[Because Bedlam's origin was Atlantean, see.... 
Originally the idea was to have Bedlam possess Arion, but who
the hell cares about him? But Bedlam needs a body to inhabit,
and who better than a young, mostly untrained purple-eyed Atlantean mage.
It would have been a whole long plotty thing with a lot of fight scenes
and I would have made Chicago write it anyway.]



From deep within a STAR Labs facility, the spirit of chaos 
cast his power out from his insensate human host-prison, 
searching for...resonance.

When he had first been conjured by Garn Daanuth, 
Bedlam's existence on the mortal plane had been shaped 
and anchored by that power. Daanuth was millennias dead, 
of course, but if some remnant of his power remained, 
some echo that Bedlam could catch hold of to free 
himself....

Perhaps it had been a rightful irony that his childish host 
had been defeated by children, as colorfully garbed as 
much-hated Arion had been. No, that was lingering 
resonance again. It had been *Garn* who'd hated his 
brother-mage. Bedlam hadn't cared who or what his power 
was called for, as long as it was used to sow chaos. But 
Garn's hatred had shaped his essence on the plane, and so 
all of Bedlam's perceptions had been focused through that 
lens of envy and evil. But Garn had proven unable to 
contain Bedlam's power, and Arion had arrived to cast the 
spirit out and contain it. Held in an inanimate artifact for 
centuries until he had been released...

...into the host-form of a child. It would have been as good 
as any other save that his essence had, again, been shaped 
by the mortal who held him. His powers had been 
squandered for petty amusement. And *just* as Bedlam 
had finally begun to assert control of the host (who was, 
after all, no Garn Daanuth with all of his willpower and 
binding spells), those costumed children found and 
defeated him.

No. Not him. The host. Who, Chaos willing, Bedlam would 
soon find a way to escape. All he needed was a thread of 
Garn's power to pull himself free. 




Arion...was alive.

The rush of fierce hatred this time had nothing to do with 
Garn's influence. Arion had been the one to trap him for 
centuries in an unyielding prison.