Superhero Adventures, UK Style

As Mace flew her grav-cycle low across the channel towards Britain, her mind drifted. Joseph DeBois had died in her care, under mysterious circumstances; killed whilst travelling as a passenger on the back of her grav-cycle. She had been convinced that it had been murder yet there had been no autopsy and the coroner had immediately concluded that it had been accidental death, not even death by misadventure. Then the almost secretive funeral, a sealed casket, cremation, not burial in the estate crypt as she assumed would be the case; all carried out within a couple of days of the ‘accident’.

That had been followed within hours of the ceremony by all the staff, including – rather insultingly – her, being paid off (in cash no less), the house contents packed up and removed overnight, supposedly to storage and the mansion mothballed with private security installed to enforce the keep away message. That wasn’t normal was it?

The coast of England came into view. She had passports, all legit, all in her real name. British, French and Algerian but wanted to avoid any customs hassles so she flew below the radar and planned to arrive in a deserted section of the coast and make her way from there to London or Wessex.

Flying mere metres above the grey waves, her mind continued its drift.

A day or two after the death of Joseph, she’d read a newspaper article about a team of meta-humans called “The Balance” who had made the international headlines due to some incidents and misadventures in Jerusalem.

Despite some obvious shortcomings, they seemed to have most, if not all, of the resources she would need in her quest. The UK’s Hero Certification Programme meant she would need assistance and allies until she could acquire that status for herself.

DeBois had left her very little; severance pay basically and of course her bike – technically hers, she’d built it after all, but with parts acquired by DeBois, hence her need to keep its connection to his estate ‘quiet’.

So she needed an income, a workshop and she could do with an entry into the world of meta-humans; whoever had killed Joseph had to have been a meta to have grabbed him from the back of her vehicle while she’d been travelling at speed. London Watch was too well known and established to help her and most of the other teams were either too regional or had corporate ties she would prefer to avoid, at least for the present.

From the collateral damage that had occurred in Israel she felt confident that with her unique talents she could talk them into offering her some form of employment. Possibly not as a bodyguard though one of the team had apparently been seriously injured (but quickly recovered, it would be interesting to find out how) but they could certainly do with some tech support. A course on water filtration for beginners might not go amiss perhaps. She smiled as she coasted in towards land.

In the meantime, she had some acquaintances in both Wessex and London she could stay with for a few days. Her few personal belongings were already in London in storage, having been sent there in advance. No more private jets for her it seemed.

Time to see what life was like as a free agent.

Three days later – Mace was in the skies above in London, listening in to Trouble Alert and Dispatch.

She’d managed to acquire a de-encrypted earpiece that allowed her to access several specialist channels including the emergency services network and listen in on the Trouble Alert channel though since she was not an invited participant – not yet, anyway – she could not officially login and respond. She was aware that London Watch was currently occupied with an ongoing affair involving armoured individuals near the Canary Wharf. Something about an incursion above Romaine Wharf wherever that was. That seemed well in hand so she continued her sky tour of the city, memorising what London taxi-drivers called the ‘knowledge’; the map of London, into her mind.

The BASEment, Wessex.

The members of the Balance were relaxing in the lounge when a message was relayed through to the big screen by Frankie.

It was a call from Marcus. After the usual introductions, Marcus got straight down to business. Was the team up for a bit of community policing in London? He explained that they had an issue that may or may not be related to the recent Tong situation in Dragon’s Gate. Reports were coming in that London’s China Town had in the last couple of days had several visits from a particular group of meta-humans.

He admitted that they haven’t done anything major yet, other than some reported petty theft and apparent intimidation, but the London Police feared that this might be related to a rumour that both the Wing Chao, who controlled London’s China Town, and the Choy Lok On were gearing up for war. Unlike the Hatchet Wars of the 60’s when open violence between the tongs last erupted onto the streets, this time both sides were rumoured to be looking to recruit meta-humans.

Would the Balance be able to assist? The group were again making their presence known in Lime House and London Watch was currently unavailable – involved with an incident elsewhere. What Marcus wanted was for the team to possibly met and greet; find out their intentions and make them aware that they are on the Authority’s radar.

Akira smiled, “We talking about a bit of Police harassment, then?” Marcus looked pained, “No, as I said just a meet and greet, let them know that they are under observation. Let’s try and keep it friendly.”

When the call ended, the logistics came into play with Akira and Mary wanting the Raft readied for the 60 plus mile trip and Sam arguing that Adam ready could do with a day off and that flying the team around wasn’t in his job description. It was Akira who pointed out that was exactly what his job description said. Finally after a few minutes of arguing, it was agreed that Adam would fly them to London and have the rest of the day off; or at least until needed for their return flight.

It meant the recording drone, Tinks, couldn’t be deployed but it was only a ‘meet and greet’ as Marcus called it, what could go wrong?

As they headed towards China Town several minutes later, a transmission came over Trouble Alert from the meta-human called Dispatch; it was a call for “any available HCP-certified personnel to deal with an incident of a robbery in the China Town district by a group of unidentified meta-humans, further information unknown. Anyone?”

Their response allocated the incident to them. They were mere minutes out and as Sam joked, the new ‘go faster’ stripes he’d fitted on the raft one night, meant they had the extra speed.

Mace also made her way to Cho Street, in Lime House and hovering about ten metres off the ground, saw a single uniformed officer, unarmed – what was it with the English Police that they routinely went unarmed? – talking to a well-dressed Chinese-looking gentleman and an extremely nervous Chinese shopkeeper who seemed ready to run away and hide from the Policeman. Nearby were two Chinese bodybuilder types lying on stretchers being attended to by the ambulance crew.

Mace called down and asked the Police Officer what had happened. He seemed confused as to who she was, but admitted that he had a report of a street robbery… Then saw the Raft arriving and broke of the conversation as Sam bailed out mid-air and headed towards him.

“So, this was the Balance?” thought Mace. From her advantage point in the air she could see that, in a garden square at the far end of the street, there was an argument ensuing between three people, two punks apparently and a large black man. What caught her eye however was the small apparently partially-armoured and seemingly distressed(?) female floating between the three of them.

This appeared to be THE meta’s, going by the fact one of them was displaying powers and that a briefcase was being pulled back and forth between the two men.

By now, Banshee and Akira had joined Sam on the ground talking with the Police officer and Adam had removed both himself and the Raft from the scene.

Looking up at the hovering grav-cycle, Akira shouted up at the pretty dark-skinned occupant “Nice ride you got there, want to come down..?” She seemed hesitant, so he levitated up to her level, “What’s going on up here?” followed by an “and you are..?”

Mace ignored his attempts at small talk and pointed down the street, “I’m not sure yet, but I’ve spotted some meta activity” and pointed towards the Square at the ensuing argument. Again Akira asked who she was, to again be met by silence.

Akira looked where she had pointed and then answered a transmission from the others as to who ‘she’ was, as she was apparently a blank in their Powered databanks. Akira muttered into his earpiece, “I’ll stick with her, just in case she’s the getaway driver.”

Back on the ground and in front of Mary and Sam stood the slightly nervous Police officer with a well-dressed Chinese looking gentleman who introduced himself as Edgar Pan. The nervous shopkeeper meanwhile was obviously trying to keep a low profile in the background. Edgar quickly volunteered that one of the Meta’s; a tall, black gentleman had robbed him of his briefcase containing several thousands of pounds in European Currency (or Easy’s) intended as wages for the British-Chinese Benevolent Society staff. The man had also assaulted with meta-powers two kind individuals who tried to intervene.” He pointed towards the two large bodybuilder types being carried away on stretchers.

Mary couldn’t help but note the tong-related gang tattoos on both of the men or the fact that they were suffering severe respiratory problems. Bodyguards possibly?

Realising something was not quite right, Sam requested a sample note to see if he might be able to identify the stolen notes by smell. It was the shopkeeper who, on receiving the nod from Mr Pan, ran immediately into his backroom and reappeared with a new fifty EC note. He bowed and assured Sam that the serial number of which would be consecutive with some of the stolen money. It was obvious that the stolen money hadn’t been wages after all: a shakedown payment possibly? Sam promised the shopkeeper its safe return and checked it for a recognisable scent.

In the sky, Akira passed on the information about the gathered group up the road and again turned his attention to the woman. He realised he was getting nowhere with his questioning of the female biker elected to try one of his newly learnt spells, the Light of Lamal, on her.  Akira began to gesture with his right and called forth the ‘light’ to compel the mysterious woman to tell him the truth.

The spell almost worked. Mace felt a compulsion to tell the stranger her name: all of them, even the middle name she NEVER used. It was the shock that she almost blurted out THAT name, that broke the spell and freed her from its influence; damn him!

Whilst this was going on above, Sam and Banshee took the note and headed towards the garden area and the arguing meta’s. Mace seeing them move in, headed towards the garden herself, leaving Akira to follow on behind.

In the garden the male punk in the Union Jack t-shirt saw them approaching.  As soon as they got within earshot he informed them in a German accent to “Walk away, just walk away now. This doesn’t concern you.”

The punk female on seeing Mace approach on her grav-cycle smiled and immediately approached as close as she could on the ground, a look of angry glee on her face as she challenged her; “Want to get involved, eh missy, missy?” This close, they could see the floating woman, smell the ozone around her and hear the mix of fizzing and occasional hysterical giggling from her.

Mace smiled no need for conflict; yet. “Would it help if I said I like your hair?” looking at her multi-coloured Mohawk. She tried using her integrated hypo-gyroscope that was built into the palm of her glove, but failed to get close enough to do more than temporarily calm her down a bit.

Sam went to move forward and found himself nose to nose with the bald, black guy who seemed to want to get in his face. Sam took a single step back and raised his hands palm forward and said calmly “Hey. I’m cool. I like listening to your punk music. Look I know you don’t really want to fight or you’d have punched me already…” From above, Akira activated his force shield and shouted down, “Don’t give him any ideas.”

The Punk male seemed annoyed and acted. “Soli, stand down” he shouted at the punk female and gestured towards the hovering bike. Suddenly the metallic components on the cycle started to shake, apparently being pulled apart, forcing Mace to hit the boost and manoeuvre the craft like a bucking bronco away from what she assumed was some form of magnetic blast. It worked. She rose higher in the air and stood ready to manoeuvre away from any other attacks. The girl on the ground looked annoyed and started yelling at the man; Repulse to not interfere with her ‘fun’.

Mace noticed that the concrete the girl stood on seemed to be dissolving slightly.

On the ground, Sam heard the name Repulse and suddenly had a history lesson flashback; hadn’t that been the name of a magnetic hero who’d fought with the Crown Guard in WWII? And if he remembered rightly, he’d had a grandson who’d served in the Freedom Alliance in the 80’s in Berlin. He vaguely remembered that that Repulse had died in mysterious circumstances. Was this guy somehow related?

Whilst this was going on the armoured female had floated down and interposed herself in front of ‘Repulse’. Time to de-escalate this situation thought Banshee, as she changed back into Mary and unhooked her harp. She then began to play a calming lullaby. Both the armoured girl and Repulse seemed calmed slightly as a result, allowing Mace to approach the giggling, fizzing girl and ask “are you really the dizzy blonde type or is there more to you than that? What is your story really?”

Under the spell of the lullaby the girl, Fizzgig Repulse had called her, admitted that she was trapped, but not by the others. In fact she woke up one day trapped inside this suit, her old life gone as she was apparently transferred from another Earth where she had a life, to this one where no-one knew her and she was rendered insubstantial – not even able to eat or drink. Thankfully, Repulse found her, his power able to temporarily disrupt her phasing enough to allow her to survive. It wasn’t them she was afraid of, it was what would happen to her if they ever left…

On the ground, the big man was still getting in Sam’s face, invading his body space and threatening to punch his face in. Sam spoke up, “Ok, if you’re going to hit me, you’d better hit me as hard as you can as that’s the only chance you’re going to get.” The bald man smiled, “Challenge accepted” and punched him in his face. To Sam’s surprise, instead of a solid hit  to his face, his fist flowed down his nose and into his throat, releasing a toxic stench and he felt the fist physically burning like melted tar. Sam pulled himself free with all of his strength with the tar-like material reflowing back into his attackers fist… “Ya like that man, Blackstuff’s got lots more for ya.” His accent was a mix of Geordie and something else.

Sam smiled, “neat trick, you’ll need to teach me that sometime…” and unleashed a blast of fiery breath that Blackstuff dodged with an inhuman twist of his body.

Mary shook her head at the testosterone overload on display and asked Fizzgig what was going on? Were they really just a snatch and grab gang? Fizzgig explained, “That’s just Blackstuff, he saw the shakedown and decided to help himself. We were trying to persuade him to hand it back when you lot turned up. We just want to get along but being untouchables makes that hard to do.”

Whilst they were talking and Mace and the punk girl were staring at each other, Akira elected to unleash a mystical blast at Blackstuff before he could attack Sam again. The blast hit, went through his tar-like body and hit Sam hard on the chest instead, knocking him back.

Blackstuff smiled, muttered “my turn” and enveloped Akira completely; flowing round his shield, cutting of his light and air and trapping him inside. “Ah its ok, I’m fine for the moment,” he radioed.

Leaving Akira and Blackstuff to ‘dance’, Sam approached Repulse and asked, “Repulse right, don’t I know your name from somewhere?  You related to the World War Two hero, Repulse? He had a grandson who also called himself Repulse worked with the, what were they called? Ah, the Freedom Alliance in Berlin… Relations?”

The man nodded. “Yes, though I only found out from my mother when my powers clicked in. Long story short, when my mother died I came over here to meet up with Crown Guard and London Watch, join up as a legacy hero you understand? However, they didn’t even give me the time of the day. Not good enough they said. So I found my untouchables and now we seek a cure for those who need it.”

“And the money?”

“Ah, whilst Solvent couldn’t care less, Fizzgig and I have tried to persuade Yazz to return the case before it causes us any more trouble and a need to move on yet again.

In reality we ‘Untouchables’ are merely seeking sanctuary and help with Solvents’ powers and Fizzgig’s insubstantiality, which are getting worse, and were told to find Trap Street where someone might be able to help us. We haven’t found it yet. We were told it was here, but it isn’t. I don’t know where we go from here.”

While this was going on, Mace decided to resolve the angry female punk who she now realised had chemical-related powers; acidic going by the smouldering ground beneath the woman’s feet. No wonder she’d tried to get Mace to attack her. Talk not war was needed, especially as despite her threatening demeanour, she hadn’t actually attacked anyone, yet! She landed and readied one of her experimental crossbow bolts, as she walked forward towards, what had Resolve called her? Solvent… The right wrist of Mace’s outfit contained a concealed integrated crossbow built into her glove and the fibreglass shafts in her sleeve automatically selected the appropriate bolt head from an incorporated spinning carousel of options also located in her sleeve.

Solvent ran towards the grounded Mace as she unleashed the selected bolt just in front of her. The arrow hit the ground and exploded into a thick wall of ice as well as trapping her feet. Not quite the effect she was expecting but on this occasion, it was just what she needed.

“Ok, so until you dissolve this, it’s time to talk.”

As Blackstuff struggled to keep hold of Akira still protected against the tar-like skin, fumes and heat of his elongated body by his force shield but enough was enough. Sam’s voice came over his earpiece, “Ok, enough play, time to teleport out Akira…”

Ah, good idea; Akira dropped his shield and before he could be smothered, teleported out leaving Blackstuff to collapse back to his ‘normal’ human shape.

“Meet and greet eh, Marcus!” thought Mary. Before the ‘talks’ could restart though, three armoured creatures appeared high in the sky with shots flashing back and forth. It was then that Mary realised that their appearance had rendered Fizzgig completely and utterly terrified. She recognised one of the incoming at least, and for some reason it absolutely terrified her.

Dispatch supplied the identity of the third flier; Omniweapon, Marcus Moore’s publicity-seeking alter-ego. Apparently, the other two were part of the intruders from the London Watch interaction above Romaine Wharf, as yet unidentified.

On seeing Fizzgig, the front two fliers changed direction and headed straight towards her; Omniweapon’s gravitic-based weaponry strafing the area with great abandon. It was only a matter of time before someone on the ground got hit.

Angry, Repulse reached up and unleashed his magnetic attraction; on Omniweapon. Like an electromagnetic pulse, his powers overwhelmed the suits systems and pulled it down towards the ground at top speed. Causing the user inside to black out as it crashed with great force into the garden. “Wanker” muttered Repulse as he tried then to focus again on the other two fliers. Sam felt a bolt of energy from one of the remaining armoured figures bounce off his scales. How rude! He shouted out “stop that, that’s mean.” and flew towards them.

Mary returned to her Banshee form and rose into the air towards Fizzgig who was screaming for help, “If they get me, they will kill me, they’ve tried before!” Banshee immediately unleashed a shattering shriek that caused one of the armoured figures to crash to the ground whilst the other seemed confused and temporarily distracted by the attack, but their reaction didn’t seem human, not fully sentient somehow.

It was distraction enough. Sam flew straight at the remaining flier and grabbed him in a bear hug and held on.

He looked down and saw Blackstuff, on seeing Omniweapon powered down and in the process of rebooting, kicking the suit hard several times with obvious relish.

Mace focused on Solvent, “Look I’m not your enemy, we want to help. Did someone do this to you?” Gesturing towards Solvent’s body, which was dissolving the ice and the ground beneath her feet, “Are you a victim rather than an enemy? If so we can help.”

“You can help us find Trap Street?”

Mace nodded, “We can try…”

The remaining armoured figure was starting to break free from Sam’s grasp, so Banshee unleashed a second Shattering Shriek at it but missed due to the struggling, though Sam was forced to release him.

Akira followed it with a mystical blast, which hit the ‘tin man’ square in the chest, resulting in him crashing into the ground and causing the helmet to fall off revealing a corpse-like face apparently animated by bio-mechanical means.  Recycled corpses… Again?

Sam looked down and realised that Blackstuff was still hammering away at the downed Omniweapon with his foot. “Ah, are you quite done?” Blackstuff looked up smiled and smashed his heel down three more times into the dented chest-piece. He looked up and shouted “Guess so.”

Sam continued, “Good ‘cause Rebel…” seeing the confusion on Blackstuff’s face he corrected himself, “I mean Repulse wants you.”

Looking down he realised that might be true as a street he was sure wasn’t there a few minutes before, stood nearby filled with people going underground. The street sign read “Trap Street and a woman in almost medieval costume gestured at Repulse and Solvent to come.

As they watched Repulse, Solvent and Blackstuff sprinted over and vanished with the street, leaving a hysterical and panicked Fizzgig behind.

What to do? Without Repulse Fizzgig would remain insubstantial, unable to eat or drink anything until she died.

Akira however had other things on his mind and elected to try his spell, the Light of Lamal, again on Mace who when she saw the gestures begin, got out of his way and back on her cycle in case he kept on trying.

A thought went through Banshee’s head as he dematerialised. He reached out to try and touch the insubstantial Fizzgig and to her surprise felt her solid, beneath fingers. Their phased states were paired! What would happen then if she tried to materialise whilst holding her? Banshee tried and to her delight and surprise, both materialised. Immediately a sobbing Fizzgig hysterically started to rip off the bits of her armour as she struggled to be free of her ‘prison’ suit, just as AEGIS personnel pulled up and began to confiscate the crashed figures; Omegadrones they called them, when they thought the Balance couldn’t hear them. They also picked up the bits of Fizzgig’s ripped-off armour which shared a remarkable resemblance to the ‘drone’s suit interiors. An AEGIS agent assured the crew that the girl would be helped, once they confirmed she was no longer a risk to herself or others.

Whilst this was going on the press had gathered beyond the garden surrounding a damaged but now rebooted Omniweapon suit and its operator, Marcus Moore who was claiming responsibility for saving everyone from both the meta-human robbery gang and the armoured criminals.

Sam elected to just grab the briefcase with the money from him to hand back to the Police and hand out a few contact business cards to the gathered press who appeared to be familiar with Marcus’ habit of claiming responsibility for others actions….

In the meantime, the Balance gathered round Mace and, despite still being unwilling to reveal her name (or her code name) claiming that she had been betrayed before and would need convincing, decided to invite her to join them at a pub in Wessex, the Endeavour, for a drink and a chat.

Akira even offered her a chance to hypnotise Sam to confirm their true intentions saying that, “Sam shouldn’t be too hard after all he isn’t the brightest to begin with.”

and quickly dodged a quick slap to the back of his head… from Mary.