PART IV: BLITZMAN’S BIG BREAK
Day of the Attack
Ziggursky Rehabilitation Penitentiary, Brickstown
It had taken
Baron Blitzman a full twenty minutes to overcome the Ziggurat security detail. While that may seem like an incredibly short time, to a speedster it is a lifetime. Blitzman had been playing carefully. Sebastian Kain had given him a layout of the security systems in the Zigg, and Blitzman had stealthed his way past them all. Cameras he disabled, guards he silenced, and computer systems he simply shut down. By no means was the Ziggurat was an easy place to break into. Indeed, it often took entire fleets of Arachnos fliers just to break out half a dozen inmates. But when you combine the speed of Baron Blitzman, with the cunning of Sebastian Kain…anything was possible. And right now, the faux Baron was proving that point oh so clearly. Blitzman was breaking out everyone he could. And he was loving very moment of it.
Stood, triumphant in the foyer of Delta Wing, Blitzman couldn’t help but let out a wry grin as he gazed around his former home. All around him lay the burnt and smouldering corpses of prison staff, policemen, heroes, and a couple of inmates that he didn't like the look of. They had tried to stop him. He had killed them all dead in seconds, his powers of electricity and lightning frying the poor suckers. He hadn’t forgotten. For seven years he'd rotted in his cell here. Seven dammed years. And now here he was; Fires blazing around him, inmates running amok, prison staff being slaughtered, store-rooms being raided. It was glorious.
The low class villains of Delta Wing had finally taken flight. And it was a marvellous site to behold.
Feelin sad at having to leave Delta-Wing for the first time in his life, Blitzman turned tail and sped deeper into the prison. He smiled again, noticing the rioting inmates and general chaos they brought with them had spread to the rest of the Ziggurat. All around him sirens blared and bullets fired as the hastily retreating prison staff tried desperately to get the situation under control. Unfortunately for them, Baron Blitzman was the situation. He had been sent to the Ziggurat with a specific list of people he had to break free. They were an odd bunch; they varied in power levels, names, and even themes. But they all had one thing in common: they were enemies of
Xanatos.
As he reached his destination, a wing of the Ziggurat so secretive it didn’t even have a code-name, Blitzman cackled evilly as he noticed nearly every cell door hanging open. It appears the “big bads” had wasted no time in breaking free.
Baron Blitzman looked down the list and smiled. Checking off each empy cell as he passed them.
Emperor Xanatos...Check
[Classified]...Check
Showtime...Check
Powerlaser...Check
Vegas...Check
Lord Morcalivan...Check
Paniac...Check
Devil...Check
Professor Ape...Check
Revolver II...Check
Face-Lift...Check
Water Wizard...Check
Daggeroth...Check
Kid Vamp...Check
Galacton...Check
Cable...Check
Cackle...Check
Chimera II...Check
Tactic...Check
The Harbinger...Check
Rakescar...Blank
Baron Blitzman looked up from the list to the cell now in front of him. On the door was written "Tyler Preston". Inside was what appeared to be a frozen demon of some kind. Its skin looked to be made of solid stone. About its hulking body was a tattered prison jumpsuit, stained with blood clearly not belonging to the creature. Blitzman didn't like the look of this inmate...he'd heard rumours about Rakescar. He was unstable. Incredibly powerful. A liability. A demon. A god. A sick ******* from all accounts.
"I don't think we need you," Said Baron Blitzman, crossing Rakescar's name off the list "ERA isn't a halfway house for freaks like you."
Rakescar said nothing. Frozen as he was by the sub-zero temperature of his cell. But despite his immobility, Baron Blitzman couldn't help but notice the Golem glaring at him.
"So creepy,” Said Baron Blitzman as he went back to checking the list.
***
"We'll take it from here officers."
The steely words of the ice-cold avenger caused everyone in the Ziggurat courtyard to pause for a moment as Xanatos touched down. Following behind him was
The Imperial, another icon of the city, his gold and purple costume inspiring hope in the tired looking men around him. The presence of these two heroes almost certainly assured the guards that the prison riot was over for the most part. It would be contained. It would be controlled. The belligerent prison guards would soon be able to go home and rest.
Xanatos and The Imperial’s arrival clearly sparked pangs of desperation in the remaining escapees. For no sooner had the two heroes' feet touched the ground than one hundred convicts erupted violently out of the prison entrance towards them. The desperation in their eyes matched only by the pure verbal rage they spewed towards the prison guards. They moved like savages. Slaves, finally free from their masters and anxious to enact just retribution.
The makeshift barrier the prison guards had erected outside the main entrance of the Ziggurat was unlikely to hold the inmates back for long, despite how well armed the guards were. The Imperial knew this, and he knew that lives would be lost if he did not act fast. Without a second thought, the golden age hero leapt into the air with the grace of a free-flying bird, soaring over the small criminal army. As the mob looked up, they could not help but admire the hero in his elegance. The admiration turned to fear however, as the bulky form of The Imperial began to plummet towards them.
Xanatos smiled as his friend touched down in the centre of the crowd of convicts. His landing creating a small explosive shockwave that knocked each of them from their feet. As the familiar sight of Orange jumpsuits flailing through the air met his gaze, Xanatos decided it was time to enter the fray. He moved quickly to The Imperials side and, wordlessly, the two men adopted a classic fighting stance back-to-back. They had fought alongside each other for so many years that they hardly needed to communicate when in battle, least of all for something as small as a prison riot. Both men were armed. The Imperial with his magical war mace
The Sceptre of Kings. Xanatos with a makeshift ice-sword.
As the inmates groggily found their feet, eyed the two heroes, and ultimately charged towards them, Xanatos couldn't help but grimace. The inmates were hopelessly outclassed. These criminals possessed no powers. They were the thugs, the mooks, and the henchmen of the real villains. They were little more than pawns in the game of crime within Paragon City. While they fought with all the vigour and courage they could summon...tey lasted less than five minutes against the combined might of Xanatos and The Imperial. For two men used to fighting cosmic villains and battling hordes of Nazis, a hundred or so escaped convicts were little more than simple sport.
As Xanatos froze the last of the escaping inmates in place, the leader of the prison guardsmen ran forward, his radio abuzz with static from the Ziggurat's interior.
"The supers are all in there..." said an exhausted looking prison guard, pointing into the Ziggurat, "...s-someone is teleporting them out from INSIDE!"
"Maintain your position friend," said The Imperial, before gesturing to the the large groups of unconscious inmates around him, "And get these prisoners somewhere safe."
"Leave the capes to us, son" said Xanatos, before giving the prison guard a thumbs up, "Good job!"
Again, without a word, the two heroes flew full-pelt into The Ziggurat.
***
"That's the last of them," said Baron Blitzman as
Showtime stepped through the makeshift portal. Blitzman's benefactor, the infamous Sebastian Kain, had managed to hijack several of Portal Corp's interdimensional portals. Baron Blitzman was now using them to tunnel Xanatos' Rogues Gallery out of the Ziggurat. Well, all of them save one special person. An old enemy of Xanatos. One he had not seen for many many years.
As Baron Blitzman stepped into the portal himself, he risked a glance backwards to admire his handiwork. Sure enough in the distance, barely visible, were the iconic forms of Xanatos and The Imperial hurtling towards his position. While he was a powerful villain, Blitzman knew he couldn't take both of them at once. Fortunately, he wouldn't have to. With a wicked grin and a casual wave, he closed the portal behind him.
Xanatos and The Imperial arrived on the scene mere moments after the portal snapped shut, taking with it Baron Blitzman and the rest of the escapees. A loud electrical *POP* resonating around the solid steel interior of the superhuman prison, as Blitzman’s grinning face was burned into the two heroes retinas. Glancing around the silent prison, Xanatos noticed nearly every cell door was swinging wide open, with the bodies of police officers, and lesser villains that had died in the escape, strewn all across the hallways.
"Stars and stripes!" said Xanatos, his face awash with anger, "We're too late!"
The words barely out of his mouth, two steel doors slammed down shut behind him. Locking him and his closest living ally in place.
"It appears we have walked into a trap my friend," said The Imperial as he tossed his war mace, the sceptre of kings, idly from hand to hand, "Be on you guard."
A loud, deep, bellowing laugh lit up the eerie silence of the prison hallway. Resonating as it did so, with all of the empty cells.
The laugher died down. And Xanatos heard a voice that chilled him to his very core.
"Hello old friend."
"Who goes there?" bellowed The Imperial, clutching the sceptre of kings in his right hand and raising his left in front of him defensively.
From the darkness of the decrepit prison lurched a giant of a man. Each of his footsteps causing the hallways to tremble slightly against the raw magnitude of his power. After what seemed like a small age, the gargantuan man spoke, stepping into the flickering light as he did so.
"I go by many names hero," said the fiend, his all white eyes burning with furious energy, his muscles taught and ready for combat, "But you may call me
Sovereign."
Why did you color every "of" red you ****?