Owen Deathstalker ran forward, ever forward, as he fell backwards through time.

That description might've sounded nonsensical to most - hell, it did to him - but he couldn't find a better way to describe it.

He might've been the greatest Deathstalker in the history of his Clan, and a saint of the Empire in all but name, but his mind was, for all the changes the Madness Maze had wrought upon it, human.

Thankfully...he thought darkly as the Terror's scream, and that awful, awful truth echoed in his mind.

A woman wailing for her demon lover...a demon shrieking for its human lover...

Owen shook his head, squared his shoulders, and ran faster, ever faster.

It seemed to Owen that he was like a rat on a wheel, only thinking he was moving, even as he charged down the ages through something that only looked like a rainbow, the years unfolding before him.

The Terror was ahead of him. By a handful of years, or a decade. It stopped, sometimes, for reasons unknown and perhaps unknowable, but never for long.

Not long enough for Owen to find it.

The Deathstalker felt himself grow more powerful as he raced through time, his Maze-altered body drawing power from-

Owen's head snapped up. He'd stopped, stepped back inside time, but not of his own will. Of course, he thought, rolling his eyes. Deathstalker luck. Always bad.

He hadn't even sensed the Terror here, and he always knew where it was, in space and time. His burden, and his duty.

And Owen had always known his duty.

He took in the dark, harshly-angled structures surrounding him, as a new sense bloomed inside his mind. Or perhaps it had always been there, waiting until it was needed.

Owen knew where and when he was, too. A failsafe, a last gift from the Maze, maybe. Or, perhaps, he was developing without need for external forces. Either way, this meant he couldn't get lost.

Which was great, because Owen had no desire to spend any time under the ashen surface of Grendel.

Just as he prepared to leave this moment behind, the Vault behind him opened, and a pack of Grendels loped out of its benighted depths.

Easily nine feet tall, the aliens' muscular bodies were covered by barbed, crimson armours that were somehow part of them, neither shell nor skin. The talons on their grasping hands were as wicked as the steel teeth bared in permanent smiles that had nothing to do with humour or joy.

Owen had already left by the time they'd come at him, but he should've known better than to expect to get rid of the Grendels that easily. If his unplanned stop hadn't thoroughly proved his inexperience when it came to time travel, the way the Grendels were swept up in his wake did.

'You've got to be shitting me,' Owen mouthed to himself as he half-glanced over his shoulder. Somehow, the Grendels were hanging on to him inside the timestream. Unaware of any abilities that might've let them do this, Owen decided the toothy bastards were doing it to spite him.

Finally, he caught another glimpse of the Terror. Long, long before the era he'd left behind; long before even the foundation of the Empire.

Owen walked inside time, and the stars and comets swirled around him, the galaxy spinning almost imperceptibly.

As his boots hit the ground, Owen knew he was on what was, currently, known as Terra's: Humanity's homeworld.

But...Owen narrowed his eyes as his senses expanded, and all manner of information, from radio to digital, flooded his mind. But this... Earth, was not his.

Had he slid into another time track, by mistake?

The Deathstalker placed one hand on the sword at his belt, the other on his disrupter. Redundant now, maybe; but he'd always felt better with cold steel in hand. For all that he'd never wanted to be a warrior.

The Grendels didn't appear, but Owen sensed them, beyond the horizon, clashing with something that resembled the clouds of nanites he'd encountered before he'd left. Where the old Imperial computer Matrix had once been.

In fact...some of the creatures, whatever they were, were approaching him from the front. Yes...nanites. Like the avatars created from the Dust Plains of Memory, in nature, if not in scale.

Owen considered his surroundings: dry, cracked earth; boulders, some as tall as he was and almost as broad, a few several times larger, but most half his size; a smattering of shrubs and brush.

No good places to hide, too much open ground to run, not that he wanted to. The Terror had been here. It might've left traces, clues he could use to find where and when it was going.

Had it changed timelines by mistake, too? Or was this part of some unfathomable plan he couldn't glimpse? He couldn't sense its presence here, and that made him sigh in relief. At least this world's people were safe...from the Terror, that was.

The things that approached him had been human, once. Before the alien tech and nanites running through their bodies had made them puppets. Owen snarled. He'd always preferred inhuman monster to formerly human ones.

There were a dozen or so seemingly-ordinary people, in what must've been this world's common clothes. But their unblinking eyes were an unnatural blue, and their speed superhuman as they strode towards Owen.

The Deathstalker was reminded of Shub's Ghost Warriors, the dead raised and forced to walk by the formerly rogue AIs' implants. Certainly, none of these people were alive, as Owen understood it. Their spines had been replaced with metallic simulacra, and their nervous systems were full of tiny alien machines. Well-hidden to most, he was sure, but most people had not passed through the Madness Maze, had not been put through accelerated evolution until their thoughts became reality.

And Owen had come further than most Maze alumni. Further than maybe all of them, save the baby at the alien construct's heart, and...his quarry.

Owen drew his sword and raised his disrupter as more cyborgs appeared. A handful looked human, but pale and black-eyed, their bodies covered in black, diamond-like armour, save for their heads.

And, finally, there were the giants flanking the creature behind this. Also covered in black-armour, their heads were strangely-shaped, almost conical, and there was nothing human in their blank expressions. They looked like their faces had been stretched to fir whatever was beneath. They were more like Shub's Furies than the Hadenmen. Or Grendels.

Owen idly wondered how the aliens were getting along eith the other group of cyborgs, and inwardly grumbled about missing it.

Oh, well. He had enough to work with, right here.

Between the giants stood a small, grey-skinned alien with a bulbous head and huge, black eyes. In a thin-fingered hand, it held some sort of rod or wand. Owen sensed it was both a weapon and a tool.

It was not the only thing he sensed as the alien's mind brushed against his, and reeled back.

Vorsook. This world, taken for the empire. Minimal effort. Spends as few resources possible, and take as many as theirs.

Humans. Tools. Spies. Catspaws. Allies, or so they think.

Owen glared coldly at the staggering Vorsook, and leapt in the midst of its slaves, to put them out of their misery.

The cyborgs' blows were incredibly strong, by human standards. Feeling no pain, they cared as little about pushing their bodies as the Vorsook did. The ground cracked under Owen's feet as they pummeled him.

Then, the Deathstalker's swords flashed out, bisecting the six cyborgs around him at the waist. He moved between the rest, the severed bodies hanging in midair from his perspective, and cut them apart too, while their fists were still rising.

Then, with a pulse of power, Owen ripped the metal spines out of the bodies, crumpled them into a ball, and threw it at the Vorsook.

A burst of force from its wand shattered it into harmless debris.

Owen grinned as he met the diamond-covered zombies, while the hulking drones drew closer around their master. The alien was trying to crush Owen's body even as it attacked his mind, and raging as its power slipped off him.

One of the zombies punched him in the right eye. The blow would've gone through steel like tissue paper, but Owen blinked in surprise rather than pain. It seemed the more advanced the nanite infection was, the stronger the host became.

Owen punched through the Vorsook zombies's diamond-armoured chest, ripped its unbeating heart out, and crushed it. The organ felt dry, and a quick glance revealed barely any blood, and all of it black.

The nanites died as they dried to dig into Owen's skin. Honestly, he was surprised they could perceive him at all. Most tech struggled with...whatever he was, nowadays.

The zombie went on fighting as if nothing had happened, four of its fellows grabbing Owen's limbs and trying to drag him down, even as a fifth attempted to strangle him from behind. Quickly deducing he did not beed air, the zombie switched to trying to break Owen's neck, with about as much success.

Owen wrenched his off-hand out of a zombie's grasp, and its arms from their sockets, before aiming his disrupter at it, not looking as he pressed the trigger.

The beam would've melted a red-hot hole as wide as Owen through metres and metres if steel, and the zombie was blasted into scorched paste.

The energy gun needed two minutes to recharge between shots. Owen could hear poor Hazel making a crass remark, and resolved once more to save her. Should've got one of the newer models, Owen mused as he called upon his maze powers. A sphere of white-hot flame blazed into existence, Owen at its centre, before his thoughts focused it into plasma. As the zombies became smoking sludge, Owen brushed them off his armour.

The shapeshifting construct that guarded the Maze had been right: any Maze survivor could do what the others did, if only they had the mind for it. Jack Random and Ruby Journey would've been proud, or maybe jealous.

I'm doing this for you too, Jack, Ruby, Owen swore. Tobias...Hazel.

You never told me you loved me, but you never needed to. I always knew. I thought there'd be more time...

Owen unmade the plasma sphere with a scowl, as his broken promise echoed in his mind.

What point was there in swearing to never leave her, only to fail when she needed him most?

Owen stalked to the Vorsook, who grew increasingly desperate, now resorting to picking up boulder and flinging them at the Deathstalker. The stones flew at him like rounds from a projectile weapon, and his mind crushed the smallest into dust, and the human-sized ones into gravel. The largest were broken apart, thrown back at the alien and its bodyguards.

The Vorsook drones walked straight through the rain of stone spears, which shattered harmlessly on their armoured hides, barely making them stagger. Owen took in their slack, vacant expressions, and a cold smile split his face.

The Vorsook first thought there'd been a malfunction when they turned around and walked back to it. It only began screaming when they ripped it apart, but Owen lived for such moments of dawning fear.

'This might not be my humanity,' he whispered as he blasted the drones to ash with a mix of his Maze powers and a disrupter bolt. 'But that doesn't mean I'll let you have them.'

He'd made the drones tear each other to shreds. This had only been the finishing touch, really.

The Deathstalker turned around, and began walking to the battle beyond the horizon. Halfway through, he realised he could teleport now.

* * *

The Grendels were not having a good hunt.

Oh, they lived to kill anything, whether it moved or not. But the prey they had been chasing, thriugh their caverns, then that strange tunnel of light, was gone. They'd been separated upon arrival.

The things they were fighting now were a challenge, to be sure, but nothing in comparison to the one who got away.

The things that came at them were human, in size and shape. Humans who felt no pain, and broke themselves trying to break the Grendels. Laughable. They tore like paper in their claws.

There were black-shelled humans, too, whose fists shattered on the Grendels' shells, to no avail. However, when a Grendel punched through one and gripped its spine, small, scuttling things tried to eat its way through its organic armour. The Grendel swept its arm upwards, splitting the black-shelled human in half, then began shuddering and staggering as something tried to take over it.

One of its fellows noticed, and put it down with an energy blast from its eyes, killing the infected Grendel and burning out the invading nanites.

Then, it was down to the things' pack leader and its defenders. The hulking things went down to searing energy beams lashing out from eyes or fanged mouths, burning from the inside out, but the pack leader managed to take over a Grendel's brutal mind, siccing it on the rest while crushing another in its telekinetic grasp.

The controlled Grendel went down, its skull blasted in half, while the rest of the pack fell upon the grey, small thing, eating its guts as it bled to death.

But then, something new arrived. Something closer to the Grendels' lost prey than their last ones. It was average height, but muscular, for a human, though it moved and struck like the thing they hunted, or almost like it.

Its fists could not buckle their shells, even when it coated them in purple energy, enhancing the impacts. Even when it shaped said energy into monomolecular blades. The sword-shapes around its hands slid off the Grendels' armour, which had turned aside monofilament swords capable of splitting starship hulls.

But this new enemy adapted quickly. It cut at a Grendel's joints, again and again, barely keeping out of its longer reach as it grabbed for it. The glancing blows shattered bones, pulped flesh and tore rents out of the thing's torso and sides, but these wounds healed in moments, and it never even wibced.

A Grendel keeled over, joints shredded, and the thing leapt off its toppling body, landing over twenty feet away. Even as it flipped midair, it produced something, then clapped its glowing hands together over it, sending it at the Grendels' joints and eyes.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The plasma bursts that had been coins would've each pulverised a human, but the Grendels didn't break stride as they jumped and ran at the enemy. The ones who got hit in the eyes blinked, though, temporarily blinded; by the searing plasma jets rather than any damage, but that was enough for the thing.

It was adapting.

Its purple energy now covered its whole body, and, as the Grendels circled it, it did  something, dug its feet into the ground, but...more so.

The Grendels punched and bit and clawed at the purple armour, but it didn't break, its monomolecular edges stopping their fists and clashing with their teeth and talons.

The ground around them shook, though, opening in cracks several feet deep, and the soil under the thing's feet turned to dust, but it never staggered.

Instead, it pulled a sword out of nowhere, shining white, which, though it could only dig into the Grendels' shells, leaving shallow gashes, could easily sever their limbs at the knee and elbow.

The fight ended quickly, after that.

* * *

The air rang like a thunderclap as Owen materialised, displacing it. The Deathstalker took in the scene, nodding appreciatively. At least the Grendels had been taken care of, along with the other Vorsook and its slaves.

Owen's nodding became wary as he studied the Grendels' killer, though. He was human, at first glance - not that tall, but very fit, with short brown hair, he was wearing a shredded blue shirt and combat pants, as well as thick, black boots. It was his eyes that drew Owen's attention, though: the deepest, most unsettling purple he'd ever seen, and entirely natural, according to his senses.

That was hardly the weirdest thing about him, though. He was about as human as Owen was, and hadn't even started out that way.

Owen's Maze-boosted senses gave him a fleeting impression of a long existence above, ended for the sake of mankind, remade among them. But there were other things at play in the man's body: two viruses, as powerful as they were ancient, and the remnants of a monster's blood, whose shadow hung above the man's body.

A stranger from a strange land, and powerful. The Deathstalker decided diplomacy was prudent. Ruby would've been appalled, he was sure. But then, the bounty hunter had never quite known what to do with something she couldn't kill, steal or sleep with.

'Hi. I'm Owen Deathstalker,' he said, hands raised and weapons hanging from his belt. Owen spoke slowly, softly, somehow knowing this guy would understand him, but not wanting to set him off and start something one of them would regret. Maybe both. 'I-'

'Where'd you come from?' the guy growled, voice so deep Owen wondered if his balls had dropped twice. He'd have probably been scared shitless, in the past.

Now, though? He was too busy, and too damn tired, for fear.

'I recognize your aura,' the stranger continued, voice becoming higher, until it sounded human. His eyes were now lighter, but still suspicious. 'Something else came here, could see it the world over. And feel it.' His eyes narrowed. 'It only stayed for a heartbeat, but made every last piece of tech in the world go haywire.'

Damn it. Had the Terror weakened this planet's defences just by passing through? How much had been lost because he hadn't been fast enough, skilled enough?

'Would you happen to know about that? Since your aura's the same and all,' the man asked, tone deceptively light. Owen wasn't fooled. Every damn bastard who was this casual while unarmed ended up a pain in the arse.

'Probably not,' he shrugged. 'I usually need to touch tech to break it.'

The man shrugged. 'Nice try, but no dice. You're leaking some weird energy like a crappy nuclear reactor. You've knocked out Australia's energy grid just by popping in here.'

Because I can't control it, dammit, Owen thought, gritting his teeth. 'Don't worry,' he said. 'I was just leaving. Sorry for the trouble, but-'

'Oh, no.' The guy crossed his arms. 'You're not going anywhere. Who knows what else might drop in here to wreck shit? You're coming with me, so we can understand what's happening.'

Owen wasn't going anywhere with someone who hadn't even told him him their name. 'Sorry,' he lied. 'I don't swing that way.' His voice grew more serious. 'I have to leave. I'm hunting down the thing that weakened your world.'

The guy unfolded his arms, eyes darkening as he walked closer. 'No,' he said firmly. 'You're going to stay here until I arrange for transport, then-'

'You don't understand!' Owen cut him off. 'That thing could destroy everything I know, everyone, and it  will, unless I stop it.'

The man's eyes softened, but he didn't waver. 'I'm sorry,' he said quietly. 'But I have people to protect, to. You must come, for their sake, at least.'

'Forgive me,' Owen replied. 'But I can't.'

The guy sighed, briefly lowering his head, his hands on his hips. 'I can't let you do that.'

Owen only noticed the sonic boom caused by the stranger's leap by the time they were clashing. It filled the air like a slow ripple in a puddle. It would be a while before it reached Owen's ears, much like the sound of the stranger's fist slamming into his body.

Each strike - to the joints, throat, eyes, groin; everywhere vulnerable, really - would've shattered steel and pulverised human flesh and bone. But Owen was halfway through leaving his humanity behind, which the stranger must've realised, given the look he gave him as he saw Owen's skin wasn't even bruised.

Owen ducked under another punch, so fast the fist was red-hot and coated in fire, palmed the extended arm aside, and punched the stranger, sending him flying.

The blow had been to the solar plexus, but its strength had caved in the guy's chest, breaking his ribs. He landed on his feet, not even stumbling, but Owen still winced. He didn't want to hurt him. Hell, he didn't want to fight at all. Just get away from him long enough to resume the hunt.

The stranger caught his expression, and his posture relaxed a little, though he was still on guard. 'Name's Chris Gordon, by the way,' he said, ribs knitting back together. His chest was already back in its normal shape. 'Since you gave yours earlier. You...aren't trying to kill me, are you?'

Owen shook his head vehemently, annoyed by the suspicion in his voice. Dammit, he knew his warrior legend had been overblown back home, but did he really come across as a thug? 'No! I told you, I just want to leave. I must.'

Chris shrugged. 'Been around a lot of killers, but it never hurts to be safe.'

Owen's hands almost went for his weapons, but he resisted the (by now instinctive) urge. He could tell from Chris' stance that this wasn't over. 'You're still hellbent on taking me with you for interrogation, aren't you?'

Chris smiled at his deadpan tone. 'It's for everyone's good, Owen.'

So is my quest, he thought, unholstering his disrupter with his finger on the trigger, then shooting at Chris' knee. He didn't want to cripple him, but he didn't want to waste all night fighting, either. People were almost certainly dying somewhere, somewhen else. Whole civilisations...

Besides, Chris had already shown he could regenerate. Though it looked like he wouldn't need to.

Chris leapt over the energy beam, forward, fists together and covered by a strange energy that resembled psionic power about as much as it resembled his own Maze abilities: not at all.

Owen gestured, expecting Chris to be blown away by the invisible force, but he stayed on course, fists crashing into Owen's chest with the speed and force of a missile.

Owen was pushed backwards, boots pulverising trenches that went past his thighs for dozens of feet. The ugly bruise on his chest had already healed by the time he put drew his sword and stabbed Chris through the gut. Owen raised his arm, holding Chris before him like a butterfly on a pin. Predictably, he was still alive.

Owen tried to tell him to give up and let him go, again, before Chris slammed his hands, shining purple, against his ears. Light filled his sight for a moment as his ears bled, and he flicked Chris off his sword with an annoyed grunt. The Deathstalker watched him go as he put his disrupter back in its holster, waiting for it to recharge. Maybe it would be useful, if he got Gordon to stay still.

Chris landed on, or more accurately through, a dark boulder just as tall and broad as him. The stone cracked like an eggshell as he flew through it, before rolling back to his feet.

He took some coins out of a pouch at his belt, and Owen barely had time to wonder if he'd hit his head too hard, before several sun-bright projectiles flew at him, several times faster than sound. Owen deflected half the improvised plasma round with his sword, musing that it must've been changed by the Maze, too, or unconsciously altered by him. The rest burst against his body, leaving red spots the size of his fingertips. Bloody things were as hot as a star's surface.

As Owen charged at Chris, fist clenched and sword raised, his sight broadened even as his eyes narrowed. He could see a network of energies flowing in and around Chris: not just the purple glow, but a pale power that reminded him of a foce shield, but which had been invisible to him till now.

Owen could see the pale force flowing out of Chris' body and into the ground, before embedding itself there, like an anchor. At the same time, it flared through his flesh, hardening his muscles, while a layer of pruple energy flared into existence around his body, covering it like armour.

Owen's fist went through the aura, shattering Chris' hardened jaw. His boots were still locked to the patch of ground he'd anchored himself to, but the piece of soil, as thick as Chris was tall and several times wider, crumbled to pieces in flight.

Owen saw the pale force push against the ground behind Chris, stopping what would've been a crash and turning it into a leap forward. The bone-white energy tried to grab hold of him, pull him towards Chris, but Owen had been touched by the Madness Maze, and no strange power lesser than it could affect him again.

The purple armour was back, but it was bladed now; Owen could see the moonlight drift around its monomolecular edges. Chris was practically covered in monofilament swords.

Owen wasn't eager to find out what would happen if the equivalent of two monofilament swords slammed into him like bullets. He raised his sword to block, and Chris' mono-edged arms were stopped cold by the edge, sparks flying on the air.

Boots ending in monomolecular spikes slammed into Owen's stomach and crotch, making his knees buckle. He was seriously considering asking how Chris fought to kill, given his methods when it came to capturing people alive. Either he'd gauged how tough Owen was by now, or guessed he could regenerate.

Chris' boots kept applying pressure, and Owen could feel his skin slowly beginning to split. His free hand flashed out to grab Chris' neck, and Gordon didn't even slow down as Owen began strangling him. Instead, he pulled his arms back from the blade, raised them overhead, and pulled a sword of his own from thin air.

Owen's eyes barely had time to widen before the shining ivory blade was brought down on his head, his sword arm moving almost with a mind of its own to block. The ground around them split for hundreds of feet, forming cracks as wide as a man was tall, and far deeper.

Owen growled, frustrated, as the swords ground together, rising and falling by inches as both warriors tried to gain the upper hand. Then, Owen felt another power rise to the surface of Chris' being. Not the white of the invisible force he used to move, but the blinding radiance of his sword.

The flames that surrounded Owen burned without smoke, but only because his flesh was healing faster than it was being scorched. The Deathstalker screamed in pain around a melting tongue, but agony wouldn't distract him.

Hurting meant you were alive. Pain was a warrior's oldest friend. As he remembered the old mantra, his mind cleared, and reached out to Chris'.

Owen had felt Gordon jump back, sword in hand as the power inside him weakened, becoming dimmer. The radiant flames weren't endless, it seemed.

And, in that instant, Owen sent his thoughts, and the emotions that drove him as he hunted, into Chris' mind. It wasn't easy - most espers would've died trying to pierce the mental barrier without achieving anything; Owen himself was knocked out, between the effort and the pain as his burning body healed - but it succeeded. Finally, Gordon understood.

And, as he did, he lowered his sword - just in time to catch Owen as he fainted.

* * *

'I'm sorry I can't stay,' Owen said with a sad smile after he'd recovered. 'The thought of aliens invading Humanity's homeworld to strip it clean of resources, while making us puppets...it makes my blood boil.' He stuck out his hand, and Gordon took it into a firm grip. 'But I swear, on my blood and honour, that I will return, as soon as I put things right. I'll help you drive off these Vorsook. And, who knows?' His eyes twinkled. 'Maybe I'll even fix this place's energy grid.'

'Oh, don't worry about that,' Chris waved him off. 'Got taken care of while you were asleep. You heal fast.'

'Yes.' Owen didn't miss the curiosity in Chris' voice as he looked at the sky. 'I suppose I do.' It had been less than a minute since he'd got back on his feet. The stars were still shining. He wondered, briefly, if she was also looking at him, wherever she was, in space and time.

Looking for him.

'Here's to meeting again, in happier circumstances,' Owen waved over his shoulder as he stepped out of reality and into the rainbow again, running down the length of history. Behind him, Chris returned the wave, smiling as a spherical, silver drone floated down to his side, softly asking questions.

I'm coming for you, Hazel. And I promise I will end your pain, one way or another.

Whatever it takes.