The words, spoken in the voice of the Golden Archer, sprung unbidden into her mind.

“Linda Lewis . . . when you awaken you will love Wyatt McDonald, the Golden Archer, with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul, an’ you won’t ever be interested in anyone else again!”

Chaos had broken out all around her, but all Linda could see was the impossible sight of the Golden Archer standing on the far side of the warehouse nocking arrow after arrow and firing them into the melee.

“Wyatt . . .?” she half gasped.

Then, as if to make her worst nightmares come true, another, darker Wyatt stepped from the shadows and fired an arrow into Shape from point blank range.

“How?” was all she could think as she stood immobile, unable to make sense of what she was seeing.

That’s when the Black Archer turned in her direction and fired.

REDEMPTION SONG

Part II

By Bruce Cook

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
none but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy
’cause none of them can stop the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look?
Some say it’s just a part of it
we’ve got to fulfill the book.

“Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” screamed the Shape as the arrow pierced his shoulder.

An emerald shield blossomed to life in front the Shape, arrows bouncing harmlessly off of it.

“You okay buddy?” asked Doctor Spectrum.

With a thought, Shape’s flesh moved and the arrow fell from the wound.  A trickle of blood remained when Shape closed the wound.  He gave Spectrum a big thumbs up.

“Good, now let’s find out who these imposters are!”

Shape’s eyes widened and he pointed to the space behind Doctor Spectrum. On instinct, Spectrum threw up a shield.  A mace glanced off of it with a metallic clatter.

Spectrum pivoted in mid-air, coming face to face with a man he’d seen buried, the Blue Eagle.

“I’m not an imposter Joe.  I’m the sins of your past coming home to roost.”

Blue Eagle held the mace aloft again but this p time it crackled with energy.

“That’s new,” thought Spectrum as Blue Eagle swung at the energy shield once again.

The mace made contact and sent a blinding bolt of pain through Doctor Spectrum.  He felt his shield flicker and fade.  His consciousness was right behind it.

Hyperion shook his head to clear the cobwebs.  He was lying on the floor of a Brooklyn warehouse, buried in a stack of crates that had shattered when Skymax had backhanded him.

The sounds of combat echoed around the dimly lit warehouse.

Hyperion shrugged off the crates as if they were made of balsa wood and climbed unsteadily to his feet.

“You won’t win this time,” said Skymax as he stepped between Hyperion and the war taking place in the warehouse.

“Why Skymax? Why!?”

Skymax charged Hyperion in response.

Arcanna rushed to the Whizzer’s side.  She chanted a spell and the duo were surrounded by a protective shield.

“I shouldn’t have come in alone,” he said.

“Does it hurt?”

“Only when I move,” replied the Whizzer, a pained smile playing across his face.

“Let me help,” she said.

Arcanna grabbed the arrow lodged in the Whizzer’s calf.

“This is going to hurt.”

“Just do it,” he said.

Arcanna pulled the arrow out of the Whizzer’s leg.  He let out an agonized cry.

“Hold on Stanley,” she practically whispered as she began he spell.

“Dinb eseht sdnuow.”

No sooner had the incantation left Arcanna’s lips than the Whizzer’s wound closed itself leaving only a ragged hole in his costume as evidence that it ever existed.

“Thanks,” said the Whizzer.  “Now let’s see what we can do to help.”

Arcanna dropped the protective spell.

“The Archer was over th . . .”

An arrow with a weighted tip slammed into Arcanna’s head, stopping her in mid-sentence and sending her to the ground.

The Whizzer pivoted to confront the Golden Archer who had already nocked another arrow.

“The next one won’t go in your leg.”

Neal Richmond watched as his plan went into effect.

This was the moment he had planned for and dreamed of since he’d gotten the word of Kyle’s death.

“Not death,” he thought.  “Murder.”

Kyle had stood up to the Squadron Supreme and paid the ultimate price.  It was his duty to make sure that death had not been in vain.

The members of the Squadron were falling like flies.

Their cries of agony were music to his ears.

“Finish her Rob,” he said into his comm-link.

The Black Archer loosed his arrow at Skylark, hitting her shoulder.  She cried out in pain.  A second arrow slammed into her other shoulder sending Skylark fell to her knees.

“You never loved him,” the Black Archer growled as he stepped toward her, pulling another arrow from his quiver.

“I did. I do. I love you, Wyatt.”

Blood streamed down her arms and tears streamed down her face.

“You betrayed him.  You cast him aside.”

“No!” she screamed.  “I love the Golden Archer.”

“Too bad for you that I’m not him.”

The Black Archer pulled back on his bowstring, his arrow aimed at Skylark’s heart.

Shape stood over the fallen form of Doctor Spectrum.

“You leave Shape’s friend alone!”

Blue Eagle slapped his mace into his gauntleted palm.

“Get out of my way freak!”

“Shape not a freak.  Shape is Squadron Supreme.”

“Then being in the Squadron ain’t what it used to be.”

Blue Eagle swung his mace into the side of Shape’s head.  There was a crackle of electricity and an ugly crunching sound as the side of the elastic Squadron member’s head caved in.  His body fell to the ground beside Spectrum.  Blood trickled from his ears.

“You’re next Joe.”

“Stay down Princess!”

Amphibian punched Power Princess again as she tried to push herself up from the ground.

“Why Kingsley?  Why?” she pleaded.

Another punch drove her back to the ground.

“Because you broke it and then walked away.”

“Broke what?”

“The world, Zarda. The world.”

Skymax picked Hyperion up by the cape.  He held him aloft, looking at his former teammate.

“Things could have been so much different.  You and I were both from the stars.  They adored you and feared me.  Why did they fear me, Hyperion?”

Blood trickled from Hyperion’s mouth.  His eyes struggled to focus.

“I always thought it was the big green ears,” he said.

Skymax roared with rage and slammed Hyperion into the ground.  The foundation of the warehouse cracked and dust filled the air.

Skymax’s features began to morph.  His green alien visage was quickly replaced with that of Hyperion himself.

“We’ll just see if they like me better this way . . . especially Power Princess.”

“No!” screamed Hyperion as he launched himself skyward.  His extended right hand slammed into Skymax’s jaw.  The Skrullian Spymaster tumbled end over end three times before landing on the floor of the warehouse.  He no longer looked like Hyperion, but rather like a very unconscious Skrull.

Doctor Spectrum blinked several times, trying to make the spots disappear from his vision.  When he could final focus he saw his worst nightmare come to life.  Shape lay on the floor beside him in a pool of blood.  His head was caved in.

Blue Eagle stood over them both, his mace bloodstained and crackling with electricity.

“What did you do?” said Spectrum.

“What had to be done.”

“He was just a kid,” cried Spectrum, tears welling in his eyes.

“He was Squadron.  He had to be stopped.”

“No,” said Spectrum, rising to his feet.  “You have to be stopped . . . now!”

Spectrum lashed out with the energy of his Power Prism and created a blood red bubble around the head of the Blue Eagle.  The Eagle dropped the mace and clawed futilely at the bubble as his supply of oxygen evaporated.  He fell to his knees and then to the floor.  When he stopped thrashing, Doctor Spectrum dissolved the bubble.

Then he fell to his knees and cradled the Shape’s lifeless body in his arms.

Spectrum wept.

Skylark watched as the black arrow flew from the Archer’s bow.

She blinked and then she screamed.

Her sonic cry filled the warehouse, shattering the ebony arrow and every window in the building.  Friends and enemies grabbed their ears in a futile effort to block the sound.

Skylark climbed to her feet, still screaming.  She took several steps and picked up Blue Eagle’s discarded mace.  Skylark walked to where the Black Archer lay on the floor and floor.  She hit him in the head with the mace.

“Enough!” she screamed.

Neal Richmond looked on in anger as his plan began to unravel.

“This is not how this is supposed to go,” he muttered.

“What was that?”

Richmond wheeled to see a figure clad in blue emerge from the shadows.

“Who are you?”

In response, the man in blue threw a one-two combination that dropped Richmond.

“I’m the Blue Shield.”

Bodies lay everywhere.  Everyone was hurt.  Nobody could hear.  The second battle between the Squadron Supreme and the Redeemers had ended with a single anguished cry.

Skylark stood in the center of the warehouse, dazed.  The mace slipped slowly from her hand and fell to the floor with a metallic clang.

“Enough,” she whispered.

The air filled with the smell of brimstone and ozone.  A glimmering portal opened in the warehouse and a man stepped out wearing a long maroon overcoat and a matching hat.

“Yes, that is quite enough,” he said.

He crossed the floor and laid a reassuring hand on Skylark’s shoulder.

“It’s over now Ms. Lewis.  It’s time to go home.”

“Home?” she repeated.

“Home.”

The man in the coat waved his hands and the portal widened until it engulfed the entire warehouse.  He gestured again and the portal closed with a gentle whoosh.

The warehouse was empty.

All that remained of the Squadron Supreme was the destruction they left in their wake.

In a nearby warehouse, Haywire lay in suspended animation, forgotten by all.

Or, perhaps not.

Another portal opened and a man in a metal suit, an “M” emblazoned on his chest stepped onto this Earth.

“There you are Haywire.  We thought we’d lost you.”

The man attached a device to the chamber and pressed a button on his gauntlet.

With a flash, they were gone.

The Squadron Supreme and the Redeemers found themselves blinking to adjust their eyes to the sunlight.  One minute they had been fighting in a darkened warehouse.  The next they were outside, beneath a blazing sun.

“Where are we?” asked Skylark.

“Don’t you recognize Squadron City?” the mysterious man asked, gesturing toward the citadel that rose behind him.

“Are we really home, after all this time?”

“Yes.”

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I was trying out Mysterium, but I prefer my own name.  Lightner.”

“You’re the one who banished us.”

“Yes, and I am the one who is ending it now.”

“Why now?”

“I need the boy, but to get the boy I had to take all of you too.”

“No!”

A single voice cried out in the desert.  Neal Richmond rushed Lightner, his eyes flashing beneath his mask.

“They can’t win!”

Lightner held a hand up.  Richmond froze in place.

“Your ideas of right and wrong have no bearing on this, Richmond.  In fact, you and I are needed elsewhere.  Goodbye, Ms. Lewis, and good luck.  You’re going to need it.”

With another arcane gesture, Lightner and Neal Richmond disappeared.

Skylark blinked in the sunlight.

Hyperion was the first to his feet.  He walked toward her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Where are we now Linda?” he asked.

“We’re home, Mark.  We’re home.”

Author’s Note

Well, this one took a while didn’t it?

I knew this was the one where they got home.  I knew what the mechanism was going to be.  I just couldn’t get it right.  It was a nasty case of writer’s block at first.  Then it was a cascading sequence of bad luck in my personal life.  Through it all, these characters kept talking to me.  I knew I had to get the story finished.  And here it is.  The Squadron Supreme, along with a couple of stragglers, are back on Earth-712 (it’ll always be Earth S to me).

Now things are going to get really interesting.

I promise.