Mr_Grey

((Shift, despite the OOC, as far as the IC team is concerned, the plan went as well as it could have.

I didn't mean to dump on you, any of you, but you were essentially all arguing over your flavor of travel and would have pretty much wound up in the same place in 90% of the choices. The other choices involved flying over Skyway and jumping out of the helicopter for no fathomable reason.))

[ QUOTE ]
*scratches chin* I like. Though I'm going to be disapprove if Statesman turns out to have been the bad guy.

Unless it was an evil clone of Statesman, then it's ok.

Either way, continue please.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll say this, Khell, it's something like a clone... Something like Tyrant, too, but not exactly either.

Well, it's alright... It's got potential...

You say Jack's name too often. It's always Jack this and Jack that... Your pronoun use is good, but it would help if you mixed it up more. Use physical descriptions like "the brown-haired young man" or "his athletic form." Starting every sentence with "Jack," is bothersome to read, though.

Usually, you only have to use the name once every other paragraph and the reader should still be able to tell whom you're talking about. It should be more frequent, though, as you add more characters into the immediate mix.

Also, you should try to separate past from present. Using italicized text, dashes (---) or something can help the reader know that the focus has shifted from the original narrative to a memory.

Now, that's not to say it's all bad. By no means is this a terrible story. Your pacing is good, you're very descriptive and the paragraphs are nicely broken up so it's easier for the eyes to adjust and follow (that last one seems to take other posters FOREVER to figure out, often leading to the "Wall of Text" problem). The character is interesting, too, and his motivations, as flawed as Jack's point of view may be, make sense. I actually feel kind of sorry for these Council troops in their last terrible moments of life.

It's not the sort of work I like to spotlight, but it's a good first attempt. You do a good job of fleshing out the character and it makes me hope to see more work from you in the future. Hopefully, you'll take lessons from this and refine your style to make future presentations more palatable.

That said, good luck, welcome to the boards, and keep up the good work!

“Alright… Let’s see what we’ve got so far…” Mortiganen murmured as he looked over the reports, “Judging from the group members Agent Wild had to bail out of jail for ‘disturbing the peace,’ and the reports that indicate who rejected our requests and those who accepted, we’re looking at around an eight percent total hero population that is helping us with this. The rest, well, let’s just say we’re not quite as popular as Freedom Corps expected us to be.”

“Pft, uppity blowhards,” Harold Danesti barked, “They think they’re so big just because they never got caught racketeering…”

“Then there’s this issue with the Paragon Protectors,” the wizard continued, “I’m sorry, Thomas. I was hoping they’d leave you alone longer, but it seems we’ll have to deal with this as soon as possible… As a group.”

The scrapper nodded as he held an ice pack to his hip.

“I heal pretty fast,” he muttered, “not as fast as that Caid guy, but it’s pretty quick.”

Garm was looking over his own notes and chewing on the end of his pen in consternation. It didn’t make sense to him. This massive creature just showed up out of nowhere, decimated the home of one of the most notorious villains in the city, and then disappeared. It smacked of the sort of conspiracy that involved a living weapon.

“Since the Hollows were the last place this ‘Grendel’ was sighted, we should focus our search there. That weird guy, the one with the clockwork-like cybernetics, Tickin’ Clank, or whatever his name is, he said his crew found a bunch of dead fish people on the coast of the Red River. The Circle never seems to bother with them, and the Trolls have been steering clear of ‘em, too… Plus, according to the report, it looked like their bodies had been crushed in quick succession and laid out like some sort of message, so I’d say it’s a good bet that our mystery monster was the culprit.”

“I agree,” Mort rasped, “But that means he could be in the Hollows, Skyway City, Atlas Park, or even head out into the ocean and make a bee-line for Talos Island.”

“So, what do we do?” Danesti asked, “Stage patrols anywhere that borders Eastgate and hope we catch a glimpse of this twelve-foot beastie?”

“That’s probably our best bet,” the wizard replied, “I’m sorry, Thomas, but until the end of this, I’m afraid I’ll have to keep you here in the base until we can get more teams focused on your case. I don’t want to risk another group of Protectors or Crey’s favorite ‘acquisition squads’ trying to capture you again.”

“I understand, boss,” Redshadow groaned, “I could use the R & R, anyway.”

----------

Skyway City was no stranger to the Troll menace. Every couple of nights, a group of their rowdiest and roughest would pick a warehouse and start gulping down gallons of the concoction that made them what they were in the first place. If one dose of Superadyne were enough to alter their bodies and physiques beyond recognition, multiple doses were bound to have more pronounced effects, and they did. The so-called Supa Trolls used to be a massive, insurmountable menace in Skyway City, blocking up traffic for days until a few heroes took it upon themselves to spend a few months clearing them off the streets every time they held a rave and started disrupting the city. Nowadays, the Supa Trolls were wary of the bombs, bullets, lightning bolts and so forth that the heroes would turn on them, so they often turned in as soon as their brains got even a little less foggy during the course of their depredations.

The normal Trolls remained in the open, however. This was still their city, and they protected it from all incursions, whether they were dealing with the Outcasts, the Tsoo, or even the Lost which had consumed much of the south side of the city with their access to bizarre technology. While they sometimes had pitched battles that spilled into the streets, they normally just posed in their favorite hangouts to show that they still owned the streets. Favorite hangouts included the pit under the Yellow Line train station, the construction yards, a couple basketball courts, and especially the rivers of the Gruff.

It was like they were drawn to it. It could have been considered some sort of sick joke on their part, as a reference to classic trolls from children’s stories, but few who ever dealt with the Trolls for any length of time would actually believe them capable of such parody. It could also be considered that they simply wanted quick access to a bountiful water source. Whatever the reason, the Trolls ruled the drainage rivers of Skyway City.

At least, they did. None of them could have known what was bubbling under the surface of those waters. None of them believed the rumors that had been circulating their gang. Nobody could have done that to Atta and his crew. Nothing that powerful existed. Sure, there had been heroes that single-handedly busted up his place when he had a skeleton crew, or groups that took on the armies he could keep in his warrens, but nothing ever single-handedly smashed his house down around his ears while his whole band was there. They’d assumed it was a power play from any number of the factions within the Trolls. They never considered that it wasn’t ambition driving the rumor, but fear.

It had been a long time since the Trolls had ever been afraid. Today was the day they’d relearn how to fear.

With a mighty roar, a great gray bulk burst from beneath the river of the Gruff and rounded on the nearest cluster of Trolls. They stared, dumbstruck, at the beast that had chosen them for its next meal. If they had run, perhaps they would have lived. Shortly after the guttural roars of battle and the agonized screams of defeat ended, the drainage waters were running red with Troll blood.

Added another chapter to Grey's Army.

After the overall serious tone of the previous adventure, I wanted to have my characters doing something fun.

The Grey's Army super group is largely on hiatus, and Kip, bored, shows up to check out a scanning device Sheldon wants to show him. However, something strange is happening in the base.

Sheldon's pet, Felix, steals Kip's sandwich... But how could the mutant gerbil accomplish the task when he was with Sheldon the whole time?

---Kings Row: Grey’s Army Base---

It had been a slow week for Grey’s Army since Charlene came back from the Rogue Isles. Randall was a little worried about her welfare, considering the fact that there were numerous rumors about what had happened out there and she was getting involved with a place known for shooting “heroes” on sight when she was seven months pregnant.

Still, she seemed perfectly fine. For the first time, the group got to hear the voice of Sol’Ra, her Kheldian. Chirping, the Peacebringer happily told Randy how proud she was to work with his wife and how quick and defiant she was when dealing with intimidating odds.

“Oh, it wasn’t so bad,” the young-seeming woman waved down the praise amusedly, “It’s not like when I took on that Shadow Cyst Crystal directly… Remember that?”

“Oh my…” the voice emitted from Charlene’s mouth as she held it open, “That was terrible… There I was, exhausted by the Unbound Nictus assaulting us, and you drew a shotgun to finish the crystal off!”

Charlene beamed as her large husband looked worriedly at her. She eased his mind by hugging him about his waist and assuring him that everything was alright.

With the Grey family spending the week together, the rest of the group wasn’t getting much official hero business. Kipland Durj found himself having to throw more of the BWO’s junk into the room they’d stolen and he found Matt “Dirty Ice” Jones passed out in Randy’s microbrewery one morning, but things were otherwise quiet.

One afternoon, he zipped into the base, sandwich in hand, and checked to see what Sheldon was up to. Apparently, the inventor had just developed a new scanner for use with the communicators and wanted to show Kip.

“Hey, Felix,” he said to the pudgy animal sitting on the table and when it started reaching for his sandwich, he continued, “No! No! My sandwich! My sandwich! Get your own! Sheldon!”

“Yeah?” he heard the inventor call from a back room, “What is it?”

“Where’s this scanner you wanted me to see?”

“Just a second, I’m still working out a couple bugs.”

The short man shrugged and went to bite into his lunch. There was a high-toned roar and he looked over in time to see the mutant gerbil leaping for the roast beef and cheese he held. Kip had a moment to consider that the animal had a surprising mouth of sharp teeth for something altered from a rodent before the little bear-like thing had the food snatched out of his hand.

“What the Hell?” he shouted as the critter landed on a display case containing a Rikti Rifle and started munching happily, “Sheldon!”

“What?”

“Get out here and see what Felix did!”

“What?”

The white-coated young man stormed out of the back storage room, his face screwed up in confusion. When he entered the workshop, he looked around the floor and shrugged.

“What is it, Kip? Did he go to the bathroom in here? I don’t smell anything…”

“What? No!” Kip pointed to the display case, “Look!”

“At what?”

Kip turned to point out the animal eating his sandwich, but it was gone. Confused, he looked behind and around the case, but Felix was nowhere to be seen. Then he heard the tell-tale sound of the critter over where Sheldon stood.

“Ah-HA!” he rounded on Sheldon and pointed, “There’s the bugger…”

“Kip,” he pulled the fat little bear-like gerbil out of his lab coat pocket, “Felix has been with me all day.”

The scrapper stared, bewildered, at the critter. It was dressed up in a little gray suit that was covered in electronics. Suddenly, his blood ran cold and he remembered that Felix had both altered another animal, Katie, and built that suit himself.

“Sheldon…”

There was a rattling sound next to the table where they built devices to help them in their adventures through the city. Turning, the two vigilantes saw a circular vent sitting next to it.

“Where does that lead?” Wallace asked, “I’ve seen them throughout the base, but… Randy said this place is surrounded by a sewer, and the furnace upstairs doesn’t feed into here…”

Kip leaned in close and tried to peer between the slats of the vent. In Sheldon’s hand, Felix seemed to be getting more and more agitated.

“I think I hear something,” the scrapper grunted as he started pulling at the edges of the vent, “Help me get this thing off of here, Shel…”

The controller aimed his arm-length glove at the metal protrusion and gave a sharp yank. Kip was aware of something moving near his head before the vent popped off the wall of its own accord, throwing him backwards to land on his butt on the floor.

“I’ve been working on the energy aspect of my gauntlets,” Wallace explained as he took a screwdriver from one of his pockets and started adjusting something in his right gauntlet, “Throwing nanites at my enemies in the hope that they’ll orbit him fast enough to hold him in place hasn’t been as effective as I expected. Perhaps if I’m directing vector forces themselves, I hold a higher chance of success at holding them still. Also… I’ve been working on the energy delivery system of my devices… Perhaps if I’m not drawing off my own body heat, I can utilize my systems longer. Batteries and power cells are finite, though… I’m thinking I should draw energy from my opponents…”

“What does that have to do with anything we’re doing now?” Kip almost shouted at his friend.

“I’m trying to explain why I used too much force to wrench that vent off the wall and subsequently caused you to land on your backside… With these new methods I’m practicing, I’m having a little trouble at the finer points of my control.”

“Ah…”

Kip rolled forward again and reached his hand into the duct behind the vent. Scrabbling his hand about, he felt something fuzzy and grasped it. A moment later, he felt something sink its teeth into his hand.

“Ow! Dammit!” he shouted as he started pulling whatever it was out of the duct, “Come on… Come on!”

Once Kip pulled his arm free, Sheldon gasped as he saw what was hanging off his wrist. It looked like Felix, only bigger, with darker fur. It was busy trying to gnaw into the scrapper’s hand, but was having trouble getting through the peculiar energy field that protected the young man when he was in danger. That didn’t mean Kip couldn’t feel it, and it hurt like Hell, but the critter eventually stopped and looked up at Sheldon.

Or rather, it looked up at Felix. When the scientist realized the deferment, he turned to his pet, who was busy slapping his paw against his forehead in a familiar mannerism related to disappointment and annoyance at the same time.

---

“What the Hell are they?” Kip hissed into Sheldon’s ear.

In the same hour that they found the impostor Felix (actually, it was still a different one; they didn’t find the one that stole Kip’s sandwich until five minutes later, when it burped), the base came alive with the sounds of critters scrambling around the ducts and vents surrounding the base. Sheldon utilized the opportunity to practice his new brand of vector force control to pop the vents off the walls and pull or push the little buggers out of their hiding spots.

There were around thirty in all. Each of them looked different from one another, some all brown, some had tan or brown spots or splotches on white fur, some were all white and some were calico. They were various sizes, some bigger and burlier than Felix, most about the same size as the pudgy little furball, and others were the same size as Katie, the lab mouse Felix had mutated so he would have a friend.

Either this was a litter, or somebody had learned how to replicate Sheldon’s mutagenic formula.

“How did this happen?” Kip asked, unconsciously picking up one of the tiny ones to pet it, “Where’s Katie?”

“With Sarah,” Sheldon replied, “And I think I know how this happened…”

He set the only one wearing any kind of clothing on the couch with the rest. Felix looked up at him in a way that showed he was afraid. It wasn’t so much fear for himself, but he was worried what would happen to his friends.

“Speak,” Sheldon intoned, “Come on. I know you can read, I know you know what I’m saying…”

“Mrah!” the little animal replied, joined later by a small cacophony of similar noises from the other animals.

“Come on. I know you can do better than that.”

“Mrah…” Felix moaned, but after looking to his friends, he looked up to Sheldon, his eyes filled with worry, “Mruh… Pruh… Pluh… Pleeeeeease… Please. Please do’h… do’hn… doooohn’t hurrrrrd us…”

Kip and Sheldon stared blankly at the little animal. Kip figured his friend knew the whole time that the little animals could talk. Sheldon didn’t know how to tell Kip he’d been bluffing.

----------

“How long have you known, Snuffy?”

They called her in since it was her day off from working as a bartender or waitress in Pocket D. Since she was a psychic, and had a penchant for communicating with the animals, they had at first figured she could help explain things. However, they wound up getting far more information when she nonchalantly informed them that she already knew about the numerous critters.

“It’s only been a couple months,” Sarah replied as she set Katie in with the others, “Felix and Katie were running into rats and escaped lab animals that came through the walls or the base portal… They didn’t want to kill them. Actually, the idea came from Ni…”

Her cat had been rubbing against Kip’s leg, obviously enjoying the fact that for once, he was the good animal. Once Sarah outed his responsibility in the affair, however, he hopped away before the scrapper could punt him down the hall.

“What!?” the second-in-command of Grey’s Army shouted, “This isn’t making any sense!”

“Ni suggested he and Katie make more like them and have a group to help keep this place tidy… I mean, let’s face it, with Cedric and those BWO guys, this place would become a mess in a matter of hours…”

“Hey!” they heard from down the hall, “I can hear you, you know!”

“Shut up over there, Daren,” Kip shouted back, “this doesn’t concern you!”

“So, Felix hopped on Sheldon’s computer and started looking for the notes on how to make the mutagen. He had to wait until you guys had brought enough materials into the base, and he covered what he was doing by making that cute little gravity control suit that makes him look like a little rocketeer!”

She rubbed Felix’s cheeks and the little bear made a happy humming noise. Sarah followed this up by rubbing his chin and petting him on the head.

“So… They’re intelligent,” Sheldon sat against the pillar and started hyperventilating, “They’re reproducing, and they’re intelligent…”

“Not exactly reproducing…” Sarah corrected him, “Not yet, anyway. They’re still getting used to their new forms. Those bigger ones, for instance, the ones made from rats, they’ve got bigger claws, bigger teeth, and spikes that shoot out of their backs.”

“Like, shoot-shoot, or just extend?” Kip asked worriedly.

“Extend… Felix and the others his size, made from gerbils, hamsters, guinea pigs and one’s a chinchilla…”

She pointed at the one that had a fuzzier coat.

“…They’ve got the spikes, too, but they’re smaller. And the tiny ones, like Katie… They’ve got no spikes and are just super cuddly!”

Sarah picked up a handful of the little ones and hugged them close. They responded by licking her cheek and snuggling her neck.

“This is too much cute…” Kip muttered, “Someone better do something gruesome, quick…”

One of the bigger critters suddenly made a chomping noise and they looked to see it was chewing on a steak. He looked up at them with an expression of "Did I do good?" However, Kip rounded on Sheldon again.

“Where the Hell did he get that!?” he shouted, to which the inventor merely shrugged.

((Well, regardless of the method of travel, you were still going to wind up in Kings Row. You weren't going to be going directly to the Sedadyne Headquarters... It's not Crey property. From this Crey facility in Kings Row, you have an opportunity to establish what you need.

All roads lead to Kings Row is what I'm saying.

And I was under the impression that all other methods had been tossed aside in favor of Millions' plan, which I now see was left as "Oh, we go through Warburg and wind up in Kings Row."

...

Now... You guys still have the opportunity to establish whatever cover or make whatever arrangements you need. The point, in the end, is that the Crey facility in Kings Row is the opportune staging point at this point in the adventure.))

Tinyurl, Blue. It'll help you fit more threads into your signature.

((You are currently in Kings Row. Sedadyne is NOT a part of Crey, so Crey doesn't have direct shipping to Sedadyne. As far as I can tell, the Kings Row facility is the closest Crey headquarters to the Sedadyne facility in Skyway City. A Skyway facility could have been used, but Kings Row was more likely to receive a large cargo shipment, as it's an industrial city (like Oakland), plus I'm unaware of any buildings in Skyway City with the Crey logo emblazoned on them.))

Edited the last post in Grey's Army to finish some of the story elements I couldn't get in before sleep overtook me. There's some extra in there now that covers what happens to Recluse, Mauthe, and Power Breaker.

((Well... Through the contrivance of time being relative, the rogues and heroes are now definitely working simultaneously. The assumption is that the Redside stuff has been happening earlier in the day than the Blueside.

Can't do it again, though. Not unless you guys wind up in wildly different geographic locations again.))

((Travel times between Zones are an in-game allowance. While it may take a minute to go from St. Martial to Warburg and another minute from there to get to Kings Row, that's so the action in the game is quicker. Out here in RP world, however, real travel times should be taken into consideration.))

No problem... Just keep writing!

Grey's Army update. Almost done with the arc.

The battle between Statesman, Recluse and the bizarre demigod Dagoeth rages across the surface of the formerly submerged temple. Meanwhile, the Longbow and civilian defenders on Mauthe's island have to fend off what seems to be a never-ending swarm of Coralax Hybrids that have decided to follow their goddess' Hand to war.

For a quick note, I've got no in-game basis for this Dagoeth character other than the fact that Merulina and the Coralax seem to be based on the C'thulhu Mythos, so I based Dagoeth on "Dagon." His appearance, however, is much different from a monstrous mutant fish. I instead opted to make him simple but still impossible (Heh, "Water Form Armor" and "Water Melee").

As the temple sank, Barracuda picked herself up. She had been thrown from the wall of the temple like her Lord and his foe, though she wound up on the Circle’s Island of the Hand instead. During the course of the descent, however, she passed out and lost track of her half of the Heart of the Sea.

Looking frantically for it, she didn’t notice Calystix approaching. He pointed a gnarled finger at her and hissed.

“This is your fault, my child… You brought this day upon us, because you refused to stay with me and learn the truth of your heritage…”

“Now, now, Cal,” an impossibly deep voice intoned from the nearby thicket.

Mori’ae emerged from the vegetation, his body ravaged by battle. His head was broken open, missing the upper left portion entirely, and his flesh had been torn away from his right arm, ribs, and left thigh. Still, his remaining glowing eye and sly smile exuded confidence.

“Don’t go trying to fill the girl’s head with nonsense. We all know you intended to try to find a new way to control the beast and it failed. You’re just lucky Dagoeth was defeated, or your entrails would have wound up decorating these islands.”

“I don’t know you, Oranbegan…”

“No, no… Not Oranbegan. I just use their methods to live longer and have been fortunately able to keep my soul intact. Ah… But I’ll miss this body… It was so useful for enjoying earthly pleasures… I guess I’ll need to get a new one.”

Mori’ae leveled his gaze on the Coralax high priest.

“How about yours?”

“You think to intimidate me?” Calystix hissed, “I will tear you asunder!”

He flicked his hands and a horde of coral skeleton golems burst from the ground. However, Mori’ae made a similar motion and a batch of spectral demons and a dark shadow monster appeared in much the same manner. What remained of the dark wizard’s mouth continued smiling that horrid smile of his.

“Plus, I still have her in my corner for the duration of this fight.”

Barracuda stood and regarded the two of them. Mori’ae cocked his head at her, his smiling shifting slightly as he regarded her. Calystix, however, looked horrified. That was when she became aware of an excruciating pain in her chest.

Looking down, she found the Heart of the Sea. It was burying itself in the hollow of her chest and sinking deeply into the cavity. Screaming, she tried to pull it back out, dropping to her knees as the pain became blinding. She couldn’t stop the mineral Heart from lodging inside of her, and with one final, shuddering spasm, it stuck in place, leaving her at the edge of blacking out as she curled up in a fetal ball on the ground.

“No…” Calystix whispered, “No, this can’t be possible…”

“What’s the matter?” Mori’ae asked as he dismissed his ghostly backup with a wave of his hand, “Never considered that your artifacts of power could be used by other beings? You know, this is why the Oranbegans horde their knowledge. They know that in more wrong hands, a lot of what they’ve got could do some serious damage… They just feel that their hands are wrong enough.”

“You fool, she consumed half of the Heart of the Sea! Don’t you know what this means!?”

“No, and I don’t think you do, either. I don’t think she does. But, hey, it’ll be fun to watch and find out.”

Calystix stared in shock at his foe. When Barracuda, breathing slowly but evenly, pushed herself off the ground and stood up, she seemed unchanged by her experience. In fact, she looked terribly confused.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“You’re safe from this idiot’s reprisal,” Mori’ae explained, “Isn’t that right, idiot?”

Calystix looked angrily at the other wizard, but started edging away. Barracuda slid some urchin spikes into her hand and prepared to hurl them at the Coralax wizard, but the golems got in the way. As she reloaded, Calystix fled and the golems closed in. Mori’ae helped her deal with the rocky monsters, but when the fighting was over, the high priest was long gone.

“Sorry,” he muttered as Barracuda stared wordlessly in the direction of her foe.

“You’re oddly subdued,” she said back flatly.

“Getting your body torn apart by Coralax hybrids because your Circle of Thorns support was less-than-capable of defending the colony tends to do that. Those Arachnos troops were hit or miss, though. The ones Recluse brought were top-notch, though. Highly efficient.”

“That’s why they’re his guard.”

She looked around one more time. Power Breaker wasn’t in the clearing. She looked to Mori’ae, the question out of her mouth before she knew she was asking it. The broken wizard shook his head, though. He didn’t know what had happened to her colleague. Barracuda took a moment to consider that she didn't know how she felt about that.

It wasn't that she felt anything for the man, but she also hoped he was alright. It seemed wrong to her that he should have to die like that, but she couldn't figure out why.

----------

---Brother Mauthe’s Island of the Hand---

“Well now, Statesman, what do you intend to do with me?”

The champion of Paragon rubbed his shoulder as he regarded his foe. In his weakened state, it was a prime opportunity to finally capture and imprison the malicious leader of the Rogue Isles. Recluse didn’t seem to be in any state to fight, either. Two of his spider-like limbs had been broken again in the fall, though he was busy resetting them.

Longbow troops filed into the clearing next to the stone temple and leveled their weapons on the Lord. He looked at them and let out a low, contemptuous laugh, but did nothing to show he was going to be a problem.

“If you arrest me,” he explained, “and in the unlikely event that you can really keep me imprisoned, you do know what will happen in my Isles, don’t you?”

“Recluse,” Statesman started, but the megalomaniac continued.

“The factions within Arachnos will splinter and go to war with each other! My lieutenants will tear each other apart! There will be no more back-alley strikes, no more covert operations… It will be war and blood, spilled into the streets! No one will be spared, not the Wyvern and Longbow forces that attempt to undermine my rule, not the criminals who use my islands as their haven, and especially not the so-called innocents who live under MY protection! And don’t think the war will be contained there, Marcus, for there is too much power in that small space for it to remain! They will spread out, carving a swath across the world!”

“I know…”

“Sir?” Captain Dietrich asked, worry tingeing her voice, “You’re not really considering letting this maniac go, are you?”

“We don’t have a choice,” Paragon’s champion admitted soberly, “Even if we had the means to hold him, Recluse’s absence would cause a power vacuum that the world can’t recover from…”

“You know what it would take to stop it,” the dark lord stated as he folded his arms over his chest in triumph, “A demonstration, if you will, but I know you won’t do it.”

“You’re one of the few people who sorely tempts me…”

Statesman’s gloved hand clenched into a fist as he locked eyes with his arch enemy. One of many, and one of the worst, Recluse was one of the few people that Marcus still seriously considered killing if he had to. The other man had proven time and again that there would be no alternative to defeating him once and for all, but the hero still couldn’t stomach the thought of actually committing what he saw as murder. So, he let his fist unclench and waved the villain off.

“…Call your flier, Stefan. Just get out of here.”

“Before I go, I’d like to remark on something, old foe… I know what my purpose in this world is. They have a great need for me in my nation. In yours, however, there’s a literal army of spendex-clad, armored, masked or unmasked vigilantes of varying skills and capabilities, all working synergistically with each other to keep the city safe… They have their own leaders, the government is still in operation and in time, even the military and police forces will be strong enough so as to make the massive presence of freelance vigilantism so unnecessary as to be ludicrous. What is it that they need you for?”

Statesman didn’t answer. It wasn’t that he didn’t have one, it was just that he wasn’t going to let Stefan Richter’s glib dismissal of his purpose in life goad him into another fight. Instead, he just walked away, letting his old friend think he’d won the mockery of a debate.

-----

“Brother Mauthe?”

The community leader shuddered. He’d never met Statesman before, and his actions in the Rogue Isles, regardless of the necessity to maintain the appearance of being a “villain,” were enough to be considered “rogue” by Longbow in the champion’s eyes. Then there was the fact that he had Chaingunnz in his employ, and the hero had chosen to have the conversation right next to the tank’s overturned body.

“Yes, sir?” he said after a moment’s hesitation and turned to look the powerful tanker in the face.

“You’ve been doing a good job here,” Marcus stated, his hand extended toward the red-coated man and the mastermind shook it in bewilderment, “I was wondering if you were ready to go home.”

“Home?”

“Back to Paragon City. Your file indicated you have a family in Kings Row.”

Mauthe shook his head in wonder. It had been a long time since he’d been Michael.

“There’s… There’s still more that needs to be done here. What of my brotherhood? My community? This nation is their home. I promised them I would help restore it to a proper order. I can’t leave, yet.”

Statesman nodded and smiled. He’d expected dedication from the man, and was surprised that he was willing to keep helping his friends.

“Well, just remember you’re always welcome back home. Your community, as well. We in Freedom Corps will do everything we can to make them full citizens of the United States if it all comes to that.”

“Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind.”

----------

---The Next Day: St. Martial---

When the morning tide sank back into the sea, it left a bulk lying on the beach. Power Breaker rolled over and looked up at the sky. It was blue for once.

He was in an indescribable amount of pain. His left arm felt numb and he was feeling very nauseas. His nanobots were scrambled, but were running a recovery. The most he could tell was that he was still alive. It was almost enough.

Lifting his arm, he looked to see why it was numb. Simply put, it wasn’t there. Half of his upper arm was gone, with a strip of flesh and some of his bone extending toward where his elbow should have been, and the rest was nowhere to be seen. His bone was lacerated with the same circuitry channeling as his skin, which Breaker didn’t take as much of a surprise, though it was the first time he’d seen a dismembered limb that looked like that. There were bits of sand grit and salt in the exposed internal flesh, too, and that was probably why his whole arm felt numb, he was blocking the pain.

How did he survive? The nanites were pretty clear that the Godmode Program they’d worked out from their translations of the Malleus Mundi would rip him apart. He was certain that was what he was feeling right before he crushed the three stones that blasted him to… To…

Looking to his left, he saw the dawn glow of the Golden Giza. He was, oddly enough, home. Specifically, he was at the other end of the bridge that led to the massive casino. He didn’t know if he’d been thrown the distance between the Islands of the Hand and the Jackpot or if he’d somehow just floated over here. It was probably a mix of both, and considering the fact that the Coralax would have ripped him apart in his unconscious state, it was probably more of the hurtling through the air than floating.

A wailer demon crept up to him. He reached out with his right arm, grabbed it and hugged it close.

“Oh man,” his voice came out as a strained croak, “I never thought I’d get to see one of you ugly monsters again!”

“Oh!” the demon yelped and tried pushing against the brute, “You’re crushing my brain!”

“I missed you, too,” Breaker gave the critter a slight squeeze and let it go, “Now, remember this next time you try to eat something bigger than your head…”

The demon hobbled away unsteadily, but it was alive. They were an unusual breed of monster, apparently more concerned with listening to music than anything else. He still remembered the time he was told to ambush a pack of the demons with some Johnny Sonata music.

“You okay down there?” a man called to him from the street.

“I think so,” he grunted.

“Hey… Power Breaker?”

Wondering who could remember him among the myriad monsters and freaks, he looked back. A man in a dark blue business suit stepped over the concrete guard rail and started heading down to meet the brute.

“You probably don’t remember me,” the man’s voice lowered to a light intone, “I’m Slim Tommy, you pulled me and my boys out of a bad situation a couple years back in Port Oakes.”

“Oh…”

“You okay?”

“No…” the brute waved his left arm at the man, “Does this look okay?”

“Yeah.”

Breaker looked back at his arm and saw that it had rebuilt itself. His nanobots were rebooted and they were giving him a detailed report about how they were regenerating him. Unfortunately, the process had depleted their resources.

“Got it… I’ll schedule a trip to Cimerora and look into getting all the Shadow Cyst crystals I can find.”

“You need a ride anywhere?” the mobster asked, “You look like you’ve been through Hell?”

“Yeah, I’ve been to Hell and back. They gave me a T-shirt, but it didn’t survive the ride through the Brimstone Catacombs.”

((This section refused to let me stop!))

Statesman and Lord Recluse didn’t waste any more time trying to talk to the strange creature. They dove in to assault “Dagoeth” and try to eliminate him quickly. Under the force of just their punches, the body collapsed into a puddle and was seemingly gone.

“It can’t have been that fast,” Recluse muttered, “Your thoughts, brother?”

“Don’t call me that,” Statesman replied as he scanned across the temple’s surface, “It’s creepy…”

“I’m sorry that you’ve forgotten our history together…”

Statesman rounded on his foe. If it weren’t for the fact that he knew he needed the other man’s help in this struggle, he would have tried to vanquish his opponent once and for all, right here. Instead, he figured he would disabuse the twisted man of any notions that he owed the tyrant anything.

“We’ve had this discussion before, Stefan. I already-WAUGH!”

He didn’t notice the water snaking around his leg and coalescing into Dagoeth’s humanoid form again. The water god then lifted and hurled the star-spangled hero across the clearing. Statesman flew upside down for almost a hundred yards, catching himself before he landed head first and toppling his body to flop chest-first on the hard surface. When he looked up, he saw the water-man had turned to Recluse.

The leader of the Rogue Islands was putting up a barrage of hard-hitting punches and raking his bladed “spider legs” into the watery surface of his foe. The strikes made little real impact, sinking through without resistance, but when Dagoeth struck him in the belly with a punch, it felt like a battering ram had just hit him.

“What the Hell are you?” he shouted as he backed away.

“I told you before, pretender… I’m a god in this world! If I had my full strength, I would obliterate you and your counterpart! I would use your blood to slake my thirst and your bones to season my meal of your flesh!”

Recluse allowed himself to smile. It was rare that he got the opportunity to do so. For a moment, he thought that maybe he needed to get a little more personal more often.

“You’re not at full power, then,” he chuckled, “I suppose that means we’ve got a chance…”

“Not much of one!”

Dagoeth reared back and spouts of water leaped from the ocean and arced into him. With the water channeled into his corporeal form, he thrust his arms toward the villain and a jet slammed into Recluse with rock-withering force. Knocked backwards, Recluse was pushed into the jagged wall of the temple where he felt the coral reef stab into his back.

Shouting angrily, he pushed himself off the points. He was set to continue the fight, but Dagoeth was already focused on Statesman. In order to cover the several hundred foot distance, the demigod had collapsed into formless seawater again and flowed to the tanker that was hurtling toward him. When Dagoeth was under Statesman, he burst up in a devastating uppercut, knocking Paragon City’s champion out of the sky.

“I’ll give him this,” Recluse growled as the wounds on his back closed back up, “He’s got some sense of style…”

Statesman was back on his feet in an instant. Shouting angrily, he started wailing away on Dagoeth with the old “One-Two” to the face. Water splashed away from the figure’s head, but it reformed as quickly as it was damaged. The demigod took one more punch to the face before retaliating, delivering a number of savage body strikes to the hero and finishing with a hard kick that toppled him flat on his back.

“Damn,” he muttered.

----------

A storm was forming rapidly overhead. Brother Mauthe cursed as he saw the water starting to roil and churn unnaturally. However, his concern wasn’t the changing conditions of the local climate. He was trying to figure out how to convince Wilder not to throw Longbow troops away on the battle raging on the temple roof. Fortunately, that problem was settled for him.

Brother Hood shouted something about the beach and the situation changed violently. Coralax hybrids were storming the community, clawing their way up the temple and filtering into the woods toward the Circle of Thorns encampment. They had one thing on their minds: War.

“New order!” Wilder shouted into his radio, “The Coralax! Fire at will! Shoot to kill!”

The Longbow forces turned quickly and focused on the beach. Before they got too close, however, there was an explosion as one of the fish men stepped on a land mine and was blown sky high. With the hybrids getting killed on the beach, the Longbow troops formed up ranks and started picking off survivors.

Still, there were a lot of the monstrous humanoids, and the traps were limited in number. Agent Dietrich directed the soldiers as best as she could, but they were outnumbered and outgunned. Before she could begin to consider losing hope, a shotgun blast heralded that Mauthe’s security forces were joining the fight and there was an explosion on the Circle’s island to indicate that the Coralax weren’t having an easy time over there, either.

“You alright, ma’am?” Brother Hand asked as he got close to Dietrich, “Guardsman Lucas Conroy… Uh… Former Guardsman…”

“What are you doing here, soldier?” Dietrich asked, “We’ve got this situation in hand…”

“Could have fooled me,” Brother Skrap chuckled as he sauntered up behind his partner and handed him an assault rifle, “Look, Bandaid, you need help out here, and we can give it. We’ve been preparing for a fight and we’ve got the guns and the experience… What do you say we stop making a show of joint venture and actually help each other?”

“We’ve got this situation… You keep your forces behind us, where it’s safe…”

“I know one of us isn’t going to listen,” the former Council soldier chuckled, “And there he is…”

Brother War leaped into the center of the Coralax, swinging his hefty metal blade about and dismembering swaths of the fish people. Some struck him, but the blows only seemed to enrage the scary brutish man, and he leveled the field with another wide swipe.

Brother Brick wasn’t privy to the argument between Dietrich and his associates. Instead, he found himself leading a small band on the edge of the battle dealing with a thick push of hybrids. The fish men smashed into his forces and their assorted baseball bats, 2x4s and other bludgeoning implements were hardly a match for the bizarre, shell-adorned weaponry of the hybrids.

Brick, however, wasn’t ready to leave this battle’s outcome on the differences between weapon materials. When a Red Coralax Hybrid smashed through the 2x4 of the man next to him and started brandishing its weapon to intimidate him, Brick hefted his magnum pistol, aimed it at the hybrid, and squeezed the trigger. The red-tinted creature tumbled to the ground and tried to push itself up, but Mauthe’s soldier walked over, set the muzzle of his pistol just inches from its back, and fired again, finishing it off.

Another rushed up behind him, but he whirled around, swinging his arm up in an arc ahead of him to catch any incoming flailing weapons and knocking them aside. He then brought his other fist up and his brass knuckles smashed into the temple of the Blue Coralax Hybrid and dropped it.

“Don’t just flail at them!” he shouted, “Fight them like we’ve shown you!”

The area around them was flooded with green light and he looked to find the source. Bioserj stood in the center of his troops and he was radiating energy that helped mend the injuries of the island dwellers. With a salute to Brick, the corrupter-class rogue turned to hurl a wave of gaseous radioactive particles into the Coralax.

In the sea, Brother Ringo piloted his ship, the Captured Dream between the two landmasses, keeping the modified trawler near the coast. His men were battling fish men that tried to climb onboard while the men on the turrets fired toward the temple to take down the creatures crawling up the jagged walls. Minigun ammunition rained into the creatures and shattered the minerals build up, causing some portions to lose integrity and crumble, toppling groups of Coralax and impaling them upon the lower spikes of reef.

A Longbow soldier who had accompanied the local troops on Ringo’s boat smashed the butt of his rifle against a Green Hybrid and toppled the creature over the rail of the ship. Another pair of the emerald-like creatures came up from behind him, however, and tried to push him over the side to join their friend. As the soldier gripped the rail, he heard two reports from a shotgun and the creatures rolled into the drink. As he pulled himself back up, the wrinkled hand of the man who saved him gripped him and yanked him back up.

“You again!” the soldier shouted at Lou, and the old man smirked back.

“Watch yer [butt]. I can’t keep haulin’ ya outta the deep six!”

Grinning, the Guardsman who had earlier tried to confiscate the old man’s weapon pushed himself back up and leveled on some of the creatures trying to scramble onto the bow of the ship. Squeezing the trigger a couple times, he then turned to the red fish man hauling itself up and smashed it in the face with the butt of his rifle.

“God, I love that feeling,” he said with satisfaction as the creature did an unconscious back flop into the water.

----------

Dagoeth punched Statesman in the face and smashed his elbow into Recluse’s. After delivering a kick to the hero’s abdomen, the “front” features of the creature shifted to the back and he turned his attention to the villain, whom he toppled with a small tidal wave.

Recluse pushed himself up, sputtering, and backhanded the approaching demigod. The body exploded in a burst of water droplets that fell away and reformed into the humanoid body. The villain followed up his backhand with a blast from his eyes that vaporized the top half of the monster. An instant later, however, Dagoeth’s upper half reformed from surface water on the temple roof.

“Are you trying to embarrass me?” the dark lord’s deep voice rumbled, “Me? The future ruler of the world?”

“Even if you survive today, I will ensure that your kingdom is rubble and slag,” the watery figure replied, “Though your chances of survival are slim, so you shouldn’t worry yourself with that.”

“If you could kill us, you’d have done it by now,” Statesman said from behind the creature, “You’re lacking in power, and we will hold you here as long as it takes!”

“Lacking?”

Dagoeth turned and waved his arm at Statesman. A gargantuan wave reached up out of the sea, carrying Coralax hybrids with it, and slammed into the hero. Salty water flooded the arena and Recluse would have been amused at how his aged foe looked stabbed against the reef walls with the fish people, but he really needed the other man’s help in this fight (though he would never admit it).

Marcus pushed himself off the coral reef and winced as the twisted growth pulled out of his gut. He’d be fine in a moment, but that hurt like Hell. The stuff was ridiculously sharp, and he realized that the hybrids adorning the wall next to him weren’t well rewarded for their faith in this thing.

Except he knew this thing wasn’t what they worshipped. It was too immediate, too near-sighted. It was a weapon, a champion of a cause that no longer existed. Without a purpose, it had gone rampant. Marcus wondered idly if this temple were really a home for the demigod. The fact that external elements had to get involved made it seem more like a prison to him.

Dagoeth tried that “flowing water teleport punch” trick again, but this time Statesman deflected the punch. He returned the favor with a hard jab to the water man’s belly and brought down a lightning strike at the same time. Dagoeth fell away, his body evaporating so fast that his form seemed to turn into steam as it collapsed on the marble-like surface.

The fight still wasn’t over, though. The heavy feeling still wasn’t gone and the storm still raged overhead.

“Well, Marcus,” Recluse shouted, “What do we do now? Wait for him to get in a sneak attack?”

----------

The battle was turning against the island defenders. While the Captured Dream was able to pull some of the battle off of them with a few well-placed rockets, the defenders had to regroup deeper within the island so they could focus more support in a smaller area. The Wardens were getting tired, however, and Mauthe’s forces were running out of Regeneration Projectors.

Brother Mauthe hoped things wouldn’t get like this. When Chaingunnz burst out and saved their butts from the Arachnos Flier earlier, Agents Wilder and Dietrich ripped into him something fierce. They shouted about how he couldn’t really control the Freak Monster and that he was dooming his “encampment” to a terrible death. It was a worrying conversation for the community leader, as it reeked of their prejudice that criminals really couldn’t be rehabilitated and that the only real way of eliminating crime was killing off all criminals. Rather than get into the debate, however, he placated them by saying he wouldn’t bring Chaingunnz out anymore.

When he informed the big machine of the decision, the former Freak had chuckled. That was a good reaction in Mauthe’s opinion. If he were still a “Freak,” he would have gone into a tantrum and brought the barn that housed him down on their heads. However, when he told the cyborg that he would be leaving the big robot in the barn as long as Statesman was around, Chain almost lost his mind.

“What!?” he shouted, “This is the opportunity of a lifetime! I could see if I’ve got what it takes, in this body, to give the beatdown to Statesman!”

“It didn’t turn out so well when you fought your old boss, Dreck, did it?” Mauthe was forced to remind him.

“Yeah… But you guys gave me upgrades since then!”

“Upgrades I will shut down if you set one tread out that door…”

Mauthe hoped the big machine hadn’t taken the situation as seriously as he sounded. Bioserj had been staying with him and trying to keep the big former Freak entertained. The two had an unusual bond, but Brother Mauthe had yet to understand what it was.

“Chain,” he shouted into his communicator, “It’s hit the fan… We need your help!”

“I’m sorry,” came the reply, “I’ve been confined to quarters for the duration of the spandex infestation on the island. Please call back once the red and white symptoms have subsided…”

“Now, Chaingunnz! The fish are trying to kill us!”

“Fish sticks? Why didn’t you say so!?”

The roar of a diesel engine firing up met the retreating defenders and Dietrich turned to the community leader. Mauthe nodded and she shook her head angrily.

A moment later, the big tank trundled down the main road to the beach. The Coralax paused to see what this new threat was. Those that were smart started fleeing for the shore again. When the heavy main gun on the monstrosity’s right arm starting singing that tell-tale whine that it was revving up, it was too late for anything still on the beach.

----------

Power Breaker met Barracuda at the top of the tunnel and found her watching the battle between the three titanic figures. She was clutching the spiral of Red Coral tightly to her chest and making whimpering noises.

“Are you alright?” he asked and she held his hand as he touched her shoulder.

“They’ve ripped him apart and he just keeps coming back together,” she said with a touch of fear in her voice, “He keeps coming back with something new and he keeps knocking them over like bowling pins… I saw… I saw Lord Recluse bleed…”

“It’s probably best not to let him know that,” the brute muttered.

Recluse swiped at Dagoeth with one of his clawed appendages and the demigod caught the attack full in the chest, fell backward and dragged the villain with him. Before hitting the ground, the watery form slid from the impaling arm and morphed into a standard two-handed grip as it jabbed the point into the surface. Upon hitting, Dagoeth rammed his shoulder into the joint of the limb and there was a crunching sound as it broke, then he twisted it around, dragging Recluse with him as he went.

Roaring incoherently, the villain fired an energy beam from his eyes that the demigod avoided by turning into liquid and hitting the ground. Statesman took the brunt of the blow and was thrown backwards. Recluse, however, suffered from the teleport uppercut that Statesman was the victim of earlier and was launched skyward.

In the air, spouts of water arced into Dagoeth’s body as he came down and he landed on Recluse with a savage knee to the chest. He grabbed the villain by the throat and seawater started gushing from the limb and flooding the area.

“I will watch you drown, avatar,” the monster intoned, “I will feel the life force drain from your body as you-!”

Recluse’s eyes flashed brightly again and another burst of energy blasted through the demigod, splitting him apart and relieving the beleaguered arch villain. Lurching back to his feet, Recluse grabbed his broken appendage and twisted it about, roaring as he did so. Once it was back in place, there was another crunching sound as it refit itself properly and regenerated in position.

“I’ve got to stop this,” Power Breaker muttered.

“What can you do?” Barracuda asked.

Statesman pulled Stefan back and hurled a lightning bolt at the demigod. Dagoeth caught the bolt on his forearm and the electricity channeled through his body and into the ground, spreading an impressive light display across the surface. Recluse joined in on the assault, firing channeled volleys of dark energy into the monster that were either batted aside or simply absorbed. The streams of seawater continued to flow into Dagoeth, and he turned the pressure being funneled into him on the two arch enemies, almost blasting them off their feet with the blasts of body-shredding water.

“I’ll do what I can,” the brute whispered as he started heading down the jagged reef to join the battle, but he stopped before getting too far away, “Don’t let him or the Coralax get a hold of that. If he’s this powerful with just a few pieces of Red Coral, I’d hate to see what he could do with the real Heart.”

“He’ll kill you!” she shouted back, not knowing why she should care.

“Better today than tomorrow. At least today I have a fighting chance. Tomorrow… Tomorrow he’d kill us all.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Damned if you do…”

Power Breaker sauntered toward the demigod, ducking out of the way of one of the spouts that twisted a little close to him at the last second. When he got to the monster, he grappled the smaller figure in a bear hug and the watery assault on Recluse and Statesman stopped. The two were still standing, but it had taken all of their focus to push against the watery assault. Now, they looked slightly miserable. Their outfits were somewhat disheveled and damaged from the blasts that could have torn mountains apart. Icon and Facemaker did good work when it came to those two.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Dagoeth asked the brute, “You think you have what it takes to hold me? You, most definitely, are not a god.”

He reached up and grabbed Power Breaker’s left hand.

“Allow me to demonstrate just how out of your league you are…”

With the lightest amount of pull, he snapped the big brute’s wrist. Ray’s nanites started shrieking at him that massive damage had been sustained in his left limb’s extremity and that the manipulating appendage was currently being crushed into pulp. Al he could do, however, was yelp in pain and try to let go of the water man. However, Dagoeth reached up and grabbed Power Breaker’s right forearm, holding him in the hug effortlessly.

“No… Don’t go, little mortal. You think your size has an advantage over this form?”

The demigod leaned forward, hefting the bigger man up, and jumped into the air. When they came back down, Power Breaker was stabbed by the jagged reef wall so deeply, it tore through into Dagoeth. However, the demigod was made of water, and was barely harmed by the spikes. When he pulled himself off the wall, and Power breaker with him, the big brute shouted in pain. Recluse and Statesman could only watch; the hero in shock at the audacity of the demigod, the villain in deep thought about what the brute had planned.

“Just what did you think you could do?

Power Breaker didn’t answer. Instead, he turned to his nanites, which were frantically telling him he needed to retreat, no matter what the cost, so the body could be repaired.

“While I would love to do that” he thought to them, “We don’t really have that option right now… Open up the file you’ve been translating…”

File opened.

“Run program… ‘CNCDQD.’”

Program incomplete.
Probability of system failure: 95%.
Risk to Stability of Housing Integrity: 97%
Chance of Otherwise Fatal Outcome: 99%
Confirm?

“Confirm!”

“God Mode activated. Good luck.”

Power Breaker’s eyes snapped open and the pain stopped. He felt like he was made of light. With a roar, he pulled at his left arm and his hand reformed while his wrist snapped back into place. It was a strange feeling, almost like the bones were just sliding around inside his skin. Dagoeth shouted something, but Power breaker wasn’t listening. Instead, he just saw that the water spouts were funneling energy into the demigod and decided he needed it more. A great blue orb of energy radiated from his body and he started pulling the life force out of Dagoeth. The water god moved like he was in shock and tried to get away, but Power Breaker held him fast with his right arm.

“What am I going to do?” he asked, his voice sounding surprisingly normal, “I’m going to rip out your fake heart…”

He reached into the water god’s body and an odd thing happened. Small glowing particles started to coalesce in Power Breaker’s outstretched hand, forming into three spheres of Red Coral that were the same blood red as the orb half Barracuda was clutching. When they were finished reshaping themselves, he grasped them and yanked them out, tossing the demigod aside like a ragdoll.

“…And crush it.”

“Wait!” Dagoeth shouted, “The power inside those stones… It’s immense! The resulting explosion will surely destroy you!”

Behind the water man, Recluse and Statesman were edging away from the confrontation. This whole situation was new to them and wholly unexpected. However, Recluse was getting an idea of just what secret Scirocco had been keeping from him.

“Didn’t you say you survived a nuclear blast, once?” he asked his old foe.

“It hurt like Hell and I was out for the better part of a year,” Marcus replied, “You thinking we should run?”

“My experience with that individual is that if he’s got a notion in his head, he’s ready to go through with it. So… Yes.”

As they fled, Dagoeth continued to plead with Power Breaker. He didn’t realize the brute was just waiting for the bystanders to get a relatively safe distance away.

“If you crush that surrogate heart, it may very well be the end of you…”

“Better me than the world,” Power Breaker replied casually, fully aware that his nanobots were informing him that his body was starting to dissolve from the inside into an unstable energy anyway, “Better I stand the chance of living, than certain death in the end.”

“I see you’ve made your choice, mortal,” the monster said soberly, “And it’s one that I cannot see the fault in. The day is yours, though when I return, you will not be around to stop me again.”

“Someone will.”

Once the two legends reached the edge of the wall and hopped over, Breaker took one last glance back to see if Barracuda had followed their example. Seeing she wasn’t hiding where he’d left her, he assumed she had and crushed the stones in his fist. A red glow shown through the cracks of the fingers in his left hand and the world disappeared in a bright, glorious flash.

----------

The explosion rocked the surrounding area. It wasn’t nearly the power of a nuclear explosion like Lord Recluse and Statesman had feared, but it was powerful enough to topple trees, houses and knock the rampaging Freak Main Battle Tank over. The two powerful meta humans were thrown from the temple’s walls into the dirt next to the island’s normal stone temple and they waited there until the world stopped shaking.

The shaking, as it turned out, was caused by the coral reef temple sinking back into the sea. Despite the explosion, the arena rooftop remained undamaged, save the numerous jags on the walls being destroyed in one fell swoop. There was no sign of the water-based enemy, which was to be expected.

((I would assume generic mid-day.))

---Skyway City---

The warehouse the heroes looked down upon was no different from the numerous warehouses found throughout the city. It was a bright white building (indicating that it was surprisingly new for its abandoned state; records indicated that the prior owners didn't receive an influx of capital they required after pouring a large part of their funding into the restoration of the building), two-stories high, roughly one hundred yards long and forty wide, with a gradually inclined roof. There were five cargo doors at regular intervals along the long wall visible to them and personnel doors on the short wall. There was possibly another personnel door on the other side, too, but the other long wall wasn't likely to have cargo doors as the lot surrounding the warehouse was so choked with debris that no vehicle could get through. The roof had an access hatch built into the center, possibly for repair or cleansing purposes.

There weren't any guards, though. Despite what Pax had seen, it didn't look as if anybody were using this building.

Some Lost vagrants wandered nearby and started searching the grounds for usable detritus, but they left the lot as quickly as they came. Some Trolls wandered through, too, but rather than try to paint graffiti on the pristine walls, they left it alone.

Something about the place had the local gang members spooked.

----------

---Redside---

((Want me to cover the situation as you guys arrive, then? My only concern is that timing is a little skewed. We could assume the Redside and Blueside stuff hasn't been exactly simultaneous up to this point. It would still take a couple hours to get to Paragon, after all.

Alright... Utilizing Millions' plan...))

The rogues met the Crey handlers in Port Oakes and were shuffled into what looked like a heavy duty cargo box. Inside, however, it was air conditioned and surprisingly well furnished.

"We've been doing this sort of thing for a while," one of the ladies in an executive power suit explained, "So of course we've got some amenities for your travel. Feel free to help yourselves to the refrigerator and minibar and enjoy the trip with our compliments."

"Good luck, you guys," Harbinger grunted as they entered the container, "Me, I know I can't help out anymore, so this is where I'll say goodbye. My body's still weak and my flames aren't very warm, so I'm not quite back up to snuff as a meta human just yet. Later."

The trip was relatively smooth. The gathered rogues hammered out their strategies or discussed situations they "weren't involved in" to pass the time. In case that didn't appeal to them, there were a couple televisions, a radio, video players, video game consoles and a collection of some top-rated movies and video games. It was almost enough to forget they were inside a big heavy-duty metal box.

A couple hours later they could feel the vessel slow and come to a halt. The box they were in lurched as it was lifted off the ship and placed in a truck next to a warehouse. They could hear a discussion outside as the Crey foreman instructed the driver to take the container straight to the Kings Row office building, open it there, and leave (though it was a muffled to the rogues).

A couple minutes later, they were on their way, riding for about half an hour until they came to a stop and the truck's engine shut down. A moment later, they could hear the locks on the cargo box's doors pop pop open and the door whined open a crack.

"Ladies and gentlemen," a man in a blue uniform with black padding announced as he opened the door the rest of the way, "Welcome to Kings Row. I'm Sergeant Wilson, Crey Security, District Three, Unit Five. I'll escort you about the grunds if there's anything you need and help you get on your way."

((Well, Redside, you don't need to be too concerned about logistics in this case. Paragon City has roughly 4,000 different criminal conspiracies running a DAY and has heroes and security forces focusing their attention on them. There also isn't anything directly involved in national politics in the city, so there's not as stringent a military defense as one would expect for the Jewel of Rhode Island (there are some individuals that are indirectly involved, and that's why the Malta Group, Nemesis Army and the Council are here, they love controlling things indirectly and our government doesn't like to acknowledge how indirectly the nation is run).

This is why criminals basically walk in and out of Paragon City on a daily basis. There's too much going on for a focused effort to keep rogue elements from getting about almost as they see fit. Heck, it's how my BWO characters do their work. It's also how heroes keep getting into the Rogue Isles and giving Arachnos officials who are actually trying to maintain control headaches, because the Rogue Isles have the same problem.

Heh. No wonder these two places are such prized positions of contention...

Now... There are numerous places throughout Paragon where our Redsiders can wind up. Most of these places are marked with a big Crey logo . Frankly, I'm leaving it up to you guys to decide just where that is. I know of two places off the top of my head, one is in Kings Row (a Crey office building near the entrance to Skyway City), the other is in Talos Island (a warehouse near the ferries to Striga Isle and Peregrine Island). There may be other places, too, maybe even an office building in Skyway City, but I haven't run into the logo too often in there (the problem being that I'm often flying, leaping or otherwise expediting my egress through that city).

Now, as for the Blueside... Well... Give me a moment...))

Ugh...

After the forum malfunction, I had to completely rewrite the latest chapter of Grey's Army. Last time, it was almost 4,000 words long. The new version is...

L-O-N-G-E-R

Not much. It's not twice as long, for instance, but it's now almost 5,000 words long (what the hell is wrong with me!?).

The Heart of the Sea is found... In a manner of speaking. With the artifacts in hand, both the heroes and the rogues begin their descent into the submerged Temple of the Hand, but the situation escalates monstrously and now Statesman and Recluse have to work together to face a new dire threat.

---The Circle’s Island of the Hand---

Barracuda, Power Breaker, and a contingent of Bane Spiders wasted no time scouring the temple for their next move. Pressing the Red Coral Lord Recluse had surprisingly supplied to the insurmountable door didn’t open it, but it did produce a loud keening noise and some of the markings on it glowed. This told them that what they were searching for had to be a specialized chunk of Red Coral mineral skeleton. On a desperate hunch, the team searched the temple in the hope that the artifact they searched for was in the temple.

They pressed farther and farther away from the door. The wall carvings and frescoes started to become more elaborate, telling a story of what the purpose of the temple was. Power Breaker’s nanobots interpreted much for him, and it was a grim tale.

Apparently, the temple and its sister on the other island served as houses of worship to the “Star Goddess” Merulina and was overseen by a being of godlike power that was referred to as the “hand of Merulina.” This monstrosity was able to command the ocean waters to do his bidding, and he often would smash coastal communities and wreck ships to bring victims to his islands.

While here, the haggard survivors would do battle in a grand arena that the Hand constructed for its own amusement. The victors of the struggles would live to fight the next day while the losers had their hearts cut out and fed to the monster itself. The worshippers seemed to think that this aided in rising and setting the sun.

“It’s disturbing,” the brute muttered as he ran his hand over a fresco that depicted the ocean surrounding the temple not so much as water, but as a writhing mass of tentacles, “How does a faith like this take hold?”

“When your faith revolves around the destruction of your enemies, it tends to be very easy,” Barracuda replied nonchalantly, “The transition from enemies to unwanted individuals within your own nation is just as simple, then, if enemies or the unwanted are in short supply, you can convince any random citizen that it is an honor to be sacrificed for the greater good of your people. Now, what you’ll find just as disturbing, is that the same behavior is still continued by those one would call civilized individuals.”

“I would hardly call execution the same thing as a sacrifice to the gods,” Breaker muttered, missing her point.

“I know. That’s corporal punishment. But what did your excursion into the Destiny Project reveal to you?”

Power Breaker shuddered visibly and returned to searching. They hadn’t explored these chambers before, but his motion sensors weren’t indicating any movement or defenses.

They came upon a wall that was decorated with an image that seemed to be a blend of woman and… Breaker didn’t know what. It was like every critter in the sea in the shape of a woman, with Lusca for the face. It reminded him of when he helped deal with a Mu “Hequat Cult” uprising and the vault door that protected her realm.

“Hequat was prettier, though,” he grumbled.

“I think this might be it,” Barracuda said suddenly, “Look! There’s a seam at the edge of the wall!”

“One in the ceiling, too, ma’am,” one of the Bane Spider Scouts added as he shone his flashlight where the wall met it, “There must be some kind of mechanism that-!”

Power Breaker started punching into the wall, smashing into the knees of the “fish goddess.” Barracuda and the Bane Scout started shouting at him, demanding to know what he thought he was doing, but he didn’t listen. He’d dealt with enough ancient temples to know that if the mechanism that ran the door wasn’t trapped, it was probably damaged. If it weren’t damaged, then there probably was something nasty on the other end anyway, in which case he’d need his adrenaline pumping anyway.

His fists smashed through the wall, some of it crumbling away. It certainly wasn’t enchanted like the door on the other side of the temple, but it was some pretty thick stone. With each successive strike, he felt the masonry shudder a little more. Finally, he saw some of the blocks fall back into the other chamber, and he reared back, slamming his fists against the final bits and smashing a hole through the wall.

As the dust settled, smoke wafted from his arms along the circuit scarring. The excessive power channeled through his limbs had damaged some of the tissue and his nanites were already starting to repair the damage. It would take a little time, but he’d be fine in the next few moments if he really had to rock and roll.

Backing away from the hole he made, he let the grumbling Scout smash it open a little more. Meanwhile, Barracuda called him over to where she stood next to another wall. He looked to where she indicated and noticed what looked to be a stone button. His nanites translated the image on it to mean something along the lines of “to open the door, press here.”

“Well, you want to risk it being some sort of trap?” he grumbled.

She sighed and walked away from the wall to see what the Bane Spider had achieved. There was a red glow coming from the hole. Once the Scout had the entrance cleared away, she stepped inside and beheld the object that simply had to be Heart of the Sea… Or at least part of it.

Floating in the center of the chamber was what looked like half of a sphere of the ubiquitous Red Coral that was the basis of so many secret power struggles throughout the Rogue Isles. It wasn’t actually the coral itself, but a red crystalline mineral that behaved much like a coral skeleton in its growth patterns. Usually, it looked similar to any coral skeleton one would find in a reef in terms of shape or composition, the more impure versions taking on a pinkish hue while the purer types that were known to animate the Slag Golems were a darker crimson.

This softball-sized orb portion, however, was blood red and shaped into a spiral. Once Power Breaker entered the chamber, he analyzed the object. It wasn’t carved into its shape, there were no chips or polishing scratches. It was grown into its literally twisted form.

“This must be it,” he grumbled, looking it over and registering massive energy readings.

“No, it’s only half,” Barracuda replied, “Look at it! Look at the drawings on the wall!”

The art on the wall here was different from the rest of the temple, the red glow from the Heart Half giving it a disturbed quality. It depicted a chamber unlike this one, with a circle of pillars and a man-thing upon a throne within the circle. The worshippers depicted elsewhere throughout the temple presented him two halves of the Heart of the Sea and he accepted them, joining them together into one solid orb. The final image showed the man-thing holding the completed Heart over its head while the goddess depicted on the wall gazed down and the oceans roiled and raged in the background.

“Well, that’s disheartening.”

“You, take the Heart,” Barracuda ordered the Scout, “We’ll head for the surface and work out a plan to steal the one from the other island.”

“That might not be necessary,” the brute interrupted, “These temples seem to have been designed in tandem… Perhaps we just need to present this half to the door and it will open. If it doesn’t work, then we can try stealing the other half…”

“Are you a coward?” the fish girl asked acidly, “A big monstrosity like you, scared of a few pistols and shotguns… Or is it that you don’t want to hurt some innocent bystanders?”

“Did that seem right coming out of you?” he growled back, “Or are you just posturing because the little guy’s here with us?”

Barracuda turned to the Bane Spider Scout gingerly reaching for the Heart of the Sea. As he gently plucked it from where it hovered, the red light instantly went out and only the glow of his eye lenses and Power Breaker’s eyes shone in the room. The Bane Spider clicked something and a glow rod flared to life, showing that he was clutching the Heart to his hip with his free hand.

“This thing’s surprisingly heavy,” he explained, “Like a bowling ball.”

“It won’t hurt us to try, Barracuda,” the brute continued his argument, “And with that Longbow contingent, not to mention what we saw when we got here, they’ve got considerably more than pistols and shotguns.”

“I know… I know…” she muttered back, “It’s just… You get caught up in a scheme and it gets kind of hard to calm down.”

As they walked back to the door to the submerged temple, they talked some more. Barracuda asked the brute why he smashed through the wall rather than look for the switch to open it.

“Frankly, I was frustrated,” he muttered back, “The boss himself shows up, out of the blue, or black as it may be, and hands us what we were already about to ask for. It was like he knew what we’d be after. But just like that, his interest disappears and he locks himself up in a hut. It’s just… Really weird, you know?”

“I agree,” she whispered, “But I usually just deal with the situation at hand and relax in my submerged hideout for a few weeks afterward to forget about it. I try not to think about whatever’s making my superiors break their routines.”

“Yeah, but this has caused Recluse to break his routine… It’s got to be something dangerous.”

“We’ll find out in a moment…”

They reached the chamber with the door that couldn’t be broken and refused to open without the right artifact present. Just being this close caused markings to glow across the stone and a faint hum could be heard.

The two meta humans turned to each other and took deep breaths to steel themselves for what they were about to do. Barracuda turned to the Bane Spider and ordered him to return to the surface to report what had transpired thus far. The man tapped his helmet, but she glared at him and he left after handing the spiral to Power Breaker.

The brute took the Heart of the Sea and pressed it to the doorway. In a moment, they would find out whether or not they would need to raid the other island.

----------

---Mauthe’s Island of the Hand---

Doctor Stein’s archaeology team had a similar experience in trying to find their half of the Heart of the Sea. However, they had started their search in the temple for any other mention of the necessary artifact. What they learned, however, was far more shocking than a simple instruction manual.

“This is very odd,” Charlene Daring-Grey explained to Delilah, “According to these frescoes, there was an ancient arena on one of these islands… But this one bears no remains of any ancient structure save the temple, and the satellite images you showed me of the other don’t indicate any other ancient remains from the temple, either.”

“You don’t suppose the submerged temple was the arena, do you?” Stein asked, sounding exasperated and bewildered, “Is this another one of those magic things? I really hate magic temples, you know…”

“Not as friendly as the ones with mechanical tricks and traps, eh?”

“Ma’am!” one of the other archaeologists shouted, “We think we found something!”

The wall was adorned with the same imagery as Power Breaker and Barracuda had found on their door. A brief search along the neighboring walls quickly indicated the stone button that had to be pressed in order to get the ancient mechanism to lift the door and gain access to the chamber beyond.

“My goodness,” Charlene whispered as the door lifted away to reveal the floating spiral of Red Coral, “It’s… It’s pretty.”

“This must be it,” Delilah intoned, “The Heart of the… Oh my…”

She noticed the frescoes that told the story of the Heart of the Sea in a crude fashion. Realizing the implications of the images, she grasped the spiral and pulled it from where it hovered. The glow stopped, but the illumination from the lights installed in the rest of the temple was enough to see their way back out.

“We should take this to Wilder,” the doctor explained as they headed upstairs, “I mean, I’d love to talk with Statesman about it, but he seems… Odd… Like he’s distracted. Besides, Wilder’s the guy in charge here, him and Anderson.”

“What about Dietrich?” Grey asked.

“She’s really just here for security purposes. I don’t know what happened to her in that last battle with the Rikti, but she’s been burying herself in work. Agent G’s been talking to me about some of the stuff he’s been seeing throughout the rest of his compatriots. It’s kind of sad, really.”

“But understandable. My son, Cedric, said he ran across the same behavior whenever some of his fellow troops suffered personal losses of some kind… It’s a coping mechanism.”

They reported to the Longbow agents and Wilder immediately convened a meeting. Brother Mauthe was growing worried that the fact they only had half of the necessary artifact would lead them to have to raid the Circle-controlled island, and he was worried about what they would find there. Agent Anderson seemed to share the same concerns and argued against raiding the Circle’s island until they had more information about how the artifact worked.

However, Agent Wild had other plans. They had to get to whatever was down there and they had to do it before the villains did. However, he agreed that their chances of successfully fighting the forces on the Circle’s island for the other half of the Heart were slim, so he decided that they should take a contingent of troops down into the deeper warrens of the temple and attempt to open the door with their half.

Mauthe offered a contingent of his own troops, led by brother Skrap, to supplement the forces. It wasn’t that he thought the Longbow forces were insufficient, he just wanted to be sure he had a hand in what was going on.

Standing before the door to the Submerged Temple, the commanding agents debated who should apply the stone. Wilder wanted to be the one who was ultimately responsible, considering the fact that it was his operation. However, Agent Anderson pointed out that if there were some kind of harm to come to the individual, they stood the risk of losing one of the most valuable Longbow assets in the Isles. Dietrich offered, but was promptly shot down by Wilder.

“You’re one of our best, Wilhelmina,” he whispered quietly to her before she started to protest, “I know you’re still in pain, but you can’t just throw yourself in danger just for the chance to be reunited with your lost friend.”

He let the implication hang between the two of them. Many knew of how close she was to Tendaji, though it was a relationship born of reliance. Wilder was one of the few people who knew they weren’t having an affair, though he had his suspicions that she wasn’t happy about the arrangement before his end.

Agent Anderson settled the discussion, though. They weren’t about to just throw one of their troops into possible danger, and they needed to act quickly. While her two counterparts were distracted with their argument, she took the oddly heavy spiral and pressed it against a depression in the temple door.

Nothing happened. The humming sound continued as before and the various markings glowed just as they were before, but there was no other change. Confused, she turned to the other two, who were staring at her in shock, and shrugged.

“I guess we’ll just have to-“ she started before a rumbling noise behind her indicated the door was opening.

----------

---The Temple of the Hand---

Power Breaker and Barracuda shuffled through the cavern-like corridors of the submerged Temple of the Hand of Merulina. The tunnels were usually round, as they were made from a coral mineral skeleton rather than carved stone, though there were a few hard edges that indicated carved stone may have once been a part of the original structure. The current, smoothed down appearance of the tunnels, however, instead of having jagged growths, seemed to indicate that there had been heavy use of these tunnels, even after the coral somehow invaded and built up a skeletal mass that choked out the original shape of the structure.

They crept through the tunnels, wary of anything that might be on patrol. However, when they reached a chamber with Coralax guards amidst a number of pools of water, Barracuda lost it. She stalked into the warren and dispatched three of the green ones before they could raise and alert. When she started dealing with a blue one, though, it let out a keening shout that brought her to the attention of the rest of the guards.

They turned to her, but found a pair of glowing purple eyes waiting for them instead. Power Breaker’s stealth field wore out as soon as he threw the first punch, but his offense always was his greatest defense. The two meta humans were able to make short work of the fish people in short order, though one fled into one of the water pools.

Barracuda gave chase, finding out in the process that the pools were actually tunnels to elsewhere in the temple. She didn’t want to risk reinforcements reaching them, and it turned out she was a much better swimmer than the Red Coralax hybrid trying to escape her. Upon reaching her victim, she impaled him with a series of “urchin” spikes, stapling him to the wall.

“There,” she gasped as she returned to the surface and Breaker helped her out of the pool, “I got him. He’s fish food, now.”

“You mind telling me what you were thinking?” he growled back, “Maybe we could have snuck around them or found another way, you know?”

“No, I’m taking my pound of flesh for what they did to me! Any chance I can get, I kill them!”

“Granted, they don’t pose much of a threat on their own, but you didn’t have much cause other than the fact that they had a very faint connection to how you became… You. Regardless of your suffering, it’s very unlikely that these people are responsible for your fate.”

“Don’t philosophize with me, brute,” the fish girl hissed suddenly, “Just because you slept with me doesn’t mean you hold any sway over my decisions! Until I’m restored or I’ve had my revenge, I will slaughter every Coralax minion I come across, and nobody can stop me!”

“Then you run the risk of exterminating that which could restore you,” he shook his head with pity, but it came off as irritation, “Bare… I’ve got no problem with you wanting revenge. A lot of people might get antsy about the idea, but I’m a believer in the concept that revenge can also be justice. The problem is knowing when revenge is just an obsession, and you’re teetering pretty damn close. I haven’t seen you like this since that Freakshow Cult of the Shaper incident… But you were far more inquisitive, then.”

“Be that as it may, the Coralax have been violent against Arachnos for years. Even when Mako arranged a truce with them, they still turned on our troops. We can’t trust them and they certainly have no intention of making any true peace with us!”

“Fine… It’s just… When you came back out of the water… You looked like you enjoyed whatever you did down there. I guess it bothered me a little.”

“Well, you don’t need to worry about that. After we’re done here, I never have to see you again.”

Barracuda’s brow furrowed as she regarded the bigger man for a moment. The brute nodded and she turned away to head down another tunnel. Power Breaker followed, muttering one word to himself with disappointment.

“Right…”

-----

They eventually made their way into the central chamber of the temple. The sight before them was awe-inspiring, as a great orb of water surrounded by fifteen pillars that looked to have been grown like stalagmites and stalactites of coral reef. Everything glowed with an eerie greenish blue light, including the robed figure of Calystix the Shaper.

He was waving his outstretched hand to the orb and it rippled angrily. Next to power breaker, Barracuda winced and hissed. He was about to say something when his nanobots informed him that something had attempted to communicate with him through psychic means, but there was also malicious intent detected, so it resisted the probe. That was when he noticed an itching in his scalp that usually indicated that something had used psychic powers on him.

Calystix continued to argue with the orb and the brute figured the fish-preacher must have finally lost his mind, just like Maros. However, there was something odd going on. Calystix argued, then the orb would shudder and Barracuda would wince and hiss again, then the process would start all over.

“I will not fetch you the Heart until I have your oath, on the Goddess’ very essence, the essence you utilize for your very existence, that you will restrain yourself! You may be nigh invulnerable, but an overt assault on the surface world will-!”

The orb rippled again and Barracuda seemed to lose her mind. Howling angrily, she charged into the temple chamber, dropping the spiral half of the Heart of the Sea on the floor as she closed with Calystix. The leader of the Coralax looked confusedly at her, shouting something unintelligible before she collided with him and she started pummeling at him in her fit of madness, screaming obscenities and demanding to know what the priest had done to her. The orb seemed to ripple, and Power Breaker’s nanites translated the psychic emanation as being something akin to laughter.

The brute walked in casually after the fish girl, stooping deftly to retrieve the Heart half, and yanked her off the broken high priest. Calystix gurgled an angry remark of gratitude that Breaker’s nanites could only interpret in the most basic sense before the broken man scrambled about, horrified. Breaker looked down at him in confusion until he looked up and pointed in terror at the floating orb of glowing water.

The brute turned and was distracted by the sound of Barracuda muttering about her head and feeling nauseous. When he turned back to the floating orb, he saw it had grown somewhat smaller. His nanites zoomed in on a few floating objects inside it and detected the Red Coral spheres that were floating their way to the shining center. Once they got there, the glow turned a violent shade of purple, and Breaker handed the half of the Heart of the Sea to Barracuda.

“Get out of here!” he barked as he pushed her in the direction of the entrance to the chamber, “Run! Go!”

Shaking her head, the fish girl regained her senses quickly and scrambled out of the room. One of the floating arms of water feeding into the orb moved slightly and she ducked to avoid it. Once she was clear, things continued to get bad, however.

“Villains!” a Longbow Nullifier shouted, “Open fire!”

The red-and-white special spandex-clad troops filed in, but they never got a shot off. Instead, the temple started to shudder and they lost their footing. Calystix took the opportunity to flee out another exit and Power Breaker became aware of a lurching sensation he’d long associated with being in a rising elevator.

Alarmed, he lifted the Nullifier to her feet and leaned close to her face.

“Get out of here! Get your men and women and get out of here! Now!”

“I don’t take orders from you monsters!” she shouted back.

“Fine,” he growled, shoving her back through the entrance she and her compatriots had come from, “I’ll try the next guy…”

Picking up the next one, he made very certain not to be threatening.

“This place is about to move, and I don’t think you want to be here when it does! You guys get out of here, fast!”

“Alright…” the athletically built man stammered before pulling one of his partners off the floor and stumbling to the exit.

Power Breaker took a moment to take another look at the floating orb of water. Now, however, it wasn’t nearly as large as it was when he first entered the chamber. Instead, it was now barely the size of a basketball, but now it was expanding again. It was taking on a new shape, too. Five appendages extended from the object that was looking less and less like an orb with each second.

“This can’t be good,” the brute grumbled before making his way out.

----------

---The Islands of the Hand---

There was a resounding boom that heralded the rise of the Temple of the Hand of Merulina. Circle wizards, Arachnos troops, Longbow soldiers and Island security forces stopped what they were doing and headed for the coast to see what was happening. Even Statesman had gained a unique vantage point, rising up above the islands to get the best view possible of the cataclysmic event.

The sea between the islands was churning and the land was shaking. A dark form appeared under the surface of the water and started pushing up out of it. Spires of coral reef jutted skyward and in moments, the mass started to resolve itself. It was a temple, but so overgrown with coral reef (of various kinds, including the pinkish “Red Coral”) so as to have most of its features obscured.

Statesman, however, saw that the “roof” of the temple was still bare of coral reef. It was as if someone or something had meticulously kept it clean. The shape of the smooth surface, framed as it was by jagged spires of reef, reminded him of a sports field or…

“An arena,” he breathed before swooping down to the temple surface.

Upon lending, there was an explosion of lightning he couldn’t help. Some of the electricity lanced through the wet puddles still on the smooth, multi-colored, marble-like surface. He looked about with concern, searching for whatever was the cause of this massive disturbance.

He was rewarded with the spider-like arms cresting the wall on the far side of the temple surface. Lord Recluse sauntered over the jagged minerals like it was something he did every day. Upon seeing his near-lifelong foe, he barked out a laugh. Statesman waited for the other man to finish his swagger over to him. He was through trying to talk to his demented friend.

“I should have figured you’d come here,” Recluse’s impossibly deep voice growled, “You’re driven to… Help…”

“I’m driven to protect, Stefan,” the patriotic champion replied, “What drives you this day?”

“Power… Curiosity…” the spider kind shrugged his shoulders and his bladed appendages twitched in anticipation, “a vague notion that I’m one of the very few people who can stop this thing and I wish to do so before it can become a serious threat.”

“Really?”

They turned to the sound of the bizarre voice. They’d expected anything but what they saw.

A humanoid shape stood in the center of the massive arena. It was androgynous, its form simple and clear, save for a red glow in the center of its chest. In a moment, the glow faded and the form seemed both solid and fragile. However, the weight in the atmosphere indicated that there was still considerable power before them.

“What are you?” Cole asked, knowing simultaneously that he didn’t want to know.

“A true god, standing before pale imitations. If you were truly beings of any kind of power, you would have made this world your own, the way you should have. Instead, you wage a petty war and quibble over your little differences all in an effort to satisfy your vanity. I have slumbered for millennia, and still I find this surface world an insufferable abomination!”

“That’s it?” Lord Recluse chuckled, “Your small, watery form and deep voice are supposed to intimidate us?”

“Stefan,” Statesman warned, but the figure cut him off before he could say more.

“Silence! Today I will end the conflict between your cities… I will end the conflict across the world! The seas will rise up and dash your civilizations against the rocks! The world will tremble at the name of Dagoeth! You will all know to fear the wrath of the Hand of Merulina!”

--Nerva Archipelago: Crey Industries International--

Manning checked the e-mail he'd received from Dynamo Rose and nodded. He had hoped the investigation wouldn't lead to Paragon City, but he was certain he could provide transportation and even a cover story to keep them off the radar of the city's less zealous heroes. It wouldn't help them with anybody who knew them, but it was a big city, after all.

"Alright," he typed into his reply e-mail, "Come back to Nerva Archipelago. I have requisitioned a helicopter to take you to Paragon City. The crew will give you and the rest of the team cover identities and disguises if necessary. You will be taken to Crey Industries' headquarters in Kings Row, and travel from there to Skyway City should be relatively simple."

The demon glared a little angrily at the kid, but nodded begrudgingly. He glared to the spot where he figured the stalker rogue was still hiding and (in his opinion) snickering and growled out a low apology for his outburst.

Proffering his arm for Dr. Lore, he was a little bothered at how easily the hypodermic needle punctured his skin. It didn't hurt like he feared it would, so he was at least feeling that much better.

The blood wasn't much different from any samples Lore may have acquired from the Behemoths she may have come across in her travels. There were a few differences, notably the human DNA, but it still had the same mystical and ethereal energies that liked to play havoc on her sensors. The sample was also degrading, but the rate was slowing.

That was when she saw it. An unknown chemical compound, similar to a poison, but different as well. Her system was detecting metals, polymers and proteins, and that was when she realized it was a nanobot compound. Normally, such items were the subject of "Grey Goo" scenario fears, because it was believed that they would replicate out of control and devour the world. However, that scenario didn't take into consideration the possibility that the nanobots weren't really finding the materials they needed or that they didn't really have the strong central processors necessary to break free of their original, chemically induced programming.

In this case, the Venom was still working its original function, but it was running out of itself. It wasn't really breaking down the body, either, but wherever it went, the cells lost some of their mystical potence. Indeed, Lore was seeing the vial turn almost into human blood before her very eyes, but there wasn't enough Venom left in the sample to complete the transition, and the blood was slowly reverting back to its "possessed" form.

Drago's scan revealed much the same thing, that it was a nanotechnology serum that seemed designed to damage the very essence of a meta human, regardless of what that meta human was. The disturbing implications of such a device were evident: since they damaged a meta human's connection to their powers, this type of ammunition could be used to kill almost anyone, possibly even Lord Recluse or Statesman! If they weren't safe from the corrosive effects of such a weapon, nobody was.

Harbinger grinned.

"Dead scapegoats work better than live ones. They don't say anything than what your spin doctors do."

--Bronze Shield's Residence--

Something about Arek saying he understood what she was going through set Bronze Shield off and she jumped up off her couch. After hurling her cup of coffee across the room, she started shouting. Her robe apparently was just another comfort layer, as she was wearing a sweatsuit underneath it.

"You think you understand what I'm going through!? You've lost someone you were in love with!? That you don't know what to do without!? Who the Hell do you think you are!? You brought a Rikti to my house, you're wringing me for information I've already given Longbow..."

She sat back down and the group waited a few seconds. Finally, Pax asked for the specific date and the tanker responded quietly.

"Well... It was Thursday..."

----------

--Flashback: Skyway City: Hyde Park--

The four heroes flew, sped and hopped to the cavern dug into the side of the hill. Above them, to the south, they could see the back of the statue of Dauntless. It looked unusually red in the evening light.

The four heroes, Yellow Bomb (the blaster), Onyx Shot (the defender), Ripper Shredder (the scrapper) and Frank Wellman (the tanker) paused outside the building to get their bearings.

"Okay, we're looking for Archon Krilner," Onyx Shot explained, his voice sounding dark and brooding through his black mask, "We've all dealt with Council cells before, so remember, as long as we stick together, keep our heads, and don't let them focus on the less resilient of us, we should be able to get through this."

"Don't worry, guys," Ripper Shredder, despite his manic appearance, his eyes were amazingly clear and confident, "Frank and I'll keep them off of ya."

The heroes ducked into the caverns and commenced their search. It was an unusual incursion. While the warrens hummed with the sounds of machinery siphoning power from the city's grid, there were hardly any troops anywhere. The team ran across one or two on patrol, but never enough to pose a serious threat.

When they found Krilner, he shouted obscenities and curses, even going into conniptions about how "this always happened while his troops were out to lunch" before they finally put him down. The heroes were just starting to debate what the meaning of all these strange signs meant when there was the sound of something rolling toward them.

They looked around, but didn't notice the dark sphere that rolled into their midst. The beaten Archon at their feet looked at it, though, and had just croaked out "What the-?" when it exploded and a bright light enveloped the entire group.

The lights flickered and went out as the heroes were thrown against the walls. Emergency lighting came on and Yellow Bomb rolled over just in time to see a group of dark-dressed men shamble into the room and start dragging Ripper Shredder away. She weakly tried to say something, and one went to do something to Wellman, but another stopped his associate.

The kidnappers then fled the scene, dragging Ripper behind the last two of them until they emerged from the tunnel into the twilight. Upon exiting, they rushed up the hill to the statue of Dauntless to meet with a waiting vehicle. It appeared to be a blocky black van, with tinted windows and armor plating over the tires.

"You should have let me kill the idiot," one of the kidnappers grumbled, "Wellman's been a thorn in my side for years!"

"The device shuts their powers down," another grunted, "But it doesn't affect their MedCom connection. You snap his neck, he'll be right back on the streets, gunning for us!"

"[Frig] that! We could take him! I could take him!"

"If you deviate from the plan," a voice intoned from within the van, "we may have to look into hiring a new crew. If we do, we can't have an old crew running around with knowledge of our activities and bringing more spandex-clad lunatics looking for our operation. I trust you understand the implication."

"Yeah boss," the belligerent kidnapper was suddenly nodded vigorously.

"Besides," the team leader reminded him, "You can't fight Wellman like you want to. We can't use our powers with the inhibitors on, remember? It keeps the Drones from knowing we're here and the capes' scanners think we're average citizens... But you go and shut that thing down just to settle a grudge, you'll expose us!"

"I know, I know..."

"All this exposition is fine and all..." the voice murmured, "But you should give us the parcel so we may process him. Then get on with your next assignment."

The rogues tumbled the stirring body of Ripper Shredder into the back of the van. He swiped at one of the men pushing him into the vehicle, but stopped when the metallic sound of something jabbing into him sounded and he slumped still again.

"Next time, no exposition," the voice growled at the kidnappers, "Just deliver the package and we'll go about our business. Now go!"

The rogues split off in different directions and the van made its way south.

-----------

---Rogue Isles: St. Martial---

Manning wondered about the individual they had to fry. If the stalker had been kidnapped, why did the kidnappers leave an agent to fight any potential investigators? He told Dynamo to look out for any other weird behavior before signing off.

Now the situation returned to Harbinger Daemon. With the questions directed at him, he first shrugged at Jack.

"Sorry, man. I ain't got a clue what I am in that respect. When I was pinched when I was younger, the wizards the Brawler brought with him said I had a mystical aura and I always responded well to artifacts, but that's the best as I know about my origins."

He turned to Dr. Lore when she mentioned the anti-meta Venom rounds, one of which should have killed him.

"Actually, I kind of owe the Brawler my life... See, I was working security for a cartel he busted up. He made a beeline for me, I guess I was the toughest Meta, and he rammed his fist right into my ribcage, ripped one out, and beat me unconscious with it. I guess that's how I found out I really was a demon of some kind... A human couldn't have survived that. Now... I don't know if it'll help, but you could analyze my blood. I guess some of the Venom is still in there, as I still feel pretty tired."

[ QUOTE ]
"So, Harbinger, do you have any theories of why you were in this matter at all?"

[/ QUOTE ]

The demon turned irritatedly in Stahlhund's direction, hearing the derision clearly evident. He started low, but his voice gradually rose in volume and flames started to flicker across his skin as he roared.

"I have no idea, meat. I guess it has something to do with the fact that I'm a big guy who lights on fire and can lift and hurl trucks. I was having a wonderful dream about smashing the Hell out of Brickstown before waking up to the nightmare reality that I really was smashing the Hell out of Brickstown. I was a cover story, and I've still got a rifle wound in my back through to and out of my chest as a reminder that my survival wasn't on the agenda! There's a guy who never did nothin' to nobody buryin' his brother over in Sharkhead right now! You want to ask him what his role in all this was!?"

He was glaring at the empty space now, his eyes blazing violently, but he knew the stalker was there. He'd worked with stalkers enough to know they liked to pull their disappearing acts whenever they wanted dramatic effect.