Genesis *UHF* Chapter 4
By Mufasa
For twenty miles in all directions, mutants, mystics, and superheroes alike felt their powers twist and spike against their well, some rather painfully. A pyrotechnic at a Yankees game burst into flames once he saw the flash, incinerating both himself and the people immediately next to him. A young woman tending to her flowers saw the flash and accidentally caused them all to grow to ridiculous proportions. Over in Crystal Lakes Nursing Home, a woman by the name of Katrina Walsh inexplicably woke up after over 50 years of being held catatonic by her own powers. Telepaths and empaths world-wide were reeling from the strain caused by the catastrophe.
Over in Connecticut, a man and his seven-year-old son were in the back playing catch when it seemed like the light level rose for a moment and then went down. He and his son looked back and forth between each other and the sky, shrugged, and then went back to playing catch. Just as he was about to catch a ball his son was throwing him, his cell phone rang. The baseball hit him in the forehead. Good thing he was invulnerable.
“Hello?” Michael Norris said, answering the phone. Young Christian ran over to get the ball and threw it again, watching how it landed with a thud against Grover’s chest. Grover shook his head and turned around so the young boy could practice throwing some more. “What’s going on?”
“Hello, Mr. Norris,” Alice Pembleton’s voice came over the phone. “I’m sorry to call, but I assure you this is important.”
“Does it have anything to do with that flash?” he asked.
“I’m not sure, but I expect it does. Chaos has broken out around here, though no one’s gotten hurt or anything. Not yet. I’m actually calling from under my desk. From what I’ve been able to notice, powers started flaring.”
“I see… Ever since the flash, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Any idea on the source?”
“Not yet. It wasn’t nuclear. I can tell you that for sure. Even though they’ve been mentioning power outages closer to New York City, the electricity here still works… and your cell phone answered just fine.”
“You’re right. It wasn’t nuclear, although you can bet that when we cover up whatever it really is, we’ll have to say it was a terrorist nuclear attack.”
“I’ll make a note to have Mr. Jones consider that possibility.”
“Any word from Gomurr over at the Black Court function?”
“No… Not that I’m aware of. Just so you know, I’m walking out of the building now. There are people fighting the blaze. SlashR finally got Outburst and Havok to stop blowing things up, though he had to knock them both out to do it. Nebula’s still a problem. Wait… Malachi. There you are. Where have you been? I’ve been all worried about you! Yes, I know you are an insanely teenage powerful Magician, but that doesn’t excuse the point. And young man, Dr. Torres TOLD me you were trying to convince Emma you were certified to give mammograms. I’ve TOLD you about that… Sorry, Michael, just lecturing my son over here.”
Michael winced. Yes, that was one mother he definitely would not want to cross. “Has Gomurr…”
“Oh lord,” Alice said, almost dismissively. “Angelo’s gone wolfen again and is chasing the gardener around. Malachi, go pen him up. We can’t have a werewolf running loose like that.” He heard a “Yes, Mom” in the back. “I’ll try to get things back into some semblance of order over here, Mr. Norris. No, Mr. Gomurr hasn’t called yet. I suspect that since he was closer to what’s happening in New York, he’d be investigating things himself.”
“All right. Hang in there, Alice.”
“One more thing, Sir. The telepaths are down.”
“Christian isn’t.”
“He’s in a league of his own, Sir.”
“I keep forgetting. What I think I’ll do, then, is leave Christian here. From what it sounds like, he’s safer over here than back home. I’ll try to get ahold of Gomurr. Give me another call when things get straightened up.”
“Will do.” Michael heard Alice hang up. A few quick taps across the number pad and he called Gomurr. Well… at least he tried to call Gomurr. All lines were busy. THAT wasn’t good. That couldn’t have been good.
“Hey, Bud,” Michael said. “I’ve got to go save the world again.”
“I know,” Christian answered.
“I don’t think this will take too long. You be good for a couple of days and we’ll go camping. You and me. That sound fun?”
“Yes.”
“Good… now give me a hug…” Christian jumped up so Michael could catch him. The two of them hovered across the field until they could get to the couple at the end, who was packing up some assorted picnic items. “Mom… Dad…”
“We know, Son. We figured it out once you got off the phone. The flash?” Kyle Norris took Christian from his son.
“Yes. Do you mind watching after him for a few days? It’s widespread. Don’t worry. It isn’t nuclear.”
“No problem. You better hold onto my cell phone, Mike. It won’t be too long before Gill starts trying to call me to do that story. I plan on staying retired.”
“So do I,” his wife Carolyn said. “High school kids these days are horrible. Retiring and moving up to Vermont was probably the best thing that could happen to us. I’m so glad my children are doing a much better job with their kids than the parents of the brats I was teaching.”
“Mom…”
“Sorry, Michael. I keep forgetting. It’s still new for me to discover my independently wealthy son is booking out of Wall Street to follow in his mother’s footsteps,” she shook her head. “I thought I did much better with you.”
“Haha… VERY funny…”
“You’re going to be a good teacher, Michael, provided you don’t interrupt your lesson plans to go save the world all the time.”
“That,” Kyle said. “And it is an effective deterrent to acting up when they know their teacher can punch a hole through a wall. You go on, Son, and…”
Michael answered the phone. “Hello?”
“Damn, I never thought I was going to get through. Are you guys okay up there?”
“Grandpa?! What’s going on?”
“You wouldn’t feel it anyway because of your telekinetic field…”
“Field…. Grandpa…”
“It’s Khalid, Michael. What’s going on in New York… KHALID’s doing it.”
“KHALID??!!”
“YES!!! KHALID! Your cousin. And it gets worse…”
-------------------------------
To the astronauts observing the situation from the space station, it looked like a light that just lit up and sent waves dissipating from the center. When they tried to zoom in on the event in NewYork, they couldn’t make out anything more than a sphere of light. It was so bright and hot that it burned off the storm that had been moving in. And it wasn’t getting any dimmer. Closer to the event itself were two people just coming to.
“Gabe…” Hotwire said, pushing up to her knees. “What happened?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “We were closing in on Gene when there was a flash. Then, the Starscream exploded. Our personal forcefields kicked in, but…”
“Wait… Something else happened.”
“The two of you were ripped out of your bodies. That’s what,” Gene said from just a few feet away. When Daemon saw him, Anubis flashed to his hand. Before he could attack, Hotwire set her hand on his shoulder. “Khalid did it. He did all of this… kind of.”
“And I suppose you had nothing to do with it?” Daemon asked. “You just happened to be around and he just happened to be at your place!”
“After you tried to kill him. How do we know…”
“If I wanted to kill you, I’d have done it instead of putting you back in your bodies. I need your help to stop this.”
“How do we know that YOU aren’t behind it? That you didn’t somehow…” Before Hotwire could continue, Gene pulled out the glass ball with Shaman trapped inside of it. The Sorcerer Supreme sat in the Lotus position in the center wearing a pair of dark sunglasses.
“Ask his dumb ass, since he’s the one that triggered it,” Gene said.
Quiet, Gene, Shaman said. I’m trying to watch the show.
“He looks just like you,” Hotwire said. “But older…”
“SHAMAN,” Daemon snarled. “What the HELL is this all about?”
“He’s a future version of myself.”
“Good,” Daemon said. “Then all I have to do is gut YOUR worthless ass and he doesn’t live.”
No. Then you just ensure that I’m from a divergent strain of this reality rather than this particular one. Simple temporal mechanics, really…
“SHUT UP! What happened?”
“After being ambushed on September 11th, Shaman transferred his consciousness into my body. He wanted to take it over completely, but I resisted. We’ve been struggling ever since,” Gene said.
“That explains why Gene had two electromagnetic signatures as well,” Hotwire said. “But that doesn’t explain Khalid…”
“Khalid is the reincarnation of Mufasa, King of the forgotten southern kingdom of Kemet.”
Daemon blinked. Wait… Something sounded familiar about that…
Gene continued. “Normally, the persona of the first incarnation – if it emerges at all – is on a subconscious level. Mufasa’s presence is more overwhelming than the usual first incarnation.”
I’d have thought it would have been the body odor myself, Shaman said. Gene started shaking the ball back and forth so Shaman’s body would slam against the sides.
“Thanks to SHITHEAD in there, Khalid grew up with a split personality. I think he did it so Khalid could be his protégé.”
“I think he did it because he was a shithead,” Hotwire said.
“He had me attack Khalid to get his attention – or rather Mufasa’s attention. That drew Mufasa to track us down. We fought. Long and bloody. I got weak. Shaman took over. His plan was to then use Khalid to drag me kicking and screaming out of my own body.”
Shaman stumbled around and fell to the bottom of the glass ball. And I would have done it too if it hadn’t been for that dog and those meddling kids…
“Give me that,” Daemon said ripping the glass ball out of Gene’s hand. “He can’t escape from it, can he?”
“Only Khalid can let him out.”
“Good.” Daemon heated the glass ball hotter than the center of the sun, ignoring the sound of Shaman’s screams from inside. Not lowering the temperature, he turned back to Gene. “And let me guess… This Khalid guy backstabbed him.”
“You think he ever agreed to do it in the first place? Not everyone takes kindly to assholes barging inside their heads.”
Daemon dropped the superheated glass ball to the ground. “All right… You get a reprieve, for now. How does what happened to Shaman lead to this?”
“Shaman’s an asshole,” Gene said. “And he probably left a present in Khalid’s head a long time ago in case he ever did that. Khalid can’t pull himself back in.”
Daemon looked up toward the center of the light. Neither Hotwire nor Gene could see it because it would blind their eyes, but Daemon could make it out. Sure enough, Khalid was at the center, still roaring in agony. The photon and the mystical wave, every one knew about. Even if they had put on the special polarized lenses that would screen out all of this, they would assume all of the photons were coming from Khalid.
Not so. Daemon picked up on something else that his scanner confirmed.
“We’ve got a worse problem. Khalid’s at the center of a dimensional distortion that he created. That’s where the light is coming from.”
“A dimensional…”
“A tear. A rip between this dimension and whatever one he uses to teleport through. One that throws off solid light. It’s already about a fifty feet wide and growing.”
“Daemon,” Hotwire said. “Could you use Anubis to collapse the tear? I know it would kill Khalid, but…”
“If the tear were smaller, yes,” Daemon answered. “But it’s too big. If I collapse a tear that big, the shockwave could end up destroying nearly all life on Earth.”
“We have to figure out something fast… because it won’t be long until we get some unwanted attention.”
End Chapter Four
Mufasa
XMBB Editor
Liberace fan
The White King's Bishop
Dudley Moore's negative clone
Officially Annoyed by Marvel Girl
No, I'm not jumping to the Grey Court
King of Insane Kemetic Lions
Doesn't like the way Gene's eyeing his hair
*ROAR!!!!*