"...and if you turn your attention to this next piece, what we have hear is a unique example of ancient Egyptian art," the docent announced to her small crowd as she led them to the next piece in the traveling Egyptian exhibit. "We call this 'The Lovers' as it appears to be of two people locked in an unusually intimate embrace. What makes this statue interesting is that it is unusually realistic in every way, from the imperfections of the clothing the two are wearing all the way to a palpable look of sadness upon their faces. Ancient Egyptian art isn't know for being expressive and as a result, many scholars aren't even sure this is an accurate sculpture from the time, especially because it's made from simple sandstone."

After another minute of gushing about the piece, the docent started to move on and as she turned her sights to a small display of masks, a child in the group wandered over to the railing that kept the public away from The Lovers. She was too far away to touch them, but alas, she was just close enough that unbeknownst to her, her Adapted aura was able to wash over the statue.

Sandstone began turning to flesh, metal, leather, and woven materials and within seconds, a priceless example of ancient artwork had been destroyed, leaving behind a bloodied, weary man and woman.

"My love, where are we?" the woman asked in a dialect lost to time as air touched her for the first time in millennia.

"I do not know, Akh," the man replied as he too came to awareness in a strange new world. "But you must call upon Seshat. Find out where we are and what has happened - our lord Ka may still be in danger!"

"At once, Quarry," Akh said. She immediately pulled a jeweled roped off her sleeves and began twirling it around. "Protect me as I do so!"

"I could do no less," said Quarry as sandstone began replacing his flesh once more. Once again in his stone form, he turned to the rest of the people int he museum, many of whom were starting to video the strange-speaking former-statues, generally assuming it was some kind of performance art or marketing stunt.

That changed when the stone man stomped on a person's head and immediately reached for the next person.

Then the screams began.

The call came in on Ranger’s BlacTac line. While SUPER might take an interest later, the museum wasn’t waiting for the government to mobilize a response. The museum called their ‘in case of emergency’ line with BlacTac. It was time for Ranger to earn all that money they had been paying to have an operator on call.

Ranger happened to only be a few blocks away and was able to use the police clearing the streets with their red and blues to get there fast. Jumping out of his Hellcat Tamer that he parked right at the entrance, Ranger looked around. ESU was establishing a perimeter, people were pouring out of the doors, and the sounds of carnage were coming from inside.

All Ranger knew going in was that it was some kind of mutant attack. He grabbed a short barrel shotgun from his car and forced his way through the crowd. It said a lot that the crowd was too panicked to worry about a man coming at them with a magazine fed shorty shotgun.

Finally crossing through the crowd, Ranger could see a man holding another by the throat, the flesh of the caught man slowly turning into sandstone to match the man who held him. Then, before the conversion finished, the sandstone man squeezed and broke the sandstone of the caught man before letting the lifeless, half stone body fall.

Ranger fed the sandstone man a lead based diet.

The sandstone man had chunks blow out his back, sand covering the floor. The man looked down at his now mostly gone torso before looking at Ranger. Sand flowed down and filled in the missing stone. He spoke but it was not in a language Ranger recognized.

A woman answered the man as she walked into the lobby. She spoke the same unfamiliar language… And she led a swarm of locusts that seemed to be made of the same marble that the walls and flooring were made from.

”Okay. This is int’restin’.” Ranger said before he fired on the scarabs, the double ought buck shot exploding the small stone constructs.

It had taken several, several, crucial minutes after the screams began before the news that something was happening spread to the rest of the museum. Even then, most people ignored it at first. It was New York, after all.

Rex wasn't numb though, and he'd been waiting for something. Ever since that woman in red had slipped him that piece of paper that morning that simply gave a time and address, Rex had been preparing for...anything. The last time he'd seen her, she'd led him and about a dozen other mystics in altering a veil between realities to stop an interdimensional monster from destroying everything.

By the time the crowds heard sirens, Rex was already powering his way through the museum toward...whatever it was. A spell burned firmly in his mind and his feet itched until he pointed them in the right direction.

"Where can I be the most useful?" he'd asked his god.

In answer, his feet had had started moving him through the museum.

By the time the crowds were realizing they needed to get out, there were gunshots.

Rex burst into the lobby just moments after a dozen marble locusts burst into dust. A sense of warmth suffused him momentarily and Rex realized he where the spell had been guiding him. There were still a lot of people trying to desperately flee the room, even as...three?...combatants squared off. The woman looked simultaneously furious and in anguish. The rock-man's features were less expressive but they still revealed a murderous gleam.

The third...was the man Rex had pulled out of a burning building only a couple of weeks before. The government agent with...some kind of agency that investigated non-human attacks.

Rex didn't have to think twice. Running out of the crowd and closing until he was only a few dozen yards from the stone man, Rex threw out his hand and began quoting Scripture, "And he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed!”

A shrub composed of solid flames erupted from the marble floor at the stone man's feet and quickly grew into a tangle around him. Within seconds he was encased in a mass of fiery branches and burning leaves.

Ranger kept firing as more scarabs appeared. The weapon cycling almost as fast as he could work the trigger. As he was firing he caught sight of someone else in his peripheral vision. Casting a quick glance as he dropped the now empty magazine from the shotgun, Ranger saw it was the firefighter from the failed raid on the mystic’s apartment. Ranger hoped he was there to help as he seat a new magazine in the shotgun and worked the action.

The shotgun once again spat fire and lead as Ranger walked closer to the woman with her scarabs. Ranger diverted from his straight line approach as fire erupted from below the sandstone man and tangled around him like some kind of living thing.

The woman shrieked in anger and a group of her scarabs moved together and self assembled into a jackal. Ranger shot it, blowing half the head off but it was reformed by more scarabs. Ranger fired again as another jackal was formed.

”Y’ gotta be kiddin’ me.” Ranger said as he fired the last shell from his shotgun. He only had the one spare magazine so he slammed the stock of the weapon into a jackal as it approached. The head cracked, and the stock bent.

The other jackal used the opportunity to lunge at Ranger. Ranger shoved the shotgun into its mouth then grabbed the first jackal by it’s face and swung it at the second. The pair shattered, but another jackal was already approaching.

With the stone man out of the game, Rex turned his sights toward the sudden pack of jackals that were attacking the agent. He didn't question where they came from or where the scarabs had gone, but he noticed they clearly weren't flesh and blood. The scraping of stone on stone as their marble claws scrabbled on the floor was proof of that, and all Rex needed to proceed with a clear conscience.

"There appeared to him in the wilderness of mount Sinai an angel of the Lord in a flame of fire in a bush," Rex said and more power flowed through him and out into the world, where it exploded into another bush, swiftly sprouting up and arresting the third jackal's approach. It howled liked a rock grinder as it scrabbled as the burning construct, but the branches quickly locked it down.

Until it also broke apart into a small swarm of scarabs than climbed and flew out of the bush, now aimed at Rex.

"Dios mio!" Rex cried out, his eyes widening slightly. Then he kept calling out, "Porque sol y escudo es Jehová Dios!"

White hot sunfire blazed into being in dome around Rex, centered upon his upraised left forearm as a shield of solid light and fire cut him off from the rest of the room, including the bugs. Although the light didn't blind him as it would anyone looking at him, not did it burn him, the heat was instantly uncomfortable. Marble impacts soon began striking the shield as the swarm attempted to get at him.

"Rocks. Changing from one thing to another. They must be under control," he said, swiftly running through the logic. "Let's change that." He began speaking quickly and rapidly inside his dome.

Ranger readied to smash the third jackal when suddenly more fire burst into existence, growing on the jackal like it was some kind of vines or a bush. Ranger turned to look at the firefighter, it had to be him doing the fire bushes. Ranger nodded then looked to the pair of jackals he had smashed together. They had been busted apart by the impact but were reassembling from scarabs into one jackal. The new one was larger than the rest had been.

Then the sound of the scarabs moving across the ground and through the air drew Ranger’s attention. The bushed jackal had deconstructed itself and was swarming toward the fireman. The fireman who had called down a burning dome of light around him.

The swarm and light had distracted Ranger long enough that the larger jackal had closed in and had tried to bite down on Ranger’s arm. Its teeth broke. Ranger would have some serious bruises but his skin held out.

”Mistake.” Ranger told the jackal before he used his other arm to grab it by its upper jaw and hurl the thing across the lobby. The sound of Ranger’s shirt and load bearing vest ripping as Ranger’s mass increased filled the air before it was suddenly punctuated by the marble of the jackal and a column’s facade obliterating each other.

Ranger could hear the fireman talking but the sounds of another swarm of scarabs rising from the walls and floor was making it almost impossible to understand him.

Between the scarabs and more jackals forming, there was no way Ranger could easily close the gap to the woman who seemed to be summoning the metamorphic monstrosities. Ranger picked up a chunk of jackal that he had destroyed and hurled it at the woman. Before it made contact it broke into a small group of scarabs that started to fly right back at him.

”Y’r dome’s workin’ real good on those scarbs. Mind usin’ some of that heat on her?”

"...of the thoughts and intents of the heart!"

The dome of fire vanished suddenly and as the scarabs perched on it began to fall, Rex began whipping a sword composed of light through them. With each swipe, scarabs went inert as the magic that animated them was shredded by arcane forces. It wasn't a perfect solution, as many of them still had time to land on Rex, but he wasn't worried about injuries, not yet.

Still, cuts and bites covered many parts of his exposed skin and his clothes had some holes where the bugs had tried burrowing through it to reach him, but he was eventually left surrounded by bug carcasses.

Hunter's words cut through the screams. "Got it," Rex yelled back. "Through the brightness before him were coals of fire kindled."

A cloud of light coalesced in front of Rex before forming seven hovering balls of fire. With his free hand, Rex began making rapid flicking motions and one by one the fireballs zoomed toward the scarab lady. Rex wasn't willing to use a burning bush on her, but kinetically-packed bouts of flame that he could heal later? He had far fewer compunctions.

In all of the action, Rex didn't see the stream of sand reaching his feet.

The dome went down and the firefighter was wielding a sword made of fire or light. As he ran the scarabs through they just died. No explosion, no destruction, just inert and dead. Ranger’s eyebrows went up at the sight. It was like the blade was just sucking the life from the things it struck. Ranger decided he didn’t want to meet the business end of the weapon.

The firefighter replied to Ranger, yelling over the noise from the screaming people and the scarabs. Then the man formed balls of fire. And he seemed to be speaking before all of his fire manifestations. Mystic?

Ranger had not had the best luck with mystics. However, this one was helping Ranger for some reason so when Ranger saw a stream of sand flowing toward the man Ranger moved to assist.

The movement felt sluggish. Ranger ran at a great, but still human speed, toward the firefighter. Ranger didn’t question why his power had not transferred to give him strength. It sort of worked in his favor as Ranger’s muscles had the power to shatter the floor and send marble and sand into the air as the concrete below was shattered by Ranger slamming his foot into the ground.

Sand that had begun to pool at the firefighter’s feet lost contact to its stream for a moment. ”Whatever y’r doin’ do it fast. Sandman’s still in this.” Ranger slammed his foot down on another marble tile as the sand tried to flow and reestablish its connection to the pool at the firefighter’s feet.

Sand blasted against the backs of Rex's workboots and jeans and suddenly hunter was there. Rex jumped to the side and turned to process this and he saw a pool of sand shifting and merging toward him, only disrupted by the other man's stomping. A quick glance showed him and empty burning bush, free of any stone man. Ah. It wasn't just sandstone he could become.

Rex knew sand turned to glass when heated, but he also knew sand doused fires. There was a lot of sand.

"Keep him busy!" Rex said as he spoke more scripture and the sun shield manifested again, this time as a standard round shield upon his arm. This armed with sword and shield of light and magic, Rex charged toward the summoner. If he could get his hands on her, he knew he could stop her, at least for the next hour or so. Surely that'd be sufficient time to handle the sandstone shifter.

The woman yelled something harshly and a new jackal lunged at Rex. He slashed it with his sword and nudged the lifeless statue to the side with his burning shield. Rex watch the woman frown and begin backpedaling. She puled the rope with a large blue jewel at the end of it out again and started swinging it in a circle in front of her, blue light tracing the perimeter. Then she spoke again and the light vanished.

The floor of the lobby between Rex and the woman suddenly began stretching. Each step he took made her go farther and farther away, if if space was visibly warping between them, making the generally short distance a long haul.

"I HATE magic!" Rex yelled in frustration before stabbing his sword in to the floor.

Distance winked back to normal. Suddenly Rex was only yards away, meaning he could see very clearly when she looked over his shoulder, said something in a commanding yet almost mourning tone to the sandstone man, and then crushed a glass vial in her hand. She vanished in a flash of blue light and a soft cracking sound, echoed moments later in what seemed like another display room down one of the mundanely long halls leading from the lobby.

"Father, help us!" Rex said as he charged through now-empty space.

Ranger nodded to the firefighter. He wasn’t sure how he would keep a man who could turn himself into sand busy, but he would accomplish the mission. Ranger kept smashing the floor to pieces, sending them along with sand scattering across the lobby. It seemed to keep the sandman from coalescing into an offensive state.

Meanwhile the fireman had created a shield to accompany his sword and was off after the woman. Ranger was only a little jealous when the sword met a jackal and it became lifeless. So much easier than having to smash them.

After the sixth floor smash, Ranger didn’t have a large mass of sand to disperse. It had all been sent flying and was mixed with bits of marble and concrete scattered around where he had made it look like a series of grenades had gone off.

Ranger looked to see how the firefighter was doing just in time to see the woman vanish. Right before she had gone she had said something. Ranger didn’t know what it was but assumed it would not be good. He turned around and saw the sandman was reconstituted but missing his arms. Ranger looked down to see the sand had shot in from all directions and formed arms that were anchored to the concrete below.

It was only a minor effort to free his legs from the sand arms but it had given the sandman time to close the distance and impact Ranger in a wave of sand. Ranger covered his eyes and then felt the sand constrict around him.

Ranger forced his arms free but then the sand crushed in on his chest. Ranger forced his arms through the sand trying to brush it off him but it just flowed.

Breathing was difficult but not impossible. He could force his way through the sand that flowed around him but it slowed everything he did.

”Sprinklers.” Ranger coughed out. ”Set ‘em off” Ranger gestured toward the ceiling where the sprinkler heads sat, waiting to let loose a torrent of stale water.

Rex was momentarily torn. He thought he knew where the sorceress has gone, but at the same time, he didn't know if it was wise to rush ahead. It seemed he'd certainly kept her on the defensive, what with the sword of the Spirit cutting her witchcrafts to shreds and ending her unholy control over marble monstrosities, but he couldn't help but think he hadn't seen anything near the limits of her abilities.

The more and more Rex rubbed shoulders with other magic users, the more glaringly odd Hercules became. What you saw with the man was pretty much all there was to him. Other mystics, like even Rex himself? Endless surprises.

Rapidly increasing susurrations of shifting sands and a weak cry grabbed Rex's attention and all debate vanished. He turned and saw Hunter getting swallowed up by the sandstone man. He just nodded, saving his breath to call upon fire as he ran forward.

"And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night!"

Energy coursed through Rex and burst out of him into an instant swirling fire whirl. Blazing flames spiraled around him tightly and hotly, reaching about a foot past his arm's reach and shedding billowing waves of intense heat. Rex stopped a few yards from where he thought the sandman and Hunter were and shut his eyes. He couldn't see much through the pillar of flames around him anyways. He channeled more power into the spell and the flames burned brighter and brighter.

Within seconds, all the nearby sprinklers exploded.

The firefighter did not hesitate. One religious service later, and there was a pillar of fire. The pillar moved toward Ranger and the sand that attempted to restrain him. As the fire swirled near Ranger he could feel its heat and something within his body wanted to… change. To Ranger it felt like when he was under the influence of Sam’s spell. The one that warped his body.

Before anything happened the sprinklers went off and water poured down immediately dousing the heat and wetting the sand.

Ranger took immediate advantage. As the sand began to become more of a mud, Ranger was able to break through it and could move it in clumps instead of passing through it like it was water.

”Go after the scarab lady. I got mudman here.” Ranger ripped his shirt off and used it to contain the slowly flowing muddysand. Now that the sandman was sluggish, Ranger could trap him.

No sense in pounding sand. Instead, just put it in a box. A gilded reliquary would do just fine.

Ranger swung his shirt loaded down by several pounds of mud and shattered a glass display with copy of a Catholic reliquary on display. Ranger opened the container and dropped the shirt in before shutting it. He only had maybe a third of the sandman in there but Ranger could fix that. The mud wasn’t moving very fast.

Water met fire and erupted into steam that began scalding Rex.

"Argh!" he grimaced in pain as he immediately ended the spell. As the last flames licked out, no longer supported by magic, Rex shield his face and staggered out of the steam. Normally when he used that power, he wasn't unduly bothered by the heat, but he had no defense against other sources of heat.

The fireman checked his hands and saw welts and blisters already forming, as well as ugly red marks where the steam had blasted him. "Blessed Maria," he whispered. He could heal the injuries but he hesitated. There was already a stagger in his step and he was already feeling hotter than normal. He'd pushed a lot of strange energy through his body over the last five minutes and he knew what happened at the end of that path. He could wait, before he did himself serious harm. He'd survive mild burns and blisters.

As the steam dissipated, he saw the mudman was being cleverly disposed of. Rex was sent on his way. "Got it," he said, before setting off at a jog toward where he'd heard her teleport too. Once again Rex spoke Scripture and a sword of light burst from his hands, this time in the size and shape of a greatsword. He didn't want to spend energy on a shield, not just yet.

There were sounds of knocking from inside the box, muted by the water falling from the ceiling. Ranger ignored it as he worked to collect more of the living mud into one place to scoop into the reliquary.

It was easier than Ranger expected. The weight added to the sand kept the sandman from lifting parts of himself too high off the ground and the speed he could move was drastically reduced and all but eliminated when he tried to move against the flow of water across the floor.

”Stay in there an’ think about what y’ did.” Ranger said as he scooped the last handful of animate mud into the reliquary. He then bent a couple metal bars around the container to keep it closed before setting it back in its case for later. The soft sounds of sloshing could be heard inside but the metal kept it shut.

Ranger grabbed a metal stanchion and cut the rope free from it. He hefted the improvised beat stick up over his shoulder and set off in the direction the fireman had gone.

It almost felt like something was in the air. Not electricity, not steam, not even moving air. It was almost a sixth sense. Rex could feel something building and as he got closer to the showroom, the sensation just got stronger. That psychic cord between him and that other realm from which he called fire was tingling and Rex felt...magic.

Rex stepped into the room of the new Egyptian exhibit. "Sangre de Dios!" Rex swore as he crossed himself, his sword almost winking out in shock.

The room looked like the scene of a massacre. The floor was covered in sand and chunks of rock and...bodies. Hundreds of marble scarabs were crawling through the debris and drawing designs in the sand. Hieroglyphics. Rex himself had stepped over several of them before he even noticed. In the center of the room, chanting while swinging the jewel-tipped rope, the woman stared at Rex with fury and tears in her kohl-covered eyes, even as her voice reached a crescendo.

She screeched something ancient and painful and a compulsion began to burn in Rex's mind, just like in would in any human's mind for a few thousand feet. Come to this place. Come now. Come here as fast as you can.

It was certainly enough to reach the throngs of people outside the museum. It was enough to hit the police barricades and passerbys. Even those inside the museum would be hit by it, unless they had some form of psychic shielding. The crowds suddenly began surging back toward the doors, even trampling people if need be, in their sudden determination to get to the Egypt exhibit.

Rex felt the urge, but as he was already in the room, it made little difference. He'd already satisfied the spell. Instead, he had a front row view as a puff of brimstone-smelling smoke appeared and a red-skinned man appeared in the room. A teleporter. A second later, a blur appeared and became a bewildered woman. Before they could get their bearings, azure light blasted forth from the hieroglyphics they were standing on.

Before Rex could move more than a few feet, the two jackel-headed men that had climbed out of the light has already torn into their prey.

And there were dozens more hieroglyphics that were starting to glow.