***THE TIME,***
***NOW***

"My god!" The man shouts to the air, "I LOVE being a god!" And he follows it with maniacal laughter.

"Do you see, Azmodeus? You may have once been a minion of the dark demon Mephisto, but now the 'lowly' Master Pandemonium holds even YOU in thrall!"

The demonic eagle doesn't respond, merely hovers in place as the man known as Master Pandemonium floats above the city. Below them, the late-night city lies near ruins, and its skies were smeared in smoke and a hellish glow from scattered fires. Spider-like creatures had choked the streets with slimy webbing. What pedestrians there were have either been turned to stone or encased in crystal or webbing, while others had experienced horrors beyond belief before dying. Unseen lightning strobes the scene. Demons of all sorts swarm the buildings, alleys, streets, and skies. Their type and number are legion, bat-like, serpentine, skeleton, and hulking molds.

"Magic this place fled had," squawks Azmodeus, "Only reason power you have THAT is."

"Phah!" The fu-manchu moustached man laughs, "I am a demon channeler, a living portal! In this vacuum of magic, it flows through me-- crashes through me-- like water spouting from a break in a dam! I am INVINCIBLE!"

"Stop you heroes those will. Somehow found you they have. Someway vanquish you they will."

"Ha, ha, ha, HA! I care not how they got here, but they fight their own inner demons even as much as they fight my hand-picked army of darkness!"

***BEFORE***

"Alpha Flight?! How did you get here?" Snowbird twirled around on the top of the building at the approach of the three others. In the background, the city of Vancouver had its invasion well underway.

"Some goddess," remarked Eugene "Puck" Judd, the three-foot tall hyper-durable leader of the Flight-- or at least what remained of it. Around him stood the robed heroine Jeanne-Marie, the cyborg Guardian, and the native Inuit Shaman.

"I did not bid you come yet," Snowbird continued.

"Indeed you did not," Shaman intoned. "Look! At what point WOULD you be asking for our help? How can I be accepting your guidance, when I cannot expect your trust?"

"All right, you two, sheesh," Judd stepped between them. "We're all here now. Let's stop what's happening and throw accusations later..."

"Okay, Judd," a new voice commanded from above, "just what is going on?"

"Then again..." Judd was the one who twirled this time. "Heather? Is Vindicator is coming out of retirement so soon?"

Heather MacNeil Hudson glided down to the rooftop to join them by the power of her recently-redesigned Vindicator exoskeleton. "Don't play dumb with me, Puck! I just *happened* to put this costume on tonight, and next thing I know, I'm getting 'beeped' with these coordinates! I quit Alpha Flight, remember?"

"Hey, mom," piped up Guardian, but earned only a flash of exasperated eyes.

Judd sighed, "I know. Michael, Jeanne-Marie and I got the signal, too. From the cybernetic implant just like when Alpha Flight was first created... ages ago."

"YOU!" another new voice shouted. "Just what do you think you are doing? Did you honestly think I wanted to fly all the way back to CANADA?! Well, Jean-Paul is here. Better start talking!"

"Northstar!" Jeanne-Marie breathed.

***NOW***

"See how easy magic flows, Michael?" Snowbird asks Shaman. The woman's form ripples with magical energy, and seamlessly shifts from woman, to owl, to bear, and back, each form replacing the other in an eyeblink.

"We can move in and out of magic areas and areas of no magic, but risk loosing magic altogether if the vacuum of magic suddenly appears..." Michael tests the aura by waving his magic totem staff slowly through the air.

"And if vacuums exist for a long period of time, other places' magic will replace it, but only by diluting their own."

"A river flooding empty banks."

"An ocean filling lowered lands," Snowbird agrees. Then, she gestures and chants. "Tundra, our brother and friend to Earth, heed my call. Join us now."

The terrain before the goddess melts upward, forming the massive frame of the Great Beast Tundra.

"Yes," the Beast intones, "this place is Not Right. The land is being filled with refuse and garbage. There is a man, floating in the air, an eagle by his side. They bring forth the filth that litters this place."

"Remove the demons and reclaim the city!" Snowbird commands, with her voice raising higher and higher. "We have our prey, Michael!" Her form shifts into that of a man-sized snowy white owl. "The eagle will be slain by me, the master's evil matched conjure by conjure with you and your pouch, Michael! To battle!" With that, Snowbird's owl form dips and soars into the nightmarish sky.

Shaman slowly meditates, his own body levitating. He sits in the air, cross-legged.

Laughter rumbles from Tundra's frame, as he turns to begin his fight against the demon invasion. "Perhaps the goddess is never too far from humanity."

Michael sighs, preparing for his own part in the battle. "Who may fathom the mind of a goddess?" he thinks. Except perhaps another god... Tundra, are you right? Can that be why Snowbird has returned to Earth from paradise? Is that why she assembled Alpha Flight? For her own purposes?

***THEN***

"So... why are we here then?" asked Guardian innocently.

"Aside from the whole demon invasion thing?" Judd replied, "Come on, Alphans, let's get it together and sort everything out in the morning!" The thought flashed across his mind that it's no wonder little people like him are always overlooked-- they're being treated like "seen and not heard" children!

"Well, I agree with Puck," yet ANOTHER new voice called from behind them, "but if you must know, it was me who called you all here!" The voice came from a man in a mussed-up business suit. He was riding a flying cycle of some sort, and it quietly whirred to a stop on the building roof.

"This is getting ridiculous!" Judd thought.

"It's an Flight Cylce," the man admitted, dismounting. "Only three or four working models, and I'm really not authorized... Oh. My name is Lance. Lance Loquemion. Low-Kay-Men. I work with Department H."

"No, no, no, no, no..." Heather lamented. "You're telling me Department H wants to reactivate Alpha Flight? With these chips in our costumes or heads or whatever? Forget it. Vindicator is a solo hero now! . . . if I choose to be a hero at all, I mean. "

"Wait a minute! I may be a government man, but that's just my day job! I'm an Alpha supporter since way before that!"

The various members of Alpha Flight stood calmly, taking in the words of this excited stranger. Lance grew more and more excited as he talked, and Puck, Guardian, and Jeanne-Marie smiled. Even Heather let a smirk crack her surface.

"You see, I've managed to reconstruct several files and equipment relating to Alpha Flight. I've combined these with the resources of the internet, connecting fans and supporters of Alpha Flight across Canada-- and even beyond! We've got government men, like myself, teenage hackers, parents of mutant children, writers, hermits, and more, all connected in a community we call Alphanex!

"But lately, we haven't HAD an Alpha Flight team at all, just like how it's been dismantled, rebuilt, and dissolved so many times before. Finally, a small inner circle of Alphanex, of which I'm a part of, was able to reconstruct the call signal that was originally intended to be Alpha Flight's summons to any national threat. We were waiting for a time when we WOULD need an Alpha Flight pulled together, and, well," Lance gestured to the horrifying scene beyond the group, "this seemed like as good as time as any..."

***NOW***

"So what do you think of the kid?" Puck asks as he cartwheels down the street, throwing himself up and into a octopus-headed demon.

"Hey, I'm not a kid!" Guardian laments as he swoops down from the sky, blasting a mobile slime mold.

"He means the other kid," Vindicator also swoops into the scene, judiciously picking off her shoots, one, two, three. "He seems genuine. Department H brings up too many bad memories for me, though. Although it was in happier times that I myself used the same technology to bring Alpha Flight together, and THAT was outside the Department's involvement..."

"Exactly," Puck remarks. He throws off an attacking creature, and launches himself out of the way of another's tentacles. "Think about it. Right now, we're hold up in Shaman's reservation. It's nice, but it's a whole lot of waiting around." Kick, kick, dodge.

"So I can continue with the new life I set up, and just be Vindicator on call?" Heather states flatly. She speaks as much to convince herself. Zap, zap, zap. One, two, three.

"This might be a blessing in disguise. We've had no income, no resources, no outside connections. We're not a family." Cartwheel. "We're not Earth's Mightiest." Jab. "We sure ain't no school for gifted youngsters." Roundhouse. "We're heroes, but also just people. People with messed up lives. 'Bout time we got back to 'em, eh?"

"Cool!" Guardian swoops up alongside Heather. "Can I live with you, mom?"

"Stop calling me that!" ZZZZap!

"Actually, Jimmy," Puck calls back to him from the ground, "Have you ever considered . . . school?"

***THEN***

"Fine, fine." Puck cracks his knuckles, standing in between the government kid and the assembled heroes. "This is going on long enough. There's obviously some wicked mojo going down, so Snowbird and Shaman point us in the direction where we need to go. Guardian, Vindicator, and I will take point, plowing our way through and distracting the man forces from Snowbird and Shaman. You guys as our magic gurus got to find the guy responsible or plug whatever holes' been open or whatever voodoo you need to do. Northstar and Au-- uh, Jeanne-Marie take flanking positions and cover me and the Hudsons. YOU!" Puck spins to place a stubby finger in Lance's direction. "Get on that Cycle and stay out of trouble. Let's wrap this up quickly, guys. I want to keep talking to this Lance guy when we're done!"

***LATER***

The two twins are locked in combat against the legions of Hell. One fires light as pure as hope and salvation can be. The other pummels creatures into nothingness, his fists moving as fast as rage and temper can fly. Northstar looks back at Jeanne-Marie. He can almost see her outgoing "Aurora" personality violently clamped inside like a child holding her breath for too long.

"I'd ask if you are well," Northstar manages to yell back over the demon wailing and gnashing of teeth, "but you seem to be doing quite well indeed! Joining the super hero business again, I see."

"No thanks to you or..." Jeanne-Marie shudders. She was about to say "Aurora," that heathen. She hopes she will remain buried inside her-- this town must be cleansed of ALL its Hellish occupants-- even her own split personality! "I blame you for bringing forth Aurora. I realize it now. Don't you know how happy I would have been, just being a simple schoolteacer! That's all I wanted, Jean-Paul!"

"How can you say that!" Northstar starts hitting his foes with more force than necessary. "Alpha Flight brought us together! Gave us purpose and a home! We are family!"

Now Jeanne-Marie fired her light bursts with more intensity. "*FAMILY*?! Yes, that is the mantra of people like you nowadays, isn't it? Well what kind of family forces me to be ... *HER* ... just so that they can be a superhero? What kind of family leaves me WITH her to join ANOTHER superhero team?"

" 'People like...' " Northstar begins, "Shut up!" He pounds another demon, causing its head to explode in a spray of brown and green goo. "Why can't you accept my choice of lifestyle? I am finally whole and happy and my OWN PERSON now!"

Demons of all types began to look warily at one another. Instead of advancing to the temper-flaring heroes, they slowly back away. And Northstar and Jeanne-Marie never even notice.

"Then WHY was it SO *impossible* to accept MY lifestyle as a nun? And now Aurora's here and I will NEVER be whole or happy or FREE!"

"Listen, my sister," Northstar starts, a tone of warning in his voice as his hand reaches out to touch her. Jeanne-Marie throws her own arm out to brush him away.

And when the two touch, pure, blinding light erupts from them, cascading upward like a beacon only to arc, to crash downward a millisecond later, spreading outward like a tidal wave. Each demon, reeling from the intensity, alternatively burns or dissolves or flees.

**UPWARD**

"This cannot be!" Master Pandemonium breathed.

"Told so you I did," the demonic eagle rumbled in its laughter.

Tundra had led Shaman and Snowbird in the right direction. Although the 12 foot tall Great Beast was unable to reach the levitating Master Pandemonium, Tundra was able to pummel all the demons around him into dust, puddles of slime, or bloodied, battered bodies.

"That creature tied to land it is," Azmodeus continued. "About him gathering magic he does. Be he anchor. Have foothold you will not longer no in dimension this."

All the while, the eagle twisted and turned in the air. It was being attacked by Snowbird's giant owl-form! Deftly the owl flew, stroke, and cut back through the air. Azmodeus held his own, but still seemed lackluster in his own battle, not caring, really-- which highlighted Snowbird's own viciousness.

Master Pandemonium was as intent on listening to the bird as he was battling Shaman. The lost soul conjured demons from magic belching forth from the star-shaped hole in his belly. Shaman would counter each conjure with magic of his own-- pulling out swirling bands of winds from his magic pouch that ensnared and squelched each demon as it appeared.

"This is doing no good, Snowbird," Shaman called out, oblivious to everything except his magics and his words, as mystic winds battered and roared around him. "Tundra may limit the effectiveness of this character now, but he has already gained too much ground with the demons he has already called forth!"

That was when the mutant twin's flare of light blanketed half the city.

The creatures of darkness fled. Those that could return to Netherworlds under their own power did so. Other, weaker ones, succumbed to the light, dissolving or exploding in pain. The stronger ones survived, however blinded, and proved easy targets to the rest of Alpha Flight.

"As you were saying," called Snowbird, her owl form seeming to smile. Shaman considered such a quip a bit odd, coming from a goddess.

"NNOOOO!" shouted Master Pandemonium. "Very well! If this place can't contain a horde of my demons, perhaps just ONE demon will do!"

The gaudy-colored costume flared as Pandemonium through his arms and legs wide, his head back. He screamed under the strain, opening himself up totally to the portal that his body had become. Magic crashed through him, and against the barrier that Tundra had set up.

All of Alpha Flight paused in their battles, looking to and shielding their eyes from the white star that Master Pandemonium had become.

Snowbird resumed her human form and levitated beside Shaman. "Do you feel it, Michael? If we can guide the magic through that man, we might fill this vacuum of magic with the rightful energies of this place, with Tundra as our anchor!"

Shaman nodded and grasped Snowbird's hand. "Mother, our Earth, our Land. Father, our sky, our heavens. We need you here with us today. Fill this land with your spirit. Reclaim this soil, this air, as yours."

Master Pandemonium flinched. He convolsed. He head flew forward and his eyes filled with horror and pain. Magic was flowing out of him. Pure magic. Rightful magic. Energy was popping and flashing from his stomach-hole, from his mouth, from his eyes. In a final cresendo of light and thunder, a giant form exploded from the villain, crashing to the ground.

Master Pendemonium screamed. He curled up into a ball, energy and thunder strobing around him. He continued curling up until the colors of his costumed melded, his shape disppearing. Slowly and with smaller spurts of light and sparks, the ball that was Master Pandemonium was sucked inside itself and was gone.

Azmodeus cackled, and disappeared. Whatever demons remained slowly dissolved into the air.

And the giant form on the ground beside Tundra slowly raised to its feet. The orange, furry form of Sasquatch, Alpha Flight's missing member, stretched as if waking from a long nap. "Hey, folks!" he grinned, "Guess who's back? Didja miss me?"

***LATER STILL***

"So Shaman and Snowbird used that demon-guy's power to conjure you up, instead?"

"I guess so. I think when we battle the Great Beasts not too long ago, I got sucked back into the Great Beasts' realm along with the rest of them, and Tundra was the one left behind here. I think I'm the only science-based super hero who can turn into a mystic being."

Snowbird watched over the heroes as they gathered around the human, Lance Loquemion. Tundra stood silently immoblie off to the side. Snowbird, Guardian, Vindicator, Shaman, Puck, Northstar, Aurora, and now Sasquatch. Behold, this was very good. Alpha Flight as it should be. Think of the adventures they could share, the glories they could witness, the battles for this land as they reclaim its magic!

"Alpha Flight!" she commanded, "We must return to the Sarcee Reservation to prepare for coming battle!"

The heroes stopped their conversations one by one, and slowly turned. Silence.

Shaman soon walked up to Snowbird. "Very well, Narya."

"Actually," Vindicator coughed politely, "not so very well."

"Michael, you and Snowbird and Tundra can go back if you want, you can do that hocus-pocus stuff and play the waiting game all you want," Judd started, "I'm tired of waiting around. Time I got my own life back on track. We all got our own paths to investigate."

"I must return to my church, the lives I can touch there," Jeanne-Marie continued.

"I got my own team now, thank you very much for asking, and the Defenders need me, "Northstar crossed his arms.

"I've got to set up my own life and lab work after being dead... again," Sasquatch laughed.

Snowbird stood up to her full height, "You all would abandon Alpha Flight? Your duty to this land?"

"Actually," Lance chimed in, "with Alphanex's help, I don't think Alpha Flight is ever really going to be gone for good. You guys can be on call until you're needed, and assemble at a moments notice. No call will go unanswered. No mission is too impossible." He laughed at his own joke.

Heather nodded her head. "Alphanex will have to prove itself, you understand. But Lance, I think this is going to be the start of a beautiful friendship."