Josie checked her watch. The counter was loading faster than what it should. She expected it was because of whatever was loading the summoning circle with energy.
“All we have to do is move part of the circle, and that will stop everything?,” asked Jack. He frowned at the lake.
“I guess,” said Josie. “What do you have?”
“I’m wondering if that big rock that serves as the town marker is part of the chain,” said Jack. “If we move that, we could disrupt the chain.”
“I have Solomon Grundy,” said Josie. She pictured the big undead monster throwing cars. Could he move that rock? “He’s Hulkish.”
“I have a version of Hulk and Thor,” said Jack. “We might be able to move that rock with enough muscle power.”
“Are you sure about that?,” asked Josie.
“We have three options as far as I can see,” said Jack. “We can do nothing and let the thing be summoned and fail the quest, we can let the summons work and try to save the town if we can, or we can try to stop the summons from happening. Stopping the summons seems to be the least amount of work for our side.”
“I’m for that,” said Josie. “Just moving the rock out of line might be enough.”
“I have Doctor Druid,” said Jack. “I’ll use him to see how much of a breakage we can cause. We might have to move some other things to really disrupt the mana gathering.”
“Seems like a good idea,” said Josie. “I wonder if the town knows they are sitting on a time bomb.”
“I doubt it,” Jack said. “Why stay here if they did?”
“No idea,” said Josie. “Once we clear this quest, we can work on the two shared ones. Elaine might have dug up something on this Bog Hound for me to get rid of it.”
“I wonder why Princess Lorelei is so important,” said Jack. He led the way back toward the lake. He checked his watch as he walked. “Some kind of war thing?”
“Arranged marriage gone bad?,” Josie said. “Maybe she got lost up in the North, and someone needs to find her.”
“Why us?,” said Jack. “There’s more going on than what we know right now. I have a feeling that we will be stopping something massive like this village thing.”
“A war would be massive,” said Josie. She frowned. “A war between two species might be bad. Are there elves here?”
“Can they do magic when the humans can’t seems more relevant,” said Jack.
Josie nodded. Any magic spell that could be repeated would spell the end of a magicless army in seconds unless someone killed the magicians first.
How much would her watch allow in a situation like that?
She considered her options as she followed Jack down to the rock. She could
probably do a lot with Zatanna, or one of the Doctors. Supergirl had already shown her she couldn’t count on the traditional bricks she was used to seeing.
She frowned as she thought of a Captain Marvel without the powers of Shazam behind him. What would that be like? Would he even be able to fly?
“I’m calling Druid to give us a benchmark,” said Jack. “Then I’ll change to help you move it before something happens.”
“All right,” said Josie. “I’m ready with Grundy.”
Jack pushed the button on his watch. He became a man wrapped in robes, hood pulled down over his face. A glowing triangle marked his forehead.
He raised his hands. Light revolved for a second around him in a circle. Josie noticed the grass formed a host of letters as the light faded away.
“We just have to pull the rock and get rid of it, like excising a bad tooth,” said Jack. “We should put it where it can’t be put back to start the process over again.”
“All right,” said Josie. “Let me call Grundy so we can get started on that.”
Josie pushed her own button. She frowned as she became chalk white and smarter than what she should be. She groaned. The watch had given her a Solomon Grundy that was aware of the situation, but not strong enough to move the rock.
“What are you two doing?,” asked a passerby.
“We’re moving this rock so the town isn’t destroyed,” said Jack.
Josie knew Jack should have lied. It was too late to do anything about that now. She ran at the man and swung. The man went down to a knobby fist. He tried to call for help. He hooted instead.
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“We can’t let him call the others,” said Josie. “They know what’s going on.”
Jack made a hand gesture. Fog rolled over the villager. The man fell asleep before it cleared away.
“What’s going on?,” said Jack.
“Innsmouth, Jack,” said Josie. She mentally considered what heroes could help in this situation. Her new wisdom pointed out someone that could be useful.
“Innsmouth?,” said Jack. “The fish people?”
“The fish people the government bombed to heck because they were doing things men were meant to know,” said Josie. She switched forms.
“They were fish people,” said Jack.
“We don’t have time to debate things,” said Josie. “That hoot was a call for help. We’ll be crawling with whatever they are in a few minutes. We have to move the rock before then.”
She put both hands on the rock. She lined up with the lake. If she pushed the thing into the water, the town would be able to pull it out given enough time. She wondered how long it would take for them to put the pieces back together.
“What you doing?,” asked Jack.
“Hopefully fulfilling the quest,” said Josie. Energy poured into her hands, lighting them up. She let it out in a directed explosion away from her. Cracks ran up the jagged pyramid. She needed to blast it again.
She needed to use everything she had.
Josie poured everything out into the air. She vanished in a flash of burning light and expanding air. The jagged tooth of rock came apart under the explosion. The top half flew away in a shower of fragments. The bottom half stuck out of the ground in a shattered stump.
Jack picked himself off the ground. He looked at the stump. Energy was still building up. What could he do?
Ribbons of lightning played along the circuit of ruins in place around the town. It looked like they had sped up the destruction of Accordly. Something poked through the thinning membrane between worlds.
The marker still had to come out. He had the Hulk and Thor. He needed to switch and finish the job. How much time did he have before that thing hit the planet?
Shaking hands worked the watch face and button. Robes gave way to a red haired Viking with a sledge hammer in his hands. He burst through the ribbons of light, feeding his countdown more numbers as he did it. He cued up and swung the hammer. The base of the monolith came out of the ground and shattered into a million pieces as it flew into the lake.
The light show snapped off. The air cleared of the snapping storm smell. The thing in the middle of it made a noise like a man being strangled before it went back to where it belonged.
“Josie!,” Jack called. He looked around. “Josie!”
“I’m here,” Josie stood feet away. Her white suit and helmet allowed the trees to show through from the other side. “I’m still putting myself back together.”
Ding went the quest clearance.
“All right,” said Jack. “I just saved the town from being destroyed by whatever that was. Let’s get out of here before everybody tries to lynch us.”
“I won’t be able to fly,” said Josie. She checked her counter. It said zero. “I blew myself up and when I get done putting myself back together, my watch will be down for a while.”
“I got it,” said Jack. He let Thor go for his normal, shorter form. He picked up one of the rocks that used to be part of the bigger rock. He put it in his pocket.
Let them try to put the marker back together without it.
“Let’s start walking,” said Josie. “I can pull myself back together while we’re going.”
“I have a feeling we’re in trouble if the town catches up to us,” said Jack. “What did you do?”
“I used the power of the Human Bomb,” said Josie. She shrugged. “Grundy doesn’t give me superhuman strength. It just gives me the ability to spot things faster.”
“It gives wisdom, or intelligence,” said Jack. He spared a glance at the town as they moved away from the lake.
“Right,” said Josie. “So it pointed out that the Human Bomb might be the way to go with this. He started out at Quality, and was brought over to DC in the seventies, the same as the Fawcett guys. His power blew things up when he touched them.”
“So you can blow things up too,” said Jack. He waved at her transparent form.
“I can blow myself up,” said Josie. “It uses everything in the watch. It’ll take me a while to get back in the game.”
“All right,” said Jack. “If we follow the road, we’ll be able to get to the next town and keep an eye out for the fish people.”
“Keep an eye on our backtrail,” said Josie. She glanced behind them. “The
Accordlians are not going to take the ruin of their god as anything but an insult.”
“Okay,” said Jack. “I feel like it was going to wreck their place and keep marching to the next town and so on. Stopping it from getting here was a good move in my opinion.”
“I agree,” said Josie. “I wonder what this Dark Rider will be like if he was named in the warning.”
“I don’t think we want to find out,” said Jack. “I wonder if the princess has anything to do with things since they are both in the North.”
“Maybe,” said Josie. “If I knew where to look, I could try a scrying spell to see where she is.”
“I love this magic stuff,” said Jack.
Josie shook her head as she walked. She could feel things snapping together. The counter still read zero. All of the fuel must be going into putting her back together.
“All right,” said Jack. “The town is turning out. They seem in shock.”
“It probably never occurred to them that someone would disrupt everything,” said Josie.
“They never met us,” said Jack.
“Met you,” said Josie. She smiled as the last piece clicked back into place. She lost the form of the Human Bomb. The recharge counter started clicking downwards.
“You look normal,” said Jack.
“Can you get us out of here?,” said Josie. “I’ll have to remember not to use the Human Bomb unless I want to really blow things up.”
“Reminds me of Nitro,” said Jack. “I wonder what his power is inside the watch.”
Jack twisted the watch face and called Makkari. He picked Josie up in his arms and fled through the woods so fast that the local animals and monsters had no time to react before he was past and headed to Hawk Ridge. He cut around the line at the gate and his wind pushed people out of the way. He paused at their new home and put Josie down on her feet.
“That was fast,” said Josie. “I think we beat the girls back.”
“Who knew that solving an insurmountable problem would only take a few minutes of concentrated effort?,” said Jack. “I hope they are staying out of trouble. I gave Elaine a lot of money to buy the stuff we need.”
“We should get them a self-defense instructor,” said Josie. “What would that look like here?”
“A guy like Sean Connery waving a sword around,” said Jack. “Thish ish how you shtab someone.”
“Hopefully we can get someone closer to Basil Rathbone since he knew what he was doing,” said Josie. “I suppose sword fighting isn’t taught to girls.”
“We’ll see what the girls want to do,” said Jack. “They’ve already been kidnaped once. Why make it easy for a second time?”
“They could get killed,” said Josie.
“They could get killed either way,” said Jack. “It’s their call.”