Wake Runners

CLEA DATA FILE

Team Identities:

• Ann Camberbirch
• Luke Camberbirch

CLEA Classification:

• Enhanced Human (Luke/Ann)

Special Skills and/or Abilities:

• Ann and Luke have the means to open portals to other dimensions

Limitation(s)/Weakness(s):

• Luke and Ann are suffering from the effects of Dimension Lock (see below) this means they are limited to a specific number of realities they can portal to.

Rap Sheet/Criminal Traits:

• N/A

Notes/History

Wake Runners are a special time of human and known to have originated in one alternate reality. The pair familiar to CLEA is siblings Luke and Ann Camberbirch.

Wake Runner Theory

Wake Runners have the means to travel to different realities by opening portals. Where they came from such people were used by explorers for once a portal was opened anyone could follow in the “wake” of the “runner” hence the name. Upon arrival though the portal would remain open for a few minutes unless the Wake Runner chose to close it manually.

Though a useful means of exploring alternate dimensions, unlike other methods of breaching different realities such as “Rift”, the nature of a Wake Runner’s powers had some bad side effects.

The first of these was known as “Dimension Lock” whereby if a Wake Runner made multiple trips to the same realities, over a period of time their bodies would permanently adapt and that person would find themselves only able to open portals to those dimensions.

The second problem was Wake Scars. This was only discovered much later with the advent of technology. Wake Scarring occurred when Wake Runners made frequent trips to the same reality. This had a tendency to cause the barriers between the two realities to “harden”, like “scar tissue” on a wound hence the name.

Eventually the only way to transition to those dimensions was for Wake Runners to create their portals at the same locations. It did not matter if it was different Wake Runners or the same ones. The scientific explanation was that frequent trips had caused permanent wormholes in interdimensional space.

Though a little inconvenient it was not until the advent of technology that could artificially mimic Wake Runner portals that it was discovered that Wake Scars prevented access from any form or dimensional transition artificial or otherwise.

The last problem with using a Wake Runner to travel to another dimension was “Reality Naturalisation”.  This only affected “normal” people who would find that if they travelled to another dimension and stay there for a period of time they would not be able to leave since their cells would enter a state of flux and tear themselves apart after a few days

This phenomena only affects people who dimension hop via Wake Runners.

Luke and Ann’s Earth

On the Earth where Luke and Ann came from until recent years it was a peaceful planet. Since money had been abolished due to advanced tech the people dedicated their lives to other pursuits. Science and the arts were quite respectable professions but another popular interest was exploration.

Due to a anomaly in their solar system, space travel was all but impossible so after the people had discovered everything on their world they began looking at other “Earths” since looking to the stars was not an option. For some time the rare powered humans, the Wake Runners proved a popular means to visit other realities but as they began to explore more and more dimensions the negative problems associated with Wake travel began to surface, namely Dimension Lock.

To solve this problem the planet science teams, after years of research, managed to create an artificial portal. Wake Runners were no longer required since technology had replaced them. The explorer programs rapidly expanded and though there was a possibility of finding a dimension which could bring them harm, the fact they had not encountered such a reality led the people into a false sense of security.

Then they found an Earth that was home to the Phantasms.

Phantasms

On Earth 65b724, the explorers found a world of great hardship. The normal people were not so much ruled as farmed by a mutated type of humans called “Phantasms”. Akin to vampires but instead of feeding off blood they absorbed the life force of their prey. With nothing to keep the Phantasms in check their population had expanded beyond the means of their food source – ordinary people.

When the Explorer team discovered the Earth the Phantasms and ordinary people were literally dying out. Being the ones in charge of the planet the Phantasms presented themselves as the leaders of a troubled world. They made the Explorers guests and kept the truth about their true nature. The Phantasms were interested in interdimensional technology, a means to unlimited food.

By the time the Explorers found the human “farms”, it was too late. Putting their plan in motion the team were captured and coerced into opening a portal. Portals always went home as a security measure. After dimension tech had become available the world leaders had realised that if it fell into the wrong hands it could lead to a threat to the multiverse, hence to travel to multiple dimensions involved a trip home in between.

Despite all the security measures when the Phantasms arrived they were nigh on unstoppable and quickly over ran the facility. The invaders quickly took charge and established a beach head. Over three days more and more Phantasms arrived before the military succeeded in destroying the portal facility. Other portals were similarly dealt with.

With a few thousand phantasms having arrived Luke and Ann’s world was all but lost. The world leaders decided that the only option they had left was to ensure no other Earth could be threatened by their ignorance and so all data regarding dimension tech was destroyed.

The Phantasms were now trapped.

The Resistance

They were however trapped with a whole Earth populace which to them they regarded as food and so to avoid any trouble they started to enslave the people. Not everyone was captured and a resistance movement started to oppose the invaders. Superior in strength and power the resistance stood little chance of winning in a fair fight, especially after the enemy confiscated as much tech and weapons they could find.

This was when Wake Runners became valuable and they travelled to other realities Soon the people were started to become enslaved and so Wake Runners were used to sneak to different realities to steal weapons and tech to fight back. Eventually they were all either killed or imprisoned. Seen as “valuable” and perhaps of future use the Phantasm hierarchy decided these humans were not to be regarded as “food”.  Control collars not only stopped them accessing their powers but could instantly subject their victims to unimaginable pain.

Having not yet exhausted their resources, rather than using the Wake Runners to open more realities for them, the Phantasm leaders decided to simply keep them in reserve. Having forced information out of scientists they were aware of Dimension Lock and so felt that it was best to try other means of dimensional travel first.

Though the portal facilities had all been destroyed, the Phantasms decided to rebuild. Some people out of fear offered to help in exchange for their lives whilst others did it for power of their own. Resistance members also got installed in the portal reverse engineering on the day it was powered up they sabotaged it causing a quantum singularity that started to destroy the  planet.

The End

A small group of Phantasms, seeing the end coming, now made use of the Wake Runners they had imprisoned . Having played the long game and saw the potential to be defeated they had proved quite cunning in keeping these special people around.

After allowing their control collars to let their prisoners access their powers the Phantasms instructed the Wake Runners to take them to other realities to escape the cataclism, promising them that if they helped their families could be brought along.  However once safe in another reality the Phantasms reneged on the deal and kept them as prisoners and reset their collars.

With only a few Phantasms having escaped to eight realities, they were few in number. Wake Runners were therefore still valuable in order to visit their other brethren. No Wake Runner dare try to disobey due to the threat of pain.

The more the Wake Runners escorted their masters the quicker the dimension lock set in so eventually most of them could only move between the eight realities the Phantasms had escaped to. Aware that this was happening and on worlds which lacked advanced technology the chances of escaping their dimensions was negligible so the the Phantasms decided to settle in and took positions of power and subjugate the people. As well as giving themselves a plentiful source of food they installed themselves as rulers, a social level befitting of their self proclaimed status.

Sibling Wake Runners

Unlike the other Wake Runners, Luke and Ann were different. Being siblings meant that they could combine their power. Kept as pets, even with the collars preventing them accessing the powers they found they could “nearly” create a portal and being that bit younger they had not quite reached Dimension Lock status. By their estimation they had another couple of realities they could travel to before they reached their limit. They promised each other that one day they would be free and the eight realms would be free of Phantasms.

It just needed the right catalyst, and that came during the breach day event. When Rift caused the multidimensional breach all the Wake Runners felt a disturbance in the interdimensional barriers. Whilst the others could do little with their control collars blocking their abilities, Luke and Ann tried to combine their abilities and were able to complete a portal due to the temporarily weakened interspacial barriers. A couple of other Wake Runner prisoners saw what they were doing and kicked up a fuss to distract the guards and prevent them turning on the pain setting on the collars. By the time the siblings were noticed, it was too late and the pair made it to our world.

Exhausted through the effort the pair were barely conscious when they were found by Banish of the Night Rangers. When they “arrived” his own portal travel had been disrupted. Not sure what to do he summoned the rest of the team and they decided to take them somewhere safe.

When Ann and Luke eventually regained consciousness they told the Night Rangers that they came from a different reality and the troubles with the Phantasms. They were offered sanctuary and help but the pair felt it was they fight, not anyone elses.

Having armed themselves, thanks to the the Night Rangers the pair set out to free the other Wake Runners and to fight the Phantasms. Despite only being a pair they caused much disruption by managing to free other imprisoned Wake Runners and established resistance movements in all the eight realities.

Wake Runner Hunters

The Phantasms decided enough was enough. Despite coercing “normals” to do their dirty work either with promises of power or by fear the various resistance movements were enjoying too much success. Therefore they procreated with captive Wake Runners to produced hybrid Phantasm/Wake Runner hunters.

Unfortunately mating with a Wake Runner already suffering from Dimension Lock meant the hunter offspring were similarly “limited”. They did have one advantage and that was they could detect when a portal was being created and this caused a great deal of trouble to rebel Wake Runners. This meant that those Wake Runners had little choice but to limit their travel and only use their gifts as a means of passing messages on to share intel with other resistance groups.

The ultimate prize of the Phantasm hunters were Ann and Luke. Several times they came close to capture but the pair evaded their attackers by escaping to our reality. Realising there was a possible ninth reality to capture, the Phantasms had their troops co-ordinate an attack against Luke and Ann forcing them to visit the domain they had yet to conquer. Following in their portal wake the siblings were lucky to survive when the Hunters arrived. However in our reality the Phantasm killers found the Phoenix Alliance .

Just as Ann and Lukes people found a dimension where the people were more dangerous for them to handle the Phantasm hunters now found the same and so were forced to flee. It was pure chance that the pair had crossed paths with the hero team but word quickly spread of a possible threat to our reality and CLEA learned of the Phantasms.

The hero community also learned of the incident and so from that day, Luke and Ann were no longer alone. Despite insisting that it was “just their fight” a threat had made it to our reality and so the community offered it assistance.

Though Ann and Luke wanted to avoid dragging others into their problems, there have been times when they need specialist assistance in dealing with a Phantasm threat in one of the eight realms and so they started to take others with them.

Of course such heroes had to return home within two days or chance death. Conversely over time some lower ranking Phantasms grew tired of being subordinate to those higher up and chose to visit our realm in a bid for power and in those situations Luke and Ann would on occasion recruit specialists from one of the eight realms who had experience with the “threat”.

Such events are rare so as far as CLEA is concerned the threat from the eight realms is not a high priority but is worth monitoring.

Heroes in multiple realities

Since Luke and Ann know the eight realities by their scientific number classification, this has proved confusing when getting help from volunteers. The hero community has therefore nicknamed each of the realms from the type of “theme” that awaits them.

• Wild West
• Caribbean Pirate
• MedievalAncient Egypt
• Steampunk
• Dieselpunk
• Ancient Rome
• Ancient Asia

Telethought

One hero that helps the siblings out more than others is the Alpha Superior “Telethought“. After volunteering to assist them on a mission once he felt a kinship with the pair and unbeknown to him developed an empathic link. This later allowed him to teleport across realities when Luke was ambushed by a pair of Phantasm hunters.

From that moment in time he has become something of a guardian from afar, appearing when they most needed help and then leaving again once the danger had past.