Superhero Adventures, UK Style

(Adapted from the published adventure ‘Power Play’ by Lyz Liddell)

It was 11pm on a cool, cloudy night as Mary found herself standing in the middle of an overpass above the eight lanes of the M25 motorway. She was watching the Police in the distance chasing a trio of stolen tanker trucks filled with liquid nitrogen as they sped northwards towards her. She had a minute or two at most before they would be close enough for her to act.

Once more, she was on her own. Her team was being spread too thin these days. 

They were not alone in that. Half of the London Watch were currently involved in rescuing people from several tower blocks, as well as patients from the local hospital, after another blackout had cut all power to the Shambles district of London again. This was the second or third major power-out to affect the area in the last two weeks. The remaining members of the Watch were dealing with another fleet of tankers containing liquid oxygen, stolen by a different street gang who were heading south towards Dover. 

Meanwhile her teammates, Akira and Mace, were helping investigate an elaborate heist that had occurred the night before in which a series of Victorian-era statues had been stolen from London’s City Hall. City officials were trying to deflect attention from the embarrassing affair by claiming the statues’ removal was part of a larger redecoration despite a street gang being caught on CCTV removing them. The Met’ had asked Akira if he could perhaps use his mystical abilities to work out where (and why) they had been taken. 

Mary had elected to stay behind at New Scotland Yard and check out the other weird and wonderful robberies that had plagued London over the last two weeks, which was why she had been available to help when the liquid nitrogen robbery had gone down.  The last few weeks had seen a series of unexplained robberies across the South of England, all carried out by street gangs that normally would never cooperate with each other under any circumstances. A ceramics manufacturer had reported a large number of commercial kilns stolen from a warehouse. A goods wagon from a train had gone missing while transporting a wholesale shipment of cheap microwave ovens imported from China. A subway station on the Northern Line would be offline for weeks after much of its electrical cabling disappeared and then there was the latest report that a local grocery distribution centres’ entire stock of canned and smoked fish products had disappeared from the company warehouse. What the hell was going on?

She saw the lead tanker speeding towards her. There appeared to be three thieves on board each of the tankers and at least some of them were apparently armed with sawn-off shotguns. The Police were following, though keeping their distance. The last thing anyone needed was a crash with all that liquid nitrogen spilling out across the lanes. As she watched a Lamborghini sped passed the Police and the tankers doing over a hundred and ten in the outer lane, oblivious to the chase ensuring.

She could now make out the street colours on the thieves that identified this lot as belonging to the local Nine Boys street gang. What would a street gang possibly want with tankers full of liquid nitrogen?

The three tanker trucks sped down the motorway towards her, banging into any cars that were too slow in getting out of their way, their silver tanks reflecting the flashing blue lights of the police cars in pursuit. One of the Police cars suddenly sped up and drew close to the cab of the rear truck, even as a shotgun-wielding thug poked his head out of the window and fired. The lead pursuit vehicle’s front tyre exploded and it dropped back. The shotgun discharge was immediately followed by a billowing cloud of white fog blasting out from the tanker, covering the police vehicle in a thick layer of frost as it was forced to veer off to the hard shoulder. Mary could see that someone in gang colours was clinging on to a handrail on the side of the tank itself hanging on with one hand with a large pipe held in the other. The other Police cars pulled back and slowed down slightly as they began to slide on the icy discharge. 

She needed to act, now. “Why is Akira never around when you need his heavy-lifting powers?” Mary wondered to herself, taking in the situation as rapidly as she could before unslinging her harp and begin to spin a glamour onto the monotonous tarmacked lanes below. 

As she sung the words of power and strummed at her harp, the illusion of a sinkhole began to appear in the road immediately below her, rapidly spreading across all four northbound lanes and looking as though a gateway to hell had just opened. Her song got louder and the imagery solidified.

She hoped to delude the drivers into thinking that a sinkhole had opened just far enough ahead of them to give them time to hopefully brake. The crater rapidly spread until it looked as though all four lanes heading north had collapsed into it across its full width, then along both sides along the edge of the motorway and along the central reservation. Whatever way they swerved there appeared to be an abyss ahead of them (while leaving the southbound half of the motorway unaffected).

The driver of the first truck was obviously fooled by what he saw in front of him. He slammed on the brakes hard. The vehicle spun sideways across three of the lanes only for the tanker behind, which had been driving too close, to smash into it.  Mary looked on trying to work out what to do next. The third truck, seeing the road ahead blocked, tried to swerve across the central barrier apparently hoping to leap the trench that had appeared there. Instead, it drove through the illusion and the barrier only to smash into three cars on the southbound lane before coming to a rapid halt, facing oncoming traffic. 

The guy that had been holding onto the side of the tanker went flying off, hitting the ground hard and slid into the abyss hiding the central barrier. For a moment, he appeared to defy gravity as the illusion seemed to show him floating above the expanding crevasse then the glamour swallowed him up and he vanished from sight, engulfed by the spell, which also absorbed any cries of pain he might be uttering. Not quite the solution Mary had hoped for. 

Below her on the northbound carriageway liquid nitrogen was now spilling out of a crack in the tank of the lead vehicle onto the cabin of the second tanker and onto the road where it began to pool even as some of the deadly liquid began to evaporate, creating a fog. The driver and shotgun-wielding passengers of the first tanker hobbled out and began to run back towards the Police whilst avoiding the spill that had now sealed the cabin doors of the other vehicle and threatened to shatter its windscreen with its intense cold, likely killing those trapped inside. 

Mary immediately switched to her Joy tune to try to get the bandits dancing (figuring it would be difficult if not impossible to use a shotgun while also doing a jig) even as she allowed the illusionary sinkhole to dissipate. 

To her delight it worked. The two shotgun holders immediately dropped their weapons as they and their companion began a merry little re-enactment of Swan Lake of all things. Unfortunately, one of the dropped shotguns accidentally discharged into the radiator of one of the Police vehicles though thankfully no one was hurt. Police officers rushed towards the three dancers and tackled them to the ground while forming a scum on top of them as the officers handcuffed and dragged them away from the crash.

That only left her to figure out what to do about the spill, the three bandits trapped in the cabin of the second vehicle as the cascade of liquid nitrogen threatened to turn them into popsicles. Of course, there was also the tanker on the opposite side of the motorway and the person that had been catapulted off it into the central barrier. They likely would be in need of medical attention.

Above her, she could hear the gentle whirl of a descending grav-vehicle; Police or Press? She looked up and saw what had to be a giant human-shaped tree, easily three metres tall, leap from the unmarked vehicle. It dropped from several metres up and landed with an earth-shaking impact, then proceeded to pull one of the bandits from the vehicle on the opposite lane, smashing through the drivers’ window to do so. At the same time it was creating a ‘barrier’ of roots and branches which grew out of its legs and back to guide the oncoming traffic to the inside lane and away from the crashed tanker.  

That had to be the Cymru Dragons’ team member they called Mighty Oak. Seemed the Met’ Police really had called in every HCP member they could if they were asking support from the newly formed Welsh team.

As she considered her options, she saw one of the gang in the lane opposite manage to evade Mighty Oak’s attempts to grab him from the opposite side of the cab. Quickly opening the door on the opposite side of the cab, he ran towards the back of the tanker where he donned some heavy-duty gloves and pulled the discharge tube free. 

Mary gave a huge, only partly rueful, grin as she momentarily contemplated the chaos she had caused before switching to her Banshee form and remaining visible but insubstantial swooped down on the bandit with the hose, projecting her Aura of Fear at him as she closed in.  

The wave of emotion swept over the teenager and he immediately began to cower, dropping the discharge pipe as he did so. Unfortunately, the lever was already in the on position and a torrent of foggy liquid had begun to spill out. Banshee rushed down, turning substantial again and turned off the tap. Some of the tankers’ freezing liquid had already been released and began to freeze her shoes causing her to have to hover above the road surface. It flowed across the roadway where it encountered Oak’s makeshift live wattle fence. Although it stopped most of it, the cold fluid killed the branches and roots turning them brittle and some of the liquid nitrogen still leaked through the gaps. Banshee noticed Oak respond by immediately snapping the ‘fencing’ free from itself before it proceeded to carry the driver around the other side of the truck where it grabbed the hysterical passenger who at this point was trying to climb away from the icy spill. Mighty Oak gently cocooned him in some branches that grew out of its arm even as it cradled the screaming driver in its arms. It nodded its thanks at Banshee before it strode across the central reservation to deliver its two prisoners to the Police.

Banshee immediately turned insubstantial again as she felt the cold from the liquid nitrogen envelope her. Despite the relative cool of the evening, the tarmac was still a lot hotter than absolute zero and the liquid would soon evaporate though not without seriously damaging the road surface.

Her priority now, having helped to protect the big tree man, was to try to save the bandits iced-up in the cab. To do that though she needed something to cover the crack in the tanker. Then she saw another figure jump from the unmarked grav-vehicle above. Instead of plummeting to his death though, he stopped falling and gently floated down. She’d seen that same uniform in Israel on someone she also knew served part time as a barman at the Endeavour pub, This was one of the London Watch’s interns, the soft-spoken Lance. 

He looked a bit like a gymnast or circus acrobat in his sleeveless, one-piece blue jumpsuit with a Union flag helmet and face visor.

Despite his slim physique, he seemed to be a powerhouse as he gently reached out his hand and pointed a finger towards one of the crumpled cars. A crackling green light emanated from the tip of his finger. He moved his finger and mentally ripped a door off one of the crashed cars. He then started to telekinetically carry the passengers out of the wreck while restraining them so they couldn’t move and risk further injuring themselves.

Banshee knew that the green glow surrounding them was the result of some form of telekinetic forcefield reacting with the visible spectrum.

Lance was careful to avoid them touching the icy fluid gathering on the ground. Suddenly a couple of the car tyres popped explosively as the liquid nitrogen collected around them, freezing them rigid and causing them to burst. To Banshee’s surprise, Lance laughed in response to the noise and continued transporting his rescues towards the Police on the northbound lanes.

Between Moses, no Lance’s, rescue efforts and the Police who had reached the injured thief that had collided with the central barriers and were now triaging medical assistance while they waited for a fleet of ambulances to arrive, Banshee assumed she could leave the injured on the southbound motorway and the reservation to be treated by them.

That allowed her to focus on the gang members trapped in the second tanker. Looking around for a flattish piece of debris or an object big enough to cover the gash in the truck, she flew over, resubstantialised herself and grabbed the door that Lance had just ripped free. It wasn’t perfect for what she wanted but it was the only thing she could see that might be able to seal the leak.

She again turned into a ghost and flew as fast as her prize and she could towards the ice-trapped cabin. Insubstantialised she held the door up against the crack in the tank and returned to her physical form hoping the now resubstantialised door would immediately freeze over the hole, with ice then building up around it to further seal the leak. It worked but for a split second, she felt frostbite in her fingertips as she pushed the door against the liquid nitrogen before it stuck. She pulled free, turned insubstantial and hoped her fingers would heal when she changed back into Mary. The fix wasn’t perfect but it should hold for the moment.

She spun round, landed on the cab step and once more turned into Mary. She slammed her elbow against the iced-up windscreen shattering it completely. She instantly saw that the three occupants were already suffering from severe hypothermia. She immediately began to call forth a ‘Canntaireachd’, in this case the cantrip she knew as the ‘Hand of Nuada’.

Her fingers spread wide she began muttering the words of command that would help recreate the necessary mental construct. Five blue sparks erupted from her fingertips followed by a ball of fire resembling an icy-blue fiery fist.

The spell sped into the cabin and began to defrost the cab where the bandits were trapped. The frost immediately dissipated though the cold left them exhausted and they made no effort to run, instead climbing out and immediately headed towards the Police to place themselves in their custody.

It was only a matter of time before the pressure of the liquid in the tank caused her patch to fail once more; she turned back into Banshee and went to join Lance and the Tree in rescuing the other victims from their cars.

It was a good fifteen minutes before everyone was finally free and ambulances began to arrive. 

Finally taskless for the moment at least, she walked over to Lance and Mighty Oak. Up close, Mary could clearly see beneath Lance’s helmet where the piercings in his lip and nose would normally be. 

“Thanks Lance, great to see you again. You did good, man.” She then walked over to the sentient Oak and mimicked a high-five to the tree-man who hesitated then gently responded in kind, as Banshee said, “Good timing, Oak heart!  Sorry about the mess, but I’m really glad you came. Seems like we have some odds and loose ends at large all round, so if you know of any others who can pitch in, please signal them.  I’ll call in who I can as well.  All these no-sense robberies so carefully co-ordinated.  We need to make some sense to it, toot sweet…”

The hovering grav-vehicle began its descent and a few minutes later was parked on the motorway. The hatch opened and she saw immediately that another familiar face was piloting it, this time a teenage female with dark hair shaved on top and at the sides but hanging in a long and luxurious ponytail at the back. He hadn’t seen her since she’d been attacked by Calypso on the Severn Bridge. It was another one of the Dragon’s interns, Seismic. This time Banshee nodded in her direction and was surprised when she replied, “Mary isn’t it? You were with that guy in the Chinese threads that day on the bridge, Akiva, Akira..?”

Several minutes later all four of them were seated inside the parked vessel watching the prisoners being loaded into Police vans. Mary turned a thoughtful eye upon the captive bandits.  Small fry, low down the chain, no doubt.  They might not know much but they were probably worth intimidating in her Banshee form to try to find out whatever they do know…

That’s when she noticed that the driver of the first tanker had a large black coloured rose tattoo on his right forearm. It was so new that it was still covered in clingfilm. It had been inked over a number of existing street gang tattoos, obscuring several. Did it have any special meaning?

Lance leaned over and muttered, “The Black Rose Syndicate, that’s their symbol. Interesting I saw a similar tattoo, just as recent, on the arm of another member of a different street gang, he was also a lieutenant.”

Mary’s eyebrows raised, was Lance a telepath as well as a telekinetic? Lance smiled, “I have an eidetic memory, I can’t forget anything I see… I saw that symbol a few months back when I was doing some research while acting as dispatcher for the Watch… I wouldn’t have expected to have seen it here, in the UK though. 

The Black Rose Syndicate was initially established in 1901 in what is now Carpathia, a secret military society started by officers in the local Army working with a secret society of local nobles to support the claim of the Countess against the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Technically the barony was ruled over by the new Baron, Poul Sylvestri but the Black Rose pledged its support for the Baroness, the estranged wife and descendant of the country’s original ruling family. During the First World War, the Black Rose turned its hand to maintaining its military resources, controlling the civilian population by any means necessary and supported the establishment of Carpathia-Ruthenia as an independent nation. It retained its black market links and gradually expanded out to nearby nations where it established itself as a major criminal fraternity one to rival the Italian Mafia while retaining its extensive links to Carpathia.

Today they are an organised crime operation, teaching themselves deadly combat arts and seizing control of various criminal gangs to conceal themselves as they cling to power. Over time, they became far worse than the corrupt nobility, evolving into a cultish sect of warriors and assassins convinced of the superiority of their bloodlines. Today they work primarily in extortion, smuggling, drugs, and slavery including selling kidnapped Metas to the Seminarium Sinister of Setekh. Sorry that’s all I read. Any use?”

Before Mary could reply, a Police officer appeared and told them that the London Watch had lost their target when it had suddenly been teleported or transported away while they were in close pursuit. Mary couldn’t help feel that she’d had to deal with more than her fair share of teleporters lately.

The gang members were being uncooperative, possibly believing that their gang (or possibly this Black Rose Syndicate?) would bail them out if they kept quiet but would hunt them down if they talked. 

A few seconds of Banshee’s intimidating presence while Oak and Seismic kept the Officers occupied loosened the youngest member of the group’s tongue. He quickly explained that a new criminal organisation called the Black Rose Syndicate was moving into everyone’s territory across London. Either the local street gangs allowed themselves to be assimilated or they would be exterminated. The Boys have been promised protection and positions in the new syndicate in exchange for completing this job, but he didn’t know much beyond that. The gang’s leader would likely know more.

While the Nine Boys gang members don’t know why the Black Rose had charged them to steal a massive quantity of liquid nitrogen, Mary immediately suspected a pattern behind the various robberies.

Mary accepted the offer of a lift back to London with the Dragon’s and Lance. He was surprised at how good a pilot Seismic was but given her particular power-set she wasn’t always able to use her abilities against normal criminals. As a result, she had realised that she needed to develop some useful support skills to earn her place on the team.

As they flew back towards New Scotland Yard, Mary had an idea and contacted her team’s A.I. Frankie. After listening to the list of items stolen, Frankie hypothesised that while these thefts initially might seem unconnected; most of the thefts involve items or base materials that could be used in the creation of superconductors. While the liquid oxygen, liquid nitrogen, and kilns had practical application in the manufacturing process, the stolen statues would likely have been made from a barium-copper alloy, and the yttrium oxide filters in the microwave ovens can be used as a base for a superconductor. 

It was Frankie’s hypothesis that was the intention behind the thefts. Sensing Mary’s confusion, she explained that a superconductor was a substance that conducted electricity without resistance when it becomes colder than a “critical temperature.” At this temperature, electrons can move freely through the material.

It took Frankie a few seconds more to confirm that the ‘theft’ of the missing fish products were completely unrelated. In fact, they weren’t stolen at all. Frankie hacked into the distribution centre’s inventory management software and uncovered their disappearance was due to a distribution error, which has led to the entire supply being delivered to a small suburban grocer in the Elephant and Castle. Mary smiled when she realised the quantity involved would mean that the shopkeeper was now probably struggling to deal with the sudden massive influx of preserved seafood that had been deposited at his small lockup. 

Their official statements for the Police could wait, Frankie was able to provide an address near the docks for where the Nine Boys and their leader Malcolm Getty, though these days he preferred to go by the nickname Cronus, hung out.

Mary then contacted Akira to see if he could try to track the missing items if at all possible, while she and her new friends went for a chat with this Cronus. 

Seismic ‘opened’ the armoured door with one of her earthshattering blasts and when the boss man’s lieutenant’s responded in their usual convivial manner – by performing their own local variation of a Haka; challenging the four of them with whatever weapons they had to hand. Their attackers found themselves pinned to the walls, mentally dazzled and psychically disarmed by Lance. Oak’s mere physical presence was enough to make Cronus sit down and talk rather than fight.

The Nine Boys’ boss shuddered and held his hands up to placate any further hostilities. “All right, hold up. You’ll find it all out soon enough anyway—just don’t tell ‘em it was me who told you. There’s a new mob in town, part of a big ring called the Black Rose something, taking orders from a freak by the name o’ ‘Oleander.’ They’re takin’ over the city’s underworld, one gang at a time. Now, me and the Boys, we’re happy enough to work with ‘em, but others aren’t so much. The Fleet, for one, they’ve been makin’ all kinds of noise and puttin’ up a fight. Bad call, if you ask me. I wouldn’t want to get on the Black Rose’s bad side – though they were normal enough, but last few weeks, seems they’ve got a bit of, you know, super something on their side.”

Mary smiled, “Where can I find these tender roses? Is there an address or..?” Cronus’  smirked and waved his hand to interrupt, “Now that really would be a step too far, akin to rattin’ them out so to speak, but I will say that the Shambles has some very fine tattoo parlours  that are doin’ a roarin’ business at the moment… Now who do I send the bill to for fixin’ me’ door?”

It seemed as though some of ‘boys’ were trying to get up the courage to confront them again if they stayed much longer and she doubted that they would get up more information out of them anyway. “Send the bill to the Met’ care o’ the Watch.” She couldn’t help giggle at the look of sheer dismay that crossed Lance’s face at her words. After all, he was the sole representative of London Watch present and as an intern he was not authorised to make any decisions, particularly financial.

In fact, although both Lance and Seismic were 18 and now of an age to take part in Police actions, they weren’t yet fully HCP authorised and so technically were acting under Banshee’s authority (and her team’s insurance) and she was considered legally responsible for their actions.

In fairness both Lance and Seismic seemed to be enjoying their night out on the town and chatted away sixteen to the dozen about what to do next and speculating what a street gang would want with a superconductor.

Only Oak was silent. In fact, she suddenly realised, the creature hadn’t uttered a single word since they had first met. He (it?) just smiled at them and remained silent. Was it an alien unable to speak English (though it clearly understood everything they said to it) or a Meta who was mute? She needed to get Seismic alone for a few seconds and ask her confidentially.

Then Dispatch interrupted her chain of thought with a message over her commdot. A confrontation between two gangs was about to go down in a business park nearby. ETA two minutes away by Grav and although the report was unconfirmed it had come in from a usually reliable contact. They were the closest; would they be willing to deal until the Police arrived?

Banshee turned and looked at her temporary teammates, who seemed excited (tinged with a little bit of apprehension on Lance’s face), at the prospect of seeing action again so soon.

They jumped back into The Dragon’s craft and sped towards the GPS coordinates that Dispatch had provided. On arrival it was clear that this was potentially about to get deadly, there were two gangs with at least twenty members in each camp preparing to battle openly in the street.

A semi, hauling a full-sized trailer had come to a stop in the middle of the road and the two groups faced off alongside it. One side was dressed almost completely in black, with only a few flashes of colour on their leather jackets. The opposing team better fit the image of a street gang, its members openly carrying makeshift weapons — baseball bats, pickaxe handles and chains except for the woman in a sharp-edged body suit standing at the truck’s front end, lifting it so its spinning wheels were just barely off the ground. She dropped the truck with a resounding crash cracking the axle. The driver did a runner as the two forces closed in on each other. The opposition responded by pulling their jackets back to reveal a variety of knives, batons and nunchakus in their belts.

No time to park up, Banshee turned to Seismic, “put this thing into hover and join us below. Do you need a lift, by the way? Oak, Lance get out there and keep that woman there occupied,” pointing at the woman in the exo-suit. “Lance, can you keep her out of the fight? Oak can you run interference and make sure no harm come to him? Seismic I want you to keep the gangs from getting close enough to hurt each other… Disrupt the intended conflict between the ordinary gang-members. Can you do that?”

Oak jumped down while Lance hovered above him as they advanced on the woman. Banshee took hold of Seismic and carried her out and down before giving the stomping muscle-woman a hard stare and muttering, almost to herself, “Okay, well, let’s try to stop folk getting hurt here, and maybe see if we can get our hands on whoever’s in charge of these Black Rosebuds…”

Someone threw an empty bottle at Seismic’s head only for the girl to wiggle her fingers and it shatter in mid-air followed a second later by the thrower cascading across the ground under a more powerful pressure wave and smashing hard into two of his cronies. She followed it up with a localised earthquake that emanated out with her as the epicentre, of about a 2.5 magnitude. Strong enough to knock the gangs off their feet but not enough to bring down houses though a few slates came loose from nearby roofs. Oak and Lance used the momentary confusion to get in close to the woman that had just dropped the semi. 

Banshee could still hear Lance talking to Oak, “Going by the gang colours and patterns on the back of their jackets I think these are members of the Fleet, a minor operation that claims this industrial part of the city as its turf. I read that they’d recently acquired the services of a minor supervillain named Shrapnel when they need heavy hitting or,” he suddenly looked at the incapacitated truck and its trailer, “to move or in this case to stop  a particularly large or heavy object moving possibly? You do know they named themselves after the underground river, not an actual naval fleet?”

Oak merely nodded as it gently picked up gang members trying to attack them or trying to get between them and this Shrapnel, and planted them in a pile on top of nearby lampposts, expanding its trunk-like legs and arms to enable it to reach up. Its human deposits were forced to hang on while Lance floated by promising to bring them down safely afterwards, if they behaved.

One Fleet member produced an axe which it tried to use to chop at Oak’s legs only to find himself levitated into the air by a visibly angry Lance, disarmed and then ‘tossed’ into a large industrial wheelie bin, Lance having targeted one belonging to a local takeaway. Seismic’s earthquakes meant he re-emerged a minute later looking like a tossed salad.

Thanks to Seismic’s tremors focused in between the two gangs, neither side were going to safely get passed her to be able to attack each other, at least not without trying to go round the block and attacking from the rear. This strategy was hindered by Lance’s ability to sense minds. As soon as he sensed a group trying to sneak round, he targeted their trousers and ensured they were lowered to their ankles along with whatever dignity they had left.

Oak strode in amongst the Fleet and began to wrestle with the exo-suited Shrapnel, a big grin across its wooden face as the two of them exchanged punches. Mary smiled, she got the impression that Oak was holding back to ensure it was a ‘fair fight’.

That left Mary to handle the other gang. Going by the embroidered pattern of a black rose on the back of their various coloured street fighting gloves and their tattoos, they had to be members of the Black Rose.

Mary concentrated her efforts on trying to identify the Black Rose commander (or commanderess). She decided that the guy near the centre in the silver gloves and steely eyes was the one she needed to target. She couldn’t help notice that every one of them were also all carrying gas masks on their belts. Using the chaos caused by the presence of Seismic and the others, Banshee turned invisible and insubstantial, swooped in and materialised behind Silver Gloves ready to deliver a Corrupting Touch. The man made a gesture just before she touched him and a wave of energy swept over everyone. The wave seemed to come from her left side rather than from the man in front of her and left Banshee drained and confused.

Several of the gang saw their opportunity and immediately started to kick and punch her. She was forced to turn insubstantial again and resort to unleashing her Aura of Fear. The gang members’ punches and blows passed right through her now spectral form, hitting each other instead.

At least two of the gang were knocked unconscious in the chaos before the fear took hold and the younger, less experienced members of the gang turned and ran. It halved their number but the aura didn’t cause the remaining enforcers to run as they accepted the fear and tried to charge at her and their opponents opposite again. Before Banshee could respond with a terrorising scream, the electrical spectrum went wonky again as a second blast radiated out and again it came from the side and not from the man making grand gestures with his hands.

She allowed her mystic senses to come to the fore in order to try to understand. Ever since hearing of the Carpathian connection to this conspiracy she has been on high alert for ‘more than meets the eye’… This was not mystical in origin but her senses felt the half-life hidden in the darkness, someone just managing to cling on to life and when the electrical wave was unleashed for a second time she was prepared for it and allowed the energy to wash over her before uttering a shattering shriek off to her left. She was rewarded with a scream and a puff of smoke from some sort of shattered equipment. 

Then she saw that most of the gang had pulled back, aware that they couldn’t harm her in this state and that the truck was not going anywhere, they began to promptly empty out the cargo from the back of the trailer. Banshee went to stop them but when she saw what the cargo was, she just stood there in amazement… The truck was hauling old-fashioned cathode ray tube televisions for recycling. The gang were grabbing one of the big chunky square screens each and running off with it into the night. Behind her, a cheer went up from the other gang. They thieves ran towards a woman a couple of hundred metres away, in front of what looked a tunnel of light. Jumping in, they immediately vanished from sight.

Over her commdot she could hear Dispatch confirm that another tanker full of liquid nitrogen had gone missing, seeming stolen from a locked yard in plain sight. Mary would bet almost anything that a teleporter had been involved.

Enough! Banshee let loose with a terrorising scream that stopped everyone in their tracks and caused the woman to jump into the light herself whereupon it vanished, leaving half a dozen Black Rose enforcers lying on the ground next to smashed TVs, dropped when they collapsed.

The gang leader immediately ran for it. 

The Fleet, seeing the other gang defeated began to leave only to walk straight into the arms of the Police who pulled up in several vans and began to round up those who were too slow on their feet now that Seismic was no longer shaking the ground. Oak gave a final punch at Shrapnel and then cradled her as this blow knocked her unconscious before gently handing her over to a very bemused Officer. Lance straightaway began rescuing the gang members from the top of the lampposts and delivering them, squirming and trying to escape, straight to the vans.

Banshee again reached out with her sixth sense but the figure in the shadow was gone. “Frankie, old CRT TV’s stolen from a recycling centre, any thoughts as to what the Black Rose might want with them?”

<<Strengthens my supposition Designation: Banshee. The picture tubes in CRT television sets contain a high concentration of yttrium. The question you should be asking is why would they want superconductors? I lack sufficient data to hypothesise an answer.>>

Meanwhile, she noticed that several bemused Police Officers were watching Lance and Seismic questioning a couple of the Fleet gang members using a good cop, bad cop routine, though Lance kept on forgetting which one he was supposed to be. Seismic had just enough edge in her voice though to be a very convincing and consistent bad cop.

Confused by Lance though (and intimidated by Oak who was standing behind them making sharp stakes grow out of his arms), they admitted that all they wanted to do was ensure that the Black Rose respected their territory and didn’t steal the truck… Admittedly, they didn’t give a damn about the cargo and thought it funny as hell that their rivals had ended up stealing old fashioned TVs. 

Seismic suddenly leaned in and whispered something in one of the gang member’s ear. Whatever she said made him piss his trousers as he whispered something back to her. She then stood up and marched over to Banshee.

“I know where the rest of the Black Rose are currently holed up. They’re building something in an abandoned factory in a place called the Shambles? Do you know it? Anyway, I can get us there but might be best if we don’t invite them along.” and tried to covertly point at the Police.

Having lost his bad cop partner, Lance followed by Oak both wandered over towards them. Lance was keeping up his one-sided conversation with a seemingly attentive, if still silent Oak. “I think the colour of the Black Rose’s gloves is an indication of rank within the organisation – a bit like belts denote a student’s grading in Martial Arts. The most junior member amongst the gang wear blue fight gloves with an embroidered Black rose on the back of the hands, the others wear either green, red, white or yellow depending on their status within the gang, while their leader, likely just a lieutenant, wore silver.” As they reached Banshee, he turned and asked, “Okay, so where to now, boss lady?”

Several minutes later
The factory had been abandoned for several years, making it a perfect location for the Black Rose Syndicate to potentially process their stolen materials. All of the windows were boarded over, from the inside, same with the doors, so no light could shine out. There were no obvious guards as far as any of them could see, but Banshee was still worried. This factory had been used by a chemical manufacturer before they had gone bust. If, as Frankie suspected, they were trying to put together this superconductor thingy then the extraction and distillation of raw materials would likely require a substantial array of chemical reagents, which made entering that building particularly dangerous in ways she couldn’t even imagine.

They knew Metas were involved, including portal teleporters, and she was starting to wonder if any of her  own ‘family’ were involved as well, given the origin of the Syndicate. As they scouted the location, reports were coming in that something had managed to disable a number of the city’s electric buses at particularly inconvenient intersections around the area, temporarily isolating the district from the rest of the city.

Mary approached the factory with extreme care and suspicion as the “accidental” isolation had her on high alert.  Having covertly (read invisibly) checked out the lay of the land as best she could, she met the others out of sight of the premises. There she talked over the various options with her companions. Despite it being derelict and supposedly abandoned, it was heavily secured. Access either would have to be via the main factory doors or by breaking in, possibly through a fire door or window and Oak wasn’t going to fit through any of the alternative entry points.

So, factory doors it would have to be but that didn’t mean that they had to make it easy for the Black Rose to ambush them. Mary used her harp to throw a glamour over Lance, making him look like Banshee. Then she started to extend the illusion out to render both Seismic and herself invisible, to physical eyes at least, while silencing the sound from her playing. It should foil the senses of anyone watching, though CCTV might be a different matter. She quietly asked Oak if he could grow his foliage out a bit… As Mary was asking, to her surprise Seismic interrupted her, “She. Mighty Oak is a girl, woman, female. You know what I mean.”

Apologising, Mary explained that if ‘SHE’ grew out her foliage that both Seismic and her could use that to try to hide from any electrical surveillance they might encounter. Oak, smiled, nodded her head and immediately began to grow a massive covering of greenery from her back and legs. 

Mary hoped that if only “Banshee” and Mighty Oak turn up in full view of the factory, the gang inside would assume that the team had split up and the other two had to be elsewhere in the grounds trying for a covert entry and divide their forces looking for them. Time to find out. The four of them set off to cross the road and check out the yard. The padlock on the yard gate was no match for Oak who gently pulled at the padlock and the chain shattered. Striding in, with Mary and Seismic trying to stay in the shade of Oak’s newly grown shrubbery they closed in on the factory, all the time looking for CCTV cameras. There were none that they could see but Mary’s mystic senses made her aware that they were being watched just the same.

They advanced to the big main double doors and stopped. Whoever had been watching them wasn’t willing to attack yet, so time to move on to the next part of the plan. Unfortunately, Lance who was playing the illusionary Banshee couldn’t just flow through the door and take a look-see and if she swapped into Banshee that would mean the illusion would no longer function. Instead, Seismic scampered out of the shelter of Oak’s vegetation and shattered the boarded up window frame with a single directed quake. Lance carefully caught it in his TK field before it hit the floor and moved it aside so Seismic could gain entry and sneak inside before he replaced it back in place.

Having infiltrated the building and looking around to confirm that there wasn’t an ambush waiting for them on the other side, again checking for CCTV she signalled for Oak and Lance to open the door. Oak struck the door with an almighty punch and the double doors flew off their hinges and fell into the entrance. 

There was something about the whole situation that felt wrong, but what else could they do but step inside the lion’s den? Unfortunately, the factory was open plan and extremely well-lit with nowhere to hide. Most of the factory was open floor except for a small work cabin at the far end of the building. All of the valuable manufacturing equipment had long ago been auctioned off. There were still cat­walks overhead, with several ladders leading up to them. There were also stacks of wooden crates everywhere as well as hundreds of old glass bottles containing yellowish liquid stacked on shelves, just no obvious signs of life. The building did stink of chemical smells from decades of ancient, poorly cleaned up spills. There were a number of chemical tankers and even a partually demolished goods wagon parked in the middle of the work area that had obviously been teleported inside the factory. 

Time for the illusion was over; Mary needed access to Banshee’s skillset so she stopped maintaining the spell, immediately turned into Banshee and rendered herself insubstantial again. Most of the Black Rose’s stolen goods appeared to have been already removed apparently after they had rendered down the TVs, microwaves, and stolen statues in the kilns into their components. Scrap cases and parts of the plinths had just been thrown into a pile nearby.

The only part that they couldn’t clearly see was the work cabin. Banshee was highly suspicious of it because the lights were ablaze inside and the office door left open so even from that distance she could see a stack of folders on the desktop. The whole setup screamed “trap”, nonetheless she had to investigate. She felt tense for what might happen next….  She had a feeling that if she needs to blow things up big time, a shattering shriek aimed at the glass jars of yellowish liquid might prove ‘interesting’.

She approached the cabin cautiously but it too was deserted. A stack of official-looking files had been scattered over a large, badly scratched desk which was strangely out of place in the otherwise gutted room. She substantiated herself and began to leaf through the pile of documents.

The papers all appeared to be connected with the assassination of the Queen and the simultaneous 24-hour citywide blackout that had occurred back in 2014. She picked up the top folder and saw it was marked top secret and was some sort of analysis of the power output required to black out the whole of London that day. The next file were security files on the two main suspects in the case, the Irish meta-terrorist and assassin Emerald and the then 12-year-old NegaWatt who was believed to be responsible for causing the blackout.

Although Emerald (or Ryan O’Shaughnessy) had resurfaced and been responsible for a number of terrorist attacks since that fateful day, NegaWatt (real name unknown) hadn’t been seen or heard from since and was assumed dead. Both remained high on the Secret Services’ most wanted list to this day.

These appeared to be the official files from the case, or at least unredacted copies of them. Banshee had almost no knowledge of what had happened back then, as it had occurred a number of years before she’d crossed over to this world. It was as she was looking through the stack of folders wondering what the contraption detailed in another dossier had been for and why it was with the assassination files that Banshee smelt the smoke. At the same time as she heard Lance shout out a warning that several fires had spontaneously erupted around the factory a single rifle shot rang out. The window of the cabin shattered and Banshee felt the bullet skim her head as she instinctively went insubstantial with the stack of folders still in her hand. 

There was an explosion behind her and the room became a fiery hell. That was when she realised that the bullet hadn’t been aimed at her, the target had been to ignite some sort of hidden fuse in the wall behind her. That was definitely one way to cover up any the evidence of the Black Rose Syndicate’s efforts here as well as discouraging any further investigation.

She flowed through the wall and saw the others in her team trying to fight the fires but were finding the acrid smoke from the various burning chemicals was their worst enemy. Another shot rang out and this time Lance fell, blood pumping from a shoulder wound that appeared to have punctured an artery. Seismic ran over and pulled him to safety as she tried unsuccessfully to staunch the spurting blood flow.

Banshee flew down to join them on the factory floor. The extreme, abnormal heat from the strange coloured flames caused by the various chemicals burning combined with the acidic smell of the smoke to make her gag despite being ghostlike and she realised that they had to get out and fast or risk falling unconscious due to the fumes and smoke now blanketing the entire factory. The fire was spreading too fast for this not to have been a deliberate trap. She could see that some of Oak’s greenery was on fire but despite that, she appeared to be deliberately trying to plug Lance’s wound with tree sap, which in the intense heat almost instantly solidified.

No time to look for the assassin, it was time to leave. Oak, with Seismic’s help, snapped off most of the burning branches from her back and then they targeted the nearest outside wall. The combined forces of a shattering shriek, Seismic resonating a seismic blast and finally Oak taking a run at the wall, an unconscious Lance carefully cradled in her arms and breaking through, which resulted in access to the outside even if part of roof did start to collapse as a result.

Outside they could see that the entire building was ablaze. Like rats fleeing the Great Fire of London, Banshee could see eight of the Black Rose enforcers wearing gas masks had left the building and were gathered around a man with a scar at the corner of his mouth and carrying a snipers rifle. They were about 50 yards away when they started to run towards them openly carrying a variety of clubs and knives. Only the man with the rifle stood his ground as he took aim. 

Over their comms the makeshift team could hear that traffic jams and the stopped electric buses was making it near impossible for the Police and the Fire Department to get to the fire anytime soon. They had to get Lance to safety first. Thanks to Oak plugging the wound, Lance was no longer bleeding out but internal bleeding was still likely. 

Banshee carefully put down the files on the ground and prepared for battle. As the gang members got closer, several thrown objects exploded near to the team, tear gas as well as least one flash-bang that blinded her eyes for the moment.

Banshee told Mighty Oak to get Lance away from the potential disaster of the exploding factory as fast as possible, to head to the Dragon’s grav-vehicle if she could get to it, otherwise somewhere clean and dry and stay with the patient until medical support arrived. If nothing else, a paramedic on a motorcycle or a jetpack should be able to get through.

Meanwhile she asked Seismic to knock the gang members off their feet then follow Mighty Oak and help see that Lance gets some medical attention as soon as possible. The tear gas would make her staying to fight difficult. While Banshee knew she would be affected by the gas as much as Seismic, by turning insubstantial she wouldn’t be a target for any other attacks.

Seismic was reluctant to go and tried to use pressure waves to both knock their attackers down and try to force the gas back onto the Black Rose enforcers. The first worked as all nine of their attackers were ‘shaken and stirred’ by the attack but unfortunately, it had little if any effect on the gas.

At the same time, Banshee turned insubstantial and flew at her fastest speed towards the approaching Black Roses, uttering her terrorising scream and aiming herself at the man with the rifle. It definitely ruined his aim. A shot rang out but instead of hitting Seismic, it went off in the air. Banshee had to hope no one would be hurt when the bullet came down again.

Banshee risked a glance behind her at Seismic; seems she was hesitant to leave her to battle alone and despite the tears and violent coughing brought on by the tear gas enveloping her she unleashed an earthquake, one much more forceful than she’d unleashed previously. It shattered the tarmac of the yard and caused half of the burning building to collapse. It also successfully knocked everyone but Banshee to the ground.

Unfortunately, the gas proved too much for her and Seismic was forced to run back towards Oak and Lance.

With every one of the Black Rose hugging the ground and the blazing building behind them collapsing creating a firebreak, Banshee saw her chance. She rushed towards the sniper and as soon as they got close enough, turned physical again so she could unleash her corrupting touch on him. She reached out but failed to get a grip of him as he squirmed away and unleashed a size eleven boot to her face. Banshee was momentarily stunned, and immediately responded by turning herself insubstantial again but not before she managed to grab hold of the rifle and render it insubstantial with her.

The others were trying to find their ‘sea legs’ now the earthquake had died down and were starting to stand up again. Several weapons were thrown her way before they realised that in her wraith personae she was invulnerable to physical weapons. Banshee wasn’t in the mood to be nice though and unleashed the Wail of the Banshee at them. It rolled over them and caused them to collapse to the ground in agony and terror. Even their leader was forced to try to cover his ears allowing Banshee to again rush in, turn substantial, unleash a corrupting touch and this time render him unconscious before she grabbed him up, turned insubstantial again and flew away with him as fast as she could.

The factory elected at that moment to explode in a rainbow of flames lighting up the sky, pretty in pink and green flames, as the various stored chemical caches inside erupted for the final time. The multi-coloured incandescence was followed by the factory roof evaporating and the walls exploding out in a scene that reminded her of the munitions factory explosion back in 1915.

Shards of bricks peppered the remaining Black Rose gang. Hopefully, not too many members of the gang will be fatally injured by the exploding factory, but if they did, all Banshee could think was that they had brought it on themselves…

As she got to the roadside, she could see that Seismic had landed their vehicle and that Oak had placed the still unconscious Lance inside and was fussing over him. 

A small fleet of fire engines, ambulances and the Police arrived; apparently, they had resorted to using the ‘ways and means’ act to punt the buses out of the way. As she had hoped, a paramedic had arrived first on a motorcycle and was now tending to their injured teammate.

She handed the Black Rose enforcer over to the nearest Police officer. She considered asking to interrogate her prisoner but she’d get nothing meaningful out of him she was sure. His sense of bravado had already returned as he swaggered away in cuffs between two young cops. The Police meanwhile had been rounding up the Black Rose still in the area. One of the officers confirmed that Banshee’s prisoner was an assassin named Lanius that had previously been with another street gang. He had a reputation for laying traps for his foes and trying to outsmart them in combat. They were pretty sure that Lanius had been responsible for setting the warehouse on fire. 

One last task, Banshee turned back into Mary, unstrapped her harp and began to sing a healing tune to support Lance’s healing. 

Despite all of their best efforts and Lance’s own inane meta healing ability, the wound was too serious for him not to require immediate surgery; both to remove the bullet and to repair the torn artery if nothing else. A remote-controlled aerial drone medi-stretcher was called in from the Reading Meta-Medical Facility. As soon as Lance was transferred to the drone, it began putting him into cryogenic suspension before taking off unaccompanied heading to the specialist hospital for the treatment of Metas. 

Time to reconvene and see where the rest of them went from here. Banshee went and retrieved the files she’d rescued from the factory. They confirmed that the majority of the information in them related to the assassination of Queen Elizabeth II by Emerald under cover of a power-out that had blanketed out the entire city and resulted in another 63 known deaths in October 2014. The latter was credited to an unknown 12-year-old Meta, subsequently codenamed NegaWatt. He had successfully created an EMP-like charge that blanketed the entire city and brought the UK to the brink of a nuclear war in retaliation against the then unknown enemy as it was assumed the blackout had been caused by a nuclear explosion in the atmosphere.

It had also been assumed that unleashing that much power had resulted in NegaWatt’s death as there has been no record of him since, however the recent interference with the area’s electricity supply such as the recent black-outs definitely sounded like it could be connected with his return.

If the files were not just a plant and intended as misdirection, then it would seem that the Black Rose faction (or whenever was behind them) had been researching these two miscreants, perhaps with a view to deploying them – though for what end?  

They contacted Frankie who confirmed that the diagram showed a hypothetical device to harness electricity using superconductor technology. Unfortunately, Frankie lacked sufficient data to hypothesise why or what it could be used for other than to allow electrical current to flow without resistance, the uses for which were myriad: long-distance, low-voltage electric grids with no transmission loss; fast, magnetically levitated trains; ultra-high-speed supercomputers; super-efficient motors and generators. She had no idea though what dastardly scheme a street gang might use it for.

Seismic was for revisiting the Fleet member that had told her about the factory. Could he have known that they were walking into a trap?

“Obviously whatever the Black Rose was doing here, it has been moved – the Black Rose members will know more but won’t talk to us, though a gang such as the Fleet, might – how are you going to work out where to go next and what they are up to?”

A quick enquiry with the Police confirmed that several members of the Fleet had already been released after their earlier escapade and to a member, had gathered at “Matt’s”, a 24-hour greasy-spoon café in the centre of their territory. After a short discussion, all three of them voted to pay the place a visit. 

It wasn’t hard to find at this early hour of the morning, as Matt’s was the only premises still open. They parked up and entered. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered, and the clatter and banging of plates and mugs behind the counter muffled the murmur of conversation from the café’s patrons, all seemingly affiliated to the Fleet. At the large corner booth, a burly, hard-bitten woman in sturdy work clothes and a bandana looked up and nodded in their direction. 

“It’ll be me you’ll be looking for, I think. Come sit or plant yourself in the nearest flowerpot though you’ll need to share the space with that gangly weed.” She pointed to a straggly potted plant near the fire exit that seemed to exist primarily as a wastebasket. It was the only green thing other than Oak in the building. Several of the gang laughed, but that stopped suddenly when Oak turned to face them.

They had already discovered that the current leader of the Fleet was someone named Barbie Sinclair. Banshee already knew a lot of her background from one of the Police sergeants back at the factory. He’d previously served for several years in the Fleet’s territory and had known Barbie well. He had explained that while Barbie’s ventures weren’t particularly objectionable as far as crime lords go, neither was she particularly friendly. The Fleet mostly focused on low-level drug dealing and occasionally breaking legs for loan sharks working for a local crime-lord called Mystery.

This woman, Barbie they assumed, sat at a table by herself but the cafe’s other ‘patrons’ stood ready to jump to her defence if the situation turned violent. 

With a gesture to signal the young girl behind the counter to bring her a mug of fresh coffee, Barbie leaned back and crossed her meaty arms. “So, that there’s a new gang in town you already know, the Black Rose Syndicate. International organisation, I hear. Never had much of a presence here before, but now they’re moving in on all our territory, ugly stuff, they deal in some bad business. Got some hard-nosed Eastern European named Olexandra, or Alexandra or some such, running their local arm. She’s hurt lots of people over the years so we hear, real bad people, you know? And not just them cloud-nine pretender types.

The gangs that go along with their demands to assimilate, end up doing some weird runs. ‘Steal some microwaves.’ ‘Get those cable spools.’ Weird, but the Black Rose doesn’t like to hear ‘no.’ They got some strong fighters, and now it seems they got a super or three. Real ones, not just a jobber in an X-O suit, you know?” Barbie paused to take a swig of her coffee, waiting to see if they had any questions for her. 

Mary leaned in, “What can you tell us about these supers? It would be nice to be prepared beforehand.” “like a good little troop of girl guides?” suggested Barbie. Seismic, without thinking, immediately piped up that they were all called scouts these days regardless of gender and Barbie laughed.

“They’s got themselves a troop of several ‘porters, weird bunch – all brothers and sisters and mean with it too. No family love lost there I think. There is at least one strong man in the group, an enforcer – tear your tree here into matchsticks possibly, eh? I’m not sure if their leader has powers but she does have someone in the shadows for definite, blaster I think though not sure that is totally accurate. The leader has a rep’ though, comes across as a smug and overconfident bitch, though rumour has it that she bested several Euro he­roes before comin’ here as i said before, and then there’s Strand. You come across him before? He’s a local lad who paid a considerable sum of money to Labyrinth to gain superpowers. He can extend whip-like thingy’s from an organ grafted into each hand. His abilities make him a talented “second storey man,” robbing businesses and high-end upper floor flats. I was surprised to hear he was with them though. Strand isn’t a “joiner” by nature, instead usually running small-time operations with his long-time partner, JumpStart, and a few others he might hire. He had no loyalty to anyone except his partner, at least until now.”

Banshee allowed herself to drift off into her own thoughts for a few seconds before Barbie slapped a hand on the table to get their attention again. 

“Well, here’s the deal. 10am tomorrow,” She glanced down at her watch and continued, “today I guess, there’s going to be a big meet-up. Them Black Rose have called up damn near every crew in town and told them to show up at the old Theatre – you know, the abandoned art deco place in the middle of the shambles? I bet they’ll make their demands then. Probably claim control of the city, kill anyone who refuses, all that.” She leaned in. “Lot of folks will be there. Bet they wouldn’t notice a few more, you know? Good upright ‘heroes’ like you, I’m sure you want to know all about these new mugs.” She leant back and watched them expectantly. 

Seismic looked excited, “We could take them down there, finish them once and for all.” 

“That’d result in a big fight, messy. Like ‘fight every thug in the city’ type messy. Even odds the gangs decide to join up against you lot instead of against the Black Rose.” explained Barbie.

Banshee had to know, “So why are you helping us?” She was worried that this might be another trick, though in fairness she wasn’t convinced their informant last time had known that the factory would turn out to be a trap.

“Right now, we all know our place. No one’s big enough to put down the others. We all stick to our turf. But one big name? There would be no stopping it. Bigger jobs, bad ones with lots of folks getting’ hurt—us, people on the streets, bystanders. That’s a harder nut for you lot and the boys in blue to crack as well, you know? Come along and see for yourself but you might want to leave the tree behind for this one. Not sure it would get passed the door, even in a wig…”

“How about we come along with you and your lot?” Seismic asked.

Barbie laughed, “More problems than it’s worth, for us. I don’t want Black Rose to know who told you, and if the other gangs know we’re in cahoots, they’d make my life hell. No way are we going to risk that. Put it this way, if you succeed in disrupting the Syndicate’s plans and maintain the status quo then no one will get upset but if you can’t then the Fleet will have to fall in line with their demands for the sake of survival.”

That was as much as Barbie was willing to reveal and so they left the café and headed back to their vehicle.

Could the blaster Barbie mentioned possibly be the missing NegaWatt? If so, he’d be an adult now. The records Banshee had uncovered showed that the kid had exhibited lightning-based powers, everything from flight, throwing balls of lightning to creating energy shields as well as creating that EMP-like blast that had blacked out London. 

According to the files she’d rescued, Emerald was a lifelong terrorist whose powers were based around manifesting green flames and included the ability to heal himself, to regenerate and he was super-fast. He had been brought up fighting in the Troubles and was a killer. Again, another possible contender for the blaster Barbie had mentioned. They would just have to wait and see.

What now? Rather than head back to their respective teams they agreed to see this out to its conclusion first (or at least Oak didn’t make any sign of objecting) as they settled down inside the craft and set it for hover.

Once Seismic and Oak were busy doing their own stuff, Mary wandered forward into the cockpit and contacted Frankie, asking her to report back on Emerald’s last known appearance and to run checks to see if there’s anything which might suggest NegaWatt’s survival beyond his supposed death. “And given what those two were up to back in 2014, maybe we should be looking for some sort of intended major political shenanigans. Are there any big events scheduled to be happening soon?  Anything to do with the government, or the Royal Family?”

<<Designation: Banshee, Emerald was last seen in Dublin a few weeks ago, involved in a bank robbery. As stated previously there is no information to confirm or deny NegaWatts’ survival but the amount of energy he emitted to blanket the city would have been beyond a normal person’s ability to survive and several people claim to have seen him explode in the sky but no evidence was ever found to confirm their accounts.

The blast that apparently disintegrated him, took out all electrical power and drained batteries over a 30-mile radius causing planes to crash, hospitals to fail and lifesaving equipment to stop functioning. In the end, only 64 people died that day. It would have been a lot worse if supers hadn’t managed to rescue people from the falling planes. 

It was confirmed that Emerald assassinated Queen Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, erroneously referred to as the Second. His attempt on then Prince now King Charles Philip Arthur George subsequently designated the third was unsuccessful.

I will download the data if you wish, there is a lot of it and includes a lot of testimonies about the work done by the surviving members of the Crown Guard, the Protectors, London Watch, Wessex Warriors and many others, including a number of individuals that elected to out themselves in order to save lives. 

As for events involving the Government, only Prime Ministers’ question time and a number of charity events for various members of the Royal family, all local to London. I have checked calendars and can find no anniversaries to events that might correlate with an assassination and Black Rose has no known ties to domestic terrorism that I have been able to identify. I am sorry Designation: Banshee I lack sufficient data to hypothesise an answer.>>

Next Morning
The old Theatre was once a magnificent specimen of art deco architecture, but its tiles were now either cracked or missing and without any of the lights, it stood as a stark silhouette against the city’s background glow from advertising billboards and the still on street lighting that had never been upgraded with light sensors. Despite the abandoned ambiance, it had attracted a motley audience. A posse of loud motorcycles pulled up, their riders swaggering in through the glass doors, while a series of shadowy figures slipped up from the sewers and sidled toward a side entrance. At each entrance, a pair of black-clad fighters wearing bright-red gloves stood, carefully watching all who entered.

Seismic and Mary, in her Young Mary glamour, stood alone across the street looking for the best way in, having left Oak back in their parked grav-vehicle. 

Suddenly a young, petite girl, dressed in black jeans and a discretely shrunk t-shirt walked towards them. She could have been any age between 16 and 26. She smiled, showing off her green lipstick and perfect teeth, “Is this better? If I can’t get inside as Mighty Oak, perhaps I can still get in like this?” she asked in a soft, Welsh accent.

Mary smiled, “So you can talk.” The woman opposite smiled, “I can but I’ve never figured out how to make working vocal cords when I’m in Oak mode… Shall we?”

The walked across to the side entrance and blended in with the gathering crowd. The majority of Black Rose enforcers at the various entrances primarily consisted of several newly ‘enrolled’ members, the black rose tattoos on their arms were fresh and had been inked over other gang insignia from their previous allegiances.

The man overseeing the entry though had a clean, clearly aged tattoo of superior quality of his forearm and didn’t appear to be engaging in any conversation with anyone, just casting a cynical eye over those waiting to go in. He looked right at them for a few seconds. A hand slapped across Mary’s back and he turned to face a young woman in a mix of clothing. It took her a second to realise that it was Lady Door from London Below. “Just act natural, we sewer rats were invited and you’re now part of my entourage okay?” she whispered as she and her bodyguards flowed in between the three of them as though they were all friends. It took both of the girls a couple of seconds to realise what was happening and that their new, ‘best friends’ were aware who they were, though Mary would love to find out how.

The Black Rose enforcers allowed them inside and they found themselves moving close to the front as other gangs nodded at Lady Door’s motley crew and allowed them to pass. It seems that the community of London Below had some standing amongst the various street gangs above.

Inside the theatre, the stage stood empty and the auditorium had been gutted of any seating, forcing everyone to stand. She reached over and tapped on Seismic’s and Oak’s alter ego’s shoulders and quietly explained that they were among friends and that for the moment this was to be just a recce, a case of watch & learn, analysing the audience.

As most of the city’s assembled street gangs—perhaps several hundred people in total—settled in the dark theatre, a sudden, brilliant spotlight illuminated the stage. Once the afterimages of the sudden light faded, a handful of black-clad fighters could be seen across the stage, along with a scowling man in a power suit with long, whip-like tendrils trailing from each hand. In front of them all, a sharp-faced woman dressed in black with silver gloves looked out over the crowd.

Behind them stood eight men and women, all about the same age, coffee skin, curly hair all with the same or very similar facial features. It was clear that they were all part of the same family, If Mary had to guess she was assume that they were octuplets, both fraternal (multizygotic) and identical (monozygotic). There was at least one set of identical twins, males, among the eight individuals as well as a triplet set of identical sisters. She knew that monozygotic multiples always had to be of the same gender.

After a tense silence, the woman on stage spoke. “Good, those of you here tonight show uncanny wisdom. I’m glad to see you can all follow orders. I am Oleander, poisoned blossom of the Black Rose and leader of this branch of the Syndicate. I’m delighted to have your support. To those of you who have already been helping us execute our plans—you have my gratitude. To the rest of you, I assure you, your chance to prove your loyalty is coming soon.

I’m sure you’ve all been wondering what this—the Black Rose Syndicate, the missions, this meeting—is all about.” She grinned with a fierce, cold ambition. “Some years ago, a youth they named NegaWatt held the city hostage while another used the opportunity to take unwarranted revenge on your monarchy. Eyewitness accounts claim NegaWatt was killed in that confrontation—but, I think we can all appreciate how unreliable eyewitnesses can be. NegaWatt lives!” 

A projection shined into life against the ragged curtain behind her, showing a scarred young man in some sort of bulky power suit, his eyes closed. Mary couldn’t help notice though he was alive going by his eyelids flickering as though he was experiencing a nightmare. “Tonight, we will once again take this and several other cities’ precious power grids hostage—and as part of the ransom, we will demand no less than the immediate and permanent exile of all heroes and control of this city!”

A murmur of surprise rushed through the assembled crowd. When the muttering subsided, Oleander spoke once more. “As you are all now subsidiary arms of the Black Rose Syndicate, I’m looking forward to your complete cooperation as we move to fully seize control over our new territories. And you shall be the army with which we occupy this city and hold the others hostage. And I assure you, any of you who aren’t interested in cooperation will find yourselves facing a rather shocking end as NegaWatt personally erases you from existence.” With a sudden crackle of electricity, the stage lights flared to near blinding, and the stage fell into dark­ness. By the time the house lights recovered, the stage was empty. There was however, an afterimage of a jackal-like head temporarily burnt onto Banshee’s retina and a distinct smell of sulphur and myrrh left behind.

The rest of the syndicate began to leave through a back door or making their way out of the theatre via stagehand routes. A dull roar of murmurs and hushed conversation spread through the audience, with a few vocal opinions carrying above the fray, but eventually the assembled gangs began to disperse. 

Lady Door leaned over and whispered, “It’s okay I know where they went. I will take you there but I will need your help to stop them. As Lady Door of the House of Arch, it is my duty and privilege to maintain the arch network of paths but I can also close portals as well as open them. I lack the necessary ‘talent’ to fight off their warriors alone though and I will not endanger any more of my people. I can take you to where they are, at one of the Transit Authority power substations located deep in the Shambles district but I will need the help of you and your gang of ‘Irregulars’ to defeat them before they engineer a takeover of the city and hold every other city they can portal to, to hostage as well… You game?”

Soon after
The entrance to the power substation was little more than a very solid looking windowless, concrete shed covered in graffiti, located down an alley next to the local train station.  A locked steel door covered in peeling green paint and topped with various competing graffiti tags barred the way. There was a sign, partially obscured by the sprayed tags that stated “Keep Out” firmly fixed to the centre of the door. Its small, unassuming stature belayed its importance as it only concealed the top of a stairwell that led down to a repurposed bomb shelter deep underground.

Banshee, currently insubstantial but still visible, gave a nod to Seismic. “Let’s see if together we can’t shake things up a bit, eh?”  Then she glanced across at Mighty Oak.  “Maybe hang back a beat, girl, wait for the rumble and then try to rip out some of the cables around the damaged feller…  but mainly we all cover one another and above all make sure no-one upsets or gets to Lady Door, ok?  Let’s go.”

Banshee couldn’t get rid of a niggling feeling that something was wrong; she wasn’t fond of the idea of a frontal assault but what choice did they have? She just wished she had called in some experienced assistance but Lady Door had made it very clear that time was of the essence and if they didn’t respond now it would be too late.

Listening to Banshee talk, Seismic suddenly shivered. She felt cold, yet her hands were warm and sweaty. She wiped them self-consciously against her trousers. She could also feel a cold trickle of sweat running down her spine. She laughed nervously, swallowed and cleared her throat. She glanced around and to her surprise, saw Lady Door was extremely calm.

Oak on the other hand seemed excited at the prospect of further action and Seismic couldn’t help wondering if Ceri, Oak, was invulnerable to electrical shocks when she was phased inside her tree-persona. She could feel her own heart hammering fast against her ribcage and her chest felt as if all the air was being squeezed out of it.

Then they stepped forward and gathered round the entrance to the substation below. Oak grabbed hold of the cold, metal handle and yanked the locked door open with a loud screech and a rattling of its hinges.

Banshee found herself looking down into a dark, open metal staircase. Something moved in the darkness and she could see two pairs of rodent eyes staring back at her.

The stairwell was unlit. Banshee could tell that the darkness made her teammates nervous. Well, all except for Lady Door who was used to the labyrinth of dark tunnels that formed London Below. She was just wishing she’d thought to bring torches when Lady Door produced a head torch from one of her many pockets and switched it on.

For a couple of seconds Banshee wondered if they might not be better off going down without any form of illumination as the solitary light made everywhere else darker, more unsettling somehow. Lady Door immediately took the lead, making sure that there was nothing on the metal steps likely to cause them to trip. Behind her, the darkness closed in like a thick fog. That same darkness also heightened their others senses; they could smell the odour of ammonia wafting up from below and hear the noise of movement and mechanical sounds emitting from the distant depths, from people moving around. hidden behind doors at the bottom of the metal stairs.

With Lady Door in front, Banshee and Seismic behind her and Oak bringing up the rear they began to go down towards whatever awaited them below. Behind them, the door thudded closed and automatically relocked. As they groped their way down, their fingers felt their way against the cold, damp icy walls, with cold water dripping down on their heads from the ceiling. They could still hear the sound of speeding traffic on the road above continued unabated as if nothing could ever change.

Several minutes later, despite a couple of near fatal stumbles, they found themselves facing a large heavy metal door. Lady Door switched off her torch and tried the handle. To her surprise, it opened slightly revealing a blaze of electric light supplied by a single, naked lightbulb shining down from the roof. Momentarily blinded by the light shining through the gap, they could hear the noise of large objects being dragged across a concrete floor and the occasional moan coming from inside.  Banshee moved Lady Door aside and glanced through the gap, her eyes adjusting quickly to the change from the darkness to the light. Through the gap she could see a large crypt-like chamber with a curved, brick roof. there were about 20 people gathered, though three of them lay unconscious and smouldering in the corner of the chamber and that didn’t include the portal-opening octuplets.

Most seemed to be ‘normal’ gang members – though a couple of them were armed with smuggled in pistols she couldn’t help notice. A moan and twitching of outstretched fingers  from one of the three bodies in the corner showed that the technicians they had surprised weren’t all dead, yet. A clock could be heard ticking though it wasn’t obvious where it was located. What was apparent was just how advanced the Black Rose were with their plans…

Banshee suddenly realised her throat was dry. It was the realisation just how outnumbered they were and how inexperienced her team of ‘irregulars’ were, yet she also knew they had no choice but to try to stop them before they blacked out most if not all of London again. They had to stop the boy before he inadvertently killed again. Maybe it was time for some back up after all. Banshee tried her Commdot only to discover it wasn’t functioning due to there being no reception at that depth.

Nothing for it, she flowed through the door and rushed into the main section of the chamber, hoping to draw any shots away from the others coming through the door behind her. It took the Black Rose several seconds to realise who she was and respond violently. Banshee used those seconds to scout out who was where.

Inside the chamber, she could see off to one side another room filled with control panels, well-lit in comparison to the entranceway she’d just come through. As several shots passed through her ethereal body she could make out Oleander and three of her lieutenants attaching some sort of makeshift device to the control panels. 

The interior of the otherwise nondescript room resembled a 1950’s spaceship as much as a modern facility. In addition to the massive banks of transformers were huge pieces of equipment with countless dials, levers, blinking lights, and readouts. Fat hoses snaked across the floor, leaking plumes of white gas as their coolants leaked under the high pressure. Bundles of massive cables, sparking here and there, connected the transformers and the other equipment to the makeshift device.

Large heavily insulated cables then ran from this mechanical monstrosity to a semi-comatose young black youth in the main chamber, almost totally enclosed in a bulky amplification suit. This had to be NegaWatt and he appeared to be hyped-up on drugs – some sort of power enhancers possibly?

Standing alongside him was the guy she’d seen on stage with Oleander, with a number of tendrils extended out from organs on his wrists which must make him the person Barbie had called Strand. Beside him was a hulking brute of a figure, his head brushing the roof. 

Behind them, a large circular mystical sigil had been painted on the recently swept concrete floor next to a painting, seemingly drawn in fresh blood, of a giant jackal’s head; a sigil that radiated the darkest of magical energies… It was connected by several cables to a now familiar-looking machine located beneath a transparent fluid-filled cylinder that contained a floating human brain…

Several large insulated cables stretched from the boy, passed the occult markings on the floor, through a massive chain-mail fence and security gate to where the ‘family’ of teleporters appeared to have opened multiple gates of light and darkness to various other cities – she recognised the skyline of Manchester, Edinburgh, as well as Paris, Rome and Moscow. The view of the other cities was too indistinct for her to recognise. Several gang members stood ready to push what she assumed were some form of broadcast devices through.

Superconductor cables were being passed through these open portals ready to attach to the broadcast units and all were attached to the youth in the suit of armour, which presumably acted as some form of personal amplifier?

No warning had been issued, so they clearly intended to blackout the electrical systems in each of these cities similar to what had occurred in London in 2014, but then what?  She assumed they would then close down the portals after removing their broadcast amplifiers so no one would know how they achieved the destruction.

It would make sense to try to maintain the power-out over London while they negotiated with the other cities and countries that they would hold to ransom; probably threatening to black them out again as proof that they had the power to attack whenever they wanted?

Enough! She noticed that Lady Door and Seismic had dragged the three unconscious and injured technicians into the bottom of the stairwell and were now sheltering behind the foliage of Oak who was absorbing the gunfire being aimed in their direction.

Oak extended out her arms and swiped at the nearest of the gang, knocking him to the ground before surging towards the two Metas standing beside the armoured youth, only for Strand to grab her arms in her bio-mechanical tendrils. Oak head-butted the brute and tried to kick Strand in the stomach (rookie mistake, thought Banshee) as she tried to grab, unsuccessfully, at the cables plugged into NegaWatt’s armour.

Banshee unleashed a terrorising scream at the assembled villains around the control panels, hoping that Seismic backed it with a ground-shaking earthquake. She did, but instead of it being in her direction, the earthquake was aimed at the enforcers between her and the portals as Lady Door pulled out a long, wicked-looking knife from her top and sprinted on her own towards the security gate. So much for the best-laid plans, thought Banshee.

Her scream washed over Oleander but succeeded in causing her lieutenants to collapse gibbering to the concrete floor as the unearthly cry echoed round the side chamber.

Banshee thought the best solution now was to try to take out the sigil that apparently powered (or controlled?) the octuplets. She immediately turned invisible before flying fast towards the bloody markings. At the last second, she turned substantial and swerving along the floor, tried to smear the design with the back and shoulder of her robe. As her body made physical contact with the blood-picture, a psychic shock tore through her as she found her mind being shared with another, the brain in the jar!

She collapsed semi-conscious to the ground even as one of the gang rushed in and started kicking her in the gut. She failed to respond as her mind was now separated from her body’s pain response. Her eyes closed, she also failed to see her attackers’ leg explode as Seismic ended the attack with a single blast.

She was no longer just Mary or Banshee – she shared her mind with a young pre-teen. Olga had been her name when she’d been alive and had a body of her own. She’d been a lively little girl, a clone like her many brothers and sisters, bred to be transport for the men and women who treated them like machines to be bent to their will.  She was no idea how old she’d been when she’d failed to maintain a portal for as long as her instructors had wanted and she’d been culled. When she next ‘awoke’, she was blind, deaf and unable to speak or move. All that was left for her was the ‘joy’ of imagining the locations that her brothers and sisters thought to her and then enjoy, through that psychic link, places new and exciting they experienced through their own senses. Now she had another, fresh mind to consume one that lacked the natural sibling defences…

Something primal and vicious suddenly leapt to Banshee’s psychic aid – whatever it was, it was savage and unrelenting. It tore mentally into the little girl’s mind like a starved tiger ripping and rending a chunk of meat apart as though she was its first meal in weeks.

A split second later Banshee awoke, felt the pain in her stomach like an ulcer about to burst but she was alive and able to move, just. With a loud cry of pain, she forced herself back on her feet as the connection to the little psychic vampire vanished. Not waiting, she turned insubstantial and pitched into the general scrimmage trying to support Oak in her struggle against both the mammoth Meta and Strand.

Seismic, still standing close to the entrance had brought down a tonne of the roof onto the head of some of the gang members and severed at least one of the cables connecting NegaWatt to the portals. A freezing, foggy liquid bled out.

Lady Door had used the attack to reach the chain-mail fence. She used her blade to stab at the hands of the ‘family’ as they tried to stop her from yanking the door open. She succeeded in getting it open anyway and jumped inside. The security door slammed shut behind her, trapping her on the other side of the fence. She immediately found herself jumped on by a couple of the gang members present even as the others finished pushing the amplifiers through the portals and started to connect the cables that led back to NegaWatt.

Banshee tried to distract her two opponents but they quickly ignored her as they realised she wasn’t physically present. Worse, the boy seemed to be awakening and was gesturing in her direction. Was she invulnerable to his electrical attacks? As NegaWatt unleashed a ball of lightning at her, she elected to dodge rather than find out.

Oak was struggling to deal with both the Metathug and Strand. Banshee had somehow ‘occupied’ the brain in the jar so no new portals were opening, though she hadn’t a clue how. However, the portals already  open hadn’t closed and apparently wouldn’t while they were maintained by the ‘Family’. Eight of the Black Rose gang were currently on the other side of the portals trying to set up the amplifiers and would be trapped there with some of the ‘family’ if only Lady Door could manage to fight off both of her attackers and focus on closing them down.

A second ball of pure lightning sparked into life between NegaWatt’s armoured hands and flared towards her, too fast to dodge this time. Thankfully, it had no effect on her in this state though the stench of ozone left behind made her gasp. It splashed into the wall opposite and dissipated.

Banshee had to focus. Still insubstantial, she turned invisible and flew through the chain-link fence emerging behind one of the thugs attacking Lady Door.  “Did your mammie never teach you to not pick on little girls?” she muttered in his ear. He spun round but there was no one there… Or at least there wasn’t until she turned substantial and unleashed her corrupting touch on him before turning insubstantial-invisible again. A loud yelp came from the other thug as Lady Door, in a most unladylike manner, bit down hard on his wrist. Seconds later, he went flying as she managed to get her knees under his chest and push him away. He flew straight through Banshee who as soon as he hit the chain-mail fence unleashed another ‘touch’ this time on him. He too fell unconscious.

Seismic, realising that some of the gang wanted to flee, moved to one side of the door to the stairs, making space for any villains who want to make their exit even as Lady Door shut her eyes and gestured.

As though in response, the frame of the stairwell door started to glow an icy blue just as the three lieutenants ran from Oleander’s side and stepped through the open doorway. Instead of appearing in the stairwell with the three unconscious technicians, they found themselves exiting the door into an icy, forest wilderness. They stepped back and found themselves standing in a deserted, rickety, old log cabin with blankets over the unglazed holes in the wall that served as windows. There was no one else around, though the sudden howl of a wolf that echoed through the icy wind outside seemed to indicate that wouldn’t be alone for very much longer.

Unaware of what had just occurred, Seismic stepped further into the chamber and unleashed another of her quakes, this time aimed for beneath NegaWatt’s feet. It shook his aim but he still managed to score a strike; against Oak. The blast severed one of her arms. Strand who had been wrestling with her at the time at the time of the blast and who was left holding part of a severed arm fell backwards, electrocuted. He muttered something about “…Sorry I failed to rescue you, JumpStart” as he collapsed. Oak swiped out at NegaWatt with the remaining stump of her arm and sent him flying into the side chamber with Oleander, dragging the cables to the portals with him.

In the various cities around the world, the gang members trying to set up their broadcast amplifiers found their cables either torn from their grasp or dramatically shortened so they were no longer connected.

Aware that Strand was no longer breathing, Oak immediately started doing chest compressions on the villain using her remaining good arm. Metathug went to carry out a double-handed blow to the back of her head only to find herself knocked off his feet and burrowed under a very focused cascade of bricks from the ceiling above. Seismic nodded to Oak who was starting to slowly regrow the arm that had been severed and turned to focus on Oleander who was running towards her, swirling nunchakus in hand. Before she got within range, Seismic opened a chasm underneath her feet, which caused her to stumble and fall. She then resorted to multiple seismic blasts at her, half burying her under rubble thrown up by her shock waves.

Back on the other side of the fence, Banshee was flitting about, repeating her corrupting touch attack on the remaining thugs while always trying to defend Lady Door who was trying to get close enough to touch each of the intangible portals. As her fingers flickered over the portal, the light or darkness faded and vanished, cleanly severing anything crossing the threshold and causing liquid nitrogen to pump onto the floor. Those on the other side of the portal found themselves trapped in foreign cities.

Having to rescue the fallen, so to speak, from the frosty liquid now starting to flow across the floor, Banshee tried to think how to end this.

Lady Door was clearly doing a good job of severing the connection between here and there which took an attack on the other eight cities out of the equation, but NegaWatt was still connected to the local monstrous-looking device here and was seemingly still capable of blacking out the whole of London again.

While some of the ‘family’ had been on the other side when Lady Door had severed the connection, there were still half of them this side including the male twins and they seemed to be capable of creating localised portals between them. On the other side of the fence the Metathug was shaking off the bricks that Seismic had brought down on his head and both NegaWatt and Oleander seemed capable of continuing fighting in the here and now…

Up until he’d attacked, Banshee had been unsure whether NegaWatt had been a victim in all of this, or a co-conspirator, but his attacks had apparently settled that question, for all of them.

Banshee looked behind her and could see NegaWatt’s amplifier suit was glowing brighter and brighter and the kids’ eyes, fanatical before, now gleamed with an overabundance of electrical energy, as raw energy arced between his hands. They had a few minutes at best before the kid went nuclear and blacked out London once more, probably killing all of them in the process. As though to prove the point another ball of electrical energy flew across the chamber towards Seismic. She gestured as she ducked and a wall of bricks and stones erupted from the ground and the electrical discharge splayed across the makeshift barrier.

Banshee heard an audible gasp of air from Strand as his heart restarted. A minute later Oak stood up, her severed arm was growing back but it was her one good arm that grabbed hold of Metathug and slammed him over and over and over into the ground before angrily throwing him on top of a belligerent Oleander as she struggled to climb out from under the rubble. Banshee was still on the other side of the chain-mail fence and needed to focus on keeping Lady Door safe from the remaining ‘family’.

They seemed to be creating a series of portals around them, either to redirect any attacks or to sever in two anything or anyone that was stupid enough to try to go through them and risk them being closed down misstep. She had to trust in her teammates to try to stop NegaWatt before it was too late. Her focus for the moment was to shut down the teleporters, starting with the male twins. She flitted over, weaving back and forth to avoid the opening and closing portals and managed to unleash a corrupting touch on one of the males and was rewarded with his drifting into unconsciousness as a couple of the portals immediately closed around him. 

Lady Door meanwhile seemed to be immune to the portals, her touch closing them before they could do her any harm so Banshee was as surprised as the ‘family’ when she suddenly threw her blade at one of the remaining females. The ‘porter tried to manifest a redirecting portal but she wasn’t quick enough. The handle of the blade hit her in the forehead and she collapsed unconscious. Had the handle hitting instead of the blade been deliberate or had the girl been lucky? As a shock tactic it worked. The other two ‘family’ members, knowing that half of their number were trapped hundreds of miles away and now their brother and sister were unconscious and at risk of dying when NegaWatt went ballistic, grabbed their family members and portalled out.

No time for congratulations, Banshee turned and phased through the fence heading straight for the electrical youth hoping to unleash her corrupting touch on him and if that didn’t work sacrifice herself by phasing them both insubstantial in the hope that his megablast wouldn’t affect the physical world in that state. At the same time, she shouted to her companions to get up off the floor and out of the way of the spill, as she flew towards her companions. She could see Lady Door cling to the fence, her feet off the ground and Oak try to raise herself off the ground by creating a wooden platform of branches beneath her. 

In front of her, she could hear Seismic shout to Oak a single sentence, “Time for a canal I think, Oak!”  Oak nodded and started creating a woven barrier of branches to redirect the liquid nitrogen flowing out from under the fence even as Seismic unleashed a focused blast around Oleander and her companions towards NegaWatt. The blast created a moat that directed the freezing liquid to pool round NegaWatt’s armoured feet. He responded with a build-up of energy between his gloved hands only to have his powers short out due to the liquid gathered round his feet, inflicting damage of himself and vaporising the liquid nitrogen. There was a massive outpouring of light, temporarily blinding everyone as the electricity in his body short-circuited and he collapsed. 

The combination of the seismic shocks, the liquid nitrogen and NegaWatt had seriously weakened the bunker’s structure and it began to collapse. Despite being partually blinded, Banshee immediately flew over and substantialised herself long enough to grab Lady Door before phasing them both insubstantial as she flew towards the door to the stairs. In her ear, Banshee could hear Lady door whisper, “There’s not enough time to get everyone to the surface safely. I’ve an idea, get everyone into the stairwell, including them.” She pointed at Metathug and Oleander.

She pushed herself away and rushed towards the stairs and the injured technicians.  Not sure what was going on, Oak created a trellis of branches from his back to try to support the roof area above the door while Banshee and the others grabbed as many of the injured Black Rose as they could, dragging or in Oak’s case throwing them through the door into the stairwell. On the other side Lady door was touching the open door frame which now glowed an icy blue and dragging the unconscious back towards the door and pushing them back through yet no one was appearing on their side of the door.

Having rescued everyone, Oak, Seismic and Banshee rushed through the open door themselves even as the roof and its now detached branch scaffolding collapsed in behind them.  

On the other side, they saw Lady Door point behind them and they saw that her side of the doorway now led to the surface, in fact to the courtyard just outside New Scotland Yard. She’d formed a bridge between the buildings and their prisoners were apparently falling out of the entrance way into the welcoming if confused arms of the Police. Lady Door grabbed them and together they jumped through the open doorway and away from the subsiding bunker. 

Lady Door smiled, shook their hands (and branches) and then, without uttering a word, touched the door again and stepped through, vanishing from sight leaving Banshee, Oak and seismic to explain to the bemused Police gathered around them that they needed ambulances for the injured technicians as well as for several others and that they had NegaWatt, Oleander, local leader of the Black Rose Syndicate and an unknown Meta as well as several of that gang on charges of terrorism. 

The arresting Police officers were quickly strengthened by SCO19 Specialist Firearms Command team members specially outfitted in electrical protection suits in order to take the unconscious NegaWatt and the others into custody. 

Several Days Later 
Citywide disaster(s) averted, Banshee was glad to hear that Lance was up and about after his ordeal, in part due to the mystical ministrations of a certain Doctor Collins.

To her surprise and joy she discovered that the Cymru Dragon’s had legal responsibility in relation to the two probationers not her, as she’d failed to take into account that Oak was a full HCP member of that team.

To Mary’s utter delight that meant that it was Ceri that got to complete all of the paperwork and reports in relation to their probationers’ actions and her involvement was limited to providing the usual statements. 

The threatened foreign city’s decided to bury the story that they had been threatened and failed to acknowledge their actions but the capture of NegaWatt after all these years made front-page news around the world.

NegaWatt was going to have to undergo psychiatric evaluation as to his fitness to plead given he’d apparently been in an induced coma for several years. 

Apparently the little psychopath was vowing to enact his revenge upon the city and the heroes. In response, the authorities were considering whether they needed to hold him at the Deep Six Prison complex in the Highlands of Scotland until his trial where they were considering potentially placing him into another medical­ly induced coma while they kept him under constant surveillance, thus ensuring that he lacked the ability to override the prison systems or collude with third parties to try to escape.  

Strand had been discovered to have been acting under coercion after it was uncovered that the Black Rose had kidnapped his partner Jumpstart and used his continued survival as leverage to ensure Strand’s co-operation.

Oak had unfortunately cracked a few of his ribs while carrying out CPR but he had survived.  He was now reunited with his partner after Mace and Akira had undertaken a rescue under a ‘no knock’ warrant, which had also uncovered and confirmed details of their plans to hold a number of cities around the world to ransom. 

On top of all that, a letter had arrived earlier that morning and Mary was delighted to discover that she had got an invite to attend a ceremony in Cardiff in a couple of weeks’ time to celebrate Seismic gaining full HCP status and full team membership, a field promotion if you will, for her actions. Mary did feel sorry for Lance though; the Watch hadn’t done the same for him, despite his competency and being injured in the line of duty, so to speak.

Still she was proud of them all. It seemed her little team of Irregulars had done good and insisted that Banshee had their phone numbers on speed dial in case she ever needed to call on them again. 

With Oleander defeated, the Black Rose Syndicate apparently lacked the leadership necessary to continue its bid for control of London’s underworld — meanwhile the city was safe, for now.