Since their return from the “frozen wastelands of the North”, life around the globe had very quickly returned to normal, though people were still questioning both how and why communications across the Northern Hemisphere had been first blocked and then restored.
The Balance, reluctantly, had decided to keep quiet about their part in its restoration, not least because although Mary felt she could trust her pseudo-relation Rory, they weren’t sure they could anyone else in G.R.E.E.T.’s Covert Surveillance Bureau. That was despite the fact that after the St. Kilda raid, CSB were already aware of the Unity’s hidden presence on Earth. After all, who knew what weapons or dangerous technology might exist in that primordial remnant of another civilisation or what CSB might do if they got their hands on them?
So they reluctantly decided to keep the ancient base and its currently frozen occupants presence beneath the ice a secret from everyone for the moment; everyone that is except for the members of Arctic Rescue who already knew and would continue to monitor the situation and their boss Maddie who they swore to secrecy. Thankfully, beyond being attacked and captured on their ship by the mechanoids, the surviving crew members of the ship ‘Atlantic Nights’ had no conscious memories of their subsequent imprisonment.
The living metal mechanoids’ apparent technological ‘relationship’ with the gene-altering nanites known as the Silver Storm seemed to indicate that the Terminus’ might have either found or stolen them from another race and as a result, it was something that perhaps they didn’t fully understand or have complete control over. She was not sure what that indicated but Mace couldn’t help feel that might turn out to be important.
Akira meanwhile kept muttering something about global warming being a conspiracy though what that had to do with the Unity none of the others had the slightest idea.
The presence of the Unity primitives and the fact that the base obviously had been designed with them in mind still bothered Akira. Even the Unity had seemed surprised to discover them in that place and if they hadn’t been responsible for them being there then where had they come from and why were they here? The Unity had said that the ‘ancient’ race that had built the base had found surviving elements of their racial prototype, primitives, hiding here and they blasphemed by attempting to re-enslave them as well as geneering them.’
He did recall something he’d briefly read in the Testament of Carnamagos about the presence of gigantic polymorphic creatures. He went and checked it out and sure enough Carnamagos’ black demons did fit their description though he claimed to have encountered them in a temple on an island in the middle of what Akira thought might be the Indian Ocean. Did that mean that they were in fact the “Shoggoths” mentioned in The Library’s copy of the “Black Book of Al Azif,” that the mage Abdul Alhazred had apparently been so terrified of?
Too many unresolved questions. Akira was glad when Jeeves suggested they might wish to patrol. He was especially interested in a new exhibit at the Ashmolean Museum that had opened today. A recent excavation of a temple near Pompeii had uncovered an artefact known as the Janus Mask which was believed to possess mystical powers. Regardless, it was definitely a unique puzzle in that it was composed of two metallic masks made of rare metals which apparently could be opened if you knew the secret, to reveal the face of the ‘real’ Janus. Janus was one of the earliest of the Roman deities, but unlike other Roman and Greek gods, there was a legend that Janus may have actually lived and that this puzzle if solved revealed his true face.
The mystical element was to do with Janus being considered the custodian of the universe, the god of the beginnings and the ends, presiding over every entrance and departure. His usual image of two faces apparently represented not only the past and future but also wisdom. Akira wondered if he might be allowed the opportunity to touch it and take a reading of its past?
As they got close to the Ashmolean Museum they heard alarms sound and saw dozens of people fleeing the entrance of the building into the streets, some of whom they immediately recognised. Separating and running away through the crowd were three elemental figures; though according to Police reports there were usually four of them, known as the Factor Four – Professor Fathom, Granite, Pyre and Sylph. Separating out they could see a tall stony giant that they had last seen singing a karaoke duet with Young Sam at the Endeavour, Granite. He clutched something tightly to his chest as he bounded towards a nearby shopping precinct. The leader Fathom had changed into a fluidic state and was running, no flowing towards a nearby alley and the fireball known as Pyre seemed to change back and forth from his ‘flame on’ form into human and had disappeared, possibly inside one of the stores. There was no sign of the air elemental Sylph but she was believed to be capable of turning near invisible when in her gaseous state.
As if on cue, Dispatch confirmed over their earpieces that the Museum had just been robbed of its newest exhibition, the mask having just vanished from sight from its pedestal. Sylph’s work? The museum was in the process of being locked down but it seemed that was too little too late going by the Factor Four fleeing.
The team immediately acted on their assumption. Dispatch confirmed that Police wanted the members of the Factor Four for questioning. The four of them had been seen attending the exhibition when the mask suddenly just vanished and now at least three of the Factor Four members were seen running away immediately afterwards, before the Museum could be sealed tight. It never occurred to any of them that they had absolutely no evidence that the Factor Four had carried out the crime and that they had insufficient evidence to do anything other than detain them for the Police.
The team were later to regret that since Adam’s departure from the team that they had stopped automatically deploying their camera drone, Tinks.
Dismounting, Mace knew that the alley Fathom had fled down was a dead end. The others also split up with Banshee trying to see if she could find the insubstantial and apparently invisible Sylph and Akira electing to give Granite chase with a shout of, “Oh Granite, I need to give you a cavity search… You have so many cavities to search.”
Mace chased after Professor Fathom into the alley only to hear a piercing scream of pain. As she got closer she saw that he has been impaled by a strangely familiar crossbow bolt mere centimetres away from his heart. She then noticed that the bolt piercing Fathom’s fluidic chest was one of hers, one of her original lethal bolts she’d brought over with her from France. She’d subsequently changed them for her current ballistic baton rounds but there was no mistaking the bolt – it was her unique design.
Fathom was staring at her, screaming, “No more! No more!” and begged her not to fire again as he inched back away from her towards the alley wall. A small crowd had begun to gather at the entrance way to the alley. She instantly knew this was a setup, she (they?) were being framed but why and by who? She hadn’t used this type of bolt since her fatal encounter with Abyss. Unfortunately she knew there would be no fingerprints as her costume prevented that in her case and it had likely been wiped clean of prints before it had been fired at Fathom.
Fathom’s fear and pain seemed genuine but then again how do you read an expression on someone who was seemingly formed of liquid? She immediately asked Dispatch to send for an ambulance, knowing that no matter what she couldn’t remove the bolt in case Fathom somehow bled out. The bolt was lodged deep in his chest mere centimetres away from his transparent, beating liquid heart. She heard Akira suggest she give him first aid and possibly consider cauterising the wound but she knew she lacked the skills and who knew what effect heat would have on his elemental state?
Perhaps? Mace had an idea and immediately manifested her hypnotic gyroscope from her glove and tried to hypnotise him – supposedly to get him to relax and not risk the wound becoming any worse but she had also hoped to find out who or what was framing them. She struggled to get him to focus on the spinning compulsion but eventually she had him in a hypnotic state of calm though not deep enough unfortunately to compel him to tell her the truth.
In the nearby shopping precinct, Akira was sure Granite was clutching something glittering to his chest and it was about the same size as the missing mask. Then the crowd got between him and his quarry, their camera phones flashing away before reluctantly stepping aside to allow him to get through to Granite. The crowd seemed to be claiming that he’d just attacked the massive creature seconds before and had stolen whatever it was before teleporting away. Standing in front of him Granite seemed genuinely angry and struck hard on the ground just as Akira elected to turn himself invisible. A second later a wave of intense kinetic energy caused the pavement to buckle and knocked most of the gathered crowd down. Now invisible, Akira had anticipated the move however and had managed to remain standing, riding out the tremors.
Just standing behind him though was a near invisible air elemental and suddenly Akira felt the air being stolen from his lungs as Sylph began suffocating him by manifesting a vacuum. Banshee saw the incorporeal Sylph, saw the effect on the public nearby and knew that Akira had to be under attack. She couldn’t risk an area attack such as her terrorising scream without affecting the gathered crowd so instead she headed in, putting her hand on Sylph and unleashed a corrupting touch. It worked, spectacularly. Sylph suddenly collapsed to the ground unconscious. To Banshee’s surprise she remained in her insubstantial state despite being out for the count.
Meanwhile Akira reappeared, struggling for breath as he unleashed a mystical blast at Granite. The blast chipped fragments from his stone body and knocked him backwards, leaving him dazed and bewildered as he struggled to remain standing.
Then there was an explosion of intense heat as a flying fiery figure swooped in and unleashed a blast at where Akira had been standing only a second before. Pyre had found them rather than the other way round.
The explosion finally convinced the people gathered nearby to flee into the nearby shops leaving just the five of them outside. An ambulance siren could be heard as the vehicle screeched to a halt by the nearby alleyway. But before its arrival could register with any of them Granite unleashed another shockwave.
Then all hell broke loose as Mace ran into the precinct and unleashed baton rounds at all of the remaining Factor Four, even at the unconscious Sylph at Akira’s urging that she also “Hit the spliff!” The bolts fired against Pyre all burnt up but the kinetic force of the bolts still dazed him. The bolts against Granite shattered on his rock-like skin but it did distract him enough to allow Akira to get in another good blast that again smashed into him but seemed to do minimal damage.
Banshee took the opportunity though to rush between Mace and Pyre and unleash a terrorising scream at the fiery figure. The sonic attack did less damage than she had hoped but it did cause him to land and apparently surrender, reverting into a human form as he did so. Then he saw the ambulance crew about to load Fathom into the back of the ambulance and he rushed over, ignoring Banshee’s shout to stay where he was as he stopped at the stretcher. There was a sudden scream and a cloud of steam as he stepped back. Had he just cauterised Fathom’s wound?
Meanwhile Mace and Akira were still attacking a reticent Granite, who on seeing Pyre surrender and Fathom being loaded onto an ambulance suddenly just gave up, demanding loudly that he wanted a lawyer and Police to be called as he was merely responding to having being assaulted first. That’s when they saw Granite was wearing an ear piece; had he just been ordered to surrender and if so, by whom?
Akira started to interrogate Granite and Pyre, asking “who’s controlling you? Who is your boss?”
Granite loudly announced that “We are being picked on because we are Metas. You naturally assumed that as we were Metas that we also had to be thieves and attacked us, even going as far as using lethal force on us for no reason other than we are different, shame on you.”
They couldn’t help notice that there were several reporters already present in the crowd. Their presence meant someone had apparently tipped them off beforehand. This whole situation stank. They had definitely been set up.
What was certain was that the Janus Mask was gone, apparently stolen by ‘Akira’ according to bystanders who saw him take something from Granite before teleporting away. Mace tried to check their phones but the videos and photos were very inconclusive – something had been stolen from Granite but it was unclear what he was holding before a familiar-looking male arm snatched it and then vanished as though it had been teleported away. It looked convincing though as if someone had teleported in, grabbed whatever it was and then teleported away immediately. In truth Akira wished he was that good.
When the Police arrived they found they had no choice but to arrest The Balance as well as the other three. Marcus was not allowed to debrief them and they found themselves calling Jimmy the Fish even though he was a corporate and not a criminal lawyer to be present during their interrogation. If nothing else it was clear that they had jumped the gun. Fathom’s wound (which the hospital discovered he could repair himself) and the camera footage of the theft did seem to show they had crossed a line, especially when they were then unable to produce the missing mask (something that Granite claimed had been just a box of chocolates).
There was no physical evidence against Factor Four and they were subsequently released pending further investigation. The questioning of the Balance took longer and as they thought it was all over they discovered that several of the people who had been apparently knocked down by Granite’s shockwave attacks had claimed that in fact it was Banshee who’d assaulted them not Granite. They claimed to have been subjected to a terrorising scream. One of the victims had been using their mobile at the time and the sonic attack had been recorded. When it was played back to her though, Banshee immediately realised that the sonic attack had been artificially reproduced and demanded that it be compared with actual one of her using her powers. It helped sow the seeds of doubt in their interviewers. Especially when Jimmy found out that the person claiming to have videoed Banshee’s assault was in fact an actor.
A tech analysis was undertaken straight away, though when Banshee undertook to demonstrate her scream all of the technicians were forced to flee the room in abject terror which confirmed to even the most doubting of Thomas’s that the other scream was obviously a fake and incapable of causing the assault claimed.
As they were due to leave, Banshee and Akira had a thought. They really needed to examine the crossbow bolt fired at Fathom and carry out a reading. They knew from their interview that the bolt was at the station bagged up and was now being stored in the evidence locker. As soon as they were clear of the station, the gathered reporters and Jimmy had left after giving them a strict warning to keep their heads down for the next few weeks, Banshee turned herself and Akira invisible and insubstantial and they went back inside the station to examine the crossbow bolt.
It took them several minutes to find it and then find a place where Akira could hide from sight as he tried to take a postcognitive reading. As the memories flowed over him, Akira confirmed the bolt was genuinely one of Maces, one of her originals but that someone in a mask had picked it up from the scene of one of her earlier battles and retained it, a masked face that looked very familiar from back when The Balance was first being formed. It was the man known only as the Professor or M. Unfortunately Akira wasn’t able to get a reading about the person who’d fired it at Fathom, but knowing that the Professor was involved was enough to confirm their theory that someone was out to get them and they had links to the Labyrinth.
Unfortunately psychic abilities weren’t counted as reliable evidence so there was nothing they could do about it other than revealing to them who was apparently behind the assault on their character.
They turned invisible and insubstantial again and left the station, heading back to the BASEment.
They had barely been back an hour when there was a call from Marcus, “why did you do it?” Confused, the team asked what they were supposed to have done only to be told that the team were caught on camera shortly after they were released attacking Professor Worth who was staying at a hotel in London. They hadn’t succeeded, but a blast from “Akira” and a sonic attack by “Banshee” had apparently caused part of the foyer to collapse on top of staff and guests injuring several but thankfully not killing anyone. There were calls for the team to be charged with reckless endangerment and in addition the decision has been made to question the team about the attempted murder of Worth and he has no choice but to ask them to return for further questioning.
Again there was mobile phone video, this time it clearly showed all three of them attacking Worth outside the hotel and screaming that they wanted to kill Worth before fleeing as Armed Response and AEGIS turn up in response. The images this time were clear though Mace noticed that they only ever spoke when they were facing away from the camera. She asked if this was the original footage he was showing them then asked for it to be replayed again (signalling to Frankie to make a full copy of the footage for analysis).
After showing them the footage for the second time, Marcus explained that he needed them to come in for questioning and ended the call with “It’s not looking good for you. Best bring in a change of clothes as you are likely to be staying a while…”
As soon as the call ended, Mace asked Frankie to examine the footage to see if it was “fake news” and have been digitally altered. Akira pointed out that it was worse; it was people physically pretending to be them and hurting people in the process. Banshee did wonder why they never spoke when facing the camera but Mace pointed out the difficulty in lip-syncing especially if for any reason they weren’t speaking English. Carpathian perhaps? There was no end to the number of people that would like to see them arrested and their reputation destroyed.
A few seconds later Frankie confirmed that the video recording was heavily encrypted and in a way that reminded her of the work of someone Annie knew called Motherboard. It would take some time to confirm and suggested that perhaps they might be best to ask Annie to help.
To their surprise Banshee said that he didn’t trust her in this situation and was suspicious because if she was friends with this Motherboard would she be willing to help them if it meant her friend would be charged instead?
Frankie merely pointed out that <<I said it might be the work of Motherboard, it will take some time to break the encryption. I can attempt it unassisted if you want but it would be quicker if I had Annie’s assistance.>> They reluctantly agreed.
That meant they only had to decide whether to comply and head back to the station or as Akira put it, “Go on the lam”. A few minutes later Frankie interrupted their discussion about going on the run to say that there was a report on the BBC they needed to see. It was Superintendent Julia Cunningham who issued a statement that she was personally going to investigate the situation.
That decided it, if they went in their doppelgängers would just stop their attacks and disappear but what if they stayed free?
Sure enough a couple of hours later Frankie announced that The Balance were apparently robbing the E.B. Nezzer’s Toyland Store at St. Hughes Shopping Precinct. They immediately set off but this time Banshee made sure to take Tinks the camera drone with them. Its sealed evidence-tapes would hopefully help to exonerate them if they managed to confront their doubles.
There was some brief television footage of their doubles to watch as they headed to Toyland. To anyone who didn’t know them intimately it looked like them though the double of Banshee was very similar in appearance to her bansidhe-altered self but this was more like it had been put together by someone who’d never actually seen her and was working from other people’s descriptions. The others though were spot on.
They arrived at the store, pushed through the crowd and gathered officers making it very clear that they were under constant observation from the recording drone and had obviously just arrived then they headed into the store before the Police could stop or arrest them.
Hopefully their arrival after the initial assault and attempted robbery would be noticed by some of the gathered media but somehow they doubted it would get much footage. This was an attack on their character as much as it was an attempt to frame them and the media outside were apparently in on it. The internal store cameras went offline stopping the transmission so they had to know that the originals had arrived.
Inside, the other “Akira” was apparently transmuting the floor around the captives but whatever he was doing used a lot of heat as the tiling was melting rather than changing its atomic makeup at the molecular level. He did look just like him though. Could this be the Factor Four in disguise? Pyre could be the other Akira, Sylph Banshee which left say Granite in human form to play Mace?
Before they could respond to the three in front of them, the pseudo-Banshee turned and unleashed a sonic attack at Mace. It hurt her ears but it lacked the terror of the real Banshee’s mystical scream and she managed to stand her ground. At the same time the pseudo-Akira teleported away from the captives halfway towards the real Akira and unleashed a blast. The real Akira dodged it realising that it was pure energy without any mystical element to it at all. He did notice though that the blast didn’t emanate from the figure in front of him, despite the blast of light appearing from his pseudos’ hands, it had come in from a different direction, from the location his double had apparently teleported from in fact.
He suddenly began wondering about smoke, mirrors and misdirection. He responded with a mystical blast at the location his other had teleported from and was rewarded with a flash of movement; someone in a black jumpsuit had moved faster than whatever illusion disguised his presence could compensate for. Smoke and mirrors for sure.
Meanwhile Banshee turned insubstantial and flew straight at her double – and proceeded to go through the figure as though it didn’t exist. Had it been another her and both had been insubstantial then they would, should have been able to make contact with each other despite being out of phase with this universe. That it didn’t happen made her think this was an illusion, a hologram possibly? Someone was duplicating her replacement from when she had been stuck in the Faerie Realm, which meant there had to be a holographic projector somewhere, on drones perhaps?
Then things turned dangerous as the other Mace unleashed a bolt at Akira, a bolt that exploded just before impact peppering his face and arms with small, sharp fragments of shrapnel which left him dazed, bleeding and temporarily deaf.
He turned to his Mace and smiled, “I’m okay but how dare they imitate you so badly?” he spoke too loudly and he couldn’t hear her reply but her response was satisfying as she unleashed a cascade of baton rounds at her own double, hammering her. Then she realised what was wrong, the doubles’ fired bolt had first appeared several centimetres away from her hand, materialising out of thin air as though fired from an invisible handbow, not a wristbow like hers!
In the air the real banshee tried to unleash a corrupting touch on the fake version of her but all she achieved was a spark of light as she somehow interacted with ions in the air even as something nearby attempted to sonically blast her back. Now she was sure, disguised somewhere there was a holographic projector and that was the source of both the Banshee imagery and the attacks.
She unleashed a shattering shriek and was delighted to see that half a dozen small drones suddenly crashed to the ground as the other Banshee flickered out of existence.
On the ground, the drones’ deactivation caused the remaining drones to flicker, uncloaking and revealing the presence of Akira’s double, though in reality he no more resembled him without the holographic disguise than the blonde with the hand crossbow attacking Mace did her. Was blondie guilty of culturally appropriating Mace’s look, Akira wondered?
Akira unleashed a mystical blast as his now not so identical double and was rewarded as he collapsed unconscious to the ground. His hands still radiating powerful waves of intense energy; he must have had a glass jaw. He fell on top of one of the holographic drones circling him and the Akira overlay vanished completely. But before the ‘real’ Akira could celebrate Blondie fired one of her concussion bolts at him and he felt himself collapse to the ground. This really had not been his day as he tried to focus on recovering and hoped she wasn’t readying a second attack as he was in no condition to dodge it.
Thankfully Banshee, the real Banshee, ended the threat by unleashing a terrorising scream at her and the captives who until now had been busy videoing the fight.
The scream dropped the fake Mace and washed over the ‘captives’ who unable to escape the blast also dropped to their knees in horror screaming that “this wasn’t in our contracts!” and Don’t hurt us we’re only actors..!”
They checked both doppelgängers – without their holographic disguises, Frankie was able to identify the two opponents as minor criminals from mainland Europe, Collider (who had impersonated Akira) and Quarrel (who had played Mace).
The Faux Balance had been using small weapon drones fitted with hologram projectors to imitate the Balance and their powers while cloaking themselves. Their apparent aim had been to render the real Balance unconscious then escape leaving them with the loot to be blamed for the attempted robbery and ruin their reputations.
Before the Police entered, led by a smiling Marcus, Akira quickly pocketed two of the small projector drones to examine properly later.
It seems Annie had successfully unencrypted the video footage and had been able to show the deep fake overlays used to disguise the attack on Worth, but for her hacking skills it would have worked too.
This was an attack they hadn’t considered before; altering CCTV and mobile phone footage to implicate them. Alter the location data from their phones to show them as being somewhere they were not. Whip up some fake but convincing social media accounts with fake photos and accounts to implicate them. There are all sorts of things that such a villain could do to create the illusion that they have gone bad with the aim of discrediting the team.
As the ‘hostages’ were being escorted out by the Police Akira heard one of them, he wasn’t sure who, mutter quietly “Taurus will get revenge for this…” He tried to work out which of the fake hostages had said it but the Police were too busy taking them away for questioning.
Taurus? The bull star sign? Wasn’t there a bull, okay a man-bull connected with the Labyrinth of Knossos? Maybe it was time to have a talk with the genius turned hero that called himself Daedalus; he claimed to be both immortal and the original of that name, perhaps he might know why Labyrinth called itself that and if there was any connection to the original maze of the Minotaur that he was supposed to have designed?
Aftermath
The story of their recent exploits hadn’t yet seen publication when Frankie called them into the lounge. She’d found a podcast that was already proving very popular and it wouldn’t have been long before the story became mainstream. It had been recorded by a casual local reporter with the Wessex Daily News called Graf Geothe who was obviously trying to make a name for himself. This particular podcast consisted of a series of unsubstantiated allegations by a woman calling herself Beth Coffin who was hinting that Akira had once beaten her up. The woman even hinted that Akira might have raped her many years ago as part of a satanic ritual when he resided at Skomer Vale before the Balance were famous.
All Akira would say was “But I’ve taken a vow of chastity how could I have done it?” Seems he would need to have a long conversation with Jimmy the Fish.
Superhero Adventures, UK Style 