Beyond the Sphere

The Elite Force of Britain: a group of superheroes who joined together to eradicate problems for everyday folk as and when they arise. Arch foes to groups of supervillains such as Supervillains United, they regularly thwart their dastardly plans. Recently, however, the team seem to have disappeared from existence. Reports have been filtering through that our heroes may be staging a return – albeit a subtle one. Following on from last week’s report that featured in The Mid and Up Chronicle, here’s another from The Olde Yorke Digeste:

A roofless ruin in an abandoned town is hardly the setting for an armed siege, but that is exactly what happened on Tuesday. Linda, Tasmania, was the scene, and the stage was set through the open windows of the old Royal Hotel. Holed up inside the building’s shell were members of the UK’s The Pinchem Mob, a subsidiary of Supervillains United. They were, apparently, waiting to be picked up with their as-yet-undisclosed ill-gotten gains, and decided to use Linda as their meeting point.

The arrested members of the group, who were all wrapped in steel girders when dropped off at a police station in Hobart, didn’t speak when asked questions by the police. Fire crews were called to cut them out of the girders, and each one of the five arrested had a note clipped to their shirts with a signed confession attached. The notes also contained details of where their stolen items had been kept for safe keeping. The notes were counter-signed by ‘a friend’.

The strange thing is, which was only disclosed afterwards when one of the Pinchem Mob couldn’t keep quiet any longer, none of them saw who caught them. One minute, he said, they were waiting, and the next they were wrapped in girders and being bundled onto what looked like a Stealth Jet.

Only one person owns their own Stealth Jet, according to British media, and that is the Stealth Gentleman. With no sightings of this British superhero, one can only wonder if it was truly him. And ask why appear in Tasmania? Of course, the other question is why the Pinchem Mob would be there also… but with supervillains being as despicable as they are they could be anywhere.

The strange encounters have continued throughout this week. On Tuesday in San Pedro, Chile, a missing chicken sign was returned to the restaurant from where it had belonged to the owners for generations. The thief, who named himself Pedro Galvarino (although his documents seized by police indicated a different name), handed himself and the chicken sign in to police. He said, rather confused, that he was taking the chicken as a trophy, but a woman’s voice in his head commanded that he walk with it to the nearest police station. He said the voice was telling him to go to the nearest police station to her so he had walked for hours with it, the leather on the soles of his shoes in tatters. As he didn’t know where the woman’s voice was coming from, he eventually threw himself through the doors of the first police station he came across.

British media have advised this seems to be the work of Psychic Sue, although they are baffled why she would make the thief walk so far. In the end, they think he may have misinterpreted her instructions. Why would she be in Chile?

And on Wednesday, in Kiambu, Kenya, a group of joggers out for their daily exercise found themselves running into the British supervillain The Dyemaster. Their neat white shorts and green tee shirts were splattered by various colours of dye from the pesky villain’s Dyegun, and he was attempting to tie-dye dry them if they didn’t hand over their bank cards and pin numbers. Obviously not being the brightest tool in the box, the Dyemaster hadn’t realised the joggers were joggers and thought they were tourists. Still, attempted theft is a crime to some, and tie-dye is one to others, so he had to be stopped. Within seconds, the Dyegun vanished from sight, as did the TieDyeDryer. The supervillain was thwarted by an unseen force and the jiggers were asked to sit on him until the police arrived, who were mere seconds away.

British media say this sounds like the work of Invisible Charlie, but have no idea why he is in Kenya.

Supervillains United released a news release mocking these reports, advising that the superheroes no longer protect Britain or the world and these reports are mere figments of people’s terrified imaginations.

The police forces in all the countries concerned confirm the stories as true, so we here at the Olde Yorke Digeste are convinced that our superheroes are still with us, and are on a secret mission. They will return in due course.

And we live in hope, as always.