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This message Premiere #10: Night Falls was posted by on Sunday, March 3, 2002 at 11:38.
Night had fallen on Gothametropolis York, and the mists had risen from Parodiopolis Sound to rise from the sewer grates and fill the streets with ghostly white haze. Throughout the mostly-deserted civic center sporadic fires were still blazing, but mostly the place felt like an abandoned battlefield waiting for the renewal of hostilities at first light.
Most of the Technopolis science heroes and troops had been withdrawn earlier when it became clear that they weren’t going to win an urban guerrilla war without additional back-up and leadership. A few die-hard science villains still camped out in the burned shell of the Gothametropolis Mall because they liked the kind of opportunities that civil collapse afforded them.
“We could take them,” Cobra assured the Dark Knight.
The urban legend somehow still managed to look menacing on crutches with both his legs in casts. “No,” he answered.
“DK’s right,” Cap admitted. “We don’t have any holding facilities for prisoners, so…”
“Who said anything about prisoners?” Cobra hissed. “Have you seen what these people have been doing?”
“I’m not really into killing,” Banjooooo admitted, “but this feels like war, so maybe special rules apply?”
“I said ‘No’,” the Dark Knight repeated, finally. “We don’t have to do anything.”
“I think we do,” spiffy argued. “I’m still Mayor of this place, and I’m damned if I’ll let these thugs come here and rip up my city.”
“I SAID,” glowered the Dark Knight. “…that WE don’t have to do anything. It’s taken care of.”
_______________________
The Gothametropolis Cemetery had bad associations for Messenger, and coming there always made him a little edgy. The eerie green light coming from the opened door of the old Galanter tomb made him very edgy. He moved through the fog-swathed graveyard towards the crypt.
“Come in,” Xander the Improbable called to him. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
Messenger slid inside the tomb to join a very unusual meeting. He hadn’t expected to find the shabby-gowned master of the mystic crafts present, but he was unsurprised to find four slightly-rotting undead huddled round a sarcophagus as if it was a conference table.
“You make such a splendid undead, you know” the Abyssal Greye, leader of Gothametropolis’ ghoul community sighed.
“I’m just delivering the message,” replied Messenger grimly. “That’s all. The Dark Knight says that Chronic is in, and that the plan has reached phase two. And he says… he says the people in the Mall – those science villains – they’re yours.”
“Ahhh,” hissed Greye hungrily. “A percentage cut.”
_______________________
Chronic had never been inside the fortress-like supervillain penal installation called the Safe before. He’d really hoped to avoid it on a permanent basis. The irony he was being brought there by science villains, the Technopolis terminology for supervillains, did not cheer him.
The guitar-playing menace was herded into a compound where several other young metahumans were lounging on steel chairs bolted to the floor. Chronic had seen them before on the news and tried to remember their names. “Er, hi.”
They all looked up and glared at him. “Who are you?”, the plumpest of the youths demanded. His stained T-shirt proclaimed him to be Hatkid.
“Chronic,” said Chronic, trying to retain a bit of swagger.
“Have we beaten up anybody called Chronic?” Worm Boy asked the other new Battlers. “Yet?”
“I’m sure we’d remember if we had,” L’il Buttie answered politely. “But it’s never too late to amend the oversight.”
Chronic unslung the Devil’s guitar and prepared to strum a chord. “You can’t bully me,” he warned them. “You’re not Donar.”
“Oh, leave him be,” Fashion Accessory shrugged dismissively. “It’s not as if he won’t be one of us one he’s been implanted with an Obedience Chip.”
“A what?” Chronic asked. “What have they done to you?”
“Improved us,” Wormbait answered in tones of almost religious fervor. “Given us direction and purpose. And order. Oh yes, order. Now we serve the greater Good of Technopolis.”
“Do you have a problem with that, Chronic?” Boy Wonder asked menacingly.
Chronic didn’t have to grasp for an answer just then, because the steel door clanged open and the leader of the forces occupying Parodiopolis stalked into the room: Count Armageddon.
“Ah, I see you’re learning to play well with the other children,” he sneered patronizingly.
“You never said anything about an obedience chip,” Chronic objected. “When you recruited me, I mean.”
“Oh, don’t worry, kid. The Chip’s for those who may have moral ambiguities about the practical necessities of what we have to do. There’s ways you can prove you don’t need a Chip. In fact in your case I think the process might even weaken your power, which like mine seems to stem from chaos. So all you have to do is a little job to prove whose side you’re on, and then you’re on the team.”
“Really,” Chronic checked. That didn’t sound so bad.
“Really,” Armageddon assured him. “Do it right an’ I’ll even give you the specific chip control codes for one of the girls here so you can have some fun.”
Fashion Accessory and Wormbait paled but couldn’t object.
“What do I have to do?” asked Chronic.
Count Armageddon showed him a security comm-chart. “There’s a snoopy little hero tryin’ to spy on us here, kid. I want you to bring me his head. Just his head. His name is apparently dull thud.”
_______________________
“Dream!” Lisa called out as CrazySugarFreakBoy! opened the door to the holding cell where she was detained with Cheryl, Yo, and Visionary. “They told us you were dead!”
“Oh, that stuff never works,” the orange and green-hued adventurer told them as he prized open their power-dampening shackles. “It boosts sales for a few issues but it erodes the long-term fan base. Also, when they shot me they forgot I can fiddle with kinetic energy, so I just made the bullets not hurt me as much.”
“I didn’t know you could do that,” Visionary said, slightly hurt. He had been CSFB!’s team leader for many months, after all.
“Well, it was kind of experimental,” Dreamcatcher Foxglove admitted. “And I had to think real hard. Then I just played dead until they brought me to Technopolis for dissection, hopped off the slab, heard about you guys, and bounced to the rescue.”
“Yo is glad you did,” Yo admitted. “Yo was getting a little worried about that nasty Red Watchman.”
“This recap stuff is very interesting,” Cheryl said, “but can we do it after we’ve got out of the highest-tech security set up I’ve ever seen and are safely away from a man who peels people’s faces as a hobby and his city of super-psychos?”
“Good idea,” agreed Lisa. She concentrated for a moment, smiled evilly, and called out, “I summons Goldeneyed!”
_______________________
The rambling lunatic asylum of Herringcarp had been designed a hundred and fifty years ago by a man who later ended his days in it. Now it was the stronghold of the reality-rewriting archvillain called the Hooded Hood. Its rambling corridors, landings, and cellars seemed to stretch on forever; certainly for far enough to accommodate almost a thousand wounded science heroes and technicians who had been brutally tortured by Technopolis’ new management.
“But this place still gives me the creeps,” admitted Ziles as she met Dancer in one of the gloomy gaslit corridors.
“Me too,” Sarah Shepherdson agreed. “Too many iron bars and spyholes and sinister rings stapled to walls and ceilings for my liking. But any port in a storm.”
There was indeed a storm raging outside, a mighty tempest that lashed rain against the leaded windows and sent gusts of wind down chimneys to whip up the hearths and make the candles gutter.
“How’s Premiere?” asked Ziles. “Is he…?”
“He’s recovering remarkably well,” Dancer conceded. “Now his powers are returning he’s healing at metahuman speeds. He’s sweating out the poisons and drugs. His skin is repairing itself from the flaying. His fingernails and damaged eye and even his castrated testicles are growing back – er, not that I’ve checked or anything.”
Ziles shuddered, remembering how she had been forced to watch from concealment as the science hero had been tortured. “We can’t let those bastards take over here,” she whispered. “We can’t.”
_______________________
The battle in Washington state had been raging for nearly seven hours now, as Amazing Guy and the JBH attempted to contain the atomic villain who called himself Thermonuclear Man. The atomic villain was a walking fast-breeder reactor with a bad attitude and a liking for murder. His radiation sprays could sterilize half-mile swathes of countryside in seconds. So the young heroes were having a tough time containing him.
“Keep going,” Amazing Guy urged. “He can’t keep this up much longer.”
“That’s what you said when we tried the make-a-force-bubble-round-his-head-an-suffocate-him ploy,” Kid Produce remembered, dancing aside from another ground-shattering blast. “And the bury-him-under-tons-of-earth plan. And the propel-him-into-outer-space strategy.”
“But we can’t give up,” grimaced Pigeonman. His left arm was bent at an awkward angle and the broken bones rubbed together as he fought, but he was not willing to surrender.
Jackie Rabbit, the other member of the JBH still up in this long combat was weeping as she bounced around avoiding energy surges that could fry her with just a near miss. During the hours of battle the heroes had managed to keep Thermonuclear Man away from civilization centers, but despite the heroes’ best efforts there were fifteen people in isolated Washington state farms who would never see the sunset.
“Haw! You’re getting tired, science heroes, and slow, an’ I’m just getting more pissed,” Thermonuclear Man laughed, chasing Jackie and Pigeonman away with a wash of heat. All the team had second degree burns by now. “But don’t worry, bunny girl. I’ll save you for later.”
“You are going down,” Amazing Guy vowed again. His energy constructs were powered by his will, as strong as he could imagine them to be, but they had failed to pierce the villain’s hide or restrain him for more than a few seconds before being boiled away.
In answer, Thermonuclear Man turned suddenly on Kid Produce and released his power as concussive force enough to shatter a building. The Kid tried to dodge away but was caught up by the blast to topple insensible a hundred yards away. Thermonuclear Man turned back and marched towards the fallen hero.
“No!” Jackie cried, bounding close to distract the enemy so Pigeonman could evacuate the fallen hero.
Thermonuclear Man laughed a raw sinister chuckle and released a flash of light that blinded the heroes long enough for him to sear Pigeonman from the sky and finally grab Jackie Rabbit by the ankle.
Amazing Guy’s motivation was never going to be higher. “Right…” he grimaced, his brows furrowing as he flew straight at Thermonuclear Man. The villain held up Jackie as a shield to force AG to veer off, but he had missed the point. Large energy constructs weren’t doing it; Scott Brunsen couldn’t maintain them long enough. But what about very small ones? Multiple constructs just big enough to block the valves of a heart, for example, or microscopic ones that interrupted synaptic activity in the brain?
Amazing Guy screamed as he tried to keep willing the barriers to exist. Thermonuclear Man dropped Jackie, staggered, and tried to reach him.
Thermonuclear Man fell to the ground.
“You… we did it!” Jackie gasped, limping over to check on the panting Amazing Guy. “That was… amazing.”
Then the Science Police opened fire with their neural inhibitor rifles and cut the remaining heroes down before they could recover.
“Contain them and restrain them,” Steel Enforcer commanded, stepping over the fallen Thermonuclear Man with casual contempt. “And carefully. There could be some useful talent here amongst our new recruits.” He considered this some more. “After a little brain surgery,” he added.
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