KOTC Database Category: JOURNAL ENTRY

"They are the right hand of Justice...
They are the Knights of the Coast!"

KOTC Database Category: JOURNAL ENTRY

	`ENTRY # :`	61
	`TITLE :`	BLOOD OF HEROES
	`ARC :`	GHOSTS OF THE PAST I
	`ENTERED BY :`	Hazardman
	`DATE RANGE :`	May 15th, 2001
	`GUESTS :`
	`HOSTS :`
	`PEOPLE :`	Ariadne, Battosai, Captain Thunder, Cru-S, Darius Quest, Dr. Lizardo, Perseus, Phoenix, Shadowqueen, Sylvia Correlli, Wraith
	`OTHERS :`	The Empire Club, The Gentlemen's Adventurers Society, The Keene Act, The KnightRider I, The Knight's Redoubt, PureBlood, Sacred Heart Hospital, Sirenos Inc., SkullBox

	`ENTRY :`	Hazardman here, again! I hardly recognize the place. Not the Redoubt itself, which hasn't changed much, but everything else. I have returned to a group to which I am a stranger. Sure, Cipher is still around, but I hardly see her what with her being always at Sirenos. I haven't seen Victor either. Sub-Zero has been transferred to Sacred Heart Hospital, and has recovered from that strange coma he was in, but he hasn't been around either. The news that Phoenix has quit the group comes as the biggest shock, even granted all the changes in the world in the last couple of months. In the place of the faces that I knew are strangers. I hadn't known Battosai well (and the news that he had been the group leader for a time comes as a bit of a shock), but I do not know StarSeed at all. There is a very attractive young lady wandering around the base who calls herself Ariadne, but she doesn't really seem to be part of the team and won't even tell me where she's from. We have a Federal Agent and a paroled supervillain attached to the squad, though I haven't formally met either as the Fed is continuing to heal up in Wyoming after that last business. Then there is Templar, an ornery old codger who seems to spend most of his time burning some strange incense in his rooms, and only emerges to growl something about the 'signs still being poor' and wolf down food. He also informed me - without asking - that it was once again my job to handle these journal entries. As if I needed his permission! And then there is Cru-S. I gotta say that this is one of the niftiest additions to the base I could possibly imagine. We have our own A.I.! This thing's incredible - he keeps asking me about these wierd philosophical questions, he handles our phone calls and can find almost anything out on the internet almost instantly. He was able to track down what might be a mailing address for the Shadowqueen for me, which I used to send a note of thanks for her help in breaking me free of that creepy Crimson Claw. Mostly, however, it's been pretty depressing. The mood on the streets has changed a lot since I first joined the Knights. I actually got shouted at by some people I encountered while patrolling. And the people demonstrating at Captain Thunder's memorial service! I simply cannot believe that the legendary Thunder is dead, and the fact that so many people are happy about it is really depressing. - - - Log entry, addendum [That's another of the keen things about Cru-S - he's helping me with the formatting of my log entries so I can make multiple posts to a single entry. And I can do it from outside the base using the SkullBox! I didn't know you could do any of that!] I'm making this entry on May 16th, while we are leaving Manhattan, after one of the most fulfilling - yet simultaneously depressing - days of my life! Let me back things up a bit. Things were gradually getting back to normal in Coast City, and people were being released from hospital and rejoining the team, so I finally got to meet Agent DeSalvo and Hydro, and get to know the others a little better. We were also cheered to hear that Phoenix had found and rescued Dr. Manning. The news that prompted this log entry, however, was the arrival of an invitation to a meeting of the "Gentleman's Adventurers Society", hosted by the Empire Club in Manhattan and some guy named Darius Quest. After some little discussion, we agreed to attend and bundled into the Knightrider 1 (which I finally get to fly!) for the trip to Manhattan, accompanied by Ariadne and Doc Stewart. Once in the Big Apple, we had some time before the meeting so most of us went off to do some sightseeing or the like. I got to fulfill a childhood desire to hang off the Empire State Building, before Sub-Zero and I were chased away by some security guards. When we met up again, and went to the meeting, it was another of my fantasies. The "Gentleman's Adventurer's Society" was made up of a bunch of the superheroes I remembered from when I was a kid; Hyperion, Captain Strong, Liberty Belle, the Nighthunter. I would have loved to meet them in happier times. As it was, the meeting started off on a sombre note, in memorial to Captain Thunder, whom they had added to a wall of remembrance that they maintain (along with Crucible, I was gratified to see). They started talking then about the future, and what we should do about the Keene Act and other political developments. Things, needless to say, got pretty heavy. DeSalvo was the brunt of a lot of this, being the defacto government representative at the table. In particular he and Templar were going at it tooth and nail, reminding me of the old arguments between Perseus and Phoenix. While I am not the biggest supporter of the Keene Act, even I think that Templar went a little too far, however. How could we hope to get accreditation if he alienated the man responsible for assessing us for that? Then, our host brought in the Golden Avenger, and if I thought that DeSalvo attracted flack as a representative of the system, I expected things to get much worse with Avenger present. He, however, quickly defused such sentiment by announcing his retirement, stating that he could no longer support the current regime. He left with no further word, after taking off his helmet for DeSalvo to turn over to the government. This blow was quickly followed by two more. It turns out Orion had been at the meeting incognito, and after stating his opinion that exotics should withdraw from the presence of normals, he declared that he was going to do just that himself. Before leaving he stopped long enough to tell us that our old comrade Perseus was sick - and likely dying - as a result of radiation poisoning from the reactor incident. Still under the influence of Avatar, Perseus had attacked Orion who subdued him and turned him over to Dr. Lizardo in the hopes that the fugitive doctor might be able to save him. I could not imagine that I could feel any lower at that moment. Not only were we stll mourning Thunder, but we had just lost Orion and the Golden Avenger as well, plus it looked like my old friend and sparring partner Perseus was going to die. Luckily, I think that no-one wanted the evening to be spoiled by too much bad news, and conversations turned to lighter things, aided by the arrival of Dr. Arcana. Captain Strong found a person willing to arm-wrestle him (after being turned down a number of times by Hyperion) in Hydro, and after a lengthy back-and-forth battle even managed to beat him! I got the chance to talk to a number of my childhood idols, and even got a hint or two on martial technique from Liberty Belle. As the evening waned, some of the heroes began to depart. Canadian Shield (another guest) drove Black Phantom away. Dr. Arcana disappeared as ostentatiously as he had arrived. It was about this time that the explosion wracked the building. Investigations after the fact blamed the attack on a fringe group of anti-mutant freaks who called themselves "PureBlood". They had welded shut a lot of the secondary exits and disabled the sprinkler systems before tossing an incendiary device into the main doors downstairs and driving away. All we knew at the time was that the stairwell was instantly engulfed in flames with the sound of shrill screaming from downstairs drowning out the roar of the flames. Needless to say, we sprang into action. I began trying to search for any other people that might have been on the second floor while Cipher and DeSalvo did the same for the top floor above. StarSeed, meanwhile, had flown downstairs in spite of the flames, heat and poisonous fumes, and tried to help herd the people in the ballroom down there away from the flames. Captain Strong bashed a large hole in a wall so that he and the rest of the retired supers could start getting people to safety, while Nighthunter grabbed a fire extinguisher and started battling the flames. He was joined in this by Sub-Zero and especially Hydro, who possessed abilities that were more than a match for the fire. We eventually managed to fight our way downstairs, where we were joined by Templar who was magically quenching the blaze in from outside, and got the fire out. The place was heavily damaged, however, and a number of the innocent civilians and employees downstairs had to be treated for burns or smoke inhalation. Luckily, no one was killed. This did kind of put an end to the night, however. There was a bit of a scene again between Templar and DeSalvo in front of the building, after the latter made some comments to warn us from "taking the law into our own hands" and going after the perpetrators, only to be verbally jumped on by the "mean old drunk" (DeSalvo's words - not mine) Templar, who had been seen to pound back more than a few scotches that evening. (In all fairness, however, we had no way of anticipating the attack, so there was no real reason why Templar shouldn't have indulged himself a bit.) Generally disgruntled, most of us trooped off in search of a hotel and some sleep. [Note: I asked the others to give a bit of a report as to what they did in New York, for the journal. StarSeed, Hydro, and Templar did so (okay, Sub-Zero did too, though I don't believe a word of it, and Agent DeSalvo gave me something which appears to be a copy of a personal letter he wrote concerning that trip).

	`WRAPUP :`	This attack was just further evidence of the souring of the political climate away from us, a change in climate which saw people cheer the death of Thunder and cause some of the more outspoken heroes to retire. Even the members of the Gentlemen's Adventurers Society were talking about moving future meetings abroad. These are not good days to be a superhero.

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