Tournament of Heroes

4. PROLOGUE-1

Mr. Jason Space, Deputy to Captain Helena Galaxy of The Adventure and agent of the Interdimensional Elite Agency, knew he had messed up. It was now only a matter of whether Chief Aster and the Commanderate would fire him now or later. Of course, they might be forgiving enough to simply punish him for this disaster of a mission, perhaps by putting him on leave for a few days or maybe docking his pay.

Not that it really matters when you think about it, Mr. Space thought, standing in the center of the Commanderate’s meeting room, trying not to look too nervous before the Council. The multiverse is gonna be destroyed in a few days, after all. Having my pay docked or even getting fired outright is pretty small by comparison.

As always with Mr. Space, however, thinking clearly became harder the more stress and pressure he was under. It didn’t help that the lights on the ceiling seemed especially bright and warm today, making sweat break out across his forehead, although that was probably more due to his nerves than anything. He fumbled with the buttons on his uniform, wishing he was back in his room on his spaceship, but knowing that he wouldn’t be going back there for a while.

At least he didn’t come alone. Standing next to him, looking much more relaxed, was a black-haired woman known as Captain Helena Galaxy. As Mr. Space’s Captain, Galaxy was his boss. She told him what to do, where to go, and sometimes even how to do it. Of course, the two of them were much closer to partners than boss and subordinate in practice, but still, she was the boss and he had to do what she told him to do.

That was another reason Mr. Space was worried about meeting with the Commanderate. As Galaxy’s Deputy, he was basically her responsibility. If they punished him for his failure, they might also choose to punish Galaxy as well, even though Galaxy had not directly participated in the mission other than providing backup in case things went south.

Things didn’t just go south, Mr. Space thought with a gulp. They went straight to heck.

Mr. Space hoped that Galaxy didn’t get punished, too. It wasn’t her fault that the mission went badly. Mr. Space hated seeing his friends punished and this time was no different. Still, the Commanderate had summoned them both to the Council Chamber for a reason and it wasn’t because they wanted to have lunch with the two IEA agents.

“Captain Helena Galaxy and Deputy Jason Space of the starship The Adventure,” said an authoritative, if young, voice above them. “We will now begin the report of Mission Apocalypse.”

Mr. Space gulped. He looked up to see the source of the voice, a man with a tall mohawk sitting on top of a floating chair. Although the man was in his late twenties, he looked much older than that. His hair had flecks of gray in it already and his skin was wrinkled more than it should have been. Mr. Space was close to him in age and yet he looked much better.

Guess being the Chief must be really stressful, Mr. Space thought with another gulp.

That man was Chief Dean Aster, the current Chief of the IEA, which put him above every other agent in the organization aside from the Commanderate. The members of the Commanderate sat in thrones of varying heights, looking down at Mr. Space and Captain Galaxy expectantly.

Mr. Space took another deep breath to steady himself (which didn’t work) and then said, as calmly as he could, “Mission Apocalypse was a—”

“Complete and total failure,” Commander Nova, an older gentleman with steel gray hair, snapped from his throne. He held up a holographic tablet that showed Mr. Space’s mission report. “We lost thirty-six agents, Deputy Space. Thirty-six. We haven’t lost that many agents in one mission since the Dread God incident.”

Mr. Space winced. “Yes, um, I was just about to get to that—”

Captain Galaxy held up a hand. Her eyes were locked on Commander Nova, a disapproving frown on her face. “With all due respect, Commander, I fail to see why we were summoned here to give an in-person report if you already have my Deputy’s written report on the mission. I read the report myself and it seemed to have all of the relevant facts. Unless there is a good reason why you summoned us, I am having a hard time seeing why we should be here at all.”

Mr. Space wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or alarmed that Galaxy was willing to speak up for him like that. Normally Galaxy greatly respected the organization’s hierarchy and rarely spoke back to her superiors even when it made sense to do so. Not that he disagreed with her question, though. As Galaxy had said, he had already written up a mission report and made sure to include as much detail as possible. Mr. Space wasn’t much for bureaucracy, but he did like to pride himself on his well-written, detailed mission reports.

“We know that, Captain,” said Chief Aster before Commander Nova could respond. He rubbed his forehead tiredly. “Every member of the Commanderate has received and read a copy of your mission report. But as the only survivor from Mission Apocalypse, we want to hear, in your words, exactly what went wrong. As Commander Nova pointed out, we lost too many good agents on that mission when no one was supposed to die at all. What went wrong?”

Chief Aster sounded like he was genuinely worried about why so many agents died. It was one of the things Mr. Space always liked about Aster. Chief Aster did not think of himself as being automatically better than the rest of the agency due to his leadership position. He not only cared for the organization as a whole but showed genuine concern for individual members. He even took time to get to know his agents on an individual level, often eating with them in HQ’s cafeteria rather than staying holed up in his office dictating orders to everyone else.

Doesn’t mean he can’t dish out punishment when it’s merited, though, Mr. Space thought, wiping the sweat off his forehead. Like now.

Taking another deep breath to steady himself, Mr. Space said, “All right. I’ll start from the beginning. Mission Apocalypse was a mission with a simple goal: Kill a god, with the secondary goal of blowing up an entire universe using an experimental weapon.”

“An experimental superweapon which you lost,” Commander Nova added.

Chief Aster made a ‘shhh’ gesture with his hands to Commander Nova, who lapsed into annoyed silence.

Slightly taken aback by Commander Nova’s interruption, Mr. Space nonetheless continued, saying, “In more detail, the mission was to slay Aeno, the self-proclaimed King of the Multiverse and a Deus Level Threat to the multiverse itself, according to the IEA’s archives. Aeno was originally put to sleep a million years ago by a previous iteration of the IEA, but he woke up recently and has taken over the dimension known as the Nexus, where he has built himself a castle and populated said dimension with his own creations. The extent of Aeno’s powers are unknown, but he can create new life and potentially even destroy entire universes, though that power has yet to be seen.”

Mr. Space took a moment to drink from a bottle of water he had brought with him. Even sipping his water drew annoyed and impatient looks from the Commanderate, which made Mr. Space drink even faster. He even spilled a little water on his uniform due to his haste.

Lowering his water bottle and capping it, Mr. Space said, “Although Aeno may be a god, he appears to have the mindset of a six-year-old boy. Even so, the IEA Chief and Commanderate—you guys—decided that Aeno was a threat to the multiverse, especially after the discovery of the Destroyer Prophecy, an ancient prophecy which states that Aeno will one day gain enough dark energy to become the Great Destruction, an entity who will bring about the end of the multiverse itself.”

“Surely that should bump Aeno up to a higher level on the threat level chart,” Commander Meteor interrupted unexpectedly. He appeared to be looking at a holographic display of the IEA’s threat level chart. “A being who can destroy the entire multiverse is a threat we’ve rarely faced before.”

“There is no higher level than Deus on the chart,” Commander Maria Eclipse added. “Unless we want to vote on a new one right now.”

“That can wait until after Deputy Space’s briefing is done,” said Chief Aster. He looked at Space. “Please continue your report.”

Mr. Space, feeling much more relaxed, continued, saying, “But the mission was complicated by Aeno k********g sixteen individuals from four different universes. He then forced these individuals to participate in something he calls the Tournament of Heroes, a tournament that is supposed to decide who is the greatest hero in the multiverse, with the losing participants and their universes being erased.”

The Commanderate all exchanged puzzled looks when Mr. Space said that. An understandable reaction, given how most of these Commanders had little experience with the superheroes who had been forced to compete in the Tournament.

“The true purpose of the Tournament, however, is to generate the dark energy needed for Aeno to become the Great Destruction,” said Mr. Space. “Per the Prophecy, Aeno needs seven days’ worth of dark energy generated from conflicts between the four greatest heroes in the multiverse to become the Great Destruction. Our mission, then, had another, equally important primary goal in addition to killing Aeno: Rescue the kidnapped heroes and return them to their respective universes.”

Mr. Space took a moment to take a breath, but mostly, he was trying to delay finishing the report. He was getting to the bad part, the part that caused him and Captain Galaxy to be summoned here in the first place, and he really didn’t want to have to say it aloud. It was bad enough writing it up in a report. Speaking it out loud, in front of the Chief and the entire Commanderate? Well, that was one of Mr. Space’s worst nightmares, even worse than the nightmares where he went back to school without his pants on.

Still, delaying the inevitable would just make the Commanderate even angrier, so Mr. Space continued. “A group of about a dozen different IEA agent Teams was assembled to pull off this mission. We were provided with an experimental Dimension Bomb, provided by the IEA’s Weapons & Research Division, which was supposed to be strong enough to destroy the Nexus and Aeno. The bulk of the agents assigned to this mission were supposed to rescue the kidnapped heroes and return them to their home universes, while one agent, Captain Calvin Comet of the Spire, was supposed to set up and activate the Dimension Bomb.”

Here it was: The part that no one liked, not even Mr. Space.

“But it didn’t work out the way we planned,” Mr. Space said, speaking much quicker than usual thanks to his nerves. “For one, the kidnapped victims didn’t actually appreciate our efforts to rescue them. Nearly all of them resisted all efforts to rescue them, even though I had made earlier contact with one of the participants, Alex ‘Beams’ Fry of Universe 8717, to warn them ahead of time that we would attempt to rescue them during the third match of the Tournament. Some of them even defended Aeno, protecting him from a small Team of IEA agents equipped with weapons that could kill a god. It was kind of a mess.