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Shadows of the League part 2-
The birth of Ol’papa Justice
The League of Terror, after his latest
encounter with the law, was stuck inside the Zig. He was with his colleagues,
Commander Blitzbison and the Mirrorface Puppet. But this was not a set back,
this was part of the plan. He was here to help out an old ally a villain known
as Ostrotoxin; a brute even more dangerous and violent than Commander
Blitzbison. He was glad that Paragon’s police were too stupid to take neither
his nor his allies’ powers, or even try to dampen them somehow. His plan was
set, and it was only just a matter of waiting for the big surprise.
A guard was slammed through one of the walls of the trio’s cell. A familiar
face stared through. “Hi boss, heard the bad news, they got you too” enquired
the large brute. “Oh my dear Ostrotoxin, you are as thick headed as always. We
are here to get you out,” sighed the
League of Terror. The large colossus plundered for a long time, then he finally
answered “So should we leave now?”
“Ostrotoxin, for the thousandth time, not yet!” The League was getting
impatient now, “we go when the big surprise, goes ‘BOOM’, ok?” “Ok boss”. They
had been waiting already for about two hours, and the league knew they had to
wait just a little longer. The League enjoyed waiting, it was the only time he
really had to think of new villainous schemes; plans of greatness and generally
looking at ways to turn the worst of situations to his total advantage.
At exactly 6:00 hours in the morning, one of the worst outbreaks of the plague
broke out in the Zig. It was The League's most vicious concoction, a very foul
virus that turned the infected victim into a semi-zombie state. But still the
League waited. At 6:20, just after the prison guards had realised there was a
virus going around the Zig, the League’s big surprise went ‘boom’. A giant
undead construction had burst through the sewers into the courtyard of the Zig,
and started killing anything close to it.
The team, led by the League, calmly walked out of the Zig through the sewers.
He loved when his plans worked out perfectly. It didn’t happen usually, but it
did happen every now and then. A total of fifty villains managed to escape with
that riot, but only four escaped the heroes that where patrolling the area. The
League knew that he would be recaptured if he went into Brickstown from the
Zig, so instead he led his team deeper into the sewers. It wasn’t as foul as he
had remembered it being during the Rikiti war.
Under the sewers, the team of elite villains had to waddle their way through
Lost and Vahzilok. The League was glad that he had a chance to pay back his
former friends for all the good times. The team of villains emerged in the
centre of Atlas Park. Now for the second part of the
plan. “Team, remember we're ‘heroes’ now” explained the League to his minions.
They headed over to the post office; it was about midday now.
The postal workers weren’t impressed, as four rather large and odd looking men
walked into the post office. The one that looked to be the leader of the group,
walked over to the counter. Instead of being aggressive or imposing, the 7 foot
tall man just asked for a package. The postal workers, bemused, handed over the
large package to the team. The large man said thank you and left.
“Boss, these costumes make us look like…. Well like heroes!” complained
Ostrotoxin wearing a large blue shirt with a white star on it. “Thfis makfes me
lookf likfe a totalf idiotf” lamented the Mirrorfaced Puppet. He was wearing a
smaller blue shirt with a star on it. “Sir, any reason why they're only blue
shirts with white stars?” asked Commander Bliztbison. The League said nothing,
he just removed his dark mask to reveal an ancient decrepit face, with a little
white hair sparkled across a bald head. Putting on an old man’s voice he said,
“Now look here son-ies, from now on ya all call me Ol’papa Justice! Ya hear!”
It was almost closing time at City Hall, when a team of very odd looking
‘superheroes’ entered, making quite a scene. “Now kids, this is Paragon’s City
Hall, I remember the first time I came here, back in oh, what was it, back
in….”. As practised, he was interrupted by all his lackeys, “shut up grampa!”
“Don’t call Ol’papa Justice that!”
One of the security guards was brave enough to ask the team of ‘superheroes’
what they were doing. The old guy started shouting, “what you on about soniee
boy, we are here just to register.” At which point the guards then had to
struggle for many a minute before the ‘Ol’papa Justice’ could be registered,
then to send him to the right place, then debrief him on his missions, then
finally kick him out. He left with the guys he entered with, calling them kids
and muttering something about killing zombies in the sewers, and how that was
just like the good old days.
The group ran, fought a few muggers, and entered the sewers of Paragon city for
the second time that day. The moment they were out of sight from the rest of
the heroes, Ol’papa Justice's personality reverted back to the League of
Terror. “Now my task is to go and bring back some ‘poor and helpless man’ that
got taken by my friends down here, you guys will stay here in the sewers,
making our new lair as temporary
accommodation until we can get back to the Rouge Isles.” The group separated
without another word, they were just handed communicators to keep in touch.
The League was glad that his first mission was to give some payback to the
Vahzilok; the perfect way to get rid of his men to start doing some work.
Zombies were easy to deal with, especially since he had his own. He just stood
back, watching the undead destroy themselves slowly. He lost track of time,
killing the inferior works of amateurs was too much fun for him.
The screams of the terrified prisoner echoed across the entire sewer system.
“Oh, right, the hero stuff” muttered the League. The League didn’t rush, he
knew Vahzilok took their time, just as he did. As the got closer to the screams
they seemed to die down a bit. Maybe they had killed the poor idiot. To The
League's surprise, a small man with green hair and a blue suit was fighting a
Murk Eidolon. He remembered how those things were cutting edge technology back
when he was working with the good doctor Vahzilok. The Eidolon had the small
hero in one of its shadow traps.
The League walked next to the Eidolon, and smashed its face in with one of his
punches. Over the years the old frail body of the League had become a preserved
mass of pure muscle; he had superhuman strength capable of lifting cars in a
single hand. “Now young wiper shnapper, you just can’t rush in with the
Vahzilok”. The young hero looked perplexed. It took him a while to take in that
a man at least a century older than he was had crushed the Eidolon with a
single punch.
The two ‘heroes’ emerged from the sewers, accompanied by one very frighten
citizen. The League smiled, hero work was so much easier than his current
‘job’. The small hero introduced himself as the Goodlemming, he said he was a
marksman. They talked for a few hours, the League keeping up the act of Ol’papa
Justice far too well. The Goodlemming invited him to join the group he was
with, Paragon’s Cosmic Heroes.
The League entered the team’s base. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a few
chairs, one or two tables, a sink and a coffee maker. There was a teleporter in
the corner, and a phone next to it. The rest of the team was away on a mission;
apparently they were looking for the last few villains that had escaped the
Zig. The League waited to meet them. “Welcome Ol’papa Justice, my name is
Violetrubby, this is Mommentumann and King Lava Skull. Hope you enjoy working
with us to bring justice to Paragon
City. Welcome to the
team”
Ol’papa Justice was a great addition to the team. He had
single-handedly stopped the Vahzilok twice, had managed to take on a whole
group of Clockwork by himself and even managed to keep them relatively intact
for “his kids”. He was a great team player; he even took a few bullets for the
team. The whole group had really bonded together after he had entered the team,
it was like a miracle.
The team was just sitting, chilling out in their base. They had just busted the
third weapons ring, an easy job by a superhero team. They were trying to get to
know each other better, telling each other where they had gotten their super
powers, what had made them become superheroes, and so on.
Violetrubby started “well, I was raised in a small neighbourhood, nothing
special. One day I was playing with some of my school friends, when a strange
creature attacked us. We would have been killed had it not been for the hero
who saved us. During the attack I was drenched in the creature’s blood and
since then I’ve been able to manipulate magic. I was trained by MAGI and I’ve
been a hero ever since.”
Momentumann was next, “well I never dreamed I would one day be a hero, I was
just your average hardworking physicist. I was in charge of over twenty time
and space experiments. No one realised that they were leaking a very strange
radiation, which we have yet to comprehend properly. No-one knew that anything
had happen, it took a while for me to realise I had powers. Well I thought that
I shouldn’t waste this opportunity, so I became a hero, and now we're here”
King Lava Skull passed, he said that how and why he became a hero were old
painful memories that were best left alone. Thus Goodlemming was next, “well I
was always a strange kid, I was born small and with green hair. But I wasn’t
born with any abilities of my own. I grew in a very bad neighbourhood. I was in
constant danger from Hellions, Skulls and the like. I built the weapons I have
now and trained. Eventually I started taking on the villains in my street and
since then I was a hero.”
Ol’papa Justice was the last to say his story, he took hours to finish. He
talked about how he first saw Statesman back during the Second World War,
fighting for the good side, how he tried and eventually became a hero when he
took some medications just the other day. His story was an absolute lie, deep
down, The League remembered. He worked for Arachnos, way before Recluse had
even joined the organisation. He remembered how he made a way to enhance his
intellectual power by combining the genetic material of others with his own, in
a process that only he knew even to this day. He remembered how the experiment
was a total success, with only a minor setback. He had used the genetic
material of many a genius, many from Arachnos itself, many he had killed
himself.
The League was named so because he was in fact a multitude of personalities,
mixed into one by his foul experiment. The process made him as intelligent as
one thousand of the most intelligent humans at the world of his time. Yet it
also gave him a thousand voices, each competing to rule the body. He waded
through life for decades, studying for a solution to his “inner voices”
problems. He eventually found a tonic of poisons that solved that problem, at a
great price. He was preserved like a mummy, embalmed slowly with each
medication he took. He suffered a thousand deaths; and each time he took his
medication it felt like he died again. He joined the Vahzilok to find a way to
stop his increasingly annoying problem, he took all the secrets he could from
them and then moved on. He then did the same with the circle of thorns, he
eventually returned to Arachnos, yet gaining the trust of the lords there was
much harder than the other two villainous forces. His current goal was to
collect a genetic sample form each hero and villain in Paragon City
and the Rouge Isles. Then he would become the ultimate being, too powerful for
even Statesman or Recluse to face him.
He especially hated those two; their genetic material was too difficult to
control. Each time he tried to use it, the genetic material would consume all
others in the mixture. When both Statesman’s and Recluse’s genetic material
were put together they would completely destroy each other. His thoughts were
straying too far from Ol’papa Justice. He realised too late that he was in
front of Sister Psyche, he hadn't even realised he had left the base. Around
him were all the heroes in his team, they were talking to either each other or
with the rather famous hero, which he absolutely detested.
Sister Psyche was talking to some heroes. It seemed they had come out of
nowhere but she didn’t mind. They had come to ask if she needed anything, but
there wasn’t anything important for the time being. She was talking to
Violetrubby, but she wasn’t paying too much attention to what she was saying as
to what she was thinking. She was a nice girl, no real surprises in her mind.
She moved on, the other heroes, were what she expected from men, Momentumann,
Goodlemming and King Lava Skull were all judging who was the better looking of
either of the two heroines. Then she moved into the mind of the old hero of the
group. Apparently his mind was an absolute blank. She concentrated harder and
then fainted.
Sister Psyche found herself in the hospital. Around her were all the heroes she
had been talking to a few minutes ago, all except the old guy. She had a really
bad headache. “That old guy is no hero. I saw into his mind. It was like seeing
into the minds of all the citizens of Paragon at once. I saw he was a truly
evil villain…”
The League was back in the sewers. He wouldn’t stand around to see that he had
killed Sister Psyche, or even worse, that she had survived and remembered what
she had seen. He was relatively immune to mind readers, usually they died
within seconds of entering his, rather twisted, mind. But Sister Psyche was
different, she had greater power, more stamina, she would probably survive. The
League was now at the second part of his plan.
He entered the lair of his minions. They had been able to do much with the
ex-Vahzilok lab. The League grinned, this was much better than the heroes’
base. His men were at the ready, there was much to be done. “Gentlemen, phase
two of the plan is now into action, Ostrotoxin I have a present for you” The
League pressed a button on his hidden glove device, a few seconds latter a
large bag full of almost completely undamaged Clockwork materialised in front
of The League. The League continued, “Ostrotoxin, take these toys and get them
up and going again, tonight The League will return and I want to do it with
style.” The large brute took the mechanical pieces and went off to work. Even
though he was a fighter, Ostrotoxin was the smartest man on the League’s team;
he was able to craft wondrous gadgets just like Positron. He was the greatest
asset of the League, even if he was almost useless at anything involving human interaction.
The League then gave the orders to his other henchmen, “Commander Blitzbison, I
want you to go into the Longbow base not far from here and kidnap two of their
lesser soldiers, use the teleporting device to escape with ease. Mirrorface
Puppet, I have a job you’ll love, go into the residential areas of Atlas Park,
mind crush a few people, and bring me back at least fifteen kids, but I want
them unspoiled, its more fun that way.”
After his men left, he activated the other button on his glove device. A large
stasis tube, with a carbon copy of Ol’papa Justice inside had been teleported
to the lair. The League of Terror started the animation process, and then
changed back to his original costume. He had just enough time to take a large
does of ‘medication’ before the chamber opened. The clone walked out, not
impressed at the condition he found himself in.
“So who found out the scam?” the clone inquired. “I was distracted, I got too
close to Sister Psyche, she saw through the mind blank and got knocked out”
replied The League. “Ah, so on to phase two, what’s my arsenal?”
“You have been given the original mind, and the synthetic mind of Ol’papa
Justice, including all up to date memories. The powers you have been given are
super strength and semi-invulnerability. If you keep taking the type gamma
medication your strength and resistance should also gradually increase. Your
task is to keep the farce of Ol’papa Justice long enough for me to start the
third phase. I shall return to Paragon one day, you will wait for that day.”
“Understood, and my gift shall be?”
“I will specially treat one of the kids that Mirrorface Puppet brings to be
your gift, keep it well for it shall have great potential”
It was already very late, Violetrubby was already very tired, she and the rest
of the team had been searching the entire city for Ol’papa Justice. The team
had just returned to the base, there wasn’t much for them to do but to wait
until some news came. She was worried; the words Sister Psyche has told them
were very troubling. She was the last to arrive at the base, and waiting for
her was her team and a little mechanical robot.
The little robot bowed and then gave the message it was programmed to, “hallo
heroes of Paragon
City. This is a message
from The League of Terror, one of the world’s most powerful masterminds. I have
taken your friend the hero called Ol’papa Justice and a few other civilian
hostages; they will be executed at midnight if you do not meet my demands by
then. Bring to me Sister Psyche, as well as pull back the entire Longbow
divisions stationed in Mercy
Island. I have
provided you this robot; he will show you where to bring the heroes to. I
expect you all to be there, for it will be one hell of a ‘party’!”
The heroes did as the little robot had told them; they went and got the heroes
The League had requested. The little robot danced merrily as it led them down
the sewers. There was an air of uneasiness about, all the heroes here had been
in missions like this one at least a hundred times, if not thousands of times,
but this time the trap was too obvious for even The League’s standard.
They entered the base of the arch villain, it wasn’t a large base, nor was it
very protected. The heroes waited in the room. The robot had stopped moving
forward and was just dancing instead. Sister Psyche was trying to locate the
villain with her mind reading powers. The other heroes where checking for any
other traps in the room.
They waited for a few minutes before The League entered the room. There was an
air of confidence about him. “Welcome heroes of Paragon, I see you only managed
to do half of my request, the easy half. Well that disappoints me, I think I’ll
just keep half of my promise, and only half kill them. But don’t get me wrong,
this was truly already predicted, I can read minds just like your friend over
there, and I can even control them. And the one thing I know is that you are
all going to really hate me in a second!”
The League clicked his fingers, and from the same entrance he had come from,
twenty Eidolon looking creatures entered. Sister Psyche started to feel the
presence of these creatures; it felt as if they were eating away at her mind.
The League continued, “Oh they are still alive, some were heroes, some were
little kids and I’ve just changed their state of mind and then given them the
powers of madness for that extra little touch. But as I said, they're still
alive, I wouldn’t kill them if were you.” With that The League was gone, having
activated the teleporter. In a few seconds he would be in the Rouge Isles.
The resulting battle was rather disappointing; with such powerful heroes
against such quick constructions it was no battle at all. Each hero only had to
hit the Eidolon things twice at most before they were defeated. Unfortunately
for them The League had designed them so only two of the twenty would survive.
Once again he had robbed the heroes of true victory.
The League had been summoned by Ghost Widow; she had been rather upset by his
latest escapades. The League was not beyond apologies, and for him it was
better to keep his slate clean for the time being. As he entered he spotted a
few Widows hiding in the shadow, he wasn’t sure how mad Ghost Widow was.
“That was one impressive escape from that infernal prison in Paragon, but it
wasn’t in our best interest as part of Arachnos. You killed three chosen ones
with your stupid little virus, one which I had grown fond of, he would have
been a great ally to Arachnos. Explain yourself!” ordered Ghost Widow.
“My dear, I’ve been part of Arachnos for much longer than either you or your
master. I did it only to show both Paragon and your Arachnos how easy it was to
impose pure fear. To me this was just child’s play, and I even managed to cripple
Sister Psyche, if only momentarily, with a negligible amount of resources and
time. Had I had the vast investment that your lord has to his advantage, I
probably could have all of Paragon already. But so far all my plans have been a
total success, and I have yet to fail a single mission Arachnos has given me,”
said the League politely.
“I will have my eye on you, fail Arachnos once more or annoy me once more and
you are as good as dead” hissed Ghost Widow.