The Captain Britains and Meggan landed a bit more heavily and awkward than I did as suddenly their various abilities to fly all gave out, and they literally dropped out of the sky. Meggan insta-morphed into a flying squirrel-like form with massive skin folds, parachuting down, while the Captains basically hit the ground and skidded, tearing up the soil as they did so.

I just hit the ground, somersaulted once, came to my feet, and kept moving right ahead as the Captains and Meggan tactfully prepared to see what he was going to do.

“Well, well, who are you supposed to be?” he asked, staring at my non-British colored uniform. Far too much very dark red, voltage, whiteness, etc. Had a posh, self-absorbed upper-class Brit accent, speaking English, actually. Wow, smugness oozing. “Another of the tedious assortment of costumed sorts running around purporting to be heroes?” He held up his hand towards me.

And frowned.

“The uniform is about being polite,” I replied in a very non-British voice and accent, speaking Human. “It’s a warning to unsophisticated types, such as yourself, that I am a dangerous person and not to fuck with me.”

He thrust his hand out towards me again, and again. Beads of sweat popped out on his forehead as nothing happened.

I lifted my arm and proceeded to pulse plasma bursts through the air in hundredth-of-a-second strobes. The screaming spirits that were still alive and gathering to him ran into a literal wall of white-hot flames punching through them, and evaporated, not incidentally firming up the Interdiction and Stillflight fields as they did so.

“You... how are you doing this?” he screeched, as behind me the two Captains smiled at one another and straightened up, Meggan having reclaimed her angelic avenger looks.

“What a fucking twat.” I hadn’t slowed down, but there was two hundred feet to cross, and I wasn’t walking fast. An invisible pulse of solid air smashed into his knee, his leg bent backwards, and he screamed as he suddenly went over on his face, smashing headfirst into soil that looked like boiled turds rather awkwardly.

He even lost his hat of the moment, and his face was covered with shit.

“You, my power, how, this cannot be...” He was trying to warp reality, and Reality just wasn’t having it.

He had enormous quantity of power, but he was now going against quality of power, i.e., a Contested Check.

And I had Reality on my side. It didn’t want someone playing with it like this.

My Contested Check was in the neighborhood of +50. His felt like it was in the neighborhood of +30 or so.

Must not have gotten a lot of experience butting heads with other Reality Warpers.

King Gravity wasn’t letting him muck around with matter, as that fucked up gravity. Interdiction wasn’t letting him mess with time and space, reinforcing reality with bars of metaphorical steel that he simply wasn’t equipped to deal with.

I could feel him trying to shift things, his Will slamming into space that had somehow become like adamant to him. He stared up at me on the other side of that contest, as my Will backed that of Reality, and refused to budge.

“Meggan,” I spoke up, as I bent down, stuck to the guy’s chest, and lifted him upright effortlessly, “how many people did this guy kill?” Reverting reality didn’t help if the people were already dead. He was gasping as he kicked and clutched at my hand, feeling like his skin was tearing as his ribs were taking his weight.

She looked around, her expression falling hard as she did so. “Hundreds,” she whispered sadly. “Thousands...”

With a hum, my Fist charged up, the knuckledusters bearing a harsh white field around them, laced with Vivus, Holy fire, and True Death.

“Wait! I can bring them back!” he began, leaving off trying to wrestle at my hold to flail his hands, eyes wide with disbelief at what was about to happen.

My hand snapped forwards. Just a rabbit punch, a flicker of motion; it took literally an eye-blink.

His head exploded. The spray of blood, bones, and brains ignited in midair, and nothing hit the ground, becoming a cone of white fires flashing and gone, leaving a misting stump behind.

The shockwave pulsed through his internal organs, making his entire body twitch as his insides were liquified, not even allowing any arterial spray to burst forth. Vivic fire gouted up from the stump of his neck, splurted out his ass and groin, and began to eat holes in him very quickly.

Unnaturally quickly. Whatever residual energies were in him, the Land hereabouts was taking ‘em pretty greedily.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

I dropped the corpse to the ground with finality before the shocked Captains’ eyes. His skin broke apart, and a wash of heavy vivus spilled out, eating at his bones like acid as a heavy mist bubbled over his clothes, which were rapidly flattening out on the ground.

Nope, nobody was going to be saving this guy’s DNA for anything.

“Bloody reality warpers,” I muttered to nobody in particular. “Why is it always the stupid people who get that level of power?” Uncle Ben wasn’t one of them yet, so no apologies. He was a Molecule Man!

Oh, and Sersi and the Eternals could, too, but they weren’t Dumb... okay, I was just venting.

“That was well done, young lady,” a noble voice said as I watched the remains, making sure they all went away.

I turned around to see a young-seeming woman with the weight of centuries upon her, her raven hair held in a high, gravity-defying top knot and dressed all in silver and white stepping towards me. She seemed to be moving somewhat carefully, as she couldn’t glide, and the hem of her dress was picking up the local slime.

I dropped my very last Card from the Deck on the ground, and silver fire burst out, instantly undoing the warpage here and turning the area into a grassy field, as well getting rid of the stinking gunk on everyone’s feet.

There was another woman behind her, a haughty blonde in equally ostentatious but more colorful attire, and not a jot of damn compassion in her soul. I noticed her looking at Captain Britain, and Meggan flushing possessively.

Both of them paused to observe the silver fire zip past them as it purged the reality warping, which was much weaker now that the architect of it was turning to mist and Land-food. Indeed, the woman in silver raised her hand and gave the silver fires a direct infusion of a lot of magic, and they ranged out far faster and further than they would have otherwise.

Any conversation halted as we all watched the silver fire reaching out; grass, flowers, trees, and buildings reformed out of twisted parodies, and right on the hill there, that impossible structure of twisted stone and infused madness was burned away and replaced with a true fairy-tale castle of combined magic and high science.

The skies were blue, the clouds were perfect, the sun was shining down. Only distant screams and cries indicated the horror that had just been wiped away from Reality, but the living still had to deal with the aftermath.

“What manner of power is this, that can so easily stand against a reality warper?” the blonde demanded imperiously, staring at me and demanding an answer.

“Silver magic. The same type of thing used by the Christian Churches. Not used to the power of Christ compelling you?” I replied, arching an eyebrow at her.

My flippant answer brought red to her face. “I am the Omniversal Majestrix Saturnyne! You will kneel to me and beg your forgiveness for your impertinence!”

I just looked at her as her Will crashed into my forebrain and did nothing. She glared at me, and I stood there and did nothing back as the Captains and Meggan shuffled uneasily.

The raven-hair lifted her hand, and the blonde instantly backed down. “Saturnyne, you likely owe this young woman your life. Perhaps a bit more tolerance is in order?” she said, and Saturnyne’s anger disappeared from her face like it was never there.

“My apologies, Lady Roma,” she answered simply, and said no more. After all, I had given her the answer she sought.

They were trying to read me through my Astral Ward, and that wasn’t working, probably adding to their frustration. I wasn’t sympathetic.

I did glance at Captain Britain, and proper manners took over in the British fashion. He stepped forth and said diplomatically, “Lady Roma, Omniversal Guardian and Protector of Otherworld, may I present to you Dynamo, who seems to have been Summoned to aid me back home by Britain Herself.”

A proper introduction, in all things.

I sketched her a bow in proper martial fashion, even snapping my heels, and bowing quite low to indicate I knew she was of higher status than I was. If it wasn’t a kowtow, too bad for her. She owed me, in more ways than one.

“You must have some tie to the lands of Britain for it to Summon you to its aid, Dynamo,” Lady Roma observed.

I half-smiled. “I was being Teleported away after a chat with the Weaver in the Web, and I ended up next to the Captain and his Lady, Protector. Given the Weaver’s sense of humor...” I just shrugged.

“Ah, you are one of His?” she asked with arched eyebrow.

“No, I am one of Hers.” I turned around, drew up my shirt for just a second, and as their eyebrows rose higher, let it back down. “Which, I think, spurred all this on His part...”

She cleared her throat thoughtfully. “Mmm, yes, the Widow in the Web is somewhat... difficult to deal with at times. Delivering one of Hers into a difficult situation to take care of does sound rather like the Weaver...”

“So I deduced,” I sighed helplessly, then clasped my hands. “Well, then, if all the violent stuff I am so eminently qualified to address is taken care of, perhaps I could get my remuneration and be off?”

Roma blinked. “Remuneration?” she asked quietly.

“Ah, the Cards cost about five pounds of gold each to make, or three pounds of platinum. I blew through an entire Deck. It’s, um, not a small amount of gold for me.” I put on a sheepish smile and drummed my fingers together haplessly.

“Oh, of course. Is there any way that we might be able to buy some of these... Decks for ourselves?” she promptly asked. It was literally a fingersnap to bring up some gleaming bars of metal, and I sighed in relief. She even put on a few extra as a reward.

“Thank you!” My Disk spun out of my Masspack, whirled up into form, and I TK’d the bars over to it, dropping them on there as they all watched curiously. “Buying Decks is possible, Lady Guardian, but they are slow to make, being those one-Deck-at-a-time things, and I’m not a being on your level who can hurry the construction time along. The standard price is twice the cost of constructing them.”

“Understood, Dynamo. We will buy as many as you are capable of producing.” And no doubt would attempt to start making them themselves after I delivered some, but I literally did not care. It wasn’t like the market for Dispels ever went away.

I also noted a few more gold bars popping up on the Disk, as she properly paid the market price for them and my time to make them.

“As Your Ladyship says.” I bowed to her again, and stepped back, clearly considering myself dismissed. I was obviously not going to be an agent of her Corps if I was bound up with the Underweb’s denizens, and I didn’t have the resources or raw power to be an ally to her.

An ally to one of her Captains, sure, why not?

Perfectly happy to remain below her radar. On the other hand, I now had a location lock to Otherworld, although how useful that would be was debatable...