Superhero Adventures, UK Style

Stacy involuntarily shivered and pulled her coat collar tight around her neck, hoping it would act as at least a partial defence against the invasive cold and torrential rain, as she stepped out of the concealed exit and into the junkyard that was spread over most of the ground above the BASEment, as the team jokingly called their hideaway.

She was sure part of their underground structure intruded beyond the high fence into what Banshee called Container Town, a settlement of the once homeless who now lived in the sprawling stack of shipping containers that the team had purchased and turned into homes for those who would otherwise have been reduced to living rough in doorways or makeshift tents. These container homes had been painted a visual cacophony of bright cheerful colours and prettified by adding porthole-like windows, balconies, and lots of plants hanging everywhere. It looked like an industrial hanging garden of Babylon! Or at least it did when the sun was shining, not so much when it was miserable weather like now. She smiled, despite the water running down her neck and legs, as she wondered to herself if the residents ever questioned what lay beneath them or where their free electricity and utilities came from.

It was evening and the Sun had already set, not that she would have been able to have seen it anyway through the dark storm clouds gathered overhead, and the blinding curtain of rain cascading down from the heavens.

She realised she might have been able to have avoided the worst of the weather if she’d left when she’d originally planned but, well, Chris’s lessons had been coming on fantastically and he’d asked if he could stay a bit longer and access more on 16th century history from Frankie, specifically about the witch trials.

The boy had a voracious appetite for knowledge, and she really wanted to encourage him so she’d elected to stay on herself in case he needed help. She had to wonder, though, if his reason for staying on really was to gain more knowledge or to see more of the other HCP apprentice, Seven? She seemed a nice girl, though given she was older and more worldly than Chris, Stacy thought that it was unlikely to be reciprocated or ever progress beyond the ‘friend zone’, though that would have been progress in itself. He didn’t appear to have any friends.

That had meant she was leaving the BASEment later than usual. She did wonder how Chris would react when she got up the courage to tell him that she would have to cut back on their time together due to her getting a job as a PA with Leonidas Industries working for their local area manager, a Mr Hierei, apparently. She’d only received confirmation a few hours ago that she had been successful in getting the job and was expected to start work at the end of the month.

She smiled; she still hadn’t had a chance to tell Brian yet. He was off in Scotland and wasn’t due back until the early hours. She’d tried calling and texting him to tell him the news but wherever he was, he apparently had no telephone reception.

As she rushed through the rain and maze of discarded metal, she noticed one of Mikey’s robotic ‘dogs’ patrolling the perimeter of the yard and marvelled again at Mikey’s techno-genius in creating something so aesthetically pleasing in form yet so functional. If she didn’t look too closely, they really did appear to be real, if very large, dogs. When they’d first been introduced to her (or her to them?), they’d licked her hand. Mikey had explained that they now had her scent and DNA in their systems and would recognise her as a friend. She was grateful for that as their metallic jaws did somewhat remind her of bear traps!

She stepped around the piles of old cars that never got any smaller and headed towards the main gate. She’d had to park her car at the far end of the street, given the traffic restrictions on the cul-de-sac, and looked up at the giant arachnid-looking sculpture that Mikey had built from the chassis of a scrapped car and some digger arms and mounted over the gate that still bore the legend ‘Ivan’s Junkyard’. She had to wonder who was Ivan?

She immediately turned left and walked through the pelting rain towards her car. She was about halfway there when she heard a growling, bestial sound and turned, her hand reaching to her bag to pull out her keys as a makeshift weapon. All she could see through the blinding rain was two piercing red eyes. A second later a second set of blood-coloured eyes appeared out of the rain.

They were clearly humanoid even if she wasn’t 100% sure they were entirely human. They walked towards her as she turned and started to run, back towards the junkyard and the protection of the robotic hounds. They immediately responded by running towards her at inhuman speed. There was no way she could outrun them, especially in heels and on a slippery cobbled road.

She couldn’t help noticing the disparity in their clothing; one wore a leather bikers’ jacket that looked old and worn. Under it he was wearing a white t-shirt and drainpipe jeans with turn ups. Part of her had to wonder who wore turn ups anymore? The other one seemed more elegantly attired, sartorial even, from what she could make out through the rain.

She’d barely got in a couple of strides when one of them, drainpipe jeans, pounced. She expected them to try and grab and wrestle her to the ground but instead her attacker tried to pull her towards his gaping mouth with its glistening canines.

Stacy reacted. She turned her skin to organic diamond and increased her mass.

Instead of her being dragged towards him, the creature found itself slamming into her even as he bit down on her neck. One of his teeth, an inhumanly long fang, tried to pierce the diamond skin on her neck and instead snapped off and dropped to the ground. He staggered back, clearly surprised at her metamorphosis as he tried to swing his hand, tipped with vicious inhuman claws, at her head. That fared no better and suddenly Stacy felt confident she would survive this encounter as his now shattered arm dropped to hang limply at his side.

The other set of glowing eyes stepped into view, grabbing, and tossing his companion out of the way. His face was pale but manly, his nose regal above a thin, cruel mouth surrounded by a neatly trimmed beard and moustache. A white streak of hair made him seem distinguished. His eyes bore into her as she found herself growing dozy. He spoke to her, his accent foreign, exotic and calming. She had no idea what he was saying but despite that it was as though she felt compelled to obey. She relaxed but part of her mind refused to allow her powers to fade, no matter how safe she now felt in the company of the man talking to her.

It was young Chris walking back to his foster home half-an-hour later that found Mrs Wellingham’s handbag discarded in the middle of the road, her phone and purse still inside untouched. Close by was her car keys lying in a puddle next to half of a dog’s broken fang, or at least that was what he assumed it was. Then he saw that her car was still parked at the end of the street. There was something seriously wrong.

Without fully knowing why, he turned and ran back towards the entrance to the BASEment to get Jeeves or Mikey. Something had happened to Mrs Wellingham, he felt it in his bones, he just didn’t know what.

Inside the base, Jeeves was all for calling Inspector Tolliver and requesting his assistance when Stacy’s phone rang. There was a text message. ‘An exchange – a diamond for a traitor. Bring me my bride. No outsiders.’

There was an address and a countdown clock showing 23 hours and 55 minutes, then 54 minutes. It took Frankie a second to identify the address as that of the Carpathian Embassy in London.

A picture accompanied the message, of a diamond skinned Stacy lying seemingly unconscious on an elegant chaise longue. 

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