SG: The League #7 (2/3)

[Eric Burns]

        [Part Two never did anything to you. It starts here anyhow.]



                              August 19, 1997
                           In the mists of dreams


     Cordelia swallowed hard as she made her way through the ineffable
dreamscapes. Her understanding of the world of dreams -- and her ability to
walk through them as one of the rare Dreamers -- was still pretty new, since
the day she was brought with hundreds of other Dreamers to the castle of the
Realm Nocturne. There, she had learned she had a Queen, and there she had
learned that there was a task that needed doing.
     It had been only a few months, but Cordelia had seen and heard many
things since then -- she couldn't remember any of it when she woke up in the
so called real world, so that the Unimaginable League Amoral's precognative
wouldn't foresee any changes and react to them, but when Cordelia fell
asleep at night, she remembered it all...
     Still, being a link in the subconscious intelligence chain Dreamweaver
had forged was exciting, but none of it compared to her assignment that
night. She followed the tenuous silver thread to her assigned target, seeing
his dreamscape like a hazy silver bubble. She rested her hand on said
bubble, and felt herself melt into it--
     Cordelia's breath caught as she found herself on a bombed out field,
with what looked like millions of corpses stacked all around her. Hacked
apart, blown apart, burnt, shot -- it was a charnal house of death all
around her, and it took her a moment to keep from throwing up.
     She could feel the owner of the dreamscape ahead. Shivering, she forced
herself to step around -- or sometimes through -- the death and
dismemberment, until she reached a small, flat area. There she saw a blond
man -- beautiful like a statue, shirtless and standing like a predator,
holding an old style silver rapier. His pants were black, his skin and hands
were stained with blood, even though the sword was clean. He turned, looking
at her with hard grey eyes. "You're not Dreamweaver," he said softly.
     "N-no," Cordelia said. "I'm... my name's Cordelia. I'm a Dreamer.
D-Dreamweaver couldn't -- there was--"
     The man snorted, turning away. "How old are you, girl?"
     "Sixteen."
     "They send children to see me, now?"
     "Dreamweaver's not that much older than I am."
     "Dreamweaver is a queen, and a wife, and a mother. She has walked
through Hell and she has aspired to Heaven. Dreamweaver has faced death and
embraced life. Dreamweaver is not a child, child."
     Cordelia shivered. "I'm no kid," she said.
     "Aren't you?"
     "Are you kidding? My mother disappeared within the first week of the
war. There's armed troops in my city, and a ton of the kids I've known since
forever are dead now. And we're all pretending like everything's back to
normal now that American Authority's there but it's not. My father just
drinks and watches television, our teachers keep getting replaced and we
have to just act like its normal -- what makes you think there's a kid left
in America?"
     The man's back muscles tensed as she spoke, and Cordelia shivered
again. Maybe -- maybe that had been too much. But she just couldn't help it.
There had been so much death and destruction since the war had begun--
     "You have a point, and you have courage, Cordelia. My name is Anthony.
You're here to get my report and give me orders?"
     "I... don't have orders for you, s-sir--"
     "Anthony."
     "I don't have orders for you, I mean... Anthony. Yeah. But if you can
tell me anything...."
     Anthony looked at the sword in his hand. "You have courage you don't
yet realize, Cordelia. I was wrong to dismiss you. I'm sorry for that." He
looked at her, his gaze intense. Cordelia shivered again but didn't look
away. "I have news, yes. The most important news yet."
     "What is it?"
     "The Unimaginable League Amoral, acting on Oracle's advice as always,
has decided that America is mostly secure, and only token forces are needed
to hold the countryside for now. Therefore, they are going to be pulling the
bulk of their American troops and forces out of the United States and
Mexico, delivering them to the European and Pan-Asian fronts to reinforce
our final push against the Awe-Inspiring Force. By the last week of August,
the military forces on the North American continent will be less than thirty
percent of what they currently are."
     Cordelia's eyes grew wide. "And... and no one's arguing against it?"
     "Richard Less, the Director of American Authority, is passionately
arguing against this plan. He is cynical of Oracle's abilities, and wishes
to proceed as if they did not exist." Anthony snorted. "The bitch of it is,
he's right. Not that I remember that when I'm awake, thanks to the Reverie."
The Reverie was a part of the Realm Nocturne's war effort. It was a
monumental dream construct -- also incorporating magic of some sort -- that
ensured that the Dreamers who interacted with the deep cover operatives and
the operatives themselves remembered their true allegiences while asleep,
but forgot them while awake. At least, until the day the triggers went off,
and everyone remembered their real jobs at last.
     "Can... do you have details?"
     Anthony nodded, kneeling slowly -- gracefully -- at the edge of the
bare circle and reaching for one of the corpses. He pulled a slightly bloody
scroll out of the corpse's hand. "Give this to your superiors," he said to
Cordelia, holding the scroll out to her. "It will explain everything."
     Cordelia swallowed, and accepted the scroll.
     "Do you understand what you're doing, Cordelia?" Anthony said softly.
"You're going to give your allies the necessary information that will lead
to your nation's freedom."
     Cordelia looked at Anthony, then looked at the scroll in her hand. "I
have to go," she whispered.
     "Godspeed," he answered.
     And she went. She delivered the scroll to her superiors. She gave her
report. They got excited, of course, and someone ran to tell one of the
Lords. There was shouting then, and more than one dreamer (or dream -- it
was hard to tell them apart sometimes) hugged Cordelia. Cordelia herself was
almost screaming with joy, as her tension and fear left her and the enormity
of what she'd just done sank in--
     There was a shrill beeping, and Cordelia Wright sat bolt upright in her
bed, sweat clinging to her tee shirt. Her mind was awhirl with
half-remembered images, blood and death, half-naked men and knights jumping
and dancing--
     "Cordelia!" her father shouted from downstairs. "Turn that damn alarm
off."
     Cordelia shook her head, the dreams fading. "Yeah," she said, slapping
the button. She pushed out of bed. She had to shower and get to school. The
American Authority's militia didn't like truancy at all.


                             November 5th, 2007
                The Rogers Institute for Paranormal Studies


     Cordelia stretched, feeling the tight layers of the 'Polyegis' fabric
stretch, adjust and conform to her body. Like all of Lochaber's equipment it
was a reddish-purple color with yellow highlights. Said highlights extended
down from the shoulders into a series of gradiant lines tapering into
points, which all together made the uniform look like it had a golden shield
insignia, but each individual bar formed a dagger.. The defensive systems
and flexible armoring were designed to accentuate her natural physique and
appearance. The practical effect made her look more hardbodied than normal-
as well as slightly busty and hippy.
     The sacrifices one made to fight the good fight. She smirked a bit,
turning and looking at her profile. The suit included a clinging half-mask,
but let her brown bob-cut hair flow free. "I thought we weren't a superhero
group," she said. Her voice was contralto -- she'd been told it was her best
attribute, though honestly she had quite a few good attributes. "Why do we
need masks? Why hide our identities?"
     "Branding," the requisitions officer answered. "We don't want people to
think of you as individuals, We want them to see the uniform. Lochaber is
their protector, not Cordelia Wright."
     "Great," Todd Ellerbee -- call sign 'Snapdragon' and an old classmate
of Cordelia's -- said behind her. "The last thing we want is recognition for
our accomplishments,"
     "You were told the deal when you signed up." the officer said. "You're
not super heroes."
     "What about her?" Cordelia asked, nodding towards Susan Liddell, Susan
-- call sign Carillon --was their commander and trainer. She wasn't wearing
one of the Polyegis uniforms, and was still in the training sweats they all
wore before. They'd been told her uniform would be 'distinct,' whatever that
meant.
     "She's public relations," the officer said. "She's going to be the face
of Lochaber."
     'So our faces need to be hidden, huh?" Snapdragon snorted. "I guess we
just need better public relations savvy if we want to make the papers."
     A hand dropped on Snapdragon's shoulder, making him jump. "If you're
here to make the papers instead of making a difference, you're here for the
wrong reasons, Todd." Doctor Elizabeth Tirkoff -- once both Cordelia and
Todd's teacher and now the spearhead behind Lochaber -- sounded amused. She
had always been good at that. Still, there was a slight edge to her voice --
clearly, she didn't want to be pushed on this.
     "Uh, right," Snapdragon said. "That's... uh... that's fine with me,
ma'am."
     "Good." she smiled. "You two look good in those."
     "That's good," Snapdragon said, "because they sure don't leave anything
to the imagination." He posed in front of the mirror, the suit making him
look more muscular than he ever had before.
     "Of course they do," Cordelia said, chuckling softly. "These suits are
all about imagination."
     "How do you mean?" Doctor Tirkoff asked.
     "They don't conceal us -- they idealize us. We become purple and gold
visions -- hot guys and hot chicks looking hot and fighting crime." She ran
her hand down her stomach. "Even if they never know who we are individually,
as a group we're going to inspire everything from hope to erotic
fan-fiction. No matter how much crime we fight, our impact will be all the
greater. We are becoming the very stuff of imagination."
     "Huh," Snapdragon said. "And here I thought we were just wearing padded
suits."
     "The padding gives room for the Polyegis fabric's defensive systems,"
Doctor Tirkoff said. "But Cordelia's right, Todd. You're going to be
iconic."
     "Hey, it's 'Snapdragon,' remember, Doctor T?" Snapdragon grinned. "Hey
-- Cordelia, they got a codename for you yet?"
     "Call sign," the requisitions officer snapped. "You don't have
codenames, you have call signs."
     "Whatever. What's it going to be, Deal?"
     Cordelia looked at herself in the mirror once more, smiling softly at
what she saw. "Reverie," she murmured. "Call me Reverie."


                                * * * * * *


     Parvenu sipped from his cup of tea. When he was younger -- both during
his time alive and his first few years as a ghost -- he had only liked his
tea iced with almost more sugar than water. With the passage of time he had
mellowed, and a reasonable (if frustrating) amount of time as a student of
magic under Professor Burns had given him some appreciation of the hot,
unsweetened variety.
     Besides, there was something... well, wizardly about a mage drinking
tea.
     Of course, that didn't stop his wife from making fun of him over it,
but then their's was a marriage where gentle mockery wasn't only permitted
but encouraged. It worked for them.
     He wished she were with him now, but since they had been sounding out
the man they called the Hawaiian -- actually former spy and noted American
traitor and ex-dictator Richard Less -- it would have been a bad idea to
send her along. Less could still potentially exert the control over Hazard
that had turned her into the sociopathic second Radian during the Genocidal
Wars. Though Parvenu had reasons to trust the Hawaiian now, it was still an
unacceptable risk. So, Parvenu had taken Incandescence with him, and Hazard
had gone out on patrol instead.
     A patrol she was still on, while Parvenu and Incandescence had returned
to the League's bunker hidden under the Rogers Foundation's building.
Incandescence herself was sitting apart, at the end of the somewhat ratty
conference table the League used for meetings. Less had needled her almost
to the point of her killing the ex-spy, and she hadn't gotten over being
upset just yet.
     Ops pushed back from her monitoring station. She possessed a superhuman
intellect that had let her build both the equipment and its attendant sensor
arrays, deploying them throughout the city while keeping them hidden from
those who would arrest or destroy the League. "Right," she said. "Things are
more or less secure for the moment. What did the Hawaiian have to say?"
     "Precious little," Incandescence snapped from the other side of the
table.
     "Par for the course," Ops said. "So what did you learn?"
     "The key is financial," Parvenu said. "It's not simply that all these
different gangs are dominating Boston. Someone has to be supplying them.
Costumes, weapons, custom gear...."
     "And the range of supplies is huge," Incandescence said. "It's one
thing to give an Ensemble soldier a machinegun that's also a functioning
oboe. It's an entirely different thing to provide the special macramé
supplies for the Trudis, support the enhancement process for the Scullers,
find and provide the magical gear for the Scions of the Phoot--"
     "A huge range of goods and services using unusual supplies fabricated
in unusual ways. Someone has to be arranging all of it. Someone has to be
fabricating it for the gangs who don't do it themselves. Someone--"
     "Do we know for sure aren't multiple suppliers?" Ops asked, steepling
her fingers.  Behind her, ten year old Kirby Rogers stepped up, setting a
diet coke where Ops could reach it. He then set a fresh pot of tea close to
Parvenu and a new presspot of decaf coffee for Incandescence. Ops had been
teaching him how to be an intern for a superhero organization. For the most
part, that meant beverage preparation.
     "Yeah," Parvenu said, pouring some of the fresh tea. "He confirmed a
single supplier. He implied--"
     "--collusion by some sort of legitimate authority in getting those
supplies brought into what's supposed to be a closed city," Ops finished for
him. "Yeah, they'd need that to make all this work."
     "So if we can figure out who's supplying the gangs and track them all
down...." Incandescence started to say--
     "There's a lot of ways we can do that," Ops cut in again. "That kind of
operation is going to leave a paper trail. It might be disguised as
something else, but it will exist."
     "Then we can use that to find the supplier," Incandescence said. "And
that means we can find out just who's letting them flood the streets with
chaos and using the resulting fear to exert control--"
     "That's not what you do," Kirby piped up. "You've got to shut them
down!"
     "What?" Parvenu turned to the boy. "I know it seems like we have to
focus on the street issue, but as long as we do that, we're really treating
symptoms of the problem instead of--"
     "I know that," Kirby said, in that tone of voice young boys had -- the
one that said 'you're really an idiot, aren't you?' "That's not why we need
to shut down the suppliers!"
     "Then... why?" Incandescence asked.
     "Because the whole setup needs the gangs to work in the first place.
Take out the supplier and the gangs will suddenly be cut off. Whoever's
using the supplier as their middleman will have to replace those supplies
and keep the gangs in gear or Boston'll start making up ground fast. The
last thing they want is real headway against the gangs, right? So, by making
them take direct action to keep the gangs supplied, that'll mean they're
flushed out of hiding and then they can be caught. And we can get real
evidence then, and that means the good cops will shut them down, and then we
win!" Kirby looked around. "Right?
     Incandescence and Parvenu looked at each other."
     "How the Hell did you come up with that plan?" Parvenu asked.
     Kirby shrugged. "I'm the son of Trashman and Healer."
     "And you're right," Ops said. "If we successfully knock out the
supplier, we can force a real resolution of the entire problem."
     "Giving us a shot to save the city before Doctor T. and Lochaber can
try to take us down," Incandescence said, grinning for the first time since
she'd met the Hawaiian. "What's our next step?"


                                * * * * * *


     Reflects dove forward, making her knees and shins frictionless as she
slid towards the next pack of Scullers. This was the fifth they'd fought
tonight -- it was fraterinity rush, which meant the Scullers had both been
recruiting and was trying those new recruits out. She slammed into the
middle of them, letting both her impact and theirs feedback on her mirror
force and throw them every which way. She wasn't entirely sure how it was
she could cut out all the friction between her and the ground but not be the
one to bounce off of them. It seemed impossible.
     But then, as she got older and learned more control and techniques over
her powers, more and more of her life seemed impossible.
     There was a crackle all around her as she reflected off electricity --
it was being pulled out of a nearby streetlamp -- Capacitor 'living off the
land.' Of course, he was off to the side bragging -- he was even half-posing
for a cute bystander. Some nineteen year old B.U. student more impressed by
bulging muscles than scared of psychotic preppies. It was infuriating to see
Kid-E treat all this like a game or a ploy to pick up chicks, and it was
more infuriating to see him succeed at it.
     There was a sudden cry and the sound of wood cracking. Reflects pushed
up onto her feet and turned -- one of the Scullers had attacked her from
behind, only to have his oar bounced back into his stupid face. He was down
and bleeding from his nose. She hadn't even noticed it. Seeing a second with
his boat knife out Reflects turned and jabbed, letting the feedback punch
double the Sculler over and drop him to the ground. A side-kick into a
female Sculler's midsection made her drop her cricket bat and drop to the
ground as well. A fourth Sculler swung a heavy boat-chain at Reflects,
trying to wrap it around her waist -- only the mirror force bounced the
chain as it hit, snapping recoil back up its length into the Sculler's hands
and making him jump back, swearing with the pain. Reflects dropped down,
sweeping her leg in an arc along the ground halfway between a martial arts
leg sweep and a breakdancing move, maximizing the reflective force in that
leg. The five Scullers still close to her -- up or down -- hit the field and
had its feedback strike hard, knocking two already down across twenty feet
of ground, bouncing like a ground-ball to right center. The other three had
their legs not only knocked out from under them but downright propelled,
causing them to spin in the air almost three times before they crashed into
the ground.
     Reflects slapped her hands on the ground -- maximizing her friction
unconsciously, so that she braced perfectly -- and pushed herself back onto
her feet.
     And blinked. Capacitor was surrounded -- and not by the Scullers. In
fact, she'd never seen this group before. They wore orange and yellow gang
colors, with bandanas around their heads practically straight out of "The
Warriors." On their back there were various icons of a sexy burning woman,
all in red fire, in various poses with various levels of explicitness to
them.
     Fire that also clung -- in life, not stitching -- to the hands of the
gangers. "You offend Her memory!" the first shouted, throwing a punch that
was nowhere near Capacitor, but culminated in a ball of fire that streaked
out and exploded on his side.
     "You disgrace Her name!" the second -- a girl -- said as she clapped
her hands together, forming a flaming sword which she swung at Capacitor. It
seared into his back -- uniform holding, but from his scream it had to be
painful.
     "Hellfire's revenge shall come to you!" a third -- a woman wearing a
blood red mask shaped like a doll's face and a yellow and red bodysuit with
the orange vest that was part of their gang colors. Reflects realized she'd
seen that mask before, from the time Carrie -- back before she ascended to
Heaven -- had licensed it for charity during Halloween.
     Reflects's lip curled with rage as she leapt forward, letting her
momentum build as she pushed off the ground on her left foot, her right
fully skating frictionlessly now. "You. Are. Not. Invoking HELLFIRE'S NAME!"
she screamed, smashing into the circle and knocking two of the six out of
her way -- the one on the left skittering thirty feet before he landed, the
one on the right being flung back, his boot smacking Capacitor on the side
of the head while the hero tried to stand, and then the criminal's body
slamming into the ganger on the other side."
     "Speak not the name of the Unholy Fire! The Hellfions will make you pay
for your blasphemy!" the chick-in-red shouted back, sheets of flame coming
from her hands and engulfing Reflects.
     It did her no harm of course -- her field protected her. Really, it
just caused the fire to sheet off of her and to the sides, endangering the
chick's own gang members. "You think that's going to stop me, you--"
     There was a scream next to Reflects. She glanced over -- if one of the
villains were being badly hurt, she'd have to step it up, whether it was--
     "Oops," Reflects said, as Capacitor wrapped his arms around his head
and desperately rolled, trying to put the flames out.
     "All shall burn!" the Hellfion leader shouted again, a halo of fire
surrounding her now as she jumped forward, forming a ring of flame around
Reflects powerful enough to melt the macadam of the street into molten tar.
"You who ape and desecrate the appearance of the Unholy One's Shining Ally
-- you shall be the first to feel Our wrath!"
     Reflects tore her gaze away from Capacitor -- he was rolling, that was
the best thing he could do to put out the fire, and Reflects couldn't help
him with her defenses maxed out. She couldn't even touch him without
slipping off. With a growl of primal rage she threw herself out of the fire
circle, the flames encircling her as they pushed away from her, making her
look for a moment like liquid gold and silver before her fist connected with
the Hellfirean Leader's jaw.
     As a rule, Reflects didn't punch people in the jaw, or even slap their
faces. It was too easy to misjudge the feedback pulse of her field -- too
easy to break an enemy's neck, shatter the bones of his skull, or knock the
victim's head a good forty yards from its body. Later, Reflects would claim
she had known the Hellfirean was more durable than normal. But, truth be
told it was just lucky that her impact was just enough to snap the woman's
head back, exposing her chest and stomach to a followup punch that did knock
her back ten feet.
     The woman gurgled a bit, lifted her hand to make a point, and then
crumpled to the ground, unconscious.
     Reflect looked at her for a moment, looked around and saw there were no
other Hellfireans or Scullers to be seen, and then ran to where Capacitor
was lying, smoke still hissing off his suit.
     "Are you all right?" she asked, dropping to her knee next to him,
increasing her friction so she stayed in place as she traced a burn mark on
his face with an unarmored finger.
     "I... have been... way better..." he answered, looking up at her.
"Thought you were going to keep them off me."
     "I thought you knew better than to attack an unknown gang without me."
     "Hey, they sucker punched me -- and fried electrical lines to cut me
off of external power. Maybe if you paid a little more attention--"
     "So it's my fault some punk group can take you down without breathing
hard? Oh, I feel so guilty now, you selfish son of a--"
     "Calm down," Ops said crisply through their L-Phones. "We're bringing
you in. Capacitor, Ordinal will be dropping you into the med-bay. Reflects,
come to the briefing room. I want to know about this 'unknown gang' you were
fighting."
     "Gotcha," she said, glaring back at the gangers -- the police was
arriving now, and taking statements. She noticed they were carefully
avoiding looking at her or her injured teammate. "It's a bit crowded
anyway."
     The telegate opened beneath the pair, and they fell through. With a
burst of Cherenkov radiation, they were gone.


     [It was 'round about that time that the ole Part Two boys realized
                       they was in a heap'a trouble!]
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