Triumph - The Protectors of Central Illinois University, the city of Stevenson, and beyond! Or so it was. Join us now, as we peek into the altered lives of the heroes of Triumph, and witness the spark of a new era!
Downtown Chicago was an interdimensional warzone. Evil Mara demons rained down from the sky, summoned by the disincorporated soul of the villain known as Sampson. On the streets and in the skies above the city, the heroes of Triumph, past and present, were ready for battle.
The original 5 were there: Dragonfly, Cazmonster, White Diamond, the Adept, and the Wrecker.
Aaron took a quick inventory. The Adept. The Gray Robe. Cazmonster. White Diamond. The Wrecker. And The American Attitude, complete with an entire squad of Stevenson’s Extra-normal Response Team. A touch of pride came to his heart as Dragonfly realized that this battle was about ready to become a LOT less defensive.
Dragonfly fell back from the battle for a moment as Cazmonster leapt in to take his place beside Ace. While Ace and Dragonfly had been fighting defensively to hold back their powerful enemies, Cazmonster could face them on even, even superior, footing. Demons began flying everywhere as the rest of the team took stock of the situation.
“These things are dropping out of a portal, there,” Dragonfly pointed out the rift to The Adept and the others. “Rick, we need to get that thing closed ASAP. The rest of us need to help the kids, er, the new Triumph team, hold back the onslaught from the more populated areas.”
“No problem, DF,” said The American Attitude. He flipped his skateboard to the ground and, staff in one hand, ERT suppression gun in the other, lead his team around to flank a group of demons who’d broken off from the main group heading west.
The Wrecker flew into the air, and began using his titanium wrecking ball to smash demons off various roofs and high surfaces as they tried to terrorize the few office workers remaining in the downtown buildings. Magma flew up beside him.
“Hey, glad you old guys could come out of retirement and have our backs!”
Wrecker smirked. “Retirement! You don’t read the paper much! I’m the Chicago area’s number one superhero.” He slammed another monster who leapt at him from a higher floor. The beast went tumbling off toward the River.
“Funny!” said Magma as she blasted another creature who was trying to pull a woman out of a 10th story window. “I could have sworn that was Dragonfly!”
Back on the ground, Dragonfly and White Diamond were fighting side by side to create a protective area around The Adept while he sought to do something about the portal. Above them, the ghostly visage of Sampson continued to laugh maniacally.
“I sure wish he’d shut up!” Dragonfly said as he sliced into the flesh of a fire demon. The blood hit his armed and burned welts so painful he had to concentrate hard to ignore. The blood that landed on White Diamond simply sizzled away on her heat shield.
“How’s it going, adept?” White Diamond asked. The situation between her and her former lover was...quite awkward, given that she’d almost gotten married over a year ago, and that that had fallen apart the evening before. Now, the two were working on an uneasy truce, where she didn’t talk about his girlfriend from India or Tibet or whatever, and he didn’t bring up her failed engagement. And neither of them talked about their own past together. It made for some awkward holes in conversation.
“Something’s wrong,” Rick said quietly, but loudly enough for Dragonfly to catch it and back up a few feet closer to get more information.
“What’s up?” said Aaron, at the same time tossing a full-powered humming bomb into the fray as far away as he could get it.
“This portal is not strictly part of the mystical realm. Whatever mockery of sorcery and science Sampson has used to create it, it’s going to take similar energy to defeat it. I CAN’T close it!”
Well, Aaron thought, that was bad news. The team he’d gathered was the largest Triumph team ever assembled. And they were some of the most skilled and powerful heroes on the planet. But even they couldn’t fight an infinite battle. His own muscles were already starting to protest the constant swinging of the blade against flesh dense as armor.
“Time for a new plan, then.” I just wish, Aaron thought, I had any idea what that might be.
Several blocks away, The Graystars battled to hold the creatures back from the South Side. They were all skilled martial artists, some even the equal of Dragonfly, and they were armed with powerful wards against demons such as these. Nevertheless, they were outnumbered, and were slowly being overpowered.
Damsel watched as long as she could from a third story window. Dragonfly had told her not to get involved in the battle, until she absolutely had to. At the elevated train stop a couple blocks away, she watched as a couple who’d gotten off without noticing the battle tried desperately to get back on the train before it pulled away, to no avail. Several of the demon creatures were now moving their way.
That’s it, Damsel thought. I’m not letting anyone die when I can stop it, orders or no. Leaping out the window, she flew at top speed on insectoid wings to the elevated platform, landing just before the creatures reached it. Grabbing the couple, one under each arm, she strained every muscle as she activated her wings. Her young arms were almost dislocated as she held onto the two, a middle-aged black couple, and hefted them onto an overhead sunshield. Then, turning and hovering in mid-air, she threw a humming bomb at the concrete steps, destroying the monsters’ only access to the train platform.
That, at least, should keep the rest of the creatures from getting onto the platform, she thought. Now that I’ve limited my opponents… young Jyoti drew her Kris blade and flew at the few demons that had made the platform before she’d cut them off, and began to fight.
Back downtown, the police had finally arrived, and were trying their best to deal with an incomprehensible situation. The American Attitude and the ERT were trying to organize the CPD and implement some of their own advanced tactics, but with a limited number of suppression guns and other ERT special weapons, it was only so effective.
The Grey Robe had erected several stone barriers to block the advancement of the creatures in various places, to limited success, but she was only able to put up so many at a time. Every time she closed off one avenue, it seemed the creatures found two more.
Cazmonster and Ace were surrounded, but were still battling on despite obvious injuries to both. A stunning blow landed on Ace’s skull, and knocked her to her knees. Magma swooped in just in time, lifting her teammate from the area and setting her back behind Dragonfly and White Diamond’s safe zone. Magma herself began helping Diamond and Dragonfly secure the zone, and Cazmonster slowly fell back.
“Rick, this is getting serious. I don’t think we can hold out much longer against this onslaught. There’s got to be something we can do.” Aaron said, breathing hard. He had several injuries of varying severity.
A look of devastated fear filled Adept’s face. “Hope in a higher power?” Rick suggested.
“Wait!” Rick shouted. “Look!” The group looked up as Dreamweaver flew through the ghostly Sampson face. For few seconds, Dreamweaver flickered in and out of existence, replaced by a green energy grid.
“Son of a...The kid’s like a construct of the Nightmare Engine! But how…” Aaron was dumbfounded.
“Doesn’t matter how,” Rick said. “He’s the key! Magma, get up there and bring Dreamweaver down here. I’ve got a plan…”
*****************************
As the battle raged on, Dreamweaver flew back into the sky, ready to implement The Adept’s plan. A single tear dripped from his eye, as he considered the potential consequences of this act. Oh, well, he thought. No way to know until you try.
Meanwhile, Magma flew interference, keeping the flying demons from thwarting young Dreamweaver’s mission. Just as he was about to reach the portal, he was stopped short, pounded back by a phalanx of demonic defenders armed with deadly spears. As if in answer, a scream came up from behind. But it was not Dragonfly, as Magma expected, but young Damsel leading the charge. She zipped into the thick of the demons, parrying their spears with her small Kris sword, and distractingly zipping back and forth on agile insectoid wings.
“Now or never, kid,” Magma said, plowing a path with a stream of lava so strong that, even though these particular beasties seemed immune to fire, they were slammed back by the sheer force of it. Dreamweaver flew in with all his power, his flying disk becoming a protective bubble surrounding him.
“For Triumph!” the young hero shouted, and smacked into the portal. Suddenly, the entire image, including Dream Weaver, shimmered in green computerized gridlines, and was gone. Startled, Jan, aka Magma, pushed back a tear for her presumably fallen comrad.
“Damsel, we need to try to corral these things with the others. Adept will know what to do!”
Damsel nodded. Slamming into one in a long line of the flying demons, the young woman slashed its throat with her Kris, and watched as it dropped from the sky. The ones behind were not amused. The chase was on.
Down below, The Adept and The Gray Robe were already working on a mystical remedy for the current population influx of demons on the Chicago streets.
“Cazmonster, Dragonfly, Wrecker! And Ace, sorry!” Rick ‘The Adept’ Pennington shouted. “You guys keep beating them down! Transcender! Somebody get me Transcender!” When the young space-time manipulator responded on the comm, Rick ordered “Get down here, now! We need your help sending these things home!”
Within what seemed like mere seconds, the powerful young hero appeared. The Adept and The Gray Robe began a mystic chant, summoning the powers of natural and metaphysical magics to locate a weak point in reality. Once they’d found it, The Adept switched his magic toward boosting Transcender’s will.
“Now pull, pull with all you got!” Rick ordered. Transcender took a moment to figure out how to do what was being asked of him, but as he concentrated, he indeed saw a small ‘fuzzy’ point in space-time. He then focused all his force upon it, and startlingly, it started to rend.
Now, The Adept had to be really careful. One wrong move and he could end up dumping these things on someone else’s dimension, instead of sending them home.
“Dragonfly! I need you!” he shouted.
Dragonfly nodded at White Diamond and grinned a small grin. The heroes were all exhausted, and the literal hosts of hell were pounding into them with every ounce of power they had. “Em, If I don’t see you again, I want you to know. I still love you.” He kissed her quickly on the lips, and flew away to Rick’s aid.
“What up Adept?” Aaron Majesky, AKA Dragonfly, asked urgently.
“I need to pick your brain! Touch the pendant around my belt!”
Aaron did so without question. Suddenly, he felt The Adept’s mind touching his, rifling through information about the planes of existence, according to Eastern thought. Finally, Rick hit on what he was looking for.
Channelling the image directly into Transcender’s soul, the young man instinctively knew when to stop the tear in reality to hit the demon’s home dimension. From there, All Transcender had to do was pull.
The tear drew anything that was ‘native’ to it’s destination into it by its very nature. The demons could not resist it, try as they might. Within an hour, the heroes of Triumph, with the help of The Graystars, were able to confirm that all living demonic matter from the assault was now gone.
*******************
Back at Graystar HQ hours later, the heroes relaxed to some herbal tea, while Cazmonster canvased the neighborhood buying all sorts of foodstuffs and beverages in celebration. The CPD, with the help of Stevenson’s Extra-normal Response Team, were quickly getting things under control.
Aaron stood amid Jan ‘Magma’ Graylin, Martin “Transcender” Estevez, and his teen sidekick Jyoti, AKA Damsel.
“You SO didn’t listen to me,” Aaron was lecturing at Jyoti.
“No, I totally did! You said I should stay out of it as long as I could, but that we all might be caught up in a war very soon. Well, I got caught up!” Jyoti defended.
“She has a point, my friend,” one of the Graystar monks said, placing his hand on Aaron’s shoulder. This was a man with whom Aaron had trained, honing his mystic understanding and martial prowess since he’d moved to Chicago.
“Okay, whatever. You did good, kid.”
“I’ll say!” Magma agreed. “Speaking of which, Aaron, I know it’s a little soon since you started training her, but my team could use a hand now and then. Maybe, when you feel she’s ready, Jyoti could come visit us in LA?”
“Uhmmmm, okay, you talked me into it. That is, if Jyoti was to go…” Aaron teased.
“Do I!”
“I just wish Dreamweaver were here,” Jan said somberly, after a few minutes.
No one quite knew what to say to that. Then, as if he’d been called, a young man wearing a hoodie walked up to the group. “I am!” he said.
“Shut up!” Jyoti uttered, shocked. Jan just hugged him.
“You saved the day!” Jan said, looking down at her young teammate and friend.
“Thank you, thank you,” he bowed jokingly. “No applause...Well, okay, applause.” Within seconds, Rick Pennington was on top of them, begging for an explanation. It seems Dreamweaver, unknown to even himself until that very moment, was one of the constructions of Sampson’s Nightmare Engine. However, he had somehow been bound to a living soul. Upon dying, he (or rather, his soul) had arrived in a realm just outside ours. It was a timeless place, and he’d watched the rest of the battle from there. Then, when it was almost over, at the last instant, he gathered what energy he could from the dead portal, and began to re-manifest.
Together, the heroes celebrated until the early morning hours. Around three, The Adept used his portals to send almost everyone back home, and there sat the original five members: Dragonfly, White Diamond, Cazmonster, The Wrecker, and The Adept. The told many stories of the old days, and thought long and fondly about the past.
Finally, at the end of the night, Emily said “Hey, I’ve got an idea…”
The End?
