Volume 1, Issue 4

Langley Hall, the night of the fall dance.  Aaron stood nervously in a matching vest and slacks and a pair tennis shoes, looking out the door of the lobby waiting for Emily to arrive.  Her mom had agreed to drop her off for the dance, the first taciturn approval she'd given her daughter's budding relationship with Aaron.  

"Hey, man, don't clench up any more, you'd rupture a blood vessel," said a voice from behind.  The voice was the calm and smooth voice of Tim O'Malley, AKA Wrecking Ball.  

Tim was dressed more casually than Aaron in a colored button-down and some khakis.  "Tim, not a good idea to sneak up on a guy waiting on a girl," Aaron half-snapped.

"Girl?  It's just Emily!" Tim smirked.  Aaron was not amused.  "Hey, seriously, Rick and Caz are over in the alcove.  We're getting ready to check out my HQ video."

"In which case," Aaron pointed out, "you should be waiting for Emily, too."

"Dude, it's video.  You can watch it more than once."

Aaron's eyes widened, and he pushed Tim gently aside to head for the front doors.  "She's here.  Head on over to the guys. Em and I will stop over for a few minutes before we head in to the dance."

In the lounge, the DJ had already begun to play, and people were streaming down from the upper floors.  Emily walked in the front door, and she was a vision.  Aaron thought she glowed as much now in this blue dress as she did in her light-wielding White Diamond costume.  Immediately, he took her hand, and the two entered the building together.  

"You look amazing, Em," Aaron said, distracted by her appearance so much he could hardly see what was going on around him.  

"You clean up well, too," she said, and it was true.  Tim was a mentalist, Rick a mystic, and Caz, while big and muscular, was basically built like a football player.  

Aaron, on the other hand, being the only member of the team with no powers at all, relied on his body.  Thus, it was slender but not slight, powerful and finely honed.  

His fitted vest just accentuated this fact.  

"Tim wants to talk to us before the dance, something about a new headquarters.  They're over here."  Aaron led her to the alcove where the others waited.  The lobby of Langley 

had several small alcoves overlooking the street, surrounded by windows and fitting several chairs, couches and a small table.  They were ideal for studying, or relatively quiet gatherings, but five people were a little tight.  As such, when Aaron and Emily filed in, Caz stood at the edge, partially because he didn't fit and partially to block view from the rest of the lobby.  

The video started with Tim just inside the rediscovered tunnel they'd broken into.  Shining his flashlight, they got a good view of the main area of the underground chamber; Tim paused the video to note features as it played.  Then, the video lead them to the rear of the entrance, under the sewer tunnel and back toward Langley Hall, as Tim pointed out.  Finally, the video lead into a shorter, natural cave formation that went on for several yards and finally ended in solid rock.  

At this point, Tim's camera turned right, and Tim narrated the video he'd filmed of a shaft that lead upwards for several dozen feet.  

"And by my math," Tim concluded, "that shaft leads somewhere HERE, in Langley Hall."

The group looked incredulously at him.  "You mean there's an actual entrance to this chamber IN the building?  Why?  Who would build that?" Aaron asked suspiciously.

"No idea.  But it's here, filled with cobwebs and long forgotten by the look of it."

"If we can find that entrance..." Caz began.

"We'd be able to come and go from the building easily, even without Rick there," Tim nodded.

"Great find, Tim," Rick agreed.  "Let's see what we can dig up on Langley's plans, and see if we can find where that shaft might lead."

Aaron pushed toward the lobby, leading Emily by the hand.  "Okay, guys.  We'll work on it later.  Right now, there are more urgent things."

The dance was a great success.  Several dozen people showed up, most from Langley Hall, but many from other dorms or even off-campus.  Aaron and Emily enjoyed their first slow dances together, and danced with Aaron's friends (including Tim, Caz and Rick) for the faster ones.  

It was towards the end of the night, around 10:30 PM, when the trouble began.  A few older students from out of the building started hassling some of the residents.  Aaron was getting ready to go get a Residential Assistant when he noticed the jerky motion the strangers displayed.  Watching closely for a few more seconds, he was sure of it.  The students were high on Nex.  Looking over, Caz nodded at him.  Evidently he noticed as well.  Aaron wandered over and told Emily, then Tim, who was standing next to Rick.  

This could go bad, really fast.  While Tim went out to call campus police, Emily placed her hand inside her purse, making sure her White Diamond mask was there if she needed it.  She and Rick gathered behind Aaron and Caz, who approached the group cautiously.  

"You ever fight a Nexer before?" Aaron asked Caz.

"No," he admitted.  

"Be very careful; it's not your normal drug."

"Hey, guys," Aaron interrupted, pulling one of the younger students, Aaron thought his name was Greg, away from the group.  "This is a party.  Why not have some punch and dance some of that excess energy out, instead of trying to ruin in?"

The lead Nexer, a musclebound man with a grimace on his face and short cropped brown hair, responded by walking up and putting his hand on Aaron's chest.  

"Stay out of it," he said simply, his eyes not focusing well on Aaron.  

"This is our dorm, we can't," Aaron said simply.  An RA was coming over to diffuse the situation, but it was far too late.  With sudden drug induced speed, the lead Nexer struck out at Aaron.  Even with his finely honed reflexes and being prepared for this, Aaron did not completely avoid the assault, though he managed to move back before the attack so that much of its force was lost.  

Aaron tumbled backward over several chairs and into the dance floor, naturally rolling and coming back to his feet and prepared to fight.  It was no secret that Aaron was into martial arts, but he tried to keep it under wraps just how good he was.  That may not be an option here.  

A second Nexer lashed out at Caz, which turned out to be both a big mistake and to be a turning point in the career of the newly formed, as yet unnamed group of heroes.  The hit was solid, and Caz felt a rib snap as he sailed backward into a closet.  The wooden doors shattered as Caz uncontrollably changed into Cazmonster, right before the eyes of dozens of onlookers, many of whom were recording the confrontation on their phones.  The huge cyber-wolf shattered the wooden closet doors as he landed, and then he drew himself up to his full height, now scraping the ceiling of the lounge.  

Striding over, Cazmonster picked up one Nexer and simply threw him away.  The young man flew across the room, slamming into a wall, and passed out.  

Meanwhile, Emily had moved away from the group and into a secluded corner.  With no time to check on whether or not she was being watched, she put on her mask, transformed into White Diamond.  

Tim, being capable of more subtle attack, simply picked up a chair with his telekinesis and threw it at one of the Nexers, tumbling him to the floor.  

Aaron charged back in and began punching and kicking and the lead Nexer, who took the powerful attacks in stride, but in reality was being beaten pretty badly.  That was one problem with fighting these guys, Aaron reflected.  They were so doped up they didn't notice the pain.  You had to be really careful not to seriously injure them while taking the fight out of them.  

The Residential Assistant had backed out of the situation completely, choosing to wait for armed authorities to end the super-brawl, or letting the heroes win, which ever came first.  

White Diamond ran to the edge of the conflict and zapped one of the Nexers until he submitted.  Rick, meanwhile, used his mystic portals to get behind the battle and sneak the bystanders out of harm's way.  He himself was getting ready to leave when a Nexer knocked him in the head from behind, and Rick fell to the ground, struggling for consciousness.  

Aaron kicked his Nexer in the knee, causing the man to lose balance and fall.  Aaron then hit him in the side of the head, knocking him unconscious as well.  

The heroes cleaned up the battle quickly, the remaining Nexers fleeing into the hands of campus police.  Of the heroes, only Tim managed to stay out of the battle completely, at least to appearances.  White Diamond was solidly in costume, and no one here knew Emily Fine, so her identity was safe for the most part.  But Caz was now known as the Cazmonster (it was only a matter of time).  At least, he reflected, now he could use the Cazmonster name publicly.  Additionally, Rick was found at the back of the battle, and had been recorded using his portals to help the others escape.  Aaron's secret as Dragonfly hung in the balance; he'd been seen displaying amazing martial arts talent, and was fighting alongside Cazmonster, The Adept, and White Diamond.  It wouldn't take much to make the connection.  

For now, however, the heroes were just that; heroes of the day.  The campus police questioned them, and all the other students, and found they had just intervened to keep others from being hurt, and had only used violence in self-defense.  The dorm coordinator decided not to cite Cazmonster or Aaron (the only two identifiable Langley residents in the battle), considering the outcome.  She did caution Cazmonster not to bring trouble into the hall, which he timidly agreed to.  

Aaron rejoined Emily, who had gone to a nook and removed her mask at a convenient time, and the dance continued.  Rick headed to the hospital to get his head looked at.  Tim stayed at the dance for a while, but then headed to his room, where Cazmonster had gone to think things through.  

Just like that, everything was changed.  The heroes were no longer a hidden force working behind the scenes or swooping in and leaving secretly just as fast.  They were now a known presence on the CIU campus.  And still a team without a name.