“This is Laura Shea for TV 12, Central Illinois University's only student run TV station, programming by students, for students.” The anchorwoman was in her early 20s, with thick blond hair hanging straight to her shoulders and bangs cut over her eyes. Next to her sat a well dressed young man with black hair cut short, but with enough play to make him look like a “rebel”.
“Nathan, almost all we've heard this past week after break is Cazmonster! Dragonfly! White Diamond! What is going on with these Langley Hall superheroes?” the anchor asked enthusiastically.
“Laura, what we're seeing here is a trend in new superheroes that's just starting to sweep the country. When you and I were growing up, there were somewhere around a dozen superheroes at any point, and they rarely if ever worked together. That changed about five years ago when the SAJ hit the scene in New York. Since then, we've seen no less than another thirty appear, including our own Langley Five.”
“Nathan, What exactly is the tie of these heroes to Langley Hall?”
“Laura, we know Cazmonster, aka Caz Greenbaum, lives in the hall. It's likely, given the evens at the Langley dance, that at least some of the others do, too.”
“Right,” Laura acknowledged as if she'd been listening instead of focusing on her lines. “So, Nathan, have you sussed out the identities of the other members of the group, considering the identity of Cazmonster?”
“Rachel, if you could put up the video I send, we'll go through it in slow motion,” Nathan said nonchalantly.
“It's Laura, Nathan. Anyway, rolling film...” a video of the battle between the heroes and the Nexers in Langley Hall during the dance began.
“Now, we see here Cazmonster and a student named Aaron Majesky. They were the first ones to enter the fray. This Aaron is a trained martial artist, obviously. He's a good candidate for our Dragonfly. I've tried to reach him, but he hasn't returned my calls. Now, here on the periphery, we see White Diamond and The Adept appear. We get a clean view of The Adept in a few seconds...here. I've compared this frame to our student photos for the last five years. This is junior Rick Pennington, who lives off-campus. So far, I've been unable to get any information on White Diamond, and Wrecking Ball seems to have been entirely absent from this battle. But I'm on the case!”
The TV in the lounge at Langley Hall went blank as the student watching, a heavy-set red-haired man, turned it off to concentrate on his card game. Across the lounge, a dark haired young man by the name of Tim O'Malley looked at the time on his phone. Almost time to go to the HQ. Tim started to stand, and suddenly the floor began to shake. He lost his balance and fell to the floor.
Running to the back windows of the lounge, Tim saw a huge lizard-like beast, something out of a B Movie, striding across campus and towering over the lower buildings. Uh oh. Looks like the guys in the HQ are going to be coming to me, instead...
By the time the heroes arrived together on the Quad, the art building was already in ruins. Rick immediately ported into the lower level, checking the ceiling to make sure it was still secure before entering to evacuate the students trapped there. Meanwhile, Cazmonster began lifting the huge chunks of brick and stone.
Dragonfly flew up to get an areal view. There, continuing to stride South, was the creature. Right now, it was in the middle of ripping down a parking garage. They needed to stop it before it got into the residential area beyond.
As Dragonfly flew up, he saw a small metal ball traveling at high velocity from the sky toward the creature. There, levitating near the damaged parking structure, was Tim O'Malley, AKA Wrecking Ball. The metal ball smashed into the creature, causing a small part of it to fade and flicker briefly. Dragonfly noted this with interest as he joined his teammate.
“Tim, good to see you. Did you catch that fade when the ball hit? It's one of those images again, like those things we fought on the Quad a few weeks ago. Let's try hitting it from different points, see if that does any better.”
Dragonfly shot into the sky to the North, the titanium ball controlled by Wrecking Ball went West. Pulling his sword, Dragonfly waited until he saw the ball coming back, then flew in at his highest speed. “Kyaaaa!” he shouted, as he jammed the ninja-to into the giant beast with all his might. At about the same time, the metal ball hit solidly. The creature fluctuated again, this time in two spots. It slowed down for a moment, but soon it was back to normal. Dragonfly flew off to a safe distance, pulling out his phone as he flew.
“Em, are you on your way? Good. Coordinate with Rick to come get you. We need a power-up at the south lot NOW!”
The beast reached out and slapped at Wrecking Ball, who barely had time to get out of the way. It continued after him, and was almost ready to grab him out of the sky when a brick wall flew at it from the ground.
“Hey, pick on someone closer to your own size!” Cazmonster shouted from below. While he was technically correct, Cazmonster was only very marginally larger than Tim when compared to the creature. The wall did it's job of distracting the creature, however, which now lifted a foot in an attempt to smash Caz. It was quite surprised when it found its strength was not up to the task. Cazmonster stood below the foot, pushing up with all his might.
“A little help!” Cazmonster shouted. “Can't hold this for long.”
Wrecking Ball and Dragonfly focused their assault on the creature's leg, hoping to get it to move. Finally, Cazmonster managed to pivot and roll out from under the beast, dropping the foot to the ground. The creature was not prepared, and fell backward onto Lilac street, smashing several parked cars and causing traffic to screech to a halt.
“Not doing that again...” Cazmonster said as Tim helped him to his feet with a telekinetic push. At that moment, Rick and White Diamond ported in.
“Wow, he's a big one!” White Diamond said, standing next to Dragonfly.
“Got that right. Okay guys, we need to coordinate here. This thing is very, very bad. All our power at once might do the trick.” Dragonfly worked out a plan where White Diamond gathered all the light she could while Cazmonster pushed a bunch of rubble into a pile. Meanwhile, Wrecking Ball sent his titanium sphere straight up as fast as he could.
“Now!” Dragonfly shouted. He ran up, putting his hands under White Diamond's arms (she'd turned off her heat shield for this maneuver). In one of his hands, he held a humming bomb, set to maximum power. Flying up to the creature's head, throw the humming bomb. The sound was the signal. Cazmonster pushed the rubble with all his might as The Adept opened a portal over the creature, dropping a ton of brick directly on top of it. At almost the same instant, White Diamond let loose with her full energy bolt; the attack was blinding. Tim had already started the ball back down at high speed, and it slammed through the rocks and into the creature. Dragonfly hovered, holding White Diamond closely in his arms, and watched hopefully. He was just starting to feel disappointment, when suddenly the entire creature disappeared from view.
“Whew,” Rick said. Wrecking Ball, White Diamond, and Dragonfly rejoined Cazmonster and the Adept on the ground. There was high-fiving, hugging, and general celebration. The team was getting ready to head back for more rescue operations at the art building when a thunderclap snapped above their heads. The skies went dark, and the massive image of a large head, completely bald and wearing glasses, a sinister look in his eyes, appeared above them.
“Arrahh!” It screamed. “You heroes have frustrated my efforts for the last time! When next you meet one of my images, it will be the end of you all. Professor Sampson has spoken!” The face disappeared in a mist. Shaken, the heroes looked from one to the other in confusion.
“Looks like we made an enemy,” White Diamond noted.
Cazmonster shook his head negative. “No, he made one. Sampson started this. We'll finish it. Next time.”
“For now, we still have a lot of people to help before we can call it pizza time, guys,” The Adept reminded them. The heroes flew across the street toward the devastated art building.
No comments:
Post a Comment