Chapter 2

Their ship slowly stopped melded into the air bubble that supplied oxygen to the crew aboard. It stopped on the hard metal casing of the fort and four silhouettes . They walked slowly and slipped into the air ducts.

The grate banged open and out popped Substance. Next came Intel, Mage, and finally Predator. They all ran silently, each looking exactly as they had before except for Intel. Intel had a numerous amount of gadgets on him. The thing that stood out the most was the three swords, two on his back and one on his side. He had a spear in between the two on his back.

They ran further and further into the compound. They stopped in a big clearing. Mage looked over the side. There were nearly 50 robots in the giant room, and ten normal human guards. He relayed this information to Intel.

"The humans are there to start the fire." he whispered, "They'll shoot at us, prompting us to defend ourselves. This in turn will activate the robots having them attack us. It's really quite genius."

"I'll take care of them," Mage said. He peered over the corner again and muttered thaeji eir. There was a blast of cold air and everything in the room froze up into blocks of ice. Then he muttered shael aili. All the ice broke into thousands of shards, along with everything in them.

They walked in as nothing has happened. Substance walked over to the desk, rang the bell and asked "Registry?"

Predator scowled at him and said "Quit messing around, we got business to take care of."

"Fine, but I'm jus-" but his sentence was cut short as they heard a loud gunshot. Substance collapsed onto the floor clutching his throat. No one gave him a second look or did anything to help.

"That's going to alert the whole place. We have to go." Intel commanded.

"You're not going anywhere!" shouted a young guard. He obviously was back there looking for something when Mage went on his freeze rampage. "Now nobody move," he demanded. He was wearing a blue suit and had a gun holster, but no gun. His gun was waving feverously in the air. He never shot anyone before.

Substance was writhing around the ground, his throat being shot. He was saying something but it inaudible. He got up and looked at the guard. The guard flipped out. What he learned in training was if you shoot someone, they'll stay down. This man didn't, however.

Substance whispered hoarsely "Ow, I hate it when that happens." Each word was getting stronger as he said it until he was speaking regularly as if nothing happened. The bullet popped out onto the ground, and the wound was gone. No scar, no scab, no blood. Everything was healed. He clutched his neck and turned his head side to side while asking "Who did this?"

Everyone pointed at the guard, who found out that his gun was useless. He saw the man coming closer. He shot his gun again, hitting him in the arm.

Substance walked over and dug his fingernails into the palm of his hand. There was blood all over them. A drop of it fell onto the metal ground and started to sizzle. It then fell through to the next floor as it melted everything that came in its way. He tapped the gun barrel with his nail and immediately it melted. "No weapon now" he smirked. The wound in his arm was gone also.

The guard stepped back was about to run, but Substance quickly slashed him with bloodied claw. The guard fell into a heap as the acidic blood melted everything it came in touch with. Substance smiled and said "Let's go."

The four walked down a corridor mad of windows. It was an eerie feeling that they were walking on nothing because there was nothing outside. It was just them and the vast emptiness of space. If someone were to get hurt, there's no backup to come help them Predator thought.

Mage turned the corner and quickly reeled back. "There are four mounted turrets on the ceiling," he said while looking past the corner.

"Let me see," Intel commanded. Mage slid out of his way as he walked to the edge. He peered over the corner and saw them. "There are four mounted turrets on the ceiling. They're all camera turrets, which means they're all machine guns. Not bad ones either. RT-22's it looks like. If they sense us everyone's dead except for maybe David."

"Anyway to stop them" Substance asked. He didn't want to get shot again. It hurt.

"Sort of. I can't stop them directly, but I can confuse them." He explained. He reached into one of his pockets in his pants, one of the differences in uniform for him was he had a bunch of huge pockets to carry stuff. He pulled out a little metallic frog. There was a hole in top of his head and there was something blue in there. There was a crank on the back by his hind legs and behind that a light. "This little fellow here is what I like to call F.E.M.P. It stands for Frog Electromagnetic Pulse. Not a very clever name but I like to say it." He turned the crank on the back and then pulled it off. He set it down and it hopped off his hand and onto the ground.

It jumped automatically to where the most energy stayed, which is in the middle of the four turrets. It hopped halfway there, green light bobbing up and down, when one of the turrets. It turned towards it, the barrel rotating, but went back to its normal position. It thought it was merely just another animal.

The metallic frog hopped its way to the middle of the turrets. It found the point where each exactly the same distance away. The light on the back suddenly turned red. Intel told everyone to get ready. They all lined up by the corner, waiting for the signal.

The frog stood in the middle, red light blinking. This caught the turrets attention but they still didn't shoot. It was still just an animal.

Then suddenly, there was bright blue flash with electronic impulses all around. The turrets didn't know what to do so they shot the frog, but it was too late. The electrons surged with all the metal and the room and combined into the electrical outlets of the turrets. Like Intel thought, the part of the gun had EMP protection, but not the camera. So it couldn't see but knew something was there. Therefore, they just kept shooting until they're out of bullets.

"Now!" Intel yelled. They all ran through the bullet haze. Bullets were flying everywhere but with no real target. One ricocheted off the ground and ground itself right into Intel's knee. He didn't even notice.

Predator was dodging all the bullets that came his way with amusement. If one came at his face, he'd duck and move. If two came at him from both sides, he'd slip in between of them.

Mage had a strong shield spell protecting from all the bullets that were flying his way. They would absorb right in and fly backwards behind him. Not a good shield to have when you were lead.

They stopped at the next hallway letting everyone catch their breath. Substance got hit twice in the arm and once in the stomach, but form the looks of it you couldn't tell. Intel, however, just noticed the bullet that embedded itself into his knee. Mage saw it also and walked over their putting up his two right fingers and said tesi shyl. There was a faint yellow glow as he took his two fingers and slid them over the wound. A warm light enveloped Intel's leg and then stopped. Mage stood up and walked away, the cape smacking Intel in the face. "Thanks" Intel said sarcastically.

The four of them walked by a door that said COMPUTER + ELECTRONICS. Not far now Predator thought. They had about 2000 feet to the treasury room.

They walked into a large clearing without so much as looking at guards. They stopped dead center when hey saw around 100 robo-guards ready to strike. Must have heard the guns to defend themselves. They knew someone was going to come and so they waited. They're pretty smart he thought.

The guards sprung into action. "I'll take care of them." Substance yelled over the roar of 200 metallic feet clapping on metal. He dug his sharp nail into his hand, taking more blood while the three ran off.

He leaned back and pulled his hand back. Then he immediately swung it forward in a slashing motion, the blood on his fingertips flying forward. He hit one right in the eye and immediately it collapsed as his face melted. One down.

He crashed into the crowd, hands flying around. Because he had the power the power to heal, nobody knew how old he was. Even he didn't know or just didn't care. Through those years though, he mastered his own technique of fighting. He called it Kiittan. It was an awesome fighting style because everything in it was supposed to take out someone with one hit.

He flung through round-house kicking one in the face, smashing it immediately. With the same spin on that foot he tripped one of them and stuck his hand right through its stomach. He whipped it around and crashed into the oncoming two. 34.

Each robot came at him a different way. Three came after him right after each other, so he grabbed the first ones head, jumped over it, flipping it above his head, slammed his foot into the second one, and crashed the first one still being gripped by his hand straight into the third. This is too easy.

Then one grabbed his arm and twisted it in a fashion that broke in three different places. He winced, but knew it would heal fast. He grabbed the robots arm with his other hand and ripped it off then shoved it through the chest. 72.

He slashed one's neck right off, then jumped behind one and kicked it in the back crushing the robots spine, if it had one. 119.

After sending a robot flying into his compatriots, he was left alone. None were left. Simple he thought then walked away toward where they were supposed to meet. Then, there was a sharp pain in his shoulder. He winced, but that was it. He went to slash at it but it already moved, releasing his grip. He turned and jumped away and saw what it was. Those bastards he immediately thought.

Crouching in front of him was the most perfect form of a robot chimera, its silver metallic body shining in the light. A chimera was a melding of two different animals making a powerful new animal in their place. These people took it s step further. They decided God wasn't doing his job fast enough and formed the DNA of the two animals into liquidated steel. The steel took shape to what it would have looked like naturally, if you can call it naturally.

The creature had the head of a lion with its mane being able to shred skin. The body was that of a tiger with stripes and all. The tail was that of something different though. It was that of a scorpion, long extinct from when Earth's climate rapidly cooled from a nuclear winter from Yellowstone's Supervolcano. That mean they harbored this notion for a while.

The most disturbing thing, though, was its eyes. The eyes were red, void of any life. It had life-like eyes, but was blood red. They stared at him wherever he moved.

Flashback

The four were sitting at the table. Substance thought about a question, then asked "Why are we going to take this place out?"

Predator obviously saw this question coming and replied "Because these people are performing acts against nature." His eyes lit up on the end with anger. He would want nothing more to do than to just blow the place up, but that wasn't their style.

Substance thought about this and the look Predator made. He then asked "What are they doing to make you so mad?" He thought this question wasn't going to get much of a question because Predator usually never gave his motives, but he was wrong.

Predator thought how to mull over this information, and then said "They're trying to play God."

Mage scowled at this last piece of information and added "Let's just see if they know what happens to people who impersonate Him."

Substance now knew what he was talking about and why he was so mad. This creature should never have been made he thought. He looked at it once more and noticed something odd. His blood that the monster got form him when he bit his arm was dripping off the fangs, but the fangs were not melting. The ground below them was sizzling but with no affect against the thing. This could be a problem.

The three ran down the hall, passing a room that had RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT on it. "Only a little ways more to go" Predator called back. He was far ahead of everyone else because he wanted to destroy this place as quickly as possible. He hated what they have done, and what they were willing to try.

He went past another turn came a dead end. At the end was huge metallic door. It was the kind you'd see at High security banks, except 12 inches thicker. Off to the side was a thumbprint decoder, retina scanner, and the good old fashioned key-pad. It had three huge metal bars sitting in the middle, obviously the way to open it. It had Mage walked up behind him and tilted his head. He looked at it then asked "How are we supposed to open it?"

Intel replied, "I can do it. I just need a couple of things. I'll need a torch, some hair spray, and a couple firecrackers."

He pulled out a miniature torch before Predator said "Who are you, MacGyver? Stand Back and watch." and with that he pulled his hand back, palm facing forward. Then, a burst of light happened as he threw his hand forward straight into the door. There was a blinding light followed by bunch of smoke and some debris, but nothing else.

When the smoke subsided, there lay a huge hole in middle where the knob where it should have been. It had a couple rough edges, but it was good for what it was meant for. "Can we go" he said halfway through the hole.

Inside was not what they expected. At least, not what Mage and Intel had expected. Predator had figured this out a while ago, which is why he decided to destroy this place.

"I thought this was the treasury room," Mage said, gawking in disbelief at what he saw. In that little room was not a treasure, but a lab. There were beakers and test tubes everywhere. Then he saw it.

In one corner of the room was a container. Inside the container was what looked like an infant child, but he seemed to be growing a tail and horns. It was just sitting there, floating peacefully as horrible things were changing inside of its body. Next to it was a door.

The door creaked open as the magic user opened it. Upon sight of what he saw, he cursed those who did this.

In the room were rows upon rows of the same type of containers as the one outside. These, however, were filled with more advanced creatures. They were also further along the stage into adulthood.

One had three wings, one on top of his head and two on its back. The tail it was growing had long spines on its back. Its head was strangely morphed, and where eyes should be only lay two hollows. It was a sickly green, like all the other tubes.

At the end was a giant container, but there was nothing inside. The glass in the front was smashed open, but all the glass was sitting in front of the container. In front of it were two men, one had a huge slash on his back and his arm was crumpled in an odd way. The other didn't fare better. His legs were ripped apart and there was a strange hole in his back.

"What in Kyr's name happened here," Mage asked, furiously looking around. He knew this was against all religions, all moral fibers of being. Who do they think they are?

By one of the men's hands was a hole. One of the arms was through the hole while the other wasn't. Intel's brain immediately went to work. How did that get there? Maybe, that's acid that melted. Wouldn't put it past whoever did this. No, it's too straight. He just couldn't figure it out.

Then, in a stroke of brilliance, Predator tripped over a slight raise in the ground. Intel put two and two together and figured it out. They knew this was going to happen. They knew that one of these things could turn on them, that's why they made an escape route. "Didn't get to it in time, didya." He chuckled to himself. The only thing to get away and it got to them before they could. He laughed some, "He's gone now, too."

Predator looked it over. "This is what they tried to do. They tried combining things which should not be combined. They played God and they paid for what they did," He gestured towards the two men. "I say its time we go back."

Substance wasn't faring too well. The Ligopian, that's what he called it, was immune to any of his bloody acid. It also was pretty fast and was impossible to get behind because of its tail.

There was a huge roar from the creature before it leaped forward and slashed at his face. He dodged to the right but was still clipped on his shoulder. It immediately scabbed up and started healing over. Thank God for that.

A tail came flying out of nowhere and stabbed him right through the chest. With a surge of blood coming from his chest, he started coughing. He looked in his slowly fading away hand and saw more blood.

He slumped to the ground and tried to figure out what happened. He continually had to move from his spot because the ground underneath him kept melting away.

Substance dug his right hand into his chest, and felt what would save him, his heart. With a quick slash, he sliced it open causing more blood. This blood was different though. This was even burning his hand he couldn't hold it for more than a few minutes. With this knowledge he stood up, his wounds already healing.

The creature turned around, seemingly to be amused by thrashing. It thought that it killed it, but once Substance stood up it became infuriated. It let out a roar and leaped into the air and intended to cut him down for the last time.

Substance looked at the creature, then his hand. He spread the blood around, then pulled his hand back. "You shouldn't have been created." With that, he thrust his arm forward and yelled "Fluoroantimonic Blast!" There was a huge boom, and then a lot o9f sizzling as the acid melted everything that it touched in an instant.

There was nothing left of the Ligopian. It was all melted by the fluoroantimonic acid that was in his life blood. Substance slumped down and stared at where his hand used to be. Now there was just a stump. "How inconvenient," someone yelled out to him. Substances looked up and saw that the three were back but were carrying nothing.

He called to them and said, "Not strong enough to carry anything." All he wanted to do was get out.

Predator came over and helped him up. "Something like that," he said as they started walking away. "Now let's blow this place up. That's always fun."

"Here we are." The Fearsome Four arrived to the ammunition depot. It was the crux of the entire building and with it gone, the building would go to. Predator forced open the door and stepped inside. "We have about a two minute fuse on this bad boy," he motioned his hand and pointed to a large bomb in the middle. It was silver and on it had the letters F.M.A on it in black. "We're going to use their bombs against them."

Intel looked at and realized the letters. "Why does the Federal Military Association have a tsar bomb in this place?"

Predator walked over to it and answered "It's easy, they're backing this place with money. That's why the treasury room only had experiments and labs. To them, that is their money." He flipped open a glass case and a switch came rising out of the bomb. "Who wants to do the honors?"

Mage immediately walked over. He looked at his leader and told him "I got it." He muttered as he placed his hand over the switch "May the Sun God Kyr take pity on your souls and guide you to peace," and with that he pressed the button. A timer appeared into the metal and started counting down from 2 minutes. "Shall we go" he said.

They left in their ship and rose out. By the time they reached the edge of the air sphere, the tsar bomb exploded. The ship melded past the sphere but the explosion was stayed inside of it.

Predator looked at it and said calmly "Looks like the FMA isn't going to have their breed of super soldiers like they wanted."

Substance heard this and added "Plus, we just gained about 100 million added on to our bounties for all that tech that was in their. They should be grateful," and with that he left, leaving Predator to his thinking.