(1) As Captain Peter McMurphy began his long process of preparing for bed, a knock at his door drew his attention in time to begin moving before it was blown open and a hale of gunfire entered. As the attempted assassins finished their volley, McMurphy laid on the floor in his own blood. The gangbangers, believing their assignment completed, quickly fled the scene.

While the Los Angeles Strikeforce began their investigation, Guardian and Shrike notified the Champions of Justice about the attempt on their former teammate's life and put together a squad to investigate. La Chatte was already in the area due to work on Lewis' Lord of the Rings trilogy, and Guardian brought in both the Ft. Bernard hero Fienna and the Champions newly appointed museum curator Allistair Munro due to their task-oriented talents. When three cars filled with gangbangers were chasing a fourth, the quintet learned that someone was attempting to merge all of the organized crime in the city into one.

Separating to follow up on some leads, the group eventually remerged to stop another assault, where they were introduced to "Marvelous" Mark Lee. The gangbangers with him had the juice, a drug that gives its victims superhuman abilities before killing them, with them and prepared to fight the heroes. While the heroes tackled the drug-fueled kids (with the most successful attacks being stopping them from taking the drug), Lee made his escape through the sewer system.

The group then checked on McMurphy, learning that their comrade has suffered three bullet wounds to the extremities; nothing life-threatening, but would keep him out of the investigation for several weeks. Ms. Scarlet, who was already taking care of her ailing father, offered to take her boyfriend in and nurse him back to health.

(2) While gang activity continued to mount, la Chatte asked Stuntman to join in the investigation while Guardian called in the rest of the CoJ to patrol the city and shut down gang activity by force. The group continued to follow leads to the end result of discovering Lee's identity and going to his apartment, where they found several pieces of interest: A ritualistic alter with sacrificial daggers and a safe containing the next target.

The group heads out to head off an assault team to discover that is made up of Lee, Renegade, Linebacker, Black Widow and Battle Mistress, but the hired guns were soon defeated. Lee, making his escape by way of a bathroom toilet into the sewer. As he emerged, however, Monro - armed with Guardian's staff - made short work of the versatile foe.

After Lee's capture, the criminal organization's merger quickly crumbled as they once again took up their wars with each other and the police. The temporary subset of the Champions of Justice once again went there separate ways within the large organization.

© Copyright 1999, 2001 - James Caswell