The second issue of the Convergence crossover takes place in Night Force #8. The cover shows The Child attacking Prince Topaz. Poor Topaz. I made fun of him so much in the main Amethyst series, but he really really doesn’t deserve what happens to him in this crossover.

Night Force is about a sorcerer named Baron Winters. The issue opens with Baron Winters feeling troubled in his library. Prince Topaz is feeling troubled in Washington D.C. He appears to be running through a cloud of paper. Flaw is hooked up to a machine, drawing energy from opals.

There is a lot of quasi-poetic language used to introduce the characters that doesn’t seem to mean much. Flaw is with a bunch of clearly evil people, who are targeting Baron Winters because he was a dissenter in the magical conclave.

I think they are trying to keep their actions a secret from Amethyst, because Evil Dude #1 says “Our queen must be distracted from my actions.” Evil Dude #2 reassures other Evil Dude that Winters will believe whatever their evil dude plan is, because they will distract him with a puzzle to keep his mind occupied while they implement their plans.

I think their evil dude plan is to blindside Baron Winters with a horrible cliche. A pregnant woman named Lea Girard flees her pursuers and accidentally strikes a small blond man who was crossing the street. She grabs the man and takes him to the nearby Wintersgate manor where Baron Winters lives. Here is the description of his house, “Wintersgate Manor. She feels its presence long before she sees it. Darker than obsidian, night against night. Yet warm, golden sunlight streams out through windows protected with wrought-iron.” I didn’t think it was possible for anyone else to achieve a level of overwriting in parallel with James Robinson’s work, but that has to be one of the most fulsome real estate descriptions I have ever encountered.

Lea and Baron Winters argue about how to treat the accident victim. She thinks they should call for a doctor. He says they’ll treat him at his house. Winters comments “Look at his face…it’s almost too smooth. Too perfect. No pores.”

Winters suggests that they talk about Lea’s accident. She says “It’s them. They sent him after me.” She starts to run away. Winters wonders why everyone keeps making things difficult for him. The Child opens his eyes. Prince Topaz lurks outside, talking to himself. He can’t find his car and he wonders why The Child is inside the house, and if Amethyst supports what he is doing here. Topaz decides that he needs to enter the house to ask for Winters’ help and also to help protect him.

Winters goes after Lea before she can leave the house. They go back into the room where the child was and see that he’s vanished. Winters sends his giant cat Merlin off in search of the intruder. Lea provides a bunch of exposition for her predicament. She ran away from home and hitched a ride from an evil senator who took her to a goth club. She was taken to a back room filled with members of the Infinity Cult. She was gang raped by the cult. They were chanting mystical things while they assaulted her.

Elsewhere, Amethyst’s minions observe Baron Winters’ house through the child’s eyes. The Child finds a secret room with a link to the conclave. The evil senator sends the infinity cult after Lea. He says “We don’t care about her…just what she carries.” Lea continues with her story of how the cult made her pregnant, her child was born within a month and they took him from her. Then she was finally able to run away and wound up on Winters’ doorstep.

Winters is suddenly concerned about something.

I wonder why he is so concerned about his white room. The Child crouches down, identifying a portal to the conclave. A magical pit also powers his house. The Child plans to destroy the pit and Winters. Here comes the cavalry, in the form of Topaz wearing some strange baggy pajamas!

Topaz and The Child must have grown in power. As they fight the portentous narration discloses the aftermath of their battle, “Child and Topaz. Hunter and Hunted from Gemworld. Their battle is not physical but mystic. In this world they duel…while in other dimensions worlds are destroyed with their every movement.” I think the other dimensions are also weeping in pain over Topaz’s yellow pajamas.

Topaz tries to get The Child to join his rebellion, and he is rejected.

Lea struggles with the Infinity Cult. She yells that she’ll die before they take her baby. Baron Winters observes the fight between The Child and Topaz. He thinks that Lea was a perfect distraction, as he was so interested in her story he didn’t think to question the presence of The Child. Winters decides to act to defend himself against The Child in his White Room with black curtains near the station..

Winters says he will seal the link to the conclave forever. Topaz and The Child are free to continue their battle elsewhere. Topaz says “You cannot ignore this struggle, Winters. These people will stop at nothing.” The Child yells “The queen is power, Winters! With the influence of the conclave at her call, nothing will stay her hand!”

Topaz leaves, getting into some trouble with a mystical seal. Baron Winters concludes “Gemworlders….all as mad as march hares…” He remembers Lea and rushes back to her side. She’s lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Winters can tell that she’s dying. The Infinity Cult came to take her baby. Winters said that they had already taken her boy. She says “I was giving birth to identical twins. One boy. One girl. One light. One dark. They were conceived to preserve harmony in the universe but I couldn’t let them have them both.” Winters asks why she didn’t tell him earlier, because he could have saved her. She says that she’d given up on herself long ago, but she was giving birth to the saviors of the universe. Lea dies.

This was a fairly unsatisfying comic. While the presence of Topaz was amusing, I thought that the women raped by an evil cult plot was really cliched, and fraternal twins are not identical twins! Get your facts straight dying comic book lady! Baron Winters also seems rather inert and unengaged as a character, I can’t say I found him interesting at all.

Convergence continues in Challengers of the Unknown #6! Strange things happen in Salt Lake City!