1: Enter the Dreadknoks
It's a crowded night nameless dive of a bar. The toughest of the night life clogs the space around the Pool Tables and dart boards. Music screams out, but is almost drowned out by the shouting of the patrons. This is not a place for normal people. No, this is a place where only the strong survive..
"I don't trust this commander, you have got us working for. Don't get me wrong, the money is good, but there is something wrong in his head m…."
"Never use that name Zarana. My name is Zartan." A man with a brown hood up over his head says in a dark mood.
"Why not use that name, it was the name you were born too. Zartan is only a name you stole. Sometimes I wonder whether my brother is in there any more, or if your just a collection of names and parts. "Zarana said with a sad tone
"Hey there Baby, how about you ditch the loser and come back to my play for a real time." Some drunk slurred as he tried to grope Zarana.
Before the Drunks hands can even make contact with their intended targets Zarana is up out of her seat with a knife in her hand. She spins the idiot drunk around so he is facing away from the table and knocks him down to his knees. The Tall lady with the pink dyed hair, then pulls the drunks arm behind his body, placing this hand on the table. In a Flash her knife slams down through the man's hand and imbeds deep into the table.
"We're leaving." Zartan says for the other man's screams as he stands up and leaves the table where there is a pile of money now lying.
Zarana Turns around and lets out an ear piercing whistle " Come on boys, time for us to hit the road."
Ten rough looking men start to file out of the bar and out to their motorcycles. They are all ready when Zartan Pulls out of his spot and the rest fall behind him. Only Zarana has the right to ride beside her brother, and none, save her twin, have the right to ride by her. The group travels for a long time, staying on the freeways. Finally, they pull off into a warehouse district that has seen better days. Before long they pull off into what would look to be an abandoned factory, but is in fact bought and paid for, and is the home of the DC branch of the Dreadnok. Though the name on the deed would never have any mention of "Dreadnok". The Dreadnok's were a ruthless biker gang, and it would not be fit to advertise to any law enforcement agency that they "owned" anything.
They all park their bikes in order of ranks, and a medium built man with a streaks of green through his pure black hair closes the door they entered through.
"Thrasher, has Zandar chosen to show himself yet?" Zartan asks the man with the green stripped hair.
"No, he is still AWOL. I will report as soon as I see him Zartan" Thrasher says
Zartan shakes his head and head off into the darkness of the broken down, loading bay. The area is huge, but it is easy to tell the factory has seen better days. This bay has been changed into a garage to work maintenance on the bikes
A large man with white, buzzed hair gets off his bike. He is quiet, but has an angry look on his ugly face.
" Is there anything I can get m'lady?" He stutters with nerves.
Two other Dreadnoks point and start to laugh , but before they can do much else the monster of a man rushes them throwing one With a green shirt stained with oil into into the Wall. The man falls to the ground with a groan. His sunglasses are knocked off and face, and he looks even more odd with a full black beard and Mohawk. Road pig lifts the other Dreadnok off the ground. The man with his shaggy brown beard and hair fights back with punches and kicks, but they phase the monster holding him, little.
"Enough, Ripper I told you to leave Road Pig alone. Next time I may let him just kill you. As for you Torch, I should let Road Pig finish whatever he is about to do. Still, you're a founding member so I suppose that counts for something. " Zarana says with a wicked smile. "Road Pig drop him, you have made your point."
The large man named Road Pig dropped Torch and stalked off into the darkness barely containing his rage. Someone, tonight, would be hurt because of that rage, maybe even killed.
Zarana looks around and takes into view 30 bikes, It looks like most of the crew that followed them to DC and the few hosting them here seem to be in. Zarana chose to start a recruiting drive when she could, in this area. With the growth of the Dreadnoks, why not have a branch in the US capital. Zarana then followed after Zartan through the halls into an office where her brother sat behind a computer.
" Any Idea where Zack, I mean Zandar could be?" Zarana asked as she sat down in a comfortable chair.
"None. I hate how he just disappears without a word. " Zartan said, leaning back in his chair and pulling the hood off of his brown haired head.
"He learned that from you. You left both of us in the same way. Zandar never got over that. Not blaming you, mind you. Just telling it like it is." Zarana said as she kicked her feet up onto the desk.
"Why do you hold so tightly to the past?" Zartan asked
"We have been over this, or was I talking to another persona? All we have is each other Zar, and we are family. You left Zachery and I when you killed that boy to protect us. We never gave up on us being a family again. Zack and I stuck together, and ran away from the orphanage instead of being separated. Then we started looking for you. You had already stolen a name and a new life. When we found you, it looked like you had no idea who we were at first. In the end though we had our family again, but no one came out of it the same."
Enough, are you ready for your mission?" Zartan said after a long silence of looking into his sisters pained eyes.
"Yes, though I don't like it Zar. You steal lives and become them, and I act the roll of who I am impersonating. I do not like the idea of a microchip being implanted in my head so I can learn all the memories of the person I am playing." Zarana said after she saw a tiny shard of her true brother in Zartan's eyes flicker to life, and then die out.
" The Machine works. I have used it a few times, though I took the memories in by watching them. You will not be changed, and when the mission is over the chip will be removed. You will meet up with the Cobra scientists tomorrow, and they will brief you on your role as well as give you props, and voice recordings so you can mimic your mark." Zartan spoke in a completely business tone now.
2: A Visit to the Doctor
Zarana arrived at the office building where the group known as Cobra was set up. She had been here enough times before that she knew the layout by heart. Zarana had spent part of the night washing the pink coloring out of her hair, leaving what was naturally an auburn color a faded whitened blond. The color didn't matter since her hair would be black before this mission was over, but still better to get the temporary hair coloring out for when the permanent went in
"Excuse me, do you have an appointment?" a thin younger male with blond hair asked from behind a desk.
He was dressed in tones of red, which would be ludicrous on most people, but he seemed to pull off the bell boy look better then a trained soldier, which he was. Zarana recalled these where troops from a unit called the Crimson Guard. They were highly trained in combat, and corporate espionage, what had this one done to get him stuck on desk duty?
" Well, now what do we have here? A pretty young gentleman making sure I am where I belong. Come on now, I don't need an appointment, do I? All I want to do is hop into that elevator and use the little girls room on the bottom floor to powder my nose." Zarana teased as she walked over to the desk. She set down her duffle bag in plain view away from the desk before she walked closer and leaned over.
Zarana was in her early 30's but with all the time she spent working out and taking care of her body to play whatever role she needed to, this 30-something woman looked more like mid-20's. Zarana smiled an elegant smile and leaned further over. It was then she noticed the pistol with a laser dot pointed right between her eyes.
"I don't care if you're about to give birth. No one passes this point unless I know who they are, and if they belong here ." The Crimson guard member said with a snide smile
Zarana looked over at the nameplate and it said "Fred II" then she looked the person holding the gun on her in the eyes and said in a very low very serious tone.
"My name is Zarana, and if you do not get that gun put away before I finish talking I will paint the wall behind you with your brains. Pythona, Mindbender, and Cobra are awaiting me in the lab, and I have seen what happened to other associates that upset them. Fancy a go in the Machine they got downstairs? I heard it can be a real killer."
By the time she was done Fred had put the weapon away, and was typing on a handheld tablet.
"Go ahead, the security system is down until you pass. Don't make any detours. We are on high alert and all security systems are set to deadly force."
Zarana walked past him to the elevator. She could tell Fred was staring at her as she entered the elevator. Most men did stare, blatantly. Today Zarana was wearing tight blue jeans ripped at the knees and a white shirt that stretched tight over her chest that said "Got Milk?" When not in character Zarana tried to either look like a tease, or a bad-ass. Which ever suited her needs to get people to not notice that she had a brain to go along with the body.
Nobody except her twin Zandar knew just how intelligent she was. They both were in the genius levels if the tests could be believed. Both she and Zandar were unbelievably talented, as was Zartan, but Zartan also suffered from his talents. In truth so did Zandar. Zack, as she preferred to call her brother never fit in, he was always smaller than the rest of the kids when they were growing up. He got picked on a great deal when the bullies could find him. One day a Bully went too far and broke Zack's nose. While he was in the nurse's office having it looked at Zartan killed the bully. Instead of sticking around though Zartan ran away.
"Why did he have to run? We could have all fled together if Zartan would have just waited." Zarana said out loud as she went down this sad trail of memories yet again.
Zandar never got over the abandonment, and neither did Zarana herself. Zandar and Zarana bonded together quickly. They vowed to find Zartan and as soon as they could, they ran away from the orphanage. Zarana quickly learned she had a gift for acting, and she created roles for herself to con people out of money, favors, and most importantly, information about her brother.
Zandar on the other hand drew in on himself. He found ways to make himself almost invisible in plain sight. Zandar wanted nothing to do with the world except to survive. He was not anti-social, but he was the one who chose who he interacted with.
The Doors to the elevator slide open and Dr Pythona was there to greet Zarana
"Good to see you again Zarana." Pythona said, though there was no pleasantness to her voice
Zarana had noticed that about Pythona. Though she was easily the most likeable, and possibly trustworthy of the three doctors, She never showed emotion. Oh it was there. Zarana had seen it as she watched how Pythona acted, but the woman never showed it. The only time She ever seemed happy, or anything is when she got to spend time with a range viper, that must have been related to her somehow.
"Your doorman Fred is a hard hitter." Zarana said in return to the greeting
"They all are. The "Fred" series are trained to be the best at what they do, whatever that may be." Pythona responded not skipping a beat.
"You mean there are more of him?" Zarana asked, a little surprised.
"So far there are 15 of them, they are altered to look exactly the same. Each has different skill sets, but they have been put into place to be interchangeable if the need were to arise. Follow me, please" Pythona said as she started to walk away.
"He's new since that last time I was here." Zarana said conversationally.
"He was added for security. They really tightening down as we move into the end game of this plan." Pythona responded.
Zarana followed close behind Pythona. The Dreadnok felt that Pythona was most likely there to make sure Zarana only went where she was supposed to go. One thing about this Cobra organization, they didn't mess around. As ruthless as they might be, everyone followed orders. Zarana followed Pythona into her office where she watched the black haired woman who had a fondness to wear purple rummage through her desk and then pull something out and hand it to her.
" This is what you asked me for Zarana. Place that at the base of Zartan's skull and hit the button. If he ever looses himself to far into his Multiple personality disorder, that should bring back enough memories to bring his original persona to the surface. " Pythona said.
"You mean the persona of Zartan, not my brother?" Zarana asked.
" I think at this point those two fragment personalities are one in the same. I have never seen a case of MPD on the magnitude Zartan has, If you had asked me before I had met him, I would say it was impossible for someone to create a new personality for every person he meets, or sees enough information on."
Zarana nodded and put the, tazer looking, remote into her duffle bag. She thanked Pythona and took a seat the doctor offered and flipped through some of the papers that outlined what was going to happen.
" I want to explain the process of what we will do when when Dr Burkhardt arrives. First, we will do a rapid memory rip with her sedated. This should give us enough of her memories and thoughts so that you can impersonate her with ease. You will have the only copy of her memories, that is the drawback of the rapid system if we are not allowed to terminate the patient. The chip we will be implanted in you will be one inch by two inches and will be fueled by the electrical impulses in your spine. From there we will inject you with nanobots that will transfer the information from the chip to your mind as needed.
"What if those micro things go haywire in my head?" Zarana asked in concern.
"Best case scenario is you die. Worse case is you remain awake and conscious inside a statue of a body, unable to communicate in any way. Thankfully for you, that will not happen. I know these nanobots work. They have been tested in many different Cobra soldiers."Pythona said as she sat down.
"Why do you work for Cobra? Surely there are better uses for your technology. This is so far ahead of anything out there."
"Cobra is the reason it is so far advanced. Under the rule of Cobra, I do not worry about medical problems that other scientists do. If a patient dies, well, there will always be another one to perfect the work on. Plus The work Dr Cobra, and Dr Mindbender have done is unparalleled. Between the three of us, we have almost unlocked the secrets of life. Mindbender has his Genetic theory, and necrotic regeneration. Dr Cobra with his work on how the human brain works. I have my research into cellular reconstruction and Nanobots. I do not trust either Mindbender or cobra, and I expect of them to try to kill me soon. All of that is offset though by what I have learned and found in my work. " Pythona finished an unusually passionate speech.
"Well, I hope you kill them both before they take you out. I like you, love" Zarana said with a laugh.
"Trust me, I am much harder to kill than I appear." Pythona smiled.
Pythona showed Zarana all the information they had on both Burkhardt's. Best she learn all the things she could about the woman whom she would be impersonating, and her husband. What else was there to do? She was to remain hidden until she took this woman's life.
A question came to Zarana, so she asked it. " Can you use the machine, just by viewing what is taken?"
"No."
There it was. A single word had shown Zarana that her brother had lied to her. She is sure this is not the first time he had lied, but for some reason this one really hurt. Hell, it shouldn't matter to her. She had lied to him too. She knew where Zack was, but she didn't like it.
3: up from the Shadows
Chicago had it's good parts, and it's bad parts, the man reflected. This was defiantly one of the bad parts. The area where he stood was little more than a burnt out factory. An urban renewal project if you will. The only thing is the renewal was done by an arsonist street gang burning out a rival meth lab. Hell, the police didn't even care enough to clean up the debris. Not worth the tax payers dollars is what they said quietly. To the public, well the investigation was still ongoing, and procedures had to be followed.
It was late in the night, and thankfully it was early summer so it was warm. There were cars and bikes parked all over the place. The area itself was almost like a quaint olden time festival, if said festival was run, and populated solely by criminals and murders. The man chuckled to himself as he thought that, in hindsight, a fair number of those festivals might well have been populated, just so.
Odd how the Police never seem to show up to these events. Some would say hey are paid off to look the other way. It's not that complicated the man thinks to himself as he supplies the real answer to the statement his mind made. The Detroit Police officers, though many being corrupt, simply don't want to die. This gathering of low life, and thugs is not worth the firefight, it would take to break it up.
There was a crowd forming for festivities that would be starting soon. The man spotted someone who seemed likely to have the information he needed.
"Excuse me, is this the place here the she devil will be fighting?" the man asks.
"Who the fuck wants to know?" A dark skinned man, obviously tied to one of the gangs in the area spat.
"I did, well me and a few bills looking to bet on the match." The man responded unphased.
"How about I take those bills from your white ass, and show you the quickest way into the river?" the tall man leered.
Why did it always come to shows of violence with these types? It's a question the man asked himself frequently. Civility had its place after all. He asked politely, didn't "piss on this guy's turf" as the saying went. Still, since he was small the bigger people thought they could push him around. Oh well time to show this bruiser he was not to be pushed.
With a quick move, the smaller man spun round, kicking the black male's legs out from under him. The gang member ended up on the ground with the white man's foot on his neck, pushing down.
"That would be a bad idea my friend. A better one would be to give me the information I need." The man says softly
Later, when asked what happened to the gang member will tell his friends he was beaten down by some hulk of a guy, but that will not be the truth. The truth is he doesn't remember any details of what the man who beat him looked like, but he is sure that it was a man. At least he thinks it was a man. He would remember a woman, wouldn't he?
4: And So the Fighters came.
The Girl sized up her opponent cautiously. She saw some punk Asian kid, maybe he was gang affiliated, and maybe not. It didn't really matter anyway. She would fight him hand to hand and win, then take the money Steven had raked in on those who bet against her. Who he was before he stepped into the ring people didn't matter. He was here now, and all that mattered was he was the next opponent.
The well toned boy with short black hair rushed her. He was all speed and force. Attack quick and brutally, thus ending a fight before you were worn down. As far as tactics go it worked well. She used it often herself in the eighteen years she had been did have one failing, that this now adult girl with long black hair and green extensions weaved in knew of. She waited until he was right on her. She could feel the heat pouring off of him before she even moved. It looked as if she was stunned by s fierce attack. Though the ones who thought that were Mistaken. A fighter fights two battles. The first battle is the physical one, but the more important one is the second battle. That one is the mental battle, and it can decide many a fight before it even begins. \
That battle had begun or her and her opponent before most had even thought to look. He looked at her, and She did not flinch. He tried to get her unnerved, but she was stone. That is when she won the mental battle, and now he flew at her in a rage. The boy, no older than nineteen ran at her like a rabid beast, and she held h position until the very last moment. Then she simply stepped to the side. The girl with the green and black hair. With her Tightly bound form jumped up into the air and spun her leg out kicking the Asian man in the face.
Like that it was over. Her opponent was down. Maybe unconscious, or dead, she didn't know. Though the girl hoped dead. It would make getting out of here easier if the people expecting a longer fight thought she could kill so easily. Either way it didn't matter as the ring of people split to let her out. She had won that was all that mattered.
The girl walked off to an open corner. She would meet up with Steve later to get her split.
"That is some fighting skill you have there." A medium man with bright orange hair said, to get her attention.
"Whatever." She so did not want to deal with some loser trying to pick her up.
"You're not what I was expecting, that's for sure." The man continued on
"Why don't you fucking get lost, freak!" The girl yelled.
The man seemed to shrink back at being called a freak. That suited the girl just fine. He stood about 5'9"and was very thin. Except for his hair, this man was the most plain person the girl had ever seen.
"Now that is no way to talk someone who wants to tell you about your family, Tricia." The man recovered quickly.
"My mother is dead, and how…" Tricia was cut off before she could go on.
"Yes, you killed your mother and her abusive boyfriend in a fire. Though your mother was no softy when it came to the handing out of harsh love. No, I am talking about the father you have been looking for since you can remember." The man handed Tricia a large envelope and continued. "Take this and read it. Inside is a few it to fix up the bike you have,and go to the address on the sheet inside. Consider this an early inheritance. You can take what is in that envelope and be done, or you can try to find the place you belong.
With that, the man walked away. Tricia was stunned, and even more stunned when she saw the word written on the envelope. When Tricia looked up the man was almost lost the crowd.
Without even a pause in the his step this strange man with hair close to true orange, " The names Zandar. Think hard and Choose your life. We need you almost as much as you need us, but you must be one of us."
She looked back on the envelope and mouthed the word "Zartan". Later Tricia was startled to find that she was the only one who actually remember Zandar. Everyone else gave differing details on who she had talked to. She asked Steve, who was upset when he found her. The Bastard probably gave better odds her loosing. He didn't remember seeing anyone with orange hair. He cheered up when she showed him the 100 hundred dollar bills. Deep down, she knew she should leave him, especially since he could not even put confidence on her winning. Still, they were partners, and in a sense they were family, and so she split her money with him. Then Tricia told Steve in two days they were leaving for DC. Tricia did not tell him about the Dreadknoks.
Steve fumed about leaving such a good deal that they had here. She had a name, and the money was going to start rolling in. Steve would follow Tricia though, he hand to if he wanted the money to keep coming. Family Steve was to Tricia,but the relation was very one sided.