As power is restored and nurses start to wake up, Defender rushes Ramjet to emergency surgery � and removes Ramjet�s upper armor! James Colt is saved�but his upper armor is now missing!
With help from Jamaleh�s healing power, Colt and Arctica are released from the hospital the next day! Jack Shen, unfortunately, is beyond Jam�s powers. In constant pain, Jack�s hands and upper body are missing too much flesh to heal � with time or �the Force�.
The team questions everyone they can think of. Who knew that Arctica and Jack were still at the hospital? A few doctors and nurses�Boston PD detectives Murtoch and Riggs�probably FBI agents Mulder and Krycek. Arctica then has a memory flash. She remembers Mulder�s old partner, Joe Scully, from her world! Arctica reveals that, before she awoke in her Abyss stone sarcophagus, she was in the middle of a fight with three superhuman government agents � and Scully was one of them! He looks years older, but Joe Scully is otherwise an exact match!
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Outraged, James Colt (in civvies) goes to the Battlestars� off-shore headquarters � with the Drifters in tow � to demand the return of his armor! Seeker innocently greets our heroes, and takes them to the lower levels. As they enter Defender�s lab, they see him examining Ramjet�s upper armor�and not wearing a helmet. Defender is not James Harmon IV. He�s a virtual twin of James Colt!
Suddenly the base is under attack by the combined forces of �Eurostar� and �the Wrecking Crew�!
Super-heroes and villains (�Blue Players� and �Red Players�) have a mutually agreed-upon code of conduct. The villainous Eurostar is convinced that the Battlestars have broken that code over the past several months � and they must pay! The mercenary Wrecking Crew was brought in as extra muscle.
It�s a battle royale, with 25 superhumans! Eurostar (Fiacho, Pantera, Bora, Durak, Mentalla, Le Sonne, White Flame and the Whip) are old enemies of the Battlestars (Defender, Seeker, Obsidian, Quantum, Jaguar and Solitaire), and the two teams go at it�leaving the Wrecking Crew (Powerhouse, Steeplejack, Earthmover, TNT, Hi-Rise and �Joe Hall, the Wrecking Ball�) free to demolish the headquarters building! Despite their differences, the Drifters rush to protect the Battlestars �Bastion�! To make matters interesting, Ramjet only has his upper armor, and is reduced to walking and blasting!
Even more interesting, Crater knows the Wrecking Crew � though they don�t know him! With the exception of the 7-ft tall tomboy, �Steeplejack�, the Crew is this dimension�s version of Crater�s old teammates! Crater quickly takes down �Powerhouse� with insults�though physically taking him down takes a bit longer. Crater also takes the chance to flirt with Steeplejack.
Artic blinds and knocks out the 50-ft tall �Hi-Rise�! Stretch gets flattened. Jam gets knocked into the harbor. Ramjet � with only half-armor � doesn�t ram or jet! �and Crater inadvertently helps the Wrecking Crew flatten the above-ground levels of the headquarters building! The Battlestars, meanwhile, manages to beat Eurostar�and now prepares to execute them!
Seeker again raises his sword. With no one else lifting a finger, Arctica jumps in � but is unable to stop the weapon! Luckily, Fiacho�s neck is sword-proof � but Seeker really tried to kill him! Arctica almost comes to blows with Seeker, as other Battlestars come to his side. Jam appears (having swum back from the harbor) and tries to talk the �heroes� out of their bloodlust. Seeker takes back her communicator in disgust, calling Jam a �traiter to the cause of justice.� Crater and Obsidian are drawn to the commotion, and insist �we mustn�t argue among ourselves!� Pantera then awakes, and attacks Jaguar! The two roll around in a literal catfight, and Battlestars and Wrecking Crew take bets on the winner!
�and during the commotion, most of the awakening Eurostar make a break for it! Fiacho is recaptured, Durak is (apparently) drowned, and Pantera loses the catfight�but the rest of Eurostar gets away!
�also during the commotion and getaway attempts, Ramjet and Jam sneak into the still-intact lower labs of �the Bastion� � and download Defender�s database!
Ramjet calls the Coast Guard, and the Wrecking Crew quickly head for their boat. Steeplejack has some heroic tendencies, and likes Crater, and gets mind-controlled by Jam�so she �decides� to stay. Her teammates waste no time in leaving her�and Ramjet wastes no time in turning her over to the Coast Guard. She can�t catch a break!
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Back at Colt Technologies, a review of Defender�s journal shows that the Battlestars gradually became more bloodthirsty and extreme after Defender and Doctor Arcane built their new communicators! Ramjet borrows and disassembles Crater�s communicator. Inside � besides the expected electronics � is a stone chip that serves no purpose�so Ramjet leaves it out.
Meanwhile, Arctica is determined to find a cure for Jack Shen, who remains burnt and permanently crippled in the hospital. Calling the GAAF agent Robyn Quill to Colt Technologies, Arctica demands they find a way to regenerate Jack�and agrees to do anything they ask in return! Arctica has actually had an agreement with GAAF since their first meeting (after the �Immaculate Earth� attack on Minerva). Arctica�s been secretly informing on the Drifters! �and since the Colt Technologies building has security monitors throughout, Ramjet now knows the truth!
Sgt Quill makes the arrangements. Soon a mysterious, hooded monk named �Xuesheng� brings a box with �the Spirit of Winter� to Jack Shen. Sworn not to interfere, the Drifters can only wait outside as the hospital room shakes, things break, and the walls freeze over! When it�s done, Jack is not only completely healed � he�s physically stronger than before! �and Arctica is in GAAF�s debt.
But problems remain. The Battlestars are still out of control�Stretch is an unresponsive, rubbery statue�and Jam�s light saber finally stops working: its Force Crystal a dead, crumbling chunk of coal!
Stretch introduces himself as the industrial research chemist Dr. Ezra Schumaker. Through a lab accident in the early 1960s, Dr. Schumaker became the heroic �Amorphous Man.� Throughout the �70s Amorphous Man tracked a superhuman serial killer known as �the Vivisecter�, and even managed to capture him a few times � only to see the legal system repeatedly release him, and the killing spree continue! Pushed to his breaking point, Amorphous Man captured the Vivisecter yet again�and deliberately smothered him to death!
Unable to live with himself afterwards (Code vs. Killing!), �A-Man� went to every heroic mentalist he knew to have his memory of the execution erased. Ethically, none of the telepaths would do it�so he resorted to the mercenary, �back-alley� mentalist known as �the Stripper.� The Stripper accidentally �erased� far more than she intended (A-Man was vulnerable to mental attacks!) so � in order for A-Man to function at all � the Stripper created new memories and personality traits for him! Thus, Amorphous Man dropped out of the public eye�and the good-natured, homeless, can-hunting freak known as �Stretch� was born!
To find more Force crystals � the power source for Jamaleh�s light saber � Jessica (the Owl Girl) suggests going to the geology wing of the Smithsonian Institute. �They�ve got every rock in the world!� The Drifters agree, and take the train from Boston to Washington DC. En route, Arctica turns up missing! The team questions and mind-scans the train�s passengers, mind-scans the area, searches the train, searches above and below the train, and even searches for miles in all directions. Arctica is gone without a trace.
Is Arctica permanently gone, like �Fractal� (the martian swordsman from episode #1)? Was she sucked back to her home dimension? Was she abducted? Did she quietly leave on some personal mission (as she has done in the past)? The team suddenly realizes how little they know about Arctica�or each other. Everyone on the team has secrets!
The Smithsonian does, indeed, have Force Crystals of all colors and shapes! After momentarily considering stealing the gems, Jam instead decides to go to where the gems were excavated�the �Cathedral Caverns�, in the Appalachian Mountains between Virginia and West Virginia. Crater winces when he�s around the displayed crystals�and reminds everyone that he has the strange ability to sense the crystals when he�s near them. Force Crystals, it seems, are similar to the energized meteorite that gave Crater-Maker his power!
It�s Road Trip time once again! In Cathedral Caverns (a popular national park) Crater senses that crystals are located down an unused natural corridor, well off the beaten path. Strangely, a sense of dread goes through Crater�and he can�t bring himself to go down the corridor. None of our heroes can make themselves go down this tunnel � except for Jam! (Jack Shen didn�t even make it to the tunnel, before his claustrophobia made him run out!) Jam senses �a disturbance in the Force� but presses on�eventually coming to a large cavern filled with Force Crystals!