The Windjammer stories were originally published in the Champions A.P.A. called "The Clobberin' Times". Issues of this publication only came out every two months, and due to it having two rotating shared-world fiction projects, the tales from the ConTinuum universe (including Windjammer) only came around every four months. So readers had quite a wait between installments. But not as big a wait as they would have for the chapter that follows this writing...Chapter Nine. The Clobberin' Times stopped publication back in 2000, and the Windjammer tales, in the middle of a major story arc, came to an end right along with it.

But now, nearly seven years later, Windjammer has returned (thanks to the web, and thanks to the new Clobberin' Times Online), and Chapter Nine picks up right where Chapter Eight left off. For returning readers, that was a looooong time ago.

So, for those very readers, who may not feel like re-reading every chapter leading up to this to get back up to speed (though I can't imagine why...), this handy summary of all the previous chapters is provided...and presented in chronological (not publication) story order. Hopefully, it will jog your memories, and get you psyched to dive back in. Welcome back to the world of Windjammer, old-'Timers!

In Phoenix, Arizona, a boy named Shane Doleman was born to a former-soap-actress-turned-real-estate-agent mother named Lana Doleman, and to a father named Stephen Doleman, a doctor who died in a car accident before Shane’s birth. Shane grew up happy in an affluent Scottsdale neighborhood, spending much of his time in his formative years with his best friend Jerry Lowell, a budding playwright. Having caught the acting bug from his mother—something she had very mixed feelings about—Shane starred in many of Jerry’s backyard-produced plays as they grew up together.

But his formative years brought other, more incredible changes in Shane. He soon found that he was able to command wind, with a control that grew as he did. This is something he shared with only his mother and Jerry, something he kept secret from the world and something that he feared. But his fear turned to hope after high school, when local tabloid news began reporting something that seemed too silly—and too good—to be true.

Enter Porter Scott, a promising physicist, dedicated Mormon and father of five girls. Porter worked for a local Phoenix lab called Rising Technologies, and a freak accident he had while working alone one night miraculously gifted him with sonic powers. Seeing this as a gift from God, and some kind of higher calling, he tried to use this blessing the only way he could think of. This otherwise reasonable family man made a costume and went out at night in bad Phoenix neighborhoods and stopped criminals and helped the helpless, calling himself Anthem. He did this in secret and avoided police and press at all costs, so his legend grew during his brief career only by word of mouth from those on the streets. He did make the acquaintance of one policeman, however, whose life he saved during a firefight, a man named Captain Edward Bonilla, and the two became friends.

One night, while Porter was stopping a gang fight, Shane—having spent many nights searching—finally caught up with him. Finally, Shane didn’t feel so alone in the world, and the surprised and amazed Porter befriended the incredible young man and became his mentor, bringing him not only into his family, but into Rising Technologies, where they tested Shane’s powers and taught him more control over them. Porter had no intention of letting Shane do what he did with his evenings, however, and encouraged him to stay in college and focus on that for now.

But fate had other ideas. Porter began to notice new faces at Rising in the dead of night, and his suspicions lead to the discovery of Rising tech being loaded into a truck. Suiting up and stowing away on the truck, Porter found himself far out in the desert, in a old abandoned military facility—one not abandoned anymore, based on the home-grown terrorist army that had taken up residence there. The group was called Monument, and their leader, a man in a military-style uniform calling himself Monolith—a former militia man whose wife was killed in an FBI siege on their compound—had plans for nuclear blackmail. Anthem was discovered and captured, beaten and tortured (his patriotic costume convincing them the government (the “beast”) had sent him).

When Janis Scott, Porter’s wife, called Shane over in a panic when Porter didn’t return home the night before, they watched in horror as Monument took over all local TV broadcasts and announced their plans and demands—with the bound and bloodied Anthem in the shot. Porter had become the father Shane had never known, and Shane swore to Janis and Porter’s daughters that he would bring him home. Racing to Porter’s last-known whereabouts, Rising Technologies, he uncovered, with the help of Porter’s trio of tech assistants who knew both heroes’ secrets, the security camera footage, and the betrayal by one of Rising’s other scientists, a man in league with Monument. Getting the information he needed, Shane put on the costume that the tech boys had whipped up for him—mostly just for laughs—and got on the board that they’d also built for him to help him ride the winds in a way he knew best (as a life-long skateboarder). Soaring across the desert, terrified but resolved, the young hero who had taken the name Windjammer, and was finally putting it to use, assaulted the compound with his elemental abilities, and fought his way down to free Porter.

But they quickly discovered, as the F.B.I. and local police (including Captain Bonilla) raided the compound, that the mad Monolith had activated the experimental nuclear device he’d built and buried it in concrete. Using every ounce of the power he’d been blessed with, Anthem managed to blast through and destroy the device before it could go off…but tore his throat apart and blew out his own ears in the process, rendering him forever deaf and mute, and ending any chance of using his abilities again. Captain Bonilla was able to get him to his car and spirit him away before Anthem could be seen by any of the authorities.

Monolith escaped in an armed helicopter, and as a final, desperate act of vengeance, planned to destroy the state capitol, and the governor who had ordered the raid that killed his wife. Windjammer followed in a desperate chase across Phoenix, catching up with him over the capitol lawn just before he could open fire. They grappled hand-to-hand in the cockpit before Windjammer was able to blow Monolith out of it with a wind, and get the copter safely down. The governor and assembled state leaders looked on in amazement, and met the young hero, before Windjammer quickly took his leave. Though only photographed in blurry images as he flew across the city, and still doubted by many, Windjammer became huge news. Whereas Anthem’s brief super-hero career ended, and he was quickly forgotten. (CHAPTER FOUR).

Windjammer took up heroing in his spare time, helping where he could, and began to appear more and more in Phoenix. Captain Bonilla became his police contact, and used a pager to call the hero in times of need. One such day, when Shane was serving on jury duty, he had to talk his way out of the trial he was on by rather dramatically revealing his powers to the judge in chambers. He flew to, of all places, Phoenix’s Planet Hollywood, where Captain Bonilla informed him of a hostage situation inside. The eco-terrorist group called Greenwar had taken over the restaurant during a closed-door photo shoot for Hollywood legend Terrance Cross, star of the famed Mac Knight films and now aging action film producer (and new partner in the restaurant chain). For the rain forest devastation caused during an explosion during the filming of one of Cross’s movies, the group was now going to put him on trial for crimes against mother Earth…and execute him on live television, thanks to their capture of Channel 5 reporter Melanie Dodd and her seasoned cameraman, Chuck Atkins.

Windjammer’s attempt to sneak in through the roof went wrong when video footage of him outside, from earlier, was seen by the terrorists, and they quickly set out to kill their hostages. Bursting the through the ceiling, Windjammer went to work, using his winds to try and save lives and stop the fanatics. He managed to somehow pull it off (and all on live television), and police began rushing in, when the shoot’s celebrity photographer turned out to be a plant, and put a gun to the head of Melanie Dodd.

Before Windjammer could attempt to end the tense standoff, he found himself blasted to the floor by solid light. Looking up in a daze, he found a gorgeous young blonde there in what was either a costume or a bikini. The beautiful and dangerous girl called herself Delight, and the terrorists had hired her in case Windjammer showed up. Instead of fighting her, he tried his best to reason with her, which didn’t seem to be going too well until Terrance Cross himself took out the last gunman. With Windjammer pointing out to her that the people that hired her were all taken out, she reconsidered and blasted through the ceiling and flew away…but with Windjammer hot on her trail.

The chase went across the skies of Phoenix, and ended up in upscale Scottsdale, where Delight flew in through the open-air ceiling of a large shopping mall. Windjammer followed her in, above the screaming crowds, and they fought (if you could call fighting her slugging him and hitting him in the head with a restroom door) in a clothing store and a movie theater. He pursued her out of the mall and above Scottsdale, where their mid-air cat-and-mouse ended with him inadvertently throwing her into him with a wind, and they fell from the sky, landing, dazed, in the back seat of a convertible in someone’s driveway. Recovering, and on top of him, she yelled at him for almost getting them killed, but he suddenly—perhaps because of his still-stunned state—kissed her. As the shock quickly wore off, she found herself kissing him back, and the two powered young people ended up, essentially, making out.

After a tense moment where she reacted, thinking he had tricked her and done something to her, they talked—with some innocent flirtatiousness going on—and acknowledged their mutual attraction, and got to know each other a little, with him trying to figure out what she was doing on the other side of the law and getting hints that she’d had a very rough life. But she didn’t seem to be all that bad. The romantic encounter ended with the sound of approaching sirens, and he ended up—despite his heroic instincts—letting her go before the police arrived.

The Planet Hollywood fight had been on live television, and went all over the world. Among those who followed it were a mysterious assassin with fire powers named Nathan Carthage, who seemed to have a hatred for Windjammer and all that he represented, and suddenly took an interest in destroying the hero’s life, and an even more mysterious man in a castle, somewhere in the world, who was watching a wall of television screens that ranged from TV broadcasts to hidden cameras in secret rooms of power throughout the globe. He not only knew of Windjammer, but also knew his name was Shane, and saw this event as a sign that something he called “the gathering” was coming. (CHAPTERS ONE THROUGH THREE).

As summer turned to fall, Windjammer became a household name, being seen all over TV, talked about on radio, written about in magazines and web pages. And rarely was he discussed without a mention of Delight, as the world seemed in love with the idea of a dashing hero with a beautiful (and scantily-clad) nemesis. Terrance Cross got in contact with Windjammer and arranged a meeting with him, and he and his agent, Chester Fein, made Windjammer an offer. They wanted to manage him—handle all his publicity, marketing, merchandising—right down to a Windjammer movie. They offered to fly him out the L.A. for the holidays to talk about things further and do a screen test, and to provide him with first-class vacation. Not knowing how he felt about this—or about the idea of his life being drawn into international celebrity, and whether that was something a real hero should be involved in—Windjammer said he would have to think about it.

He confided this to Jerry, who immediately decided that he was the one who should write a Windjammer screenplay—to make sure it was done right, of course—and wanted Shane to think seriously about Terrance’s offer. Shane also tried to talk with Porter about it all—going to the Scott house for dinner one night, where Porter was working on the book about his Anthem experience he was trying to write, still trying to figure out the reason he’d been given his powers and had them taken away, and starting to suspect, with some pride, that perhaps it had all just happened for him to shepherd Shane along—but knowing how Porter would feel about Shane’s gift being given the Hollywood treatment, Shane chickened out.

Meanwhile, in Southern Siberia, on Lake Baikal, a fishing boat, about to be sunk by a summer storm, was rescued by a young girl of about sixteen, a local folk legend that several fortunate fishermen learned to be real. The girl lived in the lake, breathed water and seemed to have great strength, and was timid and shy around people, keeping away from humanity for reasons of her own. The locals had named her after the lake, calling her “Baikal”.

And in Venice Beach, California, Delight—dealing with her own sudden global celebrity—was walking home on the boardwalk one day, thinking of Windjammer (as she had been often since their big kiss), when she was struck blind and overwhelmed by a bright light that seemed to explode right in her mind. She came back to “reality” and seemed to find herself in Washington D.C.—and in the future, in her future body, with no control, able to see and feel only. She was tied to a stake in front of the Lincoln Memorial in the dead of winter, with a ragged mob of thousands before her (and the Washington Monument broken behind them), a crowd that seemed to want her blood…with many of them holding what looked like sledgehammers crossed together like some kind of emblem or symbol. A uniformed and scarred man on a microphone spoke of her as a traitor, whipping the crowed into a murderous frenzy, talking about some crime she’d committed. Unable to react or speak, she could only watch the scene in horror. At one point, the crowd went silent in awe, and the uniformed man who clearly hated her looked behind her, at someone she couldn’t see, and asked for judgment. Whoever the unseen figure was, after a long pause, the scarred one smiled evilly, having gotten the answer he’d wanted. He ordered his men to set her on fire, and she was burned at the stake to the cheers of those watching, a crowd that chanted “long live the Hammer!”. As she felt herself dying, she also felt something her future self’s mind give…her light powers flooded her, as though they’d been somehow blocked and were only returning now at the end. It was already too late for her body, but her mind seemed to do something with the light. She wasn’t able to figure what, as, thankfully, she suddenly came back to herself in the present, finding herself—unburned—laying in the middle of the street where she’d collapsed, a concerned crowd now around her, left terrified and confused and feeling she might be going insane. (CHAPTER FOUR).

Shane, too, seemed to be having some kind of psychic experience, but his was in the form of a recurring dream that kept coming back to him, haunting his nights. It was a dream filled with symbols, where he saw a dark king, and his queen, and a blackness coming from the queen and destroying a “city of angels” before the king went on to overthrow the world. In the dream, Windjammer saw himself standing against the king, alongside some kind of symbols or metaphors—the eagle, the knight, the lightning, the witch, the avenger. He never saw the outcome of this battle, because the dream would always dissolve into a crystal-clear vision, a scene that seemed to be viewed from his eyes, with him sitting on café patio, looking across at a bank called “Pacific Federal”. He could always make out the sign there that showed the time, date and temperature—3:37pm, 12/31/96 (the upcoming New Year’s Eve), 83 degrees. He would awake in a sweat each time, convinced more and more he was losing his mind, and didn’t share this with anyone. But the city of angels part clearly seemed like Los Angeles, and was it a coincidence that Terrance Cross wanted to bring him to L.A. for New Year’s?

In the midst of this turmoil, and indecision over making the trip, something very positive happened in his life. Being a drama major, Shane auditioned for a new play on campus, and it was at this audition that he met a poly-sci major named Renee Weathers. They’d gotten off on the wrong foot and didn’t seem to care for each other much…so of course they were cast opposite each other as the play’s romantic leads. Forced to work together, they did their best to put their animosity and their differences—him being very laid-back and fun-loving, her being much more type-A and focused and businesslike—aside for the good of the production. But their first kiss during the first major rehearsal somehow turned into a very real kiss, on stage, to the delight of their fellow actors who got a big kick of out the moment, but to the embarrassment of Renee. Shane and Renee met the next day for one of their one-on-one rehearsals at the campus activity center, where she’d tried to explain away what had happened as a mistake and just them being caught up in their roles and wanted to forget it ever happened and move on. He’d agreed, but their rehearsal that day got too intimate, and she grabbed and kissed him again, and both finally admitted their unexpected feelings for each other. They began a relationship—one that was an amazing breath of fresh air to Shane’s life—but the goal-oriented Renee, who had made a promise to herself, when she came to school in Arizona from her home in Colorado, to avoid such distractions, insisted on labeling them as “just dating”. Regardless of the fact that they spent almost all their free time together and were very happy. So Shane ended up, to his surprise and delight, with a wonderful non-girlfriend.

One night, after a frantic and deadly armored car chase that Windjammer had ended before it almost resulted in tragedy down on Mill Avenue near his campus—and after a talk from Captain Bonilla where his liaison convinced him that he was doing a good job and that people needed the hope that Windjammer brought them—Shane flew back to his Jeep that he’d parked near the Hole In The Rock landmark. While he was in the midst of changing out of his costume, he heard a voice, and turned around the find a smiling face floating upside down behind him. Delight had returned, and quickly righted herself and threw herself into a passionate kiss with him. The girl he’s shared such an amazing moment with—and a girl that he’d desperately wanted to see again because of all the things they shared in common, things only she could understand—had come back, and at a really bad time in his life. He managed to hold off her affections and get his costume back on and take a walk with her up to the Rock, where they talked about all the things that had happened to them both since their big TV debut. Convinced that they were perfect for each other—and that the world seemed to want them to be together—Delight made her intentions clear and tried, again, to get amorous with him. He held her back, however, torn because of his new relationship with Renee (something he didn’t bring up to Delight) and because of the new respect for his heroing—and how serious and life-and-death it was—that he’d gotten that night. Convinced by her own issues that he was rejecting her because he thought she was beneath him, she angrily lashed out and stormed off. But he’d found her, crying, inside the tunnel, and had felt terribly guilty and had gone to her, and the girl had admitted her fears at everything going on in her life, and how terribly alone she was, and how much she needed him. She’d come back to Phoenix to seduce him because it was the only way she knew to make him want to be around her. And she also ended up telling a heartbreaking tale of how, at ten years old, living in a run-down apartment in L.A. with her junkie mother, she’d come home and found her mother dead of an overdose, and had been left alone in the world, put in abusive foster homes until she’d run away and made her own way on the streets. Shane had held her desperately during her emotional disclosure, and suddenly wanted nothing more than to take care of her. They had kissed and held each other, and that night built a strong bond of mutual need. He’d ended up telling her, almost accidentally, about the Terrance Cross offer, and she’d desperately pleaded with him to accept, so that he could visit her in L.A., and they could spend the holidays together. Tortured by his thoughts of Renee, but feeling like fate was pulling him west—his Windjammer life, his mysterious dreams, and this girl that needed him so badly that he didn’t want to hurt further—he decided that night that he would go.

The following day, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, a young woman who made her living as a costume designer received a visit from one of her recent clients…a man named Nathan Carthage. He’d hired her to make him something of a super-hero costume, presumably for a party. Once he’d received the final product from her, he used his hellish powers to blow her studio apart, and burn her up right with it, and left with his costume, and for whatever “party” he truly had in mind. (CHAPTER FIVE).

Shane contacted Terrance Cross and accepted his offer, also pitching the idea of a writer (and roommate) he knew—Jerry—giving the Windjammer screenplay a try. Eager to please, Terrance accepted (after receiving copies of some of Jerry’s plays and actually being convinced he could write, and write well) and offered to fly them both out. Jerry had been writing at a frantic pace, and by the time the day come for them to leave, he had completed the first draft of what could become the Windjammer movie. The “cover story” that the two roommates gave (the one Shane, with much guilt, had to give to Renee, who still had no idea about his life as Windjammer) was that they were going to Hollywood to meet with some of Lana’s old industry friends, to do some networking and take the chance to advance their careers as actor and writer during winter break. But Lana knew the truth, and was scared to death at the idea of losing her son to Hollywood (even as a super-hero), as she’d tried so hard to get away from that life and keep him from it. And Shane had to tell Porter the truth as well, something he put off, like a coward, until the last moment, knowing how Porter would feel about what Terrance was trying to do…turning a hero into a superstar.

Lana dropped them at Scottsdale’s private airport, where a tanned and friendly man in a suit was waiting to escort them to their plane. Waiting to pick up Jerry Lowell and his friend, “Chris Johnson”, that is. To protect his identity, Shane had arranged this all with Terrance (who also didn’t know Windjammer’s real name, and had never asked for it). As far as Terrance’s people knew, Terrance was flying in—and wining and dining—a hot young screenwriting prospect, and that writer was bringing his roommate along, one named Chris Johnson. The boys found themselves, to their amazement, escorted to luxurious private jet owned by Terrance’s production company—KnightCross Productions—and getting treated like royalty. A limo waited for them in Burbank, and they were taken on a quick driving tour of L.A. hotspots and landmarks before being driven to their home for the holidays—a beach house in Malibu that came with all the amenities, including a private beach, a caterer, and a Mercedes and a Ferrari for their use. At the house they met Ash Gibson, Terrance’s personal assistant, a smart and very likeable young woman just a handful of years older than them, who was at their disposal for whatever they needed. Terrance seemed determined to give his special guests the full celebrity treatment, and it certainly appeared they were going to get it. Though Ash, to the boys’ nervous concern, seemed very curious as to what secret project Jerry was working on for Terrance, and why she was being kept in the dark about it.

That night they drove to Terrance’s extravagant home in Beverly Hills for a private dinner with the Hollywood legend, and had an amazing time. Terrance took the opportunity to have a talk with Windjammer, convincing him further that the world was going to be demanding a piece of him anyway, so it was best to control it. And per his promise, he wanted to make this trip a vacation for Windjammer, and didn’t want him to feel pressured to make any decisions, but had a few things in mind to “get his feet wet”. (CHAPTERS SIX AND SEVEN).

Three days later, at the Planet Hollywood in Beverly Hills, an annual event was taking place, a Christmas party fundraiser for local children’s charities put on by the Planet partners—Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Terrance Cross. The event was jammed with celebrities—from Samuel Jackson to Charlie Sheen to Tom Hanks to Terry Bradshaw—and the press were getting all their shots. But what the press weren’t expecting was for Terrance to bring out a special guest…Windjammer. Reporters went insane, having to be restrained by security, and Windjammer, who’d agreed to this as his first real public appearance, was overwhelmed by the madness of it all. But he managed through it, and had a great time talking with the assembled children, and meeting all the celebrities that he’d watched on the big and small screens all his life, all of whom, to his amazement, seemed honored to meet him. Word spread fast, and soon the streets outside the popular restaurant were completely jammed with crowds trying to get a look inside at him. A quick ceremony /photo-op was held where Windjammer donated his original unarmored costume to Planet Hollywood to put on display, but Terrance wanted to be sure to get him out of there quickly…concerns about not wanting to cause a mob scene in the streets aside, Terrance felt it was important to just give the world a quick taste of Windjammer and leave them wanting more, so he wouldn’t even allow reporters to get any of their frantically screamed questions answered. Windjammer found himself disturbed when talking to Bruce Willis, who innocently asked if he was planning to move to L.A. now. Was that where this was all leading, Shane wondered? Was his normal life already becoming a distant memory? With a dramatic exit from the roof of the restaurant, and a waving flight over the frenzied crowd outside (captured by many TV cameras and beamed all over the world), he took off into the L.A. sky, still freaked out by it all (his first real taste of celebrity), but blown away by the most amazing moment of his life.

Jerry, meanwhile, had a lunch meeting at Spago with a woman named Connie from KnightCross’s script department—a stunning L.A. blonde that he’d already met with—and David Carroll, the V.P. of development at Fox, who was very intrigued at whatever secret project Terrance was bringing to the studio and the young writer that seemed to be part of it. During the lunch Jerry discovered two things—one, that his name was already being whispered all over town, which he still couldn’t believe, and two, that Connie seemed to be showing more than just business interest in him (in not very subtle ways).

Taking his post-Planet time, while Jerry was otherwise occupied, Shane did something that he greatly feared but couldn’t avoid. He looked up Pacific Federal, and found that it was a real bank, and tracked down all the branches in L.A. On his second attempt, he found that—as much as he’d hoped he’d find otherwise—he wasn’t crazy. As impossible as it sounded, when he found the branch in Beverly Hills, he found a café across the street from it, one with a patio. Going in, on near-trembling legs, he requested a patio table—and found himself looking at the exact same view from his dreams. He had no idea how this was possible, but it was real. Something was going to happen at 3:37pm on New Year’s Eve day, something he apparently would have to be at this café—Geneva’s—for. And if the dream was right on all counts, many people—maybe thousands, maybe millions—were going to die. Unless he stopped it. The problem was, he had no idea how he was supposed to do that.

At a party in the Hills that night, Jerry, suddenly finding himself part of the Hollywood inner circle, had a very entertaining conversation with Quentin Tarantino. He also had his date for the party, Connie, telling him how he was already in play, and how big he was going to be. And he also found himself in a passionate kiss on the deck with Connie, a woman he could never have dreamed of being with just days before.

Back at the house in Malibu, left alone, Shane was an emotional wreck, with seemingly the whole world on his shoulders. Fears of Windjammer overtaking everything in his life, of his now belonging to the world, and not to himself, were consuming him. Fears about his visions—that’s what they now appeared to be—were overwhelming him. He needed to talk to someone. Someone who could understand him. He sat staring at Delight’s phone number, which he’d kept hidden in his wallet since she’d given it to him in Arizona. He’d not used it since he’d been in town. He wasn’t sure he wanted to, as thoughts of Renee and the guilt they brought were tearing him up inside. But driven by his sudden need for her, he surrendered and phoned her. And twenty minutes later, for better or worse, she was at his door. (CHAPTER EIGHT).

Take Me To Chapter Nine!