"Right" Alchemy focused her through the dark water and saw the bare outline of the van. That was goon enough. With a wave of her hand the all the water surrounding the van for several meters changed to Styrofoam, a giant bobbing ovoid in the water. Alchemy slumped somewhat under the effort, but kept her feet.
    Powerhouse swooped down and scooped up the teenage heroine and Scott went gaseous, hovering near the surface and looking for signs of Phil.
    Powerhouse grabbed the Styrofoam egg and lobbed it onto shore. "Ready to get hatched, Phil?" he lifted the egg up and snapped it in half, yanking it away from the back half of the van. Inside the egg were Phil's cloak and mask, but nothing else.
    "Oh great, now he got away," the robot sighed.
    "Now what, guys?" Eclipse wondered.
    "Did you get any clues as to what he was doing?"
    "Yeah, they've got some plants, and they're—oh my goodness, they're got plants that they're spreading out all over the city, there's twelve of them, and the plants are going to do something and it's going to take over the city and I was staying with him in order to find out where the plants were going, but there were two vans, here are the license plate numbers...." She called the police.
    "Yeah, Seattle PD."
    "Hi, this is Eclipse of the Justice Defenders speaking. Please put out an APB on two vehicles?" She gave him the numbers and descriptions.
    "All right. We got a track on that other van that you ran into, too, a stolen livery van from the airport."
    "OK. Where was it, where is it?"
    "They found it by the side of the road, about two hours ago. We'll do a check on these two. Oh, and Alchemy asked that everyone who came off this boat get 'locked up and strip searched,' but we weren't really able to do that. We did do a search of the boat, we couldn't find anything, we've got some men guarding it right now. We've had to pull this thing over once in a while, just to make sure we've got the anti-gambling laws tough, but got everyone's names and IDs and everything and were forced to let all of 'em go. We've got guards on the boat right now."
    "All right, thanks." She relayed the news about the boat to Alchemy, who grunted irritably, and told the rest of the team about her adventures with Phil in more detail.
    Scott personally wanted to know more about this communications gear, which seemed to have some interesting capabilities, but it was something that would have to wait for now. Phil had gotten away and he had the two parts he needed, but in order to use them as intended they would need to be set in high Earth orbit. Of course, he might have another use in mind for them. It seemed likely that Phil might look for a high point, though. The Space Needle?
    A Justice Defender communicator beeped frantically.
    "My god, no—! Aagh! Evil plants! Evil plants!" Static. "We're losing the boat, they're getting away! Justice Defenders, quickly—" Static.

Meanwhile, on the boat: "If you could put these good healing balms on me, bruised, wet, hurts, not as badly as darkness—are we on our way?"
    "Yes, we're under way, don't worry."
    "Good, good."

Scott and the Justice Defenders got a report from the police about evil plants that had shown up and some people in costumes, causing trouble. A bunch of people, most of them the thugs who had been on the boat before, had gone back, recaptured the boat and tossed the police guards off. The Tropical Pair-o-Dice was even now cruising at full speed toward international waters. The heroic foursome headed out, carried by Powerhouse. It took a while to find it, as it was running without lights, but Eclipse's eyes didn't need light to see—she spotted it fairly quickly. Coast Guard boats conducted a search pattern below.
    They caught up to it as it neared what looked like a logging boat, the Michael Palin out of Canada. Something poured out of the back of the Tropical Pair-O-Dice--evil seaweed which clogged the logging boat's propellers and froze her in the water. The thugs were taking over the new ship, crossing over in pirate fashion and beating up the lumberjacks, who looked more like security guards than lumberjacks, what with the body armor and high-tech weaponry. The fact that Phil's goons fought without any regard for their personal safety was their only edge, but it was going to give them the day. There was no sign of Phil himself.
    The numeric odds were tricky; the Justice Defenders conferred and went to work. Alchemy turned the screws to water—the Tropical Pair-o-Dice wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon. Scott went gaseous and headed for the pirates, knocking them off the boat left and right. Powerhouse looked for a place to drop the rest of the team off and settled on the deck of the Pair-o-Dice. Alchemy dissolved the ropes the thugs had used to cross to the other ship, and headed for the bridge with Eclipse.
    Powerhouse crashed into the Palin's main cabin and found himself facing a gun.
    "Powerhouse, thank God," the man in the body armor exclaimed, putting the gun away.
    "What are you hauling? You've got a mad plant genius after whatever it is."
    "God, we were afraid of this. What we're hauling is one of the most dangerous creatures on the planet, we're trying to get it somewhere safe in order to analyze it!"
    Scott saw a pirate run down the stairs into the belly of the ship. "Excuse me gentleman," he told the others, and moved in a fast slither after him. The man pressed some buttons on a device and dropped it; it gave off a brilliant flash of light. Beyond him, Scott saw what looked like a gigantic redwood tree, with a couple smaller ones around it. And then he realized that those were arms.
    The top of the boat began coming apart as Powerhouse talked with the captain. Huge redwood arms came up, ripping the metal as it stood up. It was about 200 feet of anthropomorphic hardwood, and it didn't look happy.
    "Oh, dear," Scott commented down below.
    From the Pair-o-Dice, an ominous silence was followed by a bestial roar.
    "That's what we were moving," the captain told Powerhouse. "It's Sequoia." [The Living Redwood was a persistent foe of the Great Hunt, and was last seen in Ground Zero #5]
    Eclipse moved out of the shadows and stood next to Alchemy, who pulled out a cigarette.
    "Well, fuck," was her only comment, lighting up.
    Sequoia reached down and grabbed one of the boat cranes, swinging it around casually as pirates and guards alike headed overboard.
    "If it stays on board the boat it'll just destroy the whole thing," the captain said. "You've got to knock it off, somehow!"
    Sequoia was moving more, getting its balance.
    "Hey Alchemy?" Powerhouse yelled, "I need a thirty foot steel bat...."
    Alchemy nodded, seeing where her teammate was going with that thought. A wave of her hand and the air coalesced into ten meters of titanium. This city really is his element, isn't it?
    Scott moved in, in liquid form, right under the thing's foot. Sequoia's balance was already precarious, and it flailed madly.
    "I know aluminum bats aren't official, but BATTER UP!" Powerhouse took a mighty swing, and Sequoia went down, its arms spinning in worthless circles as it tried to stay on the ship. "Tiiiiiiiiiiiiiimber!"

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