Post by dans on Jun 17, 2017 23:18:01 GMT
Introduction
Time: 1962 Location: Georwell
Background: The Imperium of Georwell has been engaged in war with the Rizards of the Rim Worlds since 1954. The Rizards have experienced a number of costly defeats in recent battles. Rizard emissaries have asked for, and been granted, a truce, and diplomats for both sides are currently negotiating a treaty. During this lull, a number of members of the Justice Machine have been rotated back to Georwell for R&R, though most remain stationed on planets near the new boundaries of the shrunken Rim Worlds Alliance.
The players: Arbalest, Giant, Challenger, Light-Wave, the Flame, Fricton, Farad and Denizen of the Justice Machine. Pheon, Arbalest's partner, Lanny Xu, a friend of the Flame, Thermaturge and Prism Princess, villainous members of Fricton's Rascal Roster. The captain, navigator and communicator of the Furtive, a small spaceship. Wyl and Jonny, two Terror Troopers assigned as aides to Light-Wave. Wynda the Witch, an applicant for membership in the Justice Machine. Several more players will enter the stage presently.
Where Have all the Heroes Gone?
Arbalest & Pheon
Arbalest (Mance Baron) and his lover and partner Pheon (Sunrise Gale) were preparing for their nightly flycycle patrol over the Astro City District of Vanguard City. Centuries ago, Vanguard City had grown to engulf Astro City, and eventually the entire Third Continent of Georwell was buried beneath the sprawling megalopolis as well, but most districts of the amoebic city still retained their ancient names. In their secret sanctuary, under a blanket of buildings almost half a mile thick, Pheon had watched as the Midnight Marksman programmed the flycycles' 'crime computers' to alert the heroes if their radio frequency sensors detected the transmission of specific digital codes.
"Gosh, Mance, it's good to have you home! Those Invisible Bandits have been giving me the slip for weeks. After I figured out how the Invisibles are hiding, I asked the technicians at the Citadel of Justice for those digital dissonance codes". The Doughty Dart's frustration was evident in her tone. "Those idiots said the codes were classified, and I didn't have a high enough security clearance!"
"You know how it is, babe," the Gritty Gladiator responded seriously. "If these guys are really wearing Top Secret Government Issue camouflage armor, as you suspect, the military doesn't want the digital dissonance signature codes in public hands if an enemy got them, the suits would be useless. It's 'kill before reading' kinda stuff."
He smiled, admiring his tall, athletically built partner, with her long brown hair in a single braid, dressed in a dark blue tunic, thigh-high black leather boots, beret and domino mask, with a quiver of crossbow bolts on her back and a sheathed stiletto strapped to her left calf. "Don't fret too much, Light-Wave has promised me you'll be inducted with the next group of Justice Machine recruits, probably next week."
"That's great!" she smiled as well, her frustration tempered by the prospect of some action. "Meanwhile, let's go catch these Invisible Bandits. I owe them, big time, for the vexation and embarrassment they've caused me!"
The two headed for the landing pad and their cycles. Just before they took off, she spoke again, hesitantly. "The new costume is sort of, well, scary. Are you sure you're not taking this 'Grim and Gritty Spectre of the Night' thing too far?"
He shrugged. "Light-Wave thought I was too vulnerable in my old costume. So Research Central created a new costume of armor cloth. Plus, the new color scheme of dark gray and black makes me very tough to see in the dark." Every inch of his skin was covered in dark gray armor cloth and his head was covered with a grim black helmet. "Got some nice gadgets built in, too. Makes me a LOT tougher than I used to be."
"Well, I liked the old outfit better. But I have to admit, your costume really matches your rep now!"
A couple hours later, they'd foiled a mugging and helped a little girl get her pet logi down from the roof of her house. Pheon was starting to wonder if maybe the Invisible Bandits really were invisible and not just wearing camouflage suits, when their crime computers triggered their alarms. Neither hero could see anything out of the ordinary with the naked eye, but their computer-enhanced heads-up displays showed two blurry humanoid figures on the roof ahead.
"Say, Pheon, unless those guys are government agents, I think we've found the 'Invisible Thieves'!" Arbalest chuckled over their highly encrypted, ultra-low power radio link. "Good job, figuring out they were using camo suits!"
A quick touch on the computer keypad called up the most recent update on the Invisible Thieves. "Yup! They were looting Goom Industrial and tripped an alarm, but just as Goom's Security goons caught sight of them, they vanished."
"Yahoo! Let's get 'em!" Pheon yelled, with the exhilaration that had convinced the Midnight Marksman to accept her as his partner. Her enthusiasm was the perfect complement for his own gritty determination.
The two heroes hit their air brakes and catapult seats simultaneously, and flew through the air like giant-sized versions of the quarrels they used as their main weapons. They were firing as they landed, and two 'lightning bolts' sped toward their targets. When they hit, these bolts delivered an electrical jolt that fried the circuits in the chameleon armor and the bandits snapped instantly into visibility. Pheon was already firing her 'bolo bolt', which released a whirling line that wrapped around one criminal's wrists. She rushed forward with an excited shout and delivered a roundhouse left to the jaw that knocked the villain unconscious.
The other villain was still running. Arbalest hadn't fired again, so the Duchess of Darkness thumbed a knob to reload her automatic crossbow and fired again. This quarrel exploded and a net of thin, carbon-filament strands blossomed out of the flames and smoke, wrapping tightly around the fleeing villainess. She stumbled and fell, and the more she struggled to get free, the more entangled she became.
Why hadn't Manse captured the second villain? Pheon whirled around quickly, and was shocked to realize that Arbalest was nowhere to be seen
The Flame
In the District of the Council (DC) on First Continent, Masha Fynn, a.k.a. the Flame, was in makeup for a Justice Machine publicity and recruiting video. The Paladin of Plasma had worked with her producer Lanice Xu many times before, and the two had developed a friendly relationship.
"Mash, you ready to go? Nosh wants to roll in 5 minutes." Noshua was the director.
"Just taking a little refresher, Lan." She reached for the bottle of the energy drink that Research Central's scientists had developed to strengthen her flame powers. "Never can tell if there's going to be a situation that requires the Flame!"
While her husband Light-Wave's civilian identity was secret, everyone in the Imperium knew that Masha Fynn was the Flame. In fact, propaganda videos such as this one made sure to remind everyone that Masha was a citizen, just as they were, and emphasized that anyone who had the skill and ability, regardless of citizen status or condition of birth, could join the Justice Machine. Her simple costume, with yellow skirt, gloves and boots, and bright red top had been designed by Justice Machine's spinners just so she'd look good on video. The Fiery Flier hated hearing her publicity videos referred to as 'propaganda' but Lanny wouldn't call them anything else. Masha thought that Lanny was too cynical; Lanny couldn't understand how anyone could reach her early 30s and still be as naïve as Masha.
"I can't understand why you make such a ceremony out of drinking that stupid potion," Lanny commented, crossly.
"To me, it's kind of like taking an oath" Masha responded seriously. "I use the bright light of my flame to burn away the shadows that protect those who worship evil, so that good may flourish".
Lanny turned her head so Masha wouldn't see the disgusted expression on her face as she almost gagged. When she turned her head back the Luminous Lass had vanished, leaving behind her empty civilian outfit, which crumpled to the floor.
"I've never seen her leave like that before. And there wasn't a wash of heat, like when she normally bursts into flame. I hope she's not in trouble!" her friend mused with a worried expression on her face.
Challenger & Giant
A couple of hundred miles from DC, in the Salmagundi District of Martel, an excited PA announcer addressed thousands of fans packed into a war games stadium. The home team Blood Smashers would have been jealous at the size of the crowd. Challenger (Jaime Conrad) and Giant (Sanra Huley) were displaying their talents, while military recruiters circulated through the crowd, focusing particularly on sub-citizens. There was currently a temporary lull in the Rim Wars with the Rizards, but everyone knew that the empire of the evil lizard men was just licking its wounds and building up its forces. The Rizards' breeding rate was much higher than that of humans, so the Imperium had to recruit heavily among its much larger population of sub-citizens to match the size of the Rizards' military forces.
Sometimes, malcontents among the citizens of the Imperium insisted that constant war was actually the Imperium's method of population control for sub-citizens, though those who said so publicly always reconsidered their position and recanted within a few hours. Rebel Underground propaganda claimed that the constant state of martial law was actually the government's method of thought control. Most citizens never thought about it, that's just the way it was. And nobody cared what sub-citizens thought.
Challenger and Giant had just finished a stunt and were standing on the infield, waiting for whatever came next. Giant's 'Mohawk' style haircut added an extra foot to her height, emphasizing that she was more than twice as tall as her teammate.
An announcer was calling the action. "If you look to the north, folks, you'll see an incoming Rizard flier. Check out the teamwork of the mighty Justice Machine!"
The flier started firing bursts of energy beams which blew small holes in the turf as the two heroes hurriedly began evasive maneuvers.
As the senior team member present, Giant barked out a command. "Challenger, assault maneuver C4!" The brown-clad Gallant Gladiator responded by racing towards Giant, dodging side to side randomly, at a speed very few unenhanced humans could match.
"Comin' at you, Giant!" he responded. "Hope your aim is on today!"
He leaped at her, twisted until he was flying forward feet first. The Lass of Legend sidestepped, reached out and grasped his legs at the ankles, whirled totally around twice, then released Challenger like a hammer-thrower, into the path of the incoming flier. The crowd gasped as they realized Giant's aim was off, and Jaime was going wide of the flier. But the Platinum Protector calmly drew one of his oversized pistols, spun a selector on the body of the gun with his thumb, and fired. A small harpoon sped towards the flier, trailing a thin cable.
The harpoon penetrated the fuselage of the flier, then grew tines like a grappling hook inside, providing a sturdy anchor as the cable snapped taught. Jaime was whipped around the flier at the end of the cable like one of the balls on a whirling bolo, up, over, down, and then up again. The pistol discharged a potent electrical charge through the cable, frying the flier's controls. The flier's guns stopped firing as the dead flier started tumbling to the ground.
"Wasn't that amazing, folks? To top it off, as he falls, Challenger is going to attempt an athletic feat like nothing you've seen before 25 consecutive somersaults before Giant catches him safely. Let's help him by counting, folks! There's the first one!"
Challenger released the cable on the upswing of his second revolution, tucked into a ball and began doing front flips as he continued to rise. "One!" roared the enthusiastic audience, then "2! 3!" and the count continued to rise, even as Challenger reached the top of his ballistic arc and started to fall back to earth.
Giant rushed forward so that she was directly below him, and prepared to catch him. In the grandstands, the crowd continued to count. "Fourteen… fifteen… sixteen…" as Challenger spun through somersault after somersault, now falling faster and faster towards the green and brown clad Sultaness of Size. She had grown to her maximum height of 30 feet and now stood spread-legged on the grassy drill field, both arms outstretched. Meanwhile, the crippled flier crashed safely to the ground, within a foot of a large red x that had been painted on the grass before the show.
The crowd reached '25' an instant before Challenger landed, back first, in Giant's up-stretched arms. She let her arms and then her legs collapse to take up some of the shock, and then fell backwards, keeping Challenger in front of her. Just before she hit the grassy surface, there was a shower of shocked gasps from the crowd.
"What happened?" "Where'd they go?" "They're GONE!!" The Noble Knight and the Sizable Siren had vanished without a trace!
Fricton
At exactly the same time, in the Focal District of the city of Kull, which totally covers Second Continent, Fricton (Cobalt Dash) was engaged in battle with two of his long-time enemies, Thermaturge and the Prism Princess, charter members of his Rascal Roster.
"I guess slaughtering lizards isn't enough for you?" Thermaturge sneered, firing a heat ray from his Thermo Wand at the Pharaoh of Fast, who dodged easily.
"Yeah, so you gotta come home and drop the hammer on the locals, too?" Prism Princess jeered, angling her silvered Photonic Prism to direct a beam of pink light towards Fricton. The Fleet-foot Fighter jerked out of the way; he knew from past experience that this particular shade of fuchsia would explode if it hit him, with enough impact to knock him off his feet.
"Doesn't matter if it's enemy soldiers on the Rim, or local terrorists like you two." As he talked, Fricton started throwing fist-sized chunks of battle debris at the villains at super speed. "You're all threats to our peaceful way of life."
A heat beam from the Thermo Wand melted the makeshift missiles as Thermaturge laughed incredulously. "Peaceful? Georwell hasn't gone 2 decades without a war in over a thousand years." He waved the Wand, and the pavement under the feet of the Blue Blazer melted, forcing him to drop the missile attack as he ran to safety.
"We're surrounded by our enemies, and we need to fight just to stay alive!" Fricton shouted angrily. "The Rizards want to destroy us!" He changed directions, rushing towards Prism Master, who held out her Photonic Prism like a shield.
"Constant war lets Council Central keep armies of goons like you around to keep the civilians in line," Prism Princess retorted in anger as she fired a beam of silvery light at her foe. "The Thomorians weren't our enemies, but now we own them just the same."
Thomore had been an independent interstellar republic of 5 star systems near the border between Georwell and the Rim Worlds; Georwellian forces had built a number of bases throughout Thomore territory because of its strategic location despite opposition by the citizens of the republic. Somehow during the 8 years since the Rim Wars had begun, virtually all the government figures of Thomore who had opposed an alliance with Georwell had left office, and Thomore had recently applied for membership in the Imperium. The traitorous Rebel Underground had suggested that the entire purpose of the Rim Wars had been to annex Thomore.
Prism Princess's beam produced a blurry three dimensional image of Fricton. "Too bad it takes so long to solidify!" Fricton snarled, his eyes glowing a weird yellow behind his blue high-speed goggles. His hand smashed through the image and it shattered like mirror. "You're just a couple of thugs, hiding your crimes behind your revolutionary preaching. Well, for you two, it ends here! If the Rizards can't stop me, I'm not too worried about a pair of second rate rogues!" Fricton quipped.
"I'll show you second-rate!" Thermaturge yelled angrily. He released an ultra cold blast from his Thermo Wand which froze the water vapor in the air in front of him, trapping the Quickest Man Alive in a block of ice harder than granite. "Hah! I added that trick while you were away. Not bad for a second rate rogue, eh?"
"Last mistake you'll ever make, twinkletoes!" Prism Master laughed. She turned to her partner. "Fire when ready!"
From within his icy prison, Fricton saw the two rogues prepare to fire. He knew that, given time, he could melt himself free, but these two weren't going to give him that time. A heat beam from the Thermo Wand and a pale blue force beam from the Photonic Prism would shatter the ice and blast him to shreds before he could get free. So instead of speed, he used another of his powers, one that he rarely called on. He concentrated, and suddenly the ground and the soles of the boots of his foes became frictionless.
Prism Master twisted slightly and that small motion was enough to send her spinning and her beam went awry. Thermaturge tensed in anticipation of the slight recoil his wand produced, and one of his legs shifted slightly -and then flew out from under him. As he waved his arms wildly to try to keep his balance, his heat beam hit the Photonic Prism at exactly the same time as the blue force beam hit his Thermo Wand. Though their costumes prevented serious injury from the ensuing explosions, both villains were knocked out.
Prism Princess awakened first, and was pleasantly surprised to find she wasn't in jail. She shook her partner awake. "This must be some trick, to try to track us back to the Underground. Your block of ice is still intact but somehow, Fricton's gone!"
Farad
About 100 million miles from Georwell, in the L5 point which trails Georwell as it orbits its star, there floats a giant space station. Named 'The Penthouse', it is the ultimate vacation spot for members of Council Central and their guests. Kipal Spilis, who had been granted a 2 day visit as a reward for heroism in the latest Justice Machine action, had just released the self-directed lightning bolt that changed the memory cloth of his civilian clothes into his skin-tight all black costume. Now Farad of the Justice Machine was wasting part of his precious visit chasing bad guys! He vowed that they would pay a price, even if only took an hour to capture them. Most citizens of the Imperium would kill for even an hour at The Penthouse
On the surface of a planet, Farad could fly by controlling the interaction between his body's electromagnetic field and that of the planet, but the magnetic field of The Penthouse wasn't strong enough for him to overcome the space station's artificial gravity. He had been forced to use the station's internal transportation facilities to chase the villains. Since they had a head start, and were using the same transportation systems he was, they had been able to reach an emergency access airlock before he could catch up with them.
If he'd had to stop and put on a space suit in the lock, they'd have gotten away clean, but his costume had built-in protection from the cold and vacuum of space. But by the time he'd cycled through the airlock, the two villains had managed to board their waiting getaway vehicle, a small fast spaceship, about the size of a tractor trailer. The ship started to move away as he watched.
"Boss, Farad just came out through the emergency lock," reported Madysyn, the ship's communications officer, who was watching the aft view screen as the small ship accelerated away from the station.
"Shagflaps and puckernuts!" swore Nexmif, the captain of the Furtive. "What does it take to stop that guy? I saw Smif and Chones shoot him!" The entire interior of The Penthouse was watched by many security cameras, and somehow these crooks had managed to tap into that system.
"He uses his body's magnetic field to deflect bullets, and he can absorb energy beams, so their guns didn't work. That guys is really something, Boss!" Madysyn reported admiringly.
"Well, blast us out of here now!" Nexmif ordered Dref, the pilot. "He can't fly in space!" He made a note to find a new comm officer as soon as this job was finished.
Indeed, Farad couldn't fly in space. But the Splendid Spark had experienced many similar situations with the Justice Machine, and he knew exactly what to do. He zapped the fleeing spaceship with a bolt of electricity, giving it an electrical charge, and then gave his own body an opposite charge. Opposite charges attract, so when the ship moved, the High Tension Hero would be drawn along after it.
"Uh, Boss he's flying after us somehow!" Madysyn reported hesitantly. Nexmif had been known to shoot subordinates who gave him bad news. But Nexmif knew he couldn't do without any of his small crew right now. Besides, he'd figured out what the hero was doing and he wanted as many witnesses as possible to his upcoming triumph.
"Pilot! Fire all the emergency maneuvering thrusters on that side of the ship, and make sure you hit him!"
Dref fired the thrusters, normally used only when the ship's inertial drive was offline. The ship's computer automatically enhanced the viewscreen so that the normally invisible thruster discharge could be seen on the external monitors (a safety feature to keep a ship from flying into its own exhaust). A cloud of glowing orange gas billowed from the small ship, and enveloped the Current Crusader. Nexmif expected that the ionized plasma ejected by the emergency thrusters would neutralize Farad's electrical charge.
Instead, the confounded Madysyn reported with awe: "Boss, the radar shows he's just… disappeared. You've destroyed Farad!"
Light-Wave
Light-Wave spun in place, evaluating the training ground around him. There was a lingering stench and some of the equipment had some minor damage. A military ambulance was just lifting from the field, headed for the emergency room in the Citadel of Justice hospital.
"Not too impressive, eh, Wyl?" the Radiant Rocket asked one of the two armored Terror Troopers flanking him. The three of them had spent the last hour testing applicants for the Justice Machine.
"Sure enough not, Commander." Wyl agreed. "Even at only half power, either me or Jonny could take the whole bunch of 'em on at once, easy. Speakin'a easy, that Quartz Queen sure wuz a hottie, wuzn she?!"
Privately, Light-Wave agreed. Although her power of turning inanimate things to quartz wouldn't be of use to the Justice Machine, her other qualities had convinced him to set up an unofficial private second interview with her for later this evening.
"I hope this last one is more interesting than the rest!" Light-Wave sighed. The charter Council Central had set up for the Justice Machine mandated that the current JM leader hold public tryouts twice a year, and send at least one candidate a year to the Academy. He'd downchecked the entire batch 6 months ago, and if this next candidate didn't shine, the Academy would be stuck with the best of today's bunch of losers, assuming she survived her upcoming surgery. He wished Jonny had been a little more restrained with the last candidate, but hey, if they wanted to be in the Justice Machine, they were going to have to go up against opponents a lot tougher than a Terror Trooper private.
The last candidate was a woman. Some trick of her costume made it difficult to see her; it almost seemed as if she were wrapped in a shadow, even in the brightly lighted training ground. She was dressed in a floor length, pitch-black tau robe with big bell sleeves and a deep hood that totally enveloped her face and shrouded it in darkness. The clingy robe unfortunately revealed a slightly dumpy figure. Only her hands could be seen clearly, and for some reason Light-Wave's eyes were drawn to her long, bony fingers. She carried a staff that was longer than she was tall, and the staff seemed to glow black.
Black light? As a master of light himself, Light-Wave knew that was ridiculous; it must be some technology that directly affected the optic nerve. The Man of Photons shook his head angrily, concentrated on seeing clearly and the 'glow' vanished . The fancy staff was only an ordinary serpentwood sapling. The Radiant Rocket was somewhat impressed that some unknown could come into his stronghold and fool him, even for a second, with a trick of light. His boredom faded and he focused his attention on this new recruit.
"Who are you, and what are your powers?" he barked. Gotta keep this moving, he had an important appointment to keep!
"You can call me Wynda and I'm a witch." she stated in a strong, firm voice. "I state my desire, and chant the activation phrase, and the magic in the Staff of Savalua executes my command." She slammed the butt of the staff to the turf for emphasis.
"Sorry, Wyndy, you lost me at 'witch'" the Invincible Icon replied sarcastically. "I guess you didn't read the regulations, but there's no place for 'magic' in the Justice Machine. Never will be, as long as I'm the leader. Magic doesn't exist!"
"Why, you pompous young skeptic!" she yelled back at him. "I'll show you magic! Light-Wave, vanish! Arazak Allaham Alla!" She slammed the butt of the staff to the ground and with a very small, casual puffing sound, Light-Wave disappeared.
Denizen
A streamlined shape cruised slowly a few yards above the floor of the Torrentic Ocean. This was Denizen, perhaps the strangest and most alien member of the Justice Machine.
In earth terms, his body resembled that of `Robbie the Robot' if Robbie had been featureless, covered with something like glossy black sharkskin, with a tripod of legs. No one knew Denizen's origin, not even the Dark Dweller himself. His body had been discovered, in some kind of suspended animation, orbiting a giant ringed planet about fifty light years from Georwell, and when Research Central had finally managed to revive him, he had no memory of his prior life. Research Central theorized that Denizen was an artificial life form, designed by an unknown race for space exploration. Since even Research Central wasn't certain about Denizen's gender, if any, let's refer to him as `him' for simplicity's sake.
Denizen's body was equally functional in the weightless vacuum of space and deep in the high pressure atmosphere of a super Jovian planet, in temperatures ranging from close to absolute zero to the surface of a brown dwarf star. He had no eyes, ears, nose, in fact, no external sensory organs of any type, as he experienced the world around him via a psionic sense of perception. With no external features, and perception that was equally effective in any direction, the concepts of front and back didn't apply to him.
Though he had 4 equally-spaced tentacles depending from his `shoulders', they were normally retracted inside his body, and he rarely used them, depending instead on a powerful telekinetic ability. He could move through 'flat' space, far from any strong gravity field, using an unknown kind of reactionless propulsion. In a fluid environment (underwater) or an atmosphere, his telekinesis propelled him, and the denser the environment, the more efficiently that telekinetic propulsion worked. With no natural method of creating sounds, Research Central had created a psionically-driven vocoder to allow the Dark Dweller to communicate with humans. Though the vocoder had no default frequency range, when it rendered Denizen's conversation, the massive alien's artificial voice sounded very much like Terrestrial whale song. His body drew power from cosmic radiation, which penetrated even to the 'surface' of a gas giant planet.
Denizen moved smoothly into the powerful current streaming from the mouth of the Huxley River, the largest river on Third Continent, and he altered his course towards the river. His torpedo-shaped body, driven by his powerful telekinetic ability, slipped easily through the noxious sludge that poured out of the river into the Torrentic, discoloring the oily waters of for hundreds of miles up and down the coast and out to sea. It was naturally pitch black at this depth, and the waters were opaque with pollution. The Fluid Phantom's psionic sense of perception allowed him to maneuver with confidence among the debris and trash dumped in the river and washed into the ocean by thousands of years of Georwellian civilization.
Denizen could survive unprotected in the methane atmospheres of gas giant planets and the vacuum of space But even though he could 'see' through the oceans of Georwell, he needed to wear a chemically-inert sealed environment suit to survive in the highly toxic, acidic liquid that passed for ocean water on Georwell.
'With putridity like this spewing out of every river on the planet, it's not surprising that life is extinct in Georwell's oceans.' Denizen thought to himself. 'Why does Council Central concern itself with the color of the crap spewing from the Huxley River?' Though he didn't think in English, this is how his vocoder would have rendered his thoughts, if he'd been sending them to the device.
Of course, he hadn't asked Light-Wave this question when he received his assignment. Even before the Rim Wars had started, it had been bad policy to question orders; with the Imperium under martial law for the duration of the Rim Wars, it could be considered treason.
'But when ISN'T the Imperium under martial law?' was another question he would never ask. His massive body shuddered slightly; even that thought was close to treason! He was forced to live among humans, but he would never understand them.
He cruised upstream, his psionic propulsion an easy match for the tremendous current. Suddenly, without any warning at all, there was a series of tremendous explosions above him, and debris started raining down around him. His sense of perception told him that the ceiling of this gigantic sewer pipe, as far away as he could sense (about a half mile in any direction under these conditions) was collapsing. He dove as deeply as he could and sped towards the ocean at his highest velocity, about 120 miles an hour in human terms, but he couldn't get out from under the collapse. A chunk of debris smashed into him, knocking him unconscious as it slammed him to the river bed.
The Watery Warrior could survive against the almost immeasurable atmospheric pressure on the surface of a gas giant; the few tons of debris that pinned him to the river floor didn't even make him feel uncomfortable. But when he awakened, he found that he couldn't move, and quickly came to the stark realization that unless his teammates came searching for him, he might live for a long time pinned in this hideous location, entombed immovably in muck and crap in the largest sewer ever created. And then suddenly, he was elsewhere.
An Unexpected Meeting
Despite the Theory of Relativity, which tells us that the concept of simultaneity is meaningless, as nearly as humans can understand, the members of the Justice Machine vanished from their world at the exact same instant. For an immeasurable moment, perhaps instantaneously brief yet seemingly stretching to infinity, the mighty heroes found themselves imprisoned in a place that was indescribable to human senses, and then, once again defying both Theory and Relativity, all 8 heroes simultaneously appeared… but where?
Light-Wave broke off his imperious command to one of the missing Terror Troopers, and looked around in astonishment. "I'll be damned, she did it!" Then he noticed the rest of his teammates, and realized that Wynda the Witch probably had nothing to do with this. Giant fell out of thin air, not five feet from him, and crashed, not onto the grassy field she expected, but instead onto hard pavement. Her breath 'whoomphed' out of her, and Light-Wave was forced to scramble to avoid being crushed by his towering partner.
Challenger materialized a quarter mile away, and crashed to the tarmac just in time to escape Arbalest's bolo bolt. Not far away, Farad suddenly found himself tearing through atmosphere rather than the vacuum of space. Before he could even react and use the planetary magnetic field around him to slow down, he slammed into Fricton and they both tumbled to the pavement.
"Lanny, something's wrong," the Flame was saying as she popped into existence, alarm in her voice as she burst into flame, then looked around in amazement. She saw Denizen lying on the pavement near her. "I don't know how you did that, you slimy sewer snake, but it's NOT funny!" She launched immediately into the air, away from her hated teammate.
'I'm free!' Denizen thought in relief, then stopped, stunned, as he took in his new environment. His sense of perception instantly recognized the Flame. "You're the disgusting joke, you flying funeral pyre!"
"Condition Gamma!" Light-Wave roared at the top of his voice, the order cutting through the confused babbling of the heroes like a knife. Condition Gamma commanded instant response; it signified an imminent ambush, and everyone was to immediately take independent action against the enemy, coordinating actions with the closest other heroes if possible, pending further orders from the current commander.
Their long hours of training kicked in, and the heroes instinctively oriented on the incoming threats. From all directions, 4 large things, perhaps beings, perhaps something else, were charging towards them, firing weapons.
Sinister Watchers
In a control room in a secret subbasement of one of the nearby buildings, a large number of monitor screens, each the size of a large window, allowed a group of beings to study the every action of the Justice Machine. Seven of these beings were connected to a bank of instruments and computers by cables attached to helmets they were wearing, plus wires attached to various points on their bodies. The most extraordinary aspect of these seven beings was who they were: Arbalest, Giant, Challenger, Light-Wave, the Flame, Fricton, and Farad of the Justice Machine, the same heroes who were now engaged in battle on the surface above! They observed the battles of their duplicates with uncanny concentration, in eerie silence.
A small, wizened bald man sat at a control panel, constantly touching switches and making adjustments to knobs and dials. He bragged to his companion, a 7' tall humanoid who looked like a beautiful, muscular woman with long red hair - except for her yellow skin, pointed ears and the two flexible antennae that poked through the hair covering her forehead. She was flamboyantly dressed: a big pink bow in her hair, pink patch over her right eye, an unfastened green combat jacket with pink trim over a thin band of pink cloth that barely contained her massive bosom, a green bolero-style skirt and green knee high, front lace-up boots. Incongruously with her high tech surroundings, she held a long thin sword with a fancy basket across her lap, and there was a sheath knife protruding from her right boot. She sat in a throne-like chair, intently scrutinizing the small man's every move.
"My creation Astoundo will easily triumph over Fricton and Farad! I hope your minion Gorral can direct my Angrak robot well enough to handle the Flame and Denizen, Captain Cinnbarad."
"I'm certain that Gorral can handle his task, Simon Spears," she replied, in a low rumbling voice that terrified Spears. "After all, didn't you train him yourself? Still, our Dimensional Lock can swap you into Angrak's cockpit if you so desire. "
Simon had the feeling that the big alien was laughing at him, but how do you read the body language of an alien?
"No, thank you," he replied carefully. "I know you used the Lock to bring the Justice Machine here, but I don't trust a machine that sends my body through some other dimension. Besides, we've already decided that my presence is essential here in the control room."
What he didn't say, but was sure that Cinnbarad had realized, was that Simon Spears was terrified of the Justice Machine. 16 years ago, the Justice Machine had taken him into custody as a political prisoner for introducing servant robots into Georwellian society robots designed to do the work currently done by sub-citizens. Council Central was certain that with too much free time on their hands, the sub-citizens would quickly decide to revolt, and they outnumbered citizens several hundred to one.
So Chief Prosecutor Barez had made the decision to remove Simon Spears, the self-styled Robot Master, from society, as a traitor to Georwell. The Justice Machine had captured him, destroyed his factory and all the robots he had ever built, then tracked down and punished everyone who had purchased one of those robots. He'd escaped a year later, but not before he'd been tortured and abused, then forced to work for the very government that was imprisoning him. He'd encountered, and been defeated by, various individual members of the Justice Machine frequently in the intervening years as he used his ever-more-sophisticated robots for criminal ventures. After his last defeat by Arbalest, he'd contacted Captain Cinnbarad and offered his services in return for a chance to get revenge. But he was still scared of facing the Justice Machine; he would rather die than be recaptured, yet again.
Spears turned to another screen, which showed his two most hated enemies. "Light-Wave and Giant were two of the so-called heroes who captured me and destroyed my life*. I designed Gadgetique specifically to defeat them. And later, after I had escaped, Arbalest and Pheon foiled my plans and beat my first primitive battle robots**. But Transformatron combines the best features of those early robots and is much more advanced. Arbalest and Challenger don't stand a chance!"
*see Justice Machine: Challenges Act 2
**Georwell's Finest Comics Vol 1 #34 "The Robot Master Crimes"
"Do not get so carried away watching these battles that you forget to monitor your instruments, Simon Spears," Cinnbarad instructed coldly. "If something goes wrong with the imprinting process, all of our efforts here will be wasted and I will be very angry."
Attack of the Giant Robots
Fricton reached out a hand to help Farad to his feet, and yelped in pain as he was jolted by an electric charge.
"What are you, nuts?!" he screamed at his teammate.
"I am nuts! Nuts I am!" Farad gibbered back at him in a high, sing-song voice. "I don't like this place, by damn!" He blasted a bolt of electricity at Fricton, who was fast enough to get out of the way. Instead the bolt zapped Light-Wave from behind, startling him but not hurting him. He turned around and angrily approached his teammates. When Farad saw the Photonic Protector coming towards him, he curled up in the fetal position and started crying.
"Crap he's somehow off his meds again," Light-Wave swore. He reached into a pouch on the High Tension Hero's belt and pulled out a pneumatic syringe, plunged it into Farad's butt and pressed the trigger. Farad instantly relaxed, shuddered, and came to his feet.
"Thanks, boss!" He turned to Fricton. "Sorry you had to see that, it's a side effect of the genetic surgery that gave me my powers. Somehow the drug wore off on our little trip here, wherever here is."
'Here' looked like a section of any city on Georwell, streets paved with a substance that resembled concrete laced with metallic fibers for strength, buildings made of a plastic more structurally solid than granite. But it was empty of people. "Don't worry, I'm good for a couple of days, now."
Fricton & Farad vs. Astoundo
Fricton wasn't so sure, but it was too late to get reassurance from Light-Wave, who had already flown off to battle one of the things that were attacking them. There wasn't time for Farad to tell any more of his story; he blasted a projectile of some sort just before it reached the two heroes. "Look sharp, Quickster! Incoming!"
There were more projectiles flying towards them, being fired by a bizarre opponent, who we know is called Astoundo.
"He looks like he's half me and half Arbalest!" Fricton said as he blurred into motion, using super-speed blows to shatter the various crossbow bolts that were speeding toward him. Astoundo looked like someone had cut Fricton and Arbalest (in his older costume) in half lengthwise and then stuck his right half to the Archer's left half.
"And he's got both your powers," added Farad, as the attacking being easily avoided his electrical blasts. The Current Crusader zoomed into the air as their attacker loosed a swarm of bolts, moving at super speed. As soon as his feet left the ground, he surrounded himself in a field that looked like a swarm of leashed lightning bolts.
Some of the quarrels were directed at Fricton who dodged them easily; though Astoundo was firing at super-speed, his arrows were only moving at normal arrow speed. The bolts fired at Farad were destroyed by the lightning field around him. Fricton responded by increasing the friction between all the moving parts on the villain's crossbow, and the next time Astoundo tried to cock the crossbow, the bowstring snapped.
The villain threw his weapon at Fricton, who didn't quite manage to dodge; the butt struck him painfully on the shoulder but nothing was broken. The Pharaoh of Fast wasn't prepared to fight a foe as fast as he was; he would need to be extra careful. Suddenly he realized why Light-Wave always insisted that he spend extra time in combat training at normal speed!
When Fricton jerked his head back towards his opponent he was shocked to see that Astoundo had changed appearance he now appeared to be half Fricton, half Farad!
Denizen & the Flame vs. Angrak
Denizen took to the sky. His reactionless drive wouldn't work in a gravity well, and his psionic powers weren't as effective in this thin air as they were in a denser, higher-pressure medium, but he was much more maneuverable in the air than on the ground. He immediately strained to reach his top speed, racing to intercept two missiles that were homing on the Flame, who was shooting a fireball in the other direction.
"Fynn!" he had time to shout, and then the missiles impacted and exploded, throwing him tumbling across the sky into her field of view. He managed to regain control. "You flaming ditz! Pay attention!" His high-pitched voice sounded strange coming from such a massive being.
"I don't need your protection or your scolding, Mr. Cold and Dark!" she replied scornfully. She detested Denizen, she hated the idea that he could touch her telekinetically without her even knowing it, and his tentacles reminded her of snakes. He could sense her revulsion, and responded similarly. Even so, they were teammates - her eyes grew huge and she started a warning. "Look out behind…" but it was too late.
Angrak, the giant robot Masha had been battling, swung its left arm in a backhanded sweep and its massive claw smashed into the distracted Denizen, knocking him tumbling across the sky. The robot then turned its attention back to the Radiant Rocket.
'Now who wasn't paying attention?' she asked herself with smug satisfaction as she examined her foe carefully, trying to find a weak point.
The robot was humanoid, about 40 feet tall, 'Just slightly larger than Giant's largest size,' she thought to herself. It had a sloppy, unfinished appearance, with 'skin' made of roughly finished gray metal plates, and the rivets that held the plates together were easily visible. The face was incongruous: it seemed as if the robot was wearing a gray plastic mask of the ugliest humanoid face she had ever seen -- a face that didn't look robotic at all. The monstrous mechanism had two robotic claws for hands, and the right claw was holding a giant short-handled sledgehammer. Its movements puzzled her - when the robot started moving, it moved fluidly until an action was completed, and then hesitated before making the next movement, almost as if it had to page through a menu of actions in order to decide what to do next.
She didn't have time for more observations - the hammer was swinging her way. She darted backwards, out of range, and then pointed both arms at the robot, fists closed, and concentrated. A blast of flaming plasma burst from her fists and rocketed towards her giant foe, splashing against the metal plates of the massive chest, with no visible result. The robot hesitated, and then smoothly leaned over to the right, and swung the hammer down and into the ground, driving a massive chunk of pavement into the air, directly at the startled High Temp Hottie.
She couldn't dodge in time; all she could do was strain to increase the temperature of her flame to maximum and hope that enough of the rocky missile would vaporize that the impact of the rest wouldn't kill her. This would definitely hurt! In fact, she wasn't totally sure she would survive.
Except that Denizen flashed down from above, and smashed into the flying boulder, deflecting it enough that it missed her. She winced at the impact, but it didn't seem to bother him. His adaptation to almost any conceivable atmospheric pressure made his body virtually invulnerable.
"Stay behind me, you useless firefly!" he shouted at her, as he swooped around to face the robot. "I can't protect you and fight at the same time!"
"I'll show you useless, you stinking squid!" She rocketed towards the head of the robot.
Arbalest & Challenger vs. Transformatron
Challenger and Arbalest were hastily dodging machine gun fire, sprayed from the turret of an approaching half track. Jaime touched the button on his bandoleer that activated his JM communicator - he and the Archer were going to have to coordinate their actions and the enemy gun was too loud to shout over. He knew the communicator built into the Crossbow Crusader's helmet would activate automatically.
"New armor, huh?" Challenger inquired of Arbalest. As he spoke, the two men moved like twin bolts of greased lighting, diving to their left to escape the strafing fire. "Exterior design by Prosecutor Barez, no doubt. He tried to get me into something similar, except brown, years ago."
Each man tucked his right shoulder before he landed, did a complete roll, slapping the ground with the left hand to absorb some momentum, then came up into a deep crouch, aiming and firing almost before he stopped moving. While they were moving, the 'track fired two surface-to-air missiles from a launch platform on the back. The two continued their conversation, as casually as if they were standing at the water cooler.
"Yeah, I decided it was time to get away from my public image as 'Challenger with a crossbow' and establish more of an independent identity of my own. How come you never adopted armor? I know you did the equipment specs for this model."
Challenger fired a laser beam at the 'track's cabin and Arbalest loosed two bolts at the nearer tread. Challenger's ray glanced harmlessly off the armored side of the car, while Archer's bolts exploded and drenched the tread with something, and it immediately stopped moving forward, instead jolting around in a half circle before the track motor was shut down.
"Maybe you should have some arrows in those pistols!" Arbalest quipped to his teammate.
"Nice shot!" Challenger ignored the jibe. "Quipoxy Number 5?" he asked as he rose into a crouch and ran at top speed, zig-zagging, into the recessed door of the nearest building. As he ran, he advanced a dial on the side of his pistol and fired again.
"Yeah. Nothing like the old standards," Arbalest rushed across the street, weaving and dodging, into the entrance to an alley and took new cover as well. His automatic crossbow had reloaded as he ran and he too had already fired again.
"That's why I don't use armor - I'm used to doing it the old-fashioned way!" Jaime commented. Then the two were moving again, using the flash and smoke of the twin explosions of their projectiles as cover. Their last rush brought them under the horizon of the machine gun in the turret of the robot attacker.
The stalled car had been jolted slightly by the explosions, but there was no further damage. Instead, it started to rise into the air as it quickly sprouted legs. It now towered over the two heroes, and started striding forward, crushing a parked car beneath one of the giant circular foot pads.
"Jaime? Maneuver 23Q." Arbalest suggested calmly.
Challenger fired a dart at a nearby building and the missile flew true, trailing a thin, highly flexible cable. The warhead exploded on impact, driving a spike deep into the wall and sending an activation signal to the powerful motorized reel in the body of the pistol. The People's Paladin was yanked away at high speed. He snatched Arbalest from under the weird robot's foot, just before it could stomp on him. Unruffled, the Midnight Marksman deliberately fired a bolo bolt, and the thin, highly flexible cable wrapped around the legs of the transformed armored car. It wobbled, and then crashed to the ground.
"You know, I recognize the style here," Arbalest mused. "A few years ago, Pheon and I fought against the creations of a scientist named Simon Spears, the Robot Master, who was using his wacky inventions to commit thefts. They included everyday things like an office safe, an automatic cargo hauler, and a luxurious private flier, but the safe changed into a robotic helicopter and flew away with the buyer's money, the cargo hauler turned into a robot flier and carried off the valuable cargo, and the flier turned into a robotic mole and helped Spears kidnap a very rich VIP. Pheon and I put him away, but he escaped in less than a year. I'd say we haven't seen the end of the transformations from this thing yet!"
He was right. The armored car began writhing and changing forms once again.
Giant and Light-Wave vs. Gadgetique
Gadgetique fired a ray which struck Light-Wave in the back, knocking him tumbling. Giant swept her massive arm around and knocked the robot spinning. "Boss! T'others ken b'taken care of t'emselves f'r'a mint or two. T'is t'ing looks dang'r'us!"
Gadgetique looked dangerous indeed, even spinning out of control through the air! Nine feet tall of gleaming golden robot, surrounded by a flashing force shield of pale violet, with an exaggeratedly female figure. She suddenly vanished and instantly appeared again, stationary, firing a beam at Giant. The Lass of Legend shrunk to normal size and the beam missed. She yelled to Light-Wave. "Sault Nuver C13," Giant suggested.
"Confirmed!" the Invincible Icon agreed and blasted the robot with a burst of high intensity photons in the ultra-violet, visible and infra-red spectrums, hoping to blind it. At the same time, the Princess of Power grew to her most comfortable 18 foot size and attacked, raining immensely powerful blows against the robot's violet force field. The golden golem was driven backwards by the force of the blows, and then vanished again. She reappeared behind Giant, and projected a force blast from her eyes that sent the Lass of Legend tumbling.
*****
"Do you think it was coincidence that whatever brought us here dropped two of us in the path of each of those four robots?" Challenger wondered, as he dove right and rolled to escape being crushed by Transformatron, now shaped like a giant wheel. He popped up and fired, and exploding shells dropped into the path of the giant wheel and when they exploded, drenched the road ahead of it with oil.
"No more than you do!" Arbalest replied as he dove left and rolled. "And we're not having much luck against our selected opponents." He came to his feet firing, as had the Platinum Paladin, and his explosive bolts opened a hole in the pavement in front of the rolling juggernaut. Unable to stop because of Challenger's oil slick, Transformatron skidded and fell into the pit Arbalest had created and instantly started changing form again.
Jaiime flipped to Light-Wave's channel on his communicator. "Boss, these robots are designed to fight us in specific pairs. I suggest a strategic re-align." Before the Invincible Icon could reply, Arbelest's voice barked in his ear: "I concur!" Light-Wave and Challenger had disliked each other from the day they'd met, and this hadn't changed, but the JM's leader knew that Challenger was a superb battle tactician. If Arbalest agreed with him, that sealed the deal. Using his enhanced vision, he spun at super-speed and surveyed the battlefield, and then, with his most confident and commanding tone, he started giving rapid-fire orders.
Time: 1962 Location: Georwell
Background: The Imperium of Georwell has been engaged in war with the Rizards of the Rim Worlds since 1954. The Rizards have experienced a number of costly defeats in recent battles. Rizard emissaries have asked for, and been granted, a truce, and diplomats for both sides are currently negotiating a treaty. During this lull, a number of members of the Justice Machine have been rotated back to Georwell for R&R, though most remain stationed on planets near the new boundaries of the shrunken Rim Worlds Alliance.
The players: Arbalest, Giant, Challenger, Light-Wave, the Flame, Fricton, Farad and Denizen of the Justice Machine. Pheon, Arbalest's partner, Lanny Xu, a friend of the Flame, Thermaturge and Prism Princess, villainous members of Fricton's Rascal Roster. The captain, navigator and communicator of the Furtive, a small spaceship. Wyl and Jonny, two Terror Troopers assigned as aides to Light-Wave. Wynda the Witch, an applicant for membership in the Justice Machine. Several more players will enter the stage presently.
Where Have all the Heroes Gone?
Arbalest & Pheon
Arbalest (Mance Baron) and his lover and partner Pheon (Sunrise Gale) were preparing for their nightly flycycle patrol over the Astro City District of Vanguard City. Centuries ago, Vanguard City had grown to engulf Astro City, and eventually the entire Third Continent of Georwell was buried beneath the sprawling megalopolis as well, but most districts of the amoebic city still retained their ancient names. In their secret sanctuary, under a blanket of buildings almost half a mile thick, Pheon had watched as the Midnight Marksman programmed the flycycles' 'crime computers' to alert the heroes if their radio frequency sensors detected the transmission of specific digital codes.
"Gosh, Mance, it's good to have you home! Those Invisible Bandits have been giving me the slip for weeks. After I figured out how the Invisibles are hiding, I asked the technicians at the Citadel of Justice for those digital dissonance codes". The Doughty Dart's frustration was evident in her tone. "Those idiots said the codes were classified, and I didn't have a high enough security clearance!"
"You know how it is, babe," the Gritty Gladiator responded seriously. "If these guys are really wearing Top Secret Government Issue camouflage armor, as you suspect, the military doesn't want the digital dissonance signature codes in public hands if an enemy got them, the suits would be useless. It's 'kill before reading' kinda stuff."
He smiled, admiring his tall, athletically built partner, with her long brown hair in a single braid, dressed in a dark blue tunic, thigh-high black leather boots, beret and domino mask, with a quiver of crossbow bolts on her back and a sheathed stiletto strapped to her left calf. "Don't fret too much, Light-Wave has promised me you'll be inducted with the next group of Justice Machine recruits, probably next week."
"That's great!" she smiled as well, her frustration tempered by the prospect of some action. "Meanwhile, let's go catch these Invisible Bandits. I owe them, big time, for the vexation and embarrassment they've caused me!"
The two headed for the landing pad and their cycles. Just before they took off, she spoke again, hesitantly. "The new costume is sort of, well, scary. Are you sure you're not taking this 'Grim and Gritty Spectre of the Night' thing too far?"
He shrugged. "Light-Wave thought I was too vulnerable in my old costume. So Research Central created a new costume of armor cloth. Plus, the new color scheme of dark gray and black makes me very tough to see in the dark." Every inch of his skin was covered in dark gray armor cloth and his head was covered with a grim black helmet. "Got some nice gadgets built in, too. Makes me a LOT tougher than I used to be."
"Well, I liked the old outfit better. But I have to admit, your costume really matches your rep now!"
A couple hours later, they'd foiled a mugging and helped a little girl get her pet logi down from the roof of her house. Pheon was starting to wonder if maybe the Invisible Bandits really were invisible and not just wearing camouflage suits, when their crime computers triggered their alarms. Neither hero could see anything out of the ordinary with the naked eye, but their computer-enhanced heads-up displays showed two blurry humanoid figures on the roof ahead.
"Say, Pheon, unless those guys are government agents, I think we've found the 'Invisible Thieves'!" Arbalest chuckled over their highly encrypted, ultra-low power radio link. "Good job, figuring out they were using camo suits!"
A quick touch on the computer keypad called up the most recent update on the Invisible Thieves. "Yup! They were looting Goom Industrial and tripped an alarm, but just as Goom's Security goons caught sight of them, they vanished."
"Yahoo! Let's get 'em!" Pheon yelled, with the exhilaration that had convinced the Midnight Marksman to accept her as his partner. Her enthusiasm was the perfect complement for his own gritty determination.
The two heroes hit their air brakes and catapult seats simultaneously, and flew through the air like giant-sized versions of the quarrels they used as their main weapons. They were firing as they landed, and two 'lightning bolts' sped toward their targets. When they hit, these bolts delivered an electrical jolt that fried the circuits in the chameleon armor and the bandits snapped instantly into visibility. Pheon was already firing her 'bolo bolt', which released a whirling line that wrapped around one criminal's wrists. She rushed forward with an excited shout and delivered a roundhouse left to the jaw that knocked the villain unconscious.
The other villain was still running. Arbalest hadn't fired again, so the Duchess of Darkness thumbed a knob to reload her automatic crossbow and fired again. This quarrel exploded and a net of thin, carbon-filament strands blossomed out of the flames and smoke, wrapping tightly around the fleeing villainess. She stumbled and fell, and the more she struggled to get free, the more entangled she became.
Why hadn't Manse captured the second villain? Pheon whirled around quickly, and was shocked to realize that Arbalest was nowhere to be seen
The Flame
In the District of the Council (DC) on First Continent, Masha Fynn, a.k.a. the Flame, was in makeup for a Justice Machine publicity and recruiting video. The Paladin of Plasma had worked with her producer Lanice Xu many times before, and the two had developed a friendly relationship.
"Mash, you ready to go? Nosh wants to roll in 5 minutes." Noshua was the director.
"Just taking a little refresher, Lan." She reached for the bottle of the energy drink that Research Central's scientists had developed to strengthen her flame powers. "Never can tell if there's going to be a situation that requires the Flame!"
While her husband Light-Wave's civilian identity was secret, everyone in the Imperium knew that Masha Fynn was the Flame. In fact, propaganda videos such as this one made sure to remind everyone that Masha was a citizen, just as they were, and emphasized that anyone who had the skill and ability, regardless of citizen status or condition of birth, could join the Justice Machine. Her simple costume, with yellow skirt, gloves and boots, and bright red top had been designed by Justice Machine's spinners just so she'd look good on video. The Fiery Flier hated hearing her publicity videos referred to as 'propaganda' but Lanny wouldn't call them anything else. Masha thought that Lanny was too cynical; Lanny couldn't understand how anyone could reach her early 30s and still be as naïve as Masha.
"I can't understand why you make such a ceremony out of drinking that stupid potion," Lanny commented, crossly.
"To me, it's kind of like taking an oath" Masha responded seriously. "I use the bright light of my flame to burn away the shadows that protect those who worship evil, so that good may flourish".
Lanny turned her head so Masha wouldn't see the disgusted expression on her face as she almost gagged. When she turned her head back the Luminous Lass had vanished, leaving behind her empty civilian outfit, which crumpled to the floor.
"I've never seen her leave like that before. And there wasn't a wash of heat, like when she normally bursts into flame. I hope she's not in trouble!" her friend mused with a worried expression on her face.
Challenger & Giant
A couple of hundred miles from DC, in the Salmagundi District of Martel, an excited PA announcer addressed thousands of fans packed into a war games stadium. The home team Blood Smashers would have been jealous at the size of the crowd. Challenger (Jaime Conrad) and Giant (Sanra Huley) were displaying their talents, while military recruiters circulated through the crowd, focusing particularly on sub-citizens. There was currently a temporary lull in the Rim Wars with the Rizards, but everyone knew that the empire of the evil lizard men was just licking its wounds and building up its forces. The Rizards' breeding rate was much higher than that of humans, so the Imperium had to recruit heavily among its much larger population of sub-citizens to match the size of the Rizards' military forces.
Sometimes, malcontents among the citizens of the Imperium insisted that constant war was actually the Imperium's method of population control for sub-citizens, though those who said so publicly always reconsidered their position and recanted within a few hours. Rebel Underground propaganda claimed that the constant state of martial law was actually the government's method of thought control. Most citizens never thought about it, that's just the way it was. And nobody cared what sub-citizens thought.
Challenger and Giant had just finished a stunt and were standing on the infield, waiting for whatever came next. Giant's 'Mohawk' style haircut added an extra foot to her height, emphasizing that she was more than twice as tall as her teammate.
An announcer was calling the action. "If you look to the north, folks, you'll see an incoming Rizard flier. Check out the teamwork of the mighty Justice Machine!"
The flier started firing bursts of energy beams which blew small holes in the turf as the two heroes hurriedly began evasive maneuvers.
As the senior team member present, Giant barked out a command. "Challenger, assault maneuver C4!" The brown-clad Gallant Gladiator responded by racing towards Giant, dodging side to side randomly, at a speed very few unenhanced humans could match.
"Comin' at you, Giant!" he responded. "Hope your aim is on today!"
He leaped at her, twisted until he was flying forward feet first. The Lass of Legend sidestepped, reached out and grasped his legs at the ankles, whirled totally around twice, then released Challenger like a hammer-thrower, into the path of the incoming flier. The crowd gasped as they realized Giant's aim was off, and Jaime was going wide of the flier. But the Platinum Protector calmly drew one of his oversized pistols, spun a selector on the body of the gun with his thumb, and fired. A small harpoon sped towards the flier, trailing a thin cable.
The harpoon penetrated the fuselage of the flier, then grew tines like a grappling hook inside, providing a sturdy anchor as the cable snapped taught. Jaime was whipped around the flier at the end of the cable like one of the balls on a whirling bolo, up, over, down, and then up again. The pistol discharged a potent electrical charge through the cable, frying the flier's controls. The flier's guns stopped firing as the dead flier started tumbling to the ground.
"Wasn't that amazing, folks? To top it off, as he falls, Challenger is going to attempt an athletic feat like nothing you've seen before 25 consecutive somersaults before Giant catches him safely. Let's help him by counting, folks! There's the first one!"
Challenger released the cable on the upswing of his second revolution, tucked into a ball and began doing front flips as he continued to rise. "One!" roared the enthusiastic audience, then "2! 3!" and the count continued to rise, even as Challenger reached the top of his ballistic arc and started to fall back to earth.
Giant rushed forward so that she was directly below him, and prepared to catch him. In the grandstands, the crowd continued to count. "Fourteen… fifteen… sixteen…" as Challenger spun through somersault after somersault, now falling faster and faster towards the green and brown clad Sultaness of Size. She had grown to her maximum height of 30 feet and now stood spread-legged on the grassy drill field, both arms outstretched. Meanwhile, the crippled flier crashed safely to the ground, within a foot of a large red x that had been painted on the grass before the show.
The crowd reached '25' an instant before Challenger landed, back first, in Giant's up-stretched arms. She let her arms and then her legs collapse to take up some of the shock, and then fell backwards, keeping Challenger in front of her. Just before she hit the grassy surface, there was a shower of shocked gasps from the crowd.
"What happened?" "Where'd they go?" "They're GONE!!" The Noble Knight and the Sizable Siren had vanished without a trace!
Fricton
At exactly the same time, in the Focal District of the city of Kull, which totally covers Second Continent, Fricton (Cobalt Dash) was engaged in battle with two of his long-time enemies, Thermaturge and the Prism Princess, charter members of his Rascal Roster.
"I guess slaughtering lizards isn't enough for you?" Thermaturge sneered, firing a heat ray from his Thermo Wand at the Pharaoh of Fast, who dodged easily.
"Yeah, so you gotta come home and drop the hammer on the locals, too?" Prism Princess jeered, angling her silvered Photonic Prism to direct a beam of pink light towards Fricton. The Fleet-foot Fighter jerked out of the way; he knew from past experience that this particular shade of fuchsia would explode if it hit him, with enough impact to knock him off his feet.
"Doesn't matter if it's enemy soldiers on the Rim, or local terrorists like you two." As he talked, Fricton started throwing fist-sized chunks of battle debris at the villains at super speed. "You're all threats to our peaceful way of life."
A heat beam from the Thermo Wand melted the makeshift missiles as Thermaturge laughed incredulously. "Peaceful? Georwell hasn't gone 2 decades without a war in over a thousand years." He waved the Wand, and the pavement under the feet of the Blue Blazer melted, forcing him to drop the missile attack as he ran to safety.
"We're surrounded by our enemies, and we need to fight just to stay alive!" Fricton shouted angrily. "The Rizards want to destroy us!" He changed directions, rushing towards Prism Master, who held out her Photonic Prism like a shield.
"Constant war lets Council Central keep armies of goons like you around to keep the civilians in line," Prism Princess retorted in anger as she fired a beam of silvery light at her foe. "The Thomorians weren't our enemies, but now we own them just the same."
Thomore had been an independent interstellar republic of 5 star systems near the border between Georwell and the Rim Worlds; Georwellian forces had built a number of bases throughout Thomore territory because of its strategic location despite opposition by the citizens of the republic. Somehow during the 8 years since the Rim Wars had begun, virtually all the government figures of Thomore who had opposed an alliance with Georwell had left office, and Thomore had recently applied for membership in the Imperium. The traitorous Rebel Underground had suggested that the entire purpose of the Rim Wars had been to annex Thomore.
Prism Princess's beam produced a blurry three dimensional image of Fricton. "Too bad it takes so long to solidify!" Fricton snarled, his eyes glowing a weird yellow behind his blue high-speed goggles. His hand smashed through the image and it shattered like mirror. "You're just a couple of thugs, hiding your crimes behind your revolutionary preaching. Well, for you two, it ends here! If the Rizards can't stop me, I'm not too worried about a pair of second rate rogues!" Fricton quipped.
"I'll show you second-rate!" Thermaturge yelled angrily. He released an ultra cold blast from his Thermo Wand which froze the water vapor in the air in front of him, trapping the Quickest Man Alive in a block of ice harder than granite. "Hah! I added that trick while you were away. Not bad for a second rate rogue, eh?"
"Last mistake you'll ever make, twinkletoes!" Prism Master laughed. She turned to her partner. "Fire when ready!"
From within his icy prison, Fricton saw the two rogues prepare to fire. He knew that, given time, he could melt himself free, but these two weren't going to give him that time. A heat beam from the Thermo Wand and a pale blue force beam from the Photonic Prism would shatter the ice and blast him to shreds before he could get free. So instead of speed, he used another of his powers, one that he rarely called on. He concentrated, and suddenly the ground and the soles of the boots of his foes became frictionless.
Prism Master twisted slightly and that small motion was enough to send her spinning and her beam went awry. Thermaturge tensed in anticipation of the slight recoil his wand produced, and one of his legs shifted slightly -and then flew out from under him. As he waved his arms wildly to try to keep his balance, his heat beam hit the Photonic Prism at exactly the same time as the blue force beam hit his Thermo Wand. Though their costumes prevented serious injury from the ensuing explosions, both villains were knocked out.
Prism Princess awakened first, and was pleasantly surprised to find she wasn't in jail. She shook her partner awake. "This must be some trick, to try to track us back to the Underground. Your block of ice is still intact but somehow, Fricton's gone!"
Farad
About 100 million miles from Georwell, in the L5 point which trails Georwell as it orbits its star, there floats a giant space station. Named 'The Penthouse', it is the ultimate vacation spot for members of Council Central and their guests. Kipal Spilis, who had been granted a 2 day visit as a reward for heroism in the latest Justice Machine action, had just released the self-directed lightning bolt that changed the memory cloth of his civilian clothes into his skin-tight all black costume. Now Farad of the Justice Machine was wasting part of his precious visit chasing bad guys! He vowed that they would pay a price, even if only took an hour to capture them. Most citizens of the Imperium would kill for even an hour at The Penthouse
On the surface of a planet, Farad could fly by controlling the interaction between his body's electromagnetic field and that of the planet, but the magnetic field of The Penthouse wasn't strong enough for him to overcome the space station's artificial gravity. He had been forced to use the station's internal transportation facilities to chase the villains. Since they had a head start, and were using the same transportation systems he was, they had been able to reach an emergency access airlock before he could catch up with them.
If he'd had to stop and put on a space suit in the lock, they'd have gotten away clean, but his costume had built-in protection from the cold and vacuum of space. But by the time he'd cycled through the airlock, the two villains had managed to board their waiting getaway vehicle, a small fast spaceship, about the size of a tractor trailer. The ship started to move away as he watched.
"Boss, Farad just came out through the emergency lock," reported Madysyn, the ship's communications officer, who was watching the aft view screen as the small ship accelerated away from the station.
"Shagflaps and puckernuts!" swore Nexmif, the captain of the Furtive. "What does it take to stop that guy? I saw Smif and Chones shoot him!" The entire interior of The Penthouse was watched by many security cameras, and somehow these crooks had managed to tap into that system.
"He uses his body's magnetic field to deflect bullets, and he can absorb energy beams, so their guns didn't work. That guys is really something, Boss!" Madysyn reported admiringly.
"Well, blast us out of here now!" Nexmif ordered Dref, the pilot. "He can't fly in space!" He made a note to find a new comm officer as soon as this job was finished.
Indeed, Farad couldn't fly in space. But the Splendid Spark had experienced many similar situations with the Justice Machine, and he knew exactly what to do. He zapped the fleeing spaceship with a bolt of electricity, giving it an electrical charge, and then gave his own body an opposite charge. Opposite charges attract, so when the ship moved, the High Tension Hero would be drawn along after it.
"Uh, Boss he's flying after us somehow!" Madysyn reported hesitantly. Nexmif had been known to shoot subordinates who gave him bad news. But Nexmif knew he couldn't do without any of his small crew right now. Besides, he'd figured out what the hero was doing and he wanted as many witnesses as possible to his upcoming triumph.
"Pilot! Fire all the emergency maneuvering thrusters on that side of the ship, and make sure you hit him!"
Dref fired the thrusters, normally used only when the ship's inertial drive was offline. The ship's computer automatically enhanced the viewscreen so that the normally invisible thruster discharge could be seen on the external monitors (a safety feature to keep a ship from flying into its own exhaust). A cloud of glowing orange gas billowed from the small ship, and enveloped the Current Crusader. Nexmif expected that the ionized plasma ejected by the emergency thrusters would neutralize Farad's electrical charge.
Instead, the confounded Madysyn reported with awe: "Boss, the radar shows he's just… disappeared. You've destroyed Farad!"
Light-Wave
Light-Wave spun in place, evaluating the training ground around him. There was a lingering stench and some of the equipment had some minor damage. A military ambulance was just lifting from the field, headed for the emergency room in the Citadel of Justice hospital.
"Not too impressive, eh, Wyl?" the Radiant Rocket asked one of the two armored Terror Troopers flanking him. The three of them had spent the last hour testing applicants for the Justice Machine.
"Sure enough not, Commander." Wyl agreed. "Even at only half power, either me or Jonny could take the whole bunch of 'em on at once, easy. Speakin'a easy, that Quartz Queen sure wuz a hottie, wuzn she?!"
Privately, Light-Wave agreed. Although her power of turning inanimate things to quartz wouldn't be of use to the Justice Machine, her other qualities had convinced him to set up an unofficial private second interview with her for later this evening.
"I hope this last one is more interesting than the rest!" Light-Wave sighed. The charter Council Central had set up for the Justice Machine mandated that the current JM leader hold public tryouts twice a year, and send at least one candidate a year to the Academy. He'd downchecked the entire batch 6 months ago, and if this next candidate didn't shine, the Academy would be stuck with the best of today's bunch of losers, assuming she survived her upcoming surgery. He wished Jonny had been a little more restrained with the last candidate, but hey, if they wanted to be in the Justice Machine, they were going to have to go up against opponents a lot tougher than a Terror Trooper private.
The last candidate was a woman. Some trick of her costume made it difficult to see her; it almost seemed as if she were wrapped in a shadow, even in the brightly lighted training ground. She was dressed in a floor length, pitch-black tau robe with big bell sleeves and a deep hood that totally enveloped her face and shrouded it in darkness. The clingy robe unfortunately revealed a slightly dumpy figure. Only her hands could be seen clearly, and for some reason Light-Wave's eyes were drawn to her long, bony fingers. She carried a staff that was longer than she was tall, and the staff seemed to glow black.
Black light? As a master of light himself, Light-Wave knew that was ridiculous; it must be some technology that directly affected the optic nerve. The Man of Photons shook his head angrily, concentrated on seeing clearly and the 'glow' vanished . The fancy staff was only an ordinary serpentwood sapling. The Radiant Rocket was somewhat impressed that some unknown could come into his stronghold and fool him, even for a second, with a trick of light. His boredom faded and he focused his attention on this new recruit.
"Who are you, and what are your powers?" he barked. Gotta keep this moving, he had an important appointment to keep!
"You can call me Wynda and I'm a witch." she stated in a strong, firm voice. "I state my desire, and chant the activation phrase, and the magic in the Staff of Savalua executes my command." She slammed the butt of the staff to the turf for emphasis.
"Sorry, Wyndy, you lost me at 'witch'" the Invincible Icon replied sarcastically. "I guess you didn't read the regulations, but there's no place for 'magic' in the Justice Machine. Never will be, as long as I'm the leader. Magic doesn't exist!"
"Why, you pompous young skeptic!" she yelled back at him. "I'll show you magic! Light-Wave, vanish! Arazak Allaham Alla!" She slammed the butt of the staff to the ground and with a very small, casual puffing sound, Light-Wave disappeared.
Denizen
A streamlined shape cruised slowly a few yards above the floor of the Torrentic Ocean. This was Denizen, perhaps the strangest and most alien member of the Justice Machine.
In earth terms, his body resembled that of `Robbie the Robot' if Robbie had been featureless, covered with something like glossy black sharkskin, with a tripod of legs. No one knew Denizen's origin, not even the Dark Dweller himself. His body had been discovered, in some kind of suspended animation, orbiting a giant ringed planet about fifty light years from Georwell, and when Research Central had finally managed to revive him, he had no memory of his prior life. Research Central theorized that Denizen was an artificial life form, designed by an unknown race for space exploration. Since even Research Central wasn't certain about Denizen's gender, if any, let's refer to him as `him' for simplicity's sake.
Denizen's body was equally functional in the weightless vacuum of space and deep in the high pressure atmosphere of a super Jovian planet, in temperatures ranging from close to absolute zero to the surface of a brown dwarf star. He had no eyes, ears, nose, in fact, no external sensory organs of any type, as he experienced the world around him via a psionic sense of perception. With no external features, and perception that was equally effective in any direction, the concepts of front and back didn't apply to him.
Though he had 4 equally-spaced tentacles depending from his `shoulders', they were normally retracted inside his body, and he rarely used them, depending instead on a powerful telekinetic ability. He could move through 'flat' space, far from any strong gravity field, using an unknown kind of reactionless propulsion. In a fluid environment (underwater) or an atmosphere, his telekinesis propelled him, and the denser the environment, the more efficiently that telekinetic propulsion worked. With no natural method of creating sounds, Research Central had created a psionically-driven vocoder to allow the Dark Dweller to communicate with humans. Though the vocoder had no default frequency range, when it rendered Denizen's conversation, the massive alien's artificial voice sounded very much like Terrestrial whale song. His body drew power from cosmic radiation, which penetrated even to the 'surface' of a gas giant planet.
Denizen moved smoothly into the powerful current streaming from the mouth of the Huxley River, the largest river on Third Continent, and he altered his course towards the river. His torpedo-shaped body, driven by his powerful telekinetic ability, slipped easily through the noxious sludge that poured out of the river into the Torrentic, discoloring the oily waters of for hundreds of miles up and down the coast and out to sea. It was naturally pitch black at this depth, and the waters were opaque with pollution. The Fluid Phantom's psionic sense of perception allowed him to maneuver with confidence among the debris and trash dumped in the river and washed into the ocean by thousands of years of Georwellian civilization.
Denizen could survive unprotected in the methane atmospheres of gas giant planets and the vacuum of space But even though he could 'see' through the oceans of Georwell, he needed to wear a chemically-inert sealed environment suit to survive in the highly toxic, acidic liquid that passed for ocean water on Georwell.
'With putridity like this spewing out of every river on the planet, it's not surprising that life is extinct in Georwell's oceans.' Denizen thought to himself. 'Why does Council Central concern itself with the color of the crap spewing from the Huxley River?' Though he didn't think in English, this is how his vocoder would have rendered his thoughts, if he'd been sending them to the device.
Of course, he hadn't asked Light-Wave this question when he received his assignment. Even before the Rim Wars had started, it had been bad policy to question orders; with the Imperium under martial law for the duration of the Rim Wars, it could be considered treason.
'But when ISN'T the Imperium under martial law?' was another question he would never ask. His massive body shuddered slightly; even that thought was close to treason! He was forced to live among humans, but he would never understand them.
He cruised upstream, his psionic propulsion an easy match for the tremendous current. Suddenly, without any warning at all, there was a series of tremendous explosions above him, and debris started raining down around him. His sense of perception told him that the ceiling of this gigantic sewer pipe, as far away as he could sense (about a half mile in any direction under these conditions) was collapsing. He dove as deeply as he could and sped towards the ocean at his highest velocity, about 120 miles an hour in human terms, but he couldn't get out from under the collapse. A chunk of debris smashed into him, knocking him unconscious as it slammed him to the river bed.
The Watery Warrior could survive against the almost immeasurable atmospheric pressure on the surface of a gas giant; the few tons of debris that pinned him to the river floor didn't even make him feel uncomfortable. But when he awakened, he found that he couldn't move, and quickly came to the stark realization that unless his teammates came searching for him, he might live for a long time pinned in this hideous location, entombed immovably in muck and crap in the largest sewer ever created. And then suddenly, he was elsewhere.
An Unexpected Meeting
Despite the Theory of Relativity, which tells us that the concept of simultaneity is meaningless, as nearly as humans can understand, the members of the Justice Machine vanished from their world at the exact same instant. For an immeasurable moment, perhaps instantaneously brief yet seemingly stretching to infinity, the mighty heroes found themselves imprisoned in a place that was indescribable to human senses, and then, once again defying both Theory and Relativity, all 8 heroes simultaneously appeared… but where?
Light-Wave broke off his imperious command to one of the missing Terror Troopers, and looked around in astonishment. "I'll be damned, she did it!" Then he noticed the rest of his teammates, and realized that Wynda the Witch probably had nothing to do with this. Giant fell out of thin air, not five feet from him, and crashed, not onto the grassy field she expected, but instead onto hard pavement. Her breath 'whoomphed' out of her, and Light-Wave was forced to scramble to avoid being crushed by his towering partner.
Challenger materialized a quarter mile away, and crashed to the tarmac just in time to escape Arbalest's bolo bolt. Not far away, Farad suddenly found himself tearing through atmosphere rather than the vacuum of space. Before he could even react and use the planetary magnetic field around him to slow down, he slammed into Fricton and they both tumbled to the pavement.
"Lanny, something's wrong," the Flame was saying as she popped into existence, alarm in her voice as she burst into flame, then looked around in amazement. She saw Denizen lying on the pavement near her. "I don't know how you did that, you slimy sewer snake, but it's NOT funny!" She launched immediately into the air, away from her hated teammate.
'I'm free!' Denizen thought in relief, then stopped, stunned, as he took in his new environment. His sense of perception instantly recognized the Flame. "You're the disgusting joke, you flying funeral pyre!"
"Condition Gamma!" Light-Wave roared at the top of his voice, the order cutting through the confused babbling of the heroes like a knife. Condition Gamma commanded instant response; it signified an imminent ambush, and everyone was to immediately take independent action against the enemy, coordinating actions with the closest other heroes if possible, pending further orders from the current commander.
Their long hours of training kicked in, and the heroes instinctively oriented on the incoming threats. From all directions, 4 large things, perhaps beings, perhaps something else, were charging towards them, firing weapons.
Sinister Watchers
In a control room in a secret subbasement of one of the nearby buildings, a large number of monitor screens, each the size of a large window, allowed a group of beings to study the every action of the Justice Machine. Seven of these beings were connected to a bank of instruments and computers by cables attached to helmets they were wearing, plus wires attached to various points on their bodies. The most extraordinary aspect of these seven beings was who they were: Arbalest, Giant, Challenger, Light-Wave, the Flame, Fricton, and Farad of the Justice Machine, the same heroes who were now engaged in battle on the surface above! They observed the battles of their duplicates with uncanny concentration, in eerie silence.
A small, wizened bald man sat at a control panel, constantly touching switches and making adjustments to knobs and dials. He bragged to his companion, a 7' tall humanoid who looked like a beautiful, muscular woman with long red hair - except for her yellow skin, pointed ears and the two flexible antennae that poked through the hair covering her forehead. She was flamboyantly dressed: a big pink bow in her hair, pink patch over her right eye, an unfastened green combat jacket with pink trim over a thin band of pink cloth that barely contained her massive bosom, a green bolero-style skirt and green knee high, front lace-up boots. Incongruously with her high tech surroundings, she held a long thin sword with a fancy basket across her lap, and there was a sheath knife protruding from her right boot. She sat in a throne-like chair, intently scrutinizing the small man's every move.
"My creation Astoundo will easily triumph over Fricton and Farad! I hope your minion Gorral can direct my Angrak robot well enough to handle the Flame and Denizen, Captain Cinnbarad."
"I'm certain that Gorral can handle his task, Simon Spears," she replied, in a low rumbling voice that terrified Spears. "After all, didn't you train him yourself? Still, our Dimensional Lock can swap you into Angrak's cockpit if you so desire. "
Simon had the feeling that the big alien was laughing at him, but how do you read the body language of an alien?
"No, thank you," he replied carefully. "I know you used the Lock to bring the Justice Machine here, but I don't trust a machine that sends my body through some other dimension. Besides, we've already decided that my presence is essential here in the control room."
What he didn't say, but was sure that Cinnbarad had realized, was that Simon Spears was terrified of the Justice Machine. 16 years ago, the Justice Machine had taken him into custody as a political prisoner for introducing servant robots into Georwellian society robots designed to do the work currently done by sub-citizens. Council Central was certain that with too much free time on their hands, the sub-citizens would quickly decide to revolt, and they outnumbered citizens several hundred to one.
So Chief Prosecutor Barez had made the decision to remove Simon Spears, the self-styled Robot Master, from society, as a traitor to Georwell. The Justice Machine had captured him, destroyed his factory and all the robots he had ever built, then tracked down and punished everyone who had purchased one of those robots. He'd escaped a year later, but not before he'd been tortured and abused, then forced to work for the very government that was imprisoning him. He'd encountered, and been defeated by, various individual members of the Justice Machine frequently in the intervening years as he used his ever-more-sophisticated robots for criminal ventures. After his last defeat by Arbalest, he'd contacted Captain Cinnbarad and offered his services in return for a chance to get revenge. But he was still scared of facing the Justice Machine; he would rather die than be recaptured, yet again.
Spears turned to another screen, which showed his two most hated enemies. "Light-Wave and Giant were two of the so-called heroes who captured me and destroyed my life*. I designed Gadgetique specifically to defeat them. And later, after I had escaped, Arbalest and Pheon foiled my plans and beat my first primitive battle robots**. But Transformatron combines the best features of those early robots and is much more advanced. Arbalest and Challenger don't stand a chance!"
*see Justice Machine: Challenges Act 2
**Georwell's Finest Comics Vol 1 #34 "The Robot Master Crimes"
"Do not get so carried away watching these battles that you forget to monitor your instruments, Simon Spears," Cinnbarad instructed coldly. "If something goes wrong with the imprinting process, all of our efforts here will be wasted and I will be very angry."
Attack of the Giant Robots
Fricton reached out a hand to help Farad to his feet, and yelped in pain as he was jolted by an electric charge.
"What are you, nuts?!" he screamed at his teammate.
"I am nuts! Nuts I am!" Farad gibbered back at him in a high, sing-song voice. "I don't like this place, by damn!" He blasted a bolt of electricity at Fricton, who was fast enough to get out of the way. Instead the bolt zapped Light-Wave from behind, startling him but not hurting him. He turned around and angrily approached his teammates. When Farad saw the Photonic Protector coming towards him, he curled up in the fetal position and started crying.
"Crap he's somehow off his meds again," Light-Wave swore. He reached into a pouch on the High Tension Hero's belt and pulled out a pneumatic syringe, plunged it into Farad's butt and pressed the trigger. Farad instantly relaxed, shuddered, and came to his feet.
"Thanks, boss!" He turned to Fricton. "Sorry you had to see that, it's a side effect of the genetic surgery that gave me my powers. Somehow the drug wore off on our little trip here, wherever here is."
'Here' looked like a section of any city on Georwell, streets paved with a substance that resembled concrete laced with metallic fibers for strength, buildings made of a plastic more structurally solid than granite. But it was empty of people. "Don't worry, I'm good for a couple of days, now."
Fricton & Farad vs. Astoundo
Fricton wasn't so sure, but it was too late to get reassurance from Light-Wave, who had already flown off to battle one of the things that were attacking them. There wasn't time for Farad to tell any more of his story; he blasted a projectile of some sort just before it reached the two heroes. "Look sharp, Quickster! Incoming!"
There were more projectiles flying towards them, being fired by a bizarre opponent, who we know is called Astoundo.
"He looks like he's half me and half Arbalest!" Fricton said as he blurred into motion, using super-speed blows to shatter the various crossbow bolts that were speeding toward him. Astoundo looked like someone had cut Fricton and Arbalest (in his older costume) in half lengthwise and then stuck his right half to the Archer's left half.
"And he's got both your powers," added Farad, as the attacking being easily avoided his electrical blasts. The Current Crusader zoomed into the air as their attacker loosed a swarm of bolts, moving at super speed. As soon as his feet left the ground, he surrounded himself in a field that looked like a swarm of leashed lightning bolts.
Some of the quarrels were directed at Fricton who dodged them easily; though Astoundo was firing at super-speed, his arrows were only moving at normal arrow speed. The bolts fired at Farad were destroyed by the lightning field around him. Fricton responded by increasing the friction between all the moving parts on the villain's crossbow, and the next time Astoundo tried to cock the crossbow, the bowstring snapped.
The villain threw his weapon at Fricton, who didn't quite manage to dodge; the butt struck him painfully on the shoulder but nothing was broken. The Pharaoh of Fast wasn't prepared to fight a foe as fast as he was; he would need to be extra careful. Suddenly he realized why Light-Wave always insisted that he spend extra time in combat training at normal speed!
When Fricton jerked his head back towards his opponent he was shocked to see that Astoundo had changed appearance he now appeared to be half Fricton, half Farad!
Denizen & the Flame vs. Angrak
Denizen took to the sky. His reactionless drive wouldn't work in a gravity well, and his psionic powers weren't as effective in this thin air as they were in a denser, higher-pressure medium, but he was much more maneuverable in the air than on the ground. He immediately strained to reach his top speed, racing to intercept two missiles that were homing on the Flame, who was shooting a fireball in the other direction.
"Fynn!" he had time to shout, and then the missiles impacted and exploded, throwing him tumbling across the sky into her field of view. He managed to regain control. "You flaming ditz! Pay attention!" His high-pitched voice sounded strange coming from such a massive being.
"I don't need your protection or your scolding, Mr. Cold and Dark!" she replied scornfully. She detested Denizen, she hated the idea that he could touch her telekinetically without her even knowing it, and his tentacles reminded her of snakes. He could sense her revulsion, and responded similarly. Even so, they were teammates - her eyes grew huge and she started a warning. "Look out behind…" but it was too late.
Angrak, the giant robot Masha had been battling, swung its left arm in a backhanded sweep and its massive claw smashed into the distracted Denizen, knocking him tumbling across the sky. The robot then turned its attention back to the Radiant Rocket.
'Now who wasn't paying attention?' she asked herself with smug satisfaction as she examined her foe carefully, trying to find a weak point.
The robot was humanoid, about 40 feet tall, 'Just slightly larger than Giant's largest size,' she thought to herself. It had a sloppy, unfinished appearance, with 'skin' made of roughly finished gray metal plates, and the rivets that held the plates together were easily visible. The face was incongruous: it seemed as if the robot was wearing a gray plastic mask of the ugliest humanoid face she had ever seen -- a face that didn't look robotic at all. The monstrous mechanism had two robotic claws for hands, and the right claw was holding a giant short-handled sledgehammer. Its movements puzzled her - when the robot started moving, it moved fluidly until an action was completed, and then hesitated before making the next movement, almost as if it had to page through a menu of actions in order to decide what to do next.
She didn't have time for more observations - the hammer was swinging her way. She darted backwards, out of range, and then pointed both arms at the robot, fists closed, and concentrated. A blast of flaming plasma burst from her fists and rocketed towards her giant foe, splashing against the metal plates of the massive chest, with no visible result. The robot hesitated, and then smoothly leaned over to the right, and swung the hammer down and into the ground, driving a massive chunk of pavement into the air, directly at the startled High Temp Hottie.
She couldn't dodge in time; all she could do was strain to increase the temperature of her flame to maximum and hope that enough of the rocky missile would vaporize that the impact of the rest wouldn't kill her. This would definitely hurt! In fact, she wasn't totally sure she would survive.
Except that Denizen flashed down from above, and smashed into the flying boulder, deflecting it enough that it missed her. She winced at the impact, but it didn't seem to bother him. His adaptation to almost any conceivable atmospheric pressure made his body virtually invulnerable.
"Stay behind me, you useless firefly!" he shouted at her, as he swooped around to face the robot. "I can't protect you and fight at the same time!"
"I'll show you useless, you stinking squid!" She rocketed towards the head of the robot.
Arbalest & Challenger vs. Transformatron
Challenger and Arbalest were hastily dodging machine gun fire, sprayed from the turret of an approaching half track. Jaime touched the button on his bandoleer that activated his JM communicator - he and the Archer were going to have to coordinate their actions and the enemy gun was too loud to shout over. He knew the communicator built into the Crossbow Crusader's helmet would activate automatically.
"New armor, huh?" Challenger inquired of Arbalest. As he spoke, the two men moved like twin bolts of greased lighting, diving to their left to escape the strafing fire. "Exterior design by Prosecutor Barez, no doubt. He tried to get me into something similar, except brown, years ago."
Each man tucked his right shoulder before he landed, did a complete roll, slapping the ground with the left hand to absorb some momentum, then came up into a deep crouch, aiming and firing almost before he stopped moving. While they were moving, the 'track fired two surface-to-air missiles from a launch platform on the back. The two continued their conversation, as casually as if they were standing at the water cooler.
"Yeah, I decided it was time to get away from my public image as 'Challenger with a crossbow' and establish more of an independent identity of my own. How come you never adopted armor? I know you did the equipment specs for this model."
Challenger fired a laser beam at the 'track's cabin and Arbalest loosed two bolts at the nearer tread. Challenger's ray glanced harmlessly off the armored side of the car, while Archer's bolts exploded and drenched the tread with something, and it immediately stopped moving forward, instead jolting around in a half circle before the track motor was shut down.
"Maybe you should have some arrows in those pistols!" Arbalest quipped to his teammate.
"Nice shot!" Challenger ignored the jibe. "Quipoxy Number 5?" he asked as he rose into a crouch and ran at top speed, zig-zagging, into the recessed door of the nearest building. As he ran, he advanced a dial on the side of his pistol and fired again.
"Yeah. Nothing like the old standards," Arbalest rushed across the street, weaving and dodging, into the entrance to an alley and took new cover as well. His automatic crossbow had reloaded as he ran and he too had already fired again.
"That's why I don't use armor - I'm used to doing it the old-fashioned way!" Jaime commented. Then the two were moving again, using the flash and smoke of the twin explosions of their projectiles as cover. Their last rush brought them under the horizon of the machine gun in the turret of the robot attacker.
The stalled car had been jolted slightly by the explosions, but there was no further damage. Instead, it started to rise into the air as it quickly sprouted legs. It now towered over the two heroes, and started striding forward, crushing a parked car beneath one of the giant circular foot pads.
"Jaime? Maneuver 23Q." Arbalest suggested calmly.
Challenger fired a dart at a nearby building and the missile flew true, trailing a thin, highly flexible cable. The warhead exploded on impact, driving a spike deep into the wall and sending an activation signal to the powerful motorized reel in the body of the pistol. The People's Paladin was yanked away at high speed. He snatched Arbalest from under the weird robot's foot, just before it could stomp on him. Unruffled, the Midnight Marksman deliberately fired a bolo bolt, and the thin, highly flexible cable wrapped around the legs of the transformed armored car. It wobbled, and then crashed to the ground.
"You know, I recognize the style here," Arbalest mused. "A few years ago, Pheon and I fought against the creations of a scientist named Simon Spears, the Robot Master, who was using his wacky inventions to commit thefts. They included everyday things like an office safe, an automatic cargo hauler, and a luxurious private flier, but the safe changed into a robotic helicopter and flew away with the buyer's money, the cargo hauler turned into a robot flier and carried off the valuable cargo, and the flier turned into a robotic mole and helped Spears kidnap a very rich VIP. Pheon and I put him away, but he escaped in less than a year. I'd say we haven't seen the end of the transformations from this thing yet!"
He was right. The armored car began writhing and changing forms once again.
Giant and Light-Wave vs. Gadgetique
Gadgetique fired a ray which struck Light-Wave in the back, knocking him tumbling. Giant swept her massive arm around and knocked the robot spinning. "Boss! T'others ken b'taken care of t'emselves f'r'a mint or two. T'is t'ing looks dang'r'us!"
Gadgetique looked dangerous indeed, even spinning out of control through the air! Nine feet tall of gleaming golden robot, surrounded by a flashing force shield of pale violet, with an exaggeratedly female figure. She suddenly vanished and instantly appeared again, stationary, firing a beam at Giant. The Lass of Legend shrunk to normal size and the beam missed. She yelled to Light-Wave. "Sault Nuver C13," Giant suggested.
"Confirmed!" the Invincible Icon agreed and blasted the robot with a burst of high intensity photons in the ultra-violet, visible and infra-red spectrums, hoping to blind it. At the same time, the Princess of Power grew to her most comfortable 18 foot size and attacked, raining immensely powerful blows against the robot's violet force field. The golden golem was driven backwards by the force of the blows, and then vanished again. She reappeared behind Giant, and projected a force blast from her eyes that sent the Lass of Legend tumbling.
*****
"Do you think it was coincidence that whatever brought us here dropped two of us in the path of each of those four robots?" Challenger wondered, as he dove right and rolled to escape being crushed by Transformatron, now shaped like a giant wheel. He popped up and fired, and exploding shells dropped into the path of the giant wheel and when they exploded, drenched the road ahead of it with oil.
"No more than you do!" Arbalest replied as he dove left and rolled. "And we're not having much luck against our selected opponents." He came to his feet firing, as had the Platinum Paladin, and his explosive bolts opened a hole in the pavement in front of the rolling juggernaut. Unable to stop because of Challenger's oil slick, Transformatron skidded and fell into the pit Arbalest had created and instantly started changing form again.
Jaiime flipped to Light-Wave's channel on his communicator. "Boss, these robots are designed to fight us in specific pairs. I suggest a strategic re-align." Before the Invincible Icon could reply, Arbelest's voice barked in his ear: "I concur!" Light-Wave and Challenger had disliked each other from the day they'd met, and this hadn't changed, but the JM's leader knew that Challenger was a superb battle tactician. If Arbalest agreed with him, that sealed the deal. Using his enhanced vision, he spun at super-speed and surveyed the battlefield, and then, with his most confident and commanding tone, he started giving rapid-fire orders.