Official Report

The Downing Building

New Hebron, California

The girl sashayed across the chamber, moving towards the agent her hips swaying and a coy little smile on her face. Had Amelia, not known who lurked behind those eyes she might have found the display arousing. Chemosh had pinned her against the wall and she was at his mercy.

Chemosh stopped standing inches from the agent and leaned in locking her lips around Amelia's and closed her eyes. Amy remained frozen, locking her lips closed ensuring that the kiss was one-sided. She would not play into whatever game the once-god was playing.

She frowned and brought her lips away, but pressed her chest into Amy's. "You know, there would have been a time I would have been perplexed by someone like you. Taking hormones, and transforming yourself into a facsimile of a woman, even undergoing drastic surgical procedures at the hand of your clumsy human doctors. The more time I spend wearing the skin of such a ripe young female, the more I appreciate human appetites."

Amelia remained silent, she heard a gurgle from beside her, but trapped in Chemosh's mental grip she couldn't even turn her head. She was certain that the sound must have originated from Awé, but she no idea what had prompted it. She hoped that he was still alive and kicking. She gritted her teeth and eyed the young woman pressed into her chest before allowing herself to speak.

"What the hell is it you want?" She asked her voice trembling as she forced out each syllable.

Chemosh spun away, turned her back to the exemplar and stepped forward a few steps. She glanced back at Amy over her shoulders and smiled. She ran her hands down her body before cupping her hands over her breasts and let out a long sigh. "I can give you this. I can sense the desire deep within you. You might play at being happy with your current form, but I know better. Deep within you there is this nagging voice that wants more. With my help you could experience the joys of carrying a child within you."

"And you'll just do this for me out of the goodness of your own heart?" Amy replied between gritted teeth.

"Oh, Agent, of course not. You humans can are so deluded. There is nothing you people do unless it benefits yourselves. Suffice it to say if you join me I will give you everything you ever wanted."

She turned back to the agent before turning back and leveling her gaze on her. "I believe we would benefit from such an alliance."

"And I believe you would benefit from my connections within AEGIS or my influence over Sapphira."

"I believe we've already established that my motives are not selfless, but that's not to say you can't benefit," she leaned in and locked her lips around Amy's. The agent clamped her mouth shut again, but this time she felt something stir inside.

Chemosh had struck a cord and while she'd put on a good show of resisting the offer the truth she saw the allure. She felt his power. The ability to strike down a perp with a simple wave of a hand, to sense within the mind of would be criminals and stop them before they could hurt anyone.

This time the agent returned the kiss. She shuddered experiencing a yearning the like of which she had ever experienced. Amelia wanted this girl, with a wild animal passion. Why shouldn't she? All her life she had kept herself in check, never acting on her more wild impulses. Hailey, was a very attractive girl.

Hailey.

Amy jerked her head back and broke contact with the other woman. She had almost forgotten herself. The face he was looking upon did not belong to Chemosh, but rather Sapphira's granddaughter. Hailey was a prisoner within her own body, unable to talk or move. Helpless to do anything but watch through her own eyes as the alien entity lied, seduced, and murdered dozens of innocent victims.

Amelia's stomach heaved and she tasted vomit. This was the being she had come so close to giving in. Even if Chemosh didn't betray her, the price would be her soul. Her whole body sagged as the once-god pulled away. Hailey's soft featured contorted into a grotesque scowl and the agent gasped for air.

Chemosh narrowed her eyes and gritted her teeth. "I could have shown you pleasures the like of which no living mortal has experienced, but you had to make this difficult didn't you? You are of no further use."

Amy's lungs burne, her concentration slipped and her senses dulled. Her eyelids were heavy, and she thought maybe, she'd take a nap. She closed her eyes and drifted away.

"Chemosh!" A voice rang through the open air and Amy's eyes snapped open just before she slammed to the ground. Air flooded back into her lungs and as she came back to her senses, she looked up.

Sapphira hovered in the air across from Chemosh fists balled at his sides.

Amy knew it had been the other exemplar who'd freed her. She glanced over her shoulder and found Babalawo's inert form resting on the ground a few feet away. She could not see if his chest was rising and falling from where she lay. Still dazed from Chemosh's attack Amy didn't yet have the strength to check him for signs of life.

The agent returned her attention to Sapphira and Chemosh, but neither had moved. They hovered opposite one another, fists clenched at their side and gazes locked. She frowned and creased her brows. A gasp escape her lips as she realized what she was seeing. It was not a conventional battle which they fought, but instead a contest of minds.

Amy grunted and pushed herself up with her elbows. She crawled on the ground toward Babalawo. Unwilling to distract Sapphira or to bring Chemosh's wrath down on her, she moved at a snails pace, but she found herself within arms reach of the other exemplar. She slipped a hand over his neck, checking for a pulse, and found one. She shook his arm, but the Awé did not stir.

"Goddamnit," she cursed under her breath. When she realized that she'd spoken aloud Amelia winced and craned her neck around. Neither Chemosh nor Sapphira seemed to have heard her.

Amy frowned and watched the pair. What was she supposed to do? She considered drawing her weapon and unloading the clip into Hailey's body, but robbed of his host Chemosh would only take control of another body. If only she...

There was a rumble, and Amelia's head jerked to the side her eyes roving the room for the source and found it as another thump resounded through the chamber. "What now?" she mouthed under her breath and drew her weapon training it on the section of the wall from which the sound was coming.

Several more thuds, and the wall gave way revealing a familiar misshapen hulk.

"This just gets better and better," Amy muttered under her breath before scrambling to her feet to face the newcomer.

Harrier watched Psyren descending the elevator shaft and gritted her teeth. She turned back to the unconscious form of Aether and hot tears stung her eyes. She wasn't one for such displays of emotion, but Gus was the love of her life. Though small and diminutive for a man he had shown himself an able warrior.

She had remained with Aether rather than continue on with Psyren. She feared moving him, but neither would she risk leaving him there. He would die if his wounds were untended. She moved toward the hole in the wall left by the giant and peered down.

What she saw below was what she had expected. The giant's remains rested within a crater, no doubt left by his impact. AEGIS personnel and their exemplar allies were doing battle against the Gallu, but while she had superior eyesight, much like her namesake, amidst the chaos of battle she could not determine which side was winning. One thing was for certain, the Gallu were formidable creatures, their defeat would come at great cost to the fighters below.

Harrier squared her jaw and glanced back at Aether her mind already made up. She moved across the chamber and lifted him from the ground. Careful not to injure him, she cradled his head in her arms and walked back to the edge. Unnerved as she always was when diving from such a height, she closed her eyes, and leapt from the precipice. As the wind whipped around her, she let out a primal war cry. For the briefest of moments she let a smile touch her lips, caught up in the joys of flight, but as her eyelids flicked back open and the battle below snapped into focus her smile turned to a scowl.

Garos had risen from the crater and was fighting off Indigo Knight, Borrum, Tennyo and the Equalizer. Harrier wasn't certain why the latter three hadn't made it into the building, but seeing them set her nerves on edge. She gritted her teeth and swooped down toward the outer edge of the fighting where ambulances and other emergency vehicles had gathered.

She touched down beside an AEGIS ambulance identified by its color, a brilliant fluorescent green, where a pair of medics were already treating wounded AEGIS personnel. Her interference might mean death for their patients. So she waited. Harrier stood there just far enough to stay out of their way and turned her attention back to the fighting.

Garos swung the back of his fist sending Borrum reeling away. Borrum face did a face plant into the concrete and didn't get back up. Harrier had seen the other exemplar in action once before and knew the man possessed superior endurance and strength. The ease of his defeat did not bode well for the others. Tennyo and Indigo Knight didn't miss a beat, they dove forward, the former slicing into him with a pair of short swords and the other blasting him with an energy weapon that had come blasting out of his forearm.

Harrier sensed movement and turned, cursing herself under her breath for letting herself become distracted. A slender man in all black EMT garb stopped a few feet away and eyed Harrier with raised arms and opened palms. "Easy, I'm here to help."

She gritted her teeth and scowled realizing that she had struck a defensive pose. She let out a long sigh and glanced toward the ambulance. "He's been injured. Get a stretcher."

The EMT scrambled away returning, with another medic in tow and collapsible stretcher on wheels. As the pair loaded Gus up, they grilled Harrier on his medical history and on anything 'special' about his anatomy. Though, Aether was a powerful exemplar in his own respect, he had no abilities or traits that would interfere with standard medical practices. She answered in the negative and gripped the rail of the stretcher before they were able to wheel him away.

"Promise me, that you'll do everything you can for him," she said and the second EMT, a woman smiled and touched her shoulder. There she saw understanding mirrored in the other woman's eyes. She was no psychic, but she sensed that the woman also had someone for whom she cared. A woman could always tell.

"We'll do what we can," though the words had a certain degree uncertainty tied to them, the exemplar saw she was leaving her lover in good hands.

She nodded and watched the pair wheeled Gus away before she lurched forward and took off running. That did little to assuage her worry, but she would not stand by while others fought and died around her.

She let out a high-pitched war cry, soared into the air, extended her talons and dove toward the battle. She pounced on a nearby Gallu, and it shrieked as her claws raked its side. The wound was only superficial, and the creature lurched forward passing through the exemplar's chest as she dove in for another attack.

She spun around to face her opponent and lashed out again. This time slashing through the Gallu's face with her talons. It shriek and did a nose dive to the ground collapsing into a puddle of the same green goo that the creatures left as residue all over the place. She did not linger to see if she had finished it off or inflicted serious injury. Instead, she took off running moving toward the hulking form of Garos who was pounding both fists into the building's side with no sign of resistance.

Borrum and Tennyo lay on the ground. Harrier wasn't sure if they were dead or unconscious, but she feared the worst. Neither Indigo Knight nor the Equalizer were in sight. She wasn't aquainted with either, but the former's reputation was that of a valiant warrior. She doubted that man in the mechanized suit would have fled the fight. She knew nothing of the latter, but he didn't strike her as coward either.

The giant sure seemed to want into the building. She didn't understand his reasons, but she damn well needed to stop him. She gritted her teeth and rushed forward, but it was already too late. The wall fell away before him and the giant wasted no time lurching into the opening.

Harrier was about to follow him in when she spotted something approaching in the distance. She cursed under her breath and dove forward dodging an incoming attack from a Gallu. She slashed at it and cursed as it lurched toward the ground sailing past her outstretched talons. The creature plunged toward her, but then it paused in the open air letting out a high-pitched screech almost as if it were in pain. Before Harrier had the opportunity to take advantage of the beast's disorientation, there was a bright flash of light and it exploded in a shower of green slime.

She sensed movement, turned to face the newcomer and looked upon the armored form of Indigo Knight. "I imagine that thing blowing up was your work?"

"I crammed a remote grenade down its gullet a few minutes ago. Wasn't able to detonate it before Garos sent me on a ride across town." The armored vigilante spoke and glanced into the hole left by the giant.

He didn't speak, but rather stood there motionless. Harrier could not guess what the man was thinking, but she would not wait to find out. "Are you going in or not?"

Indigo Knight turned his helmeted head and gazed upon the exemplar. "If I do, Chemosh will sense me. He will know I am there. He might already. My presence will inflame him. He is unpredictable at the best of times, but if I go into that building I fear he may well level the entire block just to spite me."

Harrier scowled and gritted her teeth. "And if you stay out here and do nothing. He might do it anyway. Psyren, and whoever the hell else in there needs our help. Are you telling me you will stay out here because you fear what might happen?"

Instead of waiting for an answer Harrier lurched into motion slipping into the building through the hole Garos had just created.

Indigo Knight watched her disappear inside. She was right to call him out, but still he hesitated. If there was one thing he'd learned over the millennia, family stirred up a lot of complicated feelings and time did not seem to diminish them. Millenia ago he would have found such sentiments foolish, but that had been when he still called himself Moloch.

Official Report

The Downing Building

New Hebron, California

Sapphira descended the elevator shaft, his heart pounding in his chest as he sped further toward the ground. Amy's anxiety was as palatable to him as his own, but she grew more tense by the moment. He gritted his teeth and willed himself to move faster.

When he had begun his drop, he'd counted the floors, but the more he accelerated the harder it became. It was dark within the shaft, and he only caught brief glimpses of illumination. He reached out his senses, perceiving the concrete structure of the building all around him.

As his mind expanded out, he sensed the rebar embedded within the walls and the metal beams that supported the weight of the building, but that was only a small piece of what his mind touched. Outside the building the agent's of AEGIS and their exemplar allies battled the Gallu. Among them he sensed Harrier, the Borrum, Tennyo and Equalizer, worse still he sensed Garos amongst them and gritted his teeth his heart hammering harder within his chest.

He shut them all out, focusing only on the elevator shaft, Amy and Chemosh. The once-god's anger was as pungent as ever, but this time Sapphira was not so susceptible to his malice. It did, however, only heightened his apprehension.

When he reached the ground floor, he zoomed out of the shaft and screamed out at the top of his lungs. "Chemosh!"

He balled his fists at his side and hovered opposite the alien entity. Chemosh smiled, a twisted mockery of Hailey's own shy smirk. Without turning away he threw a hand out, freeing Amy and Awé pinned against the wall and scowled at his granddaughter's naked form.

Chemosh threw both hands out and Sapphira gasped his eyes grow wide. The world around him vanished, supplanted by a dark void.

Sapphira balled both fists at his side and spun around on the balls of his feet. He saw nothing save the void. "Chemosh!" He called out, echoing his previous cry. His voice carried across the darkness, but there was no response.

Though he held little hope he might find something, he continued to spin around. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach and the more he looked about, the worse it became.

He'd been trapped like a rat in a cage.

Sapphira clenched his eyes shut and forced himself to breathe short even breaths. Though he sensed nothing, either within or without the void, he knew his isolation was Chemosh's work. He gritted his teeth and reached out with his senses, his consciousness stretching across the darkness. His mind found nothing, no animals, structures or minds.

When he opened his eyes, he let out a long sigh, and peered into the darkness. He gritted his teeth and looked down at himself. No longer attired in his exemplar garb, he instead wore a simple white dress. When he peered down at his feet and wiggled his toes, he wore a matching set of sandals.

"Sapphira," a voice spoke from out of the nothingness and he looked up. Ashtar stood opposite him a smile touching the corner of her lips. "You must fight him. You must break free."

"How? There's nothing in this void. Nothing. No enemies for me to defeat or barriers to break down," he said eying her form with his arms folded across his chest.

"It is not what you see before you which you need to defeat, rather look within and you shall find your enemy."

He looked past her and craned his neck all around. This void was nothing more than a distraction, a puzzle to keep him occupied while the true battle was taking place. He clenched his eyes shut and reached deep inside himself.

"Remember," Ashtar's voice rang through his mind. "Even in the waking world Chemosh has been deceiving your senses. Even now the gateway hides in plain site. Find it before it is too late."

Sapphira nodded and focuses all his will inward. Sure enough, he sensed something there that did not belong, a barrier not of thought, but of pure emotion. Rage, hatred and self-loathing had come spilling into him and he found himself shaking.

What the hell was he doing? Why should he fight so hard against Chemosh? She was willing to give him everything he ever wanted. He c --

"No!" he screamed out, forcing back the burning flames of animosity and contempt. That wasn't who he was anymore.

He gritted his teeth, forced his eyes back open and looked upon his granddaughters form, or rather a facsimile of it. Though Hailey may have born a striking resemblance to her mother, and both were pretty, Sapphira would never expect a face like hers to grace the cover of a magazine or walk the runway.

The Hailey that hovered above the ground opposite him had the look of centerfold from one of those risque men's magazines. Her face was rounder, her cheekbones tighter, her lips just a little softer, but those were far from the only differences. She had the perfect hourglass figure, large breasts wide hips and legs that few women had a match. The site of it made Sapphira sick.

Chemosh moved forward, and Hailey's body flickered and stuttered. Sapphira made eye contact and for the briefest of seconds he looked upon Hailey's true form. She stood there staring back at him with blood-shot eyes, and mouth hanging open as if she were letting out a silent scream. Her skin was pallid and the dark circles under her eyes were the worst he had ever seen. What he was seeing was a mental representation of his granddaughter just as the over-sexed version embodied the once-god. He knew it was an illusion, but it did nothing to calm his nerves.

He touched her mind, experiencing such terror it was all he could do to bring in breathe. There was another flash and Chemosh stood in her place. His connection to Hailey dropped, evaporating away the moment that the once-god's image supplanted his granddaughter's.

Sapphira balled both fists at his side and gritted his teeth the pitiful image of his granddaughter burned into his mind. He screamed and threw both hands out sending Chemosh soaring across the void. He soared after him, threw both hands out prepared to deal another blow, but before he could strike his opponent lurched back into the air and sent Sapphira rocketing away.

"Here we are on the battlefield of mind and you think you can defeat me with telekinesis?" Chemosh asked staring over him a manic giggle escaping her lips.

As he scrambled back to his feet, Chemosh unleashed another attack and what followed left him huddled on the ground both hands clasped over his head. He screamed at the top of his lungs, but it did not help.

Colors flashed before his eyes, some of which were so brilliant and so vivid that he had no words with which to describe them. It was a veritable rainbow he would have found beautiful, but which only overwhelmed his senses. A wave of sounds washed over him in the form of screams and sirens, klaxons and screeches. A wave of emotions, anger, rage, grief, sadness, and dozens more accompanied all of this. Voices, all screamed out inside his mind at once, a tangled roar of sounds that were indistinguishable one from another.

When he thought he could take no more, it ceased. He blinked and looked up. The void faded away all around them supplanted by the real world. Sapphira glanced following Chemosh's gaze to an opening in the wall that had not been there before. Indigo Knight, resplendent in his armor stood there bathed in light.

"Well, well, dear brother. It had been a long time," Hailey's voice range through the chamber followed by a cackle of pure malicious glee.

A low rumble creeped its way through the dark interior of the building and Amy felt her heart pounding in her chest as the grotesque giant stepped into view. She trained her weapon on Garos and opened fire. She knew she stood no chance of defeating the creature, but all she needed to do was buy Sapphira more time.

The giant looked a mess. Dozens of his eyes were blackened, gushing fluid, and he moved with a limp. He roared lurched toward her and threw out his arms. Amelia, rolled away avoiding Garos' swinging fists. She gritted her teeth, turned back toward him and unloaded the rest of her clip.

The agent dodged away as he lurched toward her. She reached into her jacket for a second clip, but the back of his fist caught her in the chest and she went hurtling to the ground.

She gritted her teeth against the stabbing jagged pain in her chest as she drew in air. Amy, sucked her breath in and rolled onto her side. The effort left her gasping for breath and one side of her chest throbbed in agony, but somehow she managed. She saw the giant looming over her head and tried to muster the strength to climb back to her feet, but stumbled and fell face first to the ground.

She was expecting the giant to pounce on her, but neither heard nor felt an attack. Instead, a familiar war cry rang through the air followed by a corresponding rumble of pain from Garos.

She gasped, gritting her teeth against the pain in her ribs and pushed herself into a kneeling position. She sat there in a daze, chest heaving and fighting the darkness away between gritted teeth.

"Shit, that hurts," she muttered under her breath. She rose to her feet, arm pressed in her chest and retrieved her spare ammunition clip from inside her jacket.

As she worked she her eyes roved the room and eyed the Garos and his new opponent. Harrier hovered in the air just outside the giant's reach. He grabbed at her, but she was too fast. She dove slicing at the creature with her talons, much like her namesake, only to soar back up before the other being could retaliate.

Amy peered toward the motionless forms of Chemosh in Hailey's body and Sapphira. The pair remained in the air, still unmoving and still unaware of the world around them. She shuddered and eyed them between pursed lips. She couldn't understand what a battle of the mind would look like, or if it could even be described in terms, she would understand. Whatever form it must take, she doubted it was pleasant.

Amy popped the clip into place and hesitated for only a moment before opening fire on the giant. Every small movement was painful, and it was not long before sweat beaded down her face. She didn't let it stop her, she bit the inside her cheek and emptied every single round into the giant. Garos howled with each shot she fired, but the bullets did not seem to hinder him.

Garos focused his attention on Harrier. Perhaps, the agent's firearm posed less of a threat than the talons of the other exemplar or perhaps he sensed that Amelia was in less than prime condition. His fist snatched at the open air, but each time his arms flew out he came that much closer to striking the exemplar.

Harrier was fast, but if what Sapphira had told her was correct, despite his grotesque appearance the giant had a brilliant and analytical mind. He saw patterns where others saw only chaos. He would soon be able to anticipate her next move. It was only a matter of time before he predicted two or three steps ahead and then he would have her.

Amelia considered calling out a warning, but she feared distracting the other exemplar and hastening her defeat. The agent retrieved her final clip from inside her jacket reloaded her weapon before slipping it back into its holster. If she'd had an endless supply of rounds, she wouldn't have hesitated to resume firing, but a single clip was not enough.

Perhaps, help would come from another source. She grunted, arms pressed into her side and moved toward the unconscious form of Babalawo. She collapsed onto her knees and gritted her teeth against the accompanying pain. With a trembling hand she reached a hand out and slipped her fingers over his neck.

The moment they found purchase she bowed her head. His pulse was strong. Amy gritted her teeth and shook the other exemplar, but he did not wake. She grabbed him with both hands and shook harder, but still he remained unconscious. When she glanced back over her shoulder, it was just in time to see Harrier receive a glancing blow at the hand of Garos. The exemplar staggered back and avoided a second blow by diving away at the last moment.

As a law enforcement officer Amy had more than a few tricks up her sleeve. There was one in particular that sprang to mind. It used by beat cops to wake drunks and druggies and was also very painful. She put her knuckles against the sternum, located in the center of his chest, and rubbed as hard as she could.

Babalawo awoke with a scream hands grabbing at his chest. In his panic, he knocked the agent aside and sent her tumbling away. She landed on her back and remained there staring up at the ceiling gasping for breath and clutching at the side of her chest.

"Oh, god, Van den Broeke, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to--" Babalawo said scrambling toward the other exemplar.

Amy threw her hand out cutting the man short, pointing toward Harrier and Garos. "Help... her," the words sent searing hot stabs of pain searing through her body, but at least it seemed to get her point across.

Babalawo nodded and rushed forward toward the confrontation between the exemplar and the alien being.

Amy grunted and climbed up onto her knees intent on witnessing the battle. Her breath caught in her throat as her eyes locked on Chemosh. Hailey's head had moved and her gaze was leveled on the opening left by the giant. Indigo Knight stood within the opening.

Chemosh grinned and let out a long cackling laugh. "Well, well, dear brother. It has been a long time."

Chemosh threw out her hands. Indigo Knight's feet rose from the ground and his armored form came zooming across the chamber toward her. She held him in the air in front of her staring at him between gritted teeth.

Amy watched the pair staring at them out of the corner of her eye. Though her suspicions was confirmed, the spectacle sent cold chills down her spine. Chemosh was erratic under the best circumstances, throwing in her long-lost brother to the mix would only make her all that more unpredictable.

Amelia rose to her feet, slipped her gun out of its holster and moved along the exterior of the room. She needed to get to Sapphira. The emotions she sensed through the other exemplar made her want to crawl into a hole and die. She gritted her teeth and eyed the pair, her heart hammering in her chest at the prospect that one of them might become aware of her.

Though she did not fear Indigo Knight's wrath, she worried drawing his attention would bring Chemosh's wrath down on her. Neither seemed to take notice of her, or if they did, they were too preoccupied with their stare down to give her any attention.

Though the two siblings did not move, Garos and the other exemplars made up for their lack of activity. Babalawo had joined the fight and while he had no offensive powers, his contribution was proving to be beneficial to Harrier. Whenever the giant swung one of his fists at either of the two, Awé would make use of his abilities and send the fist phasing through one or both of the exemplars.

In the time since Chemosh had become aware of her brother, Sapphira slinked to the ground and lay there huddled arms cross against his chest and knees pressed into his stomach rocking back and forth. When Amelia was close enough, she dropped beside the other exemplar and placed a hand on his shoulder. He did not look up or show any sign he'd taken notice of her, but lay there tears cascading down his face.

"Liv," Amy whispered giving Sapphira a shake.

The other exemplar looked up at her with tear soaked eyes. "Amy?"

Amelia didn't know what had transpired between the two beings for Sapphira to be such a mess, but what she sensed through their empathic bond made her want to shed a few tears of her own. She bit back the anguish and self-loathing that radiated from the other and, though it sent stabbing pains through her body, leaned in close.

"We need you," she whispered and glanced back over her shoulder at Chemosh and Moloch. The former had pinned the latter against the wall and was shouting at the top of her lungs.

"I can't... Amy, I can't free Hailey. Chemosh's mind is too powerful," he muttered sobs racking his whole body as each syllable escaped his lips.

Amelia squeezed his shoulder, but never took her eyes off the pair of once-gods. "Liv, if you don't do something we're all going to die."

"And what am I supposed to do?" He asked looking up at her with wide eyes. "Kill her? I can't do that. I can't kill my granddaughter. She's all I have left."

Amy knelt there frozen Sapphira's admission of his feelings for her earlier in the day ringing through her mind. Her initial reaction was one of disgust, but as she looked into Sapphira's eyes something stirred inside her. She felt her breath catch in her throat as realization thundered through her.

"No," Amy said, leaned in and kissed the other exemplar full on the lips. "She's not. You have me."

When Amy broke away, both exemplars stared across at one another with wide eyes. She didn't know who was more surprised Sapphira or herself and the tangle of emotions they shared through their empathic link were not so easy to distinguish. Sapphira leaned in returning the other's kiss.

If there was any doubt, it evaporated with a second kiss. They stared into each other's eyes, left breathless.

"Liv," Amy swallowed hard and glanced back over her shoulder. "We need you," she whispered her previous statement. Charged with more than just the agent's desperation, it was those words that spurred Sapphira into action.

Sapphira touched Amelia's cheek, for the first time sensing the other's pain. He would have offered to heal her if he hadn't known she would refuse, and he couldn't risk repeating what had happened the last time. It pained him to see her in such agony, but there was nothing he could do.

Rising to his feet, he glanced around the chamber remembering what Ashtar had said. He extended his senses out and found something off. It wasn't any one thing he could pinpoint, but it was almost as if someone had woven little threads of energy throughout the room, they pulsed hummed with brilliant almost iridescent energy.

Sapphira didn't know what those threads were, or how he might remove them, but he had to try. He reached out, grasping one with his mind and pulled. It took more effort than he might have surmised, but it offered little to no resistance once he had leverage enough of his willpower. The entire framework buckled and quaked with the removal of the first thread, when the second and third came free it all fell away, and just as if someone had flicked a switch the room was bathed in bright blue illumination.

Amy gasped and Sapphira turned to follow her gaze. In the center of the chamber rested the gateway in it's expanded state. A blue sphere hovered within the center of the portal which to the eyes of the agent looked different from the one she had peered at through the lens of her vision.

It was hard to pinpoint. It looked somehow darker, and more forbidding than it had before. Then again, everything looked different when she was viewing, perhaps this was just a matter of seeing it for the first time with her own eyes. The site of the relic sent cold chills down her spine.

That was when she spotted the unconscious form of the young woman at the gateway's base and her heart hammering inside her chest. Something wasn't right.

"I'm impressed," a voice spoke and Chemosh turned her gaze upon them a scowl stretching across Hailey's face. She threw her hand out and Indigo Knight soared into the wall. His inert form slid to the ground landing with a loud clank. "It took hours to lay that glamour over the room."

She spun around arms still extended, but this time Amelia was her target. Sapphira stepped in front of the agent his own arms extended. He dug his feet in and gritted his teeth has his shield formed around both himself and the agent. He let out a high-pitched scream in defiance, as the full brunt of Chemosh's attack came slamming into him.

Official Report

The Downing Building

New Hebron, California

Brilliant bursts of energy cascaded around the pair of exemplars and Sapphira barred his teeth and screamed. The moment the attack hit, his shield flared to life and while it quivered and shook with each new beam, it held against every blast. A near inhuman screech escaped Hailey's lips and Chemosh ceased her attack. Sapphira peered at the once-god breath caught in his throat and heart pounding in his chest.

A loud rumble quaked through the chamber and Chemosh turned her head eying the combatting forms of Harrier, Babalawo and Garos. The giant stumbled forward and fell to one knee. Harrier swooped in, her claws raking the back of his uninjured leg, her opponent let out another rumbled and fell face first to the ground.

The ground beneath them quaked on his impact and all the combatants within the room paused, eyeing the unmoving form of the giant. The seconds ticked by and Garos remained inert. Harrier and Babalawo stood there, glistening with sweat and panting from exertion.

Chemosh head snapped around, and a smile stretched across Hailey's face. Amelia, whose instincts already screamed at her that something was wrong, tried to call out a warning, but it was already too late.

Awé's body stiffened, his body jerked sideways, he lifted an open hand, and he struck out at Harrier. The other exemplar, caught unprepared didn't even lift her claws to defend herself. It would not have mattered, in either case, Babalawo's fist phased into her chest, his hand reaching out for her heart. When he brought it back out, it was covered in the other's blood and his victim collapsed at his feet.

Awé turned back toward them his fact, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open in clear shock. A look that mirrored that of the agent and Sapphira.

Chemosh cackled before breaking out into a full fit of hysterics. "Oh, this is good just to see the look on your people's faces. You didn't think it was a coincidence that your friend had a nearly identical skill-set to my Gallu friends, did you? You see, he was my contingency should dear Garos fail to stop your friends."

Hailey grinned and waved toward Awé, the exemplar scowled but moved forward as commanded. She glanced at Sapphira still cackling under her breath. "Come now, surely you must have expected this, didn't your human doctor's tell you, you might have some form of precognitive abilities? No? Well, I'm sure they'll develop with a little more time."

"Though this ability is limited, the moment I first laid eyes on him more than a year ago. I know that he would be important. I never dreamed that he would be so useful."

She'd been toying with them the whole time, Amelia realized. Watching to see how events would unfold, even allow his ally be defeated before revealing his hand. It made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. The more she thought about it the less sense it seemed to make. Why not take control of Awé at the start of the battle? Why allow them to defeat his ally?

Unless he couldn't. Amy craned her neck back, eying the artifact. Chemosh had gone to great lengths to retrieve it. What if it had a use none of them had ever guessed at? What if it was more than a portal to some unknown place or time? It was just a guess, but what if the once-god was drawing power from it? It would explain almost everything.

Amy grabbed Sapphira by the shoulder intent on warning the other exemplar, she but never had the chance. Before she uttered a single syllable a beam of luminescent energy shot out from the other's outstretched hands and the room was bathed in light so bright she clenched her eyes shut.

The agent opened her mouth still hoping to warn the other, but no sound would escape her lips. The world around them rippled, with such force the air reverberated around her skin. She tried to scream, but the effect only seemed to intensify.

The light grew brighter, so powerful that it shone through her eyelids. The force of the resonating air also intensified, and the agent gritted her teeth against the pain that accompanied each new vibration. Just when she thought she couldn't take any more the reverberation ceased, and the light faded away.

Amy collapsed to her knees and sat there panting, gritting her teeth against the pain in her ribs. She let her eyelids slipped open and crouched on darkness. Not a shadow or a dark surface, but rather a complete absence of anything and everything. As her eyes roved the emptiness all around, the forms of Sapphira and Chemosh soon materialized standing upon the void as if it were a solid surface.

Amy grunted, pushed herself to her feet, drew her gun out of its holster and trained it on the once-god. Before she fired a single shot, Sapphira jumped into motion, sending another brilliant beam hurtling across the void toward Chemosh. The resulting flash was nowhere near as brilliant as the previous one, but even so Amy turned her gaze and shielded her eyes.

"That's not necessary, you know," a voice spoke from out of the dark, and a familiar form materialized before her. "This is all in your head, or perhaps I should say it is taking place within all three of your minds. What you see before is but an illusion."

Amy glanced up at Ashtar, between pursed lips, careful to keep Chemosh in her peripheral vision. For the time being, Sapphira was keeping her busy, but she had no idea how long that would last.

"The light bothers my eyes," Amy said and winced as the words left her lips. If what the other being said were true, she shouldn't experience any pain or discomfort. She pressed a hand into her chest over her injury. She should have been writhing on the ground in agony, but instead she felt nothing save for the pressure of her fingers on her chest. That too, was an illusion, but one which she was happy to perpetuate.

She paused and pulled on the collar of her top, peaking inside. Her heart lept into her throat, realizing for the first time that something was very different. When she underwent her transition, she'd had high hopes, expecting a much more feminine figure than the one she had developed. It appeared within this void created by their minds that her sub-consciousness had given form to those desires.

She would have loved to give this imaginary body a good once over, but it was neither the time nor the place. She gazed at her breasts, one final time, sighed then returned her attention to Ashtar.

The agent eyed the dead woman and bit her lip. Though Sapphira had interacted with the once-goddess, her viewing had been less than crystalline and she had little idea what they had said to one another. Worse yet, this incarnation of the alien being may have been conjured by Chemosh herself. Whoever or whatever Ashtar was, Amy would have to take whatever she said with a grain of salt.

"Amy," Ashtar said glancing back over her shoulder. "I know this is all new to you and you have little reason to trust me, but I need you to listen. We're running short on time."

Official Report

The Downing Building

New Hebron, California

When they emerged inside the void Sapphira, wasted no time unleashing a beam of energy at Chemosh. Though aware of Van den Broeke, he did not speak or acknowledge the other exemplar for fear of drawing attention on her. Amy had none of their abilities and had no way of defending herself. If he could keep the other occupied, perhaps he would spare her his wrath. Though a faint hope, it was all he had.

Chemosh's form was bathed in light as the blast cascaded around her outstretched hands. She might have looked angelic if it hadn't been for the malicious grin stretched across her face. Sapphira dropped his hands, letting the energy flicker and die. He pursed his lips and dove forward to dodge the other's counterattack, but there was no way to avert or ward off what came next.

Color coalesced all around them, muted images sprang to life growing brighter and more vivid in seconds. Amy and Chemosh faded away. A city took form around them, and Sapphira swallowed hard as he came to recognize the images all around him. It was New Hebron where his daughter had died. He froze peering all around; the street was devoid of people or cars. Otherwise it was just as he remembered that fateful night.

Even in the dark, the shadows seemed bright compared to the emptiness of the void. He looked around and stopped. He locked his eyes on to the exact spot where it had happened. He furrowed his brows and stepped closer. As he did, an outline of a car and a pair of forms huddled on the ground took shape. They grew more vivid with each step and when Sapphira was close stopped dead in his tracks.

Not again.

He found what he expected, but it didn't make it any easier. Hot tears stung his cheeks, and he tasted bile in his mouth. He gritted his teeth and looked down at his former self, clasping the dying form of Clara.

His past self wept and Sapphira did too. Sapphira sobbed, between breaths, but Everett cried making no sound. When Clara's last breath escaped her lips, Everett looked up at his future self and glowered.

Sapphira took a step back, his breath catching in his throat as he eyed his other self between sobs.

"Look at you!" Everett screamed out at him. "Look at what you've become!"

Sapphira took another step back, but did not speak. Instead, he clenched bath fists at his side and watched his former self shake with rage.

"That monster killed our daughter, and you just let him go! How could you?!"

"I-I," Sapphira sobbed and felt his eyes grow wide. "I thought that was what I wanted, but I've come to understand that it wasn't right. That's not who we are!"

"It's not who you are! You weak, degenerate, twisted freak!" Everett scream, lurching to his feet, his bloodied form still dripping blood. "If only we'd been given powers before it was too late! I never would have gotten involved in all this namby-pamby nonsense."

Sapphira stood there breathing in and out, trying to steady his breath. He let out a high-pitched scream and scowled at the old man. "You don't understand a damn thing, old man, you're angry and hurt, but that doesn't excuse the hatred and bigotry you have spread. I'm ashamed of things I said and did when I was you!"

Sapphira screamed again, and his, or rather her, past self cackled and an all-too familiar inhuman grin spread over his face. "Oh Sapphira," he asked. "Why so defensive?"

Sapphira threw both hands up projecting a wave of energy that sent the old man hurtling away. She spun around, expecting Chemosh to emerge, but instead silence followed. She heard soft, feminine laughter and turned back to his daughter's corpse. The body had jerked sitting upright, and she leveled her cold dead eyes on him. Her face cracked into a grin and her lips parted revealing a double row of razor-sharp teeth.

Clara glanced down at her hands, cocking her head sideways as her fingernails extended outward becoming thicker and sharper. She lurched forward swiping at Sapphira and the exemplar lurched back as the other's new claws raked the empty air.

The ground rumbled all around her and Sapphira jumped back as it cracked and gave way around him. A dozen or more forms emerged from the ground. Every creature was more misshapen and inhuman than the last. Each wore a grotesque version of a familiar face, his wife, his granddaughter, his parents, and a ten-year-old boy whose face he'd almost forgotten, his older brother who had died when he was still young.

Other faces from the past joined the mix, but the only one that produced a scream of terror belonged to the creature who resembled Amelia. Her face was a near perfect recreation, but that was the only resemblance. She leveled her blood-red eyes on Sapphira and grinned at her with a mouthful of fangs. This produced another scream from the exemplar. Though one of the most grotesque things she had ever laid eyes on, it was the fact that it looked on her with Amy's eyes that so disturbed her.

Amy's body was twisted and contorted into impossible proportions, but that wasn't even the most appalling thing. One breast drooped from her chest, stretched and swollen and hung inches above the ground. The other half of her chest was flat and covered in grizzled hair. She had a complete vulva between her legs, but it squirted green cum on the ground with each new step.

Amy stretched its hands out, and Sapphira jerked away from them realizing as she did so that instead of fingers each digit resembled a penis, some circumcised and some not. The creature called out, but it spoke with such a strong slur, that Sapphira could make neither heads nor tales of what it said.

Sapphira heard a voice call out, but she couldn't be sure to who it belonged. She spun around, a figure flickered into sight before her and disappeared again. She did not recognize the figure which had been faint, but she thought it might have been Amy. She called out her name, but received no answer.

The mock-Amy lurched forward backhanding her with one of her phallic hands and Sapphira jerked back, not quite avoiding the attack. Though she experienced no pain, the blow sent her reeling away into the chortling form of Barbara, her dead wife. She knew she was looking upon an illusion and that these creatures were not her loved ones, but despite this understand she did not attack.

The creature that resembled Barbara, lurched forward her clawed fingers raking the side of her breasts. Sapphira jerked away, avoiding another attack from her mother. She was maybe three feet up when something latched onto her ankle and was slammed back down to the ground. The exemplar never learned which of her attackers had been responsible before being buried under a writhing mass of misshapen figures. Her cries fell on deaf ears.

For Amy, when the void evaporate a cityscape did not appear around her but rather a bedroom. She narrowed her eyes and glanced around as the room materialized around her. It looked familiar, but until it completed its manifestation, she did not know why.

Against the north wall rested a twin bed, made up with a set of well-worn Kim Possible sheets and matching bedspread, a cheap pre-fabricated chest of drawers sat opposite it and a misshapen beanbag chair rested against the wall near the door. Star Wars, Linkin Park The Strokes and about a half a dozen different cartoon posters adorned the walls. She knew them all well; the items had once adorned her childhood bedroom.

Given the choice Amy would have gone with much more feminine decor, but she'd been lucky to convince her parents just to let her have the Kim Possible bed set. When she still lived at home, she often imagined what her room might have looked like if allowed to decorate it as she pleased.

She'd always wanted lavender walls, and she imagined that she would have thrown up a few posters from her favorite pop artists. The rest wouldn't have been too different, she'd never been much for ponies, princesses or the like. It would have been just feminine enough to show it belonged to a girl. Instead, she had woken up to a lie every single day of her young life.

The door creaked, and a figure stepped inside the room. At first his form was nothing more than a shadow, but as the man moved toward the agent, his features took form. It was her father, Mark van den Broeke.

She swallowed and looked up at him though above average her father was not so tall as to turn heads. This version of her father's hair brushed against the seven-foot high ceiling, but that was not the only difference. Her father spent most of his free-time guzzling beer after beer. As a result his physique was soft and doughy, but the version of Mark van den Broeke that stepped into the room, had the body of an athlete.

"Just what the hell, do you think you're doin'?" He threw his hands out toward her. He spoke with a slight slur as he so often did when he was drunk. Amelia stepped back remembering all the beatings she'd undergone at his hands. "Get out of that shit, right now you fuckin' queer."

Amy glanced down at herself and swallowed hard. Though her body had not changed from the one she'd worn since being pulled into Sapphira and Chemosh's mental arena, she could not say the same for her clothing. She was wearing her sister's prom dress, she had tried out many times in secret when she'd still been living at home. Though it had never been her style, it had always fascinated her, because of what it represented.

She balled her fists, at her side and glared up at her father between gritted teeth. She screamed out in defiance, but it was a futile effort. Hands reached out and grabbed her and he threw her against the wall. She threw out her hands and feet, clawing and kicking at her father, but her father's arms just seemed to multiply, one latched around each of her wrists and ankles.

Another pair of arms, reached for the straps of the dress, pulling so hard he tore the fabric. "No son of mine is gonna wear a goddamned dress."

As he pulled the dress away from her chest, her breasts seemed to deflate fading away as the garment came free. She screamed, but her father was too strong. With each centimeter he pulled it down her body, the more masculine her physique seemed to become.

"No!" Amy screamed out between gritted teeth. She knew what would happen if the dress came free and she could not allow it. That was when she remembered what Ashtar had said to her. She'd been so swept up in what she'd been seeing she had almost given herself over to the illusion.

She gritted her teeth, ignored the gigantic form of her father and screamed out for Sapphira. There was a flash. She was in the streets of New Hebron where Clara Stern had been murder. She could see the other exemplar, surrounded by dozens of misshapen figures, each more grotesque than the last. One wore her own face, and another wore Hailey's, but the rest were strangers to the agent.

She opened her mouth to speak, but there was another flash and she was back in the room with her father. Amelia was no longer pinned against the wall, but stood on the other side of the room a few feet away. The agent glanced down at her chest, pulled the prom dress back up and let out a sign of relief as her breasts re-materialize under the surface of the fabric.

She gritted her teeth and concentrated on what she was wearing. The prom dress disappeared, and in its place materialized the same outfit she was wearing in the real world, black slacks, a blue blouse and her AEGIS jacket. A smile touched the corner of Amelia's lips as she reached into her windbreaker and produced her pistol from within its holster.

Her father approached, his arms stretching out to unnatural proportions, reaching across the room toward her. Though the gun was a projection of her mind, it felt real enough. So, she opened fire. The bullet impacted him in the chest, and he let out a high-pitched screech. Her father lurched forward. Amy gritted her teeth, let out a scream of her own and unloaded the clip.

Her father, stood there peering down at the bloody mass on his chest, and glanced back up at Amy. He teetered on his feet, then fell face first to the ground. The agent moved toward the door but stopped dead in her tracks when another figure stepped into the doorway.

Amy, paused glanced at her gun and slipped it backed into the holster. Her mother hadn't been there for her, but she couldn't bring herself to attack her mother even an illusionary version of her. It was a realization that might have given her pause if Maggie van den Broeke hadn't been smiling at her with a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth.

This time, Amy did not draw her weapon, but focused her will elsewhere. She already wasted enough time confronting her own demons. It was time to face a few of Sapphira's.

The world around Amy sputtered and flickered, dissolving like snow on a hot day. Her mother smiled, displaying her razor-sharp teeth, and waved before evaporating. Amy shuddered. The image was burned into her mind; it was the thing of nightmares, and she knew the creature would make an appearance in her dreams.

Amelia looked around and her breath catch in her throat. She was back on the street where she'd last seen Sapphira. A mass of misshapen bodies were writhing in a heap. The other exemplar was nowhere in sight, but Amy's instinct told her where she could find her.

She lurched forward, grabbing at a limb with both arms, dug her feet in and tossed the creature over her shoulder. The creature screeched and wailed as its form dissolved into the air. She didn't stop to marvel, but rather grabbed the next and flung it away. It too disintegrated. When she reached for a third, she gasped and jerked back.

A twisted version of her own face grinned up at her, but although disconcerting, that was not the worst feature of the creature. It was the body, a mash up of male and female dripping fluid from its privates and penises for fingers, that had elicited such a strong reaction.

From the moment she'd come out as transgender, people treated her like a freak. This creature was the visual manifestation of so many of the slurs and insults slung at her over the years.

Mock-Amy jerked to its feet, grinned with a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth and pounced at the agent. Amy dove sideways and slammed into the creature as it lurch into the space she'd just vacated. It stumbled to the ground and Amy gritted her teeth kicking it in the side as it stumbled to the ground. It howled, crying out in pain, but the agent did not relent.

She drew her gun and opened fire, but didn't bother reloading. She didn't need to. Her weapon was as much of an illusion as the creature. Her clip was full because she wanted it to be full.

The creature seemed immune to the conjured bullets. It didn't even flinch when one of them struck dead center in its forehead. Amy backed away and slipped the gun back into its holster. She sensed that something had changed, but she did not muddle it over. Her duplicate jerked forward, and the agent slammed into it with her shoulder.

She might as well have run into a brick wall. Amy grunted and stumbled back staring at the creature with wide eyes. It grabbed out and latched its hands around her wrist. Amy jerked back, but her other self seemed to have developed super human strength. She kicked and clawed at it, but nothing she seemed to have any effect.

The monster laughed, a cackle which sounded similar to her own. It tugged on her wrist and Amy dug her heels in struggling to keep herself from being pulled forward, but her opponent was just too strong. The creature pulled her in and latched another hand around her free wrist. It grinned at her, displaying all its teeth then sank them into her shoulder.

Amy shrieked, her shoulder erupting with stabbing hot pain as her counterpart's teeth ripped and shredded through her flesh. She renewed her struggle, but the creature only tightened its grip around her wrists. She kicked her captor, but it didn't even so much as a grunt.

The creature lifted its jaws, Amy's blood dripping and splattering on her shoulder and neck. Its mouth brush her ear, and it cackled again, this time sounding less than human.

Amy shivered, her mind racing as she felt the creatures breath on the back of her neck. If it killed her inside this conjured reality would she die? She'd faced death more than once, and she'd be lying if she said she didn't fear it, but the thought of what Chemosh would do if left unopposed terrified her.

The creature's grip was like iron and no amount of struggling would free her. The agent screamed out for help, but no aid came.

"You really think you can beat me, Amy? This isn't your mind." the creature said and bit into her shoulder again.

"No, it's mine," A voice spoke, and a figure emerged from out of street.

Sapphira stood between the creature and the agent. She looked worn, her clothing was tattered, her hair was a mess and scrapes and scratches covered her arms and legs, but to the agent's eye she looked fierce. The other exemplar held her hand out, and Amy heard the creature gurgle. The monster's grip around her wrist loosened, and the agent fell to her knees.

It screamed and Amy rolled away, gritting her teeth against the pain in her shoulder. She climbed to her feet and spun back around to face the creature, but it was already in its death throes. Sapphira clenched her open palm shut and in response its arms and legs jerking and contorting before plunging into its torso.

Faux-Amy emitted one more screech before the rest of its body, twisted and bent into itself. Before long, it faded into nothingness and leaving Amy and Sapphira standing in an empty street.

Amy glanced at her shoulder, though her flesh had mended, her clothes were still torn. She couldn't say whether it was the work of the creature, Sapphira or her subconscious.

A long drawn out cackle echoed through the street, and both exemplars spun around seeking to find the source, but the laughter seemed to be coming from everywhere. A figure emerged from a side street, it was Chemosh.

The agent felt her breath catch in her throat, not at the sight of Chemosh, but at what followed. Hundred's of figures came pouring out of the adjoining streets, every single one of them were Chemosh and they were all grinning.

'This place is but an illusion, the only limits are those which you impose upon yourself.'

Ashtar's words rang through Amy's mind. It was that single sentence that had given her the foreknowledge to defeat the ghost of her father, escape her mother, and destroy two of the creatures that had been terrorizing Sapphira.

There was now an endless stream of Chemoshes pouring into the street from all directions. Amy hadn't even bothered trying to count them, there were too many to even make an attempt. She wasn't going down without a fight no matter how futile the attempt would be. Her heart hammering in her chest, she reached for her gun, but hesitated as the final words of Ashtar's warning repeated in her mind.

'Chemosh is powerful. He has lived for millennia, and there is no limit to his depravity. Though you hold power within your own mind, he will overcome you if you standalone. Only if the three of us merge our wills, shall we be successful.'

Amy furrowed her brows raised her weapon and opened fire on the flood of Chemoshes. Why had the once-goddess chosen such a strange way to phrase that last sentence? She hadn't thought it over, but now faced with her own demise her mind had returned to the conversation in some hope she could unlock a secret meaning.

Where was Ashtar? If they must somehow join their wills why wasn't she present? Realization struck the agent. Not once had Chemosh shown any sign he even knew the former goddess had left an imprint on Sapphira's mind. She must have been hiding, but how then could they hope to defeat the once-god?

Realization struck, with the force of a physical blow. Amy dropped her gun and grabbed Sapphira by the shoulders and pulled the other woman close and locked her lips with her. She reached out, touching the other's mind. Moments ago, she never would have ever made such an attempt, but Ashtar's message had landed home. She had been imposing limits upon herself.

No more.

Understanding dawned in Sapphira's mind. The other exemplar returned her kiss and a brilliant burst of light enveloped them. Nothing would ever be the same.

Official Report

The Downing Building

New Hebron, California

Light flooded out from the pair of exemplar's washing over the surging torrent of Chemoshes. One by one each of the once-gods were consumed by the light emitting a shriek of agony before disappearing into nothingness. The luminescence grew brighter and even the streets themselves receded into it.

Amy, Sapphira, and Ashtar become one. Where once three awarenesses existed, there was only a singular consciousness. One with the training and mental discipline of an AEGIS agent, the knowledge, expertise and raw power of a goddess, and Everett's life experience.

As the conjured realm became swept up on the tidal wave of light, their combined consciousness noticed the outside world, but it was not yet time to return. The streets of New Hebron gave way to the blackness of the void, and a single set of eyes looked about.

The woman, looked down on herself. Her well-endowed form unfamiliar, her skin looked too light, but also too dark. She cupped her breasts; they were both too small and too large. Her fingers too slender and too stubby. Everything about this woman was a contradiction, even her memories seemed inconsistent.

She remembered being a young transgender girl terrorized by an abusive father, recalled being a man who had lost everyone and everything he'd held dear, and knew also that she'd once ruled over thousands as a cruel and malevolent goddess. The woman glanced down at her hands flexing them and marveled at the new experience.

The woman, or Ashira as she thought of herself, jerked her head sideways gazing at a specific point in the emptiness. A figure materialized before her and she tensed staring across the void at the slender form of Chemosh.

The once-god did not act as Ashira expected, neither attacking nor speaking, but instead stepped around the amalgamation. With each step her eyes grew wider and when she'd done a complete three-sixty around the other woman, she stopped her jaw hanging open.

"H-how is this possible?"

Ashira cocked her head and eyed the other being with a slow shake of her head. "I'm not certain I understand the process myself, but we both it is unimportant."

Chemosh threw both hands up and a beam of energy burst out toward Ashira. A blue bubble snapped into place around her. The blast slammed into the barrier and dissipated. This time the shield did not wobble or quiver, but kept its shape.

The once-god dropped her hands, the beam faded and before she could level another attack against her opponent, Ashira countered. She did not strike with an energy beam or make use of her telekinesis. Armed with the knowledge of a ghost of a virtual goddess, she understood how ineffective it would be to use such tactics.

Ashira stretched her mind out toward Chemosh. She slammed into a wall, a metal barrier she could see no direct path through, but that just meant she would have to make one.

Ashira was the amalgamation of three awarenesses, but it went beyond that, she possessed the spark, the power which fueled Sapphira's abilities and Ashtar's before her. She possessed incredible power, and though Chemosh seemed to draw energy from the gate, his awareness did not exist within this realm. The once-god would be no match for a being such as Ashira.

One by one she overcame the layers and the mental barrier crumbled away before her. As she stretched out her senses able to touch the other's mind, she heard laughter, and sensed the wall come back down around her. She did not understand. Had she walked into a trap or was something else at work?

For a time there the darkness, so complete, so all-encompassing, that there was nothing. Even thought did not seem to exist within the abyss, identical in every way to the one which had bridge their minds. Ashira became aware and the endless black receded. A scene unfolding itself around her. A figure stood atop a platform, and thousands supplicated themselves below.

The figure was short, by modern standards, but as she watched him move, his bare chest rippled with muscles, and she realized he looked familiar. To the part of her that was Ashtar she recognized him as Chemosh, but to the parts that were Sapphira and Amelia his face was familiar for other reasons. His features and skin tone were different, in minute ways, but just enough he resembled a person of middle-eastern descent rather than the man of European descent he presented himself as in modern times.

Time progressed, and the god known as Chemosh grew bored with his existence. Even flittering between the Moabites, who knew him by his proper name and the Ammonites who knew him as Moloch did nothing to sate his discontent. His kind were adaptive they took whatever form suited their needs and so he changed. The face he came to wear belonged to Ashtar.

And so she continued her reign. This female aspect came to call herself Ashtar. Within her existed darkness, much like that that within Chemosh, but while she did not shirk away from violence, she did not lust for it when she wore a male face. She was a force of nature, a maelstrom of sensuality that manipulated those who worshiped with glee. She took countless lovers to fill the void within herself. Absent was the gentle and caring being that agent and Sapphira would later encounter.

Sometimes she would return to her male form, and on those occasions she meted out violent with the same ferocity as before. In either form she committed countless atrocities. Sometimes she even encouraged her adherents to perform human sacrifices or send them off on fruitless quests just because it amused her. Human worshippers were killed or maimed to entertain her male side or because they had dissatisfied her. She sent her subjects off to war and would even pit the Ammonites and Moabites against one another.

There was another man, he looked familiar to Ashira, but she could not name him. She believed he may have served as a priest at one point. She witnessed Ashtar making love to the man, riding him so hard that he collapsed in exhaustion. Time and time again she took lovers, some female, some male all attractive. When she made love, she was passionate and violent. She would strike the object of her desires with the back of a hand, or press the man or woman into the wall with enough force to break bones, but she did not care. She abused them and then discarded them when they could no longer sate her lust or on a whim.

"This is wrong, this can't be true," she called out, but there was no answer.

The images flashed to many ancient places, some of them Ashira recognized some she did not. A figures sitting upon assorted thrones, standing amongst supplicating worshippers, or watching battlefields with cold disinterest in their eyes as those who served them flung themselves into battle with fanatical zeal. These were beings like Ashtar and Chemosh across the world and in many places.

Then one by one these false gods, were overthrown by worshippers who'd grown discontent with their deities. She saw them dying, ripped apart by their own worshippers. Unable to defend themselves against angry mobs that seemed to stretch on for miles. Though they were powerful the sheer numbers of their former adherents proved their downfall.

This much Ashira remembered she'd inherited those memories from Ashtar, but even so there were differences. She watched as Ashtar-Chemosh looked on in terror, but soon she convinced herself that her peers had become lax, and had done it to themselves. Even so, her doubt and it ate at her like a cancer.

Though she ridiculed the downfall of her rivals, she feared that the same might happen to her, and so she took steps to uncover and quell any rebels. She did not realize, at first, that she was fueling the fire of discontent. Adherents were taken and held prisoner if they showed the slightest signs of unrest. The goddess even became so desperate she peered into the mind of those she captured. When she found no signs of rebellion, she did not quit, unable to quell her fears. So, she invaded the minds of even her most ardent followers and that brought about change.

She understood the humans which she so despised. She viewed them as a lower-life form, much as a human might look upon livestock, there only to serve her. That changed. She wept, when she saw the pain a misery she'd visited upon her followers and she even felt guilt, but this created conflict.

These were foreign emotions to her kind, they knew nothing of kindness, or even love. A wild, almost primal hunger for power drove every action. Nothing else mattered to them. The trauma to her psyche was irreparable and as a result it split her asunder. Her people were adaptive, and so her spark compensated, not be merging the three identities, but by tearing them apart and giving them each a form of their own.

Three beings emerged, each taking upon themselves a familiar name. Chemosh, became the embodiment of everything Ashtar had come to loath about herself, a creature that hated everything and everyone and wanted nothing but more power. Moloch, became the embodiment of her guilt, and would always carry it upon his shoulders and Ashtar embodied compassion, and love and she would come to wear it like a badge of honor.

Of the three, Chemosh was the only one who remembered their true origins. Moloch remembered being the brother of Chemosh instead of a different aspect of his personality, and Ashtar believed herself to be their wife a fickle creature who moved between them whenever she grew bored. For a time, when they emerged they lived an uneasy peace, but over time each became convinced that the others were too dangerous and they turned upon the other. Chemosh for fear he would succumb to the madness again, Ashtar because she feared that the others would destroy their worshippers out of spite and Moloch for much the same reason.

Ashira saw the three battling, and this much, at least, she remembered, but the details were very different. She recalled a grand battle between their three different military forces. In this version, there were only two armies, the Ammonites and the Moabites, and they were fighting amongst themselves as much as against one another. Each of the three gods ordered their worshippers to attack the other army, but considering they had come from three different versions of the same deity it was no wonder there should be so much confusion.

Amidst the chaos they fought, flinging one another across rooms, demolishing everything in their path, whether it be a pillar, a wall, or one of their many worshippers. Moloch was the first resorted to invading the other's minds, and when they became linked Ashtar and Moloch saw that Chemosh represented the real threat. Within him they saw all the wrongdoing they'd done manifested in physical form.

And so they joined forces. Even when the pair combined their wills, it took hours for them to defeat the other god and when the ordeal was over, it had decimated their armies and those few that remained turned upon them. They fled, with Chemosh their captive.

When they escaped, they faced a decision. Kill Chemosh or imprison him. Before their split, such a decision would not have been difficult. They possessed no mercy, but they no longer thought in such a way. Death and destruction did not have the same allure, and their sensibilities would not allow them to end the life of one they believed to be a brother and a lover. And so they spared him.

Long ago, they had come to Earth, not by ship, but through the same gateway that Chemosh and Garos would millennia later steal from AEGIS. It was that device which they used to banish Chemosh to the realm of the Gallu. A race of extra-dimensional creatures that their kind had long feared because of their volatile nature and their tendency to feed upon the life energies of those near death, but ones which did not possess the technology or intelligence to travel outside their realm. It would be a horrendous fate, but his demise would not be on their conscience.

Chemosh's reckoning ended there, but Ashtar's memories filled in the remaining gaps. After the battle Moloch, seemed to have lost his abilities. Though he did not age that seemed to be the only remaining trait that differentiated him from a human. Their little skirmish had resulted in the deaths of countless humans, and it was only afterward Moloch had muddled over the consequences of their actions.

Ashtar had told Sapphira that Chemosh had been the cause of her departure and Moloch's impotence, but that had been yet another piece of the delusion. Though the effect was different, the reason was the same, their guilt was eating away at them.

Ashtar had other reasons for leaving. With Moloch she shared her belief that their people were a danger to humanity, and they needed to leave Earth before they inflicted further harm. Moloch felt they must remain and try to undo some of the damage they had inflicted upon mankind. Despite this dispute they parted on civil terms. Ashtar left Earth, and though she had vowed to stay away, she would remain vigilant, just in case its people should ever have need of her.

As for Moloch, he agreed to hide the gateway some place out of humanities reach, but Ashtar never knew what had become of him.

And with a start, Ashira came awake in the real world, gasping for breath and grabbing at her chest which was throbbing in pain. She was under attack, but as she tried to fight back, she grew weaker and weaker. She had come awake too late to save herself. Her vision was blurred, and it was getting worse by the moment, but she could just make out the form of Babalawo standing over her. He had phased his hand inside her chest and his fingers had found purchase around her heart.

As he squeezed the life out of her, Ashira heard Chemosh's laughter fill the chamber. The images she'd projected in her mind had been to keep her occupied while she summoned her puppet. It had been a trap, and she had walked right into it.