“Well, this place is cheerful. Wonder if they have a tourism board.” His snark was his only defense against the unmitigated gloom around him.
Even though he was flying forward, he couldn’t really tell. Everything was the same. It was an uneasy feeling.
“Okay, this place is strange, and coming from me that is saying something.” He stopped when a series of lightning flashes crawled through the gray darkness. “What is that?” Holding up his hand, he focused his mind on the surrounding energy. “Morphons. But something is wrong.”
“Who are you?” An ominous voice called through the nothingness.
“Just a lost duck. So, who are you?”
There was a long silence. In fact, he could tell this was a silence born of this realm thinking.
“Hey, I answered you. Who are you?”
Figures of mist appeared. All were animalistic humanoid creatures with antlers, claws, and no faces. They rushed at Strange Quark.
“Oh, I see, you’re a bunch of idiots.” He swept his hand to the side, and a blue flash dissolved two, then he shot a ray from his eyes and another evaporated. Yet, for each he destroyed, two or three would rise and rush at him. He destroyed more and more of them, but he couldn’t keep them away forever.
One grabbed his arm, and he vanished and reappeared at a distance. “Don’t touch the goods. HEY!” More appeared at his feet, pulling him down into the shadows below him. He transformed into a massive version of himself and gave a hard kick that destroyed two dozen. Four dozen replaced them, including several that were just as big as him.
“This is not good.” He turned and flew away, but a sea of these creatures appeared in the distance like a massive wave. They roared toward him, glowing green eyes and claws dripping in shadow.
“Okay, I’m outta here.” He snapped his fingers and became a blue flash. However, he remained in the same place, but now as a large albatross. “Wait, this isn’t right.” Ten of the creatures piled on top of him and pushed him down. Hundreds more swarmed over him. They ripped off blue feathers and yanked at his wings.
“One more time!” He yelled, and this time he flashed and vanished from this realm.
A woman spoke from the International News Network. Behind her were several artistic renderings of the various creatures that had attacked.
“BADGE has issued a strict warning to the world and put all Leagues and Rangers on alert. Unknown creatures have attacked both heroes and civilians across the planet. The creatures have killed two people and hospitalized several so far. It is unclear at this time who these people are or who they are working for. BADGE’s official statement is that they are actively searching for answers. If anyone sees any creature like these, avoid at all costs and report them to the authorities immediately. You can go to our website to download these pictures and find a list of links where you can report them. Now, we have an expert on recent meta-human activity who will give us their view on...”
Nova made a slashing motion across his throat, silencing the audio. “Why do they insist on bringing on supposed experts to form opinions with almost no facts to work from? Are ratings so important that they will spend more time speculating than simply reporting?” Nova let that rant out.
Chase said, “I’m surprised you put that out for the media and not just for the Leagues and Rangers.”
Nova said, “After recent events, we have had PR issues that have crippled us in most illogical ways. I decided we need to be a little more forthcoming with alerts for the public. As long as the alert won’t cause an immediate widespread panic, I think informing the public is okay.”
Justin added, “Plus, whoever is behind this now knows we are aware of this. Put them on the back foot, at least we hope it will.”
“That is a bit of a gamble,” Chase said. “Letting our enemy, whoever they are, know might only help them.”
Nova said, “That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
Gar asked, “Have you heard from Strange Quark?”
“Not yet. I’m still not comfortable sending him, or anyone, into another realm we know nothing about. But he felt he wasn’t in any danger.”
Chase said, “Quark thinks he’s invincible some days. I hope he doesn’t do anything foolish.”
Dr. Henderson’s voice came over Nova’s comm, “Henderson to Director Nova. See me in the Bio Lab, I have some results you will want to know about.”
“On my way.” Nova clicked his comm. “Justin, Gar, keep watch in here. Chase, with me.”
Nova led Chase quickly through the station. First-year students were working on written assignments in the mess hall between classes, while the third-year students were preparing for training missions. They were going to join the ATLAS team and do a survey of flood damaged areas.
With a quick flash of his ID card, Nova walked into the bio lab with Chase. EB rushed up to him, as excited as ever.
“Hey, buddy. Guess what? We found something that is pretty amazing and kinda worrisome. I mean, it’s always worrying when people get hurt. Especially by antlered strange creatures that act like zombies. You know, this would be an interesting superhero movie about zombies. Plant zombies from space... uh... “ Nova patiently waited with folded arms. EB knew this posture well. “Uh, yeah, so Doc Henderson is over here.”
They met up with Dr. Henderson while she worked over one hero from the Louisiana team. Vexvine was awake, but pale and lethargic.
“Sir,” Vexvine tried to salute, but she couldn’t.
Nova kindly said, “Don’t worry. How do you feel?”
“Like someone has given me a dozen doses of muscle relaxers.”
Dr. Henderson checked a tube running into her arm. “This infusion should pep you up soon enough. Just, stay down and get some rest.”
Nova asked, “What happened?”
Dr. Henderson said, “After reviewing all the medical data from each of the affected people, I found a similarity. Morphon vibration.”
“Morphon vibration?” Chase asked.
EB bounced around, “It was my idea. You see, Morphons have certain frequencies. We know that now. Didn’t know it years ago. But recent studies are fantastic about this. With the avatars, we know the Morphons have unique signatures. They don’t really vibrate, but it’s just a way to say it.”
Dr. Henderson interrupted his rambling. “We still don’t know a lot about morphons, only that Legion polluted our atmosphere with them when they first attacked and then Drocha saturated us again for his plot. The impact on humans was to activate certain abilities in a select few. Some are stronger than others. Morphons have types, which we are still learning about. It is still a science in its infancy, but we can tell that people have one type more than another. I ran some scans on morphon types on these people and I found that all of them are primarily using a specific type of morphon. The remains of those two who died also had that same affinity. And finally, Doctor Fagan’s system is currently saturated with an extreme level of those morphons.”
EB said, “So, I had Justin send us the data on the spikes he saw back when all this crap started and guess what! Same type. And, oh, this is cool. Leprechauns cave... it is FILLED with the same type.”
Nova asked, “How does this help us?”
Dr. Henderson said, “We have just discovered this, and I’ll continue researching every angle. However, my best guess at this point would be that these creatures are targeting people with a natural affinity to that specific morphon type. The only problem is that we have never really focused on keeping track of that, so the heroes out there don’t really know their morphon type. I’m going to have to scan through the files. We will need to first identify specifically which morphon type this is.”
“Get on it.”
“I’ve already got the computer processing the data.”
EB said, “It’s supernatural.”
“What?” Dr. Henderson asked.
“That is what filled the crystals in Leprechaun’s cave, and that matches the type for Dr. Fagan. She showed me her limited power, and it set the crystals off in a crazy display. You’ve never seen such a reaction. It was boom, pow, zzzzzzzap. She was all glowy. That’s right before...”
Nova interrupted EB, “If these creatures are targeting people with that type of morphon, then we need to know who to warn and get them to safety.”
Dr. Henderson said, “We have some information about the people who have been through here, but we didn’t do complete morphon profiles until recently. And we must also consider the people who don’t realize they have morphonic abilities. The first two attacked weren’t heroes, but I will bet they had supernatural morphon properties in them.”
“That is your primary objective, find me a way to locate these people so we can get them to safety.”
“I will...”
A loud pop echoed around them, and something appeared in the lab, skidding across the floor. It looked like a bright blue platypus. It spoke, “Ow, that hurt. Wow, what a trip.”
Nova said, “Strange Quark, is that you?”
The platypus looked up and said, “Yeah, it’s me, and things got serious. This is worse than I thought.”
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