GIANT-SIZE CHAMPIONS # 1

March Year Five

Diamondback and Nightman in:

"Dummy For Your Love"

March Year Five

The key rattled around in the lock for awhile until the door finally, grudgingly clicked open. It swung inward and a hand reached inside, fumbling for and eventually finding the switch.

"There you go," Johnny Domingo smiled. "Welcome to la casa Domingo."

He moved through the doorway, followed closely by his traveling partner, a lithe brunette by the name of Rachel Leighton. "So this is your place, huh?" she said, lifting the duffel bag off her shoulder and setting it on the floor. "Funny, I was expecting the Nightcave."

Johnny cocked an eyebrow. "Oh come on... I'm not that bad, am I?"

"You call yourself Nightman. You're a grim avenger of the night... of course you're that bad."

Johnny waved a hand at her dismissively and moved further into the apartment, turning on lights as he went. It was small -- one bedroom, Rachel noted immediately -- but livable. Well-kept, for a bachelor, especially one that had been out of town for almost six weeks.

"Whoof... hope you weren't hungry," Johnny said from the kitchen, straightening and waving his hand in front of his face as he swung the refrigerator shut. "Something in there just winked at me."

"Honestly, I just want to get to bed."

Johnny nodded. They had driven nearly twelve hours straight to reach San Francisco from Phoenix, and he was feeling it too. He thought about his bed in the other room... but looked forlornly at the couch.

"Don't even think about it," Rachel said. "This is your place, and I'm intruding on you, so I'm not going to take your bed. Just get me some blankets and a pillow and I'll sleep on the couch."

"No really, I can--"

"Don't play the gentleman martyr with me, Johnny, I'm too tired."

Johnny shrugged. Who was he to deny a teammate? "Fine. But let me know if you change your mind..."

Rachel ignored this, bending over to rummage in her bag for her toothbrush. Johnny waited a beat, then went to scrounge up some clean linen.

Hours later, Rachel woke with a start. It was still dark outside she saw, and the clock on the VCR -- assuming it worked -- informed her it was a little after 3 AM.

Sighing, she threw the covers off and, clad only in her oversized Phoenix Suns shirt and a pair of panties, padded to the bathroom. She rubbed a kink out of her neck as she went. The couch wasn't bad, but it wasn't her nice comfortable bed back at Champions HQ either.

Still, she thought, it had been her choice to leave the team. Her choice to try to find some meaning in her life beyond the constant pining for Steve, the constant drive to prove herself worthy of him that got on even her nerves sometimes. Granted, San Fran probably wouldn't have been her first choice for a getaway, but it was as good as most places and better than some. At least there was little chance of running into Captain America out here. Steve had made it pretty plain how disinterested he was in pursuing any kind of romantic relationship with her. Hell, he'd all but ignored her when the Champions and Avengers joined up to put the kibosh on Count Nefaria a few months back.* Somehow, that had hurt worse than him telling her to leave him alone in his apartment a few weeks before that.**

(* See the "Cult of Personality" crossover in MV1's Champions #26-28 and Avengers #433-435 -- Russ)
(** See MV1's Captain America #473 -- Russ again)

Of course, there was nothing like the utterly bizarre to take one's mind off one's love life, and Rachel definitely had more than a touch of the bizarre going on right now.

She splashed some water on her face, and reached blindly for the towel hanging near the sink. Fortunately, the towel was over her mouth when she opened her eyes, because it stifled the little scream she gave at what she saw in the mirror.

A tall, narrow man was standing behind her, leaning against the wall. On his head was a flat yellow hat, accessorizing an outfit consisting of a green jacket and startlingly white pants. He had a long, oiled mustache and carried a poofy umbrella that was presently propped against his shoulder. He was in a relaxed position, but he was obviously angry, glaring at her impatiently and tapping the tip of his umbrella noiselessly against the wall.

"Can I get a little privacy here?" she demanded, spinning around and swiping one hand at her visitor. The hand passed harmlessly through the man's chest. He turned and looked at the spot the hand had gone in, then flicked the tip of his fingers over the spot casually, as if he were brushing at dandruff flakes. Seeing this, Rachel growled and swung at him twice more, raking her nails through the air where he should have been standing, and even kicking at him.

"Stupid ghost," she sighed, finally resigning herself to defeat. "Let me get some sleep. I came all the way here, didn't I? That should prove I want to help lay you to rest."

The man scowled silently.

"Just don't follow me into the bathroom, you pervert. Cripes, you're a ghost, you can go anywhere... go spy on Penelope Cruz or something."

The ghost-man rolled his eyes, then turned and mounted a tandem bicycle propped against the wall that hadn't been there a moment before. He gave her one more sour look, began pedaling, and the bike rose silently into the air, passing through the adjacent wall and ceiling as it went.

"Pervert," Rachel repeated, and pushed open the door. She doubted she could get back to sleep now, but she was sure going to give it the old college try.

Johnny Domingo finally emerged from his bedroom at just before noon. He sniffed the air, was pleased to find the aroma of fresh coffee filling his nostrils, scratched himself contentedly through his flannel sleeping pants, and moved into the living room.

Rachel was already up and dressed, sitting at his computer. "Coffee's ready," she said without turning.

"Thanks. Whatcha doing?"

"Some internet research. Nice set-up you've got here, by the way."

"Thanks. A... friend of mine who's into that stuff put it together for me."

"Does it have a name? The 'night-computer' or something?"

Johnny paused, the coffee pot hovering over his REAL MEN LISTEN TO JAZZ coffee mug. "What are you -- oh, stop it!"

"If I find out you have a teen sidekick, I'm going back home to Phoenix," Rachel grinned.

"Oh you're funny. However did Batroc get to be the jokester of the Champions?" Johnny approached the computer table and looked over her shoulder. "At least I'm not named after a snake."

"Hey, cut me some slack. My first real gig was in the Serpent Society... we had to have a snake motif. And 'Diamondback' is much cooler than some of the names we had. Boomslang, for instance."

"Boomslang? What the hell's a Boomslang?"

"A very rare -- not to mention completely imaginary -- Australian snake. Boom told me over a beer once that he made it up 'cause he thought it sounded cool, and King Cobra -- who was heading the Society at that time -- pretended he knew what it was because he didn't want to seem like he wasn't an expert on snakes."

"Boomslang... cripes... wait a minute, the Serpent Society was a bunch of bad guys, wasn't it?"

"International thieves, yep." She finally looked back over her shoulder at him. "You're standing next to a genu-wine reformed criminal. I even graduated from the Taskmaster's academy."

Johnny didn't know what a 'Taskmaster' was anymore than he knew what a 'Boomslang' was, but let it go. "So what've you got? Any clues as to what you're supposed to be doing here?"

"Not really, but I am learning a lot more about our friend, Turner D. Century. You wouldn't believe how many super-villain fan sites there are out there. It's like these people want to be conquered and robbed and killed."

"Does Turner have his own fansite?"

"No, but I've found him on several sites that cover a wide range of villains. Lots of info... more than the Avengers had in their database, to tell you the truth."

"Well, he was never a major Avengers villain, was he?"

"He was never a major anybody villain. Fought Spider-Man and the first Spider-Woman a few times. He was obsessed with bringing what he saw as the values of the past back to redeem the decadence of today. Killed some people here in Frisco, and tried to kill everyone under the age of 65 in New York."

"Sweet guy."

"Right. But even though he was stuck on the trappings of yesteryear, he was something of a technological whiz himself. The 'time horn' he tried to use on New York didn't work as he'd hoped,* but he succeeded in building a flying bicycle, a flame-throwing umbrella, and some other wacky paraphernalia. He was killed by the Scourge along with a bunch of other third-raters at the Bar With No Name."**

(* See Marvel's Marvel Team-Up #120 -- Russ)
(** See Marvel's Captain America #318 -- Russ)

"So what could possibly be keeping this guy here now that he's dead?"

"I don't know. For a while, I thought it was me. Hercules said my time in Hades* gave me the ability to see some transient spirits, and I thought maybe I was acting as a magnet for him or something. I was almost at the Bar With No Name when the Scourge massacred the place -- I was still with the Society then -- and maybe Turner was homing in on that."

(* Rachel was consigned to Hades in MV1's Champions #19; the Champs rescued her soon thereafter -- Russ)

"Makes sense."

"But I don't know. There's got to be something else. I mean, I never even met this guy, and there were people at the Bar that day that I did know, people who should have chosen me to haunt before this weirdo."

"So that leaves us back where we started."

"Right," Rachel sighed. She leaned back and crossed her arms, staring disconsolately at the computer screen.

The phone rang before Johnny could think of anything to say. He moved to pick it up while Rachel continued sipping her coffee.

"Can't believe this thing is still connected," he muttered, and picked the phone up. "Hello... Harvey? Hey, I was going to call you... I just got back into town last night, how did you...? Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm a lousy client. Heard it all before. So what's up?"

Rachel had spun her chair around now and was watching the one-sided exchange with interest.

"A show tonight? I don't know man... I've got a friend in town and I was going to help her with... yes, of course I could use the money, but... Harvey, you're killing me here!"

"What is it?" Rachel asked.

He put a hand over the mouthpiece. "My manager. He wants me to do a show tonight, said I owe him for bailing for a month and a half without warning him."

"Show? What kind of show?"

"I play the sax. Even cut an album before I went out to Phoenix. It's over there on the rack somewhere."

"Really?" Rachel said with real delight. "I'd love to hear you play!"

Johnny gave her a sour look, as if to say you're not being much help, then resignedly returned to the phone. "Okay, Harv, I'll do it. Nowhere too seedy, I hope. Right, right. Yeah, I know the place. No, I've never played there. Sure, I'll see you. 8:30, right. Bye Harv. Take care."

He hung up and looked at Rachel, who was clutching her hands to her breast and fluttering her eyes girlishly. "Wow, a real saxophone player! Who'd have thought it of a rough-and-tumble avenger of the night."

"Yeah, well we can't all be graduates of the Taskmaster's academy, can we?"

"Touché."

"Hey, what've you got on the screen there?"

Rachel turned. There was a full-sized JPEG of Turner D. Century on the screen, from a photograph taken by a tourist during his time in New York, just before Spider-Man put the kibosh on his 'time horn' scheme. Turner was riding across the skyline on his bicycle, the flame-throwing umbrella propped jauntily on his shoulder. Nothing unusual there. Except there was. For once, the rear seat of his tandem bicycle was occupied. Rachel leaned closer.

"I didn't pull this up," she said. She looked around uncertainly, but Turner wasn't here... or at least not visible at the moment. Still, she had no doubt who had pointed her to this picture.

"Who's that on the back of the bike?"

"It looks like... a mannequin. That's right, I remember reading about that. He occasionally put a mannequin on the back of his bicycle, dressed her up in turn of the century clothing. Never any reason given for it, I guess he just couldn't find a living, breathing woman who wanted to dress like that."

"Think it's a clue?"

"I think it's the answer," Rachel breathed. "Hot damn. Mind if I print this picture?"

"Go for it. The night-computer can handle the strain." Rachel laughed and hit the print button. "I'm going to go get changed. Then we can figure out what our next move is."

"The next move will be taken care of by the time you get dressed. Turner had an executor for his will -- a lawyer he kept on retainer because he didn't have any friends, I guess -- who lives in town. I can give him a call and find out what happened to that mannequin when he died."

"Think we can be done by 8:30?"

"God, I hope so," she replied, looking again at the picture on the computer screen. "Being haunted sucks."

Two hours later, the two of them emerged from a downtown office building, slipping into the cascade of bodies moving down the sidewalk.

"Okay let's review," Rachel said. "The mannequin was returned to Turner's estate while he was in jail for the 'time horn' incident in New York. Following Turner's death, our friend the lawyer -- Mr. Jeffrey Friedman -- finds himself executing a will with few beneficiaries, some of which flatly refuse to accept the items Turner bequeathed to them, so Friedman ends up auctioning off most of the estate to pay back taxes on one of Turner's properties here in San Fran."

"I'm following so far, Frank."

Rachel looked at him sharply. "Frank?"

"You know... Frank and Joe. The Hardy Boys."

Rachel's mouth twisted. "I was more a Nancy Drew kid."

"Figures."

"Anyway, our friend Mr. Friedman keeps meticulous records of all the transactions because Turner was a super-villain, and you can never be sure when Reed Richards or Captain America are going to show up wanting to know why some new baddie is using a flying bicycle and a flame-throwing umbrella. Hence," she shook open a folded slip of photocopy paper, "he knows exactly what happened to the mannequin in question, named 'Lucille'. It was purchased by one Arnold Warren, owner of a small local chain of Warrenwear clothing stores. Warrenwear specializes in clothing for teens and college students." Rachel flicked the paper with one finger. "It all makes sense now."

"Well, you're gonna have to explain it to me, Nancy. You're saying this Turner guy can't go on to the Great Beyond because of a mannequin?"

"Not so much. The real problem is almost certainly what Lucille's being made to do. To somebody like Turner, dressing this mannequin in belly shirts and short-shorts and putting her in a window in the mall is probably something like seeing your little sister sold into a life of prostitution."

"Or your wife."

"Ugh. Don't say that. I don't want to know what Turner's exact relationship with this mannequin was..."

"So all we have to do is find the Warrenwear store this mannequin is in, buy her back from the owner, and ta-da... no more ghost?"

"In theory, that's the way it's going to work. Look, I appreciate you coming with me to see the lawyer, but there's really no reason for you to hang out. You've probably got to get ready for your show tonight, and--"

"You kidding? I feel like Encyclopedia Brown... besides, I don't need a rehearsal and this keeps me out of tr--"

Johnny stopped suddenly, his face turned toward a building across the street. Rachel continued on for a few steps before realizing she'd lost him. He still hadn't moved by the time she fought her way back to him against the crowd.

"What is it, Johnny?" She followed his gaze -- he was wearing thick sunglasses, but it was obvious what building he was looking at -- and read the sign:

OUTSTRETCHED HAND SUBSTANCE ABUSE CLINIC AND SHELTER

"Forgot where I was," Johnny said. Rachel didn't think he was talking to her. "God, how's that for a slip?"

He started across the street suddenly, not bothering to look for traffic. Rachel followed, waving off the angry drivers laying on their horns and screeching to halts inches from Johnny's legs. By the time they reached the other side, Rachel was starting to get angry herself.

"Johnny, what the hell are you doing?"

He looked at her dazedly, as if just then remembering she was there. "Checking in on a friend," he said, then pushed through the front door of Outstretched Hand.

The inside was clean and brightly-lit, though there was that carefully concealed underneath-smell of vomit and blood that Rachel always found in hospitals and clinics. Two men sat in the waiting area, one of them twitching beneath the overhead fluorescents. A large woman in business casual clothing sat behind the counter, shuffling through some paperwork. She looked up when the two of them entered, and her automatic smile turned immediately into a frown.

"Mr. Domingo," she deadpanned. "How can I help you?"

"Hi Beth," he replied, pretending not to hear the disdain in her voice. "Is Kayla in today?"

Beth paused, and Rachel could almost read her thoughts, weighing the pros and cons of lying to the man who'd just walked in the front door. Finally, without answering the question directly, she picked up the phone, dialed an extension, and said, "Kayla, you've got a visitor. Mr. Domingo. Yes, that one. Send him back? Are you sure?"

Sighing, Beth set down the phone. "Go on back."

"She's in the same office?"

Beth nodded and returned to her paperwork without another word.

Puzzled, Rachel followed Johnny down a cream-colored hallway, stopping with him at an office marked with nothing but a number. Johnny raised a fist to knock, but the door swung open before he could do so.

A young blond woman was standing there, pretty but too thin, like someone who'd only recently recovered from near-starvation. Beside her was a man with no front teeth, dressed in shoddy clothing, but beaming with delight through his bloodshot eyes.

"Johnny!" the man said. "I ain't seen you in -- gawd, how long's it been, Kayla?"

"Six months," the blond woman said flatly.

"Where you been keepin' yourself, man! You look great!"

"So do you Benny," Johnny said with what Rachel thought was a genuine, if distracted, smile. "You staying off the smack?"

"You know it. I got an angel to guide me." Benny hooked a thumb at the blond, who smiled thinly. "I'll leave all you kids alone to get reacquainted. Don't be a stranger no more, Johnny."

"I'm trying," he said softly, patting Benny on the shoulder as the man moved past him. When he was gone, Johnny finally spoke to the thin woman.

"Kayla."

"Johnny," she replied. "I'm surprised you're first instinct wasn't to punch the rest of Benny's teeth out. Lord knows you're responsible for the ones he is missing."

Johnny put up his hands in immediate surrender. "Kayla, let's not start off this way, okay? I--"

"You're a liar and a compulsive thug!" Kayla hissed, jabbing a finger at Johnny's chest. Rachel wondered distantly if maybe she should leave, but she was too fascinated by the ongoing drama to do so. "You lied to me, and then you left town, without a word."

"I didn't think you wanted to see me again."

"Well, you never gave me the opportunity to decide one way or the other." Kayla crossed her arms across her thin breast, shot Rachel a cold look, then returned her gaze to Johnny. "And now you walk back in here and pat Benny on the back like he's an old buddy and expect me to jump back into your arms? I watch the news, 'Nightman', I know you've been hanging out with the Champions, probably beating more victims into submission. Something you promised me you wouldn't do."

"I realized I didn't agree with you, Kayla. I couldn't. Not everybody's worth saving."

"And I obviously gave you too much credit," she sighed, sagging a bit and putting a hand to her forehead. "Just get out, Johnny. I don't want to do this here. I don't want to do this anywhere. Just stay away from me and from my clinic."

"Kayla..."

"Please, Johnny."

He dropped his hands, defeated. With a small nod, he turned and moved back down the hallway, towards the entrance. Rachel dallied for a moment longer, considering the stick-woman in the doorway. After a moment, Kayla turned her own eyes upon her.

"What are you looking at?" she demanded.

Rachel just shook her head, turned, and followed Johnny out of the building.

"When I first got here and decided to settle for good in this town, I met Kayla on the street one night, kept her ex-pimp from cutting her up. At the time I thought she was just another strung-out hooker, but she disabused me of that notion by snap-kicking me in the jaw.* She had beaten the junk, and was trying to convince her pimp to do the same when I interfered in their 'discussion'. We took him to Outstretched Hand together, and it didn't take long after that for me to arrange for her to meet Johnny instead of Nightman. We started dating, even tried living together for a while, but she hated that I was still going out and putting crooks down rather than trying to find them help. She fed me a lot of bleeding heart crap about how the prison system is self-perpetuating and that there are no criminals, only victims. I couldn't buy into it. Even after seeing all the good she and Beth and people like them did at Outstretched Hand, I still couldn't completely buy into it. And so I started hitting the streets harder at night, leaving her home alone. It shouldn't have come as a surprise when I stopped by one day to find all her locks changed. She refused to see me, at home, at the clinic, in public, it didn't matter. She said she was through with me."

(* See MV1's Marvel Spotlight #43 -- Russ)

Rachel sipped her soda and considered him across the plastic table. They were in the food court of the San Francisco Shopping Center, talking over a late lunch of Marvel Burger. "So you left," she prompted.

He nodded. "About that time, I heard Machete and Zaran were putting together a new Champions team, so I went to Phoenix. I figured there wouldn't be a lot of room for moral ambiguity on a superhero team. You kinda have to hit the bad guys in a situation like that."

"And what? You thought she'd be happy to see you after all this time?"

"No," Johnny admitted with a sigh, tossing the remains of his Black Talon chicken sandwich back into the bag. "It's hard to explain. You get so attached to a person that, even though you know it's bad for you, even though you know you're not going to accomplish anything other than causing a scene and making yourself feel like dirt, you go see them anyway. Even though deep down you know that even if you get back together with the person, you'll still have the specter of that last rejection hanging over you, that fear of the other shoe dropping. 'When are they going to get rid of me this time?' Ah hell..." He gathered up the bags. "Are you done?"

"Yeah," Rachel replied, but her eyes were distant.

"Then let's go see a man about a dummy."

Warrenwear was everything it had been described as being. Fashions made popular for young men and women by an endless parade of young stars and half-naked pop starlets adorned the storefront. Inside, not one of the staff of three sales clerks could have been over the age of seventeen.

"My older brothers would have whipped my tail if they'd seen me wearing some of this stuff," Rachel said, fingering a satiny top with strings that attached in the back, theoretically holding it to the wearer's body.

"Have they seen how you dress as Diamondback?"

Rachel smirked at him, but further repartee was cut off by the arrival of one of the clerks, a young man who could have stepped out of a boy band music video. Not a zit to be had on his entire face. The kind of boy Rachel would have loved and hated at the same time during her high school years.

"Help you?" he asked.

"We're just browsing, thanks."

"Well, let me know if you need any help. Any at all." The kid looked Rachel up and down suggestively as he left, and Rachel had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing at his back. Yep, exactly that kind of boy.

Johnny had already lost interest in the clerk, and was staring across the floor toward the dressing rooms. Rachel followed his gaze and spotted a girl that couldn't have been any older than the clerks in here, taking a pile of blouses into the dressing room. "Johnny? Everything alright?"

"Hm? Yeah, fine." He rubbed a hand over the back of his head and sighed, returning to business. "So how are we going to know when we've found the right dummy?"

"Lawyer gave me a serial number. He said it should be printed near the base of the mannequin. Here." She fished a slip of paper out of her pocket and handed it to him. "Start on that side of the store, I'll start on the other and meet you in the middle."

Nearby.

"What do we have here, Shirley?" the man in the dapper business suit said, leaning over the bank of security monitors. Behind him, a small box-like shape, about the size of a fist, flitted about nervously in the darkness. "A pair of shoppers taking a distinct interest in your sisters? Strange... can they possibly suspect?"

The man straightened resolutely, the pod shape behind him darting out of the way as he turned toward the door. "Only one way to find out."

Laurie Rambone stepped out of the dressing room and almost walked right into the guy. He was tall, and older than her, maybe in his mid-thirties. He was wearing maybe a day's worth of stubble -- just enough to look cool -- and sunglasses too dark for the interior of this store. Even through them, she could tell he was looking at her.

Her first thought was that she was being attacked, but there wasn't much chance of that in the middle of a crowded mall. Her brow furrowed in annoyance and she tried to step around him. He took a step to his left, cutting her off.

"Excuse you," Laurie snapped, and started to call for help when the guy leaned over and spoke in a friendly, confidential tone.

"I know you stole that blouse, Laurie," he said matter-of-factly. "The one you had tucked in the middle of your pile so no one would see you taking it into the changing room. You're wearing it under that baggy shirt. Why don't you go back into the dressing room, take it off, put it back on the rack, and we'll call this one even, huh? No reason to get the store's employees involved."

Laurie's mouth dropped open. For a moment, she considered denying it, then... well, the thrill had suddenly gone out of this particular theft, and it wasn't like she needed the blouse anyway...

She did an about-face and moved quickly back into the dressing room, shutting the door behind her. Johnny straightened, pleased with himself. He listened for the girl's thoughts, but couldn't hear them. That was good. The piece of shrapnel lodged in his brain that made his eyes so light-sensitive also allowed him to hear the thoughts of people about to commit a crime. This selective telepathy grew stronger or weaker depending on range and intensity of the thinker. Considering Johnny was standing right on the other side of the door from Laurie, he assumed the girl was done stealing. For today, anyway.

He looked around, grateful that the episode hadn't cut into his search time by much, and spotted Diamondback on the other side of the store, talking with a man who was dressed too nicely to be anything but the store's manager. Intrigued, Johnny moved back across the floor toward the pair.

"Excuse me, have you been helped?"

Rachel swung around, hoping she didn't look as guilty as she felt. "Ah... I'm just... ah, looking for a manager."

The man behind her was probably in his early 40's, handsome, with blond hair that was just beginning to thin in the front. He was dressed very nicely in a navy business suit that had obviously been tailored for him. In fact, he could have walked out of an issue of GQ if not for the thick-rimmed, too large glasses perched on top of his nose.

"Well, I'm afraid we don't have a manager on duty today, Miss, but I hope the owner of the company will do." He stuck out a hand to shake.

"Mr. Warren?" she said uncertainly.

"No, not quite. Mr. Warren died almost a year ago, and I purchased the business from his estate. My name is Raymond Carson. I happened to be here going over the books and I thought you looked like you could use some help."

"Rachel Leighton," she said, finally taking his hand. "Well, Mr. Carson, maybe you can help me. I'm not looking for any of your clothing..."

"I'm going to guess you're looking for a mannequin." Rachel blinked, then nodded. "Excuse me, I've been watching on the security cameras in the back, and you're interests were fairly obvious. Unfortunately, we're not in the business of selling mannequins, Miss Leighton."

"I understand that, but... well, I'm looking for one in particular. Mr. Warren purchased it from a dead super-villain named Turner D. Century."

Mr. Carson nodded immediately. "I know just the one you're looking for. Mr. Warren offset many of his starting costs by purchasing equipment second-hand and through estate auctions. The mannequin you're talking about has a touch of notoriety, which is why it springs so quickly to mind."

"Is it here?"

"Unfortunately, no. If I remember correctly, it's located at the branch across town, near the docks."

"I'm prepared to pay you $800 for it, Mr. Carson," she said without preamble. "Enough to buy two brand new mannequins."

Carson stroked his chin. "I don't understand, Ms. Leighton. Are you some sort of collector? Why pay so much for the former possession of so minor a super-villain?"

"I'm not a collector," Rachel replied. "It's... complicated. I can't really explain."

"I see..." Carson continued stroking his chin thoughtfully. "Well, I can't see anything immoral or illegal in such a transaction, and it's not like we can't afford to let the dummy go." Rachel's eyes lit up. "$800, you say?"

She nodded.

"Can you meet me here tonight? Say around ten? I'd prefer not to perform this transaction with other customers around, and it will take me most of the day to arrange to have the mannequin transported to this store. Unless of course, you can wait until tomorrow night?"

"The sooner the better."

"Tonight it is, then. Pleasure doing business with you, Ms. Leighton." He shook her hand again, this time taking hers in both of his, then turned and headed for the back, pausing on the way to point out a rack of poorly-arranged clothing to one of his staff.

"So what's the word?" Johnny asked, appearing at her side. "Was that the manager?"

"Better. The owner. Told me to meet him here at 10 tonight and he'd have the dummy for me."

"He wants you to meet him after-hours? Isn't that a little suspicious?"

Rachel waved a hand dismissively. "Like I'm worried. I'm a superheroine, for crying out loud. Besides, I'm not going to spend the rest of my life with a ghost sidekick. One way or another, I'm getting my hands on that dummy tonight."

Later that night, Johnny Domingo stood backstage at the Blues Bayou, nervously tapping out a gig on his horn without blowing into it. He could see into the audience from here, and he hadn't seen Rachel show up yet. Hadn't seen her at all since they'd left the mall that afternoon. He went on in less than five minutes, and he was suddenly sure that she wasn't going to show up.

He had no idea why this thought bothered him so much.

The owner of the club was doing the emcee thing that night, and he introduced Johnny with a healthy dose of fanfare, being sure to use the stage name "Johnny Domino". Harvey had seen to it that a couple dozen copies of the CD Johnny had cut were available at the bar and the door. Now it was just up to Johnny to make the audience love him.

So he played, pulling the notes easily out of the curved piece of tin at his lips, like finding familiar toys in the appropriate place in your childhood toy box. He reached deep to pull those notes out of the alto, to string them into melodies and make them into something more than the sum of their parts. And he reached into himself at the same time, until he wasn't sure where the notes of the instrument ended and the soul of the musician began. He played his heart out, as if he had actually touched a saxophone in the last six months, and when he was through, he opened his eyes to find a roomful of people staring at him, some with their mouths open, all of them rapt.

And sitting up front, grinning with -- was that pride? -- was Rachel. She was the first one on her feet, the first one to put her hands together in applause.

But she wasn't the last, and Johnny Domingo, awash in the appreciation of his audience, finally felt like he'd returned home.

"Helluva show," Rachel said as their cab pulled up to the mall. She handed the driver a couple of bills, then allowed Johnny to get her door for her. He was on cloud nine, truly happy for the first time since he'd left Phoenix.

"I appreciate you showing up." He wasn't sure if it was just the afterglow of his own performance or what, but she looked absolutely lovely to him tonight. There was a nip in the air, so Johnny doffed his hooded jacket and offered it to her. She accepted it graciously.

"Like I'd miss it after all the help you've been giving me on this Turner thing. Please." She pulled the jacket on, then pointed at the doors to the shopping center. "Let's get this over with. Then I'm going to take you out and get you drunk to celebrate."

"My kinda girl..."

They approached the row of glass doors, found one of them chocked open, and moved through it into the darkened mall proper. The place was empty, though they could see the lights on in the Warrenwear shop halfway down the concourse. They approached it slowly, casually.

"Mr. Carson?" Rachel said as they entered. There was no one in the place, though all the lights were on. Standing in front of the cash register, however, was a faceless mannequin, dressed in Capri pants and a tube top.

"Is that the one?" Johnny asked.

Rachel crossed to the dummy, found the serial number engraved on its base, and checked it against the slip of paper the lawyer had given her. "Yep," she announced. "It's Lucille alright. Now all we have to do is find Mr. Carson and..." She paused, her hand on the dummy's arm, the muscles in her arm obviously straining. She'd apparently intended to pick the dummy up, but...

"The thing weighs a ton!" she announced.

"Rachel," Johnny said, putting a hand on her own arm and looking around the store nervously. "I'm picking up some evil thoughts from somewhere nearby. Somebody's going to..."

A bolt of energy came from nowhere, slamming Johnny to the floor and sending him sliding across its polished surface into a rotating rack of blue jeans. The whole thing went over on top of him.

Rachel spun around, one hand going to the pouch of trick diamonds she kept tucked in her purse.

"Don't try it, Miss Leighton... or should I say 'Diamondback'?" Standing in the doorway to the back, the same one he'd disappeared into earlier that day, was Raymond Carson, only he no longer looked like the dapper, nearing-middle-age businessman he had in the daylight. Now he was sporting a golden body armor that covered him from neck to toe, topped with a helmet of the same golden hue, and a gold-tinted visor. Only his mouth and jaw were visible, but there was no mistaking the voice.

Flitting around him were half a dozen robotic pods, none of them looking exactly like any of the others, and none of them larger than a clenched fist. A thin trail of smoke was wafting out of the open front end of one of these pods, and Rachel could only assume that was what had shot Johnny.

"Nice way to greet a customer," Rachel hazarded. She had no idea what was going on here, who the heck this guy was either, but until she did know she didn't want to give herself away anymore than she had to.

"Did you really think I would fall for that cock-and-bull story about Century's dummy?" the man in the golden armor said, stepping out onto the floor of the shop. "Me? Armada? I've fought Spider-Man, my pretty.* I know all about you 'heroes' and your tricks. Did you think my girls" -- he gestured vaguely at the pods still darting through the air near his head and shoulders -- "wouldn't be able to identify you from public databases? Diamondback and Nightman, members in various standing in the Champions. You were pretty slick, but not slick enough."

(* In Marvel's Sensational Spider-Man #1, to name but one instance -- Russ)

"Carson -- Armada -- whoever you are -- I don't want a fight. There's been a mis--"

"My only question," the man continued, going on as if she hadn't spoken, "is how you knew? How could you possibly have guessed my scheme?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Rachel insisted. "What scheme? I don't even know who you are!"

Armada's mouth twisted and he stroked his naked chin with the fingers of one gauntlet. "You really don't know who I am?"

Rachel threw her hands up. "No, for god's sake! I just want the dummy!"

"Huh." Armada rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. Around him, his 'girls' darted about uncertainly. "Well, this is awkward."

"Just let me pay you and we'll be on our way," Rachel continued. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Nightman extricating himself from the pile of metal and designer jeans, but she didn't dare take her eyes completely off of the fruitcake in the golden armor.

"Sure," Armada was nodding. "You can pay me and then be on your way. We'll just forget this ever hap--" He paused. "Waaaiiit a minute... you expect me to believe you're not just going to run to your Champion buddies and tell them the greatest techno-thief money can buy is operating out of San Francisco?"

"Live and let live, right?" Rachel replied, reaching behind her for the dummy Lucille. "As far as I can see, you haven't done anything illegal here -- well, except for assaulting Johnny, but I'm sure he'd be willing to overlook that... happens to him all the time -- and I don't see any reason not to let you go on your way. No guarantees once your plan for world domination is set in motion, of course, but for right now--"

Rachel's hand fell on the dummy's arm... and in the next moment, the thing wrenched its limb free and backhanded her, sending Diamondback sailing across the store in the opposite direction Nightman had gone earlier.

"No, I don't believe you," Armada said as Rachel pulled herself out of a large shoe bin. "You'll be back with the Black Widow and Hercules and that giant freak dog and I'll be in jail again, separated from my girls again." He snapped his fingers. "Lucille, Charlene, Jamie, Greta... sic 'em!"

Lucille-dummy began moving across the floor toward Diamondback, striding naturally, like a person rather than a robot. Around the store, three more of the shop's dummies were stepping down off their pedestals and converging on either Rachel or Johnny.

"Old Doombot technology," Armada explained with glee. "I managed to get my hands on some of it while Doom was missing along with the Avengers and Fantastic Four a couple years back. I told you I'm the greatest techno-thief money can buy!"

"I'll give you a call if I need to get my hands on a Game Cube," Diamondback muttered. Lucille moved fluidly, but slowly and arrogantly... like Dr. Doom would move, Rachel imagined. Like she had all the time in the world.

Rachel drew a trick diamond out of the pouch in her purse -- the pouch Zeus had given her after her stay in Hades, the one that was supposed to produce whatever diamond suited her situation -- and chucked it at the second dummy coming after her. The diamond exploded, and that dummy was suddenly sheathed in a thick block of ice. It twitched, the ice exploded outwards, and the dummy kept coming.

"Damn." She could see Nightman being choked to death by a wan, bored-looking mannequin in a flower-print summer dress on the other side of the store, but there was no way she could break away to go help him now. He was on his own.

Lucille had drawn up close enough to swing one cupped hand at her. The blow was incredibly quick, but Rachel managed to get under it and roll backwards, giving herself a little more distance.

"Okay Zeus, the ice didn't work," she muttered, reaching into her pouch again. She'd never gotten around to cataloguing how many different types of diamonds were available to her in this thing, and she wanted to kick herself for it now. "Let's see what else you've got."

She plucked a diamond free, leaping over an energy blast exploding from the not-Lucille dummy's hand (the blast surprised her until she remembered she was dealing with retired Doombots), spun in the air, and threw the diamond at the floor between the two mannequins.

Several things happened at once.

There was a flash of light as the diamond exploded, a tinkling as of shattered glass falling on tile. The mannequins, including the ones on the other side of the store pounding on Nightman, froze. The pods hovering around Armada went dark and fell, clattering to the floor. The lights in the store went out.

"What?" Armada was screeching as Diamondback was still taking all this in. "A localized EMP burst? How did you do that?"

An EMP diamond? Rachel grinned. How cool was that?

Armada's armor still seemed to be at least partially functional. She imagined he was protected against EMP, but his movements and frantic gesticulations were stiff. She didn't think he was going to be much of a problem from here on out.

But Rachel's celebration was short-lived. The four mannequins, which had all frozen in mid-step, now straightened, an electronic humming sounding from deep within them.

REBOOT INITIATED, the dummies all said in unison. LOCOMOTION AND VOICE SYSTEMS ONLINE FOLLOWING SYSTEMS FAILURE. ENERGY PROJECTION SYTEMS OFF-LINE. AWAITING NEW ORDERS, LORD DOOM.

Rachel tensed, but when the mannequins didn't approach her, she slowly straightened. All four of them were turned toward her, as if waiting for something.

AWAITING NEW ORDERS, LORD DOOM, they repeated as one.

Rachel looked back over her shoulder, didn't see anybody named Doom there, then looked down at herself. The hood of Johnny's green jacket had flopped over her head while she'd been performing her acrobatics. She wore dark gray pants on her lower half.

Rachel grinned. No way. No way. They thought she was Doom? These must have been old-model Doombots...

"Kill her!" Armada was screaming, gesturing stiffly in his underpowered armor. "Destroy both of them!"

The dummies' heads swiveled around to consider the golden-armored man, then turned back silently toward Diamondback.

"Don't listen to him," she shouted in her most authoritative, most Doom-like voice. Sudden inspiration struck her. "The man in the golden armor is the cursed Reed Richards!"

That got the robots' attention, all of them turning towards the now-cowering Armada.

"What? No, don't listen to her! Do I look like Reed Richards?"

"He's wearing that armor to confuse us!" Rachel continued, finding it hard to maintain the Doom-voice without laughing. "Destroy Reed Richards, my Doombots!"

Destroy Reed Richards! the mannequins agreed, and, in unison, began moving towards Armada.

"What? No, stop you stupid machines!" Armada leapt backwards, tripped over one of the comatose robot pods lying at his feet, and went down on his rear end. The Doombot-mannequins surrounded him before he could rise, glaring down at him.

DESTROY REED RICHARDS, they repeated in eerie unison.

"Mommy," Armada squeaked. And then he was buried under the robots' descending fists.

Rachel moved over to where Johnny was rising from the floor, gasping and pulling in rasping breaths through his bruised throat. Without a word, she helped him to his feet.

"Little extreme, don't you think?" Johnny tilted his head toward the beating being administered in the corner.

Rachel looked... then shrugged. "Their energy projection systems are off-line, so I doubt they can kill him, especially with that armor to protect him from the worst of it."

He gave her a dissatisfied look.

"Oh, come on! Don't be such a boy scout! He tried to kill us!"

Johnny's gaze didn't waver.

Rachel rolled her eyes. "God save me from good and moral men." She turned back toward the beating and cleared her throat, assuming the Doom-voice again. "That is enough, my minions! Release the coward at once, Doom commands it!"

Without question or hesitation, the dummies all dropped their fists and backed away from the cowering Armada. Rachel gave Johnny a 'told-you-so' look when Armada peeked out from under his arm, bruised but still fully conscious.

"Restrain the cursed, foul-mannered, thoroughly-unattractive Richards, my faithful Doombots!" The mannequins rushed to comply, hefting Armada to his feet and pinning his arms behind his back. "You!" She gestured toward Lucille. "Leave that piece of cosmic-ray spawned refuse to the others. Attend to me this instant!"

Johnny poked her in the ribs as Lucille approached. "Don't go overboard."

Rachel stuck her tongue out at him. When Lucille had taken position at her side, she gestured at the other three. "Now, my minions, mighty Doom wishes you to serenade the despicable Richards with a complete performance of '500,000 Bottles of Beer on the Wall'. In a falsetto. When, and only when, the performance is over, you will relinquish him to my henchmen, who will have arrived by that time and will be attired as ordinary American policemen. Once that is accomplished, you will cease all function until Doom requires your services again. Do you understand these directions?"

The mannequins nodded. Armada groaned between them.

"Of course you do! Are you not products of Doom's genius? Are you not lifelike effigies of Doom himself? Are you not--!" She paused when Johnny jabbed her in the ribs again, more insistently this time. "Very well," she finished. "You may begin."

The three dummies began in identical, artificially high voices as Diamondback, Nightman, and the dummy Lucille hurried out of the store.

"Five hundred thousand bottles of beer on the wall,
Five hundred thousand bottles of beer,
You take one down, pass it around,
Four hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall..."

Later.

"You know what I don't get?"

"What's that?"

"What in god's name did he hope to accomplish with a bunch of robotic store mannequins anyway?"

Rachel shrugged, watching the two men drop the first shovelfuls of dirt onto the coffin below them. Next to the open grave the diggers worked to fill, a small unobtrusive tombstone announced the adjacent lot's occupant as TURNER D. CENTURY.

"Who knows? All I know for sure is it's over."

"You're sure?"

"As sure as I can be."

"Guess that'll have to be enough."

"Guess so. At least until Turner shows up again and proves me wrong."

More dirt thunked down onto the casket. Inside was Lucille, stripped of the Doombot technology that had inhabited her and dressed in a sensible, frilly dress that might have been worn by a woman of means in pre-Depression, early 20th Century America. Rachel had purchased the dress herself, but the grave lot next to Turner's own had been bought and paid for by the dead man's estate, the entire matter arranged in his will long before his death. The lawyer, Friedman, had been a lot of help, and she thought she might have to actually rethink her blanket feelings about that profession.

The two of them turned and strode quietly away from the grave. They had been the only ones to attend, of course -- not even the lawyer had volunteered for that surreal mourning -- and they had the graveyard mostly to themselves on this cool autumn evening.

"So what now?" Johnny asked. "If Turner's work is done, nothing's keeping you here."

She looked at him strangely. Then, shaking her head, she looked off across the tombstone-specked hillside. "I've been thinking a lot about why I left the Champions, thinking that maybe it's time for me to go back."

"Already?"

Rachel seemed to consider that for a moment, then nodded. "Maybe I accomplished what I set out to--"

She paused, looking up toward the crest of the hill the graveyard sat upon. At the peak, the moon was just starting to become visible in the day's fading light. Johnny turned and followed her gaze... and remarkably, he saw what she saw.

Sitting atop the hill, with the moon at his back, was a funny mustachioed man on the front of a tandem bicycle. White pants and a green checked jacket were only the beginning of his ridiculous ensemble, but nothing about him was as strange as the other rider of the bicycle. On the back seat, Johnny could quite clearly make out a faceless mannequin, riding sidesaddle.

And more, Johnny could see through them. Could see through Turner D. Century and his bonnie gal.

The man tilted his flat yellow hat at the two of them, gave the horn on his bicycle's handlebars a couple of quick honks that Johnny almost heard, then put his feet on the pedals, and very naturally pedaled his bike up, up, up into the night sky. Johnny watched them go, fading against the growing light of the moon until they were no more.

When he looked at Rachel, she was grinning, and there were tears in her eyes, though she was quick to swipe those away when she saw him looking at her.

"Godspeed, Turner," she said under her breath.

Smiling himself now, Johnny took her by the arm and turned her back toward the gates. Both of them were moving more spryly now, happier. "There's one more thing I don't get," he said.

"Shoot."

"Five hundred thousand bottles of beer? That's kind of a strange number, don't you think? Why not a million?"

Rachel eyed him devilishly. "A million? Come on, Mr. Avenger of the Night... a million would have been inhumane..."

The Champions in:

"A Dog's Life"

March Year Five

The sign above the door read:

LEGION OF SUPER-VETS Specializing in the care of super-animals since 1997 Walk-Ins Welcome

The outer walls were glass, and through them, the three Champions could see two non-descript folk waiting with their pets, and a stunning red-headed woman sitting behind the reception desk.

"Well, this must be the place," Barry Allen nodded.

"Kind of small for a 'Legion'..." the boy next to him observed. He seemed like any other slightly overweight teen at the moment, but when in-costume, this teen was known and feared by the criminal element as Guinea Pig, the Expandable Cheeks Warrior.

Bonita Juarez looked at her watch. "We're almost late for our appointment, we should get in there."

Barry pushed the door open, allowing the raven-haired beauty to pass, followed by Brandon -- the Guinea Pig -- who was in turn followed by an enormous gray dog with three heads. Five collie puppies, each with a trio of heads of their own, followed the bigger dog in. Once everyone was in the waiting room, Barry let the door swing closed behind him.

"'Morning!" the redhead at the desk chimed, chomping on a wad of gum nearly as big as her tongue. "How can I help ya?"

"Good morning," Bonita replied. "We have an appointment to see Dr. Wang?"

The receptionist nodded, giving the three-headed dog drooling onto her desktop only a half-interested glance. "Right. Y'all are the doctor's 10:30. Have a seat and I'll -- oh my, now aren't you the cutest little thing?"

The girl was staring past Bonita now. Barry turned to follow her gaze. Brandon also turned to follow it, found nothing behind him, and looked uncertainly back at the woman. "Who? Me?"

"Oh, I just love them when they're this age, don't you?" The girl got up and moved around the desk until she was standing in front of Brandon. "So young, so fresh, like a ripe cherry just waiting to be plucked! And these cheeks!" She pinched both of Brandon's cheeks, seemed alarmed when they pulled out much further than she'd expected, and quickly released them. "How old are you, honey?"

"Uh, seventeen ma'am."

"Old enough to pee, old enough for me, right sugar?" she said, poking Barry -- who found himself rendered speechless -- with one elbow. He looked helplessly toward Bonita, who started to say something, when another voice intruded on the conversation.

"That's enough, Esmerelda. Let the poor kid catch his breath."

They all turned, including the dogs, to see a rotund, vaguely Oriental man with jet-black hair and a goattee shot through with gray, standing in the corridor behind the desk -- the one that led deeper into the clinic. "You're my 10:30, I take it?" Dr. Wang asked.

"Yes, we--"

"At last! Didst thou truly think it possible to escape the son of Zeus?"

The lot of them turned again at the sound of the front door slamming open. Remarkably, it did not shatter into a thousand pieces. Standing in the doorway was a very large, bearded man, outrage twisting his roughly handsome features.

"Hercules!"

"Fair Bonita! 'Twas you behind this calumny, the lion of Olympus would swear it!"

Bonita sighed, rolled her eyes. "Herc, this truly is for the best. You've got to understand--"

"'Tis 'for the best' to unman a teammate, a comrade-in-arms who hath stood beside us in the darkest of hours... simply because he impregnated some random wench??"

"It was the neighbor's dog, Hercules."

"No matter!"

"And the neighbor's dog went on to have puppies" -- she indicated the five cavorting pups at their feet, one of which was well on his way to eating through the base of the water cooler -- "that can bite through titanium. If we're going to keep them with us, we have to get them fixed. And Cerberus too."

"Treachery!" Hercules proclaimed. The other people waiting in the lobby flinched.

"People, people," Dr. Wang said amicably, stepping in-between Bonita and Herc, "let's not get overheated until we find out for sure whether I can help you, alright? Mr... er... Hercules, why don't you come sit in on the consultation. I'm sure I can answer any questions or concerns you might have. If you're not satisfied at the end, well there's no law saying you have to have the procedure done. What do you say? No harm in listening, right?"

Hercules glared at the vet suspiciously, then slowly nodded. "Aye. Let us hear all the details of this madness before I liberate yon allies from the maw of emasculation."

"Er... right." Dr. Wang turned, motioned with one pudgy hand. "All of you follow me. We'll get this all sorted out."

As the Champions moved to comply, Guinea Pig jerked in surprise as his butt was given a healthy whack. He spun, eyes going wide, and the lovely Esmerelda dropped him a wink. She curled her hand into a fist, popped the thumb and little finger out, and put it up to her head like a phone. She mouthed the words, "Call me."

Brandon hurried to catch up with the others.

Dr. Wang's office was homey and large -- which was good, because there were a lot of Champions piled into it. Hercules made a point of taking the only chair on the patient side of the desk while the rest of them stood. Cerberus -- whose fate more than any of the others hung in the balance that day -- plopped down in a corner, rested his three heads on the edge of a large potted plant, and promptly fell asleep.

On the walls were framed diplomas, interspersed tastefully with photographs of previous patients. Rachel spotted a picture of the Inhumans' massive dog, Lockjaw, along with Crystal of the Inhuman royal family. There was also a signed photo of a grinning Falcon and his bird Redwing. Bonita was still trying to decide whether the photograph next to it was really the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes (the inscription on that one read: The only good capitalist animal doctor is a dead capitalist animal doctor! Haha, just joking! Love as always, Ivan) when Dr. Wang finally spoke.

"So... you wish to have your three-headed demon dogs neutered?"

Hercules harumphed. Bonita simply said, "That's right."

"Well, as I'm sure you already know, there are many good reasons to have the procedure done, many health-related, but there's also the matter of keeping the stray animal population under control. How old are the puppies?"

"About 3 months."

"And the father?"

Bonita shrugged and looked to Hercules. The Lion of Olympus sighed, "He is the son of the dragon Typhon, whom Gaea birthed to defend the Titans when Zeus led the Olympians 'gainst them, and Echidna, the serpent-woman. None may guess his true age, yet his father has been trapped 'neath Mount Etna since time out of mind, so let us say..." he paused, calculating, "...150,000 years of age." From the corner Cerberus snorted, and Hercules quickly added, "Give or take."

"Oh. Er, well... as long as he's healthy, there should be no problem performing the operation at this late period of his life. He is healthy, right?"

"Perfectly so," Bonita chimed in.

"And the puppies?"

"The same."

"If you don't mind my asking, doctor," Barry cut in suddenly. "How many of these operations have you done?"

"Oh, hundreds over the last four years."

"Really. I wasn't aware there were that many super-powered animals out there."

"You'd be surprised. They're quite in-style with the rich and famous. In fact, Drew Barrymore was in here just last month with her pet schnauzer, Cuddles. Turns out the dog can extend its tongue out to 5 feet in length. She seemed very attached to it... the dog, that is." Dr. Wang cleared his throat. "In any case, I've cared for many gifted animals, and I've performed quite a few of these operations, usually for owners like yourselves that don't want a litter of puppies with the same abilities as their parents."

"'Tis madness!" Hercules proclaimed, bolting suddenly to his feet. "You speak of noble Cerberus as if he were but a dog!"

"Er... Herc... he is a dog..."

"No, he is not, friend Barry! Cerberus is the mighty guardian of Hades, a demon born of demons, and one of the canniest opponents the Son of Zeus hath e'er encountered! He deserves better of those he would call 'comrade'."

"Hercules, please calm down--"

"And you!" Hercules rounded on Bonita, cutting her off in mid-sentence. "I hath had it up to here with thine dismissal of my concerns! How wouldst thou feel were I to rip the very womb from you?"

Bonita's face fell. Her brow drew together and flames began licking from her eyes. "Watch what you say, Hercules."

Barry was suddenly between them, moving faster than any of the others in the room could follow. "Hold on a second here, guys. Let's just calm down before somebody says or does something they'll regret..."

"That moment is long behind us, friend Barry," Hercules growled.

And then, of course, all hell broke loose.

Cerberus woke from a doze with his three chins in the vet's planter. Sleepily, he looked around. Two of his spawn were curled up next to him, while the other three were busy dismantling the door leading from the office.

He didn't entirely understand why he was here, though it was obviously a point of contention among his teammates. In fact, two of them were exchanging some angry words over it at just that moment. This did not make Cerberus anxious, nor concerned at what the beauty called Firebird might have planned for him.

If Cerberus felt anything, it was a deep gnawing hunger in the bottom of his belly. For a moment, he considered eating the small tree he'd fallen asleep on top of, but the guardian of Hades had never been much of a vegetarian. In the days before the great Batroc the Leaper had freed him from his servitude at the gates of the afterlife, Cerberus would have stalked the banks of the Styx hunting for fresh, preferably living, meat to dine on.

He had learned quickly, though, that this assemblage of heroes frowned upon such things, and so had developed a taste for the finest food in this land. It's glorious, mouth-watering name was Kibbles 'n Bits Bac'n Cheez. Even now, just thinking about those glorious kibbles, those chunky bits, the drool ran from Cerberus' mouths, pattering onto the earth in the planter before him.

He had to have some. At this moment.

Cerberus stood, disturbing the puppies curled up at his side, turned, and found his path to the door blocked by Hercules. Snarling with the sudden hunger that had gripped him, Cerberus shoved the planter aside with one of his heads, took a step back, and simply plowed forward through the office wall.

He heard the cries of alarm behind him, both from the doctor and from his teammates, but he didn't care. His offspring were cavorting around his striding paws, happily excited by this new development. He barely noticed. He wanted his kibbles. He wanted his bits. And nothing in this mortal world was going to stand in his way.

Filled with purpose, Cerberus strode into the clinic's waiting room.

The Flash, unsurprisingly, was the first to act. Lifting his jaw off the floor, Barry zipped out into the waiting room, intent on stopping Cerberus' march through the local architecture. What he saw made him gape again.

The receptionist, Esmerelda, was standing on her desk, screaming as two of the puppies shook the piece of furniture in their jaws like a ragdoll. The other two patients, who'd been waiting when the Champions had entered, were likewise trying to press themselves into the walls at their backs to escape the over-excited puppies and their single-minded dad. As Barry wondered what to do, he saw one of the other patients' pets -- a small Yorkie -- growl in warning as one of the Cerberus puppies sniffed at him curiously.

"Scruffy, no!" the Yorkie's owner exclaimed.

Too late. There was a metallic shing and every single hair on Scruffy's body turned into a sharp steel needle. The Yorkie now looked like a small silver porcupine. The Cerberus puppy got jabbed in the nose by one of these needles and hopped back, yelping, as one of his brothers ran to his side and began growling in three-headed chorus at the Yorkie.

"Everyone please remain calm!" Dr. Wang shouted. Barry had been so dumbfounded that he'd frozen long enough for the normal-speed people to catch up to him.

The other patient, a lanky, dark-haired man with a tan-colored tabby cat on his lap, cursed as the tabby leapt from his lap, bounded across two of the empty waiting room chairs, and alighted on top of the water cooler. The cat's tail puffed out, it's back arched, and it hissed menacingly. Instead of moving to save his cat, the tabby's owner turned toward the wall and put his arms over his head.

It became obvious why a moment later. A flaming hairball erupted from the tabby's throat, exploding when it struck the tile floor in front of the still-marching Cerberus. The massive dog reared up on his hind legs, then turned with a snarl toward the water cooler and the cat still perched on top of it.

Barry zipped forward and grabbed two of Cerberus's collars, but the dog lurched forward anyway, dragging Barry's weight easily.

"Hercules!" Barry cried. "A little help here!"

"Nay, friend Barry," he heard behind him. "The son of Zeus is too busy contemplating having his own loins removed. In truth, there be many health benefits..."

A curtain of flame dropped between Cerberus and the water cooler, courtesy of Firebird. All this accomplished, however, was further aggravating the tabby, who hacked another incendiary hairball through the flame at Cerberus. One of Cerberus's heads caught the ball and closed its jaws, muffling the explosion. He pressed on through the flame, unimpressed with its heat and dragging Barry with him. The puppies, meanwhile, had all surrounded the growling Yorkie, perhaps sensing that he wouldn't be clothed in steel needles forever.

Cerberus was just about to close one of his jaws on the tabby when every other animal in the clinic yowled and fell over unconscious. Cerberus didn't immediately succumb, first blinking, then staggering, shaking his head, and finally going over in a heap, Barry lying on top of him and still clinging to his collars. Bonita killed the ineffectual wall of flame instantly.

"There now," Dr. Wang was saying. He set a black box attached to a bell-shaped instrument down on his desktop, then helped Esmerelda down from her perch on same. The receptionist was gasping in fear and immediately ran into Guinea Pig's arms.

"What -- what did you do?" Barry gasped, pulling himself off of the demon dog.

"Sonic pulse, set to put cats and dogs to sleep," Wang explained matter-of-factly. He picked up the sonic projector. "I splinted the leg of Ulysses Klaw's mother's pit bull a few years back, and he gave me this as payment."

"Doctor, I am so sorry about this," Bonita was saying. "I had no idea. We'll of course pay for all the damages..."

Wang put up a hand. "Yes you will, dear, but... listen to me for just a moment. Is your friend here right in saying that the big dog is an actual demon?"

Bonita looked to Hercules, but the Prince of Power was making a point of not looking at her, riffling instead through a stack of pamphlets on a nearby table entitled How to Housetrain a Dog with Radioactive Bowel Syndrome.

"Yes, he knows the most about Cerberus's origins, so it must be so."

"Hm. Well, you see, that presents a problem. I deal with earth-born animals, you see. I get to stretch that definition a little farther than most vets -- if your dog had come from an alternate earth, for example, or from the far future or past (I treated Devil Dinosaur for an ingrown toenail once, did I tell you that?), that would be fine -- but a full-bred demon... I'm not sure I can help you."

Hercules didn't even try to hide his grin of triumph, while Bonita sagged, finally defeated. "Well, I guess it's probably for the best..."

"Just because I can't neuter the big one," he added quickly, "doesn't mean I can't help you, though. The sonic pulse should put them all out for about twenty minutes. Why don't you come back in my office and listen to my proposal...?"

Several days later, Cerberus lay on the livingroom floor of the Champions home and headquarters, watching a rerun of friends with Cassie and Brandon. Around him were his offspring, every one of them sleeping, and sporting bandages on their hindquarters.

"I could get used to this total lack of excitement," the Black Widow said, watching the scene from the kitchen doorway. She had a steaming mug of coffee in one hand.

"Enjoy it. Dr. Wang said it wouldn't last for long." Bonita sipped on a cup of tea. "Once they recover from the surgery, they'll be back to their old selves."

"At least we won't have to worry about them knocking up the rest of the neighborhood's dogs."

"Right. Since the puppies are half-Collie -- half real earth-grown Collie, that is -- they were able to undergo the surgery. Cerberus, however, we'll have to keep our eyes on."

"Ah, we'll keep him busy fighting bad guys. Honestly, I'm not even sure when he found time for it before... lucky mutt." The Widow sighed wistfully.

"Right," Bonita agreed, rubbing her neck. She had flushed and seemed uncomfortable.

"Pardonnez-moi, mes beautés!" The two women turned and pressed themselves against the sides of the doorway as Georges Batroc paraded through and into the livingroom, carrying an enormous bowl, heaped high with dog food. "Dinner, she iz zairved for les invalides and zeir proud papa!"

"Batroc!" the Widow exclaimed. "Not in the livingroom!"

"But it iz ze zpecial occazion!" Batroc insisted, eyes going wide at the Widow's priggishness.

"Bozhe moi," Natasha sighed, as Batroc set the bowl down in front of Cerberus. In the livingroom. On the carpet. Cerberus lifted his head to regard it, and beside him, the puppies began to wake at the smell of the food.

Next to the Widow, Bonita smiled. "I'll clean it up, 'Tasha. It's worth it."

"Bon apetit!" Batroc said, clapping his hands together. "To ze continued potenzy of your loins, mon ami!"

Gratified and content, with his children swarming at his sides to get their own share of the food, Cerberus closed his eyes and buried all three of his heads in the small mountain of Kibbles 'n Bits Bac'n Cheez.

The Future Champions in:

"For Whom the Bell Tolls... Or Something"

March Year Fifteen

Ohmigod, Cassie Lang thought, and ordered the wasp she was riding to descend towards the wreckage.

The once-sleek bullet shape of the Champscraft was crumpled, smashed into a wrinkled cylinder at the base of the eastern European mountain range dividing Symkaria from its closest northeastern neighbor, Latveria. Fire and smoke were still billowing from the wreckage. It didn't look like anyone could have survived the impact.

When the wasp had come within a couple meters of the ground, Cassie hopped off its back, growing back to her full five feet six inches before her feet hit the ground.

"Guys!" she cried, approaching as close as she could to the blaze. She'd been thrown clear when the first shell had torn the front end off the ship. She had no idea how the other Champions had fared. "Guys! Report in!"

"Here, Cass." She turned and -- thank God -- there was Greg Wallander, the love of her life, wending his way down the side of the mountain toward her. He was limping, and by the look of his clothes he'd taken a tumble, but it didn't look like anything serious.

"Where are the others?"

"I don't know," he said, slumping down on a rock. "I got sucked out right after you did. Managed to pop in and out of the Dark Dimension really quick, but I still re-emerged a little too high off the ground. Twisted my ankle pretty bad."

"Can you do something about this fire?"

"Working on it." His eyes were closed, his brow knit in concentration. Once, long ago, he had been a stand-in for Earth's Sorceror Supreme. He no longer held the Eye of Agomotto, nor any other talismans of real power... but Strange had once told him that talismans were just focusing agents; magic was no more than asking reality to re-imagine itself for you, and then refusing to take no for an answer. Once you got the hang of it, you weren't likely to forget.

The flame pouring out of the wreckage suddenly twisted upward into a funnel, lifting higher and higher until even its lower edges were no longer touching the craft. Greg only had to hold it there for a second before its own lack of fuel caused it to quickly dissipate. He let a breath out and began to rub his ankle.

The Champscraft began to shift as soon as the fire was gone. A chunk of bulkhead peeled back, and a 10-foot tall, grey robot emerged, leading the way for a young Hispanic man in sunglasses -- H.E.R.C. 1000 and Iceman, respectively.

"Are you guys alright?"

"As alright as alright can be, boss." Iceman removed his shades, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, and began to polish them on his shirt. His "costume" consisted of rumpled black dress pants, a white shirt open at the collar, and a black leather jacket with jagged blue icicles silkscreened onto the front and back, hanging from the shoulders. "Mi hermano H.E.R.C. shielded me from the fire until you guys put it out."

"Verily, the son of Zeus wishes to bestow his gift upon the base coward who shot at us from afar," the robot who thought he was the Greek god Hercules deadpanned.

"What about Ghost Rider?" Cassie asked suddenly.

"He ain't in there no more and, yo, that's one spook can take care of himself, baby doll."

"Ghost Rider... isn't dead," Greg chimed in. "I'd know if he was. The more immediate problem is how we're going to pull off this invasion of Doomstadt without the Champscraft."

"You must, Greg Wallander."

They all turned and saw, up on a ridge directly above them, the spectral shape of the Ghost Rider. Dressed all in white, with a white cowboy hat and a cape, mounted on a pale horse, he looked like the original Ghost Rider -- the one that had supposedly rode the old West. Sometimes Cassie suspected it was the original Ghost Rider. Even after all this time, she still wasn't entirely sure of the guy's powers -- aside from his ability to be exceptionally cryptic, that was -- but he had somehow gotten himself out of a plummeting aircraft, and he sure as hell hadn't had his horse with him before the crash.

"There is a pass half a mile to the East."

"I know about it," Greg sighed. "And what about you? Are you coming with us?"

"I will be there when I'm needed."

"Homes gotta grab a beer first, watch the game, don'tcha know."

"Quiet, Iceman," Cassie said absently. It was almost a reflex to shush him whenever he spoke now, like how you'll say 'bless you' without thinking about it to somebody who's sneezed.

"H.e.r.c. 1000 Shalt carry thee, friend greg."

"Thanks, big guy."

The robot lifted Greg off the rock and the Champions, battered but not beaten, began to make their way towards Ghost Rider's pass.

It didn't take them long to find it, a place where one jagged cliff faced another, with a 10 foot gap in-between. About 20 yards away, the pass opened up into a meadow. Into Latveria, the green and beautiful.

Latveria the isolated. Victor Von Doom had been missing for almost five years now, but that morning an enormous red force field had sprung up around the entire nation, thwarting any attempts to pierce it. No one knew if Doom was behind it or not, but the only way to find out was to get to Latveria's capital, Doomstadt, and the only way to do that was to teleport.

Or to bring along a magician.

Greg frowned at the shimmering red field that bisected the pass. H.E.R.C. was still holding him. Iceman lifted his sunglasses to get a better look and whistled.

"Are you sure you still want to go through with this, Cassie?" Greg asked. "We don't exactly know what we're walking into here..."

Cassie looked at her boyfriend and bit her lip. No, she wasn't sure. She wished Kristoff Vernard was here. There were things going on in Latveria, things that suggested that Dr. Doom had reappeared. As the intended heir to Doom, Kristoff would have been priceless on a mission like this. But Kristoff had run off into space almost a year ago to help the Silver Surfer against the Timewheel, and no one had heard from him in months.

Besides, Cassie had been romantically involved with Kristoff for a while, and she knew that got under Greg's skin. In fact, it probably explained why he wasn't exactly in the best of moods at the moment.

"We have to, Greg. I contacted Avengers mansion, and they're tied up with a Mole Man invasion in Tallahassee. It's up to us."

Greg nodded. He wasn't happy about this, but he was a good follower, and he trusted her.

Iceman wiggled his forehead, dropping his propped-up glasses back over his eyes. "You heard the lady, Greg. Poke a hole in that mother so we can get this over with."

So Greg did. He muttered something under his breath -- probably the vocal enchantment -- and gestured toward the field. The entire thing rippled like it'd been struck. Then slowly, like a melting strip of film, the red energy peeled back, leaving a gap big enough for them to pass through.

And the Champions entered Latveria.

"Hey pops! We got some heroes penetrated the force field!"

The man in the metal mask turned and regarded the speaker with surprise. "'Pops'? Is that what you call me now? 'Pops'? Is that how I raised you? What are you, lower-class American trash now?"

The speaker sighed, rolled his eyes toward the heavens. "I just thought you'd like to know there's a bunch of good guys inside the force field, probably coming to beat up on you. I'm tryin' to be the good son here. If you wanna give me grief over little crap like that..."

The second man sighed. "No. No, I am sorry my son. I'm just under a lot of stress right now. And my back! Ah, I'm so old now... when I was your age, I never thought I'd get old, I just thought I'd keep on forever..."

The son rolled his eyes again. "Yeah, okay... look dad, do you want me to scrag the heroes or no?"

The father scowled, then turned back toward the technology he'd been working to decipher when his son walked in. "Yes, see to it. Have them 'scragged'."

"You got it, pops."

"Daaaaamn. Smell that air. They got some clean O-two in this country."

"Doom saw to that," Cassie said. "Developed a bunch of pollution-scrubbing technology, then refused to share it with other nations. Between that and the fact that Doom never allowed Latveria to have an industrial age, you're probably breathing the cleanest air on the planet."

"Swee-- whoa, Bessie!" The wasp Iceman was riding on suddenly dipped crazily, zipping low through a labyrinth of tall meadow grass before popping up to the level of the rest of the Champions. "Cassie, you didn't tell me you gave me Evil-freakin'-wasp-Kneivel!"

"Just go with it, Manuel," Cassie replied. She was several feet away, sitting on the back of a second wasp with Greg sitting behind her. H.E.R.C. 1000 was on a third between them. "These wasps have duties of their own, and I'm disrupting them by asking them to carry us part of the way to Doomstadt. All your squirming and talking is probably upsetting it."

"Yeah, well it's gonna be more upset when I crap all over its back." Iceman bent at the waist and stroked the wasp's head. "S'okay Bessie. You just been hitting the honeypot a little too hard. Happens to the best of us. We'll get you some help, get you into AA..."

The wasp bucked again. Iceman yelped, grabbed on, and shut up.

Cassie bit down a laugh and looked over her shoulder at Greg. "How much farther?"

"About two miles to Doomstadt. You think we'll have to switch wasps again?"

"No, these guys can make it." Cassie paused, sending out a signal through her helmet, translating her thoughts into a message of gratitude to the wasps and a vibrational frequency intended to soothe them. "What do you think, Greg? You think we're really up against Doom here?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Something put this force field around Latveria, that's for sure. And who but Doom would bother?"

"The guy's been missing for five years."

"He was probably just off conquering another reality or something. He always manages to come back. Always. Almost makes me wish Kristoff was here."

She smiled at him. "It's big of you to admit that."

"Doesn't mean I won't kick his butt if I ever see him giving you that 'come hither' look again."

She reached back and squeezed his hand.

"Love you too, Cass."

"Friends. Our destination doth approach."

The Champions turned, watching as the towers of Castle Doom came into view over a final rise. At the foot of the structure was the hamlet of Doomstadt. The streets were deserted... which didn't surprise Cassie, but it did add to her unease.

"Make the call, boss lady," Iceman said over their earpiece communicators. "Do we dismount and walk from here, or ride the honeycomb express right into Castle Doom?"

"We'll take them in," Cassie said. "It's our best chance of remaining undetected, and I can have us all back up to full height in a moment if we're attacked. And Ice... you're riding a wasp, not a honeybee. Didn't you pay attention to--"

A solid wall of sound hit them as they began to descend into Doomstadt, a massive bass BONG that smashed the wasps out of the sky and sent all of the Champions tumbling to the meadow floor far below. Cassie reached out for Greg as she fell, missed his hand as he tumbled down beside the wasp that had been their mount.

Grow everybody back, she thought. Put them back to their full heights or the fall might kill them. Hold on, Cass. Hold on.

But the world went black before she could be sure she'd accomplished it, and Cassie fell into a void at least as deep as the fall to the ground.

In all her years as a superhero, Cassie Lang had never awakened in the hands of a super-villain. As goofy as most of the Champions' villains were, they were also very dangerous... people and creatures that would rather kill you then toss you in a cell and boast about their plans.

(Well, there was the Drs. Bousquet and Plexico, of course. They liked boasting more than anything. But they were the exception not the rule, and she had definitely never allowed herself to be captured by them. Knowing those two, she'd wake up with her brain transplanted into the body of a bionic chinchilla.)

As the world swam back into being around her, she amended her earlier thought. She had never awakened in the hands of a super-villain... until now.

"Awake. Good," a deep, booming voice said from the shadows. Cassie looked around, found the others were already awake. She was in some kind of cell, her head in Greg's lap. Iceman was pacing back and forth in front of the energy wall that held them in, and H.E.R.C. was standing in the far corner of the cubicle, uncharacteristically subdued. Given the blackened scars on his uru forearms, he'd already had an unsuccessful go at the energy field boxing them in.

Outside the field was a tall man in a cloak. That was all Cassie could make out for sure... it was very dark on the other side and her vision was still foggy from being knocked unconscious. She could see light from the field gleaming on a metal mask and perhaps off metal body armor, but that was it.

"Doom?" she asked.

The shape laughed, a deep mocking laugh... that quickly deteriorated into a fit of coughing. The cough went on and on, finally ending in a wheezy growl. She saw the tall man bend over, make a motion like he was lifting his faceplate, and spit. Then he cleared his throat and stood again.

"Doom?" it said, its voice still scratchy from the coughing fit. "Doom disappeared into his time machine years ago. You wish you were dealing with Dr. Doom."

"Homes is nuts," Iceman confided to Cassie, covering his hand when he spoke as if it was a secret.

"But no... you children, in your foolishness, have crossed the one man whose genius outstrips even Doom's." He stepped forward -- finally, Cassie thought, almost fell back to sleep -- and stood in the full light of the glowing energy field.

He was tall -- almost seven feet -- wrapped in a blue cloak, his powerful body covered with brightly-colored body armor. His right hand terminated in a golden fist-sized ball. His helmet was golden too, and bell-shaped, the image of a face imprinted on the side facing the Champions.

"Dr. Bong!" Cassie exclaimed.

"Dr. Bong?" Greg demanded.

"Dr. Bong!" Dr. Bong confirmed.

"I can't believe we got beat down by somebody wearin' a bell on his melon," Iceman muttered.

"What are you doing in Latveria?" Cassie demanded. "There's nothing for you here. The Fantastic Four cleared the castle of Doom's equipment after his disappearance"

"Yes they did. They even had Dr. Strange do a sweep for mystical artifacts that Doom may have left lying around... but they did not consider the effects Doom's experiments would have on the land, did they? Of course not! For they are not Bong!"

A door creaked open nearby, and a young, weary voice said, "Pops... c'mon, just once can we do this without all the struttin' and posin'?"

"You dare?" Bong demanded, swinging toward the speaker.

"Dad..."

Bong deflated, then nodded and turned back toward his captives. As he did so, another shape moved into the room. This new arrival looked like a younger version of Bong himself, complete with bell-shaped head, but he was dressed in jeans and a tee with the legend MY DAD WENT TO CASTLE DOOM AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS CRUMMY T-SHIRT silk-screened across it.

"Hey, I know you!" Iceman shouted. "You're Billy Bong, lead singer of the Bong Boys!"

The younger Bong's face brightened and he nodded. "Yeah, man, that's me. Glad to see somebody remembers."

"Man... your stuff sucked! All the girls in my junior high dug it though."

Billy Bong's face fell again.

"What's with the force field around Latveria, Bong?" Cassie asked, trying desperately to stay on track.

"An amplification of my own natural ability to create force fields. It was intended to stop you so-called heroes from meddling in my plan."

"All you did was draw our attention," Greg said. "No one would have known you were up to something if you hadn't dropped an energy curtain around the most notorious third-world country on Earth."

"No matter. You're here now, and even you can't stop me. I will use Doom's time machine. I will return to a time when I was happy."

Cassie sat bolt-upright, then began to climb to her feet. "What? Bong, you can't be serious!"

"Oh, but I am, my dear. Richards removed the time platform, and that disrupted it for a while, but there is no way to remove the rip in space-time that powered it. After a time, the rip winked back into being in Doom's time-lab."

"You don't understand. You can't time travel from this timeline anymore. Aeon won't--"

"I know about the restrictions on time travel, young lady, the dangers they pose to this reality, and I... don't... care!" He whipped a hand -- the one that wasn't a metal ball -- at the younger Bong. "This is my son. He and his four brothers were to be my heirs, the inheritors of the power of Bong. They were the perfect children, bright, handsome as their father. And then... and then..."

"What?"

"Then puberty set in. Before I knew it, it was all about having a good time for my formerly scholarly boys. 'Dad, can we get the Playboy Channel?' 'Dad, can I borrow the keys to the Flying Bonger?' 'Dad, can I have some money to take this girl to the movies?' I watched in horror as my hopes for the future were eradicated by their incurable lust for -- as they put it -- poon-tang."

Billy Bong shrugged and nodded.

"And then they got the record contract, wasted their time and talents on becoming a pop boy band."

"Hell yeah!" Iceman shouted. "Remember that one beat... ah, what was that one you had that was really big?"

"'Chime In'," Billy Bong replied.

"That's right!" Then, in a little singsong, "'C'mon ba-by, chime in/You got me rhymin'/Ain't got no time fo' playin' games toni-yi-yight'... Man, that CD sucked."

"Hey, I remember that song..." Cassie said.

"Silence!" the elder Bong proclaimed. "You see my point. The boys are even worse now, even though their fame has withered and died as surely as my hopes for them have."

"Man, pops, that's harsh..."

Bong didn't even deign to reply to his son. "I will use Doom's time machine to return to a time when I was happy, when my children were still full of hope and possibilities."

"And you're okay with this?" Cassie said, looking to Billy Bong.

He shrugged. "Hey, whatever. Anything to get the guy off our case, you know."

"Dr. Bong," Cassie said, returning her eyes to the villain, "you don't know what you're messing with here. Aeon declared during the Titan Quest that time travel was off-limits in this timeline. If you mess with Doom's time machine, you risk bringing Aeon here and--"

Bong turned away from her, apparently bored with the conversation. "Come, son. Let us finish this, and then we will both be free."

"Sure, pops."

"Bong, listen to me! You can't--"

But the door opened and closed behind the Bongs, and the Champions were alone in the cell.

"We got us a problem here, boss-lady."

"I know Iceman. I know." She placed her hand on the energy field. It was hot, but not burning. "But if even H.E.R.C. couldn't get past this thing, how are we...?"

"I was wondering when you'd get here," Greg said suddenly.

Cassie looked up as a wisp of white flitted through the darkness on the other side of the field. The darkness shifted, seemed to open up, and suddenly the white form of the Ghost Rider strode into view. Both of his six-shooters were drawn.

Without a word, the Old West spirit of vengeance pivoted and fired. The sound was deafening in the close chamber, and a control panel near the wall -- invisible in the blackness before then -- exploded in a shower of sparks as the bullets tore it to pieces. The force field flickered and died a moment later.

The Champions emerged from their cell. "Good job, Ghost Rider," Cassie said. The wraith nodded silently and holstered his pistols. "Greg, we don't have time to search the castle for these guys. We're talking about a tear in time-space... do you think you can find that for us?"

Greg nodded.

"Then lead the way, love. We've got us a continuum to save."

"Soon, my sons... soon all will be as it should be. Soon we will all have a second chance."

"Sure, pops."

Dr. Bong stood on a raised wire platform in the center of a stone chamber. In the center of the platform, flush with its surface, was a square of white light. Dr. Doom's time square.

One of his five sons -- all of whom looked almost identical to Billy Bong -- leaned over the railing. "Hey dad, before you go... can I borrow a few bucks until the next royalty check comes in?"

"Fool! The 'royalty checks' will never come again! Your time as pop star teen idols is over... all that's left for you is, perhaps, a 'Behind the Music' retrospective 15 years from now!"

His son straightened. "Thanks dad. Thanks a lot. Thanks for taking my self-esteem and crushing it beneath your jackboot."

"Silence!"

"Whatever. Jerk."

Bong turned his attention to a device he had strapped to his wrist. He punched in some coordinates, deliberated a moment, then revised them.

"Farewell, boys. I truly hope you someday realize your potential... but it doesn't really matter, as I'm running off to another timeline anyway."

"Deadbeat dad," the recently tongue-lashed Bong Boy muttered.

"Farewell," Bong said, stepping toward the square. "Fare--"

The far wall exploded, and a familiar 10-foot tall robot charged through. Without a word, H.E.R.C. 1000 rushed the platform. The Bong Boyz screamed in unison and dove toward the stone floor, but H.E.R.C. paid them no heed. Instead, he seized the platform's supports and heaved. The entire structure buckled, and the metal screamed as shrilly as the Bong Boyz had. Dr. Bong was flung across the surface, but caught himself on the railing before he could be thrown clear.

"Bong, listen to us!" Cassie Lang said, appearing next to him as she flashed up to her full height. "You don't know what Aeon is capable of. Until we find out how to stop him, we can't risk you drawing his attention here. Please..."

Bong backhanded her with his metal ball. She tumbled backward off the warped platform, toward the ground fifteen feet below.

"Cassie!" Greg cried.

"On it!" Iceman announced. He bounded past Bong, hit the floor of the platform, slid, and caught his leader's arm just as she was going over the edge. Once he was sure he had her, he rolled onto his side, drew an automatic pistol from his jacket with his free hand, and fired at Bong. The bullets bounced off the villain's armor harmlessly.

"Robot... you are more trouble than all the rest of them combined." Bong raised the ball at the end of his right arm and struck it against his bell-shaped head. An ear-splitting BONG shook the room, and H.E.R.C. 1000 vanished, leaving the platform to crash back to the stone floor. Once Bong had regained his balance, he began moving toward the time square again.

"What did you do to H.E.R.C.?" Iceman demanded, still struggling to pull the dazed Ant-Girl back onto the platform.

"Teleported him to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. He'll survive -- easily, I'd imagine -- but he won't be able to interfere with my travel plans."

Bong was almost there -- one more step would have put him at the edge of the square -- when scarlet bands of energy suddenly winked into being around him. The bands drew tight instantly, snapping Bong into an upright position and leaving him to tumble helplessly to the platform just shy of the time machine.

"How's the Crimson Bands of Cytorrak for interference, Bong?" Greg Wallander said, appearing at the top of the platform's wrecked stairs. "The Hulk couldn't break those back in his heyday, so you just sit tight until I have my girlfriend on solid ground."

There was a sickening crack, and Greg tumbled to the platform himself, unconscious even before he hit the surface. Standing behind him was one of the Bong Boyz, his ball-fist held to his chest.

"Hey man," the Bong Boy said, "I understand about the space-time continuum and everything... but you really don't understand what a drag having the old man around is...."

"Yes my son!" Bong crowed, as the Bands of Cytorrak dissolved and he regained his feet. "Now, let us finish this..."

Bong stepped forward. At the edge of the platform, Iceman gritted his teeth, one arm still holding Cassie above the floor. "Aw man," he hissed, taking careful aim. He thought he'd spotted a weak point in Bong's armor at the back of the neck, but shooting him there would almost certainly kill the guy. But Iceman didn't have a choice. He began to squeeze the trigger.

He never got to fire the shot. Bong reached the time square in that moment.

"Yes!" he cried as the square slowly began to lift off the surface of the platform, swallowing him as it went. "Take me home! Take me to where and when I can be happy again! Take me -- eh...?"

The square had stopped, halting at Bong's mid-thigh. He consulted the controller device on his arm with mounting panic.

Fool!

There was a clattering of hoofs, a sound of leather flapping in a made wind, and suddenly the ivory horse of the Ghost Rider appeared, hurdling the railing of the platform. Iceman, watching from the edge, had one second to think, That ain't possible... that was a 20-foot jump! and then the horse hit the platform. Ghost Rider leapt from the animal and tackled Bong, knocking him out of the time square. The pair of them hit the floor, rolled, and then the Ghost Rider was on his feet again, six-shooters drawn and pointed back toward the time square.

"Oh come now Spirit of Vengeance," a new voice said, "you really don't think those toys can do a thing against me, do you?"

The square was lowering again, a new figure, swathed in a blood-red cloak, centered in the light cast upward from it. Even as this figure finished speaking, the Ghost Rider fired.

The rounds stopped in mid-air, halfway to their target, unnatural flames licking off of them. The man in red gestured, and Ghost Rider dropped his pistols, his arms snapping to his sides and his entire body lifting off of the platform.

"Oh man..." Iceman moaned. "We in trouble now."

"Indeed," the man known as Aeon said. He motioned again, and both Iceman and Cassie were lifted bodily to hover beside the Ghost Rider. Greg Wallander, still unconscious, joined them a moment later.

"Has anyone else noticed that every time someone breaks my 'no-time-travel' decree, you lot are in some way involved?" Aeon asked, stepping out of the now flat time square. "The Champions are the protectors of the Equilibrium. I tasked you to prevent things like... this." He gestured vaguely at the prone form of Dr. Bong. Behind him, a door slammed as the Bong Boyz made their escape.

"You... ain't... the boss... of us... you... murderer..." Iceman grunted between clenched teeth. In the paralysis field Aeon had them trapped in, even speech was difficult.

Aeon eyed Iceman for a moment, one eyebrow cocked in surprise, amusement, or both. Then he sighed. "It wasn't I who helped the Mecha-Chimpinoids destroy the UN, Manuel. That was the previous Aeon. He was driven insane by his powers and responsibility. I am not he. Do I really have to explain this again?"

"That's right... you're a... prince..."

"As Guardian of the Fifth Order, I do what has to be done. You Champions could learn something from my example. I can't waste energy dealing with time travelers when I should be preparing to defend your worthless world from the Shaping."

"Man, why... don't you leave us--"

Iceman never got to finish. Before the horrified eyes of the rest of the Champions, he changed, devolving from homo superior to Cro-Magnon in the blink of an eye. An instant later, he had become a small, hairless creature with one surprised, blinking eye.

"Daddy! No!"

Aeon paused at the cry, turning slowly towards it's source. Cassie Lang -- Ant-Girl -- hovered beside the slug that had once been Iceman. Tears streaked her dirty cheeks, but her eyes were furious.

"Don't do this. Please. This isn't right. This isn't you."

"Yes, I'm afraid it is, Cassandra." He sighed. "You call me your father, but I'm about as far removed from Scott Lang as that worm is from your teammate. You call me father and it means nothing to me."

"Then why did you stop?"

Aeon's bored expression disintegrated into a snarl. He spun around, focusing his attention on the thing that had been Iceman again, ready to devolve him right out of existence. Cassie screamed.

"Aeon! No!"

There was a massive boom from above, and great chunks of the stone ceiling came down all around them. In the next moment, five tons of uru metal landed right on top of Aeon.

"Per designated orders 001.15.07, aeon is to be destroyed on sight!" A seaweed-covered H.E.R.C. 1000 declared as he and Aeon smashed through what was left of the platform and down to the floor below. "Have at thee, base villain!"

The Champions fell to the surface of the wildly-tilting platform. Cassie took a heartbeat to take stock of her team. Iceman was restored to his original form, but shaken. Greg was doing okay -- he had managed to snag Dr. Bong before the villain could slide off the platform. The Ghost Rider was already moving, running up the platform like it wasn't lying at a forty-five degree angle, whistling for his horse, Banshee.

Below them all, Aeon got to his feet, seemed about to say something -- probably call them all fools or something, Cassie imagined -- then a very loud SHING came from H.E.R.C., and the robot was driving a spear that had projected from his arm toward the timelord's chest. Aeon dove to the side, but not fast enough to prevent H.E.R.C. from tearing a ragged hole in his side with the spear.

"Stupid... monster!" Aeon gestured, and H.E.R.C. was sent flying backwards through what was left of the platform's support structure. The whole thing came tumbling down, Greg and Iceman scrambling for purchase on top.

"Daddy. Stop."

Aeon spun toward the sound of Ant-Girl's voice, purple-pink chronal energy bleeding out of his eye sockets. "Stop?" he demanded, one hand pressed to the wound in his side. More energy, not blood, spurted from that wound. "Do you see what your tinkertoy has done to me?"

"Turn, villain!" H.E.R.C. demanded, charging back across the floor. "The son of zeus hath not yet bestowed his gift upon thee!"

Cassie set herself in-between the charging robot and the timelord. "H.E.R.C., override code: 'Deianira's Cloak'."

H.E.R.C. screeched to a halt several yards in front of Ant-Girl, snapping immediately to attention. He said nothing, his systems temporarily shutdown by the failsafe passcode.

Ant-Girl turned toward her grievously wounded father and took off her helmet. "You started this, daddy. We did our best to stop Bong, and we messed up. You're the one who came in here and started devolving people."

"Yeah! That was you, bit--!" From the wreckage of the collapsed platform, Iceman, who had snapped back to his proper place on the evolutionary ladder when Aeon had lost concentration, got no further before Greg clamped his hand over his mouth.

"You... must learn... the danger... your world is in."

"And this is the way to do it?" Cassie gestured at the wreckage of the platform, the blazing white square of the time machine still floating above it. "The Champions will be here when you're ready to stop being so damn cryptic about this 'Shaping', Aeon. For now, why don't you just go the hell away."

"You have no idea--"

"You're right. I have no idea, none at all, what could have happened to my father to turn him into you." She waved at the immobile form of H.E.R.C. "I've shown you that I'm willing to trust you. How about it, Aeon? Are you ready to take the next step, meet me in the middle?"

Aeon considered her for a moment. There wasn't a quiver in the girl's face, a tear in her eye, nothing to indicate she was either frightened or saddened by all this. Standing as straight as he could, Aeon gestured toward the time platform, which was still hanging in the air at the former level of the time square. It winked out of existence.

"I should have done that long ago. And you--" Some wreckage shifted nearby and the barely conscious form of Dr. Bong lifted from the rubble and hovered into view. "--must stop toying with forces you haven't a clue about. I am not a reality-displaced duck, Bong. You will find me a much more challenging opponent."

"Just... wanted... to be... happy again."

"So did Dr. Doom, five years ago, when he tried to use the time square to go back to the time of his mother's death. My predecessor threw him into the vibrational no-man's-land of the timestream, with no hope of ever landing anywhere. He remains lost there and will for the rest of eternity." Aeon flinched, and pressed his hand again to his hemorrhaging side. "The Champions have saved you from that fate. This time.

"Ant-Girl. I assume you can deal with this criminal."

Cassie nodded. She didn't quite trust herself to speak.

Aeon turned away from Dr. Bong and the villain collapsed atop the rubble. "Fare thee well, Champions. We will meet again. Sooner than either of us likes."

And he was gone. No pyrotechnics to mark his passing, no special effects. One moment he was there, the next he was gone.

"H.E.R.C.," Cassie said softly, "override code: 'Zeus' mercy'."

"Verily, the son of zeus doth not care to be treated in this way, friend Cassie," the robot said behind her, his eyes flashing again to life.

"Sorry big guy," she replied distractedly, putting her helmet back on. Turning to Iceman, she said, "You alright, Manuel?"

"As alright as I can be, boss." He rubbed a hand over his head, shaken.

"Let's get out of here, then... there has to be some kind of transport left somewhere in the castle. Greg, can you subdue Bong?"

Greg said he could, and proceeded to bind the villain in the Bands of Cytorrak again. As the Champions made their way out of the room, Cassie turned and looked at the spot where her father -- where Aeon -- had been standing when he disappeared. As if on cue, an electronic beep sounded in her helmet, signaling the end of a process that had been running for several minutes.

Months ago, shortly before they'd sent the original Champions back to their home time 10 years in the past,* Cassie Lang had collated her own research with information she'd gleaned from talking to Barry Allen, the Flash. Barry was only a police scientist -- and though a good one, his scientific knowledge was years behind Cassie -- but as the Flash he possibly knew more about time travel than any other hero from that era or since.

(* See MV1's Champions #40-41 -- Russ)

And Cassie had taken the little tidbits he'd thrown her way and used them to cobble together a device that, in theory, would track Aeon back to his home ground. Would allow the Champions to take the fight to him for once.

"Got you, daddy" she said to the empty room. "Watch your back."

Then she turned and left the chamber.

Yeah, like I'm going to make you sit through a letters column after that issue. Look for letters on Champs #45 and (hopefully) this special in issue #46, winging your way in a few short weeks.

Until then, keep the love.

- Russ Anderson
3 October 2001