THE BELGIAN COUNTRYSIDE - THE SECRET INSTALLATION KNOWN AS "THE DOME"
Outnumbered by Phobos and his duplicates, things look bad for our heroes-- the Olympian, the Cybernaut, and the Knight-- in the final issue of this limited series. They are surrounded by more than twenty exact copies of the god of fear. Knight turns to Olympian and asks, “shall I?” to which he replies “Yeah, I think now’s good.” After pressing a button on his utility belt, several heroes teleport into the room from God knows where-- Man-of-Bats, El Gaucho, and the new Dark Ranger (members with Knight in the Club of Heroes), along with Vixen, the Irish hero Jack-O-Lantern and a Greek hero dressed not unlike Alexander Kostas himself (these last three were some of the Knight's old comrades in the Ultramarine Corps). The Knight calls out "You didn't expect this? An international military child-snatching operation, did you honestly think more heroes wouldn't come for you? DID YOU, YOU BASTARDS?"
A grand melee ensues while the Olympian and the Cybernaut duck out. As they leave, they hear Jack O'Lantern taunting "What's all this now? Two dozen Greek gods, seven of us-- Finally, FINALLY, Cyril, ye've called me in for a fair fight!
While Cybernaut looks for where RED SKY is keeping the kids, Olympian seeks the real Phobos, believing he’s found him when he encounters Ixion and Euryale guarding an armored door. A fight breaks out between the three of them, but Olympian shows that he can learn from defeats and pyrrhic victories, showing the cunning of Heracles in battle-- wrestling Ixion first, and then aiming his flame blasts at Euryale.
After defeating the pair, he breaks down the door to find the Dome’s control room with the Col. Adam Armstrong and his staff drawing arms against the son of Zeus, guarding what looks like meditating Phobos on the floor behind them. Alex tries to reason with them, saying that the creature they’re protecting is manipulating them to feed on their fears. He says that children no matter what their parentage, short of a demon, are nothing to fear because they’re still innocent. And if they don’t believe him, they should believe that their pistols and assault rifles will only ruin the décor here, because they wouldn’t leave a single scratch on his.
With that, the RED SKY agents lower their weapons and Phobos opens his eyes (on another panel, all of his duplicates disappear, to Jack-O-Lantern's clear disappointment). Whispering “no”, Phobos stands up and screams “NO!!” again, and lashes out with a blast of force that wrecks most of the equipment and sends everyone flying across the room while rending a giant hole in the floor of the control room.
Phobos begins to run through the exposed tunnel with superhuman speed when, to his great surprise, he finds himself running into a Boom Tube... which closes behind him, as he frustrates the Olympian by disappearing right before his eyes.
Afterwards, the assembly of heroes are gathering on the front lawn of the Dome watching Checkmate agents escort the RED SKY leadership (including Col. Armstrong, though his niece is mysteriously absent) and their shooters aboard transport choppers in chains. It’s discovered that Phobos’ minions have disappeared as well. Cybernaut reveals that all of the children except a few from South and Central America have been recovered and that he’ll participate in the interrogation to find where they’ve been taken. With that Olympian states that he hopes to get the chance to work with all of the other heroes again (“especially you Cybernaut”), and takes to the air to head home…
As he flies away, the Knight turns to his former comrade in the Ultramarines-- Aristides Demetrios, the national hero of Greece-- and says, "What do you think? Should we tell him his name's already taken?"
"Nah," says the original Olympian. "Sooner or later he'll figure it out. In the meantime, in all honesty? I could use the good press."
EPILOGUE 1 – Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean
As Olympian flies home, he’s joined in the air by Lord Hermes. The messenger of the gods delivers his father’s gratitude into looking into the missing children, to which Alex responds he was glad to help. He asks Hermes how many of the dozen were his siblings, to which Hermes simply smiles and asks in return, “What do you think?” Alex shakes his head, and Hermes leaves him with a final thought: "Not all of them, though. Some were the children of someone far worse... someone even Zeus is afraid of..." But before Alex can say anything else, the god of speed just flies back into the clouds, disappearing from Alex’s sight.
EPILOGUE 2 - On the other side of the Boom Tube, Phobos finds himself someplace dark, looking at Katarina Armstrong, who wears a giant glove glowing with power and surrounded by Kirby dots. "You're lucky I pulled you out of there, Phobos," she says. "I suspect there were far more heroes there than you could handle."
Phobos doesn't like surprises. "You knew I was manipulating your uncle?"
"I have something that keeps my mind from being controlled by bastards like you," she says. "I was ready to free my uncle at any time, but I knew he'd want me to see what your game was first. Unfortunately, it ruined a good operation."
"I don't know what your game is, mortal," Phobos answers. "But you cannot keep me here, and you cannot harm me. In fact, why shouldn't I destroy you now?"
"Because A) That wouldn't be as easy as you think it would, B) I know how to help get the better of the 'mortal' you've somehow found yourself working for, and C) I can help you get revenge on the person ultimately responsible for disrupting your scheme here."
"The son of Zeus?" Phobos asks with a scowl. But already, he has decided this mortal is interesting enough-- and useful enough-- not to destroy after all.
Katarina laughs. "Zeus isn't the one at the other end of this chessboard, I'm afraid. Tell me, Lord Phobos... Have you ever heard of Amanda Waller?"
EPILOGUE 2 – Belle Reve Penitentiary
The last speech balloon of the previous EPILOGUE hangs over this panel as Amanda Waller walks down a hallway, holding a file folder, with Count Vertigo walking behind her. Col. Adam Armstrong sits handcuffed to a table, in an orange prison jumpsuit. Waller walks in to sit opposite him, with her superhuman aide in a corner of the room watching.
"Well, Colonel," she asks, “What the hell happened in Belgium? Your last status report stated everything was running clean?”
Armstrong looks up. “Yes ma’am, it was… until Phobos showed. I thought that we could keep him out of our heads, but he was too strong for our esper defense. I take full responsibility.”
Waller looks down at the file, “Losing the Dome was bad, but we can rebuild its capabilities here in the States I’m sure. What I need to know is if you can get your head in the game again and keep RED SKY out of the Washington Post?”
“Yes ma’am I know I can do that,” he states plainly.
The two old soldiers stare each other down for a moment, to the point where Count Vertigo becomes really uncomfortable in the room. Eventually, Waller breaks first saying, “Good. Then I want you to reassemble RED SKY. Your new mission is to locate, and develop a means of eliminating the threat known as Phobos. You have license to kill a god, Colonel, provided you can find a way to do it.”
Waller turns to leave, then remembers one more question she wanted to ask, "Oh, and Colonel? You didn't by any chance involve that niece of yours in this operation at all, did you?"
"No," the old spy says, lying expertly. "I'm afraid I haven't seen my niece in a long time."
EPILOGUE 4 – KOBRA facility, location unknown
Jason Burr looks down on Phobos from his snake-styled throne, a position that he knows the son of Ares to be quite uncomfortable with.
“You promised me an army of demigods Phobos, so I’m sure that you can understand my… disappointment.”
“Of course my… lord,” Phobos says, struggling the words out. He's just arrived from meeting with one mortal who dared to look him in the eye, and now this one dares to sit above him and flaunt his current advantage. “Unfortunately the combined might of so many superheroes couldn’t be forseen… unless…”
Lord Kobra interrupts, “Unless what, godling?”
It takes all of Phobos's willpower not to lash out at this doomsayer, but then he remembers his arrangement with the woman Katarina Armstrong. And he knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that he will make Lord Kobra kneel before him one day. Instead, speaking through gritted teeth, he points out, “If I had these 3 children I’ve given you, I would have known they… were… coming! But if you doubt their oracular power, the power that you now possess Lord Kobra, then look at them now!”
Across the dimly-lit cave floor where they stand are three children giggling and playing with toys. Behind them is a chalkboard where among the doodles, in a child’s scrawling reads, “1+1=2." “Pi - Infinity = Anti-Life." and "Anti-Life + 7P(4mQ)5s/666= KALI YUGA”…
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