Volume 1, Issue 1 - Enter Dragonfly, first published Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Intro: Trained as a martial artist, possessed of fabulous equipment from an unknown benefactor, CIU College Student Aaron Majesky takes to the skies to fight crime as Dragonfly!

Dragonfly, a brown-haired youth with a powerful body built through years of training, wore a set of customizedwings like those of his insect namesake that allowed him to fly. Strapped across his back was a ninja-to, the sword of the ninja warrior. He wore a costume, black on the bottom and a dark fushia on top, with a mask of the same color tied at the back.

Currently, Dragonfly sat crouched atop a three-story building in downtown Stevenson while taller buildings towered around him. The condos and apartments of the wealthy, he reflected. In another life, Aaron had grown up a poor small-town kid, ostricized, bullied until he turned to martial arts training. Despite having moved to college, working towards a better life than his parents knew, Aaron still felt a little out of place in this world. But looking up at the glittering lights, and down to the traffic on the streets below, he could not help realizing how beautiful it all ways.

Mind on business, he scolded himself. Changing his focus from outward into the city lights, Dragonfly looked to the darkness of the alley below. To him, however, it was not darkness, but shades of green and black provided by the contact lenses he wore. These devices similarly to military night-vision, but were much more powerful and compact. Not for the first time, he wondered who had sent them to him and why. And not for the first time, Dragonfly pushed the thought out of his mind as the action started below him.

Two students moved into the alley from Fairview street, between the building he was on and a two story retail building next to it. The students were hesitant, looking around as if they might have the wrong place. And, no doubt, checking for police. Dragonfly tensed. Out of the shadows, another form emerged. The man did not dress or hold himself like a normal drug dealer, but Dragonfly knew from being on his trail for weeks that that was exactly what he was. His hands tensed against the brick of the roof as he prepared to act. He began filming; his footage would be admissible in court as long as he didn’t record sound.

This new drug was called Nex. It was like Xtacy, but had certain...other properties. And it was far more dangerous. Aaron had seen its effects first hand when his friend and roommate, Drake, had died of heart-failure. Since then, tracking this stuff down had been Dragonfly’s only mission. In a city the size of Stevenson, you’d think it wouldn’t be hard to track down a new drug dealer. But these people were powerful. And they vanished like a mist.

Almost to the exchange, Dragonfly zoomed in to ensure he had the features of the dealer. That’s it, he thought. Go for it.

Then something unexpected happened. A flash of light, brighter than the noon sun, appeared at the head of the alley. Dragonfly was blinded.

Volume 1, Issue 1, Part 2 – First published Thursday, April 25, 2013

Intro: Possessed of a magical mask that clothes her in a garment that grants her mastery over light, Stevenson Highschool senior Emily Fine battles darkness as White Diamond.

Dragonfly swooped into action from the top of the building on which he had been hiding in the warm autumn night. Blinking the light out of his eyes, he saw a dark blur that he HOPED was the Nex dealer. Extending his leginto a kicking position, Dragonfly instead slammed into the wall of the adjacent building. The kick was powerful

enough to damage the brick, but Dragonfly screamed out in pain as his knee wrenched.

The Nex dealer, a dark and grizzled man with Mediterranean features, did not immediately notice the hero whohad crashed into the wall behind him; he was facing the other way. He had turned to face the bright light, shielding his eyes with one arm while holding a high-caliber pistol in the other. As soon as he found a mark insight the brilliant display, he fired. He had no idea what or who he was shooting at, but as far as this criminal was concerned, a bullet was a bullet.

White Diamond watched as he considered his options, watched calmly as he fired. She was in no danger. The bullet came within millimeters of her skin, and then exploded as it hit the heat shield that surrounded her. The remains of the bullet either fell to the ground or disintegrated into metallic mist as the bounced again against the shield. Diamond grinned a vengeful grin, and fired her own attack. A bolt of coherent light flashed out, striking the man in the chest and knocking him backward into a cluster of storage barrels.

The two college students began to realize their latest attempt at a quick thrill had landed them in hot water, and turned to flee. To all the other participants, it seemed they were moving in slow motion, their reflexes were so slow. Dragonfly took stock of the situation. The two students would run to safety; the dealer seemed to hold no more interest in them, as he was struggling to remain conscious and to deal with two assailants. Pain still exploding in his knee from the powerful impact to a solid object, Dragonfly flew rather than ran to where the dealer lay.

The man was older, probably mid-forties, with features that made him look as if he were from southern Europe.Dragonfly guessed Italy or Greece. As Dragonfly approached the man, the light at the end of the alley dimmed. The figure which stood there was that of a young woman, lanky and somewhat tall, with a rounded face and curly, thick black hair. She wore a costume that almost appeared to be made of translucent crystal; it clung to her just a little more loosely than a cat-suit. Her face was partially concealed by a matching mask which caught the light especially well. She held a second energy attack in her hand should Dragonfly prove to be a new threat.

As Dragonfly knelt down, the man quickly pulled something from his belt and popped it in his mouth. Oh, No, Dragonfly thought. Nex. Quickly he lashed out, hoping to knock the man unconscious before this got ugly. His hit was so strong it broke teeth in the man's jaw, but he merely grinned. Almost leaping to his feat with preternatural speed, the Nex dealer picked up Dragonfly and launched him toward the end of the alley where White Diamond stood. Quick thinking an acrobatic training kept Dragonfly from colliding with the young woman (the wings didn't hurt, either). By the time he'd recovered, the dealer was nowhere in sight. Realizing he must have leaped from view, Dragonfly quickly took to the air for a better view.

The man was nowhere in sight. Dropping back to the alley, Dragonfly decided to greet his unplanned "assistant".

"What the hell do you call that?" Dragonfly asked, hovering a foot or so off the ground in front of White Diamond.

The young woman was resolute as she stared into the flippant eyes of the winged hero.

"I'd call it a takedown, if you hadn't messed it up!"

Dragonfly could hardly believe what he was hearing. "Me? You're the one who came in here guns blazing whileI gathered evidence. I'm trying to find out who these guys are and where they get there stuff, and you come in here shooting lasers around." The two glared at each other momentarily.

"Are you done?" Diamond asked. "We need to find that guy before he gets out of the area."

"Yeah, I'm done. You go low, I'll take the skies." Without another word, Dragonfly took to the air. He didn't trust the girl, but something about her said she was for real, if a little under-trained and thoughtless. And definitely cute, he thought as an afterthought. While he flew, searching the surrounding blocks of Stevenson, he kept an eye on her as best he could.

After a few minutes, he flew back to where they had met. Ten minutes later, the young woman showed up.

"No luck?" she asked.

"None. He's gone to ground somewhere, for sure. No way to get at him now, short of breaking and entering every structure in the city.

"Look, we got off on the wrong foot. I'm Dragonfly," the hero stated.

"Yeah, I figured," the young woman said, locking his eyes. Then she sighed and said "White Diamond."

"Hey, listen. The night is young. Grab a sandwich or something?" Dragonfly asked, feeling his pulse race as he did so.

"I don't think that's the best idea," White Diamond answered. "See you around, hero," she said, and moved off into the night.

Dragonfly flew up as soon as she was out of his sight, hoping to secretly follow her and learn more about her, but when he got to Fairview, she was gone. Just like that. He looked around for a few minutes, then headed back to the rooftop. Time to get changed and head back to the dorm. That early philosophy class he had was a killer.

Meanwhile, a black-haired lanky young woman walked up Fairview among the college crowds, wearing jeans and a T-shirt that read "Stevenson Girl's Track". Held tightly in her left hand was a glittering white eye-mask.

Volume 1, Issue 2 - First published Friday, April 26, 2013

Intro: Trained from a young age in the mystical arts, and keeper of the robe of the wizard Merlin, Rick Pennington uses his uncanny powers to protect Stevenson as The Adept.

The battle was waged. On the Quadrangle of Central Illinois University, Dragonfly and White Diamond threw punch after kick after powerful energy blast at the Nexers, people who were under the sway of a drug called Nex. The Nexers were possessed of amazing strength and resilience, which made them especially dangerous in a fight. Now, for some reason, they'd all converged on the Quad.

Ten to one were not good odds for anyone, Dragonfly mused as he kicked yet another Nexer in the face, knocking him away from a very concerned student. At least, he reflected, White Diamond had shown up to givehim a hand. Twenty to one was even worse, and those light blasts of hers had quite a kick.

As they fought, Dragonfly occasionally glanced over at the young woman he was fighting with, wondering who she was under that mask. Once, their eyes locked for a brief second, before necessity drew them back to the melee.

It was getting tough to keep track of the bystanders, Dragonfly thought, before he was again districted. "Diamond, watch out!" One of the Nexers had come up behind her with a motorcycle of all things, and was preparing to smash her with it.

White Diamond, a thin-framed young woman dressed in white dazzle, with thick, curly black hair, crouched, anda barely visible shimmer sprung up immediately around her. The cycle hit, but the metal and rubber parts of the bike disintegrated immediately. The fuel tank combusted, knocking her assailant back 20 feet and into unconsciousness.

The crowd of Nexers was beginning to disperse; their hit must be wearing off. Dr Patel had shown him tests about its affect on the human body. It ran really rough for about an hour, and then quickly exited the system.

Dragonfly was more concerned about this sudden gathering and exodus. It was almost like they were under some sort of control.

"Dragonfly, Sirens!" White Diamond shouted. The campus police were coming. They'd round up what was left of the Nex flash mob. Amid cheering from the students they'd helped, Dragonfly prepared to take off. He'd managed to avoid questions from the Authority so far. Better to keep it that way. He had very little worry for White Diamond. She always managed to disappear. Turning to take off in the direction of Langley Hall and his dorm room, he was shocked to find someone standing basically in his face.

Dragonfly prepared to attack, but the young man, a brown-haired, bearded student in skinny jeans, a jacket, and sweater, held up a hand.

"Hey, bro, easy. I need your help. Both of you."

"Okay, you want to talk, let's do it elsewhere. I need to get scarce right now."

Dragonfly looked around nervously, but the police still hadn't made their way to the Quad.

He motioned White Diamond over.

"Uh, you know me, I guess," Dragonfly said, "this is White Diamond. We work together, sometimes..." he said tentatively.

"Yeah, I know. Name's Rick. Some people call me The Adept. If you'll talk this way, I can explain." Rick gestured toward a narrow corridor between two campus buildings.

Dragonfly nodded, and the trio moved between the buildings and out of general view. As soon as they were outof view, Rick moved his arm in a semi-circular pattern, and an image appeared in front of them. Dragonfly was immediately on the alert. "You wanted to go somewhere private? Here it is." With that, Rick walked into the image, and it was as if there were a door. From inside, Rick said "You guys coming?"

Hesitantly, first Dragonfly, then White Diamond walked through the portal, which closed instantly behind them. The room they were in had a couple couches and chairs, as well as an old desk. The only source of light was a window, which was largely molded over. The light was indirect; that window must be in a recessed well.

"My own secret HQ," The Adept said, pouring himself some tea from a pot on the desk.

White Diamond looked around. "There's no door!" she exclaimed.

Rick chuckled a little. "Not aside from the ones I make."

"I've heard of you," she said. "The Adept. I'd forgotten. You're some kind of sorcerer or something, right? I thought you were an urban legend."

"Hardly," The Adept said. "I'm as real as you, White Diamond."

Dragonfly was getting nervous. Adrenaline was still pumping from the battle, he really wanted to hit the skies and patrol, and it was almost dinner time. Aaron had an appearance to make in the cafeteria.

"What up, Rick?" Dragonfly asked.

Rick looked at Dragonfly, taking a sip of his tea, and said nothing for a few moments.

"I have certain powers," Rick began. "Powers of perception, powers of dimension. Some call it magic. Whatever it's called, its potential is unlimited. I, on the other hand, am quite limited. My skills are of a more subtle nature. The problem at hand requires a certain level of brute force."

Dragonfly folded his arms, but his wings twitched slightly. He didn't care for being thought of as a thug. But if this Adept was one of the good guys, and in need of help, the least he could do is listen.

"There's a proverbial 'storm coming'. Something big is on the horizon; I feel it like mystical ozone. The air is charged with it, growing more every day. Makes me edgy. Soon, very soon, I guess, there's going to be a situation that calls for both right and might. I need to be able to get in touch with you two, when it happens. I can get us to the right place at the right time. You and White Diamond can help with any resistance we meet."

"What kind of 'resistance'" White Diamond asked curiously, playing absentmindedly with a teacup near the desk.

"I have no idea, but let's face it. When things go wrong around here, there's usually a certain amount of the physical involved, and I deal mostly in the spiritual."

Dragonfly could see his point. Still, he was hesitant to give his true identity to someone he'd just met. He hadn't even told White Diamond his real name yet, nor had she done so for him, and they'd known each other for three weeks now.

His mind racing with ideas, Dragonfly was about to suggest disposable phones, when the light in the room decreased substantially. Turning around, he saw no more White Diamond, but a beautiful young lady, if somewhat plainly dressed in a T-shirt and jeans.

"You can call me if you need me, Rick," she said. "If you have a phone, I can send you my number now. The name's Emily Fine."

Dragonfly rolled his eyes. Well, so much for secrets. He reached up and untied his own mask, realizing it was the first time he'd shown anyone his true identity since he took up the wings. "Aaron Majesky, Langley hall."

Rick stood up, placing the empty teacup on the desk, and smiled at both of them. "My full name is Rick

Pennington. In more public appearances, I go by The Adept!" Raising his arms in a flourish, a robe covered with mystic runes appeared around him, though his face was no more disguised than before.

The three stood together, silent, for a moment, as if an agreement had been made. They were no longer three heroes working alone. They were now a team.

Volume 1, Issue 2, Part 2 – First Published Saturday, April 27, 2013

Aaron scanned his student ID to get into the Langley Hall cafeteria early on a Friday morning. The shiner on his right eye was just starting to heal from the fight with a group of Nexers he and White Diamond had had a few days before. He'd had to tell his friends it was a fight over a girl, one that he'd unfortunately lost.

After getting some eggs, turkey sausage, juice, and some salsa for the eggs, he looked around the wide open room until he found someone he recognized, and went over to sit with them.

At the table sat Ben and Dylan, and two guys he didn't recognize. One was short, with dark brown hair and glasses. The other was big, with a thick brown mop. Though they seemed to be quite different people, they were talking as if they knew each other well.

Aaron set down his tray and scooted up next to Ben. “What up, Ben, Dylan,” he greeted them, taking a sip of hisjuice and tossing his book bag on the empty chair beside him.

“Hey, Aaron. Actually going to class this morning?” Ben joked.

“Lol. You're hilarious, Benny.” Aaron changed his focus to the new guys. “Hey, I'm Aaron, I living on 7, Ben's floor.”

“What's up. I'm Caz, this is my roommate Tim. Just moved here from Schuster Tower,” the larger one with the thick curly mop spoke in a strong voice.

“Ah, the big place. Nice building, on the outside anyway.” Schuster Tower had been once of the first buildings Aaron had explored when he got the wings and became Dragonfly. It was one of the three tallest buildings in Stevenson, and definitely the tallest at CIU.

“Yeah, well, considerably less nice on the inside. This place has much more style,” Tim said.

“Of course it does,” Dylan said. “I live here.”

“Ooh!” Aaron said, standing. “Ladies and gentlemen, Dylan Beyer. He's here all week!”

After a bit more small talk, Aaron finished off his breakfast and headed to class. As he crossed the Quad, he thought about earlier in the week, when he'd met Rick Pennington, AKA The Adept. So far, he hadn't contacted them to save the world or anything. Aaron hadn't been in touch with White Diamond either, though he know a bit more about her now. The young woman was actually a highschool student, not a CIU student. She was a senior, at least. On the track team, the photography club. She lived in South Stevenson on the other side of the highway, a wealthy area. These things he'd found on Google in a few minutes of searching.

Aaron had Emily's number, of course, but he was honestly a bit nervous to call her for non-business reasons. Hewasn't sure what her parents' views on her dating a college guy would be, even though she was 18. He had people of interest right now, too. But for some reason, his mind kept coming back to Emily. They'd shared more

in the last few weeks than anyone else he knew in this town. And she was, in a word, fabulous. Even if their interacting wasn't always the friendliest.

Aaron chuckled a bit as he remembered their first encounter. His mind was so involved in replaying that memory, he almost didn't notice that people were streaming out of a nearby lab building. Must be a fire or something? Better find out, Aaron thought. He hustled across the campus to the back of the group of students.

Nudging the nearest, a young woman with thick, curly blond hair, he asked “What's going on?”

She looked at him, horrified. “It's awful, just horrible. There's...there's something in there.”

THAT did not sound promising, Aaron thought. Something? Without a further word, Aaron ducked between twobuildings, flipping over a railing to the bottom of an isolated stairwell. Fortunately, he kept more than books in his bookbag. Pulling out his phone as he changed, he dialed Rick first.

“Pennington, that you?” he asked to confirm when the other answered.

“Yes. Is this Dragonfly?”

“Half-way. There's something going down in one of the lab buildings on campus. Girl was talking about seeing a monster or something inside. Find Diamond and get here as soon as you can. I'm heading in.” With that, Dragonfly tied on his mask. He pulled his sword from the pool cue case he carried with him most days (he wasn't taking billiards).

Zipping low through the air just over the heads of the evacuated students, Dragonfly flew into the building. The first thing he noticed was the smoke. Covering his nose and mouth with his shirt, he flew up the stairs and into the upper hallway. The smoke was thick and acrid. Undoubtedly, it contained chemical residue. Dragonfly hoped it wasn't anything too dangerous. Suddenly, a chair flew at him from out of nowhere. He barely had timeto move out of the way, but it's a good thing he did. One of the metal legs of the chair embedded itself in the brick wall next to him.

Whatever this thing is, it's playing for keepsies, Dragonfly thought. He didn't have long to wait before the creature came rushing out of the smoke. It was a hideous, tentacled monster, like something out of a Lovecraft story.

Bwah! Not getting too close to that thing if I can avoid it! Dragonfly thought. He drew his sword as the creature approached him. Slashing at the tentacles as the creature closed in, he managed to sever one of the creature's limbs. It fell lashing to the ground, but then immediately, it fade from view, as if it had never been there. Dragonfly briefly entertained the idea that the creature was an illusion, but the tentacle wrapping around his arm and flinging his sword backward dispelled that thought.

Dragonfly was in unfamiliar territory; he'd never fought monsters before. Super-powered, drug crazed college students was one thing, but this was just crazy. Time to try out that other gadget; he'd wanted to use it in combat for some time, but had been afraid of hurting real people. No such concern this time. Reaching into a pocket in the side of his costume, Dragonfly pulled a small metallic device, only slightly larger than a smartphone.

“Suck Humming Bomb, slime!” Dragonfly broke free of the tentacle and flipped backward, tossing the device at the creature as he did so.

As the beast moved forward, a loud “screeeeee” noise echoed from the device. Dragonfly landed just outside the device's central effect, picking up his sword as he did so. Even at this distance, the pain was excruciating. Holding his ears, he watched as the exterior windows reverberated, then finally broke. The creature shimmered slightly, as if it, like it's severed limb, were going to fade out of existence. Instead, it leaped out the shattered windows and among the crowd.

Damn, Dragonfly thought. Didn't see that coming. Coughing out the toxic smoke, he flew through the window after the creature. He came into the outside light just in time to see White Diamond blasting the creature with alight beam. It had an effect, but not much of one. Meanwhile, The Adept was ushering several dozen students through a portal he'd opened to a presumably safe location.

The creature lashed at White Diamond, but she stood still, trusting her heat shield. This seemed to be a poor choice. The creature lashed around her, ignoring the shield as if it weren't there. Dragonfly held his sword out, and charged in straight for the creature. It was designed to slash rather than puncture, but it had a sharp point, nonetheless. From above and behind, Dragonfly dropped into the beast, his sword embedding in an indiscernible but hopefully vital part of its anatomy.

The creature screeched and flailed all its tentacles upwards, dropping White Diamond to the ground. She pivoted and ran to get to a safe distance from the beast. When she was free, The Adept opened a portal underneath the creature. It struggled to dodge out of the pit below it, which seemed to open into the sky, but itfailed. Dragonfly was barely able to pull his sword from its flesh before it fell in.

Now that the students were safe or evacuated, Dragonfly flew down to White Diamond. “You okay, Em?” he asked with concern. She looked a little surprised at the depth of emotion on his face, but nodded.

“Uh-huh. Fine,” she said, standing upright and adjusting her stance.

“Nice work, Adept!” Dragonfly called out.

Adept, appearing in his street clothes rather than the mystical robes that were always with him, came over to join his teammates. “Thanks. I like that one, though I've never been able to use it in quite that way before.”

Sounds of clapping and cheering were starting to be heard in the background, as the students of CIU realized their heroes had averted another disaster. “We better take off before someone official gets here...” Dragonfly begun.

Suddenly, a tentacle appeared around his neck, and he was flung backwards into a concrete support pillar. Another of the creatures had appeared from nowhere, and one more on either side of the heroes for a total for three.

“This is not good,” Rick said, “not good at all.”

Volume 1, Issue 2, Part 3 – First Published Monday, April 29, 2013

Intro: Two very different heroes, born from a single mysterious accident. Chris "Caz" Greenbaum battles the forces of evil as Cazmonster, an 8' cyborg werewolf. Tim O'Malley uses his powers of telekinesis to fend of crime as The Wrecking Ball.

Rick got a line of Dragonfly's semi-conscious body while White Diamond shot blast after blast at the tentacled monster in front of them. All the while, the two others closed in on them from the sides. Once he was sure

where Dragonfly was, he opened a portal right under him, with another just a couple feet off the ground behindWhite Diamond. Dragonfly fell through, his sword dropping through the portal beside him.

One of the creatures reached out a tentacle to engulf White Diamond, but it sparked and hissed as it hit against her heat shield. Diamond gave Adept a startled look sideways.

The Adept noticed the creature's tentacle wasn't burning or melting against Diamond's heat shield, but shimmering and sparking, as if it were made of some form of coherent energy rather than flesh. Interesting.

Not that the knowledge would help them much if all three of them were killed here and now.

With Dragonfly out of the picture and Diamond occupied, The Adept had very little in the way of attack power.

Suddenly, a loud scream filled the Quad. It wasn't human sounding, but it wasn't completely animal, either. And it was amplified. Without warning, a large, furry meteor slamming into one of the creatures. Claws and teeth rended and ripped while the tentacled beast screamed in false agony. Finally, the werewolf-like form lifted the creature and threw it across the Quad and into the gazebo. A loud whistling sound could be heard, and suddenly, a metal object the size of a bowling ball, but with considerably more density, slammed into the creature to the left. It was rent in two by the force of the metal object, and the image of the creature shimmered and disbursed.

"Hey, guys!" Cazmonster shouted in his animal-like amplified growl. "Looks like you could use a power-up!"

"Much obliged, stranger!" The Adept answered. White Diamond's blasts were starting to have an effect. She held off for a few seconds, letting the light coalesce around her until it was painful to view. Then she fired all the energy at once into the lead creature. It, too, disappeared in a shimmer.

Dragonfly struggled to retain consciousness. His entire body hurt from the force with

which he'd hit, but it didn't feel like anything was broken. Taking wing, he flew toward Cazmonster, who had leapt onto the shattered remains of the gazebo to assault the final creature. Holding it in the air, Cazmonster slammed it backward with a powerful fist. Dragonfly ducked low in flight, and held his blade aloft. The sharp ninja-to sundered the beast in two, and it flickered out of existence.

After confirming all the bystanders were safe, the heroes gathered in the remains of the gazebo.

"Great timing, gentle...men?" Dragonfly said, looking at Cazmonster questioningly.

"Most definitely!" the werewolf-cyborg answered. Looking at him closely for the first time, The Adept could seethe creature had a computer screen embedded in its chest, antenna behind it's canine ears, and several other areas of exposed metal.

Wrecking Ball's costume was construction-sign themed, with shining yellow and black strips leading into black pants and boots. He wore a matching yellow mask, but did not cover his long, dark brown hair.

"Guys," White Diamond spoke up as the boys congratulated each other. "We should get somewhere under cover. We're starting to draw a crowd, and cell phones are coming out."

"Well said," The Adept agreed. He opened a portal, and soon, the entire group traversed into the "secret headquarters", with Cazmonster uttering a "far out!"

Volume 1, Issue 3 – First Published Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Five young heroes stood inside their "secret headquarters", a sealed off room in a basement somewhere on thecampus of Central Illinois University. The room, accessible only via mystical portal, had been the headquarters of The Adept for some months prior, but with more and more additions to the team, was starting to get a little crowded.

On the couch against the wall sat The Adept. White Diamond took up her traditional place near the desk, Dragonfly beside her, his head still ringing from the beating he took only moments ago. The newcomers, Cazmonster and Wrecking Ball, stood and leaned against the far well, respectively. Cazmonster's furry head scraped to ceiling tiles, dropping dust down onto the room which glowed in the weak light coming through the one external window.

Now that all were here, in one place, standing still, it became obvious that Wrecking Ball had a bowling-ball sized piece of some alloy floating near his head, occasionally smashing into the brick wall behind it.

"What the hell were those things?" Wrecking Ball asked, looking from one hero to another expectantly.

The Adept sighed. "No idea. You mind not smashing my wall with that...bowling ball?"

"Wrecking Ball. Hence the name," the young, dark-haired hero corrected defensively.

"Okay, have it your way." The Adept paused in his explanation. "No, we have no idea what those were, or where they came from at this point. I detected a strong mystic presence when they appeared, but not coming from them directly. It's as if..."

"As if they were just images," White Diamond completed. "Some sort of solid illusions, created by something else entirely. Something with very bad intentions."

"Yes," Dragonfly nodded, his fingers on his chin in thought. "I noticed that, too. We'd be fighting and the creature would shimmer or skip, as if a signal were somehow interrupted. And once they were destroyed, poof! They were gone, no evidence that I could find, and I notice a lot."

Cazmonster spoke up. "I bet I notice more. I tuned every scanner I have on the area around the gazebo where the first one went down, and there was nothing there but wood, metal, and the gum under the seats."

The Adept looked over at their latest allies, then pulled himself up and stood in the center of the now crowded room.

"I guess we should all introduce ourselves. I'm The Adept, this is Dragonfly and White Diamond."

"As I said before, I'm Wrecking Ball, and this is Cazmonster."

Dragonfly's eyes opened slightly in sudden comprehension. Caz = Cazmonster? Had to be. Which would make the other guy Tim O'Malley. He was the right height and hair color. In fact, Dragonfly was beginning to realize how transparent, figuratively, their masks were. He wasn't willing to hide himself inside a giant cloak, but the more he thought about it, the more Dragonfly realized that care needed to be taking in exposing themselves to people's cameras. The more change someone got to study their faces, the more likely it was someone would recognize them.

The Adept appeared almost to read Aaron's thoughts as the winged hero examined the new additions. "We have a tradition, here, of not hiding our Identities from each other. You guys care to unmask?"

Wrecking Ball pulled off his bright yellow mask to reveal the face of Freshman Tim O'Malley. Cazmonster sort of hesitated, almost reminding one of a shy schoolgirl, hands clasped behind her, kicking the ground. A very large, fanged, and dangerous schoolgirl.

"I..um..I can't really. Not right now. Not that I have anything to hide, it's just that I'm still working on how to change back. I can will the change to Cazmonster, but the change back just sort of happens."

"Sounds inconvenient, Caz Greenbaum," Dragonfly said, removing his mask to reveal the face of Aaron Majesky.

"Hey, Aaron! We just had breakfast together!" Tim said excitedly.

"Yep. Not a word to Ben or Dylan, got it?" Aaron said.

"Of course. Ditto, to anyone," Tim said.

"Well, unlike the rest of you, I have more trouble hiding my alter-ego. I haven't been like this long, so only a few people know, but I'm sure that won't take long to change."Cazmonster said.

The Adept followed Cazmonster. "I don't wear a mask or a costume, generally, but have managed to avoid it becoming common knowledge that my name is Rick Pennington."

Diamond removed her mask last. "I'm Emily Fine, a senior at Stevenson high."

"Great! Now we all know each other!" Cazmonster threw up his arms absent-mindedly. With one swoop, his powerful bicep smashed through the wall; The old stone fell to pieces, quickly revealing the presence of the room to the room beyond.

It just so happened that there was a gathering of some sort in the next room, roughly twenty people sitting around a set of tables looking at a lecturer standing near a slideshow.

"But...what...my headquarters!" Rick stammered. Tim had the presence of mind to put his mask back over his eyes quickly. When various people in the meeting realized what was going on, hands started flying toward smartphones. Dragonfly had let his mask drop onto the desk, and was unable to remember that quickly, instead turning away when he realized he was about to be taped. Suddenly, the light in the room increased a hundred times as White Diamond put on her mystic mask and activated her abilities.

"Oh, wow. Sorry!" Cazmonster said, turning on his running lights to add to White Diamond's distracting technique.

"Time to go, Adept!" Aaron said, finally seeing his mask and grabbing it up.

"Right, DF!" The Adept opened a portal into noontime sunlight, and the heroes rushed through as would-be bloggers and amateur journalists recorded and snapped still shots, hoping to get an exclusive on the secrets of CIU's new protectors. Aaron had the presence of mind to grab a crate of "files" that Adept kept in the HQ, the only personal items there aside from a teapot and cups.

Looking out over campus from the top of Schuster Tower, CIU's largest dormitory, the heroes stood for a moment coming to grips with what had just happened. Had their identities been compromised? Each one wondered, except Cazmonster.

Dragonfly hovered off the room, buffeted a little by the winds. "Looks like we're going to need to find a new headquarters."

Volume 1, Issue 3, Part 2 – First Published Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Aaron and Emily sat in a side booth at the Bread Shop, a bakery and wifi place often attended by students and professionals of all ilk. As Emily worked on her laptop, Aaron tapped away on a computer tablet and ate absently from a scone.

"Hey," the brownheaded, athleticly built young man prompted to get Emily's attention.

Emily pushed her thick black hair behind her year and smiled at Aaron, the roundness of her face almost cherub-like.

"Yes."

"We still on for tomorrow night?" he asked tentatively.

"Yes," she answered, looking down at her laptop but smiling broader as she did so.

"Great," Aaron said, and went back to his tablet, trying not to appear as eager as he felt. He'd wanted to date Emily almost as soon as they met, despite a rough introduction. They'd fought side by side, known each other longer than any of the others. It only made sense that they'd get along. And besides, she looked fabulous, verymodest wardrobe notwithstanding. Aaron hoped that would change tonight, as Emily accompanied him to the first dance at Langley Hall this semester.

Aaron and Emily had been out like this a few times. Nothing serious, a movie here, lunch there. They'd all started to relax when, after a week and a half, the only video that had shown up on the internet from the "wall incident", as Emily had called it, had been a fuzzy shot just a second or two before White Diamond light-flashed the entire room and they'd escaped. Of course, the group was still discussing meeting places. The top of Schuster Hall worked okay as long as the weather held, but it wasn't optimal.

Meanwhile, Caz(monster) and Tim(Wrecking Ball) were out scouting for a new HQ at that moment. The team had taken turns, day after day, spending a couple hours researching a new HQ. In the original university plans, Caz had seen a reference to what appeared to be a train tunnel which was supposed to be dug at one point. Excavation was definitely started, but there was no evidence that it was ever completed. A couple years later the trains were rerouted around Stevenson to the East and South. After lunch, when Caz' class was over and Tim, well, he just skipped his, the two young men found their way to a secluded manhole near the location of the old proposed underground depot, which just happened to be near Langley Hall.

Climbing into the darkness with a flashlight and waders, Caz and Tim sloshed into the sewer tunnel. Fortunately, there had been a drought for the last two months, so the water was pretty shallow. Unfortunately, that made the stench much worse.

After a short trek, they found what they were looking for. Toward the bottom of the tunnel was a difference in brickword; it looked like someone had started a tunnel at a different level several years earlier, and then abandonned it, bricked it over, and built the sewer.

"Caz, check this out. I think we have our unfinished tunnel," Tim said. Once Caz had looked at it and nodded, the two backed up, and Tim opened a bag he had brought with him. A titanium ball, the signature of Wrecking Ball, levitated out and hovered near Tim. He backed up a bit further before telekinetically sending the ball as far from the bricked up old tunnel as possible. Two seconds later, he smashed the ball forward at the highest rate he could, smashing a ball-sized hole in the bricks. A second smash made the hold big enough to fit through.

The sewage splashed onto the old bricks some 10 feel below the tunnel, and continued to do so until Caz and Tim made a makeshift dam with other nearby fallen bricks. As soon as the area around the old tunnel was mostly dry, Tim climbed over the dam and squeezed his head through. Shining the light below, he used his cell phone to record what he saw below.

"This might work," Tim said. Flipping around so his feet were oriented toward the hole, he dropped in.

"O'Malley, how you gonna get out of there, you madman?" Caz asked.

"Just wait up there and help me out when I get back. I'm gonna film the rest, and we can call the others tonightand go over it."

The area of the old depot was fairly wide, and was largely open space. It was unfinished, definitely, with the wall being merely local bedrock in many areas. Which was good, because it could be further excavated, Tim thought. There was a water-main that ducked down from above; also good. Tim moved into an area that was slightly more constricted; it looked like it was probably a natural recess. Then, to his surprise, he saw a shaft leading up. It was relatively narrow, but it was definitely man-made. Tim held his phone under the shaft, set it to record video, and raised it upward into the shaft with his telepathy.

Holding his flashlight up the shaft, Tim watched until he thought it was at the top, and then lowered it again. He was half-way through reviewing the video when Caz called. "Dude, you coming or what?"

"Just a second. You're so not going to believe this," said Tim with a triumphant grin on his face.

Volume 1, Issue 4 – First Published Saturday, May 4, 2013

Langley Hall, the night of the fall dance. Aaron stood nervously in a matching vest and slacks and a pair tennis shoes, looking out the door of the lobby waiting for Emily to arrive. Her mom had agreed to drop her off for the dance, the first taciturn approval she'd given her daughter's budding relationship with Aaron.

"Hey, man, don't clench up any more, you'd rupture a blood vessel," said a voice from behind. The voice was the calm and smooth voice of Tim O'Malley, AKA Wrecking Ball.

Tim was dressed more casually than Aaron in a colored button-down and some khakis. "Tim, not a good idea tosneak up on a guy waiting on a girl," Aaron half-snapped.

"Girl? It's just Emily!" Tim smirked. Aaron was not amused. "Hey, seriously, Rick and Caz are over in the alcove.We're getting ready to check out my HQ video."

"In which case," Aaron pointed out, "you should be waiting for Emily, too."

"Dude, it's video. You can watch it more than once."

Aaron's eyes widened, and he pushed Tim gently aside to head for the front doors. "She's here. Head on over to the guys. Em and I will stop over for a few minutes before we head in to the dance."

In the lounge, the DJ had already begun to play, and people were streaming down from the upper floors. Emily walked in the front door, and she was a vision. Aaron thought she glowed as much now in this blue dress as shedid in her light-wielding White Diamond costume. Immediately, he took her hand, and the two entered the building together.

"You look amazing, Em," Aaron said, distracted by her appearance so much he could hardly see what was going on around him.

"You clean up well, too," she said, and it was true. Tim was a mentalist, Rick a mystic, and Caz, while big and muscular, was basically built like a football player.

Aaron, on the other hand, being the only member of the team with no powers at all, relied on his body. Thus, itwas slender but not slight, powerful and finely honed.

His fitted vest just accentuated this fact.

"Tim wants to talk to us before the dance, something about a new headquarters. They're over here." Aaron ledher to the alcove where the others waited. The lobby of Langley

had several small alcoves overlooking the street, surrounded by windows and fitting several chairs, couches anda small table. They were ideal for studying, or relatively quiet gatherings, but five people were a little tight. As such, when Aaron and Emily filed in, Caz stood at the edge, partially because he didn't fit and partially to block view from the rest of the lobby.

The video started with Tim just inside the rediscovered tunnel they'd broken into. Shining his flashlight, they got a good view of the main area of the underground chamber; Tim paused the video to note features as it played. Then, the video lead them to the rear of the entrance, under the sewer tunnel and back toward Langley Hall, as Tim pointed out. Finally, the video lead into a shorter, natural cave formation that went on for several yards and finally ended in solid rock.

At this point, Tim's camera turned right, and Tim narrated the video he'd filmed of a shaft that lead upwards forseveral dozen feet.

"And by my math," Tim concluded, "that shaft leads somewhere HERE, in Langley Hall."

The group looked incredulously at him. "You mean there's an actual entrance to this chamber IN the building? Why? Who would build that?" Aaron asked suspiciously.

"No idea. But it's here, filled with cobwebs and long forgotten by the look of it."

"If we can find that entrance..." Caz began.

"We'd be able to come and go from the building easily, even without Rick there," Tim nodded.

"Great find, Tim," Rick agreed. "Let's see what we can dig up on Langley's plans, and see if we can find where that shaft might lead."

Aaron pushed toward the lobby, leading Emily by the hand. "Okay, guys. We'll work on it later. Right now, there are more urgent things."

The dance was a great success. Several dozen people showed up, most from Langley Hall, but many from other dorms or even off-campus. Aaron and Emily enjoyed their first slow dances together, and danced with Aaron's friends (including Tim, Caz and Rick) for the faster ones.

It was towards the end of the night, around 10:30 PM, when the trouble began. A few older students from out of the building started hassling some of the residents. Aaron was getting ready to go get a Residential Assistant when he noticed the jerky motion the strangers displayed. Watching closely for a few more seconds, he was sure of it. The students were high on Nex. Looking over, Caz nodded at him. Evidently he noticed as well. Aaron wandered over and told Emily, then Tim, who was standing next to Rick.

This could go bad, really fast. While Tim went out to call campus police, Emily placed her hand inside her purse,making sure her White Diamond mask was there if she needed it. She and Rick gathered behind Aaron and Caz,who approached the group cautiously.

"You ever fight a Nexer before?" Aaron asked Caz.

"No," he admitted.

"Be very careful; it's not your normal drug."

"Hey, guys," Aaron interrupted, pulling one of the younger students, Aaron thought his name was Greg, away from the group. "This is a party. Why not have some punch and dance some of that excess energy out, instead of trying to ruin in?"

The lead Nexer, a musclebound man with a grimace on his face and short cropped brown hair, responded by walking up and putting his hand on Aaron's chest.

"Stay out of it," he said simply, his eyes not focusing well on Aaron.

"This is our dorm, we can't," Aaron said simply. An RA was coming over to diffuse the situation, but it was far too late. With sudden drug induced speed, the lead Nexer struck out at Aaron. Even with his finely honed reflexes and being prepared for this, Aaron did not completely avoid the assault, though he managed to move back before the attack so that much of its force was lost.

Aaron tumbled backward over several chairs and into the dance floor, naturally rolling and coming back to his feet and prepared to fight. It was no secret that Aaron was into martial arts, but he tried to keep it under wrapsjust how good he was. That may not be an option here.

A second Nexer lashed out at Caz, which turned out to be both a big mistake and to be a turning point in the career of the newly formed, as yet unnamed group of heroes. The hit was solid, and Caz felt a rib snap as he sailed backward into a closet. The wooden doors shattered as Caz uncontrollably changed into Cazmonster, right before the eyes of dozens of onlookers, many of whom were recording the confrontation on their phones.

The huge cyber-wolf shattered the wooden closet doors as he landed, and then he drew himself up to his full height, now scraping the ceiling of the lounge.

Striding over, Cazmonster picked up one Nexer and simply threw him away. The young man flew across the room, slamming into a wall, and passed out.

Meanwhile, Emily had moved away from the group and into a secluded corner. With no time to check on whether or not she was being watched, she put on her mask, transformed into White Diamond.

Tim, being capable of more subtle attack, simply picked up a chair with his telekinesis and threw it at one of theNexers, tumbling him to the floor.

Aaron charged back in and began punching and kicking and the lead Nexer, who took the powerful attacks in stride, but in reality was being beaten pretty badly. That was one problem with fighting these guys, Aaron reflected. They were so doped up they didn't notice the pain. You had to be really careful not to seriously injure them while taking the fight out of them.

The Residential Assistant had backed out of the situation completely, choosing to wait for armed authorities to end the super-brawl, or letting the heroes win, which ever came first.

White Diamond ran to the edge of the conflict and zapped one of the Nexers until he submitted. Rick, meanwhile, used his mystic portals to get behind the battle and sneak the bystanders out of harm's way. He himself was getting ready to leave when a Nexer knocked him in the head from behind, and Rick fell to the ground, struggling for consciousness.

Aaron kicked his Nexer in the knee, causing the man to lose balance and fall. Aaron then hit him in the side of the head, knocking him unconscious as well.

The heroes cleaned up the battle quickly, the remaining Nexers fleeing into the hands of campus police. Of the heroes, only Tim managed to stay out of the battle completely, at least to appearances. White Diamond was solidly in costume, and no one here knew Emily Fine, so her identity was safe for the most part. But Caz was now known as the Cazmonster (it was only a matter of time). At least, he reflected, now he could use the Cazmonster name publicly. Additionally, Rick was found at the back of the battle, and had been recorded using his portals to help the others escape. Aaron's secret as Dragonfly hung in the balance; he'd been seen displaying amazing martial arts talent, and was fighting alongside Cazmonster, The Adept, and White Diamond. It wouldn't take much to make the connection.

For now, however, the heroes were just that; heroes of the day. The campus police questioned them, and all the other students, and found they had just intervened to keep others from being hurt, and had only used violence in self-defense. The dorm coordinator decided not to cite Cazmonster or Aaron (the only two identifiable Langley residents in the battle), considering the outcome. She did caution Cazmonster not to bring trouble into the hall, which he timidly agreed to.

Aaron rejoined Emily, who had gone to a nook and removed her mask at a convenient time, and the dance continued. Rick headed to the hospital to get his head looked at. Tim stayed at the dance for a while, but then headed to his room, where Cazmonster had gone to think things through.

Just like that, everything was changed. The heroes were no longer a hidden force working behind the scenes orswooping in and leaving secretly just as fast. They were now a known presence on the CIU campus. And still a team without a name.

Volume 1, Issue 5 – First Published Sunday, May 5, 2013

The five young heroes stood inside their new headquarters underneath Langley Hall, examining the potential. And, aside from a place to go without being seen or heard, that's about all it was right now. Potential. There was no furniture aside from the folding table and chairs they'd brought in using Rick's portal. Tim and

Cazmonster had cut open an electrical conduit and were looking at ways to tap into the power without a noticable drain on Langley's own power. White Diamond was providing the light, magnifying that presented by the group's flashlights so that the ambient light lit the entire main area.

Meanwhile, Aaron had flown to the top of the shaft leading up into Langley itself to see if he could figure out where it let out. The shaft was really narrow, so he had to go extra slow to ensure he didn't damage his wings. Once at the top of the shaft, he held up the small drill he'd taken. His night vision contacts allowed Aaron to see in even this darkness fairly well. Putting the drill to the wall, he set it on a slow speed and began cutting a small hole in the stone surface.

Surprisingly, the stone here was only an inch or so thick, and the drip cut right through. Aaron then placed a tiny bluetooth camera through the hole, and called Cazmonster on his cell phone.

"You getting this feed, Caz?"

"Just a...second. There." Caz said, pulling the cables from the now-open conduit.

"Yeah, I got it. Looks like...a closet?" Caz said, surprised.

"Looks the same way to me," Aaron answered. "Why would a shaft in an underground chamber lead to a closetin a dorm?"

"Sure seems convenient," Caz concurred. "Still, it's the best place we've been able to find. I've scanned from bugs and only found the mundate, insect variety. No one's watching us."

"True. Hey, can you detect my signal and tell me about how high I am off ground level?"

Caz took a moment. "About seventy feet or so."

Aaron thought for a second. "That would make this the seventh floor. That's a men's floor, isn't it? I wonder what room I'm in. It would have to be on the west face of the building. Hey, get Rick and have him port to my room with a phone and switch GPS on. Then see if you can triangulate my position relative to Rick in my room."

After a few moments, the system was set up. "Looks like you're in the southwest corner of the 7th floor. That's a triple," Cazmonster said to Aaron.

"Interesting..." Aaron said, considering. If they could somehow get assigned to that room, they'd have free access to the shaft leading down to the HQ.

"Aaron, this is run and all," Emily said sarcastically, "but I need to take off; we have a track meet in an hour."

Aaron flew back down to the floor of the chamber and joined the others. Rick opened a portal and returned from Aaron's room about the same time. "Caz, you about done with that thing?"

"It's good," Caz said, terminating the now available wires in plastic caps. "We can start wiring up devices next time we come down."

"Okay, that's enough for one day. Let's head up and get some lunch."

Over the next couple weeks, the team brought down a few pieces of equipment, as they could afford or gather in secret. Caz had asked about moving into the triple on the 7th floor, which he found was vacant. He'd been given a provisional okay, provided he could find two other roommates. That was proving difficult, as Rick was the only CIU student who was also a known hero. Caz could probably find just about anyone to move in, but then he would have to hide their secret entrance into the HQ. So for now, the triple, and the shaft that lead into their new HQ, were both slightly out reach.

As the days grew colder and early fall lead into November, the team continued their normal routine of canvasing campus at night, looking for any trouble that needed their special type of attention. Aaron had reignited his investigation into the Nex dealers, but so far the trail had proven cold. Indeed, the amount of Nex around Stevenson was seemingly diminished as well.

While Rick, White Diamond, Cazmonster and Tim patrolled around campus one particularly cold, sleeting November day, Aaron was downtown, flying among the buildings and hoping to catch any sign of the Nex dealers.

He caught a break as he flew by one of the higher-end apartment complexes and noticed several well-dressed, larger men getting into a stretch hummer. Switching to magnification on his contacts, Dragonfly was able to recognize the dealer he'd seen at the beginning of the semester, the night he met White Diamond for the first time. Moving like his insectoid namesake, Dragonfly darted behind the building in reverse. He stayed high to make sure to keep out of the streetlights. As soon as the hummer pulled out of the roundabout and onto Moulton street, Dragonfly zipped along behind and high above. He kept his eyes glued on the hummer as it made for the ramp to the highway that lead to Stevenson's small local airport.

Not for the first time, Aaron regretted not outfitting Dragonfly's costume with a jacket for winter duty. By the time he got to the airport, Dragonfly was pretty sure he had at least minor frostbite on his shoulders and cheeks.

Dragonfly was pretty sure he was too small to appear on the airport's radar, but nevertheless, he decided it wastime to fly in low. Unfortunately, that put him inside the range of ground-based lights, which meant he was easier to spot by people. Dragonfly decided it was better safe than sorry, and landed just on the other side of the external runway fence near the highway. He'd have to stay on foot from here on out.

Fortunately, there were only two planes set to depart on the terminal's six runways. Dragonfly moved as quicklyand stealthily as he could across the tarmac.

Using his contact lenses, he focused in on the closest plane; flight 104. Moving across the runway, darting between the loading vehicles, Dragonfly made his way to the shadow of an out building. The second flight had call-sign 606.

The second plane was smaller, a private jet. Aaron stood back and watched that plane especially. He didn't have long to wait. Soon, the men he'd followed crossed the small portion of runway between the terminal and

the plane. A de-icer had been out earlier, spraying the plane so it didn't freeze up in the frigid weather. It wouldn't be long before they had clearance to fly.

Aaron checked his cell phone. Out of power. Figures. Sizing up the small plane, he figured it must be a local flight, midwest somewhere. There was no way he could keep up with the jet, nor could he fly far in this weather. But planes had cargo holds, and small planes flew lower than big commercial types. He'd be safe, if a little cold, inside. Once the plane got to its location, he could call the others, and Rick could port them to wherehe was.

Aaron waited until the plane was moving, and then bolted straight upwards until he was out of the lights. As soon as that happened, he changed direction to directly toward the jet, and poured on all the speed he could.

Inside the traffic tower, an man with graying hair and a mustache called out. "Is that a missile!" The supervisor quickly joined the control person at his console. A blip on the control monitor moved quickly toward the accelerating plane.

"Oh my heaven!" the supervisor said. Pulling a walkie talkie, he prepared to call the National Guard, but it was too late. The blip hit the rear of the plane. Only nothing happened. The two men looked at each other in shock.

The flight controller picked up his radio. "Six-Oh-Six, are you experiencing any issues?"

"Negative, control. We have a clean liftoff, over."

Perplexed, the supervisor called a technician. "I need a full diagnostic on this console, right away. Clifford, you're relieved."

Volume 1, Issue 6 - Dragonfly Fights Alone, First Published Monday, May 6, 2013

The plane trip was excruciating for Dragonfly. Dragonfly had hoped to get inside the cargo hold of the jet, but was forced to merely hold on to the wheel assembly inside the well. While it was, fortunately, a very brief flight to Chicago, the temperature outside was below freezing. In the wheel well, with wind rushing past at 300 MPH, Dragonfly was sure the windchill must be something like 50 below. In fact, if it hadn't been for the fact that his training involved extensive breathing exercises, he was sure he would have passed out and fallen to his death.

Fortunately, that did not happen, and all Dragonfly suffered for his impetuousness was frostbite. He'd have to see a doctor when he got back to Stevenson. As the plane slowed and lost altitude, Dragonfly dropped out of the wheel well and activated his wings, dropping down to runway level quickly to limit his chances of detection.

Dragonfly shadowed the jet as close as possible, hoping to gather information as the passengers disembarked, while avoiding airport security. He waited a few minutes after landing, and the ramp came down. Several Italianmen in heavy leather jackets came off the plane. The bigger ones, probably hired muscle, carried the luggage.

Dragonfly listened carefully, but either the Chicago wind whipping past his ears hid the sound, or they said nothing as they walked toward the small private terminal. Dragonfly was careful here, as undoubtedly they would be searched or questioned by security here. He hoped to stay out of sight long enough for that to happen. He was surprised to find inside the terminal only a limo and a driver; these guys must have some political clout, to just zip into O'Hare with whatever bags they wanted and drive off.

Still, it made this simpler. Scanning the building for security cameras, Dragonfly saw two on the ceiling near the

entrance. Pulling out his humming bomb and adjusting the settings, he tossed the bomb to an area he hoped would hit both of them. The “bomb” went off, sending out its sonic signal and shattering the glass lenses on thecameras. Because of the height of the cameras and the fact that he didn't want to destroy the roof, Dragonfly had had to set the humming bomb at a low power level. Unfortunately, this alerted the Nex dealers to his presence without damaging them in any way.

As he approached, sword drawn, three of the men, the two “baggage men” and the Nex dealer he rememberedfrom previously, drew their pistols and prepared to fire. Dragonfly was prepared for this, tossing shuriken at twoof the men's faces while landing near the dealer and lashing out with his blade in an upper cut. The blade cut clean through the man's jacket and made a shallow but painful vertical slash from abdomen to collar bone.

The shuriken were easily avoided, and were intended only as a distraction. It worked. They were going to take a few seconds to recover their aim, and that was more than enough time. Dragonfly moved fluidly under the gun arm of his opponent and pivoted behind him. In less than a blink, Dragonfly had his sword at the man's neck.

“Drop your guns, now!” he shouted as the two other passengers of the plane, neither of whom appeared to be armed, moved in closer to the limo. The two thugs complied, dropping their pistols. The original Nex dealer held out longer, even though the blade was at his neck. Nevertheless, he dropped his pistol after a couple seconds, without a word.

Well, that went well, Dragonfly thought, surprised a little at the ease of this phase of his plan. Now to phase 2. What the heck was phase 2? Dragonfly realized he'd been so intent on capturing these men, he hadn't really thought about what to do when he won.

The two passengers were older men, probably in their mid-fifties. They seemed to be merely observing the situation, unconcerned about the outcome. They looked as if they'd already won. That made Dragonfly uneasy.

“Hey, Aaron my boy, let's put these weapons down and discuss things in a more reasonable tone!” said one of the two, a slightly balding man with a large nose and the grayer hair of the two.

Dragonfly struggled to think of some smart remark about how he held the cards, but the words stuck in his throat. The man had called him “Aaron”. Not only did he recognize Dragonfly, costumed hero from Stevenson, but he knew who he was!

Dragonfly's prisoner started to chuckle. Dragonfly spun around, prisoner and all, in a smooth motion to face theolder man. “I guess I have you at a disadvantage,” the man said smugly with a twist of sarcasm that was not lost. “I know your name and you do not know mine. You can call me 'Benito', for now. I don't imagine we'll be speaking much after this. You see, not only do I know your name, I know a lot of things about you. I know where you're from, where you live. I even know the name of that dark-haired bella you're dating.”

Dragonfly steeled himself. I can't let these guys get away, he thought. “My name's irrelevant, Benito. It's my job to make sure people in Stevenson are safe. Nex makes that difficult.”

“Yes,” the man nodded. “I've seen that is the case. I think we can come to an agreement here. I'm done with Stevenson. It's small, and my organization has outgrown it. No doubt you've already seen a decrease in the amount of Nex on the streets. So this is my deal to you, and I highly recommend you take it, you little insect: I will pull out of Stevenson entirely over the next month. In return, you butt the hell out of my business. Or the next time we meet, I might have a blade at the throat of someone YOU love! Now let us go and get out of here.”

Aaron didn't know what to do. His training didn't prepare him for this sort of moral choice, and he'd often

regret the choice he made at that moment. Aaron dropped his arm, and backed away carefully. Benito gave an order for the men to holster their weapons, and the last thing Aaron saw of them as he flew away was all the men getting into the limo.

Dragonfly briefly considered following the limo, but it was pointless at this juncture. He couldn't openly threaten their operation, not with the lives of his loved ones at stake. Plus, he had gained some information he might use later, though he wasn't sure how at this point.

Instead, taking off his wings, Aaron went to one of the gift shops in the airport, bought a Chicago Bears sweatshirt to go over the top of his costume (and keep him warm) and made his way to the train for downtown.There, he planned to catch an Amtrak home, on which he could bundle up, fight off the chill that was coming over him as the adrenaline wore off, and re-think some things.

Volume 1, Issue 7 - Professor Sampson, First Published Wednesday, May 8, 2013

“This is Laura Shea for TV 12, Central Illinois University's only student run TV station, programming by students, for students.” The anchorwoman was in her early 20s, with thick blond hair hanging straight to her shoulders and bangs cut over her eyes. Next to her sat a well dressed young man with black hair cut short, but with enough play to make him look like a “rebel”.

“Nathan, almost all we've heard this past week after break is Cazmonster! Dragonfly! White Diamond! What is going on with these Langley Hall superheroes?” the anchor asked enthusiastically.

“Laura, what we're seeing here is a trend in new superheroes that's just starting to sweep the country. When you and I were growing up, there were somewhere around a dozen superheroes at any point, and they rarely if ever worked together. That changed about five years ago when the SAJ hit the scene in New York. Since then, we've seen no less than another thirty appear, including our own Langley Five.”

“Nathan, What exactly is the tie of these heroes to Langley Hall?”

“Laura, we know Cazmonster, aka Caz Greenbaum, lives in the hall. It's likely, given the evens at the Langley dance, that at least some of the others do, too.”

“Right,” Laura acknowledged as if she'd been listening instead of focusing on her lines. “So, Nathan, have you sussed out the identities of the other members of the group, considering the identity of Cazmonster?”

“Rachel, if you could put up the video I send, we'll go through it in slow motion,” Nathan said nonchalantly.

“It's Laura, Nathan. Anyway, rolling film...” a video of the battle between the heroes and the Nexers in Langley Hall during the dance began.

“Now, we see here Cazmonster and a student named Aaron Majesky. They were the first ones to enter the fray. This Aaron is a trained martial artist, obviously. He's a good candidate for our Dragonfly. I've tried to reach him, but he hasn't returned my calls. Now, here on the periphery, we see White Diamond and The Adept appear. We get a clean view of The Adept in a few seconds...here. I've compared this frame to our student photos for the last five years. This is junior Rick Pennington, who lives off-campus. So far, I've been unable to get any information on White Diamond, and Wrecking Ball seems to have been entirely absent from this battle. But I'm on the case!”

The TV in the lounge at Langley Hall went blank as the student watching, a heavy-set red-haired man, turned it

off to concentrate on his card game. Across the lounge, a dark haired young man by the name of Tim O'Malley looked at the time on his phone. Almost time to go to the HQ. Tim started to stand, and suddenly the floor began to shake. He lost his balance and fell to the floor.

Running to the back windows of the lounge, Tim saw a huge lizard-like beast, something out of a B Movie, striding across campus and towering over the lower buildings. Uh oh. Looks like the guys in the HQ are going to be coming to me, instead...

By the time the heroes arrived together on the Quad, the art building was already in ruins. Rick immediately ported into the lower level, checking the ceiling to make sure it was still secure before entering to evacuate the students trapped there. Meanwhile, Cazmonster began lifting the huge chunks of brick and stone.Dragonfly flew up to get an areal view. There, continuing to stride South, was the creature. Right now, it was in the middle of ripping down a parking garage. They needed to stop it before it got into the residential area beyond.

As Dragonfly flew up, he saw a small metal ball traveling at high velocity from the sky toward the creature. There, levitating near the damaged parking structure, was Tim O'Malley, AKA Wrecking Ball. The metal ball smashed into the creature, causing a small part of it to fade and flicker briefly. Dragonfly noted this with interest as he joined his teammate.

“Tim, good to see you. Did you catch that fade when the ball hit? It's one of those images again, like those things we fought on the Quad a few weeks ago. Let's try hitting it from different points, see if that does any better.”

Dragonfly shot into the sky to the North, the titanium ball controlled by Wrecking Ball went West. Pulling his sword, Dragonfly waited until he saw the ball coming back, then flew in at his highest speed. “Kyaaaa!” he shouted, as he jammed the ninja-to into the giant beast with all his might. At about the same time, the metal ball hit solidly. The creature fluctuated again, this time in two spots. It slowed down for a moment, but soon it was back to normal. Dragonfly flew off to a safe distance, pulling out his phone as he flew.

“Em, are you on your way? Good. Coordinate with Rick to come get you. We need a power-up at the south lot NOW!”

The beast reached out and slapped at Wrecking Ball, who barely had time to get out of the way. It continued after him, and was almost ready to grab him out of the sky when a brick wall flew at it from the ground.

“Hey, pick on someone closer to your own size!” Cazmonster shouted from below. While he was technically correct, Cazmonster was only very marginally larger than Tim when compared to the creature. The wall did it's job of distracting the creature, however, which now lifted a foot in an attempt to smash Caz. It was quite surprised when it found its strength was not up to the task. Cazmonster stood below the foot, pushing up with all his might.

“A little help!” Cazmonster shouted. “Can't hold this for long.”

Wrecking Ball and Dragonfly focused their assault on the creature's leg, hoping to get it to move. Finally, Cazmonster managed to pivot and roll out from under the beast, dropping the foot to the ground. The creature was not prepared, and fell backward onto Lilac street, smashing several parked cars and causing traffic to screech to a halt.

“Not doing that again...” Cazmonster said as Tim helped him to his feet with a telekinetic push. At that moment,

Rick and White Diamond ported in.

“Wow, he's a big one!” White Diamond said, standing next to Dragonfly.

“Got that right. Okay guys, we need to coordinate here. This thing is very, very bad. All our power at once might do the trick.” Dragonfly worked out a plan where White Diamond gathered all the light she could while Cazmonster pushed a bunch of rubble into a pile. Meanwhile, Wrecking Ball sent his titanium sphere straight upas fast as he could.“Now!” Dragonfly shouted. He ran up, putting his hands under White Diamond's arms (she'd turned off her heat shield for this maneuver). In one of his hands, he held a humming bomb, set to maximum power. Flying upto the creature's head, throw the humming bomb. The sound was the signal. Cazmonster pushed the rubble with all his might as The Adept opened a portal over the creature, dropping a ton of brick directly on top of it. At almost the same instant, White Diamond let loose with her full energy bolt; the attack was blinding. Tim had already started the ball back down at high speed, and it slammed through the rocks and into the creature. Dragonfly hovered, holding White Diamond closely in his arms, and watched hopefully. He was just starting to feel disappointment, when suddenly the entire creature disappeared from view.

“Whew,” Rick said. Wrecking Ball, White Diamond, and Dragonfly rejoined Cazmonster and the Adept on the ground. There was high-fiving, hugging, and general celebration. The team was getting ready to head back for more rescue operations at the art building when a thunderclap snapped above their heads. The skies went dark, and the massive image of a large head, completely bald and wearing glasses, a sinister look in his eyes, appeared above them.

“Arrahh!” It screamed. “You heroes have frustrated my efforts for the last time! When next you meet one of my images, it will be the end of you all. Professor Sampson has spoken!” The face disappeared in a mist. Shaken, the heroes looked from one to the other in confusion.

“Looks like we made an enemy,” White Diamond noted.

Cazmonster shook his head negative. “No, he made one. Sampson started this. We'll finish it. Next time.”

“For now, we still have a lot of people to help before we can call it pizza time, guys,” The Adept reminded them. The heroes flew across the street toward the devastated art building.

Volume 1, Issue 8 – First Published Saturday, May 11, 2013

Intro: Steven Chen, exchange student, bonds with a special biosuit created in a secret government lab to become Palisade.

Caz sat in his new room, the triple on 7, studying for finals on a cold December day. He and Rick "The Adept" Pennington had finally convinced Aaron "Dragonfly" Majesky to move into the room with them to secure accessto the secret shaft into their underground headquarters, despite the fact that this put Aaron's "secret" identity even more at risk.

In fact, it wasn't much of a secret at all anymore. While Aaron never publicly admitted it, it was obvious to anyone who paid attention that he was Dragonfly. People treated him as if he were Dragonfly, and this was bothgood and bad. He and Emily "White Diamond" Fine had had trouble going out together without risking the exposure of her identity as well. And Emily's mom, not knowing that Emily herself was one of the heroes, had grown decidedly cold to Aaron's presence around her daughter, for fear that her little girl might get hurt as collateral damage.

So it was that when they finally got time together, Aaron had taken it right away; with Emily's mom out of town,Aaron had moved in for the week. Caz and Rick hadn't seen much of him the past few days. Tim, on the other hand, was there quite a bit lately, hanging around and doing anything but studying.

As Rick, sitting across the room from Caz in a big comfy chair, took a sip of some hot tea, a knock came to the door. Caz rolled his eyes and got up to answer it. They'd had a virtual plague of autograph hounds, fan-boys, and even the occasional tough guy wanting to test his machismo coming to their door at all hours since they moved in together. This time, Caz saw through the peep-hole in the door a lone Asian young man, very slender, with darker toned skin, glasses, and spiked hair that seemed to defy any means to move it. Caz looked at Rick and said "5 bucks says fan-boy". He opened the door.

The young man walked in right past Caz and stood near the window, watching the snow for a moment. "You might want to close the door," he said with a thick Cantonese accent. "Probably don't want everyone to hear what I'm going to say." Rick stood slowly, and Cazmonster bristled. This smelled of a challenge, but this one's attitude was all wrong.

"Okay, you seem to know who we are, which isn't surprising. Your name is?" Rick asked pointedly.

"You can call me Steven. Steven Chen. Or..." the young man suddenly changed, a thick, leather-like substance appearing all around him, spikes issuing from various points. "You can call me Palisade!"

Caz changed form to Cazmonster in an instant, prepared to fight, but Palisade held up a spiked glove. "I'm not here to fight," said a voice that was not Chen's, not even accented.

"Then what?" Cazmonster asked menacingly.

"I'm here to join you!" Chen answered.

Meanwhile, across town, Emily awoke in Aaron's arms. She smiled and snuggled up against him. "We should getbreakfast," Aaron told her, sitting up and looking for his T-shirt. Aaron's muscular form silhouetted against the gray morning light streaming into Emily's window. She stood and crossed the room in her evening gown, opening the curtains to look at the white, snowy sky.

"Looks like another gloomy day," she said quietly.

"Well, let's make the most of it then. Let's grab a train, head to Chicago. No one there even knows Dragonfly, letalone what he might look like without a mask. We can go whereever we want; we can go dancing tonight, or bowling, or shopping."

"I don't know. What if my mom calls..." Emily was concerned. She was definitely NOT supposed to have Aaron inthe house, let alone staying the night. And she certainly shouldn't be getting on a train with him. This whole relationship was getting a lot more complicated really quickly.

Aaron nodded. He didn't really like the idea of deceiving Emily's mom about their relationship either, but he was unwilling to just give it up.

"Okay," he conceded. "Let's at least go get that breakfast, somewhere away from campus. Then we can go our separate ways for a few hours, and get together for a movie later at the cineplex on the North side. there won't be many students there to recognize me."

Emily came over and hugged Aaron, and smiled up at him. Then the two finished getting dressed and left. After a peaceful breakfast, Aaron headed back toward Langley Hall, while Emily returned home to call her mom and clean up around the house. By the time Aaron got back to his new room, he found the closet wall ripped out, and a strange, alien-looking form covered in spikes looking down the shaft to the headquarters.

Aaron hurled himself across the room, body-checking the creature into Rick's desk. "What the hell???" the creature exclaimed. Drawing itself to it's feet, the intruder found Aaron already standing, sword drawn, in front of it. Aaron felt a hand on his back, and glanced over his shoulder to find Rick, having just ported into the room.

"Aaron, relax! This is Palisade. He's working with us now."

Aaron stepped back, eying the creature suspiciously. "He's who and he's WHAT?" Aaron asked Rick incredulously.

"We, had, we had a discussion, he's got some assets we could use, and he's certainly powerful enough," Rick said. "Caz, Tim and I decided to give him provisional membership in our little group, provided you and Emily agree."

Aaron lowered his blade, still suspicious but realizing there was no immediate danger. "Okay, Rick, what the heck is going on with the closet?"

"Cazmonster and Palisade pulled it off so we could get a better idea of how to modify the shaft. Palisade's offered to help us build up our HQ. Evidently his dad's a rich industrialist or some such."

Aaron nodded. He didn't like this, it seemed all too convenient. Still, the group had formed when people who didn't know each other too well had come together to help people, and they'd gotten a lot done. Aaron had to agree that some financing could improve their abilities a lot. A good computer system and lighting in the headquarters, maybe a work area or two.

The alien looking Palisade switched back to plain Steven Chen. "Hey, Aaron, I'm Steven."

Aaron took his hand and nodded back. "Welcome to the team, I guess. We've really got to come up with a name. Maybe we can work on that once we get this headquarters thing built up.

With that, the five young men set about working on their underground headquarters with an eye toward improvements. Steven arranged for some of his father's personal specialists to come into the building over winter break discretely and make the improvements. With Cazmonster and Palisade doing the heavy lifting, they should be able to complete the project over a couple weeks, and be ready to enter the next phase of their team the following semester.

Later that night, unknown to the rest of the team, Emily was meeting in secret with another future team-mate, the final of the original group that would give the team it's name. As the sun set over the snow-covered aquatic center in Stevenson Park, Emily waited for Angela, a friend of hers from Stevenson High. Angela had been on the track team with her, but recently, she'd just quit. She quit showing up at school. Worried for her friend, Emily had looked into it, and found that Angela had gotten mixed up with some bad people. Much worse people, in fact, than Emily had suspected. Angela had been turned into a vampire. Those people had left town after a brief run-in with Emily (a girl that wields the power of sunlight is a dangerous enemy for a vampire to have). But they left behind the legacy of a devastated life.

Emily felt the chill before she actually saw Angela approach. Turning from side to side, she looked to the front again to find Angela standing there. Angela was a beautiful young woman with pale skin and wavy brown hair to her shoulder, the torment behind her eyes distracted from her beauty. She was under constant inner assault from dark urges better left unmentioned.

Emily hugged her friend. The girl's skin had no warmth, but was the same temperature as the winter winds thatcrossed the closed aquatic center; Angela felt like a thing unliving.

They talked for some time, these two young women, about how Angela's life had been changed, stolen from her. In the end, Emily offered the one thing she could to help; her friendship. But there was another hope, which Emily hid behind her dark, beautiful eyes. When the time was right, she'd introduce her to the group. Vampires, Emily had learned, had certain powers and talents that could be of use to a team of young super-heroes. And in exchange, Angela would have a tie to something positive, something good to help fight the urgesof darkness.

Volume 1, Issue 9 – First Published Monday, May 13, 2013

Aaron awoke in a strange bed, every muscle pained to the point of exhaustion. Sitting up, it took him a moment to remember he was in Rick Pennington's off-campus apartment. Most of Rick's stuff had been movedto their new triple in Langley Hall, but some was still boxed up here or laying around loose. It was winter break,and most of the students were gone. Langley Hall was locked up tight, and while he could get in through the shaft from their HQ, Aaron didn't want to risk anyone hearing him and busting their secret entrance.

That's where all the pain had come from, Aaron remembered, hearing his shoulder crackle as he pushed himself out of bed.

He's spent the last three days with Steven "Palisade" Chen, Rick "The Adept" Pennington and Cazmonster moving and installing all sorts of hardward into their HQ, signed, sealed and delivered by Steven Chen's father's employees. Work that would have taken months to perform with a small team of construction workers and engineers was finished in days with 2 engineers and four super heroes.

Aaron looked at his cell phone on the small dresser. No calls. He'd hardly heard from Emily in a week. They'd gone out the night after classes ended, and since then he'd only seen her once. It had been the night she'd introduced her to her friend Angela. Since then, Emily and Angela had been together quite a bit. Aaron hadn't cared much for Angela; there was something a little off about her. Of course, he hadn't said anything. White Diamond could take care of herself, and then some.

Suddenly, there was a rattle at the front door. Aaron went to check it out. The sun had not yet come up; a cold blue light was just stretching across the sky. Must have been the wind. Turning around, he heading back into the house to start his morning workout. Only a few steps in, the door slammed open. Aaron had tumbled across room and flipped behind the couch, spinning around so he could see over the top. At first, he saw nothing, just the door rattling open, bouncing against a plant stand on the other side. Then, as his tired eyes focused more carefully, he noticed a pale shadow crossing the room.

"What the hell..." Aaron wasn't sure how to deal with this, but being armed couldn't hurt. Chancing a quick run, Aaron bolted to the bedroom and grabbed his equipment bag, slamming the door shut and holding it with one foot while slipping the harness for his wings over his sore shoulders.

Drawing his sword, he slipped his humming bomb into the pocket of his sweatpants with the other hand. A powerful force hit the door at that moment, and Aaron barely managed to pivot out of the way. The shadowy

form was entering the room. Not here, Aaron thought. Slipping his sword blade through the handle of his bag, Aaron flew as fast as possible through the wood and glass window of Rick's room and into the freezing December air. The shadow form was hot on his tail.

"Great, the thing can fly!" Aaron thought, pulling in his contact lenses with his free hand. There, he thought, now he could see some more details of the shadow. Is that right? he asked himself. The shadow looked like it had wings. Wings like his!

An echo in the back of his mind came as an answer. "Yes, Dragonfly. I'm you! Your shadow!"

Aaron shook his head. Must be imagining things, he thought. Now that they were out of the residential area and flying over the largely deserted CIU campus, Aaron could try to sort this thing out. Doubling back, he held his sword out and did a fly-by backward strike. The blade, not unexpectedly, had no effect, but Aaron felt it best to start with the simple.

"Ah, my progrenitor, you have little chance of stopping me, but you're welcome to try." Flying directly toward Aaron, the shadow seemed intent on slamming into him. Aaron didn't think that was the best idea, and did an in-air summersalt just in time to avoid a direct hit. However, the shadow's dark claws still slashed through Aaron's leg, sending waves of icy pain all through his body.

Not good, Aaron reflected as he zipped behind Schuster Tower. I don't think I can move my leg.

The shadow swept after him, but Aaron ducked behind one of the tower's spires just in time to avoid being seen. Time for the A game, Aaron thought. Flying behind the shadow at top speed, Aaron planted the humming bomb in the center of the thing, set at full power, then turned the wings off, allowing gravity to pull him out of the way of the massive sonic explosion. Dropping head-first, Aaron turned the wings back on a mere50 feet off the ground, and barely managed to bounce to a landing near the Schuster parking lot. Looking up, he saw the glass windows break out in the top two floors of Schuster. The shadow was nowhere to be seen.

Aaron flew up to get a better view, but still the shadow creature was nowhere to be seen. Aaron pulled his cell phone and thought about calling Emily, but had second thoughts. Her mom wouldn't appreciate late night calls,and besides, the situation seemed to be dealt with now.

Circling campus one more time, Aaron headed back to the house. His leg was completely numb. He could barely stand on it.

He needed to rest, to get the leg looked at. Until then, Dragonfly was likely out of commission. He was almost there, just over the Stevenson High football field, when the pain came again. Except this one was through his back, his chest. Aaron fought to keep conscious through the pain. He felt his heart beating irregularly. Slowly, everything faded to black, and Aaron barely felt the impact as he slammed into the snowy field and broke two ribs.

Volume 1, Issue 10 – First Published Thursday, May 16, 2013

Emily Fine waited in the darkness, clutching her White Diamond mask tightly in her hand and hiding in the shadow of some trees on a cold winter night. If she put the mask on now, it would begin to gather light, and she might be noticed before the plan came to fullness.

Her friend Angela, newly a vampire, stood toe to toe with the creature that had devastated Aaron, and had gone on to injure several others across quiet, lonely Stevenson over the last few cold December eves. Now,

finally, they had found it. It was, unlike Angela, a creature of pure darkness, not empowered or driven by it, butseemingly born of if. Every instinct she had was to put on the mask, stand under the brightest streetlight she could find for about five minutes, and then let loose on the creature. But that wasn't the plan. Not yet.

As Emily waited for the creature to continue its assault on Angela, she thought back to the horrible events that had gotten her involved in this.

Three nights ago...

"We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a special New 3 Update. Earlier today, Aaron Majesky, now known to be the hero Dragonfly, was found near death on the football field of Stevenson High School. Aaron, a CIU student and resident of Langley Hall, is at the intensive care unit at Slager Memorial. The police we unable to make a statement at this time, but reporters indicate Majesky was found face-down in the snow, near suffocation, with multiple breaks and unidentifiable injuries, possible resulting in a super-hero battle of some sort.

"Back to you Jack," The middle aged African American woman said.

"In other news..." began the graying Jack Castle, lead anchor.

Meanwhile, 5 miles away at Slager Memorial, White Diamond argued with the head physician assigned to Aaron.

"I'm sorry, he's in critical condition. Only direct relatives and clergy would be allowed to see him right now, and you're neither, unless taking off that mask will prove otherwise."

Diamond furrowed her brow. "This is IMPORTANT. Doctor, we have no idea what could have caused this situation, but I'm betting it's related to one of our cases. It's in the best interest of the public that the rest of my team has information to act on."

The doctor, a thin man in his thirties with blond hair and chiseled features, sighed. "You'll have to take it up with the police, then. I'm sure if they think you should have information, they'll share it with you!" The doctor turned to storm away, but Angela had come up behind him. Emily didn't feel good about using Angela's abilities like this, but when her friend had found out that Aaron was in trouble, she'd insisted. Emily was willingto accept that Angela owed her one.

"Doctor," Angela began. Her doe brown eyes became a much deeper color, and the doctor felt loosely as if he were falling into a cavern somewhere in the wild, with no one to help him. "I think what you mean is that, while it's hospital policy that only family be allowed to visit the critically injured, in this case, you understand the urgency, and we can go talk to him now."

The doctor struggled hard to understand why he felt so wrong. In the end, his will could not win out over the dark beauty before him. "Yes," he conceded, "that's what I mean. Look, ladies, I have other patients to attend to as well. I trust you can find your own way?"

Emily nodded, and grinned gratefully at Angela. "That was amazing. I never really quite believed you until now."

"Yes, just one of the little benefits of being the undead," Angela giggled.

When they got to Aaron's room, they found him in as bad a state as they had heard. Emily ran up to the bed, putting her hand on Aaron's chest. He did not stir.

Angela came up behind her friend, placing her hand on Emily's arm. Despite the fact that it was intended to comfort, a cold chill ran up Emily's back, which she quickly hid.

Emily looked at Angela. "Can you contact him? I mean, mentally, somehow?"

"I don't think so. My powers play on the conscious mind. He seems very distant. And yet..." Angela reached out and touched Aaron on the chest, near where Emily's hand already lay. She felt the heart beating within him, the warm, salty blood that flowed through those veins. Before she even realized it, Angela had leaned in, her fangs protruding conspicuously from behind her upper lip.

Subconsciously, White Diamond's hand began to glow brightly, and Angela backed off. "Sorry, Emily. It's a hard habit to break. Here, give him some of this," she said, holding out a vial of red liquid. Emily eyed the vial, and her friend, suspiciously.

Angela rolled her dark eyes in frustration. "It's my blood. It's not going to enslave him or anything. You've readto many books. It's just going to give his system a little boost. Think of it as an energy shot."

Slowly, White Diamond too the vial and put it to Aaron's cold lips...

Now...

The shadow form, the "anti-man", was upon Angela. While its draining dark power was less effective on Angelathan it had proven on the living, Angela nevertheless fell back from the power of its assaults. "Come, my dark huntress! You have in you a glimpse of what I am! Come with me and revel in the blood of the living!" Its negative claws passed through Angela's coat, ripping into her ribcage and tearing dead flesh. The dead skin began immediately to rot, and Angela realized she couldn't let that happen too many more times.

Come on, Angela, Emily thought, the winter chill causing her to shiver in the dim light under the trees. Get to the plan!

Angela stood back, momentarily out of reach of the anti-man. Here goes, she thought, her undead mind still feeling a tinge of fear. If this failed, she'd need to get out of there, fast.

"You know, anti-man, it's funny that a shadow like you can even play at existence. Of course you realize it's all an illusion?"

The anti-man paused, intrigued by this new game. "How so," he asked, claws menacing the air around Angela half-heartedly.

"Well, beings like myself have a better knowledge of the true nature of reality, being in-between states. It is a fact, the mortals themselves, like your progenitor, they don't actually exist. That's why it amazes me that a creature like you, being but a shadow of a thought, can exist at all!"

The anti-man was dumbfounded. Her words were nonsense. Of course he existed! And yet, her eyes...No, this dead thing was lying, manipulating him. And yet, try as he must, he could not look away. The anti-man began to feel as if he were losing cohesion. His power waned slightly, and the trap was sprung.

From under nearby trees, White Diamond stepped into the streetlights. In an instant, her power was magnifiedtenfold. Angela knew what to do in this part of the plan: run. That light would melt her light a candle.

The anti-man didn't have time to draw the darkness back. The powerful blast, which drained every bit of light White Diamond had pulled, ripped through the creature, sending it back to the nothingness from which it came. Minutes later, Emily and Angela, convinced that the anti-man was gone, gathered together.

They walked to a nearby car, at which Emily shouted "It worked!" The window down, Aaron nodded at her grimly. Aaron had a feeling that, while they'd defeated this anti-man tonight, he hadn't seen the last of his darkalter-ego.

A pain in his side brought Aaron out of his deep reflection. Emily came over to the car, her mom's, and got in the driver's side. "Let's go get some breakfast," she said.

Volume 1, Issue 11 - I7 Against Professor Sampson, First Published Saturday, May 18, 2013

Early Spring Semester, Late evening. The secret underground HQ of the superheroes known as the Infinite Seven.

Around a metal table sit all the members of the team; Dragonfly, winged martial arts master; Cazmonster, devastatingly powerful cyber-werewolf; Wrecking Ball, telekinetic dealer of destruction; The Adept, mystic teleporter and sorcerer in training; White Diamond, wielder of light itself; and the two newest members, last to join the original team, Palisade, bio-suited powerhouse; and Angela, vampire in search of a cause.

The Adept stood at the head of the table, his laptop hooked to a holo-projector, yet another of Steven "Palisade" Chen's wealthy father. The holo-projector currently showed an image of a bald man, a maniacal grin, hovering over the Dragonfly, White Diamond, and the Adept.

"This is threat number one!" The Adept said loudly. "Professor Sampson. He's responsible for living holograms that have caused physical damage multiple times here on campus. And he's openly challenged us. Yet we know almost nothing about him. Until now. Over the break, while he was healing from his run-in with another enemy,Aaron searched the school databases and came up with some interesting information, and a clue as to what might be motivating him."

Aaron stood up. His wounds from the battle with Anti-Man had totally healed, and he was once again in peek physical condition. His mask, not necessary now that his identity was totally public, sat on the table in front of him; he still wore it for the effect, even though most locals knew exactly who was under the it.

"Thanks, Rick. Professor Ebenezer Sampson – yes, that's right. Ebenezer. His parents must have seen the whole villain thing coming. Anyway, Professor Sampson was once a CIU science professor, specializing in dimensional physics. He also had advanced degrees in engineering and, you'll love this, the occult. Sampson had a falling outwith several collegues; the reports are vague, but it seemingly had something to do with unethical conduct. Sampson was drummed out of the faculty, and wasn't heard from again. No one else seems to have hired him afterwards, at least not in this country. I did find an obit on Sampson's father, who died later that same year. Seems he left Eben a sizable inheretence. The professor sold his family house, and as far as I can tell, the money's not in any local banks. He just vanished.

"Now it seems Sampson's back, and he's interested in revenge on CIU. And now, because of our intervention, he wants revenge on us as well."

Rick nodded somberly. The others were strangely silent, except Steven Chen, sitting in his chair wearing his normal street clothes. "I say bring it on! There are seven of us now, not five. We can beat up one mad scientist no matter what doomsday device he's created." Cazmonster nodded assent.

Rick spoke next. "We need to be careful here. He's a student of the occult. This fits another piece of the puzzle for me. I've sensed something, a mystical signature each time we've fought these holo-creatures. I didn't know what to make of it, because it was far too weak to be the direct source of the creatures. But now, maybe Sampson has somehow harnessed a mystical device powered by scientific principles, a bastard of the magic andthe mundane. If so, he could well be the source of the impending mystical event I gathered the team together to fight."

"Well," Cazmonster said, standing and knocking his small chair away from him like a toy. "Sorry," he said under his breath, the continued on. "We managed to smash these things in the past; they're physical enough. We can take whatever he throws. I say we find this guy, take away whatever toys he's using, and knock him into next week."

Chen reached out an fist-bumped Cazmonster.

"Caz is right, in a way," Rick continued. "We need to find Professor Sampson, and stop him. Preferably before hebrings mystical doomsday down on Stevenson.

"How can we do that?" White Diamond asked from her chair between Aaron and Angela. "We don't even know where to being. Aaron and I have spent hours looking that stuff up on the internet, and between school, track, and preparation for college, my time has just become non-existent."

"Wait," Wrecking Ball said. "Let's put the peices on the table. We know Sampson is a scientist. We suspect he's using scientific devices to create his monsters. Rick can barely sense the magic of his creatures, which means they're not powered by magic. That means he has to be drawing energy from somewhere. And, because he's out to get us and the University, I'd say it's probably somewhere close by. It either has to be a source of power he's created illegally, in which case it should be easy to detect, or he's drawing power from the normal grid, in which case we should be able to track it by checking the power company's data."

"Good thinking, Tim," Rick agreed. "Let's start looking along those lines."

It was several days before the search bore any fruit. Aaron was now living the celebrity life along with Caz and Rick. Most of the people in Langley were pretty relaxed about the whole thing, but whenever they went anywere, even to class, someone would always come up and ask for an autograph, or thank them for saving so and so, or ask their help getting even with an ex-boyfriend.

Aaron tried to take it all in stride, but it was getting a littledistracting. And there was absolutely no way he and Emily could go out in public anywhere near Stevenson. Occasionally, they would sneak out of town on the train,but more and more, they just did things separately.

To be fair, Emily was deep in her college preperations, and Aaron was spending more and more of his time on computer systems, trying to find signs of power draining off the grid. So far, all he had come across was evidence of their own illicit use of power to run their secret HQ. Caz(monster) and Steven Chen were the other members of the computer team, searching every database, website, and darkweb site they could find to get information about power usage.

Meanwhile, Angela poked around in a different way. She'd gotten a job at the local power company, and was asking some tough questions in a very mesmerizing manner. Rick often provided a gate so the computer team could physically infiltrate an office to hack a database that wasn't online, often at the direction of Angela.

Tim O'Malley, AKA Wrecking Ball, was largely left out of the operation, though he did get a chance to do several fly-over recons using special cameras capable of detecting and recording exitensive power use (another gift from Chen's father).

Despite all their efforts, the Infinite Seven, as they had now named themselves, failed to find Professor Sampson. It wasn't until he used the machine again, this time to create an army of alien-like killers, that they actually found him. And it was pure coincidence that Emily Fine, Stevenson Highschool senior who spent more time these days sending out applications for college than fighting crime as White Diamond, was the first to become involved.

It was mid-April. Other than looking for Sampson and solving the odd crime on the CIU campus, the Infinite Seven didn't have a lot of heroing to do. Then, one school day, while Emily was at the CIU library working on herfinal report (the CIU library had millions more books than Stevenson High's), she heard a ruckus on the street outside. At first, she could hardly believe her eyes, and thought it might be a fraternety stunt or some bizaar parade. After the shooting started, she figured out it was real very quickly. Padding for her mask, she realized she'd left it at home. There was little she could do to stop the chaos outside, but there was one weapon she had in her arsenal that she had brought. Her phone.

"Rick, this is Emily. You need to meet me on floor 6 of Limner library, right now. I need a ride...

Volume 1, Issue 12 - The Battle Begins, First Published Sunday, May 19, 2013

White Diamond stands on the roof of the library, firing her light rays into the streets as what appears to be an army of ant-like alien soldiers marches along, incinerating students and faculty unlucky enough to be out of doors. She can hardly believe her eyes. Is this a real alien invasion? Subterranean predators? Then, the answer. Behind the ant army, the same B-movie giant lizard as the team fought marches in step with the ants. The lizardcreature created by the mysterious mad scientist known as Professor Sampson.

An instant later, Rick, Cazmonster and Angela appear next to White Diamond, ready for action. "Thanks for holding it down, Diamond!" Rick says, opening a portal in the street into which several ants drop. It is not obvious where it lets out. "The others are flying in from Langley."

"Good, we're going to need everyone!" White Diamond shouts, firing another powerful burst of light into the street. From here, the sunlight reaches her optimally, making her entire body a living laser cannon.

"We're gonna need more than that!" Cazmonster shouts, moving to the back edge of the library roof. "We're gonna need a plan!" With that, the cyborg werewolf sprints across the roof and leaps toward the street. "Cannonball!"

Ant soldiers begin flying every direction from Cazmonster's landing site. Angela grows a pair of claws and long vampire fangs and approaches Rick. He's startled; this is the first time anyone has seen her this way except for Emily.

"Get me down there!" Angela growls. "I'm not as tough as Cazmonster, but I can do some damage to those this!" Rick oblidges by opening a portal to the street. White Diamond keeps firing.

From out of the sun, a titanium sphere flies down into the ants, destroying several of them. Behind it from Wrecking Ball, Dragonfly, and Palisade. Palisade lands next to Angela. "Need some help?"

"I'm doing my job, Spike-man, you do yours!" she says, slashing into yet another ant soldier while their laser weapons lash out at her.

Dragonfly continues his areal assault, swooping down on the invaders, or dropping humming bombs into the thick of them. When he and Wrecking Ball aren't fighting the creatures directly, they're pulling innocent bystanders out of the line of fire and depositing them away from the edge of the battle.

Fat lot of good that will do, Wrecking Ball thought, putting down an aging female professor in the quad. If we don't find Sampson soon, the whole school will be overrun. And we're not going to do that by fighting.

"Dragonfly," Wrecking Ball said, calling on his cell phone. "We need to approach this a different way! Sampson's going to keep throwing stuff at us until he kills us!"

Hovering above the battle, Dragonfly dropped another humming bomb into a trouble area before answering. "I agree Tim, but I'm not sure what to do about it!" Suddenly, Dragonfly felt something solid hit him from below, and he flew spinning out of control toward the roof of the library. Slamming into a power relay, and felt a jolt."

The next thing Dragonfly knew, White Diamond was tapping him gently, a look of concern on her face, while thelizard monster was ripping into the side of the library facing the street. Aaron vaguely noticed the creature shimmer momentarily, as Sampson's holo-creatures do when attacked, but there was no one near the creature.

"Aaron, you're alive!" she shouted, giving him a gentle hug and kiss. Aaron's shirt had been burned away from the power discharge, and he was sure he had a concussion and several fractures, but yes, he WAS alive.

"Adept!" Dragonfly shouted. "We need to get off this roof. Gojira there is gonna rip the whole building down!"

Rick came running over. "I think you're right." Opening a door, he gestured casually, "Step right in."Aaron barely pulled himself off the roof, and White Diamond helped him through the portal. They found themselves on top of Schuster Hall, several blocks away.

Tim steadied himself. "I need to get back to the battle," said White Diamond anxiously.

"I'll take you!" Aaron said, then stumbled slightly.

"You need to sit out for a while," said Adept. "I'll port Diamond and I back, you join use when you can."

A portal opened, and White Diamond had just stepped through, when Aaron shouted "Wait!" Rick looked back at him, holding the portal open.

"Rick! The power!" Aaron shouted excitedly. Rick looked at him, befuddled.

"Yes, he's drawing power to make these things, but we have no idea from where or to where. We've looked!" Rick noted.

"From HERE, right NOW!" Aaron said. He explained to Rick the effect he'd seen when his fall destroyed the power relay on top of the library. "Sampson's drawing energy from right here! If we can track where it's going, we can find him."

"Oh, we can track it," Rick said. Pulling out his cell, he placed a call. "Caz, that crawler program you placed on CIU's power system. Can you activate it and receive the data remotely?"

After a moment, and several growls and loud crunching sounds, Cazmonster answered. "Program wouldn't be much use if I couldn't! You want me to turn it on?"

Rick smiled. "Oh, yes, turn it on. When you get a destination, let me know."

Rick had closed his portal, and was preparing to re-open it. Dragonfly grabbed his arm. "This time, let me give YOU a ride!" Without warning, Dragonfly grabbed the Adept under the arms and swooped off the building.

"Wooooo!" Rick shouted, nervous and exhilarated all at once. The duo landed on a building nearer the battle. Inthe street below, Wrecking Ball had used his telepathy to erect a barricade from destroyed sections of road. Palisade, like his namesake, posed a spiky barrier to anyone wishing to cross. Out in the field, Angela and Cazmonster were fighting creature after creature. They'd taken some laser burns, and were looking worn. White Diamond stood on the roof opposite them, firing into the street.

A few minutes later, as Dragonfly swooped back into battle and Rick had begun opening portals from the CIU quad to safer areas of Stevenson, Cazmonster jumped up to the roof.

"Got 'im!" Cazmonster growled to The Adept. "Open your phone!"

Rick complied. On his GPS app, a new location appeared. The caption on it read "Professor Sampson".

Volume 1, Issue 13 - The Final Battle!, First Published Sunday, May 19, 2013

Rick and Cazmonster stood atop a building near CIU's devastated library while a giant lizard and army of laser-wielding bipedal ants marched the streets below. In his hand, Rick held a cell phone noting the recently revealed location of Professor Sampson, architect of this invasion.

"We need to split up," Rick said softly to himself. "Caz, we need to send a team to take out Sampson while the rest of us hold off his holograms. Grab Dragonfly, White Diamond and Angela. I'll port you all there while Wrecking Ball, Palisade and I do our best here."

"On it, big man!" Caz said, leaping back into the frey. Soon, the heroes were gathered back on the rooftop, with The Adept holding a portal open to the GPS coordinates of Sampson's location.

"Okay, team, we need to be careful here. We have no idea what Sampson has at hand in his lair. Angela, you've proven quite proficient and manipulating the human mind; I'm hoping you can do so on Sampson as well. White Diamond, Cazmonster, the two of you quite honestly are the best we've got when it comes to all-out power. If Angela fails to control Sampson, or something unforseen happens, you need to give it your all. And Dragonfly, you're the heart of this team, and you always seem to have a trick up your sleeve. If anyone can get this team back in one piece, it's you. Enough pep-talk. Go!" The portal opened, and Dragonfly and the others stepped through.

They found themselves in a suburban front yard. The scene was Idyllic, a stark contrast from the frightning mansion they had expected. A rather unassuming house sat in front of the heroes. Dragonfly, costume still shredded from the previous battle, draws his sword and approaches. Tentatively, he steps first on one front porch step, then another. Soon, he's standing on the wooden porch, in front of a white door. Carefully, he tries

the knob. Locked.

Dragonfly motions to the others while he starts to pick the lock, but Cazmonster's weight breaks the third stair up. Frustrated with stealth, he simply reaches out and smashes the door in. It flies across the empty living roomand slams onto the kitchen floor at the back of the house.

"Ooops!" Cazmonster says as Dragonfly eyes him accusingly.

"Okay, let's get in there and search the place. If anyone's here, they know we're here now." The team enters. Dragonfly and Cazmonster search the main floor cautiously, while Angel and White Diamond head upstairs. After a few minutes, they've all come up with nothing. No one in the house, no evidence of anything unusual. Just a vacant house.

"Leaves one place we didn't look," Dragonfly said ominously. "The basement." He turned and walked into the kitchen, followed by White Diamond and Angela. Cazmonster stood his ground.

"There's no point in me trying to fit down another set of weak wooden stairs," he said. "I'm taking the quick way." With that, he slammed his foot on the wooden planks, smashing the floor near the door to bits and fallingdirectly into the basement. Dragonfly shook his head and ran for the stairs."

Cazmonster landed in front of a large metal box. Box wasn't quite the right word. It was large, easily Cazmonster's height, and cubical in shape, certainly. But it was made up of pipes, copper tubes, electrical wires,and ductwork, rather than solid sides. It belched steam and oil like it was having a conversation. As Cazmonster surveyed the cramped basement, he heard the others coming down the stairs. He almost didn't notice the bald,fat man standing at a console nearby.

Professor Sampson looked up from his work. "Ah, the famed 'Cazmonster'. I was wondering when you and your friends might join me here. Honestly I'd hoped it would be long after I'd completed my revenge, that I might focus my attention on you. But it makes no difference. Your presence here is quite inconsequential.

"We'll see about that baldy!" Cazmonster threw himself at the far wall where Sampson stood, but was startled to find his motion blocked by some invisible field. He bounced off and slammed into the opposite wall near the stairs. Dragonfly leapt over his teammate. "Shake it off, Caz! People are dying out there. This needs to end ten minutes ago! Angela, you're up. Everyone else, try to take out the nasty machine-thing."

Leading the charge, Dragonfly found the evil machine protected by the same forcefield as Sampson himself. His sword bounced off uselessly.

White Diamond's attack fared little better. "There's not enough light in here! I can't get any power behind theseshots!"

Meanwhile, Angela approached Sampson, turning on her vampiric charm. "Professor," she said in a sultry yet commanding voice. "Why don't you drop that forcefield and let me in for a little chat?"

Sampson grimaced, feeling the push of the powerful mind against his. In the end, though, his madness was enough to overcome any external command or motivation. "No, vampire witch! I won't listen to your lies!" Suddenly, a beam of energy came out of the infernal machine, striking Angela solidly and knocking her lith formto the ground.

"Oh, hells no!" Cazmonster said. Grabbing the entire staircase, he ripped it from its moorings and launched it at

the machine, forcing Dragonfly and White Diamond to dive to the floor to avoid it. Then, as the machine was re-energizing its protective shield, he reached in and grabbed hold of a duct, ripping it clean off the machine and spraying what could best be described as icor over himself and Dragonfly. White Diamond's heat shield sizzled the icor into a nasty black mist.

Dragonfly's phone rang. "Yeah," he said, standing to his feet just as the machine threw Cazmonster through the "ceiling"; Dragonfly watched as the cyber-wolf flew through the livingroom, through the second floor, and finally out of the top of the house.

"What the hell was that?" Rick asked from the other end.

"What was what, exactly?" Dragonfly replied. Cazmonster was waaay too heavy for him to catch; Aaron had to hope his invulnerability would protect him.

"There was a massive mystical disturbance. It's the first time I've felt it!" Rick answered, trying to continue protecting Palisade and Wrecking Ball by opening portals in the ground to stem the tide of ant-soldiers.

"Ah, there's a machine here, kind of ugly and cobbled together. Sampson seems to be controling it, well, mostly.Anyway, it shot some sort of ray, took Angela down with one shot!" Dragonfly flailed at the machine's forcefield while coordinating with White Diamond. They managed to pierce the field briefly as Cazmonster had done, but the damage was minimal. Sampson laughed in the background.

"The Nightmare Engine has tricks that even I don't fully understand, heroes! You're wasting your time, but please, carry on!" Sampson said from safely behind his shield.

"I'm coming!" The Adept said. "There's something there, I can feel it now. It's not Sampson. That machine itself is the greater threat!" Rick had already stepped through a portal into the room as he finished his statement.

"Nonesense, you stage magician! I am the great Professor Sampson! This machine is my creation, and I control it fully!"

From the sky, a loud "yahoooooo!" came, preceded by a sound like a bomb dropping. Cazmonster smashed intothe machine's forcefield full-on, causing it to wink out briefly. Dragonfly grabbed a humming bomb and shoved it into the machine's innards, while White Diamond drained the last bit of energy she had into it.

As the forcefield went back up, a small explosion happened inside; the sound of the humming bomb reverberated against the forcefield and back in. The cube fractured, but it did not go innert, nor did the forcefield drop a second time. Another bolt lanced out from the cube, hitting White Diamond, Cazmonster and The Adept. Dragonfly managed to avoid being hit by flying deftly through the whole in the ceiling. Diamond cried out in pain, and fell to her knees. It took every once of will Cazmonster had not to pass out.

But the Adept was unaffected completely. Or rather, he was not negatively affected. The blast glowed against him in outline, and the Robe of Merlin was briefly visible. "Pure mystical energy!" The Adept said in awe. He seemed to bathe in the blast, as if drawing energy from it.

"Mine to command!" The Adept shot a mystical blast directly at Sampson, who stopped laughing and cried out in pain. "Forcefields won't save you from magic, Professor!" Rick grinned.

Dragonfly flew back in and helped White Diamond to her feet. Sampson was now panicking. He flipped a few switches and, as The Adept prepared another mystical blast, he fell through a hole in the floor that opened

directly below him. The Adept tried but failed to intercept him with a portal of his own.

Cazmonster now stood and drew himself to his full height. White Diamond stood under the hole in the ceiling, soaking in the light from above. Aaron readied his sword, and Angela was finally stirring again.

Rick's phone rang, and he answered.

"It's Tim! What did you guys do? These things are disappearing!" came the voice from the other end.

"Sampson took off. Evidently the machine isn't following his program any more," Rick answered.

"Well, are you?" he asked, the magic energy glowing in his hand. The Nightmare engine fluctuated inside the forcefield, and the parts drew in on each other.

"That doesn't look good!" Dragonfly said. "Everybody out!" Grabbing White Diamond under the arms, Dragonflyflew through the various holes in the house and into the sky.The Adept opened a portal and hurried Cazmonster an Angela through it. They came out on the lawn across thestreet. Rick could see Dragonfly an White Diamond flying above them. With a loud "whump", the house flew a few feet off its foundations, and then slammed back into the ground as if under vacuum force. There was little or no damage to the other houses in the neighborhood, though several window shades were pulled back to show frightened faces watching.

The Infinite Seven spent most of the next 24 hours helping with the devastation at CIU, and searching through the rubble of Professor Sampson's house. There were remnants of the machine, but Rick could not feel the presence he could tell had inhabited it before. Sampson's tube lead to some sort of teleporter, which he had setto explode on activation. Both Sampson and the Nightmare Engine were gone...for now.

Volume 1, Issue 14 – Epilogue, First Published Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Emily and Angela walked behind the Student Arts building across from Langley Hall. Looking around, they made sure no one noticed as they ducked behind the wall to the pickup dock. The camera above was set on a continual loop; no one would see them using the new external entrance to the Infinite Seven HQ. The old sewerentrance had been barricaded; the only ways in were through the Langley 7 triple's hidden elevator, or through this external stairwell.

The entrance let out in the workshop, where Steven Chen was doing the final repairs on Dragonfly's wings.

"There you go, Aaron! You're no longer grounded!" The wings had taken damage in a recent battle, which gave Aaron Majesky an excuse to focus on his finals. The others had the situation well in hand; the rest of the semester after the Professor Sampson incident had been relatively calm.

Aaron came over to Chen and high-fived him, but stopped when he saw Emily and Angela.

"Hey, ladies," he said sedately. Emily looked marginally hurt, Angela uncertain.

"Aaron," Emily said, smiling. He gave in and gave her a gentle, tentative hug. He was really going to miss her.

"That's everyone!" Steven shouted to the others, gathered in the main meeting room. Caz, dressed in shorts and a rumpled T-shirt, turned his curley mop of brown hair at the new entrants. Stomping over in a very Cazmonster-like stride despite his currently human form, he took one woman in each arm and gave them a bit

hug.

The ladies followed him to their seats around the table, while Aaron tried on the wings Chen offered him. Flexing a little, the wings began to hum. "What about the humming bombs? Were you able to rebuild those?" The entire supply of humming bombs had been destroyed during the battle with Sampson, leaving Dragonfly without one of his most powerful weapons.

"I put my designs on my father's server. I can pick up the finished product when I arrive in Hong Kong ."

"Guess I can live without them for a couple weeks," Aaron said.

"Everyone! Head over to the meeting table. We have some things to discuss," Rick called. Aaron already knew one of those things.

Two nights ago...

Aaron and Emily sat at Regent's Diner quietly finishing their meals. In front of Aaron was is philosophy textbook.Emily was texting someone on her phone. Finally, Aaron couldn't stand the silence any more.

"You decided yet?" he asked for the tenth time that week.

Emily sighed. "Yes, I have actually. I'm going to Princeton."

Aaron nodded. "And us?"Emily reached out tenderly to touch his hand. Her forehead wrinkled and a sad cross between a grin and a frown crossed her pink lips.

"Aaron, I think we should stop seeing each other."

Aaron took in every detail of that moment. In a flash, all the times they had spent together, from the incident inthe alley where they stepped all over each other trying to catch a Nex dealer to the week they spent together while her mom was out of town, flew before his eyes.

Now...

"Okay, now that we're officially a team, and we've got a headquarters, I think it's a good idea to get official. I hearby call this meeting of the Infinite Seven to order! Before we get started, I have a couple of annoucements from our membership. Most of us are heading home for the summer, to Chicago, or the suburbs, or China! However, one of us is taking the opposite path. Emily will be starting summer courses at Princeton in three weeks!"

There was much cheering and conversation, friendly questions, and general congratulations. Cazmonster noticed the distraught look on Aaron's face, but chose not to say anything. When the buzz over Emily's leaving was over, Rick continued.

"Additionally, Tim O'Malley, Wrecking Ball, has decided to continue his education closer to home, and is leaving our team as well." This was a surprise to most, although Caz knew that Tim had failed three of five classes. The guy was a genius, literally, but he lacked focus. It was sad to see him go, but Caz knew Tim himself would be better off for it. There was considerably less celebrating here. Emily was moving on with her life. Despite Tim's assurances that this was something he was looking forward to, he didn't quite convince anyone.

"So we're back to five," Aaron said solemnly.

"Should be change the name?" Angela asked.

"I think," Rick said, "that we should keep it, no matter how many people we have. Infinite Seven is a concept. We chose it when we had seven members, but I think it represents our team no less if there are five or ten of us."

"True," Steven added simply.

"So, we're the Infinite Seven, still," Aaron said with quiet conviction.

Elsewhere, a bald, heavyset man set a cup of tea down on a workbench. Beside him, the wrecked remains of a once powerful machine lay in disarray. "Starting again," the man said softly, with a slight his in his voice. "My revenge is not complete."

Picking up a portion of the machine, he began adjusting a bolt to loosen the collar, and pushed a new pipe into place when it was ready.

Caz was on a bus to Peoria to meet his parents. He carried with him the last of his things; his parents had put the rest in a van a few days earlier. A few minutes ago, he had watched Tim walk away; he was going to miss that guy. He'd been his first roommate, first partner in the hero business. Caz silently wished his friend well, andclosed his eyes for some rest. He still had everyone's cell numbers, but he was looking forward to a break from Stevenson, from CIU, and even from Cazmonster.

Tim O'Malley took a train later that day to Chicago, then transfered to a local line to the west suburbs. He was, actually, looking forward to seeing some of his old friends, particularly a certain young lady named Megan. CIU had been a blast, but he was ready to move on. It might be time to put Wrecking Ball behind him for a while and do something more subtle, but equally useful, with his powers. He thought over his alternatives as the trainpulled into the station, and he saw his dad and kid brother waiting for him.

Rick had lived in Stevenson since he started CIU two years ago. Since he'd given up his aparment to move into the Langley triple, he had to hit the streets and find a cheap summer place. In the end, he wound up staying with a friend who was also interesting in magic, but of a different sort. Sydney was a student of the Druidry movement, a proponent of the inherent powers of nature. It seemed fitting that they two friends could spend their summer discussing the finer theo-philosophical points of magic.

Emily began packing as soon as she left the meeting. She was incredibly excited about this new chapter in life. Angela, for whom she'd been a close friend, sat on Emily's bed as she packed. "I'm going to miss you, Em," Angela said, looking up from her phone. Emily stopped packing for a minute.

"Yeah, me too, so much." She stopped to give Angela a big hug. She still got that shiver, that unnatural fear, whenever she was too close to Angela. But she'd learned to look past it.

Angela got up, straightened her outfit, and prepared to leave. "I've got to go," she said. No tears were in her undead eyes, but Emily could swear she saw one forming. "I have to get back to the HQ. I'm taking care of the place for the summer."

After another hug, Emily responded "Take care of yourself, and these idiots. They need you! And you better text

me at least once a day!" Angela left Emily's room, and walked off toward CIU down lonely streets.

Steven Chen was on an international flight in a private jet owned by his father's company. A young woman brought him his dinner as he watched the sun setting over the ocean. As he ate the expensive meal before him, Steven thought about his new friends, and was happy to be able to put the bio-suit he'd "acquired" to good use.

The same young woman walked up a moment later with a phone. Steven answered. It was his father.

The man spoke in Cantonese: "Now that you're coming home, I think we can safely end this superhero nonsense! I just found out where you got your super-suit, and the government is not happy! They'll ruin me if I don't somehow get it back."

"We'll talk when I get home, dad," Steven answered. Hanging up the phone, he continued to enjoy the sunset, but was considerably less optimistic.

Aaron Majesky was at a hotel in downtown Stevenson. As Aaron looked off the balcony of his room, he felt strangely vulnerable without his wings. All of his Dragonfly equipment was locked up in a storage unit in I7 HQ. He was on his own, now, plain old Aaron Majesky, going home for the summer. Or so everyone thought. On the bed, next to his suitcase, was a plane ticket to Italy. Milan, to be specific. That was the home of one Benito Asante, the man Aaron knew as a high-up in the Milan Syndicate, the group of organized criminals responsible for spreading the drug called Nex, first in Stevenson, and then later, in bigger cities across the country. Heroes inother cities had been saddled dealing with the Nexers while he stood quiet. No more. Time for Aaron Majesky, and Dragonfly, to disappear for a while. He'd take care of this problem under a different name.