Metro City
Commissioner Stone longed for the days when his only responsiblity was leadership of New York's police superhuman response team, Code: Blue. There, even though he faced incredible threats like The Wrecker and Thermal Man head on, all he had to worry about was his team. These days, the weight of an entire city rested upon his shoulders. His tough crusade against corruption, made easier by Force Works' devastation of the local drug trade that fueled said corruption, made him more enemies than he could count. Most days he fought said enemies in a constant cold war. Not today.
Today, things had gone to hell. A cabal of villains had engaged the local heroes in a fierce battle for control of Metro City's drug trade. The damage these two teams did alone was worse than five gang wars combined, and it hadn't even come to a conclusion. No, that hellish battle was interrupted by heavily armed Flying Eggmen that, if the reports were to be believed, originated from The Work Place, Metro City Hero Headquarters. The shit had hit the fan full force, and it was up to Stone and his police to pull this city through in one piece. He strapped on his body armor, loaded his plasma rifle (a holdover from his Code: Blue days that he refused to part with) and jumped into the wagons transporting Riot Police to their locations.
His boots were the first to hit the ground of his officers, and what he saw made him sick to his stomach. It was a sea of inhumanity. The long repressed criminal element instinctively knew that they now had free reign. Old grudges of neighbors played out violently in the streets. Ethnic feuds seemed to boil over in this time of chaos. This was bad enough under ordinary circumstances, but some of these rioters just happened to be mutants. Stone saw flame emerge from the hands of one young man, and some blast energy from another while another rioter picked up a car like it was a lego-block and pitched it through the window of the local pawn shop. People swarmed like flies to pick the place clean.
Stone just gritted his teeth and started barking out orders. He had the hold the city together long enough for Force Works to save it. As much as it galled him to admit, they were skilled and experienced heroes who had a positive effect on this city. He visited schools in good will gestures and saw the posters and murals dedicated to the young team. He saw the official drop in drug use when the most recent statistics came across his desk.
If only they were a little wiser in the choices of battles… it might not cost them everything they'd ever accomplished.
Marvel 2000 Presents
Force Works 22
The siege of Metro City
Part 2
Plague of Robots
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The scene almost looked like it was ripped out of a bad Saturday Morning cartoon. An flying army of Robots that resembled eggs with shoulder cannons and automatic weapons propped upon their shoulders were bearing down upon King Bedlam's Cabal and Force Works with the most ridiculous and somehow sinister blood red smiles and wide beady eyes. A shiver of foreboding and recognition shot down Mirage's spine as she barked out orders.
"Everyone move!"
There were no declarations of death, no monotone threats, nothing that even gave the slightest warning as the Egg-men began firing indiscriminately upon the opposing teams. Nova, Kymaera, Warhead and Arsenal flew up the meet their attackers head on. Tarene spun her hammer like a propeller, providing cover for Wolfsbane and X-Treme while Speedball defended their leader and his best friend.
"We need to bring these things to the ground!" Nova roared over the din of the battle as he barreled through at least a dozen robot soldiers, "we can't let the others stay pinned down!"
Nova was about to bark another order when he felt a pair of powerful arms wrap around his chest and began to squeeze, hard. They radiated powerful energy that burned to absorb as he felt his ribs cried in pain.
"We're not done yet, boy!" Warhead spat. Kymaera and Arsenal saw their co-leader's distress, but the slight distraction cost them dearly. The underwater Princess was swamped by robots while Arsenal's steel body was slammed with energy from all directions.
"Damn that radioactive idiot," muttered King Bedlam. Given the fact that over half his team was composed of sociopaths or those with personal vendettas, he knew he shouldn't have been to surprised at least one of them would jump headfirst into a war zone for revenge. But the plan had gone to hell, and the last thing he needed was for his team get sucked down with it.
Weeks of planning and scheming were intended to end fairly simply, with Force Works dead and broken in the street at the hands of his Cabal. Taking out the biggest (and as it stood, only) obstacle that stood in the way of reintroducing Metro City into the millions of dollars worth of drug trade that the team had personally ended.
Nothing in that plan included a flying army of Robot Eggmen armed to the teeth and not overly concerned about who they kill. At least for the moment, all Bedlam and his Cabal could do was hide underneath a magnetic force field generously provided by Lodestone.
"Things aren't going to plan, huh Kingy?" needled Charcoal. Charlie Burlingame, former Thunderbolt and current Cabal member had been press ganged into joining this assault. Truth be told, the only thing that kept him on the team was Bedlam's telepathic powers and the fact he had nowhere else to go. The Commission on Superhuman Activities saw Charcoal as a valuable pawn against his former teammates, one they thought would be more useful painted in the blood of young heroes.
"Shut up, fool," Bedlam snapped, "Paradigm, I assume you can provide some way to obstruct these tin soldier's scanners?"
"That is correct, Christopher," The mutant/ techno alien hybrid answered.
"Good. We'll simply allow these things to wear down our enemies…"
"And then we give them a simple lesson…" Madcap cooed as he stared at the hi-tech knife King Bedlam had seen fit to arm him with. He seemed to be almost lost in his own reflection, which might have worried anyone other Bedlam, who's telepathy gave him some control over the villain's insanity.
But it was still a little unsettling.
"Err, yes. Once they're weakened, we can finish what we started," Bedlam affirmed.
"Like Hel."
Conquest nonchalantly strode through field protecting them. Gripping a sword on one hand, she casually cut in two one robot that dared get too close.
"I gotta agree with the warrior princess," Charcoal ignited his carbon form, watching with mild amusement as his teammates were forced to back away to avoid the scorching heat, "you think these things are going to just let us walk away?"
Charcoal didn't wait for an answer before he rocketed into the sky, thermal bursts flying liberally from his hands. King Bedlam dearly wished to make the former Thunderbolt pay for his rebellion, but knew there was no wisdom in that. Not when an unknown army was bearing down upon them.
But if a few of his teammates were killed alongside Force Works, well, that was a price he was prepared to accept.
&&&
Kim Mai vertically raced up the side of an apartment building like it was a regular gym track at over five hundred miles per hour. Once atop the roof, she sighted five Egg-soldiers who were strafing the street below. Taking a second to calculate, she took off at super-sonic speeds, leaping from the roof towards her foes like a human bullet.
She hit the first soldier at over eight hundred miles per hour and enough force to kill ten men. With superhuman speed, she redirected her momentum towards her second foe, then third. By the time she'd struck the fifth and final, she had just enough velocity to reach the other side of the street.
"Five down, a million to go," Sabre muttered. She felt the ground beneath her rumble and a wave of force sweep her forward. With no footing, it seemed like an eternity (from her perspective) until she was painfully reunited with the ground. Pushing past the pain of impact, she looked up and saw an Egg Soldier hovering at the edge of the roof, a missile launcher on one shoulder, and large rail gun on the other.
Like the good little tin soldier it was, the robot activated the rail gun. Four thousand bullets of pure death a minute shot out, enough ammunition to reduce the average sized human body to ribbons. It let loose ten seconds of ammunition before it stopped to admire its handiwork. Its puppet-master took a sadistic pleasure in that.
What the robot saw instead of a bullet ridden corpse of it's enemy was the young Sabre standing there, two piles of steaming bullets on each side.
"Nice bullets," Sabre commented, "want 'em back?"
In less than ten seconds, the Egg-soldiers was reduced less than scrap with its own bullets, falling into a heap to the street below.
Sabre took in the scene at superhuman speeds, counting off the robots that swarmed the sky, mentally counting off how many enemy soldiers were in the air. She lost count after one hundred and twenty.
"This was a really bad time to join up," the third generation mutant commented as she sped into battle, "these bastards better be worth it."
&&&
Tarene thrust her hammer heavenwards, lightning bleeding in every which direction in front of her. It was an effective ward against those robots that were in front of her, but not so effective for the one that had managed to sneak around behind her. Her teammates were fighting their own battles for survival. No one would notice it in time.
"It shames me that we share the same blood." A whip snapped out, wrapping itself firmly around the robot's leg. With a simple crack of her whip, Conquest slammed the construct to earth where it exploded harmlessly.
"You!" Tarene swung her hammer around the second she heard Conquest's voice, for all the good it did her. Conquest grabbed Tarene's wrist that held her war mallet, and brought her right leg up and across the young Goddess's stomach. The air shot out of Tarene's lungs, and her sister slung her forward onto the street as if she were little than a piece of liter.
"Always watch your back, sister dear. It's the most sought after target," Conquest explained evenly.
"What do you care," Tarene choked, a speck of blood dribbling down her cheek, "you said our father wanted you to kill me?"
Conquest suppressed a slight laugh, "He simply wishes to see which of us is stronger, more worthy of his legacy. I simply wish to make you better."
"You tried to kill me."
Conquest rolled her shoulders dismissively, "If it comes to that. However, we happen to be surrounded and out numbered. No better time to teach you to be a true goddess of war. What say you, sweet sister?"
Tarene raised her war mallet from the ground, aimed…and struck an Egg soldier with her lightning.
Conquest yanked her sister up to her feet and then spun around to face their enemy, "And thus you've learned the first rule of combat. In war, alliances are borne from hell."
For a split second, Tarene watched Conquest tear into their enemies with an eerily familiar rage, and wondered worriedly where she was truly born.
&&&
The once man that held Force Works' headquarters in his thrall watched the battle, somewhat irritated by the progress that was being made by his ad-hoc army. That was to say, despite vastly superior numbers, none at all. Force Works and their foes the Cabal, were on the defensive true, but he wondered how long that would last. The element of surprise was effectively lost, and his plans were still hours away from full completion.
Still, he could use his enemy's carelessness against them. Open, fortified positions were generally unwise when engaging in pro-active campaigns. The once man wondered if Force Works knew the full implications of their actions. They regularly involved themselves in volatile political situations, both foreign and domestic, with little rhyme or reason. Their agenda was largely unknown to the ruling elite of the world, but their skill and power wasn't.
A highly trained, erratic unilateral super-team. It was a wonder someone hadn't already launched a pre-emptive strike, the former Public Relations Manager mused.
His hands pressed a few commands into the holographic keyboard that hovered in front of his new body, simply for the hell of it. The real commands came from his mind and were obeyed like the word of the Almighty himself by the surrounding machines, but for too long had he been denied a physical body. The simple pleasures things like taking a stroll on a warm sunny, of eating a ham sandwich or watching a mutant in it's final death throes were just distance memories now, sacrificed to demons in the name of human purity. His new…form had its advantages true enough, but that wasn't to say he didn't mourn for what once was.
When his newest pawns received their commands, he turned around to admire how the construction of his final weapon was coming along. The metamorphic technology of Wiz Kid was invaluable to his cause, easily adapted to any purpose.
Turn your enemies strength against them. First rule of guerilla warfare. And if things went according to plan, the final lesson Force Works would ever learn.
&&&
"Wolfsbane, give me a hand!" Taki shouted. Rahne Sinclair was at Wiz Kid's side instantly. Unlike her teammates, there wasn't much she could contribute. The Egg Soldiers were doing their best to stay out of arm's length, where she could do some damage. Until now, she could do little more than hide behind Speedball's force-field.
"Wha' do ye need?" Wolfsbane asked as she watched her teammate load what looked like an advanced harpoon gun.
"I need one of these robots to study," Taki explained with an almost surreal calm. The young mutant was gifted with enhanced senses, and they all told her that Wiz Kid was little more than angry. There wasn't a trace of fear, anxiousness or worry in his scent or heart beat. Such control impressed and terrified the young heroine. For anyone to be so cold in a situation like this…
The sound of the harpoon firing startled Wolfsbane more than she'd admit. Electricity shot through the wire, and it was finished, the resident genius simply handed her the wire to pull his catch in.
"I trust you recognize the design?" It was a statement, not a question.
"Aye," the lupine metamorph answered quickly, her eyes scanning the battle. It was only natural that the team genius had familiarized himself with all past battles his teammates were involved in.
"And I'm sad to say, I recognize the technology," Wiz Kid's hissed, "and I intend to have words with the thief."
Wolfsbane's acute senses allowed her to hear the increase in her teammate's heart rate and sense the rise in his temperature. She tried not to be judgmental (Heaven knows she had done her share of that), but she couldn't believe that the only thing that made Taki the least angry while they were fighting for their very lives and everything they'd accomplished up until now, was the idea someone had corrupted his technology.
&&&
Nova threw his head backwards, the loud metal –clang!- sound Warhead's jaw produced not surprising him in the slightest, and with a burst of determination, broke out of the bear-hug his foe had him in.
"I'm getting damn tired of this bullshit, Warhead," Nova swung around and connected with a right hook that would have impressed The Thing.
Warhead watched as Nova threw his fist back, and Warhead watched in horror as it started to blaze with energy. He brought his arms up to defend himself, but it wasn't enough. The power struck him with such force and washed over him so brutally the nuclear villain thought he had been hit by a tsunami, and he barely saw the Human Rocket hurtling towards him fists first.
&&&
"God, you can hear the battle from here," John Campbell, twenty three year resident grumbled as he drummed his fingers on his steering wheel. He had been halfway to work when he got a text message that work was cancelled. No employer in their right mind wanted their employees on the street when there was a massive battle occurring in the middle of the city.
Riots, flying robots and super battles. John was beginning to wonder if Force Works weren't more trouble than they were worth. Before, Metro City was awash in drugs and one of the murder capitals in the world. That team of young heroes single handily changed that, John knew. He watched in awe as they raised the city he both loved for its potential and loathed for it's corruption out of the gutter. The city owed those young heroes a great debt. Everyone knew that.
But they were equally responsible for bring trouble to the city. This trouble in particular. Villains had rarely come to Metro City in the past, and had enough decency to lie low. The scales were starting to tip against the team, in John's mind and everyone else's. Why should the ordinary citizens be the ones to suffer the consequences of these people's actions? No one asked them to come here, and though he considered himself a peaceful man, in the back of his mind John contemplated how much the heroes would have to bleed before he forgave them.
Suddenly, that didn't seem to matter. He heard a slight whistling sound that was getting louder and louder. He glanced up to see Warhead's smoldering cyborg body coming at him like a flaming meteor.
John never even saw Nova's blurred form pulling him from his car and depositing him somewhere safe. All he could think about was how lopsided the scales were becoming.
&&&
Warhead took a deep breath (even though his body didn't need air), and with an aching body placed his hand at the top of the crater his ass had made in the pavement. He pulled himself up slow and painfully, each inch making him grit his teeth in pain. The pain seemed to melt away when he saw Nova hovering at the edge of the crater, his arms crossed across his chest and stupid pony tail blowing in the wind.
"Any chance I knocked some sense into you?" Nova's pupils shimmered, filled with power.
"You know as will as I do, I won't stop until one of us is dead," Warhead hissed. He forced himself into a standing position, just to show he wasn't intimidated in the least.
"We don't have to do this, Warhead. Something bigger than you is going down, and my team needs me. One time offer, get lost. I didn't kill your brother."
Warhead snorted in contempt as he shifted his position, very much reminding Richard Rider of a bull getting read to gore someone, "Maybe, maybe not. But when you took my old employers down, you took away my life. They gave me purpose, a goal. They made me someone. And you took that away. Do understand what I'm saying?"
"Yeah," Nova spat, "you're just a dog that needs to be put down."
Before the two foes could continue their battle, two gigantic metal feet, lowered by powerful boot jets that blew abandoned cars over and knocked down telephone poles, landed between them. Then another pair, then another.
"Sentinels," Nova said breathlessly, "it's official. This day can't get worse."
Nova was already in the air by the time the mutant hunting robots fired on him, hitting nothing but earth. Rider held back for a moment. The robots were dripping wet and covered in sea-weed. There was no doubt in Nova's mind that these things were laying in wait a long time and had plenty of anti-Human Rocket weapons packed in their metal bodies.
Regrouping seemed very much like the better part of valor. Richard Rider shot away like a bullet. The boot jets of the mutant hunting robots bellowed by cannons, and within seconds the multi-ton mutant hunting robots gave chase.
Nova didn't bother to try to lose them. After all, he wasn't going far. Just far enough for what he hoped wasn't a last stand.
&&&
The mutant heroine named Mirage quickly accessed her team's situation as her second in command, Nova the Human Rocket, returned with several Sentinels hot on his heels. Her team, alongside the super-fast Sabre, was assembled facing north where countless smiling Egg-soldiers looked like they were ready to march over Force Works' broken bodies.
King Bedlam's deadly Cabal, filled with murderous sociopaths, feral criminals and career killers stood at their back and, Danielle Moonstar thought with equal amounts of dread and amazement, that was the good news. The army that stood at their back and the Cabal's front was equally large, and no less deadly. Once the two armies had successfully surrounded the two teams, they pulled back, readying for one final push.
There were fires burning, rioting and weapons fire sounding in the distance, and still, for an eternity of a second it was eerily quite as the sinister looking army glared down at them with unblinking eyes.
"Okay, I remember this part of the movie," Speedball breathed, "…the always fun big action scene."
"Yeah, somehow I don't think they're just going to call it a draw," Sabre rolled her eyes.
"The heavy hitters should focus on the Sentinels," Wiz Kid explained, "leave Eggsoldiers for the rest of us, their durability isn't up to par."
"And remember…" Moonstar began.
"…watch each other's back and keep Lodestone covered," King Bedlam finished, though he doubted how much his team would follow his orders. Trust was low and they signed on for one main thing and one thing only, kill Force Works. And circumstances dictated they do nothing of the sort. But self preservation was a powerful motivator indeed.
Sabre attacked first, her super-speed wake assaulting the Egg-soldiers like a tidal wave. Speedball was next with bursts of pure kinetic energy that struck with irresistible force. X-Treme and Wolfsbane met the soldiers with their fists while Mirage provided cover fire in the form of psychic arrows.
Arsenal and Nova attacked the first Sentinel, the Human Rocket smashing through the robot's skull, spilling out the delicate cables, nuts and computer boards like they were so much confetti while Arsenal's optic blasts crashed across the metal giant's chest, staggering the creature backwards.
Tarene and Kymaera took the second one. Tarene let fly her war mallet, tearing into the Sentinel like a blazing knife through butter. Kymaera flew behind the robot's neck, gripping its metal head in her webbed hands. Using all of her submariner strength, she tore the robot's head off its shoulder, sending the metal head crashing to the ground.
Bedlam's Cabal, to their credit and surprise were holding their own as well. Conquest and Delilah swept through the smaller soldiers with the grace of ballerinas and fists that struck harder than tank shells. Lodestone tore the robots apart with power that startled herself, using the shrapnel against the remaining troops while Paradigm passively extended techno-organic tentacles, absorbing their energy and adding it to his own stores.
Smiling Tiger and Madcap tore into their mechanical foes with the reckless abandon of the insane, uncaring for their own safety. Tarot created an army with her cards, the Knight of Wands, Satan and Death, ancient arcane tarot symbols that she breathed life into to end her enemies. Charlie Burlingame, Charcoal, elected to tackle the Sentinel opposite his team. Energy lanced from the robot's eyes, striking the former Thunderbolt with thunderous force. Small bits of carbonized skin were blown off, but he didn't much care. Charcoal's body could be smashed to pieces and still function, though it wasn't something he enjoyed. Hardening his arms until they were the same strength and density as diamonds, he plunged them into the machine's sternum. He was like a living, breathing knife to the robot, hacking his way under its chest and slashing everything he came across. If the smoke and electricity that arced off the robot's head was any indication, he was making a considerable level of progress.
For five solid minutes, the battle raged at a solid stalemate. Those robots that were downed were replaced by a half dozen more from The Workplace, better armed and better coordinated each time, while those that were smashed began to impossibly reassemble themselves Danielle Moonstar saw this clear as day, but there was precious little she could actually do about it until she managed to fight her way to Wiz Kid's side.
"These things are going to wear us down," she said matter of factly to the young scientist.
"Distraction?"
"Distraction, and make it damn good," Dani affirmed, "we have to evade whoever's controlling these things and King Bedlam's people. Think you can handle that?"
"I have an idea or two," Taki insisted, "inform the others and give me a little cover. I'll only need a minute."
Taki reached into his front pocket and produced a small, yellow vial. Silently electronic instructions were sent and accepted into the vial. Without preamble, he loaded it into a small gun, no larger than your average water gun. Allowing a moment for his on-board computers to aim the weapon, he let the specially crafted bullet fly.
Paradigm never knew what hit him. One moment, the techno-organic mutant was absorbing the energy of his attackers as bullets passed as harmlessly as summer's breeze through his body, the next he felt a thud that robbed him of all bodily control.
He fought with all his emotionless willpower as his DNA became infected with some unidentifiable element. His body began warping from human shape to spherical and back again.
Lodestone caught at glance of her teammate's plight, and gasped in horror, "Paradigm! What's wrong?"
"1010101010101010!" he pleaded desperately.
"Lodestone! What's happening to him?" Bedlam demanded.
"I…I don't know!" the magnetic villainess felt a slight distortion in her powers, and realized with horror what was afflicting her teammate, "Sweet baby Jesus!"
"What?"
"Someone's transformed him into an electro-magnetic bomb!"
Techno-organic tissue, brought to Earth by an alien refugee, is by it's nature extremely malleable. It can be as hard as titanium steel, as thin as a single strand of silk, as well as perform hundreds of complicated computations that might cripple the greatest super computer on earth, even create complicated weapons, all without breaking a figurative sweat, all dependant upon the will of its host.
But now, that will and DNA was being hijacked. The special bullet Wiz Kid had shot the techno mutant with was specially designed for Paradigm's body. It was something of a final solution, created by a young genius whose first experience with the alien virus was almost his last. The bullet injected a variant of the techno-organic virus itself, over-writing the digital DNA with a weapons design chosen by whatever the techno-morph fancied.
It was like a blanket of pure snow white was thrown over everyone's eyes. King Bedlam's men were caught off guard, and the army that was besieging the two teams turned off like a light switch.
Force Works wasted no time in their retreat. Wiz Kid, his electronics shielded against electro magnetic pulses and manipulations, grabbed both Mirage and his best friend, Speedball, who was staring at him in horror, mouth agape.
"Taki…you killed that guy!"
Mirage's face was unreadable under her mask, but Wiz Kid could see her eyes shooting daggers at him, demanding answers. It was hardly surprising. Due to a complicated turn of events some time back, Mirage and Paradigm were bonded for a brief moment, allowing the young Cheyenne a glimpse into the creature's past and mind.
"I did no such thing," he answered evenly, "the techno organic virus consumes its host and replicates their personality with it's own imperatives underscoring the core personality. I could no more murder Paradigm than I could murder a flu virus."
One didn't have to be a super genius to see that Speedball wasn't convinced, but with a city in chaos, King Bedlam's team of killers and an unknown enemy with a private army and fortress, well…Speedball's delicate sensibilities would just have to wait.
&&&
Commissioner Stone pumped his plasma rifle furiously as he strode forward, like some great Western hero of old. All around this narrow street were officers in riot gear, scattered like rice during a wedding because of one young man.
Calling his foe a young man was perhaps a misnomer. He was an eight foot tall, three feet wide Hispanic man, mutant or superhuman, dressed in the usual MS-13 fashions with a black bandana adorned with a white tarantula in the center, and went by the name Garanhão Do Ferro. He saw the riot as his chance to lash out at the police who (in his opinion at least) hounded him and his people. Hate filled punk was probably more accurate, Stone reflected.
Armor piercing bullets and tear gas did nothing to stop the young man from tearing apart the first squad of riot police, not stop him from then hoisting an SUV above his head, looking for someone, something, to smash. And Stone was the only other man standing now.
"Nice piece man, I almost feel it!"
Stone kept pounding out the powerful blasts from his rifle, hoping against hope that they'd have some effect on this gang banger. He'd served on Code: Blue and lived in New York long enough to know that not all superhumans were created equal. This young punk was no Hulk by any means.
"How about you eat steel for once fucker del cerdo, eh?"
That last thought was of little comfort when the young man pitched the car forward like Zeus hurling lightning down from Mount Olympus. Stone squeezed his eyes shut despite himself, knowing there was no way he could avoid the lethal projectile in time.
There was a loud sound that sounded remarkably like a human eye blinking, and Stone heard the SUV crashing into something other than his own soft and breakable flesh.
He opened his eyes, and saw the crumpled SUV resting atop the punk, as if someone had simply reversed the momentum of the car. Not that Stone was complaining, but he was certainly curious about what the hell had just happened.
"Hope you don't mind the assist, officer." A voice said evenly.
Stone spun around and pointed his weapon at the voice, more out of habit than anything else. He scowled inwardly when he saw his savior.
Another spandex suit.
Stone struggled to remember the SHIELD files he was given on the X-Men. It was somewhat out of date, as most files on current events are, but still held a wealth of information. The young women wore heavy jeans and a light green sweater. Hardly combat gear, though Stone knew the quiver of javelins she wore over one shoulder weren't for show. Her lavender skin, odd eye markings and elf like ears clearly marked her a mutant, and for a moment Stone thought he remembered her code name.
"Bling, right?"
The young woman looked at him like he was an idiot two-year old, "Close, but no. Name's Blink, or Clarice. Whatever suits you."
"I think what I'd prefer is if you went home and stayed there," Stone said in a voice that was a lot more condescending than he wanted it to be.
"To be honest, I was perfectly happy to stay at home, until my home became like, well…home," Blink thought back to another time, another age briefly, "My apartment's a crater, and my friends and neighbors won't be safe until this city is. I'm on your side here, Stone."
"Then you'll help me best by staying out of the way, little lady. I've about had my fill with kids who think they're heroes."
"I'm not asking for a badge here, just…" Blink's voice trailed off when she felt the hairs on the back of her neck. She'd trained and fought alongside Magneto and her once-lover Joseph long enough to know what to expect next.
The effect was less than dramatic. The early morning lights, up and down the city block, flickered once, twice and died.
"…check your radio Stone," Blink said breathlessly.
"What? Why?"
"I know you just met me, but trust me okay? Do it."
Stone flicked his radio on. He noticed he didn't even get static, "Station control, report! This is Commissioner Stone. Does anyone read me?"
Silence.
"I'm guessing you know what's going on?"
"The city just got hit with an electro magnetic pulse. Felt kinda light as far they go, but I'll bet most major electronics are fried."
Stone let loose a litany of profanity learned from over twenty years as a cop.
"I can help."
"And how do you propose to do that, huh?" Stone spat. Since 9/11, every police department was briefed on possible terrorist attacks, above and beyond the usual petty scale employed by the average super villain or Hydra cell. Anthrax. Dirty bomb. Suit case nuke. An electro-magnetic bomb was one of the possibilities covered, and it scared Stone the worse by far. At least with the others, you knew where you stood. You were dead, or going to die. Simple. With an electro magnetic bomb, the natural inertia of the city simply tore it apart.
"I'm a teleporter," Clarice answered, "I can get these men here to the hospital, and get you to your men in a…ahem… blink."
"Cadela!"
Stone and Blink turned their heads to see a crumbled SUV skidding towards them like a hockey puck. Stone scrambled backwards while Blink somersaulted gracefully out of the way.
"I'll kill you!"
Stone felt hands powerful enough to rend steel grab his throat and begin to choke the life out of him. The police commissioner considered himself luck the criminal wanted to strangle him to death, because he knew in no uncertain terms that Garanhão Do Ferro could snap his neck like a dry twig.
Thankfully, the young gang banger had forgotten about the highly advanced piece of custom made weapons that was in the lawman's hands. Instinctively, Stone thumbed the rifle to its highest setting, pressed it underneath the gang banger's chin, and fired. There was a wet, sticky –scrump!-, like someone had just thrown an overripe melon against a brick wall, and the pressure on Stone's neck disappeared.
Stone grimaced at his own handiwork. He hadn't blown the young man's head off, though a small part of him almost wished he had. Instead, the kid's face was caved inwards, like a rotten pumpkin. Stone could still make out the kid's eyes, teeth, everything was still there, just morbidly out of place.
The Commissioner of the Metro City police department looked towards Blink. He expected her to look horrified. He expected her, like most other heroes too often did; lecture him on the sanctity of life, regardless of the circumstances.
Instead she looked at him with the steely gaze of a seasoned soldier. He could see she regretted the loss of life, but deeply understood that sometimes there is no other choice. She would have made a fine officer or soldier, Stone reflected.
"You realize, you help me, and most of the criminals in this city will want your blood. You might as well put an…"
"'X on my back'?" Blink finished the thought for Stone, "Nice pun, last time I did that, I accepted a list of enemies longer than this street. Few more doesn't scare me."
"Glad to hear it." Stone thumbed towards his injured officers, "get them to the hospital and get your pink butt back here." Stone pumped his rifle once,
"'Cause we just us a city to take back."
&&&
Force Works' safe-house, by necessity, was far from posh and pristine. It was a run down movie theater in a very dilapidated and all but abandoned part of town.
Arsenal, Kymaera, Nova and Tarene arrived first. Wiz Kid, Speedball and Mirage touched down next followed finally by X-Treme and their newest ally, Sabre.
The ad-hoc war room was simply the manager's office upstairs. There were several computers and pieces of advanced equipment, though most of them were devoted to simply keeping this safe-house, well, safe. Nothing here compared to the technology they had at their headquarters, but it'd have to do for now.
"Okay, we need to take stock and fast," Mirage began. She pointed to their newest, super fast ally, "Okay, 'Sabre', who are you and what do you want?"
The young Vietnamese mutant leaned up against the far wall comfortably, "Kim Mai. You guys might have heard of my grandfather, Super Sabre. I'm here because my employers would like to offer you guys a deal."
"Your grandfather hunted and killed criminals like animals for sport," Dani deadpanned.
Sabre shrugged casually, "Eh, everyone's needs a hobby."
"And who are your employers?" inquired Arsenal.
"World Watch, a global business slash charity. They think if you sign up with them, it might help them and you guys out," Sabre explained.
"We already have a backer," Kymaera stated.
"Yeah, some bleeding heart capitalist who threw together a team," Sabre let out a snort, "That'll endear you to the hearts and minds of people."
"Hey, Mr. Parvenue is a great man!" Arsenal snapped back, "don't you dare…!"
"That's enough, Bobby. We have more important things we need to worry about," Nova nodded his head towards the window where the red skies could be seen, "like, who stole our base, where that freakin' army came from and why does it look like a scene from the bible out there?"
"I can't answer the first question, unlike the last two," Wiz Kid stated, guilt lacing every word, "First, something has gained control of my lab and various tech packs. The result of which is whoever's taken control of our base essentially has an assembly line for whatever weapons he needs. We've seen the effect already, and not just with those egg soldiers. The red sky? He's blanketing the area in a low level force field to make it conductive for electro magnetic energy. That's why when Paradigm exploded, the energy… carried further than I expected," Taki confessed.
"So on top of everything else, we have a city in full blackout,"
"Pretty much, 'Nita."
"Can't we call the Avengers for help?" Tarene suggested.
Wiz Kid shook his head, "All our secure lines and codes for contact have been compromised. Without those, we have to way to prove that it's really us asking for help."
Speedball rolled his eyes in disgust as he digested the situation. Normally, he'd be in the thick of the discussion, trying to cut the tension with any joke he think of. Not now. A small part of him felt strangely gratified by the turn of events, like the smug satisfaction one gets from saying 'I told you so'. He saw something like King Bedlam's Cabal coming, after all. Nature, vacuum, etc. Another part of him was completely disgusted that this was in fact happening. Under his breath, he muttered something unintelligible, something no one should have been able to hear.
But Namorita Prentiss wasn't your average person. Having lived all her life underwater, a few of her senses were extraordinarily developed. For instance, she could read a sign over a hundred meters away as if it were inches from her face. And Namorita's hearing?
Exceptionally sharp didn't even come close.
"You care to repeat that a little louder for the rest of us, Robbie?" the Atlantean princess snarled.
Speedball's eyes went wide, his face spelling out like a neon sign that he hadn't expected to be overheard. Then, surprisingly, his face became set in a very un-Speedball like manner.
"I said that maybe we wouldn't have this problem if Dani hadn't told the other X-teams to fuck off," Speedball explained evenly, "…of if we hadn't gone into overkill mode against two bit drug dealers."
Shock didn't even begin to describe the faces of his teammates.
"Hey, ain't you supposed to be the funny one?" Sabre said finally.
"So…what, we should have just let this city to drown in drugs?" demanded Namorita.
"No, but our cure seems a whole hell of a lot worse than the disease now!"
"Oh, and we're to blame because Bedlam's a God damned murderer and aspiring drug lord!" Kymaera stalked forward until her face was only inches from her long time teammate in an obviously unfriendly manner.
"He's here because of us," Speedball spat, completely un-intimidated, "don't kid yourself otherwise."
"There are parasites all over the globe," 'Nita countered, "I thought that was common sense."
"Enough!" Mirage pushed the two founding members of the New Warriors and Force Works apart, "we don't need this now! The only debate that's going to do us a damned bit of good is about tactics!"
"We need to focus on whoever's taken over our base first. Figure out what we can from there."
"Nova's right. If the Air Force taught me one thing, it's that the unknown is more likely to take a chunk out of your butt than the known threats."
"Uhh, guys?" Tarene offered meekly.
"I think Mirage may be able to help us in that regard," Wiz Kid proposed, "those Egg soldiers should be familiar to her."
"Guys?"
"You're right, I do. When I was younger and in the New Mutants, those armors were used by an anti-mutant group known as The Right," Dani explained, suppressing a slight shiver. That had been the first battle when a teammate and all but family member had been killed. The first of too damn many, "But The Right was shut down a long time ago."
"Could this be a new group?" asked X-Treme.
"Guys!"
"That's a possibility, but…"
"GUY!" Tarene screamed, loud enough to be heard two blocks down.
"What?"
"…where's Rahne?"
The entire team looked around, dumbfounded.
"We bugged out together, but she told me you gave her a quick recon mission," X-Treme stated.
"I sure as Hel didn't! I…" Mirage felkt her mouth run dry and the world spin around her. She clutched her throat for air as her mind exploded in pain. Arsenal barely grabbed her before her legs collapsed underneath her.
"Dani, what's wrong?"
Tears were streaming down her battle hardened face, "I can feel her pain through our mental link. Oh spirits, he has her again…"
&&&
She had to know. Ever since she saw the Egg soldiers she had a feeling in her gut that he was back. That the man who helped kill her first love and violate her in Genosha was somehow back from the dead. More importantly, her team and family had to know. Know thy enemy was a lesson Nova and Danielle had drilled into their team. That was why Rahne Sinclair went off on her own.
And it cost her three broken ribs, a broken wrist, twisted ankle, one black eye and a punctured lung and more contusions than she could count from the main sentries. Wolfsbane, to her eternal (and final, she feared) shame had over estimated her abilities of stealth.
But thankfully, they hadn't killed her outright. Once they'd defeated her, they grabbed her by her hair and hauled her inside like some delinquent child. Rahne struggled to stay upright, her body on fire and no where near strong enough to put up a decent fight. The halls of The Work Place, her home for so long now, seemed so alien now, with wires and equipment she couldn't fathom strewn about like rice at a wedding. She doubted that the purpose was terribly benign, though.
When they reached the level that held main conference room and press room among other things, the Egg soldiers roughly pushed the young Scots-woman to the ground. The young werewolf tried to stand up, but when she made
She barely recognized the area now. The whole level was stripped bare like it was in the middle of a renovation; the only thing distinct about this floor was what looked like a cube shaped super computer against the north wall.
"Well, well, well, I guess I trained you pretty damn well, Mutate 495. When I assumed control of this base, I knew you would be hiding somewhere, but never expected this!"
Ironically, she almost didn't recognize his original face. She'd only ever seen it in photographs, after all. The only picture she had of him in her mind was after he'd made himself into a metal abomination that nearly killed her dearest friend. She didn't recognize his scent either. The body that was standing before her in circular glasses and a rather plain and unassuming suit was fake, after all. It'd been constructed simply to give the…man the appearance of humanity. Humanity she knew first hand he was lacking.
But the voice? For long as long as she lived, no matter how much she tried to put it behind her, she'd never forget that voice if she lived to be a million years old.
Cameron Hodge.
He manipulated the original X-Men, cost the mutant hero known as Angel his original wings, tried to enslave Rahne herself and nearly killed her friend, Warlock. With gleeful cunning, he nearly succeeded at every attempt he made to destroy mutant kind to express his hatred for them.
And right now, he never seemed more powerful.
"You've come back to me just in time to watch me cripple mutant kind," with casual malice, Hodge stomped his metal feet on Rahne's hands. The young girl whimpered, all her willpower needed not to cry out, "And that will be just the beginning…"
Next issue: Cameron Hodge is back and deadlier than ever! What's his plan? And can Rahne survive in the belly of the beast? Alliances are forged, secrets revealed as our heroes try to survive! Can Force Works defeat Hodge and King Bedlam?