Preston Payne couldn't figure out how he'd gotten to the beach. He looked around bewilderedly; when suddenly, a costumed woman appeared out of thin air and was headed directly toward him at a tremendous speed.

The strange woman veered at the last minute and collided with a shower station. Feeling deep concern, Payne felt an urge to help. Suddenly, the pain and headaches began. The pain was intense. The last thing he wanted to do was harm the woman further but the only thing that alleviated his pain was touching someone else which was inevitably fatal to the recipient.

The only person around was this woman. It was clear she'd been gravely injured and it was possible she might die anyway.

Even with that ridiculous costume he could tell she was beautiful. Something he knew was forever beyond him but he always longed to be. He hated to destroy beauty. Perhaps if he could just see her face he would be able to quell the urge to destroy.

Tentatively, he reached down to pull her cowl back to see how lovely her face might be.

Suddenly, Payne was overcome with irrational fear. He looked down at the injured woman and felt like she was the most terrifying thing he'd ever encountered. Withdrawing his extended forearm; he shot up and raced toward Gotham City as fast he could, ignoring his pain.

His terror overwhelmed even his intense pain and he ran until he was exhausted, even with the exoskeleton he wore.

Eventually, he encountered an emergency station that had a single young Puerto Rican nurse manning the station. Stumbling into the station in his exhausted state he couldn't even sum up the energy to warn the girl not to touch him.

The unfortunate girl, who was still trying to come to grips with the fact that she was the only person who showed up for her shift and that the man of her dreams had recently appeared needing her help and then left,
overcame her revulsion at the site of the newcomer and rushed to give succor.

Not knowing about the Clayface legacy, she made the mistake of grasping his ungloved hand and paid dearly for her ignorance.

Palpable relief flooded Helena's injured form as she saw Clayface withdraw and flee.

Struggling to stay conscious, she tried to look around to see what had caused the sudden retreat. Twisting her head, she saw a white robed form in sandals approaching. Her sight was too blurry to focus on the facial features and she fell into a coma.

Eventually, she came to and she sat up in bed. She looked around and recognised the bedroom of her apartment.

Helena was shocked to discover that all her injuries appeared to be healed.

She got out of bed and examined herself in the mirror. Whoever had brought her here had stripped her of her costume and put her to bed naked. Fleetingly, she wondered if she'd been molested but then regretted the thought as it was clear that whoever brought her here had somehow healed her injuries which she knew had been life threatening.

She felt a sense of shame at thinking ill of her benefactor.

She showered and ate, then sought her clothing to see what was going on.

Devastated as he saw the woman; who was barely old enough to be his daughter, melt before his eyes, he shut his own to avoid the horror and accusation that he met in hers.

Eventually, he used his own coping mechanism to shut out the evil that he'd done and had recovered the stamina to move on.

Trudging through Gotham, he was too absorbed in his own thoughts to realize that there was hardly anyone on the streets. The few that he encountered, quickly fled.

A thirteen year old street urchin spotted him though and; while keeping his distance, followed him discreetly.

Eventually, Clayface found his way to a Star lab where he had worked before he became Clayface.

To his delight, the mannequin he had named Helena was there. He'd thought he'd destroyed it but here it was.

So there you have the low level characters from the two premiere sets done for Infinity Challenge and Hypertime. Next comes the low level characters from the Infinity Challenge main set.

In this case, I've got my work cut out for me to explain this retcon appearance as things are going to get very crowded and I have to rationalize why Spidey and company never noticed these guys and gals.

URCHIN....hhhmmmm??? newsboy legion?,captain marvel?

No, I am inclined to throw in some made up characters that I can do what I want with. Besides, the Newsboy Legion haven't been clixed yet.


By the way; I've decided that since I've compromised my original intent by throwing in the lowest tier characters which helped you subsequently discover my pattern of introduction, I'm going to add middle tier characters. The suspense for you will be, who they'll be.

This way I can use characters that I think will enhance the story or use personal favorites.

I'll do that after I've finished introducing the bottom tier characters.

(For simplicity's sake, I've decided to do the middle tier characters I will use from the premiere sets for this week and next.)

Day 2, near noon:

Wanda Maximoff was behind Avengers Mansion practicing a power she rarely used. She was practicing flight an ability she wasn't fully confident with and chose not to rely on in combat.

She was flying over the tennis courts and as she grew more confident began swooping faster and in wider arcs. Exhilirating in her improvement of her flying skill she looked back to see if any of her fellow Avengers saw how well she was doing.

Before she knew it, she'd flown through a rift in reality that brought her over a vast field in the middle of nowhere. Startled, she plummeted to the ground. luckily she was only about twenty feet above the surface and thanks to training she'd received from Captain America and Hawkeye she was able to brace her fall so that she only suffered a few cuts and bruises including one to her ego.

She sat up and looked around. She was dismayed to see the visage of a maniacal super villain bearing down on her, flying a batlike contraption that he stood upright on. He appeared to be about to hurl a pumpkin with a lit fuse on it at her.

With an instinctive gesture Wanda caused the villain to fling the missile behind him to explode harmlessly.

Taken aback by his apparent fumble the villain swooped away to regroup.

Wanda got a better look at him and recognised one of Spiderman's foes. The odd one that stole the Green Goblin's style and called himself the Great Goblin or something like that.

Trying to ignore the annoying cackle the villain had Wanda got up off the ground and hurled another hex at him.

This time the villain nearly lost his balance on his glider. As he struggled to keep his balance, he shot over her head and flew a great distance beyond her toward a huge forest.

For several seconds he hovered over the forest looking back at her. Finally he seemed to lose interest in the fight and disappeared over the forest.

Wanda brushed herself off and searched her costume for rips. Then she looked around.

She was startled at the sight of two large moons hovering in the daylight sky. Otherwise everything seemed very Earthlike with a tall mountain in one direction and an ocean or sea in another.

Deciding she had enough of flying and not interested in renewing a conflict with a loony Spider villain she chose to walk to the seafront and look around.

Roderick Kingsley glared back at the Scarlet Witch. Twice, she'd made him look and feel foolish. He didn't know where he was or why he was brought here but he saw attacking an Avenger as counter productive. No doubt she had no idea why she was here.

Thinking about it, he should have approached her as Roderick Kingsley and not the Hobgoblin but there was no time to ditch the Hobgoblin garb.
No doubt it would arouse her suspicions if he tried it now.

He needed to sort out where he was. Why he was here? he initially he was supposed to engage the Avenger in combat but he wasn't a pawn or a gladiator. He was a billionaire fashion designer with larger plans. he was a great man, destined for great things. He couldn't waste time playing someone else's foolish games.

He would find out who was behind this and straighten him out.

He flew off over the forest.

Wanda reached the beachfront and found a speedboat. She cautiously approached the boat. It was a nice boat. State of the art from what she could tell.

No one was around so she decided to get in the boat which was tethered in a cul de sac that had crystal clear water and was apparently deep enough to navigate safely to take one on out to sea.

She waited to see if any possible owners of the vehicle might turn up. After a suitable wait she fired up the boat and sped out to sea. She intended to see what was around the other side of the mountain.

Kingsley saw that the forest was extremely vast and decided to regroup.

Having no desire to explore the thick forest, he returned to the field and decided to go to the top of the mountain and get a better view of the landscape to decide his next move.

As he approached the field he slowed down. Subconsciously, it was because he had no desire to look foolish but he told himself it was because he didn't want to waste resources on someone so insignificant as the Scarlet Witch. Besides, he had to admit that she looked pretty good and he saw a potential profit if he used her as the crux of a fashion campaign based on superheroes.

When he reached the field, he saw no sign of her and sped across the field toward the mountain.

As he advanced up the side of the mountain, he discovered that his glider could not achieve a great altitude and he was forced to land on the side of the mountain and begin climbing. Confidence in his enhanced strength allowed him to keep his cool.

After a few hours of careful climbing, he discovered Boomerang dejectedly sitting on a ledge. His boot jets had malfunctioned and he was forced to land.

The two instantly recognized each other and decided to work together to sort out their situation.

Wanda drove the speedboat around the base of the mountain. She loved the way boat handled. The sea was somewhat choppy but the boat handled like it was designed to cut through the waves and she had little trouble navigating.

When Wanda finally made it around the circumference of the mountain, she beached the speedboat and disembarked. By this time she was feeling hungry and wondered how she was going to get her next meal.

She looked around. Here it looked like there was signs of some kind of civilisation and she found a dirt road that led away from the beach area she had stopped at and began walking along it.

Before too long, she heard the sounds of snarling and decided to investigate.

The Hobgoblin and Boomerang tinkered with the bootjets for an hour, trying to get them operable. Eventually they worked out the problem and Boomerang helped to bring them both to the peak of the mountain.

Surveying the landscape, Kingsley's eyes narrowed.

"Look at that!" He exclaimed. "What does that look like to you?"

Boomerang (who's real name was Fred Myers) squinted to see and said "Looks like a mansion."

"That's right. A mansion, in the middle of nowhere. No doubt it's meant for us. Let's get down there, immediately."

Boomerang shot them both down the far side of the mountain and once they had reached the level of elevation that was reasonable for the glider, the Hobgoblin began flying under his own power.

As they approached the mansion, Kingsley became extremely irritated. It was the Avengers Mansion and he knew instinctively that it would be useless to him.

While the two had been working to get the boot jets operable Kingsley had established a pecking order by promising Boomerang $50,000 when they returned to Earth if Boomerang implicitly obeyed his orders.

Since Boomerang was hurting for cash and he was naively confident that they would find their way back, he had quickly agreed.

Frustrated, the Hobgoblin ordered Boomerang to follow him and the two sped off to find somewhere to sort out their dilemma. Kingsley was seriously considering finding the Scarlet Witch and double teaming her to try to gain access to the mansion.