Jack Power groaned from the strain in his arms. The faint smell of blood from his chafed wrists filtered into his nostrils, reminding him of the nightmare he had stumbled into. He opened his eyes and looked around the dank room.

Nothing had changed.

He was still chained up in a room somewhere under the surface of Los Angeles. He was still surrounded by three others in the same situation. There was still no hope as long as the collars hung around their necks. They were under the Provost’s control.

Only Piper had her eyes open when Jack looked up. The girl who called herself Paper Doll gave him a weak smile. It had been her astral projection, sent at great risk for her own well-being through whatever two-dimensional objects it could find, that had led him here. She’d been hoping for a savior, but instead had snared another victim. Jack didn’t blame her, though; she already blamed herself enough.

“You okay?” he asked, though he already knew the answer.

“I will be, when this is over,” Piper said. She blinked three times in succession, causing Jack’s heart to beat faster. Was that the signal that she had reached someone else?

Jack surveyed the other two teens in the room. Aaron was turning fitfully against his chains in his sleep again, the nightmares from the dimension his powers came from attacking his mind from within. The wiry teen was called the Shadow Machine for a reason, though no one was quite sure where exactly he got the name. All they knew was that it described him perfectly.

Opposite Aaron, stirring at the sound of the nightmare, Victor opened his eyes. His face shifted into a grimace of worry. Electricity sparked across his eyeballs, though even that display of power was risky when the Provost was in control. Victor gritted his teeth and stared at Aaron with worry.

Piper shuddered as the sound of tapping began to echo down the hallway. Jack looked at Victor and mouthed, “Provost.”

As the word disappeared from Jack’s lips, the door to the underground room swung open, revealing the Provost himself. He carried with him a metal rod, tapping it against the floor as he walked. His busy beard was unkempt and was a sharp contrast with his bald head. He was Asian, though Jack couldn’t tell if he was Chinese or Japanese or what. Los Angeles had its fair share of a population of either.

The Provost surveyed the room, eyeing Aaron, still shaking in the throes of a nightmare. He whacked the boy across the stomach with the metal rod, shocking him awake with a pained moan.

“Sleep is something taken for granted. You will appreciate yours from now on,” the Provost said. He looked around the room. “Tonight, you will be unshackled. Tonight, there is something you must do for me. Those who work will receive a passing grade. Those who fail will find themselves turned to stone. We don’t want that, do we?”

Despite their disgust for the man, the four teenagers found themselves shaking their heads.

“Good,” he said, slapping the metal rod in his hands. “You may or may not have heard that there is a power gap in Los Angeles. The Pride has fallen, and time has shown that it remains so. Tonight, you will be my soldiers, letting the city know that there is a new power here.”

He grinned wickedly. “Tonight, we set Los Angeles on fire!”

THE HANDS OF SET

Part II: Prodigal Children

By Hunter Lambright

Nico Minoru woke up, rubbing her head. “What just happened?”

“We got our asses handed to us is what happened,” Chase replied, brushing his blond hair out of his eyes. One eye glowed with white energy, as the other had gone pitch black at the core. “How do you like that?”

The sound of muffled sobbing killed the conversation. Primo Falcone rested at the edge of the empty grave on his knees. Karolina had her arms on her shoulders, playing the mother that none of them had any longer. She held him, but offered no condolences. There were none to be made.

Alex Wilder appeared suddenly with a rush of wind. “Just ran a two mile perimeter. No sign of Viper. He got us good.”

“Now what?” Karolina asked, the kaleidoscope glow of color from her skin casting an ever-changing light on the scene. “We can’t just give up.”

“We’re getting Matti back,” Primo said. “My brother’s already dead. I’m not letting anything worse happen to him.”

Nico opened her mouth to speak, but Alex’s words caught hers in her throat. “He’s right.”

“He’s right?” Nico asked.

Alex continued. “I don’t know about you guys, but I am sick to death of being fucked around with. Our parents are villains, our parents are dead, but random grandparents show up and make us think the opposite? Screw that, man. We don’t have enough control in our lives to screw up the chances we get to take it.”

“This might sound really freakin’ weird,” Chase began, “but I’m with him. How else did this guy know about us if he’s not connected to the ‘rents, anyway? Time to cut the cord.”

“Before we go any further, though…is everyone okay with this?” Alex asked, his eyes lingering on Nico’s. “I don’t want anyone doing something they don’t want to be doing.”

“I’m in,” Karolina said. She looked down at Primo, whose tears had turned into a resolute grimace. The look on his face was answer enough.

Chase shrugged. “You know where I stand. Wouldn’t mind going back for some tech, though, with my powers acting all wonky.”

“We’d have to go back anyway,” Alex said. “I want to cross-reference some information to try to figure out where Viper went. What about you, Nico?”

Nico looked at the ground before responding. “I’m in. We’re a family now, like it or not. We’re doing this together.”

“Yuck!” Molly said, wiping her hands down on her pants. “Stupid sewer gunk.”

The sewer pipe was large enough for an adult to walk through, though not necessary comfortably. For Molly’s twelve year-old physique, walking was not a problem. “Creepy voice, where do we go now?”

There was no response. Molly pursed her lips, looking forward down the tunnel and then back over her shoulder. Her eyes glowed pink, and for a moment, time froze around her. “That way,” she whispered, unsure of how she knew, but naïve enough not to question the feeling.

This was going to be Molly’s adventure, the one where she proved to Alex that she could was just as good as any one of them.

She’d show him how to save the day all right. She just had to.

Alex plugged in the W.A.T.E.R. headset into his father’s mainframe, collating all of the most recent police reports and trying to make sense of them. He was hoping he would get a hit for an orange-clad man with a green mask, but there was no such luck. So far, the only thing he could pick up on were a series of petty crimes, which was nothing out of the usual for the City of Angels.

“Find anything?” Primo asked, hovering over Alex’s shoulder. He was restless and unwilling to leave Alex’s side until he knew they had a plan of action. Alex didn’t blame him; in a similar situation, he’d have done the same.

Alex shook his head. “So far nothing. All we’ve got are a bunch of different convenience store robberies and some looting going on…” Alex’s words dragged off. “Wait a second.”

Pulling up his parents’ documents on super-villains around the country, Alex dug up the holo-file on the Kingpin. “Wilson Fisk, former Kingpin of Crime in New York City. Status: Incapacitated [dead?]”

“Skip to tactics,” Alex ordered.

The W.A.T.E.R. system followed orders. “Tactics of the Kingpin. Wilson Fisk is often known for having the resources for distraction, setting into motion a series of petty crimes across the city while distracting completely from the major drug or weapons shipment he would be receiving. The tactic has worked on Daredevil and Spider-Man for years with an 87% success rate.”

“That’s it,” Alex said. “Get a map and some pushpins, Primo. Let’s figure out where Viper is trying to distract us from…”

A grizzled old man with vaguely Japanese features and an American flag pin secured to his collar stepped out of the back of his sleek Rolls Royce and onto the sidewalk. The driverless car, upon the sound of the door slamming shut, pulled effortlessly into traffic and into a parking spot further down the road. Appearances were deceiving. Graham Minoru may have appeared frail, but he ranked among the best magic users of his time.

Maneuvering his way through the commuters, Graham found his way to a coffee shop on the corner. It was by far not the best in Los Angeles, but that was the point. He ordered his drink and took a seat at the table with the old woman in the corner.

“Mother,” he said, greeting her with a kiss to the hand.

The woman, her skin taught against her high cheekbones, eyed him with an oil-and-water cross of affection and disdain. “Please, Graham. Witchbreaker is my title. Business meetings, business names.”

“I apologize, Witchbreaker,” Graham responded.

“Forget the apologies,” the Witchbreaker said. “Formalities are an excuse to delay the topic of conversation for which I asked to meet with you.”

“Please, I’m rather in the dark about what you’re talking about,” Graham said, scratching his head.

The Witchbreaker cleared her throat pointedly. Graham accepted his coffee from the barista and turned back to his mother. “You were old at the turn of the century, so you understand the importance of patience. I would rather it were told to me directly, Witchbreaker.”

“Your son Robert is alive.”

Graham’s tongue burned as he forgot to swallow his coffee. His eyes widened as he gulped. “Excuse me?”

There was a shimmering in the seat next to Graham, between himself and the Witchbreaker, as the chameleon glamour was deactivated. “Hello, father,” Robert said. “It’s good to see you again.”

The Witchbreaker broke in. “Robert survived the gunshots by Control’s people, not knowing that he was being manipulated by a woman who had made a deal with the real Gibborim all her own. He’s spent the time since then recovering from his wounds. You had quite the astute child. He remembered how to reach me through the tarot shop in Chinatown.”

“Why didn’t you come to me first?” Graham asked. “I thought you were dead, son! I visited the empty graves the children made for you and the rest of the Pride.”

“I would have, as soon as I was done healing, but something happened during the night of the Threaded Moon, when Uncle Topher tapped into the family magic,” Robert said. “I felt my daughter’s presence and she felt me. But we both felt another presence, one that we did not recognize.”

“It was probably mine or the Witchbreaker’s,” Graham offered.

Robert shook his head. “No, father, I’m afraid that’s not the case. It’s the reason I sought out the Witchbreaker first. We believe that it’s the energy of—of my son.”

“Son? That’s not possible. Tina miscarried.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Robert asked. “The Witchbreaker showed me where my Abstract, my history of the Pride had been manipulated. Geoff Wilder took my boy from me and did something with him, and I intend to get my boy back.”

“I’m starting to understand that you already have a plan, son, but how exactly do you expect to do that? Geoff Wilder is dead,” Graham said, taking a sip of coffee as he thought.

“Geoff may be dead, but he’s not the only Wilder still alive,” Robert said.

Graham’s eyes darkened. “Cornelius,” he whispered.

Robert and the Witchbreaker both nodded. “Cornelius.”

Cathedral of St. Jude, Patron Saint of Lost Causes

As churches go, the Cathedral of St. Jude had its fair share of stories surrounding it. Popular myth held it that its first pastor was also a ringleader for the alcohol trade during Prohibition. Stories abounded of murder, both among its parishioners and within the church itself. More than once, the building had caught fire. The most recent time had led to its final abandonment.

Seven altars were arranged in a circle around the central pedestal. The central pedestal snaked upward toward the center of the lesser cathedral’s domed sanctuary. Black soot was layered over every surface, leaving the entire building a sense of instability.

“Dead snakes,” said Cornelius Wilder, tracing the circle of altars as he dragged his toe through the soot. “Who but the Devil can make snakes live again?”

On the altar lay the corpses of seven men of various ages, races, and walks of life. They shared just two things in common: they were all dead, and they were all imbued with snake-like powers. The skeletal remains of Basilisk and Death Adder lay nearest each other, both victims of the Scourge of the Underworld. Cottonmouth, Bushmaster, and Rattler, better preserved but still decaying, made the next three altars, all victims of Malekith the Accursed. The last two altars were occupied by the forms of Matti Falcone and the newest man to take the name of Viper, both recently deceased and showing no outward signs of that besides their wounds. Together, they would be the Hands of Set.

Wilder approached the center pedestal and picked up a thick and well-worn book with a bluish cover. The ceremony began.

Alex kicked open the door of the cathedral, breaking the boards that had sealed it shut. “Let’s go, guys. W.A.T.E.R. is reading some weird energy in this place, so watch out for Viper.”

Nico drew one of her fingernails along her forearm. A trickle of blood appeared, causing her body to go rigid. “WHEN BLOOD IS SHED, LET THE STAFF OF ONE EMERGE!” she said in a voice that was not her own. The Staff emerged from her chest in a flash of light.

Chase flexed the fingers on his Fistigons and clutched the Lightning Rod in the other hand. He’d left his goggles at home, unsure of how the yin and yang of light in his eyes would affect them. With his newfound powers acting up, he had wanted to come prepared. So far, his father’s technology was the only thing that hadn’t failed him.

Karolina stripped the medical bracelet from her wrist, flooding the area with the full spectrum of visible light. Though the sun was just setting, her glow was not dimmed.

Primo, the most determined of them all, concentrated on the falcon tattoo that had appeared on his body at the beginning of the entire misadventure. Though he still knew nothing about its origin, it was the only connection he still had to his brother. The energy exoskeleton emerged around him in the shape of a giant falcon.

With a series of silent nods, the Runaways burst into the cathedral.

Alex zipped in first, and standing stock-still in front of the pedestal was where they found him when the rest of the Runaways bolted in. They had come for Viper. Instead, they found someone else entirely.

“What’s wrong, Alex?” Cornelius asked from above. “I’ll admit, your timing is rather inconvenient, but surely you’ve always wanted to meet your grandfather.” He smiled, but it was devoid of warmth.

“Granddad?” Alex asked, his mouth refusing to work correctly. “You’re…dead.”

“Sure, I’ve missed a few birthdays and Christmases, but that’s no way to treat me for that,” Cornelius continued.

Alex’s face grew cold. “I am so sick of this shit! I am so sick of people like you—people who aren’t even supposed to be alive—fucking with our lives! Make up your mind!”

At that moment, Primo saw Matti’s body. “Give me my brother back, you old bastard!”

Cornelius’ grin turned sinister. “Boy, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.” He beckoned to someone in the darkness. “This is a night for family reunions. Jaden—hold them off.”

Nico gulped. This was the dread she had been feeling.

He emerged from the shadows with a face etched from stone. No emotion could be read; there was only stoic determination. The teen’s black hair was cut short and spiked. Every muscle on his body was taut, ready to spring into action at the smallest movement. In his right hand, he held a staff etched with the semblance of waves, the exact counterpart to Nico’s fiery Staff of One. He was her opposite in every way.

He was her brother.

Cornelius turned from the scene to continue to read from the skin-bound volume, his chants slowly increasing in volume. Nico opened her mouth to speak. Jaden attacked.

“Think fast!” Alex shouted, activating his speed power to intercept Jaden’s attack. He held up a forearm against the boy’s kick, but instead ran through the illusion and slammed into a pew before he could correct his trajectory. “Watch out, he’s making illusions!”

“Makes me regret leaving my infrared goggles at home,” Chase muttered, throwing fireballs at another illusory Jaden. “Bet he’s made the real him invisible!”

“If you are this group’s tactician,” whispered a voice into Chase’s ear, “then this will be easier than Mr. Wilder suggested.” Chase felt the impact of Jaden’s staff at the base of his skull before he hit the floor.

Alex watched Chase crumple to the ground. “Watch out! He got Chase!” His words were empty as he, too, was floored by Jaden’s staff, first at the knees and then atop the skull.

Primo ignored the fight around him, making a beeline for Matti’s body. His actions were met with a squawk of protest as the falcon exoskeleton was hit from above, at the base of the bird’s skull. The exoskeleton faded, but Primo stood up, gritting his teeth. “I’m not letting you win this one!”

Jaden shimmered into existence in front of him. “I’m not sure you have a choice.” He pointed with his staff. “SLEEP.”

Primo felt his limbs grow heavy, stumbling forward even as his body fell to sleep under him. His face was already on the stone floor of the cathedral before his eyes finally closed.

Karolina hovered in the open air of the sanctuary, firing blasts of light at illusory Jadens. She had just decided that she would never be helpless again, but she was quickly realizing that there were some situations she was unable to control. On instinct, she surrounded herself with a shield and was rewarded by the sound of air rushing from Jaden’s lungs. He landed on the ground near Nico.

“SEVEN OF CUPS,” Nico said, pointing the Staff of One at the illusions. They disappeared, leaving only the Jaden that had been repelled by Karolina’s shield.

“This is where this fight was always meant to end,” Jaden said. “Favored child, kept by a family that loved her. Never more than now have I wanted to prove that I am your better.”

Nico fumed. “The instant I felt our connection during the Threaded Moon, I tried to find you. You weren’t abandoned. You were stolen!”

“You’re lying!” Jaden screamed, swiping at the air with his staff. “Mr. Wilder told me you’d try to tell me lies. He told me you’d try to bring me to your side and turn me against him! He was right!”

“You’re going to believe this guy?” Nico asked incredulously. “Every adult is evil! Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

Jaden’s face contorted in rage. “BLOODBOUND!” he shouted, just as Nico screamed, “EXPELLIARMUS!”

The energies from the staff met between the two and exploded, sending both siblings reeling. As the smoke cleared, Wilder’s chanting was interrupted by the creaking of the cathedral doors. Nico could just barely make out a hand offering to help her up.

“Expelliarmus? Really?”

Nico shied away as the figure grew clearer. “D-dad?”

Robert Minoru stepped back from his daughter, flanked by Graham Minoru and the Witchbreaker. “I suppose this is bad timing, Nico, but it’s time to meet the rest of your family.”

“Stop posing!” came a voice from above. Karolina, still in the air, pointed toward the pedestal. “We’ve got trouble!”

Wilder had stopped chanting. The sanctuary grew cold.

“We are too late,” the Witchbreaker whispered.

The seven altars glowed with the reparative energy from Wilder’s spell. Slowly, the bodies on the altars pieced themselves back to their prime. Bullet wounds were erased and decay was reversed. The bodies were made whole as the power of Set was invoked. Then, as one, their eyes opened, all glowing with yellow energy.

“Go forth, Hands of Set!” exclaimed Wilder. “Kill those who oppose your master!”

The Witchbreaker pulled a staff of her own from somewhere within her robes. Robert’s contorted his hands, drawing sigils. Graham drew a short, stubby, ornately-carved wand from his pocket. “I’m getting too old for this,” he muttered.

The Hands of Set jumped from their altars and into the sanctuary, puppeteered by Set himself.

“We’re really going to burn down Griffith Park for the Provost,” Victor said, shuddering. “I thought you said we were going to get out of this, Piper.”

“We still might,” Piper said, staring at her feet. She was no happier about the situation than any of the rest of them, but a special burden lay on her shoulders for being the only one with the ability to communicate outside the sewers.

Jack put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, Piper. I believe you.”

Aaron stopped, causing the entire group to come to a halt. “What is it?” Victor asked.

“Up there,” Aaron said, pointing. Before them, coming down the pipe, was a pair of pink dots of light. As they grew closer, it grew more and more apparent that the dots of light were eyeballs—the eyeballs of a very short person.

Piper grew sick to her stomach. This was the girl she had contacted. She had thought that the girl would bring help, her entire team of friends, even, to save them from the Provost. “It’s a newcomer,” she said, afraid that she would vomit rather than say the words. “You know what the Provost wants us to do with newcomers.”

Victor nodded, swallowing as Molly came into view. “Yeah, I know. Convert or kill.”

To Be Continued…