Issue 3: The Gauntlet Pt 2
General Summary
The battle to contain the breakout from The Well continued as the New Guardians and Junior Union battled the massive super tank Mechaton 2020 on the streets of Downtown Gateway City.
Pinned and partially disabled, Mechaton lashed out blindly at Kawaru, knocking him out of the fight with a single powerful blow. Temporal waves surged through the area, dismissing Searcher from the timeline. Valor and Typhon were left to combat Mechaton with the Junior Union members. After a trading blows for some time, Typhon landed a decisive blow downing the villian.
As the team stopped to catch their breath, a voice rang out that the fight was not yet over. Dabu the Dark and Six of One confronted the team. Valour used his light magic to form a ramp for Danger X to jump, smashing into Six of One, who split into six copies of martial mayhem. As Dabu turned to feast on the magical energies of the Crystal Conjuress and Misty Moon, Typhon charged the sorceror only to be trapped in his magical cloak of darkness. Valour attempted to assist, briefly using his powers of light to tear a hole in the cloak, but ultimately the pair were pulled into the dimension of darkness. Within they were confronted with a dozen copies of Dabu which were ultimately driven back by the combined power of Valor and Typhon.
As they returned, they found chaos. Misty and the Conjuress were overwhelmed by the archvillian Dabu, and Danger X was knocked out of the fight by the lightning weilding monks of the Six of One. Misty was enveloped by the Dabu's cloak, and Valour used his Heliokinesis to burn the cloak away, but Dabu had already made off with the apprentice's magical amulet. Crossbow had used her mechanically driven energy bolts to take down many of the six martial artists, but her weapon had been disabled and the two remaining drove her down.
Valour dispatched one of the monks, but not before a lightning blast fully disabled Typhon's powered armor, taking her out of the fight. Valour, last man standing, combined his magical light power with the Crystal Conjuress against Dabu, burning his magical cloak away. In a final act of vengenance, the evil sorceror swollowed the Conjuress before being vanquished completely.
At this point, Mechaton 2020 cried out 'Defeat is Emminent, this unit is not returning to the Well! Self Destruct activated.' Typhon realized that the Zero-Point matrix that fueled the robot tank was more than powerful enough to destroy all of the Gateway City. Trapped in her armor, she tried to talk Valor through disabling the unit, but it was futile for the mideval knight to disable the technologically advanced unit.
Misty Moon then called forth powerful magics to transport the team to safety, which went horribly awry. Misty cried out in the terror as the city was plunged into supernatural darkness! Block by block, the lights of the city went black as well. Only the fires of the battle remained dimly lighting the urban backdrop.
Typhon managed to repower her armor and Valor rushed to comfort Misty, remembering a powerful scene from the The Silvermane Chronicles. But she was inconsolable, lost in some terrifying unexplained memory.
Typhon tried to contact her mentor Hierophant, last seen fighting his nemesis Sovereign. Hierophant was severely damaged, and could only request his protege activate something called the 'Gatecrasher Protocol'. Agreeing, Typhon teleportalled the team up to the super fortress known as the Chariot.
The protocol activated, the Chariot started moving, attaching itself to the Obelisk Building. Power flowed forth from its own Zero-point matrix, restoring the lights of the city. In the distance, only darkness surrounded the city. The sky was starless above.
The team tried to get answers out of Misty, who was all but catatonic, to no avail. Danger X pointed out that her amulet was designed to contain her unestimable power, and that no doubt her uncontained magic was the result of its loss. Although the super villians seemed to have gone to ground, the city below was in chaos in the darkness, with rioting and looting rampant. The team decided to decend and spent the night helping while Crossbow stayed behind to keep an eye on Misty.
After a long night, it became apparent the sun was not rising and the team decided to see what was at the fringes of the city. They found Stratham Bridge had been evenly bisected, and Gateway Bay was flowing off the edge of the world into darkness. Typhon tried to reach out to her mentor again, with no reply this time, and only the fainted of life signs were reported.
The team tracked Heirophant's signal back to the Hall of Legends. They found the building destroyed, and Heirophant on deaths door. A holographic message from Sovereign was left for Typhon, taunting her to abandon her heroic efforts the return to the villian's side. The team retrieved the mangled body of Heirophant to the Chariot, with Ms. Cognition and Mr. Grasp providing emergency medical care.
The team then returned to the Hall of Legends to find a heavily wounded Ghostkeeper accompanied by Ghost Gal manning the control room. Apparently Silver Star had gone missing as well, leaving the Legendary Union of Heroes decimated. All of the Union's systems and comms were destroyed and beyond repair.
The medical effort to stabilize Heirophant wasn't going well, so the team set out to find Mana, a magical healer known to assist in situations like this. They found the nurse entagled with his own medical efforts to assist the injured citizens of Gateway City, but convinced him to help save Heirophants life. They went to the Chariot and Valor sacrificed his own magical energies to provide the healing.
Meanwhile Crossbow called for aid, Misty was crying out 'The City is moving! The City is moving'. The sky lit up around the city, a diffused fractal crystaline glow and the ground shuttered beneath them.
Created Content
Grim Mana
