Superhero Adventures, UK Style

By Ant L. (Team Archivist)

“Come with me if you want to live.” If there was ever a phrase guaranteed to catch your attention, that was it.

Even then, The Balance almost took way too long to reach a decision, looking at each other with enquiring eyes, shrugging their shoulders, miming questions and answers with their hands, as though it really mattered that they didn’t vocalize their indecision. It was as though being trapped on an alien Dyson sphere in another dimension and surrounded by incredibly powerful enemies at every turn just wasn’t enough to spook them, but the sight of a missing-presumed-dead superhero from their Earth had sabotaged their ability to think clearly.

Eventually Akira, Banshee, and X-Ray agreed that it would, most likely, in all probability, be alright to say hello, and they drifted over to where Wildcat, previously known as Chat Noir, was standing.

Wildcat directed the team to hide inside a battered old grav transport taking fruit and vegetables to the nearby city. He advised the trio to get themselves right to the back of the transport and to hide as much as possible. To his immense surprise, the team were able to turn themselves both invisible and insubstantial. The first checkpoint they came to, the living guards helped themselves to half of the stock being transported before allowing them to pass. Thankfully, they were unable to find the human cargo hiding inside. The team weren’t happy about letting the guards get away with this blatant theft but they knew better than to cause trouble and risk the lives of more people, so they stayed hidden, stayed quiet.

When they arrived at the nearby city, The Balance found themselves being bustled into a butcher’s shop in the poorest section of the city; its main food supply appeared to be metre long skinned rats which looked no more appetising than their smaller, more familiar cousins. It appeared that one man’s science fiction prop was another man’s Sunday lunch, on this the other side of the multiverse.

They were quickly ushered inside a dark chamber behind the shop. Here they questioned Wildcat about how he and the other Protectors had arrived on Terminus. He explained that the members of the team had been transported here prior to the tractor beam device being tested on Birmingham, which created the massive crater, though they were able, as a team, to sabotage it before it could do any further damage to the city. Unfortunately, two members of the team, Fer-De-Lance and Psychedelia, were killed in the process and no one knew what had happened to Shard.

He, Forté, and the second (female) Hotshot had survived the journey through the portal. Trapped on an alien world, surrounded by enemies intent on their capture or extermination, they had subsequently and secretly started to organise a resistance movement against Lord Omega and his undead legions. Unfortunately, the beam device had subsequently been repaired, improved and would be used again if their Earth did not surrender.

The device would be used to grab land and transport it back to the Dyson sphere, where it would be used to construct viable new sections of the Dyson sphere. If their Earth surrendered, the invaders would claim they would not use the device immediately but would wait until the majority of humanity had been transported over to Terminus as slave labour and only then would the tractor beam be used to landscape and terraform currently unoccupied regions of the Dyson sphere, destroying and rendering their Earth uninhabitable in the process.

The Balance’s unexpected presence on Terminus was a godsend to the remaining Protectors. Wildcat and his team were in a position to signal a rebellion amongst the slaves and underclasses, which would kick off at the same time as The Balance destroyed the portal, if they agreed to work with them. That was a no-brainer; the only thing to sort out was the how and the when.

The Protectors had been stockpiling weapons and training the resistance fighters in preparation. Forté had devised a spell that would instruct all the Omega-Drones within 10 kilometres to enter sleep mode; that would take care of great numbers of powerful foes in one hit and the rebellion would have a chance of succeeding.

If The Balance could render the portal generator inactive to prevent Lord Omega from recalling his troops and gunships, and if, at the same time the Protectors could target Omega’s trans-dimensional targeting directory and destroy the data that was required to accurately use the portals, then Omega and his army would be stuck on Terminus, unable to transport themselves to other planets. If that happened, it would prevent Lord Omega from rebuilding his generator and resume targeting other Earths again.

The signal for the rebellion would be the destruction of the portal generator. Lord Omega would not be able to recall his ships and troops attacking Earth to put down the uprising, nor could he flee off-world to rally his troops for a counter attack.

Asking how they could get to the portal generator, Wildcat replied that the only way to get to the generator was to allow themselves to be captured and make sure they got sent to Lord Omega’s private arena to fight for his personal entertainment. X-Ray volunteered immediately, but was told just as quickly that his particular power set would be more useful in destroying the generator. Scratch idea number one.

The arena was built on top of the ziggurat that housed the massive portal generator but that would mean allowing themselves to be captured and then face fighting his elite warriors to the death. If they could destroy the generator then the surviving Protectors would target the directory and delete all their targeting data and back-ups. Then all they had to do was escape the arena.

The team decided, with no small amusement, that Akira would allow himself to be captured and sent to the arena whilst Banshee and X-Ray would go along with him, invisible and insubstantial, and transporting as much explosives as they could carry. They agreed to use X-Ray and Banshee’s commdots to synchronise their attack with Wildcat’s team when the time was right.

The Balance headed to a nearby checkpoint. With Banshee and X-Ray invisible, and providing back-up should their comrade run into something he couldn’t handle, Akira used his Illusions of Idolon to change his appearance into various celebrity identities, including into Michael Jackson moonwalking. The security guards seemed disinterested, and Akira struggled to get them to chase him; even his turn as a unicorn proved to be a lacklustre event in the minds of the bored guards.

In their defence, Banshee and X-Ray were amused for the first time since Terminus attacked Wessex several hours ago, but they held it together just enough to remain undetected.

Out of sheer desperation, Akira was forced to fire a mystical blast near to the guards before teleporting amongst them, taunting them in a comical fashion. He was actually pleased when they at last clapped hands on him. Demanding to be taken to the arena, he held his arms out in front of him, wrists together, waiting to be handcuffed.

Unfortunately, they elected to question and interrogate him instead of taking him to the arena, and his teammates were forced to follow while he was taken to a nearby guardpost. Akira was marched into an interrogation cell, Banshee and X-Ray following secretly. The power of invisibility was useful, the intangibility even more so. At least no-one would accidentally bump into them in the cramped room.

Akira continued to plead to be taken to fight in the arena, but it was not his day. Instead, a torturer tried to use a stun-staff on him, but Akira simply levitated cross-legged inside his forcefield. In desperation, the torturer called for one of Lord Omega’s female Warrior Amazons. That’s when things went awry.

The Amazon seemed to sense the presence of the invisible duo, cocking her head and scanning the cell with her eyes. She brought a weapon to bear that utilised an energy beam with a shifting nano-wave output; in other words, it affected intangible beings. This forced X-Ray and Banshee to attack her (and a wail from Banshee terrified the torturer and forced him to flee the cell in abject terror). Between them they got the job done, but the experience showed them how tough these Amazons were; getting through this plan alive was not going to be easy.

More guards arrived, signalled by the torturer. Surveying the scene, they believed that Akira had incapacitated the Amazon on his own while in chains. It helped that Akira was quipping all the while, and it resulted in the remaining guards informing Lord Omega that they had captured an alpha-level Meta. Intrigued, Omega, lord and master of Terminus, demanded that they transport Akira to his arena straight away.

No sooner had Akira arrived in the arena that Banshee phased X-Ray and herself through the floor of the area. Twenty feet or more below the arena they found that the generator took up all of the remaining levels of the ziggurat. The mechanism was huge by anyone’s standards. Its destruction was a daunting task.

In the arena above, Akira was facing three warriors, two of whom were obviously Metas and the third seemed to be syphoning away his meta-abilities! As if to press home the fact that he was going to die, the stone-like creature grabbed a nearby Omega-Drone and tore him in two, discarding the pieces as he strode across the sandy ground. The only audience was Lord Omega himself and one of his Priestesses of the Blood.

Akira immediately targeted the female with the neutralising ability, but he was hard pressed. He cast several mystical blasts and the baleful Bindings of Bal’Hemoth to bind her and render her unconscious, whilst dodging the attacks from the other two warriors. The attacker with organic metal skin was blasting at him while the stone-skinned warrior was trying to grapple and crush his bones, forcing him to continually dodge. He mentally urged his teammates to hurry.

Down below in the generator chamber the other two had forgotten that to use their commdots they needed to become substantial again. This they rectified quickly, informing Wildcat of their status. They planted the explosives and X-Ray used his gravity powers to focus the explosion inwards as it exploded. The blast tore through the roof and shattered the floor of the arena above. Witnessing the explosion, Lord Omega entered the area and attacked Akira even as Banshee abandoned X-Ray and rushed through the roof/floor to attack Omega with a deafening wail.

X-Ray was left to blast and decimate the generator while telling Wildcat and the remaining Protectors to attack the directory repository. His position became untenable as the ceiling began to crumble and collapse, huge chunks of a concrete-like material falling away, threatening to crush him. Running out of space to manoeuvre, X-Ray flew to the extreme edge of the level he was currently in, his force field barely able to keep the falling masonry at bay. His thoughts slipped back to Stacy, to Chris; “Goodbye,” he thought, “I love you both.”

Up above, Akira bounded across the arena as sections of the ground gave way, falling into nothingness below his dancing feet.

Away across the city, Forté unleashed his spell. Omega-Drones became inert in a heartbeat, causing panic amongst the homeworld security forces. Alerted to the attack, Lord Omega was forced to teleport away.

X-Ray could hardly believe his eyes when the rumbling began to subside and he was still alive. A cautious look to check and he was flying again, spotting the others as he reached the outside world once more. Akira had suffered minor injuries but would be fine in a day or two. X-Ray couldn’t help but smile; the three of them were one hell of a team.

Exiting the city district as discretely as they could, they joined up with Wildcat who informed them they were all now trapped on Terminus, unable to return to Earth. It was the price to be paid for securing the survival of the Earth. Akira smiled as he fingered the crystal pendant and explained that he was only too happy to offer to take the Protectors home using the Airts of Ahgrazul and his crystal blade to travel back to Earth, but Wildcat elected to stay and lead the rebellion. After years of insurgency against Lord Omega (time worked differently in this dimension than back home), the cause had become a calling to the surviving Protectors, and they felt that it would have been a betrayal to those who had fought and died with them to leave now.

The farewells weren’t sad; the two teams acknowledged the courage of the other, and that was something to be proud of. With waving hands, The Balance faded into Akira’s portal and were gone.

Back home, The Balance discovered that the closing of the portals had meant that the Omega-Drones had all gone offline, and that all of their attack ships had been instantly depowered. The county had suffered major destruction that would need to be rebuilt, and there was still stranded living Terminus warriors to capture as well as an enormous amount of alien hardware to be collected and disposed of, but it would be achieved in time. Across the globe, reports showed that the other portal sites were now closed, though international repercussions would continue for many months to come.

X-Ray, the family man, checked in with Stacy and Chris, his heart lightening at the sound of their voices. He laughed and he cried, the joy overwhelming him. Today was a good day to be alive.

Akira and Banshee returned to the BASEment, relieved that everyone there was okay. The subsequent briefing proved to be one hell of a story, and it finished with drinks and nibbles, a show of friendship and unity in a world of chaos. The team had made it through an alien invasion, and now they were laughing and joking, sharing their stories with each other, safe in the knowledge that they would do everything in their power to keep the world safe.

They were The Balance; between life and death, between good and evil, between freedom and slavery.

Yes, today was a good day to be alive, and it was but one day of many more to come.