Shattered Perceptions
Chapter Six
by Tim Francovich
"Explain something to me," Sam asked, pulling on the robe the old man offered him. "The X-Men overthrew the first Mojo. The current Mojo is number five, right? What happened in the last hundred years?"
The old man sighed and looked away. "My people were foolish," he said at last. "When Mojo fell, we trusted his clone, Mojo II, The Sequel. He had helped in Mojo's downfall, after all. But it was not long before he showed his true colors and the 'status quo' was restored. It took a few years, but Mojo II was eventually assassinated. Of course, Mojo III, another spineless one, was waiting in the wings to take his place. And so it went. We now have the fifth Mojo, who is more like the first Mojo than any of his predecessors. The more things change, the more they stay the same."
"And ya think Shatterstar is the key to ending the cycle?" Sam had cautiously told his hosts what little he knew about Shatterstar.
"Spiral foretold it one hundred years ago," the old man explained. "She said that the child of a Earth-human and Arize-spawn would break the cycle of slavery and lead Mojoworld. His name would be Shatterstar. And now he has returned. This could be the time."
"How has Spiral survived all these years? She didn't look that old."
"Who can say how old Spiral is? Who can say that she is not now serving Mojo V BEFORE she even served Mojo I?" the old man queried. "She has danced through time and space, back and forth and there and back so many times that it is impossible to know whether she is coming or going. Her age is a question that simply cannot be answered."
The old man turned away and Sam thought he saw a brief flash of light, as if a camera's flashbulb had gone off.
"Are we going to rescue Shatterstar now, or what?" Lepton demanded, entering the main room again.
"Yes," the old man answered. "We have delayed long enough. Let us go." He turned to the outer door and walked out. Lepton motioned for Sam to follow him. Sam did so somewhat stiffly. Although he had no wound from Spiral's attack, he did feel somewhat bruised in places, apparently from his landing.
As Sam stepped outside, he suddenly felt very glad for his bruises. From the look of the crater he had created on impact, he certainly could have been in much worse shape. Apparently, his blast field had still been kicking on and off as he hit the ground.
"Where are we going?" he asked his escorts.
Lepton pointed upward. "There." Sam turned and looked. The scenery was quite different from the ground view. As he had guessed, they were in the lowest ring of the city, composed mainly of small shacks like the one they had just left. It was not as ramshackle-looking as some of the villages Sam had seen in Central America, but these shacks, with their uniform shape and building materials, gave an air of utter hopelessness. These people did not live here simply because they could not afford to move up; they lived here because they were forced to.
Far above them, the massive arena towered. Sam stared in awe. He could see much of the structure due to the slope of the hill. It was monstrous. Sam's friend Bobby had taken him to Yankee Stadium a couple of times during their New Mutants days, but he knew that no sports arena on Earth could even come close to reaching half the size of this one.
"When a building is constantly being rebuilt and improved for over a hundred years, it can get pretty impressive, can't it?" the Rebel asked, laying a hand on Sam's shoulder. Sam nodded grimly.
"Come on. Let's find Shatterstar."