy's injuries were healed, but he slept.  Sig.Lad went to the
satellite uplink to spread the news.
     The good guys won again.

               *              *              *              *

     Net.ropolis.  My city.  In the day, a gleaming city filled with golden
heroes who fought cosmic menaces and superhuman villains.  At night the normal
criminals came out.  They knew the Legion rarely bothered with them, too busy
with the big picture to clean the mildew out of the corners of the frame.
     I'm the Scrubbing Bubble of Net.ropolis.  I get into the dark corners and
clean out the scum.  But I don't let the job get to me.  By day, I'm still my
old self, a nice four-color hero, laughing and joking with the other heroes,
going on crossovers, stuff like that.  Heck, if Suicide Squid ever comes to
town, he's got a body to use in me.  But everyone needs a hobby.
     I throw out a pulpy mass from my hand, a line trailing from it.  The blob
strikes a flagpole, and ten tentacles whip out to grasp the slender protrusion
into the night.  Testing the line, I swing down into the Generic Alley, where I
can hear the muffled screams of a crime in progress.
     Landing around the corner, I tug on the line and the 'grapple' lets go and
slurps back into my utility belt.  I withdraw a small capsule and break off the
tip.  Inky blackness oozes out, like ink in water, spreading across the ground
and filling the alley to hip-level.  Some of the punks notice it.  They seem
scared.  Good.
     I step into view, my tentacled cowl concealing my face, the tentacles
flapping in the wind.  Three objects fly from my outstretched hand, each
striking a criminal in the face, wrapping tentacles and squirting ink to blind
him.  They stagger about and are easily dropped by my fighting technique,
developed after spending ten solid days in the Peril Room with Ultimate Ninja's
programs.  One thug remains.  He makes to take his victim hostage, but I'm
there first, grabbing him in my suckered gloves.  Holding him in one hand by
his face, I climb the wall until we're a respectable distance up.  Then I
uncover his face.  He gasps for air, then manages to wheeze, "Who are you?"
     "I'm Squidman."

                    ----Only the Beginning----