Once Blaise had satisfied himself that Payback was a mercenary and could offer them no useful information AEGIS picked him and Kyle Harrison up.

The heroes now had a couple of hours to kill before Captain Thunder called them for a meeting.

Blue Bolt teleported back to Scotland but could not find the power suit he'd left there a few hours before.

While Nano-man and Blaise rested, Magni ran some checks on the murder of Professor Blunt, onto which he had stumbled. He discovered a Dominic Lester was now in custody for the crime. Heading down to the station he was surprised to find that he had been nominated the accused's legal aid. Shown to an interview room  the familiar face of the leader of the group which had summoned, and trapped, him to this world was led in by am officer. Dominic admitted the crime and, once they had some privacy, pleaded for Magni to break him out. Only then could he use the professor's books, now in the evidence locker, to send Magni home. 

Although tempted, the god explained he had commitments he could not shirk. He did say he would do what he could.

Leaving the station, picking his hammer from safe keeping on the way, he flew back to the Freedom Hall. There he discussed his predicament with Blaise and Nano-man. The ex-marine made a call to his good friend the police commissioner, Barbara "Bill" Kane, who said she'd try to get copies of the professor's books.

The group of four met Captain Thunder and Raven who wanted to show them the the League's satellite, the Lighthouse. The team showed a hesitancy in using their dematerialising teleporter but eventually were transported to the orbital platform.

The Captain explained that their original recruitment had been organised to fill in for the League when they planned to meet with representatives from the Lor Empire; a pan galactic race descended from ancient humans. They intend to be away for two weeks.
With the teams current numbers and make up they did not think they were ready.
Which was why he had organised a visit to the Claremont Academy for the gifted.

They took the Phoenix aircraft, docked to the satellite, and flew back to Freedom City. On the way down Raven asked them to be on their best behavior for two reasons; 1) The principle, Duncan Summers, was a respected friend and 2) she was looking forward to visiting the Lor Empire.

Landing the craft on the schools baseball field a crowd of students were waiting for them as they disembarked. Many of the them looked like normal high school attendees but others, with blue heads, glowing skin made it obvious this was no ordinary school.
A man in his late sixties, walking swiftly with a cane, pushed his way through the crowd.
He introduced himself as the principle, Duncan Summers. After shooing the students away he took the heroes on a tour of the school.

They visited various power training rooms; the remote manipulation room, fast motion, ranged impact, force exertion, form mimicry and simulated combat.
On the tour they met two graduate students that Principle Summers thought were suitable to join the team.
The first was Jenny Rocket. They found her in the fast motion room, clocking up over 1000 mph. Jenny had been training with Johnny Rocket, from the Freedom League. She was very enthusiastic about joining the team.

They met the other student, Megastar, in the force exertion pushing over 200 tons.
The large young man came across cocky but enthusiastic too. Magni showed of his muscles lifting more than the student which made the machine shake. Blaise impressed himself by pushing over 1000 pounds. Not to be left out, Nano-man accessed the force measurement system so that when he took his turn it registered more than Magni's effort. The machine  didn't shake which cast some doubt on the measurement.

The tour over, Principle Summers invited them all to his office/study. The team were all in agreement that Jenny Rocket was a good fit, but were less convinced by Megastar; who came across reckless. Duncan assured them his bravado covered up a genuinely experienced hero.

The Prinicple now grilled the heroes to try to satisfy himself his students would be safe with them. He concentrated on Magni and Blaise, who he seemed to be his biggest concern, who managed to put across their point of view.

As Duncan Summers was considering Blaise's response a young student ran into the office to turn on the television.
On the screen was Amy Feng from Channel 3’s “Action News” team. She was in a helicopter over Freedom City's south Pramas bridge.
The bridge was covered with mechanical spiders. Traffic had come to a halt. In addition was a gargantuan tripod walker. As the reporter tried to describe the scene further the television picture began to break up. Amy's face was replaced by a wrinkled one of an older man in a white coat.

The man began to speak. “You think I don’t know? Do you think I haven’t heard, your mocking, your ridicule? As though even a single one of you were fit to judge to me, to fathom the depths of my brilliance. Oh how you’ve laughed, you petty insects.”
“Will you still laugh when my Bugbot horde sweeps over this city? I think not. And this city is only the beginning, only the
beginning. You have mocked me for too long. Now the day has come when you will pay. You will pay dearly.”
“Let the world know, let all the world know, that the moment of their conquest is at hand! This day, Dr Null shall be your
master!”

Wasting no time all the heroes present travelled as quickly as they could to the bridge.

The mechanical spiders had begun to disassemble the stranded vehicles without any regard for their occupants. The fastest heroes, Jenny Rocket and Blue Bolt started to save the trapped people. Nano-man landed near the tripod. A weapon from the walking machine locked onto him firing a green ray. The degenerative effects of a radioactive beam stunned the hero; only his superior regenerative powers allowing him to recover.

Magni flew into attack the nearest spider, throwing Blaise at the tripod walker as he landed. Blaise magnetic boots locked him onto one of the legs, while Magni lifted a spider over his head. Megastar flew straight into engage the tripod too. Firing a concentrated beam of white light he unfortunately missed.

Captain Thunder had joined the team too and unleashed his lightning into one fo the spiders.

The spiders struck back by unleashing their flame thrower weapons. All but Magni were fortunate to avoid damage. The lost god took the brunt of two fire bursts. Despite being badly burnt, he remained standing, sweating, under the weight of the spider he held aloft.

Jenny and Blue Bolt continued to successfully rescue many of the innocent bystanders. The dome on top of the walker rotated bringing another weapon to bear on Nano-man. The gun began rotating with tremendous speed and a fury of bullets hit the hero squarely. Despite the massive damage Nano-man pushed through the pain. He flew on top of the dome and corroded straight through it. Falling through he found himself sitting next to Dr Null.

Uncovering his ears, from protecting them from the thunderous weapon firing not more then fifteen feet away, Blaise called to Megastar to pick him up. As the young hero complied, the ex-marine fired his grapple line catching one of the walkers legs. Performing the time honored "Hoth" maneuver, the two flew to safe distance once enough line had been wrapped around all three legs.

Relieved to get rid of the weight, Magni threw the spider at the tripod. Hitting it squarely it failed to do any damage. It did succeed in knocking it off balance though. With its legs unable to move effectively the walker toppled and fell towards a nearby crowded bus. Seeing the danger Magni pushed himself to speed underneath the falling machine to push the bus out of the way.

Dr Null could see his plans were destroyed. Taking action Nano-man saw him hit two buttons. One appeared to do nothing the other jettisoned the whole spherical top towards the river.

Locking onto Nano-mans radio signal, Blue Bolt teleported into Dr Null's pod. With a quick turn-about he then teleported out again, taking the villain with him.

Meanwhile the heroes on the bridge, could hear that all of the mechanical spiders had begun to beep.

In an amazing show of team work the heroes have quickly disabled the gargantuan tripod walker and captured Dr. Null, but have they taken out the bad guy at the expense of the innocent bystanders ?

What is Dr. Null's final plan.  Can the team save the a bridge full of innocents ?