"Llian, we've got bad news," Candycane warned me, two days after Copy Cat had announced his intentions. I'd been on tenterhooks ever since, so when Candycane told me there was bad news in the offing, I found my hackles rising.
I joined her, Crazy Coyote, and Loud Sword at the comms, and my heart slammed to a stop in my chest.
Every news outlet was reporting on the shocking murder-suicide committed just that morning, London time. The perpretrator?
Mister Impossible Sentinel.
I closed my eyes as the tears slowly slid down my cheeks. I had no idea how it had happened, but Gilbert must have somehow cottoned on to the fact that at least two people in his life weren't who they said they were. This had finally tipped him over the edge, and he'd killed The Switcher and Star Sentinel before turning his powers on himself.
Candycane squeezed my hand as I forced myself to refocus on the comms. More bad news followed; Copy Cat had been found dead afterwards, as well as Absolute Zero, and a number of other heroes. In fact, almost the entire Aura League had been wiped out as a result of Gilbert's shattered sanity, and only Dazzler, Elemental, Moonshadow, and Wi-Fire were left.
My mother's mission had been completed, but at a shattering cost, and new tears spilled down my cheeks. "It's over," I whispered, my voice as ragged as if I'd been screaming. In a way, I felt as if I was.
Loud Sword touched my hand. "We disband?" he asked.
I watched as Moonshadow declared that no more heroes would serve the cause of justice. "Our leaders were corrupt," she said. "That is the truth which we tried to hide when it came to light more than seventeen years ago. Now that Mister Impossible Sentinel is dead, we admit that he was as black at heart as Eva Destruction tried to make us believe. I won't go into the nasty details, but we four stand as the only heroes with unsullied hands. But we know the world isn't ready for us. So we're disbanding what's left of the Aura League, and we expect Eva Destruction will do the same. If she and her allies wish to continue their work and step into our shoes, they're more than welcome to do so. In fact, I think they'll do a much better job at keeping the world safe from any true villains who might want to come along and take advantage of the vaccum."
I took a deep breath. "No," I said. "The younger generation we've been training will step into the breach."
The others nodded.
"It's time for us to move on," I added. "I'm getting too old for this nonsense, and I suspect younger, fresher minds will do the job of safeguarding this world. I'll even see if Moonshadow and her friends will agree to alliance.
"But as for us, we retire and hang our costumes up for good."
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Loud Sword and I moved back to Essex, to begin a new life. We had two more children, who later joined The Keepers, the newly-formed alliance begun after Gilbert's death. Moonshadow and her friends had been more than willing to start, but none of the members ever called themselves heroes.
Instead, they called themselves Keepers. Keepers of the peace, Keepers of the universe, Keepers of knowledge. And they formed a new creed; the universe was in need of defending, but it didn't need heroes. Heroes could all to easily become drunk with power. Keepers, on the other hand, were immune to the lure.
Candycane and Crazy Coyote offered to join The Keepers to train the new generation. Their offer was gratefully accepted; the two of them had valuable knowledge that was too precious to be wasted in obscurity.
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And every summer, I visited Gilbert's grave. I'd never stopped loving him, and I mourned the circumstances which had driven us apart. Had the role of Mister Impossible Sentinel not stood between us, there was no doubt we'd be living together, blissfully married, and raising a clutch of healthy, ordinary children.
But I never regretted my decision to marry Loud Sword. He was everything a husband should be, and if sometimes he fell short, he was gracious enough to understand and accept that he'd always come second place in my heart.
Still, I had enough to make me happy, and watching The Keepers embark on their mission to protect the universe gave me all the pleasure I could ever have wanted. My mother's mission was now being fulfilled in a more positive way, and I sometimes felt as if she were smiling at us from whatever afterlife she'd journeyed to after her death.
Sometimes I felt as if Gilbert was also watching, and those were the times I treasured the most. Death had released him, and whenever I felt his presence, I sensed his relief that the new generation weren't the same as the old. The world and the universe were in stable hands.
And that was the most satisfying reward I could ever have wished for after all my years of hard work.
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END
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