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!
Jan Graylin had had the time of her life. The dance at her dorm at UCLA had been amazing. After the slender blond hero, who’d been known for her clumsiness, left CIU, she had thought her life would never be the same. The super-hero team known as Triumph had been her entry into a world of excitement, and gained her some very special friends. That was gone now. Gone for over a year. But tonight, the first weekend of her Junior year, and the start of her second year at UCLA, had been a real blast. For the first time, she’d felt like she was moving on. Until Dustin dumped her.
She took another drink of her punch as the DJ spun melancholy tunes, and the dance committee began to take down the mess. Dustin had been her best friend, her first friend at UCLA when she arrived as an intimidated Midwestern girl whose life back home had collapsed a month before. And by then end of that year, he’d become her boyfriend. Tonight, he’d dumped her, just like that. For someone she knew, someone she might have called friend. With a pop, Jan realized he’d melted her plastic cup with her magma powers, and the punch flew everywhere as it turned to steam. She saw several startled dorm-mates looking at her; hopefully they just thought she got mad and crushed the cup. It was close enough to the truth, anyway.
She stood up and grabbed a bunch of napkins to soak up the mess, as one of the committee came over with a mop. Jan frowned apologetically. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” said the young woman, her curly mop dangling down over the sweatshirt she’d changed into for cleanup. From the tone of her voice, it didn’t sound okay. And suddenly, Jan needed to get out of there. She figured she’d head over to Sub Human, a local sub sandwich restaurant which also served beer. She liked the food there, but right now she just mostly wanted to be alone in a crowd. Grabbing her handbag, Jan turned to the door, and stopped cold. It was Dorado! Dorado Estevez, AKA Transcender. A couple years older, his shoulders bulked out a bit, but still easily recognizable.
Jan moved quickly out of the room into the lobby toward Dorado. He was talking with some friends, but they seemed to be just leaving, and he was turning toward the hall. Running up behind her old friend, Jan tapped him on the shoulder, a thin-lipped smile on her face.
The now-muscular latino jumped as if startled. Dorado had always been a little high-strung, Jan remembered. As soon as he saw her, a huge, infectious smile came across his face, and he reached out and gave her a big hug.
“Jan! I’d heard you were here!”
“Dorado! What are you doing here? When did you move to California?” Jan said, moving away as the young man released his grip, but only a little. She felt strangely warm after the strong hug by the well-built young man. Her brow furrowed slightly as she considered that, but pushed the half-thought aside.
“Hey, cut the Dorado stuff. It’s just Martin now. I don’t go by that any more. It was pretty hokey.”
Jan bobbed her head from side to side and said “eehhh, a little, yeah. Hey, it’s GREAT to see you! How’ve you been?”
“Good, good. Been concentrating on my studies, joined the Physics club…”
“Really?” Jan asked, looking askance at the man who, despite his intelligence, was now just built. There was no better word for it.
“Well, yeah. Who better?” he joked. As the hero known as Transcender, Dorado Estevez held powers to control space and time.
“And I been working out, too,” he admitted.
“I can see that!” Jan said, squeezing his muscles playfully. When they’d been in Triumph, Jan had kind of seen Dorado as a younger brother. Now, her feelings were different somehow.
“Hey, I’m getting ready to head up to my room, you wanna come check it out?” he asked.
“I’d love to,” Jan said. She’d almost forgotten her crushed spirit from the episode with Dustin just shortly before.
***********
Jan and Martin spent the next several hours talking in his form overlooking Sunset Blvd. Jan told Martin the story of her horrible evening, he told her about his first girlfriend that had lasted him 3 weeks before she slept with his ex-roommate. The two talked about the old days. After she’d left, Bill Brown had joined the Marines, Martin told her. And Barry Stilles had taken an official position leading the Extra-normal Response Team. They watched over Stevenson now, he’d told her. With the occasional help from Cazmonster. Dragonfly had moved to Chicago after he graduated. Martin had no idea what he was up to.
Finally, it was Jan who noticed that it was getting late, or rather, early.
“I should head back to my room.” She said, but made no effort to get up.
Martin took another drink from his bottle, and looked over at his friend. Somehow, he’d never noticed how hot she looked. He felt her soft shoulders against his chest, and realized he had his arm around her, and she was leaning on him. She was leaning into him, her face just inches away. And then he kissed her.
Jan hesitated at first. It was weird. It felt like kissing a brother. Well, more like a cousin, really, she said. A distant cousin. Maybe an adopted cousin. Jan threw herself into the kiss with a passion. They both knew, now, that she wasn’t going home tonight.
**********
They work the next morning to the sound of the room shaking.
“Ugh, Quake?” Jan said, sitting up in the single bed and pulling the sheets to cover herself. Martin sat up next to her, rubbing his eyes. His hair made a cute peak to one side, Jan noticed.
“Don’t know, let me check outside.” With that, Martin got up in his boxers and looked out the window. Martin’s roommate had come and gone already; he was probably out all night at the frat house, Martin thought as he gazed out the 5th floor window of his dorm room.
“Let’s go,” he said to Jan, pivoting on one foot and grabbing for some pants.
“What! What is is?” she asked, running over to the window in the sheet. There, in the sky, was a giant funnel of darkness. Tendrils flew out of it, grabbing cars and even people and tossing them inside.
“Oh, my…” Turning, she saw Martin tug on his Transcender tunic. Fortunately, Jan thought, she’d outgrown the need for a costume to disguise her identity.
Focusing on the warmth in her chest, flaming cracks began to glow in her skin. Her entire outer skin turned a jet black, and her eyes glowed red. Her hair burst into flame. Martin stared for a moment before commenting “That’s new!”
“Yeah, much more me than a pair of red tights, isn’t it? Let’s fly!”
Meanwhile, across the country...
Aaron Majesky sat down in the booth and switched on the TV, exhausted from a nights work at Heroes Deli in Chicago. Celeste, who’d become a close friend since he moved to Chicago over a year ago, was counting down the cash drawer.
“How’s it looking?” Aaron asked. His uncle Mort rarely made a big deal if they were short a few bucks, but over was generally not taken well. He always said he never wanted his customers to feel like they’d been swindled, even if it was just an honest mistake.
“Looks good, short by 27 cents,” said Celeste, a beautiful young woman with thick, black, wavy hair.
Aaron leaned back in the booth. “Ah, yes. It will be nice to hit the bar tonight. I am so burned right now.” He looked up at the television and flipped the channel again. This time he stopped.
“This is CNN reporting from just outside the UCLA campus, where two super-heroes are squaring off against what can only be called a sentient phenomena calling itself ‘The Vortex’.”
Aaron stood up in surprise as he watched the encounter unfolding.
“That’s got to be Magma!” Aaron said, watching the hero lay down a steady stream of burning lava into The Vortex. This seemed somewhat effective, as the Vortex retracted several of its tendrils to defend itself.
“And there’s Transcender! When did those guys move to LA?” Aaron said, shaking his head with a grin on his face. For the last year, Aaron had only occasionally seen any of his former Triumph teammates, and then it had been Caz or Tim O’Malley. He kind of missed the “kids”, the trio of young heroes who saw the final days of Triumph, a next generation that never quite took off.
Celeste came out from behind the counter to watch with him. “Some old friends of yours?” she asked. Dragonfly’s identity was no secret, though it was not common knowledge. All of Aaron’s co-workers were aware of his history.
“Yeah, they are at that,” Aaron said wistfully. Tonight, he thought, I’m going out on patrol, for the first time in a long time. Aaron continued to watch as his friends battled their powerful foe.
