by Smasher and Happy Noodle Boy
Hardy New-Born stood in the doorway surging with rhyme force. He tightened his gloves and surveyed the surroundings. Smasher shook off the blow and got to his feet. He walked closer toward the Rhymer and tightened his fists. Hardy New-Born looked Smasher right in the eyes.
HNB: "I don't want to do this. You must fight their control!"
Smasher: "I am a new person now! I can even take you down!"
HNB: "Fight their control! You're stronger than this!"
Smasher looked at the ground. "Yes... you're right..."
HNB: "Good... you're doing it..."
Before Hardy New-Born finished, he was punched across the face by Smasher and was sent into the wall. The Rhymer brushed the hit off and got to his feet.
HNB: "I'm sorry, Smasher, but..."
Hardy New-Born took Smasher to the ground and flung him into a far wall. Smasher got to his feet and was hit from all sides by rhyme force energy blasts. Smasher flew right through the blasts and started to give the Rhymer powerful lefts and rights. The battle around them stopped as all eyes focused on the two titans duking it out in mid-air. The sounds from the powerful hits sent shock waves toward everyone else, knocking them off their feet. Hardy New-Born had a look of sadness on his face.
"I'm sorry..." Under his voice, the Rhymer whispered a rhyme, and a huge energy blast hit Smasher, sending him to the ground. Blood was pouring out of Smasher's nose, and he was not moving on the ground.
"I'm sorry..." Hardy New-Born knelt down next to Smasher to see if he was okay. Smasher smiled and grabbed the Rhymer's arm. Smasher put an electronic device on New-Born's arm, and in a flash of blue smoke, the Rhymer was gone.
A dark room, somewhere:
There were three thick, transparent, blue-hued glass bubbles on the wall. In one was the ex-MBL member known as Kid Bucket, in another was new member Hero, and in the third was the leader of the MBL, Hardy New-Born.
"Half of the six are mine... only three more members are needed: little Ritchie, the son of Gooz from another world, the Hypertime Entity, the sum and mass of hypertime's power, and lastly... the evil son of a bitch known as Viper. Once I have the others, I can move forward with my plan! Then, I will shape the world in my view!"
The mysterious man was still in the shadows, and his face was not visible.
The Rhymer sat in the bubble, thinking. He watched the stranger who was cloaked in darkness pace through the shadows. He thought about how the only ones in the headquarters were Ritchie and an injured Caped Cadet. The headquarters was secure enough to make any intrusion almost impossible, but he still didn't like it.
"You can't keep us here forever, you know. Sooner or later, we'll break out." Hardy New-Born looked across at his neighbouring bubbles, containing Kid Bucket and Hero. They didn't look so good.
Mysterious stranger: "Of course you will. You're the Meta Board League. You always escape: that much I have learned from observing you. I'm sure that even now you are coming up with an escape plan. It will probably work, too. But I don't need you here much longer. I only need you long enough to capture the Hypertime Entity, Viper, and Ritchie."
Hardy New-Born remembered Gooz's voice in his head asking him to look after Ritchie. He felt a pang of regret leaving the boy alone like that. "Viper's dead, you know. He died in our battle against the Arch-Moderator."
"Oh, but you of all people should know that superhuman deaths are never permanent! When I have the Hypertime Entity under my sway, I will use his power to tap into hypertime and bring Viper here! You see, the villain known as Viper is not dead! He's in another dimension! It's all such a convoluted plot, and it works so well!" The mysterious stranger let out an evil chuckle.
Mysterious stranger: "Your comrades will be helpless to save you. They are caught up with my little alien distraction."
HNB: "Those aliens... they're not invading at all, are they? They're just a distraction for you to kidnap the six of us!"
Mysterious stranger: "Of course... their kind has neither the intelligence nor the technology to pull off such an invasion."
In the darkened corner of the room, behind the stranger, crept a man draped in a trench coat: the former MBLer known as the Worm. The Rhymer gave him a glance, then turned to face the stranger.
HNB: "Remember that escape plan we were talking about...?
"What does HNB have up his sleeve?
If his friends die he'll be really peeved."