Superhero Adventures, UK Style

Whilst the other two wandered around the private reading rooms of the library, trying to figure out what the multiple world globes were for and approaching the crystal shards to interface with Ophelia, Mary decided now was the time to try out the spell she’d been given.

Calling Annie, she asked if Adam could be spared to pick her up and could Jeeves be available for a chat on her return? To both she got a very courteous “yes ma’am.” Seems the youngsters either had a lot of respect for their elders or Jeeves was having an influence.

She gathered her harp and stepped out into the rapidly drying street and watched as Adam successfully lowered the Raft into a parking space and rapidly jumped out to open the door for her.

She thanked him politely and they set off. It took mere minutes even at sub-sonic speeds for the Raft to return to the Junkyard and set down in the hangar.

She stepped out, thanked him and headed for the kitchen area and Jeeves. As she passed through the chaos of the proposed training area she saw Mikey and the robots – the dwarves, in full flow. She considered stopping for a chat, especially as it would mean starting on the stealth shield for the hangar door sooner but it was really for Sam to give the good news… She did wonder if the stealth shield worked, could one also be installed in the Raft itself?

She walked into the kitchen and watched Jeeves, no in this situation he was Edward, culinary blowtorch in hand, putting the finishing touches to tonight’s’ meal. She had to admit the idea of everyone sitting round a table eating together at the end of the night was a good idea; she just had to persuade Edward to let one of the dwarves serve so he could join them and hope Annie wasn’t upset at sitting with them whilst the rest of them ate… Yes definitely the way to go. Team building and all that.

Now… “Edward? Do you have a few minutes, I’ve just come from the Library we talked about and I would appreciate your assistance. Could we possibly go to the lounge?”

Sitting down in the sunken circular sofa, she brought Edward up to speed with what she’d learnt from Ophelia and asked if she could put her hands on his head. He agreed and as she stretched out her arms towards him the spell activated. There was a flash of arcane symbols that flared onto the surface of her arms and across his forehead – visible only to her mystical senses and a sudden inpouring of knowledge. She ‘saw’ a haughty dark haired woman in a party dress smile a selfish, vindictive smile and casually strike a fearful Edward with a psychic marker that attracted the attention of minor Ephialte demons, the imps she’d seen before, sent from the realm of nightmare to plague both Edward’s conscious and unconscious mind.

Who was she? Whilst she now knew this wasn’t a powerful spell, it was the casual way the woman had elected to torture Jeeves for some long forgotten minor indiscretion that annoyed Mary most.

Removing the marker would require some additional knowledge she didn’t currently possess but she now knew what it meant and what was required – she had to find some means of ‘unweaving’ the marking from his mind so he was no longer a target, attracting the little psychic beasties.

As the spell began to fade from Mary’s memory she got a glimpse of the woman – the same woman but with a slightly different face… She was Fae, ok maybe only half-Fae but there was a tang of the otherworld about her. Once more Mary’s part Fae nature flared as she realised that this someone who walked in both worlds – a trusted representative in the mortal world of the Court of the Unseelie Sidhe!  What did she want..?

That evening, once everyone was back in the BASEment, relaxing in the common-room after Jeeves’ superb three course meal they started discussing the events of earlier. Even Annie had enjoyed the camaraderie of being present throughout the meal (and a bottle or three of a very nice Bordeaux).

Sam was surprised at Annie being able to drink wine. Ok so maybe it was more like a bottle plus that Annie had consumed whilst the others ate and enjoyed a sociable glass or two.

He knew Annie’s dietary requirements was something she did in secret, away from others and seemed to consist of some form of nutritional soup so seeing her drinking wine was something that he hadn’t considered.

As he watched, Annie poured herself another glass whilst they all sat around on the sunken sofa in the centre of the room.

“Annie, are you enjoying your wine? I’d have thought that like me it would have little effect on you…?”

She leant over and in a conspiratorial whisper said “Don’t tell Jeeves but I have no taste buds so I’ve no idea what this actually tastes like, but the alcohol in it is having an effect. Takes a lot – I haven’t been too greedy have I? I don’t exactly suffer a hangover afterwards and I relished watching everyone else enjoying their food and I do get a bit of a buzz from this.” She raised her glass slightly and smiled. At the opposite end of the room, Jeeves smiled.

Mary sucked thoughtfully on her pipe and said: “Thinking back on what just happened; it seems plain enough that someone sent those two to try to get the scrolls.”

Sam interjected, “It may also go without saying, but if that was so, they were after the genuine mystical articles and not the copies for the museums’, so it wasn’t their history and culture they were after.”

May nodded and carried on, “The Green Lady-Knight was enslaved against her will and made to act by someone with occult powers – and I doubt that was the Calypso elemental, more like the same person who turned Angelique St. Marie into Calypso – and likely the same person, or persons, who er… made you what you are, no offense Young Sam.”

Sam held up his hand, smiled: “No offense taken!” and chuckled. “I agree, to an extent, mostly. I don’t think Angelique or our new Tree-friend were the ones masterminding or pulling the strings on the operation.

However, I’m not entirely sure their end-goal was getting the scrolls either: I don’t know about you, but I suspect they knew they would need more than two powerful elemental controllers to storm that particular stronghold.

Think about it, they had two different motives, but they were sent simultaneously. Maybe they were just dipping their toe in? Testing the waters, so to speak. Maybe they traced us? Maybe we were the target? It’s happened before with Abyss, and if my history is involved, maybe their governor was looking for me? What if it was a distraction of some kind?”

Annie spoke up, her voice unaffected by the wine. “Sorry no, I don’t agree Sam; at least not completely. How’d they know how to find you? Even Abyss can’t track you at present… No, I think this was a deliberate attack on the Library; either as a distraction for a theft, possibly by a third party as yet unidentified but likely affiliated with the people who altered you Sam using  Calypso and the Green Knight as distractions, or a deliberate attempt to destroy the Library’s collection.

If Calypso had managed to get closer to the building she could have easily have flooded the whole place. She could have easily got inside hiding in the flood waters. The Green Knight was already breaching the windows and doors. The Library would have been forced to evacuate and if that was happening who would bother getting into a fight with thieves to save a couple of books or manuscripts if it put the rest of their whole collection at risk as a result? “

Mary nodded and continued,” Not sure how we’ll find out who  was actually behind the attack, even if we could catch and hold that stormy young woman I doubt she’d answer questions. To save her I reckon we’d need to somehow reverse the fusion that’s made her what she is. Though, Sam, you might have some thoughts on your origins?”

Sam continued to sip his glass of wine, the alcohol had no effect, but the sensation was pleasant. “I’m pretty certain that would be the case too. I tried to speak to her through the gales and storm, but I couldn’t get a lot of sense out of her.

She had a deluded mission of slaying inferior meta-humans lower than her demi-god status, probably the backlash of her breakthrough, like my previous pre-occupation with wealth.  I don’t think she’d talk to us willingly, not without some questionable ethical techniques. I suppose she may have been put through a similar memory altering process, perhaps investigating her memories would be more fruitful. Holding her down would be the difficult part, after witnessing her previous escape.

I don’t think it would be easy to reverse the fusion process either, or at-least for my sorry hide I hope it isn’t easy. I know in my research and misadventures, there was powerful necromancy-cult-technology-conspiracy stuff going on. Would seem like an awful lot of effort for a transformation that was either flimsy or temporary.”

Mary looked around the table at the rest of the team; Akiva was nodding his agreement with Sam’s thoughts and Adam and a giggling Mikey were busy finishing off the remains of a big bowl of dessert they’d absconded with from the dinner table, with obvious glee.

She continued, “Apart from that, the only clue I can think of is that Angelique was kidnapped from her hospital room by the Power Corps, obviously acting for someone else. Wonder if they keep records of their contracts? And then there’s the question of this fifth scroll held by Dr Clinton Avery – maybe we should be making it a priority to see that doesn’t fall into the same hands?”

Sam palmed the coffee table with a heavy, satisfying thud, “Aha! The crux of the issue!” He apologised as Mikey quickly rescued one of the wine bottles that started to topple over.  “The puppeteers emerge! I would be very up for giving our ‘friends’ at Power Corps a quick visit, we’ve been overdue. We’d just need to call it in first, but I’m sure we have enough to warrant a quick Balance raid, don’t you think?”

He watched as Akira muttered “I’ve for visiting the good doctor first.”

Momentarily Sam’s bravado and excitement faded. “Yes, no, you’re right. Getting to Dr Avery first is higher on our priority list. Could we pop him into a quick internet search-engine to find his last known whereabouts? Anyone fancy a road-trip?” He smiled.

Annie put her glass down. “He’s got an estate in the Ardenne. I checked earlier when Mary mentioned him… You know? France?”

Mary nodded her thanks and said “So, we’re all agreed the pressing need is to visit Avery and “protect” the final scroll?”

Decision made, the conversation turned to other matters. Bethany and her father were mentioned. The court case was set for next month and in the meantime Bethany was staying with the Challenger-Wildeman family whilst the lawyers argued whether this should be a public court case or not. Normally family cases such as these were handled confidentially and that was what Dalton’s lawyers were demanding, claiming the Bethany needed protecting after her ‘mental breakdown’ while Bethany wanted the whole thing in the public domain.

If successful, Bethany would move out to stay as a boarding student at Claremont Academy which she was quite excited about. Dalton’s lawyers however were arguing that she needed sectioning rather than schooling.

The other news was that the Dalton Defender franchise had now expanded to six teams and he was considering setting up teams abroad…. Interestingly none of the teams were registered with the Hero Certification Programme or Héros sans Frontières…

As the evening formally ended, with lots of “thank you’s” to Jeeves and a couple of slightly drunken giggles (surprisingly not by Annie), Mary asked Annie, Mikey and Adam; the ‘technologists of the Balance’, if they could possibly develop some sort of portable freeze-projector, as a possible weapon against Abyss – since he was supposed to be vulnerable to both technology and cold. Maybe Mikey could adapt her stealth-technology to be applied to the Raft itself, as well as the exit from the BASEment?

Adam agreed that some form of cold ray could be put together especially if he had time tomorrow to put a call through to his old boss; Alec Farraday..?  Stealth would take a bit longer but was definitely doable.

Sam agreed to all of the above quietly and with a grimace. It’s a good idea; just could the hyper-ice-lance-death-ray come with a built in safety that it couldn’t target Sam?  Adam and Mikey just laughed as they wandered back to Adam’s workshop. “What? Some sort of cut-off switch that’s all I’m asking… C’mon Brov’ it’s all I’m asking…”

As they left, Sam shuddered. Cold hit him just so much differently than it did everyone else, and he’d hate to succumb to something built so close to home by the people he knew and loved.

He hoped that some sort of weapons could be improvised, but it seems that the BASEment was full of ongoing projects at the moment. Just how far can Adam and Mikey stretch? They had been relying on them a lot recently.

He went to return to his room only to find Annie waiting with both hands behind her back… “Fancy watching a movie before bed?  You choose the movie and I’ll bring the snacks.” With that she revealed what was in her hands – a bottle of tequila and a bottle of gold-flake vodka!

“You up for it?” she giggled.