No Such Thing As Bad Publicity

Date: December 4th-11th, 2002
Location: The Colony Hotel, downtown Toronto

The Canadian government put out a call for new superheroes to form the fourth incarnation of the Northern Guard. After significant interviews and superpower demonstrations against the Mark 4 NORAD Military Robot prototypes [Hunter-Seeker Drone from The Hero System Bestiary], the Ministry of Defence finally choose six finalists:

• The Lumberjack
• The Mountie
• Captain Sorted
• Glue Girl
• CN Tower
• The Hoser

The team was given access to the original (first incarnation) Northern Guard headquarters at a government building near Yonge and Eglinton, just a bit north of downtown Toronto. The old headquarters is fairly dated -- it having been last decorated in 1978. The government has also assigned Jerome Dupuis of MISSION to liaise between the team and the Ministry of Defence.

During a press conference at the Colony Hotel, the team was suddenly attacked by The Infiltrators, a largely forgotten team of super-villains that have battled several Canadian heros in the past. Villains included The Amazing Booster, Titanothere, Falcon, Firedrake and Lightspeed [all slightly adapted from Champions of the North].

All members of the villain team were apprehended and charged with assault, reckless endangerment, property damage and (in some cases) parole violation. It became evident in the course of the fight that the attack was part of a publicity stunt to promote a tell-all biography recently authored by the team.

Battlesuits and Dinosaurs

Date: January 9th, 2003
Location: Sarnia, Ontario, and Don Mills Shopping Centre, Don Mills, Ontario

The first month on the job for the new Northern Guard was filled mostly with minor media-relations events: appearing at charities, being photographed as part of a Macleans article, and generally getting established as the superteam in town.

During the mail delivery on the morning of the 9th, Captain Sorted received word that one of his British super-soldier buddies, Sergeant Granite, had been killed in an engagement with the Iraqi Super-Jihad Warriors.

Also, the same morning, Lumberjack had the opportunity to meet Skylark, the leader of Toronto's other superteam, StarForce. Skylark came to Northern Guard headquarters to help set up access to the UNTIL supers database. With this database, the Northern Guard is able to look-up everything that's known about previously identified villains and heroes (usually based on costume description or powers).

Then Jerome Dupuis gave the team their first assignment: The Mountie, Captain Sorted and Glue Girl were to travel to Sarnia, Ontario, to investigate a break-in at Multicorp [see Champions of the North]. Dupuis emphasized the fact that Multicorp is a major Canadian employer and it was important that the team look good in this, their first mission. Piling in to The Mountie's SUV, the three Guard members drove three hours to Sarnia.

Meeting up with the Multicorp plant head-of-security, Jack Wilson, they were told that the break-in may have been an inside job. "We think that the perpetrators used a sonic vibratory wave beam... and that reminded us of the sonic vibratory wave beam project we had going here seven years ago."

Investigating further, the team got a list of names of Multicorp employees associated with the sonic vibratory wave beam project:

• James Elliott (head scientist)
• Mac Franklin (died under mysterious circumstances)
• Anwar Sewell
• Jane Windship (still living in Sarnia)
• Ben Thompson (still living in Sarnia)

Their primary suspect immediately became James Elliott -- Elliott had quit Multicorp on bad terms at about the same time that the project ended.

At the same time, the other three members of the team became aware of a reported dinosaur in the parking lot of the Don Mills Shopping Centre. Scrambling on to the TTC, they travelled out to the Don Mills Shopping Centre. After a quick battle, Lumberjack was able to subdue the dinosaur, although several SUVs were damaged in the process.

Meanwhile back in Sarnia, the team interviewed Ben Thompson, Jane Windship, and James Elliott's ex-wife Louise Elliott before heading off to Mississauga to confront Dr. Elliott at his last known address. While talking to Jane Windship, the team discovered that Multicorp wanted to miniaturize the sonic vibratory wave beam generator and embed it into part of a battlesuit for its security teams. The project was abandoned because the prototype never worked after Dr. Elliott left. Multicorp has long suspected that Dr. Elliott stole key components of the battlesuit, but they declined to inform the police because the project was extremely classified.

Also, while perusing some papers that they got from Jane Windship, Glue Girl learned that a second set of the original battlesuit plans had been created, but their whereabouts were unknown. By this point, the team was half-way back to Toronto, so they sent Captain Sorted (the only one who could fly) back to Sarnia to see if he could find the battlesuit plans.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team, having subdued the dinosaur and called for MISSION support, were swarmed by reporters. The Hoser (misidentified as the team's leader) was interviewed by City TV, saying, "We kicked its <bleep>."

Suddenly Captain Chronos [from Conquerors, Killers and Crooks], a known time-based menace, appeared to CN Tower. Claiming responsibility for bringing the dinosaur to this time as part of a diversion ("Captain Chronos. Time powers. Think about it."), muttered a lot of incoherent ramblings, debated whether or not he should say what he wanted to say, and then finally mentioned: "There are things that they don't want you to know. Do you know what happened to the second Northern Guard team?" Then announcing that his time was up, he teleported away, and the dinosaur disappeared as well.

Finally, The Mountie and Glue Girl arrived in Mississauga and confronted Dr. James Elliott. Eventually Dr. Elliott revealed that, firstly, he had nothing to do with the attacks on Multicorp (although he believed the company to be an evil organization), and secondly, that he was the superhero Skylark of StarForce (and had been to Northern Guard headquarters earlier that day). While talking to Dr. Elliott, Jane Windship became their leading suspect, and they sent work to Captain Sorted to arrest her.

In Sarnia, Captain Sorted encountered Windship (or Locust, as she was known in her copy of the sonic vibratory battlesuit), but Locust appeared to have exploded shortly after the battle began. She hasn't been seen since.

There's Always Doom for Jello

Date: January 10th, 2003
Location: Forest Hill region, Toronto, Ontario

After a day of intense debriefing regarding the Multicorp case, CN Tower approached Glue Girl to ask her to look up some information in the UNTIL database. They discovered that none of the members of the second Northern Guard team has been seen since 1989. Two members, Wizard and Predator fell out of sight earlier

• Wizard -- mystic, believed to have left Earth's dimension in January, 1987.
• Predator -- super-strong cat-beast, retired from public service in October, 1987.

• Vector (group leader) -- speedster, last seen in 1989
• Sonique -- sonic powers, last seen in 1989
• Bandit -- futuristic cowboy, last seen in 1989
• Obsidian -- interdimensional policeman from the dark dimension, last seen in 1989
• Nightwalker -- Super ninja, last seen in 1989
• Apollo -- bow-wielding weaponmaster, last seen in 1989
• Red Phoenix -- fire-controlling entity who cannot die, last seen in 1989

While Captain Sorted awaited word about whether or not the government would approve a good-will tour to the UK (so that the Captain could investigate the death of Sergeant Granite), the team was suddenly visited by the astral form of Vincent Dmitrios (from Mystic Masters), who appeared in Lumberjack's quarters apparently trying to reach someone named "Eric". Apparently unable to hear the group, Dmitrios warned of an emissary being sent by someone named Tyrannon -- the emissary was going to be drawn to the mystical energies of Jack Crawford's house and merge with one of the magically-enhanced items in the building.

Rushing to the UNTIL database, the group determined that Jack Crawford was an old enemy of The Wizard. Their searches turned up little about Tyrannon (an Internet search found a web page detailing the relationship between evil Tyrannon demon cults and UFO sightings, but the group isn't sure it's credible).

Doing some research, the group manages to find out about a University of Toronto Math Professor named Dr. Eric Veidt, who quit the University abruptly in 1974, and who, in 1980, went on to buy a house in Forest Hill that previously belonged to one Jack Crawford. The kicker: Dr. Veidt appears to have disappeared in 1987. Clearly Dr. Veidt and The Wizard were the same person.

Arriving at Dr. Veidt's house, the group met Dr. Veidt's mother and butler. The butler had a very mysterious air to him, often bringing the group various things at different times ("A tall bald man wearing a black tuxedo comes out of the house carrying a covered silver tray." "I fly up 20 feet into the air." "He approaches CN Tower, removes the tray cover and says, 'I've made sandwiches.'")

Eventually, Captain Sorted, The Lumberjack, CN Tower and Glue Girl managed to find the emissary, which had taken the form of a giant strawberry dessert. After a lengthy fight, the team happened to figure out the creature's main weakness.

Copyright © 2003 by B.C. Holmes. Last updated February 9th, 2003.
Champions, Fantasy Hero, Hero System and Hero Games are registered trademarks of Hero Games. All rights reserved.

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