187
Six months later ...
Xo is flying home to Oz
Danny and I are there to meet her
Xo goes through customs in the "superpowers to declare" line
Xo and Danny reunion!
It all goes wrong in the car-park
Pretty Boy Kane and the Chain Gang
... don't last very long
But it is a diversion! Danny is missing!
A Queen of Hearts card is left behind
188
Red has burned his bridges with Bear and with Mars
He's drinking in a bar at 2pm
Mars is on TV talking about his initiatives to help combat superhuman crime
Gabe stages an intervention
Red's all "Mars learned something about the nanites and he won't share his toys with me!"
Gabe has little sympathy
Wright's telling me this is a new player - there are a lot of them right now
I talk to Barrage about getting help from Mars. He's not real encouraging
Red would like to help
Xo says he can use her warehouse lab
Red manages to bodge together a "Danny tracker" based on when that alien hunter came to Pacific City
Danny appears to be just off the shoreline
I tell Xo, who races out there to find a ship
When she gets close, she wipes out and starts to sink
I arrive just in time to dump Red on the ships deck and try to grab Xo in a net
There are bad guys in playing card regalia here
I clamp the one apparent bad guy in a ball and chain
Time to find Danny ...
189
We go looking for Danny
I get stomped by a bad guy
Xo gives me super-fast medical treatment
And from there we rapidly turn the tables
Red finds an interesting tablet
It gives us access to the Big Brain's Game
190
Red is hacking the Big Brain's systems.
"Make the Big Brain worth a 1,000,000 points"
Xo has taken Danny back home
We give the Game player data to AEGIS and the Pacific City PD
Bear welcomes Red back to the labs
Bear has mad technobabble exposition skills
Bonesaw is working out well at Opportunities
Red gets to work on the technobabble stuff
Friday night, I am at Opportunities
All the Stormers suddenly go puppet mastered and walk out
I call Red - he tries to track the signal that is affecting them
Three targets: Pacific Vision, Mars Tower, AEGIS
Red does Red stuff
I try to shield Pacific Vision to give Red time to block the signal
Red succeeds in blocking the signal
We relay it to Mars and then repeat the process at AEGIS
A back to his senses Bonesaw helps me take down Doomsquid
Red has tracked the source of the signal
Mars wants to talk to us urgently
191
We go to Pacific Vision to see Mars
Things are bustling with the aftermath of the puppet show
Angie meets us on the roof
She legal talks at Red. We nod
This was a worldwide attack on labs researching the Silver Storms
Xo is helping with the clean-up
Red and Mars SCIENCE~!
The signal is coming from an old research facility for extradimensional travel
This probably means AEGIS black op, or someone has infiltrated AEGIS
Oh hey it could well be Doc Shock
While the stormer rampage was happening, stuff was nicked from Mars
SCIENCE stuff!
Red determines that Doomsquid was not actually mind-controlled
He tracks down several others who were faking it, too
Red interrogates Doomsquid. Who is even more of a jerk than you might expect
We decide to head out to the research facility, and tell Xo where we are heading
Mars tells us the Sons of Humanity may also be heading there.
Yay.
192
We approach the facility, which looks like an oil rig
There's a fight going on between Doc Shock's Lady Legion and some mercenaries
We ignore it in favour of looking for the origin of the Storm Signal
Red picks up earth tremors - something BIG is moving
We head toward the source of the Signal but get attacked by Ramraid
We wrap her up and leave her hanging
Elevator shaft. Red scans for traps and stuff.
No traps detected, but the place is falling to pieces so we have to be quick
Downstairs, we find two more of the Lady Legion
We defeat them and grab the canisters they were trying to steal
The rig collapses into the sea behind us
And a large domed craft lifts off from the ocean floor
Teliax the Redeemer monologues at us
We have no idea who that is
We focus on rescuing drowning people and he flies off
193
I focus on rescue operations and getting people out safely
Red will try to find out who Teliax is and where he has gone
Teliax is some ancient, super powerful alien
There are no accessible records about why "the rig" was built - maybe with an upgraded security clearance?
The brains need to find a solution for the nanites
They'll need volunteers to test on - I scrounge up Bonesaw and Rampage
SCIENCE is happening
An anti-mind control serum seems to work on Rampage
Meanwhile, all the stormers are being controlled by Doc Shock, who threatens to kill them all.
194
What are his demands? Stop tampering with the nanites
We discuss alternate plans - mainly punching Doc Shock
Shock seems the best way to lure him out
Mars may have a way to contact her
Oh hey it turns out he used to be a supervillain
Babbage is an alien brain thing
He manages to put us in touch with Shock
She agrees to come home, if her cousin will teleport her
Mars invites all the brains over. And Crazy Steve
We are planning ways to protect the Stormers
And then some extraterrestrial hijacks Doc Shock's signal
And sends the Stormers after him
And then Shock gets teleported in
Red will stay to work on Mars's ruined spaceship
Shock and I will go see Doc Shock and make sure his bad day doesn't turn fatal
195
Doc Shock's base is out near the Canberra crater
Shock detects a hidden tunnel; she distracts the stormers while I dig for it
We find a 1950s nuclear bunker turned mad science laboratory
Doc Shock comes quietly
We take him back to Mars's lair of former villainy
Doc Shock didn't originate the Silver Storm, he just tried to take advantage of it
"Something" has been manipulating the human genome
Oh joy the stormers are following us
I put up a barrier while the others scramble to produce antidote serum
Ugh, it's Lord Darkwave. But at least he is mind-controlled
Shock agrees to listen to Teliax's spiel
So Teliax (claims he) is trying to stop The Nothing. Sorry "The Devourer"
For this they need all three reality warpers: Shift, Epiphany Jones, and someone we don't know
We agree to look for the three and persuade them to help in exchange for him not mind-controlling people.
"Save the universe, THEN deal with the crazy robot from the dawn of time,"
196
Sentinel has an idea - let's get Shift back and use his reality warping to find the other two
We need energy-generating tech beyond human capability
Let's go see Shock's dad
Shock's cousin teleports us to an alien planet
Daphne the Space Pirate
Shock's dad is a jerk
But he eventually agrees to give us the power source we need - it'll take 48 hours
Meanwhile, we will have Shock and Bonesaw locate Epiphany Jones
Shock promises Jones a big punk festival in exchange for her help
And she does it! The third signature is ...
197
... in orbit. On the dark side of the moon.
AEGIS teleport Shock, Xo and I up to their space station
From there, we take a space ship ... piloted by Crazy Steve
We find a possibly Nazi, possibly Skoviak base
We sneak to the prison sector and shut down the power bars on their cells
Cross! Kate! Mr Neptune!
Neptune appears to be the reality warper
We get Neptune to our ship
I pooper scooper a Skoviak freighter out of there for the other victims
Mr Neptune is freaking out, but Awesome talks him down
Back on Earth, we get Gabe to watch over Neptune
The space battery is charged - let's fire up the portal!
Red, Xo and I go through, emerging near Canberra
"Halt, in the name of the Allied Earth Defence Force"
198
Xo falls unconscious
Red expositions
We talk to a soldier and are taken into custody
Being nice doesn't work
We break out and steal a shuttle
We track down Area not-51 from an earlier issue
Red uses the tech here to find signs of Shift
Jamaica, mon
We find Shift and persuade him to come home
And then we sneak into the base in Canberra
And enter Professor Panic's old portal machine
We successfully gate back home
We are just in time to hear that something "small and fast" has entered the solar system
It's a dude with a staff
199
A falling star!
Shock and Xo are watching it fall
It's me
"I think it's safe to say he's not friendly."
He's like some wacky Star Shepherd
Or you know, a Not Herald of Not Galactus
Fighting!
Everything is going wrong everywhere, but we have more immediate concerns
After a big fight we beat him
Remember that everything that was going wrong everywhere?
Mars has a plan for it!
200
We fight a giant robot. Poorly.
Then a bit better.
Pinata defence, activate!
Shock manages to damage him but gets blasted out of the fight in return
Sentinel joins the fray!
I finally crack his shell
And Xo finishes him
Victory celebration!
Pacific Vision will refocus on preparing SPACE FORCE to defend Earth
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