Trouble in Chinatown - Part 1

General Summary

The New Champions were alerted to a curious assault at the supermarket in Chinatown which hospitalized the janitor and the clerk on-duty. Mysteriously, their assailants were unseen, even on security footage. Both the clerk and the janitor were knocked backward through shelving, causing serious injuries and damage to the store along with the vanishing disappearance of the freezer unit containing ice cream, popsicles, and frozen pizza. But within twenty-four hours, the janitor and clerk were ‘healed’, the store was cleaned-up and freezer unit ‘reappeared’. When the New Champions arrived on the scene to investigate, the team agreed to await Sandcrab’s lead-in reconnaissance through his underground tunneling. But three transformed Samurai warriors were awaiting Sandcrab beneath the supermarket in an underground facility not shown on previously available maps or schematics. Brandishing their swords, they each took a dangerous swipe at Sandcrab — but he dodged their attacks one-by-one. Alerting the team to their presence, Sandcrab disabled two of the potential foes by collapsing building materials onto them from the ceiling. Soon afterward, other New Champions joined Sandcrab in the underground facility: Ghost, Wildthing, Maximum Resistance, and Lil’Rocket. However, now destabilized, the ceiling began to collapse. Springing into action, Lil’Rocket blazed up the walls, navigating through the debris and into the supermarket above ground — moving people out of the building and warning them of the pending collapse. Maximum Resistance placed energy barriers beneath the floor of the supermarket to prevent the building above from falling and Sandcrab bolstered the underground ceiling with concrete and other materials located beneath the surface. Meanwhile, Ghost disarmed the remaining Samurai, flying quickly into the fray and grabbing the sword from the red-skinned, demonic-looking humanoid. As she flew away, Ghost snapped the sword in half. Wildthing then approached the weaponless Samuari and snarled threats at him, causing him to cower in fear. Her interrogations were returned with spite, though, as the New Champions had inadvertently stepped into a sacred space for the Samurai. “How can we know you haven’t also assaulted us yesterday?” The fearful Samurai questioned. “Surely it was you who stole our most valuable and sacred possession.” Sandcrab urged him to believe that the New Champions weren’t to blame for the robbery. But the Samurai was unconvinced. “You have no idea what we have lost!”, he screamed. “If you have not stolen our sacred power, then why have you caused this destruction?” With multiple apologies, the New Champions explained that their intrusion into the underground facility was inadvertent, but that they, too, were trying to determine who was beyond the robbery at the supermarket. After assisting with repairs and clean-up of the underground facility, the fearful and shaken samurai warriors were finally willing to explain what they believe happened: One day prior, their most prized possession was stolen: the Statue of Lin Shu — the place where it was located now only having the dust-shadow of the missing statue’s presence. The samurai believe whoever stole the statue came through the old sewer grate beneath the supermarket’s freezer section. But no one witnessed such a trespass. Will the New Champions be able to determine who is the real culprit behind the statue’s disappearance? And why would anyone steal the statue? The story continues…