You've met Charly already, it sounds like. I'm X-Ray. X-Ray Foxtrot to be precise. I'd say 'nice to see you', but it's not that easy to see, especially in the dark like it is tonight.
It's morning? Sun's out? Geez, must be my optics again. S'cuse me, won't take but a second to fix them all up. They go on the fritz pretty often - they weren't mine to begin with, so they're kinda getting into a state of disrepair.
Guess I should explain how I got them, where I came from, huh? Eastern Europe - I can't really say too much more, I know that much from the files I found before I esca..
I'm getting ahead of myself again - sorry. Let's try that again.
I'm 17. Not the youngest Foxtrot, and definitely not the oldest. For ten of the last twelve of those years, I was a guest of Crey's europe branch. I don't know exactly what they were trying to find out - but I got put on the fast track to becoming a hired killer for them. I remember pretty clearly the day they took my eyes out. Not even a 'here you go, have a lollypop' or anything. What a way to treat a kid!
After that, it was 'Here's a bad man. Stare at the bad man.' Took me a month before the headaches went away enough to actually focus the beams from the optics they gave me. I still get them, way too often for my tas.. Doing it again, sorry, sorry.
I didn't really care with what I was doing at the time. I did it because they wanted me to, and I thought if I made them happy, they'd treat me better. Lab rats lived better - at least they got the reward at the end of the session. Instead, I got the electric shocks when I wasn't learning 'fast enough' or was 'behind schedule'. Talk about performance anxiety.
Foxtrot busted me out when I was 15. A raid to get the other kids out - to hit Crey where it hurt. I hadn't ever heard of them before - hell, I'd never even heard about a Playstation before. But seeing those other kids move - they were amazing. I wanted to be one, I knew that much. So I followed them. Tagged along on their retreat until they said 'You're free, kid.' I mimic'd the salute I saw them do. I guess they understood, cause I'm wearing their clothes now, their colors. Charly lets me use her gear sometimes - I love the acid mortar.
And I occasionally win in Madden.
People don't understand, I think - why kids fight. I wasn't anything but a tool before - and now, I'm more. I've got a family, and I've got friends. I've got a reason to do what needs to be done.
I'm a Foxtrot.
*comclick*
"X-Ray reporting, Charly. Go ahead."
All Hallow's Eve can be hell on your temper if you don't like kids. Doubly so when your boss does, or at least cares enough about his organization's public image to want to be thought of as family friendly, even in a place as decidedly family-unfriendly as the Rogue Isles.
Especially in a place like this, when you think about it. Of course, mooks delegated to doorman duty tend not to be picked for their capacity for deep thinking, and Marcus was no exception, so he'd so far spent the entire evening glaring at the bowl of candy treats as if it personally offended him, interrupted only by occasionally grudgingly offering some to the few kids that actually dared to go door to door, while his temper slowly boiled.
So when the doorbell suddenly ran again and this time kept ringing even as the familiar and hated chorus of "Trick-or-treat!" rang out, he grabbed the bowl and stomped angrily to the door, yanking it open without so much as checking the peephole first as he'd often been instructed to do.
A forgivable oversight, perhaps; certainly others would have made the same error in similar circumstances.
"All right, youse brats, knock it off, here's yer [censored] ca-"
He never got to finish his sentence as the girl adorably dressed up as a miniature commando raised what he'd been assuming was a plastic assault rifle and put a short five-round burst right through his heart. His companion, sitting in a chair five meters down the hallway, barely had time to scramble out of his seat and was still desperately trying to get his pistol out when a second, identical burst ended his life.
The girl calmly walked inside, checked the hallway for further immediate threats, and finding none, keyed the radio on her shoulder.
"Abe, Vic, Bravo. Charly here. Way's clear. Come on in."
Someone once said that it takes one virtuoso to truly comprehend the art inherent in another virtuoso's performance. Watching them on the closed-circuit security monitors, I'm forced to agree.
An untrained observer might be able to notice how they seem to mow their way through the opposition without slowing down much, but it takes an experienced eye to appreciate the level of training and skill it takes for a unit to move with such clockwork precision; how each member knows each of the others so well that they no longer have any need for actual communication -- when a situation changes, they simply move, implicitly trusting one another to cover the angles they're not covering.
Flanking attempts are blocked, attempted ambushes are anticipated and pre-empted, fortified positions (inasmuch as an office building provides any) are pinned down, flanked, and eliminated.
Beautiful.
"They really are quite something, wouldn't you agree?" I ask my companion, who maintains a frosty silence. Ah well.
I get out of this comfortable chair - nothing but the best for the Don's most trusted underlings, I suppose - switch off the CCTV, eject the tape and smash it. No need getting the kids into unnecessary trouble, after all.
I can hear the shooting coming from down the corridor now. They really are very efficient.
"I really ought to be going now. Nothing personal, you understand, but I'll need my sword back now..."
Jimmy the Meatman's body slumps a little as my sword stops pinning it to the chair he was sitting in when I caught him, and I place a kiss on his forehead as I take the silk handkerchief from his breast pocket.
I'm just about done cleaning my sword when the door crashes open under a pair of size 8 combat boots and their owners burst into the room, immediately crouching and turning toward the corners as the pair behind them moves straight in.
They're good, very good. Both of them immediately aim at me, but hold fire as they recognize a potential (but not actual) threat, then the girl who seems to have been in charge throughout this scans the rest of the room, spots what's left of their target, and groans. "Aw, man..."
By now they've scanned the room thoroughly, having found no threats, and all four are looking at me.
What do they see? A lithe figure, five feet seven, wearing black leather that's tight over curves that - she said modestly - are more than pleasant to look at, with a few glints of chrome and a bare handful of pouches on a belt.
They're looking at my face, now - or at least, the part of it they can see above the mask covering the lower half and nose. My mother used to say that I had very expressive eyes, but nowadays I suppose the only thing someone looking deeply into them will see expressed is "I'm going to kill you." so maybe that's not a good thing. I'm wearing my hair short, because a long ponytail can get in the way at the most irritating times.
I take a moment to smile brightly at them - not that they can see it, of course - and wink once, then I wave cheerfully while dropping a smoke bomb with my other hand.
Two of the kids yell out in alarm, but the girl shouts at them to maintain discipline, and they obey. Very impressive indeed. Still, no problems; a well-aimed stapler smashes through the window and as all four of them turn toward the sound I sneak out through the doorway they're no longer covering.
By the time they figure out where I went, I'm long gone into the streets. I'll be seeing them again sometime, I'm sure.
My name? They call me Mercy's Kiss.
What "mercy" do I represent, when I kill so many without the slightest remorse, I hear you ask?
A sharp edge.
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Council Interrogation Record #100532SED41455d - Striga - Command Station Epsilon-Delta-Four - 12th March 2005
Interrogating Officers: Vertex Elite Archon Stanley der Trihs, Vertex Elite Adjuctant Daniel Jaeger
Timestamp: 15:45
Begin recording
---------------
*hsssssssssssss-click*
Hmm?
Ah, right. Standard interrogation stuff then. Name: Foxtrot Romeo, Rank: Twenty-Fiver, Serial Number: 0-8F.
No, really, look, I have the barcode tattoo and everything. See?
Well I really don't see why it should suprise you, we get a lot of kids from the whole bioweapon development thing. Designed, bred and genetically altered by Crey, if you must know.
Tsk. Really, they need to work on prividing better intelligence to you chaps, of course they do that kind of thing, haven't you ever heard of the Revenant Hero- no? Really now... They provide you with poor information, but who is it that they expect to stand between them and the bullets? Right.
No, really, I assure you this is not an attempt at sowing dissent in the ranks Archon, I'm just naturally a very sympathetic person. I'm handcuffed to a chair in an interrogation room, I fail to see how it could be even remotely useful at this point anyway.
Well that's neither here nor there, although I must say I wouldn't mind a drink afterwards with that charming young adjuctant who made such a spirited attempt at caving my skull in. An interesting one, she is. You know, I do believe she's been immune to your pliancy ensuring drugs for several months now? Isn't spontaneous mutation in your little supersoldier proteges a marvelous thing... No? What do you make those boots out of anyway? There may very well be bruising, and I rarely bruise.
Oh yes, I quite agree, we are rather going off on a tangent, aren't we? Well basically, I'm here on orders to kill you. Nothing personal you understand. Business is business.
Really, you needn't be so scornful. The fact that your men (and your charming young adjuctant friend) caught me, stripped me of my firearms and tied me up doesn't mean I am in any way an inferior assassin.
Well, I would contest that. You see, I was pretty much designed from the ground up to be the ultimate in intelligence gathering and assassination. I'm a failed project, of course, but the groundwork is all sound. Quite frankly, if all I need to do to appear comparatively normal is get declawed every six weeks and wear extremely dark shades, I consider myself lucky. You should have seen some of the others.
Yes. Well. Look me in the eyes and say that.
That would be about what I thought. Anyway, to address the main thrust of you argument, as it were, there are a number of facts I would like to call to your attention: One, you failed to properly evaluate my abilities after capturing me, were this a suicide mission I would not be here. As it so happens, I am extremely difficult to kill, Crey security forces spent years chasing me all over Europe. Why, the closest they ever got was on one occasion in Munich when I almost lost an arm, thankfully there was- Ah, right. My apologies, I do tend to dwell upon that stage of my life. Anyway, I am extremely difficult to damage in any permanant fashion, so I was not at all worried by mere bullets and blunt trauma. Two, it's considerably easier to kill someone if you know his exact location at a given point in time. In your case here, now.
Goodness, there's no need to point that thing at me, I am still securely handcuffed, as I'm sure you can see. I am not threatening. It's not something I generally do, on principle. I am merely stating facts.
In any case, yes. One: You were unlikely to kill me before I was actually captured. Two: Once I was captured it was fairly certain that you would wish to interrogate me yourself. You know of Foxtrot at least, and I made certain I was sufficiently interesting. Moving on to point three: You sent the only other person in the room away several minutes ago, presumably to take a message to one of you medical chaps regarding dosages for certain adjuctants and why they should be increased, further inceasing the ease with which I could theoretically kill you. I wonder why he hasn't come back yet, by the way.
Twitchy, aren't we? Really, as I said, I am merely presenting facts. Assuming I'm not going to be interupted any further, this moves us on to facts four through seven, which I would like to present more or less simultaneously: I haven't been wearing handcuffs for almost thirty seconds now, my mind has been honed into a weapon of astonishing power over the last ten to fifteen years, there is an intense but suprisingly stealthy arabic youth with sixteen inch claws implanted into his forearms standing behind you, and you are going to stand still.
...
Tsk. Really, did you need to splatter him quite that much? He wasn't even a Cor Leonis. These were new shoes, you know.
Pfaugh! Consider your hand gestures returned a thousandfold! Anyway, you may as well head off on you own, I think I shall drop by the barracks on the way out and make enquires as to whether the young lady would be interested in dinner and a movie at some later date, present circumstances rather precluding such things.
Ah, almost forgot. Leave the place as you found it and all that. Oscar, get that recorder will you, there's a good cha-*click*
---------------
End Recording
"The gaping maw of your mind is filled with layered circles upon circles of bloody razors, I am finding."
- Twoflower
I've been reading a lot of Charly's comics, lately. She says that I need to practice more reading and less listening to audiobooks, and she's a lot smarter than me that way. Zulu's even smarter. He got me this thing he calls an "e-book reader with audio", which I guess is his way of saying it shows the words and says them at the same time... But I'm getting head of myself.
... Ahead. Thanks, Zulu, but didn't you say the point of writing my memories was that I could practice my own writing skills instead of yours?
Right, right. Fine, help accepted. What? But I did wrote "memories"! Memoirs? Is that even an English word?
... Fine, fine. Can I get back to the point now?
Anyway, one of those things that happens a lot of the time is one guy wishing that whatever made him special never happened or didn't exist or whatever. I guess I can kind of relative to that.
Relate. Thank you, Zulu. Can I go on? Thanks.
Anyway, yeah. My life would probably be a lot less complicated (See, Zulu? I can write long words!) if my magic didn't exist. For starters, mom wouldn't have told dad I was concerting with Djinnyah, and dad wouldn't have tried to beat the evil out of me. And then my magic wouldn't have reacted to the beating by making my skin tougher when he hit me and he wouldn't have broken his hand.
And he wouldn't have taken his sinful daughter to the imam for advice, and the imam definitely wouldn't have decided to "turn Shaitan's influence into a weapon for Allah" and sent me off to that training camp for "brave mujahedeen" -- or, as most everyone else calls them, "crazed terrorists" -- to be taught to fight for their "noble purpose" of killing everyone they didn't like the face of.
Of course, burqas suck for close quarters fighting. And since this camp had to be really secret, there wasn't much non-essential traffic in or out. So none of the other trainees - all of them at least five years older than me, and male - had seen a girl, pretty or not, in at least a year. And they'd all been taught that women existed to dutifully serve men.
Feh. Every single one of them was being promised seventy-two virgins in the afterlife, and they weren't going to live very long either, so was it really that much of a sacrifice to wait a few years?
Yes, apparently.
I won't bother with the details. If you want them, go rent some sleazy gangbang porn flick and use your imagination, you perv. Anyway, occasionally one of the imams would come by and they'd stuff me in a burqa and made me stand apart from the men as he preached about the Evils Of The West and the Great Shaitan and how we had to kill everyone who wasn't just like us because Allah wanted it so, and how all of us who fell in this Righteous Struggle would be rewarded in the afterlife (See my comment above. No, I never voiced it out loud. Saying anything that wasn't a direct response to a direct order was sinful for me, and punished -- and although by that time sticks and stones couldn't break my bones, flames were another matter)...
And the men all bowed their heads and knelt and prayed, and the next day he'd be gone and they'd go right back to what they were doing before. The proper term for this is, according to Zulu, "Hypocrite", which I'm not sure is an actual English word either, but whatever.
The imams also always said stuff like "Avoid sexual impropriety, which is sinful and bad for the soul". It was definitely bad for Ahran's health -- if he hadn't been so preoccupied with forcing me to the ground when he should have been standing watch, he might have spotted the black-clad soldier that came out of nowhere and put his hand against his head.
I didn't know what he did, but Ahran froze, rolled off me, and curled up into a ball. His mouth was wide open as if he was screaming, but no sound came out, and the black-clad man looked back at me. I couldn't see his eyes but I saw how he was standing. Rigid, with that almost-tremble in his legs and arms that dad sometimes had when he was especially furious with me. I cringed, mostly out of reflex, but that seemed to just make him angrier.
And then he did the most incredible thing I'd witnessed.
He turned his back on me and muttered something. I had no idea what he said, since I didn't speak English very well, but a little later the shooting started in the camp.
No, I didn't move, even to pull my pants back on. I suppose my duty would have been to help my fellow warriors, or failing that to die beside them, but the moment I thought about it the dark man turned back to face me and waved his hand and everything went dark.
When I woke up again, I was lying on a makeshift bunk, and a westerner girl with blonde hair and angry eyes was sitting backwards on a chair, leaning her arms on the back, and a boy standing to each side of her. Only one of them - the boy on the left, with the dark hair and strange markings on his face and arms, who I could see through - yes, Zulu? What? Translucent? Is that even english? Latin? But you said... Fine, fine. - could speak a word I understood, even if his accent was weird.
... Well, it was. Or at least is sounded that way. How was I supposed to know what a "voice synthesizer" was, or how one small enough to fit into a "portable holoprojector" -- which I also didn't know about -- has a limited quality? Right. Moving on...
Apparently, they were mercenaries, and they'd been hired by someone else to destroy that camp. I wasn't sure what to believe - they didn't look that much older than me - but the strange boy explained further.
They were a band of children who had been used and tossed out, unwilling soldiers in whatever war their self-styled masters had chosen to fight... Except that they were done being the victims. They walked away and found each other and formed their own side, their own company.
Foxtrot Company, a band of children who were raised to be soldiers, to be something not-really-childlike-anymore.
Children like me, in other words.
The boy who spoke to me - Foxtrot Zulu - said he had two choices to offer me. One, he could arrange for adoption in a western country somewhere. They had collected enough proof of what had been going on to get me refugee status in any country I chose, get adopted, go to school, lead a "normal" life...
I knew what the other choice would be before he said it out loud, and I took it. It didn't excuse me from my education, though, but Zulu decided I was bright enough to go through what he called 'crash and cram schooling' which apparently is his little joke for "Teach her things until her head explodes with pain, then give her some aspirin and teach her more".
Sadist.
Of course, there was also combat training. ACTUAL combat training; it became obvious pretty quick why my former 'comrades in arms' had gotten shredded - compared to Foxtrot's standards of training, they were almost qualified to police a kindergarten. If you drugged the kids first.
I also met the rest of the Foxtrots, one or two kids at a time, and I learned the names of the ones that got me out of there: Zulu, who delivered the intel that got them there; Charly, the blonde girl who led the actual ssault... And the man that killed Ahran, whose towering anger was directed not at me, but at what had been done to me.
Romeo. A meaningless name to me, at the time, although I've done some reading - well, listening to audio books - since. Always cool, always on top of things, always the gentleman, always well-controlled...
... Although when I'd completed my training to Charly and Zulu's satisfaction and they introduced me to the Company by the name that's now mine until the day I die or move on, I did see him wince. I'll take that as a good sign.
So to get back to my point, yeah, my life would have been a lot less complicated and painful if I'd never had magic. I wouldn't have been beaten, or sold off, or abused so often that I forgot to keep count. Instead, I'd have been a pretty little dutiful daughter who might one day aspire to become someone's pretty little dutiful wife and slave for my husband until the day I died, and I'd have considered that happiness.
And I'd never have met Foxtrot, orCharly, or Romeo...
Yeah, on the whole I think I'll take the bad with the good.
Anyway, this is about enough for a first memoir, wouldn't you agree, Zulu? ... Zulu? ... Damn, he's off into the internet again.
Ah well. That just means he's not here to make another one of his jokes about my choice of literature. Looks like the flight's at least another two hours before we get to Newark. Should be enough for the first act, at least.
... "Two households, both alike in dignity... "
((Foxtrot Juliet, coming to the Rogue Isles Soon[tm], on a Virtue server near you.))
My characters - all on Virtue.
Gabe's Internet [censored] Theory
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((I love you. May I carry your children?))
Um. You want to know about me?
I'm nothing special, really. I haven't been made with special powers like Romeo or Oscar. I haven't been trained like Charly. I had a normal home and parents and I went to school just like most kids.
Except I was a freak. Nobody wanted to be my friend. Everyone was always making fun of me, shoving me, taking my things and breaking them. I always ate lunch in a corner on the ground because I wasn't allowed to sit at any of the tables. I always had to sit way at the back of the classroom so they wouldn't throw things at me and pinch me, and I never heard what the teacher was saying and my grades were terrible.
I said I'd tell the teachers and the others just laughed and said if I was a snitch then they'd make things worse for me. I tried to tell my parents but they just said it's normal for kids to argue a bit and that it would all stop when we all grew up.
At least I could go back home for the night and on weekends. I could sit in our library and read books and just try not to think about going back to school.
But then my parents sent me to camp.
They said it was only three weeks. They said I spent too much time in the house and needed fresh air. They said I should stop worrying and try to have fun.
Just thinking about spending three weeks with other kids - three weeks, including nights and weekends, away from home - made me shiver and feel sick. I cried, I begged them not to send me there. I got told to stop making a scene and go to my room.
I took a few of my favourtie books with me. I tried to always stay in view of the counsellors so the other kids couldn't pick on me without getting in trouble. They did it anyway. So I got to sneaking back to my cabin, huddling in my bed and reading my books.
Of course they came looking for me. I heard them outside the door. I curled up on the floor and wished I could disappear. I didn't move, I barely breathed, and all I could think of was "be invisible... be invisible..."
And then they came in and the most amazing thing happened. They couldn't see me. They looked under the covers, and under the bed, and behind the curtains, they walked right past me and almost tripped over me, but they didn't see me.
....and then one of them grabbed my book. He said- he said something about the campfire that night. He wanted to burn it! Wanted to burn *my* book! My *friend*!
I got more angry than I've ever been before. I followed them to the campfire, and saw one of them get his lighter and I just - I exploded.
I kicked them. A lot. Hard. I never thought I could kick that hard. The one with my book was surprised and went down immediately - the others saw me and tried to defend themselves, but I was too angry. And I kicked them until they fell and started bleeding and didn't stop until they weren't moving...
When I finally snapped out of it I was horrified. I heard the counsellor coming and I just ran into the woods, clutching my book.
I don't know how long I ran after that. I made it to a big house - some rich peoples's summer home - and an older girl there saw me. She invited me in, gave me hot cocoa, and told me to calm down. She was very nice, but I was really scared that I'd just kill someone and the police would come at any minute and take me away. She told me to wait and went to the phone, and I started thinking invisible again and went looking around the house. I found some good black hiking clothes that were my size, and some food, and then I got out of the house again. The girl never saw me.
I didn't know what to do. I just went deeper and deeper into the woods and hoped I could get lost and die so I wouldn't have to go back and go to jail. Instead, I found Charly and her team.
They told me it was all right and I could stay with them and they wouldn't turn me in to the police. They treated me like a regular person.
They checked later and told me the kids I kicked weren't dead, just very hurt and in the hospital. I looked at my book and just said "good". Charly told me I didn't have to stay with them and I could go home, but I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay and learn to be tough like her.
I still have a lot to learn. Everyone's so much stronger than me and I still feel kinda bad about killing people if I'm not very angry. But I think it's worth it to have a place where I belong.
I go where Charly goes and I do whatever she says. If you want to hurt her or any of us, I'll kick you. A lot.
I'm Sierra Foxtrot.
Character index
(( The highly talented PyroDFB has done this truly awesome portrait of Foxtrot Juliet that I thought should be shared with the rest of you. Maybe if you send him enough encouragement he'll share the rest of his work with us as well. 
))
My characters - all on Virtue.
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0000 hours, the Foxtrot Company Base, Rogue Ilses
A shadow detaches itself from the rest and moves through the base with a purpose. No sound is made. not a hint of her presence is ever given. Special techniques practiced since childhood enable her To fool sensors and infared scanners. pressure plates on the floor are bypassed with acrobatic ease. Patrols keen eyed and eared are never aware of anything save a growing unease as a silent figure bypasses them as well.
In Her Bed Charly herself wakes from a fitful dream of shadows. her training and instincts informing her that she is in mortal danger.
She looks around slowly holding a pistol in a steady hand and a knife in the other. slowly she scans the shadows of the room seeking the source of her discomort.
swiftly she turns on the light but the revealed room holds no answers. a quick call made to security reveals no intruders or threats to the company detected.
"Must have been a dream" she thought to herself more to convince herself then anyone else.
As she lay down returning the knife to its sheath and the pistol to its holster, she felt something under her pillow. A shock ran through ehr as she pulled it out. A letter wrapped in a velvet envelope.she studied it in shock as she was positive that it had not been their before.
Looking at the envelope she saw that it was a fine velvet, and stamped in wax. the sigil was of a tower surrounded by a sword, a moon, an anarchy symbol, an rune she recognized as ancient celtic for dreams, and a regal scepter sitting at the top of the tower itself.
Opening it cautiously she studied its contents her young eyes growing wider at the words she read. words written in a soft but firm hand.
Dear Charly
Greetings to you company commander. I am the White Lotus Daiyamo of Clan yoshima and Monarch of the House of Scepters of the Ivory Tower. You may or may not have heard of us so as to not waste your time I we'l elaborate.
The Ivory Tower are the Elite of the Rogue Ilses. We boast (quite rightly I can say with no brggadacio) a collection of some of the finest and most powerful beings on the planet. we hold control of vast resources and an well connect network of spies and informants. We are rapidly rising in the esteem of Arachnos both as a potential Ally and as a threat. We have eliminated many Longbow agents and any other threat that has stood in our way. including several so called superheroes.
I am writing this missive to you on behalf of myself and My Lord Supremacy. We have ben aware of your Activites for sometime now and I must say that I am impressed. for your young age you and your companions have reaked a fair amount of havoc. I also am impressed with your loyalty to each other and your company. Loyalty is a Value that is Highly prized in the House of Scepters. as Loyalty is at The Heart of its beliefs.
in closing, My Lord Supremacy is seeking new and skilled allies with which to strenthen his hand and spread his influence. I believe you and yours would make excellent allies and I invite you to join in a coalition with The Ivory Tower and its many allies(some of which you may have heard of Black Dawn, Xevos Legion to name some of the more prominent ones) This coalition I feel well benefit both of us a great deal. You well gain from the extensive resources at our disposal, and we well gain from the lethal skills at yours.
If this is acceptable to you please send me a message via the Broker named Desdemona the Glint. She well pass along the message and we well arrainge to make contact at a future date and make preparations to begin what I hope to be a full and prosperous alliance.
Untill then
sincerely
White Lotus
Queen of the House of Scepters
of the Ivory Tower
So you mean you'll put down your rock, and I'll put down my sword; and we'll try and kill each other like civilized people?
Dubbed first knight of pep-istan by her majesty Queen Pepcat. first catmonaut to walk onna moon.
PENGUIN!!!...(^)>
...............C(...)D
.................m.m
"Is he gone?" Charly asked aloud.
A holographic image flickered to life; a young boy, with a goatee and glasses. Foxtrot Zulu, the artificially intelligent ghost in the machine, and genius tactical planner.
"Yes," Zulu confirmed. "We tracked him from the instant he cut his way past the dummy defenses. No need to open the envelope; just as predicted a week ago, the Ivory Tower wants an alliance."
"I thought you also predicted they were gonna wait a few days before pulling something like this."
"There's always a plus or minus margin of error," Zulu said, with an electronic shrug. "I'm not infalliable, you know."
"Yeah, yeah..." Charly said, rubbing sleep stuff from her eyes. Despite pretending to be the scared little kid for their guest's benefit, she was damn tired. "Alright. Fire off the response letter immediately. Maybe when they realize that we sent this directly TO them, and not Desmonda, they'll put two and two together and realize we were ready for this. I'm going back to sleep. I've had a miserable day shooting the hell out of the space nazis and I need fifty winks, minimum..."
"Of course," Zulu said, winking out. At the speed of thought, the email was sent.
"Dear Sir/Madam,
If you'd come to us on a professional level, dropping us a message through our quite publically available regular channels, we'd be happy to take you on as a client. Instead, you tried to intimidate us by sneaking into our base to deliver a message that would've been just fine in email. That's unacceptable. Normally, this would result in bloody retribution, but frankly we don't care about you or your organization and we're willing to let this slide in the name of not having to deal with some stupid vendetta.
Next time you look for allies, I suggest you not play "Look at me, I'm Mr. Sneaky Ninja". Maybe that works on the hired thugs who get off on violence and would be impressed by your skill, but for REAL mercs, professional ones, we prefer to operate on a purely business level. Your technique suggests you're new at all this, and in the interests of learning, we'll let you live so that you can take some wisdom from this mess and apply it to future attempts.
As for us... We are Foxtrot. We are not intimidated. We are owned by no one and allied with no one. Leave us alone. Failure to do this one simple, thing will result in learning what the Malta organization learned when they felt we were their property.
Yrs sincerely,
Foxtrot Charly."
Global @Twoflower / MA Creator & Pro Indie Game Developer.
Mission Architect Works: DIY Laser Moonbase (Dev Choice!), An Internship in the Fine Art of Revenge (2009 MA Award Winner!) and many more! Plus Brand New Arcs for Issue 21!
*lotus studied the return letter. intently* they rruly were as skilled as she had heard. She had suspected the base defences to be just too easy to penetrate. everything in her intelligence dossier had pointed to an almost paranoid level security. defences layered upon defences that sugested that what she suspected had come to pass. she had been allowed in. not necessarilly her but a possible contact with the Ivory tower. trully intriguing.
She replied in kind via the posted email she had held.
Dear Foxtrot
No need to be violent it seems we both passed some tests for each other. I must apologize for the attempted entry, you seem to have mistaken it for an attempt at intimidation. It was not I can assure you. instead it was a display of skill and also simply the most effective means of making sure that my message got directly to your commanders. instead fo going through layers of intermediaries. For the future I well most certainly deal with you through the proper channels, I believe you are well and trully as skilled as I have come to learn and think an alliance between your company and the Ivory Tower would be of great benefit. You are not to be owned we would never presume to do so. And everything in my intelligence suggests you would rebel openly against such control anyways. in closing let me add that I am aware fo the damage you did to the Malta group it was most impressive. but if you think the Tower an easy target or myself for that matter please find the attached file of a picture the heads of 20 of the knives of artemis's best warriors I slew them myself and yes I am that good. Again I apologize for any misunderstanding that may ahve arisen form my inital contatc and promise to make future contatc through prescribed channels as I find you worthy of the respect fo doing so.
Yours sincerely
The White Lotus
Queen of the House of Scepters
The Ivory Tower
Sending the email off she wondered at the responce, perhaps she reflected that she had perhaps been a little hasty in her choice to sneak in as it had invoked a fairly emotional responce. she was dealing with children still(well trained and extremely lethal children) but children none the less. she had felt the mages wards felt the telepathic presence dogging her steps the patrols and hard security measures had been difficult but not impossible the more esoteric ones had taken some serious work. if this was how they dealt with intruders they expected she pitied the intruder that was not invited.
sitting back she awaited the responce and thought. Yes, the kids are all right.
So you mean you'll put down your rock, and I'll put down my sword; and we'll try and kill each other like civilized people?
Dubbed first knight of pep-istan by her majesty Queen Pepcat. first catmonaut to walk onna moon.
PENGUIN!!!...(^)>
...............C(...)D
.................m.m
"...oh, god. Oh, GOD. Wait. No. Wait. Okay. Okay, I'm cool. I'm cool. ...BWAHAHAHHAA!!" Charly laughed out loud, a fresh wave after she had just finished wiping the tears from her eyes. "Romeo! Guys! You've GOT to see this, it's comedy gold..! Oh. Ohh, man, I am SO writing a response letter immediately--"
With a flash, Zulu manifested via the holo projectors. "I'm predicting you're going to write something very 'snarky,'" he said, acting as the company's version of Clippy. "Am I correct?"
"Is the Pope Catholic?" Charly asked, cracking her knuckles, ready to compose. "Of course I am. I gotta be true to myself..."
"I'd suggest against it. The Ivory Tower take themselves very seriously."
"TOO seriously, Zulu. They've got Akira Kurosawa jammed so far up their [censored] that you'd need a spelunking team with a canary and a torch to--"
"Precisely. They are serious, and consider themselves honorable, despite their actions. They would see any attempts by you to chide them for their continuing efforts to be an insult," Zulu explained. "As you stated in your previous letter, you don't seek hostilities. We don't have time to deal with a three front war right now, not when we're dealing with Arachnos and negotiations with Wyvern..."
Charly pointed to the screen. "HEADS!" she said. "Heads! It's hillarious. Heads, plus a 'We're not trying to intimidate you' note. It's dripping with irony! Come on, man, grant me a little--"
"Inadvisable."
"But--"
"Not recommended."
"Oh, fine. I never get to have any fun," Charly said, grumbling. She began to type. "Dear Sir/Madam. Sorry, we are still not interested, but good luck in your efforts. There, how's that?"
"That will suffice. I predict an 82% chance they'll grow bored and give up, as they have plenty of issues to deal with, just as we do, and to allocate more resources to wooing us against our interests would be wasteful."
Charly fired off the email, and cracked open a Pepsi. What a waste. The Ivory Tower hadn't gotten it -- they FAILED their test the minute they tried to penetrate base security instead of just approaching honestly and politely. They failed when they sent along photos of their trophies while professing to be respectful and nonviolent. If only she could explain...
Nah. Not worth it. Zulu was right.
She shut down her computer, and headed back to the couch for some more WarioWare.
Global @Twoflower / MA Creator & Pro Indie Game Developer.
Mission Architect Works: DIY Laser Moonbase (Dev Choice!), An Internship in the Fine Art of Revenge (2009 MA Award Winner!) and many more! Plus Brand New Arcs for Issue 21!
Whiskey
the blood of self is red.
that is strange. self is clearly not human, as evidenced by the color of her skin and hair, yet her blood is red. peculiar.
hmm? no. self apologizes, but she shall not 'let you go'. that would be contrary to her orders to secure the supergenetic sample that you carry and await backup. unfortunately, self's communicator was damaged by your attack, so she does not know when she will be retrieved. she believes it shall be soon; the sample is moderately valuable.
you say you will kill self. self cannot allow that to happen, as that would also be contrary to her orders. but do not despair, for your attack, while it did not damage any major internal organs, was quite effective. self may die soon regardless. but she will endeavor to stay alive. that was one of charly's orders as well.
...
self wonders how much blood she will lose before she dies.
...
self must commend you on the precision of your attack. only self's communicator kept it from being instantly fatal, which would have been regrettable. that would have meant self's orders would not have been carried out.
oh... self sees you had another blade. it appears to be lodged in self's ribcage. self did not notice that.
no, self does not 'get off on pain'. self does not feel pain. or, indeed, any type of sensation, positive or negative. this is because self is flawed, a failed experiment. self is...
wait. self shall remove the blade before continuing.
...
there.
...there is more blood now. removing the blade was perhaps a poor idea. but with a closer look, self can see now that her blood is thinner than yours. self will likely die sooner than a normal human would. this does not surprise self.
self requests you do not scream. it may attract unwanted attention.
...
there. self regrets the vine gag. it was necessary to complete her mission.
...self sometimes wonders why she can control plants in that fashion, or how she can summon bolts of pure solar energy. she does not believe these were part of her intended function. her intended function was that of tool, to be both weapon and plaything for those who would buy her, but of course she was deemed a failure and used purely for research so that the next experiment would succeed.
self saw little during her time in the lab. the room. the table. the straps. sometimes the scientists would come in, test self, then leave. sometimes they would bring other men, who would use self, then leave. that was usually tuesdays.
self... does not remember much about her last day in the lab. self remembers... the scientists preparing another test before self would be vivisected for data extraction. they mentioned the source of their research notes... mentioned a most pleasant sounding name...
...Hamidon...
...yes.
and they had a vial. a vial with a tiny trace of gelatinous matter within it, which crawled along the side of its container. it...
...called to you...
...called to me. i reached for it. it wanted me. i wanted it. they were not expecting me to move, for i never had before. i was it and it was me and i broke it out and it became me and it was part of me and i
...KILLED ALL THE HUMANS...
Killed All The Humans...!
...
...
what was self saying?
ah. yes.
self found herself alone. the straps were broken. she left the room. many people were dead, with thorns in their flesh and burns across their bodies. and then self descended the stairs, and saw more bodies, ones that had been cut and shot and bludgeoned.
and she saw charly. and the rest of foxtrot.
self had not been taught english - had not been taught anything - but had picked up a bit. foxtrot was agitated at self's presence. self understands why now, though at the time she was unaware she was breaking the nudity taboo.
charly took self in. gave her clothes. taught her. tried to find a home for self, but that ended when they found out about self's powers.
self is still very sorry about the way they found out.
...
self notices you are not moving.
ah. you seem to have perished. there are a multitude of thorns and vines emerging from your flesh.
...
self will continue.
afterwards, charly gave self a name. foxtrot whiskey. this is her right, as she and foxtrot now own self and may call self whatever they wish. but they do not like it when self says this. they say self owns herself. this is clearly false, for self is a thing. an object. objects cannot own themselves.
they say, look at romeo. he was made by humans, like you, and he is not a thing. but all humans are made by humans. it does not signify. romeo is a human because he possesses the free will to be a human. self is not a human and shall never be. they say self can also chose to be human, but this makes no sense. how can a thing choose? but self does not contradict them, for it is not the place of self to defy her owners. self simply knows what is fact.
...
self wonders if she will die soon. this would be acceptable, for you are no longer able to take the sample away from her. her orders would have been fulfilled. of course, charly's order to not die would be unfulfilled, but self has little choice in that matter, and at any rate the value of the sample is much greater than that of self.
...
self cannot stand anymore.
...
...
ah. a light.
...
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"...a grisly scene in Cap Au Diable, where Azure Demise, a major leader of the Tsoo, was found dead this morning, hung on an alley wall by vine ropes and his skin ruptured by thorns. Investigators found copious amounts of blood at the scene, which seemed to be sprouting tiny green plants wherever it had fallen - even on Demise's weapons. Arachnos forces used flamethrowers on the alleyway after the Tsoo's body was removed. Any viewers with information on the murderer is encouraged to call WSPDR at 1-800-PAY4TIP..."
Police reported today that the explosion at Johnathan Stern's mansion was indeed the act of foul play and not a boiler explosion as previously assumed. No further information has been released, but sources say that Paragon City Police have met with contacts from Longbow, the military division of the Freedom Phalanx which works against the forces of Arachnos in the Rogue Isles. Is this a coincidence? We'll have more at eleven.
---
...clutching his backpack tightly, the train rolling along quietly. Away from the outskirts of the city, away from what he knew... back into the urban sprawl of Paragon.
Timothy had come from here, originally -- just another homeless kid. Missing past. Days blurring. He barely remembered those times, except to remember that he didn't enjoy them, and had to use his innate super speed to steal and survive.
Mister Stern took him in as a young ward. Mister Stern was rich; the scion of an empire built on the patent for zipper teeth. Mister Stern had an odd interest in the boy's superpower, and in training it for use in combat. And then, Timothy Darke found out why, when Mister Stern rotated the bust of Ronald Reagan precisely 34' degrees... and the entrance to the Patriot Lair behind the portrait of Truman opened.
After that day, it wasn't just Mister Stern and Timothy Darke, it was Super Patriot and Lightspeed Lad. And everything was... wonderful. The awful days on the streets long gone, now he saw the world for what it was -- a colorful world of capes, costumes, evildoers, heroes, and adventures. All alongside his mentor, his leader, his father figure...
Who was now dead.
Timothy wasn't in the house when it happened -- an explosion, destroying the entire building, with Mister Stern inside. Initially it was assumed to be a problem with the building's ancient, rickety boiler room. Stern built it before WWII... he was an immortal, after all, and had been a hero for almost a hundred years.
...then one day, the police started asking Timothy questions. Questions about Super Patriot. They'd found the lair -- and they'd found the bombs that were planted in specific locations, designed to utterly destroy the building. His secret identity was blown, but they promised to hide it, and help him in any way he needed. Paragon took care of its heroes.
But Timothy didn't know anything about who could've wanted the Super Patriot dead... and who could possibly have known about his super-weakness, the one [censored] in his armor of immortality. (Timothy knew, but he wouldn't tell anyone, not even after his mentor was dead. It was a matter of honor.) Timothy also didn't know anything about the strange symbol, found painted in Mister Stern's own blood... a star in a circle, with something like wings on either side.
All Timothy knew was that he was alone. Alone. No hero. Not a sidekick to a hero anymore. He didn't know anything in life anymore, nothing beyond how to be a sidekick. But there was hope -- a memory. If anything goes wrong, contact Emily van der Strum; a great heroine who worked with Super Patriot in the past. He had an address. He'd modified his costume to add some lightning motifs. Maybe she'd take him in... let him be her sidekick. Anything to keep from going back to the streets...
---
...growling as she read the reports. Saw the digitized scan of the crime scene photos.
She didn't authorize this. Zulu didn't authorize this. Nobody under her command had been there, nobody did the job. Nobody from Foxtrot Company killed this Stern guy... and yet there was the company's calling card, their symbol, scribbled out in blood.
Foxtrot Charly had left that symbol at plenty of crime scenes. Sometimes in blood, sometimes in fire, sometimes in bulletholes. It was a message to others who would try to walk the path of the one she just killed -- don't. Not if you value your life. And those who valued exploiting children more than their life, she'd happily swoop in and claim it for them. In her opinion, doing that was basically the same thing as committing suicide.
But this wasn't an authorized hit. She'd checked Zulu's databases again and again, and there was nothing, NOTHING on this Johnathan Stern character. True, he was a lifelong bachelor who had a 'boy ward', which was always a questionable thing. Had they known, they might've investigated, made sure he wasn't being abused... but as is they had no evidence to justify a kill. But there he was, dead, and allegedly at Foxtrot hands.
What's more, Zulu did some postmortem digging, and found out this guy was Super Patriot, the right-wing pundit slash millionare playboy slash zipper tooth mogul slash red white and blue costumed superhero beloved by thousands. He was a POPULAR hero. And his death at Foxtrot hands would have consequences.
Consequences. Whoever set Foxtrot up for the fall was going to have consequences, too. Highly fatal ones. Foxtrot took care of their own, stood together, saw things through. This was going to get seen through, alright. With hot lead.
---
...anger. Boiling, burning anger. Stupid, stupid, STUPID.
He just HAD to explain. Just had to spill the beans, explain exactly why Super Patriot had to be killed. Wanted the satisfaction of telling the [censored] to his face why this was divine retribution...
The assassin had monologed. And the victim, in a last ditch effort to tell the world who was responsible, drew the Foxtrot symbol in his own blood then covered it with his body so it'd survive the explosion.
He hadn't planned on involving Foxtrot this soon. Connecting them to Super Patriot's death at this point would result in a backlash... one he brought upon them. His so-called brothers and sisters. His fault.
But it was better than the alternative -- ANYTHING was better than the alternative. No sacrifice too great. He could deal. They could deal. He'd just have to step forward earlier than planned, accelerate the timetable a little. The important thing was that Stern, that manipulative, exploitative, hideous little [censored] was dead and burned and gone forever. Immortal? Bah. All immortality has a super-weakness. Stern wasn't coming back.
The great devil was gone; that was the primary objective of the mission. Beyond that, his secondary objectives were simple and straightforward. So, he hid himself away again, to emerge when the time was right to continue the mission. Until then... rest.
Global @Twoflower / MA Creator & Pro Indie Game Developer.
Mission Architect Works: DIY Laser Moonbase (Dev Choice!), An Internship in the Fine Art of Revenge (2009 MA Award Winner!) and many more! Plus Brand New Arcs for Issue 21!
One morning in the wing of Emily van der Straum's mansion that served as headquaters for the Supergroup known as the Do-Gooders, a young woman in blue spandex entered through the shimmering portal to find Samantha Straum sorting through some letters.
"Mornin', Sam", Silver Gale said cheerfully. "Hey, could you hand me one of those letters...? I've been trying to learn a new spell and I want to see if I got it right."
"Uh... what does it do?", Sam asked cautiously. Gale's magic powers were known to have rather dramatic effects sometimes.
"Just a sort of simple scrying spell. Baisically I can tell what a given letter is about by gleaning the aura of people who touched it."
Sam shrugged and handed her an already-open envelope from the top of the stack. Gale closed her eyes and murmured a few words, then slowly said: "Okay... it's a message from... some unlikely allies... who are... looking for information!".
Sam chuckled as she took the envelope back. "Not even close, I'm afraid. It's a letter for our new guest from some school's cheerleading club. Apparently they're fans of his, and they want him to come to some charity event or other."
Gale's face fell. "...oh. Ah well, back to the eldrich tomes", she announced, as she made her way along the coridoor and into the room where she kept most of her magic books.
Character index
((Chronologically, this comes before the post immediately above. Blame my slow writing.))
Foxtrot Company Rogue Isles field HQ
Time: 2315 Zulu
Charly was not feeling a happy teenager by any stretch of the imagination as she stalked through the halls of the base.
The Wyvern rep had been almost exactly as sceptical as she'd originally feared when she tried to explain that Stern had in no way been an authorized Foxtrot hit and that no member she knew had been responsible, but at least they were agreeing to adopt a 'wait and see' stance. Her habit of honesty when admitting that a given hit had been authorized and planned had bought them that much at least.
Still, the condescending tone when they warned her that she had better find out who had been using their name and logo had sent her blood boiling, and she'd silently seethed on the way back, and...
She shook herself. Control, control, focus. Right. Romeo'd been looking over the scene for a few days now; he'd call the moment he found anything important, but calling him now would at least make her feel a bit bette-
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sight of Romeo perched on one of the wall lockers, wearing the most casual clothes she'd seen him in yet. She looked him up and down for a moment before speaking.
"... That's kinda dangerous; those things are only bolted to the wall, not embedded. Nice scarf, though - I take it that's your undercover clothes?"
Romeo nodded as he nimbly leaped down from his perch and assumed his usual at-ease stance. "Indeed, thank you for noticing. My usual apparel rather stands out."
Charly nodded. "Okay, debriefing time. I might have another clue... But I wanna hear what you found first."
"Of course. The site itself was much as I expected, given the police reports. The bombs were professionally constructed and placed using a basic technique any Foxtrot would know - but then again, many special forces and the like use functionally identical techniques."
Charly nodded again. "Yeah, ours were boiled down from the usual suspects to start with. And if he managed to take down Super Patriot, it's fairly obvious that we're dealing with a pro here."
"Indeed, and- ah, Sierra. Good day to you."
Charly blinked at Romeo's non-sequitur, but forced herself by effort of will not to look wildly around the room. It most likely wouldn't do any good, anyway - there were very few people who could match Sierra's ability to go unnoticed when she didn't want to draw attention. "Hey, Sierra. How's things?"
"... oh, hi charly, hi romeo."
Charly finally allowed herself to turn towards the sound of the terminally shy girl's voice. She could've sworn that corner had been empty when she'd glanced at it when she came in; now it contained a little girl huddled up with a book almost as large as herself. "...i haven't been doing much fighting lately, sorry... found this huge library while i was fighting those legacy chain guys and i got sorta distracted..."
Charly brushed off the apology. "Don't worry about it, Sierra. Do what you like; if I need you to take a specific mission, I'll let you know."
"... 'kay. i'll be here if you need me." The diminutive girl fell silent again as she resumed her reading and Charly turned back to Romeo, only to notice a slender green figure standing somewhat unsteadily in the doorway to the medical wing. "Hey, Whiskey. Come in, have a seat, relax. Romeo's just finishing his briefing on the Super Patriot Incident."
The plant-girl nodded. "understood, charly. self will comply." as she walked to the nearest unoccupied chair and sat down in it.
Romeo politely cleared his throat. "If I might continue, there appear to have been no witnesses to the events preceding the explosion, nor was anyone seen departing afterward. Of course, that need not mean anything."
Charly nodded. "Two words: Patriot Lair. He needed SOME way to get the Patriotmobile out and in without people noticing."
"Indeed. Our subject most likely used the secret entrance already in place given that, logically, no one would know where to look for it."
Romeo continued. "At any rate, the lair itself is gone. The explosives were placed in such a way as to prevent much of anything surviving. There was, however, a partially damaged computer that the PCPD now has custody of. From what I was able to tell, the files were scrambled before the drives were blanked. I don't know if even Zulu could extract any data from a wiped hard disk or not, but I felt it imprudent to take them from the evidence room."
Charly had perked up at the mention of an intact computer but deflated again at the mention of its erasure, and finally nodded. "Yeah, given how we stand in Paragon right now it's probably not a good idea to push our luck. Turns out we need whatever's on those, we can plan a recovery op then."
Romeo's habitual smirk twitched ever so slightly in the way Charly had come to recognize and label as his "I've-done-something-really-clever-so-prepare-to-be-impressed" smirk. "Ah, that will be... Unnecessary." he said as he pulled a card out of an inside pocket and held it up for all to see.
Charly read it, then grinned. "... 'Special operative Raymond, Department of Homeland Security.' Romeo, you sly dog. So, the guy placed the bombs professionally, probably stole some data, then cleaned his tracks. That about sum it up?"
"Mmmm. The drives are a possible lead, although I would prefer to consult with Zulu before making another move in that direction. I've been comparatively innocuous so far, but if I go in and remove evidence, they may actually start more closely at the card than I would prefer."
Charly nodded. "Right. And for all we know, they might be unrecoverable."
"Yes, the mansion and lair were dealt with too professionally to leave much in the way of evidence, which moves us on to young master Darke."
"The kid? I really hate to think he did this..." Charly started pacing."Actually, that's one thing I wanted to talk about. I had Zulu double-check, then triple-check, and it turns out we never even heard of the kid until this incident. No files, no reports, no nada. There's also next to no paper trail on him at all beyond what Stern/Patriot helped establish."
Romeo nodded his assent. "From what I've seen, he is chipper, enthusiastic, idealistic, somewhat naive-- ah, good day, Oscar."
At least this time Charly didn't have to fight the urge to turn around immediately, as a rather more brightly than usual dressed Arabic youth stepped out of the shadows. She waved at him to have a seat, then motioned for Romeo to continue.
"As I was saying, almost perfectly stereotypical sidekick material. Were I the paranoid type, I might say suspiciously so..."
Charly nodded thoughtfully. "... Almost as if he was tailor-made for the role, then dumped somewhere where the Patriot would find him..."
"Possibly. He is human, at least. I'm uncertain about mind control; looking too, ah, 'closely', at such things might have alerted him if he has any latent powers of his own, or his controllers if they are using someone like myself to control him."
Charly nodded thoughtfully, then saw Oscar's quizzical look. "Some cape got murdered in a big way, Oscar, and someone's trying to blame us for it. We're investigating." Oscar nodded understanding, and she turned back to Romeo. "So there could be an enemy meta at work here..."
"That is a possibility. Although it could have been simple conditioning. I do, however, find it highly unlikely that one could take a child who has grown up on the streets and turn him into a happy, apparently well-adjusted sidekick over the course of one year."
"Yeah, that's suspicious. Hence I'm thinking meta work - it's a bit more than you can do with normal brainwashing..."
"... maybe he didn't grow up on the streets...?"
Charly barely managed to keep herself from jumping. Sierra's self-esteem issues were bad enough without people telling her how they tend to forget her even when she was in the same room. Instead, she turned around to where she thought she'd remembered last seeing the girl and nodded. "Good call, Sierra. He was FOUND there, but he could've been a plant. Er, no offense. Whiskey."
"self did not take offense."
Romeo nodded. "Sierra is most likely correct. There were no files predating his adoption, and his discovery by the Patriot was, in hindsight, somewhat suspiciously fortuitous."
Charly turned back to him. "Bait?"
Romeo looked thoughtful. "A very long-term op, if so..."
Charly growled. "Rrgh. We gotta get this kid figured out. I think he's more of a key to what's going on than the hard drives. Romeo, if we can arrange for you to have safe access to the kid, could you do a
scan without tripping alarms?"
"Perhaps. I should, at the very least, be able to learn whether there are any alarms to be tripped - which should tell us a great deal in and of itself."
"Okay, how's this: What if we have Sierra pose as a Patriot fan, asking the kid to meet her in pocket D?"
"... um..." Sierra tried to hide a forming blush behind her book.
Romeo shook his head. "Too suspicious, given the timing and the location. Plus, I expect it's still a rather touchy subject..."
"Point. Damn. Okay, gang, any suggestions?"
Oscar shrugged and grabbed at the air.
"Yeah, I know, we're grasping at shadows, Oscar. Not like we have much choice right now, though..."
Whiskey spoke up. "self could offer him sexual favors for his information. self's research suggests adolescent males often possess low resistance to this approach."
Romeo was the first to recover his voice. "No, Whiskey."
Charly wasn't far behind. "... Okay, for your files, Whiskey, he's a cape-for-brains heroic type. High morals and all that."
Sierra nodded. "and boys don't like it when you just let them have yourself. they like to feel like they had to work for it."
Whiskey nodded. "self will remember."
"...It occurs to me that there is an interesting property of Pocket D that could be exploited, if I can manage to get him there."
Charly jumped at the change to change the topic to something less disturbing. "Spill it, Romeo."
"It's rather difficult to maintain a psychic link with someone inside D when you yourself are not inside. So his hypothetical controller will, at the least, have a rather more difficult job of holding the leash. So if I can arrange for a meeting, I could take a closer look at his mind..."
"Eeeexcellent. So, Sierra-fangirl plan. Maybe a fangirl of the kid himself rather than the Patriot, or... Wait." She smacked her palm. "I've got it! Sierra and Whiskey, posing as cheerleaders who want to talk to the Lightspeed Lad about appearing at some charity function at their high school. That sort of thing is pure utter Cape, he'll go for it in a new york minute."
Oscar raised his thumb immediately. Sierra looked a little more dubious - and more than a little frightened. "... cheerleaders?"
Romeo had a more direct concern. "Much as I hate to introduce a monkey-wrench, Charly, but Whiskey may be a bit, ah, verdant to safely pose as a normal cheerleader..."
Charly wasn't about to be deterred that easily. "Nothing a quick trip to the Facemaker and some temporary skin tinting wouldn't be able to fix. The point here is to throw a situation at him that feels like a classic cheery heroic cape-like scenario."
Sierra piped up again. "um. do cheerleaders usually become invisible a lot...?"
Romeo shook his head. "No, but they do go to restrooms in pairs a lot, meaning that you will be able to leave with impunity."
Whiskey spoke up. "if self may suggest, perhaps juliet would be suitable as well."
"Juliet's out on a contract with the Mob, beating up on the space Nazis. Dunno when she'll be done with that."
"She is, however, a rather better actor than both Sierra and Whiskey combined, Romeo pointed out. "No offense intended to either of you, of course."
Charly nodded. "Alright granted. She knows how to work her sex appeal when she needs to."
"...and she can talk out loud..."
"Also a good point. Okay, Juliet and Sierra put on skirts and distract the kid while Romeo scans his mind. The whole op shouldn't take more than half an hour, tops. Oscar and Whiskey can run interference and keep an exit path open if things go south. Everybody okay with this?"
There were various nods of assent, and then Romeo spoke up. "One last detail, though..."
"What?"
"You get to ask Juliet to put on a cheerleader uniform."
"Pfeh, wuss. Anyway, Juliet won't be back for a few days, so that op will have to wait until then." Charly went from grumbling to checking her laptop. "Hm. Last I heard from Juliet, she said she'd probably be done with her contract on Wednesday or so. I'll brief her when she reports in, and we'll send out the invitation to the kid. Shouldn't be more than four days, tops. Romeo, you and Zulu work together on the invitation, make it something he's guaranteed to go for."
Romeo nodded. "Understood."
"Sierra, while we're waiting on Juliet your assignment will be to rent Bring It On and watch it until you've memorized it for undercover work research."
"...okay."
" Whiskey, watch that movie with Sierra. It'll be good for ya."
Whiskey nodded. "self will obey."
"... It wasn't an order, Whiskey. Sorry. Just meant, y'know, good for ya..."
Charly sighed as Whiskey followed Sierra out. "Need to do something about her sometime... Anyway. Let's see, name the op, name the op... Got it. Operation Cheerleader Seduction Madness."
Romeo coughed. "Succinct, as is your wont. At any rate, you mentioned there was something you wished to talk to me about...?"
Charly nodded and pulled out a handwritten note and laid it on the table. "This arrived this morning via unusually anonymous post. A list of five names, with the Foxtrot symbol at the bottom." She paused as Romeo and Oscar leaned in for a closer look.
"Two we already had in our files -- the Russian kiddie porn distributor that X-ray and Echo took out two months ago, and a Malta gunslinger who's on the watch list. The next two we didn't know, but Zulu did some poking around and we IDed them as an African slave trader and another Malta operative, this one in Italy of all places."
She paused to let the implications sink in, then continued. "The fifth, though, is just some lawyer in New York who's completely clean as far as Zulu can tell."
Romeo thought about it for a moment. "That could just mean he's very, very good..."
"... Better than Zulu is able to sniff out? He looked especially hard when he didn't find anything first time around and still found zilch. No, either he's clean or he's hiding so well we can't find anything. Not going to act on that until and unless we know more."
Romeo frowned. "I suggest we ignore it."
"... Wait, what?"
"Put the two on the kill board, by all means. But attempting to glean information from an unknown source whose motivation we do not know? At best, we'd be wasting our time. At worst, it's either an attempt to divert our attention while someone sneaks up on us from behind, or a direct trap."
"On the other hand, Romeo, it's the closest thing to a clue we have."
"True. Still, if we must investigate this, I suggest we do so using the utmost discretion."
Charly nodded. "Point. I don't like the idea of us leaping to work after getting an anonymous list. "
"Mmm. So where does this lawyer live?"
"NYC, according to Zulu. With Greenberg, Greenberg and Blatt. Hmm... Do you think we've got ourselves a fanboy here? Someone taking out people in our name, giving us 'hot tips', and the like...?"
"Unlikely - if we're dealing with a copycat, he would hardly be sending us the names of targets he could take down himself."
"Good point. Why wouldn't he take the glory for himself?"
Romeo shrugged. "Because he cannot, or because it's a trap, or because he wants us to take responsibility, or..."
Charly nodded. "He knew Patriot well enough to kill him, so maybe it's just less personal with these guys, or maybe he doesn't have the resources. Argh, too many possibilities..."
While Charly grumbled to herself, Romeo turned to Oscar. "Oscar, I believe I have a job for you..." Upon seeing he had his attention, he continued, "Go and watch that lawyer's office. See what he does, who he talks to, et cetera. I believe there is a sufficiently large pile of untraceable tens in petty cash to keep you around in New York for a few days. Three days, maybe four, should be enough to find anything."
"Don't blow all the tens on strippers, Oscar," Charly suggested, drawing a snerk from the mute boy, who then mimed taking photographs.
"... If you mean 'I'll spy on him', yeah, definitely. If you mean 'I'll pose as an Arabic tourist', keep in mind that this is New Freaking York." Charly pointed out. "It could be, as Romeo would put it, unnecessarily suspicious."
"Yes, yes it would. At any rate, there is a pile of rather good surveillance cameras in one of the equipment crates. Take a laptop, as well - Zulu updated the face recognition algorithms. If anyone whose photo we have in the kill files shows up, it will flag."
Charly nodded. "While you're at it, load our files on Malta into quick-reference. There's already two of their agents on that list, and that's three more than I'd want to see."
Romeo nodded. "Mmm. They have an unfortunate habit of turning up where we'd prefer them not to be. Not much we can do about that short of forcibly removing them, I fear."
"Yeah, well, there's others working on that. Anyway, I just thought of a name for this op: 1000 Lawyers At The Bottom Of The Sea sounds just about right."
Oscar nodded enthusiastically and gave Charly a thumbs up, but Romeo shook his head. "No, Oscar, regardless of the name you are not allowed to stick him in concrete and push him off a pier. Your observation mission is to remain an observation mission."
Oscar sighed and nodded dejectedly, then perked up again as Romeo continued. "However, I believe we do have a few other outstanding targets in New York... Charly?"
Charly consulted her laptop and nodded. "Yeah. Captain Smiler, the Ragdoll and Johnny Goodman. One kiddie porn purveyor, his chief 'talent wrangler', and one toucher whose attorney beat the rap on a technicality. Feel free to pay them a visit while you're in town, but making sure the lawyer has 24/7 surveillance coverage is priority."
Oscar nodded, mollified.
"Thought that'd make you happy. One final thing, though: Keep your calling card use to a minimum. We've got heat with the cops, we don't want to generate more right now."
Romeo shrugged. "I generally restrict my calling card to a general air of confusion and heartfelt inquiries as to what just happened."
Charly smirked. "I like to leave a huge burning Foxtrot logo on the ground like in that badass scene in The Crow."
"And that, Charly dearest, is why you're marvelous when I need to get something done. You invariably attract all attention in the area to yourself."
"Yeah, which is why I shouldn't be at Pocket D when things go down. With Juliet, and Sierra on the job you can keep it quiet. Oh, and Oscar, bring back an incredibly kitschy 'I Heart New York' souvenir for me. That's your tertiary objective." Oscar stared at her, then slowly nodded. "Right, anything else we missed?"
Romeo shook his head. "I think that about covers everything, actually."
"Okay. Let's break for now. Oscar, make sure you get a written report to Romeo by Saturday at the latest."
Oscar nodded, threw a salute, and departed, leaving Romeo and Charly in the briefing room.
Romeo was the first to break the sudden silence. "Ah, well, it's getting late. I do believe I'll turn in for the night. Good night, Charly; I'll see about acquiring cheerleader outfits for Sierra and Juliet tomorrow."
"Yeah, good night."
Charly waited until Romeo had left before bending back over her laptop with a mischievous grin on her face.
Make me be the one to drop this on Juliet, will you? You're going to pay for that... And I think I know just the perfect way to do it...
((To be continued, hopefully not too long from now.))
My characters - all on Virtue.
Gabe's Internet [censored] Theory
RMT spammers WILL steal your credit card.
"If they want to know who killed Super Patriot", Jen Rogers announced to the assembled Do-Gooders, who were looking at her in various states of shock, "Tell them I did it, in the Patriot Cave, with the Really Big Fire Sword. And now, I'm going to go home and sleep with my husband!"
With these words, she departed through the base portal and was never seen again.
Character index
((That concludes our April Fools intermission, now on with your irregularly scheduled programming. Sorry for taking this long, I blocked a few times over the start.))
Council supply base Sigma-5
0813 Zulu
The interior of the base looked as if it had been hit by a particularly vicious tornado. Bodies - human, lupine, vampiric and robotic alike - lay collapsed on the floor, sagged against walls underneath the cracks they'd made on impact, or hung draped over railings and consoles where they'd been thrown.
Shrapnel from more fragile or less fortunate robots littered the floors, scorch marks and bullet holes painted patterns on no-longer-pristine walls, and the smoke from destroyed consoles was starting to overwhelm the few air scrubbers that remained operational.
In the control center at the heart of the base, the wail of the alarms was drowned out by the sounds of gunfire and shouts as the remaining soldiers mounted a frantic last ditch defense against the invader, but they might as well have been trying to divert a Saharan sandstorm with naught but their hands.
The Cor Leonis had been the first to fall, their miniguns insufficient to slow their attacker in her tracks, and their armor had not held up to the brutal force of her blows when she closed the range. The Zenith mech had fared only slightly better, but its claws had failed to tear more than a rent in her jacket before a vicious double overhand strike had crushed its cranium and spine.
The Galaxy and Equinox adjudants fell only moments later, but the delay had been sufficient for the Archon to recover from the pain of his broken ribs enough to summon the concentration neccessary to shed his human guise, and the Warwolf roared its rage and defiance as it charged its enemy.
Foxtrot Juliet screamed a challenge of her own and met it head on, riding a high of adrenaline and fury as she traded blow for blow with a monstrosity twice her height and five times her body mass made out of bone and muscle and came out the victor. She whirled around as its broken body crashed to the ground, seeking her next target...
... And found none.
She lowered her fists, dismissing the magic she'd learned to use but not comprehend, swaying slightly on her feet as she willed herself to relax, to force back the red haze clouding her vision, to rein in her rage, to remind it that she controlled it...
Deep breaths. Calm.
I control my anger. It does not control me.
My rage is my servant, not my master.
I am its mistress, not its slave.
The chime of her comm unit broke her out of her reverie. She sighed, then keyed it. "Juliet here, go ahead."
"Jules, Charly. We got ourselves a situation and you're needed. Get back to base camp ASAP, default on the contract if you gotta."
Juliet smiled and started retracing her steps back to the entrance. "Fortunately that shall not be a problem, Charly. I was just about done here at any rate. I'll meet our client and let him know to expect our invoice shortly, then return."
"Done already? Nice. Don't worry about the mobster, I'll have Zulu contact him and send your regrets. Just head on home."
"Understood. Expect me in a few hours. Juliet, out."
Foxtrot Company Rogue Isles field HQ
1136 Zulu
"Yo, Jules. Glad you could make it." Charly nodded in greeting as she casually returned Juliet's salute.
She continued, "We have a mission for you with ominous overtones of danger and harm. One which will push your abilities to the limits."
Juliet merely raised a delicate eyebrow at the - by Charly's standards - highly formal speech, but before she could ask for specifics, Whiskey spoke up in her customary emotionless tone. "this shall require juliet to remove her garments so that romeo may fulfill his mission."
Juliet turned to regard the third occupant of the room, who had very emphathetically not twitched in nervous unease. Such a pity - but then again, much of the fun in teasing Romeo was in the challenge. She smiled and regarded him steadily as her right hand reached for the zipper on the front of her leathers. "Really, now? I believe I like this plan already."
"Thank you, Whiskey. Charly, do explain matters in a slightly more, full manner, if you would be so kind?"
Charly smirked at Romeo. "Aw, why? It's so much more fun this way..." Romeo merely looked at her. "... Fine, fine, we'll do it the boring way." She tossed a bundle of clothing at Juliet. "You're drafted for Operation Cheerleader Seduction Madness. Go and put these on."
Juliet looked at the bundle in her hands. It was indeed a cheerleader uniform, white trimmed with Foxtrot green and a stylized 'F' on the shoulder. She looked back at Charly. "May I ask what this operation entails?"
"Y'see, it's like this..."
"... So that's why we need to get the kid to come to Pocket D," Charly finished her tale. "Sierra and you will act as lures so that Romeo can sneak in and scan the kid's mind while you keep him entranced with your sexy, sexy body."
Juliet, who had been listening and occasionally nodding while Charly explained the situation, suddenly smiled. "But if I entrance Romeo with my body, how will he be able to scan the kid's mind?"
Charly smirked again. "Oh well, I guess that's just a risk Romeo is going to have to take."
"Ahem. The kid, not me." Romeo sounded somewhere between exasperated and desperate to change the topic. He must've been, at any rate; it wasn't like him to say something that carelessly rash. But that would have to be worried about later, when she had a chance to talk to him in private.
"Very well. When is this operation scheduled to commence?"
"Romeo and Zulu whipped up a beaut of a letter to the kid. I'll forward it to you so you at least know what 'you' wrote to him when you go meet him. As soon as we've got an answer back, I'll let you know the date and time. Consider yourself off any and all active duty until then. Sierra, that goes for you too - we can't afford to have either of you show up injured."
"okay." came Sierra's timid voice from a shadowy corner that Juliet would have sworn on her life had been empty when she'd looked at it earlier.
"Understood. By your leave, then? I'll file a report on the Family work I've been doing shortly, but I'd like to take a shower first."
Charly nodded. "The report can wait. Go shower. Dismissed."
Juliet saluted and left.
((To be continued, but not by me...))
My characters - all on Virtue.
Gabe's Internet [censored] Theory
RMT spammers WILL steal your credit card.
(( I'm doing the next section in comic format, god help me. This may take a while, but if it looks like it's taking too long I'll post as it gets completed. With any luck I'll be showing you stuff by the end of the week. ))
"The gaping maw of your mind is filled with layered circles upon circles of bloody razors, I am finding."
- Twoflower
Ladies, Gentlemen and "other", without further ado, I present to you, the first comic.
There would be a page two here as well, but I spent all of saturday playing CoH.
"The gaping maw of your mind is filled with layered circles upon circles of bloody razors, I am finding."
- Twoflower
(And now, a brief interlude as I introduce my latest fiasc-- err, character.)
How I Spent My Easter Break
by Lucielle Delmonte, age 10
I went to Canada to visit my grandmother and play in snow and it was lots of fun. I made snow angels and got into snowball fights and had a lot of fun. Then I had to come home to the Rogue Isles and when I got back on the ferry daddy was there to meet me. He comes from a large Family which wears nice clothes. But mommy was there too and she brought her girlfriend and mommy and daddy argued so I went away a bit to play on the beach.
When I was on the beach I saw a neat person who had little red rocks in their skin. I said hi and then the person bit me. Mommy threw fire because that's what she can do and daddy shot at him until he went away. I felt really sick and mommy and daddy took me home, but then argued about whose fault it was I got really sick.
A few days later after I slept a lot with my stuffed kitty Mr. Kitty I felt a lot better. The Arachnos doctor daddy hired didn't know what happened but said I would be OK. I feel a lot better now even if I wish I was back up with my grandmother in Canada where it's cold and fun and people don't yell as much. The end.
-----
I picked my way through the chaos quite carefully.
It was unheard of to find the stink of the beast on Mercy Island. Its slaves would invade Port Oakes now and then, true... but one carrying true, controlled power was unheard of beyond Sharkhead. Even there, at best I'd find people nosing around its power, poking at it ineffectually with their dull minds and greedy hands.
When I felt this presence, I decided on a brief pause in my divinations, so I could determine for myself the truth of the situation. My runework pointed the way to a Longbow base, hidden away from the watchful eyes of Recluse.
Inside I found a frozen hellscape the likes of which is rarely seen on this sleepy if mildly dangerous little island. Longbow's high technologies cracked and shattered, encased in ice and scorched by frost. The personnel were scattered about, deep in hypothermia and being tended to by robotic medical drones. They offered no resistance -- partly because I shielded my presence from them, partly because, well, they were all 'grey' to me as the Destined Ones like to say. Not worth much of an experience.
At the tail end of the base, I found the culprit. The carrier of the power I felt all the way from Sharkhead. And I will admit... I was mildly surprised.
She was a ten year old girl. A human. She had the taint of coral deep in her bloodstream, but she was no mindless coralax slave; she was something different. But more importantly... she was asleep. Her eyes closed, slowly shuffling about, making no sound. No. She wasn't the one who instigated this battle, even if she was the source of the violence...
I slipped behind her as she tapped on a keyboard, and plucked the true culprit from her shoulder.
The tiny stuffed animal gave a very non-inanimate yelp of surprise, and tried to wriggle away.
"Frostgleam," I recognized, clutching the 'kitty' in my hand tightly. "The imp of ice, the demon of the frozen wastes of the ninth circle. Last I heard, you were embedded within some silly sportsman in Paragon..."
"M-Maros, nyo!" the demon chirped from within its plush container. "What are you doing here, nyo?! You're usually on Sharkhead, nyo--"
"She has the power of Leviathan. I felt it all the way from my usual locale, and had to see for myself. You're controlling her in her sleep, using her power, aren't you? You are aligned with its element, after all..."
The kitten chuckled, its threadbare mouth twisting into a smile. "Can you blame me, nyo?" it adorably yet wickedly asked. "After those fools in D.F.B. Crew banished me from my 'sportsman, nyo, I was cast down the ladder! Me, reduced to lesser demonhood, nyo! But the child, nyo, the child has potential. I can use her to get back on top, nyo..."
"You have no concept of the powers you meddle in, Frostgleam. This is no mere puppet play of hell you are participating in; the Leviathan is something wholly alien to you..."
"Lucy is very young, nyo. Not very strong yet, nyo. I can keep it under control and help her learn the power, nyo... and without me, without someone experienced with the icy path, it'll intrude on her waking life, nyo. Too young to control it herself, nyo. Great disaster, Leviathan reaching through her, causing chaos, nyo..."
I considered the issue. The fallen imp had a point. If left to her own devices, left vulnerable and undefended, the situation could become worse than that ridiculous mess with the Freak Show cult...
With a shrug, I placed Frostgleam's host-doll back on the child's shoulder. She resumed her sleep-typing at the Longbow mainframe, once physical contact was reestablished.
"Take care, Frostgleam," I warned. "You're playing a dangerous game with the young one's life, all in the name of your own lust for power and status."
"Not seeing how that's any of your business, nyo," the demon-kitty mewled.
"And just to make your life a little harder... I'm going to let slip word of her new career as a magically endowed criminal to Foxtrot Company," I decided. "I hear they specialize in dealing with fools like you who would exploit their kin. It amuses me to think what they'll do with you--"
"What?! You can't, nyo!!" Frostgleam begged. "They won't listen to reason, nyo! They'll take me away from her, nyo, and then she'll lose control, and it'll come through her, and--"
"Still your felt tongue, fool. They are brighter than that. Stubborn, but bright. And they will indirectly keep an eye on you for me, so I can resume focus on my divinations. ...now, then. What was that horribly cheerful phrase I once saw, on a poster with a 'kitten' much like yourself..? Ah, yes. 'Hang in there, baby.'"
I teleported home in a blink, the echo of demonic cursing (followed by catlike meows) following me.
-----
Curse that [censored]! Curse that enigmatic, time-scrying, unholier-than-thou [censored]!
He had no idea what it was like, scurrying about the ninth circle with the bossman himself, after losing all his respect. After being EXORCISED. If there's a hell for demons, well... that comes pretty damn close.
No way. No way was I giving up the kid now. Sure, I'd bumped into Maros sooner than expected, but I could deal. She needed me -- without me she'd be dead within a year and the Rogue Islands likely eaten by that monster. I needed her, she needed me. My dear, dear little Lucy Dreamer. It would work out okay for her. It HAD to work out okay...
Almost morning. She had school to attend, and needed at least an hour of real sleep, not sleepwalking while imagining she's back where she most wanted to be, getting into snowball fights and building ice forts. Right. Take care of business then bug out.
Longbow bases are one of the only places where you can get un-firewalled Internet access. I knew enough of mortal technologies to know this was my best avenue. The best way of invoking fear in the ones who hurt me in the first place...
I guided her fingers. In her dreams, she was sipping hot cocoa, playing video games at her grandmother's house. In reality, she was emailing Brick Wilson. Former linebacker for Paragon's ridiculous little competitive ball-sport team, and my former host.
"Dear Brick. I have returned to your plane. I'm gathering my strength, building myself up so that when we meet again, I can annihilate all you hold dear, slay all you love, and then finally freeze you forever in a block of ice -- a corpse statue to place at the foot of my throne of ice. I'm going to destroy you completely. Bide your time. I'll be ready soon. Love, Frostgleam."
A bit melodramatic, but cut me some slack, I've had a bad, bad year. I whispered to the child's mind to hit Send, then helped her find her way back to bed. The poor thing was quite tired. And if her own parents couldn't guide her future, much less their own... I'd be the father she needed.
Global @Twoflower / MA Creator & Pro Indie Game Developer.
Mission Architect Works: DIY Laser Moonbase (Dev Choice!), An Internship in the Fine Art of Revenge (2009 MA Award Winner!) and many more! Plus Brand New Arcs for Issue 21!
(Interlude continued)
There were Council soldiers on his front porch, but, hell, there always were.
After gently reminding them that this corner of Brickstown didn't need a recruitment drive, he stepped over their prone bodies and went inside. Mental note, he decided. Track down Vandal and thump him one. Again.
His apartment wasn't exactly prime real estate - nothing in Brickstown was - and he could have easily afforded some fancy penthouse in Founders Falls. Still, the 'Town was his home, and anyway he liked being a bit closer to the pulse of the street.
Of course, there were drawbacks to being a public figure living in an accessible location, but he'd gotten used to them by now. Today was a slow day - only three death threats had been nailed to his door, and the tripwire just inside wasn't even concealed.
And then, of course, there was the letter. One every week, just like clockwork. Rather than toss it aside like the threats, he opened the trim, elegant envelope and glanced over the letter it contained:
...and I must commend you on the way you defeated my soldiers on the field of battle this past week. I must honestly admit my plans had to be mildly diverted due to the losses you've inflicted. But not to worry - a wise man always prepares for such an event, and even your victory has helped me in its own small way.
So often it results in this, does it not? You fight against me, and yet nevertheless end up aiding me. Would it not be simpler to 'cut out the middleman', as they say, and join with me? I can promise you substantial rewards, and glory you've only dreamed of...
Theodore Wilson, AKA 'Brick' Wilson, AKA the Human Elemental, chuckled as he set the letter aside. Nemesis... love him or hate him, the guy had style. Of course, Brick was never hugely tempted to take the Prussian Prince up on his offer, and he suspected Nemesis would have been hugely surprised if he ever did. He just send the letters as a more formal version of 'I'M IN YOUR BASE AND I'M KILLING YOUR DOODZ' - I'm still here, and look what I'm doing! But politely.
Besides, Brick had to admit he brought it on himself. He'd always admitted to respecting Nemesis, in a weird sort of way; the guy sure knew how to scheme.
At any rate, Nemesis wasn't his concern right now. It had been Carnie Day in Waxahachie Park, and after a few psi-blasts too many, he was in desperate need of some downtime. Kicking off his shoes, he started up a Jazz CD, grabbed a cold one from the fridge, briefly checked his e-mail, then settled back in his favorite chair.
And, as it always did, his gaze fell on the picure on the opposite wall, which was a fully-autographed media photo of Brick and the rest of his team after their victorious shot at the Superbowl.
He stared at it - through it - for a long moment, reminiscing. Those were the days. He didn't have to worry about the latest plot to take over the city, or dimensional ruptures, or what-have-you. Just doing a job he was good at, and (he had to admit) getting paid insanely well for it.
But then, of course, the Rikti decided to ruin everyone else's picnic. And in the chaos that followed, stumbling through the rubble of Boomtown, Brick was suddenly assaulted by a wave of energy, and that was almost the last thing he remembered for the next few weeks.
Almost.
...you're still alive? Fascinating. That shouldn't have happened...
Brick never did find out the identity of the mage that had grabbed him. Even Numina, working with him to uncover the depths of his power, hadn't been able to divine that information. Whoever he was, though, he had infused the football player with enough elemental magic energy to choke a horse, making him a walking source of power... and threw in a couple of major spirits to seal the deal.
Frostgleam and Ignifel. Not just elemental spirits, but demonic entities of great power. Neither of them had been too pleased to be sealed inside Brick's body, their magic at his beck and call. Though diametrically opposed, they'd overcome their differences long enough to hatch a scheme designed to win their freedom... and, not coincidentally, Brick's own magic in the bargain. His new team, the Death From Below Crew, had stopped them before they could finish their plan, and with the help of an enchanted dagger the demons were banished, and for good. He wasn't able to use his powers for a while after that, but with the help of MAGI, Numina, and a certain renegade Thorn, he'd gotten back into fighting form, better than ever.
Still... even with all that, he still had it pretty good. Sure, the NFL rules strictly prohibited metahuman players, but he was able to do a lot more good now than he ever could as a football player. He still kept in touch with his old team, and his new friends were good, solid people (for the most part - he still had his doubts about that Thunderpunch weirdo). And the value of Brick Wilson trading cards went through the roof when he reached Security Level 50.
Yep. After a genuine rags-to-riches-to-rags story, from the alleys of Brickstown to Paragon U. to the Superbowl to the old cape-and-cowl routine (though capes were never his style), things had really ended up going Brick's way. Nothing could ruin this winning streak.
And then his computer chimed, signifying an incoming e-mail...
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"...Elisa? Brick. Yeah. Do me a favor? Get the Crew together - just the Crew, no 'Gooders. Pronto. Something's... come up."
Edit: Trimmed the huge Gob 'O Exposition.
Silver Gale sat cross-legged on the stone bench in the corner of the Do-Gooders base that was her designated "room". Eyes closed, breathing even, she muttered five short words over and over.
"wind, ice, snow, rain, zap..."
Perhaps there was a better one-syllable word, in some ancient language or other, that represented lighting, but as Gale's magical education was somewhat lacking in verbal traditions, she didn't knew any.
Meditation was an important part of using her power. It helped her keep the mental balance necessary to work her spells effectively. It provided a measure of rest after a long day's heroing (even if it could not, in fact, replace actual *sleep*, as Gale had discovered rather painfully some time previous). It also had the useful effect of increasing her divination abilities, or as Gale would put it, "letting her hear what the wind's saying more clearly".
The air in the room swirled like water in a rotated glass, causing the flames of the torches to bend and flicker. The breeze passed through the vents in the ceiling and out into the world, and Gale's perception flew along with it.
At first, she allowed herself to be swept up by the wind, and caught several glimpses of the city as it ruffled the cape of a hero striking the final knock-out blow against a Tsoo Green Ink Man, howled under a bridge where two Trolls were negotiating Dyne prices, stirred the leaves of a tree over two Skulls carving their names on a car door, blew a speck of dust into a Family Capo's eye at the wrong moment causing him to take a right cross to the face, and finally brushed against the hull of the downed Rikti mothership. At that moment, Silver Gale took control again, and reached out over the sea to a small but problematic clump of islands.
All she found was a deep, murky darkness where her mind's eye couldn't reach. Arachnos was safeguarding its territory well. Mu Mystics worked tirelessly to block the attempts of the mages and diviners of Paragon City to peer into their realm, even as they searched for weak points in the City of Heroes's own magical barriers. The war between heroes and villains went on tirelessly in many invisible realms as well.
Gale tried to bypass the barrier - a minor and altogether futile attempt, lost in the sea of many more cunning and powerful attacks - and then, smiling slightly to herself, followed a mental link that took her right through it.
She found herself floating in a dark void, filled with the distant sound of the wind, and the quiet whisper of her own doubts and fears. Painful memories resurfaced from the corners of her mind - she winced despite herself as she recalled a particularly disastrous mission that she and her friends had only survived thanks to the near-miraculous work of the MediCom network.
The memories became more vivid, and suddenly a figure emerged from the void in front of her. Silver Gale came face to face with an embodiment of the darkness inside herself.
"Hey", she greeted it with a small smile.
Azure Freeze looked back at her with her perpetual cool, slightly bored-looking expression. "Yes, what is it this time? You're going to rack up quite a bill if you keep calling me like this."
By an odd quirk of her powers and a subsequent chain of events, half of Gale's mind - the decidedly less pleasant half - was living in the Rogue Isles as a fledging villain with strong ties to Foxtrot Company. The two halves, while essentially being separate people, shared a deep mental link that even the combined barriers of MAGI and Arachnos could not block. Gale wasn't sure if this link was known, or if it could be spied on, so she tried to be careful about using it. But sometimes, the need to have answers was too pressing, and this was one such occasion.
"Az, everyone's saying that the Foxtrots killed Super Patriot. What the heck? Why would they do that?", Gale asked.
"Hm. Are they now? That's quite an accusation to make", Azure mused. "It seems to me that the Foxtrots have two reasons for killing someone unprovoked. Either it's because they have been paid by someone to do it, or because... well, they feel the person *deserves* to die." She didn't elaborate, but Gale had a momentary impression of roaming hands and helplessness and disgust.
Surpressing a shudder, she replied with another question. "So which one was it this time?" She considered for a moment the frightened and confused Lightspeed Lad, and the relief on his face when Emily van der Straum (known to most Do-Gooders as Aunt Em) told him that he was welcome to stay with them as long as he liked.
Azure Freeze shrugged. "Maybe. I am rarely privy to all the secret plans. Like all good military operations, Foxtrot has a need-to-know policy."
"You don't know?"
"They didn't *tell* me."
Gale understood. Azure Freeze would never openly admit to not knowing something. She was hinting that she may have found out on her own, but at the same time refusing to share her findings.
She could tell by the satisfaction radiating from her double that she knew *something*. She could probably pry it out of her mind forcefully - but that would be a violation. After acknowledging Azure's independance, Gale was determined to protect her integrity, just as she would protect any human, spirit or other entity. Sometimes the easy way was the wrong way, and being a hero meant not taking it, however conveninant it might be.
"I'm lucky you're the good twin, aren't I?", Azure Freeze made a small sarcastic smile at the thought she'd just felt in Gale's mind. "Is there anything else I can do for you...?" She was always very polite, for someone who had once planned to destroy Gale's mind. But that was before she discovered that doing so would pretty much mean death for her.
"No, thank you", Gale answered, getting ready to follow the link back into her own mind. "If I think of anything else, I'll let you know."
"Of course. I'm always here if you need me", Azure said with an exaggerated bow.
Then she was fading, and the darkness was giving way to a blue sky, and a second later, Silver Gale opened her eyes and found herself back in her own body in the Do-Gooders base.
With a sigh, she got up and started changing back into her civilian clothes for the trip back home. She had the feeling she had missed the beginning of something really big and was now running just to catch up with the problem - never mind trying to solve it.
Character index
(Reposting the Foxtrot Company fiction from the beta boards. FC is a COV Supergroup on the Virtue server.)
...it's hard to say how much of it is fact and how much of it is fiction. All we know is that it was called the Children's Crusade.
Way it goes is that supposedly, hundreds of years ago, a boy who claimed to be touched by God tried to led twenty thousand children across the sea -- by walking across it, you understand, assuming it'd part and make way -- towards the holy lands of Jersualem. The idea was that being pure and righteous they could find their way without any adults and eventually reach a promised paradise.
Naturally, the sea didn't part, and they were forced to go by conventional transport; boats. Merchant boats. Run by merchants who basically sold them into slavery, starved them, or ditched them on foreign shores. Whatever was most profitable. The whole thing was a colossal failure of idealism and naivete.
Kids these days don't have the luxury of that kind of hope. I'm not talking the rich kids, living off Nickelodeon and Pepsi, having little to worry about except making sure they have the same cool clothes the other kids have. I'm talking about the REST of the world, where kids are seen as an inexhausible supply of labor. A reusable, renewable resource.
You really have to laugh when you see the Amnesty International statistics that show exactly how many minors are conscripted into the genocidal armies of third world dictator tribal warlord types. Kids given a gun and a little training and an order to fight for a cause they usually don't understand one bit. And the ones that do survive, well, what's left for them? All they know is how to fight and kill, and then they're tossed aside like any used up old soldier. It's a bleak joke with a flat punchline, just like the Children's Crusade.
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...it's hard to say how much of it is fact and how much of it is fiction. All we know is that it's called the Foxtrot Company.
The rules are simple.
There are always twenty five members of the Foxtrot Company, ranging in age from infanthood up to adulthood, which is pegged at roughly thirty years of age. The lost, the homeless, the child soldiers, the genocidally disposessed, they're all eligible for membership -- we recruit from the youth dead pool, from the ones that society has used up and discarded. Ones that have killed for the causes of others, and have nothing else in their lives, no purpose for their violence.
We bring them in and we show them how to fight for themselves, and for their friends. Not for some warlord, not for a drug kingpin half a world away, not for any god or priest or charismatic dictator. We stand together against the rest of the harsh, uncaring world... we're not victims anymore. Not scared little kids, so easily manipulated, so easily used up. We're soldiers and warriors and we are unstoppable.
But it can't last forever. Foxtrot is a phase of your life, a transition between being lost and finding yourself. It's said a Foxtrot simply KNOWS when it's time to leave, to go join the real world. Some stay until they're thirty. It's kinda case depending. Of course, there's the obvious exit, known as "a bullet in the head," so the ones that get out alive AND as adults are revered. The ones that crack and bug out young out of fear rather than wisdom are forgotten.
We take whatever jobs will keep us fed, keep us clothed, keep us happy; we have a semblance of a normal life due to our mutual support. To that end, we work as one well trained and well oiled unit. We're all used to violence, and we work to make each other better at it.
But we don't kill people like us, we don't kill kids, teenagers, we don't kill the young. Our clients know that. If we have to deal with people like us, they get the option to just walk away. And if our clients don't like that, we can take our money from dead hands just as easily as live ones, and they'll have to go through all twenty six of us if they want to have it any other way. The record to date, according to fact or fiction, is eleven. Some guy from Malta who wanted to hire us more permenantly and control us completely holds that record... but we had our revenge, took our pay, and found eleven more lost ones to fill the boots that were emptied. We won't be slaves anymore. Malta doesn't bother us now. Not worth the effort.
Together we're stronger than we are individually. We're an army. We're a family. Locked arm in arm, nothing can stop us. Nothing can phase us. We laugh at death because we aren't scared little naive kids anymore. We're Foxtrot.
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...it's not hard to say how much of it is fact and how much of it is fiction. After all, now we're talking about my own life.
I'm one of the few Foxtrots from America. I wasn't raised in the middle of a tribal war, but I was taught how to clean and field strip a gun at an early age, because I was an army brat. Military father, discontent mother. I loved one and hated the other, and she hated us both, particularly because I loved him.
He was strong, but caring. Fierce, but compassionate. He's what Kurtz from Apocalypse Now considered 'moral, but amoral,' capable of being both at once and being incredibly effective in life as a result. He defended his country with pride and without hesitation, because he loved me.
Mom didn't care. She drank a lot. She'd throw bottles and scream. He'd try to placate her, to make things work for all of us, and it just didn't work. I don't know why they didn't divorce. Other kids my age were sent into depression by divorce, but it would've been sweet relief for me.
(I was a very odd child, more grown-up than others. I didn't care about silly things. I think dad's the reason why. He was so strong, so together, so collected. I wanted to be like him. I wanted to be more mature. Not like some little stupid kid...)
One day dad was on an overseas assignment he couldn't talk about and he was killed in action. We weren't told how, or where, or why. That's just the nature of the missions he ran. At his funeral, I didn't cry, and I saluted him during the twenty one guns. Afterwards, I cried. I was still young, after all. Still a little stupid kid, in a lot of ways.
If Mom was bad before, she got worse after. Child services took me away from her after the incident with the cigarette burns and me threatening to kill her with the gun I took from Dad's cabinet. I went to live with my uncle after that, which goes to show how much adults really care; child services didn't look at this guy real closely. I'm not going to say what happened, except that I wouldn't let him do the things he wanted to do, and I took a stand just like dad taught me to.
I killed him. It beat the alternative. I ran after that and hid, not sure where else I could go.
At this point I was done with the adult world. I had no family left that I loved, and my country had turned on me, the media labelling me a 'thrill kill' teenager (since they didn't know the truth). I became the poster girl for an overly violent society because they found my video game collection. I hated them because they didn't understand, they didn't care, they didn't CARE that they didn't understand. I had perfectly valid reasons for what I did, I wasn't some stupid kid, but they lumped me in with those idiots from Columbine anyway.
That night, while I was hiding out in this crappy industrial sector where I had to avoid the gangs and derranged homeless guys, I stumbled across Foxtrot. Or rather, they stumbled across me.
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I'd been hiding out in some oil refinery storage shed when the CEO happened to be doing some inspections. Or maybe he was secretly dumping toxic waste during the dead of night. I really don't know what he was doing there -- just that after he found me and had his boys rough me up a little for tresspassing and daring to be small and supposedly defenseless. I was probably dead meat, but fortunately for me, some guys in black dropped out of nowhere and took them out in a hail of gunfire. I figured I was dead too... until I noticed they were MY age...
They left immediately, since sirens were approaching, and I bailed too. But a few days later, one of them contacted me. They offered me a role in Foxtrot, a way out of being a fugitive and a victim. They explained the rules. They promised nothing but loyalty and a chance to find myself. I accepted.
My callsign's Foxtrot Charly. It's supposed to be Charlie, but I really like this song by The Prodigy, and I really liked that movie about the retarded guy. The other Foxtrots were cool with me changing it, so I did.
My days in the company were great. Half the time I'd be training for team tactical ops, something I'd never done before. The other half of the time we'd be trying to be normal kids -- playing video games, telling jokes, watching movies. Even when we had to go mobile for an op we'd bring along some game consoles to help pass the time.
Not everybody could laugh. Some were more hurt than others -- victims of sexual abuse, kids modified by corps like the Crey to have super powers, and so on. Real problems, even harsher than my own. Ones they had trouble really coming to grips with.
Part of being in Foxtrot was being aware that a kid is not designed to deal with this kind of thing on a daily basis, so the stronger ones had to help the weaker ones get stronger. Knowing yourself was important. I had it easier; other than some anger control issues, I was okay. But during my tenure, I had to watch two of us break down completely. They became Anonymous Foxtrot, aka left at a mental health facility anonymously. We hate having to do that, but we can only do so much.
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I was with them a few years before the incident in Paragon. Normally we avoid Paragon because of the high spandex factor. It's hard to predict what the capes will do, what they're capable of...
I was nabbed in Paragon because I forgot that some of the capes can phase-shift and not have to worry about gunfire at all. After that, he used some energy technique to paralyze me, and I woke up in the Zig. Terrific.
If he knew who my target was, he wouldn't have stopped me. The guy was a corporate CEO, just a rival my client wanted taken out... but he was also a toucher. Foxtrot is always business, never personal, but sometimes it's business AND personal. Those contracts are ESPECIALLY fun because you get to work out some repressed anger...
But getting back to being nabbed. I was tried as an adult, because they said I was a psychopath with no morals and no remorse. Which is kind of what you have to be when you're an assassin, or else you'll go insane... but the real reason they were so hard on me was to try and get me to hand over my brothers and sisters. The agent (I think her name was Indigo) who was REALLY in charge of the case told me it wasn't her idea to lean on me heavily, but that she knew of Foxtrot just as well as she knew of Malta, and she wanted to help us. Help us by destroying us, probably.
So here I was, a fifteen year old paramilitary brat in the Zig, which is a pretty bad thing since there are freaky old guys in here who do really sick things. I wasn't expecting to stay long, though. Foxtrot Company won't stand for one of our own being held against our will. You are either safe or dead with Foxtrot, there are no inbetweens; we don't tolerate people who want to capture and use us.
Oddly, though, the Company didn't rescue me -- Arachnos did. These guys were really creepy, but very professional, very slick. I had to respect that. Plus, they were getting me out of the country, to a place with no extradition laws -- the Rogue Isles.
I got in touch with Foxtrot soon after the helicopter landed. We collectively decided it might be a good idea to station some troops here; just me and Tango at first, until we scout the island out a bit more. If we could establish a real home, somewhere safe that welcomes us, it'd be helpful. It'd be better than constantly moving our operations. Here, there are contacts willing to hire us. Here, there are fewer restrictive laws. Here, the ones that want to hurt us can't reach us.
We don't really trust Arachnos, but for the time being, this looks like a good place to call home. We'll take root and grow stronger. We'll support each other and strike back at the world. We'll live up to the promise of the Foxtrot Company, and one day, we'll be found.
Until then, we fight.
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For official CNN transcripts, please visit CNN.com. Transcript for 10/4/2005 5:47PM EST follows.
WOLF: This is Wolf Blitzer, and we are in the Situation Room -- Reporting live on a scenario unfolding in Germany, where police have surrounded the compound of suspected neo-nazi cult leader Hanz Wulfgang. The situation is a tense standoff between Germany's version of SWAT teams and the heavily armed cultists.
A dozen hostages, taken from a school bus en route to morning kindergarten, are reportedly being held in the basement of the compound. Demands have been issued, including live television broadcasting of Wulfgang's facist views, and safe passage from the compound via helicopter to an airport, where his followers will be sent by plane to a country with no extradition laws.
Also included in the demands list is the promise that one child would be executed every hour that these demands are not met. The list was, I'm told, sent along with the body of the first hostage. We--
--we are now seeing fire errupting from the second floor of the compound, I am told, I am told that the police have not engaged and have not opened fire. As you can see from the news chopper there is definitely fire coming out of the window-- three windows now.
Gunshots are being fired, but they're internal, repeat, internal, no rounds have been fired at the police camped around the building...
There, zoom in there, we have a figure running out of the building--
That appears to have been a landmine, perhaps part of the cult's defensive perimeter, although we at CNN don't have any reports of such ordinance being deployed by anyone in this conflict. How it got there is anyone's guess--
More followers are escaping, those are definitely not the hostages, and...
Zoom in there. ...are we seeing that right? What kind of lens is being used?
This is the Situation Room, and you are in fact seeing... what seems to be masked men of four to five feet in height gunning down the escaping cultists in broad daylight. I'm told the police are moving in immediately to contain the chaos and determine what's going on, there's the possibility that this is some seperate cell of the terrorists...
...those look a lot like kids to me. That can't be right. Are we sure it's not a distortion on the lens? Some image scaling problem--?
--smoke rising from what seems to have been a smoke bomb. Our cameras are obscured, we'll try to get a ground view from one of the German reporters currently on the scene, perhaps... no, we're still obscured there...
We're scheduled to take a break, but I'm told we'll present the situation commercial free from here on in. This is the Situation Room, after all.
...yes, the smoke appears to be clearing, and...
...and if you have small children watching you would be advised to ask them to leave the room before we show the next shot. It appears Wulfgang's followers are dead, and the children have been led out the back of the building and are now safe in police custody. The carnage in front of the building, however, is not a sight that... well. Viewer discretion is advised.
Is that..? I'm seeing some sort of graffiti on the side of the building, can we get confirmation if that was there prior to this incident or not..? Some sort of insignia... looks like F-O-X--
--and our feed seems to have been cut off for some reason.
We'll have more on this situation as it develops. Although it seems, for now, the worst of it is over.
We do not believe Fox News is involved.
Global @Twoflower / MA Creator & Pro Indie Game Developer.
Mission Architect Works: DIY Laser Moonbase (Dev Choice!), An Internship in the Fine Art of Revenge (2009 MA Award Winner!) and many more! Plus Brand New Arcs for Issue 21!