Kallisti sat peacefully on the inner wall of the cloister quadrangle, watching a nest of ants that had been disturbed by the lay brethren tending the monastery garden. The disturbance had exposed the ant eggs and so workers were scurrying here and there to move the vulnerable white eggs to a new place of safety. In the meantime, larger winged ants were patrolling and forming a protective perimeter to defend the nest. The organisational competence of the ants reminded her of a few months before when she and many of her fellow monks formed a protective cordon around a village under attack from the hell-demons to allow the safe evacuation of the inhabitants. Considering there was no Arch-Prelate to arrange the tactical plan, the ants seemed perfectly capable of coordinating their activity in a very similar manner. The thought then struck Kallisti: Maybe the ants DID have their own Arch-Prelate to do the tactical planning, they just didn’t wear the cockade hat like Arch-Prelate Horsa! She smiled to herself at the thought of a giant ant wearing the gold-trimmed cockade hat.

At that moment the bell rang for supper so she shifted her soul-bound quarterstaff to its hidden safe place from across her knees and stood up. The late afternoon sun was settling down behind the peaked roof of the refectory beyond the other side of the cloister, so she moved toward the pathway that led through the garden, joining up with her fellow martial friars, looking forward to their supper. Although shorter than most of her brothers and sisters in the Order, she made up for that with a fierce passion when wielding her quarterstaff so that many underestimated her abilities. With her long blonde hair – something she took pride in considering how much effort it took to maintain it under the circumstances – she was often misjudged. Dressed in her favourite leather trousers and buckskin waistcoat, she walked with a confident stride, glancing over at the younger male novices who watched her with greedy eyes. So preoccupied, she almost walked straight into the tall figure of the Arch-Prelate standing at the arched gateway from the garden.

“Ahh Friar Kallisti, I am so pleased to see you.” The tall man said, looking down at her shorter figure. His face was pockmarked by a childhood disease and his left ear had had a chunk ripped out of it at some point in the past. Arch-Prelate Horsa was one of the longest serving members of the Order of Norton Folgate and had an intimidating manner with most people, but for some reason Kallisti found his presence reassuring. “I noticed you in deep contemplation just now, I hope it was a rewarding moment?”

“Yes Your Grace, the ant’s nest reminded me of our recent defence of Wokingham.” The Arch-Prelate raised an eyebrow questioningly. “The ants seemed to automatically know what each one should do without, it seemed, anyone giving them orders. It made me wonder if they have an antish version of an Arch-Prelate.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth she regretted them – comparing the second-in-command of their martial order of monks to an ant was not the best way to impress your superiors!

The Arch-Prelate pursed his lips and rocked back on his heels for a moment. “I think that may be so. I believe Deacon Bartholomew has been studying the hierarchies that develop in societies, not just human but animal, insect and most importantly for our work in Demonic societies. He postulates that some of these societies don’t conform to the same pyramidal structures that our own monastic society follows, but are often more communal. Very good, I am pleased that your contemplations have born intellectual fruit wouldn’t you say?” He smiled at her, his lips drawing thin but his eyes remaining judgemental. She bobbed her head in supplication.

“Thank you Your Grace, I was never a particularly good student…”

“Except with the quarterstaff thankfully!” he interrupted her. “And it is for that I have been seeking you out. I have a special job for you that needs your particular skills.” He noticed Kallisti’s eyes glancing at the retreating line of monks heading towards the refectory. “You will have your supper in good time, for now come with me and we shall discuss the nature of this task.” His crooked finger beckoned her away from supper toward the administration wing of the cloister. He explained as they walked. “You were a novice when the Great Schism occurred a few years back so you are familiar with the revelation that the church authorities had been in collusion for centuries with the demonic forces that had invaded us in the distant past. That the apparent stalemate our seemingly never-ending war with the demon invaders was a deliberate ploy, arranged generations ago by the leaders of the church who had negotiated a pact with the demons to allow them to co-exist on this Earth, while bolstering their own authority and maintaining their hold over the populace.”

Kallisti nodded, trying to ignore the rumbling in her stomach as she caught the faintest aroma of cooked meat drifting from the refectory. This was going to be one of the Arch-Prelates interminable lectures, but at least she was walking with him and unlikely do doze off like she had done multiple times in the seminary classrooms!

“Once this arrangement was revealed a great many of us who had sacrificed the lives of loved ones and colleagues rebelled against their authority and broke away. Since then we have managed in our fight again the demons to achieve vastly greater success once we discovered the debilitating weaknesses built into the magics that bound our soul-weapons to us. The belief that our soul weapons destroyed the demons on defeat was a cornerstone of our teachings for hundreds of years, when in reality all that happened was the defeated demon was transported back to it original home plane of existence, ready to be summoned back to the fight again. In all those years we had barely whittled down any of the enemy’s vast hoards, while they had preyed upon us mercilessly.”

Kallisti nodded again, remembering the last sight of her father and mother as they threw her to safety from the riverbank where they had been trapped by a pack of demons. A rowing boat had rescued the six year old girl from the water and delivered her into the care of the Order of Norton Folgate where she had spent the last 20 odd years training for and then becoming a demon hunter.

“Since then, we have learned how to overcome the deliberate sabotage of our teachings and your quarterstaff and those of your cohorts in the martial orders are fully capable of dispatching the demons permanently meaning we are finally  driving the demon hoards out of our lands.” His eyes lit up with the zealous passion he felt when discussing the war with the demons. “However, a situation has come up that concerns me and I believe I need your particular talents…” he smiled at her beneficently.

* * *

Crawling through the foul smelling, muddy ditch Kallisti cursed silently under her breath… “Walk in the park, easy in easy out… its never them who have to crawl through the filth!” Finally she reached the culvert that meant she could climb up onto the road that would lead her to her destination. The twilight masked her appearance from the ditch and she climbed out onto the deserted roadway. Off in the distance she could see a ruined church spire poking above the trees along the road that curved around to the village. She had been forced to dress down from her privileged clothing in the monastery and now wore the ragged homespun garments of the local peasantry. She had rebelled when the surgeon had approached with shears to cut her hair short, threatening him with her quarterstaff until it was agreed she could use a glamour spell to hide her hair instead. She was going undercover in this village across the other side of the country to the monastery in Oxford for this important mission that the Arch-Prelate had entrusted her with.

Hunching over, she shuffled along the road to the village as if worn down by the harsh peasant toil. A farmer’s horse and cart approached from the direction of the village and the farmer glared at her as he got nearer. “We don need nun o yur kin round these pards” he cursed at her with his thick accent. “Damn reffergees!” he cracked the whip to drive the horse onwards. It was going to be one of those days, she just knew it!

As she approached the outskirts of the village, she became aware in the gathering darkness of a crowd assembled at the crossroads at the middle of this small village. Imaginatively called Crossways, the village had grown up around an important crossroads between two major roads. Now it was on the ragged front line in the war between the demons and the forces of good. Getting closer, she could see the focus of attention was a cart with two people stood in the back. One was hunched, hooded and had a rope tied around their neck, the rope leading up to the bough of a sturdy oak tree that grew on one corner of the crossroads. The other was a fat man with greasy hair and an overcoat with metal buttons. This marked him out as a wealthier villager and likely the head man. He was speaking quietly to the assembled crowd, gesturing violently toward the hooded person and waving in the direction to his right toward the ruined church.

Suddenly the village elder grabbed the hood and ripped it away from the other standing in the cart to reveal a bewildered looking older man, with thinning grey hair and rheumy eyes who looked around rather confused. “Behold the consort of devils!” Kallisti could finally hear what was being said having approached unnoticed.

“Bur thas the ol curate, he ain’t no arm to naybody” said a man at the front of the crowd, grinning and looking around to the rest of the crowd for support. The other villagers shuffled away from him, looking guiltily in any direction but at him.

“You defend him, Marcus Braithwite?” The village elder glared at the speaker.

“Um well now is not like that Reg, mate, its jus I dun know if he dun any harm to any folks – was he dun then?” he shuffled his feet.

“I told you, consorted with demons he has!” Reg, the village elder shook his fist at the captive on the cart.

“Consorted how? Invite em for tea and honey? he makes some good honey does the curate there” There were some suppressed chortling in the crowd of villagers. Kallisti suddenly realised that the curate on the cart about to be hung for “consorting with demons” was the target of her mission. All because the sodding Arch-Prelate wanted some of this special honey!

“You dare mock me Marcus Braithwaite! You dare question my authority?” The village elder’s face was turning red with rage and his voice was getting louder.

“Reg, you are my little brother, o course I question yer authority coz you are an intolerant bugger whose always causing trouble, now stop being a total wanker and let the curate go, or I’ll tell our mam and she’ll take a belt to yer!” There was a chorus of laughter from the villagers as Marcus stepped toward the back of the cart and mounted the box that had been placed to help climb up. His first attempt to get onto the cart failed and he struggled with his balance, making a big play of waving his arms about as the villagers laughed at his antics.

“You are making me a laughing stock! This is serious business, I saw him meeting with strangers from beyond the river they were obviously demons!” Reg continued to argue, his voice turning more wheedling and less authoritative.

“The-they wanted to buy my honey! They were from Salisbury, they weren’t demons, they were solicitors!” The curate pleaded.

“Blimey, that makes em worse’n demons” laughed Marcus, “Hang the bugger for consorting with lawyers!” He finally climbed on the cart and lifted the loop of rope from around the curate’s neck. “Reg, who the bloody hell tort you to tie knots? This is bloody useless!” he said, showing the badly knotted rope to the villagers who laughed again. Only Kallisti noticed the difference in Reg’s face as the crowd mocked him… a slight swelling of the forehead and a shudder passing through him.

“Here we go!” she muttered, summoning her soul-bound quarterstaff as the demon masquerading as Reg the village elder exploded from within the fleshy disguise, showering the crowd with the grisly remnants of the late village elder. With a roar, the huge winged and brimstone shrouded demon reached out for the curate, the local representative of the church and its most dangerous enemy – or so it thought. Reacting instinctively, Kallisti unerringly leapt into the space between the demon and the curate, knocking the demon back, over the side of the cart and away from the villagers.

The quarterstaff spun in her hands creating a moving shield between the demon and the villagers, protecting them as it spat poisonous green icor that was mostly harmlessly deflected. A spattering fell on the homespun Kallisti wore so with a fierce tug, she ripped it away, revealing her leather trousers and waistcoat. With a single word, she dropped the glamour that concealed her hair – she always believed that appearances in a fight were all important, so for an oh so mighty demon to be bested by a pretty girl with long blonde hair seemed so much more humiliating for the demons!

“Friar! Ha, you think you can beat m…” the demon’s words were cut short as the quarterstaff spun again and broke its jaw. Spinning again it was rammed into its midriff and again into the side of its head, the blows coming fast and accurate. Bellowing in pain, the demon tried to get up but its feet were swept out from under and it watched in horror as this small blonde girl leapt high into the air bringing her quarterstaff down with a mighty blow that split the demon’s skull and buried the end a foot into the brain of the demon. The magical energies that bound the demonic flesh together dissipated and the demon’s body liquefied and then evaporated. The butt of Kallisti’s quarterstaff was buried several inches into the packed dirt of the roadway, so with a tug she pulled it out and turned back to the shocked villagers.

“Yup, I think I can beat a demon.” She said, sending the quarterstaff to its safe place. She swing herself back up on the cart landing lightly beside the curate and untieing the ropes that bound his hands. “Hello I’m Kallisti, Arch-Prelate Horsa asked me to come and get some honey from you.” she smiled. “He also told me he thought there might be a demon trying to infiltrate the village, seems he was right!”

“Bugger me, wot the hell did Reg av to go and get himself et by a sodding demon!” There were tears in Marcus’s eyes. Kallisti hugged him.

“I’m sorry it had to be like this, they are sneaky buggers with glib tongues and tempting whiles. He probably didn’t even know it was a demon he was dealing with.” she explained. “That is why the demon went after Curate Patterson here, as he is your first line of defence against the evil, aren’t you curate?”

“Um well yes, thank you young lady, it was um fortunate you happened to be here!” the curate fumbled in his robes to pull out some wire framed spectacles. “Ah Mortimer, would you be so kind as to um, clear up this , um… mess” The curate spoke to a tall young man in the front of the crowd, awkwardly holding his hat in his hands, with several gobbets of pink flesh still stuck to his clothes. With a start the man realised he was being spoken to

“Oh yes, soir, I’ll get that dun right away.” he replied, looking around again as if a spell had been broken.

“Come along Marcus and Friar Kallisti, I think a nice cup of tea and some honey will do us the world of good.” He patted Marcus on the shoulder and moved to climb down from the back of the cart. “Oh whats this?” Suddenly at the front of the cart a swirling black eddy of nothingness had appeared. Kallisti felt it pulling at her and resisted, grabbing the curate’s arm as she felt herself dragged toward the rift in space.

“What the fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu……” lifted off her feet she was bodily dragged into the void, her scream fading into a vast distance. With a pop the rift vanished.

“Well bugger me!” Marcus stood astonished. “I always said them Friars had some funny ways!”

* * *

Coughing, Kallisti woke up on her back on some grass beside a stream. To one side were trees and further along she could see a wooden bridge crossing the stream. What was that awful smell in the air – a sort of burned, oily smell. Getting unsteadily to her feet, she checked herself over – everything seemed to be in its right place. She reached for her quarterstaff in its safe place… after momentary hesitation, as if reaching a bit further than normal, she felt its reassuring sturdiness in her hands. She closed her eyes and focussed on her inner core, checking for any signs of sneaky demonic corruption… everything was fine. So where was she?

Moving forward, she came out from under the tree cover and stood open mouthed at the sight of huge blue shimmering walls reaching up into the sky. What brand of demonic trickery is this? Then she noticed the shambling mounds of ooze loitering just upstream – hmm a new type of demon! This was familiar territory so her instincts took over and her quarterstaff spun whirled and leapt into action, scattering lumps of gelatinous ooze everywhere. Having defeated the demons, Kallisti moved further downstream toward the bridge and the lake that came into view. How many ooze demons were there here? This place had a serious infestation problem! Then she heard the voices:

“Somewhere over this way!” she heard a female voice say. The accent was very refined, almost aristocratic, although different from what she had heard on the few times she had been privileged to visit the Royal Court in Windsor. Looking up Kallisti saw a golden flash above the trees and then landing lightly on the ground a few feet away a blonde girl dressed in golden armour! “Well hello and welcome to Paragon City, although it might be a bit different from the one you are used to!” she said smiling. With a shock Kallisti recognised the girl – it was her own face! It was obviously a demonic trick! Without thinking her quarterstaff appeared and she leapt to fight this evil demonic doppelgänger, swinging her quarterstaff to… CLUNK!

The familiar sound of quarterstaff against quarterstaff brought her back to the endless hours of training and she reacted immediately with a counter-thrust – CLUNK A spin and a sweep to knock them down – CLUNK

Standing before her with a serious frown and a very familiar looking quarterstaff was another doppelgänger. This one however was dressed in a green strapless bustier with a skirt cut short at the front but with an interesting flowing longer style behind. Briefly Kallisti wondered how the other one managed to keep everything inside the strapless corset without having wardrobe malfunctions. Bah, the demon was distracting her from the fighting! Dropping into the defensive combat stance she watched her opponent while trying to block out the voices from others that were gathering.

“Hey its another Friar, oo this could be interesting” this from a small flying fairy-like demon also with her own face but weirdly coloured hair.

“Hmmm another alternate similar to Friar’s I wonder what might be different” This from one that was very obviously a demon, with horns and bronze-coloured skin.

“Anyone bring the popcorn?” This from a wanton creature wearing black fishnet stockings, an extremely short skirt and wearing some sort of black reflective eye coverings.

Her opponent watched her carefully then made a move which she countered easily – she knew exactly what this evil doppelgänger was trying to do – it was as if it was reading her mind! She focussed on the metal blocks and felt a peace descend over her, as if she was in another place, watching on and controlling the actions. There was a flurry of fast blows, each of which was parried by the other. They both circled warily.

“The fighting styles are remarkably similar.” The black clad demon said. “Well not surprising they probably had the same teachers if their timelines were close enough together” replied the horned demon. She heard their words but they were meaningless to her. All that mattered was the flow of the fight – the lunge, repost and counter attack. It was as mesmerising as one of the best training exercises with the staff mistress. That gave her an idea…

She stumbled and ducked forward to draw her attacker into range – this always worked! It was a tricked she’d discovered by accident during one of her sparring practices with Peter. She felt a glow at the thought of Peter – she hadn’t seen him in months! Instead of trying to take advantage of the stumble, her opponent instead skipped to one side and thrust her quarterstaff between Kallisti’s feet and twisted round. She leapt into the air to avoid being tripped – nobody had ever done that before!

“You learned that with Peter” said her opponent, obviously reading her mind. “Did he die in your world too? Eaten by the Demon Lord when Oxford fell?”

For the first time she faltered. “Oxford will NEVER fall!” she snarled. This time it was her opponent who faltered.

“You stopped the Great Demon Plague? Your timeline is different!” then she said the phrase that marked her for death – the secret signum phrase known only by the schismatic, the old phrase that had been used for hundreds of years for the hunters to identify each other but had been corrupted by the Anti-Pope.

“Die Spawn of demonic corruption, you and all of your Arcanium followers will die when we finally drive out the corruption!” With a fierceness she had not felt since the battles of the schism, she launched attack after attack against her opponent who started backing up parrying each blow as it came until a loose stone under her foot made her hesitate fractionally and Kallisti’s staff swept her feet from under her. With a cry of triumph she launched her Sky Splitter attack, leaping into the air to bring the staff down in the killing blow but the attack never landed, instead bouncing off a blue opalescent globe that exploded from her fallen opponent and knocked her back.

“Hey, when did you switch to Barrier Destiny!” The demon dressed in gold said. Her opponent got to her feet, still surrounded by the shimmering blue globe. She dismissed her quarterstaff and stood over Kallisti.

“We are not demons who have stolen your face – I thought the same when I first arrived.” She knelt on the grass at her side. “My name is also Kallisti – we are all Kallistis, but we are from different worlds. You trained with Peter and Simon and Grace and Amanda. You loved Simon like a brother but loved Peter in a different way? I miss them all, their memory will be in my heart forever. Their sacrifice never forgotten.” There was such tragedy in this girl’s face that Kallisti felt a lump in her throat.

“They can’t be dead I was with Simon yesterday, he helped me get my gear.” The girl jerked back, shocked.

“My Simon died when we lost the battle for Wokingham when we lost so many brothers and sisters.”

“What are you talking about, we won the battle for Wokingham.” This was obviously another demonic trick to get her to lower her defences.

“Interesting, the timelines diverged somewhere recently.” The demon with horns spoke again. Kallisti braced herself for another demonic attack.

“So we didn’t have popcorn, anyone want an ice cream?” the demon dressed in black shrugged and turned away. The small flying one clapped her hands excitedly and buzzed around at high speed. “No sugar for you Fae, I’ve seen the mess you leave! Come on I know a place that does vegan ice cream, should be okay for you!”

“Oh do stop that, we’re not demons and not going to attack you.” Her opponent shook her head irritably. The gesture was so familiar she found herself doing it in sympathy. “We are from worlds that are very similar – like you I was trained by Staff Mistress Anderson to fight demons, but there are differences. You must tell me what happened – why did you attack me so violently when I gave you the signum phrase? What is the ‘schism’?”

“This is nothing more than a demonic hallucination to confuse me, to get me to deny the schism and fall for your Arcanium tricks! We know the schismatics plotted with the demons for centuries, paying sacrifices to keep the demons from taking over, maintaining their own power over the people and preserving their authority!” Her words had a profound effect on this other girl. She rocked back on her haunches as if slapped, the colour draining form her face.

“You are telling me that the Arcanium authorities on your world conspired with the Demons?”

“You should know, you are a schismatic – your use of the signum proves that! We stopped using that a dozen or more years ago during the Great Schism, when we drove out the Arcanist conspirators and began our reconquest of the demonic territories!”

“I – I… they conspired against us… is this what Mercedes found with my staff…”

“The lie about the soul-staff killing demons? We fixed that sabotage – we now kill them, not just banish them. Show me your staff!” She felt the girl beside her reach into the safe place and her staff was in her hands. Kallisti looked at her. The girl nodded, allowing her to touch the staff. Closing her eyes she felt for the staff’s essence and there it was the tiny twist that reduced its effectiveness. She adjusted the twist and felt the staff become alive with energy. As she did so she touched the soul of the other girl… it was… it was HER! This wasn’t a demon it was her own soul – but what overwhelming tragedy and sadness it held! She pulled away quickly and returned to the real world suddenly aware of the tears running down her cheeks. “They did it to you… they did it to you…”  she whispered, the memory of the evil sacrifice the other Kallisti had suffered broke her heart – the ultimate evil perpetrated by the authorities before the schism, the innocent souls sacrificed to appease the demons!

Now she knew that this was not a demon, whatever it was this was herself, a version who had gone through unimaginable loss. The two demon hunters held each other tightly, the emotions washing over them both. She felt another hand touch her shoulder and opened her eyes. The Kallisti dressed in gold smiled at her, the smile of an angel.

“Welcome to the Kallistiverse!”

“This is a truly wondrous invention!” Kallisti the Monk came out of the bathroom wrapped in a large fluffy towel, drying her long blonde hair with another towel. “These showers are miraculous and magic!”

“Funnily enough Friar said almost exactly the same thing on her first day here” Kallisti Gold laughed and sipped her tea. They were in the lounge of the main flat in Christie Apartments. Since they moved in a year ago, so many Kallistis had turned up that they’d taken over all of the apartments on the upper floor. Mr Line, the apartment block manager was in seventh heaven with so many versions of Kallisti Gold in his block. His secret shrine to them all was – he thought – carefully hidden in the basement, however Kallisti Fae’s inquisitiveness had discovered it months before, much to Gold’s embarrassment!

“Well that I can understand. We never had enough time for bathing very often and when we did it was in the river!”

“The Thames? Wow, I’d never have thought of going swimming in the Thames through Oxford when I was younger – then again your river probably didn’t have the same levels of pollution… and you won’t have had swimming pools anyway… um…”

“This is very strange – we are from the same town but it is not the same town. This will take some getting used to!”

“That’s normal, we’ve grown used to helping newcomers now. I’ll have to take you over to England sometime to meet Mum and Dad. They love to meet the new girls… so long as you can handle seeing them?” Gold looked to Monk sympathetically. Monk frowned.

“I – I don’t know. I can only just remember them but it was all so different. We were hiding all the time, Mother was unwell from a wasting disease the demons had spread and Father was looking after us both. Then we were caught up in the attack at Abingdon and…” Monk stopped drying her hair and stared vacantly at the floor, her memories overwhelming her for a moment. Gold came up to her, took the towel and carried on drying her hair tenderly.

“I know, it happened to Friar as well. She found it emotional to meet Mum and Dad but she felt better after. She told me that knowing some version of our parents were living and happy made a big difference. Now where did Sable put that bone comb? I’m sorry to say you’ve still got nits in your hair, but we’ll get rid of them in time, just need to keep using that shampoo every few days.” Monk wrinkled her nose, the shampoo smelled awful, but the thought of not having parasites in her hair made it worthwhile.

“Here, sit and I’ll comb for you” Gold led her to the armchair and patted the floor in front of it. Monk knelt down and Gold sat behind her having retrieved the fine-toothed comb from the drawer. Monk closed her eyes as Gold started combing her hair, the tingling sensation it gave her was so relaxing and pleasant that the occasional tug of knots in her hair was insignificant. The two girls sat silently for a while, sharing the peaceful moment.

The sound of the front door opening interrupted the silence. “Its only me” came a familiar voice that in no way identified which of the dozens of Kallistis it might be.

“Which me?” replied Gold.

“Me me, the one who fixes all our shit!” the Kallisti known as “The Manager” walked into the lounge. Dressed in a smart business suit, wearing glasses that she didn’t’ really need but said it added gravitas and with her hair held back in a pony-tail, she was their fixer with various ranks of officialdom in Paragon City. Not being super-powered herself, her talents were in organising, management and dealing with the bureaucracy and as such was one of the most important Kallistis!

“Oh hey, hows it going with getting our latest recruit officially recognised?” Gold waved then returned to combing.

“Well it appears the immigration office has a ready made template with the name Kallisti already filled in! I think they are getting used to us.” She nodded her head toward the Kallisti sitting on the floor. Gold nodded back. “So are you okay with the name ‘Kallisti the Monk’? I know you are also a Friar like… um… Friar but you need to have your own name.”

Kallisti the Monk looked up at her and shrugged. “I was a Monk, the Friar is just a specific section of the monastery so it will suffice to allow us to be individuals. What happens when someone asks for ‘Kallisti’?”

“Chaos usually.” Kallisti the Manager shrugged. “Lots of arguing about who is the ‘senior’ Kallisti…”

“Which is of course me” interrupted Gold. Manager rolled her eyes.

“Our glorious ‘leader'” the sarcasm in Manager’s voice was palpable. Monk smiled.

“Well I do have the highest profile and I was the original one who started it all…” Gold’s voice tailed off. It wasn’t always a good idea to bring that up. Some of the Kallistis enjoyed it here in Paragon City, but some of them bitterly resented being torn from their home timelines and held a grudge against Gold and the rest. Notable amongst these was Kallisti Purple whose villainous antics had embarrassed the other Kallistis. Kallisti Green had also parted company with the majority of them, taking herself off to the forests of Bloody Bay where she hunted Shivans and raided the town for supplies. Kallisti Sable had also become a thorn in their side, ostensibly aligned with the majority of the Kallistis, she had a habit of going ‘off message’ and causing trouble.

“Anyway,” continued Kallisti the Manager consulting her tablet PC, “I’ve got the paperwork sorted for your Green Card and identity documents. The bank is opening an account for you which will have an allowance paid into it from the management trust we set up to support everyone. All earnings you make as part of the Kallisti Girls will go into that and any extra you get to keep. If you decided to go on a bank robbery spree, we don’t want to know and don’t want any of those funds either. It would be really handy if we got a lawyer Kallisti come through one day…” she sighed and tapped the screen. “What else? Oh I’ve enrolled you in the ‘Introduction to Superpowers’ course at the Hero Corps facility, it will tell you what you can and can’t do as a legitimate hero in Paragon City and generally across the USA. Other countries have different rules, but for now its unlikely you’ll go that far afield, except if you visit England and we’ve got special arrangements there too nowadays thanks to Dad’s contacts in the Home Office.”

Monk looked up at Gold and shrugged, confused. Gold smiled back and pushed Monk’s head around so she could continue combing.

“I think Friar said she’s going to help you get used to how things work in this modern world. There are so many differences to what you are used to, but she’s been through this before so is definitely the best person to instruct you.” she winked at Gold. Monk had closed her eyes and was simply enjoying the sensation of being looked after, the words just washing over her in a soothing wave. This new home was strange and marvellous and frightening and comforting. The revelation that there were other versions of herself was baffling, even more so that there was a version with such a similar background. They had talked for ages after meeting in Perez Park and she had sympathised at Friar’s loss, but was also shocked at the difference in their training regimes had been. When the split with the Arcanium had happened, the Abbot of the Monastery had been deposed and his harsh regime replaced by a more benevolent one, as typified by the kind authority of Arch-Prelate Horsa, who in Friar’s Monastery had been sent out on a suicide mission when he tried standing up against the Abbot’s abusive practices. The schism has happened when she was too young to have been ‘farmed’ out for favours as Friar had been when she was in training and of course the barbaric sacrifice of innocents was put to a stop immediately.

“Then finally it will be a matter of taking you shopping for clothes and outfits.” Manager ticked it off on her tablet. Monk frowned again.

“Outfits are what we wear when being heroes or – ahem – villains, clothes are what we wear normally, although sometimes they are indistinguishable.” Gold explained, indicating Manager’s suit and her gold-coloured bustier. “There shouldn’t me a problem in the meantime, you look about the same size as me and Friar so you can borrow ours for now, at least you haven’t got a big arse like Sable or Red!” Gold patted her on the head. “Okay all done, go get changed and then we three can go shopping! Maybe we can even get Manager to buy something that isn’t grey!”

Manager glared at Gold over the top of her glasses!

Kallisti Sable peered over the top of her mirror shades, sitting at a table in a slightly run-down diner in Old Sough in the region of Paragon City which shared her name, Kallisti Wharf. Dressed in tight black leather trousers and a biker jacket over her low-cut bustier, she was trying to be inconspicuous, but it was not a natural thing for her, having grown up as a show-off and showman. She picked idly at the overly sugared danish pastry before her and grimaced as she sipped from the mug of ‘tea’ the diner had reluctantly brewed for her. The tea was a pale milky brown that felt like it should be chewed more than drunk. She was not used to full-fat milk in her tea any more but calling this stuff ‘tea’ was probably an offence against trade descriptions!

The dinner front door opened with a bang and in strode a tall, fierce-looking blonde woman wearing a full body skin tight metallic jumpsuit in purple with gold ‘spider’ flashes and matching ridiculously tall-heeled boots. Sable smiled “Bloody hell girl you know how to make an inconspicuous entrance don’tcha?”

“Huh?” Kallisti Purple sat down at the table across from her. The waitress came over carrying a menu, looking between the two very similar looking women curiously. “You! You haven’t seen either of us have you?” Purple scowled at the waitress.

“Whatever you say ma’am” she replied with a tone of resignation – it was going to be one of THOSE days! “What can I get you?”

“Is that tea?” Purple gestured dismissively at Sable’s mug. “Bring me a pot of BOILING water, a clean mug and some cold semi-skimmed milk and one of those pastries too.” she demanded brusquely. The waitress shrugged, recognising the English accent and accepting the weird demands. In this part of town you didn’t ask questions or show too much curiosity.

“Always got to be the villain huh?” Sable chortled.

“Its part of the act” replied Purple, relaxing her overbearing demeanour and smiling. “Being a Night Widow has certain responsibilities and one of those is intimidating the splods and basically being a right cow. Its great fun but does sometimes get tiring. So wassup with you? Bored of slicing and dicing?” Purple nodded to the Katana poking up behind Sable’s head.

“Took me ages to wash the bloody Rikti goo out of my outfit after the last Mothership Raid. Do they never tire of trying to take that fucking thing down – the Rikti seem to have an inexhaustible supply of morons who will jump in the bowl with a large crowd of heroes only to get slaughtered in seconds. They just need to drop a nuke on the damn thing and be done with it… preferably while the heroes are raiding it!”

“Fuckwits the lot of them!” snorted Purple. “Speaking of which, hows the ‘Kallistiverse’ holding out for you? Jeeze I can’t believe they came up with a name for it, fuck me!”

The waitress returned with a tray with Purple’s order. Purple opened the pot of ‘boiling’ water and sniffed dismissively “If thats boiling then I’ve turned into a brain-dead energy blaster!” From a pocket in the side of her jumpsuit she fished out a teabag, dropped it into the mug and poured the hot water over it.

“Is that a Tetley teabag?” Sable leaned forward.

“Yup, got them sent over from England, there is an ex-pats website where you can order all sorts of proper English stuff, they even smuggle in PROPER bacon!”

“Send me the address then, I don’t want to rely on Gold’s parents never know what they might blab!”

“Nah they’re okay, went to see them a few months back – Platinum told me they were very non-judgemental with her and you KNOW how mental she is!” Purple twirled her finger next to her temple. “They also don’t blab to the airhead.”

“Ha, you’ve seen Red then?” Kallisti Red was the originator of the airhead description.

“Yeah we had a few drinks a couple weeks back, damn she can put that stuff away! Brilliant bar fight after but they objected to me stabbing people… whatever! ‘Scuse me, Night Widow, evil an all that?”

“Fuckwits!” It was Sable’s turn to say it this time. “So word is Bronze is making progress with trying to backtrack the rifts. Every time one opens she gets a bit more info and is building up a model of the rift structure or some such… Oh…” Sable looked up at the newest arrival in the diner. Taller than both of them, but with bronze-coloured skin and distinctive curved horns sprouting from the sides of her temples, Kallisti Bronze was unmistakable.

“Yeah I invited her along as well, she’s cool and not a blabbermouth.”

“Well no not when you are my major funding source for the ongoing research.” Bronze sat down beside Sable who slid across the bench seat to make room. Casually Bronze gripped the pot of hot water in both hands and within seconds it was boiling. Sable dumped her mug of ‘tea’ into a nearby plant pot, Bronze waved to the waitress for another mug and Purple fished out two extra teabags. Once they all had mugs of properly brewed tea, Bronze continued.

“At first I though that this was multiple rifts in spacetime that kept bringing us here, but actually its just one rift that keeps coming back. What I’m concerned about is what happens to it in the intervening periods? Does it go away or does it work continuously but elsewhere? I can now detect when it opens in this timeline and its focus is Paragon City because this is where it was triggered, but what if it also works in other Paragon Cities – I mean if it take other Kallistis out of their home timelines and doesn’t always bring them here but dumps them in other Paragon Cities?”

The other two Kallistis frowned, not understanding the problem. Bronze rolled her eyes.

“Some of those Paragon Cities are radioactive wastelands, some have been overrun with Rikti, some don’t even exist, just rubble-strewn outer space where the planet Earth used to be!”

“Okay so thats not our problem though right?” Purple shrugged “I mean we can’t go looking in these other dimension thingys can we?”

Bronze stirred her tea with her finger. “Not without the resources of something like Portal Corp, and even then its hard to control where the other end of the portal ends up.”

“But what’s this to do with opening a rift to send us back to our own timelines?” Sable was bored with the conversation so far.

“Well in order to do that I need to build up a theoretical model of how the bloody thing works in the first place before I can hope to control it. Only then can I begfin to work out how to trace a path back to your home timelines and be able to open a portal.”

“So what else do you need?” Another familiar female voice joined it, overlaid with a trace of old English accent. The three Kallistis looked around at the newcomer. Kallisti the Friar sat at a table the other side of the diner, wearing a hooded overcoat, unnoticed by them all before now.

“How did she…” Sable started.

“Sweetie I’ve been tracking demons my whole life, following you was trivial.” Friar walked over to their table and shrugged. “I knew you were up to something Sable, you are always up to something!” Sable opened her mouth to speak – Friar held up her hand. “I don’t really care about your shenanigans, been there done that, came back, so I’m not one to judge.” She gestured to the waitress for a fourth mug and Purple duly obliged with another teabag.

“With the arrival of Monk, I now know I HAVE to get back to my timeline. The Arcanium have betrayed my people and I have to stop them. As much as I love being here – ” the other girls tried to cover their grins, “I know that I cannot stay here while my people are being hunted and murdered for a lie. I have to get back there and put a stop to it!”

“Spoken like a true hero!” sneered Purple.

“There is a time and a place for heroes, this world has it easy where there are rules and arrangements and there is a place for heroes to be nice. We all know that is not how it really works out there in the wild. Out there you do what must be done and morality is a fine luxury to think about after you’ve done what must.”

“Damn and I thought you were a sweet little goody goody!” Sable shook her head.

“I am when it suits, but I grew up and lived in a horror story, it makes you hard inside and no matter how much I love Gold and all the others, I’ve seen the real evil in this world as well as my own.” She glanced at Purple. “You’re not real evil my dear, you are the acceptable face of evil. The real evil is the inequality, abuse of power and brutality that we see every day here. The privileged taking whatever and whoever they want, answerable to nobody, untouchable and unaccountable.” She glared at the mug in her hand so fiercely that Bronze reached out to touch her hand gently. Friar looked up at her and smiled, the moment of rage gone.

“So what more do you need to continue the research?”

“I’ve got some ideas of what would help, but it might mean getting Portal Corp involved – or at least some of their gear.”

“I’m in for relieving them of some resources” said Purple. Sable nodded “Me too, you in Friar?”

Kallisti the Friar smiled sweetly, “Fuck yeah!”

The dark passage was lit by flickering torchlight and a faint luminous glow as Kallisti moved silently from one shadow to the next. Nicknamed “The Sneak” by her friends at the Monastery, she had spent most of her young life learning how to fight the demons that rampaged across the world. Ever since she was orphaned during the Massacre of Oxford, she had been brought up by the Monks and Friars of the Order of Norton Folgate. Trained in the quarterstaff, magics had helped her learn to forge a quarterstaff from her own essence so she could never be separated from it. From an early age, it had been noticed she had an ability to get in places she shouldn’t – usually to steal biscuits and cakes! Her teachers therefore selected her for special training in stealth and concealment. Now she was one of the most important members of the Order’s scouts and assassins. The stone fortress was built on a tall outcrop of rocks on a hillside in the mountains far from her home in Albion, a place called Tyrol by the Arch-Prelate who had sent her on this mission.

There were sounds from behind her and she sank into the shadows created by a buttress in the wall as three large Demon Lords, glowing eyes oblivious to the blonde girl inches from their orange grotesque physiques, large wings on their backs almost scraping the ceiling, long heavily muscled arms, large hands with thick talon-tipped fingers. They spoke to each other in their guttural foul language.

“We should be eating their hearts not pandering to them, disgusting humans!” said the one on the right.

“Hush, you have not been on this plane long enough to understand the politics on this world. We need these humans otherwise we would be swept back to our pits of hell” replied the leading demon.

“Give him time, he’ll learn… just wait till you get whacked with one of those staves they use, stings like a hoard of insane chasme-flies, never felt anything like it the lower realms.” the third demon shuddered, reaching for a large suppurating wound on its arm. “Got banished once by a troop of them, took an aeon to recover and be able to return through the rift again.”

Kallisti frowned. That was not supposed to be possible – it was an article of faith that their quarterstaff was able to kill a demon outright, not just banish them! It was the founder of their martial order of monks, the Revered Norton Folgate who had discovered the magical technique to imbue the weapon with the ability to kill a demon. Normally to kill a demon you would need to know the demon’s name and perform a complex ritual on defeating it. The discoveries made by Folgate allowed this to be simplified and imprinted on the soul-bonded weapons they used. Demons were known to be vessels of lies and deception so maybe this was all lies to distract her… except they did not know she was there!

The three demons moved away from Kallisti, her instincts told her to remain hidden and silent for a while longer and her reward for the patience was to see a very faint disturbance in the air near one of the flaming torches. It was not much but the disturbance in the air current was enough to tell her that someone was moving unseen. Closing her eyes, she listened, stilling her own breathing to focus on the ambient sounds. Ignoring the hissing from the burning torches, she felt the movement of the concealed stalker as they moved onward, following the three demon lords. Was there another assassin on this mission that she had not been told of?

Gathering her wits, she carefully followed along, here senses alert as she stalked the stalker, through the stone passages of the imposing stone fortress. The translocation spell had delivered her to the heavily forested hillside above the castle in the depth of night and it taken her some time to find a suitable way to enter the heavily guarded structure, but some loose slates on the peaked roof of the square tower in one corner of the fortress was the route she had chosen. The passage turned a corner and ahead was a double-door with monstrous demonic guards standing either side. The three Demon Lords approached and were challenged by the guards. A brief argument erupted until a deep voice from the other side of the door interrupted and the guards opened the door to admit the three. At that point a slight shimmer in the air just behind them revealed the presence of the stalker and a tall man with greying hair, carrying a staff much like her own appeared. The startled guards immediately drew their own weapons and prepared to attack.

“CEASE!” came the roar of command from within the large room beyond the doors. “Do not attack our honoured guest!” The guards jolted to a halt and backed away from the man.

The man laughed and spoke in the guttural demon language “Your security is lacking, I was able to get through your guards without hindrance.”  He looked around “Who knows who else might be here without us knowing?” Kallisti remained frozen. It was a classic tactic to try to panic a stalker into betraying their presence by reacting to the suspicion that they might be there. The man walked past the wary guards and into the large room along with the three demon lords. The double doors were shut again and the guards repositioned themselves, glancing at each other and muttering.

She had to get in, but there seemed no way past the guards – she could not walk through doors! Backtracking down the passage, she found a narrow side passage and followed it to a narrow staircase which led upwards. Halfway up it turned a corner and ended on a landing with a locked a bolted door. To the side of the landing was a narrow window looking out over the forested mountain. The glass in the window showed the wealth that was on display in this fortress that even such an insignificant window had glass fitted! It even had a mechanism to fold the window up into the embrasure. This had originally been an arrow slit which had later had the window fitted. Folding the window up, she leaned out and looked along the wall toward where the meeting room would be – there seemed to be another arrow slit-window further along. Looking down, the sheer cliff-face below the fortress wall stretch down into the distance. Sighing, she tightened the laces on the leather moccasins she wore and climbed up onto the edge of the window frame and looked along the wall. Thankfully, there were plenty of gaps in the mortar that held the stones together so this climb was nowhere near as hard as some of the practice ones she had trained on in the Monastery – it was just the height!

Inching sideways along the rough wall, she reached the next opening and carefully looked inside. It was a room which looked like some soft of store room. There was a large triangular wooden frame and several dusty cylinders on the floor. Then it struck her, these were drums and a harp! Testing the window, it seemed to be latched on the inside. She could just make out the fastening which seemed stuck. Wiggling the poorly fitting window frame did not budge it. Wedging the fingers of her left hand into the gap in the wall, with her right hand she withdrew her quarterstaff from its safe place elsewhere and gently nudge the window frame with the tip. Focusing on the material of her soul-bound weapon, she partly sent it back to the safe place, but kept it teetering on the edge of tangibility. This tricky balancing act meant she could push the partly incorporeal staff through the window frame and then pulsing the existence of the very tip it dislodged the window fastening with a faint clunk. Dismissing the staff once more, she carefully opened the window and slipped inside, closing the window but leaving it unfastened, just in case.

Now inside, she could faintly hear voices from behind the store room door. Listening at the door she could hear the voice of the man and the deeper commanding voice. She could not make out their words so she checked over the door in front of her and tested the latch. It was stiff but being very careful she could lift it gently. Her next concern was would the door squeak when she opened it? The hinges were just wooden dowlings embedded in holes in the floor and lintel of the door way. Pulling from her safe place her canteen of water, she took a mouthful and squirted the water at the upper and lower hinges so as to ease the movement of wood against stone. Only when she was satisfied did she try to open the door. It was stiff at first so she wiggled it a tiny amount and then the water lubricating the hinges worked and she could silently open the door a tiny amount. Beyond the door she could see she was on a raised gallery above the main hall – it would have been where minstrels played to entertain their lord. Sneaking out she could hide behind the wooden rail and listen to what was happening – the gallery was dark so it was almost impossible to be seen up here, even if she wasn’t stealthing! She listened to the conversation:

“So we are agreed My Lord?” It was the grey haired man speaking. “This quarters soul allocation shall be delivered from the Scandinavian provinces, alongside the usual tributes from other provinces.”

“That is acceptable.” rumbled the deep voice that had commanded earlier. She peeked over the rail to see the speaker. It was the largest demon she had ever seen! Dark red skin mottled with orange and with huge wings sprouting from its back. The head was fully as large as she was tall, with terrifying horns and red glowing eyes. It sat upon a large throne built from bones and skulls in front of a long dining table with the grey-haired man sitting at the far end. They were having a meal! The large demon held a golden goblet in its large hand and with a start she realised it was a gilded human skull, filled with a deep red liquid. Either side of the long table were other demons, sitting quietly watching the interplay between the man and the Demon Overlord. Only these two were eating, the table before the other demons was bare. She watched in horror as the man lifted a smaller goblet – a child’s skull gilded with gold and filled with the same dark red liquid.

“I am pleased you retained the vineyards around Castel Tyrol, My Lord, they produce some of the finest wines in this part of the world.” he said, taking a sip.

“I may be a demon but I’m not a barbarian!” laughed the Demon Overlord. His voice made the room vibrate. “Now High Lord Gregory, I have something else to discuss with you…”

Kallisti recognised the name, this was High Lord Gregory, the second in command of the ruling council of the Arcanium!

“I wish to make a trade with you – there is a particular outpost of those annoying Folgate Friars that I want to deal with. They have caused me no end of trials and tribulations over the centuries after their founder discovered that annoying trick to kill my people. It is only thanks to your predecessors that we managed to staunch that troublesome discovery. They are still a formidable enemy and their recent defeat of my army at Wokingham is causing disquiet among my people!”

Kallisti’s blood ran cold at these words. They were being betrayed and sabotaged by their own people! The Arcanium were in league with the demons!

“Hmm so what trade do you propose?”

“We have a next of Clagger Demons who are threatening to violate the accords in Iberia – they have an aversion to salt water so stay in the hot interior of that region so if you could arrange for their disposal I would consider that a fair trade and give your people a significant success you can boast about to distract from the destruction of the Folgate Friars in Oxford.” Kallisti had to fight her self-control at the mention of her home monastery. This was urgent, she must get this news home as soon as possible!

“The first thing you must do however My Lord Baphoment, is deal with the spy who is lurking in the gallery above us!” Her anguish at this discovery had revealed her to the empathic magics of High Lord Gregory! With a leap that defied the High Lord’s apparent age, he jumped to the gallery next to her, his staff already swinging. Summoning her own staff she blocked the attack and the riposte that followed a fraction of a second later. Jumping to her feet she tried the leg sweep but the High Lord evaded and came at her with an overhead blow that caught her on the shoulder before she could spin away.

Facing each other, staves ready they assessed each other. He was older but had more experience, she was young and fast but smaller. They both waited for each other to attack, each making small feints to draw the other out and then the door to the gallery burst open and two demons joined him on the gallery. His brief distraction by this movement behind him allowed her a swift attack which his parry failed to stop and she struck him on the knee causing him to wince. A swift exchange of blows and Kallisti used the Guarded Spin manoeuvrer to deflect her opponents attacks and then at the end land one of her own on his upper arm. He stepped back, scowling and trust at her but she was able to sidestep the blow that would have hit her midriff. Her speed and agility was her advantage in this fight, but his experience told when he cast a quick spell which made her trip backward, following up with a leap into the air to bring his staff down in a skull-splitting blow. Kallisti noticed a flaw in his technique and instead trust her staff up which caught him in the chest as he tried to land his blow. His staff missed her head, striking the floor with a crunch. He staggered back, winded while Kallisti found her feet and landed a numbing blow to his left arm.

The demons also in the gallery started forward but the gallery wa too narrow for them to get past the High Lord and instead got in his way as he tried to regain his footing. Spinning in place, Kallisti swept her staff around catching all three of them painful blows on their legs as she then leapt backward through the narrow door to the store room which would prevent more than one of them following. She glanced back at the window behind her, her only escape route… she calculated the odds and the answer was not promising but better then facing a whole castle full of demons and the High Lord! Sending one last Serpent Reach attack at the High Lord which he deftly avoided, she turned and ran at the window, holding her staff out in front to break the window as she launched herself off the ledge and into the empty space beyond! The wind whipped past her as the ground fell away under her feet. She angled her body around as she sailed toward the forest on the mountain – this was going to hurt, but she’d been trained to jump and the magic that lived within her would protect her as best it could.

The trees resolved from a dense green shroud into individual trunks and she tried to direct herself between them but she was going to fast. Branches whipped into her as she held her arms up to protect her face. The ground came up to meet her in a bone jarring crash and she rolled to lessen the jolt. Even still, she felt her ankle turn and her head slap into a fallen branch, stunning her for a moment. Once the stars had cleared from her vision, she tried to get up but her ankle sent bursts of pain up her leg. Summoning her staff, she used it as a crutch to get to her feet and move away from her landing spot in case she had been seen.  Now she had to try to find the portal trigger that she had left behind when she first arrived that would take her back home.

Glancing up through the tree cover, the sight of winged demons heading her way spurred her into action, hobbling uphill while looking for cover. The crashing sound of large bodies landing in the forest behind her encouraged her onward. Voices up ahead… she had to hide! A rock over to her left showed promise, but was too obvious – the pine forest ont he slopes of this mountain was conspicuously devoid of undergrowth, just a thick layer of pine needles and some fallen branches. A plain, nondescript tree was to her right, she hobbled to it and crouched down on the shadowy side, drawing her perception around her and fading into the background, unexceptional and unnoticed.

One of the smaller demon types came into view, a red-skinned female oozing sexual allure, leading another dog-like demon by a chain. This was bad news, they had heard of these tracker before, they seemed to be able to detect humans and run them down. Looking closer, it had no eyes or ears, but its pointed face scanned this way and that as if seeking. It must be psychic! This she could deal with… focussing her breathing she entered the calming trance and through of nothing but tree. She was the tree, the wind blowing her branches and leather, her root burrowing slowly into the mountain. She had no blood, it was sap, her heartbeat was the cycle of the seasons. The tracker demon pulled its handler down the slope, away from Kallisti’s hiding place. One of the larger demons strode past, a foot away from her without seeing. Another voice came closer.

“She will be skilled in concealment… get that creature away from me!” The High lord exclaimed as the tracker demon zeroed in on him.

“Your presence is a distraction, it senses your humanity.” the female demon’s voice sounded like a sensual honey bath.

“As is yours to me! Begone Succubus, your charms do nothing for me!” the High Lord protested, rather too vigorously thought Kallisti. She caught herself and returned to the trees and leaves. They moved away and the forest grew quiet again, but she remained hidden, immobile, undetected.

Suddenly she realised it was dark. She had sunk so far into the trance that she had not noticed the time passing. Either that or she had dozed off! Listening carefully, there was no sign of her pursuers so she carefully moved. The stiffness in her limbs told her it had been several hours. Her ankle was no longer as painful as before – the healing magics that suffused her were doing their job. She tried to orientate herself with the direction to the castle and the location she had started out from but it was too dark. She could see the flickering light from the castle down through the trees, but she had no idea how far up the mountain she was. Once more she focussed her awareness but this time pushing out out over the mountain side, looking for that faint tap tap tap in a particular rhythm that would locate her target. There it was, faint, almost like a bird tapping at a tree – what it was designed to sound like. The irregular pattern was supposed to mimic natural sounds, but its vibrations passed beyond the normal world to where it could be detected with the mind.

Still favouring the sore ankle slightly, she started off toward the signal, keeping her movements in tune with the forest around her, making only sounds that would be heard naturally in this type of forest. Slowly she crept across the mountainside until the rock formation that she recognised came into view. She breathed a sigh of relief that it was deserted. She had feared that the High lord might have worked it out but it was habitual for different monasteries to keep to themselves some of the techniques the scouts used, this being one of them. Climbing to the first flat rick about halfway up the formation, she felt the slight tick of the portal as she waved her hand through where it was supposed to be. With relief she activated the portal and stepped through…

The burning timber crashed to the floor missing her by inches, the heat was tremendous and she felt her hair singe. The Hall of Scouts was ablaze! Her heart thudded at what this meant and she ran through the burning wreckage to escape the inferno. Bursting into the open, she saw across the way the rest of the Monastery burning fiercely, several bodies lying in the roadway leading up to the main gates and off in the distance the sounds of demonic chanting. She crossed the road, trying to avoid looking at the grossly mutilated bodies of people she recognised, the anger and hatred welling up inside until she saw the demon hoard ahead. Hanging upside down from trees were some survivors from the monastery but the demons were toying with them – one demon brought its bade down and split the survivor from crotch to head, the two halves of the body singing back and forth as the demons chanted their victory chant.

Screaming with pure rage, her mind blank from any thought but revenge she leapt toward them summoning her staff, knowing that this was it, this was when she would die… The sky opened up in a jagged rip as she moved through the air and an inky blackness descended on her, swallowing her whole.

One of the demons looked up. “Hey did you just hear something?”

========================================================================

The inky blackness fell away and Kallisti found herself landing roughly on a strip of black stone that went off in a dead straight line on either side of her. A white line ran down the middle and coming toward her was a metal monster with a single eye in the middle of its face. Kallisti leapt again and brought her staff down on the nose of the roaring monster, landing on it and kicking at its eye. The eye was hard and only cracked slightly from her kick but it hurt her foot. She then realised that it was not an eye but a window and there were two people behind it looking at her in open mouthed shock. She glanced around at this new environment, swiftly taking in the strange vehicle she was standing on, others that were screeching to a halt ahead and behind, the strangely coloured tall buildings and most strange of all the blue glowing walls in the near distance.

“Hey lady what the hell you dented my hood!” The man who had been behind the window had opened a door in the side of the box and was shouting at her. His accent was peculiar and his language was almost unintelligible. “You damn hero types just think you can do whatever you want!” he yelled. There were others getting out of the nearby metal boxes also shouting. Not knowing what was happening, Kallisti leapt away, seeing some green grassland and trees that she could hide in. What manner of place was this? Where was the monastery? What magic had translocated her here? She was assaulted on all sides by noise from the boxes large and small that moved along the black strips which must be roads. The smell was awful, a gritting oily smell that made her want to sneeze.

Wrapping her stealth around her, she crouched by a bush in the small forest, but this wasn’t right, there was no undergrowth, no fallen branches or logs and there was much too much grass. The patch of forest was small and bounded on two sides by the black strips with the metal boxes moving along them and on the other two side by grey paving stones and… fountains? There were people walking around dressed in very strange clothes and what the hell!!! The biggest statue she had ever seen of a crouching man with a huge ball on his back! Was she in hell? Was this a reminder of the punishments that would be delivered in hell? Cautiously she crossed over the grass to the paving stones and walked up some steps. There were a host of very strange people here, all dressed in the most outlandish garb.

Distracted she failed to notice someone come close and bump into her. She span round, staff ready “Opps sorry didn’t see you there!” a young man with bright yellow hair and blue clothes stepped back and walked around her “You do realise it rude to stealth with so many around?” he added. “Guys watch out there is a stealther about!” he laughed pointing in her direction. Several of the others looked toward her but lost interest and looked away again. Several of them were jigging about to the sounds coming from a silver box at their feet. Someone over to her left was shouting about “DFB” whatever that meant! She looked up at the giant statue and realised there were people flying up there! These must be some sort of demons that look like humans! Well mostly like humans – she noticed one small female who looked like a cross between a girl and fox, with long white hair, pointy ears and a long bush tail that twitched. She wore long black boots and a short white skirt and stood  on the upper level of the plinth the statue stood on, with her arms folded, looking around.

Kallisti realised she would need to be very careful if she was surrounded by demons… but if she was already dead and in hell, how could they kill her again? This was so confusing!

“That was very definitely the shape of a staff in the hood… I mean bonnet of that car.” she heard a voice behind her, for once without a funny accent but using strange words.

“Well you should know my dearest Friar! How many cars was it when you arrived?” came another voice, similar to the first but with a different accent. Coming up the steps she saw a girl with long blonde hair dressed entirely in gold and next to her an almost identical blonde wearing a green strapless top, short skirt and tall green boots. She also carried a familiar looking quarterstaff in her hand. Friar? She called her Friar!

“Well I didn’t know any better back then!” protested the girl dressed in green, looking rather embarrassed.

“…and that is why we need to find the newcomer quickly and help her acclimatise.” the one in gold stood on the top step and looked around. “Chi!!!” she exclaimed and jumped into the air and flew over to the fox-like demon on the plinth. She approached the smaller female as if to hug but the white haired girl stepped back avoiding the embrace.

“Ah its the Kallistis, now what?” she said, her accent different once again. Kallisti jerked with shock at the mention of her own name. The green-clad girl hopped up the sloping buttress of the plinth to the upper level, passing close enough to her to get a good look at her face. She had practised enough in front of the silver mirror in the Hall of Scouts to recognise her own face. What manner of devilry was this – to create copies of her and with such hair it was… well it looked quite nice really, it would be nice to grow it like that… no stop that thinking! Focus!

“Well my space rift thingy spidey sense has been going off for a while now so we are looking for a new Kallisti who should have arrived just now. We came as quickly as we could, you can never tell what might happen or how many cars get dented!”

“It was only two… maybe three..”

Kallisti felt something in the back of her head a whisper and looked around. Another lookalike was standing behind her, this time dressed in skin-tight black leathers and looking directly at her.

“Don’t be afraid we aren’t demons or nightmares.” she said with a very familiar accent. Kallisti could bear it no longer and swung round her staff appearing in her hand in the Assassin Strike. The black clad demon duplicate in front of her stood and accepted the blow, stepping back with an “oof” but standing with barely a mark on her from what should have been a killing blow. She swung again but this time there was the clunk fo her staff meeting another. Again and again she struck, a red mist descending and each attack no matter how cunning or how hard just met the clunk of the other’s staff. Tears of frustration and anger ran down her cheeks until suddenly the other girl sent her staff away  – she felt it go from her own connection to her staff – and reached out to grab her in a fierce hug that finally broker her and she sobbed uncontrollably, her confusion and grief overwhelming her.

“Well thats a different tactic!”  said Gold.

“Well Monk is a tank and she can take those hits, but that’s going to sting in the morning! This is another one of us but she’s been trained as a scout assassin and they are deadly!” Friar jumped down from the plinth to join Monk and the new Kallisti.

“They betrayed us!” the new Kallisti buried her face in Monk’s shoulder, “They wiped out the monastery, they killed them all!”

“We know.” Monk soothed the newcomer. Friar approached from behind, touched her shoulder and whispered the monastic signum. The newcomer looked up at her.

“But how can this be?”

“Its complicated and I don’t fully understand it, but we are all the same Kallisti but from slightly different worlds.” Friar began

“But you know of the demons?”

“Yes we four are all from very similar worlds, you trained in the Monastery of Norton Folgate in Oxford?” The new comer nodded and then noticed another blonde girl carrying a staff standing behind Friar, this one dressed in brown leather trousers and tight fitting bodice. The newcomer could feel them all – their connection to that ‘other’ place where they kept their quarterstaff. One after another they reached for their staff and she felt the tug, then she sought her own. The comforting solidity of it in her hand as she looked at her three sisters in arms. Without a word they touched their staves together and a ripple of recognition passed through them all, a shared bond.

“Does it always get this mystical when a new Kallisti arrives?” Chi asked Gold still standing on the plinth watching the 4 staff wielding Kallisti bond.

“Not usually but these 4 are different. I have a feeling things are going to get a bit weird from now on.”

“Kallistis and weird, no you don’t say!”

“So I am known as Kallsiti the Friar, this is Kallisti the Monk and Kallisti the Templar. I know we are all friars but its confusing enough to all be Kallisti, so we had to come up with suitable alternatives. So we could call you Kallisti the Scout?”

“How about Kallisti the Ghost?” suggested Gold, approaching the 4 Kallistis. “After all she does go sorta invisible.” The new Kallisti turned her nose up at that.

“What about Kallisti the Holy Spirit?” Chi suggested, following along. The new Kallisti looked from one to the other of her newfound sisters.

“I can’t say I’m particularly Holy but Kallisti the Spirit sounds about right.”

“Well I’m glad that at least one of us passed the test to get into the Hall of Scouts. Was the food really better?” Kallisti the Templar slapped the newcomer on the back.

“How much?” Dr Kallisti Hamilton-Stathis, Ph.D (“Quantum irregularities in the supersymetry of the Einstein-Riemann manifold”) stared at the contract the TV company had put in front of her. The fee they were offering was the equivalent of two years grant money from the Science & Education Research Council (assuming they approved the latest application) simply for appearing in their dumbed-down science quiz show! It helped that she was blonde, pretty and as one colleague had said “had excellent prospects” (the reason she no longer wore low-cut tops at work). She expected that it would also involve an outfit that would attract the sort of attention she usually tried to avoid. The money was too good to resist though. She looked at the sharp suited TV Producer sitting opposite her at this rather expensive Bistro in London’s Soho, the centre of operations for so many ambitious TV companies in Britain.

He smiled encouragingly, “… and if it does well we see the potential of your own spin-off series as I’m sure the viewers will be interested in  your… um… impressive talents.”

Kallisti took off her glasses and polished them with a napkin. “They aren’t something I usually show off in public.” she replied, replacing her glasses and fixing her gaze on the man’s shirt collar. She had dressed for this meeting in her professional suit, the one she wore to attend grant and faculty meetings. It was sober and smart for Cambridge but she felt dowdy and behind the times in this ultra-hip part of London.

“But they have been essential to get you where you are today wouldn’t you say?” He smiled again and sipped from the glass of wine, leaning back in his chair. He reached out and let go of the wine glass before he was able to place it on the table. Kallisti sighed as she watched the glass begin to fall to the floor. As it fell, it slowed down so that it stopped less than halfway to the floor. It then rose smoothly to be level with the table. She raised an eyebrow at the TV Producer who reached out and took the glass with a grin. “I’m sure there will be a great deal of interest in your unique abilities!”

Parlour tricks and pranks, that’s all anyone ever seemed to see in her ability to manipulate space and time. Few understood what her abilities were able to do, including herself to some extent. To most is was reassembling a broken egg by making localised time reverse, lifting heavy objects by reducing the local gravity field and other ‘tricks’. The fact that these abilities allowed her to investigate the intricacies of space and time directly were of interest to only a very tiny number of academics, many of whom where either sceptical or jealous of what she could do.

“Very well, this opportunity will give me a bit of independence from the grant authorities I guess.” She reached out for the contract. “However I do need to have my lawyer check the provisions before I sign it.” Her ‘lawyer’ was her father’s golf buddy who she’d know since she was a kid. Grant monies didn’t stretch to having your own lawyer!

“Of course, that is only to be expected. We’ll arrange an appointment with the wardrobe department so they can get set up for the fittings as soon as possible, we are under pressure to get going as we have studio slots booked next week. We can provide accommodation for you in Cardiff or course.” Kallisti rolled her eyes, she knew that in her future would be a tight red mini-dress. Her friend from the History department had appeared on a TV show last year and they had laughed together over lunch at the ridiculous dress they had made her wear, but now she faced the same problem. No matter how many academic qualifications or papers published, all they ever saw was the blonde hair and the tits.

“I look forward to it.” she said with mock enthusiasm. The producer beckoned to the waiter for the bill. “Thank you for the lunch it was very nice.” The dover sole had been overcooked and too salty, the spinach limp and tasteless and the salad dry and bitter. She shook his hand, smiled and headed toward the door. As she passed a glass partition, she saw the TV Producer reflected in the glass – he was staring at her intently, admiring her backside in the tight trousers of her suit, a smug smile on his face. At that moment her phone rang so she left the restaurant and once on the street answered it.

“Ah kalispera Mama!” it was her mother checking up on her as usual. “Good news, I’ve got the job on that TV show!”

“Well done my darling, you’ll be fantastic, I’ll get Peter to set the video thing to record it!” her mother was excited. “Your father would have been so proud of you! His lovely daughter appearing on the television!”

“Mama, it hasn’t even been recorded yet! I’ve no idea when it will be on the telly, it could be months!” She felt the familiar lurch in her insides at the mention of her father. Even though it had been over 15 years, she still missed him. Her mother’s new husband was a lovely man and in some ways she could pin her academic success to his influence, but ‘Daddy’ would forever be her real father. The awful car crash that took him much too soon would always mark a turning point in her life.

“Pff, it was what you always wanted when you were young, to be the famous model and glamorous star! I remember you parading up and down in front of the mirror!” She smiled at that childish memory. She had always been obsessed with dressing up and showing off as a child but it had been her step father showing a 12 year old Kallisti the rings of Saturn through the telescope in their back garden just after getting married to her mother that inspired her to be interested in something other than make-up and showing off! “So will you be staying on London long then?”

“I was going to meet Susannah later and stay over at her place tonight. She’s been on the telly before so I’m sure I can learn a lot from her experience.”

“Is that the one with the actor boyfriend? You need to watch those actory types, never trust them!” her mother’s finger wagging was almost audible on the phone.

“Yes, but its okay he’s cool and he’s off filming anyway, we’ll just have a girly night in!” Or out is what she preferred, Suzie was always a laugh when they went out back in the day! “Okay Mama, going down into the tube station, catch you later, love ya.”

*  *  *

Kallisti stumbled on the step up to Susannah’s front door and pressed the doorbell, clutching her coat around her so that nobody would see the short skin tight red dress she was wearing at this early hour of the morning. The locks on the door clacked and clicked and the door opened a gap on the chain as Susannah peered out.

“Oh my god where did YOU get to last night!” On seeing Kallisti looking rather bedraggled on her doorstep, she unlatched the chain and opened the door fully. Kallisti slunk into the hallway, wincing.

“Ugh, don’t ask, its too long and sordid a story!”

“Excellent, that’s just what I need to hear!” Susannah grabbed her friend’s arm and steered her into the large kitchen to the back of her rather grand house in Chiswick. “Tea is on, get your coat off and tell me ALL about it!” Susannah was a tall slim blonde woman with long curly hair that cascaded in ringlets around her face. She was in her mid 30s so was a bit older than Kallisti but they had been friends for years. She was also an academic, but a historian with several books to her name and becoming famous on television as the TV producers loved her pre-raphelite looks.

“You are such a bad influence on me, why is it that whenever I go our with you I seldom end up going home with you?” Kallisti cradled the mug of tea in front of her, squinting at the sugar bowl as she didn’t have her glasses on.

“So the dress did its job eh? Aren’t you glad you borrowed it then?” Kallisti had raided Susannah’s wardrobe and settled on the sexy red dress that Susannah had acquired from one of her TV appearances. The dress had caused a bit of a stir on Twitter after that broadcast! “Well spill the bean, who was he and what perverted things do the two of you get up to! Come on, frustrated movie widow here, Tom’s not due back for weeks!!!”

“He was some sort of city type – was showing off about the markets or some such, talking to me like I was some blonde bimbo, I almost dumped him, but well…” She grinned wickedly, “When he stopped talking his mouth was useful for other things!”

“Hang on, you aren’t wearing… omg you left your knickers behind!” Susannah roared with laughter. Kallisti giggled.

“When I woke up this morning all I wanted to do was get out… I did NOT want to listen to him talking again, so I snuck out and thankfully found a Black cab! I found my coat, shoes and dress but couldn’t be arsed looking for anything else!”

“You are such a tart!” Susannah hugged her, laughing. “During the day you are all serious and ‘don’t look at my tits, listen to what I say’, then you get a drink you and a sexy red dress and you become a raving slut! I love it!”

“Yeah well I’ve learned from the experts haven’t I? You and Alice were excellent tutors! Now you’re both ‘oh no I’m a good girl now I’m famous’, yeah I remember what you two were like back in Cambridge!”

“Did you do your gravity trick with him?” Susannah topped up their mugs of tea.

“Nah, he was too full of himself already and I just wanted a good shag, didn’t quite get a good one, but it was good enough!”

“So no sign of a boyfriend… or maybe girlfriend?” Susannah winked.

“Give it a rest, I was drunk at the time but she was rather cute… I’m not really interested in that direction…”

“Until you’ve had a few drinks…” Susannah smirked. Kallisti blushed. Her phone bleeped at her, a text alert. She dug into the pocket of her coat lying on the kitchen counter top.

“What? Some bloke in America wants to talk to me! What time is it over there?”

“4am if they are East Coast, who is it?”

“Cosmic Titan? Oh god its some superhero bollocks over there, jeeze.”

“Well you know the old saying with great power comes great responsibility!” Kallisti glared at her. “You can borrow the dress if you need a hero costume… but I would recommend knickers if you decided to fly about… ow!” Susannah laughed as Kallisti playfully slapped her shoulder. The phone rang, the ringtone being David Bowie’s Life on Mars.

“Yes this is Doctor Kallisti Hamilton-Stathis… Um yes I think I’ve heard of you… Legion of Valour… okay… um yes it convenient to talk… yes I’m alone… what?” She held her finger to her lips gesturing to Susannah. “Why do you need to know who else is in the house? What is this some kind of prank? What…”

There was a whooshing buzzing noise and a pop as the air on the other side of the kitchen counter was replaced by a large man wearing a red superhero costume with a red and blue cape and a large white star in the middle of his chest. He was holding a mobile phone to his ear. Kallisti jumped off the stool and with a gesture summoned a small glowing ball of gravity right in front of him. The controlled singularity pushed the man up against the wall.

“What the fuck do you think you are doing?” she shouted at him. “How dare you teleport uninvited!” Susannah dropped her mug in shock at this sudden appearance.

“Please do not be alarmed, I just thought it easier to talk in person rather than on the phone.” The man spoke with a deep American accent. Kallisti tipped her head to one side and the glowing ball of gravitational energy shrunk slightly and floated over to her to hover by her shoulder like a pet parrot.

“Well in England teleporting into someone’s house uninvited is considered rude.” With another gesture of her hand, the broken mug that Susannah had dropped reassembled itself and rose back to her hand.

“I’m sorry ma’am, but we do have an emergency on our hands and we need your particular expertise.” He gestured at the glowing ball of gravitation energy Kallisti was able to control. “My name is Cosmic Titan and I am the leader of the supergroup known as Legion of Valor” His pronunciation made the missing ‘u’ very clear. “We are based in Paragon City and I’ve come to ask if you would come and help us investigate a peculiar space-time anomaly that has appeared in the middle of the city.”

“Don’t you have your own people over there? I know of at least two others who have gravity control powers… “

“But neither of them also have temporal manipulation abilities as well.” Cosmic Titan pointed to the mug that had reassembled itself and was now in the hand of the stunned Susannah. “We have been in touch with several so called experts in and nobody has yet been able to help. The anomaly is slowly growing larger and swallowing everything it touches. We’ve not been able to touch it so far so we are reaching out beyond our normal contacts and your name was brought up…”

“I’m not a superhero, I can just… do things…” she looked from the American to her friend who was standing slack jawed at this interloper in her kitchen. “look you’ve invaded Susannah’s kitchen and its not fair on her, we should go elsewhere to discuss this.”

“Er… don’t you NEED to change your clothes Kallisti?” Susannah raised her eyebrows at her current outfit. Kallisti sighed.

“Oh, yes um, give me a minute or two will you, I only got home… um I need to change my clothes, won’t be long.” she struggled to explain. Picking up her coat she headed for the door, quickly re-tracing her steps to pick up her mug of tea as well before heading upstairs to the guest bedroom to change. Returning a few minutes later having changed into her favourite peasant-style top and jeans and tying her hair back into a pony-tail, she was surprised to find Cosmic Titan sitting at the breakfast table with a mug of tea and slice of toast, chatting to Susannah.

“Oh there you are! Cosmic Titan has met my Tom would you believe, small world isn’t it!” Susannah had recovered from her initial shock of her home invasion and was playing the perfect hostess, still dressed in her kaftan.

“Why does that not surprise me?” She put her empty mug by the sink and helped herself to a bowl of muesli. “Need to eat something before gallivanting off anywhere, especially if you are going to teleport.”

“Well I was thinking more along the lines of walking out of here to the car that is waiting for us. We have a facility near Heathrow that links to our base in Paragon City.”

“Oh.” Kallisti shrugged and carried on eating her muesli. Susannah grinned.

“So is this a paid consultancy job you are offering my friend?” Kallisti rolled her eyes at her friend – she’d been in the commercial world too long and was looking out for the cash at every opportunity it seemed.

“We can arrange something with our lawyers for consultation fees yes, we can offer you this rate:” he wrote down some numbers on a post-it note and handed it to Kallisti. She almost choked on her muesli and when Susannah peeked at the offer, her eyes widened. “Is that okay? Our lawyers can draw up a contract for you to sign at the facility.”

“Ahem, yes that will be fine.” Kallisti tried to play it cool. “Well I suppose we’d better get started. I’ll get my stuff from upstairs its just a small bag…”

* * *

The Range Rover pulled up at a warehouse in an anonymous industrial estate near Heathrow airport. Standing around the area were several men and women conspicuously not carrying any weapons, but their stance and demeanour suggested they didn’t need them. During the trip out from London, Cosmic Titan had opened up a communication channel to Paragon City and showed her the now large spatial anomaly that was gradually swallowing up the huge statue of Atlas that dominated the central plaza of Atlas Park. She had been able to talk to some of the other gravity manipulators already on the scene, but they didn’t seem to have the same level of mathematical understanding of space-time that she had acquired. Now she realised why they had called her.

Inside the warehouse was a massive machine like a toroid tipped up on its edge with a large metal ramp leading up to the central hole. The outer parts of the toroid were rotating in opposite directions and it gave off a static charge that made the hairs on her arms stand up. Good thing she had brought her passport with her if she was now about to instantaneously travel to the USA! Several technicians in lab coats were monitoring a large control console to the right of the machine and on the other side were several people in a mix of military uniforms and business suits. A dark haired woman in a smartly tailored business suit approached them.

“Here you are, if you would follow me we can sort out the paperwork.” She nodded to Cosmic Titan and headed toward an office to the side.

“Make sure you read the small print!” Cosmic Titan whispered to Kallisti as she made to follow the lawyer. Kallisti adjusted her glasses and went into the side office and sat at the untidy desk. The wall behind the lawyer was covered in wiring diagrams and diagrams, some of which she recognised. She wished she could be studying these instead of the multi-page contract the lawyer handed to her.

“If you could sign here, here, here and here, initial here, and here please.” The lawyer’s smile was almost shark-like. Kallisti took the expensive ballpoint pen on offer and started reading the contract, clicking the pen’s button as she did. The lawyer’s smile twitched slightly as the clicking continued, longer and longer as Kallisti took her time reading the contract. She wasn’t great at legalese but had worked on enough grant applications to be experienced enough to plough through the overly-complex language.

“No.” she said and pointed at a clause on page 6. “I’m not signing with this clause which indemnifies you against any loss. You’ve asked me for help so you will cover any risks that I am exposed to while helping.”

The lawyer’s smile faded. “Ahem, let me consult with my superiors…” she pulled a phone out of her pocket, got up and left the room. Kallisti took this opportunity to look at the plans on the wall. After a few minutes the woman returned, followed by Cosmic Titan. “My superiors have agreed to remove that clause.” she scowled, took the contract and drew three crosses through the clause, initialling each one and signing the alteration. Cosmic Titan also signed the alteration as witness.

Kallisti signed and initialled the document with a smile and slipped the pen into her pocket. “Okay, lead the way!” The lawyer’s scowl deepened as they left the office and headed toward the portal. “So how long has Portal Corp had this facility in England. I’d never heard of it before.” she asked.

“Um, I don’t think they make a big fuss about them.” Cosmic Titan explained reluctantly. “We just use them when we need to, they do their own thing most of the time for good or bad.” he awkwardly shrugged. “We’ve had to fix a few of their messes over the years but they still manage to keep going, even after the Rikti…” he stopped himself. “Here we are ready to go?” he gestured for her to step through the glowing portal.

There was a slight resistance as if pushing through a thin curtain and a tingling sensation passed through her body as she passed through the null space between the two sides of the portal, instantaneously travelling over three thousand miles. There was a moment of confusion as gravity seemed to shift around her – she noted the effect, worthy of future study if she had the chance. She stepped down onto another metal platform in a facility obviously specially designed to house the dimensional portal, a large cavernous room with walkways at various heights around the sides and a series of switchback ramps up to an exit at the upper floor. Cosmic Titan and the unhappy lawyer stepped through behind her. Waiting at the foot of the cavern were two people, obviously superhero types from the way they were so flamboyantly or in one case skimpily dressed.

“These are fellow Legionaries, can I introduce Pagan Priest and Stained Glass Scarlet. The first was a tall man dressed in black with red arcane symbols on his outfit. The skin on his face was black and metallic looking and his eyes glowed red. The second was a shorter woman wearing tall white boots white mini-skirt and skin tight top. Her hair was also white and her face partly concealed be a veil.

“We have a helicopter ready to take us to Atlas Park, we need to head up top.” Pagan Priest’s voice was low and rumbling.

“As usual, all business, welcome to Paragon City!” Stained Glass Scarlet shook Kallisti’s hand. “How was the trip? Some people find the portals a bit disorienting.”

“I’m fine thank you, there was a little bit of gravitational distortion but that could be edge effects in the interface barrier.” Kallisti was craning her neck to look all around the facility, soaking up the experience. They walked up the ramps to the top level and along a short corridor to a bank of elevators.

“They bury these portals deep underground so they can be defended, which we have to do quite regularly.” Stained Glass Scarlet explained. The lift accelerated them upwards and took several seconds to reach the surface. Stepping out they were in an office building with plush green carpets, the effect marred by the sandbagged gun emplacement off to one side, manned by soldiers behind an impressively large gun. Walking through the foyer, they exited via the glass wind doors into the darkness outside. It was still before dawn in Paragon City on the East Cast of America, 5 hours behind the UK.

The three superheroes led her over a grass quadrangle between the large grey building to a helicopter pad guarded by police and soldiers. A large red and white helicopter was waiting, blades turning. They ducked their head and climbed into the passenger cabin. Immediately the copper took to the air. Kallisti peered out of the window but in the darkness she could not see much as they flew over water . Eventually she saw ahead the gigantic glowing War Walls that made Paragon City famous, constructed after the alien invasion some years back that separated the city into specifically contained zones rather than the usual sprawling chaos of a normal city.

They flew over the first wall they came to and immediately she could see the city zone lit up by street lights and decorative floodlights and between the tall building the central square dominated by the gigantic statue of Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders… except that part of the large globe was missing, swallowed up in a swirling cloud, too far away to make out any details. The helicopter banked round between the skyscrapers to land in a park a few hundred yards from the plaza.

There was a large crowd held back by police barriers and inside the cordon a large number of police, soldiers and superheroes. Cosmic Titan led her to a tent set up at the foot of the steps leading up to the plaza. inside were several trestle tables with a huge variety of equipment with technicians in lab coats, camouflage uniforms, skin-tight environment suits and one in what looked like a futuristic space suit with its helmet folder back to reveal a distinctly non-human head with green skin and antenna on their head. In the middle was a man wearing a red a blue one piece costume with blue goggles and a chest emblem light forked lighting. Cosmic Titan led her over to him.

“Synapse, this is Doctor Kallisti Hamilton-Stathis from England. We’ve just brought her over here as she has an understanding of gravity anomalies and is also a Gravity Controller.” It was obvious these last two words were capitalised as he spoke them. She had heard these terms in various scientific literature but hadn’t grasped what they signified, it was referring to her special ability!

“Excellent, so let me bring you up to date on what we know. About 10 hours ago a gravity anomaly formed at the very top of the Atlas Globe. We’ve not been able to penetrate it as anything we try to send in to investigate get spat out either in pieces or in one very small dense piece. We’ve had a couple of gravity controllers try to manipulate it but they’ve all failed and one of them is in hospital with an aneurysm.” Kallisti raised her eyebrows at this revelation, they hadn’t told her about that before she signed the sodding contract. Thank goodness she got that clause removed!

“The region seems to be gradually growing – initially it was only about nine feet in diameter but now its well over thirty feet. If it grows much further the statue will become unstable, but that would be the least of our worries. If our predictions of the growth of this thing hold out by this time tomorrow most of the city will be swallowed and then in about 4 days the whole planet will be consumed.”

“So we’re not talking about a Black Hole singularity effect here are we?” Kallisti asked.

“Well we don’t yet know – there is a region of unstable gravity that forms the outer surface but its not a simple attraction force, it seems to be rotating or swirling – the visual appearance is not much use it just looks like a misty cloud.”

“Hmm, people need to stop thinking of gravity as a force!” she mumbled to herself. “General Relativity shows its a space-time distortion that causes objects to experience differential accelerations. I need to see this thing I think.” she moved to exit the tent only to be stopped by an armed soldier, blocking the exit. “What?” She turned to Synapse and scowled.

“Um security is tight here, sorry you need to be signed in and out.”

“Oh for goodness sake, I haven’t even signed in yet!” A clipboard was handed to her with a pen attached by string. She wrote her name and checking her watch she wrote the time she entered and left the tent as the same time, using UK time. She handed the clipboard back to another soldier who signalled the sentry to let her out. She exited the tent and looked up at the statue and the large misty swirling carbuncle. Focussing her mind on the space-time around her she distorted it slightly and gently left the ground, levitating herself up closer to the anomaly. There was a stir of attention around as others noticed what she was doing. She didn’t notice the weapons being trained on her as she rose up. A voice behind her made her turn around.

“Might I suggest you warn us when you do things like that next time.” said Cosmic Titan, hovering just behind her, his body glowing slightly from the flying power he was invoking. “The authorities are understandably jumpy.”

“Hmmm, oh yes okay, I’ll um try to remember.” Her attention was on mainly the anomaly though. She cocked her head to one side and brought her hand up holing her palm flat. Beside her a small ball of faintly glowing energy manifested.

“You have a singularity pet!” Cosmic Titan was surprised.

“A what? Oh you mean my little gravity Quantum? Its a useful tool to test things, I’ve been able to do this for years.” she flicked her hand and the ball floated off toward the anomaly.

“One of the other gravity controllers tried to use their singularity pet to get inside that thing, but it didn’t work and they are now in hospital.”

“Well if they tried to brute force it I’m not surprised. I’ll need to focus so I’m going back down is that okay nobody will shoot?” She lowered herself to the ground and sat on the raised edge of the plaza, closing her eyes as she concentrated on her point of quantum gravity. “I use the quantum to map the lines of space-time distortion, it allows me to build up a mental picture of the four dimensional structure.” she explained to Cosmic Titan who landed nearby. “Its not about ‘getting inside’ its about understanding the structure first. See its got an undulant structure that seems to be overlaid with a curvilinear oscillation – that’s why nothing can get through, you need to understand the contrasting frequency responses and spot the resonance… there through, that was interesting… oh now that is interesting…”

Cosmic Titan had been joined by Synapse and a couple of technicians, one had a video camera pointed at her to record everything while the other had a large circular antenna on a pole he held near to where Kallisti sat.

“Please get that thing away from me, I can feel it rippling through the space-time manifold, its irritating.” she said and the antenna was swatted away, knocking the technician off his feet. Synapse shoed him away, gesticulating to some others behind to keep their distance.

“What are you seeing?” he asked.

“Its a pocket of space-time curled around something. The outer fringes are just interference patterns with the outside, the interference is growing the longer it lasts so that is why it appears to be getting larger. I’m going further in… oh!”

“What is it?” Synapse’s voice was urgent but distant as Kallisti’s focus was drawn into the scene that was replaying before her… a young man meeting a lovely girl, they dance, they get close, she wants to go home with him, they spend a marvellous night together then the morning comes and she pats him on the cheek and walks out, leaving him crushed. With a gasp, she recognises her own behaviour! There down at the very centre of the gravity anomaly is the young man curled in a foetal position, oblivious to the world, the scene replaying itself in his mind again and again, eating him up.

She shifted her attention back to her quantum gravity particle and set it oscillating to try to attract the man’s attention, moving it to his feet to try to ‘tickle’ them. He stirred and sat up, his own gravity control powers grabbing onto Kallisti’s quantum gravity with ferocity, but Kallisti’s control was finer and more nuanced and she was able to make it duck out of his control and dance back. Its oscillation made the air vibrate with her voice “Please don’t hurt yourself like this, please let me help you?” The man’s face registered shock at hearing this voice from nowhere.

To the observers on the ground, suddenly the large misty anomaly collapsed in upon itself, causing a rain of debris from the damaged statue to fall around the plaza a cacophony of clanging brass fragments. Immediately several flying superheroes converted on the space above, surrounding the man now revealed, floating in the space over the ruined statue.

“LEAVE HIM ALONE!” Kallisti’s voice rang out from her quantum gravity particle. Surprised, the heroes kept their distance as she lifted herself up to meet the man. “My name is Kallisti, they brought me all the way here from England to find out what was wrong. Lets go and sort it out down below.” He looked at her slightly dazed, the effort to sustain the gravitational anomaly had taken its toll and he did not look well. It looked like he wouldn’t have been able to sustain it much longer, he was drained. Nodding weakly he started to lower himself, but halfway down his strength failed and he plummeted toward the plaza. Cosmic Titan was ready though and caught him before he hit the ground.

Kallisti lowered herself back to where she had left her bag, just as Cosmic Titan carried the man to an ambulance. “His heart has stopped! Get the adrenalin!” the medic shouted, starting CPR while the others worked around him. Synapse appeared beside her.

“Well that was unusual, I think I recognise him, that’s Mass Driver – he was in the Hero Corps training programme.” Kallisti explained what she had witnessed. “All that over a girl? Sometimes I despair at humanity!”

“Some people seem to have more of it than others!” Kallisti replied frostily.

“Is your singularity pet supposed to behave like that?” Cosmic Titan was looking behind her.

“Eh? I dismissed it just now, what are you talking about… woah!” she said turning to look where he was. A jagged rent in the space behind her was glowing with a sickening purple radiance and growing larger… well not larger it was as if it was coming towards her without moving closer. She could feel a pull from it as it tried to drag her toward it. Cosmic Titan grabbed her arm. “What the hell… this isn’t my quantum this is something… ” her arm slipped through Cosmic Titan’s grasp as she vanished through the rift.

“…else!” she landed with a thump on the steps up to Atlas Plaza. “Ow! What the fuck?” it was now daylight, the statue of Atlas was whole again and there were a handful of people looking in her direction as she had just appeared out of nowhere. A tall well muscled man was standing on the parapet under the statue, wearing just a pair of speedos and dancing along to a boombox at his feet. A few other oddly dressed people were about but there was no sign of Cosmic Titan, Synapse or any of the others.

“Hey Kallisti!” the man in speedos waved to her. Who on earth was he and how did he know her?

Fortunately her bag had followed her through the weird rift so she got her phone out – to hell with international charges, she checked but there was no reception. She looked around – on the far side of the plaza was the City Hall offices, maybe there would be answers there? She started walking around the base of the statue when a blonde girl dressed in gold floated down in front of her.

“Ah there you are, I suppose you’ve got a LOAD of questions sweetie?” she said. Kallisti stumbled, she looked just like her! Another blonde girl dressed in a green bustier and long skirt tail landed next to her, she also looked the same.

“Welcome to the Kallistiverse!” The first one said triumphantly.

“Oh shit you mean you are both versions of me from different time lines?” Kallisti gestured at them both. They glanced at each other in surprise.

“Er, yes but we’re supposed to tell you… um how do you know that?” the second Kallisti had an interesting accent – she had heard some of the history researchers reading in Middle English and her accent had traces of it.

“Thank god, another one of us with brains!” This came from behind her, she turned and was confronted with a tall bronze skinned creature with horns protruding from either side of her head but her voice was familiar and her face, even bronze looked the same. She was dressed in tight leather trousers and biker jacket and carried a laptop. “Kallisti Bronze at your service, specialising in quantum physics and keeping the average IQ of the Kallistiverse in double digits! This is Kallisti Gold and Kallisti the Friar – she doesn’t like demons but you are human it seems so you should get on fine.”

“Okay so how many of us has this rift displaced and how did it start? I got the distinct impression it wasn’t a natural space-time anomaly.”

Kallisti Bronze clenched her fist. “YES! Finally someone who can help, so what is your specialisation?”

“I’m Doctor Kallisti Hamilton-Stathis, my PhD is in quantum irregularities in… are you okay?” she reacted to Kallisti Bronze leaping up and down in joy.

“I think we’ll have to call you Doctor Kallisti, I don’t understand what you were talking about but you are obviously a scholar and we are sorely in need of your help. We have to reopen the rift so I can get get back to my own timeline and fight the terrible evil that is happening.” Kallisti the Friar took her hand, her face serious. “Lets go home and we can have tea and biscuits, we get them sent over from Oxford by Mother.” Doctor Kallisti felt strange, as familiar as all this seemed, she was in an alien land and this mother was not her Mama!

“So what’s different in your timeline to here then? How come you’re all brainy?” Kallisti Gold looked her up and down judgementally.

“Um, well I did well at school and went to Uni and… So who’s timeline is this one? This must be where it all started if multiple versions are being pulled here.”  Bronze and Friar looked at Gold.

“Ah that would be me, you see I’m an energy blaster… oh what powers do you have by the way? You do have powers don’t you?” It was obvious that Gold had the attention span of a stunted goldfish.

“I can manipulate gravity and time to a limited degree.”

“YES!!!” Bronze was fist pumping again. “Thank fuck for someone who is finally useful… no offence girls…” she said in response to the scowls from Gold and Friar.

“I’ll remember that next time I have to rescue you from a Rikti invasion!” Friar raised her eyebrow. “Come on that tea won’t brew itself. Can you fly or leap or teleport? Otherwise we’ll need to get the train?”

“The train sounds fine, I only arrived in Paragon City a few hours ago and it was dark so I haven’t seen much yet.” They all started walking toward the train station, except for Gold who took to the air and floated a bit above and ahead. “So tell me how the rifts started?”

“Well there was this thingy in the Portal Corp lab thingy and it was going sort or ‘wooo woo humm zzzzzz wooo’ and then I did a Nova by accident…” Kallisti Bronze mimed a big explosion, “and then it wasn’t going ‘wooo woo’ any more but more crackle crackle and then it sort of exploded but didn’t it went whmomp but silently…” Bronze shrugged, “and then Bronze turns up followed by Red… it was all a bit confusing.” Bronze twirled her finger to her temple, making herself go cross-eyed. Friar slapped Bronze’s arm. “Hey Mum and Dad will be so pleased to have a new one to meet and a Doctor as well! Are your Mum and Dad academics as well?”

Doctor Kallisti experienced the lurch in her stomach that mention of her father… “Hang on, is Dad alive here?” Gold dropped to the ground in front of her.

“Yes he… oh my god!” Gold suddenly worked it out. “Oh no he didn’t die in your timeline did he?” Gold was already in tears and hugging her fiercely. Two plus two fitted together neatly and she thought of the time she had spent with her step-father, introducing her to the night sky and distracting her from her previous obsession with being a fashion model. So that meant… she felt a shiver… if her father had survived is Gold what she would have become?