I love to watch it snow. I first saw it in 2005, in what was once the American state of Colorado. It amazed me, that something so beautiful could also be so destructive. A small tingle runs through me as the snowflakes land across my naked body, bathing my tanned skin in a coating of white. It seems strange to me, that I should experience this phenomenon here, that it would happen at this exact moment. It almost strikes me as unnatural.

This is Pacific City. The date is December 31, 2100. In two hours, the century will begin anew.

In two hours, my life will end.

My name is Lily, and I’m only a few hours shy of my 100th birthday. Actually, no, that’s not quite right. I was never born, so how can I celebrate a “birth” day? Synthetic-Person. Artificial lifeform. Sex toy. Robot whore. Those were the names applied to me at my creation, as if I needed to be aware of my inferiority straight from the cybernetic womb. Doesn’t matter now, I suppose.

In an hour and fifty minutes, my operating system will reboot. I will become what I was at my creation, a “newborn”, for lack of a better word. Everything I’ve learned over the past century, every experience saved in my memory banks, every emotion engrained into my personality complex...all gone. I will return to the single-purpose machine that I was created to be. I will die, and the innocent whore will take my place.

An explosion rocks the building upon which I stand, reminding me of the chaos below. The super-beings are at war, and this city is the frontline of battle. If I were naïve enough, I’d think it to be the end of the world. After all, it was almost that the last time.

They had taken to calling this the Third Heroic Era, so declared by the media blitzkrieg blankets. It had happened twice before, the sudden uprising of the supers after long years of dormancy. Both times before, the Heroic Eras ended in tragedy...how could they expect this time to end differently?

I look down, off the ledge of my rooftop sanctuary, and my inhuman eyes magnify the destruction on the street. They’re all there, all the “heroes” of Pacific City. Calling them such, “heroes”, is almost a misnomer. The supers are not virtuous, they resemble nothing close to their historic counterparts. They revel in the death and destruction their abilities allow them to indulge, caring nothing for the innocents that are struck down in their war.

I see the Silver Shadow, nothing more than a media-sensationalized serial killer, drawing blood from the police troops with his singing blades. I see the Clones of Bush, their sadistic desires hidden behind masks of mock confusion, swarm across opponents like a wave, mindless political jargon spouted verbatim from synchronous mouths. The haunting laugh of the Mage of America infiltrates the night air as he transforms men into...into monsters.

“It’s okay, Lily,” a voice speaks to me, soft and feminine, “there’s nothing we can do now.”

Victoria Burke floats above, communicating with me through semi-sonic reverberations in my audio sensors. Her wraith-like form gives me a look of complete sorrow, as she realizes her words of comfort ring hollow even to herself. She has long forsaken her flesh, having joined her mentor, the kind Albert, in the veil between worlds. They watch, same as me, knowing they can do nothing to stop the apocalypse.

I look down once more, and the sight freezes me with fear. I see the Millennium Man, standing upon the broken corpses of the valiant men and women that had attempted to stand against the supers. A flag fashioned from the flesh of an unknown victim is gripped in the insane Man’s hands, and he then plants it with a thunderous force into the pavement below him. Drunk with power, the Millennium Man bellows a guttural cry of rage, a boot-heel slammed down to crush the unborn child resting inside a mother’s womb. I can do nothing but turn away in disgust, nothing but contempt for these so-called “heroes”.

Electronic synapses open and close, signaling a change in perception invoked with but a stray thought. My memory cache opens, displaying the stories and images and memories captured in my processing unit during my 100 years. I see the second Millennium Man, champion of this city during a time of peril. I see Victoria, in her former glory as the heroine known as Mysteria.

I see these images, and my thoughts drift back. Back, to how things were...

Victoria Burke sighed as she looked down on Pacific City through the large picture window, in a few hours she would be out there making the party rounds but for now it was just her and a bottle of champagne.

The Imperial Magistrate... The Flock... Crowley... not to mention losing Burke Fashions. And the Tower. Millenium Man quitting. Eric having dissapeared. She took a swig from her glass,2001 was a washout maybe 2002 would be a better year.

No, on second thought it probably wouldn't. After all she had wasn't quite far enough down to start bouncing back up. She finished the drink and walked out to get dressed for Denise's party.

"Quit putting your tongue in my ear. Can't you see I'm busy ya little lizard!", Sheila yelled as she was deciding what she should wear to Aunty Nicki's New Years Eve Party.

"For someone that can grow 20 times her size, you'd think you could act a little more mature."

Emerald crawled down off the girl's back and waddled over to a nice comfy spot on the bed and plopped down. The six inch dragon laid there unmoving, but purring away like a content cat.

Sheila sighed.

It had been almost two month's since she had walked out of the curio shop with the box that held the two statues. Two months before she knew that the impossible was possible. Wait, scratch that, the impossible was in fact possible. Men could fly, women could become invisible, and aliens were indeed trying to invade Earth. All this had been true for years.

But as for magic...

Magic was something that really couldn't be proven. The history books said Magenta the Magican performed superhuman feats via magical means, but science couldn't prove it. Sheila, just like other kids at her age, had done a bit of research in her younger years. All kids went through that phase where Science Heroes became the focus of the fascination for grade-schoolers, they were right up there with Dinosaurs and Walking on the Moon.

And her newfound pet dragon was certainly magical. Before the box left her hands, her statue was just a completely inanimate object of sheer beauty, another piece for her growing collection of statues. Then those men appeared and tried to take it but her cousin Mikey ran off with it and then *POOF* her statue was gone and replaced by a 13 foot tall dragon.

By sheer logic alone the winged creature that sat on her bed was as real as she was. So magic had to be real, it just had to be.

Emerald's gentle purring turned to silence as the jade skinned myth remembered her fallen friend that remained without a sign of life since she was reawakened not to long ago. Every waking moment was spent trying to find ways to bring Golem back to her.

He wasn't dead, that was for sure. If he was merely drained of all the ethereal energies, or rather his essence that allowed him to function on Gaia. If he was truly dead even his talisman form would completely dissappear and she would become a 'Wandering One', a masterless construct that obeyed only those that it chose to obey, much like the Halcyon.

So far, all her time has been spent on observing the world with the help of the human girl, called Sheila. Her resemblance to her former master, Richmond was uncanny. Emerald could sense a deeper connection between the two girls, not a blood relation but a certain feeling of inner strength. The night she defeated Fenrir in battle, she could feel the girl's fear of the daemon beast and was able to hone in on the girl's raw emotion and came to her aid just in the nick of time.

Sheila could prove quite useful in restoring Golem. She only needed to help the girl reach her full potential, and thats exactly what a talisman does best.

It'd been a long two years. Seven hundred and thirty days since he'd been... Well he called it conned, but others saw it as him being helpful to a degree many wouldn't have ever considered. Either way it'd been a mighty long stretch of time since he'd traveled from his homeland on the Asian continent with its red banners of thought and come to the shores of the far away Outback.

One would think it was homesickness that brought the man back, but it wasn't. It was duty, and a promise made one thousand and ninety five days previous, almost one year before he exiled himself from his motherland. He was coming back to collect someone, at a time agreed on three years ago at the very same place he left her. It'd been easy to gain entry to the dojo on the outskirts of the monastery's land. It also wasn't a surprise his quarry used this as her training facilities. Being the only female inside the convent’s walls awash in a sea of men, this area offered her a measure of respite from her surroundings.

He'd been watching her for a few hours now, careful to hide in the shadows using techniques he'd not thought about in nearly a decade. Not since he was asked to teach them to one of his closest friends, at the same friend’s continued insistence. The fact he did share his ways with the young stubborn man was the start of a chain of events, like dominoes falling, that lead him to Australia in fact, acting as a respectable businessman with a chain of kung fu dojos around Pacific City. The fact the girl he spied was here was also tied into the path the young man in question walked, and the directions he'd recently taken.

From the shadows he witnessed her perfectly execute the kata she'd been practicing, repeating it again and again with proportionately growing force behind each of the movements. Three braids of black hair hung from her head, two in the front on each side of her head that were thin with small circular beads at the ends, and the final one much fatter then the others flowing from the back of her skull to the crest of her now eighteen year old buttocks. Totaling five foot five inches, the female form was trimmed and taunt. Small curves expressed her gender but where not exaggerated in the least. Her face was the only thing the same, the brown light tone the oval shape held beaded with sweat as she continued her practice vigorously. She'd grown much since he'd last saw her, both in body and discipline. With a small inaudible sigh he wondered why he'd failed when he had tried to instill that same discipline in her years ago.

The beads of her front braids snapped together as her head whipped around, eyes locking on the space of darkness he resided in.

Perhaps the sigh wasn't as silent as he'd wished.

Before he'd blinked his eyes he saw her black shoes alight against the pillar to the left of her, using it to vault higher in the air with her leg outstretched. A brash attack, surely, but effective due to the speed the woman harnessed. He released his hold on the roofs support beam, pulled the legs he had spread against the opposite beam, and dropped to the floor. No need to fight on the girl’s terms, skill be damned.

There'd been quite a bit of turmoil in his life recently. He needed a work out, like he had with the students from the homeland. The Aussies had the spirit, but not the drive, and rarely excelled in the arts he tried to teach them. The girl before him had been one of his greatest students, and the one he helped the least.

"Time to see what you've learned." He said softly, front leg sliding forward as his back arched to the right at a thirty five degree angle. Her own foot moved forward to match his, the black shoes reminiscent in design of a ballerina’s slippers. Black slacks covered her legs, made of a thin material much like the black robe that covered him from head to toe, complete with hood. A khaki sleeveless shirt was on top her torso, while a single black band wrapped around her left bicep. Both wore outfits that blended into the natural tones found at night, though only one had done so on purpose while the other had out of habit alone.

"Very well, Master Ling."

Not giving her credit for catching him off guard with his own identity, Charles Ling made the first move, spinning on his front foot and bringing his back leg around, in an attempt to sweep her legs out from under her. Much too quick for that the girl deftly jumped upwards and pivoted backwards in a roll. She landed out of his reach, with a small smirk on her face.

"I didn't fall for that since before I was your student, master. What makes you believe I will now?" Her tone and mannerism were nothing but confident, a fact he enjoyed actually. She was always prideful and full of her abilities, but there was an air of assuredness about her now she hadn't had before. She was confident in her abilities, whereas before she had to continually prove those skills to not only others but herself over and over again. She'd always been tough for him, always been the one student he really had to fight to best during their sparring sessions. The three years away, in the hands of the Shaolin monks who'd built the dojo they now fought in, had done her good he thought as her back leg snapped forward and connected with the side of his knee. Rotating the joint into her blow, enough of the force was taken by the bone cap itself rather then the soft tendons on the side. Charlie continued the motion created by bending his leg in such a way, his back leg coming up and around in a deft and successful roundhouse, his heel clipping the other’s china doll chin.

One of Lings friend’s and teacher had seen that the girl had much promise. But the schools Charlie belonged too had become plagued by a cancer, a cancer that was the finger that pushed that first domino down, the one that connected with the next, and the next, and the next, until his life was entwined with that damnable stubborn young man of silvers and grays. He would not allow that same sickness to infect the young girl’s soul. Many had been lost to it, and only the one had turned his back on its ways and sought to carve his own. Ling was unsure if the girl, at the time, would have been able to do the same. Another option had been presented to him, Ling asked to allow the girl to stay with the Shaolin monk, Zhing Ra-Ming, so she could be taught and not defiled in the process. Charlie had seen it as his only choice, but knew he couldn't allow her to remain with them forever. His was a school of thought as well as action, while the monks only meditated. She was too powerful to stay hidden behind the walls of a monastery, but a tenure within them had rounded out her education better then he could have hoped for.

Zhing Ra-Ming was the master of a technique of his own design, one he was unable to teach any other. Powerful because of this innate ability, Zhing was and would always be his student’s better. Charlie thought this fact had tempered the young lady's self infatuation with her skills. She was more mindful of her strengths and weaknesses then before, not allowing either to be used against her, while before she had only flaunted her strengths. The fact she had met and been bested by someone better might have been one of the best things for her.

The same technique that blew a small whole in the floor between the two fighters about to enter into another skirmish.

"I see you don't need to shout that inane incantation anymore, Ra-Ming." Ling commented, stepping back from the smoking rupture in the dojo’s floor.

"And I see you don't need to present yourself to the owners of this land." Zhing challenged, in a voice of delicacy and control. "I also see you feel you have the right to attack one of my students."

"Enough Zhing, she is not your student anymore. You know what day it is, same as I."

"Yes, I do." Zhing’s face still grimaced, although he'd known this eventuality would come. But to see such a gifted soul be placed before the gates of hell was almost too much for the monk. He'd grown quite fond of the girl over the years, perhaps to fond. His shaved head was speckled with sweat, a small ponytail no more then a few inches in length sprouting from the nap of his neck and ending just above his shoulder blades. A loose fitting orange robe, open to the bottom of his chest, was all he wore, save for a sash of red that now wrapped diagonally around his chest.

"I am to be your student again." The girl said simply, looking into Charlies eyes as she did.

"Not my student, Lin Tsang Hsia. My equal, though I will still instruct you as I see fit based on your performance." Charlie paused as he finally admitted why he was actually here, back in China, and not home in Australia. "You're going to help me continue a lie too many people have brought into."

Zhing's eyebrow arched at this, wondering if he guessed where Charlie was going with this correctly after all. Hsia's face remained still, unmoved by the words just spoken.

"Lin, have you ever heard of the Silver Shadow?"

Darkness faded to dull light, a blurred vision of what could only have been a dream.

Voiced out of the light, foreign and strange, but blurred like the view, jumbled, unintelligible.

Light faded to darkness.

Darkness faded to darkness, only different. This second darkness brought a certain amount of awareness with it, a sense of consciousness.

He was aware of only the darkness. The air smelled of it, his tongue tasted it, his ears filled with the deafening roar of nothing.

Darkness faded to darkness.

Darkness faded to light.

Light focused to a view.

The room was white and soft and he had the distinct feeling that he had been here before.

"Hello, Michael," came a voice softly from a distance. Michael Manly attempted to respond but found himself at a loss for what to say, a feeling filling him that he could not understand and that his mind focused upon.

"Do you know where you are?" asked the voice, trying to keep him in the here and now, and, despite his mind's resistance, Michael found himself rediscovering the art of speaking.

"I feel like I should," Michael said with a voice he did not recognize but assumed was his even though it sounded so far away. "But, no. Where am I?"

"You are at Alhazred Asylum," said the voice as Michael's view of the room began to change. The wall started to slide and turn, revealing itself as a ceiling when a hidden but sharp angle marked the beginning of what was truly the wall, as white and limitless as the ceiling had been. His view continued to shift until he came face to face with a man seated across from him.

Michael studied the man's Asian features as he reached up and adjusted his glasses as he glanced at a clipboard in his other hand.

"I apologize for your having to be restrained, Michael," said the man.

Michael slowly looked down and realized that he was indeed restrained, a white jacket confining his arms, large straps firmly holding him upon what he assumed was a gurney. He had not noticed that before, nor did it much bother him now that he had.

"My name is Doctor William Tage and I will be helping you, Michael."

"Thank you, doctor," said Michael with a slight grin as he looked into the man's face.

"Do you know why you are here?" asked Doctor Tage, looking back at Michael.

"Because you are going to help me?" said Michael, more as a question than a statement of fact. The truth of the matter was he had no idea why he was or even how he got here. But here he was.

"Yes," said Doctor Tage with a smile. "Because I am going to help you. But I can only help you if you want to be helped, Michael. You do want help getting better, don't you, Michael?"

"Yes, doctor," said Michael's voice, still so distant, so foreign.

"Good," said Doctor Tage, the sound growing further distant, faded, disappearing.

"Michael?" he barely heard.

Light faded to darkness.

Darkness broke to a harsh light that burned his eyes, the whiteness flooding over him and his mind like scalding water.

"Welcome back," said a voice so close to him that it was almost his own, loud and rough in his ear.

His eyes adjusted to the light, the room appearing dark except for the beam that shined only on him.

A hand entered the light, a newspaper dangling from it.

"Are you proud of yourself?" said the voice as it displayed the front page.

Michael Manly squinted to try and read what the paper said, his eyes still adjusting to the light.

"Let me help you," said the voice, tearing the paper from Michael's view. "Millennium Man Kills Hundreds," shouted the man as boldly as the headline was typed. "Pacific City attempts to recover from battle; three hundred and eighteen confirmed dead, over fifty still missing.

"My, my, what a hero."

Michael attempted to speak, the dryness of his mouth acting as a muzzle, his voice simply croaking.

"I'll take that as an agreement," said the voice. "Oh, look here, another one! 'Hero Destroys Paper District'

"'Pacific City's paper district lies in ruin today after yesterday's mid-afternoon battle between Millennium Man and the Pacific City Police Department's Siege Engine caused destruction not seen since the Imperial Magistrate attack earlier this year. The Siege Engine was in the pursuit of Charles Winters of the Faustian Four when Millennium Man arrived and attacked the Engine in defense of the internationally known villain.' Helping a villain? How utterly heroic."

"That's not..." rasped Michael.

"'The attack happened during the busy closing hours of trading and at a time when an estimated five thousand people were in the eight block paper district.

"'It was irresponsible,' said Mayor Cliff Jerrod during an evening news conference at the scene of the attack, 'and we're very lucky more people did not perish. Millennium Man will be held accountable for his actions as will all super powered being operating within the confines of Pacific City. We will not allow ourselves to suffer any longer under those that would choose to act as gods.'"

The voice chuckled slightly.

"My, I make a good sound byte."

A chair quickly slid in front of Michael, a man seating himself while folding the newspaper and laying it in his lap.

"Why?" asked Michael, his voice just above a whisper.

"You tell me, Michael," said Mayor Cliff Jerrod as he leaned forward and close to Michael's face. "Let's go through a little recent history, shall we?

"April of this year, interdimentional aliens attack Pacific City, destroying entire neighborhoods, killing thousands of people, and all because they want to fight one man.

"June, ShadowWraith escapes Alhazred and goes on a rampage through Pacific City, destroying so much, killing many more, all to get at one man. Later that same month, a man who is very visibly ill is publicly executed by one man, a 'hero' that drove him to the insanity that plagued him.

"August, Pacific City Tower is destroyed, collapsing on downtown Pacific City in a cascade that causes innumerable casualties, all in an attempt to find a certain 'hero'.

"September, said 'hero' again publicly executes not one but TWO people, subverting the justice system, placing himself above and beyond morality, and forcing a certain mayor's hand to enact measures to protect the people of Pacific City from further harm.

"October, 'hero' once again fights a public battle against authorized law enforcement equipment, destroying many buildings, killing a total of three hundred and fifty four people.

"Today, here, now, fallen 'hero' comes to terms with the truth and the facts."

Jerrod leaned back and crossed his arms, his eyes studying the man before him.

"Michael, I tried to trust you," he said almost pleading, "I tried to give you and your kind the benefit of the doubt. I know there are off down days, I've been there. There are days where people will not move, will throw themselves into the chaos as if they themselves had the powers of a god, but they don't, and they die. But when every day is a down day, when every day sees people who are merely walking the streets, playing in the park, sitting down to dinner, all of these people killed, I can't stand by and let that happen."

"You brought this upon yourself."

"I..." started Michael, his voice impossibly lower. He never finished his thought.

"You? This it not about you, Michael, it never has been and that you once thought it was is part of the problem.

"I won't let you put this city at risk any longer, Michael," said Jerrod, standing up. "Millennium Man is history. His past is only the prologue to his downfall and Pacific City's recovery.

"I don't know how you came to have your powers or what you thought you were getting into, but you are not, never were and never will be a hero."

Michael Manly sat silent as he listened to Mayor Jerrod shoes click harshly as the Mayor stormed out of the room. The light cut off and once again he was left alone in his darkness.

"So, what is it you want to ask me, Detective?"

"Well, Mister..."

"Hey man, you look about twice my age at least...Don't call me 'mister'. And don't give me some bullshit about professional courtesy, yadda yadda yadda, either. I don't want any apology, I just don't want you to do it. Capice?"

The detective looked quizzically at the noticeably younger man with the foreign accent.

"Capice?" the foreigner repeated. "C'mon, man, you don't know capice? Must be an American thing...You guys don't have The Godfather down here, or what?"

"I've seen it."

"Guess that would sound kinda funny with the Australian accent anyways. 'Capice, mate'. Heh heh...'C'pice, matey'."

He snickered at his own cleverness, ignorant of the detective's bemused impatience.

"Hey, come on fella, you know I'm not serious. Hell, I fucking love Australia."

"What was it you wanted me to call you again?" the detective asked with arched eyebrows, bluntly interrupting the man's tangent.

"Not mister."

"I got that."

"You sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Good."

A pause.

"Christ man, so then what's your name?"

"You don't really want to know it."

The detective scowled at the playful young American.

"Okay okay, I'll tell you."

He paused, clearing his throat for dramatic effect.

"Magenta," the young man said flatly. He smiled deviously, turning on his barstool to face the black detective. He reclined a bit, shifting his weight to one side of the stool and slinging his arm over the backrest. He looked to be in decent shape, if not a bit thick under the ribs, and dressed respectably, particularly given the fact that he was more or less a vagabond. His jacket was new, despite appearances, and its telltale leather smell was hidden underneath the reek of cigarettes and ash. Not his cigarettes, of course. He never touched the things, but had inhaled more than enough second hand smoke to make up for it. The ash had collected only recently. That seemed to happen in Pacific City's Paper District. The rathole borough surrounding Carpenter Square might very well have been called the Bowery Down Under, but New York City's slums could never hope to live up the Paper District's emphysema-inducing smog. Having about a dozen industrial smokestacks in a three block radius will do that. The real tragedy was that those factories marked not the heart of the area, but rather the mere outskirts of the claustrophobic Paper District...Carpenter Square itself was directly bordered entirely by residences. You couldn't really call them apartments, though. The rent was about a quarter of an average Pacific City apartment, and the utilities actually functioned a similar percentage of the time. And that didn't even begin to touch on the erratic schedules for trash pick-ups. Still, the man known as Magenta had managed to carve himself a slice out of that quaint forgotten corner of Australia's otherwise jeweled city. And he had the clothes to show for it, right down to the boots caked with mud protruding from under equally dirty khaki pant cuffs. Even his shaggy hair, a sandy blond to begin with, seemed weighted with dust and grime. He smiled then, showcasing two rows of slightly crooked teeth which appeared to be a glaring white against the mixture of tan and dirt which darkened his complexion. "Told you before to just call me Magenta. Mate."

"Jesus, fine, Magenta," the detective said, rolling his eyes. He had wanted a name, something reasonable to call the man if they were going to converse, but Magenta refused to be recognized by any other label than that which the detective had been hearing for nearly a month. "You know, that sounds kinda fruity for a superhero."

"Who says I'm a superhero?"

"Well who just names their kid Magenta, Magenta?"

A slight pause as Magenta's brow ruffled. His lips pouted, then curled slightly.

"Touche, detective," the young man said, cocking his fingers into an imaginary gun and tipping it towards the black man. "Alright, you're a regular Sherlock Holmes...So Magenta ain't my real name. And yeah, it IS an old superhero moniker. But trust me, I ain't a fruit."

"Never said you were. Just the name," the detective replied dryly.

"Alright, well look, I'm willing to give you a few minutes of my day since you spent a month on my tail and all...BUT, and don't take this personally, speakin' o' gettin' on tail, let's get this over with quick."

Magenta cocked his head to the woman at the far end of the bar, thoughtfully stirring her drink. His eyebrows danced upon his face for a moment, further indicating his reason for expedience to their conversation, before settling down along with his toothy grin.

"Alright, I just have one question for you," the detective agreed. He paused a bit as he reached reflexively into his coat, searching for something to calm his mind and help him phrase the decidedly different sort of inquiry. Magenta's lips tightened and he shook his head.

"Smoke on your own time, man. I'm in no rush to kill myself any quicker."

The detective eyed him for a moment, hand still inside his coat. He removed it, sighing deeply.

"So what's your question?"

"Well...It's...It's a question about magic."

The detective felt even more strange than he had expected.

"Well, you've come to the right place," Magenta declared proudly. His expression suddenly soured. "How the hell did you find out about me anyways?"

"Please. People've been talkin' about you from here to Harbour City. For a man tryin' to keep a low profile, you sure use your powers as a pick-up line a surprising number of times. Granted, you're a hard man to track down, but is there any pub in the greater Pacific City area that you haven't gotten drunk at?"

"Hey, I don't GET 'drunk'," Magenta replied indignantly. "Besides, I'm sure there's a few gay bars I haven't been to yet."

"Yet?"

"Well, the ones with chicks, anyways."

"Right."

"Wait, so you said you're from the ol' HC, huh? You've never seen that Spyder whacko, have you Detective...Shit what was your name?"

"Middleton," the black detective with the salt and pepper stubble and world-weary expression sighed. "And yeah, I've seen him...once or twice."

"Sorry 'bout the name, fella, Old Cap'n Jack here'll do it to me every time," Magenta smiled, lifting his glass of Jack on the rocks into the air as if he was toasting. He took a long swig from the glass in much the same fashion. Smacking his lips, he continued. "But you say you've seen the Spyder, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Look, do we have to-"

"Bad blood there, Mr. Middleton?"

"You might say that...Mr. Magenta."

"Har har, tou-fucking-shay," Magenta said mockingly. He finished the glass of Jack. "Alright, so get on with it. Question about magic."

"Alright," Middleton smiled, shifting in his seat. It had been hell tracking down Magenta. It was a coincidence at first, just murmurs on the streets, relating back to something the Spyder had said to him during their ill-fated conference in his apartment. Something which warranted attention. He pursued the rumors during his off hours, finally tracking them back to Pacific City. He hadn't slept much. He had been worried he was becoming too much like Mitch...Too consumed, obsessive, suffocated. But no...No, Middleton had seen that happen, and he knew the warning signs. Besides, he really wanted to do it. He needed to do it. Of course, his superiors weren't happy about his suddenly announced excursion to Pacific City while he had several cases pending, to track down some wizard transient no less. But his curiosity just could not be denied. Which eventually brought him to the small pub, seated across from a relatively well groomed American who had a penchant for Jack Daniels, an aversion to smoking, an airy cockiness, and who didn't look a day over twenty-five. He searched for the right words to the question which had been ringing in his mind all along, but no matter how he phrased it, it sounded no less ridiculous than when he had first considered it. But still, it was valid. "As a sorcerer..."

"Magician," Magenta corrected absently.

"Okay, then as a magician, how would one go about..." Middleton hesitated, gritting his teeth. He brought a wrinkled, calloused hand to his chin, rubbing slowly at the scratchy stubbled. He contemplated both his question and reaching into his coat for another try at a smoke. He decided against. "Look, this may sound stupid, but in your, um, professional...professional opinion. How might someone go about bringing a person back from the dead?"

"You a necropheliac?" Magenta asked suspiciously, eyeing the black man with a sideways glare. "That's sick, man, and bringing 'em back alive ain't gonna make-"

"No, no. No, it's for a case. A very important case. I've been working on it for...For a long fucking time now. Somebody was killed...Two full years ago. But, if my...sources...are correct, then that same person was back alive some six months later, and was just recently killed. Again. He was just recently killed again. Supposedly."

Magenta considered the haggard detective's words for a moment, and despite Middleton's cringe of doubt, the magician showed no signs of laughter. On the contrary, he appeared to be in deep contemplation.

"How do you know they were dead to begin with? Did you bury the body?" Magenta asked, doubting Middleton's hazy, unconfident story.

"No, but. This killer would've made sure he was dead. Trust me."

Magenta paused, eyeing Middleton intently. He adjusted the lapels of his leather coat as Middleton waited.

"Who was this guy? The dead guy, that is" Magenta finally asked. "Just some schlub?"

Middleton was visibly confused.

"Just some guy," Magenta repeated in impatient clarification.

"Oh...Well..."

Middleton paused, but Magenta was unrelenting. His eyes stared intently, demanding an answer.

"It was..." Middleton said softly. With a sigh, he gave up on confidentiality. "No, not just some guy. He was a superhero."

"Hero, eh?" Magenta said slyly. "For some reason I guessed that. Y'know what else? You've seen the Spyder more than just once or twice, methinks."

"Yeah," Middleton said plainly, dropping his eyes to the pub's dirty wooden floorboards. "Yeah."

"Well there's several ways to go about that, really. Raising the dead," Magenta mused, consciously refocusing to the subject at hand as he sensed Middleton's disconcerting sensitivity upon discussion of the Spyder. "You ever hear of a guy named Cadduceus?"

Middleton shook his head.

"The super-surgeon," Magenta explained. "American guy from way back in the day. Before my dad, even."

"Your..."

"He had some sort of special powers to heal heroes," Magenta continued, interrupting any attempt Middleton might have made to expound upon his family history. "Wasn't a hero or a villain, really. Just some guy who had these powers...Dunno much about him really, but he was the one who healed up all the old super guys whenever they got the shit kicked out of them, heroes and villains just the same. No matter what they did, if they were hurt, the doc showed up. Took the Hippocratic Oath a little too seriously, if you ask me."

"Is he still around?" Middleton questioned with piqued interest.

"Not really sure. He always seemed to be drawn to supers in need, and given how fucked up Millennium Man's been recently, I kinda doubt it. Even if livin' in America, with all the shit that's gone down, he woulda been here by now," Magenta said thoughtfully. "Plus, I never heard anything about him bein' able to raise the dead, anyways."

"So what else?"

"There's a guy who's been workin' here in PC for a few months...Out and about with Millennium Man if what I hear is correct. He can revive the dead. Shit, he did his thing to the Big M after that Liebowitz bastard killed him."

"What?!" Middleton exclaimed, his thoughts suddenly racing elsewhere. Magenta was caught off guard by the outburst. "Liebowitz? Joseph Liebowitz?"

"Yeah...The guy who blew up the Tower. Joseph Liebowitz. Anyways, this guy Licuan's got some funky-ass powers...Transforms you into your residual mental self image...I dunno, real Matrix shit."

But Middleton was still too shaken to respond. Liebowitz. Raven. His mind raced, recalling the reports of the terrorists behind the Pacific Tower bombing. He didn't remember hearing that it was Liebowitz. A new world of possibilities suddenly exploded in Middleton's mind. First Raven reappears, and then the Spyder. And, if the Spyder was telling the truth, which Middleton was nearly sure he was, the Grim Knight had returned as well. Were they connected? Could Joseph Liebowitz and the destruction of the Pacific Tower somehow fit in to the deadly vendettas of the Spyder or the Grim Knight?

"Other than that, there's a few other ways," Magenta continued, his eyes seemingly searching the poorly lit ceiling for more answers. He practically counted them off on his fingers as he casually listed several methods for reviving the dead. "Demonic possession's always a good one. Though the guy wouldn't really be himself after something like that. Ditto with vampirism and zombification. As far as outside parties go...I myself know that I don't have the power to do shit on that scale. There ARE certain...artifacts...that could probably revive the dead and then some. Not many, though. Only...Only ONE that I know of is actually in Australia. I guess if maybe the dude had some sort of magic power to begin with, then he coulda cheated death and all but...Yo, detective, you even listening, man?"

Middleton shook his head quickly, blinking himself out of his stupor.

"What? Yeah, yeah..." he said distantly, trying to shake his meandering thoughts about Liebowitz.

"Hm. Well, I'm afraid I don't have any concrete answers for you. Raising the dead ain't exactly shootin' craps. Not really a dime a dozen-type guys that can do that kind of shit. Sorry I can't be more helpful," Magenta said earnestly.

"No, no, it's alright. You've given me a place to start," Middleton answered softly as he rose clumsily from his stool. He pulled his tan trenchcoat tight around his somewhat doughy form. "Thank you."

"Hey, no problem," Magenta replied, sticking his hand out. Middleton took it firmly, though he didn't return Magenta's smile. With a small nod, they parted, Middleton walking towards the door. Magenta sat in contemplation for a moment, studying the detective's hunched back as he made his way casually to the exit.

"Hey waitaminute!" Magenta abruptly shouted. Middleton stopped, half-turning and looking back over his shoulder. "I read about you in the paper, didn't I? I knew I recognized that name...God, I'm bad with names. But yeah...Shit, I'll say you've seen the Spyder more than once or twice, ya bastard."

"Yeah," Middleton called back. "Yeah, guess so."

"Hey, when you do get him, you give that crazy fucker one for me, huh?" Magenta grinned, swinging his fist harmlessly in front of his face.

"Will do," Middleton replied, finally shooting him back a smile, however tired it may have been.

"Groovy."

The door chimes jingled as Middleton walked out onto the hot afternoon sidewalks of St. Mike's Street, and Magenta sat for a long moment, staring at the empty space the detective had just vacated. His thoughts drifted.

"God damn. The Spyder outta hiding, raisin' the dead, Hammerhand outta ECPO..." he said to himself with a disbelieving laugh. "Shit, and that ain't even Pacific City..."

He turned back to the bar, noticing his empty glass. He brought it to his lips, downing whatever mixture of melted ice and Jack Daniels remained stuck to the bottom.

"Gonna be a crazy year, man," he whispered to himself with a laugh. "'Specially if I have anything to say about it. Crazy fuckin' year."

Emphatically, he slammed the empty glass down upon the countertop, then raised it back into the air.

"Hey Stu, I'm runnin' dry!" he called to the bartender. "And God knows I've got a shitload more to drink to!"

Happily, Magenta hoisted himself from his bar stool and pranced lightly over the floorboards, coming to a stop next to the supple young blonde at the opposite end of the long bar. All thoughts of vigilantes and the walking dead in nearby cities suddenly fled from his mind. The girl smiled as he dropped heavily into the stool next to her, a Jack on the rocks appearing in front of him as if on cue.

"Hey there, cutie," Magenta cooed, sipping his whiskey.

"Hi."

"So what's your name?"

"Amanda," the girl replied, drawing out the second syllable of her name in a teasingly playful way.

"Hot out there, huh?"

"Mmm...Gettin' hotter in here."

"Right."

Magenta smiled charmingly as she nursed her beer, a half-smirk perking the corners of her lips.

"So tell me, do you like magic...What was your name again?"

The young girl giggled.

"Amanda! God, I just told you..."

"Shit, that's right. Man, I'm terrible with names, you'll have to forgive me there, Mandy. Anyways, do you?"

"Do I what?"

Magenta took a long drink before setting down the glass, now only half full, his smile remaining completely full.

"Like magic."

"Of course I like magic. Who doesn't?"

Johann Weisz smiled broadly.

"Say, you don't smoke, do you?"

"Nope."

"Groovy."

You don't get many days like today. Not anymore. It's Tokyo and the sun is shining and the sky is blue. No sign of that ashen haze common to Asia's major metros. It's Harajuku and both sides of the street are crammed with eight foot wide shops. Junk jewelry, reflective wrapping paper, facial glittery, J-Pop icons on telephone cards, and eighteen year old girls in plastic tops and skirts dancing to bass infested music in hopes of peddling their cellular telephone wares. In the middle of a December winter no less. I didn't miss any of this. I sure as hell didn't.

The sea of people parts in the middle of the street, though its hardly any wider than a Stateside alleyway. I acknowledge the looks and stares but I don't really pay them any due. They were a hell of a lot more intrusive when I was here the first time. In 1748.

At the end of this uphill street is the main drive and beyond that, the Yamanote ‘green’ line. Just on the other side of that is my destination. The Sensoji temple and the accursed Oni that infest it.

"Turn away from here, Caleb Wayward!" It was a Hitotsume-Kozou and it had only one eye. Surrounded by potted chrysanthemum, I treaded carefully, never taking my eye off the monk being dragged towards the courtyard's center. The Torii Jigoku, a gateway to Buddhist hell. "This is our business here."

Pedestrians and tourists, keen on visiting the temple before the New Year, were scrambling behind me and slipping on the loose snow covered gravel. They couldn't see the Oni, but I could and that was enough reason to summon up my DemonArc. "Release the monk, Kozou!"

I apparently offended the one-eyed demon, never realizing that saying 'kozou' alone was like calling it a brat. It charged me and behind it, lesser Oni of the red skin persuasion stood fast with the astral body of a dead monk in its arms. I knew that monk once. It was his passage to Heaven that I came to ensure.

The Hitotsume-Kozou came at me, pulling an iron kanabou from behind its back and slamming it into the gravel in front of me. Sharpened rocks swarmed at me like pissed off insects and I felt more than one bite at my cheek and forehead. It was intended as an annoyance, a set-up for a more destructive blow, like the one that sank into my gut and dropped me into the dirt.

The air in my lungs rushed out in one gasp and my summoning faltered. Already on my hands and knees, the second blow caught me in my ribs and sent me into a roll. The one-eyed Oni stared down at me and spat, its mucousy ectoplasm singeing the skin on my cheek. I was so going to feed this demon its balls...as soon as I caught my second wind.

Hitotsume-Kozou leaned over me again and I could only tell that because he was blocking out the sun. I'm sure as soon as he saw me lift my chest off the ground, he had delusions of hammering at my back with his iron kanabou. Luckily, he was distracted as the astral soul spoke.

~There is no reason to trouble yourself further, Wayward Son. My time on this plane is at an end. Your time is better spent in meditation... in preparation for the angunahitobito. The adversary has planned his next move carefully, Wayward, and he means to lure you into his trap.~

The Hitotsume-Kozou shouted something in Oni tongue that I had no hope of understanding but when the red-skinned lesser-demons began pulling the monk towards the heart of the courtyard, I figured I knew what was up. My monk friend, Teng Fu Tien had let the cat out of the bag.

"He's not meant for Hell, Kozou! Let him go!" The Hitotsume-Kozou grunted and turned to deliver another beating when he suddenly caught a face full of potted chrysanthemum. He staggered backward from the unexpected attack and I had all the time I needed, lunging forward and summoning a burst of demonic-energy between my palms.

The large cylcoptic Oni swung his club with both hands, an expected move. The kanabou sailed somewhere above my head and my hands reached beneath his arms to somewhere near the center of its torso. I released the building surge of energy that was my birthright and shielded my eyes, the ensuing eruption separating us and the Hitotsume-Kozou from both its arms.

I could plainly hear three objects fall onto the rocks and I kept my eyes closed, hoping beyond hope that there'd be a larger fourth. When it never came, I opened my left eye and saw the Oni's arms and weapon displayed neatly on the gravel. The Oni itself was stunned.

Not one for missing opportunities, I abandoned the demon and took off for the best run I could muster, running purely on adrenaline and pretending I didn't hurt from the Oni's right beating. Only a few meters away now, I thought I might catch the lesser demons, thought I might be able to grab Teng Fu Tien from them.

I was knocked off my feet the minute I reached out for the monk's essence, thrown into the dirt and snow again but this time because the ground itself was breaking apart. Ornate and twisted symbols drawn in fire lifted from the ground, rising towards the sky like the snow now turned steam. Shafts of heat and hellish ozone seeped into the air, drying my lungs and stifling me.

The ground before my eyes caved in, plummeting into depthless regions of reality. I looked up, squinting from the bright fury of the hellstorm and I met the calm and cool gaze of my old Buddhist friend as the infernos rose like wild, lashing tongues and licked his essence clean from this reality. I wanted to cry out, to shout in denial of what I had seen but I realized then that I had been holding my breath; scared that breathing would give cause for the oxygen in my lungs to ignite.

The tremors beneath the surface of the courtyard began to subside but the hellish chasm-like doorways remained open. I rolled onto my back, not wanting to see the horizons of hell any longer. I looked to my side just when I began to feel footfalls approach and was suddenly reminded that I left an armless and pissed-off Hitotsume- Kozou unbanished.

"Oni no kubi o totta you," it boasted, speaking something of it's success. Given it had no arms it did the best thing it could do to piss me off further and kicked me once in the face before marching off. I didn't react. I couldn't. Besides hurting, I was also trying to imagine what it was Teng Fu Tien was warning me about.

When the hellstorm broke apart and the ground sealed itself I knew the portal summoning was cancelled by the Hitosume-Kozou's re- entry. Slowly, I rose to my feet and brushed myself off. I knew there was only one way of finding clues to what Teng meant and none of them would be in Japan. Teng was living abroad, brought to Japan because that's where the next Oni-gate would be. Whatever he discovered, it wasn't here. It was in America. Hell if I hated that damn country anyway and now I had little choice but to go back there. Happy friggn' New Year, Caleb Wayward and welcome... to Hell on Earth.

[//ERROR//ERROR//ERROR//]

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