Volume 3, Issue 4

Triumph:  In memory of their fallen companion, the heroes of the Infinite Seven have chosen to rename their group Triumph!  Dragonfly, aka Aaron Majesky - winged martial arts master; The Adept, aka Rick Pennington - master of mystical movement;  Cazmonster, aka Caz Greenbaum, super-strong cyber-werewolf; Palisade, aka Steven Chen - Biosuit powered defender; The Gray Robe, aka Sydney Koenig - Druidic mistress of the Earth; and The American Attitude, aka Barry Stills - Hyper-sensory, skateboarding streetfighter.

And introducing: Bill Brown (no alias), super-strong urban defender; Magma, aka Jan Graylin, lava blasting demolisher; and Transcender, aka “Dorado” Estevez, controller of time and space.  

The situation was chaos.  In the middle of downtown Stevenson, a new villain calling himself Spider Lord had picked this day to debut, and a spectacular debut it was.  The streets were swarming with small be very venomous spiders of various types, from black widows to brown recluses to various types of tarantulas.  This, in turn, lead to the streets also teeming with hundreds of screaming, running, panicked people, cars sliding on a road slick with spider gue, and several downed civilians needing to be rescued.  A perfect job for Triumph!

But the team was down a few core members that day; in fact, ALL core members, with the exception of The American Attitude, who was having a really frazzled time.  Wiping sweat from his brow with one sleeve, he swept in on his skateboard and pulled yet another bitten civilian to safety.  EMT crews were standing by a couple of blocks away.  

“Dammit, Magma, I said I a barrier across ALL the escape routes! The people can take refuge in the BUILDINGS.  We need to keep these spiders contained here!  Ouch!”  The Attitude shouted as searing hot lava burned through his leather jacket and scalded his back.  

“Sorry,” Magma said, hovering over him.  “You had one on your back.  I’m on the blockade!”  As she swooped off, the thought crossed Barry’s mind: What was I thinking?

Meanwhile, the members of the ERT were on these street in full armor, trying to herd civilians into relatively safe buildings while the “heroes” took care of business.  

Heroes, Simons thought, blasting away at an unnaturally large tarantula as it tried to follow a young couple into the cafe he was guarding.  These guys weren’t heroes.  They were unskilled kids!  Triumph picked a fine day to take a vacation.  At least the ERT was on the scene, he thought with pride.  He and the rest of the squad were doing what they trained to do, for the first time.  And, despite the risk to all the civilians out here, he had to say it was a rush.

On top of a nearby demolition site, Bill Brown felt out of his league, and then some.  He was used to fighting four guys with guns in a dark alley.  Crazy spider men and swarms of creepy crawlies were a different matter.  He’d decided early on that he’d be better of throwing “bombs” than trying to punch spiders, so he’d climbed this building, a cordoned off old four story brick structure due to demolition, and started lobbing bricks from the decaying roofing down at areas with large concentrations of spiders and no people to be hit.  Got another one, he thought, seeing a new beast crawling out of the gutter now smashed under his last brick.  

Turning on his two-way radio earpiece, he contacted the team.  “Attitude, we got to take out the big man, or this show’s never gonna end!”

“I realize that, Bill,” Barry said, smashing several of the critters against the wall with his skateboard while stomping on several others.  “We’re having just a little trouble getting to him.”

“Don’t worry, boss,” Bill heard Transcender break in.  “I got it.”  

“Transcender, no!  Hang back until I get a strategy here!” Barry answered.  But no response came.

As Transcender approached the villain, the spiders around him all fell completely still for a moment.  This effect followed him like a bubble.  It required Transcender’s concentration, however, which is what he did not notice the human-sized spider clinging to the wall beside him as he approached Spider Lord.  

The spider lept on the young man; while it was momentarily stunned by the Transcender’s temporal field, its mass knocked the hero down, jolting his concentration, and the effect fell.  The spider was immediately on top of him.  Additionally, he had drawn Spider Lord’s attention.  

“Ah, my first meal of the day,” he said.  Reaching under his thrall, he grabbed the young hero by the neck and lifted him, preparing to take a bite.  The Spider Lord was as horrific as his progeny, a bulk of a man dressed all in black except for a white skull covering his head, and dark, beedy eyes underneath.  The young manipulator of physics couldn’t overcome his fear enough to call on his powers.  

Bill, seeing his new teammate in trouble, threw himself over the edge of the building, bounded off an overhand, and landed on his feet in the street.  He ran at the speed of an olympic athlete toward Dorado, but was soon intercepted by the large spider.  Grimacing, Bill turned his shotgun on the creature and let loose with both barrels.  The monster staggered back, clearly injured but not dead.  It reared up to bite Bill.

At that moment, The American Attitude flew off the 2nd story roof of the building the spider had been crawling on.  He bounced off the spider’s back on his skateboard, letting loose with one of the ERT’s high caliber firearms into it’s head.   The creature fell to the ground, dead.  

Interrupted by the arrival of the Attitude and Bill Brown, Spider Lord tossed his prey aside and prepared for a fight.  Unfortunately, he did not understand Transcender’s powers.

“Stand down, Spider Lord; it’s over,” The Attitude said, training the firearm’s sites on the villain.  Unphased, the bulk of a man lunged at The Attitude; he was phenomenally fast.  Barry pulled the trigger, but the large but quick man was already under his aim, coming in for the tackle.  At the instant, though, time seemed to slow.  Transcender had recovered his senses.  He could not stop a mass as large as Spider Lord’s, but he could slow the time around it just enough so that Barry could dodge out of the way.  

The Spider Lord fell in a lump on the ground as time returned to normal; Bill leapt on top of the man and pinned him to the ground.  Spider Lord’s strength was easily the equal of Bills, and he started to pull a reversal of the pin, but as he did, The American Attitude swung his staff.  The Attitude felt a curious increase in the weight of the staff on the downswing, and as it made a loud crack against Spider Lord’s back, and the man fell back and screamed in pain, he understood why.

Barry looked over at Transcender.  “What did you do?” he asked in a voice of mock gentleness.  

Transcender shrugged.  “I increased the force of gravity around the end of the staff, just for a second.”

Bill held the Spider Lord down, but he no longer seemed to be struggling.  Out in the streets, the remaining spiders seemed no longer under his control, and were running naturally about, seeking hiding places in the dark.  The ERT, lead by Simons, was herding the beasts down the street toward one of Magma’s dead ends.  Magma continued to fire streams of lava at the creatures to further control their movements, then rejoined the others.  

“Hey, team!” she said, almost jovially.  

The Attitude sneered.  “Hey, Magma.  You seem to have missed the main event.”

“Sorry, I was busy making those barriers you wanted and...” she began to apologize.

“It’s alright,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder.  “We managed to handle the situation, despite some impetuous action from your fellow junior member, Transcender.”

Bill, who had been on his cell phone when Magma arrived, hung up the phone.  “Okay, the EMTs are on their way.”  

Magma looked shocked as she saw Spider Lord writhing on the ground, defeated and in obvious pain.  “Oh.”

Barry dimly heard his own cell phone ringing, and pulled it from his jacket pocket.

“Attitude.  It’s your dime,” he answered.  

“Attitude, this is Dragonfly.  We’ve had some problems...”

   

Volume 3, Issue 3

Triumph:  In memory of their fallen companion, the heroes of the Infinite Seven have chosen to rename their group Triumph!  Dragonfly, aka Aaron Majesky - winged martial arts master; The Adept, aka Rick Pennington - master of mystical movement;  Cazmonster, aka Caz Greenbaum, super-strong cyber-werewolf; Palisade, aka Steven Chen - Biosuit powered defender; The Gray Robe, aka Sydney Koenig - Druidic mistress of the Earth; and The American Attitude, aka Barry Stills - Hyper-sensory, skateboarding streetfighter.

“Palisade, calm down!” Dragonfly said, grabbing the biosuit hero by the arm in an attempt to get his attention.  Palisade simply pulled away from Aaron’s grasp.  

“We’ve got to find her!” he said, entering a bunch of commands into the computer interface.

“Right,” Aaron nodded, looking at his old friend.  He was right.  If they had any chance of finding Angela alive, they needed to take it now, whatever the risk.  Aaron began working on a program to coordinate with Steven’s GPS searches.  

“Guys, guys!  Aaron was right before!  We ALL need to calm down and think!” The Adept pronounced.

“What the hell’s to think about?” Steven Chen asked, continuing his work on the computer.

“How about the fact that Sampson just opened a portal to hell in the middle of CIU?  We have absolutely NO guarantee he won’t do it again in 5 minutes, and you want to bug out looking for Angela now?”  The Adept stared at Palisade resolutely.  

“I love her,” Palisade said simply.  

“I know,” The Adept said as Palisade and Dragonfly continued their work on the computer.  “I know, Steven.  But we’ve got a whole town to protect here.  We can’t just head out to save one hero who, quite frankly, left on her own.”

“Whoa, big man,” Caz said, standing though he still felt ill from the earlier battle.  “That’s yet to be seen.  According to Palisade, she left with Dre.  That means she could be under his control.  Plus, she’s our friend.  Bad choices or no, we need to help her.”

The Gray Robe stood by The Adept’s side.  “Guys, Rick’s right!  As much as I like the little blood-sucker, we don’t even know that was really her!  It could be some sort of trick.  I say we handle this Sampson thing first, and then the whole team can investigate this.”

Aaron leaned over to look at Palisade’s latest search grid before punching in some variables.  “Stella, run program A-7.  Use maximum priority and pop open a couple more processors on this one.”  

Dragonfly returned to his seat while Palisade continued manual searches.  

“We’ve got a while before we need to decide.  We can all get some rest here and stay on high alert.  If something comes in on Angela before Sampson tries something, we can discuss it then.  For now, I say it’s bed time.”

“Agreed,” The Adept said, and headed up the stairs to the walkway on the second level.  This level had several rooms available for the heroes to use in cases when it wasn’t convenient to flit between “home” (or dorm) and the HQ.  Except for Steven and Aaron’s rooms, they’d yet to be used.  

Each of the heroes went to his or her own room and rested on the incredibly comfortable bed.  Everyone, that is, except Palisade, who continued manual searches as well as monitoring Aaron’s program.  Caz fell asleep immediately, his system still fighting the demon poison from earlier.  Aaron was not long behind him, having physically taxed his body to the extreme during the battle.  The Adept, who had taxed his soul rather than his body, opted for meditation over sleep, at least initially.  Syd went onto the open area of the room, which held a small garden of trees and flowers.  She slept there, under the stars.  Barry, the American Attitude, played video games for about an hour, and then fell asleep with the controller in his hands.  

The Adept was the first to emerge into the common area, right around 5 AM; he went directly to the meeting room, but there was no sign of anyone.  The monitor showed the message: “Search complete.  Location found.”

Everyone came running into the walkway when The Adept activated the emergency siren.  “What the HELL is that thing!” The American Attitude said, plugging his ears and still wincing in obvious pain.  

“Oh, sorry.”  The Adept turned the siren off, now that he was sure he had everyone’s attention.  

Scanning the room, it was just as he suspected: everyone was here, except Palisade.

“Steven’s gone off in search of Angela,” he said in exasperation.  At this, Aaron ran over to the computer to check the location.  

“Chicago!  They’re in Chicago.  That’s close enough, you can portal us there and we can take care of this quick!  Then we get back, finish our day, with one or two of us on guard here in case the Professor comes back, and done!”

The Adept shook his head negative.  “I don’t know, Aaron.  Something’s wrong here.  Palisade’s been looking for her for months, and now suddenly here she is?  Just after a major attack by Sampson, who we haven’t heard from in over a year?  I don’t like it.”

“Well, I love it,” Cazmonster said.  “Let’s go!  We get Angela and come home.  After that, Sampson wants to hit us, he can bring all he’s got!”

“Guys, I think I have a compromise here,” The Attitude said, sticking his little finger in his ear to try to stop the residual ringing.  The others turned to him.

“Don’t look so shocked.  Okay, here goes.  I’ve been training with the Extraordinary Response Team.  It’s a special forces kind of subset of Stevenson’s SWAT.”

The Adept shook his head again.  “I know about them, Barry.  There’s no way those guys can hold off Sampson, even for a little bit.  Milan shock troops maybe, but not Sampson.  He’s too powerful.”

“Yeah, I hear you, A,” The Attitude agreed.  “But there’s more.  We’ve been keeping tabs on some new heroes here in Stevenson, a couple Freshmen and a highschool student.  I know how to get in touch with them.  We could recruit them to stand watch while we’re gone, sort of provisional Triumph members.”

“Whoa,” Syd said.  “That’s really a stretch, don’t you think?  IF Sampson comes and we’re gone, you MIGHT have some kids who MIGHT be able to fight him off AND LIVE long enough for us to get back?”

“Hey, I don’t like the idea of putting them in danger, but we were all there once, not so long ago.  They’re out there doing this on their own anyway.  Maybe if we bring them into the fold, we can teach them something.  Maybe they’ll live longer.”

“Okay,” Aaron said.  “Can you get us their profiles?  Tell us what you know about them?  That might help with the decision.”

“Can do, DF.  I’ve got it all here on this USB drive.”  Barry plugged the drive into the computer interface.  “Stella, open files in folder “Triumph Junior”.  

Cazmonster smirked.  “Triumph Junior?”

“Working title, big guy,” the Attitude said.  Immediately, 3 files popped open, complete with images.  

The first was a young black man dressed in an army jacket, cut-off gloves, jeans and a black T-shirt.  “This young man is William Brown.  He doesn’t have a code name yet, but he’s been hitting the street beat weekly, fighting the sort of low end drug and gang crime we used to hit more often in our early days.  He’s super-strong, somewhere near Palisade’s level, heals fast, and is an obviously trained fighter.  Oh, and he’s not bad with that shotgun he carries, either, though to my knowledge he’s never killed anyone with it.”

“Continuing on, this,” Barry said, pointing to an image of a young woman with straight, light blond hair, “is Magma.  She’s very aptly named, having the ability to generate and control busts of lava.  She can also fly.”

“How the hell have I not heard of someone shooting lava around Stevenson before?” Aaron asked suspiciously.

“Weeeellllll, she’s only been active once, to my knowledge.  And it wasn’t exactly high profile.”

“What did she DO, Attitude?” Cazmonster prodded.  

“She burned down a building by accident.  The Stevenson PD was looking for her in an arson case, but when they learned she was a costume, they pulled back...” Barry said.

“At your request,” Aaron completed.

“Okay, yeah, at my request.  But she’s got potential, she just needs to learn better control.  And a chance to get some experience.”

The Adept sighed.  “What about the third one?  I guess he’s the youngest?”

Barry nodded.  “You guess right.  This is Transcender, aka “Dorado” Estevez.  He’s got the most interesting power of the three.  He has the ability to control time and space.”

“Huh?” The Adept said uncharacteristically.  

“Well, in really small ways.  Right now anyway.  He can act on the future, make minor changes to his environment, like make guns disappear and such, and he’s got some sort of ‘temporal shadow’ that can act in his stead, be in another place and time from where he is.  We don’t know much more, and right now neither does anyone else.”

“No doubt,” Aaron said.  “All the more reason it might be a good thing to get to him first.”

“My thoughts precisely, DF.”  The American Attitude turned to the others.  “So, what do you say?”

The Adept still seemed hesitant.  “I don’t know, Barry.  It seems risky leaving the city in the hands of these guys, even for just a short while.”

“Let’s vote on it,” Aaron suggested.  

“Okay,” The Adept said.  “I’m against.”

“For,” Barry said quickly.  

“For,” Aaron answered.

“Against,” was Syd’s reply.

“Great.  No pressure, guys,” Cazmonster said.  “Okay, For.”

“That’s it then,” The Adept said.  “We head out to Chicago to find Palisade and Angela, while Barry stays here and gathers his “Provisional” members, and informs the ERT.

“Hey, wait!” Barry objected.

“You didn’t think we could leave them on their own, did you?  It was your idea, Bar,” Syd pointed out.

“But...”

“No buts.  He’s right, Barry,” Aaron said.  “They need a leader and organizer, and you know more about them than anyone else.  Gather the newbs and get them in formation.  We’ll be back soon, hopefully with both our team members in tow.”         

With that, the portal opened onto a North Chicago street, and Dragonfly, The Gray Robe, Cazmonster and The Adept walked through.

The American Attitude sighed, but a grin soon crossed his face.  Looking at the pictures on the computer, he said softly “Okay, guys, let’s see what you can do.”

Volume 3, Issue 2

Triumph:  In memory of their fallen companion, the heroes of the Infinite Seven have chosen to rename their group Triumph!  Dragonfly, aka Aaron Majesky - winged martial arts master; The Adept, aka Rick Pennington - master of mystical movement;  Cazmonster, aka Caz Greenbaum, super-strong cyber-werewolf; Palisade, aka Steven Chen - Biosuit powered defender; The Gray Robe, aka Sydney Koenig - Druidic mistress of the Earth; and The American Attitude, aka Barry Stills - Hyper-sensory, skateboarding streetfighter.

Palisade piloted the new Triumph attack copter over CIU’s campus, Dragonfly and The Gray Robe flying beside them.  It quickly became obvious where the reports where coming from as a large, shimmering portal became visible; dozens of creatures flitted from the portal, some wielding chains, others red with massive bat-like wings, and some anthropomorphic goats or ants.  

Dragonfly put his hand to his ear, opening a channel to the cockpit.  “Looks like Sampson’s up to his old tricks.  He must have repaired that Nightmare cube deal.”

The Adept leaned into the cockpit from the back cabin as Cazmonster opened the door and prepared to jump.  “We’ll, he got a lot of the basics right.  I’m a little concerned about this one, DF.  Those things are reading a high mystic power level; it’s not light the other nightmare images we fought.”

“Well, magic or no, they picked the wrong place.  Light ‘em up, Attitude!” Dragonfly ordered as he swooped to one side to head off a group of demonic images heading toward several students and a main road.

“My pleasure, DF,” The American Attitude said, and fired a burst from the copter’s machine guns into an area populated only by the images.  The bullets ripped into the creatures, shredding some and bouncing off others harmlessly.  

Meanwhile, Cazmonster leapt, and The Gray Robe swooped in for support.  They landed in a literal hell, populated by creatures seen most often in esoteric texts from the middle ages.  As Cazmonster charged into the first of these, a large, bull-horned bipedal beast, he realized he was in for more of a fight than usual.  The creature caught his fists and the two were locked in a grapple for muscular superiority.  

“Damn, these things are tough,” Cazmonster called back over his internal radio.  

“Yeah, my sword bounces off these ant-things like nothing.  Gonna try some of the red guys!” Dragonfly responded.  

Meanwhile, The Adept watched.  “Barry,” he said, leaning over The American Attitude in the copilot’s seat.  “See how those ones you hit were shredded by bullets?  Their remains are still there on the ground!  Those aren’t nightmare images.”

“You mean...” Palisade said from the pilot’s seat.  The conclusion was almost too horrible to contemplate, even for a cynic like him.

“Everyone, fair warning,” The Adept commented, heading for the copter’s open  bay door.  “These things are the real deal!  Somehow, Sampson’s opened a portal to Hell!”

“What!” Cazmonster shouted.  Having bested the bull-creature in strength, he tossed the beast through the air.  “Heads up, Dragonfly!”

Dragonfly knelt and held his blade upwards, skewering the falling demon on it’s point and rolling out from under before he was crushed.    

“That’s right, Caz,” The Adept said.  “They’re real.  We’ve got to close that portal!” With that, he stepped out of the helicopter.

“Did he just...” The Attitude asked Palisade hesitantly, concerned his friend had just jumped to his death.  

“Take the yoke!” Palisade said, jumping up, but knowing they were so low to the ground his chances of catching The Adept were slim.  When he got to the bay door, he was surprised to see The Adept hovering above several demons, discharging mystical blasts at the fiends.  

“What the hell!” Palisade shouted.  “When did you learn to fly?”

“I told you I’d been studying,” The Adept answered over his headset.  

Dragonfly shook his head and admired his friend’s abilities for a moment before being called back to reality by a scream from a student bystander.  Leaving his sword on the battlefield where it had fallen, the winged hero swooped in and grabbed the student, a thick haired freshman that reminded him of Caz two years earlier.  

“You’re alright, man.  Hang on.”  Dragonfly dropped the young man off on top of a flower shop and looped around to rejoin the battle.  And there was plenty of battle going on.  

While the copter was concentrating on pinning down the creatures escaping from the portal, Cazmonster and The Gray Robe were in trouble.  Some winged creatures had managed to drag the Robe to the ground and were tearing into her with their steel-like claws.  She managed to cover herself in a shell of rock for the moment, leaving Caz battling several of the ant-creatures, who were biting at his armor-like skin.  One managed to get through the tough hide, and Caz instantly began to swoon as if drunk.

Charging in full speed, Dragonfly kicked the head of one ant clean off, scattering the rest as they looked up with diabolic eyes in shock.  

“Caz, you okay?” Dragonfly asked urgently.

“Don’t feel so good, man.  Some sort of Hell-poison, I guess.”  Cazmonster fell to his knees and reverted to his human form.  Dragonfly quickly grabbed on and flew him back to the copter.

The copter was having problems of its own.  Now that the demon horde saw it as a threat, they were targeting all sorts of foul projectiles at it, not the least of which was lines of acrid flame.  Dragonfly barely ducked in for a landing.  

“Palisade, we need a tag-team here!  Attitude, can you fly this thing?”

“Um...maybe?  I’ve done it in video games,” he hesitantly acknowledged.

“Well, let’s hope they were good games.  Palisade, now!” The two heroes leapt from the bay door into the thick of battle.  

Meanwhile, The Adept signalled all.  “Guys, if we keep this up, we’ll lose eventually.  I need to close that portal.  Can you back me up?”

In answer, Dragonfly, Palisade, and The Gray Robe (having tunneled from her protective stone shell to freedom) laid into the creatures by the portal.  The Adept hovered magically in mid-air, calling on his most familiar power - that of magical doorways.  

Palisade caught a glimpse at the other side of the portal.  “Hurry up, Adept.  Something big is coming!”

Slowly dropping to the ground, The Adept pushed all his mystical might in one burst at the portal.  It closed just as a giant, evil beast prepared to walk through.  The Adept fell limp the 20 feet to the ground.  

It took the heroes several hours to hunt down and destroy all the demonic invaders.  Caz recovered soon enough to assist in the last part.  

The team licked their wounds at Triumph Citadel late into the night.

“Sampson’s still out there,” The Adept said to the sullen team.  “We won this time, but he could try this again in an hour.  We’ve got to find him, and end this!”

“Agreed,” Dragonfly answered.  “Since he’s using more magic, can you detect him?”

The Adept shrugged.  “I’m spent, mystically.  After I rest, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Guys, I’m getting an IM from the computer.  There’s an incoming call.”  Syd said, putting the call on speaker.

“I7, it’s me, Angela!  I need help!” and the call ended.