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Description

In the city of Salem, MS, four students from the nearby Kent Nelson Institution for Higher Learning were just hanging out. These four friends comprise of Dan Cassidy, Alice Zechlin, Khalid Nassour, and the youngest, 15-year-old Gwen Tennyson, who had just celebrated her birthday with her family back in California. They had been granted permission to go into the city by the headmaster of the Institution, Dr. Todd Scott. Dan, Alice, and Khalid were with Gwen at an outdoor-seating café where they were giving her their belated birthday gifts. Gwen was grateful, but was a bit sad that her cousin, Ben, could not be there to celebrate with her in California, especially since they share the same birthday. Gwen and the rest of the Tennyson Family know that Ben is a superhero calling himself Ben 10, and that he was busy with a crisis at the time. And when he was done, he was too tired to attend his and Gwen’s party. However, as this lunch was happening this day, four more kids in their age group came by. They were Jeremy Karne, Jaina Hudson, Eldon Peck, and their leader Fauna Faust. They are students of The Faust Academy, another private school located in the heart of the city of Salem, which was founded by Fauna’s ancestor. The Faust students were antagonistic towards the Nelson students, as both schools rivaled each other and, as Fauna claimed, the café was “Faust territory”. The harassment came to a head when Jeremy, the most vicious of the Faust students, brought up Alice’s past abuse and trauma. Alice snapped and publicly attacked Jeremy. Through physical contact, Alice’s powers as a Homo magi activated and sapped Jeremy of his own magic powers and life force. Eldon caught the almost-passed-out Jeremy and then dispelled his own magic disguise that hid his mutilated face, just as Dan dropped his own magic disguise that hides his blue skin and pointed ears, and Jaina dropped her own that hid her rabbit-like physiology. Both sides of this fight reared up and readied to battle with their respective magical abilities; both the Nelson Institution and the Faust Academy are safe havens for young magic users. However, both sides of this rivalry had to stand down before someone else noticed. Dan, Eldon, and Jaina resumed their magic facades, and the two sides went their separate ways, still heated. Back at the Nelson Institution, sometime later, Alice was still angry at Jeremy for how he treated her and was fuming. Gwen tried to talk her down, not wanting anyone else at the school, especially not a teacher, to know what happened that day. However, there was tapping at the library window. It was a raven familiar, controlled by Jeremy, with a message tied to its leg. When they took the message and let the raven fly off, they read it. It said that those four students from Faust “wanted to settle this” and to “meet them at the Oblivion Club at midnight tonight”. Whoever wins gets the café they tussled at as their territory. Gwen knew of the rivalry between the Nelson students and the Faust students for a while now, but didn’t want to get in trouble with Dr. Scott. Gwen refused to fight, so Dan, Alice, and Khalid left that night without her, breaking curfew. Back in the city, the three Nelson students made it to the Oblivion Club, a local nightclub that was secretly a hotspot of magical energy and a congregation area for many magical persons and entities. The students were allowed in and talked to the head bartender, Brother Power, a living mannequin magically infused with the soul of a 60s-era hippie, about where to find the Faust students. They were pointed in the direction of the stairs to the spacious basement where both the Nelson students and the Faust students met to fight. Supervising the battle was the Oblivion Club’s owner, a purple-skinned named Mr. Rook. As the offspring of a Homo magi human and a Nightshade, Mr. Rook possessed an ability to open a portal to the Land of Nightshades, which the rivaling students will use as their arena. The four Faust students and the three Nelson students entered the clearing in the forest in the Nightshades’ lands and, with the Faust students commenting that our heroes ‘could always surrender’, since they are one fighter short. They refused, and Dan, as an experienced fighter and member of The Shadowpact, the Nelson Institution’s resident superhero team, elected to fight two of them at the same time. Despite Dan’s skill, Jeremy’s accelerated healing and Jaina’s rabbit-like physiology and physical skill overwhelmed him. Meanwhile, Eldon’s necromantic powers conjured the reanimated bones of dead Nightshades to attack Alice, giving her no opportunity to sap is strength and copy his powers, and Fauna’s mastery over plant life got the best of Khalid. Jeremy threatened to outright kill Dan, and when Mr. Rook intervened over this, Jeremy rebuffed him and knocked him out, declaring this was now a fight to the death! However, Gwen came in with a last-minute save, using her powers of energy manipulation, which manifested as purple energy constructs. Dan got back on his feet and got Mr. Rook back up too. Mr. Rook ejected the students from both schools through the portal, back to Earth, and threatened the Faust students with telling their headmaster about how Jeremy almost killed someone. The Faust students left to return to their school and conceded the café hangout spot to our heroes. Our young heroes returned to their school, with no one being any the wiser (Mr. Rook ultimately didn’t care that their curfew was violated). However, there was someone else watching. A scrying orb showed Dr. Felix Faust, the headmaster of the Faust Academy and father of Fauna, what had transpired in the Land of Nightshades, and he got in communication with someone. He elected to them that Eldon Peck should lead The Pentacle, Dr. Faust’s newly forming team of magic users, and that Jeremy Karne is too unpredictable to be reliable. The person on the other line said that they have a mission for the Pentacle already: Capture a dangerous Homo magi loose somewhere in New York City. “The Society has need of him…”

Notes:

* The pentacle badges on the Faust students’ shirts serve as a magical means of communique between them, same as the ankhs on the Nelson students’.

* Fauna has a brother named Sebastian and a girlfriend named Nikki.

* Jeremy Karne is based on Karnevil, a magic villain from the original comics.

* Jaina Hudson is based on “The White Rabbit”, a Batman villain from the original comics.

* The Oblivion Club is based on the Oblivion Bar from the original comics.

** As a safe place for magic users, any Homo magi of any age is allowed in, but you have to be 21 to drink.

* The owner of the Oblivion Club, Mr. Rook, is based on Jim Rook, a hero from the original comics known as “The Nightmaster”.

Description

In the city of Salem, MS, four students from the nearby Kent Nelson Institution for Higher Learning were just hanging out. These four friends comprise of Dan Cassidy, Alice Zechlin, Khalid Nassour, and the youngest, 15-year-old Gwen Tennyson, who had just celebrated her birthday with her family back in California. They had been granted permission to go into the city by the headmaster of the Institution, Dr. Todd Scott. Dan, Alice, and Khalid were with Gwen at an outdoor-seating café where they were giving her their belated birthday gifts. Gwen was grateful, but was a bit sad that her cousin, Ben, could not be there to celebrate with her in California, especially since they share the same birthday. Gwen and the rest of the Tennyson Family know that Ben is a superhero calling himself Ben 10, and that he was busy with a crisis at the time. And when he was done, he was too tired to attend his and Gwen’s party. However, as this lunch was happening this day, four more kids in their age group came by. They were Jeremy Karne, Jaina Hudson, Eldon Peck, and their leader Fauna Faust. They are students of The Faust Academy, another private school located in the heart of the city of Salem, which was founded by Fauna’s ancestor. The Faust students were antagonistic towards the Nelson students, as both schools rivaled each other and, as Fauna claimed, the café was “Faust territory”. The harassment came to a head when Jeremy, the most vicious of the Faust students, brought up Alice’s past abuse and trauma. Alice snapped and publicly attacked Jeremy. Through physical contact, Alice’s powers as a Homo magi activated and sapped Jeremy of his own magic powers and life force. Eldon caught the almost-passed-out Jeremy and then dispelled his own magic disguise that hid his mutilated face, just as Dan dropped his own magic disguise that hides his blue skin and pointed ears, and Jaina dropped her own that hid her rabbit-like physiology. Both sides of this fight reared up and readied to battle with their respective magical abilities; both the Nelson Institution and the Faust Academy are safe havens for young magic users. However, both sides of this rivalry had to stand down before someone else noticed. Dan, Eldon, and Jaina resumed their magic facades, and the two sides went their separate ways, still heated. Back at the Nelson Institution, sometime later, Alice was still angry at Jeremy for how he treated her and was fuming. Gwen tried to talk her down, not wanting anyone else at the school, especially not a teacher, to know what happened that day. However, there was tapping at the library window. It was a raven familiar, controlled by Jeremy, with a message tied to its leg. When they took the message and let the raven fly off, they read it. It said that those four students from Faust “wanted to settle this” and to “meet them at the Oblivion Club at midnight tonight”. Whoever wins gets the café they tussled at as their territory. Gwen knew of the rivalry between the Nelson students and the Faust students for a while now, but didn’t want to get in trouble with Dr. Scott. Gwen refused to fight, so Dan, Alice, and Khalid left that night without her, breaking curfew. Back in the city, the three Nelson students made it to the Oblivion Club, a local nightclub that was secretly a hotspot of magical energy and a congregation area for many magical persons and entities. The students were allowed in and talked to the head bartender, Brother Power, a living mannequin magically infused with the soul of a 60s-era hippie, about where to find the Faust students. They were pointed in the direction of the stairs to the spacious basement where both the Nelson students and the Faust students met to fight. Supervising the battle was the Oblivion Club’s owner, a purple-skinned named Mr. Rook. As the offspring of a Homo magi human and a Nightshade, Mr. Rook possessed an ability to open a portal to the Land of Nightshades, which the rivaling students will use as their arena. The four Faust students and the three Nelson students entered the clearing in the forest in the Nightshades’ lands and, with the Faust students commenting that our heroes ‘could always surrender’, since they are one fighter short. They refused, and Dan, as an experienced fighter and member of The Shadowpact, the Nelson Institution’s resident superhero team, elected to fight two of them at the same time. Despite Dan’s skill, Jeremy’s accelerated healing and Jaina’s rabbit-like physiology and physical skill overwhelmed him. Meanwhile, Eldon’s necromantic powers conjured the reanimated bones of dead Nightshades to attack Alice, giving her no opportunity to sap is strength and copy his powers, and Fauna’s mastery over plant life got the best of Khalid. Jeremy threatened to outright kill Dan, and when Mr. Rook intervened over this, Jeremy rebuffed him and knocked him out, declaring this was now a fight to the death! However, Gwen came in with a last-minute save, using her powers of energy manipulation, which manifested as purple energy constructs. Dan got back on his feet and got Mr. Rook back up too. Mr. Rook ejected the students from both schools through the portal, back to Earth, and threatened the Faust students with telling their headmaster about how Jeremy almost killed someone. The Faust students left to return to their school and conceded the café hangout spot to our heroes. Our young heroes returned to their school, with no one being any the wiser (Mr. Rook ultimately didn’t care that their curfew was violated). However, there was someone else watching. A scrying orb showed Dr. Felix Faust, the headmaster of the Faust Academy and father of Fauna, what had transpired in the Land of Nightshades, and he got in communication with someone. He elected to them that Eldon Peck should lead The Pentacle, Dr. Faust’s newly forming team of magic users, and that Jeremy Karne is too unpredictable to be reliable. The person on the other line said that they have a mission for the Pentacle already: Capture a dangerous Homo magi loose somewhere in New York City. “The Society has need of him…”

Notes:

* The pentacle badges on the Faust students’ shirts serve as a magical means of communique between them, same as the ankhs on the Nelson students’.

* Fauna has a brother named Sebastian and a girlfriend named Nikki.

* Jeremy Karne is based on Karnevil, a magic villain from the original comics.

* Jaina Hudson is based on “The White Rabbit”, a Batman villain from the original comics.

* The Oblivion Club is based on the Oblivion Bar from the original comics.

** As a safe place for magic users, any Homo magi of any age is allowed in, but you have to be 21 to drink.

* The owner of the Oblivion Club, Mr. Rook, is based on Jim Rook, a hero from the original comics known as “The Nightmaster”.