29 October 2016, 21:17, Neon District, Sea Haven, WA
“Remember, whatever it’s origin, what we’re dealing with is just a child,” Scion called over the comms to his teammates. “I promised the old man we wouldn’t repeat my mistakes from last time – so no violence unless it’s absolutely necessary to save a life.”
Not that physical violence seems to make a damn bit of difference to Junkpile, he thought to himself, touching down on the roof of a seedy night club. At three stories, it put him just above head height of the six meter-tall, shambling, humanoid pile of animated debris. The child-like elemental, or whatever the animating intelligence was, seemed fascinated by the bright, colorful, and often times flashing signs that gave this part of Sea Haven its name: the Neon District.
Laying south of Tomlinson Airbase, it was a seedy area, even by the generally low standards of Sea Haven. Full of nightclubs, bars, taverns, strip clubs, no-tell motels, and flop houses, and populated by mafia frontmen, hookers, pimps, drug dealers, pornographers and other even less savory types, the garish neon lights gave the district a false aura of energy and excitement. Even when he’d been stationed there, it had given the nearby military base trouble, with the MPs doing their best to keep randy young airmen away from its tawdry delights – and dangers. JJ had found the district completely resistible, personally… at least after the first couple of visits.
The call had come in a little after 21:00 – reports of a building, demolished the day before, suddenly reassembling itself into the shape of a person and stomping off down the street. It was a cold and very rainy night, and JJ had just settled in to crack open the latest issue of Scientific American, but he hadn’t hesitated – the team had assembled in less than 10 minutes. Not everyone had been thrilled, especially those who had just been preparing to leave for a Saturday night out on the town, but Prometheus, at least, understood the gravity of the situation.
Now they stood in the driving rain, forming a rough circle around Junkpile, close enough to contain him if needed but far enough away so as not to alarm him. Although he didn’t seem to even notice them, really. His attention was entirely focused on the shiny neon lights, and as they watched he reached out to try and touch one. It seemed to Quanta that it, he, whatever, was trying to be gentle… but the glass shattered in a shower of shards and sparks, and the giant child stomped its foot in frustration.
“Aw, he sort of reminds me of Groot,” he said, in response to Scion’s warning. “He’s sort of cute. But we just finished installing all those sensors back at the scrapyard, what, four days ago? Didn’t any of them register this, um, rebirth?”
“No,” Scion replied, clearly exasperated by the fact. “I checked as we were heading out, and they all appear to be fully functional. Yet none of them triggered an alarm, and scanning the data showed absolutely nothing out of the ordinary there.
“The demolished building Junkpile used to create this body is about a quarter of a mile from here – you can see from the debris that it used to be a building (aside from that pimpmobile he smashed and absorbed) – but there are no reports of anything like him in the seven miles between here and the Chekovik place.”
“Maybe this is not Junkpile,” Prometheus suggested. “Perhaps whatever phenomena created that first one has struck again and–”
Before he could complete the thought, the animated pile of rubble turned and caught sight of Scion on the nearby rooftop. His massive face, only vaguely suggestive of human features, twisted into an almost comically exaggerated frown.
“Bad man!” his grinding, stone-on-stone voice rumbled, with surprising petulance, and he pointed a massive finger at Scion. “Don’t hurt Junkpile!” But almost immediately he seemed to loose interest in the armored hero, his eye caught by a large pink animated neon sign – a well-endowed woman who seemed to bend over and cause her industrial-sized breasts to sway from side to side. Junkpile moved off down Mulberry Street toward this new attraction, his clumsy hands reaching out… but he pulled them back, and just stared in fascinated longing…
“An interesting thought, Prometheus,” Scion said drily, “but I’m afraid there’s no doubt that it really is Junkpile.” Actually, I’m rather happy it’s really him – I didn’t kill off a whole new lifeform after all, he thought with some relief.
“Mr. Chekovic was able to communicate with him and teach him,” Artemis said from the shadows of the alley below Scion. “I’m going to try and talk to him, to distract him, and see if I can get him to start calming down.”
“Sounds good,” Scion agreed. “I’m going to go stealth, to stay out of his sight, and leave this to the rest of you. But I’ll be nearby and ready with the Magnetic Seizure Inducer if it comes down to that. But let’s try to make sure it doesn’t come down to that, team!” With that he trigged his Stealth Field… the air shimmered around him and he faded from sight, except for a slight distortion in the rain.
Artemis approached the behemoth carefully, slowly working her way into his line-of-sight just as he was again reaching for the the too-aptly named Jigglin’ Jugs Gentlemen’s Club’s sign. She controlled her instinctive eye-roll, and focused on what she wanted to say to the giant child-thing in front of her.
“Junkpile, the lights are very pretty, aren’t they?” she asked in her most sympathetic voice. He turned his head to look down at her, and after a few seconds he nodded. “But they’re very fragile, very easy to break, aren’t they? Like your papa.” He looked sad and nodded again, seeming to consider Artemis‘ words. He didn’t reach out again for the lights, but his attention was quickly drawn back to the mesmerizing sight. Artemis sighed and considered her next tack…
At that moment, however, all the lights in a ten block radius suddenly went out, including the neon signs. Scion had found the main control juncture for the area’s connection to the power grid, and had decided to shut it down. Only the red glow of the city’s emergency lighting illuminated the rain-slick streets now, and Junkpile looked around in dismay, his agitation visibly growing.
“It is OK Junkpile,” Prometheus said, stepping forward and waving to get the giant’s attention. “It was time for the pretty lights to go to bed, it is fine, they will be back another time.”
The living rubbish pile looked down at him, and Seth could swear the creature looked almost embarrassed. Did it – he – remember hitting him so hard that he’d flown a quarter of a mile and taken out three cars as he came down? And did he feel bad about it? Seth continued to speak soothingly to the creature.
Blue Flame, meanwhile, had flown up to a point about 10 meters above Junkpile and he now let off one of his dazzling bursts of brilliant blue flame and light into the dark, rainy sky. The three-ton toddler’s head whipped up, and it’s expression was this time comically amazed. It made a rumbling “ooooh” sound and reached for the lights and curling wisps of steam.
“Should I try to encase him in ice?” Chilz asked over the comms. “He’s distracted, but I’m not sure it would hold him for long…”
“No!” Quanta replied quickly. “I doubt even my quantum walls would last long against Junkpile, he’s amazingly strong… and he can compress his form, and expand it, at will. I think he could shatter any constraint quite quickly. But I have an idea…”
With a gesture he sculpted a gentle ramp out of the quantum foam, forming it right at Junkpile’s feet. Almost without thinking the giant began to walk up it, reaching for the beautiful lights, which Blue Flame kept just out of reach. In a minute the ramp had spiraled up nearly seven meters.
“Scion,” Quanta called out. “Can you establish a connection to Dixon Memorial and get Anton Chekovik on video chat? If so, I can create a screen for you to project the call onto.”
It took a moment for Scion to get through, and then to convince the floor nurse to lend her iPhone to Anton, but in surprisingly short order the old man’s image was being cast onto a white wall of quantum matter.
“Junkpile, my boy! It’s me, your old papa! What are you doing, my boy?”
The heap of trash turned away from the pretty lights at the sound of his adoptive father’s voice, and the look of joy on his crude features was unmistakeable. “Papa!”
Over the next few minutes the old Russian managed to convince his young ward to trust these new friends, and to go home, back to the salvage yard, to wait for him to return once he was better. He promised to talk to him everyday, just like this, and at last Junkpile nodded his head and agreed with a deep, rumbling sigh.
Once the reunion was over, and the call concluded, Quanta opened a quantum tunnel to the Chekovik Salvage Yard. It was clear that Junkpile recognized home immediately. At Prometheus‘ request the creature shrank it’s form down to only slightly taller than his “brother from another pile of stuff,” so that he could fit through the portal. As he started to step through, he paused suddenly and looked around, as if searching for something.
“Can Rat-Man friend come with us?” he asked. Unable to explain more clearly who that might be, he eventually accepted assurances that his new friends would look for his other friend, and bring him along later, if he wanted to come.
While Quanta and Prometheus got Junkpile settled back at his home, Artemis decided to check into a silent alarm that had gone off during the confrontation, coincidently at the Jigglin’ Juggs Gentlemen’s Club. Scion had picked up the alarm on his police channels during the heat of events, but with audible building and car alarms going off all over the place, he’d paid it scant attention at the time, beyond mentioning it to his teammates.
Inside the abandoned club, whose patrons and managers had wisely decided to flee before the giant trash monster could trap them like the rats they were, Artemis found nothing unusual in the public areas. In the back office, however, she found a very different story.
It was obvious to her trained investigator’s eye that several computers had been taken from the place, and that they had been quite high-end machines. The back door, out to the alley, had been forced, from the outside. Apparently someone had used the confusion to rob the place… to rob an obvious Mob front, actually…
Once he returned Quanta stood in the center of the office and focused his mind, recreating the scene in his mind from the traces imprinted on the quantum field… he saw the denizens of the establishment fleeing out the back door… then the door being forced open a few minutes later… by several men, including… his eyes widened in surprise. His post-cognition ability was not strong on details, but there was no mistaking the group’s apparent leader as anything but a man-sized rodent!
“Junkpile’s new Rat-Man friend,” Artemis said, frowning, when Quanta had described the scene to her. “How convenient that he was able to take advantage of the confusion to make off with these computers and hard drives.”
“Yes, very convenient,” Quanta agreed. ” And the computers were not the kind you get at Best Buy. Interestingly, they had no need for that many USB hubs, and combined with the multiple GuardKey packaging in the trash, it’s clear this club was employing 256AES encryption via hardware devices – military-grade encryption. Now that’s what I call protecting your client’s privacy!”
“Yes, it’s obvious this dive is a front for one of the organized crime outfits,” Artemis sighed. “And it bears looking into further, along with this rat-man of Junkpile’s…”
♦ ♦ ♦
Two days later, during the regular Monday morning briefing, Artemis and Quanta shared what they’d learned with the rest of the team, the latter going first. He and Prometheus had spent much of the previous day in long, and often tedious, talks with the simple-minded Junkpile.
“In his own words, Junkpile got “very small” after Scion made him go to sleep. He wandered around the scrap yard for a time (he’s not very good at estimating times), looking for his “papa,” then eventually wandered out into the surrounding neighborhood. At some point he met this “rat-man,” who befriended him and took him to his home “under the ground.” There he met several other people, apparently normal humans, and everyone was very nice to him.
“He was allowed to absorb the small amount of detritus laying around, growing some, and eventually this rat-man and a few of his new friends led him to the construction site and the remains of the demolished apartment building. Then he “got really big” again (which apparently feels good), and that’s when he saw the pretty lights. He didn’t notice where the rat-man and company got to after that.”
“Interesting,” Artemis said, nodding thoughtfully. “This lines up with what I learned. It seems this rat-man showed up in the Undercity just about six weeks ago, but has been known by some in Sea Haven for almost a year. He apparently goes by the name Pack-Rat, and really is an actual humanoid rat – about four-and-a-half feet tall, with a tail almost as long. Whether he’s a human mutate, one of the cryptid races, or something else entirely is unclear.
“What is clear is he has been gathering up a following by taking in the discards of society – the homeless, the derelict, the runaways – any and all marginalized and abandoned people. Other denizens of the Undercity have taken to calling them “The Rats in the Wall,” and they seem to be loosely organized as a sort of thieves guild/mutual aid society. I get the sense that Fagin might be a better name than Pack-Rat for our new friend.
“I’m still running down leads, but I think a number of seemingly random, apparently unrelated break-ins and robberies in the last six weeks can be attributed to this association; and even more during the last six months in Sea Haven. None of them at all high-profile or especially big, either in haul size or value, but they seem to focus on technology and hardware. There’s been a significant up-tick in reported pick-pocketing and snatch-and-grab crimes in both cities, and I suspect we now know why.
“Pack-rat is said to be an inventive genius, cobbling together devices from what others might call junk, and creating some “amazing shit” I’m told. Which no doubt explains the kinds of material he focuses on in his thefts. I’m still trying to get a possible location on his “lair,” but no luck so far… his followers seem unusually loyal to him.”
“Hey, we should set up a sting operation,” Jonny said, his usual morning briefing boredom vanishing. “Lure him out with irresistible tech stuff and then nab him in the act!”
“Actually, that’s not a bad idea,” Scion acknowledged approvingly. “But let’s table it for now, pending more information from Artemis‘ investigation. The next item on the agenda is another complaint from AU about Professor Zediker and that damn particle accelerator of his…”
♦ ♦ ♦
No Vanguard-level crime reared its head the rest of that day – the citizens of Astoria, whichever side of the law they live don, where too busy putting the finishing touches on costumes and preparing to party. Which meant the heroes also had time to prepare for their own evening out. Paragon had agreed to take on monitor duty from the Aztech Pyramid, his thrill at being asked almost hidden beneath a cool façade of studied nonchalance.
It had been agreed that the team would go to the film festival in costume, although Prometheus decided to use his image inducer to create the illusion of his older brother – but as he actually had looked, not the ridiculous patchwork monstrosity of the movies. Maybe he could educate some people, finally…
Jonny had just received the latest iteration of his costume from Swift Industries the day before, and was anxious to show it off in public for the first time. The Q-lon 7 material was finally the exact shade of blue he wanted, and he really liked this version of his flame-motif – very cool! Chuck just rolled his eyes as his friend went on about it – he hardly ever wore his own official costume, not being very comfortable in form-fitting spandex. But he supposed he’d have to wear it tonight, in case there was any action – he didn’t want to shred another set of good clothes if he had to transform. Although he did have that snazzy new white suit… maybe if he wore the uniform underneath…
JJ had decided to compromise on the “costume question” by going out and buying a Scion mask at a local costume shop – he’d wear his armor, but with the mask replacing the helmet. He thought it was pretty funny, personally, although the clerk at the store had just looked confused when he’d tried to explain it. Kids these days…
Artemis made no compromises or concessions of any kind, of course, and went as herself.
It was a few minutes before 17:00 when the team arrived at the the New Camelot Theater, to find Meg Halcyon waiting for them. Totem had been called away by a mysterious request from Arkanos, Earth’s Magus Prime, several days earlier, and he’d given his ticket to his girlfriend. Artemis hadn’t been thrilled – as much as she liked the young woman, if there was trouble she didn’t really need another civilian to worry about. But the most she could do was explain the situation to Meg, and leave it up to her. Naturally, the reporter hadn’t backed away from a possible hot story, and that was that.
“Love the costume,” Chuck told Meg as they headed for the food trucks that had parked across the street, all four already crowded with festival-goers, most of them in costumes. “You look good as Gaia, if I may say so. Cooper’s gonna be sorry he missed this!”
“You may, sir,” she replied, swirling her blue and gold cape dramatically. “And yes, he is! You’re, um… John Travolta, from Saturday Night Fever?” He just looked pained and didn’t answer… they both turned, in mild embarrassment, to consider their food options…
Chuck quickly opted for Mexitalia, the food truck that answers the culinary question: What might Mexican food taste like if the Italians, not the Spanish, had colonized Mexico. From an array of mouthwatering choices he eventually selected the Chorizo Rigataquitos– being, essentially, lightly-fried rigatoni stuffed with Mexican sausage and peppers, served with a tomato-pepper dipping sauce. He’d head over to Strip and Shake after for a margarita milkshake to cool off his tastebuds…
Scion headed straight for Elmer’s Fudd Truck, known for its hillbilly cuisine and featuring several amazing rabbit and duck dishes– a recent favorite of his. The truck had become a regular around his offices at lunch time, and he knew the menu well. Tonight he ordered the Shoot Me Now – smoked duck smothered in rabbit seasoning, and home fries smothered in rabbit gravy.
Several of the others stopped at the next truck in the row, Strip & Shake, serving NY strip steak sandwiches, chicken strips on a pole, and numerous exotic (as well as standard) milkshakes. For this event the all-female crew were dressed in sexy variations on Artemis’ costume. While Quanta eagerly ordered the steak sandwich and a cinnamon-apple milkshake, and Prometheus opted for the chicken strips and a pomegranate shake, the actual Artemis just rolled her eyes and moved on to the next cart.
This was Bobo’s, famous for offering classic carnival fare – literally anything battered and deep fried – and infamous for their surly and abusive staff in clown makeup… and not just at Halloween, but as an everyday thing. After teaching the clown taking her order a few choice 19th Century insults, Artemis ordered the Triple Bypass: pork belly wrapped in bacon, deep fried, then battered and deep fried again, before being dipped in cheese sauce, wrapped in more bacon, and deep fried a third time. She also ordered the seasonal special of deep fried pumpkin pie for dessert – in the spirit of the holiday.
At Quanta’s incredulous look when she rejoined him, she just shrugged and said, sotto voce, “I am immortal, after all.” A moment later Jonny and Meg stepped up with their own orders from Bobo’s, a deep fried California sushi roll for him, and Hannity’s Huervos for her –two deep fried hardboiled eggs smothered in cheese sauce.
“Remind me to tell you about the time I had to knee Sean Hannity right where his “huervos” would be, if he had any,” she’d replied with a grin when Jonny questioned her choice. He almost coked on his tangerine shake he laughed so hard at the vision this evoked, and even Artemis smiled as she bit into her own food.
Once everyone had finished eating, drinking and generally enjoying one another’s company, it was twenty minutes until showtime, and it had begun to rain in earnest. The group headed back across the street to the theater, where Jonny picked up their tickets from the “Will Call” window and they ducked inside.
The theater seated 164 people, Artemis knew, and they all seemed packed into the lobby now, trying to buy drinks before the show started. There were at least two of every member of the Vanguard already present, she noted with some amusement, with the most represented of the team being Phantom Ace at seven (he was ideal for the lazy fan… how much effort does a Hello Kitty T-shirt, blues jeans, a leather jacket and a red domino mask take, after all?), down to just two Quanta’s and a single Chilz (she had to admit, trying to replicate seven feet of ice or a silvery, lustrous shell was a daunting task).
There were five different Artemis‘, some of whom weren’t bad (except for the overweight gentleman with a beard, who was just sad). Many people didn’t seem to realize the actual Vanguard were present, and the comments on their own “costumes” ranged from the generally amusing to the occasionally offensive. Among those who did recognize the heroes were the three local comedians who had been booked to provide humorous commentary on the evening’s films, and they made it a point to say hello.
Miranda Cho was the first to push through the energized crowd, introducing herself to Artemis and Blue Flame with a wide, infectious grin. Even Artemis was forced to return a smile, a fact which a besotted Jonny noted in surprise, even through his infatuated haze. Cho was a short, vivacious Chinese woman just a few years older than Jonny, and when she told the heroes that she was a big fan of both of them in particular, he began to regret wearing skin-tight Q-Lon.
“I love everything about you, Artemis,” she said, and made it sound sincere without being fawning. “Especially the fact that you’re the field team leader – you really seem to bring out the best in your whole team, at least in the fights I’ve seen.”
“Thank you,” Artemis replied, surprised, and a little flattered in spite of herself. “Very few people realize that I’m Field Leader… we don’t advertise our strategies, of course, and most people simply assume Scion is both Team Leader and Field Commander.”
“Well, it’s obvious if you pay attention, but then picking up on the details is part of my job description… at least if you want to do comedy well. But I gotta say, as good a job as you do representing, I wish there was a little more estrogen floating around the team, you know?”
“Indeed, the thought has crossed my mind as well,” Artemis replied drily. “We’ve discussed it more than once, but we are all in agreement that we won’t recruit based on any sort of quota, be it gender-, race-, or insert-your-category-here-based. Still, I do look forward to the day we find another qualified, and willing, woman to join us.”
‘”I saw you on the Tonight Show with Stephen Colbert two weeks ago,” Jonny suddenly blurted out. “You were fantastic!”
“Why thank you,” Miranda said, giving him a smile almost as dazzling as one of his plasma bursts. “God, that was nerve-wracking, but so much fun. Colbert is amazing! But hey, I’m a big fan yours, too – it’s so nice to see an Asian American up there fighting the good fight… and not doing it wearing a gi and using kung fu.”
Jonny was saved from the the embarrassment of blurting out that he was only half Japanese and that he was learning martial arts from Artemis, by the already-drunken partier, dressed like the Wolf-man, who stumbled up suddenly and leered at said teammate.
“Not a bad Artemis, baby,” he said with an exaggerated judiciousness. “But the real one has waaaay bigger boobs, ya know what I’m sayin’?” He looked for an instant like he was going to reach out with the hand not holding his beer to actually touch her… but then he looked into her eyes. The color drained from his face beneath the fake fur and he lurched back two involuntary steps. “I- uh- I– gotta go pee… ‘scuse me.”
Miranda Cho laughed very loud and very long as he shoved his way hurriedly through the crowd towards the bathrooms. They were all less amused by his asshole friend, in a bad mummy costume, who peered owlishly at Jonny and frowned before saying “Blue Flame ain’t Chinese, man… uncool” before wandering after his buddy. Jonny wanted to give him a hot foot, just a little one, but Artemis‘ look made that a non-starter. But since Miranda looked impressed with his restraint, maybe that was OK…
Chilz was at the concession stand waiting for his Cap’n & Coke and trying to talk Prometheus into having a drink when Robin Grant eased diffidently up and introduced himself. “Hey, I’m a big fan,” the tall black man said, offering his hand to Chuck. “I appreciate your let-it-all-hang-out, tell-it-like-it-is attitude, man. Most especially when you laid it on that brain-dead Barbie Kiwi Sherman a couple months ago. Loved that!”
Chuck shook the proffered hand, and introduced the comedian to his teammate. Grant immediately got the joke of the hero’s costume. “Oh, that is cool, my man,” offering his hand in turn. “I’ve always wanted to see a movie version that showed Frankenstein’s creation the way it, he, really was. And here it is! I hope you won’t be offended if I say you, the real you, got the better deal in the looks department?”
“Not at all,” Prometheus replied, smiling. “I happen to agree with you. Although I’ve yet to find a lady who seems to discern any great difference between my brother and I, for practical purposes.” He sighed and sipped his passionfruit La Croix.
“And I have to take exception to your comparing Ms. Sherman to Barbie, Robin,” Chuck interjected, before they could get off on the depressing subject of his friend’s love life. If Seth’s sexual mores weren’t still mired in the 18th Century he’d have plenty of luck with the ladies, all things considered… he’d seen him in the locker room, after all. “Barbie has been a doctor, an engineer, an astronaut… even as a piece of plastic her accomplishments far outstrip Kiwi’s — you do her an injustice to compare them!”
That got a laugh, and the conversation soon turned to comedy and movies. Robin had just finished filming a part in the latest Marvel movie, the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, and was hoping tonight’s gig, with its world-wide web audience, might open some more doors in Hollywood. “It was just a cameo, and three lines, but hey, it’s a start!”
“I hear they’re talking about doing a reboot of the Blade franchise, bringing it into the MCU,” Chuck said. “I could see you in the part, man.”
“Oh me too, brother, me too! But unless you got some contacts in the biz, I’m not holding my breath.” Chuck laughed and ruefully denied any L.A. contacts… at lest not yet. Seth just smiled politely and tried to follow what the hell they were talking about…
Scion and Quanta were cornered near the bathrooms by a chubby, balding red-haired guy who introduced himself as Patrick O’Patrick. “Sort o’ the Godfather of the local comedy scene, you might say, I’ve been at it that long. Maybe you’ve caught my act one of these last ten years?”
Both heroes had to admit that they had not had the pleasure, and at his briefly crestfallen look felt compelled to assure him that they had heard of him, of course, how not? It’s just that they led such busy lives, what with the Vanguard and their scientific work and all, that entertainment was hard to come by in their lives. This seemed to mollify the man, and he perked up quickly.
“I’m hoping this gig tonight finally breaks down some doors for me,” the comic confided. “I’ve got my act so honed, I’m ready for an HBO Special, or even a Netflix gig.”
“I’ve never been too into the whole superhero thing,” he went on, as if confiding a great personal failing. “Like you guys, just too busy, I guess. But I really dig what you do, Captain Astor, with your Third World work, bringing power to the world’s poorest areas. That’s the real heroic work, if you ask me.”
“Hey, how many cans of spray paint did it take to get that Quanta look, dude?” interrupted a college-aged kid dressed like Indiana Jones, staring at the hero in admiration. “Looks almost real, man!”
“17,” Quanta deadpanned, and the kid wandered off with an “oooh” of wonder, clearly impressed…
At that point the lights blinked to indicate the five-minute warning. The comedians excused themselves and headed off to take their places on-stage, while the Vanguard regrouped before heading to their own seats. But they were intercepted along the way by a middle-aged man, with sandy hair and brown eyes, and more than a bit of thickening around the waist, who threw his arms wide and greeted them like old friends.
“Vanguard! I am just thrilled that you could make it!” Randall Fox gushed. “When I heard that the Blue Flame was interested in our little charity fund-raiser, I made sure to get you the best seats in the house – front row center!”
“Thanks Mr. Fox,” Jonny grinned, suddenly shy… which annoyed JJ, for a reason he couldn’t quite place his finger on… his own reaction to the man was immediate distaste. “We really appreciate it!”
“No thanks necessary, for our local heroes… and call me Randall!”
He shook Jonny’s hand first, then made the rounds, handing out autographed headshots of himself, with no regard for anyone’s actual interest in possessing one. He only shied away from Artemis, when she caught his glance – it was all too clear she remembered their earlier encounter during his Ghost Chaser days, and that her opinion of him hadn’t changed in the intervening years.
Well, tonight just might change that holier-than-thou attitude of hers he thought as he led the group into the house and to their seats, front row center, as promised. A perfect vantage for them to enjoy his triumphant return to the hearts and homes of America on this very special Halloween night!
It’s also a perfect place for them if something goes wrong, a small, treasonous voice in the back of his mind added. But he ruthlessly shoved it back down and hurried off to take his place on stage. The show was about to begin, things were gonna get real, and this was no time for doubts or second thoughts!
After getting his unwitting VIP backup force seated Randall Fox headed up to the stage to get things rolling. The house lights dimmed and the four people on stage were spotlighted, Fox centerstage and the three comedians in large overstuffed chairs flanking, and forward from, the screen. He started with the usual “needs no introduction” introductions, but kept it short.
“”Everyone wants to get to the fun!” he concluded. “And I gotta say, I’m really looking forward to that horror classic, Blood Like Wine, tonight. It was certainly Lauren Hammond’s magnum opus of “so-terrible-it’s-great” movie making! But before we can get to that gem, first up we have to get through that other great great schlock-masterpiece, Piano of Pain, starring Lily Esther and Troy Barbanell! Let ‘er roll, boys!”
With that the spotlights faded and the projectionists began the movie. Piano of Pain was, indeed, a B-movie horror classic, Kyle thought with a grin. Involving a haunted piano, a cursed musician, and the fan-favorite monster Natas the Agonizer – a demonic horror turned inside out and stitched together from the parts of its many victims – it was the film that had launched Lily Esther into her movie career. But what Kyle most remembered her for was her career as the sexy, vampy, late-night TV hostess Madame Macabre. He’d spent many Saturday nights of his adolescence staying up for the midnight monster movies she hosted… although, to be honest, he remembered very little of the actual movies… damn, she’d been hot!
As the movie ran on, the humor from the comedians came fast and sharp… although Artemis noticed that Fox himself provided very little of it himself. Everyone seemed to be having a great time, but her attention was only half on the silly movie. The winds outside seemed to have picked up, as the forecast Halloween storm finally arrived, and every creak of the old building ratcheted up her tension level.
When, about 45 minutes into the movie, the lights flickered, the sound system screeched, and the film stuttered to a stop, plunging the house into darkness, she instantly shadow-walked up onto the main catwalk above the stage. A deafening crash of thunder shook the building and elicited a few shrieks from the audience. Artemis tensed, waiting for the attack –
– and then suddenly the projector started up again and the movie resumed. With an annoyed grimace, she decided to stay up in the deep shadows of the catwalks as the rest of the film played out, its humorous dissection by the panelists continuing after a few snarky comments about real-life jump scares. Artemis was not amused.
After a brief intermission, Randall Fox introduced Blood For Wine, reiterating that it was his personal favorite of the night’s offerings. The lights again dimmed, the movie began, and the rest of the Vanguard began to tense up as well. If there was going to be the kind of trouble Artemis feared, this was the movie that would trigger it…
As Fox had mentioned, film aficionados generally considered Blood Like Wine to be Lauren Hammond’s magnum opus, where the late actress portrayed a woman with multiple personalities—each one of them killers with a different modus operandi. The comedians wasted no time tearing into the awkward dialogue, mediocre special effects, and staggering overuse of Dutch angles. The audience was loving it.
Even Artemis found herself engaged by the beautiful awfulness as the film reached its climax, revealing not one schizophrenic killer – but murderous septuplets! As the killers moved in on their final victims on-screen, a sudden cold wind whipped through the theater. The temperature plunged until Artemis could see her breath hanging in the air. At that moment she realized that Randall Fox had left the stage, and she hadn’t noticed when… damn!
Suddenly, a spectral, sing-song voice carried over the wind, it’s words echoing the film’s opening line: “This. This life. You slither and slink and play-act your superiority over those who would bare their souls. And this is what you call life? So be it. I will pay what it is worth.”
The lights and film flickered, as they had earlier, and then the lights went out completely. The film, however, kept going. The seven figures on the screen suddenly turned from their intended victims and glared out across the audience… before stepping free of the screen and down onto the stage, each still wielding their weapon of choice!
A feeling of paralyzing dread had fallen over the crowd as the spectral voice had filled the auditorium, and although they now gasped in terror, no one moved from their seats. Artemis, of course, felt no such fear, and she dropped down from the darkness above, momentarily highlighted by the flickering light of the projector, onto center stage.
The eerie filmland figments, seemingly solid yet still in the black and white of the movie they’d just exited, rushed forward, some going for the audience, others for the three comedians on the stage. Artemis hurled her escrima sticks at the two closest to the audience, the ones wielding a curvy dagger and a noose, striking them each solid blows to the head and throat. Both manifestations staggered, flickered erratically for an instant, and then vanished silently.
Another of the figments, farthest from the hero, made it to the front of the stage, stage left, and leaped over the narrow gap of the orchestra pit. Carrying no weapon, she seemed the most harmless… until she yanked a young man in the front row, dressed as a pirate, from his seat and began to strangle him. Her victim had had a particularly loud and braying laugh, Prometheus remembered as he rushed to the man’s aid. Had that made him a particular target?
Letting his Image Inducer illusion fade, it was as his true self that he aimed a roundhouse punch at the black and white apparition’s head — but his 18th Century reflexes regarding women slowed the punch fractionally. Which was enough, and she ducked under the blow with snake-like quickness, never relaxing her strangling grip. Her victim’s eyes began to bulge, his desperate clawing at the hands around his throat growing weaker.
On stage, Robin Grant had been closest to the screen on stage right, and now the figment wielding an immense, heavy-looking brass candlestick look a vicious swipe at his head. Apparently less affected by the paralyzing terror of the voice, he ducked and came in under the attack, aiming his own uppercut blow at the woman’s head. His fist connected with her chin with a solid, satisfying “thwack.” Her head snapped back and she dropped the candlestick, reeling backward, flickered for a second… then both she and her weapon vanished as if they’d never been.
On the other side of the stage Miranda Cho had been seated next to Fox, but closer to the screen, and was now the target of a figment carrying a small bottle marked with a skull-and-crossbones. Half paralyzed with fear, Cho could only struggle feebly as the crazed-looking woman grabbed her jaw with one hand, squeezing to force her mouth open, and poured the contents of the bottle down her throat.
The Blue Flame, who had just sliced the head off a pistol-wielding figment with his plasma katana, turned in mid-air to see Miranda collapse to the floor, clutching at her throat and gasping. The poison-wielding figment stood triumphantly over her and was already looking for a new victim.
“No!” Jonny screamed in horror, and dove down, not daring a plasma blast lest he hit Miranda’s writhing form. But Quanta, who had leaped up on stage, had no such concern and blasted the figment with a stream of shimmering buckyballs. It flickered and vanished even as Jonny dropped down to the stricken comedian’s side, reverting to his human form as he did so.
“Miranda!” he cried, getting an arm under her shoulders and lifting her up even as her struggles began to slow. He had no idea what to do… he couldn’t fly her to a hospital without burning her… he… maybe…
Suddenly Quanta was on the other side of the dying woman, pulling her out of his teammate’s arms. “It’s OK, I’ve got this,” he assured Jonny as his senses plunged deep into the quantum realm. The woman he held became a shimmering network of sub-atomic structures… and there, the poison was visible as a darkly glowing lattice within her. Whatever its origin, the substance appeared to obey the fundamental laws of physics, he saw with satisfaction (and some relief). He quickly dismantled it, turning it inert, and repaired as much of the gross physical damage it had already done to the woman’s body as he could. She would need a hospital, and time, to fully recover, but she would live.
Meanwhile, back on the other side of the stage, Patrick O’Patrick was dodging the sword of another of the filmland figments, panicked bleating apparently the only sound he could utter. Robin Grant, on the other hand, grabbed the creature’s arm as it raised it for a killing blow, which gave Scion the opening he needed to blast it with electro-stun bolts. He’d already found that his EM brain seizure blast did nothing to the figments… they weren’t mere illusions, since he could see them even with his helmet in place, but neither were they alive, or sentient, in any biological sense. The apparition flickered and vanished as the bolts tore through it.
Prometheus finally got a good grip on the figment strangling the poor pirate, and he overcame any residual conditioning about fighting a woman – he hurled her with all his strength away from her victim, and she slammed into the wall seven meters away with a crack of broken plaster and lathe. Her flickering form vanished before it hit the floor.
But even as Artemis took out the last of the murderous figments, the movie stuttered to a stop and then began to run backwards until it reached the scene where all seven images of Lauren Hammond were on screen – and once again they all stepped forward, out of the realm of cinematic illusion and into reality.
“Well shit,” she muttered in annoyance, and pulled her shadow whip from her belt. But as she laid into these latest manifestations it was Scion who realized what had to be done. He hurled himself toward the back of the auditorium, crashing through the glass wall of the projection booth and landing next to the large old-school projector. It was a classic reel-to-reel type, not digital, and the two young men who manned the booth had been trying to turn it off.
“It won’t stop!” yelled the kid flipping the power switch up and down, despite the obvious futility of the gesture. “Even after we pulled the damn plug!” His companion held up the heavy gauge power cord he’d ripped from the wall and shook it in frustration.
For a moment Scion pondered the problems inherent in the interaction of technology and the supernatural, and considered simply blasting the machine apart… until the obvious solution flashed into his mind. Looking around he found what he was looking for on the sound control console. He picked up the large lens cap and placed it firmly over the projector’s lens.
In the auditorium the screen went dark, and as it did the remaining filmland figments flickered and vanished. Meg Halcyon, ducking under an attack by the second version of the candlestick-wielding image of Lauren Hammond, gusted a sigh of relief as it faded away. She’d been filming the entire fight on her smart phone, even while she dodged, and as luck would have it she was aimed precisely at the spot where the Silver Scream herself now suddenly materialized.
She floated almost seven meters in the air over the orchestra pit, a stunning vision of Lauren Hammond in her prime. Dressed in an elegant black evening gown, glowing in rich black & white, the spectral glow from her ghostly form filled the house with its eerie light. She would have been beautiful if her face wasn’t currently contorted into a mask of rage.
“You small-minded, weak-souled nobodies,” she shrieked, glaring out over the audience. “Mocking what you don’t have the wit to appreciate! Your own pathetic talents are so anemic, you must tear down your betters, your legends, to make yourselves feel big!
“Is that it, you sad little nothings? You need attention, and use the works of true genius to get what your own sickly talent, blunted and dulled my this moronic modern world of yours, can never provide. Well, now you will pay the price! Humiliate ME will you?! How dare you, you pathetic never-has-beens, you vicious little hangers on to your true mistress’ coattails–”
Knowing it was almost certainly futile, but wanting to break the almost hypnotic power of the apparition’s monologue, Artemis hurled a pair of shadow sticks through the shimmering form. As expected, they did nothing – except draw her attention to the hero.
“One of the pathetic little defenders of these small-minded ignoramuses,” the apparition sneered. “You’re as bad as the sheep you protect!” With that the Silver Scream sent a blast of pure psychic energy towards Artemis. The hero tried to dodge, but the attack came with the speed of thought, and it caught her in mid-leap. To everyone’s shock her head snapped back and she dropped down to the stage in a messy heap, unconscious!
Scion immediately blasted for the stage and dropped down next to his friend, kneeling between her and the furious ghost. His sensors showed that she was alive and, physically at least, unhurt. He felt a second psychic blast splash harmlessly against his armor as he retrieved a capsule from one of the many pouches on Artemis‘ utility belt. He snapped it under her nose, and almost instantly she jerked awake, eyes flying open…
The Silver Scream was distracted from further attacks by the sheer surprise of Prometheus plummeting through her ghostly form from above. As soon as she had appeared he had dashed for the back of the auditorium, where the catwalks were closest to the floor. A prodigious leap had taken him up to the grated walkways, which had groaned under his weight as he raced back toward the stage where, once directly above the solid-looking woman, he had leaped down upon her…
He now stood on the cracked cement of the orchestra pit floor looking, with some chagrin, back up at the shimmering, insubstantial, apparition… which looked down on him in return, and laughed.
The Silver Scream’s derisive laughter stopped abruptly when a three-way attack engulfed her – Blue Flame’s plasma bolt sizzled through her at almost the same instant that Quanta encased her in a cocoon of silvery matter. It was the latter, falling towards the stage whilst leaving her untouched, that deflected the brunt of Scion’s Magnetic Seizure attack… but for an instant she flickered and wavered, surprise showing in her spectral eyes, if only momentarily.
Blue Flame tried to keep the pressure up, hurling another blast of plasma at her – but was blasted in his turn by her next psychic attack. His head snapped back, his flame flickered out as he converted to his human form— and he plummeted from the air. Fortunately Quanta was able to convert his own next attack into a makeshift slide that slowed his teammate’s descent and dumped him at his feet.
Quickly checking to make sure Jonny was still breathing, Quanta was relieved when Meg, who had made her way up on stage, dropped to her knees on the other side of the fallen youth. “I’ll take care of him,” she whispered. “You get back to the fight!”
Turning back to the hovering so-called ghost, he began scanning her down to the quantum level. Scion hurled a tangle-field at the apparition, while Chilz tried to freeze it solid with an Arctic blast… neither seemed to have any effect, at either the macro or quantum level. Interesting…
“Lauren Hammond, please – stop and think about what has happened here tonight!” Artemis, fully recovered now, stepped from the shadows, gesturing toward the audience. No longer paralyzed, they were now held in their seats by a combination of prudence and curiosity. “These people didn’t come here to mock you, they came to celebrate you. It was your greatness as an actor that elevated movies such as these, and especially this one, to something more, much more, than they would otherwise have been.”
“But they laughed at me,” the ghost hissed. “I heard them laughing as these philistines on stage made mock of me–”
“No, they made mock of the writers, the director, the cinematography – but never you, Miss Hammond. And even you have to admit, Blood Like Wine is not a great film if taken merely on the merits of its screenplay… or its music… or its special effects… or–” Artemis cut herself off with an effort. “No, it was your transcendent ability to bring life to the story that made it immortal. It’s been almost 80 years since it was filmed – probably not a single one of these people was even born then – yet they are here to watch it after all these years– because of you.”
“I– I suppose that’s true…” the rage had faded from the ghostly face, and her beauty was now fully apparent, made even more poignant by the sadness that infused it. “But… I don’t know…”
“It was always the others in Hollywood who stymied you,” Meg put in, quietly but firmly. Once Jonny had begun to regain his senses she’d scrolled madly through websites on her phone, trying to learn as much as she could about the former actress… she prayed it was enough to support Artemis‘ bluff. “Directors, producers, the studio system – it was jealousy and, you’re right, small minds that hemmed you in. They may have ultimately succeeded in destroying your career, but they could never quench your spirit.” Obviously.
“Yes,” Artemis picked up the thread. “Don’t you feel it here, tonight? I’ve studied you, of course, and I know your cinematic illusions have never had physical form before, have they? So why did they possess it tonight? It’s the power of all these people, believing in you, in your talent and beauty and grace, that empowered you.” Or more likely it was the the intersection of all that psychic energy aimed at you and the power of All Hallow’s Eve, she thought. But no need to mention that.
“Indeed, my lady,” Prometheus suddenly spoke up, effortlessly pulling himself out of the orchestra pit and gazing up at her. “I know little of these things, being new to this time, but even I can sense your greatness… and your tremendous beauty. ‘You have a pale beauty, like that of the moon’” he quoted, bowing gallantly toward her. A smile actually crossed the apparition’s face. ” ‘O, swear not by the moon, th’ inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circle orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable’” she quoted in turn. Her smile turned wry.
“Perhaps… yes, I can see now that what you say is true,” the Silver Scream said after a moment of pregnant silence. “It is not these good people who have wronged me after all, and they should not suffer the pains of my vengeance…”
To the sound of growing applause from her fans, the disturbed spirt, her anger assuaged, bowed and began to fade… when a sudden beam of actinic light flared up from the pit beneath her, trapping the Silver Scream within its compass. Prometheus could see the sudden pentagram and inscribed circle that had appeared on the floor and from which the pillar of blue-white light emanated. Like everyone else he was momentarily frozen in shock as the spirit of Lauren Hammond writhed in apparent agony, her face a rictus of surprise, pain and a renewed fury.
“Ladies and gentlemen, let’s hear it for the heroes of Astoria, the valiant Vanguard!” Randall Fox’s unctuous voice, sounding like the most inane gameshow host ever, burst from the speakers and broke the spell. A murmur of surprise and uncertainty rippled across the audience. “What would we do without them?”
The festival organizer and host stepped from behind the hanging movie screen then, and strode onto the stage, one hand extended to the heroes, the other clutching an aging, battered-looking, dark blue leather book. He paused for a moment when he reached the edge of the stage, just a few feet to the left of the writhing apparition. After a couple of seconds (and an annoyed glance off-stage) a spotlight snapped on, illuminating him and casting the rest of the stage into relative darkness – with the exception of the trapped ghost and her glowing prison, of course.
“Well, I can tell you, we might be better off, at least with regards to spirits such as poor Lauren Hammond here,” he gestured at the pillar of light. “The infamous Silver Scream. Heroes from here to New Atlantis have been trying to solve this problem with punching since the Fifties, but she’s still terrorizing her old… haunts. No, for this kind of problem, the world needs a different kind of a hero. It needs – a Ghost Chaser!”
After moment of stunned silence there was a smattering of hesitant applause. The lack of enthusiasm seemed to surprise and annoy the former reality show host, but he covered it quickly with a smile. “So, if the Vanguard will return to their seats, I will –”
“Fox, what have you done?” Artemis demanded, stalking towards the man, as furious as any of her teammates had ever seen her. “We had neutralized the threat, she was leaving, for god’s sake and you –”
Fox switched off his microphone and stepped out of the spot light to meet her in the shadows. “I have everything under control,” he hissed at her. “If you’ll just sit back down, you’ll see it’s going just as I planned, and I–”
“Just as you planned?” Scion growled in disbelief, coming up to join Artemis. “People would’ve died if we hadn’t been here!”
“But you were here, just as I planned,” Fox countered sotto voce. ” You did your part, now let me finish doing mine. If you keep interfering I’ll have my lawyers on you so fast it’ll make your heads spin… and I know some of the biggest names, believe you me!”
“You think you can intimate us with fucking Hollywood lawyers?!” Scion demanded, incredulous. “Listen to me, you demented little weasel–” But Fox had turned his microphone on again and stepped back into the spotlight. Apparently he was just going to carry on, ignoring his now unwanted guests.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he cried out, once again jovial and avuncular. “You are about to witness history in the making, as I banish this twisted, malevolent spirt, the infamous Silver Scream – forever! I will free the tortured soul of Lauren Hammond at last – and free the world from her deadly, supernatural scourge once and for all!”
With that he opened the large leather-bound book he’d been clutching, and began to read, chanting out what sounded vaguely like Latin. As the words poured forth the caged spirit began to thrash even more violently, and a despairing wail escaped her, chilling to the bone all who heard it…
But the rhythm of the incantation was suddenly broken as all the theater’s doors blew open with a bang, and a deafening crack of thunder shook the old building violently. Sinister laughter echoed through the hall and Fox faltered, looking suddenly uncertain…
“Good evening, boils and ghouls!” a sepulcher, yet somehow sexy, female voice reverberated through the room. “We’ve interrupted your dead-ularly scheduled programming to bring you a terror treat! If you scare easily, plug in your fright-light, because… I… wait – What the hell? Are you… Are you people thwarting someone during my big entrance? Oh, this is just so typical!” A sigh echoed through the chamber. “Whatever. I’m still doing this. Go get ‘em, Natas!”
The doors slammed shut again with an echoing finality, and a towering, horrific thing appeared in the orchestra pit, wreathed in coils of black smoke. For a moment the audience seemed torn between terror and uncertain laughter as the smoke dissipated… everyone recognized the figure of Natas the Agonizer, the primary villain from the first movie of the evening, Piano of Pain. Skin turned inside out, stitched together like an inverted human quilt, and almost seven feet tall, it was suddenly very real.
The nervous laughter quickly died out as the monstrous creature pulled itself up out of the pit and onto the stage. It turned its malevolent gaze on Randall Fox and began to stalk slowly toward him… the man seemed paralyzed with terror.
As the demonic monster reached for him Artemis lashed out with her whip – ensnaring Fox and pulling him into her arms. Meg captured the moment in a nearly perfect shot on her phone, an image that would grace several papers and websites over the next several days. Fortunately, she didn’t get a shot of the panicked idiot elbowing his savior in the gut, wrenching himself free of her and, clutching his ancient book, fleeing back stage.
As Fox fled the safety of Artemis‘ protection, Prometheus reached out to grab the lumbering Agonizer by the shoulder, pulling it around to deliver a roundhouse punch to its head. The summoned manifestation staggered back, and Scion’s Magnetic Seizure attack staggered it further, seeming to confuse it.
Unfortunately the moment Randall Fox vanished back stage whatever power had been holding the Silver Scream helpless was shattered. The light flickered and vanished, as did the pentagram beneath her. The vengeful spirit’s rage was greater than ever now, and she turned first on Artemis, the chief betrayer in her furious eyes.
“You sought to trick me, to lull me into complacency by playing on my vanity, you bitch!” A flash of gray light shot from her outstretched hands, now crooked into claws, and struck the hero full in the head. For the second time that night, Artemis dropped to the floor, insensible. “Now where is that vicious little man who sought to end me? He will be joining me in the afterlife, but only after he has SUFFERED!”
Seeking for Fox, the Silver Scream ignored the two gigantic monsters grappling at center stage, and began moving towards the back. But even her supernatural attention was caught when Prometheus lifted Natas over his head and, with a grunt of effort, ripped the creature in half. The crowd gasped in horror, and then cheered as the two halves turned to black smoke and evaporated into nothingness.
Blue Flame took advantage of her momentary distraction to launch another ineffectual blast of plasma at the Silver Scream, but she ignored him, turning back to her pursuit of her newly-minted nemesis. At that moment, however, the back wall of the stage blew outward in a ball of reddish Hellfire. The shrapnel and flames were mainly absorbed by the screen, the smoking remains of which quickly collapsed to the stage. This revealed Madame Macabre floating in midair, holding Randall Fox by his neck with one hand. He kicked feebly, one hand locked around the strangling wrist, the other still clutching his precious book to his chest. He gurgled inarticulately.
“So, you thought it was a good idea to mock me, did you, you little maggot?” She glared at her captive and shook him for emphasis. “Well, you’e going to regret that if it’s the last thing you do… oh, that’s right… it WILL be the last thing you do!”
“It was me this worm sought to humiliate,” the Silver Scream hissed in rage, hovering five meters from the pair, grasping hands reaching for Fox. “Give him to me, he must suffer at my hands before his final fate is delivered!”
Without even glancing in his direction, Madame Macabre shot a blast of Hellfire at Chilz, who was trying to flank her on her left. The blast staggered the hero, even through the ice shield he reflexively threw up. The heat was unlike any he’d yet experienced – it didn’t seem to really melt his icy form, but it did seem to burn from within, intensely.
“My dear, I completely sympathize with your anger!” Macabre went on without missing a beat. “Indeed, I share it! But they mocked the entirety of my film, while only making it most of the way through yours… and lets be honest, Blood Like Wine really is a schlock-fest, your amazing performance… er, performances… notwithstanding.”
“Oh, like Piano of Pain had an ounce of subtlety or nuance,” the affronted spirit countered. But she quickly shook off this distraction, not to be deterred from her goal. “None of that is important right now… what is, is the torment this small-minded mortal must suffer! He actually sought to exorcise me! ME!”
“Well, a little exorcising is good for you, they say,” the former late-night vamp shrugged. “Especially for a woman of a certain age… although I seldom hit the gym myself. But I do see your point… and I suppose there is enough of his pudgy little hide to go around. So, how were you planning to start? Hot pokers through the eyes, perhaps?”
The Vanguard had held off up until this point, in the slim hope that the two supernatural entities might conveniently take out one another… but now it had turned real, and there was no more time for hoping. Scion sent an EM seizure jolt into Fox, to take the hostage out of the equation, or at least make him less immediately attractive to his two would-be tormentors. Where was the fun in torturing an unconscious victim, after all?
At the same moment Chilz blasted Madame Macabre with a battering ram of ice, taking her in the back and causing her to cry out – although more in surprise than pain, he suspected. A barely revived Artemis took advantage of the momentary distraction to snap her shadow whip around Fox once again, yanking the unconscious man from the villainess’ grip. As he fell into her arms, a dead weight, she pivoted and used the momentum to slam him into Robin Grant’s vacated chair. One of the fools hands amazingly still clutched his leather book.
“As Cousin It might say, it would seem we now have the upper HAND,” Quanta quipped, hoping to distract Macabre with the bad horror-related puns she supposedly enjoyed so much, while he erected a carbon-fiber wall across the front of the stage to protect the still-trapped audience from the coming battle. “Why don’t you ladies quit arguing about WITCH of you is better and simply call it a night? “
“Yes,” interjected Prometheus. “Why do not you both go BAT whence you came – there is not enough BROOM here for the two of you.”
Madame Macabre did snort slightly, but she was clearly in no mood for jests, even if she appreciated them. “You’re thinking of Thing, not Cousin It,” she sneered at Quanta, eyeing his wall. “And Thing couldn’t talk. I hope you’re not expecting a Halloween miracle, hero.
“And as for you, second son of Frankenstein… I think it’s time for a little family reunion.” The heroes tensed as she gestured at the shimmering wall and muttered something unintelligible… but nothing immediate seemed to happen…
Artemis, meanwhile, had attempted to take the book from the stunned Fox, but the effort had only served to revive him completely. “No!” he cried in a hoarse croak, scrunching down in the chair and wrapping both arms tightly around the ancient volume. “I can still fix this! I just need a moment to get my thoughts together!” Meg, continuing to film everything, rolled her eyes as she and Artemis exchanged a look of annoyance over the cowering, but determined, man.
The Silver Scream, who had been listening with rising impatience to the insipid bantering, finally had enough. She hurled a powerful psychic blast at Quanta, which he just managed to dodge. Unfortunately this put him directly into the path of the Cone of Infernal Domination that Madame Macabre had simultaneously unleashed at the Blue Flame, who had finally gotten back on his feet, and Scion.
Quanta felt suddenly dizzy as the arcane energy washed over him – he sensed another will striving to control his own, and with a monumental effort he shoved the other will away. He felt the connection snap. Shaking his head to clear it, he was suddenly aware of terrified screams coming from the audience on the other side of his protective wall – the wall which now prevented him from seeing what was going on out there! With a curse he allowed the wall to dissolve into its constituent quarks.
“Well, that is just uncalled for!” Prometheus fumed, glaring at the scene thus revealed. Apparently Madame Macabre’s last gesture had summoned up the horrible Boris Karloff version of his father’s first creation. It had materialized at the back of the theater and was now lumbering down the aisle, grunting inarticulately and menacing the audience. He moved forward, intending to deal with this apparition the same way he had with Natas, but Quanta was quicker. He summoned up his quantum matter and encased the Creature in a solid block of it… and that was that…
Scion, too, had been momentarily dazed by the pale-skinned woman’s attempt to dominate his mind, but his armor seemed to provide some protection even from the supernatural, and he quickly shook it off. The Blue Flame, however, was not so lucky. As the attack hit his already dazed psyche, he felt himself sinking into his own mind while another will seized control of his fiery body…
Chilz barely had time to register Meg’s sharp cry of warning before the Blue Flame was on him, plasma katana swinging for his head. But the warning was enough, and he managed to get an ice shield up between himself and his suddenly hostile friend. The blade sizzled through the ice, turning it to steam. Chilz prepared to repel a second attack while considering how to stop his friend without hurting him… but Jonny suddenly stopped himself, hovering in midair with a confused expression on his face.
“I’m… so sorry Chilz,” he gasped out, confusion quickly turning to anger. “But that wasn’t me – I think that Elvira wannabe made me do it!” He turned and released another blast of plasma at Madame Macabre, which she countered with her own blast of Hellfire. But the resultant coruscating light-show of competing flames left her open to another ice ram attack from Chilz, which staggered her. She fended off Artemis‘ electrified escrima sticks, but in doing so was unable to avoid the stream of stun rounds fired from Scion’s wrist cannons. She fell to the stage with a crash, crouched on one knee and clearly stunned.
With one threat momentarily slowed, Scion turned his magnetic seizure pulse on the Silver Scream – whatever supernatural force allowed her to manifest in the real world, there was a mind and a will behind it, and that had to be vulnerable. Yes, it looked like he was right… the black & white form of the old movie star flickered and warped for an instant, and she looked suddenly confused.
Quanta, who had had the wits to study the pillar of light that had previously held the “ghost” prisoner, had also briefly scanned Fox’s book, if only from a distance. Both had given off the oddest quantum signatures he’d ever seen – he couldn’t explain them, but at least they had quantum signatures, however freakish. Now, seeing the Silver Scream dazed by Scion’s attack, he calibrated the quantum field around himself just so and fused it with the stream of buckyballs he hurled at the apparition.
Already weakened, her grip on this plane tenuous, the Silver Scream had time for one surprised glare at the two heroes before her ghostly form blew apart under the uniquely calibrated quantum attack. As she vanished the temperature in the theater began to quickly rise…
Chillz had taken the lull to stride over to where Randall Fox sulked in his chair, apparently having lost his fear of Artemis as he continued to defy her. The ice giant towered over him, furious and letting it show. “What do you know about this mess?” he roared. “Can that book of yours stop them?”
Fox looked up… and up… up an immense form of very angry ice, shaped like a man, into two cold, glowing eyes. They were like windows into some frozen hell. His mouth gaped open and closed like a fish drowning in air for a moment. Then he wet his pants.
Chilz stepped back, looking both surprised and disgusted, and muttered “He really shouldn’t have worn khakis, I guess.” Meg snorted at that but kept filming. There was no way this moment wasn’t going up on her blog tomorrow, if the Oregonian wouldn’t run it.
As it turned out, the world didn’t have to wait to see the incident, since Fox’s own web cameras were still running. The one focused on Robin Grants former chair broadcast the whole thing live to the linked websites across the globe. But Meg’s video was better, being closer and more purposefully directed, and it eventually became the clip forever after associated with Randall Fox, Ghost Pisser.
Before he could pursue his questioning further (or decide if he even wanted to… how could living ice have a sense of smell, he wondered?) his mind was suddenly drowning in psychic hellfire… he felt another will overriding his own, pushing him down into the flames and taking control of his body…
The brief respite as the heroes dealt with that washed-up old has-been the Silver Scream and that weasel Fox had been all Madame Macabre had needed to regain her wits. Not wasting the time or energy to levitate again, she hurled another Cone of Infernal Domination at the largest grouping in range. And this time she was able to seize four minds – the most dangerous one, Artemis; the lumbering ice buffoon, Chilz; the apparently normal woman (someone’s sidekick… lover… really, who cared?); and the weasel himself, Randall Fox.
But before she could issue specific commands to her new puppets, beyond the general one to Attack! Madame Macabre found herself suffering some sort of mental seizure. Clutching her head as the world whirled nauseatingly around her and black whorls ate at the edge of her vision, she staggered backward – straight into Prometheus. As she bounced off him, this time the gigantic hero didn’t hesitate – his roundhouse punch to the side of her head sent her spinning down into darkness…
But even with Macabre out of the fight, her mind-controlled victims were still under the sway of her last command. Chilz, perhaps experiencing an unconscious resentment from the Blue Flame’s earlier attack on him, sent a blast of Arctic air and ice at his hovering friend. Jonny answered with a countering plasma blast, and the resultant cloud of steam did no damage to anyone.
Meg interpreted the command somewhat differently, and was angrily texting Totem, tasking him with not being there when he was needed. Randall Fox, through the tortured mental gymnastics of cowardice, somehow managed to interpret the command as license to run. Artemis cooly used the mental command to hurl her escrima sticks (not the electrified ones, though she was tempted) at the fleeing man, taking him at knee and skull. He went down in a jumble of limbs, and his precious book skittered across the stage, to coming to a stop against Prometheus‘ foot.
Picking it up, Prometheus flipped through the pages – carefully, as the volume seemed to be at least as old as he was, and not in as nearly as good a condition. “Well, it is not the Necronomicon,” he said to Artemis when she approached a few minutes later, having zip-tied a groggy but reviving Fox. “But it is clearly a book of true arcane lore. I wonder how such an ignoble man as Randall Fox acquired it?”
“One of several questions I plan to put to him,” she replied, and the glint in her eye made him glad he wasn’t the one who would be facing interrogation. “In the meantime, I think it best that we keep this book under high security back at the Pyramid.” She took the tome from him, stepped silently back into the shadows, and was gone. It still “creeped him out,” as his contemporary friends might say, when she did that…
Artemis was back before the police arrived, though as usual she stayed in the background and let Scion handle the authorities. She did offer to take Miranda Chow directly to the hospital, but the paramedics declined, uncomfortable with how meta-human powers might interact with the comedian’s condition. Chow shrugged ruefully at the hero as they loaded her into the ambulance, obviously having wanted to experience shadow-walking for herself. But she didn’t refuse Jonny’s offer to ride with her to the hospital…
Quanta, on dissolving the prison holding the summoned version of Frankenstein’s Creature, found no trace of the celluloid manifestation… and no quantum trace of its existence, either. Disappointing, but not unexpected, and he’d already gathered a great deal of data this evening on supposedly “supernatural” phenomena. He hoped that the various sensors in Scion’s armor had picked up even more… he was looking forward to the next several days as he analyzed it all…
Scion’s interaction with the APD went better than he’d thought it might. While they were initially somewhat irate that the Vanguard had made off with a key piece of evidence before they’d even had a change to see it, once the supernatural nature of the incident became clear they quickly conceded the point. Even in New Atlantis, with a much longer and more varied history of dealing with the strange and arcane, the police disliked supernatural crime; in Astoria, with far less experience in the uncanny, the feeling might more closely be described as hate.
So, they arrested Randall Fox (who shouted all the way to the squad car that it was the Vanguard’s fault, damnit, he’d had it all under control, and it would have worked, too, if not for those meddling superheroes), took 170 or so witness statements (thank the Eternal we didn’t have to do that, Scion thought), and cordoned off the area for the CSI team. Still, it was well after midnight before the rest of the team were able to get back to the AzTech Pyramid for the post-action debriefing…
Scion and Quanta dropped down to deal with Seismic, while Phantom Ace, Blue Flame and Chillz headed up to the rooftop exercise yard to take on Dominator. Totem, positioning himself at the edge of the admin roof where he could see the action below, immediately began to prepare his Sleeping Mists spell.