Origins of the Strange Quark... and how he became even Stranger

Just before they got to the lab, Rakly called on the intercom, "Guys, I think you better come back up here. Something weird is going on."

They headed back up to Rakly's office and found him, flabbergasted by what he saw before him.

Scattered all over the floor were piles of bux, over a million, it would seem, miraculously appeared out of nowhere.

"Where'd they come from?" Fallen asked.

"No idea..."

Before Rakly could say anything further, Fiero came rushing in. "Banker called. All the bux banked in your vault is gone!"

She stopped when she saw what was in the office.

"Now we know where they came from..." Rakly said.

"What's going on? What happened?" Fiero asked, confused.

"I don't know. Got back and found the office like this."

"Some kind of weird practical joke?" Fiero mused.

"No way that anyone could have done this. That bank vault is totally secure... Or so I thought..."

Quark examined the notes on the floor. "Odd..." he said. "They don't seem right," he held up a note. "Do you see that?" he asked the others.

"See what?" Fallen asked.

"It looks like the molecules have been taken apart and reassembled again, but imperfectly. They're out of sync with one another. On a subatomic level."

"How can you tell?" Fallen was very curious.

"All matter, or the atoms that give it mass, have a specific energy signature. I'm able to manipulate matter because I can alter the energy signature of atoms, as well as influence the outcome of improbable wave functions..."

By this point everyone was looking at Quark with that puzzled expression he was so used to seeing.

"Let me show you. Do you have a normal note in your wallet?" Quark asked Rakly.

"Hold on... All I have is a $100 note and this $20 I got in change at the Blue Oyster." Rakly handed Quark both notes.

"See what I mean? This $100 note has a stable energy signature..." Quark said, and then he raised his eyebrows. "But... Hang on... The $20 note is weird too. Where did you say you got this?"

"Blue Oyster. I was there earlier. Got that in change from Space Ape at the bar..."

Rakly looked at Quark. "Do you think...?"

"I think we should pay Space Ape a visit." Quark replied.

Space Ape was an odd-looking fellow. He was a brawny guy with blue-grey skin and wore a tight, revealing singlet, and shorts, which normally would have looked strange except that he worked in a male revue club. Actually, he was one of the owners of the club, the other being Mr Late. They were partners, although Quark was never sure if it was in a business sense or something else.

He was almost always behind the bar at the club. Well-known for making the best screwdriver in the country, he also specialised in exotic cocktails whose recipes he kept strictly secret from all. Here is a man who could make a drink that would keep Quark happily UNsober - and therefore lucid - for many hours to come.

Rakly had heard rumours that Space Ape and Mr Late were working on a secret project that may have something to do with the Legion. No one could say what it was about, and even Mack, who had been working undercover there for months, couldn't find out anything more than that it involved alien technology.

That evening, Space Ape was at his usual spot behind the bar. Quark took the "weird" $20 note and handed it to him. "Make me something out-of-this-world."

Space Ape took the note thinking, "Look at you! You're already out-of-this-world as it is... "

"OK. That did not bother him one bit. Maybe he has no clue about these anomalous notes... " Quark thought.

Just then, Mr Late rushed in. "Apey, I gotta have a word..." He led his partner to the back room.

Quark gestured to Fallen, who had his Thinking Cap on.

"Shit has hit the fan. Somebody broke in to our lab and stole our research!"

"What do you mean? Our research is all gone?" Space Ape asked.

"Everything related to teleportation." Mr Late replied. "Including Legion tech to enable it..."

Fallen, who was listening in with his Thinking Cap, gestured to Quark and Rakly to come over and told them what he overheard.

He went up to the two partners in the back room, and said to them, "I think we need to talk."

"What are you doing back here?" Mr Late asked. "This is private."

"We just want some answers," Fallen said. "Your private research is none of our business, except that now it is..."

Mr Late and Space Ape looked confused, "What???"

"What are you doing with alien tech? And teleportation?"

"How do you know?" Mr Late asked, getting nervous.

"Something happened and it has led us here." Fallen explained what had happened with the unbanked bux and how the trail led here. "You don't seem to know anything about it, or do you?"

"I have just found out that someone has stolen all our research and tech related to an important project we have been working on." Mr Late explained that he and Space Ape (whom he calls affectionately, Apey) were putting in place an extraction plan to teleport innocents in the event of an all-out war with the Legion.

"Why didn't you come to us about it?" Rakly asked. "You know what we do, and our plans to fight the Legion."

"We weren't sure who exactly we could trust..." Mr Late explained. "We thought we could do it on our own. Besides, you already have your hands full."

Rakly sighed.

"Now we're screwed." Mr Late said. "It looks like whoever took our research and tech plans to use it... To rob banks? But... Why teleport it to your office? Doesn't make any sense."

"Perhaps they did not intend to teleport it there but elsewhere." Quark interjected. "Were you able to get it working properly?"

"Far from it," Space Ape said. "It was all still very experimental."

"It seems to me the tech is based on quantum tunneling," Quark explained. "It is not a matter of converting matter into energy at one end and back into matter at the other. Quantum tunneling relies on particles at the subatomic level being able to "borrow" time to collapse the probability wave function describing their position and momentum and enabling those particles to change their position. It virtually *never* happens in the real world (outside of the subatomic realm) since the probability factor of a synchronized change of position of a whole group of particles simultaneously is incredibly low."

Quark paused as everyone gazed at him blankly.

"Basically, the tech relies too much on improbability for it to work reliably and safely." Quark tried to explain. "However, I am an improbable being and my strength is in manipulating improbalities. In other words, you should have asked me for assistance."

"Now the big question is: who stole it?" Fallen sighed.

Back at the office, Quark asked Fallen, "Were you able to glean any further information with the Thinking Cap?"

"I could tell that Mr Late and Space Ape were telling the truth. They really don't know what happened to their research. But I can download the data from the Cap and see if we missed anything." Fallen replied.

He called the lab and spoke to Ichi, "Say can you do a remote access of the data in my Thinking Cap and let me know if you find anything interesting."

"It won't take long," Fallen said to Quark.

I can't help but feel there is a connection between the weird incidents in the last couple of days." Rakly mused. "Geriatric Park, Dr Fulcrum's experiments, the Unbanked Bux, the theft of the teleportation research..."

"That Dr Fulcrum is really strange," Quark remarked.

"That's the pot talking..." Fallen muttered to himself. "The irony!" He gave Quark a mischievous grin.

Ichi called back on the intercom. "Guys, you need to come see this!"

Whoever invented the Thinking Cap must have been either a genius, or mad, or most likely, both.

To come up with an artificial brain to wear on your head, with synthetic neurons that connected to your cerebral cortex, required crazy imagination and intelligence of the highest order, a rare quality indeed.

To make the Cap wearable (and less icky-looking) its size was reduced so that you could tuck it under your hair. Fallen actually loved wearing it. And he was very good at using it too.

The Cap was able to detect patterns of electrical discharge emitted by brain tissue, greatly enhancing one's telepathic ability. In combat, it could be used to read and predict your opponents' moves in advance, thereby crippling their defensive and evasive capabilities.

Ichi was very excited as he waited impatiently for the others to get to the lab. As soon as Rakly stepped in, he jumped up, "Look what I found! This was from the meeting with Dr Fulcrum..."

He had converted the digital signals into a holographic three-dimensional rendition of Dr Fulcrum's thoughts.

Ichi zoomed in to some blurred images which gradually resolved into what looked like bipedal insects standing upright.

"Are those..." Rakly started.

"Yup. Legionnaires." Ichi answered. Because it was a visual rendition of Dr Fulcrum's thoughts, they were seeing what he saw. "Look there. They handed him something in exchange for something else. Any idea what it is?"

"Based on the information from Mr Late and Space Ape, I'd say that's their teleportation research." Quark suggested.

"What? You mean the aliens stole the research? Why? Isn't it their tech it's based on in the first place?" Rakly asked.

"Their tech was probably not originally designed for teleportation. It is just a device made up of Morphon particles. It appears that they wanted to see how Space Ape applied it to teleport matter." Quark pointed to what looked like a green bottle connected to a black box via a tube. "Look here..."

"Is that...?" Fallen's eyes lit up.

"Space Ape's favourite cocktail ingredient: Swiss Absinthe 74% ABV." Quark said.

"He's using that in his teleportation device?" Fallen gasped.

"The Absinthe feeds into the device containing Morphons to generate an improbability field of uncertain outcomes, which then collapses the probability wave function describing the position and momentum of the object being teleported." Again, everyone was looking at Quark blankly.

"Morphon-laced Absinthe. I really have to try it!" Fallen grinned.

"It's clear that Dr Fulcrum is much more than he appears to be. He's involved in everything that has just occurred." Rakly observed.

"He is a link to the Legion and their plans. We need to find out what exactly he's up to.

"But we will not confront him at this point," he added. "Let's try a different approach."

Rakly turned to Quark. "You're able to alter your appearance, aren't you?"

"Yes, I can take on different forms by manipulating my molecular structure." Quark replied. "But..."

"I have an assignment for you. I'm sending you to Jerry Hatrick's retirement home. You're going to be a new resident with a deleterious medical condition desperate for a cure.

"Get them to introduce you to Dr Fulcrum."

Fallen could not help but think, "You have a condition alright, but it's beyond treatment..." He grinned to himself, then whispered to Rakly, "They'll be able to see right through his third eye!"

Rakly looked at Quark, "You can hide your third eye, can't you? And try to control yourself. We don't want them to see your head phasing away from your body..."

Quark hesitated, "Um there might be a little problem..." He blushed. "I'm not sure how I'm going to cope in a place with no access to... grog. I mean... If I'm going to be sober 24/7 it's going to be really hard to think clearly... What if my memory goes again?"

"Hmm... That is a problem," Rakly sighed, remembering how Quark's sobriety and sanity were inversely related.

There was an awkward silence as they looked at each other for a solution.

"I think I might have something for that," Ichi interjected. "I got the idea from Kush's Morphon-contaminated weed and Space Ape's Morphon-laced Absinthe. Why not distill Morphon-infused ethanol in solid form as pills you can take? I'll put them in a multivitamin bottle. No one would know."

Quark grinned his wide Cheshire cat grin.

Rakly rolled his eyes. "Aight. Do what you have to... As long as you stay focused and get the job done. We'll meet in the morning and I'll brief you on what we have to do."

A lady with long black hair, olive complexion, and a slender build walked into Dr Jerry Hatrick's office. He looked up and raised his eyebrows.

"Dr Hatrick?" she greeted.

"Can I help you?" he asked, a little flustered. He had an appointment that very hour with a new resident at the home and hadn't had a chance to look at her referral details; now, his dippy secretary let this total stranger interrupt his busy schedule.

"I'm Foxy."

Indeed she was. Her long black hair flowed like silken threads softly caressing her cheeks and neck. Her smooth olive complexion and youthful appearance belied her true age.

Dr Hatrick was speechless. Actually, he was mesmerised by the beauty standing before him. "My appointment can wait," he thought.

Then his jaw dropped. This *was* his appointment. "Ms Foxy Moron?" he stuttered. What was this young lady doing moving in to a retirement home?

"Yes..." she said. "You have a very nice facility."

"But... you..."

"So... Do you think you will be able to help me?"

Dr Hatrick felt like kicking himself for not reading her file earlier. He pretended to be distracted as he offered her a seat, while he quickly scanned the document (a skill he had mastered after years of late appointments and rushed meetings).

He blinked hard to make sure he read what he thought he did.

"Er... Yes..." he did not know what to say.

Foxy was 88 years old. In all his years as Director of the facility, Dr Hatrick had never come across, indeed, even heard of, a medical condition like this. Foxy was ageing *backwards*: an octogenarian that looked like she was 20.

"But how..." he continued to stutter.

"That's why I'm here," she said, her beautiful eyes filled with a desperate, resigned sadness. "No one else has been able to help me. And I heard that you have had miracles here before... So..."

The news of the couple who were miraculously cured of cancer got around fast. But that was a totally different situation. This requires more than a miracle, he thought.

"It started after I turned 50. Each year I grew younger and younger. I don't know how much time I have left..." Foxy continued, her eyes lost in hopeless abandon.

"I do know someone who might be able to help." Dr Hatrick said. "A research scientist who has done amazing things. He's even cured terminal cancer."

Foxy's eyes lit up.  

"I'll make an appointment for you. But first, let me show you to your villa." He led her out of the office down the courtyard, admiring her well-proportioned posterior and long legs.

The villa was a euphemistic term for the facility's independent one-bedroom units. Foxy's was at the end of the courtyard, privately tucked away yet close enough to the medical centre and nursing home facilities.

*****

Back in his office, Dr Hatrick got on the phone to make an appointment with Dr Fulcrum, who was more than eager to study this fascinating new subject. But Fulcrum was not thinking of a cure; he was thinking of how he might be able to learn how to reverse the ageing process, and how this would please his Legion masters.  

Quark sat on the edge of the bed and looked at his reflection in the mirror. He felt very strange, stranger than normal, if that was even possible.

How did he let himself get into this predicament? And let Rakly and Fallen talk him into *this* avatar? He was sure it was Fallen who suggested it to Rakly. Operation "Tootsie" they called it. Bet they are laughing their heads off now.

In the first place, that getup was really uncomfortable. Those shoes or stilettos or heels or whatever they're called: impossible to walk in.

And who'd come up with a name like Foxy Moron anyway? "Next time it will be your turn to be the moron, Fallen!"

But the guise worked. Dr Hatrick was so distracted by (or was it fascinated with) Foxy that he would have done anything he was asked.

Now that he had access to Dr Fulcrum, Quark would have lots of opportunities to find out more about his research and his connection with the Legion.

But first, he needed to figure out how to operate the Thinking Cap.

As Quark tried to work out the details of what he needed to do next, he started to feel dizzy, his memory began to fade, and his clarity of mind decided to walk out the door.

He took out his bottle of multivitamins and popped the pill Ichi had given him.

"Oh WOW!"

And he passed out on the bed with a big grin on his face.

Dr Fulcrum's "patients" were kept in a private facility beneath his lab. It was so private that nobody who left it had any recollection of what it looked like or what took place there. Their memories were selectively erased.

Quark had anticipated a situation like that. Which was why he had the Thinking Cap with him so he could record and download everything just in case something were to happen to him.

But he was used to danger and impossible risks. He had, after all, been annihilated into oblivion and returned from it. And if he had to, he could just phase away into a different time and space (a tricky and difficult maneuver in itself owing to the improbabilities involved).

As soon as he stepped into the facility, Quark felt a slight shift in the frequency of the background radiation around him. That feeling of déjà vu associated with a dimensional rift, or a tear in the fabric of space and time.

"Oh no," he thought. "Fulcrum has constructed a dimensional pocket to hide his activities. This is going to be tricky to phase out of..."

"This way, please, Ms Moron..." Dr Fulcrum gestured.

Quark hobbled along behind him in his stilettos.

"I have very carefully studied your case file and recommended to Dr Hatrick that you stay with us here for a while as we work together to remedy your condition."

Quark thought, "Yeah that's what you say to everyone who comes here."

"I'm optimistic that we can find a cure," Dr Fulcrum added. "But I will need your cooperation."

He led Quark to a large reception area next to a dining hall. There were a few other "patients" walking around in a zombie-like state of trance.

"Most of these patients suffer from Morphon addiction. You know, the stuff that the aliens brought with them. Some people here gained unusual "abilities" or even superhuman powers from Morphon exposure, but they became so dependent on wanting more and more Morphons that they cannot function normally anymore. It's sad..."

Quark nodded. He understood fully what it would be like to be a Morphon addict.

"They would do anything to get their hands on more Morphons, just to prove they were superior, but it's a self-consuming vicious cycle." Dr Fulcrum went on. "I'm trying to cure their addiction..."

"No you're not," Quark thought. "You're using them, and I'm going to find out why."

Quark knew he was strange. Very strange. But in the grander scheme of infinite multiverses, perhaps there were many others who were stranger.

For, in an infinite universe, there were no absolutes. Regardless of how strange one was, there would always be others stranger. Because the scale of strangeness was infinite.

Over in Dr Fulcrum's research facility, normality was the exception. Virtually everyone was in some way or another unique (a euphemistic term to label weirdness).

There were the Morphon addicts, who would do anything in their power (and indeed many had unusual powers) to obtain more Morphons to feed their addiction. These addicts were put in an arena to battle each other like gladiators to see who would triumph. The winners got generous rewards of Morphons, which would enhance their powers, but also sink them deeper into their addiction, eventually consuming their sanity.

Quark was about to ask about the nature of the Morphon addicts' powers when his (hidden) third eye spotted a pair of twins who looked oddly familiar.

He went up to them but before he could introduce himself, they exclaimed in unison, "It's you!"

Quark stared at them blanky. "They know who I am?"

"Do you not recognise us?"

Quark shook his head, still in a state of uncertain shock.

"Um..."

"We are the Bottom Quark twins, children of Higgs boson. I'm Bottom and this is Anti-Bottom."

"Do I know you?" Quark hesitated. "Can they see through my disguise?" He wondered.

"We're cousins," Bottom went on. "From a different universe. Do you not remember us? You were our favourite cousin, Strange. Why are you dressed up like *this*?" He grinned at Quark.

Quark blushed. Not knowing what to say, he gestured a little hush, and spoke softly, "It's complicated. What are you both doing here?"

Bottom smiled. "We're insane. And we are also grossly overweight."

Quark didn't want to say it but they were both massive.

"But... why are you *here*?" Quark was curious.

"We were referred here for treatment. Are you here for treatment too? Insanity runs in our family..."

"Great!" Quark thought. "Here I am in this funny farm of looney oddballs: two crazy fat Bottoms and an even Stranger Quark!"

"I wonder how Quark is doing. He has not reported back in two weeks," Rakly said to Fallen, in between swigs from his bottle of 30-year-old single malt.

"Well he could just phase in and out of Dr Fulcrum's lab anytime if he wanted to..." Fallen replied, "unless..." He paused and frowned at Rakly, "unless..." He paused again and looked at Rakly seriously.

"Unless?" Rakly asked.

"Unless the FOXy moron eloped with an OXymoron! HA HA HA HA HA!!!" Fallen burst out laughing uncontrollably.

Rakly rolled his eyes and sighed loudly. "OMG," he interjected. "When did your mind get taken over by Quark's?"

Fallen started to choke on his tears when suddenly he stopped, horrified at the realisation that he had somehow been infected by Quark's weird sense of humour.

Quark woke up in a strange place.

He felt very strange, much stranger than normal (if that was even possible). He sat motionless for 10 minutes before he was able to collect his thoughts and piece together the events that led to his current predicament.

Slowly, bits of his memory came back. He was in Dr Fulcrum's research lab that was contructed in a dimensional pocket that existed in a virtual limbo. Nowhereland. It would take a great feat of space-time manipulation to get out of that.

"Coerced" by his teammates to go undercover as Foxy Moron to investigate Dr Fulcrum's bizarre activities that seemed to be connected to The Legion, Quark was starting to rue the day he agreed to Fallen's crazy idea for "Operation Tootsie".

Plus, he had run out of Ichi's multivitamins (Morphon-infused ethanol pills), and the resulting sobriety was messing with his memory (and sanity).

He tried his best to piece together the fragments of memory that floated hazily around him.

Dr Fulcrum was trying to figure out why Foxy Moron was ageing backwards. Of course it was just a trick of Quark manipulating his physical molecular form. But Fulcrum did not know that. Test after test yielded no explanation, so he got desperate and resorted to taking Quark apart atom by atom. This he did by trapping Quark in a "room" which was actually the core of a particle accelerator. Then he proceeded to bombard Quark with protons from opposite directions until the collision energy exceeded 14 TeV, unheard of since the LHC at CERN.

Quark did not have a chance to do anything. The last question on his mind was where Fulcrum obtained all this technology from, but before he could even comprehend what was happening, he felt his body turn into a mass of Higgs bosons, which quickly decayed into a billion bottom quarks.

Then everything became a blank.

Endless nothingness.

Suddenly, a trio of eyes materialised, followed by a set of white teeth and a nose.

"Oh no, not again!" Quark sighed. He recognised this state of quantum uncertainty. "I'm back in Schrödinger's box!"

He vacillated between his improbable states of existence and non-existence, back and forth until suddenly he heard a voice.

It came from a cat sitting in the middle of the virtual box.

"Who...?" Quark stammered as he started to ask.

"Don't you recognise me? It's Higgs. Higgs boson. I am an improbable version of you!"

"But... Why do you - do I - look like... a cat?" Quark was flabbergasted.

"It's just one of my - our - many improbable states of being. This one is courtesy of Erwin Schrödinger." The Higgs boson cat replied with a grin.

"You are not supposed to be here," Higgs the cat-boson added. "You have to pull yourself together... Literally!"

"But how... Do I even exist?" Quark asked.

"Probably. Probably not. We all may or may not exist in this probability wave function. But you have a consciousness, and therefore the power to will yourself into existence." Cat the Higgs boson said emphatically.

"And you must do it before it is too late. Not here but in the temporal universe from which you came.

"Your consciousness already knows it. Dr Fulcrum is not who he seems to be. His physical body has been taken over by a symbiotic version of The Legion. He must be stopped before he infects all of humanity with Legion DNA."

Quark knew it had to be true. An improbable version of himself just told him so.

"How do I will myself into existence?" he pondered. "OK. I will to be, therefore..." before he could finish that thought, he felt the probability wave function collapse around him.

*****

Dr Fulcrum was busy examining the results of the proton-proton collision when suddenly Quark began to rematerialise before his very eyes.

"Who...?" his jaw dropped as Quark summoned all his will power and directed all his energy into Fulcrum's body, causing it to disassemble into a billion particles, and, in that brief moment of vulnerability, evicted the Legion symbiote from its host.

Freed of the symbiote, Dr Fulcrum passed out and collapsed on to the floor in a dishevelled mess.

As for the Legion symbiote, Quark sent it screaming into the uncertain oblivion of Schrödinger's box.

"Have fun with Higgs boson the cat," he grinned.

Quark materialised in Rakly's office the way a Cheshire cat does: first the grin, followed by the three eyes, just hovering there for a moment, before the rest of his body.

"I'm back!!!" he announced.

"Quark!" Fallen and Rakly exclaimed together.

He told them all that had happened at Dr Fulcrum's, over the course of an hour and the equivalent of a barrel of Rakly's 30-year-old single malt. (He needed to "cure" his prolonged sobriety, he said.)

"Legion symbiote?" Rakly mused. "Well I'm sure that there will be more of them. At least now we know their weakness."

"We do?" Quark asked.

"Your STRANGEness!" Rakly quipped. "HA HA HA HA HA!"

"OMG! The bad joke disease is spreading..." Fallen moaned.

"And what of Dr Fulcrum?" Rakly continued.

"I don't think he will be a threat anymore. He seems to have lost all his memories, including how to get out of the dimensional pocket he created." Quark replied.

"That's good to hear. So, are you ready for your next assignment?" Rakly smiled.

"Oh no sir, I'm retired!" Quark gave him a mischievous grin.

"Retired?" Fallen and Rakly both looked surprised.

"Yep. I was tired yesterday. And I am tired today. I retire every day!"

Then he broke out in a hysterical laughter, "HA HA HA HA HA!"

There was a loud moan followed by a long silence.

"No Quark. You are not retired. You're Quark the RETIRER. You retire all your opponents with your bad jokes. *That* is your real superpower." Rakly quipped.

"HE HE HE HE HA HA HA HA!!! Good one," Quark replied, then he and Rakly started choking in their tears of laughter.

Fallen sighed to himself, "We're doomed..."

"For your next assignment, you are going undercover with me," Rakly said. "The number of humans with Morphon-enhanced abilities is growing fast; many of them are abusing their powers to take advantage of others."

"It seems some have formed alliances with The Legion. Remember The Raptor? He was not a Legionnaire but he was one of those under their influence. Dr Fulcrum too.

"The list grows. We need to find out how The Legion is influencing them.

"But first I want to introduce you to a friend. She is an interdimensional traveller from one of the moons of Uranus. Her name is Frozen Flatulence, or just FF for short..."

"Frozen?" Quark raised his three eyebrows in surprise. "Wait. I know that name. From another time and space before I emerged in this universe. Her superpower is freezing opponents with noisome methane-rich gasses?"

"Yes. That is her," Rakly replied. "You know her well?"

"The circumstances of my first encounter with her is... interesting..." Quark added.

"How so?" asked Fallen, who had been quiet until now.

"She was travelling from another dimension when the wormhole she was in terminated inside a constipated cow.

"Trapped inside for days (all she could do was freeze the gasses), she tried sending a distress call via morse code by manipulating the pattern of the cow's gaseous emissions, which fortunately I recognised."  

Both Rakly and Fallen looked at each other with incredulous disbelief.

"So I teleported in and flew her out of the cow," Quark continued.

Fallen and Rakly were stunned silent.

"Since then, she says I am the 'wings beneath her wind'!"

That's me!

"The people you have connections with never cease to amaze me," Rakly remarked.

"But what is Frozen doing *here*?" Quark asked.

"Well, I am not entirely sure if I understood her correctly, but she said the timelines of our two universes converged before, and that they are destined to converge again. The first time it converged, she was exposed to Morphon particles from The Legion that made their way through a wormhole. Well, not too long ago, another wormhole appeared in Uranus and led Frozen here..."

"Wormholes in Uranus???" Falled asked. "They have medicines for that..." Fallen stopped in horror at the corniness of his bad joke.

"Et tu, Fallen?" Rakly laughed.

"It is all Quark's fault," Fallen blushed.

"So what does it all mean? Our universes are converging?"

"It could mean that The Legion's threat will spread across the multiverses, as they move from one universe to another." Rakly said.

"Frozen said that she met an interdimensional being known as the Options Oracle, who bequeathed upon her his essense, in order to guide her to prevent the spread of The Legion across the dimensions.

"Seeing as you are able to traverse the space-time continuum, I thought it best if you work with Frozen.

"But before that there is another assignment we need to attend to first." Rakly said.

Just then, the buzzer rang.

"Director Nova is at the reception," a voice on the intercom said.

"What is the Director of B.A.D.G.E. doing here?" Fallen asked. "He rarely comes over unless there is a crisis."

"There's always a crisis with The Legion here..." Rakly said. "Let him up to my office.... and get us a few more cases of 30-year-old single malt... You know, the ones we had to order in to replenish what Quark finished."

Quark blushed.

Just then the door opened and Director Nova entered, followed by a tall white bloke with wings.

"Nova! Good to see you. It has been a while." Rakly greeted.

"Guys, sorry for the sudden intrusion, I have a favour to ask. But first, meet Gar." Nova introduced them to the white tall bloke that looked like he was made of marble.

Gar gestured a wave as the others gave him a welcoming smile. He was a bit surprised that no one seemed to mind that he looked like a statue or had wings.

"Gar is a very special addition to the B.A.D.G.E. team. We believe he is interdimensional in origin, or at least his essense is, although he was "made" here on Earth about 700 years ago." Nova said.

"His origin is of a magic nature, his transformation supernatural, but his powers are essentially physical: flight, speed, strength, indestructibility..."

Fallen nodded. He undertood the references to core elements well. "That's interesting," he said.

"I know this is short notice, but could Gar stay with you for further study? We are still trying to understand the nature of his powers. You have the best facilities here to do that." Nova asked.

"Why yes of course. Fallen and Quark will take good care of him. But refrain from your jokes, please, Quark. We don't want to frighten all newcomers away." Rakly grinned at Quark.

More on Gar and his story here:
https://heroes-rising-forum.2349640.n4.nabble.com/Gargoyles-Story-tp358.html

Quark and Gar sat in silence as the moon threw its golden yellow light on the dark empty park that spread out in all directions before them.

Rakly had asked Quark to "get to know" Gar and famliarise him with "this world".

"Great idea," thought Quark who couldn't but recognise the irony that he, too, was also in many ways an alien and a foreigner to this Earth.

But then, we are all aliens in our own worlds.

Gar was somewhat of a mystery though, Quark thought. He was an old soul, at least 700 years physically, but his spirit was that of a child, innocent of the ways of this world, yet, deep and brooding, as if it held centuries of secrets within.

"How do you find it here," Quark finally asked. "Do you like it?"

"It's beautiful here. But..." Gar paused.

"But?" Quark tried to prompt him.

"But sad..."

"Sad?"

"I sometimes wish I never came here..." Gar added hesitantly.

"Why? No way! I heard what you did to save those people from The Legion. Kravik: he's no more thanks to you." Quark exclaimed.

"But I lost so much," Gar continued. "My father..."

Gar told Quark what happened to Dr. Shepard, and about the last Vexillian who created him.

"They are both no more," he sighed, resigned. "I was not son to Dr. Shepard; I could not save him. Nor could I save man who sacrificed his life to create me. Gar should not exist."

Quark could not but notice how Gar's speech and thoughts reverted more to that of a child the more melancholic he became.

For the first time in his life (or rather, in his existence in this timeline), Quark understood why (or at least thought he did, albeit for only a moment), why he was so strange: his weirdness and bad jokes were but his way of dealing with all the uncertainties of existence. Uncertainties which all humans try to avoid but which he, the Strange Quark, loved because of all the improbabilities they held. Improbabilities which he could tranform into possibilities.

Ergo: hope.

That is what is was all about. At least for Quark.

And here was Gar: a living stone statue with a soul and heart, with superpowers to boot. Could there be anything more improbable than him?

Well, Quark was *probably* just as *improbable* too.

"You know..." Quark said. "You..."

Then he paused, and looked into Gar's eyes.

"You might just be the most fortunate person alive..." he said slowly. "You have had two fathers who both truly loved you, and who gave their lives for you..."

Back in the office, Quark sat brooding with a pint of beer as he waited for Rakly. He enjoyed the chat with Gar; here was proof that something remarkable, unique even, can come from the most adverse of situations. His melancholy was understandable, given what he had been through, but Gar had so much to live for, so much to offer to the world.

Rakly did not say what exactly the next assignment was all about except that they were going "undercover". After "Operation Tootsie", Quark was a little wary of anything undercover, but at least he wouldn't be alone this time.

As he was about to finish his fifth pint, Rakly entered, "Good to see you have been staving off your sobriety. We need you in top form mentally." He grinned at Quark.

"So what is this assignment about?" Quark asked.

"Well, you may have heard that many of the planet's clans have declared war on each other."

"They have?" Quark raised his three eyebrows. "Why?"

"We do not know for sure, but I have a feeling they have come under the influence of The Legion."

"What? How?"

"I suspect that some of the clans have been infiltrated by Legion symbiotes, like Dr Fulcrum was..." Rakly continued. "It's as if The Legion is trying to see who comes out on top... They have been saying they want to challenge Earth's mightiest..."

"So they are getting us to fight one another?"

"Yes. And it will begin next month," Rakly added. "That is why we have to begin preparations. We need to find out what the clan leaders are planning and who have been corrupted by The Legion."

"So what do you plan to do?"

"Well this is what I have in mind. Needless to say, it is to be of the highest order of secrecy..."

So secret, in fact, that the details of the assignment were not made known to the Narrator, and what he did know, he was not allowed to reveal to you, dear curious Reader.

Such is the nature of the world today, that even innocent fan-fiction needs to be "censored" from spoilers. The Editor has graciously left the following space below blank for the Reader to fill with his imagination:


















There is one detail that may be revealed here, and it is that after the assignment, some feathers were ruffled - without their owners even knowing it...  

*****

Back from the last assignment, Quark stood behind the wall outside The Avengers Towers, overlooking Geriatric Park. He rested his elbows on the ledge and stared blankly at the cityscape beyond the park. Beside him was Gar, also leaning on the wall with his elbows on the ledge. From a distance, they looked like an odd pair: one, a greyish white marblelesque statue; and the other, a weird-looking bloke with three eyes...

Quark never felt the need to hide his third eye amongst friends, although he would try to look normal in public. Well, normal as far as it was possible for him. (He would still get stares from others but he never knew why...)

Gar, too, did not feel the need to hide anything behind clothes, but he never forgot Dr. Shepard's advice to always "keep it covered". Humans had odd habits and taboos, or was it he who was odd? In any case, he felt a lot more normal compared to Quark and liked hanging out with him. After all, they were both in many ways aliens in this world.

Quark had told Gar about the pending clan wars. War: there was nothing he disliked more, but it was one of the reasons he was put here on Earth. Now, not only did he have to save humans from The Legion; he also had to save them from themselves.

Quark looked at Gar brooding. He liked to brood a lot, Quark thought. And he gets quite morose at times. How to cheer him up?

"Ever been to a veterinary clinic, Gar?" Quark asked.

"A what?"

"Clinic for animals." Quark replied. "There was once a woman who brought her duck to a vet."

Gar looked at Quark, puzzled.

"The vet took one look at the duck, and told the woman, 'I'm afraid your duck is dead.'

"The woman said, 'Are you sure it is? Maybe it's just unconscious or in a deep sleep? How can you be so sure?' she asked.

"The vet sighed. He left the room and came back with a black Labrador. The Labrador took one look at the duck, sniffed it, then looked up to the vet, shook its head and walked out of the room.

"The vet followed it out, then came back with a cat. The cat went up to the duck, looked over it back and forth, then turned to the vet and shook its head.

"The vet said to the woman, 'I'm afraid it is confirmed. Your duck is dead.' Then he added, 'That will be $1500, please.'

"The woman protested in horror, 'What? $1500 just to tell me my duck is dead? That's ridiculous!'

"The vet replied, 'Well, it would only have been $20 if you took my word. But with the lab report and cat scan, it comes up to $1500!'

Gar stared at Quark blankly.

There was a long silence.

Then he burst out laughing, "HA HA HA HA! HE HE HE HE! That's a good one!"

Finally, Quark thought, someone gets my joke!