Timewalker

Timewalker
Attribution
Character(s)	Ivar Anni-Padda
Secondary Cast	Girl Imalka Mack Weisenfeld Nefertiti Triahna Vandal
Foe (s)	Angel Prometheus Jahk’rt Kor-Lak Kreizer Niktor
Locations	Dura Europus
Events Seen	Chaos Effect

Ivar Anni-Padda has experienced the passage of thousands of years just like his immortal brothers, Gilad Anni-Padda and Aram Anni-Padda, but unlike them or anyone else, he spends his years skipping around from one point in history to the next. Ivar is able to find natural "time-arcs" that carry him from era to era, and might be in the present one week and in 41st Century North Am the next. This gets to be tricky for Ivar, who must take care to do nothing that might change history, a pledge of non-interference that often leads him to make some difficult choices.

Child Of Time

In 3,270 BC in the Middle East, Vandal, a tribal leader, dragged the horse that carried his weakened pregnant mate Triahna up the desert rocks to flee from the Spider Aliens, a race of blood-thirsty extraterrestrial arachnoids that held her captive until he broke her free. As the horse with Triahna rode into the distance and Vandal turned to fight their pursuers, Jahk’rt, an immortal from the far future, felt certain he would slaughter the aliens and she would survive, which made her glad that she chose them. Against all odds, Vandal prevailed, as he always had, and caught up with Triahna. As Jahk’rt surveyed the battlefield over the bodies of the arachnoids and dismissed their dying race as nothing more than over bred insects with brittle, chitinous bones, and flesh like rotten figs, she pondered that Vandal and Triahna came from a young race with strong genes and knew she had to own their child.

Four years later in a village in Anatolia, Vandal stood outside a tent with his sons, Ivar Anni-Padda and Gilad Anni-Padda, while Triahna delivered their third child. Worried for his mother’s health, Ivar asked his father why she cried, but Imalka, the tribe’s medicine woman, hushed him and told Vandal that Triahna’s third son would be the hardest birth because the child was very big and refused to come out.

When Ivar asked his father if Triahna was going to die, Vandal told him that, sooner or later, everyone died. As Triahna’s cries intensified, Ivar asked Vandal why he could not help his mother, but his father told him that his mother’s woes were between her and his son. To appease Ivar, Vandal took a coin that hung from his neck and made it disappear, then, when Ivar asked him where it went, he pulled it out of his ear and told him that, like his fear, it was inside his head. As Vandal placed the coin around Ivar’s neck, he told him to wear it to remember where his fear laid, when then Imalka emerged from the tent and told Vandal to follow her.

While Vandal stood over Triahna’s corpse and the midwives gave him his son, whom they told him was very strong and very loud, Ivar lunged at his mother and begged her not to leave him. When his father pulled him back and told him to let his mother go and that all his life he would have to let things go, Ivar refused to accept his mother’s premature demise and ran off to grieve. Though Vandal wanted to follow his son, an elder suggested that he let him go be with himself.

Upset with his father, whom he felt lied to him about the validity of his qualms, Ivar wept for a long time over his mother’s death, until a brightly glowing butterfly in the sky caught his attention. Intrigued, Ivar watched as the glow grew in size and he knew it was something more than it looked, then, as the roar of alien engines assaulted the stillness of the ancient desert, Ivar had his first glimpse of destiny when the butterfly disgorged a ship from another world and time that trampled him. Amazed that he was still alive, Ivar hid and saw as Jahk’rt led a caravan of Spider Aliens to the ship. As he heard as Jahk’rt told Kor-Lak, the aliens’ leader, that no time had passed for the crew of the ship they sent through a time arc 20 years earlier, Ivar recalled that his mother was dead and got scared.

While the aliens dragged their brethren’s corpses from the vessel, Ivar heard Kor-Lak chastise Jahk’rt for the destruction of the ship and the demise of its crew. When Jahk’rt coldly remarked that all that mattered was that the ship came through and Kor-Lak told her that he did not understand why they trusted her, Ivar noted that, except for her, the aliens were not human. As Jahk’rt reminded Kor–Lak that his chairman wanted him to trust her, he dismissed his wishes and ordered the soldiers to burn the ship. Using her staff, Jahk’rt destroyed the ship and warned Kor–Lak never to forget her abilities and the future technology at her command, but, despite her caution, he reminded her that she survived to use her knowledge at their discretion.

As Ivar rushed to the village to alert his father, he was horrified to discover that the aliens had raided it and slaughtered everyone. While Ivar did not see his father’s body or his brother’s, he found his mother’s and asked her if the raiders had killed Vandal as well, when then Niktor, the Spider Soldier in charge of the raid, grabbed him by the neck and said that they had been sent to find him. Though Ivar struggled, Niktor took the around his neck and then took him with him.

As the alien caravan rolled through the Anatolian wasteland toward a rendezvous with time, Ivar had no chance to mourn. Inside Jahk’rt’s carriage, Jahk’rt told Ivar that she knew his father and that she had to know if he shared his unique genetics, then she ordered Niktor to break his legs. Since Vandal taught his sons never to cry, Ivar fainted. As time passed and the aliens broke him, Ivar continued to heal.

For the next century, Ivar silently listened and watched his captors while he waited for his opportunity to escape. One day, Jahk’rt and Kor–Lak entered Ivar’s cage and she urged him to let her teach him how to use the Tachyon Compass, a device that could guide him through time and take him away from there. Tired of pleading with Ivar, whom he considered a moronic lump of flesh, Kor–Lak warned Jahk’rt that if he would not obey he would slaughter him for his table and then left the room. Aware of the fate that awaited them, Jahk’rt told Ivar that it was time she made it clear who she was and what he was to become.

Quietly, Ivar listened as Jahk’rt told him that, in the far future, she was Earth’s greatest bio-manipulator and engineered herself to be all but immortal, and how when the tribunal sentenced her to cryogenic suspension and she escaped through time, her untested ship crashed in the 43rd Century, an era infested by Spider Aliens who her weapons and technology impressed. Jahk’rt told Ivar that when she was unable to kill the aliens she agreed to work for them in exchange for safety in the hope that she would find the way back to her time.

When Jahk’rt told him that he was her way home, Ivar spoke for the first time in a century to express surprise. When Jahk’rt realized that Ivar was smarter than he appeared, she took him outside the carriage and told him that the compass guided the caravan toward a specific place where a time arc was due to appear. As Jahk’rt revealed that she was lucky the compass survived the crash since she lacked the skills to rebuild it, fifty aliens who entered a time arc 150 years earlier emerged from the phenomenon torn to pieces, a fate that she told Ivar she would share if she tried to travel through time without a vessel. When Jahk’rt told him that the son of Vandal could go through a time arc without harm and bring her a time ship, Ivar realized that, if she was telling the truth, he could walk through time.

Sometime later, the bars of Ivar’s cage malfunctioned and he escaped, and, for the time in his adult life, he ran free through the jungle. After Ivar eluded the guards, he saw them run after a girl, and through he did not understand why nor cared, he rescued her. After Ivar dispatched her pursuers, he took the girl under a tree and asked her name, but she told him that she lost it long ago and asked him to hold her in his arms. Soon the inevitable happened, and Ivar and the girl made love. Unbeknownst to Ivar, Jahk’rt and Kor-Lak devised his escape to watch him and the girl mate as part of an experiment, and, once they did as expected, the soldiers took them to their cells.

That night in the prison carriage, Jahk’rt told Ivar that Kor-Lak lost faith in time travel out of fear she would succeed and become very powerful. As Jahk’rt lamented that a time arc was due soon, she told Ivar that the aliens were going to slaughter him and take the girl to the pens. As Jahk’rt placed the compass on a pedestal outside Ivar’s cell, she ordered Niktor to take Ivar away and then she left. As Niktor dragged the girl from her cage, Ivar pulled a soldier against the energy bars of his cell and shorted them out, then he snapped Niktor’s neck and retrieved his father’s coin. While Ivar picked up Niktor’s sword, he told the girl to take the compass.

As Ivar and the girl exited the carriage, a time arc appeared in the sky and they made their way toward it through a barrage of alien soldiers. Though Ivar warned the girl that going through the arc might kill her, she said that she did not care and they jumped inside. Within the time arc, Ivar held the girl against his chest with both arms as the winds of time blasted them without mercy until they deposited them without ceremony in another time and place in a cold country with an unfamiliar sky.

That night, Ivar buried the girl, who died in transit, and lamented that he never knew her name. As Iva made his way through a dense forest, he wondered if he had traveled through time to the past or the future, or fallen into an alien trap. Shortly, Ivar found shelter in a cavern, and as he lied on the cold ground, he pondered that, whatever time he was in, it had to be friendlier than the one he left. Suddenly, the earth beneath Ivar trembled as a metal monster with smoke that steamed from its nostrils, a fire that belched from its bowels, and a single yellow eye that flared at him hurdled toward him. As a giant steam locomotive bore down the train tracks at him, Ivar shouted that he had found the future and that it was trying to kill him.

Archer & Armstrong Tetralogy

The Sinister Secret Of Stonehenge

Standing on a building waiting for a time arc, Ivar got into an argument with a pigeon fancier who wanted him to get off the roof. Just then, the time arc appeared and swallowed the man, leaving Ivar in its wake. The next day, Archer & Aram came to visit Ivar in his flat. Fascinated by the treasures he found there, all of which pertained to the Egyptian Queen Nefertiti, Archer immediately liked Ivar. After showing Aram his time–maps, the visual record of his travels, Ivar took Archer & Aram for dinner. Pushed by Toby, the café’s owner, into ordering the pie, Ivar and Archer passed out after eating it, then as Archer fell after eating a chip, a group of temporal refugees stepped out from the back of the café and surrounded them.

Meanwhile in L.A., as Kev used the satchel to force the cops to do his will, Mahmud, bandaged up like a mummy, broke into his apartment and took the satchel. Back in London, the refugees loaded their captives onto a double decker bus that F–7, a freewill from the future, turned into a flying machine. Waking up, Archer came to believe that Ivar had purposely kidnapped these people from their eras of origin. Unable to awake Aram, Archer tried to reason with one of the refugees, but he was unable to breach the language barrier. Just then, Toby told him that they were planning to hold a democratic hanging for Ivar in Stonehenge. Back in L.A., Mahmud rechristened himself the Avenger as he vowed revenge on Aram from the Hollywood sign.

A Snatch In Time

While Ivar’s trial progressed, F–7 used a hologram to demonstrate how a continuum rift they believed that Ivar created was responsible for transporting them through time. As he heeded Ivar’s plea for help, Aram told everyone that he was responsible for the temporal portal. Meanwhile, Mahmud’s trail of terror across L.A. caught Solar’s attention. After he knocked Mahmud off his feet, Solar listened as, in his lunacy, he told him to warn Aram that he awaited him at the end of the world before he vanished. Back in England, Aram explained that without his satchel he could not send anyone home. As Archer surmised that the rift failed because Aram built it in Stonehenge, a place filled with magic, Aram revealed that he built Stonehenge while in a drunken bender and there was nothing magical about it.

Just then, a time arc opened and the pigeon fancier fell out of it. Not soon afterwards, Solar arrived to warn Aram about Mahmud. As F–7 informed Solar that his arrival had created a secondary temporal portal that could send everyone home, they worked together to do just that. When Ivar crossed the portal to go to Egypt, F–7 followed him and disrupted the field, sending them to parts unknown. Returning to the issue of Mahmud, Archer prodded Aram to stop him as it was their duty, but Aram refused to follow him to the end of the world, a remark that pulled them into the portal and sent them to their final battle with the self–proclaimed avenger.

If This Is Tuesday, This Must Be… North Am?

One week after the Battle of South Am, Magnus led a group of kids through the empty streets of North Am to the lower levs, unaware that the Malev Emperor had found them and sent all human–built robs to kill him. Meanwhile, above sector 144 of the milespires, Ivar fell out of a time arc followed by F–7, whose disruption of Solar’s temporal field had caused them to arrive in the future. Almost immediately, F–7 lost control of his senses and became a slave to the Malev Emperor’s will, which ordered him to find Magnus and reduce him to elements for recycling. Following F–7, Ivar saw an army of robs attacking Magnus, who was protecting the children. Though he detested fighting, Ivar leapt in to assist Magnus to save the kids.

After the fight, Magnus asked Ivar for help getting the kids to safety and he agreed, but since his coat ripped he asked that they make a stop first so he could change clothes. Meanwhile, the Malev Emperor, who learned who Ivar was from F–7’s memory files, ordered his capture so he could use his time arcs to change history. While the kids were safely hidden away Ivar took Magnus to his apartment, where he changed clothes and collected technology far in advance of any Magnus had seen. As they left to get the kids, a Malev scout found them. Calling Ivar his primary objective, the scout leapt over Magnus to grab Ivar, who swiftly destroyed him. Troubled by the Malev’s interest in him and tired of his elusiveness, Magnus asked Ivar who he was. Learning of the time arcs, Magnus realized the Emperor’s plan and urged Ivar to leave as soon as possible.

As they headed to the Goph levs, Magnus asked Ivar if he could take the kids with him, but Ivar cited the dangers of surfing the arcs and suggested against it. Suddenly, a Malev squadron swooped down and stood between Ivar and the arc. While Magnus distracted the Malevs, Ivar jumped on a skip–cycle and promised to send reinforcements to help Magnus and the kids escape as he drove it into the arc. Overwhelmed by the Malevs, Magnus was barely able to fight, when then Takao Konishi, Ananse, and Kazuyo Nakadai rescued him.

Elsewhere in time, Ivar recorded an entry in his time jump report to remind himself to tell Bloodshot to program the information about Magnus into his nanites so that Rai knows to go save him. Closing the recorded, Ivar then sat on the skip–cycle and flew away looking for the next time arc.

HARD Times

Sixty–Five million years ago, in the Mediterranean Desert, Ivar barely survived a dinosaur stampede caused by seismic activity that opened the ground and gave way to the Mediterranean sea. Pushing the skip–cycle to its limit, Ivar made it into the arc, which took him and a deluge of seawater to a rooftop in NYC on April 4th, 1992, where his arrival startled Debbie & Patty, two girls sunbathing, and Mr. Weinbaum, the super. Smitten, the girls fussed all over Ivar, while Mr. Weinbaum went to his apartment and called the Harbinger Foundation thinking that they would reward him for reporting what he saw. Mr. Weinbum’s call sent ripples of increasing magnitude throughout the foundation until it reached Toyo Harada, who in light of the disappearance of every hero on Earth, sent his Eggbreakers to investigate, unaware that the HARD Corps were listening in on him.

Using the tachyon compass to ascertain the date and find the time arc, Ivar realized he had arrived on the day that Gilad and the others left to take part of the Unity conflict in the Lost Land. After making sure that the skip–cycle no longer worked so that no one could use the future technology within it, Ivar invited Debbie and Patty for lunch, when just then the Eggbreakers broke into the roof and attacked him. After an extensive battle in which Ivar held his own against the likes of Rock and Thumper, he ultimately fell to Tsetse’s touch. Watching the battle from an adjacent building, Gunslinger ordered the Corps to intercept the Eggbreakers.

While Maniac and Shakespeare dealt with Rock, Spike-man, and Tsetse, Gunslinger followed Thumper, who had Ivar slumped over her shoulder. Holding Thumper at gun point, Gunslinger demanded that he tell her what Harada’s interest in Pete Stanchek and Kris Hathaway’s unborn child was, but she refused to answer his questions. Realizing he would not get anything from her, Gunslinger signaled Ivar, who was standing behind Thumper, to knock her out. Claiming he was a scientist who the Eggbreakers had found testing an invention, Ivar took Gunslinger to the ski–cycle under the pretense that he would clear things up to him with it.

While Ivar tinkered with the skip–cycle’s mechanism, the compass alerted him to the return of the heroes from Unity. Telling Gunslinger that he would find Pete and the others where he last saw them, Ivar leapt out the window just as the skip–cycle exploded. As Ivar caught a taxi and left amid a gathering crowd, Gunslinger scrubbed the mission and released the Eggbreakers.

Two months later, atop the Rocky Mountains, Ivar mused over his inability to tell his past self that Gunslinger would deck him the first time they met when, just then, a time arc appeared and he leapt through it.

Chaos Effect Alpha

Chaos Rules

On June 21st 1994, the monks of the temple in Ladakh awoke to discover a black hole of dark energy opening in the heavens above. Feeling that something incredible was about to occur, the monks witnessed as Ivar the Timewalker fell out of the hole into their courtyard. Gravely injured, Ivar reached for the sky and said that he had brought the end of everything with him before he lapsed into unconsciousness. Consigned to await the outcome, the monks saw as the hole engulfed the sky and inferred that, soon, it would engulf the world too.

The energies released by the opening caused a planetary shutdown of all electrical systems that spared no bit of technology. In New York City, the streets filled with people proclaiming the coming of the apocalypse, critical life–saving operations in hospitals came to a stop, and airplanes crashed into airports.

In a remote region of the Andes mountains, a Spider Alien vessel preparing to rendezvous with their fleet crashed into the ground as a result of a massive shutdown of its electrical systems cursing the name of the Destroyer.

In Cupertino, home of Gayle Nordheim and Phil Seleski, Gayle awoke to find that Phil’s atoms had fused to the bed. Pulling him out, Gayle, frightened by the dark skies, asked Phil what was happening. Uncertain, Phil deduced that something was affecting his atomic structure’s integrity, causing him to dissipate.

Elsewhere, Geoff McHenry, the Geomancer who was one with the Earth, stood on a cliff unable to commune with the planet, as the dark energy had befuddled and scrambled its voice into an incoherent mumble. Sensing that something he had dreaded since becoming Geomancer was about to happen, Geoff shielded his eyes from a massive flash of bright light that filled the sky all over the world.

All over the world, nothing went unaffected

In New Orleans, where Shadowman was embroiled in a scuffle with two killers, the bright light infused every cell in his body with enough power to destroy his enemies. Calling out Master Darque’s name, Shadowman went to find his enemy to finish him for good. At that moment, in the home of Shadowman’s nemesis, Master Darque and Sandria Darque, having walked the Dragon Path and seen what the future held for her and what his role in the coming chaos would be, were hit by the same surge of energy. Moments later, while Sandria basked in the endless and limitless power like none she had ever known, Darque proclaimed that the energy of the dead ruled the Earth, and he along with it. In London, at the penthouse of Janine Noir, as the power flowed within her, she renounced Darque and said that from then on she served no one but herself.

In Miami, at the estate of Doctor Hwen Mirage and his wife Carmen Ruiz, Hwen could sense that the energy disrupting all electricity was necromantic in nature. Frightened, Carmen senses that something terrible was about to happen, when, suddenly, the surge of energy hit Hwen like it did the others. Moments later, Carmen and Hwen discovered that the surge had made him solid. Teary–eyed, Carmen and Hwen passionately kissed.

In Heathrow airport, Bloodshot discovered that something had deactivated the nanites in his blood.

In space, X–O Manowar witnessed as the black hole threatened to swallow the Earth, and believing that the Spider Aliens were responsible, he swore to make them pay. Meanwhile, at the headquarters of the Harbinger Foundation, Toyo Harada, certain that the calamity was the work of the aliens, decided to destroy them.

In the Southwest United States, Turok felt the presence of a great evil that walked the Earth, and, ready to do battle with it, he decided that if he was to die it would be on his feet as a warrior.

In London, Ninjak, having deduced that the disaster was obviously supernatural in nature, decided to use it for his advantage and attack Dr. Silk, whose loss of his computer network made him vulnerable.

In orbit around the Earth, the HARD Corps and the Armorines, having lost contact with ground control, found themselves making due with what they had in a fierce battle against the Spider Alien forces.

Back in Ladakh, and the continuously growing source of the chaos, Ivar lapsed into a coma. Kneeled over his bed, Chan suggested that the individual they called the Visitor might learn more from Ivar despite his state. Even though he knew that the Visitor preferred not to involve himself in their affairs, Brother Ting authorized Chan to ask him if he would assist them in dealing with their extraordinary circumstance. Inside the shrine, the Visitor sensed Chan’s approach and desire to speak with him. Grateful for the monks’ kindness since the day they found him, the Visitor followed Chan in the hopes that, in some small fashion, he could repay them. Moments later, the Visitor, who was inexplicably aware of the events that preceded his involvement, kneeled before Ivar’s bed and, after a few moments of ear–ringing quiet, recited the story of where Ivar came from.

Identifying Ivar by name, the Visitor said that he was a time traveler whose age defied the monks’ standards. In a trance, the Visitor explained that Ivar came from a terrible war, a vast distance away in the timestream. Unable to pinpoint the event in either the past or the future, the Visitor could sense the release of necromantic forces that defied comprehension. Going silent, the Visitor walked outside followed by the monks. Standing on the entrance to the temple, the Visitor stared at the looming black hole and proclaimed that the end of everything was at hand, for chaos ruled the Earth.

Chaos Effect Omega

From Chaos… Comes Order

Inside the Temple of Ladakh, Chan told the Visitor that he did not understand why he would not help end the crisis using his abilities. Reminding Chan that he had given him the ability to speak the tongue of their guests, the Visitor told him that that was all he could do for the moment. Telling the Visitor that he feared that the one called Mirage, who had placed himself in front of the portal in an attempt to hold back the chaos effect that was destroying the Earth, would not be able to do it for long, Chan pleaded with him to help him seal the breach. Asking Chan not to be disappointed in him, for he had his reasons, the Visitor said that he was not prepared to reveal his presence to the world, but that the time would come soon. Disheartened, Chan believed that the Visitor would do nothing to help, but easing his concerns, the Visitor told him that he would mediate and monitor the situation, when then, he sensed the entrance of an unexpected a new player into the game.

Outside, in the heart of the chaos effect, Mirage was unable to stop Magnus from coming through the portal and crashing at the entrance of the temple. Running to him, Geoff told Magnus that he knew he would come because the Earth told him that the future would send help. Asking for a moment to pull himself together, Magnus told Geoff that the stress of time travel could kill an ordinary man, and that even with his strength the experience was traumatizing. Handing the disk to Geoff, Magnus told him that the Psi–Lords entrusted him with it, and that even though the rift had disrupted all electrical energy, their Molmach technology shielded it from the effect. Confident, Magnus said that the disk’s power should be able to restore Solar long enough for him to end chaos. As an expression of dread washed over Geoff’s face, Magnus asked him what was wrong, and the young Geomancer told him that he had felt his own destiny within the disk. Dismissing his fears, Geoff said that they had to quickly gather their friends and restore Solar’s power before the others arrived.

As the forces of chaos raged out of control for hours and earthquakes, fires, tidal waves, and tornados laid waste to the planet, Geoff knew that if the rift was not terminated soon there would be no world left for him to be a Geomancer in. Even worst, he knew that there were powerful forces who gained immense power from the necromantic energies that had been unleashed who would like nothing better.

In New York City, Mademoiselle Noir asked the Immortal Enemy if in all his reincarnations he had ever seen anything as spectacular as the devastation outside their window. Telling her that he had not, Cheng said that he had also never tasted power as the phenomenon had granted him, power that he did not intent to give up without a fight. Like Cheng, Janine sensed that as they spoke many had gathered in Ladakh in an attempt to end the chaos, and that if they succeeded they would loose the necromantic power that had made them into Gods. Refusing to allow that to happen, Cheng said that it was fortunate that Janine decided to join forces with him, and, that although he was sure she had her own hidden agenda, their purpose was clear. Opening a portal, Janine and Cheng stepped through it to reach Ladakh and defeat their enemies.

Back in the temple, Magnus joined Archer, Armstrong, Shadowman, Sandria Darque, and Solar, who had lost cohesion, and told Geoff that Solar was in bad shape. Since Solar was the only one who could create time warps, Geoff said that they had to save him. Telling Geoff that there was not much time, Solar said that he was loosing his hold. Easing his worries, Geoff told Solar that help had just arrived, while Magnus told him that he would have to act quickly once the disk restored his power, as it would not last but seconds, and he would only have moments to create a second portal through time. Reiterating the Psi–Lord’s theory, Magnus told Solar that he would complete a circuit that would send the chaos energy back through history to the beginning. Handing Solar the disk, Magnus told him that his touch would activate the mechanism, but just then, Janine Noir levitated the disk from Geoff’s hands and gave it to Cheng.

Floating over the heroes with Janine, Cheng said that they could not permit them to continue. Mocking them, Cheng said that they were all merely puppets in the hands of Master Darque, who the chaos effect and them threatened his reign as supreme necromancer. Adding to Cheng’s words, Janine said that closing the portal only insured Darque’s dominance on Earth, which was why he was allowing them to do it. All of a sudden, the Jack Boniface clone that Master Darque created lunged against Cheng, and while screaming that the portal had to be closed because Master Darque commanded it, he shot him with a blast of energy and made him drop the disk. Jumping after the disk, Archer grabbed it before it hit the ground and shattered.

Enraged, Janine told Archer that she could not allow him to deliver the disk to Solar and ordered him to give it to her, but refusing, he reminded Janine that her powers of influence would not work on him. Even though those who were pure in spirit like Archer were resistant to Janine’s charms, thanks to the power of chaos she had other means to deal with the likes of them. Opening the crypts beneath the temple, Janine animated the corpses of the monks that Darque killed a year earlier and ordered them to retrieve the disk. Surrounded by corpses, Geoff told the others to protect the disk at all costs, for without it there would be no tomorrow.

Watching the fight, Hwen was unsure of what he could to since he could not leave the portal because his body was the only thing holding back the cascade of chaos energy. Just then, Hwen realized that he was not holding the back, but absorbing it, and had just been too afraid to use it. Refusing to let his fear stop him from using the power any longer, and recalling Sandria’s reference to his being the one who could end the chaos if he had the courage to use the power, Hwen released a massive blast of energy that disintegrated the corpses. Unsure of how much longer he could keep absorbing the energy, Hwen urged Carmen to hurry and restore Solar.

His powers restored after touching the disk, Solar created an arc that reached to the beginning of time itself, and seconds later, as Hwen moved away from the portal, the arc sucked the flow of necromantic energy. As the arc and the portal move toward each other and merge, Hwen felt his powers starting to fade. Reverting to his phantom state, Hwen landed beside Carmen, who told him that he had saved them and everything. Saying that they knew the cost of the price they had to pay to end the chaos, Carmen told Hwen that at least they had a few moments together like they were before, and that she was very proud of him.

All of a sudden, the Shadowman clone, which felt the power of chaos fading, said that he had to fulfill his master’s commands. Created from the flesh and blood of Shadowman, the clone was given two commands; to end the chaos and dispose of his master’s enemies. Acting while he still had power, the clone grabbed Archer, Aram, and Geoff and dragged them toward the portals, pitying that Gilad was not there to complete Darque’s revenge. Failing to stop the clone, Solar watched him cross the threshold of the arc and bemoaned that Geoff, Archer, and Armstrong were gone, perhaps forever. Suddenly, Solar picked up radio and TV transmissions as electrical power came back online, and he got reports of the skies clearing all over the world. Delighted, Sandria said that chaos had ended and order been restored, and with it the threat of her brother was over.

From the journal of Geoff McHenry, Geomancer:

I decided to start keeping a record of what had happened to me since I plunged through the time arc with my friends, Archer and Armstrong.

How long we’ve been in this place now is anybody’s guess.

Time really isn’t an absolute… here.

I wish I could tell the others back on Earth the whole incredible story.

I’m sure they think we’re dead.

But… far from it.

When Solar opened that second time arc… all of the chaos energy flowed back to the beginning. To the––

––Big Bang itself!

That energy formed a pocket between reality and Unreality.

In that pocket of warped space ––

–– those enormous energies began to take form.

It created mass… and endless plane that extended to all time… without beginning… or end.

Life… from every time and existence was drawn there… snatched through the small irregularities in space–time.

I don’t pretend to understand all that scientific stuff but… that’s when being one with the Earth comes in handy.

A Geomancer just… knows.

Just as I’ve learned how this lost land was created by the outcome of the chaos effect ––

–– I also know that my friends and I must find a way out –– and soon.

A great war is coming and our part is to be played in a different time.

A Geomancer just… knows.

Epilogue

Outside the Temple, after the terror ended, the heavens were restored, and Solar left, Chan at last had time to observe the amazing beings that remained in Ladakh, mainly Hwen, Carmen, Sandria, Magnus, and Ivar.

Unaccustomed to the weather, Sandria felt the cold, while unsympathetic to her plight, Carmen mockingly told her that it was snowing. Eager to leave, Carmen asked Sandria if she could transport them home, but she told her that she no longer had the power for to do that. Upset, Hwen could not believe that they would have to walk home. Ready to leave, Carmen told Hwen to get Sandria some woolies and start hoofing, but Sandria said that she was allergic and Carmen yelled at her. Asking Carmen to ease up, Hwen told her that she was just upset because he was ephemeral again, and she agreed with him.

Meanwhile, Chan helped Magnus find Ivar, who had miraculously recovered, risen from bed, and walked up to the mountain to meditate… or so he told Chan. When he approached Ivar, Magnus asked to speak with him and he invited him for a walk. Anxious to receive the teachings of those most enlightened beings, Chan humbly asked if it would be permissible that he could be present for their words, and Ivar said that it was okay.

Telling Ivar that it appeared that he was staying in the present, where his world started, for awhile, Magnus asked him to tell him about visiting other times and if there was any danger of Chenging history. Telling Magnus not to worry, Ivar said that history was relative, and that if history described something a certain way, and he went to the time where it happened, then he was always there, so it probably turned out the way history described just because of him, so he may as well just show up and have fun. Beyond that, he suggested that he beware of the drinking water and take chewing gum since every era liked chewing gum.

Sliding off the side of the mountain alongside Ivar, Magnus asked him if there was anything he could tell him, like details of what just happened, or personal things he may not know yet. Declining to know, Ivar said that it was better to find out later in time, and that some things turned out less final than one could think. In addition, something very, very bad happened to him, way at the end of time, and though he did not remember what it was he knew that it was why he was there, and that he was the cause of whatever just happened. Ultimately, Ivar did not want to remember until he was damned ready.

Telling Ivar that he met him again in the future, an encounter that had not yet happened in his lifetime, Magnus asked him if he wanted to know what happened, but Ivar declined once again. Just then, a pinprick of light pierced the fabric of the sky and a time arc appeared above them. Calling it his gateway to the universe, Ivar told Magnus that he had a device that warned him of its appearance. Warning Magnus to keep his eyes open for the time arcs, Ivar told him that they were his ticket out of there if he needed a ride, and that long as he did not care where he would end up, all he had to do was jump in them. Leaping off the cliff, Ivar feel into the time arc and vanished, leaving Magnus and Chan behind.

In time, Magnus and the others departed as well, and though he tried to remain humble after reveling in their presence, Chan wondered if he would ever look upon such beings again.

The Journey

Ivar The Traveller

Leaping out of a time arc looking forward to his next adventure, Ivar found himself in Britain. Worried that without his compass, which he left in 1998 with Mack Weisenfeld for him to fix, he was at time’s mercy, Ivar hid behind a rock and watched a group of Centurions getting drunk not far away, then when one of them went to relieve himself he conned him out of his uniform with a game of Three Card Monty. Eight and a half minutes later, Ivar took off to search for the next time arc using the earpiece from the compass, the only part of it that still worked. Longing to be able to navigate through time again and avoid the uncertainty of the time arcs spitting him out anywhere at random, Ivar knew that he needed to land after 1998.

Reaching a village, Ivar killed two Centurions to stop them from raping a young girl., then he vested a third one in a sword match and made him run away screaming like a child. The Centurion returned soon after with a battalion, whose leader, Vespasian, recognized Ivar even though Ivar had not met him yet. Just then, a time arc opened and sucked Ivar and a Centurion inside it while the woman escaped.

Coming out of the time arc in a different temporal period, Ivar fell into the woods with the Centurion’s arm on him. Certain that the Centurion had died, as the average person’s body could not withstand the devastation of time travel, Ivar changed clothes upon hearing the sound of engines in the distance. Seeing a Nazi motorcade drive by, Ivar, who had it on good authority that he would go to Germany in 1944, followed them.

Three weeks later, in an ancient castle that the Nazis called the Raven’s Lair in the Bavarian Alps, Herr Kreizer killed Anna Weisenfeld to force her husband, Dr. Weisenfeld, to complete the calculations required to complete an atomic bomb. Threatening to kill Jacob, the doctor’s son, if he did not comply, Kreizer left the room and walked into the courtyard, where the guards had rallied a group of resistance members, one of whom kept whining that he had done nothing and asked to be released. Ordering the guards to go hard on the man, Kreizer exclaimed that he hated cowards.

That evening during dinner, the Commandant ordered Kreizer to kill Dr. Weisenfeld if he was unable to get him to cooperate by the next day. After the Commandant walked away, Ivar, who by then had assumed the identity of Captain Ivarstadt, asked Kreizer to let him use methods of persuasion he learned in the East to get Weisenfeld to cooperate, an offer Kreizer accepted

Later that night, Ivar spoke with Weisenfeld and Jacob in their cell and revealed who he was and that Mack, the doctor’s grandson and Ivar’s friend, had told him that he was going to free them from the Nazis. To cover their escape, Ivar asked Jacob to scream while he ripped the bars off the window. Unfortunately, Ivar, who was not as strong as Aram, was unable to break the bars, but just then, Gilad, the crying man of the resistance, came into the cell to help since Ivar, sometime in his future but in Gilad’s past, had told him to be there. Together, the siblings dispatched the Nazis while the Weisenfeld and the other prisoners escaped to the top of the tower.

Using a rope hidden in the lining of his coat that Ivar told him to bring with him, Gilad helped the prisoners climb down the side of the castle to escape while Ivar, who had sensed the approach of a time arc, stayed behind to deal with the Nazis. As Ivar leapt into the arc, the Nazis shot him through he heart and other parts of his anatomy, but the temporal energies healed him before he came out the other side and landed on a pound near Sarum in 1854 during the Crimean War between Britain and Russia.

The Enemy Is There

Inside a spaceship in orbit around the Earth, Jahk´rt used her future technology to find Ivar at the precise moment in time when he shifted into navigational mode to discover the source of that ability. Entering a suspended animation tank, Jahk´rt ordered her machines to wake her up in five years or the next time they detected Ivar.

On October 23rd, 1854, at Sebastorol, Ivar futile tried to convince Lt. Nolan to disregard the order to charge the Light Brigade against the Russians in a bid to change history and prevent the death of 113 people. Thinking Ivar to be a drunk, Nolan disregarded his warning and rants about being from the future, and walked away, but Ivar insisted and followed them, so Nolan, demanding satisfaction for his persistence, slapped him on the face with a glove and challenged him to a duel at dawn the next day. While wondering if he could shoot Nolan to stop him, Ivar saw Tregorin beating up Grusha and knocked him out to save her.

The next day during the duel, Nolan shot Ivar and left him for dead, but then Grusha and her friends carried Ivar’s body to their gypsy encampment. That night, Ivar had a dream about Nefertiti, who called him and begged him to find her before her time was over. When he awoke, Ivar saw Tregorin being rough on Grusha and knocked him again. After he got dressed, Ivar left to try to convince Nolan to ignore the order to charge once again. Inspired by Charles Dickens’ novel, Ivar donned a white sheet and walked into Nolan’s tent at the British encampment, and reiterated his warning, but Nolan, though convinced that Ivar was an apparition, once more ignored his words and came at him with a sword. After he tossed the sheet over Nolan, Ivar ran out of the tent to think of a new plan.

Near dawn the next day, Ivar stood on a hill overlooking the valley where the Light Brigade’s fatal battle was to take place and wondered that maybe he could not change time, wehn then Tregorin ordered his men to aim their cannon at him, and when they shot him they seemingly killed him. Hours later, when Nolan delivered the order to charge to Lord Cardigan, Ivar mounted a horse left over from the Battle of Balaclava and rode it to the front in a bid to show Nolan the effect of the Russian’s guns. Doubtful of Nolan’s orders, Lord Cardigan pointed to the valley and showed him that it was empty except for a lone rider that came toward them. Spooked to see Ivar, Nolan rode toward him with his saber in his hand, unaware that the Light Brigade was riding behind him. Unable to rein the brigade back, Lord Cardigan ordered them to charge.

Seeing the Brigade coming toward him, Ivar turned back, certain that the British believed he was a Russian and wondering what the Russians would think. At the Russian lines, Tregorin saw Ivar leading the British toward him and ordered his men to open fire. Just as the first cannon shot hit Nolan, Ivar’s earpiece warned him of an incoming time arc. Leaping off his horse just as Tregorin shot him, Ivar disarmed the Russian and escaped through the time arc.

As he appeared in the New Mexico desert, convinced that time was not altered but fulfilled, and that the charge could not have happened without him, Ivar took shelter from a storm in a shed where he found a calendar that told him that he had arrived in 2033. After he donned a coat and hat that he found in the shed, Ivar began the trek to New Jersey, where Mac left him the fixed compass in a message drop in Edison.

The Angel Prometheus

Mac!

While Jahk´rt studied Ivar’s blueprint, the formula by which she altered his genetic make–up and created the Timewalker inside her space ship in 1998 in orbit around the Earth, Ivar arrived in Edison, New Jersey in 2033 to check out Mac’s message drop. Inside her ship, Jahk´rt checked up on whom she called the sleeper, the Angel Prometheus, a being she referred to as the most powerful and intelligent man ever to visit the Earth. Back in 2033, Ivar went to the Thomas Edison museum and removed a shoe bow that Mac left for him inside a secret compartment in Edison’s statue. After a brief skirmish with security, Ivar escaped from the museum into the woods, where he opened the box and found an audio tape with a message from Mac and the pieces of a camera. Following Mac’s instructions, Ivar put the camera together and then took a picture as instructed, which opened a time arc over his head that sucked him inside.

Falling out of the time arc in New York City, Ivar landed on the sidewalk and made a run for it before the police arrived. At that very same moment in Jahk´rt’s space ship, Jahk´rt detected Ivar’s arrival in 1998, the time when he would acquire the ability to navigate through time, and awoke Prometheus to recover Ivar’s compass and the person who made it capable of navigation so that she could go home again.

Back in 1998, Mac’s instruments informed him that Ivar had arrived in his temporal era, when moments later Ivar called Mac’s flat asking to go visit. 15 minutes later during dinner, as Ivar regaled Mac and his wife Patsy with the stories of what he had been up to, Patsy urged him to take a shower to get rid of his stink. 15 minutes after that, once Ivar was done cleaning up, he learned that Jacob had designed the machine that brought him to 1998 and that he had died in a plane crash during the Chaos Effect. Keeping his role in Chaos to himself, Ivar retrieved his compass from Mac, who told him that he wanted to keep it overnight to personalize it so that no one else but Ivar could use it.

Using money that Patsy invested for him over four years, Ivar bought new clothes and went out to Times Square for the night. There, he saw what he believed was another bully attacking a helpless woman, so he intervened and punched the guy out. Much to Ivar’s surprise, however, it was the woman who was mugging the man, a revelation he discovered when the woman kicked him in the abdomen and escaped with the man’s wallet. Apologetic, Ivar offered the man to reimburse the $20 dollars he lost, but the man, upset, took all of Ivar’s money from him. Meanwhile, in outer space, Jahk´rt activated the Angel Prometheus, a being grown of artificial flesh and organic metal whose only mission was to bring her the means to travel through time.

Then next day at the Brooklyn Museum, Ivar stared at a bust of Nefertiti and promised that he would find his way back to her right before he and Mac left to catch the next time arc over the Bermuda Triangle. On the plane to Bermuda, Mac explained to Ivar the new features of the compass, particularly how the navigation worked. To test the compass, Ivar entered the year 1903 and a picture of a plane to go meet the Wright Brothers, then he leap into the time arc from the deck of a motorboat that he and Mac rented.

18 later, in the air above Alsace–Lorraine in 1918, Ivar flew a plane toward the next time arc while chased by Blue Max. Having succeeded in his initial test, Ivar inadvertently traveled to 1918 instead of 1998, having forgotten to remove the picture of the plane from the compass and entering the wrong date. After six months of fighting in World War I, Ivar finally entered the correct information and reached 1998. Falling from a time arc over the Brooklyn Bridge, Ivar landed in a taxi and had it take him to Mac’s apartment.

An hour later, as Ivar ran the stairs to Mac’s house, the Angel Prometheus broke through a wall holding Mac under his arm while Patsy hit him from behind with a pan. Leaping on Prometheus, Ivar told Mac to squirm around to throw him off balance, but then the three of them fell out a window.

The Thing In The Time-Arc

Falling down to the streets from Mac’s apartment, Ivar wondered where Prometheus, an android the likes of which had not been made in centuries, came from, while, inside, Patsy searched for a rope to help Mac back in. Down in the street, Ivar tussled with Prometheus, who though he had never met before he remembered from a long time past. Turning his attention to Mac, Prometheus climbed the building to take him to Jahk´rt, who was watching the action unfold through his eyes from her spaceship. As police arrived and ordered Prometheus to stop, he unveiled a weapon on his wrist and blew them up. Since talking to Prometheus like he was a man failed, Ivar talked to him as a machine and ordered him to reveal his directives, which he uttered in Jahk´rt’s voice, which reminded Ivar of his time as her prisoner and revealed that he had been sent to capture him and Mac and take them back to Jahk´rt unharmed. As Ivar lunged at Prometheus and grabbed his waist to pull him from the side of the building, Patsy helped Mac inside the apartment and he discovered that, together, Ivar and Prometheus were attracting a massive time arc. As the arc opened up, Ivar jumped in inside and pulled Prometheus along with him. While Mac and Patsy stood on the edge of their apartment and wondered where the time arc had taken Ivar, Jahk´rt boarded a shuttle and let for Earth to capture Mac.

Coming out of the arc in the time of the dinosaurs, Ivar watched as a T–Rex grabbed Prometheus in his mouth and wondered if he should help him, but then Prometheus shut him with a stun blast that hit him like a dug and he changed his mind. While the dinosaur left with Prometheus in its mouth, Ivar reached a swamp and splashed his face with water to wash away the effect of the beam. Wrapping his face in a sheet of cloth, Ivar went to find shelter to check the compass for the next time arc.

Three months later, five minutes before the next time arc opened, Prometheus found Ivar taking shelter in a cave and charged at him from atop a triceratops. As the time arc opened up and sucked them both in, Prometheus, having learned to speak by processing Ivar’s own words, told Ivar that he would never escape him and that he would take him to his mistress. Within the arc, Ivar, who wondered who Prometheus’ mistress was, opened a doorway to escape the arc and leave Prometheus inside. Just as Ivar leapt out of the opening, Prometheus uttered Jahk´rt’s name, which Ivar failed to recognize.

Back in 1998, Jahk´rt watched from a roof as Mac and Patsy returned home AFTER talking with the police at the 18th Precinct. Although IRIS, Jahk´rt’s ubiquitous AI assistant, wondered where Prometheus ended up at, Jahk´rt dismissed it as unimportant compared to capturing Mac, the inventor and navigator. Inside the building, as Mac opened the door, wondering where the arc deposited Ivar, he and Patsy were relieved to see Ivar waiting for them inside garbed in a Musketeer uniform complaining about French beer and talking about seeing D’Artagnan again. After Ivar told Mac and Patsy that he was taking them to a safe house upstate to keep them safe from Jahk´rt, the woman who sent the android after them, Patsy asked Ivar what happened to Prometheus and he told them that left him in the arc and theorized that he could be anywhere.

In 2420 BC, a tribe of superstitious humans made a blood sacrifice to their fire God, the Angel Prometheus, who brought them fire from Heaven.

The Musketeers

It was 1661, and the Musketeers were celebrating the season when Ilysēe walked into the bar. A player in a drama devised by Gilad, Ilysēe played victim for two out of work actors posing as henchmen to manhandle. Prodded by Gilad, D’artagnan saved the wench, who gratefully gave herself to him to do with as he pleased. Enchanted by Ilysēe, D’artagnan agreed to rescue a prisoner from the Bastille that he believed to be Duchess D’Terre’s lover. Rallying his brothers in arms, the Musketeers rescued the Man In The Iron Mask, Henri The VIII, self–proclaimed rightful king of France. Though Gilad pledged to help Henri take the throne from his brother Louis The XIV, he expressed disbelief that he would save France from a bloody revolution that Duchess Angelique D'Terre, a Geomancer, had foreseen. That night, Henri forced himself on Ilysēe.

The next day, the Duchess led Ivar & Gilad into the throne room to distract Louis with their swordplay while she readied Henri. To her horror, a beast had injured Louis, who sported claw marks on his face. As the Duchess warned the others of their plight, Ilysēe, weary that no one would believe what transpired the night before, clawed Henri and marked his visage. Enraged, he drew his sword and slayed the wench, revealing to the Duchess the kind of person he was. Entering the throne room before Aram & D’artagnan had finished securing an unconscious Louis in a barrel, Henri assumed the throne and, in his lunacy, proclaimed penalty after penalty against anyone that trifled with him. As the Duchess ran into the throne room to warn everyone of Henri’s travesty, he accused her of witchcraft and would have revealed her identity as a Geomancer had Gilad not stroke true and killed him. With Aram’s aid, Louis returned to the throne and proclaimed that everything was alright, unaware that D’artagnan was behind him clutching Ilysēe’s body in his arms.

That night, Ivar, angry with Gilad for the callousness he showed Ilysēe & Henri, attacked his own brother. As the fight raged, however, Gilad stood victorious over Ivar… but not for long, as that was when Aram joined the fray and knocked his big brother off his feet with one punch. Finishing his story, Aram surmised that in the end Gilad was no different from any other man, and that he had done as the Duchess instructed him simply because he did not know how to handle a woman. Aram then showed Archer a Polaroid of himself with Ivar & D’artagnan, which made Archer doubt his story as cameras did not exist in 1661, and though Aram tried to convince him that Ivar had brought it from the future, Archer still did not believe him.

Detour I

Ivar And The Ten Commandments

In 1998, in a safe house established by Ivar in the 19th Century at Woodstock, Patsy and Mac convinced Ivar to go find Nefertiti, and though he was reluctant to leave them and unsure of how to get back to his lost love, Ivar followed their advice and left, unaware that IRIS was watching them from outside the window.

Three weeks later in Easter Island, Ivar leapt into a arc after entering Egypt 1493 and a sun disk as an icon in the compass in the hope that they would take him to Nefertiti. Inside the arc, Ivar mused over how loneliness was the price of immortality, and how Nefertiti, a woman of uncompromising peace in spite of being banished from the court, broke the iron rule of Earthly Gods to love him. Appearing in a dark room, Ivar followed a light to the outside and was amazed to discover that he had arrived in Egypt, even though the air smelled funny. Seeing a slave slip under the wheels of a cart, Ivar leapt to his rescue and threw the cart in the air, which he realized was a prop and learned that he was on the set of DeMille’s Ten Commandments. Impressed with Ivar’s stunt, DeMille hired him to work in the movie.

One week later, Ivar was an extra working on the movie and getting paid to perform dangerous stunts. As Ivar and DeMille left the lot after a day of shooting, three hoodlums drove up to them and threatened to harm the movie’s leading lady unless DeMille agreed to use their distribution firm to distribute his movie. As DeMille refused to be bullied, Mr. Suave ordered Shoulders, the hoodlum’s muscle, to make DeMille understand who was in charge, but Ivar knocked him out and then did the same to Suave and the third hoodlum. Standing over the unconscious hoodlums, Ivar asked DeMille to tell him who their boss was so he could go take care of him.

Two hours later Ivar arrived at the Brown Fedora, where he allowed Suave and another hoodlum to take him at gun point to see their boss, Big Alice Tornelli. Acting like Cagney, Ivar fooled Alice into believing that he was taking over the studio, and convinced her to use her resources to burn up the set of DeMille’s movie and offer the studio a business loan to get inside. Falling for Ivar’s ruse, Alice told him that he would burn the sets himself, then she sent her hoodlums out and seduced Ivar.

Very late that night, Alice, Ivar, and the hoodlums broke into the studio, where they fell into an ambush plotted by Ivar and DeMille, who directed a group of G–Men under orders from Special Agent Kevin Stack to arrest Alice for intent, evasion, and flagrant violation. While the G–Men and hoodlums shot each other, Ivar ducked for cover and tussled with Shoulders once again. After Ivar knocked Shoulders out, Alice came rushing toward him in her car, so Ivar leapt above it and commandeered a motorcycle to escape from her.

Leading Alice on a chase across the studio, Ivar ran into an alley where Alice shot him point blank in the chest, but luckily the bullets had no effect. Rushing toward her, Ivar grabbed Alice’s hands and forced her to fire her gun upward and the bullets hit a blimp that crashed on the set of a Western. Watching DeMille tape the catastrophe, Ivar, who saw something familiar in the blimp but suffered from major holes in his retrieval system since chaos, took Alice prisoner and delivered her to the FBI.

Three weeks later, while waiting for the next time arc atop the Hollywood sign, Ivar recalled that the blimp reminded him of Faith Herbert, aka Zepellin, who wanted his help. Unable to remember when, however, Ivar entered the symbol of the Harbinger Foundation and a drawing of a blimp into the compass to check out Faith's request, after which he planned to resume his search for Nefertiti.

Back in 1998, before Ivar left for Hollywood, Jahk´rt plotted to capture Mac to reign as mistress of Eternity. Meanwhile, in Ivar’s house, Mac and Patsy were watching DeMille’s Ten Commandments and were thrilled to see Ivar on the screen riding a chariot.

The Harbinger Wars

The Harbinger Wars – Part I: Harbinger Against Harbinger

In 2062 AD, at the dawn of the Harbinger Wars, Harada’s Shock Troops hunted down a lone Harbinger in East Los Angeles, California, when then, Ned and Zed, two rebels taking cover behind a pile of cars, accused the Harbinger of being a spy and killed him. Suddenly, Ivar fell out of a time arc into the middle of the battle, and the Shock Troopers and rebels alike opened fire on him because they believed that he was the enemy. Picking up a piece of street in his hands, Ivar tossed it at the trooper’s tank and scared them away. Coming out of their hiding spot, Ned and Zed intended to shot Ivar, but then Lucinda Mendez stopped them. Recognizing Ivar, Lucinda told him that their biggest camps were nearby.

In a nearby complex, Lucinda informed Ivar that Harada’s strong power base of several thousand troops outnumbered the resistance’s thousand members, and that Harada had started human camps in a few third–world countries that the media did not report about, an action he got away with because no one wanted to get involved. Jus then, Phase entered the complex and told Lucinda and the others that Harada was going after the Aric’s Manowar Class Armor. Amazed to hear that Aric Dacia was still alive, Ivar learned from Phase that if it had not been for the Visigoth the New York free zone would have fallen to Harada’s forces two years earlier.

Meanwhile, at Aric’s home in New York, after Aric sent the X–O Manowar out into space to prevent Harada from getting his hands on it, Toyo broke into Aric’s room and the two men killed each other. Before he died, however, Toyo transferred his mind into Aric’s wife, Amy. Proclaiming that he had defeated Aric and beaten death, Amy/Toyo returned to the Harbinger Foundation in New York and resumed command of his forces.

Two days later in Ladakh, Ivar arrived at the Temple of Temple of Lamayuru looking for Faith. With Chan’s help, Ivar reached Faith’s room, from where she had been leading the Archie Peace Movement since what Chan simply referred to as the tragedy. Pleading with Faith to return to the resistance, Ivar asked her to talk to the others and urged them to stop fighting, a request that she vehemently agreed to.

The next morning, Ivar took Faith back to the resistance headquarters in LA, where she rallied them to take the battle to Harada. Shortly, aboard a resistance transport, Ivar refused to listen to Faith’s explanation for why she turned back on her word to ask the others to stop fighting, upset with her for escalating the conflict when he tried to stop the slaughter. Having lived through more tragedies than anyone should ever see, like the atrocities of the Nazis, the Inquisitions, the Crusaders, and every example of human inhumanity, Ivar knew that nothing ever came close to the kind of carnage that was to come from the Harbinger Wars. Warning Faith that he had seen the future, Ivar told her that it was the end of humans on Earth, and asked her to stop it, but she refused, so Ivar accused her of signing off the death warrants of billions.

As the resistance approached the drop site at the southern quadrant of the battle field and attacked the Harbinger Foundation, Stronghold tossed Blast through Harada’s window and, moments later, the top floor of the building exploded. Surviving the explosion, however, Harada came out into the battle field and, vowing to kill Faith, joined his Shock Troopers against the resistance.

The Harbinger Wars – Part II

As the battle between Harada’s forces and Faith’s rebels raged, Ivar found he was unable to stop the carnage around him. Hovering over Ivar, Faith offered Harada that their conflict did not need to end in bloodshed, but Harada refused to listen to her words and was prepared to kill her with his bare hands. Just then, Stronghold, still suffering from the lobotomy performed on him 70 years earlier, and still filled of hatred for Harada, increased his size and punched Toyo to throw him away from Faith. Turning his attention to Stronghold, Toyo hit him with a blast that burnt him to cinder, and left behind only his skull, which rolled to Ivar’s feet. Enraged, Ivar lunged at Harada with guns blazing, when suddenly Harada released a concussion blast.

Awakening inside a transport seven hours later, Ivar learned that the battle did not end well and that Lucinda and Phase where taking him to Chicago to reach an upcoming time arc that would send him to a different period. Upon reaching Illinois, Lucinda and Phase handed Ivar over to a resistance cell that took him the rest of the way. Watching Ivar depart, Lucinda told Phase that if anybody could stop the war it would be him. Soon as the transport reached Chicago, a Harbinger foundation flyer chopper attacked it, when just then the arc opened up. While the Harbingers leapt out of the transport, Ivar drove it inside the arc and vanished.

Appearing in the Nevada desert in the year 2443 AD Ivar took off in the transport to find out how much the world had changed in 300 years. Reaching Las Vegas, Ivar followed a group of Harbingers inside a commune where he tried to stop a trader from leaving with two human slaves, but the man punched him in the face and knocked him out. 15 minutes later, inside a small transport, the trader warned Ivar that he would have gotten in trouble for speaking too much about the humans, and threatened to kill him if he was one of Harada’s spies. Showing Ivar his tattoo, the trader, who called himself Psycho, told him that he was a member of the Corps, who tried to help the humans. Soon, the transport reached a camp where the Corps kept humans safe and Psycho asked Ivar to join the Corps in freeing the humans from a death camp.

Later that night, Ivar and the Corps attacked the camp. During the fight, a human child got trapped beneath a wall, and Ivar and Psycho tried to help him escape, two Shock Troopers, Captain Stanchek and an unnamed cohort, trained their weapons on them and ordered them to surrender.

The Harbinger Wars – Conclusion

Somewhere in Arizona on 2343 AD, during the aftermath of a battle in a human detention camp between the HARD Corps and Toyo Harada’s Eggbreakers, Ivar Anni–Padda, the Timewalker, pleaded with Captain Stanchek, Toyo Harada’s Lieutenant, not to kill him or his companions, Psycho and a young child they had rescued from a human detention camp. Suddenly, Captain Stanchek killed the boy, so Psycho killed him and his cohort using Arc Charge.

Sometime after escaping, Ivar sat outside the remains of the detention camp and mused that things had gone terribly wrong with the timestream when he tried to help and only made them worse. Blaming himself Ivar resolved to, somehow, journey back to a time before he messed things up to try to change history.

Leaping into a time arc, Ivar went back in time to 2056 AD, and arrived at the site of a climatic battle between the Harbinger Foundation and the Harbinger renegades led by Faith Herbert moments after Harada’s men ambushed Pete Stanchek and his group. Aware that after this moment Faith turned her life over to peace and dropped any attempts to fight Harada, Ivar deduced that the tachyon compass had taken him to a time when Faith was quite vulnerable. Hopeful that this time she would listen to him, Ivar followed Faith into her home, where they talked. Learning that tensions between humans and Harbingers were nothing like the era he had just left, and that in fact things wee not even as bad as they would become by 2063 – the last time he had seen Faith, Ivar believed that with enough luck they never would be. Telling Faith that she was wrong to give up, Ivar asked her to listen to his ideas on what she could do, like telling the world’s leaders of Harada’s actions. Hoping that she would always have time to listen, Faith heard what Ivar had to say.

Two days later, time during which Faith thought about Ivar’s ideas, she called him to her side and told him that she had spoken to some Senator friends of hers and spent most of that morning on video with reporters, who were still hanging around the courtyard, in preparation for her testimony in a hearing to sanction Harada. Pleased by the news, Ivar told Faith that she might just save the world.

Confident that he had made a positive change in history, Ivar leapt into the time arc and arrived in Los Angeles on 2063 AD to discover a blackened crust lay over a devastated Hollywood. Barely escaping from a man’s energy blasts, Ivar faced a combatant who refused to run any longer from Harada and confused him with Gilad before he passed out.

Hours later, Ivar learned from the old man that Harada had kept him prisoner in LA the last several years and messed with his memory and mind. Learning from the man that the government took action against Harada and his companies, Ivar heard how Harada took out most of the US forces and destroyed Los Angeles before anyone could react using his own personal army. Draped in shadows, the man told Ivar that he had Harada convinced he would work for him, which was not the first time that he had him in his control, except that that time he was only playing along, waiting for a chance to escape.

As Ivar blamed himself for convincing Faith to initiate the government measures that forced Harada to go on the offensive when he got pressure from the government, the man convinced him to go back in time to fix things and take him with him since he had no future there. Feeling responsible for the life that the man had led for the last few years, Ivar agreed to take him with him.

Since Ivar could not just dial a date into the tachyon compass because it was imprecise and a little erratic, he was surprised when he and the stranger arrived in 2056 AD a few days after he left, a result he attributed to his companion. While Ivar told Faith that her actions only made Harada react faster, the stranger, whose face she recognized, told her that he came from the world she could create. After telling Faith to stop her work with her Senator friend, Ivar told her that one day he would come to her and ask her to speak for peace to stop the craziness. Pleading with her not to listen to him, Ivar told Faith that she would have to spark the resistance into fighting Harada, and that no matter how much he pleaded or how much she wanted to, she could not stop.

A few minutes later, outside Faith’s apartment, the stranger was surprised that he did not disappear when they prevented his timeline from existing. Telling the stranger that he was not sure there were timeline as such, just their perception of time, and that it seemed like some things were meant to happen, Ivar asked him if he wanted to stay in that time period. Certain that any family he might have would not know him under his scars, the stranger asked Ivar to go with him and see things through. Since they had some time to kill, the stranger invited Ivar to see a movie, a delight that he missed when it got taken away from him.

Landing on 2990 AD, Ivar and the stranger appeared outside the Harbinger resistance’s headquarters. There, they came across Yuri Pierce, that era’s Geomancer, who instantly recognized Ivar as one of the immortal brothers. A short time later, Yuri introduced Ivar and his companion to John Stanchek, the rebels’ reader. Learning from Yuri that the resistance was winning, Ivar was appalled to find out that Harada had found the Blood of Heroes, which after centuries of sending his mind into a fresh body when his got old, would make him truly immortal.

Regardless of what happened to him, John knew that he was the only one who could stop Harada since he was an |Omega Harbinger like him and his ancestor, Pete Stanchek, one of the few people that Harada ever feared. Assuring John that he had fought men like Harada before, the stranger told him that to beat him and survive he had to do whatever it took, then he gave him an idea of what he would do.

John was as obsessed a man as Ivar had ever seen, determined to end the war that had lasted so long. The next day, the resistance attacked Harada’s command center, and John used his power to take over Harada’s body and exorcise his mind once and for all.

A week later at the former resistance headquarters, Ivar mused over how things had moved so quickly since Harada’s fall, and had trouble believing that the war was really over after 900 years. Standing on a cliff, Ivar told the stranger that he would hang out there for a while, and that he felt down because he failed to prevent the war, which happened just the way it was always meant to. Reiterating that Ivar told him that he was trying to help Faith because he thought that would prevent the Harbinger Wars, the stranger reminded him that Faith said that if she could save one person from Harada, it would be worth it all.

Standing as a symbol that things did not all go the way they had before, the stranger thanked Ivar for saving his life. Unsure of how Faith might feel if she were there, the stranger told Ivar that he thought she would say he did pretty well.

Detour II

In Out In

Trying to reach New York in 1998, Ivar entered an apple symbol in his compass that took him to 1939 where a popular dance was called the “Big Apple”, then, entering “New York 1998” got him to York, England in 1498, where a knight was about to skewer him when he got sucked into a time arc. Turning his mind away from the knight, who the ravages of the arc tore apart despite his armor, Ivar focused on getting back to Mac and Patsy, who he left at one of his safe houses and hopes were safe.

Inside Jahk´rt’s ship in orbit over the Earth in 1998, Mac tinkered around with her gizmos to figure out how they worked before he could cannibalize them so that Jahk´rt would not kill Patsy, who IRIS was holding captive in the safe house. Exiting the time arc on the roof of the house, Ivar saw some sort of space pod hovering over it and instantly knew that it meant trouble. Breaking into the house through the kitchen window, Ivar found Patsy with her hands in chains attacking IRIS with bug spray. Learning that Mac was inside the space ship, Ivar agreed to go with IRS for his sake, but refused to take part in Jahk´rt’s insanity.

Twenty minutes later, Ivar entered the ship, where Jahk´rt asked him to build her the means to return to the future so that together they would rule the universe. Certain that he would hate whatever Jahk´rt was up to, Ivar agreed to help her so she would let Mac go, but she did not believe in his sincerity and captured him using mechanical tentacles that held him upside down over the floor. Having waiting 5,000 years for Ivar to find the inventor who would breach the mysteries of time, Jahk´rt was certain that Mac would enable her to do everything she needed.

Opening a time arc using a device that Mac created for her, Jahk´rt sent Ivar to a holding chamber she built in 1720, where he would have nothing to do but procreate and create her army of time warriors. Lying against a control panel, Mac apologized to Ivar as he fell into the time arc.

Exiting the arc, Ivar landed beside what seemed to be prison bars like those of the cell he spent his childhood in when Jahk´rt captured him the first time. To his surprise, however, Ivar was not in a cell but lying on a flower bed beside a fence. Realizing that he was in Paris in 1910, Ivar surmised that Mac rigged the machine to send him there, which he knew would annoy Jahk´rt to no end. Determined to return to Jahk´rt’s ship to rescue Mac, Ivar used the compass to locate a time arc in Antarctica that would appear two months later.

Joining Roald Amundsen’s expedition to discover the South Pole, Ivar used an icon of Jahk´rt’s ship and the year 1998 to guide his travel through a time arc that he hoped would take him back to the right moment in time. Following Ivar’s trail thinking that he needed help, Roald and his crew discovered the South Pole.

Arriving on the ship while IRIS and Patsy were fighting down in the house, Ivar found Mac and told him to finish the work he was doing and send him to 1910. Unable to rescue Mac without risking meeting himself and blowing them all to hell, Ivar planned to bail into the same time arc he was about to arrive from, so Mac, who knew how dangerous that was, set the compass for him. Moments later, Ivar jumped from Jahk´rt’s ship into the time arc and saw himself and the medieval knight. Floating across the time arc, which he did not know what it was made of, Ivar wondered where Mac programmed him to go. Moments later, after Ivar fell into Jahk´rt’s time arc, Mac leapt after him to escape before the ship exploded.

Arriving in 1973, Ivar landed on the scaffolding of the second World Trade Center before it was finished. Seconds later, Mac fell out of a second time arc garbed in Parisian attire circa 1910. Having spent four years, two months, and three days in Paris, Mac built a second compass that filled up Manet’s barn to find Ivar. Sitting on a scaffold with Ivar, Mac was eager to use his compass to return to 1998 and see Patsy.

Meanwhile, back in the future, Jahk´rt tried to escape her ship to no avail, and both she and IRIS died when the ship exploded.

Curious to know how Mac survived the time arc, Ivar was pleased to learn that it seemed that certain individuals could pass safely through time if they were descended from him, which meant that Mac was his great–great–great–great–great–grand son.

The Last God Of Dura Europus

The Last God Of Dura Europus – Part I

In the 2nd Century AD, Ivar the Timewalker arrived in the city of Dura Europus on the banks of the Euphrates. While everyone else was just passing through, for Ivar, Dura Europus was the end of the line. Aware of what was going to happen, and that the future had some surprises for Dura Europus, Ivar found a wall and started to write on it, unaware that a woman with a dagger was approaching him from behind to steal his bag.

Grabbing the woman’s hand and tossing her dagger away, Ivar told her that stealing from him was a bad idea since his walkman would not work there. Aware that after so much time–hopping it was hard to keep track of everyone he had ever met, Ivar asked the woman if she had ever seen him before, but she assured him that she had not. Taking the woman, whose name he learned was Ismene, to a local bar, Ivar regaled her with the story of his first visit to Dura Europus 100 years in the future.

Appearing outside a temple 100 years into the 2nd Century AD, Ivar believed that he had finally arrived in Egypt where his lost love Nefertiti awaited for him. Realizing that he was not in Egypt, Ivar found himself surrounded by peasants who believed that he was Lord Mithras or the God Adonis. While Ivar went to find an incoming time arc, a Centurion rallied his me and ordered them to find him to answer his question because he believed that he was a Persian spy. Despite the Centurion’s assertions, word spread among his men that Ivar was Lord Mithras, the soldiers’ God.

Certain that something was wrong with the city, Ivar washed his hands of the problem and ran toward a time arc, when, suddenly, a soldier pulled him back and made him miss it. Able to escape, Ivar located another arc inside the temple of Artemis, but it vanished before he could leap inside it. Laying on the floor, Ivar surmised that something was wrong with the arcs, which were supposed to pull him in, not drop him on the ground.

Looking over his shoulder, Ivar saw a beautiful blonde woman called Adria, a follower of Artemis, who asked him what he was trying to do. Desperate to leave before he became as crazy as everyone else in town, Ivar asked Adria who people believed that he was, so she told her that some said he was Adonis, others claimed that he was Zeus, and few insisted that he was Hermes Trismegistus, while she believed that he was dodging the army.

Spending the rest of the day chasing time arcs all over Dura Europus with Adria, who wanted to leave town as well, Ivar grew frustrated with the arcs’ instability and number, when, then, he saw a message on a wall written in 20th Century English that said that he should keep the girl with him because it was important. Elsewhere, the Centurion ordered his men to bring him Ivar’s head or his body.

Surmising that only a time traveler could have written that message, and certain that he was the only time traveler in existence, Ivar believed that, unlike all others, Adria would survive a trip through a time arc. Barely escaping from a group of soldiers with Adria, Ivar stole a man’s robe to conceal his foreign clothing.

Running away from the soldiers, Ivar followed the compass’ signal to the top of a stairwell that took them to the top of the wall that encircled the city. Looking out into the distance, Ivar was dismayed to realize that the city was under siege, and that the time arc was going to be somewhere outside the walls. Trapped between the Romans and he whole Persian army, Ivar hated when things like this happened.

The Last God Of Dura Europus – Part II

In the city of Dura Europus, on the shores of the Euphrates n 260 AD, Ivar the Timewalker and Adria found themselves caught between a zealous Roman Centurion and his soldiers and the Persian army outside the walls that protected the city. Leaping between Ivar and the Centurion, Adria ordered the Romans to stop and told them that Ivar was under the protection of Artemis, when just then a mob of people who believed that Ivar was a deity encircled them and gave him and Adria a chance to escape. Obsessed with capturing Ivar, the Centurion ignored his men’s warning that the Persians had destroyed the gates and moved their cavalry.

Hiding with Adria from the Romans and Persians, Ivar was certain that when the city fell there would be no more ley lines to pull in the time arcs, which was bad news for them. Disheartened, Adria told Ivar that she should have left a long time ago, especially since her bracelet, which belonged to her great–grandmother, contained a message that warned her to leave. Hearing Adria say that the bracelet was supposed to save whoever was wearing it when the Persians came, Ivar senses something familiar about her story and asked to see the bracelet. Recognizing something within it, Ivar pulled Adria with him to the barracks. Using a smoke screen to make their way through the soldiers, Ivar saved a baby before horses trampled him. Meanwhile, the Persians destroyed the wall with the message that Ivar read earlier to break into the city.

Reaching the Roman barracks, Ivar assured the Centurion that he was on his side and asked him for a sword to join the fray. Running away after the Persians killed the Centurion and his soldiers, Ivar pulled Adria aside to protect her from a military breaching charge from the first Malev War that he placed on the outside wall a century earlier that exploded and opened a hole they could escape through.

Back in the 2nd Century, after he set the timer in the breaching charge, Ivar told Ismene that everything he did was to save Adria, her descendant because he could not save anyone else, who died when Dura Europus fell and got lost in the sand.

Taking Ismene’s bracelet, inscribed a message on it that said “Closer than brother at the end you must be in the barracks. Your opening will appear to the North East. Take the girl and don’t look back”, then he gave it back to her and told her to give it to her daughter to give to her daughter after her. Just then, a time arc opened and Ivar vanished into it, leaving Ismene to ask the Gods to go with him.

Ashes Of The Past

Ashes Of The Past – Part I

Somewhere in the West Texas territories on 1887, Judge Roy Bean and a group of Texans gathered to hang Ivar Anni–Padda, the Timewalker. Reciting a poem to stall for time, Ivar escaped through a time arc and left the Judge and his cohorts to believe that God himself had punished him. Tossing and turning inside the timestream, Ivar wondered why he could not have a nice and linear mortality like his brothers.

Landing in an alley, Ivar broke his bonds and went to find out where he was. Learning that he was in Tulsa, OK in 1921 from a newspaper, Ivar got in trouble when he was unable to pay the paper boy. On the run from a mob of black men, Ivar found shelter with Doctor AC Jackson, who witnessed the misunderstanding. After telling AC the truth about who he was and were the came from, a tale that the good doctor did not believe, Ivar found out that he had arrived in the colored side of town a day after the police arrested a colored boy for assaulting a white woman. Unaware of the troubles the people were facing, Ivar offered to help, but the doctor nurse suggested that he leave town. While Ivar walked out of town, unaware that the police were watching him, the newsboy came out of the alley and showed AC the severed rope that Ivar had around his neck earlier.

Later, in the outskirts of town, the police and a group of white men surrounded Ivar with their truck and police car and then attacked him for being friendly with the black folks. After Ivar single–handedly dispatched the men, the police ran him over with their hard twice and left him for dead on the road.

Awakening later in AC’s office, Ivar surprised the doctor with his healing ability. After a change of clothes, Ivar accompanied AC to the police department after they learned that they were thinking about lynching the boy they had in custody. Worried that the incident had stirred things to the point where white strangers were being attacked, and feeling there was a chance the boy was in danger, AC pleaded with the police that they move the boy to the county facility until trial to ensure his safety until he could have his day in court fairly to no avail. Just as a lynch mob gathered outside the police department, the chief of police came out of his office and reprimanded the desk sergeant for not enforcing the law equally. Ordering the Sergeant to take McKean and Fisk, two officers, and watch the crowd while AC, Ivar, and their friends left, the chief invited AC and anyone else who wanted to escort the boy to the county lockup when they took him there a few hours later. Enraged with the chief’s reprimand and dealing of the black folks, the Sergeant and officers left in a huff.

Later, in AC’s office, AC worried that the crowd at the jail did not look too good, and that the other coloreds they left to keep a watch out might have trouble already despite being armed. Certain that if they got the young boy out of jail things would quiet down, Ivar believed that they could settle things without any more trouble.

Elsewhere, the town’s people and the cops gathered their weapons to lynch the boy and anyone else who would help him.

Ashes Of The Past – Part II: White Fire, Black Heart

Leaving doctor AC Jackson’s office, Ivar believed that with the police around they would not have any further problems at the jail when they tried to escort the young black man to the county lock up. Unbeknownst to him, elsewhere, a lynch mob left for the jail certain that with the police on their side they would not have any trouble dealing with coloreds.

On June 6th, 1941, Ivar and AC walked into the Tulsa, OK police department to speak with the chief of police while their friends waited outside. Worried over the rising tensions, the chief suggested to AC that after they got the kid to county lockup he and the others visit out–of–town relatives for a time because the transfer would not end things for a lot of people and he could not do much if things got out hand on their end of town. Meanwhile, outside, the lynch mob arrived in their truck ready to kill the black folks because they believed that they were breaking the boy out of jail to help him escape punishment.

Armed with shotguns the mob demanded that the boy be delivered to them. Inside the building, the Sergeant refused to send any men to die for him, while the officers took the boy out of his cell and planned to hand him over to the mob. Enraged, Ivar dropped–kick the two police officers, when, suddenly, the mob opened fire and killed two of AC’s friends.

Using the police officers as human shields, Ivar protected AC and the boy as they escaped from the police department over the mob’s men. Tossing the cops on the crowd, Ivar leapt into AC’s car as it sped away from the scene, which had become a slaughter–fest. Fleeing from the rednecks, Ivar, AC, and the kid headed to the North side of town. Making a hard turn, AC escaped from a truck–full of men that tipped over. Leaping into a car driven by armed men, Ivar caused it to crash into a post and killed the driver and his copilot. Tipping the car right–side up, Ivar drove it toward AC’s office, taking one of the mob’s injured leaders with him.

Joining others in his office, AC was prepared to make a stand there for his and the boy’s lives. Driving up to the office, Ivar forced the mob’s leader to stop the others by telling them that if they wanted to get to boy they would have to kill him, but blinded by hatred, the men did just that and shot him. Enraged, Ivar wanted to fight the men, but AC pulled him into the office so he would help them. Unfortunately, a time arc suddenly appeared and pulled Ivar with him to another time and another place.

Anxious to know what happened, Ivar visited the Schomberg Center for Black Studies in New York City, where he learned that AC did make it home, but that a mob attacked him there and that the police came while he was defending himself. Ultimately, the police car that Jackson was in was attacked and he died on the spot, while a few dozen others, not including those killed or displaced by the fires, died during the riot. Ivar was saddened to also learn that, even though the rioters were caught, the grand jury blamed the whole thing on the people that went to the police station.

Detour III

Abduction From The Harem

While talking with his friend Phil, a musicologist, about Buddy Holly’s reintroduction of counterpoint, a technique ignored since the 17th Century composers, Ivar felt dared to visit that moment in time. Inputting the date of July 16th, 1961into this temporal compass, Ivar left to catch a time arc timed to appear in seven hours.

Finding himself in Vienna in the late 18th Century instead, Ivar walked into a brothel and stole a man’s clothes to pass by unnoticed. While having a beer and listening to a man behind him make fun of his clothes, which were too big for him, Ivar saw the garments’ enraged owner running down the stairs toward him. Helping the man who mocked him avoid being hit with a goblet during his fight with the man whose clothes he stole, Ivar left with the mocker after the fight ended.

Making his way up the stairs with the man, who told him that his name was Wolfgang and that he worked at the court of Count Hieronymus Von Colloredo, the Prince–Archbishop of Salzburg, Ivar followed Wolfgang down a hallway looking for an exit. Enchanted by the sound of singing in a room on the far end of the hall, Wolfgang and Ivar walked inside and saw a German woman called Mariska who was singing an opera.

Caught between Mariska’s enraged brother, his dog, and the man whose clothes Ivar stole, Ivar dragged Wolfgang outside through an open window and they ran on the rooftop to find a place to hide. Jumping back inside through a window, Ivar and Wolfgang led Mariska’s brother and the man on a chase through the brothel that ended back in Mariska’s room.

Knocking out the big man with a sofa, Ivar found himself staring down the barrel of a gun in Mariska’s hand, when then the authorities arrived. Convincing the officers that the big man was the cause of the entire commotion, Ivar and Wolfgang explained to Mariska and her brother that the reason they broke into her room was to ask her what she was singing, so she told them that she was singing a Bach cantata.

Introducing himself to Mariska as a musician working on an opera called Idomeneo that he was hoping that Anton Raff would sing it, Wolfgang expressed his disbelief that Bach had written the song that she was singing, then he admitted that he had not listened to Bach since he was twelve. Ultimately, with Mariska’s help, Wolfgang ran off with a letter to Baron Van Sweiten, a teacher that specialized in Bach, while Ivar stayed behind to make time with Mariska while he waited for the next time arc.

Back in the present, Ivar brought back up the conversation of counterpoint with his friend Phil, who told him that the technique had been a part of music ever since Bach invented and Mozart made it accessible. Unaware of whom Mozart was, Ivar ignored that he had set Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on the path back to Bach, whom almost everyone else ignored. Pouring a drink, Phil mused that if Mozart had not introduced counterpoint, then someone else would have, bringing his conversation with Ivar full circle.

We Who Are About To Die

Exiting from a time arc into a posh closed room on March 7th, 2540, Ivar found a body on the floor covered with fresh blood and a warm energy weapon lying beside it. Just then, the police arrived and their leader pointed at Ivar accused him of committing the crime. Though Ivar explained that the man was dead when he arrived, the police pointed out that the room was locked from the inside and that the man had been shot twice. Placed under arrest, Ivar worried when he heard that the penalty for murder was death by torture.

Several hours later, in the main detention center, Ivar met with an advocate who refused to believe his story about appearing through a time arc and doubted that he could find a champion willing to fight for him during his trial by combat, which was he way the law worked in that era.

Days later, in court, the prosecutor introduced the evidence against Ivar, which determined their advantages during the trial. For Ivar’s presence in the apartment, the prosecutor ordered that his champion’s hands be tied behind his back, while for the fingerprints on the murder weapon, their champion would wear body armor. Choosing to defend himself, Ivar faced the people’s champion in combat with his hands tied. Hearing the compass activate, Ivar made a run for it and escaped through a time arc.

Finding himself in the same era, 10 days before the murder, Ivar went to get a change of clothes and find out where to find Ethan Usher, his seeming victim. Certain that he could stop the murder and save the man’s life, Ivar used detective skills that he acquired while working in San Francisco in the 1920’s to get to work.

Learning that Usher had a rival who killed himself, Ivar went to find the man’s daughter, certain that if she did not do the job herself she knew who did. After two days of fruitless searching, Ivar was ready to give up, when, then, the man’s daughter, Maria Santos, came to his motel room to see him. Confronting Maria with the evidence, Ivar accused her of planning to kill Usher and told her that he was going to stop her, but Maria denied his accusations and told him that her hatred for Usher did not define her like it did her father. Unbeknownst to Ivar, a man was watching him and Maria from a building across the street.

Telling Maria that he was going to keep Usher alive for another day and a half, after which they would go their own way, Ivar asked her to help him identity all of Usher’s enemies. Though she did not know why she was helping Ivar, as hearing that Usher got killed would make her the happiest girl in the world, Maria went with him to find Usher’s enemies, of whom she considered herself one.

That night, Ivar told Maria that all he wanted was for nothing bad to happen, so she suggested that if he was that concerned he should knock on Usher’s door and warn him, but he told her that was the first thing he did and it nearly got him arrested. As Ivar said that he would talk to Usher again if there was no other choice, Maria seduced him and they made love. Later, while Ivar was in the shower, Usher’s men broke into his room and killed Maria. Enraged, Ivar killed the thugs, then took their weapon and key card to visit Usher.

Using the key card to walk through the lobby of Usher’s building, Ivar warned the desk clerk to call the police, then he took the elevator to Usher’s suite. Walking into the room with the weapon in his hand, Ivar told Usher that he was there to protect him, but Usher opened fire on him and Ivar shot him in self–defense.

Realizing that he was guilty as charged for the crime of murder, Ivar left everything the way he found it the first time to leave an innocent man, himself, to take the rap. Crossing into a time arc, Ivar mused that the more things changed the more they stayed the same.