Mr_Grey

Normally, it depends on the character type. Natural, Tech, Science and Mutant tend more toward "super" versions of modern medicine. Serums, nanotechnology, and "bandages" serve as the advances of "modern medical science."

Magic, however, tends more toward potions, scrolls and gems. Natural and Mutant characters also utilize these, as do the other origins, just as the magic characters can gain bonuses from the modern medicine, but that doesn't mean they like it.

When I'm writing, if I'm referring to an inspiration, I usually use a magic gem (that turns to a fine powder and fades into the wind) or a "hypo" syringe (a syringe that gets pressed into the thigh and fires a spring-loaded needle into the body then injects its contents; it's based off the atropine injectors the military uses when dealing with chemical attacks). Sometimes I use a scroll or a medicinal patch, but I usually stick to syringes and gems.

Each are easily color-coded, too. Green ones heal, red ones boost strength, yellow ones focus the senses (or clear them), purple ones boost agility, orange ones thicken the blood or harden the skin, and pink ones (or maybe it's light purple) clear the mind. The actual solution (whether it be magic, nanites, or an experimental serum) is left up to the reader most of the time.

NO!

I'm not gonna do it, Blue. I feature you enough already.

...

...

...

I'm just kidding, I already put it in for the September 12th Scoop.

Put in another chapter for Grey's Army.

Something bad has happened. Before anybody can do anything, however, Aaron Durj has snapped and gone off on his own. In the course of his quest to find his son, he picks an enemy group cell and "cleans" it.

My thanks to Sooner and Ice9 for lending me the use of their characters, Sooner and Ahren.

--...One Week Later...--

"Alright," a young heroine said to her partner as they checked their equipment outside of a building, "We've got our emergency medical equipment, the enchantments, and, in a pinch, those tiny gems... Is there anything else we need, Ahren?"

"No, Baby," the tall man next to her replied brusquely, "We've been planning this for days, we've got what we need. I just want to get this over with. I hate fighting Carnies almost as much as I hate Carnies."

"Everybody hates fighting Carnies," the girl replied as she drew a pair of handles from their moorings on her belt and glared irritatedly at her partner, "And don't call me 'Baby,' Ahren! Call me Sooner Red!"

"Yeah, if I call you that, I keep thinking I'm talking to one of your sisters..." the man grinned sarcastically at her, his eyes showing a little mirth at the light, friendly jab.

She made to say something else, but something seemed to get her attention and she pointed down the street as a blade of energy emitted from the handle in her hand.

"Who's that guy?"

She indicated a man approaching them from down the street. He had an assault rifle strapped across his back, a harness holding a pair of pistols to his sides under his shoulders, and a mid-waist girdle carrying an assortment of pouches for his ammunition. Despite his armament, what was far more intriguing was his outfit, which was disturbingly similar to a Malta Group Gunslinger, but he just looked too short.

"Hello," he said curtly as Ahren puzzled over his communicator that indicated the “Gunslinger” was an ally, "Don't mind me."

He then kicked in the door the two heroes were about to enter, drew his pistols and stepped inside. The red-and-white clad heroine whirled her head around to her partner, her face a mask of shock as her pigtails bobbed around haphazardly. Her tall friend was glaring at the door.

Before either could say anything, the gunfire started.

"Who the Hell was that?" the tanker shouted, "Did he just... He just stole our mission! Crimson assigned this to us! US! I mean, who cares, we can move on… That one paparazzo usually has better leads when it comes to the Carnival, but... Who does this guy think he is?"

Ahren started marching toward the door, but Sooner stopped him.

"Let's wait a moment. Maybe this can work in our benefit. Once he runs out of ammunition, we can go in and pick up the pieces. It should make for a much quicker mission, and we can work from there on the Carnies' latest plot..."

"Did you see how much ammunition that guy was carrying? He's not going to run out in a couple hours, girl! He's not going to run out in a couple days!"

"Hey!" they heard the man's voice again, a high-toned, shrill thing, only this time it was behind them from the other side, "Did you guys see somebody who looked like me, only dressed like a Gunslinger, come by here?"

"Yeah!" Ahren turned around and was about to say more when he did a double-take.

It looked like the exact same guy, only now he was wearing a black vest and a gray shirt with a fist design upon it. He was flanked by a couple other heroes. One was a dark-skinned man with red hair, fire wafting from his eyes and clad in a black trench coat. The other was a man who looked similar to the young man, only taller and thinner (he was probably a brother), and he was clad in a dark green trench coat.

"Was he your twin?" Sooner asked the first hero.

"He's me, actually, but he lives here now," Kipland replied, "we call him my brother... You didn't send him to the Zig, did you? I mean, Crimson can get him out and everything, but it's a real hassle..."

Ahren and Sooner Red looked at each other worriedly before turning back and gesturing to the still-smashed-in doors. At that moment, the body of a Steel Strong Man came crashing out of a window above and slammed into the sidewalk next to them.

"Holy crap!" Nester shouted as he reached down and checked the big man's wrist, "I... I was hoping my readings were wrong... There's no pulse."

Kipland and Cory Simmons looked to each other, but their expressions didn't change. They looked back to the heroes and shrugged.

"I know we're not supposed to kill," Kip said to them, "But I would really appreciate it if you guys didn't try to kick Aaron's head in when we find him."

"Something bad's going on, isn't it?" Cerise Nation asked, and the short young man nodded, "Alright, I won't hurt him."

"I'm making no promises," Ahren growled, "We had this cell, we were all set up, and now, days of planning, DAYS, all to waste because some idiot decides he wants to start a war."

"We'll explain if we get the chance," Kip muttered as he marched into the building.

Inside was what could only be described as a charnel house. Bullet-riddled corpses littered the floor, and they weren't all Strongmen. Broken porcelain, bits of metal, torn ribbons and tatters of cloth were strewn about, but what was most haunting were the bodies. Most of them still had their masks, but those that didn't were just as expressionless as the fake faces they'd once wore.

They didn't even look like they felt pain when the bullets tore into them.

"My god," Nester gasped, "I never... I never th-..."

He couldn't find the words.

"Aaron's from another world," Cory explained, "To him, this sort of ruthlessness is a simple and understandable response to what these people have done to him. Some would say that we would respond in just such a fashion should the same happen to us... I know I would."

"Doesn't that terrify you, though?" the trench coat-clad man asked as they reached the elevator and stepped inside, "That you know you're capable of an atrocity such as this?"

"I don't see why it should," the warlock replied calmly, "And no, that's not my devil's blood talking... If somebody stole my son, if I had one, I know I would try to move Heaven and Earth to find him, and I would make the people who committed such a sin against me pay with flesh, blood, and if I can get it, their very souls."

Simmons didn't notice, but at the mention of his "devil's blood," the young Sooner heroine suddenly stared very intently at him and tensed subtly. Ahren, who had been grumbling to himself about "wasted time" and a "need to figure out how to make it up later," came out of his reverie and placed his hand calmingly (and a little warningly) on the heroine's shoulder. Cerise's hands relaxed off of her energy blade hilts and she took a breath as her partner asked the obvious question.

"So, your friend up there..." an explosion above interrupted him, "Jeez... Sooner, he has grenades, too. Anyway... The Carnies kidnapped his child?"

"It's a bit of a long story," Cory replied, "It-"

"Wife used to be a Carnie," Kip muttered in a high monotone, "Child's a psychic. Yesterday, found the child was missing from the hospital. Doctors and nurses couldn't tell us much of anything, heck, nobody could remember anything from the night before. Only clue we had was some kid who said something about 'clown girls' and Aaron made some calls, got his guns, came here. We've been trying to catch him before he did something crazy."

"Too late, huh?" the tanker almost snorted derisively.

"Maybe."

Nester was staring at a holographic screen emitting from his wrist. His face seemed scrunched up in disbelief. However, before he could say anything, the elevator door opened and they were moving again. However, this didn't stop the medic's scans.

"I can't say I blame him," the red-and-white clad heroine commented as she saw a burned out helmet still rocking on the floor, "Lord knows what I would do if something happened to one of my sisters..."

"I trust it would be quite unpleasant for the individuals responsible," Simmons commented, again not noticing the hard glare directed at him by the heroine.

Kipland noticed, however, but before he could say anything, his brother stopped him and pushed him around a corner with a pretense of discussing his readings. Before his younger brother could protest, Nester put a hand to his mouth and lowered his green-tinted shades so he could look directly into his eyes.

"They don't know us," he whispered, "They just want to know what the Hell Aaron was thinking. Yes, I saw how she looked at Cory, almost like she was considering killing him, and I'm concerned, too. But unless they do something, we've got no reason to exacerbate the situation. Things are bad enough as it is!"

"Nester, things always get worse," Kip replied, "Worse always seems to find a way!"

"True... But do you want to be the catalyst responsible?"

Kip didn't have an answer for that, so he held his tongue.

"Let's get Aaron and get the Hell out of here. And try not to make a scene, we're already in enough of one and these two are irritated enough that our errant brother spoiled their day."

"Like they can't find something else to do in this crazy burg..."

"See, that right there," Nester wagged his finger in his brother's face, "Don't say things like that."

"Fine..."

They continued on, and it seemed as if the battle had grown more heated and violent as it wore on. They could hear Aaron above them, still fighting. Sometimes there were lulls in the gunfire, but they were quickly followed by heavy thuds as large, heavy bodies hit the floor, never to move again. Then, once his weapons were reloaded, the gunfire resumed.

"Is he registered with the authorities?" Ahren asked as they reached a set of stairs leading to the next floor, "I'd hate to think actions like his are sanctioned by heroes like Statesman or Sister Psyche..."

"He's not a hero," Nester replied, "Not in our sense. He's... He's with the C.I.A. He works for Crimson."

Ahren slapped his forehead and barked a curse.

"That explains why he knew about this place..."

"You think maybe he wanted us to take care of this so his child wouldn't get kidnapped?" Sooner asked worriedly, concerned that their delay so they could come prepared may have had this terrible consequence.

"Not likely," Kip replied, "There's no guarantee that this cell had anything to do with it... Besides, even if it did and you took it out a couple days ago, DaVore would have just sent a different group. She's sick like that."

"Top floor," Nester sighed, "This should be the last of it."

Just as he touched the doorknob, the shooting stopped. Other sounds of battle, the plodding of heavy boots and the sounds of heavy metal hitting the floor stopped as well. Nester turned the knob and pushed the door inward.

Inside was a wide expanse. It wasn't an office, it wasn't a suite. It was still in the process of being remodeled. That remodeling would never finish now, however, not after Aaron Durj had blasted red stains across the sheet rock walls.

"What took you guys so long," the man asked as he holstered his pistols and kicked the corpse of a Master Illusionist over, "You missed out on all the fun."

"Air," Kip asked, "Did you find out what you needed to know?"

"Interrogations?" the gunslinger asked, "Oh no, Kip, that's not what this was. This... This was a message... I was sending a message to that [censored] and I'm damn sure she got it. This was one of her favorite puppets over the past year... Well, she doesn't look like a woman anymore."

He gestured to the broken body, then across the room.

"None of them do."

"Aaron..." Nester's voice was cracking a little, "You murdered them..."

"What? Nester, check your facts. None of these dolls had much more time left in the world anyway. There's only so much their [censored]-queen can do to keep them going, but I made sure she understands... I'm looking for her, for him, and I better get back whats mine, or I'm going to keep doing this and it's only going to get worse."

"Puppets?" the medic asked as he looked at his holographic monitor again, "Oh... Oh! Now it makes sense... Wait a minute..."

"Now, I have to report in," the gunslinger said as he looked out the windows on the other side of the room, and he saw the heroes he'd met outside standing in his way, "Oh, you two... Did Crimson send you here?"

"Yeah," Ahren replied, "That was a raw deal, little man. We're entitled to some kind of compensation. I've lost sleep trying to figure out how Sooner Red, here, and I were going to tackle this, and you single-handedly trounced the entire cell. Why were we even sent here?"

"Because the oversight committees frown on our using depleted uranium to do jobs like this," Aaron replied, "I'll talk to Red to see if he'll shuffle the paperwork so you get the credit, alright?"

"It sounds okay..." Ahren growled, "But you tell him I don't appreciate getting jerked around like this! If he wants heroes to work with him, he's going to have to treat us with a lot more respect! I'm not doing anymore of this 'clean-up' crap for him, and I'm not serving as a face for his flunkies."

"I'll run it by him. For now, I gotta get back to Indigo..."

With that, Aaron withdrew his communicator from his belt and pressed a button. In a flash of white light, he disappeared. He didn't even reappear outside the windows.

"That was just plain weird," Cerise sighed, "You guys work with that guy?"

"No, we're just related," Kip replied, "I can't... I can't believe this is happening. What do we do now? He doesn't really think the Carnies are going to invite him to the penthouse of Paragon Heights and Vanessa's just going to hand over to him the bundle of joy, does he?"

"With enough-" Cory was about to explain the idea the young man seemed to be operating on when Nester interrupted them.

"Guys, if my readings are correct, all of these people were dead long before Aaron did this... I mean, according to this, all of these people have been dead for nine months... Give or take a few days or weeks."

"Really?" the warlock asked, "That long?"

"Yeah," Nester replied, "And I'm seeing something weird..."

"We should probably leave," Ahren suggested, "There's nothing else we can do here and I'll talk with Crimson... I guess it makes sense and all... I don't know, seeing that guy was a little unsettling. I always figured the people on our side were, you know, uncompromising."

"Morality is relative," Kip shrugged.

"Wait," Cory suddenly sounded very worried, "Nester, you said they've been dead for nine months?"

"Roughly," the medic replied.

"And Aaron called them puppets..."

"Right."

The warlock's head shook sharply fro left to right and he seemed to be whispering to himself. Sooner Red could have sworn she head voices running past her, one sounding vaguely like Simmons, and the other sounding like... Like...

Azuria?

"We should leave, now," the warlock suddenly said, "Go for the windows, we can't go downstairs!"

"Why?" Ahren asked, folding his arms over his chest in irritation.

"Because magic was keeping these people 'alive,'" Cortland replied as he ran for the windows, "But once their bodies were damaged beyond DaVore's ability to keep them together, she withdrew that magic."

"And?"

"Well, the way it works is that nature takes effect once magic is removed from the equation. However, it acts as if magic had never been there, it makes up for lost time!"

Nester's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"No..."

"Yes."

"Run for the windows!" Nester shouted as he took to the air and started flying for the reinforced panes, "we can't go downstairs and we've got to get the Hell out of here, now!"

The heroes followed, and to Sooner's relief, it was Kip who asked his brother just what was going on.

"Nature takes effect as if the magic had never been there," Nester fired his radiation bolts into the windows as Cory hurled fire and ice, "That's nine months of rot... All at once... Sure, the later months are probably perfectly fine, but it's the first three that are going to kill us!"

The scrappers and tanker shook visibly at the thought, and while Sooner looked a little queasy, Ahren and Kip ran for the windows and tried to help get through the glass. In the end, it was a savage uppercut from the tanker that smashed through (really, he smashed the frame, blowing out two panes instead of one) and releasing the heroes as noxious gasses started exploding throughout the building.

It wasn't over yet, however, and they had to dive from the ledge or risk getting smothered or blasted from the building anyway. With no other options, the heroes leaped. Kip and Cory were preparing their own methods of possibly rescuing the other two heroes (as the scrapper and blaster knew they could fly, but didn't know what Ahren and Sooner could do) when they all suddenly just stopped in mid-air.

"I never thought I'd have to use that..." Nester explained as he tapped a few buttons on his wrist.

Little sparkles revealed the rapidly oscillating nanites holding the heroes aloft as Nester gently floated them to a nearby building. Kip and Cory glared at the man since they were certain about their safety, but Ahren and Sooner seemed at least a little grateful.

"Thanks!" the heroine said once they'd landed and Nester had shut down the field, "That was much better than being over there..."

A thick cloud of sickening gas was emanating from the windows of the structure they'd just escaped. The heroes could see the headlines already, that much of downtown Skyway City was about to have a very stinky day due to a heroic event.

"Holy cow," Kip grunted as he doubled over from the stench, "I don't suppose we could call Project Whirlwind over here to help blow this air into the stratosphere, could we?"

The heroes could only quietly, sadly, shake their heads.

"I don't want the credit for that," Ahren said pointedly to Kip as he waved his hand toward the building, "Oh shoot, that's right... You're not him."

"We'll let him know," Cortland chuckled.

(("Baby" Sooner Red used with permission from Sooner. Ahren used with permission from Ice9. Thanks, you two. I like being able to show that our characters are all in this world together.))

Heh.

[ QUOTE ]
This kind of reminds me of a pulp detective story, except our steely-eyed hero isn't heroic at all! Maybe more like stories from Sin City. Either way, off to a great start.

[/ QUOTE ]

My sentiments, exactly.

I am now dehydrated I am drooling so much.

hurry...

Hurry!

HURRY!!!!

There's a new chapter in Grey's Army... I decided to finally address Aaron and Misty Durj's child. For those of you who are following but don't quite know who all of my characters are, Aaron Durj is Kipland's Praetorian, but he was a member of Praetorian Earth's Malta Group, which is of course a group of freedom fighters instead of all of our world's conspiracy theories rolled into one. Misty is a former Carnie he fell in love with. Together, they conceived a child that had a much longer-than-normal gestation period (a little over a year...) and is psychic.

This chapter begins the arc dealing with that.

Roland pulled into the hospital parking lot. It wasn't like the medical centers dotted throughout Paragon, this one catered exclusively to civilians. It was called Our Loving Sister's Care, located just outside the Steel Canyon War Walls, and it caused the portly man to wonder why hospitals were always named like this.

"Where we headed?" Kip asked as they stepped out of the jeep.

"Most likely the maternity ward," Roland growled, "Or wherever they send us. We're looking for Aaron and Mindy Durj, right?"

"Yeah."

The two young men both hated hospitals like this. Clinics were typically a hustle-and-bustle of activity, and the medical centers that catered to their needs as heroes were rapid response (indeed, that teleportation matrix was a godsend at times) and almost instantaneous healing and repair. These places, however, were a somber affair. People who came in here came for broken legs, road rash, or savage diseases like cancer or worse.

Still, there were the other reasons, such as childbirth. The clinics within the city were largely unable to handle such operations, especially since most of their power was dedicated toward the reclaimators, so pregnant women, like Misty Durj, had to go to places like this.

"Yes, she's in room five twenty-six," the clerk replied, "But don't expect to be able to go in... There's a lot of hub-bub about that one..."

Indeed there was. Ever since Aaron and Misty's baby was discovered to have psychic powers, even while in the womb, there had been a massive media frenzy. Well, there was at least more attention than Aaron or Misty ever wanted. Despite the lack of "Major Hero Fanfare," however, the reporters were relentless.

"Will the state let you keep the baby?"

"How will you educate the young man?"

"Is it true that Malaise is really the father?"

It went on and on. Some wanted to know what the happy couple intended to do, others seemed to be trying to twist the situation to match their venue's personal slant. There were theories that abounded, that the child had been irradiated by a "rampaging hero" or that the larger concentration of heroic individuals had this particular "splash effect" on the developing child, to the theory that this was a leap forward in the natural evolution of humanity, and that the child should be welcomed as a future savior of mankind.

All the while, Aaron stared, resolute in his refusal to "answer the buzzards." Misty was too exhausted to say anything, and just held her child close and away from the cameras and microphones. When Kip and Roland pushed their way through the crowd, they found Randall Grey, Sarah Durnan and Zeke Durj pushing the reporters out of the room, the big man glowering and growling at them that the young parents needed their rest and that if there were to be any answers, they'd get them "when they were damn good and ready."

Otherwise the ordeal had been perfectly fine. There were no complications with the delivery, and the hospital had been keeping Misty in relative comfort for the past week. Now that it was over, they were looking forward to a speedy incubation session and getting the child home with his loving parents.

"Hey, dad," Roland intoned as he pushed past the last interviewer, "How are they?"

"Misty's exhausted, her child is a little shocked... He wasn't expecting the procedure to be so much work," Sarah replied as she returned to the side of the bed, "He was so ticked at the doctor for spanking him, he threw the guy across the room!"

"Yeesh," Kip muttered as he shook his surrogate brother's hand, "Gratz, man. How do you feel?"

"Alert," Aaron replied curtly, "Now that my wife's given birth to a super, I have to keep on my toes in case anyone or anything, from the Circle to the Malta Group to the Carnies, comes after Damon."

"Carl," Misty murmured.

"We're still deciding on the name..."

"Well, decide quick," Sarah giggled, "or your son will decide for you. I think he's leaning toward Carl... Carl Durj..."

She glared at Zeke and Kip.

"God, you have a horrible last name."

"It used to be something like Durjessi," Zeke replied with a shrug, "But, hey, names change over generations."

"Holy carp," Nester gasped as he walked in, followed shortly by Sheldon Wallace, Levi 'Psycho13' Baker and Jared 'Draven Erickson' Simms, "Those reporters are a pack of hyenas! I trust you all know our friends here... Shel and I were clearing out a drug lab and these guys tagged along."

"Yo," Psycho13 leaned over the side of the bed and grinned at the kid, "I thought he was psychic... Why're you guys in a normal room? Aren't there, like, precautions?"

"There's a sonic resonance emitter in here," Sarah explained, "It's similar to the one Sheldon designed for me a couple years back. It makes sure no psychics can see in here, and the little guy's thoughts are kept safely in his head."

"Sounds clunky," the dubiously-named scrapper smirked, "I'll see you guys in a little bit."

"You just got here," Aaron quirked an eyebrow at the man, "Now, one look, and you gotta leave?"

"Do you have any idea how quickly your bladder fills when you have to run really fast everywhere? I didn't think so..."

-----

"Well," he muttered as he reached the bathroom and stared into the mirror, "You knew this day was coming, that's why you kept an eye on your communicator for anything Nester might need you for... Now..."

He had snagged a scalpel from one of the trays he'd passed by. He didn't like the fact that someone would get yelled at for the lapse in oversight, but he needed a sharp blade for what he was about to do, and he wasn't allowed to bring his swords or knives and a pocket knife just wouldn't work. So, the scalpel had to do.

"Alright," Baker muttered as he kinked his head to one side, "If I remember correctly, the device is implanted just below the Hammer..."

He pulled his hair back and placed the scalpel next to the base of the external portion of his ear. Taking a quick breath, he made a quick slash and yanked his ear off. It hurt a little, but he was beyond caring.

"Oh my God!" a man shouted behind him.

"It's a good thing I've got my hearing ear jammed into my shoulder," the regenerator chuckled back, "Otherwise, I bet that would have hurt my drums like all get out..."

He watched the man edge away toward the door and grinned.

"Don't tell anybody about this... I'm digging something out for a friend."

The man edged back to the stall and worked on voiding his bowels.

"Aww... Come on, man, I-ooooooooooh..."

At that point, he went deaf in his right ear. He had sliced a cylindrical section of his inner ear out and dug around for something that didn't feel right. Figuring that one out was a little more difficult than he thought, considering the whole new dimensions of pain he was suffering, but, eventually, he felt something spherical roll around without causing as much damage as the prior pieces he'd pulled and let roll back into place. This piece didn't roll back, and he pulled it away cautiously. A couple times, he went blind from the pain, or what his brain was telling him should be pain, but everything was weird for his nerves, now, and the only thing making him feel hurt was the fact that this was the first time he'd ever done this to himself.

"I should look into ritual scarification," he muttered as he folded his ear back into place.

"Good luck with that," he heard the other guy mumble from the stall, "Oh man... I don't remember eating that..."

On the way back to the room, he looked at the pebble-sized object in his hand. The blood on it seemed to refuse to congeal, and it in fact started to slide off the plastic sphere and into his skin.

"Weird..."

-----

"What's weird?" Sarah asked, "What is that?"

"Uh..." Levi looked down at the orb, "Actually, it's something I need to talk to Sheldon about."

The inventor was perplexed, but he followed the scrapper out into the hall.

"What do you expect me to do?" the inventor asked tersely.

"Dude, you and I both know what is about to happen. Bad guys are gonna come screaming into here to steal that kid, and they're going to try to use his psychic powers to do all kinds of Hell... Dude, we need to mask it!"

"But I can't-"

"You did it once, this thing has the tiny emitters you'd need to do it again! Come on, man, we need to do this!"

Sheldon looked down at the plastic ball held out for him and shook his head. However, he took it.

"I'll see what I can do..."

-----

The day wore on and turned softly into night. The gathered heroes slowly trickled out, though the Durjes stood by until the end. Curiously, Sheldon remained as well.

"Nester," he whispered, "Give this to the child..."

He handed over what appeared to be a small blue hat.

"What the hell is this?" the field medic asked as he looked it over, "I never took you to be so sentimental..."

"I'm not."

Nester lowered the hat and glared into Sheldon's glasses. He could normally never be certain if his friend was really looking him in the eyes, but this time he was sure of it.

"If this is some scheme to channel his psychic power into some kind of battery..."

"I promise you, it is not. It's much like the device in this room, only smaller, powered by body heat, like many of the components of your suit, and it's soft, so it won't do any harm to the child."

"And how do I explain it to the doctors?" Nester almost shouted.

"Oh, put the damn thing on Dom's head!" Aaron barked, "You think I don't see you guys, sneaking around, trying to keep me in the dark about how you're trying to keep my kid safe? Jebus, Roland and Kip already told me about it when they were worried..."

There was an ominous clicking sound as he reached behind his back.

"As you can tell, I am prepared for most eventualities."

"But plans never survive contact with the enemy," Zeke reminded his surrogate son, "I trust Crimson impressed that upon you by now."

The Alternate Kip nodded. Nester placed the hat on the boy's head. As he started to pull his hand away, the infant somehow reached up and grabbed his wrist (as best as he could anyway) and Nester looked down at him.

"You're probably in for a strange case of fatherhood," he chuckled to Aaron, "Very strange indeed..."

"Really? And media coverage is normal?"

Gah! I was all set to keep to a short session of writing, and I wound up adding a piece to Air Guard that took all of my play session to write and then some!

Essentially, the crew goes to work wrecking the Sky Raiders' Sky Ships. Power Breaker also ends up severely crippling the captain of one of them, so you know what that means... Future revenge plotting!

Power Breaker personally pushed the submersible the mile and a half to the wet dock. It was a bit of a strain for him, flying slightly above the water as he pushed and Mark Shadow and Project Whirlwind steered. However, they had to keep the power plant at a minimum output so as not to arouse suspicion.

While his compatriots navigated the vessel around the spotlights of the gun turrets, Dale remained below decks, uploading a particular sound frequency into his suit's memory. He'd learned about various frequencies and their resonance, even if they occurred below the human auditory reception. As such, he took something akin to a "dog whistle," and blew into it next to the microphone. The frequency meter registered the noise and he looped it in his player.

They pulled up next to the Megaburst, its starboard bow lift thruster loomed overhead like some impossibly sheer cliff. Dale emerged from the below decks to look over the situation. With a sigh, he plugged the power cord into his suit.

"Ready guys?" he asked.

"Ready," Power breaker cracked his knuckles and took to the sky; he was barely missed by another set of spotlights.

"I hope he doesn't get us killed," Mark grumbled.

"You've lost your humor," Project Whirlwind commented as he checked his artifacts, "I seem to be in proper order. Let's begin."

Dale prssed a button on his wristpad and the submersible's power plant came to life. He adjusted the ring surrounding the hole on his chestplate that served as the muzzle for his acoustic weaponry and nodded. He pressed another button on his wrist and assumed a pose that made it look like he was preparing for a wrestling match.

At first, there was no change. For several minutes, the trio just sat there. Whenever Whirlwind or Shadow made to move, however, Dale stopped them.

"You don't want to get hit by this..."

"By what?" Mark whispered, "You're not doing anything, you just look like you're going to take a dump... Into the sub, no less..."

"Wait for it..."

There was the sound of metal straining, then a metallic "pop" before something splashed into the water. From there, Dale started aiming his weapon around, his targeting system helping him follow the seams.

"Hard part's over," he chuckled, "Now, it'll pop apart like it's being unzipped."

There were the sounds of more rivets plunking into the water. After another couple minutes of this, Dale tapped his helmet and said one word.

"Ready."

Power Breaker, floating above the thruster pod, grinned and cut the energy flow that held him aloft. As he dropped from the sky, he pulled his arms back and balled up his hands into a double hammerfist. When he smashed into the center of teh turbine blades, there was a resounding "gong" sound followed by rent metal.

In the water below, the other members of the little party held on tight as they watched the massive hunk of metal tear away from the body of the Megaburst and plunge into the ocean.

The gun turrets swiveled around to follow the progress of their destroyed charge. Pieces of the thruster were dropping out the bottom of the housing before the whole mess made contact and started to sink below the surface. Before the top lip of the pod dunked under, however, Power Breaker suddenly erupted from the wreckage and took to the sky. The turrets fired upon him, but the bullets were mostly deflected from the brute's body by the energy field that surrounded him. Those that weren't didn't make much progress in harming him, as a secondary field seemed to dampen the impact.

Breaker arced around and shoulder-rammed the north-most turret off its mount. The weapon fell into the ocean and the brute continued to the next, punching it off the side as well. The next he punched across the deck of the Megaburst before the floodlights kicked on and the whole base was in an uproar.

The next turret was smashed off its mount and pushed into the next, and the next, and the next and so on until Power Breaker was pushing a large, burning metal ball. He cheered happily as the wreckage toppled across the bridge and prevented Raiders from coming out of the main facility, but the ones on patrol across the Megaburst still had to be dealt with.

Without further ado, he dove for the hole he helped tear into the side of the ship and into vessel's interior. The exterior he left to his compatriots...

---

As the shouting continued, Dale's friends leaped and flew to the deck, leaving Dale to float along, popping rivets from the hull. They landed in the middle of a ring of Sky Raiders and commenced to attack.

Mark Deployed a shield generator and Whirlwind raised a mystical fog. In the fog, the corrupter-class rogue deployed a mortar and a small spherical orb in case things got hairy. The magician tapped the gem inside his robe to summon a small tornado that wrapped around him and would hold any attackers back, but not Mark and his gadgets.

"Time to be distracting," Mark grunted once they were set.

He drew a pair of small, disc-like objects and threw them at the first group of Raiders that took an interest in their setup and the resulting flash blinded most of the nearby bandits. From there, Mark drew his assault rifle and started firing into the ranks. Whirlwind joined the attack with lightning in the opposite direction.

The Raiders weren't standing idly by, though. However, their attacks, which were largely bullets, met with severe resistance in the combined efforts of the shield generator and the mist. What bullets got through the shield hit the steam and were slowed enough to dampen the effect severely.

"Why'd these guys load their guns with BBs?" Mark chuckled as another of his targets disappeared to wherever Raiders were teleported when they went into shock or flatlined, "Don't they know to bring real bullets to a gun fight?"

"Mind your Karma, Mark," Whirlwind gasped as a pair of Raiders, machetes drawn, were thrown back by the swirling air around them, "There are a lot more of them than us..."

"Karma? When'd you start believing in Karma, Mike?"

"When we started getting involved in crap like this..."

---

Across the deck, a figure watched the battle. He couldn't believe this night had gone so badly. It was supposed to be a quick in-and-out operation. he would find out how far along the Raiders were on their repairs and report back.

"States is gonna blame me for this," he muttered, "In fact..."

He found a safe place where he was certain he wouldn't be found and keyed on his communicator. He knew his boss would still be awake, it was his night to be on watch.

"States... Yeah, it's me. Did you send a crew of idiots to interfere with this?"

"Justin, what are you talking about?"

"There are these guys, and they're shooting up the place, they're throwing lightning... The Raiders are going to pull out all sorts of legal mumbo-jumbo over this, you know?"

"That's precisely why I didn't want you to blow anything up... Justing... What happened?"

"So far? Not much..."

---

Inside, Power Breaker was slamming Raiders into rafters and girders. He was in the steerage and he was doing what he could to make things more difficult for the engineers down the road. Whenever he ran across a large group, he just engaged the lightning Scirocco taught him to utilize and would electrocute the whole mess of morons. Whenever he felt tired, he would press into another large mass and siphon the energy out of the soldiers who wound up inside the blue sphere his body emitted.

They couldn't stop him. He was like a force of nature. This was why he was so surprised when something finally did.

There was a sound like a thousand attack dogs barking and Breaker was thrown over the rail of the maintenance walkway. It felt like a nest of bees had stung his arm, hips and head. He knew that was the dampening effect he relied on stopping bullets, but it was a heavy caliber!

As he recovered on a catwalk below the first walkway, he looked up to see Captain Florio standing before him, a large machine gun held deftly in his hands.

"You think I'm going to let you wreck my ship? You think I'm going to let you embarrass me like that? Brute, I am Captain Florio! I am the captain of the Megaburst! I had to fight and claw my way to this position..."

There was an electric sound as the darkened steerage section was suddenly lit up, and a large number of Sky Raiders were revealed on neighboring walkways, leveling high-powered rifles at the rogue.

"Heh..." he chuckled, "I was thinking it was getting too easy."

"Fire!" Florio shouted as he squeezed the trigger of his machinegun and the sound of thousands of attack dogs barking was accompanied by the high-toned whistle of the rifle rounds.

When the smoke cleared, however, Power Breaker still stood there. His eyes continued to glow a dark purple and his face was stretched back with a wide grin.

"It's kind of hard to hurt me when my shields are overloading," he said quietly as the raiders reloaded, "Now... It's my turn."

With that, he charged Florio. He felt his muscles bulge a little as excess power was pumped into them and he pulled his arms back. Florio had slid the next box of ammunition into his M240-G machinegun when Breaker crashed into him, bringing his glowing fists smashing against the captain's upper arms. The man screamed, but Breaker wasn't finished with that. He pressed his palm against Florio's chest and released a bolt of red lightning.

What he didn't expect was the current traveling along the belts of ammunition draped across Florio's torso would ignite the primers of each bullet and cause them to fire erratically.

The captain stood there, screaming loudly as the ammunition exploded from his body, the rounds spanging off Breaker's shields and smashing into his fellow Raiders. As the last of the bullets fired, Florio collapsed to his knees and leaned back. A trail of smoke curled from his lips. He had so many things he wanted to say, but no words would form.

"Wow, that's definitely the definition of friendly fire," the brute grunted, "Now..."

Flrio tried to scream as Breaker hopped into the air and brought his fists crashing down on his shoulders. Finally, his body went into shock and his emergency medical teleporter made him disappear in a flash of red energy, but not before the brute got one more hit across the man's jaw that caused the energy field to break apart as the head of it struck the railing.

Still, there was no body that remained.

"Damn," Power Breaker muttered to himself, "Well, I've got a few minutes left... I may as well go wreck the power core..."

-----

They had been fighting for a solid twenty minutes. The waves of Sky Raiders never seemed to end. Mark was running out of bullets, even though he could snag magazines from the Raiders in a pinch. His Triage Beacon was running out of juice and Whirlwind was sweating something fierce. Something had to happen and quick.

Suddenly, there was a loud rending sound and the deck shuddered. Everyone, the two adventurers and the Raiders, collectively stumbled to the ground. Mark took advantage of the new, more stabilized, position and shot a lieutenant in the knee.

This prompted the Raiders to push themselves up even faster and start rushing the two. Many drew their machetes, but even more just decided to use their assault rifles. Despite the shield and the mystical fog, the two young men were about to face a very painful end.

At least, they would have, if Mark's poison gas bomb hadn't gone off. The Raiders backed away choking, and Shadow reached out and snagged some more magazines.

"Holy crap, man," Whirlwind muttered as he filtered the air he breathed in with a small incantation a wizard had taught him, "Next time, warn me!"

"That gave us a reprieve," Mark chuckled, "But we need to get out of here!"

There was a metallic "thunk" as something large and heavy landed between the two adventurers. They looked back to each other to view the newcomer as the gasses cleared to find their errant companion, the Kingdale Referee, standing there, facing the thickest of the mob of Sky Raiders.

"Well, this is quite a pickle," he muttered, "So, are we ready to go?"

"I guess we have to..." Mark hoisted his depleted triage beacon onto his shoulder and prepared to jump.

"Hang on," Dale held him fast, "We gotta wait for the sub to be in position..."

"What?" Whirlwind growled, "How is that possible?"

"You'll see," Dale replied, "For now... We've got a grand send-off to accomplish... Whirly, get your most powerful spell ready. Mark, get another bomb ready..."

"All I've got left are these," the mercenary held up another set of disc-like objects, "They'll make a lot of noise and stun a couple of 'em, but that's pretty much it."

"It'll have to do," the Referee keyed a switch on his suit and another shield combined its power with the one emitted by the drone, "Get ready, here they come..."

The Raiders charged, now all of them holding machetes at the ready. Some even flew in their Raptor Packs and had both their machetes and their rifles at the ready.

They drew close enough, and Mark threw the Seekers. Whirlwind erupted in an orb of electricity. It wasn't as powerful as the one that he'd used against the Lusca a year before, but it was decent. However, the most devastating effect was Dale's shield. When enough Raiders crossed the threshold of the shields, he showed them why it was a bad idea to do such a thing.

Without a word, he flicked another switch and the shields switched frequency. Now, they weren't just deflecting bullets and blades, they were pushing the enemies back. With as close as the Raiders had come, they found themselves thrown, screaming, overboard and into the night.

----------

"You seeing this?" Manticore asked as he watched a Wing Raider's Raptor Pack lose a wing and a rocket as it clipped a scaffolding, "If you didn't plan this, who did?"

"Well, it certainly isn't in the Freedom Corps files," Statesman replied over the intercom, "Citadel just ran a third check, and there's nothing on it. There were some concerns about the Sky Ships, but they had too much on their plates to deal with it right now... Hence my sending you there to scope it out and see what we had to... Look forward to..."

"Well, it looks like we'll only have to deal with one... I better go introduce myself..."

"Why?"

"Because I need a ride out of here. Those guys they pitched over the side probably found my stealth outboard."

Despite the protests of his patriot-themed boss, Manticore shut off his communicator and approached the rogues. Sure, they'd botched a delicate operation, but who was he to judge? They'd just saved the heroes of Paragon a lot of effort, even if they would have done better just quietly planting explosives and not-so-quietly blasting the damn vessels from afar.

At least fighting one flying warship was better than fighting two.

"Ahoy there," he said as he shut down his stealth unit, "That was some fancy work there!"

The one with the assault rifle and the gizmos whirled around and leveled his weapon at the scarlet-clad hero. Manticore had his bow at the ready and an arrow nocked, but it wasn't drawn back.

"Relax, guys, I'm not here to arrest you. In fact, I'd mention that you ruined my surveillance, but you did such good work, I'd rather we all just get the Hell out of here and dispense with pleasantries later. I trust you all know who I am?"

"No," Power Breaker rasped haggardly as he landed behind Paragon City's most accomplished archer, "You should enlighten us... Say something witty."

Justin Sinclair turned around to the Brute and recognized him as one of Vanguard's more successful agents. He'd been so successful, in fact, that a lot of his crimes against Paragon City had been pardoned. Of course, what crimes Power Breaker had done were negligible, anyway.

"Well, my fellow," Manticore rubbed the feather of the arrow and the broadhead point started to glow, "This here is a fire arrow. Now, I know your type, the energy field brute, the kind with protection similar to what that armored fellow can dish out, but with a little more resilience. Now, I happen to know you guys have a particular dislike for elemental effects... Fire, Ice, Energy... While you have a field to deflect such attacks, you lack any real resistance to it... Now... That's a formidable shield, don't get me wrong..."

The hero started tracing a swirling pattern across Power Breaker's chest.

"...But I'm a pretty good shot, and I can really make you get a nasty burn."

The brute smiled and a throaty chuckle issued through his clenched teeth.

"Alright, I believe you. It's not your fancy speech, mind you. It's that you don't smell like oil. Instead, you smell like some sort of cheap cologne..." he paused to make a "tsk-tsk" noise, "I always figured the woman you married had better taste."

"Hey, it drives her wild," Manticore deactivated his arrow and slid it back into his quiver, "I see more action than you do, anyway."

"Hey, the meat doctors love the spikes."

"Guys, I appreciate that we're all bonding and everything," Mark interrupted, "But we should get going! They've got the Skiffs headed this way!"

As the searchlights of the Sky Skiffs reached the deck of the Megaburst, the group was gone. The submersible was right where Dale said it would be, and the power plant was running.

"Holy crap!" Breaker grunted, "Dude, you've left it running all this time?"

"Who built this thing?" Manticore asked suddenly.

"Sky Raiders," Mark replied, "And they gave it to us. It's... It's a bit of a complex story."

"I guess so," Justin arched an eyebrow at the rogue, then looked past him, "So, who's this guy?"

"Solo Stryker," Daren Simms emerged from the shadows and extended his hand to shake the hero's, "Stalker-class, though I like to think of myself more as a 'scout.'"

"Where the Hell did he come from?" Breaker shouted as he pushed the sub into a dive, "Wait, that makes some of the drag make sense..."

"I told you, a bunch of us would be free to help. I just didn't mention that I'd be shadowing you."

"What did you do?" Manticore asked as he tried to find a comfortable place to sit inside the cramped craft.

"I set the explosives on the other ship," the stalker replied, "I wanted to make sure the damn thing would split like a banana, so I packed it with bombs while these guys were keeping the Raiders busy on the other ship."

"So there were bombs!"

"Yeah, man. I expected to have to explain myself once you noticed, but, hey, you took care of th-"

There was a dull boom and the sub shuddered a little. The men looked at each other and Power Breaker surfaced the vessel. They couldn't pop the top hatch fast enough, and they saw that Solo Striker had indeed been very effective.

"Holy..." Dale breathed before being pushed out of the way.

"Oh man," Daren whispered, I didn't expect to take out half of the base..."

The wet dock was indeed half-destroyed. Portions of the main facility were hanging over the water, but it seemed most of the south end had sunk below the depths. It was now just a half-mile long base, and fire smoldered where the wreckage of the Andrew slowly drifted down.

"I hope I didn't kill anyone..." Daren mumbled somberly, "I hope they got zapped out of there..."

"It'll be alright, man," Breaker patted his shoulder, "Tell him, Dale."

"That was [freaking] crazy, Daren..."

"Thanks, Dale," Solo sighed, "You really aren't helping me."

"Let's get out of here," Manticore suggested, "In a short while, they'll be sending Skiffs further out to find us."

"Alright," Breaker nodded and started pushing his friends toward the hatch, "Let's go, boys."

Well... This is new...

I've posted the next chapter to the Air Guard. I'm trying to keep the chapters there short. That way, I can take my time with the explanations or keep the various posts on one or two points, rather than one lengthy moment of drama.

In this one, the crew arrives, but finds out that the explosives are missing. Faced with this problem, and too close to go back and get the bombs, Breaker's crew has to plan what they're going to do.

The trip took longer than Power breaker expected. According to the schematics he'd pulled from the global networks, a vessel of that size should have been able to pull a maximum speed of at least thirty knots due to its smaller size, exceptional power plant (well, for scrap parts it was exceptional) and light cargo load. However, he could only really move the little beast at around twenty-three knots. Apparently there was some kind of drag, so the machine's performance suffered.

The vessel's depth capabilities had a lot to be desired, too. It wasn't that they needed to go very deep, but they only went a few hundred feet down before the submersible's hull started to groan. They didn't know if that was normal, so they would surface a little to avoid any real damage.

Power Breaker used his own personal tracking system to determine their location at all times. It was really handy to know where they were headed and if they were really on course. If there were any engine troubles, he could have Dale Simms, "the Referee," look at it. The armored hero would usually adjust a dial or plug a few numbers into a computer and before long the system's errors would be corrected.

Eventually, they were in sight of the base. Breaker put the ship into a dive so they looked like some rogue whale or dolphin disappearing under the depths at the horizon. He knew most Sky Raider bases didn't have such long-range surveillance, but this was a base designed to build and maintain two sky ships. It was a massive complex, too, as it stretched for a mile, end-to-end.

On each side of the base was a sky ship. The Andrew waited to the south of the base, the Megaburst was to the north. The rogues and heroes had to cripple the repair efforts of both ships before they were done. Both ships were a lot bigger than their submersible, and they were only five moderately powerful meta humans.

"This looks tough," Breaker chuckled as they drew the map out, "But, fortunately, we have those nifty little bombs to-"

He stared, horrified at a corner where nothing was. He could have sworn he'd checked the ship for the charges Oldenburg suggested they use. He wouldn't have left without them, would he?

"Crap, crap, CRAP!" he shouted, "Where are the explosives?"

"I thought you got them," Dale replied, his face wrinkling up with disbelief and worry, "Didn't you?"

"I don't remember... And my idytic memory's all for [dreck] because the nanites in my brain are still busy trying to translate the Malleus Mundi..."

"The Malleus..." Project Whirlwind almost shouted, "Ray... Do you know what that is?"

"Yeah, yeah... Hammer of the World, major mystical artifact... I held the damn thing in my hands once."

"What did you do with it?"

"I gave it to Scirocco. I told him he shouldn't use it, then Daos sent a crew to kick the tar out of him. The book disappeared after that."

"You were with the crew, I take it?" Mark asked.

"No. I like to think of Scirocco as a brother I never had," Breaker sighed, "Or maybe an uncle. In any case, I couldn't go after him like that, and when the events played out, he was beaten and the book was gone again. However, it's not quite gone... Before I gave him the book, I flipped through it. What I didn't realize was that the nanites I mentioned earlier had flash-copied every single page. In an instant, I became a walking Malleus Mundi..."

He tapped his head.

"It's all just locked inside here, and I probably have figured out about the equivalent of a drop in an ocean of what's inside."

"Atlantic or Pacific?" Whirlwind asked with wonder.

"I'd lean more toward the Pacific..."

"So you can't remember if we had bombs or not?" Mark asked, his voice showing signs of exasperation and fatigue.

"No. My normal brain can't remember because I've been so focused on getting us here."

"Okay, so, we're operating without bombs... What do we have?"

"We've got our own capabilities," Dale tapped his chest plate, "I think I know how we can do some damage with the power plant and my sonic assault unit."

"Alright, that's one idea... Weaken the hull, let gravity tear the machine apart," Breaker nodded, "But I'm thinking that all of us personally wrecking the ships, bit-by-bit, is going to take more than a couple hours... In fact, it's gonna take more than a couple days..."

"And in that time," Mark agreed, "the Raiders aren't going to be sitting around, they'll be trying to kill us."

"Look, guys," Breaker explained, "if worse comes to worse, you can escape without me. I'll be able to hold the Raiders off, and we're close enough to the isles that I can be sure my med-porter beacon will get me home. Dale's been working with me to pilot this thing, and I'm sure he's got the instructions saved onto his suit somewhere..."

"It's funny that this sub has keys," Dale chuckled back.

"I say we wait till nightfall, we head in, and we do what damage we can. It'll give the Air Guard at least enough time to make a convincing argument to the U.N. about the threat, and it'll make the Sky Raiders think twice about messing with 'em. What do you guys say?"

"Sounds reasonable," Dale muttered, "Frankly, I'm itching to see what this suit can really do."

You don't see it stopping me, Cuddles.

I like the portrayal of Statesman in this. It reminds me of Dr. Manhattan, only slightly more human. He comes off as a "Judge" archetype here, and not an "Emperor" or "Dictator" as most others see him.

Plus, Synapse seems to see Manticore in much the same light as Manticore sees Statesman. I find that very interesting.

I also like how Synapse sees his group as the people they are and not the spandex outfits they wear. He doesn't seem to let that point of view dim his opinion of his friends, either, such as when Positron calls Statesman "sir" and the tone becomes somewhat amused.

You're really good with the tones of the characters, Blue. This is good stuff. I can't wait to spotlight this story.

It's funny... The way I write Mynx, she's something of a... A... Well, she's not nice. I took this attitude from the comic, but where her behavior remains playful with the Vindicators (except Malaise, they ALL seem to hate Malaise), she becomes a bit cold to other heroes she doesn't really know and doesn't really respect.

Somebody once asked me to have her run over by a truck! This was... Unsettling... I had written her too unsympathetic. However, I couldn't fix it. The story is largely the point of view of my characters, and the one that has dealt with Mynx the most is a bit of an abrasive brat himself, so they ALWAYS rub each other the wrong way (essentially, it boils down to bouts of "God! I hate you so much!" when they're not emotionally drained).

I think that's why I like Blue's story here. He found the way to sympathize with Mynx while sticking to her personality. I hope the momentum keeps up and I can't wait to see where this goes.

There's a new portion to my Air Guard thread. Instead of writing out how Harris dealt with Rachek (which would have basically boiled down to a couple sentences of "Hey, what's up? Got money? Good. I'll do it. <Etc.>"), I went straight for the aftermath. That tidbit about Back Alley Brawler hiring the B.W.O./Mauthe boat for a trip to "tour" the Amazon will be covered more in Grey's Army. For now, I'm taking this moment to just set up Power Breaker and his crew (three of the B.W.O. characters) for the next bit.

Cripes... Where are these guys taking me?

"So, yeah," Solo muttered over his beer as Power Breaker smiled at their involvement, "Back Alley Brawler hired us for a job to cart him and a team to tour the Amazon. So, while Ringo, Draven and Matt do that with him, a bunch of us'll be free to help you."

The veteran hero had been glaring at the brute for a while, but shrugged when Breaker smiled and waved at him. He went back to discuss strategy with his team.

As the Guardsmen had explained to the Brute, he was to be deployed at the Sky Raider base run by Captain Oldenburg. While the man wasn't necessarily working for the Air Guard, he didn't want to see his friends get killed if Colonel Duray finished his own sky ships. As things stood, there was an uneasy truce, and he didn't want to see that disappear in a blaze of fire.

As the Captured Dream drew closer to Oldenburg's base, the Brutal Warriors ushered the hero team back into the passenger cabins. Back Alley Brawler stayed on deck, but the Sky Raiders weren't really dumb enough to take a pot shot at a hero like him.

Oldenburg, a tall, fit man with a shiny-shaven head and wide green eyes, greeted them personally with a small entourage of Wing Raiders. Though they were slightly startled by the veteran's presence, there wasn't an incident and the brute was able to bring his specially selected team aboard the station.

It was a derrick, similar to many of the bases that dotted the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. However, it was quite new, having been constructed when the Air Guard formed. Oldenburg explained that they got a short push in equipment because of the schism, but since the Air Guard focused its efforts in patrolling for Rikti, African Aid missions and north Atlantic situations, it seemed Colonel Duray was willing to let the newer bases stagnate until the ships were completed.

"So, yeah, I get a boost out of this, too," he explained to Power Breaker, "You guys bust up one or both of the ships some more, and Duray might decide to send more Skiffs my way. I know it's a bit selfish of me to have that as a tertiary goal, but hey, we gotta be selfish somewhere."

"So you really don't want to see your groups go to war, huh?" Dale Simms asked in between tweaking his armor.

"Right. There are good men involved here, in both groups, and it would be such a shame if we all wound up killing each other over something as stupid as ideological differences... I mean, I remember the teachers trying to tell me conflict over stuff like that was dumb when I was in school... Am I making any sense?"

"Conflict itself is dumb," Breaker concurred, "But people fight. Eventually, everybody gets selfish and just doesn't feel like compromising in any way. Heck, I've got moments like that, too. Thankfully, the incidents always involved pitchers of beer."

The base captain escorted the group to a small submersible. It looked to be a patchwork from a lot of other vessels, especially the kinds favored by Arachnos. Oldenburg explained that every so often, they recovered wrecks and he figured it would be a good project for his engineers to piece one together.

"I don't know how well you can trust the hull," he grimaced, "You can go under the water a little ways, I think a couple hundred feet, but I have no idea what the beast's critical depth is. Frankly, I'd just try to sail into the base under the cover of night, plant charges on the lift pods, and detonate from a distance."

"Sounds easy," Breaker grunted, "Where's the fun in that?"

When the Sky Raiders left them alone, he took stock of his crew. Dale Simms, the Kingdale Referee, had a new-and-improved suit and he'd be providing the crew with shield-like force fields. Project Whirlwind, the guy looked like a popular video game's thunder god, but he was formidable with his command over local weather. Finally, for more of a punch, he had the mercenary, Mark Shadow. Shadow's devices would be a boon and his trigger finger was far from rusty.

"Alright, you guys want to get started or should we wait and have dinner with these guys?"

"I'm ready to go," Dale shrugged.

"We brought lunches with us," Whirlwind nodded.

"Let's get this over with and get the Hell out of here," Shadow muttered as he wiped an oiled rag across his assault rifle, "I hate being out in the ocean with this thing. The salt's always eating at it."

"Just one thing," Power Breaker stopped them, "Do any of you know how to pilot one of these things?"

They all shook their heads and the brute sighed.

"Fine. I'll need a couple minutes to download the instructions from somewhere..."

Dammit, why didn't I keep up with this?

Okay... Here's what I have to say.

I like this, and not simply because it's descriptive. One of the things I like about "first-person" narratives is that they tend to be just the way the character wants them to be. The author is forced into the mind of the creation and has to experience all the thoughts, hopes, and, more importantly, you see how the character sees him or herself.

I can't wait to see where this goes. I intend to put it in the next Fan Fiction Spotlight I can put it into.

I finished up a take on Cimerora in Grey's Army's latest post.

The battle with the Cimeroran Traitors was fierce. While the heroes were definitely experienced and had the benefit of all sorts of advanced technology, magics and knowledge, the ancient Romans had the benefit of a non-sedentary lifestyle. Simply put, they were a lot tougher than the people the collected meta-humans had previously faced in their careers.

What was further surprising was the armor of the soldiers. It was tougher than it looked, tougher than physics and even history indicated iron and bronze could be. Cory hypothesized that they were in some way enchanted, and judging by the trinkets they were pulling from their defeated foes (or that some actually gave them upon defeat), it wasn't a far-off guess.

In the end, however, their final conflict lied not with the General, who put up barely a fight against the combined might of the meta humans, but with a group of Arachnos troops who had followed them in.

"Friends of yours?" Abrahms asked Power Breaker.

"No," the brute replied, his face a shocked mask of confusion, "They're not with me... Hey! HEY! What the Hell are you guys trying to do?"

One stepped forward. He was dressed very oddly for most kinds of Arachnos troops, but with the recent changes in recruitment policies, that wasn't too startling anymore. What was startling were the pearlescent plates that adorned what would have been the black uniform of a Wolf Spider, possibly a Huntsman.

Though what a Wolf Spider was doing leading a group of Crab Spider Slicers and Bane Spider Commandos was beyond the meta humans. When the soldier was a reasonable distance to ensure he had the attention of the meta humans, yet not so far as to be out of the range of his support, he spoke.

"I want him," Operative Taylor growled as he pointed to Cedric, "This Conglomerate Armor you see before you is all his fault... I was an Arbiter before his interference. Now... Now I'm barely a field captain..."

"Wow..." the tanker replied, his voice registering an odd mixture of amusement and disgust, "Alright guys... You leave me with the twerp."

"What about the others?" Kip asked.

"Kick their [butts] on the way out if you like. In fact, if you can keep them out of the business between me and the man who kidnapped my mother, so much the better..."

"There's no need for Arachnos to lose troops over this," Taylor muttered, "Men, see to it that these... Heroes..."

"Hey! I take offense to that!" Power Breaker interrupted, then he saw the look on Michael's face and grinned, "Out of principle, of course."

"Make sure they don't interrupt us!" Taylor finished his order.

The soldiers and the collected meta humans left the two young men behind and they regarded each other tensely. Neither was very well known in their respective organizations, though Grey was affiliated with Freedom Corps very loosely. Neither was terribly incapable as well. They were both very accomplished combatants, though Taylor had a spot of rough luck each time he came across Cedric.

"This time, there's nobody to interrupt us," he growled as he grasped the grip of his assault rifle, "Time to die, Grey!"

Cedric started walking toward the Bane Spider as the grenade landed next to him. With the peculiar energies that wrapped around him from the axe, he knew he'd be able to weather the explosion. However, what he didn't expect was the cloud of venom that suddenly filled the local area.

"Relax," the voice of his Praetorian said as the cloud washed harmlessly away, "I've got this... However..."

With a wave of his hand, Operative Taylor somehow just vanished into thin air. Cedric looked around worriedly for a second, then started walking away from the spot where Taylor had left him.

"So," he said to the echoing walls, "You blame me for your failure..."

"If it weren't for your meddling, I would probably be in control of some small island somewhere..." the voice of his enemy echoed back, "I could have been a Marshall, or remained an Arbiter, just somewhere out of the way... A place I wouldn't have to deal with this crap!"

"Oh, boo hoo!" the tanker chortled, "You didn't play a hard enough game, and now you're crying about it? Aw, I don't get a lump of dirt to call my own! Woe is me! Ooh-hoo-hoo... You sound like an [butt]hole!"

"You have no idea what I've been through! I have had to claw my way back to a respectable position! I've had to-!"

"I don't care!"

Cedric let that phrase echo back to them. It reverberated the walls and there was an ominous, hollow tone that seemed to accompany it.

"Yeah, that's right. I, a hero, don't care what he's done or that my actions inadvertently ruined a moron's life. It would be different if you, I don't know, hadn't kidnapped my mom, but you did, so that's a mark against ya! Then you sent a squad of idiots to kill me and tried to do the same when we should have been helping each other! But, hey, that's Warburg for ya..."

"I had nothing to do with those soldiers attacking you! I was trying to call them back when you murdered them!"

"I killed people trying to kill me," Cedric shook his head, "If you're trying to lay a guilt trip on me or make me question my heroism, you're going after the wrong guy. I live in the moment, man, and I do what I think is right for the moment. I'll deal with the consequences later... Like now."

He swung his axe up, deflected the mace coming toward his head and punched the operative in the chin. Taylor stumbled back, and though most of his face was obscured, Grey could see the shock that was evident.

"Yeah, you see, Gaussian has made available these nifty little items... One such thing is a pair of contact lenses I never leave home without. They don't make me see the world any different, nor do they alter my iris color, but boy can I see stuff that's trying to hide if it gets too close."

"Dammit, dammit, DAMMIT!" Taylor shouted, "It's always tricks with you capes!"

"Again with assuming I'm something out of a freaking book," Cedric shook his head and started walking away, "Look, man, I'm not going to stand still and let you kill me. When you want to look at the world the way it really is, you can come talk to me. You want to keep being a [moron] and try to kill me, I'm cool with that, too. My swinging arm needs all the exercise it can get. Otherwise, leave me the Hell alone."

The operative watched the tanker walk off and grumbled to himself. What was supposed to be a day of revenge turned out to be one of disgust. He didn't know why, but for some reason, Grey's words had troubled him deeply. Suddenly, his whole vendetta seemed petty and pointless.

If he did succeed in killing or converting Cedric, what then? A new hero would take his place as "the nemesis" (likely the brother or the sister; possibly even one of the parents). He also wouldn't see a promotion out of it. What was worse, there were those in Arachnos who would use his triumph against him, citing his vendetta as a weakness of character.

"There are so many better things to be spending your energy on," Cedric shouted back to him, "You really intend to waste it all sulking in there? Come on, man. I'll buy you a mug of whatever these guys use for beer."

Daniel Taylor pulled his helmet off and walked out to join his enemy...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Oh, now what the [frick] is this!?" Grey shouted as they exited the cave and found the meta humans had soundly trounced the Arachnos soldiers.

"It looked like Power Breaker and Abrahms were getting into a shoving match, and suddenly they pushed each other into a pair of Crab Spiders," Kip explained, "The rest of the fight was fairly quick..."

"Oh God!" the one Power breaker sat on shouted hoarsely, "Please! Get off!"

"Do you mind?" the Brute replied as he assumed the classic pose of a famous statue, "I've got some serious thinking I need to do..."

"But your [butt]! It's so bony! It's poking into my armor!"

"Would you please get off my troops? I have to return them to Scirocco's employ by the end of the day."

"Oh!" Breaker hopped up, "So, you're with the sorcerer's camp, huh?"

"Aye. As are you. I trust he knows about your dealings with the other side?"

"Man, the big players have just about given up on me. Every so often, Scirocco sends a job my way that I don't object to, but other than that, I'm my own man."

"Your own man..." Taylor mused at the thought, "Sounds nice."

"Yeah, if only it were true," Breaker's spikes crackled with electricity, "Too bad I've got super powers, and Recluse is gonna wind up coming up with a use for me sometime, and he's not one to take 'no' for an answer."

"Too true... Too true..."

The heroes let the soldiers of Arachnos up (sans weapons) and started walking with them to the central square of Cimerora. It was an unusual moment, the heroes and villains relaxing together for a moment. For once, however, they were away from the politics, the fighting and the hostility.

"It's the leaders that hate each other," Cedric explained, "Not the soldiers, not really. I mean, there's the propaganda, but a smart soldier, a wise soldier, looks past the rhetoric and vitriol to see what he's really doing. Unfortunately, we're rarely afforded the chance, especially with leaders like we've got."

"So, what are we supposed to do?" Power Breaker asked.

"Play it by ear, I guess," the tanker shrugged, "Until something more important comes up, I guess we're stuck wiping the [butts] of our bosses."

"That's not very fair to the people we're helping," Kip retorted, then turned to the soldiers, "You guys, too. I mean, we all have our own decisions to make. We all have our own choices in life. If you're fighting for one side or the other, you're doing it for your reasons, not theirs. They just have you at their disposal. I prefer to find the personal things I can deal with, find a way to settle things in my life."

"Good theory," a Crab Spider rumbled, "I should put that into my meditations. Computer! Save recording... No space left in hard drive... Dang. But I really want to save those pictures of the Sybils... For research... Ah well, I'll remember it later..."

The group shared a laugh and moved on to the next drink. It wasn't exactly peace, but it was livable. The heroes, rogues and soldiers had found a moment where the fighting could cease, if only for a moment.

I think your portrayal of Synapse works, your Mynx, too. This is an earlier time, a different time for these heroes. Synapse uses his womanizing to escape his memories of torment, and Mynx is startled and paranoid. This all makes perfect sense to me.

Frankly, I'm starting to wonder if Blue here is really the "play name" of a Cryptic/NCSoft storyline writer

I've updated the Air Guard story thread.

Captain Rachek gets some bad news about the Sky Raiders. Unfortunately, he's under orders from the U.N. not to make any preemptive strikes (as it would appear to be that they're being allowed to pursue a vendetta).

However, Rachek's not one to sit back and wait for bad things to make his world hurt. He still has some nasty tricks up his sleeve, such as hiring outside help...

"Sir?"

Captain Rachek didn't look up from his paperwork. Ever since the stunt Aarons tried to pull with Carter, Vanguard had demanded (though the polite term used was "requested") strict overwatch on the mercenary group. Aarons wanted to show Vanguard was worth the money the U.N. was spending on them. Carter had proven that fancy armor and tricked out weapons didn't stand up against vigilance and preparedness.

"Vigilance," he muttered, "Interesting..."

"Sir?" the Guardsman asked again.

"What is it, Private?"

"Sir, a report from A.G. Zero Two."

Rachek took the folder and dismissed the Guardsman. He thumbed through it before buzzing his intercom for Captain Anderson and Captain Macnamara. In a few short moments, the first man arrived and gave the perfunctory greeting.

"We're the same rank, Gary," Rachek grunted, "Cut the crap."

"Anderson being a dumb-[butt]?" Cpatain MacNamara asked as he walked in and gave his counterpart a light jab to the ribs.

"No more than usual. Sit down, you two."

The captains sat and Rachek explained to them the contents of the folder he'd just received. It turned out that some of their old friends among the Sky Raiders really still were friendly.

"Commander Oldenburg has just informed us that repairs on the Megaburst are almost complete. The Andrew isn't far behind."

"Well, we should send the Nimbus and a squadron of those new jets... The uh... Uh..." Captain Anderson stammered.

"I think Warbird is a fitting name for them," Rachek finished for him, "We'll run it by Engineering, see if they'll finalize it. And no, we can't do that. The liaison has made it abundantly clear that we are not to utilize such 'sensitive' equipment in our own personal vendetta. We do what the U.N. tells us, nothing more."

"Damn it," Anderson slapped his armrest and leaned into his other palm in consternation, "Well, that settles it. Duray and Florio are gonna waltz right over and blast us out of the water."

"Not necessarily," MacNamara replied, "What have you got planned, Tony?"

Rachek leaned back in his chair and sighed. He had a plan, but it was a real long shot.

"Call this number," he said as he handed Captain Anderson a piece fo paper with a phone number on it, "I know it's more than any phone number on earth, but it was e-mailed to me by a guy with certain 'capabilities.' He's also associated with our old friends, the B.W.O. Tell him I want to speak with him and let me know what he says."

Anderson looked skeptically at the paper and shrugged. They were in some hot water now, but it wasn't like their situation could get much worse.

----------

--St. Martial--

Power Breaker emerged from his shower and was toweling off when the call came in. The spikes on his head buzzed and the nanites displayed a message over his eyes indicating the direct transmission. Somebody had called his head phone, not his apartment's phone. It wasn't Scirocco, either. Harris had that number memorized.

"Hello?" he asked when the nanites indicated that he'd picked up, "Who is this?"

"Uh, sir, this is Captain Anderson..."

"Sky Raiders?"

"Uh... No..."

"Oh! The other guys! Oh, cool. What's up?"

"Well... I think we might have a job for you..."

Harris listened to the situation calmly. His nanites ran calculations. By what he'd seen in reports and what he could estimate from Sky Raider engineering capabilities, factored in with their supposed ties to Nemesis, he estimated that they were roughly within two weeks of having both ships operational. If it were to happen, bad things were most certainly in store for the Air Guard.

"Alright," he finally answered Anderson, "Inform your captain I'll come. I just need to procure some surreptitious transportation and I'll be there."

"Thank you," the captain on the other end replied with relief evident in his voice, "I hope you arrive within the week."

"Oh, yeah. The B.W.O. usually gets people where they're going within days. It's not as fast as it used to be, but you get the idea."