Another Hellion hideout, another dead end. Calvin wasn’t here and these thugs didn’t know anything about it. I wanted to pursue other leads, continue looking for Meeks, but the last few days had found me holding far too many magic artifacts. More things these children shouldn’t be playing with. Worse, they were selling them.

More and more I’d been running into Skulls while breaking up the Hellion operations. Most of them were kids and young adults, they fought with baseball bats and sledge hammers. But their lieutenants are dipped in darkness. All of them hide behind dime store bone white skull masks. Some have gone so far as to glue them on.

The research on these two gangs Calvin left behind, and some things I’d seen on my own proved that the Hellions were working with the Outcasts and the Warriors, two other gangs out of Steel Canyon and Talos Island respectively. Their goal was in the sale of the magic artifacts, to flood the market.

On the side, the Skulls were being funded by the Family and were in league with the Trolls trying to push Superadine on the citizens of Paragon City.

With a common client base and both selling superhuman power, war was inevitable, especially once I began slipping them information on each other. The Police did their part making sure the fighting didn’t spill into the streets, but they left the more intense fighting to the heroes in spandex. I watched from the sidelines until an opportunity presented itself.

The war came to head in a cave in Perez Park, one of the major stashes of items for the Hellions. The Skulls invaded and I followed them in unseen. Hundreds of Hellions, scores of Skulls, and a cadre of heroes. I only wish I’d had a camera.

When the fighting died down the heroes and I gathered up the items we could and carted them off to MAGI. We didn’t find any hard evidence on the link between the Skulls and the Family, but I managed to snag myself a Skull bandanna souvenir.