Averick

Michael stared at the drone as it approached him and pushed himself up out of the depression he was in and moved to a vantage point where he could see Hotaka about to engage Penny. He noted that his weapon seemed to have no effect on the villain and figured him for completely invulnerable to all types of damage available to him. In addition to that, he was capable of flying through the air and landing on a dime rolling on its side while juggling chainsaws and kittens and reciting Shakespear.

“Oh this is fair”, he thought to himself as Hotaka perched on the droid. “What the hell…”

Michael turned and fired into the droid’s right front quarterpannel, then once into it’s leg joint so that it couldn’t get away. The droid’s armor blew off and sparks flew out, as it tried to stop itself from falling. Michael then pulled the power core from his blaster and grabbed the aux loopback ground from the droid’s reactor. He unwound it from the main gyro coupling to get some slack, and fed it directly into his blaster’s receiver.

The blaster wined its complaint loudly as he pointed the weapon at the super villain and fired off an overpowered burst toward the ground in front of Penny to drive her back into a crevice, and the droid underneath Hotaka, hoping to catch him in the resulting explosion. He moved away quickly, but not quickly enough to avoid his droid and rifle's shockwave.

When the dust cleared, Michael was already on his rear end, his droid, his blaster and the front of his prison garb all effectively rendered useless. He looked downrange to see if he had any effect at all, shortly before passing out once more.

I employ a number of styles when depicting action in my writing. Sometimes I will use inference, by directing the attention of the scene someplace else. When I wrote Sasha’s interrogation, many of the actions were direct, “Sasha fired a round through the man’s leg”, and many were simply the aftermath of the action. “A snap rang through the room as blood splattered against the wall”.

Sometimes I get deep into the character. “Pain in his right shoulder as he stumbles momentarily. He pushes forward, another burning pain in his left side. He raises his rifle and feels the familiar shove into his wounded shoulder. His world explodes in pain. The ground in front of him disappears, replaced by a grey cloud and a momentary flash of flame, struggling briefly to escape the dust. Heat and pressure throw him back, and the ground strikes him on the legs and back, as tiny pieces of earth pelt him all up and down his armor and visor. The heavy roar, like jet engines in his ears drowns out everything else. He’s disconnected from the world, floating in a sea of pain and confusion.”

What’s important is to try to conserve energy by putting as much description into the action as possible, which allows you to keep it short.

You can stutter along, “There was a green, wooden building in a wheat field. The sun was shining on it. Tom was near the building. He took cover behind it after running through the field. He was scared. He peeked out. He realized he didn’t have good cover.”

Or you can streamline it. “Tom tore through the sunlit field of wheat, desperately trying to make it to the light cover of the green, wooden building. Overcoming his terror, he risked a glance, looking for something more sturdy to hide behind.”

Not less words, but a more coherent thought.

Sometimes I describe a single moment in great detail, then push forward at a higher speed, and the audience will assume that things that complicated continue to happen, they’re just getting every single detail.

Often times I’ll brush quickly through the action, describing only the important moments. I can get quite a bit of action out of just a few lines.

The important thing to think about is “what MUST the audience get out of this?” What’s crucial?

There’s my two cents. Feel free to check out my writings or PM me with questions if you would like more advice from me. Not that I’m anyone special, I’m just sayin…

In the sewers, the trio moved quietly, still feeling the presence of something lying dormant in the city beneath them, and something hunting. Until now they never got the impression that it was them it was hunting, but down the tunnels they went until they had left the bustle of the city behind and the presence did not leave them.

Shield handed the bundle of humanity over to Cold Heart, “go further, priest, activate the portal. I shall stay behind and delay anything following.”

Shield summoned up his strength and smashed several water pipes in the narrow tunnel they were in. Water sprayed out like a curtain, and Shield took as much advantage of the limited cover as he could within sight of the water. Cold Heart pressed on toward the portal.

Shield mumbled to himself. “I shall wait here until I hear the portal, and no longer.”

Michael spotted a pit between Penny and Hotaka as the super leaped into the air. Michael took a knee and waited until Hotaka was directly over the pit, and fired off a burst intended to knock him off course. He winced, even as he knelt, with the pain that was returning to him. It took all of his strength to put his shots on target.

Michael began picking through cover. He leaped on panels he suspected would give way or slide open, prepared to suddenly pull his weight off. He used pits for cover and began moving toward the center of the three, hoping to draw fire from the unknown factor.

He paused to fire off a few blasts at the Asian man. Even if he hit, he didn't particularly think it was going to do anything. More than anything, he was trying to give Penny a chance. Even at that, he thought it was hopeless. The concoction he'd been given was already starting to wear off. The pain and stiffness was returning. It wouldn't be long now, before he was rendered useless without his enemies having to fire a shot, or throw a punch.

The next morning, the ferry from the mainland brought three strangers and the plane took the small boy’s remains and the evidence gathered from the scene. Sheriff Tanner spoke with all the potential witness, which was restricted to Jacob Roth, the first person to find the Venderson boat.

“It was just drifting, you know, in the ocean, and I thought it look like the Venderson boat, but at first I thought it was Tommy Galloway’s boat, but his boat has the big black cooler in the back, so when I got closer I could tell it wasn’t his. We went out on his boat last summer and I remember the cooler.” Jacob shifted from one foot to the other.

“Thanks, Jacob, now I’m going to ask you some questions that we ask of witnesses to crimes. I want you to take your time and think back. I want you to try to remember everything, and I don’t want you to answer right away, just think a few seconds to see if you can remember anything. OK?” The sheriff was crouched down to Jacob’s height out on his front porch, with his mom and dad watching from the front doorway, no more than a foot away from their boy. Phil had taken the day off from work and Janice was virtually pushed out of the local school to go take care of her boy. The principal, Mrs Wells, was a mother of two boys herself and wouldn’t stand for her trying to teach class after such an incident.

Jacob grabbed his right wrist with his left hand behind his back and breathed in deeply before giving a big nod. “OK, I’ll try.”

“Great. Now did you see anything that looked out of place?” The sheriff was keeping it as tame as he could.

Jacob put his right hand to his lips and looked up. Then he pushed himself up on his toes for a second and rocked back down, before shaking his head.

“Anything on the bottom of the boat, anything that looked like someone had been in the boat? Were there any pieces of metal, like the ones you were looking for? Did you see anything that looked like a stain?” The sheriff increased the tempo of the questions just a bit.

“No, the boat was empty. Nope. What kind of stain?” Jacob’s arms shifted again, ending with his left hand on his head as he tilted it questioningly.

“Well, like maybe mud or possibly even blood?” The last drew a concerned look from Jacob’s mother.

“Nope. I would have have bremembered, I mean… remembered if I saw that.” Jacob shook his head.

“You’re sure. Nothing that made you scared? Did you hear anything? Did you hear anything at all?” The sheriff leaned in a bit.

Jacob looked away sharply, then down at his shoes. “No, I don’t want to answer any more questions.”

“Sheriff?” Phil pulled himself upright and off of the doorframe.

“Anything you can tell me, Jacob, anything at all might help.” Tanner gave a quick glance at Phil, leaning in to put his hand on Jacob’s shoulder.

“No, no, no. I don’t want to.” Jacob put his hands over his ears.

“Mike, what are you doing?” Janice stepped forward.

“Janice you’ve got to let him answer. I think he may have heard something important. He may just be scared. Jacob, it’s OK to be scared. I was scared too, but you have to tell me what you heard.” Tanner’s plea was heard, and Janice stopped behind Jacob, putting her hand on his head.

“Go on, Jacob, tell him what you heard,” but Janice’s words weren’t getting through to her son, who was nowhere near that porch anymore.

“Jacob! Jacob! It hurts so bad! Go get help! Go get my dad!” Adam’s face was forever burned into Jacob’s memory. As was the image of his own hands pulling at the spikes that held Adam to the stone. The terror in Adam’s voice as Jacob just sat in the boat, watching the water rise up around Adam came back to him.

On the porch, he was doing what he had done in the boat, holding his hands over his ears and screaming “No!” while he watched Adam being devoured. The sheriff backed off as Phil and Janice grabbed their son, and held him. He wouldn’t stop screaming. They looked at the sheriff angrily and drug their son inside. Twenty minutes later, the doc arrived and sedated him. Tanner never got an answer to his question, but he got a feeling he should avoid the Roth’s for the next few weeks. He parted with, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” but it didn’t seem to make a dent.

He could have stayed and tried to explain that their son was taken away from them before he got there, but they wouldn’t have listened. Jacob was pretending to be normal, and that probably would have lasted a while. But at some point, he was going to have to face what he’d seen, what he’d touched, and what he heard.

As he drove back through town, he saw the three strangers, and they saw him. Each one waved and he waved back. The lead was wearing sunglasses and a Japanese shirt. One had a wild look in his eye, and was dressed like a biker. The last was dressed as a rap star, much like a hood rat. All three smiled. He didn’t like that. He told himself it was just his paranoia. He told himself, “this is what people in small towns do, they smile and wave to the sheriff as he drives through in his hummer.” He didn’t believe it, but he told himself that.

When he arrived at the office, there was an elderly man sitting on the front porch, waiting with a satchel of books. Tanner recognized him as Leaf Ellison, the library caretaker. He was in last week about some graffiti in the middle of town. Darren had handled the complaint. Darren didn’t make much of the incident, so Tanner didn’t pay it much mind. Often the younger folk go out of their way to annoy the older folk, it’s the way of things. The look on Leaf’s face told a story of something more important than graffiti, though.

Michael was relieved of his sword and shield as he passed into the “danger room” setting that they were using as the next staging area.

He began to look around at the other two contestants and powered up his blaster. His brain began to pick through the various obstacles between himself and the asian man, whom he did not know. He never looked at Penny, he just stared at the unknown factor. He had a suspicion that they would either be fighting each other, or some outside force.

Either way, it didn’t make sense to move toward Penny. If he were going to protect her, the best thing he could do is not draw fire to her location. Michael began to become obsessed with what knowledge could be stored within the girl, and how that knowledge would benefit the Fifth Column.

Shield entered quickly and overpowered the man on the bed. Sword rushed in and mesmerized him while Cold Heart did his part to keep him from igniting the power within him. Dennis did little more than gape, as his dream became mirrored in real life. The first lizard in the room even grabbed at his leg, piercing his quad with slim claws. His surprise was so great that he didn't even get the chance to test the new aggressiveness in him; a darkness emanated from one of the figures, he lost the ability to see the figure and then the room, a white halo of light filled his 'vision', he felt a 'beat' or pulse against his brain pan and a hot finger poking him between the eyes, and then he was out.

Shield looked at Sword, “and this human will lead us to the eye?”

“I guess so.” Sword shrugged.

“He is the eye.” Cold heart spoke from behind them. They turned to face him.

By the time the detectives got there, it looked like a break in to them. They couldn’t explain the traces of sea water in the carpet or the lingering smell of death, but they just chalked it up to “crazy stuff that happens in the city” and moved on. A little vacuuming, a little air freshener, a new door, and it’d be good enough for the owners again. Better, as even the cockroaches seemed to avoid that room now, at least for a little while.

There were lights in the colors of blue, pink and white. There was a loud echo, like the tide bashing against rocks with incredible power. Tanner felt his body moving, but had no idea of direction or distance. He could hear the rush of air overhead, and then the steady thrum of machinery, before he felt the cold grip of steel on his arms and legs. There were strange noises, and an odd, robotic looking arm, that was made of seashells. In the echoing distance of the moss covered stone walls he could hear the sound of human voices. Near him, he heard only the sound of the tide, boiling up through cracks in the rock as it came in again and again.

There was chanting in the other room. He could feel his chest being pushed on, and looked down to see swirling blackness being placed inside him. Then he looked up into the white light and could see a face, not human at all, staring down at him. “Sleep.” The voice was raspy and full of water, and Tanner tried to scream, but as he opened his mouth, a wave of nausea and heat washed over him, and he was once again swallowed by blackness.

The blackness lasted only a second, before he could hear the thunder of waves, steadily beating behind him and he could feel the cool, ocean air on his face. For some reason his eyes were closed, so he opened them and the sound of the waves fell away, to be replaced by his deputy standing on the dock as he sat in the driver’s seat of Tubbs.

“You’re starting to scare me, sheriff. You alright?” Darren was illuminated by one of the dock lights. Tanner had one hand on the wheel, the other on the throttle and the engine was off. Darren stared at him with wide eyes. “Mike? You OK?”

“What? Yeah, I’m just…” Tanner shook his head and stepped off the seat. His legs held underneath him, as he wasn’t sure they would. He looked back behind where he was sitting and found a body bag, tagged and marked for the morgue. His hand went to his sidearm with a start, and found it in its holster. Darren mimicked the action and looked around.

“What the hell is a matter?” Darren’s face showed his puzzlement as he slid his pistol from his holster and began looking around.

Tanner let go of his pistol and waved him off. “Nothing, nothing, I just…”

“Where the hell have you been? It took you four hours. I was contemplating coming back out there.” Darren put his pistol away and took the rope that the sheriff was now handing over. The deputy set down his flashlight and tied Tubbs off.

“I don’t know. I guess it got a little strange. Four hours?” Tanner picked up the evidence bag and handed it to Darren, who placed it on the dock. Then they gently took the remains off of the boat together.

Once they placed the remains of the little boy on the gurney that Darren brought down, he looked at the sheriff. “Yeah. Four hours. The ambulance drivers have been here for the last two, waiting for you. I don’t know how Brian is going to take it. The bag looks mostly empty, maybe we could put something else in there with him to make it look more like a whole kid.”

Tanner gave him a significant look. “You want to open it up?”

Darren looked away toward the dockhouse. “Maybe we could just take it around the side.”

“Yeah, let’s go around the side.” Tanner put his evidence under the gurney in the basket and they began pushing up the dark dock. The whole time, the sheriff kept asking himself, “where did the sun go?”

They loaded the body in the back of the ambulance, and took the evidence to the deputy’s vehicle. Darren drove off to prepare the evidence for its flight to Paragon to be looked at by the top forensic specialists there, while sheriff Tanner went back inside to console the family and give them the bad news from his own mouth. Everyone already knew, but being a sheriff in a small town, there’s a certain ceremony to tragedies such as this. There’s a finality, a peace, a closure that’s reached when someone speaks for the whole town and says, “we condemn this, and we share your loss.”

So that’s what he did. And then, he did something he hadn’t done in the seven years he’d been in Whitedock. He went to Jaspers and sat down at the bar.

Michael took the shield, sword and blaster off of the wall. He put the shield on his left arm, and held the sword, point down in his left hand, so that the shield blocked the blade from view. He powered up the blaster and prepared for combat, but when he walked out, he was surprised to see a friend instead of an enemy.

“Eight eight four dash six one six!” Michael was looking at the modified droid, trying to remember its access codes when he heard his number in the announcer’s voice. At the ‘start’ command, whirling blades of death shot out of the front panel of the droid. Michael dodged right, but one of the blades imbedded itself into his shield and spun him to the earth. He landed in a cloud of dust and got up quickly.

“Uh, Anhalten. Halten Sie an! Ich befehle Ihnen anzuhalten!” Michael heard the announcer ask if he wished to beg for mercy as the droid postured. Michael took aim at the camera above him and let a blast fly into its shield.

“Oh, there’s some spunk in this kid!”

“Again with the kid.” Michael ran toward the droid. “Eingeweihtes Protokoll vier sieben sechs drei!”

Then the droid did something its handlers hadn’t seen before. It paused. Then it powered up a circular saw arm and came slashing at Michael.

“Wartung! Wartungsprotokoll vier neun!” The droid’s treads paused, but its arms kept swinging at him.

Michael was struck in the shield, but part of the blade cut enough into the shield to catch a bit of his bicep. He rolled away and shouted again. “Archon überreiten! Pegasus! Öffnen Sie Hauptkernluke!”

A small panel popped open on the left side of the droid, and its head looked down to see what was happening. Michael fired two blaster shots into the hatch and the resulting explosion sent him into the force field and down onto the dirt. A line of blood appeared on his right cheek and his clothes were caught on fire in places. Pieces of burning droid were lying around him. “Sohn einer ****.”

Michael slowly pushed himself up to his knees. Were it not for the regenerative elixir he was given prior to this arena combat, he’d have succumb to his wounds before the first blow was struck. As it was, he could feel the regenerative powers wearing off, and was patting himself out and looking for the sword and blaster he dropped, knowing that it was less than likely it was over.

As is common with threads like this, if no one pushes forward the time, it just hangs. So, feel free to catch your character up from yesterday to today.

I'm sort of mentally keeping track of where everyone is, so when characters converge, timelines converge.

Michael is a day forward from the scene where everyone met the interrogation droid. I think most others have spent the night and are on day two as well.

“You alive?” Michael heard the voice from above him, but couldn’t see anything.

“I…” It was all he could manage. His voice was near gone, his muscles ached and he felt like someone had run over him with a tank. The room was cold, but he was mostly numb. He could feel cold air on his toes, his fingertips, his knees. Then there was light with an audible “snap”.

“Oh yeah, he’s bad. How long did you leave him in there?” The voice returned and the sounds of plastic on plastic could be heard.

“I don’t know, maybe twenty four hours. Man, they’re going to fire me for this, can you do something?” The second voice sounded concerned, but not about him.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get him up with the healing drugs then you can dump him in the arena. It’ll all look like an accident. You know how those arenas are. The dampeners are turned down some to make the shows flashier, and in some places they don’t work hardly at all. One more dead prisoner, no one will care. Besides, I’m Jewish, I’m not overly concerned about this nazi.”

“Great,” Michael thought, then the stab in the chest with the needle. Not overly brutal, but not overly nice either. The pain was replaced with a burning. His jumper was slid onto him as he writhed around on the table in agony. He was wheeled out of the room at high speed and down a corridor where his vision started to return. He could see lights whipping by overhead.

When he stopped, he was helped off of the gurney by a guard and placed in the hands of two other guards. “You have to be kidding. I’ve never seen him before, there’s no way he’s up for this.”

The guard behind him pushed him forward. “He signed the waiver.”

“Yeah,” the guard in front of him laughed, “they all ‘sign the waiver’, that’s not the question. This is an advanced match. He hasn’t fought before, no one’s going to buy this. Plus, just look at him. He’s all skin and bones, and he can barely stand. Get this child out of here.”

The guard behind was just about to open his mouth to plead for a favor, when Michael made his case for him. He abruptly stopped leaning on the guard’s hands and stomped on the instep of the closest guard. He summoned up his strength and cut straight up with an elbow, then speared him in the throat with the webbing of his hand, knocking the guard down. The other tazed Michael in the side until he fell down.

“I’m not a child, I’m an Archon of the Fifth Column!” Michael seethed with hatred as he gasped for breath on his knees in the hallway.

The guard he struck got to his feet. He coughed a few times, then shook it off. With one, mighty grasp, Michael was on his feet. He was drug some twenty five feet by the hair on his head, until he finally made it to a set of double doors. Once inside, he could see various convicts in various stages of dress, all behind force field barriers. A huge man was busy pushing around the two who were on his side of the barrier. “You’re next! Get ready!”

The guard behind Michael just pushed him all the way to the giant man. “No, he’s next.”

The big man took Michael’s whole right arm in one hand. Then looked at the guard, then back to Michael. “Alright… he’s next.”

I'm assuming that rather than sticking super villains in a big prison and just "hoping" they have suppression fields everywhere, and then on top of that, admantium bars and on top of that, special cells that are airtight, made of plastic, wrapped in magical saran wrap, etc.

Michael's had military training with elite troops. His only remaining superpower is that he isn't afraid. He's nearly completely worthless without a firearm.

This is the part where the rubber meets the road. Alan Thomas was now walking into the store of the man who he was supposed to extract the money from. It was going to be difficult hurting this man. Doubtless he was innocent of any crime worthy of the beating that Alan was going to put down on him, but it needed to be done for the greater good. These people were killing people, and into something very sinister. Longbow is never this wrong about something this important.

He knew this time was going to come, and probably sooner than later. He steeled himself and walked into the antique bookstore. There weren’t any customers, the store was small and smelled of dust and something strange to him. He had his hands in his pockets of his jeans and his jacket was scrunched up around his wrists.

The store clerk sat in the back, behind a wooden counter and in front of a wooden door that presumably led to the rear of the store. He was easily sixty, only five foot seven and probably weighed in at a grand total of one hundred forty pounds. He wore a sweater and glasses, and a pipe dangled from his mouth. He placed the book he was reading on the counter and stood up from his stool. “Can I help you find something?”

“Yes,” Alan walked quickly to the counter, then around it to the alarm of the old man. “You can help me find that package you owe the professor. You can help me find that right now!”

Alan balled his fist up and the strength came to him. He was going to hit the old man right in the face. He had to be careful not to kill him, but he had to hurt him, even if he rolled right now.

Only, the fear drained away from the old man’s face. His expression went placid and he rose to his full height. He took off his glasses and faced Alan. “If you’re going to try to hurt me, go ahead and do it now. I won’t be giving you anything today.”

Alan let fly with a punch to the old man’s face. His body slammed into the wall near the counter, knocking the register off of it and sending pictures and books flying. The old man crumpled to the floor in front of him, before picking his head up and looking up at Alan. Blood was streaming from the old man’s nose.

Alan held his hand up menacingly. “Look, old man, you got what I came here to get, so I’m going to leave with it.”

The old man stood up, using the counter for balance with his bloodied hand. “Oh I don’t think you will be.” Alan slammed him with another crushing blow, but this time the old man didn’t go down. He held onto the counter and swung into the wall again. This time a cup full of pens went over and some papers fell from a mail slot under the counter. The old man spat blood on the papers near his feet and started to laugh. “Really, Kieth, is that any way for a Longbow agent to act?”

He stepped away from the old man. He needed out more than anything else in the world. This was all wrong. There was no way this old man could take punches like that. He’d been suckered in. This was his world coming crashing down around him. He looked for the front door but there were suddenly people there. He opened the door nearest to him, and recoiled in horror. There was no other side, no room, no drop to the construction site out back, only blackness and an odd noise.

The old man leaped forward and grabbed Kieth by his arms. They struggled for a moment, then the old man picked him up, and pushed him toward the door. Keith’s feet touched something in the archway, like a giant tongue. It wrapped around his ankles and began pulling him in. He held on to the old man for life, but the old man was busy grabbing his index finger on his left hand, and removing it not only from his shoulder, but from Keith’s hand as well. Keith screamed and let go, grabbing the door frame as the sound of rushing air became impossibly loud in his ears. “No! NO!”

Keith’s hands clawed at the wooden frame, as the dark mass of flesh swirled up around his waist and began sucking at him. The old man laughed, and the figures in the doorway turned, and left. As the old man watched Keith hold on to the door, he moved over to the counter and pulled a towel from a shelf underneath. He used it to wipe his face of the blood.

When the towel came down, the old man’s face was gone. It was replaced by a reptilian face. With cold, unfeeling eyes, it regarded Keith, as the blood from his finger sped down the wall, and his grunts from struggling for his life filled the room. His body began to feel cold, like the temperature of the ocean floor. The pressure around his waist was increasing. His fingers were slipping.

The old man pressed the towel against his face for a second more, and when he withdrew it this time, he had the appearance of an old man, who had not been punched twice in the face recently.

“You still here? Go now. Go to your grave and make us a good servant.” The old man kicked Keith’s hands, causing him to cry out and let go with his wounded hand. The pressure moved up to mid chest, and the cold followed. He could smell it, whatever it was, and it smelled awful. “There you go, let go.”

Keith cried out “NO!” once more as his fingers gave way and he began twirling about into the black mass of flesh. His cries became muffled and he disappeared. The old man tossed the finger in, and then shut the door.

“You two, clean this mess up.” The old man moved toward the front of the shop as two young men stepped from hiding places and began to tidy things up. “I have to go tell the Avatar of the latest attempt to infiltrate us.”

Michael came to moments later, he was surprised to see Penny kneeling next to him. One of his men was watching over him as well. He sat up and held his head, shaking it a bit to try to shake off the effects of the energy beam. “Not what I was hoping for, but it seems you’re alright.” He slowly made his way to his feet, and looked around the room. Not much had changed, it appeared he was the last to recover.

Then the guards came again. Everyone was lined up to leave and taken down to the main cell block in D section. As they passed by cells, they simply opened the doors and pushed people in when they found one that wasn’t too overcrowded. Michael’s turn came and went a few times, when people behind him were pushed into a cell.

Finally, they stopped at a cell with just one person, a huge black man. “This here is DJ Jammer, and he’s your new cell mate. He doesn’t much believe in white supremacy, so you two can stay up long nights discussing the subject. Who knows, maybe you’ll change his mind.” With that the guard pushed Michael into his cell. “Feeding time, Jammer. Now we’re going to be right back here in a few hours to make sure you’re playing nice.”

With that, they moved on, leaving Michael without restraints in a cell with Jammer, the door slammed shut behind him. Jammer smiled and moved closer. “You wanna be the wife, or the husband?”

After a couple hours the two guards returned to check on Michael’s progress. “Oh [censored]! Open four twenty one! Open four twenty one! Get me a medic!”

They trussed up Michael real good, hands feet, knees, elbows and a mask. Then they took him to solitary. They didn’t even stop to wash the blood off of him. On his way, there were jeers and shouts of approval. There were insults and congratulations. “See you when you get out”, had two very different meanings, based on who was yelling it. He didn’t care. He’d been hurt so badly that he was certain he wouldn’t make it out of solitary. He was just happy that he was so bound up that he didn’t have to walk or even look at anyone and people would simply assume he couldn’t because of the restraints.

When the door slammed shut, the light disappeared and he was once again in a familiar place. A room, far too small, with a hard floor and the smell of fresh blood and sweat. He closed his eyes and slept, dreaming of home.

Sheriff Tanner was drinking coffee with Walt and Brian for about forty five minutes while waiting for Darren. They were watching the clouds roll in toward the shore and talking about the worst thing they ever did as a child to give their parents heart attacks.

Brian was describing a scene using both hands parallel to each other as he leaned forward out of the old, wooden chair and toward the table they sat round on the deck. “…on each side of the cave. We thought it would be the most awesome prank ever, and the two of them would come screaming out of there. But instead, when they saw all those drawings in chalk and crayon, they laughed themselves silly and told all their friends about it. It kind of became an attraction.”

“I noticed all the kids going down there to boat all of a sudden. Kind of a maritime lover’s lane.” Walt thought back. “That was you and Tommy Philips that did that?”

Tanner had gotten up to go get some more coffee. He’d become addicted to it after he joined the PCPD and had vowed to lay off the stuff, but he was in his mid forties now, and couldn’t do without it. The radio came to life, and the first thing Tanner noticed about the chatter from Darren was his voice. There was a strain in his voice, something he’d heard over the radio a number of times in Paragon City, but never in the little town of Whitedock. “Sheriff, come in, Sheriff are you there?”

Tanner turned the volume down from the coffee room and put is body between the radio and the two on the deck. He pulled the mic closer to his mouth from where it was clipped on to his jacket as he put his coffee down on the counter. “Go ahead Darren. Take some deep breaths.”

“Sheriff, you better get in Tubbs and get out here quick. The boy is… I don’t know how to describe it. I’ve never seen anything like it. Just get out here quick!” Darren was on the verge of panic.

“Slow down. Is the boy alright?” Tanner was acutely aware of the time, and how loud the first radio call came in. It wouldn’t be long before Brian wanted to know about his son.

“No! God damn it he’s not alright! He’s in [censored] pieces!” Darren’s voice sounded unfamiliar and terrified.

Tanner turned his radio volume down and walked quickly out of the building past the two men. “Stay there, I’m on the way.”

Brian was instantly on his feet. “What’s wrong, sheriff?”

“Call your wife, Brian, prepare her for the news.” With that he was out the door and down the steps to the second sheriff’s department boat. He began speeding along, looking at the GPS for Crocket and homing in on him. He was only ten minutes away in some rocks you could almost see if you were high enough on the island.

Darren was drinking bottled water and sitting on the starboard side of his boat, floating a few meters away from the edge of a rock outcropping some three thousand square feet in size. The rock was grey and black, like lava rock, and worn smooth by the tides, with tiny arches where the tubes met the surface of the rock. It was a great place to go exploring and spelunking, if you weren’t afraid of the ocean. Most times, there wasn’t a reason to be.

As Tanner pulled up, he could see past his deputy and into an alcove where the boy’s remains were. Someone had pinned his arms and legs to the rock with iron spikes, and something else had torn the boy apart. His left arm dangled from a spike, gone from the elbow up. His right arm, part of his shoulder, and his head were still attached to a spike on the opposite side. His mouth and eyes were wide open, as if he were still screaming. His legs were all but gone, all that remained were his ankles where the spikes held them in place and his little shoes. Bits of blue jeans covered the remainder of the stumps, though they were soaked through with blood.

Tanner had seen worse, but those were people he did not know. In Paragon City, you had to be tough enough to handle seeing anything, officers didn’t get sick or cry or even break down much. Darren was barely holding it together. His signature hat was in the driver’s seat of the boat. His fingers were pushing bottled water through his hair now and again. Slowly, he turned toward the sheriff. “Who would do this? What kind of monster?”

“Hand me the forensic kit and get back to the dock. I want you to stay with the vic-, stay with the Venderson’s tonight as long as they need you. Try not to ask them a lot of questions, just stay with them and help them out. They aren’t going to be much use. And don’t tell them how, just that he’s dead, we’re sure it’s him, and it’s going to take some time to recover him.” Tanner kept his voice calm, to let Darren know that he was aware of how terrible and somber a moment it was, but he left the steel in it to remind him to do his job.

Darren wiped a tear away from his eye and took another swig from the bottle of water. Then he put his hat back on and put the bottle on the dash. “Right, right.” He fetched the forensic kit out from a storage bay. Then he handed the big, orange box to Tanner. “I’m going to head back straight away, if that’s alright with you, boss.”

“Keep your radio on. I may need you again.” Tanner set down the box and opened it up.

As Darren left, Tanner wondered if he was doing more good than harm by letting him be with the family. That and kicking himself for flipping back into PPD mode and nearly calling Adam Venderson ‘the victim’ by way of his family. He pulled the camera out and began taking pictures of Adam’s body. Then kicked on the engine and got closer, taking note of other clues.

Wrought iron spikes… probably salvaged from somewhere then. Rock fragments and dust on the top of the spikes, “didn’t use a tool, just pounded them in with rocks” he thought. “But how?” He looked under the boy and saw nothing but clear blue water mixed with hundreds of fish feasting off of the tiny remains, and blood that had dripped down into the tide. “Where did they stand?” He looked around on the rocks for signs of foot prints or climbing tools. There were no abrasions on the rock that might have been caused by ropes. The flesh looked cut, but upon closer inspection he could see an uneven pattern in the skin that indicated it might have been teeth, or a serrated blade. The bone looked snapped, not sliced through. There was blood spray around the child’s mouth, indicating he was coughing blood, or perhaps screaming with lung damage. “Oh my god, you suffered didn’t you?”

Once he had taken all of the pictures he figured he needed, he pulled a set of work pliers and went to work on the spikes. He had to wiggle too and fro, and back and forth, and to yank and to yank for five minutes, before he got the one through the boy’s left ankle loose. Then it was another ten to get it out. He almost dropped the foot into the ocean to be lost forever when it finally did come free. Instead he placed it in an evidence bag and slid it into a black bag marked “human remains”.

He heard a noise from near the body. Tanner moved back to the starboard side of the boat, reflexively putting his hand on his pistol, then leaned over and looked into the water. The fish were gone. Tanner got an eerie feeling. The blood began to rush to his head, sounding like waves pounding on a rock. The only accompanying sound was his pistol finding its way free from its holster. He stared into the water, being able to see some fifteen feet down here, and saw something white rising toward him. He backed away and raised his gun toward the water as the bubble came to the surface and broke the placid skin of the ocean. A smell overtook Tanner and he rushed to the port side to throw up over the side.

Two great heaves, and his lunch and coffee went splashing back into the ocean. He slipped back into the boat and coughed, with his hand over his mouth, his pistol dangling from his grip. Everything started to go dark, but he fought back the blackness. His skin was on fire, his eyes and flesh were turning bright red. He heard something near the aft of his boat and used every ounce of energy he had to turn his head in that direction.

A shadow was rising out of the ocean, and creeping across the aft of his boat. Everything was beginning to spin around, he had to force himself to breath in. The smell of dead flesh was in his nose and the taste of rotting corpse was on his tongue. He raised his weapon and fired two shots. A high pitched noise stabbed at his brain through his ears and he screamed and dropped his pistol to the deck. The darkness of the ocean rose up around him and he fell into it completely.

Michael tried to interpose his body between the droids as soon as he heard the Mastermind Droid Control Prototype Mark 2 start his apology. He took two blasts, one in the chest and one in the head and went down, not moving. One of his men immediately moved between the droids and the girl, the other froze, waiting to see if they were to be left alone instead of charging to Michael's aid. If he were shot down, there would be no one left to assist him and there would be two down.

Michael's breathing was shallow as he laid on the floor, his left leg twitching slightly and then falling still.

Michael watched the interaction between the inmates and the droid and wanted no part of it. There were sides. To soldiers, there were always sides. Talking to the droid is what it wants you to do. They don’t engage you unless they want contact. They only want contact when it furthers their goals. He watched Penny speak the droid’s language. She wasn’t a prisoner, she was an asset. He moved up next to her quietly and put his hand on her shoulder slowly, and out of the corner of her eye so she would see it coming and not be startled.

He smiled at her, with his boyish smile. He was well aware of the effect of his looks on girls and played it down a notch, so as not to be distracting. He only wanted to reassure her. Then his hand went to his waist and he stared, disinterested toward the new prisoner through the open door. His two new friends hovered close by, creating a tiny buffer zone between Penny and the other inmates.

It was a rainy little rock, far from Talos Island, and well outside the war walls. It had been spared the ravages of the Rikti invasion for its sheer lack of importance. Whitedock was a community of a couple hundred, with a neighboring island of Drentcliff that had near a thousand before a terrible incident during the Rikti war.

The big event that catapulted several mutants from small town heroes to Paragon heroes had come and gone. There were no more pools of mutagens or mad scientists, and all the crazy mages had been run off. The town was much smaller, with a large elderly community just making their way on the island. Kelly Tanner was happy to leave Paragon city police for a quieter, happier place.

Whitedock was a success story. Statesman and the heroes cleaned up the island completely and left behind a slice of Norman Rockwell when they went. Occasionally, some Longbow will fly out to the island to vacation or just to check up, but mostly there is no need for a sheriff at all. That is, unless a little, twelve year old, boy gets lost.

That was what was happening today. Sometime about sunup, an eight year old boy named Jacob, took his father’s outboard to the neighboring rocks to go looking for Rikti tech salvage, what the boys called the bits of melted metal that hit the ocean near the rock outcroppings and then cooled in the water. He was trying to get them for a seventh grade science project.

Sheriff Tanner rolled up in his H2 and parked it next to the deputy’s Escalade in the parking lot overlooking the docks. He disembarked and carried his clipboard down several flights of steps. He still put his hand on his nine millimeter out of habit as he walked. His light green uniform marked him, but his blue PCPD jacket almost drowned it out. Darren Wall, his deputy was out at the end of the dock with Brian Venderson, the boy’s father and Walt Whitney the harbormaster.

“Walt. How you holding up Brian?” Tanner didn’t wear a sheriff hat, he thought they looked stupid, and he never ceased making fun of Darren for wearing one.

The father looked stoic, trying to hide any worry from his face. “Just looking to get Adam back home to his mother before she kills me.”

The sheriff looked down to the end of the dock where his deputy was kneeling over a boat, holding a pen and notebook, and wearing a deputy hat with no jacket whatsoever. Darren was used to the weather on the island. “Darren, what did you and your magic hat dig up so far?”

The deputy smiled a gentle smile and looked back at Tanner. “My magic hat tells me that the boy’s alright, but probably wet and cold.”

“How? How do you know that?” Brian Venderson stepped a step down the dock with a puzzled look on his face.

“Well,” the deputy started as he stood up and began walking back, “there’s a clear shoe mark on the boat, near the stern. It matches in size and type something consistent with that of a twelve year old boy. There’s no blood or sign of animal attack in the boat, and there’s several hunks of metal in the boat. All in all I’d say that he went out to get some metal, found a secret stash that was hard to get to, and accidentally kicked his boat away when he was salvaging. I’m going to take Crockett to the closest couple rocks and see if I can spot him.”

“He did this last year.” Brian shook his head.

“Yeah, well, if he does it again, we’re going to have to charge you for gas.”

Darren got on board one of the two wavejumpers the Sheriff department had and started her up. “I’ll see if I can’t get him back by noon.” Tanner untied him and tossed the rope aboard.

“Don’t go sight seeing. There’s extra blankets in the storage area and the heater works.” Tanner waved at Darren as he sped off toward dark images on the horizon.

Walt was in his late fifties, but could have been mistaken for over sixty easy. He was a little heavy set, and definitely loved to dress like he did in the old days. His voice was reassuring when he told Brian, “they’ll find him again, and you give him a real good talking to when they do.”

Brian just shook his head and started walking back up the dock to the dockhouse to wait for Darren to return with his son.

[ QUOTE ]

"So he has a different reason for killing people," Kirke interjected in monotone, sitting down on one of the bunks and leaning back against the wall. "We all got one of those. His is genetics, mine's money.... what's your's Doc?" His one good eye flicked back and forth between the two men, occasionally dancing across the other members of the cell.

[/ QUOTE ]

Michael shook his head. "Amazing that you all seem to know so little about what you seem to know so much about. It isn't Genetics, for the sake of genetics. It's about a community we can be proud of. A world worth living in. A world where there's no need for monsters. A world where there's even no need for guns and violence. It's called a community. And even here, in this low frills country club, you'll all find yourselves part of a community. The only question will be, can you trust them?" Michael turned toward the cell door. "Looks like the interrogation droid is here." He clapped his hands once in mock excitement. "Who has secrets?"

“Doctor Greene, is it?” Michael leaned against a bunk as two other young men moved up to his sides. “It’s funny how some kinds of prejudice are supposedly healthy and others are simply wrong. I suppose it all depends on what side you’re on. You see, I’m a human, what are you, doctor?”

Michael shook the hands of the two young men on either side of him. “If you think for one second that there aren’t others of my kind here, you’re entirely mistaken. My guess is our numbers rival all the street gangs combined. So if you want spit on me, and call me a Nazi, that’s fine. If you want to lecture me about how to survive here, go ahead. I’ve survived much worse places than here, and I know how to survive here. You have to have friends.”

Michael moved away from the bunk and offered it to Penny with his hands. “You can choose for yourself, girl, put your trust in this one here who’s obviously out for himself, or trust in people who will fanatically defend you to the death, living and dying by the code of a soldier. You can have my bunk, we will see to it that no one will disturb you.”

To the doctor he smiled and said, “yes, I wasn’t clever enough to avoid capture. Had I not been alone, I could have done just that. My crazy philosophy is that I am pro human. If you can’t get on board, just try and stay out of my way.”

Michael never even considered that “tour” meant an actual tour. The guards had spent so much time trying to convince the convicts that they weren’t afraid of them, he figured they’d just lock them away in a tiny room as soon as possible. But there were endless corridors and rooms that stretched on forever. The place was truly huge. The guard kept talking about how “you WILL shower here, you WILL work here, those of you who are lucky will get to work HERE, those of you who do not behave, will be working HERE.”

Phrases like “reactor core scrubbing” made him believe that some areas of the Zig were not equipped with maximum power suppressors. He’d learned to react poorly to things with simple names. “The house” didn’t sound good. Nor did “doing time” in it. There weren’t a lot of surprises about security. The Zig kept it pretty straight forward. There were only a few sections where your powers would be useful enough to bother with, day room, exercise yard, in your cells. In these places you’re either trapped in by admantium bars or under the watchful eye of vehicle mounted weaponry.

Then there were the costumed freaks patrolling everywhere. Some flew, so… even if you flew, and got into the yard, and got enough energy to fly away or teleport (not counting getting the teleportation shield down), you’d just be hunted down and shot out of the sky by the costumes. Best case scenario, you get to the war wall and become some noob hero’s catalyst to the big time.

Michael wasn’t interested in escape at this point. He needed to know more about this time. He needed to see if he could find any other members of the Fifth column who hadn’t surrendered, been killed or joined the council. About five behind him in line was a huge Arian. He made eye contact and nodded, and got the nod back. Then he got the shove from the guard, and he shuffled along behind everyone else.

"I'll take that as a yes." Michael pressed on as ordered by the guards.

As they were led out into the suppression zone, Michael saw the sky for the first time in a while. It was clear, without bars or windows as if someone could just fly away. Of course, with the suppressors, you couldn’t so much as manage a high jump. They didn’t affect Michael, as he had no super powers to speak of, but he took note of those who seemed most affected. He mentally tagged them as mutants. He took stock of how many didn’t even look human, much less white, Anglo-Saxon. Here he was, confined with the inferior gene holding scum that he tried so hard to wipe out.

Were this his world, the world he left, these creatures would already be dead long ago. Countless biological agents were introduced to kill off those with inferior genetics, until only the strong survived. In that day, he wouldn’t spend fifteen minutes in the hands of the enemy. There would be black helicopters hovering over the prison, and rockets slamming into guard towers. Black clad special ops soldiers would blow holes in the prison to get him out. He could almost see it as they shuffled along.

His daydream faded when they were ordered to stop at the first gate. The prisoner transfer process had begun. Each prisoner was being asked their name by the guard. One tried to get smart, but got the stick instead. Probably one of those tough villains who is immune to everything, because without his powers in the suppression field, he doubled over and whimpered like a puppy. When they got to Michael he sang out proudly, name, rank serial number.

“Helsinger, Michael. Archon. One one niner two five niner one six three.” He got the stick, but he didn’t double over.

“You give me your prison number, maggot, and you ain’t no Fv(%ing Archon in here. You’re just a piece of $#!t convict like the rest, you read me?” The guard was very efficient in his dispensing of pain. Michael had been here before, he gritted his teeth and tried again. “Helsinger, Michael, eight eight four dash six one six.” The guard moved on.

Michael looked about fifteen. He was ripped from his military training, which put some meat on his bones, but his face was that of a young boy’s. Though there was a strange anger that aged him when his gaze was concentrated. As the flier made it’s way, he tried to sleep but couldn’t manage over the conversation. When the door opened he waited for instructions. He caught only the tail end of the conversation between the Englishman and the girl. As he was being shuffled off, he stumbled into her slightly to confirm his suspicions. Then he made a point of being next to the Englishman.

Michael leaned in close at the first opportunity. “You a mutant?”

Name: Archon Steele

Stats: Male, handsome, age 19

Known powers: Marksman and gadgeteer, leader of men.

Brief physical description: Originally dressed in what appeared to be combat fatigues from another time. Young, black hair, with youthful face twisted with rage and contempt.

Nutshell history: From an alternate universe where the Fifth Column succeeded in their plans for world domination, but were later defeated by a small band of heroes. He's come back to warn his father of the mistakes they made, but did not come back far enough in the timeline. Now he's stuck here, captured by enemy forces and without any allies.