Grey's Army

"Alright, Randy," Power Breaker snuck the group to a ferry, "Recluse has these things in passive mode, so the drones won't gun you down... I think..."

A large rock smashed into the first, and the second wound up driving itself into the water. There was an electrical sound as the machine shorted out. Power Breaker scratched his head and turned to the heroes. Randall was whistling to himself and Sarah seemed to be gazing intently at her fingernails.

"Right..." the brute grunted, "Alright, let's go..."

A number of villains were already waiting patiently to use the ferry, but the brute and the tank did a good job of scaring them right out the back. It must have been comical to any of the Scrapyarders watching the rogues and villains leaping out of the back of the ship to dive into the water and get away from the high-powered individuals. Of course, they also took it as an opportunity to toss some dynamite in after them.

"Well, that was unexpected," Randall grunted as massive plumes of water exploded into the ferry, "Does that happen often?"

"No," Power Breaker shrugged, "But then, they hardly get that opportunity."

"Start driving," Joe intoned to the ship's pilot, "Grandville, right Peebee?"

"Right. If they've got Wallace anywhere, it's there. If not, we can harp on Grillo for a while and get the location we need..."

"Who's Grillo?" Sarah asked as she found a crate to sit on.

"He's Arachnos's chief mad scientist," the brute replied, "More authority than Dr. Aeon, and a true believer of Lord Recluse's portrayal of a Technocratic society. Say what you will about Recluse, he's got a better idea than Nemesis..."

"A place for everybody and everybody in their place," Randall grumbled, "Regardless of whether or not that place is leadership, labor, fuel or food."

"Everybody winds up as fuel or food in the eyes of Nemesis," the brute agreed, "Everyone except him..."

The other members of their strike team, the non-meat shields, shuddered at once. The fact that these two could talk so easily about it was exceptionally unsettling.

"I think you've been doing this too long, Randy," Charlene hugged his wrist, "It's taken something from you..."

"It took your years away, hun," he replied softly, then brushed some of the hair from her face, "You're pretty now... But I do kind of miss the old you..."

"All gray hair and wrinkles," his wife replied, "No thanks. At least now I can hurl energy blasts and shoot lasers out of my eyes..."

Randy nodded, but he disagreed with his wife's enthusiasm. He already had his own extraordinary longevity. At an age where he should have either started losing his hair or at least had it go gray, he still had a lush, thick mop that was as dark as dirt. It was one of the gifts the Earth, Gaia, had given him for his service as the Guardian, the Warden, of Kingdale, but he could have done without it. He could have done without it all, but it came in really handy when he thought he'd lost her forever.

Now what was he supposed to do? This whole "rescue operation" answered that question in the short term, but in the long term? What was he supposed to do? He couldn't keep on in Paragon, Roland was right on that one. There was more to do elsewhere, and he could certainly do a lot of good in his hometown, plus there was the fact that new heroes poured into the city every day. They would certainly be able to handle the workload.

Unfortunately, he was knocked out of his reverie by a clawed swipe from Captain Mako. The shark lunged out of the crates and just raked his hand across the tank's face. The rest of the group reacted with shock, but Randall raised his hand to keep them at bay.

"So..." he grunted as the wounds closed, "Decided to stop going easy on me, huh?"

"Without your veritable army backing you up, cape, I can finally let loose my full potential!"

Mako lunged again, twirled in the air, and delivered a kick to Randall's chest. He then backflipped, crossed his arms in front of his face, and slashed both sets of his claws across the tanker's neck and shoulders. This caused Randy to stumble to his knee and reach into his pocket for a couple of the green gems that, when crushed, would heal him instantly. As Mako made to deliver the final deadly blow, a bite to the throat, Grey raised his forearm into the path of the gaping maw and was surprised when the shark man seemingly hit bone.

"Ow," he winced and reached his hand over to Nester.

"You want me to hit you with some heals, boss?"

"No," Randy gestured, "That. Gimme that."

The defender turned to what the tanker indicated then looked back to Randy with shock.

"Nester..."

"Randy, no..."

"Give me... The SCUBA tank..."

Mako made a muffled confused sound moments before a yellow canister smashed into his head. The shark man fell away, recovered quickly, and turned back to attack again. Only this time he met the SCUBA tank again.

The next time, the SCUBA tank came to meet him as Randall backhanded it across Mako's face. The rest of the group "oohed' and "aahed" as the shark man was smashed throughout the ferry. Mako wasn't stupid, however, and wound up ducking one swing, and chose that moment to strike.

He drove his clawed hand into Randall's chest, aiming for the diaphragm so the big man would drown on his own blood. It would have worked, too, if it weren't for one thing he hadn't taken into consideration: the rock armor that was also inside his flesh, wrapped around his other internal organs. Captain Mako's eyes widened as his claw got stuck, and Randall glared down at him.

The tank rumbled down at him, "That..."

-----

"HURT!" Randy's voice roared across the bay as he smashed the shark man through the ferry's bulkhead.

As Mako flew through the air, the big man propped the oxygen tank on his knee. With one swat of his hand, the valve of the canister exploded and the apparatus rocketed into the free-falling body of Arachnos's stalker general. The compressed air erupted into a cloud as the tank spun about after hitting, but Mako never hit the water. A burst of red lightning erupted from his body and he disappeared. Randall stared at the empty space where the shark should have been as the canister landed instead.

----------

"I guess he didn't like getting his ribs broken," the tank grunted as he slumped into the crates, "Nester... Heal me..."

"Righto," the defender started applying nanites, "Wow, boss, he wasn't hitting like that earlier..."

"Mako usually waits for opportune moments to strike," Power Breaker explained, "It's how he took down Scrapyard... It's how he takes down most of his foes..."

"But he could have done that when the BWO dropped us in Sharkhead!"

"He didn't know Randy would have just had it out with him, no interference. Here in the Rogues, and even in Paragon, if you've got an advantage, you use it. He didn't expect Randy to go mano-a-mano. Heck, I didn't expect that, Randy... But... Why the SCUBA tank?"

"I thought you hated that movie," Charlene kissed her husband on the cheek.

"Aw," Sarah sighed then ran to get her fiance.

Bringing him back, she pointed at her parents.

"That's what I want us to be like," she giggled.

"Snuffy! I'll never be that big!" the cop groaned, "I'd have to start eating ridiculous meals when I was fifteen!"

----------

"Uh, ma'am," one of the Arachnos troops beside an astonished Barracuda, "I don't mean to offend or presume anything, but... Shouldn't we get out there and finish the job Captain Mako started?"

"No."

She was laying on the concrete, with her arms crossed on the raised edge of the pier. Barracuda's chin rested on her forearms, and her face was having a hard time returning to neutral.

"Uh..."

"Look, do you want to get thrown through a wall and rocked with a SCUBA tank? Do you!?" she jumped up and rounded on the Wolf Spider, livid, "I don't! You can go ahead and waste yourself a trip to the Reclaimators, I'm going to see if I can work on that other thing we came here for originally! Dammit, Viridian dropped the ball on this one... He dropped it hard... Where the Hell did these guys come from!?"

"Perhaps we should help the troops shut the ones left on the island down..."

"Sounds like a good..."

An Arachnos Flier fell into the water, one of its hover pods destroyed by an anti-tank missile and spewing smoke. The machine landed with a splash and the BWO dropship hovered overhead, backing away slowly as it churned out ammunition from its heavy chaingun into pursuing Fliers. The black ships did not look like they were ready for the shielded gray one.

"Forget it!" Mako's apprentice shouted as she started marching into the ocean, "I'm going to my underwater beach house... Call me when this is over."

"Ma'am?"

"Daos can send the Banes, I don't care. Right now, I'm on vacation!"

----------

"Woah," one of the guards flanking the exit door said at the pile of parts in front of Sheldon, "You really tore that thing apart!"

"I took fitful naps," Wallace replied, "I just couldn't stop myself from working, I just had so many great ideas on how to improve this... Still, I'm all rested up and ready to go on this..."

He pulled the gloves on and wiggled his fingers. He could feel the beginnings of a static charge between his fingertips, the gloves themselves hummed eagerly. Licking his lips, he raised his hands into the air like a maestro preparing to direct his orchestra.

Then he began. It was a frenetic display of tiny parts moving through the air. Pieces snapped together with ease. A soldering iron floated among the detritus, fusing the fixed components in their shapes. Wherever Sheldon's attention went, that was where the most complex performances, the most intricate details were exacted, and when Sheldon put his attention on multiple items, it was like watching two slowly growing whirlwinds in the middle of the madness.

Everybody in the room stopped to watch. The guards even lowered their weapons, they were in such awe. Sheldon's face never twitched, never flinched and he maintained the same stoic resolve from beginning to end. The pieces whirled and flew about him, he waved and guided their paths, and brought more soldering irons in to accommodate all of the moving parts.

Finally, he was satisfied, and he threw his hands toward the Arachnos troops. The pieces flew out at them and the guards went for their guns. Had Sheldon been attacking them, however, it would have been too late, and they would have been pelted by a plethora of blaster pieces. Of course, that would have achieved nothing. Finally, Wallace allowed himself a smirk.

"I wouldn't have wasted all that work, just to smash these little parts against your armor," he chuckled, then he started wiggling his fingers again, and the little pieces pulled away from the guards, "I've been at this too long for that."

The parts started coalescing near the inventor. As they fitted together, he maneuvered the soldering irons to weld the last parts into place. He had multiple sections being put together, but the guards were too astonished to figure out what was happening. One of the scientists had it figured out, however.

The man Sheldon had corrected the previous day, however, did nothing to warn the guards. He merely turned back to the power armor he was working on and set back to work feverishly.

Sheldon, satisfied with this phase, brought his gloved hands into fists. The different pieces of his contraptions twirled around in the air, came together and bolts locked into place. The guards were now staring at two of the most bizarre looking ray guns they'd ever seen.

Once again, they were too late to react. Sheldon pulled the trigger and two bolts of red lightning spat out at the Arachnos Wolf Spiders. The troopers dropped to the floor, unconscious, but alive, and Sheldon turned to the other scientists.

"I'm getting out of here," he intoned, "Anybody who wants to come with me is welcome."

"No..." the one with the power armor held it up for the escapee to see, "But take this with you."

"What?" Sheldon arched his eyebrow at the man, "Why? Why would you help me? I embarrassed you."

"You think I didn't know I was making mustard gas? It took me months to get the materials just right... It was meant for me, but if it took out everybody in this room, so much the better... I couldn't go on with my inventions and discoveries being used by Arachnos to conquer the world... To put everything I hold dear under the despotic thumb of that madman..."

Several of the other scientists, tinkers, and technicians nodded their agreement.

"I was hoping to end it all..." he pressed the armor into Sheldon's chest, "Now, I've got something else to look forward to..."

Sheldon set the weapons down on a nearby table and set to putting the armor on. As the Dr. Mustard (as Sheldon had come to call him) explained it, he grabbed one of the rifles. Sheldon went to grab his other rifle, realizing he'd made the critical mistake of relinquishing his weapon when the other man fired one more electric bolt into the guard moving for the alarm. The black-and-red armored man slumped down to the floor again, and the fortress remained quiet.

"Here you go," Mustard said as he handed back the energy weapon before helping clasp some of the armor's locking mechanisms shut, "If he'd hit that button, we'd all be in some nasty trouble."

Sheldon powered on the armor and looked to the lab technicians. They nodded, saluted and offered words of encouragement.

"Good luck," Dr. Mustard said, "And give them Hell."

Sheldon nodded, and made for the door.

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

"Oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god-"

Fire-Shield wasn't the most confident of heroines. She wished she could be like Wrath Fire, who'd just taken several bullets to the chest, arms, face and back, and was still standing with a ticked-off look on her face and punching and throwing bad guys about. Eisenheartz wasn't much different, there were a few holes in his armor, but he still lashed into the Arachnos troopers at his doorway with a fervor that bordered on a berserker rage. Snuggle Purr, the strange spiky catgirl, was curled up at the controller's feet, fumbling with one of the cartridges that would reinvigorate her so she could get back into the fight.

"Where's Kip?" Fire-Shield asked as she pushed her shield back from the onslaught of ammunition.

The plan had been simple. Raid the Hellforge, find a warehouse and hole up inside. While inside, they would fend off the Arachnos troops at various doorways, hallways and other choke points. Then it turned out the warehouse was wide open, and the troops didn't limit themselves to coming through doors...

Showing a surprising amount of ingenuity, the troopers had smashed through the ceiling and the windows. They had the small group surrounded before they knew what was happening, and Kip seemed to just go nuts. The last they'd seen of their erstwhile leader, he was pushing a group of enemy forces through another doorway, and promptly disappeared. More troops came in through the doorway, so Fire-Shield was worried the worst had happened.

The tankers pulled closer to the controller, their resilience massively depleted. Inside the shield, there was a modicum of comfort, some protection, but the troops were weathering Fire-Shield's resilience as well.

"Hold fire!" the Webmaster running things shouted suddenly.

The onslaught ended, and the Wolf Spiders and Crab Spiders held their positions. They started moving in closer, reloading their weapons and preparing for a fresh attack. The catgirl at Fire-Shield's feet pushed herself up, a green glow closing her wounds and replenishing her.

"You've fought well," the Webmaster called to the gathered heroes, "But I'm afraid your battle has come to an end. Now... I will make you this promise: Tell me who it was that enabled your rapid insertion to the Rogue Isles, my Lord Recluse's domain, and I will ensure that your torture is swift and your deaths relatively painless..."

The sound of shattered glass, followed by a pair of screams answered him. He looked up to an overlooking office and saw two of his Crab Spiders dropping to the floor. They were shortly followed by Kipland Durj, his eyes blazing with rage. As the bodies of the Arachnos troops hit the floor, they disappeared in red electric eruptions that sent them to the reclaimators.

Kipland landed afterwards and struck a defensive stance. Wrath Fire shook her head angrily and leaned in close.

"Where the Hell have you been, Kip?"

"I got carried away," he hissed back, "I'm sorry... I really am..."

"You've got to keep your head in this game, you little [turd]! I can't believe how recklessly you're treating this whole situation!"

"Dammit, Wrath..."

"Enough of this!" the Webmaster roared, "Kill them!"

The tanker dove back into the shield as the bullets flew, but Kip, oddly, stood his ground. Screaming angrily, he was suddenly wrapped in his signature dark purple armor. The bullets deflected harmlessly, and he dove into the ranks of the enemy.

Suddenly, all eyes were on him. The spiked clubs the Wolf Spiders were fond of came out, and the soldiers started wailing away on the crazy scrapper. That didn't help them, though. Kip wound up stealing a pair of clubs, and used them to fend off other fighters. Left, right, forward, back, he moved like a man possessed, and that wasn't far from the truth.

"Side-kick, now!"

Kip reacted to his soul's command. The Wolf Spider he victimized wound up crashing through a few ranks of his allies, and Kip dove into the hole in the troop formation. From there, he whirled around, smashing the spiked batons into the troops and shattering their armor.

"Alright Kip. We're running out of time... What's the plan for what we have left?"

Kip responded to his soul's question by vaulting himself up and smashing his knees into a Longfang. As the body toppled to the floor, he tumbled and wound up in front of the Webmaster. He shoulder rammed the commander, bounced back, hopped up, spun around, and delivered a savage drop kick to the Webmaster's face, cracking his dome.

It was at that moment that Kip's armor failed. He cursed as he slumped to the floor, his body exhausted, his brain suddenly developing a splitting headache. Unfortunately for the Arachnos troopers thinking they could gain a quick kill on the exhausted scrapper, the rest of Kip's force had recovered from the earlier battle and dove into the fray.

The Webmaster looked up to see Eisenheartz twirling the mace at his side as he approached. Confused about the behavior, the commander wasn't ready when the tanker whipped the weapon into his dome helmet and smashed the glass inward, incapacitating him and automatically activating the Reclaimator beacon.

Wrath Fire and Snuggle Purr took the remnants as Eisen and Fire-Shield defended Kip. The scrapper was wrapped in shields from the controller as bullets streaked toward him. The catgirl leaped at the troopers hiding in the rafters and catwalks, hurling bone spikes at them and embracing them in painful hugs. Wrath Fire actually kicked a staircase over, busting up a whole squad of the troopers as it fell. Not content with the victory, however, Genevieve leaped into the air and smashed into the metal wreckage, pressing it down on the troopers one final time before they were agonizingly teleported to their medical facility.

"Well done," Eisenheartz declared as she rejoined the group.

"I don't think they like hugging me," Snuggle said with a deceptively adorable tone of voice, "They kept screaming 'ow ow, you're hurting me...'"

"Are you okay, Kip?" Fire-Shield asked as she administered shields to the rest of the group, "We should probably get moving... We're not in a good way, and there could be more troops coming."

"No more are coming," a voice said from the entrance.

They turned to the red-coated leader of the Brutal Warriors Order.

"Hey guys," Draven shouted as Project Whirlwind rushed past and started casting his healing magic on the various wounded heroes, "Everybody alright?"

"We're just fine," Kip replied as he pushed himself up, "Barely. Thanks for the support."

"We saw their forces massing here and figured we'd take some of the stress off. If it had been Cedric we saw go in here, we'd have left him to his nightmare."

Draven Erickson chuckled at his little joke. Project Whirlwind shook his head. At that point, the rest of the BWO's ground forces made their way inside.

"I've got good news," Psycho13 announced, "A big blue ghost just started wreaking havoc on Arachnos forces... We've got ourselves some breathing room."

"Scrapyard's Ghost," Dirty Ice grinned mischievously, "Never thought I'd be so happy to see him."

"Solid Shot and Cedric's crews are on the other side of the big rumble, though," Ragin' James folded his arms over his chest, "So, what's the plan? I'm fairly certain there are some of the tougher types of villains mixed up in the group trying to take down the big, scary monster... Think maybe Arachnos will be able to get them to help out in the fight?"

"Maybe... Maybe if they convince them there's a reward to take down your guys' dropship," Kip replied.

"Ice!" Draven shouted and the fiery brute was already leaping for the window, "Get Solo out of here!"

----------

The Flier streaked past, firing a teleportation beam into the dropship's central chamber. A group of Wolf and Crab Spiders suddenly appeared, but Mr. Kolt wasn't about to let them gain their bearings. He drained a belt into them from his M-240G machine gun and shouted for Mr. Hackler and Mr. Coach to close with and destroy the enemy. A couple bursts and a butt-stroke later and the dropship was clear again.

Except for the Bane Spider Justin Steel shot into submission from his seat. As his assault rifle stopped firing, he turned calmly to Mr. Kolt.

"I shouldn't have had to do that," he said calmly.

"I know, sir."

"Make sure it doesn't happen again."

"Aye sir."

Solo Stryker's voice came over the intercom before the commando could start barking at the other troops.

"Watch out boys, we've got a friendly comin' in!"

Dirty crashed into the side of the door and twisted as he fell to the floor of the ship. Mr. Walter, the Medic, started treating him before the brute jumped up and clicked the intercom.

"Solo," Matt shouted, "Draven says we've gotta move out! Now!"

"But there's still Fliers out there!"

"We gotta move, man! We gotta move! See all those people fighting down there? There's some of the really nasty bad guys down there, and if Arachnos convinces them we're badge-worthy, they're gonna tear this ship apart!"

There was a lurching sensation as Solo Stryker pulled the vehicle hard to starboard. Mr. Smythe toggled a few switches and there was a jarring sensation as one of the Fliers attempting another "Portal Bombing" crashed against the ship's repulsor field and was sent crashing into the massed crowds below. The BWO Dropship didn't far much better, but was able to recover before hitting the ocean.

"Alright, we're moving out," Solo shouted, "Dirty, if you feel like heading back..."

"Later man," Ice replied, "When we gotta pick them up, I'll be good to cover the retreat..."

"You might be necessary beforehand," Justin said as he casually peered over the shoulders of his troops, "Those Fliers don't seem to want to let us leave."

"Pft, they're mass-produced," Matt shrugged, "There's no love or care in them... Solo can turn 'em to slag."

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

"If you want your redemption," the whisper of a female voice echoed in the back of its head, "you will do as you are told!"

"Yes, Mistress," Sikk replied worriedly, "I will do as you say..."

It had taken the teen a lot of groveling and convincing to get Ghost Widow to forgive him for the slaughter he'd committed inside her own tower. If she had been there at the time, however, he would have been utterly destroyed.

"It was an unmistakable fortune she was not," the voice said in the back of his head, "Though I wish I did have a little more time with that red-clad psychic..."

"Stop it, she might hear you..." the youth hissed at the voice and set out to find the people Ghost Widow had tasked him with finding.

What he found instead, was Mad Matt McGinty. The two found each other as Cedric was rigging a few trucks to explode outside of one of the Cage Consortium's warehouses. Or rather, Sikk found the hero who'd sent him spiraling down the drain of the Zig.

"Well-well," Sikk intoned as he started closing with his foe, each footstep muffled by the fact that he was both in and out of sync with the world, "It seems I may just wind up enjoying my penance..."

"Finish him quickly!" the voice hissed, "Do not toy with him!"

"Why?" Sikk asked aloud.

Mattock heard him and slashed his blade through the air. Sikk barely deflected the desperate attack, but that was all Matt was looking for.

"Ah crap, a stalker," the hero barked, "When are you paper tigers gonna learn? Never go toe-to-toe..."

He turned to Sikk's face.

"Ah crap... I know you."

"No," the young man's voice changed sharply; now it was a low tone, almost hollow, "You don't."

With a chuckle, Sikk disappeared again. It was like his shadow had simply leaped up and swallowed him whole before disappearing entirely. This didn't deter McGinty, but it was certainly a hindrance.

"You think that scares me?" he asked as he pulled the blade into a defensive stance, "Remember how this went last time?"

"Yes..."

Matt blinked. That was a new sensation. Cory had been training him some, mostly with meditation, and they had covered the basics of "Aethereal Communication," which was apparently a step removed from true telepathy. However, in those sessions, there had been very little in the way of emotion... Not like the pure malevolence that had just shot through his brain.

Of course, Matt had dealt with people who didn't like him before. He was able to roll hatred right off his back. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to roll off so easily the blade that snaked out of the middle of the air right in front of him and drove straight to his abdomen.

So, instead of rolling the weapon off, he rolled away. The blade jabbed into empty air, and Matt met the follow-up strike with his own blade. There was an electric eruption, and the two warriors stared each other down.

"You're not nearly the hero you need to be to defeat me," Sikk declared in that dark tone, "Give up, and I will ensure your death is quick."

"Give up?" Matt's face screwed up in rage, "We... just... started!"

He kicked the stalker away and started marching after him. Before Sikk hit the ground, however, he disappeared again. Three dark trails sailed through the air, circumnavigated McGinty, and rematerialized as Sikk stabbing into his back.

"Augh!" the scrapper shouted as he spun away, a long gash left in his back, "Sonova... You-"

"-Gave you your chance," Sikk chuckled, his voice a mix of the one that had alerted the hero earlier and the malevolent deep one, "Now... Now you die slowly..."

"You scratched me," Matt gave a warrior's salute with his blade, "That doesn't mean I'll die before my time."

"But it does, boy... It does..."

"Boy? I'm older than you by almost a decade!"

"There is nothing in this world older than me," the deep voice said alone, "Nothing."

"Are you gonna keep talking, or..." Matt stopped and stared at his sword.

It was glowing. Not the whole blade, but the silver dragon filigree and the peculiar inscription next to it had attained a strange golden shine. There was a tingling sensation across his back.

"No!" the deep voice shouted, "It cannot be!"

----------

--Roughly Eight Years Earlier: Kingdale High School Rear Parking Lot, Graduation Day--

"Always trust your heart," Matt read as he translated the inscription.

"A simple phrase," his mentor, Ken Yahn, clapped the young man on his shoulder, "I felt it suited you best, as it is the way fight your best."

Ken was Asian, but of unknown descent. He was first-generation, and had changed his name upon reaching the states. He was old enough to be Matt's dad (literally, as the two were the same age), and the two had met shortly after the boy was born. Matt's dad swore it was a family they rescued from a fire, Ken often was silent about the issue.

Oddly enough, the two had struck a deal. Matt wound up receiving about the strangest education an American student could receive, a third from his father, a third from his high school experiences, and a third from Yahn. Ken provided Matt with an education in martial arts unlike any received before, combined with his father's take on fighting and the various brawls he wound up getting into as a friend of the abrasive Cedric Grey. At the end of high school, he was one of the three toughest kids in Kingdale High, and many disputed who among them was truly the toughest.

"Not my best," the blond kid replied as he sheathed the blade, "Just some of my fiercest."

Ken chuckled again. Matt joined him. They both knew that Matt's fiercest was his best. They were joined shortly thereafter by his father, affectionately referred to as the "Crazy Old Man," Mark McGinty.

"There's the graduate!" he shouted, "What's that pigsticker you got there?"

"Ken gave it to me for a graduation gift."

Mark took the scabbard as his son offered it and tested the weapon's weight. Nodding approvingly, he returned it to its owner.

"Be careful with that thing. People get strange ideas about swords. Even today. Not as bad a feeling as guns, even though guns are worse, but people still think a person with a sword is dangerous."

"Rightly so," Ken commented.

"People see rifles and pistols... They get crazy," Mark sighed, "They see a sword, they get scared."

"They're usually scared the man with it is a lunatic."

"They're wrong?" Matt asked.

"Not all the time, apparently," Ken replied.

Marcus McGinty sat on his truck's tailgate and cracked a beer out of the cooler he rested against. He tossed one to Ken, glanced slyly to his son, then tossed him a soda.

"Thanks," the high-school-kegger veteran grinned at the can and cracked it open.

"A sword is a strange thing to give to someone for a graduation gift," Mark commented.

"Well, now Mattock has to make his own way in the world..." Ken replied, " And it's going to be a grand path to walk... He's got a mark of destiny upon him."

"I don't believe in destiny," the young man grinned, "Just a path to walk and choices to make."

----------

--Back to the Present--

Matt shook his head as he realized there was more going on than he was really prepared for. This thing was immensely more powerful than the last time he'd faced it, and he was already thinking of Sikk in the term of "It" rather than "he" or "him." There was a strange rushing in his ears, like the roar of hundreds and thousands of voices, all yelling for him to execute the creature before him.

For a moment, he saw the two of them in an arena that defied placement in time.

"What the Hell was-" he breathed before Sikk savagely assaulted him.

He was barely able to deflect the attack, parrying it to the side and stepping back. In the background, Cedric still worked away on bombing the trucks. The tanker thought the distant sound of metal striking metal and screams was just Matt taking care of business.

Ryat99 and the other Ryat androids came rushing around the corner of the warehouse, bullets whizzing by their heads. Ryat24 spun around and fired off a few bursts from his assault rifle. Ryat66 pushed him aside and yanked a severely damaged Ryat10 behind him. Ryat99 brought up the rear, bullets smashing into his armor plating and revealing the ice protecting his working parts.

"Doesn't that hurt?" Ryat24 asked as Ryat99 swiped his ice blade in an arc and caught two of the pursuing Arachnos soldiers.

"No," the big android replied, "Keep moving."

"You guys are back already?" Cedric shouted, "Man, time flies when you're handling plastic explosives..."

He pressed in the detonator and rolled out from under the truck. A Wolf Spider closed with him and wound up receiving an axe across his chestplate, shattering it and knocking the suddenly frightened man on his backside.

"Do not [frig] with me," Cedric barked as he pointed the archaic weapon at his foe before turning to his high school friend, "Matt! We're movi- MATT!"

McGinty rolled away as Sikk disappeared and did that "attack from behind" trick again. This time, he counter-attacked, driving his blade into the assassin's abdomen and rending it through the teen's torso. Sikk's right arm was cleaved off at the elbow and there was a look of shock on the youth's face.

"What?" he asked clearly with his own voice, "What just... How did?"

And he died. Matt had killed people before. People who deserved it. It wasn't something he liked to talk about. This, however, was much different. It felt very hollow, like both he and the young man had been cheated. He had no doubts that Sikk would have wound up being a petty Skulls thug had he not run into the strange artifact of a sword that he now wielded.

However, in that life, he would still have lived a long time. This was most definitely a cheat. The way the boy's eyes were turning dark was a clear indication that he'd been betrayed.

"Damn," Matt muttered, "Sorry, man."

"Sorry?" the deep voice suddenly laughed and Sikk's face twisted into a mask of manic glee, "That was the best favor you could have done for me!"

"I wasn't talking to you."

Black ooze emerged from the wounds and severed limb. It reached for the whole and started pulling the body back together. Matt would have been bothered by the spectacle if he hadn't see what the opposite looked like.

"Matt!" Cedric shouted as he fended off another group of Arachnos troopers, "Come on, man! Move your [butt]!"

"I gotta go," the scrapper said as he deftly cut off Sikk's head.

It just reattached. Sikk smiled and raised his own blade.

"My turn."

"I don't think so," the scrapper replied as he dodged the assault and returned with a stab into Sikk's torso, "Cedric, run!"

"But!"

"Go, dammit!"

The tanker shoulder tackled the Longfang into his troops and bounded away. Upon reaching the corner of the warehouse, he saw the Ryats were once again receiving a lot of aggression from the troopers.

"Don't worry guys," Cedric shouted to them as he withdrew a remote control from his wristguard, "Once I hit this button, Arachnos is gonna have to smooth things over with the Cage Consortium..."

He turned to the demolitionist who'd been surreptitiously watching them.

"Right?"

"Uh..." the guy replied dully, "Yeah... I guess... I thought you guys were more of those rogues..."

"Nope," Cedric replied as he pressed the button, "We're the good guys."

There was no explosion. The tanker pressed the button a few more times, but there was still no reaction.

"I have to check my notes," he muttered as he drew his axe again.

"Let me get this straight," the demolitions expert was tapping his left fingers with his right index finger as if he were counting, "You guys are heroes... But you invaded the Rogue Isles... Now you're going to blow this warehouse to holy Hell..."

"Look man, this crap was long overdue for everything the Rogues have been pulling back in Paragon... And only Paragon thanks to King Creepy Crawly's vendetta..."

He swung the axe and a blast of red energy streaked toward the trucks. The beam connected with the nearest one, heated the plastique, and energized the ignition devices. A moment later, the truck blew, causing a chain reaction throughout the lot. Cedric was blasted off his feet, but he had the most bizarre triumphant grin on his face. The warehouse was torn apart, and the Arachnos troops in the area were scattered.

Matt and Sikk were launched from their walkway. Oddly enough, they were both able to maintain enough control to strike and stab at each other, deflecting each other's blades and each trying to gain leverage. They fell rapidly into the water below and continued their fight under the surface.

Matt kicked angrily, pushing himself away from his enemy, rolling through the water. When he righted himself, focusing on the Stalker, he was treated to an unusual sight.

Sikk was rushing toward him, a mass of dark tentacles writhing behind him. His face was twisted into a nightmarish sneer, the skin was getting contorted into bizarre positions.

Matt only had time for one strike and he let his instincts control the thrust. The two blades met with a red spark burst as the Stalker closed with him and the tentacles of shadow wrapped around them. There was a brief moment as the mass became a near circle and suddenly snapped away, revealing the blade sticking out of Sikk's chest.

Matt twisted the blade, and the glowing filigree and inscription brightened before exploding. The energy shot through the sword and tore into the monster's heart that had been pierced (which was, oddly, on the right side of the youth's torso). The explosion was brilliant and the scrapper found himself vaulted into the air and onto the rocky beach. His sword landed next to him, a spattering of black slime coating the blade.

"Ugh..." he grunted as he picked himself up, "What was that all about? I never... I never felt like that before... Like he had to die..."

He grasped the hilt of his blade and waited a moment. The markings on his blade didn't glow again. He heard no rushing, and felt nothing new. There wasn't even a sense of accomplishment.

"Weird," he muttered as he ripped a piece off the cuff of his pants and started wiping the blade clean, "At least this stuff comes off easy."

"Mister McGinty!" Ryat99 called down to him, "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine... How's everybody up there?"

"Ten's in critical condition, but that's fine for androids... Cedric... Ced's about the way I always see him. Crazy."

"Heh-yeah..."

"The BWO's calling for a retreat... We're to meet where the ferry usually docks and start heading north from there."

"Got it," Matt started climbing, "Got it..."

-----

About ten minutes after they were gone, a body washed up on the beach. It wasn't the young stalker, Sikk. It was one of the bizarre fish-man creatures called Coralax, a blue specimen. What it did have, however, was a blade sticking out of its chest and a thick coating of black slime.

A rag rolled over to the body and slapped against it. More black ooze started to creep out from under the piece of denim and join the rest that had gathered at the point where the blade plunged into the still-gasping creature.

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Grillo ignored the sound tweeting at his hip. Normally, he was more than willing to answer a summons from his Lord Recluse. However, right now, he had to deal with something personally.

He found Sheldon in a database room, uploading information to a location he'd rather not have the information getting to. Shaking his head, Grillo raised his pistol, aimed, and fired.

Sheldon looked up at the hole smashed through the screen, the casing of the machine, and, quite likely, the hard drive.

"Was that entirely necessary?" the inventor asked as he turned around to face his kidnapper.

"Why are you doing it, Sheldon? Didn't I treat you right? Here, you'd have a place and a purpose. We'd accept you for your gifts, try to understand them..."

"Try..." Sheldon snorted, "And likely succeed into turning them into weapons. No thank you. I'm going home, Master Grillo. Don't stand in my way."

The Operative frowned as he turned the pistol to the younger man. Sheldon gestured and one of his energy rifles clapped into his hand as he leaped aside. Before he hit the floor, he fired into the grating at Grillo's feet. As the electricity dissipated, the mad scientist chuckled.

"Was that supposed to hurt me, like you did those Banes out in the hallway?"

Sheldon had found that the inductive current from his weapons was extremely useful at creating a wide effective area of disability. The Bane Spiders in question had been closing with him stealthily, but he knew they were there since he'd been fighting their troops and robots left and right down the corridors and hallways of this twisted fortress. They must have been confused when he jumped into the air and fired the electric bolts into the floor, but the misunderstanding ended rapidly enough. Whatever padding the Bane Spiders used to mask their footfalls on just about any surface, it wasn't very insulating.

Grillo, however, still had rubber soled boots. The electricity cooked them a little, and he sneered at the acrid stench. Aside from the slightly increased chance for cancer, the operative was unharmed.

"See, now I can't let you walk out of here. You've got my blood all riled up, and it's not good for my heart... To calm it down, I gotta put bullets in someone, and you happen to be the only guy available."

"Right," Sheldon almost laughed, "So, you intend to put more bullets in your equipment?"

"If I have to."

"Yeah," the inventor set his rifle down and popped some nodes off his left glove and attached them to the nodes on the right, "I figured as much."

Grillo aimed at Sheldon through the pillar he was hiding behind. There wasn't anything important in there, aside from some power cables and perhaps a few network lines. The armor piercing round he had in his pistol chamber would be able to easily tear through the column, slam through the inventor's back, puncture a lung and tear a nice exit wound out of the young man's chest before the prison Reclaimators pulled the little punk into a 3 X 5 cell. Then the Banes would get to work on him.

Unfortunately, as he was setting the gun just right, Sheldon flexed his hand. There was a tug at his hip. The older man looked down and cursed as the inventor yanked hard with his right hand and leveled his gaze straight ahead.

The pin on the grenade Sheldon had given him earlier had pulled out and the plate fell away, revealing a one-second timer. Grillo had just a moment to reflect that the boy had been planning this escape from the beginning before the device exploded and a vortex wrapped around him.

Sheldon's glasses made a beeping sound as the grenade synced up and sent the Operative to a location several hundred feet in front of them.

Unfortunately for Grillo, there was no structure there. He pressed into his jugular vein hard to calm the stress flow and hit a button at his hip to activate his emergency teleporter. Wallace breathed a sigh of relief and prepared to find his way out of this twisted nightmare of a fortress city.

-----

Operative Grillo arrived in the special Emergency Reclaimators reserved for the Arachnos elite. Most people within the organization didn't know about these, as they were designed so only Lord Recluse and his most trusted lieutenants (of which Grillo was one, since he built the damn things) could access them, not just any slackjaw "Destined One." Of course, there were still guards.

"Operative Grillo!" one of the Bane Spider Commandos shouted as he aimed one of those wicked Arachnos Maces at him, "Lord Recluse has ordered for you to be brought to him at once!"

"I know," the mad scientist replied gruffly, "I'm done with what I was doing. Let's go."

"Sir, when lord Recluse orders-"

"I know, dammit!" the operative shouted and pointed angrily at the Bane Spider, "Don't you tell me the protocols of this organization! I helped write most of them you sniveling [turd]!"

The Bane Spider was taken aback. Grillo narrowed his eyes at the soldier and made a note to ensure he was reassigned. the man didn't have the nerve to be posted in such an auspicious position. As soon as he had the soldier's serial number from his chest plate memorized, he started making his way for his lord's throne room.

-----

Sheldon emerged from the database room in a bad mood. Before Grillo had shot the computer, he'd uploaded not even fifteen percent of the information he'd found to Freedom Corps... And a lot of it was either encrypted or broken up so not everything was delivered. Still, it was something.

A group of spiderlinsg got in his way, but Sheldon turned the rifles to a wide-arc lightning spray that sorted most of them out. The Blaster bot supporting them made to fire, but he flipped the switch to focused fire and a pair of scarlet blaster bolts tore through the robot's armor plating and power plant, detonating it.

It was going to be a long walk.

----------

"We're almost there," the ferry driver declared, "Just ten more minutes. I hope you folks've got a plan..."

"Yeah," Power breaker grunted as he watched the familiar black spire approaching, "We've got a plan... Right?"

Randall shrugged.

"'Winging it' 's a plan, right?"

----------

It had been a long day. Sheldon reached the ferry, bleeding from his arm and with only one blaster left. The other he had to overload to escape some of the strange Tarantula robots and the pair of Mistresses that led them. He also had a slight limp because a Bane had caught him in the thigh, and it just plain hurt to walk.

Still, he'd made it. Now he was staring at the opening to the ferry. He licked his lips and sighed.

How was he going to-

"Sheldon!"

Sarah ran out of the ship and hugged him.

"Oh my God! Are you alright! Nester! Nester! Help him, quick!"

"It's okay, buddy," Nester, who was normally a bit of a joker, suddenly looked very serious, "Here, I've got ya, I've got ya..."

As the green light washed over Sheldon and the nanites he'd helped Nester design started working at patching him up, he had to admit, it felt really good. Whatever Nester had been doing to improve the little buggers, it worked better than he could have expected.

"I..." he gasped.

"Halt!"

A squad of Crab Spiders had amassed on the platform. Sheldon turned and aimed his rifle at them, but any further action on his part was unnecessary at this point.

"Didn't you guys ever listen to your mother?" Power Breaker's voice grumbled behind the Crab Spiders, "Only pick on people your own size!"

An explosion of red lightning erupted from the shoulder spikes of the cloaked brute and wrapped around the Arachnos troops, trapping them in place and shorting out their weaponry. As the brute went to work smashing them apart, he shouted to the heroes.

"Get the hell out of here! I'll hold off anymore that come along..."

"What about-?" Randall started to say, but Breaker cut him off.

"I'll be fine. I've got friends in high places..."

The stone tank nodded and ushered his daughter and her friends back into the ferry. then he grabbed one of the crates full of heavy equipment and chucked it into the group, where it knocked over a couple of the Crab Spiders as the electric cages wore off.

"A parting gift," he grunted with a wave as the ferry started to pull away.

"Don't think you can-AUGH!" one of the Crab spiders shouted as Power breaker fired a bolt of lightning at him.

"Don't worry about them. They're the past. Worry about me. I'm the present. I'm right here."

By the time he'd finished off the group, Scirocco had arrived. Breaker's patron made a few disappointed hums as he stepped up to the big brute.

"Why, Raymond? Why?" the Arabian man asked calmly, "You know they will kill you for this."

"For what? All I did was pummel a few Crabs. The capes? they did their own thing. I was just watching."

"That won't hold up," Scirocco sighed, "I know you had your reasons, my large friend. But I fear your fantastic memory will not save you if my lord looks at this as an act of treason."

Power Breaker shrugged and started walking away.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm bored. I'm gonna go smash some Arachnoids."

"And if Daos sends Death Squads?"

"Then I'm gonna be smashing some Banes. It wouldn't be the first time."

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

As the heroes and their allies amassed at the dockside, the rogues finished their fight with Scrapyard. Before the blue energies of the ghost drifted into the soil, the Arachnos troops started gaining the attention of the disparate super-powered individuals.

"Hey!" a random brute shouted, "What're the red-and-black doin' here?"

"Get them!" a Webmaster pointed and indicated Draven Erickson and Solid Shot trying to organize a retreat, "The invaders! They have come to oppress you!"

"They look like they're running away to me..." a mastermind remarked.

"Who cares," a man familiar to the Brutal Warriors rasped, "They're with Statesman and his Freedom Flunkies! For that, they deserve to die!"

Draven turned and regarded the last individual.

"Psych... Whirly... Isn't that Soultaker?"

"I thought he was dead..." the other scrapper replied.

"He could have done better with the dialogue, but then, he must not have been programmed for acerbic wit," the storm summoner remarked.

Unfortunately, regardless of the weak argument, it turned out the gathered rogues didn't require much of an excuse to go rampaging after heroes. Despite their weakened state after having fought the Ghost of Scrapyard, they turned to assault the allied metahumans with zeal.

Before the first corrupter could close within firing range Grey's Army, however, a series of scarlet laser bolts cascaded out of the sky and tore through him. Ryat Prime and his robots hopped off the nearby warehouse and stood between the rogues and the Army. A massive dome of energy wrapped around him and his machines, protecting them and those behind from the incoming blasts.

"Prime!" Ryat99 shouted, "They'll tear you apart!"

"Frank, hold the line," the android said to the large assault bot and joined the group as his robots started firing again, "I suggest we start moving."

"What about your robots?" Draven asked.

"They're not even lesser aspects of me, definitely not worth shedding tears over. I can always make more."

Solid Shot stared at the other android for a few moments, but said nothing. Doubtless, he had some horrible thoughts in mind for the Ryat prototype, but now wasn't, by any means, the time to voice any of them.

"Let's move!" Ragin' James shouted and the group started running north.

The robots Ryat Prime left behind slowed the rogues, but not much. The tan-green android didn't slow when his machines were destroyed, one-by-one. The group kept running.

Brother Mauthe snapped his fingers and some of the windows in the warehouses smashed open. The rogues pursuing them were suddenly pelted with scavenged assault weapons-fire. Some broke away to pursue Mauthe's Dregs (but would find nothing but an empty warehouse).

Out in the harbor, Brother Ringo had commandeered a boat and was piloting it parallel to the pursuit. As he drove, he pulled out a remote control and started hitting the button repeatedly. Bombs he'd placed in all sorts of other boats started exploding, causing rogues who were trying to flank the heroes and their allies. He wound up getting rewarded with a fireball scoring into his watercraft and blasting him out of the water. The Reclaimator on Brother Mauthe's Island got him, then, and not the Sharkhead Isle ones.

As they reached the beach, Roland Grey did something odd. He whirled around and fired an arrow at the approaching rogues. When it hit the ground, a massive splash of black fluid spread out, slicking the ground and causing most of the approaching foes to slip and fall.

"Why didn't you do anything like that back at that Cage warehouse?" his brother shouted.

"I did," Roland replied, "It just wasn't that noteworthy. You told me yourself, nobody remembers the support. Why do you think the numbers you and the Ryats faced were so manageable?"

The tanker shrugged, smiled, and drew his axe. They had a fight ahead of them, and it was time to be ready for-

An Arachnos Flier, on fire, fell into the warehouse the other rogues had charged into. The gathered metahumans, those (tenuously) loyal to Arachnos and Randall's assembled associates both, stared at the wrecked machine and the burning structure in awe.

Then a missile streaked through the sky and smashed into the center of the assaulting rogues. Bodies and burning globules of the slick fluid scattered about. Cedric caught the blob headed for his brother's head with his axe, his grin never faltering, not even when another slammed into his armor (rather, it was dragged into his armor, thanks to a gravity anomaly Sheldon worked into the armor).

A Brute was clawing his way for the pair when a big rock slammed into him. When the brothers turned to find the source, they found Randall standing triumphantly on the beach. He had leaped out of the ferry as it approached the island, rather than risk getting ambushed on the dockside. The rest of his group was able, in their own ways, to flee as well.

Sarah was in the process of floating Joe and Sheldon up to the hovering BWO Dropship while it lowered to the beach so everybody else could board. The vehicle itself was blazing its heavy chaingun into the approaching rogues, inspiring terror and causing many of them to flee.

"Can you believe I found a Longbow ship out there in the water?" Solo asked over the intercom as they found their seats, "It launched Chasers out and took down most of the other Fliers... I took out the three that escaped."

"Good man," Randall grunted, "Now, come on! It's time we got the Hell out of here!"

----------

--Freedom Corps HQ, Galaxy City--

"What did you think you were doing!?"

Randall was now in his business suit, and he had his armors unpowered. He thought it was funny that he had to maintain a professional appearance during his "dressing down."

To cut back on oversight costs for his supergroup, he had filed for a basic affiliation package with Freedom Corps. While that didn't entail that the organization was directly responsible for the supergroup, it didn't change the fact that most people saw Randall's crew as being yet another extension of the Red-And-White.

Normally, the relationship wasn't much of an issue. If Freedom Corps or its leadership (the Vindicators or the Freedom Phalanx, though Ms. Liberty was really the only one in its actual hierarchy) ever needed support, they could call on Grey's Army. Of course, they often didn't. Usually, there were other, larger or better groups to talk to. Randall's actual roster only numbered around fourteen, not the near-hundreds (if not more) that the other groups maintained or claimed in their rosters.

However, some incidents require that somebody be held accountable. After the Cube Incident, Randall, Cortland, and Kipland had been summoned to an oversight committee. The committee consisted of some of the best and brightest of the heroes, all of them the very membership of the Freedom Phalanx.

Randall hadn't made a good impression then, and he would have wound up with a serious suspension (if not outright expulsion) had not Cory sent a mental explanation to Sister Psyche as to the nature of the massive hero's degrading nature.

Of course, now Randall didn't have that excuse. Still, he was sober for this one.

He sat in a chair in front of Ms. Liberty. She was in the process of shouting at him while he gazed back impassively. She'd finished ranting off a list of United Nations treaty violations and failures to adhere to the Standard Operating Procedure before she asked that one question.

"I was getting my man back," he replied calmly, "How do you explain it when B.S. comes and saves your butt?"

This made her livid, but before she could say anything, Randall stood and started heading for the door.

"Get back here! Sit down!"

"No."

"WHAT!?"

"I didn't like listening to people your age when I was your age," he growled back as he swirled around with a swagger, "I sure as Hell am not about to listen to ya, now."

"I am superior to you!" she was losing some of her nerve.

Randall opened the door a crack before what he said next, "Maybe you'd be nicer if you were still dating my son."

The whole hallway went deathly quiet as he left. Kip stared at Randall's back, his face a mask of true horror at what the big man had done and as he considered the implications of what he'd said. Roland sat across from Kip, and he was busy rubbing blood from his bitten lip. The other two in the room, Ezekiel Durj and Cory Simmons, didn't know what the big man had been talking about, but they quickly put the pieces together. The senior Grey smiled and waved before closing the door behind him. He just missed out on the ear-splitting shriek that followed.

"Wait!" Kip and Cory shouted at once as she went storming after the general of Grey's Army, "WAIT!"

"Get out of my way! As of this moment, you are all suspended, pending an investigation! I will see to it that none of you ever so much as kick a stone without being thrown in jail, I-!"

She looked into Ezekiel's face. He wasn't trying to restrain her or explain anything. He'd simply stood and gotten in her way. Somehow, his passive stance was both alarming and disarming.

"You're agitated," he said calmly, "Please... My friend is angry and confused. He doesn't understand that all actions have consequences, even ones that are meant for the best. He just acts on a 'you did wrong to me and my own, now I must do wrong to you,' principle of honor."

Ms. Liberty was still angry, and she shrugged off Kipland's restraining hand briskly.

"I'm still suspending all of you."

"Perhaps we can come to another arrangement," the elder Durj intoned, "Please... Let's discuss this in your office. Kipland, Cortland... Join us, will you?"

"How did you do that?" Kip thought as his father continued to calmly but firmly insist that they negotiate for proper punitive measures, and finally convinced the girl to agree.

"Proper inflection is key," came Cory's voice in reply, "Kipland, I'm impressed. During your tenure as Kingdale's backyard hero, I never knew you were capable of Aethereal or psychic speech."

"I'm just as surprised as you are," the scrapper replied as they followed into the office, "This is a first for me. I blame the Obsidian Blight."

"You can't blame everything on that forever," the wizard chuckled back.

Once the door to the office closed, Roland stood and followed after his father.

----------

"What the Hell is wrong with you?"

"Excuse me?" Randy asked as he took a bag of candy-coated peanuts from the vending machine, "Oh yeah... That."

Roland swatted the peanuts out of his father's hand. Randall glowered down at him for that. It wasn't wise for the cub to swat food out of the bear's paws... Such a thing was regarded a challenge for territory in the primal sense...

"You had no right to say that!" Roland hissed, undeterred, "You even know what it was about, and yet you still said it that way, like we'd been an item!"

"Roland, it is what it is..."

"But it's not what you think it is!"

The big man regarded his son darkly. Of his children, Roland had been the hardest to determine. Cedric was easy enough, the first born and the oldest of his peers, the near-white-blond boy had turned into a wild man and a pioneer for some of the reckless and bizarre moments of his generation. Sarah was a sweetheart in her class. Roland, however, remained obscure, largely ignored, despite his bulk. Rarely did he break from the shell that was his bedroom or his books, save for chores, eating or school.

However, when the boy took up hunting, it surprised the old man further. Even more when he developed a knack for it. Upon graduating from high school, Roland immediately signed up for college, knowing exactly what he wanted to get into. Then he returned home and took over one of the failing bars, turning it into a moderately successful dive.

When the Rikti attacked, he didn't do much. He wasn't a hero or a soldier. A few times he was forced to defend himself or others nearby, but he never went out and took the fight to the enemy like his father and a few friends did.

It was as if, from birth, he was always stuck in the middle ground. A middle child with middling grades, and a moderate point of view, Roland just never made much of an impression on anyone.

Until he came to Paragon. Somehow, he'd wound up in the company of one of the world's favorite heroes... And Randall just voiced his knowledge of it. Worse, he voiced it to numerous people and had perverted the truth of it to diminish Ms. Liberty in their eyes.

This was the point Roland tried to get across to his father, but the old man refused to give ground.

"So what if I hurt her?" he asked as Roland poked him in the chest, "You think she's gonna remember this in a couple weeks?"

"Maybe the rest of her life, Dad," the young man replied, "I was one of few, very few people that she connected with in some way, shape or form, and it was entirely due to a fluke. You’ve got no right to exploit that kind of weakness... It makes you no better than the thugs we fight out there every day."

Randall shrugged, but didn't say anything. Roland shook his head and stomped away.

As the bow-hunter left, Zeke emerged from the elevator and smiled at Randall. He was followed by the other two, who both looked quite forlorn and exhausted.

"Randy! Let's go get a drink!" the elder Durj shouted as he clapped the big man on the shoulder.

"Why? What's the good news?"

"We dodged a bullet, that's what!" the Warshade replied, "Plus, we got our inventor back! Positron had a notice delivered to Ms. Liberty that she handed over to me... It reinstates Sheldon, though it has a few restrictions..."

"Restrictions?"

"He'll still be able to invent and tinker, but the things he constructs will have to be scrutinized."

"What else is there?"

"I'll explain it when we're in the bar," Zeke said as they went out the door.

Cory and Kip stood silently in the hallway as red-and-white uniformed soldiers strolled past. The wizard clapped a hand on the scrapper reassuringly.

"Perhaps you can look at this suspension in a good light," he offered, "I, for one, will be taking the opportunity to spend more time with my Gertrude..."

"What am I going to do?" Kip snapped, "I woke up, I went out and busted heads. Eat, bust heads, eat, bust heads, bathroom, bust heads, home, shower, sleep; repeat... What the Hell do I do now?"

"Perhaps you just answered your question," Simmons replied darkly, "You are in the most need of introspection, my friend. I see you charging down a dark path, heedless of the danger that surrounds you. Whether through confidence or ignorance, I cannot say, but it is sheer foolishness, regardless. There is a terrible tragedy at the end of the corridor, and your reaction will either be debilitating remorse or machine-like indifference..."

"So?"

"On the former, you're not useful to anyone. On the other, you become the enemy."

"You can't save everyone," Kip whispered as they reached the exit doors.

"The rallying cry of the cynicism," Cory replied with a disgusted sneer, "The last bastion of those who've never tried."

"I've tried, Cory! Oh, I've tried! I've failed at opening the eyes of my peers, and I... I..."

"...Couldn't save her," the warlock finished with a sad sigh, "Is that really what all of this is still about? You can't let it go?"

Kip nodded, a single tear rolling down his cheek.

"How dramatic," Cory said as he hugged his friend reassuringly, "To Hell with trusting in Hope... It's time we looked for an alternative means of fixing this dilemma."

"Cory..." the other said between sobs "It was my fault... I couldn't save her; I couldn't stop them from taking her..."

"I don't see how that makes you guilty. You have got to stop beating yourself up over this..."

"At first... At first I saw the faces of the Rikti who took her away..."

They were sitting in the Yellow Line Station now, waiting for the next train car.

"Now I only see myself..."

"Again, my friend," Cory was wafting soothing hums through the Aether to Kipland, "This has to stop..."

"I gotta go home..."

"Quite right. I will help you get there."

"Thanks," Kipland said as he tilted his head back, "I don't think I can take the walk back..."

"He's right, you know," his soul said in the back of his mind as it slowly eased the headache from his brain, "And now, the two of us can converse and try to fix your damaged sense of self. Perhaps... When we're done, we can stop being separate like we are now."

"Why are we separate like this?" Kip asked back.

"Well, we always were, really. You suppressed and repressed me so much to do what you had to do... The Obsidian Blight and its unique infection were a catalyst for me to finally have a voice."

This raised an alarm in Kip's head and he suddenly stared at the far wall.

"I'm assuring you, my logical, crumbling self, that I am who I say I am. If I weren't, you wouldn't have started crying when you did, and I would not know that you suddenly thought I'm actually an alien energy being inside your head. Instead, you would have gotten into a fight with Cory behind the Back Alley Brawler, and I'd be oblivious to your concerns and sudden desires to get rid of me."

That made some sense. Kipland was still wary, of the voice in his head, but so far, it hadn't steered him wrong. With any luck, he'd be able to utilize this break from the action would be the introspective time he needed to sort it all out.

The leadership of Grey's Army had been suspended for their role in instigating an invasion of the Rogue Isles. That was Kipland, Cory, and most of all, Randall Grey. The rest were free to do what they wanted, so long as they were within the boundaries of or upholding the law. It was a bit of a kick in the pants for the efforts that went into rescuing their friend, but sometimes, this was how the system had to work.

----------

--Unspecified Location, Grandville--

Operative Grillo sighed as he reached his quarters. It had been the worst butt chewing he'd gotten from Lord Recluse, but the mastermind of Arachnos seemed almost amused by the whole event, and their losses were next to nothing.

What bothered Recluse, instead, was the inept handling of the espionage that destroyed most of Arachnos's intelligence on the heroes in Paragon City. Grillo didn't have anything to do with that, and Recluse's mystics were busy working on reforming Ghost Widow to figure out what had happened.

Now, all the operative had to do was relax in his quarters with a bottle of brandy.

"Hey there, numb nuts," a voice said from out of the shadows.

Grillo spun around and shot. The bullet stopped a foot from his target on a crimson colored energy shield and dropped to the floor. The calm man standing there with a glass of brandy in his hand smiled.

"Hector," Grillo chuckled, "I see you're prepared, as always."

Sheldon's father gestured to the chair.

"Keep the bottle. You'll need it when I'm done here."

"You gonna hurt me that bad?"

"You went after my son," the other said as he drew a pistol, "That doesn't make me happy."

"In all fairness, I was after you."

"I'm not concerned with your petty conflict, Grillo, and it vexes me that you would drag my son into it."

"Your son is involved since he involved himself as a self-styled hero!"

Hector Wallace shook his head and aimed the pistol at Operative Grillo's knee.

"Did you tell him we were colleagues, or rivals?"

"Is there a difference in our line of work?"

"It depends... What did you learn from me?"

The Arachnos operative merely grinned.

"Look, Grillo... I don't hate you, but I am disappointed. You don't see me going after your family to achieve my dubious goals..."

"You have to have dubious goals first... And-"

"Spare me your 'I only care about my work' rhetoric, I'm making a point. Now, look, I'm going to make this very simple. You ever go after my son again, and I'm going to come in here, and shoot your left testicle."

"Really?"

"Mm-hm."

Grillo swirled the bottle around a little.

"Then I'm going to go to work on you," Hector pointed the pistol meaningfully, "I'm not entirely sure where to begin, yet... I think I'll take your hand first... Then your ear. Eventually, you'll be missing so many parts, I'll have to hook up a life support system, but so long as you stay alive, I'm certain your precious Arachnos won't ever catch on to what I'm doing until it's too late."

"That's pretty nasty..." Grillo took a swig of his beverage and sighed, "But if you do that, then Arachnos will come after you. I'm rather central to much of Recluse's planning at this point. I'm what keeps his system in check."

"Yes, well, I won't kill you," Hector shrugged, "That wouldn't serve my purposes. I want you to learn a lesson, not die. I want you to serve as an example. And, I want to hurt you."

"Well, that would hurt..."

"Not physically," Hector laughed, "See... This is where you and I differ, my dark-souled acquaintance. Where you are driven to revulsion by the idea of magic and mystical arts, and indeed wish to wipe the 'stain' of such practices or thinking from the face of the Earth, I am perfectly open to the idea."

Wallace smiled as he holstered his weapon.

"To summarize, if you ever intentionally lay a hand, however indirectly, on my son again, I will tear you apart so perfectly the only way to put you back together will require mystical assistance."

Grillo frowned. He knew Wallace was serious. Worse, he'd probably be able to do what he claimed.

"Don't bother getting up," Hector said as he walked to the door, "I'll let myself out the same way I came in."

"You could be a powerful force in this world if you're able to come and go in Grandville as you please," Grillo laughed, "If only you'd apply yourself..."

"I do apply myself," the other replied before setting the glass down on the nightstand, opening the door, and stepping through, "Don't ever make me come to this ugly place again."

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Roland Grey broke from his patrols to take a break in an Up 'N Away burger shop in Skyway City. He was a little surprised to find Kip there.

"How's it been, man?"

"Been alright actually," Kip replied coolly as he gestured for his friend to take the seat opposite him, "First day I was getting reacquainted with some of my favorite music... But I kept getting this nagging voice in my head reminding me I couldn't remember why I liked it, regardless of how loud I turned it... Then the supervisor yelled at me and I was forced to deal with the voice with a heavy metal ambiance..."

"Sounds rough... You seem to be doing alright, though."

"Well..." Kip sighed and took a swig from his drink, "It's just that... I don't know. It's like I'm getting reacquainted with an old sibling I never knew I had..."

"Hm," was all the pudgy defender could say.

"Any blowback for you?" Kip asked.

"No. Frankly, I can't believe Dad said that, but I forgot his memory doesn't work like mine does. He still thinks of all that as just last week."

"Cripes, to Randy, the first Rikti attacks were last week. We saved your mom on Thursday."

They chuckled at that. Roland's order came up and he went to get it. If he'd been prone to emotional outbursts, his heart would have skipped a beat at who he ran into as he retrieved his lunch.

"Kip," he said as he brought her back, "This is-"

"Ms. Starburst," the suspended scrapper narrowed his eyes, "I know. How do you do?"

She pulled a chair over to the table and joined them. It was clear she was a little nervous. Kip could only imagine what was going through her head, Roland didn't even bother with speculation.

"So... What brings you to our nick of the woods?"

"I..." she started, "Look, guys, to start, I want you to know I'm sorry about what happened to your group..."

"Don't apologize," Kip interrupted, "You did what you had to do. Besides, if anything, Randy and I needed the vacation."

"Really?"

"Yeah!"

"My dad's been spending the time getting preparations ready for my sister's wedding," Roland shrugged, "He's never one to waste his time..."

"And I didn't realize how good it can feel to do absolutely nothing."

"Seriously?"

"Nope. I just watched a guy get pickpocketed outside that window, and it's taking every bit of my will to stay in this seat and finish my meal."

Ms. Liberty turned, but she knew she wouldn't see what the other had. It must have been one of those "collision picks," where the victim doesn't realize the crime until it's much to late.

"Well, you guys can't jsut run around doing whatever the Hell you want, doing God knows what..." she turned back and looked at Kip, who was getting back to his meal, "Kip... How did you know who I am?"

"Anatomy recognition helps bring down monsters. Most major veins and arteries follow the same network in different creatures, mammal and reptile. Especially when they look human."

"I don't follow..."

Kip looked up to Roland, then to her. Swallowing his food, he contemplated the best way to continue explaining.

"I learned about anatomy to help me with one thing, but learned other things along the way. I learned how to staunch bloodflow, how to manipulate pressure points, and, most importantly, arteries and veins. However, along with that..."

He rubbed his cheek bone.

"I learned how to recognize certain qualities most people overlook. You don't look much different without your mask, you know. You're just plumb lucky there are a lot of cute blondes out there."

"Thanks," she said almost disgustedly.

"Kip was one of two people who learned of your duality aside from me," Roland explained, "He took one look at a picture I had of you and knew. Dad had the same reaction."

"You didn't tell them that we-!"

"Of course not," Round snorted, half humorously and half derisively, "My dad was just being a jerk when he said what he said... He was just trying to throw you off your cool and he used what he knew would work. Old men tend to do that."

Ms. Liberty chuckled.

"Well, I interviewed with Agent Wild... As your liaison, he should have been able to warn us about your little..."

"Incident seems to be the word that follows us a lot," Kip offered, "The Cube, The Crystal, The Inevitable... What's this? The Assault Incident?"

"We'll come up with a title later," she chuckled, "In any case, it seems Wild was conducting his own clandestine operation..."

"So what did you do to him?" the two males asked, almost like they were looking for a laugh.

"I put him to work clearing the sewers of the Vahzilok zombie menace."

"Ouch..."

"If it weren't for the fact that he was working for two people whom I respect, and the mission they'd conducted was a success, I would have considered repealing his Field license."

"He might just quit, then," Roland warned, "He's a pragmatic individual, but he can't accept going in reverse in his career..."

They ate in silence together for some time, the din of the other patrons keeping their thoughts occupied.

"Maybe it's just this year," Kip suddenly said, "All this karma dragging us together."

"With any luck," she agreed, "We can all get on to better things."

"I wonder if Statesman said the same thing when he first started doing this kind of work," Roland asked, "That it would probably be a temporary thing..."

"He had his reasons for thinking otherwise, Roland..." she answered, "He just didn't know the nightmares to follow... Well, I'll leave you two to your lunch. Thank you for being understanding..."

"Well, I had to bonk my head against the wall a couple times this morning to get it to make sense, but yeah," Kip extended his hand to the Freedom Corps leader, "you have a good one."

After she left the small man sighed.

"I don't know if she was trying to bait us or just talk to you."

"Perhaps a little bit of both," Roland mused, "And it wasn't baiting, it was testing. If Dad hadn't said what he'd said..."

"What did go on between you two? You got hit by that other and suddenly you're never talking about Starburst anymore."

"I told her what I'd been theorizing and she revealed her identity," Roland shrugged, "After that, well... You read the papers and see the news. She doesn't have a lot of leisure time, and what little bit she gets, I bet she has better to do than just hang out with some husky newbie hero who may or may not be here tomorrow."

"Will you be here tomorrow?" Kip arched an eyebrow as he drank the last out of his cup.

"Yeah, but I'm taking a break this Fall. It's huntin' season, after all!"

----------

Roland had decided to take a break from patrolling for the rest of the day. He and Kip got a hold of Nester and his girlfriend and strolled around the mall.

"How've things been going with you two?" Kip asked, "Cripes... I hardly even realized you two were dating..."

"Things have been great," Mindy hugged Nester's arm, "Oh! Did you know Misty's pregnant?"

"No..." Kip scratched the back of his head, "Aaron's, right?"

"Of course!" Nester looked incredulously at his brother, "Where have you been?"

"A dark place, it seems..."

"Well, you may not be able to crack skulls open for another couple weeks, but we can always hit the arcade and blast your emo frustrations away..."

"Thanks, bro," Kip shook his head irritatedly, "Way to put my current emotional state in perspective."

"Well come on, man! You used to be so... so..."

"Full of pith," Roland remarked, "Pith and Vinegar."

"Guts and Acid," Kip grinned, "A wonderful mix..."

"Can we see a movie?" Mindy suggested.

They debated on what movie they wanted to see. Mindy insisted the drama would be good for everyone, Kip and Nester seemed to be settled on the mindless action flick. Roland shook his head irritatedly and indicated he'd rather see the horror movie.

"It's got the old west and cannibalism," he explained, "And it looks unique among a whole bunch of other movies that are always the same..."

"How are they the same?" Mindy asked.

"Guy and girl fall in love and live happily ever after in yours, Min; Good Guys win, Bad Guys lose and the American Way prevails, with lots of bullet casings and corpses littering the ground in yours, guys. At least with horror there's a chance to be surprised by something."

"Sounds..." Kip was about to agree with Roland further when there was a sudden electric short-out sound.

"What the Hell was that?" Nester asked as he walked over to the windows along with many other people.

At first, he couldn't figure out what the issue was. The lights were still on throughout Skyway City and business seemed to be going on as usual.

"Oh my God..." Mindy gasped, "Nester, look!"

He turned his eyes to where she pointed. Again, he couldn't see what she was pointing at. Then he realized it as his brother cursed loudly. His not seeing it was exactly the point.

The bright blue glow of the War Walls was gone. Air Raid sirens blared, radios and televisions relayed that people needed to find shelter. Paragon City was under attack.

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Grey's Army's involvement in the Second Rikti War wasn't much different from many of the other heroes of Paragon City, as such, there aren't many major stories to tell about it.

Two weeks in, after having to defend themselves and others on numerous occasions anyway, Randall, Kipland and Cory had their suspensions relieved. It was like clockwork, and the heroes made the best of their time on the streets, ushering civilians to safe zones and combating the invading alien menace.

The three top members of Grey's Army got a strange invitation halfway through the war, however. Power Breaker had contacted Randall and invited him to join the Vanguard. The introductions were strange (what with Lady Grey confused as to whether or not Randall was related to her; a notion which the tank resolutely refused), but the heroes set right to work in the drive to push the Rikti back.

Power Breaker looked happier than ever. He'd signed on to Vanguard as soon as they'd gone to the Rogue Isles looking for recruits. After such a long time of being looked upon as a villain, he finally had a chance to show that his violent power could be used for good.

"It's been amazing!" he shouted to Randall as the two of them tore through a Rikti base, "I've been working alongside Freedom Corps, Vanguard... I've been rescuing people, saving towns from being destroyed... My God... It's been a blast!"

"That's really funny," Randall grunted as he clobbered a Soldier into a wall, "Considering the fact that you look at your powers as a curse..."

"A curse of awesome," the brute replied with a chuckle before gripping a Portal with his bare hands and ripping it apart, "So long as I'm here with Vanguard, I don't need to worry about Arachnos or any of their plots or schemes or infighting..."

"So... You're running away from the problems, then?"

This gave the brute pause. He hadn't thought of it that way, and his nanites had been absorbed in learning about the Rikti language, so they hadn't been able to advise him lately. He gave the notion some thought, but dismissed it.

"They don't let you deal with your problems over there, Mr. Grey," Breaker intoned, "They push you to be the bad guy they want you to be, not the person you want to be... And I've been trying so hard to redeem myself under their radar... It just hasn't been helping."

"How'd they handle your turning on them?"

"Turned out there was a major [censored] somewhere else at the same time, and Recluse was more [ticked] about that," Breaker shrugged, "I didn't quite get off scot-free, but the big guy didn't want my head on a spike."

"So, here you are..." Randall mused, "What do you expect to find?"

"I don't know... Maybe something like..."

They emerged into a large chamber that was somewhat flooded. Three metal walkways pushed out across the water, the flanks studded with two circular platforms apiece, the central walkway ending in a wide, squarish platform with a ring-like structure in the center.

"Is that what it looks like, Randall?" Power Breaker asked.

Some other group of heroes and villains had already found and destroyed one of these chambers. The details of that battle had been relayed to a lot of the other volunteers who'd recently joined, and Randall and Power Breaker knew what would happen if they let this chamber get finished.

"Last time I found one of these, they quietly shuffled me aside," Power Breaker explained, "I'm not letting the Rikti build another one of these..."

Randall agreed and they fought their way toward the center. With a proper application of strength and force, they ensured the Rikti wouldn't be able to finish this machine here...

----------

Kipland decided to help assist in one of the raids in Talos Island. As the drop ships bombed away Kipland hopped to and fro, helping other heroes destroy the peculiar ordinance. The explosives had to be beaten into submission. Vanguard's instructions explained the explosion caused was much less than if the weapons were allowed to repair themselves and achieve their own personal critical mass...

After the bombing run came the Rikti ground assault. Kip kind of wished the roving gangs had stuck around to help fight, but that seemed to be the proof of their mettle. When the going truly got tough, the opportunists started to flee.

The battles was fierce. Anywhere there was a hero, the Rikti dropped in. The heroes put up a brave fight, newbies and veterans both. Eventually, they pushed the Rikti and their bizarre new battle drones to the hill next to the Green Line and set to work smashing the enemy lines.

Only Kipland wasn't among them.

Before he could join his foes, he heard something. It was like a whisper at first. As he tried to leave, it rapidly became a shout. Whirling about, he scanned for the source of the voice inside his head. It wasn't his soul, which had fallen back to the role of tactical adviser for the past couple weeks. It was female...

When he found the source, he nodded. It made sense.

"Let me see if I can pronounce this right," he said as he looked at his scanner, "Ahmi-Telor?"

Amyt'Allor stood before him, resplendent in the scarlet armor of the Rikti Mentalists. As a human, she'd barely cleared five feet in height. As a Rikti, she was still short for a Rikti, but she now towered over Kip at six feet and four inches. She hefted her axe and glowered down at him.

"Do you still love me?" if flowers could be considered to have a sound, that was what Kip was hearing inside his head along with the voice of his long-lost girlfriend, "Despite all that happened... Could you possibly retain some small shred of hope for me?"

Kip looked at her. There was nothing remaining of the lovely beauty of the young woman he'd loved since high school. When he'd found her only a couple months earlier, the process had been nearly complete, and there had been no way to reverse the process. He wondered vaguely when the Rikti had found her, and what she must have done to rise through their ranks so rapidly.

"I..." he gave it little thought, saying the first thing that came to mind, "I loved who you were. What you are now... You are a twisted perversion of the beautiful girl you should be."

Amyt'Allor swung the bladerifle down and dragged it across the pavement. Green sparks erupted where it scraped and she stopped it a few inches from her right foot.

"Plan: Failed. Initiate: Combat tactics."

"Don't make me do this," Durj warned.

Amyt'Allor lunged forward, a scream piercing into the center of the scrapper's mind. As he gripped the side of his head, she brought her weapon down. It stopped a foot from his neck, prevented from connecting with its target by being forced to bite into his forearm.

"I told you," his eyes started to glow, "Do not!"

He fired a blast of lasers from his eyes, scoring into the armor and startling his enemy. Whatever Amyt'Allor had gleaned from the memories of Amy Taylor, there had been quite a bit left out about Kip's connection to the metaphysical elements of the world. Of course, that was largely because Kip had never let Amy know about any of that.

"Do that!" he finished as he dropped to the ground and swept a kick out that tripped the towering alien to her back. Springing back up, he leaped to the sky and stomped on the rifle, smashing it. Before he could do anything else, however, he was suddenly in the air and being slammed back on the ground.

"Augh!" he coughed out as he tried to push himself back up, "That was a new trick..."

Suddenly he was rocketing into the remains of a parked car that had been laser sliced by a Rikti Dropship earlier. He looked to his Rikti opponent, and she dusted herself off.

"Enemy: Unworthy. Victory: Imminent."

"Oh good, they've got you spouting rhetoric," he spat, "What new bit of-AUGH!"

He got thrown against a light pole and started pushing himself up as soon as he hit the pavement.

"Okay, I'm done with this crap..."

Suddenly, he heard some music. Looking around, he wondered how he was able to hear when he saw Sarah Grey glaring at the fight from the top of a bus stop.

"Amy!" she shouted, "What the Hell are you doing!?"

The Rikti looked back quizzically at her old friend.

"Sarah?" she asked, sounding more herself than the Rikti she'd become.

"Damn straight!" the white-haired girl hopped down from her perch and floated gently to the pavement to stop just under the Mentalist's face, "Do you have any idea how [ticked] off this whole war is making me!? And now I see you here, fighting Kippers, my best friend, your boyfriend..."

"Assessment: Troubling?"

"What was that, Amy?" Sarah shouted, "You're wondering what I'm doing inside your head, tearing and rending at the garbage they did to you? You poor girl... You were happy once..."

The Rikti part of her enemy raised its claw to make some feeble last ditch attack, but Sarah batted the hand away. Kip walked up to them, confused as to what was happening.

"Kippers..." the Amy mumbled before slumping to the ground.

The two heroes caught her and lowered the body gently. Kip looked to his childhood friend, and she answered the unspoken question.

"People think the Rikti conditioning is part of their transmutation... It is, but it also requires extensive contact with their psychic network, whatever that is. They insert the Rikti dogma and doctrines, and try to flush out everything of the human before. Often they succeed, often they fail. Usually it's something in-between. Most of the Rikti's rank-and-file are from the ranks of the Lost, which were the disparate homeless... They're mostly still just themselves, they just accept what they've become and the new purpose that comes with it."

"So..." Kip's voice cracked a little, "What happened to Amy?"

"I don't know," Sarah stroked the forehead of her old friend, "You poor dear... They did something awful to her... She held on so strongly to who she was... But they needed troops and they had her... I'm sorry Kippers... I don't know how much of her is left..."

The skies cleared and the alerts shut down. Kip gazed upon the thing that was both his enemy and his first and only love and realized just how far gone he truly was. Simmons was right, he had been heading down a dark path. Just a little further that way, and he wouldn't have objected to simply snapping the Rikti's neck to end her and his misery.

But then what would he be?

"What do we do?" he asked numbly.

"Well, first, stop that drone," Sarah indicated the Police Drone rapidly approaching.

Kip walked up to the machine and looked straight into its sensory camera.

"Get lost," he told it.

It beeped back in confusion.

"Whoever's controlling this thing, we've got this one."

It warbled again.

"Don't make me punt you down the street! Beat it!"

The drone made an oddly hurt and freaked out squeal, but it left as it was ordered to. Kipland turned back to Sarah and Amyt'Allor and pulled up his communicator.

"Who are you calling?" Snuffy asked.

"His name's Angus McQueen... He should know a safe place to take Amy for rehabilitation..."

As he finished explaining the information to the FBI Agent, he heard a voice behind him.

"Kip?"

The two heroes looked back down to the Rikti, the friend they once knew, the enemy they had to fight. She looked back up at them with those blank, black eyes, but somehow they still conveyed the hurt she was feeling.

"Do you remember? Do you remember what I said?"

"You said to stop loving you," he choked.

"I didn't mean it..."

"I didn't do it..."

They didn't know what else to say. Sarah held both of their wrists as they all sat silently, waiting for Angus McQueen's agents to come by and help them.

----------

"Dammit!" Power Breaker shouted as his communicator blared again.

"What is it?" Randall grunted as the last of the Rikti soldiers started fleeing, "What's wrong?"

"Vanguard's headed over here... Agents of the Sword..."

"How close?"

"They're busting down the door right now," the brute replied, "We can't wreck this place in time..."

"We could just let them have it," Randy suggested, "Maybe if the VG have an understanding of the technology, they can come up with a way to-"

"They already tried that once, Randall!" Power Breaker shouted, "And that nearly cost us the war! You gotta read between the lines and flip through the footage! Every time they show it, it's only the footage of the good guys winning, the bad guys losing... Every single time! A little more is lost with every showing... Soon it'll be little more than a propaganda film!"

"So?"

"So!? So if we give the Rikti one more chance to pierce the veil between their world and ours like that again, they might just do it! Or Nemesis will punch through like he wants to! I am not letting that happen! Not this time!"

"Power Breaker! Randall Grey!" a gruff voice echoed throughout the cavern, "Stand down! We'll take it from here!"

"Randall," Breaker's spikes started to crackle, "You better do as he says..."

The tanker complied, but Power Breaker stayed in the center of the platform with the portal ring. The Vanguard troops aimed their rifles at the Brute, but he snorted.

Red lightning erupted from his spikes and scored into the equipment. Metal scored, electronics exploded, and the ring bent and twisted with the excessive heat.

Long since the energy should have stopped, but something clicked in Power breaker's head, and he accessed something that he should not have had any knowledge of in a sane world. The lightning suddenly increased in intensity and extended from the brute in a massive orb of electric plasma.

When the light cleared away and the soldiers and Randall's eyes readjusted to the light, Power Breaker stood in the center of the room. He glowed a deep crimson, but he seemed fine, otherwise.

"Now I'm ready to go," he growled at the Vanguard soldiers, "And if you're gonna shoot me, then shoot me. Just don't be too surprised when I hit back."

The troops slung their weapons and the officer in charge shrugged.

"Hey, we got here too late to stop an overzealous strike. Oh well, too bad, it's war. These things happen. Alright boys, there's plenty of battle out there, let's move out!"

"You alright, Harris?" Randall asked as Power Breaker drew close.

"I feel perfectly fine," the cyborg replied, "I feel better than I have in..."

He looked off into the distance.

"...Ever..."

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

--Talos Island: Somewhere Below the Phoenix Medical Center--

"Amy..." Kip sighed at the side of her hospital bed.

Angus had been true to his word, transporting the Rikti-fied girl to one of the more special facilities where the doctors and scientists worked hard to understand the process and cure at least the most recent victims of the mutation. They'd made great progress with the members of the Lost, but those that had been converted to near-to-full Rikti status, like Angus McQueen... Well...

"Don't worry, Mr. Durj," one of the scientists explained, "We're making great leaps... Oh, hey! I was one of the guys that studied your disease! How the Hell did you survive that?"

"Pure force of will," the scrapper intoned, "So if you're the caliber of help my old girlfriend's getting, I'm suddenly having doubts about her future here..."

"Relax," the scientist chuckled, "There's years of research put into this, not the couple months we had with you."

"Whatever..."

"Hey," the lab coated-man pulled a chair next to Kip and showed him the chart, "Your girl shows signs of an experimental acceleration process we've been a seeing a lot of lately. The good thing is that we've been having a lot of luck reversing the process. Something about the chemicals and narcotics used to catalyze the process... Or maybe it's because the Rikti here didn't have access to as many of the... the... Incubation chambers? I don't know, but a lot of the forces from our side of the proverbial wall didn't go through the same process as the ones on their side. So, with the transformations so recent and with what we know about them now, I'm telling you, Mr. Durj, we'll bring your friend back."

"I wish I shared your confidence," Kip replied, "But thanks for the reassurance..."

The scientist gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder before standing, checking the monitors and taking notes. The girl was properly sedated, and at this point, the doctors and researchers had it nearly down to clockwork, so there was little to no risk of complications. The scientist left the scrapper to his friend, eventually, and Kip held her taloned claw.

"I'm so sorry this happened to you," he whispered, "I'm so sorry..."

"It's... it's not..." he heard in the back of his mind.

"I think she's trying to say it's not your fault," his soul whispered, "Come on... There's work to be done..."

Kip nodded. Whispering a promise to make things right, he headed out. Upon exiting the Phoenix Medical Center, he joined Sarah and got a comforting hug. Joe kept to the side, he knew Kip didn't have any desires for his fiance (in fact, Kip looked at Sarah like a sister), and he wasn't the jealous type.

"Since there's a lull in the attacks now, Joe and I are going to head over to my mom and dad's apartment. If you want to come with..."

"No, Snuffy," he sighed, "I... I have a lot of stuff to work out right now..."

"Okay..."

----------

--Kings Row: Crowne Memorial Medical Center--

"You're cleared for a one-hour visit, no more."

Raymond Harris waved off the brusque tone of the Freedom Corps detachment assigned to him. He wasn't much of a hero in the warzone where the Vanguard had established their siege against the Rikti Battleship, but he had proven to be a capable soldier. For that, he'd been provided a chance to have a brief word with his father.

His father... The man hadn't been a terribly good influence on the boy who would grow into the monstrosity walking down Crowne Memorial's halls today. Harris wondered briefly if his father had treated him better, would he have turned out the same? Would he have become the thug at the feet of another dead thug and arrested for a murder he hadn't committed? Would he have been sent to the Zig and turned into this?

His nanites reminded him that the "ifs" and "maybes" were better left to alternate realities. They reminded him that it was highly unlikely there was a good version of his father.

Eric Harris lied in his hospital bed. A former sergeant in the Kings Row precinct, the man's life had been plagued with scandal and drama on the force. After his wife had died, his alcoholism became even more apparent. As an afterthought, Power Breaker idly wondered why he never told anybody about the abuse he was suffering at the hands of his father, the old man's other vices would have strengthened the argument.

Of course, that would have meant he hated his father, and wanted him taken care of so he didn't have to deal with him. As Ray looked upon the old man's broken form, he admitted to himself that neither was true.

"Dad?" he asked.

Eric had been making for his apartment when the first attacks hit. He'd made his way pretty decently, but an unexploded bomb that had been missed by the heroes had repaired itself sufficiently and detonated as he emerged from an alley, hurling him through a building and into the waiting arms of the medi-porter network.

Normally, the system would be able to handle it. The old man would have been fine, his body patched back together with experimental technology and magic. However, it placed a considerable strain on Harris's heart, and the organ was failing. There was nothing the doctors could do for him.

"Who are you?" he replied to the monster standing beside his bed with a gruff, angry voice.

"I'm..." Power Breaker almost gave his moniker, "It's me, Dad... Little Raymond."

This didn't change Eric's demeanor. He merely glared back at the big spiky man and sneered.

"My son's dead to me... He ran out when the going got tough..."

"I ran out because I was tired of putting up with you!" the brute shouted, "All I could expect from you when you came home was an argument and a severe beating!"

"The same way my father raised me..."

"No! Godammit, no!"

"Ssh!" a nurse warned, "He has a heart condition."

"Let him yell," Eric barked, "He thinks he's man enough to tear around the world as a grotesque freak, he must be man enough to yell at a broken old man in a hospital bed..."

"Just like you were man enough to wail on a ten-year-old kid," Ray intoned.

The nurse left the room in disgust. The mood she left behind wasn't much different. The two glared at each other for a few more minutes.

"What do you want from me?" the old man croaked out.

"I want an explanation," the big man replied, "Or at least an apology! You ow me that much!"

"How do you figure?"

"Look at me! Everything I am can be traced back to you and your blaming me for Mom's death, the beatings, the neglect... You were a terrible father, and you thought being a mediocre cop made it all alright! Is it such a surprise I turned out the way I did?"

"Pft, you were no good to begin with..."

"Oh, so nature's your argument now, huh? Well, what does that say about you? About Mom? You're saying I was no good from the beginning, well, what about where I came from, huh?"

The old man looked out the window.

"So now you're gonna ignore the issue?" Ray snorted, "I tried that, Dad, lots of times. It doesn't work."

"You think an apology's gonna make things magically better?"

"It's a start!"

"I can't do it," the old man replied, "Frankly, I don't care."

Ray nodded. He didn't know why he wasn't suddenly in a rage, but somehow he'd expected this response from his father.

"So..." he grunted, "Bum ticker, huh?"

"Yeah," Eric replied, "Docs say I've got only a couple weeks, maybe. Hell, I could drop dead right here."

They both looked around the room nervously for a couple seconds before Eric broke the silence again.

"Damn."

"Yeah," Ray sighed, "I kinda figured that's what you were hoping for."

"Dammit, Ricky," the old man whined, "I was drunk!"

"You were always drunk!" the brute half-shouted back, "If it weren't for the fact that the docs flushed your system, I'd be certain you were drunk now!"

"I have my ways," Eric reached into his fresh bedpan and retrieved a bottle, "See? A few extra bucks go a long way with the orderlies..."

"Dammit, Dad..."

Eric was already taking a swig, and he finished a third of the beer before he sighed and looked forlornly at his son.

"I can't apologize to ya, boy, because I don't see how it'll help."

Breaker looked back in shock. The nanites told him that from the tone of the older man, he was being sincere.

"I messed up. My life, your life... About the only thing keeping me together was your mom, and she died in that car accident... I lost it. No apology is going to make up for that."

The old man went to take another swig, but Ray stopped him.

"You know you shouldn't be doing that. Not right now."

"Son, my heart hurts, not my liver," Eric replied, "Though it should, considering what I put it through."

Raymond released the bottle and let his father take another drink. This one was shorter than the first, though.

"You want some? There's a couple more in the pan..."

"No thanks," Breaker frowned, "I'd rather not touch whatever's been put in one of those..."

"The orderlies gotta do it, I don't see why you gotta be all high and mighty," Eric shook a bottle lightly in offering, "Last chance..."

"No."

"Alright, then."

After Eric replaced the beer and took a few more drinks from his own, they sat in silence for a few more moments.

"I'm not saying it," Eric finally said.

"But you're feeling it, right?"

Eric remained silent.

"That's okay, Dad," Ray patted his old man on the shoulder and stood to leave, "I'm probably running out of time, anyway. Freedom Corps is being a bunch of fascists because they're all antsy about me being in the city limits..."

"[frick]ing bureaucrats," Eric replied, "Alright, Ricky..."

They waited in silence for a few more minutes. It was strange for both of them. Raymond had never been in this situation before, and Eric was certain that once this situation happened (his son being more powerful than him), he'd be reaping a world of pain. He was surprised that Power Breaker was being so...

"You got a lot of your mother in you," he finally said as his son was about to open the door, "That's a good thing..."

Ray nodded.

"I won't be able to come and visit you again, Dad."

"I know. You keep on keeping on, son. I'm sure you'll get it right somewhere along the line... Not like me. I had it right once... I couldn't keep it. I couldn't be the father you needed, and I'm sorry about that."

Power Breaker pointed at his father. His face had the "I got you" look on it.

"I know, I know," Eric chuckled hoarsely, "Get on out of here before they arrest you..."

-----

"You were almost late," the Sergeant barked at Power Breaker as the brute emerged from the hospital, "I was all set to-"

"Call a heavy in, I know," Breaker shook his head, "Of course, you'd have gotten him, and it wouldn't have done ya much good."

He pointed at the waiting Randall Grey, who was just finishing drinking from a large flask. When the Freedom Corps troops glared angrily at him, he shrugged and leaned lazily against the SWAT van they'd commandeered for this venture. The vehicle leaned a little to the side.

"Alright, come on, Ran, let 'em alone," Breaker chuckled.

"What?" Randy asked, "What am I doing so wrong?"

----------

Kip kicked the Rector into the wall and looked down on Fire-Shield. The poor girl was having bad luck with teams lately, and was waiting for Eisenheartz and Genevieve to help her when she got ambushed. Now she was cowering inside a dumpster, crying because she didn't want to get hurt anymore.

"Ever think you're in the wrong line of work?" he asked as he helped her out.

"I have these gifts," she sniffled, "I should put them to a good use..."

Kip shrugged, but nodded in agreement.

"Might I suggest you stick with more reliable teams, then. That Eisenheartz guy seems pretty decent..."

"He's been a little flaky since he started dating Wrath Fire."

"Really? When did that happen?"

"Just after we helped you guys in the Isles,"she sighed, Is it true she once dated that big blonde guy with the chains and the crazy smile?"

"Cedric? Yeah, for a while. It didn't work out too well... I guess Jen couldn't handle someone who was already flaky by default."

This got a giggle from the controller witch and the two of them talked for the remaining time it took for the other two to arrive. She explained how she was a small-town girl who one day changed skin tone and could control fire and energy fields. At first the people were terrified of her, but then the Rikti attacked and she was looked upon as a savior. Kip explained he had similar problems, a town that didn't understand him until they were forced to see that the violence he committed he did to protect them.

"Wrath said your girlfriend was taken by the Rikti..."

"Yeah, the authorities have her again," Kip sighed, "I don't know how that's gonna go, but the docs seem pretty confident."

"I hope she turns out okay," Fire-Shield chuckled, "Someone needs to keep you reigned in."

"Anybody ever tell you you're funny?"

"A few people, yeah..."

"Well, they lied," Kip frowned and sat down next to the orange-skinned girl with a bemused expression.

Another alert blared moments before the tanks arrived. Eisenheartz suggested they help usher civilians away from the oncoming strife and the others readily agreed. They ran into Kip's father next to the Green Line, doing the exact same thing as them, so they hooked up with him and helped each other out.

Once again, the dropships stormed through, seeking to devastate the city. This time, however, the heroes were prepared. They had weathered these storms numerous times before and were not about to let the alien invaders take another inch from their city. Someone shouted something about the "Steel Seventy" and the battle was joined. Half a day later and the Rikti were reminded, once again, why it was a bad idea to mess with the City of Heroes...

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

"How are you doing?" Kip asked Amyt'Allor through the intercom.

"I'm alright," she replied, "The doctors say they've been making a lot of breakthroughs with reversing the process that made me what I am."

"Really?"

"Yeah. In a few years, I should look mostly human again."

Kip couldn't stop himself before he asked "Is that really what you want?"

"I..." she paused, "Yes. I've done some terrible things as a Lost Pariah, as a Rikti Mentalist..."

"Why did they..." Kip fumbled with the term, "Ascend you so quickly?"

"I was good at what I did," she shrugged, "They didn't have time to give me formal psychic training, and before I knew what was going on, I was in the heads of a lot of the enemies of the Lost... There are some good people in that group, Kip, just scared people, looking for something to give them hope again."

"A little hard work never hurt anyone," the scrapper grumbled in response.

Amy shook her head. Kip knew it was deeper than that. Most of the ranks of the Lost were people who were already lost, whether it was legally, geographically, or spiritually. Apparently the Rikti dogmas and the Lost organization's promises of a better future for its members fit their views, and the near-military regimented lifestyle helped provide structure they desperately needed.

But Amy hadn't been wanting in life.

Kip reflected on the time that led up to their dating.

She was the daughter of a bank manager, a high school socialite, and a cheerleader. She had good grades, and lots of friends... On the surface.

In reality, she had developed a reputation for being "easy." She was a frequent subject among the jocks and popular males in their high school. What was worse, the reputation wasn't false.

It wasn't that she enjoyed that kind of attention, it was just that she was a confused teen and thought it was the proper behavior for a girl like her. That behavior came to a screeching halt the day she ran into Kip at a party he wasn't even supposed to have been attending.

It was a classic high school "kegger" being held by the members of the football team. Chief among them was Charles Reynolds, who had decided to spend his evening with her.

Kip hadn't been invited. He and Charles already had their problems, the latest of which ended with Kip having a black eye and a few bruised ribs, and Chuck's tires were mysteriously slashed. Since Kip had been in the nurse's office at the time (surveillance cameras confirmed it), he stood innocent of the crime.

However, Kip wound up at the party after all. It was being held not too far from Kip's house (not that many of them actually knew that), and he had been spending the evening fighting the Soulless, a type of zombie-like undead. Eventually, his fight lead him to the kegger, and he emerged from a set of bushes to find Cory Simmons and Tyler Wild (no relation to Agent Wild) sitting at a fire just a short distance from the party. The two of them had been invited, Tyler because he was the school's soccer star, Cory because he was a friend to too many to be ignored safely.

Simmons was initially surprised at the shorter teen's arrival that night. Seeing the panic and determination evident in his friend's eyes, however, he was able to reason out Kipland's role as Kingdale's supernatural "Warden." This was a relief for him, because his reason for being at the party was to protect the teens from just the very threat the newcomer had spent the night eradicating.

As Durj relaxed and conversed with his friends, Amy arrived, saying her inebriated goodbyes before joining Chuck for another night of increasingly unnecessary behavior. She talked to Cortland and she talked to Tyler before preparing to leave before the young wizard indicated Kip. She made an indignant response that they weren't friends.

"That's a fact," the sixteen-year-old boy agreed.

"We used to be, though," Amy sighed, "You, me, Snuffy... We used to hang out all the time... We used to play such fun games..."

"What happened?" Tyler asked.

"She got boobs and started hanging out with people like Chuck," Kip replied, indicating the girl's impressive endowment, "And don't think I don't know what that led to."

"That's not fair," she pouted, "I-"

"Why do you need to do things like that?" Kip interrupted, "What does it do for you?"

"Oh, you just don't like me," Taylor mumbled, "You hate me..."

"That's not true. I may be disappointed in you, but that doesn't mean I hate you."

Amy regarded him while Cory and Tyler stared at him in wide-eyed shock.

"You had such a great heart before," Kip poked a stick into the fire absent-mindedly, like he was jabbing his emotions back, "What happened to make you change so much?"

She never got a chance to answer. Chuck Reynolds arrived, and shouted for her to come with him. When he noticed Kip, he almost made an issue of it. The small girl, however, was able to convince him to let it well enough alone and they were lost in the darkness.

The trio went back to their small talk. Cory, sensing that he would no longer be needed to keep everyone safe, decided it would be wise to simply retire for the evening. Tyler felt he hadn't quite gotten drunk enough, yet. Kip agreed with the young wizard and was saying his goodbyes when Amy suddenly bounded into the firelight and tackled him into the bushes.

There, she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him. He looked to his friends perplexedly, his arms out to the sides as if asking "What? Why me?"

"Amy!" Reynolds shouted, "Where the Hell are you?"

"I threw his keys into the dark," she giggled into Kip's ear, "I don't want to go with him tonight."

Cory and Tyler helped defend Kip and Amy, and a lot of the laughing attendees didn't help Reynolds's situation. He fled, finding his keys by using a friend's flashlight, and Kip spent the rest of the year first hanging out with, later dating Amy. This turned out to be a big surprise for the student body, as they pegged him to start dating Sarah Grey, if he didn't wind up trying to blow up the school first.

When it came time for their prom, Kipland found out what it was that had given her such a problem in dealing with growing up. As his dad waited in the car, Kip went to the house to get her. The disparity between their economic classes hadn't bothered either of them, so he felt no problem with simply walking up to the house and knocking on the door.

Her father answered. He was unkempt, disheveled, and reeked of alcohol. Kip thought this was odd behavior for such an important night for his daughter. When the old man said she wouldn't be going, the boy looked through the doorway to see Amy holding her hand over her eye.

He didn't know what he did after that, the world just turned white. When he came to, he was lying on the ground and everything looked funny. Nester and Amy were helping him to his feet and Zeke was busy bouncing Mr. Taylor's head against the door frame. When the other man finally fell painfully to his porch deck, Zeke kicked him a couple more times in the ribs and shouted about how one was not to raise their fists at children, especially the children of other, quicker to anger parents.

Funny thing was, that was the first time Kip and Nester had ever seen their father blow his top.

They didn't go to the prom, and as the truth of the events unfolded, the public came to learn of the dark and deviant lifestyle of Mr. Taylor. On the testimony of his daughter, whose body still bore some marks from the abuse he'd been delivering upon her, he found himself going to prison for a very long time.

He did not enjoy his stay. Even among hardened, violent criminals, some things are still sacred. They hold little patience for those who violate such tenets.

After that, Amy lived with her aunt, on her mother's side (her mother having succumbed to cancer around the same time Kip's mother had left the Durjes). The woman was a surprisingly friendly sort, with ties to small-time modeling agencies, and immediately set to work repairing her niece's damaged soul by getting her involved in some friendly modeling (surprisingly, such a thing exists). The two teens kept in touch, with plans to go to college together.

That was when the Rikti War struck, throwing all of their plans into disarray.

"They made me one of them to save me, Kip," she explained, "My apartment had been hit and the soldiers found me... They had what it would take to heal me, but I had to undergo certain... Changes."

"I see," Kip grumbled, "You could have told me that before..."

"Things were going nuts in the factions. The Lost, the Restructurists, the Traditionalists... Each one has a take on how this is all supposed to go, and I could hear them all chattering and shouting in my ears, not to mention the fact I'd just been thawed from my recuperation."

"So you worked for them to pay them back," Kip sighed, "Among other things, I know..."

"When I was fighting you, Kip... It wasn't exactly me. The Group Thinking had me in its sway, and I was caught up in the fight. It caught me up in it a couple times before that, too."

"Is that what you were talking about before, that 'I can feel it taking me away,' thing?"

"Yeah," she slumped a little in the chair, "But... The worst of it should be over now. Something's happened, but I'm not sure what. It's not just this place blocking me from the Group Think, the Restructured they bring in have all been slightly confused, a little bit weirded out, and a few are completely disillusioned. I'm not sure what it is, but I don't think this war is going to last much longer."

"Your time's up, sir," the security guard explained softly, "I'm sorry."

"Are you sure you're going to be okay here?" Kip asked.

"I'll be fine. They treat us well. Go on, I know you're itching to deliver some hurt. Good luck, Kippers."

"Good luck, Amy," the scrapper replied, feeling a tremendous weight lift off his heart.

----------

Outside his communicator blared. The message that trawled across the monitor caused him to quirk his eye.

Randall had just transferred control of the group to him.

"Unacceptable," the young scrapper growled, then started plugging in numbers for his double.

"Aaron," he said, "Tell me where you are, we'll bust open the cell, and we can get to work trying to get Randy back... I'll explain later when I've been told what the Hell is going on."

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

--January--

"I'm gonna check the messages on the machine," Cedric called to his brother.

It had been a while since the group had done anything official. This was largely due to the fact that Randy had gone on vacation. Over the course of the break, he had locked up the base. It had been a long vacation, too, starting after his last mission of the Rikti War (a strange, tumultuous event that took him to the Rikti Homeworld and had him and a group of heroes and rogues dealing with events there). However, those that had stayed in Paragon or come back early had been locked out of the base until he came back.

Sarah and Joe got married in Kingdale in October. It was a simple ceremony that took place at the same house where she'd grown up. Joe, for one of the first times of his life, actually stood up to Randy... He didn't stand up for long, because he was drunk, but the important thing was he told his wife's father that he was sick of the old man giving him a hard time.

Randy then spent the Autumn and Winter hunting. He took his sons, friends, and even Joe out with him a couple times, but for the most part he went out alone for the quiet. He didn't really shoot anything, he even forgot to bring ammunition with him a couple times. Once, he even kicked himself, because the King of the Forest himself dropped by his woodlot and chilled out for a few minutes.

Now that he was back, however, it was back to business as normal. No more Snowball Wars, or any other weird situations (not that Randall's coming back had anything to do with Snaptooth leaving), it was time to get back to serious business.

*click*

Cedric stared at the machine and cursed inwardly. There were only twenty-five messages on the machine. Even for a small group, it was a tad insulting.

"Yeah, hi guys, Agent Wild here. Just, uh... Wondering when you'd be back. I've got some assignments I think are right up your alley... Give me a call, kay?"

"Hey guys, Wild again... Just uh... Wondering where ya are..."

*click*

"Yeah, hi-"

*click*

"Yeah..."

*click*

"This seriously isn't happening, is it?" Cedric asked nobody in particular, but Roland shrugged anyway as he stocked the base's refrigerator.

"Hi there... Um... This is Sam... Sam Bibbins... I'm looking for Randall Grey, or Cobalt Black, or somebody from Grey's Army..."

Cedric took down the guy's number before deleting the message.

"Who was that?" Randy asked before the answering machine switched to another message from Agent Wild.

"Some guy named Sam... I don't recognize the name, Dad..."

"Hm..."

"Well," Charlene soothed as she walked in with some potted plants, "I suppose we could find out who he is and tear him a new one if it's some kind of trick..."

"I'd expect that from Archon White," Randy grunted, "In fact, I better drop by his cell sometime soon... He probably thinks I've forgotten about him."

----------

"What the Hell are you doing in my apartment?"

Kip glared at the orange-skinned girl standing in the middle of the living room. Her lips were pursed in a confused "Oh" and she looked like she was about to settle in to watch some soap operas with a bowl of popcorn. Kip recognized her as Fire-Shield.

"Uh... you see..." she stammered.

"You've been watching my cable, using my electricity... Who let you in here!?"

"Uh... Agent Wild..."

Kip blinked at that. He knew Freedom Corps had assigned him the apartment, and that he'd filed for new arrangements, but he was figuring he'd be moved, not...

"That doesn't make any sense..." he muttered, "Did he give you a reason why?"

"Well, my boyfriend... he... he broke up with me... And I asked Wild if he knew anywhere I could stay," Fire-Shield bit her lower lip and cradled the bowl next to her belly, "I figured he'd gotten a hold of you somehow..."

"Well, he didn't..." Kip sighed.

"If you want me to go..."

"No, it's fine," Kip shook his head, "I... I overreacted. Just... Just tell me you didn't take that bedroom."

"No, I took this one," she gestured to the one Aaron had been using until he moved in with Misty after coming back from Praetorian Earth, "it seemed to be the one you weren't using..."

"Cool, cool..."

The scrapper started making his way to his bedroom so he could start putting away his stuff. Fire-Shield sat down on the couch and was about to turn the sound back up on the television when she turned to Kip.

"Hey... uh... since we're living here, i think we should call each other by our real names."

"Uh huh."

"You go first," she rested her chin on her hand and gazed at the scrapper ponderously.

"It's Kip. Kipland Durj. I got no reason to hide who I am 'cause I'm not really that important."

"You're kidding!"

"Nope. And if anybody tries to come after me, well... too bad for them, because I take those kinds of things personally, and tend to break bones when people go after my friends and family."

"Wow."

"And your name?" Kip hoisted his backpack up on his shoulder again.

"Oh... Well, I'm Cathryn. Cathryn Dobson."

"Cool," Kip turned back to his room, "Well, don't turn that teevee up too loud... I can't stand those soap operas..."

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

"How ironic do you think it is?"

Jordan White stopped his jog and turned to the elderly man sitting on the bench. He was calmly reading a newspaper talking about the victory of Vanguard over the Rikti. Despite the victory almost half a year ago, the Rikti still bombarded the two main cities of the world every so often. Well... They were the main cities in the sense of super-powered politics.

Jordan looked around the street, and, seeing nobody else, he addressed the old man.

"What's ironic, sir?"

"A man named White being black," the old man chuckled.

Jordan narrowed his eyes. How did this man know who he was? It didn't make sense. Not unless...

"Sir, I think you have me confused for someone else..." he said cautiously as he prepared to return to his jog.

"Sit down, Jordan," the Center said crisply, yet calmly.

"I..."

"Please."

Archon White, wearing a running outfit, sat down next to his boss, the enigmatic Center.

"How has life been treating you?" the old man asked as he sipped from a thermal container, "Good, I hope."

"Uh... yes sir..."

"I suppose you're wondering how I knew you're of African descent..."

That was actually Jordan's last concern. He was more worried about this old Italian man having goons put a bullet in his head.

Just because of race.

"Oh, pishaw," Mr. Tirelli waved off the concerns he could see clearly on his subject's face, "If I wanted you dead, I wouldn't come to see you. We are an army, after all. Besides, I'm not a Nazi. I don't believe any of that 'master race' trite. If I did, I wouldn't have needed to change the Fifth Column, you understand?"

Paolo sighed as he looked at another article in the newspaper. White noticed for the first time that there really wasn't anybody else on the street. That was pretty odd for Independence Port.

"Requiem, on the other hand, would prefer we stick to the old standards. That's why he's not running things."

"Sir, what is this about?"

"It's about the future, my dear boy," the Center sighed, "I'm an old man. My time, regardless of how well I can extend it, is definitely near its end. Unfortunately, enemies within the organization have noticed this, and some would like to expedite it."

"Enemies, sir?"

Jordan rattled off the problems in his head. There was the animosity that was clearly evident between Requiem and the Center, but that was about it...

"As you can tell, Jordan, I have placed within your ranks a very select group of soldiers. Simply put, they are all soldiers who are unaffiliated, in any way, with the Fifth Column."

"Why?"

"Call it a hunch. Rumblings, scuttlebutt and the rumor mill have me concerned... I want you and your unit ready for when I have need of you. Just keep an eye out for my signal. Understand?"

Jordan nodded. It was strange to know that he was being held in such high regard by his organizations boss. It was strange that... The Center was gone!

Jordan jumped to his feet and looked about worriedly. People walked by calmly, but took notice of the muscular man who looked like he'd seen a ghost.

"Are you okay?" a young woman asked.

"I..." Jordan started to notice he was feeling cold, "No... I guess not. I better get back to my jog..."

"Strange weather to be dressed so sparsely..." the woman remarked, "Are you a hero?"

"Uh... I can't really say," the Archon grinned, "But don't worry ma'am. With people like me around, you and your child have no need to fear."

It felt weird that he actually meant it...

----------

"Sam Bibbins?" Randall asked the large man who sat on the other side of the desk from him, "Did I wrong you a while back and you're here for revenge? You look like a Carnie."

He had met the big man in Atlas Park. Mr. Bibbins had said he wanted to be sure they met somewhere safe for both of them, as he had been having some issues with a particular group and wanted to be certain there'd be a plethora of heroes available to handle any situation that came up. When Randall suggested they go to his base of operations, Sam was, to say the least, a bit flabbergasted. It wasn't every day that a hero offered to take someone to their secret headquarters.

Of course, the humble appearance of the base put a bit of a damper on Sam's awe. He was still a bit surprised with the technology available to the small super group, but he still had expected more...

"Actually, sir... I was," Sam replied, "I... uh... Well... I used to work for a software firm... My then-girlfriend took me to a show, and the next thing I remember is that big metal mask falling off my face after that little guy shot it off."

"Ouch," Randy growled as he leaned back in his chair, "So... What do you want from me?"

"Uh... Well, sir... I'd like a job, if you please."

Randy regarded the large man with a narrow-eyed glare. Sam frowned lightly as he realized he was being scrutinized.

"You want a job?"

"Well, I hear you run a construction firm..."

"A small one," the tanker grunted, "And I barely make enough as it is to fund what I've been doing here. A lot of this has been from funds and allowances gained from my hero work... The rest was scrounged."

"Well... You see... The thing is..." Sam got frustrated and stood to leave, "I'm sorry... I'm wasting your time."

"No, wait..." Randy stood and tapped his finger on the desk, "Sit back down."

Sam resumed his seat.

"Now," Grey grunted as e settled back into his recliner, "Let me get this straight. You want to work for me... Doing construction?"

"Well... I tried getting in with my old company, or the companies that developed from it after I found out it went under... But it seems I either have a reputation for just 'flaking out,' or I just look too much like the guys that dunked their heads in the toilets during high school."

Randy laughed at that one.

"So... I've been trying to get my life back together... The authorities weren't able to get me any of the money I'd lost to the Carnival, and I've been working odd jobs and fast food while I took lessons..."

"In carpentry," the tnaker finished, "Why?"

"Well, I could never pull it off before," Sam gestured to his overdeveloped body, "But now... Well..."

Randall shrugged.

"You don't gotta be a huge guy to be a contractor. I just am a huge guy that is one."

"Well... I just.... I just need a job that will give me a better sense of purpose... So I don't feel like a piece of crap around my girlfriend..."

Grey barked a laugh, "Let me guess, another former Carnie?"

"Yes, actually. Melissa... I... I never thought I could get a girl who looks like her, sir... She even took up modeling! She's been paying the rent and... Well... I feel so worthless..."

"Okay," Randy rubbed his right temple, "I get it. You don't feel like a man. Considering how much testosterone must be coursing through your body at any given moment, the desire to smash someone's head through a wall must be overbearing."

"You have no idea," Sam sighed.

"Well... I'll see what I can do..." Randy stood to shake the other man's hand.

"I know a lot of the work is best learned on-the-job," Sam explained, "But I'm a quick-learner. I'm telling you, sir, I can help you around the city."

Randall nodded. It was an unusual concept to him. He wondered at how this young man hadn't been driven insane, at how he was able to retain his superhuman strength, and even at the possibilities this could hold.

"Strange," he rumbled as Bibbins disappeared in the blue energy field that served as the general-purpose portal, "This could be a new turn for All-Seasons Construction. Rehab for former criminals..."

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

--Atlas Park--

"And what are you doing in my apartment?" Roland asked the blonde woman sitting on his couch and playing game featuring a certain mustachioed main character and his taller, thinner brother, "You're not living here, too, are you?"

"What would give you a weird idea like that!?" Ms. Liberty asked as she paused the game, then grinned, "Hope?"

"Heh, no. Kip told me about his new living situation before I got back... But what are you doing in here, anyway?"

"I got your super to give me another key."

"That sucker for the blondes..." Grey growled as he hauled his groceries over to the kitchen, "It still doesn't explain why you're here. You must have a place of your own."

"I do..." she sounded distracted, but Roland was more occupied with his groceries, "I just... I don't have this system..."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean you can't just get one... You don't run a first-class hero organization and not have the income to handle it..." Roland looked up over the counter at her, his eyes quirked into a curious half-squint, "Do you?"

"Roland, I'd rather not talk about this now."

Having heard that tone of voice enough times from his mother, Roland knew to let the issue lie. If she wanted him to know, she would, but he had no right to try to pry it out of her. He wasn't her boyfriend or anything like that.

Once he was done packing away the groceries, he joined his guest in the living room. Tossing her an apple, he collapsed on the couch and relaxed the fifteen hour (and then some) trip out of his sore muscles.

"I don't care what anyone says," he grunted, "cruise control is a godsend."

"Rough trip?" she asked as her red-clad hero hopped on another opponent, smashing it into a flat pancake.

"No, surprisingly smooth, no storms or anything... Which brings up a good question... Something my friends and family in-city have been wondering. Do the War Walls block out the weather, too?"

"The worse kinds, and the snow that actually lands just isn't enough to really coat anything," Ms. Liberty shrugged, "It kind of sucks, but it beats having to worry about any villain group moving unimpeded through the zones."

Roland blinked as he considered how many times he watched Rikti ships fly easily through the downed energy fields of the War Walls. Of course, not everybody could keep the main reactor in the Terra Volta Nuclear Plant protected at all times, and sometimes the enemy was able to shut it down for a moment. Still, the massive walls did prevent the larger forces from mobilizing, and so far, the Rikti had been the only ones able to find a way to get through. It was a method that would exhaust the resources of any conventional force, so perhaps the massive constructions were still somewhat necessary. He hated to think what would have happened had an unimpeded force come to capture the refugees he helped rescue in Baumton.

He wound up making a tired "Hm" to signify that he agreed.

They sat quietly like that, him half asleep, her playing, until she finally got to a point she figured she could save and stop. Shutting down the console and the television, she turned to her host and frowned slightly.

"Roland... I don't mean to intrude..."

"It's okay," he half slurred, "I get why..."

"No... You don't... Before, yeah, I liked feeling a little more normal, but... After the fighting died down with the Rikti... Something happened... Something that's had me thinking more about... About my mother."

"Oh," Grey came more awake and sat up, "I see..."

"I can't talk about it... It's a secret entrusted to few. But you know the bulk of what it is I'm feeling. I mean, that's what you were busy with when we first met."

"Yeah."

"Well, I needed someplace... you know, neutral... to think about it... Or not."

"I get it, I get it," Roland nodded, "Hey, anytime you need a place to get away from it all, you know, you can always drop by here."

----------

--Boomtown--

"Okay, Sam," Randall grunted, "Think of this as a test of your capabilities."

Grey, Ezekiel Durj, and Samuel Bibbins were standing in the middle of a ring of androids that all looked similar to one-another. The group that numbered around fifty was currently standing in southern Baumton, now known as "Boomtown." In fact, it was the same site that Sheldon had tested the Ryat androids when he'd first built them.

"No structures or anything, I just want to see how fast you can clear debris at the moment," the large tanker growled, "If you do even half as well as any one of these machines, you'll be useful as a human face to put on the program."

"Program?" Zeke and Sam asked together.

"Yeah. I'm trying to expand Grey's Army into a more productive venture... One that rebuilds damaged places like this instead of just warring with the local denizens..."

"Like them?" Zeke asked as a group of Clockwork walked past in single file.

"Yeah."

"They won't be a problem," a voice issued from the communicator at Randall's hip, "Sixty-six, Twenty-four and I have been in communication, and they know we're even tougher now than the first time they dealt with us. They're either bringing in Big Babs, or they're holding back."

"Fantastic," Randall grunted back to Ryat99, "Get back down on the ground and we'll organize a search party. Get Ten and the others... I'll bring Zeke."

"You're not stickin' around?" Sam asked worriedly.

"You worked as a Carnival Strongman," Randy shrugged, "You're tough enough to handle walking erector sets."

After an hour of searching, Randall and company found nothing. A scan of the various channels indicated that Babbage was actually busy fighting in Skyway City with yet another group of heroes that had decided to put the hurt on the Clockwork at Synapse's behest. When they returned, a sizable block of wreckage had been moved and ordered into neat little piles.

"I'd like to say this could be useful," Randall grunted as he inspected the work, "But I'm fairly certain the local thuggery are going to just ruin it all, or the Clockwork are going to harvest it, and more wreckage is going to pile up... Still..."

He examined the work designated for Sam and the work designated for the various androids. He typed some math into his communicator and nodded satisfactorily.

"Okay, Sam, now we just gotta see how good you are with power tools and working on an actual site. I'll give you a call sometime soon. I'm certain Zeke and I are gonna have somethin' turn up."

"Thank you, sir," Sam strolled over and shook Randy's hand, his body barely slicked with sweat from the effort he exerted, "It was amazing... I could lift those girders..."

"You probably have what it takes to be a hero," Zeke suggested, "Why not take up that work?"

"I've had enough of that kind of work from the other end," Sam replied, "I got cut up, bludgeoned and all sorts of other horrible things... I really don't want to have to go through that again."

"That's understandable," Zeke nodded, then added in another, deeper voice, "Perhaps about the wisest thing I've ever heard."

"Howdy, Androm, nice of you to join us," Grey grunted at his gray-haired friend.

"No problem. It's nice to see how you sentient mammal-types go through a normal day... or something like it..."

"Well, we better pack up and head out... The natives are getting restless," an android (Ryat06) announced as it indicated the approaching Outcasts that seemed to glare angrily at them.

"Did a woman's voice just come out of that robot?" Sam whispered to Zeke on their way to the gate.

"They're androids, son," the older man replied gruffly, "Robots don't have minds. And the Ryat series is full of 'male' and 'female' types, even if they don't necessarily look the part."

"Weird..."

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

"We're going to need one more."

Infernal looked frankly to his two companions. Malaise was still nursing a glass of wine and Swan frowned back at the demonic tanker. They were three, and the group of rogues they were facing were four. The rogues weren't necessarily renowned, but they were high-class.

A Brute, a Corrupter, a Dominator and a Stalker, they were a sneering, leering bunch. They especially leered at Swan, who was doing her best to ignore them.

"We can take them, guys," Malaise intoned, "If a fourth is so important, why don't we just call Luminary over..."

"She's dancing with Mark Four," Infernal explained, "Besides, she rarely, if ever, comes here to fight."

"I come here to fight," a rough voice announced behind him, "What's the deal?"

The heroes turned to the strange looking young man with a half a glass of a strong alcoholic drink in hand. He was dressed in a red tank top and leather pants. A set of chains were wrapped around his torso, and he had his eyes shadowed with some sort of black substance. His hair was done up in a crazy set of dreadlocks. A katana was placed in the chains and strapped on his back.

Malaise quirked his eye at him and Swan made a peculiar snort. Infernal's reaction, however, was strangest by far.

"What is it about you guys that we keep running into you?"

"I don't remember meeting you guys before," Mattock McGinty replied, "Oh! The group... Yeah, Kip's said the same thing before, but considering how much else we do in a month, it could just be that we're noticing the various things that are different."

"Different?" Infernal asked, "What's so different about this?"

"I dunno," the scrapper shrugged, "Feels different."

"I don't think we can use you," Malaise set his drink aside, "Come on, guys, we can do this..."

"Hey, I've seen firsthand how just one person can change the tide of any fight," Matt knocked back the glass and slammed it on the table in front of them, "Come on! What've you got to lose?"

The Vindicators looked to each other, worry evident on each of their faces. Infernal finally shrugged and turned to the crazy looking young man.

"Mad Matt McGinty?" he asked.

"Yeah?"

"Would you like to help us on this?"

-----------

"Not the Monkey Cage!" Malaise whined, "Weren't we just here?"

"No, you were just here when you got ganked by that Stalker," Infernal replied, "Now, look, Matt..."

Matt drew his sword and looked it over. He took a few practice swings and noted the hum the weapon made as it sailed through the air.

"I should've brought my rusty hunk of steel," he rasped.

"Matt!" the demon binder shouted.

"I know, I know... What is it?"

"We need to work together in this, alright? Every rogue I've ever faced has been more than capable of handling numbers greater than their own, and what's worse is that they know it. These guys have been giving us trouble all night, and I'm the only one that's been able to beat any of them."

"The brute, right?" Matt asked.

"Shut up!" Infernal shouted, "Look, a proper team of heroes can take just about anything that comes their way."

"So how's this one going to do?"

"You better take this seriously!" Malaise poked Matt in the chest, "How we do here reflects on how we'll do when it counts!"

"First off, don't ever touch me again," Matt narrowed his eyes at the psychic, "Second of all, look at these guys. They clearly spend all their time in here, tweaking their powers and perfecting their strategies. However seriously you're taking this, they take it worse. To them there are no heroes or villains, there's only the arena and contenders."

"They're all career criminals," Swan wagged her finger at Matt.

"Yeah, I guess..."

Matt walked over to her.

"What are you doing?" she asked as he drew his sword.

Malaise and Infernal moved to stop him, but Matt was too quick. he jabbed his blade into the air just behind Swan, and the dark-dressed Stalker shouted angrily when the tip bit into his shoulder.

"OW! What the Hell!?"

"I can see you," Matt chuckled as he drew back for another swing.

"HACKS!" the Stalker shouted and went to speed away.

Swan spun around, gritted her teeth, and blasted the Stalker with a beam of energy that yanked his speed out of him. She followed this up with a spike of psychic energy that ripped into his brain and left him vulnerable to even more assault. Malaise and Infernal flanked her, the tanker drawing his axe as he closed in, the controller whipping up a nightmare visage drawn from the Stalker's own tortured memories before surrounding him with multitudinous versions of them.

"Cheerleaders! NOOOOOOO!"

Infernal's axe cleaved through the rogue's torso and he slumped to the ground. Lying there, still breathing, he curled up into a little ball and started muttering something about the basketball team and "please don't dunk me in the toilet again..."

"Oh-HO! It's Revenge of the Loser, not Revenge of the Dark!" the Brute shouted from the top of the ramp outside the cage, "My team and I have come up with a theory, capes, that any one of us can take you all down! So come on, and show me what you've got!"

"This guy couldn't take us," Matt shouted back, "You sure you want to try this?"

"Don't make me come down there!"

"What does this guy call himself?"

"Bahller," Infernal rolled his eyes, "I guess it's supposed to be some kind of reference to some ancient deity, Baal, but made more 'gangster' in the modern vernacular..."

"'Gangsta', Infernal," Swan corrected, "'Gang-stah.'"

"So, you're saying he's a moron in need of being put out of his misery," McGinty growled, "You guys make sure they don't try anything screwy. I'll take care of this guy."

Finding a hole in the fencing surrounding them, he made his way for the ramp and marched quickly up to Bahller. The demonic-dressed brute chuckled and drew a pair of orange-colored blades as his body suddenly erupted in flames. When he went to swing, however, Matt leaned back, avoided both swipes, and snapped back with a vicious kick to the groin.

"En garde!" he shouted as he drew his own sword, spun around, and caught the Brute's armor at the waist.

With a hard (yet smooth) pull, he lifted the surprised rogue into the air and caught him across the belly with another slash as he landed. Bahller was suddenly scared as he tried to fight back, his blades getting caught by Matt's single one as the scrapper moved like a blur before his eyes.

"What the- How can you be doing this!?" Bahller shouted before Matt slammed his hilt into the Brute's forehead and knocked him out.

"Because I'm tough!" the scrapper shouted back.

When he turned to join the others, it seemed the rogues had tried to ambush him as he deftly eliminated the Brute. Infernal was busy trying to shrug off the nightmarish visions implanted in his mind by the female dominator (a rather attractive young woman named "Psycore") while Malaise and Swan were having trouble with the Corrupter, who was throwing fire about while he dropped an odd assortment of traps around. Matt missed his name...

Shoulder tackling the dominator, he tried to knock some sense into Infernal. The burly tanker swiped at him with a backhand. He seemed confused, Matt wasn't that tall... But Psycore was.

"Time to break the bad," he growled as he side-stepped a downward axe swing, "Hey, lug-nuts! Follow me!"

He darted this way and that, keeping the burly tanker in range and running away from their other two teammates. malaise went down, but Swan caught the Corrupter in an attack that put him to sleep. She then performed a strange maneuver that drew energy from her foe and all of his little tricks and toys before emitting a psychic scream that tore through his mind and sent hims creaming into the corner, broken and defeated.

Matt was silently applauding her when he backed into Psycore. She laid her hand on his shoulder and he suddenly couldn't move. He could talk, think, breathe and any number of other things, but he couldn't raise his hand to defend himself, nor could he so much as walk away.

"Infernal, dearest," the Dominator purred, "Would you kindly chop this little freak in half?"

"Yes, ma'am..." the tanker slurred dully.

"Infernal!" Swan shouted as she started flying toward them, "What are you doing! Stop!"

The burly hero brought his weapon down, crushing Psycore's head and neck into her shoulders with the flat of his blade. Her body had a minor "bounce" to it as he pulled his weapon away and she slumped to the floor. Matt suddenly found he could move again.

"Wow!" he shouted, "You had me concerned for a second there!"

"Actually, I was still under her sway," Infernal admitted, "And when my brain cleared, I was considering chopping you in half anyway."

"What? Why?"

The tanker looked back to Swan with a worried look on his face.

"I think I got my sarcasm wrong again."

"That's okay, you'll get it right eventually."

----------

"Oh, my head," Malaise muttered as they exited Pocket D from the King's Row entrance, "I'm going to need some pretty heavy meds..."

"You just need bed rest," Swan replied as she rubbed her associate's temple, relieving some of the stress, "Feeling better?"

"A little," Jean-Pierre replied, "So... Did we win?"

"Yeah, we won!" Matt replied from his motorcycle, "So, what was it? You guys fought each of those guys one at a time?"

"I fought the corrupter," Lena replied, "Infernal, the Brute, and Malaise was instructed to punch himself repeatedly in the face by the Dominator."

"Ouch..."

"I tried some different tactics this time, the corrupter didn't, and he got lucky when he caught Mal with that last fire blast."

"He sure didn't treat it like luck," the illusionist sighed, "He was all set to gloat when you conked him out."

"Fortunately, our foes did suffer from the same megalomania that always seems to affect them when they believe they've won."

"Well, I'll see you guys later."

Mattock was about to start up his motorcycle when Infernal stopped him.

"What is this contraption?" he asked as he looked over the monstrous machine.

"You don't know what a motorcycle is? What planet are you from?"

"What he means, [butt]hole," Malaise retorted, "Is why does it look so strange? There's all sorts of bizarre energies coming out of that thing."

"Oh yeah... My friend, Cory, he says I'm an artificator or something..."

"An artificer?" Infernal corrected.

"That's the one, and, well, I helped out this mechanic in Skyway City. I don't know if you've ever met Lou... In any case, I helped him and his family out, and he's been letting me use his shop to work on this thing ever since. The first iteration of this baby was a bike with a rocket pod and a mini0gun built into it!"

"My god!" Swan shouted in disgust.

Malaise and Infernal seemed intrigued, however.

"So, do you think you could build other things?" the tanker asked as he stroked his chin, "What have you got powering this machine?"

"A crystal called a dragon heart..."

"Isn't that dangerous?"

"Nah, it's a slow-burn type of artifact. No... What I've been having trouble with is the apparently inherent intelligence this machine seems to have. It acts a lot like a horse, you know?"

"I can sense it!" Malaise exclaimed as he pressed his palm into the side of the bike's manifold, "Amazing! it's a female presence..."

"Boys and their toys, I guess," Swan shook her head, "It never fails."

"Do you think I can take her for a spin?" Jean-Pierre asked his headache now completely forgotten.

"Sure, if she'll let ya!" Matt replied with a mischievous grin, "Not you, though Infernal. Sorry, but you're just too freaking big."

"That's fine, my wings aren't conducive to such transportation, anyway."

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

"Hi there!" the catgirl shouted when Kip answered the door, "Hey! I remember you! I'm Snuggle Purr..."

She bounced into the apartment and hugged the scrapper, making an odd purring sound as she did. Kip didn't hug back, but she didn't seem to notice.

"I'm being punished for some nameless sin, aren't I?" he finally said when she didn't release him after what had to have been a few minutes.

"I just like to hug!" Purr leaned back, and grinned into his face and clapped him on the shoulders, "And you've looked like you needed one since the first day I saw you."

She gave him another hug. Durj noted that he seemed to lose some lung capacity as she squeezed herself against him.

"Snug, what're you doing?"

"I thought it was a fluke!" the catgirl released Kip, who started coughing as she bounded over to Fire-Shield and the pair clasped hands while the neko hopped and giggled.

"Calm down, calm down," Cathryn soothed the catgirl with a scratch behind the ear.

"Godammit, my life just turned into a frickin' cartoon!" Kip barked as he stalked into the kitchen, "[Frig]!"

"Well he's chipper," Snuggle turned back to Fire-Shield and smiled, "Ready to go? I've got a tip on a Council base just down the street. Apparently, M.A.G.I.'s getting some weird energy readings from it."

"Sounds good, I just need my coat," the orange-skinned girl replied before disappearing into her room.

"And what are you up to, oh Champion of the City?"

"Lunch," Kip replied as he started slicing some cheese, "Snuggle Purr, is it?"

He looked up at her and noticed she was staring intently at the cheese. Her tail was twitching with anticipation. She looked up at him once she realized he had asked her a question. She smirked before licking her lips.

"Wow, you don't downplay the cat part at all, do you?"

"Nope!" she chuckled, "Is that cheddar?"

Kip sliced her a piece and tossed it up. Purr caught it in her mouth and gave him a thumbs-up and a friendly smile as Fire-Shield emerged from her bedroom and ushered her out the door.

"Must they all act like that?" Kip muttered as he took his sandwich into the living room and sat down to watch some television, "Cripes... You've seen one, you've seen them all."

He saw the situational comedy on the screen.

"Jebus, it's the same for everything!"

There was a knock at the door and he hopped up to answer it. He wondered what a busty catgirl who wore almost nothing and exploded into spikes at will or an orange-skinned sorceress could have forgotten. It wasn't like they really needed anything to conduct their work.

That thought suddenly put Kip on edge. He always figured that one day, the people he put behind bars would send people after him. He took a bite of his sandwich (Damn good roast beef sandwich...) and set it aside. When there was another knock at the door, he reached up, turned the knob, and let the door open on it's own. He backed away and assumed a defensive posture, his energy armor raising from the subconscious will of his soul.

When the door creaked open, however, Kipland Durj looked back at himself. The one standing in the hall looked perplexed. Kip dropped his defenses and rubbed his temples as he calmed the adrenaline rush down.

"Jebus, man! I thought you were the Council or the Malta Group come to kill me!"

"Don't you know I scramble their information?" Aaron replied, "I work for Crimson, man. I've got access to all sorts of counter-intelligence practices and teams. Oh, you should see the looks on their faces when they're the ones walking into an ambush."

"Come on in, man," Kip asked his Praetorian self into the apartment, but the CIA spook waved off the invitation, "Nah, man, nah... I'm here to ask you out to lunch. Misty wanted to get a bunch of us together again, since she hasn't seen you since Sarah and Joe's wedding."

"And you?"

"Well, I've seen you out and about... Mind your kicks, man."

----------

It should have been a quick operation. The Council were a tough group to fight, but this was, by far, about the worst group Cathryn and Purr had ever faced. So bad, in fact, that they were now prisoners.

"Wakey-wakey," one of the troops growled from behind his mask at the restrained catgirl, "You know, I don't normally go for you furry types... But you've got all the curves to make me want to see what it's like..."

Snug spat at him, her eyes narrow with rage. The Cor Leonis Archon just chuckled as he wiped his lens clean.

"I can't do with the ears, though," he drew a knife, "and the tail... They just... sicken me..."

"Archon Willis," a voice at the entrance announced, "What are you doing with those prisoners?"

"Can it, Zack," Willis barked back, "These two got nothin' to do with your projects. Leave me to my... entertainment..."

The Void Stalker walked into the room and looked over the three individuals. Two were restrained. The catgirl was upright and on the wall, her arms secured with iron shackles bolted to it. The orange-skinned girl was catatonic, but she was bound with cold iron chains, which burned her skin lightly and severed her link to whatever mystical force enabled her to throw fire or create shields. He turned back to the Archon, his posture evincing that he did not approve of their condition or his behavior.

"I don't answer to you, Void Stalker!" Willis shouted, "Now get out!"

The Archon waved his knife at the flat-black-skinned man.

"Or I'm reporting to Arakhn that there was a slight accident."

"Have you been torturing these women?" the Stalker asked calmly.

"No..." came the saccharine-innocent reply, "Not really..."

The Void Stalker reached up, and with a twist and a wave, he'd disarmed the Archon and slit his throat. As the emergency teleporter started zipping him to the secure location most Archons go in the case of accidents (and some Hero or Rogue incursions), the Stalker peered into the lenses of his victim.

"Before you disappear, I want you to know I'm reporting your unprofessional behavior straight to the Center. You must certainly be a fool to think that I work for that dark kheldian. We hunt her kind, sir, we don't work for them. If it weren't for the Center holding us back, she and her mentor would certainly be dead. Your error in personal judgment will not affect my report, however, your lack of professional behavior will. We are allies, and you assaulted me. These women are resources, and you abused them. You better hope that you do not wake on the other end of that port. You know the Center is a family man, right? I believe he has daughters. None of this is going to end well for you."

The Archon made a surprised gurgle before disappearing. The Void Stalker sighed and turned to the catgirl, who stared at him with hate.

"I apologize for that, I would have been here sooner, except I was only just informed of your predicament. I'm sorry for the torment that fool has put you through."

"Let me down, then."

"I'm not that stupid," the Void Stalker pulled up a chair and sat down in it, "Now, first off, I think we should have some introductions. My name is Zachariah. Well, it's not my real name, but it's the callsign I go by around these parts. You understand, yes?"

"Yes..."

"And your name?"

"Purr..."

"Snuggle Purr, I thought so. And that young lady is Fire-Shield. Excellent. I have some questions..."

"I will tell you nothing!" she hissed back.

"I ask for nothing in regards to strategy, no... When we're done here I will close up shop, as we've obviously been compromised, and release you back to the Hero public in a fitting manner. I just ask that you help me with a matter of curiosity."

Snuggle Purr stared back silently. Her eyes darted left and right. Finally, she couldn't help herself.

"What do you want to know?"

"My records indicate that you know of Kipland Durj... Now, he's something of an anomaly in my experience. Up until a few months ago, I thought he was a kheldian... You've heard of the kheldians, correct? Good... Well, I thought he'd been chosen as a host, since it explained his miraculous recovery from a disease that baffles even scientists on my side. By all accounts, he should be a walking dark gem and flesh mass, sprouting nicti and hurling dark energy about."

"My God..."

"But he's not... And that is concerning. My superiors wish to know more about him, and I would like very much to tell me everything you know."

Snuggle Purr bit her lower lip and narrowed her eyes at the Void Stalker. Finally, she replied.

"What if I have nothing to say to you?"

"Then our session ends, and I do what I can to revive your friend and question her. Relax, I do not intend to torture either of you, that may lead to various psychoses and will undoubtedly cause the both of you to forge a vendetta against myself or my associates. That simply cannot be allowed, and I apologize sincerely for any suffering you've been caused from your being brought here. Actually, that brings up a good question, what are you doing here? From your behavior on the footage I reviewed on my way up, you certainly don't seem to be on par with your mission requirements, not by a long shot."

"I don't know," she replied, "I was assured it would be quick... Just in and out, don't make a big deal about it, and report back... But we got caught."

"Oh dear," Zachariah intoned, "That is very distressing. It sounds as if this may have been a computer error. You're certain about the assurances made to the parameters of your mission? I would hate to think that you were..."

He narrowed his eyes at a realization.

"...Bait?"

----------

Kip, Aaron and Misty were approaching the scrapper's apartment. Aaron had just got done telling a story about how they'd dumped a batch of Arachnos spy bugs in a Council restroom. He played some of the recordings from the recovered surveillance on his communicator.

"Isn't that a breach of security?" Kip asked.

"Pft, we took this along with all the thermal undergarments in the Arachnos base when they went to replace the bugs. Sometimes, the people we're working against can be some real idiots."

"But the breach?"

"Well, these aren't sensitive..." Aaron chuckled as some more toilet humor emitted from the communicator, "I'd like to see the code cracker that tries to wrap his head around that one."

"Cripes..." Misty scrunched her face up and looked down the hall, "Uh... Kip... Do you know them?"

"It's probably just Fire and Purr-rr" Kip replied as he saw the very unfeminine individuals in tan trench coats knocking on his door, "Hey! Who the Hell are you!?"

The nearest man turned. While his upturned collar hid the mask that indicated him as a member of the Galaxy corps of the Council, Kip recognized the appearance at this angle and summoned up his armor. The Galaxy trooper threw a blast of dark energy at the scrapper and he caught it with his forearms. The other Council soldiers threw back their coats as he charged toward them, freeing their weapons. They fired haphazardly, putting holes in the surrounding walls and doors.

Aaron Durj drew a pistol from within his jacket. With two quick shots, he put down one gunman and caught the Galaxy soldier in the thigh. Kip took down the one with the shotgun with a flying knee smash. He must have done something nasty to the goon's nose, because the soldier started disappearing almost immediately. The other had been shot in the neck, and he'd faded by the time Aaron had arrived, his pistol leveled at the Galaxy trooper.

"Don't move! Don't move you son of a [dog]!"

The Galaxy trooper raised his left hand. It was wrapped with dark energy. Aaron fired and put a bullet through the Galaxy's palm.

"AUGH!"

"Dammit!" Cobalt Black shouted, "I told you not to move!"

"Aaron?"

He and Kip turned to look over at Misty. Shock and horror on the gunslinger's face was quickly replaced by confusion as he inspected his fiance and noted quickly that she wasn't hurt.

But she was staring at a spinning bullet that hovered a few inches from her face.

"Is this normal?"

The Galaxy started moving again and Kip drove his heel into his chest.

"Stop! You're done, [butt]hole! You're done!"

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

"Fire, how are you doing, girl?" Snuggle Purr asked as her friend woke up.

"I'm okay," she replied, "Just... Just really tired... I can't focus any of my magic."

"That's okay, you'll be alright..."

Snug turned to their captors and hissed.

"What do you want from me?" the Cor Leonis Adjutant asked, "Look, Hunter Zachariah told us to keep you here until heroes came looking for you. We have the usual song and dance, maybe I turn into a wolf or Mitch, here, does..."

"Yo," the shotgun-wielding terrorist waved.

"...And we go back to our regularly scheduled day."

"It's not going to be that easy," the catgirl growled at the cloth-masked villain.

"Yeah? Why's that?"

"You know the muscle relaxant your boss used to keep me from exploding in spikes?"

"Uh-huh."

"It just wore off!"

Fire-Shield dropped to the ground as her partner hunched over and spikes protruded from her skin, quivering slightly. Before the Cor Leonis soldiers could react, the spikes were sent flying in every direction, pinning the soldiers to the walls.

"Ow!" Mitch muttered as he tugged vainly at the spike in his right arm, "What the Hell, cat?"

"Ugh... I'm starting to really regret having chili for dinner," the Adjutant muttered as he faded away, "Dammit... I'm not a wolf."

"Bye boss, see you soon... Rgh... Oh, man! This really hurts!"

"Oh shut up," Snuggle Purr chastised, "You're making me feel bad."

"I'm armed with rubber rounds! I was just here for show!"

"Dammit, now I'm starting to feel bad," the girl murmured.

"Oh, don't feel bad," Mitch replied, "You're just doing what heroes do... And much better than the other guys gave you credit for."

"Aw, thank you."

"Snug," Fire-Shield interrupted, "we gotta get out of here."

The catgirl nodded and they started darting down the tunnel.

"Wait!" Mitch shouted, "Could you at least... Help me with this stake?"

Fire-Shield clenched and opened her hands. She could feel the heat building up on her palms, but it seemed off a little. Not certain what would happen, she threw a burst at the stake. Mitch's arm erupted in flames.

"AUGH!"

"Snuggle Purr! put him out! Put him out!"

"Oh my God!" the soldier shouted, "I'm on fire! I'm on FIRE!"

The catgirl was suddenly there and she stabbed the soldier in the shoulder with one of her spikes. He looked at her angrily, but suddenly stopped.

"Hey, I'm actually feeling pretty good. What was that stuff you injected in me?"

"My spikes have a nerve toxin that sedates my victims and dulls their senses..." Purr explained as she yanked off Mitch's mask and used it to smother the flames, "I hope you don't mind."

"Nah, girl, this is cool..."

Once she had the flames smothered, she yanked the spike out of the wall and the Cor Leonis soldier's arm. Mitch shouted a little, but sat down on the ground once he was free.

"Okay, you girls get on out of here... I'm gonna enjoy these colors..."

----------

"I hope they don't do anything to her," Aaron muttered as they approached the cave entrance, "No tests... Not on her or our kid..."

"Relax, man," Cedric replied, "Have some faith in people. You told 'em to leave her alone, I'm sure they'll leave her alone."

While Kip interrogated the Galaxy trooper in the police precinct and got on the horn with whoever he could from Grey's Army, Aaron had taken Misty to the hospital. At first, they tried to keep quiet about the stopped bullet, but as the doctors continued to ask questions (confused as to why a registered... something... would bring a perfectly healthy pregnant woman into the medical center), the truth about the evening's events became revealed. Aaron was then forced to elicit a promise from the chief examiner that they would NOT delve too deeply into his fiance.

"I just want to wait until after she has the child," the counter-intelligence agent shuddered a little, "You know, before they conduct tests to see if she's psychic."

"Can't say I understand it, myself," McGinty growled, "Frankly, it could be the kid as easily as the mother."

Kip and Cobalt arched their eyes at the other scrapper as he approached the cavern door. Shouting a phrase from a movie, he kicked the door to splinters and marched through. Cedric walked in behind him shouting "This isn't Sparta, it's the Land of the Lost!"

----------

Matt rounded the corner with Nester behind him. The Council were putting up a fight, but it wasn't the fight they were expecting. A couple of times, they had to disarm small explosives. They, oddly, didn't seem to be attached to anything load-bearing, but nobody deployed bombs for no reason.

Matt suddenly rolled across the floor and a spike thunked next to nester's head. He looked back at it, and cursed, then turned to see who the source of the projectile was.

"Oh my god!" Snuggle shouted as she bounded up to Nester, "I'm so sorry!"

"Snugs!" Nester's helmet whirred, clicked, split apart and folded back into the collar of his suit, "You're okay!"

"Is Fire with you?" Kip asked as he emerged from the corridor.

"Yeah, I'm over here... I'm so drowsy, though..."

"That's alright," Kip handed her a cartridge, "Here, the guys at the precinct said this stuff will handle whatever it was that was put in you."

"Thanks," Cathryn replied and winced as she injected herself in the arm as the instructions on the side indicated, "Kip, we better hurry. I think they're trying to clear out of here."

----------

"Hello Mr. Durj." the Void Hunter on the wide screen said cordially, "I am Zachariah. Hunter Zachariah. You and I, Kipland, we have history."

"Don't tell me you're the guy I kicked over the side of that scaffolding last year."

"Yes, but our history actually goes farther."

The fighting throughout the base was actually not nearly as difficult as the assembled heroes had expected. Instead of legions of the Cor Leonis (as Fire-Shield and Snuggle Purr had encountered), they were dealing with ordinary soldiers from the Penumbra and Vortex legions.

The final chamber was unlike any they'd seen before. It looked like a medical lab, and the people in it were either dying or suffering, but the Council doctors left behind had assured the assembled heroes that they could be saved. It was just going to require a lot of the stolen blood they had.

"What were you doing to these people?"

"Well... To explain that, I should explain our history. Mr. Durj, I'm the Void Stalker responsible for your Obsidian Blight."

"What?" the scrapper asked, irritation tinging his voice.

"Early in your career? I was monitoring kheldian activity in Atlas Park when you assaulted me. You kicked my rifle and the next thing I knew, I was in the nearest Council cell with a medical facility. That was not a pleasant experience."

"Well, why didn't anything happen to you?"

"Hm?"

"Why didn't I hear any rumors among the Council about a freak rampaging through one of their fortresses?"

"Probably because I was able to get my implants replaced and repaired," Zachariah brought his arm up to view to reveal a scar, "It was the implant before this one that gave you the Blight. A defective Nictus implant, or even an uncontrolled gem can be disastrous."

"Cripes..."

"We were trying to recreate the conditions here... Each of these individuals has similar physiological characteristics to you. So far, our tests have proven..."

"Failure?" Cedric Grey asked darkly, "This is pretty sick, man. You want to test something life threatening, you test yourself!"

"I was talking to the Anomaly," Zachariah replied calmly, "Now, Mr. Durj, I would like to make the request that you join us. There is much we can do for you, and much we would like to learn from your current condition. I can assure you, the plots, schemes and other little nick-nack problems you've run across from our organization are nothing more than the remnants of the Fifth Column still trying to act out. Those of us who are part of the Council, the true Council, are trying our damnedest to bring these rogue factions in and get the organization on a proper path."

"What path is that?" Kip asked as he narrowed his eyes at the lenses staring back at him.

"I'm not going to spout rhetoric, and I can't tell you the truth unless you agree to join us. Mr. Durj, with your help, we could accomplish much."

"My father taught me a response to questions like this..."

"Ah yes, the Warshade... You should know that Androm'Geizzer is a dangerous-"

"He said, 'son... Get yourself a bat, and break the [butt]hole's kneecap. If he keeps yammering on, break his hand. If he keeps trying to convince you, well, then he's probably worth listening to. The ones just blowing smoke will run before the first swing. The ones without heart will start screaming in terror after the first and second hits."

"What?" the Void Hunter asked, evidently taken aback by the absurdity of Kipland's statement, "What are you talking about?"

"I'm doing the next best thing."

A pair of bright red beams erupted from Kip's eyes and scored into the wide screen. Cedric dropped to his knees and started shouting in despair.

"That was a free plasma screen TV!" he shouted once he was certain he had Kip's attention, "All you had to do was unplug it! We could've taken that thing home, man!"

"Kip," Nester gripped his brother's arm while the Tanker mockingly patted the destroyed monitor, "Dad never said anything like that. He always said to just walk away from strangers with candy... Or run."

"I was shooting my mouth off, bro, they don't know Dad."

"They do, Kip," Nester started whispering, "He was talking about Dad's kheldian... Androm. That weird deep voice that always seems to be commenting on us now?"

"Yeah..."

"Kip, Zachariah wasn't lying. I really think Androm'Geizzer is dangerous."

"It's okay," Cedric murmured as he petted the broken screen like a wounded friend that was near to death, "There's no more pain where you are..."

"You really don't take much of any of this seriously, do you?" Fire-Shield asked as she placed a Detention Field around the monitor, "Guys, we better get a hold of the cops and the medical facility... These people need proper help."

"And you guys are going to help these people until they're better," Snuggle Purr pointed at the Council medics, "Then you're going straight to the Zig. This is just evil!"

"Its going to take total blood transfusions, ten pints minimum, to flush out the S.C.C. infection," the chief explained, "Your hospitals aren't going to do that."

"Of course they will," Kip replied, "They have to. It's the Hippocratic Oath. Neither through action nor inaction are they allowed to let someone die if it's within their power to save them!"

"And it's not within their power to save these people," the medic replied coldly, "We're talking months of treatments, at regular, frequent intervals. That's a lot of blood, Mr. Durj. Frankly, the hospitals just don't have it."

"It's better than leaving them with you," Matt McGinty suddenly shouted, "Look how they did in your care already! Kip, we'll find a way to help, but we are not letting these [butt]holes get away with this!"

"That's right," Kip announced, "You're all under arrest. I suggest you comply."

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

"So, your son had another run-in with the same Void Hunter that tried to take me down."

"I was wondering when you were going to tell me that," Ezekiel said into the mirror, "Any other secrets you're keeping from me?"

"I'm really a size seventeen."

"Try again," Zeke growled, "I've heard from far too many people about the things you've done, and it can't all be lies like you said."

There was a long silence as the gray-haired man finished shaving. He had finished dressing and kissed his sleeping ex-wife on the forehead by the time Androm'Geizzer finally answered him.

"Alright. I'm guilty of about two-thirds, maybe three-quarters of what the Nictus and Kheldians have been saying I did."

"You've got to be freaking kidding me!" Zeke hissed as he closed the door behind himself, "All this time... Were you really in a coma, or were you just waiting for the convenient moment when enough Kheldian heroes I ran into wouldn't fire on sight?"

"I was really unconscious."

Ezekiel whipped up a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs and cheese. Eating quietly, he mulled over his options. There had been plenty of successful extractions... Plenty of unsuccessful ones, too.

"Oh, don't be a little wuss," Androm suddenly growled in his head, "I may not have been on the level about what I'd done before, but it was because I considered the information irrelevant."

"I don't."

"I do, and I'll tell you why. Simply put, I'm not the Nictus I used to be. When I was a loyal puppet, I was the monster they wanted me to be. They said go and I went. They said kill, and I killed. They said to make an example... As you can see, I've made quite an example."

"So, that red-and-black armored Arachnos trooper, torn inside out?"

"Yes... I did that. Long before I met you."

Zeke gulped down his orange juice as he fought the dredged up memory back to his subconscious. Androm'Geizzer had been slaughtering people, creatures, and even things that weren't quite creatures, long before he'd met Ezekiel Durj, possibly up to the very day before.

"No, it hadn't been that recent. That was roughly thirty years ago. I believe you were just falling in love with that charming vixen in the other room... Amazing how she's been able to age as well as you. Or is she younger?"

"You shut up about her," Zeke growled threateningly.

"Understandable. I'll keep to information from my end. Chief of which, did you know that Charlene's kheldian has awakened? I'd wager the pretty young lady and her craggy mountain of a husband are aware of it, too."

"Geizzer! Get to the point!"

"I didn't really have one..."

"I mean, what am I to do with you? You're obviously too dangerous to keep within me... Should I see Shadowstar for an extraction?""

"No."

"And why not, pray tell."

Again, the long silence. Either Androm was cooking up a lie, or he was bracing himself to be honest. Zeke finished his breakfast and his ex-wife, Catherine, walked into the kitchen. She was wearing one of his shirts.

"Who were you talking to?" her sultry voice purred as she hugged him.

"My shadow," Zeke replied, "It's not a pleasant conversation."

"Aw..."

"You want me to whip you up something?"

"Nah, I'll make do. I know you've got places to be."

"Alright, Cath," Zeke put his dishes away in the sink and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead, "I'll see you tonight, okay?"

"Okay."

----------

"She has surprising body, you know?" Androm suddenly said as Zeke leaped through the city, "More... Athletically built than a record company traveling secretary would be, you know?"

"What are you trying to say?"

"I'm not sure... Oh well, it's unimportant to our current situation. You want to know why you shouldn't tell Shadowstar to extract me."

"You have until I get to her in Galaxy City. She said she has a special project for me."

"For us. Alright... What if I were to tell you that I really have changed? That I'm not the monster I was before... Ezekiel... You have to believe me on this. Of anything I've ever told you, this was not a lie."

"I don't believe it."

"Because a few Kheldians told you I slaughtered their friends? Because you remember me doing horrible things to people who most assuredly deserved it? In all my existence, I have not taken one innocent life! I have slain numerous kheldians, and they like to say that it's such a terribly oppressive thing, when they would have easily done the same to me in a micro-second had they the power! Ever wonder why we keep running into Bright kheldians working for the Council? They're not friends of mine, nor of any Peacebringer or Warshade on this forsaken planet. They are just as heartless as I'm accused of, and selling out their kind for the chance to be eaten last."

"That doesn't change what you've done."

"I never said it did. I'm just indicating the difference between them and me. I was a monster. I was a soldier, and a damn good one. I tore my enemies asunder, I laid waste to planets..."

"What was that about innocent life?"

"Dammit, Ezekiel, look at war on your world! You honestly mean to tell me there's been a conflict that lacked collateral damage? Besides... Most of those worlds were either barren or abandoned by the time I was brought in to clean up the mess... In any case! I am trying to explain that what I did, I don't want to do anymore!"

"Why not? You sound like you're reveling in the memories."

"Because, Ezekiel, I... In an act of desperation, a kheldian fled into the body of a young boy. I was ordered to slay the child. It was my host's son. He refused, and I... I had worked with humans numerous times throughout my existence here on earth. Until that moment, the emotions I'd acquired hadn't interfered in my work. However, as I tried to force my host's hand to annihilate the child, I found that the reason why I couldn't lift the arm was because I didn't really want to. We helped the boy and my host's wife escape, and after that, the Council assigned one of their premiere Hunters after me, Zachariah. He didn't kill my host, but he did succeed in dividing us. I was his target, so I'm certain my former host escaped, and it was blind luck Zachariah was so focused on me he didn't notice the hero that sideswiped him before we met. They wanted me to kill a child, Zeke. The people I've slain, they had full lives. Children... Children don't deserve such a fate."

"So, your story about the kheldian you were close with?"

"Not a lie, but 'she' did not reciprocate. I haven't seen her in years. I don't know what happened to her."

Ezekiel was quiet for the rest of the trip to Shadowstar. He didn't know if Androm was certain about the gender designation he applied to the other, but it was probably an issue better left debated at another time and in another setting. When he arrived at the usual meeting spot of his mentor, she was her normal, nervous self. Shadowstar was always nervous around Geizzer, even more-so now that he was awake. Ezekiel waved back and closed the distance between them briskly.

"You're leaping through the air?" she asked, "I saw you round the corner... Why are you altering your gravity when you could just teleport?"

"Trust me, this is easier," he replied, ", Heck, I don't even change forms anymore, I dedicate my energies to more useful powers and skills. So, what's so important you couldn't tell me over the phone?"

"Well, Zeke," she used his name, not the Nictus's, "I don't want to take the chance that the Council will intercept what I have to say. There's been an incident in the Rogue Isles. A Warshade was killed... Well... The host was. We received word from her super group recently about it. However, from our sources in the Isles, we've determined that the Nictus that empowered her has survived, and has been captured by the Circle of Thorns in one of their insidious crystals."

"You want me to bring it back?" Zeke asked.

"Yes. It will be dangerous, but you've faced plenty of dangerous things thus far. I trust you will be able to accomplish this task."

"What aren't you telling me?" Androm's voice suddenly emerged from Zeke's mouth, "Who else is involved?"

"Geizzer..."

"Answer me!"

Shadowstar blinked a couple times at the taller man. Truth be told, if she was certain Ezekiel wanted to be free of his new brain buddy, she would have extracted the Nictus long before now and had it thrown into the nearest prison capable of holding it. However, the gray-haired man before her seemed capable of handling the energy being within him. At least, he did before. She wondered if this outburst from the alien was allowed by the host, or if Ezekiel were losing control. If she knew Zeke had the same concerns, she would probably have ordered an immediate extraction.

"Our intel says Arakhn will be personally claiming the crystal. The Circle seems to be making a bargain with the Council, possibly to gain new hosts for their demons, and they intend to pay her with a Warshade Nictus."

"Fantastic," Zeke grumbled, "I'll call you when I'm done."

"Wait, Zeke..."

"Yeah?"

Shadowstar hesitated. They really needed that other Warshade back, but she worried about whether or not it would be safe with Androm'Geizzer protecting it.

"She'll be fine," Androm finally said through Zeke's mouth, "I promise you, nobody on our side of the line has anything to worry about from me."

"Don't make me regret leaving you in there, Androm," Shadowstar replied coldly, "I will not hesitate to visit upon you the torment you've visited upon so many others."

----------

"I may never be able to redeem myself," the voice of the Nictus seemed to sigh, "I may just be prolonging my lifespan for a short while as I live on inside you, Ezekiel. I can only hope that our time together provides me with the opportunity to prove I've changed my allegiance, but the Peacebringers and Warshades are unlikely to accept me, even then. I've slain many of their friends. They're not about to take any of that lightly, no matter how I help them."

Zeke paused at the blue electrical storm that was the portal to every super base in existence. However, one needed special codes to the bases, they couldn't just travel from base to base at will. The codes were stored in the heroes' communicators, and were broadcast from the devices to alter the portal for one instance, allowing instant transport to the bases the hero had been granted access to. This could be either from codes allowed by the hero's super group, or even temporary codes granted from team leaders to the heroes working with him. There were rumors that the Rogue Isles had a similar system. Zeke keyed in the code for the Brutal Warriors Order's staging area in Paragon City and stepped into the blue light.

When he arrived in the converted factory floor, he found he had been preceded by a gray android. He recognized Solid Shot from the assault on the Rogue Isles to rescue Sheldon Wallace and greeted him cordially. Solid, unlike kheldians, only saw a fellow hero and shook the man's hand with a firm, yet surprisingly painless, grip.

"I heard these guys sometimes beat the crap out of each other and wanted a first-row seat next time they did it..." Solid chortled, "That, and I need a ride to the Rogue Isles."

"Well, that's going to be a while," Draven replied, "you might have heard that our dropship got blasted out of the sky during the second Rikti War... We have a replacement vehicle, but it's a bit slower... It's a fusion-powered trawler."

"You guys are just plain crazy!" the steel-colored android chuckled, "So... What's the wait?"

"The boat's coming back from the Rogues as it is. They had to deliver supplies to Mauthe's island, and Solo and Psycho13 needed lessons in how to pilot the boat from Brother Ringo."

"I don't know how you guys can trust that villain. He may have a Longbow I.D., but he is, first and foremost, one of the enemy."

"He hasn't done anything to any of us, anybody we know, and he hasn't tried to spread mayhem through the city like other rogues in his position have," Draven shrugged, "In the meantime, he takes out the cells of criminal organizations throughout the Etoiles. Real bad egg, that one. Mr. Durj. How can we help you?"

"Well, I'm here for much the same reason as Solid, here, I need a ride. I wouldn't mind checking out this fighting ring i hear you boys have, either. Also, if you could spare it, I might need some support when we finally get started."

"Yeah? Like who?"

"Anybody who can stomach seeing an ugly red-haired woman get pulled inside out," Androm answered.

"Oh, you want Levi, then," Draven answered calmly.

((Solid Shot is property of Khellendrosiic.))

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

The next day, they were off. They made progress quickly across the water, and Zeke marveled when Brother Ringo said they'd be to the Rogue Isles within the day.

"It takes two days to travel down the coast, a day and a half if you don't sleep," he explained, "I know. I've made the trip myself throughout my life. What makes this quicker?"

"Well, for one thing, we won't be making typical traffic stops, nor will we have to stop for a toilet or food," Ringo explained, "We've got plenty of food onboard, and the toilet's right over there. Plus, we move a little more quickly than normal trawlers thanks to a Teflon coating all over the underside and the fusion engine, not to mention we're not dragging fishing nets."

"Teflon? Does that really work?"

"Not very noticeably," Psycho13 replied, "But it does reduce the drag. We don't bounce or rock as much. Cost us the last of our money to get it, I'm glad it worked at least that much. So, Zeke, you don't really plan on pulling anybody inside-out, do you?"

"No," the gray-haired man replied, "That was Androm... He has... issues... Don't worry. I'm not going to be letting him get that far."

"But you'll be amazed how far I can go," the impossibly deep voice suddenly erupted from Zeke's mouth.

"Doesn't that get annoying?" Solid Shot asked as he finished putting his rifle back together and started wrapping a plastic bag around it.

He was also wrapped up in trash bags. He wasn't entirely certain how easily corroded his body was, but he was fairly certain salt water (or mist) would do him no good. He grumbled at first, but Ragin' James and Psycho13 did a good job of cinching the plastic down enough so it looked reasonable.

"Not really," Zeke replied to the android's question, "I only let him speak when he has something relevant to say."

They paused for a few moments. When Geizzer seemed unable (or unwilling) to refute, Solid shrugged in acceptance. Setting his rifle next to the crate he was sitting on he walked over to the Warshade as he gazed out across the ocean.

"Sure is beautiful, isn't it?" Zeke asked.

"I guess," the security android replied, "Look, um... Zeke... I've been trying to figure out how to ask you, and..."

"You want to come with me on this?"

"Yeah! It sounds... Important."

"Not as important as you'd think," the older man replied, "It's just an item retrieval. Plus, there's only a chance I'll be running into Arakhn. With any luck, we'll raid the Circle base they're keeping the crystal in, blow away a couple green-eyed goons, and skip out with the MacGuffin before that red-haired freak even arrives."

"How can you be sure?" Solid mimicked a perfect scratching of the back of his head.

"The criminal organizations we're up against... They don't trust each other. They never did. It's going to take some time for the Circle to convince the Council operatives to meet them at their base, because the Circle sure as Hell isn't going to a Council base."

"Well it sounds more exciting than having to extradite some slob from his squalid, urine-soaked Hell-hole. If you'd have me, I'd love to help you out, Zeke."

"Alright," Durj shook the android's hand, "You've got it."

There was an eruption behind the Warshade as they shook and all hands available turned to the starboard, where a submersible seemed to have just emerged. Ragin' James popped his knuckles and electric sparks started to dance off of his body. Psycho13 drew a pair of knives and Project Whirlwind shrouded the deck with a steamy mist that clouded them from view of the Arachnos troops emerging from the boat's hatch.

"Smoke?" one of the Wolf Spiders asked, "No... Wait... It's steam!"

"But it's not Nemesis, that's for true," the Huntsman barked, "Lowa' tha' haze, so we might see the heroes who think they can just waltz inta' the Isles like they own da' place."

"You don't want that, Huntsman," Zeke replied from the mist, "Trust me. We've got no beef with you, you better let up right now and go back to your business."

"Sounds like you think you're a tank!" the Hunstman swung his shotgun in Zeke's direction, but wound up leveling on James, "And who're you to tell me what I ought ta' do?"

"Screw this," James muttered before hopping off the trawler and landing on the hull of the submersible, "You had your chance."

He uppercut the Huntsman into the water and he was immediately lost as the two still-moving vessels continued on. Then, all chaos broke loose. The Wolf Spiders drew their pistols and submachine guns. They were slightly confused (since Rage was classified as a brute), but didn't hesitate to open fire. The sounds of their shots were accompanied by the sound of Solid's own assault rifle, blasting away at their vessel's hull, the plastic wrapped around the weapon tearing away.

Psycho13 hopped onto the assaulting craft as well and helped pull some of the enemies off his brother with a few well placed knife-strokes. One Wolf Spider grabbed at the crook of his elbow and dropped his SMG, another's armor slipped off as the clips holding it in place popped off. The Scrapper then kicked the offending enemy into the drink, where he was promptly lost as well.

Ragin' James, moments before leaping into the air and making his way back to the trawler, side-chopped one of the troops into the hatch he'd come from. As he and his brother returned to the deck, Zeke made his play.

Gathering up dark energy, he launched an explosive blast that didn't necessarily tear the hull of the vessel apart, but it did damage a lot of its internal workings. Ballast tanks blew and the submersible sank a little. Also intriguing, the water surrounding the two competing vessels instantly froze, but it was a thin freezing, and it snapped almost immediately into lots of small pieces.

The submersible slowed, then stopped. There was the sound of panicked crewmen trying to repair the damage done. Finally, the panicked sounds stopped. Project Whirlwind theorized that the troops had simply med-ported back to the Rogue Isles a moment before the submersible's remains exploded.

"You're probably right," Solid chuckled, "Wimps... Don't know how to take their punishment like men."

"Are we clear?" Brother Ringo shouted to the crew and passengers, "That was [frig]ed up!"

"Yeah, we're clear," Solid replied, "No thanks to you."

"Hey!"

"Calm down, Solid," Zeke told the android, "He is the guy driving the boat, after all."

A red dot appeared on the android's chest. The two heroes looked over to the anti-personnel turret sighted in on Solid Shot.

"I can help," Ringo growled, "It just takes a second to deploy proper armaments when you're the only guy in the cabin."

"You clam down, too, Ringo," Zeke shouted at the arsonist, "You're doing a fine job, but I don't think this guy's gonna be so friendly if you keep putting red dots like that on him."

Grumbling that "the safety was still on," Brother Ringo turned back into the ship's cabin and the anti-personnel turret rolled back into its casing. Solid surreptitiously switched his assault rifle back to "Safe."

"He's lucky he's with you guys," the android muttered, "Otherwise, he'd be red paste by now."

"We know," Psycho13 replied as he started shuffling through a backpack, "Thanks for doing us a solid."

"What?"

"Huh?"

"You said, 'Thanks for doing us a,' then you said my name."

"What?" the scrapper's face screwed up in confusion.

"Oh," Ezekiel started chuckling, "That old gag. So... Solid, Levi... Who's on first?"

((Solid Shot is here on loan from Khellendrosiic.))

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

The Captured Dream pulled into Port Oakes without incident. There were plenty of fishing craft, mercenary boats, and various other seafaring vessels in various states of repair and armament throughout the harbor. The clientèle on the boats were just as colorful as the ones on the Captured Dream as well.

There weren't any Arachnos Port Authorities. Brother Ringo explained that the fishermen and other seafarers maintained their own status quo. The only times they had trouble were when the Marcones or the Verandes, or any other aspect of the Mafioso "Family" tried to muscle in on their profits. What few attempts there were to organize were mysteriously crashed by major villains, and Ringo was certain those moments were orchestrated by Arachnos.

The heroes left the Captured Dream and Solid took a couple shots at the nearby Lost. The mutant homeless knew better than to mess around with him and scattered. If a Rector had been nearby, perhaps a Headman, they probably would have tried to make a stand. Solid would have grinned at the thought if he could. It had been a long time since a gang of the Lost could stand up to him.

Psycho13 slid a sixth knife into a thin pocket on the inside of his vest and started buttoning it up with his left hand. With a flourish, he produced a top-hat that seemed to just pop out of nowhere into his right hand. Grinning, he fitted the hat on his head and looked to the android mischievously.

"That's an odd outfit," Solid Shot commented on Psycho13's latest get-up, "Where'd you get it, the turn of the century?"

"Technically, yes... It was the name of the store," Baker replied as he fastened up the last button on his vest, "It's also in the style of the late Nineteenth Century. I saw this movie and I just felt inspired!"

"Demon Barber?" James asked as he started pulling the rope off the mooring and the boat started leaving.

"You're not coming with us?" Zeke asked.

"Sorry, no... you guys should be well enough off with Psych and Whirly."

The gray-haired man turned back to his compatriots. Psycho13 was busy trying to pull a knife out of his forearm while Project Whirlwind stood by with a healing spell ready.

"I keep telling you, man," the defender started helping pull the blade out, "You can't juggle the things!"

"But I can try!"

"Are you sure?" Zeke asked the passenger of the retreating ship.

"You'll be fine. Levi acts goofy, but he's keen enough in a proper fight."

Zeke had his doubts, but he couldn't worry about them at that moment. He had to make sure the group would be ready for the upcoming struggle. Bringing his index finger and his thumb to his lips, he trilled a sharp whistle that got his team's attention.

"I don't think we have to have any introductions," he motioned to Solid Shot, "We've all worked together before, with much success I might add. We should be able to do the same again. Mind you, this is the second operation I'm pulling in the Isles, and, frankly, I'll admit I'm inexperienced. So, I'm going to rely on your guys' expertise on this."

"A corrupter class named Bioserj is going to be meeting us at the entrance to the D," Project Whirlwind offered, "He'll probably have some information from the streets... Maybe be able to point us in the right direction to look."

"Sounds good," Zeke nodded, "You guys think we'll fit in around here?"

"You look simple enough," Solid shrugged, "Besides, if we get in a pinch, we could have Whirly here pull that fog trick again and 'zip' we disappear. Psych looks the part, and you look downright sinister in that get-up, Whirly."

"Thanks," the defender pressed his lips into a thin line, but nobody could see it through his mask, "I figured the black trench coat would work best for me here."

"What about you, Solid?"

"Pft... I look like a machine built for war. Anybody messes with us, they'll learn that it's not just for show."

----------

"Huntsman Erlich," Arbiter Daos glowered down at the embarrassed soldier before him, "You mean to tell me that your entire operation was a failure because you decided to take a look at a fishing vessel? You concerned yourself with a matter that was out of your mission's parameters, and that has cost us a submersible, a squad loadout of weapons, and all of that surveillance equipment?"

"Sir, I-"

"Take him away."

Two Bane Spider Commandos appeared at each side of the Huntsman and started pulling him toward the exit. Erlich wouldn't be executed, but his future was not going to be pleasant within the ranks of Arachnos. Daos, however, ahd other concerns.

Heroes were in his islands. Heroes were in his lord's islands. Regardless of the reasons, this was unacceptable.

"I must report to Lord Recluse," he said to his Night Widow assistant, "He's not going to like this."

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

"Mantis!" Black Scorpion shouted at his resilient lackey, "Front and center, girl!"

"What do you want?"

"There're heroes in the Isles, babe, and the Big Man himself told me to look into the situation. And, as you know, crap flows downhill. I want you to look into it so I can have more... personal time..."

"I was about to go to the D..." the villainess hissed, "This isn't my freaking problem!"

"It is now, and God help you if you don't fix it."

The steel covered cyborg stared angrily at her boss's back as he trundled back the way he'd come. She couldn't believe the audacity of the man. Sometimes, he made her so ticked...

"Nevermind," Silver Mantis hissed.

"Hey! Come on, girl, let's go!" Ice Mistral shouted as she bounded into her ally's chamber a few minutes later, "I hear the cheerleaders are down at the D! You gonna let them just pose and hog the spotlight?"

"I'm not going."

"What!?"

"I'm not going, and I'm going to make the idiots responsible pay for it!"

"Ooh! Sounds fun!" the blue-haired girl bit her lower lip in expectation, "Can I come?"

"No... no, you need to go to the D with Barracuda..." Mantis grinned, despite herself, "Poor girl has so many self-image issues..."

"So?"

"So I'm being selfish! These self-appointed heroes are mine!"

----------

"Here you go," Bioserj explained in hi thick slavic accent as they crested the hill overlooking the cavern the Circle of Thorns intended to hold their trade with the Council, "Though I would hurry. The word on street is that the Council is fed up with Circle scheming... Either they will attack, or deal is off."

"You're getting much better at your english, man," Psycho13 congratulated, "It makes me wish I knew more of Russian than nyet."

"You just don't apply yourself," the corrupter replied with a shrug, "Give it a try if you ever have free time."

"I usually spend my free time thinking about naked ladies... or listening to thrash metal... Or thinking about naked ladies while listening to thrash metal."

"Fantastic," Ezekiel grinned and shot the skinny young man a confused look, "Unless you guys are in need of rest, we'll just break on in, kill some green-eyes and snag the glowie."

"Kill?" Solid asked, "Really? And just when I'm starting to like you guys, you go and make me fall in love."

"Well, Randy explained it to me," the gray-haired warshade sighed, "The Circle... They're pretty much just husks with demons inside. They use human souls to barter and trade with demons, and that's if they don't need them to power their artifacts... I know for a fact they sometimes do that with kheldians, too."

"There's not terribly that much difference between one of us and a creature's soul," Androm concurred, "Perhaps an articulation and tangibility, but that's about it."

"Don't call them husks," the android almost seemed to shudder, "It makes me think of them in a different way..."

He racked a round into the main chamber of his assault rifle.

"Actually, keep calling them husks. It'll make blasting them apart that much easier."

((Again, Solid Shot on loan from Khellendrosiic.))

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

The caves were alive with the sound of wind and the staccato of gunfire. It was a general mix of Circle wizards, a rarity among the sects, even moreso in Cap Au Diable. However, it was a rare deal, new bodies, athletic bodies from the Council, and every sect wanted its share. Too bad the heroes arrived and spoiled the whole darn thing.

A red-robed Fire Thorn Caster was split apart by a spray of bullets from Solid Shot's assault rifle, and a horrid green mist wafted out of the decimated corpse. Project Whirlwind had a group of Defenders and Guards pinned against a corner with a powerful, swirling current of air. In the midst of the raging mini-hurricane, Psycho13 hacked and slashed at the soldiers of the wizards. Zeke marched through the ranks of wizards, and snuck up to a Madness Mage that was trying to pin the assault android down with visions of him rusting away, but Solid kept taking pot-shots at the wizards surrounding the group.

When Durj got close enough, he pressed his hand against the Mage's back and Androm compressed the gravity around his foe. The Mage almost screamed, but was suddenly drowned out by the sound of his body getting torn apart by a grenade.

Five minutes later, Zeke pushed the body pinning him off and gazed about dazedly. The sounds of explosions and gunfire had been replaced with the soothing ambience of Project Whirlwind's fog and wind enchantments, and the combat android was busy replenishing his ammunition.

"Ow," the old man grunted as he pushed himself off the floor, "Next time, you might want to keep track of your allies, Solid."

"What? When did I hit you?"

"I guess it wasn't your fault, but it was when you blew up that Madness Mage. I was right behind him, then I was under the parts that made him up... Strange things... They're little more than dust."

"Yeah, but you were bigger than him, why couldn't I see you? Whirly and Psych were over there..."

"Seriously, Levi, you gotta stop letting them hit you like that," Project Whirlwind was using his oxygenation enchantments to heal his friend's wounds faster as the scrapper pulled thorn blades out of his torso and limbs, "Those swords slow everything down, man, even that super healing of yours."

"I'll be fine, I've got you and the veterans over there to keep me alive."

"I suppose I should explain," Androm intoned, "In order to improve our effectiveness in combat, I bend the light around us and effectively hide from the enemy... It has proven exceptionally useful, especially in this instance..."

A Void Hunter, on loan from the Council, was stalking down the hall toward the recovering heroes. He had been alerted that there would likely be a Kheldian interest in this operation, and judging from what he'd heard from fleeing Spectral Demons, it was likely there was a Warshade traitor among the invading force. If he acted quickly enough, he could execute the Warshade, then double back to the Demons while the heroes tried to cut him down. Then, he could inform the Council that the Circle forces were weakened, and prime for an assault.

Such musings, however, were abruptly cut short when he heard a burst of air behind him. As he turned to see what it was, a fist slammed into his chest and the breath was squeezed out of his lungs. A series of blows to the face finished the Void Hunter off, and Zeke snatched the unfired Quantum Rifle out of his enemy's hands as the unconscious body slumped to the floor.

"Well done, Zeke!" Solid cheered, "What are you doing to that gun?"

"Just, there.." Zeke pulled a panel off and fished around inside the housing of the gun, "And there's something that doesn't belong."

He yanked out the teleportation device and tossed it onto the unconscious form at his feet. A second later, the body of the Void Hunter disappeared and Zeke walked back to his companions with the Quantum Rifle.

"How... What?" Project Whirlwind was a little slack-jawed at the team-leader's accomplishment, "How'd you know what to remove?"

"I'm an electrician," Zeke shrugged, "And I've been trying that trick for a few months, now, but I could never pull it off before the goon got zapped back to wherever the Council keeps them, and the gun went with 'em."

"Crazy," Solid clapped the Warshade on the shoulder, "So... Are you going to let me give that nifty contraption a test run?"

"No," Zeke replied as he reached the wall and started fitting the gun inside a crack in it, "I'm bringing this thing back to Paragon so the Kheldians can get to work on finding a way to resist its effects. I can't risk having it damaged, so..."

As he marked the weapon with a touch of dark energy, Androm chuckled.

"I like where you're going with this."

"You have no idea what I'm doing," Zeke whispered with a grin.

When they got to the final chamber and the aggravated Death Mage that was directing the gathered wizards, the small team was running on the impetus of their prior victories. Psycho13 dove straight into the middle of the fray, smashing a rainbow of gems into his chest, radiating defensive, impact dampening, sensory enhancing and damage boosting energies around him. As the gathered wizards tried to scramble against this superspeeding threat, the other three heroes launched their volleys and in short work, the cluster of mages were torn asunder.

The Death Mage, flanked by a pair of Behemoth demons, blinked twice at his decimated forces.

"Two minutes," he growled, "It took them two minutes to tear all of you apart. Fantastic. Zoria's going to be really happy about this."

"Shall we kill them, Mori'ae?" one of the demons growled.

"Yes, please."

A bolt of lightning scored into the left-most demon and was deftly followed by Pscyho13's screaming form smashing into the monster's chest and knocking it over. The other turned to help its brother(?) and was promptly perforated by Solid Shot's assault rifle. Mori'ae rubbed his temple as the two monsters were dispatched just as quickly as his underlings.

"Fantastic," the demon-wizard growled, "Stop!"

He held up a hand and dark tentacles wrapped around the overzealous scrapper. Psycho13 started to scream about the horrible things he would do to the wizard if the squirming metaphysical appendages did to him what he heard other heroes vocally feared they would do. Mori'ae turned to the other three and started fishing through his robes.

"Alright... I know why you've come, and I'll make this simple. I've grown attached to this body, it has... perks... and I'd like to keep it. Here's the crystal."

He produced it from the folds of his robes and twirled it in the firelight. The crystal was flawless, the body of which was hexagonal with matching points at each end. It would have been a clear quartz if not for the bright glowing energy within it. Mori'ae gestured with the object, and Zeke felt a strange pang in his heart.

"I..." he whispered, "I know her?"

"No... I do..." Androm replied, "It can't be..."

"Catch," the wizard barked and tossed the crystal in the air.

Normally, such a trick wouldn't be so easy. Zeke could have simply pulled the gem to himself using his gravity control, except he was jarred. Androm was jarred as well, and this emotional distress had caused them, host and symbiotic energy being both, to be out of sync. Solid Shot, noticing too late that his partner wasn't moving, dove to catch the prize before it could shatter on the floor.

"What the Hell is wrong with you?" the android shouted as he hugged the crystal to his chest, "Your indecision may have just cost us the boss!"

"I... can't... can't... move..."

Mori'ae disappeared into the shadows, chuckling lightly to himself as he left. Psycho13 emerged from the tentacles bracing him to the floor and sped to the retreating shadow, only to rake one of his knives against the wall.

"Damn, no matter how many times I see that happen, it still freaks me out," he growled, "Okay, he's gone, we should probably get the Hell out of here, too."

"My thoughts exactly," Solid's voice emitters distorted a little, "Dammit! I just had these tuned!"

"Give me that," Androm suddenly shouted, and Zeke reached out, saying more softly, "Please, Solid. It... It feels like an old friend."

The android was hesitant, but relented after a moment. Zeke grasped the object and closed his eyes. He could feel Geizzer's energy wrapping about the crystal, feeling the energy within. It was strange that it was so familiar, so...

"It is her," Androm finally admitted, "Nova Shine..."

The crystal suddenly disappeared and Zeke felt a shock as the connection with the energy within the gem was lost. He was an instant from accusing Androm'Geizzer of consuming her when he heard a stream of loud, angry, and violent curses erupt from his Nictus's mind. It would have been deafening if it had actually been in Zeke's ears.

"Nice," a flat, high-toned voice said from the entrance to the cavern, "Exquisite shape, nice feel..."

While his allies gathered themselves about him, Ezekiel turned to the new threat. Androm's voice ceased, and the human could feel control returning to his body. Everything was coming back, from his hands and feet, to the dark energies his hero class was known for.

When he saw Arakhn, the red-haired, pale skinned, neoprene-wearing assassin of the Nictus, and the supposed right-hand of Requiem, his skin went cold. She cradled the crystal in the crook of her elbow and chuckled as a group of Council soldiers clustered into the room from behind her.

"As much as I would like to take this and run, I just can't pass up an opportunity to capture another one of you... traitors..."

Arakhn took a closer look at Zeke.

"Oh my... Kill them! Kill them all! NOW!"

If she'd been smarter, she'd have simply returned the crystal before Zeke's vision started going red. Solid Shot was already leveling his rifle on the head of one of the troops. Psycho13 drew his blades and stepped before the group while Project Whirlwind started fashioning a spell.

"I suppose you creeps think you have an advantage because you have guns," he chuckled, "No... What you have are bullets, and the vain hope that when your guns are dry, we'll be unmoving on the ground..."

Zeke's shields raised up, bidden by a subconscious command from Zeke. Solid Shot creeped behind the darkly glowing Warshade, never taking his sights off his target and hissed at Project Whirlwind.

"What is he doing?"

"I've stopped trying to keep track a long time ago. I think he's bastardizing a quote from a movie..."

"...Though I can assure you," the scrapper continued, a maniacal glint entering his eyes, "That once you're done firing and we're still standing..."

The Archon standing by Arakhn's side raised his arm. His soldiers were unfazed by the lunatic's speech.

"...We'll cut you down before you have a chance to reload."

The Archon dropped his hand and the soldiers opened fire. Their assault rifles blazed rounds into the scrapper's body, and the scrapper shook violently as each bullet tore through his flesh and bones. A few bullets bounced and panged off Zeke's shields, but it seemed that the young man had unsettled the enemy quite a bit. When the last shot sounded, Arakhn leaned toward the gathered heroes as the scrapper slumped to the floor on his knees.

"Aw... I think he's broken," she chortled, "Is that all you've got, Androm?"

Before Zeke could reply, a breath gurgled out of the young man slumped on the floor in front of him. Psycho13 tested a few more breaths while the Council soldiers muttered in disbelief. When the dark-dressed young man got back to a standing position, his ragged breaths had turned to a demented chuckle, and later to outright maniacal laughter.

With a pair of finishing barks of laughter, he straightened out the rags on his chest, settled his blasted apart top back on his head, drew the remaining pair of knives from the tattered remains of his suit, and saluted the soldiers with the right one.

"Our turn!"

((Solid Shot on loan from Khellendrosiic. Mori'ae based off a half remembered Simpsons quote. Nova Shine is so-named because in-game Kheldians are named based on stellar bodies and concepts. Apologies to players who utilize these names.))

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Solid Shot charged the left flank, blazing his assault rifle in a spread that wounded and injured many of the Cor Leonis soldiers. The one he was running toward, however, had an entirely bad thing about to happen to him. Just as the young super terrorist popped a new magazine into his assault rifle, Solid Shot tossed his own assault rifle into his left manipulator and delivered a savage electrified punch into the trooper's jaw. Sprawled on the ground, the young man gasped and looked up in time to see Solid coming down with a flying double hammerfist.

Psycho13 zipped right and hacked and slashed though their enemies. He didn't have time to waste with the battle, so he simply carved through the joints of his targets, lacerating tendons and ligaments and disabling the soldiers. This didn't render them unconscious, however.

A snow storm appeared behind the scrapper. As the soldiers slipped, fell, and shivered, a sphere of lightning hovered into their midst and exploded, finishing the soldiers off. Project Whirlwind grinned and started working on his next enchantment.

The scrapper closed with Arakhn and had his blade hovering over her impassive face. He hadn't been stopped by anything, but now that he was close enough to get a good look at her, he was slightly stunned. He looked her up and down and turned to Zeke.

"I thought you said she was ugly!" he shouted and her hand stopped halfway to his ribs, "She's actually kind of cu-"

Gritting her teeth angrily, Arakhn slammed her palm against the skinny scrapper's chest and a dark explosion sent him arcing through the air.

"-YOOOoooOOOoooOOOoooOOO-!"

There was a sickening crunch as he hit the rocks. The young man hanged there, spread out like an "X" and gritting his teeth in pain.

"-oot... Ow... There's a point in the rock that's between my shoulder blades... You know that part that you can't scratch? It's right there."

The altered gravity holding the scrapper in place alleviated when the villainess turned her attention back to Zeke and Project Whirlwind. Psycho13 hit the ground with a splat and a groan. Whirlwind threw an oxygenating spell his friend's way with his left hand and kept working magic through his right.

"Hey! Redhead!" Solid Shot shouted as he racked a round into his rifle's central chamber, "Eat Tungsten!"

The bullets flew and impacted on the shield that rose almost instantaneously around the fire-haired dark matron of the Galaxy forces. She smirked without looking at the blaster and casually flicked her hand aside, tripping the android to the ground with a dark wave.

"Androm'Geizzer, I expected you to bring stronger forces. All I see are pathetic scraps... Broken lunatics and the dregs of the hero community... You would have..."

Ezekiel disappeared from view, leaving Project Whirlwind without a shield. The Defender blinked a couple times, turned to face her properly, then extended his right fist to her.

"Heh..." she chuckled, "Your boss has gone and disappeared on you, now all you have is a mere token to try to keep me from taking your lives? What have you got?"

"You asked," Whirlwind replied and opened his fingers, one at a time.

When the last finger opened, a small cloud rose from his hand. It grew exponentially as it hovered and settled over the magician's head. Arakhn shook her own head angrily, mouthing the word "No" as the cloud darkened.

"Sorry," Whirlwind replied as a lightning bolt blasted into her.

Arakhn flew backwards from the impact and was caught from behind before she could hit the ground. A black-purple haze held her in the air and turned her slowly.

"You have something that belongs to me," Androm said, his eyes blazing at her, then Zeke intoned "I suggest you return it now, before this gets worse."

Arakhn sneered, then hurled the crystal aside. Project Whirlwind flew to catch it and wound up receiving a face-full of dark energy from teh villainess's still outstretched hand that knocked him aside and caused him to crash into the wall. Psycho13 caught the fumble, though, and tumbled into the opposite wall. Victoriously, he held up the gem like a running back holding up a touchdown catch.

"Big mistake!" Androm shouted as he lifted the villainess into the air and threw her across the chamber.

Arakhn recovered in mid-air, spun and flipped, then landed smoothly with her feet spread apart and her left hand bracing her on the floor like a tripod. Her right hand was held above her head, swirling with dark energy, and she hurled it at the heroes in an arc.

Solid Shot flew up out of the way of the energy blast headed toward him and leveled his assault rifle on her. Psycho13 curled up around the crystal and took the hit with a scream. Project Whirlwind wasn't hit, but he was buried under a pile of small rocks that fell out of the wall where the blast hit. The final dark beam just spattered off Ezekiel's shields and he growled.

"That should have knocked you on your [butt]!" Arakhn shouted, "How did-"

"I focus my energies properly," Zeke replied, "It took time figuring it out. There isn't much that can scare me out of your little arsenal anymore."

"I'll teach you how to fear me again!"

"No," Zeke reached behind his back and gripped his fist in and out, "Not tonight."

Arakhn hurled another blast of energy at the Warshade and gritted his teeth. He was able to resist a lot of the dark cloud that washed over him, but it was still painful, still cold, and still powerful. He was dragged back a few inches, the soles of his shoes scraped the rock beneath him as he resisted the push. When the torrent was gone, however, he was ready with his own return volley.

The quantum rifle he'd recovered, still loaded with its peculiar ammunition and ready to go, appeared in his hand as the swirling vortex dissipated with the rest of the energy that had just washed over him. Zeke whipped the weapon around, brought the butt stock to his shoulder, aimed, and fired in one smooth motion that had taken down half as many Rikti as it had deer.

Arakhn's eyes widened and she was thrown back by a blast that nearly crippled her. As she struggled to stand, Zeke approached her and put his hand around her neck. Dark energy started to swirl around them both, permeating the stone beneath them. He hefted her into the air and dragged large chunks of the floor up with Arakhn's body. The boulders floated around them.

"I told you, never give me a reason to want you dead," Androm growled, "I was a loyal soldier of yours, I warned you of countless attempts on your life, I even saved your pathetic existence from destruction! You dare cross me!? You don't believe I can swallow you whole!? Let me show you what I can do! NO!"

Zeke promptly dropped her and staggered back, gripping his head and growling to himself. Geizzer was screaming red rage into his head and Durj was shouting back, just as loud. It felt like the blood vessels in his skull were about to pop. As the boulders dropped back to the floor, Arakhn stood, her arm practically consumed with dark energy as she prepared for the death blow.

There was a roar from above as Solid Shot's assault rifle barked fire and metal at the villainess, piercing her shield and perforating her body. She yelped once before suddenly disappearing in a dark flash.

Zeke remained on the floor, shuddering and gasping for breath. The android descended to the Warshade and leveled the weapon on the man's head.

"Zeke?" he asked cautiously, "Everything alright in there?"

"No," the man replied, "But I'm back in control. Androm... He's quiet again. I think it's the silent treatment."

"You sure?"

The shields lowered and Zeke stood back up. A trickle of blood rolled out of his nose.

"Dump shock," the android muttered at the blood, "Whirly!"

He and Zeke ran over to pull the rubble off their defender. As the magician rolled the last few stones off, he saw Zeke and reacted almost instantly with his weak healing spell.

"Are you alright?" he asked worriedly before mumbling the proper words to activate the artifact again.

"I'll be fine," Zeke replied.

"No..." a smooth, cold voice said from the chamber's entrance, "You won't."

Exasperated, the three heroes turned to find Silver Mantis standing at the entrance of the cavern, flanked by a small cadre of Freak Tanks. She smiled wickedly at them as she considered all of the horrible things she was going to do to them.

"Lateral!" Psycho13 shouted and charged into her, bowling the whole group over.

Zeke turned and caught the crystal in his left hand with a simple influx of gravity and turned to the others. Solid was already dragging Project Whirlwind through the air, over the recovering Tanks and the premiere Arachnos lieutenant. Zeke appeared jsut behind them, sparing one look back to Psycho.

"Go!" the scrapper shouted before a large number of metal spikes erupted from Silver Mantis and stabbed through him.

Psycho13's eyes widened and he looked to Zeke before his head slumped, connecting his forehead to hers. The villainess rolled the scrapper off and pushed herself to a standing position. Blood dripping from her spikes, she pointed at the Warshade and the Tanks started their assault.

Zeke unleashed an explosive blast that toppled them aside and disappeared. As Solid Shot and Whirlwind reached the exit of the cave, Zeke reappeared and turned back, reaching for his fallen ally through the dimensions. He found nothing.

"What?" he breathed, "Solid... We have to go back..."

"We can't!" the android replied, "We're half broken as it is, you and me, we could stand up to the tanks, but I've heard bad things about that girl! We gotta get the Hell out of here now! Recruit an army like last time, and I'll think about goin' toe-to-toe with her again!"

Zeke nodded. He didn't relish having to tell Levi's father how the young hero had died, or that it was for a cause he had nothing to do with. Worse, he wouldn't even be able to deliver a body, but if he could, they wouldn't have to deliver it. They could have just had him med-port. If Zeke couldn't teleport Psycho13, the med-porter wouldn't work either.

With a heavy heart, Ezekiel led Solid Shot out of the cavern.

----------

Silver Mantis held the inhibitor in her hand, admiring the bright red glow of the single light on the small black box. It hadn't stopped the Warshade from escaping, but it certainly kept him from recovering the morsel at her feet.

"Wake up, Regenerator," she growled, "We're going to have so much fun."

"Sounds good," the scrapper gurgled, "Are you sure you want to share with me?"

"Oh yes," she replied as she stepped on his neck and turned his face to her with her toe, "I've never been able to work on a regenerator before..."

"Oh... You're one of those kinds of girls..." Psycho13 rolled back over, feeling his cheek cut open, "I gotta warn ya... I'm a screamer."

"Goody."

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

"Urgh..." the portly archer growled as he lurched into his apartment, "Never hooking up with a pick-up group again... I told them, don't go after all those zombies, they look tough... Wait for the team to gather around, stick together... No! Scrapper's racing in, gettin' his head damn near-cut off, the healer thinks he's a tank... Maybe it was the fact they were all male..."

"Sounds reasonable," Ms. Liberty replied as he walked into the kitchen.

"AUGH!"

"What?"

Roland clutched at his heart and blinked a couple times.

"Godammit, don't do that to me. I may not have high blood pressure, but scaring someone like that isn't good for their heart... It can't be..."

He narrowed his eyes at her. Not only was her visit unexpected (she usually called him to let him know if she'd be around), she was dressed in a rather formal dress. He rolled back through his memory to see if there was an event and remembered.

"Oh!" Round exclaimed as he set his quiver next to the refrigerator, "The wedding."

"Yeah, it's in a couple hours," Ms. Liberty replied, "You forgot?"

"Well, I'm not going, so..." he turned to see her looking angrily at him, "What? I-... No! NO!"

"Come on, Roland. The girls have been giving me a lot of crap about you lately, and I want to show them that you're just a nice guy I hang out with every so often to burn off stress."

"You can do that any other time," the hunter crossed his arms over his chest and glared back at the girl, "Being your wedding date goes way above-and-beyond anything a friend would do."

"No it doesn't!"

"It does in my book."

Ms. Liberty sighed and shook her head, exasperated.

"Look," she said in a calmer voice, "If I take anybody else, they, the hero and the media, are just going to blow the whole thing out of proportion..."

"And if I go, it'll just be the media and your friends. Sounds like more of a lateral move than an improvement."

Roland started removing his armor pads and utility harness. He was hoping this argument would end soon. He really needed to take a shower and cook dinner...

"You could just go dateless," he offered, "It's not like your peers aren't... ex-pect-ing... that... Oh, now what!?"

As he'd spoken, her posture had turned more glum. Ms. Liberty was now holding herself and looking around nervously. Only a scant few people had ever seen her like that. Roland didn't like the fact he could now count himself as one of them. Something seemed far too personal about that.

"Roland," she finally whispered, "I... I don't want to look like I'm cold and impersonal. A lot of heroes already think that, and going to a wedding, dateless... That's... That's not good for my image at all, you know?"

"Saying this is a PR move doesn't improve things."

"Please?"

The portly defender-class hero gritted his teeth at that one. With a light groan, he nodded. It wasn't so much that she'd said the magic word, it was more that he was starting to be worn down by the distress in her voice. She wasn't just asking him to help her out, she was inviting him to something she figured would be fun. She was also asking him to be a friend.

"Alright," he grumbled, "I'll go. But it better be catered! I'm starving. I missed lunch."

----------

When he came back from his shower and changing into the tuxedo Ms. Liberty provided for him he stared at her with a bemused expression on his face. She looked up from her wristwatch and smiled, then noticed his expression.

"What?"

"How is it this thing fits me so well?"

She sniffed out a light laugh and replied, "Your measurements are in the Freedom Corps database, Round. What did you expect me to give you? A tux that doesn't fit?"

"A little, actually," Roland shrugged, "Yeah. It's the sort of thing my friends would have done. Or my brother..."

"Well, come on, we gotta hurry!"

As he closed the door behind them, he patted the area over his heart where he'd placed the folded up quiver. He hoped that folding it wouldn't affect the quantum singularity stored inside... Sheldon assured him the apparatus would remain stable and that the "weapon space" technology was almost a decade old. With any luck, that would mean the device was rugged enough to survive this minor change.

"Roland! Come on!" he heard from the stairs at the end of the hall.

"Coming!" he shouted back, readjusted his tuxedo and started following after his friend.

Even though they could have just "hopped" over to the Usher waiting next to the giant statue of Atlas, Ms. Liberty insisted that they use the provided limousine. She explained that she didn't want anything happening to her dress and Roland gave his sleeve a gentle tug. He'd forgotten to check the tag, but he was quite certain that the outfits had come from Icon...

There was a line for the event. Lots of heroes heroines had simply been invited by the happy couple, even Roland's parents. However, Randy and Charlene already had their own plans. He stopped thinking about those plans at that moment, though, and visibly shuddered.

Walking past the lined up heroes and heroines in line invoked a few grunts and grumbles, but it was Ms. Liberty and her date, so nobody was going to argue the point. Upon reaching the Usher, Roland could swear he felt more than a hundred eyes burning holes into the back of his neck. Perhaps almost a thousand. If it weren't for the dampening field erected by the wedding staff, some of that sensation might have been literal.

As the Usher looked over the list for the next group being let in and Ms. Liberty waited to get his attention, the defender noticed a familiar face standing nearby. Kip saw him and rolled his head in disgust.

"Why aren't you in line?" Round asked.

"I'm not going to that," Kip replied, "Weddings are fine and all, but they shouldn't be public spectacles. You know they're letting rogues in on that thing? No, I don't mean types like Power Breaker, either."

"I'm sure it'll be fine."

"So long as you're packing heat."

"Roland!" Ms. Liberty suddenly hissed, "Come on! We gotta go!"

"You better make sure nothing bad happens to him, Lemonhead. Randy may not act like it, but he cares deeply for each of his kids, and he takes it personal when any of them come to harm."

"It's a wedding, Kip."

"Someone don't know their history," the other scrapper replied, "Weddings should be private, personal affairs. Close friends and family only. A public spectacle like this, with some of the people I'm hearing are invited, is not going to go well, no matter how you slice it."

"Oh, ye of little faith," Ms. Liberty sighed.

"Okay, Ma'am," the Usher said over them, "The spell is ready."

"Spell?" Roland growled.

"Haven't you noticed the people fading into thin air?" his friend asked.

"What are you doing here, anyway?"

"I'm added security-"Kip began as the Usher muttered something and snapped his fingers.

Roland and Ms. Liberty promptly disappeared.

"-at the gate..." he finished, "Nice. Real nice, Bob."

"My name isn't Robert, sir," the Usher replied.

"Shut up."

----------

"What the Hell is this place?"

Roland's eyes cleared after the effects of the teleportation wore off. He found himself in a peculiar place, all gold and ivory, molded into an unusual architecture. He looked to the young lady who was the reason for his being there and she shrugged.

"The Ouroboros, home of the Menders,. Think Time Police, only more complicated," Ms. Liberty replied, "They're letting Manticore and Sister Psyche hold their wedding here for numerous reasons, chief of which is their neutral standing in terms of global situations and the fact that the view is spectacular."

"It is pretty," the portly hunter replied, "Seems a bit cramped with all the people."

"Well, everybody who was invited is going to be fitting in here."

Roland looked askance at the available room.

"Unless any of them feel like swimming, that just isn't going to happen."

Shaking her head, Ms. Liberty took Roland's arm into her own and started dragging him away.

"Come on, it's time we settled things with Mynx and the others."

"She's the one that's been giving you a hard time, huh?"

They crossed the expanse of the flying facility and found the gathered female heroines of the Vindicators, save Valkyrie and Aurora Borealis. Malaise was also standing with the ladies, sipping on a glass of what looked like water.

"Ladies, Mal," Ms. liberty announced, "This is Roland Grey."

"Hi boy-toy," Mynx replied after a quick inhale through her nose, "Wow, you're either really burly, or really fat..."

"A little of both, actually," he replied, "And don't call me that ever again, or I'll find myself a hose around here and turn it on ya'."

"Oh," the red-haired scrapper folded her arms over her chest and glared at the bearded young man by narrowing one eye, "Cat jokes."

"Hey, they're better than fat jokes," he replied, "Yo, Malaise, right? Know where I could find something to drink?"

"Well, this is water, but I suppose they have something more to your liking at the punch bowl."

"Water's fine," Round replied and walked to where the controller indicated.

"Well?" Ms. liberty asked, "Do you guys believe me now, that we're not dating?"

"I don't know," Swan replied, "He's... Unsettling. Normally, when people are talking, I hear an echo of what they're really thinking. With him, it was just what he was saying."

"Same here," Malaise concurred, "But I wouldn't think that rules anything out."

"He's neat!" Luminary replied, "Some of the other heroes coming in here are all in awe of being among the greats like us, but he's got this calm composure... It's kind of cute."

"I don't like him," Mynx growled.

"That's because he was so quick to talk back to you," Swan countered.

"Exactly. We don't need two people like me in this group."

"He's not joining the Vindicators!" Ms. Liberty almost shouted, "What the Hell gave you that idea?"

"I'm still not convinced you and him don't have something going on behind everybody's backs!" the cat girl hissed, "There are plenty of ways to feel normal without resorting to... Slumming it with the norms..."

"It's not slumming," Malaise chimed in, "and it wouldn't hurt you to get more involved with the community, Kat."

"I'm plenty involved!"

"I wouldn't say attracting half the world's born-pregnant cat girl population to this city is community involvement."

"[frig] you!"

Roland finished pouring himself a glass of water from the cooling apparatus and heard the expletive shouted. When he glanced back, Citadel was hovering next to the assembled heroines and hero to see if the situation needed calming. Apparently, Luminary was able to convince him they had everything under control, but Roland could have sworn he heard Citadel say something about a hose. Mynx apparently soured at that.

"Hey there," a hero said at the defender's shoulder, "Roland Grey? Grey's Army?"

"Yeah," he growled back as he turned, "Who're you?"

The man was dressed in a simple black outfit. It wasn't even a tuxedo, but at least it wasn't ridiculously flashy. He was putting a communicator back on his belt, where it promptly disappeared, when Roland faced him.

"I'm Badge," the man replied, "I almost forgot about this and was just finishing tearing up a Malta Group cell when I remembered it. Needless to say, I didn't have time to change."

"Badge..." Roland narrowed his eyes and glanced about at nothing as he tried to search his memory, "Oh! You're that guy that sets up those crazy events!"

"Yeah... Something like that. I'm considered somewhat like a 'Machiavelli' among the bad guys and some of the heroes... I just like a little curve ball to the normal daily doldrums, you know? So, that usually means the Malta Group winds up sending about four or five Kronos Class Titans to the same spot where I've got nearly two hundred heroes and about twenty giant Clockwork monstrosities standing by. So long as everybody's having fun, I don't see the problem."

"My dad's had to help out with some of the repair efforts after those... He says it's a good thing you usually pick places where nobody can get hurt."

"I've met your dad, he's a good tank. Also, I always pick places like that," Badge replied with a grin, "It's not fun if anybody not wearing spandex gets hurt. And the damage to the city, well, that's just money flowing. Don't look at me all weird, I help out with the reconstruction, too. I'm not mean."

"I guess," Roland nodded, then gestured with his glass, "Well, I better get back to my... date..."

"Oh..." the other hero quirked an eyebrow, "One or all of them? I wouldn't put it past that Malaise guy..."

"Just one, and it's just a friendly thing, there's nothing involved with it."

"So, Roland," Luminary chimed when he arrived, "Do you dance?"

"Yes, actually," he replied, "I can salsa, mambo, waltz, even tango."

"That has to be a lie," Ms. Liberty snorted.

"Nope. My sister needed somebody to practice with, and I was the closest free person our mom could find. I would've objected, but when I told our brother about it, he told me to take the opportunity."

Grey paused to chuckle.

"He said that it would really impress the ladies."

"Har har," his date muttered.

"So, you can dance, you can cook, and you're physically attractive," Luminary turned to Ms. Liberty, "Libby, I'd hold onto this guy..."

Both the portly defender and the city's favorite young heroine slapped their foreheads in consternation. Swan and Malaise both rolled their eyes at the waves of denial that radiated from them.

"Look, listen up real good," Grey finally said after composing himself, "I am not now dating your friend, Ms. Liberty, nor do I intend to."

"Guys... Look, it just wouldn't work out between us," the heroine agreed, "We come from wholly different worlds... Plus... We just can't seem to see each other that way..."

"Then why do you hang out together?" Mynx almost shouted, "What's so special about him that you need to be with him all the time."

"It's hardly all the time..." Roland growled.

"Frankly, she could use more time out of the base," Malaise murmured into his glass.

"I don't have many friends," Ms. Liberty answered the cat girl glumly, "I've got you guys, and you're great... But... It's always the same thing with all of us... It's always work."

They stood silently as Citadel and Synapse arranged the gathered meta humans into a neat little group. The final preparations were beginning, and it was about time they all got to their places. Before they got situated, Roland added one last thing.

"I don't have many friends, either."

"Fine," Mynx muttered, pursing her lips glumly and nodding, "I get it, I get it... I'm still going to give you a hard time about it, Libby."

The blonde scrapper shook her head exasperatedly and shrugged.

"I wouldn't have it any other way, Mynx."

----------

Roland was standing at the edge of the gathered heroes when everything went wrong. He'd been to a few weddings in his life, and he hated to admit it, but they bored the Hell out of him. Asa result, he usually zoned out of whatever was said.

When the bride and groom were speaking, he paid a little closer attention. Something about people communicating their emotions more clearly, being honest here, if only here, and being public about it always tugged a little at his heart. The words were touching, and Roland nodded to himself as he wondered if his parents had similar feelings.

He wondered if he'd ever really feel that way.

He almost didn't realize everything was going wrong due to his lack of attention. Before he realized what was going on, some guy with spider legs coming out of his back was standing behind the gathered heroes, balanced precariously at the edge of the Ouroboros construct. He shouted something about villains and the minions of Arachnos following him to victory, and the battle was joined.

Roland watched as half the crowd suddenly bristled and brimmed with weaponry and energy. Manticore shouted a rallying cry related to his honeymoon, but the battle was already joined. The pudgy defender found himself at the edge of a debilitating gas cloud that was about half as bad as one of his father's farts.

"Oh... *cough* that's unpleasant," he choked out as he edged out of the cloud, "What the Hell... Where's Kip? I thought he was with security..."

An energy bolt tore through the air by his head. Roland didn't know if it was friendly fire or not, but the fact that it was red was a possible indication of the source's allegiance.

Roland popped open his tuxedo's top button and fished into the quiver he'd folded over his heart. He was outclassed, unsupported, and knew that his contribution, whatever it was, would be minimal... So he had to make it count.

"Flash," he muttered out of habit, "Dammit!"

The feathered end of the arrow slipped into the space between his extended fingertips and he drew the arrow out. Without a bow, he had a limited range, so he threw the flash arrow into the nearest cluster of villains.

As he fished for the next one ("Glue"), he looked up to see a few brilliant trails headed his way. He'd heard stories about it, but couldn't believe it was about to happen to him. Apparently, he'd ticked off the top lady in Arachnos.

Hovering in the air, Roland settled the arrow back into his quiver and waited. He'd either get shot down by an enemy, or pumped up with enough hold breaking agents to break free of his cage of souls. The latter wasn't terribly likely, but the former...

"Who are you?" the white-haired villainess asked as Roland stopped spinning and faced her.

"Uh..." he replied, "Why?"

"I asked you a question, cur!" Ghost Widow slapped him across the face.

"Ah, dammit! I'm nobody, Witch."

"Nobody?"

"They call me Exaybachay, 'He Who Talks Much, Saying Nothing,' but I prefer Nobody," he finished with a smirk.

"Then why were you with them?" Ghost Widow turned him to the Vindicators, now joined by the members Roland had missed meeting, who were holding their own against the treacherous rogues.

"I dunno. Lots of heroes and heroines hang out with people well above their capabilities."

"Who are you!?" she brought him back to her angered face and shouted, "Do not toy with me! This is your last chance!"

"Pft, you're gonna kill me anyway. What does it matter to you if my name is Roland Grey?"

"Grey?"

Ghost Widow pondered a moment, then turned back to the defender.

"Not the Lady's family... No... You're of the one that led the bizarre minor raid against my Lord's nation last year! Hm... When you see your father again, runt, you let him know my Lord has him in mind."

"[Witch], we didn't do a God [darn] thing to your lord."

She placed two fingers into the hollow of Roland's throat, forcing a choke reflex. That wasn't the extent of Ghost Widow's assault, however, for she then raked her fingers down, shredding through the tuxedo and exposing Roland's quiver to the rented "arrow space" pocket dimension. Dark energy tore through his skin and rent into his soul. It didn't kill him, but it was close. Ghost Widow then slammed him to the ground and focused her attention elsewhere.

He lay there for a few minutes, wondering what to do. He heard the med-porter beacon beeping in his pocket, but was worried about where exactly it would send him. Heroes were dropping all around, and he considered using his Lazareen injection in a desperate gamble to help.

Seeing other heroes trying the same thing get cut down by their ruthless opposition, he decided against it. Suddenly, a dark-dressed heroine ran into the midst of the bodies he was among and waved her arms at one of the rogues.

Almost instantly, the tide of battle shifted as the Howling Twilight brought all the defeated heroes back from the brink, including Roland Grey. Assault rifles blazed, fire scored through the air, and heavy-as-lead fists cracked bones. Roland fished into his quiver again and muttered.

"Flash. [Frig]!"

He casually tossed the flash arrow into the deep midst of the rogues and shouted for the glue arrow. There was a stalker in front of him named after her preferred weapons, a pair of knives that matched her outfit. It was as good a place as any, so he threw the glue arrow at her.

The defender she was trying to kill backed away out of range and the stalker turned to Roland. He was already fishing an explosive out of his quiver, but he didn't have to pay too much attention to the girl anyway. A blaster swooped in and blew her over the side of the construct, sending her screaming into the ocean below.

"Woah..." Roland grunted as he threw the explosive arrow at a retreating Blood Widow, "I wonder what-"

Everything disappeared and he was floating in white. It was an unusual thing to see. If he had to be in it for much longer than an instant, it would likely have been maddening. Fortunately, he was jarred awake by normal light and air as he fell to the concrete steps in front of the Freedom Corps building in Galaxy City.

All of the heroes at the wedding event were strewn about in various conditions. Back Alley brawler appeared among them and started ushering defender classes with healing powers to resuscitate the fallen. There was a poor, unfortunate Hellion that was dragged in to bring back those who could only be revived by the dark magic known as Howling Twilight before he was unceremoniously zapped up by the Police Drones.

Badge was chortling over on the steps. Roland sat down gingerly to join him.

"That was amazing!" the dark-dressed hero laughed, "Oh... If I had even suspected, I'd have brought a better suit!"

Roland could only assume that he meant more powers.

"Did you enjoy yourself, Grey?"

"Sort of, yeah... I ticked off G.W. something fierce..."

"Ha!" Badge clapped him on the shoulder, "That's an honor normally reserved for people of a higher threat level! Congratulations!"

"You have a really weird sense of what is something to be proud of."

"Hey, I'm alive, you're alive, everybody here's alive... We're all going to look back on this day and laugh. It was a heckuva curveball."

Roland pondered it and nodded.

"Well," the dark-dressed hero barked, "I'm gonna go home and go to bed. It's been a busy day for me, and I've got many busy days ahead of me. Enjoy your cake. But be careful! The cake is a lie!"

"I think I watched it get blown to pieces by a sonic blast," Grey grunted, "It almost brought a tear to my eye... Until I was brought around to face Ghost Widow... Then that made the tear shrivel up... Along with other things."

"See? you're laughing already!" Badge chortled, "I'll see you around."

"Bye."

Just as exhausted, Roland turned toward the Yellow Line with home in mind. He'd have to return the tuxedo later, but considering what it had been through, he couldn't imagine Icon taking it back. It wasn't like a lot of other hero outfits, the ones that could resist cuts and burns, and sometimes outright repair them. It was just an expensive piece of cloth that looked good to the eyes, or it did before Ghost Widow tore it apart.

"Ugh..." Round grumbled as he reached the street, "What am I gonna tell Libby when she asks about this thing?"

((Badge on loan from Bungeeball. Thanks, man! Some events in this story are based on things that happened in the Valentine's Day Event. The stuff between Roland and the Vindicators did not, however, and is a final clarification on what the relationship between Roland Grey and Ms. Liberty is in this work of fan fiction. It just seems odd that in-game our hundreds of thousands of characters all wind up meeting the major players of the game in some way.))

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

--Atlas Park--

There was a knocking at the door. Roland groaned as he picked himself off the couch and, after checking to make sure he was decently dressed, answered the door.

Every muscle in his body ached. It felt like he'd spent the previous night running in a marathon or doing practice drills instead of attending a wedding. Even though it had been crashed, he still figured he could have gotten away with a minimum of pain if he hadn't been hit by Ghost Widow.

"What the Hell was that all about, anyway?" he grunted as he checked the peep hole, "Oh, hey nester, come on in."

He opened the door for his friend and the hero-class field medic entered with his brother in tow. Kip saw the condition Roland was in and growled under his breath.

"I heard you got into a bit of a tussle last night," Nester said, "Kip told me about it."

"How much?" the portly defender asked.

"I just said Jessica dragged you up there," Kip replied.

"How does a low-rent scrapper get invited to the wedding event of the decade?" Nester half-shouted, "And why would she bring you? You two got something going on?"

"If you knew what was going on, you wouldn't ask me that. God... My head..."

"Tell me about it."

Nester rested his gloved hand on his friend's forehead and checked a monitor in his glasses. Frowning, he muttered a few words and Grey could feel warmth flowing into his skin, scalp, and eventually the pain in his head started to minimize. Nester nodded approvingly and gave a thumbs-up to Kip.

"Jessica called me," the short scrapper explained, "She told me what happened to you before everybody was dumped into Galaxy City. What the Hell did you do to [tick] off the [dog]-goddess herself?"

"I think I blinded her a little. I wasn't the only one to get such treatment."

"Yeah, there are pictures all over the Internet of Positron twirling through the air. A few other nobodies like us, too."

"Roland, a flash arrow doesn't do that much to people... Does it?"

"If it gets them just right, they're blind for a while. Maybe it works on ghosts, too."

"In any case, it's good to see you're alright. Now, come on, get up. Your dad wants to get everybody together to talk about how we're gonna get Baker back from Arachnos."

"What?"

"Yeah, he got kidnapped helping our dad on a mission. Dad wants to see if we can do anything about it."

"Why can't we ever just stay here?" Nester sighed, "I mean, why is it we keep having to deal with those nimrods?"

"Because some cosmic force decided we should," his little brother replied without missing a step, "Believe me. I've been through it."

"You guys go on without me," Grey grunted as he rolled back onto the couch, "Thanks immensely for clearing my headache, Nester, but my whole body feels like it's been put through a meat grinder. I just want to sleep off today and forget what happened."

The Durj brothers stared at the round lump on the couch. Finally, Kip tapped his brother on the shoulder and indicated that Nester should leave.

"He's my friend," the defender whispered, "I'm not just going to leave him. He could be really sick, and I can help him!"

"No, a little bed rest and he'll be fine. I've been hit by G.W. before, too. I know what he's going through. Wait outside."

When Nester had left and closed the door behind him, Kip looked down at Roland. The hunter rolled over and looked back up at him. They both wore the same grim expression.

"In a little while, the others are going to figure out that there is no Jessica Starburst," Kip began, "You want to tell them, or should your Dad and I do it?"

"I will, but not today. Not at once."

"Alright. Now... Why do you really not want to go?"

"Because my body hurts like I've been hit by a truck. I feel bruised in places that normally don't get bruised, okay?"

"You're waiting for her."

It wasn't a question. Kip had made the same bold insinuation that Roland had just got done arguing down with the Vindicators. He wasn't being friendly about it, like Luminary was, either. He was more like Mynx...

"Kip, I'm not dating her."

"There's a denial stage for any harsh change," the scrapper pitched back.

"Who tries to live in denial about having a girlfriend?" Roland growled, "Kip, that doesn't make sense."

"I've been in your situation before, Roland."

"Yeah, and we said similar things about you and Sarah. Yes, it does suck to be on the other side of the fence."

"I wasn't talking about your sister."

They sat in silence for a few moments. Roland glared up at Kip, and Kip down at Roland.

"She's not Amy," Grey finally intoned, "Amy was a lot more obvious about her intentions for you. You were the one in denial back in high school. Plus, this isn't high school, this is life. Not everything works to those demographics anymore. Sometimes, Kip, a guy and a girl are just friends or acquaintances and can't see themselves as anything more."

"Keep telling yourself that," Durj replied.

"Why is this such a problem for you?"

"Because I don't feel like burying a friend! I don't feel like losing you to some crazy war you have nothing to do with! Freedom Corps and Arachnos are at each other's throats, and you're shacking up with the F.C.'s boss!"

"We've had our problems with Arachnos, too. Arbiter Taylor's still out there... He's come after my mom, my sister... Grillo kidnapped Sheldon. Arachnos seems to want all of us in a hurt locker, regardless of our relationships."

"One day, Round, they're going to try to hurt her in a way she can't just go to the hospital for. They'll come after you. They'll kill you, just because you're friends with their enemy."

The portly defender sat up and looked to Kip. The scrapper stood before the apartment door, his eyes cast down at the floor.

"I care about my friends, Roland. They're all I've got left, and they're so few."

"I keep hearing that," the hunter replied, "Look, Kip, I can take care of myself. Trust me. Things will be okay."

Kip nodded. It was the slumped, "We'll discuss this more, later" kind of nod.

"Oh! One more thing," Grey rubbed his temples as he tried to remember the prior night, "Ghost Widow says her boss isn't too thrilled about what we did last year, that 'invasion' of their islands."

"He can get the [frig] in line," Kip replied, "What're they going to do?"

"I don't know, but it sounds like somebody's gonna be coming our way. Let dad know."

"Sonova..." Kip muttered, "Alright, I'll check up on you tomorrow."

"What the Hell was that all about?" Nester shouted when his brother joined him in the hall, "Who is Jessica? Why is her relationship with Round so important?"

"You ask him," Kip replied, "just not now. We gotta get to Randy's meeting."

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

--Steel Canyon--

"I'm so glad you guys came!"

Ashen Roast and Blizzard Front looked quizzically at Agent Truesdell. He wasn't dressed like a normal Freedom Corps agent. Rather, he looked like a business stiff. A young business stiff, but a stiff nonetheless. This also wasn't a normal Freedom Corps building. It was like an office complex, not a military base.

The two former Outcasts had no clue as to why they'd been called in for the meeting. However, they did notice that a lot of the other meta humans and registered heroes just outside were all former rogues. From the Freakshow, to the Council, to the Tsoo and the Warriors, there were all sorts of unusual characters who had, for some reason or another, broken ties with their former friends and allies. There were even a few Trolls!

"You two have no idea what an honor it is to meet you," Truesdell continued, "Uh..."

"You don't even know who we are?" Blizzard chuckled, "You really are in marketing, huh?"

"Har-har, Blizzard," the agent smirked, "I was looking for your folder... Ah, here it is."

He picked one up and looked through it.

"Ah, good. I was thinking about the right guys. See, I've been dealing with criminals-turned-heroes all day, and it's been putting my brain through a blender. I just wanted to make sure I was talking to who i thought I was talking to."

"That's cool," Ashen sighed as he sat down in the chair in front of the desk, "Huh... This was set lower than it looked..."

"So, what's this whole shindig about?" Blizzard asked as he took the seat next to his friend.

"Boys, Freedom Corps is noticing a marked increase in the number of heroes who come from the various criminal organizations operating in the city. Either through affiliation or full-fledged membership, these guys have something to do with-"

"Get to the point," the blue-skinned Blaster groaned, "Save the spiel for when you have to do the press release."

"You know what this is about?" Ashen, perplexed, turned and asked.

"I have a hunch."

"Gentlemen," Agent Truesdell stood and spread his arms out like a politician calming a crowd, "Freedom Corps is looking for individuals just like you so we can fashion up a super group composed of former rogues and renegades."

"Why?" the fire tanker asked.

"Because, a lot of us realize that many of the problems Freedom Corps and the police officers are having with the gangs and organizations creating a ruckus in the city is the mentality of 'Us versus Them.' If we can show the gangs that we're willing to accept them as hard-working members of society, and even protectors of the peace, so long as they curb their wicked ways, maybe they'll be less willing to pull a pistol or lob fireballs at us."

"This sounds really stupid," Ashen countered, "It sounds to me like you want to sequester us former rogues so you can keep a better eye on us."

"'Sequester?' Where'd you learn a big word like that?"

"High school," Ashen snapped back, "And I think I've taken as much insult from you as I'm willing to suffer. Come on, Blizz, we're out of here."

"Wait!" Truesdell shouted, "Look, I'm sorry! You work as a spin doctor long enough, and eventually everybody looks stupid. I didn't mean to condescend. Come on, calm down... Sit down."

"Why? I saw enough guys come storming out of here already and you would just shout 'NEXT!' What makes us so important to hold onto?"

"Well... We need more public heroes of your particular demographic."

"Demographic?" Ashen balked, "You've got a whole hallway of former rogue vigilantes out there. What makes us so important."

"Not that demographic..."

"Oh." Blizzard Front suddenly smiled as he resumed his seat, "Sit down, Ashen. I think I know what he's talking about. This is probably going to be funny."

"Huh?"

"You see, boys, we need more public heroes of the... homosexual persuasion."

Ashen Roast's eyes narrowed on Agent Truesdell and fire started to emerge from his skin. Blizzard just started snickering.

"Fire tankers get enough crap slung at them, Truesdell," the orange-skinned young man growled, "But I'm not gay."

"Yeah," Blizzard chuckled, "And my boyfriend's much better than Ashen."

Ashen Roast's eyes bugged out and he stared at his friend. Blizzard Front stopped laughing, but he still had an amused grin on his face.

"You're-"

"Yeah."

"But... We've known each other for years, man."

"Just because I'm gay doesn't mean I have to be obvious about it. I like being relaxed. I hate dressing up in fancy clothes when simply clean and comfortable ones will do."

"Yeah, but..."

"I see you two have some discussing to do," Truesdell muttered as he opened another folder, "Ooh... This is my fault... I thought, since you were partners, you'd be... Uh... partners..."

"A common misconception," Bizzard chuckled, "I don't mix my business with my personal life... Well... Not that personal. Ashen and I are friends, you know. I just know he likes girls, and I respect that."

"Hm," was the tanker's quiet comment.

"Ah, jeez," Blizzard's smile faltered a little, "Now you have a problem with it, right?"

"I..." Ashen shook his head and turned toward the door, "I don't know."

"We'll talk later," Blizzard sighed, "I guess this is important to you for some dumb reason. As for you, Truesdell, you've got a deal with me. It'll be nice to see a positive spin on what I'm doing, instead of getting a minor blurb in the Steel Canyon local news that says I'm still little more than a thug with an axe to grind."

He created a sword made of ice and showed it to the other two.

"Does this look like an axe to you?"

----------

"I can't believe you, Blizz."

"You signed the papers, too, Ash."

"I'm not talking about the super group! Why didn't you tell me you were... were..."

"It's not important."

Blizzard Front resumed walking to the edge of the sidewalk and started hailing a taxi cab. It wasn't that eh couldn't just speed over to his apartment, it was that he didn't feel like expending the effort.

"How can you say that?" Ashen shouted, still not content with how the conversation had been going, "Of course it's important!"

"How?" Blizzard was still ambivalent and he opened the taxi cab's door, "Hey, you sharing the ride with me?"

"Yeah..."

They sat in the back of the car in total silence after Blizzard gave the address for their apartment complex. Ashen's temper continued to simmer.

"What's your problem with it?" Blizzard finally asked.

"I... I don't know," Roast sighed, "I thought you were a cool guy..."

"Aside from the obvious joke response," the blaster blew out some icy mist with his words, "What is it about this new revelation that makes me uncool?"

"Nothing, I guess."

"See? That's what I mean by unimportant."

"Oh."

"Who I date is my business, not yours, not my parents', not my brother, not the Outcasts. However, it doesn't change who I am, either. Like anything, this could change. It's not likely, but it can. I'm young, yet."

"Well," Ashen sighed, "I guess my main concern is... When we're working and I go charging into a group of bad guys... You're not... You're not staring at my butt, are you?"

The blaster started laughing. The cab driver was laughing, too.

"And David keeps saying you don't have a sense of humor! No, Ash. I don't stare at you. You're like a brother to me, and I wouldn't think that way about a brother."

"I see."

"So..." Blizzard intoned as the cab reached its destination, "Are you going to be okay about this? We've got a lot of work to do, and if you can't get over this, we're not going to be able to get it done."

"I'm good, I'm good," Ashen replied, "Sorry for freaking out like that... It's just... It was a pretty hefty thing to learn. I thought David was your brother, honestly."

Blizzard paid the fare and they left the cab. As they reached the door of the building, the blue-skinned blaster barked a laugh.

"My brother's name is Louis. Just so there's no confusion in the future."

"I'll try to remember," Ashen replied.

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Ray Harris was busy eating his breakfast bagel, reading the morning newspaper, and talking to the air. Like other cyborgs in the world, he didn't really have need of an external communications device, he was able to simply think about it, and he linked up to the global communications networks. He liked to call it a Head Phone.

"So, he got home alright? Good. Good."

He sipped from his coffee and sighed. More robberies, more innocent people hurt. Considering what he heard about in the underground, it was probably time somebody hurt that Westin Phipps...

"Really? Well, dang. I wish I could have been there for the party."

There was a "plink" sound as something tore through his window. Ray felt a small impact as Silver Mantis's spike bounced off the energy field protecting his head and clattered to the floor. He returned to his bagel and finished his conversation.

"Well, maybe I can be at the party next time, Cedric. So long, brother. ...Yeah, I think of you as a brother. Your dad's the best dad I've ever had. Yes, Randy! He- Oh, you're just messin' with me. Well, I've got something I need to take care of. Have a good one."

He sighed as the connection was cut.

Damage Incurred: Minimal

"I know."

Reactive Measures Suggested: Violent Retribution; Ignorance; Confrontation; Complaint.

"Well... Let's try this..."

----------

Silver Mantis answered her communicator. There was an Arachnos operator on the other end.

"Ma'am... We're getting a strange call for you. We can't trace it..."

"Patch it through, I think I know who it is."

"Hello? Mantis?"

"Power Breaker. How are you this fine February Eighteenth?"

"Oh, I'm good."

The steel plated cyborg ninja landed on a rooftop and paused. the news she'd just heard couldn't possibly be right...

"What do you mean, you're good?"

"Yeah, that spike you hurled through my window, it bounced off my shields. You want it back?"

"Yes..."

----------

"Are you alright?" Power Breaker asked as he tossed the jagged, serrated piece of steel to Black Scorpion's lackey, "Feeling okay? No fever?"

The villainess caught the weapon and it was simply absorbed into her body. She glared at the brute, growling under her breath. Finally, she answered him with a simple affirmative.

"Cool, because, for a second there, I was thinking that you must be brain-damaged, considering the fact that you sought my attention."

"I sought to execute you," Mantis corrected, "I don't get you, Breaker. You're one of the few that are accepted into the organization, and you just languish away in your apartment. You don't do anything unless you have to, and you're... Nice about it. What kind of villain are you?"

"The kind of villain that doesn't hurt anybody for no good reason and isn't a villain. As it stands, I'm a rogue, and I do what i want, when I want, and not a moment sooner."

Silver Mantis was checking her communicator.

"You've had most of your outstanding warrants officially repealed!"

"Yeah, my work with Vanguard."

"Bull[crap]!"

"Seriously. It's not that hard to be a good person, you know."

She nodded and snapped her fingers. That was all she needed to hear. In Arachnos, that was all anybody needed to hear.

Bane Spiders appeared around them and Power Breaker gazed about impassively. The villainess chuckled and started walking away as the Arachnos elite raised their maces and prepared to capture the renegade. Ray sighed as lightning started arcing from the spires jutting from his body and he selected the most strategically viable Bane Spider...

-----------

"Daos!" Power Breaker shouted as the door closed behind him and the Bane Spider Scout he had in a headlock, "You and me, we need to talk, buddy."

The Arbiter of Arbiters, possibly second only to Lord Recluse himself (even holding authority over the Spider King's inner circle), regarded the Brute standing before him. To think, he was just about to authorize a Retrieval Team to bring the guy here.

"Power Breaker," he intoned, "How good to see you. Now I don't have to expend the resources to get you here."

"Whatever," Harris replied as the Scout disappeared from his grip, "Look, Boss, you better have a good [frig]ing reason why you're trying to set me up."

"Evidence has come to light about your involvement with a hero organization."

"Vanguard? [Frig] you! I'm not the only Chosen One working for them."

"I meant the one under that hero, Mr. Grey. Not a very high class group, but they're under consideration because of that stunt they pulled last year, shortly before the Rikti attacks... In fact, it seems you had some involvement in that..."

"Yeah," the brute folded his arms over his chest, "In all fairness, Daos, they didn't break anything important. You kidnap the friend of a lot of powerful individuals and don't expect any kind of retribution? Come on, Daos. That be stupid!"

"Regardless, I-" Daos stopped as his communicator started buzzing, "One second... Yes, my lord? Yes, my lord. I will send him up immediately."

He turned to the brute and drew himself up. Power Breaker waited for the inevitable order.

"Lord Recluse himself just ordered that you go up into his main audience chamber. My suggestion, beg for mercy."

----------

"Boss, what can I expect up there?' Raymond asked the air as the elevator rose.

"I do not know. I cannot fathom why Lord Recluse would want to talk to you personally. Just stand at the end of the table and wait for him to address you. I will try to support you if I can."

"Great..." the brute muttered to himself, "I'm on my own."

-----------

Standing before the window overlooking Grandville, Power Breaker definitely felt exposed. It was a dark room, and not just because of the lighting. Dark people, dark thoughts, and dark intentions, all broiling together in one place. The disturbing thing, however, was that they weren't truly evil (not this lot, anyway), just selfish and cruel. While those were building blocks for evil, they weren't all that was required.

The only one the brute would keep out of that assessment was Lord Recluse. The Spider King had an air of ambivalence, a genuine lack of concern for anything before him. Power Breaker had seen the future the twisted man before him intended to bring about, and he didn't like it. All those lives lost, just for the sake of one man's illusion of control.

"Power Breaker," the deep, inhuman voice rumbled out from behind the mask, "Last time I spoke to you, you were showing me my own severed head. Not just a battered helmet like most others, you went to my glorious future, and like a few others who wanted to truly drive the point home, you tore my own head from my shoulders to show it to me here, in this time."

"Hey, you know how it is, sometimes," Harris replied, "You need to-"

"Silence!"

"No. Look, if you're going to kill me, you may as well [frig]ing kill me. Just do me a favor, alright, don't make one of these lipstick-headed [girls] do it, shoot me in the head and be done with it."

"Sire, please," Scirocco interposed, "He's just frustrated... He's been dealing with a lot of stress and doesn't realize the danger he's in..."

"Silence, Scirocco. And you, Power Breaker, if I wanted you dead, it would be done by now. I wouldn't waste time with a meeting."

"Alright, then," Harris sighed, "What do you want?"

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

Power Breaker was deposited in a small island, one of many still uncharted in the Etoiles. Checking his internal GPS the whole time, he was getting concerned as they neared the location where Brother Mauthe and his disciples resided, but breathed a sigh of relief when they stopped just short of it.

His mission was to locate the Circle of Thorns currently operating on this patch of jungle, eliminate them, and discover what they were up to. He didn't intend to necessarily do it in that order, however. He just hoped Scirocco would let him do things his way.

"You ever wonder about the big bossman?" he asked his mentor.

Scirocco peered through the thicket and shook his head calmly.

"I do as I am ordered, Power Breaker, no more, no less. More leads to corruption, less leads to execution."

"Yeah, but why do you follow those orders? Recluse tells us to do some nasty stuff..."

"Normally to equally nasty people," was the clever reply.

"For people like me, maybe," Breaker growled back, "Only maybe. You've told Recluse what's swimming around in my head-"

"No."

"Then you've implied something like it. That's the only reason I'm not dead. Don't think me fool enough to think otherwise, Boss."

"Alright..."

They continued through the thick vegetation for a few more minutes in silence. It was strange that there were few patrols. At one point, Breaker thought he saw one of those pesky Nerva Spectral Demons, but Scirocco had reduced it to ectoplasmic gelatin before he could get a clear view.

"So, why do you work for him?" the brute asked as they sneaked their way a little further, "It's not like his ethos meshes well with yours. I could have sworn you once said you were a freedom fighter."

"Yes, but the current operative word for what I did back in those days of my youth is 'terrorism,'" the wizard sighed, "I suppose it would have been different, had we succeeded and I 'embraced democracy.' Of course, embracing democracy in my homeland meant funneling oil profits to rich American businessmen, running puppet governments, and the whole cycle eventually spirals to yet another beleaguered dictatorship, oppressing the very people we were trying to liberate. Or, at least, that's how the world perceives it. Ever wonder why those nations argue so hard with Big Blue and Big Red, or why their soldiers fight so hard against them?"

"Big Red's been dead almost twenty years, Boss."

"Yet the struggle continues. Big Blue always has it's enemies, and now, is it not strange that those enemies are the same ones he once called friends? Cycle through your nation's history, tell me of one time it has not had some form of overreaching conflict to keep the populace in a state of panic when it suited those in control. From the Revolution, to the inter-state conflicts, to waging war against pirates to again fighting the British, then the Mexicans and, in quick succession, the indigenous Americans, then on to the World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Big Red and the Great Desert Nations (though we weren't truly Red, is it such a wonder that we allied and played both sides against the middle?), and the countless petty squabbles throughout the late Twentieth Century that always seemed to spring up when the nation needed to be distracted from a recession or a major political figure's lack of sensible judgment. Each conflict happened only a scant few years from the last one, if that. You tell me that isn't ruthless? You tell me that isn't evil? A country founded and maintained entirely by conflict?"

"As opposed to one founded on conflict, maintained by oppression and repression, and has designs to do the same to the rest of the world? The ones running my home country may be questionable, boss, but the generally accepted conensus is that we are all working toward a more peaceful world. So long as nobody's talking to each other, bloodshed is going to continue."

This did little to convince Scirocco, who continued with a question: "You don't think your nation's leaders have ever been irrational in their demands of other nations?"

"Oh, I believe it," Breaker sighed, "I've got in my brain several documents that make a paper trail to illustrate demands made by the government that eventually filled the coffers of specific influential figures... Hm... Actually, that might be Malta Group influence..."

"Or Nemesis. You should probably turn that information over to Viridian."

Power Breaker nodded and made a command to his nanites to remind him to do that when they returned to the main Etoile Isles. He then returned to their debate.

"Look, I know that, up-to-now, Big Blue has been exceptionally sub-par when it comes to its idyllic perception of itself and its behavior, but that's beside my point. What I'm saying is that Arachnos is a terrible place for one of your ideals. I mean, come on, Boss... Think about what you wanted to do with the Malleus Mundi. What you still want to do with the Mundi. You really want to take the easy way out? Throw yourself through the bossman's window, you'll do more good that way."

"You tread on dangerous ground, brute. I risked much to keep you alive. I shouldn't even be here, but my lord requires that I accompany you to ensure the mission's accomplishment."

"That's right," Harris shook his spiky head, "Run and hide from the issue. The easy thing to do."

"You hide in your apartment, cur!"

"I bide my time. I'm waiting for the right opportunity to get me out of this [dreck]hole. I thought I had it with Vanguard, but they've got this crazy notion about staying out of the conflict between Paragon's champions and the Etoiles' vagrants. I thought I could get somewhere better, maybe fix my past mistakes through Ouroboros, but, 'Nope! We need you to still be the monster you are to keep things EXACTLY the way they are!' You know, I wonder why they keep blowing smoke up everybody's [butts], telling them they're responsible for Recluse taking over the Etoiles..."

"Do you have a point?" Scirocco hissed as he peered through another thick stand of vegetation, "Where the Hell are the Circle wizards? There's more activity on the neighboring island..."

"My point is that this whole 'Survival of the Fittest' thing that Recluse has going is just breaking you down, Boss. You especially. Mako, he's stagnant. Black Scorpion, he gets better with each scientist and inventor dragged here, kicking and screaming. Ghost Widow... I'm fairly certain Recluse would be happy if we were all like her, undead slaves to the whims of his nightmarish army... Every day you're among that pack of rabid wolves, you risk total damnation."

"By which god?" the wizard asked snidely.

"To hell with the gods, Boss. One day, bossman's going to tell you to do something you know in your heart you don't want to do. When that happens, you will either do it, and never be able to look yourself in the mirror again, or you won't."

"The latter is unlikely, Harris," Scirocco sighed, "I am a practical man, surrounded by evil. I must commit evil to keep the others at bay and survive."

"Bull. You don't see me committing wanton acts of mayhem for no reason," Breaker snorted, "Man, I'm not getting anything on my scans..."

"I have a bad feeling, Breaker..."

The vegetation shimmered, wavered and disappeared. The two rogues cursed loudly as they realized they were surrounded by Circle of Thorns wizards.

They stood in the middle of what looked to be an ancient village, though the stick and straw houses were fairly new.

Archers and Defenders had crossbows trained on them. The Thorn Wielders had their thorn-shaped blades drawn and were closing fast. Finally, the various elemental-type wizards had their spells dancing on the ends of their fingertips and pointed at the two intruders.

"Damn you, Harris," Scirocco muttered, "I should have seen this coming, but you were distracting me with your insolent words!"

"Yeah, I'll take the hit on that, Boss..."

----------

"What perversion is this?" Mori'ae asked his companions as their half-alive skiff pulled up to the beach, "And why would an Arachnos Flier come here?"

"There are a number of mysteries on these outer islands, m'lord," his assisting Defender replied, "One of which is the temple here and its twin on the neighboring one. However, an individual of some remarkable influence and skill has taken the other island, and we have not been able to claim it. Rumor has it that he has an actual giant monster of unknown capability in his employ."

"I should have been brought in on this long before now," the archmage growled, "It's obvious my predecessor is madly outclassed by his charge. He may even be mad."

"Without a doubt, m'lord."

"Bring the skiff back out into the water... The neighboring island, they don't assault us when we travel by, do they?"

"No sir. They keep to their own."

Mori'ae stroked his chin. Either the opposing faction was weak and their stories about a Giant Monster protecting them was a smoke-and-mirrors campaign, or they were really confident enough to keep to themselves. Peering into the darkness with his magically enhanced senses, he took note of the wandering patrols. They seemed somewhat disciplined, if slightly under-armed. It was possibly better to err on the side of caution in this case.

"Well, let's see what Eramus has done. Take us for a cruise around the island. We'll land again once the fireworks are over."

----------

"So..." Power Breaker muttered to Eramus, the leader of the Circle wizards on this island, "We've got questions, you've got answers. You saw how we handled your goons, so I suggest you answer quickly and succinctly. None of that jabbering about how demons are going to torture us for a hundred eternities, no insinuations that your brethren are going to take vengeance on us. Just make these last few moments of your life in this body worthwhile and tell us what we want to [frig]ing know."

Hanging upside down from his ankle, Eramus hissed.

"Must you take all the fun out of it?"

The area around the temple ruins was a complete wasteland by the time Harris and Scirocco were done with it. When the wizard opened with a pair of whirlwinds that decimated two-thirds of the Circle's forces, it only made sense that the rest would fall like a house of cards. Still, the two took their time with the last of them.

Eramus was prepared to stall, but his preparation was cut short when Scirocco cut off his other foot.

"We're not kidding around," Recluse's lieutenant intoned into the captured wizard's anguished face, "What is the purpose of this place, and what is the Circle's interest in it?"

Eramus spoke quickly. He explained how the temple was one of two dedicated to yet another ocean god. However, it seemed to be a nameless, possibly faceless thing. It was an ancient religion, long-since buried in the past, but it was to a force that apparently didn't rely on its worshippers.

"All we've been able to glean was that it was a great and terrible god, and that it required much human sacrifice."

"Sounds like every Clive Loveking book I've ever read," Breaker grunted, "Some Owen Straub works, too."

"This bears further investigation..." Scirocco started leaving, "Feel free to snap his neck, Mr. Harris."

"Really? You don't want to take him home and make sure the information you've got is the right stuff?"

"No, you won't be doing that," Mori'ae muttered as he threw a bolt of dark energy into his former compatriot and vaporized the target, "Now, I'll ask you both to kindly leave the island. Hello, Scirocco. I trust that you found those Mu mystics unharmed."

"Actually, they were under siege by a group of demons," the bronze-skinned mystic replied hollowly, "But my tracing their histories indicated they had been sent by a different wizard."

"Unfortunate," Mori'ae sighed, "I trust Arachnos intends to send individuals this way soon. Scirocco, I hope you're the one in charge of the research. If it's Mako, he'll just make a mess of things, like he repeatedly does with the Leviathan."

"Uh... Boss, we just thrashed this enclave, and you're just going to deal with another wizard?"

"I'm a little more accomplished and competent than my fellows you just dispatched," the green-eyed wizard chuckled, "Also, I'm not bound to the demonic laws they are. I'm something of a free agent, and Arachnos is going to need someone who knows what they're doing to maintain this island and keep it free of... Undesirables."

"I'm sold," Scirocco gave the slightest of nods to Mori'ae, which the wizard returned with a deep and gracious bow, "Power Breaker, we should leave. I have more lessons I have to administer to Ice Mistral."

----------

"Boss, I know you've got a thing for the Czek-chick," Harris grunted as the Flyer lifted off, "But I gotta tell ya, I've been to the future, and she kills ya. I've worked with her, and she doesn't really like your lessons. Honor, discipline... These things don't mean a thing to her. She just wants to freeze people, steal loot, and live like a little crime princess."

"I know, Raymond," Imad sighed, "And I hope to convince her otherwise."

"You're not going to do that with words. I know the type. I hate to say it like this, but she needs to get bopped on the nose with a newspaper repeatedly until she gets the point... Metaphorically speaking."

"Heh, you're calling her a dog."

"Yeah, technically, the word I'm thinking is a dog."

The two chuckled.

"She's the one thing I'm not taking the easy way out with, Raymond," Scirocco finally stated, "Would you really take that away from me?"

"This, yeah. There's a difference between determination and stubbornness. That girl has dug her heels in about her behavior, Boss. Unless something shocks her enough, she ain't gonna change."

"I have to try."

"You've been trying, and it hasn't taken. Ever. She don't think of you the way you think of her."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Scirocco's eyes had taken on a dangerous glint.

"It means what I said," Breaker replied, "Nothing more, nothing less."

They spent the rest of the flight in silence.

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.

The accepted members of the new, Freedom Corps-sanctioned super group, the Redeemers, assembled in the empty warehouse they'd been assigned. An older man, probably in his early thirties, was reading the role call from a podium at the back of the building.

"Jebus it's cold in here," Ashen muttered as he activated his fire armor, "Ah... Better."

"Isn't that Caid?" Blizzard mused as he watched the man calling names from the clipboard, "What's he doing here?"

"Okay, that's everybody," the man stated, "Alright. My name is Gregory Caid. I've worked with some of you before, I've even fought some of you before..."

"Yeah! I remember you!" a big bruiser tattooed up like a Tsoo minion shouted, "I mashed your face into a wall!"

"I remember that," Greg grinned, "As you can see, I got better."

There was a brief chuckling before Caid returned to the point at hand.

"Alright, you've all been brought here because you have something in common. The powers that be in our world have determined that we are not beyond hope, not beyond a chance, and not beyond redemption... Man, this really goes on like this..."

Greg flipped through a couple more pages on the clipboard before tossing it aside. He shook his head and blinked a lot before turning back to the crowd.

"Alright, here's the deal. We were all bad guys once. Me, not so much, I was undercover, but we all know how the authorities really look at undercover guys. They think we're all just a hair away from goin' turncoat, so here I am. My brother's with us, too, even though he never had anything to do with any criminal groups, but I think when we see how useful he is in a fight, we won't care."

There was more chuckling.

"Now, for organization... I'm not actually the boss here, guys. I was given the clipboard, given some quick instructions on how to get this first meeting started, but we're only a far offshoot from Freedom Corps. If we wind up messing up, they won't catch the flak. We also can't expect much support from them. The upside to this is that we can run this group pretty much however we want. Whatever resources we get are ours and, except in cases of extreme emergency, we're beholden to no one but ourselves."

"And the F.C. really expects us to go along with this?" a dark-robed man growled. He was joined by a few grunts and murmurs of agreement.

"The F.C. expects us to do what we've been doing," Caid replied exasperatedly; this was not a conversation he was unprepared for, "We've already broken ties from our prior compatriots in one way or another. However, a lot of people still look at us as violent sociopaths, and that one wrong turn will send us on another crime spree and back into the hands of our former masters. Frankly, I don't need that. You don't need that. This group is the second step to proving to the world that we're trying to make good, that we're trying to remake ourselves."

"Yeah, but doesn't the city already have the Vindicators?" a surprisingly eloquent Troll asked with a smirk.

"Are you as popular as the Vindicators? Do you look sexy in a short skirt?"

"They've got guys in their group, too, you know!" Blizzard Front half shouted, half laughed.

"Hey, one of them's questionable enough as it is," Caid shot back, "And don't get me started on the things I've heard about that Malaise... In any case, we don't fit the high profile of the Vindicators, so just put that group out of your heads right fricking now. I know a lot of you want to get your hands on parts of Swan and Ms. Liberty, but it ain't gonna happen. Frankly, I'm a Valkyrie man, she's got nice legs, but even I have to set my fantasies aside and accept reality."

There was a common, disappointed "Aw" from the group. Ashen could swear he heard the "ker-chak" of a shotgun getting cocked.

"Okay, okay, dumb things aside," the speaker at the podium waved the crowd down, "Let's get our bureaucratic crap out of the way. We need a leadership group. We need heroes who can provide a decent face for us, and lead us all when things get tough."

"Why not you?" Ashen shouted.

"Two reasons. One, I'm too ugly," that got another chuckle, "Two, making a decision like this based off of status quo is a horrible idea. Remember the last presidential election? Yeah, anybody want a repeat of that? Oh wait, the last guy's wife is running now... Well, in any case, you guys shouldn't look to me to lead because I called out your names. Now, come on, who wants to run this shindig?"

"I'll do it," the dark-robed man announced, his voice becoming a deep baritone, "Is there anybody here opposed to being led by me, Mortiganen?"

There weren't many voices of dissent, but one guy, a red-maned Ogre sitting next to the Troll, shouted at the dark wizard.

"I remember you! Your soul is as dark and twisted as Hell's cruel heart!"

Apparently, Trolls could get their minds fixed. This one had taken on a near Shakespearean-bent.

"Calm down, Doug," his fellow clamped a hand on the Ogre's shoulder and sat him back down, "If you don't think he should run the place, who should?"

"Why don't you give it a go, Garm?" the Ogre, Doug, suggested.

"Sounds like we have our nominations," Greg announced, "Any seconds?"

There were a couple assembled meta humans who seconded the two heroes. Mortiganen was a frightening individual, regardless of his repentance of rogue mystics and shadowy cults, but Garm was a Troll, no matter how intelligent or refined he had gotten since his Superadine addiction had been cured. There were risks to choosing either of them, but Garm was also known for running a successful Troll band (one that rarely had any of its members arrested before they finally turned themselves in at the end of the last incursion of the Praetorians) and Mort was renowned for his heading the Order of Black Rock until its dissolution at the hands of the Midnight Squad.

"Well, regardless of who wins, can we at least agree that the loser winds up as the second-in-command?" Caid asked.

The two contenders agreed and a vote was held. Ashen volunteered to watch over the ballot box (an old trash can). When Caid saw him, he was surprised.

"I expected you or Sanders to volunteer."

"Martin's with us?" the fire tanker asked dubiously, "He wasn't a rogue."

"True, but we were partners in the Corps. Plus, he was a petty thief and a street vagrant before the first Rikti War..."

"As for why I didn't volunteer, well..." Ashen shrugged, "I only ran a pack of Outcasts, and they're difficult enough to reign in with their wolf-like mentalities. I'd hate to see what it's going to be like for the poor sap who gets the job leading this pack of egomaniacs."

"We'll grind down the rough spots when we find 'em."

Once the votes were acquired, the former Council Archon placed a lid on the can and had the tanker start carrying it to a back room. He informed the other members that it would probably be the next day until they got the result, so they should probably just head out and work on building up the new group's reputation.

The group was a bit agitated about this, but they filed into groups quickly. Many took the opportunity to get to know their new super group mates. A small group of females approached the fire tanker and the regenerating martial artist as they carried the trash can to a small room so they could start counting.

"I don't appreciate your comments," the leader of women stated once they got close, "You make it seem as if there are only men in this group."

"Ah yes," Gregory chuckled, "Ashen, this is Sister Forbes. She runs the former Knives of Artemis in our group... it was a stipulation of the contract they signed when they joined that they be somewhat separate."

"What?"

"You think we'd let you keep us under your thumb?" one girl hissed at the tanker before a wave of her commander's hand silenced her.

"I never said anything about being under my thumb," Ashen replied darkly, "I just don't think it's a good idea to have our group get split into factions. Next thing you know, we'll have a group for the Council, a group for the Tsoo, a group for the Skulls, Hellions... Where will it stop? We'll just fall apart to infighting as the former Trolls grumble about doing all the crap work and the former Council whine about not being trusted."

"A wise argument," the leader of the modern amazons agreed, "However, we are uncertain that this group will provide a proper home for us. Freedom Corps just deposited us defector Knives here, and we were about to return to the shadows from whence we came unless we were provided some amount of control over our position."

"So, if we turn out okay, you'll consider joining us in a more full standing?" Greg asked hopefully, "Frankly, it would help the group considerably. Not just for P.R. reasons, I fought a couple Knives when I was with the Council, and even they're lowest-ranking members are tougher than the best most of what the Council can throw. We can really use the firepower."

Sister Forbes smiled at Caid and shrugged. The regenerating scrapper chuckled and shook his head as the girls walked away.

"Just like a woman," he grunted to Ashen when he sure the girls were only barely within earshot, "They never give you a straight answer. So, you gonna help me with these ballots?"

"I'd like to, but I think Blizz wants my help..."

Caid nodded and let the tanker join his friend.

"Howdy!" Blizzard Front said with a bright smile, "Garm offered to take us with his crew on patrol."

"Really?" Roast asked as he quirked an eyebrow at the Troll leader, "Why?"

"I'm thinking it would go a long way to show just how much of an improvement working for this group is making if we can have former Outcasts working with former Trolls."

"Your skin's still green. You still have tusks."

"Indeed. Unrefined Superadine has long-lasting, if not permanent effects. However, the damage done to the minds of my fellows as well as my own can be corrected. It took magic and not a small amount of the refined stuff you can only find in the Frost Family's personal stashes, but we're better."

"Well," Doug the Ogre growled, "Most of us are better..."

The two Trolls turned to their fifth companion, a short, burly guy that was currently munching on what remained of a bag of nacho chips. He was about halfway through the bag itself when he turned to them and growled a question at them with his full mouth that sounded like "MRwhuh?"

"Briggs, get the van started," Garm tossed a set of keys to the short guy, "We'll be out shortly."

"Poo-wah!" Briggs spat the bag out of his mouth and and grinned mischievously before bounding away with the keys.

"He loves starting that rusty heap up," Garm explained, "I made the mistake of tricking it out with hydraulics... It can actually jump... While driving."

"I bet that's useful when the police throw a spike chain down," Blizzard chuckled, "Or a hero throws an ice patch."

"Don't I know it!" the aspiring super group leader agreed, "Come on, we'll patrol Steel Canyon and Skyway, maybe bowl over a few Supas, a few Outcast Leaders, and call it a day."

"Sounds like a plan," Ashen Roast agreed and they started making their way for the exit.

---

My Stories

Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.