The Guardian Stories: Bloodlines

Authors notes:
Firstly, apologies for what may appear to be random references. In Chapter one, Emily and Jason get married (no big surprise) but there are rituals said and done which may not be familiar to some of you. Since I’m a practicing Jew, I didn’t want the wedding to be a corny, TV style one, so I decided to make the Tucker family Jewish, as well. All wedding rituals are accurate.
My huge debt of thanks is once again extended, although this time, by one person. The Big Z stepped up once again, and answered every possible question I could throw at her regarding this story, and the feasibility of it (at least, for the CoX Universe) with grace, patience, and politeness. This story wouldn't have been written if not for her. So, if you're a fan, give her mad props. If you think I can't write, she's to blame.


The Guardian Stories: Bloodlines
Book One

Chapter One

2013

Sammy was in trouble. He knew why, too. Of all the times to be sneaking around his parent’s bedroom, he just had to get curious about the old briefcase he found in the wardrobe.

It had been a quiet day, when young Samuel had ‘accidentally’ thrown his ball into his parents room. Naturally, they kept the door closed, but that wasn’t any real problem for the young genius that Sammy was.

’So what if I’m failing my classes?’ Sammy scowled at himself. ’I hate school anyway.’ Sammy was, by nature, a curious individual, always wanting to know ‘why’. His father, a successful businessman, with little time on his hands, somehow found the time to spend a few hours with Sammy every day, playing catch, or joining in with the latest video game, and always answering questions as best he could. His mother, by contrast, was the strict one, often chiding both males in her family for being immature. Sammy always thought his Dad was, although the biggest, strongest man ever, just a big kid at heart, like himself, and often saw his father sticking his tongue out at his mum after a disagreement over whether the video games were too violent.

His Dad was, for wont of a better term, ‘cool’. His mother was a typical mother, always worrying. But his Dad…?

His Dad was the greatest, and never kept anything from Sammy. Ever.

Which is why little Sammy, at the mature, responsible age of seven (“And a half!” he’d say) was surprised to find a small, locked briefcase, hidden away behind clothes in his parents walk-in wardrobe. He was halfway through trying to figure out how to open it, when he heard a voice behind him.

“Samuel Jacob Tucker! What do you think you’re doing?”

*

He sat on the couch, sulking. His mother was pacing the floor, occasionally stopping, taking a breath and looking at him, before resuming her pacing.

“Samuel…” She began after a while, and Sammy knew she meant business. Nobody ever called him by his full name, not even Aunt Sarriss, unless he was in very big trouble. “Do you have any idea how rude it is to go through somebody’s personal belongings?”
“I…” Sammy tried to stall. “Thought the Christmas presents were in there?”

That brought his mother up short.

“Christmas presents?”
“Yeah.”
“In the middle of July.”
“Uhm…”
“When we don’t even celebrate Christmas.”
“Okay, Chanukah presents.”
“In the middle of July.” His mother repeated.
“Well, it changes date every year…”

His mother sighed, and shook her head. “That briefcase is very private, and very important to your father. There are things in there which little boys shouldn’t look at.” She sat down next to him. “Promise me you’ll not try to look in it again.”
“Okay, I promise I won’t try and look in it again.”
“Good.”
Sammy paused.

“What’s in it?”

His mother’s mouth dropped open as she stared in disbelief. He was about to remind her of her own saying, oft-directed at him that ‘flies will fly into it’, when another voice joined them.

“What’s in what?”
Both Sammy and his mother turned around. There, in the doorway, taking his black overcoat off, was Dad.

“Dad!” Sammy bellowed, and, jumping off the sofa, ploughed into his father with the force of a bull. His Dad, though, never budged so much as an inch backwards. Instead, he crouched down, and picked up his son, swinging him around. “Hey, little man!” He chuckled. “What’re you so curious about?”

“Uhm…where babies come from.” Sammy nodded to himself, not missing his father blink rapidly.

“You’re getting more and more like your namesake every day.” He muttered, holding Sammy close to him. His Dad walked them over to his Mum, and kissed her cheek quickly. “Hi honey,” He joked, “What’s for dinner?”
“I thought we’d start off with Lobster bisque; move on to stuffed pheasant with a Chinese salad on the side, and for dessert, tiramisu.”
His Dad nodded. “Take-out again?”
“Please, Jason, you know I can’t cook.”
“True enough. But then, I didn’t marry you for your skills in the kitchen.”

His mother blushed slightly. “And what skills –did- you marry me for?”

His Dad grinned, and gestured, with his head, to Sammy. “Where did Sammy come from, again?”

“Okay, I get it.”
“I’m not going to stop your conversation.”
“Jay…”
“Every boy needs to find out.”
“Jason!”
“Emily!” His Dad parroted her inflections back at her.

Sammy looked between his two parents, and laughed.

Life was good.

*

January 19th, 2006

“I now pronounce you husband and wife”, the Rabbi declared. Jason grinned at Emily, who gestured with her eyes, down onto the ground, where a glass was wrapped in cloth by their feet. Jason cleared his throat.
“If I forget thee O' Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning: If I do not raise thee over my own joy, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.”
He stamped down on the glass (a gesture which, Emily and some others would later remark, to be the last time he’d ever be able to put his foot down in their marriage again) and the band played. Although, as a concession to Emily, who had recently converted to Judaism in an effort to ‘please’ him, instead of the traditional music, it played another song entirely. Jason tried not to sigh. ‘When The Forum Types’ was a nonsensical song, although one Emily enjoyed.

As he and Emily made their way to a private room, where the door would be locked, and they would share their first meal together, alone, as husband and wife, something made the hairs on the back on Jason’s neck stand up on end. He turned around, and saw a man with black hair and brown eyes smiling at him, his eyes misty. Although Jason didn’t recognise him, he noted that the man did bear a resemblance to Emily.
‘Probably a second cousin, or something.’ Jason shrugged it off, and continued on his way with his bride.

Sarriss Groundwalker watched, a smile on her face, and approached the young black haired man. “Care to dance, handsome?”
“I…uh…”
“It’s okay. You just follow my lead.” She winked, and dragged the man off.

As Jason watched Emily sit down in the private room, and sat down opposite her, staring into her eyes.

“What’re you looking at, Mr Tucker?” She grinned.
“Oh, nothing, Mrs Tucker. Nothing at all.” He grinned back.

‘It’s strange’ He thought to himself. ‘We started our life in Paragon together by literally trying to kill each other. Now, here we are, married. Now all we need is a kid, and we’d be the perfect dysfunctional family.’

Life was good.

Hurrah! Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwought us togethew in the last chapter. Mawwiage, that bwessed awwangement, that dweam within a dweam. And wove, twue wove, which wiww fowwow you fowevah and evah… So tweasuwe youw wove… especially since, from this point onwards, life starts to suck.

--

Chapter Two

January 20th, 2022[/b]

Indistinct screams. That was the first thing that Sammy noticed. Far off, in the distance, someone…no, someones, were screaming. Not begging for mercy, not pleading against an injustice, as was often heard in the city of Paragon, but vocal explosions of full blown terror.
Those explosions were joined by more literal ones, and Sammy knew he had to act. He wasn’t a Superhero…he didn’t know any, in person, save his Aunt Sarriss. However, his parents had taught him throughout his sixteen years that, above all else, he should try to do the right thing. So, Sammy did the right thing; he ran towards the noise.

He knew he wasn’t supposed to. Every fibre of his being was screaming at him to hide, to run, and to not look back. There was…something. He couldn’t remember what, it was hazy in his mind, but he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, he was running towards his own death.

Sammy didn’t care. He recognised those screams, the closer he approached them. There was a flash of green light overhead, and instinctively looked up.

Hovering overhead, above the city, flashing green lights that killed and destroyed on impact, was a large spaceship. A spaceship that Sammy recognised from his History of Paragon classes.

“Rikti.” He muttered to himself in disbelief. “How is that possible?”

Although Sammy had never seen a Rikti spaceship in person, he had seen photos, and his mother, on a very rare occasion, could be convinced to tell him about the terror, the fear of certain death, that encompassed everybody, once they saw how ineffective the average Superhero was.

He tried to push the thought from his head, and carry on towards the screaming.

‘Rikti….Rikti……Riktiriktiriktiriktiriktiriktirikti rikti…’

When he reached the source of the screams, he reeled back in terror. There, hanging from the top of a building… ‘The Foundation Headquarters!’ he realised, he saw a sight no child should see, no matter the age.

His mother was dead. He cautiously moved closer, trying to make sure that it was actually her, despite his heart screaming at him that it was. With her head and neck twisted backwards, her chest blasted open by a Rikti beam, and her arms and legs at odd angles, there was no way to be sure, but…hanging around her neck was the small locket he had bought her on her birthday when he was 14. He didn’t need to open it up, to see the photos of his parents on one side, and him on the other. He knew it was there without even touching it.

Sammy collapsed on the pavement in front of his mother’s body, sobbing. He didn’t care about the Rikti, or the death which he was sure would befall him any moment. His mother….Mummy…was dead, and she wasn’t ever going to come back.

Sammy screamed, and shot upright in bed, gasping for air, clinging to the sheets which were soaked in his sweat.

A few seconds later, his parents burst into his room, his fathers’ left hand in a glove, which he held in a loose fist, his mother running to his bed.
“Sammy? Sam, honey, what’s wrong?”

“It was…I don’t know, it felt so real.”
“Oh, honey,” His mother tried to sooth him. “Was it a bad dream?”
“Are you okay, son?” His father shot at him, glancing around the room, in case there was an intruder.
“Yes, Jason. It was just a dream.”

Sammy looked around the room, disoriented, and despite being groggy and petrified from the nightmare, noticed his fathers hand twitching in the glove.
‘what’s that all about?’ He wondered, before shivering.
“It wasn’t just a dream.” He protested. “It felt so real. I saw…people dying. Screaming.”
“What was it?” His father pried gently.
“The Rikti.” Sammy murmured. “I dreamt that the Rikti had come back. But…it wasn’t a dream! I’ve never had a dream feel so…so real!”

It was a while longer before his parents would leave him to himself. His father quietly asked about every aspect of his dream, not testing him for lies, but genuinely concerned. His mother had her eyes closed for a lot of the telling, as if she couldn’t bear to hear about it.
Eventually, however, after offering a glass of water, or, to Sammy’s embarrassment, his mother’s suggestion of the stuffed dog, Woof-Woof, that Sammy had slept with when he was younger, his parents left him, with just his thoughts.

‘It was just a dream.’ He said to himself. ‘It has to be just a dream.’

Even so, as he tried to lay back in his damp bed, there was a single thought, turning over in the back of his mind, echoing over and over, taunting him, and stopping him from sleeping, with its’ unending, buzzing repetitions.

‘Riktiriktiriktiriktiriktiriktiriktiriktiriktirikti riktiriktiriktiriktiriktiriktiriktiriktiriktirikti riktiriktiriktiriktiriktiriktirikti…’

*

April 3rd, 2006

Jason was in his office, two floors down from his apartment, and, for the third time that day, caught himself staring at the photo on his desk, taken just after the wedding. Emily looked radiant in a white gown (although, at the time, he couldn’t resist remarking that it was the wrong colour for her) and himself in his tuxedo.

Things seemed to be new and exciting for him….married, and with the news that Emily was about eight weeks pregnant… although things were, in fact, slowly returning to normal.

Jason no longer felt angry at the world, or at himself. Marriage, a regular job and life, all started to make the bad memories of the past two years slowly fade away, leaving only the good.

Emily saying she loved him.
Proposing.
Retaking control of The Foundation.
The wedding.
The honeymoon….dear lord, the honeymoon!

Everything seemed to crystallise for him, as if every good memory was frozen in time, a snapshot in his mind evoking peaceful, joyous emotions. Truly, here was a man at peace; with himself, with his world. Nothing could shake him, nothing could stop him, and nothing could make him feel wrong.

The phone rang. Jason sighed, and shook himself out of his reverie, glancing at the caller ID. It was Susan; no doubt telling him about the latest polls saying the people thought he should run for Mayor. ‘I’ve had enough of Mayors to last me a lifetime’ He snorted, picking up the phone.
“Susan!” He smiled down the receiver. “What’s happening in the world of bad news and rumours?”
“Jason, how are you?”
“As well as can be expected.” He shrugged, not particularly caring she couldn’t see his action. “I’ve got about half a million requests to review before lunch.”
“Ah, I see. Anything else going on?”
There was something about her tone of voice that made Jason pause. “Like what?”
“Oh, come on, Jay. You can tell me. Off the record.”
“In my experience, Sue, nothing’s ever ‘Off The Record’ with journalists. What’s going on?”
“You mean…you don’t know?” She sounded shocked.
“Obviously not. Why? What’s happened? Was I voted ‘sexiest man of the year’? Because, I don’t mind, but it’s a little late, since it’s April…”
“No!” She cut him off. “I mean, you don’t know about the new Fire Guardian?”

“What?”
“There was a mugging, and some of the witnesses said a Superhero flew down and stopped it with a Fire Sword.”
Jason laughed. “Oh, come on, Susan. Fire Swords are a dime a dozen, have been since before I came to Paragon. Anyone under a Blaster classification can get one. That’s not proof that…”
“Hang on. I’ll e-mail you one of the photos.”
“There are photos?”
“Digital cameras. Everyone has one these days, even on cellphones.”
Jason snorted. “Call them ‘mobiles’. It’s more appropriate. They are, after all…mobile.”
His computer made a pinging noise, and Jason opened his mail server. “Hang on, I think I’ve got it.”

Double clicking the message in his inbox, Jason stared.
“You see?” Susan’s voice, tinny and quiet on the line, sounded distant. Jason dropped the phone, not noticing.

The picture was, indeed, of a Superhero. One with a Fire Sword. One with his…his armour!

“Jason?” A voice was saying, burbling into the carpet. Jason leant down, never taking his eyes off the screen, and picked up the phone. “Yeah?”
“Are you denying this is you?”
“Absolutely. How….where…?”
“I don’t know. Nobody does, apparently, but…I wanted to warn you, since we’re friends. This is running in the evening edition. Front page. And, there’s some speculation over whether it’s you.”
“What?” Jason shouted.
“I didn’t write the story!” Susan said, hurriedly. “But the writer puts in a theory that you’re bored with playing the multi-billionaire, and you want to get back on the streets. They wanted an official comment, but your secretary said that, and I quote, ‘The Tucker Foundation doesn’t comment on The Fire Guardian, ever’, unquote.”
Jason sighed. “It’s what they’re told to say. I don’t want someone digging around with what happened with the SNAFU raids, or what happened with Anson.”
“Yes, but…don’t you see? That denial’s going up as a great quote, and it’ll read like you’re still active in the Superhero community.”
“Susan, please.” Jason studied the picture for a clue, anything, to point out it wasn’t him. Then, he saw one.
“Look at the Power Belt!” He said triumphantly.
“What about it?”
“That belt isn’t mine! It’s damaged, and the metal is tarnished. It’s an old belt, you can tell.”
“True, but…Jason? Do you know where your Belt is?”
Jason sighed. “It’s in a glass case in my office.” He turned to look at it, the constant reminder that life wasn’t always fun.
“Can you see it?”
“Sure, it’s right…” Jason stared at the glass case.
“Jason? Jay, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s still here.” Jason shook his head, staring at his reflection in the central red disk. “I just…for a moment, I had hoped someone had stolen it. That’d make things easier to understand.”
“So…what’re you going to do?”

Jason shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Chapter Three

April 3rd, 2006

As Jason stepped off the elevator to his penthouse, he knew something was amiss.
Maybe it was husbandly intuition. Maybe it was his sense for danger, which had been honed, over the past few years, into an art form of forewarning.

Or perhaps it was Emily standing in the open doorway, a copy of Paragon Times’ evening edition clenched in one hand, with the other curled up in a tight fist.

“Darling. Get your [censored] in here. NOW!”

Oh, dear.

*

I gave up listening to Emily about half an hour into her tirade. She had thrown the newspaper at me about 30 seconds into the argument…well, the one sided series of accusations, and I left it where it was, on my lap. All the words were blurring together. Only a few of them even stuck out anymore.
“Stupid…lying…inconsiderate…jerk…”

Finally, I thought that enough was enough.

“Hang on!” I yelled. That did the trick, as although Em had heard me raise my voice…many, many times…it was the first time I had done it to her.
“Now, look, you haven’t given me a chance to explain.”
“What do you need to…”
“I said,” I growled, “That I need a chance to explain, and that you’re not letting me.”
“Fine.” Emily folded her arms, and glared at me. “Start talking.”
I picked up the newspaper, and waved the blurry photo on the front page in her face.
“See him?”
“Of course.”
“That isn’t me.”
“[censored]!” Emily spat out, and proceeded to continue with her insults and arguments.

There’s only so much a man can take. If you’ve ever had a fight with a loved one, you know what I mean. You keep waiting for them to tire out, so you can calmly and precisely explain yourself, but…somehow…all that anger, that rage, comes from some infinite well of emotion. It feeds off itself somehow, the hurt feeding the anger, which feeds the indignation, which feeds the hurt. One long, endless cycle of pain, and all of it directed, at this moment, at me.

I’m a patient man, normally. I’m easy-going, despite what Anson did to me, and what I did to him. Life, I thought, was getting normal again. All water under the bridge. However, Emily’s always been a sneaky fighter. She did it when she left me for Pete, claiming I wasn’t ‘heroic’ enough for her, and now…

“If I hadn’t shown up, you’d probably be with Sarriss, being a little Superhero couple.”
What?
“What…what are you talking about?”
“Oh, come on, Jay.” She glared. “Don’t give me this innocent [censored]. I know you two kissed last year.”
“Well…it was one time.”
“So?”
“So, I didn’t know if I was ever going to see you again…and that was before you came back, anyway!”
How dare she? I mean, honestly. How dare she?
“Oh, Jay…” She sighed mockingly. “Well, now you two can be together.”

“Wait a minute….wait one [censored] minute, Em. It was one kiss. It was a quick kiss, but yes, it was a kiss. You happy? I kissed Sarriss. But I’ve never…ever stopped loving you. I wish you could say the same.”
“How I could say the same? What the…?”
“Yes,” I interrupted. “Because I’ve always thought that someone in love wouldn’t cripple the person they’re in love with. Shouldn’t risk their life to gain a little bit of money. But you did. You did, Em.”

I took no satisfaction from watching Emily’s face pale. I was hitting below the belt, playing at her level, and she hadn’t expected it. Neither had I – I lost track of what I was saying, just kept pushing on, regardless.

“You killed my best friend. You killed an old man right in front of me, then blew my legs apart. You slept with me, knowing you were going to kill me later. You beat me up. You nearly left me for dead, but then, at the last second, you sent me away, knowing that I loved you, and I’d be tortured by not knowing if I’d ever see you again. But that’s fine, because you were safe, and happy. I’m the one who couldn’t show his face in Paragon, Em. Living in a dirty, underpowered, rat infested shithole like that base. I had barely any contact with people other than a senile old man and a computer program for months, until Susan and Cara came along, and I was grateful.” I took a breath. “And yes, you’re right. If you hadn’t come back, I probably would be with her right now. She appreciates me.”

Emily sank back into a nearby chair as if I had punched her in the gut.

“Now, I’m going to go and walk out of that door.” I pointed towards the elevator. “Before I go, I want you to know something.” I looked her deep in her watery eyes.
“I love you. I always have, and I always will. I’ve asked you to trust me that I’m not this….this fraud. You didn’t believe me…fine. I guess I trust you more than you trust me.” I shook my head. “But, I always did, didn’t I?”

I fought with myself to not look back at her when I left. I knew that, if I did, my resolve would break, and I’d be under her spell again.

This…façade wasn’t marriage. Was I happy? Truly? During the good times, yes. But, with just the hint that I might be going back on my word to never wear my Power Belt again, she condemned me. In doing so, I reasoned, she’d condemned the marriage.

I went to the elevator, and pressed the button for my office. All I wanted to do was stand on my balcony, and stare at the world below me.

I wasn’t brooding. Honest.

*

The three men were in position, huddled in the darkness, watching for signs of life on the balcony across the street.
“This is a waste of time.” One of them grumbled.
“Come on, Fang.” The second of the trio remarked. “The Boss has never been wrong before. He told us when to break out of the Zig, when that guy was being sprung by Arachnos’ men, right?”
“So what?” The one known as Fang retorted. “Arachnos breaks a guy out of the Zig every day. ‘Destined One’ my [censored]. Weren’t you a ‘Destined One’ once, Fixer?”
“Shut up.” The one with the sniper rifle, the unelected leader of the trio, snarled. “We got something.”
“Where?” Fixer asked, focusing his binoculars on the balcony.
“There.” His leader nodded towards the glass door, which slid open, letting a man in a suit stride out. The three watched as he took a deep breath, letting it out slowly between pursed lips.
“He looks upset.” Fang chuckled.
“What do you care?” Fixer asked.
“I don’t.” Fang grinned. “It’s just nice to know we’re putting a sad guy out of his misery.”
“Would you two shut up?” The man with the rifle tensed his grip on the stock, rubbing his hand against the underside, finding a good grip, before raising the rifle to his shoulder.
“Lights out, Mr Tucker.”

The man took a breath, and let it out slowly. Counting his heartbeats, he stopped his breathing halfway, and waited in between beats, slowly squeezing the trigger…

*

I watched the world below me, and scowled at it. An old Pacino quote rattled through my mind.
‘Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in.’

How true it was.

I tried to put Emily out of my mind, and focus on what was bothering me, really. Who exactly was this new Guardian? What was his plan, his purpose? He was obviously trying to draw me out, to make me go into a confrontation with him, one on one. But why? What would it achieve?

A glint of light caught my eye, and I trained my eyes on it, out of curiosity. Switching my eyes over to Night Vision, I glimpsed three men in the shadows across the street. Two of them had binoculars, and the other…

Damn.

I jumped backwards, letting myself fall to the carpet underneath, just as the report from a high powered rifle sang out, and I heard a ]crack[ overhead, as a bullet found it’s new home in my ceiling. I followed the trajectory mentally, and frowned as I realised that the bullet would have passed through my head.

As more bullets shot up at my window, trying to find me, I looked around hastily, looking for protection. My eyes fell upon a glass case in the corner.

‘I can’t. I promised Emi…oh, the hell with it.’

I crawled my way over to the case, and shoved the base over, shielding myself as the glass shattered everywhere. I reached in, and grabbed my Power Belt, rolling out of the way of the hail of gunfire, into the relative safety of a hidden corner of my office.

I wrapped the belt around myself, and prayed that the power circuits still worked, after all the misuse it had been through. Falling 30 stories attached to the corpse of a former Mayor would be an understandable reason to stop working, although not exactly fortunate for me. I took a breath, and snapped the latch home into the central unit, which began to hum.
I had my finger poised over the Power Disk, when my door opened, and Emily ran in.

“Jay? I thought I heard gunfire…”
“Get down!” I yelled, and leaped at her, using my powered legs to fly the distance and knock her to the floor, with myself landing on top of her.
“Hi, honey. Gotta run. We can fight later, but right now, some guys are trying to kill me.” I leant down, and kissed her briefly on the lips. “Love you.”

I jumped off her, and hit the Power Disk as I flew out of the window. For once, the Paragon Times was 100% accurate, if a little early.

The Fire Guardian was back.

I shot down towards the men, and changed my vision to Infra-red. I wanted a good lock on these guys. Drawing my blaster, I levelled it at the three shapes…

No. Four shapes. Although, why were the three shooters sprawled out on the roof? And why did the fourth figure have a white stick in his hands?

I swapped my vision back to normal, and blinked. The three men? Unconscious. It was easy enough to see how it had happened. The fourth figure had probably incapacitated them with his Fire Sword. Scowling, I landed on the rooftops, and tilted my head, taking in everything I could about this new figure. Not that I had to.

It was like looking into a mirror.

Chapter Four

January 22nd, 2022

As I flew through the skies of Paragon, I couldn’t help but think about how lucky I was. A terrific wife, a great son…so what if I was a few years past 40? I had the family I had always wanted, and a job which was second to none.
As for my…other job…

An incident a year or so before Sammy had been born had proven to me that The Fire Guardian was always needed, in some capacity, so after a long, heartfelt discussion with Emily, it was agreed that I would, part-time at least, don my aging Power Belt.

Well, it wasn’t a discussion as such, but the bruises made for an interesting talking point at official functions.
“How did you get that black eye, Mr Tucker? Fighting ‘The Freakshow’?”
“No, actually, my wife clocked me in the face.”
I chuckled at the memory, then focused on my task ahead. I hated coming to this part of Paragon. No matter what else had occurred here before, to me, this would always be known as The Crash Site.

The large, ruined Rikti craft loomed before me, sunken into the ground. It had become something of a testing area for Heroes over the years, and the battles fought with surviving Rikti had left their mark on the battered spaceship. All the Rikti had gone now, of course, vanished without a trace, and nobody but Heroes ever came here, to either mourn their lost comrades, or wonder about the war. An unofficial testament to the courage and tenacity of the Heroes and citizens of Paragon City, there had been some strange reports about shadowy figures moving around, and, as luck would have it, those same reports ended up on my desk.

Not my desk at the Foundation, of course. Rather, the meeting table of my new Supergroup, The Paragon Guardians. Sadly, since the others were all busy with other missions, I had to go solo on this one.
“I hope I don’t miss Sammy’s big game later.” I worried, as I descended towards the ground. Sammy…

Some Heroes are lucky enough to have a family. A few of them are blessed with children, and there had been much discussion about whether or not to clue them into their parent’s…uhh…vocations. For some of us, for whom Superheroing was a full time job, it was unavoidable. For others like me, however, who only stepped out in costume when it was necessary, it was a harder choice. Despite the fact that my real identity was well known, nobody really cared that much anymore. Through luck, rather than careful planning, the media saw ‘Jason Tucker’ and ‘The Fire Guardian’ as separate entities, often reporting us, in the same breath, as doing different tasks. With the exception of The Paragon Times’ current editor, Susan, I sincerely doubted that many people even realised that I was The Fire Guardian anymore, apart from the seemingly ageless Statesman and a few other Heroes, either retired from the Hero game or staying as strict advisors to the younger generation.

As for myself…something stopped me from telling Sammy who I was. Emily had long ago confided in me that, in his younger years, Sammy had uncovered my old, battered briefcase, which I used to store my Power Belt, after I decided that I would return to being in costume. I didn’t particularly care, though. Kids were kids. If Sammy ever found out, or asked me outright, I’d tell him the truth. Otherwise, I was happy enough to let him remain blissfully ignorant.

‘And, speaking of ignorant…’ I thought to myself as my feet hit the ground, I saw a man in a white lab coat, looking up at the ship’s various surviving antennae, and slipping something into his pocket at my approach.

“Who are you?” I called out, striding forwards.
“What? Oh….er, I’m…well…aren’t you The Fire Guardian?”
“Yes, I am.” I nodded. “And you would be?”
“Oh. Pendant. Doctor Cody Pendant. I’m a…” He gestured towards the ship. “Rikti specialist. I’ve been conducting experiments within the ship. Examining the technology, and all that.”

‘Great, a scientist.’ I sighed to myself. ‘Why are all the scientists I meet nervous wrecks?’

“Doctor, have you been around here at night at all?”
“Oh…what?” Pendant stared at me. “I…to say, that is…yes.”
“Why? It isn’t safe here.”
“Oh, piffle!” Pendant chortled.

I’d never met a man before who actually chortled. Especially chortling about the Rikti. This was a first for me.

“This place is quite safe, believe you me.” Pendant reached into his breast pocket, and pulled out a thick pair of glasses.
‘Of course. The Nutty Professor.’
“Come, let me show you around.”

I had never entered the ship before. Sighing quietly, I let Pendant lead me into the craft.

*

Something didn’t feel right to Sammy.
He tried to tell himself that is was just lingering flashes of the Rikti nightmare he had, but, as he tried to concentrate on his baseball game, he found he couldn’t quite ignore the buzzing in the back of his brain.

He looked into the crowd, and saw his mother smiling broadly at him as he walked to the home plate. Next to her, waving a large foam hand, was Aunt Sarriss, cheering loudly, and trying to ignore the glances she kept getting from guys around her. He waved his bat to the audience, who cheered. Sammy “The Slugger” Tucker, the most recognised and adored player for the Atlas Attackers, even at 16, was coming into play.

Sammy grinned at the memory of him trying to explain baseball to his parents. Both being from England, they didn’t really grasp the concept of the sport, but it seemed fair. After all, his father had once tried to explain Cricket.

He stepped up to bat, and looked out across the pitch. The pitcher, 18year old Julio Swanson, was tipped to be in line for a shot at the pro’s next season, after graduation. However, he had never encountered The Slugger before.

Sammy drew back his bat, waiting for the first pitch. Swanson was well known for his fast curveballs, but Sammy knew what to expect. This would be easy.

Swanson adjusted himself, spat on the ground (a gesture that Sammy found, quite honestly, disgusting) and reeled back to throw his first ball out…

When everything went dark.

‘What the….’ Sammy stumbled, shaking his head as he fell to his knees in the dirt. Something was wrong, terribly wrong…

*

“And this is the Central Control Room.” Pendant boasted proudly.
“Yes, yes, very nice.” I commented, not particularly caring. This insane, harmless kook was making me miss my son’s final game of the season, and I just wanted to go.

I turned to leave, when the world suddenly got dimmer. I felt a lightness in my head, as if I had stood up too quickly. The world span around me, and just as I started to feel nauseous, it stopped. I took a deep breath, and with it, came flashing visions. Somehow, though, these weren’t visions, I knew these were memories. Memories of me, my family, and my life…but I had never experienced them!

Fighting with Emily over a newspaper.
Gunfire raining up at my office.
Standing on a rooftop, going toe to toe with someone dressed in Fire Guardian armour.
Standing in a very familiar looking Base, looking up at a screen.
Hugging Sammy.

As I tried to focus, I noticed that Pendant was standing by the consoles in the control room, pressing buttons. I knew, somehow, he had to be stopped, and moved to try, when, out of nowhere, a figure dressed all in black attacked me, shoving me over. When I tried to stand, the figure hit my Power Belt, turning off my costume, and hit me over the head with something heavy. I was aware of a sharp pain, and then…with the disquieting notion that I was becoming far too used to getting knocked out…nothing.

*

Pendant stood at the control panel, staring at the figure dressed in black.
“Who…who are you?”
“That doesn’t really matter, does it, Cody? It will have to suffice, to say that I’m a friend and ally. Now, finish your task. Nobody will be able to stop you…this time.”

Chapter Five

January 23rd, 2022

Sammy opened his eyes, and saw a familiar sight. Certainly more familiar than it should be, at any rate. It was a sight he had seen, apparently, since he was a day old, and had repeated when he was five, eight, and 11, when he had broken his leg playing at being his favourite Superhero, and trying to fly.

“Hello, Sammy.” The kindly face hovering over him said.
“Hello Doctor Wilks.”

*

Doctor Wilks flicked through my chart, clucking to himself. “Yes, yes. You just…passed out?”
“Something like that, yeah. I was on the baseball field, and…”
“Tell me about this nightmare you had, Samuel.”
“I’m not crazy, Doc.” I snapped, a little more forcefully than I liked.
“Oh, heavens dear boy,” Doc Wilks murmured, more to himself than anyone else. “In the sixteen years I’ve known you, you’ve never suffered delusions of any kind. If you say your nightmare was a…vision, if you like, I’d tend to believe you. I try to not even guess at the remarkable happenings in the human brain. Especially…” He pointed a pen at me, “In the brain of a Tucker.”

Now what was that supposed to mean?

“I remember the last time you were rushed here by your parents. Your father, if I recall. You broke your leg trying to fly?”
“Yes.” Damn his memory. For an old guy, he was pretty damn sharp.
“You were trying to be a Superhero?”
“Yes.”
Wilks chuckled. “So much like his father. Which one were you trying to be, again?”
“The Irvinator.”
“Not the Fire Guardian?”
“The….that part-timer? He’s a coward. Only fights when he wants, and he’s always backed up by those Paragon Guardians. What a loser.”
“Yes….quite. I wouldn’t let your father catch you saying that.”

Old people. They’re all nuts.

“So, this dream.”
I sighed. “I dreamt the Rikti had come back.”
“Indeed?” Wilks said sharply.
I knew something about the doc’s personal history. Not much. I knew he was related to Aunt Sarriss in some way, but the old man kept his past to his past, in the main.
“There was…this ship. This huge saucer, just like in the history books, firing green light at everything, and anything the light touched just….exploded. People, buildings…anything. I dreamt my mother had died.”

Wilks sighed, and nodded sadly, starting to pace the room. “Samuel, I fear that you’re under some sort of stress. I did a psych rotation, years ago, so I know a little something about the way the mind works. Your dream was probably brought on by stress. The Rikti represent some fear of yours, the death of your mother is representative of a great loss in your personal life. However, there’s nothing real about dreams. They’re the result of random neurons firing in your cerebral cortex. That stress that brought on the dream caught up with you.”
“Well…” I pondered this. “It was the last game of the season.”
“There you are, you see! Nothing to worry about.”
“But would that account for the buzzing?”

Wilks turned at me, and stared. “What did you say?”
“There’s this….buzzing noise, in my head. It started round about the same time as the dream, and it’s been getting…well...louder.”

Wilks kept staring at me. I found it quite un-nerving. “Does this ‘buzzing’ noise sound like anything?”
“Yes. Buzzing.”
“No, you mis-understand me, dear boy.” Wilks edged closer. “Does it sound like anything in particular? Is it a random buzzing, or a name? A word? A thought?”

Riktiriktiriktiriktiriktiriktiriktiriktiriktirikti riktiriktiriktiriktiriktiriktiriktirikti…

“Yes. It sounds like…”
“Yes?”

Riktiriktiriktiriktiriktiriktiriktiriktiriktirikti riktiriktiriktiriktiriktiriktiriktirikti…

“It sounds like it’s saying…well…”
“What, Samuel?” Wilks’ glare, at this point, scared the hell out of me, and the buzzing had increased in volume massively, to the point it sounded like it was going to jump out of my head any moment and deafen me.
“It sounds like it’s saying ‘Rikti’.”

Wilks’ face turned as white as his lab coat, and he stumbled away, muttering to himself. “Not possible…it just isn’t…”

RIKTIRIKTIRIKTIRIKTIRIKTIRIKTIRIKTIRIKTIRIKTIRIKTI RIKTI

I blinked. “Hey…it’s stopped!”
“What?”
“The buzzing. It got real, real loud for a moment, and then…nothing. It stopped. That’s good, right?”
“It’s stopped?”
“Yeah! I guess I’m cured, huh?”

Wilks ran over to my window, and flung open the blinds. He watched the city, pass by as it always did, and heaved a sigh of relief, before turning back to me.
“Yes. Yes, I think you might just…”

A blast of intense green light, near blinding, cut off what Wilks might have said. I jumped out of my bed, and we both peered out of the window.

In the street, directly in front of us, was a large, glowing, green disk, shimmering. We watched, in morbid fascination, and growing fear, as hundreds upon hundreds of Rikti troops, Drones, and Chief Soldiers poured out, and started swarming the hospital.

Wilks shoved me bodily out of the room, and slammed the door behind me, just as the walls started to shake. I ran for my life down the corridor, yet, as far as I was, as pre-occupied with my own survival I was, nothing could prevent me from hearing the scream I knew had to come from Doctor Wilks, nor the sickening sound as the Rikti weapons tore the flesh from him, burning his internal organs, and sending him crashing against the wall, sending his mangled, mutilated body through it, and into the corridor, before Rikti swarmed out through the hole, cutting down patients, doctors, and hospital workers before them.

On Sunday, January the 23rd, 2022, the Second Rikti War began. Although I didn’t know it at the time, it was a war we would not win, and would take the lives of my friends, the Superheroes I looked up to…and my parents.

*

April 3rd, 2006

I stared at the other Fire Guardian. He…or she, for that matter, stared back.
“You know,” I began, not really knowing what to say. “You missed April Fools Day by a couple of days. Nice costume, though.”
“Thanks.”
“Maybe you should keep it. Halloween’s in six months, but you could use a little refining. Maybe say some heroic things. Alliteration’s good, y’know. ‘Fiendish Foes Feel The Fury’, etc, etc.”
“I’ll try to remember that…Mr Tucker.”

I paused, and nodded. “You’ve done your homework.”
The other Guardian chuckled at that. “And I didn’t need any help with it, either.”
“Good. I’m no babysitter.”

We stared at each other silently for a moment. The other Guardian seemed…I don’t know. Fidgety. Then again, if I was face to face with the man whose identity I tried to steal, I might be nervous, too.
“Thanks for taking care of these three.” I gestured at the ground, towards the three would-be assassins.
“I was in the neighbourhood.”
“Spying on me?”
“No, I….grew up near here.”
“Ah. I’m not from around here, myself.”
“You’re originally from Hitchin, in England. You attended the Byregood School with your friend Sammy Edwards, and met your wife, Emily Campbell, at the North Hertfordshire College.”

I stared. “You have done your homework.”
“Thank you. Although, I don’t know what you studied at the college.”
“Oh, this and that.” I stalled, trying to catch the other Guardian off-guard. So to speak. “Why do you want to know?”
“Oh, I’m just curious.”
“Well, if you must know…” I jumped at the other Guardian, igniting my Fire Sword.
He barely ducked out of the way, and brought his own sword up to block mine.
“Wait! I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Oh, don’t worry.” I smiled. “You won’t.”

It had been a long time since I had engaged in any major swordplay, but I still remembered the basics, from Friday lunchtimes in the sweaty Byregood gym’s fencing club. Lunge, don’t over-extend, block, riposte, parry…

This guy was good. He had slightly more power than me, I could tell, but he lacked finesse.
“You call this sword fighting?” I asked as we traded exchanges. “It isn’t a club, it’s a sword. It’s supposed to be elegant, not brutal.”
“Can’t it be both?” He asked back.
“Touché.” I grinned at my own accidental pun.

A few more exchanges, and I seemed to be wearing the guy out. “What’s the matter? Can’t keep up?” I chuckled. “Kids today…no stamina.”
“As you say. I’m just tired of fighting you without trying to hurt you.”
“You keep saying that, but, I have to warn you, I’m not suffering the same problem.”
“I’ve noticed.” He withdrew, and held out his hand in a martial arts gesture I recognised. No mas. I pointed my blade low in deference to his wishes.
“So, what now? You want to talk? Because I’m not really in a talking mood.”
“Oh?”
“Had a fight with the wife. Probably broke up.”
The man, whoever he was, stared. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. I’ve gone through some hard times recently…you’d probably know all about that, Mr ‘I’ve done my homework’.”
“No, can’t say I do.”
“Mike Anson?”
“Who? Oh….wait. Wasn’t he Mayor once?”
“More like my arch-foe.”
The man chuckled. “You have an arch-foe?”
“Had. Past tense. He’s dead.” I swung at the man, who dove to the side and rolled out of my way. “He made a nice splatting noise when he hit the pavement, though.” I added as an afterthought.
“You killed him?” He seemed shocked. “YOU?”
I shrugged. “He looked at me funny.”

The other Guardian was taken aback by this. No doubt, whomever he got his information from, he wasn’t told all of it.
“You….Jason Tucker….killed a man?”
“To protect my family? I’d kill anyone.”
“Even me?”
“Especially you, if you don’t tell me who you are.”

The man thought about this. “Yeah…but…you. You killed a guy.”
I sighed. “We’ve been through this.”
“How does this mean you and…your wife broke up, though? Did she find out about it just today?”
“What? No, I told her right before I proposed.”
“A romantic at heart.”
“Well, I figured it was only fair. She killed to protect me, I killed to protect her. We were even.”
“She…I mean…what?”

Okay, this guy was seriously tripping.
“Oy…look, kid. Nobody’s perfect, okay? Every family has skeletons in their closet. My family just has…mutilated skeletons. Besides, it’s not like we’re mass murderers.”
“Lied…”
“Uhm….what?”

I heard some scrabbling behind me, and, leaping up in the air by a good ten feet, spun around. I saw Emily poking her head up, staring at myself and my duplicate in shock.
I turned back to face the Ersatz Guardian, who promptly shook his head, turned and ran.

“Dammit, Em!”
“What?”
“That’s the….me! The other Fire Guardian!”
Emily stared after the rapidly vanishing figure. “Well, don’t just float there, you moron, go catch him!”

I sighed, and flew off in pursuit.

I chased him for a good few minutes, before he ducked into an alleyway. I went around the building, and rounded the corner just in time to see the Ersatz Guardian (Well, I think it’s a good nickname. Besides, I have to call him something, right?) enter a Base Portal. I sighed, and descended to the ground.

“Well…” I grumbled to myself. “No way I’m catching him now.”

*

The Ersatz Guardian stormed into the Base he was using as a temporary home, and looked at his Mentor.
“You!”
The other man…if you could call him that…had the nerve to look surprised. “Moi?”
“Yes, you. Why didn’t you tell me that they’d killed people?”
“Oh, SJ, SJ, SJ. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to get distracted by it. You’ve got a mission here, remember?”
“Yeah, I know.” ‘SJ’ powered down his Belt, and threw it onto the table, which caused the belt to protest with a loud ‘clank’. “It still doesn’t mean that I’m not shocked.” He thought about it for a moment. “I mean….yeah, her I could understand. But him?”
“Life’s full of disappointments, SJ. Besides, you’re not supposed to be interacting with them. At all. You could really mess things up.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Fate of the universe, and all that.”
“What? Hell no. But Jason’s a smart guy. He’ll come looking for you, and he’ll eventually find me. I just don’t want them hating my name.”

SJ shook his head. “You’re a weird guy.”
“That’s what they tell me. So…what’s next?”
“Well…”

Chapter Six

February 1st, 2022

It had only taken eight days. We had lost the war.

Not officially, of course. Officially, we would fight to the very last man. Unfortunately for us, ‘the very last man’ was literal, and fast approaching. The world was torn asunder. China was gone. Japan? One of the first places hit. About three quarters of Europe had been destroyed, too, including my parent’s beloved England.

The population had dropped…‘been culled’, I’d heard one man remark, down to a few hundred thousand. Not millions, but thousands. It was a number that made little sense to me – it was literally too much for my brain to process. Luckily for it, and unluckily for me, it tended to focus on those dead I had personally known, or heard of.

Doctor Wilks, who was widely believed to be the first casualty.
Pretty much everyone from my school.
The Back Alley Brawler? Dead. The Rikti had found a way to stop the emergency teleporters…or, more than likely, make them redundant. With no hospitals left, there were few places a Hero could teleport to. Most of the Heroes, in fact, were wiped out. A few stood strong….Statesman being a prime example. Some of the Kheldians were still around, too.

For the few of us left surviving, Supergroup bases were the only safe haven. That is, until the Rikti could find a way to break into those. When that happened…and not if, but when…we were all dead. My own family: myself, my parents, and Aunt Sarriss, had found shelter with the Paragon Guardians, of which Sarriss was a founding member. Along with us were a few faces I didn’t recognise, presumably charity cases from the Foundation that Dad has brought along. One of whom was a scientist of some sort, who Dad had only introduced as ‘Doctor Pendant’. Apparently, Pendant was one of the worlds’ leading experts on the Rikti…probably the only one still alive. My Dad had mentioned, when asked, something about Pendant being in a crashed Rikti ship, trying to gather information on the upcoming battle. Pendant was being tight lipped. Not that anyone could blame him – to have the power to avert a terrible massacre, and failing? That has to hurt.

Right now, he was going through statistics, numbers, and facts, mumbling to himself, scratching his ‘notes’ on the metallic floor he sat on. I found it incredibly irritating, and the one thing that kept me going, throughout it all, was the knowledge that maybe…just maybe…the facts he kept saying to himself could help us survive.

Everyone had lost someone. Untold families had been destroyed, friendships broken, loves lost. Everyone in our shelter had the same fear; the fear I could see whenever my parents looked at each other, or at me. Not fear as in ‘will it be them?’, but more ‘when will it be them?’.

My fathers’ stories about the Holocaust made a sudden, sickening sense. His grandparents…my great grandparents, had escaped Poland to avoid the death camps. Some of their relatives weren’t so lucky, and were ‘processed’ in Biesiadka, Huta-Komarowska, and, of course, the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau. Now, over 80 years later, the same family hid, in near silence, in terror, from a group of invading marauders, intent on nothing but world domination, and the extermination of everything not them.

A laugh broke me out of my reverie. I glanced over, annoyed, at Pendant. He was running his fingers over his notes, nodding to himself.

“Yes! It’s so simple. With the polarity of the neutron flow being reversed, coupled with the inverse tachyon pulses of the portal…it could work.”
I sighed, and leaned my body over to get a better look.
“What could, Doc?”

“Oh!” He looked up, startled. “Hello.”
“Hi.” I sighed. “What could work?”
“Well…” He launched into a rather spectacular display of techno babble, most of which I didn’t understand. “…We could channel a Rikti teleporter to any other location. I’d need to get outside, though, and take a frequency reading.”

My Dad walked towards us, his head tilted. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, Doctor Pendant thinks he could win the war by going outside.”
“You’d be killed.” He shot at Pendant.
“Well, obviously, I would need some protecting. I wouldn’t be out there for long, though. Just take the frequency reading, adjust a few buttons on this…” He pulled out a long, sleek black device from his lab coat pocket, “Aim it at the teleporter, and ‘zap’! We’re on the beaches at Maui, or standing in the middle of the Rikti Mothership. Whichever you’d prefer.”

My Dad stood there, rocking on his heels for a moment, considering this. “You guarantee this will work?”
“Absolutely.” Pendant nodded without a second’s hesitation.
“Okay, then.”

*

Sarriss and my Dad had been locked away with Pendant for a few hours, now. I guessed they were talking about Pendant’s plan, but I couldn’t see how my Dad could possibly help.
My Mum wandered towards me, and sat down on the metal floor by my side.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
I glanced at her, and smiled. “I’m trying not to have any.”
“Pennies?”
“Thoughts. Whenever I think…I keep remembering Doc Wilks.”
My Mum nodded. “You know, your father didn’t live through the last Rikti War. He was safe in England. We broke up because of it, in fact.”
“Oh?” I had never heard about this.
“We were happy together, but then, a soldier…Pete…caught my eye, on his way to Heathrow airport, to fly out and do his bit for the war. I dumped your father for him, and stayed by Pete’s side all the way to Paragon.”
“What happened?”
“Oh, Pete died.” She shrugged. “This muscular, quiet, shy young man who could barely tell one end of his rifle from the other, disintegrated with the rest of his regiment. Cut down in seconds, after those weeks of training.” She shuddered slightly. “I knew what a mistake it was to leave your father. I never thought I’d see him again…but fate works in mysterious ways.”

I smiled. “How did you and Dad meet up again? I’ve never heard that story.”
“Ohh…” My mother blanched. “It’s not important. We ran into each other on the street, and he was…overcome by emotion.”
I laughed despite the situation. “Sounds like Dad. Let me guess, he fell to his knees and cried, burning up with love.”
My Mum glanced at me sideways, and for a second, her face was sadder than I have ever seen it. “Something like that, yes. I’ve hurt him so much over the years, Sammy. You can’t begin to imagine the pain I put your father through. But, it made him who he is, and me who I am. And, who knows? Without all that pain, we might not have you.” She kissed me on the forehead. “And I think both myself and your father agree, if we had to do it all again, to have a son like you, we would.” I hugged her, and she returned it fiercely, before returning her attention to the one possession she had taken with her from our home; a black battered briefcase, which I found vaguely familiar.
“Remember this?” She smiled, and waved it at me.
“Sorta. Isn’t that the one that you two hid…”

The doors opened, cutting off my reply, and everyone watched as Dad and Sarriss walked out, their faces set and grim. Behind them, a happy…no, near ecstatic Doctor Pendant followed, practically bouncing.

“Well?” My mother stood.
My Dad nodded. “We’re going to do it. Doctor Pendant’s going outside to take a few readings, and we’re going to launch an offensive on the Rikti mothership.”
“We? Who’s ‘we’?” I asked.
“Myself and Sarriss.” He nodded to my aunt, who nodded back.
“And me.” My mum chipped in.

My Dad wheeled around and stared at her. “No. Absolutely not.”
“Jason…”
“No, Em. You’d have no protection.”

My mother, in reply, opened the briefcase, and pulled out two large, metallic belts. One was gold with a red disk in the buckle, the other was jet black with a blue centre.
“Remember this?” She grinned, waving the black one.
My Dad nodded. “How could I forget? But, Em…are you sure you can…”
“Hey. Anything you can do, I can do. Let’s not forget, love, I can still pin you when we…wrestle.” She winked at my Dad, causing both him and me to blush.
However, I didn’t want to be left out.

“I’m coming too.”

“NO!” Both my parents and Aunt yelled simultaneously.
“Hey, if you two think a few old belts can save your lives, I’m in on this too.”
“You listen here, young man…” Aunt Sarriss started, pointing a finger at me.
“Oh, bite me.” My parents chuckled slightly, and Sarriss glanced at my Mum. “He gets that from you, you know.”
“Absolutely.” My Mum nodded readily.
“Look, we’re a family.” I began. “If we’re going to win the war, we do it as a family. And, if we die…” My parents faced dropped. “…We do that as a family, too.” I finished hurriedly.

My parents exchanged long glances. They did this a lot, and I always thought, when I was younger, that they had some sort of shared telepathy. A lot of the time, they seemed like two halves of one person.

My Dad sighed, and turned back to look at me. “Okay.” He relented. “But you stay behind us at all times, with Doctor Pendant, and you do exactly what I tell you to do. Got it?”
I nodded. “Yes, sir.”
He reached around his leg, and…

I had to be imagining that. No way did my father just open up his leg. He must have had a hidden pocket on his jeans. That’s the only possible….no way can he open his leg up. Anyway, he pulled out a small, greenish chip, and put it in my hand.
“If we get separated, for any reason, you run to the nearest Base Portal and jump in, you got that, Sport?”
I nodded, and slipped the chip into my shirt pocket.
“If I die, your mother will go with you.” My Dad held up a hand against my Mum’s protests. “And if your mother dies…I’ll go with you. We’re not leaving you an orphan.”

I nodded again. “So, what’s the chip?”
My Father smiled cryptically. “Home away from home.”

I stared at my Dad as if he had gone nuts. “So, what now?”
My Dad didn’t answer verbally. He took the golden belt from my mother’s hands, and snapped it around himself. My mother did the same with the black belt.

“Son…” My Mum said. “There’s a few things we’ve been keeping from you.”
“Such as?”

My parents looked at each other again, and they both pressed the coloured buckles on their belts. Within seconds, forcefields shimmered up their bodies, and I found myself staring at two heavily armoured bodies. One…my mother…was clad entirely in black. My Father…the innocent, friendly man I had known, had been replaced by…

Oh. Well, at least now I knew why Doctor Wilks suggested that I not tell my Dad about my opinions concerning The Fire Guardian.

Oops.

Chapter Seven

Sammy stood in the pitch black room, trembling. In his hands, he held a belt, which he hugged tightly against himself, as if it were a magic talisman to scare away bad thoughts, or the ultimate weapon, which would make all evil beings tremble and surrender. He refused to loosen his grip on it, despite the blood which coated it, making it nearly impossibly slick.

That blood, and that belt, were all he had left of his father. The ‘great’ Jason Tucker…The Fire Guardian, had been fatally injured, and gave his life getting his son to the disused Base he now stood. Although, Sammy realised hysterically, he wasn’t standing there anymore. He had sunk to his knees, and, with the Power Belt still tight in his grip, had started wailing uncontrollably. His parents were dead. His Aunt was dead. Pendant…

‘No, better not think about what happened to him.’ Sammy thought, through the crying. Now he was alone, in this base, the ‘home away from home’ his father had said.

Some home.

There were no lights. There was no sound. There was no power.

There was no hope.

There was only himself, and his memories…

*

The ground shook from the second we hit streetside again. Although there were no Rikti in sight, Dad said we had to be cautious.

We made it all of ten feet before a heat wave, accompanied by a burst of green, hit us. We all glanced out to trace the source of the beam – a Rikti Drone was hurtling towards us at a rapid pace. We looked amongst ourselves. Dad, Mum, Pendant, myself…We looked down, and saw a pair of legs connected to a slender waist, and…nothing else.

We ran…

*

Sammy sobbed, and tried to force himself to stand. After trying repeatedly, he lay down, and tried to concentrate on his breathing. The cold metal of the floor chilled his cheek, and helped calm him somewhat. When, at last, the tears had slowed, he sat up slowly, and looked around.

Everything was still pitch black.

Sammy crawled on his hands and knees, the belt over his shoulder, feeling forward with one hand all the time, until he hit a wall. Sliding his hand up, he noticed he met a large protrusion. Whilst still made of metal, the protrusion was maybe a foot thick, and travelled up higher than Sammy could reach, down to maybe two feet from the floor. Using his hands as a guide, he kept them pressed against the front of the…thing, and walked a good ten feet before reaching the other end. He slowly walked back, but this time, he felt a raised square on the return approach. His finger rested on it lightly, and managed to rock it back and forth in its’ holding.
‘A button!’ He realised.

Feeling a slight tremor of nervousness, he pressed the button gently, and jumped back when the front of the device flashed a light grey. It took several seconds for Sammy to realise that the flash hadn’t messed up his night vision…it was, in fact, projecting a continuous square, nearly ten feet wide and maybe eight feet high.

‘It’s a monitor! But…a monitor for what?’

Sammy wondered if maybe, for a moment, he could use it somehow, to contact the help his Dad was so adamant would be here for him.

*

We lost sight of Pendant during our escape. With no time to mourn Aunt Sarriss’ rather ignoble death, we had concentrated on personal survival. By the time we had noticed that Pendant was no longer with us, I followed my parents into a nearby alley to regroup, and get our bearings.

“This is totally messed up!” My mother yelled at us both, her armour making her sound, strangely, male. “We’re stuck. We’ve lost Pendant, and we’re being hunted.”
“We’re not stuck.” My father assured us both, and opened up a utility slot in his belt. He reached inside, and held out two chips, both identical to the one I carried in my shirt pocket.
“We can go back to the Base, and get Sam’s help.”
“Sam?” My mother’s helmeted head leaned forwards. “Are you insane? He might not even…”
“He’ll be there. And he’ll help us.”

A humming noise filtered down to us, and we looked up. Another Drone…or maybe the same one, was descending towards us.

We made it halfway across the park when the green beam shot out again. Dad and I spun around, and saw Mum, her forcefield phasing in and out of existence, illuminated by a soft, green glow. Then, it died, and she stared at us both, fear and pain in her expression. She managed to whisper “Get Sammy to…” before she fell forwards, dead (I want to think) before her face hit the pavement. I stared, in horror, at the sight of her entire back half eaten away, showing burnt flesh, charred organs, and the hint of white bone. My Dad, even through his armour, was trembling. He ignited a Fire Sword from his fist, and dove straight at the Drone, a wordless scream in his throat.

I prepared myself for the inevitable, the pain of watching a second parent die, when I saw a glimpse of Doctor Pendant, standing near some Rikti. And, strangely, they weren’t attacking.

I turned my full attention back to my Dad, who had completely decimated the Drone, and kept on attacking the ruined hulk, smashing it to pieces, at first with his sword, and then with his fists and feet. Even through the distortion his suit provided, I could hear him crying.

“Dad…” I walked up to him, keeping a safe distance. He either ignored me, or, more likely, didn’t hear. “Dad!” I said a bit louder.

He wheeled around, his fist held high, poised to attack, and stared at me for a long moment. “Dad…Pendant. He’s over there!” I pointed. Quickly, my Dad remembered who he was, and who I was, and we turned to look at him, using the shadows, and building ruins to obscure our approach.

*

Sammy felt around the oversized monitor, guided by the faint light the powered up screen gave off. He found two more buttons, and experimented by pressing one.

Nothing.

He tried pressing the other, and was rewarded instantly by a clicking that echoed throughout the room, as circuit breakers were tripped. The lights in the room flashed on with a sudden brilliance that dazzled Sammy, who was forced to shield his eyes. When he removed his arm from his eyes, he blinked, and looked around.

He was in a large, metal chamber, which held a long meeting table, a desk with chair, separate corridors leading who other places in the base, a positively antique fridge, and, on the monitor, was the face of a handsome, blond man Sammy had only seen in photographs.

“It’s about bloody time.” The man’s voice boomed through speakers in the chamber.
“Who…who are you?”
“I’m SAMI, you twit.”
“Uhh….”
“Yeah, definitely Jay’s kid. The fool can’t calculate Pi to twenty trillion places, but he can have off-spring.”
“You’re….uhm…”
The man on the screen…SAMI…sighed. “Okay. I’d ask you if you were getting any reverse Deja-Vu, since we’ve done this before, but you don’t remember. Which makes sense, really. Okay, let me bring you up to speed.”
Sammy blinked at the image.
“My name’s Sam. I’m the Graphical User Interface Avatar for a SAMI program, or Synchronous Artificial Mind Index. I helped your father in his career as a Superhero, before he retired. He shut me down shortly after…his last mission, and I’ve been waiting for you to re-activate me for the past 16 years.”
“But…how did you know I’d be here?”
“Ahh.” Sam nodded. “An excellent question. However, I can’t answer that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t. Now shut up, kid.”
“Hey!” Sammy glared. “If you’re a computer program, you’re supposed to do what I say. Tell me how you knew I was coming.”
Sam grinned down at his young charge. “Well, Bucko, as much as I’d love to be able to tell you how I know who you are, and that you’d re-activate me today, I can’t. I’m under orders from my Prime User.”
“Your….who?”
Sam sighed. “Geez. And you’re so smart, Jay wanted to name you after me? Yeah, I’m gonna have words with him when this gets all straightened out. Where is he, anyway?”

Sammy blinked back his tears, and said nothing, holding out the bloodstained Power Belt for Sam’s visual receptors to pick up. Sam stared at it for a long time, saying nothing. However, his pixellated cheeks started to turn red.
“He’s….dead?”
Sammy nodded.
“The Rikti got him, I presume?”
Sammy was silent, but nodded again.
“You…IDIOT! You failed again?”

“I…wha?”
“Jesus. Okay, kid, okay. Start from the beginning. What happened to your father?”

*

Cody Pendant was a Collaborator. That much was clear from what Dad and I could see. He stood in a group of Rikti, and was giving them orders!
“I’m going to kill him.” My Dad growled.
I thought about Pendant, happily offering up my family as cannon fodder so that he could meet with his allies.
“Me first.”

We watched in fascination as a Rikti jumped out of an opening portal, and threw what looked like a suitcase to Pendant. He picked it up, and pulled out his remote device, pressing a few buttons. He nodded to the Rikti, and stepped forwards, towards the portal.
My Dad rose, and unclipped a segment from his Power Belt, before switching it off. The Fire Guardian faded into nothing, and my Dad, tears streaking his face, handed it to me. As I took it, I noticed that my Dad was bleeding profusely from his hip.
“Dad…” I started.
“Don’t, Sammy. Just don’t say it.” He pointed down a nearby alley. “The nearest Portal is on the other side of the road leading out from the alley. When I distract the Rikti and Pendant, you run for it. Okay?”
“But…”
“Okay, Samuel?”

I stared at my Dad. “Dad, I…”
He pulled me into a hug. “I love you, Sammy. Maybe Sam can help you. If not, he’ll keep you safe, at least.” He looked back towards Pendant, who was nearly at the portal.
“Go now.”

I watched in horror as my Dad charged the Rikti, holding the belt segment tightly in his hand. I was frozen on the spot, and watched as the Rikti, and Pendant, turned towards him, the Rikti aiming their weapons, and cutting him down.

I ran.

*

“So…” Sam said quietly. “It’s happening again.”
“Again?”
“Sammy, I’ve been preparing for this for years. You need to be ready, though.”
“Ready? What for?”
Sam grinned at me. “For a little trip.”
I stared. “I’m going after Pendant? But how? We don’t know where he went.”
“You don’t. I do. See, Pendant’s device didn’t change the destination of the Portal.”
“Huh?”

*

Jason Tucker was lying on the ground, his body burning away. He tried to draw in a gasp of air, but found it difficult. His lungs were mostly destroyed. He looked up, and saw himself surrounded by Rikti. Doctor Pendant peered down at his broken, dying body.
“Mr Tucker. So glad you could join us.”
“You…” Jason managed.
“Yes, me. I’d love to stay and chat, but I have places to go, things to do. A war to start, you know how it is.”
“War?”
“Yes. See, this isn’t the main fleet. But, I can call them down. I just need to kill you.”
Jason frowned, and managed a choking laugh, blood spitting out of his mouth as he did so.
“Too late…dead already.”
“Yes, you’re dead –now-.” Pendant nodded. “But not sixteen years ago.”

Jason’s failing mind couldn’t process that, so he watched in silence, as Pendant stepped into the portal.

Now.

Jason glanced at the golden cylinder he held in his hands.

‘For Sarriss. For Wilks…and for Emily. I love you.’

He let go of the cylinder, which, deprived of the Deadman’s Switch, erupted in a fireball, burning the Rikti to death, and, Jason hoped, Pendant. Jason’s last thought, before he died, was of Emily’s face.

Then, he knew no more.

*

“Did you know, little Sammy, that Doctor Cody Pendant is the only person in recent memory to have been in two places at once?”
“Huh?”

Sam shook his head. “Okay, I really need you to pay attention. This [censored]’s important.”
The screen changed into a still picture of Doctor Pendant, taken from a security camera photo somewhere in Paragon. It was dated 2006.
“Here’s Doc Pendant as he was at the start of all this, sixteen years ago.”
Sammy nodded. “Okay.”
“And this…” Another photo flashed up next to it, dated the same day, at a different location. The man in the new photo was, again, Doctor Pendant. However, it was the Pendant as Sammy had known him. “…Is also Doctor Pendant.”
Sammy stared. “How…how is that possible?”
Sam blinked back on the screen, and smiled. “Time travel. You, Sammy Tucker, are stuck in what’s known as a temporal causality loop. This future isn’t supposed to exist. Hell, even the future that was replaced isn’t supposed to exist. Originally, from what I’ve been able to work out, your Dad stopped Cody Pendant breaking into a restricted area at Portal Corp. Whilst this still happens, our Cody Pendant, for a lack of a better term, does it for him, and gives the information to…well…himself. He then arranges for three hitmen to kill your Father outside The Tucker Building. With no Fire Guardian to stop our Pendant, he becomes a powerful man, and contacts the Rikti much sooner than he was able to. Whilst this has changed, the Rikti still invade, as you’ve seen.”
Sammy nodded.
“Worse than that,” Sam continued, “If the previous history comes back, the man who stops it…my Prime User…won’t be able to interfere.”
“Why not?”
Sam looked down at Sammy gravely. “Because he won’t be born. His mother will be killed in the first wave, still carrying him. Still carrying…you.”

Sammy blanched. “So…in this other history, I don’t exist?”
“Sucks, huh? What you need to do is go back and stop Pendant. Both of him. You need to restore the original time line, and…”
“How? I’m no killer. Neither of my parents would ever kill.”
Sam frowned, but said nothing.
“How can I go back in time, anyway?”
“Ah. Well, by yourself, you can’t. However, I’m great.”
“Riiiight.”
“I’ve been set up from what you’d consider the past, with all of Pendant’s notes. And, since the guy who helped out managed to get the original device…I can send you back in time. I have to send you back in time.”
“Why?”
“Because, if I don’t, you won’t be born, and we’ll shift from a recursive causality loop into a cyclic paradox which will rip open a hole in time and space, destroying absolutely everything in its’ path. Is it that hard to follow?”
“I…well…yes?”
“Okay. You go back in time. Stop Pendant. If you do it right, you’ll be born, and the Rikti won’t invade. Your parents will survive. You’ll be happy.”

Sammy nodded. “I don’t have a choice, do I?”
“Honestly? No.”

Sammy sighed, and nodded. “Do it.”
Sam grinned, and something in the room began to hum. Suddenly, a large green portal opened up behind Sammy, who stared at it nervously.
“Just step into the portal whenever you’re ready. But make it quick, willya? I can’t keep it running forever.”
“Will…will it hurt?”
He stepped forwards, inches from the portal.
Sam’s voice soothed him. “No. It won’t hurt at all, I promise.”

Chapter Eight

Sam had lied to me.
It hurt like hell.

Chapter Nine

January 3rd, 2006

Sammy stood silently in the Supergroup Base, ignoring his aching body. He had arrived maybe ten minutes ago, and felt sore all over. He was going to go have some serious words with the Avatar, when footsteps nearby stopped him. He heard two voices speak. One was the lying Avatar’s, the other, his father’s.

“Well,” His father said. “I’m all packed up.”
“You’re leaving already? You suck, man.”
“Sam…” His Dad laughed softly. “Chill, okay? This is what’s best for me.”
“Yeah, but…after all we’ve been through…I can’t believe this is goodbye.”
He heard his Dad sigh. “Sam…it’s done. I can’t live here anymore, I have a life to lead with Emily.”
“Will you come back?”
“I doubt it.” The elder Tucker paused. “Do you want me to keep you running? There’ll be plenty of porn for you to pick up.”
“Nah, what’s the use? Porn’s no good unless you have someone to watch it with.”
“Okay…”
“Jay?”
“Yeah?”
“We made a good team, didn’t we?”

Sammy struggled to hear his father whisper. “Yeah, Sam. We were the best.”

The lights all died, as my Dad must have shut down Sam, and with him, the base power. I waited maybe ten minutes, to play it safe, then made my way slowly into the main chamber.
Groping for the same buttons I had pressed just maybe fifteen minutes ago…although, not for another sixteen years…ugh, I turned the power back on.

Once again, Sam blinked into life in front of me. “What did you forget, Jay…Hey! Who the hell are you?”

I sighed. ‘Now I see what he meant by ‘reverse Déjà vu’’

*

It took me the best part of an hour to explain myself to Sam. Seeing as how I didn’t quite understand my predicament myself, it made the job a lot harder.
“So…let me see if I’ve got this straight.”
“Okay.” I nodded.
“You’re Jason and Emily’s kid.”
“Yes.”
“Although you haven’t been born yet. You’re from a future which shouldn’t exist.”
“Exactly.”
“And your name’s Sammy.”
I nodded.
“You know what this means?”

I had a feeling I was going to find out…

“Jay named his firstborn after me!” Sam beamed. “That’s so cool!”
“Can we please focus?” I chided.
“Right, sorry. You’re from a future where the Rikti invaded, and killed your parents. You’re here to stop it?”
“Yes, exactly!”
“Good.”
“So…” I paused, and gestered uselessly. “I’m no good at this sort of thing. I play baseball, I’m no Hero. Where do we start?”
“Well…you can start by putting on that Belt. We’ve got a lot of training to do.”
“Okay…” I snapped the belt on, and powered it up. The forcefield enveloped me, and fitted itself to my body.
“Nice.” Sam commented. “Fire Guardian Junior!”
“Oy…”
“And, I guess, since you were named after me, that makes you Sammy Junior!”
“Sam…”
“What’s wrong, SJ?”
“Can we please get onto the training? I want to get on with this.”
“As you command.” Sam grinned, and brought up some information about Pendant on the screen.

This…was going to take a while.

*

January 19th, 2006

I don’t know why Sam said I had to go to the address he sent me to, nor why I was instructed to wear a suit. I found one in my Dad’s old wardrobe that fitted me, albeit poorly, and walked into the building, just in time to hear a man say, “If I forget thee O' Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning: If I do not raise thee over my own joy, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.”. He stamped on a glass, wrapped in cloth, and a large group of people shouted “Mazel tov!”

I was at my parent’s wedding.

I felt my eyes tearing up, and I let them. Not only could I see my parents again, I could see them at their prime, enjoying life, and each other. A piece of music played which I vaguely recognised from my past. My mother had enjoyed it, as I recall. My Dad turned and smiled at everyone, and then, he caught eye contact with me.
I shivered inwardly, although I returned my Dad’s smile. It was a truly odd feeling, seeing my Dad, not much older than me, and completely unable to recognise me. He and Mum wandered off to a private room, and I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned around, sure that it would be some sort of guard, or security, asking to see my non-existant invitation.

It was Aunt Sarriss.

“Care to dance, handsome?”
“I…uh…”
“It’s okay. You just follow my lead.” She winked at me, and pulled me over to the dance floor.
*

January 21st, 2006

Jason and Emily sat in their penthouse, chatting animatedly about the more…public aspects of their honeymoon, to Sarriss, Doctor Wilks, Susan, and a few other friends.
“So…” Susan interrupted. “You two weren’t the only couple at the wedding, I hear.”
“Oh?” Jason smiled questioningly.
“I saw Sarriss dancing with a young man.”
Sarriss blushed. “Hey, he was just a kid. I didn’t do anything to him.”
“Of course not, Cara.” Doctor Wilks chimed in gently. “But, did you know who he was?”
“Nope.”

Jason thought hard, remembering the wedding ceremony, and only recalled one person that Sarriss wouldn’t have known. “Black hair, brown eyes, late teens, kinda nervous?”
“That’s him! You know him?”
“Me? No. I thought he was a cousin of Emily’s.”
Emily blinked. “Hon, I don’t have any male relatives in their teens. Certainly none with black hair and brown eyes. The only male relative I had at the wedding was my father.”
“Oh, yes.” Jason remembered the discreet ‘conversation’ that Peter Campbell had with his future son-in-law.

“So…who was he?” He asked his wife.
Emily shrugged. “Doubtless we’ll find out.”

They resumed their storytelling, but Jason never quite forgot the face of the young man. It had un-nerved him somewhat, and he made a decision to find out everything he could about the young interloper. They’d meet again, and he’d have some questions.

*

April 3rd, 2006

Three men stared up at The Tucker Building that night. I watched them from the shadows behind them, trying to not give myself away. When they started shooting up at a balcony, I jumped out, igniting my Fire Sword, and quickly dispatching all three.

I looked around for more assassins, but I remembered that Sam had told me only three men were sent to kill my Father.
‘One mission complete’, I said to myself, happily. Sure, I had gone out yesterday and stopped a minor crime, in Fire Guardian armour, but this mission was important. Now my Dad would survive to see the previous timeline – the one I had come from, and get me to Sam, to send me back in time, to…

Whilst I was distracted by the mind-numbingly complexities of time travel, I almost failed to notice a black and red missile hurtling towards me at an obscenely fast rate. It slowed, and I stared.

‘Oh, boy.’

My Dad hovered in the air in front of me, lowering himself to the ground. I didn’t know what to expect, but this was the first time I had seen my Dad properly since before the Rikti had invaded. Flashes of memory of my Dad charging Pendant flashed before my eyes, and I almost failed to register that my Dad was speaking to me. I barely recognised the voice…not because the armour disguised it, but because I had only ever heard my dad speak to me in warm, loving tones. This, by contrast, was how he sounded when he spoke to a stranger, or someone he didn’t like.
“You know, you missed April Fools Day by a couple of days. Nice costume, though.”
I nodded. “Thanks.”

“Maybe you should keep it. Halloween’s in six months, but you could use a little refining. Maybe say some heroic things. Alliteration’s good, y’know. ‘Fiendish Foes Feel The Fury’, etc, etc.”
My Dad was trying to keep me off balance, make me think he was being friendly when he wasn’t. I’d seen enough of his business dealings over the years to recognise the tactic, and turn it back onto him.
“I’ll try to remember that…Mr Tucker.”
I could feel his stare on me. “You’ve done your homework.”

That made me laugh. He had always insisted on helping me with the homework I had brought back from school. I couldn’t resist remarking, “And I didn’t need any help with it, either.”
“Good.” My Dad shot back. “I’m no Babysitter.”

We carried on that way for a while, until my Dad….no, Jason Tucker. Got to stop thinking about him as ‘Dad’…attacked me. We danced with our Fire Swords for a bit, fighting, parrying…he was good. I had no idea he knew how to handle a Fire Sword…or any sort of weapon. He talked, we fought, and then, Jason did something which completely blew my mind.

“So, what now? You want to talk? Because I’m not really in a talking mood.”
“Oh?”
“Had a fight with the wife. Probably broke up.”
I froze. ‘They had a fight? A real fight? They never fight for real…’ “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. I’ve gone through some hard times recently…you’d probably know all about that, Mr ‘I’ve done my homework’.”
“No, can’t say I do.”
“Mike Anson?”
I wracked my brains. Mike Anson…oh, yes.
“Who? Oh….wait. Wasn’t he Mayor once?”
“More like my arch-foe.”
I had to laugh at the thought of my Dad having a deadly arch-rival. “You have an arch-foe?”
“Had. Past tense. He’s dead.” He swung out at me, and I rolled over, out of his path. “He made a nice splatting noise when he hit the pavement, though.” He added casually.
“You killed him?” I was stunned. “YOU?”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “He looked at me funny.”

I staggered back, in shock. “You….Jason Tucker….killed a man?”
“To protect my family? I’d kill anyone.”
“Even me?”
“Especially you, if you don’t tell me who you are.”

I tried to assimilate this, letting my brain work on autopilot as I tried to take all this in. My Dad, a nice, gentle man, had once murdered in cold blood. It couldn’t get any worse than this…
“…She killed to protect me, I killed to protect her. We were even.”
“She…I mean…what?”

Mum too? How…I mean…
“Oy…look, kid. Nobody’s perfect, okay? Every family has skeletons in their closet. My family just has…mutilated skeletons. Besides, it’s not like we’re mass murderers.”
“You lied…” I whispered.
“Uhm…what?”

I heard someone climbing towards us, and saw my Mum look out at me, and my Dad.
‘Isn’t this great?’ A snide voice inside my head rang out. ‘The Manson Family Reunion.’

I did the only thing that made sense at that moment. I ran.

I ran, and I didn’t stop until I was safely back in the Base, and staring up at Sam.
“You!”
Sam blinked. “Moi?”
“Yes, you. Why didn’t you tell me that they’d killed people?”
“Oh, SJ, SJ, SJ. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to get distracted by it. You’ve got a mission here, remember?”
“Yeah, I know.” I sighed, and powered down my belt, throwing it onto the table.
“It still doesn’t mean that I’m not shocked.” I thought about it for a moment. “I mean….yeah, her I could understand. But him?”
“Life’s full of disappointments, SJ. Besides, you’re not supposed to be interacting with them. At all. You could really mess things up.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Fate of the universe, and all that.”
“What? Hell no. But Jason’s a smart guy. He’ll come looking for you, and he’ll eventually find me. I just don’t want them hating my name.”

SJ shook his head. “You’re a weird guy.”
“That’s what they tell me. So…what’s next?”
“Well…we have to track down Pendant. That’s the number one priority. I’ll just avoid my parents. Maybe change the costume in the Belt Forcefield to avoid suspicion.”
Sam looked up. “Oh, no.”
“What? What is it? Dammit, Sam, what’s going on?”

“I could ask the same thing.” A voice from behind said coolly. I spun around, and was, for the second time, that night, face to face with my Father.

“Who are you?” He approached me.
“You…uhm…trust me, you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Sam!” He yelled angrily. I cowered, before realising he didn’t mean me.
“S’up, Wankenstein?” Sam grinned unapologetically.
“Who’s this young man, and where did he get the template for my costume?”
“Oh…well, he got it from you.”
“What?”

Sam’s eyes twinkled, clearly enjoying himself. “Jason Tucker, I’d like you to meet someone. This is Samuel Jacob Tucker. He’s your son.”

--

To be concluded

Chapter Ten

April 3rd, 2006

I rocked back on my heels.
“My…my son?”
“Yup!” Sam grinned at me.
“I don’t have any kids. Certainly not one who’s…how old are you, anyway?”
The kid…whoever he was…blinked nervously. “I’m 16, sir.”
I took this in. “So, I conceived you when I was nine years old?” I looked up at Sam on the screen. “Mate, this is going too far. Who is this kid, really?”
Sam was about to answer me, when the kid jumped in.
“Look, Da….Mr Tucker. I know this seems improbable, but you have to believe me. My name is Samuel Jacob Tucker. I’m the only child of Jason Temple Tucker and Emily Katherine Campbell Tucker. I was born on October 19th, 2006.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You were born in six months time?”
The kid shrugged. “I’m here because of a…a…”
“A Paradoxical Recursive Causality Loop.” Sam chipped in.
“Yes, thank you, Albert Einstein.” I glared at my computerised friend.

The kid took a step towards me. “I’m here from a future that shouldn’t exist.”
“It doesn’t exist.” I corrected him.
“Well, it does and doesn’t.” Sam muttered. I glanced up.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sam grinned. “Oh, goody. I love exposition. Especially when I get to do it.”
I snorted. As if Sam ever shut up, anyway.

Sam cleared his throat, and put on some digital glasses.
“Okay. Now, I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept of time travel.”
I nodded. “Of course. How many times did we watch Back To The Future?”
He nodded. “Lea Thompson was hot.”
The kid frowned. “Who?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Sam said, before shrugging at me. “You never let your son watch any of the classics?”
“He’s not…” I sighed. “Carry on.”
“Right. Well, let’s say that we live, right now, in Timezone Alpha. If everything went perfectly, the future that young Sammy would have grown up to know would be part of Timezone Alpha as well, correct?”
I nodded.
“Okay, but, from what I’ve been able to gather from what SJ’s told me, he’s actually from a future caused by what we would consider Timezone Delta. Think of it as a river. You have one large body of running water, and it breaks off into ‘streams’. Somewhere along the lines, our time ‘stream’ was hijacked, not once, but twice. SJ here is the end result.”
“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “Are you both [censored] crazy?”

“What?” The kid…SJ (whatever) stared at me, his mouth wide open.
“Do you honestly expect me to buy into that [censored]? ‘We must save future’, blah blah blah. Let’s assume, for a moment, that you’re right. How do we know that Sammy even being here doesn’t make this new Timestream happen?”
“Well…” Sam started to say, but I cut him off.
“And there’s no way of even knowing that he’s telling the truth, anyway. Yes, there’s a slight resemblance to Emily, but that’s not proof that he’s my son, or any relation to me.”
“Right, because I’m stupid enough to not check on those sorts of things?” Sam glared.
“What?”
“As part of his training, I took some blood, and analysed it. He might have been a clone, or someone who’s had cosmetic surgery, which is what you’re thinking of, right Jay?”
I stared for a moment. “Yeah.”
“Well, Dip-[censored], not only is the bloodtype a match for you, the DNA, which doesn’t show any of the single bit errors associated with cloning, is a match for you and Emily. He’s your son. Since you and Emily didn’t meet until college when we were his age,” Sam gestured with his head towards the kid. “I think him saying he’s from the future might be not so far-fetched. After all, we’ve seen time travel before. Remember Wolfgang Ubelmann?”

I nodded, and stared at the…my son. He stared back, unblinkingly, but sad. It must be a horrible experience to have a parent who cared for you, loved you, raised you, and didn’t know who you were.

“So…” I cleared my throat. “Your name’s Sammy, huh?”
He nodded. “Yes, sir.”
I frowned, and looked up at Sam. “Named after you?”
He shrugged. “I guess so. Thanks, man.”
I shrugged back. “I’m going to make sure that, if and when I –do- have a kid, I’ll name him after Doctor Wilks.”
“Actually…” the teenager said. “You did. My name’s Samuel Jacob Tucker. Jacob is Doctor Wilks’ first name.”
“Oh? I never knew that.” I sat down at the table, and stared at…my son.

*

Dad wouldn’t stop staring. I sat down opposite him, and stared back. It reminded me of my younger days, actually. When I was little, he and I would have staring contests. Despite being a generally fun person, my Dad could keep a straight, blank, and unblinking face, no matter what I did. I’d flair my nostrils, raise one eyebrow, stick out my tongue, and he’d never blink, nor crack a smile. Although my Dad was younger…hell, technically, he wasn’t even my Dad, I could still see the paternal instinct within him, that desire to protect me.
‘He knows.’ I thought to myself. ‘Even if he isn’t conscious of it, he’s aware on some level. He knows I’m his son.’
Eventually, he’d come around. I knew it.

“You’re not my son.”

…Okay, maybe it would take a little more time.

He stood. “Look, I’m sure you believe all this. I know Sam does.”
“Damn straight.”
“But it’s a little hard for me to take in all at once, okay?”
I nodded slowly. There wasn’t much else I could do. I know my Dad. Once he has his beliefs, nobody and nothing can change it.

“Look, I’m not saying that you’re lying. But…give me some time, okay?”
“Sure. Although…don’t take too long. We don’t have a lot of time.”
My Dad looked me square in the eyes, and nodded.
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
He turned to Sam on the screen, nodded once, and, spinning on his heels, walked out.

“Well.” Sam said, after he left. “That went well.”

I put my head in my hands, and sighed.

*

I rode the elevator back up to the Penthouse in silence, thinking about what Sam and…Sammy had told me. Time travel was certainly possible. I had read the reports on Ubelmann…every Hero had. But, to actively be engaged in a time travel plot…I sighed.
Missing girlfriends trying to kill me, being double crossed and left for dead by a business partner, and now my son from the future was trying to…what? I didn’t know why he was here, only that he was. If he even was my son.

I stepped into the foray of my home before I remembered that Emily and I were fighting. I looked out across the way, and saw her sitting on the sofa, looking up at me, tears running down her face.
Before I could do or say anything, though, she leapt up, ran to me, and hugged me tight.
“Oh, Jay, I’m so sorry. I should have believed you.”
I stroked her hair gently, and led her over to the sofa, gently pulling her down onto my lap and returning the embrace. “It’s okay, hon. We’ve had a tough time, the past few years. I’m sorry for shouting at you.”
She sniffed. “It’s just that…things are going a bit crazy with me, right now?”
“Work troubles?” I smiled. Despite my insistences that Emily didn’t have to work ever again, she still found a job, similar to her last one. She was working as a new City Representative, in fact, helping out newer heroes.
“Yeah. I’m going to have to leave.”
“Why? Too many male heroes ogling you?” I slid my hands down to her shoulders, and kissed her gently.
“No, I’m…well…” She smiled at me. “It’s just that…you’re going to be a father.”

I froze. “What?”
“Oh, Jay, don’t be upset. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but I went to Doc Wilks yesterday, and…it must have been on our honeymoon…”
I did the maths. January. “So, our son will born in…October?”
She nodded. “Yeah. But what makes you think it’ll be a boy. It’s going to be a girl.” She gave me an Eskimo kiss, rubbing her nose against mine.
“Oh…I think it’s going to be a boy. And we’re going to call him…”
“Well.” Emily interrupted me. “I was thinking, if it is a boy, Jason Junior. But then, JJ is a horrible nickname.”
“Right.” I mumbled.
“So…I was thinking…if it’s a girl, and it will be, we call her Rachel, after my mother.”
“And, if it’s a boy?”
She looked at me seriously. “I know how much it hurt you when Sammy died. So, I was thinking…if the baby is a boy, maybe you’d like to call him Samuel?”
“Samuel Jacob Tucker.” I whispered to myself.
“Jacob?” She frowned.
“After Doctor Wilks. Jacob’s his first name.”
“Oh.” The frown eased. “I never knew that. It’s a good name, though.”
I nodded absently.

“Em, there’s something I have to go and do. I’ll be back in a little while, okay?”
“Uhm…okay…” Emily got off my lap, and pouted. “You’re okay with this?”
“Yeah! Yeah, absolutely…I have something that needs to get done, though.”
Emily nodded. “Okay, I trust you.” She smiled uncertainly, and leaned up to kiss me briefly. “I love you, you know.”
“I know. I love you, too.”

I got halfway to the elevator when Emily called after me, “You’re going to be a great Dad, you know.”
I turned back. “Well…let’s see, first?”

*

I had just gotten into bed, when Sam caught my attention with a soft beeping. I groaned. “What?”
Sam’s image flicked onto a monitor on a nearby desk in what I had made my quarters. “Daddy’s home.”
I shot up. “What?”
“Jay’s back. He’s waiting in the meeting room.”

I threw on some clothes hastily, and ran out to meet him. He stood, his arms crossed, staring at me.
“Answer me this.” He stated simply, and waited until I nodded at him.
“What sort of father am I?”
“I…” I was thrown by the question. “A…good one?”
“Oh?” My Dad was obviously waiting for more, so I obliged.
“You were always busy with the Foundation, but you always found time to play with me, no matter what it was. Football, catch, video games. I could always talk to you about anything.”
He nodded. “And your mother?”
“She was…a mother. I dunno.” She shrugged. “She was always the strict one. She often said that she wanted to send both of us to our rooms, at times.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, your mother’s always been a bit of a disciplinarian.”
“Daaaad!” I whined. “Far too much info on that one.”
He laughed. Eventually, though, I joined in.
When we stopped, he smiled at me. “So…why are you here? What’s your mission?”

I took a deep breath, and told him all I knew.

*

Jason and Sammy stood in silence. Sammy had finished telling his tale, occasionally giving more details to Jason when he asked for them. It had been a while since either of them spoke.

“So…” Jason started, breaking Sammy out of his reverie. “This Pendant guy is definitely bad news.”
“He’s a collaborator with the Rikti. He has to be stopped, and soon. Before he can contact the Rikti. Those hitmen from earlier, they killed you in the last Timestream.”
“The one that your one replaced?”
Sammy nodded.
“That’s what has me confused. There should only be two timestreams in effect, here. However, there are three. Mine, yours, and this other one.”
“What do you think it means, Dad?”
Jason thought about it. “There’s another time traveller about. There must be.”
“Will we get him, too?”
“We have to, Sammy. For things to work out okay, we have to get both of them. Pendant and this other person.”
“Easier said that done. At least we know who Pendant is. We don’t know anything about this other guy.”
“So, we find out.”

It was as simple as that, to Jason. Someone threatens you, you stop them. If you didn’t know who they were, you found out.

“How?”
“I don’t know, Sammy, I really don’t.” Jason shrugged. “But we will.”

They stood together, father and son, two Fire Guardians from two different times. Each with the same purpose.

Silently, with a smile and nod, they recognised they were at war. Not with the Rikti, not with Pendant, or the unknown traveller through time.

They were at war with time itself.

--

To Be Continued In Bloodlines: Book Two – “Reunion”

Okay, whilst you guys read through all that, I'm going to explain exactly what I'm doing with this story:

I have absolutely no idea.

The story was originally going to be a one-shot about married life with the Tuckers, to finish off the pure hell I put Jason through with the last story. I wanted to show him happy, at peace, and with a family he loved. Then, I caught myself thinking 'How can I bugger this up for him?'

Time travel has always been a fascination of mine. When I was younger, I was incredibly excited about the possibility that it could happen. And, if it could then, human nature being what it is, it would. And, if that was the case, then people would be travelling throughout time right now. At this very moment, there could be people from the 40th century watching the government strike, or visiting their grand parents when they werein their teens. Perhaps a time traveller meets up with the person who invents time travel, causing a self-fulfilling prophecy, where the inventor creates a way to make time travel possible, enabling the time traveller to come back, etc, etc.

In the immensely rich world we've been given to play in by Crypic and NC Soft, anything is possible. After I had the original idea to write some time travel, I had to find out if there were any instances of it in the game. Zortel, kind as she was, told me all about Wolfgang Ubelmann, and I knew, then, the story wasn't so far-fetched. So, start with a mad scientist using time travel for his own needs. Add in a few Rikti (again, thanks to Zortel, who told me how they communicated) and we have a situation. Throw in Jason and Emily's son, Sammy, travelling throughout time to prevent it, and voila! We have ourselves a plot.

Of course, there are many threads to remember when dealing with time travel. What's Pendant doing? What's his purpose? How will Sammy stop him? How does this tie in with the previous stories? (Believe me. It will) How does this all relate to the figure in black who stopped Jason from preventing Pendant communicating with the Rikti? Who is that man, anyway?

If you think you know, I suggest you think again. As you've learned from my previous story, The Flames Of Justice, nobody is who they appear to be, and nothing is what they seem.

Each of the three stories in this new 'book' is a standalone story, as well as part of an ongoing thread. This means that, unfortunately for the long time readers, there's going to be a fair bit of exposition. (I was writing chapter 3 of Reunion at the same time as chapter 10 of Bloodlines, and it caused the line 'Sam grinned. “Oh, goody. I love exposition. Especially when I get to do it.”', since he won't get to do much more.)

To answer some questions: Yes, there are three seperate timelines in effect throughout the story. The first story, which you've just read, deals with one. The second, Reunion, deals with another. The third, tentatively called "Dark Mirror", deals with the final thread. I may, actually, end up posting 'Dark Mirror' solely on my FF.net page, since as my notes stand, it's quite sick. Nothing graphic, but there are some definate 'sicko' moments in it, a lot of which are going to be unsuitable for a 12+ thread.

Without giving too much away, there are some...parallels with a trio of stories written by a Greek gentleman named 'Sophocles' I learned about in University, called "The Theban Plays". If you know what I'm talking about....shh. If you don't...you will.

That's pretty much it. Read, review, and enjoy!

Hehe, can't wait for the next book to start posting. I also wrote a story about my hero, looking for a way to 'bugger' things up for him. So I had his baby son kidnapped, send back in time, raised in the army of Lord Recluse and send on a mission to eliminate his father and friends.

G-Force

[ QUOTE ]
Hehe, can't wait for the next book to start posting. I also wrote a story about my hero, looking for a way to 'bugger' things up for him. So I had his baby son kidnapped, send back in time, raised in the army of Lord Recluse and send on a mission to eliminate his father and friends.

[/ QUOTE ]

...Have you read The Theban Plays, too?

Curses.

I tell ya, this story is driving me insane. I left out a major plotpoint, and had to scrap all but the first four chapters of the second story. More annoying is that it was clearly written in my notes...all of them.

I wish I could go back to the days when I wrote just for writing. No major plans, no extreme note taking sessions, no multiple character biographies for the same character (You'll understand, trust me). It used to be, I could sit down, and just...write. For the pleasure of it. Into The Inferno was written with no character notes, no timeline, just an idea and a story to tell. For The Flames Of Justice, I had to develop the timeline, and the added characters means bio's.

For this story? Forget about it. I'm constantly running Word, and up to eight Notepad windows at the same time. It's less like recreation, and more like what I do with my scripts.

I'm not saying the story isn't forthcoming. It is. I just need to take a break from it for a while.

Peace.

[ QUOTE ]
..Have you read The Theban Plays, too?

[/ QUOTE ]

Nope, I got the idea for time travel from Back to the Future movies

G-Force

The Theban Plays don't feature time travel. Rather, one of the stories from that particular trio is a very well known story, called King Oedipus, or Oedipus Rex. He also killed his father, and then did some very nasty things with his mother.