Capt. Dane Casey
Moondancer
Capt. Jack McNeal
Hisham Selim
Jack Parker
Sabrina Knight-Parker
Rep. Sam Seaborn
Claire di Mosa
Electro Man
Bree Rader
#145
"Once More...The Deviators!"
Game Date: 10/7/02 - 10/15/02
Tinker has been spending time with Horus, getting him acquainted with 21st century America. After initially feeling nervous about it, she decides to give in to his pleadings and take him outside her home. She gets him some cool kid clothes and a hat to cover his bald head, and takes him out around Seattle, introducing him to the mall, movie theaters, The Seattle Asian Art Museum, the Forte Museum (where he gets a personal tour from Electro Man, whom Horus likes a great deal), the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum, the Space Needle, The Pacific Science Center, Pike Place Market, Mt. St. Helens National Park and the Seattle Aquarium. She even takes him to a Sonics basketball game. And, of course, for a dinner at the Green Dragon restaurant to meet her Uncle Max and Geoffrey. Both she and Horus have a tremendous time together…Lucy feels like, through his eyes, she’s experiencing all these familiar sites anew.
Anvil’s daughter Bree, before leaving town after visiting with her Dad while he did his interviews with Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg for the upcoming HBO Forte docudrama, gets her hands on a Forte radio and calls up Max, much to his surprise. She says she’s kind of bored and was just wondering if he wanted to go see a movie or something. So Bree and Bobby take in a meal, a movie, some coffee, and a nice walk through Seattle Center. She’s clearly interested in Bobby, but he’s still wrapped up in his feelings for Lillian, so he doesn’t make any kind of move (and besides, he’s still a little nervous, because it’s Anvil’s daughter). So they just have a nice evening, and Bree and Anvil head back home for Cincinnati, with Bree leaving Max her phone number.
Now that Vortex and Moonspider have been officially announced to the public to be members for Forte (thanks, Dyna Girl!), Max, Rainier, Dyna Girl and Nightsable start to educate them on the way their team does things, including the patrol schedules. Dyna, Vortex and Nightsable have a shift one night, and Nightsable shocks the other two by showing up in a new costume, and with blond hair. Dyna Girl absolutely loves it, and Nightsable just says she felt it was time for a change (which Dyna reads as her trying to get over Seahawk). She has some hair care products from her Earth and future that let her change hair color instantly, so she can be a blond while being Nightsable but go back to her regular brown when she’s Samantha Parker, which will help with the secret I.D. thing. Their patrol night is fairly uneventful, with the exception of a drug deal bust and one liquor store robbery, so the threesome have plenty of time to just talk and hang out.
Rainer has started—cautiously—seeing Moondancer again, as she’s staying in Seattle for a while. They’re taking things very slow. One day Moondancer calls up Dyna Girl and Nightsable and says she’s decided that Davis is way too much of a fashion disaster, and wants to know if they’ll come along with them and help her spend some of his plentiful money shopping for new clothes for him. Jumping at such a chance (especially the part about spending someone else’s money), Holly and Sam hook up with Chelsea and Davis, and a day of heavy shopping, and lots of resistance and eye-rolling from Davis, ensues. The women all have a great time, at least, and Holly starts to believe that maybe Chelsea has changed after all. She’s much friendlier and nicer, and actually seems, for a change, to be a GOOD thing for Davis.
Attorney James Avalon (Moonspider) has some court time to put in, and manages to get a fairly short sentence for Kingfisher, who didn’t actually hurt anyone during his recent robot adventure (see Forte 2000 #144), but was just pulling a theft when the deranged robot chased him across downtown. He ships his client off to Pocantico Point (with Kingfisher not realizing, of course, that his lawyer is actually the hero who took him out) with a reminder that he really needs to get out of the villain business, because frankly, he’s really not that good at it. Later in the day, James is called into the office of Carter Creighton, one of the partners at Archibold, Tanner & Creighton, and is asked to start work on an appeal case for a villainess named Photonica, as they have new evidence that she may have been framed for the murder she was convicted of four years before.
Lucy has the Brotherhood of Horus over for dinner at her place, and they finally get to spend some quality time with their vertically-challenged god. Lucy is again rather touched by their love for him, and the way he treats them with such respect and dignity. It’s a little weird, though, after spending time with him as a kid, to hear him speak in such a regal manner. They talk about the coming battle, and getting their forces together, and watching for signs of movement of any forces that might be aligned with Anubis. Lucy finds herself suddenly very scared for Horus, not wanting to see him go into combat with some world-killing maniac.
While they’re talking and she’s doing some dishes, she notices, out the window, a car parked across the way, sitting in the dark. She pulls some night vision micro-binoculars out (doesn’t everyone have those in their kitchen drawer?) and spies the familiar occupant. She walks out to his car, where Captain Jack McNeal sees her coming and fidgets and pulls his cap down as though he might still avoid notice. She walks up to his window and knocks, and he rolls it down, and she asks what he’s doing there. He admits that he tailed the Brotherhood to find out where she lived. He was just getting nervous at the idea of there being no security for her and Horus. Jack thinks Horus is a pretty cool kid, and wants to make sure nothing bad happens to him, and he just feels better keeping an eye on them. He asks if she’s pissed, and she rolls her eyes and smiles and says no, and actually thinks it’s kind of sweet (and, truthfully, she’s kind of happy for the opportunity to get to talk to him). Since, she says, he can probably find out quickly enough anyway based on her company name and address, she introduces herself as Lucy Toy and shakes his hand. He promises to keep that to himself. Realizing she doesn’t want to miss too much of what the Brotherhood and Horus are talking about, she tells him she has to go back in, and he says he’ll just hang out for a while, if she doesn’t mind. And she doesn’t. He camps out in his car as she finishes her late evening with the Egyptians. Before he leaves, Hisham takes Lucy aside and thanks her for all she’s doing for Horus, and for her and her friends keeping him safe. He’s gotten more relaxed about Horus being with Forte, and thinks that they were meant to be a part of this, somehow.
Paul Seaborn (Vortex) gets a call from his brother, California congressman Sam Seaborn (D-Orange County), who invites him and his girlfriend, Claire, down to Southern Cal for Thanksgiving, since their wealthy socialite parents will be in Europe during the holiday (which is a relief for Paul, since he has no desire to either return to Gotham City or spend another trip home with his father questioning his choices to become, first, a police officer, and then a simple high school teacher). Paul tells his brother things are a little crazy, but he’ll talk to Claire and let him know. Paul ends up wrestling, again, with the decision to tell his brother that he’s Vortex, not knowing if it’s better for a congressman to know or not know his sibling is a super-hero. He discusses Thanksgiving with Claire, and she says she was hoping he’d come to Vermont with her and finally meet her parents. He discusses the advantages of Thanksgiving in L.A. over Vermont with her, and no decision is reached.
He also decides to use the number Barry Allen—The Flash—gave him (see Forte 2000 #143), and see if he can learn more about what Mean Streak was talking about (asking if he’d been “inside”, talking about a coming war, etc.). The woman who answers, Allen’s wife, finds out who he is and is very friendly, having no problem introducing herself as Zatanna. She says Barry is still in the future. He asks if that’s the case, why can’t he just come back at the exact moment he left? She laughs and says she’s asked him the same thing…Barry just prefers to keep things in “real time” for some reason. She says she’ll let the retired Justice Leaguer know that he called, though, and hopes she’ll get to meet Paul soon herself.
The team decides to get together for an evening at the base, and the whole of the current Forte—Tinker, Max, Rainier, Nightsable, Dyna Girl, Moonspider and Vortex, missing only Seahawk, who’s still staying in Boston while his son recovers from his injuries—lounge around the rec room and talk team stuff. Horus, whom Tinker brought along, busies himself at one of the computers, continuing his reading of the entire online Encyclopedia Britannica. Tinker, Max and Rainier are telling stories of their first couple of years with the team, and Dyna Girl is telling Armor Security stories, when a call comes through on the radio from their UNCLE liaison, Dane Casey. Dyna wants to ask him how his follow-up date with Stacy McKone went, but there’s no time for this, because he’s called to tell them the Deviators are back.
Oh, crap.
Rainier quickly explains to the newbies. The Deviators are a group of alien criminals from another galaxy that appeared in Seattle when their attempt at a prison break using a teleportation portal went haywire (see Forte 2000 #63). They were fairly delighted to not only have gotten away, but to have appeared on a world far from Realm control that looked ripe for the picking. They’re also very, very powerful, and their fight with the original F2K foursome only ended well because of the timely arrival of the Realmwatch, essentially the Realm Empire’s official super-hero team.
They’re all suiting up as Rainier explains this, and Dane is informing them that the villains appeared downtown and have started looting and trashing and demanding Forte come face them. Somehow, they must have escaped again and found a way back to Earth. Tinker doesn’t want to leave Horus alone in their base, and asks Nightsable to quickly teleport them over to the old Forte base, where Dr. Jackal is still recuperating and Sabrina (Knightsabre) and their kids are staying with him. She does so, and Lucy explains quickly and asks if Horus can stay. Dr. Jackal, still bed-ridden, says sure, and Sabrina agrees, telling them to go do what they have to, that he’ll be fine. The Parker daughters—Monique and Nichole—think Horus is just the cutest thing ever and immediately go into little-brother-we-never-had mode. Horus is more interested, after his Forte Museum tour, to discuss Forte history with Jack and Sabrina.
Tinker and Nightsable join back up with the team at the new base, and Tinker quickly summarizes everything they know about the Deviators, what worked last time, etc. Rainier has called Moondancer, and asks Nightsable to open a portal to Vanguard’s safehouse, where Chelsea is staying. She does, and Moondancer, geared up, hops through to join them. Assembled and ready, they stand together as Nightsable opens a wide teleportation portal for them, and they all dash through.
They arrive a couple of blocks away, per Tinker’s orders, trying to use the element of surprise. She’s pretty sure these bozos don’t get local Seattle TV where they’re from, so they still think Forte is just Tinker, Max, Rainier and Seahawk. She wants to use this as well, and puts together a quick plan of attack for the team.
The Deviators are in the street, overturned and burning cars around them, property damage readily apparent in the surrounding buildings, citizens running away in terror. The massive Domin is yelling out to people to bow to their new rulers, as the voluptuous Predator smiles darkly next to him, the crackling Black Nova waits at his other side, and Darkspace, Fringe and Gravis wreak havoc close by.
Rainier drops loudly from a building top to the street ahead of them, and Max flies down with Tinker, landing next to him. Domin spots them and says they finally had the courage to show themselves. Tinker apologies, and says they were in the middle of dinner, and had to finish their meal first before dealing with these amateurs. Domin laughs at her brave words, and reminds them of the beating they took last time, and asks where their “waterfowl” friend is. She says Seahawk had a previous engagement, and they didn’t figure they’d need him anyway. Domin grins at her bravado, and points out that they’re not only outmatched, but outnumbered, and that as soon as the Deviators have slain them, they’ll be taking over this pathetic world. Rainier disagrees with their opinion of Earth, saying that they must not have visited Branson, Missouri, yet. It’s really quite festive. The Andy Williams Christmas show is to die for.
Having enough of the banter, Domin asks them if they’re ready to face their death. Tinker says in just a minute, and pulls out her cell phone. She pushes buttons and puts it to her ear. The Deviators look at each other, and her, in confusion. She says she just wants to check her voice mail first. Domin starts to speak and she cuts him off by raising a “just a second” finger and concentrates on listening to her phone. Then she pushes a button, closes it, puts her phone away. Max asks who it was. She says it was her uncle. And that he said to say hi. Max says that was nice of him. Okay, she tells the angry Domin…NOW they’re ready.
With that, Dyna Girl flies in at top speed and punches Domin, sending him through the side of Seafirst Bank, Nightsable teleports behind Darkspace and punches him into a car, Vortex runs by and belts Predator, sending her flying, Moonspider drops from nowhere with a massive kick that staggers Gravis, and Moondancer flings a mystical arrow from an alleyway that blasts Black Nova, ironically, over a black Chevy Nova. Tinker grabs for gadgets, Max flies in, and Rainier leaps mightily into the fray.
The Deviators are surprised, but recover quickly. Dyna Girl flies in after Domin and punches him hard again as he’s laying on the floor, but he punches back immediately with a tremendous blow that sends her through the wall, across the street, and through Emerald Savings and Loan. Tinker flings a bolo that wraps around and shocks Fringe, but he doesn’t seem to feel it, and smiles at her beneath his black, insane eyes. Max joins Nightsable to take out Darkspace, but he lets loose with an explosion of dark psychic energy that brings them both to their knees. Predator does what she does best, and transforms into one of the deadly predator beasts from her home world and goes after Moonspider, and he dodges her long claws, flipping backward and trying to put some space between them. Vortex tries to help, running up and raining punches on her, but she’s quick enough in her current form to throw an elbow and knock him silly, and back about fifteen feet.
Rainier remembers Gravis all too well, and goes after her, but just as he’s on her, she raises a hand and he’s yanked down through the street. Water lines burst and shoot upward from the hole. Moondancer throws another arrow as she runs at Black Nova, nailing him again, and in his rage he fires back wide with his devastating black energy, and a store front explodes out onto the sidewalk. Domin leaps back out and takes in the scene, and starts running for the stunned Max and Nightsable, and, seeing this, Tinker throws a Rembrandt Grenade expertly, and many colors of paint coat his face (and costume) and blind him. Recovering from her blow, Dyna Girl flies back out, sees this, and takes the chance to drop in front of him and start whaling on him with punch after massive punch.
Fringe, a former explorer who journeyed to the fringes of the known universe and found something horrible and dark there that overtook him, leaps through the air lands on Tinker. Pinning her, he locks his hands around her throat and starts sending unfathomable, evil energies into her, and she screams, suddenly close to insanity, as he clenches his teeth in a wicked smile.
Moondancer gets another arrow into Black Nova, but Gravis then waves her hand and all fives stories of Chase Financial collapse behind her. Moondancer flies out of the way just in time. The sound is deafening, and the block is filled with dust clouds, and heroes and villains alike are covered in flying debris. A lucky block of cinder strikes Fringe and knocks him off Tinker, who lays there shaking, feeling a cold she never knew existed.
Still not able to fully see, Domin is taking Dyna’s blows, but needs to regroup. He flies off, with Dyna Girl hot on his tail, yelling after him, wondering if this is the kind of leadership they can expect from the new Earth regime. Rainier makes it through the avalanche of debris falling through the hole at him, and calls into the radio to focus on Gravis, that she’s too dangerous. He runs at her, but she spins around and gestures, and he’s suddenly too heavy to stand, and is forced to kneel before her on one knee and hold himself up with both hands on the street. She tells him to get used to that position. Moondancer drops from the sky with her spear and whacks the villainess over the head, momentarily stunning her, and Rainier leaps up and smacks her, and she hits one car, flips over it, bounces off another and lands on the other side of it. He nods his thanks to Chelsea, but her smile is cut short when Black Nova finally lands a blast and sends her flying. Rainier angrily turns on him, but the villain blasts him, too, sending him off in another direction.
Vortex runs up to Darkspace and wraps a fire hose around him, pinning him, giving Max and Nightsable a chance to recover. The villain tries to unleash his powers on Vortex, who quickly backpeddles at super-speed and somehow stays out of the blast’s way. Max grabs the nozzle of the fire hose and flies down the street as fast as he can, spinning the villain around at tremendous speed. Somehow still standing but dizzy as hell, the dark Deviator staggers, and Nightsable uses one of her father’s patented wrestling moves and flips the villain hard down on his back.
Fringe comes at Tinker again, and she pulls out one of her boomerangs and makes to throw it at him…but while he’s focused on that she kicks him in the face instead. She lands a spinning round kick, too, and then does a leg sweep that drops him to the ground. She then throws the boomerang at Black Nova instead, and it explodes on contact and hurts him a lot. Fringe grabs her ankle and she screams again as she’s flooded with his essence, but Vortex runs by, grabs his ankle, and runs down the street, dragging him, finally releasing him and letting him slam into the front of a parked bus.
Dyna Girl and Domin are having a flying fist fight in the Seattle night sky, each getting angrier with each blow. They’re knocking each other all over the place, and taking out a number of building windows as they do. One of his thunderous punches lands her on top of the Space Needle, and he follows, and they face off up there. Calling her “child”, he tells her he’s overthrown worlds. She tells him she’s been on the cover of Vogue twice, so she’s not impressed. They pound each other in an epic confrontation, and one of his blows finally pounds her through the roof, down into the observation deck, where tourists scream and run for their lives. He lands on the stunned heroine, doing further damage to her, and, with a few taunting words, picks her up and flings her through the observation glass, out across the city.
Moonspider has now seen three forms of Predator, none of them good. Just when he starts to find weak spots in one form, she changes to another. They’re fighting in an alley, away from the others, and his costume has shreds gone from it. He dodges and kicks, flips and punches, avoids some blows but not others. He starts to run away from her, down the alley, and she’s right behind him, but he jumps up and grabs a pipe, as he’d planned, flips all the way around, and kicks her with both feet in the back, sending her into the wall at the alley’s end. He presses his advantage, attacking her, but she gets a shot in and gets to her feet. Quickly she’s on top of him, in a form with massive, dripping fangs, as he’s on his back. She asks, with hot breath in his face, as she prepares to bite his head off, if that’s all he has. He says not quite, and a blast of energy shoots out from his mask, into her face, throwing her back and staggering her. The beast before him grabs at its face, screaming and roaring. He gives it his all, and, with more kicks, he finally takes the beast out.
“Yeah,” he pants. “Now that’s pretty much it.” And he hurries, as best he can, back toward the main combat.
Black Nova has turned on Tinker, who’s still stunned from her encounter with Fringe (who’s currently taking about two hundred punches from Vortex), and he angrily blasts at her with the full force of his power. Nightsable teleports in front of her and opens a portal between her and the villain. His blast goes into it, and comes out another portal she opens right behind him, and he ends up blasting himself. He flies at her, and she catches him in mid-air with a punch that drops him flat to the ground. Tinker glue bombs him to the street, and Nightsable finishes him off with one more punch.
Max is squaring off against Darkspace and has him on the ropes. Rainier runs up and finishes the job by slugging him. Then Gravis jumps up on a car roof and floors both of them with her power, attempting, in her rage, to crush the life out of both of them, and using so much of it that the street around them and buildings on both sides of it are starting to shake. However, a flying mystic tomahawk from Moondancer spins through the air and carves the car Gravis is standing on right down the middle. Losing her balance, the villainess tumbles backward and falls on her alien arse. She jumps right back up, just in time for a spinning kick from Moonspider to spin her around. Before she can recover, Vortex blurs past and nails her with a passing punch. Then Moonspider kicks. Vortex makes another pass and connects. She looks loopy. Finally Moondancer walks up behind Moonspider and just decks her, and she goes down.
And then Domin lands.
He lands on the street with Earth-shaking power, just as Rainier and Max are starting to stand. He says the time for games is over, and he’s now going to kill them all himself, just like he did the little she-whelp they sent after him.
THAT’s enough to get everyone back on the clock.
The whole team charges him, Rainier hammering him first, then getting batted back. Max takes his shot, not believing Holly is dead but letting even the possibility feed his rage. He lands good shots, but, as during their last fight, Domin barely seems to feel it. Moondancer nails him with her magic spear. Nightsable teleports in front of him, screaming, punching the crap out of him. Vortex runs around him, landing a flurry of lightspeed blows. Moonspider soars by, landing a shattering kick. Tinker unleashes almost every toy in her arsenal at him. He’s taking it all.
And then Dyna Girl shouts, “The $#%&’s mine!!!”
She flies into him with a punch that shatters what glass still remains in the storefronts around them. He flies down the street. Nightsable opens a portal behind him, and opens another that sends him right back at Holly, who punches him with the same rage and power again. Again he flies, again Nightsable teleports him, this time in front of Rainier, who gives his all with a blow, too. Then to Max. Then to Moonspider. Then to herself. Then back to Holly. When he’s finally too stunned to stand, they’re all over him, Moondancer nailing him with arrows, the others punching. Tinker yells “Clear!” and the others jump back, and she unleashes the flour bomb on him. As he’s currently gasping for air anyway, he sucks much of it right in his mouth and nose, and now can’t breath (or see). She yells again to stay on him, and more blows hit him. Max unleashes what he calls his “Max Effect”, his telekinetic power blast that takes everything out of him but makes quite an impression, and it does so once more, sending Domin through a broken building. Dyna Girl flies right through after him, landing on him as he lays on his back, grabs the front of his costume with one hand, and then starts punching with the other. She punches and punches, and he’s now far gone. Rainier finally walks up behind her and says, “Holly? I think you got him.” Panting, still holding his costume, she looks down at him, then back up at Rainier. Rainier looks down appraisingly at the unconscious Domin and says, “Well, it never hurts to be sure.” So Dyna starts punching again.
Police cars, UNCLE vans, fire trucks and ambulances swarm the scene, as do local media. The team binds up the villains and gathers them, and some of the heroes are getting treated for their own wounds, as the STRIKE team from UNCLE prepares to get the cosmic villains to Pocantico Point ASAP. Nightsable hugs Dyna Girl desperately and tells her she’d better not ever die on her. Vortex starts clearing debris at super-speed to help the emergency vehicles get through. Max is answering questions for the reporters, getting that out of the way so he can get back to helping the team.
Suddenly a bright portal opens above them, and colorful heroes from another galaxy float down. The Realmwatch—including leader Galaxia, and fellow members Meta4, Blue Victor, Traveler, Sun Kin, Chosen and Legionon—are clearly impressed, and greet Tinker, Max and Rainier again, and get introduced to their new friends. They explain that the Deviators escaped during transport to a new, more secure Realm prison colony, and must have somehow discovered how to recreate the incident that brought them to Earth the first time. It wasn’t until the escape was discovered that Traveler was able to put together what happened, and the Realmwatch rushed to Earth to help their star-crossed friends once more. This time, though, it appears that they didn’t need help after all.
“Oh, yeah,” Moonspider says, getting slashes on his chest bandaged. “No worries. Piece of cake.”
The Realmwatch tell them that once again, the Realm Empire is in their debt, and they’ve captured the most notorious conquerors of their quadrant. The Realmsovereign, especially, will be pleased, as he was quite taken with tales of these otherworldly heroes the last time. After this, Galaxia suspects that a Realmship of the battle fleet may well take on the name “The Forte”. Dyna Girl reminds them, "That's 'Forte'...no 'Y'. Make sure you spell it right." Rainier thanks them for the honor, and hopes that one day they’ll have a chance to visit and get to know their people, and foster a kinship, perhaps, between their two galaxies. Galaxia feels there’s a very good chance of that indeed.
As UNCLE has no doubts about their jurisdiction, Captain McNeal happily lets the ‘Watch take their villains back. Traveler, the young woman quite taken with Seahawk on the last meeting, asks where he is. “Oh, the waterfowl?” Tinker says. “Sorry. You’ll have to look him up next time.”
The alien friends disappear through their portal, and the assembled crowds
of Seattleites, who’ve learned to take things like alien visitors
in stride, simply line up to cheer their beloved heroes, Forte, once more.
