Copper Knights and Granite Men: Challenger Confidential, #1

By Michael DiBaggio

A brazen band of robbers raids the New York Metropolitan Museum. Their target? The Prince's Emblazoned, an elaborate suit of armor rumored to be of surpassing occult significance. To ensure their escape, the thieves release an unprecedented weapon: a mist that turns men to stone.

The Challenger Foundation, a team of dysfunctional and unorthodox superheroes, is called in to help. Led by the 900-year-old alchemist called the Promethean, the team must unravel the mystery of the fossilization solution and confront the architect of the plot, a deadly supernatural enemy thought dead for more than a century.

Copper Knights and Granite Men is a witty and suspenseful superhero adventure that draws from the King in Yellow mythos and taps the secret occult history of North America. This first entry in the Challenger Confidential series contains the 66 page novelette, plus interior illustrations and a 33 page appendix exploring the Ascension Epoch universe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael DiBaggio
• Release date: Oct 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311471833

Michael DiBaggio

A mild-mannered software engineer during the day, at night Mike dons the mantle of award-winning author of heroic adventure fiction.  Inspired to create his own stories at a young age by the glorious cartoons and comic books of the 1980s, he graduated to the world of role playing games and SF and fantasy novels as a teenager. Together with his wife, Shell, he created the Ascension Epoch, an open-content, shared universe for adventure fiction based on the public domain. Besides his work on Ascension Epoch, he has contributed material for Eden Studios' "Conspiracy X" and dabbled in the indy RPG scene with several original settings like "Undertow" and "Eternal Empire."

Book preview

Copper Knights

and

Granite Men

I

Petrified. Literally.

I hate New York, and I’ve put on enough shows there for that to mean something.

Like any place, it has its high points—Duke’s Smorgasbord and my favorite cathouse on 49th, for example—but overall it’s too crowded, the people are rude, and it smells like a dump. If it ever had any charm, it ran out long before I was born. All the old, glorious architecture was erased over a century of warfare and what they raised in its place was a monument to the death of aesthetics. Broadway was a bore. Anyway, once you’ve played Carnegie Hall, you’ll never again be satisfied with just being in the audience. But the worst thing about New York is that something bad always happens to me there, and this time was no different.

Matt (that’s Matteo Mancini, a.k.a. the Promethean, to you) was there to check up on the Challenger Foundation’s property. I told him a simple email would suffice, but he said there was some question about whether the newly sovereign city would maintain its special arrangements with the Foundation, so he insisted on making the trip in person. I accompanied him in my usual capacity as charismatic, good-looking celebrity, essential for distracting reporters and secretaries while Matt and whatever petite potentate we were visiting slipped off for private discussions. Allen Adams—the Atomic Ranger—was there to be the visible muscle and the butt of my jokes. But as it turned out, there would be need for our more peculiar talents, too.

About a week into the trip, the three of us were walking the length of the island, taking a break from all the glad-handing with oily politicians, when the emergency circuit on my phone rang. Knowing that it was the dispatcher from Roundtable, a sort of mutual aid network for superheroes, I turned up the volume so that my colleagues could hear.

Amp, this is Roundtable. Are you still in New York?

Unfortunately, yes. I tossed a handful of crackerjacks into the air and failed to catch even one of them.

There’s an emergency call at the Metropolitan Museum. I already alerted the locals, but this might be out of their league. A group of thieves smashed into a secure area and stole an expensive suit of armor called the Prince’s Emblazoned.

I noticed the Promethean’s eyebrow cock at this, but he said nothing, and I didn’t interrupt. Roundtable went on: No positive IDs on any in the group yet, but we received footage of the attack and there is a woman with green hair who petrified security and bystanders.

Petrified? Was she one of those ugly body-building women?

Matt shot me a deadly look.

"I meant petrified literally, Roundtable clarified. They were turned to stone."

Oh, I said. That’s different.

Ever the civic-minded one, Allen volunteered our assistance right away. We’re on our way, Roundtable!

He started undressing in public, right there in the middle of the Hudson Promenade. An instant later, he was hovering fifteen feet above us, his Life Preserver flashed into battle colors and his gold skin glowing like the big, radioactive jerk he was.

I was mortified. I was appalled. How did I come to associate with such a person?

He smirked down at me. You still remember how to fight, superstar?

I could only sigh.

II

Marble Madness

We arrived at the Met too late for the fight and the chase, thank God. As we passed through the police cordon, I saw the whole crew of this oddball caper handcuffed and prostrate on the pavement. In particular I noticed the weirdo that Roundtable mentioned: a petite girl with long, braided, green hair and a big red handprint on her puffy face. Four men were carrying a battered crate containing an ostentatious suit of armor back into the museum.

Beaten by the local help, I murmured to the Promethean.

Actually, no. A sourpussed, gray-haired policeman walked over to us. He was accompanied by a lovely little thing in tight bicycle shorts, a seashell bikini, and a glittery half-mask. The cop was dressed like one of those monkeys that march in bands, with the gold braids and the little gold rope over his shoulder. I recalled seeing him before, but I had no idea about the strumpet in the mermaid roller derby outfit.

Captain Reeves, the Promethean greeted him, and they shook hands.

The robbers were blindsided by a construction worker near the new addition. Never even got to the end of the block, Reeves explained. "They had to run for it because their getaway van—wouldn’t you know it!—got T-boned by an inattentive driver and blah blah blah blah."

He said something else, but I don’t remember what; I was busy admiring the cleavage on his masked companion. She had grace enough to pretend to blush, but then half-turned so I could get a better view of her profile. She smiled at me, her rouged lips wet and open.

Reeves finally introduced her. This is the West Side Siren. The ‘local help.’

They all had stupid names like that, these New York City talents. West Side Siren, the Harlem Hammer, the Bronx Bomber, Battering Bill the Bowery Brawler, ad nauseum. God only knows why.

You three gentlemen need no introduction, of course, she said, but I stared at her in horror, because what it sounded like was: "You tree gennelmen need no innaduckshun,’a course."

Especially you, Amp. The Ace of Acoustics, she continued in low, awe-struck tones. I’ve seen you in concert twice, but never this close-up. It’s been a little dream of mine to meet you in person.

You flatter me, I said, but of course I had already lost all interest in her on account of her hideous accent. I couldn’t bear the thought of that nasal voice moaning my name.

Excuse me, Captain Reeves, but we were told that several bystanders had been turned to stone. Is that right? Matt interjected. He always gets annoyed when someone fawns over me.

By God, they have, and it’s the damndest thing I’ve ever seen! This is utterly out of my element. I was hoping you could give me some good news. They used some sort of aerosol. Do you know what it was? Is there an antidote?

"I won’t know until I perform a thorough