Grey's Army: Back in Action

Kipland pushed his way into his apartment, sighing as the door closed behind him. It had been a long day and he was starting to feel the effects from several weeks of similarly long days.

Blue Talon Security was getting as many contracts as it could to protect merchandise, technology, payrolls and even important people. Kipland and his partner, Gordon "Eisenherz" Grigham, were two of the repeatedly deployed meta humans for many of those services.

Today it had been weapons for use in evidence. Some Council troops tried to come along and swipe them. They failed; many of the terrorists had to be sent to the hospital before they could be placed in jail. Their super soldier serum could only withstand so much, and Kipland's skill had only increased during the course of the year. He should have been concerned that he could still deflect bullets, punch through bricks and mortar and dent steel, but he wasn't. There was just always so much more important stuff on his mind.

In that moment he thought about it. All of it. He'd been training his friends, the former members of the "Brutal Warriors Order," working for Blue Talon, handling the bureaucracy of Grey's Army... So many responsibilities he'd heaped on himself, and now he was faced with what he'd sacrificed to do so much.

His girlfriend, Cathryn Dobson, the Fire-Shield, was on the couch. She was staring at him, her face locked in a look of shock and fearful uncertainty. Next to her was the man she'd just been kissing. His skin was orange, like hers, and he also had blond hair. Kip had met the young man once or twice and recognized him as a former Outcast, but he couldn't place the name.

"Kip..." she squeaked and the other young man leaped from the couch and his body was lit ablaze.

Durj looked at the other young man and frowned. He recognized him, now. Ashen Roast. He didn't know his real name.

"Look man," he said, "I don't want any trouble."

"Relax," Kip waved his hand at the orange man and walked to the kitchen, "I... I'm too tired to do anything about it, anyway."

The other two stared dumbfounded at him as he proceeded to pour himself a glass of orange juice and mulled over the new development. She was cheating on him. What was strange, though, was that it didn't bother him.

Kip was a rare breed. He could see clearly when something was his fault, and this situation certainly had a lot to do with his neglect.

"I should have been there for you more," he finally said.

"Yeah, you-!" Ashen stopped and bit his lower lip; he knew what kind of a fighter Durj was and didn't feel ready to take him on.

"Kip, I'm so sorry..." Cathryn said quietly.

"I know, I know..." the short man said before taking another drink, "So... How long has this been going on?"

"Since last week. We met at that swap meet in Kings Row and... Well..."

Cat frowned her rosebud lips and lowered her head. She felt horrible about the whole thing. Kip was a nice guy, but he was hardly there for her anymore. Alex made her feel appreciated, and he was just as nice. Plus, she never had to worry about accidentally burning him.

She told him as much and was surprised at Kip's nodding in understanding.

"Will you stop being so agreeable!" she shouted, "It's making this whole thing very... Weird..."

"Would you prefer if I acted typically?" he asked in his typical deadpan manner, "By yelling, throwing things, demanding you 'get the Hell out' and maybe getting into a fight with our friend, Ash, here?"

"Uh..." Alexander Ross (Ashen Roast) raised his hand for attention, "I would, um, rather that didn't happen..."

"So would I," Kip and Cat said at the same time.

They all looked at each other sheepishly and started laughing. When they were done, Kip rested his forehead in his palm as he leaned against the counter. Sighing, he looked up to Cathryn. She was one of the best women he'd ever met in his life. She deserved somebody who would keep their attention on her.

After telling her as much, he capped with "I failed at that. I can't blame you for falling for somebody else... And you... Ash... Last I knew, you were a decent guy, right?"

"I think so," the orange-skinned man replied with a shrug, "My friends say as much..."

"Then I think you two will be alright."

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"So what's happening?" Roland asked as they sat in the office building.

Kipland had just finished relating the story to the portly son of Randall. He had listened calmly and quietly, as was his nature. It wasn't until Kip was clearly finished that he finally asked the question on his mind.

"Well, their relationship is still new," Kip replied, "For now, Cat and I are going back to our roommates status, with her going back to her old room. We cans till share the apartment, we cans till be friends. Hell, in the end, we were little more than friends, anyway. We barely talked, we shared some humorous stories about people we knew, but otherwise... There was no spark."

Roland nodded and flipped through a few more pages of his magazine. Kip seemed to have the issue handled. Most would have expected him to lose his mind and start punching walls, but then they didn't know him. He had a solid sense of right and wrong, and he knew it would have been wrong to blame either of them for his own neglect.

"It still sucks, though," Kip finally sighed, "You think everything's going fine, and then this happens..."

"It could be worse," Roland replied, "She could have turned out to be a half-succubus trying to suck you dry."

"Oh yeah, how's that going, by the way?"

Roland was referring to a former tenant in his apartment building, Lilian Rose. The girl had been a bombshell and had, for reasons later learned to be nefarious, started flirting hard with the pudgy superintendent. She turned out to be of infernal ancestry and was an assassin. She took the contract to assassinate the middle Grey sibling, one which had been put out on him because of his relationship with one of Paragon City's heroic elite.

If it hadn't been for the fact that Roland's sister kept a psychic link to her family members to warn her if any of them are in danger, he probably would have died when she got fed up and attacked him anyway. He said he'd convinced her to stop, but Kip and their friend Cortland shook their heads in distrust. The girl wasn't far-removed from her demonic ancestry, and she was just as likely to go back on her word and try ****** him anyway.

"She's out of prison," Roland said bluntly, "Sapped a couple guards of their life force and flew the coop. She called me on one of their cellphones and said she'd see me sometime. I had Cory put enchantments on my windows, door, and an alarm on the walls. I'm asking Sheldon if he knows of anything that can kill demons."

"She's just a half-succubus," Kip replied, "She'll be tough, but it's not like she's immortal. Eventually, she'll be hurt too much and she'll try to flee, or she'll pass out or die or something. You're smart, you'll figure it out."

"Hrm. How exactly is there such a thing as a half succubus? I mean, are there male succubi?"

"A male is called an incubus," the shorter young man said quickly, "People tend to forget that. And she is evil. Succubi are built from evil and magic. How much longer are we going to have to wait here?"

The office door opened then and a young woman in a neatly pressed power suit walked out to greet them. She asked them to follow her inside and take a seat in front of her desk. They did as requested, their prior conversations now out of their heads.

Now was the time to focus on the matter at hand. Roland's apartment building had just changed ownership. The new company was reviewing the previous company's employees. Grey figured he ran a tight ship. He'd been able to patch together and replace parts of the building's plumbing system. He'd fixed a lot of the electrical wiring, too. The building had been in bad shape, but he'd painstakingly brought it back up to code.

All of this was reflected in the report the young woman read to the two of them. She was all smiles. It seemed like the meeting was going well. Kip had the same thought Roland did, however. Why was he asked to be here?

"Well, you're both registered as 'Heroes' with the FBSA," the young woman replied, "And you're registered as Mister Grey's superior, correct?"

"Correct," Kip replied, "Though we both usually default to his dad..."

"Well, we need to be sure that his duties as a hero don't have a negative impact on his work for us," she said brightly, still with that pristine smile, "Are you thirsty? Have you had some coffee?"

Kip shook his head and arched his eyebrow. Looking at the desk, he realized there was no nameplate. He realized something was feeling very odd about this whole situation.

"I brought that building up to code while I was a 'super-powered enforcer'" Roland growled, the "super-powered" part being funny because he wasn't super-powered, "I don't know what could be so terrible that it would harm my duties in that building if it weren't something that threatened everybody else, too!"

"We're just concerned that you would be splitting your duties in a manner that would adversely affect your work with our tenants," she replied sweetly, "There's no need to be offended."

"There's never a need to be offended," the rotund man agreed gruffly as he stood to leave, "It just happens! Look, you want to fire me or kick me out or whatever, you go right ahead. I don't need the job. You can be certain I'll be seeing lawyers about a wrongful termination, though! I'm the best superintendent they've ever had in that old rat trap! I cleaned out the vermin, I fixed the pipes, the wires, the windows, the sinks, the tubs... I put the effort in, and now you're trying to tell me you've got some problem with me because I also put an effort into fixing things around the city, too?"

"We're just concerned that you would be splitting your duties in a manner that would adversely affect your work with our tenants," she replied sweetly, "There's no need to be offended."

Kip and Roland looked to each other, then back at the woman. She still hadn't stopped smiling.

"Are you thirsty? Have you had some coffee?"

"Oh no..." Kip groaned.

"You already asked us that," Roland replied.

"Did I?" she asked, "Oh, well then I guess I didn't receive an answer. Would you like some coffee?"

"What's your name?" Kip asked.

"I told you already," she said, her smile looking unusually forced and genuine at the same time, "Didn't I?"

"Alright, enough," Kip slapped his hand on the table, "You're an Automaton!"

"I told you he was good," a voice said from behind them.

Kip and Roland turned and a large dark-skinned man looked down at them. Kip had met him repeatedly before. Former Tirailleur Graves, sniper for the Nemesis Army. Roland didn't recognize the man, however.

"Oh, what do you want?" Kip asked, "I take it they brought you back in..."

"I never left," the big man replied, "Though I rather wish I had retired... That undercover assignment got me so damn fat... I'm still working it off..."

"I take it this is a Nemesis plot?" Roland asked as he leaned against the chair he'd just vacated.

"Close," Graves said somberly, "Those of us in the Lord's Service prefer to call this particular type a 'Nemedyne' plot... And we need your help to deal with it."

My name was Raymond Harris.

My name was Raymond Harris!

MY NAME WAS RAYMOND HARRIS!

Power Breaker dangled from the riggings holding him suspended over the green goop half a mile below and struggled to hold on to the bits of his memory that kept him sane. The surges they coursed through his body kept blasting his mind, wreaking havoc with not just who he was, but who he wanted to be.

He knew the day was coming. The Etoile Isles were run by Arachnos. If you were to turn against them and their interests, they were likely to turn against you.
And there were more of them. Far more.

In the end, an Arbiter named Tavek had commissioned some criminal meta humans to capture him. Tavek was one of the Arbiters who prided himself on securing the Isles. One would think he would have a strong compulsion to bring down the criminality plaguing his homeland, but he preferred to drive out the "invasive elements" instead. His idea of invasive elements happened to be Longbow, Spetznaz, Malta Group, private security companies, international law enforcement agencies and anybody "who would dare to help them." Since Raymond fell into that last category, he was bound to wind up a victim of the insane system.

Usually, he provided a little intel for a group called Grey's Army. Raymond was one of the first people Randall Grey arrested when he'd arrived in Paragon just a few years ago. Because the old man had actually tried to help him, Ray had tried to better himself. The heroic influence upon him had been well-documented, even when Arachnos yanked him from the Zig. However, until Power Breaker started helping captured heroes escape, they left him alone.

It had started with Luminary. She'd been captured trying to save a teacher from the cruel Westin Phipps and Black Scorpion had decided to gather meta humans loyal to him and have a little hunt. Scirocco helped Breaker find the place in order to strike a political blow against the cybernetic thug and because of his patron's involvement, he had been spared from reprisal. But Scirocco wasn't involved with the rescue of other metas.

His nanites had been helping, too. The little machines had deformed him, bulking him up beyond human proportions, scarring his flesh with circuitry channels and stabbing "living" crystal spikes out of his shoulders and head, but they had saved his life countless times and given him so much more than they'd taken away.

If it hadn't been for the nanites, he'd have been captured long ago. They boosted his strength, produced energy fields to protect him, allowed him to fly, and all sorts of other nifty side bonuses. With their help, he was able to fend off most attacks, but their help had also aroused the interest of Arachnos's leader, Lord Recluse.
When Power Breaker first started helping Scirocco, he was one of many meta humans helping the warrior sorcerer recover the fabled Malleus Mundi, the Hammer of the World. The ancient tome was believed to be able to give its user the powers of Creation itself, to make a man into a god of ultimate power.

Raymond couldn't help but look at the pages he'd recovered for Scirocco. He'd recovered a great many pages, too. In fact, he'd recovered more pages than what was in the book eventually brought to his patron. They were looking for the most complete copy of the ancient tome, and thanks to the copying Power Breaker's nanites had done to every page he gazed at, he was now the most complete tome himself.

He didn't have the great power as advertised. He didn't want it. But the nanites were constantly poring through the pages to find new and interesting ways to improve their host. They decoded many of the bizarre, ancient writings and worked out new programs to channel power through Ray's body in interesting ways.

It wasn't until he had to help Statesman and Lord Recluse battle an avatar of a twisted, alien god named "Dagoeth" that his secret was revealed. He activated his incomplete "CNCDQD" program, his godmode program, and was able to reach into the monster's core to rip out its heart and crush it before Dagoeth's eyes.

The nanites healed him after the explosion. But they couldn't shield him from Recluse's gaze. The mercenaries and bounty hunters came for him, and despite Randall Grey trying to save him, he was captured by Arachnos and placed in this rig.
His arms and legs were locked in place and his whole body was suspended over the green goop of a fortress power plant. The rig was designed to shock him whenever its controllers decided to do so. His body could absorb a lot of energy, but not the entire force from a nuclear reactor (or whatever it was these fortresses ran on).
Recluse had visited him once, with Scirocco in tow. Ice Mistral followed behind her master, smirking giddily as she watched the big man suffer. Ray was certain she was also enjoying watching her mentor squirm under the instruction of the Lord of Arachnos, too.

The decree was simple: Give up the information of the Malleus Mundi and die swiftly. If he continued to refuse, then his torment would not end until his mind broke. Recluse would lose the Malleus (in an interpretable form, anyway), but he would gain a weapon to unleash against his enemies. Scirocco apologized when the others had left, but he wasn't about to risk his position or his life for a friend "who refuses to share such an important secret."

That was seven months ago. Raymond could normally contact somebody by using his nanite-enabled wi-fi connection to hack into communications networks, but it was blasted out of him every five minutes. He was certain he'd gotten messages to his friends in Grey's Army, but all they'd received were recordings of him screaming before the contact was cut off.

He was alone. He was dying alone. He was being turned into something he didn't want to be, and there was nobody that could help him.

"My name is Raymond Harris," he whispered before the shocks started again.

The cords of plasma arced out of the ring holding his shackles and scored into his body. The incandescent tendrils were as thick as cables for a suspension bridge or the rigging for an ancient galleon. The programming his nanites used to communicate with him flickered, scrambled and garbled as he screamed out hoarsely in pain again and again and again...

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Arachnos soldiers are limited in the color of their armor. If they wear something shaded differently, it marks them as apostate to the doctrines of Lord Recluse's will. The fact that Daniel Taylor's armor was colored a dark green like military camouflage was no different. It was why the Bane Spider Scouts who now lied dead at his feet had attacked him.

Daniel powered down his mace and clipped it to his belt. This wasn't the first time he'd had to slay his former compatriots. It wouldn't be the last. He wasn't the first to come to a realization like this. He wondered idly if everybody who had the thought suffered the same sense of depression he had at the moment.

He didn't have much longer to dwell on it. Candace Lawrence, his lover, landed lightly next to him. She was shorter, thinner, but amazingly lithe. Her large breasts were restrained by the spider-patterned armor plate that many Night Widows like herself wore, only this breastplate only seemed to accentuate her surprising endowment. Her claws were stained with blood. Apparently, she'd run across similar to him in her travels. Without a word, she reached up, grasped the back of his helmet with her dark purple-gloved hand, and pulled him close for a kiss. She pressed a flimsy datapad into his hands and stepped back to let him peruse it.

"This is what it will take?" the man asked coldly.

"That is what he said. He wasn't happy when I told him who I was working for, but he said he would give you the chance to prove yourself."

Daniel gazed to Candace and nodded. He knew it wasn't going to be easy. Randall Grey was the sort who could hold a grudge if he really wanted to.

"You kidnapped his wife and tried to experiment on her," Candace said calmly, "A man's not going to be too happy to be contacted by somebody who did that to his family."

"Were you reading my thoughts?" he asked.

"No," she replied with a sly grin, "Your frown. Plus, I know your history with him."

"Well, let's get what we need and get this done," Daniel sighed, "Shadeheart, it looks like we have one last mission in these Isles. We're going to rescue Power Breaker."

*happy sigh* I LIKE more stories.

“Has she called?” Kipland asked as they approached the dimensional rift at the feet of the massive statue of M-1 in Steel Canyon.

“No,” Roland replied, “We haven’t spoken since… Since then.”

“That’s… That’s too bad, man.”

Kipland keyed up the base on his communicator and the rift flickered a moment, registering that the command had been accepted. The two took a breath and stepped into the blue field, momentarily disoriented as they were whisked miles away to the location of Randall Grey’s base.

For a long time, the portal had been finicky. It would send members to the wrong base for reasons that were still unclear. Typically, it was only to groups that had coaligned with Grey’s Army. Since there weren’t many that did, that wasn’t a problem for a long while. When Randall signed on with a Freedom Corps program to help out fledgling groups, there were still no aberrations.

However, one group became quite popular and had acquired large amounts of property, artifacts and underwent all sorts of unusual adventures in its own respect. They weren’t just a punch-card supergroup or some storage bin, which was unusual considering the name of the group was so simple. The Teamsters had proven to be quite the peculiar band of allies.

Sheldon still hadn’t found what had caused the crossed connection for various members of the group. He’d posited that their heavy magical influences probably had something to do with it, and worked on altering the frequency to teleport into the base regularly. There hadn’t been any incidents in months, but Kip and Roland still instinctively looked about the portal chamber to make sure they really were in Grey’s base under Kings Row.

Seeing the symbol satisfied their concerns and they proceeded up the stairs and down the hall, passing the lounge, turning at the teleportation array and making their way to the ring the former Brutal Warriors Order members had made.

Kipland walked into the room and growled under his breath at the three tapestries proclaiming “B-W-O” on the north wall. Dominating the center of the room was a ring with two men fighting in it. Matt “Dirty Ice” Jones and Dustin “King Slater” Simms were two of the few BWO members who’d gone on vacation to return to the group. Cedric Grey and Mattock McGinty were also missing.

It irritated Kip. He knew where they all were, and he didn’t fault their reasons for staying there instead of returning home, but he could have used their help.

“Char and Randy won’t be much help in all of this,” Kip sighed as they watched Matt and Dustin trade unpowered blows, “We’re going to have to rely on what’s left and hope their training took hold.”

“Oh yeah, baby!” Matt suddenly shouted before shoulder-bumping Dustin and popping the taller man in the cheek with his padded glove, “We know what we’re doing now babe-!”

Dustin cut him off with a jab to the mouth that sent the pudgy brute stumbling into the ropes. Matthew laughed there and pulled his glove off, reaching out to shake Dustin’s after he’d removed his.

“Good shot, man, good shot,” he congratulated his opponent, “Got me good…”

A whisp of flame burst from his mouth and his split lip closed. Dustin had seen the trick before, so he didn’t even flinch as he congratulated his friend on a good fight.

“Well, guys,” Kip announced as they exited the ring, “We’ve got a situation. This might require effort from a lot of us. You all good on fighting Nemesis?”

“Aw, Hell-yeah!” Jones shouted as he toweled himself off, “I love beating the **** out of those guys!”

“They’ve never really been a problem for me,” Dustin agreed, “Whatever you need, I’ll do.”

“Cool,” Kip nodded as he started to feel confident with the forces they had to work with, “You know anybody else who’s available?”

“Dale’s around,” Dustin offered, scratching his beard as he thought, “Oh! Hey! Johnny’s signed up with us!”

“Johnny?”

“Who’s that?” Roland asked.

“Oh, come on, guys!” they heard a high-toned voice behind them, though this one wasn’t as sharp as Kip’s, “Don’t tell me you forgot your good ol’ Notorious P-I-M-P!”

Durj and Grey turned to the voice and saw a young man in a loud red outfit. He was wearing a pair of reflective sunglasses, a gold-trimmed cloak with a high collar and a red top hat. He beamed at them and walked over to shake Kip’s hand.

John Dawson Nack was a confident, intelligent red-head with brown eyes and one of the few mutants in Kingdale when they were growing up. He was considered “safe” as his power was just light manipulation, meaning he could make images and illusions. It kept him out of school sports programs, which didn’t bother him because he didn’t like them anyway, but otherwise didn’t affect much of his life. Some students tried to give Johnny a hard time, but enough times of punching lockers and walls because they thought they were punching a face caused the usual suspects to give up and turn to other victims.

Kip hadn’t really known him, but he did hang out with Jared and a lot of his friends in those days. The two were similar, though he preferred Johnny’s approach to being a “social connoisseur.” He was a friend to many, and easy to get along with, but he usually wasn’t considered a joiner to any clique. He just wandered amongst them, enjoying their company as they enjoyed his.

“Where have you been all these years?” Kip asked as they broke their handshake.

“Vegas,” John replied, “I’m good at cards, and I figured my talents would get me work if it were ever needed. In the end, I turned out to be better than I thought. Most people go into Vegas, they have a budget they don’t mind burning out, and they have a fun time taking in shows or playing the games. There are plenty of horror stories of people blowing their life savings or worse, too. Me, I would spend each day with ‘This is my budget for the day. If this runs out, I’m done for the day.’ Probably not the best strategy for folks who don’t start out with a few grand for folding money or those who don’t know how to actually play the games, but it worked for me.”

“Let me guess,” Matthew joked, “You used your mutant powers to your advantage!”

“With the world the way it is, and the likelihood that some numb nuts morons would try that, don’t you think the casinos in Las Vegas would have, oh, I don’t know… Depowering systems in place? Ever heard of antimagic fields, subsonic frequency agitators for psychics and other methods of preventing such cheating?”

“Well, uh…”

“Though, I did see some dipshit try… He even bet this…”

Johnny hoisted up a twisted black scepter, the end of which had a dark crystal and some shadowy energy floating around it. It was similar to a lot of Dark Scepters that many meta humans liked to wield, as it was a nice bolt of negative energy when the chips were down. However, this one had a scattering of bright blue runes etched into its sides.

“Honestly, it wasn’t until I got this thing that I considered looking you guys up,” Johnny explained, “I mean, I’ve seen what people go through in your line of work…”

“This isn’t something you just wander into, Johnny,” Kip intoned as he folded his arms over his chest.

“Oh, Kip, I know what you mean!”

Johnny aimed the scepter at Matthew and a bolt of ice struck him in the chest. The brute flared up instinctively, but the damage was already done, he felt a sharp sting of cold to his core. It was hard to move, and he couldn’t stop the young man’s next attack.

A group of shapely women suddenly appeared around him. This caused Kip, Dustin and Matt to double take as the scantily-clad, showgirl-esque ladies lavished Dirty Ice with attention.

Then the beatings began. They hurled him into the ring and proceeded to punch, kick and pummel him with various abilities, from electric zaps to fiery and icy blades. After a moment, the fight was over and Matt was lying on the ring’s floor, laughing so hard it hurt.

“That was freaking amazing, man!”

“Hey, what kind of a pimp would I be without my ladies?” Johnny laughed, “So, Kip, what do you think?”

“I think you’re not taking this as seriously as you should,” the small man sighed, “But… You wouldn’t be the first, and… I think you’re more capable of pulling your head out of your butt when you have to than some of your other old buddies…”

“Hey, I resemble that remark!” Matt chuckled as he pushed himself off the ring.

“I don’t, so I feel fine,” Dustin quipped as he started walking up the ramp to enter the mystical portal chamber to later make his way to the kitchen/brewery, “Johnny, welcome aboard.”

“Thank you, Janus. This detour will be much appreciated.”

Daniel handed the smuggler his money, a briefcase filled with two thousand dollars in United States currency. It was all that was left of his savings, the last shreds of his life as an operative of Arachnos, save his armor, weapons, and the two Disruptor robots he was still somehow able to access, summon and command.

Three weeks. It took three weeks to learn the location at which they were keeping the beast of a man known as Power Breaker. He and Shadeheart had pressed every information broker and agent in the know throughout the Isles for anything they could learn about strange cargo shipments, prisoner transfers or clandestine operations. They avoided asking the enigmatic Exterminator Null or Arbiter Sands for what they knew; Sands because his information would come at a price, Null because they didn’t know what his reaction would be.

Eventually they had found a facility, an offshore rig that had once been a major operation for the Sky Raiders (and Nemesis, Taylor guessed). The facility had been blasted about a year ago, taking two powerful vessels along with it. Without them, the Sky Raiders couldn’t extend their control over the Atlantic and were reduced to their pirate and mercenary ways again.

The facility had become an irradiated hulk, unusable and uninhabitable for a little over a year. Once the radiation levels receded to a level that could be considered “safe,” Operative Grillo requisitioned some exploration squads to investigate the site. Onboard, the squads ran into a large family of Coralax that were trying to convert the facility into a lair and possible outpost for their twisted species. The resulting battle only lasted a few hours as the Fliers strafed the facility and teleported troops onto the landing platforms. Once the last of the Coralax had been killed or forced to retreat into the depths of the Atlantic, Grillo sent in teams to secure whatever technology could be recovered.

Afterward, the site was left to Black Scorpion to deal with. He did what he did best: cruelty. He turned it into a station with the express purpose of detaining, torturing and executing prisoners of Arachnos. He secured the most brutal members of Arachnos and made them the guards and wardens of the facility. Inside, they subjected their prisoners to abuses not seen or heard of since the days of the Inquisition, and even a few more that were available with the advent of modern technology.

He called it the Funhouse.

“I won’t be able to bring you anywhere within sight of the place,” Janus explained, “But I’m sure you and your lady friend will be able to sneak in on a small boat. I’ll give you enough gas to get there and back out to where I leave you… I’ll wait for three days. Should be all the time people like you need.”

Daniel agreed and told Candace the situation. She nodded impassively and resumed her preparations for the fight to come. He didn’t know how he felt about her when she got like this. She wasn’t the woman he’d fallen in love with anymore, she was just the assassin Arachnos had trained her to be. She would pull herself out of it later, but it was still an unsettling thing to see; that a person could be such an ice-hearted monster one moment and a warm, emotional flower the next.

“You’re not different from me, Daniel,” she said calmly as she measured out a rope, “You yourself have done much that people would consider ‘cold’ or ‘evil.’ One such thing is what’s got us in this situation in the first place.”

“I believed I was working toward a greater goal,” the former operative replied, ignoring the fact that she’d once again looked into his mind, “There was always emotion involved for me. It wasn’t until I had to see what was going on again, with fresh eyes, outside the ‘protective’ influence of Arachnos that I learned of my folly. I’ve never been able to separate my emotion from my work like you can.”

“That should annoy me,” Candace’s mouth quirked in a light smile, “But I think it’s your passion for your work, and the fact that your passion is what led you down this path, your path, that bonded me to you.”

She looked up at him, a single tear escaping her eye.

“The things I’ve been trained to do, Daniel... The things I have done… I wish… I wish I’d kept that piece of my heart in what I do, like you did…”

He knelt down to hug her and she embraced him. Huddled like that, they comforted each other. Together, they knew they could withstand the onslaught of their shared destiny. Arachnos would send forces against them, to punish them for their treachery, but they would be ready for it. They would face this new path, they would endure, they would survive, and they would thrive.

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Agent Wild walked down the concrete corridors of the base, wondering why he’d been called in for this. A Ballista, codenamed “Thunderclap,” had led a charge against Grandville. He had falsified documents, forged signatures, and otherwise acquired troops for the charge with the intent of forcing a confrontation between Longbow and Arachnos.

It had ended in spectacular failure. Three platoons of Longbow soldiers were now either dead or in critical condition. Only this man was in any condition to talk, and that was still only just barely. For some reason that Tyler still couldn’t fathom, he was the one assigned to commence the interrogation.

“Hello, Agent,” a female Spec-Ops soldier said as he approached.

“Hello, Agent Keller,” he replied, “It’s good to see you.”

“You remember me, sir?” she asked in surprise, “I thought… I don’t know. I thought you would forget about me…”

“You’re one of the best agents I’ve ever known. How could I forget you?”

She made a surprised noise, and was about to resume the conversation when the door opened. A Warden named Jones approached them and shook Tyler’s hand.

“It’s good you’re here, sir. I’m sure you’re wondering why you were requested…”

“Yes…” Wild arched an eyebrow, “I’m a field agent, not an interrogator.”

“Well, Thunderclap seems to believe you and he have worked together before. He said he would only trust talking to you, not the rest of us ‘bureaucrats.’”

Tyler turned to Agent Keller and shrugged. She did similar and resumed her post as a guard at the side of the door.

“Alright, I’m ready to see him…” the field agent said as he walked into the room.

Ballista Thunderclap sat at the table, his wrists in technologically advanced manacles designed to sap the energy from his body. Thus held, he couldn’t access the plethora of abilities that made Ballistae the powerhouses that put Longbow barely ahead of the game when it came to the conflict with Arachnos. He kept his face down and hidden in the shadow of his head and torso. Considering his condition, it was understandable.

“You told your captors we know each other,” Wild said as he walked to the table, “Mind telling me how that is? I think I would remember making an impression on a Ballista.”

“You talked me into re-upping,” the big man’s deep voice rumbled between sobbing gasps, “Not by selling me on some ideal, but by showing me the opportunity I had, personally, to make a difference…”

“Ah, shoot…” the smaller man sighed as he sat down in the chair opposite Thunderclap, “Agent… Holcomb. You’re the only guy I ever processed that had the potential for the Ballista Program.”

“You were the first person to tell me that,” Holcomb looked up to Tyler and the smaller man could now clearly see the bigger’s face, “I think my superiors really were trying to hold me back…”

His face looked like the surface of some blasted planet. Scars and pock-marks were torn into his flesh and he was barely recognizable as human anymore. His left eye was missing, covered now with a patch, and his right ear had holes in it. What was worse was the look in his eye. It reflected the damage done to his psyche. He was exhausted, broken and defeated. Even if he were to endure his punishment under the articles and codes of law that Freedom Corps worked under and continue his career, he wouldn’t be able to function in anywhere near the same capacity.

“A lot of those men and women have left Freedom Corps…” Tyler said, trying to keep the big man’s gaze, “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”

“I’m not fighting it, Agent Wild,” Thunderclap sighed, “The evidence they’ve got against me and my unit, it’s true. I’ll take responsibility for it all, I told my men and women what to do and they thought it was all a training operation… At first… But when things started getting real and they started to suspect what was happening, everybody was already caught up in it and there was no turning back.”

“Somebody turned back…”

“That’s beside the point, and… Frankly, whoever that was probably saved our lives… What a joke… Saved by betrayal…”

“What happened over there?” the agent resumed the interrogation, “What happened to you?”

Thunderclap nodded, took a few deep breaths, and proceeded to relate his tale.

“I led four platoons onto the beach of Grandville...”

They met resistance in the form of a single platoon of Crab Spiders and Spiderbots, led by Black Scorpion, Silver Mantis, and a nameless Crab Spider at their side. Oddly, the commanding villains stood away from the battle, but their presence kept the assaulting heroes from even beginning the attack.

Black Scorpion and Thunderclap met between the two armies and discussed the terms of the battle. The big villain was amused by the efforts of the obsessed hero, though he’d already learned of the planned assault long before it was ready. He reminded the Ballista that even the last major push into the Rogue Isles had been led by none other than Statesman himself, and even that was repelled.

He offered an ultimatum. A duel. His best versus Thunderclap’s best. The Ballista agreed and offered up himself as his army’s champion. Black Scorpion put forth the Crab Spider who had stood beside him and Silver Mantis.

He wasn’t like most others. His armor was painted as dark as night. This wasn’t done for any tactical reason, though, as the armor was left extremely shiny. He towered over most of the people present, standing at a monstrous eight feet tall, and the cybernetic, stylized spiderleg weapons extending from his backpack loomed menacing over both of their heads. Still, Thunderclap was confident he would win.

They fought between the platoons, with both armies watching. Thunderclap’s blows were like freight trains, smashing into the armor of the crab spider and making satisfying crunching sounds with each strike. However, the big man merely chuckled and traded blows with the hero, dousing him in skin-melting venom and hammering him with that bizarre toxic energy from the cannons in the legs.

Eventually, Thunderclap dove to slam his fists into the big operative’s belly, but was stopped when the spider legs were stabbed into his shoulders and back. The legs flexed, and the hero was dragged, screaming, to stand upright. He tried to swing a fist at his assailant, but was stopped when he felt a beam blast into his torso.

Some of the Longbow troops shouted in dismay as the massive Crab Spider blasted their commander over and over again like that. The beams hammered into Thunderclap’s body with enough power to force the spiderleg’s blade out of the Ballista’s body, but it would snap right back into place, stabbing again and biting deeper.

After nearly a minute of this, the beast of a man reared back and hoisted the hero up and tossed him into the air. Four lasers were projected from the legs, all focused on the point Thunderclap was heading toward. A great red haze enveloped him and he felt something press into his belly suddenly. Looking down to his abdomen, he saw a round black and red object about the size of a medicine ball, with sharp blades protruding from it. It beeped once at him before exploding, sending him rocketing right back to the ground, planting him face up in the sand.

“Victory,” the mysterious Crab Spider announced.

The Longbow troops weren’t too keen on accepting that. They drew their weapons and started to sight in on the smaller force of Arachnos soldiers. They had sheer numbers and would likely cause some damage, regardless of the fact that they were outclassed by the combined might of Black Scorpion and Silver Mantis, and possibly their third companion.

However, their intervention wasn’t necessary. None of the Longbow troops had noticed the soft shuffling behind them. Before the commanders could give the order to fire, a great many cloaked Bane Spider Scout maces rose up and fell silently, wiping out most of the Longbow forces before they knew what was happening. As one, the Bane Spiders stepped forward, hefted their weapons and struck again, hammering the Longbow demoralized Longbow forces much to the amusement of Black Scorpion as they and the platoon he’d organized mopped up the rest.

The strange Crab Spider soldier stepped up to the disabled Ballista and drew a specially designed submachine gun. It was spiked, bladed and, oddly, gold-plated, making for a strange contrast to the black armor.

As the sounds of gunfire receded, to be replaced by the pained moans of the devastated troops, Black Scorpion trundled up behind the operative and rested his claw on his shoulder. He aimed his laser cannon arm at the Ballista and made a sound with his mouth like an explosion.

“You got this, Fulkerson?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” the big man replied, his voice tinny as it was artificially emitted from the suit.

Operative Fulkerson leveled the gold-plated weapon at the Ballista’s face and let loose a full volley of armor-piercing ammunition.

“…Every bullet connected,” Thunderclap said, his deep voice shaking, “I could feel every one… And despite having skin like armor… He tore my face apart… He tore my face apart…”

Holcomb broke down at that point, sobbing about how his plan had failed and his troops had been eradicated. Many were dead. Those who had survived were likely to end their careers prematurely anyway. Such a loss was quite traumatic.

“Almost one hundred fifty troops lost,” Wild sighed as he closed the folder, “And Black Scorpion’s demonstrating more cunning than we ever gave him credit for. Unless there’s anything else you’d like to add, Agent, I think we’re done here.”

“Yes…” Holcomb sighed, “I’m done…”

Tyler signed the paperwork where it was appropriate and finished writing out bullet-point notes from the interrogation. After closing the folder, he stood and patted the quiet man’s shoulder.

“I’m not going to sugarcoat things, Andrew,” he said, “You really messed up. Now, I don’t know what is going to happen to you from here on out. You’re certainly going to be a topic of debate among the talk radio nuts, that’s for sure.”

This elicited a chuckle.

“But… You’re a great asset to Longbow. Despite whatever happens, I hope you decide to stay with us. They’ll cut your pay, they’ll imprison you, and they’ll assign you to some God-forsaken backwater… But the beauty of this organization is that no matter where you find yourself, you’ll find you’re still able to make a difference, the sort of difference that causes people to look to you and smile for the good you’ve brought to their lives.”

“Decided to spout the rhetoric at me this time?” Thunderclap growled in disbelief.

“I told you where your career could go last time we met and you arrived at your own decision. This time, your spirit is broken. All that’s left to say is rhetoric. You have everything you need right there, in your body and between your ears. I just hope you take this moment as a lesson to use them both better from here on out.”

The big man nodded, but didn’t look up. Wild gave him a last pat on the shoulder and left the chamber. Once the door was closed behind him, he let out a sigh.

“So… What do you think?” Keller asked.

“He’s broken,” Wild replied, “Humiliated, exposed, and the power given him… It wasn’t enough to withstand the onslaught of that Crab Spider… God… I’d hate to think they’re coming up with their own Ballistae!”

“That’s…” Warden Jones gasped, “That’s monstrous…”

“Well, we’ve run across Bane Spiders that make even the Executioner-class troops seem like children, and those guys work alone… There are more combat-ready Fortunatas out there and Night Widows that have proven to be quite prophetic, and other Crab Spiders with their own unique abilities, armor colors and other quirks. We usually assume they’re somehow independent from Arachnos, especially since they’re usually under fire by Arachnos troops. We never considered that these unique types might still be loyal.”

“I see. Well, we’ll get these reports running up the chain, then,” Jones sighed as he took Wild’s folder, “Thank you for your help.”

Wild watched the Warden depart and turned to Agent Keller. The young woman glanced at him, but suddenly turned away.

“Are you blushing?” Tyler asked.

“Uh, no…” she replied, “I’m just… I’m just dressed in red…”

Tyler couldn’t help but start chuckling at that. Keller giggled and gave him a jab to the arm.

“Why did we ever stop talking, you goof?” she asked, “It was like we were friends, and then… You were just… Gone!”

“I don’t know, Jessie,” he replied as he rubbed his arm, “I just… I’ve been dealing with stuff left and right, and… God, I’m sorry…”

“Well, hey, my shift’s up at the end of the hour. You want to go get coffee?”

Tyler nodded.

“Sure. It’ll be good to catch up.”

A good story is less uncommon on protector I am noticing. Great to see more stories.

more story. *happy sigh*

“Okay, here’s what we have to work with,” Kipland began, “We’ve got myself and Roland for contacts and coordination… Matt and Dustin for heavy lifting and Johnny for support…”

He turned to the thin, red-haired young man and narrowed his eyes.

“You sure you know how to wield that staff?”

“I’ve been practicing with it, Kip,” Nack replied, “For about a year and a half. I know how to make snow storms, fog and other stuff, all without the puns of telling people to ‘chill out’ and crap.”

“What does that mean we’re getting in terms of support?” Dustin asked as he rubbed his stone-skinned arm.

“I can coat you in blocks of ice as armor. It’s a bit indelicate, but it works.”

“Ugh…” Matt grunted, “Think it’ll withstand the flames from the Stone of the Salamander?”

Johnny shrugged.

“I’ve never used it on anybody who could already protect themselves.”

“We’ll think of something,” Kip interjected, “So… Does this seem like a credible team?”

“I’d be happy with having somebody who can patch us up,” Roland suggested, “Maybe your brother?”


“He’s been busy at LaGrange Medical for the past few months. Something about work with MedCom… I don’t think we can wrangle him into this.”

Kip looked up from the papers he was looking over and down the hall. Sheldon Wallace was busy in the laboratory with the extraterrestrial, red-skinned, humanoid dragon creature named Jarim. The two had repeatedly renovated the lab together, mostly with the alien’s help, and Wallace didn’t seem to think it at all strange, so nobody raised issue with it. Neither would be very useful in the upcoming investigation, however. Sheldon was busy tracking down whoever was using his father’s technology without permission and Jarim had his own machinations that spanned far out of the purview of the group.

“Let’s see if Cory and Mike are about,” he suggested before gathering papers and rising to leave the lounge.

He led the boys down the corridor and took a right at the teleportation chamber. From there, they passed the trophy chamber, a room dedicated to a few bits and scraps from the adventures the various members of the group engaged in. There was even a bit of the gelatinous mass that made up the body of the monstrous creature known as Hamidon, it splattered against its containment impotently before settling back into a small dome.

“I still say it’s not safe to keep that stuff in here,” Dustin muttered as they left the chamber and took a left toward Randall’s microbrewery, “One day, it’s gonna break loose and cause trouble.”

“That’ll be the day one of Sheldon’s mutant rodents eats it,” Kip countered.

“Heh, that’ll be funny,” Matt chuckled.

“I already saw they’ve got strawberry flavor dust and spoons for the job,” the short, muscled young man sighed, “Those creepy little bears are gonna be like the Rikti Monkeys of the Cutlass Isles, mark my words… Eating things WAY bigger than them…”

“Even us?” Roland asked, concern tingeing his voice.

“No, not us. They like to hug us…”

Almost as if on cue, a small white ball of fluff hurtled through the air and collided with Kip’s cheek. Two black eyes peeked from the fur and blinked happily to his following companions before the creature started nuzzling its “victim.” Rather than brush the tiny animal off, the brown-haired man reached up and gently rubbed its back.

“As annoying as they can be, I have to admit they’re a funny, friendly bunch,” Durj explained as they passed the microbrewery, “Hey, Matt! Try to keep up!”

“Randy already caught me after drinkin’ his brews once,” Jones chuckled, “I ain’t goin’ through that again!”

They progressed down the hall, past two turrets mounted with twin Vulcan cannons. The weapons were left in idle mode, swiveling slowly, quietly and smoothly without sighting in on anything in particular. Their rotating chambers spun clockwise gently, always ready to begin spinning fast enough to send hundreds of rounds per second hurtling through the air should an emergency call for it.

The next chamber was the reason for the placement of these weapons.

Randall Grey had built the base under the very building for which he had started working as the superintendent when he first came to Paragon. As time went on, he’d slowly expanded the base, eventually overtaking several sections of sewer and reinforcing much of the structure underneath much of the northeastern corner of the city. Then he found that he wasn’t the first hero to come up with the idea of placing his base under the impoverished city.

During one expansion, he had broken into what looked like an ancient temple. It wasn’t built like Oranbega, however, and there were no wizards occupying it. During the course of their investigating, they found some treasures, namely a crystal ball and a set of three books. Through the crystal ball, they were able to contact a D’Jinni named Koro Al’Rom, who warned them just too late about the mystical security system in place over the books that summoned a horde of shadowy warriors to eliminate would-be thieves. Since Randall’s collected heroes had dealt with that situation, however, he’d been helpful in dispelling the security, converting the weakened dimensional space into another mystical teleportation node and helping Cortland Simmons teach mystically-inclined heroes who affiliated themselves with the group.

At the moment, Cory and Koro Al’Rom were teaching Michael White about his weather control powers. They had pitched an idea to him, one he was slowly warming up to, in which he would become the new Blue Druid. The prior one was largely forgotten, his final battle occurring during the first Rikti Invasion as he shielded Kings Row with a powerful storm. Now, however, the legend would live on in a new wielder of the arcane, even if he was a little reluctant.

“Reluctance is a good thing,” they could hear Cory explaining as they approached through the twisting tunnels, ducking under the fingers of giant hands carved from the stone, “Sometimes, it is best to learn when the responsibility it thrust upon you. It immediately instills a sense of reverence in your work, and an inhibition to abuse the power afforded you.”

“Not to mention respect for the responsibility itself,” the boisterous voice of the D’Jinni added, his voice sounding as if it were echoing off of glass, “However, when it comes to the arts you’re learning, I find it’s best for mortals to have a little ambition. There’s no need to be so dour, young Michael White! The things you’ll be learning can prove to be quite entertaining with no repercussions whatsoever!”

“Indeed,” Simmons agreed, “I mean, sometimes I spend hours of the day just flying through the air…”

“And helping when needed, right?” Kip asked as they rounded the final corner, “Hey, guys.”

“Greetings, Kipland,” the magician replied with a nod, his red hair bobbing forward to frame his dark face as it creased into a smile, “You look like there’s something you need.”

“Ah, the warrior!” Koro announced, “Did you grab a hold of something without thinking again?”

Kip narrowed his eyes at the crystal. The security system being tripped was the young man’s fault and the D’Jinn never passed up an opportunity to remind him of the fact. It was always good to remember that even experienced individuals could make rookie mistakes.

“Yeah, we need to talk to Mike about this next investigation we’re running,” he finally said, “I hope it’s okay to pull him away from his studies.”

“Oh, it’s alright,” Cory replied, “We’re finished for the day, anyway. Michael… Your latest set of skills should come in handy.”

“I will do my best,” the white-haired young man replied before looking worriedly to Kip and his entourage, “Alright… Dustin and Kip, I’m okay with. You guys are solid. Now, Matt… He worries me… And I don’t even know who YOU are!”

Johnny Nack smiled and stated his name. He also started up an anecdote he remembered from high school in which Michael had been caught trying to sleep with a linebacker’s other girlfriend. The wizard’s eyes bugged out of his head a little and he waved for the red-haired young man to be quiet while trying to usher the group out of the corridor. Sadly, everybody was laughing at his memorized plight, and he was unable to escape without a red face and a grim, embarrassed scowl twisting his dark goatee.

LOL good descriptions.

The large man struggled in the mechanical bonds that suspended him several hundred feet in the air. He'd been sleeping. What's more, he'd been dreaming.

He dreamed of what his life could have been. He was once just a lowly thug for the Frost crime family. He would have remained so, eventually retiring as a low-key bouncer if he was lucky. Otherwise, he'd have likely got shot in a gang war or brutalized by some superhero. Maybe he would have been horrifically murdered at the hands of some psychopathic super-powered punk.

Instead, he was this. Crystalline circuitry channels were scarred into his flesh, turning his body into a bizarre jigsaw puzzle. More crystal wrapped and wove in his ribcage and bones. Spikes protruded from his scalp, and spires jutted from his collar. He never really understood any of the reasons for it, but he had good ideas as to the needs and capabilities of his deformities.

His eyes fluttered open as everything started to get more lucid. His operating system indicated that it was about time to be electrocuted again. Even in this state, the system didn't make the situation sound like something to fear, or even like it had any emotional connection to it whatsoever. It was just something it and he had to go through.

"Only real friend I've got," Ray sighed, "And it doesn't even care."

The operating system displayed the time in the lower left of his vision. Ten seconds of clear thought to go. Now five. Now... White hot pain...

He tensed for the eruption, but felt nothing. Could this be a trick? He looked up to the control booth, but the windows were, as always, reflective. He could never see when the human operators would start, but Arachnos worked their torture like clockwork. If somebody wasn't torturing him at Five-Fifteen, precisely, heads were going to roll!

An alarm sounded. Sirens, klaxons, flashing lights, and even a voice over the intercom sounded the alert. Somebody had breached security.

"Is this for me?" Raymond asked, his voice unceremoniously drowned out by the noise.

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Shadeheart. It was the name she'd chosen as her callsign as an assassin for Arachnos. It was supposed to signify that she was dark, mysterious, yet passionate about her work. She committed murder because she believed that it was best for the future of Arachnos, and the future of Arachnos was the future of the world.

Then she fell in love. She tried her damnedest not to, knowing full-well that she would one day be assigned to eliminate the former Arbiter, Daniel Taylor, but he won her over. They were so similar in their passions. They had given up so much in the effort to better the lives of the people around them.

And he opened her eyes to the truth. None of their work mattered. The lives of the people in the Etoiles weren't any better because of them. If anything, their lives were worse! Poverty still gripped the average citizen, super-powered psychopaths roamed the streets freely, and Arachnos even broke hundreds upon thousands of those same lunatics free from their incarceration! The two of them had willingly aided an organization guilty of releasing an unrelenting tide of monsters upon the world, and the only justification they could apply was "it was what we were ordered to do."

When Daniel's kill order came up, she refused. That wasn't what she did publicly, because that would just have caused another Widow to be assigned and her sisters would have executed her on the spot. No. She quietly accepted the order, then fled with Daniel. They warred with a death squad sent to eliminate them, then one of Daniel's peculiar friends, an Executioner referred to as "Exterminator Null," falsified their deaths and enabled their escape.

Now, she was helping her beloved. It felt strange to call him such, but she couldn't get through a single day without thinking of him. She loved him. She thought the emotion had been burned out of her with the training, but she truly loved him. His smile, his eyes, his scent... Thinking of him made her cheeks warm.

And she knew he felt the same about her. The first night she had noticed her own feelings for him was the night she'd read his mind, curious about how he felt for her. The intense, pained longing she felt through the psychic link was all she ever needed to know. It had almost overwhelmed her and forced her to give in to their shared passion for each other at the very moment, but the danger they were in helped caution their actions.

She pushed the memories aside for the moment. Another Bane Spider Commando had rounded the corner and was making his way down the corridor toward her. In one smooth stroke, she drove the point of her widow spike through his neck guard and caught him as he fell. She dragged the corpse into a side room, stacking it neatly on top of the other five she'd eliminated in similar fashion.

"Hive mind my ***," Shadeheart murmured to herself, referencing the rumor that everybody in the Bane Spider program was slaved to one another, "If that were the case, they'd know what I've done he-!"

The alarms cut her off and she cursed. Either there was some truth to the rumor, or her boyfriend had accomplished his task.

Stepping silently in the shadows, the blonde woman drew her widow spikes and started stalking through the corridors to her objective.

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The main power supply was shut down. Daniel smashed the control panels with his Nullifier Mace to ensure it wouldn't come back on easily. The service crew would have to reactivate the power plant manually, and that would take at least thirty minutes. It was more than enough time to operate.

He hustled down the corridors, sneaking through the shadows and ducking out of sight from the Arachnos operatives trying to find the interlopers. If just one group found him, it would be all over.

Power Breaker was in the central chamber of the Funhouse, hooked into conduits that were fed directly by the powerplant. It was why shutting the place down was so crucial.

Emergency lighting silhouetted his approach, turning his armor into the dull red everybody else's was. Other Bane Spiders simply thought he was on a crucial errand or some other nonsense, so nobody stopped him.

Nobody, that is, until he got to the core. There they stood, a full squad of Bane Spiders, Mu Sorcerers, and Crab Spider soldiers. In the center of them, a gigantic Crab Spider whose armor had been spray-painted black.

"I was wondering who all the fuss was about," the big man chortled, his voice emitters making the voice sound tinny and inhuman, "Now I see it's my old boss... Gentlemen! Behold! We have ourselves a former Arbiter before us!"

"Fulkerson," Taylor growled.

"The new and improved Fulkerson, at that," the big man growled and raised his arms for emphasis.

There was a metallic whine associated with his movements. It wasn't just the cybernetic weapons array mounted to his back, either. It was his arm, his torso, his entire body was retrofitted with mechanical enhancement.

"I see death wasn't enough to end your terms of service," Daniel quipped, "I guess it makes sense, though. Arachnos would rather have you serving as a whip arm than letting Hell pay you more for doing the same!"

"I'm going to enjoy tearing your appendages out of their sockets," the big man replied.

Taylor swung his arm around and pressed a button on his wrist. Suddenly, the ceiling was torn open by a large portal and two large mechanical spiders fell on top of the squad of guards. Operative Fulkerson dove out from the assault, shouting angrily at the pair of Disruptors before calling in for his own similar reinforcement.

As he finished calling for the machines, Daniel's Nullifier Mace collided with his arm, sending the big man rolling backwards. Despite his size, the operative was surprisingly agile. Once to his feet, Fulkerson started firing blasts in Daniel's direction.
The smaller man deflected the blasts, then leveled the gem on the end of his mace to return a volley of his own. A scattering of beams was followed by two explosive bursts, sending Fulkerson screaming down the corridor. When the former Arbiter turned back to the guards, he found the second pair of Disruptors had arrived and were tearing into his pet drones.

A hail of armor-piercing bullets got their attention, as the artificial intelligence that governed the machines wasn't particularly bright. As soldiers caught by stray bullets slumped to the floor, the machine swivelled around to face their new adversary. They were struck by a grenade round and webs before being dispatched by Taylor's loyal defenders.

"Return to... Wherever you go," Daniel whispered to the battered machines, "If I ever have need of you again, I hope you'll be able to return to me..."

The twin machines warbled happily before vanishing in incandescent red light. The erupting sound their teleportation made masked the rapid approach of Operative Fulkerson, however, who crashed into Daniel with a bone-crunching tackle.
The two tumbled head over heels, finally stopping five yards from the collision. Fulkeson was already on his feet and lurching to drive his cybernetic leg weapons into Daniel's chest. The smaller man kipped off his shoulders and drove his feet into the bigger man's abdomen, forcing him back, and rolled back to his feet.

When Fulkerson lunged for him this time, Daniel grasped one of the legs and pulled it toward himself, unbalancing the bigger man and sticking the "crab leg" into the steel grating. He then kicked Fulkerson's helmet off and the big man reeled back in pain.

When he leveled his gaze at Taylor, the smaller man had to take a breath to compose himself. Fulkerson's face was a mess. The skin was gray and withered, almost as if it was just hanging loosely to the skull underneath. One dead eye gazed unblinkingly forward, the other was a robotic prosthetic. The space where the mouth and nose should have been was instead covered with a breather.

"You see?" the big man's voice emitted from the speaker, "This is what you've done to me. You think that's the worst of it? They had to cut off my pecker to fit on the new legs!"

"That's too bad," Danny replied with a snicker in his voice, "Couldn't have happened to a better person."

"You laugh now," Fulkerson stood to his full height and the emitter ends of the crab legs started to glow, "Let's see how easy it is for you to laugh when I've blasted you all across the Funhouse!"

Four beams sighted in on Daniel. He knew what was coming next. One of the heaviest munitions at a Crab Spider's beck and call was a powerful bomb that was teleported to the target via a manipulation of the Arachnos MedCom system and the soldier's laser guidance system.

And Fulkerson was sighting one on him right now.

"I'm gonna enjoy this," the big man's tinny voice chuckled.

Then a widow spike stabbed through his knee. Then though the other. Oil leaked out and the legs ceased to function at keeping him standing. Before Fulkerson knew what was happening, another widow spike was stabbed through the back of his head and out his dead eye. He disappeared in a red haze as the same MedCom system he was manipulating registered his critical condition and yanked him to a secure facility.

Stepping through the red haze was Candace Lawrence. Her walk was seductive and deadly as she swayed her round hips from side to side. Daniel often lost himself in her movements, he was quite experienced in how her fluid motions could be exquisitely intoxicating.

Deftly, she already had another pair of widow spikes in her hands. In a quick motion, she had hurled them and the sound of metal striking glass was accompanied twice by the dying sounds of two men standing behind Taylor. He turned to see two Bane Spider Scouts slumping backwards to the floor, their visors struck through with the thin, but deadly weapons.

"Thank you," he said simply as Shadeheart retrieved her blades and they made for the core.

She didn't reply. Now wasn't a time for talking or reprimands. They had to act.

Inside the core, they found the big man struggling to break his bonds. They scaled the steps leading up to the catwalks that surrounded Power Breaker and found the control panel that would release him. Unfortunately, it was unpowered, too.

"You're here to help me?" the brute asked dumbly.

"Yes. An individual has agreed to aid us if we aid you," Shadeheart replied.

"Then blast this ******* ring," he growled, "I'll do the rest."

Daniel looked to his lover and the woman stepped away from the console. He got into position and leveled his Nullifier Mace at the rig. He hammered it with incandescent bursts of toxic energy, corroding the ring.

Power Breaker did the rest. His strength returned to him in a flood of hope and he wrenched himself free of the crumbling machinery. With a triumphant roar, he vaulted himself to the catwalk and turned back to the central column of the powerplant, launching a volley of electric arcs into it and disrupting countless circuits and systems.

"Alright, let's get out of here," Daniel said once the explosions died down.

"No," Breaker replied quietly.

"We must depart," Shadeheart stated simply, "It won't be long until more forces arrive to deal with us!"

"Ah, uh..." Daniel scratched the back of his head, "Actually, it will be a while. Null diverted most of the allotted reinforcements for this place to latrine duty to the north of the Fab."

Candace turned to her lover with a shocked expression. He replied to her silent admonition with a quiet shrug.

"Regardless, there are still numerous opponents within this facility," she resumed, turning back to Harris with narrowed eyes, blazinging with intensity, "We must depart as quickly as possible."

"No," Raymond replied, turning back to her with his own purple-glowing eyes round and sad, "This place... It's a nightmare... Full of screams and cries of anguish... We can't let it remain."

"We will return and wipe it off the map!" Daniel shouted, "Come on!"

"Go to wherever it is you're going," Harris replied, "I'll catch up... Trust me..."

"We can't leave you here!"

"I said I'll catch up!" the big man bellowed, "I ain't done livin' yet, so this won't be a noble sacrifice! But you're not gonna want to be here to see what happens!"

Daniel looked perturbedly at the big man. He was about to protest further when Shadeheart took him by the wrist and dragged him out of the chamber. The two quickly made their way to the corner of the facility where they'd entered and started making their way down to the boat Janus had lent them.

In the central chamber, however, Power Breaker knelt. He held his eyes shut and ordered his operating system to locate whatever backups they had built into his subconscious of the files they'd decoded of the Malleus Mundi.

"You wanted this, Recluse," he growled, "Now you're gonna get it."

The files sprang up in his vision. They were twisted, garbled, incomplete. The operating system did what it could to repair them as they were drawn up, but it was a lot of information, information that wasn't exactly static. There were portions of the text that changed before one's very eyes, and it even did the same in Raymond's memory. There was so much of the tome that relied on the behavior of time, and lately time had become a very brittle membrane.

Regardless, there was plenty enough for what he wanted to do next. It was a powerful piece of magic, one that would require quite a bit from the caster.

Analysis of Data: Massive structural damage likely.
Do you wish to proceed? Y/N?

"Yes," the big man replied, "It's time to finish this. No matter the cost."

All Files related to Malles Mundi will be lost due to degredation of the Host.

"Understood. Purge."

Operating System risks critical damage.

"I'm sorry."

Apology: Accepted. Goodbye, Raymond. It was nice knowing you. It was nice being your friend. We are sorry we were unable to save you from this pain.

"I'll miss you if you don't make it," the big man replied with a tear in his eye.

They did care. The little bastards had turned him into a monster, but he was his own monster because of them. They had saved his life countless times, provided him with unimaginable power... Even now, they were intending to take the brunt of the damage from this Purge for him.

All because they really were his friend.

"Good luck," he whispered before his entire body erupted in black and purple "light."

An orb of tangible darkness radiated from his form and consumed the catwalk. It continued growing, the surface a roiling storm of dark colors, from black to indigo, from purple to blue. It consumed the central core as the powerplant started firing up again, feeding even more energy into the whirling maelstrom.

Outside, Daniel and Candace struggled to keep their small boat from capsizing. The waves around them suddenly turned violent. Above them, the facility known as the Funhouse started to buckle and whine as a great gravitational force was exerted upon it from within. In moments, a great orb of darkness erupted from the walls, devouring them with a mighty roar. The faclity screamed as steel was wrenched from its moorings into the great, fathomless maw resting in the middle of the sky.

Suddenly, it was over. The waves stopped crashing, slowly coming to rest around the remains of the facility. Daniel and Shadeheart looked up to see that where once there had been a twisted structure jutting from the middle of the ocean, there was now only four legs to mark where once a structure had been. Floating in the sky above it was Power Breaker.

He twitched and plummeted into the water. Daniel fired up the motor of the boat and guided the vessel to the big man's floating, unconscious body. He and Shadeheart then pulled him aboard and they made sure he was still alive.

Waking weakly, he gazed into their eyes and thanked them quietly for their help. When he closed his eyes, however, there was only darkness. The operating system was gone.

Weeping softly, reached up to hold his head as Daniel piloted them to rendezvous with Janus. As his fingers brushed his scalp, he could feel that the spikes that used to protrude from there were gone. The spires that had jutted from his collar had vanished as well. For the first time since becoming a meta human, Raymond Harris was looking human again.

"Thank you," he whispered to the departed operating system before closing his eyes into an exhausted sleep.

In the darkness of his dream, there was a cursor in the upper right of his vision. After a moment, it moved, leaving characters behind it.

You are most welcome, Raymond.

OOOO Very nicely written.

The information they received from Tirailleur Graves led them to the offices of an up-and-coming company called “Nova Core Aerospace Incorporated.” The company was apparently hopping on the space exploration market, focusing more on developing technologies to go into prospective space exploration vehicles. As such, they focused on plasma emitters, fuel injectors, and other prospective technologies in relation to that goal. It also just so happened that a lot of those technologies could be turned toward making dangerous weapons for use against meta humans.

When Kip contacted Agent Wild about what they were doing, he found that Freedom Corps already had the company on its watch list. Their exhaustive background checks had turned up no connections to Nemesis, the Council, Crey, the organized crime families or even the Malta Group. They seemed to be a corporation running entirely on its own impetus.

“So, what’s the plan?” Roland asked as they pulled into the parking lot, “I mean, this whole thing smacks of the possibility of being used by Nemesis to eliminate a potential rival.”

“No matter WHAT we do, we’re eliminating one of his rivals,” Kip replied, “We should talk to these guys first, see what’s going on, and find out if there’s any truth to what Graves said. If it’s not legitimate, then we leave.”

The portly man nodded and exited the jeep, followed by Kip and Michael. After retrieving his collapsible bow from the cargo compartment and checking to see that his quiver to the “pocket dimension of arrows” was still functioning (it had been wonky ever since he’d flattened it to fit under a tuxedo jacket), he shut the hatch and locked the doors.

They caught up with Johnny, Dustin and Matt at the door. They had ridden together when Matt saw the Cadillac their former classmate unveiled and he insisted that they take a ride.

“So, how was the ride in the Caddy?” Roland asked.

“Smooth,” Matt replied, still wide-eyed with wonder, “So very… Very smooth…”

“Jeez, he didn’t even get to experience all the fancy tricks I’ve got rigged into that DeVille,” Johnny chuckled as he gestured to his ivory white sedan, “For instance, I’ve got massagers in the seats.”

“Massagers!?”

“Those really got the crick outta my neck,” Dustin commented.

“Well, I’m glad we’re all relaxed and massaged,” Kip announced to prevent further nonsense, “Now, we’ve got work to do. I called Freedom Corps and the P.P.D., so they know we’re investigating here. We’re still waiting on warrants, so… We need a cover story for being here.”

“We’re potential investors?” Johnny asked, “I mean, I do happen to be a rich guy looking for something to turn my money towards…”

His normal “hero” outfits wouldn’t have sufficed for such a plan. Simply put, they were often far too outrageous to be taken seriously. However, he had somehow changed to a simple dress shirt and blue jeans.

“Nuh-huh, I ain’t givin’ my money to some Nemesis plot,” Matt Jones grunted before anybody could talk about the matter.

“You won’t be,” Mike corrected him, shaking his white-haired head, “Johnny will be. Why are we talking about this now?”

“Well, because normally we just charge headlong into the enemy base,” Kip grumbled, “We’ve got no assurance that’s what this is, so there’s no justifiable cause.”

The front door opened at that moment and a young man dressed in casual business attire poked his head out to look at them. He looked worried, for while it was normal for dangerous-looking individuals to gather around their business to harass the employees, they were usually the low-power types like the Skulls and Hellions (with the occasional Outcast, though they’d been rather quiet since Frostfire had turned back to his lifelong dream of being a hero).

“Uh… Can I help you guys?” he asked.

“Why yes!” Johnny quipped happily, “I’ve been hearing good things about your company and am looking to invest!”

“Uh… Right…” the man replied in surprise before quietly heading back indoors.

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“It’s good to meet you!” the company’s C.E.O., a man in his late twenties who was dressed in the same casual business style as the rest of his employees named Luke Hoss, announced as he met them in the lobby, “As you know, in the realm of cutting-no, molecular edge-technology, fresh capital is always a necessity!”

“Well, as I said to your employee, I’ve been hearing great things about your company, and in the wake of Reginald Bronson’s competition for privately developed spacecraft and the environment being ripe for such ‘super science’ endeavors, I’m figuring it would be a decent project to invest in…”

Johnny’s charisma was uncanny. His friendly smile and easygoing delivery while simultaneously demonstrating business savvy was enough to convince Hoss that this was a legitimate interest, so he agreed to give the group of young men a tour. What was interesting was that, should the company prove to NOT be run by a psychopathic artificial intelligence based on the mind of one of the world’s most heinous madmen, Johnny actually was considering this as an option. It was an attractive thought, having your name be involved with the sudden ramping up of space exploration.

Hoss showed them some of the engineering teams and one of the demonstration displays. Behind a panel of thick, bullet-resistant and radiation-shielded glass, a robot tested the effectiveness of one of Nova’s inventions, a long-distance plasma cutter.

“It works like a traditional plasma cutter,” he explained, “Only at a much greater range. The chemical is magnetically-treated and dispersed by a rail-driving system. We’re trying to find a compound that will maintain a tighter stream and still be able to handle the extremely low temperature of vacuum…”

“I thought vacuum didn’t necessarily have a ‘low’ temperature…” Kip muttered.

“Well, that’s true,” Lucas sighed, “It’s just… Usually, the sales pitch is meant for people who usually get their information about how outer space works through movies. It can GET cold in outer space… It can also get very hot.”

“So, you’re not looking for low temperature resistance,” Dustin asked, “But the ability to… work… at the temperature extremes your technology would be likely to, ah… run into?”

“Precisely!”

“How’s the progress been?” Johnny asked as he pulled a pair of dark goggles on and watched the demonstration.

The robotic arm leveled toward the target. The monitoring system emitted the noises the machinery was making, and a low buzzing hum sounded before a stream of purple-burning plasma sprayed against the target on the other side of the chamber.

“It’s like burning whiskey,” Matt laughed, “That’s pretty cool!”

“Right,” Kip narrowed his eyes and rubbed his chin as he watched the demonstration.

“That spray effect doesn’t look like a sign of success,” Johnny noted as he indicated the fact that the plasma was fanning out as it crossed the distance to the target, “I mean, if you want to efficiently cut something at that distance, that’s a lot of wasted heat and chemicals. Why not just use lasers?”

“Frankly, too much energy expenditure,” Lucas replied and scratched the back of his head.

“Really?”

“Not exactly, but it’s the answer I have to give,” the C.E.O. replied, “The rest is, ah, classified.”

They moved on from there to meet with some of the engineers and innovative crews that the company was feverishly employing to meet the challenges of interplanetary travel. The entire company was comprised of young talent, most of which exhibited the modern “relaxed professional” attire, and they all seemed enthusiastic about ushering in a whole new era in human existence.

“I mean, we’ve heard rumors that there might be an alien Rikti species out there,” one young woman said happily, “Imagine if we could meet them and learn to communicate with the Rikti we have here and bring peace between our peoples!”

Matt almost said something, but a stern glare and head shake from Kipland stopped him. The less the public knew about the complications involved with achieving peace with the Rikti, the better. Annoyed and out of his element, the brute shrugged and walked to lean against a closed door.

Whoever had last used the door had apparently not shut it properly. With a shout of surprise, Jones fell through the doorway and landed on a steel grated catwalk.

The company employees were not happy with this. They sucked in air with fearful surprise and Lucas croaked a terrified “oh no.”

On the other side of the door, Kip could see a number of men with red and navy blue outfits with brass fittings and containment systems. They looked to be in a state of relaxation as they played cards, video games, or engaged in uniformed physical training to maintain their condition to meta-human battling capabilities.

“Oh, what the Hell, guys!?” came a shout from out of view, “Nobody knows how to shut a door!?”

Matt rolled back into the room with Kip as something heavy clomped up the stairs. Before anybody could start yelling at Lucas and the assembled scientists, Kip pointed back at the door.

“Fight now,” he said quietly, “Yell later.”

The individuals prepared for the upcoming fight in their own ways. The Nemesis troops ran to grab their weapons. Michael White focused inward and found the magic that allowed him to control the weather and throw lightning and summoned the ethereal mists that would conceal and protect his friends. Johnny snapped his fingers and after a burst of light, was dressed in a purple leisure suit. Dustin flexed and stretched his muscles and his skin popped and encrusted with stone. Matt burst into flames and stone encrusted his forearms. Finally, Roland drew his bow and found that his quiver was still able to deploy normal arrows easily.

The assailant stomping up the grated steps finally came into view. It was bad enough when Nemesis made people serve as the brains (and some other unclear functions) of the Warhulks, or would entrap a soldier inside a specially designed Fake Nemesis suit (which could turn out to be a walking coffin if the seals broke inside). This was one of the few (perhaps the only) times he had actually turned toward cybernetics.

His name was Sergeant Major Florio. He used to be a captain of the Sky Raiders before an act of sabotage led to him being severely crippled. Now, recruited by the Nemesis Army, his arms were massive, brassen weapons designed for smashing in the teeth of would-be heroes. A pack rested on his back, from which a pair of swiveling Gatling turrets aimed this way and that. His legs were also heavily modified and his jaw had been replaced.

“Behold,” he announced with a toothy smile, the lower of which were all stainless steel, “The future of the Nemesis Army!”

“Friendly Fire,” Kipland grunted as he stepped before his friends, “I thought Rachek and his friends killed you.”

“Ignorant fool!” the cyborg shouted and he smashed the ceiling with his fists, bringing mortar down on his head, “You cannot kill the future!”

“Supposedly…” Roland grumbled derisively.

Kip’s eyes flashed with bright light and his veins started to glow. He squared his shoulders and assumed a combat stance before his lips pulled back into an aggressive sneer.

“Let’s get this done!” he growled.

After an hour of recovering on his ship, the survivors of the Funhouse were accosted by Janus. His eyes blazing, he tried to strike Daniel in the face, only to be restrained by his own crewmen. The former Arbiter turned to Candace and was relieved she wasn’t half-ready to slaughter the smuggler.

“What seems to be the problem, Janus?”

“You and your mission made too much noise!” the captain shouted, “You couldn’t just leave well enough alone, you had to go and blast the operation to Hell!”

“You’re really angry that we sank that torture fortress?”

In reality, it wasn’t Daniel and Candace who had destroyed the fortress, but their charge, the big brute known as Power Breaker to the public. Ever since they’d returned to Janus’s ship, he’d been sleeping as if he were in a coma. He’d unleashed a massive amount of energy to eradicate the facility dedicated to his torment and the torture and interrogation of countless others. There were people who’d been driven insane inside Black Scorpion’s “Funhouse,” and many of them were probably dead now. A few others were recovered and Janus sent a few speedboats to round up whoever could be saved.

Arachnos soldiers drowned, though. Janus wasn’t about to risk having Recluse’s forces bearing down on him. That, however, was the issue at present.

“I’m not angry you blasted that place to Hell,” he growled, “I’m angry that you led them straight to me!”

He led Daniel and Candace to the communications and monitoring station of the tanker. All about them, sailors gathered equipment and necessities as they prepared to board the submarines to evacuate the ship.

In the communications hub, Janus’s technicians feverishly tracked orders for their smuggling operation, requests for transfers into Sharkhead Isle or Independence Port, and even intercepted transmissions throughout the factions vying to control or victimize the two embattled cities. One walked up to the captain, his face pale and his eyes wide with fright, and handed one of the latest transmissions.

“They’re a half-hour away, sir,” he said, a slight tremble in his voice.

“This is just what I need,” the captain growled as he took the paper and shoved it into Daniel’s face, “Do you have any idea what this is going to do to my business? It’s going to be hard running this operation with a couple tiny submersibles!”

Daniel took the paper and looked it over. It almost made him groan when he realized that this ragtag group of smugglers had learned how to crack Arachnos encryption. It appeared that there was an assault squadron of five Fliers headed toward the ship. Reading further, he noted a discrepancy.

“Captain, why do you think they’re after you?” he asked.

“Because the orders indicate that they’re on a search-and-destroy mission for ‘the Farmers,’” the scar-faced man hissed as he checked one of the radar displays, “And they’re closing in FAST!”

“But, the Farmers wasn’t our term for you,” Daniel argued, “We called you-.”

“Twoface?” Janus asked, and sighed when he saw Daniel shrug in reply, “Really?”

“Yeah, it’s been done, but it was fitting.”

“Sure,” the captain rolled his eyes and shook his head, “If they’re not after me, then who are they after, Mr. Smartypants?”

“The only people we called Farmers were…” Daniel felt his heart sink, “Oh no…”

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“Welcome to my island,” the man known as Brother Mauthe announced as Daniel and Candace stepped off the small boat.

His jovial greeting lost a little bit of its luster when the recipients noted the many armed guards aiming weapons at them. Brother Mauthe was a friendly man, but he was hardly stupid or foolish.

This island was a refuge for the damned. Anybody who had a past to run away from in the States, anyone who wanted to escape the madness of the Isles, they could come to this place and make a new life for themselves. Some just needed to rebuild their sense of purpose, others usually had to duck the attention of far more powerful forces.

Under these conditions, Brother Mauthe had assembled a small army out of the dregs of society. They were armed with scraps from the detritus of the conflicts between the two great cities and what equipment they could steal from under the unsuspecting gaze of the organizations as they battled each other. This gave them a moderately impressive armament, with plenty of small-arms and a few demolitions munitions, but not much to repel a large-scale assault; not without preparation, anyway.

The island’s beach was riddled with defensive munitions. Acid grenade-lobbing mortars, pop-up turrets, proximity mines and gas bombs were all buried just under the sand, ready to emerge at the first sign of trouble. Regular patrols carefully navigated the beach and kept what few children were in the community from venturing too close. Deeper in the island were carefully maintained farms, a few “shanty” houses and a wooden central structure that served as a town hall for the populace and an inn for the few visitors they received. There was also a very large barn that rested next to the remains of an ancient temple, but none of the crops were ever placed in there.

It was a lot of hard work that kept this community going. Mauthe only asked that everybody work and contribute, anybody who proved to be willfully lazy usually found themselves being tossed onto Brother Ringo’s boat and quietly dumped in either the Isles or Independence Port, with a gentle warning to never return. Anyone who wanted to leave, for whatever reason, was allowed to as well. They had to take passage on Ringo’s boat, the Captured Dream, but the only real drawback there was the wait.

The Dream was a modified trawler. Its hull was elongated, narrowed and sprayed with Teflon so it could more easily glide through the ocean’s waters. The deck was mounted with turrets, with four antipersonnel guns placed on the pilot’s cabin and a crewed minigun loaded on the bow. A twin pair of automated missile turrets rested on the aft. The vessel was powered with a fusion core engine recovered from a wrecked Flier and it had a shield generator that had been loaned from a metahuman mercenary group that used to be known as the Brutal Warriors Order. It was a vehicle that could handle almost anything thrown at it and was a safe transport for the people of Mauthe’s island.

About a year ago, an ancient god had been awakened below the waves between this island and its neighboring twin. The Circle of Thorns had attempted to find a way to control the situation, finally learning too late that the god was one of the agents of the alien goddess, Merulina. Arachnos operatives took the Circle’s island while Longbow troops occupied Mauthe’s and Statesman and Recluse arrived to deal with the situation personally.

In the end, it had been Power Breaker who settled the score, but they were all fortunate the monster Dagoeth didn’t have the true Heart of the Sea buried within his chest. If he had been empowered thusly, the world would have truly suffered for it as he tried to make the oceans rise, free his queen goddess and rouse the Leviathan from its hibernation.

Now, the island faced a wholly different threat. Apparently, one of the factions within Arachnos had decided it was time to eradicate this little bastion of true hope from the Isles and claim the mythical resources it contained. Daniel and Candace hurriedly, yet clearly, explained the situation to Mauthe.

“Five Fliers,” Mauthe sighed, “It’s worse than last time.”

“Last time?” Daniel asked.

“Last time they sent one,” the mastermind behind the island replied somberly, “They thought they could wipe out our little community after we… After we tried helping a young teacher escape her execution…”

Mauthe turned his bearded, cybernetic face to Daniel and grinned. His one human eye twinkled with hidden understanding while the camera that served as his right eye gazed impassively.

“Yeah, I leaked the information to you,” Daniel admitted, “I’m sorry it turned out to be an assassin.”

Candace rubbed her shoulder. She had been the assassin who’d taken Miss Francine’s place and tried to kill some of the men currently serving as guards around them. Only one glowered down at her, the big man referred to only as Brother War, whose memory relied on more than just what he’d seen and heard. He remembered her scent well and remembered that she was the one he’d yanked through the floor to keep her from kill his friends.

“It’s quite alright,” Mauthe waved for his troops to relax, “We’re in a new time, with experiences bringing us to this shared moment.”

“So, are we going to defend ourselves?” a blonde man, identified as Brother Skrap, asked, “We’ve got this island rigged well enough. I bet we could take ‘em!”

“No, we need to run!” Brother Ringo almost shouted in a panic, “One Flier wiped us out last time!”

“You ******* coward!” Skrap almost reached over to slap the boat pilot but was stopped by his counterpart, Brother Hand, “We’re not the same as we were then! We’ve got-!”

“We’re evacuating,” Mauthe said quietly, yet his voice pierced the argument that was about to break throughout the chamber, “Women and children first… get word to this Janus character, we’ll need the services of his ship.”

“We’re already stressing our relationship with him,” Daniel intoned.

“Then we’ll offer payment,” Mauthe offered before turning to Ringo, “I’m sorry, my friend… I know it’s your father’s…”

“You told me once that I would probably have to give my life to help these people,” Ringo sighed, “I’ve got no problem selling my ship to help.”

“Get the word out, then. We’ve got a day’s work to do and about fifteen minutes to do it in.”

“What about-?” Skrap was about to ask, but Mauthe cut him off.

“We’ll do what we can, brother, but we must attend to the evacuation… Skrap… Organize the defenses. Battle is inevitable.”

The former Council soldier nodded and headed out, followed shortly by his counterpart, the former Longbow soldier, Brother Hand. They rallied the guards and made preparations to demolish their section of the ruined temple. Mauthe led Daniel and Candace to the communications array to begin the negotiations.

On the horizon, several dark shapes slowly grew bigger as they approached. The crews on board the Fliers knew where they were going and what they were about. The pilots were already locking on targets of interest.

“They knew we were coming, sir,” one of the pilots reported back to Captain Mako.

There was no reply from the shark-like mutant. He didn’t want his irritation to show. With everything happening between Arachnos and Longbow, the Isles and Paragon, it was a wonder anything happened in secret anymore. There were too many people moving in too tight a space. The population needed to be culled.

This would be a good start.

I loved the imploding Funhouse, Grey.

Still have the last two sections to read though.

Kipland didn’t waste any time. In two steps, he was inside Florio’s clumsy sweep and stepping on his left thigh. Vaulting himself up, he drove his elbow into the bigger man’s cybernetic chin, the momentum sending him crashing spectacularly to the ground.

The brassen turrets mounted on his back started firing wildly, twin rotary cannons spewing metal haphazardly across the walls, floor and ceiling. Ice coated the screaming Luke Hoss moments before the arc of ballistic fire reached him, barely saving his life. Shivering, he was surprised that he was able to move with the strange stuff coating him.

“It’s magic!” Johnny shouted as he gathered Luke and his coworker up and shoved them down the hall, “Get out of here! Go! Go!”

“You’re not letting them get away, are you!?” Matt grunted as he found himself battling a number of soldiers who had made it through the door, “Hello!? Aiding and abetting!?”

“They’re still not combatants,” Roland grumbled as he let fly two arrows, sending one of the blonde brute’s assailants screaming to the ground as he clutched at his injured bicep, “The cops can pick them up later.”

The bottleneck didn’t last. In short order, explosive rounds blasted the wall blocking the way between Kipland’s group and the Nemesis troops. They had apparently converted half of the building into a large warehouse. They were using it to field this cell of what was apparently a Nemedyne operation, and they had stockpiled it with all sorts of armaments.

The riflemen with the bizarre long-barreled blunderbuss cannons worked to reload, but the concrete beneath them suddenly rose up, forming into the shape of a man. The stone crumbled away, leaving behind the encrusted form of Dustin Simms, and the large young man proceeded to stoically pummel the soldiers.

A pair of Warhulks lumbered over to the battle from what looked to have once been a garage. Their clunky, brass, bulbous bodies hissed as they plodded into the staging area. Bright bolts of lightning struck their glass canopies, flashing from a small cloud that grew over the heads of the soldiers, cracking the glass and puncturing the seams, causing treated fluids to spew out in a fine spray. Another bolt of lightning from Michael’s fingertips and one of the Walkers caught flame.

Kip wasn’t wasting any time with Florio. Wanting to halt the spew of metal death, he leaped into the air and came crashing back down on the left gatling gun. The young man’s force was enough to crush the loading mechanism, halting its spinning and, more importantly, its firing.

The cyborg grabbed the smaller man by the wrist and yanked him aside. With a twist, Kipland was free and, after a quick roll, back on his feet and ready for more fighting. Behind the large, metal-infused man, he could see a trio of featureless, yet bright humanoid figures advancing on the Warhulks.

Matt Jones spit at some of the soldiers fighting him and walked away. The soldiers went to follow, but were stopped by a large blaze left in the portly man’s wake. Grinning to himself and flexing his fingers, he stepped up behind Florio as a massive stone mallet formed in his hands and he brought it around to smash into the big man’s back.

“Ow!” Friendly Fire shouted as he stumbled forward, “Thought that was clever, huh?”

The surviving gatling cannon swiveled around, sighted on Jones, and fired a stream of hot metal into his chest. The supernatural flames and chunks of mystical ice coating the young man kept him from being perforated, but he still turned away from the impact, shouting in pain.

“You focus on the troops!” Kipland shouted as he caught a heavy smash on his forearm, “I’ve got this!”

Dustin “King Slater” Simms was having trouble in the staging area. While he was a strong guy and his protective stone layer kept him from most of the harm, he just wasn’t able to dish out enough punishment to make the Nemesis troops stop fighting him.

That all stopped the moment one delivered a butt-stroke to his back. Feigning stumbling to the ground, Dustin reached into the concrete. Some of the soldiers who could see marveled at how his hand seemed to just sink into the stone like it was water. Their awe quickly turned to despair as the ground beneath them became a soft, thick liquid. It wasn’t enough to drown them, but walking suddenly felt like they were mired in a swamp. What was worse was that as Dustin pulled his hand free of the muck, a large hammer was withdrawn with it.

“I left this outside behind some bushes before we came in,” he grumbled as he hoisted it to full view, “I didn’t know if I’d need it…”

“Uh-oh…” one of the soldiers grunted as a bit of liquid concrete slid off the hammer’s forged edge.

With a grunt, Dustin swung the heavy hammer about, striking several soldiers in their faces and knocking them to the ground. They were held fast in the sticky mire that the concrete floor had become in the young man’s presence, freeing his attention for the others who attempted to surround him.

One of the War Hulks exploded, batting Michael out of the sky and knocking Johnny Nack to the ground. As the purple-clad young man pushed himself back to his feet, he saw that his robed high-school chum was unconscious. His illusions had also faltered, leaving him with one severely damaged (and thoroughly aggravated) War Hulk to contend with and no backup.

Most people would be afraid in this situation. However, “Notorious Nack” had faced his own fair share of villains in his days as a Las Vegas card shark. That city was home to all kinds, from petty scammers to Frost Family heavy-hitters, and he often ran into the lowest of the low who thought they could simply muscle their way through where their skill couldn’t get them. The War Hulk before him was a physical embodiment of such a philosophy, armed with cannons, claws and flamethrowers, but obviously not a clever mind.

It took another step forward, but Johnny made a throwing motion with his hand and snapped his fingers. A bright flash halted the machine in its tracks, the imprisoned pilot within disoriented by the sudden light. A moment later, he heard the red-haired young man’s high toned voice making an audacious announcement.

“You, sir, are about to discover why they call me the P-I-M-P!”

Nack drew the dark wand from his hip and slid it until he was grasping the center of the haft of crooked wood. He held it out to the side and gestured to it, waiting until he was sure the Walker’s pilot was paying attention.

“Behold! The Pimp Cane!” he continued, “You’ve seen others like it, but there are few that are quite like this…”

The War Hulk leveled its cannon on the purple-clad young man and fired. Johnny spun around, narrowly avoiding the trajectory of the shell. Crouched to one knee, he held the wand across his body and aimed one end at the assaulting machine. A burst of dark particles erupted from it and slammed into the surface of the Hulk’s canopy, fragmenting the glass.

“…We’re all familiar with THAT enchantment,” he continued, “But then there’s THIS one!”

Twirling the wand as he spun around again, he returned to the position he vacated, still crouched, but brought the wand up to rest on his shoulder. Looking like some sort of garish soldier, he sighted down along the length of the mystical weapon. Its blue runs flared brightly suddenly and a burst of ice erupted from the weapon where just a moment prior negative energy had blasted. The chunks struck the glass with enough force to shatter it and the Warhulk exploded as the preservative fluids inside the tank struck the flame of the flamethrowing cannon.

The blast rolled harmlessly over Johnny, leaving him blinking and surprised. However, his shock didn’t keep him from leaping to his feet and dancing in triumph.

“Aw! YEAH! That’s right!” he cheered while weaving about like a corkscrew, using the cane for balance, “Who’s the man? I’m the man!”

He failed to notice several soldiers had gathered around him. Or at least, he seemed to. Dustin was too far away to help him, still battling with the remains of his group. Michael still lied on the ground a few yards away, out cold. Up in the offices, he could hear Kipland and the monstrous leader of the group exchanging blows and the bellowing battlecry of Matt Jones indicated he was dragging a few of his assailants to the concrete from the top of the steel-grated stairs.

“FREEZE!” one shouted, “Cease your fighting! We’ve got two of yours down here!”

Loud crashes could be heard, followed by dull thudding as Jones proceeded to pummel his opponents, smashing in their brass masks with stone-plated fists. He was completely lost to his battle rage. The sounds of Kipland and Florio battling continued.

Roland, however, had an arrow knocked on his compound bow and was aiming it at the group around his old schoolmate. Johnny seemed to notice the troops and stopped dancing, giving a smug grin and shaking his head disappointedly.

“Stop your friends!” the apparent Colonel shouted, “Stop them, or we’ll turn your friend here into red mist!”

“Well, that’s hardly flattering,” the purple-clad red-head quipped as he twiddled his fingers and a deck of cards appeared in his free hand.

“Drop the cards! DROP THE CARDS!” the soldiers shouted, bringing their rifles closer to him.

Smiling broadly, Notorious Nack complied, and as each card fell, a bright flash erupted from the face, resulting in a rapid-fire strobe effect. Blinded, the soldiers let out a shout and grabbed for their eyes with their trigger hands.

Blinking the light from their eyes, they tried to sight back in on Johnny, only to be greeted by a loud flapping sound. A moment later, the Colonel who had threatened to turn him into a red mist just seconds earlier felt something sharp strike his neck. Fearing he’d been struck by one of the playing cards, he reached up and felt warm fluid seeping from a wound there. In fact, each soldier was choking and gurgling from wounds scored on their throats by the flying playing cards that eventually erupted into small puffs of sparkles once their mission was done.

After a few minutes, the soldiers ceased struggling and lied still on the ground. They were sleeping as soundly as Michael on the other side of the room and Johnny gave a satisfied, self-assured nod at his accomplishment.

Roland, still trying to puzzle out what had just happened, felt a few rounds spray across his back, the inertial dampener Sheldon Wallace had given him absorbing the impact, and he tumbled off the side of the impromptu loft. Johnny helped him to his feet and they looked up to see Kipland was striking Florio in the face with a flying roundhouse kick.

“You’re out of friends!” Florio shouted.

“You’ve been hitting me with the power of a Mack Truck,” Kip replied as he drove his fist hard into the center of the cyborg’s chest, “And I’m still going strong!”

Friendly Fire lashed out for a final strike, but Kip ducked under it. He dove for Florio’s knee, feeling something pop as he collided, and the big man screamed in pain. Kip rolled to the side and came up with a hard sidekick, knocking the big man over the side of the wall and into the staging area below.

Landing hard on his arm with a metallic shriek, Friendly Fire scrambled to right himself. He reached down and popped his knee joint back into place. It wasn’t some piece of bone held in place by tendons, but a Nemesis prosthetic. The little man had merely inconvenienced him.

An arrow thunked into his hand, pinning it to his thigh. Howling in pain, Florio turned to Roland Grey, who was already sighting in another arrow.

“You think-!”

Another arrow struck his gatling gun as he was bringing it around to spray into the pudgy vigilante. It was caught between the rotating barrels, and as Florio aimed at his assailant, the feathered shaft and sharp head struck and lacerated the back of his neck and his ear, causing him to scream in pain and surprise.

“I’ll admit,” Roland said quietly as he drew another arrow and knocked it, “That surprised me. Hang on…”

The end of the arrow flared and he fired it into the turret, setting it ablaze. Florio shook his head suddenly and the pack disengaged from its moorings on his shoulders, hips and spine, and fell away from his back.

“That’s it…” he growled, “That’s it! I am going to tear you apart! I am going to rip you limb-from-limb with my bare hands!”

“Do cybernetic limbs count?” Johnny asked.

Florio took a step, but it was his last for the day. Kipland had jumped from the upper floor and hurtled into the big man, smashing his knee against the cyborg’s face and dislocating his jaw. Gurgling, Friendly Fire crumpled to the concrete floor in a heap as Kip landed spryly on his feet. After a few tense seconds, he was certain the fight was over. Even Dustin and Matt had stopped wailing on their foes.

“What did you do to these guys?” Roland asked Johnny before they could get sidetracked, gesturing to the men clutching at their necks.

“They thought their necks got slashed by those illusion cards,” Nack explained as his outfit reverted to his simple civilian attire.

“And… What? Their minds made it real?”

“Huh?” came the confused answer, “What? No! Jebus… Roland! We’re talking about the sorts of creatures that would elect George Bush twice… And even considered electing Hillary Clinton…”

“I wouldn’t call that an indication of intelligence,” the portly hunter grumbled.

“True, but it does show a severe lack of imagination,” Johnny grinned, “What they went through was a work of art on my part. I had them confused and frightened… And then a few light taps with my cane…”

He waved the crooked piece of dark wood for emphasis…

“…And they passed out from simple shock and despair. They’ll be fine in a few hours.”

“Alright… Sounds good,” Kip announced, “Roland, call your brother in law and get an A-P-B put out on Lucas Hoss and any other employees of Nova Core. Johnny… Whatever doubts I had about you… They’re kaput.”

“I told you, man,” the red-haired young man said as he walked over to Michael to give him some light smacks on the face to wake him up, “I cut my teeth in Vegas. I know what I’m doing.”

Nice description of the chaos of a fight. Oh yeah, YEAH MORE STORY!

This attack group was efficient. Mako, or “Captain Mako,” as he preferred to be called, had trained the Bane Spider corps to be ruthless killers, and their tactics showed the results of that training.

Looking like gigantic, evil, armored wasps, the Arachnos Fliers bombarded the island with missiles and laser blasts. Many of Mauthe’s hidden defenders retreated from their posts, rushing to the fortified positions in a vain hope that they would be able to withstand more.

By the time troops were finally landed, the automated turrets and landmines on the beach had been obliterated. Bane Spider soldiers, backed with a small horde of Wolf Spiders for kicks, were teleported into the area and they proceeded to march almost unimpeded up to the main settlement.

Unarmed women and children were ushered to the harbor through hidden egress pathways, protected by what few bodyguards could be spared as a new strategy was employed. The sounds of explosions revealed that not all of the defenses had been eliminated, but it wouldn’t be enough to keep a bloody firefight from happening.

The brunt of the defenses were localized in the harbor. Mauthe’s soldiers were armed with the heaviest weapons they could field, from assault rifles to rocket launchers and a few even had machine guns. While Janus’s submersibles were loaded up, these men would hold the line with their last breath if need be. Mauthe stood shoulder-to-shoulder with these men, he could think of no nobler endeavor.

A secondary emplacement was established in the main encampment to act as a diversionary tactic. Daniel and Candace joined the forces there, led by Brother War. The big man wordlessly pointed the two former Arachnos agents where he wanted them to go before taking his place in the middle of the main street. A missile barrage came hurtling toward him, but when the smoke cleared, he still stood stoically, brandishing his massive war blade in defiance of the Flier that had taken the shot at him, beckoning for the next challenge.

The Attack Master on the ground saw this and called the Flier away to serve as backup for his next stratagem. Captain Mako had never placed much stock in bombardment to take down a hero, and neither would he. He rallied his troops and sent them roaring down the street to eliminate the threat. The Bane Spiders rushed in, gripping their bladed Nullifier Maces with both hands each as they intended to end this insolent whelp’s life as quickly as possible, the Wolf Spiders sprinting as fast as they could to unload volleys into him and prove they had what it took to become Banes themselves.

As they neared, the windows of the blasted, smoking buildings erupted in gunfire. Shotguns, assault rifles and pistols sent hot metal sailing into the armored forms of the Arachnos troops. This barely slowed the Banes, but the Wolf Spiders were perforated and cut down. A mob of desperate young men came hurtling out of the ruins surrounding the big man to meet the Bane Spiders head-on, battling them with spiked baseball bats and sledgehammers.

They were woefully outmatched.

Bane Spiders deflected the improvised weapons easily and proceeded to chop the Brotherhood forces to pieces. Many fled in the face of these powerful forces, and the Banes gleefully pursued them.

They had forgotten about War, though.

One soldier was snatched by the arm as he closed with one wounded young man and hurled around to bowl a small squad over. Another lost half his head as the big man’s heavy war blade was swung around in a mighty arc, felling two more who weren’t able to get their maces up in time to guard against the attack, while many others were knocked aside from the impact they barely blocked.

His fury raised, Brother War waded into the midst of the distracted Bane Spider soldiers and went to work. Those he didn’t cut down with his War Blade, he kicked or punched aside. Even for a big man, he was stronger than he looked. His cold blue eyes glowered angrily at those who would make victims of his surrogate brothers and sisters. Arachnos had no right to commit this atrocity, yet they proceeded with impunity.

Well, he would punish them. He would show Arachnos what it would cost them to harm the only family he had ever known.

A humming sound alerted him and War looked up in barely enough time to bring his torch-cut truck hood blade to deflect the blast of the “cruise missile” the Flier hovering above had sent in to finish him off. The precision weapon wasn’t really a missile, more like a bomb that was piloted like a drone, and when it struck the weapon, death was blasted in all directions, sending fire and shrapnel into the Bane Spiders and Brother War in the same instant.

The big man pulled his arm away from his face. Grumbling, he reached up to pull one of the pieces of shrapnel out of his arm. It was a hooked piece of black metal, too smooth to have been simple wreckage. It was one of the spikes from the bomb. Arachnos definitely made weapons to hurt meta humans and supers.

As the smoke cleared, the Attack Master stood in the street, standing between War and the beach. He was lightly tossing his Nullifier Mace with its blades arrayed like the legs of a spider from hand to hand. The rest of the fight was going to be just the two of them.

Too bad War was in no condition to fight. Shakily, he pushed himself off the ground. He could feel fire coursing through his veins. There must have been some poison or toxin or venom on that piece of metal that had punctured his flesh. His vision was a little blurry.

He could hear one of the buildings nearby explode and felt the wake of the blast make him stumble. It wasn’t a missile or rocket that had done it, however, it was the propane tanks and land mines the Brothers had rigged in their escape route that the Bane Spiders pursuing them had triggered.

“This was a pleasant distraction,” the Attack Master rumbled darkly, “Though ultimately futile. We will eliminate your pathetic forces and subjugate some of those who surrender. Many of them, however… Well… Examples will have to be made…”

The Attack Master raised his mace and twirled it so the blades would be coming down on War’s head. When he swung, however, there was a distinct metallic clang and the blow never landed. Looking up, War could see that something translucent stood between him and his foe.

“Candace Lawrence,” he growled, “Traitor… Execution… Commencing…”

“Oh yeah?” Shadeheart asked as her cloaking device reacted to the contact between her blades and his mace and slowly revealed her, “Then why aren’t I dead?”

The big man pressed harder, but with the way Shadeheart had his weapon caught with her Widow Spikes, she had him in her control. With a twist of her frame, the heavier weapon was driven into the ground and she whirled around to slash one of her blades across his helmet, leaving a deep gash in the plate.

He wasn’t defeated yet, however, and he wasn’t going to let it be easy. Wrenching his mace out of the ground, he spun about, sweeping the weapon at Candace’s legs. She backflipped out of the way, but found she was landing in the path of the volley he postured to fire. Rolling backwards, she narrowly avoided the spray of toxic energy, cursing in dismay as some struck Brother War. As she vaulted to her feet, the Attack Master followed up the spray with an explosive blast. She couldn’t dodge the eruption and was thrown into the remains of the railing of one of the blasted buildings.

“You’re going to die now, *****,” the big man growled as he pushed himself to his feet and started lumbering toward her, “This is why I never like having Night Widows assigned to my squads… Once their tricks are done, they can’t really stand up in a fight…”

A heavy grip closed on his ankle and the Attack Master looked down to see that Brother War had him. He moved to aim his mace at the big man’s head and was surprised when he was suddenly vaulted into the air. Apparently, the toxins that had struck him hadn’t weakened the big man nearly enough.

The Attack Master landed hard on his shoulder and head. If it weren’t for the reinforced construction of the armor, he probably would have snapped his neck. However, disoriented as he was, he couldn’t fend off the sudden stab into his belly. Shadeheart had recovered quickly from the explosion and delivered what would have been a fatal blow to his liver if his emergency teleportation matrix hadn’t kicked in and zapped him away.

“Well fought…” War grumbled to the much smaller woman.

“I would have had him, regardless,” she replied snidely.

“I don’t doubt it.”

“Seriously! In order to strike me with any kind of force, he would have had to lift that heavy thing over his head, leaving me an opening to-!”

She stopped when a red cone of light singled the two of them out. The Flier overhead was sighting in on them for a laser barrage.

Or at least, it would have. Instead, a venom grenade scored its surface, corroding the joint between the laser turret and the cockpit. Before the weapon could fire, a grenade struck the seam and separated the weapon from its mooring in a spectacular fiery display.

The entire vessel swung around and the pilot saw his assailant was the green armor-clad Daniel Taylor. Standing on the burning roof of the building opposite from Shadeheart, the athletic young man fired a volley of armor piercing rounds into the vehicle’s canopy. A few rounds made it in, startling the pilot, who then triggered for another cruise missile to fire.

As the port opened, Daniel knew what was coming. He drew his own Nullifier Mace from his hip and ran for the edge of the roof, leaped off and landed on the canopy. As the blades of the drone emerged from the port, he brought the weapon’s head crashing down on it like some sort of evil Whack-a-Mole, eliciting a sad, broken warble from the drone as it jammed in the port and armed itself.

The explosion filled the vessel’s interior with fire, threw Daniel from it as it whipped around, and batted the machine whirling out of the sky. The Flier’s crash cut off the encampment proper from the beach by means of the main path, but that meant it cut them off as well.

“It’s okay,” War grumbled, “We’ve ways around…”

“Daniel!” Candace shouted and she went running for where her lover had crashed into the burning underbrush.

A burst of heavy gunfire answered her and a few armored bodies fell motionlessly into her field of vision. Daniel stumbled out of the brush, holding his right arm against his torso awkwardly.

“I think I’ve got a stress fracture,” he grunted, “Burned like Hell spraying those bastards…”

“It’s okay, it’s okay… We’re safe…” she replied as she embraced him, “You’re gonna be okay…”

Daniel embraced her with his good arm, letting his weapon hang from his shoulder by the sling. While he wanted to enjoy the moment longer, the sounds of gunfire and human screaming reminded him that the situation still wasn’t over.

“Did you seriously just say we’re safe?” he asked half-jokingly.

“I… I just…” she flustered, “I’m not used to feeling like this, Daniel! You could have been killed!”

“So could you,” he replied quietly.

His helmet was cracked and she could see his eye through it. She didn’t need to read his mind to know how worried he was.

“We should get to the harbor,” Brother War interrupted them, “With the buildings here burning and one squad eliminated, they’re likely to redouble their efforts on eliminating our population.”

“How do we stop the other Fliers?” Candace asked.

“We have our ways…” the big man replied as he led them between two of the ruins.

Behind them, the ancient temple that led to the submerged ruins between the islands exploded and collapsed. Mauthe always knew Recluse would send his cronies to claim the island one day. Now, they would have to figure out how to take the power of Dagoeth without many of the inscriptions on the walls.

Brother Mauthe’s troops knew they had to hold the line at the bottleneck between the harbor and the beach. Rock formations and temple ruins made for a natural barricade to keep the ground troops from swarming over their position, and they had the position rigged to wipe out just about anybody who came through.

Unfortunately, the Arachnos Raid Leader was a ruthless operative by the name of Kaplan. The towering, cybernetic man knew there would be all sorts of nastiness on the other side of the wall, and he did what any other sadist would have done. He ordered a wave of Wolf Spiders to breach the gap.

The Wolf Spiders should have known better, but in the cult of personality that is Arachnos, all the lower-tier soldiers wanted to prove they had what it took to be the upper-tier types. Whether they were tough enough, strong enough, ruthless enough, or just simply cruel enough. Most of Arachnos’s elite shock troops would have been considered homicidal socipaths.

It didn’t help that they were led by one, the nefarious Captain Mako. The half-man, half-shark mutant casually watched the progress of the battle on the screens of his various televisions. Each screen showed him a different angle as presented by a team leader, Kaplan, or one of the various Fliers that were still hovering about and strafing the ground. Bored, he dug a claw into his teeth and started picking at the tiny bits of his last meal stuck there. He hoped this whole thing would be over soon. He wanted to go out and get some exercise, maybe hunt down his next meal, but Recluse told him he had to watch these things…

What Wolf Spiders weren’t killed by the hail of gunfire pouring through the gap were swiftly cut down by a wave of explosions from carefully-placed claymore mines. There was an unsettling silence that hovered over the defenders of the harbor as they wondered what the next assault would be.

The submersibles emerged from the water again and the hatches opened. Janus’s troops stepped out and ushered the next batch of civilians into the vessels. A man with a scar lancing down the side of his face across his eye socket made his way out of one of the submarines and stalked toward the trench coat-clad leader of the Brotherhood.

“Mister Janus,” Mauthe said without turning.

“How did you know who I was?” the leader of the smugglers asked.

“The only other kind of person who would approach me with such purpose would be an assassin,” Mauthe replied as he finally turned, “And my people would have stopped you if that were the case.”

“I just may find myself playing that role…”

Janus looked around at the situation and growled. He didn’t like charity work, but he couldn’t sit by and let these people get slaughtered.

“You’re going to owe me for this, Mauthe,” he explained, “I don’t take payments in cabbage and I’ve got plenty enough hard work in my life.”

“I figured you’d want compensation,” the other sighed, “I’m afraid that money will be a problem, and whatever resources I have are in the process of being depleted.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Janus replied as he swiftly drew his scoped pistol and blasted a shot into the foliage overhanging a rock outcropping.

The armored form of a dead Bane Spider Commando tumbled out of the cover and fell to the water below. Janus brought the scope of the gun down from his scarred eye and holstered it before turning and heading for his submersible.

“If Arachnos knew I was helping you, they would gut my organization. We’ll talk on my ship about how you’ll be repaying me.”

Mauthe nodded as the other departed and returned to his defenses. War and the two former Arachnos operatives arrived with the last wave of soldiers and civilians. That meant all other access to the region was open.

He brought his wrist up to his mouth and muttered something into the communicator there. He still had an ace in the hole, but it would take time to get going.

“We deployed countermeasures all along the route,” War explained, his breath coming out in haggard gasps, “We should have plenty of warning when they come to swarm us.”

One of Mauthe’s personal guard, the former Longbow Guardian, Brother Hand, approached from the docks. He had a worried look on his face.

“The subs are full,” he explained, “And we’ve got too many people to load into the next pair... And I don’t know if we’ll be able to survive much longer past their next push.”

“We will do what we can,” Mauthe rested a hand on his friend’s shoulder, “It is alright, Brother. We will see these people to safety.”

The next wave through the breach was composed entirely of Bane Spider Commandos. The machine guns belted out heavy rounds that tore them asunder, but many still got through. Shotguns and heavy pistols were utilized next and a few commandos got through to clobber the defending Brothers. The broken bodies of the deceased defenders tumbled to the dockside, their faces twisted into pained masks of futility.

Seeing the situation, Candace and Daniel left the docks to join the fray. Brother War crushed a few green crystals in his hand, releasing a green aura that wrapped about him and closed his wounds before he followed them.

Already, more commandos were scrambling to the breach. Behind them, a Flier rose into view and flew overhead, spitting energy beams at the clustered defenders and sending missiles into the ruin wall. A few of the Brothers armed with rocket launchers fired on the offending vehicle. Most of the rockets went wide, a couple struck the vehicle’s armored hull, but one struck home on one of the hover pods. The giant, armored “wasp” was able to stay aloft, but it was flying much slower now, with less maneuverability. Because of this, it wasn’t able to avoid getting blasted by the missiles fired by the Captured Dream as its engines revved up.

“Ringo!” Mauthe shouted into his wrist, “What are you doing?”

“I’m taking those Fliers out of the air!” the arsonist shouted back, “I’ve got Brick on deck and Hood on the Vulcan!”

The modified trawler pulled away from the dock, the Teflon-coated hull allowing it to glide smoothly through the water. Static arced around the vessel as its energy field was activated and the large motorized gatling gun bolted to the front swiveled as its handler refamiliarized himself with the controls.

As the ship was swinging around the coast, the gatling gun revved up and started spewing streams of heavy metal into the Bane Spiders on the beach. Brother Brick watched the devastation with grim resolution as he gripped the rail on the starboard.

One of the Fliers turned and fired a volley of energy beams at the ship. They scored against the force field protecting it and did no damage. This only prompted the Flier to launch a volley of missiles, some of which tore through the field but didn’t strike the hull. Instead, they exploded near it and shook it about.

Brother Hood turned the Vulcan to the Flier and started blazing away. The heavy rounds dented the armored hull of the vehicle and played havoc with the pilot’s targeting. A volley of missiles from one of the Dream’s rear turrets shook it to the side, but still didn’t take it down.

At this point, in desperation, the pilot made a crucial mistake. He tried to launch one of his cruise missiles, but the drone was struck repeatedly by the bullets impacting the Flier. It detonated, causing the large vessel to plummet into the water.

It didn’t sink. Brother Brick cursed as he realized it was stuck in the sand. As Hood started firing into the forces on the beach again, scattering them, he dove into the water and started swimming for the wreck.

The pilot of the fallen Flier opened a side hatch and pushed out of the vessel. He checked his mace and his pistol and tried to figure out what he would have to do to take out the assaulting boat.

The fish-like head of a green Coralax Hybrid emerged from the roiling water and the pilot blasted it in the face with his pistol. As the body fell back, a heavy, long-barrel revolver came around from behind it and fired at the dark-armored man.

Brick rolled the body of the fish man aside and fired another round at the pilot, striking his staff with the large caliber bullet and knocking it out of his hand. The pilot brought his pistol back around and they wrestled, firing rounds about them until their guns ran dry. Brick, however, didn’t need his gun to finish the pilot. Bunching the Arachnos minion’s arms up with his own, he twisted around and vaulted his opponent to the hull of the Flier. When the pilot started coughing and sputtering to catch his breath, Brick freed himself and started pummeling him with his fists.

“This is for my father! This is for my sister! And this!” Brick shouted, punctuating each sentence with a punch, “Is for your boss!”

He continued punching until he felt the pilot’s teeth give. A scaly hand grasped his ankle and he turned briefly to backhand the Coralax Hybrid trying to take advantage of his distraction and delivered one last savage strike to the defeated pilot. As he stood, his foe slumped to the sea and Brick checked the rest of his situation.

Overhead, the two remaining Fliers were firing on the Captured Dream while troops headed for the harbor. The brawler, deciding what he had to do, dove into the crashed vehicle’s open door and made for the cockpit. A few minutes later, another cruise missile erupted from the water’s surface and hurtled into the Flier directly overhead. The vessel fell and crashed into the one stuck in the water.

“Brick!” Hood shouted, then turned the Vulcan toward the remaining Flier and mashed the thumb triggers down, sending a stream of hot metal into the remaining vessel, “You son of a- WHAT YOU GOT!? WHAT! YOU! GAAAAAAAAAAAHT!?”

As the gun chambers started to overheat, the barn on the edge of the cluster of burning buildings at the top of the hill in the middle of the island suddenly exploded. Hood stopped firing and looked up to see what was causing the disturbance. He hadn’t noticed any Bane Spiders heading in that direction.

A hand grasped the edge of the bow and Brick’s soaked head came into view. Gritting his teeth, the athletic young man shook violently as he kicked off another Coralax Hybrid that tried to wrestle him into the drink. His face suddenly contorting in rage, he let go and fell into the water again, where thrashing indicated that some form of violence was being committed just under the surface. Finally, covered in blood, Brick re-emerged, a knife blade gritted between his teeth as he growled unintelligible curses.

“I thought you were dead!” Hand shouted before firing another burst at the Flier.

“I’m a strong swimmer,” Brick growled after spitting the knife out of his mouth, “And I’m tough!”

“What do you think happened at the barn?”

Brick looked across the water and smiled. He knew what was in that barn.

“Looks like Chaingunnz is out.”

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The Freakshow have their tanks. They’re trundling, clunky things, with massive mallets or wicked claws or curved blades for arms. Then there’s Chaingunnz, who was built into an actual tank. His lower half was an old full track from a scrapped M-1 Abrams the Freakshow found near the entrance to the Rikti War Zone (back during the days when the heavy gate between Crey’s Folly and what was then known as the Rikti Crash Site was opened periodically), while the upper body was bigger, thicker and tougher than the typical Freakshow Tank.

His left arm ended in a wicked, three-fingered claw, with long, hooked blades like the Swipers. His right was another Vulcan gatling gun, much like the one mounted on the Captured Dream. Shoulder-mounted rocket launchers and a light machine gun turret mounted on the tank hull, fit in where the driver’s compartment would have been.

When Mauthe had called him, earlier, he had fired up his own fusion core, a process that took a few minutes to finish. Once his engines revved up, he let out a bellow, prompting a Wolf Spider to look into the barn to see who was there. Shouting obscenities through his viewscreen, Chaingunnz locked on and fired a shoulder missile into the offending soldier, obliterating the wall and the door, thus clearing the way for him to tear his way into the open air.

Before the smoke cleared, a volley of bullets was sprayed into the Arachnos troops heading across the beach toward the harbor. A great gray and black monstrosity rolled out of the haze and continued blazing away. Its domed head turned to the remaining Arachnos Flier before blazing away at it with the chaingun and its remaining missiles.

The Flier remained in the air, however, despite the onslaught. Raid Leader Kaplan watched the scene. The boat was heading back to the docks and his troops were divided on the course of action they should take.

“Black Four,” he growled through their communication channel, “Focus fire on the monster. We will engage the target.”

“Yes sir,” the pilot of the Flier replied and closed the distance between him and the giant Freak Tank.

A barrage of energy lances tore into Chaingunnz, blasting off scrap metal armor plating and damaging internal circuits. Inside the torso of the great machine, the wiry, emaciated body of the man that had become the monstrous cyborg dangled from tubes, chains and metal rigging. A beam scored through and punctured the man’s belly, causing the face that rested inside the domed viewport to gasp in pain.

Chaingunnz wished for the hundredth time he still had his Excelsior. He’d have been able to ignore that hit. He’d be able to choke back down the blood welling up his throat without glancing to the monitor to his right telling him he was dying.

“Figures,” he choked before telling the monitor to shut down and returned to unleashing his barrage on the Flier, “Computer! Tell me when the missiles are reloaded!”

“Missiles-” the computer replied before an explosion rocked the machine. Everything went white as two Cruise Missiles collided with the tank, one in the torso and one in the M1 hull.

Raid Leader Kaplan chuckled as he watched the machine split in two. The giant, humanoid torso collapsed to the ground and lied still as the tracked tank hull rolled for a few more feet and stopped. He wondered, briefly, how the machine had been a threat to prior Fliers before ordering pilot of Black Four to turn to strafing the harbor.

The docks defenders were unable to hold the swarm of Arachnos soldiers at bay. With each wave, more defenders fell to maces, assault rifles, energy beams and their own exploding weaponry. One of the machine gunners was blown to pieces as a Bane Spider Scout sighted on him and let loose a blast that not only erupted as a wave, but detonated the weapon’s ammunition.

Brother War, Daniel Taylor and Candace Lawrence could only slow the tide, hammering the worst clusters of Bane Spiders as the defenders fell back, bit by bit. Four Scouts broke through the ranks, hammering and blasting Brotherhood troops who got in their way. As the throng of people struggling to get into the submarines fled in terror, Brother Mauthe stepped out of their midst and drew his pistols.

The Scouts charged unerringly. He was their target, after all. They just didn’t expect him to blow them off their feet with the high-caliber weaponry. With grim determination, Mauthe put rounds into each of them. One stayed standing and was shot in the face for his resilience. The other three were executed as they tried to stand again, the last killed by a blast from the mace of one of his fellows.

Holding the mace, Mauthe looked up to see the Flier heading their way. They were lost, now.

“Regroup!” he shouted, “Fall back! Fall back! We need to focus fire!”

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When his vision cleared, Chaingunnz found he was lying on the ground. He couldn’t see through his right eye and the dome was shattered.

“Computer…” he gurgled, “Computer…”

The computer warbled out garbled nonsense to him. It felt like his entire body was on fire. Chaingunnz gingerly tested to see if he could still move his limbs. The right arm was non-responsive. The main gun, his namesake, was no longer operable; it was also, in fact, destroyed. The left arm, however, was still in operation.

He was able to get the massive torso to push itself up and looked about to see that the Flier was heading for the harbor. It was already firing lasers over the heads of the Bane Spiders, possibly blasting the docks.

With a violent roar, Chaingunnz forced the machine to drag itself across the dirt. He could feel his body being jostled around inside the wrecked torso. His lower half felt wet and slick. He figured he didn’t have much longer to go, he must have been bleeding profusely.

“Jump jets!” he hollered finally, hoping that while it was probably damaged, the computer might still be able to provide functional ability.

Miraculously, he heard the sound of engines igniting and the roar of the thrusters mounted on his back firing. The torso hurtled through the air, and Chaingunnz reached out to catch the side of the Arachnos Flier with the wicked claw of his left arm. There was a metallic crunch followed by a hideous whine and his world spun around before leaving him in darkness and pain.

Mauthe was surprised when he saw the wrecked torso of Chaingunnz crash into the assaulting Flier and drag it to the ground. With renewed vigor, he and his few remaining troops pressed their defense, unloading their weapons into the still-overwhelming force of Bane Spiders that charged them with near single-minded ferocity.

The leader of this Brotherhood figured this was the end. What was left of the civilians fled into the submersibles, leaving him and his troops behind. This was what he was meant to do. He had saved them from a dark fate at the hands of a sadistic overlord. He had helped lost souls find themselves again. As his ammunition dwindled and his fellows died around him, he figured this was how it was supposed to go.

No more delusions about trying to foment a revolution or being the lost son of the violently deposed Marchand. This was a cause far more noble. He had affected people’s lives in a meaningful way. He hoped they would be able to make it in the U.S. He hoped-

A pair of large hands grabbed him by the shoulders and lifted him roughly. Before he knew what was happening, Brother War threw Mauthe into the back of the Captured Dream. Other defenders were in the trawler with him, wounded soldiers who could do nothing more in the fight. As he struggled to stand, Candace lightly landed next to him on her feet, followed by her boyfriend collapsing to the deck on the other side of Mauthe.

Brother Skrap and Brother Hand covered the ramp leading onto the boat as the last defenders who could make it crossed. The few remaining to hold the line waved the two off as Brother War hurled his war blade into the midst of the troops one last time and bolted for the shoreline. The battle was over.

“Goodbye,” Mauthe whispered as the brave souls were cut down by the heartless Arachnos troops while the ship pulled away.

Brother War leaped for the side of the Captured Dream and caught a hold of the rail. A few energy beams scored into his back, but he was still able to pull himself onboard. The vessel sailed rapidly away, moving exceptionally fast with its fusion-powered engine and Teflon-coated hull. The force field protecting the vehicle burst into static a few times as it was struck by projectiles from the Arachnos soldiers who still tried to get a few shots in, but it was over.

“Sir?” Brother Skrap asked as he knelt next to Brother Mauthe, “Are you alright?”

“We’re done,” the former leader of the group sighed as he found a more comfortable position to watch the island recede, “Arachnos has finished us.”

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“This island will make for an excellent forward operations post,” Kaplan stated as he and his entourage approached the mangled hulks that were the gigantic Freakshow Tank and the last Flier, “Plus, we’ll be able to finally take the power of these temples…”

“But the damage…” one of the Attack Leaders started to interject.

“It’s not our job to figure the research out,” Kaplan cut him off, “Lord Recluse will get the right people into position. We have succeeded in securing this location. That was the main purpose of our mission.”

“The main purpose of your mission,” a voice hissed across the communication channel, “was to inflict suffering on those insurrectionist whelps. You were to make an example of them. A slow… Painful… Vivid example…”

“I… Apologize, Captain Mako,” Raid Leader Kaplan intoned, fear finally tingeing his voice, “But we slew many… They were equipped far better than we were led to believe…”

“Relax, Kaplan,” the shark man laughed, “You did well enough. Just not well enough for me to get around to requisitioning your pickup anytime soon. See you when I see you…”

With that, the connection cut out and the Bane Spiders were left to laugh to each other. At first, their levity was nervous, their commander had just left them on the island to fend for themselves. On the other hand, he hadn’t stated in uncertain terms that they were to fear for their lives.

The Bane Spiders gathered around to swap stories about their fighting and how they felt about the foolish dregs who dared to stand against the might of Lord Recluse. They were pleased with their victory and exhilarated that the dissidents had put up more of a fight than expected. Eventually, the talk turned to how they were to return home, which led to a few improbable suggestions, such as flying or teleporting.


“I wonder how they’d feel if we swam all the way back to Grandville!” the Attack Leader laughed, which caused more boisterous reactions.

“I’m not in the mood for that,” Kaplan chuckled as he stomped toward the wreckage, “Let’s salvage the wrecks of these Fliers. Maybe we can get a working vessel going…”

He leaned into the wrecked vehicle’s open hatch to call to the pilot. As the young man replied that he was okay, just a little stuck in his crash belt, he heard something else behind him: A chuckling. Turning, Raid Leader Kaplan saw the bald, scarred and sickly head of the man who had to be Chaingunnz.

“What are you laughing at?” he asked.

“Some-something… Funny!” Chaingunnz choked out, “O-on… T.V.!”

With his last breath, he looked to his right and his head slumped. A trickle of blood leaked from his slightly parted lips and Kaplan snorted derisively. Curious, he walked up to the broken canopy and leaned inside. A flicker of light caught his eye and he turned to see that the health monitor had been turned on, indicating a flatline for Chaingunnz’s heartbeat.

“Well, that’s reassure-“ he got out before he saw what it was that the psychotic dying man had been laughing at.

Below the flatline was a warning: “Attention! Fusion Core Breach detected. Self Destruct Imminent!”

He couldn’t get the warning out before an explosion as bright as the sun incinerated him and what remained of his army.