21 June 2017

It has been several days since the eventful raid at the former Dynamic Solutions site and Detective Daniels invites The Exalted Alliance down to police headquarters for a bit of a debrief.

While Eric Iabo, the so-called Dynamo Soldier, is indeed in the wind, the police are confident that they have captured the rest of a relatively notorious mercenary group. The group, who had been known as the Dynamo Boys were all captured and between the illegal weapons and armour and stolen goods, the District Attorney is optimistic about their chances of being convicted. In addition, District Attorneys from several other parts of the country have been in touch about possibly prosecuting the Dynamo Boys for crimes committed in their jurisdictions.

The heroes then thought to ask after their “new friend”, Iain, who was of course arrested with all of his companions. Detective Daniels was able to pass on that Iain was looking to cut a deal (as many of his comrades now saw him as a traitor anyway) and was working closely with the District Attorney and detectives.

He then moves on to less good news, informing the heroes that while they had been awaiting a warrant to legally search The Marrionette someone had managed to completely empty out the storage room. When the warrant had finally come through (on the afternoon of the 18th) there had been no signs of the suspicious looking crates. Video surveillance of the outside of the building doesn’t show anyone arriving or leaving and the police left to guard the building can all be seen not entering the building. At present, they are assuming that some sort of meta-human ability has been utilised to clear the evidence. If nothing else, this has proven to the police that those crates were definitely something that they wanted to investigate and they will be paying much closer attention to The New Crusaders from now on.

Finally, as the heroes left, Detective Daniels thanked them again for their assistance on bringing the case to a swift and satisfactory conclusion. He promises that himself, or another detective, will be in touch if they turn up anything to do with either Eric Iabo or the illegal weapons.

18 June 2017

The Exalted Alliance (minus The Spirit of Sobek) stand at the top of a flight of stairs leading down into the ruined basement of Dynamic Solutions, having just lifted up a hinged slab of concrete that had been engineered to conceal the stairwell. After a brief discussion, they decide to descend to find out what has been hidden before contacting the police.

In dim light they descend two flights of stairs before finding a door that they can open, a door that opens into a bare well-lit room being guarded by a figure wearing a full suit of advanced combat armour. The surprised guard immediately springs to his feet and opens fire at them with his silenced submachine gun, while the heroes take what cover they can around the doorway. Unfortunately for the Stirling Slugger, he takes the full brunt of the guard’s attack in the chest and is sent reeling backwards across the stairwell and into the opposite wall. While The Herald (who was invisible) rushes over to heal Stirling Slugger, The Inquisitor engages the guard in combat with his blaster pistol. The Herald finds that the Stirling Slugger is in a very bad way, bleeding badly from multiple gunshot wounds, but she is able to use her magic to heal him back to almost full health in a matter of moments. Luckily, The Inquisitor is able to get in a good shot on the guard and the altercation ends before he raises the alarm.

With the guard defeated they removed his armour before reviving him to question him. The guard, Iain MacDonald, was initially reluctant to give them any information, but The Herald was able to sweet talk him (without magic) and he was soon telling them just about everything they wanted to know…

Iain had been member of the Dynamic Solutions security before they had all been laid off and replaced with weirdos from an alternate earth. After the whole invasion thing was dealt with, and when the Dynamic Solutions ruins were just left lying around, Iain was contacted by Dominic Jones, an old work colleague, with an offer for work. They would do some “slightly shady” stuff for people while wearing their old Dynamic Solutions armour. Being out of work, Iain, and a bunch of others, had agreed to this. The whole thing was put together by Eric Iabo, who had been Iain’s manager back in the day and was now trying to get people to call him Dynamo Soldier.

Having heard Iain’s story, The Inquisitor tries to send a summary to Detective Daniels, but finds that he has no phone reception underground. The team decides to return to the surface, taking Iain with them, and to contact the police before proceeding. They do this without incident and Detective Daniels is quite interested to hear about what Iain has had to say (they keep Iain in the dark about who they are talking to over the phone). Daniels advises the heroes to stay where they are while he arranges for SWAT back up and promises to meet up with them as soon as possible.

While they are sitting around waiting for the police to arrive (and making small talk with Iain, who is still quite friendly to them), the heroes suddenly realise that sooner or later Iain’s presence down below will be missed. What, the wonder, will happen if Iain is missed before the police arrive? For a bit of extra safety, the heroes decide to swing the concealing slab of concrete back over the stairwell while they’re waiting. Also while they’re waiting, the heroes learn a little more about the capabilities of their armoured foes. They learn that a couple of people are carrying assault rifles with built in grenade launchers, for example.

Some twenty minutes later the police are pulling up in their armoured vans and Detective Daniels is running across the rubble strewn lot as an unseen group of armoured figures begin climbing the darkened stairwell. As Iain is being led away (feeling betrayed) by a couple of police officers and Detective Daniels is getting further information from The Inquisitor, Stirling Slugger notices the concrete slab “lid” beginning to rise up as it is opened from beneath by the ascending guards. Everyone quickly scrambles into cover (or into an ambush position) as the lid continues to open to reveal three armoured figures nearing the top of the stairwell. Two have their guns at the ready while the third is raising the concrete “lid”.

Having placed himself in a position close enough to the stairwell to act immediately, the Stirling Slugger reacts almost instantly to reach out a grab one of the armoured figures and, before they can react, throw them towards the armoured police vans that are parked on the road. The figure lands with a crunch and begins groaning at the same time that the quick thinking Stirling Slugger has reached for a grabbed a second armoured figure. That one soon goes flying through the air also, to join their comrade groaning on the ground. The third armoured figure, having finished opening the “lid”, reaches for their weapon only to notice the number of SWAT members who have their own weapons aimed already. Raising their hands in the air, this third figure then surrenders and allows Stirling Slugger to approach to disarm them, however as he approaches he can hear the person reporting everything that’s happening into their in-built radio comms. He immediately removes the man’s helmet, but the damage had already been done. Meanwhile The Herald, who is now invisible again, waits nearby to see if anything else happens and The Inquisitor remains lying prone keeping an eye on the stairwell and waiting to see if anyone is carrying one of the grenade launchers that Iain mentioned.

Within moments, two more armoured figures come flying up out of the stairwell utilising the rocket packs built into their armour. The assembled SWAT members immediately open fire and the hail of bullets does indeed send one of the flyers tumbling to the ground, while the other (wearing slightly different armour) seems to just ignore the shots as he returns fire dropping one of the police. The Inquisitor notes that this second figure is holding a different weapon that seems to include a grenade launcher. With the SWAT team continuing to return fire (with no effect) while tending to their wounded comrade and Stirling Slugger throwing baseballs skyward (with no accuracy), The Herald was able to utilise her powers to mind control the flying figure and force him to land and drop his weapon. While this last foe is being arrested, The Inquisitor quickly moves over to grab to dropped assault rifle/grenade launcher before making his way to the attacker who had been shot down to retrieve the man’s helmet (while police slowly move over to see to his injuries). As people scurry back and forth, securing prisoners and tending to the wounded (with The Herald’s assistance with the last bit), The Inquisitor uses his electronics expertise to cause the helmet’s radio comms to emit a loud droning noise to others on the same network, instantly making all other nearby helmets very noisy (and making it so that the helmets could no longer be used to communicate).

With the attackers under control, or in the process of being stripped of their armour and taken to the police vans, The Inquisitor and Stirling Slugger head to the stairwell to check for any stragglers. The Herald, who was still checking on the wounded, soon hurried to catch up but made sure she turned invisible as she entered the stairwell.

Reaching the room that Iain had been guarding The Inquisitor and Stirling Slugger cautiously move down an adjoining corridor, while The Herald crosses the corridor to enter a door opposite which turns out to lead to an armoury. While initially she can just see a long floor to ceiling gun cabinet, she does hear a noise that seems to come from further into the room. Creeping along she almost rounds a corner into a creeping helmet-less guard, but catches herself at the last moment and manages to sidestep out of his way (she is still invisible, after all). Before she can decide how to take care of this solitary guard they are both startled by a loud explosion from somewhere nearby!

Meanwhile, The Inquisitor and Stirling Slugger had cautiously proceeded down the corridor and had rounded the corner to see a group of four helmet-less armoured figures approaching them. Without pausing, The Inquisitor flicked the unfamiliar assault rifle over to grenade fire and launched a projectile at the enemies… causing a loud explosion and knocking out two of the enemy. As the dust began to settle Stirling Slugger then swiftly moved in to deal with the remaining guards.

Recovering from the surprise of the nearby explosion, which sounded like it came from an adjoining room or corridor, The Herald immediately used her abilities to mind control to single guard in front of her and then commanded him to walk up to the surface and surrender. While he headed off to do that (not that he managed to get to the surface, the SWAT team encountered him on the stairs and painfully subdued him), The Herald moved on to find out what was going on with her companions.

Stirling Slugger had managed to quickly drop on of the remaining guards with one swing of his bat, but the remaining armoured woman was tough. However, between The Inquisitor’s carefully aimed shots (and demands to surrender) and the Stirling Slugger’s powerful blows, they were holding their own against her. With the arrival of The Herald (or at least an illusion of The Herald), the villain saw the writing on the wall and finally decided to throw down her weapon and surrender.

With no time to lose, the Stirling Slugger then demanded to know, “Where’s Edward!?!”

“Eric,” The Inquisitor corrected him, as he approached cautiously from further down the corridor.

“Eric!” the Stirling Slugger repeated, as though that was what he’d said in the first place. They were then all very serious and didn’t crack a smile or anything.

As the SWAT team rounded the corner behind the heroes, the last guard indicated that Eric Iabo had been in his office at the end of the corridor the last time she’d seen him. When queried, she confirmed that there was only one exit, the stairwell they’d all been using so far.

Leaving SWAT to tidy up, the heroes then hurried to the office, only to find that Eric Iabo had kept the presence of a concealed escape tunnel in his office a secret from his underlings. However, while Eric Iabo was long gone, he had left behind at least some of the recently stolen cash from the armoured car heist (in satchel’s with the security company’s logo on the side) which Detective Daniels indicated wold be enough to tie this group to the robbery.

18 June 2017

While waiting for the Spirit of Sobek to return to the city, the other heroes head to police headquarters to meet with Detective Daniels who has mentioned that crime scene techs have uncovered a few things. Daniels led them into a room where photos of the armoured car robbery are on display before beginning to run through what has been discovered.

Detective Daniels explains that they have thoroughly gone over the two stolen SUVs that were used to herd the armoured car to the side of the bridge; while these were largely devoid of prints (aside from the legitimate owners of the vehicles), there were two sets of fingerprints that belonged to former security personnel of Dynamic Solutions (being Dominic Jones and Frasier Newcomb). So far the police have been unable to track these two down, as they haven’t been home since the robbery. Daniels explains that they are now trying to chase down known associates of these two.

Next the Detective confirms that all of the bullets fired during the robbery were special rounds developed by Dynamic Solutions and almost exclusively used by their own security forces.

Lastly, Detective Daniels thanks the heroes for tracking down various bits of security footage that shows the thieves making their escape. While the imagery is grainy, they have been able to enhance some of it to show a group of figures wearing Dynamic Solutions security armour. They seem to be flying by the use of jetpacks.

Detective Daniels notes that there is an obvious theme here, of Dynamic Solutions equipment having been used, potentially by former Dynamic Solutions security personnel. The Herald, The Inquisitor and the Stirling Slugger all then begin discussing various possible avenues of investigation, and they ask if the weapons from The Marionette have been recovered yet. Daniels replies that they are still, frustratingly, waiting on a judge to sign the warrant.

The heroes recall that the site of the old Dynamic Solutions building is still lying in ruins in Gaviston and they wonder whether someone has been removing old equipment and transporting it to The Marionette. Detective Daniels isn’t able to help them with what may, or may not, have been found at the Dynamic Solutions ruins, as they were searched by the FBI, the MRC and a couple of super hero teams, none of whom made their findings public. When the heroes then begin talking about having a look around the ruins, Daniels politely reminds them that perhaps he shouldn’t hear any more and they part ways to continue their planning.

As they don’t know what might be in the ruins (radiation, toxic waste, or worse), The Herald heads back to base to do some arcane research into a detection spell while The Inquisitor and the Stirling Slugger head to the site for a “quick look”. Of course, the “quick look” turns into a brief search of the area, with neither of the heroes finding anything of interest in the collapsed piles of concrete and steel. However, they do find evidence of a section of fencing being rigged to allow easy access to the ruins, while the Stirling Slugger catches sight of signs of rough sleeping arrangements inside the unstable building remains. The Inquisitor has a closer look at these sleeping areas, which seem to belong to homeless people, and then narrowly avoids having some falling masonry falling on him as he exits the building. They then decide to return to base to confer with The Herald.

Back at base, The Herald decides that a detection spell probably isn’t necessary (as the other two don’t seem to be radioactive or anything) and so they head back out to the former Dynamic Solutions site. (The Inquisitor does take some time to ensure that the Stirling Slugger isn’t showing any ill effects of their earlier visit, which he isn’t.)

Back at the ruins again (about an hour after their first visit) the heroes head back to the unstable building to see what they can find. Unbeknownst to The Inquisitor and the Stirling Slugger, The Herald, of course, uses her invisibility and illusion powers to appear where she isn’t (an image of The Herald walks around 15 to 20 feet in front of where The Herald actually is). In the dim confines of the unstable building The Inquisitor sees a figure scrambling away and so they give chase and, despite dislodging a bit of masonry again, the Stirling Slugger is easily able to catch the fleeing homeless man. With The Herald’s friendly questioning techniques, they are then able to learn that there has been someone (or some people) moving around in the rubble area. They thank the homeless man and head back out in the daylight, managing to once again dislodge some masonry which this time leaves the Stirling Slugger and The Herald with minor bruising.

After resting up, they then do a more thorough search of the large rubble covered area and manage to find signs of foot traffic leading to and from another section of fencing that has been modified to allow easy entrance. The Stirling Slugger then begins moving rubble to see what may be hidden underneath, which is when he finds that one slab of concrete is a lot lighter than it looks and is even hinged to allow for easy movement. Beneath this hinged piece of concrete they find a concealed stairwell leading underground…

Part 1: Observing The Marionette

17 June 2017

With “The Simian Strangler” case all wrapped up, the heroes are able to focus all of their attention on the bank car job once more. Returning their focus to the gun runners they learn from the Spirit of Sobek (who had been perched, watching the goings on at a dingy bar called The Marionette the previous day) anything useful he had observed. While most of his time spent watching had been futile, he had seen one person arrive who greeted with enthusiasm and/or respect. Everyone agreed that this guy sounded like he could be the boss. Hoping to see him arrive again, they all headed back down to Larston to put The Marionette under observation once more. The Inquisitor takes time to explain to everyone how his spy-drone invention will work and how he hopes to be able to use it against this “boss figure”.

Back in Larston the heroes take up position on the rooftop across the street from The Marionette and settle in to wait. Hours pass.

In the early evening the Spirit of Sobek alerts the others that the “boss figure” is arriving again. They all gather to watch as a big guy gets out of a fancy looking pickup. He’s greeted by a few people who come out of The Marionette for that sole purpose.

Eagerly, The Inquisitor then begins readying his micro spy-drone before sending it into The Marionette to listen in on what transpires. It takes him a few minutes to zero in on the “boss figure”, steering the drone without being able to see where it is turns out to be quite complex, but he is then able to overhear a hushed conversation talking about a “delivery” that will be coming in “very early” the next day. The Inquisitor surmises that this is not a typical delivery (of alcohol or food), but is rather an illegal delivery… possibly of weapons. Soon after having overheard this information, the conversation breaks up and a The Inquisitor is able to pass on what he has learned.

After a brief discussion they all decide to meet back here early in the morning to observe at possibly act upon the delivery.

Part 2: Early morning delivery

18 June 2017

With The Inquisitor and the Stirling Slugger installed in a local McDonalds enjoying a (very) early extended breakfast, The Herald and the Spirit of Sobek took up position at The Marionette. While The Herald used her magic to become invisible and watch from the bar’s carpark, the Spirit of Sobek climbed up onto the building’s roof and used his blending ability to stay out of sight.

Shortly after 5 am a truck pulled up to the gate and, after some messing around with opening the gate and reversing the truck, a number of crates were unloaded and taken into the The Marionette’s back room. The watching heroes judged that these crates looked like typical “weapon holding” crates. While the unloading was taking place, the Spirit of Sobek used his stealth to sneak onto the truck’s roof knowing that this would be the best place for him to “follow” the truck back to its base.

After the crates had been unloaded, and after the truck had pulled away with the Spirit of Sobek attached to the roof, The Herald made contact with The Inquisitor to say, via text, that the weapons had been delivered. The Inquisitor then contacted the police (by calling 911) to report this, but got only a lukewarm response.

It was at around this time that The Herald realised that maybe they should have taken pictures, or even recorded, the delivery taking place as evidence. So, in an attempt to get the police to intervene, she then utilised her emotion control powers to make one of the employees of The Marionette so angry that he brutally attacked his co-workers (all while The Herald recorded those parts of the attack that occurred where she could see). With this new evidence of wrongdoing recorded The Herald uploaded the video then sent a link to The Inquisitor, who was able to pass it on to Detective Daniels, who had only just arrived at his desk and was still waiting for his computer to boot up. After viewing the video Daniels agreed that this violent attack deserved a police response and organised to head around with backup.

At this point, The Inquisitor and the Stirling Slugger decided to relocate to be closer to the action and moved to a cafe across the street from The Marionette. Then, after thinking things over a bit more, The Inquisitor decided to head back to base to get working on a new invention, a device that could spy on people (using video) and record it to his laptop as future evidence.

Elsewhere, the Spirit of Sobek had stayed perched atop the delivery truck’s roof as it had made its way south and out of the city. After roughly 45 minutes of driving it had pulled up at a secluded farm, where the drivers were met by several men dressed in paramilitary garb. The truck was then parked in a barn and soon the Spirit of Sobek found himself alone atop the truck.

Aside from the truck, the barn contained many weapon and ammunition crates, which the Spirit of Sobek began investigating and recording with his mobile phone. Inside these crates he found high tech weaponry, which he couldn’t quite accurately identify. Luckily before he got caught up in recording evidence, he noticed that he had set off a silent alarm and was able to make himself scarce once more by the time an armed response had arrived from the farmhouse. While heavily armed men searched the entire farm, the Spirit of Sobek stealthily headed back to the highway, where he found a diner and contacted The Inquisitor.

The Inquisitor, who was now settled in his lab, agreed to pass the information (and the Spirit of Sobek’s video footage) on to the police. After this he once again The Inquisitor called Detective Daniels, who was only just then pulling up at The Marionette. While a number of police officers deployed into The Marionette, the Detective reviewed this new evidence and then contacted the state troopers to respond to the Spirit of Sobek’s situation.

At The Marionette, the police are able to arrest the violent attacker (who had been kept unresponsive, in a kind of fugue state, by The Herald while waiting for the police to arrive) and then entered the premises in search of victims. They discovered two badly beaten men and ambulances were called for and soon arrived to take these two to hospital. The Herald and the Stirling Slugger then spoke with Detective Daniels in the back room of the The Marionette, where they were surrounded by piles of what look like weapons crates. Daniels thanked them for their help, but said that they had to wait on paperwork before busting open any of the crates and proving their contents. He explained that they didn’t want to jeopardise any future case by rushing things now. As the two heroes were about to leave, Detective Daniels then remembered to ask them to come around to police HQ later on, as the forensics team had made some progress on evidence they had recovered from the armoured car heist.

Some time later that day the state troopers arrived at the isolated farm only to find that it has been cleared out. They found some trace evidence that something may have been going there, but the perps have been very thorough. Disheartened, but not surprised, the Spirit of Sobek began making his way back to Stirling City.

Part 1: Taking care of Family

15 – 16 June 2017

She had just finished crossing the Old Larston Bridge when Kamgwe’s Herald had received the phone call from her mother. The message had been pretty simple: your grandmother has had a fall, you should come and help fix her up. Of course she would go and use her magic to help, but there was no reason for the attitude, right?

Getting back to the family house in Stirling City hadn’t taken too long, she’d already been on her bike after all. The drive in the family car up to the reservation, though, seemed to take about four thousand years rather than the four hours it had actually taken. This is why she avoided family things.

Grandma Eagle was propped up in her bed and in a lot of pain. She’d broken some bones, maybe her hip, when she’d fallen trying to do something she was too old to be doing. Her children were all there and they were concerned. They had all heard about Kamgwe by now; most, probably, did not believe. But they would. So The Herald stood beside Grandma Eagle’s bed and worked her magic and the old lady was healed.

The Herald wanted to immediately head back to Stirling City, as she had work to do, but this was not to be. They all stayed overnight and Grandma Eagle insisted on cooking for everyone. It was a Thursday night and no-one else had much of anywhere to be, so a great deal was made and no-one left that night. Her family even made noises to indicate that they would be staying for the weekend as well, making a short holiday out of the whole event. Luckily though, during dinner, The Herald’s Uncle, Tom Eagle, did kindly offer to drive her home on the following day, as he had to get back to work in Stirling City.

The following day, of course, things did not quite work out that easy. They planned to get going early, but somehow they ended up having lunch with everyone. Finally they got going, but then there was a lengthy detour that they had to follow, which managed to turn a four hour drive into something even longer. So, it was not until quite late on the Friday night that The Herald arrived back in Stirling City.

Part 2: Searching the Streets

16 – 17 June 2017

The Inquisitor had only just finished working on his invention and was explaining it to the Stirling Slugger when The Herald finally returned to their headquarters. They both immediately set to explaining to her where they had gotten to with the case, as well as explaining about the new so-called monkey attacker case as well.

As they were planning on using the night time to search for the attacker, The Herald made use of her police contacts to get further details about the case (location of attacks, number of victims, etc.). From what she learned they decide to have someone pose as a potential victim and wander through the areas of previous attacks in the hopes of attracting the attacker. While The Inquisitor was happy to be dressed up as a potential victim, his unusual appearance made him a little unsuitable so they eventually settled on disguising the Stirling Slugger as “a drunk guy in between nightclubs”.

While The Herald took her time getting the Stirling Slugger’s disguise to look just right, The Inquisitor spent his time devising their tactics for when (or if) they did encounter the attacker. He also remembered to communicate with the Spirit of Sobek, who had been still hanging out observing the seedy bar they had visited earlier that day. (The Spirit of Sobek agreed to head back to base soon, but then got distracted by something.)

Finally they set out from headquarters at a little after one in the morning. The Stirling Slugger led the way in his disguise, while the other two followed at a little distance (with The Inquisitor carrying the Stirling Slugger’s gear). Slowly they made their way from nightclub to nightclub using predominantly dark shadowy alleys, working their their way from Avery down into Old Stirling.

Luckily, after two and half hours of wandering and hoping, as the Stirling Slugger was walking down yet another dark alley, a hairy figure appeared out of the darkness and grabbed him, stunning him in the process! (Hooray, progress!) As The Inquisitor and The Herald then hurried to catch up, the Stirling Slugger did his best to try and fight off the crushing arms of his attacker. In the dark shadows of the alley The Herald found it difficult to even make out where the attacker and the Stirling Slugger were grappling. The Inquisitor had no such problem and was able to easily close with the grappling pair and hold out the Stirling Slugger’s baseball bat for when he had a free hand (while also firing his own pistol at the monkey-looking attacker to little effect).

Eventually The Herald was able to accurately perceive the attacker (which had been made difficult due to the poor lighting) and was able to mind control the simian attacker. Despite its animalistic appearance it could understand her commands and she was able to make it lie down and allow itself to be handcuffed. With The Herald managing to keep the creature docile, The Inquisitor was able to call the police and they all headed out of the alley to a more well-lit location to wait.

Within a few minutes several police cruisers had arrived and they applied power nullifying restraints to the captive. They had discovered that while the attacker could clearly understand English, it seemed unable to speak (at least in any way that could be understood), so the heroes could not fathom the reasons for an oversized monkey to go around mugging people. For the time being, at least, the police then took the creature away into custody.

At that point, since it was after 4am and they were all pretty tired, they headed back to base to rest.

Much later in the day, when they had begun to rouse, they found that the news outlets were calling their assailant “The Simian Strangler”. Their capture of the creature was the BIG NEWS of the day.

Part 1: Following Leads

15 June 2017

The Herald had only just crossed the Old Larston Bridge when her mobile began ringing. From a nearby rooftop, The Spirit of Sobek watched her pull over to the side of the road to answer and then, moments later turn her bike around and head straight back across the bridge. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but decided to keep tailing her just in case.

Meanwhile, the Stirling Slugger and The Inquisitor had driven to a street in West Larston where they had roughly determined that the armoured car robbers had turned south. Independently they worked their way down the street, talking to people and attempting to get further security video footage (for either themselves of the police) as they went. The rocket pack wearing robbers had left an impression on the locals, though the sight of people flying under their own power wasn’t special enough to have made any of them call the police. After walking for several blocks they crossed a major road and began to find that no-one had seen the criminals, so they must have turned off somewhere. Realising that they needed a different point of view, The Inquisitor called The Spirit of Sobek (who was still trailing after The Herald) who agreed to meet up with them. Thanks to his speed, they knew this would only take a few minutes.

While the two heroes were standing on the corner waiting for The Spirit of Sobek to arrive they noticed a group of five men approaching them. All of the men were wearing distinctive black hoodies that partially concealed their features. The group came to stand in front of the heroes and demanded that the heroes clear out, which they refused. Then, after a small misunderstanding a brief fight broke out in which one of the five thugs pulled out a machine-pistol and tried (successfully) shooting both The Inquisitor and Stirling Slugger (the remaining thugs drew knives, to lesser effect). Despite incurring minor bullet wounds, the heroes were quickly able to overcome the thugs and call the police.

By the time that The Spirit of Sobek had arrived, the police had also arrived and were taking the five assailants into custody. While Stirling Slugger and The Inquisitor gave their statements to the police, the reptilian hero then climbed to a nearby roof to survey the area. The only nearby detail that stood out to him was the three storey parking garage a few buildings away, as he could see security cameras installed on some of the building’s corners.

Once the other heroes had finished with the police they all then walked up to the parking garage where they learned, from the helpful attendant and his limited surveillance cameras, that the bridge robbers landed on the roof level of the garage and climbed into waiting vans before driving off. The van drivers (who were possibly two of the robbers, not wearing helmets) paid their parking fee and left, heading south. The Inquisitor called the police again and reported this new development to Detective Daniels. Before leaving the garage the heroes also arranged for copies of the surveillance tapes to be sent to the police and themselves, and had taken some pictures (on their phones) of the van drivers.

With no further trails to follow, the three heroes head back to headquarters where they found that The Herald had left them a message explaining that a family emergency had cropped up and that she would be back in touch later.

While The Spirit of Sobek and the Stirling Slugger went about their usual business, The Inquisitor then spends some time analysing the evidence they gathered earlier. While he isn’t able to learn anything from most of the evidence, he is able to learn that the bullet casings they had gathered came from custom designed ammunition (for custom weapons) designed and constructed by the now defunct Dynamic Solutions, which had been at the centre of all that controversy (and inter-dimensional invasion) several years earlier.

Part 2: New Directions

16 June 2017

The following morning the heroes go about their usual routine until The Spirit of Sobek hears (from the morning news) that a fourth victim of a possible ape/monkey assailant is recovering in hospital. As this makes him think that The Sewer King, or one of his other experiments, may be involved (if not directly responsible) The Spirit of Sobek takes particular note.

The Inquisitor then gets around to calling Detective Daniels to tell him about the bullet casings (which the police CSIs may very well have already discovered). The Inquisitor asks if there could be any illegal weapon’s deals going on in the city, to explain how people could be using specialised Dynamic Solutions weaponry. Detective Daniels agrees this is a possibility and mentions that there are rumours of arms dealing going on in Larston.

While The Inquisitor is on the phone, The Spirit of Sobek reminds him to ask about the armoured car’s guards (who they had forgotten to inquire about the previous day); as it turned out, they were both fine. The armoured car company had a policy concerning super-powered (or over-powered) attacks and so the guards had stayed out of the robbers way and had not been hurt in the slightest.

After further prompting from The Spirit of Sobek, The Inquisitor also asks Detective Daniels about the so-called monkey attacks. Detective Daniels is happy enough to transfer them through to another Detective for this, as he isn’t handling that case. After being on hold for a minute or two, The Inquisitor is able to talk to Detective Harris who doesn’t seem too impressed at being “in charge” of the “monkey case”. Harris tells them that there have been four attacks in the north Old Stirling/ Avery area, with one fatality so far; the three surviving victims needed some medical attention and all report being attacked by a hairy ape/monkey/person. He does note that the former enhanced animal superhero known as Agent Gibbs is currently a person of interest (The Inquisitor dismisses Agent Gibbs as a suspect, having met the creature the previous day and thinking him incapable of violent, physical attacks). The Inquisitor informs Detective Harris that The Exalted Alliance will be looking into these crimes.

While The Inquisitor initially wants to go and immediately search Stirling Park for the “monkey attacker”, the Stirling Slugger talks him out of this and the three heroes instead hop into The Inquisitor’s car and drive to Larston in search of illegal weapons (and illegal weapons dealers). However, once they had arrived in Larston (and parked the car in a secure facility), they had some difficulty finding anyone who was willing to speak to them, with many passers-by actually crossing the street to avoid them entirely. Eventually they found their way to a seedy bar occupied by half a dozen bikers, where they ordered some drinks and tried to settle in before interrogating the bikers. The bikers decided pretty quickly that the “freaks” should leave, quickly, and reluctantly the heroes complied (after finishing their drinks) to avoid any unnecessary unpleasantness.

After this setback they made their way to a nearby medical clinic, where they managed to find a male nurse who was willing to give them some information “off the record”. He told them that there had been an increase in strange gang related injuries recently, but these were like “laser burns”, not specialised bullets (if they would even look different from normal bullets). He insisted that none of the victims were willing to speak out against the local gang, the New Crusaders, for fear of retribution.

Leaving the medical clinic, the heroes decide that they should observe these New Crusaders to see if they deal in illegal weapons. They also decide that they should have a look around at night for the “monkey attacker” (in the Old Stirling/Avery area). As it was still mid-morning at this point, they split up, with The Spirit of Sobek remaining in Larston to try and observe the New Crusaders while the Stirling Slugger and The Inquisitor headed back the headquarters.

While The Spirit of Sobek spent a long day standing watch over the seedy bar they had so quickly left earlier in the day, The Inquisitor set to work in his lab and constructed a device to allow them to remotely listen in to a specific location, which he felt would be of great use that night.

15 June 2017

While The Herald was visiting a nursing home, trying to pass on knowledge of Kamgwe to the residents, she was contacted by a friend of hers within the Stirling Police, telling her to check out the local news. Without hesitating she arranged this and was able to catch the coverage of the aftermath of a daring daylight attack on an armoured car while it was crossing over the New Larston Bridge. The news footage clearly revealing the seemingly gridlocked bridge, with a ring of flashing police lights and a small plume of smoke indicating where the incident occurred. Upon seeing all of this The Herald contacts the rest of her team and brings them up to speed, before arranging to meet them all at the New Larston Bridge as soon as possible.

The Herald and The Spirit of Sobek arrive at the scene first, as both could ignore the traffic snarls that this bridge incident had sparked. Upon being allowed into the crime scene The Herald speaks to the lead detective, Detective Daniels, while waiting for the others to arrive. From Detective Daniels The Herald learns that: a group of people attacked an armoured car, burst the tires and forced it to stop; they removed the armoured car’s rear door and emptied out a whole lot of money; they escaped by flying off upriver somewhere. By the time Daniels has finished this account The Inquisitor and the Stirling Slugger have arrived at the scene (on foot, having been forced to leave the Stirling Slugger’s car some distance away).

With everyone present, The Inquisitor and The Spirit of Sobek begin searching the crime scene and gathering evidence while The Herald talks to the crime scene techs who have recently processed the scene themselves and she manages to convince them to share their results with the heroes (once they’ve analysed what they have gained). The crime scene techs can confirm that the armoured car’s tyres were taken out first, then some sort of explosive was used on the back. Meanwhile the Stirling Slugger looks to question any witnesses, but instead gets sidetracked by an attractive woman in a nearby car (who is stuck in traffic and not interested in him).

The Inquisitor and The Spirit of Sobek succeed in gathering some evidence for later processing (including: bullet casings, explosives trace, a paint scraping, deformed spent bullets, finger prints). The Inquisitor also takes note of some nearby surveillance cameras that may have caught the attack on film. The Spirit of Sobek climbs up high to survey the surrounding area, but can catch no sight of any fleeing robbers.

At this stage the heroes decided to split up to cover more ground.

The Inquisitor (once again being driven by the Stirling Slugger) headed south to Tron Labs to see if they have any relevant surveillance footage. On the was The Inquisitor also phones the security company that owns the armoured car to enquire into footage from the car’s internal cameras, however the person who answered the phone was not very helpful (they were quite dismissive in fact). The Inquisitor then thinks to talk to The Herald, who arranges for Detective Daniels to give them access to security footage from the bridge as well as any footage from inside the armoured car. At Tron Labs, The Inquisitor and the Stirling Slugger are introduced to Gibbs, a talking blue gibbon who is apparently the head of security for the place. He agrees to check their river facing security footage and to pass on anything they may have caught. The heroes then head on to the Stirling Water Plant.

On the other side of the river (the north side), The Herald, with The Spirit of Sobek following along almost invisibly, manages to eventually find some workers who had potentially witnessed some flying individuals. However, they were viewing them from some distance and were unsure as to what they had actually seen. The workers thought the flying people might have headed south. After a little more looking around, The Herald and The Spirit of Sobek turned around to head back to the bridges to make their way across the river.

At the Stirling Water Plant the two heroes were able to easily gain entrance thanks to the gate security guard recognising the Stirling Slugger (as Billy Butler, the somewhat famous former baseball player). This recognition gained them access to the security office where Frank, the security chief, helped them check through the recent footage of the river. On one camera they were able to distantly make out what could possibly be some flying figures flying along and then flying south into the city. By getting the Stirling Slugger to head outside, The Inquisitor was then able to calculate roughly where the “possible flying figures” turned away from the river and headed inland. Thanking Frank for his assistance, The Inquisitor and Stirling Slugger then headed off to see if they could find any further traces of these mysterious flying attackers.

Part 1: Preparation

Professor Atom lifted his welding mask and looked around his lab, noting the papers and light objects that had suddenly been displaced. As the waiting servo-bots whirred into action he felt a sudden rush of air and, sure enough, he caught sight of Silver Streak leaning casually against the wall pretending that he’s been there all along. The white laboratory lights reflected brightly on the liquid metal skin that covered Silver Streak’s body, making him easy to notice.

Noticing that he now had Professor Atom’s attention, Silver Streak approached at what must have seemed a snail’s pace to him. “How’s the temporal dampener coming along?” the speedster asked, after getting close enough to look at the contraption in the professor’s hands.

“It’s pretty much right to go. I can’t guarantee that the circuits will hold up in the long run, so you wont be able to field test this before deployment.”

“It’ll work though, right?” Professor Atom didn’t both to dignify this with a reply, just a look. “Yeah, sorry. Of course it will work.” Picking up the small device, Silver Streak turned it over in his hands before continuing. “Are you still planning on joining us tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Professor Atom replied. “I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve, just in case The Chrononaut tries anything unexpected.”

“Good. The more the merrier,” Silver Streak replied before leaving in a sudden rush, moving faster than Professor Atom can follow, even with his enhanced eyes. Once again papers and light objects get blown around the lab before being gathered up by servo-bots and put back in there proper place. With a sigh Professor Atom moves over to his lab computer bank to check the readings that were just gathered about Silver Streak. At least now he has more data for his speed dampening field research project…

Part 2: Confrontation

It was a quiet morning in Riverside, particularly around the Meta-Human Research Institute. Though a cool morning, the sky was clear and it looked like it was going to be a good day. A very sharp-eyed observer might have noticed the slight shimmer of an energy field in place around the Meta-Human Research Institute, though it would have been more clearly seen in dim lighting, however this almost invisible field seemed to have no effect on the numerous people passing through it as they went about their morning routines.

This serene morning was then suddenly shattered as The Chrononaut appeared out of thin air in the middle of the sidewalk. Gathered around him were the mercenaries Bramble and Deadeye, as well as two dozen Chronobots, and they were all looking momentarily confused (except for the robots; they tend to conceal their emotions well). Into this confusion the Stirling City Irregulars sprang from their various hiding places, which had been scattered around the institute as they were unsure as to which direction the villains would be approaching from.

The hulking ice giants, Sveln and Njordos, moved to engage the villains head on, as was their preference. Making use of the giants as a distraction, The Black Ghost circled the fight, looking for a way to get close to The Chrononaut, although he was easily spotted by Deadeye and was thus engaged by that mercenary instead. Meanwhile, Lightning Hachi and Silver Streak began carrying away civilians at super speed, while Solrac the Summoner created protective stone walls to shield whole sections of the street from the battle that was already breaking out. Lastly, Professor Atom acted as a foil to the bow-wielding mercenary Bramble, who would otherwise have skewered Solrac with little effort.

Over the crash of ice giants flattening Chronobots, Deadeye called out to The Chrononaut, who was yet to engage the heroes in any way: “Why are you just standing there? Use your powers!”

“Somethings wrong!” he cried back, “Hang on…” and then a look of extreme concentration and effort came over his face. He had no way of knowing that all of his temporal abilities were being dampened by Professor Atom’s hastily constructed device; all that he knew was that his powers had suddenly failed leaving them exposed and vulnerable. Normally his “chrono-suit” enabled him to tap into the latent temporal energy that surrounded all things. He knew how it worked and he knew it should have worked. So, with an extreme effort, he reached down deep into his own previously untapped powers (perhaps powers that had been masked by the use of the “chrono-suit” all along) and reached for elusive powers of the time stream.

Then, in a blinding flash of white light, all of the heroes and villains (and a small number of civilians who were yet to be evacuated) disappeared.

Aftermath

“Heroes Lost!” “Battle at the MHRI!” “Who is The Chrononaut?”

News crews arrived at the scene almost as quickly as the police. Both groups found a scene of confusion. Civilians were wandering around, trying to figure out what had just happened. Everyone told the same story though, The Stirling City Irregulars had intercepted The Chrononaut and then everyone disappeared. The only sign that something had indeed taken place (aside from the security camera footage that would soon be played almost non-stop on all of the local stations) were ten disabled Chronobots and a magically summoned stone wall (that dissipated after a half an hour anyway).

Despite how bad things looked right then and there, everyone kind of expected the Stirling City Irregulars to reappear at any moment. They kept on thinking that for two weeks.

Now, some still hold out hope that they will all just come back; most believe that they all died on that morning in May. On the 18th they even held a memorial service for all of those who went missing in the incident, “The Incident” as some refer to it as.

Ever since that morning, super-crime rates in the city have been on the rise. Heroes such as Scarlet Streak, Water Sprite and Night-Ward are still doing their best, but they have other responsibilities as well and they cannot protect people to the same extent as the Stirling City Irregulars.