Suddenly, in a streak, Hype was on scene. Roughly simultaneously Gravitic was flying in as well.

After questioning the officer in charge about what was going down Hype was off like a shot, entering the building from a side exit. Not to be outdone Gravitic flew in the front door from another direction.

The two met in the middle for a knockdown-drag out of a fight with Black Diamond and Blue Jay. Finally fighting their way thru the formidable Black Diamond (with Gravitic nearly killing her in the process), Hype ran upstairs just in time to see the other three members of GRAB escape thru Cheshire Cat's gate. CC showed off an old stick in his hand to the super fast Hype and smiled as the gate shut.

Meanwhile Gravitic took Black Diamond outside to get medical attention for her after miscalculating how much of one of his Gravity powers she could take.

Gravitic and Hype confered after the altercation and agreed that they worked well together. Hype gives Gravitic his hotline phone number; 1-888-GET-HYPE and then speeds off.

Watching Highrise inexplicably free large animals, Agent X also noticed a strange feral humanoid that was loitering on the low down nearby. 

Hype was first on the scene after the general call for superheroic assistance went out, his superspeed allowing him to get there in seconds. Taking stock of the situation he proceeded to clear civilians lest they be trampled by the elephants, rhinos, and hippos already loose.

The gleaming metal monolith known as War-Man, newly inhabiting Mill City from Chicago,  arrived shortly thereafter and used his pressor beams to dissuade a pair of angry hippos from mauling a pack of girl scouts. Finally Gravitic arrived and got Highrise's attention with his gravity powers. Seeing the heroes arrive Agent X chipped in as well, but maintaining cover, helping to escort some innocents away from the danger zone.

Then the trap was sprung. A sniper, Hypersonic, started taking shots at War-Man from a high observation point while the power armored Pounder flew in out of the cloud cover to do a full move thru on Gravitic. Finally some kind of a cat-man, the strange person Agent X had noticed earlier,  leaped around the area and seemed to be commanding a pack of apes to attack innocent civilians as well.

War-Man was able to resist the sniper's cowardly attack and returned fire from range, while Gravitic's gravity rooting easily prevented him from budging and Pounder knocked himself out on impact, AgentX fought the apes in hand to hand, and Hype ran around pushing elephants back into their enclosures and maybe punching one or two of them if they got froggy.

Running up the back of Highrise and down his arm Hype snatched Gravitic out of the air and then ran back down to the ground with him. Avoiding a few shots from the sniper, Hype nikeled and dimed away at Highrise.

Then, having somewhat recovered beneath the water (thanks to not needing to breathe), War Man flew up out of the water (thanks to having "usable underwater" on his flight) and pasted Highrise with his most powerful blast, finally knocking the titan over. The sniper quickly returned War-Man to unconsciousness, but the tide had been turned.

Never one to let propriety get in his way and not willing to take chances with all the other heroes down for the count, Hype tossed the unconscious Highrise into the Hippo pool where he began to drown.

Seizing the opportunity, Hype leaped 60+ feet into the air with the still unconscious and hovering Gravitic (Gravitic has Persistent Flight), where in an acrobatic stunt he released Gravitic in mid-air and used his hovering body as a springboard to vault the distance to the sniper's position, piledriving the sniper into the ground (nearly killing him) in one fell swoop.

Hype ran back down to the main enclosure with the badly battered  Hypersonic and fished Highrise out of the pond before any permanent damage could be caused, and did his best to wake up the other heroes.

Questioning of the supervillains afterwards revealed that they had all been hired via a third party to set a trap for Hype and Gravitic. They didn't know who the principal party was, but it was later discovered that the third party that worked the deal was a firm called Enforcers Inc.

Agent X slipped away during the confusion.

Unable to see what was going on through the tree cover, War Man descended and tried to sneak around the farm where the van ended up, but alerted someone inside the barn with the noise.

Unexpectedly two Haitian-looking fellows came out to investigate and proceeded to work War-Man over with strange mystical powers; one up close with powerful melee abilities, and the other from afar with elemental powers. After rendering War-Man unconscious, they chained him to a tractor.

Meanwhile Agent X had been rooting around in the farmhouse and checking out the grounds on the low down, and eventually saw War-Man chained to the tractor. Unable to free War-Man himself, he instead heckeled and irritated him to the point War-Man got so irritated he was able to break himself loose (helped War-Man justify a push).

Unfortunately the noise alerted  the vodouns who came out again and attacked both of them. Though they fought valiantly and almost made it, the two heroes were finally beaten.

Meanwhile, a space time distortion, a rift to another time and place, was briefly torn open and a futuristic one man attack craft screamed thru it at terminal velocity. Unable to correct his course, the pilot jettisoned a large ruggedized gear box from the rear fuselage and ejected. The craft plummeted into a small lake and the pilot, encased in a futuristic flight suit, was able to brake his descent.

Major Robert Savage, Terran Marine Corps, had arrived into our timeline all unbeknownst as to his fate. Quite naturally thinking he was still in his own timeline he first scanned a number of frequencies, but picked up all manner of strange broadcasts. However running through the freq's he found a signal similar to a Terran Marine distress beacon nearby. Homing in on that signal he soon arrived at the farmhouse and entered the barn.

Simultaneously, War Man and Agent X woke up to discover they were inside the barn, trapped inside some kind of salt encrusted pentacle that gave off an eerie orange light. Oh, and the barn was full of Zombies that seemed to only be held in check but the salt sigil!

The Zombies began to attack Major Savage instead, who though taken aback proceeded to blast his way to the intrepid heroes and eventually managed to free them from the eerie paralyzing light by scuffing up the salt pentacle.

Meanwhile War Man called Hype's hotline via his built in HRRT.

All three heroes got back to back and fought off the tight horde of relentless zombies but despite having all three heroes in the fight the Zombies were starting to have an effect just by sheer press of numbers.

And just in time! War-Man, Savage, and Agent X were on their last legs, exhausted by the long fight with the tireless, painless, and seemingly endless throng of zombies.

Hype bounced around like a hyperactive wrecking ball on two legs, smashing zombies, sending body parts flying, and shaping the remaining ones into a pile.

With the tide of battle turning the other three battered heroes retreated outside of the barn while Hype herded the remaining Zombies, and once they were packed sufficiently to satisfy him, Hype ran back outside and bulldozed a large propane tank into the mix. At his urging Major Savage shot the tank, blowing it up and catching the entire mess of putrid animated flesh on fire.

The thread of the zombies neutralized, the group investigated the farmhouse. Agent X grimly demonstrated the sick things he had found on his previous reconnaisance. The heroes were dismayed to find a grisly, bloody mess; the farmer and his family had been sacrificed in a ghoulish fashion in the basement. Agent X directed their attention to some plans indicating an plot to attack a gala being held by a wealthy man in the Grosse Point area at the end of the week!

Hype in particular was in a fury, for he recognized the work of Papa Zombie, a foul vodoun he had faced several time while heroing in Vibora Bay with the super team known as NewGen. Papa Zombie always managed to evade capture, and Hype was eager to break his streak.

Reporting the location to the police, the group also tried to puzzle out the mystery of Major Savage, who was extremely baffled by this strange old world he had found himself in and was secretly wondering if he had really crashed on entry and was in some sort of painkiller induced hallucinatory dream, but to no avail.

Hype was of the opinion that Savage was just a garden variety self-delusional, but War Man took him seriously. With all the discussion about Savage and Papa Zombie, no one noticed when AgentX ghosted away before the police arrived.

Hype departed, promising to meet up at the end of the week to stop the Zombie attack on the gala. War Man helped Major Savage recover his gear box from the forest, and then got him set up in a hostel back in the city.

THE GROUP FINALLY GETS A NAME

No longer Silver Avenger John Wrath, Agent of PRIMUS -- it was now John Wrath, Solo Avenger. Chitin showed up a little later as well.

Wrath also claimed to have been working the case from another angle and said he had talked to War-Man about it.

Wrath and Hype got on like a house on fire from the word go, and by the time the menagerie creaked up to the gates of the estate the gala was being held at, the excitable Hype was in a state of high agitation. The meeting with the owner of the estate didn't go well, due largely to Hype immediately suspecting that something was fishy about the owners son and fianc. Wrath and the estate owner argued against it, and finally Hype stormed off after accusing one or both of the son and fianc of being in on it.

Savage and Wrath rubbed elbows during the event while Chitin loitered, and when the ensuing Zombie attack came the three of them were narrowly able to fight it off.

Wrath dealt with the Vodoun's working for Papa Zombie and finally killed Papa Zombie himself with a single shot to the head (after a couple of Find Weaknesses). Apparently he forgot that his license to kill had been revoked when he was fired from PRIMUS. Luckily for him Papa Zombie's body turned into unidentifiable ash.

Wrath also broke the stick stolen from the Museum of Anthropology the previous week, which turned out to be some kind of priceless African artifact, but he wisely blamed it on Papa Zombie.

Of course it was revealed that the estate owner's son had been in on it, and the fianc was the target of Papa Zombies attack, being some kind of ideal subject for a sacrifice. Egg in yer face, rich guy.