Origin, Chapter Four

All were kneeling as the laboratory swam back into focus, all overwhelmed by the tide of emotion that had submerged them, all unable for the first seconds to speak or even find the words that could describe what they had been through and learned. Finally, it was Phoenix who broke the silence.

“We…we nevair knew,” she whispered, her tones weak and unsteady. “Not even our parents guessed, when zey made zeir initial computations. Always we blindly believed ze anti-mattair mutation ’ad made ze original Phoenix no different to ’er clones…zat I ’ad zerefore as much right as any of zem to call myself Phoenix…but now we know, we were wrong! Ze original Phoenix Neetkins…she was different, she aged, she grew, when we othairs did not! All zis time, she ’as been alive and out zere in ze world!”

“You wanted the truth…and now you have it,” Phoenix Prime declared hollowly, speaking not to Phoenix but to Neetra. “I’m the girl who was beside you in the womb, not that…thing over there! So will you stand aside, let me do what must be done to her, and then take her place as is my right?”

“Not while there’s one breath left in me, or any of The Four Heroes,” Dylan told her, summoning up his powers and rising shakily to his feet. Joe, Bret, Neetra and Amy, though just as groggy, did the same.

“I am Phoenix!” Phoenix Prime yelled, her voice hoarse and wracked with passion. “How can you still sympathise with her and not me, knowing what you do?”

“You may be a genius, Phoenix Prime, but there’s a whole load you don’t know,” Neetra said, as two tears trickled down her cheeks. “We sympathise with you, more than you can ever understand. But if you think arguments like that are the kind The Four Heroes listen to, you don’t understand the first thing about us either.”

Phoenix Prime stood up.

“Your psychic powers are greater than I imagined, sister…I’m too weakened to continue,” said she. “Be sure that next time, I’ll have fully protected myself against them. On that day, when next we meet, I’ll show no mercy to any of you!”

With that, the girl held up her arms and discorporated one last time into burning bolts of fire. Before The Four Heroes, Phoenix and Amy could so much as move to stop her, the fireballs fled through the laboratory windows and doors and were gone into the darkness.

Our heroes stepped out of the Military Control Centre into the lit-up street. The night air was cool and peaceful, but nobody felt their adventure had ended in triumph. Phoenix, her glasses dangling from her hand, was weeping as if she could not stop.

“Ze real me,” she sobbed. “Cast off and alone ’er whole life…while I, without even knowing, took everything she ’ad evair wanted…!”

Neetra, crying too, held Phoenix in her arms and rested her head on hers. “We’re really not a typical family,” she conceded. “But there’s always been room in the world for you, and me, and Carmilla, good or bad, plus one clone of me and a million little clones of you. There’s room in it for Phoenix Prime too, and we’ll make her see that. I don’t know how yet, but we’ll find a way for you both to live in this world together.”

Dylan joined the embrace. “And she won’t hurt you, honey,” he added to Phoenix. “I’ll make certain of that!”

Just then a noise from the distance, as of a great scraping and jangling of metal, seized the heroes’ attention. They turned, to see a strange and ominous spectacle making it way into the pool of light cast by the streetlamp before them.

Gala, striding at the forefront like a vengeful spirit, was leading The Chancellor and Steam on either side of her. Each man was holding in both hands a chain that stretched over his shoulder, and in this way they were towing between them a heavy object that ground and rattled along the street, the source of the ugly noise that had alerted The Four Heroes. It was a rudimentary sledge, lashed together from the wreckage of scrapped cars, and kneeling upon it, his head bowed and his body in chains, was D’Carthage.

The Four Heroes, Phoenix and Amy ran forward to meet the Next Four. “What the heck is this?” Bret cried, sweeping out his hand.

Gala’s accusatory finger shot to the prisoner. “We had them,” she declared in a furious voice, her dark eyes afire. “The head was all but ours…and then this fool’s arrogance cost us our victory!”

“So you’re going to punish him, like you did Steam?” Dylan cried in disbelief. “Not on our watch, Gala! There’s already been way too much of that sort of thing tonight!”

“Gala, we have been through this,” Joe went on. “This very evening, you assured me there would be no more torture in the ranks of your team!”

“Don’t interfere, Joe! Your way is past, obsolete! I decide how best to defend the world now!” Gala raged. “Thanks to D’Carthage, six of your enemies have gone free and your oldest foe remains beyond our reach! Who knows what Dimension Borg might be planning this very moment, how many lives he’ll claim that we might otherwise have saved! D’Carthage will learn what it truly means to fight in the name of this world, and to take responsibility for his actions!”

“That is what we all hope,” was Joe’s level reply. “But you will not harm him.”

“And what will you do if I defy you?” Gala hissed, her teeth gritted behind her full red lips. “The Four Heroes, champions of a cause that died on the day Dimension Borg laid waste to this city. What will happen if I choose to disobey your orders?”

Joe looked back at her.

“You will make enemies of us,” said he. “And believe me, you do not want that.”

For a moment that seemed an age, Gala glared in silence at Joe and he returned her glare, while behind each of them their respective teams stood ready, none among them knowing whether peace would endure into the next instant or if conflict was to be their fate. At long last, however, Gala lowered her eyes and turned from Joe to The Chancellor.

“Release him,” she said quietly.

Steam and The Chancellor loosed D’Carthage’s chains, and all felt a surge of gladness as the fearful tension lifted. Scrambling to his feet, D’Carthage looked across at The Four Heroes and his expression silently imparted gratitude that was deep and earnest indeed. Gala, after taking a moment to compose herself, looked up again at Joe and tossed back the scarlet plume in her hat.

“Perhaps now you’ll do something for me in return?” she proposed, her tones genial as if she was hoping to put all that had just occurred behind them. “Another dinner, some evening soon. I want this cooperation to work, Joe, and I’m confident it can…but you need to understand exactly what it is we seek to achieve, and how we mean to go about it.”

“Another dinner?” Neetra repeated, in a dangerously calm voice.

But Joe replied: “It shall be so, Gala. For you are correct…there is much we do not understand about you, as all that we have lately witnessed bears out. It is my wish too for The Four Heroes and the Next Four to fight side-by-side in the name of Nottingham, more than ever at such a time as this, when so many new threats press us close. If the understanding you speak of can be reached, then neither we, nor you, will have anything to fear.”

Days later, Phoenix, Amy and Bret were back in the Military Control Centre, proceeding along the corridor to the room in which the results of Phoenix’s tests on Amy were now available. Phoenix was marching to their destination at a brisk rate, while the other two were remonstrating with her all the way.

“Phoenix, we don’t have to do this right now!” Amy cried, not for the first time. “After everything you’ve been through, we can wait! You need some time to yourself, to come to terms with everything Phoenix Prime told you...!”

“Non, Amy,” Phoenix interrupted. “What I need is my work, now more zan evair. I need all to be as it was, and above everything else, what I need most at zis time is some good news!”

“But we don’t know if the news will be good, Phoenix, so at least, let’s do this in private,” Bret persisted. “You don’t need the pressure of some big occasion right now. I know Amy and I wanted everybody here, but that was before all this went off for you!”

“Whether ze news is good or bad, we will need all our friends around us,” was Phoenix’s reply. “Zat is what zey are for. And now it is no use protesting any further, mes amis, for we are ’ere!”

So saying, Phoenix threw open the doors of the readout room and strode inside, Bret and Amy hot on her heels. There, waiting on the seats provided, were Joe, Dylan and Neetra, along with Carmilla and their friends Max and Degris. They all rose to their feet, as Phoenix strode to the master computer and began calling up the relevant data.

“Well, we’re here, buddy!” said Max. “So what’s this all about?”

Bret and Amy linked arms.

“There’s an announcement Bret and I have to make,” Amy began. “It’s about something we decided not so long ago, and it may mean there are any number of problems for us ahead, but we wanted all of you to be a part of it from the very beginning. Wherever this leads us, and whatever we have to do, we know we can count on you to be there by our side.”

“And we’ll have the answer to our first question in just a few moments,” Bret went on. “How are those results coming, Phoenix?”

Phoenix looked up from her computer screen, and she was starting to smile.

“Ze results are encouraging,” she announced. “Amy, being a cat who was transformed into a woman by magic, is not entirely human, and it was not clear whethair she would be human enough for what you ’ad in mind. You can per’aps imagine zere was no great wealth of existing research related to zis situation, but from ze preliminary studies I ’ave conducted, it appears, Amy, zat your biology can be adapted for zis task. If you follow ze course of medicinal treatment I ’ave devised, zen…”

She checked her monitor one last time, and looked to Amy and Bret again. Her face was radiant.

“Zen, yes. You should be able to ’ave children.”

There was a hush. Expressions of joy and amazement dawned on the faces of all those assembled. And then there was noise, wondrous, jubilant noise, laughter and cheers and applause and shouts of congratulation all at once. The embraces and handshakes were never-ending, and Phoenix, as much as either of the happy couple, was lauded and praised again and again for her part in making this happen. A new chapter in the destinies of The Four Heroes had begun, and moreover, something of the bleakness and sorrow of the previous days was banished. As they celebrated together, the old friends were reminded of one of the world’s simplest and most heartening truths: that life, in every possible sense, goes on.

END OF CHAPTER FOUR