As they ran through the long corridor entrance, the intense light subsided to reveal the first chamber. Hordes of civilians with eyes glazed over, each playing on thir own slot machine, pulling the lever like a zombie. A wispy ether hovered over each individual which gradually got sucked into the coin slots with each play of the machine.
"Man!" Wes remarked, "I can't be sure just yet, but these guys are gambling with their own lifeforce."
"Looks like you'll need help with this!" Ryan replied, "Good thing I tagged along!"
A familiar voice chimed up in front of the pair. "Good to see you looking older than me again!"
Ryan looked ahead to see Justin, Marek, Nick and Mitchel standing in front of a gold suited humanoid creature sitting on a throne, hovering with the assistance of several large golden bumblebees.
"Who's that?" Wes whispered, now standing behind Marek.
"He calls himself Goldbug!" replied Marek, "he's got the entire local community under his thrall, we'll need to be careful here."
"Surely all we need to do is take out this guy!" muttered Justin, once again racing ahead before thinking, flying towards the villain fists in preparation.
"You're welcome to try!" smirked the golden creature, "but the moment you entered you are now gambling with your life!" and snapped his fingers.
With a flash Goldbug and Justin vanished, leaving the others in the chamber.
"Crap!" cursed Marek, "we have got to put a tracker on him!" remarking on Forceman's tendency to just vanish with the villain.
"He's been like that ever since we were kids! Always going his own way!" Ryan chirped, "just startling that I decided to do the loner hero thing and he joins a team! Still, as much as he can hold his own, we'd better find him!"
As if on cue, the wall that was behind Goldbug before he vanished, began to rumble. Hexagonal holes grew randomly on the wall.
"Looks to me like the game's about to begin!" Nick quipped.
"Splitting up will be the quickest way to find them!" Wes suggested, "but that might be the villain's intent!"
From within the shadows, Black Rose kept a close watch on the heroes. A gambling den without any money had no thievery value to the elusive rogue, and now her crush has once again been taken by another ridiculous villain. She didn't care much for the mindless civilians gambling their life away, breezing past the crowds unnoticed, following the remaining heroes from a close distance...who appeared to be splitting into groups.