CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE CONVERGENCE WAR BEGINS
The room was chilly when he stepped in, almost like someone had opened a window into winter somewhere in there. He knew it couldn’t be possible because the room had no windows—just one of many precautions the Watchers had taken to ensure nothing that was said in there was at all compromised, and that their operations remained safe.
Every time J had been in there, the temperature of the room had been, well, normal. A right balance between warm and cold, and something told him that the sudden drop in the room’s temperature was no accident. The other Watchers had a flair for theatrics and if anyone of them had deemed it necessary to make things chilly, it was probably because they were about to discuss something rather gloomy.
J took his usual seat at the table. Across from him sat Ravenmask. On either side of him were Penguinmask and Catmask, and Hawkmask occupied the last seat. As soon as Hawkmask took the last seat, Ravenmask cleared his throat.
“Now that everyone’s here,” he began. “We have an important matter to discuss.”
“What’s with the air conditioning here today?” Catmask queried before letting out a chuckle. “We’re not running behind on electricity bills, are we?”
“This is no time for humor,” Ravenmask scolded. “What we have to discuss, is a truly pressing matter. As things stand now, it’s safe to say we are now in a state of emergency!”
The entire room went dead quiet thing. J heard a couple of the Watchers gulp.
“What happened?” he asked, his voice shaky.
“It’s not about what happened,” Hawkmask replied, and then rose to her feet. She crossed her arms, cleared her throat, then continued. “It’s about what’s happening, right now as we speak. The doppelgangers have drawn far too much attention now, and dark forces are beginning to amass on their world. The war is about to begin, just as we feared.”
J felt his heart skip a few beats. “Bellum’s fleet is moving on their world?”
“Yes,” Hawkmask nodded. “But that’s not all. We have reason to believe that someone on this little council violated one of our rules and reached out to the one whose power resonates across dimensions, to provide him a warning.”
“That’s a preposterous allegation,” Catmask hissed. “Everyone in this room knows fully well the risks attached to the responsibility we’ve taken on. Our role is confined to observation and recording, we’re not—,”
“We are aware what our role is,” Ravenmask interrupted. “But the issue remains—someone sent a warning to the doppelgangers and potentially interfered with the unraveling of the cosmic threads of fate. There’s no telling what could come of that.”
“And if no one here confesses to this crime?” Penguinmask queried.
“And are we so certain that it’s a crime to begin with?” J added.
Once more, the room went quiet. Though the Watchers were masked, he could tell that all eyes were on him. The room seemed to get even colder and a part of him wondered if there was a chance one of the Watchers was cryokinetic.
But seeing as all the attention was already on him, he decided to go on.
He drew a deep breath first, then continued to speak. “We’ve seen what happens to universes after the incursions. Bellum’s fleet is like a cancer spreading across the multiverse, conquering world after world, and razing down the ones that prove indomitable. Is it really so bad to try to help stop this incursion?”
“Are we really about to have this discussion?” Catmask snorted.
“I don’t see why not,” Penguinmask leaned back in his seat. “It’s just a warning, right? It’s not like one of us went over there to interact with the doppelgangers.”
Ravenmask and Hawkmask exchanged glances and the room turned colder still.
J sat up in his seat, raising one eyebrow over the other behind his mask. “Wait, what are you saying? That one of us jumped between universes to send a warning? That’s not possible.”
“There are multiple ways to cross universal thresholds,” Ravenmask answered. “There’s the way we got here—physically displaced from our worlds, or through Waymakers specifically intended for multiversal travel. But there’s also the matter of mentally crossing the threshold. Projecting your mind across cosmic barriers.”
“Of course, that’s a little harder to pull off,” Hawkmask went on. “It’s like a phone call between universes. If the signal strength’s low, well, the message gets crappy. If the receiver’s got poor reception, the message gets crappy. But if all of the conditions are right, well, you could potentially broadcast information between universes without restraint. And doing this would require much less energy than a Waymaker might.”
“So, you think someone in here did that?” Penguinmask asked. “How do you even know that?”
“The entire business of this Council is to know things,” Hawkmask scolded. “How we found out about the broadcast is not the issue here, the issue is that there was a broadcast to begin with which means we potentially have a mole amongst us.”
“You can’t be serious,” J rolled his eyes. “So, what, trying to stop Bellum makes you a mole now, is that it? We’re all supposed to just sit down and watch the multiverse burn?”
“Did you do it?” Penguinmask queried.
“I wish I knew how to broadcast my mind across universes,” J responded. “I’d be able to go back, to see them one last time, see what Bellum and his forces took from me. But if there is someone here capable of doing such a thing, should they even be our primary focus now? You said it yourself, the war is beginning. Is that not a more pressing matter? What is the status report on the doppelgangers?”
“We’re not going to just skip over the matter of the mole—,”
“Yada yada yada,” Penguinmask yawned, interrupting Ravenmask. “Here’s the thing. You can’t just come in here, label one of us as moles and not provide any information whatsoever about how you found out. For all we know, you’re the one who’s broadcasting brainwaves across dimensions.”
“Or it could have been someone from another world,” J suggested. “Why are you two certain that it’s one of us Watchers?”
“Good question,” Catmask grunted. “Care to explain?”
Ravenmask and Hawkmask exchanged glances again. The two of them shook their heads subtly.
“Very well,” Ravenmask sighed. “We’ll let the matter of the mole rest for the moment, at least until there’s more information that comes to light that we can discuss. It would be wise to avoid jumping to conclusions and causing any fractures in our group.”
“For now though,” Hawkmask said, and waved a hand. At once, a holographic display popped up in the middle of the table. For a while, the display looked filled with static. Then finally, it cleared up, showing a group of people, all of whom looked to be in a multiple-way battle, with blasts of flame, wind, electricity and beams of blue light shooting in every direction.
J tensed at the holo-display. A frown creased his face. “Wait, what’s going on? Are they at war with each other?”
“No,” Hawkmask shook his head. “They’re training.”
“They’re getting stronger,” J murmured.
“Yes,” Ravenmask nodded. “But will it be enough?”
Daniel heaved a great sigh and straightened up. He dusted off his hands and wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. He then stared at the huge white crate Daedalus had just had him move across the auditorium, which had now been repurposed into a quantum lab of sorts so Daedalus, Dang, and Dante could continue their work on the Waymaker. This had been much of their focus for the past three weeks, and on Daniel’s request, they’d implemented countermeasures to ensure they couldn’t set off another quantum explosion with the thing.
And so, when they weren’t sparring out in the football field that they’d made a training ground, they were here in the auditorium, trying to create a machine that could make cross-dimensional travel a possibility. What they were trying to do down here was the sort of thing that would earn the world’s greatest scientists eternal repute and quite possibly a few Nobel Prizes and yet, here they were, grunting away in the auditorium of an abandoned school, designing something that had to be kept a secret from the rest of the world for obvious reasons.
“What exactly is in this thing?” Daniel demanded as Daedalus strode into the auditorium. “I thought you had all the stuff you needed for your Waymaker?”
“We mostly do now,” Daedalus nodded. “Besides, that crate is just filled with junk. I wanted you to move it as part of your strength training.”
Daniel blinked once, then twice. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Yep,” Daedalus cracked a mischievous grin. “Speaking of, the crate’s sort of in the way over there, you should probably move it back across the auditorium before someone gets hurt.”
“Oh, someone’s gonna to get hurt aight and it’s not gonna be me!” Daniel hissed angrily, sparks flying from his eyes as he rolled up his sleeves, stepping forward.
“Careful now,” Daedalus warned. “Stuff in that crate might be junk but it’s still pretty flammable.”
Dante, who was standing in front of a hub of computers and interconnected displays, glanced back at them then and smiled. “Come on, Danny, it’s just a little crate. You can move it.”
“You guys suck,” Daniel rolled his eyes. “God, I hope your little portal machine works because I personally can’t wait till this universe only has one Dang. Speaking of, where is Dang?”
“Library,” Daedalus answered.
“Oh,” Daniel said, understanding immediately what Dang was doing. “Still trying to get across to the mysterious Stranger who sent us the doomsday warning?”
“Yep,” Dante nodded. He pulled up security footage of the monitors and switched to the library’s stream. Sure enough, Dang was there, sat yogalike on the ground, eyes shut, clearly focused on broadcasting himself to the unknown entity who’d thought it fit to warn them. Dang had been at this for the past three weeks and other than a few glimpses here and there of what he described as the most confusing room he’d ever seen in his entire life, not much else had come of his efforts to hone his Resonate ability.
Of course, the time he spent meditating had paid off out on the sparring ground and he’d certainly gotten stronger, as had the rest of them, but he still hadn’t been able to get another audience with the Stranger. And he didn’t look at all like doing anything else until he’d managed just that.
“Great,” Daniel rolled his eyes. “End of the world’s at our doorstep and he’s deciding to become a monk.”
“If what he’s trying works, it just might give us a chance against this incursion,” Daedalus reminded.
“We don’t need meditation or the words of some cosmic ghost to help us with an invasion. We’ve worked our asses off out there for three weeks and we’ve gotten stronger. Whatever Bellum and his forces want to throw at us, I’m certain we can take it. Trying to get help from something that may or may not have been a figment of his imagination doesn’t seem particularly useful.”
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“You’re right,” Dang’s voice came so suddenly that it startled all three of them, and they all whirled around to find him standing by the entrance to the auditorium, his hands crossed.
“What the—,” Daniel stared at the library’s security footage, then at Dang. “How the hell did you—,”
“New trick I’ve been working on,” Dang winked. “Anyways, you’re right. I can’t keep trying to get help from the voice I heard. We’re training every day and we’re scanning for anomalies. We’re about as ready as can be so if anything comes knocking, we’ll all be there to answer the door.”
“Speaking of anomalies,” Daedalus glanced at Dante. “Pick up anything while I was out?”
“A few triggers here and there but nothing major. My best guess is that it’s probably our passionate thief.”
“What do you think he’s stealing?” Daniel folded his arms. “Shouldn’t we be a little concerned about that?”
“I mean, nothing’s been called in by anyone and there doesn’t look to have been an upsurge in thefts. If you ask me, he’s either popping up here and there either to irritate us or to lure us out,” Dang suggested. “And it’s not much of a good lure really since it’d be hard to trace someone we can’t get a lock on.”
“So, there’s nothing we can do at all other than sit around and train,” Daniel sighed. “And I’ve got to watch you guys work on some cosmic gate opener.”
“Hey, there’s something for you to do,” Daedalus grinned. “Move the crate.”
“Where’s Megan, by the way?”
“Headed out for fresh air,” Daniel answered. “And I think I probably will too. If you guys need either one of us, just call.”
“Sure thing,” Dante nodded.
Daniel nodded at the doppelgangers, eyed the massive crate, drew a deep breath and started to move it across. He knew very well that he could have just left the crate in place, but seeing as it’d been a major aim of his over the past three weeks to increase his natural physical strength, he decided to do it nonetheless.
Once he was done, he made his way outside, and headed straight to the center of the field. There, he observed the mechanical training dummies stationed around the field—courtesy of Daedalus, and the battle lines that had been drawn in their last session when they’d split into teams. Daniel and Dante had been one team, while Megan, Dang and Daedalus had been on the other.
Daniel had suggested the teams. The Flame Bros vs everyone else, he’d said. The others had thought it was just him being his usual type of silly, but really, he’d wanted the teams that way so he could prove a point. So, he could prove he was just as strong as Dang and Daedalus. At the end, neither team had emerged victorious but that had been enough for him, enough that he knew he’d gotten stronger.
He drew a deep breath, stared at his palms…palms that had hardened over the past three weeks. His hand glowed orange, as did his eyes, and flames exploded from them. He stared upward, at the clear blue sky.
And then flames exploded from his feet, launching him upward. He zipped through the air like a rocket, the wind whipping against his face as he went. A grin formed on his face, and the flames from his feet burned even greater, taking his speed up a notch.
This was the fastest he’d ever gone. The past few weeks of training with Dante had taught him to be more stable during flight, and much faster too.
His grin grew wider and wilder.
“Here goes!”
He arced through the air, and then shot straight into the clouds, his trail of flame going from orange to a brilliant blue as he went.
***
Dang smiled at the waitress as she set down the tray containing his BLT sandwiches—three of them, three cans of soda, one energy drink and a strawberry smoothie. It was a lot to take all at once but recently, he’d found that his metabolism seemed to have been altered in line with his growing abilities, and he now required heavier meals daily.
He raised a hand to his plugged earphones, frowning in response to an ongoing conversation only he could hear.
“You’re going to the movies?” he asked. “Right now?”
“We deserve it, don’t we?” Daniel’s voice came from the other end of the line. “All that training, wouldn’t hurt anyone to take a breather this once.”
“What if—,”
“Relax, Dang,” Megan interjected. “We’ve been training for weeks and there’s been no sign of an incursion. I’m certain the world isn’t going to end because Daniel and I are going to see a movie. Besides, even if it was going to, we trust that our favorite doppelgangers can hold the fort down while we have a good time at the theaters.”
“You’re both insane,” Dang snorted, popping open a can of soda.
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Daniel chuckled. “Gotta go now, we’ll talk after the movie.”
And the call ended. Dang unplugged his earphones, halved the can of soda in a single go and then got started on his first burger, sinking his teeth deep into it, cheese oozing out of it and onto his fingers.
“Hmm,” he nodded in satisfaction. “This is good.”
For the next thirty minutes, the only things in the world were him, his hunger, and the tray in front of him. Nothing else mattered, and it wasn’t until after devouring his third burger that he glanced up to find there was someone who was sitting across from him.
His eyes widened. He gulped and hastily proceeded to wipe his mouth clean with a paper napkin. “Uh, crap, sorry, I didn’t realize—,” his voice trailed when he realized with a pang who the person opposite him was.
The unruly black hair, the mostly mask-covered face, the smug grin on the revealed mouth.
“Oh, hello,” the man greeted brightly.
“Thief,” Dang growled. He made to leap across the table at the crook, ready to grab him before the thief could pull off another disappearing act. The thief, however, simply leaned back in his seat and held up both hands in a gesture of surrender.
“Relax,” the thief said calmly. “I didn’t come to steal anything. In case you haven’t noticed, I actually haven’t stolen anything in a while. And also, bit rude to just call me Thief, don’t you think? I have a name you know.”
“I don’t care,” Dang hissed, narrowing his eyes coldly. He cast a glance around the café, looked back at Thief. “What do you want? You’re not planning to rob this place, are you?”
“What, are you kidding? Why would I do that? I love the food and I think the waitress might have a thing for me, wouldn’t want to ruin that,” Thief chuckled. “Look, I’ve just been taking the sights in and you want to know what’s really caught my attention recently? This run-down school, not too far out of town. Looks all quiet and dandy on the outside but there’s a bunch of superpowered kids there round the clock, training and building some Waymaker.”
Dang froze. His face paled. “You’ve been watching us?”
“Watching?” Thief snorted. “I’ve been sleeping at the school. Only because I haven’t got anywhere else to go, of course. I used to crash in and out of Airbnb’s, illegally of course, but that got boring. Decided I might as well bunk with my friends. Secretly, of course.”
“We’re not friends,” Dang hissed.
“Come on, don’t be like that,” Thief feigned a hurt expression. “I’m actually rooting for you guys, with the whole incursion thing you seem worried about, and with the Waymaker too, of course.”
“What do you want with it?”
“Man’s gotta get back home somehow, right?” Thief grinned, took another bite of his sandwich. “Man, the food here is great. Do you want to try my sandwich?”
“No,” Dang lied, keeping his eyes from wavering toward the plate. “What do you really want?”
“Honestly, I don’t know,” Thief shrugged. “What about you? What do you want?”
“Huh?”
“Look,” Thief sighed. “I’m not a bad guy, alright? At least, I’m not the kind of bad guy you should be worried about, not when you’ve got more significant problems out there, problems a lot closer than you think, mind you.”
“What are you talking about?” Dang scowled.
“As someone who’s constantly popping in and out of places across the world, well, let’s just say I’ve developed a rather keen sense for things that are out of place,” the crook smiled. “Anomalies, like you’d call them. You and your friends are waiting for an incursion. I’m here to tell you that it’s already happened. They’re already here.”
Dang’s face darkened. “Why would I believe you?”
“You don’t have to,” Thief shrugged. “Like they say, seeing is believing, right? And trust me, you’ll be seeing soon enough. Although I’m not entirely sure why you would want to.”
Dang winced in anger. “What are you talking about?”
The thief sighed once more, set down his sandwich, leaned forward, resting both hands beneath his chin. “Are you a stupid person?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You don’t strike me as the stupid sort,” Thief said, calmly. “None of you do really. I mean you’ve got a hyper-smart cyborg among your ranks so clearly, you’re not a stupid set of people. But yet, for some reason, you’re all so hellbent on sticking around to fight this war when it would be much easier to just, uhh, I don’t know, get the Waymaker up and running and just--,” Thief made a flying gesture with his hands, “Skedaddle.”
“We’re not cowards.”
“Right, right, of course,” Thief snorted. “But here’s the thing. There’s about nine billion people on this planet, right? And of those, you probably only personally know about a hundred and you care about less than half of those.”
“What’s your point?”
“Use the machine, get yourselves and the people you care about to another world,” Thief said. “Wouldn’t it be the same thing? Tell me, what is it so special about this world and the people on it that makes you all believe it’s worth dying for?”
Dang opened his mouth to retort but found himself lost for words, his tongue suddenly feeling rather dry.
“The heavens are very much out of reach to the plants tethered to the earth by roots required for their survival,” Thief went on, “But yet, all of their existence is spent reaching for the heavens, stretching toward it, grasping for a thing they will never touch. I have always wondered the reason for it.”
Dang stared, content to let him carry on wherever this was going.
“But the reason is rather simple. They reach toward the heavens because they require it for sustenance. The roots grant them life, being, but it is the sun and rain that grants sustenance, survival. And so, they reach toward that.”
“I don’t need a lesson on photosynthesis from a thief,” Dang sneered.
“Very well, then Biology,” Thief nodded. “Are you aware that when caught in a trap, rats and rabbits would much rather gnaw off their limbs in pursuit of freedom than resign themselves to captivity and death? Survival is the purpose that drives all things, it is the reason present when there looks to be no reason. But you are not acting in the interest of your own survival so I must ask…what is your reason? Pride?”
Dang scoffed. “You wouldn’t get it. Men like you, who’ve probably never had a reason to act in the interest of others. Maybe you’re a rat, but I’m not.”
“Then enlighten me, Dang. What are you?”
“When threatened by a ladybug,” Dang began, leaning forward across the table too. “A pea aphid will blow itself up, not to die on its own terms, but to protect other aphids and take the ladybug along with it. Bees, when threatened, sting their attackers in an act of self-destruction. They lose their stingers and their lives, but not without poisoning their attacker.”
Thief leaned backward.
“Yeah, that’s right. I know my biology too,” Dang went on. “I may not have personal reasons to save nine billion people but I don’t need to. Their lives matter just as much as my own, and if there’s a chance I can do anything at all to damage Bellum’s forces, to save those lives…I’ll do it in a heartbeat.”
“Even at the cost of your own life?”
“Even at the cost of my own life.”
“I see,” Thief smiled. He glanced at his watch then back at Dang. “Well, this has been fun. But I must be going now.”
“Where are you going?”
“To secure front row seats,” he answered, smiling rather mischievously. “I imagine I’ll be seeing you soon. Until then, goodbye mon ami.”
With that, Thief made his way toward the café’s exits. Dang watched him go, watched him push past the glass doors, saw the glass doors pull shut behind him. And then he was gone, vanished in a single blink.
***
“You ever think that maybe they’re getting worse?” Megan asked as the two of them walked together, ice cream cones in their hands.
“I mean, kinda,” Daniel shrugged. “But it was sort of expected, wasn’t it? You can only keep a cinematic universe going for so long before the quality starts to trail off. But I did still think that it was a good movie though.”
“It was,” Megan agreed with a nod. “Prequel was better though.”
“Definitely,” Daniel laughed.
Megan examined him from head to toe. “So, you were saying, your flames…they turned blue?”
“Yep, just for a moment,” Daniel answered, staring at his hands. “And I don’t know, they felt…good, I guess. Powerful. I don’t think I’ve ever burned that hot before, but I don’t think it’s something I can just recreate. It was sort of like an in-the-moment thing.”
“Safe to say you’re picking up stuff from Dante then,” Megan smiled.
“Yep,” Daniel nodded. “I think I’m about ready for whatever’s coming our way.”
Megan stopped walking then, abruptly. Daniel paused and turned around to face them. Daniel frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“You really believe that stuff?” Megan asked. “You know, about an invasion coming and all of that. It’s been three weeks, don’t you think that if Bellum or whatever was going to turn up, that he would have by now? I don’t know, it just feels like maybe all that stuff was a false alarm.”
“But you said it yourself, didn’t you?” Daniel tilted his head. “You sensed that something was wrong.”
“Yeah, but—,”
“And does it still feel that way?” Daniel queried. “Is the wind still different?”
Megan bit their lips, considering the query for a moment. Finally, she nodded. “Yeah, it’s still different.”
“Then it can’t be a false alarm, right?”
“I’m tired of just waiting around and training every single day and being scared of what’s coming,” Megan said. “I don’t want to be scared.”
“Then don’t be,” Daniel shrugged. “You’re strong, Meg. We all are. If anything’s coming, there’s nothing at all to be scared of. I’ll have your back and I know you’ll have mine. Whichever asshole turns up and thinks he can take over our world is going to be in for a rude surprise.”
“So, you’re not scared?”
Daniel grinned. “C’mon, Meg. You know me. You ever seen me get scared?”
Megan sighed and shook their head. “Daniel, I’m being serious here.”
“I know, and—,”
Daniel’s voice trailed as his comms started to beep frantically. Judging by the way Megan’s hand quickly shot to their ear, he garnered that she was being called too.
As he raised his hand to answer, he felt the ground tremor a little beneath his feet. In the distance, he heard what sounded a lot like people screaming. He felt his insides go cold at once, his heart sank a little into his stomach.
He answered the comm. “What’s happening?” he asked immediately.
“It’s starting,” Daedalus’ voice came through from the other end of the line. “It’s happening. We’re on our way to you.”
“Where’s it happening?” Megan demanded.
“It’s coming toward you,” Dante spoke. “No idea what it is but you guys are going to have to hold it off at least until we get there.”
The ground tremored beneath them once more, much scarier this time, with cracks lining the asphalt at their feet. Daniel watched the cracks, saw it spread through the walls of the theater he and Megan had just emerged from.
The tremoring worsened and moments later, people poured out of the theater, eyes wide and frantic.
And then, only a few seconds later, something exploded out of the ground, shooting high into the air. At first, Daniel assumed it must have been some sort of projectile. But then he processed things, and it was no projectile at all.
It was some sort of monster, a humanoid one that looked to have been made entirely of muscle. The monster landed hard on the ground, generating a frightening amount of force and sending out a wind current that almost swept both Daniel and Megan off their feet, forcing the both of them to shield their faces with their hands.
Once the wind had calmed, they beheld the frightening monster.
Daniel’s eyes glowed orange at once and flames engulfed his hands. Megan, on the other hand, summoned a wind vortex and let it float her into the air.
“Who are you and what the hell do you want from our world?” Daniel growled.
“Ah, I take it the little half robot dickwad didn’t think it necessary to tell you guys about me,” the monster spoke, sounding a little disappointed. “Well, the name’s Calta. You fellas ready to rumble? ‘Cause I am.”