B-Team: Cold Case

Discovery, Exploration

The clues have been gathered and the pin-board filled, Emily Ackley is finally ready to follow the trail of the illusive Combat up into the snow-covered mountains. With her team at her side, will she finally be able to get some answers, or will they remain buried with the past of Elderkin Town.

It’s been a few weeks  since Emily Ackley retrieved a particularly poignant newspaper clipping clipping from the bunker at 18215 Everbrook Hill, and her pinboard is a veritable collage of details regarding the events up on Eldertop Mountain and her illusive nemesis Combat. Having hit a dead end in her investigation, records having become hard to come by since Elderkin Village was abandoned, Emily decides that it’s finally time to take a trip up the mountain herself and calls the rest of the B-Team to assist.   With Rue otherwise unavailable, Emily is soon joined by Zero, Mercy and Warp, who are confused at first by her seemingly sparse living arrangement, before being ushered through the wardrobe and into the demiplane that houses her true home. Pagan’s sanctum is lavishly adorned, with ornate shelves filled with books and the ever-present spirits that constitute her usual companions, choosing on this occasion to take the form of T-bone steaks.   Emily explains the investigation to her teammates and that they need to go to the old village to get a few more answers. The boys quickly agree, and they prepare to leave, bringing camping supplies and taking the train over to the foot of Eldertop Mountain. The team hires a car and Warp begins the increasingly hazardous drive up to the village. The reason for the village’s abandonment soon becomes apparent as the car is buffeted by an intense snowstorm that only gets worse the closer they get to their destination.   Warp does his best to handle the car in the harsh conditions, but an unexpected deer strike sends the team hurtling into a nearby rockface. The car is wrecked, but the heroes are mostly unharmed and soon emerge into the blizzard to inspect the damage and potentially make the rest of the journey on foot, to be met by an ambush of forest animals, their eyes glowing red and their faces contorted into aggressive snarls.   A fight soon breaks out between the heroes and the various animals of the forest that Pagan soon realises are suffering from some sort of spiritual curse that is forcing them to act this way. Frank muses about the possibility of a wendigo in the area, but is quickly told that they don’t tend to venture far from the mountains of Appalachia. It makes little difference anyway as the team is forced to fend off deer, wolves, squirrels, and even a bear. The battle soon winds down and the team must contend with the elements as they begin the hike up to Elderkin village with Frank and Emily facing the worst effects, though even Mercy finds his muscles starting to stiffen in the absence of circulating body heat.   They eventually make their way into the village and find it looking as deserted as they’d imagined, with a thick blanket of snow covering buildings and streets that have all been long since abandoned. The only sign of life in the place, and a sight that makes the team freeze in place briefly, is Combat himself, kneeling still outside the town hall, seemingly waiting for them, his white hood up over his head allowing him to almost blend in with the snowfall around him.   Not in any position to confront Combat directly, with the symptoms of hypothermia starting to make themselves known in several of their number, the team elect to sneak past him and into an abandoned doctor’s surgery, where Emma and Frank warm themselves up next to a camp stove that the former had brought and Zero, having protected himself from the elements via his more robust animal forms, volunteers to keep an eye on the supervillain.   Meanwhile, Mercy decides to search the building and finds a drawer with a key and a note seemingly from the town doctor himself:   "Patient name: Oscar Swanson. Time of death: Between nine and ten pm, Friday tenth of December 1997. Cause of death: Blood loss due to deep lacerations to the abdomen and chest. Cuts appear in several deep, parallel lines. If it wasn’t for the size and depth, I’d say they almost looked like claw marks."   He brings the note to the attention of his teammates and they all look it over, pondering the significance of the key, before Zero returns to his post, horrified to see that Combat had not only moved, but had also found their tracks in the snow and is quickly making his way over to the office. With little ceremony, Combat wordlessly attacks the group but finds himself woefully unprepared to deal with Zero’s power set and soon finds himself crushed between the wall of the nearby general store and a rhino horn. He manages to drop the roof of the doctor’s office onto some of the heroes using the antimatter disruptor rifle he’d picked up previously  , but is soon forced to retreat. He removes his hood and dissipates, revealing himself to be just another magical duplicate and leaving behind a letter that falls into the snow where he’d previously stood.   “Heroes, Welcome to Elderkin Village, I’m sure you have many questions, but don’t worry. The story of what happened in this place will become clear in time. I’m not one for dramatics, so I’ll keep this brief. I’ve hidden five keys around the town, you’ll need them to unlock the entrance to the old mine at the northern end of town. Do so. C.”   The letter ends with a list of locations around the town identifying where the keys could be found, including the doctor’s office that they’d already visited. With few other options and seemingly no way off the mountain, the team elects to follow Combat’s instructions, hoping to get a better idea of who he is and how he came to be.   They quickly find the next key inside the general store, the whole building having been wired with a spiderweb of tripwires connected to explosives. Fortunately, through a combination of animal forms and incredible luck, Zero is able to navigate the room without setting off any of the explosives, netting the group another key and some sort of diary entry from the store’s owner.   "That kid from the cabin came by today. Manitou. Bought up half my stock of venison and some hunting gear. Says he’s trying to build up his strength again and has developed a taste for it. I didn’t really question it, but damn. He must be aiming for the Olympics with that much protein."   With a name in mind and a disaster narrowly avoided, the team is understandably on edge, which makes them particularly suspicious when the police station, the next location on Combat’s list appears completely empty, with the key and next note placed in the open on the reception desk. They gingerly cross the room and take the items, still not quite trusting the room around them before they make a hasty retreat, only realising what’s going on as they notice a sign over the exit saying that Combat hopes they enjoyed their break. They get back out into the cold, feeling mildly humiliated by the supervillain toying with them, but manage to put it out of their minds as they read the note from what looks to be some sort of police report.   "Incident report: 10/12/1996. Officer Montgomery reporting. The scene at the cabin was awful. The kids’ bodies were left in the basement along with the boy. They all featured bruises, cuts, bite marks, signs of neglect and malnutrition."   The unsettling story of Manitou, the only survivor of the Mountainside Maniac, is finally starting to come together for Emily and a few other members of the group, but they need more information. The next stop on their whirlwind tour of Eldertop village is the Church. Mercy notes that the building itself still appears hallowed despite the open graves dug up out front and the corpses beginning to rise from within, bound by the same spirit curse as the animals. Warp makes quick work of the corpses though, using his powers to immediately rebury them and allowing the team to enter the church. Mercy takes a moment of reverence for the religious site, but the team quickly finds another key and note, this one seemingly torn from the priest’s own diary.   "I’ll have to pray twice as hard, for the sake of the community, and for that poor boy. I’ve seen him out only a short time before sun sets. He doesn’t seem phased by the danger being out there at night could pose."   Somewhat unsettled by the idea of a nocturnal threat with the sun rapidly setting in the distance, the team quickly makes their way over to the final location on Combat’s list, Manitou’s old house. The house seems mostly normal at first, though Pagan can sense something with the magic in the place, like it’s made of multiple layers; one like the rest of the village, and one deeper and more demonic.   Upon stepping into the house, the team realises that the fairly normal facade was just that, and inside, the walls, floors and even ceilings were covered in meat and viscera from any number of animals. It’s a sickening display that they can make little sense of, not helped by the crucified deer carcass atop an inverted pentagram at the top of the stairs. Emma is able to tell that the energies of the house are definitely demonic in nature, but not caused by a demon. It seems to her that the source of the magic is channelling hellish power without necessarily paying fealty to it, an act that the team equates to demonic embezzlement.   Frustrated by her seeming inability to communicate with the deer’s spirit, Emma soon decides to inspect the effigy herself, taking a few steps up the stairs before the corpse animates, opening its mouth and emitting a scream that physically throws her back down. Mildly annoyed, and assuming that the trap is spent, she tries again and is thrown back a second time, prompting her to blast the thing with magic, rendering it a bloody smear upon the wall.   Making their way into Manitou’s bedroom, the team find a diary entry along with the final key, their brows all raising as they read the words written in the kid’s own hand:   "I’ve not felt right since I got back. It’s been so long since I last saw a smiling face, and now they’re all like that. If they knew the things we’d done in that cabin, I’m not sure they’d be so quick to smile anymore. What scares me the most is that I think I’ve developed a taste for it."   The team is immediately conflicted, with Zero claiming that Manitou is simply a “psycho” and Mercy claiming that it explains why Combat is such a lunatic, but Emma and Frank decide to reserve judgement until they’ve seen everything that the village has to offer. With that in mind, the team resolve to make their way over to the mine entrance where Combat had told them that all would be revealed.   The entrance itself seems fairly normal, a vault door of sorts with key holes for each of the ones they’d found, and the team muses about whether Frank could’ve simply used his powers to tear the thing open. He takes the opportunity to explain that sometimes his powers have trouble effecting magical objects as they seem to almost will themselves back into shape.   The team takes a moment to gather themselves and prepare for whatever it is that Combat has planned for them within the mine, before turning each key in the lock and allowing the vault door to slowly swing open. A primal screech emanates from within the mine and the team spot a pair of red eyes, glowing like the monsters on the mountain, rapidly closing in on them. Manitou busts from within the mine, his humanity completely discarded as he’d come to bear the curse of the wendigo.   The monstrosity before them is nothing short of abominable. Emaciated and lanky, the creature moves with preternatural speed and force, its malformed hide covered in thick black hair and the once human face of the boy having restructured itself into the form of a beast, with the bone having long since discarded the flesh that lay upon it. The team quickly leaps into battle, with Warp constricting its movement, while Zero draws its attention, Pagan identifies key weaknesses, and Mercy drives his stake into the creature’s heart. As Manitou falls to the ground, the team notice another note from Combat attached to one of the bony protrusions sticking out of its head.   “Well done for defeating Manitou. He won’t stay down for long, however. I’ve attached a map to this note. Lure him to the location I’ve marked and we can put him down for good.”   The map shows a fairly short journey slightly higher into the mountain, leading them over to the same cabin where Manitou and the other kids had been kept all those years ago. As the team deliberate whether or not to follow Combat’s instructions, the creature takes another raspy breath and begins to tear itself free of its bindings to chase after them once again. With little other choice, the team begin sprinting up the mountain towards the Maniac’s cabin, with the Wendigo in close pursuit, making several narrowly evaded attacks against the team as they go.   The worn-down and long since abandoned cabin up on the mountainside seems far from ready to capture a beast like the Wendigo, but as the team approaches its wooden construction, the door flies open and Combat himself appears, urging them to lead the creature forward.   Mercy, Warp and Zero lead the group, leaping into the cabin and finding that the ground floor had been completely removed, the three of them landing in the basement level below before making their way to a nearby ladder up to a ramshackle kitchen. Pagan is somewhat less fortunate however, flying through the doorway as the beast crashes through the building’s frontal facade, knocking the two of them and Combat into the pit below.   Among the debris, Emma notes a vast array of occult symbols and markings, along with some ritual candles and many of what appear to be shrapnel bombs. Combat quickly rights himself and runs over to Emma, taking her hand and teleporting the pair of them into the kitchen as the prepared explosives detonate, shrapnel tearing through the Wendigo’s flesh like paper. The creature collapses into a bloody heap on the basement floor, and Combat casually begins to cut into the thing’s chest, digging for its heart as he finishes the ritual to expel the cursed spirit from the mountain.   Not sure whether to thank him for saving her life, or stab him for being such a prick, Emma elects to question the man while he works, trying to make sense of what he’s just had them do and why he’d drag them up there. While naturally nebulous in his answers, Combat addresses their questions.   The first question on everyone’s lips is “Why?”, with Mercy in particular noting that he likely could’ve dealt with the monster himself. He agrees, wondering who they thought trapped it in the mine, before adding that the whole thing was a test of sorts, to investigate their suitability for an upcoming challenge, though he refuses to give any more information on the subject.   Emma then asks why he didn’t just ask for their help, that it’s what most well-adjusted people would to. Combat chuckles as he looks down at his hands, covered in the blood and viscera of the Wendigo and asks what about him seems well-adjusted to her before quipping that “I’m a bad guy. I lie,” paraphrasing a remark earlier made by Zero.   After a few minutes Combat is able to extract the Wendigo’s heart and sequesters it away using some sort of magical device. Satisfied that his mission is accomplished, he bids the heroes good luck in getting back down the mountain, saying that he’ll be seeing them soon, before pulling down his hood and disappearing, having only ever been a duplicate, like the one they’d fought before. Emma in particular is left perplexed by the whole ordeal, but as they make their way back outside and see the prevailing snowstorm finally beginning to dissipate, the team concludes that they must have done something good up in the village, whether or not they did so at the behest of a supervillain.