Disclaimer: I do not own the machinima series Deus Ex Machina, nor do I own its characters, settings, etc. Those are all property of Jon "DigitalPh33r" Graham. Halo and its related properties such as weapons, armor, etc are property of Bungie Studios and Microsoft.
Night was quiet for a change in Salvation City, though sirens could still be heard in the distance, as usual. One place where it was not quiet, however, was a warehouse where several men in civilian armor were moving crates of enhancement drugs about in preparation for a sale. The leader of this rat pack stood on a balcony overseeing the preparations, an M6G Magnum on his thigh. His armor was silver and blue, rather than the usual green of the basic civilian armor. It was modded as well to give him extra strength, a common mod seen in Salvation City.
"How's everything going?" the man, Ricky Rose, asked his appointed right hand man, a two bit thief named Joanes. He had the job as he was Rose's only lackey who had anything higher than the education of a high school freshman.
"Right on schedule Boss," Joanes said.
"And our customer?"
"Still ready to buy,"
"How much money this time?"
"The most we've made since joining this operation."
"Too bad you'll never see it," said a new voice. Rose and Joanes turned around to see a man in steel colored armor resembling a suit of samurai armor. "Boo." the new arrival said before punching both men in the face. They fell over the railing and landed on a set of crates below, hurt but nowhere near dead.
"It's Deus Ex Machina!" someone shouted, his words quickly followed by the sounds of cocking firearms. Deus ran along the balcony towards an office as bullets began impacting around him. He dove into said office for cover before tossing an elongated, round object which bounced amongst the goons.
"Grenade!" one cried. Before anyone could react, the object exploded. It wasn't a fragmentation grenade, but a flashbang. All the goons were now blind and deafened, and would be for roughly fifteen seconds. By the time they could see again, five of the twelve goons were unconscious, and Deus was nowhere to be seen.
"Where'd he go?" one goon asked in fear.
"Search the damn place!" Rose roared in fury as he regained his footing. "Find him, and kill him." he said. Reluctantly, the seven remaining goons did as such. Five of them made the mistake of searching by themselves. Two of them made the mistake of searching too close together. The unfortunate two heard something behind them, but couldn't turn before their heads were knocked together with enough force to render them unconscious. One by one, using the shadows as his allies, Deus took down the other five, leaving Rose and Joanes as the only remaining resisters. They stood back to back, sporadically aiming their Magnums at every shadow that seemed to move.
"You guys ready to give up yet?" Deus asked, seemingly appearing in arms reach from nowhere. Before either bad guy could react, Deus punched Joanes in the face, knocking him down. Rose brought his Magnum to bear and fired at Deus's chest, only for the round to be stopped by his energy shields. Deus grabbed the Magnum and twisted it out of Rose's hand. Rose responded by throwing a punch of his own, made all the more powerful by his armor mod, into Deus's face. While the shields stopped a bullet, they didn't stop a melee strike. Rose pounced, forcing Deus to the ground. Pinning him down, Rose began whaling on Deus's face with strong, furious blows. Deus, trying desperately to block the punches, thrust his leg up and kicked Rose in the back, flipping him over and off Deus. The two regained their footing at approximately the same time, but Deus had the faster strike, catching Rose in the jaw. He heard a metal scrapping on cement noise behind him and turned in time to see Joanes swinging a pipe towards his face. Deus ducked, giving the swinging pipe a clear shot at Rose. Joanes didn't have time to stop his swing before his boss was hit and put down for good. Before he could remount the offensive, Joanes was struck in the back of the neck by Deus, putting him into unconsciousness as well.
The cops, really just volunteer citizens trained in police procedures, eventually responded to the fired shots and found a total of fourteen wanted criminals tied up and regaining consciousness in a warehouse filled with illegal enhancement drugs. Their leader, Ricky Rose, was still unconscious when he was locked up in the Salvation City Police Station…again.
John Brent stood in the apartment he shared with Michael Jacobs, his fellow university graduate and best friend. They were situated in front of Mike's computer terminal, which was in the process of reviewing the warehouse take down.
"Very nice," Michael commented on a particularly well-placed punch. "Gotta say, though I'm not surprised Rose was back on the streets again."
"He'll be right back out again, too," John replied. "Unless Owen finally gets tired of him and just leaves him there to rot."
"Why does he keep getting him out, anyways?" Michael asked.
"I dunno, maybe he's running low on reliable goons. Ever since the police force got set up, it's been easier to keep criminals off the street."
"Still ain't enough, though," Mike sighed. "Alright, time for the fun stuff, I've got something for ya." He stood and entered his room, followed by John. On his workbench was an armor gauntlet, exactly like the one on Deus's suit. After a few minutes, Michael removed the right gauntlet on his own armor and replaced it with the Deus gauntlet.
"I've added a grappling line system to your gauntlets. All you do is aim, and press this button here." Michael said then demonstrated, firing a hook into the wall on the other side of the room. A cable ran from the gauntlet to the hook protruding from the wall.
"I'm not fixing that," John said. Michael ignored him and continued.
"The cable extends to over forty feet, and can be retracted with this button here. It also has a switch here that allows you to detach the section of cable not in the gauntlet." Michael did so, showing off a hook at the end of the cable. "The gauntlet adds it automatically, allowing you to knock it to something like a rail or tow hook. Thus it can become an anchor or a zip line."
"Very nice," John said. "But isn't it…you know…cliché?"
"What have we done that isn't?" Michael asked.
"Smartass," John grinned. "So, what other updates are there on Salvation's scum lists?"
"Derek Owen, aka Plague, is obviously still loose, along with a large number of goons in his little drug industry. Couple big names, but nothing else of much interest except for this guy." Michael explained, then returned to his terminal and pulled up a security camera showing footage of the robbery at the First Regional Bank.
"Him again?" John asked, aware of the string of robberies and homicides committed by this individual, who always left his message at every scene.
"Yep. Still no name or alias, though the police have officially designated him 'Cannonball',"
"'Cannonball'? Why the hell do they call him 'Cannonball'?"
"How the fuck should I know? Maybe it's a random case name generator." Michael replied. John simply watched the video as the man left the bank, as if he had no care in the world.
That'll change when I get my hands on him. John thought.