Volume 2, Issue 6 - Old Friends

The summer heat had just giving way to the cool night air of mid fall, and Caz, Rick Pennington, and Sydney were walking home from a campus movie.  As they walked, they discussed the movie, as well as plans for the evening.  Caz was making a grand pronouncement about the quality of the popcorn in the old Kemp theater, when his phone rang.  

Pulling the cell from his pocket, he answered “‘Lo.”  He was surprised to hear the voice of Tim O’Malley, formerly the Infinite Seven member Wrecking Ball.

“Hey, Tim!  Long time no talk to.  How you doing, man?”

“Not so good,” said the voice on the other end.  “I’ve got a problem.  An I7 problem, if you know what I mean.”

Caz leaned back to Rick “The Adept” Pennington.  “It’s Tim.  He’s in some sort of trouble up there in Chicago.”  Caz put the phone on speaker as Rick opened a portal into the headquarters, the the bewilderment of the students walking nearby.

“Okay, Tim, we’re in the HQ, you’re on speaker.  What’s up?” Caz prompted.

“My girlfriend, Megan.  She’s gotten mixed up in some stuff...I think it’s related to Nex.”

The trio exchanged meaningful glances.  The Infinite Seven had recently fought a platoon of high-tech armed Nexers that had invaded Stevenson and killed two thirds of the police force before they could be stopped.  Rick had said then that it was just the beginning, but so far, there had not been a similar event anywhere in the news.  I7 had just now diverted its investigative resources back toward figuring out what happened to missing member Dragonfly.  

“Tim, have you seen any sign of Nex-related violence or terrorism up there?” Rick asked.

Tim paused before answering.  “Terrorism?  I thought Nex was just another drug problem.  A weird one, but just like the others.  Are terrorists involved?”  Tim’s concern for Megan had just elevated 100%.  

“Maybe that’s the wrong word...” Rick continued.  “We had some trouble with some armed invaders a couple weeks ago...they were organized, and really well armed.”

“No, but...” Tim hesitated.  “She’s got some new friends from Italy.  They’re young, not like organized crime types.  I think they’re bringing her the Nex.  And...one of them shot me the other day.  With a really powerful gun.”

Caz looked alarmed.  “Tim, you were shot?”’

“More like Grazed.  I was in costume, tracking Megan to make sure she was okay.  Then, I noticed one of them aiming something up from the ground.  This thing came right toward me like a missile!  There’s no way it was a normal gun.  I managed to throw some titanium between it and me, but the bullet ricocheted and grazed my side real good.  Left a hell of a dent in the old titanium ball, too.  I pulled back at that point, but kept following them.  Next thing I know, they’re jumping around Nexer style.  They got away from me.”

“Did Megan SEE that?” Rick asked.  

“She was in a building when they shot me, but she definitely leaped away with them,” Tim said.  “I tried to tell her they were bad news later, but she’s brushing me off.  Now I think they may have enlisted her in some sort of plot.”

“Okay, Tim, keep clear until we get up there,” Rick said.  “It might take awhile for me to get the portals straight between here and there.”

“Okay.  Hey, guys, make sure to bring Dragonfly.  This is really his type of thing.”  

Caz sighed.  “That’s not gonna happen, unfortunately.  Aaron’s disappeared.  We’ve been trying to look for him, but so far, no luck.”  Silence.  “Hey, we’ll bring one of the new guys, though.  He’s got some skills that might be really useful.” Rick opened his eyes wide as if taken aback.  Certainly he didn’t mean The American Attitude!

“Sounds good.  Hurry up, guys.  If anything happens to her...” Tim’s voice trailed off.

“We got it, Tim.  We’ll be there soon!”  Rick made arrangements to meet Tim while Caz went off to the secret elevator leading to their Langley dorm room to look for the American Attitude.

“Syd, you, Amanda, Palisade and Triumph will have to hold it down here while we go up to check this out.”

“No worries,” Sydney said.  “We can handle it for a couple days; go help your friend.”

Cazmonster, The Adept, and The American Attitude arrived in the west suburbs in just under an hour.  The Adept’s portal distance and accuracy was improving, as was his range of magical powers.  It startled him a little, but so far, there hadn’t seemed to be a downside.  

They met up with Tim, in costume, in a darkened parking lot near Ogden Avenue in Naperville.

“Hey, Wrecking Ball!” Cazmonster came up for a big hug to his old friend, despite the circumstances.  

Tim wiggled free of the powerful bearhug.  “It’s just Wrecker now,” he said, adjusting his slightly modified costume.  

“Tim, this is Barry Stills, also known as the American Attitude.  Barry, Tim O’Malley,” Rick introduced.  

“Attitude’s the guy I was telling you about,” Cazmonster growled.  “He’s really on top of things; sensory powers, and very deductive and stuff.”

“Yeah, um, thanks, wolf-man.”  The Attitude held out his hand to Tim, and the two shook for the first time.  “Nice working with another old-timer,” Attitude said jokingly.

“New kids are getting uppity,” Tim said, looking back at Caz.  

“Let’s get this going,” The Adept interrupted.

Later, back in Stevenson...

The direct line into I7 HQ rang, startling Sydney, who’d just sat down with some books to study.  She stared at the computer, not believing her ears.

“I7, this is Sy...this is the Gray Robe!” Sydney answered the device for the first time ever.  Sydney seriously hoped it wasn’t an emergency; she’d meant to get back with the others and let them know Cazmonster, Adept and The Attitude had left town, but she’d gotten sidetracked with her homework.

“Um, this is who?” the soft female voice on the other end asked.

“The Gray Robe.  Who is THIS?” she asked, annoyed.  Who the hell calls I7’s secret phone number and starts questioning the roster?

“This is White Diamond.  I’m a founding member, one of the first ones.  So watch the attitude, Robe.  Is Dragonfly there?  I’ve been trying to reach his cell, but it’s been turned off.”

Oh! Sydney thought.  She knew of White Diamond, of course.  She was out east at a private school, Harvard or one of the other ones.  

“Yeah, I’ve got some bad news for you.  Dragonfly’s not around.  He’s missing,” she said cautiously.

“WHAT!  What do you mean DRAGONFLY is missing?  Who kidnaps superheroes?”

“Well, we’re not really sure what happened.  He never turned up this semester...”

“This SEMESTER???  He’s been missing for weeks and you guys haven’t gone looking for him?” Diamond asked.  She was getting hot under the collar, literally.  

“Calm down.  We’ve been looking, but we’ve had some other things come up...” Syd tried to explain.

“Just put Caz or The Adept on, then,” Emily sighed impatiently on the other end of the phone.

“I would but...”

“Are they missing, too!” Emily cut Syd off.

“I was going to say, they’re OUT OF TOWN, helping Wrecking Ball with something in Chicago.  You have their cell numbers?”  Syd was getting impatient, too, but tried to take Emily’s feelings for Dragonfly into account.

“I do.  Listen, Gray Robe.  Sorry I was short with you.  I just...I need to talk to Dragonfly.”

“No problem.  We’re still looking for him.  We’ll let you know when we turn something up,” Syd said.  Emily said goodbye and hung up.

In a dorm room on Princeton’s campus, Emily Fine sat down and started to cry.  When she’d calmed down enough, she hit Caz’s number, still on speed dial.  No answer.  Same with The Adept.  Falling back on her bed, Emily let the sadness take over.  Please answer, guys, she thought, and tried again.

Volume 2, Issue 5

Caz awoke to the sound of gunfire. For a moment, he thought he'd left his video game on, but after shaking the sleep out of his eyes, he realized the sound was coming from outside. Instantly transforming into Cazmonster, he ran to the 7^th floor window of his dorm room.

Outside, just up the street, a line of very nervous looking campus police was trying to get organized. Further up the street was a well armed force that seemed to have phenominal aim and reaction speeds, firing some sort of automatic weapons.

Turning on his internal phone, Cazmonster dialed the rest of the Infinite Seven. "This is Cazmonster! Looks like they're bringing the violence right to us again! There's an army outside Langley. Get there as quick as possible!" With that, the cyber-wolf lept from the window, covering the distance to the police line with a single jump.

"Gentlement! Maybe I can be of assistance! I'm..." suddenly a bullet struck him in the shoulder. Wait a minute, thought Cazmonster. That HURT. Looking over at his arm, he noticed he was bleeding. These were no ordinary guns. And those were no ordinary troops!

Cazmonster pursed his lips in anger and furrowed his wolfy brow. Picking up a nearby compact car, he launched it through the air into the army, knocking down several of the invading troops. He was astonished when one of them lifted the remains of the car off his fellow soldiers. Cazmonster couldn't believe it, but he'd swear the armored troops were Nexers!

From behind the line, a flash of pink and orange flew past Cazmonster faster than he could see, and in an instant, Triumph stood before him, having disarmed several of the troops. Dropping the pile, he ran back into the fray. The American Attitude bounced off a nearby squadcar on his skateboard, and distributed the advanced rifles to the police.

"These are gonna do a lot more good than those pea shooters you're using," he said, refering to the nine-mil pistols the police had.

"What about you?" one of the officers, a heavy-set woman with curly red hair asked him as she took aim with the new rifle.

"Not my style," The Attitude said simply.

The Attitude turned back to Cazmonster who, amid the violence, was looking for something heavier to throw.

"Hey, CM. Nice of you to join us!"

"Join you?" Cazmonster asked. Settling on a massive air conditioning unit, Cazmonster ripped the object from it's concrete moorings and launched it into the air. It landed close, but unfortunately for the defending police, there were now invading Nexer troops at close range. A few of them didn't get back up.

"Yeah, we've been fighting these guys for about an half-hour. It took them fifteen minutes to take out most of the Stevenson police force. We rendezvous'd here hoping to regroup with reinforcements."

"Sorry, didn't know," Cazmonster said, leaping now into melee with a dozen or so Nexers. They quickly began flying every direction, including straight into the pavement.

"Yeah, well, you would have if you'd let us join!" The Attitude said, leaping into action. He was good, Cazmonster could tell. Not as good as Dragonfly, but he certainly made original use of the staff and skateboard that were his trademark. He managed to down two of the Nexers, but Cazmonster could tell his stamina was beginning to wear down.

From out of the sky, a dark form flew directly overhead, strafing several of the approaching troops with high-speed metal spikes. Palisade was here!

"Hey, Cazmonster, giving the newbees some lessons?" he asked. As he doubled back and landed near the police barricade, several of the spikes he fired began spewing some type of gas. Soon, several Nexers fell to the ground gagging. Palisade popped one in the helmet, breaking the glass and the nose underneath, and that Nexer fell as well.

"Lay off the newbees, er, new guys. They've been holding down the fort waiting for us!" Cazmonster downed several more, but they just kept coming. Since the heroes had arrived, however, no more police had been shot.

Triumph came running back behind the lines and slowed to a halt, where he promptly fell and skidded several feet. Cazmonster hadn't seen him long enough earlier to notice he'd been shot at least once, and was badly bruised. Just then, several bullets nailed Palisade and sent him flying through the air.

As Cazmonster watched, wondering if he could somehow catch Palisade, a huge plot of earth flew into the air and did the job for him, carefully depositing him on the ground in front of Langley. The Gray Robe had joined the party, and that probably meant...The Adept!

Cazmonster turned to face the invaders and watched as the street opened up beneath them, swallowing a dozen or so. "Cazmonster, thanks for the call. Is that Triumph?" The Adept asked, pointing to the wounded hero.

"Yeah, he and The American Attitude are here!" The Attitude landed blow after blow with his staff and skateboard as Cazmonster continued wading outward.

"Does anyone know what the hell's going on here?" The Gray Robe asked, hovering over the battle and launching clods of earth at her opponents.

"Not really," The Attitude snapped. "Cops are dead; lots of cops. No idea who these guys are or what their plan is."

"I wish Dragonfly was here," The Adept said. "He was the expert on this Nex stuff."

"Yeah, we all do," Palisade said; already the bullet holes had healed over, and Palisade looked as good as new. "But I'll settle for her!" From a side road walked a figure cloaked in darkness, a young woman all in black, with pale skin and brown hair.

"Angela! I think that's everyone, well the new everyone," The Adept corrected.

The new team was fighting the invading, and quite well armed and organized, Nexers successfully. The Adept wielded mystic portals and magical energy blasts, both quite effective against their current opponents. Cazmonster threw around dozens of them like rag dolls every few seconds, and shrugged off their bullets despite the large number of minor injuries he was taking. The American Attitude, longest in this battle, fought on, despite exhaustion. Palisade took to the skies, and between he and the Gray Robe, provided an air advantage. Angela the vampire did what vampires do best, and she did it viscously. Triumph even managed to get a second wind, and began punching Nexers at high speed.

The battle lasted another 15 minutes before the National Guard, or what was left of them after a pre-emptive strike by the Nexer army, arrived from behind to reinforce the police. By the end of it, everyone in the Infinite Seven was bruised and bloodied: Cazmonster had been shot several times, Triumph once (though his wounds were already healing), and Angela a few times as well. The bullets pierced her, but they seemed not to impede her as they would the living. Palisade had managed to mostly shield the Gray Robe, though she'd been graze once across her cheek and was bleeding heavily. The Adept had been caught unawares by a Nexer who'd crossed the lines toward the end of the battle, and knocked unconscious.

By the time the invading army had surrendered, many of them were either passing out or having cardiac events due to the amount of Nex in their systems. None of them seemed to remember, when asked, how they'd gotten the weapons, or why they started the battle.

"This does not bode well," The Adept said once the heroes had gathered at their HQ later that night. The American Attitude and Triumph had been allowed into the HQ with the provision that they enter through one of The Adept's portals so they didn't know where the HQ was or how to get there.

"Sure as hell doesn't! There are dozens of cops dead, and we're wasted! We need to help with regular street crime until the police can get some recruits," Attitude said, leaning back in Dragonfly's chair.

"Not a bad idea, but not what I meant," The Adept said. "The Nex pushers all but moved out of town. We haven't fought Nexers in quite a while, with the exception of a few Angela handled over the break. Why would they come back HERE, in force, and organized?"

No one was able to answer the question. "It's a good bet we're not the only target," the Attitude said ominously. "Imagine an army ten times this size marching down State Street in Chicago."

"We need to keep our eyes open, and put all our resources toward figuring this out," Adept concluded.

"As such, if there are no objections, welcome to the Infinite Seven, gentlemen!" The Adept held out his hand to the Attitude, who hesitated, but then took it and shook it solidly.

Volume 2, Issue 4

It was 2 AM local time when Aaron Majesky, his disguise as Mikolaj the enforcer mostly removed, arrived outside the production facility. The place was supposed to produce custom parts for computer tablets. Production must have been down lately, Aaron reflected. They had some spare room to make Nex. Having used an exterior storm gutter, Aaron made his way to the roof. Dressed all in black, he had a ninja sword strapped to his back. It wasn't HIS sword, not anywhere near the quality. But as these were normal people and not Sampson's holo-images or extra-dimensional entities, it should do the trick. When he got to the roof, he put on a traditional ninja mask and hood. Never thought I'd be wearing one of these again, Aaron thought.

Walking to the entrance, he used an electronic device, courtessy of Infinite Seven HQ, to scan for and disable any electronic safeguards. Then, he used good old fashioned metal picks to disengage the door lock. Aaron knew he had one shot at this. He needed to get to Benito Asante in the office, render him helpless, get him to safety where he could be arrested, and finally plant explosives in the external loading docks to destroy the current supply of Nex. Once Benito was in custody, the international law enforcement community could take it from there.

Using the GPS he'd rigged to mimic the locator on Agostino Asante's phone, which he had cloned a few days ago, Aaron had no trouble locating Benito Asante two floors down. There was no way he was in there with less than 2 bodybuards, and everyone he was meeting with was likely to have one themselves, and be heavily armed. Aaron pushed the thought out of his head. He couldn't plan this out until he saw the layout.

Having gotten to the outside of the room, he found it to be a conference room about thiry feet long, with one entrance. The room had external windows. That would help. Benitor, a 50-something balding man with gray-black hair, sat at the head of the table, in a position of authority. There were the two bodyguards. No, three. His brother was with him. All along the table, he saw people he recognized from his investigation. Mafia people, mostly, illicit gun-runners, drug suppliers, that sort of crowd. Aaron didn't like this set-up. These were not the kind of people one made enemies of. But then, that was the reason for the mask. Benito may know his identity, but the others wouldn't. He had to get Benito unconscious and out of the room before that information could get out.

Aaron's first play was to throw a smoke bomb into the room. The guns were less useful now; anyone firing one risked hitting someone else important, and that would mean death. Kicking in the door, Aaron ran to where he had seen Benito last, a chemical sleeping agent poured into the fabric of his glove. Instead, he ran straight into a bodyguard, who had obviously "castled" his king to protect him.

Aaron hit the tough with a solid kung-fu punch, one that would shake the roughest street thug he'd ever fought. He felt a slight give as the man's rib cracked. But the attack didn't seem to phase him. Man, Aaron thought. This guy eats his veggies.

The man punched back, but Aaron had no time to deal with him. Sorry, he thought. Drawing his sword, Aaron punctured the man's exposed side and ripped upwards. The attack was largely a flesh-wound; it wouldn't be fatal. But for him, the fight was now over. Aaron listened for a second, then heard a click. Someone had decided to chance a gun. Several bullets fired directly at his location, and the man that he had just stabbed took one through the eye.

Aaron threw a small explosive, as hard as he could, at the external window, and ran for all he was worth. The explosion spider-webbed the window glass but didn't break it. Aaron reached one arm out to grab where he hoped Benito Asante still was, then threw the other arm upward and behind, once again hoping. This time, his hope was that the grapple would catch the window, and that he could keep his hold on Asante. Man, Aaron thought, a set of wings would be an asset right now.

Everything that happened in the next few instants was a blur. The glass crashed. Aaron looked down in the Milan night sky to see that he was, in fact, holding the head of Il Sindicato. Falling. The sound from above that said his grapple had stuck. The fear of impending pain. Aaron felt as if he'd been shot in the shoulder. He felt ligaments rip as he swing the weight of two people into the plate glass wall three floors below. The glass shattered against the momentum, and Aaron felt a shard barely miss his jugular vein.

Things seemed to switch back to real time as they slammed into the table in another conference room, this one unoccupied. The table buckled, and the two, the hero and the criminal mastermind, rolled across the floor. Aaron was the first to awake. His left arm was useless; the shoulder had been sprained and dislocated. His right leg ached, and he realized a stray bullet from before had hit him. Benito, too, had been hit, in the upper right chest. He was in danger of bleeding out. However, because he'd taken less trauma, he was able to draw his own gun before Aaron was able to finish standing.

"Who the HELL are you! Pull off that mask!" Benito demanded. Aaron wasn't about to give him the satisfaction. A shuriken appeared in his palm as if by magic. In a split second, the razor-sharp tip had cut into Benito's wrist, causing him to scream in pain and drop is pistol. In that instant, Aaron grabbed him by the arm and, holding his sword to the man's throat, ushered him out the door and down the hall. Aaron had enough evidence to put Benito away for a long time, but first he had to get him out of here, and complete the rest of his mission.

As the elevator took them to the lower floors where the loading docs were located, Benito Asante's demands and questions turned to panting, as the blood drained rapidly from his chest. When they reached the ground floor, Aaron had to drag him away from the elevator. He realized there was no way this man could make the journey outside of this building. Ironically, it was a bullet fired from the gun of one of his allies that had ended Benito Asante. Even if he wanted to, Aaron knew enough about first aid to know there was no saving him now.

"Benito. I know the plan. You've failed," Aaron said.

"Well," Benito said matter-of-fact-ly, "you win some, you lose some. But my spearhead has been launched. And the Eastern front is mine..."

Aaron knew what that meant. The Eastern front coul only be a reference to Tibet. For ingredients, Nex relied upon a rare flower, long used in Tibet to produce an opiate drug. If his people reached Tibet, and completed a deal for more of the raw materials, the spread of Nex could go on for decades. As far as the "spearhead", Aaron assumed it must be somewhere in the US. It might even be Stevenson. He had to assume that his I7 teammates could handle the situation.

Aaron completed setting the explosives as police arrived on the scene. No one heard the whine of a motorcycle engine as the bombs went off, destroying the plant and the current inventory of Nex. Something about the situation made Aaron unease as he sped away. Arms dealers at the meeting. What was Il Sindicato up to? As he moved into the northern suburbs of Milan, a sudden, fearful thought struck Aaron. Nex wasn't a drug; it was an augmentation. The purpose of Nex was to make an army of super-soldiers!   

Volume 2, Issue 3

Mikolaj Bannazewski stood over a table in his stylish suburban Milano apartment. Absently he itched the scar on his cheek before remembering what the doctor had told him. The laptop in front of him ran a program, scanning through the e-mails he'd accessed and gathering information on Nex distribution. In front of him, pictures of dozens of members of Il Sindicato, including Benito Asante and his brother, Hector, the two movers of the Syndicate.

Il Sindicato Milano was not one of the fabled Italian crime families. It had sprung up relatively recently, and seemed to be the brainchild of Benito himself. Sure, they were involved in a lot of the same stuff the "mafia" was, but often in different ways. In fact, they seemed to actually supply a lot of equipment to gangs, mostly in North and South America, though Europe was not untouched by their hand.

And then there was the Nex. The super-drug. It gave its users amazing strength and speed, but at the cost of risking their own lives. It was incredibly easy to OD on; anyone with an undignosed heart problem would probably die instantly; the users bodies were not invulnerable, but they felt as if they were; the list went on and on. Several months ago, a deal had been made to keep Nex out of Stevenson, Illinois. But that deal had been a temporary truce, Mikolaj had learned. Nex was flowing again. Only this time, the users were carefully chosen. He still didn't have all the pieces, but he didn't have time to get them. Mikolaj realized he needed to throw a wrench into Il Sindicato and get back to the states as soon as possible. Something big was happening. He needed to stop Benito Asante, see that he was imprisoned, and that the Nex production facility in the manufacturing district was destroyed. That would slow things down, quite well.

Meanwhile, In Langley Hall, Central Illinois University...

Caz Greenbaum was enjoying demolishing the latest one person shooter video game, while Rick Pennington sat reading a book on hermetic chemistry. Sydney sat on Caz' bed, within sight of a tree out the window, meditating or praying. A knock on the door disturbed the three friends who were the sometime superheroes Cazmonster, The Adept, and The Gray Robe, as Sydney had come to be known.

Caz shrugged and opened the door to find two outradgeosly costumed young men. The first, somewhat shorter than average but powerfully built, wore a leather jacket modeled loosely after the US flag, with loose fitting jeans and a blue mask covering most of his face. In one hand was a very expensive skateboard. The second work a startling combination of a bright pink running suit leading into equally bright orange boots and an orange mask. A shock of well-trimmed blond hair protruded from the mask.

Caz cocked an eyebrow. "'n I help you guys?"

The patriotic skateboarder took the lead. "Yeah, we wanna join up. Got some skills I think you could use." He grinning in a very infectious way, with a seemingly contradictory self confidence and uncertainty.

"Um, yeah. I don't think we need any today, thank," Caz closed the door. He turned to find the pink and orange on in the room behind him.

"Snot!" Rick said, leaping to his feet and preparing a mystical blast.

"Hey, eyes, guys," the blond man in the bright tights said. "Like we said, we wanna join you, not fight you. I'm Triumph. The man outside is The American Attitude." Triumph held out his hand with amazing speed.

"Impressive," Caz said. "Speedster, huh? What about the American Dream?"

"It's Attitude!" Caz heard from behind as the door slammed open. In rolled the skateboarder, a metal staff in one hand; he bounced off the support beam in the center of the triple, and landed at a full stop right beside Triumph.

"I get that," Rick said.

"I have certain sensory abilities. And I'm pretty good in a fight."

"Look, guys," Rick said, "we appreciate the offer, but we don't general take applications..."

"But you guys are the Infinite SEVEN, right? There's only five of you right now, we saw it on TV. He's six, and I'm seven! What luck!" the blond speedster said enthusiastically.

"Okay, guys, guys," Caz interrupted. "Can you give us some time to talk about this? We, um, we have a meeting next week. We'll have a vote, and we'll let you know."

"Yeah, see you 'round, CM," The Attitude said grudgingly. Caz ushered the heroes back out into the hall.

"I think that went okay," Triumph said.

The Attitude just shook his head negatively. "No it didn't, trust me."

Back in Milan...

Mikolaj drove his street bike at high speed early in the AM toward the Nex facility. He had learned that Benito himself would be there tonight, working a deal with some underworld distributors. Instead of his casual Italian stylings, Mikolaj wore tight, black clothing. If one were to inspect that clothing, he would find several dozen weapons, from shuriken to high-tech explosives. Strapped to the side of the bike was a black ninja sword.

The scar on Mikolaj's face was now gone, and with it some cosmetic alterations to his cheek-bone position. He'd also relaxed several facial muscles he'd trained himself to tighten over the last several weeks in Poland and now, Italy. The face that belonged to the bike's driver was one that looked very similar to that of the American super-hero known as Dragonfly.

Volume 2, Issue 2

"Palisade! What are they saying!" The Adept shouted. Up to the flying hero. Outside Langley Hall, five men wearing armor decorated in Chinese red and yellow, squared off against the current roster of the Infinite Seven: The Adept, mystical master; Cazmonster, cyborg werewolf powerhouse; Angela, vampiric hero; Palisade, bio-armored warrior; and a young woman named Sydney, possessed of the control over nature itself.

"Well," Palisade paused, his mind racing. He had no desire to explain the rather complicated state of affairs to his team: that he took the suit without his father's permission, when the Chinese government was trying to commandeer it. From the looks of those suits, they'd stolen some of his father's early mechanical adaptions based on the alien bio-suit. But that was a far cry from having the suit itself.

"I think they're looking for some political prisoner or something. Probably someone in the international program."

"Then they picked the wrong school!" Adept said. "No one's kidnapping political dissidents from American soil on my watch! Cazmonster, Angela; form up at the entrance. Palisade, Syd, make sure they don't get in through the hole they just made.

"What are you gonna do?" Sydney asked.

"I'm going to get their attention," the Adept said resolutely.

As the others moved into position, Adept moved into place behind and below the super-troops. He'd worked out a brief diatribe about how they'd come into his city and caused property damage and probably injury, but the instant the troops saw Palisade, the situation escalated beyond words. Two of the troopers blasted directly at Palisade and, by proximity, Sydney. Palisade was slammed back into the building. An aura around Sydney turned the Chinese bullets into flowers, which fell harmlessly to the ground.

"Okay," Adept said under his breath. "If that's the way you want to play it..." taking aim at one of the armored soldiers, Adept fired a mystic blast with as much power as he could gather. It was like shooting ducks in a barrel. The magical blasts affected the user's soul directly. Armor made as much difference as paper mache. The first trooper fell from the air like so much concrete. A slight grin curled Rick's lips.

Sydney was terrified. This was the first real test of her abilities. People were shooting at her! But so far, she'd passed the test. Closing her eyes in concentration, she felt her bond with the ground below. A massive chuck of earth pulled free from Langley's front lawn and plowed into the unsuspecting soldier from below, knocking him skyward.

Of the remaining three, none made for the door. Instead, they flew past Sydney into the room where Palisade had landed. Slowly standing and dusting himself off, Palisade took aim at the trio. "Okay," he said in Mandarin Chinese, "you want to see what the suit can do? Here!" Palisade fired several spikes from his suit. They were made from an odd bluish metal. The spikes landed into the armored suits, and began to erode the metal like water does to salt.

One of the troops slammed directly into Palisade, pushing him through two walls and into the floor's washroom. The second two troops followed behind.

Outside, Rick ran up the stairs of Langley, creating a portal where the main entrance was onto the floor on which the soldiers had followed Palisade. Cazmonster and Angela, who had been guarding the door, rushed in to find the hallway in complete disarray.

Cazmonster ripped into the hall like a shredder, powering into the restroom where he found two armored soldiers pounding on Palisade. "Hey, tinfoil!" Cazmonster shouted. One of the soldiers looked. Cazmonster opened his speakers, emitting an incredibly powerful sonic beam, shattering the eardrums of the soldier as he listened through augmented armor speakers.

Angela was on the distracted soldier in a minute. Pulling off his helmet to expose an agonized face, she bit solidly into the man's neck. His eyes rolled back in his head as he succumbed to the Feeding.

Rick and Cazmonster staired in amazement. "Um, Angela..." Cazmonster said quietly, "I think he's done." A hail of bullets came from the side, slamming into Cazmonster. Rick quickly ducked behind the bulky were-hero for defense. Leaning out, he fired a mystic blast at the assaulting trooper, who soon retreated out the window. The trooper attacking Palisade, seeing he was in a losing battle, grabbed his fallen comrade from Angela's arms and retreated out the window.

Palisade stood up and looked around at the devastation. "I hope petty cash covers this!"

Meanwhile, in Corsico, Italy, southwest of Milan...

It was late evening as the young man drove a street bike up the Via Vittorio Emanule towards the city. He wore nice American jeans, a pair of Fiorentini & Baker brown strapped boots, and a brown leather jacket over a white T-shirt. An burnt-orange helmet covered most of his head. Mikolaj Bannazewski had been in Milan for the past two months, arriving from Poznan, Poland. He'd heard this was a good place for someone like him to get involved with a more profitable enterprise.

He'd started working for Sindicato Milano just three weeks ago, mostly as an enforcer. Mikolaj had a skillset that allowed him to be quite intimidating to the locals, and he'd managed to collect certain debts owed Il Sindicato's with a minimum of actual violence. This made him a valuable asset because, though the local police were largely under Il Sindicato's control, the more they could conduct local business without trouble, the less attention they drew.

Turning off the main road, Mikolaj headed toward Villa Blanca, the hotel where he was to meet his capo. This syndicate did things different than most criminal organizations he'd seen. In fact, they were more like a secret society in some ways; the profits they made went into projects dreamed up by their leader, capo di capi, Benito Asante. He knew the details of only one of those projects, distribution of the drug known as Nex.

Casually parking his bike in a non-spot near the door, Mikolaj hopped off and headed for the door, removing his helmet to reveal very dark brown hair, cropped close to his head. On his right cheek was a thick scar, and his eyes were the same brown as his hair. He went to the desk and asked for Agostino Asante. Mikolaj spoke only halting Italian, and that with a thick Polish accent.

In the back room where they met, Mikolaj found Agostino. He was a young man, not much older than Mikolaj himself, a nephew of Benito Asante himself. The two men greeted each other, and Mikolaj dropped an envelope on the table.

"The takings from last night," he said in his poor Italian.

"Good, good," his capo nodded. "Anything unusual happen?"

"No, sir," Mikolaj answered. "It was an average night." Mikolaj noticed that Agostino's phone was sticking out of the bag he often carried. Taking note of that fact, he sat down.

After they had talked for a few minutes, another man leaned into the room. "Signore Asante, call for you on the hotel phone."

"Scuzi," Agostino said, and walked into the other room. As soon as he had left the room, Mikolaj leapt to his feet and grabbed Agostino's cell phone. Pulling a device from his pocket, he activated in and placed it near the phone. After a few seconds, he placed the phone back into Agostino's bag and put the device back in his pocket. He would analyze the stolen data later.

Volume 2, Issue 1 - A New Year

Angela flipped on the lights at Infinite Seven HQ for the first time in several days. Her vampiric eyes could see every detail even in the dim ambient light from the computer and emergency lighting, so she'd figured better not to waste the power. The HQ was officially "off the grid" for the summer, and there was a finite amount of power in the capacitors.

But now, the power at Langley was back on. Resident Assistants had moved back in, and today, with general move-in starting, there would be enough power being used to the capacitors to begin syphoning and storing power again.

It had been a long and boring summer. With Emily and the rest of the team gone, Angela had been alone a large part of the time. It had been difficult for her not to fall into old habits; in fact, she'd failed once or twice, fed off someone in a dark alley or the back of a club. The power she felt after feeding was invigorating, but it came with a price. Every time she did it, she felt a little less like herself and a little more like the darkness.

Of the entire team, she'd only seen Rick in the last three months, and only a couple of times. He was busy with a new friend, a short, curly haired young woman who claimed some sort of mastery over nature. Angela had seen them practicing a couple of times. The young woman was...impressive. Rick's skills as The Adept had grown as well. Since he'd been exposed to the energies of the Professor Sampson's Nightmare Engine, he'd been able to produce blasts of direct magical power, and now he seemed to be gaining other abilities as well, drawing on spells from tomes he and his friend Sydney had gathered from all over the country during the summer.

Angela was glad the others would be getting back soon; she was not only lonely, she was bored. There had been little need for super heroes over the summer; it was as if the villains had drawn a truce – "Oh, your heroes are out of town? Well never mind, then." But last week, Angela had had her first really challenging encounter of the summer. A group of people hopped up on Nex had started a brawl after a losing Chicago baseball game. Angela had never had to deal with Nexers; Nex use had been pretty much eradicated before she became...what she was. But now, it seemed to be back with a vengence, and these people were rough! The couldn't be controled by her mental abilities, meaning she had to fight them. She was strong, unnaturally fast, and armed with powerful claws. But a pumped up Nexer was stronger, and almost as fast. Angela's battle against four of them had ended in her defeating two and retreating until the cops arrived.

She didn't have to wait long. A few minutes after she turned on the lights, the 52" main computer monitor popped on for the first time in months. The image took a few seconds to de-pixelize. Angela went over to the console and pressed the key to answer the call.

"Hey, Caz," she said casually. The young man in the video was Caz Greenbaum, AKA Cazmonster, though his hair had been cut much shorter than the thick mop she was used to. He seemed ever so slightly older; her vampire eyes could see the passage of time much more acurately than humans.

"ANGELA!" Caz screamed excitedly.

Well, Angela reflected, he hasn't changed THAT much.

"Welcome back! Are you in the triple yet?"

"Moving my stuff up now," he said. "Rick's already here. You guys hang out this summer?" he asked.

"Um, no, not much. I'll head up if it's all clear..." she suggested.

"Yeah, parents just left. Come on up!"

Angela walked to the rear of the HQ, to the special elevator they had built leading to the triple on floor seven. The elevator only had two stops: the HQ and the 7 triple. She rode up quickly and walked out of the back of the closet into the room. The instant she did, Caz grabbed her up in a powerful hug that, she had to confess, felt good. She'd been alone a little to much, with Emily gone.

Rick looked over at Angela curiously. "Hello," he said, putting books down in a disorganized pile on his bookshelf.

"Hey, Rick," she said, breaking free of Caz' grip and standing straight in the center of the room, hand on her chin as if inspecting the place. "Lots of potential here. I hope you boys are planning on being a little more...avant gard than last semester."

Caz looked at her with his infamous cocked eyebrow. "Um, it's a dorm room. We can't do glass walls around a toilet or anything."

Angela pretended not to hear the remark. "So Rick, where's your friend, Sydney?"

Rick looked startled, but then remembered she'd seen Sydney once or twice. The fact was that Angela had been secretly watching their magic practice many times.

"She's at the apartment. She's going to be moving in later," Rick said, leafing through a tome that looked to be at least four hundred years old.

"In here?" Angela asked, surprised.

"Into Langely, yes. Floor four. And there's something else..." Rick hesitated. "I was going to wait and talk to everyone at once, but this seems like a good time to bring it up. I'm planning on asking the team to accept Sydney as a member."

"She's got powers?" Caz asked, surprised.

"She's a druid," Angela answered to the side. "She can throw rocks around and grow plants and stuff."

Rick looked startled. "You've been WATCHING us?"

Angela shrugged. "Seemed a good idea to make sure you weren't getting involved in something over your head. I didn't know anything about this girl."

"We didn't know anything about YOU, when you joined. Emily said you were okay, and that was good enough!" Rick snapped, pointing his finger accusingly at Angela.

"What the HELL?" said Steven Chen as he marched up to the door. "You guys realize you can hear this argument all the way in the stairwell?"

Rick changed his focus to Steven. "Hey, Chen. Welcome back. We were just discussing..."

"I know what you were discussing! Like I said, you can hear it all the way in the stairwell. Better keep this sort of thing to the headquarters." Steven's Hong Kong accent had gotten much thicker with his absence for three months.

"Hey, where's Aaron?" Steven asked at length. "I got his D&D books I borrowed."

Caz said "I haven't heard from him. It's kind of odd, he said he'd be in first thing."

Rick pulled out his cell phone to call Aaron. His forehead wrinkled with concern. "Aaron's cell is disconnected."

Chen uttered an explitave.

"This is not a good sign," Caz said. Even Angela seemed uneasy. The argument between Angela and Rick came to an abrupt halt as the group began to worry about their friend. In this line of business, one was vulnerable to attacks from unexpected quarters, especially when one's true identity was known, as Dragonfly's was.

"Let's continue this discussion downstairs," Rick suggested. Two at a time, they went down the elevator and into the HQ. Steven Chen dusted some cobwebs off his seat before sitting down. Rick joined Angela at the computer console. Caz leaned on the edge of the table.

After thirty minutes, they were no closer to knowing Aaron's wereabouts than when they started. That's when Rick said "Snap! Sydney was coming over! We were going to meet in my room and then head down here." Opening a portal back to the room, Rick opened the door into the hallway to find Sydney walking, or rather stalking, angrily back down the hall.

"Hey, Syd!" he called out.

"Hey, Syd?" the short, dark haired young woman asked. "That's the best you've got? You leave me standing in the hall for fifteen minutes and all I get is 'Hey Syd'?"

"Sydney, come in. We've got some issues downstairs." Rick explained on the elevator ride into the HQ that Dragonfly had not arrived and could not be contacted.

"What's the big deal?" she asked. "He probably just got a new phone, and he's running late. You guys need to relax."

"I don't know..." Rick said uneasily as they walked toward the meeting table.

"Caz, Steven, this is Sydney. You've met Angela."

"Yes, I have," Sydney said. She was polite enough to Angela, but Sydney could tell there was something just not right about her, and Angela could tell that she could tell.

"So, Sydney, this is Cazmonster," who shifted into his heroic form to demonstrate, "and Palisade" who also possessed the gift of quick transformation, and shifted into his costume as well.

Sydney nodded. "Nice to re-meet you!" She, of course, could to no such thing.

"Guys, I really think you should consider letting Sydney join us provisionally. She's got some very useful..."

Rick was shushed by Cazmonster. "I'm getting readings on police band. Something's going on up top, right outside Langley!"

"Looks like you'll get a chance to demonstrate quicker than we'd planned," Rick said to Sydney. "Shall we?"

Sydney pulled a blue-gray robe, complete with full hood, from a bag she was holding. A mask finished up the costume, should the hood fall away in battle. "Let's go!" she said, putting on the robe as they exited through the new rear exit to the parking lot across from Langley.

As soon as they got out, Palisade became airborne; Sydney pulled a loose rock from the ground and used it to levitate herself, effectively flying as well. Rick and Cazmonster sprinted toward the street. There, five beings in red and gold armor floated in the air. It was obvious two of them had just ripped off a large section of wall. They were shouting something over internal megaphones. Something in Chinese.

"Oh, hell!" Palisade mumbled.