What? His birthday?
“I don’t have to fight you,” declared Echo. “I can make it so you were never born.”
Wait… huh?
Oh my God. Luke just realized who the bat mutant really was. Could it be? No. It couldn’t be.
“Luke?” Luke asked.
Echo stopped in his tracks. The other guy’s voice did sound a little familiar. “Luke?” he asked back.
“You popped out of the sphere,” battle-suit Luke said. “Didn’t you? But Uncle Charlie and the others weren’t there, were they?”
“No… hey, how did you know that?” Echo asked.
“Luke… I’m you! From another timeline.”
“What? No way.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t know I’d create a timeline duplicate by changing my own history. But it happens, every time.”
“What? Really? Well, I guess that makes sense,” said Echo. “Temporal stacking, right?”
“Right!”
Mastermind, kneeling over his now-larger portal outline, shook his head. What were they talking about? Whatever. It didn’t matter. He placed his crystal in the center of this bigger pink circle.
“So there’s two of us now?” Echo asked.
“Well, kinda. Sorry you got mutated, buddy.”
Echo shrugged. “Whatever. I kinda like it.”
“I know. You’re—”
“Batman!” Echo exclaimed. He laughed. “Just kidding. I go by ‘Echo’ now. Cool, right?”
“Totally.”
Mastermind rolled his eyes. He marked an upside-down “U” with two smaller circles on each end. The portal instantly opened as Mastermind scurried backwards as quickly as possible.
The open portal immediately began sucking in a lot of air. The abandoned starship – and a lot of icy cold darkness -- waited on the other side.
Luke’s HUD started flashing all kinds of warnings: “New portal opened. Danger! Danger! Massive vacuum!”
“What the?” Luke turned around. He saw Mastermind flying away to safety. And a whole lot of air and sand rushing towards the portal. Tumbleweed rolled in. Wind started blowing from all directions – all draining down into that hole.
He needed to close that portal – fast. He reached over for his arm – wait, where’d his crystal go?
High above, Mastermind started laughing. “Looking for this?” He held Luke’s crystal in his other hand. He must’ve grabbed it when Luke was holding him up, and got distracted when Echo appeared! Mastermind dropped it over the portal. “Whoopsie! My bad.”
A small tornado of dusty, sandy air had begun swirling around the mouth of the portal. Like all the water swirling down the bathtub drain – except it was all of Earth’s atmosphere, draining out into deep space!
The crystal fell straight into it.
Luke jumped after it. But he was too far away. He reached for it – and missed! The crystal went down the drain, disappearing somewhere on the other side, somewhere in that abandoned, exposed-to-empty-space starship.
And now the swirling vortex had caught him, pulling him down, rapidly sucking him to the same doom. He saw the blackness of space beneath him. He had only a split second to react. He disappeared in a flash – and teleported to safety several hundred feet away.
The winds still blew, growing stronger, all moving down towards that hole. But he was far enough away to hold his ground.
“If I can’t have Earth,” shouted Mastermind from the distance, “then no one shall!”
He flew away.
Luke looked back at that growing tornado as more and more of the Earth’s atmosphere rapidly drained out into deep space. He had to do something. He had to do it fast. He looked back at Echo. They’d have to finish this another time.
Mastermind was almost out of view. But not entirely. Especially with Luke’s HUD tracking and zoom vision.
A flash of white light.
Luke teleported directly in front of Mastermind, all the way in the distance, high up in the sky. Mastermind abruptly collided into his armored suit.
“Goddammit! That’s really getting annoying!” he exclaimed.
“Give me your crystal!” Luke demanded, holding out his hand. He wasn’t playing around. This was urgent. Every lost second meant more and more of the Earth’s atmosphere gone.
“What for?”
“We need to close that portal, Mastermind!”
“In your dreams, space man.”
“You’ll die too!”
He grinned. “No I won’t. I hear Aquaria’s nice this time of year.”
“But…” Wait. That was perfect. As soon as Mastermind opened up a new portal, it’d automatically close the old one. Luke smiled inside his helmet. “Go ahead.”
“Oh, and if you’re thinking my escape will close that portal, guess again space cadet. That rule only applies to individual crystals, not portals in general.”
“What?”
“You heard me. The only way to close that portal is with the crystal that created it. And it’s lost somewhere in deep space right about now.”
“You son of a bitch!” Luke threw another punch at him. Mastermind dodged out of the way. Luke attacked again, but Mastermind was clearly much more agile in the air. The villain started laughing.
Oh yeah? You think that’s funny?
He was close enough. Luke teleported again.
Mastermind vanished with him.
They reappeared dangerously close to the mouth of the portal. Sand and dirt swirled violently in the air. The tornado of dust and debris escaping down the portal made it difficult to breath and nearly impossible to see. Well, for those whose faces weren’t protected by a high-tech space suit, anyway. Luke immediately shoved Mastermind to the ground, leaned on top of him, and pushed his head back over the open, sucking portal.
“Get off me!” Mastermind demanded.
Luke pushed Mastermind’s head deeper into the portal. The relentless vacuum pressure and icy coldness of deep space gave him a splitting headache. His eyes started icing over.
He screamed out loud.
“Your crystal, Mastermind.”
“Never!”
Echo watched fearfully from a distance.
“…Master?” the bat-mutant muttered.
“Save me!” his master commanded.
But Echo was afraid. He knew what that portal was capable of. It sucked down a giant alien snake creature, and all its deadly little babies. He wanted to save his master – but his instinct for self-preservation was just a little bit stronger.
Mastermind yelled, “Damn you, save me!” He started slipping. The sand beneath him started sliding, draining down into the portal too. Luke stayed on top of him. There’d be no escape this time. But the strong winds and sliding sands drew them both closer and closer to a mutually dark fate.
Mastermind stared into Luke’s visor. “Damn you – I’m taking you with me!”
Mastermind shifted his weight, kicking his legs up into the air – and using his new power of flight – flipped them both backwards, down together into the dark portal. He clutched tightly onto Luke’s arms – the sucking force was too strong – they both went in.
“Master!” Echo cried out.
There was a flash of white light from the other side.
And suddenly, both Mastermind and Luke appeared a hundred feet away, on the desert surface, safe from the swirling and growing vortex. For now.
“I knew you wouldn’t let me die,” mocked Mastermind. “You would’ve killed me by now. You had your chance.”
Luke sucker-punched Mastermind right in the face.
“Oww!!!” His nose started bleeding.
Mastermind started to scurry away. As soon as he was free, he launched into the air, quickly flying away.
Luke held up his hand. Aimed the shot. Fired.
The red cutting laser struck Mastermind hard in the back. Sliced right through him. A few inches to the right, and Luke might’ve shot him straight through the heart.
But this was only a flesh wound. But it was enough to ground Mastermind. The villain fell and crashed hard to the sandy surface, sliding forward several feet on his face.
Echo ran over to his master.
“I SAID KILL HIM!” Mastermind shouted at his mutant servant. “KILL HIM NOW!”
“But Master…” Echo pleaded.
Mastermind held his hand over the open hole in his chest. The laser cauterized his wound – no blood. Just a dark hole. Suffering in pain, and realizing he was quickly losing this battle, he looked up at his bat mutant, rage filling his eyes, and demanded, “Go back in time and prevent him from ever being born! I don’t care. Just kill him now – or I’ll kill you like I did your parents!”
Echo’s first impulse was to move. Mastermind gave him a direct order. An explicit command.
The instinct, the impulse, the overwhelming desire to obey swelled up from within him. But… something else started to swell up from with Echo’s mutant bat body too. Anger.
Mastermind murdered his parents.
And he saw it happen over and over again inside that sphere. It was how he got his power of time travel. And he still couldn’t save them. Echo’s fists clenched. He wanted to obey his master. He had to obey his master – but he refused to obey the man who killed his parents in cold blood!
Mastermind was the reason his life was a mess. Mastermind took away his family. Mastermind took away his dreams. Mastermind took away his very life. Turned him into a mutant. He’d never love again. Never live a normal life again.
Mastermind was evil… and Mastermind must die!
“N…no,” Echo struggled to say.
“WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME?” Mastermind growled.
Echo fought the greatest internal battle of his life. His body wanted to move. His body felt like it was on autopilot. If he just let go for one fraction of a second – he’d instantly travel back in time and murder his younger self. But no. He held on. Barely. Struggling. Losing his grip. But he summoned all his might, all his will, all his strength – and mustered up the courage to say the words, “I said no.”
Luke smiled.
“Stupid bat!” Mastermind shouted. He grabbed Echo’s arm, spun him around, and tossed his straight toward the swirling vortex. The gusts of winds rushing down that portal caught his wings, rushing him even faster to his doom!
The sand and dirt flew everywhere in his face. The wind carried him uncontrollably, faster, into the spiraling death. But Echo wasn’t about to give up. Not like this. His master betrayed him – and he wasn’t about to let him get away with that.
Seconds before Echo disappeared down the swirling vortex, he closed his eyes, concentrated – and everything around him shifted into a red blur of light.
He reappeared three seconds earlier – right behind Mastermind. Mastermind had just tossed Echo towards the portal. This Echo – from three seconds in the future – shoved Mastermind from behind, as damn hard as he could, launching the villain uncontrollably towards the portal. The same winds caught him too. The villain dropped to the ground, clawing his fingers into the sand, but the suction force continued to draw him in – closer and closer – and closer – “Help me!!!!” he shouted, until finally, Mastermind fell over and vanished inside the pitch-black portal.
At the same time, Echo watched his slightly-younger self get sucked towards the portal, and at the last second, disappear. He saw himself time travel, back to this current moment. And since he didn’t change his own history – just his future – there was no new timeline duplicate.
Awesome.
Luke saw the whole thing.
“Oh my God,” he said. “You just killed him.”
Echo turned to look at Luke. But said nothing.
“I…”
Echo stopped him. “Mastermind’s dead. I don’t have to obey his orders anymore.”
Luke let out a sigh of relief.
“Go live your life,” the bat mutant said. “I can’t.”
Luke felt sorry for his timeline duplicate. “I…” There was one part of this plan he still hadn’t figured out. What was to happen to all the mutants, after Mastermind was gone? They couldn’t just live normal lives in society anymore. Where would they live at all? “Come with me,” he said. “Stay with me.”
“And live like a human?” Echo asked, doubtful.
“Yeah. Or, you know.”
“No thanks.” Echo looked at the vortex over the portal, still growing, still sucking in Earth’s air, still getting worse. “Besides, you have something more important to take care of right now.”
Damn. How was he supposed to close that portal now? Mastermind had the only other crystal. Both crystals were now lost somewhere on the other side of that portal. Lost somewhere in deep space, for all he knew. He needed a crystal, fast, to close this portal – while there was still enough air left on Earth to breathe!
What about on Eden? His other-other self – the one Kraken killed – did he still have a crystal too? Oh, it didn’t matter. The Edenites would’ve ejected his body into space by now. That crystal was gone for sure.
No, there was only one option.
Luke had to go for it.
“I sure hope this suit is air-tight.”
What was he saying? Of course it was. It was a space suit!
Luke ran towards the portal.
He jumped into the sandy tornado. Got sucked into the vortex – and vanished into the darkness on the other side.
Chapter Twelve
Hero’s Destiny
Total darkness – except for the light and debris rushing in from the Earth side.
Luke’s HUD immediately began scanning the area. He couldn’t see much with his naked eyes. But his visor screen overlaid an image of what he would see, if he could.
He saw the interior of an alien space ship. Nothing like the designs or architecture he saw on Eden, or the pyramids for that matter. His HUD identified and displayed what were probably control panels, power relays, and life support systems. As his HUD analyzed the ship’s structural data, it was clear this vessel had received some major damage. Several cracks. A major rupture up ahead. Probably where all the air was going.
Oh gross. He saw the remains of the multi-eyed alien snake wedged up in the corner, blocking a large part of the wall rupture. Its body was all mangled and twisted. Its teeth broken and chipped. Based on the teeth marks along the nearby wall, it apparently tried chewing its way out of the ship.
And there, inside its mouth, a dim pink glow.
Luke was weightless, floating in zero gravity. But all he had to do was think about getting closer, and built-in propulsion on his boots and backside slowly thrust him forward.
And so far, he could breathe. The suit automatically detected a lack of oxygen, and switched to an internal air reserve. According to the read-out on his HUD screen, he had about twelve hours of breathable air left in his suit. Plenty of time.
He slowly glided up to the dead alien snake’s carcass. He nervously reached inside its mouth. Felt around. It was slimy and cold. This thing was dead, right?
He pushed open its mouth a little more. Reached in a little deeper. He saw it. That crystal. His beautiful crystal. Lodged in the back of its mouth, behind some teeth.
The snake’s lifeless eyes blankly stared back at him.
Luke reached in deeper.
Almost got it…
He felt the crystal in his hand.
“Yes!”
He broke it free. Pulled it out.
Nothing looked so beautiful.
Even if it was covered in frozen alien saliva.
Luke turned around.
MASTERMIND – ice-covered, boiling skin, bloated, and lifeless – floated in front of him.
It nearly gave Luke a heart attack.
He gently pushed Mastermind’s body aside.
It was going to be hard to X-out a portal this big with such a strong vacuum. The easiest and safest way to close it would be to open a new portal
somewhere safe, like to Eden or something. All he needed to do was teleport back to Earth, stay away from the tornado, and quickly open a new portal.
Piece of cake.
Mastermind’s left eye, partially covered in ice, slowly turned and looked at Luke.
A flash of light. Luke disappeared, teleporting out of the space ship. Mastermind disappeared too.
Back on Earth, Luke reappeared several hundred feet away from the portal. The tornado surrounding the hole had grown even larger, reaching even higher up into the sky. Hurricane force winds blew from all directions, rushing towards that portal.
Mastermind’s cold, bloated body crashed down onto the hot sand beside him.
Gross. Why did his suit teleport a dead body with him?
No time to worry about that now. Crystal in hand, Luke knelt down, and quickly drew a small circle in the sand. The trail of pink light glowed as he traced the outline. Then in the middle, he marked the symbol for Eden.
The previous portal instantly closed. Luke looked over his shoulder. The winds quickly settled down and dispersed. The tornado consumed itself – and disappeared. The still-flying sand scattered out as the tornado died, raining down onto solid dry land.
Earth was saved.
Luke let out a sigh of relief. Then he moved the crystal over the small portal to Eden, crossing it out, closing it too.
He stood up. One problem solved. Now… where did Echo go?
He scanned around. There was no trace of him anywhere. Did he time travel somewhere? Where – or when – would he go? If he went back in time to fulfill Mastermind’s orders – and prevent Luke from being born – would Luke still be here? Wouldn’t that create a paradox, and prevent Echo from doing it in the first place?
Just then, something grabbed Luke’s leg.
Or someone rather. Luke looked down. Mastermind was still alive. And quickly thawing. The madman clutched Luke’s leg, pulling on it to help himself up.
“Mastermind!” Luke exclaimed.
Eyes still frosty, face half frozen, he began to chuckle.
“You… can’t… kill me,” he said. “I am… God!”
“You’re not dead?”
He began laughing maniacally. “You can’t kill me,” he smirked. “I really am God!”
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