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| Midnight Men #5 Pencil and ink by Chris |
Having met defeat for the first time, The Midnight Men are now being held captive in Dirge's dark tower. They are behind bars and chained to the floor with their abilities drastically reduced in power by spells.
In a nearby cell is Malcolm Greybridge; child prodigy with a mutant-like ability to control computers. Our campaign started off with his disappearance and now, here he is, locked up in a cell beside us.
Dr. Midnight questions Malcolm, who provides the following information:
"I was here with two other children before , one girl, one boy, but both of them disappeared a day ago and no one will tell me what happened to them."
Just then guards show up and start to take Malcolm away.
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| Dirge's guards |
Masked Justice demands: Where the hell are you taking him?!
Guard: "He will be sacrificed. The stars are now right."
Malcolm then begins to scream and cry, saying he wants to go back to his mother and father. He begs the Midnight Men to help as he is taken out of the room.
As the guards leave, one turns back and says: “You will live to see the Lord Dirge summon Shigg to your dimension and sacrifice you all to his glory. All of your kind, what you call hero and villain alike, will fall like dust before the Great and Terrible Shigg. None will be spared.”
Gate Keeper: "Does this include the Warbride and her crew? " (see last issue!)
The guards leave the room without answering.
With a combination of Dr. Midnight's tech skills, Black Bolt's rage and GateKeeper's magic, the Midnight Men soon escape from the cells. Guards enter the room to stop them but are quickly bounced around like a pin-ball on a 50,000 point run.
Now free, the Midnight Men make their way to Dirge's throne room but on the way run into Speed Demon and The Ultra-Mind (Brain in-a-Jar) who want to negotiate, having found out they won't survive Shigg's arrival. However, before they can open their mouths, the Midnight Men, still angry from their defeat; beat, fold and flatten them like raw dough.
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| Ultra- Mind (Brain-in-a-Jar) |
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| Speed Demon |
Afterwards, our heroes find the throne room near the top of the dark tower and are greeted by Warbride and Troll.
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| Warbride |
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| Troll |
In this room there is a platform being raised slowly to the ceiling's apex where there are writhing tentacles and a huge, alien eye poking through a gate. Dirge is on the platform casting a spell to bring forth Shigg, an all-powerful and evil Old One. Malcolm Greybridge is suspended from above by a beam of light emitted from the central eye, ready to be sacrificed at the spell's conclusion. The boy is screaming as he knows his death approaches. The Midnight Men have five pages left before the ritual is complete.
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| Dirge |
Dirge: "Eons and gods have fallen before us. The petty life of your ephemeral Earth has been forged into the door that will invite the Old Ones. Your universe will die and be reborn as the Old One's domain. And all of you will be the first to be sacrificed for their greater glory."
It's payback time!
Ding! Ding! The bell rings and Black Bolt delivers a haymaker to Warbride's china-chin, slamming her through the wall of the tower where she falls 80 stories. Nighty-night, princess.
Dr. Midnight, Gatekeeper and Masked Justice cut Troll's honeymoon short. A double kick to the ribs, a high speed hammer to the horn, then a power nullifying spell and Troll has no lead in his pencil. The big guy has fallen down and can't get up. Our heroes are pissed! They circle around him and start laying in with the size 13's. It's a hoedown on Troll's skull! They're doing the new dance called the "kick in the face." They pick him up and finish him off with a savage one, two, three to Troll's pie and it's bedtime for Mr. green and ugly.
On the platform, Dirge is on the verge of completing his ritual when Black Bolt's on him like a nightmare come to life. He gives Dirge a close up of a monster fist to the eye. Black Bolt's in and out like a fiddler's elbow. An upper-cut to the bread basket and a lightning bolt to the donut hole and Dirge is flopping around on the ground like a fish out of water. Black Bolt grabs him by the lapels and screams: "You f*&@ed with the wrong guys, you child-sacrificing s*#@ licker!!!" He finishes with a world class five-knuckle sandwich and it's on the slab with a toe-tag for Dirge.
With the spell ended the gate closes on Shigg, stopping its entry into our world and the alien dimension quickly fades.
The Midnight Men take Malcolm back home to his parents and he runs into their arms, all of them shouting and weeping with joy and relief. Black Bolt made a promise to Malcolm's parents and "Swore to Protect" (Black Bolt's Quality) Malcolm and bring him home. The Greybridges see that there is a man behind the monster and will never forget what he and the Midnight Men have done.
With the end of this first story-arc, Stark City, and the world, are presented with undeniable proof that - for the first time in almost thirty years - true super-powered individuals have reappeared, wanting to take up the fight for justice, protection of the innocent and upholding the law.
These heroes have a name... the Midnight Men!
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