Superhero Adventures, UK Style

Prequel

Several years before, on a small privately owned Island located off the coast of Libertalia (which Mary had known as Madagascar in her paratime), an idealistic scientist and his colleagues had experimented on a troop of gorillas trying to uplift them towards sentiency.

They had eventually been successful, but the gentle creatures quickly grew to hate their human masters, their imprisonment at their hands and the painful procedures and testing they were constantly forced to endure.

One in particular, a heavily modified silverback named Speaker, engineered an escape from the Island to the jungles of Libertalia with the rest of his troop where they set up a settlement far away from humankind. There they established a hidden city deep in the jungle. They kept away from humans and, using the weapons they had stolen from their ‘masters’, they ensured no human ever returned from their land to confirm their presence, though rumours of sentient apes deep inland still managed to surface occasionally.

Then a week ago, everything changed.

The Present

It was time to transport Massai N’Ambo to Konza City. Handcuffed, Dakatan guards took her to the Crate and secured her in one of the rear seats. Annie elected to stay behind this trip so only Adam was accompanying them. The idea was that they would travel overland to Konza City, hand Massai over to the Police there and return sometime the following day. They were told that they would be met at the airport by a representative of the Hero Union of Africa (Konza City was apparently the official home to the Hero Union, though its members were from a number of different African countries).

The Hero Union were also affiliated to Héros sans Frontières and they would oversee the guarding of the prisoner once they landed.

Konza City itself was apparently an ultra-modern, urban metropolis and the newest city on the continent home to multiple businesses, embassies, and tourist facilities such as casinos and hotels. What could possibly go wrong?

Given Massia’s ability to alter meta-powers, they were reminded of the need to keep their distance from her during the flight or only allow the non-Metas on the team to deal with her.

Adam confirmed the Dakatan modifications to the vehicle had been installed but admitted he hadn’t fully tested them yet and was keen to test out the claim that the Crate was now as fast as the Raft and capable of supersonic flight. It even had some means of silencing the sonic boom when it did so, though he couldn’t understand how that was achieved. Unfortunately, as this flight was overland, he would not have the ability to test it on this trip.

With their prisoner fastened in, the Crate rose from the ground and headed into Kenya. The flight would take about an hour at their current cruising speed. Akira elected to go back to talk with Massai, despite the warnings, and ask her how her power worked.

Massai sneered at his attempts to question her and replied that what she did was to ‘liberate’ her fellow Africans from the oppression of the Colonials by activating their meta-abilities or altering their powers to be more useful to the cause. At last, her people were able to have a fair fight against their oppressors, the white invaders. She then began to swear at him in Swahili and ‎Kikuyu, which the commdots helpfully translated.

She absolutely refused to explain how her powers worked but teased Akira telling him to step just a little closer and she would demonstrate and stretched out her hands towards him as far as her restraints would allow.

Akira looked embarrassed and muttered, “I’m not actually a colonial” and Sam leant forward to ask “I’m curious, when you change someone’s powers, do they have a choice of what powers they gain or is it random?”

Again she smiled, “If you come forward, I’ll show you.” Sam jokingly shoved Akira slightly closer to her and to his surprise, Akira didn’t immediately step back.

Suddenly she lunged at him and tried to grab his bare wrist. Akira immediately pulled back mumbling, “I think she likes me.” They both moved away from her towards the front and the rest of their team members.

After some time they arrived at the airport on the edge of the city. From there they could see the glass towers and skyscrapers of downtown as they entered a holding pattern over the airport. Nearby on the outskirts of the city itself, were a number of compounds, one of which caught their eye, as there appeared to be a pair of African Rhinos running loose inside. Rhinos were a protected species and they were sure that their captivity in Kenya was illegal.

They also saw a crashed cargo plane on the edge of one of the primary runways. It must have happened fairly recently as the plane was relatively intact and was still cordoned off though the site looked devoid of investigators.

Adam shouted from the cockpit that he’d picked up a couple of news reports the team might be interested in and as requested, forwarded the reports to the big display screen in the passenger section.

The stories were of the airplane crash, which had happened a couple of days ago and the mystery of the murdered pilot whilst the other story was of the disappearance of four Police officers from the outskirts of the city over the last two days.

The cargo plane LI-1017, crashed on approach to Konza Airport. The plane had tried to land away from the main landing strip but had suddenly nose-dived into the ground. When investigated two things had been revealed. The pilot had survived the landing but had been physically torn apart immediately afterwards and someone or something with immense strength had then torn the cargo doors off their hinges in order to escape.

The other main story was about four Police officers that had mysteriously vanished off the streets on the peripheries of the city; primarily near the airport and the private estates below. There was no reason to think the two stories were connected but it was a coincidence and Mary in particular hated coincidences.

There was an unspoken assumption to the last story that the local Police force were apparently not adverse to bribery and that the missing officers might have been paid to ‘vanish’ by one or more of the city’s ‘businessmen’. The reporter even hinted that they may have found more profitable employment or had information to sell and having been rewarded had subsequently left the city.

Adam piped up that as the Crate was capable of VTOL that they were instructed to proceed to land at a nearby bay where they would be met by a couple of Police officers and a representative of the Hero-Union. Even as he spoke, Adam manoeuvred the craft round and headed for the designated parking area.

As the craft settled on the parking bay, they saw a person in a dark outfit with four robotic arachnid-like limbs stride towards them. The mechanical legs ended in blades and the suit was patterned after a spider. The wearer, no-one could be sure who was inside the armour, sat down cross-legged as the exoskeleton stood ready. He was accompanied by several Police officers and a young woman in a yellow and black outfit that seemed patterned after some form of bee or wasp.

The spider-like hero spoke up, “I am Anansi from the Hero-Union, I apologise, for none of my other teammates being present but although the team is based out of Konza City, the others in the team actually live in their own countries and we only come together when needed. This is my trainee Yellow-Jacket. I believe you have the terrorist Massai N’Ambo in your custody? I will arrange for her transfer now and will need you to give the officer brief statements to confirm her identity and continuity of arrest. Officers..?”

The artificially altered voice and the spider-like suit gave no clues as to the age or even the sex of the person inside the costume. The same could not be said however for the female in the wasp-like armour who stood  beside him.

Akira nodded, he recognised Anansi as the name given to the trickster, the spider God.

They handed over their ID cards to the Customs Officer as a couple of the Police officers entered the Crate with Mace and escorted Massai to a waiting prison van.

Anansi apologised for not being able to do an official welcome given that they were aware of the Balances credentials as a Héros sans Frontières affiliated team but circumstances made that impossible at the current time. Meanwhile if they would follow the remaining officers to the airport security office to give their statements..?

‘He’ explained that he’d arranged for them to stay at a four star hotel in the city overnight and that the Kenyan Government would be picking up the tab. He assumed they were only staying overnight but if they wanted to stay longer, they just had to say.

Akira suddenly got upset, “So, what time is the press conference? There must obviously be a lot of publicity surrounding the arrest of such an infamous terrorist.”

Anansi looked surprised, “Well, there is no publicity at all.” Akira continued, “There must be a lot of curiosity amongst the local populous as to how Massai N’Ambo was captured surely?”

Anansi’s voice sounded surprised, even through the filters, “There is none, the Dakatan Embassy specifically requested that the arrest was kept very low key until the matter goes to trial. They have asked that the information as to how she was captured not be revealed publicly and we want to respect their wishes. All we Kenyans are interested in is that a major terrorist who has caused so much death and destruction has finally been captured.” Anansi looked at Akira; head slightly tilted to the side as though trying to figure out what was going on with him. “I thought the King of Dakata had explained this?”

Akira folded his arms and said, “I’m just amazed that news of our arrival hasn’t made the news.” Sam pushed forward and said, “This is all very last minute Akira and I’m sure her capture will be revealed when it’s appropriate.”

The girl in the Yellow-Jacket armour said, “It’s also not as though you’re a world famous team. You may be well known back in England but to the rest of the world you are unknowns and anyway, I thought you were just escorting her or is there more to the story of how she was captured that Dakata hasn’t said?” She sounded irate.

Anansi continued, ignoring her outburst, “From what I understood from the King she was picked up trying to illegally enter Dakata and your involvement purely consists of transporting her here for trail? Is that not the case?” Even through the voice filter, Anansi sounded exasperated at Akira’s outburst.

Akira continued “No we were the ones who captured her, overthrew the revolution and…”

Yellow-Jacket interrupted, “What revolution? This is news indeed. If that’s the case then perhaps you should hold a news conference because the Dakatans made no mention of any revolution happening.” Anansi said, “If you want a press conference to inform the world of this attempted revolution and attempt to overthrow the King, then that can be arranged. I’m sure the King will enjoy hearing that his country’s affairs are all over the international press… After all, we don’t actually hear a lot of news from Dakata.”

With that, Akira seemed to come to his senses and began to stutter that they really didn’t need a press conference after all… Anansi meanwhile had clicked something on his helmet and said, “Is that the press room..?” Akira immediately began to deny that they needed the press involved and that they didn’t do what they do for the publicity, which seemed to calm Anansi down and he switched off his comms.

Akira still muttered, “I just wanted a little recognition from our peers for what we did, would have been nice Anansi.”

“For transporting the prisoner? We’re grateful you agreed to transport the prisoner…” Sam tried to smooth over the incident, but it seemed Anansi and Yellow-Jacket had had enough and they explained they had work to do and left them to go with the Police officers to give their statements.

Inside the Police office in the airport, the Police officers explained that all they needed was a statement that Massai N’Ambo had been handed into their custody in Dakata, they can confirm her identity and that she had remained in their custody until handed over on their arrival in Konza City.

Sam still seemed shocked by Akira’s earlier behaviour and wanted to know what he’d actually expected. Akira admitted he had wanted some praise and recognition for what they had done and Sam replied, “you did a fantastic job and your reward is going to be staying, all expenses paid in a really nice hotel, so any chance you can let it go now? I’m proud of you, you transported that prisoner really well. You know when we get to the hotel I’m going to make you a special badge.” It seemed sarcasm was currently lost on their teammate… Grumpily Akira muttered, “I can make my own badge. I could turn this whole city into a badge if I wanted to and wear it like a necklace…”

The Police officers looked at them whilst this was going on, unsure what was happening and quickly completed their statements. It was obvious that they felt it was best not to be around metas when they got angry and petty and they hurried them out of the airport office with their signed statements leaving the team to head to their waiting electric limo.

At their hotel, they immediately raided the mini bar in their suite, Akira for the nuts and chocolate while Sam raided it for the little bottles of beer. On the big screen TV in their shared lounge the main story was still the missing police officers but there was also a breaking story that a local villain called Ghostmane was attacking a museum in Nairobi and that some of the Hero-Union, including Anansi and Yellow-Jacket were responding.

From the news backstory, it appeared as though this Ghostmane was somehow, mystically enhanced. Sam jokingly asked Mary if this was another of her relations and was there some form of mystical reunion they didn’t get invited to? Mary laughed, “Despite the long grey hair I don’t think there is any family connection…” The tension from Akira’s earlier outburst finally departing as they joked about mystical relations.

With the local heroes away, Sam wondered if they should help – possibly to find the missing officers or possibly visit a casino or three. Akira immediately wanted to free the rhinos they’d seen whilst flying over the airport. Mary admitted that perhaps they could at least find out why they were being held in a private compound.

Mace reminded them that until they knew more, freeing the animals could be a crime. They searched on the internet but found no information about the creatures. The compound seemed to not exist as far as online records were concerned.

They discussed ways they could visit the compound and find out more for themselves. As Sam said, “we can then do things that actually matter.” He suggested Akira disguise himself as a guard and enter the compound that way. An argument broke out between Sam and Akira over if the animals were there legitimately such as for a zoo whether they should be rescuing them regardless. Akira stated that it made him angry when animals were penned up and not allowed to roam  the Savannah freely. He momentarily forgot growing up at Skomer Vale with the sacred bullock Shamu and the elephant Shakira as his favourite companions.

In the end, Akira suggested they head to the compound and see if he could use his view the past power to find out more information. Sam agreed but admitted that he also wanted to have a look at the crashed aircraft and try to find a scent of whatever had killed the pilot and torn the cargo doors open that he could follow.

The team headed for the compound first. The complex itself looked militaristic; with thick, high walls and armed guards patrolling the top, armed with automatic rifles.  Akira thought his best bet was to get a reading off one of their vehicles, which might reveal what it had been used for, but they were all parked inside the thick 3-metre high walls.

Sam tried to approach using his chameleon scales but the surroundings didn’t help as his camouflage couldn’t change fast enough to completely disguise his presence. He did manage to get to the base of the wall unobserved. Akira joined him, rendering both of them completely invisible as they flew over the wall and headed towards the nearest of the rhinos. His power rendered them undetectable as they approached the large African rhino and Akira reached out to touch the creature hoping to read its past.

Disorientation hit as Akira felt the creatures’ memories flow over him and he felt its disjointed recollections. In between memories of eating and rolling in the mud he made out an experience of looking down at the ground far below as it was apparently flown in from somewhere. It had a memory of being in the grasslands with other rhinos then having something hitting it in its rump and making it sleep, waking up in this strange enclosed place with another rhino, a stranger to it, its herd missing.

He continued to search but there were no memories of being experimented on, being maltreated or being on display somewhere; just disorientation and loss.

“So is it actually a supervillain then?” Sam whispered and they two of them continued their banter about whether the information he’d discovered revealed anything useful.

They discussed trying to get a reading from a guard instead. They crept up to the walkway along the top of the wall and managed to touch a guard as he passed without revealing themselves. The information he got was almost as worthless. Images flooded in of him leaving his house that morning, worry that perhaps his wife was cheating on him, boring work walking the wall but at least the pay was good. Picture of his boss came into his mind, something about being terrified of him, the image of a white man in his 30’s, long hair, scruffy and unshaven with cold eyes went through his mind. A name was associated with the boss, Patterson. The guard didn’t really care what was happening in the compound and Akira couldn’t force it. He was employed to guard the compound and that was all his past memories could reveal.

Before they could decide what to do next, they received a message relayed to them from Anansi who was in Nairobi and couldn’t get back in time that there was an incident happening down town. If they were willing to help, he would temporarily authorise them?

There was a hostage situation occurring downtown in a bank. The idea of getting involved, appealed to them. Phoning him back, he confirmed that he would contact the officer in charge of the operation and in a worst-case scenario he could be back with them in under a couple of hours.

In the background they could hear shots being fired and at one point Anansi had to interrupt the call to shout, “Yellow-Jacket, stop that or you’ll kill him!” Sounded as though the pair of them had their hands full where they were.

The immediately headed off for the address they’d been given down-town. Stopping nearby, the team got out of the car, thanked the driver and headed passed the blockade to where the Police were gathered outside a shuttered bank. The officers themselves gave the appearance of not wanting to do anything currently.

When they’d made contact with the officer-in-charge, he explained they had a very confused picture of what was occurring inside the building. The cameras had cut off suddenly just before the hostage takers had made their appearance, whoever they were they apparently wanting the return of “one of their own” whatever that was supposed to mean. They claimed this person had been kidnapped by a “human.” Their choice of words had sparked off some anti-meta hostility amongst his officers.

Akira said, “Thought they might have been after freeing Mamma Massai for a moment there.” The officer continued, “There is also the fact that they appeared to have arrived unseen, almost as though they had materialised inside the bank. We’ve no footage of the groups’ arrival and with all internal cameras offline we are having to rely on telephone communication. Their unexpected arrival did catch the bank guards unawares. One of them was thrown through one of the windows just before the security shutters came down. He’s been taken to hospital with serious life-threatening injuries. He was screaming something about ‘bloody big apes’ just before he went unconscious. We’re assuming, hoping, he was just hallucinating but you can understand why we asked for Hero-Union support in dealing with this one?”

The team took a few minutes to plan out their next move. Gathering accurate information was vital. The negotiations so far had been too vague to be useful so they had to find out who they were dealing with, how serious was the threat to the hostages and exactly who or what they wanted returned to them.

The building was sealed so Mary changed into her Banshee personae, turned both insubstantial and invisible and headed through the shielding over the doorway to the bank inside. To her surprise there were six massive gorillas inside, four of them were in custom-built armour and carrying very familiar looking pulse rifles. What really shocked her was when one of the two unarmoured gorillas, the largest silverback, easily half again as big as the largest adult gorilla she’d ever seen previously, turned its head and looked right at her, despite her invisibility.

Their prisoners all seemed to be sitting on the floor by the bank counter cowering, frightened and in an apparent state of shock. Then a booming voice rang out, “Huuman.” Banshee immediately made a retreat out of the bank and back to the others to inform them of what she had seen.

After she had explained what she’d seen to the others, Sam asked, “How dangerous is this group do you think?” Akira pointed out that if the silverback was apparently able to see Banshee even whilst invisible that was a game-changer in his eyes.

It was Adam that suddenly remembered the newspaper story they’d previously read in Israel, claiming intelligent gorillas have been seen and photographed several times in the jungles of Libertalia. This had to be connected, didn’t it?

A voice came over the telephone, which the officer put on the speakerphone; it was the same voice Banshee had heard before, repeating over and over “Huuman return, talk!”

Banshee agreed to return. Sam suggested Akira astrally project himself inside with her but he was reluctant since it left his mortal remains extremely vulnerable whilst he did so. Meanwhile Sam elected to fly up to the roof, intending to break through if anything went wrong. Mace agreed to cover the exits in case the creatures elected to rush the officers gathered outside.

Banshee against turned insubstantial this time whilst holding Akira and they headed through the shutters back inside the bank. Although the other gorillas were oblivious to their presence, the largest silverback again appeared to be able to see them. Turning his head towards them, he asked in a booming voice, “Huumans, why?”

Banshee turned them both visible but remained insubstantial. “We just wondered what it is you were after?” said Akira. He continued, “Why have you taken the hostages; you’re obviously not after the money.” The creature bared its fangs as it said, “Huumans kill us, huumans steal pup, Speaker want return or we will kill again.” Akira asked if the pup was also a silverback like him and was surprised at the anger emanating from the massive creature. “stuupiiid Huuman. Pup, not adult. Suupiiid Huuman, seek pup.” Sam up on the roof heard this exchange and couldn’t stop himself laughing out loud which again upset Akira who overheard Sam’s reaction. Akira continued, “If we get the pup back and bring him here will you let the hostages go?” The great ape continued, “Aafter home. Huumans kill. Kill people, like me, family – not trust huumans! Speaker not trust…”

Suddenly Akira started saying that he “wasn’t human myself, he was more like a God, nearly immortal…” Ignoring the shocked reaction from the others at his obviously sincere outburst, he continued, “I can feel the power coursing through my veins is such that I wouldn’t refer to myself as human any more than I’d use the term to describe you. You should trust us. We’ll get the pup back to you and you can let everybody go.” He then laughed and continued, “You can even take all the money with you if you want, we’re only interested in keeping the hostages safe.” Speaker snarled, “Money paper, burn paper!” which caused Akira to shout, “No, don’t burn it.” Banshee muttered, “Why, do you want it yourself?” causing Akira to explain that he was worried about the fire spreading and the fumes.

Speaker suddenly surged forward and picked up the remaining guard in his massive hand, gripping the man’s skull and squeezing slightly. The guard screamed with pain thinking the obviously insane gorilla was about to kill him.

“Will kill huumans, find in one of your hours or Speaker will kill, understand? After hour each human die one after other.” He dropped the guard back on the group and he scrambled back to the rest of the hostages. They had one hour to find the pup. Mace was shouting at Akira to negotiate for more time, that one hour was not nearly enough but Akira ignored her and agreed. “In one hour, we’ll be back.”

Banshee asked if Speaker had any information that might help them find the infant but all Speaker could tell them was “Flying machine stole child, killed mother. Came here, follow.”

As they left the bank Banshee asked, “So, any idea where the pup is?” Akira replied that he was sure it would be at the compound they’d checked earlier, he was absolutely positive about it. The others just stared at him in unbelief.

Outside the officer in charge confirmed he’d listened in via the telephone and had requested warrants to search the premises of all known animal smugglers. Sam flew down from the roof to join them. “It’s likely these apes came in on the crashed flight, so if we find out who owned or rented the plane..?” Sam also wondered whether the missing officers had been involved with the stolen cub somehow. The others weren’t convinced about the last line of enquiry but again asked the officer if he could find out who’d chartered the crashed flight. Time was ticking and beyond Akira’s gut instinct, they didn’t have a lot to go on.

Sam and the others immediately headed over to the crash site to see if Sam could identify a scent of the youngster and hopefully could follow that.

Flying as fast as the team could, they arrived and Sam set his powerful senses to work only to identify the scent of a single terrified human and a strong scent of adult gorillas – this was obviously how Speaker and his fellow sentient apes had arrived at Konza City, not how they brought in the infant.

Given the death of the pilot, it confirmed that Speaker would willingly kill.

Whilst this was going on, the Police confirmed that the plane had been owned through a number of holding companies, some of which were obviously dummy corporations set up to hide the real owners identity. They contacted Annie back in Dakata who quickly discovered that the trail led back to a Wilhelm Patterson, a local millionaire and businessman descended from a Col. John Patterson, an infamous local big game hunter who’d made his fortune from ivory after World War 1. He had numerous businesses but was believed to be still involved in animal smuggling and the sale of rare animal parts for the Chinese medicine trade.

Patterson, also owned the compound near the airport that Akira was convinced was involved.

They thanked her and set off. Sam was worried about Akira’s current attitude and said as much. Akira replied, “There were more important things than human justice, cosmic justice is what counts. It’s wrong for a baby to be taken from its parents regardless of species, abused and terrified for the gratification of some millionaire.” Akira was all for storming in to the compound rather than waiting for authority to proceed.

They headed to the compound and Mace did a covert fly-over first but couldn’t see anything that confirmed the presence of the baby gorilla outdoors but of course it could be in one of the several buildings and outhouses.

Banshee grabbed hold of Akira again, turned insubstantial and invisible and headed inside the compound. As they passed over the wall they could see a Police officer standing outside the main gate. In his hands were a piece of paper which he was waving at the guards above and shouting something but they were too far away to hear what was being said. Inside they could also see a couple of the guards appeared to be using electric cattle prods to aggravate the two rhinos and get them to stampede about the area in front of the gate.

They could also hear some loud noise coming from the hangar. Banshee and Akira immediately set off to see what was happening and immediately saw a CH-47 Chinook helicopter being prepared for take-off. It had obviously been adapted to transport large animals.

They rushed towards it and Akira leapt down so he could try to use his view the past to see if this was how the gorilla had been brought in. Whilst his abilities confirmed that the craft had carried lots of terrified and anesthetised animals, including what he thought might be gorillas, there was no way to confirm individuals. “Stupid thing, less intelligence that a rhino, that helicopter”, he muttered once Banshee had re-insubstantialised him. They did appear to be preparing it for a rapid departure, though the pilot was still not onboard.

Outside, they could hear a lot of noise as the rhinos started running wild while the guards shouted down to the Police officer explaining that they couldn’t let him in because some of the animals in the stockade were stampeding. If he entered the compound, they would not be able to protect him. The lone officer had the choice of either entering a compound and facing charging rhinos or walking away. Surprisingly he stood his ground.

The guards continued to aggravate the rhinos obviously intending to use them as a deterrent to being searched. Sam tried to turn his chameleon ability on but he was moving too fast for it to be successful. One of the guards saw him flying towards the wall and raised his rifle. Sam slowed and raised his arms above his head.

Mace meanwhile tried to use the remote terminal on her wrist to try to hack into the computer system, copying what she’d seen Annie do. To her surprise it worked, she managed to access their emails at least. It confirmed their belief that Patterson was an animal smuggler and that he was bribing several senior Police officers to ignore his business enterprises. There was no obvious email about a gorilla cub though not all of the emails were in English and some appeared to be encrypted.

Sam could now hear the Police officer by the gate insisting that he had a warrant to search these premises and that if they didn’t open up now he’d have no option but to arrest them. They again tried to say it was too dangerous because of the rhinos but he didn’t give a damn about any rhinos supposedly stampeding inside the compound. He turned to Sam floating above him and shouted up “You’re not afraid of any rhinos are you?” Taken by surprise Sam said “No.” The officer smiled and said, “Good, I’ll be right behind you. Now open up!” and pulled out his handgun.

The guards reluctantly opened up the door in the gate and quickly rushed back up on top of the wall.

Sam joined the Police officer walking through the doorway only to see the two rhino charging towards them. Sam rushed forward and tried to catch the leading rhino by its largest horn. He managed to get a hold of it as the officer behind him tried to get back through the door.

Sam managed to get a grip on its head but found himself being pushed back as the charging beast rammed into him. Sam used his strength to drag the head down and turn it to the side so its forward momentum caused it to turn and fall to the ground. He hoped the second rhino wouldn’t just trample over its own, would it?

Seeing the other rhino still charging forward he wasn’t too sure. He could end up with a dead rhino he suddenly realised. He tried to calm the floored creature down by covering its eyes and stroked its neck while he figured out what to do next.

Mace had watched Sam bring down the first rhino. She dropped off her grav-bike and tried to grab the other rhino by the creature’s largest horn. She succeeded in holding on only to find herself being swung around and taken for a ride. She held on for grim death and raised her latest bit of equipment, her grav-gauntlet activated and she hoped it would cause it to turn away. Instead, the blast of gravitic energy hit it on the nose causing the head to drop down and the creature to tumble forward and flip head over feet as though it had hit an immovable wall. Mace was forced to let go and tumble in a clumsy somersault away as the creature crashed onto its back, its legs still wriggling in the air.

Meanwhile Banshee and Akira were searching the buildings, which had way too many armed guards to be legitimate. Finally, in the main building in one of the central rooms, they came across a large cage and inside, cowering in a corner of the cage was a small, scared gorilla infant a few months old at most.

Banshee released Akira who immediately tried to activate his own invisibility as he landed on the floor. Unaware of his presence, Banshee turned substantial and tried to grab the infant as it panicked and started to screech what sounded like “jaja!!!”  Banshee tried to calm it down as she headed towards the bank as fast as she could, cuddling the terrified infant.

Akira again invisible, watched several guards rush outside, the safety’s on their weapons clicking off as they prepared to fire at whatever was going on. He immediately activated his force shield in preparation.

Akira was unsure what to do and waited to see what would happen.

Outside, Sam picked his rhino off the ground and kept it unbalanced as he cuddled its head and tried to calm it down as it tried to right itself. Mace was still using the gauntlet to keep her rhino down as she tried to use a tranquilliser bolt to knock it out if only she could find a part of the creature the dart head could penetrate. In the end, she found a soft part of one of its hoofs and slamming the bolt in she activated the syringe injecting the strong tranquiliser into it, which rendered it groggy but failed to knock it out completely.

Sam tried using his draconic persuasion to try and calm his rhino down, the words he spoke were useless but his power did manage to calm her down slightly.

Coming out of the building were several armed guards. Sam unfurled his wings to try to protect his Rhino whilst Mace signalled for the grav-bike to drop towards her and, dodging the rhino’s horn as it tried to stand, jumped up and onto her grav-bike. Beneath her the rhino stumbled around before finally lying back down exhausted and drugged.

She shouted down, “Get out of there Sam, there’s a lot of armed guards heading our way.” Sam immediately tried to explain that he needed to protect his downed rhino.

Seeing Sam’s hesitance in leaving the rhino at risk of being hit by the guards, Mace steadied the bike and aimed her wrist-bow. Now was a good time to test out the new baton round arrowheads. Having risked killing using standard arrowheads, she had decided to experiment with a new type of tip, one that was non-lethal but still delivered the same amount of damage. She could always remove the heads and fire them as normal arrows if necessary. She readied the first bolt and let fire despite the distance.

Not realising the danger, the guards rushed in. First bolt hit a guard in the throat, a second bolt automatically loaded and fired at the next one hitting him in the temple and he also dropped unconscious. The next two bolts also hit their targets and another two armed guards dropped before they could get off a single shot.

Back in the city, Banshee had managed to hold onto the infant until she’d arrived at the bank and phased inside the building. Speaker turned as he entered and on seeing the cub shouted “JaJa”. Banshee let the pup go and it instantly rematerialised, ran to its father and cuddled in as Speaker sniffed his child to make sure it was unharmed. He then began gathering his fellow gorillas around him and commenced to walk towards the door planning to make a run for it.

Damn, Banshee knew that the minute they stepped outside the spooked officers would start firing and a battle would break out between the two sides. Humans and gorillas would be hurt, even killed and all this would be for nothing. Despite the death of the pilot and possibly the missing officers, the gorillas had only acted that way in an attempt to rescue their own.

Banshee shouted, “Wait, stay here and we can make sure there are no more deaths. Please, we’ve kept our word so far, trust me now.” Speaker stopped and turned his head.

Banshee turned to the hostages “I know you want to leave but you’ll be safer if you stay here until I return.”

Akira suddenly arrived in the bank by teleport, catching one of the gorillas off guard who automatically unleashed a shot from the pulse rifle in its arms. As he dodged, Akira couldn’t help notice that they were identical in design to the ones he’d seen the Foundry use before. Was there a connection he wondered as he rolled across the floor and back onto his feet as the blast hit where he’d been standing a second before.

The other gorillas looked afraid and angry while Speaker examined Akira whilst sheltering his cub. Akira explained, “I come in peace, I thought I could open a portal to somewhere that you lot could go to rather than get shot” he explained slightly breathlessly. Speaker replied, “Need leave, go home.” “Well I can’t get you that far…” Speaker continued, “Need fly away, over sea to own nest.”

“I can open a portal to our ship.” Though, did he really want the apes in the Crate? They also hadn’t been very good with their last pilot had they? Or they could use the Chinook and possibly Mace could rig up the controls so they functioned like her bike and could be controlled from a distance? That way there would be no pilot to worry about in case they got angry again. Might be safer for Adam.

He quickly spoke to Mace over the team comms and told her to head to the Chinook and try to jury-rig some form of remote control. He knew if anyone could do it, she could.

Back in the compound Mace wondered where she’d find the servos she’d need, then looking at her bike she immediately began ripping out the remote control from her bike. Would mean she’d need to fly alongside as her remote didn’t have a massive range so she would need to shadow it whilst piloting it but it was doable.

Akira immediately opened a portal to the hangar telling them to step through. They seemed hesitant at first but after Speaker went through and encouraged JaJa to follow him the other apes quickly followed. Akira was the last one through.

They appeared just outside the helicopter. More armed guards were coming into the hangar with the man Akira had seen from his postcognition read on the sentry, that had to be Wilhelm Patterson. He was being escorted to the helicopter so he could escape with what they assumed was one of his customers, a bald headed man. Unfortunately, Mace was still trying to fit the remote control system.

Having seen Mace hurry away on her bike, Young Sam turned round to explain to the Police officer with him that he needed to join his teammates. The officer immediately went on his radio asking for an official from the Wildlife squad to head down and join him as he had a number of stolen wildlife that would need repatriating back into the wild. On hearing that, Sam felt better. He knew he couldn’t have just leave the creatures in captivity but hadn’t a clue how he was going to get them back home. He smiled, thanked the officer profusely and immediately took to the air, heading straight for the hangar.

He came in hard and fast through the side door of the hangar and immediately saw the guards and Patterson as well as another civilian who was also armed taking aim at his teammates and the gorilla troop as they entered the Chinook.

Whilst this was happening, a report came over their commdots telling them that the Police had now entered the bank after one of the hostages had phoned the Police to tell them that their attackers had gone and it was safe to enter. Everyone was alive, thanks to the mysterious heroes. In addition, one of the missing officers bodies had been found in the sewage tunnels beneath the bank and the order had been given to shoot to kill the gorillas. Sam knew that order would be changed once the politicians got involved in what was a cross-species cock-up but he was glad that they’d managed to keep both sides apart for the moment whilst tensions were running high.

Sam smiled and prepared himself for a dive bomb attack in front of the guards. As soon as he hit the ground, he slashed out with his claws at Patterson. This was personal after all. He caught them all unawares. He knocked Patterson’s gun out of his hands and slammed him to the floor staggering him. His second strike at a guard seemed to miss but struck on the backstrike then spinning on the spot sliced out at the third guard accidentally shredding the guards arm and forcing him to drop his gun. Sam also managed to hit the fourth guard causing him to fall to the ground. Sam’s last strike missed the remaining civilian with them. He raised his gun to fire it as banshee charged over and unleashed her corrupting touch on him. He collapsed in shock.

Mace jumped out of the helicopter cockpit onto her bike, activated the remote controls she’d rigged on the chinook and it immediately took off heading in the direction of Libertalia. She remotely piloted it using her wrist computer to fly the helicopter below radar level out of Kenyan airspace. They had no flight plan filed after all.

Akira immediately rushed over and tried to apply a tourniquet on the shredded guards arm to try and save his life. Sam also went over, applied the tourniquet properly and thanked Akira for trying.

Over their comms they could hear Mace tell them that Speaker had given her general directions to head towards the jungles to the south of the city of Mission on Libertalia. She later reported that Speaker had told her to leave them once they were over the island, it had then damaged the remote system and apparently crashed the helicopter into the jungles of Libertalia. They subsequently found out that, when the Libertalian Government investigated the crash site, no bodies were discovered and the helicopter had been flown almost another fifty miles inland before crashing. It looked as though Speaker and his troop had escaped after all and still kept the location of their city a secret.

The local Police officer arrested Patterson and the other man, De Roche he called him, for animal smuggling though he admitted that with the level of corruption in Konza city it was highly likely that they would manage to bribe their way to freedom.

He also offered to explain what happened and that the team had acted to save lives, including those of another sentient species. They might have to give further statements but the situation wasn’t without precedent thanks to the arrival of ‘aliens’, meaning the Ziru Sirka. There was also the official recognition of both the Aquans and even Nani (of Challenger-Wildeman fame) as separate sentient species but that weren’t public knowledge yet so Sam kept quiet about them.

They returned to their hotel rooms afterwards.

When he returned to the centre of the city, Anansi did request a full explanation and admitted that although he’d never heard of talking apes before, he’d heard tales and legends about sentient animals connected to the criminal group known as the Foundry. He wondered if these sentient gorillas were in some way connected or uplifted by them.

He also confirmed that he thought they’d done the right thing. There was no sense in killing the apes or starting a war between the uplifted apes and humans after all. There were a number of Hollywood films showing how that would have turned out.

That night, Akira locked himself in the hotel room and refused to come out. throughout the night chanting were heard and weird smells emanated from under the door. He refused to open his door, Only screaming that he was “sick and tired of humans holding him back from his true potential,  getting things wrong all the time and hurting others.”

Next morning the door opened and to their surprise, Akira seemed changed, transformed somehow. His skin looked scaly and his tongue longer and narrower, causing him to talk with a bit of a lisp. He refused to explain what had happened and quickly went back inside his room. They were due to head back to Dakata the following day. Next day when he exited his room, his skin was even scalier and greener tinged that the day before. Whatever Akira had done to himself with his magic, it was not a good look on him and the others were not convinced that this was beneficial though Akira refused to talk about it. He did seem stronger but less mentally stable at least as far as the others were concerned.

Sam did get a visit before they left for Dakata from the officer he’d met at the compound. The officer admitted that they had finally found the bodies of all four of the missing officers in the sewers. He quietly confessed that it was common knowledge that all four were crooked and had been taking bribes from Patterson. His fellow officers did however not share his views and some of the other Police officers blamed the team for allowing their murderers to escape. Heading away soon would not be a bad idea.

For the next few days, as they headed back to the UK, the team were worried by Akira’s changes both physically and mentally, though they had appeared to have stabilised for the moment. He refused to discuss what he’d done to himself.