The Exemplar

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Making a Fan Fiction based on a Silver Age team, The Exemplar.

Founded in 1971 by Mr. Amazo, Capitol-Man, Excalibur, Lady Liberty, and Amazon when Manhattan is threatened by TITAN, the original Exemplar have excelled in history to legendary status. They disbanded in 1987. In 1989, however, industrialist and superhero, Richard Kendall AKA Defender, convinced Excalibur, Lady Liberty, and Amazon to reform the Exemplar and against his wishes, he was named leader. They later recruited Man-Monster, Number 7, Mary Amazing, and Number 7's kid daughter, Solace. The team had a large string of success for 7 years until 1996 which was the year Solace joined the team. Lady Liberty went missing while investigating an underground gun-running operation. The next year brought the end as the Battle Land event swung around. Mary Amazing and Solace were told to stay behind while the rest of the team went (due to their being minors) But Mary, being the hard head that she is, sneaked to the Battle Land meeting and was taken to Battle Land where she was allegedly killed with the others in a Dark Matter Explosion. In modern day, Solace is an adult and aims to reform the Exemplar once again, having thus far only recruited an up-and-coming super heroine named Sandra Reyes AKA Oblivion. This particular story would be centered around the 1989-1997 Exemplar.

1971 - The Exemplar is founded to defeat TITAN.
1987 - The Exemplar disbands.
1989 - The Exemplar is put back together with Defender, Lady Liberty, Excalibur, and Amazon.
1990 - The Exemplar Recruit Man-Monster.
1994 - The Exemplar Recruit Number 7.
1995 - The Exemplar Recruit the Mary Amazing.
1996 - (August) The Exemplar Recruit Solace (December) Lady Liberty goes MIA.
1997 - The Battle Land Event Apparently Claims The Lives of Defender, Excalibur, Amazon, Number 7, Man-Monster, and Mary Amazing.

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1994

On a Tuesday afternoon, a teenage girl no older that thirteen years of age, ducks and dodges through busy Manhattan streets. Her long, blonde hair trails behind her, flowing rapidly as she swerves left and right to avoid the unassuming businessman or the unsuspecting street vendors. One man carriers a silver briefcase that gleams in the sun. He has a nice, black suit and well groomed brunette hair. In her haste, the young girl nearly plows through him, forcing him to the side of the street where an oncoming taxicab kicks up mud, dirtying his suit which causes him to drop his nice briefcase, letting the papers within it loose to fly all around the block. Yet without so much as yielding, the girl turns around, still running but backwards. "Sorry!" She calls out to him, turning back around and dashing around the corner then across the street.

The girl stop when she comes to a car accident that's blocked off her primary route. Giving a quick glance, she sees an open alleyway that she plans to use to get around the block. She sneaks over the yellow tape the back over near the alley and runs top speed, hardly breaking a sweat. Distracted by the commotion she had just left behind, she doesn't realize until too late that in her path is a pile of chemical barrels, all marked with HAZMAT logos and lettered in dull red Radioactive Compound. Slamming into them, she falls back, knocking one over, causing the top to fall off. The chemical spread across the dirt ground as the girl sits there. It saturates her clothing as she sits up. As she gets to her feet, she turns her head to see an oncoming forklift whose driver swerves out of the way, cutting a street lamp that begins to rain down sparks upon her. The combination of sparks and the chemicals from the barrel causes her to combust, catching fire.

In a panic, the girl runs, having located a man-made stream next to the building to her left. She leaps in to extinguish the flames, the panic leaving her unaware of the sign above which reads Danger, Mutagenic Runoff. She resurfaces unconscious from the shock of the whole incident. She eventually awakens to find herself in a hospital bed. "What hit me?" She asks the nurse in the room with her. Only a couple hours later, she is resting again when her mother and father walk in. She turns over and opens her eyes when her mother touches her hand to her cheek. "Mom?" Still half asleep, she sounds as if the life had been drained from her.

"It's all right, Karen. The doctors say you'll be fine and ready to go in a couple of days."

The Exemplar
Prologue Part 1
"Prepare to be Amazed"

Several days later, Karen stands in her school lunch line, adolescents on either side of her, grabbing and snatching at food. She hesitantly places her hand over the food to pick out something she would like to have, afraid that someone might try to add her hand to their tray. She is suddenly overcome by a wave of heat. She retracts her hand, trembling for a moment as the student beside her sees this peculiar behavior. "Hey, you okay?" He asks.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Karen says, forcing the trembling to cease. "I was just burning up there, for a second."

Later in the week, testing begins for Karen's 10^th grade class. While writing, Karen begins to experience the same hot flashes. The teacher in charge of the class disallows her from leaving to go to the nurse, believing her simply to be attempting to get out of the test. However, after asking several times, the teacher grows annoyed, slamming her yard stick down on her own desk, frightening the class and keep everyone, including Karen quiet. However, the silence does not last. While trying to complete her test, she begins to see a thin smoke emit itself from the tip of her pencil. Look closely at it, she begins to write again, only to have the paper spontaneously combust before her eyes in a peculiarly colored flame. Instantly, she screams and begins putting it out while the rest of the class begins to grow unsettled to say the least.

That afternoon, Karen is surprised to find out that her test isn't voided after the incident. Her parents had come on request of her instructor who was concerned for her. Karen, sitting in the hall outside of the classroom while her parents spoke with her teacher, began to grow bored. Initially she began to hum. Then, unsatisfied, she began to tap her foot to her own beat, singing. Finally she snapped. That one time began a revolution in her mind. She saw what had happened before her eyes. She snapped and sparks appeared, fizzling out with the end of the motion. She had caused the paper to incinerate somehow and now, her curiosity peaked, she wanted to see if she could do it again.

That night when her parents were away shopping, Karen had set up several sheets of paper around the backyard on clotheslines. With a pear of goggles and her mother's cooking apron on for protection, she began to rub her hands together, not at all remembering how friction triggered these abilities she'd acquired. Both her hands suddenly went up in flames of pink, red, blue, and other colors. But the flame wasn't an average fire. It was almost a liquid even. It was plasma. Amazed by what she'd done, she then looked up at the targets she'd set all around the yard, throwing her hands up, aiming at them. The result was a blast almost like a brilliant fireworks display that struck the targets and exploded into multicolored bursts of light. She then destroyed another and another. Eventually throwing her hands up too high and creating a sort of incredible display in the sky of luminescent pinks, purples, and blues. She stood there amazed at what she created, unable to put to words the beauty of it. Then, hearing her parents out front, she turned abruptly, tripping backwards.

The fireworks eventually dissipated and when Karen opened her eyes, she felt nothing. She wasn't moving yet she hadn't hit the ground. She was floating. Looking down, she saw herself slightly elevated and began to laugh in excitement. "This is so COOL!" She says to herself as any teenager would likely think if they suddenly discovered they had superhuman abilities. But when she heard her parents calling her, she turned toward the fence and rushed, taking down every target that remained then ran inside, putting back the goggles and cooking apron before taking to her room, closing the door behind her and locking it as if she was guilty of something. Looking around her room, she seems an old cheer leading outfit and a bandanna. The next is no surprise. And idea suddenly clicks into her head and she unlocks the door, opening it and running face-first into her parents before backing up. "Oh, hi mom, hi dad, how was the shopping trip?"

A week later, Karen sees two school jocks picking on a young student named Eliot whom she knew though never took the time to converse with. Originally her plan was to ignore the incident. However, better nature...and temptation to show off her new powers overcame her. She had cut eye holes in the bandanna several days before and dyed her old cheering uniform, hiding it under her clothes. She quickly ducked beneath the bleachers on the far side of the stadium and changed, putting on the bandanna and pulling it over her upper face before rocketing off towards the two goons. Tapping one on the shoulder, she wound back and punched him in the gut. However, unused to her new found strength, she accidentally manages to punch him clean over the bleachers, making him land in the grass behind them. The other future garbage man she spins around then blasts in the rear with a 'firework' setting his pants on fire, causing him to run off yelling. "That was awesome!" Eliot says. Karen then coughs into her fist.

"Yeah, 'awesome'..." Karen says, attempting to sound as little like herself as possible while avoiding eye contact.

"What's your name, anyway?"

"Mary," Karen says, accidentally giving away a part of her real name.

Eliot blinks cluelessly. "What?"

Karen then realizes her mistake and quickly tries to think up a cover. "AMAZING! Mary Amazing. Yeah, that's it," she says, turning her back to him. She then rubs the back of her head. "Well that could have gone better...but I beat up the bad guy so...I guess it's a start...I'm gonna go now." She then hunkers down then takes a jumping motion, flying off like a rocket.

See Mary Amazing's Biography Below and if you must know, I made her alias like a cheesy 70's character on purpose. Also, the next Prologue will feature Number 7

Mary Amazing Bio:

Professional Member

1978

What Happened? Where Am I? Those were the thoughts running through the head of this young African-American woman as she came around. She could feel herself suspended in the air, restraints around her wrists and ankles, holding her in place. She was groggy, hardly able to feel a thing. She could hardly even think straight. What was this place she was in? It was dark. Dark and cold. She couldn't even make out a silhouette. It seemed she was alone. But from the darkness suddenly came a bright light that shone throughout this bleak room. Lab tables cluttered with test tubes and beakers, flasks, documents of some sort, and scientific tools. Throughout the lab were complicated machines, including the one they'd had this you one hooked up to. Then a short man with large glasses stepped into the room. He was bald headed and his glasses cast a glare that prevented his eyes from being seen. He had with him a clipboard and a ballpoint pen. Looking upon the girl who hung there, he smiled. "Ms. Martina Harte. Nova Division Project Number 7. Experiment Classification: Spatial Abilities. Thus far positively displayed abilities such as flight and your current...physical state is quite intriguing." As she hung there and listened to his rambling, she began to come around a bit more, hearing his comment regarding her 'physical condition'.

The poor young woman couldn't tell what he'd meant. Her blurry vision hardly allowed her to look down to her feet. The girl's body was far exceeding unusual, however. Her skin no longer appeared so. It was now some form of black energy, solidified into her form. The essence of space itself, personified. That was this child's fate. It would be for many more days, years perhaps as this little man had another scientist inject her with a serum of unknown origin. But it proved to do its job as she almost instantly found herself sleeping once again. This time when she came around, it was to the sound of the room's metal doors being pried open. She was only half awake but it'd worked. Six individuals flooded into the room after breaking the door down. One was a man near to her age. He held his hands out and her restraints very suddenly melted down as all other metals in the room began to levitate in place as a result of his inhuman abilities being used. She fell to the ground, unable to get up, let alone walk. "Hey," he said to her. "Hey, you just rest up. We're all getting out of here. My friend here will carry you." He then stood up as she began to pass out again, the last thing she saw being the silhouette of an enormous man bending down to pick her up.

She wavered again with the sound of an alarm in the far distance to her. She was still with these six individuals and in the arms of this behemoth. It appeared that they were in a desert, the large complex only yards away with spotlights shining all around. One shone down on the group as an explosive managed to land in the dirt before them, counting down to its detonation. That was the last she saw. The last she heard before passing out again was the scream of an older woman and the same man from before, yelling to the others to get down.

Finally, she began to come fully around as she lay in the dirt by a campfire, the others all sitting around it but saying nothing. There is only the silence of a graveyard before she awakens and this changes none whatsoever upon her awakening. "It's nice to see your finally awake," says the same from before. "Name's Andrew."

"I'm...Martina," the girl says, holding her hand to her head to try and shake the headache that just waking up had given her. But upon removing her hand, she opens her eyes and sees the spatial element of her arm. She then looks up to Andrew who sees her and turns away. Martina stands and runs but is soon tackled by a man much older than she.

"What are you trying to do, exactly, space girl? Get us ALL killed?"

"Let GO of me! I have to-"

Andrew waves and the man gets up, stepping back. "Martina, truth is, we got no place else to go. Those creeps back there, they're going to try and have us all killed. They captured each and every one of us. We were about the most apt human specimens they could get. They performed experiments on us. Messed with our bodies, exposed us to radiation...god knows what they did to you. But it gave all of us these...these powers. You were all it took. When I saw you, it finally clicked in this thick skull of mine that they were crossing the line. I got with the others and we started planning our escape. Meet Danny, Renae, Damien, Kyle, and Becky. I'm Andrew, the first of us to get here. Those lab coats made us into lab RATS. First thing they did was give us numbers. I'm one. Danny's two. Renae, Damien, Kyle, and Becky are three through six. Guess what that makes you."

The Exemplar
Prologue Part 2
"unLUCKY NUMBER 7"

Martina Harte, Audio-Log Number 483. 7:31pm Thursday May 6^th, 1979: It's been almost a year and a half since the day my life...changed. I've finally learned how to change back. I can change back into a human whenever I want but...I can't use my powers while in human form. Number 1, Andrew, he told me a few days ago that they got Becky. That's it. Only the two of us left. I know he's going to try and fight them. I worry about him sometimes. A man who can control metal with just a thought. He's powerful but...reckless. I fear it may be his downfall.

From within Martina's small Manhattan apartment comes the sound of a telephone ringing early in the morning. Around 4:30am, a bit later. "Hello?"

"Martina, it's me, Andrew. Listen, do you, uh, do you remember when we were on the run in the desert and they got Kyle?"

"Yes? Why, what's wrong, did...did Kyle survive?"
remainswas silent for a moment but Martina could hear him sigh over the phone. "No, no, Kyle is...he's very much dead. Do you remember what you told me? What we told one another? You know, that hasn't changed, right?"

"A-Andrew, is everything all right?"

"Martina...has it changed?"

Martina shakes her head, now worried for Andrew more than she could ever remember. "No, Andrew...no, it hasn't changed at all. Andrew are you-"

"Stay inside, don't open any doors or windows, seal all the vents, keep the blinds shut. They...they're coming for you next. I got a lead on it. If you can help it, don't even use any of your powers. They might be able to track them somehow. Just...just be safe, all right?"

"All right...I love you," Martina responds, worriedly. No answer. He'd hung up before she could respond.

Over a week later, she receives another call. But this ring is far different. She knows this ring. It's the same ring that always came when Andrew would call to tell her that another number was murdered. Since they were the only numbers remaining, she grows morbidly paralyzed, hardly able to lift the phone to her ear. "Hello?" It was Andrew. He'd called her out to a nearby diner, giving her the address. But she arrives at a parking garage, finding Andrew alone in a trench coat and hat. "Andrew, what's going on?" Andrew turns when he saw her, removing his hat and coat as he approached her before scooping her up from the ground and hugging her tightly. "W-what is?"

"Seven...I did it. I beat 'em!" Andrew says, laughing in rejoice and he shares a kiss with Seven who's too hung up on the strangeness of these conditions to embrace him. Then she lets go of him and drops to the ground upon feeling something nearly slide down the back of her throat. She'd been able to cough it up before it made it, a small pill, black and white capsule typed.

"Andrew, what is-"

Andrew glares at her, his face now overridden by a grave presence. He then splits into two and his body drops to the ground, him coughing and trying to pull himself together. The other is an entirely different person who stands with his hands behind his back. "So you're as oblivious as we'd thought."

"Who are...what have you done with Andrew?"

"He's right there. I am called Ghost. With the Nova Division. Come with us now, BOTH of you, and your lives will be spared. If you do not comply, I must sadly inform you that Nova Division forces have moved into the city. All exits are barricaded and the sky is teeming with Nova Division Air Forces. We've an army ready to take you both."

Andrew finishes coughing just as Ghost finished his routine monologue. He then stands up from behind and throws a punching, tagging Ghost as he turns around and throws him down. "You'll need more than that," he says as Martina extends her arm upward, forcing gravity around The Ghost to cancel itself, throwing him into dead space. She then turns to Andrew. "Martina, do you know what it feels like to be possessed?"

"I...can't say I do."

"Lucky you. When I went to try and help out Renae they pulled a similar stunt with the whole army thing. They went terrorist the let their attack dogs loose on the city, tearing it up until they got her. This go around we can't let them win. Their base is a massive structure not far from here. I was investigating it when Ghost caught me and tried to use me to get to you. That base is where their armed forces come from. Keep in contact using this communicator," Andrew says, handing her an earpiece. "You take care of the forces around here and I'll bust up the base."

Martina nods and puts the earpiece on. "Sounds like a plan she says," her cosmic form emerging from beneath her human shell before flying off in the opposite direction.

In the sky above he city, Martina hover as several Nova Division jets converge on her position. The instant they've a shot, they take it but she very suddenly disappears from sight, reemerging within one of the cockpits and ejecting the pilot before scrambling the controls with cosmic disturbance. She then leaps out of the plane as it spirals out of control, slamming into another with a powerful explosion. On her way down, another dozen planes tails her. She turns, mid fall, both her hands surrounded in a multicolored aura which she then uses in a concussive beam, destroying the leaders and causing an aerial pile up of planes before three remaining emerge from the smoke and flames. She then turns back around and flies straight ahead, getting lower and lower.

She spins to the side as one of the Nova Division Tanks destroying the city locks onto her and fires, the shot striking the front plane, causing it to come down on the tank, blowing both to smithereens. Two planes remain and she takes her flight up, heading in a perfect ninety degree flight pattern to the sky. The planes begin to suffer altitude malfunction as she climbs and climbs, and once the planes begin to slow down, she releases a cosmic pulse that jams the controls, disallowing the pilots from redirecting. The planes then shut down and fall to the city below. She flies down past them at mach speeds and catches them both in a gravitational field so that they don't cause any collateral damage.

Two dozen tanks, over one hundred soldiers, thirty armed vehicles, and thousands of rescued civilians later, Martina stands on a pile of debris, many civilians emerging when they've heard the explosions stop. Had these forces not been destroying the city earlier, many would likely run. But these people know her deed. Many have seen, first hand, her heroism. She looks around as many of them cheer and clap for her. If only for a moment, she feels human. But she's not through. She remembers Andrew and flies off to the base, finding it heavily damaged. Andrew never was one for subtlety.

She looked around in the husk of a base that was left until she heard a groaning sound. Stealthily, she makes her way through the base until she comes to a large control room where she finds Andrew on the ground. He'd been badly wounded. "Andrew!" The instant she knelt down to him, a gunshot echoed throughout the room. She turned in time to place a gravity field to shield herself. Then the same little man she'd originally seen was in the room with a gun in hand.

"Hello again, Martina. It's been a long time...too long. Oh, we're all sincerely going to miss you. You've been such a good sport about things over the years. Never seeking revenge like that idiot next to you did. Unfortunately, you're a threat to my division. I hope you understand that. Goodbye now," he says, pressing a button on the wall that emits a pulse, somehow paralyzes Martina down before he loads his gun and pulls the trigger. However, at the very last second, the bullet pauses in mid air. "What the-" It then shoots itself back, finding its way through the old man's heart. He looks up to find Andrew sitting up with his hand held out. "Y-you..."

"Whoops," Andrew says as the doctor drops to his knees before keeling over.

Martina awakens from stasis minutes later, looking around in a panic. The doctor is on the floor behind her. When she turns her head back, she finds Andrew rolled over beside her. She turns him back over and begins to cry, trying as hard as she can to revive him but even her powers were proven useless. Andrew was gone. Martina finally stops and lets herself fall over his lifeless body, holding him near as if it'd bring him back, crying and rocking. She then stands minutes later and leaves that room. Once outside, she utters a shriek so horrid that one can feel the pain of a tortured soul who'd lost everything from miles away. Those who couldn't hear it no doubt feel that unmistakable chill down their spines.

As she leaves the base, she stood on a rock and let loose a massive cosmic beam into the sky. She then turned and began to walk away as a meteor struck down on the base, then another, followed by another. Meteors would continue to fall on that base until nothing remained. Until no one would ever be able to look at its harshly mangled husk and find the true story of what'd happened that day and over the years. The tale of the Numbers was over. The tale of Number 7 had only just begun.

The Next Prologue Will Feature Lady Liberty

Number 7: