City of Heroes

The Brotherhood of Justice

Author's Note: Sorry for such a long update time. I've been busy organizing my personal life as of late so please don't expect too much of me this issue, but after this things will pick back up. Also check out The Red Scar's fic Retaking Paragon, it's interesting, and has alot of potential.

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Issue 3: Shut Down 3 of 4

A day ago the young man known as Alex Sultana ceased to be just some regular normal person that couldn't do anything about what they didn't like. Now he was able to do what he wanted, when he wanted. All thanks to this really cool armor he had on right at the moment. Alex caught sight of himself in the mirrored windows of a skyscraper he zoomed past at just the right moment, seeing a good reflection of himself. A sleek dark golden body suit, fitting so perfectly to his body it was almost like a second skin. The head peice was the most distinguishing feature: a single large glowing red eye.

He liked it, the suit seemed to openly glare at everything in it's sight. It made him feel like everything that he felt had become a physical manifestation. Alex chose his new name at first glancing at the style of the helmet, named after the one eyed giants of legend. He was now Cyclopian, master of the sky and everything below!

Now.. now they had to see him, and respect him or a fiery death would be their only fate.

However as per a deal he made with that crazy old man Alex had some work to do. He aimed at a passing bus far below and sent the command to attack. From his palm a blast of energy exploded forth, going down at the public transport in the shape of a mushroom cloud. The bus continued to drive, until the blast had hit it, causing it to explode in a ball of fire. Alex could subtley hear the screams of the dying, and when he should have been disgusted with himself for such a casual ceasing of life... he only felt himself starting to laugh. There was no going back now so why should he let morality get in the way?

Cyclopian threw both hands forward and started to unleash a torrent of blasts, incenerating cars, innocent bystanders and just anything that he could hit. The armored teenager swooped lower, cackling as the screaming civilians tried to get away in a futile gesture. "Run weaklings, run!"

Quickly it was starting to become a great deal of fun to him as human life started to just look like something he could play with. Each time his suit registered that someone's vital signs were relaxing, starting to believe he would not kill that individual, he would fire and reduce that unfortunate person to so much ash. Cyclopian came to a stop as he noticed a little girl, climbing back to her feet fearfully and looking around for whoever the child had gotten lost from. He stayed there until ever so slowly, she looked up at him through tearful eyes. His voice came out, mockingly sympathetic. "What's the matter princess, lost your mommy? Well I'll help you find her." With a deliberate slowness he raised his hand, letting the child see the glowing energy hovel that would fire at any second so there would be no mistake what her fate would be. "Bye bye kid."

Just at that moment Alex's sensors went off in alarm, prompting him to jet to the left as quickly as the thrusters would allow. Just in time to, the blast of energy that shot by was rather large and could have been troublesome to come back from if it had hit. Just as he went to look for the source of it a smaller blast slammed into his back, causing him to be pushed a few feet further. It was with a low growl that he turned to look at just the person he'd come to hastle.

Sentry floated at his level, hands still blazing with energy as she prepared another attack. "Stand down now! You have condemned yourself with the murder of ten civillians and displayed an eagerness to bring that body count up one more. If you give up now I won't harm you."

"Harm me? HARM ME! I am the unstoppable Cyclopian, you can never hurt me!" Cyclopian screamed as he thrusted both hands forward, sending out a massive blast towards Sentry that she easily flew over.

"Alright, you asked for it." The Sentry commented dryly before throwing more blasts towards him, most of which Cyclopian was able to avoid. However the attacks that had hit did caused a fair amount of light damage, the armor itself proving to be a little too armored for anything less then a full on assault to penetrate it's defenses. She continued to fire, only angering her opponent but it kept him from effectively counter attacking her.

Cyclopian finally turned and began to fly away, to which Sentry almost immediately gave chase. The male looked back and nearly cursed when he saw that she was easily gaining on him. He had to get away, right now she was just too quick for him to fight. "Alright girly, if you're such a hero then save that kid from this!" Quickly he positioned one of his hands back and fired towards the child that still stood there, dumbstruck with fear.

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Sentry turned back, eyes widening in horror as the attack was far too fast for her to stop. Still she pushed her jets into full power, diverting as much energy as possible from her other systems. She extended her hand, as if trying to physically pull the blast of power away from it's course onto the little girl.. but she just couldn't.. it was just too fast.

Suddenly the girl was gone in a blur of yellow, leaving the blast to destroy the concrete where the child had been. The armored heroine had a moment of panic sweep her until her scanners picked up what was obviously a dark yellow clad superhero putting the kid down and letting the child run off. Sentry sighed in relief and then upon remembering her foe turned back to find nothing but clear skies.

"Lost him.." She said to herself before turning to reguard the other hero. It was the least she could do to thank him for the save. Sentry landed and walked towards the other hero, waving what was hopefully in a peaceful way and called out. "Thanks for the save. Hadn't been for you I wouldn't be getting any sleep for a long time."

The hero rubbed the back of his neck, any of his main features were widely unseen due to the nature of the costume. "No problem ma'am. Just doing my part like my uncle did his.. say.. you seem familiar. Sentry, right?" He held out his hand, which she shook. "The name's Breakneck.. not the original but I'm hoping to keep up the name."

"Nice to meet you. Again thanks for the save, you'd be a real asset to the Brotherhood." She commented, and then smiled under her helmet as Breakneck grinned at that. "If you like I could talk with the team leader and see if she'd like to welcome you aboard."

"She..? I thought Tempest was your leader..?" The speedster raised a brow in mild confusion, wondering if the word had just been a slip-up or there were things about Tempest he didn't know gender wise. Then again the Brotherhood of Justice did have some strange looking members.. like that Widow girl.

"Oh.. err.. " Sentry put a hand on the back of her head and gave a helpless shrug. "Yes, he is. Sorry, I've been thinking about.. an old friend alot is all." Only then did she remember that Eden had strictly asked that her existance be hidden in the strictest way possible, which made little sense but that was all the woman had asked.

Breakneck eyed her and then just blinked. "Oh... kay. Well anyway.. my partner may be needing me about now so I should go check up on him." With that he was gone in another blur of yellow, speeding away down the street.

Sentry watched him go and then turned back to where Cyclopian had vanished to. Beneath the helmet she frowned. Whoever that had been showed utterly no reguard for life at all, unlike their previous villians this Cyclopian seemed to take an almost perverted joy in attempting to kill that little girl. Whoever he was, he was definitely a sick individual. She would need to speak with Eden about the person here today as well, his sort of speed would definitely be helpful.

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Captain Energy groaned, moving to sit up but a sharp pain in his chest kept him flat on his back. He could tell without opening his eyes that he was no longer out on the street. In fact, he was quite comfortable aside from his body still feeling like it wanted to crawl in on itself from that massive blast all of those homeless fanatics brought down on him.

Only when he brought a hand up to his forehead to stem off an oncoming headache did he realize one important fact. His costume was hanging on a hook on the door. One look under the covers confirmed the fact that while fortunately he still had his boxers on it was still just the idea that made him unnerved. He got out of bed after locking down all the aches and pains and began to get dressed.

Almost right after he tugged his mask back on the door opened up, revealing the one time teammate FlareStorm. She was holding a tray of what looked to be beef soup, dressed in the very same attire she'd wore when Manticore had united the three person team. Afterward, the archer had left Paragon, saying vaguely that he had business to attend to overseas. Since then they had lost track of one another.. until today that is.

"About time you woke up. You've been out since yesterday." FlareStorm griped while putting the tray down on the bedside table. "Sleeping on the couch was definitely not fun."

"Shouldn't you be at school?" The Captain asked when he noticed it was eleven in the morning.

FlareStorm lowered her eyes, and then just crossed her arms. For a while she didn't say anything until Captain Energy moved to put a hand on her shoulder. She jerked away and answered. "I don't go to school."

"You're what, sixteen? What are your parents doing about this?" The man asked, hand finally landing on her shoulder.

"Look what goes on in my personal life is my business. We're teammates, not friends right?" She snapped and walked out of the bedroom, leaving a heavily confused Captain Energy shocked into silence.

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Ranemetal: This new villian looks like trouble, he doesn't seem to mind killing even a little girl if it means a moment's enjoyment? What'll happen to him? Find out in the next issue of The Brotherhood of Justice!