Chapter 37

"I don't know how else to put it," Captain Ricardo said. "This was a bloody disaster."

"I know of a few other colorful curse words you could use, if you're looking for some profanity diversity," David put in. But the look from Ricardo silenced him.

It was early evening, and Yolanda's team was regrouping after the dual attacks by Toxic Reapa and Stormer. Yolanda had some light bandages on her arms and neck, due to being caught in a partial building collapse. Samantha and Vicki had undergone full body examinations since they had been partially frozen, along with a dozen other soldiers that had the misfortune to come across Stormer. Physically, both of them were fine, but Samantha was still applying soothing cream to the ice burns on her arm.

The Heroes were also in attendance, although some of them were still a little worse for wear. Both Breez and Furno had sustained substantial damage, and although they spent some time healing in their cores, Yolanda wanted them reactivated for the debriefing, which meant that they had to return to form before their recovery was complete. Evo had received minimal damage, and Nex hadn't been caught in the fight at all.

The only one not present was Dr. Snowden, who was still looking after those injured in the attack. But everybody else had gathered to discuss what their next move would be.

"The damage is quite substantial," Ricardo continued. "Twenty building sustained damage, and at least five are structurally unsafe. Three battleships were damaged, including the one that had a hole melted into it. Countless vehicles and other equipment were lost, and whether by design or by coincidence, this includes the equipment for our op. We have dozens of soldiers who were injured, as well as a dozen or so who were literally frozen into solid blocks of ice." He rubbed his forehead. "And all this from an enemy who appeared and disappeared without a trace."

"I was able to track Stormer's movement down the coastline," Nex said. "But I lost the trail where he crossed a road. If I were to hazard a guess, that's where he probably returned to his human master and shrunk down to a Hero Core."

"The generals at the top will not like to hear that," Ricardo said. "There's a potentially dangerous robot and it could be in the hands of any civilian."

"It would have to be somebody well connected too," Yolanda said. "They could afford these attack drones, and clearly were able to track us down to this base. And they had the foresight to prepare an attack that would blindside us."

"They didn't track us via the drone we captured," Erez stated. "It's completely dead, the forensic guys verified that."

"It's not out of the question that they could have radiation tracking technology,' Yolanda said. "As much as I hate to admit it, the twins have a point about us having a target painted on our backs with these Heroes; with the right systems they can easily be tracked across the globe. Even if they only knew we were in the Jacksonville area, they could've still reasoned out our location at this base."

"Stormer had some way to pinpoint the locations of the cores too," Samantha said. "He came straight for Furno's and Evo's, and then went for Bulk's. He wasn't randomly searching; he knew exactly where they were."

"He could've had something built into his helmet," Nex stated. "Similar to how we have retrofitted our communicators to match with your human equipment."

"They found us once, which stands to reason that they can find us again," Yolanda said. "So give me the lowdown; who are these robots that we're facing?"

"I know of Toxic Reapa, since I've arrested her before," Evo said. "She's a swamp dweller, which means she's good in the water and on land. She doesn't look like it, but she can scurry around quickly, making her difficult to capture. Her primary weapons are two acid sprayers, and she can control the rate and discharge. Her acid is also very powerful, and will melt through the thickest of armor. Her body does produce it, but she can only use so much at a time, so in theory she could run dry during a battle. Unfortunately, she's shrewd enough that she'll begin to use it sparingly but never runs out completely. I hear she's terrible at hand to hand combat, but her acid is so effective that she rarely has to resort to that."

"She was a villain we faced in Makuhero City," Breez said. "In the battle just before we were sucked into Von Nebula's portal. The same can be said of the rock villain Bruizer. If those two were also brought to this world, others might be here too. And there were a lot of first rate villains fighting us last time."

"However, they still face the limitations that we do," Nex pointed out. "They likely rely on human masters who can give them commands. However, the likes of Toxic Reapa and Bruizer wouldn't object to destructive methods like us Heroes, making them more powerful in the hands of a reckless enemy."

"Although that doesn't seem to apply to all you Heroes," Adam said. "There was Bulk down in Sao Paulo. Now, I get that he was manipulated, but he never actually held back either. And then this Stormer fellow trashed the base just as badly as Toxic Reapa. He was ready to permanently freeze me and David; there was no 'good guy under a spell' look to him today."

All the Heroes paused, unwilling to speak out against Stormer. To break the silence, Yolanda asked, "Tell us more about him."

"Stormer was the ideal Hero from Hero factory," Breez said. "He was one of the first Heroes constructed, and he's been leading us since before any of us present were even initiated into Hero Factory. He's an expert fighter, an expert tactician, and has as much experience as the four of us put together."

"So basically he's your idol," Adam said. "Your superstar. Your, for lack of a better term, Hero."

"So why was he your enemy today?" David asked.

"Clearly he is being manipulated, much like Bulk was," Breez stated. "Only his master must be shrewder than the man from Sao Paulo."

"It's not just that," Furno said. "When I fought Bulk, his personality was still there. He was still Bulk, with his stubborn nature and palpable pride. He didn't even want to hurt us at first, and only did so once it was part of his instructions." He paused. "At least, until we did some serious damage to him. After that, I think he was a tad bit angry at us."

"And in the end, he still did his best to kill some of us," David pointed out.

"Yes, I know," Furno said. "But he was essentially still Bulk. But Stormer… that was not Stormer who attacked us. It had his body and his strategic brilliance, but there was no personality in there. That was merely the shell of Stormer, and all the stuff that had made him a Hero was wiped out."

"But that's not how this miniaturization program works," Nex said. "It doesn't overwrite our personalities, it just makes us obedient to a single individual, who can only activate us in the first place if the personalities match."

"So then something else wiped Stormer," Furno said. "Maybe it was this mysterious yet resourceful human. Maybe some of the other villains are involved, which is possible since we already know Toxic Reapa was working with him."

"So not only has he been compromised, but he's also been completely reprogrammed," Breez stated. "At this stage, there might be nothing left of the original Stormer to salvage."

"I refuse to believe that," Furno said. "What we really need to do is capture him, like we did with Bulk, so we can keep him from doing anything dangerous. We can worry about restoring him later."

"Except that we no longer have Bulk," Ricardo said. "This Stormer was unable to steal the cores of our active Heroes, but he did break in and steal the Bulk Hero Core. And he got away with it."

"Not only was he able to locate the cores and take them, but he also recognized when he was outnumbered, and tried to retreat with his spoils," David said. "That tells me he still has some intelligence left in him, even if the whole heroic persona is gone."

"Speaking of which, how did you two stop him?" Vicki asked. "I'm pretty sure we verified that he was bulletproof."

"Yes, but not electric-proof," David said with a grin. "We were looking at the prototypes in the research lab when we got wind of the attack on the base, and they let us borrow them and take them for a test drive."

"Ever since we encountered the Heroes, we've realized that guns won't necessarily work on them," Adam explained. "So they developed a launcher that would shoot these capsules that would discharge on contact, providing a strong electric jolt to the robot."

"I looked over them and verified that they would be effective against some bots," Nex said. "Their discharge is similar to the electrical powers of a fellow Hero, Surge, and he was able to use his abilities quite effectively in combat. Granted, they wouldn't work on all bots, specifically those with an ability to reroute electricity. But against Stormer or Toxic Reapa, they would be effective." She paused. "They would also be effective against the four of us here."

"That's assuming you could hit me with them," Furno added. "You two had point blank shots at Stormer, and he was caught off guard, so that helped you."

"Well, they still need to tweak them a bit," Adam said. "The power levels weren't that great, and you only get three shots per weapon. But they're already at work to perfect them, and with them we'll have a better defense against these Heroes. They're a bit gangly for field use, but would be ideal for base defense."

"That is good to know," Ricardo said. "We'll need to get these distributed to our various bases where we're housing sensitive information that could lure the Heroes in. And that includes the four Heroes we have left."

Yolanda frowned. "That makes it sound like we're not going to be in the field anymore."

Ricard sighed. "Unfortunately, yes. This attack is getting attention nationwide. Washington is already asking questions, and I need to be on a flight up tonight to fill them in on the details."

"Yeah, we saw their coverage on the news earlier," Adam said. "It looks like our cover story is that a gas leak blew up half the base."

"An oldie but a goodie," David commented. "It explains the damage and emergency response, which we can't necessarily hide from the public, but still conceals the fact that it was a pair of giant robots who caused the mess."

"And we need to keep that part quiet, otherwise there would be panic," Ricardo said. "Not to mention more questions we don't want to answer. Meanwhile, there's been a huge loss of equipment, and we're going to have to divert all available manpower here for rebuilding efforts. This doesn't leave us any resources for our planned op in Japan. The Duter Intuition will have to wait."

"But they might've been behind this attack in the first place!" Samantha protested.

"And if they were, it was a wise tactical move on their part," Ricardo said. "We no longer have the resources required to stage a takeover of their facility."

"That's unfortunate and all," Adam said. "But that means it's time for us to initiate Plan B."

"Plan B?" Ricardo asked, frowned.

Yolanda grimaced. "I don't like the sound of this."

"We can't go in guns a 'blazing, mostly because all our guns just got melted via acid," David said. "So we need to take a stealthier approach."

"It'll be primarily intel gathering at first," Adam continued. "We'll figure out what they know, gather the evidence we need to prove they were against us."

"And once we know all the details, we set a trap," David said. "We've still got four working Heroes, so if we plan things out again, then we have them in a nicely gift wrapped box."

"Just like how we played it in Brazil," Adam said. "Except with fewer robots running into traffic. And hopefully they don't just turn around and steal the Hero Cores from us again."

"And how would you manage to sneak in?" Yolanda said. "You kind of glossed over that part."

However, both of the twins grinned. "We've already got it figured out," Adam said. "We attend his little banquet, and while they're busy partying it up, we'll sneak in and find what we need to know."

"We get what we need with a fraction of the manpower and equipment," David finished. "Surgical precision, as it were."

"You two are like performing surgery with a hacksaw," Yolanda commented.

"Yeah, it's really too bad we don't have a track record for having pulled these kind of infiltrations off before," Adam said. "Oh wait, we do."

"What about that Beijing incident?"

"Okay, eighty percent success rate," Adam said. "But this won't be a plan between David and me; we'll have our whole team in on this and use your input."

"Please tell me you're not considering this," Yolanda said to Ricardo.

Ricardo gave a weak shrug. "They're right; we have no other resources, and this might give us the leads we've been working on. I hate to say it, but our best bet could be another Jocosus mission."

"That's what I like to hear from a superior officer!" Adam said, rubbing his hands together. "So who's ready to attend a party in Tokyo?"