This message Premiere #6: Resistance was posted by on Friday, February 15, 2002 at 11:43.
At 1200 EST the Science Heroes of Technopolis were deployed to “protect” all the major cities of the United States of America from escaped super-criminals from the other-dimensional city. Over local protest four thousand metahumans arrived to take charge of local police operations and begin a hunt for alleged fugitives. None of the harassed local law enforcement agencies, and not even the international Super-Menace Principle Undercover Directorate, were aware that Technopolis itself was now under the control of its most vicious Science Villain, Red Watchman. All they knew was that the Technopolitans were here: powerful, organized, and seemingly unstoppable.
That didn’t prevent some people trying to stop them, of course.
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“I don’t care what Aryan Ideal said,” CrazySugarFreakBoy! shouted as he bounced another Science Hero through a plate glass shop window in downtown Seattle. “We don’t want you here, and we’re not letting you march over us with your science jackboots!”
It had been two hours since the green and orange superhero had led his reformed supervillain team the Goofball Gauntlet against the Science Heroes in the Windy City. One by one his allies had fallen, but CrazySugarFreakBoy! continued his fight with endless energy, to the frustration of his adversaries.
“How is the little shit doing this?” Dreamripper demanded as another of the Science Police support troops fell to the hero’s combat candy.
“Who cares?” Blast Zone demanded. “Let’s end this.” He marched to one of the jammed cars caught in the war zone around the Space Needle, ripped the door off, and pulled out a six year old child. “Surrender now or I pull this kid’s head off,” he shouted at CrazySugarFreakBoy!
A mother shrieked, but Blast Zone backhanded her into unconsciousness.
“Okay!” CrazySugarFreakBoy! called, sliding to a halt and putting his hands up. “You win. Don’t hurt the child.”
Dreamripper and Blast Zone exchanged looks. “You surrender?”
“Yeah. Put the kid down.”
Then Blast Zone sprayed the surrendered hero with machine gun bullets.
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In Gothametropolis York two hundred Science Police troopers formed a protective cordon around City Hall. Inside the building, Mayor Hopkins was in conference with Dr Crevlan of the ruling Science Council of Technopolis. spiffy had no way of knowing that this man was now a clone-slave puppet to the Red Watchman. At the moment spiffy was more concerned about being pinned down on his desk by Heatseeker and Fracture while Dr Crevlan concluded his analysis.
“It’s an energy-manipulating symbiont plant form from a conceptual dimension,” the Science Councillor noted, concluding his scans on spiffy’s fern. “It has a threat potential, but it can be ripped out with only a 70% of brain damage on the host.”
“Get off me!” Mayor Hopkins struggled.
“No one would even notice if a politician on this world had brain damage anyway,” Dr Crevlan quipped to himself. “Besides, the Mayor will have us to guide him from now on. Rip it out and destroy it.”
The shadows in the Mayor’s office moved. “I’ll say this one time. Let. Him. Go.”
Heatseeker and Fracture did not let spiffy go. Hellscreamer and Charybdis span round to eliminate the attacker.
The Dark Knight planted a knightarang in Hellscreamer’s left eye and broke three of Charbdis’ ribs before Fracture used his power to rearrange bone structures and shattered both the Dark Knight’s legs.
“Last warning,” the Dark Knight snarled from the floor.
“Kill him,” Dr Crevlan ordered.
An intense explosion blew in every window in City Hall, as central Gothametropolis gained an exciting new property development opportunity.
“What the hell was that?” demanded Heatseeker, pulling herself up from the ground and staring into the red glare outside.
“That was your grav-carrier getting blown sky high,” Dark Knight told them. “I kind of… sent a message.” The urban legend didn’t feel any need to reveal the arrangements he had made for a Messenger.
There was the sound of gunfire and shouting outside as a minor war erupted. “And that would be the Abandoned Legion asserting their civic and constitutional rights or assembly and freedom of expression,” Dark Knight added.
Then spiffy sat up, pulled off the power damper that had been pressed onto him until just now, had his fern grab Heatseeker and Fracture by the necks and slammed their heads together. “And that is a pissed plant,” the Mayor of Gothametropolis added.
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No less than two hundred Science Heroes and eight thousand Science police support troops were deployed in Parodiopolis, which registered so high on the Red Watchman’s risk assessment that he had had to create a new category for it. Dimensionweaver led the team to locate and capture the Interdimensional
Transportation Corporation. Technovore and Random Access secured Bautista Enterprises, Red Right Hand, and Turrets Inc. Partial Man was detailed to find Xander the Improbable’s plumbing and watch repair shop but was never seen again.
Leading the team was Professor Brudas of the Science Council, supported by Count Armageddon, one of the major-ranking metahumans of Technopolis in anyone’s league table, and recently released from lifetime captivity by that city’s new management. Brudas was frustrated to find that the Mayor of Parodiopolis was not at home. In fact nobody even seemed to know who he was.
What he did get was a crotchety old Commissioner of Police who didn’t know when to back down. “This isn’t your jurisdiction,” Commissioner Graham told the Science Heroes. “Go away.”
Count Armageddon pointed a finger that could flatten a tank at the old cop. “I don’t think you know what you’re dealin’ with here, pops,” he warned.
“Snot-nosed bullies who think that because they’ve got powers and big guns that folks will roll over and play dead?” Graham suggested. “We’ve seen worse than you here, sonny. We’ve had alien invasions and demon incursions, plagues of undead and super-villain riots. Giant purple rabbits. Dinosaur attacks. The Yurt. Galactivac. We’ve had bloody Celestian Space Robots. So don’t think we’re going to be impressed by you.”
“You don’t have to roll over an’ play dead,” Armageddon promised. “We can make you dead for real.”
“An object lesson, I think,” Dr Brudas suggested, nodding to Count Armageddon. “Hurt him very badly.”
Commissioner Graham was still defiant when he was bludgeoned into unconsciousness in Parody Plaza by a metahuman who could crush diamonds. Everybody in the shocked watching crowd heard the pop as Armageddon disclocated the Commissioner’s arms from their sockets.
“I trust everyone saw that and got the message?” Dr Brudas said to the silent throng.
There was an angry, mutinous murmur. The people of Parodiopolis had got a message, all right. Just not the one Dr Brudas had thought he was sending.
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The squad that blew a hole in the front wall of the Lair Mansion were not obedience-chip controlled science heroes. They were handpicked scum from the detention centers and re-education stations of Technopolis, a dozen of the nastiest metahumans Red Watchman could find. They were all the bolder knowing that the Lair Legion were well out the fight trapped and dying somewhere behind an impenetrable barrier. This was simply a mop-up operation.
It didn’t take long for a dozen insanely-powerful villains equipped with technology two hundred years ahead of even the Lair Legion’s somewhat advanced materiel to secure a nearly-deserted building. Four prisoners were bundled together for questioning in the Lair Legion Living Room.
“Anyone else on the premises?” Fleshcrawler demanded of his captives: Amber St Claire, Lisette, Valeria, and Amy Racecar.
“No,” Lisette snapped.
“Except for Flapjack. I don’t even want to think about where he goes in his spare time. You can kill him if you want to,” added Amy nastily.
“Who are you people?” demanded Amber St Claire. “And do you know how much trouble you are in?”
Fleshcrawler popped a beer and admired his captives. “We’re the rescue squad. We were sent to keep this place safe for the Lair Legion while they’re out of action. We’re here to make sure no nasty science villains break in and trash the place.”
“Those heroes of yours oughta thank us,” Spinoid giggled. “We’re a public service.”
“Yeah,” Fleshcrawler smirked, eyeing. “I’m sure they wouldn’t mind sharin’ their goodies with us. A few beers, a bag of chips, their concubines…”
“We are not concubines,” snapped Lisette. “Well, except for Valeria, and she’s a special case. Don’t get any funny ideas.”
“I say we better do a security check on them, Fleshy,” Spinoid leered. “Strip search and a body cavity inspection to start, eh?”
“No way,” warned Lisette, desperately as the dozen super-powered convicts circled round them. “You don’t touch us, and… and…”
“And you do not open that door there,” added Valeria fiercely.
“What door?”
“That door,” Amy told them maliciously. “The one under the stairs. The one marked Broom Closet.”
“Spinoid. Check it out.”
Valeria exchanged a glance with her friends. “I warned them.”
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Bloodwroth and Discordia led the team that assaulted Herringcarp Asylum. The Hooded Hood unexpectedly met them at the door. “Good evening,” he bade them.
Bloodwroth turned his psychotronic weaponry on the grey-mantled archvillain. “We’re here to take you into custody,” he announced.
“Indeed,” the Hooded Hood noted.
“We outnumber you thirty to one. We could destroy this whole installation in less than a minute. We’re all read your dossier and we’re prepared for whatever retconning tricks you try to pull. You don’t stand a chance. Surrender.”
“If what you say is true, that would seem the most expedient course,” the Hood acknowledged. As always, he was very precise in his use of language. “You had all better come inside,” he suggested with the faintest glimmer of a smile.
The Science Heroes entered Herringcarp Asylum. And that was that.
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Ziles was spotted as soon as she began unlocking the power-draining manacles that bound Premiere’s battered and bloody form to his torture wrack. “Hey!” Hellspine grinned, “Fresh meat! An’ a local delivery by the looks of it!”
Ziles had just spent the batter part of two days forced to watch from hiding as these monsters and others liked them had decimated the superhero population of the city they had conquered in an orgy of sadism and horror. She was under no illusions about what her fate would be if she was captured alive. She rounded on the razor-fleshed terrorist and almost took his head off with her first kick.
“She’s telepathically shielded,” Psiworm called as he tried to possess the Legionnaire’s mind.
“And righteously annoyed,” Ziles added, plastering the mutant telepath with a greenish cream from one of her sachets. Suddenly Psiworm became much more interested in giggling and counting his fingers than fighting.
But there were plenty more villains. Red Bounty discharged his electrical arc at the silver-suited heroine, forcing her to roll aside into Degenerator’s malice gas. Then while Ziles was trying to fight off that effect, Thermonuclear Man simply reached out and wrapped one massive fist around her head and plucked her from the floor.
And Premiere ripped one hand free from his weakened shackles with a sound like the breaking of the world.
And then he ripped free his other hand, and the whole framework of the torture rack snapped like glass.
“Stop him!” Red Bounty commanded. “He’s crippled and weak…”
Premiere’s fist impacted with the Death Squad leader’s head at two hundred miles per hour. Red Bounty’s skull exploded in a spray of powdered bone and blood. Before anybody could react Premiere swung round and had cremated Hellspine and Degenerator with his flame blast. He simply pulled the back wall down on the more distant science villains.
He had been free for three seconds now.
Thermonuclear Man dropped Ziles and unleashed a power blast in the megaton range. Premiere could have avoided it but the shot would have taken out a miles-long swathe of city behind him. “Aagh!” he gasped as the radiation seared through him. He was more hurt than even he had thought, running on willpower alone after two days of constant torture.
“Not the hero you once were?” Thermonuclear Man mocked. “You barely beat me on your best day, boy scout. What chance to you have right now?”
Premiere coughed up more blood and spat out another tooth. “None,” he admitted.
Then he hit Thermonuclear Man in a classic uppercut, hammering the atomic mercenary through the reinforced fabric of nine higher floors of the detention center and into the skies beyond. He estimated that the villain would be in near Earth orbit before he stopped.
“But I don’t need to beat you just now,” Premiere grimaced. “Just get you out of the way.”
Psiworm assaulted him then, clawing at his mind with razor-needles of doubt and fear. The last science hero fell to his knees and cried out. Then he balled his hands into fists and looked up nastily at his telepathic foe. “Hey, Psiworm,” he snarled. “What am I thinking?”
The plassteel ball of gouged floor was the last thing that went through Psiworm’s brain – literally.
Ziles staggered to her feet and rushed across to support the swaying superhero. “You beat them,” she cheered.
Premiere nearly collapsed as his wounds overcame him again. His powers were returning but too slowly. He had used up all his reserves. “A dozen down,” he said, “about five thousand to go.”
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The Red Watchman put away his scalpel unused for now.
“I’m afraid you will have to excuse me for a moment,” he apologized to Visionary, Cheryl, Lisa and Yo who knelt in chains before him. “It seems there is a small matter I have to attend to.”
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