The Legacy of Lothevis: Awakening

It'd been a few days since Erin and Noelle had last had a chance to hang out and gossip, so with a small lull in their caseloads they had decided to meet up and exchange really juicy tidbits about recent events. Sitting on the edge of a rooftop in Atlas Park, Noelle's living ice-sculpture Jack was roaming back and forth below stopping Hellion purse-snatchers while the two girls above chatted.

"So, anyways, Frankie had left her comm unit on while Ulric was proposing so all of us who were out beating up on baddies at the time got to hear her excited squeal as she excepted," gushed Kinetica, talking loudly about her friends recent proposal so she could be heard over the traffic noise and the swearing of the gang-punks below.

"No way! That's awesome." Noelle grinned. "So much better than having to hear about it all secondhand and stuff. Not that I'm complaining, of course. You know me -- I am all about the gossip!"

Laughing togethor softly, the city seemed to pause and fall silent around them. The traffic noises ended, the wind seemed to pause, the city fell to a sudden standstill. Signals across the comm network died suddenly, even the main comm server back at Doc McAllister's lab seemed to be non-responsive. Only a few faint signals still seemed to be echoing across the city network, and they were coming from the direction of Perez Park.

"Uhm... This is sooo not good. I think someone broke reality... Looks like a couple people are over in Perez Park, you picking up anyone on the Knights network?", Erin asked, more then a little disturbed at the sudden stoppage of time.

Noelle checked her comm. Silence. No outrageous comments from Kessa, computerized chirping from either the MalBot 3200 or the new DNBot 3200, or greetings from Streak. Nothing at all, from anyone. "It's like they're not there."

She got a queasy feeling in her stomach. "Kin, what's going on?"

"I think we should get over to Perez to see what is going. I know Parallax Hunter had tracked Darkthorne... er... Lothevis's activities to there. If this has something to do with him... Glad you are here with me Noelle, I wouldn't want to be heading in that direction on my own. I'll fill you in on the way as to what I know," Erin stepped lightly off the roofs edge, her suits flight system kicking in after the barest moment of freefall. Turning in the air to head towards Perez Park and whatever awaited them there.

Noelle followed, tracking Kin's signal easily enough in the silence around them, leapfrogging in the sky as she teleported closer and closer to the Park.

With Kinetica's rushed briefing on the recent exploits of Lothevis ringing in her ears, Noelle dashed past the statue-like guards at the entrance to Perez Park, and took to the sky again in the Hazard Zone. Twirling around for a moment, trying to get her bearings, she saw a flash of light erupt from Everett Lake and hover in the sky above. With a gesture, she slid through the sky on waves of light, and touched down on the shore of the still lake next to Hunter and Vincent.

Though the two men stood silently, it was a different kind of stillness than that which had affected everyone else in Paragon City. Noelle nodded to them both, polite greetings for heroes she'd met only a few times, though she'd heard much about both of them. "Heya. Nice to see a friendly face -- it was getting a bit too quiet around here for my taste. What's the scoop?"

Vincent had just finished speaking with Muffin on his communicator, and when he turned back to face Hunter, he was confronted with other heroes that had seemingly joined the group. He was shocked to see Noelle standing there and shocked also to see Kinetica joining them, he hadn't realized that Lothevis had included these many people. The thought that even more people would be put in danger made his blood boil. On the other hand however, having the heroes around would give them a great advantage in the final hour.

"Noelle.. Erin.. A battle is about to be joined. I'm sure the both of you are more then ready to face whatever it is that we're about to confront, though I'm not quite sure what Lothevis has in store for us. We'll have to meet him head on."

As the mage finished his sentence, he stretched his arms out and chanted in a dull monotone for just a moment. He called forth the Divine magics lying within' him and brought them to the forefront where they were used to surround him in a magical aura that hardened his skin to the density of steel, it was this same aura that heightened all of his abilities drastically. When he looked back at the group, his eyes were glowing a fiery purple, tendrils of divine energy leaping from his pupils, snaking out into the sky.

Dr. Gideon McAllister was working out some frustrations on a gang of trolls.

The chest plate of his armor had been repaired, that had taken hours of work to get the armor layers off and the internal circuitry re-wired. He'd expected Lothevis to make good use of the abilities of Darkthorne's body, but not like that.

The nightmares weren't helping matters either. Madeline's screams, echoing in his ears all night.

Skyway was improving his mood slowly. He didn't even have to go looking for criminals to arrest. He just had to land atop one of the elevated roadways and they came after him.

For a few moments, he could just loose himself in the fight, put his frustrations and grief on hold for a moment. Until the trolls stopped fighting back.

They stood still, the traffic had stopped, the newspaper blowing down the street just hung in the air.

"Lothevis", Gideon softly spoke.

The boosters in his boots kicked up dust around him as he flew slowly up, the dust freezing in time as he moved away from the roadway and headed towards Perez Park. The powersuits on-board sensor suite showing others moving about there, free in time like himself.

The guards at the gatepost, there to gangs in Perez from coming into contact with those in Skyway stood frozen in the moment, one of them paused midway through a yawn.

Perez itself looked as wild and untamed as it had since the Rikti's arrival. With all the necessity for rebuilding the infrastructure around the city no one had noticed all of the criminals moving in and calling the park and the neighborhoods around it their own until they had settled too well in to roust them easily back out.

The flare hanging in the sky above Everett Lake was new though.

Landing upon the shore of the lake, by the gathered heroes. Turning to try to follow Hunter's gaze out over the waters as he spoke to the group, "If it was any circumstances other then this, I'd be glad to see you all. As it is... What's the situation Hunter?"

Hunter hadn't looked up as the heroes started arriving. Hadn't said a word. He continued to gaze at the water, as if mentally preparing himself for the conflict that was now inevitable. He finally spoke to Patriot One's question.

"The situation is that Lothevis is there."

He pointed to the center of Everett Lake.

"There is a hole in the lakebed. As far as I can tell, it goes down more than half an Earthly kilometer. I detect an immense power signature."

Rising from his crouched position, Hunter hefted his rifle again.

"We should wait a short while longer, in case there is anyone else. It won't matter to Lothevis. He's got all the time in the world to wait for us."

15 minutes. More than long enough for anyone who lived and moved within this time-lost world to see Hunter's flare.

Barometra had eventually shown up, and the gathered heroes had sat in a silence that rivaled the world around them. A pall of impending doom held sway over the lake, and there seemed to almost be a soft pulse from the ground beneath them that could only be felt because everything else was so still.

As the heroes faced each other, a current of unspoken agreement passed among them. It was time to face whatever gambit Lothevis had planned for them. If they were to die, then they would die as they lived, and as they fought.

Hunter stepped to the edge of the lake, and the heroes made ready behind him. Activating his cloaking device--a doubtful safeguard, but still a comforting one--he pinpointed a location directly above the vertical tunnel, and activated his relocation matrix to place himself there. Holding his rifle to him and going stalk-straight, he entered a free-fall, driving straight into and through the stilled water, pushing it outward from him in his passage, and opening the way for his allies to fly, leap, and fall right in behind him.

It fall was seemingly endless. Hunter ignored his sensors, not wanting to know for sure how deep they were going. At last, the water parted, and he was met with the open air of a darkened room. He stopped his fall directly above the floor with his hover unit, touching down gently and immediately bringing his rifle up in a combat stance. One-by-one, the other heroes joined him, each ablaze with their own powers and combat readiness.

The room was lit only by a series of strange crystals around its perimeter, and then only dimly. Not even Hunter's sensory spectrum filters could penetrate it. It was dark for a reason, magically made so, and not even the light given off by his companions illuminated more than a small area around them. The spacing of the crystals seemed to point to the cavernous room being at least 100 Earthly meters in diameter, and the invading heroes were at its center.

The soft clatter and buzz of the heroes' movements and active powers echoed off the stone surfaces, but they did not mask the sound that already existed in this place. Hunter's enhanced hearing picked it up easily as nothing his allies could make.

Breathing. Very deep breathing.

After a moment of comparative silence, a voice slithered out of the shadows.

"Hello, guests . . ."

The voice was familiar. Once that of Lothevis, which was once that of Darkthorne . . . it was different now. Far deeper, with a bass and baritone that reverberated and echoed in the large room, making it impossible to pinpoint.

All of a sudden, the darkness was that much more opressive, as there was now no doubt that there was something else in this room. It was Lothevis, to be sure, but he had become something no one had yet seen. It was almost as though he was all around them, and every hero there felt eyes upon them, a vast malevolence grinning in the dark as it mentally tasted their flesh and nervous energy.

". . . welcome to my parlor."

Noelle swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. This... thing... this Lothevis... was bigger and just all around more than anything she'd dealt with before. She felt thrown in at the deep end, surrounded by heroes who knew the score, while she struggled madly to keep up.

At least I haven't lost my ability to mix metaphors, she thought, with a forced grin.

She backed up towards Kinetica and the others, using the light Vincent put off to see deeper into the gloom... to see the assembled Wheel of Destruction. The wheel she personally had helped locate in pieces throughout the city, handed over for safekeeping to the powers that be at MAGI. The powers that... weren't, apparently.

But it was more than that. Machinery and gears, circuit boards and switches that she hadn't a clue about. High tech stuff, likely to be real powerful. What with the Portal Corp connection... nothing good ever seemed to come out of that place.

No, she corrected herself, Streak came outta there. So maybe there's a way to use it for our means? To rejig it, somehow?

The oppresive darkness bore down on the samll group of heroes, heat seeming to boil up from the ground around them. This deep down in the earth, Noelle figured out why she hated caves so much. It wasn't the claustrophobia... it was the heat, the ever-growing proximity to the Earth's core. She wasn't meant to be here. Didn't know how she got mixed up in it all anyway, but since she was here...

Drawing on the air around them, pulling it towards her, manipulating it, Noelle called forth her Jacks, then surrounded her compatriots in a shiver of arctic air.

As the wintry breezes swirled around them, momentarily -- hopefully -- masking them from the big bad she'd seen briefly across the room, she looked to Hunter who'd led them down here.

"What now?"

Hunter said nothing, his gaze and his weapon trained on the strange device at the far edge of the room. High-power, high-frequency . . . and most worrying of all . . . the quantum flux was roiling around it like a storm.

In a single instant, he could fire a projectilve that would destroy the electronics, or perhaps even shatter the stone . . . but what would happen if he did? This thing Lothevis had created could be for any purpose. It could be some kind of bomb. Even manipulating the controls without knowing what you are doing could result in destruction for everyone in the city.

It was still Lothevis' game. What was assured, though, was that this wasn't his last move to play.

A shiver travelled the length of Scorpia's spine as she tried to follow the sound of the ominous voice in the magical darkness. It was obvious that there was a game at foot - the taunting nature of his tone was unmistakeable. This was about enjoying their reactions. When she spied the tail, she tried to locate its source, frustrated that she couldn't see further into the inky blackness.

The revelation of the huge technologically enhanced stone wheel gave her the deep, abiding sense that she was out of her depth. Though she had suspicions about it, she really had no idea what it was for, but was pretty sure they didn't want to find out. Whatever was going to happen, though, was going to happen soon.

It's that thought that prompts her to return to creating and maintaining her force fields around the other heroes and herself. He - whoever this was, because she still wasn't quite sure - obviously wanted reactions, and she refused to play by anyone's rules but her own.

The silence, the dread, the oppressive heat continued to build. Noelle looked around at each hero as Scorpia threw up her force fields, and added her own bubbles to the mix, hoping it'd be enough to protect them all. Kinetica made some adjustments on her powersuit while Patriot One checked readings on his, Vincent gathered more energy from around them, his glow intensifying, while Hunter stood stock still, staring across the room, Barometra next to him.

With her last question still hanging in the air unanswered, and a faint slithery shuffle coming to her ears from across the cavern, Noelle spoke again, "Someone please tell me they've got a plan."