cops and thugs
Masks: Heartland Justice, 2025-03-06
Miyagi at the AEGIS hospital
Clarke awoke to find his mentor, Miyagi, sitting at his hospital bedside, a small leather-bound book in his lap. He put it away as they started talking, but Clarke asked about it and Miyagi showed it to him. A geometrical pattern was on the cover. Inside it wasn't typeset but like a medieval manuscript, as many diagrams, generally abstract shapes, as text. It naturally fell open to a page with the heading, "Healing." Then Miyagi said he should alert the nurse and call Clarke's parents. He took the book back and left the room.
accident on I-55
After dropping Miles off to run back to the city, Lizzy drove Abed, Diego, and Rayburn away from the McCook Reservoir. She drove with two feet, as she does, but with added urgency. Speeding, changing lanes, occasionally riding the shoulder to get ahead.
Suddenly, just as they passed under the 171 overpass, the van was rocked by a collision. A massive impact to the right rear of the Lightning medical van jacked it up and sent it spinning. Another car struck the van from behind. The heroes weathered the powerful blow. Rayburn, still unconscious, was knocked about, but strapped in and not massively injured.
Then just as the van came to a halt, the roof peeled back like a sardine can. A thug wearing a robotic exoskeleton on each arm and across his chest leapt at Diego. They traded blows, and enraged, the thug tore out a van seat and smashed it into the side of the van. Abed mangled the exoskeleton, and the thug immediately became terrified. After all, he was now just a guy picking a fight with superheroes.
under arrest
Back at the hospital, Clarke waited a long time. He distracted himself by flexing and stretching his human hand. Getting used to this arm. The human arm was just as strong as the bare bear arm.
Just then, the door to his room banged open, and AEGIS agents flooded in. A suit flashed a badge. Agents in riot gear flanked him. Another suit behind them manhandled Miyagi with one arm and held Miyagi's book in the other. The first suit told Clarke he was under arrest and ordered him to surrender.
Clarke and Miyagi shared a meaningful glance. Then Clarke charged through the window/wall of his hospital room, landed on a roof below, jumped to the ground, and ran.
pileup on I-55
Lizzy had gotten out of the van to help the bystanders and organize them to call 911 and slow oncoming traffic and tend to the wounded. Meanwhile, Diego tried to escort the disarmed thug out of the van. But it was awkward in the confined space and the thug put Rayburn between himself and Diego and Abed.
Just then, the van rocked front to back. Another thug had slammed exoskeleton-powered fists into the van's hood. The back doors of the van were ripped off by a third thug. As the first pushed past the third to escape, the third clocked him in the head and sent him sprawling out of sight. Then the third grabbed Rayburn's gurney and yanked, but Diego grabbed hold. As they tussled over Rayburn, the second thug crashed through the windshield, grabbed Abed by the neck, and threw him out of the van.
But Abed just used his powers of flight and hovered there, menacingly. He saw Lizzy pulling people from a burning car, traffic from behind slowing going around the accident. When the third thug tried again to pull Rayburn out of the van, Abed--intending to create a small EMP burst to disable the thug's exoskeleton--instead dropped an EMP bomb that stalled cars across all six lanes of traffic. The accident and backup on a couple eastbound lanes became a pileup across the entire Stevenson Expressway.
at the Lightning safehouse
Clarke had a think in the safety of the Lightning safehouse. He wanted to find his friends but had left his phone behind at the hospital. He considered logging into the AEGIS system and messaging them. But he didn't, afraid that AEGIS could pinpoint his location. Instead, he took a look around, trying to find an alternative way to locate his friends and the fastest way to reunite with them. He noticed the garage was empty and a set of keys missing. He figured they had taken a Lightning vehicle and that he could locate it using Lightning systems. He scrounged around in an office until he found a tablet and opened the "Find My Van" app. There they were, on I-55, west of Midway Airport.
One vehicle was left in the Lightning garage: a cafe racer. He duck-taped the tablet to the bike and fat-bear-on-a-tiny-biked it out of the city.
Matchbox 55
Thug two put Diego in a full nelson, as thug three tossed Rayburn and his gurney out of the back of the van and wound up to deliver Diego a knockout blow. Abed dropped between that thug and Diego and took the hit for him, yet again weathering the blow.
Then Diego headbutted thug two and twisted out of the nelson hold. Insecure, the thug doubled down and tried the full nelson again, but Diego picked him up and threw him through the windshield, over another car, and out of sight.
Meanwhile, Abed awed thug three into submission by shrinking the van down to the size of a Matchbox car. Abed ordered him to remove the exoskeleton and he complied.
"Where did you get the exoskeletons?" Abed demanded.
"Skum Tech," the thug admitted.
"How many of these do they have?"
"I don't know."
"Do you work for them or did they hire you?"
"They hired us."
"Why did you attack us?"
"They told us to. That was the job."
into the woods
Clarke had to split lanes to reach the others. By that time, rubberneckers were recording the fight. Sirens were approaching. Clarke was pissed. Actually mostly feeling guilty for abandoning Miyagi.
When he saw Abed and Diego talking to the disarmed thug, he made to piledrive him into the interstate. But Abed stepped into protect the thug, clocking Clarke in the face. Instead, Clarke threw a car. There were shouts and screams from bystanders.
Hearing about Clarke's day and wanting to avoid a confrontation with authorities, the heroes left the thugs, took Rayburn, and fled into the Ottowa Trail Woods north of the expressway.
Rayburn was still unconscious. He seemed to have been drugged by his captors. He had new scrapes and bruises from the accident and fight but otherwise seemed okay.
The team comforted each other. Diego told Abed that this was their calling and no one said it would be easy, but they were doing what they were supposed to be doing. This calmed Abed down but he still felt a need for his Imam, a relationship he'd have to build from scratch now.
There was no consoling Clarke in his guilt for abandoning Miyagi. He readied himself to make an atoning sacrifice. The team resolved to find Miyagi next and to take Rayburn to Loyola Hospital on the way.
What was Miyagi's book with its instructions for healing?