2017-

  Bobby Benson looked up at the sky over New York. The words that had come with

  his reading so long ago leaped into his mind.

  ALL OF YOU, OR ONLY ONE OF YOU.

  He knew this was the decision that would make those words come true. He just didn’t

  think it would take so long.

  “What are you thinking, Bobby?” Eleanor dropped down out of the sky, long light

  blue dress flowing around her. A green twelve pointed star marked one shoulder.

  “Someone has to buy time for the rest of you to save the world.” Bobby wore his light

  blue suit, star for a tie clip. He smiled at her. “I’m proud of you girls. I knew letting

  you stay was a good decision. It was maybe the best decision I ever made.”

  “There’s no way you can stop this.” Eleanor pushed her blond hair out of her face.

  “The magicians and the Lamplighters have a plan. Let them carry it out.”

  “I need you to take care of your sisters in all this chaos.” Bobby drew on his mantle.

  “I’ll see you when I get back.”

  “You’re not coming back.” Eleanor looked like she was about to cry. “How could

  you?”

  “Someone has to defend the planet.” Bobby smiled. “That’s my job, and has been

  since you were a baby. I kind of slacked up on it, but I never could quite give it up.

  It has been a pleasure, Eleanor. Thank you for being my friend.”

  “Thank you for being a dad.” Eleanor found herself talking to the air. The Mark had

  exploded into the air before his last words reached her.

  Bobby crashed through the descending front line of the invasion force. They hadn’t

  expected his level of force being applied to their ships and armor. And when it was,

  parts of alien cephalopods rained down on the street.

  He crossed into the cloud that denoted where Earth was mixing with another place

  and time. He flew out the other side, catching the invaders by surprise. A human

  torpedo crashing through their launching platforms sent bent metal and aliens flying

  from the entrance.

  He spotted a giant flaming tree in the distance. This tree had eyes of green flame and

  a mouth to match. It glared at him as he closed on it. It was the biggest thing around,

  and it had to be stopped to help the others on Earth.

  The Mark hit his enemy as hard as he could. Saving the Earth meant cutting loose

  with everything he had. He hadn’t done that in a long time. Since he had killed

  Barbarossa, very few of his enemies could match the sheer power given him by the

  green spark.

  Bobby realized he might have bitten off more than he could chew. Punching through

  the burning tree did nothing to stop it. It directed more of the invaders to launch

  through the portal with a wave of its limbs.

  He crashed into the mass after a flying start. He disrupted their assembly by throwing

  flying gunships that resembled crabs into each other. The crews abandoned ship or

  blew up when their boats collided with each other.

  He was holding them back. That was all he could really do. Hopefully the

  Lamplighters and their allies planned how to shut the portal down from the other side.

  Two colossi of stone and metal sprang to life from a floating mountain drifting by the

  mustering point. They stepped forward, reaching for Bobby as he flung a soldier

  away.

  Bobby knocked the head off one with one blow. He didn’t watch it sail away across

  the liquid sky. The other one swung a massive fist he had to dodge. Then he flew

  straight in like a bullet and punched a tunnel through the second colossus’s head. It

  dropped to a planetoid and refused to move.

  Bobby looked around to see what he could wreck next. He hoped he was helping the

  others with this big move. He might be able to turn most of the invaders back before

  they jumped across to Earth.

  He wondered how the others were doing. How were they handling the ones that were

  getting through? He knew that his girls, the Lamplighters, and the Rangers were on

  the scene. Hopefully they were holding the invasion to the scene of the beachhead.

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  Was he really helping with this solo effort?

  He grabbed a flying boat and rammed it into another one. However much he doubted

  he could hold the forces back, he was creating chaos in their ranks. That had to create

  extensive delays in getting to Earth to set up.

  And his girls were fast enough to take out groups of these alien soldiers on their own.

  Help would allow them to expand their net.

  Sheer numbers could wear the defenders down, but he hoped he was keeping those

  numbers down with the destruction he was causing.

  The burning tree stepped across the landscape and swung multiple limbs as one. He

  ducked the blow. So the general had decided to take him on while the army kept

  going without him getting in the way.

  “I have had enough of your interference.” The voice was a thousand fingernails on

  chalkboards eating at his mind. “It is time for you to be removed from my sight.”

  Bobby waited for her next move. He was the one who had to buy time. The longer he

  could hold her in place, the more time the others had to stop this.

  Beams of spellfire leapt from her multiple gnarled hands. They swept toward him in

  lockstep waves. He flew out of their way, blinking across the sky to avoid the burning

  symbols that made up the rays.

  Bobby charged in and swung with all the power he had. He landed his haymaker,

  noting that it caved the bark of the face he had smashed. A second later, the crater

  popped out while he wound up to hit with his other hand.

  He could be in for a slugfest as long as he could keep hitting her more than she could

  hit him.

  He doubted that he could kill her. He just wasn’t strong enough to do more than

  inconvenience her at this point. He realized that but he knew he had to try. He

  couldn’t let his adopted daughters down. He had to do as much as possible until the

  dimensional rip was sewed back up from the other side.

  Anything after that would be gravy as far as he was concerned.

  He slammed into her face again, swinging with both hands. That rocked her head

  back on the tree trunk body she had. Flames hissed from her eye holes as she fought

  to keep from going over.

  She exhaled a sheet of flame at him. He dropped out of the way close enough to smell

  the air burning from the assault.

  He didn’t think he could take a hit from anything that powerful. It made his green

  spark look like a double a battery next to a nuclear power plant.

  He slammed into her chin to shut her mouth up. He didn’t need her wrecking havoc

  with her bad breath in his world.

  A wave of wooden hands crashed into him. He flew into a planetoid and dug a crater

  in the rock. He staggered to his feet as the tree came on.

  Maybe he shouldn’t let the thing hit him with its body, along with its spell power.

  “You don’t have a chance against me.” The tree held up all of its hands. They all

  glowed. “I’m the Queen of Genn, Sister of the Destroyer, Mother of the Myriad. You

  are nothing to me with your pitiful piece of magic.”

  “I’m the Mark.” Bobby felt more energy pour into him from his green spark. It had

  to be enough to get the job done. “I won’t let you pass. Call off your invasion.”

  “You can’t stop me from passing.” The Queen of Genn laughed at the absurdity of his

  demand. “You have thrown my children in disarray for the moment, but that is of no

  consideration to me. You can’t stop the inevitable joining of your world to mine.”

  “I can try.” The Mark launched himself in the air. He had to keep pushing against her

  until she gave up. He wasn’t going to overpower her. She had regeneration to burn

  against his attacks.

  “Stubbornness in the face of destiny will only cause your extermination sooner than

  the rest of your breed.” The Queen flung her spells from her hands with a roar of

  flame from her crowning branches.

  Bobby dodged most of the spells. He moved like lightning in the air. His reflexes

  were also heightened so he didn’t crash into things while trying to make turns at high

  speed.

  A net spread out in front of him. He tried to fly over its golden threads, but it wrapped

  around his legs. Pain shot through his body as he tried to pull away from the net.

  More of the sticky spell work covered him as he tried to rip the strands already

  wrapped around his legs. Soon he was cocooned into immobility by the layers of

  netting.

  Bobby tried to pull away from the Queen, pulling on the net like a fish on a hook. She

  yanked him back so she could grab him with her many hands.

  “It’s time you learned your place in the many worlds.” She marched to the cloud that

  denoted the boundary. “It’s time your world learned its place.”

  Bobby struggled inside the netting. He had to get free so he could get out of her grip

  and keep up the battle. He had to buy more time for the others.

  “You can’t avoid your fate.” The Queen of Genn formed a bridge through the

  boundary and emerged over New York.

  Bobby wondered if he had made the wrong choice trying to shape the future to

  something that he wanted to happen instead of what would happen. Had he moved

  things too far and doomed his family?

  What if he had doomed the world by trying to play the Lone Ranger?

  Who would look after his kids now?

  “I, the Queen of Genn, the Sister of the Destroyer, the Mother of the Myriad, the Sun

  of a Million Lands, pronounce sentence on this miserable place for the crime of

  accepting my rebellious daughter as one of your own.” The burning tree held up her

  prize in her grasp. An image covered the world so everyone could see what was going

  to happen. “You will all be exterminated just like this hero who tried to stop me.”

  The net around Bobby caught fire as magic poured down on him. He felt the green

  spark in his body being ripped out. Then he blew apart in a cloud of ash and smoke.

  Cassie’s cryptic reading passed through his mind as he burned away.

  He knew he had made the right choice and bought the time the others needed to save

  the world.