The members of MI-13 are trapped in an energy prison, due to the betrayal of Captain Midlands. He sold them out? Pete shouts. For a… fantasy?
Holding his wife’s hand, Sid tells them it’s like Nancy’s real. He’s been given years with her. A whole life in five minutes. The life he deserved. He’ll have that forever now. It’s not like they’ll be hurt or anything, Nancy promises them. They’ll live out their lives with the two of them, Sid promises. They’ll see them right…
As a power source for Plokta? Pete shouts. So he can make Mindless Ones and take the planet! Sid thinks Pete could live here with them? Having lost his whole unit? He dares talk to Pete – traitor – about what he deserves?! This is what he deserves! He fires his hotknives at Nancy and she crumbles apart like a statue.
Outside, Alistaire Stuart has grabbed the captured Mindless One. He explains he’s uniting with the Mindless One’s mystic nature inside the non-space of the tesseract. He can hear something. He tears open the Mindless One and enters its energy. From where Captain Colton is, this may look a touch odd, he states. If he’s not back in five minutes, get a new scientific advisor.
Inside the Dream Corridor, a crying Sid holds Nancy‘s face. What has Pete done? Plokta won’t give him another. It’ll be just this now. Forever! Nancy…
Shut it! Pete shouts and grabs him by the jacket. They’ve been on the back foot since they stumbled into this job. That’s Pete’s fault. So he’s going to fix it. He will not lose another officer. So they are getting out! And Captain Midlands committed treason. So he’s going to pay! Now, what is this Dream Corridor?
It’s a locked-off dimension, comes the reply. Infinite. You come in willingly, you get your heart’s desire. They didn’t, so they get nothing. There’s no way out. *&^*%$& there isn’t, Pete swears and asks the Black Knight to give him his sword.
Floating in another part of the Dream Corridor, an endless swirling chaos, Captain Britain hears a voice calling his name. He prepares himself for another illusion, instead he sees Alistaire Stuart entering through a tear in reality. He is not his heart’s desire, Brian shouts. Not the obvious reaction, Alistaire mutters. Which means Alistaire is real, Brian realizes.
Alistaire explains he heard Brian calling out. He’s exploring the link between the creatures and their power source. Brian orders him to stay where he is mentally. Keep a foot in both worlds and that gives him a reference point. He grabs Alistaire and goes looking for a way out.
Back with Wisdom’s crew, Wisdom takes Dane’s sword, his fake Ebony Blade. Whatever this thing really is, Pete begins. No, he decides. This is an intelligence. They talk to it directly. He addresses it. It fooled Camelot, so it’s got a lot of magical power. It wants blood. So how does it feel trapped here? Just with them six. Is that enough blood for it? Forever. Or does it want out?
It begins to glow red and forces Pete to swirl it. Faiza holds Dane back on Excalibur’s say-so and Pete and the blade manage to cut a swath to the next room of the Dream Corridor (where somebody is living through his football fantasies. Pete keeps on cutting a way to the other rooms (through a champagne dinner, a grown-up man in a toyworld, a happy family and so on). All this fantasy! he shouts. He nearly lost everyone for them, bloody addicts! No more! They are going to take responsibility for their lives! They are going to take responsibility for their dreams! They are going to stop leaving this &*$% to other people! Because the Dream Corridor dies now!
Elsewhere with Alistaire’s help, Cap sees boundaries forming and finally an exit. So what was his heart’s desire? Alistaire asks. They tried to fool him into thinking… Meggan, it was Meggan. Alistaire tells him he’s sorry and promises they’ll find her one day. They fly towards the exit.
Behind him a doorway forms and Meggan steps out. She calls after him. She was lost again. Then she couldn’t catch up with him. She’s real! But he’s already outside.
In the building, Plokta shouts, his power source! It’s going! How can this be happening? His assistant, Mrs. Dunley, seems to be awaking from a trance. What is she doing there? She begins to cry. She was with her family. All of them, even her Stan. They were at the seaside for such a long time… But that’s not right, is it? They’re all dead. What has he done to her?
Of course, they’re dead, sow, Plokta replies smugly. It’s her own fault. She wanted fantasy. He wanted someone to tell him how magnificent he is. She wasn’t very good, by the way. He should think her Stan died of boredom.
Plokta, Wisdom shouts. Step away from the pensioner! While Dane gently draws the woman aside, Plokta just laughs. They aren’t serious. They are going to attack a duke of hell? What are they going to do? Rush him and slap the cuffs on? Derogatively, he spits fire at Blade’s papersword, remarking that was the only weapon they had that could even hurt him.
Blade warns the others that Plokta is too much for them. What’s the other magic source he sensed up here? The dream corridor itself, Faiza replies. So it’s something Plokta’s made, not something he’s doing, Blade realizes. Independent, from him, yeah, Wisdom agrees. They were after Plokta when Sid trapped them. Why didn’t Plokta lead them into that room? Maybe he can’t enter the dream corridor rooms himself. Because they are Plokta’s power source, Pete finishes the thought. He feeds on what’s in there.
All that whispering, Plokta smirks. It makes him nervous. He can always run up a few Mindless Ones on his own power, and immediately he proceeds to do so. They’ll keep the heroes busy. He’ll eat them one at a time.
The battle begins. The tied up Captain Midlands cries for the others to let him fight. No, Wisdom replies curtly and orders the team to push through the middle. Go for Plokta, get him to a door!
Plokta breathes fire at them, kept off by the Black Knights shield. He’s immaterial, he tells them. They can’t make him go where he doesn’t want to.
Hey, comes from behind them, as Captain Britain steps through a door leading to the Dream Corridor. Hope they don’t mind. He let himself in. Plokta turns around, not believing it. Braddock is weak, flawed. He could never have got out of there on his own! This is an illusion! He can’t… Cap grabs him and pull him through the door into the dream corridor. He is Captain Britain! He can do anything!
Inside, Plokta finds himself caught in his own energy cycle! Feeding on himself to destruction. Actually no, too risky, Alistaire Stuart replies, with all the comings and goings they’ve seen. With him in here they can sort out something more concrete. Alistaire pulls him out and into the tesseract prison outside. Plokta shouts wild threats at them. The mystical flames die down and everybody becomes normal again.
Soon the others are outside. Sid is led away, pleading not to be taken away in front of people. Maximum security! is Wisdom’s short order, while Brian states he wants a word with Sid later. He wants to know why.
Okay, his turn. Pet turns to Blade and the soldiers point their guns at him. Spitfire orders Wisdom to make them stand down. She is the injured party. Blade knows her nature now. She has his word he won’t stake her unless she… well, and then she hopes he would! They are going to face vampires. The sooner, the better. Her son might be with them. Pete wants to keep her around? Keep Blade. Sir.
Wisdom is silent for a moment. He loves it when she calls him Sir, he admits. Blade’s on probation. Can they bloody go home now?
Later at the MI13 HQ at Whitehall, in the hangar Alistaire and Brian discuss matters. Alistaire states he can’t believe about Sid. Brian doesn’t want to talk about him right now. So Al’s magic now? Sort of, he replies and tears at his own face which seems unusually flexible. Since an unfortunate dinner party with Morgan le Fay (don’t ask) his appearance has proved … variable. It’s meant to be a curse. But interacting with mystic dimensions… his magical nature came in handy.
Above the hangar Blade muses that it’s gonna be weird. Working someplace he thought he was raiding. He swears, then addresses Spitfire directly. Sometimes, he admits, he makes mistakes. He doesn’t allow himself the luxury of guilt, but… Jaqueline tells him to shush. Stiff upper lip at all times, she orders and kisses him. After a moment of surprise, Blade responds. She doesn’t quite know why she did that, Jaqueline admits embarrassed. Perhaps because… they have a lot in common. But doesn’t that make things more interesting?
Alistaire remarks to Brian that, while he was looking for him, he found a lot of interdimensional links in that void. Doors to all kinds of places. Plokta and his ilk have lost souls from many worlds to play with. Still not their problem, he supposes.
Elsewhere, Meggan falls through a doorway and finds herself in a burning dimension, surrounded and dwarved by powerful demonic beings.
The Vault, High security prison, Shoreditch:
Pete Wisdom visits Sid in his cell. Oh it’s him, Sid remarks non-enthusiastically. He’s been going over it, what’s gonna happen now. He can’t bear the thought of a trial. Him neither, Pete replies. Sid continues. He thought Pete would understand. A lifetime of service and they got so little. At the start you get sort of proud of that. Stiff upper lip. But over the years, you realize nobody gives a toss about your lip. And then when the only person who makes that better dies…
Pete corrects him. He can’t bear the thought of a trial, because a jury might let Sid off. But he’s right. He does understand. That’s why he’s showing him mercy. He hands Sid a gun and leaves. As he walks down the hallway Pete wonders if he’ll hear a shot. He doesn’t. And the worst of today’s horrors is: that it doesn’t surprise him.
Epilogue:
A young woman dressed in robes is led up castle stairs by two strange pale men with pointed ears. She’s really doing this. It’s really happening to her, she babbles. She’s going to be turned into a vampire! She knows it’ll hurt, but all the good stuff, too, yeah? Everything she’s ever wanted. She’s kind of afraid of him. D’uh, she tells herself. Stupid May. You’re meant to be afraid of him.
The vampires light up a passageway. Is it through there? she asks in a small voice. She enters, addressing someone as master. She’s come to give herself to him.
Hands come from the darkness and break her neck, then he greedily drinks from her throat. Bloodless, her corpse is disregarded and dropped to the floor. Bring another, he orders. He’ll be on the terrace.
Gingerly, Dracula dabs the blood at his mouth away with a handkerchief and enjoys the view of Earth one has from the moon’s surface. They know about the sword, he states to his servants. But he is ready to move. Tell their force in London to prepare phase one of the assault. And get him Dr Doom.
