The SuperStarr Chronicles
Disclaimer: "AWESOME! AWESOME! THAT WAS SO AWESOME!" - Greg Wilmot, The Completionist.
Chapter 14: Night of the Daemons, Part 3!
Bayville High School
"Mmmmmm..." Roger Gruenwald frowned and brushed a dyed-blond bang out of his face as he stared at the black screen of his laptop computer. The blinking line on the word-processing program seemed to be mocking the teenage reporter. He sighed and tapped the side of his head with the eraser of the pencil he was holding.
"Trouble, Roge?" A voice asked. Roger turned around and saw a brunette teenage girl with her hair in pigtails staring at him. She wore a pink top, purple jeans, and brown shoes.
"Oh. Hey there, Boss." Roger greeted. Sandy Hawkins looked at the screen.
"Having a bit of writer's block there?"
"You could say that." He admitted.
"You're thinking about that thing again, aren't you?" Sandy frowned when she realized what was bothering her subordinate.
"What thing?"
"That whole thing at the soccer field." She reminded. "Roger, there's no story there. It was a freak fire caused by that Hawk statue's fireworks, then an electrical storm hit."
Roger rolled his eyes. "Come on, Sand. You really don't think there wasn't anything strange going on there? I mean, my phone's footage got fouled up."
"Can't thunderstorms knock out power?" Sandy asked. "I know Smyrna was hit by a really bad one a couple months ago. Knocked out power in parts of it for twelve hours."
"But a phone with a full battery?" Roger frowned. "I asked the camera crew about using footage in the fire for my report. And you know what they said? They said that the footage was fouled up, like someone wiped the cameras with a magnet. Boss, I smell a story here."
"We already ran one about it." Sandy said. "Johnny covered it."
Roger scowled. "No offense, but Johnny is a ham-headed wannabe jock."
"This whole thing with superheroes and supervillains is making you bonkers, Roge." Sandy told him. "Look, you're a hard worker, and I get you're excited about all these new costume guys that have been popping up over the last couple of years, but stuff like that doesn't happen here. We don't get superheroes fighting supervillains in Bayville. That's all major city stuff. I assigned you to cover that bake sale. Now get to it." She walked off. Roger frowned.
"Yeah, I'll cover your bake sale, alright..." The lanky superhero fanboy frowned. "But I know there's a story there in that soccer field fire..." He stared at the screen. Maybe we got some new superheroes in town...God knows that would make this place a bit more exciting...
Dreagmore, Scotland
Normally, the Highlands of Scotland were a place not known for being home to a ton of people. However, the town of Dreagmore was...unusual in a couple of ways. Unlike most of the Highlands of the country, it was hardly sparsely populated. However, this day showed that the town had even more people in it. This was because Dreagmore was celebrating the anniversary of its founding. The circumstances of its founding was another reason why the town was considered unusual.
A few hundred years ago, a meteor crashed into the highlands of Scotland. This attracted the ancient druids to the area, where they would perform rituals. After all, in ancient times, it was believed that meteorites may have held magical power. Eventually, a town would be born around it. And that town was Dreagmore.
Despite the ancient origins of the town, Dreagmore was nowadays very much a modern place. In the town square, a fair was going. Music played, people chatted, the smells of various foods permeated the air, accompanied by the noises of various games, and a good time was being had by all. The local museum had allowed artifacts from various points in the town's history to be displayed at the fair. Most notably, the very meteorite that helped birth the town hundreds of years earlier.
Among the guests were a group of superhuman teenagers, their equally superhuman new mentor, and their two allies, a powerful sorceress and her beloved ex-military man. Lady Daemon and Clara Creed had decided to catch up while the kids checked out the fair. The two were sitting on a bench. Lady Daemon was talking, and Clara was enjoying some cotton candy.
"If there's any benefit of this Brexit mess, it's that hopefully it'll finally get the people of Scotland to break away and be our own bloody nation." Lady Daemon ranted. "I mean, we get dragged backwards because a bunch of rich English didn't want to pay their bleeding taxes!" Clara smiled in amusement.
Heh. Ol' Meg was always fond of the whole Scottish independence thing. She recalled. Paul Starr walked up to them, eating some cotton candy. Lila Cheney was with him, having a bottle of water with her cotton candy.
"Mmmm!" Paul smiled happily as he chowed down on the cotton candy. "I love cotton candy!"
"Ye havin' a good time, children?" Meg asked.
Paul nodded happily. "Yeah, I'm having a great time!"
"Surprisingly, I am as well." Lila nodded. The British-Indian girl looked around. "These people do know you are here, right?" She pointed at Meg.
"Aye." Meg nodded with a smile. "People in England are afraid of me. In Scotland, though? I'm an angel."
"Ah, Lady Daemon. So nice to see ya here, lass." The group saw a heavyset man walk up to them wearing a suit and a sash on it. He had thinning black hair, and a bushy mustache. Standing with him was a woman with graying brown hair, wearing a sky blue blouse, a dark blue skirt, and white shoes. Meg smiled at the man.
"Ah, Mayor MacDougal." Meg greeted.
"I'm happy ta see you've graced our little town with your prescence on this special occasion." Mayor Michael MacDougal said.
"My pleasure, Mr. Mayor." Meg smiled. And hopefully, I can keep this place from becoming a mass grave... She gestured to Clara. "Oh, and this is Clara Creed. She's an old friend of mine."
"Pleasure meeting you, Mr. Mayor." Clara shook the man's hand.
"This is my admittedly better half, Madeline." MacDougal gestured to the woman.
"A pleasure." Clara shook her hand.
"Oh my, what happened to yer face, lass?" Madeline noticed the burns on Clara's face and her eyepatch. It hid Clara's cybernetic implant, which scanned the two humans before her.
Hmmm, the mayor needs to cut back on the sweets. The blonde feral noted. "Old injury." Clara said simply. "I've visited Scotland before. Just never this village."
"Well, we hope ya have a good time here, Ms. Creed." MacDougal said. "You should check out the meteorite."
"It's what allowed this little town to come about." Madeline added. She noticed Paul and Lila. "Are these your children, Miss Creed?"
"Not biologically." Clara smiled. She waved at the two young mutants with her. "Meg told me about the meteorite. It's why I brought these kids here to see it. They're my students. The boy here is Paul Starr and the girl is Lila Chopra-Cheney."
"Nice to meet you." Paul greeted.
"Hello." Lila waved.
"Paul's from Los Angeles, and Lila's from London." Clara said. "I brought them on a field trip. Heard about this little celebration from Meg here and I thought it was a wonderful opportunity to show them a bit of Scottish culture."
"I wanted to see the meteorite." Lila said.
"My little Lila here is absolutely obsessed with space." Clara smiled, patting Lila's head. The former intergalactic thief rolled her eyes in mock annoyance and Paul chuckled.
Elsewhere at the fair, Ian had found Lance, Pietro, and Fred sitting at a table nearby a stand that made haggis. The three boys were chowing down on the haggis and fries they had.
"Nice to see you boys are enjoyin' the haggis." The auburn-haired man smiled at the two.
"Yeah, this stuff rocks!" Lance grinned.
"It's so savory!" Pietro whooped.
"It's great!" Fred agreed. The three boys continued eating their haggis in brief silence for a moment. But then, something tugged at the mind of the powerhouse Texan. "What is haggis, anyway?" He asked in genuine curiosity.
"National dish of Scotland, lads." Ian smiled. "You take a sheep's pluck (mainly the heart, liver, and lungs) and you mince it with onions, salt, suet, oatmeal, spices, and salt. Then you mix it with stock. Basically broth like the kind used to make soup. And then ya boil it in a sheep's stomach." Lance and Pietro's faces paled as the former military man described what haggis was. Their faces then turned green and cheeks expanded to the size of pool balls.
"Boy...hoo boy..." Pietro whimpered as he and Lance ran off to be sick. Fred watched them run off. He looked at Ian, shrugged, then went back to eating his haggis.
"Of course, these days, they use sausage casings instead of stomachs." Ian sighed, leaning his head on his hands. Americans...
"I wonder if they're going to finish that." Fred pointed at Lance and Pietro's abandoned haggis. As this was going down, Todd and Craig were looking at some exhibits that the town's museum had put out for public viewing.
"Huh." Todd looked at some old spearheads. "According to this here plaque, these are Roman."
"That makes sense." Craig said. "The Romans tried to conquer Britain, but never could quite make it to Scotland." He looked over the plaque that was part of the exhibit. "According to this, the Romans are the reason Christianity came to Scotland."
"Wait, I thought that the Romans worshiped Zeus and those gods."
"They took 'em from the Greeks." Craig explained. "Renamed 'em, too. Zeus became Jupiter."
"Like the planet?"
"That's where the planet got its name."
"Huh." Todd noted. He then noticed Craig was looking around. "You okay, yo?"
"Just keeping an eye out." Craig answered. "Lady Daemon said we should keep watch for anything strange."
"Dude, we're in Scotland. Everything here is strange to me." Todd said. He watched Craig look around. "Hey Craig, can I ask you somethin'?"
"Ask away, Frog."
"...you don't find this whole thing weird?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, flying in a spaceship, going to Scotland, just...all of this." Todd waved. "This don't weird you out?"
Craig shrugged. "Life is weird, Frog."
"Yeah, but..."
"Look at it like this, Frog." Craig continued. "Look at us. You have frog-like powers. I can hypnotize people with my eye and shoot lasers from it. Not to mention this." He pointed at the black five-pointed star-shaped birthmark over his right eye. "That in itself is already pretty weird compared to most people."
"So, what you sayin'? That we're supposed to be weird?"
"What I'm saying is, normal is relative." Craig told him. "What's normal to us is weird to others."
"Yeah, but this." Todd waved his arm. "This...this is just nuts, yo."
"The world is nuts, Frog. Congratulations on finally realizing that." Craig said. The two continued looking around quietly.
"...so...what're we gonna do?"
"Huh?"
"What're we gonna do if we see Meg's evil sister?" Todd asked.
"Nothing stupid, Frog." Craig said. "Run like hell and call Meg."
"Yeah, run." Todd nodded. "Run like hell. I can do that, yo. I don't wanna die here. It's not like anyone would care if I did, though..."
"I'll stomp on Pietro's neck in your honor." Craig said. The two boys were unaware that they were being observed nearby by seemingly a regular fairgoer.
So, that's two of the youths that Meg chose to aid her. A magically-disguised Alisabeth Daemon thought as she watched the boys talk. That frog boy is ugly as sin.
"Considering you are consorting with me, you calling that child ugly is hilarious." Kthara mocked. Alisabeth looked around.
Meg will sense me if I stick around too long. I need that meteorite. Alisabeth thought. She noticed a groaning Lance and Pietro walk by, holding their stomachs.
"Oh, God..." Lance moaned.
"What is wrong with Scottish people?!" Pietro wailed. "Why would they eat that?!"
"National dish." The earthshaker grumbled. "Why would you make haggis, something you make with sheep parts, a national dish?"
Alisabeth smirked. I can use those two. I can sense that the brunet has some kind of power over the Earth. And the skinny one is fast. Real fast.
"I can tell their powers are not magical in nature." Kthara noted. "Their power appears to come from their own blood."
"Blood, huh?" Alisabeth mumbled. "Fascinating..." They will be the perfect distraction. Between the silver-haired one's speed and the brunet's power over the Earth, that meteor will be mine... The blonde woman smirked wickedly as a plan formed in her twisted mind...
The meteorite was encased in a box of transparent plastic. It was about the size of an American football. Lady Daemon and Clara walked up to the rock.
"This is it, huh?" Clara asked. Mayor MacDougal and Madeline had accompanied them.
"Aye, lass. The pride of our little town. The reason Dreagmore exists in the first place." MacDougal smiled at the blonde.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Madeline said.
"Mm." Clara stared at the rock. It looked like someone had taken a lumpy pile of gray clay and put a bit of gold and silver glitter on it. "Did you ever get this thing examined?"
"Aye." MacDougal nodded. "This baby here is called a stony-iron meteorite."
"It contains both rock and metal." Clara deduced.
"Mm-hmm." MacDougal nodded. "Scientists examining it have pointed out this meteorite has more metal than rock in it."
"These kind of meteorites are actually quite rare." Madeline added.
"Why's that?" Clara asked.
"Meteorites tend to be more made of rock." Madeline explained. "However, metal meteorites are more resistant to erosion, they're more resistant to the heat generated from enterin' the atmosphere, and well, even a regular person would notice them."
Mayor MacDougal smiled. "M'love is an amateur astronomer." Lady Daemon cocked her head slightly and her eyes narrowed as she stared at the inanimate object from the stars.
I can sense great potential magical power from this thing. The blonde Scotswoman thought. No wonder the ancient Druids used this thing for rituals. And it makes sense Alisabeth would be after it.
RMMMMMMMM...
People muttered and chattered as the ground started to shake.
"What's going on?!"
"Mommy, why's the ground shaking?!"
"Save the exhibits!"
"I knew the aliens were underground! I knew it! You daft bastards laughed at me!"
"Shut up, Tom!"
"What on Earth?!" Mayor MacDougal yelped.
"An earthquake?! Here?!" Madeline asked. Clara and Megan looked at each other.
Avalanche! They realized.
"What is that boy of yours doing?!" Meg hissed harshly.
"Being reckless again, I bet." Clara whispered back. A frown formed on the Canadian woman's face as she looked around. Where the hell is Avalanche?!
"Alvers, you mindless jackass!" Craig angrily muttered as he tried to stay on his feet.
"What's he doing?!" Todd muttered. He noticed the spearheads about to fall off the table. "Nope!" He tried to catch them. "Yi yi yi!" He found himself juggling them.
Fwoosh!
"AGH!" Todd yelped as he felt someone shove him to the ground. He ended up tossing the spearheads into the air. "Ah crap!"
"Hang on, Frog!" Craig manged to grab the spearheads and help Todd up.
"What the hell, yo! That was Pietro!" Todd exclaimed.
"The hell is going on?!" Craig asked as he put the spearheads back on the table. Lila and Paul ran up to them, pushing their way through the crowd.
"You guys alright?!" Paul asked in worry. He grabbed Craig into a hug.
"We're fine." Craig answered, lighting pushing his brother off him.
"Mr. Ambiguous has gone mad!" Lila said. "He's zipping around pushing people over and wreaking havoc!" True to the English interstellar teleporter's word, the group saw a blue blur zipping around, knocking people over. The ground started to rumble again.
"What're they doing?! Have they gone crazy?!" Paul asked in confusion.
"Wouldn't surprise me." Craig growled, his star-covered eye glowing hotly.
"Mayor, Madeline, help get these people out of here." Megan ordered. "I don't want any innocents caught in this!"
"Right!" He and Madeline ran off. Ian ran up to Meg.
"Meg, m'love! You alright?" Ian asked as he ran up to the blonde Scotswoman. The rest of the Brotherhood also arrived.
"I'm okay, love." She gave Ian a quick hug and kiss. "Look!" Standing in the town square was Lance, his arms out, and his eyes glowing. The ground continued to shake.
"Alvers, you mindless jackass!" Craig snapped, his star-covered eye glowing hotly.
"What's wrong with his eyes?" Fred asked.
"The lad's been ensorcelled!" Meg realized.
"Enchilada'd?" Fred asked.
"He's under a magic spell, mate!" Ian explained.
"Wait, where's Pietro?!" Paul realized.
"I got this!" Lila whipped out her Laser Crossbow, onr of her sleeping gas-filled arrows nocked and ready to fire. "One shot of this, and he'll be in Dreamland-!"
FWOOSH!
"Hey!" The British-Indian mutant exclaimed as she felt a gust of wind knock her down.
"The hell-AGH!" Craig also exclaimed as the same thing happened to him.
"It's Pietro!" Clara realized.
"He must've been ensorcelled, too!" Meg added.
POOF!
Alisabeth Daemon appeared behind the meteorite exhibit, clad in a more practical green dress with a long green cloak and hood.
"Alisabeth!" Clara, Ian, and Megan exclaimed. Clara growled and unsheathed her claws. Megan held out her fists, glowing with golden eldritch power. Ian had his gun, an old Webley Mark IV.
"Kids! Take care of Avalanche and Quicksilver!" Clara ordered. "We got this witch here!"
"Easier said than done yo YIIII!" Todd barely dodged a punch from Pietro.
"He's trying to keep us away from Lance!" Craig realized.
"Step away from that meteorite, Alisabeth." Ian growled out. Alisabeth smirked in amusement.
"Why my dear Ian, I'd think you'd be reluctant to point that gun at me, considering what happened that one time you shot me."
"And if I did start that fire, I'd actually agree with you." Ian snorted.
"You heard the man, you whackjob." Clara snarled. "Hit the bricks, or get cut open."
Alisabeth laughed. "HAHAHAHA! Dear Miss Creed, I thought that you were different from that brother you hate so much."
"I don't slaughter for kicks, you witch." Clara snarled.
"Meg, I know she's your sister and all, but I am going to put a bullet in her head!" Ian added.
"It's not going to bother me, m'love." Meg smirked.
"Yes, I do not plan to die today, thank you." Alisabeth's fist was coated with orange eldritch energy. "And my new pawns will see to that."
"Dammit! Guys, watch out!" Craig yelled.
FWOOSH!
"Gah!" Meg, Clara, and Ian gasped in shock as Pietro knocked them down with his superspeed.
"'Ta, everybody!" Alisabeth smashed the glass case containing the meteorite with her energy-coated fist. The mad blonde Scot then grabbed the meteorite and vanished in a flash of light.
"Dammit!" Ian cursed in frustration, picking up his gun and then placing it back in its holster. "She got the bloody meteorite!" He noticed Clara helping Meg to her feet. "You alright, love? Clara?" He asked.
"I'll live." Clara said. "It'll take a lot more than a speedster to take me down."
"I'm good, thank you love." Meg nodded, holding her head.
"That bloody speedster! If it weren't for him-!" Ian started to angrily rant.
"It's not his fault." Meg quickly cut her longtime boyfriend off. "I could sense that he was under mystical control. Alisabeth likely ensorcelled him and the earthshaker to allow her to get the meteorite." She looked at Clara.
"That makes sense." Clara nodded. I hope that's all this is. The earthshaker has been reckless with his powers in the past. Glad the it wasn't the case here. "We gotta free the boys, then find that rock!"
Pietro's reaction to what haggis is is a bit of a nod to the 2017 DuckTales series.