The New Romford Free Press

Category: Local

  • GORM Is Magical Frog, Now Banished to Home Dimension

    GORM Is Magical Frog, Now Banished to Home Dimension

    By Chase Chapley

    The mystery of who or what GORM was has now been solved.  GORM is a giant magical frog from Earth-188, where it apparently reigns supreme.

    The Peace Force issued a detailed accounting of how GORM came to our dimension:

    The Magnificent Magician, Magicimo®, encountered a strange magical anomaly on the outer reaches of The Mystic Plane, and he went to investigate.  He came across a unique dimension inhabited by bird-lizard hybrids that wasn’t a planet Earth.

    The magical anomaly was coming from one of this world’s castles, and it was clear the bird-lizard hybrids were being subjugated.  The Magnificent Magician, Magicimo®, used a cloaking spell to roam the castle to gather information.  Despite not understanding anything the inhabitants said, as they spoke no human language, he was able to ascertain they were being manipulated, and the magical anomaly was coming from the castle’s throne room.

    The Magnificent Magician, Magicimo®, found a giant frog named GORM.  It was using his magic to enslave the bird-lizard people.  Due to the magical energy swirling around the frog, The Magnificent Magician, Magicimo®, determined GORM wasn’t from this dimension, and the frog turned off his cloaking spell.

    They were able to speak to each other using a translation spell, and The Magnificent Magician, Magicimo®, discovered that the frog was named GORM and that it wished to increase its territory across dimensions.  The Magnificent Magician, Magicimo®, objected, and they got into a magic fight.  They began to leap across dimensions, throwing magic spells at each other.  They hopped into our dimension, and one of GORM’s spells interacted unusually with our dimension, and the recent bout of “frogs” in the Shorefont’s lexicon was one of the results.

    Eventually, The Magnificent Magician, Magicimo®, was able to trick GORM with an illusion spell and banished it back to its home dimension, depowered.  He has swept the Shorefront for any magical residue, and apart from some computer files, he found the neighborhood free and clear of GORM’s influence.

    The Peace Force did not specify if the computer files still contained some amount of GORM’s magic, or if this residue was harmful.  Currently, our “FROGS FROGS FROGS” article remains on our site.

  • Local News Roundup: A Kraken, the Cookie Monstrosity, and A Looping Subway Train

    Local News Roundup: A Kraken, the Cookie Monstrosity, and A Looping Subway Train

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    By Chase Chapley

    Offshore – The 12-foot tidal wave that crashed onto our shore, and throughout much of the eastern seaboard, was caused by Speedster creating “water tornadoes” out at sea.  The speed-themed superhero said she had to “take care of a kraken” that was attacking a freighter, though the captain of said freighter could not describe what the creature was when asked.  The captain’s eyes glowed purple when she asked about the incident, and the Peace Force is currently looking into it.

    Heights Park – The Bernard St. Warrior got stuck on the Future Farm last night after chasing what he claimed were burglars.  Although security cameras around the Future Farm didn’t detect any intruders beyond the supposed superhero, the Bernard St. Warrior (real name Nicholas Conberm) grappled to the top of the 25-story highrise farm, and as he ascended up the tower, his grapple cord jammed and stopped retracting at around the 19th floor.  He stayed there all night before being rescued by Dr. Amazing, who decided not to press charges as the situation was already embarrassing enough as is.

    Frenchtown – The QTπ’s beat up the Cookie Monstrosity (no relation to the Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster, though the Cookie Monstrosity is currently facing legal action from the Sesame Workshop over his name) after he attempted to steal all of the Girl Scout Cookies in Norwoods.  Knowing about his cookie addiction, the QTπ’s stationed members all over New Romford to protect the Girl Scots, and unsurprisingly, the Cookie Monstrosity appeared in Place 2.  The CM devoured 86 boxes of samoas, tagalongs, and thin mints before Punch Girl punched him in his cookie-filled face.  He is currently being held on a 500,000 cookie bail.

    Virgin Heights – Passengers on the C Train were caught in an “unusual wrinkle in the timespace continuum” yesterday that scientists are still trying to understand.  When the C Train left the 56th Street station, it would somehow return to that same station one minute later, and this happened for trains going in both directions.  This continued for several hours as confused passengers would exit the train at the same spot they got on it, and then many of them repeated this process several times.  Eventually, the New Romford Transit Authority closed the C Train line and called ATOM Labs to investigate.  Scientists rode the train to gather data and determined a wormhole had spontaneously spawned here.  Using some science gizmos, they were able to dissipate the wormhole, and the trains returned to normal service.  They’re still trying to understand how the wormhole spawned and have called in Dr. Amazing to consult.  For now, they’ve said the subways are safe to ride again “as far as we know.”

  • Pug Gang Walk Through Walls of DA’s Office

    Pug Gang Walk Through Walls of DA’s Office

    By Chase Chapley

    The Pug Gang, wearing special jumpsuits, walked through the walls of the District Attorney’s office last night and stole several documents, according to security camera footage.

    Pugsley Pepperdome, leader of the anthropomorphic pug gang, and three members of his crew don’t normally have the power to walk through walls.  It is assumed that the special jumpsuits allowed them to phase through solid matter.  How is not known as these seem to be the first suits of their kind, according to scientists.

    The Pug Gang stationed in the building across from the DA’s office, the Monarch Building, and fired a zipline across the street, not breaking any glass along the way.  They reportedly swung along the zipline into the DA’s office and proceeded to break into file cabinets and hack into the DA’s computer.  Authorities did not reveal what was in the file cabinets, but Pepperdome seemed to be looking for something specific.  The security guard, watching this on the security camera in the office, called the police.  He reportedly didn’t want to “tangle with people with the proportional power of pugs.”

    The NRPD surrounded the block and stormed the Monarch Building.  The Pug Gang grabbed whatever they could and jumped across the street into the Monarch Building, seven stories lower than where they hooked their zipline.  The jump was ill-advised for two of the Pugs.  While they phased through the building’s exterior, they unphased too soon and slammed into the 8th story floor.  They were incapacitated from the fall and were easily arrested.

    The other two Pugs, including Pepperdome, kept on phasing through the entire building.  They presumably went underground and either drowned to death in the Earth, landed in a subway station or underground cavern, or somehow slowed their descent through gradual phasing.  Whatever their fate, neither the authorities or Adonis were able to find them.

    Of particular interest is how their suits granted them their power.  Some scientists think quantillium could do the trick as it’s a rare space mineral with properties still unknown to Earth and alien scientists.  Until then, the police remain on the search for the remaining seven-foot pug men.

  • Old Man at Gas Station Has Been Lying About Abandoned House on the Hill

    Old Man at Gas Station Has Been Lying About Abandoned House on the Hill

    By Muffy Borgeron

    The old man running the gas station on the outskirts of town has been lying about the abandoned house on Hampton Hill for years, authorities said, and there have been no serial killers of any kind in the house.

    Stan and Meryl Thompson own the property at 2453 Hampton Hill Road and have been trying to sell it for the past 8 years.  The gas station is at the corner of Highway 38 and Carter Road, which connects to Hampton Hill Road one mile down, and due to the remote nature of the house, many people inquire at the gas station to find it.  The Thompsons have had many interested buyers, but for some reason, they never made it to the house for a showing.

    “We could never figure it out,” said Stan Thompson.  “You can find the house in Google Maps.  We’d be waiting at the house to show people the house, and they never showed up.  We called them, and they suddenly weren’t interested anymore.  It was crazy.”

    After a few teenagers broke into the house last week, the Thompsons found out why.  According to a lawsuit from the Thompsons, Jerry Urlacher, 78, has been working at the gas station for the past 10 years, and he’s been telling people that the house was “abandoned” and “was haunted by various serial killers.”  Urlacher would “go into graphic detail of the supposed serial killers and their methods with the intent to scare off prospective buyers for our home.”

    According to the lawsuit, Urlacher “played up the haunted nature of the house to anyone who would listen, including teenagers, with the purpose of creating an urban legend he hoped would tarnish the image of the house even before anyone expressed interest in buying the house.”

    Eventually, four teenagers broke into the house to find the non-existent serial killers.  The teenagers busted in the front door, armed with baseball bats, tasers, and a crossbow.  They explored the entire property and didn’t find anything out of the ordinary.  After spending a night in the house during a thunderstorm, the teenagers were met with nothing.  Upset, they went back to the gas station to complain and got into an argument with Urlacher, who denied making it up.  It was after this argument that one of the teenagers called the Thompsons to tell them about Urlacher and his stories.

    “It made so much sense once we found out,” said Stan Thompson.  “Urlacher used to be a groundskeeper for us until we fired him for drinking on the job.  We didn’t even know he worked at the gas station.”

    Urlacher denied the allegations in the lawsuit.  For now, the Thompsons are not taking any legal action against the teenagers who broke into their house.

  • Cape Finder Used by Meyers in Kidnapping Case

    Cape Finder Used by Meyers in Kidnapping Case

    By Falco Rockbert

    The popular app, Cape Finder, is facing new scrutiny after it was revealed by the NRPD that Michelle Meyers used it to track Adonis and kidnap a woman.

    Arturo Studios, the maker of Cape Finder, released the app several months ago as a “fun way to watch superheroes” and to “crowdsource the movements of supervillains”.  Upon its release, several attorneys for superheroes expressed concern over the potential for supervillains to track them and their families.  Now it looks like those concerns have come to pass.

    “Ms. Meyers used the app Cape Finder on her phone and her laptop,” read an NRPD statement, “to track the movements of Adonis for the past two months.  She used the pins of other users to specifically target Adonis.  She followed his movements and the movements of the people he was with, using that knowledge to commit her fake rescue encounters and to kidnap a woman in an effort to confront Adonis.  It was integral to her plans.”

    Arturo Studios released its own statement, following the police report.  “We’re shocked, dismayed, and offended that someone would use our product in such a destructive manner.  We apologize to Adonis and to the woman who was kidnapped.  This was not the intent of the app, and most people have not used it as such.  Many of our users love it for telling them where to look in the sky for their favorite superheroes.  That being said, we have disabled our servers for the time being while we figure out a way to make our product safer.”

    This statement may not save Cape Finder or Arturo Studios.  According the CNET, the app has already been deleted from 50,000 devices in the past two hours.  “So many people are just getting rid of it,” said CNET editor, Marleen Franken.  “And I don’t know how they can retool the product to ‘make it safer’ when the whole point of the app is to track superpeople.”

    “You might as well try to get Facebook to stop reading your profile to sell you ads.”

  • Ask Julia: I Have an Alien Girlfriend, I Think

    Ask Julia: I Have an Alien Girlfriend, I Think

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    By Julia Crumpleman

    Greetings, Earthlings!  Today’s question comes from “Jacob” from “an undisclosed location”.

    Okay, so I started dating my girlfriend about three months ago, and so far, everything’s been great.  But lately, she’s been sneaking out at night when we’re together, and she comes back covered in dirt, jittery, and her eyes are completely black with some weird symbol in them.  I’ve finally confronted her about this a couple nights ago, and she confessed that she’s an alien princess on the run from an enemy her planet has been fighting for millennia, and she’s going out at night to “deal” with them.  She won’t tell me more than that, and I’m not sure I believe it, but the eye thing is freaking me out.

    So, my question is:  where can I go to get information about alien civilizations?  I just want to verify her story, you know, because I really like her, and I hope she isn’t crazy or something.  Thanks!

    Well, this wasn’t where I thought this question was going, so first off, good on you, “Jacob,” for sticking by your girlfriend and her…extracurricular activities!

    Now the answer to your question is a bit tricky.  There are literally millions of alien civilizations out there, and Earth has only experienced a fraction of them.  Any information source is likely going to be incomplete or focus on a few planets.

    That said, I’d recommend visiting the New Romford University Library first.  I know kids these days love to find things online, but a good old trip to the library has never hurt anybody.  Talk to some of the librarians there as the NRU Library has a whole section devoted to extraterrestrial books.  They’ll be able to direct you to the most current and reliable scholarship of alien civilizations.

    Next, I’d recommend visiting the Peace Force Museum.  Superheroes fight aliens on a regular basis, and they have an extensive archive of alien battle that includes photos and film.  You might find something there, but if you stay too long, security will get suspicious.

    Another possibility, though this is a long shot, would be to write Dr. Amazing or the Peace Force directly.  Bear in mind that if you do, they will likely investigate your girlfriend, and she probably won’t be your girlfriend anymore.

    Or you could try believing her!  We live in a very active universe, and we get a lot of extraterrestrial activity here.  If her eyes are going black and showing a symbol, she may be telling the truth.  Good luck!

  • Infinite Worlds: Year-Round Christmas

    Infinite Worlds: Year-Round Christmas

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    By Tarani Kapoor

    As Project INFINITY explores the multiverse, team leader Tarani Kapoor writes about their travels into the unknown.  We’ll bring you select excerpts from her journal as ATOM Labs provides them to us.

    DIMENSION 3

    Our third jump brought us to a strange world.  Even though we jumped from our world in October, by the local calendar, it was June 14.  That quirk of the calendar, as not all dimensions sync with ours, was not the strange part.  The strange part was that everyone was celebrating Christmas in the summer.

    Again, New Romford of Dimension 3 looked similar to ours in architecture, inhabitants, and sky color.  Since it was June 14, it was a warm late spring day, but Christmas decorations were hanging all over the streets and buildings.  Even the people were wearing Santa hats, Christmas-themed ties and lapels, garish Christmas sweaters (though we couldn’t tell if they were ironic or not), and most puzzling, full winter clothing.  Everyone was sweaty.

    Given that half our crew wasn’t Christian, and that it was the middle of June, we were unnerved by this scene.  (Except for Karen, who loved it.)  As we walked down the street in our civilian clothing, everyone stared at us.  We stuck out like sore thumbs.  Every street corner had at least one man dressed as Santa Claus, ringing a bell for charity, and their eyes were glued to us.  The twins could hear them talk into radios as we passed by, and they informed us to move into hiding immediately.

    The Santas pounced.  We ran down an alley, and Mike and Jennifer fought off the Santas while we made our escape.  But the layout of this New Romford confused us, and we ran right into a dead end.  The twins came to our aid, but we were outnumbered.  There were too many Santas.

    Out of nowhere, smoke bombs rained down on us.  We thought they came from the Santas, but it was someone else.  Several hands guided us to a secret passage down into the sewers, and we followed.

    We had been saved by the Calendar Freedom Fighters, a ragtag group of people not dressed in Christmas gear.  Their leader, Josh, introduced himself and then his group of about 30 people.  Josh explained that on this world Christmas used to be a one-month holiday.  After Thanksgiving, Christmas unofficially began.  But then, the holiday began to creep earlier and earlier into the calendar, overtaking Halloween, then Labor Day, then Independence Day.  Eventually, when it overtook St. Patrick’s Day, Congress, sensing the inevitable, made Christmas a year-long holiday, and for the past six years, the CFF has been fighting a literal War on Christmas.

    What we experienced with the Santas was normal.  Those who don’t celebrate Christmas—and as a winter holiday—are rounded up into reeducation camps, which explained the sweaters and winter clothing.  Since Christmas has always been such a boon to the economy, now every 25th day of every month was a gift-giving day.  Everyone could celebrate whatever other holidays they wanted during the year, but Christmas needed to be celebrated constantly.

    Josh asked us where we came from, and we explained, hoping they knew of alternate dimensions.  They did, and Josh asked us for our help in the fight against “the oppressors.”  We respectfully declined as we gave an oath to not interfere with the fates of other worlds as best we could, and when they didn’t accept our answer, the twins beat them up, and we jumped onto the next world.

    That one was filled with giant talking newts, who, thankfully, didn’t have any Santas.