Newsflash Archive

 TRIAD Newsflash Archive 



December 21st, 3091



The latest chapter of Into the Void: Battleworld saw the party bid Dual-Rog, Jammin' Jim, and his convoy goodbye for now, while Inquisitor flew off to do some scouting. The heroes continued to advance on the tower, coming across two giant mechanical beings and a huge metal door leading to an apparent approach passageway to the tower. The heroes engaged the mechanical beings, which began to exhibit a variety of powers including a challenging Plasma Shield to protect themselves and rendering them immune to Shadowformer's Shadow Duplication power. Shadow wanted to back off at this point, but Dark Lord decided to force his hand. The soldier from the future, Alec Brady, and his 'mech engaged one of the mechanical beings with Psych and Ironwolf, though Ironwolf went down quickly due to an electrical surge from the mechanical being's Plasma Shield. Collectively, the group managed to generate enough offense to bring down the mechanical beings, though Brady's mech was badly damaged in the process, so the group cautiously advanced on the metal doors to an apparent semi-underground corridor...



December 31st, 3091



The latest chapter of Into the Void: Battleworld saw Void Walker and his crew finally make their way inside the miles-long corridors leading to the tower, though it was not an easy task, as while they advanced, waves of some sort of energy ripped through the cross-corridors and when it did so, it took several of the team with, including Trinity, Jeff Grimm, and Ironwolf. The only good news to come out of this was that Inquisitor had caught back up with the party and rejoined them as they pressed on, ultimately finding themselves opposed by Barret Hoyt and his minions, Catfight, Mainframe, and Cinnamon and a mercenary Hoyt had encountered and hired by the name of "Ghost". Barret Hoyt revealed a new trick, apparently he had somehow gained the formidable powers of a Werebear, and a pitched battle ensued! In a manner of speaking, Dark Lord helped turn the tide by buying off Ghost and having him change sides and eventually only Barret, who now calls himself "Wolfhunter" remained standing but ended up being tricked into getting caught in another one of the energy waves, which apparently banished Wolfhunter, his minions (other than Ghost) and Void Walker! The reporter JoAnne McDonnell, who had been with the party since early on, then outbid Dark Lord for Ghost's services and hired him on for _her_ protection! The group then pressed on, finally finding what appeared to be the nerve center of the complex, with a huge elevator-like device running through the middle of it and a console of some sort with a man sitting behind it, apparently connected to the entire complex! The man wore dark pants, no shirt, a metal bandolier, a gun of sort hanging from his back, and a metal battle-helmet, concealing his head and face. He informed the party that he was called "BlackMane" and that he was the one who was controlling the technology within the "battleworld" and with a few simple moves, he summoned up a small army of what appeared to be creatures of liquid metal, not unlike Void Walker himself!





May 31st, 3092 (2010)



The final chapter saw the assembled heroes defeat BlackMane's minions, then BlackMane himself, and then Dark Lord and Electric Lord when they turned on the heroes and tried to seize the Battleworld Time Scoop for themselves! The Elders Sentinel, Zyoity, and Kindred arrived and explained to the heroes that this technology once belonged to the Elders and was supposed to be sealed away never to be used again. They then offered to send everyone back to the appropriate timelines but Lt. Alec Brady, whose timeline ceased to exist while he was in the Battleworld, returned, instead, to the past to the era where he would become a founding member of the Seekers, and Inquisitor, whom Zyoity had informed would die pointlessly if he returned to the Golden Age chose, instead, to join the heroes in Contemporary!



In the chapter that followed the Battleworld, Void Walker, Carmine, Quick-Shot, Inquisitor, Flak, Ghost, Robert Header, Lizzie Slimeskin, Flash Froggie, Duedll Lorikeet, and the others on board the Rebel returned to Altair to find it with a fully entrenched T'Karri occupation force being coordinated by a gigantic super-mothership. Flak connected back up with his brother, Dagg Nikodemus and Adrenaline, who had also contacted and been joined by Jammin' Jim and nearly every ally the Garage Boyz had back on Old Earth, and while Void Walker and the others had been away, the remaining heroes had marshaled all the forces they could, including every non-captured able-bodied superhero, all the remaining Altairian Defense Force troops, and a small army of reverse-engineered URSA stealth transports outfitted with the best weapons available. The plan was simple- all the ground forces attacked the central T'Karr presence at Capitol City while every remaining space worthy combat ship and hero capable of fighting in space would attack the super-mothership, trying to create enough chaos so that the Rebel and a small team of heroes could get inside and destroy the T'Karr Supreme Intelligence. And the plan, though costly, was successful- after fighting through another wave of mind-controlled heroes, then the T'Karr Champions themselves, the heroes finally got a shot at the T'Karr Supreme Intelligence "Mother Brain" and destroyed it, the resulting psychic feedback killing many of the closest T'Karr Intelligences in the battlefield and in the skies above, plunging the far more numerous T'Karr occupation force into chaos, giving the remaining Altairian forces a big opening for a counter-attack. In a suicidal gesture, the T'Karr Super-Mothership then fired every missile in its arsenal at targets on the planet below, including more than a dozen Crystillium warhead missiles aimed at the mines of Gammador, the intention being that if one or more of those missiles struck any significant vein of Crystillium, the resulting Khedrium Reaction, like the one that destroyed Kerrok, would consume Altair and destroy it utterly!

<p class="MsoNormal"> A small group had assembled to help with the ground forces, consisting of Ballard Cathan, Robert Header, the mercenary Ghost, Jingles the Demonic Clown, SKULL, Outsider, Streetbreaker, and others stumbled across Raw Hide's away party (Shades, Philo Camion, and Hacksaw), who had apparently been hired by the cosmically-powered New Wave and joined by the undead life-drainer Carrion overran Power Star Energy Alternatives, trying to steal some sort of artifact in a crate. They deployed a berserk Kobron as Ballard's group attacked, and ultimately Ghost ended up with the crate and its contents, something that looked like liquid metal armor, which Ghost attempted to put on! New Wave was beside herself and let it slip that the armor was, in fact, the very armor her cosmic adversary Starhawk had worn for his illustrious career, and was the armor he had died in! She tried to blast him with a bolt of Cosmic Energy but the armor activated and deflected it somehow! The villains were fairly quickly routed and Hacksaw was killed in the battle.

<p class="MsoNormal"> A few hours passed as the previously-mentioned attack on the T'Karri had begun. New Wave and some of Raw Hide's ground crew had escaped to parts unknown. The heroes had healed up a bit and prepared to rejoin the ground offensive, but Ballard's group then saw the fire in the sky as the missiles began to work towards their targets, so in desperation, they teleported to Starport Delta in hopes of getting aid and/or a starship. After some confusion with the security forces at Starport Delta, the heroes were informed that there were no ship available of any kind at the starport, with pretty much everything space worthyeither pressed into use against the T'Karri, or having been used to evacuate Altair. The heroes ran into an equally-rested New Wave, Philo Camion, and Shades, who _also_ had retreated to Starport Delta and another battle ensued, with New Wave threatening to hose Ghost out of the Starhawk armor if need be. Several well-placed attacks later, even as Ghost tried to get the armor to respond to his commands, New Wave went down and Philo Camion surrendered, offering to turn himself into star port security. The heroes got an idea, though, and asked if Philo had a ship at the port. He sheepishly admitted that he did, and surrendered it to the heroes, who immediately put it to use heading back to Altair. Within minutes the ship, known as the Scavenger, which appeared to be a hodge-podge of non-matching designs and surprisingly impressive weapons, including 2 Pulse Cannons, a Photon Thrower, an EMP Torpedo system, and "Weapon X" which turned out to be a primary T'Karr Mothership Protonic Cannon! They put these weapons to good use as they dispatched as many of the incoming missiles as they could.

<p class="MsoNormal">There was a battle on a second front, though, as it turned out the ship wasn't quite as empty as initial impressions- specifically, Philo Camion, or at least his Geminian Duplicate, was still onboard! He fought a guerrilla campaign, sedating Jingles in a healing chamber which then released Jingles' evil personality when he and Streetbreaker were finished healing, resulting in a short battle between the two, spacing Ghost, who survived only due to the Starhawk armor's Space Travel power, nearly feeding Robert Header into a live Pulse Cannon and, eventually, when he realized he wasn't going to be able to retake the ship alone, killing the power so that a little surprise in the cargo bay- a captive T'Karr Intelligence could act! The alien quickly found a target once free of the psychic dampening fields that had been keeping it contained, mind-controlling SKULL, who then nearly killed Streetbreaker and Ballard and then tried to destroy the ship and crew in the upper atmosphere. Ghost managed to find his way back into the ship, breaking into the very cargo-bay where the T'Karr Intelligence dwelled, and after a short battle, he managed to finally kill it! SKULL then went down, and Robert Header's lessons in starship piloting that he had been getting from SKULL paid off, as he pulled the ship up. Finally, Philo Camion managed to get to an escape pod, with Jingles the Clown hot on his trail and Ghost nearby. Jingles tried to follow but he, too, was spaced when the escape-pod's safety door, which had been sabotaged by Philo Camion, allowed Jingles to open the hatch into open space! Jingles was thrust out into space and Ghost was only narrowly able to fly after him, and even though Ghost got to him and was dragging him back to the ship, it looked like it was going to be too late! Robert Header had located them by the newly-restored ship sensors and used his teleportation power to pull them back aboard just in time to save Jingles!

<p class="MsoNormal"> The ship was safe and had dispatched many of the missiles, including all of the Crystillium-armed warheads that had been in the remaining wave when the Scavenger returned to orbit. The T'Karri had been defeated, driven back, and forced to retreat in chaos and disorder, decimated by the determined counter-attack. Altair was once again free. It would be a long time before things returned to normal, but at least the immediate threat was over...

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<p class="MsoNormal">August 22nd, 3092

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<p class="MsoNormal">Still smarting a bit from their defeat at the hands of Foundation, and the capture of member Shadowformer, Adrenaline pulled together all the current team members of her as-yet-unnamed superhero team in an effort to regroup. As they began their first official meeting as a team and started deciding on a name, a strange beeping sounded from one of the old consoles in their new base. Former Hero Academy student Murder and the enigmatic Void Walker investigated and found a strange device similar to a wristwatch, and on it there was a set of coordinates that pointed to somewhere within Grayfolk, deep underground. Adrenaline used the base's recently restored teleporter sensors to determine that there was enough open space at the coordinates to facilitate teleportation, so she dispatched Murder to gather a team of rookies to investigate. She was joined by All-Sport II, Sparx, Streetbreaker, and Jingles the Clown. They warped in and found a group of five strange looking people scavenging amongst what appeared to be a high-tech laboratory. The leader of the five ordered three of her team to engage the heroes. The attackers were identified as metahumans, one called Mayhem, who had the apparent ability to spread bad luck, Water Boy, who could transform his body into an Elemental-like water form, and his sister Vermin Girl, who could apparently assume animal forms. Streetbreaker struck hardest in the opening volley, delivering a haymaker that appeared to dispatch Mayhem into the great beyond. Water Boy then engaged him and attempted to enter his body through Streetbreaker's ear! Streetbreaker responded by unloading his recently developed electrical-touch, which took out Water Boy, but also nearly took Streetbreaker out, too. As the battle continued, another group of three strangers warped in, led by a familiar face, the alien Eclipse, who quickly shrouded the entire battlefield in darkness as his minions, whom he called "Rookie" and "NeXus", attacked, NeXus freezing the leader of the five, later identified as Shady Lady, in a block of ice, with Rookie then hoisting up the block of ice. NeXus then blasted Streetbreaker, nearly killing him, but Streetbreaker was saved by the quick acting Sparx who used his healing beam on him. Jingles, meanwhile, caught between Mayhem and the fifth member of the adversaries, called Wonder Ton, and blinded by Eclipse, reacted by unleashing his sonic-attack squeaky shoes all around him, taking out Mayhem and Wonder Ton, but not before Wonder Ton, who had absorbed a blow from Streetbreaker and had swollen up with a phenomenal amount of mass, pinning Jingles beneath his bulk. In the ensuing chaos, Eclipse then warped out with NeXus, Rookie, and Shady Lady in tow. The darkness lifted, the installation was bathed in full light as the recently-arriving Particle had rebooted the mainframe and restored normal power to the lab. Apparently it was connecting to a Horizons Unlimited operation called "Project Zeus". As Particle went to healing the wounded, a hesitant truce was called by Murder, and the members of the group of five expressed their concern at their kidnapped leader!

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<p class="MsoNormal">January 9th, 3093 (2011)

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<p class="MsoNormal">The as-yet-unnamed hero group continued to add recruits who were tested against members of Foundation and an inadvertent battle with members of the M-13 in Siphon's old lair, when the M-13 stumbled upon it. The main thing to come out of that was a seemingly teenage clone of the deceased hero Dawnstar, who agreed to return with the M-13 for further investigation. As this concluded, a message came in that Wrath had been located! A team was quickly gathered, consisting of Streetbreaker, Void Walker, Metal Lance, Sunbird, and Cueball, the heaviest hitters the group had available at the time. Upon arrival, they found a young woman with several unidentified metahumans! The young girl was startled and suddenly transformed into the rocky shell of Wrath! Metal Lance attacked, as did Wrath, and the battle quickly degenerated.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The other side turned out to be peopled with fellow heroes including Lt. Nathan Alexander, Revolutionary, and TiaraWolf, and it turned out that Wrath was in the process of surrendering to them! Sunbird caught sight of TiaraWolf, her mother, and all hostilities ceased, for a moment at least. It didn't last, though, as another group suddenly warped in, calling themselves "The Enforcers", led by a man called "The Colonel" and demanding that the heroes turn over Wrath, citing the Altairian Army and declaring Grayfolk under Martial Law! The collected heroes began to negotiate, but then The Colonel indicated that Wrath was to be submitted to summary execution! The battle was again joined. The Enforcers had slightly superior numbers and a certain amount of surprise, and, in fact, consisted of a number of known former Enforcers or allies, including Spectral, Slammer, Jipstara, Omen, Iron Miran, CopyCat, Devilcat, The Bee, former Guardian Arcana, newcomer The Veteran, an apparent partial clone of Black Beast, and Donner's World survivor Alex Hightower, now simply known as Tower! The Colonel ordered the attack but the heroes fought back bravely, taking down Tower fairly quickly with a well-placed Dazzle from Sunbird, who was in turn struck down by The Colonel. TiaraWolf reacted in a rage and smashed The Colonel into a wrecked semi-truck. Arcana then struck down TiaraWolf with a freeze-potion! Wrath responded with lethal force, killing The Veteran, but then powered down and essentially cowered, not wanting to do such horrible things anymore. It was a brave fight, but the heroes were a little bit outclassed and soon Metal Lance, Wrath, and the surprisingly effective CueBall remained alone. Metal Lance talked Wrath, or, rather the girl inside, to teleport out before they were killed, and she complied, warping out, though with the stealthy Alger-Cat ninja Jipstara tagging along. CueBall then fled, too, and the recovering Colonel ordered the remainder of the Enforcers to gather up and capture the downed opposition.

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<p class="MsoNormal">February 25th, 3093

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<p class="MsoNormal">The as-yet-unnamed hero group was contacted by members of a rebel faction allied with the Garage Boyz to request help as civil war had erupted on the Crystillium-rich dictatorship island of Gammador- apparently during the final hours of the War for Independence from the T'Karri, Oragoth himself, Dictator for Life for Gammador, flew into the oncoming onslaught of Khedrium missiles and stopped some of them, but he never returned. As some time passed and he did not return, unrest grew, and then a third party, Black Hand from Donner's World and his group of shipwreck survivors, who with help from the Dreaded Four and their allies, seized control of the government from TimeLapse and the Vendetta Loyalists.

<p class="MsoNormal"> A small team was dispatched to land on Kaydoe Inlet, outside the territory of Gammador, and infiltrate. The team included Ice, Ghost, Carmine Bomber, Ballard Cathan, and Quickshot. Shortly after landing, they were confronted by an armored unit of Gamamdorian soldiers and, initially unknown to the heroes, the bulk of the Vendetta Loyalists- a battle ensued but fairly quickly, with the arrival of rebel MorDak, who was loosely allied with the Loyalists, the two groups realized they were on the same side. TimeLapse explained the situation to the heroes and Eradicator joined their ranks. Timelapse and the other Vendetta Loyalists set out on some secret errand while the heroes and Eradicator plotted a way to get to see the new Emperor Black Hand in person so they could try to expose or defeat him. Eventually they decided to disguise themselves at peasants and ask for a boon from the Emperor, a weekly ritual on the island. They came up with disguises and hid their weapons behind the tavern in a false wall so that when things inevitably went south, Quickshot could teleport to the stash and teleport back with the weapons.

<p class="MsoNormal">They were granted the chance to beg for the boon, except for the in-disguise Eradicator, who was singled out as the rest of the group was allowed inside. Carmine Bomber was asked what his boon was to be by Black Hand himself, and Carmine asked for money, to which Black Hand made the counter-offer of giving Carmine a job. He then conjured up a sniper rifle and gave it to Carmine, saying that if he truly wants money, he should shoot Quickshot!

<p class="MsoNormal"> At that point, the heroes pretty much realized they had been found out- in the royal hall, surrounded by Black Hand's parahumans, so Quickshot attempted to teleport out but realized to his horror that he could not, as apparently the scattering field had been again erected! Those heroes who had useful innate powers or hidden weapons leapt into a desperate battle for survival, which quickly started to go badly as the Donner's World survivors summoned the powerful combined entity they called "Collective". Fortunately mere moments later the doors burst inward and Black Lance joined the battle on the side of the heroes! Shortly thereafter, Eradicator crept to the scatter field generator and disabled it, and Quickshot was finally able to get the rest of the team's weapons. Eradicator joined the battle as Black Lance managed to take out Collective, and eventually Black Hand went down, and MorDak decapitated him in cold blood, since his Soul Eater axe, "Twisted Truth", had not fed yet that day. Once Black Hand was dead, the resolve of his allied faded quickly and they gave up.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Once the rebels were secured, Black Lance then declared he would name himself Emperor, citing an ancient bloodline predating Oragoth's bloodline, though a bloodline that had at some point surrendered the throne to the Goth line after a brutal civil war that ended in a tournament duel that the Goth representative won. But since there were no successors to Oragoth, Black Lance cited his own Pell bloodline, known as the ancient protectors of the throne, put him next in line. Another hero, representing the loosely affiliated hero group Dimension, specializing in things mystical, agreed that what Black Lance claimed did jive with the history he was aware of. The hero Inquisitor, who had arrived with Barith as backup, then demanded that if he were to go along with this coronation, the new Emperor would have to make a gesture of good faith and free _all_ of Gammador's slave labor force, even the newly captured rebels. Black Lance agreed and then vowed to go on a quest for an artifact known as the Destiny Lance that would prove Black Lance's claim to the throne. He then gave the heroes an aircraft and they went on their way, promising to keep open lines of communication. Unable to raise Adrenaline or any of the other heroes back home via radio, the heroes decided to leave with all due haste.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The heroes then left for the airfield but were attacked by the Dreaded Four and some of their parahuman allies! a pitched battle was fought with the surprisingly tenacious D-4, but in the end, they were defeated, ally Warrior Cannibal was killed in the ensuing battle. Upon arriving at the airplane, an almost antique propeller powered thing, the heroes were greeted by Cold Foot, one of the other Garage Boyz-allied heroes that had been helping the Vendetta Loyalists, the heroes that had called our group into assist in the first place. He had passed the time waiting by making a huge assortment of finger sandwiches, which the heroes, especially Ice, who had recently developed the ability to assume the form of a dragon, and was wracked with a ravenous hunger, eagerly devoured. The heroes got some much needed rest on the way back, but, as seems typical these days, shortly before it was time to land, the plane began to fail, one of the engines sputtering out, then the other. Through a bit of a comedy of errors, Ice and Cold Foot escaped from the belly of the plane through the cargo hatch, though Ice was unable to find her bearings and smashed into the ground, thankfully essentially unhurt. Cold Foot then came to her side and she asked him to go find her gear, that had also spilled out of the cargo hatch. She was also struggling from her newly-acquired Light Blindness, the bright mesa sun making it hard for her to get around. She turned back into her human form, unfortunately Cold Foot ended up missing her once she shrunk, so he headed for the downed plane. MorDak and Inquisitor, meanwhile, had flown towards the base, behind Quickshot, Ghost, and Carmine, who had teleported. MorDak and Inquisitor saw Cold Foot coming and Inquisitor received an apparent telepathic signal from Adrenaline, claiming that it was a trap! Shortly thereafter, Cold Foot began firing on MorDak and Inquisitor, but Cold Foot was quickly defeated by Inquisitor.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Ice meanwhile heard a voice from a man calling himself "Mark" asking her if she was a hero from the nearby "military base" that he had seen appear. He offered to take her to it, she agreed, since she had lost everyone else, but it turned out to be a trap and the man walked her into a sinkhole caused by a hot-spring! Unable to swim and somewhat disoriented, Ice struggled with the trap, until the opening was apparently covered by something, making it dark enough for her to be able to see again!

<p class="MsoNormal"> The group that had teleported ahead, led by Quickshot, came across a brightly colored subcompact car, out of which a full sized lion and three attackers suddenly spilled! One of the attackers belched fire, one threw knives, and one was apparently a sword-swallower and they attacked! The group quickly dispatched the attackers, killing all four. Inquisitor, MorDak, and the unconscious Cold Foot arrived shortly thereafter, and Ghost decided to peer inside the strange car which, unexpectedly, sucked him in! MorDak came towards the door of the base, but the car then exploded, mangling the Immortal MorDak and taking him out!

<p class="MsoNormal"> As Ice continued to try to work her way out of the trap, the others advanced on the base, fighting their way past security turrets that were being turned against them, deciding to make way for the Security Annex in the upper floor of the base. Ghost, meanwhile, found himself in a black shapeless void where a strange voice offered to help him get out if he would allow the voice to activate some functions in the StarHawk armor Ghost wore but did not fully understand. The voice indicated that he understood that Ghost was a soldier and that his skills could come in very handy, and the voice promised to make Ghost quite wealthy. Ghost eventually agreed, so the voice triggered the armor's flight, up to light speed, and then jumped into T-Space, allowing them to leave the shapeless abyss. They then emerged in ordinary space and again set course for the hero base. The voice asked that Ghost not bring him up just yet but thanked him and congratulated him for getting them both out. The bulk of the heroes finally found the Security Annex where a motley band of parahumans, the Circus, was waiting for them! And they were being led by none other than Quickshot's arch-enemy, MindHawk!

<p class="MsoNormal"> Another pitched battle broke out, but the heroes were quickly overpowered, with only Inquisitor still conscious but badly wounded and being held down by The Bearded Lady! Carmine was still up but had fallen under The Ringmaster's Persuasive Speech and had been ordered to "kill his friends". Luckily for him, he viewed none of the present heroes as friends so he pretty much stood there, waiting for the one friend he does have in the team, Ghost!

<p class="MsoNormal">Ice meanwhile had finally escaped the trap, surrounding herself in a giant piston of ice and ejecting herself from the pit on the force of her power and the geothermal pressure that had built up. Once free, she created ice goggles to help reduce her Light Blindness but even as she arrived at the base, she was attacked by MorDak, however not sure what was going on, she simply flew out of his range and landed on the roof of the base where Ghost likewise had just arrived after fighting a brief battle with the again aggressive Cold Foot. The two worked on finding a way in even as it looked like Inquisitor was doomed.

<p class="MsoNormal"> After being ordered to beat on the helpless Inquisitor a few times, Denk the Evil Clown had second thoughts, as Inquisitor had actually been pretty civil with him, even nice, despite the fact that they were on opposing sides. He then whacked the Bearded Lady in the knee, forcing her to release Inquisitor to defend! Ghost, meanwhile, blasted his way in with a cosmically-augmented bazooka! Unfortunately for him, Carmine saw him first and snapped off an excellent sniper shot, critically wounding Ghost and knocking him out! Carmine then passed out, his mind-control objective complete. Ringmaster then used his power on Ice and turned her even as Inquisitor found new life with the help from Denk and Trapeze! Inquisitor, in fact, accused MindHawk of being insane, which seemed to pretty much drive him so and he flipped, attempting to bring the whole building down on them all! The Ringmaster went down, and his control broken over Ice, she fell, too, as Inquisitor, Denk, Trapeze, and the Bearded Lady stabilized things and tried to get everybody out.

<p class="MsoNormal"> In the end, everyone was accounted for except for MindHawk and Ringmaster, and Denk and the rest of the Circus questioned what the future may hold, even as the base collapsed in on itself....

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<p class="MsoNormal">March 13th, 3093

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<p class="MsoNormal">After a string of stinging defeats, the remaining heroes of our as-yet-unnamedhero group returned to the closest thing they had to a headquarters since the destruction of the mobile base, the lab belonging to Siphon that Particle had previously restored and that had miraculously birthed a clone of the legendary heroine, Dawnstar. Quickshot, Carmine, Ghost, and Ice set out trying to locate the members that _should_ have been on base when MindHawk attacked but whose bodies were not found in the rubble of the base. Cold Foot and Inquisitor went to Siphon's lab and encountered Hollow Point, a former Hero Academy instructor and former Phoenix Force and Enforcers member Crimson Mist, who were checking out the infrastructure of the lab to see if it could be converted into a temporary HQ. Surprisingly, nobody mistook anybody for a villain, and a battle did not ensue (first time for everything with this group)! While the heroes began to plan their next move, an automated distress beacon came in from the allied heroes known as "F5" from an area very close to the lab, so the heroes headed out to assist. They found F5 on the verge of defeat to some huge monster that appeared to be made out of dozens, possibly hundreds, of animated corpses, who had taken on a vaguely Drider-esque appearance, with eight legs and eight arms, spitting a noxious yellow ichor!

<p class="MsoNormal"> The fast acting heroes narrowly saved Mayhem from being eaten by the creature and Cold Foot temporarily contained it in a block of ice while Hollow Point constructed a bomb powerful enough to (hopefully) incinerate the thing. Even after it appeared to go down, animated body parts attacked Crimson Mist and Mayhem, so Hollow Point quickly dispatched his grenade to destroy the thing. However even as it burst into flames, a disgusting maggot-like creature the size of a medium-sized dog with a barbed mouthpart was thrown from the flames and attempted to bite Inquisitor, who responded with the only thing he had on hand, his Thunderbolt, and he destroyed the worm-like thing with it.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Shady Lady of F5 explained that for some strange reason, all the corpses in the graveyard around the crypt the F5 had been using as a hideout rose from their graves and formed this monstrosity and the F5 fought a running retreat against the much more powerful creature. The heroes then spoke of their difficult situation, five members captured by the Enforcers, the other half of the team missing, and Shady suggested that perhaps the other half of the team had escaped to or been banished to the ShadowRealm by the mobile base's dimensional aperture technology and offered to go there and try to find them. The rest of the group then set to the work of finding supplies for the new Lab base and locating the Enforcers. One group went to a known major food distribution plant that appeared to still be online to try to scavenge food while the other half of the team looked into a nearby bar that was still operational, the "Grayfolk Guzzling Bar Too" in West Grayfolk.

<p class="MsoNormal"> When they arrived at the bar, it was a little surprising that the bar was in such good condition until the heroes learned that the bar was under the protection of the Enforcers! Inquisitor also learned that his 40 year old credit tokens were made with real precious metals and were worth 15-20 modern credits each! The group then debated causing a ruckus in the bar to trigger a response from the enforcers or a more diplomatic approach. They opted for the latter and the barkeep contacted the Enforcers for them and set up a meeting.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The Colonel and the rest of the Enforcers soon arrived. The Colonel left most of the Enforcers outside but brought CopyCat and Tower with him as backup. After some tense negotiations, the heroes realized that the Colonel didn't actually know that the heroes no longer knew where Wrath was, and that fact quickly changed the tone of the negotiations. Ultimately Inquisitor promised to find Wrath if the Colonel would release the captives. He also had to promise not to kill anything other than the Wrath entity should Inquisitor finally be able to track down Wrath, not the host body, only the entity itself. He grudgingly agreed but on the advice of Arcana, he negotiated that Tiara Wolf would stay with him for now and would try to help him find a way to separate Wrath from the girl that was his host body, who had come to Tiara Wolf to try to rid herself of Wrath in the first place! The Colonel also indicated that the Enforcers controlled the territory from the western edge of Gannamon/West Grayfolk all the way out to the edge of Division Valley and the mountains that border it.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Arcana then saw to it that the captives were released into Inquisitor's hands, so Revolutionary, Void Walker, Sunbird, and Streetbreaker were reunited with their teammates. Void Walker then indicated that he could find Wrath's host body and that she was still with Metal Lance and an unknown felinoid in a ninja uniform (the missing Enforcers member Jipstara) in another dimension, though Void Walker was not immediately sure what dimension it was. They retired to the lab and Void Walker began working on determining in what dimension the trio was currently lost.

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<p class="MsoNormal">October 1st, 3093

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<p class="MsoNormal"> Well, Ghost and Jester take a side trip to the Marvel Universe! So, who wants to play a guest star Marvel character for the duration of their stay?

<p class="MsoNormal"> Meanwhile, Flak, Void Walker, Orion, Fusion, Crimson Mist, Reboot, and Quickshot must recover the Destiny Lance from the Temple of the Shadowlands. How hard could that be?

<p class="MsoNormal"> And just what else might Particle find to repair amongst the dirt farmers?

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<p class="MsoNormal">October 9th, 3093

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<p class="MsoNormal"> Crossfire, Rampage, Replica, Jingles, and Rapidfire met eXile and succeeded in rescuing Radiant from the clutches of RightArm and Liberation! RightArm ended up with a spork in the eye and Radiant turned Liberation's power negation field against them before blowing up their base, enabling his rescuers to themselves escape and return to the eXile base to meet with him later!

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<p class="MsoNormal">October 23rd, 3093

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<p class="MsoNormal"> Somehow with the help of TRIAD's Endophyte and Hero Academy student Enrique Rojas, Orion, Flak, Quickshot, Fusion, Golden Eyes and his giant pet wolf, Reboot, and Void Walker managed to retrieve the Destiny Lance from the Temple of Shadows only to be betrayed by Psychosia and the Dreaded Four, losing said Lance, and releasing Ulwrathe the Earth Elemental upon Gammador! But Black Lance did give them enough Crystillium to power a couple Khedrium weapons for use against Blyte and his wave of Corruption! Not exactly a win, but not a loss either!

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<p class="MsoNormal">November 6th, 3093

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<p class="MsoNormal"> Our "Graveyard Heroes" found Dirt Golems snacking on tombstones for some reason- and swift, lethal toad-transforming justice would follow- with only one Golem escaping. Further investigation would be interrupted, however, as the Brotherhood of the Ankh struck, attempting to avenge desecration of the graveyard, and a pitched battle resulted. End result? For some reason, Ankh fled upon getting a good look at Joe Flying Hodag in a stealth-equipped van, and Madame Hel and Fred Goodname inadvertently teleported to Starport Delta, where Fred was pronounced dead and deposited in the morgue. Luckily, he woke up before his unidentified corpse was spaced!

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<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">November 28th, 3093

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<p class="MsoNormal"> Well, Cyber Ghost and Jester survived a visit to the Marvel Universe, complete with battles with Captain America, the Hulk, the Mimic, Spider-Man, Moon Knight, and Daredevil as well as Rom, the Spaceknight, who clued them in on a latter-day invasion of Dire Wraiths, hence the above battles. Ultimately, though, with the help of Venom, Hawkeye, his new protoge Recursive Man, and the Great Lakes Avengers (Mister Immortal, Doorman, and Squirrel Girl), the Wraith ship was destroyed and Rom went hunting a larger Wraith presence in Washington DC. Wraith captives Turbo, the real Captain America, the real Hulk, and the extradimensional Threshold helped Jester and Cyber Ghost get home, and told Recursive Man that Jester and Ghost were from his home reality, so he left, too. Finally, the alien entity Probe followed the other three to Altair's Material Realm, complete with a strange glowing canister of... something...

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<p class="MsoNormal">December 18th, 3093

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<p class="MsoNormal"> A somewhat unpredictable end to the strange attack on the gravestones in the cemetery our heroes call home. With the help of TRIAD's Ford, they followed the trail of the previous round of golems to a cave network where they fought more golems before running into Pumpkin Jack, who was apparently using the pilfered tombstones to make rune stones for additional golems. After snuffing a perhaps poorly designed Fire Golem, Jericho decided the best way to fight Pumpkin Jack would be to drop the cave ceiling in on him, and with Corpseman's help, they did so, inadvertently collapsing the entire cave network. Jericho and Corpseman narrowly escape after a wet, wild ride, and ended up being saved by Ford, barely!

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<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">January 6th, 3094

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<p class="MsoNormal"> Rapidfire, Countdown, Flak, and Hero Academy student All-Star were beseeched by GoldRabbit when for some reason the Rejected attacked her! It turns out, after a pitched battle, that they were, in fact, Corrupted! Flak was himself affected, but despite an almost inhuman effort, the heroes were able to knock him out long enough to get Radiant to cure him. Strangely, after the battle, as Radiant was curing the Rejected and people were getting medical attention, an unexpected blizzard struck forcing everyone indoors!

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<p class="MsoNormal">January 8th, 3094

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<p class="MsoNormal"> Vanguard and new allies Paladin and Trinity (the original!) were able to stop a gang war (with a handful of casualties) and then free allies in Vanguard and Underworld from Blyte's Corruption. Rookie minion of death, Greg the Grim Reaper Bunny tried to harvest some extra souls but ended up becoming the new host for Marna the Collector of the Slain when Trinity inadvertently restored Gerrand the Geminian Mystic robbing her of her previous host body! In the wake of the battle, a raging blizzard fell across the land and Gerrand, Paladin, and Empire of the Rejected located the source, which Gerrand believed to be a tunnel between the Material Realm and the Realm of the Dead which threatens to consume the planet! The heroes collected at the Underworld base and prepared to make for a frozen mountain peak!

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<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">January 16th, 3094

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<p class="MsoNormal"> The rather strange Greg the Grim Reaper bunny returned to our heroes as they made their way up the mountainside towards the source of the supernatural storm. The group consisted of Redline, Flak, All-Sport II, Carmine Bomber, Paladin, Murder, and, of course, her crows with Greg grudgingly allowed to travel with them. They fought savage polar bears, evil snowmen, and a Yeti! Once they got through them, with Flak nearly being hurled into an apparently endless chasm, they found a cave. It was guarded by more polar bears and contained the source of the problem, an artifact called the Mirror of Mora, in the hands of Pumpkin Jack! Jack froze Carmine and Redline and conjured up an enormous Ice Golem! The heroes prevailed, though, melting the golem, blasting off Jack's arm and separating him from the mirror, then defeating him directly. Greg seized the Mirror but was not long to hold it as Paladin and Redline insisted that he turned it over. Greg headed for the cave with the Mirror, so Redline dropped him with an energy drain, and Paladin used the wisdom of his amulet, the Brotherhood of the Horse, to cause the mirror to open a portal to the Realm of the Dead, then Paladin cast the Mirror in. A splash was heard, and the portal closed, so the heroes declared victory and headed home with Pumpkin Jack's host, Dr. Jack Fellowes in tow!

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<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">February 12th, 3094

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<p class="MsoNormal"> Another vicious bloodbath saw Paladin, Greg, Lt. Nathan Alexander, Flak, and on loan from Counterforce, Snake Bite, attempt to stop the massacre of some of the remaining survivors of the Exodus and Odyssey disaster on Donner's World, who now were living in a quiet rural area near Capitol City. Dr. Volo, taking over leadership from the deceased Black Hand, led Black Hand's former followers in killing a number of the other survivors, ultimately resulting in the formation of a powerful entity called "Collective" that had the powers of the deceased as well as the ability to apparently duplicate the powers of the remaining survivors! Joined by another survivor, known as "Prophet", and Enforcers The Colonel and Tower, the heroes fought a desperate, pitched battle and eventually downed the monstrously powerful Collective with a huge coordinated attack! Prophet suggested that Collective could rise again, so The Colonel offered to lock up all the remaining survivors. They declined. So, instead, some of them joined The Enforcers, and some joined Underworld, and together the buried the dead.

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<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">February 5th, 3094

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<p class="MsoNormal"> Last night, the unlikely sole representative of Vanguard available, All-Sport II, teamed up with new Vanguard ally Paladin to respond to a crisis in downtown Grayfolk. There, they connected up with the legendary Leguanian rock star Plazz Apollo and the veteran ex-Enforcer and current Grayfolk PD officer, Anyman. The apparently recently revived Dreadlocks, a powerful demon, was seeking... something... with a small band of minor demons. After a hard fought battle, Paladin ended up with the crate Dreadlocks was trying to capture, only to be waylaid by members of NightForce, who also wanted the box. The heroes fought a desperate battle and narrowly defeated Black Cloak's minions as Paladin broke open the crate and revealed a giant eyeball in a fluid-filled jar! The eye opened and as Black Cloak warned Paladin to cover the jar back up, and the eyeball petrified the normally almost untouchable Black Cloak! The heroes covered the jar back up and returned to the Vanguard base, while the former Paladin hosts that form the intelligence within the amulet of the Brotherhood of the Horse determined that the eye was, in fact, one of the thirteen Eyes of Zanderos, a deceased ancient demon of awesome power. Locking the eye in the vault, the heroes tried to work out their next move.

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<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">March 4th, 3094

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<p class="MsoNormal"> A messy battle saw Ice, Inquisitor, Paladin, Call-Me-Bob, and retired ex-hero Jack Davidson (once known as the nanotech cyborg Robraun) respond to a distress call from Forefather of the now-defunct Champions, the precursor group to the current Vanguard. Upon arrival, the heroes found themselves up against a number of ex-members of the Champions and some holdouts from the last iteration of the Guardians. Despite being badly outnumbered, the heroes fought a valiant, desperate battle and eventually forced Blyte to burn himself out, vanishing in a cloud of dust, leaving the remnants of the Starhawk armor behind. It is unknown if he can possibly recover from such a defeat. Amazingly none of the free heroes nor the Corrupted ones were killed despite the intensity of the battle, and in the end, Paladin gathered up the remains of the Starhawk armor and gave what was left to Jack, with Inquisitor suggesting that Particle might be able to put it back together!

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<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">March 18th, 3094

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<p class="MsoNormal"> Veteran-ish members of Underworld and Vangaurd Ice, Reboot, and Call-Me-Bob, led rookies Sling-Shot, Medic, Sparx, and Magnus in a rescue mission attempting to free veteran Quickshot from the clutches of the ultra-dangerous madman Mentalist, MindHawk. Following a lead, they arrived at a robotics factory abandoned since the early days of the Last War Against the T'Karri, where they encountered bizarre partially-finished would-be duplicates of MindHawk himself! With Reboot and Magnus clearing the way, the heroes soon found themselves up against feared veteran hit-men from Negron, Stonehedge and Tracker and the apparently-still-hypnotized Titanium Tigress and Atomic Tiger. Despite some disastrous friendly-fire, the heroes defeated Stonehedge, Tracker, and Atomic Tiger and incapacitated Titanium Tigress in a block of ice! Soon thereafter, MindHawk himself appeared, with Quickshot as a pawn, and with hired powerhouse Titan neutralizing Ice's dragon-form size advantage! MindHawk became progressively more unhinged as the young heroes continued to thwart him, and he revealed that whether he tried to possess an organic body or a robotic one, the facial scar that Quickshot gave him in their first encounter manifested on the new body! Titanium Tigress regained her senses after breaking free of the ice and joined the heroes against MindHawk. Eventually MindHawk became so enraged that he unleashed his devastating Telekinetic Bomb attack, sacrificing his control over Quickshot to do so. Weakened and harassed by the young heroes, MindHawk then found himself the prey of Quickshot's lethal accuracy, and his physical body was destroyed. Once MindHawk fell, Titan, whose own size advantage had been neutralized by Medic's peculiar ability to shrink things, surrendered. Realizing that they had no means to incarcerate him, Titan told them to come find him once they had a jail and walked off. Still, the young heroes were victorious and had destroyed MindHawk and his army of imperfect duplicates.

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<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">April 8th, 3094

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<p class="MsoNormal"> Tonight Synthia sent Reboot and Inquisitor of Vanguard, Umiku and Jester of the Seekers, and allies Greg the Grim Reaper and Paladin, to respond to a rampage of giant robots in the tent city that now occupies the ruins of downtown Grayfolk. After a pitched battle Reboot finished off the larger of the giant robots and Paladin blew the head off of the smaller giant robot, Mighty Mo, and the team collectively took out the smaller drones that were also attacking the citizenry. Once the last of the bots went down, an apparent projection of an apparently Geomodrizzle-ified Metal Lance appeared and spoke with the heroes in mostly evasive terms before concluding with the question of "Why am I here?", which was immediately followed by the charging of a fusion bomb hidden in the hull of Mighty Mo, a weapon with an area effect measured in city blocks! Jester encased the hull in ice and Inquisitor flew it into the air before he realized he would not be able to get enough distance to save the civilians. Synthia radioed, indicating she could teleport Inquisitor and the bot to the base, and if the teleporter system survived that, she could then beam the bomb and Inquisitor to a safe range. Unfortunately, when the fastest of the heroes arrived back at the base, having lost contact with both Inquisitor and Synthia, all they found was a smouldering crater in the ground. Apparently Synthia had failed and the base had been destroyed, apparently killing Synthia and Inquisitor in the process!

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<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">May 6th, 3094

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<p class="MsoNormal"> Crimson Mist, Umiku, Greg the Grim Reaper, Gnaug, and the returning Continuum teamed up to defeat a rampaging lycanthrope powerhouse known as Mad Dog, but things only got worse from there as Stormfront, Medic, and The Colonel arrived on scene and informed Crimson Mist that he must stand trial for several civilians he accidentally killed some weeks ago. Additionally, Greg was witnessed dispatching a resurrected policeman that Gnaug had brought back to life, so the Colonel felt that he should be tried as well. The group went before a military tribunal in the West Grayfolk Airbase under Judge Advocate Venten, with Stormfront serving as the defense advocate, and The Colonel in charge of the prosecution. Crimson Mist was tried first, but before his trial could get fully underway, the court fell under attack from the infamous Negronian super-villain group, Chaos! Apparently Chaos was trying to capture (or possibly liberate) Crimson Mist. Chaos did a very good job of using the innocent bystanders as fodder to keep Continuum and Gnaug busy. Despite Arcana and Jester joining the fight from the gallery, and the timely intervention of Officer Anyman, Shifter absorbed Crimson Mist's energy form and Blow Out teleported her, and eventually the rest of Chaos, from the court and apparently back to Negron. A few soldiers were killed in the terrible battle, but no civilians were killed, and Admiral Venten, serving as the Judge Advocate, narrowly avoided assassination by Abomination, when Enforcer Jipstara, who had also been placed in the courthouse by The Colonel, fought a desperate, gutsy battle, one that nearly took her life! In the end, Crimson Mist was gone, the courthouse was in ruins, and the heroes were left trying to figure out just what the motive for the attack had been! By coming to Altair, Chaos had broken the ban on travel to Altair that had been put in place by the Alliance, and it remained unclear as to why they would risk such a thing.

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<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">June 3rd, 3094

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<p class="MsoNormal"> Tonight Crimson Mist found himself on Negron's most popular reality television show, "The Jury" where convicts are given a second chance- all they have to do is traverse the eighty miles through the blasted remains of Buford, Negron, to the exit, without dying at the hands of traps, denizens of the ruins, the guest Hunters, or the Jury themselves! Crimson Mist found himself joined by Dark Shadow, Seekers member Slingshot, the slightly addled Bermuda, the were-wolf-spider Afterlife, the intangible assassin Deathgrip and, eventually, the shape-changing Mouse! Host Elliot Binford introduced them to guest hunters Gravel, Scorp, Tracker, Stonehedge, Double Clutch, and Ayla right before tossing them out of the aircraft to the beachfront side of the Deathzone! They survived the trip and fought their way into the city, knocking off a handful of robot drones on the way before being "ambushed" by Scorp, who indicated that there was a plan in place, but Crimson Mist would have to get to an old Talon Industries warehouse on the far side of town, warning him that trying to make it to the actual gate of the Deathzone would result in death, instead! Scorp also cryptically said that he had someone else on the inside, but that he did not have control of the Hunters. He then vanished before the camera-bots reset and the show continued! Meanwhile in the Underworld base, All-Sport II, Paladin, Ice, Call-Me-Bob, Tiarawolf, Jack Davidson, the man that used to be Robraun, and Seeker Umiku witnessed the live stream of "The Jury" and recognized Crimson Mist and Slingshot! So they began to hatch a plan- Umiku indicated that Particle had been repairing and rebuilding the factory where MindHawk lured members of Vanguard and Underworld into a no-win conflict with Foundation, with Foundation escaping with an "Inquisition" class stealth ship. Umiku also assumed that by now the automated systems would have finished another ship. Next, they needed a pilot... while Crimson Mist and the other competitors on "The Jury" fought for their lives!

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<p class="MsoNormal">June 10th, 3094

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<p class="MsoNormal"> With Boombox as the pilot, the original Trinity, Seekers Umiku, Thangor, and Jester joined Reboot and Greg the Grim Reaper in a risky attempt to rescue Crimson Mist from the DeathZone on Negron. BSing their way through air traffic control, the heroes took their stealth-shield equipped replica of Madwand's original Inquisition all the way to Negron, violating several interstellar laws in the process, and set down a few miles outside the DeathZone. They then approached the DeathZone only to be confronted by a well-placed sneak attack from Micra, who was then joined by the rest of Phoenix Force. Umiku was forced to use his Telepathy to take out Micra and take control of the members of the rescue squad she had mind-controlled with her peculiar spore attack, but eventually the strain was too much and he went down, taking several of the team with him, leaving only Trinity and Thangor to face off against the bulk of Phoenix Force! Nightlyn of Phoenix Force seemed perplexed that from the moment that the group could identify Phoenix Force, Thangor refused to go on offense, which ended up buying enough time for Thangor to explain why they were there. Nightlyn was seriously displeased when she learned that Crimson Mist, once a member of Phoenix Force was in the DeathZone, and she revealed that she suspected that somehow the Jury had gotten full control over the parliament that now ruled Negron, but she had not yet been able to assemble proof. She then revealed that she had actually been working with members of the old Seekers-allied team, CounterForce, at trying to expose what was going on, and she offered to put them in touch. The group then hatched a risky plan- Some of the squad would go with Kali to get CounterForce's help while some of the squad would volunteer to be arrested so they, too, would be dropped in the DeathZone and could perhaps connect up with Crimson Mist and let him know what the escape plan would be. The group that connected with CounterForce would then begin a two-pronged attack on the well-defended shield generators that contained the DeathZone, with the intention of taking them down simultaneously, creating a weak spot in the otherwise impervious field. The team inside would then escape with Crimson Mist through that weak spot. Thangor, Umiku, Jester, and Greg all agreed to be the ones arrested and would try to get word to Crimson Mist, while Trinity, Boombox, and Reboot would combine with CounterForce to hit the generators. Further, when Kali brought the group to the CounterForce Cafe, the would-be legitimate front to the group's activities, they found Jingles there, having somehow gotten marooned there, and CounterForce leader Troubleshooter revealed that he had someone inside the DeathZone already, posing as a guest hunter _and_ had a plan to expose whatever it is that the Jury had been up to, he would just need uninterrupted access to the DeathZone's mainframe ! The only way this could possibly work would be if the Jury, Phoenix Force, and the other forces protecting the DeathZone were otherwise engaged in something like an attack on the shield generators! With this in mind, the group made ready to strike, knowing full well that they might again have to face Phoenix Force as well as the Jury _and_ some would have to survive the DeathZone before this would all be over, and if it failed, months of planning would be for naught!

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<p class="MsoNormal">June 11th, 3048 Dateline: Somewhere over the Western Sea The enigmatic Crazyape joined the sinister Doctor Simian in stealing a rare power crystal from the Altairian World Government under the noses of the famed Guardians! Pilot Mainframe brought Doctor Simian and Crazyape in for a daring high-speed extravehicular maneuver enabling them to get aboard one of sixteen identical transports, this one the only non-decoy transport. There, they battled the experienced Guardians the Archer and Condo and defeated them! The villains then took the rare element Crystillium, sabotaged the nav computer of the transport, and were picked back up by Mainframe. The only evidence remaining at the site was an emergency medical device designed for battlefield use. It was left near the unconscious body of The Archer. Stay tuned for more details!

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<p class="MsoNormal">June 24th, 3094

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<p class="MsoNormal"> Paragon, Recluse, and Centurion of StormWatch appeared at the remains of the Vanguard base poking around and were accosted by Void Walker, Crimson, Jawsmash, and Argyle. After some posturing and before anybody came to blows, a Foundation hit squad warped in and tried to take out StormWatch. Unfortunately for them, StormWatch proved far more capable than the Secret Seven had anticipated, and the Vanguard/Underworld heroes sided with StormWatch. Ultimately Fester, Kamikaze (released from the Void Realm during the battle) and Skyscream escaped, and the group captured the leader, Psionic Warrior. Paragon interrogated Psionic Warrior and learned that the Foundation guys didn't know anything about the destruction of the Vanguard Base and admitted that they were simply sent there to eliminate StormWatch, since StormWatch has been so hard to find. Paragon then told Psionic Warrior to hit the road and he did so. Crimson and Void Walker also located Particle and set him to work on rebuilding the base, disproving the theory that Paragon had postulated- that the base had actually been _stolen_ rather than destroyed. Afterwards, Crimson and Paragon came to an understanding and would bring the idea of an alliance to the respective leaders of both groups.

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<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">July 8th, 3094

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<p class="MsoNormal"> The competitors that decided to remain with Crimson Mist, Dark Shadow, Bermuda, Slingshot, and Mouse made their way to the warehouse in question where, apparently, the man known only as Beer Boy had been living! While they were getting acquainted, mostly by Dark Shadow knocking the big man out with a flash bomb, they fell under attack by some of the guest hunters, specifically Tracker, Stonehedge, Gravel, and Plague! With an amazingly lucky shot, Dark Shadow took Stonehedge out by putting a crossbow bolt in his cybernetic eye. Slingshot took out Tracker when Tracker made the mistake of referencing the fact that Slingshot is "vertically challenged"! Bermuda took out Gravel when Gravel inadvertently destroyed some of her new "friends", a battery and a derelict semi-truck cab! She animated some of the wreckage and ran Gravel through with it! Dark Shadow then secured his position as MVP for the night when he outsmarted the powerful miscreant Plague and shot him through the leg with a wooden crossbow bolt after Plague had demonstrated formidable magnetic powers.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Umiku then reached Slingshot telepathically- he and several other had allowed themselves to be arrested by Phoenix Force and placed in the DeathZone. He directed Slingshot to make for a subway tunnel that was north-east of the warehouse and take that heading north, the idea being that the other two teams of would-be rescuers would be taking out two of the DeathZone's generators, making a weak spot at the designated location. The group followed the instructions only to be ambushed by The Jury only mere meters from the tunnel! Unexpectedly, two of the other guest hunters, Scorp and Ayla intervened and slowed The Jury down long enough for Dark Shadow to escape into the tunnel and for the others to escape through an exit provided by Beer Boy, enabling them to get out before Seismic dropped the whole place on top of them. Then, equally unexpectedly, as the battle began to turn in the Jury's favor, they retreated, with the Judge ordering them to do so, saying "We have bigger problems...". Crimson Mist's party then made their way into the old subway tunnel and took it right up to the DeathZone's shield, realizing that if the shield is not taken down, the group would be trapped underground in this tunnel, basically like fish in a barrel should the Jury or another group of hunters return!

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<p class="MsoNormal">

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<p class="MsoNormal">July 15th, 3094

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<p class="MsoNormal"> Texas Tsunami, Polaris, Troubleshooter, Trinity, and Jingles successfully led their squad against one of the two DeathZone Shield Generators while Umiku and the rest of the squad hit a second one, with the idea being to make an opening so Crimson Mist, Bermuda, Greg, Beer Boy, and Dark Shadow could escape the DeathZone. The heroes fought a tactical retreat to the shield generator after vanquishing a number of guard drones and human security officers, with The Jury in hot pursuit! But they made it to the generator nonetheless! Troubleshooter also jacked in to confirm Nightlyn's suspicion that the government had been compromised- apparently The Jury had been using a version of MindHawk's mental reprogramming machinery to broadcast mind-control rays into various important government officials to keep up their status. Further, Troubleshooter found out that The Jury _was_ Chaos and was all along playing double-agent! Troubleshooter revealed the location of the mind-control tech's bunker, but the only operatives nearby were Crimson Mist and his DeathZone survivors! So they fought a desperate battle at the bunker, taking on Grip and Jetstream, the surviving Remoran Bounty Hunters and allies of Chaos, Mega-Brain, and his backup plan, the multiple-duplicating Contingent! Ultimately after Mega-Brain took over Crimson Mist's mind, Dark Shadow and Bermuda exhausted Mega-Brain's energy and Dark Shadow took him down with another terrific shot in the leg with a crossbow bolt! Negron's Parliament immediately convened to disavow The Jury, the DeathZone, and the whole ball of wax, dispatching the military to capture The Jury/ Chaos, leaving Nightlyn and Phoenix Force as the only sanctioned hero team currently operating on Negron!

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<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">July 21st, 3094

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<p class="MsoNormal"> On the heels of the defeat of Chaos/The Jury and the revelation about Mega-Brain and the mind-control device, Prime Minister Alden of Negron asked the leaders of those involved with the operation to be a part of a press conference intended to share what had happened, and to bestow honors upon the heroes that had fought on behalf of the people of Negron. Nightlyn of Phoenix Force, Troubleshooter of CounterForce, Quickshot of Vanguard and Scorp Arachnius were among the dignitaries that were to be honored. Unfortunately before the press conference had made much progress, an oversized teleportal warped in a van moving at ninety miles per hour aimed right up the middle of the crowd and at the stage where the Ministers of Parliament and the various dignitaries stood. Acting quickly, Vanguard member Golden Eyes and his guardian wolf San Jeet tried to stop the vehicle by destroying one of its tires, but due to the speed, the vehicle did not stop, rather it began to flip over, right into the crowd. Fortunately the Seeker Thangor was in the crowd and was able to catch the van. He unfortunately realized too late, however, that there was no driver, and that it was rigged to explode. Earthquake, a semi-retired former StarKnight and one of the heroes Scorp had arranged to infiltrate the hunter squad in the DeathZone used his ability of foresight to try to determine the next move in this apparent assassination attempt and it revealed that the van was not the main attack, it was a diversion and Chaos would be the actual attack, coming from a different direction! Before he could relay this information, however, the van exploded and members of Chaos and their allies Jetstream and Contingent (who had escaped capture previously) as well as the former would-be hunted, Afterlife and Deathgrip, attacked and began indiscriminately hitting targets both military and civilian. Oddly Inflicter/The Judge was still in his Judge costume and as the attack went on, he displayed some new abilities. But the bigger news came in the form of some unexpected intervention from forces cosmic. Attracted by the slaughter of the innocent, the Angel of Vengeance, Argal, appeared and began to counter-attack the forces of Chaos, and he was soon joined by the Angel of Justice, known simply as “Justice”, who also joined the fray. Nightlyn saw to the evacuation of government officials while Quickshot, Troubleshooter, and Golden Eyes formed the first line of defense for the heroes. Greg the Grim Reaper, meanwhile, began to harvest the souls of the deceased, after being ordered in no uncertain terms to avoid tangling with Argal. Marna was uncustomary in her directness in warning Greg.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal"> Jetstream blanketed the area in a Darkness Field which apparently did not affect his allies and a barrage of offense from Vibra/ Seismic put the heroes on their heels. Contingent and Ultimar/ The Colossus began racking up quite a death count of primarily civilians while the well-hidden Abomination/ Predator worked his way through the Parliament’s security forces.

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<p class="MsoNormal"> As the battle raged, it was eventually joined by the enigmatic Malfortuna who began attacking Thangor before ultimately falling to hostile fire. Eventually Scorp and Nightlyn worked together to locate the source of the darkness field and they took him out as Nightlyn became locked in pitched battle with Afterlife. Once the darkness fell, however, the tide quickly turned but not before three of the Ministers of Parliament had been killed. The rest escaped, and the heroes eventually defeated the forces of Chaos, however after the battle, Winterkill of the Black Fang Deathlords and brother to Nightlyn appeared in a holographic transmission and boasted about having helped outmaneuver Nightlyn and the other heroes- apparently this entire attack was primarily meant to be a diversion so that Inflicter/ The Judge, who had not, in fact, been present at all, could arrange to spring Mega-Brain from prison! The person posing as The Judge was revealed to be Shifter/ Species in disguise! It was still unclear by the end of the fracas as to why the Black Fang would be working with Chaos and Inflicter, but those questions remained unanswered as the heroes tended to the wounded and dead and the celestial interlopers departed.

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<p class="MsoNormal">August 4th, 3094

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<p class="MsoNormal"> [Grayfolk, Altair] Vanguard members Quickshot, All-Sport II, and Ice were called in to respond to a battle between cosmic-powered archenemies Oblivion and Galaxy! At the scene, UniFed member Red Ranger also responded (as did unaffiliated hero Blindside) and the heroes quickly went to work getting the wounded and the civilians out of the area and defeated some sort of alien construct soldiers Oblivion summoned. During the battle, the enigmatic Penance arrived and collected the pain of some of the dead and wounded and tried to distribute it to Oblivion, only to realize that, in his words, "He is not the source of the pain..!" Penance moved westward towards Grayfolk Hospital and disappeared while the remaining heroes assisted Galaxy in vanquishing Oblivion. The cosmic powered Oblivion then vanished and Galaxy and Quickshot had a brief stare-down, due to some apparent bad blood from the past. Ice then petitioned Galaxy to become an ally not specifically to Vanguard, but to her, personally, in her apparent upcoming political endeavors. Galaxy was discussing the issue when he suddenly vanished.

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<p class="MsoNormal"> There was not a lot of time to be concerned over Galaxy's sudden disappearance, however, as Quickshot's brother, the villainous Inversion, showed up and attacked the group unprovoked, taking on Ice and Quickshot's powers. He was not, however, able to gain anything from Red Ranger, as Red Ranger's powers were all purely technological. Despite a very good alpha strike, Inversion was eventually defeated and taken into custody by Red Ranger, since he was wanted in several locations besides Altair. The group then returned to the Vanguard base, which was coming along nicely due to Particle's efforts.

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<p class="MsoNormal">August 20th, 3094

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; mso-outline-level:5"> Left Wing's errand turned out to be quite a trip as he took "The Inquisition II" piloted by Carmine Bomber, and a mixed crew of Vanguard and Underworld guys to Equis' Observatory, one of the most remote locations in this part of space! Left Wing asked Telestar to come with, since he knew that Equis' Observatory is a place T-Star had not previously visited. He was also joined by his former Seekers team mate and leader, Madwand, who had dropped by for a visit! Additionally, new recruit Camgar, a warrior with a mystical sword, Void Walker, the Elven Ninjas Kaizer and Rayn embedded news reporter JoAnne McDonnell and her entourage, the cosmic powered Cyber Ghost, and squad leader QuickShot also decided to travel with Left Wing! Unfortunately, the journey seemed doomed from the start as the ship lost all major systems upon trying to make the jump to T-Space and ended up being engulfed in what was apparently a huge Bordaxi dreadnaught! As the ship was pulled into a massive cargo bay, Cyber Ghost took to the airlock and moved to meet an approaching group of armored individuals led, apparently, but an almost sixty foot tall Bordaxi soldier! Unexpectedly, Cyber Ghost did not unleash a cosmic-powered rocket into the oncoming forces, he, instead, talked to them! Initially unable to understand them, he was able to adjust his armor's systems to translate. The Bordaxi apparently worked for "Quadruple A" insurance and was willing to render assistance. Shockingly, this went off without a hitch and all systems were restored. One of the technicians, claiming to be a Mechtan named Bruce, also agreed to come along in case they had further issues. The rest of the trip went smoothly as the group arrived at Equis' Observatory where they were met by the retired veteran Enforcers member, Tippes, who knew several of the travelers and greeted them. Left Wing then, apparently, talked to himself, the AI responsible for maintaining the systems at the Observatory. It turns out that the AI was actually a backup copy of Left Wing's own program, and he periodically re-integrates his program with the backup, making two complete AI entities. Left Wing then asked the group if they wanted to look into something for him while he completed his program sync. The Observatory's Left Wing had lost track of Garret and the Temporal Guardians some time ago and had been unable to find them. Their last known location was the planet Kerrok, home to a species of cybernetically enhanced humanoids absolutely devoted to gladiator-like games of combat. But that planet was engulfed in a destructive wave of Khedrim energy that ultimately broke the planet. However, it still had atmosphere, and the massive fragments of the planet were still in close proximity to one another due to gravitational forces, so, in theory, those shards should be capable of supporting life. The group agreed, and they used the Time Gate that the Temporal Guardians operated in order to get to Kerrok. Upon arrival, they discovered what appeared to be a T'Karr Warmech. It was, instead, a dwelling for a group of Kerroki warriors that had survived. They attacked swiftly, but despite taking down a couple of the Vanguard/ Underworld members and destroying Bruce's exoskeleton (revealing him to be not a Mechtan as he had claimed, but a Leguanian!), they were quickly overpowered. As the last of them fell, though, a pair of Elders appeared with some vague and nonspecific warnings. A conversation between Carmine and the second-generation Elder Twilight resulted in Twilight banishing Void Walker by time-looping him without so much as a warning shot! The Elders then vanished, and some sort of time-wave then engulfed the area, yet once it passed, little seemed to be changed, except that the land seemed unbroken and there were what looked suspiciously like dragons circling above! <p class="MsoNormal">October 27th, 3094

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<p class="MsoNormal"> A seeming terrorist attack on Grayfolk General Hospital by the known superhuman whack-job Gaia was responded to by rookie hero Darkwulf, the wise-beyond-his-years Paladin, and Underworld member Ice. Gaia was upset over a utility crew cutting down an old tree just outside the hospital. After a short battle with Gaia and her minion constructs, Paladin ended it by holding another old tree hostage. It was a bluff, but Gaia fell for it. He did promise, however, to see to it that ten additional trees were planted to replace the fallen one, and that no other old trees would be cut down- if they became an issue, he promised they would be moved!

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<p class="MsoNormal"> She agreed and then vanished. Before the damage control could be finished, however, a security guard came crashing through a fifth floor window. Ice and Darkwulf facilitated his rescue, but they came under attack by a group of superhumans including the Insectaur with the titanium jaws, Bob, the Were-Gator Gwalen, and the Alger-Cat magician Salentor. The battle was pretty even until Headstone came crashing out of the same floor, suggesting that this was a FOUNDATION attack squad of some sort. Paladin thought fast and used Gwalen's own silver dagger to drop Headstone after sustaining a terrible gore from Headstone. Once Headstone went down and more police arrived, Paladin interrogated Gwalen but she could not offer much info, other than that she felt that if she talked, FOUNDATION would kill her. FOUNDATION member Transit had appeared briefly, long enough to retrieve Headstone (with Gwalen's dagger still sticking out of him), but no others.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal"> Paladin then spoke to the security guard that was saved- he indicated that it was the "Vegetable Garden" that was attacked- the long-term care ward for comatose patients. The group went up there and spoke to the staff. Nobody had been killed by the hit squad, but, they had instead taken a patient with them by the name of Stan Hughes, who had been in the hospital for years. He had been the subject of an experiment some years ago to cybernetically reroute his conscious functions around the damaged part of his brain. It had worked, briefly. He awoke long enough to speak one word, "Oblivion", before the device burned out and he returned to his coma. The heroes decided they would need to confer with their allies- The Enforcers, Underworld, and or Vanguard, to determine the next move.

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<p class="MsoNormal">October 31st, 3094

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<p class="MsoNormal">A number of local heroes came to the Blue Star for dinner on Halloween night. Among them were Orbital of the Garage Boyz, Fusion of Vanguard, Betta Smith and Greg the Grim Reaper of Underworld, and visiting cosmic heroine Amethyst Knight.

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<p class="MsoNormal">Initially Greg and Fusion (Greg mostly!) had a bit of trouble getting past the coat check. Polarise, the Blue Star’s resident bouncer, insisted on Greg putting up either his Soul Gauntlet or his Scythe, and Greg had a hard time working it out, eventually sassing Polarise to the point that the big and usually gentle hero stepped out of his booth, intent on delivering a pretty good smack down upon Greg. Fusion feared this idea and telepathically shut Greg down. Polarise then took him someplace and returned without him.

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<p class="MsoNormal">Amethyst Knight, who already knew Betta, was then introduced to Fusion and, after a bit, Greg, whose fur was now blue from the waist down, apparently from being deposited in a urinal! At least Polarise was nice enough not to turn him upside down first! Shortly thereafter, the group heard what sounded like a car crash outside, so they ran outside to see what happened.

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<p class="MsoNormal">Outside, there was a car with obvious damage, and what appeared to be a victim of being hit by the car- although strangely, the victim was basically naked! The driver was explaining to a police officer that he didn’t see the person, that they were just suddenly in front of them and they couldn’t stop in time!

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<p class="MsoNormal">Upon further investigation, the heroes determined that not only was the victim’s body cold, it was, in fact, colder than room temperature- as if it had been recently refrigerated! Additionally, it was wearing a toe tag from Grayfolk General’s morgue! Betta and Amethyst Knight had to leave, however, so that left the others alone. They did, however, pick up an additional ally of sorts in the form of Penance! After a battle between Fusion and him, they realized that they were probably both on the same side.

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<p class="MsoNormal">The group tried to contact the Coroner’s dispatch, but was unable to raise them, so they headed for Grayfolk General themselves. Once they approached, they found the Coroner’s van crashed in the parking lot of the hospital- both the driver and the passenger had suffered fatal bite injuries. The group then fell under attack by some sort of zombies! These, too, appeared to be from the Morgue, so the heroes deduced that the bodies in the morgue were somehow being reanimated.

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<p class="MsoNormal">They entered the hospital and fought their way past additional zombies and Penance pushed on ahead, leaving the group to navigate an elevator shaft. By the time they got up above, they had fully lost track of him. He did, however, leave quite a trail of slain zombies, so that wasn’t hard to follow. Eventually they heard some voices, so Greg went on ahead, disguising himself as a zombie, and came across Eternal, the Elemental of Evil, and the Godslayer Elorda the Black Knight! Eternal had some sort of artifact which Greg identified as the Mirror of Kryka, the now-displaced former God of the Undead! Also, it was pretty clear that they had slain Penance, as his ring and sword lay in a pool of blood in the middle of the room! Greg’s disguise seemed to fool Eternal and Elorda, and Elorda was dispatched to check the halls.

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<p class="MsoNormal">Orbital and Fusion quickly deduced that they were way out of their weight class, so they decided to teleport out to get help. Unfortunately, either the presence of the villains or the mirror interfered with Orbital’s ability to teleport! So they decided to run, but not before Elorda had spied them!

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<p class="MsoNormal">Eternal, meanwhile, became distracted, so Greg stealthily grabbed Penance’s ring and the Sword of the Twins and headed for the stairs! The other two found themselves staring down a dangerous foe in Elorda! Fusion tried to nail him with a telepathic attack, but he evaded and squashed her duplicate in a single mighty blow! So the duo went to “plan B”, and Orbital surrounded Elorda in a spherical forcefield! He was momentarily confused, giving the heroes time to make for the elevator shaft. Elorda, somewhat comically, tried to pursue them, running on the inside of the forcefield as though it were a giant hamster ball! It bought the duo enough time to get to the shaft, but a botched climb attempt resulted in both of the duo falling down the elevator shaft! In desperation, Orbital tried to teleport again and, lucky for him, he had gotten just outside the range of whatever was blocking his teleport! The two ended up in the Morgue garage and they quickly commandeered an ambulance to make their escape! Greg, meanwhile, had made his way into the stairwell, headed for the garage, and Penance was beginning to regenerate, a hand and arm growing from the ring! Greg leapt into the stairwell and ended up landing with a crash on the very ambulance that was speeding out of the garage! The group pulled him in and beat a hasty retreat. They were able to raise Dagg “Dangerman!” Nikodemus of the Garage Boyz on the radio and told him what was going on and he told them to come to the Garage Boyz headquarters in Gannamon, so that they could try to figure out what to do about Eternal and the Mirror of Kryka!

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<p class="MsoNormal">November 17th, 3094

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<p class="MsoNormal">The group that had gone to the ruins of Kerrok in search of the Temporal Guardians found themselves under attack by savage but deadly dragons. A pitched battle was fought and Cyber Ghost and Quick-Shot, with the help of the others, killed the last of the dragons. Golden Eyes salvaged some dragon hide and began working on some dragonscale armor. The group also met some locals, including a Kerroki warrior named Honor-Death. They then found themselves being watched by some mysterious figures, who turned out to be Cyberlash, Janus, and Garret, some of the missing Temporal Guardians!

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<p class="MsoNormal">Garret explained that the group was trapped in ancient Kerrok. Neither his Time Space Vortex Coordinator, nor Janus’ natural Time Travel powers were working- it was as if the time stream had stopped flowing around them. Garret had a plan but lacked the resources to carry it out. Kerrok itself could be turned into a giant Crystilium reactor long enough to power his Coordinator and punch through the lock in time. The main piece that was missing was sufficient energy absorption to form a sort of capacitor, a conductor of that energy to reach a Khedrium vein, and somebody that could harvest the planetary energy in one shot and crank it into the Coordinator’s circuitry, and one shot of high intensity power to kickstart the whole thing. Honor-Death’s artifact sword was capable of absorption, as was Janus’s body, so that was enough to form the capacitor. Crossfire had a TL-6 to jumpstart things, Honor-Death’s sword could also drill into the planet and reach the vein, and finally Cyber Ghost could collect the resulting energy via Cosmic Activation and pump it into the Coordinator. In a flash, the desolate rocks of ancient Kerrok were gone, and the heroes found themselves in an undamaged Grayfolk, Altair!

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<p class="MsoNormal">Things were not quite right yet, however, because the group found themselves in the middle of a battle between a team consisting of a giant robot with disintegrator-cannons for arms and the Toon Patrol taking on the team of Guardians and allies Inquisitor, Dark Marauder, FireLord, Trinity, and Paladin! As Garret tried to clear his Temporal Sense to make out what was happening, Quick-Shot quickly dispatched the robot revealing a young Doc Tangent in the midst of the melee! Cyber-Ghost then shot Toon right in the head, apparently killing him instantly! Everyone not in Cyber-Ghost’s party, including the villains fighting the Guardians, was horrified! Trinity had the strongest reaction, punching out Cyber-Ghost with one massive haymaker! Toon did, however, get better, thanks only to his peculiar cartoon powers! As the other villains were dropping, Superstition escaped and Doc Tangent was retrieved, apparently, by Synthia before the heroes could stop the villains!

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<p class="MsoNormal">After the battle it became very clear to everyone that this was, somehow, 40 years in the past, during the height of Altair’s “Golden Age” of superheroes! Garret confirmed it, while simultaneously noting that the Toon Patrol were lost in time as well. He also explained that he had a plan- apparently when the Elders looped Void Walker, it created a massive unraveling of the fabric of time. The only way Garret could see to correct things would be to stop the Elder Twilight from doing that! And the only way he could see to do it would be to break into the Moorceyan Battleworld and hijack the Time Scoop, using it to scoop Void Walker out of time before Twilight can loop him! Simple, right?

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<p class="MsoNormal">December 30th, 3044

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<p class="MsoNormal">It all began when the group planning on raiding the Time Scoop got a call that a local school complex was under attack by some super villain types- there were grade school kids being held hostage while some villain was ransacking a traveling display of archaeological goodies, so FireLord assembled a small team to deal with it, while the brainier types continued to work out the attack plan for the Battleworld. When the group got there, already on the scene was the slightly eccentric government agent Psych and a newcomer called “Hellsgate” in his very first attempt at being a superhero! Once the group got there they saw two policemen and a group of peculiar golem-looking minions surround a group of school children. The police informed the group that the area was cordoned off already but the police hadn’t gone in as there was at least one other villain already inside, and they feared the minions might harm the children! Then it got better as the villain apparently behind the heist came out of the Arts complex where the exhibit was- Shadowformer! Shadowformer cast duplicates of Hellsgate and Honor-Death and sicced them on the group!

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<p class="MsoNormal">The Hellsgate dupe attacked most of the main group, Psych dealt with most of the minions, the HD dupe basically fought HD, and Hellsgate himself squared off with Shadowformer. Eventually Telestar, JoAnne McDonnell, and Flak (still disguised as her cameraman) arrived on site and joined the battle. Eventually TStar got rid of the Hellsgate dupe, Hellsgate apparently smashed Shadowformer with a school bus(!) and the group finished off the Honor-Death. Shadowformer had, however,   gone two-dimensional, though, and hid out underneath another vehicle in the parking lot and cast a second Hellsgate dupe, but Paladin caught sight of him beneath the car and stabbed him with Raven (her magic Phase Attack) sword and Skilled him into unconsciousness. Unfortunately when that happened, instead of reverting to his normal unconscious form, he vanished (as did the second Hellsgate dupe) and Paladin realized that was because Shadowformer had duped _himself_ and sent that against the heroes, and he wasn't, in fact, even out there on the battlefield!!!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The group then learned he had stolen some sort of stone tablet that referenced "The Ring of Darkness", though all evidence suggested the tablet was just a relic and possessed no power. Hellsgate was able to determine why when he saw a digital photo of it- it contained incantations written in Diabolic on it! That ancient style magic, of course, is basically inert now, unless you possess some of your own from that era that was not collected and stashed away in the Teridon (the mystic pyramid thing into which Gerrand, the Geminian Mystic, banished magic so as to save Altair from the Horsemen). It has to be somebody that either has ancient era magic (Hellsgate does but cannot access it due to the chains) or somebody that can convert some other energy source into that kind of magic (it was suspected that Dr. Rune, if he was working with Shadowformer, might have a pseudo-science pseudo-magic way of doing just that)

<p class="MsoNormal">So then Wolf, the Kerroki, remembered what Pagan had previously told him "Say my name and I will appear!" and he did _just that_!!! And Pagan appeared! Pagan said that he could, in fact, use those incantations if they went to the proper location, and would be quite happy to do so, if only one of the heroes took him up on his previous offer!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">He also reveled in making it clear to Hellsgate that he knew just who Hellsgate actually was, though he never really _said_ it out loud per se. Hellsgate was overjoyed that the humiliation would continue if we worked with Pagan but he made no effort to stop anyone from bargaining with their soul (professional courtesy, no doubt). Wolf decided to hell with the consequences, he would sell his soul to Pagan in return for Pagan's help obtaining the Ring of Darkness. Pagan agreed. He then opened a portal to the Shadowrealm (where the incantation must be cast to get to the Tower of Shadows) and the group departed, almost immediately running into some sort of Shadow Dragon dinosaur-looking thing that attacked! The thing apparently had Darkness Field as a natural ability and fired it up, blinding nearly the entire group! So, naturally, everybody began lashing out with their most lethal offense! When the smoke cleared, the dragon thing was still standing, we had taken out JoAnne, Doctor Orion, and Honor-Death had pretty nearly taken himself out!

<p class="MsoNormal">   The good news was the heroes did eventually beat the thing. Then Pagan got them to the appropriate site, then began the incantation and opened a portal again. Only Hellsgate heard the incantation and realized it didn't match the exact text on the tablet! He called him on it but not before Doctor Orion, Cyberlash, Paladin, and Wolf had gone through it! They appeared in some sort of alchemist's lab, and Doctor Orion time-stopped to scout around, found the door to the chamber was locked, and blasted it off its hinges with his Forcefield! Outside was a group of cultist-looking people who started gibbering at him (his time-stop had broken when he blasted the door) in some other language, and meanwhile, Pagan's portal had closed! He tried to negotiate with them, but they could not understand him.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Back at in the other group, Pagan then began casting the incantation again, getting it right this time, but then he ducked through the portal before anybody could follow, closing it instantly, leaving Hellsgate, Honor-Death, JoAnne, and Flak there, while Doctor Orion, Cyberlash, Paladin, and Wolf got ready to face off against the cultist guys! Doctor Orion blocked the doorway with his forcefield while Hellsgate, at the other location, said, "Well... I should have seen that coming. That's what happens when you live as a human for too long..." But he did hatch a plan- JoAnne had recorded the incantation Pagan had used and Flak was (barely) mystically powered (Cydra gave him his "organic cybernetics" and he was, sort of, Cydra's Avatar). Flak was, unfortunately, terrible at casting spell or using mystic rituals. Fortunately, Hellsgate is actually quite proficient, so with some help (and a lot of luck), he was able to use JoAnne's recording and talk Flak through the process of casting the spell, and they opened their own portal!

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<p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile Doctor Orion used his Time Travel power to spread to his other three allies and he chanced that if he traveled to the previous location a few moments after they had previously followed Pagan's phony portal, he could avoid looping himself. He and his group arrived just as Flak's portal was winking closed! Doctor Orion desperately engaged a power-feat and time-paused again using his last shred of energy, but the group was able to drag him through the closing portal before it shut!

<p class="MsoNormal">They arrived right behind Hellsgate's group. Pagan was already there, in the middle of the room, standing next to some sort of huge stone altar. On the other side of the room, clearly preparing to attack him,   is Doctor Rune, Shadowformer, and a load of golem minions!!!

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<p class="MsoNormal">Then the unexpected happened... a truce broke out! Honor-Death tried to stick the Ring which was floating above the altar, with his Extendo-Sword, but when he did, the ring vanished and the room plunged into darkness, and the group fairly quickly realized that none of them really knew how to actually _get_ the ring now that they were all there! Honor-Death then decided to poke the altar, instead, which nearly shot him with some nasty projectile spikes as he triggered a trap! Pagan then politely asked Honor-Death to stop whacking the clues with his sword. JoAnne McDonnell vanished even as she attempted to catch the dark-vision goggles the group had previously acquired from Turnyp (Flak had bought a dozen of the dark-vision goggles from the interdimensional Veg-O-Matic salesman, trading one of the recovered Eyes of Ulwrathe for the goggles and a gem)!

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<p class="MsoNormal">Eventually Honor-Death explored the ceiling of the chamber and it turned out to be the runic equivalent of the Sistene Chapel! There were an almost innumerable quantity of inscriptions and runes there, but   right above the altar could be found the worlds "Darkness is here" which had been the exact text that had appeared on the floor of the chamber from which the portal to get here was opened, so everybody figured that might be significant! Pagan repeated the enchantment for the portal, and a "beam of darkness" radiated from that spot down into the altar, and the Ring began to coalesce out of it. Then the truce quite suddenly ended!

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<p class="MsoNormal">Shadowformer shadow-jumped right into the beam while in shadow mode, Doctor Orion bubbled him, Hellsgate tried to grab where the ring appeared to be via his Ethrium chains, Pagan flew up and tried to stab Shadowformer with Pagan's Phasing Blade, and Honor-Death stabbed his extending sword at where the ring appeared to be! Shadowformer ended up with the ring forming right in his chest, Pagan's blade hits nothing, the chains pass through it, too, the force field surrounding Shadowformer and the ring locked Hellsgate's chain where it was intersecting it, and Honor-Death's blade deflected off the force field, hitting Pagan, absorbing the energy of the Phasing Blade spell! Flak leapt onto the force field bubble and tried to bite through the Ethrium chain with his devouring (unsuccessfully)! Hellsgate pulls his chain free, Shadowformer solidified around the ring, Pagan got ready to swing again, and Honor-Death stabbed him in the face with his own Phasing Blade spell! Shadowformer suddenly vanished, Honor-Death passed out (the stab took the last of his power) and Doctor Rune realized he had been had because he lost his mental link with Shadowformer! He told us this while Pagan vanished due his emergency "Boomerang" spell, designed to keep himself from being slain in any dimension outside of the Demon Realm! And, finally, the chamber began to collapse!

<p class="MsoNormal">Doctor Rune quickly popped up a portal rune and the group scrambled to go through it before the chamber collapsed. Unfortunately, Hellsgate’s chains negated the portal’s spell as he passed through it, so the portal winked out! The rest of the heroes had already gone through, but Hellsgate had not! The group found themselves in some sort of restaurant occupied by little more than a score of various versions of Doctor Rune’s Alchemy Golems and Doctor Rune offered everyone breakfast while they all licked their wounds.

<p class="MsoNormal">Unknown to the group, as soon as Shadowformer had solidified, the ring placed itself upon his finger and the Ring of Darkness’ main power, the ability to make the wearer essentially undetectable, had activated! Shadowformer had actually remained in the chamber until it began to collapse and then had shadow-jumped out, to parts unknown, to celebrate his victory!

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<p class="MsoNormal">January 5th, 3045

<p class="MsoNormal">The group trapped in the Golden Age prepared for the next move- retrieving Betawolf from Dark Lord’s clutches. Gypsy and Dark Marauder had teamed up to locate the Dark Legion swamp base, and DM indicated that he felt that Dark Lord would not be able to resist the opportunity to pit Betawolf against Ironwolf in a rematch. So a small strike squad was assembled to attack the Legion base and draw out Dark Lord and his minions.

<p class="MsoNormal">Inquisitor had returned, and he led the mission. The plan was that he would team up with Dark Marauder to give DM a pool of energy to draw upon so that DM could force Dark Lord out of Betawolf’s mind. The Guardians and their allies would grab him and escape. Joining them was Incognito, a Kerroki stow-away that had been hiding among the group- she had most recently been hiding as a copy of Flak’s Cameraman look. Her powers were similar- apparently she could change her shape and appearance at will. Quick-Shot then led Cyber Ghost, Carmine, and Telestar to join the Guardians on the mission.

<p class="MsoNormal">The group teleported in at the edge of the Dark Legion’s scattering field and then began to advance on foot. They were quickly met by a group of Dark Legion members including Power Lord, Electric Lord, Metallion, Mr. Silver, Grenadier, Chill, Granitaur, Dark Lord, and, as predicted, Betawolf! The Legion attacked with a practiced precision, and the hodge-podge group of heroes was quickly on their heels. Dark Lord set the matchups so that they played to the various Legion members’ individual strengths and everything seemed to break in the Legion’s favor until Quick Shot, aiding Inquisitor against Electric Lord and Power Lord, sniped Power Lord, killing him outright! This, of course, horrified the Guardians, but the fight was going badly for them. Eventually it came down to little more than Inquisitor, Ironwolf, and Dark Marauder facing off against the bulk of the Legion! Dark Lord teleported Inquisitor to Ra, shutting down the scattering field, taking Inquisitor out of the battle, so Dark Marauder responded in kind, catching Betawolf in a teleportal, sending him, too, to Ra, and breaking Dark Lord’s hold over him! A desperate retreat then ensued, with Dark Marauder teleporting out the bulk of the heroes, though he himself was unable to escape! Inquisitor ran into the retired cosmic-level Guardian, Nova, on Ra, and found the unconscious Betawolf there. Despite the loss of Dark Marauder, the heroes had successfully retrieved Betawolf so that the Temporal Guardians would have enough time-energy to power the Time Scoop.

<p class="MsoNormal">It didn’t end there, however, as the bulk of the other group returned and a disagreement quickly broke out over the killing of Power Lord. Eventually Inquisitor, at the end of his rope, said that the Guardians should probably throw the bulk of the time-traveling heroes in the brig! Trinity, already uneasy with the heroes from the modern age, took that as a directive and attacked, and quickly things degenerated into a battle between the Guardians and the Vanguard/Underworld members. Garret quietly gathered the Temporal Guardians and Doctor Orion and had Janus transport them all out while the battle raged.

<p class="MsoNormal">In the end, an uneasy truce was resumed between the Guardians and the Vanguard/ Underworld members, while Doctor Orion, Garret, and the Temporal Guardians met up with members of the fledgling agency TRIAD to finish the job of getting to the Time Scoop!

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<p class="MsoNormal">January 26th, 3045 and 3095

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<p class="MsoNormal">After having abandoned the Vanguard and Underworld heroes, who had broken out into physical conflict with the Guardians, Doctor Orion and the Temporal Guardians discussed their plight with Derrik Allen and other members of TRIAD. Derrik agreed to help the heroes but suggested that Doctor Orion go back to the Vanguard and Underworld members and try to ask them to help. Doctor Orion did so, and was successful in talking them into completing the mission they started.

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<p class="MsoNormal">The combined Guardians, Vanguard, Underworld, and TRIAD group then split into two, one group to attract the attention of the defenders of the Spire on the Battleworld, the other would contain the five time travelers and would breach the Spire and use the Time Scoop to retrieve Void Walker.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The group attempting to break into the Spire consisted of the Kerroki spy Incognito, Carmine Bomber, Quick Shot, Telestar, Flak, TRIAD member Hawk, and, of course, the four remaining Temporal Guardians as well as Doctor Orion. Upon insertion, they tangled with some sort of dragon, which they dispatched fairly handily. After dealing with that threat, they were then ambushed by a group of Moorceyan Battle Androids, although these Androids seemed to have received an upgrade, as they apparently had Polymorph and Stretching rather than the more traditional Claws and Projectiles powers, in addition to the expected Directional Teleport! They also seemed to be able to adapt to defenses and became more powerful against more powerful opponents. Still, they remained vulnerable to technological disruption as well as area effect attacks, and once the group worked that out, they dealt with them fairly quickly.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">That brought them to the Spire. After some discussion as to how to enter, Garret and Janus informed the group that the Spire’s door controls worked on “Thermal Speak”, the native language of Moorceyans, which consisted of varying heat pulses. Janus was capable of producing this effect, and she was able to get the door open.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Inside, the group found Pagan, the Demon King trying to figure out the controls for the Time Scoop, without apparent success. None of the heroes noticed the fact that he seemed to have re-grown the ponytail Honor-Death had previously cut. Once the Temporal Guardians powered up the equipment and targeted Void Walker at the point at which Twilight had looped him, Pagan suddenly began operating the equipment with apparent precision! Flak tried to sabotage the console mid-scoop, but Pagan blocked the attempt and then changed forms into something that looked very much like Void Walker! There was a brilliant flash of light and the Temporal Guardians vanished! Additionally the terrain around the Spire was suddenly replaced with what appeared to be a large chunk of the T’Karr homeworld, complete with residual Unstable Molecules, the dreadful weapon the Alliance had used to destroy the T’Karri during Operation: Crusade. The Void Walker-looking individual who had been posing as Pagan then summoned up a duplicate, which used Stretching to leap into one of the clouds of residual Unstable Molecules! He was immediately partially consumed, but then a large number of the Unstable Molecules began the other half of the process and began to duplicate the Void Walker-looking individual hundreds of times! Flak and Carmine then attacked the console and the Time Scoop, hitting it with an incredibly powerful explosion and a makeshift Crystilium bomb! The Spire began to collapse even as the scene outside again shifted. Doctor Orion reappeared in the midst of the destruction and he and the other heroes beat a hasty retreat out of the Spire, with the exception of Incognito, who was hidden within the Spire and was not quick enough to exit before it collapsed!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Telestar felt access to many of the worlds to which he could teleport returning, so he grabbed Quick Shot and Doctor Orion and teleported to Altair to avoid any further destruction. Flak, Hawk, and Carmine Bomber exited the Spire on foot and once they got outside the Spire, it vanished in a wave of temporal energy and the terrain around them appeared to be, instead of the desolate wasteland of the ruins of T’Karr, fertile, unscarred grassland! They were soon then visited by a wandering Moorceyan who initially seemed to be unable to speak any language they could understand, but after touching Flak, he was able to communicate telepathically. He identified himself as being called “Ford” and told them they were on, in essence, a planet that was now a wildlife sanctuary! Ford identified Flak as simply an “Earthling” rather than specifically an Old Earthling, and offered to take them back to Earth. Flak asked, instead, if Ford knew where Altair was and if he could take them there, instead. He agreed and fairly quickly took them to Altair, specifically Grayfolk. The other group was disoriented but there.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The group on Altair tried to get their bearings, having landed in Grayfolk, though Grayfolk itself seemed to be largely restored, rather than the war-torn mess it had been when they had originally left. They looked for some familiar landmarks, including the Blue Star, and the Blue Star seemed to have been replaced by a parking garage. They consulted a newspaper and spoke to a passing citizen, revealing that the day and date seemed to be where it should have been, early in the year 3089, but certain events referred to in the paper, and certain landmarks seemed to be entirely absent. They were soon confronted by a version of the hero Ironwolf, who some of the heroes recognized, more or less, and he asked them what their business was in town, especially as heavily armed as some of the heroes were. The group asked about other heroes, and Ironwolf identified that TRIAD was the main operational superhero group, though there were other local teams. He did not recognize several of the team names Flak offered; specifically he did not recognize “The Seekers” or “The Enforcers”. Ironwolf then identified a handful of active TRIAD members including Trinity, Davion, and FireLord to Flak! They asked where might be a good place to cross paths with some of these sorts and Ironwolf offered to take them to the Hot Spot, a local bar and restaurant frequented by TRIAD members.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The group arrived at the Hot Spot. It was relatively unoccupied, though there was a person there who Ironwolf identified as Incognito, a new recruit! She did not recognize any of the heroes, though she did understand Flak when he spoke to her in Kerroki. She concealed her reaction, however, and gave no hint she understood it. Ironwolf asked Flak what language he was speaking, and Flak identified it as Kerroki. Ironwolf did not recognize the name of the language. The group began to tell Ironwolf about what had happened to them as Trinity arrived, so Ironwolf left them in her care while he went to get another TRIAD member, Analog, who had some experience with time travel. The group identified themselves as Vanguard and told Trinity and Incognito that they were “a new group” since neither of them recognized the group’s name. Ironwolf soon returned with Analog, who was able to confirm that they had been, in fact, exposed to Chronatic Energy, a sure sign of time travel! Ironwolf then went back on patrol, leaving the group with Trinity and Analog. Vanguard then began to consider their next move.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">February 17th, 3095

<p class="MsoNormal"> 

<p class="MsoNormal">The somewhat confused and bewildered Vanguard and Underworld members met with a number of representatives from TRIAD and the Guardians, including Trinity and Derrik Allen, TRIAD’s current leader. The TRIAD members tried to help the Vanguard and Underworld members understand their New World- there were some significant major differences including no contact with the T’Karri, no Enforcers, no Seekers, and no Division Valley Massacre. However before they could get too far along, their base was approached by Yuen Whod (a known enemy of TRIAD) and his Android Specialists, Hunter, Sniper, Ninja, Swordsman, Wrestler, and Yuen’s major domo, Claw!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Quick-Shot led a response team including TRIAD rookies Ferra and Sparkler, TRIAD member Defcon, the unaffiliated hero Barith, Gro-Hikk, Greg the Grim Reaper, and Flak to intercept them. A pitched battle ensued, with no clear advantage until Gro-Hikk managed to convince Swordsman to engage him in a one-on-one duel, unarmed! Gro-Hikk, in his werewolf form, was more than a match for Swordsman. That seemed to turn the tide, though in the intervening time, Yuen Whod himself entered the Vanguard base, looked around a bit, and encountered Enrique Rojas, and then did some sort of power manifestation effect to implant a post-hypnotic suggestion in Enrique, a message to deliver to Quick-Shot. The Specialists retreated, except for Wrestler, who was captured, and the heroes were left wondering just what the point of the episode was.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">March 3rd, 3095

<p class="MsoNormal"> 

<p class="MsoNormal">The heroes from Vanguard and Underworld continued their exploration of the strange New World in which they found themselves, starting with meeting with TRIAD member Croc and recent TRIAD recruit Domino about the recent attack of Yuen Whod and his Specialists on the Vanguard base. The TRIAD guests accompanied the Vanguard/ Underworld members as they attempted to interrogate Wrestler, one of the Specialists who had attacked the base, and the only one they had captured, with Redline in the lead. Wrestler was remarkably cooperative, indicating that he was under orders to attack the base and if captured, remain at the base until Yuen Whod came for him, in approximately 18 hours. He was able to give little additional information, but rookie Vanguard member Enrique Rojas had since had an opportunity to deliver his message, implanted by Yuen Whod, to Quick-Shot. The message was simple: “We should meet.” Additionally, a set of coordinates were given. Redline determined, much to her chagrin, that Quick-Shot had gotten the message and had departed, on his own, without telling anyone. The good news was that he had not left long ago, and the coordinates led right back to the Hot Spot. The group followed him there and were just beginning to discuss with him the wisdom of going off on his own to meet what was, to TRIAD at least, a known enemy, even though to Vanguard and Underworld, Yuen Whod had been, for quite some time, a friend!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Yuen Whod shared some insight- he could somehow sense that Quick-Shot and the Vanguard/ Underworld heroes were not from this world, and that their presence could pose a risk. He then departed, and Quick-Shot returned to the base, but before the rest could do so, some chaos erupted in the parking lot! A school-bus had smashed into a light pole and there were ten foot tall zombie-like flesh creatures attacking law enforcement. The heroes began to engage the monsters, and Sparkler was already on scene fighting them. She was joined by a stuntwoman-actress-turned-super-heroine Jessica Kyle AKA Filmstar. The heroes faced two waves of the strange creatures and destroyed them while simultaneously tending to injured children in the school bus and trying to get them to safety. Unfortunately, the bus driver was apparently in on it and grabbed Sparkler, disappearing in a cloud of smoke! The group finished helping the injured and then got in contact with the base to try to figure out what happened to Sparkler as some sort of purple meteorite streaked low on the horizon and crashed into the ridge outside Grayfolk!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">A second group from the base, including Ambassador Topaz, Barith, Polaris, Reboot, Sling-Shot, Greg the Grim Reaper, and Enrique Rojas,     then was dispatched to investigate the meteorite- apparently the source was a huge purple… entity… and it seemed rather confused, however it did attack once the group approached, firing a series of devastating projectiles at them, however none of the projectiles found the mark. Before the group could retaliate, Ambassador Topaz started trying to communicate with the entity and determined that it could understand and speak Kerroki!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Things quickly escalated, however, when the area came under bombardment by some sort of MIRV device, the payload of which consisted of military-grade attack drones! The drones attacked the heroes and then a group of costumed individuals teleported in- more enemies of TRIAD, a team called Moving Violations! The members present included Board, Glossy Gleamer, All-Sport, Eight-Ball, and Vinny the Rock, all individuals that the veteran members of Vanguard thought to be dead, the team Moving Violations disbanded! Moving Violations attacked abruptly and were surprisingly capable, fighting the heroes on pretty much even footing, well, except for All-Sport, who kept getting dumped into a big hole!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Eventually, Topaz made some progress communicating with the entity, telling it that Moving Violations were bad people, and All-Sport attacked it! Between the attack and the opinion, the entity turned and apparently set itself to self-destruct! Polaris, however, guessed what was going to happen and got everyone clear before the entity exploded! With the objective apparently destroyed, Vinny and Eight-Ball teleported out via the Cosmic Pool Cue, and All-Sport escaped on foot. Glossy Gleamer and Board were captured.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">When the smoke cleared, the source of the entity was revealed. Lying unconscious in a blast crater was revealed to be none other than the former Temporal Guardian, Cyberlash! It was not clear how, or even why she still existed in this strange New World, but there she was! The group then returned to their base with Cyberlash!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">March 23rd, 3095

<p class="MsoNormal"> 

<p class="MsoNormal">Panther, Guardians member and boyfriend of Trinity suggested that a small group mount a rescue operation to recover Sparkler before Trinity found out that she had been lost, apparently fearing her wrath! Domino and Greg the Grim Reaper agreed to help, and Panther indicated he might be able to track Sparkler if they went back to the scene where she was kidnapped. They began an investigation but as they did so, they found themselves in the middle of a battle with a group of apparent ninjas. Eventually, they worked out that one of them, a man calling himself David Lin, claiming to be born under divinely lucky circumstances, was the intended victim, and these ninjas were assassins bent on killing him, and, apparently, members of the infamous Scorpion Clan. Despite the numbers of assassins, Lin, Panther, and the rookies defeated the ninjas and sent them packing.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Panther then renewed his investigation, determining based on forensic traces, that Violet, an evil alchemist of sorts, was the kidnapper. Panther was able to follow her to her hideout, and the group crept into the place, facing traps and tricks and ultimately facing Violet, herself, and, strangely enough, additional members of Moving Violations, and more military-grade drones! The heroes faced stiff odds, and Greg thought he would, while in the Realm of the Dead, having been momentarily killed, petition for some backup, since Violet was using dark magic to artificially bind souls to zombie-like husks as a means of creating additional minions. A Reaper and a number of Collectors saddled up to deal with the situation. In the end, Violet escaped and the group fled as the small army of soul-harvesting Collectors led by the powerful Reaper arrived to collect the captive souls. Almost overlooked was the actual objective of the mission- Sparkler was trapped in some sort of sarcophagus, with Violet apparently trying to, by some arcane means, transform Sparkler in some way, perhaps by grafting a soul to her artificially, perhaps related to someone named “Lily” whom Violet continued to reference during the battle. Panther did not have time to investigate, however, as the forces from the Realm of the Dead descended on the hideaway and harvested every soul there. None of the heroes were at all certain that the Collectors would stop with just _trapped_ souls, and since everyone wanted to keep theirs, they beat a hasty retreat, Sparkler in tow.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">April 27th, 3095

<p class="MsoNormal"> 

<p class="MsoNormal">Vanguard/Underworld members Quickshot, Enrique Rojas, and Gro’hikk were visiting TRIAD Base 10 while the bulk of their membership had returned to the Vanguard base with Cyberlash, who was still unconscious after the strange events of a day prior. TRIAD members Incognito, Ferra, and LAZER were present, with the bulk of their membership off on missions throughout the sector. Additionally, the last known Apprentice Elder, Doctor Orion, was on scene. Ferra got an emergency alert from nearby Grayfolk! Specifically a huge robot had suddenly materialized and was rampaging downtown. With the majority of the Base 10 members on other missions, Ferra asked Quickshot and his allies to assist LAZER and Incognito in responding to the threat, and they agreed. Ferra remained at the base to try to coordinate reinforcements.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Once they arrived, the party engaged the robot, and Doctor Orion used a technological device to scan the robot. His scan revealed that the robot’s armor seemed somehow in flux, resulting from the robot’s ability to absorb matter it disrupted and use that matter to repair itself. Additionally, the robot was transmitting back and forth on some sort of electromagnetic energy frequency. While Doctor Orion worked on trying to access that signal, the rest of the heroes kept the robot engaged and tried to get the civilian population out of the area. Quickshot and LAZER met with some success, damaging the robot, but the robot kept disintegrating nearby vehicles, absorbing the matter to continue to self-repair.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Doctor Orion was able to break in and send a signal to the robot and asked the robot why it was here. The robot replied somewhat directly that it was to create a “diversion”. As soon as this became known, the group tried to contact Ferra back at the TRIAD base to alert her, and was unable to reach her! Realizing the base must be the real target, the group redoubled its efforts to bring down the robot, with the robot eventually announcing “diversion terminated”, at which time it appeared to be cycling up to self destruct, though not before moving right into the midst of the heroes! LAZER took a gamble and shot at what he believed to be the power source for the robot, destroying it, and that seemed to end the threat, with the robot falling inert. Gro’hikk then hacked one of its legs off, and it fell to the ground, nearly landing on some of the heroes in the process. LAZER then accessed one of his own special technological modifications and absorbed a portion of the robot’s weapons systems, gaining the ability to repair himself with non-living matter in the same way the giant robot had done. The group then made a call to the next nearest TRIAD base, Outpost 6, and requested an emergency teleport to Outpost 6, which could then remotely access Base 10’s teleport system and send the whole group there. TRIAD members Shayra Fighting Bear and Fang were on duty and coordinated the teleport, with Fang coming with as backup.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The group arrived at Base 10 and determined that there had been two incursions- the base’s shields had been circumvented and two outside teleportations had occurred, one to the monitor room, one to the brig in the base’s lower level. The group realized that there had only been one person in the brig, and that was Wrestler! Worse, they realized it had been just over 18 hours since Wrestler had informed him that Yuen would be back for him! The group found Ferra, alive but unconscious, in the monitor room, and revived her. The group then traced the teleportation beams all the way back to the external scattering field of the island of Gammador, Yuen Whod’s known base of operations, but a more precise fix could not be made, since the scanners could not penetrate the scattering field.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Before they could further investigate, another signal came in, this time a distress beacon from a research vessel that was in orbit around Altair, having recently received an ancient salvaged derelict to investigate to which it was affixed. Ferra only had one space worthy vessel available, a Shark jet that had been specially modified for atmosphere-to-orbital use, generally used to ferry people to and from the surface of Altair to space stations or other vessels in orbit. The group then boarded the vessel, joined by Camgar Redshield, another of the ancient Kerroki warriors that Vanguard had picked up before the time-wave. Upon closer observation, the science vessel had docked with a rather sizable derelict vessel of unknown origin, devoid of life-signs, but in remarkably good shape. As they approached, the Shark they were flying was struck by something which was quickly revealed to be a body, possibly one from the research vessel!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">As they drew closer, they realized that the science vessel had somehow been completely depressurized, its occupants apparently killed within or blown into space! Worse, the main airlock for the vessel had been depressurized and was void of atmosphere, and the Shark was not equipped with its own airlock. Its bomb bay doors had been modified and replaced with doors that could interface with a standard airlock, but if the Shark docked with the science vessel, it would vent all of its atmosphere into the vessel, and the Shark was only equipped with atmospheric recyclers, it did not have full life support capability should it be completely bereft of atmosphere. The Shark did carry enough spacesuits for some of the group to board, however, but Fang and Quickshot remained in the Shark, with Fang being too large for the available spacesuits, and Quickshot manning the Shark’s controls in case something more was needed of her. Doctor Orion modified his own force field device so that he could set up a field that was not permeable to atmosphere, and the group donned space suits, thinking that if LAZER, who did not need a spacesuit, and Doctor Orion, in a spacesuit, boarded the other vessel via a force field-turned airlock, they might be able to close the airlock doors and re-pressurize the airlock, enabling the rest of the group to board and determine what might have happened to the crew.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Once aboard, the group was able to seal the airlock and re-pressurize the airlock, and began to restore life support and artificial gravity to the science ship. As they began to explore, they opened one of the auxiliary airlocks and came under attack by someone in a spacesuit wielding some sort of plasma cutting tool! Doctor Orion was struck but his force field held. LAZER reacted with a surprisingly lethal blow and killed the attacker instantly! Doctor Orion deduced that the attacker may well have been one of the crew of the science vessel who had been hiding in the airlock. Further investigation would have confirmed this, and would have revealed that the attacker’s spacesuit was running critically low on oxygen, so the attack may have been provoked by a lack of good air. Investigations were not forthcoming, however, as LAZER then attacked the group in a somewhat unexpected manner, shooting at them and trying to damage or destroy their spacesuits! The group had little time to react, but Doctor Orion was able to determine that LAZER was receiving some sort of transmission from further into the vessel. LAZER attempted to kill or space the group but was, himself, ultimately pushed out one of the airlocks after being encased in a force field bubble.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The group recovered and advanced into the front compartment of the science vessel and followed the signal into the alien derelict. Gravity was minimal on the derelict and it appeared to have no power. The group was forced to rely on spacesuit’s built in head lamps and jumped down into the derelict. After a bit of exploring, they found the apparent source of LAZER’s betrayal, another android very similar in design to LAZER, who appeared to be trying to absorb some technology from the derelict! Doctor Orion tried to send a message of peace to the unknown android via the frequency the android had been using to interface with LAZER, and the android informed him that LAZER was his brother and that he would not brook interference in the completion of his mission! He then attacked the group with a mini-gun, trying to destroy their spacesuits or kill them outright, but the weapon failed after a couple bursts, having depleted what oxygen remained trapped within the gun’s mechanism. The android then attacked with more direct methods, trying to strike or grab the group with a telescopic arm and shooting beams of kinetic force at the group while continuing to absorb technology from the derelict’s console. The group approached with all due caution, using the cover provided by the derelict to get in close and minimize the android’s ability to attack them!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Eventually the android completed his work with the console and attacked in earnest, but Camgar was able to get in close and strike down the android with one mighty blow, finding a weak spot in the android’s armor and running him through! Finally, some of the more space faring backup that Ferra had requested arrived, in the form of the cyborg Alpha-Omega, who assisted the group by setting up a dimensional portal ultimately returning them to TRIAD Base 10, the fallen android in tow. Fang also reported back that they had recovered LAZER from space, and that he was unconscious but otherwise essentially unharmed.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The group began to examine data returned from scanning the derelict during the battle, but Doctor Orion was the only one that recognized the origin of the technology- it appeared to be Moorceyan! He did not disclose this information to anyone, though he expressed a desire to get a better look at it under better circumstances, however the issue was not pursued further at that time due to another unexpected event- for several minutes, a second moon was visible in Altair’s night sky- nearly identical to Ra, except that there was no Mechtan city visible like there was on the Ra to which TRIAD was familiar! Doctor Orion and some of the others that had survived the time-wave recognized it, however, as the Ra from the world _they_ remembered. It vanished just as quickly as it had appeared, however, and Alpha-Omega flew off to take a closer look, leaving the rest of the group to wonder just what it was that was going on!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">May 4th, 3095

<p class="MsoNormal"> 

<p class="MsoNormal">In something of a temporal anomaly, Seekers members Orion, Madwand, and Thangor teamed up with Blue Diamond, Void Walker, Streetbreaker, and Fusion to respond to the occupation of Grayfolk General Hospital by the evil Elemental, Eternal, and his lieutenant, Elorda the Black Knight. Fusion had discovered this occupation when, previously, she, Orbital of the Garage Boyz, Greg the Grim Reaper, the urban vigilante Penance, and others responded to what appeared to be some sort of zombie outbreak. Ultimately they revealed that Eternal had come into possession of an artifact called the Mirror of Kryka, but they lacked the raw firepower to try to address the issue. Fusion and Orbital, while making their escape, had gotten in touch with Dagg Nikodemus, Dangerman! Dagg then contacted the Seekers and the others listed above.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Upon arrival, the group had to fight its way through a number of unusually powerful zombies with the assistance of a local supernatural hunter known as Cross. The hospital itself seemed to be protected by some sort of barrier that prevented direct teleportation and even blocked Void Walker’s Void Hole power and his Cosmic Awareness, so the group was forced to go in blindly. Worse, as they approached the hospital, Blue Diamond lost his ability to trigger his Cosmic Activation- apparently something was interfering with that, too. He did not, at the time, realize it, but it was Elorda’s “Godslayer” aura that was preventing his activation. Additionally, the group came under attack from Trapline, the Immortal-hunting demon and FOUNDATION member. He decapitated Fusion’s duplicate but did not get the opportunity, at that time, to replicate his performance against the real thing.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The group split up, with Cross and Streetbreaker going in through the lobby and main elevator, and the rest of the group going in via the roof. Void Walker had tried to go in the front door first, but he was met by a squad of self-exploding zombies and went down, narrowly surviving. The group had previously determined that all the remaining non-zombies in the hospital had been barricaded on the tenth floor, with Eternal and Elorda occupying the ninth. Streetbreaker and Cross arrived first, coming out of the elevator on the ninth floor, where they learned that not only were Elorda and Eternal present, but so were a number of other evil doers, including Madwand’s arch-enemy (and former Seeker) Revelation, Eight-Ball (whose predecessor had been killed by Thangor), and a small army of improved zombies! Eternal and Elorda sabotaged the elevator and it began to fall, with Cross trapped within! Several zombies also boarded or leapt onto the roof and it became clear that they were also self-exploding! Cross managed to escape the falling elevator while Streetbreaker fought a desperate battle, essentially alone on the ninth floor!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The rest of the group met Penance on the roof and were originally going to attempt to rescue the hostages, but Streetbreaker and Cross’ frontal assault forced their hand, and they went to the ninth floor themselves, joining the battle there. Streetbreaker managed to toss both Elorda and Eternal down the elevator shaft, and they were caught in the explosion of the zombies that had rode Cross’ elevator, buying the others time to deal with the zombies massed on the ninth and the other villains assembled there! The explosion from the elevator knocked out the power in the hospital, and the heroes used the darkness to get the upper hand, driving back Revelation and Eight-Ball, but unfortunately during the battle, Trapline caught up with Fusion and decapitated her!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Infuriated at the turn of events, Eternal then called off what was apparently some sort of auction of the Mirror of Kryka and indicated he would set up an alternate location that was more secure at some future date! He and Elorda then left, forcing Revelation, Eight-Ball, and Trapline to also flee.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Left Wing, in orbit above the site in the Inquisition 2.0, monitoring the operation, then signaled Madwand and the Seekers, indicating that he was picking up some sort of temporal phenomenon approaching their location! The group beamed up to the Inquisition, no longer being jammed by the scattering field Eternal had apparently previously set up. Additionally, two patients, some support staff, and a cyberneticist known as Dr. Elizabeth Hill, hostages rescued from the hospital, were beamed up. Left Wing scanned the phenomenon and determined it was a powerful Time Wave. He did his best to calibrate the shields to resist the effects, but when it passed, it knocked out all the ship’s primary systems and most of the backups. With life support failing and all systems down, the Inquisition was dead in space. The heroes all sprang into action, trying to repair what they could, with Blue Diamond providing emergency external shielding via his Energy Field Generation power. They discovered, much to their horror that a second wave was coming!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">With Blue Diamond’s intervention, the ship survived the second wave, but something was wrong- there were no other stars in the sky, and at least for a few moments, there were two moons circling Altair, the normal Ra, and what appeared to be a second one, only this one bore a visible colony of some sort of cybernetic or robotic life forms! The second moon disappeared shortly thereafter, and the group came to the realization that the entire Altairian star system had, somehow, fallen into the Void Realm!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">May 4th, 3095

<p class="MsoNormal"> 

<p class="MsoNormal">In something of a temporal anomaly, Seekers members Orion, Madwand, and Thangor teamed up with Blue Diamond, Void Walker, Streetbreaker, and Fusion to respond to the occupation of Grayfolk General Hospital by the evil Elemental, Eternal, and his lieutenant, Elorda the Black Knight. Fusion had discovered this occupation when, previously, she, Orbital of the Garage Boyz, Greg the Grim Reaper, the urban vigilante Penance, and others responded to what appeared to be some sort of zombie outbreak. Ultimately they revealed that Eternal had come into possession of an artifact called the Mirror of Kryka, but they lacked the raw firepower to try to address the issue. Fusion and Orbital, while making their escape, had gotten in touch with Dagg Nikodemus, Dangerman! Dagg then contacted the Seekers and the others listed above.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Upon arrival, the group had to fight its way through a number of unusually powerful zombies with the assistance of a local supernatural hunter known as Cross. The hospital itself seemed to be protected by some sort of barrier that prevented direct teleportation and even blocked Void Walker’s Void Hole power and his Cosmic Awareness, so the group was forced to go in blindly. Worse, as they approached the hospital, Blue Diamond lost his ability to trigger his Cosmic Activation- apparently something was interfering with that, too. He did not, at the time, realize it, but it was Elorda’s “Godslayer” aura that was preventing his activation. Additionally, the group came under attack from Trapline, the Immortal-hunting demon and FOUNDATION member. He decapitated Fusion’s duplicate but did not get the opportunity, at that time, to replicate his performance against the real thing.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The group split up, with Cross and Streetbreaker going in through the lobby and main elevator, and the rest of the group going in via the roof. Void Walker had tried to go in the front door first, but he was met by a squad of self-exploding zombies and went down, narrowly surviving. The group had previously determined that all the remaining non-zombies in the hospital had been barricaded on the tenth floor, with Eternal and Elorda occupying the ninth. Streetbreaker and Cross arrived first, coming out of the elevator on the ninth floor, where they learned that not only were Elorda and Eternal present, but so were a number of other evil doers, including Madwand’s arch-enemy (and former Seeker) Revelation, Eight-Ball (whose predecessor had been killed by Thangor), and a small army of improved zombies! Eternal and Elorda sabotaged the elevator and it began to fall, with Cross trapped within! Several zombies also boarded or leapt onto the roof and it became clear that they were also self-exploding! Cross managed to escape the falling elevator while Streetbreaker fought a desperate battle, essentially alone on the ninth floor!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The rest of the group met Penance on the roof and were originally going to attempt to rescue the hostages, but Streetbreaker and Cross’ frontal assault forced their hand, and they went to the ninth floor themselves, joining the battle there. Streetbreaker managed to toss both Elorda and Eternal down the elevator shaft, and they were caught in the explosion of the zombies that had rode Cross’ elevator, buying the others time to deal with the zombies massed on the ninth and the other villains assembled there! The explosion from the elevator knocked out the power in the hospital, and the heroes used the darkness to get the upper hand, driving back Revelation and Eight-Ball, but unfortunately during the battle, Trapline caught up with Fusion and decapitated her!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Infuriated at the turn of events, Eternal then called off what was apparently some sort of auction of the Mirror of Kryka and indicated he would set up an alternate location that was more secure at some future date! He and Elorda then left, forcing Revelation, Eight-Ball, and Trapline to also flee.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Left Wing, in orbit above the site in the Inquisition 2.0, monitoring the operation, then signaled Madwand and the Seekers, indicating that he was picking up some sort of temporal phenomenon approaching their location! The group beamed up to the Inquisition, no longer being jammed by the scattering field Eternal had apparently previously set up. Additionally, two patients, some support staff, and a cyberneticist known as Dr. Elizabeth Hill, hostages rescued from the hospital, were beamed up. Left Wing scanned the phenomenon and determined it was a powerful Time Wave. He did his best to calibrate the shields to resist the effects, but when it passed, it knocked out all the ship’s primary systems and most of the backups. With life support failing and all systems down, the Inquisition was dead in space. The heroes all sprang into action, trying to repair what they could, with Blue Diamond providing emergency external shielding via his Energy Field Generation power. They discovered, much to their horror that a second wave was coming!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">With Blue Diamond’s intervention, the ship survived the second wave, but something was wrong- there were no other stars in the sky, and at least for a few moments, there were two moons circling Altair, the normal Ra, and what appeared to be a second one, only this one bore a visible colony of some sort of cybernetic or robotic life forms! The second moon disappeared shortly thereafter, and the group came to the realization that the entire Altairian star system had, somehow, fallen into the Void Realm!

<p class="MsoNormal"> 

<p class="MsoNormal"> 

<p class="MsoNormal">June 1st, 3051

<p class="MsoNormal"> 

<p class="MsoNormal">While the Vanguard/Underworld members at the TRIAD Base explored the strange alien vessel, a group of member that remained at the base fell under attack from some unknown assailants despite the base having recently been relocated!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">A strange young man named Tyros, who had previously been found in the park threatening litterers, had been turned over to Vanguard custody by the local police, on the recommendation of TRIAD. He joined the defenders of the base, Medic, Betta Smith, Reboot, Telestar, Ice, and Battleaxe as they sprang into action when the base’s power unexpectedly shut off.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">After T-Star and Tyros forced open the conference room door, they came under Protonic Rifle fire from a group of techno-armored soldiers who seemed to be moving in a blur, faster than normal, and they seemed to be capable of remarkably quick reactions to attack! The defenders broke into two groups, Medic sent one of her mirrored selves with Tyros (who had assumed the shape of a bear) and they headed for the elevator while the rest of the group engaged the attackers. After a fairly brief battle, one of the troopers seemed to have surrendered, having never fired a shot, and was engaging T-Star in conversation, and Tyros and Medic began to try to find a way down to Engineering via the elevator.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The soldier that surrendered gave the group a fair bit of intelligence. She indicated that she and the others represented something called “The Continuum” and that they would be from the 41st century if, in fact, the time stream had not been destroyed. They were “Time Chute Commandos” hurled back in time to try to eliminate what they called “the anomaly” and indicated that it was present in the base and they were capable of a somewhat risky and random time travel, but only to the past, and with only a limited chance of successfully “landing” where intended. Further discussion revealed that the anomaly was, in fact, most likely Cyberlash, an apparent survivor from the previous timeline that had been destroyed by Flak and Carmine Bomber. Additionally, the soldier indicated that Cyberlash would not be waking up- because when she did, “the convergence” would happen which would result in the destruction of the entire time stream from that point forward. That left the group with the difficult dilemma- in order for this destruction to be stopped, if what the soldier said was true, the group would have to allow the soldier and her people to kill Cyberlash or banish her from the time stream, which would be, essentially, the same thing. If they did not, it would, apparently, mean the end of time itself.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The soldier did not, however, disclose everything, as when Medic and Tyros came to the lower level, they found that there were more soldiers in the infirmary, doing something to Cyberlash as she lay on a medical bay. There seemed to be four leader-type soldiers there and several standard soldiers. The soldiers opened fire, destroying Medic’s mirrored form, but not before she got a message to the rest of the group that there were more soldiers in the Infirmary. T-Star took some of the heroes to Fairgrounds, Old Earth in order to return-jump to the Infirmary, while Betta got ready to take Ice directly there. The soldier that had been helping them, however, quickly changed her tune and drew her weapon, attempting to shoot Betta when the others left. Betta was forced to teleport away without Ice, leaving her alone with the soldier.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Ice attacked in earnest, but the trooper was fairly capable, avoiding most of Ice’s attacks! The soldier responded, then, by trying to fling herself and Ice free of the time stream, the apparent plan being to release Ice before the soldier then landed somewhere else in the Time-Stream, essentially killing Ice. Ice was too quick for that, however, and grabbed onto the soldier as the soldier barely managed a second landing with her Time Chute. The two of them found themselves deep in the midst of some sort of ancient jungle and they ceased hostilities to assess.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile in the infirmary, T-Star and the rest of the party joined Tyros, who was now in the form of a giant anaconda, and they prepared to try to save Cyberlash. T-Star, thinking quickly, sent Cyberlash’s unconscious form back to Fairgrounds (having to push his power to overcome something that seemed to be interfering with his ability to teleport her). T-Star and the group were joined by Greg the Grim Reaper and then came under fire from the leaders, who used more advanced weaponry that seemed to be able to instantly age a target to dust, but T-Star was able to port the whole group out, though at great cost, as he passed out as soon as they arrived!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Unexpectedly the group found themselves surrounded by a number of heavily armed and armored battle automobiles and a small army of warriors! Betta immediately recognized Jammin’ Jim, Chucky Jive, and Casualty, and Jim, their leader, introduced the group to the rest of his men, including his driver Falcon and the owner of a strange armored RV with some sort of glowing engine retrofitted to it. His name was Sunbird! Jim suggested that the whole group gather up the wounded and come with him to a nearby tavern for further explanation and discussion.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">July 3rd, 3051

<p class="MsoNormal"> 

<p class="MsoNormal">Sunbird and Casualty took the group to Blarf’s Bar, a local… establishment… to plan their next move and what they were going to do with the still-unconscious Cyberlash. However, upon arrival, the group came under attack from a group of raiders who claimed that Sunbird had stolen their… ahem… stolen goods, specifically referring to the peculiar glowy-thing attached to the top of Sunbird’s RV. Sunbird, Casualty, Telestar, Greg the Grim Reaper, and Betta Smith joined the fight. The raiders were pretty clearly outmatched by the heroes, and the heroes quickly overpowered them. Coming out of the bar were a pair of old familiar faces, Rayn and Kaizer, a pair of Elf Ninja Assassins that had worked with Vanguard/Underworld early on. They seemed intent on fighting each other until a big brute of a Yorian came out of the bar and began to threaten and harass them- apparently he had some sort of hatred towards Elves!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Kaizer and Rayn attacked him and showed some impressive teamwork, but he had a lot of raw power and took out Rayn. However, Sunbird had caught sight of him and pursued him in earnest, blinding him with a Dazzle and then running him through with his Phoenixian Sword! However, when the big beast fell, he didn’t stay as he was- he melted down to some sort of silver puddle and eventually disappeared into the soil.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, the group had killed the bulk of the raiders, with Greg kept quite busy gathering up the souls of the deceased. As things wound down, a shimmering light and what looked almost like a glowing purple comet began to fall towards the group! The bulk of the group headed for the bar, while Casualty picked up and ran with the car he had taken from the dead raiders, and Sunbird jumped into his RV! Sunbird began to flee as the group battened down the hatches in the bar, and the comet seemed to change direction towards Sunbird! Luckily he was able to get the RV up to speed before the comet got to him, and he jumped the vehicle into T-Space, escaping the area. The comet smashed into the ground near the bar and when the smoke cleared, a huge purple glowing humanoid figure appeared and started closing in on the bar!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The bartender offered free drinks to anyone who defended the bar, so Kaizer, Rayn, and the heroes moved to engage! The huge thing fired explosive bolts that sounded like cannons going off, but the group mostly managed to avoid getting hit. They returned fire and he seemed unusually resistant to bullets and fists. Kaizer and Rayn tried energy swords, and the results were much better. They attacked in earnest and, with the help of T-Star and Betta in particular, dropped the creature. The giant form seemed to be about to fall on top of Kaizer and Rayn, so T-Star quickly whisked them away, to what he remembered to be an uninhabited system of twin planets, Kittaer! The Elves arrived there and found themselves in what seemed to be the ruins of an abandoned high-tech command post. Alarms lit up and a mechanical voice spoke in some ancient lost tongue, confusing the Elves, who quickly hid themselves in the ruins.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, the giant purple entity had shrunk to human-size, and when the smoke cleared, he appeared to be the thought-destroyed Temporal Guardian, Betawolf! He was, of course, unconscious, but otherwise unhurt, and the group could not rouse him. Sunbird, meanwhile, had returned with his RV, and T-Star went to go get the Elves. Upon arrival, T-Star found a group of aliens searching the ruins for the Elves, and he quickly teleported himself and the Elves away, passing out from exertion once he did so! He recognized the aliens as members of an alien her group called Ultrawatch: Omega, yet they seemed not to recognize him! Apparently they had not been activated in this new world’s timeline.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Unexpectedly, the silver thing that had been posing as a Yorian rose up from the dirt and took the form of Void Walker! It even showed powers like Void Walker, including polymorph and density change! It attacked Sunbird’s RV, slicing through the back of the vehicle with a blade-like polymorphed limb and it then dragged Cyberlash’s unconscious form from the RV. It also grabbed the unconscious form of Betawolf and began to open a Void Hole! The group tried to stop him, with Rayn throwing down a floor of ice to try to keep the thing from falling through the hole, but the thing expanded the Void Hole even larger! One of the Earthlings that had been a spectator to all of these events then revealed himself to be none other than Flak, in disguise, and he threw a tech-disrupting net around the whole group, trying to catch them! He tried to hold everyone but the momentum pulled him and the entire group through, into the Void Realm!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">August 3rd, 3051

<p class="MsoNormal"> 

<p class="MsoNormal">A combined force of TRIAD members and Vanguard allies was dispatched to assist with the transfer of captured Moving Violations members Glossy Gleamer and Board to the parahuman prison facility in Capitol City. A private high-speed antigravity-train was dispatched to complete the transfer, and TRIAD members Croc and Incognito with Vanguard allies Magnus, Sling-Shot, and Gro’hikk served as additional guards, supplementing the police forces that were already aboard.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Not surprisingly, sometime after they left the city, the train came under attack. Incognito had decided to pose as a puddle and suddenly found herself scooped up by a cleaning robot, to be deposited in the waste drain, with Croc following to try to get the robot to release Incognito, leaving no heroes guarding the prison car. Sling-Shot and Magnus had been in the rear utility car, with Croc and Incognito in the prison car, and Gro’hikk in the engine. The group heard something landing on the roof of each car and soon something started burning its way into each car.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Magnus reacted decisively, bringing a chunk of ceiling down, revealing some sort of small flying drone as the source of the attempted break-in. It fell into the car and received a sound drubbing from Magnus’ enchanted hammer! Incognito, meanwhile, had extracted herself from the cleaning robot and the whole group started heading for the prisoner car. Gro’hikk, meanwhile, came under attack from a parahuman and some minions. The parahuman blasted him mightily, but he recovered, only to be weakened enough that the minions were able to knock him out and then flee.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile at the rear of the train, the group found All-Sport and The Rock on top of the prisoner car, and they blasted the coupling between the two cars, causing the rear car to begin to fall away! Sling-Shot and Incognito narrowly jumped the gap, clinging desperately to the broken remnants of the coupling, while Magnus leapt through by using his hammer’s vibration-bolt like a rocket. Croc charged and got ready to leap the gap himself. Magnus found all of the policemen in the prisoner car frozen in blocks of ice, the culprit, Cold-Foot, preparing to free Board and Gleamer. Magnus attacked but Cold-Foot was able to take it, and he was able to free Board and Gleamer. Sling-Shot tried to assist, firing one of his kinetic-energy slingshot stones into the car, but it ended up hitting one of the frozen officers, killing him instantly! Board, meanwhile, having no innate powers, went after his gear in a nearby cell while Gleamer joined the fight, launching a barrage of extradimensional goop at the doorway, blocking it off and sealing the other heroes out! Croc leapt just in time to see that barrier come up, and he drove his enchanted trident into the goop to hang on. Magnus continued to fight in the cramped quarters, blasting Board soundly and inadvertently blasting down the barrier Glossy Gleamer had erected.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Glossy Gleamer grabbed the wounded Board and flew back up through the opening despite a valiant effort from Incognito to divert his attention. Cold Foot, meanwhile, seeing the barrier come down and being unable to incapacitate Magnus, activated his jet pack and flew up through the opening, too, intent on escaping. Croc, Sling-Shot, and Incognito, meanwhile, found themselves falling free of the train, still going in excess of 160 MPH, so Croc grabbed the two of them and turned so he absorbed the fall. He sustained severe injuries but between his own innate self-healing ability (part of his Were-Gator heritage), and Sling-Shot’s healing, he survived. They were too far away to try to stop the escape; instead, they turned their attention to the soon-to-crash final car of the train, headed right at them!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Magnus was not content to let everyone escape and he managed to disable Cold-Foot’s jetpack, rupturing his environment suit and causing him to crash! Magnus then pursued him, launching himself via his hammer, and landing near Cold-Foot as Cold-Foot passed out from his injuries. At the same time, Croc was able to right the train car, returning it to the track and keeping it from crushing the three heroes. Gro’hikk, meanwhile, rode, unconscious, to the nearest train station. Medics began to tend to his injuries.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Back at the train, Incognito called for the extraction of her team, with Magnus hauling the unconscious Cold-Foot, and the nearest TRIAD Outpost responded, teleporting the group. They turned over the unconscious Cold-Foot to be housed in the Outpost’s brig and tended to their own injuries. They did not get much time to rest, however, before a second emergency transpired!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">At the train station, Gro’hikk had regained consciousness, however something unexpected happened- separated from his enchanted sword, Gro’hikk spontaneously assumed his Lycanthrope form, but he didn’t seem to be in control of himself and began killing medics and police officer! The wounded and weary team at the Outpost was dispatched to assist; unaware that Gro’hikk was the threat! A brief battle ensued where the group came to realize that Gro’hikk was the threat, and they were able to bring him down without killing him and, eventually, imprisoning him in the brig at the TRIAD Outpost right next to Cold-Foot!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">A last emergency for the beleaguered group saw Yuen Whod’s Specialists attack a Talon Industries warehouse, apparently looking for something. The team, now joined by Reboot and Recursive Man, teleported in and went at the Specialists, trying to stop whatever it is they were up to! A brutal battle ensued with the weary heroes eventually bringing down Swordsman and damaging Claw, however Claw was able to facilitate the group’s escape with whatever they were seeking under the cover of an artillery barrage from Hunter. Incognito called for an emergency extraction but then avoided it herself, instead, infiltrating the Specialist’s escape efforts, finding herself in Yuen Whod’s base, with Yuen himself calling the shots! He detected her, since she was disguised as the previous location’s floor, not this one! Yuen then trapped her in a barrel of some sort of metal object to decide what to do with her, having captured whatever it was he was seeking in Talon Industries!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">August 31st, 3051

<p class="MsoNormal"> 

<p class="MsoNormal">On the version of Altair that apparently survived the last Time-Wave, the heroes Orion, Thangor, Blue Diamond, Falconn, and Streetbreaker, among others, responded to a surge in Cosmic Energy coming from the center of the ruins of Grayfolk. Worse, Blue Diamond detected it to be the surge associated with someone triggering Cosmic Activation!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The group tracked the signal and found Eight-Ball and a bunch of thugs collecting for no clear reason. As the group approached, Cyber-Ghost, and Greg the Grim Reaper also responded and a battle ensued. Eight-Ball was fully Activated, and, apparently, he had somehow spread the phenomenon to the thugs working with him, as their weapons were unusually dangerous, though the thugs themselves were no tougher than usual.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">But what was strange, was a second Eight-Ball appeared on the scene, and Thangor was able to work out that the new one seemed to be the size and build of the original, the one he had slain many years prior, while the old one was the successor he remembered that ended up with the cue after the first one was slain. They seemed to be armed with identical Cosmic Pool Cues, as well!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Things went from strange to stranger as the two cosmically-powered pool cues began attracting one-another and despite the group’s best efforts, they were unable to keep them apart (despite even a cosmic laser pulse into the middle of the phenomenon)! After a massive explosion decimating the area, there was only one pool cue left and Eight-Ball seemed to have been destroyed in the blast!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Shortly thereafter, the Void-Walker like creature that had previously stolen the unconscious forms of Betawolf and Cyberlash fell into the area from a portal above. Kaizer, Rayn, and Flak were following but fell away somehow, landing elsewhere. Betta Smith, Greg the Grim Reaper, and Trinity all followed, however, and landed with the group. Another battle broke out, with the group attacking the very powerful silver creature, and it was joined by another Betta Smith! Eventually the group defeated the silver creature but not before the duplicate Greg the Grim Reaper entities and the Betta Smith duplicates were drawn into one another in violent explosions of energy! Unlike Eight-Ball, however, due to the intense difficulty in killing either Greg or Betta, they survived the blast somehow. Additionally, they had two sets of memories in their heads, one with the time wave and the destruction of the Elders, one without! In the end, though, the cosmic pool cue was recovered and the groups retreated to the damaged Inquisition, piloted by Orion, to effect repairs and determine their next move, Cyberlash and Betawolf, still unconscious, in tow.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">September 28th, 3051

<p class="MsoNormal"> 

<p class="MsoNormal">The night began with Trinity gathering up some of her allies, in the form of Enrique Rojas, Greg the Grim Reaper, Tyros, and Barith to go to TRIAD Base 10’s brig, to visit with Gro’Hikk, who was still out of control in his were-wolf form. Cold Foot and MAZER were also present in nearby cells. But Gro’Hikk was the main focus of the visit. Trinity felt that she had been able to detect a curse enchantment on Gro’Hikk’s sword, and she believed that it was that curse that was causing him to become out of control. Her intention was to try to get him to take back up his sword which, in her estimation, should allow him to regain his senses. The group didn’t think giving a berserk werewolf a magic sword was a terrific idea, but they went along with it. Barith lowered the forcefield, once the guards were clear, and Trinity tossed him his sword, but he didn’t grab it, instead, he rushed Trinity with fangs and claws out! Trinity’s aura deflected the initial attack and she grappled him, trying to bring him under control, and she told the others to grab the sword and press the hilt into his hand! Barith and the others did so, and, as Trinity predicted, Gro’Hikk returned to his human form and seemed to be back in control of his senses. Greg noted that there appeared to be some sort of writing visible to Greg’s soul sight written upon Gro’Hikk’s soul. Greg did not recognize the writing and was unable to reproduce it any way for the other group members to examine. Gro’Hikk seemed fine otherwise. The group explained to him what had happened to him and then returned to the conference room.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile a good distance outside of Grayfolk, in a nearby swamp, Incognito was still trapped in a seamless metal barrel. She overheard Yuen Whod and Claw discuss something Claw had apparently been working on. Claw reported to Yuen that the sensors were ready for use and the modified weapons would be available for the next “incursion”. Incognito, meanwhile, focused her powers well enough to drill a small hole through the barrel with the sharpness of her polymorph power. She oozed out of the barrel in the form of a puddle and disguised herself as the floor, and she made for the elevator, leaving her communicator in the barrel. Before she could leave, though, the elevator opened and out came All-Sport and one of his lieutenants, Vertigo! Unfortunately for Incognito, Vertigo detected her and drew her position to All-Sport’s attention. All-Sport then hurled an explosive baseball at her but missed, and Incognito had enough time to tunnel another hole, this time in the floor, and used it to make an escape. Yuen Whod dispatched Ninja and Hunter to locate her while he began an unlikely meeting with his rivals.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Incognito found herself in a vehicle bay, and she cleverly hid herself from Ninja and Hunter, despite the formidable perception powers available to the specialists, and she slipped out of the vehicle bay and started hoofing it for Grayfolk, regretting leaving her communicator inside, since it left her unable to call for an emergency beam-out.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Back at the TRIAD Base, Ironwolf brought a newcomer to the base to meet with Barith and the others. Barith recognized her from his time in the ancient NetherEra, a one-time ally named Jenev, who now called herself “Jenev the Returned” and claimed to be some sort of mystical prophet. She indicated that she was looking for Gnaug, who many of the heroes knew in either that identity or his assumed name of Dual-Rog, She indicated that “the one who was two” had come to The Orchard, Gnaug and Jenev’s home in its own Pocket Dimension, and that the entire universe might be in peril! Before they could discuss further, however, Ironwolf reported that in downtown Grayfolk, it was raining flaming angels, not something one usually sees in the downtown area! He then dispatched the group to investigate. They were joined by Camgar Redshield, and Jenev elected to go with, indicating that this might be related to her issue.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The group arrived in the downtown area and confirmed the reports- there were dead angels raining down all over the area, apparently having been scorched and somehow cast down from the Ethereal Realm. Worse, two more bodies crashed down, Gure, the God of the Festival, Bounty, and Abundance, and Ellea, the Goddess of Water and Life! And yet worse, Ellea appeared to have been slain outright, a dangerous and horrifying feat that had far-reaching implications across the universe! With no Goddess of Life, no one would be conceived or born, no crops would grow, and eventually every living thing would wither and die! Gure was recovering from his wounds and indicated that as unlikely as it seemed, he had been attacked by a long-forgotten Enforcer named Elron, who, as far as most of the heroes was concerned, had never existed at all since the last Time Wave. Further, Gure reported that Elron was wielding truly unspeakable power and was capable of calling up powerful minions that appeared to have been from Geomodrizzle, the Realm of Mathematics and Chaos. Gure then departed for Limbo, hoping to locate Ellea’s Ethereal essence so it could be returned and she could be resurrected.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Before the group could further contemplate this, a bolt of energy crashed down in the area and left a number of Pi Monsters and a GeomoKnight, minions of Geomodrizzle, in its wake. They attacked the group, and the group retaliated, dispatching them handily. A second beam then appeared, depositing a dangerous GeomoDragon in its path! This proved to be a more dangerous foe, but the group dispatched it, as well, though not before Tyros gave it a good analysis so that he might be able to assume its form.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">After this battle, while the group tended to their wounds, an Angel of Death appeared and informed Greg that he was to return to the Realm of the Dead. Specifically, there was an intruder there who seemed to be doing something unhealthy to the Realm, yet Mora chose to take no action! The angel disagreed with Mora’s choice and was trying to marshal forces to oppose the intruder. Between taunts the angel delivered to Barith, and Camgar’s recognizing of what the angel was, a battle ensued between the angel and the heroes, with the heroes triumphant. The group then headed for the Realm of the Dead where they found Elron, engulfed in something that behaved a bit like Cosmic Activation and wielding an unfamiliar artifact staff. Barith tried to reason with Elron, who claimed to be doing this in an effort to avenge himself upon the universe and remake it in his own image! Further conversation was not possible; however, as Elron apparently summoned more creatures from Geomodrizzle to attack the group as Elron disappeared in a flash of light. The group battled the minions and dispatched them and then questioned Mora as to why he did not take any action to aid them against Elron or in any way interfered with what Elron was doing. Mora gave a rare reply to the group saying that he would not oppose Elron because, in Mora’s opinion, death would be served by what Elron was doing so, therefore, Mora was satisfied.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Greg had gotten a good look at Elron and the staff. Elron’s soul appeared to be as one might expect, but unexpectedly, the staff contained what appeared to be an infinite soul, or, rather, an infinite number of souls all laying upon one another. He had never seen anything like it. Meanwhile, Enrique began to get a strange buzzing in his head or ears, and he wasn’t sure what that meant. Barith figured it out, though, when he saw the runes on his Runesword beginning to shift and change. There were only two things that would cause that to happen- a new bearer of the Runesword, or the presence of one of the other two True Runeswords. Quattro, one of the oldest of the Immortals, appeared, bearing his Runesword. He indicated that Elron had arrived in the DemonRealm and Gerrand, the Geminian Mystic, and Grimm the Warrior God had gone down there to try to reason with him, surmising that like the breakdown he suffered years ago, this strange change of character might be explained by his inability to deal with the apparent deaths of his mentors and friends, Gerrand and Grimm! Quattro joined the group and they headed for the DemonRealm.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Upon arrival, the group saw Elron locked in battle with Pagan the Demon Lord, and Elron appeared to have already smote Grimm and Gerrand, something that made no sense whatsoever to either Barith or Quattro, both of whom had been there the last time Elron had tried something like this. Gro’Hikk called out to Pagan, who was in mid-battle, and it distracted Pagan a moment, allowing Elron to lay upon him a mighty blow, striking Pagan down. Elron then began summoning Reapers from the Realm of the Dead and, eventually, more minions from Geomodrizzle! Barith again tried to reason with Elron and found himself unable to do so, so Barith did the only other thing he could see as an option- he attacked! Elron met his attack and struck Barith’s Runesword with his staff, and the staff took on the properties of the Runesword! Another denizen of the DemonRealm, the formidable Rattler, leapt at Elron, apparently having been previously smacked down by Elron before the others arrived. The rest of the group fought a pitched battle with the fearsome Reapers and the other minions while Barith and Rattler tried, unsuccessfully, to stop Elron! He once again reiterated his desire to remake the universe and correct all that was wrong before delivering a few more minions and then vanishing!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The heroes eventually defeated the minions and compared notes with Grimm, Pagan, Gerrand, and Rattler. Pagan confessed that he did not know what artifact it was that Elron was wielding; something he thought was essentially impossible. Greg revealed to the group what he had seen and the group surmised that perhaps somehow the staff was from some other Universe and perhaps even contained within it the power of that universe. Pagan and some of the others concurred that such a thing would explain how Elron could match and even overpower the most powerful of entities, even in their own Realms. It was not clear just what Elron was doing, however, thought it was speculated that he might be in some way linking his staff with each of the major Realms of the universe. They still were not sure why, however, but before they could further contemplate, they were joined by Tavac, Accelerator, Headstone, and Alexander Synn, the leader of FOUNDATION! Apparently FOUNDATION had not been eliminated by the Time Wave due to their presence in the Demon Realm. Alexander Synn further indicated that he had agents that had been exploring the seemingly parallel versions of Altair that had appeared sense then, and that his agents on the “old” version of Altair, now residing in the Void Realm, reported that Elron had arrived there and was channeling some sort of cosmic-like energy! Greg surmised that perhaps Elron was trying to link his staff with every major Realm, though for what reason was as yet unknown.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Gnaug then arrived, having been summoned by Jenev, and the group told him what had happened, beginning with Elron’s arrival in The Orchard and including the death of Ellea, and the fact that the heaviest hitters that had been assembled had been unable to so much as scuff Elron since he seemed to be channeling the power of an entire universe! Barith, Quattro, and Gnaug then revealed to the group that there was an ancient legend that indicated that should the three True Runeswords be brought together in battle, they had the power to literally end a universe! The group concluded that they might need just that sort of power to somehow separate Elron from the power he was wielding. Several of the individuals present knew where one could find the third and final True Runesword- specifically it was in the hands of the God of the Undead, Bruudaxen the Dead Bringer. Gnaug revealed that since he had once met Bruudaxen, he could, in theory, summon him. The group agreed that dealing with such a powerful and malevolent foe was best done with care, but that bringing him to the Demon Realm would leave Bruudaxen at his weakest, giving them a better position from which to negotiate. Gnaug summoned him, and it seemed as though Bruudaxen was almost expecting it. Gnaug explained what was going on and asked to borrow the Runesword. Bruudaxen agreed so long as Gnaug vowed to return it to him and would grant him a favor later. Gnaug agreed and the sword was turned over to him. Gnaug gave Bruudaxen some additional collateral and then passed the Runesword to Quattro to hold since Bruudaxen’s Runesword was evil and could, therefore, only be wielded by someone who was neutral or evil. The group then began to make ready to head for the Void Realm for a final confrontation with Elron.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">October 5th, 3051

<p class="MsoNormal"> 

<p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, Incognito made it back to the town of Grayfolk but was still without her communicator. Worse, she spied Hunter and Sniper setting up something on the roof of one of the buildings near her location. She also spied Kaizer and Rayn, the Elf Ninja Brothers that had tried to help the team against the Void-Walker-like creature that had tried to capture Cyberlash and Betawolf previously. Incognito made her way into the building and tried to get security to let her alert TRIAD as to what was going on but found herself stymied by rampant bureaucracy until she eventually just unleashed her power and started melting herself all over his desk!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">At the same time outside, two more glowing comet-like discharges of light and energy crashed down on the other side of the block, near Kaizer and Rayn, and revealed two more enormous glowing energy-creatures that began attacking the Elves on sight! One of the two creatures seemed to be psychic and telekinetic, while the other wielded a huge axe and apparently could berserk, releasing scores of tiny little miniature versions of itself, each armed with an appropriately-sized axe! The TRIAD base dispatched Croc, Blurr, and some other agents or allies to assist, while Sniper and Hunter attacked the huge creatures with what was apparently a huge gun that fired similar energy to the composition of the creatures! One good shot each brought down the titanic creatures, and they were revealed to be the former Temporal Guardians, Foamlips and Janus, who were thought to have been lost during the time-wave! Soon thereafter, All-Sport, Vertigo, and The Rock appeared on scene and apparently abducted Janus and Foamlips even as Croc destroyed Hunter and Sniper’s cannon! Ironwolf then called back in again, recalling the team to deal with a much bigger problem, the aforementioned rain of angels referenced in the previous session!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Elsewhere, Barith, Quattro, Gnaug, Rattler, Jenev, Camgar, Gro’Hikk, Greg, Sling-Shot, Enrique, Tyros, Alexander Synn and his lieutenants, and some others arrived in the ruins of downtown Grayfolk, on the pre-time-wave version of Altair that was now in the Void Realm! Elron was already there with a small army of minions from the various dimensions with which he had previously bonded, and he was in the process of bonding with the Void Realm, his mission almost complete! The group sprang into action but they were quickly robbed of Rattler’s raw might by some sort of improbable warp in time and space, perhaps under Elron’s control, perhaps not!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">A brutal battle then ensued, with Elron still knocking aside almost everything the group could throw at him. Eventually the team determined that they must somehow separate the staff from Elron’s grasp, and then they must use the Runeswords on it in hopes of destroying the “universe” contained within! Unfortunately things were complicated by the sudden arrival of Avalon, apparently from the Demon Realm, armed with his own Runesword! As he got close to Quattro, claiming he thought he had already killed him, energy started surging between the two of them, drawing them together like the group had previously seen happen to Eight-Ball, Greg, and Betta Smith! Gnaug seemed to know what was going on, so he tried to pull the two of them apart, only the Runesword he had borrowed from Bruudaxen started reacting to the one Avalon wielded, and they began attracting one another, too! Gnaug tried to use his mystical powers to disrupt the magic, but it reacted poorly with the forming phenomena, exploding in a powerful shockwave of anti-magical energy, neutralizing all of Gnaug’s power and, unexpectedly, exposing Alexander Synn by neutralizing his disguise! Apparently he was, in fact, Pl’Ahshtar, the First Demon Highlord! Even his lieutenants seemed to be surprised at this revelation, well, except for Headstone, who was caught in the anti-magic blast and sort of staggered away, apparently not feeling very well!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Around the same time, Jenev and Sling-Shot teamed up, Jenev momentarily blinding Elron, and Sling-Shot blasting the staff with one of his energized stones, sending the staff flying! It was like a jump-ball; with practically everyone not already otherwise engaged trying to get the staff! Even Pl’Ahshtar went for it, while Barith, Gnaug, and now Greg, wielding Bruudaxen’s Runesword, eventually striking the staff and destroying it, stopping what was apparently the staff’s effort, some sort of “Parasitic Universe” unto itself, from feeding on and consuming this one! But the resulting release of nearly infinite energy had another effect- the Void Realm began to expand, too, essentially restoring itself to the pre-Time-Wave condition, the Void Realm now the same size as the original Material Realm! Worse, it began to try to integrate with the existing post-Time-Wave Material Realm, just as had happened with Eight-Ball, Betta, Greg, and apparently Avalon and Quattro! Everyone knew this could only mean one thing- the two Material Realms were about to mutually annihilate one another! And Pl’Ahshtar seemed delighted! Jenev warned that the only possible outcome would be that the two Material Realms would wipe each other out, destroying the buffer between the Ethereal Realm and the Demon Realm, causing them to intersect and eliminating the loss of power a demon would experience trying to attack in the Ethereal Realm!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">November 2nd, 3051

<p class="MsoNormal"> 

<p class="MsoNormal">A return to Gannamon, West Grayfolk saw the Graveyard Heroes chasing a group of thugs who had robbed a local food pantry! Specifically, Fred Goodname and Corpseman were trying to run them down without damaging the stolen goods, and Durok, once a Champion, now affiliated with the Guardians in the New World, happened to be patrolling the area and joined in, trying to cut them off! Between the two street-level heroes, and the slightly more powerful Guardian, the thugs were quickly rounded up, however a blind alley into which they tried to flee held a grisly sight! Impaled into the back wall of the alley was a human male, six feet off the ground! He was in a cruciform position and bore a number of wounds cut into his skin, apparently while he was still alive! The police arrived shortly thereafter, and they initially suspected the Graveyard Heroes for the gruesome deed, but it eventually became clear that this was not the case. The responding in-charge put the Graveyard Heroes under Durok’s supervision to begin an investigation.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The in-charge was a Dr. Elias Trent, AKA “The Sensor”, and he was a parahuman with the powers of a living crime-lab. He detected a faint hint of sulfur and Durok detected residual magic, so the ritualistic nature of the killing coupled with the fact that it was Halloween night suggested some sort of new demonic cult might be at work in the city. Sensor put in a call to a consultant with whom he had previously worked, a grad student at Grayfolk University, Lyra D’Angelo, who had some experience with this sort of thing, having helped bust a cult of Xavier many years ago.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">She suggested that she knew of another contact that might be able to tell the group if any unusual activities had been going on underground, a common hang out for psychos and demonic cult types. She took the group to the Grayfolk Guzzling Bar, a known dive, and introduced them to a friend named Arthur, a young man who apparently was also a rat! He and a friend named Mongo apparently spend a lot of time in the sewers, and Arthur suggested a place to check out. The group then left the bar and made ready to go down into the sewers, but they were confronted by a group of thugs apparently under the leadership of a male vampire!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">A battle ensued, with the vampire giving directions and then vanishing from the area in a cloud of smoke. Unexpectedly, there was an attack from a crossbow-wielding hit man known as Target, who seemed to have been hired to kill Durok! This took him out of the fight as he pursued the crafty assassin, while Fred and Corpseman battled the thugs, eventually defeating them. Lyra, not much of a fighter, hid behind some crates. There was a second attack, too, apparently aimed specifically at Corpseman. A group of well-trained men in black uniforms, brandishing electric swords, riding in an unmarked black van, tried to capture him. A pitched battle resulted, with the group failing to bring Corpseman down, their van blowing up the bulk of the defeated soldiers in an apparently failsafe maneuver. Corpseman explained that these sorts have come after him before, but he was not entirely sure as to why. He believed they might be in some way connected to the project that reanimated him years ago. Durok eventually captured his would-be assassin, and after considering, briefly, the idea of blowing him up with his own trap, Durok turned him over to the authorities, who arrived shortly after the blast from the escaping unmarked van.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Eventually the group made their way into the sewers and found a group of cultists in the verge of completing what looked to be the same sort of ritual, and it was being presided over by the previously mentioned vampire! The apparent leader, a man carrying a long staff with a large eyeball set into the top of it, ordered the group to attack, leaving just one cultist who appeared to be trying to complete the ritual. Worse, the group had hired some backup, the devastatingly powerful FOUNDATION member, Headstone! It was all Durok could do to keep such a powerful foe at bay, while the rest of the group tried to get the staff away from the cult leader and tried to interrupt the cultist trying to finish the ritual. The group got some unexpected help in the form of the leader of the Brotherhood of the Ankh, Alexander McDuff, Ankh himself!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Ultimately a determined effort from the heroes, and a miscue from Headstone, when he tried to drive Fred Goodname through a wall, inadvertently unleashing a cloud of noxious gas around himself and inhaling it, knocking himself out due to his amazingly enhanced sense of smell, enabled the group manage to disrupt the ritual, killing the cultist that was trying to complete it in a ball of demon fire, and capturing the staff, apparently one of the legendary artifacts known as an “Eye of Zanderos”. The would-be victim survived and the cultists had been dealt with. It was still unclear, however, as to just what the cultists were up to, though, and none of them survived the battle even though several of them should have! Lyra got back in touch with Sensor to share her findings and the police started processing the scene, leaving more questions than answers.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">December 7th, 3091

<p class="MsoNormal"> 

<p class="MsoNormal">Last time, as the Material Realm and the Void Realm began to collapse in on one another and Pl’Ahshtar gathered his forces and left to make ready, Avion appeared before the group and asked Gnaug if he would become the new God of Life while there was still time, since Ellea could not be saved. Gnaug indicated he had several things to do first, but he accepted, knowing that it was the only way to bring new life into the Material Realm, assuming there even would _be_ a material realm after this.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">He then traveled directly to Pl’Ahshtar and demanded the return of Bruudaxen’s Runesword, which Pl’Ahshtar had captured at the end of the melee with Elron and the Parasitic Universe. Pl’Ahshtar found it amusing that Gnaug would come to him, especially in the DemonRealm, considering Gnaug’s new position in the universe. But Pl’Ahshtar agreed to return the RuneSword in return for two things. The first- Gnaug would have to do a favor for Pl’Ahshtar at some later date. Gnaug countered- saying he would not kill a friend, take the soul of a friend, or surrender his own soul to Pl’Ahshtar. The would-be Demon HighLord agreed to Gnaug’s terms. The second request was much more difficult. Pl’Ahshtar observed that since Gnaug was now the God of Life, that made him a voting member of the Tribunal of the Gods. So Pl’Ahshtar told Gnaug that he would like to make a formal grievance before the Tribunal, and Gnaug must bring it to the floor. Specifically, he accused Avion of both betrayal and deception, two characteristics not befitting of the Elder God of the Universe! Gnaug agreed to bring this grievance to the Tribunal, reluctantly, and Pl’Ahshtar returned the RuneSword to him. Gnaug, with a heavy heart, then returned it to Bruudaxen before going before Gure and Avion to finish the process of taking over the mantle of the God of Life.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, back on the Void Realm’s Altair, another glowing purple meteor-like object struck near the heroes that remained in the ruins of Grayfolk, and it formed into another huge titan-like creature, as had happened several times previously. But this time, instead of attacking somewhat wildly, the creature shrunk down and in moments became Garret, the leader of the Temporal Guardians! He explained that with the two dimensions about to collapse in on one another, the time stream was correcting itself, and the rest of the Temporal Guardians would be waking up from their temporal-crisis-induced sleep. But there was no time for that- the dimensions would annihilate one another in hours unless something was done. According to Garret, the two Altairs were the key. If one were removed, the convergence would cease, and things would return to some semblance of normal. But there were only two ways Garret knew of to do that- either one of the two planets would have to be destroyed, or one of the two planets would have to be plucked out of the time stream, allowing it to correct itself. The former meant destroying either the new Altair that Vanguard had come to call home, or destroying the old one that had been their home for so long and was slowly healing from the T’Karr war. The latter could only be accomplished by the Elders themselves, with the technology of the Spire on what was once the Battleworld. Only the Elders were dead, and the Spire had been destroyed.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Garret further explained that the actions of Vanguard/ Underworld in destroying the Spire did not actually kill the Elders, it was, instead, the Void Stalker that had posed as Pagan that had hatched a sinister plan to make use of the temporal instability to arrange the assassination of each of the Elders in the past, before they had actually become Elders. In order to save their worlds, Vanguard/ Underworld would have to save the Elders!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The first step required the group travel to the only know remaining Elder-tech Time Gate- the one in Equis’ Observatory on the far side of the galaxy! The group traveled to The Orchard, Gnaug’s home, knowing it to be a much smaller dimension than the Material Realm, so it would allow for much quicker relative travel from one side of the galaxy to the other. They then jumped into Equis’ Observatory. Unfortunately, it was not empty as the group had expected- Carbo and a group of FOUNDATION members had apparently guessed what the heroes were going to do and had made their way to the Observatory to stop them! Among the FOUNDATION members present with Carbo was Bob the Insectaur, Gangwar, and trainee Black Cat. The force wasn’t particularly powerful, as was evidenced by the speed in which the heroes dispatched them, but they had a job to do and had done it. Void Walker inadvertently took himself out by trying to grapple one of Gangwar’s duplicates, one with Plasma Form, and other Gangwar Duplicates had apparently used Density Change to slip into the Time Gate chamber and plant several Protonic Missile Warheads, intent on destroying the Gate and perhaps the Observatory itself. The group rendered the bombs harmless, however, and then used the Gate to jump thousands of years back, and to the homeworld of the Moorceyan race, with Garret standing by back at the Observatory so as to pull the group back to the future once they had accomplished their mission.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Once there, they found themselves unable to communicate with the Moorceyans, though Void Walker was able to tune his Cosmic Awareness to understand them. One of them invited the group out of the busy Moorceyan city street and into what looked like an amazingly advanced laboratory filled with technology that most of the group could not even comprehend. Eventually, there were three Moorceyans present, including one that was telepathic. That one reached out to the group to allow them to speak to the Moorceyans telepathically. She was called Janus, and her betrothed was called Rangar! The group immediately recognized them as who they were- Janus, one of the current Temporal Guardians, and Rangar, the father of the Elders, and one of the most fearsome enemies many of the veteran heroes had ever faced! The third Moorceyan then unexpectedly attacked, trying to murder Janus and Rangar by suddenly turning into a Void Stalker! He attacked and infected Void Walker and tried to get at the would-be Elders, but the group stopped him, killing him! Unexpectedly, the machine that Janus and Rangar had been working on activated spontaneously, absorbing the energy released with the death of the Void Stalker! Rangar and Janus suddenly realized that they had the missing piece of the puzzle- a source of energy that could power this machine and, ultimately, make Type III Moorceyans into what would one day be called Elders!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Void Walker recognized the technology and even went so far as to mention the name “Elders” in connection with what the machine would produce and Rangar seemed to like the name! All of a sudden, a group of Type II Moorceyans broke into the lab and accused Rangar and Janus of treason for pursuing forbidden technology! Rangar jumped into the machine and vanished as it did its work, but Janus was summarily disintegrated! The group immediately fled, tracking Rangar to the Moorceyan colony on Altair’s moon, Ra’, and Rangar’s appearance had changed significantly. He was now the Rangar that the veterans knew he would one day become! He was also apparently maddened by the disintegration of his betrothed, swearing to avenge himself upon the Moorceyans and find a way to bring her back! The group tried to talk sense to him, but he reacted violently, firing a devastatingly powerful plasma weapon at the group, striking Void Walker and nearly killing him! Rangar then left. The group, having lost contact with Garret, attempted a jump back to The Orchard. From there, they would try to return to the Time Gate, assuming it and Equis’ Observatory would still be there in the distant past.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, back on Void Altair, a group of heroes allied with Vanguard responded to a call for assistance- a high-tech facility was under attack by well armed raiders. Blurr, Boombox, Doctor Orion, and Tyros made way to the facility in the outskirts of the ruined Grayfolk. A police trooper was gunned down as the group arrived, so the group sprang into action! Unknown to them, there were two other independent operators on the scene- the mute Elf stealth specialist, Borealis, and her partner, the mute Skeletan warrior, Zeal! After the combined efforts of the two groups had whittled down some of the enemies, their leader appeared- none other than old Seekers enemy and brother to Quick-Shot, the mutant known as Inversion! He copied Tyros’ abilities and turned into a Chickensaurus Rex to match Tyros, and a brutal battle ensued, only ending when Boombox used his amazing boombox, for which he was named, to banish Inversion to some other place! While he wasn’t in control of the effect, it worked nonetheless! Once the rest of the goons were rounded up and in police custody, the group made ready to leave.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Suddenly, Sunbird’s Teleport-enabled Winnebago jumped in and nearly ran the group over! The driver slammed on the breaks as the group scattered, and Tyros grabbed the speeding vehicle to stop it. The driver was clearly injured, but Doctor Orion tended to him. He was none other than Jammin’ Jim, and he asked the group to come help him on Old Earth! Somehow, a second Earth had appeared and seemed to be about to crash into Old Earth, which would be bad enough, but additionally, a group of heroes from that Earth had jumped to Old Earth and were going to destroy it in order to save their own Earth! Jammin’ Jim and his gang had tried to stop them, but they were badly outmatched, so Jim made a desperate move to find Vanguard and bring them to help!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Zeal was revealed to the group and joined them, though Borealis declined, and they were joined by a clearly lost (or perhaps addled) hairdresser-turned-superhero, Funkalisich, and his flying Disco Ball of doom! Deciding random help was better than no help, the group piled into the RV, joined by Underworld hitter Carmine Bomber, and made their way to Fairgrounds on Old Earth!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Once they arrived, they saw a group of colorfully-garbed individuals assembling some sort of tower-like high-tech structure! Doctor Orion elected to try to talk to the invaders to see if any sort of accord could be reached. He was confronted by a powerfully-built man flying on tiny heel-wings and carrying a trident, and a silent man in a black costume, with what looked like a tuning fork on his forehead! Doctor Orion asked what they were trying to do, and the flying man told them that they were going to destroy this Earth in order to save his Earth and, more importantly, Atlantis, which he claimed to be his home! Doctor Orion continued to negotiate, requesting to speak to one of the technically-minded members of the invading group, so the flying Atlantean went and brought forth another one of the invaders, a man dressed in a black power suit in a vaguely feline-looking configuration.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The cat-man in black indicated that he and his comrades had been fighting these incursions for quite some time, and in every case but one, they had been forced to destroy the world that was encroaching on theirs. And in this case, it was Old Earth that was, to their perspective, encroaching! Doctor Orion tried to reason with him and explain that they were working on a bigger solution that would end the threat altogether, but it was for naught as Funkalisich decided that the best defense was a good offense! He fired a bolt of laser energy from his flying Disco Ball, in an effort to destroy whatever it is the invaders were building! The Atlantean accused them of treachery and a lack of honor! The laser bolt struck some sort of energy field surrounding the machine, being maintained by a brightly-garbed mage in a red-and-cold cloak! A second bolt was redirected by some sort of portal conjured up by the mage, and Funkalisich’s bolt was turned against him!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Doctor Orion tried to use his Time Travel power to freeze local time and get to the machine, but unfortunately for him neither the mage nor the cat-man in black were affected and as he tried to slip by the cat-man, the cat-man slashed him with claws composed of some sort of metal surrounded by a purple glow that cut right through Doctor Orion’s forcefield! Time resumed and the battle continued. Tyros and Zeal squared off against the Altantean and the silent man with the tuning fork. Carmine entered the field of battle and tried to shoot the machine from cover with his sniper rifle. Another of the invaders, a man in red-and-gold powered armor tried to intercept the bullet with beams of concussive force, slowing the bullet enough that it did no damage. Carmine, in turn, focused on the armored invader and fired, finding a weak spot and taking out the golden armored invader. The mage then scooped him up and the two of them disappeared.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Seeing the battle quickly turning against his allies, Zeal made a desperate bid and attempted to teleport to the machine. His intent was to destroy it with his energy blades! He got past the remaining defender, a man in a blue costume that seemed to have a stretchy, malleable form, and attacked the machine, creating a powerful shockwave as the blow was struck! Zeal was thrown from the machine and the stretchy man seized some sort of module from within the device, clearly injuring himself. Another invader, a blue-furred beast of a man leapt towards the heroes but hid behind some of the rubble in the area.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">The invaders turned up the heat with some coordinated attacks, the Atlantean and the cat-man first teaming up against Tyros, then the Atlantean and the silent man attacking Carmine, destroying Sunbird’s RV in the process! Apparently, the silent man had some sort of vibration attack he could unleash by merely speaking! Carmine and Tyros weathered the onslaught, though they were badly wounded. Suddenly the mage and the armored man, now restored, re-appeared and attacked in earnest, taking out Carmine! Zeal, meanwhile, found his powers almost entirely neutralized by a blast of charged particles from the tuning fork of the silent man, and while Jammin’ Jim had tended to Funkalisich’s wounds, and the man with the killer disco ball had awakened, he was still badly injured and in no condition to fight!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Finally, the furry blue beast-man leapt to the group with the stretchy man just behind him saying that the group had damaged the delivery system for their weapon beyond what could be repaired before the incursion would be complete, destroying both worlds, and that he hoped that what Doctor Orion had said to the cat-man was true, since it was the only remaining salvation. The beast-man and his invaders then jumped back to their Earth in an effort to try to cobble together some other alternative before it was too late!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Saving the Elders seemed to be the last, best hope for saving the Material Realm!

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">December 24th, 1471

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<p class="MsoNormal">The group including Void Walker, Quick-Shot, Gro-Hikk, Camgar, and Tiarawolf prepared to return via portal to the Orchard for pickup by Garret, but when they arrived in the Orchard, something seemed off, though the group couldn’t entirely place just what. Waiting for them at a campfire was not, as they expected, either Jenev or Gnaug. Rather, it was another person that seemed to be the same species as Gnaug. He introduced himself as “Torg” and said that mistress Jenev was waiting for them and that they should go meet her. The group followed him to another portal, and when they came out, they found themselves in a wooded glade in the midst of what appeared to be winter! Jenev was waiting for them, but she, too, seemed a little different. She explained to them that while she hadn’t actually met them before, she knew who they were, and while they weren’t who she expected, they would be sufficient. The group quickly came to realize that something had gone wrong and they were better than 1500 years in the past! Jenev went on to say that the group should help the nearby hamlet of Crow’s Glen with an issue they were having and that, in turn, would help them on their quest! The group agreed and made for the small town, with Torg guiding them.

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<p class="MsoNormal">Once the group arrived, they saw that the townsfolk seemed to be assembling a bunch of livestock and other goods in the center of town. When they inquired as to what was going on, one of the townsfolk explained that the town’s protector, whom they called “The Elf Lord” or “The Winter King” interchangeably, had come to town the previous night with a demand for specific tribute, to be assembled by midnight of the next night! This had previously been unheard of- with the Winter King having been quite a benevolent protector in the past. The town’s mayor had protested, but the representatives of the Winter King, creatures that appeared to be animated snowmen, left with no further word. Unfortunately, the next morning, the mayor’s assistants found him in a vegetative state in his bed! Tiarawolf tried to read his mind but found it quite literally blank, which was the explanation for his current condition! Void Walker gazed into the past and determined that the mayor had been visited in the night by some sort of faerie-like creature and it had touched his head, doing something to him that no doubt accounted for the state of his mind!

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<p class="MsoNormal">The townsperson the group originally spoke to revealed herself to be the town’s Apothecary, and she was able to search her books of lore for something that matched the description and effect, a powerful fae creature known as a Memory Fairy, a denizen of the Plane of Minds, and a fairly dangerous creature despite its diminutive size! The Apothecary indicated that she could probably restore at least a portion of the mayor’s mind if the group brought the fairy to her. The group agreed to try.

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<p class="MsoNormal">Void Walker was able to use his Cosmic Awareness to follow the path the snowmen took to get to the town, but they were sidetracked by a lifeform in a nearby cave. When the group approached, it was revealed that the lifeform was, somehow, a misplaced Moorceyan! Tiarawolf was able to determine that he, too, had apparently fallen victim to the Memory Fairy and he could not remember who he was or how he had gotten there. The group ended up saving him, too, from an attack by a pair of Void Stalkers that actually sprang forth from Void Walker’s own body! Apparently during his previous battle with a Void Stalker, the thing had somehow infected him, and these new Void Stalkers were the result! They tried to kill the Moorceyan, but the party was able to dispatch them. The Moorceyan thanked them for their help and indicated that he was beginning to understand what he was and where he was supposed to go. He took the name “Kindred” in honor of the group coming to his aid despite being entirely alien to him, and the group realized he was destined to become one of the Elders they were trying to save, and then he vanished!

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<p class="MsoNormal">The group returned to the trail and followed it to the lair of the Winter King. It was some sort of fortress made of frosted ice and it was guarded by more snowmen. The Winter King then revealed himself to the group, and the group realized what must have happened! This was not the Winter King that the townspeople had known; this was Quaylin the Refuser, the Elven archer and member of FOUNDATION that had plagued our heroes off and on throughout his long career! How he had come to be here was unclear, but it was clear he had done something to the previous Winter King and had taken his place! Additionally, the Crown of the Winter King that he was wearing appeared to be almost identical to the tiara from which Tiarawolf derived most of her powers! It also seemed to shield him from the bulk of her mental powers, as hers had done for Ironwolf early in his career. And Quaylin was armed with his usual arsenal of gimmicked arrows. He then unleashed his trump card- somehow he had gotten Ice and the Time Chute Commando that had tried to cast her loose in the timestream under his control! He then released the Memory Fairy from his ring, and joined by some more snowmen, the battle was joined!

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<p class="MsoNormal">After a pitched battle, the group vanquished Quaylin and his minions and they established a sort of truce with the Memory Fairy. Somehow she had become lost from the Plane of the Minds and trapped in Quaylin’s ring. Since her kind feed on the random bits of memory that flow freely in her home Plane, she was starving here and forced to take memories from living people in order to survive. Quaylin had used this to force her to fight for him, but she agreed to help the party if they all helped her find more food and helped her get back to the Plane of the Minds. The group had defeated Quaylin and his minions and realized that the Memory Fairy had drained Ice’s memory, too, and probably the Time Chute Commando’s memory, so with the Fairy’s help; the group might be able to restore it. Torg, however, didn’t want to risk the Time Chute Commando’s recovery so he, somewhat unexpectedly, used her own equipment to cast her loose in the time-stream, potentially killing her! The group was stunned that Torg knew how to do that and questioned him about it! After all the work they had done to avoid discussing time travel or the Elders with him, he revealed that he was actually an Elder Enforcer, an operative of the Elders themselves, chosen from this part of the timeline, to help monitor for temporal disruption and time travel on behalf of the very Elders the group was trying to save!

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<p class="MsoNormal">Upon return to down, a deal was struck- several members of the group would voluntarily surrender specific memories to the Fairy, and it would, in turn, help the Apothecary restore the memories of Ice and the mayor. Specifically, Camgar wished to surrender the knowledge he now possessed that Gro’Hikk, his friend, was precisely the sort of creature Camgar had sworn to kill, a lycanthrope! Gro’Hikk would likewise give up the knowledge that he was a lycanthrope- something that vexed him endlessly. The fae creature agreed that it would be enough for her to survive another trip into the ring, which would give the Apothecary time to work to return her home. Torg then suggested the group return to the Orchard and meet with Jenev to decide what to do next.

'''March 15th, 3074/3096 (2014)'''

 

Upon return to the Orchard, the group was somewhat surprisingly met by Temporal Guardian Janus, who indicated she remembered them from her own distant past and realized that the group was lost in the past. Consulting with the nigh-immortal Prophetess, Jenev, she determined where to find the group and when. Janus then informed the group that their efforts were beginning to pay off- all the Elders they had collectively saved up until now were making the calculations required for a wild and desperate gambit- they would pluck the divergent Altair out of the Time Stream and thus eliminating the source of the potentially Universe-destroying incursion, the Void Realm version of the Material Realm and the divergent Material Realm would coalesce into a more or less undamaged Material Realm. The Elders would then deposit the divergent Altair star system back into the Material Realm after the coalescence, in some dead or otherwise empty shell of a star system, and that, in theory, should end the threat to the universe!

However, there was still not enough raw power among the saved Elders to finish the job- one more was required- the mysterious Lost Elder! Because of the Lost Elder’s original disappearance, Janus knew of only one point in time in which the heroes might have a chance to obtain his help- during the most pivotal event of the modern era, the destruction of the original TRIAD Base when the gods, Elementals, and demons all took the field of battle in a desperate bid for the Staff of the Ancients, a conflict known as “The Immortal War”! This was both the first and last known appearance of the Lost Elder, so Janus dispatched the heroes to find him! Two groups of heroes were assembled to increase the chance of the heroes finding the Lost Elder before he removed himself from the Time Stream, and they were sent to Altair, circa late 3074 (1990).

One of the groups led by Vanguard veterans and founding members Streetbreaker and Void Walker and a number of others arrived in the aftermath of the battle between the modern era’s FireLord and the recently-revived Golden Age FireLord, provoked by STRIKE member Glitch. The modern FireLord unexpectedly revealed himself to have been possessed by the several-time Demon HighLord, Xavier! A group of young TRIAD members including the gun-toter Kat, then-rookie Cryos, and several others arrived on scene just after Xavier had revealed himself, and they engaged him in a desperate and seemingly futile battle! However, a terrific shot by Kat with an experimental prototype Particle Accelerator caused Xavier’s artifact staff to overload and ultimately explode in an earth-shattering explosion!

The heroes found themselves saved by literal deus ex machina, waking up in the Ethereal Realm, where Grimm the Warrior God had summoned them, saving them! He explained to the group that historic events were unfolding- an unholy alliance between Broderik, the god of storms and number one contender for the throne of the Ethereal Realm, the Elementals of Evil (Karax and Eternal), and would-be Demon HighLord Zanderos had triggered a chain of events requiring the gods themselves to act on behalf of the Material Realm, and thus Grimm was free to intervene, saving the heroes for the battle to come!

Meanwhile, the second team, led by and including the Kerroki warrior who had infamously and inadvertently defeated Pagan, cutting off and seizing Pagan’s queue as a trophy, Honor-Death, found themselves in the midst of several battles in the vicinity of the besieged TRIAD Base! Ultimately, they tangled with some of Zanderos’ minions, including the then-rookie Rattler and, teaming up with local heroes like White Knight, the group was victorious. Drawn to the site of the explosion of Xavier’s staff, the second team found the subterranean location of the Teridon, the ancient mystical storehouse of all of the Old Magic, built to protect Altair from the ravages of the Four Horsemen, and it had been breached!

Fighting their way through the ancient caverns, the group ultimately stumbled across an abandoned crypt with two sarcophagi and a stone chest. Gro-Hikk and Camgar Redshield, unable to resist the call of the loot, opened the chest and found within the artifact about which the entire Immortal War had been- the Staff of the Ancients! Disturbing the chest awakened the crypt’s guardian, the immortal MorDak, and his then companion, Lork! They had been slumbering there since the Teridon was sealed! Initially, MorDak attacked, but it was quickly apparent that the heroes were not enemies, at least not until FireLord changed forms, becoming another Void Stalker! The Void Stalker attacked but the heroes were able to vanquish it, and then Lork revealed himself to be the Lost Elder! Gro-Hikk and Camgar discovered that the Staff was not the only artifact present- its companion piece, the Omega Star, was also there, and they asked MorDak and Lork if they could keep the artifacts. MorDak deferred to Lork, and Lork agreed that whether the Staff and Omega Star were sealed into the Teridon or they were taken to the future from whence the heroes had come, where the Horsemen had finally been vanquished, the net result was the same- the Staff of the Ancients and the Omega Star would no longer bring forth the wrath of the Horsemen and the ruin of Altair!

Lork then took the remainder of the group to a future version of the Spire of the Elders where the other Elders were finishing the work required to remove the divergent Altair. MorDak remained behind to join the battle and help with the aftermath of the destruction of the TRIAD Base. Lork joined the Elders in their efforts and with his help, they were able to complete the process, isolating the divergent Altair’s solar system, plucking it from the Time Stream, terminating the incursion and allowing the original version of Altair’s Material Realm to re-assert itself, merging with elements of the divergent Material Realm! The Elders then superimposed the divergent Altair’s solar system atop the only good analogous system that was uninhabited, the system that had once belonged to similarly exiled divergent world New Earth! Of course, there would be problems with the inhabitants of divergent Altair in adapting to the radically changed universe around them, but the original Altair had been spared, and the Material Realm was once again stabilized, giving the heroes the chance for a long overdue rest!

'''April 5th, 3096'''

 

Things were back to normal, more or less, when the street-level vigilantes known as “The Graveyard Heroes”, specifically Corpseman and Fred Goodname, under direction from Madame Hel, were sent to West Grayfolk for a can of beans. While searching for a place that might happen to have said beans (as the city is still in the process of rebuilding), the heroes stumbled into a gang war between members of “The Teeth”, a local gang, and “The Scorpions”, a gang from Old Earth that chose not to return to Old Earth after the war, bringing their post-apocalyptic style to Altair.

Also responding to the crisis was semi-retired StarKnights member Betta Smith and the rookie Blake “Black Cat” Stevens. They came to the aid of some City-State police (Grayfolk itself having reorganized its government into an independent City-State) who were pinned down and included Elias Trent, once known as The Sensor (a title now used by his son), the head of the Grayfolk crime lab, and the new warden of Division 42, Grayfolk’s new prison, Jason Carmichael and his prototype power armor.

Fred Goodname started launching his toxic breath attack at both warring gang factions, quickly whittling down their numbers while Betta Smith dealt with the leaders on both sides, but with care, trying not to kill anyone. The remaining heroes took down various gang members in a mostly non-lethal manner and despite a pair of would-be suicide bombers, dealt with mainly by Carmichael, several of the gang members survived for questioning. After the fact, the heroes also realized that one of the civilians they saved was sometimes ally of the Graveyard Heroes, grad student and paranormal scientist Lyra D’Angelo, who had aided them recently in the investigation of “The Eye of Zanderos”.

The Governor of Grayfolk (and former Mayor) Thalia Arachnius arrived on scene and gathered information from the heroes, ultimately charging them with determining what provoked this gang war. Fred Goodname then did his own version of information gathering, hacking off the heads of two of the dead gangers, one from each side. Adhering the heads to his own body via his peculiar mutation, Fred was able to “ask” them directly. The member of The Scorpions believed that The Teeth had tortured and murdered three of their members in the last few days but the member of The Teeth knew nothing about it!

The bodies of the dead gangers were still in the Morgue, so the heroes looked at the Coroner’s report. It revealed that all three victims suffered torture and death via 17 precise cuts! And the configuration of the cuts was identical across the bodies! Worse, Lyra recognized the pattern! She had seen it years before when another group of heroes was defending Gannamon, West Grayfolk. Back then, it was a group arranged around a parahuman hobo known as “Vagrant” and a somewhat up-and-coming vigilante known as “Flak”! The group had another ally, though, despite his often brutal tactics. He was known as “Spectre” and his last operation alongside them involved a cult of the demon Xavier and the torture and eventual death of a thug in an effort to obtain information. That thug bore almost precisely the same wounds when his body was recovered! The only anomaly seemed to be in the wound tracts of these recent bodies. Sensor indicated that there were traces of steel in the wounds on the latest casualties, but Spectre always used cold iron blades for superstitious reasons. It certainly didn’t exonerate him, but it was worth keeping in mind.

The heroes did not share this information with the rest of the police, however, and none of them knew where Spectre could be found or even if he was still active, but they knew who might know. The group made their way to “King Pawn”, known hangout for Vagrant. If anyone knew where to find Spectre, it would be him. The group headed out in a borrowed “meat wagon” to King Pawn where they met the part-time store clerk, Habib Nikodemus! Fred Goodname decided to use the mission from Madame Hel as his cover, asking Habib if he had any beans! Shockingly, he did, and he went into the back to get them (who buys beans from a pawn shop? And who _pawns_ beans?) but that wasn’t all he did. Jason Carmichael’s Sentient AI and partner, C.L.I.N.T., hacking spy satellite coverage of the area, detected the heat trace of another individual in the back of the store! The mystery person beat a hasty retreat yet could not be detected on the visual sensors! Carmichael then ran outside and flew over the shop, trying to locate the apparently invisible heat trace. It led to a park on the edge of Grayfolk proper.

Previously pawned cans of beans in hand, the group followed Carmichael’s lead and headed for the park while Carmichael tried to find the hidden figure! Eventually that figure leapt onto him, as the meat wagon approached, and told Carmichael to kill his friends! Apparently the figure’s voice could cause other people to do what he said, so Carmichael turned and headed away. Not towards the van, however, because he didn’t consider any of them his friends. Instead, he flew towards his own base of operations and C.L.I.N.T. apparently considering the Sentient AI his only friend! Once he was out of earshot, however, the command faded and Carmichael passed out, crashing somewhat ingloriously into the ground and shredding the bulk of his armor.

The rest of the group closed in on the unknown figure, and that figure came to the realization that the group wasn’t who he was running from, so he revealed himself to them. As some had come to suspect, he was Vagrant, the hobo hero! He had apparently been trying to avoid some sort of paramilitary group that had been seen in the slums rounding up other low-powered parahumans. Corpseman was more than a little concerned that these might be the same people that had been recently chasing him.

As Jason Carmichael finally returned to the group, Vagrant indicated that while he didn’t have any regular contact with Spectre anymore, he knew of a place Spectre used as a safehouse. He gave the group the address and then recommended that if they ever find themselves in need of a way to unload unwanted items for quick cash, they should come see him. The heroes then regrouped and prepared to confront Spectre.

'''April 12th, 3096'''

 

Jason Carmichael and the Graveyard Heroes were joined by Carmichael’s right-hand man, Marduk, in armor similar to his own, and Graveyard Hero member Cadavre. They touched base on the location given to them by Vagrant and made a plan to go pay a visit to Spectre’s last known base of operations. It was some abandoned property in a nasty swampy area just outside of town. Across a rickety bridge above a chasm with a feeble, fetid creek running though it, was a mostly scrap-metal shack.

The group approached cautiously, gingerly crossing the creaking bridge on foot, and then they stumbled into some rusty (but functional) old-school bear traps. Cadavre temporarily lost a foot to one, but luckily he was able to re-attach it quite easily! After that, Cadavre approached and rang the somewhat out of place doorbell on the rigged metal door. Unexpectedly, he was electrified by some sort of high-voltage trap! Recovering from the trap, the group then kicked in the door! A moment before catastrophe struck, the group caught a powerful odor and as the kicked-in door hit the floor and sparked, it ignited a huge fireball that flattened the shack and nearly incinerated the front rank of the party!

The group’s patience for Spectre quickly waned as they looked around the smoking wreck of the shack. Unexpectedly, the floor of the shack seemed to be made of reinforced concrete and it had some sort of bunker trap door leading down, a stark contrast to the almost haphazard nature of the rest of the improvised shelter. The door wasn’t particularly difficult to open and once it was open, Fred and Cadavre yelled down into the darkness to ask if they could come in. Unexpectedly, a voice answered back in the affirmative. Fred jumped down and as soon as he did, something hit him from behind and he was suddenly possessed by Spectre. He, via Fred’s two heads, encouraged the rest of the group to come down. Cadavre felt something was up and tried to grab Fred with his prehensile vascular system, but Fred blocked with a cane nobody had previously noticed him carrying and it redirected the inertia of the grab back into Cadavre!

Betta Smith felt something was amiss and decided to try to drive Spectre out of Fred, aware of the intel the group had been given as to Spectre’s powers. Unfortunately, Fred/Spectre countered and scored an impressive lucky shot, downing Betta! Seeing the direct approach failing, Cadavre tried to talk to Spectre, in his own unorthodox way, and explain to him what was happening. Cadavre asked Spectre about his chosen weapon and Spectre verified that it was still cold iron. The group explained to Spectre about the recent apparent copycat murders and asked Spectre about who else might have known about what Spectre had done and the nature of the wounds on the thug he had tortured and killed years prior.

Spectre verified that other than the coroner and police, only Flak and Dagg Nikodemus, Vagrant, Hacker, Deathwish, and Lyra D’Angelo knew the specifics. He did not know where to find Deathwish or Lyra, and the party had already spoken to Vagrant. While they considered their next move, Carmichael and Marduk got a warning that there was assistance needed back in town- a group of alien mercenaries were apparently attacking and robbing the Garage Boyz garage!

The group high-tailed it to the garage and found a number of scaly, oversized well-armed and armored mercenaries with plasma weapons pinning down the officers that had responded! The group sprang into action and as they did, the raiding party began to exit the garage, led, apparently, by t he same “Mr. Smoke” that the group had previously encountered in investigating the Xavieric cult some time ago! The group suspected they might be after the Eye of Zanderos that had previously been captured from the cult!

Fred unleashed his gas bomb attack on the enemies but was given pause when they seemed unaffected by it! “Mr. Smoke” wasn’t bothered by it, and the alien mercenaries seemed to be wearing breathing equipment! Fred changed his strategy and started shooting at the head armor on the mercenaries so he could set them up for a more effective gas attack. The others engaged, with Betta teleporting in and out and trying his Cyclotronic Touch, and the armored duo unloading with their weapons, taking out several of the mercenaries!

The battle was hard fought, with the mercenaries unloading powerful area-effect plasma weapons, dropping a number of the heroes. Ultimately the leader of the mercenaries escaped in some sort of stealth vehicle, and “Mr. Smoke” escaped with the Eye of Zanderos.

Eventually, more police arrived on scene and began collecting the evidence. Cadavre was able to stealthily snack on some alien brains- they weren’t nearly as satisfying as he would have hoped, but two seemed to fill him up. Fred skulked away with one of the dead aliens and skinned it, using his creepy power to attach the alien’s skin to Fred’s own body! ARMADA member Falconn also arrived on site to supervise the collection of the evidence, and it was clear he had some heat with Carmichael and Marduk. Fourman and Korman Arachnius, who had tried to defend the garage, conferred with the heroes to verify what had been taken. Other than the Eye of Zanderos, nothing else seemed to be missing despite the fact that several other mystical artifacts were stored on-premises. Governor Arachnius arrived on scene, too, and checked in with the heroes as to how the investigation was going. She also headed off an effort by Falconn and ARMADA to confiscate the other artifacts. Instead, she assigned a detachment of officers and two of her new “THUNDER” guard robots to protect the garage and aid in the investigation.

Carmichael assigned one THUNDER unit to guard duty and took the other one in an effort to try to follow the trail of the stealth-vehicle. There was, apparently, a trail that the advanced robot could pursue, so the group made ready to determine their next move.

'''May 24th, 3096'''

 

Betta Smith and the Graveyard Heroes followed the Yorian Mercenaries and their URSA Urban Recon Stealth and Assault vehicle to a section of ruins in Grayfolk where the enigmatic "Mr. Smoke" and the Yorians seemed to be making some sort of trade with a group of what appeared to be cultists. Unknown to the Graveyard Heroes, a vengeance-seeking gadgeteer codenamed "Blackhawk" was trailing them!

Several of the Heroes approached the ruined building where the deal was going down via stealth, but were soon detected by two of the Yorian mercenaries guarding the URSA. The THUNDER Unit Governor Arachnius had sent the Heroes seemed content to observe and record rather than join the fight.

Betta Smith, Fred Goodname, and Corpseman were the front line against the mercenaries, while Madame Hel, who had caught up with the Heroes and rejoined the party, approached with a bit more caution. Blackhawk was eventually detected by the front rank of the Heroes, but they didn't really stop to discuss his presence with him as the Yorians were upon the Heroes.

Meanwhile, the deal quickly went south as the Yorian Commander and Mr. Smoke savagely attacked the cultists, with Mr. Smoke ripping the throats out of several cult members. The cult leader revealed himself to have fairly formidable powers, too, and battled the Yorian Commander. Eventually the cult leader broke from the Yorian Commander and engaged the Heroes. Mr. Smoke also started working his way to the group, and the result was a three-way battle.

Eventually Madame Hel asked the THUNDER Unit for help, and it engaged "capture protocols" and helped defeat the mercenaries and cultists. Eventually the cult leader went down and Mr. Smoke tried to steal what appeared to be another Eye of Zanderos from him, only to have Fred and the Heroes interfere, with Blackhawk inadvertently gazing into the Eye (and it gazed into him)! Madame Hel ended up with the Eye and stuffed it into a pocket in her robes. Inexplicably, the THUNDER Unit then switched to "termination protocols" and appeared to kill Mr. Smoke, nearly taking Fred with him! Fred was buried under some rubble before a group of crows just like one he had killed earlier pecked out one of his eyes. The crows then departed as Fred was healed back up. The THUNDER Unit then called in backup to collect the captured villains including the shadow-powered cult leader and the cybernetic Yorian Commander.

The group then compared notes with Blackhawk who was, apparently, in search of information on some of the local gangs the Graveyard Heroes had been contending with lately. Corpseman invited Blackhawk to return to the cemetery that the Heroes used as home base to discuss things further, while Madame Hel used a variation on her Psychic ability to back-track the trail of the URSA. Apparently Mr. Smoke and the Yorians got it from a short man with an overly large head and two other individuals that were apparently working for him, a striking redhead in a green-and-black costume, and a powerfully built Native Altairian-looking man with a skull face tattoo. Madame Hel was able to determine that they were in a warehouse in West Grayfolk's shipping district. Madam Hel also determined that the URSA made a stop off at a garage near the warehouse for some time before it was finally taken to its most recent appearances. Blackhawk suggested the group recon the warehouse and go from there based on whatever it is they learn. It was fairly clear that Mr. Smoke was after the Eye of Zanderos now in Madame Hel's possession.

'''June 8th, 3096'''

 

The Graveyard Heroes retreated to their headquarters in the West Grayfolk Cemetery with Blackhawk and a THUNDER unit in tow. Marduk was there waiting for them. It was the intention of the group to scout the warehouse Madame Hel had seen in her psychic vision, but before they could do that, they needed to figure out what to do with the Eye of Zanderos Madame Hel recovered from the previous fight. However, the discussion did not quite come to a conclusion before a figure was sent crashing through the outer wall of the cemetery and one of the tombstones!

The group moved to investigate and found it to be the legendary heroine Trinity, and she was under attack by a group of hulking oversized man-beasts! Some of the creatures turned towards the Graveyard Heroes, so the battle was joined! The creatures seemed to be quite strong and fairly resilient, and only minimally affected by Fred’s gas attack. Blackhawk further deduced that they had demonic quality, specifically of the Spine Demon, also known as a “Pinhead”, but they didn’t display the typical body spikes or spines usually seen in such a demon. As the battle wore on, Corpseman further revealed that they seemed to be capable of regenerating when exposed to strong electrical current, even bearing metal studs at the base of the skull, just like Corpseman!

Another pair of figures suddenly appeared on the far wall of the cemetery, scanning the area with some sort of handheld device. It wasn’t until the Graveyard Heroes had begun to chop down the creatures that this mystery duo made a move, with the two of them teleporting onto a crypt near Madame Hel. Fred Goodname had made his way to that area, though, so one of the two mystery men threw off a trench coat revealing two extra arms and a pair of leathery wings. He swooped down on Fred, and Fred taunted him about his extra arms (Fred himself, at the time, was wearing a pair of cultist arms) and the mystery man indicated that he got his the same way Fred did! Further, he indicated that not only were they kin of a sort, Fred was just a bad copy! He identified himself as “Incision”, a name known to be associated with an infamous street-level vigilante years ago!

Meanwhile, the other figure attempted to teleport and blindside Madame Hel with an S-71! She detected him, though, and he couldn’t seem to hit her. She tried to “toad” him, but while she got in to a point, she was unable to turn him, and the bulk of her effect rebounded back at her! She was able to avoid becoming a toad, however, and requested backup! He demanded she turn over the Eye of Zanderos. She repositioned herself and retaliated and the man tried to shoot her again, hitting the THUNDER unit, instead, and the THUNDER unit (who had up until now simply observed) entered the battle, trying to freeze the teleporting man. The teleporting mystery man used his power to try to avoid it, but he was unable to avoid all of it and he re-appeared atop the crypt, frozen!

Near the main gate, Trinity, Marduk, and Blackhawk were taking out the remaining hulking beasts, working very well as a team. Blackhawk lacked the firepower to really get through the big beasts’ defense, so he teamed up with Marduk, using his various gizmos to reduce the defense of the beasts so Marduk could plow them with assist from his boot jets. Trinity providing healing as the two kept battling and kept them in the fight. She also tossed in a little extra offense, but her main non-lethal attacks were weak against the beasts, her knockout gas, like Fred’s, largely ineffective, and her TAZER-blasts as likely to regenerate the beasts as knock them out! She also noted that she felt like her powers were somehow reduced, though she had no explanation as to why that would be.

Initially unknown to the Graveyard Heroes, there was a third mystery figure hiding in the shadows and observing via mini binoculars. She quickly started making her way towards Madame Hel, apparently something of a backup plan. The teleporting mystery man broke free of the ice and tried to ambush Madame Hel again, but this time Blackhawk assisted Madame, firing some sort of teleport inhibitor at the figure. As one might predict, he tried to teleport away from it and something went dreadfully wrong, and the stranger vanished, screaming!

Back on the south end of the battlefield, Corpseman face planted himself into a crypt wall while Fred grappled Incision. Incision looked startled at what had happened to his teleporting companion, accusing the heroes of “killing Lightfoot”! Fred asked something about Derek Lightfoot, and Incision responded with “Who?” and then indicated that Lightfoot was the codename of the apparently late teleporter! Incision slashed free one of Fred’s purloined arms and added it to himself, but he remained unable to break free. Fred tried a close-range poison breath, but Incision managed to shake it off and then shifted to a more dangerous offense, diving at full speed right at the crypt roof! Fred tried to kick off, but was unable and they smashed through the roof and collapsed the crypt on top of themselves and Corpseman!

Marduk and Trinity moved to help those trapped in the collapsed crypt, but Trinity spied somebody that she said looked like a ghost… specifically the ghost of her own late sister, once known as the villain “Toxic”, one of the three spirits that made up the powers of Trinity! She remarked that it wasn’t possible, though, because her sister was older than her and would be much older than the figure in question. Yet the woman looked remarkably like Toxic! The woman that looked like Toxic made a move to get at Madame Hel, but she had no more success than her compatriots, so she fled, partially under the cover of a lingering cloud from Fred’s gas attack.

In the end, the group repelled the beasts and the mysterious trio and held onto the Eye of Zanderos. Incision was nowhere to be found, and the group didn’t really expect to find Lightfoot, assuming he must have been lost in T-Space. They decided the first order of business remained getting the Eye someplace safe, and they settled on Division 42 which, according to Marduk and the THUNDER unit, has an extra dimensional secure storage space known as “The Vault”. Trinity took Madame Hel aside and unmasked, saying that if that woman was, somehow, Toxic, she should look just like Trinity, as they were essentially twins. She also indicated that Toxic was an assassin and an expert on poisons and toxins, as well as being largely immune to them. Trinity then departed to try to pursue the mystery woman’s trail.

The Sensor, Falconn, and Governor Thalia Arachnius were waiting for the team and took them down to the secure wing of Division 42, where the aperture to The Vault could be found. They were given a storage box but before they could put The Eye of Zanderos in the box, Fred looked at it and it somehow compelled him to grab it, and he instinctively used his Necro-Integration power on it, sprouting a stalk from his forehead which then interfaced with The Eye! It was short lived, however, as the collected heroes manage to sever it before it could do too much damage, and they stuffed it in the box. The box then was quickly put into the portal, ending the threat.

'''June 28th, 3096'''

The “Graveyard Heroes” group returned to their base of operations and met back up with Betta Smith, a THUNDER Unit still in tow. Madame Hel suggested that the group check out the warehouse she had seen in her vision, so they gathered up in the borrowed morgue wagon and headed out. Arriving at the warehouse, it was clear that the thing was drawing power, but it was suspiciously unguarded, at least from the outside.

Madame Hel did some scrying to look for guards. She found several guards, a lot of equipment, and a group of the strange hulking man-beasts of the same kind that had attacked Trinity, chained to the wall. Madame Hel passed this intelligence on to the rest of the group and they made ready to move in, quietly.

With Blackhawk in the lead, the group cautiously approached. There appeared to be no external security until the group got just outside one of the doors to the place. On the catwalk in front of the chosen door was a graffiti-like glyph of some unknown function. The group assumed it was an alarm of some kind, so Blackhawk carefully defaced it, robbing it of its power. But as he did this, a guard inside the building, alerted by some noise from some of the heroes a little earlier, kicked open the door and tried to knock the heroes off the catwalk. He was a big, powerfully-built man, apparently some sort of wrestler, and he could draw on a Ki-like power, which he made good use of! The group exchanged attacks with him while Blackhawk climbed up onto the roof looking for a less-contested means of approach. The big guard kept the heroes busy, tossing a couple of them off of the catwalk, giving other guards that had escaped Madame Hel’s scrying gaze a chance to get into position and join the fight.

At some point, one of the guards panicked and released the man-beasts, nicknamed “Alphas”, and they started to close on the group, killing at least one additional guard that had the misfortune of arriving on the main floor of the warehouse about the time the Alphas arrived! As the heroes continued to push back the guards and Blackhawk got in position to take a shot at the Alphas, another figure crashed through an upper-floor window. He was a huge tan-skinned monster of a man, with a stylized skull painted on his face. He called himself “Cerberus” and was apparently trying to find Spectre through the heroes!

Cerberus was a powerhouse, too, with powers similar to Trinity. He had a black aura that protected him from harm, was amazingly strong, and had at least a limited Super Speed. He threw both Betta Smith and Fred Goodname through an upper-floor window and down to the street below. Betta disappeared, but Fred claimed to know where Spectre was, so he ended up luring Cerberus out onto the street and away from the rest of the team. Unfortunately, Fred then revealed he had no knowledge as to where to find Spectre, so in a rage, Cerberus crushed Fred’s skull! Luckily, Fred can recover from such wounds. Cerberus then bounded off, apparently pursuing Betta Smith, while the rest of the heroes dealt with the remaining guards and the Alphas.

Several of the guards, including the wrestler, escaped, and, in fact, the wrestler left with a gun Fred had given him, apparently in some sort of gesture meant to encourage him to help the Graveyard Heroes against the Alphas and Cerberus. The wrestler declined the offer, but did keep the weapon. With Blackhawk’s expertise, the heroes quickly incapacitated the Alphas.

The heroes then spent some time investigating the facility. There was a bunch of advanced cloning equipment here, and it seemed like someone was “growing” more Alphas here. Further, the Alphas were somehow a hybrid of mutant DNA and the mystical equivalent, derived from demonic sources! An erased laptop was recovered, too, and Blackhawk defeated a trap meant to degauss the thing, rendering it completely unrecoverable. Blackhawk turned it over to the THUNDER unit for further analysis by the police forensics team. There was also a new source of “mystical DNA” that had been decoded by a makeshift super-computer. Dr. Malladi from Division 42 seemed quite interested in this material and the previously decoded mystical material used in making the Alphas. Blackhawk and the team turned over the evidence they had recovered to the city-state police and now await the results of the analysis.

The group also called Trinity and discussed their observations with her. She believed that her diminishing power might in some way be connected to Cerberus and/or what the group postulated might be a clone of Trinity’s dead sister, the mysterious poison-wielding figure in green from the previous encounter. The group then considered their next move.

'''July 3rd, 3096'''

Back on Altair, Trinity II and Sling-Shot were working on a training exercise with Vanguard when Trinity II’s powers apparently malfunctioned, casting the two of them down in front of traffic in the middle of Main Street, Grayfolk, on “New Altair”! Filmstar, Jessica Kyle, was engaging in a publicity appearance to promote her latest movie for a throng of her fans.

Sling-Shot and Trinity II were hit by an oncoming truck, luckily Sling-Shot’s impact armor was up to the task and Trinity II was able to use her agility and acrobatic skill to minimize the damage. Unfortunately, Sling-Shot also had a handful of energized slingshot stones when he was hit and they went flying every which way, with several of them on course to hit the errant semi-truck cab!

Filmstar leapt into action, hurling her small shield with amazing precision, hitting one of the stones and detonating it, the resulting explosion detonating the others that threatened the truck! The crowd went wild, thinking this was all part of the publicity stunt! Filmstar shot out one of the truck’s tires to bring it to a halt after a manhole cover inexplicably popped up and took out another, sending the truck out of control! It came to a stop just in front of Filmstar’s transportation! Again the crowd erupted!

Filmstar and her publicist and agent Jack checked on the driver of the truck, who was apparently taking pictures of Filmstar as he drove by, prior to Trinity II and Sling-Shot appearing, which explained his slow reaction time upon hitting the two meandering heroes! They checked on the heroes, too, introducing themselves. Trinity II introduced herself simply as “Trinity”, to this day unaware that the original Trinity was still alive and well, semi-retired, back home. Filmstar thought that Trinity II was perhaps a cast member of an upcoming movie and suggested that Trinity II needed to meet the original Trinity (at least the one from Filmstar’s Altair) which flabbergasted Trinity II.

Everyone piled into Filmstar’s SUV and Jack drove them to the Guardians Base, but before they could get there, they called ahead and Dark Marauder asked Filmstar to investigate a potential parahuman crime in progress just blocks from their current location!

Upon arrival at the Grayfolk Gun Shop, the group saw a guard robot blasted through the wall with some sort of plasma discharge. Trinity II and Filmstar leapt out of the moving vehicle while Sling-Shot charged up a handful of pocket change to use as ammo! A Guardal carrying what looked to be a Nebulon Steel pikestaff came out of the breach in the wall, blasting the guard robot a second time and destroying it. Trinity II and Filmstar moved in to engage. The Guardal attacked, somehow extending and enlarging the pikestaff instantly, stabbing at the two. Neither of the heroines was struck, so a tiny, flying companion apparently buzzing around the Guardal’s head fired energy beams at them, hitting Filmstar. She managed to shrug it off, though. The bug-like creature then attempted Persuasive Speech mind-control but was unable to take hold on either heroine. The bug thing then suddenly took human shape and became a giant, trying to stomp on the girls. In giant form, he looked humanoid with a featureless hood and tinted visor, suggesting he was a Metamorph.

Sling-Shot, meanwhile, opened fire on the thieves with his explosive pocket-change, hitting the big guy (and the weapons shop) before, unluckily, Jack hit a pothole in the street and sent the remaining energized pocket change flying! The errant bomb-like projectiles struck the inside of the vehicle, destroying it and nearly killing both Sling-Shot and Jack!

The big metamorph, meanwhile, grabbed Filmstar as Trinity II fired gimmicked ping-pong balls at the two. Pure luck seemed to be her only defense as, at times, it seemed as though fate itself intervened on her behalf, keeping her from harm! Eventually she and Filmstar both hit the big guy, apparently forcing him to return to normal size because of the pain. His partner, the Guardal, then called up Wild Magic and attempted to escape, inadvertently saving both he and his partner from defeat. The Guardal would have been satisfied to leave his companion high-and-dry, but the unstable nature of Wild Magic proved benevolent today!

Before long the “New Altair” version of Trinity arrived to help with cleanup and Trinity II came clean with the fact that she had taken the name “Trinity” in honor of her world’s equivalent heroine after that Trinity seemed to have perished. On Filmstar’s suggestion, she decided to alter her code-name to “T2” for the duration of her stay on New Altair. The group retired to a nearby Hot Spot where Trinity came clean to Filmstar about the fact that there were now two different planets known as Altair, and the government of this one was trying very hard to keep a lid on it so as not to panic the masses, all of whom were now refugees from a universe that no longer existed! Trinity then offered Filmstar full membership in The Guardians since she had proven herself once again. Filmstar thought about it for awhile and then decided to accept. But she realized that if she kept her public identity, she would put her fans at risk of being caught in the crossfire, so she and Trinity decided that Jennifer Kyle must be declared dead! The two of them, with the help of mutual friend (and hacker) Sparkler, were going to fake Jennifer Kyle’s death at the very mission they had just concluded.

Filmstar seemed satisfied with the plan but she was still missing a piece of her arsenal, the shield that had been blown up saving the semi-truck. Trinity contacted her former mentor (and boyfriend) Panther and he arrived soon thereafter with a replacement. In fact, it was more than a replacement, it was an upgrade! It was a design he made himself in the early part of his career, before his powers had fully developed. He also brought a bunch of spare costume bits collected from various Guardians over the years, and Filmstar put together an improvised costume to conceal her identity. Filmstar then wanted to pursue the two metahuman thieves and Panther indicated he could help them. Trinity, meanwhile, returned to the Guardians base with Sling-Shot so that they could give him a good once-over after all the damage he had sustained during the day’s action.

The group then returned to the scene of the battle and Panther revealed that he could tell where the two had gone. Apparently they had Dimension Jumped into the DemonRealm! Panther tapped into his own latent magical abilities and scooped up the group, jumping to the DemonRealm with them! He then queued up an ability to track the robbers psychically and the group made ready to follow the trail for a rematch!

'''July 12th, 3096'''

 

Sling-Shot returned to the group just in time to follow the trail as Panther used his Psychic Tracking to follow the two robbers. However before the group could catch up with them, they stumbled across another situation- members of Vanguard/Underworld locked in battle with a powerful Guardian Demon! T2 recognized them and Enrique Rojas, the junior member of the team, set up a telepathic link with the two teams to coordinate efforts! The other team consisted of Underworld member Gro-Hikk, Vanguard members Enrique Rojas and Jingles the Clown, and ally (and apprentice Elder) Doctor Orion! Working together, the group managed to trap the powerful demon in a force field bubble and push him through a dimensional portal elsewhere ending the conflict.

The two teams then shared their mission with each other. Filmstar’s people were still tracking the two robbers, while the Vanguard/Underworld team was gathering intel as to why FOUNDATION has left the Material Realm en masse to return to the DemonRealm. The teams decided that joining forces to complete both missions would be the best bet. They started with Panther’s tracking of the two lawbreakers, since that trail would go cold and since the other squad had no specific location to scout as of yet. Filmstar proposed that perhaps the theft of the weapons might be related to what FOUNDATION was doing. On the way, the group encountered Casualty driving Road Rash on the Highway to Hell. He had noticed them and heard one of several explosions caused when Jingles’ gadgets malfunctioned.

Before long, though, the group stumbled across a strange patch of green grass complete with trees, rocks, and a campfire, upon which was roasting what looked like a large chicken or similar fowl. The group cautiously approached, with Jingles in the lead. He investigated the site and approached the campfire when suddenly the roasting fowl leapt at him, engulfing his head with a headless mouth! An eye opened in the body of the thing and it began to attack the heroes, manipulating Jingles’ body as it did so! Jingles fought to remove it as it continued to fight on, petrifying Gro-Hikk with its gaze, before the team finally destroyed it, freeing Jingles.

Shortly thereafter, the group was approached by a man with white hair, ebony skin, and tiny horns on his forehead! Members of the team recognized him as the human form the former Demon HighLord Xavier had taken. After some discussion, he asked them to look into what he called an “eyesore” near the border to his territory. The group surmised that it might be related to FOUNDATION. However, the trail of the robbers was growing cold, so they elected to head back out. Xavier then disappeared into a rock cleft.

The group approached an area where Panther’s trace was very strong and they were nearly ambushed by the duo. The Guardal had turned invisible and was waiting by some ruins, but Filmstar exposed him. The other one, a Metamorph, posed as a tree and pounced on the group as they maneuvered towards the other. However the tide of battle was quickly turned when Gro-Hikk almost single-handedly took out the Metamorph despite the Metamorph having assumed a gigantic size! Gro-Hikk’s Deathtouch sword was up to the task. He then tried to finish the downed Metamorphm eventually drawing the ire of his team mates. He believed the Metamorph to be dead, however, so he stopped his efforts. The group then turned to the Guardal. He fought hard, but was no match for the assembled heroes, especially when Jingles the Clown inadvertently negated a defensive spell the Guardal had erected! Once the two robbers were defeated, Panther said he would take them back to New Altair to stand trial.

The group, meanwhile, pressed on in the direction Xavier had sent them, soon coming in sight of a huge metal tower of some sort. As the group got closer, they found it manned with a substantial number of FOUNDATION members including some heavy hitters! Among them could be found Headstone, Hyprus, Kamikaze, Hammertoss, Fastball, Kicker, Carrion, PsiEater, Leo II/Clau, Rook, Crescendo, Wimpy the Clown, and Pl’Ahshtar himself, as well as several other members the team didn’t recognize. As the group held their collective breaths and tried to come up with a plan, they were pounced upon by the insidious Immortal-hunter Trapline, who was trying to assassinate Enrique! Filmstar saved him, though, hurling the shield she had been given by Panther into the path of his razor-wire! Luckily for the heroes, Pl’Ahshtar gave Crescendo some final orders before departing, unaware of the battle having begun!

The FOUNDATION members soon became aware of the presence of the heroes and Crescendo ordered the bulk of the members to “protect the array” while several of them continued to work on delicate construction. The group wanted to try to destroy the “array” but felt dramatically outmatched, so they decided, instead, to fight a holding action until Filmstar could get her shield back. Jingles would then use his dimension-hopping hat to facilitate an escape, and the team would report back to Vanguard/Underworld and call for reinforcements!

The team did the best they could at holding off the dangerous enemies while Doctor Orion, Filmstar, and Jingles teamed up to reclaim the shield. Doctor Orion eventually froze time, with Filmstar unexpectedly breaking the freeze, so they moved to get the shield. However, FOUNDATION member Bad Trip was also not frozen and nearly ambushed the duo. They did eventually seize the shield, though, and then beat a hasty retreat before the rest of FOUNDATION could catch up with them. They found themselves in the heart of Worldport, Altair, one of the few relatively untouched major cities spared bombardment by the T’Karri, probably due to the presence of a fully functional star port the T’Karri probably intended to capture, and the heroes then made contact with Vanguard/Underworld to report their findings! Nobody could say for sure why in the world FOUNDATION would be building a giant transmitter in the DemonRealm, however, but that information was filed away for future analysis.

'''August 2nd, 3096'''

 

Trinity met back up with Blackhawk, Fred Goodname, and Madame Hel at the Grayfolk Guzzling Bar, awaiting the results of the analysis of the laptop they had recovered and turned over to Division 42 for examination. She brought them a radio with an encryption circuit that Dr. Malladi had sent them and it wasn’t long thereafter that he called. He reported that they were still working on the laptop and that some parts of the hard drive were irretrievably damaged, but he had been able to trace a number of significant credit payments from an anonymous account to the Yorian Mercenaries, and the same account had made significant expenditures to a local high-tech company. Further investigation revealed that the expenditures were for genetic engineering related equipment and materials and the stuff was apparently to be shipped to what was, by all accounts, a ruined area of Capitol City.

The group agreed that it was a lead worth checking into while they waited for anything else to come of it, and Dr. Malladi and Division 42 sent them an aircraft and pilots to make the trip to the ruins of Capitol City. The group then set out, with Trinity in tow, because she felt that the best chance to find this Cerberus seemed to be connected to the case the Graveyard Heroes was working. En route, Madame Hel used her scrying powers to get a peek at the destination, and it appeared to be on the roof of a relatively unscathed five-story building that appeared to have its own power despite the rest of the block being fairly devastated. The high-tech gear was there, being manned by the strange little big-headed man Madame had previously seen when scrying about the URSA. In addition, Lightfoot, apparently back from T-Space, and Mr. Smoke were present! The group approached via stealth and landed a few blocks from the site.

The group approached by foot, with Blackhawk and Trinity scouting ahead under cover of shadow, Madame Hel, Fred, and a THUNDER unit following at a bit of a distance. Trinity gave Blackhawk a special rig with a sub vocal microphone so that he could use his radio to reach her, and Dr. Malladi tuned the THUNDER Unit to the same frequency so it could pass on intelligence to Madame and Fred.

Blackhawk used a grapple gun to climb a nearby building to get a better look at the rooftop mad scientist lab and Trinity followed, leaping up the side of the building and climbing the rest of the way, as her weakened powers weren’t quite up to the task of reaching the roof. Madame and Fred skirted around the building with the THUNDER just behind Madame. Once at the top, Blackhawk leapt off the building, making use of his new glider attachments on his armor. He was nearly run through by a concealed Incision, however, but he managed to avoid a grisly death! Fred fired at him from ground level and Trinity then moved to engage Incision as Blackhawk sailed into the night air. He tossed her some sort of syringe and told her to use it on Incision, so she threw it at him, hitting the mark skillfully. Its contents seemed to interfere with his ability to maintain his interface with the stolen demon parts he was wearing. They fought and soon plunged into the ruined building.

Blackhawk, meanwhile, spied Lightfoot and Toxic readying to attack, ultimately engaging Fred and Madame. Blackhawk got closer and began to attack the high-tech equipment, still being operated by the strange little man. When the little man activated a force-bubble around the equipment, it confirmed that he was a known villain called “The Evolutionist”. Evolutionist called for help from Mr. Smoke, indicating that things were at a delicate stage!

As the battle raged below, Trinity leapt back up to the roof, carrying a pair of disembodied demon wings! It was not a long-lived victory, however, as soon Cerberus crashed through a window on an upper floor of a building across the street. He and Trinity quickly paired off in combat. Blackhawk, meanwhile, tossed a bomb of some sort near The Evolutionist’s shield and it collapsed the building atop which the machine and The Evolutionist stood!

Moments later, a huge, winged, tentacle horror covered in spikes burst out of the rubble, each tentacle ending in an eye, and each eye shooting blasts of nuclear energy! Lightfoot ambushed Fred and teleported into the sky with him, releasing him and then teleporting down! Fred responded by hitting the one-in-a-million shot of his career, taking out Lightfoot with a hurled garden spade! Toxic, meanwhile, was awaiting evacuation via Lightfoot express and ended up on the wrong end of Fred as he crashed through the skylight into the building where she waited, landing on her! Mr. Smoke, who had come to The Evolutionist’s defense earlier, vanished in a cloud of smoke, nowhere to be found!

Blackhawk threw a bomb at the huge beast, trying to banish the thing to the Demon Realm, and it fell into the portal but then started pulling itself back out! Madame Hel and Blackhawk threw everything they had at it, eventually driving it back through the portal as the portal snapped shut!

Unfortunately, despite a pretty complete victory by the Graveyard Heroes, all was not celebration, as Blackhawk found a barely-alive Trinity, somehow aged to match her alter-ego. Madame Hel and Blackhawk tried to save her but she told them it was too late, and their efforts failed. Trinity apologized and told them that somehow Cerberus had absorbed her powers by absorbing the demon that was the source of them. She gave the group a final piece of advice, though, indicating that if Cerberus had her powers, it had her weaknesses, too, including a time limit on its powers and a weakness to un-forged iron. She then passed away, clutching a small locket that revealed an old picture, apparently of her, and a picture of another woman, significantly younger.

THUNDER Units from Division 42 soon converged on the area and sealed it off, but not before the Graveyard Heroes purloined a laptop The Evolutionist had been using. Lyra D’Angelo arrived on scene, too, and touched base with the team. They expressed some distrust for Division 42 and the Governor. She told the group she could probably hack the computer, but that it should be done elsewhere. The group soon departed, returning to the Grayfolk Guzzling Bar. Eventually Lyra revealed some useful information. The huge tentacle-bearing monster was actually the more recent attempt at cloning a demon from the Eye of Zanderos! But the damning information was that the sample had been taken after the team had left the Eye in the Vault at Division 42. Lyra indicated she could confirm or deny if it was from the same Eye if she could see the scan data from the earlier attempt to clone it. The team contacted Dr. Malladi and he reassured them that the Eye remained in the Vault and nobody had tampered with it. He agreed to bring them the data that The Evolutionist had used at the other lab, however. He left the team with the equivalent of a flash drive. Lyra used it (having previously duplicated the contents of the laptop, as she found herself forced to admit) but it carried a virus meant to extract something from the laptop and then wipe it! Lyra managed to stop it, however. The group decided to turn the trap against whoever had set it, triggering it and then tracking the data transmission back to its source!

'''August 31st, 3096'''

Vanguard assembled a small team to investigate and, if possible, destroy the strange antenna FOUNDATION was assembling in the Demon Realm. They dispatched the heaviest hitters available- Void Walker, Thangor, and Streetbreaker. The group rendezvoused with Chancemaster of StormWatch, whom Vanguard had come to an agreement with as an escort to the site. Void Walker seemed put out that Vanguard had brought Chancemaster on board. Streetbreaker, on the other hand, agreed to owe Chancemaster a favor if Chancemaster would back him up. Chancemaster agreed and the mission was underway!

Chancemaster asked the group which site they wanted to inspect. The group was surprised to hear that there was more than one! Ultimately they decided that the one closest to the StormWatch base was the best target, and it was not the one the other team had previously encountered. As they drew near, Streetbreaker leapt into the air to see what was over there! It was another antenna-like structure, nearly the same as the previous one, and it was guarded by a dozen FOUNDATION members and the monstrous major demon, Gwidlerun!

The group hatched a desperate, lethal plan. Chancemaster pointed out to the group that Gwidlerun only has one eye. So Void Walker shifted himself into the shape of a huge javelin. Streetbreaker would hurl the javelin as Thangor made it weightless, then just before impact, Thangor would increase his gravity, and Void Walker would go to maximum density, like a human bullet!

Streetbreaker loosed the javelin and it found its mark, surprising the huge, mighty demon, and felling him in a single shot! Gwidlerun crumbled to sulfurous dust! Void Walker decided the best move was to remain in the form of a javelin and hope the assembled villains didn’t notice him! Unfortunately, Ironbone, one of the villains nearest to him has Life Sight and recognized that Void Walker was alive. The battle was joined!

Streetbreaker charged in, with Thangor’s help, going for the top of the antenna while Void Walker held off the numerous defenders. Chancemaster and Thangor teamed up to fire incendiary rounds at the antenna that Thangor then magnified with his fire-control ability. Shadowcaster, one of the more dangerous villains, engaged Void Walker and used his powers to animate Void Walker’s shadow, using it to attack him! Several other villains including Psynetic, Overkill, Killerboar, Spin Cycle, and Starlight poured it on, mostly attacking Void Walker. Frequency and Crescendo, the people apparently in charge of the operation, defended the antenna, minimizing the damage inflicted on it mostly via Frequency’s ability to absorb kinetic and wave-energy. Streetbreaker dropped Crescendo and the heroes managed to work together to topple the tower! Frequency called for the villains to retreat to “the tertiary site”.

Eventually Void Walker was overwhelmed and it looked like Shadowcaster was going to capture him, so Streetbreaker tried to save him by throwing Frequency through his own gateway, closing it, but leaving the rest of the villains on this side of the gate! As the villains swarmed in on Streetbreaker, Thangor and Chancemaster jumped into the middle of the fray, Chancemaster honoring his bargain with Streetbreaker, but he and Thangor were both running on fumes!

Suddenly a portal opened up again and Streetbreaker fell through, ending up at the tertiary site, with another squad of villains and Pl’Ahshtar himself! Streetbreaker returned to the other group and went back-to-back with his remaining team members, with Crescendo unconscious over his shoulder. Shadowcaster had shadow-jumped away with the unconscious Void Walker! Pl’Ahshtar came through and called up a fistful of flame, almost challenging Thangor and the heroes to attack him! They did not, so he offered to let them go unharmed if they returned Crescendo and if they promised him a favor to be named later. Grudgingly, they agreed and Chancemaster got the team out of there. They were empty-handed, but at least they knew there was one more antenna-array, and that Pl’Ahshtar was overseeing whatever was this sinister project!

'''September 6th, 3056'''

Guardian allies Kid Trinity, Hellsgate, and Doctor Somnulus II and (secretly) TRIAD member Incognito teamed up to thwart an attack on a hospital. A group of goons had crashed a car into the front entrance of the hospital and then swarmed in behind it, taking advantage of the chaos. They set up a reasonably well organized "kill box", showing evidence of some coordination and planning, that Hellsgate initially stumbled into. However, he wisely withdrew before the goons could fully get into position. With the help of the others, the bulk of the goons were defeated, however a pair of them attempted to escape via a stolen Ambulance. Hellsgate twisted the rear wheel off of the Ambulance with his prehensile chains, though, thwarting the escape. One of the two goons attacked, giving cover to a second that the team had not seen, enabling that goon to escape via the sewers! Hellsgate jumped upon a grenade the goon had thrown in order to keep it from harming innocent bystanders, stalling him from pursuing into the sewers. Incognito stopped a thermal bomb on the roof of the hospital that had been placed to cover up what the goons had stolen- three vials of some sort of genetic material coded to something called "Project ARMADA"- something that was classified at the highest levels of the government! Not wanting to expose her connection to TRIAD,

Incognito was unable to further pursue that lead, but the team turned to the Guardians for help. A dismissive Omega-Man agreed to help only on the condition that the team do a job for him that he did not want to do. An official government oriented function at the Embassy involving an alien ambassador!

The group grudgingly agreed and Omega-Man said he'd put some technical people on the task. Omega-Man gave them his invitation and told them that the function of their presence is merely as a show of support and to keep an eye on things. The alien ambassador and the ambassador from Altair were on the verge of a treaty, so this was an important time for diplomacy! Hellsgate and Incognito chatted up the ambassadors, the alien was a man from Gemini called Derrik Allen, and the ambassador from Altair was a Were-Gator named Derring. Doc Somnulus observed from a distance and Kid Trinity discovered coconut shrimp! Things devolved quickly, though, when three of the maids that were at the venue and two of the private security men pulled out weapons and began attacking the dignitaries and Ambassadors! The heroes sprang into action alongside the surprisingly capable ambassadors and Derrik's bodyguard, a powerfully-built Geminian named Garr!

The traitorous maids seemed to be well-trained in martial arts, while the private security men seemed to just be goons with guns! The battle was fierce and as it began to turn against the would-be assassins, a group of ninjas marked with the Scorpion Clan insignia joined the battle in a desperation move to kill the Geminian ambassador! He was shot with several poisoned blow-darts, but the fast acting Doctor Somnulus whipped up something to counteract the poison, saving the ambassador! A fourth maid quietly escaped the scene, apparently leaving behind a powerful bomb beneath one of the buffet tables of the same design as the one used on the hospital roof! A pair of ninjas formed the final line of attack holding up the heroes long enough for the maid to escape via a helicopter. Security footage recovered by Ambassador Derring's people within TRIAD showed that the maid was a known assassin called Tarantula in disguise, and the helicopter was piloted by the infamous assassin and leader of the Scorpion clan, a man known simply as "Scorp"!

At the end of the day, however, the ambassadors thanked the heroes and Derring even offered to put in a good word for Hellsgate with TRIAD, since his style of justice is clearly more in line with them than the squeaky-clean Guardians!

'''September 20th, 3056'''

 

TRIAD member Incognito was, well, incognito at the Hot Spot when suddenly the heroine Trinity came crashing through a window, clearly in the middle of battle. She said something about being hit with a giant mallet and got back up, heading for the window. She took some additional fire from what appeared to be some sort of solid paintball-like projectiles!

Also in the Hot Spot at the time was rookie hero Silverbolt, and activating his remarkable speed power, he changed into costume and moved to assist the veteran Guardian. Likewise, Incognito, in the form of a minor demon, joined in (still concealing her membership in TRIAD).

It quickly became clear what was going on- the heroes were under attack by a group of Psycho Samurai’s duplicates, a handful of Laughtrack’s Agonizer Bunnies, and Toon of the “Toon Patrol”! The heroes vanquished most of the minions (one Psycho Samurai duplicate escaped) but Toon proved a little harder nut to crack! Eventually while Silverbolt and Trinity dealt with a giant “Acme Corporation” old-fashioned bomb (by wrestling it away from him), ultimately requiring Trinity to cover it and take the blow!

Incognito, meanwhile, fought an interesting battle of transformation; ending when Incognito smashed them both into the ground bodily, and then Silverbolt put his Atomic Touch to use, finishing Toon off. The trio did their best to patch him up and eventually the police collected him. Unfortunately the attack seemed to be a cover for the rest of the Toon Patrol robbing a fairly large sum of credit tokens from the nearby bank!

The heroes proceeded to the bank and spoke with witnesses. The trio gathered some additional evidence pointing towards the use of some sort of short-range dimensional portal from inside the vault. They then used the same trick to appear in the alley next to the bank where they had, according to a vagabond that Silverbolt had previously helped, a “Mystery Machine” looking old-fashioned gas-guzzler van waiting. Incognito was able to pick up on its engine fumes and found traces of oil leaking, so the group jumped in an ambulance apparently assigned to Silverbolt’s civilian identity, a paramedic. They followed the trail until a message came in to Trinity’s communicator. Her sidekick, Sparkler, was responding to a seemingly random attack by a giant robot on the highway between Grayfolk and to wherever the Toon Patrol fled!

Somewhat reluctantly, the trio decided to respond to the giant robot instead, risking losing the trail. It turned out to be a good move, though, as there were a couple of police officers in dire straits as the robot rampaged. Trinity and Silverbolt came to the aid of the downed officers, getting them out of the line of fire, while Incognito, Sparkler, and the police engaged the robot. Eventually Trinity and Silverbolt joined the offense and with some good teamwork, and a pretty good volley from the local law enforcement, the robot was vanquished.

Out of the head of the robot popped the eccentric and self-proclaimed arch-villain Doc Tangent! He engaged the heroes with an atomic ray gun, until the heroes destroyed it. Unexpectedly he resorted to trying to bludgeon Silverbolt with his bare hands, something entirely out of character for him, and it went poorly for him. Once he was subdued by Silverbolt, Trinity checked him and detected residual traces of mind control on him, perhaps explaining his reckless and meaningless attack.

When he came around, he seemed to be a bit disoriented but fairly quickly recovered, describing a recent liaison with what he called a “pink strumpet” who had apparently used some form of mind control on him. He reported having met her at the Grayfolk Guzzling Bar, a known hangout for those of questionable morality. He offered to get the heroes in if they put in a good word for him at trial. He also offered to testify against the “strumpet” if they catch her. The group reluctantly agreed, going on Trinity’s authority as a Guardian.

Soon they arrived at the bar. Incognito changed her appearance into something more suitable while Silverbolt and Trinity disguised themselves as vagabonds outside the bar. Trinity gave Incognito her Guardians Transponder to use if things went south. Doc and Incognito entered the bar and spotted the “strumpet” on the far end of the bar. Unfortunately she spotted Doc, too, and Incognito noticed her tensing up. The woman seemed surprised to see Doc and glanced down at some sort of notification. She commented on not liking Doc’s latest choice of companions and that time was up. She then spit a bolt of toxin at Incognito! Moments later chain gun fire began ripping into the window nearest her and as the patrons dove for cover, some armed thugs jumped in through the window.

The “strumpet” apparently known as “Heart Breaker” took control of Incognito and set her upon Doc Tangent while Trinity and Silverbolt tried to get the patrons clear of the gunfire and tried to respond to the goons.

As Incognito wrapped up Doc Tangent and (liberally) interpreted Heart Breaker’s command to “attack” Doc Tangent as disrobing him, Silverbolt pursued the escaping Heart Breaker. Trinity was occupied with yet another bomb, in this particular case it was some sort of explosive baseball! Heart Breaker continued her escape efforts, heading for a helicopter that was lifting off, piloted by the known parahuman mercenary Mainframe. The chain gun was in the hands of Mainframe’s frequent accomplice, Sinnamon!

Heart Breaker leapt onto a rope dangling beneath the helicopter as Silverbolt quickly caught up with her. Incognito then severed the rope, causing Heart Breaker to crash to the ground. Silverbolt tried to grapple her but she proved to be a surprisingly capable martial artist! As the helicopter further ascended, Heart Breaker realized she was being abandoned, so she surrendered. Unfortunately, in the confusion of the battle, a female android rose up through the floor and spirited Doc Tangent away. It was his loyal creation Synthia and apparently he had summoned her during the battle. It quickly became apparent that the police were not going to be able to hold Heart Breaker for long. She was not a known villain, and the only “witness” and victim of her mind control was Doc Tangent. The group considered having Incognito press charges, but Incognito realized that would mean that she would have to expose her true identity, or at least her nature as an alien and a TRIAD member. She consulted with Blitz and they decided this was not the time or place for that. Afterwards, Trinity reassured Incognito that they would get her the next time if she was released this time.

The news went from bad to worse as it became apparent that the robot and the battle at the bar were both meant to divert resources away from Talon Industries! Heavy hitter and sometimes ally of Mainframe and his mercenaries, the powerful parahuman Mass Assassin had forced his way in and had made off with item or items as yet unidentified! The only good news was that the police were following the trail of the Toon Patrol and might soon have a fix on their location. Not quite the outcome the heroes had hoped for, but things could always be worse!

'''October 4th, 3056'''

 

Grayfolk, Altair

Guardians ally Decoy teamed up with secret TRIAD member Incognito, Grayfolk Security Services member Psych, and a rookie hero Ziyro. TRIAD leader Blitz and Guardians leader Firelord put the collection of heroes to the task of assisting in transporting Geminian Ambassador Derrik Allen to the treaty signing that was to be held in Capitol City in a little over eight hours. TRIAD and the Guardians were dispatching three different aircraft, two of which contained look-alikes for the ambassador, the third of which would actually contain the real ambassador. However there would be one additional failsafe- Incognito would be posing as Ambassador Allen while the ambassador would actually be wearing the armor and helmet that was the signature of his bodyguard, Garr. Garr, meanwhile, would pose as one of the uniformed security guards assigned to the detail. Blitz set up real-time video surveillance in each of the planes. The plan was simple- should another assassination attempt occur, the assassins would be repelled but most importantly, it was critical to capture at least one of the assassins to interrogate. The Scorpion Clan ninjas had nothing to gain by slaying the ambassador, and Mainframe’s mercenaries worked only for money, so there was some third party that was pulling the strings and directing these assassination attempts. Blitz wanted to know whom.

After a brief time where Incognito studied Derrik’s mannerisms, the group made ready to depart. Incognito was disguised as the ambassador, the ambassador was dressed as Garr, and Garr was dressed as the fourth of four uniformed security officers that were accompanying the flight. The rest of the group made ready to pounce on any would-be assassin. Incognito swept the aircraft to make sure there hadn’t been any tampering and to confirm the surveillance equipment Blitz had indicated would be present. Nothing was out of order, so the flight was cleared to take off. Incognito and Derrik had a hidden radio link between them in case something should come up where Incognito had to answer a question from Derrik’s perspective.

It wasn’t long before the suspicions as to further assassination attempts were borne out. The manner was somewhat unexpected, however. In a flash, a portal appeared inside the aircraft and four Scorpion Clan warriors leapt out, firing poisoned blow-darts at security officers and the faux Ambassador Allen! Incognito survived the initial alpha-strike and her allies sprang into action, quickly dealing with the assassins and capturing three out of four of them.

The attack was complicated as another portal opened, at the back of the cabin, and a strange metal-skinned skeletal-looking alien appeared. This alien then ignited an energy-touch ability and started to direct this energy at the floor of the cabin, carving a “Z” into the floor before he was interrupted. Unfortunately for him, the heroes didn’t realize he was not one of these assassins, nor did he realize that the “Z” he was carving into the floor as a means of spelling out his own name was also significant to the enemy of the planet Gemini. What is commonly called “Gemini” is actually “Gemini Epsilon” while its sister world is known as “Gemini Zeta”, “Zeta”, or by the name its inhabitants use, “Zyrvaedi” or “Zyrvaedi Beta”! The heroes misinterpreted his “Z” as representative of the enemy, so they attacked him! He was quickly overpowered and cuffed. The heroes further determined that this strange alien was incapable of speech even though he could understand them. Eventually they released him, realizing he was not a part of the ongoing threat and he spelled out for them his name, “Zeal”.

The assassins, meanwhile, were each issued a false suicide-tooth but Ziyro was skilled in matters of surgery, so he was able to extract three out of four, the fourth one, unfortunately, went off and killed its bearer. Once properly secured, the heroes interrogated the assassins, learning that Scorp’s lieutenant and the second-in-command of the Scorpion Clan ninjas on Altair, Tarantula, had deployed the assassins. She, in turn, was coordinating with the mercenary Mainframe, but none of the assassins knew for whom Mainframe was working.

Before further interrogations could occur, however, a second wave of attacks was unleashed! Another portal appeared; however this one did not seem to be tethered to the aircraft itself as it abruptly raced to the back of the aircraft, sucking two of the uniformed security guards and Psych into it as more Scorpion Clan members leapt out from the other side! Before long, there was a second portal of the same sort, on the other side of the cabin, sucking out the other security guard, Garr (still posing as a security officer), Incognito (still posing as the ambassador), and Ziyro! More warriors were deployed but dispatched fairly quickly by the remaining heroes, Zeal, Ambassador Allen, and Decoy.

Decoy made his way to the front of the aircraft where he stumbled upon two additional invaders who had taken control of the aircraft- the mercenary Sinnamon and another figure in golden armor! Sinnamon attacked but Decoy fairly quickly dispatched her, splitting into his Geminian Duplicate form. Unexpectedly, the man in golden armor also spawned a Duplicate- and then another one! Decoy was quickly being overpowered himself when Zeal made a desperate attack, teleporting all three golden-armored invaders out into the open air!

Meanwhile, Incognito and Ziyro found themselves a bit up a creek and in some sort of aircraft hangar! They were surrounded by Scorpion Clan ninjas who had already defeated the remaining security guards and the disguised Garr and their leader, Tarantula! They came under attack and Incognito went down, her disguise disappearing, causing her to revert to her natural state! Tarantula was enraged by the deception and attacked Ziyro with renewed vigor! Worse, Scorp himself arrived and saw the battle already under way! Ziyro teleported into a chamber above the hangar floor and found an unfamiliar youngster in front of a huge bank of monitors and other equipment, showing the inside of each of the three aircraft! Apparently, the assassins had hacked Blitz’ surveillance transmission! Directing the efforts of this youngster was the mercenary Mainframe! Ziyro made a desperate gamble trying to teleport back to the aircraft via the image on the monitor, but he was too fatigued and could not escape! He was quickly subdued.

Back on the ambassador’s plane, Decoy took over piloting the aircraft while Derrik and Zeal disabled the cameras, deducing correctly that the very same surveillance Blitz was using to coordinate efforts was being used to enable these attacks! Unexpectedly, Decoy received a proximity alert as a military fighter plane suddenly de-cloaked behind Decoy’s aircraft!

 

 

'''October 5th, 3056 (year may be changed)'''

 

Gannamon, West Grayfolk

Three local heroes, the super-speedster Quazar, the telepath Ghost, and the gadgeteer Magenta teamed up when a riot broke out in downtown Gannamon. The police on site reported that there was no clear provocation and there were a number of innocent bystanders in hiding or injured in the riot zone. The police had cordoned off the area but felt that they lacked sufficient firepower to disperse the riot themselves. The heroes decided to act to bring the riot under control.

Magenta began the attack, lobbing a tear-gas bomb into the heart of the rioters, but it was not enough to bring them down or disperse them, so Quazar rushed in headfirst. Magenta took heavy fire and retreated, turning invisible as she backed off. Quazar and Ghost engaged, Quazar downing a number of the rioters at super-speed. Before long he, Magenta, and Ghost had subdued all of the rioters and began to check on the wounded.

Unexpectedly, two of the cowering civilians started yelling “So angry!” and attacked the heroes! The civilians didn’t last long, though, as the heroes reluctantly knocked them out. Unfortunately then the same thing happened to Quazar and Quazar turned on his allies! Magenta and Ghost both turned invisible so Quazar attacked the police, taking out two of them fairly quickly while coming under heavy gunfire!

Magenta used her devices to whip up a device to scan for telepathic frequencies and found Quazar connected to an unseen mind located on the roof of one of the nearby buildings! She passed that information onto Magenta who started to attack Quazar telepathically, realizing that attacking him would actually attack the puppet-master pulling his strings! Magenta opened fire on the invisible puppet-master once she could locate him with her scanner and Ghost kept up the psychic onslaught. Soon, the mysterious puppet-master was defeated and revealed to be a young disfigured mutant dressed in filthy rags! They turned him over to the police as the Guardian Trinity arrived on site.

Trinity complemented the young heroes’ work and asked them if they would consider doing some hero work for the Guardians on an informal basis. The heroes agreed and Trinity gave them each a two-way encrypted communicator to the Guardians. The heroes then departed, returning to their civilian lives, Magenta a Special Effects tech, Ghost a paramedic, and Quazar a soldier in the local Reserve.

A few days later, Trinity called them and said that she had a job for them. She invited them to come to the Guardians base in Grayfolk where she introduced them to the Guardians’ leader, Firelord, although from her fan-girl reaction, it was pretty clear Ghost already knew of him! Firelord gave them some information on the mutant they had previously apprehended. Apparently he was a member of a semi-reclusive clan of mutants and outcasts, mostly significantly disfigured, that chose to live in the ancient tunnels, catacombs, and sewers that crisscrossed beneath the entire city and surrounding suburbs, much of which was built in ancient times and eventually built upon layer after layer as the city was rebuilt or renovated over the centuries. He called himself “Anger” and, not surprisingly, had the ability to telepathically provoke others to a blind rage. They had thus far been unable to determine what caused Anger to come to the surface and start trouble.

Firelord then offered the heroes a mission. A member of a quartet of super-criminals known as “The Toon Patrol” had recently been apprehended. He was called “Toon” and had the ability to alter himself and the reality around himself to behave like a cartoon, including such things as spontaneously dropping giant weights on people or whipping up “portable holes”! He was due for arraignment at the Grayfolk City Courthouse, but because he was such a powerful and dangerous para-human, he would be transported while in stasis and under guard from the holding facility outside Gannamon. He asked the young heroes if they would escort him to the courthouse since there was a good chance the rest of the Toon Patrol would try to spring him. The heroes agreed.

Quazar took up a scouting position some distance to the front while Magenta and Ghost stationed themselves inside the armored transport vehicle. The group then departed and Quazar soon stumbled upon an ambush on the route. A group of robot “Agonizer Bunnies”, one of the signature gimmicks of Toon Patrol leader Laughtrack, was gathered in an alley and once they noticed Quazar, they attacked! He survived the initial volley as a second group on the south side of the street started rolling up on him.

At the same time, Magenta and Ghost ordered the transport to stop, which worked out as good timing as the transport suddenly suffered a blown tire! Soon it became apparent as to why, as another Toon Patrol member, Superstition, attacked the vehicle, knocking out its power and blowing open all the doors and windows! The group leader, Laughtrack, then leapt onto the roof of the vehicle, apparently to free Toon. The two heroines quickly dispatched him, however, and as Ghost broke off to engage Superstition, Magenta realized the stasis tube was offline and Toon was about to wake up! Magenta quickly whipped up a temporary power-supply for the chamber and rigged it to maintain stasis, and a harness-like device so she could move the stasis pod and, if need be, short-range teleport with it!

As Quazar fought the horde of purple robot bunnies and Ghost engaged Superstition, Magenta began teleporting back towards the holding facility and called the Guardians for backup! Firelord dispatched Trinity to assist but warned Magenta that it would be a bit before she could get there, even as quick as she was. Quazar was eventually overwhelmed by the energy-shooting robot bunnies but the police officers engaged them. As Superstition was defeated, Trinity arrived on site and helped the heroes finish off the bunnies.

When the smoke cleared, Superstition and Laughtrack were defeated and Toon remained still in the stasis pod. Once additional police presence arrived, the officers took the other two Toon Patrol members into custody. The fourth member, Psycho Samurai, remained at large, however. Toon was taken on to the courthouse for his arraignment, though. Trinity congratulated the young heroes on a job well done and then returned to the Guardians base to report to Firelord as to the success of the mission.

October 19th, 3056 (year may be changed)

 

Gannamon, West Grayfolk

The new local heroes Quazar, Magenta, and Ghost met with Trinity at the Guardians HQ and Trinity again thanked them for the work they had been doing on behalf of the Guardians. She then asked them for further assistance- she wanted the team to give some training and experience to her rookie sidekick Sparkler. The group agreed and they left Guardians HQ together. Sparkler asked the team about their powers. Quazar demonstrated by running circles around the group, Magenta simply explained her gadgeteering skills, and Ghost then tapped into Quazar’s mind to make him cluck like a chicken! Sparkler then offered an example of her abilities, surrounding her hands with auras of plasma. She then asked the group what it is like when they patrol together and the team seemed surprised that Sparkler thought that, since they didn’t normally patrol together. Sparkler offered an insight- perhaps Trinity wasn’t just trying to get training for Sparkler, perhaps Sparkler was trying to train the team, too, in working together.

In that spirit, the group headed to the West Grayfolk docks, a normal patrol area for Ghost. As soon as they arrived, they noticed some commotion- there was a cargo ship in the docks that was on fire and a group of dock workers trying to put it out. The group sprang into action and one of the dock workers said he believed there was still somebody on the boat. Quazar rushed to the boat, leaping aboard the burning vessel while Magenta and Ghost tried to address the fire. There was a nearby fire hydrant, so Magenta whipped up a device to open the hydrant and direct the water as an improvised fire-hose. Unfortunately the hose quickly got out of control but the dockworkers helped the young heroes get it under control and put it to good use. Sparkler started drawing the fire into her plasma-auras to reduce it and make it more manageable.

Quazar, meanwhile was examining the disaster close-up. He made like a human pinball and knocked a drum full of fuel into the bay so that the fire didn’t reach it as it spread. He then looked for survivors. Quazar quickly found an unconscious sailor on the ship and between the fire hose and Sparkler’s efforts to make a hole; Quazar was able to drag the unconscious but alive victim away from the fire. Magenta improvised a raft to pull the survivor to the docks and Ghost tended to him with her paramedic skills. The team and the dock workers finally extinguished the fire. Quazar looked for more survivors but found that the ship’s hold was taking on water very quickly. Magenta whipped up underwater gear to check for more survivors. She found none. Ghost also scanned the area with her mental powers. Likewise, she found no other victims of the fire. Emergency services arrived to take care of the injured sailor and to clean up the mess. Quazar made off with a small piece of maritime equipment that he saved from the fire to add to his growing souvenir collection and the team made ready to return to patrol!

Trinity called before they could set back out and asked them to investigate a break-in at the West Grayfolk Museum of Natural History. The front door alarm had been set off and Trinity had been unable to raise any of the security guards by phone. The team piled into Magenta’s car (except for Quazar who just ran alongside) and headed that way since it was relatively close and since all the other Guardians, except Trinity who was on dispatch, were already working on other issues.

Once they made it to the museum, the heavy doors had been ripped from their hinges! Just inside the darkened museum, the team found one of the two security guards unconscious. Ghost assessed his condition and could make out some sort of narcotic or sedative gas residue on him. He was alive but would be unconscious for quite awhile. Quazar scouted ahead as Ghost and Magenta approached. Sparkler brought up the rear. Quazar caught sight of a figure guarding the upper gallery, and it wasn’t the other security guard! So he passed that information onto the rest of the team via Ghost’s mental link and he used his peculiar powers to run up the side of the gallery wall, working his way to the vaulted ceiling! Ghost tried to reach out mentally to the strange figure and found essentially no mental presence upon which to lock! The figure noticed the approaching heroes and warned an unseen figure. She then hurled an antique chair the length of the museum, clobbering Ghost and knocking her out! Magenta turned invisible and Sparkler ran up on Ghost’s position, applying first aid and get Ghost back into the fight!

As Quazar maneuvered into position, another figure engaged, having been hidden while breaking into one of the display cases. A woman dressed like a storybook witch (and called “Violet” or “Mistress” by the other figure) threw something at Quazar, blind-siding him and ensnaring him in some sort of mummy-like wrappings! Quazar was able to free himself from the snare and maintain his position on the roof, so Violet threw some potions at another nearby display, somehow animating two suits of armor to take up weapons and attack Quazar!

Quazar, meanwhile, began cutting free a huge dragon skeleton that was hanging from the ceiling above Violet’s position. Magenta and Sparkler engaged the minions while Ghost turned her mental powers against Violet! Despite strong defenses, Violet came under Ghost’s control and Ghost ordered her to surrender and stand her minions down. Violet gave the order, so the summoned minions simply stood there, but her partner in the caper, a strange clockwork automaton in the theme of a Victorian-era porcelain doll whom she called “Moppet” realized something was wrong!

Violet, meanwhile, had shaken off Ghost’s control even as Quazar finished cutting loose the huge skeleton! It came crashing down on Violet and the display cases around her, reducing them to rubble! Violet was injured but survived! Moppet leapt to her mistress’ defense, grabbing Quazar as he made his way across the ceiling! Quazar was able to shake the strange creature off, though, and she plummeted down onto the wreckage of the skeleton and the display case! Moppet quickly recovered, though, and seemed to be able to self-repair automatically!

Magenta approached Moppet, attention focused on the big wind-up key turning on Moppet’s back Moppet unexpectedly reached out and snatched Magenta up! Somehow the strange wind-up automaton could detect Magenta despite her invisibility! Moppet demanded that the heroes release Violet or she would “break” Magenta! Sparkler, who had been trying to disarm the summoned minions with a minimum damage to the exhibits, was stymied. Violet got back up and tossed another strange potion onto the dragon skeleton, animating it and sending it after Quazar! At the same time, Quazar realized what Violet was after, a ghostly illuminated orb that survived the destruction of the display case around it, so Quazar snatched it up and made a run for it!

Magenta turned things around, though, whipping up a device to yank the key from Moppet’s back! Moppet immediately froze, apparently needing the key to move! Magenta then stashed the key in an invisible pouch that would conceal it while Magenta was invisible. Ghost opened up on Violet with her sidearm, failing a second attempt at mind control! Quazar hid the orb on a light post outside the museum and then returned, the skeletal dragon swooping in on him on fleshless wings, blasting Quazar with some sort of poison breath, stunning Quazar momentarily!

Violet, under fairly effective fire from Ghost, found herself having lost sight of her objective. Nearly out of potions, she spat some invectives at the team and threw down another potion, disappearing into some sort of portable hole! Her summoned minions immediately crumbled, no longer being maintained by Violet’s powers. Quazar pulled himself back together and scoured the museum for the other security guard, finding the poor fellow stuffed in a sarcophagus. Ghost rendered medical aid and found that guard under the same sort of gas as the first, but he was otherwise unharmed. Quazar then dashed outside to retrieve the object, finding (to his dismay) that it was gone!

Ghost scanned the area for thoughts of the object, and caught a glimpse of a pair of dirty, feral-clawed hands holding the object, carrying the object into the depths of the sewers before slipping out of Ghost’s range! Police officers arrived shortly thereafter and then Firelord arrived, too, since the team had previously called Trinity to request backup. Firelord apologized for not getting there sooner and then took the team’s report. Ghost then looked for promotional materials for the museum to try to figure out what the object might have been, and she fairly quickly found something referred to as the “Orb of Traxx”, a relic alleged to contain “lost souls” known for luminescing and emitting vibrations that sounded like a chorus of voices moaning in despair! The team agreed that that seemed like a likely candidate. Firelord added that if the person that had found the Orb was one of the tunnel mutants, he or she would likely be something of a thief and scavenger and would no doubt be drawn to the potential value of the thing. Firelord was a little appalled by the raw damage the team had done to the relics in the museum, but they got the job done, capturing Moppet as a bonus. He took Moppet into Guardian custody and the team told him about the key. He suggested that if they didn’t want to turn the key over, they should keep it someplace safe. Another souvenir, perhaps! Since it was getting late by the time everything was done, the team prepared to break patrol and return to their homes.

'''November 2nd, 3056 (year may be changed)'''

 

Ghost, Quazar, Magenta, and Sparkler were on patrol when they came across a convoy of unmarked black SUVs led by a squad car. It was apparently under attack, as the squad car and the rearmost SUV were on fire! As the team got close, they saw armed security forces under attack from what appeared a squad of ninjas! Ghost established a mental link and Quazar charged in, touching base with one of the security officers to try to determine who was doing what! In the middle of the convoy was a reptilian-looking humanoid that Ghost determined was an ambassador being protected by the security forces! The heroes attacked the ninjas and even the ambassador joined the fight. Quazar took a nasty poison blow dart as the ninjas and the security forces exchanged fire, with several falling on each side. Before long, though, the team and the security forces had defeated the ninjas. One ninja tried to run for it and was unexpectedly shot from a nearby rooftop! The team tried to figure out who it was and they stumbled into a flash bomb, stunning two out of the three. However they did get a bit of a look at the apparent assassin. After comparing notes with Altairian Ambassador Derring, the team determined that these ninjas were Scorpion Clan and the assassin met the description of the clan’s second-in-command, Tarantula! Quazar deduced that she shot her own man because he was fleeing dishonorably!

After that, Sparkler got a direct message from Trinity asking her to come in to the Guardians HQ. Apparently something serious had happened and the entire Guardians team, sans Nova, was massing. The team was appropriately concerned and asked if they could help. FireLord had some kind words for them, but several others including Judgment and Omega-Man seemed less thrilled with the idea. The team was invited into the monitor room to keep Sparkler company, who would be taking over dispatch for Trinity, since Sparkler was the only other person handy that knew the Guardians protocols and knew the equipment. The situation was laid out on the screen before them. For no particularly clear reason, a suburban Grayfolk home had spontaneously turned into a Gothic-looking haunted house, complete with its own local gloom and storm clouds! A shift in reality of that magnitude required a response from the entirety of the Guardians, and they were going in. The team monitored things from where they were, as best as they could, and watched for other trouble. They were relieved to learn that Ambassador Derring had made it to his destination without further incident. Additionally, Sparkler determined that the residence that had become spook central was owned by a James Ellis, though Sparkler had no further information about him.

The team was provoked to action, though, when Trinity’s emergency transponder went off. Sparkler was unable to raise any other member of the Guardians, and those transponders were only for the direst of circumstances. The team made all due haste to the site, with Sparkler remaining on monitor duty, coordinating with them via two-way radio. Once they arrived, the area was just as spooky as it seemed. In fact, it was worse. Ghost psychically scanned the area and was almost overwhelmed with a cacophony of nightmarish visions and vivid imagery. She could not pick out any single thought over the noise of whatever it was that was causing this.

Exercising caution, Magenta assembled a drone to enter the grounds of the now-walled home. Quazar also checked out the grounds, debating about yanking down a tree-branch, but reconsidering when it seemed like the tree was looking back at him! A feeling of doom fell over the entire group as they entered the grounds. Magenta drove the drone to the front door of the uniquely out of place house. The drone tugged open one of the heavy doors with a sinister creak but before the team could enter a bloody and badly wounded Trinity stumbled through the door and collapsed in a heap. She was barely conscious, so Quazar took her to the car, hoping that if she got out of the strange gloom, her healing aura might help her recover.

The team sent the drone in with a camera attached to it and revealed some sort of huge reptile-like monster standing in the middle of a gothic foyer, much larger than could be accounted for by the size of the house containing it, and cracking a whip of lightning. It saw the drone and lashed out with its whip, destroying the drone in one blow. The team advanced, Quazar in the lead, and attacked the creature. With all the psychic noise, Ghost could not read his mind or control it, but she was able to attack it psychically. After taking some solid hits, the team managed to drop the creature. Quazar disarmed it and took its whip to the car. As soon as he got clear of the grounds, though, it shrunk down to an ordinary sonic whip. The team then got the idea that maybe the creature would change, too, so with a great deal of effort, they dragged it out of the grounds. Moments later, it shrunk down and became the unconscious form of Judgment, one of the missing Guardians! The team returned to the car to see if Trinity had recovered.

But shortly after Quazar came to Trinity, a tiny electronic beep, like a watch alarm, emitted from her belt, and a moment later, the aura winked out. The team called in and Sparkler reported that Trinity’s powers have a time limit. Ghost tended to her wounds and found evidence of metal in the wounds and began to remove it after administering first aid. As Trinity came around, she explained to the group that her aura could not heal her because iron, especially cold iron, disrupts her powers, a throwback to the demonic nature of those powers. She told the team that the entirety of the Guardians, except her, came under some sort of influence upon entering the house and were turned into horrific nightmare versions of themselves. She surmised that the reason she couldn’t be turned was that her powers are specifically geared to protect her mind and body from manipulation of that nature whether it be psychic or molecular. But that did not stop the Guardians from attacking her. While she was a match for any one of them, there was no way she could beat them all. Worse, one of them had been turned into an enormous iron-clad evil knight, and her aura could not protect her from that! She feared that if the team reentered the house they, too, would be turned into horrible creatures, but she proposed a risky gambit. Knowing that Ghost had once before been able to pierce Trinity’s protection from mental powers, Trinity posed that if the team were linked with her psychically, her own protection might extend to them. Unfortunately, that would also leave them at risk for her own demon to get out and corrupt them, as well. But there didn’t seem to be any other options.

November 22nd, 3096

 

Fred Goodname, Madame Hel, Blackhawk, Corpseman, and Lyra D’Angelo met at the Hot Spot in Grayfolk to determine their next move. Previously, they had discussed Lyra tripping the digital trap she had found within the flash drive she had been given by Dr. Malladi, using its own tracking abilities to back-track it to whomever it was might be tracking it. After some deliberation, the group agreed that they would continue with this plan, triggering the device on a disposable laptop which they would then monitor via a device constructed by Blackhawk. The team, with Lyra in tow, would follow the trace and try to determine who set the trap while remotely monitoring who- if anyone- would come to the laptop.

Once this plan was set, Lyra plugged in the device and quickly back-traced it to the north end of Gannamon, on the edge of town. The group hopped into Fred’s borrowed coroner’s van and made due haste to the location as Lyra narrowed it down to a warehouse there. The group then circled the block, with Madame Hel using her gift of sixth sense to see what might be waiting for them within. She spied a number of Alphas, Evolutionist, and a man in an old-fashioned surgeon’s costume. They opted for a two-sided approach; with Lyra coordinating matters from the van via radio earpieces she gave the team. Blackhawk and Fred opted for the south entrance, Madame and Corpseman took the north.

Both teams breached at once and the battle was joined. The Alphas were predictably tough and these seemed a bit less feral and more organized than some of the previous ones. The stranger in the surgeon’s get-up yelled something about not letting the heroes interfere in the ritual, directing his attention towards a runic circle, altar, and wrapped mummy-like body in the center of the southern chamber. The runes began glowing and the figure on the altar began to twitch. Evolutionist, too, hurled some invectives at the heroes and ordered the Alphas to destroy them. Fred found a corpse of a failed attempt to animate another demon-like creature, this one all full of gangly arms and eyestalks. He acquired an arm and an eyestalk and the corresponding powers.

On the north end, Madame Hel caught sight of a wisp of smoke vaguely in the shape of a man and realized that “Mr. Smoke” was here, too. She warned the group as to the fact, but then Mr. Smoke hid himself amidst all the crates and other material scattered about the warehouse.

Meanwhile back in the van, Lyra noted a fearful reaction from the patrons of the Hot Spot and soon saw the reason! Cerberus had broken in and was looking right at the trap-springing laptop! She informed the rest of the team but there really wasn’t anything they could do since they were busy with the Alphas. Blackhawk told Lyra to join them in trying to work out what the runic circle was for and what ritual it was that the surgeon was speaking. She then started driving the van towards the bay doors on the west wall of the warehouse, intent on ramming them!

The Evolutionist and the surgeon, who called himself “Doctor Abnormality”, joined the battle, primarily on the backs of stolen T’Karr Protonic Pistols! Smoke made some hit-and-run attacks on Madame Hel but was quickly driven back when she started shooting “sun bolts” at him! Lyra crashed the van through the bay doors and was quickly able to assess the runic circle as one consistent with the ritual of soul-binding that gave the original Trinity her powers by binding the demon’s essence to her soul. So this had to be a major demon, and there had to be a soul jar or something similar in the area to put within the circle. She told the team to look for it and not let it be put within the rune-circle.

Soon the spied the soul jar as Doctor Abnormality made a desperate effort to get it within the circle, even as the monstrous form within the circle began moving around. The form seemed to be similar to the Alphas, only bigger and more powerful-looking and covered with body-spikes. The creature then spawned thirteen eyestalks and the heroes realized what was happening! Doctor Abnormality and The Evolutionist were trying to resurrect Zanderos!

The team worked fast and shattered the soul jar. Despite efforts to recapture it, Evolutionist and Doctor Abnormality were thwarted. The big construct went berserk, flailing with Protonic Rays fired from each of its eyestalks! It then overloaded from the energy and exploded, apparently destroying Doctor Abnormality and nearly killing the bulk of the team. Madame Hel blindly teleported outside the warehouse and was almost immediately sideswiped by a van that was rapidly approaching! When she came to, Ankh, Witch Hunter, and Cross of the Brotherhood of the Ankh were standing over her!

Madame tried to explain that there was a much bigger problem than her and her team in the warehouse then teleported back inside. The Brotherhood burned their way in and saw the aftermath of the ritual. Blackhawk bluffed the Brotherhood and forced a temporarily alliance. He then went on to explain that something was fishy with Division 42 and that the Graveyard Heroes would rather have the paraphernalia from the attempted soul-binding ritual in the hands of the Brotherhood than have it fall into the hands of Division 42. Ankh agreed to clear the supernatural stuff out of the warehouse and complied with the temporary truce. The Graveyard Heroes then beat a hasty retreat before representatives from Division 42 or other authorities arrived. The Evolutionist and Smoke had escaped and Doctor Abnormality remained unaccounted for. The Graveyard Heroes were left with plenty of questions and all too few answers!

December 6th, 3096

 

A sudden rampage of another of the larger cloned demons, known as “Thoughtless” in the newly renovated “Art District”, part of Governor Arachnius’ urban renewal program, drew the attention of Graveyard Heroes members Fred Goodname and Corpseman and their ally Lyra D’Angelo, the parapsychologist. They found themselves unexpectedly assisted by big-league heroes Recursive Man and Quickshot! Fred managed to scavenge a protonic-ray firing eye from the creature before it was finally dispatched.

The victorious heroes weren’t given much time to rest and reflect, however, as an out-of-control van with a decapitated driver bore down on Recursive Man! The heroes stopped the van and found a large furry rodent-looking humanoid in a pirate costume in the back of the van, dispatching his apparent captors with a scimitar! He was called “Captain Fuzzypants” and it was not entirely clear whether he was a human mutated into a groundhog, a groundhog mutated into sentience, or a Veroxi, but he claimed to be a pirate and claimed to have been abducted by the now-deceased occupants of the van. A large cache of stolen AI chips lent a certain amount of credence to his claims, so the heroes followed an intermittent oil-leak trail left by the van down to the dockside region of West Gannamon.

They followed the trail to a specific dock where a bunch of surly-looking fellows were unloading a weathered freighter. The group began an ill-conceived effort to try to create a diversion so some of the stealthier individuals assembled could sneak into the ship and have a look at what they were up to. It never really seemed to occur to the Graveyard Heroes and the more experienced veterans that these might just be dockworkers as Captain Fuzzypants detonated a bomb beneath a black van similar to the one they had tracked back to the docks! A number of the dock workers drew weapons and started firing on the heroes and the whole stealth part of the plan never really materialized.

On the plus side, further credence was given to the idea that these guys were up to no good when a couple of costumed types joined the battle. Unknown to the heroes at the time, they were members of the parahuman gang “Disorderly Conduct”, specifically veteran member Purple Haze and a new member sporting a familiar costume reminiscent of the late villains known as Eight Ball calling himself “Nine Ball”, capable of summoning up duplicates of himself all of whom packed a substantial wallop in the form of cosmic energy beams from their oversized pool-ball helmets! Eventually another parahuman, this one pretty clearly a Skeletan, packing a nuclear-powered Blunderbuss and also sporting a pirate motif calling himself “Captain Blackheart” joined the fray. Between the Blunderbuss and bolts of lightning he fired from his hook-hand, he made it a pretty even fight, with several of the heroes going down before Quickshot was finally able to drop Purple Haze with his mutant energy-beam and the team collectively dispatching Captain Blackheart! Captain Blackheart fell into the bay while the apparent last copy of Nine Ball retreated below decks to facilitate an escape. Neither Nine Ball nor Captain Blackheart could be found in a sweep of the area once Division 42, summoned by a panicking Lyra D’Angelo, arrived on scene and took over and attention was quickly diverted when the eastern sky lit up in a brilliant purple light as “The Breach” fell upon Worldport, Altair, half a continent away!

'''December 14th, 3056 (year may be changed)'''

 

Quazar. Magenta and Ghost were tending to Trinity and Judgment when suddenly the phenomenon that had turned the Ellis household into some sort of haunted house unexpectedly surged and spread to the properties on each side of the street in the neighborhood! Worse, Judgment began to respond as though it was turning him back into a monster! Quazar rushed him out of the area while Trinity, Magenta, and Ghost came under attack from a group of “evil snowmen” from one of the neighbor’s yards! At the same time, a van with a gaudy mural painted on the sides was driving by and some of these snowmen popped up in the vehicle’s path. The vehicle’s driver, a local odd-job guy named John Sampson, found himself under attack by these strange creatures! He tried to run them down with some success. Between his efforts, his van, and the other heroes, the snowmen were quickly dispatched. Magenta and John realized they knew one another from work on a movie that had filmed in the area recently.

Strange animated man-sized animated tin soldiers joined the battle from the opposite side of the Ellis household and then Quazar returned to the group, having left Judgment at a local hospital. This battle, too, was brief and the heroes quickly dispatched the bizarre adversaries. As more snowmen massed on one side and more tin soldiers on the other, the heroes decided they needed to re-enter the Ellis house to try to find the source of this strange increasingly expansive transformation under which the neighborhood was going! Upon realizing that this was serious superhero business, John Sampson took out a luchador mask and donned it, assuming his alter-ego of El Santo!

After Ghost re-established a mental link between all the heroes, allowing Trinity’s protection to spread to them, the group made their way through the creepy foyer and upstairs to a large hallway with seven doors, with two suits of medieval-style armor on the far end. As the group explored the room, the suits began moving and attacked the party, dealing Trinity a pretty significant wound as their weapons were apparently cold iron! She had to fall back to a support role, leaving Quazar and El Santo to take the lead. Ghost worked on the suits with her mental powers finding that, somewhat unexpectedly, there was a sort of intelligence there that she could control. Magenta tangled with a door trying to attack her and then a couch, the whole room apparently hostile towards the group! Magenta dispatched the couch while El Santo and Ghost (via her proxy suit of animated armor) knocked down the door. Despite Quazar being knocked out briefly, severing him from the protective mental link, the heroes dispatched the menaces in the hallway and found themselves face-to-face with monstrous versions of Guardians Saber and Kronos the Magician!

The transformed Guardians posed a significant threat, but with some teamwork and some luck, Ghost, Magenta, El Santo, Quazar, and Trinity defeated them. Trinity gathered up Saber and Kronos and ran them out of the area of the effect as the heroes planned their next move. They hoped to find the source of this phenomenon before it spread any further out into the city!

'''January 2nd, 3096'''

 

As the police began to collect evidence from the cargo ship and the THUNDER units from Division 42 were redeployed in the area around “The Breach” as all lines of communication became disrupted, the freighter suddenly started sinking, forcing the police to withdraw. Corpseman and Quickshot were still on scene and were joined by Vanguard/ Underworld mates Carmine Bomber, Ice and Enrique Rojas as well as two additional local heroes. Ice and Enrique used their powers to try to stabilize the sinking ship while Quickshot, Carmine, and one of the local heroes, a man called “Vanish”, with powers of intangibility, moved to scout the ship.

The scouts discovered that something had cut or blown a hole in the hull, which was why the ship was sinking, but more surprisingly, there were a bunch of goons in SCUBA gear that had apparently entered through the rupture in the hull and were trying to unload more of the microchips, perhaps to a submarine or other nearby submersible vessel! Corpseman worked his way on board as the others continued to try to stabilize the boat, calling up vast ice floats in an effort to stop the sinking.

Some of the goons saw they were being boarded and attacked but Quickshot dispatched a bunch of them quickly by electrifying the entire inside of the boat! The tide began to turn, though, when Captain Blackheart returned to defend his ill-gotten gains! Meanwhile outside, Purple Haze and Disorderly Conduct leader King Cash ambushed the heroes outside that had been stabilizing the ship!

A pitched battle was fought with Captain Blackheart holding his own against the heroes inside the ship and King Cash and Purple Haze having some success against the heroes outside. Eventually the local hero Vanish turned the tide when he managed to phase Captain Blackheart through the floor of the cargo bay, depositing him back in the bay where he sank like a lead weight! Outside, the heroes dispatched Purple Haze and eventually forced King Cash into withdrawing, using some of the police officers as cover. Ice inadvertently froze one in a block of ice, causing enough of a disruption to enable King Cash’s escape.

Once the remaining pirates in the ship were dispatched, Vanish discovered the hull of the ship was rigged with a series of bombs that were about to go off, so the heroes sprang into action getting at and disarming the charges before they could trigger! With the combined efforts of the heroes, the charges were disarmed and the ship was saved, though a few crates escaped during the earliest part of the evening’s action. The heroes then turned their attention to re-establishing contact with the outside world by way of long-distance communication from Empire of The Rejected, telling the heroes what had happened at Worldport!

January 17th, 3096

 

Fred Goodname, Blackhawk, Madame Hel, and Lyra D’Angelo met back at the Hot Spot to discuss the recent developments in regards to Division 42, Dr. Abnormality, the Evolutionist, and Cerberus. Blackhawk firmly believed there remained a leak within Division 42 and remained troubled by that idea. While they were talking, Governor Thalia Arachnius called Lyra to let her know that she had some information in regards to Dr. Abnormality and a possible security situation within Division 42. Blackhawk immediately smelled a rat, thinking this must be a trap. The group prepared some battle-plans as to how to proceed. Blackhawk did not want to go back into Division 42, especially if it was a trap, without an escape plan. Lyra indicated that she knew some people and might be able to work something out given an hour or so. The team told her to proceed and she departed.

Shortly thereafter, dispatcher Smith, in charge of the THUNDER units used by Division 42 sent word via the THUNDER ‘bot that followed the Graveyard Heroes around that there was a situation that could use some attention. He indicated that the bulk of the THUNDER units were already deployed elsewhere and asked the group to look into the situation, located relatively nearby at the TWF Arena in the restored portion of Grayfolk proper. The team agreed to look into it, if for no other reason than to stall returning to Division 42, after all, if they were busy on Division 42 business, the Governor could hardly expect them to drop everything and come in!

The Graveyard Heroes arrived at the TWF arena to the sounds of screams and gunfire! The heroes made due haste into the venue and saw the famous wrestler and part-time ARMADA agent Bullseye apparently trying to choke out a mere referee as wrestlers Humongo the Mighty and USA Mike looked on! There were police officers surrounding the ring with firearms drawn and security was trying to usher the crowd out of the area! At first the heroes thought that perhaps Bullseye had gone berserk, but it was quickly revealed to be the referee, as he threw Bullseye off easily and spit acid at Humongo, hitting the big man square in the face! The Graveyard Heroes sprang into action and fairly quickly took down the referee only to have a sulfurous cloud erupt forth from him and take the shape of some sort of bizarre amorphous demon sporting a multitude of eyes and mouths, suggesting more of Doctor Abnormality’s handiwork! It then tried to infect (or possess) USA Mike, but the wily veteran wrestler and one-time StormWatch ally, famous for having fallen under Possessor’s control and assassinating Altair’s president Kim Allen, showed that he had learned some resistance to such things and kept the demonic creature from taking him over! This left a big opening for Blackhawk who had drummed up a “Phase Blaster” weapon, a variation on a particle accelerator cannon that only affected intangible and phased entities! Bullseye then threw Blackhawk a bullet he kept in a chain around his neck and told Blackhawk to use it against the creature. Blackhawk modified his device and hit the creature squarely with the cosmic-energy-channeling bullet. It destroyed the demon then returned to Blackhawk’s hand! Bullseye told him the bullet had been given to him by a friend and was designed for the express purpose of slaying demons. Blackhawk told him to be careful using such a dangerous weapon against non-demonic entities upon returning it and Bullseye agreed, indicating he had been given the same warning by the bullet’s creator. Blackhawk did some further digging and determined that the demonic life form had come through a tiny dimensional rift beneath the ring, though it was not clear what caused the rift.

Lyra D’Angelo, meanwhile, returned with some teleport bombs that she had gotten from the current iteration of The Enforcers that could teleport the user to the Enforcer’s base. She indicated that they owed her some favors. With these in hand, the group felt confident enough to return to Division 42 and meet with the Governor. Upon their arrival, the Governor indicated that Dr. Malladi sent his regards, apparently quite literally, as he had not shown up for work for some time, efforts to look into his computer files triggering some sort of booby-trap which then in turn shut down the entire Division 42 computer network! The Sensor and the Division 42 technical staff was still trying to bring the system back online. Once the system came back up, Blackhawk was able to assemble a device that recovered a number of Dr. Malladi’s files. They included extensive research on genetics and, somewhat paradoxically, extensive research on arcane demon-binding rituals! The team recognized some of the work as the same work they had recovered from the various sites where the “Thoughtless” demons clones had been produced! It became clear that Dr. Malladi had something to do with the Evolutionist and the others. Further digging revealed that Dr. Malladi’s real name wasn’t Abner Malladi, it was actually Abner Stark! He had one older brother, Eugene, and their father had been murdered many years ago! Upon examining the autopsy files, the group came to the horrifying realization that William Stark was the man Spectre had tortured to death many years prior, whose wounds precisely matched the scar-like marks on Cerberus’ body! They postulated that if Cerberus’ powers worked like Trinity’s, there would be a host body, whom the postulated must be Eugene, the elder of the two brothers, and that Eugene’s soul must be bound to the essence of a demon similar to Trinity’s, and that the third part of Cerberus (named for the three-headed hound that guarded the gates of Hades in Greek Mythology, further evidence that Cerberus shared origin elements with Trinity, Trinity being another reference to the number three) might well be the disembodied ghost of William Stark, consumed by a need to avenge himself upon Spectre! Further, The Sensor noted that if you said “Doctor Abner Malladi” in a certain way, it sounded just like “Doctor Abnormality”! Further, Dr. Malladi had been doing extensive off-the-books tests with The Vault’s dimensional aperture technology, trying to use it to access other dimensions beyond the pocket dimension Division 42 used as a lockup for dangerous artifacts. Specifically, he had been trying to open gateways into the Demon Realm and Limbo! The heroes got an address on Eugene Stark, corresponding to an apartment in the still-ruined northern section of Grayfolk and made a note of it to investigate it at a later time.

Blackhawk, Sensor, and Lyra also recovered some hidden files that corresponded with “item codes” used by Division 42’s extradimensional “Vault” with no matching entries in Division 42’s own logs. There were three items and the team postulated that perhaps Dr. Malladi had hidden those items in the Vault for some unknown reason. Thalia indicated that with the item code, they could extract the items from The Vault even if they did not know what those items were. The team and Thalia went to the basement of Division 42, the holding area that contained the parahuman-resistant cells and the dimensional aperture technology used to access the Vault and prepared to extract the items. They fired up the machine and a THUNDER unit was used to extract the first item. It was revealed to be a backpack full of gear including armor and weapons fashioned in the same manner as the costume Doctor Abnormality had worn! The group deduced that this must have been a spare set of gear he had stashed there, and it served as almost incontrovertible proof that Dr. Malladi was Doctor Abnormality! They withdrew the second item. It was some sort of ancient, mystical puzzle-box. Madame Hel worked out that it could be unlocked into a tablet containing ancient runic writing. Blackhawk, likewise, deduced some combinations that would open the thing. Testing the theory, the team unlocked one tablet, and that tablet included the very same ritual that had been used to bind the demon to the very first Trinity, more than two thousand years ago! It was almost identical to the same runic material that had been at Doctor Abnormality’s warehouse that he had tried to use to bond Zanderos’ disembodied essence to the “Pinhead” demon clone body that had been unleashed there! Further evidence as to what Dr. Malladi was up to! The final item withdrawn, however, was not an item at all, but was another amorphous demon, and it immediately took over the THUNDER unit and turned on the heroes and the Division 42 staff!

The Graveyard Heroes’ entire Rogues Gallery was witness to the attack, having all been imprisoned at Division 42, and made a no-doubt self-serving offer to help the heroes defeat the demon-possessed THUNDER ‘bot, but the heroes wisely declined! A short but brutal battle ensued with the heroes driving the creature out of the THUNDER ‘bot. It tried to possess Fred and took him over briefly but the heroes managed to take Fred down and drive out the demon again, finally slaying it!

With long-distance radio communications still down and Corpseman still on another assignment, the heroes then began making plans for trying to find Cerberus and somehow defeat him despite a record of 0-and-2 against him thus far! At least now they knew what they were up against and why Cerberus was so focused on Spectre!

 

 

'''January 18th, 3057'''

Quazar, Ghost, Magenta, John Sampson (currently in his El Santo identity) prepared to plunge deeper into the Ellis household, seeking the source of the reality-warping phenomenon washing through the area. After dropping off Saber and Kronos the Magician at the police perimeter, Trinity rejoined the group and John Sampson soon slid into his “Mas Fuerte” identity and promptly hit on the Guardians powerhouse. The team moved to the next room as Magenta called into Sparkler to try to determine where the phenomenon started, asking her to patch them in with Mrs. Ellis, since she was a witness to the whole thing. Sparkler told the group that the phenomenon had spread even further and communication was difficult due to all the additional traffic. Sparkler said she would get back to Magenta once she had Mrs. Ellis on the line. The team pressed on and as Trinity approached the next door in the hall, it sprung to life and tried to grab her! The team attacked and quickly smashed in the door revealing what looked to be a pet room, full of aquariums and terrariums!

Mas Fuerte was the first into the room and saw a desk in the middle, so he promptly smashed it to kindling, sending fish food and other sundries all over the room in a musty-smelling cloud! It did not, however, distract his keen senses from detecting a giant spider-like creature hanging from the ceiling! He immediately attacked, leaping up, grabbing the thing, and slamming it to the floor! Quazar joined him and pelted the creature with a volley of fists as the others moved into position. Quazar then caught sight of an impossibly huge snake rearing up from behind a wall of aquariums! A brief but brutal battle followed, with the heroes working together to vanquish the hideous beasts, and it seemed as Mas Fuerte was keeping score between he and Quazar!

The team regrouped and then moved on to another room, revealing it to be a play room or toy storage room. Remaining suspicious, Magenta and Mas Fuerte approached a toybox, expecting it to attack them! Mas Fuerte became distracted by a foam-core-dart-gun and shot Quazar with some suction cup darts as Magenta examined the toybox. Somewhat unexpectedly, a doll leapt out at her, though it did not seem to detect her and instead began gnawing on Mas Fuerte’s boot! It did not last long, with a powerful psychic blast from Ghost not only knocking the thing out, but causing it to revert to a more normal form. Mas Fuerte was not convinced, however, and further ensured its defeat, stomping on the thing!

Next up, they burst in on the bathroom and finding it unremarkable, Mas Fuerte propped up the door and made use of the facilities, with Trinity commenting that she was glad her aura protected her from toxins! John Sampson came out back in the guise of El Santo and rejoined the group. The team then went across the hall and Quazar cautiously opened the door. It was clearly a little boy’s room with a toy chest and a bed at that far end of the room; however the bed looked like something fit for a king. On it was little Jeremy Ellis, sound asleep! Between the heroes and the young man stood the twisted and monstrous version of two of the most powerful Guardians, FireLord and Omega-Man! The team took a collective deep breath and prepared to begin what would no doubt be a very tough fight. As the heroes entered, the toy chest opened up and a phalanx of more of those creepy tin solders climbed out and made ready to attack! Ghost turned her attention to trying to take over one of the two Guardians and asked Trinity for what member would be the weakest against mental contact. Trinity indicated that Omega-Man was nearly untouchable that way, but she might have a shot at taking control of FireLord! Unfortunately, he acted first, blasting Quazar with atomic radiation blasts, dropping the young speedster! Quazar recovered quickly, though, however he was now bereft of the mental link and Trinity’s protection!

El Santo decided that getting to young Jeremy was a good plan, so he charged, taking some bayonets from the tin soldiers, largely shrugging off the damage. Ghost sprang into action turning FireLord and setting him against Omega-Man! Quazar, meanwhile, engaged Omega-Man in an effort to use his mobility to keep away from Omega-Man while simultaneously diverting the attention of the powerhouse from Quazar’s teammates! Ghost then shifted focus to trying to reach into the mind of young Jeremy once she re-established the link with Quazar, again providing him with protection from the reality-altering effect.

Unexpectedly, there was someone else there waiting for her! She attacked the mystery man psychically and he somehow drew her into the world of Jeremy’s dreams! Once there, she was surrounded by imagery consistent with everything that had been happening to the neighborhood! Soldiers, snowmen, giant animals, all were products of the child’s imagination! Ghost found herself face to face with a man in a fedora and trench coat, but where his body should be was the shape of a man but an amorphous smattering of colors and shapes akin to some sort of rainbow-colored hallucination!

The colorful mystery figure introduced himself as “Psychedelic” and when Ghost demanded that he restore the real world, Psychedelic admitted that it wasn’t him that was doing it, it was, in fact, young Jeremy! Psychedelic was merely altering the dreamscape so that Jeremy brought forth imagery that Psychedelic desired! Further, Psychedelic revealed that he was, in fact, trapped in dream-space, having no longer possessing a physical body, but in his words “Somebody is always dreaming…”Ghost tried to negotiate with Psychedelic and in response, he called up an axe and tried to chop her down with it! She was somewhat surprised when it felt like it really hurt. Little did she know that her physical body sustained a similar wound! Ghost decided she had heard enough, so she drew her pistol and shot Psychedelic in the face! Psychedelic recovered, though, and attacked Ghost, turning into a huge monstrous version of himself!

Meanwhile in the real world, Trinity told the team that she could probably purge the control Psychedelic had over Jeremy if she could get her hands on him! Magenta came up with a plan by which she’d turn Trinity invisible with a device then blink her in where Trinity could lay hands upon Jeremy! El Santo plowed the road, absorbing some hellacious damage from the firing line of toy soldiers while FireLord tried to subdue Omega-Man, unsuccessfully, resulting in Omega-Man laying FireLord out! Quazar went back to diverting Omega-Man’s attention as Magenta put her plan into action! Once Trinity got her hand on Jeremy, Psychedelic’s control wavered and it was clear his concentration was slipping! Magenta bombed the tin soldiers before they could unload again on El Santo!

Things quickly turned, though, as Psychedelic unloaded on Ghost, taking her out and severing the link, leaving the entire team unprotected from the reality-warp except for those that were actually in physical contact with Trinity! Quazar kept Omega-Man busy while El Santo grabbed up Ghost and made all due haste for Trinity! The gamble paid off and Ghost recovered and reset the link. Trinity told her that once the link went down and Ghost was no longer engaging Psychedelic, she could gain no ground in freeing Jeremy! So Ghost forced her way back into the dreamscape where she found Psychedelic quite distracted with creating… something! The team hatched a plan- Magenta would whip up some sort of stimulant to wake Jeremy up while Ghost would try to send imagery to Jeremy from within the dream-realm. Trinity would try to keep everybody standing and El Santo and Quazar would try to keep Omega-Man off of everybody else! Trinity released Jeremy as Magenta delivered the stimulant. Meanwhile Ghost sent the sound of Jeremy’s mother calling him to breakfast and to open Christmas presents while simultaneously turning the dreamscape into a Acme cliff, with she and Psychedelic over the abyss! She gave herself a protective bubble, however, that would support her over that abyss! Back in the real world, Omega-Man rounded the corner back into the room and was on a collision course for the whole team! El Santo and Quazar held the line as Omega-Man came in like a nuclear missile! Back in the dream-realm, Psychedelic whirled around to see Ghost there, and then he looked down, just like a cartoon, only falling once he had noticed the maw of the abyss beneath him! Back in the real world, Jeremy suddenly jerked awake and in an instant, the house and reality snapped back to normal, with Omega-Man regaining his senses inches from the front line of the heroes! Psychedelic’s hold over Jeremy ended as he hit the bottom of the abyss in a cartoon-like mushroom cloud! Still in the dream-realm, Ghost then dismissed her bubble and plummeted, too, into the abyss, suddenly snapping awake in the real world! The team had done it!

Afterwards, Ghost called a meeting between the team and Mrs. Ellis at a local restaurant. FireLord, who had recovered, joined them while Omega-Man returned to the Guardians base. Mrs. Ellis was grateful to the team and when Ghost confronted her about Jeremy’s powers; it became clear that she knew he had something special going on. She agreed to consider having him train with the Guardians despite quite an offer from John Sampson, now in the guise of the greasy cad “El Guapo” for the young man to instead become a Luchador! Mrs. Ellis also implied that Jeremy’s father would not be keen on the idea of her son training with the Guardians. She agreed to consult her husband and get back to the Guardians. FireLord also made the team full Associate members of the Guardians, giving them new communicators and expense accounts for gear used in the line of duty! The only thing missing was a souvenir for Quazar! Unknown to the team, shortly thereafter, Jeremy would send a package to “his new favorite heroes”, one of the foam-dart-guns the heroes had used across the course of the mission! Perhaps that would do!

'''February 15th, 3057'''

 

Various members of the team found themselves involved in a Valentine’s Day parade put on by The Big Bang Production Company, the employer of Magenta’s civilian identity, and the Maximus Circus, a regional attraction owned by one Euguene Maximus, a brilliant inventor and roboticist. In addition, Ghost’s secret identity’s civilian employer, an ambulance company, was on hand in case of injury or accident. Finally, Quazar was on duty in his professional capacity as a security guard! John Sampson was unable to make it, though the Little Luchadors were in full force as part of the parade, as well as the Gannamon Fire Department, a local Cub Scout troupe, and a variety of other local groups. The Big Bang float was putting on a stunt and special effects show featuring a B-List stuntwoman named Jessica Kyle, while the Maximus Circus had a full circus troupe on display, complete with clowns, lions, an elephant, and Eugene Maxiums himself and his bodyguard Brad Steen.

The parade started without a hitch, but once they got down on the boardwalk area some commotion started out in the bay and before long a huge metal figure started walking ashore from the depths, ranting about Maximus’ apparent plagiarizing of work or stealing designs or some such! It was fairly disjointed but the giant robot-looking thing seemed focused on finding Maximus. It attacked the Maximus Circus float and disintegrated it, taking down one of the lions, too! Magenta rigged a smoke bomb and she used it to change into her costume.

Perhaps unexpectedly and, at the time, unseen by all, Jessica Kyle changed, too, donning a vibrant costume, mask, black wig, and a high-tech shield! She quickly advanced on the robot and it released some costumed goons, dressed like 50’s sci-fi spacemen complete with ray guns! Meanwhile, Quazar changed and moved in, while Ghost managed to divert the attention of a coworker and likewise jumped into action! So, the gang was all there, plus the newcomer, who introduced herself, quite dramatically, as “Filmstar”!

The battle was intense, the giant robot and the goons shooting atomic disintegration rays, but the heroes soon had matters well in hand. A second robot trudging up out of the bay was still not enough and soon both machines were in parts. The team then interrogated Eugene Maximus and his bodyguard and discovered the wounded lion was actually an advanced animal-form droid! Maximus confessed that all of his animal attractions were artificial, with advanced AI so that they literally behaved as a proper animal! Maximus indicated that his big project, though, was a vastly more complicated AI, one that could, quite literally, learn to be human! He couldn’t claim credit, though, indicating that the lead engineer on the project was a young man named Bob Talon. The team was invited to go on a tour of Maximus’ facility in town and they all came along except Ghost, who returned to work, staying connected mentally with the team!

Maximus’ work was ingenious and the team agreed to get Maximus and his people one of the downed robots to examine, in exchange for a couple robot lions and a robot dog, though the AI for the latter had yet to be completed. Upon examination, Maximus and his lead programmer recognized some specific algorithms in the giant robot, ones belonging to an old rival, a Cornelius Tangent! Maximus also indicated that Tangent was quite thoroughly mad, which may explain the rants on the robot’s loudspeaker! And the robot had self-repair and recall capability! The group then assembled a plan- Magenta would whip up a tiny invisible submarine for she and Ghost, while Quazar and Filmstar would stow away in the robot, using the recall circuit to cause it to return to Tangent’s lair, or at least wherever the robot came from!

With a few extra precautions, the group then put the plan in action, removing the remote control from the robot and activating the self-repair and recall circuits! It obligingly began to lurch back down to the waterfront, then out into the bay itself! Before long, it came to some sort of underwater complex, or perhaps a large submarine, on the bottom of the bay! Soon the team found themselves in an airlock! They extricated themselves from the robot and the sub but things went south quickly when the group ran into more costumed goons and a mysterious blue woman who could pass through solid matter! The situation was hairy, though Filmstar’s ability to absorb and heal from atomic energy was mighty handy! The woman turned out to be quite dangerous- she was apparently an android, though, as Ghost could not find her mind! Somehow, too, the blue woman was able to zero in on Ghost and Magenta despite their invisible sub! But the heroes drove the blue woman back despite a Ghost being knocked out when the woman partially phased into her body with devastating results! Ghost had pinpointed the location of a large number of goons and one rather well shielded mind before her temporary incapacitation, and the group tried to press further into the complex, running into many of those goons.

The team had caught sight of the enigmatic Doctor Tangent but not for long as the blue woman came back up through the floor of the complex and snatched him up, phasing him back down into the floor. A second figure, a bulky, silver, faceless humanoid shape, likely also an android as Ghost could not sense it, turned itself into some sort of portal and the water of the bay came exploding into the complex with tsunami force, battering Quazar and Filmstar back! With their quarry gone, and facing almost certain drowning, the team withdrew back to the airlock, sealing it while Quazar rigged a makeshift towing array for Magenta’s sub. Quazar and Filmstar then got back inside the robot and Magenta, with Ghost and the robot in tow, beat a hasty escape! While they had not gotten to the bottom of Doc Tangent’s issues with Maximus, they still accorded themselves quite well, and Filmstar proved herself a valuable ally to the team!

'''March 8th, 3057'''

 

When we rejoined our heroes in Gannamon, they were responding to a tenement fire. Ghost was on site as her civilian identity and job as a paramedic while Filmstar, Quazar, and Magenta made their way to the scene. Guardian Judgment was already on-scene and as the team arrived, he leapt out of a fifth story window carrying a woman he had pulled from the fire. Ghost tended to the victim while Judgment hooked up with the team to go back in. Quazar went up the side of the building while Judgment and Filmstar climbed the hook-and-ladder truck’s ladder. Judgment was sure there was at least one other person in the building as the others had cleared out when the fire began raging. Ghost verified this by stealthily scanning the building telepathically. Magenta took to the air in a jet-pack scavenged from the previous mission and decided to work her way up the side of the building with a fire hose to help the heroes get to the remaining trapped civilian.

Surviving the toxic gasses and the extreme heat, the trio of heroes, with an assist from Magenta’s fire-hose (with a bit of a comical misfire to start) got out the last civilian just as the building began to come down around them! Ghost, still in paramedic garb, ordered everyone back from the building, giving everyone a bit of a psychic push, and there were no additional injuries or casualties. The team was then invited by Kronos the Magician back to the Guardians Base outside of Grayfolk proper, with Ghost finally sneaking away so she could reassume her costumed identity.

They did not have long to regroup, though, as Kronos the Magician received a call for backup from his sidekick, Saber. She had been dispatched to the tiny town of Two Bear in the Northern Province where a Quantum Horizons lab had come under attack by unknown gunmen. She was pinned down and lacked the ranged firepower to retaliate, being mostly a close-up fighter. The team agreed to join Judgment and Kronos began calling up a portal spell he had previously spent some time prepping. After a misfire, the team was ready to go and soon found themselves in the heavily wooded outskirt of the small town. Saber was pinned down behind a large tree by a half-dozen uniformed gunmen in black tactical garb, purple berets, and black tactical masks with white skull-faces emblazoned on them. Filmstar led the charge, drawing their fire, as the others got into position.

Before long a huge ape dressed in similar gear came out of the lab, yelling that “the tech has been purged and the charges were set” calling for his men to withdraw! Ghost immediately locked onto him as the big threat, having already turned some of the gunmen against him, and attacked him psychically! He shook it off, however, and, worse, the effect backlashed against Ghost and rattled her pretty well. Despite the best efforts of the team, they soon saw themselves outgunned as more gunmen poured out of the building. They were facing a dozen men and efforts by Quazar and Filmstar to bring the big ape-man down resulted in significant firepower being turned against the other team members. Magenta tried to whip up a healing device to get her injured and unconscious teammates back in the fight, but the big ape-man saw the device as she assembled it and hit Magenta with knockout poison blow darts, stunning her, and she was the last of the team to fall.

Unexpectedly the team did not wake up in custody or in the flaming rubble of the now destroyed lab. They had been dragged a few hundred yards away from the blast by an unexpected beneficiary, a large Arctic Wolf that seemed strangely friendly. Further, Ghost began to pick up weak mental emanations from the wolf, so she reached out to him telepathically. Surprisingly, he was quite intelligent and seemed shocked that she could hear his thoughts. She explained to him what she was doing and soon the wolf was in a psychic link with the team. He was one of the scientists working on something called “Project Reboot” in the now-destroyed lab, and his name had been William Snow. He was part of an experiment to transfer human consciousness into a properly prepped host body, even an animal such as an arctic wolf! Unfortunately his original body and the equipment to transfer him back were destroyed in the lab, though Snow had managed to escape capture or death. And he had dragged the team to safety when it became clear there would be no stopping the sabotage of the lab. The team then asked Saber to open a portal back to Guardians HQ and they decided to bring Snow with to see if there was a way they could help him. He was concerned that the previous record for longest upload of a consciousness was 24 hours before transferring back. He wasn’t sure what the side effects might be. But the team agreed to try to help him

'''March 22nd, 3057'''

Things got busy right away when Kronos the Magician and the heroes Quazar, John Sampson, and Magenta responded to a robbery of the local Gannamon bank! The thieves had somehow gotten into the vault from the outside by literally drawing a door on the wall outside with a permanent marker! The heroes went inside and examined the vault. The robbers made off with quite a lot of cash and apparently escaped by a similar method to their entry- they drew a doorway on the floor of the vault and used it to make their way into the sewers!

The team made a path into the sewers with assistance from Kronos and began to search. John Sampson, with his enhanced physiology, was able to make out the sound of some nearby chatter, so the team approached the sound. They found a number of gang members, part of a relatively new gang known as Malos Días, and a young boy of eight or ten years old with them! The team sprang into action trying to apprehend the robbers and got the young boy away from them. He was named Dashawn Martinez II, or “DJ” and told the heroes that the gang leader, known as “El Jefe’”, threatened that the gang would kill DJ’s mother if he didn’t help them! The gang had learned that DJ had the parahuman ability to create short range portals simply by drawing doorways on things and that inspired the robbery attempt.

The heroes didn’t take long to capture the robbers, the team chasing them one way and Kronos cutting them off, boxing them in! They recovered a good bit of the money, though Magenta inadvertently incinerated some of it with a flame bomb she used against the robbers. Still, the police and the bank president were pretty happy. The team then decided that they would insure that El Jefe’s threat was never carried out by finding DJ’s mother, Lupita. The called Sparkler, who was on monitor duty, and asked her to find Lupita. She worked quickly and located Lupita Martinez at Grayfolk General Hospital in the nearby city where she worked as an instrument tech.

The team made all due haste to get to her and found her, reuniting her with DJ, and then the team found El Jefe’ and the bulk of the remaining gang members in his gang apparently trying to sabotage Lupita’s car! The team sprang into action again, however the odds were a little worse this time, and El Jefe’ turned out to be a parahuman himself, a supernaturally powerfully built man with tattoos and a Lucha Libre mask who could grow to over eight feet tall! Despite the numbers and the raw power of El Jefe’, the team defeated him and his men and turned them over to the authorities, with Quazar seizing his lucahdor mask as a trophy! After the battle, John Sampson, now as his “Mas Fuerte” identity, offered to connect up young DJ with the “Little Luchadors” program if they were interested! As a Lucha Libre fan, DJ was more than interested!

The team then returned to the Guardians Base where they met up with Sparkler and William Snow, still in the form of a wolf, but still stable. He revealed to the team that he could apparently type telekinetically and he told the group that he and Sparkler had been doing some digging and it looked like there was only one other Quantum Horizons lab that was dealing with “Project Reboot”, the same tech that had been used to transfer Snow’s mind into the wolf body and it was right in town! Sparkler also had surveillance footage of someone else checking out the ruined site of the Two Bears lab, Doc Tangent, some robots, and a number of costumed minions! The team decided that a potential impending attack on the Gannamon Quantum Horizons lab was much higher priority than a rather undermanned rematch with Doc Tangent! So William Snow and the team prepared to head for the Gannamon lab. Before leaving, the team rigged up a text-to-speech device Snow could wear around his neck, which he could then telekinetically type with, having the text then convert to audible speech. Snow seemed quite happy!

The team made it to the lab and met the head researcher and some of his men. They even witnessed a “format”, the process by which the lab preps animals for transfer. Shortly thereafter, however, the lab came under attack as a low-flying attack helicopter bore down on it! The heroes had already made some preparations inside the facility, so now they had the personnel evacuate while they went outside to confront the attack! Somewhat unexpectedly, William Snow managed to establish a telepathic link between the heroes, claiming that he was just trying to do what he had felt Ghost do in their previous encounter. It became pretty clear that being trapped in the body of a wolf was not the only thing significant about William Snow!

More mercenaries were dispatched from the attack craft, and it prepared to fire on the lab. John Sampson quickly worked to bring down the craft, though, taking out its rotor with a hurled manhole cover! The team quickly took out the mercenaries that were part of the attack, but John Samson smelled a rat, thinking that the victory was just too easy. It turns out he was right as his razor-sharp perception picked up another craft, this one with some kind of stealth system rendering it practically invisible, approaching from another vector! It became visible as its weapons system sprang to life.

Once again, John Sampson acted quickly, taking out the rotor again! The attack craft got off one big missile barrage before it went down, however the damage was almost entirely superficial. The personnel and the “Project Reboot” tech were safe. More mercenaries deployed from the doomed aircraft as it went down, as did the big ape-man, known as “Doctor Simian” to the Guardians! A pitched rooftop battle was fought, with Quazar and John Sampson on the front like, Magenta providing artillery support, and Snow maintaining communication and offering some telekinetic support! It was a hard fought battle, but at the end, the mercenaries were defeated and Doctor Simian was forced to retreat into the damaged building upon which the aircraft had crashed! Not a bad victory at all for the heroes, it would seem!

'''March 28th, 3099 (now 2015 after narrative jump)'''

 

It was the last year of the 31st century, and the world had finally begun to recover from “The Breach”. Teleportation was still difficult to and from (and on) Altair while “New Altair” had voted to officially designate themselves “AlTerra” in honor of the planet that once occupied their space. With so many heroes (and villains for that matter) lost during “The Breach”, power struggles of several varieties had kept the remaining veteran heroes and many young heroes quite busy! Additionally a cult dedicated to the resurrection of Pl’Ahshtar had sprung up in force in Worldport and had spread all over the planet!

In that spirit, veteran heroes Quickshot and Cryos teamed up with the rookie Ironwolf, the returning Doctor Orion, and some local talent including a fire-manipulator named Abaddon and an unnamed ally with similar powers to respond to a request for assistance from Grayfolk PD. Police officers had responded to a report of cult activity in an abandoned warehouse in the Gannamon Art District. Investigating officers came under fire when they approached the warehouse taking fire from robed cultists firing repeater crossbows with poisoned bolts!

The heroes sprang into action as the two fire-wielders entered from a pub just north of the warehouse after Quickshot teleported near to them and opened up on the cultists. Ironwolf seemed a little confused, indicating that she had been trained to use some teamwork, and she wondered where that was! Neither Cryos nor Doctor Orion had an answer for her and they all jumped into battle individually! Some cultists returned fire while some backed up into the warehouse under the direction of some fire-wielding lieutenant cultists!

The group came under heavy fire as they entered the warehouse as a number of cultists were set up behind cover and attacked under orders by the lieutenants and another cultist who seemed to be garbed differently from the others while the cult leader continued the summoning ritual. The heroes took down the cult leader, interrupting the ritual but they were taking losses from the others. Additionally, the woman that was garbed differently from the rest transformed into a silver dragon, spitting lightning at the heroes and making the rookie Ironwolf quite nervous!

Doctor Orion engaged the dragon as Ironwolf, Quickshot, Cryos, and the standing heroes finished off the cult members. The dragon appeared to eat Doctor Orion, who was protected only by the virtue of his forcefield technology and while the dragon couldn’t swallow him, she certainly chewed him up quite well! Seeing the cultists go down, she burst through the front door of the warehouse and began to fly away, ultimately spitting Doctor Orion into the air as a diversion to cover her own escape. Doctor Orion was unharmed, thankfully. Despite being a bit battered and roughed up, the heroes had still stopped whatever it is the cult was up to and had captured a number of cult members for the police to interrogate.