vignette July 2011 Vignette: Ia! Ia! Archeville fhtagn!

[quotemyname]

Through her data connections, I wouldn't be surprised if Blushift could engage the autopilot of any nearby helicopters :P

[Setzer]

Well, DO IT! We´re having a survival horror time in the city, you know ¬¬

[quotemyname]

Doc, is there a set format you want these 'team up vingettes' done in?

Well, DO IT! We´re having a survival horror time in the city, you know ¬¬

"Mike! Miiike! MIIIIIIIIIIIIIKE!"

[Dr Archeville]

Doc, is there a set format you want these 'team up vingettes' done in?

Not particularly, just make sure it all flows together (pseudo)naturally.

[Cyroa]

Dark Star will be making stops all over the world; dealing with multiple problems, rushing between them.

Torque will likely be fighting Grue Drones in Freedom City. *shrug*

[Ari]

King of Suits will be trying to organize the people in the Fens and helping them build barricades to ward off the attacking monsters while forming armed bands to try and mount coherent counter-strikes.

[quotemyname]

Okay, for those interested in tackling Archeville's castle in a joint vignette, I've started a campaign discussion post. Please go post your interest there so that I know if this is even feasible or not.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5610

[Dr Archeville]

quote, I'm kicking myself for forgetting this: talk to Quinn re: Blueshift & Push going to Nichtuberall (Dok's super-secret asteroid base).

[Aoiroo]

Okay, so I'm thinking for Silhouette,

-Sitting in Parkside, she's waiting for the bus just minding her own business, and than, giant tentacle thing. She goes over and sees the snatch and grab happening so she lets herself get captured to get into the vessle. Once inside she wrecks all type of hell of the squid sub.

For Changeling

-Changeling is at Claremont setting a perimeter by making a large illusion that functionally makes Claremont not only invisible, but physically impossible for anyone to even think about in it's area.

-Changeling is at Parkhurst, and from there summons Custos the Gargoyle and uses a spell to awaken all the other gargoyles in the city and she goes with their assistance to lay seige onto the metaceptors and deep ones alike.

[Semi-Autogyro]

Myrmidon is trying to establish a defensive position to blunt the deep ones advance into the city and preventing the kidnappings and then fight the deep ones back into the ocean in Riverside. He'll be trying to rally cops/civilians/etc. (NPCs) to help in this endeavor.

[Raveled]

Glowstar is going to go from 'extra training' with Mr. Archer to fighting Metaceptors above Claremont! The fun never stops for a superhero, does it?

[Cubist]

Myrmidon is trying to establish a defensive position to blunt the deep ones advance into the city and preventing the kidnappings and then fight the deep ones back into the ocean in Riverside. He'll be trying to rally cops/civilians/etc. (NPCs) to help in this endeavor.

If you think a speedster might be useful as a courier to help coordinate your efforts (and maybe get medieval upside the head of the occasional Deep One), Jubatus is available! I mean, Myrmidon can only be five places at once, right?

[quotemyname]

quote, I'm kicking myself for forgetting this: talk to Quinn re: Blueshift & Push going to Nichtuberall (Dok's super-secret asteroid base).

Yea, still waiting on that PM to come back. I may end up just doing the solo version of it if Quinn doesn't show up or respond. I want that point!

[N/A]

EDIT: Nevermind. I need to pay more attention to the plot outlines in the RefCave.

[trollthumper]

Well, I've got Nick's idea down (piece-by-piece exorcism of the undead Archeville mecha), but I'm considering having Cannonade try to isolate/calm/take down the "failed a SAN roll" bunch in Southside. Would that work for an idea?

[Dr Archeville]

Sounds good, TT!

[Aoiroo]

Riverside Park, June 17th, 6:34pm

The buzz of the small hand fan was a small comfort as Carrie leaned into the back metal bench. Her head lay backwards as she looked up in the sky through her five dollar sunglasses and let out a sigh. It was way too hot for her to have to wait on public transportation, but their she was stuck in the middle of summer looking out over the coast waiting for a bus that was probably backed up in Friday's traffic,

"#&@*ing car jacking ninjas."

She leaned back and looked at the sky, it was slightly cloudy, but still a deep clear blue like you could see straight into space. She just stared at it for a little while, tracing the clouds with her eyes, humming absently some song she might want to add to her imaginary iPod play list. Really not expecting anything at all. It was around that time she saw a dot, make that two dots, make that, wait what. Pulling her head up she turned and properly looked up at the sky and saw several pouring out of the horizon, but that's not what caught her attention. Screams that caught her attention almost immediately.

Jumping up she looked behind her and met her gaze with a giant squid like water thing, and out of them were running man sized scaly fish things. Really she didn't have much in ways of a vocabulary for them, they looked a like Vances fishy form, the black lake beast, but a lot more primal, predatory, and really not like Vance at all who whatever form had this goofy smile on his face. Also, they were freaking terrifying. They weren't a bunch of thugs with empty threats, they were were solid will kill you without a second thought because it never occurred to them that it might be a bad thing scary.

She wanted to run. Last three months alone, beaten down patron gods of werewolves and animated statues, threw down with hordes of ninjas on two separate occasions, took out an animated giant jade statue. The woman who had done all these things wanted to run to her house, or possible her parents house and hide in a corner from creatures and it almost overtook her to do so. Than she heard another scream, this one was higher, more distinct, a child.

Turning she saw a man be torn away from his child, a little boy maybe six or seven and any instinct of terror she had was replaced by several curses and a quick sprint. She hit the beast moving with the child with a jump kick broad side. He didn't let go, instead he looked to the other who had hurled the man back with a quick movement and started at Carrie sweeping a coral like club at her. She ducked the weapon but it cost her the distance towards the child. Ducking another sweep she ran under the attacking beasts hand and ran forward. She made it about three steps before a club hit her broad side on the back.

She went down hard, but she wasn't out. She wanted to lift her head, but she stopped and thought as she listened and realized they didn't speak a lick of English, or Spanish for that matter or anything resembling the two. She recognized the tone though; one of them was upset; yelling at the man. Why? Because she was hurt? Wait why, she attacked them and he was angry that she was hurt, they had no problem pushing that guy around. Wait, guy, she was a girl. Did, did they need woman? Jesus was that an old cliche.

She didn't have much time to think about it before she felt something grab her waist. She froze; all her instincts told her to fight, to kick and escape, but she resisted and fell limp like the blow had knocked her out. The creature pulled her into a fireman carry and started moving forward. From her angle Carrie could squint and get a better view from behind what was happening. She had to stop from gasping at the sheer number of these things around her. All of them armed to the gills, and all of them stopping and grabbing woman and children.

She also saw the dads, the older brothers, the left behinds. They were fighting and doing so hard, but they didn't stand a chance. One even had a gun out, but it was caught by the fish and the dude got an ax into his shoulder for his trouble. She had to resist the urge to move, to go and help, but she didn't have a chance against these numbers like this.

For now she needed to be taken; she had decided it was her best bet for helping the people who already were. Someone else would come and help those on the outside; they had too, this was freaking freedom city. But she wasn't that person, she didn't have the power to be. She had to be the one on the inside, at least for the moment.

_____________

The inside looked dank and moist, and creepy as all hell. Seriously, the walls of the somewhat narrow hallways didn't look like they were made; they looked like they were carved out of obsidian all shiny and smooth looking though it was probably the lighting making it look darker than it was. It was lit by red lights which in the dark giving everything this eerie sense of dread, though it was not as creepy as the veins. Not pipes, they were definitely not pipes. They were nearly translucent and stuck into the walls and they were flowing with this green liquid that visibly pulsed; like this wasn't a ship but a monster they were being dragged into.

The doors were ovals in the wall slightly raised bottoms like most boats and submarines and almost definitely automatic. The room they went into was lit in yellow revealing the metal was just very dark and not actually black, but that didn't subtract from the creepiness; probably because from wall to wall this room was filled with pods filled with some slimy liquid and just down the row it was clear that there were people in there; woman and children being filed away and into these things. It made her sick to her stomach; which made it fine that she could only look through squinted eyes as she continued to feign unconsciousness. But the waiting was killing her; still she had to time this right; she needed to catch them off guard.

She waited, waited, counted and listened as people screamed, and struggled not to be put in. Than it was her turn, her turn to be put in, to be put in that freaking sliminess. She was held up still feigning unconsciousness as they tried to push her in that's when she opened her eyes, and head butted the freak. It didn't take him out, and it probably hurt her more than it did him, but she'd be damned if that creatures wasn't surprised that he dropped her right than and there. She crouched and attacked his legs, knocking him off balance before pushing right back up with a flattened fist that went right in and through his ugly stomach. The fluids of the creature had a strange consistency, similar to blood but way more runny. Still she didn't care much wipe it off or even to pull out her hand from the wound as she looked over at the now reacting guys behind him that had more hostages.

They tossed their respective prey aside and came on full force weapons in hand. Lifting up the limp body of her previous captor she held them between the two and let it fall when the fire ended before dropping it there and taking another step to knock the weapon out of the creature's hand and digging her pointed palm into it's throat.

She continued through the crowd; meeting trouble with the occasional hostage and definitely taking more than her fair share of hits. But when the she got the chance to catch her breath; the room with a stray of fish men littering the floors instead of people before she got to the door. Her heart and head were pounding; she was bleeding she didn't know where from. She didn't particularly take a second to look but she could still move, and she could still fight.

"You guys are going to stay in here, you'll stay in here and do whatever you can to break those things so they can't put you back into them. Understand."

She got very few responses to that, the shock of the whole thing was still wearing on just about everyone else. A few people came forward however,

"We should escape, if we make a run for it."

"They'll grab you again and bring you back inside."

Carrie said this while leaning against the door frame for support and pointing down at the weapons of the fallen fish men,

"Stay in here, if they get in, shoot, but we can't leave yet. We're outnumbered and outgunned, we need help, but don't worry it's coming. There is always help coming."

"But if we're staying where are you going,"

"I'm going to buy time, they'll be more coming and I doubt they'll be too happy about what I did to their buddies. So stay HERE!"

"But you can't just go out there by yourself."

Carrie paused for a moment before walking forward and looking at the person, an older woman with bleached blonde hair clutching to a younger child,

"Watch me,"

From her position she sprinted backwards taking a fist and smashing it into the door control. The door started swishing shut and she slipped through it just as quickly smiling as it did so at the shocked faces of the people inside.

The door closed and it was dark and quiet. Glancing down the hallway in the red light she saw them coming in swarms and the smile dropped almost instantly. She let out a breath and pulled herself into a more defensive position,

"I am so freaking dead."

[Avenger Assembled]

Citizen

Hero Worship

City Center

As the city exploded into a thousand chaoses, Citizen zipped his way through the wi-fi network of Freedom City, keeping in touch with Gina. The program he was using was a sophisticated message encryption protocol that looked to him (as it would have looked to anyone seeing him from the outside) like a commlink mounted securely in his ear. "There's a lot of interference around Freedom Hall!" said Sharl, pausing over the imaginary skyline that represented the city's computer network. Down below, the simulated Freedom Hall (actually a representation of the building's computer systems) was being overgrown by a hideous tangle of flesh and circuits that looked for all the world like an extrusion of the Grue. "It looks like the anomaly's right there in their systems!" Swooping down low with a 'speed' greater than his projected self could have imagined, Sharl was struck by how real things felt in the network. He could smell the scent of corruption here far better than he could in the half-there 'real world' , and hear the sound of collapsing systems beneath like the sound of crumbling buildings. And of course it seemed real. He could be hurt here just as much as he could have been back in Tronik; after all both places were equally real. And so was he.

While Gina was busy with what she'd described to Sharl as "The hack of a lifetime," Sharl himself had an important mission: to find out how the conqueror above had paralyzed the Freedom League's computer network and to remove the programs he'd dumped there to subvert it. If the League's teleporter network fell, the enemy in space really would be everywhere. As ominous as the corrupted cyber-Freedom Hall below looked, Citizen had to get to the bottom of this. "I'm going in," he told Gina, sucking up his courage for a moment before he landed at the Hall's doors. In the world of flesh and blood, Sharl was an insubstantial phantom of projected energy able to walk right through walls: in the simulated world, Citizen drew back his fist and knocked Freedom Hall's doors open with a punch. The Grue 'vines' of corrupted program reached for him, but Citizen tore them aside as he stomped into the building, his sentient nature and empowered program making him as impervious to their power as Gina had hoped.

"I know you're in here!" he called, grabbing for the vines and ripping them out of the walls as he went, their writhing bulk cold and hot between his fingers at the same time like monstrous snakes as he tore and crushed them. "I'm not going to let you have this system! Come out and fight, you coward!" He didn't have a lot of experience fighting supervillains inside computer systems, but he'd done it enough to at least know what to say. Sure enough, his taunts worked, almost too well: he had only a second's warning before a black-uniformed figure exploded from the darkness behind him like a phantom, slicing at him with twisted, razor-sharp claws! Just in time, Citizen grabbed the man's hands and threw him over his shoulder into the wall, hard enough to break the plaster and send chunks shattering down on both men. Gritting his teeth, Sharl raised his fists as he faced down his enemy: a man in a crisp black uniform and black trenchcoat, the symbol on his chest like the twisted Interceptors costumes GIna had shown him before his departure.

To his surprise, the other man spoke, his voice a sibilant hiss that contained a cowboy's drawl despite all that. "Aheheh...I know you!" He pointed one of those clawed fingers Sharl's way, looking for a second like one of the villains Sharl had observed in Freedom City's teenage horror movies. "I'm Vince, but you can call me The Composite Interceptor. In here, I've got the powers of every Interceptor. Hey, Jackie-boy told me about you. You're that little program pet of that hottie Miss Americana. You get any tail off that-"

"Listen, you need to shut your mouth right now," snapped Citizen, trying to suss out what 'powers' this other program had in the system. He certainly looked formidable; energy occasionally crackling along those claws, his trenchcoat hanging behind him like Fulcrum's cape. Oh damn, is he some kind of cyber-Metaceptor? Son of a- "I'm going to stop you, and I'm going to stop your master. It's up to you how that happens." A second later, Vince demonstrated his answer to that: slicing across the room with electrical speed and punching Citizen right out of the building! From a hundred feet up, Sharl spat out a Tronik curse as the vines began growing again over Freedom Hall, and dived back into the fray to return Vince's punch with interest.

To an outside observer, their struggle would have been cool and bloodless: two programs attempting to overwrite each other with code and data in conflict. Inside Freedom Hall's systems, though, Sharl and Vince were at war: Sharl landed punch after punch to Vince's face and body, feeling ribs break as he punched the other man across half the simulated city, taking a savage beating himself from a barrage of hi-tech bullets, slicing claws and electro-blades, and even a speed and strength to match his own! It was a violent struggle of headbutts and kicks, body blows and punches, that left both men battered and bloody from the sheer force of their deadly combat. But in the end, Sharl Tulink, a product of the Curator's programming and Miss Americana's tinkering, was victorious over the Interceptors' holographic buddy: with one last blow from a thousand feet up he smashed Vince to the pavement before the burnt-out hulk of the Brownstone's computer network, dropping to his knees himself as he heard the crunch of Vince's limp body.

To Citizen's surprise and relief, though, Vince didn't stop moving: instead, with his program corralled, the warped and twisted code infused by Archeville detached itself from Vince, wriggling away into the cracks in the pavement beneath like so many bloated worms: claws and teeth, electricity and swords, guns and cape, all writhed their way off Vince and vanished from sight with a wet, organic sound. With a gasp, Vince opened his eyes. "Oh...oh God!" He spat up blood and tried to sit up, reaching automatically for the hand Sharl had extended him. "Kid...kid, I think that was just what I needed. Thanks..." He looked around, adding, "Boss, Jackie, all my friends...he's got them! He's got them just as much as he got me!"

"We'll help them," Sharl promised, his own face bloody from the beating he'd taken. "We'll help them just like I helped you. But first, we need to save this system. Will you help me?" With a nod, Vince stood, and the two programmed heroes rose as one and flew towards Freedom Hall's computers with the speed of thought: Sharl got back in communication with Gina and told her all that had happened even as he and Vince moved through Freedom Hall's systems, tearing away the Archevillian corruption: on the outside, with the League's systems free, the heroes of Freedom were suddenly able to communicate with the outside world and each other again.

They found the code that had been forced into Vince as it tried to escape into McNider General's servers, and together the two programmed heroes took great pleasure in crushing it underfoot like so many writhing vipers As the darkness cleared from the network, Sharl and Vince stood proudly beneath the sunless sky above as it filled with light. "We did it. Son of a gun, I can't believe we actually did it." Vince wiped his face and said, "Listen, uh, about earlier, Miss A's a real classy lady. And you're an okay guy too. That's quite a left hook you have," he added, giving Sharl a cautious smile that showed a split lip and cracked front tooth. "And I know from left hooks."

"It's all right," said Sharl, who was pretty battered himself. "You weren't yourself. I saw the real Vince just now, helping save all these systems." Thinking about what a human would do here, he put aside Tronilk reserve and reached his hand out to shake Vince's. "Come back with me. Miss A can patch both of us up and we can find the Interceptors together."

"...no, man, I've got to do this myself," said Vince, adjusting his outfit. "They...they wouldn't stop looking for me," he added, "If they were themselves, that is. I've gotta go find them and help fix them the way you helped me."

"What if Archeville catches you, and changes you again?" asked Sharl in reply, mindful of the risks to his newfound ally. Surely an artificial program, especially in the hands of its creator could easily be corrupted again. "I'm not Miss A, I can't fix your program up against that kind of corruption."

"Yeah, you can," said Vince, releasing Sharl's hand. "My whole life, I've been a mascot, then a friend..." he looked away for a moment, "...a...a slave...but today, after all this..." He looked around at the freed systems of Freedom City. "I know I can be a hero, too. My friends wouldn't leave me behind. I'm not going to leave them."

"Good luck," said Sharl, sensing he couldn't talk Vince out of it. With his communicator beeping, he said, "Listen, uh, I've gotta go myself. But you're not the only one who was inspired today." He put his hand on Vince's shoulder. "You called yourself the Composite Interceptor earlier but I think it's the other way around. The Interceptors are your friends. Make sure they know you're a hero too." And with that, Citizen zoomed off into the simulated sky, ready to pop out into Gina's network to help save Freedom City all over again.

[Supercape]

Supercape

AI! AI! MONSTERS OF HEAVY METAL!!!

July 20th

The legions of the dead swarming around Germany and Europe were causing chaos enough. Supercape was teleporting from city to city, country to country, in response to frantic radio transmissions pleading for help. He had initially come to help London repulse a wave of zombies marching from the Thames, but it became increasingly apparent he was needed here there and everywhere. No sooner had he unleashed a nuclear inferno above the Thames, scattering a horde of the unliving, than he heard a call from Paris, and had to shore up the Eiffel tower with quantum matter, before fighting off another wave of dead marching through the streets of that ancient city.

And now, he was in Berlin, facing even more trouble.

“Aii! Aii! Children of the Atom Arise!â€

Ever since Professor Liebniz had irradiated himself, convinced of the power of atomic energy to enrich the frail human biological organism, he was a little frayed round the edges when it had come to his sanity. That’s what happens when you are becoming a living bio hazard.

Now, however, his mind had gone full steam ahead loopy, in his own quite particular style. His spouting of quasi-science and horrible cults in languages he could not possibly know was clearly an imitation of the thing that Doctor Archeville had become. It was no stretch of the imagination to suppose that Liebniz, a German genius, had a touch of Archeville blood in him somewhere from a few generations back. It was certainly the case that his two children back in Freedom City where showing similar if not quite so profound signs of blabbering insanity.

Additional evidence of Archeville blood could be observed by the way the tentacles around his head writhed and jerked as he muttered those strange languages. The mandibles that had sprouted around his mouth and the extra elongated fingers also gave significant testament to his genetic heritage. What made his case all the more peculiar was that his flesh was not merely distorted by the taint of Archeville ancestry, but by the fact that his body was also made of pure, animated uranium rather than flesh and bone.

Normally, Liebniz was a snivelling academic worm. He was certainly dangerous to any scientist who would try and make a name for himself or dare usurp his own prestige. But not dangerous to life or limb. However, Liebniz also had an alter ego, a supressed psyche, the super charged, super powered, super villain named Heavy Metal, that sprung to life when exposed to large quantities of radiation.

So what would a mad physics professor do in a time of international chaos?

“Aii! Aii! Children of the Atom Arise!!!!â€

Heavy Metal stood at the gates of the breached Berlin Nuclear Power Plant, basking in nuclear glory. The dead, of course, were oblivious to the lethal effects of the background radiation. In Heavy Metal’s mind, it all made perfect, mad, twisted sense!

“Arise glorious children! Bask in the glory of the atom! The bringer of life! Kneel before the marvel of the molecule! Muahaha!â€

“Behold the new world of nuclear divinity! The new life of Doctor Archeville! I serve the glorious unspeakable thing of which I will not speak! Hahaha! I am honoured to be his nuclear knight! All shall mutate before my breath of radioactive redemption! The Doctor shall be so pleased! I will be proud to mutate you all for his glorious vision! Perhaps he shall at last recognise my worth!â€

Supercape advanced slowly, hovering above the clawing hands of the countless undead, and creating his small nuclear explosions to dissipate the larger clusters of them. The background radiation was fortunately filtered by his own costume of unstable molecules and he could proceed into the reactor without undue problems.

“Aha! My nemesis!†laughed Heavy Metal, with a frankly insane flavour, as he spied Supercape approaching. “Approach and worship at the throne of the Nuclear Knight! Servant of his King Archevilleness!†he proclaimed, wrapping his costume around him in an attempt to justify his self-proclaimed position.

Supercape continued to approach, but had no intent of worshipping.

“Liebniz! Calm down!†he implored “The whole world’s gone to pot, old bean, we can’t have nuclear reactor leaks on top of all the other craziness that’s going on!â€

“Beautiful craziness! At last, under King Archevilleness, my genius will be revealed! My glorious nuclear radiance will shine!â€

Supercape paused. The man was even more insane than normal, as he had suspected.

He tried bathing the man in radiation. He did this without moving a muscle, and the effect was invisible. And Heavy Metal completely ignored it.

The man is completely invulnerable to radiation! realised Supercape as he sensed the released radiation soak harmlessly into Heavy Metals body. It was fortunate that Heavy Metal did not see his insidious manipulation of atomic forces.

“What about your wife, Liebniz? Your children? How do they fit into this great plan of yours?†he asked, hoping the professor he knew (and, to be honest, loathed), was still in that mad metal body somewhere. And it looked right he might be right, for Radioactive Researcher did indeed pause for a moment…

“My wife? My…children?†he asked “Aii….†He mumbled grasping his head. “I can’t… they are… it will all…†he struggled, incomprehensible. Despite the twin spears of insanity and the ego of Heavy Metal, he was not yet completely ready to abandon his beloved family to the machine of Archeville.

In a flash, he transformed to a body of pure pulsing green radiation, and took to the skies in a blur. Supercape raced up to try and keep pace with him, but was soon outpaced, and Liebniz had soon reached the horizon and beyond. It would still take him hours to cross the Atlantic at that pace, and Supercape could only hope that during the flight his radioactivity would ebb and he would begin to change back to Liebniz. Even if he did not, it would not be long in Freedom City before he would revert, without a suitable power source to feed on.

And if he did create havoc there, Supercape would come the call. In the meantime, he had a nuclear reactor to contain, and a horde of undead swarming around it…

Unleashing another blast of nuclear power, he swooped off into the Berlin Reactor…

[Electra]

Miss Americana

You Can't Stop the Beat

Hanover

Sharl himself had an important mission: to find out how the conqueror above had paralyzed the Freedom League's computer network and to remove the programs he'd dumped there to subvert it. If the League's teleporter network fell, the enemy in space really would be everywhere. As ominous as the corrupted cyber-Freedom Hall below looked, Citizen had to get to the bottom of this. "I'm going in," he told Gina, sucking up his courage for a moment before he landed at the Hall's doors. 

"All right, good luck," Gina told Sharl, breaking the connection with mixed feelings. She knew Sharl was doing what he knew was right, and that she probably couldn't have stopped him if she wanted to, not short of forcibly recalling his program and containing it on its home drive. Which had been tempting for a moment. It was dangerous out there, and he was young and more naive than he liked to think. But he was also a superhero, wanted to be a superhero, and this was what superheroes did. She'd thought about going in after him, just in case, but there honestly wasn't time. She had other work to do, dangerous enough in its way, and vital to the security of the world. Reclining her seat, she sighed and closed her eyes as blue electricity played over her body. In moments, she was inside the network.

This was hardly Gina's first trip inside the ArcheTech mainframe. As an employee, Miss A had legitimate access, and she often popped in to correlate data faster or to look for some obscure bit of computer minutae. She'd spent a few hours in her first week just tweaking her own equipment to run at optimum speed. But it was all very different now. The mainframe was locked and barred, protected from even the slightest intrusion by someone whose intellect and programming abilities exceeded that of normal humans. This was obviously the handiwork of Doktor Archeville himself, or a handpicked metahuman security consultant. She was willing to bet it was his own. The freakish monster he'd become seemed like the sort to trust himself first. The program was doing its job well. She could "see" a dozen programs already slamming themselves against the security firewall, some destroying themselves in the attempt. She caught computer signature from the US government, the military, UNISON, and several others not so easily recognizable.

She left them to their work and slid away from the mainframe's public access point, around to the much smaller network that controlled the HVAC and quarantine systems in the ArcheTech physical plant. Here was the weak point, if the system could be said to have one at all. The subsystems here integrated with the city utilities and with the larger networks of ArcheTech Worldwide, and the security was only as good as its weakest link. Scanning the area, she chuckled silently as she noticed the faintest trickle of data leaking from the connection between ArcheTech and Freedom City University. Low bid state university networks, and look what happened. She homed in on the tiny defect and sliced it open just wide enough to slip through and into the system itself, closing the breach behind her. The last thing she needed was a bunch of amateurs crowding in behind her and stomping around when there was work to do. Or getting into the personnel files.

She spared a passing thought to her defenseless body, in a location known to the monster, but there was nothing to be done about that now. She had been a fool, and that sort of error always carried a price. If she and Dragonfly had taken Archeville's psychosis more seriously, had looked harder at the errors in their scans, would they have seen this coming and been able to avert it? Had the work she'd done for ArcheTech this year been perverted toward the creation of the monsters rampaging around the world? However this turned out, whatever the body count, Gina knew she bore a share of the culpability. But she would also help to stop it.

Inside the mainframe, she was a little startled at how normal everything seemed. Other than a huge energy draw in the largest lab, everything was in its normal rest state, as though just waiting for the staff and researchers to come in and start working for the day. She headed straight for the energy spike and saw creatures pouring through what looked to be a dimensional portal. So that was where they were coming from! Well, that would stop now. She cut the electricity and smiled invisibly as the portal popped out of existence, a smile that slipped when the damn thing started right back up again. Obviously there were backups installed, and these were better protected. It took nearly twenty endless seconds of grappling before she managed to find and kill all the failsafes and backup systems powering the portal. For good measure, she released a clever little virus she'd been keeping in her pocket, giving it a few commands before letting it out into the system to tie things up. As soon as she let it go it began multiplying, little byte-sized rodents scurrying through the mainframe and chewing as they went. Whoever was tasked with eventually getting ArcheTech open again or shutting it down permanently would have their work cut out for them.

Gina remained where she was for a few moments to watch them work, then shot through the network to the next-largest ArcheTech facility, long seconds of travel time away in Germany. Now that she was in the network, nothing was going to stand in her way. She just hope she lived long enough to be able to brag about her accomplishments later!

[Supercape]

Rene deSaens

AT THE MADNESS OF MEXICO

21st July

The things that crawled from South America were difficult to describe. They usually had too many limbs. On occasion, they had too few. And the limbs were not legs or arms. Or at least, not always arms or legs.

Or not always completely arms or legs.

And that was just for starters. They really were the stuff of nightmares. It would be hard to describe them properly, because it was hard to look at them or see them properly. At times, it seemed that they fused with one another and split off randomly, as if they were barely separate things at all.

The border patrol between Mexico and the States had been reinforced and was doing a good job of fighting them off, using copious amounts of fire power that seemed at least partially effective, even if the horrors seemed to display unnatural resilience beyond normal flesh, blood and bone.

Rene deSaens had decided to see what he could do to help. Picking up a picture of the border, he swiftly painted himself onto it, and appeared at the madness of Mexico.

“Captain Dyer, Sir, William Dyer!†saluted an efficient looking Marine, in between barking some orders at the soldiers who were fighting back. Artillery, air support, and small arms were all being used, but it was a gruesome business, and casualties were being taken. Several superheroes had joined into bolster the line, but with the whole world going to hell, everyone was stretched.

“General Lake said you might be on your way, got word from Freedom City. Damned if I know how you got here so fast but, we could sure do with some help…â€

Even as he spoke, a deafening missile strike interrupted them, followed by some screams. It was hard to tell if they were of rage, pain, fear, or complete insanity.

“The men..well, lets say the men are not at their best right now…†trailed off Dyer. “These things… they aren’t right, are they?â€

As he spoke, a young marine came running up to Dyer, jabbering incomprehensibly. “Aiii! Aiii! Tik Tik Tik!!!†he gibbered, clawing at his own face and then hopping off, clutching his ears repeating the same phrase over and over again.

“Poor Padodie†lamented Dyer. “I think he saw something…drove him over the edge…â€

Rene clambered up an observation tower with some difficulty, muttering all the time. “I don’t know how helpful I can be, Mon Capitan! I am a helpless old man! I can hardly climb! It has been years since I fought in a war…â€

Centuries even, and Rene had no desire to fight in another war after the bloody horrors of the French Revolution. This, however, was horror of an altogether different scale. Rene had seen plenty of horrors from the realms beyond in his many years, and horrors that were much more malign that the ones he now saw. But he had never seen such as seething mass of horrors as now stood before him. He actually took a step or two back from the shock.

“Pretty terrifying, isn’t it?†agreed Dyer, standing by Rene’s side. “Look out!†he screamed, as a mass of tentacles, half spider and half octopus started clambering up the tower towards them. He let out a burst of gunfire from his rifle, which slowed the thing down. Rene stretched out his hand and unleashed a bolt of blinding light, that incinerated the thing.

“Let me remind you, young man, that I am just a helpless old man, and let us not discuss ze matter any further…†said Rene firmly, giving Dyer a firm look. The last thing Rene wanted was a reputation. He had noted that Mages with powerful reputations tended not gain lots of unwanted attention at best, and not live very long at worst.

Rene ordered Dyer to fetch his easel, a curious request, to be sure, but one which Dyer agreed to, having seen the mage at work. Rene surreptitiously flung a few more bolts of mystic power at the encroaching things, whenever they got too close, or a solider seemed to be in danger.

Once the easel was set to work, he started painting the scene.

“Ah, monsier Capitan! What a scene!†he sighed “surely this will be a masterpiece! ‘the madness of mexico’…I shall capture this epic battle on canvas for all eternity!â€

“Errr… that’s all very well Sir…†agreed Dyer, hurling a grenade at a cluster of eldritch horrors that had started crawling towards them “..but perhaps this is not the time for painting?†he spied another tentacle horror hopping towards them and opened fire with his rifle, which spluttered, running out of ammunition.

He grabbed a passing marine by the collar. “You there…Atwood…chap with the tentacles…five rounds rapid…†he ordered. The brave solider bravely climbed up and joined Rene and Dyer, opening fire on the creature.

Bullets seemed to slow it down, but not stop it. It continued to slither away, and was joined by many equally horrific brothers. Seemingly oblivious, Rene continued painting.

As the tentacles elongated and started probing towards Rene and the two soldiers, bayonets were drawn and started hacking and slashing at the beastly thing.

“Sir!†implored Dyer “Please! Now is NOT the time for painting!†he roared, firing his handgun and slashing with bayonet at the tentacle that was strangling Atwood.

“Excellente!†said Rene, holding up his brush and closing one eye for perspective, “hold that poseâ€

“ghrrrk!†croaked Atwood.

“What a work this will be!†smiled Rene.

Just at Dyer was about to roar at the so called Superhero for his cowardice, inappropriateness, and seeming callousness, the impossible happened…

Somehow, and it was hard to describe how, the things just seemed to fold in on themselves, distort, and get sucked, pulled, or slither into the canvas that Rene was painting on.

Lo and behold, the work was finished. "At the madness of Mexico" . A detailed canvas work showing, in fine detail, the heroic stand of the US Army against the horrors from beyond.

“Finished†smiled Rene “I am sure there are plenty more things crawling around, Monsieur Capitan, but that should clear the field for now, as I am sure you would say, eh? And just remember, not a word… I am just a helpless old man eh?â€

He stood back for a moment admiring his work. “Now, I think this piece of work needs somewhere safe to hang, somewhere private, may be Herr Doktor if he ever regains his senses…but for now, I think…one second, Monsieur Capitan, don’t look too closely!†he interjected, gently pulling away the brave soldier and covering the picture with a cloth.

“I think my work here is done, Monsieur†he smiled “I commend you and your men on your bravery. And try not to think too much about what you saw, hmmm?â€

“I won’t!†replied Captain Dyer, keen to put it all behind him. For a moment, he could have sworn he saw the horrors in Rene’s painting move, ever so slightly…

[Avenger Assembled]

Harrier

The Meaning of Torture

Riverside

Murdock awoke to the feel of cold restraints around his wrists and ankles and the sound of whirring machinery in his ears. No, not again!- But a moment later, he heard the slippery wet voices of the piscine humanoids who had captured him and remembered what had occurred: the summer picnic at Riverside Park, catered by Champions, the energy-draining blast from the submarine that had struck him as he looked for a place to change. "" Murdock didn't speak Deep One, but he did understand English, which the Deep One switched to mere seconds later.

"Human," the Deep One was like all of his kind, a fish-faced humanoid. "I am Innsmouth. I greet you in the name of Father Dagon and Mother Hydra." The Deep One smiled; he was trying to be intimidating with his rows of shark-like teeth. Or perhaps he was simply trying to greet him. "You are an unusual specimen." They were in a high-tech laboratory adorned with dissection equipment. Murdock was no scientist, but he had seen the tools used to take humanoids apart for scientific purposes before. Oh yes. "Forgive me for waking you, but my students were interested in hearing you speak. You are a cyborg, yes?" There were perhaps a dozen of the piscine humanoids in the room, all of them watching their teacher address the naked, bound Murdock with huge unblinking eyes.

Murdock knew something about fear as well. "Piscine humanoid. Species 4534." He eyed the Deep One with a flat, unblinking stare of his own and said accusingly, "I was not aware that your species existed in this dimensional axis. Or that you possessed access to high technology. Traditionally your cultures are engaged in primitive worship of incestous god images." That got a gasp from the students, but their teacher seemed unimpressed. Behind him, Murdock finally caught sight of his pike, still closed and on a small tray with other personal items he recognized from the personal possessions of some of his colleagues at Champions.

"Do not let his warped knowledge of our ways frighten you," he told the others dismissively. "Arkham, begin the flayer." As he spoke, the machinery around Murdock flared to life, the machinery whirring in a menacing way that would have frightened most men. "Our leader has given us many gifts, human. This ship is one. You and yours are another." Innsmouth licked his lips. "Your cells will be used to increase the genetic potential of our hatchlings. Your cybernetic components will be used to build the weapons of the future. Does that frighten you?"

"Yes," replied Murdock as a large piece of machinery above his head began to descend towards his chest, vaguely remiscent of a drill press. "Listen to me, Innsmouth," he said. "I am aware of your species. You are sentient. Some of your number are not cultists of your gods. Your younglings have dark eyes that reflect the onlooker." And they scream when they fry. "I cannot promise your lives. Please stop. Please release me from my bonds peacefully." They laughed, not understanding his plea, and the drill came closer to his chest. "Please...please..."

Terminus steel exploded from Harrier's arm, shattering his bonds in a fine spatter of blood and steel as his hand came up: With an armored gauntlet, he grabbed the drill's bit and _squeezed_, feeling the steel bend and shatter beneath his fingers as he crushed it like a straw. The Deep Ones were screaming now as Harrier's armor erupted from everywhere in his body and the Omegadrone pulled his way free of his bonds and came for them. Harrier felt a blow strike off his back and shrugged it off, simply grabbing Innsmouth by the throat and lifting him into the air.

"Where are the others from the beach?" A Deep One came at him from his left and bounced off Harrier's hundreds of pounds of weight; the drone brought a spiked fist down on that head and felt a cartilagenous skull cave in wetly. In his mind, he heard the screams of burning underwater cities as the Deep Ones cowered in terror from him, some muttering prayers to Dagon and Hydra for mercy. "Where are the others? WHERE?" Another Deep One bolted for the door, but Harrier moved impossibly fast: snatching up his discarded pike and firing a blast that shattered the door control panel in an instant. "There is _no escape._ Tell me where the other civilians you are holding are. Tell me now!"

He had to take Innsmouth's arm before he talked, and then he had to make sure no other Deep Ones could follow him as they made their way to the holding cell where the Champions staff and their guests were being held. Murdock had been the first to be taken out, his unusual nature attracting the attention of the other guests: they were all there safely, terrified but not violated, when Harrier's pike blast blew the doors apart. They screamed when they saw him, an Omegadrone covered in blood, but when he blasted a hole in the wall for them to scramble out they took their chances and made their escape.

Harrier turned and headed back into the submarine, where he concentrated on rescuing the hundreds of Deep One prisoners before any could suffer and die at the hands of the Deep Ones. There were so many cages, though, and so very many labs turned into torture chambers. Some Deep Ones surrendered at the sight of the Omegadrone who was destroying his way through their ranks; smashing every cage, every weapon, every instrument of suffering, as he went. Others didn't. He found his disguise unit, eventually; it had been stored in a compartment near the crew quarters, for all that it was far too late to wear the guise of Caradoc today. And when he was done, all done, and the prisoners aboard the sub were all freed, the Omegadrone stood over the fallen Innsmouth, whose piscine physiology had kept him conscious even with a missing arm.

"Where are your younglings?" Defeated, Innsmouth guided Harrier to the ballast tanks at the base of the submarine, still adjoining the water, where thousands of Deep One hatchlings lay waiting for the food that would be fed them: the food that would not be coming now that Harrier and the other heroes had freed the hostages aboard ship. Down there in the cold, wet dark, Harrier raised his pike and took careful aim, blasting away at each and every tank, hulling it so the creatures inside tumbled out into the shallow waters beneath the sub.

On his knees, Innsmouth stared up at Harrier without comprehension. "...we would have fed the bodies of your dead to them! You are no servant of the Dark Father at all! Why did you let them live?" He seemed very offended at the survival of his own hatchlings, at least for the moment.

"Mercy was shown me. I will, to the best of my ability, show mercy to others. I could not save your people, Innsmouth. But I could save your hatchlings. And as for you..." Harrier aimed his pike at the fish-man's face. "You are maimed. Defeated. The innocents you sought to harm are freed. I give you life, servant of the Hydra. Suffer."

[Lone Star]

Mad Dog will be in the center of town fighting Deep Ones in hand-to-hand combat, and I'll think up something tomorrow for Warlock.

[quotemyname]

Blueshift

The Trojan Technopath

ASTRO Labs

Rachel Geist sat in her office at ASTRO labs when she lost control of every monitor in the room. It was dominated by the messages sent out by Dr. Archeville's new persona. After his ultimatum, and the scenes from various parts about town where Freedom City was being invaded, she was silent for a few moments.

Suddenly, her face became scrunched up and her hands attacked the keyboard in front of her, "Oh hell no." After clacking away at the keyboard for a minute or two, she finally cracked the transmission's code. She had access to her computer again. She quickly poured over star charts, and filled eighteen pages of nearby loose leaf with scribbled mathematical calculations before she finally found what she was looking for. "Ah ha!" she finally cheered, and only then became aware of the alarms blaring in the building.

WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL. EMPLOYEES ARE ADVISED: INTRUDERS ARE ARMED AND DANGEROUS. IMMEDIATE EVACUATION IS ADVISED. WARNING: UNAUTHOR...

The klaxons and warning message continued endlessly. Rachel gathered what supplies around her she could, and poked her head out the door. A man in a lab coat flew past her and impacted a nearby cubby cut into the hallway. Many other employees were on the run. "Rachel!" She heard the voice of the man that had been knocked nearly unconscious, "Run!" she looked to see her boss with a smoking plasma blast injury on his chest. That tore it.

Rachel ducked back into her small office, the sliding door obliged her in sliding closed behind her. Moments later, the door opened again, but nothing passed through it. A steady stream of employees were fleeing down the hall from two of the Metaceptors with laser guns. The two Metaceptors only got off one or two more shots before they suddenly dropped to the ground, twitching. Blueshift let her cloaking device fade as she, and Mac, stood and hovered nearby. Their electrical weaponry still sparking with the recent usage. Without waiting to see if they'd get back up or not, Blueshift rushed off down the hallway. In addition to her normal equipment, she had a bag or two over her shoulders.

The door to the room holding the experimental teleportation facility opened and closed without anyone passing through it. "What was that?" Asked one of the Metaceptors waiting inside.

"Probably nothing, or maybe a malfunction." The other replied to him, "We've done a lot of damage to the facility so far that it probablyyyuuughk!" He was cut off as the the voltage from Blueshift's Tesla Gauntlet surged through him. Her cloaking device fell once again and she came under immediate fire from the other Metaceptor. Thankfully, her rocket boots allowed her to be far faster than he expected. She rushed him, bringing him down with another shock.

Sparing no time, Blueshift attacked the keyboard interface for the teleporter. The scientists stationed here never got it to work in the first place. She knew how it could be fixed, of course. But it was above Rachel's place in the company to make those kinds of suggestions. She remarked about the uselessness of office bureaucracy as her fingers danced across the keyboard. Within a minute she had the device reprogrammed and working properly, having experimented by teleporting one of the Metaceptors across the room.

She quickly set her radio to channel 1337, and sent a message to Push. With everything in chaos, she could only hope he'd receive it. The entire city was being invaded. There was no time to wait on a response. "Push! I'm heading to the asteroid. It's hidden but I tracked it down. Get to a teleporter. Or something. I'll transmit the coordinates in a minute."

Blueshift thumbed through the notes she'd made on the looseleaf, and set the coordinates to a point far, far from earth. A point along an unknown orbit around the sun near Jupiter. She set the timer for five seconds, leapt over the terminal, and entered the teleportation chamber. She seized the back of Mac's chassis and dragged him in with her at the last second.

---

Outer Space: Somewhere near Jupiter

Far from earth in one of Archeville's hidden satellite bases a small glowing light appeared within the aircraft hangar. The small light grew suddenly as it exploded outward and transmitted the physical forms of Blueshift and Mac to the secret asteroid headquarters of Dr. Archeville.

She'd been here once before, shortly after saving the earth from a massive meteor made of strange quantum matter that threatened to destroy the earth after a few years of hurtling through space unchecked. The general public never knew about that mission, and they never would. Such is the selfless life of a hero. Afterward, they had retreated with their malfunctioning spacecraft to this base. Blueshift's mind was as sharp as a tack. She notice every minute detail and never forgot a thing, especially not the orbital path and coordinates of secret bases hidden at the far reaches of the solar system. Needless to say, her and her team's first mission to this sector of space had been a complete success. They had blown that quantum material rock to pieces. Blueshift wondered now if she'd have to do the same thing to this rock...

---

Blueshift had to hand it to Dr. Archeville. The man knew what was what when it came to security. More than once she'd had to have Mac distract and hold off a series of defensive drones while she hacked security panels and door after door after door to get through the base which had gone on total lock down the moment she'd arrived. At one point, there was no security panel! She ended up having to hold off a large turret wielding robot while Mac's robotics laser lanced a hole through the door about a meter in diameter. After redirecting a few of the rocket's from the robot's turrets back at him as a distraction, Blueshift managed to dive through the hole after Mac just as another security door slammed shut to cover the breach.

Finally, she reached the Asteroid's command center. There were computer terminals everywhere. She picked one at random and began her work. The first thing she did was trick the security system into thinking she was an authorized user. She used that to prevent the defensive systems from entering the command center which she maintained was full of "fragile circuitry". From one of her bags she produced a flash drive and plugged it into the terminals. It took a few minutes for the computers to all communicate properly, and a bit of re-encoding her software as the system's bio-algorithms attempted to combat her virus, but in the end after about ten minutes of furious coding and hacking and reprogramming, she was in. She'd won. Dr. Archeville's entire system was now under her sole control.

She scoured the system through and through, but most of her searches returned very little useful information. Then she noticed one folder she'd not bothered checking earlier. Initially she'd dismissed it as innocuous, but now she realized that that innocent looking folder would be the perfect way to conceal information. She clicked on the folder entitled, "Grandma's Apple Pie Receptive", and immediately, her eyes widened.

Within that folder, she discovered what Dr. Archeville was truly up to. He didn't want to make the world a better place. He didn't want to further science at all. He was only interested in using the technology that he did have to lord over the rest of the world. Worse still, his plans began with, "Trimming the Fat," by killing every living person with an IQ of 115 or less. He had to be stopped.

The more and more she read, the more and more she was appalled. This new Dr. Archeville was no 'Noble Demon' at all. In fact, it seemed that every last piece of his army and his systems and technology was designed for one express purpose - torment. He was like a sadistic three year old child given power beyond his darkest dreams and employed all of it, every last ounce of his energy and power, on tearing the wings from flies. Except within Archeville's new regime, the entire Human race took the place of the flies.

Blueshift felt sick. But it didn't matter. Archeville had to be stopped. She was in a position to help. She attacked the terminals once more. She erased any record of her presence, step 1 for any hacker. Then she brought up the bases communications. She focused in on news feeds and satellite broadcasts. She formed a picture of exactly what was happening down on earth, exactly what Archeville was up to, and she began working to undermine it.

Somewhere in the West End, a house exploded. The brownstone where the Interceptors formed their base. Blueshift cursed to herself when she found that they'd been compromised. That single massive weapon would be a huge benefit to Archeville's armies. She dug through his files and found a few programs related to the, what she discovered to be, nanobots now controlling the interceptor's brains. It seems that once activated the nanobots were programmed never to deactivate. That certainly wouldn't do. Though, try as she might, she couldn't manage to hack their security protocols directly. She did manage, to implant a sleeping worm within their programming though. Perhaps someone else nearby the Interceptors would be able to use it to initiate the virus which would deactivate the nanobot protection program that guarded against each of the Interceptor's individual biological defense systems. Those nanobots wouldn't be able to do too much if they were being chewed to bits by an army of white blood cells!

Blueshift toiled nearly endlessly subtly hacking security protocols and and files everywhere she could within Archeville's system. Where-ever there was a hero trying to invade one of his bases, she opened a door or two for them. Wherever there was a giant robot terrorizing a section of town, she deactivated a weapons system, or a guidance protocol.

---

Blueshift typed furiously, endlessly.

Hours passed.

Unaware of the passage of time around her, Blueshift did everything within her power to ensure that Archeville's army would lose this fight. She only hoped she could make a difference...

[GranspearZX]

Arcturus

One Bear Army

The West End

"Resistance is fatal, huh? ...right."

When Marcus saw the broadcast, he was certain it was some sort of elaborate hoax. He wasn't some big-name hero, after all, and even if it was real, it seemed like exactly the sort of thing that Summers would have reamed him for getting involved in. After the incident in Pennsylvania, he'd learned his lesson about simply wading into a situation fists first and spells flying. At that point, he just wanted to enjoy his lunch.

Then, his phone rang. As he left the sub shop, Marcus sighed, reaching into his pocket with his free hand. He stared at the phone blankly: "Eric Cooper". His roommate. The number was a Texas area code, which meant that he was still at home and hadn't moved back onto campus yet.

"Hey, Eric, what's up?"

"What's up? Dude, have you been watching TV?!"

"Yeah, I saw that... whatever it was. Freaky stuff, right?"

"Man, you have NO idea. There's portals opening up all over the place here!"

"Portals. Really." Marcus sighed. "Look, I'm not in the mood for pranks. I've had a long couple of weeks, and there's apparently a cult literally after my hide."

"No no, I'm serious!"

Almost mid-sentence, a rush of wind burst down the street. Marcus shielded his eyes with his sandwich-carrying hand against the blue and purple flash of light, his stoic frown deepening at the sound of people screaming and panicking at the figures pouring out of it. Marcus looked at his sandwich, then at the red-skinned shapeshifting soldiers.

"Holy f-... ...ah. I'll call you back."

"Hey, be careful, Marcus. Don't do anything stu-"

* * *

Marcus had never seen a Grue before, or at least that was his initial thought. Watching them march down the street from an adjacent alley, he realized he'd seen at least one before--Atlas. Atlas seemed like a nice enough guy, though; these invaders were a lot different. And smaller. That was equally as important.

He stuffed his hand into his pocket, feeling around for any runestones he might've had. The thought of quickly rigging something crossed his mind, but he didn't have time for that sort of guerilla warfare. He exhaled deeply and an arcane circle expanded from his crouched position behind a truck. In seconds, a flash of green and black surrounded him, reshaping the Claremont junior into his bear form. He broke his cover by doing the first thing that came to mind--picking up the truck and hurling it at one of the many trios of drones.

Arcturus didn't wait to see if it struck; instead, he charged in after it, effectively cutting off the oncoming invaders from the fleeing crowd. One gunbarrel-armed Grue raised his arm and fired a volley in Arc's direction as the truck flattened him, piercing the vehicle with a disturbing amount of ease that nearly gave the ursine shapeshifter pause.

All he needed was a few moments, and in those moments, Arcturus moved with a speed and agility that was deceptive for his size. He’d had plenty of practice dealing with overwhelming odds; his accidental visit to War-Earth had given Arcturus a level of combat experience that he might never have known otherwise. Even as he charged into a Grue shapeshifter nearly two feet taller than he was, Arcturus used their numbers against them; he lowered his shoulder into the invader’s knees, hauling him into the air and swinging him like a baseball bat by the leg into another column of opponents.

â€It’s only fair to warn you… as a Rune Bearer, it’s your destiny to fight this battle alone. And plenty of others, I’m sure. I’m not saying don’t trust anyone… I’m saying don’t rely on anyone. Both you and the Beast Rune will be much safer that way.â€

As Arcturus pulled back, realizing quickly that the street was clear; he upturned another car to use as cover as he dashed into another alleyway, pursued by a fair number of invaders still marching out of the portal. Malek Ironbear’s words were still, even months later, hanging in the back of his mind… and what was most disappointing is that no one had yet proven his War-Earth counterpart wrong.

â€Deception is human nature, and one should always err on the side of caution.â€

Arc narrowed his eyes a little bit as he vaulted himself up onto a dumpster and over a fence, narrowly missing catching a lightning bolt in the arm. Recalling his conversation with Malek made him remember how much he hated his life, and how he nearly stayed on War-Earth instead of returning home. He wasn’t entirely sure he’d made the right decision. Even now, it made him wonder what exactly he was fighting for… He could never adequately explain to anyone why he was so angry all the time. Even thinking now about Claremont, broken trust and his even more broken family…

The buzzing in Arc’s head grew more intense as his anger built. He rounded a corner down the maze of back alleys… and stopped. The moment one of his pursuers actually rounded the corner, there was a loud, feral roar before Arcturus leapt on him, slamming his fist into its sternum with all the strength he could muster. He heard a loud, satisfying crack as it connected, sending him careening into the group behind him.

The next few minutes were a combination of sounds that was rather unmistakable; things had gone from Arcturus providing a distraction for civilians to an all-out fight simply for the sake of fighting. His rage had to go somewhere, and outside civilian eyes, he was anything but merciful. As their numbers dwindled, several tried to run; their only salvation was that Arcturus’s reckless brawling hadn’t rendered him immune to injury. As the adrenaline waned, he could tell that he’d broken a rib or two, and his right leg refused to support his weight.

Somehow, that didn’t matter. He’d already resigned himself to fighting his battles the only way he knew how—by himself.

He could still hear bootfalls approaching in the distance; how far away, he couldn’t exactly tell, between the ringing in his ears and the pain he was in. He sank into a seated position against a wall, cradling his right arm against his chest as the heightened marching pace drew closer.

“Gelus Vol Grando!â€

Arcturus’s ears perked a bit as he heard the words ring out like a bell, echoing and resonating with the magic they brought with them. It was a spell he recognized from his book, from reading about the Water Rune. Scrambling over to a corner, he peered around it just in time to see a torrential rain of ice shards cascading down on the Grue drones. Arcturus looked up as the latest group retreated under the arcane assault, spotting a woman in a dark blue robe, carrying a staff. The strangest feeling of familiarity came over him when she looked back, their eyes meeting for a brief second before she vanished in a flash of purple sparks.

…no way. That couldn’t have been…

Well, at least SOME good news came out of today, cub. Guess your mom's alive after all.

...yeah. Great news. The hulking bear grunted and carried himself to a nearby building, spotting several ambulances and managing to avoid any more drones. He hadn't realized how close he'd been to Trinity Hospital, when all his fatigue suddenly piled on him at once. He didn't remember ever actually making it to the sliding doors, spotting one or two nurses and the emergency room sign before he dropped on the spot.