A Distant Deadly Threat

Wow, I certainly did not have much time to relax after last Sunday. Before dawn on Monday, I received a call from a contact I have at the government authorized extradimensional transportation company where Emperyl and I went just the day before. My first thought was that they found out what we did and that we were about to be in trouble up to our knees.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that my contact was actually calling to report a scoop on another alien attack coming from the very dimension we had just visited. Obviously, after the Rikti War, any prospect of an alien attack is unraveling, so I had to investigate.

Unfortunately, although I was ready to answer the call to action, I was ill-prepared to take on this mission. I called up King Skippus, who you may remember from my column a few weeks ago, and I outfitted him with an AV relay bug so that I could monitor the situation. Calin Blackrose, Miss Debutante, Nuadu, Kritikal Mass, The Fearless Feline; they all answered the call immediately. It was such a desperate situation, I even recruited some mercenaries that I normally try to avoid because of the nature of their personality, which tends to be somewhat--how shall I say it?--volatile. Still the team needed the help, so after some long negotiations, The Toxic Roach and Psycho Punk went along as well.

And so Team Heisenberg was formed, named both because of the principles used that enable extradimensional travel and because of the uncertain nature of what they might encounter.

What they did encounter was astounding. It seems that Crey has been testing dimensional travel and had inadvertently unleashed all sorts of trouble. What kind of trouble? The kind that makes Paragon City's toughest street thugs look like jaywalkers. The kind that could have multiplied the Rikti War many times over, devastating what is left of Paragon City and spreading throughout the world. The company (which I am not allowed to name here) that provides extradimensional transportation services for the government only discovered this when they received reports that scientists went missing, scientists of whom they had no account.

During the course of investigation into this mystery, Team Heisenberg discovered that Crey's secret experiments had gotten out of hand, enabling highly dangerous creatures from another dimension to travel back through their portals. These creatures had the goal of attacking Earth, and after the Rikti War, there might have been little to stop them from completely destroying humanity.

Team Heisenberg, with a mere eight people, were miraculously able to stop this invasion by shutting down the rogue Crey portals. However, their efforts did not come without a cost. During one of the missions, The Fearless Feline fell through one of Crey's experimental portals and was lost to an unknown dimension. In the remote dimension (dubbed "The Shadow Shard" by scientists investigating the place), Kritikal Mass was severely injured when the new medical teleportation grid there failed. Psycho Punk got a call from one of his "employers" and had to leave the Shard. The Toxic Roach's arm was impaled on a spike hurled by one of the strange creatures and it had to be amputated. Even King Skippus suffered from a mental "blackening," as he put it, caused by one of the creatures, and has yet to regain some of his powers. The medical teleportation grid in Paragon City also worked overtime in the final battles. The only member of Team Heisenberg that made it through the entire ordeal without suffering major injuries was Miss Debutante, a remarkable woman who somehow managed to dispatch the creatures with a poise and grace that was unbelievable. I was initally worried that her reputation as socialite would make her soft in battle, but she clearly has skills that earn her a high place in society and among the city's most respected heroes.

After two days of intense investigation and raging battles, Team Heisenberg was able to effectively destroy Crey's extradimensional travel program and stop a second otherworldly invasion. One very bright spot in this story is that The Toxic Roach called me yesterday. He discovered that one of his powers appears to be regeneration, and his arm has started to grow back. He said that faced with the prospect of the entire Earth being destroyed, he now realizes the importance of the work that heroes do. He said that he will now work with other heroes and be more conscientious about the paid mercenary work he undertakes. I think that before long, he will have the reputation of being one of Paragon City's finest heroes.

As for Team Heisenberg, they said that they would probably keep in contact with each other, perhaps even working on more missions as a team. This is very promising to the city, which can certainly use powerful heroes of this caliber working together.

Updates: I have received some very recent updates since originally writing this article. Due to the pressing deadline, I have included them here instead of rewriting entire sections of this column.

First, the great news. Scientists tracked down The Fearless Feline to a previously unknown dimension and have verified that she has been lonely, but is otherwise unharmed. They assure me that she will be fighting crime again in Paragon City very soon.

Now, the bad news. Late yesterday afternoon, Crey finally responded to calls about their involvement in this debacle. They claim that the parties involved in the illegal extradimensional travel were actually employees of a parallel dimension's Crey, in which the company does not have the responsible and ethical standards of Crey here in Paragon City. Crey also claims that the equipment that was destroyed by Team Heisenberg was not dimensional gateway equipment, but was in fact equipment used in research of a cure for AIDS. Lawyers representing the company have filed a lawsuit against the members of Team Heisenberg seeking monetary damages. I still have to wonder, though: If the Crey of this dimension were not engaged in extradimensional travel research, how did these creatures end up in our dimension instead of the parallel dimension?

Toño "News Man" Vasquez