Secret Mission 1: The Doom Box

This article is about the novel. You may be looking for Doom Box (Disambiguation).

"As if the escape of Core Hunter from Makuhero City's storage facility wasn't bad enough, our heroes learn that before his incarceration, he stole what is said to be a devastating super-weapon called "the Doom Box." If left unchecked, the Doom Box will destroy anything in its path - even an entire galaxy!
Now that the villain has escaped, he is believed to be out to recover the Box's components, build the weapon, and blackmail the galaxy into giving him all the power he's ever craved. And only the heroes of Hero Factory can stop him!"
― Back Cover

Parent Page: Media

Secret Mission 1: The Doom Box
Media
Type Secret Mission Book Year(s) released 2012

Secret Mission #1: The Doom Box is a Hero Factory chapter book by Greg Farshtey and the first book in the Secret Mission series. It was released by Scholastic on September 1, 2012. The book is set after the events of Episode 9: Breakout Part 2.

Synopsis

Five thousand years ago, four hooded beings, who are Deneb, Arctur, and two others of their robotic-reptilian race, create the Doom Box in a mysterious chamber. As the box is completed, they examine it, and Deneb marvels at the power it will grant them, but Arctur tells him that the box will not be used, but rather destroyed. Deneb questions this, but Arctur explains the Doom Box cannot be turned off and splits it into three pieces. The pieces are scattered in planets across the galaxy, but Deneb draws a map. Four thousand years later, the map gets into the hands of thieves who are attacked repeatedly by the beings that made the Doom Box. Seven years ago, the thieves sell the map to Speeda Demon to save themselves. Speeda Demon also wants to save himself from the robed beings, so he sells the map to Core Hunter. The robed beings stop going after the map.

Later, in the aftermath of the Breakout, Preston Stormer learns that five criminals who escaped during the Breakout and that his team is still chasing, Voltix, Speeda Demon, Thornraxx, XT4, and Core Hunter, are still at large. Nathaniel Zib issues a Delta-Red Warning from Akiyama Makuro, that means that the galaxy is in danger. Zib tells Stormer to have the Alpha 1 Team deal with the emergency. Stormer wants the team to rest after four weeks of capturing a dozen villains, but Zib convinces him to do the mission anyway. Stormer rounds up William Furno, Mark Surge, and Dunkan Bulk, who just freed themselves from being trapped in the training room of Hero Factory. The four Heroes, along with Jimi Stringer, Natalie Breez, Nathan Evo, Daniel Rocka, and Julius Nex, are assembled and told that the escaped former Hero, Core Hunter, is trying to recover the Doom Box. Zib and the Heroes watch three Hero Logs that involve Core Hunter getting the pieces of the Doom Box seven years ago, so the Heroes will figure out where Core Hunter hid the pieces, so the Heroes will find the pieces before Core Hunter does.

First, they watch Bulk's mission log against Core Hunter. Bulk arriveds to respond to a theft from a highly guarded vault in a planet in the Omega system. He meets the three owners of the vault, We Who Serve, and finds that Core Hunter had someone disassemble him, put him in a crate, and have it placed in the vault. Core Hunter re-assembled himself, stole his wanted item, and left the vault by going out, which was not guarded. Bulk then goes into the city's main power plant to search for Core Hunter, but was trapped in a power net set up by him. Bulk has to destroy a dynamo to escape, and Core Hunter starts a chain reaction with the second. Bulk sounded the alarm for the workers to escape, but this allows Core Hunter to get away.

Looking for where Core Hunter could have hidden the Doom Box fragment, Stringer finds a Duradium mine nearby and reasons Core Hunter could have hidden the fragment there.

Next, Stormer's mission log is examined. On an unnamed criminal desert planet, he talks to Geb, a small-time owner of a refueling station. Geb points Stormer to Core Hunter's room where Stormer then narrowly avoids a trap set by Core Hunter to drain his Hero Core. Realizing the villain is in a nearby building, Stormer pretends to give up and uses his Drop Ship to leave. In actuality, he flies over Core Hunter's building and jumps in through the roof. Core Hunter is a little shocked, and then he and Stormer fighr each other. Stormer manages to defeat him and begins to drag him to his ship. The villain then explodes. The real Core Hunter contacts Stormer to tell him that it was a double and he is off-planet.

In the present, it is determined that Geb is the only lead to the fragment.

Stringer's mission log shows him going on a derelict freighter in space to find Core Hunter there. He and Core Hunter get attacked by a powerdul, deaf winged creature. Core Hunter and Stringer are forced to work together to fight the creature. After Stringer realizes that the creature only wants to escape the freighter, he and Core Hunter navigate it out in space using the airlocks. Core Hunter then leaves Stringer to die in space, but the creature saves Stringer by putting him in Core Hunter's ship as Core Hunter has taken Stringer's.

In the present, the Heroes state that by the Hero Factory corporation remotely controlled Stringer's ship and brought it to the Hero Factory building, so that was how Core Hunter was apprehended. It is determined the Doom Box fragment is in the cargo hold of the ship, which is located in a ship graveyard in another planet. With Nex and Evo running the mission, the other Alpha 1 Team members go to recapture Core Hunter, who is in space at the time, thinking about the Breakout, his thefts for the Doom Box fragments, and plotting to use the Doom Box to become the galaxy's ruler.

Bulk and Breez arrive at Geb's refueling station, pretending to be smugglers. Bulk askes him to store a small chuck of Duradium in his vault. He takes them down to the vault, and when they see a safe containing the Doom Box fragment, Core Hunter arrives and uses an Anti-Grav Disk to levitate Geb into the sky and another to retrieve the Doom Box fragment. Bulk fires his Missile Launcher at Core Hunter, but a hooded being saves him and tells him to hurry to the mine before vanishing. Breez and Bulk chase Core Hunter, but he has the station's villains fight them to distract the Heroes, so Core Hunter can escape. The Heroes defeat the station's villains and destroy it along the way.

Stormer and Furno are heading to the Duradium mine, and after avoiding attacks from We Who Serve's planet's extremely improved security, they find the area covered in a layer of dust, which Furno determined is artificial by being made of chemcials. Stormer and Furno deduce that Core Hunter put the artificial dust to cover his tracks and gotten the Doom Box fragment from there. The Heroes are attacked by the Duradium in the mine when they are near the metal, but they make it out of the mine to save themselves. After being confronted by six sentry robots called Sentinel Mechanoids, Stormer damages one of them called Sentinel Mechanoid 411 for refusing to him and Furno pass, and Furno aims his Plasma Gun at the Sentinel Mechanoids to convince them to let him and Stormer pass. When the two Heroes find their Drop Ship, they see a hooded being standing in front of their ship. The hooded being tells them Speeda Demon's name before teleporting away.

Rocka is sent by Stormer to Asteroid J-54 to interrogate Splitface, who knows about Speeda Demon's involvement with the Doom Box. Splitface tells Rocka that Speeda Demon bought Deneb's map, but sold it to Core Hunter. Splitface gives Rocka the name of a planet. After arriving, Rocka encounters the hooded being, who tells him that he is helping Rocka and the other Heroes by helping Core Hunter, and that Rocka has to wait.

Stringer and Surge have been fighting off Core Hunter's mercenaries in the ship graveyard before being pinned down. The mercenaries also deactivate the Heroes' allies, secrurity robots from there, along the way. Stringer urgently tells Surge to escape, forcing him to leave Stringer behind. Stormer, Breez, Furno, and Bulk all arrive to help Surge fight the mercenaries and save Stringer. The six Heroes find Core Hunter having assembled two of the Doom Box pieces and intending to ascend to ruler by the threat of using the third fragment. Impulsively, Surge, who thinks that Core Hunter is definitely going to assemble the box, shoots him with his Electricity Shooter, causing Core Hunter to spasm and form the box. The Heroes and Core Hunter are surprised that the box did not activate. However, the hooded being appears using teleportation and disassembles the box once again. He teleports Core Hunter to where the Doom Box was forged, the only place it truly can be activated. After Breez captures Arctur, he reveals that he is actually helping the Heroes stop Core Hunter from using the Doom Box, as he reveals that he gave Core Hunter a delayed teleport to give the Heroes some time to stop him.

The Heroes use their Drop Ship to get to the hooded figure's planet while the hooded figure comes with them. He reveals himself to be Arctur and tells the Heroes about the Doom Box. He also tells them that Core Hunter has to activate the box, so his weapon called the Hero Core Remover Tool can absorb the box's energies, rendering the Doom Box harmless. After Arctur and the Heroes arrive at the planet, the Heroes discover that Core Hunter is hiding from their sensors, but Arctur will guide the Heroes to the Doom Box's birthplace. Arctur and the Heroes meet Rocka on the way. When Stringer asks his fellow Heroes how to convince Core Hunter to activate the Doom Box, Surge wants to say his idea, but stops because Stormer scolded him on the way to Arctur's planet for attacking Core Hunter in the freighter without Stormer's permission and Surge feels bad about it. Stormer feels bad for Surge as well, so he lets him say his idea. After Surge states his idea, he and the other Heroes go down to where the Doom Box was forged and confront Core Hunter there. Stormer, with the help of the other six Heroes, mostly Stringer, Furno, and Bulk, trick Core Hunter into tricking that he was used as a way to weed out Heroes unfit for duty by stealing their Hero Cores and that Core Hunter is only a small-time criminal and his ego is inflated. Thinking that his reputation is gone, Core Hunter fires at Stormer, but Arctur takes the blast and becomes fatally wounded. Core Hunter then activates the Doom Box, but Breez inserts the villain's weapon into the box in its transparent form, and its unique properties absorb the box's energy. The Doom Box's threat is over after five thousand years, but Core Hunter now harnesses tremendous power from the box. Defeating all the Heroes save Surge, he offers Surge a spot in his empire. Surge is thinking about it due to his personal problems, but he ultimately declines because he knows that he would be no better than Core Hunter or other villains that the Alpha 1 Team fought if he accepts. After Core Hunter shoots a blast of the Doom Box's energy at Surge, Surge reflects Core Hunter's power back at the villain, causing Core Hunter's body to fold on in itself and vanish.

The Doom Box is taken back to Hero Factory. Stormer tries to look for Core Hunter, but cannot do it, even with Zib's help. He and Surge reflect on how and why Heroes like Core Hunter turn bad. However, they have to continue re-capturing the escaped criminals.

Characters

Heroes

• Preston Stormer
• Jimi Stringer
• Dunkan Bulk
• William Furno
• Natalie Breez
• Mark Surge
• Nathan Evo
• Julius Nex
• Daniel Rocka

Villains

• Core Hunter
• Splitface
• Geb
• Arctur (reformed)
• Deneb (In a flashback)
• Arctur and Deneb's two fellow members of their group (In a flashback)
• Geb's station's villains
  • A damaged villain who was defeated by Stormer and then kindly let Stormer pass him (In archived footage)
• Core Hunter's mercenaries
  • Robots that detect movement and use Energy Launchers

Other

• Nathaniel Zib
• We Who Serve (In archived footage)
• The freighter's crew (In archived footage)
• The large winged creature in the freighter (In archived footage)
• Six Sentinel Mechanoids
  • Sentinel Mechanoid 411
• Security robots in the freighter's ship graveyard

Trivia

• The chapter book shows a preview to the next one called Secret Mission 2: Legion of Darkness, showing its premise and Chapter 1.
• Zib's statement that "only the best will be good enough" for the mission to stop Core Hunter is a reference to The LEGO Group's company motto, "det bedste er ikke for godt", commonly translated as "only the best is good enough".
• This is the only canon story-telling medium that featured all nine main members of the Alpha 1 Team. Creep Crushers, an online game with two non-canon stories, indirectly had all nine Heroes. Meet the Heroes, Heroes in Action, and Face Off: Makuro's Secret Guidebook are guides where each featured all nine Heroes.
• After Surge, Stormer, Furno, Stringer, Bulk, and Breez found Core Hunter in the freighter, Core Hunter said that the whole team is back together, though he had forgotten to mention Rocka, Nex, and Evo. This is likely an error, but it can be a reference to the first six Alpha 1 Team members in Hero Factory's 2010 story arc.
• This book is the only story-telling medium to show Surge being worried about himself turning evil someday, as stated in Hero Factory Promotional Magazine.
• This story does not act like Stormer is in his XL form.
• There is an error in the book, were in Stringer's Hero Log, Stringer was using his Sonic Blaster during his time as a 1.0 Hero. The weapon was made during Stringer's time as a Breakout Hero while he used a Sonic Boom Weapon during his time as a 1.0 Hero, so Stringer was using the Sonic Boom Weapon in the Hero Log. This error is the same as how the Sonic Boom Weapon is called the "Sonic Blaster" in set 7170 Jimi Stringer's set description in LEGOshop.com.
• Part of the Sigma Sigma Communications Satellite's name, "Sigma Sigma" is capitalized.
• After the Doom Box's energy made Core Hunter disappear, it is revealed that he is still alive, as evidenced in Secret Mission 5: Mirror World and Face Off: Makuro's Secret Guidebook. He is then recaptured in Face Off: Makuro's Secret Guidebook.
• In Episode 9: Breakout Part 2, Speeda Demon and Voltix are recaptured. However, the chapter book says that they are still on the loose somehow. Though Speeda Demon, Voltix, Thornraxx, and Voltix were still on the loose, they are later recaptured, as shown in Secret Mission 4: Robot Rampage and Face Off: Makuro's Secret Guidebook.
• Strangely, Black Phantom is the only Breakout villain to not appear or be mentioned in the chapter book. It is most likely an error.
• Since Core Hunter did not appear in the television episodes for an unknown reason, the chapter book expands his character.
• The chapter book's characters who appeared in the television episodes behave differently from their roles in the episodes:
  • Stormer acts more harsh.
  • Stringer acts slightly harsh when he told Surge to leave the freighter.
  • Surge does not use his sense of humor.
• According to a News Story in HeroFactory.com in January 24, 2011,^{[Villain Update: Depot on Fire! (January 24, 2011)]} Furno, Breez, and Surge became veteran Heroes after they defeated Von Nebula and his gang in Hero Factory's 2010 story arc and when they were fighting the Fire Villains in Hero Factory's early 2011 story arc. Furno also once said to Evo in Episode 8: Breakout Part 1 to "stick with a veteran like him" before Furno accidentally hit a door. However, in the chapter book, Furno, Breez, and Surge are called "rookies."
• It is said that Kelly McKiernan, known as "Binkmeister" in BZPower and who worked on BIONICLE and Hero Factory's websites, said that this chapter book and the four other Secret Mission books are not canon, but the guidebook and Dangerous Dimensions reference to them, which makes this fact disputable, so it can be assumed that the books are semi-canon.^{[Hero Factory 2014 Dissussion]}

See also

• Episode 8: Breakout Part 1
• Episode 9: Breakout Part 2
• Omega Recon Reports
• Saga Guides/Breakout