dancing manikins
To infiltrate Fu Manchu's lair the Heroes For Hire devised a plan, utilizing Hiram's connection to the villain and Kingpin's intel. There would be two teams involved. The first team, the steathl squad, would be Hawkeye, Mockingbird, Black Widow, and Moon Knight.
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After one final warning against the danger of entering the Celestial One's hideout, Hiram Jones sealed the lids of the crates the stealth squad hid inside, and closed the cargo door of the truck.
They heard him start the engine, and carefully drive the truck out of the basement parking garage at Roxxon plaza. As he told them they would, no guards questioned Hiram. Apparently their bribes were satisfying.
After a half-hour ride in the crates, they felt Hiram pull to a stop. He switched off the engine. They could barely hear his muffled voice. "We are at the drop-off point," He said. "In a moment, Fu Manchu's men will come and drive the truck to their hideout. I'm supposed to leave and take a cab back to Roxxon. Good luck!" the driver's door is opened and closed. Hiram was gone.
After a few moments, the door opens and closes again. The engine starts and they were on their way.
The hideout was nearby, for their ride lasted only about 10 minutes. The truck stopped and the cargo door opened.
A muffled voice said, "get that forklift over here! Let's get these boxes inside before someone comes along! The Celestial One will have no mistakes!"
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The second Team was a decoy team, designed to create a distraction while the stealth squad rode their Trojan Horse into the building. Ahead of Iron Fist, Daredevil, and Shang-Chi was the lifelike manikin factory. The streets were quiet. Nobody was around.
That end of the building was surrounded by a loading dock, complete with a row of large sliding doors. 20 men worked unloading a truck into the factory. Daredevil took it upon himself to start a fight with the gathered goons.
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From inside the boxes, the stealth squad hears the workers run away, while muttering something about 'masked freaks'.
Sneaking out of the crates they saw sticking out of the crates were various manikin limbs--arms, legs, torsos. Other manikins dangled from the ceiling, or stood quietly in the shadows. The place was eerie, like some sort of menagerie. In the floor in the center of the room was a steel plate, and it was obviously a trapdoor. Hanging from a frayed cord above the steel trapdoor was a single lightbulb. It was the only source of illumination in the factory.
The steel door was sealed. Fixed to a wooden pillar next to the trapdoor was what appeared to be a beat-up fuse box. Inside was the control panel for the electromagnetic lock that sealed the door, and required a user to input a password to be opened. When Black Widow uses her electrified stingers to short-circuit the locking mechanism, a cargo elevator immediately rose up to greet them. It was simply a steel-mesh cage with a control panel that had two buttons. Up and down.
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Creaking and groaning, the cargo elevator descended deep beneath the manikin factory. After a minute or two it shuttered to a stop.
They were then in the workshop of a mad man. Strange machinery filled the place. Computer consoles blinked, chriped, and spilled out data. Human body parts and other grotesque specimen floated in jars on shelves.
Standing in the middle of the laboratory was a teenage boy. Obviously frightened, he was clutching a water hose in his hand. The hose was connected to some strange and exotic machinery, byt the nozzle was pointed directly at them.
"Stay away from me!" yelled the boy. "I don't want to, but i will blast you if you come closer."
The frightened boy was Cameron Seavers. He feared the Heroes For Hire had come to place him in jail for helping Fu Manchu. Cameron also thought that Fu Manchu would kill his family if he allowed the heroes to interfere. Thus, he was emotionally torn between killing the heroes and pleading for the help and mercy. The weapon Cameron held was an unstable device capable of spraying a stream of eldritch energy at its target.
"I'm sorry," Cameron cries. "He says he'll kill my family if i don't kill you…"
"Nobody is gonna be killing anyone, Cameron. Your family misses you. We know you are being blackmailed, but we won't allow him to harm you." Moon Knight stated.
Instead of firing, Cameron dropped the nozzle of his weapon and pleaded for the heroes to forgive him.
"Where is Fu Manchu?" Black Widow asked.
"He left several hours ago," Cameron explains. "You have to stop him before he detonates the bombs!"
"What bombs?" Mockingbird quickly asked.
"Fu Manchu was using me to create five explosive devices called 'Spirit Bombs'."
"Spirit Bombs?" Mockingbird asked.
"When these explosives detonate, it releases an initial wave of force, causing all people and objects within a mile of the blast radius to sustain damage. Then, a black interdimensional portal a meter in diameter forms on the spot where the bomb is detonated. Every 30 seconds the diameter of this portal will double in size. The growing black portal is a Techno-magical gateway between our Earth's dimension and what Fu Manchu referred to as the Nether Realm. A place where the souls of horribly evil beings suffer in eternal agony and torment.
"Any sentient beings who come into contact with the portal would have their soul immediately transported to the Nether Realm. The gateway does not affect animals, robotics, or objects however. If one of these bombs were to be detonated on the street, for example, any cars or buildings near the portal would not be sucked through. They will simply appear to be standing in an area of constantly shifting darkness. Any people inside the cars or buildings would be drawn through the gateway though."
"Where are these bombs being set?" Hawkeye asked.
Cameron took the Heroes to a map of Manhattan located on the back wall of the laboratory, he pointed to four blinking lights. "There is one at the Bronx Zoo." said a worried Cameron. "Another is in the sewer near the corner of 1st and 42nd street. I think that's near the United Nations building, their access is a manhole cover nearby.
"The 3rd is somewhere inside the Coney Island Amusement Park."
Cameron points to the last blinking light, "And the 4th is at the top of the statue of Liberty."
"Where's the 5th bomb?" Moon Knight recalled.
"Fu Manchu carries it with him," Cameron nervously explicated. "I don't know where he plans to put it."
"What do these Spirit Bombs look like, and how do we disarm it?" Moon Knight asked.
there was a model of the Spirit bomb prototypes in the lab. Cameron took the heroes to it, and tried to educate them on disarming eldritch explosives. They were shaped like shiny metal discs, about one foot in diameter and 3 inches thick. They resembled giant coins. On each side of the Spirit bomb was a flashing red light. Except for the lights, the devices were totally featureless, having no apparent seams or openings to the internal components. Actually, the entire top half could be removed, but the seam so small as to be imperceptible to the naked eye. To do so, one simply pushed in one of the red lights and slowly twisted. This allowed the top to screw off, and reveal the inner workings of the bomb. Inside the bomb was a confusion of colored wires, blinking lights, and tiny glass bubbles filled with strange gases and liquids. The workings of the bomb are bewildering and seem to flagrantly disobey the common laws of physics.
Cameron revealed that ultimately, Fu Manchu hoped that the infinite mystical energies of the Nether Realm would swiftly swirl through the portals and consume the Earth, making it a spirit world similar to that of the Nether Realm. When the Earth was altered, and he achieved the apex of his power, Fu Manchu planned to name himself its Eldritch ruler--The Celestial King.
At this point, Cameron suffered the worst Asthma attack of his young life. Clawing at his throat and struggling to breathe, he slumped to the floor at the Heroes' feet. Moon Knight quickly retrieved the boy's aspirator and helped him quickly recover after inhaling the medicine.
Before they sneak out, Cameron gives the heroes a small metal and plastic device shaped like a football. "I made this in my spare time, when Fu Manchu wasn't looking." said Cameron. "If a Spirit Bomb is detonated and explodes, you can throw this into the portal. The gateway between dimensions will be forced closed...i think. I only made the one. It took me several days."