Superhero Adventures, UK Style

Back in the familiar surroundings of the Basement at last, the team handed out some souvenirs of their recent trip, to the BASEmates.

Jeeves was delighted to receive a copy of the official Israeli Army unarmed combat manual detailing the Krav Maga style of martial arts, personally annotated by their chief instructor.

Adam received a framed photo taken by a very lucky photographer, of the moment the blue lights flashed out across the land to heal it, as a reminder of his part in making it happen.

Mikey received a small statue from the Israeli Museum which looked as if it had been made of metal lace (called appropriately enough metalace) which included a Hamsa or hand symbol to protect against the ‘evil eye’.

As the exchange of gifts ended, Adam reached behind the sofa and produced a parcel. “One more” he said, “For Annie, when she returns…” reaching inside he produced a plush toy of Young Sam. “Had it delivered from Millennium Comics. It does raise a point about merchandising though. This was produced without anyone’s permission.” He handed it momentarily to Sam who smiled at his own image made cute in a soft toy. Adam nodded to Jeeves who continued, “The Balance is too small to produce its own merchandise but we do need to preserve the group’s good name and to that end with your permission I would like to talk with the Challenger-Wildeman AI, Alex about how he controls the use of their name and image worldwide…” Akira muttered, “Retain our intellectual property?” Jeeves nodded, “Exactly. I’m sure we can come up with some form of international legal oversight and control together.”

Sam handed the toy back to Adam who placed it over in the corner, and added “Don’t forget to consult Bethany; after all she does employ us, well sort of.” Jeeves smiled and nodded and went to open one of the bottles of wine when a call came in on their encrypted channel and was immediately relayed to the big TV by Frankie.

Inspector Marcus Tolliver smiled at them from the screen. Despite the smile, there was a deep frown and a worried, tired look on his face. “Welcome back Balance; extremely glad to see you.  God save me from dealing with amateurs again…” Mary couldn’t resist, “Amateurs, who?” “Ah, Dalton’s Defenders whilst you were away. Enough, are you currently available to help? I’ve a situation and I believe a meta-human is involved…”

Jeeves immediately began recorking the wine bottle.

Over the next ten minutes the story unfolded; much of which they had learnt previously but hadn’t joined all the dots. Dragon’s Gate, the Chinatown of Wessex was home to two primary Chinese tongs. The Choy Lok On although only the second largest in England, controlled the majority of Dragon’s Gate and were led by the Dragon’s Head, Kuang Ma. The largest tong in the country was in fact the Wing Chao but they only had a small presence in Dragon’s Gate, until recently.

There had been a number of weird incidents – the son of the Choy Lok On’s Dragon’s Head had taken to calling himself Joey Tiamente (something that Annie had raised with Sam previously) and recently had taken to wearing a Japanese armoured facemask in public. The tong had also apparently got itself some meta-human help going by reports from the streets. Then things turned nasty. The Wing Chao had started to expand its presence in Dragon’s Gate and at least three of their so-called businessmen had been found dead, burnt to death. Akira remembered the report he’d received over the BBC Worldwide Service about the man found hanging from the Dragon’s Gate, burnt to a crisp.

Tolliver believed that the Choy Lok On meta had fire-related powers. Tensions escalated when the primary Wing Chao gang, the Jade Dragons (led by their leader Johnny Lao) had appeared in town. It was a long way from their usual hangout in Soho.

Anyway, 24 hours ago, two Police Officers, Roberts and Dean had been investigating what was believed to be another meta-related incident in the sewers near the Shaou Ni Imports warehouse when all contact was lost. His officers have scoured both the streets above and gone down into the sewers searching for their fellow officers but the reports from the sewers had led them to believe that there was something powered down there and they’d had to withdraw.

The Police presence in the area had also raised local tensions and with both Joey Kuang (or Tiamente as he now called himself) and Johnny Lao around, the order had come from on high to withdraw the additional officers until they had something to go on. Marcus looked angry, “I will not abandon my men. I think whatever happened is somehow connected to the Shaou Ni building and the sewers below…” Sam spoke up “And the fact that the SNI Company is connected to the tong adds to your suspicions?” Tolliver nodded, “I can send in PC Lee with you. He speaks Cantonese, Mandarin and several other local dialects, if you excuse his lousy Manchurian accent. Your presence is unlikely to raise local apprehensions and we’d avoid escalating local tensions with a large police presence…”

The Balance nodded, After all, who else was he gonna call?

They agreed that given how close Dragon’s Gate was to the BASEment that Adam would stay behind but he’d deploy the Tinks drone to follow and document what was happening. They’d agreed to meet Officer Lee at the Dragon’s Gate itself.

Sam considered using his newly-found powers to turn human but decided against it. So Sam and Banshee made their way as they were to the entrance to the district whilst Akira elected to turn invisible and carried one of the man-portable freeze rays “just in case”. As he said, “I like my toys, I can’t help it…”

At the ornamental gates, they met with PC Lee and explained, “trust us, Akira is here” despite his apparent non-appearance. As they were about to head towards the river and the sewer entrance where Lee had an inflatable raft moored, Sam had an idea. “PC Roberts and Dean, would they have had lockers at the station?” “Lee nodded, “Yes, we’re forbidden from travelling in uniform when off duty. They’d have gone to the station to change into their uniforms.” Sam nodded, time for his super-sensitive senses. “OK, I’ll meet you all at the entrance” and flew off at speed.

At the station he was shown their lockers and picked up an article each of their clothing to try and use to track them and dashed back to the unlocked sewer entrance where PC Lee had his raft and had put on his waders. Unfortunately they only had Lee’s torch with them though Sam’s night sight rendered that unneeded in his case. Akira tried to get a reading off the clothes but only got images from their owners prior to going on duty, though a young, very pretty Chinese girl… a Mai-Li Yuan? featured quite strongly in Dean’s impressions though it appeared more wishful thinking than reality.

Opening the storm drain, the team looked inside. These were pre-Victorian, possibly the remains of a river that had been covered over or redirected possibly? The tunnels were large; ten feet high and wide with old drainage channels flowing off the streets and down below. The odour was horrendous and Sam realised his hope of tracking the missing officers by smell was going to be impossible.

Banshee turned insubstantial and hovered into the sewer whilst Sam and Akira now visible initially entered the raft with Lee and began the journey up the sewer towards the Shaou Ni warehouse.

They travelled for some time round bends and what appeared to be the outer walls of a number of sub-basements until something up ahead caught their eye; a dull green neon light that seemed to move and trail off into the distance. Bio-luminescence or..? Then they saw the source. Rats appeared to be dragging organic, glowing, root-like cables that were somehow attached to their bodies. Dozens of rats running along the walkway or jumping into the water only for the strong flowing current to wash them passed and against the wall of the tunnel. The eerie glowing cables attached to them seemed to stretch back into the tunnel and round the corner out of sight.

One rat jumped at Sam who caught it in his claw. As he grabbed it, he realised something was very wrong with it as a stench of decay reached his nostrils and the creature exploded into shards of bone and guts whilst the green organic-looking glowing cables that had spread throughout its internal organs burst their way through the decayed, dead but animated flesh of the rat and tried to burrow into Sam’s arm. He let out a sudden burst of fiery breath and burnt the animated cables on his arm into ash as the remaining neon cables that trailed out of the rats back onto the walkway and far around the corner jerked back and recoiled away from him.

Sam allowed himself a single shudder. Whatever they were, they definitely weren’t just rats anymore. The Balance could look after themselves but whatever these animating tendrils were, it definitely wasn’t safe for normal humans.

He told Lee to take the boat and head back out of the area whilst he and the other team members stayed to investigate. Looking at the splattered remains of the rat and the singed bio-technical looking ‘roots’ still jerking around on the walkway he didn’t need telling twice. He immediately rowed about 100 metres down the tunnel.

Banshee was already hovering above the boat as Akira realised that whatever these neon things were, they were moving apparently of their own accord and appeared to be attracted by organic life, he raised his shield and levitated as high as he could without risking hitting the roof of the tunnel, in the darkness lit only by the twisting, moving luminescence.

Sam used his newly-found chameleon powers to disguise himself and ‘disappear’ into the background and darkness leaving Akira apparently alone with his feet just above the water.

Several rats seemed to be inching forward towards him ready to risk leaping across the water at him.  He gave out a not as quiet as he’d hoped shout to the others, “Come back here, if I get bitten by a rat..?” Before he could finish his sentence a loud whisper came out of the darkness from Sam, “What are you worried about, I’ve already been bitten.” “Yeah but you’ve got dragon scales!”

Only thing for it, move forward and find the source of the animated, animating, whatever they were. In their heads they could hear something – a non-sound that pounded their frontal cortex with a repeating chant that ‘sounded’ like “Absorb, Assimilate, Acquire…” over and over again. What the..?

As they rounded the corner they saw what looked like a landing bay and some sort of sub-basement on the right hand side of the sewer. If this was the basement of the Shaou Ni Import warehouse, or below it at least, then had this been used for some form of smuggling? The cables were clear of the building but dragged along the walkway and across the water to the opposite side of the sewer tunnel.

Some of the cables entered the water but didn’t come out on the other side… Why? Sam’s size limited his ability to stay high above the turbulent waters and as he floated above the water trying to get a better look at where these glowing appendages came from, an arm burst forth from the water and tried to grab hold of his leg.

Akira unleashed his freeze ray, solidifying the water into a sheet of ice and snapping the arm off which fell with a sodden thud to the ice. Green neon tendrils jerked themselves free of the arm leaving dark splatters of blood to pattern the ice.

Banshee unleashed a shattering shriek that snapped the cables on both banks and seemed to cause a reaction below the ice as a couple of what looked like bodies floated to the surface; the one trapped beneath the ice looked Chinese with what looked like a green sash across what remained of its body. The other, which floated out from under the ice, wore a familiar blue uniform.

Again Sam found himself under assault as the uniformed arm suddenly jerked up and its head came clear of the water. Green cables covered with what looked like circuitry sprang out of the eyes, ears and mouth of the Romero techno-zombie and tried to grab onto him.

Sam reacted by reaching down and grabbing the torso of what he assumed was the animated corpse of one of the police officers. As he lifted it clear of the water , the body split in half, its guts and the remains of torn-free tendrils trailed out as he flew back towards Lee in the hope he could identify him. Akira couldn’t resist a bit of gallows humour and shouted, “Sam, Don’t! It’s offal!”

A moment later their ears were assailed by a loud male scream from Lee and a hysterical shout of “Roberts!” as Sam dumped the half-torso, still trailing into techno-organic cables and guts, in the raft next to Lee.

While this was going on, Banshee had drifted around the next bend and saw that the cables all came from a hole in the tunnel on the left bank. As she looked, trying to figure out the best form of attack, the wall exploded outwards and a metallic nightmare crawled out, a mockery of a face stared at them from the centre of a mass of thick metallic tentacles, some a good ½ metre in diameter. The creature squirmed and crawled towards him. The voice in her head seemed to change to another, harsher, more calculating voice and the “words” changed  from absorb, assimilate… to a screaming yet calculating cacophony of words that seemed to inform her that “your function is unnecessary. You will be deleted from… Continuum” The creature swayed forward on its myriad metallic limbs, the techno-organic neon tendrils all emanating from the rear of the creature. Suddenly several metallic appendages, bough-like in appearance shot out at both Banshee and Akira. The limbs aimed at Banshee went right through her insubstantial form and smashed into the wall behind. Akira wasn’t so lucky, his shield shattered at the force of the multiple contacts by the mechanical limbs and Akira had no choice but to teleport away just as the thinner, neon control  ‘roots’ reached out to grab and take control of him.

He materialised next to the boat with just enough oxygen in his lungs from the shock of the attack to inform Sam that “Mary needs you” He gasped for oxygen as Sam asked “Why? What’s happened?” Akira managed a wry “Ah, you haven’t met squidgy yet? He’s back there with Mary.” Reaching over he asked Lee if he could have the torch and followed Sam back round the corner of the tunnel.

As he did so, he heard Banshee unleash the wail of the Banshee on the metallic horror and turned the corner in time to witness another animated corpse, again of Chinese ethnicity and with the remnants of a green sash across his body, reach out from behind the still insubstantial Banshee and then unaware that there is nothing to grab hold of, fell through her form to the ice of the river, shattering with the fall.

Behind Akira he heard a dragging, trailing sound and turning he saw yet another Chinese man, this one bearing a large stomach wound consistent with one of the metallic limbs of the creature having exploded through it, now squirming with animated techno-organic root-like cables and tendrils, reach up for him out of the water.

Akira unleashed a mystical blast but the creature was so close and in such a state of decay that the resulting explosion left him with his legs covered in green neon goo and various body parts dripping into the water.

Sam meantime had an idea and switched on his tablet to play some techno music, hoping to catch the creature’s attention; it did. With a psychic scream of “Assembly requires…” filling his head, the creature slithered at inhuman speed towards him, a look of lust on its almost human mockery of a face as it saw and heard the technology.

Suddenly scared, Sam flew backwards at top speed, grabbing the still shocked PC Lee and flying him at top speed towards the entrance. The creature, (the Assembly?) squirmed, swam, crawled, after him ignoring the others completely, filled with the need to assimilate the technology of the tablet into itself.

Sam’s flight however caused a massive backdraft up the tunnel, blowing the creature back, Akira was forced to flattened himself against the wall of the tunnel to ride out the Sam-made turbulence but Banshee was left unprepared and got shocked by the atmospheric wave through the wall of the sub-basement of the right hand bank and into a lit room.

Quickly looking around she saw what appeared to be a large ornate Chinese chest, the lid open revealing a white porcelain inner layer on both the lid and box walls themselves. On closer inspection it was clear that there is no metal used at all; even the hinges and pins were made from porcelain covered with painted lacquer. Why? Picking it up and turning insubstantial again she floated through the wall with the chest just in time to hear Akira shout at Sam to “play some classical tunes for God’s sake” and blast the creature with an up-close mystical blast. “Everyone’s a music critic” she thought, “personally I like a bit of techno” as she realised that the creature seems frightened of the box for some reason as it squirmed back into its lair and connected itself up to what looked like power cables running up the side of the wall.

“Why would it be frightened of a porcelain box?” she asked out loud, just as Akira arrived beside her and looked in the box. “Porcelain’s non-conductive. Maybe this thing needs electricity to power itself or grow?”

Outside the storm drain, Sam dropped PC Lee off with instructions to call in his mates as back up and again headed back up the tunnel as his tablet, his favourite piece of kit – why did he do this every time? – still played, this time the tune “Tech-Yes, Tech-No”, at full volume to attract the Assembly’s attention.

As the sound and the flavour of expansion filled the creatures head, it tried to flow passed the box (with its scratches and rips on the cool porcelain interior that appeared to have been caused by the creature sometime in the past) towards the sound. Its tentacles stretched out behind it still wrapped round the electrical conduit as it surged with new power.  Banshee unleashed a shattering shriek, not at the creature this time but at the electrical cables it had attached itself to, utterly shredding them and causing a major blackout on the surface for a whole block.

The creature screamed in frustration and struggled to attack, despite its functionality being so damaged, just as Sam appeared flying at top speed and hit it with a blast of his fiery breath.

Several tentacles melted in the heat and dripped to the floor as, first Akira and then Banshee, unleashed attacks on both it and the remaining power cables. Banshee released a wail that tore it up further as Sam flew in, grabbed it, yanking it out of the room and threw it into the sewer and towards both Banshee and Akira. Putting the box down, Banshee materialised and dematerialised this time holding onto the mockery of a head. To her surprise the head section turned insubstantial and separated from the melted, damaged body and limbs. This section would definitely fit that box as she turned towards the other two. Sam picked up the box, opening it ready and unleashed a final fiery blast that melted the quivering metallic limbs into slag. As Banshee dropped the head unit, Akira grabbed it with his TK and slam-dunked it into the box as Sam thumped the lid down and quickly closed the clasp.

It was an hour later, after all the several dead bodies had been collected from the sewer that the team finally had an opportunity to put the box down.

As well as the remains of both PC Dean and PC Roberts, they had found several corpses belonging to the Jade Dragon gang. The supposition was that the Jade Dragons had found the box, realised it was some form of weapon and had decided to unleash it on the Choy Lok On only for several of them to fall victim to the creature as its escaped its prison. Thankfully it had been too weak to immediately head to the surface and “assimilate” the whole district.

The alien nature of the creature had meant that Sam’s plan to keep the pretty box as a souvenir had been loudly vetoed as AEGIS and GREET (The Galactic Reception Embassy for Extra-Terrestrials) fought over who should have custody of the prisoner in a box.

The press had turned up in full force and apart from a statement that commended the bravery of PC Roberts and PC Dean in confronting the creature in the first place, the team again avoided making a account of what had happened through Marcus did take the time to add that thanks to the Balance having a close working relationship with the Constabulary a major danger was averted.

As they stood to one side, they were approached by an elderly, blind man of Chinese extraction and a very pretty teenager who seemed to be acting as his eyes. The elderly man stopped and immediately handed Banshee an intricate Chinese puzzle lock. “I am Sensei  Hsi Feng, I run a local Dojo. This is Mai-Li. I think you will find that this special lock will have more luck in keeping the Assembly safe than anything your authorities might use.”

He handed over what looked to be a puzzle box that, when open, was a lock. It radiated immense magic as did the old man.

The old man continued, “That chest is very, very old, from the Wu Dynasty I would guess, two thousand years ago. This creature it must have come from another space or dimension, one which it had infected to resemble itself, one void of life. Possibly one of many such worlds it had left behind? Perhaps, say two thousand years ago, some heroes very like yourself had found and defeated the creature before it could do the same to this world and realised it needed lightning to grow and survive, placed it in a special prison that prevented it from re-growing? Now say thousands of years later a group of rebels steal the chest; a group who seek a weapon to prevent the Emperor from stopping them and their followers from leaving China and take it with them to that foreign land where, no longer needed, it lies unattended; nearly forgotten.

That is until some stupid young man decides he wants a weapon to use against a powerful enemy and not knowing the warnings, removes it from the protection of that society to unleash it against another, rival society?

You were lucky it was weak and released in a bad place, one lacking technology and much power, eh?

Now, would you really want a government thinking it could unleash such a potential world destroyer on its enemies or testing its capacity? Please trust me when I say, please use this puzzle box lock on the chest and prevent such a mistake from happening… eh!”

Mary took the lock and placed it on the porcelain hasp where it suddenly twisted and locked itself back into a box around the lock. A sense of impenetrable magic unfolded round the box. Wonder what the Government agents will make of that when they surely come to try and open it?

Back at the roadside, Akira was looking at Mai-Li and asking if she had known a PC Dean very well and seemed happy that although she knew him that there hadn’t been a relationship. He continued, this time to Hsi Feng, “ah, I wonder if I might visit you some time and talk? I have had a lot happen in my life recently and I… Well, I would value your insight and wisdom..?” Hsi smiled and put his hand on Mai-Li’s shoulder who nodded as though in reply to some unspoken conversation and produced an ivory-white card with Chinese symbols on it. “You would be welcome to visit me at my dojo anytime. I look forward to it.”