Jack's Team

Jack's Team is a group of people working to save the world from the Omega Event by undertaking the final trials left by the Super-Ancient Beings.

History[]

Early History[]

Between 1996 and 2006, a multi-national mission was established between many "small" nations in the Coalition of Minnows, which intended to raise the Oracle of Siwa Lily from infancy until she could translate the Word of Thoth and lead their field team to the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. This was so that they could retrieve the seven Pieces of the Golden Capstone, restore it and use it to avert disastrous worldwide flooding cause by the Tartarus Sunspot on its next alignment with Earth. In the course of the 10-year mission, the members of this team became like a family, and eventually, despite opposition from the Commander-in-Chief's In Extremis Force and the Catholic Church, succeeded in their mission.

For almost two years after this, the surviving team members of the Coalition mission remained in touch and visited each other often, while their leader, Jack West Jr, adopted Lily as his own daughter. When it was discovered that the Dark Star was on the verge of coming too close into Earth's solar system - which would render the planet inhospitable - and that the only way to prevent the cataclysm was to rebuild the Machine built by a race of super-ancient beings, the Coalition team came back together and set about finding the Sacred Stones and Pillars needed to accomplish this.

When the Coalition of Minnows' mission was completed, the team disbanded once again to resume their lives as before.

Eight years later, Jack, Lily, Alby Calvin and Sky Monster were kidnapped and brought to the Underworld so that Jack could be forced into participating in the Great Games of the Hydra, learning about the Four Legendary Kingdoms of Land, Sky, Sea and Underworld which secretly ruled the world from the shadows. During these Games, Jack and Lily were told by Cardinal Ricardo Mendoza and Iolanthe Compton-Jones that the Coalition team's first two missions had been but the first two of many tasks set by the Super-Ancient Beings for humanity, and that only by successfully completing all of them would humanity survive through the Omega Event; the collapse and rebirth of the universe.

Soon afterwards, as he helped his friends escape the Underworld, Jack told Alby to reach out to the members of their old team so that they could return to rescue Lily, but stressed that they not contact anyone in any government, since they couldn't be sure that the representatives of the Coalition of Minnows in fact worked for the Four Kingdoms. As it happened, at the same time the Hydra galaxy was being diverted, the team arrived to rescue Jack and Lily, affording Jack the chance to prevent Orlando Compton-Jones from receiving the Mysteries that provided instructions for the remaining trials.

Though the King of Underworld, Anthony "Hades" DeSaxe, was certain that undertaking the trials would be far too difficult without the Mysteries, Jack convinced him that the Four Kingdoms' way wasn't the best way to save the world, and convinced him to join him in doing so "the right way". Now accompanied by Hades, Iolanthe, Jack's mother Mae Merriweather, and the minotaur E-147, Jack and the other members of the old Coalition team retreated to Jack's farm to recover from their ordeal and begin preparing for the upcoming trials, knowing that they would be contending against the Four Kingdoms when they did.

The Three Secret Cities[]

On the third day after returning home, Hades informed Jack that he was being forcibly abdicated from the Four Kingdoms, and with the Trial of the Cities and the Trial of the Mountains approaching, they would need to collect the Helmet of Hades of the Immortal Weapons, items which needed to be empowered at the Secret Cities of Thule, Atlas and Ra, from his New York penthouse. With that, Jack arranged for those members of his team present to board the Sky Warrior and begin making their way to retrieve Hades's artifacts before their adversaries, while E-147 was left at the farm to mind Jack's pets.

Along the way, the team began discussing the trial before listening as Hades received a message from Minotus in the Underworld, warning that a silver coffin had opened and unleashed a monstrous "bronze man" which was attacking the minotaurs, while also learning that Hades's brother, Yago DeSaxe, the royal jailer, had been tasked to apprehend Jack and Hades for their actions at the Games. Regarding the former, Jack tasked Pooh Bear and Stretch, who had gone back to Dubai, with investigating the incident while the rest of them continued to New York.

Upon landing, Jack, Lily and Mae accompanied Hades to his penthouse at Saxony Tower, and were shown the Helmet and a tablet belonging to the Altar of the Cosmos, which contained most of the instructions for the Trial of the Cities. Unfortunately, the arrival of a team led by Orlando, Mendoza and Sunil Malik forced the group to take cover in a panic room, and the team could do nothing but listen to Orlando's people discussing their next plan of action before they departed. As they prepared to leave themselves, Jack's group were confronted by Yago and his men. The confrontation was soon interrupted by the arrival of a pair of V-22 Ospreys under the control of a group called the Knights of the Golden Eight, who announced their intention to intention to kill Jack and capture Lily and Alby. As Yago left with Hades, Jack, Lily and Mae scrambled to escape Saxony Tower as the Knights opened fire. Aided by Zoe, they soon managed to escape to Tribeca One and used to falling tower to get into the Hudson River, where they made their way into the tunnel so that Alby could pick them up.

Meanwhile, Stretch and Pooh Bear arrived in the Underworld to find that the minotaurs had trapped the bronzeman. Suspecting that it was speaking in the Word of Thoth, Stretch called Jack's group to have Lily check, who confirmed that it was asking for its master. Recalling a phrase from the Zeus papyrus Hades had shown them earlier, Jack realised that one of the rewards one of the rewards to the King of Kings was an army of these Bronzemen, and worried that if in preventing Orlando from receiving the Mysteries he had unleashed them onto the world unchecked, and so tasked Stretch and Pooh with sealing the other silver coffins as best they could.

Without Hades as their primary source of information, Jack decided the team's best move was to view a charcoal rubbing of the full Altar tablet kept by the Fraternal Order of St. Paul at the Gallerie dell'Accademia. In the meantime, Jack and the others continued to research the Immortal Weapons, Secret Cities and the Altar, as well as try to determine where Hades has been taken and who the Knights of the Golden Eight were. As Jack's team reached some conclusions regarding the Three Cities, such as their matching Weapon, their relative locations, and their being guarded by more of the bronzemen, Jack and the others were caught off-guard as all TV channels around the world were hacked by the Knights of the Golden Eight. Needing someone with inside royal knowledge, Jack contacted Iolanthe, who agreed to meet them at the Hall of Royal Records. With the tablet rubbing still a priority, Jack decided to take Lily, Sky Monster and Alby with him to Venice while Zoe and Mae were sent to meet with Iolanthe.

Using a submersible to sneak into the Accademia, Jack and Lily soon found the rubbing of the tablet, learning from Lily's translation that whoever opened the first city, Thule, would require comrades at Ra and Atlas as well since unlocking the first City all three's defences. The pair were then confronted by monks from the Fraternal Order of St. Paul, or as their leader Ezekiel revealed, the Order of the Omega. Though Jack and Lily managed to escape the monks, the Knights of the Golden Eight landed on the canal outside, forcing the group to trying to flee through the canals. Though Sky Monster was shot in the shoulder and Alby was separated from the others, Alby pleaded for his friends to escape, knowing that the Knights wanted him alive, and so Jack and Lily reluctantly did so with the promise of finding him later.

Upon arriving in England, Zoe and Mae first invited Julius and Lachlan Adamson from their previous adventures to join them, but only Julius elected to accompany them to St. Michael's Mount, where the Hall of Royal Records resided. As they approached the Mount, Zoe, Mae and Julius noticed Orlando and his entourage departing, and so ventured into the dungeon their enemies had emerged from. Finding Iolanthe in the middle of being tortured, the shocked Zoe killed her torturer and freed her. The group then proceeded to gather up Iolanthe's notes and headed to London, where they intended to rendezvous with Jack's group at a safe-house.

Upon reuniting at the safehouse, the tortured Iolanthe revealed the Knights' base was located on Aragon Castle, explained the process for empowering the Immortal Weapons, and her belief that the final ritual on the Altar required a sacrifice. As for the locations of the Secret Cities, Iolanthe informed the team that Sir Francis Drake had visited all the Cities on behalf of Queen Elizabeth I and noted their locations on the inside of his yet-unfound coffin. As Jack prepared to come up with a plan to meet with his oceanographer friend David "Nobody" Black and find the coffin, the Knights intercepted the TV feeds again and demonstrated how far the Knights were willing to go to draw him out, displaying feeds of Lachlan and his family being blown up, followed moments later by Sky Monster's parents. The Knights demanded Jack and Lily meet them on the Westminster Bridge, using a Challenger tank to fire upon its surrounding. Jack and Lily elected to go while their friends pledged to back them up from the sidelines. Upon reaching the Bridge, Jack realised that all of the Knights' vehicles were remote-operated, but he and Lily were drawn into rescuing a bus of civilians, only to realise too late that it was a trap to capture Lily. While trying to request help from a nearby patrol boat, Jack was confronted by Yago, and despite trying to explain that Orlando was about to make a huge mistake, the royal jailer knocked him and and took him into custody.

As the distraught Julius had vanished during the confrontation, Zoe returned to the safehouse alone to demand that Iolanthe tell her where the Royal Prison of Erebus was located so that she could free Jack. As Iolanthe didn't know, they and Mae had to spend the next few days researching possible locations, eventually narrowing it down to a section on the Algerian coast. Once that was done, Zoe called in Pooh Bear and Stretch to help her break Jack out of Erebus, while Mae and Iolanthe departed to meet with Nobody to begin searching for Drake's coffin in Venezuela.

Meanwhile, after arriving at Erebus, Jack was horrified as the royal jailer had him entombed in a material known as liquid stone and set in place on a wall next to Hades, while Lily was taken to the Knights' base, where she and Alby learned that it was Dion DeSaxe, whom they'd believed to have died in the Underworld, who had hired the Knights. Though Julius soon arrived to attack the Knights in revenger for Lachlan's death, he was soon caught and executed by Jaeger Eins. The Trismagi of Atlas, Lord Hardin "Sphinx" Lancaster, briefly watched as Dion severed Alby's left hand before taking Lily away as his own prize from the Knights.

A few days after Jack's arrival at Erebus, Stretch and Pooh Bear, Zoe infiltrated the prison by swimming up the coastline in the hopes of avoiding any detection systems. But as they found Jack embedded in stone and prepared to set him free, Yago and his guards revealed they had been aware of their approach, informing them that they had earned their own place on the Wall of Misery. Luckily help arrived completely unexpected when a man dropped in and took down all of the guards single-handedly. Introducing himself as bounty hunter Aloysius Knight, an old friend of Scarecrow's who had asked him to help Jack after seeing the televised incident in London, he assisted Zoe and the others in freeing Jack and Hades from their slabs and imprisoning Yago on the Wall of Misery.

Deciding that rescuing Lily and Alby came first, Jack's team moved to assault the Knights of the Golden Eight's base, first having a Challenger tank containing Stretch and Pooh parachute down to the castle to gain the Knights' attention before Zoe, Hades and Sky Monster drove supertankers into the castle's seagate. In the midst of the chaos, Jack and Knight used gull wings to swoop into the Knights' midst and began attacking with Rufus in the Black Raven backing them up. As the Knights fled and dropped Alby's cage into the water below, Stretch and Pooh Bear recovered their teammate, who revealed that Lily had been taken.

While searching the Orinoco Delta in Venezuela in the Betty White, Mae, Iolanthe and Nobody soon detected the lead coffin, but while submerged in the Spider submersible, they discovered the Brazilian Navy were sinking the Betty. Hastily opening the coffin to take the parchment with the Cities' coordinates from Drake's corpse, Iolanthe and the others soon made their escape using the Betty's undamaged floatplane and sent the coordinates to the rest of the team.

With the Trial of the Cities having been prematurely started by Orlando, and the exact coordinates of the Cities, Jack decided to send Stretch and Pooh Bear to Thule and Mae's group to Ra so that they could back up Orlando's people in case they failed. Meanwhile, as the injured Alby was sent with Zoe and Hades to the latter's safehouse in Rome, Jack and Knight set out to uncover the long-hidden Trident of the Sealord. With Hades's help in researching possible locations, Jack soon determined where the tomb of Poseidon that held the Trident was near Santorini. Despite coming into conflict with Malik and his men, the tomb's trap system was set off, and Jack and Knight barely managed to escape with the Trident.

Upon arriving at Atlas's watchtower, Jack and Knight were met by Sphinx, who threatened Lily's life if they did not empower the Mace and return it to him. Donning scuba gear, Jack and Knight began making their way through the submerged tunnel leading into Atlas, right as the teams at Thule and Ra caught up to Orlando's people, whose progress had both been hindered by groups of silvermen. Jack realised the Immortal Weapons were the key to getting past the automatons, and so his people were able to do what Orlando's people had failed to do and reach the inner vaults of the Three Cities, where Pooh Bear, Iolanthe and Jack each empowered their respective Weapons. However, Sphinx, Mendoza and Chloe Carnarvon each forced Jack's team to hand over the Weapons, with the former even cutting off the air in Jack and Knight's scuba tanks before he, Mendoza and Chloe began making their way to the Altar of the Cosmos to fulfill the Trial of the Cities.

Jack and Knight were luckily able to find a source of air, but shortly after they returned to the surface, they received an urgent message from Alby, who in the midst of his own research had discovered that the Four Kingdoms were planning to sacrifice Lily at the Altar to complete the trial. Being the closest to the Rock of Gibraltar, Jack and Knight hurried to get to the Altar, but arrived to find the bodies of several Kings of the Four Kingdoms, and the liquid stone-encased body of Lily. Realising he had been too late to save his adopted daughter, Jack wept in despair while Knight dragged him away. As the scattered team were informed by Knight of what had transpired at the Altar, they decided that they should first rendezvous at Hades's safehouse, where they grieved the loss of Lily together.

A few days later, Pooh Bear, Alby and Stretch made their way to the Altar with the intention of retrieving Lily's body to give her a proper burial. Alby and Stretch kept watch as Pooh Bear carefully chiseled off the stone around Lily's face, but once Pooh carefully chiseled off the stone around Lily's face, he was surprised by something he found, and then, happily, asked his friends to call Jack immediately.

The Two Lost Mountains[]

As Pooh Bear discovered, it was Alexander's body in the sacrificial pool at the Altar of the Cosmos and not Lily's, and so, they extracted the abandoned Immortal Weapons and set out to rendezvous with the team at Hades's estate in Alsace-Lorraine, where they would base themselves as they began preparing for the Trial of the Mountains. With hope that Lily was still alive, Jack's team began using facial recognition software to comb the world's security cameras in the hope of finding her.

In the course of the next few weeks, the team had E-147, Roxy, Ash and Horus brought to them via a private plane, with the minotaur being granted the proper name of Easton. Stretch, Pooh Bear and Alby began analysing the Immortal Weapons in the hopes of discovering ways to combat the ancient automatons should they come up against them again, with Stretch grinding slivers off of the sword with the intention of affixing them onto bullets. Additionally, Jack, Zoe and Hades returned to the Gallerie dell'Accademia, which the Order of the Omega had abandoned, in the hopes of finding anything informative that the monks might have left behind.

A few days before Christmas, Jack, Alby, Knight and Rufus headed back to the former's farm to collect some important files and texts possibly related their their mission still stored there. While at the farm, Jack took one of his spare prosthetic arms and began retrofitting it to serve as a prosthetic hand for Alby. Not long after, the team's facial recognition software located Lily in Moscow. Being closer, Stretch, Pooh Bear and Sky Monster departed the estate in the Sky Warrior while Jack's group rushed to catch up to them in the Black Raven.

Once they arrived over Moscow, Stretch used gull wings to glide down to Red Square, noting numerous comatose bodies before coming across Lily. As he undid her bonds and removed her gag, Lily warned Stretch that it was a trap, just as Jaeger Zwei, assuming that Stretch was Jack, Sphinx's Chinook rise up with a Siren bell. Knowing that they were about to enter the Siren sleep, Lily had Stretch warn Sky Monster and Pooh Bear to put the Sky Warrior on autopilot and don noise-cancelling headphones, while she started writing out a warning for Jack, they succumbed to the bell's effect.

Shortly after, Jack's group landed at Vnukovo Airport on the city's outskirts, and Knight led them to Putin's secret Subway 2 train so that they could reach Red Square undetected. Upon emerging, Jack and Knight took out Jaeger Acht and approached their comatose friends. Knight read Lily's message, and as the pair found that they were about to be surrounded by several bronzemen under the control of Sphinx's people, the bounty hunter suddenly giving Jack his own protective helmet, knowing Jack was more vital to saving the world. Once the Siren bell rang again and sent the bounty hunter into the Siren sleep, Jack began his struggle to get Lily, Stretch and Knight away from the bronzemen. Alby, who was unaffected by the bell due to his deafness, helped Jack as they attempted to flee the automatons, and soon aid was provided by Rufus in the Black Raven, who took out the trucks carrying the bronzemen, and from a pair of nuns who aided Alby in continuing the escape.

The nuns, Sisters Lynda Fadel and Agnes, explained that they could aid the team's mission with important intel such as a way to awaken those rendered unconscious by the bells and the date of the Omega Event. Agreeing to take them along, Jack and the team attempted to catch up to the Sky Warrior, but could not raise Pooh Bear or Sky Monster, and so assumed they had been knocked out by the Siren bell. After an orbit-to-air missile destroyed the Tupolev, Jack was forced to assume that his friends were dead and had Rufus started heading back to the estate, unaware that Sky Monster and Pooh Bear had parachuted out beforehand, but had landed on a Russian farmland with no means of communication.

Upon their return to the estate, Zoe told Jack that Rome had also being put to sleep by Sphinx, while Lynda informed them that the Omega Event would take place on the 29th of December. The team then proceeded to discuss what needed to happen for the Trial of the Mountains, determining that someone would need to undertake an event called the Fall at one of the iron mountains during an alignment event with a pedestal on the moon, earning them the right to enter the Supreme Labyrinth. Inside that Labyrinth was a throne which, upon being sat upon, would prevent the Omega Event from occurring. However, Hades, Lynda and Iolanthe only knew of one of the mountains' identities; the first, at Mont Saint-Michel. Luckily, Iolanthe made contact with her old tutor, Brother Bertie de Montreuil, who revealed that there was the option of a journal in the Vatican's vaults that might lead them to one of the other mountains.

With that, Jack decided to take Hades, Iolanthe and Nobody to the first mountain to try and stop Sphinx or get ahold of one of the keys to the Labyrinth, and tasked Zoe, Mae, Rufus, Lynda and Agnes with going to Rome to see if they could find any information on the location of the Orphean bell, in order to awaken those afflicted by the siren sleep, and find the journal. Finally, Alby and Easton were to look after the unconscious Lily, Stretch and Knight, as well research the Supreme Labyrinth, the altar on the moon and any other data on the mountains.

While Hades and Nobody remained with their seaplane, Jack and Iolanthe used an undersea tunnel from Tombelaine Island to reach Mont Saint-Michel, being met by Bertie. As the Jesuit explained the requirements for the Fall, Hades, having overheard Bertie mention that Dion was also at the Mont, discreetly made his way there as well. When Sphinx arrived with his entourage, Jack and Iolanthe watched the upstart perform the Fall, while Hades's attempt to reconcile with his son was rejected and the Knights of the Golden Eight captured him. When Hades was brought before him, Sphinx had the former King of Underworld executed by one of his silvermen, then called out Jack after deducing his presence. After hearing Sphinx detail his insane plan to rule the world, Jack and Iolanthe managed to recover Bertie and trapped the pursuing bronzemen in solidifying greystone, then fled with Nobody.

Meanwhile, Zoe's group arrived in Rome, splitting up so that Zoe and Agnes were searching the Pope's office for information and Mae and Lynda headed into the Vatican Secret Archives to recover the journal. Zoe and Agnes found a lead on the Orphean bell's location, as well as an order for an expert on the Siren bells, Tracy Smith, to be executed. At the same time, Mae and Lynda found Francis Xavier's journal, discovering that the second iron mountain was beneath one of Mont Blanc's peaks and the third was beneath Potala Palace, and obtained a lead on the fourth mountain. Though Mae and Lynda were discovered by the Omega monks, they were brought before a new player, General Garthon Rastor, who wanted the Omega Event to occur. During an attempt to rescue them, Agnes and Mae were prevented from escape by Rastor, and Zoe heeded Mae's plead to flee. The fatally wounded Agnes was then executed while Mae was allowed to live since Rastor saw value in keeping Jack's mother a hostage.

As Easton finished the creation of the specialised bullets, Alby learned that Imhotep had navigated the Labyrinth and had clues buried with him, and that Albert Einstein had determined the nature of the quantum pulse which prevented the Omega Event. Once the team started calling in to report their progress, Jack made plans for his group to head to the second mountain and for Zoe's to go to the third. However, a worldwide broadcast from Sphinx demonstrated the third mountain being obliterated and the revelation that he knew where the team was based. As Yago and the Knights of the Golden Eight arrived to invade the estate, Alby and Easton rushed to get their comatose friends and the animals out, however Easton was captured while Alby was forced to continue the escape on the underground train.

Hearing of the minotaur's capture, Jack's group returned to the estate to pick up the special ammunition and went after Yago's Super Galaxy, using a method of Knight's to take remote control of the plane and allow them to fly their seaplane inside. Jack and Nobody surprised Yago by being able to take down his bronzemen, and during the confrontation Easton managed to take the Ring of Command Yago was using to control the automatons away from the Slave King. Jack used the ring to command the bronzemen to throw Yago off the plane, and decided to let Easton use the ring to command the plane's remaining automatons for their side.

After overhearing radio chatter revealing that Dion and Jaeger Eins were fighting the Omega monks in the second mountain, Jack decided to try to take advantage of the conflict to perform the Fall himself, and took Easton and four of their new "palemen" with him in the seaplane towards Aiguille du Midi. As they made their approach, Iolanthe and Nobody parachuted from the Super Galaxy to reach the peak's observatory, while Alby remotely diverted the plane, still carrying Bertie, to a remote airfield outside Dijon. Not long after Jack and Easton arrived in the second mountain, Dion managed to perform the Fall and then destroyed the Falling Temple to prevent anyone else from doing a follow-up Fall. After witnessing Rastor's arrival and execution of the Omega monks, Jack and Easton fled up the moon shaft to the observatory, where Iolanthe and Nobody revealed that the moon pedestal has been covered and the rover on the moon's uplink destroyed to prevent anyone trying to remove it. Though Dion sent a missile at them, the return of Sky Monster and Pooh Bear in the second seaplane allowed Jack and the others to make a narrow escape from the observatory.

As the team reunited at Dijon, they learned of fifteen cities worldwide being put to sleep by Sphinx's subordinates with the Siren bells, and heard over the radio that Sphinx had entered the Supreme Labyrinth, with its gates set to close within 24 hours. With their only hope being to locate one of the two lost mountains, they soon determined that the fourth mountain was beneath Jerusalem's Temple Mount. As Jack decided to head there with Pooh and Easton, Alby came up with a plan to re-expose the lunar pedestal to allow a Fall, Zoe and Lynda set off to locate Tracy in the hope that she could awaken Lily and the others, and Bertie, Iolanthe and Nobody set off to Italy to follow up the lead on the Orphean bell.

As Zoe and Lynda recruited Tracy and had her awaken Lily, Stretch and Knight, Jack approached the fourth mountain, expecting to find Rastor's forces, but instead learned that the General had already done the Fall and crucified Mae to the Falling Temple. Knowing that Jack couldn't save her, Mae told Jack to leave her and keep fighting to save the world, before Rastor remotely destroys the temple's supports, causing it to fall into the shaft and kill Mae. As a devastated Jack went to meet up with Easton and Pooh Bear, a Chinook carrying the Siren bell that Sphinx sent to Jerusalem appeared, and the trio succumbed to the bell's tone. As Jaeger Zwei and his bronzemen moved in, however, Lily and Zoe's group arrived to rescue their friends and re-awaken them.

At the Zapadny Cosmodrome, Alby began working on creating an uplink to the lunar rovers, and called the team to reveal that he had located the fifth iron mountain beneath the Great Sphinx of Giza. As the team headed to Egypt, Jack asked Lily and Zoe to join him in performing the Fall so that they could enter the Supreme Labyrinth together and have a better chance of ensuring the Omega Event would be averted. As Alby and Rufus struggled to keep the uplink going due to the arrival of Sphinx's bronzemen, the Wests entered the final mountain and raced to perform the Fall, with Jack sending a rival Omega monk falling into the shaft. Once Jack, Lily and Zoe had each earned the burning key, they departed the mountain while Alby and Rufus set off to rejoin the team.

As Lynda had figured out the location of the Supreme Labyrinth - in the Sinai Desert - Jack began came up with a plan to get past Sphinx's defences and enter the labyrinth, in what he called the Russian Doll Plan. As the team in Egypt began their preparations, the en-route Alby realised where Imhotep's tomb was, and during a brief diversion to the Siwa Oasis, he and Rufus uncovered the ancient architect's body and removed the mummified skull, which was tattooed with the clues to the Supreme Labyrinth. Meanwhile, before setting off to the Labyrinth, Jack tasked Stretch, Pooh Bear, Lynda and Tracy with finding out what the Four Kingdoms had planned for after the Omega Event, and then he and the other set off.

Upon nearing the gates to the Labyrinth, the team initiated jack's Russian Doll Plan, having Knight pilot a Hercules into the battalion of bronzemen, clearing a path through the automatons. Sky Monster took over in the Super Galaxy after that, and once the cargo plane stopped, the Wests used a troop truck and then a motorcycle with sidecar to continue making their way to the Labyrinth's gate. With some final assistance from Easton and his palemen, Rufus, Alby and Knight, Jack, Lily and Zoe narrowly made it into the Labyrinth, along with Easton and four palemen. With Alby having passed them Imhotep's head, the group took stock and then proceeded into the Labyrinth.

The One Impossible Labyrinth[]

Once inside the Labyrinth, Jack, Lily, Easton and Zoe were quickly thrust into the First Cavern after an attacking Vandal caused Jack to set off a sliding stone trap. But as they rushed to get past the silver guardians and descend the giant stalactite, Rastor used RPGs to bring the gigantic formation down, with Lily, Easton and Jack making it to safety, while Zoe apparently fell to her death with it.

Outside the Labyrinth, after using the Black Raven's second ejection seat in an attempt to get some distance from their enemies, Rufus was thrown clear upon landing while Knight and Alby were captured by Jaeger Zwei. Once Sphinx's forces had departed for the Labyrinth's "surface point", Rufus and Sky Monster reunited and set off after them to rescue their friends.

After taking some time to mourn over Zoe, Jack proceeded on with Lily, Easton, and their last remaining paleman, "Smiley", quickly arriving at a six-point fork to the Endless Tunnel. As Lily went ahead to check the entrance to the tunnel they believed to be the correct one, Dion emerged from the next tunnel over as the last of his squires were killed by an unseen goldman, and quickly attempted to kill Lily. Thanks to a Warbler she carried, the bullet was deflected, affording Lily the chance to turn the tables on the royal who had long tormented her and kill him.

Once Dion had been dealt with, the group continued on through the Endless Tunnel, walking for several hours before coming across a stationary goldman and the deformed body of a dying Omega monk. After Jack examined the latter and determined the cause to have been an explosion caused by one of the numerous crimson orbs lining the tunnel, another pair of Vandals attacked the group. The confrontation drew the gold guardian's attention, and while it killed the second Vandal, Jack, Lily, Easton and Smiley managed to escape, only to soon come across a fork in their path.

Meanwhile, Iolanthe, Bertie and Nobody arrived at Castel Gandolfo and located the secret vault by Lake Albano, which they began searching for clues to the whereabouts of the Orphean bell. Upon learning that the sole clue to the bell's location was inscribed on a carved stone copy of Priam's crown, the trio set off to find the ancient statue at Tenedos Island. At the same time, Stretch, Pooh Bear, Lynda and Tracy learned that the royals of the Four Kingdoms were being organised by Sphinx's people to take shelter until he was ready to assume power following the Omega Event, and decided to kidnap the man running the Storm Cellar Protocol, Sir John Marren.

Once they had determined how to choose the forks to continue on through the Endless Tunnel, Jack's group continued making their way along the Supreme Labyrinth, while Rufus and Sky Monster came across the temporary base set up by Sphinx's people on the coast of the Red Sea and began working out a plan to save Alby and Knight.

When Jack, Lily and Easton arrived at the entrance to the City-Maze, Easton was shot in the shoulder by a sniper left by Sphinx, and the group narrowly avoided being caught in the explosion of a crimson orb taped to a nearby Vandal and set off by Rastor's own sniper thanks to Smiley stepping in front of the trio. Looking out into the City-Maze, Jack and Lily were confused when they saw their rivals were fighting to reach a throne in the center, having assumed from the Imhotep clues that they were only halfway through the Labyrinth. At around the same time that Alby and Knight were brought before Jaeger Eins on the Red Horizon Star-4 oil rig on the edge of the City-Maze, Rastor used more RPGs to damage the seawall, causing the Labyrinth to start flooding. As the flow dragged in the oil rig, Alby and Knight managed to break free of their bonds and secure themselves in a tied-down chopper on the deck as the rig became suspended over the City-Maze, and Alby killed Eins in self-defence when the Golden Knights' leader attacked them. Meanwhile, a Russian aircraft carrier was also pulled into the City-Maze by Rastor's flooding, and Jack became separated from Lily and Easton when a falling rescue chopper broke off his section of their tower top.

Realised that it was down to him to keep their enemies from succeeding, Jack headed into the flooding City-Maze, and as he navigated his way down using the beached aircraft carrier, Jack overheard some nearby Omega monks discuss plans to destroy the Life Throne and head to a second throne deeper within the Labyrinth. As he processed this, Jack saw that Sphinx was about to reach the Life Throne, and decided that going for the second throne was better than letting the Trismagi become the world's ruler. With that, Jack took control of a destroyer's cannon and used it to blow apart the Throne of Life, thwarting Sphinx's efforts. Jack then raced over the to the Castle in the middle of the City-Maze leading into the second half of the Supreme Labyrinth, following the rest of his adversaries much more closely than before.

After witnessing all this from their unstable vantage point, Alby and Knight were soon rescued by Sky Monster and Rufus, who had used the confusion to steal a Werewolf chopper, and moved to Lily and Easton's position. When they were rejoined by Zoe - who had survived her fall thanks to the mini-Maghook she had been carrying - the present team members decided to split up once again, with Zoe, Lily and Alby electing to follow Jack into the second half of the Labyrinth, while the rest would cause as much damage as possible to the remainder of Sphinx's nearby forces.

When Marren arrived in Salzburg, Pooh Bear and Stretch were quick to snatch up the royal banker and flee before any of the royals realised what had happened. As they, Tracy and Lynda began preparations to find a new means of travelling to the United States, they made contact with Iolanthe's group shortly before their arrival at Tenedos. Infiltrating the Vault of Troy beneath the Zampieri estate, Iolanthe, Nobody and Bertie quickly found the statue of Priam, but Chloe - having already sent her people into the vault to examine the crown - taunted them with the answer to the blue bell's location via nearby speakers before arming some explosives. Luckily, Nobody was able to depress the detonator's switch, though he could not let go without it immediately going off. Bertie elected to take his place and ordered Iolanthe examine Priam's crown, learning that the Orphean bell was inside the Heliopolis Needle in New York, not London as Chloe had gloated. Biding her mentor farewell, Iolanthe and Nobody escaped the vault before Bertie released the switch and perished in the subsequent explosion.

Meanwhile, Pooh Bear's team arrived and France and began heading looking for an airplane to fly over to U.S., while questioning their prisoner on Sphinx's plans and requesting the master list of royal families and their followers which he carried. Marren refused to hand over the master list, but revealed that the transition into Sphinx's regime would take place at the White House and gloated that they would fail. Soon both Stretch's group and Iolanthe and Nobody acquired aircraft in which to travel to their respective destinations in America.

After several hours of traveling along the passage through the second half of the Labyrinth, the exhausted Jack baulked upon coming across a gigantic Four-Sided Maze, deciding to rest. Though this allowed Ezekiel and his remaining monk to get the drop on him and hold him at gunpoint, Zoe's group arrived, and Jack's wife killed the two Omega monks before the quartet shared a reunion. The group proceeded to work together to identify a path through the Four-Sided Maze, and over the course of several hours began to gain ground on Rastor's men and Sphinx and Mendoza.

Around two hours before the Omega Event was due to occur, Pooh Bear and Stretch's team's plane was remotely hijacked by Marren's allies and set to land at the Raven Rock base being used by some of the royals as a shelter. Having anticipated this, however, they caught their enemies off-guard and launched an assault, soon taking control of the base and the compliment of bronzemen and using one of the Siren bells to send everyone taking shelter within into the Siren sleep. At the same time, Iolanthe and Nobody arrived in New York and recovered the Orphean bell from within the Heliopolis Needle, only to be confronted by a pair of helicopters controlled by Chloe. As they were being pursued through the streets of New York, Iolanthe began ringing the blue bell to awaken the citizens below, and Nobody managed to trick Chloe's choppers into crashing. As the pair set off towards Washington D.C. while ringing the Orphean bell, Knight, Sky Monster and Rufus's assault on Sphinx's forces by the Red Sea finally came to an end.

Despite some setbacks that allowed Rastor and Sphinx to move ahead of them into the final part of the Labyrinth, Jack, Zoe, Alby and Lily arrived at the top of the Tower of Judgement, though Jack elected to proceed through the next part first on his own. Coming into contact with the Gold Colossus in the Chamber of Judgment, Jack's determination to let everyone live their own lives their way allowed him to be deemed pure by the ancient entity, who sent him on to the Stadium of the Throne of Death. As soon as he was at the top, however, Jack found himself pinned beside Sphinx as Rastor used his rifle to keep them pinned in place. But as the remaining countdown before the Omega Event was mere minutes, Jack switched on his Warbler and made a run at Rastor, engaging the mad General in close combat. Despite being overpowered, Jack managed to throw Rastor off their bridge, and then began following Sphinx into the Castle of the Death Throne.

Due to his artificial hand being damaged in his fight with Rastor, Jack found himself unable to make the final climb to the Throne of Death, though help was literally at hand as Zoe, Lily and Alby worked together to pass up the latter's prosthetic hand, since it had once belonged to Jack and could be used in place of his damaged one. After finally killing Rastor and climbing to the top of the pinnacle, Jack raced Sphinx to the Throne of Death, managing to sit upon it with only two seconds remaining before the Omega Event. As the released quantum pulse negated the universe-ending phenomenon, Jack felt himself being changed on a molecular level, and the voice of the Gold Colossus informed him that he was being reborn, as himself but also something different.

Once the pulse was over, Jack used his new ability to command others with fail to keep Sphinx from moving while he waited for Zoe, Alby and Lily to rejoin him on the peak. Soon they got in touch with the rest of the team, learning that they had been successful in their missions, and as Knight's group came to pick them up, Jack noted that they still had to clean up the mess Sphinx had made.

After the team had succeeded in using the Orphean bell to awaken the sleep-struck cities around the globe, and with the rest of the waken world having witnessed the celestial energy in the final moments before the Omega Event was averted, hearings and investigations were held by the United Nations in New York, with Jack's team being called upon to speak to the recent events. The team thus revealed the historic events that had taken place, and the specifics of the ancient trials and the Four Kingdoms' influence on history, leading to them, though Jack especially for having prevented the Omega Event, to be renowned as heroes. In the subsequent months, as the team officially disbanded to resume their normal lives, Sister Lynda led the commission to purge the Catholic Church's corruption, Knight and Rufus took up a dangerous-yet-lucrative new venture in hunting down fugitive shadow royals and their supporters, and Jack occasionally stepped in to use his ability to help the world's governments settle disputes and route out more royal supporters from within their ranks.

Team Members[]

Captain Jack West Jr (Leader)
Lily West
Sergeant Zoe Kissane-West
Captain Zahir al Abbas / Pooh Bear
Lieutenant Benjamin Cohen / Stretch
Ernest Sheperd / Sky Monster
Alby Calvin
Anthony DeSaxe / Hades †
Mae Merriweather †
Julius Adamson †
Iolanthe Compton-Jones
Captain Aloysius Knight / the Black Knight
Rufus
Professor David Black / Nobody
Easton / E-147
Sister Lynda Fadel
Sister Agnes †
Brother Bertie de Montreuil †
Doctor Tracy Smith

Goals[]

The team's mission is to undertake the remaining trials of the Super-Ancient Beings in opposition to the Four Legendary Kingdoms, since they do not trust that the royals have all of humanity's best interests at heart. Though most of the remaining members of the Coalition of Members team are a part of this team, since they cannot be certain who they can trust in their own nations' governments or military given the Four Kingdoms' control, they have taken on this mission independent of any nation.

Jack's Team's first mission was to take on the Trial of the Cities, coming into contention with Orlando Compton-Jones and his people. To this end, they worked to identify the locations of the Three Secret Cities and the Altar of the Cosmos, so that they could empower the three Immortal Weapons for a final ceremony at the Altar. However, they also came into conflict with the Knights of the Golden Eight and the Slave King of the Royal Prison of Erebus, resulting in the captures of Jack, Lily and Alby, and prompting the team to enact rescue missions. The team would then split up to get to each City and back up the members of Orlando's team, having discovered that he had prematurely set off their defences. Ultimately the team were the ones to empower the Weapons, but Sphinx took advantage of their efforts to finish the Trial of the Cities and claim the rewards.

In the interim before the Trial of the Mountains, Jack's Team focused on locating Lily, held captive by Sphinx, while also researching ways to fight back against the ancient automatons. Once Lily was retrieved, those who weren't rendered unconscious by the Siren Bells began researching the locations of the Iron Mountains and the Supreme Labyrinth, hoping to find one of the Iron Mountains so that they could perform the Fall and be permitted into the Labyrinth, where they would activate the quantum pulse to prevent the Omega Event. Despite always being behind Sphinx's people, who thwarted their efforts, the team were able to get Jack, Lily and Zoe to do the Fall, and then worked to get past Sphinx's defensive forces to get them into the Labyrinth.

Towards the end of their overall mission to complete the trials, Jack's Team were working on completing multiple objectives simultaneously; Jack, Lily Zoe and Easton started navigating the Supreme Labyrinth in order to reach the ultimate throne to prevent both the Omega Event and their enemies in succeeding in their own goals upon sitting on or destroying the throne; Iolanthe, Nobody and Bertie sought out the Orphean Bell to awaken the people in the cities affected by the Siren Bells around the world; and Pooh Bear, Stretch, Lynda and Tracy were to find out the Four Kingdoms plans for the world post-Omega Event, and to either stop them or slow them down.

Equipment[]

Vehicles[]

Sky Warrior: A Tupolev TU-144 once owned by Carnivore, and later appropriated by Jack and Sky Monster to serve as a replacement for the Halicarnassus. The Sky Warrior was used to transport the team across the globe as they tackled the Trial of the Cities, but was destroyed by an orbit-to-air missile by Sphinx's forces.
Belarus: A luxury super-yacht belonging to a Russian oligarch which Monster first learned about from one of his yatch magazines. When Jack needed to infiltrate the Gallerie dell'Accademia, Monster suggesting stealing the Belarus from its mooring and using its submersible to navigate Venice's canals. The superyacht was crushed by the Knights of the Golden Eight's water-capable Hercules when it landed on the Venice canal.
- DeepFlight 'Super Falcon' Submarine: The Belarus's accompanying submersible, which Jack and Lily used to sneak through the canals of Venice and reach an old water closet in the Gallerie dell'Accademia.
- Piper PA-18 150 Super Cub: The Belarus's accompanying floatplane, which Sky Monster attempted to use to fly out of Venice, only to be shot in the shoulder mid-takeoff. Alby was then forced to navigate the canals in the Piper, only for it to soon be sunk by the Knights of the Golden Eight.
Betty White: A submersible support vessel which Nobody purchased to serve as his laboratory while undertaking his research. After Nobody used it to help the team locate the coffin of Sir Francis Drake in the Orinoco Delta, the ship was sunk by the Brazilian Navy.
- Spider: The Betty White's accompanying submersible, which Nobody, Iolanthe and Mae used to scour the bottom of the Orinoco Delta to locate Drake's coffin.
- Floatplane: The Betty White's accompanying floatplane, which remained intact even after the Betty White was sunk by the Brazilian Navy, and used by Nobody, Mae and Iolanthe to escape and make their way to Ra.
Black Raven: A specially modified "test damaged" Sukhoi Su-37 plane that was gifted to Knight, he and his pilot Rufus use the plane as their personal transport for undertaking their bounty missions. Used to assist in transporting the team around the world as they undertook the Trial of the Cities and the Trial of the Mountains, the Black Raven was his by a missile during the Russian Doll Plan, and though it crashed to the ground, the Wests were able to use its primary ejection seat for a final sprint to the Labyrinth's gate, and Knight, Rufus and Alby used the second ejection seat to aid their escape from Sphinx's forces.
Challenger 2: A tank taken from Malta by the team for use as a distraction for the assault on Aragon Castle, with the words "Return to Sender" painted on it to make the Knights of the Golden Eight believe it was the tank they'd used in London being parachuted onto their doorstep. Pooh Bear and Stretch hid inside the tank as it made its way down while the rest of the team began the attack to let them reach the captured Alby without notice.
Sexy Prince One and Sexy Prince Two: A pair of ICON A10 seaplanes formerly belonging to Dion and Zaitan DeSaxe. Jack used SP1 to take a group to the first iron mountain, and then flew it into Yago's Super Galaxy once they remote opened its cargo hold. Though the landing gear was damaged, Jack and Easton used Sexy Prince One for a final flight in order to reach the second mountain. Meanwhile, Sky Monster and Pooh Bear took Sexy Prince Two and used to catch up to their friends at Mont Blanc, using it in a daring rescue when Jack's group were about to fall off the cliff. Zoe and Lynda later used SP2 to fly to Syria to recruit Tracy Smith, and then used the seaplane to fly on to Jerusalem.
C-5M Super Galaxy: A gigantic military transport aircraft, which the team took control of from Yago during the rescue of Easton. The team based themselves within the aircraft during their meeting outside of Dijon, and later used it to get from Jerusalem to Cairo. During the Russian Doll Plan, Sky Monster flew the Super Galaxy in behind Knight's Hercules, taking over the clearing of a path for the Wests to use to get to the Labyrinth's gates before the bronzemen it was crushing began clogging up the wheels.
C-130 Hercules: An Egyptian-owned Hercules which was taken from Cairo Airport, and used during the team's Russian Doll Plan, with Knight piloting it in the horde of bronzemen to start clearing a path.

Weapons[]

To Be Added...

Other[]

Immortal Weapons: The Three Immortal Weapons which are required to be empowered at the Secret Cities for the ceremony at the Altar of the Cosmos. Ultimately, Jack's team empowered them at the three Cities where Orlando's team failed, only to be forced to hand them over in order to secure Lily's life. After Sphinx used them in the ceremony to sacrifice Alexander to complete the Trial of the Cities, the abandoned Immortal Weapons were claimed by Pooh Bear, Stretch and Alby in the hopes of using them to combat the ancient automatons.
- Sword of the Rock: One of the Three Immortal Weapons, which was empowered thanks to Stretch and Pooh Bear's efforts at Thule, and was later taken and used by Sphinx to kill Alexander and fulfill the requirements of the Fourth Trial. While the Sword was abandoned at the Altar, it was later re-acquired by Jack's team, who used shaving of the Sword's blade to tip their bullets with its sturdy metal in order to give them an edge in fighting Sphinx's automatons.
- Trident of the Sealord: One of the Three Immortal Weapons, which Jack and Knight found in Poseidon's tomb and brought to Atlas. The pair were then blackmailed into empowering it on Sphinx's behalf, utilising its ability to command the Guardians in order to reach the City's vault. Sphinx soon took the empowered Trident and used it to complete the Fourth Trial. Along with the other Immortal Weapons, the Mace was later recovered by Jack's team, who in their subsequent analyses of the Weapons discovered that the Mace was completely inert due to Sphinx transferring its power into the Rings of Command.
- Helmet of Hades: The helmet of the Three Immortal Weapons, it was originally held by Anthony DeSaxe and kept in his vault at Saxony Tower, only to be taken by Orlando and his team. However, it was Iolanthe and Nobody who successfully figured out the Helmet was the key in the getting past Ra's Guardians and empowered it before being forced to hand it over to Chloe. The Helmet was recovered by Jack's team after it was left at the Altar of the Cosmos, and analysed by Alby in the hope of finding out how the Helmet made its wearer invisible to the bronze and silver automatons.
Ring of Command: One of five rings which control the bronze and silver guardians created by the Super-Ancient Beings. Easton took the one Yago possessed during their struggle onboard the Super Galaxy, which allowed the team to control the automatons that were onboard the plane. After defeating Sphinx, Jack took the Emperor's Ring from the Trismagi, while Pooh Bear managed to acquire one the the other lesser rings during his team's obtainment of the master list.
- Bronze Guardians: The ancient bronze-coloured automatons which guarded the important locales of the Super-Ancients' trials. Following the defeat of Sphinx's forces and prevention of the Omega Event, Jack sent all of the remaining bronzemen to Erebus so that they could watch over the imprisoned Sphinx.
  - "Palemen": A small group of bronzemen which can be controlled by the particular ring of command worn by Easton. It is unknown which locale they originaly came from. At Jack's direction, Easton painted them in a pale blue paint, so that they would be able to tell which automatons were theirs apart from the ones under Sphinx's command. A small group accompanied Jack and Easton into the second iron mountain, only to all be lost. Easton commanded more during the Russian Doll Plan to get the Wests inside the Supreme Labyrinth, and he and four of the palemen ended up joining them in the maze.
    - Smiley: The last-surviving paleman that ventured into the Supreme Labyrinth with Jack, Lily, Zoe and Easton, which got its nickname from the curved scratch it received while moving under the closing gate.
- Silver Guardians: The ancient silver-coloured automatons which guarded the important locales of the Super-Ancients' trials. Following the defeat of Sphinx's forces and prevention of the Omega Event, Jack sent all of the remaining silvermen to Erebus so that they could watch over the imprisoned Sphinx.
Sword of the Rock-tipped Ammunition: Bullets that Stretch and Easton painstakingly tipped with slivers grinded off from the Sword of the Rock, which the team began preparing in anticipation of facing more bronze and silver guardians between the Trial of the Cities and the Trial of the Mountains. The specially-tipped ammunition includes bullets used in pistols, and also shotgun shells. Jack and Nobody first used them against Yago's bronzemen during the rescue of Easton, then Jack used them again at the second iron mountain. The rest of the team soon started using the ammunition during the confrontations against the bronzemen in Jerusalem and at the Zapadny Cosmodrome, and again while trying to get past the bronze guardians defending the Supreme Labyrinth's gates. When they encountered the silvermen in the Supreme Labyrinth, Jack and Zoe found that the specialised bullets did not penetrate their armour as easily as their bronze counterparts, needing to hit the target in the same spot several times in order to breach their armour.
Warbler: Anti-gunfire devices invented by Epper, which Jack and the Coalition team used to defend themselves from enemies firing on them. Lily found Epper's last remaining Warbler and decided to keep it on her person as a constant reminder of her grandfather-figure, and still had it when she went into the Supreme Labyrinth. Lily activated it to deflect the round fired at her by Dion, and later slipped it into Jack's pocket, which protected him when he was shot at by an Omega monk. The Warbler later kept Jack safe as he made a desperate run at Rastor despite the mad General's use of a high-velocity rifle to try to keep him pinned.
Armalite Maghook: A grappling hook apparatus with magnetic adhesion properties, often employed by members the U.S. Marine Corps reconnaissance units. Jack and Zoe carried miniaturised versions of the Maghook among their gear as the West family began their journey into the Supreme Labyrinth; Zoe used hers to save her life during her fall into the chasm of the First Cavern, and later used it to kill an Omega monk. Jack used his Maghook to break free of the greystone he had encased himself within to escape a crimson orb explosion.
Orphean Bell: One of the 15 Siren bells, but which is made to reverse the effect of the siren sleep caused by its counterparts. Finding it within the New York obelisk, Iolanthe began ringing it during her and Nobody's escape over the streets from Chloe's choppers, waking up the citizens there before proceeding to ring the Orphean bell on their way to Washington D.C.. Following the Omega Event and Sphinx's defeat, the team took the blue bell around the world and rang it in order to awaken the cities that Sphinx's people had struck with the Siren bells.

Trivia[]

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