The Vanguard - History, part 1

Several strangers, waking up in hospital, no memory of how they got there nor what happened to them. After waking from a week long come they get back to their lives, and soon things are back to normal.

Or are they?

Over the coming days they discover things about themselves... strange new powers and abilities! For reasons (as yet) unknown, the individuals now have superhuman powers and abilities, much like others in the United Kingdom and around the world... And they'll need to use them sooner than they might like...

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Elsewhere, a villainous superhuman masquerades as Britains' most powerful metahuman, Adjutant. After finally being brought to justice after a destructive rampage, the public is appalled and shocked, and the outcry is enormous. It becomes clear that these 'modern gods' cannot be allowed to go around unchecked any more, allowed to police themselves. In order to restore public confidence Adjutant is the first to unmask in the glare of TV and Newspaper Cameras and renounces his public identity as Albert Watkins, committing to a life of serving the public trust as Adjutant, the first of the UKChampions, the state sponsored superhero group. Other join him, and a new elite organisation rises in from the ashes of DICE to police metahumans, both villainous and unregistered. They are the Strategic Metahuman International Terrorism Elimination group, or SMITE, and their heavy handed methods initially gain results and public support. Only later does it become clear they do as much harm as good!

Meanwhile the 'awoken' individuals, having come out of their comas and donned costumes to conceal their identities and fight an ever rising tide of crime and injustice, come across each other, discover their common origin, and band together as the Vanguard! Together with notorious vigilante Nowhere Man, former Executive (former state sponsored heroes themselves, mostly retired for the last 10 years) members Steeplejack, Ghost Knight, Wandafar and British Bulldog, along with another vigilante, Yeoman form the Vanguard, working from Nowhere Mans base in a sleepy Welsh village called Caer Alwyn (once home to Nowhere Mans former group, the Lore Knights).

Further revelations are made apparent - Nowhere Man had encountered in his travels an extra-dimensional race calling themselves the Shadow Demons. They seek to rule our reality by subverting the psyche of the free people of the United Kingdom, creating misery, strife, anarchy and terror in the background and finally, choosing their moment to strike! Should Britain, the nexus of mystical ley lines in the world, fall, the Earth will not be far behind, and from there, the Shadows will darken across the Universe! Nowhere Man reveals that it was he who inadvertently alerted the Shadow Demons to the existence of our dimension, back when he was the Lore Knight Wraith. The combined forces of the Executive and the Lore Knights defeated an ill planned invasion by the Shadow Demons, at high cost. Wraith was expelled from the Lore Knights in disgrace, his powers stripped from him.

Seeking a way to save his dead fiancé and their unborn child, murdered by criminals, James Caldwell (Wraith) made a pact with one of the exiled lords of the Shadow Demons and became Nowhere Man. He used his new, vast powers to reality hop, trying to find a reality in which his lover was alive. Finally, he realised his 'hopping' was weakening the fabric of space/time and settled in the current reality, but not before having seen the threat the Shadow Demons posed... and so he set things in motion...

The Awoken were chosen, hand picked from other realities and transplanted in this one. Besides their superhuman powers they also have the 'Dark Power' inside, a vast and near limitless ability that may yet overwhelm the wielder!

Continued in part 2...

As the 'Awoken', currently Frostbite, Stormwarden and Darkshadow, get to grips not just with their own powers, juggling a crime fighting career with real life issues, and the ominous Dark Power inside of them, the Vanguards benefactor, the retired superhuman Ghost Knight (Justin St Johns) has problems of his own. Frostbite is the victim of a psychic attack that steals certain details from his mind. The attacks are traced back to a SMITE base at an innocuous looking stately Home. There it transpires SMITE are using criminals as weapons, and more than that - they are kidnapping superhuman children to raise as a new generation of superhuman foot soldiers!

And behind all of that, the Shadow Demons, spreading lies, deceit and weaving plans within plans to steal the children out from under SMITEs nose! It's here when the Vanguard finally call on their inner powers to save the children and face off against the UKChampions who turn up belatedly. A stand off is averted after an exhausted Nowhere Man is slain by a SMITE superhuman recruit, Blunderbuss. Adjutant allows the Vanguard to leave and the UKChampions ensure an investigation is launched into SMITEs illegal activities.

As the Vanguard make good their escape, one of the UKChampions is revealed to be a Shadow Demon agent. Who that is is still a mystery...

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Still dealing with the loss of their mentor and guide, the Vanguard fight on. They are called on, individually, to stop a series of seemingly unconnected crimes across London involving ancient relics, jewels and what turns out to be a cloning facility masquerading as a legitimate business. Also discovered is a manufacturing plant for a drug which animates the dead, making the deceased rise to prey on the living! As the Vanguard head to investigate this sinister factory, elsewhere a deadly organisation puts its grand plan into effect.

Using the artefacts from the previous days raids, and calling on the power of a dark coven of mystical criminals, a door is opened from the present into the past! The Organisation, having planned this for years, is ready to move through the gate at Stonehenge to emerge in the past! They alter time, and Germany wins the second World War, plunging Europe into a new age of darkness as the Nazis rule with an iron fist!

Only three people are unaffected - Frostbite, Stormwarden and Darkshadow! Quickly discovering that the world has changed dramatically, the heroes side with an underground movement, discovering that many of the people they knew as heroes in their own time are heroes of the resistance here, including many former members of the Executive and the Lore Knights! Another new arrival, from the future, a man known as Lionheart (once one of the Executive himself) arrives chasing a rogue agent, Saladin but it's not long after that the resistance and the Vanguard are betrayed by a resistance fighter, and the Nazis launch an all out attack on the rebel base!

Frostbite, Darkshadow and James Caldwell (known as Wraith/Nowhere Man in other realities) attempt to gain access to the Nazis central computer database to gain information needed to defeat Adjutant and free a man - the White Warlock - from a detention camp. This man was the UKs premier mystic in many other realities. In this one he's regarded as a mad man, but only he can access the gate at Stonehenge and send the heroes back in time to World War II... Unfortunately, with the tip off from the traitor, the Nazis are waiting at the bunker (one of hundreds scattered across the UK, and virtual fortresses in their own right) with a team of superhumans and armed forces.

Meanwhile, at the Rebel base Stormwarden and Lionheart fight to save the 'scavvies' - societies castaways who don't conform to the Nazi ideal and must live on the underbelly floor of the city scraping the ruins for food and an existence. Nazi Cyborgs show no mercy, backed up by conventional forces.

Time is running out. The fist is closing on the light that is the Vanguard! Can the heroes break through the tightening net to defeat the Nazi controlled Adjutant, free the White Warlock, travel back in time and stop the Nazis from winning World War II?

The heroes travel back in time to World War II, but their first shock is that in this reality, they are not themselves! Frostbite is a disembodied voice in the mind of Joseph Hoskyn, an American GI, Stormwarden is housed in the mind of General Wynn, a retired (and soon to be brought back into service!) soldier, and DarkShadow doesn't wake at all - he ends up battling Shadow Demons and is seemingly lost! Other join, like Kitten, who sacrifices herself to stop Shadow Demons gaining a powerful artifact. Lionheart is the most powerful superhuman (at least non Dark power superhuman anyway) on planet Earth, but has his own problems with the seemingly villainous Saladin.

Drawn together, the heroes embark on a number of missions for the fledgling DICE organisation under the leadership of Brigadier Dawson, General Forbes and General Wynn with his aide, Slobotham. Battling an increased Nazi threat it becomes clear that the villains from the future who altered time have no qualms about rewriting history, altering genetics to make their own superhumans, and introducing technology not due to be invented for centuries!

General Wynn sacrifices his role as an active team member to run things from Bletchley Park, their home base. That said, his immense weather control powers basically quell any plans the Nazis have to invade and thwarts them at every turn until their new technology enables them to overcome the inclement weather. Wynn is able to 'empower' individuals and grant them superhuman abilities. Several of these individuals, Silver Sentinel and Sky Eagle notably, are found by Nowhere Man to be suitable hosts for Shadow Demons and empowered. Many of the Justiciars are killed or maimed in action, and the brave survivors are honourably discharged. Meanwhile, the war goes on.

In an effort to stop the Nazis making their own superhumans, Anyman wages a personal war against them and becomes notoriously effective, having a hand in (though in truth it was an out of control Nazi superhuman who caused it) the destruction and irradiating of much of Berlin! Hitler survives, seemingly, transplanted into a new body by Claude Bentham and Damon Trowers, two of the PSI Corps heads from Lionhearts time who seek to remake Earth to their own desires. Nonetheless, the Nazis superhuman program is blocked at every turn by Anyman, who becomes figure of fear and myth in the Nazi empire.

Lionheart makes his peace with Saladin as they battle to stop their common foe, but the pair are intertwined when Saladin is killed, his mind transferred into Lionhearts' body! This unleashes the full might and potential of Lionhearts form, making him even more powerful! Eventually the two are separated and Lionheart is changed. Less effective in some ways, more powerful in others.

Frostbite and Silver Sentinel see a lot of action in France as they help save thousands of lives on the beaches of Dunkirk, and distinguish themselves time and again despite the overpowering menace they face. The pair travel to the magical land of myth that is Albion, home to Morgana Le Fay, a reformed character. There they find she has been kidnapped and the power the Vanguard used to right her previous wrongs has gone wildly out of control, the magic creating evil counterparts to every good being that lives in the land! The whole place will become a melting pot of war and suffering unless the Vanguard can stop it!

Anymans adventures in space to recruit an Alien race previously aligned to the Nazis cause him to come across the Skrall and the Qrii, spacefaring empires intent on capturing the moon for the supplies of the most precious element in the universe, Lunarium. Anyman stops them with a spectacular display of dark power which attracts the attention of the Star League, a group of planets who plan to seize the Lunarium for themselves! Anyman dissuades them from that and Nowhere Boy (he returned in the body of a schoolboy) travels with the Star Guards leader, Imperator, back to their empire to make a deal with regards helping the Allies.

All this time, the US sits idle, their people distanced from the conflict and with the Axis powers careful not to anger the slumbering giant. Europe is falling under the Nazi shadow with the invasion of Britain now the priority because France, Belgium and Holland (as well as Poland) have fallen to the Nazis. Russia claims half of Poland, and eyes with greed the technology the nazis have, but dare not start a war with the Nazis.

The Japanese continue to attack China and use their gifts of superhuman abilities from the Nazis to help achieve their goal of conquering South East Asia. Their imperialistic ambitions turn them towards America, despite the warnings and order from the Nazi regime to stay neutral with the US.

Can Sentinel and Frostbite raise an army of mythical creatures to fend off a full scale invasion of the UK which is only days away?

Can Anyman and Lionheart stop the huge flying megacarrier heading towards London with a deadly payload, intent on wiping the heart from Britains' defence?

Can Nowhere Boy convince the Star League to help the allies?

On top of all this the Shadow Demons, enemies of the Vanguard, call a truce and offer their help in return for unlimited power. Anyman turns them down, and the Shadow Demons depart. The reason for their offer?

A planet devouring menace called the Devourer is heading towards Earth. Details are scarce about the deadly threat it presents, because none survive its deadly embrace! The cloud of doom moves through space and gets every closer to planet Earth.

Can even the power of the Vanguard stop it wiping out all life on Planet Earth?