Max Steel: No Mercy

by Tower of Babel

When Vitriol brakes out of prison and comes hunting for Max, Max must muster up all his strength and abilities to defeat the augmented villain before he can do some real damage. Josh's day at the beach is put on hold, test-driving a new N-Tek toy. But Vitriol seems to be a great deal more dangerous than Max thought. Old School Max Steel. One-Shot story.

MAX STEEL STORY – "NO MERCY"

Josh McGrath slicked back his thick blonde hair. The early morning serenity was peaceful on Del Oro Beach as the waves washed ashore in their quietude.

He came to put N-Tek's newest weapon the Wave Rider through its initial paces before confirming its status in the field. This was like a field test, but without the danger.

He laughed. He was N-Tek's top agent and its experimental guinea pig, in a matter of speaking. Not only did he test a lot of N-Tek's newest gadgets, he was also one of their unique "gadgets". But he didn't mind it, because he enjoyed the thrill of it and of what each new toy Berto and N-Tek's techno division could come up it, no matter now strange and awesome. And the Wave Rider was no exception.

It was basically a surfboard but with some high-tech gadgets built in, with side wings and gun turrets that ejected when a button was depressed on top by foot. At the back, a jet booster could be dejected from a secret compartment to allow the board to glide across water as if it were a ski-doo under mechanical power, and there was even attaching wind sail if called for. Everything could be controlled by a foot depression system much like a pedal allows its driver to move in a car.

To Josh, it was the ultimate in extreme surfing.

He was a sports enthusiast and he considered the word "extreme" his middle name, because in his years before joining N-Tek, he had been an avid extreme sports competitor. But ever since he received his "Max" powers, as he called them, he felt they gave him an unfair advantage in competing, and effectively retired from open competition. He was sad about that, but it was necessary.

But, his love of extreme didn't end there. Being an N-Tek agent gave him that adrenaline rush and more. With his skills and training and battling against some of the most dangerous foes and terrorists known to man from all around the world, his love of open extreme competition was fulfilled on an almost daily bases, when he wasn't studying for his college courses.

There were some close-calls, some near-death experiences, but he loved every moment of it.

However, in retrospect, he had fallen into the secret agent gig purely by accident. On a visit to his father's supposedly innocent place of work, N-Tek Headquarters – the so-called capita to everything extreme with the N-Tek moniker, not knowing it was a front for a secret agency that battled terrorists – he had wandered into a secret area, and here he met his first terrorist, Psycho. At the time, he was one of John Dread's minions, out for world domination – the same old dream of megalomaniacs – Smiley, as Max later began to call him because of his metallic face branded into an eternal, sadistic, joker-like smile. Psycho attacked him with a mechanical laser embedded into his arm, augmented from flesh.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, however Josh later looked at it, he had managed to avoid the laser, for which if it had hit him would have killed him, but the laser penetrated a vat of experimental green goo, that contained Berto's "nanoprobes", and it saturated, splashed over Josh's entire body – nearly killing him. Later, thanks to Berto, with a high dose of Transphasic energy, or "T-Juice", as it was later called, Josh survived, because the T-Juice feuled the nanoprobes like candy.

When he had awoken later in a hospital bed after attacked by Psycho, he found he had been fitted with a permanent bio-link device that monitored his vital signs 24/7. With minor tweaks, it also gave him usage of his "Max Powers" and abilities of stealth and super-human strength. With training, he learned to adapt quickly and soon became under the tutelage of a variety of veterans of the spy game. With their help, he learned the tricks of the trade, and then became a secret agent – and the sole propitiator to the nanoprobes, as Berto ceased experimenting with them. Josh became Berto's "experiment" to see how far the nanoprobes could enhance his endurance and strength.

And John Dread's minions didn't disappoint either. Once an agent himself, Josh Dread turned evil, and now N-Tek was mainly set up to foil his ever-enduring plans of conquest.

Every secret agent needed a cool name, so when his father, adopted father, expressed concerns of Josh travelling around the world fighting evil, Josh decided his father was half-right. So, after deciding on a little adaption to his appearance, using his nanoprobes to refract light and using a new-form of holographic projection, he donned a new look and a name for the field, so his family would not be entangled in his secret agent affairs – similar to superheroes in comic books, who wore disguises to protect their true identity and loved ones. So, adding a bit more muscle and girth to himself, slightly altering his facial features and completely changing his hair color, he "magically" became his alter ego in the field.

"Josh McGrath can't expect to live a normal life and be an N-Tek," his father had said.

"Forget Josh McGrath, the name's Max Steel."

To this day, Josh didn't know why he chose that name, it just sounded cool when he said it. But he did laugh when on one mission, he was compared to the Man of Steel, Superman. He had been an avid comic book reader in his youth, and maybe, on a subconscious level, Steel had stuck in his mind. Max…well, Maximum. Thus, he was the maximum man of steel with his superhuman powers.

And Max Steel was born!

He had met and befriended many people in his time with N-Tek, including a woman named Rachel, and at one time, he thought their relationship was becoming something more. But then she was offered a promotion, and left him. Josh also had a girlfriend, but his secret agent life got in the way. Now, he was partnered with a younger agent named Kat Ryan, a wildcat of a woman, inclusive with Berto Martinez, the N-Tek techno-wizard. Together, they were a great team. And hence, they made up Team Steel.

"Josh!"

Josh startled, suddenly ripped from his reverie. He often found himself recollecting the past, sometimes all the way back to before his mother and father died in a boating accident, drowning, that left him an orphan at a very young age. Jefferson Smith, the assistant director of N-Tek at the time - and very good friends with Josh's father, an N-Tek agent - under then John Dread, adopted him, and became his adopted father. The rest, as they say, was history.

"Bro, don't do that!" Josh said, to Berto, as his voice blared in Josh's bionic ear.

"Sorry to take you away from your inner musings, Hermano," Berto said. "Hermano" was Spanish for brother and it was Berto's nickname for Josh/Max. "Those waves do look inviting though."

"Yeah, and I was just about to dive in. I'm stoked to try the new Wave Rider. But I believe something's come up and it'll have to be cancelled. Am I right?"

"Sorry. Vitriol just broke out of prison and reports say he's heading your way. Remember, along with John Dread and Psycho, he knows who you really are."

"It's so hard to keep a secret identity these days. So he wants revenge on me for sending him to prison, atypical mentality of a psychopath."

"Kat's en-route in Hawk 1, but she won't be there for another ten minutes, so you're on your own."

"Comforting thought."

Josh returned to the parking lot where he parked his sky blue corvette and stored the Wave Rider in the open-roofed backseat. He then looked around, saw the place was empty this time in the early morning and pressed a button on his wrist device – he changed into Max Steel.

If he was going to face Vitriol, a sadistic villain in his own rite, he had to be prepared, and he would need everything his Max powers could muster.

Once he was fully energized, he said, "Let Vitriol come, Bro, I'm ready for'em."

"Be careful what you wish for, Steel…" a gruff sounding voice echoed in the distance at the edge of the parking lot. He had a hard-looking face with round cheek bones, his arms filled with a bubbling green bio-fluid. Vitriol was accompanied by six black and red uniformed mercenary Dread shock troopers, armed with blaster rifles. Vitriol smirked. "…'cos you just might get it!"

Vitriol raised both his arms and fired, using his electrified, synaptic-bio weaponry, sending a wave of super-heated bionic plasma in Max's direction.

Max jumped out of the way just in time as the blast impacted his corvette. The car exploded, sending debris flying in a thousand different directions. Max covered his head with his hands, as he was showered with metallic debris and even cringed as the hood of the car came down onto his back as he lay on the ash-fault of the parking lot.

Max was shocked as he looked back at what was once a beautiful looking car. And what was left of the Wave Rider.

"Hope you got insurance." Vitriol laughed.

"Not for that," Max said. "But I do know who's gonna pay for it, green-meanie."

Vitriol began to approach, and the shock troopers ran ahead and surrounded Max as he got to his feet. "So, Steel, what's it gonna be – a quick kill, or a slow and painful death? Either way, you die here, today!"

"You know, you're not the first to say that to me. But like I said to each of them: I'm not dead yet."

"Kat's on her way, Max. Five minutes. Stall!" Berto said in Max's ear.

Stall? Vitriol's not the patient kind.

Vitriol fired again, but this time with only one arm, sending super-heated plasma towards Max.

Max jumped out of the way, and the blast hit one of the stock troopers, melting him like acid and eating his armor as if it were nothing. His muffled screams were heard for only a moments before something burst inside his helmet. Max was disgusted, he didn't want to think about what it was - but knew. The man fell instantly dead, his armor continuing to dissolve as Vitriol's plasma ate him.

"You've caused me alotta grief, Steel. Cost me alotta money! Now it's time to pay the piper!"

"Cry me a river," Max retorted, somersaulting away from a rifle blast from a shock trooper. "Never been a fan of Celtic music, although they do have a good basketball team."

"Always with the wisecracks, Steel. You're all alone here; no one to help you and you're seriously outnumbered."

"Me, myself, and I – that's three!"

Vitriol growled. "You're too lamented."

"Hey, impressive vocab," Max said. "Be reading Hooked on Phonics books?"

Vitriol snorted irate. "Any last words before you're blasted to oblivion?"

Max looked at Vitriol and the five shock troopers now closing in around him. But then he heard a familiar sound with his bionic ears, and smiled. She was early. "Actually, I have one."

"And…"

Max dived to the ground. "Duck!"

And Hawk 1 came soaring out of the sky and towards the parking lot. Hawk 1 swooped down and took out three shock troopers with its wings, a gruesome sight, cutting them in half. The last two fired on Hawk 1. But Max jumped out and laid them out with a series of martial art punches and kicks. And even kicked Vitriol back a few feet

Now he had some breath space.

Hawk 1 landed nearby and Kat jumped out of the bubble canopy cockpit and came to stand at Max's side, brandishing a Gloc-9 blaster, wearing an almost skin-tight uniform, complementing her dark hair.

"Now's there's six of us," Max said.

"Come again?" Kat said.

"Explain later."

"Very funny, Steel," Vitriol sneered. "The power of my arms far out way and outnumber you both."

"Never assume. You know what they same when a person assumes."

Vitriol cocked his head. "No, tell me."

"You make an ass out of you and me."

Vitriol rolled his eyes. "Not what I expected and definitely not funny quoting a dead British comedian!"

"You never did have a sense of humor."

"No mercy, Steel!" Vitriol raised his arms to fire.

"I'd expect nothing less," Max said. Kat aimed her blaster.

In the fraction of second it took to send a blast from one arm towards them as a distraction, Vitriol also cocked his other arm and destroyed the Surf Shop close-by. The building exploded in a massive eruption of wood and glass, sending debris everywhere – even jettisoning pieces of glass shards towards Max and Kat. Pieces embedded into Kat's right leg. She shouted in pain, folding over.

"Kat!"

"Forget about me for the moment. Subdue Vitriol before he destroys this place."

She outranked him. She was the Intelligence Officer, Berto was the techo-expert, and Max was the grunt of Team Steel. And you never argue with a woman.

Now it was time to end the funny business and really get down to work, time to either send Vitriol packing or bury him six feet under. Max preferred the latter. It would be one less criminal in the world. But he was not in the killing business, he was in the bringing criminals to justice department, and it was up to the courts to oversee justice over the wicked.

"Right, okay. GOING TUBRO!" he said, and pressed his bio-link on his wrist to increase his T-Juice. It gave him an added boost of endurance, so he could perform some of his superhuman feats in being a super agent. He didn't favor weapons, he was a hands-on kind of person – he ran at Vitriol with a burst of super speed and began to circle the villian.

Vitriol tried to follow Max as he ran around the villain. "Stand still, you're making me dizzy."

"That's kinda the idea, slowpoke," Max said. And when Vitriol attempted to send a blast of plasma his way, Max reached in and grabbed the villain's left arm, yanking it out of the socket. Vitriol cried out in pain. The nerve-endings of his arms sent mechanical signals to his brain. It was like anyone who just lost a body part. Max held the augmented arm in his hand. "How disarming," he said facetiously. "Batters up!"

He then whacked Vitriol across the face with his own arm as he circled him.

Vitriol went down, and for a moment at least, gave Max a breather. Every time he used his T-Juice, the level dipped, and he felt it the exhaustion. It was like the power level of a video game character. When a character got hit, the level dipped. Max's power level on his bio-link dipped two bars after so much running around, but it was very little in comparison to his overall power.

Max took a moment to return to Kat.

She was on the ground favoring the wound in her leg. He bent down and looked at the glass shrapnel embedded in her left thigh. There was small blood, but he didn't dare remove the glass or it could begin bleeding profusely. It was best to just leave it as it was until she could be looked at medically.

"Your nickname should be Shield," Max said.

"And if you crack anymore bad one-liners, your name is mud," Kat replied.

Max smiled. "At least you still have your sense of humor."

Suddenly Kat's eyes widened with fear and shock. "Max, watch out!"

He turned around as Vitriol sent a blast of super heated plasma their way. With Kat on the ground and no time to avoid it, Max took the brunt of the blast head-on.

The impact sent Max half way across the parking lot, skidding across the hard ash-fault. He clutched his left arm. His uniform on the left side had been disintegrated from the blast radius, exposing his skin, and his arm and pectoral region was a bloodied, charred mess. He gritted his teeth from the god-awful pain. He had let his guard down and Vitriol had taken advantage.

In time, his nanoprobes would heal his body, and right now, he needed to get back up and fight.

Sirens blared in the distance, and Vitriol swore. "Well, gotta go. Did enuff damage for one day."

"Not so fast!" Max cringed. With every movement, it brought a wave of burning pain. But he worked through it. He had to. "You're not goin' anywhere!"

"You're tenacious. But I have no more time to play with you. Just came to get some good old fashion vengeance, and seeing you now, I got that and more. You must be in a hellva lot of pain? Good!"

"Felt worse," Max said. "Especially when I wiped out in extreme sports competitions." Mustering up the rest of his strength, he cried out a battle cry and charged Vitriol.

Vitriol backed up, putting his arm out in front. "Whaddya have - nine lives or something?"

Max speared Vitriol in the stomach and they both went down, but the impact was much more devastating to Max than to Vitriol using his bad shoulder and arm, and Max cried out in pain, clutching his arm and rolled away from Vitriol, his eyes rolling back as he nearly blacked out from the pain.

"Max!" Kat shouted.

Vitriol held his stomach, but got to his feet. He aimed his arm at Steel to fire. Instead, a shot came from Kat, who nailed Vitriol with a blaster bolt from her Gloc-9. It was on stun, but it was enough to take Vitriol out and he dropped to the ground, not unconscious but moaned.

"Maxxxxx!" came Berto's voice screaming in Max's ear.

"Bro," Max said breathlessly. "Don't shout so loud! I can hear you just fine. Just in alotta pain, that's all."

"Dispatching medical units, enroute two minutes – hang in there," Berto said.

"Wouldn't even think of a curtain call yet, bro, but try to hurry on the docs, okay."

"Max," Kat said, coming to his side. She was obviously in pain to with the glass in her leg, limping, but not as much as he was. He could feel the nanoprobes working to repair the damage, but it would take time. And with this sort of skin and muscle damage, maybe even days or weeks. "Hang in there."

"That's what Berto just said," Max said.

"Vitriol's out for the count," she said.

"Good, and I feel I'm about to join him. Oh man, this really hurts."

"Stay still. Let your nanoprobes heal you."

"Yes, Doctor Ryan."

She wasn't one to smile often, but a sarcastic grin broached her face.

Teary-eyed, Max looked at Kat. Half blinded by his tears and the sun, he could have sworn he was looking at an angel with a glowing hue behind her, cast down by the sun. "You look…beautiful," he said. He wasn't know for being a womanizer, but he said what he felt, and Kat was a beautiful woman.

Kat appeared taken aback. "It's the pain, you're hallucinating," she said straightly.

"Maybe…" Max smiled. But even that small gesture delivered waves of pain all over his body. He moaned. "Oh man, gonna need some real downtime after this. And funny, I was here for just that. So much for a relaxing day at the beach, never did get to test ride the Wave Rider. It got blown up."

When N-Tek medical arrived, along with law enforcement – Berto among them, as well as Jefferson Smith to smooth over any law issues about fighting on the beach – Max was helped into an ambulance, his wounds momentarily taken bandaged, until he could be taken back to N-Tek headquarters to be received proper medical care.

He observed N-Tek agents restraining Vitriol's motionless body, but he felt something wasn't right.

Even in that state, he knew Vitriol was still dangerous. But he would let the others deal with it and he'd concentrate on healing. His nanoprobes were working quickly to repair the tissue damage, but his left arm and chest were severely black and blue.

Any normal man would be in recovery for weeks, even months - but not him. Or, he hoped not.

Disarmed, literally, Vitriol was put into the back of a special unmarked black van escorted by an N-Tek agent who took Vitriol's arms with him. Unless they were inserted back into Vitriol's arm sockets, they would do the villain no good. The back door closed, and the van began to drive away.

"All ends that ends well," Berto said, as he monitored Max's vitals with a small computer pad. A wire was attached to Max's bio-link. "Remarkable, your tissue regeneration is so high. And with the added, extra T-Juice fueling the little guys, you should be tip top shape within a day."

"Tell me that after I stop aching with agonizing pain," Max said.

"Sorry Hermano, I just find new fascination with the nanoprobes every time they interact with your systems," Berto said. "You're the pilot project, and the only person who has the nanoprobes inside him. Jefferson had wanted to test them within limitations on test subjects…"

"But he didn't need to with me."

"Exactly," Berto said, and nodded. "You're certainly one-of-a-kind."

"Nice to know I'm appreciated."

"Kat's being treated for the glass in her leg – "

There was a loud commotion outside and a tremendous crash with a series of explosions. The ambulance with Max and Berto was still on site on the beach. Berto jumped out of the back and looked around to the front, and suddenly ducked as a piece of flying metallic debris came soaring towards him from the jailer van Vitriol had been in, and the villain emerged with both arms reattached and refueled.

Berto swore in Spanish. "I don't know how…but Vitriol's awake and rearmed!"

Max sat up and pulled any monitoring cables off him, and walked out of the ambulance. He was shirtless and his left arm was in a sling. He looked like an alien from an old Star Trek episode, where the alien species were blue on one half of their bodies and black on the other.

"How the hell…" Max saw the agent who had entered the back of the jailer van with Vitriol. He was dead. The only way that Vitriol could have recouped and rearmed so fast was with a double-agent. The agent, whom Max didn't know, must have been a Dread stooge infiltrator, and fodder.

"Round two, Steel," Vitriol said through smiling, gritting teeth. "And this time, advantage – me!"

Max stood up straight and tried to hide a cringe when his wounds pulled at the healing nerve-endings, he pulled off the sling "Advantage nothing," he said. "I can still fight, and I'm not outta tricks yet. GOING TURBO!" pressing the button on his bio-link.

The added boost of T-Juice was just what he needed to temporarily numb his pain. He knew it would not last for long, so he had to act fast and recapture Vitriol.

But instead of attacking, Vitriol turned and fled, yanking the driver of a secondary N-Tek van that had attended the scene, and then began to speed away.

"Didn't expect that," Max said, and then sped after him, running at super speed to catch the runaway van. Easily, he caught up and jumped onto the back, grabbing hold of the back doors, tearing into the metal as it were merely tissue paper. He then ripped one door off its hinges and entered.

Vitriol weaved the van across the sand to the left and Max was thrown to the wall and hit his injured shoulder. He cried out.

The cage separator that looked from the front seat into the back compartment was the only protection the villain had, as he looked back. Max got his balance and clutched at the cage. His strength was severely diminished due to his badly injured arm and chest, but he didn't let it stop him – and he yanked it free off its welded hinges.

Vitriol swirled to the right, and Max hit the wall again, but he braced himself to land without further injury. "Where'd you get your driver's license? Crazy'R'Us?"

Vitriol went to turn the wheel again, but he gasped as he suddenly saw the end of the beach and a small concrete barrier. The van hit and flipped, hard. It rotated several times before coming to a sliding skid on some adjacent ash-fault on its roof.

Max moaned, and through clouded, teary, painful vision, as he lay on his stomach, saw Vitriol begin to crawl slowly out of the passenger side. He too began to crawl, albeit with every muscle in his body screaming in pain. He had been in a couple of nasty car crashes in the field and accidents in extreme sports competitions, but this was the first he was ever a passenger in one without his safety gear.

He crawled over the seats and managed to get outside. But unlike Vitriol, he was so badly hurt he couldn't get to his feet without staggering a couple of times and falling. His head was spinning. Someone stop this ride, I want to get off.

Vitriol also staggered, a bad wound to his temple, but looked in better shape. "Stupid place to put a barrier," the villain chided.

"It's to prevent this exact thing from happening, jarhead," Max said back, finally clearing his head. They were about to have company. N-Tek reinforcements were approaching from the distance where they had come. "Now, are you gonna come quietly or do we need to actually do Round Two?"

"I can take you no problem, Steel," Vitriol said. "In your state, you'll fall badly."

"Maybe, but I'll take you with me."

Vitriol readied to fire a blast of plasmatic energy at Steel, raising one fully-charged arm. The green bio-fluid began to bubble and boil.

But Vitriol was suddenly hit with a blue highly-energized charge that electrified his entire body and he went down. Kat landed Hawk 1 and opened the canopy, the stun blast had come from one of the gun turrets. "Want me to hit him again, just to make sure?" she said.

Max looked at Vitriol. The villain was finally out for the count. But he so much wanted to say, "Sure - hit him again," as most super-villains got up even after you threw everything at them. But Vitriol was a second rate super-villain at best, not even in a league with Psycho. Dangerous, yes, but his powers were quite limited to his bio-fluid augmented arms. Take them away, and he was finished – minus any double-agents. But Jefferson wouldn't be fouled a second time.

"You okay, son?" his Dad said as he climbed out of a van that had raced across the sand to Max's position.

Max dropped to his knees and rolled over on his back, so-weak, the sun momentarily blinding him. "No problem, never felt better," he lied. "By the way, I could use some morphine right about now – or I could pass out, whatever comes first."

"Medic, over here, on the double," Jefferson shouted.

Max momentarily blacked out, falling face first into the sand - but when he regained consciousness, he had only for moments, he stared up at Kat, who walking him with others, as he Max lay on a stretcher, being escorted to the ambulance.

"Where's Vitriol?" he asked.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," Kat said, with a smile. "He's restrained, for sure this time."

"Not to worry, Hermano," Berto then said, a little ways away, catching up to them. He then got into the ambulance with Kat and a medic, who was making sure to monitor Max's vitals closely. Another medic closed the doors and soon the ambulance began to drive off. "He's safe and secure and being transported to the nearest high security prison with a reliable agent, not one of Dread's."

"Sweet," Max said, and breathed easy. "Hate to think I'm in this much agony if he escaped, again."

"Looks like John Dread has spies within N-Tek," Berto said to Kat. "We may have to do a thorough check on all personnel."

"Agreed, and Jefferson can handle that," Kat said. "I think he had the same thought."

"Once Jefferson's mind is set, not even a bulldozer can stop him," Max said. "I'll leave it up to you guys then. Mind if I get some sleep?" But Max never even waited for an answer. As if on instinct, his nanoprobes rendered him unconscious to better heal him. When a person was sleeping, it was said the body healed faster.

But somehow, even when he was asleep, he felt he was always awake. He and his nanoprobes were one - and they never slept, forever swimming around in his veins, like tiny parasites in his body.

END.