Issue #004 – – – – – controlled by Keith Nixon – – – – – Credits 111

She’d thought about returning to the sewers, but given that some of his wounds were open she decided that adding severe infection to the fallen man’s problems was probably stretching how brutal she was prepared to be.  Having found an alcove behind a Szechuan restaurant beyond the site of nosy bystanders, Got Gal checked over the fallen man’s wounds.  She splinted his arms with her steel batons – which was fine.  They’d been useful, but she was Got Gal, not Baton Girl.  The unwritten superhero rules were very clear on this subject – you can’t just permanently adopt a new weapon that’s never been part of your public persona before.  It’d be like Superman started to carry an uzi – made no sense.  Of course, she thought ruefully, Superman is just a fictional character.  Real life doesn’t always play by the rules.

First things first she checked him for tracking devices.  He was wearing a weird metal belt, which she removed and deposited at the far end of the alleyway.  Then she took his wallet and threw it over the roof.  She had a good arm.  It probably landed in the next state.  After some fairly basic first aid, Flying Guy regained some of his colour and his breathing became less laboured.  Satisfied that she’d done her duty as a card-carrying Good Guy, Got Gal shook him awake.  “Hey there, fella,” she said.  “Time you and I had a chat.”  The man’s eyes opened and filled with fear.  He tried to struggle, but his splinted arms and her knee on his midriff made that difficult.  “Stop messing about.  You can’t get away.  Time to talk.”
“What?” the man asked, sullenly.  There was a mixture of anger and terror in his eyes.
“Who are you and who do you work for?”
“I don’t have to tell you anything,” the man said.
“No?” Got Gal asked, pressing her knee into his stomach with just a touch of her massive enhanced strength.  He gasped.  “How about now?” She asked.  “Or perhaps you’d prefer I drop you down a manhole and leave you to the rats?”
“Okay, okay,” he relented.  She eased off the pressure.

“I’m Officer Philip Lawrence.  I’m a Special Operations And Patrols officer for the City Department of Justice.
“Is that acronym S.O.A.P?” Got Gal asked, amazed.  “That’s the best they could come up with?”
“I didn’t choose it,” He complained.
“So what do you Soapers do?” she asked.
“We deal with Abnormal criminal activities and apprehend unlicensed vigilantes and superpowered individuals.”
“So how did you find me?”
“Just luck.  We were heading back to base and we saw you zoom up into the sky.  You were hard to miss.”
“But I didn’t do anything wrong,” Got Gal protested.  “Don’t you have real criminals to chase?”
“All Abnormals must report to the state and be licensed.  It is a serious offense to fail to do so.”
“Maybe in Soviet Russia,” she told him.  “But this is America.”
“Did you just wake up from a coma?” the officer asked.
“Something like that,” Got Gal admitted.

“Tell me about The Institute.   One of you mentioned it earlier?” Got Gal asked.
The man frowned, as if he couldn’t believe she didn’t know this.  “It’s where all the government science geeks work,” He said.  “High-powered Abnormals, what are known as Type As, are taken there for research and investigation.  Sometimes Type Bs and Type Cs too, but not so often – it just depends what sort of powers you have.  If you’re a flip-n-kick, or a blockbuster, they aren’t so interested.  But any of the weird stuff, you know, magic and psionics and all that strange shit, they love all that.”
“What do they do to people there?” She asked.
“No idea,” he replied.  “I’ve never been inside.  Dropped a few off.  Must be pretty grim, since not too many come back out again.  Those that do are either working for the state or are no longer a threat to society.”
“No longer a threat?  What do you mean?” Got Gal growled.
“Sometimes they haven’t got powers anymore.  Sometimes they scoop ’em.”
“Scoop them?”
“You know,” the officer said, “A little surgery on the brain.  Make them docile.”

Got Gal controlled her anger.  She needed information and now wasn’t the time to lose her cool.  Maybe later.
“How long has the city been like this?” she asked.
“Like what?” The officer looked bemused.
“Like this?  Dark.  Messed up.  All different.”
“This is how it’s always been.  Nothing wrong with it.  What are you talking about?” The man replied.
“What heroes are still around?” She demanded.
“A handful of licensed heroes.  Captain Courage.  The Midnight Runner.  Wild Thing.  A few others.  Some Type Bs are still on the loose.  Lots of Dregs which the city tolerates unless they make too much of a spectacle or are too obvious.  Loads of Subnormals that nobody much cares about as long as they stay out of the way and don’t try to fit into decent society.”
“Have you ever heard of Got Gal?” She asked, curious.
He shrugged: “Nope.  Should I have?”

“Okay, one last question,” She said.  “How do you fly?”
“The belt,” he said.  “Coded to my DNA so there’s no point trying to steal it.  Special equipment for S.O.A.P. agents.”
“Can it be tracked?” She asked.
“What do you think?” He asked slyly.  “When we don’t check in they’ll come looking for me.”
“Good,” Got Gal said.  “That means I don’t have to worry about getting you medical attention.  Good luck with those broken arms.  Multiple fractures I think.  I doubt you’ll be playing racketball any time soon.”  He swore at her.   She just laughed.
“Oh,” she added.  “You tell your bosses Got Gal’s back and I’m going to clean up this town! The way Wild Bill did Abilene! And I’ll come for anybody that tries to stop me!”
Then she was gone, her lithe form shooting straight up into the sky.

Now what?  Got Gal hovered just above the low clouds where she couldn’t be easily seen.    She used to have a nice apartment somewhere in the city, she knew that.  But try as she might she could not remember where it had been.  Which also meant she had no civilian clothes, no belongings.  Where and how was she going to rest?  And eat?  Surely she wasn’t the only one to find this new reality strange and jarring?  What she really needed was a few dependable allies.  What heroes had he said were still active?  Captain Courage?  She seemed to remember he was quite a bigwig.  Was he worth checking out?

Issue #004 – – – – – controlled by Wayne Gildroy – – – – – Credits 90

Oakheart wanted to intervene, he really did.  But he could not see how it was possible.  Unlike some of the other heroes that frequented the city Oakheart could not simply remove a mask, take off a cape or put on a pair of spectacles and lose himself in the crowd.  Oakheart was a living tree.  The words ‘inconspicuous’ and ‘living tree’ are seldom seen together, unless you’re in a forest or a jungle.  Neither did he want to lose himself in the city park.  It was a large area and he had no doubt he could avoid the authorities for a long time, but eventually they would track him down.  Even rooted (and he wasn’t keen to do that again, who knew how long he’d sleep for this time!) they’d have some method of detection of other.

Meanwhile, the very young man who apparently went by the name Park Defender looked like he planned to resist arrest.  “You said you’d been hired,” he told them.  “So you aren’t cops.  You don’t have any powers of arrest.”
“We got all the powers we need,” buzzcut sneered, waving the silver baton thing in the air, “might makes right.”
“Listen, young man,” the woman who had appeared to be a victim, but now appeared to be in charge said: “It doesn’t have to get unpleasant.  It’s much easier for us if you go quietly.  We get paid the same either way and I don’t have any interest in causing you pain.”
“You’ll get enough of that at The Institute,” one of the others laughed, before a steely gaze from the woman silenced him.
Apparently deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, Park Defender vanished.  Invisible!
The woman sighed.  “Get him,” she said.

Abruptly, the air was full of gunfire.  Bullets whined and whistled through the air.  A crackling energy beam burst from the end of that mysterious silver rod.  The quiet night became a scene of noise, bright light and chaos, but only for a few very loud seconds.  Then all was still again for a moment, before a thump on the path indicated that Park Defender had slumped to the ground.  There, he re-materialised, a sorry little figure riddled with wounds, curled up in a foetal position on the hard tarmac path.  A pool of dark red blood grew around him.

“Shit,” the woman sounded slightly regretful.  But only slightly.  “It didn’t have to go down like that, kid.”
The group moved forwards and stood around the fallen would-be hero.  “Bag him,” she said.  One of the group produced a black canvas sack, apparently from a hiding place in the darkness of the underpass.  They unceremoniously stuffed his body into the carrier and then loaded that onto a simple stretcher made from two metal rods and some stiff netting.  Oakheart saw that his face was covered.  Clearly the young man was dead – or they didn’t care enough either way to check.

Oakheart stared in shock.  It had all happened so quickly.  He had never expected they would just gun the young hero down.  He simply couldn’t believe what had just happened.  Should he have intervened?  Perhaps – but his logic was flawless.  Until he knew what was going on he couldn’t afford to make too public a display.  Somebody like him was just too easy to find.  Nevertheless, as he looked at the small, sorry-looking form inside the sack being carted away by the group his heart felt heavy.  He felt – responsible – somehow.   Still, there was nothing he could do.  Quietly, sadly, Oakheart blended back into the darkness and foliage of the park.

Oakheart spent the remaining hours until dawn exploring the park, with particular focus on its boundaries.  Given its central location, the City Park gave access to three distinct parts of the city.  At one end it was overlooked by the glitzy hotels and neon-lit nightspots of Helix Point.  At the other it opened into the run-down, dingy and often downright strange streets of Downtown.  While a small part of the Western edge, where the Duck Lake drew fisherman and families on sunny days, was a direct access to the The Port.  Truth is, with the exception of Madden Heights, there wasn’t much of the city you couldn’t quickly reach from the park.

The hero was still struggling to piece his memories together.  Not given to pointless pondering, Oakheart decided not to dwell on how his mind had become so scrambled.  He was fairly sure that, now he was aware again, answers would begin to emerge.  Instead he was trying to get a picture of how the city itself had changed.  It was dramatic.  Oakheart had vague but fond memories or a colourful, lively metropolis – with it’s problems, sure, but still a positive and upbeat place to live.  That place had gone.  In its stead was this new dark, strange city full of ominous buildings, drenched in shadows.  Oakheart, being of the natural world in a way, was well-tuned to the sort of atmospherics that humans could not detect.  What he was picking up was a dark kind of menace.  An oppressive heavy gloom that seemed to hang over everything like a terrible storm cloud.

“Hmmm,” Oakheart pondered.  His mind kept going back to that pool of dark, dark blood that had spread around the Park Defender.  He couldn’t shake the image from his mind.  He was standing in a place he had always enjoyed, a small clearing with an old fountain in the middle.  There was no path to it, it was a secret that Oakheart and only a few doughty park explorers had stumbled upon, but it was surrounded by a palpable sense of peace.  There on the stonework Oakheart could see the old graffiti he’d noticed many times before.  Two names inside a crude scratched love heart.  Sarah and Alan.  Except, Oakheart was fairly sure they weren’t the same names.  Hadn’t it once said Sarah and Pete?  Even the dreamy promises of timelost lovers had no security or conviction anymore.

He sighed.  Everything was different.  Was he different too?  Would the old Oakheart have sat and watched a young man be murdered?  Would he have been content to just let the chips fall as they would?  Clearly, Oakheart had some decisions to make.  Would he remain here, lurking in the shadows of the City Park, unable to take action for fear of the consequences?  His situation was unique.  If he was going to get involved with the world again – he was a hard target to miss.  But somehow he had to.

Issue #003 – – – – – controlled by Ken Thompson – – – – – Credits 36

Racing to the ‘copter, The Midnight Runner reached the big bay windows which slid open automatically.  There the vehicle hovered just beyond the balcony, waiting to transport him to the unfolding crime.  He went to step out and then … stopped.

Very slowly, acting on pure instinct alone, her turned on the spot and back-tracked, looking at the control panel he’d passed in such a hurry.  Looking at the lights that were blinking there.  Looking, particularly, at that little red light.

Breach?  In the Deep Storage Centre?

It wasn’t a dream?

For a moment he was torn by indecision.  On the one hand there were those criminals committing a crime so close.  And they were pirates!  On the other hand his gut was now screaming at him to Pay Attention! to his own circumstances.  Instinct won out.  The Midnight Runner didn’t last this long in the hero business by second-guessing himself.  Long John Silver and his scurvy crew would have to wait.  Something was going on here.

“Xara, pulse rifle please.”  The computer opened the weapons storage cabinet and charged the weapon ready for his use.  Midnight took it from the rack.  It didn’t pack the same punch as his own plasma bolts, but his power base was limited and the rifle was a good backup.  He strode to the private elevator and stepped inside, calling out: “Basement level.”

When the elevator doors opened on the basement level nobody stepped out of the elevator.  At least – nobody visible did.  The Midnight Runner had become invisible en route and was now operating in his best stealth mode.  He moved swiftly across the landing to the silver door which was clearly marked “Private – Staff Only.”  He ran his hand over the panel, which was disguised as a discoloured wall tile and spoke the secret phrase.  The locks unsealed and a hiss of air escaped.  The Midnight Runner crept inside, sealing the door behind him.

Perhaps this wasn’t wise, after all he might need to escape quickly.  But what was down in Deep Storage was dangerous.  Midnight didn’t want to run the risk of an escape.  Not that there was much chance of that.  Nothing down there was actually alive.  But still, you just never knew with things like this.  He had learnt that the hard way.

Moving quietly down the steps, he picked his way by the green emergency lighting.  He didn’t want to trigger anything brighter, so as not to run the risk of alerting any enemy or intruder of his presence.  He hadn’t become a successful security consultant by making rookie mistakes like that.  He didn’t need to anyway.  His own eyesight was enhanced so that even this small amount of light let him see perfectly well.

At the bottom of the steps he peered into the vault.  The chambers were all there, their glass faces lit by the yellow LCD readouts that adorned them.  It was very cool down here and very quiet.  Unsettling, in a way.  He didn’t visit often because he didn’t like the way it made him feel.  Like a morgue.  Which was – of course – what it was in an odd sort of way.

The Midnight Runner crossed the room to the master panel and checked the information.  Much as he’d seen upstairs it confirmed a breach.  Also as per Xara’s information there was little else to be ascertained.  Which was remarkably odd.  Any breach would have triggered in a location – and that location should be clearly shown on the panel.  The fact that it was not indicated a malfunction, but the secondary screen denied any such malfunction had occurred.  “Weird,” Midnight muttered.  He decided the only way to be sure would be to check all the chambers individually.  It wasn’t a task he looked forward to.  It meant thinking about it all.  He didn’t like thinking about it.  Every time he tried to do so he felt sick, or tired, or terrified.  Or all three.  But what had to be done had to be done.

He looked into the first case.  The swaddled figure was in there, as still and cold and lifeless as ever.  He read the label at the top.  “Ultradoll.”  Making a tick on the pad he’d picked up he moved to the second case, which was much larger than the first.  The gigantic form within was secure.  He ticked off “The Devastator.”  As he reached the third case he could immediately see something was wrong.  Athough the case was completely secure, a glance at its contents revealed an empty space.  Whatever had been stored in here was stored in here no longer.  Which was, of course, impossible.  All these guys were dead.  More than that, they weren’t just dead, they didn’t even officially exist.  But this one impossible non-existent individual had apparently escaped, or been stolen.  Just then he heard movement from the far side of the vault.  A finger of dread crept along Midnight’s spine.  He looked at the label on the empty chamber.  “Dark Future.”

Issue #003 – – – – – controlled by Rene Sawatzki – – – – – Credits 4

Countdown’s journey home was uneventful, though he kept his eyes very tightly peeled for any sign of whatever the mystic watch was warning him about.  A lot had changed that was for sure.  The city was completely different.  Gone were the gleaming facias, replaced by drab and discoloured peeling posters and bad paint jobs.  The towering silver skyscrapers were still there, but they were slate grey, or black, their architecture more severe and uglier.  Even those buildings that reached skyward whose fascias were entirely glass managed to have a macabre hue, the dark windows like the black eyes of some predator peering out into the night.

Helix City had always had its share of the homeless, but now they were everywhere.  Every alley had a resident; a group of drunks huddled around a fire, an old man asleep on a pile of soggy cardboard, a wretched woman of indeterminable age hugging her shopping trolley full of refuse and waste like a priceless treasure.  Sometimes, screams pierced the night – their direction and origin unknown.  Nobody seemed to care.  Those people who moved along the highways kept to their own business.  Cars did not slow, good samaritans did not emerge to investigate a disturbance.

Countdown crossed the edge of Downtown and into Helix Point.  Here the city came alive somewhat.  There were just as many vagrants, but these were outnumbered by groups of drunken, boisterous pleasure-seekers, worried-looking tourists and tired workers on their way home from long low-paid shifts.  There were police here, though they didn’t seem too concerned with what was going on.  Countdown saw a purse snatched right in front of two cops, but no attempt was made to pursue the criminal until the woman promised some sort of monetary reward to the officers.  They proceeded to shoot the criminal down on the street and recover the purse.  They did not check the fallen man at all.

It took nearly an hour to reach the edge of Madden Heights.  Countdown lived here.  Not in one of the largest houses – those were the preserve of movie stars, hgh-ranking local politicians, union bosses and other important folk.  But nevertheless his home was luxurious.  Countdown wondered whether it even still was his house anymore.  Upon arrival at the site the question was answered.  His house was not even there.  Where it had stood there was a small copse of trees, carefully landscaped to be a delightful feature here in the richest part of the city.

Of course.  Silly of him really.  Since he did not even exist in this version of reality the house couldn’t possibly be here.  He’d had it built himself, using money he’d earnt from his software business after its brief but successful float on the stock exchange.  But all that was gone.  In this world, there was no John King.  For the first time since all this started the enormity of the situation filtered through.  Perhaps he had been ignoring the unfolding scenario, it’s sheer scale being one that was hard to comprehend.  But the simple fact that his home was not only gone, but had never been, hit him like a hammer.

Laughter nearby caused him to look over his shoulder.  A couple were making their way along the road.  The man, clearly more than a little tipsy, appeared to be partially leaning on the woman for support.  She was laughing.  “Stand up!  What’s the matter with you?” she teased.  “Can’t handle a few pints?  This is just pathetic.”  He could tell from the affection in her voice that the woman was not really angry.  He supposed he should hide – a costumed man may have caused barely a stir in the city centre where superhumans and those who wanted to look like they were superhuman were common, but in Madden Heights it would be a big deal.  He was about to duck into the trees and use his chameleon ability when something made him pause.  He recognised the girl’s voice!

“Look,” she was saying, “I can’t carry you home.  You’re twice my size you big lump!”
Countdown stepped out in front of them.  He was gaping in shock and wonder.  “Shannon?” he asked.
The woman looked up and jumped in fright at the sudden materialisation of a costumed figure on the quiet road in the middle of the night.  “Oh!”
“It’s okay,” Countdown told her.  “I don’t mean you any harm.”
“We haven’t got any money,” The girl said.  He stared intently at her.  It was Shannon.  A little older, but just as beautiful.
“Is your name Shannon Collins?” He asked her.  She nodded, while trying to shake the man leaning on her out of his stupor to warn him of what appeared to be danger unfolding.

Shannon Collins had been John’s girlfriend, briefly, in college.  But his serious nature and her happy-go-lucky impulsiveness had never really worked.  It was something he’d long regretted and had wondered in his idle moments if there’d ever be a chance to fix it.  That chance had ended when, a couple of years ago, he’d heard that she had died in a tragic car accident on the freeway.  He’d been quite upset about it at the time, but had lost himself in work and in his superheroics, as he always tended to do with problems.  Now, here she was.  Alive, apparently, in this remake of the world.

“Do I know you?” Shannon asked him.  She cocked her head to the side in that way that was so familiar and endearing.  For some reason, Countdown took the watch from his pocket and looked at it.  The hands were now spinning so fast that he could barely see them, they were a blur over the etched numerals on the face.  “Maybe,” he said.  He was unsure how much, if anything, he should tell her.  Probably he should tell her nothing, but neither did he want to simply lose touch with her.  As he pondered what to reveal the man on her arm managed to stand straight and looked at him with bleary, drunken eyes.  “Whatchoo wan’? ” the man slurred.  “We don’ wan no trouble.”
Countdown gaped.  The man in front of him was horribly familiar too.  Because it was him.  John King.  A little older.  A lot the worse for wear.  But Countdown was facing an alternative version of himself.

Issue #003 – – – – – controlled by Frank Devocht – – – – – Credits 15

Nelson wanted to stop the Straw Man escaping for two reasons.  The lesser of the two was because he needed information.  This thing had smashed up his club!  (Well, not his club, precisely, but the club he was contracted to protect.)  It had murdered two innocent young women.  He had to find out why and to make sure it, or whoever had sent it, faced justice.  But the main reason was that villains escaping just as they were about to be caught was just so damn obvious.  Nelson hated feeling like a bit player in a cheesy television show and stereotypical last minute escapes were right up there with the things that irritated him the most.

“I’ve got it!”  Wild Thing said as his triple somersault (really?  A triple somersault?  Couldn’t he have just run there?) landed him on the rapidly de-materialising monster.  It vanished into wisps of smoke just as Beast Nelson went to grab it.  “Well, I had it,” Helk sighed.  Nelson spat some unprintable invective into the air which caused Wild Thing to raise his hands in supplication: “Sorry man!  I gave it my best shot.  It turned to smoke.  What was I supposed to do?  Inhale it?”  Which reminded Nelson that Helk was also at the top of his list of personal irritants.

A couple of hours later when the police had finished their cursory “investigation” and the medics had taken the bodies away – Nelson sat in a tiny back room of the club which served as the Security Office, facing Helk.  “I think you have some explaining to do,” he told the hero.  Wild Thing looked shaken and was nursing a stiff brandy that he’d managed to secure from the bar before Nelson had dragged him up here.  “Me?  Why?  I didn’t do anything.”
“This thing murdered the two girls you came here with,” Nelson reminded him.  “It harmed nobody else.  It seemed to want to hurt only you and your guests.  Why?”
“Did I imagine that massive fight where it tried to tear you into pieces then?” Wild Thing shot back.
“I intervened.   It was after you.  You know it too, because you said so.”
“I did?”
“Yep.  When you were still under its fear effect.  You said ‘it’s come to get me!’   So I’m thinking you know something more than you are saying.”
Wild Thing eyed Nelson carefully and took a deep breath.  “You don’t want to get involved in this,” he said.  “It’s my problem.  I don’t want to drag you into it.”
“You didn’t seem to mind dragging those girls into it,” Nelson pointed out.
“I didn’t think they would come after me so publicly.  I thought I was safe unless I was in costume.”
“Why?” I asked.  “You’re one of the few licensed heroes in the city.  Everybody knows who you are.  Why would you be safe out of costume?”
“This group, the ones who want to kill me – they’re clandestine.  They work in the shadows.  They don’t want people to know.”

Beast Nelson was at a crossroads.  On the one hand – this really wasn’t any of his business.  He wasn’t a cop, or a superhero, or anything like that.  He was a bouncer in a nightclub.  He could just leave it where it lay, as it were.  Let the authorities and the heroes deal with their own business.  But then again, this had happened in his club, on his watch.  Those girls, vapid though they had been, were under his charge.  Beast Nelson took things like that seriously.  Also, something about all this was interesting.  He seemed to have spent months, even years, in a fog.  Just going through the motions, almost.  But now he felt a tingle inside him.  It was like waking up.  Nelson made a decision.  “Tell me all of it.  I may be able to help.”

Wild Thing’s story went like this:  “I was on patrol in Helix Point.  It’s one of the areas licensed heroes are allowed to monitor.  I’d just tackled that girl with the goth make-up and icy touch – you know the one, she digs up bodies and then  ransoms them back to grieving families?”
“Jane Doe?” Nelson asked.  He’d seen her in the papers once or twice.
“Yes, that’s the one.  Easy takedown really, no problem.  I was on my way back to base when this black car pulls up and this guy steps out.  He’s dressed in a black business suit but he has a skull facemask.  Didn’t look tough so I was pretty cocky with him.”
“You?” Nelson cocked an eyebrow sarcastically, “I don’t believe it.”
Wild Thing pressed on: “He introduced himself as Death, Esquire.  I had a laugh about that.  I wasn’t laughing for long though.  So this guy, he tells me that I should not be alive and that he’s come to take me back where I belong.  I pointed out that he was crazy.  He says that he’s not, he’s just doing his job.  Then he asks, pleasantly enough, if I’d accompany him voluntarily or if he’d have to take me by force.”
“I’m guessing you chose the latter?” Nelson chuckled.
“I did!  At which point he gives me a business card which says nothing more than his name, gets back in his car and leaves.”

“That’s it?” Beast Nelson asked.
“No.  Since then, six or seven horrible things have come after me.  They claim to be part of something called The Macabre, though I don’t know what that is.  There was a werewolf thing, a couple of zombies, some weird dead-looking woman in a nurse’s outfit, an animated child’s doll and a pack of dogs with green eyes.”
“You fought all these things?” Nelson asked, fascinated by the unlikely story.
“Like heck I did,” Wild Thing shook his head.  “I fought the Werewolf until it became obvious I couldn’t beat it so I ran.  I fought and beat the zombies, they were no problem,” he looked a little embarrassed.  “For the rest, I chose to make myself scarce.”
“You ran away from a nurse?” Nelson asked, incredulously.
“Hey!  You’re mighty judgemental for a guy who seems to have forgotten the dead-looking part of that story!”
“You also ran away from a toy,” Nelson reminded him.
“An Animated  Child’s Doll.  Have you not seen Chucky?  You don’t mess with that shit!”

“So, this supervillain.  Or supervillain team, perhaps.  Has taken a dislike to you.  Their premise is that you are ‘supposed to be dead’ and their goal is to actually make you dead.  Is that a fair summary of your situation?”  Nelson asked.
Wild Thing looked at the ground.  “Yes.”
“And you, a licensed glamorous city superhero are spending most of your time running away from them?” Nelson added.
“Pretty much,”  Helk agreed.  “I’ve tried to be blase about it.  I’ve stayed out of costume except to meet the minimum hours required to keep my licensed status.  I’ve tried to go on normally.  But it seemed like its getting worse.  The things Death, Esquire is sending after me are getting worse.”
“Sounds like you need help,” Beast Nelson mused.  He was owed some time off from the club.  He could take a vacation and look into this.  But why did he want to?  Nelson didn’t precisely know.  But this was the most awake he’d felt in quite some time.  It was a feeling he wasn’t keen to lose.
“Will you help me?” Wild Thing asked.  He was a flashy, egotistical, cocky irritant.  But he wasn’t a bad guy.  Nelson looked him up and down and sighed.
“Yes,” the black-furred bouncer said.  “I think I will.”

Issue #003 – – – – – controlled by Sarah Saunders – – – – – Credits 15

I was sitting in a dark booth at the rear end of some dive bar called Viktor’s.  I’d never heard of it before.  Which is odd because I thought I knew Downtown pretty well.  Though I suppose I should not be surprised by anything that occurs in Downtown, given the weird, shifting nature of the place.  But I was fairly sure that last time I’d chanced down this street there had been a Chinese launderette here.  Not any more.

“Okay, spill,” I told Melderact, who looked faintly ridiculous squashed onto a wooden stall in his Victorian-esque halloween getup.  “What’s this all about?”  The Wizard, if he really was a wizard, had led Imo and I from the parking lot to this location at quite a pace.  Along the way he had cast a spell and now an illusion made Imo look like a young, dark-haired man.  A good-looking young dark-haired man, I had to admit.  Best not to think about that, given that beneath the facade he was still a writhing, tentacular horror with almost no higher brain functions.

“I will do my best,” Melderact said.  “Though this is just what I have pieced together from my own magical research.”
“Understood,” I agreed.
“I first became aware that something was wrong about three months ago.  I was working in a cabaret show as a stage magician.  One evening I realised that my assistant, useless whelp of a girl whose head was filled with make-up where her brains were supposed to be, had forgotten to load the pigeons.”
“She’d forgotten to what?” I asked.
“The end of my act involved causing a flock of pigeons to burst from my top hat.  The pigeons were loaded beneath the table and with some sleight-of-hand I opened the cage and the pigeons emerged from behind the hat.  It was quite effective.”
“Oh yes,” my voice dripped sarcasm, “It sounds like a real highlight.  I bet they came from miles around.”
“Hmph,” Melderact grumped, “As I was saying, the stupid girl had not loaded the pigeons.  I pulled the catch and no pigeons came.”
“Embarrassing,” I nodded.  “What did you do?”
“It was so sudden.  I was caught off-guard.  I panicked, because back then I still thought I was normal and this was my livelihood.  In the spur of the moment it was like something shifted in my mind.  A memory, a fragment, or something more.”
“What did you do?” I asked again.
“I summoned the pigeons.  Which would have been a good result had they not been bloodthirsty vampire pigeons.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, after a moment of just gawping at him.  “Did you say vampire pigeons?”
“Sadly yes.  I was as surprised as anybody.  They fell upon the audience and gorged themselves.  It was quite spectacular.  Um.  Uh.  I mean it was quite spectacularly horrifying.  I knew they would turn on me also, so I fled.”
“You left your summoned vampire pigeons to murder the crowd while you ran away?”
“Please understand,” Melderact said.  “I did not know I had any power to do otherwise.  Not then.  But over the next few weeks my powers grew.  Well, not grew, precisely, though that was how it seemed at the time.  My powers returned.”
“Okay.  So now you realise you are actually some kind of powerful sorceror?”
“Something like that,” Melderact said shiftily.  His eyes flashed, as if there were more to it, but he did not elucidate.  “Once I regained spells that let me ask questions of dark powers I began to investigate what was really going on.  This was when I discovered the truth.  This world is not my world.  Nor is this world your world, Sulis.  This is a false world.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.  I’ve often found that when an evil mastermind is on a roll, its best to just prompt them to keep revealing more.  They like it.
“The world as it was appears to have ended in some catastrophe.  Something has remade reality and whatever it is that has done so has managed the project with extreme prejudice.  The world has been remade with an agenda.  I do not know what that agenda is, but I have begun to find flaws.  Weaknesses.  And where there are weaknesses I believe there is a chance.”
“A chance for what?” I asked.
“A chance to put it all back as it was.  As it should be.”

“What sort of flaws?” Imo asked.  Both Melderact and I turned to face him, our jaws open.
“Did he just…?” Melderact asked.
“Imo?  Did you say something?” I prompted.
“Sure.  I wondered what sort of flaws he could see.  I wondered if he would recognise a mindless man-monster that preyed on innocent people in the sewers becoming a loyal sidekick to a superhero as a flaw?” The young man who was the illusionary face of my ally looked earnest and concerned.
“Yes, indeed.” Melderact nodded.  “In this new reality things have shifted and changed.  People have new roles.  The passage of their lives has taken different turns.  In some cases utterly and completely different.  But none of this is real, or right.  It has been moulded this way, but the mould has not set.  It can be undone, I am sure of it.”
“But wouldn’t that make me a mindless monster again?” Imo asked.
“It may, yes.”  Melderact acknowledged.  I said nothing, so stunned was I to hear Imo talking this way.  “But in this version of reality, darkness is in the ascendant.  The world will grow dimmer and more frightening with each passing year until eventually there will be no light left at all.  In this world, the end really is nigh.  Surely, as a hero,” and he addressed this final enjoinder to me, “You are driven to stop that?”
“Perhaps,” I agreed.  “If you are telling me the whole truth.  But that doesn’t explain why you want to.  You like all the darkness and death, don’t you?”
“On my own terms, in my own way,” Melderact grinned.  “Not as the puppet of some unseen force.  I am no man’s puppet!”

I turned to Imo, “What do you think?”  But the face stared blankly back at me.  The light of intelligence had gone from the illusion’s eyes.  The creature was mindless, or mute at the very least, once more.  “What do you propose?” I asked the Wizard.
“I propose that you and I gather allies to ourselves from the dark corners of this city.  Downtown, of course, is the perfect place to start.  This instrusion on the true reality is otherworldly in nature.  It stands to reason that only otherworldy, or supernatural, forces can turn the tide.  Of all the super-powered people that call Helix City home, you have always been the most comfortable in such an environment.  The allies I seek to gather will not respond well to a dark voice such as mine.  But you?  They will like you.  They will listen to you.  This is why I ask for your help.”
“You want me to be some kind of supernatural public relations agent?  For an evil wizard?  I don’t think so.”
“There is nobody else who understands the true nature of what is happening, Sulis.  It’s my road, or the high road.  And the high road leads to Hell.”  I slumped in my chair and took a sip of my drink.  Damn it if he wasn’t right.  Sort of.  “Trouble is,” I told him, remembering the goblins from earlier.  “I’m not sure that both roads might not lead to Hell.”
“Yes,” Melderact nodded, holding out his hand and waiting for me to shake.  “You may be right.”

Issue #003 – – – – – controlled by Fraser Machin – – – – – Credits 0

“The whole talking in unison thing?” Lionheart said.  “It’s creepy.  Do you have to practice to do that or does it come natural?”
“Come with us,” the strange Tophat twins said, indicating that the hero should take the large exit doors that were flanked by the green-garbed minions.  But Lionheart had other ideas.  He wasn’t keen on forfeiting his arms, but neither did he think there was much future in hanging around being a dancing bear for these mooks.  He could see that above the arena, where the majority of the crowd were gathered looking down on the fight, there was a green “exit” sign.  Health and safety.  You’ve gotta love it.

With one spring Lionheart was over the guards and at the wall.  He went up the wall in two leaps, agile as a cat, and vaulted the bars into the crowd.  They screamed a lot.  Lionheart laughed, thinking that there was no way the surprised guards were going to shoot into their paying audience.  He was wrong.  Almost immediately, flashes of red light sizzled into the crowd and onlookers shrieked and cried in panic.  Lionheart pushed his way through them, making no real attempt to be gentle.  After all, just a moment before, these people had been demanding his death.

Two green guards appeared in front of him blocking his way to the fire exit.  “Stop in the name of the The Gentleman King,” said one.
“The who?” Lionheart asked, genuinely puzzled.  But the guards showed no interest in enlightening him further, instead firing their weapons at him.  One missed, but the other caught him on the arm.  The burn was painful, but not debilitating.  “You’re going to need something that packs a bit more punch,” Lionheart told him, before knocking him sideways with a casual backhand.  The other guard trembled for a moment, then fled.  Lionheart took a moment to glance back and could see the Tophat Twins had made it upstairs and were striding through the screaming crowd towards him purposefully.  He decided not to hang about – after all, he had no idea what their powers were.

“Stop, do not leave,” said a voice in his head.  Which immediately answered the question as to what their powers were.  Psionics.  Lionheart hated psionics.
“I don’t think so,” he said and tried to push the fire exit open.  He could not move.  Crap.
“For your impertinence and for disobeying the command of our master, the Gentleman King, you will be severely punished,” the mind-voice told him.
“Oh will I?” Lionheart asked, though he did it with his real voice not in his head.  He wasn’t going to play their games.  As he spoke the hero forced himself to turn around.  The command forbid him leaving.  So Lionheart decided to obey it.  Instead of fleeing, he marched straight towards the TopHat Twins.

Speed was the key.  Before the pair could formulate a new mental command, Lionheart was on them.  Guards shot at him, winging him several time with their lasers.  It was really, really irritating, but his tough skin held out against the worst of the damage.  Lionheart took his anger and frustration out on the two creepy idiots in the little hats.  The first went down under his claws, raked from chest to neck and spilling blood into the aisles.  It wouldn’t kill him, but he was going to need a lot of care for quite some time.  With one out of the way, the hero rose and faced the other, blood covering his hands and chest.   “Your turn,” he grinned.
The remaining TopHat Twin seemed to have lost his bluster entirely and turned to run.  Lionheart was having none of it.  He kicked the man’s legs away, sending him tumbling across the floor and marched after him, delivering punches and kicks in a devastating series of painful blows.

The hero stood over the unconscious body of his fallen enemy and roared.  The crowd had mostly escaped now and only a half-dozen green-garbed guards remained.  Lionheart had taken a lot of hits from those weapons and he was still hurt from the earlier fight.  He felt woozy, but he was running on pure adrenalin.  “Get out, now, or I will lose my good humour,” he told the guards flatly.  They saw murder in his eyes and they fled.  “Huh,” Lionheart muttered, “Who’d have thought?  Minions ain’t what they used to be.”  Now the area was clear he marched back down into the arena and entered the holding area.  Half-a-dozen tough-looking customers sat behind bars glaring at him.  He popped the locks.  “You’re free,” he told them.  “I’d get out quickly.  I have a feeling the Gentleman King, whoever he is, is going to find out what has happened here and I doubt he’ll like it much.  I expect he’ll send reinforcements and bigger guns in short order.”

Without waiting to find out how these prisoners took to their new found freedom Lionheart marched away.  The fire exit led out into a parking lot somewhere in the city center.  Apparently some kind of underground extension to a popular nightspot.  The fresh night air was bitter, but exhilarating.  He took a lungful and tried to ignore the growing pain of his extensive wounds.  Now, Lionheart thought.  Time to work out just where he was.  Who he was.  And what the Hell was going on.

Issue #003 – – – – – controlled by Bill Treadwell – – – – – Credits 16

Cassandra arrived back at her apartment a little after ten.  Her body felt drained, all the strength and vitality leached out of her.  She slipped into her tiny kitchen and dropped the bucket of fried chicken on the table – a treat she’d picked up on the way back from work.

She took some time to search her small home.  For what?  She didn’t know.  But she searched nonetheless, eyes peeled for anything strange or unusual or suspicious.  Finding nothing untoward she flicked the radio on.  Harry Neptune, the shock-jock who commanded the evening talkie slot on a local station she enjoyed crackled from the speakers.  He was in heavy debate with a caller from Downtown somewhere about some kind of urban “vampire” that the nutjob said was stalking the neighbourhood.  Cassandra smiled ruefully.  They were crazy down there.

The answering machines ready light shone its monotonous green.  No messages.  Of course there were no messages.  Who was going to call?  Some concerned friend?  Cassandra’s friends were all with the force and a fair few of them had just been killed.  Odd that she didn’t feel the appropriate remorse.  Some kind of denial?  She should probably think about getting some counselling.   But that was for tomorrow.  Tonight, she was going to unwind and try to piece together what the hell had happened today.

Picking listlessly at her food, Cassandra wondered if she should set a trap of some kind.  After all you never knew when a supervillain was going to creep into your room in the night, right?  Almost immediately she realised how crazy this sounded.  Supervillain?  Why would a supervillain come to her home?  She was just a cop.  Nobody special, particularly.  Cassandra Stormsov, one of the Bullies who policed the city.  Though, she admitted, policing was probably a poor description of the job that was done given how illiberally their services were available.

At some point she drifted off to sleep in her easy chair, its comfortable old shape so perfectly fitting her form after years of use both familiar and strangely unfamiliar.   She lost herself in vague dreams of some other place and some other people.

Blink.

Cassandra’s eyes snapped open.  The lounge was almost completely dark, lit only by a shaft of moonlight that found its way down the middle of her imperfectly-drawn curtains.  But she was immediately wide awake.  Her mind was saying: “Listen.  Be aware.  Danger.”  It was so real, so potent, that she could not ignore it.  It felt like some sixth sense had switched on in her head.  Sixth sense.  Cassandra felt like she should know what this meant, but the memory remained ethereal.

She stood up and moved across her lounge, comfortable in the darkness, her steps confident.  She pulled open the curtains and let the silvery moonlight stream in.  The room was empty.  No danger lurked here.  But still Cassandra’s mind said otherwise and she chose to pay attention to it.  She was not about to start second-guessing herself at every turn.  That would be both pointless and tiresome.

“Whoever you are,” she said aloud, “You might as well reveal yourself. I know you’re there.”  As she spoke she carefully withdrew her pistol from its hiding place taped beneath the window sill – one of several she had secreted around her home.  She clicked the safety off and readied the weapon.  “This is your only chance to get out of this without a lot of bullet holes.”

In one corner of the room, by the television she rented but so rarely switched on, the darkness shifted slightly.   There.  Cassandra took a firm stance and pointed the pistol.  “Come on,” she coaxed.  “Show yourself.  Last chance.”  A form materialised in the gloom.  It was as if pieces of the darkness came together, like a spectral jigsaw assembling itself into the shape of a woman.  Then Cassandra could see her – tall, dressed entirely in black save for the tiny logo on her right breast, a half-mask covering her face above the mouth.  “There’s no need to shoot me,” the woman said.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Cassandra told her.  “Why are you hiding in my apartment?”
“I don’t mean you any harm.  I’ve been watching you.”
“Watching me?  Why?  For how long?” Cassandra asked her.
“I was with the gang in the alley.  I wasn’t in costume then and I was one of the ones who got away.  I didn’t go far.  I saw what you did.  Your actions … they were … odd.”
Cassandra knew this was true but wasn’t about to share her confusing situation with this stranger.  “So?” She demanded.
“I know you have powers.  But the Bullies don’t seem to have identified you and you aren’t licensed.  How is that?”
“I don’t have powers,” Cassandra laughed.  But as she did so, something in her mind shifted.  Powers?  Did she have powers?
“You do.  I sensed them when I saw you in the alley, but they were faint.  Then when you left the police station they were stronger.  I waited until you fell asleep and entered your apartment, I was going to look through your things and try to work out who, or what, you were.  But then I sensed your powers blossom.  You woke up.  You seemed to sense me in a similar way to my own ability to sense you.  It’s fascinating.”

“Look,” Cassandra said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.  You’ve trespassed into my home and you are lurking in the darkness behind my TV.  You say you mean no harm but I’ve yet to meet somebody friendly who creeps around like that.  So, give me one good reason why I shouldn’t shoot you in the leg and then drag you to the station for processing.”
“If you go back to the police station now,” the masked woman said.  “They will know you for what you are.  Your powers are too great to avoid detection.”
“I don’t believe you,” Cassandra said flatly  But it was a lie.  She did believe her.  Cassandra had no idea how, or why, but it felt right.

Her eyes shifted to the little cabinet in the alcove.  She walked over there, drawn by the ringing in her mind, by that annoying noisy sense that seemed to have switched on in her brain and would not shut up.  The masked woman just watched as Cassandra pulled the cabinet open.  She hadn’t opened it in years.  Had she ever opened it?  She wasn’t sure.  Inside there was a costume, hanging on a hook.  A Vermilion catsuit.  A domino mask.  A black leather jacket with a spider symbol.  “What the hell?” she gaped, amazed.
“Is that yours?” the masked woman strode over and stood beside her.  “Have a little secret, do we?”
“No, I don’t!” Cassandra insisted.  She wasn’t afraid of the woman, her senses were not warning her of danger any longer.  She could not take her eyes off the costume because now, as she saw it, a set of memories began to trickle back.  Memories of another life, another place, another world.
“This life isn’t my life,” she realised.  “Something has happened.  Something has screwed with my mind.  I don’t belong here.”
“You aren’t the first person I’ve heard say that,” the masked woman said.  “My name is Hourglass.  Let me take you to Viktor’s?  There are people there who can help you understand what is happening.”

Issue #003 – – – – – controlled by Keith Nixon – – – – – Credits 113

“Greg,” one of the flying men said, “Careful.  We don’t know what she can do.”
The man he had called Greg laughed.  “We know all the A-Type Abnormals are dead, captured or licensed.  We know all the loose B-Type’s and she doesn’t look like any report I’ve seen.  Which means she’s another dreg, like all the others.”  Got Gal flew very slowly towards the group, smiling demurely and keeping his little arms behind her back (effectively concealing the batons she was carrying, while accentuating her chest – which seemed to have a hypnotic effect on the men.)  “Your name is Greg?” she asked.  “That sounds a bit mean, calling me a Dreg.”
“Don’t let that worry you, honeypants,” he chuckled.  “That’s what we call all the C-Types.  One or two weak powers and a silly mask.  Look at it this way, at least they won’t be taking you to The Institute for dissection.  You’ll probably get some jail time and then you’ll be put to work in one of the government programs.  It’s not so bad.”
“I do need some help,” Got Gal agreed innocently, closing the space between her and the group.

While the asshole with the big mouth talked, Got Gal had been assessing the situation.  The men had pistols on their hips, though they didn’t look like conventional weapons.  Some kind of ray gun, she surmised.  They had made no attempt to draw them.  It was the whole thing with the bikini and the girly look that always caught them off guard.  They presumed she was no threat.  That suited Got Gal just fine.

“Okay, hun,” Greg said, pulling some handcuffs from his belt.  “Let’s get these on you and we can guide you gently back to base.  Unless you want to go somewhere first?” he leered.  “That sounds ever so nice,” Got Gal agreed, as she swung the baton from behind her back.  The bar hit Greg on the side of the head, sending him spinning through the air.  Before the second man had a chance to respond Got Gal delivered a kick between his legs, which would have hurt him if a normal girl had done it.  Got Gal was no normal girl.  She had once kicked a football into the air and had never seen it come back down.  She didn’t know for sure – but she may have kicked it into space.  What that power did to Greg’s friend’s testicles was probably not something to dwell on.  Suffice to say, he screamed like child, then lost consciousness and fell out of the sky.  “What’s the matter?”  Got Gal called after him.  “You don’t want to go somewhere, anymore?”

“So,” Got Gal smiled at the third man, who had managed to pull his ray gun (or whatever the hell that was) from his belt.  “You ready to play?”
“Look, lady, you better surrender or I’ll shoot!” He told her.  He looked terrified.
“What’s the matter?” Got Gal asked.  “Am I not as easy to beat as the other ‘dregs’ you’ve attacked?”
“It’s not possible,” the man said.  “We’ve got data on all the unlicensed Abnormals in the city.  The Institute know when somebody new arrives.  Where have you come from?”
“This is where I live,” Got Gal smiled as she let the turbulence jiggle her in the air (sometimes that distracted them.  Sadly, this one was just too scared to feel amorous.)
The man fired his weapon, which released a purple and green laser that flashed through the air and struck her left shoulder.  Got Gal thought two things simultaneously.  The first was: yes!  It was a ray gun.  I knew it!  The second was: Ouch.

“My turn,” said Got Gal and shot through the air at a phenomenal speed.  She could fly pretty darn fast when she wanted to.  The man clearly wasn’t expecting her to be able to move this quickly and failed to get off another shot before she crashed into him, pummelling him with the batons she was carrying.  She pulled her blows a little.  The other two men had gone down so easily she realised they didn’t have much in the way of protection against somebody as strong as she was.  She wasn’t too keen on killing anybody else (she was pretty sure the guy with the smashed cohones had probably not survived the fall.)  Although the man tried his best to fend off her blows with his arms, that only led to both his arms being broken.  She knocked him out on the sixth or seventh strike and then – aware from earlier that they couldn’t fly if they weren’t conscious – caught him around the waist to prevent the fatal plummet to his doom.

Glancing around, Got Gal couldn’t see where Greg had gotten to.  Last she’d seen he was spinning off to the South-East.  Never mind, she had one for questioning.  Maybe, when he came around, she could get some answers.  Though she had probably better do something about the broken arms and wounds.  He wouldn’t be able to answer any questions if he was dead.  She should probably also make herself scarce.  If these men were some official officers of the law they would soon be missed – and people would come looking for them.  To complicate matters somewhat, now that the battle was over and the adrenalin easing up, her shoulder was really, really hurting.

Issue #003 – – – – – controlled by Wayne Gildroy – – – – – Credits 92

As he approached the underpass, Oakheart considered two possibilities.  First, that this was exactly what it seemed – a woman who had (foolishly) ventured into the park and been waylaid by a group of the sort of thugs that seem to like dark, quiet places so much.  But then there was the second possibility.  A lure or a trap of some kind?  Oakheart decided to move cautiously – after all he was still quite unsure what had happened to him.

Instead of marching up the path, Oakheart moved through the foliage, which parted easily for him.  Generally, Oakheart’s size and weight made him noisy, but moving through park areas he was very quiet indeed.  It was his domain, of sorts.  When he was close enough to peer into the entrance he froze still and looked, for all intents and purposes, like just another tree.  Unless you looked closely enough to see he was no longer rooted in the ground.

Beneath the bridge he could see five gangers; four men and a woman.  They were dressed in the “uniform” of their kind: denim, leathers, tattoos, so stereotypical that Oakheart nearly laughed.  Did they outfit themselves from some special mall for the criminally-minded?  Gangs-R-Us?  Their victim, laying prostrate on the floor, was an attractive middle-aged woman.  Her smart business jacket and blouse were muddy and torn.  Her dark grey skirt ridden halfway up her thigh, apparently as a result of her trying to scramble away from her tormentors.

There were several things wrong with this scene.  First, while Oakheart did not claim to be an expert in the behaviour of women, or indeed of normals, he was surprised that she wasn’t trying to pull her skirt back down.  In his experience, women who feel vulnerable take quick action to restore modesty.  Of course, she may just be too terrified to have considered it.  But then – he thought it odd that she was so muddy, given that the path she had fallen on was tarmac.  Certainly he’d had expected scuffing and dirt, but mud?  Also, for a gang that had been threatening violence, or rape, or both – they didn’t seem to be rushing to actually do her any harm.  Perhaps they just enjoyed toying with their prey, but Oakheart still thought the situation suspicious.  It just seemed so contrived.  From the flash of bare skin to the helpless wails that the gang were making no attempt to silence.

“Leave the girl alone,” said a voice from somewhere.  Oakheart peered around, he couldn’t see anybody at all.  The Gangers reacted by rising to their feet.
“Who said that?” said the guy with the buzz-cut.
“It doesn’t matter who said it,” came the voice again, “Get out of here or you’ll wish you had.”   Though the voice was gravelly, Oakheart thought that this was affected.  There were moments when the gravel disappeared and the voice was reedy for a second.  Somebody was doing their best to sound like the voice-over from an action movie advert but their acting skills weren’t well-honed.  “I don’t think so,” screeched the girl ganger, “You gonna make us?” Again, Oakheart was struck by the idea that this voice was not her real voice, but a pretence.  Though she was better at it than the unknown hero.

Just then a colourful character appeared.  Dressed in a light green bodysuit adorned by a logo on the chest of a shield with a leaf in its center, the (very) young man was standing in the middle of the path with his back to Oakheart’s location.  He wore a black full-face mask and a short black cape.  In his hands he carried a pair of tonfu; the short wooden t-shaped batons that cops called ‘nightsticks’.  Hmmm, Oakheart thought.  He has either teleported in, or he was invisible, or he is very good at hiding and moving stealthily.  He looked very young though. Perhaps only fourteen or fifteen, by the slight build and diminutive form.  “Step away from the lady,” the young man declared again, forgetting his deep voice on the first two words so that the effect was almost comical as he went from high to low mid-sentence.  The gangers laughed. “Or you’ll what?” said one, pulling a snub-nosed pistol from his belt and aiming it at the hero. “Or I’ll make you,” said the young man.  Though he didn’t sound quite so sure.

The fallen woman leapt to her feet and brought her own pistol out.  The other gang members also drew firearms, except for Buzzcut who pulled a long metal tube that flashed silver in the halflight.  Oakheart didn’t have time to wonder what that was. He had to decide whether to intervene or not.

The “victim” spoke now: “Park Defender, you are under arrest for the crimes of conducting vigilante behaviour and of the unlicensed use of abnormal powers.  I suggest you surrender and come voluntarily with us or we will have no choice but to use force to apprehend you.”
“You were too easy man,” Buzzcut laughed, “Falling for a sting like this. Hardly seems worth hiring us.  Could have used the Bullies to take you down.”
“Shut up, Mark,” the woman told him.
“I’m not the Park Defender,” the young man said, all attempts at a low voice gone as he looked visibly shaken.  “I’m going to a fancy dress party?” he tried.
“Oh come on,” the woman sighed.  “You were invisible when you got here.  Did you buy that trick from the costume shop too?”

Park Defender looked like he was thinking about running.  He glanced around and Oakheart could see his muscles tensing.  “Don’t do it,” the woman said, mildly.  “Even if you turn invisible again, we will all spray the area with bullets. Chances are, you’ll be dead.  Is that really how you want to end your night?”
“But I haven’t done anything wrong,” Park Defender quailed.  “I’m just trying to help.”
“What you’re doing is illegal, young man,” the woman pointed out.  “And you’re going to jail.  Or The Institute.  Depending on how interesting the boffins think your brain is.”  The gangers, who apparently were not gangers at all, laughed at that.  Oakheart didn’t think it sounded funny at all.