Black London

="Assault and Battery"= At the start of Black London, a week after the events of A Boat Load of Science, Delve received news that her mother had died and immediately departed for the United States to be with her family. During her absence, she left Exemplar in charge of the team, left Disco in charge of Little Freedom, and asked Parallel to come back to keep an eye on Abigail.

The morning after (May 16, 2014) Delve departed, the team was contacted by Rowland Carter of MI5. He arranged a meeting with them that morning, a meeting he was 10 minutes late to, much to Spellbinder's annoyance.

After a short greeting, Agent Carter passed out manila folders and began to explain the situation. Page 1 contained a grainy black-and-white still from a surveillance video of a man named Arthur Dannon, the Shadowbender, a famous ex-magician who recently escaped from Liberty Super-Security Prison (after he and other inmates disabled their DECON units) where he had been incarcerated after murdering a rival magician by the name of Turner.

Page 2 featured information and a picture of a Freedom City hero by the name of Iron Spectre. Iron Spectre, a battlesuit super who specialized in stealth and known for his war on the mob, went missing after a bank robbery in Freedom City that was perpetrated by Shadowbender. It is the belief of MI5 that the money he took was used to fund a transatlantic flight and set his team up with a base in London. After that incident, Shadowbender fell off the radar, as far as the United States could tell.

Page 3 was a picture of the sword that MI5 believed Shadowbender was after. Not much is known about the sword, except that it is part of a set of three that predate the Norman Invasion of England. The first sword was taken from the Buckingham Palace Queen's Gallery during an attack two weeks prior. The second sword was taken one week later from the home of a private collector, Alan Fitzgerald of Scotland. The final sword was safe at the Gunnersbury Park Museum in London.

Page 4 is a listing of various villains who have escaped from Liberty Super-Security Prison and are now at-large. Carter was quick to explain that they do not believe all of these villains are working with Shadowbender, but there is reason to believe that some are. The following is the full list of confirmed escapees:

Crag, The Dealer, Feedback, Fury, Paradox, Dr. Cosmos, Battery, Kindle, Raptor, Tremble, Professor Chaos, Backdraft, Sapper, Phase

From what Agent Carter told the group, the supers had reason to believe a technology-specialist was working with Shadowbender, as well as an eyewitness who identified a man who could have been Professor Chaos.

MI5 believed that so far Shadowbender's team has been able to cause the disappearance of at least six supers and a mercenary team of four. The Champions of Olde showed up to stop the Buckingham Palace incident, but it is believed that three of them (Bramble, Flarewolf, and Talos) were abducted in some way, and the remaining two members, Apollo and Artemis, fled, but authorities have not been able to find either super. Meanwhile, the mercenary group, Exile's Enforcers, disappeared during the Scotland collector theft.

Both crime scenes had little evidence available, although a diamond-shaped gold cufflink was found at the Queen's Gallery, and Parallel was able to find evidence of tampering at that location's security room. Eyewitness testimony was of little benefit due to the speed in which the guards were incapacitated.

Eclipse, switching from her new outfit to her Delusion disguise, teleported with Exemplar to Freedom City to investigate the whereabouts of her brother's killer, John Tremble. They learned that he had apparently gathered his things and gotten out of Freedom City. His presence in London was confirmed to Abigail after a conversation with her brother's spirit at the cemetery in which he was buried.

Gunnersbury Park
Accepting the mission, The Guardians of O.R.D.E.R. gathered at Gunnersbury Park to wait for word from the MI5 surveillance team that an attack was happening. While in the area, SO-LAR and Disco both noticed a man patrolling the park in a white three-piece suit, black dress shirt, and gold spade-shaped cufflinks. Eclipse was given the duty of following the suspicious man, while others prepared for a possible attack.

At the Gunnersbury Park Museum, Parallel was able to determine that someone was remotely connected to the closed circuit security system in place, which seemed to suggest some sort of power was at work.

Around 3:00 pm, a woman SO-LAR correctly identified as Battery approached the entrance of the museum. After making a scene in response to the guard asking for her backpack, she threw off her coat with the backpack attached with amazing speed, knocked the guard out with a strong punch to the stomach (Spellbinder healed the man), and charged into the museum, setting off the metal detectors. The group was able to see that she was wearing metal arm braces connected to a turbine engine on her back via some cords.

The Guardians of O.R.D.E.R. all converged on the scene to attempt to defend the museum from Battery's attack, and were successful in doing so. While there were several missed attacks, not one display in the museum was damaged, a fact that the curator was thankful for. However, the attack proved to be a diversion, and the group was unable to stop Shadowbender from stealing the sword, despite most of the group getting a chance to attack him. Parallel was able to, with a ritual spell provided by Spellbinder, pinpoint precisely where Shadowbender shadow-jaunted to - an alleyway behind a building at the corner of Long and Crowsby Row. [Editor's note: the print copy of this issue of Supers incorrectly listed the location as the London Eye. The digital issue corrected this mistake.]

Based on statements by Shadowbender, the group believed the device on Battery's back was possibly going to explode or cause her to explode. SO-LAR and Exemplar tried, to no avail, to convince Battery to back down, but she was determined to follow whatever orders she was given. After numerous attacks on the device, which appeared to be amplifying Battery's electrical power, it was disabled, and Battery's power levels returned to normal. In the seconds after, the group managed to knock Battery unconscious, Parallel catching her before she fell down the stairs of the museum.

After the battle, Spellbinder and Parallel used their powers to heal the unconscious Exemplar and successfully convinced Rowland Carter to let them borrow Battery's device, as long as they filmed whatever examination they performed on it. ="A Full House"= Using the power of teleportation, The Guardians of O.R.D.E.R. found themselves in an alleyway behind a building at the corner of Long and Crowby Row. Eclipse was able to spot one of The Dealer's thugs from the safety of the alley, and combining her efforts with Exemplar they were able to subdue the goon, but not before he made a small disturbance.

The thug appeared to be guarding the stairs leading to a basement entrance to a restaurant. Using scrying, the group was able to determine this to be a casino run by The Dealer. After teleporting directly into the casino, the group exchanged a few words with The Dealer (including being told that there were 'four of a kind' in the back room) before a fight broke out.

The Guardians of O.R.D.E.R. were able to make quick work of The Dealer and his goons, and a quick scrying of the next room revealed a super villain team waiting to get the drop on our heroes... Shadowbender and the following escapees: It was a long, dangerous fight, with Parallel's mind being manipulated by Professor Chaos, Eclipse being severely burned by Tremble's acid, Sapper draining Eclipse's energy to dangerous levels, Shadowbender kidnapping SO-LAR by pulling him into an alternate dimension, and Parallel turning a lethal shotgun on the entire enemy team. Disco managed to get in a few hits on Shadowbender before the fight was over, and Exemplar and Spellbinder did the best they could to keep their team alive.
 * Crag
 * Sapper
 * Professor Chaos
 * Tremble

Through their combined efforts, The Guardians of O.R.D.E.R. managed to incapacitate both Crag and Professor Chaos, while Tremble surrendered and Sapper, after being cornered trying to make an escape through the upstairs restaurant, made an offer to share information in exchange for her freedom. Meanwhile, Shadowbender was able to make his getaway, sword in hand. ="So-Long SO-LAR?!"= Spellbinder began a ritual to force open a portal to the shadow-filled realm Sapper refers to as Black London. Eclipse, meanwhile, undertook the interogation of Tremble who refused to provide any information and insisted upon receiving a lawyer, argueing that their refusal to provide one only helps his future trial. An enraged Lilly unleashed a mental barrage on the defiant Tremble, knocking him out cold. Spellbinder and Exemplar both asked Lilly to leave, and she did so, swiping a pack of cigarettes off of one of The Dealer's thugs on her way outside.

In the restaurant, Sapper prepared to share all the details of Shadowbender's plans with the team. Parallel teleported her away to a rooftop in another part of London to discuss it in private. Near the end of the interrogation, he activated the commlink frequency to bring Disco back into the conversation. Disco showed up on the rooftop almost instantaneously. There, a counter offer was made to Sapper, to escape with Parallel and work with him in some sort of rehabilitation. Sapper agreed, and an unhappy Disco let them leave, right after Parallel shared the results of the interrogation with him.

Sapper let the team know the following:


 * Shadowbender has created a pitch-black version of London that he calls Black London.
 * The only villains working with him have already been captured.
 * Shadowbender was able to amplify their powers in Black London and can create buildings and people.
 * The Champions of Olde have allied themselves with Shadowbender, but he refused to enhance their powers, which made one of their team very angry.
 * Exile's Enforcers have been hired to hunt Iron Spectre throughout the streets of Black London.
 * Shadowbender's plan is to set the three swords in specific places in Black London, and their combined energy would create what Sapper referred to as a 'dimensional inconsistancy.' From there, Shadowbender would enact some sort of magical ritual involving a sacrifice that would tear open a hole between his dimension and the real one, causing the two to more or less merge, granting Arthur the power he has in Black London in the real London.

Exemplar was then contacted by Aria with news that a potential new team member, Kyouki, had arrived at Little Freedom. Disco and Eclipse headed back to greet him (and gather flash lights) and help him, if needed, reach The Dealer's casino. At the casino, Kyouki demonstrated his powers by creating a coin-shotgun out of one of the slot machines and a lantern out of the florescent lighting in the back room.

Rowland Carter arrived on the scene, and, despite his anger over the group's inability to keep Sapper from escaping, agreed to position guards at the location of the portal and began looking for a back-up option, in case The Guardians of O.R.D.E.R. should fail.

Once everyone was back and ready to go, the team entered Black London through Spellbinder's portal. They immediately found themselves in the exact same room in Black London as the one they had previously been standing, except it was pitch black, and the boxes and shelves were all missing. Eclipse found that her teleporting ability did not function in this world. Meanwhile other powers seemed to work fine, although Kyouki had difficulty using his powers to interact with the material (which seemed infused with some sort of shadow) in this world.

The casino, likewise, was pitch-black and completely bare. When the team stepped outside, they could see that they were standing in an imperfect recreation of London, and, as Sapper had told them, completely dark. The buildings around them seemed slightly warped and the bricks used in the building seemed to be distorted as well. While the group was standing outside, the city was suddenly lit up with a blue glow, as a flowing stream of blue energy appeared over their head. Down the street they could see two figures huddled around a trash can, warming their hands via an non-existant fire.

Kyouki and Spellbinder followed the stream of energy to one of the swords embedded in the roof of the City of London Academy (Southwark). Despite their attempts, they had no luck removing the sword from its location. The energy seemed to be flowing toward Shard Tower. The rest of the group, meanwhile, headed down the street to question the individuals 'warming' their hands.

As they approached, one of the figures turned around to ask what they wanted. They could see the two creatures had no hair, no eyes, and gray skinned stretched tightly over their slightly elongated faces. The group was unable to gather much information out of the two before they both threw their heads back and let lose high-pitched screams, which were joined by additional screams all throughout the city. After a few seconds, the beings took off down the street in a full sprint. The team, now rejoined by Kyouki and Spellbinder took off in pursuit.

The beings were all running to an alleyway, where the heroes were able to find a wounded Iron Spectre attempting to fight them off... although not for long, as one of the creatures was able to knock Iron Spectre to the ground. After moving him to the roof of the building next door, the heroes were able to defeat most of the creatures (although not before one of them mauled Kyouki), and Spellbinder lured the rest up the building and, after healing Iron Spectre, came up with a plan to make them all jump off the building after him. It worked, although two of the creatures somehow survived the fall, but the team was able to make short work of them.

Iron Spectre explained that these creatures were apparently created by Shadowbender and he calls them his "dark ones." They appear to be 'programmed' to hunt him whenever he is near. When asked about other supers in the area, Iron Spectre remembered seeing a witch with control over fire in Hyde Park. The group decided to head that way, but stopped to investigate the last two sword locations that, as with the previous, began sending energy directly toward Shard Tower. They found that the last sword, which hadn't been activated yet, was still unable to move from its location in the garden rooftop of the Queen of Hoxton, a bar/club/art-collective. Meanwhile, Iron Spectre left the group to fucntion on his own.

At Hyde Park, Flarewolf lit a path for the team to follow, leading them deeper into the forest, where she was waiting. There, she proposed a wager to Spellbinder. Her team (with Exile's Enforcers) versus theirs, although the two would take part in a seperate duel. They agreed to meet at The Shadow Lounge, what is normally a gay club, and if Flarewolf won, she'd have a request of Spellbinder. Either way, she'd explain a few of the things the group still didn't know.

At the Shadow Lounge (after Kyouki made a quick stop to fasten some sort of armor for himself), the heroes entered the building only to be shot at by Scope, waiting with a rifle on the third floor. A fight broke out, and it didn't take long for the team to make short work of all four members of Exile's Enforcers, but not before both Hazard and Requiem unloaded their handguns directly at Eclipse, who managed to turn most of the bullets into grazing shots. Disco managed to take down their leader, Exile in mere seconds, while Exemplar did the same to Scope. Bramble, in Eurasian Lynx and Irish Elk form, tried to take down Kyouki, but after being thrown telekinetically into Requiem and then into her own husband, Talos, she instead tried to run Eclipse through, but a last-minute psychic assault from Lilly was enough to render her unconscious. Talos, who spent most of the fight moving from spot-to-spot at incredibly high speed and unleashing arrow after arrow at the group. Kyouki managed to ram Talos into the wall, but eventually, after seeing the outcome of Flarewolf's fight with Spellbinder, he surrendered.

Meanwhile, Flarewolf after trying spell-after-spell on Spellbinder, finally managed to encase him in arcane bindings, causing him to fall out of the air, into the middle of the club. Still refusing to give, Spellbinder managed to break the bindings with incredible strength, only for Flarewolf to draw another lethal wound on Spellbinder, finally getting him to surrender. Flarewolf then announced her own surrender, although threatened to finish Spellbinder off when accusations that the duel was invalid were raised by Exemplar.

While wounds were attended to, the group found SO-LAR tied up in a back room, and Flarewolf began to explain her request and the additional things she's been able to find out via her own arcane investigations.


 * Shadowbender did not create this realm. Instead, a demon, who she believes is temporarily granting Shadowbender power created it, and has been trapped here ever since.


 * Shadowbender still has two super-powered helpers at his disposal - people he had created, much like the "dark ones," only he has spent much more time on these.


 * She believes that when the demon is vanquished, this world will cease to be, and everyone will be deposited back into normal London.


 * Shadowbender is currently at Shard Tower, and his ritual should be ready to go within the hour.

She handed Spellbinder a gem, requesting that when they deal with this demon, to have it on him. If the demon is weakened sufficiently, his 'soul' will be forced into the gem. She would like Spellbinder to bring the gem back to her after, so she may use the power contained within for some sort of rituals she has in mind. Spellbinder took the gem from her, although he seemed unsure if he was going to follow through with her request in full.

After the information session, Exemplar raised the question of what Flarewolf's intentions are. After a brief discussion of the legal ramifications of the fight, it appeared that since there were no obvious crimes the group could be held on, the team was going to let The Champions of Olde and Exile's Enforcers go.

="A Shard Act to Follow"= Following the events of the previous episode, the team hurried to Shard Tower, determined to stop Shadowbender before he could finish his plan. The tower, unlike other part of Black London, was very detailed and even exhibited signs of electricity.

The group elected to take the stairs rather than the elevator, which lead them to the viewing gallery at the very top of the Shard. There, they encountered a duo, apparently created by Shadowbender, known as Fate and Destiny. Both spoke in unison, demanding that a sacrifice be made for Lord Lahirridiel. The group was able to determine that these two were being mind controlled on some level.

Destiny, using her powers of duplication and air control, helped to lock down the team so that her partner, Fate, who was using some sort of spiritual force to continue attacking his foes even after he switched targets, could quickly incapacitate them. However, after a brutal fight, it was Fate and Destiny who were out cold.

The Guardians of O.R.D.E.R. continued their ascent, past the large radiator, to a platform at the top of the spire, where Shadowbender currently prepared to execute a captive Iron Spectre to finish his arcane ritual. After a short exchange, the team prevented Shadowbender from completing the ritual, and he used every magical trick at his disposal, even managing to transform Spellbinder into a frog and teleport Eclipse to a pocket dimension.

The team was able to defeat Shadowbender, but, not long after, Lahirridiel made his appearance. Despite his power, the group was able to weaken him enough for the gem in Spellbinder's possession to be able to absorb and contain his essence. As he disappeared into the gem with a scream, his world began to fade, depositing the team back in actual London.

The police were called to apprehend Shadowbender and Exile's Enforcers while Eclipse got Iron Spectre to safety. Kyouki found an unconscious Destiny, who had apparently been left behind after Black London disappeared. Her partner, Fate, was nowhere to be seen.

Shadowbender, like his helpers, was returned to America where he was once again incarcerated. Exile's Enforcers managed to avoid any serious jail time with some minor weapon violations. Iron Spectre returned to Freedom City ready to resume stalking his prey.

What Spellbinder has done with the Lahirridiel-infused gem has yet to be seen.