Superhero Adventures, UK Style

Based on a scenario by Kevin Weiser

The Balances’ remaining grav-carrier, the Crate was heading back from Ffrwd Dylluan when a message came in from Dispatch, “fight between two Meta’s on the Severn Bridge, anyone able to deal? A number of civilians are believed to be endangered.”

Mary had been making regular trips in the Crate to Akira’s family home to try and make contact with him since his self-imposed ‘exile’ a couple of weeks before. She rationalised her actions by claiming that she needed the extra flight time and it was a good opportunity to try and bond with their new recruit, Locker. Mace had elected to stay back at the BASEment on this occasion, in case there was a ‘shout’. Well, that and Mary liked to fly fast and furious!

To their surprise, Akira had met them on the lawn and straightaway jumped onboard, ready for immediate departure. He remained reticent to talk about himself or what he’d been up to and instead tried to engage ‘Locket’ in a conversation, trying to draw the youth out (and confirm what Frankie’d told them about Jerome Tolliver before his departure). However, Locker remained taciturn and refused to talk about his private life, unaware that the others already knew who he was.

Mary was only a few minutes away from the bridge, so she informed her two passengers of the call and contacted Dispatch back to confirm that they would be responding. The ever-dispassionate Dispatch explained that a HCP responder Welsh Dragon was already on scene and was organising civilian evacuation from the bridge on the Welsh side but was unable to deal with the Meta’s or the trapped vehicles on the bridge.

A quick check on HeroNet showed that the Welsh Dragon was unenhanced and primarily relied on his martial arts and detective skills, which explained why he would be of limited use in a meta-human brawl.

At the same time, Mary noticed that the sky they were heading into was growing intensely redder, darker and filled full of angry storm clouds. It seemed a portent of things to things to come.

It took a couple of minutes of flight time in a westerly direction before the Severn Bridge came into view. The highway suspension bridge linked Wales and England with the deck supported by two main cables slung between the two over 130 metre tall steel towers and the suspension cables connecting the road with the main cables arranged in a zigzag fashion, rather than vertical.

The bridge was being battered by rain and sleet from a violent, localised storm coming in from the South. To make things worse the squall had whipped the river into a frenzy beneath the bridge and massive waves were combining with the rain to soak the road surface. As they watched, the centre of the bridge began to shudder and twist, each time getting that bit more severe.

What really caught their eyes though, despite visibility being seriously impaired, was the West Indian looking female floating in the centre of the storm. The figure was instantly familiar to Akira and Mary who realised that Calypso was back!

She was definitely screaming something at a figure standing in the middle of the bridge but the storm was too intense for them to hear what it was that she was shouting. Wild winds continually battered the central deck of the bridge only for it to be countered and forced back a couple of seconds later by some form of invisible force bubble emanating out from the other person. Were they using some form of seismic powers to disrupt or exacerbate the attacks?

It was only after Mary had landed the Crate on the grass verge on the English side of the bridge and the three of them had emerged that they realised the figure standing in the middle of the bridge was young, a Caribbean-looking teenager and most likely female. The shaved head didn’t help with their identification though her ponytail might help with subsequent identification.

Some sort of invisible energy blast was pulsing out from her, something powerful enough to force back the storm and divert the lightning strikes that were coming her way from the increasingly angry hybrid storm goddess floating in the middle of the hurricane only a few hundred metres from her.

The effect of their fight was also affecting the roadway of the bridge causing it to twist and oscillate wilder and wilder as they watched. Could the storm and earthquake-like response have harmonised with the bridge superstructure causing it to begin an aeroelastic flutter? This flutter seemed to intensify even as they watched, twisting at the road causing the surface to warp.

They couldn’t help wonder if it would eventually tear the bridge apart sending any remaining citizens stranded on the bridge plummeting to a cold, watery grave if it was not countered?

They took a couple of seconds to try to assess the situation. Most of the people and cars on their end of the bridge had already been evacuated but some had just abandoned their vehicles and ran to safety, leaving their vehicles to slide across the road as the fluctuations and warping got worse. Between them and the youth who was fighting Calypso were at least two occupied vehicles, a turquoise coloured minivan still occupied by a family and a trapped bus full of kids.

Frankie stated over their commdots that, having hacked into an orbiting Russian spy satellite and temporarily realigned their sensor equipment, she was now able to confirm that there were at least thirty heat signatures spread across the bridge, with five of the vehicles still apparently occupied and three heat signatures on the bridge itself. One of those standing on the bridge was obviously the Meta fighting Calypso.

Locker was classified as the team’s brick and bruiser but to their surprise his first response was to ask if anyone had tried talking to the two Meta’s, warning them that what they were doing was illegal and that they needed to stop it. Akira replied, “You’re right of course and that’s why we’re here, to tell them but our first priority has to getting the civilians to safety.”

Mary tried to see if she could spot the people still on the bridge but found it difficult to see very far thanks to the localised storm conditions. Frankie confirmed that the occupied vehicle furthest from them was a damaged ambulance with three heat signatures inside. Most of the vehicles on the English side had managed to be cleared out of the way but the cars closer to the centre or heading out of Wales had just been abandoned on the bridge and had collided into each other preventing any others from driving off the bridge unassisted. Near the middle of the bridge was a tanker, a school bus as well as a couple of still occupied cars all trapped in amidst the abandoned vehicles.

The fight between the Meta on the bridge and Calypso was definitely intensifying.

Akira discussed trying to unleash his Theurgical-Kinesis on the bus and its occupants out but realised he needed to get closer if he was to do so successfully. The bus was just too far away for his power to be used safely especially with Calypso dialling her attack up to eleven.

While he was considering the best way to safely get the bus off the bridge, Locker decided if he couldn’t wait for the storm to pass, he needed to learn how to dance in the rain! He immediately set off at a sprint, trying to keep his footing as the bridge bucked and twisted beneath his feet.

Meanwhile Mary changed into Banshee and set off flying across towards the first occupied vehicle, a turquoise mini-van with two terrified and screaming children and their equally scared parents inside.

As Banshee dropped down onto the roof of the van she altered back into Mary so as to not further terrify the occupants, Locker ran passed, leaping over abandoned car’s bonnets. Smiling, he elected to start playing “the wheels on the bus go round and round” over his suit’s speaker system as he neared the bus. He hoped it might be sufficiently unexpected enough to calm the kids down so they wouldn’t be scared when he appeared.

Locker was amazed that he had managed to remain on his feet the whole way as he reached the bus, saw the flat wheels even as it begin to slowly drift across the road towards the pavement. He waved at the kids inside the bus in a friendly manner. There were about fifteen people inside, two of whom were adults, presumably the driver and a teacher the rest were all primary school age. The bus driver must have lost control of the bus once the flutter started and now the bus teetered precariously close to the edge with each oscillation bringing the bus potentially nearer to certain doom. He quickly assessed the situation and concluded that trying to get them out and then back on foot across the moving bridge would be too dangerous.

He moved round to the rear of the bus, got a grip on the bumper and yanked the back of the bus off the ground, just as the road surface began to warp and shudder again. He was ‘rewarded’ with the bumper breaking free and flying towards him rather than the bus moving. He released his grip and dodged, allowing the bumper to soar over his head and crash into one of the empty vehicles behind him. Oops! To make things worse the bus drifted even closer still to the edge of the bridge as the driver tried to re-engage the brakes.

Meanwhile, Mary was standing by the mini-van trying to persuade the adults inside to let her in. She was hoping that she would then be able to bump the vehicle that had slide into its passenger side door out of the way and drive the mini-van off the bridge, or at least drive it closer to the abutment which seemed to be more stable than where they currently were.

Unfortunately, the Robinson family as she soon discovered them to be were utterly terrified and the dad, Alwyn seemed to be in too much of a blind panic to be able to drive it away or even unlock the door no matter how often he tried. They appeared to be too afraid to leave the van and them driving it away was obviously impossible. He seemed more worried about scratching the paintwork than getting to safety and Mary could smell the fear from them, ok maybe that was just the sudden stench of urine as the youngest of the kids bladder finally betrayed him.

Then through the torrential rain, stumbling towards her was Akira who gestured and the mini-van left the ground and began moving slowly above and over the abandoned cars towards the safety of the other side. Mary nodded her appreciation even as the Robinson family all began screaming at the sudden, unexpected levitation. He flew it as fast as he could towards land and released it as soon as it was safely out of danger. The car dropped about a foot onto the embankment, activating the airbags which helped stifle the occupant’s screams as suddenly they managed to figure out how to unlock their doors and stumble out before falling to the ground and making an offering of their stomach contents to whatever gods had delivered them to safely.

Seconds later the bridge again buckled and multiple lightning bolts stuck the surface. One narrowly missed Locker who gave a silent prayer of gratitude that he’d recently replaced all the metal in his exoskeleton. The hair on his arms and head stood upright with the static discharge from the near miss.

Through the rain and thunder they could finally hear Calypso’s screams of “filthy little Meta, you deserve to die!” as another massive gale hit and threatened to blow them and everyone else over the side of the bridge into the choppy waters below.

Akira knew they had to try to reduce the aeroelastic flutter that was threatening to tear the bridge apart. Then the teen on the bridge responded with another ground zero blast all around her, cracking the pavement and road and forcing the storm back from around her (though it also intensified the winds around the energy bubble she was projecting) before it collapsed once more as she prepared for the next attack.

Things were getting worse and Akira thought that if he could take the Meta standing nearby out of the equation then perhaps it would reduce the damage to the bridge. To that end, Akira braced himself against the nearest vehicle and taking a deep breath, forced himself to create a force cage round the young Meta, causing her next blast to be contained inside the shield that suddenly surrounded her. Beads of perspiration intermingled with the rain running down his face as Akira tried desperately to contain the force of the discharge. To his surprise the next oscillation to warp the bridge was, if anything, stronger and more violent than previously.

Locker waited out the undulation underfoot then grabbed the rear of the bus by the chassis, his exo-enhanced fingers gripped so tightly that he created grips in the metal frame as he began to walk slowly backwards away from the edge, across the bridge and towards the tower, bumping other vehicles out of the way as did so. After a few seconds, the Driver Mr Ottoman remembered to release the brakes. Locker smiled as he ordered the “Grease classic with the ‘it’s electrifying’ line in it” to play over his suit’s speakers as several more lightning strikes hit the bridge. Hopefully the bus would act as a faraday cage to protect its passengers and all being well his suit was non-conductive. The suit’s PA system blared back into life as it pumped out, “I got chills, they’re multiplying and I’m losing control, ‘cause the power you’re supplying, It’s electrifying!” He grimaced and cut the lyrics though as soon as he heard the next verse “You better shape up ‘cause I need a man…”

Having dragged the bus away from the edge, Locker put all of his suit’s servos output into trying to push the bus as fast as he could away from the malevolent presence of Calypso, whose attacks were even more intense now that the young Meta was no longer able to counter them. The young female was still pouring out the seismic blasts even though she herself, trapped inside Akira’s force cage, was getting badly buffeted by the explosions. Then their intensity tore open the cage and the full force of the discharge knocked Akira to the ground.

Meanwhile a once more insubstantial Banshee had flown into the air and into the storm allowing it to flow through her and unleashed a terrorising scream that even above the howl of the winds and storm tore at Calypso’s fragile sanity and caused her to stagger back, away from the bridge. This time the warping, sway of the bridge did not get any worse.

Akira gave up on trying to cage the Meta as he realised that rather than making things worse, the girl was apparently trying to counter the fluctuations and dial down the damage, harmonising with and soothing out the damage being caused by Calypso’s storm.

Instead, he braced himself to get his footing to try to time his movement correctly so he wouldn’t trip and ran across to the next occupied vehicle; a tanker which had got trapped in by several unoccupied cars having slammed into it. In the cabin was a large man in the driver’s seat, the cabin surrounded by several apparently active webcam’s. The legend printed on the top of his windscreen read ‘Big Rig Jake and Ruby – the internet Sensation’ and bore a YouTube web address underneath. What really caught his eye though was the yelping, highly aggressive springer spaniel trapped in with the driver, its hackles raised and teeth bared as it jumped around the cabin snapping out at the approaching Akira in abject fear and terror, even the semi-conscious Jake was at risk from the terrified mutt. To make things worse the tanker was apparently leaking something that smelt highly acidic.

The legend on the side of the vehicle proclaimed that the tanker was from a biotech subdivision of Severn Avionics Corporation. The documentation on the windscreen further proclaimed that the cargo of toxic waste had been on its way to a biohazard disposal plant somewhere in Midsummer when the attack had occurred.

It was obvious that the dog (Ruby?) was currently far too terrified to obey commands or be handled, but Akira had an idea. He checked that Jake was wearing his seatbelt. He also hoped what he was about to do would reduce the possibility of any more of the tanker’s contents spilling out, adding to the hazards. He waited until the next wobble hit tearing the tarmac apart, creating crevices in the road and twisting the centre of the bridge into a pretzel with a 15^o tilt towards the water below. He held on until the latest oscillation stabilised then just before it twisted back he rushed over to the cab and unleashed his Theurgical-Kinesis, gently turning and flipping the tanker over so it floated on its back, the wheels now on top. It also meant the angry, scared spaniel was now standing, shaken and even more afraid, on the roof of the cabin but thankfully out of reach of ‘Big Rig Jake’ who was still safely strapped into his seat dangling upside down. The crack in the tank was now on the ‘top’ of the floating upside-down vehicle and was no longer pouring out, though some of the fluorescent green gunk still dripped down the side of the tanker.

With that, Akira began the long walk back across the warping bridge towards the safety of the land with the tanker following behind floating above the stranded vehicles. He. Just. Had. To. Remain. Focused…

Meanwhile Locker had hit a problem. An empty car had slammed into the side of the bridge in front of him blocking his passage. He placed the bus down, walked over as carefully as he could with the road surface constantly warping underfoot and bracing himself against the edge of the bridge fired off a stream of webbing to one side of the car and anchored the other end to the edge of the bridge. He then fired a second stream of webbing at the opposite side of the vehicle. Holding on to the ‘cable’, Locker reached back, grabbed the first series of stands and used them both to hammer throw the vehicle into the sky. The car catapulted over the edge of the bridge straight at a shocked Calypso. It hit her, rendering her incapacitated and knocking her deeper into the storm before the car vanished into the frenzied grey waves below.

He smiled. He’d actually been able to slam it into Calypso AND clear the path; a two for oner he thought as he mentally hi-fived himself. Obstruction removed, he returned to the bus and continued his march to safety with his onboard cargo of now cheering kids. Unfortunately, the storm was still in full force even without Calypso’s conscious direction.

Meanwhile Banshee had unleashed a shattering shriek but for once, she wasn’t trying to tear something apart but instead harmonise with and counter the effect of the storm on the bucking bridge. It took her a few seconds and an eternity of waiting until just the right moment before he could unleash her mystical screech, which to her joy appeared to be working, countering the oscillations, however it caused several of the main support cables to break free and fall across the bridge.

To Locker’s surprise and horror, a cable collided into him causing him to have to fall to one side and knocking him down, leaving him momentarily dazed. His ‘cargo’ suddenly bounced as the rest of the massive metallic cable fell across the bus, buckling the roof and the ‘slap’ of the massive loose cable hitting the metal of the bus roof created multiple sparks. Damn, that felt close. He got up and grabbed the cable, pulled it off the roof of the bus then ignoring the smashed windows asked the driver to try to drive it to safety despite the burst tyres, driving it on the rims if necessary. Locker grabbed the back of the bus again and taking advantage of the slowed warping underfoot began to push the bus clear as the rest of the cable collapsed on top of him. He felt the impact but managed to direct it away from the slowly moving bus, though he knew even with his exoskeleton he’d have some serious bruises in the morning.

Without Calypso’s active control, the storm was slowly dissipating. The quake-creating teen had resumed her blasts, countering the warping and slowing the bridge hopefully before it tore itself into pieces. This allowed Akira to run passed Locker as he placed his floating tanker on a parking area off the access road still upside down.

Dispatch interrupted their commdot transmissions to inform them that she had received a call from the ambulance on the bridge asking for assistance as their patient was experiencing complications during labour and was about to suffer a breech birth.

In her long and very eventful life, Mary had attended and helped with over a dozen births. She was also the best member of the team to get to the Ambulance and help. Turning insubstantial and rising into the air, she ignored the slowly recovering Calypso floating in the middle of the storm and flew towards the ambulance.

The driver had obviously attempted to slowly move the ambulance back to the nearest abutment, which was only 20 metres away and had a much more stable road surface. His manoeuvres however had trapped the ambulance in between a number of abandoned and drifting vehicles, which had smashed into it jamming the doors, blowing a tyre out and trapping everyone inside.

Unfortunately, they were trapped on the far side of the bridge from the hospital, and there was no other route that could get them there in time to hopefully save the baby and mum.

Banshee dropped down and phased through the walls of the ambulance where she resumed her Mary appearance as she checked out the situation. The patient was strapped to a trolley, unconscious but the baby was apparently alive and obviously kicking. Unfortunately, the baby had not turned in the womb was currently upside down and in a bad position with its legs folded, as if sitting cross-legged. The mum looked to be eleven months pregnant.

The driver was trapped in the front of the ambulance. The bruised and battered paramedic in the back introduced herself as Estelle and her companion upfront as Ricky. They had been driving their patient Lynn to the nearest hospital at Brichester, when they’d become trapped on the bridge. Lynn had previously elected to forego most modern medical attention until now, insisting on “natural” childbirth; unfortunately, she was now experiencing complications due to a threatening breech birth.

This kind of breech birth was the most dangerous to both mother and child. They had been rushing to the hospital, which is about 5 miles to the south to perform a caesarean section when they had crashed. Estelle had apparently broken her arm and was now struggling through the pain.

Thankfully Mary had dealt with a similar situation once before, in a croft in Ireland. She did wish she could just phase her hands into the womb and then turn the baby directly but of course, she couldn’t control her insubstantiality in that way.

Instead, she used her harp to sooth down both Estelle and Lynn then began to massage Lynn’s belly hoping to turn the baby from a breech to a head-down position while it was still in the uterus, by applying pressure to her stomach in order to turn it from the outside.

Time was now their enemy as she began to turn the baby round before it decided to ‘arrive’.

Labour was quick, her mystical healing had caused mum to relax sufficiently that the birth came rapidly once the baby had turned and there were no further problems. Laying the baby in mum’s now conscious arms, she tied off the umbilical cord and separated it with a scalpel, content that she had helped bring an innocent life into this world.

Back on the bridge, with the storm abating, a scream for help could finally be heard emanating from close to the Ambulance as a couple who’d been walking close by when the bridge had ‘misbehaved’ were now in danger. Mary broadcast it to the others.

The young Chinese-looking woman had accidentally been thrown over the side of the bridge by the swaying. She was now hanging on precariously to the edge above the savage waves in the river below. Her partner or boyfriend was leaning dangerously over the side trying to reach her whilst screaming for help.

To make things worse, Calypso was recovering and looked as if she might be about to recommence her attacks on the Meta.

Locker, having watched the school bus drive to safety, turned his attention to the girl hanging off the bridge and began sprinting back to help, his feet creating small craters in the shattered tarmac as he did so.

As soon as he was close enough, he fired of several strands of his webbing at the girl hanging off the bridge. He also fired some strands at the male as well to secure him so he didn’t tip over and yanked them back away from the side and into the middle of the road. They landed bruised but safe and well away from the edge.

Meanwhile Akira was checking out the other vehicles for any trapped people when he noticed through the dissipating storm that there was an occupied car this side of the ambulance. The car had ‘furries’ inside, three of them all in full costume. As he watched through the thinning rain he saw the passenger door fly open and a figure in a furry costume collapse out onto his hands and knees.

Akira distantly recognised the costumes from a children’s programme he’d seen as a child – the Banana Splits, a fictional rock band composed of four funny animal characters that had appeared in an hour-long, packaged children’s television programme originally broadcast in the 70’s. To his surprise, he not only remembered that the figures still trapped in the vehicle were identical with the costumed hosts of that show; he even found he remembered their names, Fleegle, Bingo and Drooper. The keyboard player, Snorky seemed to missing for some reason.

Given how rarely he’d ever seen a television growing up, he was surprised he remembered them so well.

The driver’s door opened and another of the costumed figures fell out onto the stabilising road, the costumed head thrown back as a young, longhaired blonde male threw up. He was followed by the remaining costumed figure as they tried to stumble along the bridge towards safety.

Akira smiled, if they got into trouble he’d head over and rescue them but in the meantime he had Big Rig Jake to liberate from the tanker. He cast the Illusion of Idolon on himself so he would look like a big friendly springer spaniel as he teleported into the cab to try to get the driver out.  He hoped the presence of another spaniel would calm the dog down. It didn’t. Ruby, if anything, continued to bark wildly and was going crazy at the sudden appearance of another dog in the cab.  Akira reached over and quickly opened the cab door to allow the dog loose to run its scare off whilst he grabbed the driver and helped Jake out of his seatbelt and into a waiting ambulance.

This close, it was clear that the tanker was more damaged than he’d previously realised and was now leaking toxic sludge from a number of cracks. He could smell the fumes, which began to overwhelm his senses as the sludge began to pool round the back of the vehicle. To Akira’s surprise the dog had not ran away and stayed nearby, trying to protect his owner from the rescuers coming towards them. Akira shrugged as he carried Jake to safety and placed him on the ground. Ah well, that was their problem now.

The storm was getting worse again as Calypso recovered. A number of lightning strikes flashed overhead and narrowly missed hitting Locker for a second time. He couldn’t help wonder if Calypso was picking on him because he was the newbie on the team?

The seismic teen used the relative ‘quiet’ in the storm to unleash a massive burst of ‘quake’ straight at Calypso, giving up trying to balance out the resumed twisting of the bridge for the moment – it hit with such force the recovering Calypso was knocked unconscious, dissipated into the rain and vanished. As she did so, the storm again began to slowly subside.“She’ll be back!” muttered Mary as she saw what had occurred through the window of the ambulance. The ambulance was safe for the moment as she phased through the door and flew off in Banshee form to get the Crate and return with it. Her plan was then to phase them out of the ambulance and take them to the fleet of medics gathered on the English side of the bridge.

Outside, the three Banana Splits want-to-be’s were crawling along the road on the tilted side of the bridge back towards the Welsh side. The team smiled and let them though they would keep their eyes on them to make sure they got to the other side safely.

The bridge was no longer looking as though it was about to collapse but it was damaged so badly that it would be unusable until it had been repaired. The middle of the bridge was warped and shattered.

Akira changed his appearance back and levitated over to the teen, landing beside her. He explained, “At first I didn’t realise you were trying to calm the storm. You did a great job by the way.  I initially thought you had been working with Calypso so sorry about throwing the force cage around you earlier. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of us, we go by The Balance and I’m Akira?” He held out his hand but the teen didn’t respond.

She looked at him, still obviously annoyed and then spoke, quietly. “I understand. I didn’t really know what I was doing. I’ve just recently gained my abilities and then suddenly out of nowhere that bitch turns up and attacks. It wasn’t my fault, I was just trying to defend myself against her. If I’ve done any damage it was only in self-defence. They won’t arrest me for this will they?”

She was obviously worried that the damage to the bridge would be blamed on her. She had a point, she wasn’t HCP-licensed or insured and she obviously needed training in her powers, despite doing such a decent job.

He tried to calm her down, “Don’t worry, you did good, you pushed that storm away from the bridge and saved lives. You don’t have anything to worry about, we’ll explain that you were trying to stop the bridge being destroyed with all the people on it. Now about yourself, there is a very good support network for people who’ve recently come into their Meta abilities.”

Head down, she replied, “I’ve nowhere to go I’ve been kicked out by my parents. When my powers first activated it accidentally did a bit of a job on my bedroom and, ah… My parents have sort of assumed I’m a danger to them now.” She went silent and her cheeks flushed with shame and embarrassment.

Akira offered her a lift if it would help. “If the others are in agreement we might even be able to provide you with accommodation.” She gave him that look that teens give adults when they assume that any help will come with a price tag, possibly one of a sexual nature. She obviously didn’t trust him.

Her voice got hard, “Look I’m seventeen, I’m old enough to look after myself. I’ll figure it out.” It was Akira’s turn to get embarrassed as he realised what she had to be thinking.

“Ok, look here’s our card with our contact information on it, just get in touch if you ever need anything. In case you want to get in touch with us or leave a message?” It’ not just me there are others who can help, there’s Mary, I’m not sure yet about Jerome you might be a bit wary of him at first, he’s new. As for myself, I’m only a few years older than you so you’d be safe. I’ve been DBS checked and everything…”

As an afterthought, he took the card back and added the contact details for Claremont High, as a possible answer to the seventeen year olds’ future. He explained that the school might be able to help as they had Metas in the school. It was another place she could seek assistance as the school had facilities to help enhanced teens come to terms with their powers.

He realised he was babbling but wasn’t sure why. Then he was hit by the realisation that without thinking about it he’d used Mary and Jerome’s real names not their hero identity with her.

He tried to brush it off, hoping his stupid blunder hadn’t sunk in, “As I said, I’m Akira. What is your name?”

She replied, “I’d rather not say, at least for the moment. Thank you for your help, I think I better get going before The Police turn up and start blaming all this damage on me. Ah, can you help me get off the bridge without having to talk with the Police? I, I just don’t want the hassle.”

When he didn’t respond immediately, she shook her head slightly and began walking towards the English side of the bridge.

He was still concerned about calling his teammates by their first names to someone they didn’t actually know. She was obviously distrustful of them, heck she was distrustful of everyone and with good reason. Damn, why had he done that? Why had he allowed his mouth to run away with him?

He decided to cast a spell on her. He called upon The Iron Queen and Mistress of the Seven Hells, the demoness Shatachna and gestured as he unleashed Shatachna’s Seal of Silence on her, calling on the Lady of Pain to bind her tongue so she couldn’t tell anyone else the other team member’s identity.

The mystical spell he cast swirled around her. It would prevent her from speaking of or communicating about their names in any way, she would retain awareness of the information but just couldn’t communicate it to anyone else.

She looked back at him curiously, as he finished his mystical gestures but he couldn’t be sure whether or not it had worked as she walked away.

Locker headed back. When he got to where the bus was parked he took a few minute to introduce himself to the teacher and driver as “Locker of the Balance”, high-fiving each of the kids as they exited their bus and headed to the reception area set up behind the Police roadblock and loving the kids’ chant of “Locker, Lock-er!” His fan club had apparently just increased in size as he switched on his suit camera to record their mantra.

Maybe he should consider the team’s AI, Frankie’s suggestion that he act as the host for the team’s drone camera, Tinks and consider whether to allow Frankie direct contact to his suit?

Meanwhile Mary was using the Crate to go rescue Lynn, the baby and the two paramedics from the Bridge while Locker ran back and tore the back doors open to get them out as well as then rescuing the crawling Banana Splits and the young couple he’d rescued from the edge; Zhang Wei and her boyfriend Dan.

As they loaded everyone onto the Crate an explosion wrecked the edge of the bridge, apparently a fracture gas main had exploded close to where Zhang Wei had gone over the side. If they’d been still been close by when that erupted they’d have been roasted alive.

The teen Meta had walked slowly passed the Police and gathered ambulances heading towards the nearby town of Brichester. She was effectively homeless and seemingly alone; perhaps they should contact Claremont and see if they could help her? Akira put in the call, they’d just have to file their incident reports later.