ic Hotsy-Totsy Nazi (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

November 3, 2011

Somewhere in the Wharton State Forest

Mark Lucas hated Nazis, which made it all the more awkward to be here in the middle of a growing crowd of them. His long-sleeved "Don't Tread On Me" T-shirt hid his lack of white supremacist tattoos, but his blonde hair cut very short let him look very much like an Aryan poster boy. This was not really reassuring to Mark, but this was the sort of thing you did when you took up the legacy of the greatest Nazi fighters in the world. He tried to remember his conversation with Cannonade that had brought them all there: Greta Ratner, aka the Aryan Angel, or as his UNISON file had described her "Britney Spears meets Eva Braun" was one of the most famous neo-Nazis in the country: there weren't many beautiful blonde eighteen-year-olds willing to shake their booty in the name of racial purity. But Greta had, through her own channels, approached Cannonade (the very face of skinhead superheroes) and asked for help: she was worried that her latest concert was going to be attacked by her many enemies, and that meant she needed a superhero to help.

Of course it was a trap. You couldn't trust Nazis, even if they were hot blondes from the Midwest. Which meant instead of just one hero, the Liberty League was out in force! Even if Cannonade would be the only one the Nazis would be able to see in uniform. Hmming, sipping his Coke, Mark walked around the gathering crowd, looking for familiar faces.

[trollthumper]

Cannonade liked to think that, all things considered, he was a calm, temperate man. Oh, sure, more often than not his solution to a crisis was to punch someone in the face, but that was how the hero business worked sometimes. He knew how to measure an emergency, how to respond when people were in danger, and - most importantly - that not every argument could be solved by violence. He knew that persuasion, debate, and determination were more effective tools than his own fists.

Which meant his knowledge was strained to the very limits of his imagination when Aryan Angel, darling of the white nationalist pop scene, had landed on his rooftop, asking him to attend a benefit concert held in the woods.

"Let me count the ways: no, hell no, and %@#$ no."

"Why not?" To her extremely limited credit, Aryan Angel hadn't pouted, simpered, or pulled any gestures of sulking disappointment; she'd been straight forward in her question, as if she was honestly curious. "We share roots together. We both emerged from the soil of a meaningless war that cost more than it was worth. And you can't tell me you dress that way because it's what every other hero wears. We both come from the same part of society, even if we differ on who keeps the boot to our necks."

There had been so many swear words and so few ways to put them together cogently, so Cannonade had just taken a deep breath. "One," he'd said with extremely reserved patience, "I follow a subculture that came together when working class Brits and those guys you charmingly call 'mud people' realized they had a lot in common and got together in the dancehalls. You come from the assholes who gave in to the bastards and decided to tear into the scapegoats. Two, look at the patch on the jacket, lady. You can't be a good little goosestepper without knowing what it means. Your guys and my guys get along like fire and dynamite. Three, I'm pretty sure you're calling that war 'meaningless' 'cause your side made every blasphemous bargain it could think of and couldn't pay up once the bill came. And fourth... your music sucks. The only thing that makes me happy about your career is that somewhere, Ian Stuart is turning over in his grave."

She hadn't even flinched at the music comment. "And the Allies made no bargains?" she'd asked. "They didn't tear the genome until it broke? They didn't call on powers they couldn't understand? There are tales from the labs at Langley and the circles of the Scottish Highlands that would make your hair curl. 'My side' was American - my great-grandfather fought on the beaches of Normandy, just like Legionnaire. The only difference is he found what he was truly fighting for - an engine that takes upstanding men and grinds them down to blood and waste for profit. I just want to show you the truth." She'd actually looked concerned as she'd approached Cannonade. "I've been receiving threats lately."

"Yeah, I can imagine."

"Oh, every star does - as does every hero. But these are... specific. They know everything about me, about my parents, about my manager, about my band mates. They go into all these hideous details, and either they're very good at special effects, or they've got powers of their own. This isn't some stalker thing - this is political."

"Well, gee, I wonder why that could be. Look, you want someone who'll listen to? Go cry on White Knight's pillow case."

"Just... please." It had looked like it had taken a lot of effort for Aryan Angel to make the plea. "If not for me, then for everyone you swear to protect. I just want you to see what's really at stake."

So Cannonade had told the rest of the Liberty League about the strange invitation, and that was why he found himself shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of young malcontents. Thanks to the helmet, he stood out in the crowd -- and kept sweeping it for cameras, hoping to God that no one was going to see him here. Even with all the interviews he'd done to try and correct the assumptions, he knew this wasn't gonna look good if the picture went to the news. So he just crossed his arms, put on his grumpiest face - which wasn't much of an acting job - and waiting for the obvious trap to unfold.

[Electra]

Erin stood backstage with a walkie-talkie hung from her belt, trying to blend in with the stage crew without getting pulled into doing actual work. She had work of her own to do, which consisted mainly of keeping an eye on everything and making sure no villains attacked. Maybe the chick on the stage was one step up from a villain herself, but she was also a civilian and not technically breaking any laws. Unless and until she started actually doing Nazi things, she was entitled to protection from those who protected the innocent.

Honestly, despite the moral ambiguity, Erin didn't mind this current job. She was happy for an assignment that mostly required standing around and blending in, watching for trouble. It was what she was doing for a living these days, and one thing she was still fairly good at. Plus it was time spent with Trevor, even if it was hardly romantic. Between the start of her job and the endless hours of solo training she was putting in, it felt like she barely saw him lately. She was training more these days than she had since her first weeks at Claremont, on her own and sometimes through the night. She had to be able to use what she had left if she was going to continue doing hero work. And she had to be able to use it really well if she didn't want to raise awkward questions. So far she'd been able to dodge around Trevor's knowledge that something was not right, but that couldn't last. '

She shifted position as the stage crew moved towards where she was, heading to a spot where she could see the stage and the first rows of the audience, her black clothes making her inconspicuous, all but invisible. Maybe this was all just some ploy by a girl who had a crush on Cannonade, she thought wryly. Wouldn't that be something?

[Gizmo]

Trevor Hunter was by no means pleased with the team's current mission, though characteristically he kept it from his outward demeanor. While the others had ultimately decided that it was their responsibility to protect even those with distasteful politics and musical preferences until they actually did something wrong, the dark haired young man had argued that their time would be better spent elsewhere. It wasn't as if there was a shortage of potential threats vying for their attention, after all.

Ultimately, however, it seemed that Cannonade had something to prove in this case, and the current Midnight could at least relate to that. Edge would never see a friend walk into an dangerous situation alone, of course, and he and Wander could hardly leave their probability manipulating teammate on his own. As such, he found himself milling about the crowd, leveraging his talent for passing by completely unnoticed, though Ratner's fans found themselves stepping out of his way without really knowing quite why.

[Avenger Assembled]

If you ignored the white nationalist shirts, Aryan Nation tats, and swastika-wearing crowd, it could have been any low-rent concert venue: there were even merchants hawking beer and hot dogs from a little cart. Cannonade got a lot of attention, being the only hero in costume, a mixture of people taking the chance to sneer at the hated "SHARP goon" and those who were glad to see he was "coming over to the right side!" At least no one took his picture; indeed, the Aryan Nation bangers running security were keeping a close eye on cameras. With all the convicted felons who were in the crowd, no wonder! Trevor didn't see any wanted fugitives out there, but he recognized several ex-cons from their rap sheets. Aryan Angel's stage crew was surprisingly cordial to the 'new girl', Erin got the idea that the business of being a roadie tended to be the same all over. A couple of her colleagues had swastika tats and other white nationalist symbols visible, others didn't; with the long sleeves the cold weather brought, it was hard to tell who had ink and who just was trying to stay warm.

Mark was glad not to recognize anyone but his fellow heroes, given the nature of the crowd. He could stand being around gang members and meth users easily enough; the hard part was the little kids bundled up in cozy black and red sweaters against the cold. Aryan Angel was family-friendly, after all, and some of these people had brought their families. Little kids among swastikas wasn't easy to see, even when you'd seen the end of the world. This was no way for kids to grow up.

When the crowd was large enough, the stage crew started up with the opening music, first staticky, old-fashioned trumpets full of artifact, and then bouncy, cheerful pop music! In a flirty outfit that was a cross between a BDM outfit and a cheerleader's costume, Aryan Angel came cartwheeling out on stage, beaming at the audience with a huge smile on her face. She had a lot of stage presence, you had to give her that, if not much else. "The flag on high! The ranks closed tightly..."

[trollthumper]

Cannonade could handle being the center of attention. Sure, he felt a sense of righteousness rise up every time one of the Nazi scum sneered at him, and could weather the idea that some of these goons thought he'd jumped ship if it meant he'd get to punch one of them in the face by the end of the night. But the kids just set something off in him. He wasn't naive enough to think that no one remained unshaped by their parents' wisdom - God knows how much he'd learned at his own dad's feet. But to see kids drinking poison like this straight from the teat was too much for him. They'd grow up viewing the black kid down the street as a "mud person," or the Jewish kid in the classroom as an "agent of the conspiracy." If their parents even bothered to let them run into such types, that is. He knew that a good chunk of these kids would wake up when they got older and throw off the bullcrap, realizing just what nonsense they'd been sold on. But for a few of them, the propaganda would take root, and the toxic beliefs would just keep spreading.

Cannonade just tried to keep the bile down as Aryan Angel began her act. It reminded him of one too many neo-Nazi acts who decided to start their acts with "Tomorrow Belongs to Me." She'd better have some damn good reason for being paranoid.

[Electra]

Erin grimaced a little as the show began, but ignored the contents of the music in favor of concentrating on the surroundings. The crowd was nothing but riff-raff and that was problematic, since it was hard to know where to start looking for trouble. But she'd had plenty of training in crowd surveillance, thanks to her teachers at Claremont, so she wasn't terribly intimidated. If something bad started to happen, she'd see it coming. As she looked, she kept an eye out for her teammates, but wasn't too surprised not to see anyone but Cannonade. Trevor was never seen unless he wanted to be, and Mark was playing it low key tonight. As the music played, Erin leaned against a support pillar and relaxed a little, settling into the routine of watchfulness.

[Avenger Assembled]

Aryan Angel went through an all-Nazi set, going from the Horst Wessel Song through Deutschland Uber Alles, and then finally she did close with a rousing Tomorrow Belongs to Me while holographic swastikas fluttered on the side of the trailer behind her that made up her stage wall. The audience seemed to like what she was selling; odious though she was, Greta Ratner had a lot of stage presence and seemed to know how to artfully dance along the line between "teen sexpot" and "wholesome girl next door". Her ever-changing outfits were a melange of neo-Nazi themes, all of them managing to incorporate "cheerleader" and "Nazi girl scout" in a belly-baring, pigtailed vision of blonde teen sexuality that she could easily have sold in larger and better venues. If she wasn't a Nazi, she could easily have had a career as the next Britney Spears. She seemed, however, very happy where she was.

Near the end of her first set, a new group of people arrived, pulling up in red pickup trucks and one nice Ford luxury car, three muscular young men with shaved heads and one older man with a handlebar mustache and potbelly inside his suit. For their own reasons, the four heroes all recognized Delmar Higgins, one of the leading white nationalists in the area; he was the sort of guy every Claremont kid was warned about, and spent some time wishing they could beat up. Midnight and Cannonade knew in particular that it was a little odd to see Higgins here; he was more sympathetic to the Klan than the neo-Nazis, and thus not really part of Aryan Angel's faction. That didn't seem to bother the Angel, though. "And in honor of the distinguished Delmar Higgins," she exclaimed with a wink and heavy Southern accent all of a sudden. "Ah have a little Song of the South for y'all!" As the Confederate flag appeared on the wall behind her, she began warbling a cheerful rendition of Dixie that earned an unpleasantly avaricious smile from the elderly Higgins. After that, with great applause from all, she retreated to her trailer.

[Avenger Assembled]

No sooner had the Aryan Angel disappeared than new players entered the scene: a gout of black and red fire erupted from the center of the small stage, instantly recognizable to Erin and Mark as the true flames of Hell itself. When the hellflash cleared, a quartet of sinister-looking figures appeared, leering menacingly at the crowd like villains from a 19th century melodrama. One was a tall, muscular figure in UN white and blue like a UNISON agent, his face hidden save for a goatee and handlebar mustache, strapped to his arm a triangular shield emblazoned with the UN symbol. On his left was a slinky-looking woman in a skimpy black outfit that showed lots of generous bosom and stomach, flames dancing around her fingers. In front of them was a crouching, hairy canine humanoid with long, sharp claws and dripping spittle, and next to him was a big, bulky man with long black hair and a giant hammer over his shoulder.

As the crowd cursed and screamed, the shield-wielding man stepped forward and addressed the crowd. "Listen up! All you so-called Aryans are getting a visit from the United Nations Liberation Force! We're here to liberate you from your old-fashioned American values and your bigoted Christianity!" He hefted his shield. "Roll call!" The quartet introduced themselves: Unifier, the Flaming Feminist, Dog of War, and finally the Hebrew Hammer!

The Unifier extended a hand to Cannonade. "Would you care to join us on stage...brother?"

[trollthumper]

To the outside observer, it might have been hard to peg the expression on Cannonade's face. His brow was furrowed, his eyes were wide, and his jaw was slack. It might have been awe, or confusion, or just sheer cognitive dissonance.

Then he finally regained some composure. And suddenly, loud, raucous laughter poured out over the silenced gathering. Cannonade started doubling over from sheer hilarity.

"Oh, God. It's just... goddamnit, how long did it take you to come up with that crap? Two seconds and half a bottle of vodka? You couldn't even have cracked open Wikipedia, could ya?" He wiped the tears from his eyes. "Man. You look like that Freedom Friends episode about multiculturalism. Okay, maybe the Unifier looks okay, and I don't know what the Dog's deal is, but he looks like he's selling it. But the other guys?" He pointed to the burning woman. "'The Flaming Feminist'? What, was 'Lesbian' too obvious? 'Firebrand,' I might've bought, and hell, if you wanted to go for the gay panic angle, 'Labrys' would work, too. And the Hebrew Hammer? Okay, that's slightly badass, but it ain't the Seventies anymore. Taking on a name like that's so out of date it makes disco look fresh."

He cracked his knuckles. "All right. Let's get this dog and pony show over with. I'm guessing you guys aren't exactly big on dignity - the costumes say as much - so you probably aren't gonna just walk away. You want a fight. You'll get a fight. But man, on the slight, slight chance you actually mean it... learn some freaking subtlety next time, will ya?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"We're in deadly earnest, Cannonade," said the Unifier, a Southern accent creeping into his voice for a moment. "Delmar Higgins," he called, standing up and hefting his shield. "The United Nations has found you and your Klan brothers and sisters guilty of crimes against multiculturalism and of attacking our secular society! What do you have to say in your defense?" Higgins at least didn't lack physical courage, he responded with a foul oath about the racial origins of his accuser, while his boys hastily went for the .38s they'd been concealing. At that, the Unifier hurled his shield into the crowd. Mark Lucas didn't hesitate, throwing himself in front of the projectile and taking the hit on his shoulder, feeling the crack reverberate through his body as the Klansmen went for their guns and the 'heroes' on stage went into action. Talking was over!

As the shield came rebounding back to him, Unifier hurled it at Cannonade, the spinning projectile bouncing off the patriotic powerhouse's chest before it came whirling back to him. "Not even smart enough to get out of the way! I expected no less from Legionaire's whelp," he hissed, audible only to Cannonade and the thugs behind him.

From the middle of the crowd, Edge stood up, his costume having fallen into place around him as he rose to his feet. "You're not UN anything," he shot at the quartet of super-thugs, pointing at all of them in turn. "And I should know, because _I_ am a UN agent! You're just a bunch of goons in Halloween costumes who are playing to these people's fears and hatreds! And they have a lot of fears! And a lot of hatreds! There are little kids here, for goodness' sake! Take them down, Liberty League! Hard and fast!"

[Electra]

Erin watched the situation develop with the troublemakers on stage, a frown on her face, but half her attention was elsewhere. She'd been keeping an eye on Aryan Angel at the end of her set, and something about the singer's departure didn't ring true. The young woman had opened the door and entered the trailer, from the look of it, but the trailer hadn't so much as shifted or settled on its shocks. Angel wasn't exactly heavy, but it was as though no one was there at all, and if nothing else, the speed of her entrance should've caused some motion.

She was just about to report what she'd seen when the fight broke out in earnest. Drawing her bat, she raised her free hand to her earpiece. "Got that, Edge." Taking a few running steps, she tore off the black top that concealed her uniform just as she vaulted across the open stage area. Without so much as a pause, she whacked Unifier in the head with her bat, then kept going to land in front of the trailer. A moment to open the door and look inside confirmed her suspicions. "Aryan Angel has disappeared," she told the others. "She never made it into the trailer."

[Gizmo]

Trevor found himself less offended by the exaggerated stereotypes of the faux UN agents than the overwhelming idiocy at work. He couldn't even find it in himself to engage them in disdain or indignation as Cannonade and Edge did respectively, instead refusing the charade altogether. Whatever they were hoping to accomplish specifically with their stunt, the irked young man denied it to them as a roiling cloud of light devouring mist poured from him and obscured the entire stage in less than the span of a heartbeat. "Going dark," the gravelly, filtered voice of Midnight grated over the team's comlinks without further explanation of preamble. In the confused shouting that resulted, the sole female member of the supposed 'Liberation Force' found herself abruptly struck with a solid blow of a hardwood escrima stick. The others appeared to be fairly straightforward bruisers, easily dealt with by Cannonade and Wander, but the black clad strategist was taking no chances with the less obvious powerset of the 'Flaming Feminist'.

[trollthumper]

Cannonade shrugged off the blow from the Unifier's shield. "Don't need to get out of the way," he said. "I've taken stronger hits from paper planes." He closed the distance with the fake hero as Midnight's mist began to fall over the stage. He swung for Unifier's solar plexus, then used the momentum from the blow to get him in an armlock. "My grandpa was a lot of things you'll never be," he hissed in the fraud's ear. "For one thing, he didn't feel the need to dress up as the boogeyman to rally the troops. He fought real monsters, and he fought them honestly. You have to put on a freaking puppet show to get people to trust you. You make me sick."

[Avenger Assembled]

Unifier struggled in Cannonade's grip, thrashing and cursing, before suddenly going limp: while the helmeted hero had been meaning to subdue his enemy rather than simply knock him out, evidently Unifier's rage and fury had been enough to knock himself out. Up close, the putative UN 'hero' smelled faintly of cheap liquor and cigarettes. This close, with the man in a headlock, there was something naggingly familiar about the other man, as if it was a ghost of something from Cannonade's own past inside the costume.

Inside the smoke, Dog of War rose to his feet on a sharp command from the Flaming Feminist and disappeared in a puff of smoke, reappearing outside the cloud of midnight mist, visibly shrugging his furry shoulders before reappearing next to the scantily-clad woman who was evidently his master. Screaming a curse that was foul enough to darken the already smoke-filled air around her, she raised her hands and fired a blast of scorching black flame that seemed to ignite the mist around her, pushing the smoke cloud away from the supervillains on stage (and far enough from the heroes that it didn't obscure their vision either). So the hellfire seen earlier had come from her!

With the cloud cleared, Hebrew Hammer ignored the others and leapt from the stage, swinging a giant hammer at Edge that just missed his head. He wasn't playing around the way the others were: he'd focused on Wander, Midnight, and then Edge before picking the latter, and the massive blow that nearly took off Mark's head had certainly been in deadly earnest. Letting the bad guy focus on him rather than the now-rallying civilians, Edge sneered as he let a wall of earth rise up from the ground all around him. "Come on, try it again! At least the real Donar could actually fight!"

From the stage came a cry from Flaming Feminist. "Where the hell IS she?"

[Electra]

Wander glanced back at the fight, but the guys were doing a perfectly fine job. The leader was already down and the others didn't look like much of a threat. She could hop in if she was needed, but the bad feeling she was getting about the singer was too strong to ignore. She stepped into the trailer and crouched down to look at the pile of the carpet. It was certainly true that she didn't have half of Trevor's prowess at figuring these things out, but it definitely looked like Angel had gotten one step in the door, shut it behind her, and immediately disappeared.

That scenario fit what Wander had seen, but It raised more questions than it answered. Aryan Angel had never been associated with having superpowers. If she had anything, surely her handlers would've broadcast that, seeing as how they were all super-excited about their genetics. Even so, it wasn't impossible that Aryan Angel had somehow set all this up herself, gotten Cannonade to get the League involved, recruited a bunch of halfwit villains to start a fight, and then gotten herself out of the way when things started. It seemed like a really complicated idea with an unclear payoff. Or maybe the fight was just a distraction, and someone had been waiting in here for Angel when she stepped in.

Erin activated her comm again. "Midnight, can I switch off with you? I need you to see if you can trace some kind of superpowered transit out of this trailer. Somehow Aryan Angel has teleported or got taken out, and we should probably figure out where."

[Gizmo]

"One moment," Midnight responded to Wander as he slid back a step from the hellfire wielder and her pet demon. Evidently his mist was not going to be allowed to linger, but he still wasn't about to let the farce of a battle reach beyond the concert itself. Withdrawing a palm-sized cylinder from his jacket, he deftly twisted it apart at the midsection and dropped nonchalantly at his feet before speeding off in the direction of the trailer. Almost before he'd cleared the stage, an invisible wave surged from the device, marked only by the violent sparking and plaintive fizzling of the electronics in its wake. Several members of the audience dropped their ruined camera phones with cries of surprise while the ruined sound equipment behind the curtain smoldered away.

None of the so-called 'Unifiers' looked particularly dependent on technology, but Midnight was willing to take the chance that at least one of the charlatans was faking their abilities with advanced equipment. Even if they weren't, silencing the various recording devices in the crowd was one less thing to worry about. If, as a result, Aryan Angel was unable to resume her performance, well, that was collateral damage the young vigilante could easily live with.

Arriving next to Erin, he withdrew another gadget from his belt this time, his own gear naturally shielded from the electromagnetic pulse. The long, thin sensor wand immediately confirmed his suspicions; the starlet had been teleported away from the trailer the moment she'd entered. Unfortunately, in its current configuration, his monitoring device didn't have the range to find her destination, nor to piggyback on the signal to follow her. That in and of itself narrowed down the list of suspects considerably and he relayed the information to the rest of team in his usual brusque manner.

[trollthumper]

"Gee, the crazy Nazi woman who invites me to a concert bails out just before the White Power Rangers show up to the party," said Cannonade into his communicator. "And she seemed so goddamned trustworthy. Sooner we find her, the sooner we get an explanation for this bullcrap."

Cannonade dropped the Unifier - or whoever he was under that cheap mask - and scanned the stage. Midnight's mist was clearing, and he saw the rest of the "Liberation Force" staggering across the stage. The Hebrew Hammer were open targets, but he knew that this whole thing had been arranged for a reason. If he was the target of this whole thing, he could only imagine what it would look like if he beat up a supposed Jewish superhero - even if the guy in question was likely about as Jewish as Mel Gibson. Besides, Edge seemed to be handling the guy pretty well.

Instead, he took advantage of the confusion and took a solid swing at the Dog of War, who was still curled up at the feet of the Feminist.

"Stay down, Fido," he said. "What're you supposed to represent, miscegenation? You've thrown around 'mongrel' so much you think it's literal?"

[Avenger Assembled]

Cannonade's blow to 'Dog of War's' midsection seemed to drive the last of the fight out of the already-flagging Unifiers: the Flaming Feminist called out something in gutteral Latin, bringing both the Hebrew Hammer and her canine companion to her side before she hissed sharply at the heroes. "This isn't over!" Despite her tough talk, as they disappeared in a gout of hellish flame, it certainly did look over: they'd fled and left their putative leader behind, the Unifier himself still stretched out and groaning on the field, abandoning a field mostly clear of civilians (now that the white supremacists had taken off) to the heroes, along with the question of just what had happened to Aryan Angel.

For his part, as soon as the Hammer was gone, Edge hurried over to join the others by the trailer. "I think the civilians are all away, or almost all of them. As soon as the real super-fight started, Higgins' goons grabbed him and dragged him out of harm's way. They may be ignorant, but they're not stupid." He shook his head, then looked around, sniffing the air. "You guys figured out what's smoking, right? Besides Midnight, obviously."

[Electra]

Erin sniffed the air at Mark's statement, then jumped down off the steps and took a look under the trailer. It was dim and obscured by the same kind of smoke that was wafting off all the electrical equipment in the building, but through the haze she could make out a shape that wasn't supposed to be there. She could see wires and a dead LED timer, all connected to several ominous cylinders. "Hey, I think there's a bomb down here," she reported. "It looks like the EMP burst disarmed it, but it could've blown the trailer sky-high otherwise."

[Gizmo]

With a flat grunt that might have indicated muted interest as easily as disappointment that he wouldn't have to disarm the device manually, Midnight followed Wander to take a look at the remains of the bomb. As an after thought, the black clad vigilante palmed a small disk from his belt and adhered it to the underside of the trailer, where it gave off enough light for those without his ocular mutations to see what was there more easily.

Crouching to prod carefully at the incendiary device, he was annoyed to find it damaged past his ability to discern anything specific from it. Inwardly chastising himself for indulging in the EMP's lack of precision, the engineer noted at least the fairly typical components, lack of distinguishing construction and relative yield. He relaid he findings to the others in terse, almost guttural statements, eyes narrowed behind his featureless black mask. "Teleport Ratner away, feign attack, destroy empty trailer," he summed up the apparent plot. "Manufactured martyr."

[Electra]

"That seems weird," Erin replied, scooting further under the trailer to see if she could spot any traces of whoever had planted the bomb. It was a tight fit, someone could've snagged clothing or left prints. "I thought Aryan Angel was pretty popular, or as much as you get when you're a crazy racist whackjob singer. She had a pretty good crowd tonight. Why would she let them disappear her when it would mean the end of her career? And you'd think she'd have to be in on it, or otherwise it'd be a lot simpler just to actually kill her, and with no superheroes in attendance to get in a fight and cause a big distraction."

[trollthumper]

"'Cause 'heroes,' if they stick around, run the risk of having their dirty laundry come out," Cannonade said. "The longer someone sticks around, odds are there's some chance they'll develop feet of clay, and then someone delivers the hammer blow. But martyrs... martyrs are forever. Even if they're fake ones." He took a look over the stage - the knocked out Unifier, the vague scent of brimstone, the wrecked electronics. "I mean, look at this. A bunch of stuffed shirt 'heroes' show up, get in a fight with a bunch of real heroes, and in the middle of it, the darling of the racist pop scene goes up in flames. Question is, who did it - their boogeymen, or the guy they'd like to malign." He looked over to Unifier. "And to be honest, I'd like to know whose bright idea this was." He crossed the stage, knelt down over Unifier, and worked the mask off of the cheap costume.

[Avenger Assembled]

It took Cannonade only a few moments to recognize the bruised figure underneath the mask; Theodore Eastland, aka Johnny Reb, the fallen hero turned Nazi stooge who had betrayed the legacy of the heroes of World War II so brutally! Close enough to recognize the man himself, Edge looked sick for a moment before managing to say, "Better tie his hands, he's really strong, and as fast as Wander. Bastard," he added with venom unusual for the easy-going team. "My grandpa Jimmy told me Johnny Reb used to collect Japanese skulls and send them home to his fan club. Look at him, he barely looks forty."

[trollthumper]

"Oh, yeah," Cannonade said. "This bastard. He thought he'd been betrayed when they integrated the military, so he started working his way down the scale from 'racist crank' to 'Nazi bootlicker.' Not like he was the most saintly individual during the war, but afterwards, he got a lot worse." His mind flashed back to a photo he'd seen when researching his grandfather, in a book detailing Johnny Reb's post-war career. He'd been present at the Little Rock Nine's first day of school, standing on the steps of the high school. He wasn't holding a sign, or making any threatening gestures. His mere presence there was threat enough.

"Not surprised he'd show up to the First Annual Convention of Racist Jackasses, but white supremacist teeny boppers don't seem like his kind of crowd. Maybe a good cookout around a burning cross, but not this kind of scene. Kinda curious what'd bring him to a scene like this." He prodded Johnny Reb's side with his boot - not enough to bruise the hero, but enough to try and stir him from his stupor.