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ENTRY # : |
Special Edition #3 |
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TITLE : |
A SLIGHT CASE OF FROSTBITE... |
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ARC : |
N/A |
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ENTERED BY : |
Templar |
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DATE RANGE : |
April 15th, 2001 |
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HEROES : |
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VILLAINS : |
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PEOPLE : |
Dr. Bruce John,
Phoenix,
Professor Stewart,
Reporter Stephanie Lee,
Sub-Zero
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OTHERS : |
Crucible Scientist,
The Cult of Frost,
The Guardians
Ice-9,
Multi-Spectral Scanning Labs,
Strikeforce X
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ENTRY : |
"For he was speechless, ghastly, wan,
Like him of whom the story ran,
Who spoke the spectre hound in man."
- Sir Walter Scott, The lay of the last minstrel, Canto VI, v.26.
Log entry by Andrew Mathers [Templar], 15.04.01
The timing was perfect. Even as I was packing to head off to Washington, everything hit the fan.
Again.
I should have known something was amiss when I couldn't shake the feeling of being cold. Instead,
overworked and off my game, I put it down to more of Subzero's typical 'antics'. Heaven knows I
was busier than hell anyway, as I was still fielding all calls back at the base while Battosai
ran patrol and the rest of the team did whatever they were doing these days. Except for Phoenix,
who was already in Washington to attend some meetings before the trial.
There were a number of annoying interruptions to the daily 'routine' (as if anything could be
described in such terms around here). The first of these was when Obersturmführer DeSalvo
showed up at the base with one of those Suicide Squad prisoners in tow, an imposing man by the
nom-de-guerre of Hydro, who has displayed some strange fluidlike morphing abilities. It
wasn't long ago that the Knights were roundly criticized for allowing Doctor Stewart access to
their base, but now it seems that ill-controlled, criminally-inclined slave soldiers are par for
the course. I wonder what Phoenix - with all his ferver for "operational security" will say when
he finds out...
The next interruption was - unsurprisingly - Sub-Zero's fault. It seems he had arranged a meeting
with an associate of the Canadian Guardians, who calls herself Icewind, and then stood her up at
the airport. With Subzero still effectively MIA, I had Cru-S bounce this one off to Battosai, who
picked her up at the airport and literally carried her back to the base (we really need a better
common transportation system). Under better circumstances, I would have appreciated meeting her
- she obviously had a mystical origin, and possessed a very intriguing amulet, but I had
not the time. I was back in my room finalizing my preparations when all of a sudden my unconscious
awareness of things being amiss on the aetheric plane made themselves known on a conscious level.
After all, when ones mystical alarms are screaming in ones head, it doesn't take a genius to know
that action is required.
A quick dowse revealed the direction to the threat - north - and that it was very close by. I
went to sound the alert only to find that Icewind had already done so - her mystical senses are
apparently quite well-developed. We sent out alerts to Cipher and Sub-Zero and the rest of us -
myself, Battosai, Icewind, Agent DeSalvo and Hydro - piled into the team van and took off for the
source of the disturbance.
Arriving on scene, it was immediately clear that this was a localized interdiction by
extra-dimensional forces. The site was a small cul-de-sac in the suburbs, which were hastily
being cordoned off by police. The houses within the court were surrounded by a frosty mist, in
the midst of which a group of people, looking pale and disoriented, lurched about.
It became quickly apparent that these people were possessed by something. While slow and
mentally vacant, they acted methodically to break into the neighbourhood homes, from which screams
erupted. Another batch immediately headed towards the police barracades, paying no attention to
the calls for them to halt. It was lucky for the police that we were there. My compatriots
instantly exploded into action, thankfully using techniques intended to subdue the possessed
victims (though I did observe that Battosai wasn't adverse to breaking ribs in his efforts to
take them down). Meanwhile I tried to scry out the source of the incursion.
Clues to the nature of the threat weren't hard to come by. In addition to the preternatural mist
and cold about the region, the 'frost zombies' (as they came to be dubbed) bore symptoms of
frostbite, and were hypothermic. Scattered around the neighbourhood we also found a couple of
large serpent-like creatures that blended well with the snow. Although these, like the zombies
themselves, had the power to convert those they bit into more of the possessed, they did not
seem independently motivated enough to be behind the incursion. Testimony from one of the former
possessed pinpointed the source of the infection to be Multi-Spectral Scanning Labs, some twenty
or so blocks to the west.
This implied that the size of the outbreak already numbered into the thousands of victims, possibly
into the tens of thousands.
The group argued over the respose to this for awhile. While it was a given that we would be heading
to the center of the contagion, hoping to stem the tide at it source, I wanted a backup plan. If
we failed in this, the whole city - if not the country - could fall within a matter of days. This
incursion was growing at a geometric rate and there was no time to be engaging in jurisdictional
pissing matches. The national authorities would have to be alerted ASAP. DeSalvo was reluctant
to expend the time to do this himself, and in the end we strongly urged to the police that they
bump this matter up the chain of command posthaste and focus their efforts on containment.
Meanwhile, we headed to the source: MSSL.
We arrived at a complex crawling with the possessed, and buried waist-deep in snow. As we
penetrated the installation, fighting off a horde of the frost zombies, I cast about mentally
until I located a mind whose alien configuration blazed in the aetheric. We had found our prey.
[Cross-reference:
Inuit Mythology -> Gods -> Keelut]
Battle was met in the main lab, near large vats of hazardous chemicals. I, myself, witnessed
little of it. Moments after Battosai and Icewind penetrated that lab and I cautiously entered
after DeSalvo, I was almost struck as a tremendously large shape hurled DeSalvo past me into the
hallway. Huge gleaming fangs and an alien, doglike head turned to face me, shrugging off my attempt
to mentally confuse it. Then it buried its teeth into my shoulder and all went black.
They tell me that I screamed and collapsed, to rise seconds later as one of the possessed and
attempt to attack DeSalvo. They also tell me that DeSalvo managed to finish the beast with a
flurry of flame blasts from his peculiar handgun. Most disturbingly, they tell me that Hydro
engulfed me in an attempt to cure me, and was frozen by an attack by the remaining
possessed with me trapped inside.
I only know that there were things one was not meant to know, and things one intends to forget
as quickly as possible, preferably with liquid encouragement.
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WRAPUP : |
The incursion was halted, and the after-effects are being handled by the secular
authorities. Myself, I'm off to Washington for a date with the Senate and a number of bottles
of Scotch.
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