[continued from previous message]

museum grounds, of course, and perhaps slightly more random vandalization
here and there than the prosperous city normally saw.
But so little was moving. The worst of the traffic snarls caused by failure of systems and by panic had been cleared, and relief supplies were moving about the city, but it would still be days if not weeks before
anything resembling normal would resume. Damage to bridges and roads meant
the flow of traffic in and out was restricted. The worst medical cases had been flown out, either by helicopter or by superhero, and many of those fit
to do so had simply walked out. Even with all the troops assembled around
the dome, there was no practical way to keep people from leaving if they had done nothing provably wrong.
As for the obvious criminals...most of the Vogue Ghouls who had
willingly followed Lady Sable as her enforcers had been drained of their life energies to create the shadow golems. Some had been caught alive, and no
doubt a few had escaped both that fate and the authorities, but they would
find little help from other gangs. Crime as a fashion lifestyle did not generally extend to being okay with mass murder on the scale Sable had attempted, and any cachet Sable's followers might have once enjoyed had probably soured.
"What a gods-damned mess," Solar Max swore. He'd shed the heavy duty outer armor he wore for the assault, but was still in his regular suit, with helmet on. A few Vogue Ghoul holdouts had wanted a fight, and he had no intention of making it easy.
If his expression was unreadable behind the modified alien helmet, his tone was all too clear.
Arc nodded. "On the bright side, Sable was fueling her magic more with the fear of death than actual death, so most of the populace survived. She wanted to get everyone to the brink of death, the 'darkest before the dawn'
as it were, before pulling the trigger. The few collaborators we've found thought that it was going to be happening some time in the next week."
Solar Max glanced at his helmet's heads-up display. Estimated 99% survival rate. "Yeah, *only* one percent dead. When people play at being gods, that's a low body count. And this got resolved before the starvation
got really bad, although we'll probably see a few tens of thousands of people we pulled out not make it because the Vogue Ghouls decided they weren't worth
a ration. Most of the dead were among hospital patients and those with
medical needs that couldn't be met in a sealed city. A few victims of violence, both from resisting the new order and just people being horrible in bad situations, some suicides. Oh, and they tell me the suicides aren't done yet, despite everyone's best efforts. PTSD is *rough*."
Arc stayed silent. She knew her Combine counterpart was speaking from experience. Rumor was that some of the tragedies visited on the Academy of Super-Heroes had been planned by their own government, a way of toughening
them up and weeding out the ones who couldn't cut it. They probably had
their own rumors about EUROPA, though.
Solar Max paused, clearly getting a message over his helmet comm.
"Well, here's some news from the other day I'm finally cleared to share with you, mainly because we don't know anything else about what happened...."

* * * *

[January 23, 2027 - Near Providence, Rhode Island Sector]

M'emba sat in her room, alone save for the surveillance equipment that
she knew was there, but did not bother to disable. It was the dark hour of
the night, when death was at its strongest, and when she habitually chose to meditate. That much was expected, it would arouse no suspicion from her watchers.
That it was coincidentally the time she expected any plan against Lady Sable would take place? How convenient, yes.
She felt a chill wind blow, despite the warmth of the room and the lack
of any windows.
She held out her hands and cupped them as the tiniest spark of darkness settled into her palms. The dying ember of death itself, of her banished and forgotten god. A distant echo of his mighty voice roared in her mind's ear
as she dissolved into the darkness and was gone.

* * * *

[January 25, 2027 - Berlin, Germany]

"Well, that's not roo surprising, if sinister in the details," Arc shrugged. "Terrastar and Mr. Smith vanished in the aftermath of the battle,
it makes sense that M'emba would do so as well. But literally vanishing from under surveillance suggests some powers she hadn't revealed yet."
"Or hadn't HAD," Solar Max's tone suggested a scowl. "Poniente and Peregryn agree that the spark of godpower that Sable was using was merely freed, not destroyed. Three guesses where it would go, and the first two
don't count, as my grandpa used to say."
"If we're very lucky, she's not our problem anymore, and has gone
looking into other realities for other survivors of her cult," Arc proposed. "But we're probably not that lucky. At least I seriously doubt she'd ally
with Sable or Nyx, but Terrastar or Smith are another matter."
"And then there's Sadi."
"He's still around, though," Arc furrowed her brow.
"Yeah, that's the problem."

* * * *

[January 25, 2027 - Prison Omega, location classified]

It was hard to think.

She felt...drunk? High? No, sedated. The woman calling herself Lady Sable had abused quite a few mind-altering chemicals in her quest for power, and while she'd been clean for years now, the fuzz laying over her brain was
a familiar one.

The room was brightly lit, but she couldn't focus enough to tell if it
was daylight or artificial. She could still feel the magic within herself, a bruised and guttering spark suffering from the abuse of her defeat, but she couldn't focus enough to use it.

"Prison," she slurred. This time there'd been no last second escape
from the heroes to tried to keep her from godhood. Maybe she'd get a trial, maybe not. There weren't a lot of strong Anchors around anymore, and they couldn't very well put her on trial in this drugged haze, this wasn't the Combine.

Or was it? Jurisdictional issues were hazy enough without the brain cotton, maybe it was decided to give her over to the more repressive Combine government, throw her in the Cavity, and never let her out?

"My laaaadeee Nish...Nik...Nyx," she stumbled to form the words.
"Please aid your ssservannn..." she nearly passed out from the effort.

There was only silence and light. Such bright light.

* * * *

[January 26, 2027 - Berlin, Germany]

"It's coming up," Gerd sighed as he and Anna looked out their apartment window. The sky was lightening, promising a dawn, just like the day before, and the day before that.
"I don't think I can take that for granted, not anymore," Anna
shivered. "That night felt like it went on for years."
Gerd nodded and hugged his wife closer. Physically, they were okay. A few days of tight diets hadn't been enough to seriously impact them. Financially, they'd be okay...almost no one was working in Berlin right now other than disaster relief (which Gerd and Anna both did on a volunteer basis now that they'd been medically cleared), but between UBI and national funds
to cover superhuman-related incidents, there wouldn't be any real pinch.
But psychologically? That would take more than a few dawns.
"Maybe once everything settles down, we should move somewhere else,"
Gerd suggested.
"Somewhere SUNNY," Anna emphasized, and they shared a chuckle.
The tops of nearby buildings lit up with the Sun's rays, and the
Karstens just watched the light creep down until the Sun itself became
visible over the urban horizon....

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

Author's Notes:

First, a few quick reference notes.
Since writing the first scene of this issue, I started playing Final Fantasy XIV. It is purely coincidence that I have characters talking about "primal gods," given that I decided on the term several years ago when I knew functionally nothing about Final Fantasy XIV (and not much about any Final Fantasy).
M'emba and her "mote" of a banished god come from City of Heroes, as indicated back in ASH #119. City of Heroes has been gone for longer now than it was up, although the "pirate servers" have reportedly been fairly active
for the last few years. As a City of Titans dev, I can't really go on those for both legal and appearances reasons.

Anyway...oy, that was a long arc to write. I started it three jobs and almost a decade ago. Why did it take so long? Some of it was other
projects. Developing course materials every time I switched schools.
Working on the City of Titans project. Just not having the desire to write ANYTHING because of everything else going on at the time.
A big part of it, though, was that I didn't feel obliged to get it out
the door so that the storyline could move on. With no one else writing ASH universe stories that depended on the timeline advancing (Pi, Singer, and
Rossi all moved on to professional gigs, and Burton's always been on his own side story timeline), I didn't have that "I'm being a problem for others" pressure to get it done.
I didn't completely stop writing ASH stuff in the meantime, but I would often write a Coherent Super Stories side piece rather than working on City
of Night. And I also did completely disconnected fiction, the "School" stories, and other bits and pieces here and there.
At least I finished this arc before January 2027 realtime.

Will there be an ASH #126? I wouldn't rule it out, but I have no plans for the next arc, and clearly I'm doing more of my writing in short and non-serial pieces lately. Arc-format stories might have to wait until I
get another collaborator who is interested in that sort of thing, or I get a Burning Need to write an arc.
Still, 125 installments of serial fiction, plus side stories,
crossovers, art, and guidebook files over the course of 27 years or so is pretty impressive as a hobby.

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

For all the back issues, plus additional background information, art,
and more, go to http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/ASH !

http://ash.wikidot.com/ is the official ASH Wiki, focusing on the Fourth Heroic Age, but containing some information about other Ages.

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

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