CIU Student Center, Evening, Start of Spring Semester
The Infinite Seven: Super-powered defenders of Stevenson Illinois and CIU. The Adept, aka Rick Pennington - master of mystical movement; Cazmonster, aka Caz Greenbaum, super-strong cyber-werewolf; Palisade, aka Steven Chen - Biosuit powered defender; Angela, aka Angela Hughes - vampire hero; The Gray Robe, aka Sydney Koenig - Druidic mistress of the Earth; The American Attitude, aka Barry Stills - Hyper-sensory, skateboarding streetfighter; and Triumph, aka Stan “Steel” York - Super-speedster.
Plus, special guests: Dragonfly, aka Aaron Majesky - Founding member, martial arts wiz with wings and mad gadgets; White Diamond, aka Emily Fine - Founding member, controler of light; and Wrecker, aka Tim O’Malley - Founding member, telepath who uses a titanium sphere to devastating effect
At the door of the banquet room, four villains stood looking in on the Infinite Seven, taken off guard during their own welcome party. As the villains stream in, the youngest member, a boy with a jet pack, wielding some type of plasma cannot, called out to the leader, a young blond woman dressed in a white leotard.
“Um, Ronnie, I thought you said there were seven of them. I count TEN!” The boy arched his beam toward Cazmonster, who stood resolute, felt the flesh and fur heating seering against the heated plasma, and growled loudly.
“Not sure Felix! They call themselves the Infinite Seven! I thought the other ones all left town!”
Ronnie, aka Deathrobat, flipped down the stairs and ended with a two foot kick to The American Attitude’s face, sending the smart-mouthed soldier flying.
The larger, barbarian themed villain bounded into the room, smashing the biggest target he could see, Cazmonster. This knocked the cyborg werewolf free from Felix’s plasma attack. As Cazmonster and the powerfully built giant of a man wrestled in the ballroom floor, Felix yelled “Beewolf! That was MY target!”
The woman dressed in the green costume found White Diamond faster on the draw than herself. A white-bright energy beam knocked the menace back into the lobby area. She struggled to her feet after the powerful assault. “You’re gonna regret that, pretty!” she mumbled under her breath, launching herself back into the fray.
Meanwhile, a second bullet flew into the room, this one barely missing Dragonfly’s head as he struggled to make sense of the chaos.
Running over to the pink and orange clad speedster, he said “Um, what was your name? Triumph? Can you find that guy who’s shooting in here and put a stop to it?
“Done, Dragonfly!” and with a flash, Triumph had left the building.
The team of heroes had been caught off guard, but Felix had been correct to be concerned about their greater than expected numbers. Cazmonster and the barbarian known as Lond were almost exactly matched, and Triumph had left to find the sniper, but that left eight more heroes to battle three supervillains.
Dragonfly and White Diamond took the onslaught to the acid-slinging L1kw1d8te (pronounced Liquidate); The acid splashes sizzled against Diamond’s heat shield, and splatters of the streams he dodged burned Dragonfly’s fucsia costume and skin, but in the end, the martial hero was standing right in front of the green-garbed villain. He punched her square in the nose, breaking it in at least two places and sending her back several feet into a weak interior wall. He flew through it, and within seconds held his sword to her neck. L1kw1d8te held up her hand in surrender. Dragonfly bound her hands and ankles with zip ties. “One down!” he grinned to Emily, his former girlfriend and current...well, whatever they were, it was close.
Back in the banquet room, Palisade, Wrecker, and The Adept were making quick work of the kid, Felix. Palisade’s spikes kept the kid’s plasma cannon focused on defense long enough that Wrecker was able to bring his titanium sphere around the other side and smash it into the kid’s jetpack, grounding him. The Adept then opened a portal in the floor, and one in the ceiling right above it.
“How long are you going to let him accelerate?” Wrecker asked.
“Meh,” The Adept shrugged. “Now’s good.”
With a smack, the kid hit the floor, lifted his head for a second, and then passed out.
The American Attitude was flighting blow for blow with the acrobatic leader, but it appeared he wasn’t making headway. She moved back to avoid one of his assaults, and drew a large caliber handgun from her belt. A wicked grin crossed her face as she aimed for The Attitude’s skull. Then she had to wonder why he was grinning back at her. Slowly she turned to look behind her, but it was too late. Angela’s vampiric fangs were already drawing blood from Deathrobat, the villain caught in the trance of the vampiric feeding.
Meanwhile, The Gray Robe was using potted plants in the banquet hall to try to waylay Lond, but they were having little effect. She was considering shattering the glass panels to call on the trees outside for help, but Cazmonster began repeatedly slamming his fist into the giant’s face. The monsterously large human turned, as if to stagger away and get some distance from Cazmonster, who was also beaten to a bloody pulp, but he turned instead to find The Adept aiming his hand and him.
With a blast of mystical power, The Adept incapacitated the weak and weak minded barbarian. Cazmonster used a steel pipe to restrain him for later.
After the battle was obviously over, and all the villains captured, the heroes began checking on the civilians and tending to each other’s wounds. It was then that The American Attitude asked “Hey, where’s Steel?” Dragonfly looked at him like an alien for a second before remembering that Steel was the nickname of Triumph’s alter-ego, Stan.
“I sent him out to find the sniper. He never came back!” In seconds, the entire team had left the building. After a short search, they found no sign of the villain, but they did find Triumph, lying on the ground bleeding.
“Crud,” the Attitude said, looking at the wounds. “He’s been shot four times. He’s lost too much blood!”
The Gray Robe drifted down to the speedster from out of the sky. “I call upon the powers of the earth!” She drew the green life energy from around her and funneled some of it into Triumph, who coughed and sputtered a little.
“Maybe a little more of a boost,” Angela said. Dripping her blood into his mouth, the hero’s eyes popped open, and he regained consciousness.
“Hey, guys!” Steel said weakly. “Sorry, he got away.”
“Not for long,” The Attitude said. “Not for long.”
“Barry, I’ve got a portal open to the hospital. We’ve got to go, now,” Rick Pennington said, putting his hand on The Attitude’s shoulder.
It was touch and go for several hours, but in the end, the doctors were able to remove all four bullets. They were really odd bullets, the chief surgeon had said. No way of knowing exactly what they’d been intended to do, or if they accomplished their goal. Palisade took the projectiles for examination back in the I7 lab.
The heroes said their goodbyes to Steel and trickled out, one at a time. The cheerful gathering of friends ruined, the heroes broke up into groups of two or three, or went home alone. Rick and Caz saw Tim, Emily, and Aaron to the train station; the last train to Chicago would give the heroes a chance for some much needed rest and get them out of the terribly cold January chill.
“Hey, you realize it’s us? The original five?” Dragonfly said as he heard the train approaching.
Rick nodded somberly.
“Those were good times,” Caz said, thinking back to when five innocent young heroes had first formed a group to fight against a strange impending mystical threat. It had only been a year and a half since then, but they’d been through so much together, it seemed like much longer.
Each nodded in turn as the train pulled up. Then, Emily, Aaron and Tim said their goodbyes to Rick and Caz, and boarded the passenger train to Chicago. Tim would catch a suburban connection and head to the west, while Aaron and Emily would go to his studio on the north side. She planned on staying with Aaron tonight, and catching a plane back to Princeton tomorrow afternoon.
The train pulled off silently into the snowy wind, and Rick and Caz walked back to Langley alone.
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