The Undefeated

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February 2008.

The huge spire of the Champions headquarters swept upward into the Millennium City sky even against the sprawling backdrop of high towers, as if to establish it as the first church of the superheroic age. Some who had visited it had described it in terms of a religious experience. Craig Carson, himself a modestly religious man, would not have put it in those terms, yet even he found himself something of a pilgrim in this country.

Perhaps odyssey would be a better term than pilgrimage. Craig had not been to Millennium in many years: in his heart, it was still a city of tragedy, the city where his brother had was murdered as he helped survivors dig themselves out of the ruins of the apocalypse caused by Albert Zerstoiten. Four years earlier, Craig left behind his superhero days for the duties and frustrations of politics, but as the only superhuman in the Canadian parliament, even his political foes looked to him for guidance in the area of the metahuman. Bad blood between Canadian and American superheroes had boiled up to a crisis point, and that crisis led him here. Craig felt angry that he and his party leader had agreed to the Prime Minister's mission -- Justiciar should have been sent instead. The emotional toll was unexpectedly high. Riding alone in a car that drove itself (as all cars did in the city of the future with its automated transit) was an eerie experience,

Craig's mind wandered into a series of natural but morbid questions. Where did his brother Jack die? Somewhere near MacDonald Park, he remembered, wherever that was. How many people had died on that spot? Too many, most likely. How far was he from Ground Zero? For Craig Carson, an unhappy pilgrim in the bright city of tomorrow, every car was a hearse, every square centimetre was a burial ground, and the dead clawed at their graves awaiting some force, supernatural or psychological, to allow them to rise from their graves, screaming.

The car came to a smooth stop in front of the headquarters. He disembarked, watched the car drive itself to the nearest parkade, and felt the chill February wind lash him as he walked up a long staircase and across an intimidating concrete circle that led to the door, whipping his sky blue jacket and long golden hair like penants in a stiff breeze. Craig was stolid in the face of this cold, in truth he could endure far worse. The man was impressive even by the standards of the age of titans in which he lived. Ravenspeaker, the Haida spirit elder who had once been his roommate, had described him as "6'7" tall and 280 pounds of half-Canadian, half-monolith, half-thunder god." Justiciar had once called him "the man who makes all others look small, even those who tower above him." When he heard those compliments, Craig simply smiled and said something about flattery, trying but not entirely succeeding at keeping those words from denting the carefully manicured armor of his humility, the cornerstone of his personal virtues.

Champions Headquarters, better known to the locals as Homestead, looked dark and abandoned. Oddly so, Craig thought. It was just after nine in the evening, and while access to the public areas shut down at six, Craig found the darkened windows unnatural: there should still be security and maintenance staff on duty. "Homestead, open up." he said, and his eyebrows narrowed in irritation when he received no response to his verbal authorization. Defender had assured him all the guest privileges were in place. "Homestead, this is Craig Carson, please open." he repeated. Alas, even the perfectly schooled manners of Sarah Carson's youngest boy could not prevail to open the stubborn door. Muttering far less gentle words under his breath, Craig fumbled into his jacket pocket to find a little slip of paper that contained the access code Defender had given him in case there was an emergency shutdown when he arrived. Fortunately the keypad was built to be durable enough for Ironclad, the huge Champion who was as strong as Craig and had even larger fingers. With a click and a whir, the override was acknowledged, though Craig was surprised not to receive an audio response from Homestead.

The big doors opened and closed behind him as he entered the base with a frown on his wide, Nordic seeming face. It was after public hours. The foyer was very dimly lit, and the sound of songs from the last Sapphire album was droning over the speaker system, just loud enough to perceptible, playing at that irritating volume where you could hear the music, but it wasn't loud enough to be truly enjoyed. Even at the right volume, Sapphire's music had never appealed to Craig, who was, by his own admission, a dyed in the wool metalhead who would have preferred even third rate dinosaur rock to modern pop.

"Defender?" Craig called atn a guarded volume. "Homestead?" he added. "Anyone?"

The only response he received was Sapphire telling him in song: "No no, don't be my Foxbat, never be my Foxbat, baby." It was not very useful advice.

"Dammit Craig," the huge Canadian told himself. "You've put aside the cape for four years, and you're still seeing a crisis in every event that's a little off. When are you going to start adjusting to a normal life?" There was, of course, no reply, unless "Oo, oo, love your ping-pong gun" counted as one. She really shouldn't encourage the twerp.

Sighing, Craig took a step forward toward Homestead's inner chambers -- then halted in his tracks. This called for a change of apparel. Closing his eyes, he concentrated, imagined the storm that raged within him, and allowed it to change him. His clothes vanished, replaced by a blue and gold leotard with large floppy yellow gloves. He hadn't worn this uniform for five years, not since he left Starforce for his political career. He had used his powers several times, when Borealis and Baron Nihil had paid "visits" to the Canadian House of Commons, but the gaudy superhero within, Thundrax, had remained dormant for years,

It felt good, better than he wanted it to feel. Were it possible, his huge superhuman heart would have skipped a beat.

Compared to the massive meteor that Celestar had landed in Toronto harbor and shaped into Starforce's base, Homestead was a small, manageable, and well, homey superhuman domicile. Almost quaint. Craig stepped around the front kiosk and suddenly found himself face to face with a pack of uniformed guards, eight in number, wearing ill-fitting blue and white security guard jumpsuits which were vaguely patterned on Defender's costume. One startled guard trained his rifle and got off a shot that grazed Craig's shoulder before the commander shouted "Hold your fire!"

Craig brushed his shoulder -- that stung, he wouldn't want to get hit by too many of those rounds -- and raised his hands. He was on a diplomatic mission, and unlike some, Craig honestly believed that diplomacy meant more than "it takes longer to get to the inevitable fight". The agents closed into point blank range, forming a lupine circle, their weapons trained on the huge Vancouverite. "Craig Carson, Thundrax," Craig calmly introduced himself. "I'm here by Defender's invitation. I should be on the list..."

"He's not here!" the commander barked in a tone that reminded Craig of a lieutenant in a bad movie about the US Marine Corps. All bluster and gritted teeth, the sort of soldier who got drunk and bragged about being better than anyone in tights (usually throwing in at least five homophobic slurs in the bargain). Craig took a deep breath and struggled to keep his temper, even as old stress responses fought to come to the surface.

"... to discuss shared security concerns regarding VIPER..." he said, still calm.

"He's on a mission!" the commander snapped.

"...as they relate to Canada's border, and general concerns...."

"We're on lockdown!"

"...on the very sad state of Canadian and American superhero relations in the wake of numerous incidents...."

"Leave this base, now!"

"...involving American vigilantes making ill-advised attacks on Necrull and increasing his power."

"Did you hear me? I said, get out!" the commander shouted. Craig was close enough to see that their triggers were half-cocked.

"Fine," the huge Canadian said, eying each one of them casually. Something told Craig that he shouldn't let the firepower dissuade him from calmly inspecting the situation. His eye kept coming back to their uniforms. Craig had seen pictures of the Champions security personnel, and they looked far more professional than this detail, and he doubted it was because they were the night shift. The uniforms weren't fitting right, and that meant either Defender had hired a cadre of new agents who weren't properly outfitted, or...

Craig clucked his tongue and smirked. "I'll withdraw as soon as I get audio confirmation from Homestead."

"Homestead's down." the commander barked.

"Yes, I see." Thundrax responded. "But why? And why do you all lok like you just got out of bed and put on the first unform you could find?" The commander blinked in response. "By the way, commander, this is the part where you shout to your men and order them to" kill him!"."

The commander's face turned cold, the fake Marine Corps bravado disappearing. Even with their fingers half-pulled on the triggers, it was already too late for the commander and his men. Craig had been out of action for years, and the power that swelled within him was eager to be used, angry at its forced hibernation. Lightning surged around Craig's body, shooting through the fabric of his costume in a terrible nimbus that engulfed the swarm of agents. The thugs shook like leaves in a hurricane, and Craig was very thankful that their uniforms had enough insulation that they didn't drop dead on the spot -- he had fired off a lot more juice than he'd intended -- and fell in unison to the ground.

Quickly, the Canadian grabbed each of the agent's rifles and crushed their stocks with a casual squeeze. His muscles were not merely for show. However, the lieutenant, who was either hardier or better insulated than the other soldiers, was still conscious; he reached for an energy pistol that was holstered on his thigh. Had he not been within easy reaching distance of the superhero, he might have gotten off a shot. Instead, Craig grabbed his hand and squeezed it hard enough to mangle it. The agent fell to his back, shrieking, his broken fingers splayed.

"Who do you serve? VIPER?" Craig demanded through a snarl. The thought of the snakes, that worldwide conspiracy of thugs, taking out another group of heroes, was one that struck Craig to his core. Though frankly, given the reputation the team had amassed since its founding in 2000, he expected far better from the Champions than to be caught off-guard by the green PJ set.

The lieutenant managed to chuckle, despite the pain of his broken fingers. "Those clowns? Give me a break. We serve the 100." The commander smirked. "We're the future of this country, and that means you're dead." he added.

The 100? Craig had never heard of that one. Get out of the business for a few years, and you need a thirty hour refresher course just to get back to date, he told himself. "Well, at least you're right about VIPER," Craig replied with a sigh, and he placed a hand on the commander's exposed wrist and delivered a second shock to put him down for the count.

Craig now faced the typical dilemma of the sensible superhero, the one that makes every moviegoer scream when they see the hero not do this in a movie or on a television show. Go get backup! Craig could simply step out of the base, broadcast a report to the UNTIL base that was located beneath the ACI building a few blocks away, and await orders before pressing ahead. Craig had no idea who was involved in the 100. He could easily be outmatched. It would be stupid not to call for reinforcements. And Craig had always done his best work as a team player, not a solo hero.

Weighing against that "sensible option", however, was the potential urgency of the crisis. The conservative option would take time, and the presence of the armed force of disguised guards suggested there was still an ongoing operation underway. Delay, and the guards he'd knocked unconscious would recover and scatter. Sure he could always kill them, or shatter their kneecaps, but Craig had never executed or maimed defenseless prisoners before, and he wasn't going to start now. Thundrax's instincts told him that the better strategic option would be to push forward, throw a monkeywrench into whatever was happening, and withdraw if the opposing forces looked overwhelming.

He didn't have to walk far. Rounding several corridors, Craig heard what sounded like the whspers of a chant, loud enough to drown out Sapphire's perky pop melodies and lyrics about "fly me to your moonbase" (mercifully "Fox Me Foxbat" had ended at about the time the guard was yelling at him). He arrived at a hall of giant holograms, displays that projected huge images of the Champions along the sides of the wall like giant ghostly statues. Craig hated superhero monuments with a passion, but he had no time to state his objection. Each member of the Champions were here, but they barely conscious or unconscious, and chained to their image's holoprojector (except Kinetik, who was tied to the statue of Nighthawk that the Champions still hadn't replaced -- in the world of Champions, sometimes even the most trivial changes take an annoying amount of time to implement). A golden sungem was pinned to each of their chests. From those amulets, streams of white energy wafted, coalescing above the head of an armored figure who stood in the center of the room, whispering a chant as he collected their life forces and the quixotic energies of their powers.

He was a superhuman, not too much shorter than Craig, and built just as powerfully as the Cornfed Canuck (as Forceknight once called him). Outfitted with gold legplates and gauntlets, he was shirtless except for a large glowing sun tattoo that pulsed with energy in the center of his chest. He wore a Spartan soldier's helmet, the sort you'd expect in a movie version of the Iliad, including a horsehair brush, and a large red cape was draped around his shoulders. Craig recognized this man... but he was no villain. His name was David Sutherland, senator from Virginia, former superhero, champion of the people. In many ways, he was Craig's American counterpart, with two key differences.

First, he had never been a team player, he was a solo act, though he often had sidekicks. Second, while Craig labored in obscurity as a second tier member of the Northern Guard and UNITY, Sutherland had gotten more than his share of headlines. And merchandise. In Washington DC and the southeast, only the All-American was more popular than "the modern day Spartacus" (one of about ten catchphrases that were splattered across his action figure cases and posters). He was David Sutherland. He was the star eagle of America. He was the Unconquered Sun.

"Invictus?" Craig gasped the best-known name of his improbable foe.

Invictus turned and glared at his newly arrived enemy. The chanting continued, even though he was no longer moving his lips. Thundrax attested it to magic, not ventriloquism.

"Mr. Carson...." Defender grunted. The sun amulet on his chest glowed in response to the hero's attempt to force words from his throat, his body limp as a puppet as the magic had rendered him too weak to stand. Having no real superpowers to absorb actually mitigated its effects, at least a little. "Get out..."

"Have you no sense of hospitality, Defender?" Invictus smirked in response. "This man has actually found the energy to leave his winter-struck hellhole to visit you, and you want him to leave already? Stay boy," his baritone voice added in a smooth Virginia accent. "The home fires are burning, and I assure you, they're quite warm."

"Sutherland." Craig snapped in response. "What the hell are you doing? Last I heard, VIPER was trying to frame you..."

Invictus laughed.

"There was no frame. The allegations were true," Defender said. "VIPER...."

"I confess!" Invictus shouted, raising his arms. "It was all a sham. I paid the snakes to set up a scenario that would give me plausible deniability."

"Almost got away with it...." Defender growled weakly.

"Oh, I'm going to," Invictus responded. "I still managed to catch your overrated little band off guard."But what about our visitor from the Great White North?"

"Why aren't they dead yet?" Craig asked. It was an old superhero's trick -- give a villain a chance to explain their depravity -- killing, fake cleverness, and torture, the three major food groups of a psychopath's ego -- and they'll usually open up about a lot of other things.

"Well...they do have to be eliminated... but why let that power go to waste? Your boy Necrull has the right idea -- go green! Recycle!" He gave Defender a disparaging look. "It's the best way to treat garbage. Take the dried-up, deadwood old hero, and use that power to rejuvenate the reborn new hero, the rising, Unconquered Sun."

"You." Craig stated.

"Yeah, me," Invictus boasted, spreading his arms gleefully/ "And now, Mr. Bob and Doug MacKenzie, you get to join their lame asses in my superhero compost dump.."

Craig shook his head in disgusts, fists balled and held tightly at his sides. "So everything they were saying about you. Murder? Corruption? Sexual assault?" Craig wondered.

"I take what I want, and I eliminate everyone who gets in my way." Invictus sneered. "And like a good southerner, I have always relied on the stupidity of strangers."

Invictus raised his left arm and fired a bolt of white solar energy at Craig, It caught the hero square in the chest, the plasma burning through the fabric of his costume and reddening his skin, while the concussive force sent him hurtling backward a few meters from the projection of Nighthawk. Craig responded by reaching out to the gem on Kinetik's chest and trying to crush it. His hand passed through the gem without making contact with anything except the young hero's sternum.

"Ha!," Invictus chuckled. "Did you honestly think I'd make it easy for anyone to disrupt my spell? The only way you're going to be able to free them is by beating me. Man vs. man."

"If that's what I have to do," Craig snapped.

"Too bad you're a nobody," Invictus sneered. "You're not even the best your country has to offer. Even I barely recognized you, and I've trained myself to know the names and powers of every superhuman on this planet. You're like the obscure name that appears once in a twelve hundred page book, and accidentally makes it into the index, dwarfed by all the important entries."

"Now you're flattering me," Craig quipped back.

"Mind you, at the rate Canadian heroes are dying, you may soon be the only one left. Such a shame about your beloved Red Ensign! Starforce could have saved him, but they got distracted. Did you ever wonder who sent in the tip that sent them on a wild goose chase after a Hunter-Patriot base? Which gave Baron Nihil free rein to kill him?"

Craig gasped, more from anger than surprise. He knew he was being goaded. But still, if Invictus's words were more than just an attempt to rile him, if had been manipulating Nihil and the Starforce.. perhaps he was behind a lot of the recent incidents in Canada. But the Ensign! The third member of the Brock family to bear that name, Canada's answer to Vanguard, the great Canadian icon! He had been one of the world's most respected heroes, and while Craig and Davie Brock had never been teammates, they'd been good friends, and he respected the late Ensign more than any superhero he had ever known in his twenty-five year career. Craig still remembered that day at Rideau Hall; he was first to arrive on the scene, arriving just after Nihil had made his escape, leaving behind the freshly minted corpse of the third Red Ensign, Canada's hero. And now Invictus was trying to use that memory as a weapon against him.

"But let's not talk about them, let's talk about you. I know what you represent," Invictus continued, content to lecture his opponent as he lay on the floor. "Craig Carson. Superhero turned politician. You're a socialist. A lazy parasite who doesn't even have the balls to call himself a Communist. And like every Canadian, you don't know how to fight. Anytime you need someone to wipe your nose, you come crying to America. So soft, so cowardly, so useless as an ally. No wonder I've worked so hard to bring you to your knees."

Craig rose to his feet, brushing himself off. "There's one thing I don't care for about a lot of Yanks," Craig said stoically.

"The fact that we're better than you?"

"Nah. You just don't when to shut your damn trap." Thundrax retorted. Craig, who had often been accused of loving the sound of his own voice too much, chuckled at the irony of the observation.

Sensing the fight was now on in earnest, Invictus fired a second blast at Craig, who anticipated the attack. The Canadian did a clumsy acrobatic roll to avoid it, while pressing forward to throw a punch when he regained his footing. He was greeted with an arrogant backhand slap from a glowing hand, whose charged solar might again sent Thundrax hurtling backward, this time lodging him in the wall between Witchcraft and Kinetik. Craig moaned and pried himself slowly from the wall.

"I'm enjoying this," Invictus said. "Thanks for the exercise, Blundrax."

"Sutherland, neither of us is running for re-election right now," Thundrax replied as he clambered back to his feet. "Let's can the speeches and get this fight over with." he declared. "And good lord, your quips are lame. You're making me miss Dark Prowler."

Invictus roared and charged at Craig, who braced and greeted him with an overhand right cross. Snarling, the big Virginian retaliated with his own punch, but Craig landed a hard jab to the man's ribs, staggering him. Pressing the attack, Craig followed the punch with a head butt that cracked Invictus's helmet and dropped Sutherland to his knees.

"Go Canada go!" shouted Kinetik weakly.

Sutherland regained his footing, placing an arm above his head to shield himself from a second head butt. Craig plunged a knee into the center of Invictus's chest, hoping to bowl him over. Invictus refused to topple, but he did succeed in knocking the villain off balance, so that his next blast only caught Craig in the stomach, not in the face. Craig was knocked back into another wall while Invictus, no longer in a talking mood, scrambled to his feet.

Craig, feeling he had an advantage in close quarters, dodging another solar blast. Colliding with a brutal thud, the noise you'd hear in a "greatest football hits package", the two men wrestled. Both were skilled at this fighting form, but Craig overpowered the American, pushing aside his guard, cinching him around the waist before throwing the villain hard to his back. Snarling, Sutherland responded by aiming a hand upward, directly between Craig's legs, firing a barrage of white hot plasma point blank into... Craig's most vulnerable regions. Craig howled and dropped like a stone. Shoving the Canadian prone onto his back, Invictus charged his hands until his fingers burned with white heat. With no regard to the dignity of their wrestling match -- fighting wasn't for the prissy and most hand to hand fights eventually went to the ground -- the former hero raked his left hand over Craig's chest and abdomen, burning through Thundrax's costume like a match igniting paper, and then, his face delirous with sadistic delight, he pressed the thumb of his other hand into Thundrax's right eye and drove it into the socket.

Craig howled. But the mad joy in Sutherland's face faded when he realized that his gouge, while painful, was not performing as expected. Yes, Thundrax was a "second tier Canadian superhero". No, he didn't have the reputation of being the best of the best. However, as any of Craig's old teammates would have told him, that didn't mean he lacked raw power. On the contrary, Craig had fought some of the toughest villains on Earth, and he did it with a Gary Cooper humility, not a Muhammed Ali swagger. He'd been content for his teammates to grab headlines he easily could have grabbed himself.

Invictus continued to press his white hot thumb into Thundrax's eye, while bringing his other hand up to burrn Craig's left eye. He was beyond taunts now, but they wouldn't have mattered. Thundrax wasn't going to succumb to a few dirty schoolyard tactics -- if anything, they only fueled his anger. For years, Thundrax had been reduced to reciting talking points in the Canadian House of Commons, while a primal spirit raged inside him, reduced to politic impotence. Its captivity finally over, it rewarded Craig with power he had seldom experienced. A thunderclap sounded as Craig bucked Invictus off his prone form with a surge of electricity that sent his opponent flying backward into a wall. Regaining his footing, Craig let loose with an overhand left that caught the charging Sutherland in the bridge of his nose, spoiling any photo ops for at least the next six weeks. Invictus tried to trade blows with him, but he seriously underestimated his fighting skill. Invictus was ridiculously strong -- but Thundrax was even stronger. Invictus was tough -- but Thundrax was tougher, and indomitable.The building rattled under the impact of their blows, and the glee of the unleashed Living Thunder that fueled Craig's powers now roared in delight. Thunderclap followed thunderclap after thunderclap as the blows fell. This is what the primal forces within the Canadian had waited years for, and for a few seconds, even the Champions were afraid.

Craig saw the world through a crimson filter now, and time slowed to the percussion beat of punches that could shatter mountains. It was an ancient, primal beat, one that accompanied that most ancient of dances: two men were standing, one man would fall. And finally, after minutes of insane fury, punch and counterpunch, thunder against fire, blazing storm against the ravaging sun, one of them did fall....


Craig Carson awoke ten minutes later on a small padded bench in the foyer of the headquarters, shirtless, his burnt chest and his head bandaged. Witchcraft and Kinetik were attending him, Kinetik looking slightly bored. "What?" Craig asked, staring into Bethany Duquesne's beautiful face.

"He's awake!" Kinetik called out.

"Easy Mr. Carson," Witchcraft said. "You got a little out of hand."

"How's Sutherland?" Craig asked.

"Unconscious," Witchcraft replied. "You nearly killed him."

"Good." Craig puffed, trying to regain his bearings. "About the nearly part, that is," he quickly corrected. "I'm not a killer, but I haven't tapped into the power like that in a long time. Six, maybe seven years. It almost overwhelmed me."

"Power does that." Witchcraft replied.

"That's one of the reasons I wanted to give the supers business a rest," Thundrax noted, propping himself on one elbow. Witchcraft's spell was serving as an anesthetising agent, but his every motion made his body scream in agony. "Unfortunately, it just made it worse."

"I'd love to discuss the psychological ramifications of tapping into mythic power sources," Witchcraft said, smiling. "But for right now, I think I just want to thank you."

"Me too," Kinetik said. "That was an awesome fight, and not just for the outcome," the speedster added. "It's nice to know some heroes are exactly what they say they are."

"You mean a washed up has-been?" Craig replied. "Who hurts like hell? Yeah, that's me. The packaging does not lie."

"I idolized that creep growing up," Kinetik said. "Part of me still wants to believe it's a hoax, or mind control, or part of a plan to infiltrate VIPER, or something."

"It isn't," Witchcraft affirmed. "He's rotten to the core and he fooled all of us. It was our unwillingness to accept that which allowed him to get the drop on us tonight."

"Note to self. Be as cynical as Nighthawk," Kinetik replied.

Craig groaned in protest. His body protesting too, the triumphant Canadian nonetheless forced himself to his feet. "He intimated that he was responsible for distracting Starforce so Nihil could kill Davie Brock," Thundrax told them. "I think I need to have a talk with him."

"He's in one of our confinement cells," Witchcraft said. "I'll take you to him."

"Thanks. And by the way, it's Craig. "Mr. Carson" makes me sound like a schoolteacher."

"Nothing wrong with schoolteachers," Kinetik rebutted.

"I stand corrected," Thundrax said, chuckling. "I suppose I should be happy not to be called "the Honorable member from Vancouver-East"." Craig smirked at his formal title in the Canadian House of Commons.

"I'd get tired of that one too," Kinetik concurred with an imperceptible superspeed nod.

The rest of the Champions accompanied the battered Canuck to the cells at the bottom level of Homestead. Passing cells containing the agents he'd electrocuted (except for a few who'd already been taken to Mercy Hospital), he came to a force field enclosure. Invictus had regained consciousness and now sat glumly on a metal bench, awaiting the formal pressing of charges and the inevitable prison transfer.

"He reminds me of many I faced in the Intergalactic Arena," Ironclad glowered. "He fights without honor or dignity! He is a liar and a scoundrel!"

Invictus raised his downcast head to face them. Craig frowned. "Invictus!" he shouted. "I want some answers. What was your role in David Brock's death? And who the hell are the 100?"

Sutherland responded with laughter, a somewhat chilling sound that hinted at how unhinged he'd become. "The 100, you'll meet in due course," he finally said cryptically. "As for your pal Brock, that was just the tip of the iceberg. I've been engineering the collapse of your tinpot country for the last ten years. I didn't just target the Ensign. Ever wonder how your former teammate Augury got in touch with Borealis and arranged for your archenemy's escape? It was me. Or the person who provided financial and legal backing to both Canada First! and the Hunter-Patriots? Le soleil, c'est moi."

"Why?" Witchcraft asked.

"Because we're "not a real country anyway"," Craig pre-empted Sutherland's response with a quote from South Park. He had met would-be conquerors before, far too often. "You're being remarkably forthcoming, Senator." he added with a scowl.

Invictus rose to his feet and pressed his body against the force field. "Do you believe in God, Mr. Carson?" he asked.

Craig accepted the challenge inherent in Sutherland's body language and strode forward to close the gap so the two men, though separated by a force field, were within a mere inch of each other. "Hell yes," he said.

"Then you'd better start praying," Invictus declared, an annoying grin stretched across a face that had no right to be so smug. "Not that it will matter. I will destroy you, God or no God. I'll make you wish that you'd suffered every depravity and degradation I could think of tonight, rather than face the wrath of the unconquered sun."

"Funny thing is... you don't look so unconquered to me." Thundrax replied. "You call yourself Invictus? Maybe you should change it to just plain ol' Victus." He was tempted to call him "Vickie". Nah, Craig chastized himself, that would be sexist as well as trite.

"Even tonight's defeat can be unmade," Sutherland declared with a snarl on his face, pressing his hands against the force field. Not undone? That turn of phrase struck Craig as curious, though he wouldn't remember it until years later. "But your death won't be. Nor will the things that I'll do to you before you beg for it."

"This conversation has just turned tedious." Craig responded with a sigh, turning away from his adversary. Invictus was livid, but Craig ignored him. "I should have known better than to get into a testosterone slinging match. Defender, I imagine this "guest" is going to occupy your attention for the rest of the evening. Is it okay to come back tomorrow night and finish our business?"

"Certainly," Defender replied, still pretty shaken from Invictus's attack.

"Thank you kindly," Thundrax said with a courteous nod, and he walked away, an odd sense of relief washing over him. The pilgrimage, which had taken Craig Carson to a very unexpected place, was now over. Invictus continued to shout threats, including some particularly grotesque acts that he was going to perform on his body, as well as the bodies of his friends and family, but Craig kept walking. He knew this was just noise. If there was any justice in the world, Sutherland would remain behind a force field for the remainder of his life. If he somehow escaped, then Craig would deal with it. The two men shared a lot of commonalities: chosen profession, physical strength, access to primal power sources, but one critical thing set them apart. Craig subjugated his passions and truly made himself a public servant, while Sutherland played the role but mocked it, using the power to indulge in his basest instincts and ambitions. The heart of a hero is one that can win one's inner wrestling matches, either against fear, pride, or ignorance, and transform him or herself into a weapon against the things that threaten the world, regardless of the sacrifices required by that fight. Some heroes have powers, most do not, but it's the ability to win that contest that is the often the only thing that separates... a hero from his nemesis."