Outside the converted school building, our heroes made their way towards the parking lot, where the vans that had brought them in still rested.  Frosty footballer, Daniel Worthington headed straight for one van, getting it opened and started up, while [Pokemon #002, Ivysaur] loaded the comatose Marcus Weatherby into the back.  A single advanced Sector Seven agent made it into the lot, and nearly defeated [the sewer-dwelling Man-Thing] with a taser gun.  However, the advance agent was quickly engaged by the debris-dwelling duo of Tony Moranski and Scraps.  A fierce battle ensued; one that ended with Moranski falling before the agent's superior skills.

Luckily, Daniel had gotten the van situation taken care of, and was on-hand to load Tony into the back.  Everybody was ready to escape, save for the waddling Walter, still invisibly huffing and puffing his way across the parking lot.  Just before the portly Perkins could heave himself into the van, the Sector Seven agent tried to climb in the passenger door.  One ice-encrusted fist from Daniel knocked him cold.  Walter finally rejoined the others, and they were off!

After locating and disposing of a tracking device, the escapees quickly agreed that they should transport their loved ones to Walter's house, which, reputedly, was nigh-impregnable.  On the way there, Daniel spotted that they were being followed, but a pursuing car finally proved to be a big enough target for Walter's teleportation powers.  Lacking a front tire, their pursuer quickly gave up the chase.

Arriving at Daniel's house, the quintet found an agent already waiting outside.  After a bit of Marcus' mind control, they had the agent restrained for an interview.  He was Agent Smith, and claimed to be with the real NSA.  After a bit of back-and-forth, our heroes agreed to trust Smith, who arranged for everybody under their surveillance to be transported to Walter's house.  Once there, the discussion continued.

The NSA knew of Sector Seven, and needed the five super-powered people out of the way for a while in order to pressure the group to leave town.  Nobody could really turn down a travel-expenses-paid trip to anywhere that they desired, so the quintet agreed.  At Walter's insistence, they were bound for a month's vacation in Japan.

What followed was a month of sight-seeing, experimentation with their new abilities, and discussions on their futures.  The five men came to the decision to use their powers for good as costumed heroes.  Upon returning to the States, they began preparations to do just that...

Dawning of a New Age (5/27/09)

The next week was one of changes, of planning, and of anticipation for Greg, Walter, Tony and Daniel.  For Marcus, it was one of lying in a coma.  The four would-be heroes procured costumes, each revealing something of their character by doing so.  Daniel simply bought the pieces for his at a sporting goods store, ex-soldier Greg put his together at an army surplus, Tony assembled his at the junkyard, and Walter ordered his online.  While all of this was going on, Walter purchased body armor for everybody, while Greg and Tony came up with communications gear and a police scanner.

Before their debut, Walter wanted no surprises left in their headquarters (his own home, having gotten his parents to move out), so the search began for the body of Eric Applebee, whose spirit was allegedly haunting the building.  In the basement, under the carpet, a fallout shelter was discovered, inside which the corpse was located.  One pair of corpse-handling gloves later, and our heroes had a secure location for their most secret heroic meetings.

From there, it was finally time for a public debut.  Walter, Daniel, and Tony drove around in Walter's car, listening to the police scanner, while Greg soared above the rooftops, simply keeping an eye out.  Rather than a crime, they first came across a bad car accident.  The newly-minted heroes wasted no time in wading into the thick of it, pulling people out of their mangled vehicles.  Tony caused something of a scene when he used his gruesome healing power to save a dying woman, and, job done, the four were off.

Events began to snowball, as the police scanner reported a bank robbery at the same moment that Greg spotted a mugging.  The car headed for the bank, while Greg's ariel assault made short work of the mugger.

Walter invisibly scouted the situation at the bank, where a trio of criminals were holding hostages.  Using his object teleportation powers, Walter unlocked the front doors, and then set about disarming the thugs.  At that signal, Daniel, Tony, and Scraps charged in to the fray.  One villain went down quickly, but a second got locked into a struggle with Scraps, and the third actually seemed to know what he was doing in a melee against Tony Moranski.  It seemed that the stalemate would soon be broken to the advantage of the criminals, until Greg made the scene.  With their full force on-hand, the bank robbers were routed and turned over to the police, where our heroes faced their greatest test yet: the consequences of their public debut...

Excerpt from the Beckwith Chronicle dated 6 June, 2009:

Pandemonium at the Press Conference!

by Jerry Jenkins

Their debut, which started as viral videos on the Internet, had escalated into a full-blown pandemic with their thwarting of a bank robbery.  They are the first super-powered individuals to appear in over 60 years.  They are Patriot, the high-flying front man, Cobalt, of the fleet and frozen feet, the man-mountain Heap and his canine companion Stack, and the invisible Great Unwashed.  At a press conference outside police headquarters, in front of the Mayor of Beckwith, and the assembled members of the press and local law enforcement, they announced themselves publicly for the first time as the Guardians.  Patriot turned the floor over to questions, and, instead, found hot lead.

An unidentified sniper opened fire on the gathered heroes, hitting his mark and proving without a doubt that the Patriot's helmet is more than just costuming.  As civilians scattered, the military man went down hard and was swiftly attended to by Heap.  Yet more blood and gore began pouring out from under the damaged helmet, as Heap seemed to employ the disturbing healing ability that is becoming his trademark.  This reporter witnessed Cobalt selflessly get the Mayor to safety before turning his attention to the gunman who was still taking shots at the Guardians.

The ice man seemed to spot the attacker on a rooftop some three blocks distant, and began to make his way there, and his journey was hastened when the team's fantastic Aqua-Car, occupied only by Stack, seemingly drove itself over to pick him up and drop him off outside the building.  Heap and a recovering Patriot took cover from the ongoing sniper fire, while Cobalt and Stack ascended the fire escape.  No first-hand reports of what occurred on that rooftop have surfaced, but the gunfire let up, and the remaining Guardians seemed to receive word that the would-be assassin had been apprehended.

More on this story as it develops.

Enter: The Brotherhood of Pure Evil! (7/7/09)

With the would-be assassin turned over to police custody, the Guardians went their own ways.  Of note, the Patriot went to the hospital, for he was suffering the after-effects of several adrenaline shots.  Upon being discharged, he learned that there had been another shooting... within the hospital!  Not only that, it seemed to have taken place in the long-term care ward.  Immediately fearing for the safety of Marcus Weatherby, their comatose comerade, Patriot sent out the call: Guardians, Gather!

The Great Unwashed and Heap arrived on-scene soon thereafter.  Cobalt was nowhere to be found, but local high-school athlete and legal guardian to Marcus, Daniel Worthington, was also in attendence.  After some questioning and some deduction, the scene became clear: another assassin had infiltrated Marcus' room and was attempting to tamper with his life-support machinery.  Marcus inhabited the body of a nurse and issued the assassin away, but he returned, killing the nurse and a doctor.  Ultimately, Marcus took control of the killer, and forced him to commit suicide.  Astonishingly, the shock of inhabiting a dying mind caused Marcus to awaken from his coma!

Both assassins of the day were outfitted similarly, and both bore a tattoo featuring a winged sword thrust through the planet, and the letters "BPE."  With some leads to go on, the Great Unwashed returned to headquarters to begin researching.  Our heroes came to learn that the gunman they had captured had ingested a suicide pill shortly thereafter, so there would be no questioning to be done.  With police permission, the Guardians investigated the apartment of one of their attackers.  There, they uncovered information about the Brotherhood of Pure Earth, an anti-metahuman cult that had been around since before World War II.  Shockingly, they also discovered the existance and subsequent termination of other super-powered individuals in the time after the war.  Somebody had given instructions to these two Brotherhood agents to wipe out the four of them and Marcus.  The plot has thickened, and enemies abound.  What does the future hold for our heroes?  There's only one way to find out...

Daydreams, B-Leavers.  (7/21/09)

In the days that followed, the Guardians began a cat-and-mouse game with the Beckwith criminal element.  The criminals started setting up spotters, and commiting their crimes only when the heroes were spotted in another part of the city.  In response, the Guardians split their forces, having one or two members visible in one area, while the others covertly responded to trouble calls elsewhere.  Crime in the city steadily declines...

The FBI sought words with our heroes, and so a meeting was set up at the local police station.  For the most part, the Bureau only wanted to protect public safety, and ensure that none of the Guardians, or their powers, presented a risk.  Over several days, their powers were tested for harmful side effects, and none were found.  Following an atmospheric hydration test of Cobalt's powers at a cigar shop, a small child mutely presented them with a drawing of a head floating in a jar.  A man accompanying the child gave them the cryptic message: "he lives.  Rescue him."

Naturally, there was some debate at the Guar-dome over this encounter.  The Great Unwashed brushed it off, but the others seemed inclined to follow up.  A second encounter brought them more information - the child lived at a honey farm owned by his parents.  Cobalt, Heap and the Magnificent Marcus Weatherby decided to check it out while the others remained to protect the city.

At the farm, they learned that the child was something of a savant, having great skill with drawing, but unwilling (or unable) to speak.  Many of his drawings struck chords with the Guardians, seeming to depict scenes from their own pasts.  An interview with the man who had been with the boy that day bore this out: both he and the child allegedly had low-level powers.  The man was a member of the B-Leaver movement, and claimed that the drawing was of Mr. Miracles.  He presented the heroes with several more pictures in the 'series,' which might give them clues about the location.

After some investigation, the most likely location was agreed upon, and the Guardians set out in their secret identities for a ruined town in the middle of nowhere.  Once there, they found what looked like a recent, and very well-made grate over a steam tunnel, and spent a good deal of time and effort breaching it.  Inside, they found an increasingly-well-maintained underground complex.  After finding a secret switch to take a rickety elevator to a hidden underground level, they were confronted by - and swiftly overpowered - a pair of guards bearing NSA ID.  Hoping that this was a Sector 7 hideout, rather than a government facility, they continued on.  Rounding a corner, they found a lab, which contained a decomposing head floating in a jar of liquid.  The eyes open to look at them...

Tune in next time for the next exciting chapter!

The Miracle Rebirth (8/4/09)

Although very few photographs of Mr. Miracles exist, the Guardians didn't doubt that the head that they had located was his.  It also soon became apparent that Mr. Miracles was attempting to communicate with them on some level, as the mentalist, Marcus Weatherby, reported hearing music that none of the others could detect.  While Marcus worked on the communication puzzle, the others searched the lab.  They discovered that the liquid in the jar was a mix of nutrients to keep the head "alive," and an acid to keep dissolving bits of it.  Six man-sized tanks in the room and some files that the Great Unwashed located brought them to the conclusion that the "Miracle run-off" had been used to attempt to grant superhuman abilities to at least six test subjects.

With the help of a swarm of ants, an iPhone keyboard app, and the Great Unwashed's computer acumen, communication with the head was established.  Mr. Miracles needed the heroes to recover one of many bodies that he had used insects to create over the years.  The closest one, it seemed, was hidden at the honey farm that had first set the Guardians on this path.  Head in hand, they made their way out.

Upon reaching open air, they were attacked by a batallion of armed guards.  It seemed that our heroes were overmatched, until, again, Marcus Weatherby's mental powers proved decisive.  He mentally controlled the squad leader, and gave the order to let the Guardians leave unimpeded.  That simply, the escape was made.

Cobalt and Heap went to search the honey farm, where they found the boy ready to lead them somewhere.  Their destination was a sink hole connected to an enormous honey-combed cave.  In the center, composed entirely of beeswax, was an anatomically-accurate statue of a headless human male.  A quick call to the other Guardians had the entire team assembled, and the head was placed on the body.

Over a period of several minutes, flesh crept into the body and wax crawled over the face.  Finally, it seemed that the two parts had merged, and Mr. Miracles lived again.

After many "welcome backs" and "thank yous," Mr. Miracles offered to use the facility he had been imprisoned in to boost the powers of the Guardians.  None of our heroes were about to turn down that offer, and, one quick teleport later, they were ready to climb into the man-sized tanks to be immersed in goo.  Mr. Miracles, meanwhile, used the time to take retribution on the facility guards, and acclimate himself to the modern world.

The next few days saw some more discussion between the World's Greatest Hero and the World's Greatest Super-Team, primarially about Mr. Miracles' plans, and the Great Unwashed's questioning of Miracles' methods.  Then, it was time for the public re-debut, and the Miracle Conference.

No matter where things go from here, one thing is clear: the world of tomorrow will be much different than the world of today...