Rick and Cazmonster stood atop a building near CIU's devastated library while a giant lizard and army of laser-wielding bipedal ants marched the streets below. In his hand, Rick held a cell phone noting the recently revealed location of Professor Sampson, architect of this invasion.
"We need to split up," Rick said softly to himself. "Caz, we need to send a team to take out Sampson while the rest of us hold off his holograms. Grab Dragonfly, White Diamond and Angela. I'll port you all there while Wrecking Ball, Palisade and I do our best here."
"On it, big man!" Caz said, leaping back into the frey. Soon, the heroes were gathered back on the rooftop, with The Adept holding a portal open to the GPS coordinates of Sampson's location.
"Okay, team, we need to be careful here. We have no idea what Sampson has at hand in his lair. Angela, you've proven quite proficient and manipulating the human mind; I'm hoping you can do so on Sampson as well. White Diamond, Cazmonster, the two of you quite honestly are the best we've got when it comes to all-out power. If Angela fails to control Sampson, or something unforseen happens, you need to give it your all. And Dragonfly, you're the heart of this team, and you always seem to have a trick up your sleeve. If anyone can get this team back in one piece, it's you. Enough pep-talk. Go!" The portal opened, and Dragonfly and the others stepped through.
They found themselves in a suburban front yard. The scene was Idyllic, a stark contrast from the frightning mansion they had expected. A rather unassuming house sat in front of the heroes. Dragonfly, costume still shredded from the previous battle, draws his sword and approaches. Tentatively, he steps first on one front porch step, then another. Soon, he's standing on the wooden porch, in front of a white door. Carefully, he tries the knob. Locked.
Dragonfly motions to the others while he starts to pick the lock, but Cazmonster's weight breaks the third stair up. Frustrated with stealth, he simply reaches out and smashes the door in. It flies across the empty living room and slams onto the kitchen floor at the back of the house.
"Ooops!" Cazmonster says as Dragonfly eyes him accusingly.
"Okay, let's get in there and search the place. If anyone's here, they know we're here now." The team enters. Dragonfly and Cazmonster search the main floor cautiously, while Angel and White Diamond head upstairs. After a few minutes, they've all come up with nothing. No one in the house, no evidence of anything unusual. Just a vacant house.
"Leaves one place we didn't look," Dragonfly said ominously. "The basement." He turned and walked into the kitchen, followed by White Diamond and Angela. Cazmonster stood his ground.
"There's no point in me trying to fit down another set of weak wooden stairs," he said. "I'm taking the quick way." With that, he slammed his foot on the wooden planks, smashing the floor near the door to bits and falling directly into the basement. Dragonfly shook his head and ran for the stairs."
Cazmonster landed in front of a large metal box. Box wasn't quite the right word. It was large, easily Cazmonster's height, and cubical in shape, certainly. But it was made up of pipes, copper tubes, electrical wires, and ductwork, rather than solid sides. It belched steam and oil like it was having a conversation. As Cazmonster surveyed the cramped basement, he heard the others coming down the stairs. He almost didn't notice the bald, fat man standing at a console nearby.
Professor Sampson looked up from his work. "Ah, the famed 'Cazmonster'. I was wondering when you and your friends might join me here. Honestly I'd hoped it would be long after I'd completed my revenge, that I might focus my attention on you. But it makes no difference. Your presence here is quite inconsequential.
"We'll see about that baldy!" Cazmonster threw himself at the far wall where Sampson stood, but was startled to find his motion blocked by some invisible field. He bounced off and slammed into the opposite wall near the stairs. Dragonfly leapt over his teammate. "Shake it off, Caz! People are dying out there. This needs to end ten minutes ago! Angela, you're up. Everyone else, try to take out the nasty machine-thing."
Leading the charge, Dragonfly found the evil machine protected by the same forcefield as Sampson himself. His sword bounced off uselessly.
White Diamond's attack fared little better. "There's not enough light in here! I can't get any power behind these shots!"
Meanwhile, Angela approached Sampson, turning on her vampiric charm. "Professor," she said in a sultry yet commanding voice. "Why don't you drop that forcefield and let me in for a little chat?"
Sampson grimaced, feeling the push of the powerful mind against his. In the end, though, his madness was enough to overcome any external command or motivation. "No, vampire witch! I won't listen to your lies!" Suddenly, a beam of energy came out of the infernal machine, striking Angela solidly and knocking her lith form to the ground.
"Oh, hells no!" Cazmonster said. Grabbing the entire staircase, he ripped it from its moorings and launched it at the machine, forcing Dragonfly and White Diamond to dive to the floor to avoid it. Then, as the machine was re-energizing its protective shield, he reached in and grabbed hold of a duct, ripping it clean off the machine and spraying what could best be described as icor over himself and Dragonfly. White Diamond's heat shield sizzled the icor into a nasty black mist.
Dragonfly's phone rang. "Yeah," he said, standing to his feet just as the machine threw Cazmonster through the "ceiling"; Dragonfly watched as the cyber-wolf flew through the livingroom, through the second floor, and finally out of the top of the house.
"What the hell was that?" Rick asked from the other end.
"What was what, exactly?" Dragonfly replied. Cazmonster was waaay too heavy for him to catch; Aaron had to hope his invulnerability would protect him.
"There was a massive mystical disturbance. It's the first time I've felt it!" Rick answered, trying to continue protecting Palisade and Wrecking Ball by opening portals in the ground to stem the tide of ant-soldiers.
"Ah, there's a machine here, kind of ugly and cobbled together. Sampson seems to be controling it, well, mostly. Anyway, it shot some sort of ray, took Angela down with one shot!" Dragonfly flailed at the machine's forcefield while coordinating with White Diamond. They managed to pierce the field briefly as Cazmonster had done, but the damage was minimal. Sampson laughed in the background.
"The Nightmare Engine has tricks that even I don't fully understand, heroes! You're wasting your time, but please, carry on!" Sampson said from safely behind his shield.
"I'm coming!" The Adept said. "There's something there, I can feel it now. It's not Sampson. That machine itself is the greater threat!" Rick had already stepped through a portal into the room as he finished his statement.
"Nonesense, you stage magician! I am the great Professor Sampson! This machine is my creation, and I control it fully!"
From the sky, a loud "yahoooooo!" came, preceded by a sound like a bomb dropping. Cazmonster smashed into the machine's forcefield full-on, causing it to wink out briefly. Dragonfly grabbed a humming bomb and shoved it into the machine's innards, while White Diamond drained the last bit of energy she had into it.
As the forcefield went back up, a small explosion happened inside; the sound of the humming bomb reverberated against the forcefield and back in. The cube fractured, but it did not go innert, nor did the forcefield drop a second time. Another bolt lanced out from the cube, hitting White Diamond, Cazmonster and The Adept. Dragonfly managed to avoid being hit by flying deftly through the whole in the ceiling. Diamond cried out in pain, and fell to her knees. It took every once of will Cazmonster had not to pass out.
But the Adept was unaffected completely. Or rather, he was not negatively affected. The blast glowed against him in outline, and the Robe of Merlin was briefly visible. "Pure mystical energy!" The Adept said in awe. He seemed to bathe in the blast, as if drawing energy from it.
"Mine to command!" The Adept shot a mystical blast directly at Sampson, who stopped laughing and cried out in pain. "Forcefields won't save you from magic, Professor!" Rick grinned.
Dragonfly flew back in and helped White Diamond to her feet. Sampson was now panicking. He flipped a few switches and, as The Adept prepared another mystical blast, he fell through a hole in the floor that opened directly below him. The Adept tried but failed to intercept him with a portal of his own.
Cazmonster now stood and drew himself to his full height. White Diamond stood under the hole in the ceiling, soaking in the light from above. Aaron readied his sword, and Angela was finally stirring again.
Rick's phone rang, and he answered.
"It's Tim! What did you guys do? These things are disappearing!" came the voice from the other end.
"Sampson took off. Evidently the machine isn't following his program any more," Rick answered.
"Well, are you?" he asked, the magic energy glowing in his hand. The Nightmare engine fluctuated inside the forcefield, and the parts drew in on each other.
"That doesn't look good!" Dragonfly said. "Everybody out!" Grabbing White Diamond under the arms, Dragonfly flew through the various holes in the house and into the sky.
The Adept opened a portal and hurried Cazmonster an Angela through it. They came out on the lawn across the street. Rick could see Dragonfly an White Diamond flying above them. With a loud "whump", the house flew a few feet off its foundations, and then slammed back into the ground as if under vacuum force. There was little or no damage to the other houses in the neighborhood, though several window shades were pulled back to show frightened faces watching.
The Infinite Seven spent most of the next 24 hours helping with the devastation at CIU, and searching through the rubble of Professor Sampson's house. There were remnants of the machine, but Rick could not feel the presence he could tell had inhabited it before. Sampson's tube lead to some sort of teleporter, which he had set to explode on activation. Both Sampson and the Nightmare Engine were gone...for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment