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ENTRY # : |
9 |
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TITLE : |
TOTAL MAYHEM™ |
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ARC : |
THE ELEMENT OF DISASTER III |
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ENTERED BY : |
Crucible's Journal |
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DATE RANGE : |
November 8th, 2000 |
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HEROES : |
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VILLAINS : |
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PEOPLE : |
Tribunal,
Sub-Zero,
Victor Stewart,
Flechette
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OTHERS : |
MAYHEM™,
The Elementals of Evil,
Coast City,
Channel Islands,
The Junkyard,
Millennium Towers,
Pinging Pete,
Police Headquarters,
The Mini-Sub
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ENTRY : |
11/08/00: 12:00am; The next twelve hours were a frantic
mess. Worn out from the events of a very long 48 hours (not to mention a variety of wounds
and pulled muscles), we nonetheless could not spare the luxury of more than a catnap back at
Millennium Towers. With our failure to stop the escape of the villains, and no information
about their current location, Things Looked Bad.
A late night skull session led to little ideas, and as dawn approached we scattered to our
separate ways (and lives) to pursue what investigations we could. Tribunal stormed off with
violence in his eyes and Flechette's name upon his lips. Oberon and Sub-Zero went off more
quietly, but with similar resolve. I, meanwhile, pursued an idea of my own. Amidst the
equipment seized during the foiled bank robbery we had seized a
unique communication device. While its transmissions were Encrypted and Untraceable by normal
methods, I had someone very abnormal in my corner.
Victor was agreeable, and in an amazingly quick period of time Lawrence had fitted him out
with a lab (if you throw enough money at them, suppliers will get up before dawn to make
deliveries) and Victor was hard at work disassembling the communicator. My snap decision
from the day before to look him up was bearing Unexpected Fruit!
11/08/00: about noon; A breakthrough! Victor had assembled a makeshift
'phase modulation device' (whatever that was) that could "triangulate upon the idiosyncratic
transmissions utilized by the malefactors equipment" (or 'track the bad guys' in plainspeak).
It wasn't a very complicated device to operate, rather it worked along the lines of the
childhood game of warmer and colder. The device (which Victor characteristically
named Pinging Pete) would emit a tone as it detected the type of carrier wave used by
the villains. The closer to them one got, the more frequent the pinging. I Was Delighted!
This was just like the type of devices that my father was reported to have constructed - a
throwback to the Classic Days when Villains were Dastardly and Heroes were Stalwart!
Unfortunately as I tried to assemble the team to go after the Villains, the difference between
the good old days and the modern era became all too clear. Tribunal had gotten himself into
a mess with Internal Affairs (something to do with his interrogation of Flechette) and was
effectively a prisoner himself. Sub-Zero, meanwhile, had been called into work and couldn't
get away. I Couldn't Believe It! The city itself was in mortal peril and the school couldn't
spare him to help deal with it?!? If it had been me, I would have quit on the spot, but I
could not sit in judgment as my inherited wealth gave me freedoms that not all my comrades
could share.
Luckily, Oberon and I would not have to brace the nest of evil alone. Before he had landed
himself in trouble, Tribunal's investigations had brought another superhero to town. This
was Aquanaut, the Defender of the Seas! Those Tsunami-Hurling Miscreants had Offended the
Balance of Nature and Now They Would Pay!
11/08/00: 1:00pm; We got the phone call that Aquanaut was at Police HQ, so
Oberon and I headed out to meet him. By first impressions Aquanaut was a large, well-muscled
man wearing a blue and white outfit that proudly bore a red A. I liked him at first glance,
though he struck me as being a bit odd, personality-wise. As I explained how we hoped to track
the villains down, he was able to fill us in a bit more on the four new villains encountered
at the junkyard the night before. Apparently, they were a mercenary
band of supervillains who called themselves the Elementals of Evil. Aquanaut had had run-ins
with them before, and there was particularly bad blood between him and the Sea Witch.
Setting off at last in search of the enemy hideout, we quickly determined them to be located
off the Eastern Seaboard of Coast City. Oberon and I took to the air, whilst Aquanaut forged
some sort of mental link with us and then disappeared beneath the waves, scoffing at the notion
that he might have problems keeping up with us in flight. With a little effort and a lot of
time we tracked them down; the villains were located on one of the small islands that dot the
coastline of the City. With our Prey Located at Last we Moved In For The Kill!
11/08/00: about 4:00pm; Uncertain about the numbers and dispositions of our
foes, we attempted to approach using stealth. Aquaman could get quite close underwater, and
found a submarine (invisible to normal sight like their helicopter had
been) moored to a dock below a large complex (also invisible until you got quite close). Oberon
scouted in, approaching from the south while I circled around to do the same from the north.
As I did so, flying low over the sand dunes to keep out of sight, I soon received a report that
Oberon had sighted the complex, then mere moments later another that he had come under an attack
from Mace. Our Cover was Blown and now only Battle Awaited!
I dropped the now unnecessary Pinging Pete, turned on the jets and roared towards the scene,
receiving mental reports from my two allies as I went. Mace's attack had been extremely
short-lived. Aquanaut showed us his mettle with an astounding leap from beneath the waves that
smashed Mace from the sky, and from consciousness, in a single fierce blow. A large number of
the Agents of Mayhem began to boil forth from the complex and fire a variety of weapons at the
two Interlopers. All this soon became visible to me as I careened over a final hill and into
the fray, taking the mooks from the flank with a series of explosions.
The other supervillains were quick to make their presence known. Even as I scattered the Agents
about the scene, I was Blindsided by a Blast that could only have come from the Sea Witch.
Desperately trying - and failing - to maintain my Fiery Nimbus, I Fell From the Sky and landed
hard upon the ground, Blacking out Momentarily upon Impact.
When I rejoined the fight, mere seconds later, I was witness to one of the most impressive
demonstrations of martial prowess that I have ever seen in my entire career. Aquanaut
owned the battlefield, leaping about from section to section, and everywhere he leapt,
he came down with a tremendous attack upon a supervillain. They were soon off-balance and
fighting a reflexive battle against the marauding brick, desperately Trying to Bring him Down
while the Agents routed about them (helped along by a few attacks by myself and Oberon).
Their single-mindedness allowed Oberon and I a little more time to focus our attacks. I took
down Psi-Clone, the villain who had mindblasted me into unconsciousness the
night before. Oberon, meanwhile, plied another MAYHEM goon, the
Iron Major, with Lightning Bolts until that armored menace dropped with a Resounding Crash.
The Day, However, Belonged to Aquanaut. He virtually singlehandedly took out not only Mace,
but also the rest of the Elementals of Evil; Sea Witch, Heatwave and King Quake. It
was a performance that I daresay even Big Blue could not have duplicated. We simply could not
have won this battle without Aquanaut On Our Side.
What remained was mere Mop-Up. Most of the Agents had tossed down their weapons and fled for
the dunes, while others piled into the sub (which I holed to keep from escaping). While we
called in the authorities to take custody of the prisoners, we quickly surveyed what we had
accomplished. It was quickly ascertained that while we had taken this base virtually intact,
there was no equipment at the site capable of generating the Tidal Waves. Moreover, although
Pike had been spotted early on in the battle, there was no sign of him in the aftermath. A
peculiar device - possibly a teleportation pad - was found but its use could not be figured
out, which suggested another location relatively nearby. Oberon got an idea from this and,
looking over some charts he had unearthed, found the apparent solution; another base of
operations located upon the seabed out in the middle of the bay. We Weren't Done Yet...
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WRAPUP : |
In an Amazing Turnaround, we scored an Upset Victory. Three Heroes managed to
best more than twice their number of Supervillains, plus a small army of blaster-equipped
mooks. We had to restrain ourselves and keep in mind that this, too, was but another Battle.
The final confrontation was Yet To Come!
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