Mr_Grey

The hammer fell and Cedric caught it on his forearms. The gathered heroes gasped collectively as the armor shattered and exploded from his body and the ground beneath him cracked in a spiderweb. However, Cedric was still standing. Gritting his teeth with his legs bowed and sweat pouring from his skin, he pushed back on the car and Jurassik reared back in surprise. Shouting incoherently, the eldest Grey sibling drew his axe and shook it angrily at the stone-encrusted monster.

"You want to fight me!? You want to fight [u]ME[u]!? Well come on! I'm right here!"

"Cedric, you're glowing!" Matt shouted.

"Yeah! I know, I-"

Jurassik sideswiped the tanker out of the way. There was a meaty splat followed by a groan as Cedric hit the wall of a dilapidated office building. Oddly enough, the man was able to pick himself up after hitting the ground.

"Attack!" Zenflower shouted and the assembled heroes launched their most powerful assaults upon the stone behemoth.

"What the Hell just hit us!?" came the voice of the spirit trapped within Cedric's axe, "What have you gotten us into now? I thought you said you were using that lumberjack's axe today!"

"I was," Cedric grunted, "I was using the lumberjack's axe... Its blade got dull after a few hours of constant chopping, by the way. I may as well have been using a sledgehammer in the end. What was that, anyway? That glow..."

"That was me, of course. I know some spells, remember? I've been watching your style, and I figured some armor-like spells were in order."

"Cool. So, is this like Kip's Nictus crystal armor?"

"Sort of. I'd have to see how that works more closely, but you're nearly unstoppable for the next few minutes... NO! What are you doing!?"

Cedric was leaping and bounding into the middle of the fray. A flashbang arrow burst in front of Jurassik's eyes, and when the creature's vision cleared, there was a dark blur in its face. Cedric was there, and he was pressing his battle axe into the monster's eye.

"Smash this!" the tanker shouted as a red beam fired deep into the granite giant's eye and burned out most of the lichen cluster running the structure.

Jurassik shuddered, but didn't stop. However, its tactical planning was no longer up to its normal terrible capability.

"It's comin' up!" Matt shouted to his best friend, "Avoid! Avoid!"

Cedric leapt from the oncoming car and Jurassik, its body weakened from radiation, fire, energy, cold, and the general mix of everything that can be thrown at a Giant Monster in ten minutes, smashed its own head into oblivion with its hammer made from girders and a rusted car hulk. The body shattered and crumbled to the ground. Rubble monsters picked themselves out of the mess, but they were just as rapidly put down as any other by the gathered heroes.

When the dust settled, the heroes found the depowered and exhausted Cedric Grey laughing hoarsely and pointing at the Rubble lying dead at his feet, his golden battle axe cleaved neatly through its skull. Apparently, the weapon had fallen out of the air and barely saved the drained tanker's life.

----------

The guards fell away far too easily. Kip tore through the hallways and smashed Nemesis troops against the walls, ceilings and floors. It had never been so easy before, and it was somewhat disappointing, but it was so exhilarating at the same time! When he put a Tirailleur through a wall, he finally looked back to Sheldon and gave him a thumbs-up.

"This has been terrific, man!"

"I only wish you would keep them within the same vicinity," the inventor replied as he adjusted some dials on his gauntlets, "It's harder for me to keep them under control when you keep spreading them out. I have to expend more energy on individuals..."

"Yeah, but you keep hitting them with that junk you keep summoning from nowhere..."

"Only if there's nothing available on hand."

To demonstrate, Wallace lifted a desk from an office cubicle and pulled it to follow them as they walked to the next set of offices. The Lieutenant around the corner wound up being the recipient of the hurled wooden object, and Kip finished the stunned officer with a kick to the back of the head.

"Hang on," Sheldon pulled the scrapper into another office and indicated some of the marker boards, "Look at this..."

It was a diagram composed of circles with lines connecting them in a complex web. Several of the circles were crossed out, each one with names added to them.

"Steampunk Charlie..." Kip turned to Sheldon, "Isn't that the guy you said you were checking up on?"

"This must've been from a while back, he's been dimension-hopping lately. It's been eating into the business the Ryats have been doing, too, but I won't knock him for it."

The scrapper had lost interest in the topic, however. He was looking at the chart and noticing there were dates attached to some of the fallen cells. It seemed that for the past couple weeks, more cells connected to the base they were clearing out were wiped out within a scant few days of each other.

The circles weren't labeled with names, but in a strange acronym cypher. Numbers replaced letters, words replaced numbers, and it was never done the same way twice. Without a ledger or a legend, it was pointless, but some things could be determined through a study of the patterns.

"What do you want to bet we're here?" the scrapper pointed at a circle in the middle of a number of crossed out circles, "It seems like this one was getting fatted just for someone like you or me."

Sheldon stroked his chin as he noted that the further ones from that circle were labeled with question marks. He nodded as his shades recorded the image. Certainly, there was somebody involved with pursuing the Nemesis Army that would find the information useful.

"Peculiar," he commented, "And this is the place Captain Reynolds indicated he worked?"

"I have a bad feeling about this," Durj growled.

The two heroes moved on from there. Soldiers and officers fell to the scrapper's methodical assault. Sheldon noticed Kip was counting his steps as he moved, muttering under his breath "One, two, three... One, two three, four... One, two, three..." The Nemesis troops were too busy trying to keep their steam-powered armor from exploding to notice the brutal dance being employed upon them, however.

The last defense the soldiers employed upon them involved a room of snipers. Kip took the brunt of the assault, getting slammed into the wall while Sheldon tossed him a green Regenerator syringe. The scrapper injected himself as his eyes flashed and he was suddenly wrapped in a dark purple armor that looked like a demon. Sheldon hit him with a burst of Speed Boost nanites and the super armored hero tore into the enemies. The snipers tried to throw him off, but Kip unleashed a torrent of energy into their midst, throwing them off their feet and giving the scrapper the breathing room he needed to sweep the floor and work the soldiers over one-by-one. When the Tirailleurs and Comets regained their footing and Durj was in for trouble, however, the steam armored soldiers suddenly lifted off the ground and hovered there impotently. Kip looked back to Sheldon, who was shrugging.

"You can't have all the fun."

"Obviously, you don't work enough punching bags..."

"You'd be surprised," Sheldon replied and started working the body of one of the Comets.

When the snipers were defeated and left in a heap, the two heroes took stock of the situation. They had a group of ill-prepared soldiers, but they were well-trained and varied enough to be able to respond to almost any situation. If it had been one or the other hero, they would have been sent back to the hospital in short order.

"We should have brought Nester," Kip muttered as he looked through another desk, "He'd have gotten a kick out of this."

"Oh, I trust-"

There was an electric sound that interrupted Wallace. The two heroes turned to the light focusing on the Fake Nemesis that apparently ruled over this cell. However, it moved differently from other Fakes. It moved with purpose. As it picked itself up off its brassen throne, it grasped its scepter and slumped in exasperation.

"I guess... I guess this answers the question," it rumbled as it meandered around the hole in the center of the room, "I was wondering at my identity... At times I thought I truly was the one. I wondered why my outlying support was being felled so easily, and I suppose that's when the seeds of doubt started to grow."

"What are you talking about?" Kip asked as the Fake drew itself up and regarded the two heroes.

"A hero just like you two killed my brother. Now, I go to join him and the rest of my brethren in the slag heap. Or perhaps I shall execute you instead. Perhaps I am that good, that close, that powerful... We shall soon see."

Kip suddenly remembered. Reynolds had told him the history of the first ten Nemesis Fakes, but he made it seem like the only survivor was the one designated as Nemesix.

"What's your number?" he asked as the android aimed its scepter at him.

"Nine, I believe," was the reply, "Yes... Yes! Nine. I am Nine."

"Very well, Nem-eh-nine."

"Nemenine," the android replied somberly, "That will do..."

The scepter fired a force bolt into Kip's face, sending him tumbling down the staircase past Sheldon. Sheldon, however, was lost in thought. He was wishing Felix were there, just as he had been to fight the "brother" of this Fake, the one referred to as Nemesix. Flexing his right hand in and out of a fist, he licked his lips, pressed a button on his right gauntlet and hoped the wormhole technology he'd been working on would work properly.

Levi Baker was given super powers by the group formerly known as the Committee. They had abducted him shortly before burning down the Kingdale Arena and locked him in a facility which was built to collect artifacts and technology to throw together meta humans for sale to the highest bidder.

When Baker refused to help, they injected him with an experimental super soldier serum ("It felt like my bones were on fire"), locked him in an electric torture rack and electrocuted him into compliance.

Project Whirlwind later helped him escape, and the two worked at decimating the facility, with Psycho13 finishing the dosage for the Regenerator Serum and turning himself into the near-indestructible scrapper we know today.

Earlier in his career, he used a crazy assortment of knives which were duct-taped together into claws. Recently, however, he's turned to using normal dual blade fighting, just in peculiar arrangements at times, not so peculiar in others.

Modern Maniac

Thank goodness... This is quite the departure from Psycho13's earlier outfit (which made him look like some form of Celtic berserker). He's also not standing on a statue's right boob. It doesn't make him look any less insane, however.

This is a hoodie from his childhood. He wields a heavy blade (similar to a gladius) paired with a smaller one. The camouflage pants are the same one can find in any Army/Navy surplus store. The boots are classic combat boots.

Our Good Friend Jack... The Ripper...

After watching a musical movie featuring a certain prolific actor portraying the classic Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Psycho13 rushed into the Steel Canyon Icon store and screamed "You have GOT to make me look like Jack Lantz!"

So, he took on this appearance. The knives aren't articulated, silver straight razors, but they are extremely sharp. The distressing thing is that he thinks he can go to formal functions in an outfit like this.

Oh my God... What the Hell is this!?

I... Words cannot describe the disturbance I feel when I see Baker in this outfit. What makes it weirder is the glee he seems to display when wearing it.

"The day I got this thing, I even brought down a Troll Caliban named Tatu! It was freaking fate that day, man!"

Now, I need scotch...

Sadly, I already had in mind that for the one after Tech's, I'd be presenting Steampunk Charlie's story. However, after that, Grumplethump will be the one in the Spotlight.

Unless something truly amazing appears before then, I will be displaying Diamond's tales of the Templars afterward, The Coming of Storms.

Indeed, and it will cost me a significant portion of my life to correct myself.

I have erred greatly in not observing this gem's shine from the beginning.

I put up another section for Grey's Army... Kip is making his way to Brickstown so he can talk to Captain Reynolds about the Nemesis cell he works for, but he runs into Sheldon in the middle of a project and the little mutant gerbil, Felix, makes a strange demonstration.

Meanwhile, Cedric and the gang finish up their "gardening," but tempers flare and an argument breaks out. Too bad a few tongue lashings aren't the worst they have to deal with...

Kip wandered through the Grey's Army base. He was on his way to the magic teleporters when he noticed Sheldon sitting in the middle of the tech workshop. Felix was sitting in the middle of a pile of parts while the inventor fine-tuned a new set of power armor.

"That suit looks pretty small for Cedric," the scrapper commented as he looked over the gear.

"It's for me," Sheldon replied, "I'd be having an easier time of it if Felix would stop taking parts I need."

Kip looked down at the little mutant gerbil and the critter bared its teeth at him in what looked disturbingly like a smile. He had a bunch of bits and parts wrapped around him.

"Sheldon, just how far do you think that mutation went?"

"What do you mean?" the engrossed builder asked, "As far as I know, it just altered his physical structure."

"No mental effects?" Kip asked as he looked closer at Felix and the bear leaned up to lick him on the nose.

"None that I know of. Sarah says he treats Katie like a little sister. They can't really breed, anyway, though they both come from rodents, but it sets my mind at ease to know he's above base instincts."

"Isn't that a sign of sentience?" the scrapper started heading back on his course, giving the "gudar" a rub on the back on his way, "I mean-AH!- What the Hell?"

He pushed some of the fur away and found what looked like a small spike on the critter's back. Felix looked back at him with what looked like a spark of concern.

"It's a barb, similar to what a cat's claws or your fingernails are made out of. It's not quite tough enough to carve through steel, so I never thought I'd mention it."

"It's pretty damn pointy," the scrapper replied, "Still... Are you certain he isn't playing dumb somewhat?"

"No," Sheldon replied, "Frankly, Kip, I haven't had the time to think about it, what with the paperwork I have to write for the Ryats and this case I've been reading up on from D.A.T.A. lately... I haven't had much time to focus on what my pet is doing."

"Maybe you should..."

At that, Felix pressed a button in the center of the devices wrapped around him and started floating. With a happy whine, he turned to Sheldon and started panting, again looking like he was smiling.

"Well, this is unusual," the inventor commented as he peered closer at his furry little friend, "What other secrets have you been keeping from me?"

----------

After a day of "weed cutting," the heroes were enjoying a brief respite as the surveyed the results of the work they'd done. One day's work of wiping out Devouring Earth, capturing Devoured monsters and cutting down twisted trees didn't look like much. Fortunately, the few loggers they had with them at the moment were able to assure everyone that they had made some progress, even if the Hamidon flexed a little to wipe it all out by the next day.

"Every little bit of damage we cause to that monster's forces causes Hamidon to expend energy against us," Zenflower announced, "Whether its his footsoldiers or the very ecology, we weaken him a little bit each day we work at this."

"That's all well and good, ma'am," a fire controller replied, "But I honestly feel exhausted after all of this. It's bad enough that a bunch of us owe the hospital after that big ambush, but I know I've got slivers embedded in my skin, I've got thorns stuck in me..."

"Oh boo-hoo!" Cedric shouted at him, "Get in line, pansy! You think this kind of work is any easier for people who don't have super powers? Bring gloves tomorrow! Wear something thicker than spandex! And, for God's sake, stock up on Greens!"

"Oh, it's easy for a tank to talk!"

"Easy!? I guess you weren't there to see the horde of thirty Devoured that rushed us, one for every one of us here, and there were only seven of us tanks holding them back! That was not fun, easy, or anything short of painful! Now, I'm not knocking you controllers, I saw you wipe out those Bladegrasses, Herders, Fungoids and nearly limitless bee swarms. All I'm saying is that this isn't meant to be easy! We can take these things! We're humanity -and human-like things...- we've wiped out whole species before!"

"That wasn't a good thing, Cedric," Roland interrupted, "In fact, it's one of the points of shame over the entire history of humanity."

"Okay, scratch that last part," the blonde tanker chuckled, "But you get my point, right?"

"Frankly, no," the controller replied, "I didn't come out here to be harassed by a bunch of salad ingredients and walking rocks!"

"Oh come on! What did you come out here for, then? I hardly ever see anybody out here! Except the few high-level heroes on their way to the Hive to get their [butts] handed to them by the monsters out there, this place is left to the wolves!"

"Mister Grey," Zenflower brought Cedric's arms down with a gentle tug, "I appreciate your passion for this, but I believe there is something much more important for you to be spending your energies upon."

"Like what?"

The green, leafy girl pointed over his shoulder and he turned to follow what she indicated. There, towering above him, was the gargantuan monstrosity that normally terrorized Crey's Folly known as Jurassik. It leaned it's craggy face close to the blonde man and let out a terrible roar. Pebbles bounced off Grey's face and armor.

"How the Hell does something that big sneak up on all of us?" he asked as Zenflower dove away and the gathered heroes scrambled to get back on their feet for the fight to come.

Cedric, however, had to contend with the fact that he was about to get hit with an old, rusty Dodge...

Wallace gasped as he noted the carnage taking place below. The Malta Group, Arachnos, and his friends and allies, all fighting for an upper hand that likely wasn't there.

"I don't know if-"

The energy beams erupted from the wrecked robot and started intercepting the incoming missiles. Knowing this was the opportunity he needed, Sheldon started plugging in the targeting coordinates for his allies and what looked to be his allies.

"I hope I've got this right," he breathed before hitting the teleporter's activation button.

Dale Simms, the Kingdale Referee, is the Tinker of the group. When they need repairs done or devices created, he's the one they turn to to slap the machine together. He helped construct the Dropship, the BWO's offshore base and their staging areas in Paragon City and the Rogue Isles. The fact that he has no idea where the last two actually are had little bearing on his capabilities with those areas.

Referee Outfit

Dale's standard outfit. This is a referee outfit similar to the one he wore in his backyard wrestling days. It has packs and pouches to hold his shield-making devices and battery packs for his sonic amplifiers. Miniature speakers are dotted throughout the uniform, though the majority of sonic effects erupt from his gauntlets.

Medium Armor

Dale's armored suit enables him to generate more shields and more sonic effects with less strain on the batteries. He can also pack more into the suit than he can on his utility belt. Furthermore, this outfit provides him with all of his necessary transportation systems and a bit more armor than a his shields. It's slightly less mobile than his unarmored concept.

Power Armor

This is a heavy version of the prior armor. There's no change in the energy output, but the efficiency is ramped up by a factor of five. Dale can run his shields longer and hardly ever has to worry about recharging the power cells (which require a couple hours of being plugged in to any normal electrical socket every other week).

The armor's unwieldy, but it's tough. It also has enough actuators and pneumatics to enable the defender to carry more weight and move quickly despite the apparent "clunkiness" of the outfit.

Daren Simms is the middle brother of the Simms siblings and general front-runner in their cooperative endeavors. He was the pilot of the dropship and currently serves as one of the helmsmen of the new trawler Transport, the Captured Dream.

A Stalker by definition, Solo has access to a set of black rings that allow him to tap into negative energies. These energies shroud and protect him, as well as add a powerful and nasty backing to his attacks. Enemies are often left feeling unnaturally cold when he fights them, which further assists in his defense as they lose some of their very drive.

However, the rings have had a peculiar effect on Solo's own physiology. He can control it, but it seems he's becoming an essence of shadow himself. The effect completely disappears when he removes the rings, so he's considering the possibility that it's the artifacts themselves just growing more powerful.

Standard Outfit

This is Solo's typical outfit. It comes from his early days of being a backyard wrestler.

Shadow Arms

Here you can see Solo's arms have become like shadow. It's not really shadow, but the stuff definitely not skin nor is it cloth. Sometimes, it seems almost fluid, but in the end it always turns back to normal.

Black and Gold

Here, the darkness has spread across the stalker's body. Simms didn't seem too concerned by the condition, however, and has actually dressed to expand on the appearance. Apparently, he's able to pull the darkness back some, too.

New segment in Grey's Army.

There are scenes I want to do, and others I have to. This is sort of a blend of the two.

Roland had just sat down to eat his dinner when there was a knock at the door. Grumbling, he rose to answer it. Of all the people he expected, his brother was not one of them. Cedric’s beaming face towered above, and the younger sibling could only wonder what was going on.

“You ready to kick some [butt]?” the white-blonde tanker asked.

“No,” the shorter and rounder one replied as he made his way back to his dinner, “I’ve been going up and down stairs all day trying to find the building super. I finally got a hold of the building manager to find out that he quit.”

“Bummer. What do you need him for?”

“I have a leak in my bathtub. I could fix it myself, it just needs some caulk, but work has to be done by the building supervisor or else I’ll lose my deposit.”

Cedric’s smile turned into a lopsided grin as he chuckled a little to himself.

“So? What the building’s owners don’t know can’t hurt ya. I fix stuff in my apartment all the time!”

“Yeah, well, I’ve never been blessed with your kind of luck.”

Roland started eating while his brother paced about the rooms. Cedric wasn’t necessarily an impatient man, but when he wanted something to get done, he could be a little overbearing. The younger brother worked at consuming his brother while the tanker made his way for the bathroom.

“Roland?” he called out after a flushing noise was heard, “Do you have a girlfriend you’ve been keeping secret from your family?”

“What?” the pudgy defender asked as he turned to see his brother walking into the living room.

Cedric tossed a box to Roland. At first, he couldn’t tell what it was. However, he suddenly remembered seeing the exact same product in the bathroom at their parents’ apartment. It was a product women typically required.

“I didn’t bring this in here,” he growled, “How did…”

The implications were a little staggering. After some consideration, the bearded young man set the box on his coffee table. He had a long conversation about boundaries ahead of him with someone he knew would be unlikely to listen to him about it. Still, his head was pounding with the question, “Why?”

“So?” Cedric rested his elbow on his younger brother’s shoulder, “Is she hot?”

“While the girl is attractive,” Round replied, “she’s just a friend. I’d appreciate it if you’d let this go.”

The tanker was about to say something out of spite, but he thought better of it when he saw the look on Roland’s face. Finally, he patted his brother’s shoulder and went into the kitchen.

“So, I’ve been contracted to do some clearing in a region called Eden. You heard of it?”

“Yeah,” the defender grunted as he finished off the last of his potatoes, “Why?”

“Well, I wanted to bring you and Matt out there with me and the Ryats. Ninety-nine, Sixty-six, and Ten.”

“We should probably bring nester, too.”

“Good thinking,” Cedric started typing the number out on his communicator, “We’ll be meeting Zenflower at the entrance and she’ll fill us in on the details. Apparently Woodsman’s spirit’s getting either restless or fed up with the Devouring Earth, so he’s calling all available heroes to help clear that area out. Me? My plan involves chopping down a lot of trees.”

“That’s gonna make those monsters angry,” the defender replied as he shook his head slowly.

“I know!” the eldest Grey sibling laughed, “That’s the idea! Then we herd them into a wood chipper…”

“That’s pretty brutal…”

“Well, you in?”

Roland finished his drink and set his dishes in the sink. He chewed his lower lip while he mulled over the idea. Finally he nodded and Cedric let out a triumphant whoop.

“Well, dinner’s done, bro, let’s get started!”

“It’s almost dark out!”

“It’s just a survey right now,” the tanker “The real stuff starts tomorrow.”

“Alright, just let me get my bow and quiver and I’ll be ready to go.”

----------

“This is the place?”

Kip stared at the domestic looking house in the middle of one of the suburbs surrounding Paragon City. A lot of heroes didn’t understand why they only patrolled the major business districts, but the truth of the matter was that was where the action happened. Out here in the suburbs, you’d have to be a really sick psychopath to go after people’s kids and pets.

Still, such things happened. A couple yards over, Kip could see the remains of a person’s yard. Some rogue had landed hard after getting knocked out of the sky with an air superiority attack. He remembered reading something about a kidnapping that had been foiled out here, but had lost interest when he found out it was a toy-breed dog that had been stolen.

To his left, he could hear a minivan backing over somebody. Looking, he saw what looked to be a man used to pain waving cordially to the female driver and her kid. He could swear he heard something about “I’ll get you next time!” but it sounded like a friendly jab, and became especially disconcerting when he said “So, you’ll be back by five? I’ll make sure he’s had his nap.” Perhaps the metahuman life was becoming far too commonplace, people were starting to act like heroes and villains, regardless of need, and it was leading to some strange circumstances.

As the minivan passed behind him, Kip approached the house. It looked just like all the other ones on this street, only white instead of yellow or blue. Frankly, the neighborhood was a kaleidoscope of color, but the structures were all the same, basically boxes with boxes attached to them and pyramid, trapezoidal or triangular roofs on top. They all looked the same, as if the architects had assigned each plot with a number and told the contractors to “One, Two, Three, Four, Bob! What’s so hard about that? Boy, we sure do lack imagination.” Plastic white picket fences separated the properties along arbitrary boundaries, turning each plot into a nice, neat square with a short front yard and a wide back yard. In reality, the property lines probably drew and quartered people’s houses, often in jagged cuts, some much larger than others, but nobody wanted to go through the hassle, so they didn’t check the records.

“Just a second!” a familiar voice shouted after Kip hit the doorbell, “Hang on! Wait! I’m coming!”

The door opened and a portly, haggard-looking, dark-skinned man stood before Kip. When he recognized the scrapper hero, the former Tirailleur cursed a little.

“Good to see you recognize me,” Kip replied.

“Just barely,” Graves grumbled back, “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Nemesis.”

“I don’t work for them anymore. After my last arrest, I was discharged. I’d been looking so hard for one of you Grey’s Army goons, I didn’t notice this other hero at my back when I had that Cedric guy in my sights. My superiors felt I had too many mental issues, so they cast me out.”

“What? Why didn’t you stay in prison?”

“They don’t want people like me in the Zig. They’ve got enough aimless minions. What they want now are the big fish, they just fine us little guys and send us on our way. It’s why criminals like Archon Roget and Lieutenant Krieg get out of the Zig every other day. The legal system is looking to get the guys like Nosferatu and Captain Mako. They only keep the ones with information that leads to them.”

Kip shook his head angrily.

“Yeah, I know, you don’t believe I’m done. Come on inside…”

Graves led the scrapper to the basement. Kip had his misgivings, but the former sniper waved off his concerns exasperatedly.

“If this were a Nemesis construction, we’d have both been slashed to ribbons by now and replaced with Automatons. Frankly, neither of us is important enough for that.”

“Well,” Kip nodded his consent to that logic, “Now I just feel insulted…”

“Tell me about it. Now you know how I felt when I got my pink slip.”

In the basement, Graves gestured to a suit of broken steam-powered armor. Whatever working bits there were had long-since been removed. Graves’s rifle sat in the corner, broken to bits.

“No Nemesis technology is allowed to be kept, but they let me keep the artistic parts of the equipment. I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do with it, maybe get it refurbished and shiny before mounting it up on my mantle.”

“So you’ve got nothing more to do with them?”

“Other than the guy they send to passive-aggressively remind me not to talk about anything I might know? No.”

“Who do they send?”

“I remember him as Captain Reynolds,” Graves replied, “He drops by, asks how the wife and kids are, how I’m doing working as an ice cream man and a janitor, and asks about my new poker buddies. I guess if Captain Amazing weren’t down the street, he’d leave me alone, but that’s paranoia for you.”

“You know a hero lives just down the street?”

“It’s public knowledge since some goon put a pothole in the street the size of a Mack truck with a laser satellite. Oddly enough, I still keep seeing the guy around here, but he doesn’t bother anybody else and he doesn’t seem to be bothering the Amazing family. The whole situation keeps the property value surprisingly down, too, so my taxes have been a lot cheaper lately.”

“Weird.”

“Well, I guess you’ll be staking this place out for Reynolds after this. Frankly, I’m wondering whether or not that was part of his plan.”

“Who’s?” Kip asked as they ascended the stairs again.

“Reynolds’s. The Nemesis Army is full of lies and deceit, all so their supposed leader can play head games with the heroes. He never considers what that’s doing to his troops…”

“Yeah, I thrashed an abandoned project of his, turned out he wanted it cleaned up anyway…”

Graves led Kip to the kitchen and offered him a glass of juice, “I can’t drink alcohol, I’ve got a cholesterol problem and the pills I’m taking give me diarrhea if I drink… Anyway, after a while, I would think even a Nemesis Conspiracy Cell would need some form of reaffirmation to make sure they were still relevant. Reynolds probably wants you or some kind of hero to drop by and kick his teeth in so he doesn’t feel unfulfilled.”

There was a ring at the doorbell and Kip arched his eyebrow at the former sniper. Graves shrugged and drank his orange juice.

---

Captain Reynolds looked at his watch as he listened to silence. Graves wasn’t rushing and stumbling over his family’s things in a rush to sweatily assure him that he hadn’t sold any secrets to the heroes. Something must have changed.

He was just about to radio for backup when the door clicked and opened. Looking up, Reynolds was surprised when he noticed the young Caucasian male grinning at him.

“What the-?” Reynolds was halfway through asking when Kip smiled and kicked him in the mouth.

----------

The gathered heroes of Grey’s Army surveyed the landscape of Eden and collectively sighed. Cedric added a little commentary.

“Man, this job is going to be a real pain in my left butt cheek.”

“Uh…” Roland looked down and tapped his brother’s shoulder, “Ced, there’s a Rikti Monkey chewing on your right cheek…”

“Yeah, he’s been at it for a few hours,” the tanker grinned, “I’ve got some beef jerky in there he’s trying to get. I’m thinking of calling him Spike.”

“You think you can keep it?” Matt asked as he rooted through his backpack.

“I don’t see why not.”

“Okay guys,” Zenflower hopped into prominent view and made sure everybody had their attention on her, “I trust that by now, your team leaders have appraised you of the situation. Things in Eden are coming to a head, and nature-affiliated heroes such as myself and Woodsman are trying to push back the tide of the Devouring Earth. For that, we need the efforts of heroes like you…”

She indicated the assorted metahumans. There were roughly thirty of them. With any luck, they would be able to clear out some of the twisted vegetation and possibly recover a few of the Devoured to extricate the humans from the bizarre mutant plant matter.

“So, does anybody have any questions?” the green, leaf covered girl asked cheerily.

“What exactly are we doing?” a defender asked, “The call was a little light on details.”

“Well, the Devouring Earth were a little aggressive a short while ago. Some evil genius in Arachnos infected them with a concoction called Force of the Earth… I dealt with it, and was working to turn back the monsters with the newfound control I had over them, but a group of rogues ambushed me and Hamidon took back control.”

She seemed saddened by that. It was understandable. If she had succeeded, it would have been a tremendous strike in the cause of order and justice… Or at least a great leap forward in driving back the Devouring Earth.

“…Now we need to push back this twisted ecology so that a more natural one can take hold. It’s going to take time, perhaps years, to drive all of this devastated landscape back to the Hive… Then we can go to war with Hamidon from a position of strength.”

There were grumblings of agreement from the gathered heroes. Cedric and his crew were getting impatient, however.

“Look, can we get this on?” Mattock asked as he pulled a machine from his backpack, “I’ve got a new machine that’s itching to be tried out!”

“Is that a chainsaw?” another scrapper asked with horror.

“Kind of,” Matt chuckled, “It’s got a loch swimmer’s skull for most of the body, some molten Pangean Soil to fill in some of the gaps… The teeth on the chain are carefully cut diamonds and it runs on Black Blood of the Earth. The blade the chain rests on is made of shavings from the bones of Adamastor. That was actually the toughest part to get. The rest is typical chainsaw parts…”

“What the Hell!?” a wizard shouted.

Zenflower merely bit her lip worriedly as she looked at the beaming McGinty and his monstrous weapon.

“Trust me, this thing’s built to kill two things, the Devouring Earth and zombies. I don’t see any of the latter here, so…”

He revved the engine up and a pair of glowing orange eyes blazed furiously while the chain spun wildly. Fire seemed to leap from the chain, and the jaws of the skull moved, like the monster it was from was actually trying to consume again. Mattock cackled madly as it worked.

“Just keep that thing away from the Devoured…” Zenflower replied, “There are normal people in there, and I don’t want them getting hurt. Now, come on people, let’s push these things back with love!”

“No!” Cedric was halfway through his leap when he heard that last part, “Not with love! With extreme prejudice! These things don’t respect love!”

“I’m in charge here and we’re doing it with love!”

Matt was pushing the roaring chainsaw artifact into the chest of a Herder. The monster was thrashing violently and falling to pieces.

“Yes!” the scrapper concurred with a vicious grin, "Such exquisite love!"

How about Dune Wolf?

Dustin Simms, the elder of the super-powered Simms brothers and his cousin, Jared, is the near-titanic tanker and enforcer for the Brutal Warriors Order. His powers come from a magic artifact called the Granite Grip, a tablet that merged into his hand and mutated his body. As such, he now sports similar rock armor as Randall Grey, though there are other perks as well.

His weaponry is varied, though his favored weapon for wailing on villains and a few overzealous hero-types (sometimes people can be too uncompromising until they get the sense knocked into them) is the Black Mauler, an enchanted, unbreakable morningstar. The weapon doesn't do any special damage, like emitting flames or smiting down the undead, but its resilience does have advantages like propping open doors or smashing through robots without worry for damaging it. Slater also uses hammers and a baseball bat, though the Mauler comes in more handy for most encounters.

Simple Outfit

King Slater's "I'm out of bed and ready to fight" outfit. He takes his trusty baseball bat, Excalibat, and starts wailing on his opponents. The weapon has a minor enchantment similar to the Mauler's, but it's not quite as strong and can be broken with the right incantations.

Gray Jacket

Dustin's "I mean business" outfit, he dons his jacket, concrete-stained pants and whips out the Black Mauler. It's about this time that bad guys start wetting themselves...

Denim Trench Coat

This isn't as serious an outfit as King's prior one. The symbol on the front of his T-shirt is the symbol of one of his favorite punk bands, Bad Faith and the trench coat is made of denim.

It's all good. It gave me some time to consider where to take my other projects.

Don't worry, though, I've still got the elements of the story on the forefront of my mind.

I've added another section to the Air Guard.

Captain Carter delves some into what's driving him and executes a pair of infiltrators (one "on-screen" the other is implied). It's a little unsettling in its insinuations, but the violence is actually minimal.

Fun Fact: the four individuals assisting Carter are named after the Guide and three most consistent Squad Leaders of my boot camp platoon.

I'm working on it, Tech. Unfortunately, I already submitted next week's. If nothing particularly earth-shattering arrives (or matures properly; I like to give the stories at least a week's time to be built), I'll give it a go after the next Scoop.

Weeks went by and the Air Guard transitioned into routine. Carter had trained up a group of Guardsmen that he could trust to train the next crops of troops. He was fortunate Captains Rachek, Anderson and Daniels approved of them, it made getting on to this next little matter so much easier.

As things stood, the Air Guard was controlled by the three captains. Rachek as the visionary head, Anderson the number cruncher, and Daniels commanded the front line. There was also a consul of other captains, but everybody knew the triad was the one in control. Still, that didn't make it any form of autocracy. At its current stage of development, the Guardsmen viewed each other like a brotherhood. Sometimes, Carter wished it could stay that way.

As he walked to his destination, he pondered on his name. Carter. It was the name the Group had given him, the name he introduced himself to the Sky Raiders North Atlantic Fleet's Third Wing Commander, and the only name he could remember. He vaguely remembered his mother and father. He couldn't remember if he had any siblings, but then, he was much older than them if they existed, anyway.

The Group had taken his identity away. They took his old life away. Before, Carter wondered if the old one was worth keeping. People typically didn't make choices like that if they have something to lose, though sometimes, they do it because they have everything to lose if they don't.

It was troubling. He couldn't trust his memory. He'd been so many different people, so many different lives, lies, schemes, scams, tricks, traps, baits, cons, and all other manner of scum and villainy. Was it any wonder that some part of him was screaming for something more? Something right?

Apparently the Group wondered. They wondered about everything and everyone. Paranoid bureaucrats, businessmen and Machiavelli aspirants, everyone, they took most of the world's conspiracy theories and rolled them into one all-inclusive monstrosity. The magnitude of it was staggering, yet they were just as leery of acting overtly as covertly. Until the "Hero/Rogue Equation" could be balanced, the Malta Group Directors were going to stay just as scared as they always have been.

It was because they were scared that they'd sent this dimwit to keep tabs on the goings-on of the Sky Raiders, and by extension, the Air Guard. It doesn't matter that the second group is still small, the Directors need their intel on every little detail on the planet so they could sleep cozy in their beds.

"Sergeant Michaels," he growled into the mostly barren engineering bay, "You requested to see me?"

The sergeant turned from the engine he was working on and raised his pistol at the captain. However, he found that Carter already had a pistol leveled at him.

"Let's make this quick, shall we?" the former Gunslinger growled, "I've got to dispatch Lieutenant Holland, too. Nemesis wormed a guy in from the Raiders."

"What gave me away?" the sergeant asked.

"Enough people talking about you putting in long hours, yet others saying that they always seem behind on schedule. There was more stuff, but you really weren't doing a good job with your sabotage. Did you think that since this is a -lower your weapon- this is a smaller operation, you could get creative? I said, lower your weapon."

"Sergeant Michaels" lowered his pistol. He was young. This was probably his first mission.

"If you'd just stuck with what you were taught, you probably could have strung this out for another few weeks, months even. You probably could have done some real damage, but you were hoping to make an impression. Now, you're caught, and I have to decide what to do with you. Frankly, I'm inclined to put a round in your head and not even bother with telling Lieutenant Holland how he messed up. Here's a hint, a steam-powered cellular phone is not a hobby item."

"You have to tell your commander about me!" Michaels nearly shouted, "You have to-"

"I don't have to do anything, I'm counterintelligence for this little endeavor," a red light emitted from under the barrel of Carter's pistol, shining a dot on the infiltrator's forehead, "When I find one of you guys, I decide what happens in the end."

Michaels didn't wait. He raised his pistol to fire, only to be put down by the veteran marksman. Carter shook his head sadly, and called on his radio.

"O.O.D., send whoever's on duty with you to clean up a mess in Engineering Bay Three. Sergeant Michaels was a bit of an accident."

"Sir?"

"Just send Lugo, Jamieson, Austin and Houston over- oh, here they are. Don't worry, the situation's well-in-hand. I'll have a situational report done up for you by morning."

The four Guardsmen, young men who'd come to the Air Guard fresh out of high school, stepped into the engineering bay and looked worriedly at the corpse and the bloody floor. Carter regarded them. Each had his own histories with violence. They were not strangers to death. They'd come here to get away from their pasts, or those in their pasts who would haunt them unless they learned how to protect themselves.

Here, they were going to learn their first lesson.

"Disposal," Carter growled, "It is the one thing that will trip you up. The legal system of any and every nation is mired with those who committed to their vengeance but did not follow through on making sure nobody knew it was them. Some deserved their fates. Others... Not so much. The world has a deep distrust of vengeance. Fortunately, I'm not teaching you vengeance, I'm teaching you how to cover your tracks should you ever have to resort to what I'm doing now. I'm just using vengeance as an analogue to better coincide with the most likely paths your life will turn. If the psychobabble is confusing, I apologize, but it's the only way to help most people get through this next part. If you've never butchered an animal before, the rest of this process can be quite disconcerting."

The guardsmen looked to each other worriedly and turned back to Carter, who was pulling the body aside. Austin started to step forward to help, but the captain waved him aside.

"That will be the next lesson. Don't worry, it will happen within a couple hours."

"Sir, this seems a little..."

"Underhanded, I know. It's hard to dispose of a body secretly in front of everybody. Once we're done here, we can toss him over the side, smash a whiskey bottle with his fingerprints on the floor, and suddenly we find out why the engineers are behind on schedule despite the good sergeant spending nearly all night every night in here. He was depressed, an alcoholic, and in his inebriated state, fell over the side."

"But, the blood?" Houston asked.

Houston was an interesting one. A brute's body with a tactician's mind (albeit unrefined), he was the leader of this small group. Jamieson was similarly brute-like and much taller than his friend, but he had a spiritual core that rivaled some of the most pious of monks.

Austin and Lugo were devoted. Where others would turn tail and run, they held the line. Whether to cover their friends or just to simply avoid giving up, they were consistently the last ones out of a fight. In several simulations they'd run, the two had been the last on the field, standing amongst a group of repeatedly painted opponents while only suffering a few "nonlethal" hits themselves.

It was amazing they'd never met before coming to the Air Guard. The four complimented each other well, and soon, they would make up what Carter needed to ensure the organization's safety from other, less noble organizations.

"It only has to be explained if you don't clean it up properly. Get a tarp. There's more to come."

----------

Rachek looked over the report Carter handed him. It was the truthful account about what had happened the night prior, and not the one handed to the Officer on Duty. Now, two infiltrators were dead, their implanted recording devices removed from their corpses (not gently, either), and the bodies dumped over the side of the base into the ocean below. The devices were turned over to the engineers with instructions to find out where they were transmitting to.

"Did you know him?" the older man asked as he set the folder down, "The one who called himself Michaels."

"No. I don't know, I might have. He didn't look familiar, though."

"Think there are more?"

Carter sighed, "If there aren't, there will be. If not my old friends, then Nemesis assuredly. It's not like the Arachnos and Freedom Corps agents I'm keeping tabs on. Oh, by the way, we need to get ready for an Arachnos envoy in the next couple weeks. It depends on how busy Ghost Widow is."

"Holy..." this put the Air Guard commander at a loss, "Well, I guess I have to prepare for that... She's not gonna be happy to see me again."

"I thought not. I have a suggestion, though I don't know quite how well it will work."

"Oh?"

Carter pulled a cigarette from the pack carried in his shoulder pocket and placed it in his mouth.

"You ever hear of Veluta Lunata?" he asked before lighting the cancer stick with a wooden match.

Excellent story, Sam.

Finally, I was able to come up with another addition to Grey's Army. At long last, Kipland gets some closure with his Rikti-fied former girlfriend.

He'd been needing to do this for some time. It just seemed that every moment he scheduled it, something came up. Council attacks, Nemesis cells, Crey, Arachnos... The world was full of monsters, and they all had to be stopped.

It wasn't until his brother pushed him away from a fight that Kip started to see what he was doing. Nester had told him that the group he was with was fine. To demonstrate, he zapped a Crey Mob Specialist in the face with a microwave blast. Nester was fine. He didn't need protecting.

"Let the rest of us do our job, brother. Take a break."

Kip wasn't taking breaks. He woke up, ate breakfast, then started hunting for bad guys to put in the Zig. He'd been falling behind on his paperwork, and it caused a lot of the bad guys to walk free. That didn't matter to Kip, though. He could just hunt them down again, later.

Zeke finally stopped him and sat him down. This caused the young scrapper to lash out at his own father, but Zeke still had more than a few tricks up his sleeve. Before he knew it, Kip had been flipped over and smashed through the gray-haired man's coffee table. Something must have gotten knocked loose, because after that, he started to listen.

Kip wasn't a fan of psychiatrists. He didn't like how they looked at their work as a "Be All, End All" method of looking at the brain and how a human works. However, their insights as to a person's behavior provided a near-limitless resource of advice, if one just knew how to examine it.

Fortunately, the therapist Agent Wild assigned Kip to was extremely helpful. She was calm, patient, and let Kip talk about what was bothering him. She didn't fall into a lot of the classic tropes seen in media. She didn't try to turn him against anyone in his family or his circle of friends, in fact, she suggested that he needed to open up to them more.

However, she noted that he needed closure in one particular area of his life. It was like a gaping wound, leaking all over everything he did and clouding it with drama. It was the very meeting he wanted to avoid.

"Greetings: Kipland Durj."

Kip looked through the bulletproof glass and frowned. The Rikti on the other side cocked her head to the side slightly and shrugged.

"Query: Dysfunction/Problem/Dilemma?" the translator warbled at him.

"I don't know if it's your communicator or if that's really how you think of me," the young man replied, "Kipland Durj. You used to call me Kippers, honey, and other things."

"Desire: Translator. Truth: Both. Translator: Basic Model. Understands: Only Subjects."

"But there is the fact that you're no longer the same girl I fell in love with."

"Hypothesis: Correct. Hypothesis: Incorrect."

It was getting weird that he could understand all of this. She was still the same girl he loved, just not, now that she was a Rikti and embroiled in their schemes.

"So, which side are you on now?"

"Discussion: Lk'Onik, C'Kelkah, Traditionalists. Joined: Traditionalists. Seek: Peace, Answers."

Kip looked away from the window.

"But not a cure."

"Cure: Nonexistent."

"There has to be!" Kip suddenly pounded his fist on the glass, "There has to be a way to bring you back! They're trying to find a way for Hero One, they've gotta be able to find a way for you!"

"Cure: Nonexistent. Need: Nonexistent."

"Bull-[dreck]!"

The scrapper collapsed into the chair provided and shuddered briefly. He was struggling to hold back the tears.

"This is all my fault," he whimpered.

"Query?"

"If I had been there... I could have helped... I could have..."

"Negative. Synopsis: False."

"Oh, screw this!" Kip jumped up and shouted to an orderly, "Open this door, right now! I can't stand hearing this tinny piece of [dreck] anymore!"

The orderly made a protest, but the scrapper deftly yanked his keycard from where it dangled off the man's chest and swiped it in the card slot. The man stumbled back as the brown-haired hero turned to the door as it opened.

"Much better than me blasting the lock apart, don't you think?"

The orderly ran to get security. The guards wouldn't be necessary. Kip walked into the cell and walked up to Amy.

"Talk to me," he whispered, "Help me understand."

The Rikti looked to the translator, then looked back to Kip. She reached her right claw to his left temple and nodded.

"Request: Hold Still."

There was a sensation that wasn't quite pain and wasn't quite pleasure. It was, however, intense. Kip blinked from it, and when he opened his eyes, he was standing on an asteroid.

The Asteroid. It was different, though. Gone was the magnificent expansive light of the Shadow Shard. it wasn't even the dark purplish haze that seemed to permeate the region around the Storm Palace. It was just dark here, with a few strands of light worming their way throughout.

In the distance, the rotten corpse of the monster he could have been was sitting behind a small, well-endowed blonde girl in tight clothes. Amy Taylor, from the last time he'd seen her.

"Hiya, Kippers," she said, "I didn't want to do this. It's dangerous, but you're right, that machine wasn't helping matters."

"Amy... Oh my God..."

He started running toward her, but the ground only seemed to expand between them.

"Don't, Kip," she explained, "It's dangerous enough being this close. If our minds get too close, there's a chance that very bad things could happen. For instance, thoughts you don't want me to know could leak into my mind, or the opposite. I know we've both done some pretty shocking things in our lives..."

She turned and nudged the corpse with her shoe.

"Very shocking."

"I'll tell you about it sometime," Kip muttered and sat down, folding his arms over his knees, "For now, though, there's us."

"Yes, us."

"I'm so sorry, Amy."

"You said that already," the girl blinked, then her head rolled to the side perplexedly, "What I don't understand is why. What could you have done?"

"I don't know... Something..."

"You'd have been killed, or turned, like me."

Her voice still sounded like flowers...

"Really? What kind?"

Kip looked up at her.

"Well, I keep thinking of tulips, really..."

"That's sweet... Oh... Oh, we got off track. We can't elt that happen, Kip. It's dangerous."

"Right."

They sat in silence for a moment. The scrapper was actually surprised. He'd expected a dreamscape conversation to be more mist-shrouded, or to have some form of echo to it. Instead, it was just him sitting on the opposite side of a rock from his old flame. It hurt that he couldn't be next to her.

"I know it hurts, Kip," she squeaked, "It hurts me, too."

Amy sighed and pulled her hair back. Instantly it was done up in a scrunchy.

"I could have stopped them from doing this to you."

"You need to stop beating yourself up over this, Kip. I asked them to change me."

"What?"

It felt like he'd just been kicked in the stomach. He didn't understand...

"I thought you were dead. I spent the following months, my superiors explained it was more like a year, in a complete funk. I just wandered aimlessly, always out of their way, but I was a sad reminder of the damage they were doing. I saw the wasteland they'd turned Kingdale into and I thought you were gone forever, and that little light inside of me seemed to just vanish."

"But..."

"Eventually, they had some of their mentalists sit me down and have a conversation with me. They worked in much the same way as we are now, appearing to me as my mother and my aunt. They didn't pretend to be either, though, and explained how sorry they were for the damage they had been causing. Things were different between us and them. They thought we were all military, that all of humanity worked toward the same goal, like they did."

"That explains their Total War strategy..."

"It wasn't until they felt the anguish of their prisoners they started to notice their mistake, but by then, it was too late. They were in too deep, and they had to see it through, one way or another. I figure they thought that if they could 'Riktify' all of humanity in this dimension, they could make peace again and try to repair the damage they had caused."

"That still doesn't explain why you asked them to change you!" Kip shouted, tears welling in his eyes.

"They said I could feel different. That with their group-think, I could learn to numb the pain of loss."

"Did it work?"

"Mostly," Amy sounded sad, "I still thought of you sometimes. Then, one day, I found you. You were a mess to look at, all machinery and humanity twisted together. Not as bad as those Freakshow monstrosities, but pretty bad, nonetheless. Then you drop kicked me in the face and it would be another three weeks until I saw you again."

"Oh my God..." Kip staggered to his feet, "I didn't know."

"It's alright, Kippers," she smiled and stood as well, "You couldn't have known. It's just like you couldn't have helped me. You need to stop beating yourself up over me. It just wasn't in the cards for us, not yet anyway."

"I understand," the scrapper croaked, "I guess."

They then hugged. They were about five seconds into the hug when Amy realized that the space between them had suddenly dropped to zero. She must have somehow materialized next to Kip during her explanation. Worried, she backed away then looked into her former lover's eyes.

"Oh my God," she whispered, "What will happen now?"

"Normally," Kip's voice toned from behind the scrapper and another Kip stepped around the quiet one, "You would have a catastrophic merging, and both of your bodies would wind up brain dead. Fortunately, humans have certain defenses against such things happening. A lot of psychics think of this as 'subconscious paranoia,' that we protect each other from our deepest, most private thoughts and fears to keep from becoming one. The fact of the matter is that we were never meant to be one, there would be no point to life if we were all the same. Rikti are somewhat connected to each other, but not too different from humans. The restrictions are just a little more fluid and malleable."

"What are you?" the girl asked the second Kip, "How can you know all of this?"

"I'm his Shadow, his soul, and a few other things, all rolled into one. One such thing is the very defense I just mentioned, largely relegated to subconscious control, but there are still a few conscious keys. Your dear Kippers, however, is not quite in the frame of mind to have any control over it, so I had to take over in order for this conversation to take place."

"Thanks, I think," the original Kip muttered.

"No problem. Perhaps now we can get to work on putting your mind back together."

"If you're his shadow," Amy tapped her elbow as she folded her arms over her chest, "Shouldn't you be his opposite?"

"A shadow is merely what a person would be without inhibition. Kip, I, have no inhibition, so there isn't much difference between us. However, your Kip is clouded in his day-to-day by the Noise of Life. Sometimes he needs me to advise him. With the troubles we've had in the recent couple of years, he's been in the right mental state for me to be able to do that."

"So, you're a schizophrenic personality?"

"Not exactly. I'm still him. I still think what he thinks, feel what he's supposed to feel, and we share other sensations. I don't try to take control, because, frankly, we'd pretty much do the same thing. It seems there isn't a dark version of us anywhere, even the Praetorian version of Kip was a freedom fighter."

"Strange."

"Well, it's time to say goodbye. The orderlies are coming back."

"Kip," Amy said to the original, "there is a way that we could be together again, but it's drastic."

"Turn me into a Rikti," Kip replied, "It's crossed my mind."

"And?"

"I think you know that if I wanted to do it, it would be done by now."

"Yeah," Amy looked back down at the ground, "You wouldn't be the same, anyway. I'm not this girl anymore."

"Some of you is," Kip brushed his fingers along her cheek, "Some of you will always be the girl I loved."

"And you will always be the young man that helped me get through one of the roughest times in my life," Amy hugged Kip again, "A part of me will always love you, but life has divided us, and we're not the same people we once were. It's time to move on."

"Right," Kip murmured into her shoulder, "Right..."

----------
The security team was full of angry faces, but no damage had been done. Rather than risk an incident with the authorities, the guards simply requested the scrapper hero to leave, which he was ready to do. Outside, he admired the sights, sounds and smells with a somewhat improved vigor.

"Are you feeling better?" the voice of his soul asked him.

"Yeah. A little. She doesn't blame me for what happened to her."

"If you were slightly less lucky, she would. Don't ignore this gift of fate."

"I know."

"So, what's the plan now?"

Kip looked up and down the street. He saw cars passing by, people milling about and the general din of life typical of any city. He also felt a small trembling under his feet. One of the Nemesis's Mole Machines had just passed through.

"I've got a loose end I want to tie up," he finally snapped, "Let's go find ourselves Tirailleur Graves and beat a location out of him."

Excellent setting of tone, Sam. You've got me at the edge of my seat.

There are a few grammatical and spelling errors dotted throughout this whole thing, but they appear symptomatic of feverish writing. There's heart in this. I can't wait to see how it all turns out.

I've posted a new section to the BWO, but it's more of a prelude for things to come for the group.

Plus it has some Coralax Hybrids getting filleted.

((This portion takes place after the first section few posts of the Co-Op Story thread))

"What the Hell part of 'Take a Vacation,' includes foiling a bank robbery!?"

Solo Stryker was fuming. It didn't help that he was going nearly out of his gourd with dark powers at his beck and call and unable to use them within city limits (except in cases of emergency or special circumstances like when Freedom Corps or law enforcement officials were overseeing the event), but they had just got their crazy knife-wielding scrapper back from his torment-filled captivity. They didn't need to be losing him again so soon.

"What would your brother say if he knew you were risking your neck like that?" the stalker growled.

"I guess he'd ask about the weird cyborgs that other hero and I ran into. They were a lot like that one we fought last year, you know?"

Solo arched an eyebrow at his friend, then turned to Justin Steel, who was sleeping in the corner of the Staging Area's central Arena.

----------

"Ugh, one step forward, two steps back," James grunted as he ascended the staircase, "We really need to drop by this base more often."

"Or we could consider the Air Guard's offer," Draven countered, "Then we'd just have to give it one good cleansing and be done with it. We could conduct all of our business through the Staging Areas."

"Yeah, but it helps to have a place we can just hang out and be ourselves, without the authorities messing with us."

They could have flown. However, a lot of the tools and implements they were carrying were unwieldy and heavy. It would have been slow-going in any case.

"Stop," Dale suddenly shouted from below, "Look at the rail!"

Draven didn't see what his cousin was talking about, but James did. Pointing with a nod of his head, he indicated something on the rail of the staircase.

"Looks like a calcium deposit," he explained, "Kind of like..."

"Coral?" Draven asked worriedly.

When they got to the top, they found King Slater at the end of his third teleport. He was bringing up the crates of stuff that were too heavy for them to carry, but his particular brand of teleportation enabled him to dematerialize and reform the objects wherever he needed them to go (provided he needed them to go to a solid surface connected to other solid surfaces).

"What the Hell's taking you guys so long?" the tanker gasped as he sat down to take a break, "Here I am, three crates of spare parts and an engine block, and you guys just got here with brooms and hammers..."

"Not all of us can 'swim' through steel," Draven replied, "You didn't happen to see anybody here, did you?"

"What? No..."

There was a creaking at the main hatch to the base's barracks. Slater pushed himself up from his sitting position and peeked around the crate.

"When you and your brother were here, you guys shut the door, right?" Draven asked.

"Yeah, I flew up here and checked, myself," Ragin' James replied, "Somebody's been here."

The collected meta humans approached the hatch cautiously. They were about halfway to it and standing in the middle of the platform when it opened fully and the first "fish-man" stepped out.

He was green, stony, and only barely resembled the man he had once been. His gaunt form waddled out of the door, and he was dragging an Arachnos generator behind him. When he looked up and saw the gathered members of the Brutal Warriors, he turned his ridged head back to the door and emitted a wet, guttural moan. The wet slapping sound that followed indicated that the group would soon be with company.

"I wonder if they taste like salmon," Draven chuckled.

The others just turned and glared at him.

"What? Psych's not here, somebody's gotta say the sick or weird thing."

"No," James countered while shaking his head, "Just, no. That's just dumb. Dumb."

"It is pretty dumb," Dale agreed.

"Totally, man," Slater finished while drawing the Black Mauler, "Besides, I think we better stay focused for this. If what I've heard about these guys is true, they don't [frig] around..."

The Coralax. The group wasn't particularly well-known, but those who had experience with them knew to fear them. The fish people were a dangerous lot, with designs for the world far more alien than most of humanity could even begin to comprehend.

For some reason, they had wandered far from their normal territory, which was just outside the Rogue Isles. They had come here, to the BWO offshore rig, because it was abandoned and still had some remnants of technology. Whether they intended to take it over or not was a question left for another time, however, as they didn't seem to be very forthcoming with information as it was.

A red-tinged Coralax Hybrid stepped out of the derrick's hatch and was followed by a number of glue and green-tinged underlings. They regarded the Brutal Warriors with a mixture of curiosity and contempt. The meta-humans looked back with weapons of steel and flesh ready to carve and smash.

"Bloody them," the Red Hybrid gurgled.

Suddenly, King Slater was among them. The Black Mauler whirled about and he brought knocked a few hybrids silly. Rage dove ahead of Draven and barreled through the creatures, electricity sparking off of him and frying their brains. Draven's black sword cut some of them open.

This wasn't like dealing with the Devoured. There was little to nothing left of the humanity that was the base of these twisted creatures. Only a very few of their number had broken free of the Will that dominated their lives, and they were still very dark and twisted.

So, it was with little remorse that many of the Coralax Hybrids died in that moment. Draven seemed to fight with a bit more vigor than the others expected, but then, he was a fan of the literature of Loveking, so he had some nasty notions about how far the Coralax were willing to go.

Ragin' James caught two of the green ones and slammed them together. Holding them to the deck, he tripped a blue one rushing toward the Referee (who was busy shielding his brother, cousin and friend) and pulled him into the pile. Held there, he proceeded to crush the life out of them with his flight and super strength.

Dale wasn't a pushover, though. Another Blue Hybrid rushed him, spraying ice at the shield-emitting defender, and the two tumbled across the deck as the creature bowled him over. Dale recovered slowly, but it was a feint. As the Hybrid loomed over him to spit something into the young man's mouth, Dale yelled, and the speakers dotted throughout his outfit amplified the noise. The focused sonic waves tore open the Hybrid's mouth, scattered the fluids to the wind, and sent the creature sprawling. Black ichor oozed from many of its pores and orifices.

The only one to escape unscathed was the Red Hybrid. She fought her way to the edge, blinding the Brutal Warriors with her ice sprays and psychic attacks. However, King Slater was still more mobile than she could mitigate, and as he appeared beside her, bits of steel flaking off his body, she dove off the side and into the sea. A few Blue Hybrids escaped to the other side of the platform and hurled their broken bodies over the side as well. It was a long plummet, and Dale was certain only the red one had a chance at surviving.

"What the Hell was that all about?" Draven shouted as the pounding blood in their ears started to slow, "What the [frig] are they doing here?"

"I can't believe that just [frig]ing happened!" Rage concurred, "Fish people? Here?"

"Alright let's calm down!" Dale announced, "We've got some corpses, let's get them down to the ship and get these back to Paragon. Once they're out of our hands, I'm sure we can let this all go."

"Cool... Good idea..." his cousin breathed.

"I just have to go inside and see what they messed with."

"What about the bodies?" James barked.

"You guys deal with them, and hurry up! We don't want Ringo getting [frig]ed with down there!"

Slater nodded as the other two looked to him. In an instant, he melted into the steel and was gone. He reappeared shortly thereafter in the Captured Dream, where Ringo was busy smoking a cigarette.

"You see anything weird?" the tanker asked.

"Other than someone falling into the drink?" the arsonist asked, "Nah. What happened up there? A fight?"

"Coralax."

"I figured. It's why I've got this..."

He held up a glass container filled with a clear liquid.

"Special accelerator. One squirt of this, they could very likely burn to the bottom of the ocean. Burns so hot it splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. Useful to have around in case of freaks that like the stuff."

Slater's face demonstrated the next question he had in mind and Ringo answered without needing to be asked.

"Arachnos acts like the Coralax are a new thing. Etoile fishermen have been dealing with all sorts of crazy things since even before Marchand's time. Run with any family of fishermen for an appreciable amount of time, they'll teach you their tricks of the trade. Some use acids, others explosives. My grandfather liked fire, and he used his still to concoct this explosive elixir. I have the recipe burned in my brain, so did my dad. I like to call it Clear Phosphorous, even though it's got nothing to do with that chemical."

"Weird, man."

----------

"So, it's not the Committee..." Solo sighed as Justin finished confirming that their old foes were in fact all washed up, "Then how would anybody else get these cyborgs?"

"Whoever made the design could have sold them," the business suit-clad mastermind replied sleepily, "We could probably arrange a meeting with Mr. Reynolds in the Zig."

"He won't want to talk with us," Levi intoned, "Not after what we did to him. Not after what the guys in the Zig will likely have done to him."

"I don't think we have any other choice," Solo replied, "Not unless you want to go looking for another cyborg."

Frankly, Sam, I'm glad to see you writing again. You've got some wonderful things cooking in that cranium of yours.

Having said that, this is a crazy piece of literature. I can't wait to see Part 2.