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.
Barry stills had just bested three of the SWAT officers attacking him, but a third had a laser sight on Barry’s neck. Ducking to the left, he swung the officer he had by the wrist in front of him, and the bullet that was meant for Barry hit the officer’s armor vest instead. Flipping his skateboard up, Barry launched into the air, knocking the feet from under another officer before knocking the rifleman to the ground with his knee. Barry grabbed the cop’s sidearm and held it up to his head.
“Bang,” he grinned. Behind him, the rest of the SWAT’s Extraordinary Response Team struggled to their feet. Barry stood up and helped Lt. Simons up as well.
Simons, a tough, muscular man in his late twenties with military cut black hair, smiled at Barry and shook his head disbelievingly.
“Never would have thought it. You took out the entire ERT, just like you said you would. And you don’t have super-strength or nothing.”
“Hey, don’t be too hard on yourself, Simons,” Barry said, slapping the officer’s back. Just as he did, Simons grabbed Barry and judo-flipped him to the ground. In that instant, the rest of the team had their rifles or sidearms trained on Barry’s head.
“Nice one!” Barry said, getting up slowly. The weapons eased off, and Barry nodded at each of the officers in turn. That’s when Barry noticed the time.
“Geez, guys, I’ve gotta go. Good workout today, for sure. Keep practicing with those new Chen Industry scopes. I’ll be back in a week.”
Barry Stills gathered up his gear and took off for the first official meeting of Triumph, the renamed, re-dedicated group of superheroes of Central Illinois University. Barry only had to skate a few blocks before he got to the tower in downtown Stevenson that was to house their new headquarters home.
The tower, a 15 story glass-and-steel building owned by Country Farm Insurance, was mostly office space. However, thanks to a generous donation from Chen Industries of Hong Kong (owned by the father of Steven “Palisade” Chen), the top two floors were all theirs. Barry had yet to actually go inside. Flipping his skateboard into his hand, he walked in the front door and was immediately confronted by security.
Barry flipped for his badge, identifying him as “The American Attitude.”
“Sorry, sir.” the man said, backing off.
“Elevator to the Citadel?” Barry asked.
“To the left, on the back side of the regular elevators.”
Barry followed the directions and entered the express elevator; his only choices were sublevel 1, lobby (this floor), 15, and...no way. They had access to the helipad on the roof. Barry pressed 15, and within seconds the doors opened onto the entryway of Triumph HQ.
“Hey, Barry!” Steven Chen said from the floor below; the 15th floor had a walkway that led to several side rooms and looked out over an open area showcasing the common areas of the 14th floor. Both floors and a floor-to-ceiling view of downtown toward CIU. Steven went back to the game of billiards he was playing with Syd Koenig.
“Barry!” Syd grinned happily.
“Syd, Steven. Great to see you guys again,” Barry said, running down the open stairwell to the 14th floor. “Nice digs.”
“It’s alright,” Steven said, somehow managing to sound arrogant.
“Yeah, it’ll do,” Barry corrected, jokingly. “The others here yet?”
Syd answered as she took her shot on the pool table. “Aaron and Caz are in the meeting room, messing with the electronics. Haven’t seen Rick yet.”
“I was just checking out the helipad,” Rick said, walking through a portal into the common area.
Syd ran over and hugged her oldest friend on the team.
“Okay, everyone, okay,” Caz said, coming out of the meeting room. “All the equipment is up, Aaron’s restored Steven’s backups to our new server, and we’re ready to roll. C’mon, everybody in.”
The heroes, looking so much more like a group of old friends since not one of them was in costume, filed into the meeting room.
“Hey, nice,” Barry said, looking around the room and swinging into one of the leather seats. “No spiders or anything.” Everyone chuckled at the joke made at their old headquarters’ expense. The underground HQ had been a place they’d all spent a lot of time, and it held a place in their hearts if just for the fact that it was the first real HQ of the team, but everyone had to admit, this place had some class.
“Stella, activate,” Aaron said. Instantly, the monitor in the front came on, showing a default mono-color happy face.
“Active,” the computer said in an animated female voice.
Rick slugged Steven in the shoulder. “Computer Intelligence? Well done.”
“Not mine,” Steven said.
“A little something I developed in my free time this summer. It was the only technological vocation I allowed myself on the Res,” Caz said with pride.
Caz had spent the summer working on a Native American reservation in New Mexico. He, and Cazmonster, had helped with soil erosion problems, construction projects, and he’d even stopped a bad guy or two.
Once everyone was seated, The Adept took his traditional role as meeting leader.
“Okay, wow. First meeting of Triumph. How was everyone’s summer?”
Caz relayed a short blurb of information about his time in New Mexico, while Barry bemoaned the amount of work he’d done getting the new ERT unit operational at Stevenson PD, and the number of problems he’d had to cover with no backup. Aaron gave a brief recap of working during the day, fighting street crime at night, and spending time with his new girlfriend, Nirmala, a physician he’d met in Tibet, who now worked in Chicago. Steven talked about how much better it was to be in Hong Kong than here in the heart of the Midwest, and Syd talked about her trip to Ireland at length.
“What about you,” Aaron finally asked Rick.
“Me? I studied. A LOT.” Suddenly, the image of a large dragon appeared on the screen, and the perimeter alert went off. The heroes jumped up, prepared to go into action, but just as suddenly, it stopped.
“Just another magic trick I learned in my studies,” The Adept said. “Consider it a decent trade for wasting my entire summer in the murky stacks of a dozen libraries.”
“Jerk!” was the only reply, from Steven, as everyone sat back down.
“Does anyone have any old business?” Rick asked, getting on with the meeting.
Aaron answered first. “Barry, Steven and I spent several hours searching for Dre and his vampire crew, and Angela. Unfortunately, no leads as yet. But they can’t hide forever.”
No one else spoke up. At length, Rick continued. “Now that we’ve got all this equipment, including a high-speed combat helicopter, courtesy of Chen Industries, I recommend we put it to use. Our headquarters is not on campus anymore. We need to keep an eye on Stevenson AND on CIU. Suggestions?”
Once again, Aaron chimed in. “In Chicago, I made a nightly patrol schedule. I tried to cover all the rough spots on the Chicagoland map once a week. Maybe we could do something like that here.”
“Already on it, D,” Barry said. “The ERT is set up for daily patrols outside the immediate area of CIU. They’ll let us know if anything’s going down they can’t handle.”
“Nice to have some help,” Aaron noted. “CPD wasn’t as cooperative this summer.”
“Attention. Incoming communication,” Stella the computer toned.
The voice of Lt. Simons came over the speakers. “Attitude, are you there?”
“Go ahead, Simons. We’re all here,” Barry affirmed.
“You guys need to get to campus, now! CIU Police reports some sort of portal opening up and an invasion of...demons?”
Rick’s ears perked up at the mention of the other-worldly invaders. Placing his fingertips on the table, he went into a brief trance while the others got ready to leave. His eyes popped open and he looked at the other heroes.
The Adept uttered two words.
“Sampson’s back!”
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