Based on the adventure by Steve Kenson
Brian Wellingham was mildly annoyed as he sat sipping his so-called ‘craft’ beer and watched his friends rocking the dance floor. He’d just recently moved to the Royal Wessex Hospital and had persuaded several of his operating team to transfer with him, only for Sheila, his personal anaesthetist, to decide that she didn’t like being away so much from her partner. So here they were, celebrating her forthcoming marriage to that ‘ape’ of a boyfriend of hers and her imminent departure back to Stoke-on-Trent to become a housewife. What a waste of a gifted doctor.
Personally, he couldn’t understand why she was willing to give up her career to stay at home, just because her husband-to-be’s ego didn’t think his future wife should work. Worse, he estimated that the marriage was unlikely to survive more than a year or two at best as her husband-to-be, while admittedly a gifted doctor had a serious drink and gambling problem that he had so far succeeded in hiding from Sheila. Oh, Brian had tried to gently tell her, but she was besotted with the fool and wouldn’t hear a bad word said against him.
So here he was ‘celebrating’ her leaving and forthcoming nuptials in a nightclub in Wessex while secretly wishing he knew how to stop her from ruining the rest of her life.
He took another sip of his now overwarm beer and pondered the thought that perhaps most people were tools, it was just some were sharper than others when he heard a disturbance outside followed by a loud crash and the sound of breaking glass. One of the several large stain glass windows depicting famous Wessex alumni, in this case that of Dr Samuel Johnson had shattered into a million shards of coloured glass as a large motorcycle hurdled through it only to land in the middle of the thankfully empty hallway.
“Now that’s just downright rude!” Brian muttered as he stood up and wandered over to the smashed window, looked out at a disturbance outside before he stepped through the now open window frame.
oOo
Mary had finally passed her Pilot’s license test (admittedly on her fifth attempt due to always piloting too fast and without regard for others according to her panicked instructors). She was now legally able to pilot the Crate, so Mikey Angelo and Edward Jeeves have insisted on inviting everyone to the Eclipse, a popular nightclub in Southside district of Wessex, to celebrate.
The Eclipse was known to have criminal links and connections with organised crime in the city and was managed by an up and coming young crime boss called Gianni Royale. Jeeves had assumed that the mobsters might get nervous about members of the cape-and-cowl set poking around in their business so they’d all agreed to come in civvies. Admittedly, Mary had turned up in a smart dress, but Akira had elected to turn up in his usual attire, which had upset the two bouncers at the door who immediately identified him and refused to allow him in until Mr Royale himself had personally okayed his entrance to the club.
The Eclipse was in a building that had been originally owned by Wessex College, but they had sold it off to a developer years ago. They had taken the old stonework construction and decorative stained-glass windows and added some flourishes to make the structure look more like a converted church admittedly one dedicated to education. The Eclipse was on a side street, surrounding by three-story terraced houses most of which had been converted into small office spaces with restaurants and cafes on the ground floor. A set of broad stone steps led up to the double-door entryway, and when they had arrived there had been a line of hopeful club-goers stretched down the street. Jeeves had managed to skip the queue having made reservations earlier in the day, only Akira’s unmistakable presence had temporarily delayed their admission.
They had been barely seated in their booth when heard the sound of shattering glass as a large motorcycle had come hurling through one of the commemorative stain glass windows. Akira turned round to look at the broken window only to witness a tall, well-built man in his early 40’s, dressed in a smart Armani suit immediately head to the shattered window and climb through it and out into the street. How curious…
There was clearly a fight going on by the entrance going by the sounds they could hear emanating from the street. There were raised voices, as things seemed to escalate outside.
Brian stood just outside the window and took in the situation, evaluating whether or not to interfere. Two young, fit-looking males, possibly 18 or 19-year-old, smartly dressed in matching blazers and slacks, were confronting and arguing with the two behemoths that acted as the clubs bouncers. It seemed likely that they weren’t happy at the ‘over 21 only’ rule. The crowd gathered around the entrance confirmed his suspicion that an attempt to try to exit the club via that route would have been difficult at best. He glanced at their identical blazers, specifically the embroidered badge on the breast pockets; this identified them as belonging to a sports club – he thought it might be the logo of the Wessex Warriors, a local rugby club. It would explain their physiques. It wouldn’t explain however how one of them was able to raise a nearby parked car one-handed off the ground! Brian focused and raised the gravitational pull around the car, rendering it even heavier.
To the youths’ surprise, the car suddenly slammed back down to the ground hard, bursting one of the tyres in the process and leaving the young man holding the front bumper, which had broken free in his hands. Brian meanwhile had interposed himself between the bouncer and his would-be attacker even as he began to raise his force field around himself.
Meanwhile a perplexed Akira had headed to the window and poked his head out even as Mary headed towards the door. ‘Not a portal to another dimension then’ he thought as he stared at the man in the suit who’d exited through that same window seconds before.
He now saw the youth manhandle the car into the air only for it to suddenly crash back down leaving the male holding a crumpled bumper. The other youth had lifted the other doorman off the ground one-handed even though that shouldn’t be possible. He looked at the two youths and saw their eyes were glowing an eerie neon green and the veins on the side of their necks and back of their hands were pulsating. Not normal but he couldn’t feel any magic in either of them, clearly their abnormal abilities were not mystically linked.
He needed to take control of at least one of them, command him to stop before someone got hurt and he began to gesture even as he mouthed the words of power that called forth the Bidding of Behemoth onto the youth.
Brian was already curious about the slim bald-headed young man in Asian clothes that had followed him to the window but then watching him gesticulate and mutter in some weird language made him wonder what was going on. The youth holding the bouncer in the air, instead of bouncing him through the door and into the club, suddenly froze and stopped blinking as though entranced. He slowly lowered the bouncer back down to the ground, ignoring the flurry of punches and kicks the incensed doorman inflicted upon him, though the veins in his neck and forehead still pulsed away and his eyes still glowed green. Ensnared, he was being used as a punch bag by the bouncer who wanted to hurt him in revenge for making him feel afraid.
Akira stepped through the window and turned to the man in the smart suit, “Shame about the window, it was nice, I liked it. Gave the club some character don’t you think?” Brian was about to reply when he saw the other youth try to throw the bumper at the other doorman, the one he was standing in front of with his force field up. As he went to throw it, he stumbled and the end of the bumper hit one of the stairs. The bumper was torn loose from his grip and slammed into the thrower’s ankle, ripping it open, though Brian was glad to see that it was just a relatively minor flesh wound.
As he did so, an elderly woman in her seventies stepped out of the door behind him. Mary had finally managed to elbow her way through the group of people who’d also headed to the door to see what was happening outside.
Mary took everything in before she suddenly manifested her harp out of thin air and began to strum it, unleashing the Daur da Bláo chant to try to calm everyone down. Out of the corner of his eye, Brian witnessed the old woman produce a small Celtic harp out of thin air and begin to play it but suddenly felt calm and contented as though that had been the most normal thing for her to do. He smiled involuntarily then forced himself to be logical. Plucking a harp out of thin air definitely wasn’t normal.
A wave of healing washed over the crowd. Both of the blazered men began to calm down but Mary felt as though she was trying to counter something inside both them that seemed to be affecting their anger levels. Neither of them were clearly in their right mind at present and over her commdot she heard Akira ask if they might be on some form of steroids.
The man entranced by Akira seemed to be breaking free of his enchantment and began to mutter, “Why won’t they let me in? I’m old enough, 18 why wouldn’t they let me in?” His attacker stopped, puzzled by the situation even as the anger ebbed out of him, “This is a 21 or older only establishment mate, I told you and your mate that before you got aggressive, Them’s the rules and you had no ID…”
The man he’d been punching took a step back, clearly trying to get out of the range of the bouncers punches and stumbled. He fell back off the step and accidently shoved a young woman in the gathered crowd forcing her to stagger into the road and into the path of an oncoming car.
Brian took this in and muttered a “Flaming Nora” even as he unleashed his gravi-kinesis on her causing her to rise above the car. Caught by surprise, the driver swerved into a lamppost though thankfully the driver was uninjured though the lamppost was clearly no longer safe. He tried to pretend he was as surprised as everyone else as the now near-hysterical girl floated back down to the safety of terra firma and the driver stumbled out of the car. The bald-headed youth smiled at him and winked. Clearly, he hadn’t fooled everyone. Damn, damn and triple damn.
Brain walked towards him, “Hello, my name’s Brian Wellingham. I’m intrigued as you appeared to be doing something a bit unusual with the gestures. Mind telling me what?” Akira looked puzzled as he replied, “You talking to me? Yeah, I was just trying to calm things down. You’ve been acting a bit unusual yourself.”
Brian smiled, “I like being a good citizen, unlike some in the club who just want to post a photo on social media apparently.” “Without a doubt. Well done on the rescue, I ah, take it was you that lifted the person out of harm’s way? How did you do that?” Brian was taken back, “How did you know?” Akira smirked, “I am quite aware of things around me.”
Close up, Brian realised that although he’d never seen him before the face was familiar from Trouble Alert and Dispatch broadcasts as Aki-something or other of the Balance. He really should have done some research into local HCP-certified powered before coming to Wessex.
“Ak..?”
“..Ira, yes nice to know someone recognises me, other than the bouncers of course.”
Brian looked him over, he observed with his trained eye that he clearly had an unusual power set, some abilities could be meta-related but others obviously weren’t. Psychic possibly but he had the demeanour of a Meta as well, interesting. In Stoke-on-Trent he’d not had a lot of contact with others like himself, other than some stormers and the usual collection of self-serving villains, it been him alone against them.
He nodded to Akira, “Let’s get these two taken care of then perhaps we can go somewhere quiet and talk? I’ll, ah treat you to a green tea?” He gestured towards Mary. “She with you? Not a Meta I assume? Unusual companion if so.” “You’ve no idea,” murmured Akira.
Feeling a bit suspicious, Akira fingered the medallion around his neck hoping to activate its ability to read minds. He felt a mist fall over his mind then clear to reveal two visions of Brian, both equally strong. In one, he was a surgeon carrying out some form of complicated surgery on a patient and in the other, a costumed and masked figure with a large X emblazed across his manly chest, emitting a powerful orange beam of energy from his hands. Neither of the visions radiated excessive ego, they just were of him doing his best. In both visions, he was clearly on the side of the angels.
The costume was unfamiliar but then again other that the major players like London Watch or the Protectorate, he hadn’t paid that much attention to other heroes around the country.
Akira smiled and jokingly asked his new ‘friend’ what he should do about a loose tooth. Brian smiled, “Not a dentist, sorry,” Akira agreed they should meet up for a drink once this was over, all three of them. He took the opportunity to put through a sub-vocal call to Jeeves over his commdot to tell him that this evening was likely a bust and they should head home though Mary and he might need the crate so sorry about that. Jeeves as always took the whole thing in his stride.
Akira realised that he couldn’t maintain his control of the youth who immediately responded by smashing his bleeding and broken fists again and again into the wall around the door, shattering the bricks of the façade, punching where the bouncers head used to be before he’d became entranced.
Meanwhile a delivery truck seemed to be heading towards them unaware because of the crowd gathered around them that the crashed car was still blocking the road. It’s horn sounded to tell people to get out of the way but it failed to slow down.
Mary meanwhile had changed her tune from calming to lullaby and allowed the notes to wash over everyone, unaware of the approaching truck. Even Akira and Brian found themselves feeling dozy and wanting to sleep as around them everyone began to collapse to the ground, unconscious, including the driver in the truck. It took real effort on their part to force themselves to stay awake.
Whatever the old lady was doing was proving too effective. That’s when they realised that to add to their problems the street light that the car had hit was buckling and was about to collapse on top of several of the now comatose crowd and it was clearly still live going by the sparks!
Brian did his best to shake off the desire to sleep as he moved between the crashed car and the truck bearing down on it and gestured. His gravi-kinesis managed to slow down the truck but failed to stop it as it continued, admittedly slower than before, towards the car.
Akira had also manifested his Theurgical-Kinetic ability to create a force wall between the two vehicles and the slowed truck suddenly hit this and stopped dead in the street while Mary turned into Banshee and called upon the spell, Breath of Manannan, to freeze the lamppost in position so that it couldn’t fall any further. To Brian’s amazement, the old lady had been instantly replaced with a monstrous vision of a fairy tale figure, admittedly still female and still with long white hair, that had somehow cooled the air into pillars of ice that now surrounded and supported the lamppost. Brian didn’t believe in the supernatural but he was reasonably sure the woman wasn’t an alien or Meta. What was she?
The sleeping driver thankfully was protected and cushioned by Akira’s TK and as a result, he didn’t slam through the windscreen when the truck hit Akira’s force wall. Akira looked around and noticed that although everyone other than the three of them were now asleep, those who’d been inside the building had been unaffected and going by the sound of distant sirens someone had had the sense to call 999 to summon the Police and hopefully an ambulance.
Brian went over to the two sleeping attackers and checked that they hadn’t hurt themselves too badly. The one that had been punching the wall had suffered from multiple broken bones in his hands, but was otherwise uninjured and the side effects from whatever they had been exposed to were no longer apparent.
He checked for needle marks on their arms and neck, then checked their ankles just in case they were hiding their use of steroids or stimulants but found nothing. Whatever had caused the ‘green rage’ hadn’t being injected, it appeared. They were extremely well built and in abnormally good physical condition. If he had to guess, he’d think they were likely professional athletes, which fit with the Wessex Warrior badges of their jackets. He sensed they were also students attending one of the local colleges or universities and checked their wallets – sure enough, he found student Union cards for Wessex College in the names of Jack Klein and Doug MacRae. He replaced their wallets and proceeded to put them into recovery position before checking the other ‘sleeping beauties’.
While he was doing that, he noticed Akira lean over and touch each of the two students in turn, watched his eyes glaze over and seemingly pray or meditate over them both. In reality, Akira was striving to view their past to see if he could uncover what had happened to change them. The ‘change’ was due to them getting angry with the bouncers when they had refused them admission, Frustratingly, he didn’t see them do anything usual, no injecting themselves or taking medication. One minute they were joyful, seeming wanting to celebrate – something to do with winning a match? Next second they were angry, violent, out of control; it had happened as quickly as that. This was the first – and only – time they’d experienced a related physiological change. Whatever had caused it had to be further back. Nothing, he almost gave up but realised that when he went back to earlier that morning and every morning for the last month, he ‘saw’ them drink a green ‘healthy’ smoothie as part of their breakfasts every day. Could it be?
There was nothing to identify what was in the smoothies in their minds; it was a complete blank, only that they had both received a crate of the stuff, something to do with their coach and a link to Wessex College by someone with a Mediterranean accent at the college and a claim of helping provide ‘enhanced performance’.
He stood up and explained to the Doctor and Mary what he’d ‘discovered’ – when asked how, his claim of viewing their past merely confirmed Brian’s belief that this Aki-fellow was a psi Meta. He wasn’t sure what to make of this ‘instant diagnosis’. He smiled, “I don’t know how you did that but it’s useful to know, very informative.”
The Police arrived first and began to question them as well as the two doormen and two ambulances arrived a minute later only to find to their bemusement an excess of apparent ‘victims’ and a surgical trauma team already on the scene as Brian’s colleagues joined them outside to administer first aid.
Thankfully, only the two unconscious students appeared to require hospitalisation and were placed on trollies inside the first ambulance for transport under police guard to the A&E.
Brian sent his colleagues back inside the club but said he wanted to follow up the treatment of the two. Thankfully, they were used to Brian’s tendency to disappear from social events and didn’t question his decision to not re-join them inside. He then approached the police officers, identified himself as a Doctor and explained that some form of mass hysteria had been responsible for the fainting obviously brought on by the fight. It was agreed that two officers would accompany the young men to hospital while the other officers took statements but that Akira and Banshee could file their reports in the morning once their current investigations were completed. Meanwhile Akira was checking out the broken lamppost before unleashing the Wheel of Weyan with a flourish of his wrists, causing it to completely repair itself much to Brian’s amazement. He heard one of the officers tell his companion, “See! I told you it was Akira!”
The ambulance with the two students and their escorts, set off for A&E, but a mere 40 metres up the road an explosion of trees suddenly appeared around them forcing them to come to an abrupt stop with a sharp squeal of brakes. There was the sound of something crashing as the ambulance came to an abrupt stop only for more trees to spring out of nowhere trapping the crew inside the vehicle. There was a flurry of petals and a female figure, easily ten metres tall, materialised as through sprouting up from the ground. She wore a skintight green and brown costume that appeared to be covered in vines. Then two other women appeared emerging from the mass of trees trapping the ambulance. One was dressed entirely in dark green leather with pale green hair and green lips while the other had a brightly coloured tunic with flowing sleeves and a patterned headband that held her long, blonde hair in place. She looked not unlike a 1960’s flower child.
“Flora, Venus, let’s go!” boomed their gigantic companion, “Collect our little seedlings!” With that, she bent down and ripped the rear doors off the ambulance like an aluminium wrapper before finger flicking the police officers unconscious and dragging out the two occupied trollies.
“Now it’s the bloody green’s isn’t it,” muttered Akira as he stepped into the road and mentally prepared himself for combat once more. A sudden memory of their encounter with the mystically-enhanced Whateley Sisters and the Bargainer in the village of Dunwich came unbidden to their minds but neither Akira nor Banshee could senses any magic in these three.
Were they also beneficiaries of smoothie-related jolly Green Giant juice?
Brian felt sure he’d seen something on the Trouble Alert channel about three women known as the Brides of the Green when he’d been still living in Stoke-on-Trent. Something about missing British students turned eco-terrorists in Eastern Europe but that was all he could remember. Unfortunately, Akira and Banshee had been off-planet at the time and wasn’t aware that they were known by the authorities or hero community.
The two normal sized women rushed to the liberated trollies and began to push them towards a swirling miasma of petals that had materialised in front of the trapped ambulance.
Akira smiled and shouted, “Save the NHS!” as Brian, still dressed in his suit, rose off the ground and flew towards the ambulance, readying an energy blast until he was closer.
The giant reached out and grabbed him around his upper body, trapping his arms against his body but he erected his force field around himself so she was unable to crush him as Banshee flew in and unleashed an aura of fear.
Brian felt the emotion flow through him, felt the panic wash over him, felt the desire to run and hide but he was used to dealing with feelings of doubt and fear in his professional life and he knew his value and self-worth and wasn’t going to let some nameless emotion get the better of him. Having identified it as irrational, he immediately mentally countered it. The giantess was clearly affected but not enough to affect her actions, it also made the green leather-wearing female stagger back but then trees appeared to grow in front of her like a shield or barrier. Flower-power child on the other hand seemed completely unfazed.
Akira gestured and seemed to unleash multiple invisible blasts starting with ‘Maxi’ but surprisingly despite her stature was able to dodge – though how you dodged an attack you couldn’t see was beyond Brian. If he had to guess, he had to assume she could see the blast even if he couldn’t. Akira gestured again this time at the woman sheltering behind the trees and she staggered back, clearly hit. The flower child was similarly hit.
The spiral of flowers in front of the van became more solid and revealed a different location behind it – clearly one of them was capable of creating a portal and one of the wheeled stretchers with its unconscious passenger was being pushed towards it by ‘Maxi’.
Brian managed to get his arms free and unleashed a radiation blast at her face. It hit and left her dazed as he broke free from her grip. He flew round the back of her head while she was temporarily blinded while she tried to reach out and almost succeeded in grabbing Banshee who responded with another aura of fear pulsing out from around her. It was too much for the two human-sized females, they collapsed unconscious as their nervous systems and minds were overwhelmed with fear. Maxi was also affected but not to the same degree and she grabbed her unconscious partners and tried to flee through the portal with them.
Now, knowing what to expect, Brian was prepared this time for the feelings of fear and instantly overcame them in himself.
Akira gestured and Maxi suddenly rose into the air and spun upside down even as she threw the two women through the portal despite being trapped herself. Thankfully, the two unconscious patients were this side of the portal as it began to close.
They elected to interrogate the giantess while she was floating upside down. Akira elected to ask the questions while Banshee elected to remain silent but whose presence alone was very intimidating. Brian elected to stay close enough to hear what was said but out of view. After all, his identity as X-Ray wasn’t public knowledge and he’d already risked revealing it to everyone still awake but hopefully not to anyone who knew him.
Akira approached the woman as she began to shrink down to normal height, though Akira refused to turn her upright or release her. Akira smiled, “Before I decide to drop you on your head, I just wonder if you could tell me where you came from and what you’re up to?”
“I’m telling you lot nothing! Nothing!” she snarled back. For the next few questions she refused to talk but then when Banshee took over the questioning, she replied that she had been sent to retrieve the ‘seeds’. “Seeds, these two?” asked Banshee as she pointed at the two unconscious men. “Who sent you?”
“Nobody sent us” was the hostile reply, “we came to get the seeds…”
“What do you want these seeds for?” asked Banshee. Maxi glowered as she replied, “To send them to the greenhouse.” Banshee jumped on that and asked, “What’s the greenhouse?” “Wouldn’t you like to know” and went silent again. Banshee tried to find out if that was where they had come from and where was this greenhouse but she refused to say anything more.
Akira again tried to use the Medallion of Modrossus on her mind. He tried to probe for the location of this greenhouse hoping it wasn’t in another dimension and was rewarded with a vision of an actual greenhouse – in the grounds of Wessex College going by the signs that the giantess associated with the building, part of the botany department seemingly. There were some strange-looking plants growing in there but he was relying on her memory, which could be distorting the images he was pulling from her mind. He could ‘see’ a shadowy, very indistinct figure in the image but it was as though she was deliberately distorting her own memories so he couldn’t identify who it was. She was unaware he was intruding in her mind so this had to be how she thought of him all of the time, whoever or whatever it was. He tried to look at the plants again and this time got a clear image of a dark, almost black, orchid-like flower!
Then she glanced at the two men on the trollies and it was clear that she didn’t know them, just that the mysterious figure had wanted them collected and returned for ‘harvesting’ though again she had no idea what that meant…
Akira smiled and signalled to Brian and Banshee to join him out of her earshot where he explained that “it looks like we’re going back to university, not that I’ve been there myself” and explained what he’d ‘seen’ in her mind. He then revealed that the way her mind had opened up when she was so close-minded to their questioning he wasn’t sure what he’d seen in her mind was the absolute truth. She was definitely holding things back from his probe.
Brian had to find out what he’d done to the woman and was astonished at the casual way he stated that he’d read her mind.
After a bit of banter it was decided that Brian would join them in their investigation but first they needed to head to his ready rooms at the hospital where he kept a spare uniform. He didn’t want to take them back to his house or let them meet his wife Stacy just yet.
They agreed to take what they referred to as the Crate, which turned out to be a top-of-the-line grav-vehicle! He’d never flown in one before and to his amazement, Banshee changed back into the old lady, Mary who turned out to be the designated pilot.
As they travelled to the staff quarters at the Wessex Royal Akira suggested he used an illusion to make himself appear as ‘Maxi’ and they pretend to be the ‘seeds’ wheeled in on their trollies. It wasn’t ideal, but none of them could think of anything else to try instead. It had the advantage that the mysterious shadowy figure was expecting Maxi and the two ‘seeds’. Brian did raise the fact that the other two ‘Brides’ would likely be there and might be expecting them. Still for this plan to work they needed three people so they were grateful for his participation.
Meanwhile the two youths would head to hospital and Maxi headed off to a special holding cell at Central.
At the hospital, Brian vanished for 20 minutes followed supposedly invisibly by a cautious Akira, who was unaware that X-Rays’ super senses was reading his heat signature and was therefore fully aware that someone was following him. Just as long as he wasn’t too intrusive, he was willing to put up with his ‘curiosity’ for the present. Thankfully, Akira was discrete and left as soon as he’d confirmed nothing amiss was happening.
Brian returned to the Crate suited up in an X-emblazoned uniform pushing two spare medical trollies as he explained that when in uniform he preferred to be known as X-Ray and as Brian Wellingham, not ‘Doctor Wellington’ as Akira had accidentally called him previously, when in his other identity.
The Police contacted them and confirmed that the two young men were members of the Wessex Warriors rugby team and they had been celebrating winning their latest match when they had finally broken their losing streak that had haunted the team since the start of the season. They also both were attending Wessex College, though it was not the most prestigious of colleges in the city.
After Akira had grabbed an emergency vegi-burger, paid for by their new friend, they headed off towards the college and the Botany Department’s garden facilities where Akira altered their appearances.
Dispatch called them and over the speaker confirmed that the three women were the trio known as the ‘Brides of the Green’, missing British botany students attached to an expedition to Northern Siberia organised by a Dr Nathan Grovemont. They were investigating some unusual medicinal plants recently discovered growing in the tundra, when all four of them went missing, believed killed. Although there has not been any sign of the doctor, the three students subsequently reappeared a year ago in Eastern Europe, initially in Carpathia in fact, bio-chemically altered where they were involved in several violent acts of eco-terrorism against a number of European governments and corporations. Now they were in the UK.
To X-Ray’s surprise Akira muttered something about “Vampires again?” “Not necessarily” replied Dispatch responding uncharacteristically. Grovemont was still missing, believed dead.
It was nearly midnight when they landed the Crate in the grounds and went on the search with Akira disguised as a normal sized Maxi. They found the greenhouse facility was where students grew and harvested a variety of plants as part of their classes and internships in botany and agronomy.
The building was still lit. Much of the structure was a single-story metal framework with large tempered glass panels, allowing ample sunlight into the greenhouse and making it a suitable growing space even during the winter months. Long tables with garden beds of soil run the length of the greenhouse, with aeroponic beds above them suspended from the ceiling by chains. Five-foot-wide spaces run between the tables and were, thankfully, kept clear of obstacles. The aeroponic beds were all lined with vibrant purple-and-black flowers, orchids.
The greenhouse building had a small outer office and a large storage closet for tools and supplies. The rest of the building was open space for growing plants. The windows had adjustable blinds to control the light level; enough of these were closed making it difficult to see into the entire area of the greenhouse from the outside.
Akira as Maxi pushed and pulled the two trolleys inside. There was no one to be seen, unless they were in the office area. He pushed the trolleys to the middle of the greenhouse and stopped to shout in Maxi’s voice, “Hello, I’m back! I gave them the slip.” There was a strong anaesthetic scent in the air, the pollen from the orchids possibly? It was making them all feel dozy.
Then some of the nearby vines began to twitch and move of their own volition. Akira just had to hope the two ‘patients’ didn’t react or it would shatter the illusion. No one came out though so Akira thought he should raise the stakes and used the nuclear option, his transformation ability on the vines nearest to him; turning them into red liquorice before moving to the next plant leaving the transformed plants to revert back, but the process had resulted in their organic destruction, instantly decomposing.
A man emerged from the office and wandered through the overgrown foliage within the greenhouse. He wore a tight-fitting costume over a middle-aged paunch. The costume was a brown jumpsuit with green gloves, boots, and belt, along with a green shoulder cape scalloped like leaves. Electronics and controls studded the right gauntlet. A green hood covered his head and face, save for small eyeholes cut into it. It was obviously handmade. There was no sign of the other two ‘brides’.
“So!” his voice muffled by the hood, “You have found your way into the garden of the Green Man! Now I will see if you are fit for cultivation… or merely fertiliser.”
It seemed as though their illusion hadn’t work as some of the mobile vines started to grab at them.
“You’re Doctor Grovemont by any chance?” Akira shouted. “No, I knew him though. We were colleagues once,” was the reply, “before I was the Green Man I answered to the name Enrico Granjero, Doctor Granjero.”
Was this the Mediterranean person he’d ‘overheard’ in the players’ minds?
“So are you the person I was supposed to deliver these seeds to?” “They are not seeds, they do not bear the mark of the orchids in them. You’re either deceived, deluded or deceitful. I was warned you would come.”
The costumed man plucked a delicate flower from a nearby rack and held it up in one gloved hand. Its long, curling petals were edged in deep violet, darkening to completely black in the centre of the bloom/ “Beautiful, is it not? The legendary ‘black heart orchid.’ Few have ever seen its’ like or learned to unlock its secrets as I have. The enzymes of its seeds have certain useful properties, as you have no doubt discovered, causing changes in the body and mind and turning hapless mammals into hosts for the next generation of blooms. Initial experiments with it involving healthy young athletes have proven most promising. Stage two will be large scale! Mass pollination.”
“But for now,” he eyed them sinisterly, his eyes growing green and the veins on his neck started to pulse. “I have the opportunity to test it on even more unusual subjects.” As he spoke, the roots of the alien plants hanging above them twisted and grew down, creeping slowly, inevitably toward them.
“Now that I have established their effectiveness on some able-bodied athletes, well… Sporting events are such opportunities for people to gather in large groups, to eat and drink while they enjoy the spectacle, aren’t they?”
In response, X-Ray and Banshee got off the trollies…
The plants around them trembled and slowly began to move towards them again. The rich stench of decay filled their noses and brought a bitter taste of bile into their mouths. The greenhouse was deliberately kept hot and humid which left them feeling extremely uncomfortable as they spotted that the doors were surrounded by clusters of exotic-looking vines covered in ripe spore pods; presumably ready to explode if touched. They had to assume that ‘experiencing’ their contents would not be pleasant.
The Green Man touched the device on his wrist and suddenly the pods exploded, enveloping them in a cloud of spores. Whatever the spores were, they seemed to affect all of their senses, temporarily blinding them and rendering them completely deaf.
As their vision returned, they each found themselves standing alone, surrounded by a number of Green Men, each identical to each other; six in total while their companions had seeming disappeared. Akira reacted first – he tried to call out to his two companions only to discover that he had been rendered completely silent, something was absorbing all and every sound including their voices. The hoods worn by the others prevented them from seeing if anyone’s lips were moving.
Akira and X-Ray immediately realised that they were hallucinating, seeing their companions as Green Man doppelgängers, but were the other Green Men real or Just illusions?
It was obvious to X-Ray that they had just been subjected to some form of psychotropic attack and they shouldn’t trust their senses. Banshee however was struggling to come to terms with what had just occurred as first one of those figures close to her began to wave their arms in the air only for a couple of ‘Green Men’ in front of her to start emulating the first. Why did the dance movements to the 80’s song ‘Agadoo’ suddenly spring to her mind?
Akira looked where Banshee and X-Ray had been before the spore attack and marked their position in the greenhouse, or at least where he hoped they were, especially as he was considering zapping them all and hoping for the best. X-Ray did the same, focusing on the four ‘Green Men’ in front of him but it appeared That Banshee hadn’t figured it out yet… That meant four others that might be attackers, not counting the various plants, vines and trees that appeared to be moving and swaying all around them.
Akira took in the handmade hoods, the identical green wellies and gloves, fashionably challenged and smiled. He was going to enjoy this. He shouted over to the figure he assumed was X-Ray, “have you got a rebreather? Use it as I’m…” before realising that he wasn’t making a sound but nor was anything else; total silence reigned.
X-Ray also discovered something had rendered him deaf and apparently mute since he couldn’t hear his own voice and apparently no one else could hear him either, but he thought he knew which of the figures surrounding him were his companions; he could be wrong of course he just had to trust to his logic.
Akira wondered if the attackers were mystically ‘unnatural creatures’ as he thought he knew a way of dealing with that, but his preternatural senses failed to recognise them as such. He did ‘know’ that Banshee was still present but couldn’t focus his mystical senses enough to confirm which of the several identical Green Men she was for certain.
Akira reached out and grasped the medallion round his neck, trying to activate its ability to read minds. Since he’d refused the mantel of the Master Mage, his ability to use its God-given powers were severely restricted, but he was sure he could read at least one of the opposing figures. He focused its telepathic intrusion on the ‘Green Man’ at the rear of those clustered opposite him, on the assumption that Dr Granjero would try to stay protected behind his creatures, whatever they might be.
Nothing! Either the creature was a mindless creature or it was mentally shielded in some way. He tried to read another but realised that his ‘request’ was denied. The medallion was getting temperamental.
As though in response, X-Ray came under attack from the nearest ‘Green Man’ opposite him who began to pelt him with a barrage of thorns. They hit him across the chest and arms but failed to penetrate even as he raised his force field around him even as he responded by rushing his attacker and tried to punch him, it in the hooded face only to trip over several animated vines and miss.
It was chaos as Banshee turned insubstantial and unleashed an aura of fear that washed over everyone, trusting that Akira and X-Ray would be able to ignore it. Unfortunately it also didn’t seem to affect the others either. She felt a leathery leaf touch her ghostly shoulder and turned to see a ginormous, alien-looking pitcher plant quivering in anticipation had touched her. It seemed that turning insubstantial, while it protected her against other physical attacks, somehow allowed the pitcher plants to interact with her, Audrey II style. While she pondered whether to turn back, a dozen iron-hard thorns passed through her insubstantialised form.
Then the nearest pitcher plant’s fronts tried to grab her, even as the petals that formed the pitcher opened to reveal a foul-smelling, fluid-filled bowl that the plant tried to pull her into. She managed to tear herself free, aware now that it could affect (and was seemingly attracted to) her while she remained insubstantial.
Akira immediately targeted the two ‘Green Men’ that had proved to be ‘thorny’ by attacking the two on his side of the greenhouse as well as the Green Man he’d tried to mind-read. It was already proving to be confusing trying to keep track of them all. The mindless one he’d failed to read he hit first with his initial mystical blast left him, it, staggered.
Without waiting, Akira targeted Banshee’s thorn-throwing opponent next. The blast tore its arm clean off and dark green sap sprayed out like an arterial spray of blood. It too remained standing but it was clearly badly injured. Finally, Akira focused his mystical blast on X-Ray’s opponent. His blast missed, too distracted by the damage he’d inflicted on his previous opponent.
Several vines animated and crawled towards Akira even as he erected his own force field. He looked at the four figures opposite and wondered which of them was the real Doctor? He dodged out of their way before the moving vines could entangle him.
X-Ray was again assaulted by a cascade of the bullet-like thorns, which thankfully bounced off his force shield. He responded by trying to punch his opponent again but was prevented from landing his blow by the animated plants. He’d deliberately avoided using his radiation attack so far as they were all gathered in such close quarters but he realised he would have to risk it.
Banshee turned substantial again and tried to grab the one-armed ‘Green Man’, unleashing her corrupting touch on it only for it to ‘melt’, wilting into stinking liquid goo. Were their opponents some form of animated ‘fetch’, she wondered? In Irish folklore, a fetch was a supernatural double or an apparition of a living person often formed out of brambles or plants, but these lacked any trace of mystical resonance.
Before she could do anything more, a swirling storm of petals engulfed them all and when it cleared they had each been displaced and now stood in the middle of a mass of Green Men but closer to the office end of the greenhouse and no longer able to identify their companions by their location. Either the flower child from the brides was nearby or one of the Green Men was able to duplicate her teleportal ability. With everyone having changed their location instantaneously, it was now impossible to decide who in the crowd was friend or foe.
Both Akira and Banshee found themselves facing two ‘Green Men’ each (which unknowingly now included each other) while X-Ray faced a single opponent. They were all confused by what had just happened.
One of the Green Men unleashed a storm of thorns, which bounced off Akira’s force field as he responded with a mystical blast back at his attacker. It dropped to the ground and began to decompose.
Banshee saw something hit one of his two opponents and saw it putrefy. He reacted by unleashing an aura of fear knowing his companions should be immune to it. It seemed to have no effect on the remaining Green Man in front of him, other than the extensive gestures it was making with its arms. Did that mean it was possibly Akira or X-Ray?
Meanwhile, X-Ray was facing off against his opponent as he unleashed his gravi-kinesis towards ‘him’, slamming him back and into the wall of the office leaving it staggered and ‘bleeding’ green sap.
It did make another of the Green Men start hobbling away as though in panic, towards the office even as the one of remaining Green Man tried to attack Akira by trying to grab him. He failed, even as Akira unleashed a series of blasts, first at his ‘groper’, which caused him to collapse and begin to decompose then at the fleeing figure. That blast missed, but he was almost caught by Banshee’s icy stare as she ignored the figure hand jiving and focused on the fleeing figure. Unfortunately, her target managed to get through the door to the office without being affected by the ice though it did leave that end covered in ice.
That left the figure X-Ray had pinned to the office wall. Akira had to figure out which of the remaining figures was the ‘fetch’ and which was his companions though he assumed the one facing the office when the ice had appeared might be Banshee, he hoped.
He blasted the other two, hoping that X-Ray’s force shield would protect him. X-Ray felt the blast hit but it failed to penetrate leaving him wondering “What the hell?” The other figure disintegrated, leaving just three figures including him. One of them ran to the door seemingly in pursuit of the first escapee.
Banshee turned insubstantial and followed the fleeing figure out of the greenhouse. Once they were on the other side of the door and with the office door to the grounds wide open, the inflow of fresh air seemed to wash away the hallucination of the Green man from them both.
Inside the greenhouse, X-Ray saw that the discomposing figures had resulted in the floor being covered in green slurry as the remaining two fled through the office, with the last one phasing through the door rather than opening it; that had to Banshee, which meant the other one had to be Akira, surely?
X-Ray headed towards the office and found himself following The restored Balance out into the grounds and the fresh air. The last ‘Green Man’ had either headed down into the nearby sewers or heading towards the sanctuary of the university buildings across the lawn.
They had survived the greenhouse of horrors, that wasn’t something you said too often.
X-Ray caught up with his two now fully ‘reappeared’ companions and tried to see if he could follow their quarry’s heat trail. He thought he could ‘see’ a faint trace heading towards the main Botany block. “That way!” he shouted as he pointed to the faculty entrance and started to run towards it.
Despite the fact that it was late on Friday night, the building still had a number of students milling around the corridors, but they couldn’t see anyone in a homemade green costume.
Akira looked inside the nearest janitorial closet and discovered a green costume, boots and green gloves tossed into a black bin. The good doctor had clearly come out of the closet as himself again.
Akira muttered, “I’ve sussed it, this is a Scooby-Doo episode and it’s the caretaker that done it! He’d have got away with it too if it wasn’t for those pesky kids!” X-Ray gave him a look as if to say, “What’s he been smoking?” even as he checked the overhead direction signs to the Botany department and wondered if the Doctor had headed to his own office?
Akira used his ability to read the past on the costume. He immediately got the impression of a middle-aged weedy-looking man, in his late 40’s or early 50’s, dark thinning hair, a faded Mediterranean skin tone with a thin moustache – not someone he would normally associate with being a criminal mastermind. He ‘saw’ him taking off the costume and throw it into the bin before heading off down the corridor in a rush. He was the weediest looking ‘janitor’ Akira had ever seen. He laughed out loud at the thought and then apologised as he pointed up the stairs. “That way!” he shouted as he headed towards the stairs without waiting to see if the other two followed him. As he ran he described what Dr Granjero looked like to his companions who was following on behind.
As they reached the first floor, a wall-mounted sign directed them to the faculty offices. Doctor Granjero’s name was listed half way down with an arrow pointing towards the end of the balcony.
There were also signs on the doors and within minutes they’d reached his office. They could see a light shining under the door and they could hear a distant, whirling sound coming from inside. They opened the door, stepped into a small outer office apparently used by a secretary or administrator, and saw the main office beyond with a moving silhouette in the glass panel of the inner door and the even louder whirling sound that sounded like something being shredded, emanating from inside that room.
Akira headed through. The man he’d seen in his vision was busy feeding a thick pile of papers into a large industrial shredder and appeared oblivious to his presence. The papers being shredded seemed to consist of pages filled with handwritten notes and chemical formulas as far as he could tell. His eyes were glowing green and the veins on his neck pulsed as though he was seriously stressed out. He still ignored them even after the other two joined Akira inside the office.
Akira was now convinced the Doctor was being subjected to some form of mind control. Was he another victim of the orchid smoothie? He clearly wasn’t all there as he continued to stuff ream after ream of scientific papers into the whirling mouth of the shredder.
Enough, thought X-Ray; he was clearly trying to dispose of evidence and had to be stopped. He unleashed a low-level rad blast at the shredder and was rewarded when the machine-stopped working even as a pillar of smoke and the machine’s sudden silence indicated he’d successfully overheated the machine. He’d also ‘killed’ the laptop and computer that was nearby at the same time.
Dr Granjero was still trying to feed the now dead shredder with papers, seemingly unable to recognise that it no longer working. He had to be mind-controlled, otherwise he would have noticed that he was now surrounded. Unfortunately, there were not a lot of papers left unshredded and those that papers that had already been cut were now likely burning inside the machine’s shreddie receptacle.
Banshee turned back into Mary, manifested her harp and began to play, hoping to calm the Doctor down. As her fingers strummed away, Dr Granjero started to visibly relax and calm down and the green glow left his eyes, though he was clearly confused as though he was coming out of a trance.
X-Ray stared at her in disbelief. Not only had she metamorphosised back into her old lady persona but she’d again materialised a Celtic harp seemingly out of thin air! “Where the hell do you keep that thing?” he asked her. She merely smiled and kept strumming.
The doctor collapsed even as he managed to stutter out, “Stadium, he’s going to be there tomorrow, today, for the match. He intends to spread the seeds across the entire city. Something about identifying and weeding out the weak.” The effort to speak was too much and he collapsed, unconscious with the effort.
X-Ray had heard one of his surgical team mention that the Wessex Warriors had won a game earlier in the week, admittedly it had been a charity match, when they had played the Carpathian National team at the Wessex stadium. All profits from the gate had gone to a local children’s charity and to support a charity school back in Iasi, the Carpathian capital. It had boosted their fans morale after such a long losing streak and hope was high that they would do well against the Leeds Rhinos in todays’ match. The kick-off was apparently scheduled for 2pm.
What to do with the good doctor though? Wessex Royal was clearly struggling to help the two players from the nightclub incident and the Doctor had clearly been infected for longer, they needed somewhere more advanced to treat them. Mary suggested that they should approach the Challenger-Wildeman family and seek their assistance in overcoming whatever had been used on the Doctor.
X-Ray had heard of the family, after all it was unusual for an entire family to have an active Meta gene and of course their parent’s sacrifice during the inter-dimensional attack over London years before was the stuff of legends, even if he didn’t believe the all of the outlandish rumours about the family. They were also extremely rich supposedly. Mary collected the Crate and they set off for London and the legendary family. If even half the stories about them were true, they were definitely the stuff of legends even if they were not superheroes, though wealth could be considered a superpower according to Akira.
Despite the late hour (or early morning) the oldest brother Max, who clearly knew both Banshee and Akira, met them at the lift. He agreed to put the comatose Doctor into their medical bay and allowed their systems to analyse him.
He identified that a plant was growing inside him and affecting his brain. When they described the orchid they’d seen growing in the University Greenhouse, he got excited and pulled up a picture of what he called the Black Heart Orchid, a hallucinogenic, parasite, which was supposedly only found on a legendary remote plateau in South America. That location might be related to what was referred to as the Lost World, supposedly an inter-dimensional portal to another world once existed there, to a world that supposedly still containing living dinosaurs. According to Max, his grandfather had discovered the portal and had actually explored this lost world, a planet he called Zorandar if he was to be believed, before he’d managed to find his way back home.
Looking at the medical analysis, Max was sure that treatment was possible and he suggested he join the two other patients now they knew what was affecting them. The two players should completely recover in a week or two after the effects of the enzymes had been flushed from their systems. Only Dr. Granjero will need further hospitalisation, should make a full recovery in time. Meanwhile he could stay at the Tower until they had finalised the necessary treatment. Hopefully his, admittedly radical, treatment would be acceptable by the hospital.
Leaving the doctor with Max for further examination, they headed back to Wessex.
They contacted Marcus enroute. Despite the hour he accepted their call, listening attentively but was unsure how best to proceed. Without more evidence than Dr Granjero’s unconfirmed comments and no proof of public harm he was restricted in what he could do to stop the match.
He could (and would) ask the Directors of the club to stop the match but he was pretty sure they would refuse/ He had insufficient evidence to warrant closing it on health and safety grounds due to some form of unconfirmed food contamination even if they were about to discover they were two men down. It didn’t help that the match was such an important game for the club.
Back at his ready room at the hospital, (he felt it was too late to head back home) Brian found he couldn’t sleep and so he spent the hours doing research on how to prevent a mass pollination threat. He examined the stadium floorplans and checked the air conditioning system plans and of course, the stands were outdoors.
Next morning they met up at the BASEment and introduced X-Ray to the support team while equipping him with one of the team rebreather units, just in case, and a Commdot communicator so he could communicate with them as well as with Frankie if required.
Akira loaded up the Crate with their pair of freezer guns and their recording drone, Tinks before the three of them set off for the stadium. Their lack of tickets for the match and not having an invitation meant they had to sneak in with Banshee turning herself both invisible and insubstantial and Akira using the illusions of Idolon to disguise X-Ray and himself as the two missing players.
As they entered the changing rooms they saw the rest of the team were drinking down a glass of seed-covered green sludge each and both of them were handed their own ‘energy drinks’ to consume. It had a very fruity smell.
They got some strange looks especially from the other players and coach (Akira assumed it was something he got wrong in his illusion but it still worked enough for them to have gained access). X-Ray joked quietly “I should play Right Back – in the changing rooms.”
They did their best to surreptitiously dispose of the contents without drinking any but in the end, they made the excuse that they wanted to see what the crowd was like and made their way to the entrance to the players tunnel. There the three of them noticed that there were display signs all around the stadium announcing that free fruit smoothies would be available throughout the match and they could see that long queues had already formed at each of the refreshment booths. This had all the signs of becoming a mass contamination event if it was allowed to proceed.
Then they saw him, a seven-foot tall human covered in vines and plant growth with yellow glowing eyes standing by the side of the tunnel. He was clearly visible to the spectators opposite but they must have assumed it was either a new team mascot or some such and were seemly unfazed by his ‘alien’ appearance. If anyone deserved the title of the Green Man, it was he. That was proved accurate when he was joined a minute later by two familiar female figures, the two remaining so-called ‘Brides’, even if one was wearing hoodie to disguise her costume. The staff were completely ignoring them as the figure headed onto the pitch, followed by the two females.
X-Ray got the impression that the ‘main man, if he was real and he assumed he was, seemed more plant that human. He tried to analyse what he thought might be his abilities and concluded that he likely had similar abilities to his followers so some form of teleport, plant control and a defensive attack, similar to the thorns used by his converts. He thought he already knew the powers of the two brides. “Worst cheerleaders I’ve ever seen”, muttered Akira on seeing the two females walking beside the Green Man.
Banshee remained ghosted as she observed that the tall man was manipulating some sort of device on his wrist, identical to the device on Dr Granjero’s when he was pretending to be The Green Man.
There was a powerful blast of light emanated from the device that for a second or two the whole stadium was blinded by, then… Hundreds of fans, their eyes suddenly turned green, began to slowly invade the pitch drawn by the activation burst to seek out the Green Man. From the tunnel behind them the Warrior players, some with the green goo still on their lips and displaying glowing green neon eyes, joined the crowd on the pitch.
A “Good grief” escaped X-Ray’s mouth. Then he noticed that several of the contaminated started screaming as though in pain before spasming and collapsing to the ground. The one closest to them was a young female.
Then there was a sudden breach in the sky above them, a pulse of blinding light and a cloud of silvery dust appeared, seemingly out of nowhere and began to fall through the ‘hole’. This ‘dust’ then started to spread out across the pitch, drawn to the fallen.
Akira had a moment of clarity. This was a silver storm event, the falling dust were a cloud of Nanites – miniature molecule-sized robots – designed to artificially activate powers in those who carried the Meta potential. It began to activate those powers as the Nanites were absorbed through their skin, causing the fallen to begin to change before their eyes as their potential powers activated.
Not all activations were beneficial to the Nanite recipient. The collapsed female closest to them for example, began to transform into some sort of human/reptile hybrid with a neck frill before screaming out with the pain of the transformation, despite being unconscious. Both Akira and Banshee knew that such activations were also liable to turn the recipients psychotic over time. They had seen similar transformations before when potential Metas underwent activation.
The orchid mix obviously had a side effect – it appeared to identify those who might be able to be Meta-activated by rendering them unconscious and in such a way that it attracted the Nanites to swarm them, or was that one of the purposes of infecting them? Had the Green Man been expecting this?
At the same time, all of the electricity in the stadium died as though completely drained. That couldn’t be a coincidence. Half the stadium audience was clearly now infected by the orchid sludge and had invaded the pitch like a horde of shambling zombies heading towards the Green Man.
Akira knew he needed to clear the stadium of the Nanites and thought he knew a way he could achieve that using the spell known as the Great Gale of Ghorummaz.
He pictured in his mind a serpentine dragon of stone and fire, spitting molten magma as he petitioned the ‘great beast that resides in the sky’, while trying to reach out with his mana seeking the “dragon lines” of force that resided within the Earth. Success! A massive storm appeared suddenly over the stadium and, at Akira’s direction, began to gather up the remaining free-floating Nanites and blow them away from the remaining Orchid Zombies. Almost as soon as it appeared, the storm vanished, having cleansed the stadium completely of the silver ‘dust’.
X-Ray unleashed a rad blast at the Green Man but to his surprise, he managed to dodge; it was as though his limbs were no longer human. He immediately raised his force shield even as Banshee unleashed an aura of fear around him. It hit the Green Man but had minimal impact and it also failed to affect the Brides but did drive the shambling crowd back.
Akira was worried about the rest of the fans being affected by the smoothies as they were unaware that was what was causing the pitch invasion, but settled for blasting the three villains as he tried to come up with a solution. He blasted the flower power woman first, immediately staggering her as he then aimed at the Green Man but missed him before aiming for the woman in the hoodie and again missing.
X-Ray rushed towards the Green Man and unleashed a bubble of gravity to bowl them all over, rendering the flower child unconscious and leaving the Green Man dazed even as the other female collapsed stunned by the sudden assault.
Banshee was still ghosted and invisible as she drifted around the rear of the Green Man, turned substantial again and tried to grabbed hold of him while unleashing a corrupting touch on him. The assault rendered him seriously stunned. He responded by unleashing a cloud of pollen as the team struggled to put their rebreathers on their faces in time.
Akira was too slow and be felt the pollen slow him down as he staggered back but the other two managed to put theirs on in time. Akira put his rebreather in anyway, hoping it might help minimalise the effects.
The remaining Bride responded by unleashing a hail of thorns at X-Ray which bounded off his force shield. Akira felt he had a solution to prevent any more people drinking the smoothies and becoming infected. He used his illusion power to alter the green smoothies so that the contents looked and smelt like urine, causing everyone to cast their drinks away in disgust.
X-Ray meanwhile focused on blasting the Green Man. The orange ray hit him dead on the chest and immediately rendered him unconscious. As he collapsed, the zombie horde stopped moving as though their minds were now freed and they collapsed to their knees and began to vomit up all the green, now urine-smelling sludge all over the pitch.
Banshee unleashed an icy stare on the remaining Bride and as she iced up, she collapsed in shock.
There was a moment of complete silence other than the occasional retching, followed by a massive cheer as the crowd realised that some sort of battle taking place in the centre of the pitch had been won by the good guys .
With such an obvious outbreak of poisoning happening all around the stadium, Banshee was able to persuade Inspector Tolliver to declare a medical emergency and hospitalise all of those who’d drunk the free smoothies. The Police present arrested the Green Man, removing his wrist console in the process as well as the remaining eco-terrorist Brides and the team were able to recommend that the Wessex players receive medical attention as directed by the Challenger-Wildeman’s.
As for those who’d just been dosed with the black heart orchid formula for the first time, Max stated that a standard x-ray it seemed should be sufficient to kill any new growths inside and their immune systems should be able to destroy the parasitic plants inside them so long as they don’t consume any more of the Green Man’s supplement.
It was time to leave before someone handed them a bill for cleaning up the stadium while M.E.T.A. evaluated the new Silver Stormers and made sure they were safe to release.
They would have to file reports and hand over the recording drones’ footage of their involvement in today’s events (Tinks hadn’t been deployed the previous evening so Brian’s identity would still be safe) but they could do that back at the BASEment.
Akira smiled as the three of them walked back to the Crate, “You know, we currently have a vacancy in the team, if you’d be interested? We can give you a full guided tour of the base when we get back and introduce you to the team sponsor, though you might want to be sitting down when you meet her. What do you think?”
M.E.T.A. – Metahuman Evaluation and Tracking Authority
Superhero Adventures, UK Style 