The battle was waged. Seven superheroes against dozens of vampires, each one super strong and super quick, each with unknown abilities of vampire kind. On the roof of a small strip mall across from Schuster Tower, Angela Hughes was entered in single combat with her vampiric creator, Drahomir, known as “Dre”.
Angela lunged toward Dre, her claws full of blood from the lesser vampires she’d defeated over the last few minutes. Dre just smiled, deflecting her blows with superior speed and strength. “Excellent, my dear!” He called out. “You’ve become quite the vampire since I turned you, your skills no doubt honed by the ‘super-hero’ farce.”
Angela kept on. “It’s no farce, Dre! I am what I choose! Your undead taint has done nothing to alter my spirit. I use my powers as I choose!” With that, she dropped low, and cut under Dre’s chin. Stolen blood spurted from the wound as he stepped back.
“Well, that’s torn it, then. No more kid gloves!” With that, the head of the vampires assaulted Angela, knocking her into submission on her knees. He was about to deal a critical blow, when Palisade stepped up from behind.
“Hey, pointy! Bet mine’s bigger that yours!” A spike protruded from Palisade’s forearm, and launched across the roof toward Dre. He barely avoided the attack, which quite possibly could have proven fatal.
Meanwhile, Cazmonster was in the battle up to his neck, as usual. Several vampires had chosen him as the alpha of the group, the most impressive “take down”, as it were. They were assaulting the powerful cyborg wolf with everything they had, but none had managed more than scratches against his hard outer skin. On the other hand, several had fallen prey to his claws, which were much longer than theirs, and had retreated off the field of battle.
Rick was having a hard time of it. The vampires were much faster than him, and had significant resistance to his mystic blasts. They would come at him from all sides, and more than once, The Gray Robe had come to his rescue. Currently, the two were in the parking lot behind the strip mall, back to back, holding the undead at bay with everything they had.
The two newest members of the Infinite Seven were having a ball, seemingly unaware of the danger they faced against the undead beasts. As a particularly large and powerful vampire approached them, Triumph grabbed the American Attitude’s arm and spun him around in a circle at high speed. When he was up to tornadic speeds, he released the Attitude’s arm, shouting “Buddy, you need an Attitude adjustment!” The American Attitude held his staff straight out in jousting form, and slammed it into the chest of the attacking vampire. The staff, made of English oak, pierced the chest of the undead fiend and, being made of wood, put the creature to the grave.
The vampires were not without their wins in the battle. The Adept and the Gray Robe, being low on physical defenses, were cut up and bruised quite severely, to the extent that they would have trouble explaining the wounds in any way other than an amazing fight. Triumph, victim of two broken ribs, nearly passed out in pain several times. The American Attitude was actually bitten once, but was freed by Cazmonster, who grabbed the vampire by the neck and threw him vertically as hard as possible.
But it was Angela who was affected the deepest by the attack. Her creator, Dre, sunk under her skin with his seductive speech. As he retreated, the rest of his group in tow, he said to her, “This is not the end, my dear. You belong with us, and you now feel the pull of your vampire heart. When you need me, when you desire me, I’ll come again to set you free.”
That quickly, the battle against the vampires was over. However, it ended the evening for the Infinite Seven, and anyone who ran into trouble on campus for the rest of the night was on their own.
In the I7 HQ, the heroes licked their wounds.
“I can’t believe how many there were,” Triumph said, his mask pulled off his head so he could apply a compress to a claw mark on his cheek.
“Angela, I thought there were like five of them,” The American Attitude prodded. Angela was silent.
“Chill out, Bar,” Caz said. While the wounds dealt his werewolf form were not visible on his normal body, he could feel the internal damage just the same. “She did great.”
Palisade stood at the other end of the HQ, near the emergency exit, trying to draw forth any of his special spikes. It was as if the biosuit had said “enough”, and just shut down.
The Next Day...
Aaron arrived at Heroes Deli ready for work. His uncle had given him a small rental property, a “studio”, in Wrigleyville, and he’d rested well the night before. On the Clark Street bus, Aaron made one last attempt to contact Emily Fine at Princeton. For the first time, the phone was answered.
“Em’s phone,” said the woman on the other end, who Aaron knew was not Emily.
“Yeah, this is a friend of hers, Aaron. I heard she tried to call me. I was out of the country.”
“Aaron, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I haven’t heard form Emily in two days.” The woman’s voice sounded grave, and as Aaron stepped off the bus for his first day on the job, he felt like he needed to be somewhere else. After the end of a long shift, he had one goal: get to Stevenson, get his equipment, and fly to Princeton to find Emily. And, in the fall Chicago evening, that’s what he did.
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