Adventure: Lay Them Down Before Her 
(The Last Adventure of the first year of the Balance) 

Denise Miller, as the Risen One, has not had an easy life.  She continues going to classes and to Christian fellowship, but her motivation is not constant; sometimes she sees things - differently.  Whenever she writes something, it is runes she cannot comprehend ! And she cannot even talk with her parents on the phone.  She can't go to see them; they would not understand.
Laura Greene sees her often, and tries her best to help her.  Laura can talk all she wants - but Denise cannot respond!  And lately, Laura does not dare ask Stephen Wolcott to help with his mental powers.  When he first met the Risen One, they were at each other's throats.  They later made peace; but after his recent confrontation with Brother Jed, there's no telling what he might do to Denise if he got the chance! 
Christine Lassiter, since she attained the power of Fire and Ice, has not had an easy life.  On the night she received her powers, the nightclub she was in got wrecked; the owner slapped her with a lawsuit threat.  She asked two members of the Balance to help her out.  When they did, one of them died in battle against criminals the owner did business with.  And she did nothing to punish the ones who killed him! 
Ellipsis - Steve Wolcott - understood her motivations, even though the rest of the surviving Balance did not.  Maybe it's because he's as much an outsider as she fancies herself, in his own way.  He helped her get over her guilt.  But she never got the chance to help him with his own.  
She's not going to whine about it though; they've all recovered.  Steve has a new girlfriend (good for him!) and new teammates.  Chris still has her power and her music.  The threatened lawsuit vanished when Chris first hinted to the nightclub owner that she knew about his criminal complicity.  Since then, she's returned to performing - with more zest than ever.  Her power, linked to her emotion, emerges when she performs - and the audience loves it! She's learned how to use it tor special effects.  Isn't that how power should be used? 
One day Denise walks across the common near Wells Hall, near the center of campus.  As often, something stirs within her - but this time, it is beyond her power to resist.  She levitates toward one of the girls on another sidewalk.  
Chris Lassiter sees some figure levitating in her direction, and wonders: what the hell?!  Then the figure attacks her with a bolt of flame.  Chris shunts the flame off to one side as she dodges to the other.  Thus, as the bystanders get the hell away, her battle against the Risen One begins in earnest.  
Stephen Wolcott, in his office in the Computer Center, mentally notices something going on.  He concentrates for one minute: his street clothes convert into costume!  Ellipsis flies out to investigate.  
As he approaches the battle scene he finds his leftover fire and ice powers going crazy.  The Risen One is assuming the powers that Chris Lassiter once wielded.  Ellipsis goes berserk, rams into the Risen One, soars high into the air with her, and explodes.  It lays them both out.  
The rest of the team, having noticed the commotion, arrives and picks them all up.  They congregate in an unoccupied lecture hall.  
Ellipsis, Chris and Denise all revive.  Ellipsis now recognizes the power of the Risen One: it is similar 
to the power he assumed as the consort of Fire and Ice.  He has an idea about expelling it from her.  
Chris, in shock till now, erupts in anger: 'Why the hell are you helping her? She just ••• just •.• " 
“Yes, I felt it too," Ellipsis replies.  ·She stole our ••• your power." 
“So... why?”
”Because I must.  One way or another, this must end.”
·Well, you can fucking count me out!”  Chris stalks out of the room, slamming the door behind her.  Ellipsis leans on the table before him, palms down.
Denise starts to rise, but Morningstar motions her back down.  Power crackles from Ellipsis's fists as he shoves them through the table.  The power moves between his fists; the table crumbles.  He quietly says, “Be it all damned anyway.”
As the team quietly looks at each other, Mighty Tim asks, 'So what's your plan?" 
Shortly thereafter, the team teleports far to the north of the city.
Ellipsis binds himself, Morningstar, Mighty Tim, and the Risen One into mental union.  He then begins to absorb the power of the Risen One and dissipate it into the upper atmosphere.  Morningstar, with Tim's guidance, restructures Denise Miller's body into its former form.
Ellipsis finds himself tempted by the additional power; but Denise, 1inked with him, rouses him to resist.  The process takes hours of intense concentration - it cannot be interrupted or al1 is wasted! But it finally ends - with Ellipsis in the center of a giant explosion, dispersing the full power of the Risen One into space. 
He plummets earthward in a ball of flame near the others, halting his plunge far beneath the ground •.  As FOAD and' El Bozo look into the crater, Ellipsis slowly rises out, then collapses on the ground.  The other three are wasted, but the operation was a complete success.  Denise Miller is human again: the Risen One is no more.  
Before they can recover, FOAD notices some new attackers.  They are the priests of the Risen One, who cannot abide the sacrilege upon their object of adoration.  Together they wove a spell to approach their worship in the very dimension whence she came.  
The others notice briefly, but are subdued mystically before they can act.  FOAD and El Bozo give the priests a good fight before they are attacked from all sides and subdued.  
The priests lay the fallen heroes down before Denise to try to reverse the sacrilege and restore their Risen One.  It doesn't work.  The priests return to their holy temple with their prisoners.  
The team finds itself bound by chains in a dungeon.  The heroes are unable to do anything other than 
	swallow food which Denise must spoon to them.
Denise bemoans the situation in general, and grieves that she got them mixed up in what must be the Lord's judgment for her sins.  (Morningstar unable to speak, is also unable to argue.
When Ellipsis finds himself on the brink of having to sit in his own excrement, he enters deep trance to make his move:  an attempt of control over the mystic force which holds their bodies prisoner.  After two or three hours, he loosens the force just barely - not enough to move but enough to activate his new power field around his body.  His field.  under his mental control, finally absorbs and neutralizes the mystic force around his body.
Ellipsis rises and frees himself from his chains.  He then unbinds and frees each surprised teammate in turn.
Before they plan action, FOAD insists on taking a good crap.  After a moment, Ellipsis ad!its, "Indeed.” • After tending to physical needs, the team charges upstairs.  
After subduing a few acolytes, they find a solemn service in process upstairs.  The priests are once more summoning a vessel to be their Risen one, and the power to fill it.  Together the Balance attack and disrupt the ceremony.  El Bozo wades into the crowd; the others scatter around the sanctuary to fight the priests as they get opportunity.  

As the battle proceeds, the High Priest despairs.  He is familiar with these enemies of the faithful: they are the mystic Balance.  His spells to raise the Risen One invoked their name! They are known for weighing powerful magical rulers in the scales - and overthrowing them.  And they are more than equal to the mystic abilities of the holy underlings.  One is a being of power who drains their abilities; the others are immensely able and powerful of themselves, and move and strike so quickly as not to be touched.  
Alone the High Priest abandons the former ceremony, and summons the Power from beyond - even without a human vehicle to contain it under control of the brethren.  
As the Balance faces their last remaining opponents, a howling fills the room.  A form of flame takes shape near the roof of the grand hall.  It is definitely malevolent towards them!  The acolytes cower before the wrath of their god.  
Th! Balance attacks the form - at a safe distance.  It has roughly no effect.  The team falls back.  
Ellipsis, suspending himself in midair, falls into a trance.  
The Mighty Tim tries to teleport; it fails, and the flame falls upon him!  Morningstar has to save him, and pulls him onto a pillar to cling with her.  The power shoots fireballs at them; Morningstar barely repulses them.  
£1 Bozo is standing against the power, and trying to absorb it.  Suddenly it floods upon him, and knocks 
him out. 
Meanwhile, Ellipsis finally recognizes the power: it is the same power as was behind the Risen One.  Oh, shit.  He comes out of trance.  
FOAD has taken cover at ground level behind a pillar, with Denise behind him.  The power is familiar to him also: he encountered it that time the Mighty Tim stranded him in transit during teleportation! As the power turns upon him, he fights it his usual way, with a mental scream: ·”FUCK OFF AND DIE!!!”
Ellipsis briefly clues his teammates in to what they face.  With FOAD already attacking mentally, he feels the team's only chance is to make its best attack against the power now - a mental attack.  He then flies into the midst of the form to disperse or banish it once more, as he just did on Earth.  
But he's facing the entire power this time.  Despite his unshakable mutated strength of will, self-enhanced to its extreme value, and despite his incredible power to manipulate energy, he is nearly overwhelmed.  Desperately as he goes under, he casts around for help.  Morningstar is there, and Mighty Tim, and the others.  
Ellipsis does not go under.  Finally, they maintain the field of Ellipsis enough to weaken the power and force it into howling retreat.  
As the Balance lands in possession of the field of battle, the priests cower before the extradimensional evil in human form which has defied their god.  The Mighty Tim strides forward and says, "Do you see what happens when you worship any deity that strikes your fancy?' They raise themselves in silence.  
Tim, on a roll, continues: 'You realize that deities strike bargains in their own favor as often as they are able! Can you not see what results? You could at least strike a good bargain.' The priests bow their heads.  
Ellipsis psychically says to the team "The only problem now is to return home.· Mighty Tim, since he has an audience, convinces the priests that if they (the evil from another dimension) are not banished whence they came, the priests will come to ruin.  (Ellipsis makes sure Denise gets included with them.) The priests oblige, returning the Balance and Denise to their home dimension.

As they return, Morningstar says to Tim, "I didn't realize you could speak against false gods with that much spirit."  Tim has no immediate reply.
Mighty Tim has his power back, but El Bozo does not; his power is to absorb other power, but he's short-circuited.  He departs} with bad feelings.  
Morningstar looks to Ellipsis to help El Bozo, but Ellipsis is paralyzed physically; he cannot move! He says mentally to the others that he must recover at home.  Mighty Tim takes him there, with Morningstar.
By the time they have returned, the others are gone.  Laura says to Mikel "This is the last time we'll see them this year - the last time ever, for Stephen!  It can't end like this.' 
"No, it can't .•• • 
The Mighty Tim, Mike Roberts, notices Ellipsis's behavior.  He has known Stephen Wolcott as Ellipsis for the length of their teaming,  now several months.  Always Stephen has been rational, and progressively more sociable and - human.  But lately he's slipped.  What's happening to him? 
And Stephen is about to graduate.  Mighty Tim was thinking Ellipsis could stay with the Balance nonetheless, with Tim's teleportation to bring him to the battle.  But Ellipsis is acting 1ike he might not want to.