Moloch's Champions (GM)

[trollthumper]

"Thought so," Nick said. "Just give me a second..." He took off his jacket, laying it down on the asphalt, and began to pick at the invisible threads of enchantment. Years ago, Nick wouldn't have imagined of trying to undo the spell soaked into the jacket - the waters of the river Styx were not known for breaking or bending. But wearing a magical bulwark night in and night out gave one a sense of its weave and make, and an understanding of how to stitch and restitch it. And given the things that had happened to this jacket before, odds were it would reset in the next few nights.

"Got it," he said as he threw the jacket back on. "Took some resilience out of the working, but on the other hand, we've got a limited range ward against entropic effects. Score one for creative necromancy. And as for getting in there, I can walk out of my body and take a look around. In fact... no one rifle around my pockets."

Nick sat down behind a dumpster and closed his eyes - and when he opened them again, he was freed from the flesh. As Harrier and Miss Americana watched his unconscious form, he walked across the street to talk a quick look around the defiled church.

[trollthumper]

Nick had seen his share of desecrations in his time. Abandoned churches, burnt-out churches, churches coated in goat's blood and pentacles by teenage would-be Satanists who'd listened to black metal one too many times. But those had all been... forthright. They told you there would be no love here; just torment. It almost caught Nick off-guard how... normal the church was. Memories of the old Episcopalian church of his childhood came flooding back as he walked down the pews - the sun shining through stained glass, the stirring of the pipe organ, the swell of voices for the opening hymn. Even if his heart was technically somewhere in the alley across the street, he still felt something stirring in it. It was clear that the white-haired guy didn't share the same lesson, though.

All that went away the second he looked closer. The catechism downstairs was nothing but atrocity on paper. He wasn't exactly surprised to find the Conqueror Worm's stuff down there - seemed every would-be shock artist had a copy. But it was the children's playroom that caused his gorge to rise. Love in annihilation. Smiling children whisked away to the sides of a destroyer. The love of the Terminus, cold and devouring.

Nick closed his eyes and felt the flesh forming around him. He came to back in the alley, stood up, and brushed some dirt from his jeans. "No heavy artillery," he said. "There's a vanishing ring in the church office, reads like it's a gate to elsewhere. Couldn't exactly get a read on where... but three guesses where, first two don't count." He took a deep breath. "The place... that place is an affront. Offers up a spoonful of sugar to make the poison go down. Couldn't see where our manic street preacher went, but his buddy's at the altar, downing Eucharist by way of Budweiser. Something tells me he hasn't exactly heard the good news."

[Avenger Assembled]

Steve and his mother raced through the filthy sewers of Nihilor, the infernal stench of celestial rot instantly soaking through their clothes, their skin, their eyes. Steve gagged and spat, but ran on anyway; the toxins in the air that might have killed an ordinary boy his age were the sort he'd long-since developed a tolerance to. They ran on the walkway alongside the poisonous black stew that flowed from the palaces of the Annihilists; the deathly substance within would have been instantly and agonizingly fatal if they'd so much as slipped. But they weren't down there long; within a few agonizing minutes they were beneath the pathway to the surface. The familiar face of his father as he hurled away the door above at his mother's shout had never been more welcome.

On the surface, as his parents closed the swinging gateway behind them, Steve found himself beneath the familiar red skies that were all he'd ever known, the shadows of the squatting palaces above almost comforting. He would need a bath, perhaps in the water from buildings that was merely dangerous instead of murder-lethal, but the stench would be gone. He could still hear the eerie cries and pleas of the crowd of parents outside the square, though, and the Black Madonna's distant chanting; they couldn't have come that far. "The rooftops are clear," said his father shortly. "If we make it up there, we can make it back home before they clear the streets."

His mother nodded, and took Steve's hand an instant before a humanoid shape loomed at them out of the dark shadows. "Where did you come from!?" the huge man shouted, his eyes wide and big hands reaching for them. "You have a child!!" he added, his gaze falling on Steve like a hungry, desperate man. "How did you keep him from the sweep? Tell me now or I will get the others, and we will find our children even if means your blood!" he added, his eyes wide as he waved back at the distant crowd. Steve's mother and father heard his words, exchanged looks, and without a moment's hesitation drove their knives, as one, into the man's chest. He fell without a sound to the surface below. The alley's deathvermin were already feeding by the time Steve and his parents were on the move.

At Nick's words, Harrier didn't speak. He turned and walked with almost military precision down the church's well-maintained sidewalk right up to the front door. The reinforced wood didn't stop his armored body for more than an instant as with a mighty heave he grabbed with his armored fingers and squeezed hard, seizing the door in his hands and ripping through the lock that held the double doors together like so much cardboard. A moment later, he flung the double-red doors aside and stormed into the church. He saw at once that Nick was right; this was the temple of abomination he'd heard. And he'd seen places like this. before. He stormed into the sanctuary and caught the gaze of the half-drunk young man before the altar, who bolted to his feet with a terrified expression on his face that the usually gentle Steve found terribly satisfying today.

As one, though with the one considerably more fearful than the other, man and drone shouted, "YOU!"

[Electra]

Miss Americana listened carefully to Nick's report and was just about to lay out a plan when Harrier turned and headed for the church. Muttering a curse, she took to the sky and flew after him. "We're not ready," she told him, "we need to be smart about this, we need a plan..." When it became patently obvious that he was ignoring her, she fell back and landed with another, slightly louder curse, and cracked her knuckles. "We need to shut that teleport ring down," she told Nick as they went. "I can probably do it given time, but you're almost certainly more familiar with the forms being used. If you get down there, I'll try and corral Harrier and come back you up."

She winced slightly as the doors were ripped off and thrown aside, alerting anyone who cared to know that there was trouble, but loyally followed Harrier into what had once been a church and was now a den of much worse than thieves.

[trollthumper]

Nick knew he should have tried to stop Harrier from breaking down the doors and tearing his way into the church. To get him to hold back so they could devise a plan. But... he honestly didn't want to. Partially because he didn't want to get between a rampaging Omegadrone and the target of his vengeance, and partially because he knew that fury all too well. With Miss Americana there to hold him back, it wouldn't have fatal consequences - but it was the kind of thing that needed to be vented.

He pushed through the chapel, running past the staredown between Harrier and the white-haired man. "You," he shouted to the man at the altar. "No worshipping all-consuming abominations. My colleague will explain it to you in further detail."

He pushed his way into the rectory, slowing down as he approached the threshold. Last thing he wanted to do was power through the door and end up on the other side of the circle. He scrutinized the ring up close, trying to figure out how to pick at the spell that kept it powered and what might get in his way if he did so.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Faster, faster!"

The prole family climbed desperately up the side of the building, the Black Madonna's chanting ringing in young Steve's ears even from what had to be nearly a mile away by now.

"and so there must be a sacrifice, a sacrifice pulled from your very hearts! But in the new world, what must be sacrificed are the last relics of the old!"

And Steve looked back and-

The white-haired young man tried to run, his eyes widening in terror behind his orange shades as he nearly fell off the altar. "What the hell? I'm not that drunk-"

Harrier grabbed the man by the collar and lifted him into the air like a puppy. "Your name!" said the former drone in a voice like steel on stone, the cold fury in his metallic voice enough to make the other man spill his guts immediately.

"I'm Tommy! Tommy Shepard! Oh God, you're the one who killed Billy!" he gabbled in terror.

"Do you think we are FOOL enough to fall for your cult's deceptions?" Harrier dropped Tommy Shepard to the ground at his feet, looming over him like a vision of Hell itself. "We know what you did. A false corpse, an all-too-real bomb, human lives that you might have sacrificed in an instant in your god's name." He gestured around the church. "Tell us where your brother is hiding."

"It...I don't know!" said Tommy, who in his fear looked much younger than his twenty years, his confusion palpable enough to make the obviously still-furious Harrier take a step back. "I...I mean, the police said he was really dead! They said he'd picked a fight with a superhero and gotten himself killed! And he's been so, so nuts lately, I thought that made sense!" He looked desperately from Harrier to Miss Americana. "He started...he started believing all this!" he said with a gesture around the unconsecrated sanctuary.

-

Down below, Nick found what was by all appearances a fairly typical hoodoo teleport circle in place, the raised staff driven into the floor and watermarks around the edge showing where the "Red Sea" had been parted and the gateway opened to the other place. The other end was blocked by the same wards that had kept him from finding the missing evangelist, but he could tell that the other end of the gateway wasn't far. Rather than serving as a gateway to the Terminus, this was a gateway to some place close by in Freedom City. Pushing at the wards without incinerating them, he was able to catch a glimpse of a dark room with half-visible paintings and sculptures everywhere, matching the Black Madonna imagery he'd seen in the church but somehow all the crueler and barbaric. What lay beyond was no playing at wickedness.

[Electra]

"You're obviously in way over your head, Tommy." Miss Americana's voice was pure honey compared to Harrier's grating rage, yet it was effective enough to grab and hold the young man's attention. "I'm sure you didn't understand what you were getting involved with, or how much trouble you could get yourself into."

She glanced at Harrier, then stepped forward just enough to partially stand between the terrified youth and the Omegadrone. "Why don't you sit down right here in the first pew, Tommy, and tell us everything you know about this church and what you and Billy have been up to. The more you help me, the more I can help you." She sent another quick glance over her shoulder, the implication obvious that if Tommy didn't pony up, she might not be able to hold back the angry nightmare behind her.

[trollthumper]

It surprised Nick that the portal led to somewhere so... domestic. He'd expected churning starless skies choked out by smoke, pillars of flame, and the death of hope - not somewhere on this plane of existence. He took a second to realize that he might have become slightly jaded over the years before he inspected the locale on the other side of the ring. This was the side of Terminus worship that the preacher had likely kept hidden from his flock. No peaceful respite from a cruel and unforgiving world; just a maw lined with sharp, poisoned teeth.

He returned upstairs to see Harrier and Miss Americana interrogating the preacher's brother. "You know," Nick said as he passed, "this is why most sham religions choose something less likely to bite them on the ass. Like, say, Hell." He turned to Harrier and Miss Americana. "Good news - the ring doesn't lead to the Terminus. Leads to somewhere on this plain, somewhere our guy's using as sanctuary. He's also turned it into a shrine to the Madonna, and... let's just say he's drunk deep of the Kool-Aid."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Listen...listen, I'm not a good guy," admitted Tommy Shepard. "I've hurt people, I've hurt women, I've...I'm not a good man," he confessed, the carrot and stick of Miss Americana and Harrier enough to make him spill his guts. "Billy started the Terminus stuff after we got kicked out of Claremont. I mean that was fair, I punched Old Man Archer and he was selling dope, and it was just a matter of time, but then Billy started coming up with...all this. Talking about the black Gospel and the Church of the Dark Mother. It all made sense at the time, you know?" he said, his voice a frightened noise that was somewhere between whine and whimper. "The world's run by fools and parasites, so why wouldn't things be better if someone came along to burn away the chaff? And there are a lot of people who believe that, you know?"

Harrier loomed at Miss Americana's backside, and Tommy twitched. "It wasn't like we were worshipping _Omega_...I, uh, I...anyway, things were going great. We were making enough money that it didn't matter that Mom and Dad cut us off, and I was getting some primo tail, and...then Billy started having these dreams. These crazy, f-ed up dreams about her. About the Black Madonna. And about him. And me." He licked his lips and went on. "We're adopted, you know? T-Babies born during the invasion, at least that's what the man said when he turned us in to the Freedom League. But Billy...he started talking about how maybe we were born _in_ the Terminus. That maybe that's how we got our powers. And that the Black Madonna was our _real_ mother."

"See! See, my children!" Black flame poured from the Madonna's mouth and eyes, penetrating the bodies of the children of the Ghetto, burning into their eyes and mouths and igniting an inner fire within them to match her own terrible flame, a blaze that gave no heat and no light but all the same seared even the dark air of the Ghetto with an unholy radiance that made the parents and families below scream in a wail that burned into Steve's soul. "We have transcended them! We have transcended them all!"

"The Black Madonna has no children. Only those she takes from others and changes into her own image. Her mutation renders her...incapable of any natural procreation." His earlier anger had dimmed, somewhat, and he was beginning to feel a swell of pity for this poor stupid child. "Attempts were made." he went on, and that was a memory he was uncomfortable visiting even inside the confines of his own head.

"...he said we weren't born. Not like that," admitted Tommy, looking deeply uncomfortable at the memory. "I told you, it was crazy. He said we were the pieces of something else; pieces of something called Taarvon the Undying, pieces that the Madonna had taken after a great battle, and that she'd molded us from the shadow beyond shadow into children in her own likeness so that we could..."

"You are certain of this. Pieces of Taarvon the Undying?" Harrier's manner had suddenly become very to the point. "Could your brother have used his abilities to learn about the Terminus? About the shadow sorcerers there?"

"I don't know! I didn't pay any attention to that crap!" said Tommy, flattening himself against the wood of the pew. "When I told him that, he said he'd handle it with me...or without me. Handle getting back to our mother, I mean."

[Electra]

"If he's trying to reach the Terminus, or if something there is trying to reach him, you're both in grave danger," Miss Americana told the frightened young drunken fool. She took out her scanner and, ignoring his flinch, began running a medical scan on him. Her scanner wasn't as sensitive as the equipment she had in her lab, but it should be able to detect any gross abnormalities. "I'm going to place you in protective custody for your own safety," she said in a tone that brooked no disagreement. "Whatever else you've done, we'll deal with that later, but we want to make sure you're alive for that. Now I need you to tell me everything you know about where your brother might have his private sanctuary, and what he does there, and who else might be there. You're his brother, I know you have some idea of where he goes. If we're going to save him too, time is of the essence."

[trollthumper]

Nick didn't like where this was going at all. Not that he'd been happy with the idea of someone identifying with the Terminus the way Tarzan did with apes... or the idea that he'd been poking at the primal forces of entropy with a stick. Wherever this young evangelist had gotten to, they needed to find him before he made contact with "Mommy." Or something worse for the same general vicinity.

"Ah, nihilism," Nick said. "Last redoubt of those too angry to stand the world, and too lazy to do anything productive about it." He turned to Tommy, working his face to form the most intimidating rictus he could manage - with makeup like his, in a place like this, playing "good cop" wasn't exactly an option. "So, this old black magic... what sorts of tricks did your brother like to pull? The ring in the rectory speaks towards hoodoo - more Pennsylvania Dutch flavor than Southern Conjure, if I'm not mistaken."

[Avenger Assembled]

"I don't know, he read whatever he could get his hands on," said Tommy with a shake of his head. "I didn't even pay attention to most of that stuff. My powers make more sense, I can drain energy and use it to speed myself up, so I can run really fast and leave a trail behind. Billy started reading the magic stuff when he was young. That's how we got picked up by Claremont in the first place, when we were breaking into an old magic shop to get what he wanted out of it. He, uh, wow..." He concentrated, running his hands through his pale white hair. "He can set things on fire, and fix them up again, and he can fire blasts of, like, nails out of his hand to pin things down. And turn things into blood. Yeah, that part was really creepy," he added with a shudder. "The thing in the basement? It...it goes to our old family place in North Bay, I think. Gramma S lived there till she died there last year, and it's been sealed up ever since."

Miss Americana found that, as far as she could tell, Tommy's story checked out. He was a normal human, albeit one with obvious entropic mutations under the skin that accounted for the superpowers that Nick's spell was currently suppressing. He was also very drunk, and probably shouldn't be so much as running unaided for a while. As for whether he was from Earth, it was tough to tell. Like most Terminus babies, enough entropic radiation flooded his cells to make a definitive match nearly impossible to make. He had certainly spent the last twenty years on Earth, at least, and if he'd come from the Terminus it must have been as a very small baby. There were none of the long-hidden legacies of malnutrition that she'd found deep in Steve's cells during close examinations, no hint he'd once lived beneath red skies and entropic fires. If he was from the Terminus, it was hidden very well indeed.

[Electra]

"The hideout at Grandma's is as good a place to start as any," Miss A decided. "If nothing else, we might get more clues there as to what he's up to. Meantime, we need to stash this one away somewhere safe. I can have a copter out here in ten minutes to take him in, unless you've got something faster, Nick." She shut the scanner and tucked it away again. "Let's spread out and search the building, turn the place over just to make sure we're not missing anything. I'd rather not have to come back here unaccompanied by a wrecking crew and maybe a team of clergy."

[trollthumper]

"Well, I could shove him down into the stygian abyss for an hour or two," Nick said with far too much cheer. "But I'm sure he's learned his lesson and will know never to dabble in the dark side without knowing what he's dealing with. And if he hasn't... well, I wish him the best of luck in the future. He's probably going to need it."

After Tommy was taken care of, Nick went on a second search of the church. He knew he'd walked these halls before, but it wouldn't hurt to make sure he hadn't missed the obvious big glowing magical artifact of entropic death. Working his way through the Sunday school required some steeling, and seeing the sunlight wash over the loving image of the Black Madonna standing over carnage brought out a hundred dark thoughts. When this was all done, perhaps he and Harrier could do some freelance demolition.

[Avenger Assembled]

By the time the search was done, STAR Squad had already come and gone, taking a blind-folded and restrained Tommy Shepard from Caradoc's custody and into the well-guarded protective custody of the Freedom City authorities. Harrier was still in his Caradoc disguise when the heroes inside the building finally rejoined each other, knowing that both Miss Americana and Nick would recognize it from previous adventures together. "I suggest we head for the house," he said, his voice calm enough to let Miss A know that he'd calmed down from his earlier desire to head over there and simply beat Billy Shepard until he repented his magical ties to the Terminus. "Not through the portal, as it is Shepard's creature and no doubt well-guarded, but directly through some discreet passageway. This is an urgent threat, and should be met quickly, albeit not hastily."

[Electra]

"I don't think so," Miss A disagreed, bringing up the contents of the diary on her pad. "It's quite likely that he has been there tonight, but we lost time securing the scene at the speaker's corner and searching here. I think we'd better get to his parents' home as soon as possible. It looks as though he plans to move quickly on his intention to sacrifice his mother and father to the Madonna. If we keep dogging his steps, we may end up being there too late. Shall we fly?"

[trollthumper]

"I agree," said Nick. "While this place needs to be secured at some point, I don't want some kid with magical power and a head full of bright and shiny thoughts about the Terminus rampaging about, especially if he's going to be offering up his parents on a platter." As they took off, Nick didn't want to think about the possibilities of if they were too late. There were odds that this kid's grasp of magical theory wasn't exactly sound... but that had never stopped any of the adherents of the Unspeakable One. A good ritual could channel power into something amazing, but it was still will and power that mattered. With the right circuits, you could channel a lot of electricity into powering all the lights on the Strip - but even without those circuits, you'd have one hell of a storm.

[Avenger Assembled]

Stealth might normally have been the order of the day, but given the urgency of the situation they had to work fast. The old Shepard mansion was dark and quiet at their arrival, with no sign of the elderly couple that lived within or the ample staff that such wealthy people should have been able to maintain. A low wind kicked up as they landed on the neatly trimmed lawn, ruffling the flower garden that looked well-maintained. Quiet as the house looked, someone had to have been there not long earlier. "I would blast in the doors," said Harrier, charging his pike with a whine of energy, "but the display would be pointless and only rouse him to action." He wore his unshielded armor, but it was Caradoc by their side, not the choke-voiced Omegadrone. I will not let them drive me to the rage upon which they feed. "Can either of you see inside the house from here?"

They both could, easily enough, and the scene of recent violence within (easily visible on security cameras or by magic) suggested for a moment they might have come too late! Thick walls in a tony neighborhood hadn't kept this enemy out; instead they'd hidden the sound of carnage from the neighbors. The scorch marks on the walls and broken furniture suggested a grim scene indeed. But up in the big mansion's ample attic, neither Miss Americana or Nick could see, and the marks of battle inside the house seemed to suggest something had been chased up there. Or dragged, depending.

[Electra]

Miss Americana muttered a few choice words under her breath, but lost no time in flying for the roof. "If he's still here, he's up in the attic," she told the others. "I'll burn a hole in the roof so we can get in fast and by surprise. Harrier, you're in first, then me, then you, Nick. Be ready for a fight, but hold off on the heavy blows till we know what he's packing. We don't want to kill him by accident, or hit any potential hostages. Ready?"

With that, she unleashed her laser beams at full power, cutting a surgically-neat circle in the roof within a few seconds time, big enough even for an Omegadrone to pass through. "All right, go!"

[trollthumper]

For a second, Nick feared they'd arrived too late. The wreckage scattered through the halls and burn marks indicated that the carnage had come and gone, and anyone left would likely be beyond help. But... there was no death. His awareness of the threshold was still on mute thanks to the readjustment of his senses, but it still wasn't being pinged. There was no sharp cut-off, no lingering necrotic essence. He knew that his sense was more of an alarm and less of a residual detector, but he had to go with it. He had to hope that they weren't too late.

"All right," he said. "Time to teach this kid what oblivion really is."

[Avenger Assembled]

The heroes blasted through the roof and burst in on a grim scene like something from one of those 1980s warnings about occult sorcery mixed with what few images of the Terminus had made it into mass circulation. The attic of the big house was all wood paneling and high ceilings, looking like something from the upper levels almost of a cathedral. A pool table and other accourtrements of an upper-class man's den had been hurled to the side with great force, leaving open a bare wooden floor to which an elderly couple in the tattered remnants of afternoon clothes had been bound by glowing mystic sigils around their wrists and ankles. Gagged and unable to do more than cry out, the senior Shepards were in the middle of a glowing Ω presided over by their son, a sneering figure in red and black robes adorned with Egyptian calligraphy, wielding a massive blade that Harrier recognized as the tip of an Omegadrone's power pike.

"And there will be a sacrifice, a sacrifice that will open the gateway to-"

"A new life! A new world! A NEW FUTURE FOR MY CHILDREN!" And with that, and with a scream of pure triumph, black entropic fire spewed from the open mouths and eyes of the Black Madonna and her children, a searing wash of unholy flame that poured over the former parents of the lost ones as they stood in terror on the ground below. And the fire burned, and it burned, and it burned them away but they screamed and screamed again, Steve unable to stop watching in horror as their bodies burned to ash but they didn't stop scream-

Harrier hit the ground hard, his steely bulk shaking the attic floor as his feet hit wood. "No more sacrifices today." he spat before firing a blast of screaming black energy at the dark entropic mystic, sending him staggering back but without actually knocking him off his feet. "We will stop you now, and for all time."

"You're too late, traitor!" spat the dark mage as he waved his dagger, "No one will stop me from seeing my real mother! After all these years trapped with this filth, I'm finally going home!" he exulted. "You'll have to come in here if you want to stop me!"

[trollthumper]

"See, you should be careful with words like that."

Blue fire licked from Nick's hands, the fire of barbed thoughts and cold nightmares. It played across his face, bringing out the skull makeup and casting his face as an ossified rictus. "Let me tell you something, kid - you know nothing. You're willing to burn everything away for some cold, all-consuming hunger that cares nothing for anything or anyone." The blue fire leapt from his hands, burning through Billy's enchantments and tearing at his psyche. "You ready to throw yourself into the jaws of oblivion, go ahead. But drag others down with you, you should expect trouble."

[Electra]

"Oh, we'll stop you all right," Miss Americana told the frothing young man with cool confidence, even as she flew down through the roof and landed in the circle. Deliberately she positioned herself in front of the cowering civilians, making it clear that any attempt to harm them would have to go through her first. "But you're quite delusional if you think you're going 'home,'" she added coolly.

"I already scanned your brother. You're not from the Terminus, you're not anything special, and your real mother is right here, tied up on the floor and weeping because you're a piece of human garbage. If you do manage to get in contact with anyone from the Terminus, the luckiest fate you're going to get is a quick and messy death. But it's not going to get that far. It's over, Billy." She raised her arm and shot at him, the lasers searingly bright in the dim room. At this close range she almost couldn't miss, but the beams seemed to sink right into him without effect. Her face betrayed nothing, but she took one small step backwards towards the parents.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Fools! None of you can stop me! I am the light and the way to darkness!" shouted the ranting wizard, and as he raised his borrowed blade in the air a black, oily energy poured from the air itself. Wrapping itself around the shortened pike, the black, oily Terminus magic, the curling strands of anti-light, sizzled and froze the air as he hefted it triumphantly. "Yes! With this blade, I will cut aside the doorways of the world and step into my mother's arms!" A pool of black light bubbled in the air above him, casting eerie shadows onto everyone in the room. "But first, I will cut out the heart of the enemy of Omega!" He stepped forward, ignoring his parents for a moment, and swung the blade directly at Harrier. "Die, son of Steelgrave's whore!" he spat, the words actually enough to make Harrier flinch as the blade nearly tore out his heart. But the cybernetic veteran of 1000 wars had heard worse, and batted aside the blade with his outstretched pike. Pinning the blade with his own, Harrier growled in a voice from a mechanical Hell.

"No more. Your parents are protected. Your magic will be stopped. Your words mean nothing. You are nothing." He flipped the blade around and smashed it against Billy Shepard's face, driving the blunt end in hard enough that an audible crack rang through the room, and the young mystic was hurled backwards against the wall in a daze. As his head hit the wall behind him, the black cloud that had empowered his blade began to fade away, but not before an echo of a voice, like the ghost of another world, sounded distinctly in the air.

"No, Billy..."

[trollthumper]

The ghost of a voice was something Nick was rather used to. And he knew just how much power some of those could have. So when he heard the voice with all of the warmth of the blast furnace and the strong embrace of barbed wire, he knew now was the time to act. He knew he'd always had trouble with wards... but now was as good a time as any to improvise. He drew on the entropic ward strung around his jacket, feeling the strands that reached out towards Harrier and Miss Americana. He knitted the strands together into something approaching a web, and hurled it out towards the traces of the woman's voice. It filled in the loose cracks of the universe, driving out the influence of the Terminus.

"Sorry, mommy," he said. "You lost custody."