No More Good Days

[Brown Dynamite]

Yves was burning a hole through the man at this point.  For the first time fully getting a handle of the Earthling expression 'don't shoot the messenger.'  It was hard to hide the fact that she wasn't pleased with the reveal.  And while now would have been a good moment to repeat that not judging mantra.  Her personal bias was well past that point.

 

Remembering the report, Yves was surprise to see more costumes popping in.  With the exception of the hero known as Larrakite, she assumed all would be dealing with that other business.  Not immediately recognizing the person in front of them to be the man in question.  Not that she ever expected accurate up to the minute details.  That'd of course be too much to expect.  But a glaring thing like an Omegadrone crime lord.  That she would have liked to be in the loop for.  "Sven gets payed entirely too much."  Her reference lacked any context for the people around her.

 

As far as she was concerned the sword was a second priority now.  But it was the job.  Her head snapped in the direction of the scarred hulking man she had met.  Her tone lowering to a whisper as Catherine Fields took the moment to reveal her identity.  Figuring it to be just like a teenager to use it as an attention grabbing moment.  "It seems the invitation was far more open than I believed.  The sword's not just a hot ticket item.  If this story checks out and he doesn't just look a 'mite like us' well I assume you share the same suspicions"

[Avenger Assembled]

His face wrinkling along his scar lines as he furrowed his brow in concentration, Steve tried to think - this was so hard without enemies in front of him to fight, or without the smarter, savvier people he knew so well around him. "He...he looks like us, and bears the mark of Omega, and he walks openly around your city?" Steve could only imagine what fate would befall someone in Freedom City who openly wore the symbols of the Terminus. "Why do you allow this?" 

 

"It's a free country, mate," said the Larrakite with a shrug. "Don't know how they do it back in the States, but here we don't tell people how to dress. Not like I'm the bloody bastard's best friend! I put Newman in the boob meself last year." 

 

"What did he say he wanted?" Steve demanded of the Larrakite's prisoner, and this time his voice was fire where it had been ice a few moments earlier. "Why was he filming us?" He knelt down and looked the thug in the eyes. 

 

"He, he wanted to see who was after the sword! Said he had a real fancy buyer for it, he-" 

 

Standing up, Steve dismissed the man as he would an insect, taking advantage of the explosion of sound and noise that had accompanied Catharine's reveal, the millions of questions that came with a superhero revealing her secret identity in her hometown. "It must be a disguise. A way of appearing formidable to the other criminals. Surely no one who has..." He met Yves' eyes for a moment, then went on, "could be a champion of Omega today. Perhaps he has seen dead Omegadrones and copied their appearance." 

[Brown Dynamite]

"Newman?  So the Omega boss is Leigh Newman.  I'm requesting pictures and full dossiers next time.  Theft risk got that right"  Yves replied.  Of course she had radio silence now so her complaints were meaningless at this point.  But someone was going to hear them that was for sure.

 

Yves wasn't so sure.  Steve's optimism was to be admired.  But her first thought when she saw him wasn't that the man was friendly for a reason.  And she was all for keeping positive truly she was.  But if there was one thing she learned as a prole.  People can change under the worst conditions.  Not everyone comes out from the better.  "I can.  It's easy.  Embracing the lie.  That cold emptiness.  That's simple.  No feelings, no thoughts, not even guilt as the bodies build up.  Nothing matters but Omega.  I can believe someone doesn't want to accept responsibility for the cost of that lie.  Or even embraces it.  I can also believe Newman's just a fraud making light of that struggle.  Either option is a grave insult."  Her fist clenched at the end of her statement.  

 

Yves didn't have the desire to stay still any longer.  With the media frenzy now focus on the identity reveal.  And with someone filming them.  She wanted to make sure they weren't all being  misdirected.  "Let's see if we still have an auction item something to protect." 

[horngeek]

Catherine sighed as the media focused on her, before speaking up over the questions, uncomfortable at the attention. "Look, there are more important things to focus on than me. Excuse me."

She turned to the others, frowning at Steve. "Because wearing a symbol isn't a crime, no matter what symbol. I'm more curious about why looking like you would be-"

Several facts clicked in quick succession. "Ah. Right. That… changes things. And yeah, we need to check on the artifacts."

And a memory came to the top of her mind. "Dad mentioned that Omegadrones have attacked Johns' house before, but I don't know if it was a focused attack or just a general, attacking the area thing- it happened in 93. Do either of you… know more about that?"

[Avenger Assembled]

Steve looked at Vector and answered "Yes." He had always been a poor liar, and could hardly start now - not over something so important. 

 

He might have preferred to keep the Australian heroes out of this, but he could hardly act alone in this strange city. Even Yves, with her strange name, was an ally only because of what they both had once been. What they still were. While Vector's father took over the role of dealing with the media, the two drones; and their local escorts, headed back to see what had become of the Sword. Sure enough, just as Yves had predicted; the Sword was missing. A smashed rear door, and tasered guard, showed the likely path of the blade that had been snatched out of an open glass case during all the confusion.

 

At the sight of the stolen blade, Steve scowled intently, pressing his balled fist to his mouth for a moment. "We could chase the stolen blade...but I suggest we strike for the one who paid for the theft. I am in no mood to spend time chasing petty scum or hired criminals like those we fought before. This is no time for petty wars with petty men. Larrakite, where could the Omega Boss be found?" 

 

"He's got a penthouse in Evolution, that's the tallest building in town. Says he likes to look down on us little sodding wankers. Mate, if you're gonna go for him with some hard evidence, I'll back your play - he's scum who should never have made it out on bail. But who are you? No tricks this time." 

 

"I am..." With the media still in the other room, and the hotel's patrons and staff still evacuated, Steve took this opportunity to transform - a flash of holographic light hiding the unspeakable reality of his Omega armor erupting from flesh and bone, transforming himself not into the armored monstrosity he was but instead into a shining beacon of armored wonder. "Caradoc. Come. Let us strike ye foe down. Before he dooms us all." 

[Brown Dynamite]

Yves quickly dismissed both the question and Steve's response to it.  There were very few answers that would have sufficed to not raise a negative reaction.  And while Yves had no issue against lying, she wasn't the most practiced liar either.  So she served in the same legion of Omegadrones that descended upon this Earth during the same invasion.  Omegadrones were not drinking buddies at the time, let alone individuals.    As far as she was concerned she really didn't have any relevant information to 93.

 

There were times when one loathed being right.  The missing sword made for one of those times.  But Yves had no complaints with the game plan for rectifying that.  Seeing Steve take the form of Caradoc was a surprise on an evening full of surprises.  He wears his on the inside.  The thought wasn't one of jealousy.  If anything her mental tone was one of sympathy.  Wearing the armor wasn't a sign of a pride to begin with.  There had to have been unspeakable amounts of pain in installing such a combat ready model that was for sure.  Let alone never being able to just put the suit away.  No amount of convenience was worth that.

 

"If we're suiting up.  I have to go don my own armor, it is inside my rental van.  Proper introductions first.  I am Argonaut, agent of AEGIS."

Edited March 10, 2014 by HG Morrison

[horngeek]

Catherine blinked at Caradoc's transformation- she wasn't expecting him to look so...

 

Shiny.  Possibly a disguise or something.  The stolen blade was more important.  "Vector.  Catherine Fields.  Both work, I suppose, after tonight.  My costume's up in my room, I can get there and back pretty quickly."

 

She frowned at Caradoc's words.  "Everyone thought the Omega Boss was just using the symbol to look... well, tough.  Bloody hell.  Seems you can't be careful enough when it comes to stuff like this.  We need to move quickly, I'll get changed and meet you at... which street's your van on?"

 

Catherine looked at Argonaut for confirmation, and then she was gone, dashing upstairs to her room, where she got changed... and ran back down, jumping down the stairwell to quickly get out onto the street.

[Avenger Assembled]

With the Larrakite leaping along on his gravity boosts behind them, the heroes made their way to Evolution on Gardiner - the tallest building in Darwin. At 33 stories tall, it would have been easily dwarfed by most skyscrapers in Freedom City, but it towered over the sparser, wider Australian city all the same. When the others arrived, a short melee with the building's security staff ended with them heading down through the stairs and towards the penthouse suite where the Omega Boss himself, Leigh Newman, made his home. At the sight of the skull symbol on the double doors to the main suite, Caradoc strode forward and savagely kicked the doors open - landing his armored boot square in the middle of that silver skull in a shape unmistakably like that of the image of Omega - like that of the Omega cultists of Nihilor in particular. He didn't look over at the Omegadrone in his company, and in fact was so distracted he had barely registered her admission about her career, but he could imagine how she felt at the sight of these things, in this place, on this Earth kept so pristine of these horrors. 

 

How could he possibly have seen all this, yet done all these things? 

 

Once inside, Caradoc passed by a secretary who was just hiding under her desk, and headed into the private office of the Omega of Crime. A full-length window gave a good view of the city below, the three walls decorated with violent images drawn from Gothic and Old Master art - along the wall behind the big wooden desk was Goya's Saturn Devouring His Children. And rising from behind that desk, a smile on his weathered, heavily scarred face, was a figure instantly recognizable to Steve and Yves alike. An Omegadrone. 

 

"Well, well, well, looks like you lot finally made it!" He smiled yellow teeth and clapped his hands together. "Twenty years in this city, and all I get are little fishies nibbling at my feet like you, you whoreson bastard." He didn't even grace the Larrakite, his usual antagonist with a name. "I was beginnin' te think I'd have to come to your bloody country and kill a few of you blighters meself before anyone noticed!"

[Brown Dynamite]

At least she wasn't in the Ionosphere this time.  That was the only thing Argonaut could think as they made their way through the building.  Her experience the previous month had tinted her perceptions of how far away they were from the Terminus.  The distance feeling smaller and smaller each day.  And for that reason alone she needed to be prepared in case, the distance truly became nonexistent.  Never again.  Memories of the last days on her first home, faded as quickly as they flooded her head.  She'd see fit to prevent such horrors if they came to pass.  No matter how many loyalists sat at her feet scraping away in the name of their false idol.

 

There was no questioning as to what drove the 'Omega Boss' as far as Argonaut was concerned.  His motivation was his burden to bear, and frankly there was no justification she cared to listen to.  Her eyes parsed over the art decor.  But there was no horrified stare.  Instead from behind her helmet all Yves could muster was a weary eye roll.  It was all so textbook, he had a literal idol to worship.  The only thing that troubled her at all, Yves had no authority to arrest him here.  But that was what the locals were for.

 

"Kill?  I regret to inform you there will be no killing.  Still you have our attention now.  And you'll have it long after you return to your incarceration, where it is with my great pleasure that you will be bound to return.  I assume now is when you give a speech cementing your insanity, and where we pretend to listen to most of it.  Brav, on living the stereotype.  Really, I must applaud the amount of effort it takes to be such a shill."

[horngeek]

Vector simply stared at the Omega Boss.

 

Twenty years he'd been hiding in her homeland.  Well, not hiding exactly, which made it even worse.  He'd hardly been closed about the whole Omega thing, either.  Maybe people had just assumed it was a stupid act to look tough.  Either way, it was an oversight that'd been going on for far too long- and it needed to stop. 

 

Tonight. 

 

Her expression turned to a glare as she spoke up.  "Why the bloody hell would you continue to work for the Terminus?  I mean, sure, crazy, but..."

 

She shrugged.  "Either way, this is where it ends, Newman or whatever your real name is."

[Avenger Assembled]

"How can you be this?" Caradoc interjected, disbelief in his voice. "How can you be what you are, and do what you have done?" 

 

"How can you not?" fired Newman in return. "Look at you, you sneaky bastard, hiding it away in plain sight. And _you_, girl, slapping that A on yourself like a sham wearing a handprint. Your tribe will die screaming when they come. You've seen it happen. You know." He came out from behind his desk, hands up. "Sure, you can arrest me. Put me in that so-soft jail of yours, where I can eat any day I like and sleep in a bed every night." He sneered. "Men in this country don't even have the stones to kill their prisoners, much less give them what's comin' to 'em. I'd still be hanging by the balls if I'd touched a muckety-muck back on Nihilor!" He put his hands up on his bald, scarred head. "But before you lock me up in Candyland Jail, there's one thing you should know. There ain't no Grue in Perth!" 

[horngeek]

Wait.  What.

 

Vector's eyes widened slightly behind her mask, as she stared at the Omega Boss, then narrowed in thought.  The reports of Grue were fake.  That meant either a distraction... or a trap. 

 

Either way, they needed answers and they needed them right now, because this had become a lot bigger than a stolen sword.  Or perhaps it was all the same thing, but either way...

 

Vector stormed forwards, heading towards Leigh Newman.  "Explain, now.  What the bloody hell do you have planned, Newman?  What needed the majority of Aussie superheroes in Perth?"

Edited March 19, 2014 by horngeek

[Brown Dynamite]

"I hear the screams every night and every waking moment.  Your threats fall hollow.  I learned to live with that part of myself long ago.  But if you want us to make sure your incarceration is less accommodating I will certainly see to it."  She wasn't sure whether the argument could be made for a loyalist Omegadrone to be treated as an international terrorist.  But if possible she'd ask her superiors about pulling some strings in giving him a prison stay with bigger fish.

 

"For once in your life make yourself useful and reveal your intentions now.  Or we can find out forcibly.  I favor the outcome that ends with you writhing in pain.  But the decision is yours Newman." Argonaut assumed the threat would be an idle one.  It wasn't wrong to say that an Australian prison was probably like a vacation compared to Nihilor.  Even Casuarina Prison would have seemed like a dream.  But she was worried, about the man's play. 

 

As personal as her Yves stakes were in the matter.  She acknowledged that the entire affair was motivated by larger ambition than she had initially given credit.  To completely weaken  a country's heroic defenses with social maneuvering and other trickery.  Newman  might not have just been a big fish in a small pond.

[Avenger Assembled]

"He thinks he can frighten you by insulting your nation," said Harrier, all but Caradoc's holographic image bled from his face. "This world may fall, but it will not fall to you, and it will not fall today. You can be herald of no army of Omega's in this place with so little entropic radiation in the air - and not with those scars upon your face," he added. "They will never take us back, Newman. Even a free drone who loves Omega still proves the promises of the Doom Coil a lie. The coming of the Terminus to this place will bring only your own destruction. What do you plan?"
 

"Yeah, mate, you better start talking! If you're some kind of freaky Omega botherer, this isn't like old times anymore! You-" The Larrakite was bounding towards Newman, his usual patter of insults and jibes taking on a harder edge now that he realized what a monster he faced. As the Australian champion got within grabbing distance of Newman, though, suddenly Newman snatched up a walking stick from his desk side - and in a combat manuever instantly and lethally familiar to Harrier and Argonaut, impaled the Larrakite through the face and out the back of the skull, bone and flesh crunching like rotten wood as a steel canehead erupted like climbing spikes, letting Newman smash the body to the floor with bone-cracking intensity. 

 

"No more human lies!" the former drone gloated as armor erupted from beneath his skin. "I said they could take me, not you, whoreson!" he sneered at the fallen Larrakite before returning his attention to Harrier and Argonaut, hardly paying attention to Vector at all. "Come on, then! IN HIS SACRED NAME!" 

[Avenger Assembled]

Vector charged, full of fervor, to avenge the murdered Australian hero - but suddenly that impossibly fast pike came down and drove itself into her leg. The now-armored Newman whipped Vector up, smashing her against the stone floor of his office with a bone-chilling crack, alongside the body of the hero he'd killed out of hand. He dropped her there, unconscious, just in time to bring up the pike and catch Caradoc's avulsive strike with his own blade. Energy crackled against each other, dueling entropic reactors dulling the holographic generators that disguised Caradoc's attack, revealing the burning-hot powerpike underneath. 

 

"How many kids you kill with that thing?" sneered Newman, trying psychological warfare as he gloated behind his armor at the other drone. His voice lacked the sepulchral quality of Steve's, and in fact it sounded as if he'd had long practice sounding exactly like a man. "Now you think you're some kinda hero? What is this, your woman?" he laughed. "You'll live long enough to watch her and this whole town burn!" 

 

"Monster!" hissed Harrier in reply, fire burning in his mechanical voice. He felt as if he was at war with himself, at war with the face he saw in the mirror every morning. "Free people will stop you, as they have stopped you and yours whenever they have come to this place. Your empire, your murders, your crimes - they end tonight!" 

[Brown Dynamite]

Argonaut's jet boots fired up as she shot forward towards Newman her mind was set on attracting further attention solely on her and Caradoc so as to prevent him from trying to finish the job on Vector.  Kicking off the ground upon nearing him the force of which repelled her backwards.  The flames spewing forth only reflected off the shield created out of the metal that once made up both the Omegadrone's wings and the polearm of the power pike.  From beneath the shield her blast blade would protrude.  The tip of the blade aimed squarely at Newman's throat.

 

The blade would begin glow with an effulgent emerald hue.  As Yves felt a sensation that could only be described as emptying.  Wasting little opportunity the AEGIS agent fired off a blast of entropic energy.  However, whatever tactical advantage Argonaut assumed would come about from aiming from the higher ground would never come about.  Instead her excessive movements provided the Omega Boss with the opportunity to move out of the way.  Forcing her blast to sail wide leaving a small smoldering circle on the ground.

 

"I lack my usual cavalier attitude as I consider how many bones it would take to convince a fellow prole that running is not an option.  But rest assured you will pay for your crimes.  If you wish to incite us further by continuing to be a festering little gnat then by all means.  Chat away Newman.  It is already apparent you are enamored with your own sermons."

[Avenger Assembled]

Harrier and Newman came together again, blades clashing against each other - but Harrier came out the worst, a sizzling Terminus blade slicing deep into his chest and sending him staggering backwards. Their armored feet crunched and scraped against the tiled floor, shattering stone stained with the blood of a hero murdered as casually as one might swat a fly. And as one might have been as well - Harrier knew well enough how to take down another drone, and knew that pike slash could easily have cut open something final.   Gina will be very angry with me if I am killed he thought woozily as he faced down his eerie mirror image, who had taken a hard blow to the head from the blunt end of Harrier's pike but was otherwise unhurt. Newman was focused on him and ignoring Argonaut; a mistake he was determined they would make the other drone pay for. 

 

He pushed aside thoughts of love as he faced down the now-eerily silent Newman, who in his armor and with his bloody pike was a reflection of all his nightmares brought to life. Over the bodies of the fallen, there was no time for love. For his part, Newman moved to close again with Harrier, who he had evidently decided was either the greater of the two threats or the one he most wanted to kill - the two big drones had focused on each other to the exclusion of all else, leaving one open for attack by Argonaut. The air was rife with the sound of screaming pikes and bloody death, the stink of entropic ozone thick as air molecules were torn to pieces by Terminus radiation. All of a sudden, the rarified office had become like something from an invasion all over again. 

[Brown Dynamite]

Yves breathing became somewhat heavier as she took in her surroundings.  Even if it were dangerous to her, the suit kept her safe.  Physically that was.  Emotionally it was the most taxing environment she had found herself in in ages.  Harrier was on the losing end of the exchange, but he was holding his own from what she could tell.  Then it came, Newman's back was exposed as  their blades continued to strike one another.  When the opportunity presented it self Argonaut dove in.  Lunging the end of her entropic blast blade into the small of Newman's armored back  Argonaut wasn't a killer not anymore at least.  If she were, the fight could have possibly ended then and there with her pushing forward until hitting an organ.  

 

But as it were avoiding she took extra care into making sure she not only avoided Newman's vital points, but that her blade didn't strike any deeper than it needed to when stabbing into the armor.  Something that was actually more difficult than one would imagine when considering her education in the combat arts consisted mainly of how to rid oneself of an opponent by killing them as quickly and efficiently as possible.  She didn't care if her attack earned her Newman's ire.  If he wanted to ignore her, again, the process would just repeat itself.  Withdrawing a bit as in preparation before pressing the issue further.  Making sure that Newman would have to be force to defend attacks from both ends.  

 

The entropic stench would only continue to grow.

[Avenger Assembled]

With his opening given by Argonaut's attack, Harrier smashed the blunt end of his pike directly into Newman's face, then followed it up with a bladed strike into the mid-section of the maddened drone. He was still bleeding, but he'd felt armor and flesh give way beneath his blow and knew that their enemy was struggling as well. With the two of them working together, surely this slaughter could finally come to an end before more innocent blood was spilled! Despite his determination to beat this powerful, dangerous enemy, his heart was hammering in his chest as he faced Newman down. Caradoc's disguise didn't fool him - he was all too intimately aware of what he was as he struggled with the other two drones, more than he'd been alone with since the last time he'd fought on a world being conquered by the Terminus. Battles, no, unholy slaughters flickered at the edge of his vision, and he forced himself to speak to bottle down the rage and unquestionable fear that came with those memories. "It ends NOW!" 

[Brown Dynamite]

Argonaut acknowledged that Newman's strength wasn't just for show.  This wolf trying to lead the lambs to the slaughter continued to press on despite how many fangs were sunk in.  His talent in keeping up with the both of them was disconcerting.  It had been decades since she had spent time surrounded by a drone other than herself.  And now, here she was working with one to take down another.  It was a waking nightmare.  One that she wanted to end as soon as possible.

 

So the AEGIS field agent lunged forward.  The point of her blade aimed solely towards where Newman's eyes sat behind the grim faceplate of his helmet.  The idea of the blade darting towards his pupils was supposed to shake Newman's confidence.  Lure him into a false opening as she flicked her wrist and instead plunged the entropic blast blade towards his chest.  The motion was almost reflexive, as if she was a prole fighting for survival all over again.  Her arm felt heavy, stiff even, the weight of the implications of this very fight making it all the harder to relax.

 

But credit had to be given where it was due.  Argonaut couldn't quite judge on how much fight Newman had let to give.  But it was enough to remain attentive enough not to be tricked by her intimidating feints.  Even moreso he was able to block the attack with the side of his power pike.  Twisting it inwards and coming close to almost catching her with the wrong end of his weapon.  His blade clashing with her shield created out of the fragments of her own pike's pole.

[Avenger Assembled]

Winding up for one last knockout blow, Harrier drove his pike into Newman's chest and smashed him backwards into the wall behind him, the blade driving through the armor to pierce flesh within. He drew back his fist and smashed it into Newman's armored face, a final blow that smashed Newman's head backwards, cratering the black marble a second time. This time, Newman slumped and fought no more, pike falling from nerveless fingers as his armor partially retracted, leaving him a bloody mess to match the terrible carnage he'd left behind. Having dealt with drones enough in his own time, Harrier did not release his blade - even as Newman's bloodshot eyes rolled in his head. "Vector?" he asked Argonaut, knowing with grim certainty that there was nothing that could be done for the Larrakite. 

[Brown Dynamite]

Argonaut snapped her head in the fallen girl's direction.  There wasn't much hope left to give after the fight they just went through.  That gut wrenching sight around them wasn't of a battlefield.  No, it was warzone.  For a war Argonaut had already given far too much of herself.  "Checking."  Argonaut kept the response short and succinct.  Walking across the ground the ground that still reeked of entropic decay.

 

There was already one corpse in the room.  She hoped the body count stopped there.  Her eyes examined Vector's form as thoroughly as an untrained set of eyes could.  For as trained as she was in inflicting untold amounts of pain on an individual, triage and treatment were never reals concerns.  After all, drones were expendable killers.  Nothing more.

 

Dropping to a knee she spoke out to the young woman.  Speaking out not as Argonaut the Omegadrone turned government age, but as Yves the boring if not somewhat off putting housewife.  "Vector?  It's time to get up dear."

[horngeek]

Yves was answered with a groan.  "Call 'e ...Catherine..."

 

Catherine winced as she rubbed her head, before trying to lift herself up and gasping in pain as her stabbed leg gave out from under her.  "Ow, ****, my leg!"

 

She looked down for a moment, before wincing again as she wished she hadn't.  "Ow... okay... bloody hell, that thing went right through my powers.  I... don't think I'll be walking out of here."

 

Then, she looked at Larrakite's corpse, sobering.  "At least I'm aware of it.  At least Newman's down.  Someone needs to contact Huntsman, he's... got the contact details for most of us if there's a death in action.  Um.  Ah..."

 

Vectir looked at the two freed Omegadrones.  "I'm going to need a lift.  Might..."  Catherine trailed off, sucking in her breath as she shifted.  "Ow."

 

She breathed out, settling down.  "Some bloody victory."

[Avenger Assembled]

Mechanically, Caradoc picked up the heavy floor lamp and began restraining the battered Omegadrone - first he bent the heavy metal center pole in half with a shriek, then used it to punch holes through the stone-lined walls, effectively stapling Newman, hand by hand and then foot by foot, to his own decadent office fixtures. He retracted his pike when that was done, pushing past the pain of his own injuries with a palpable effort. He'd been hurt, and hurt badly, but that was nothing before the crisis which they faced. There are no Grue in Perth... It wasn't that he couldn't think of a reason why Newman would have connived at getting all of Australia's superheroes out of the area for a few days - it was that he could think of entirely too many reasons. "This was too easy," he said as Argonaut called emergency services. "He fooled this world for twenty years. He should not have just abandoned this, he should have..." Not for the first time that day, Steve badly missed Gina and her vast intelligence. "...done more to conceal himself. There should be more here than this." 

[Brown Dynamite]

Argonaut contemplated for a moment finding herself agreeing with Harrier's observation of the situation, before relaying her thoughts to through her armor's radio frequency.  "What if there is no longer a need to conceal himself?  Not abandoning his guise.  But enacting his plan."  She couldn't draw a conclusion as to what Newman's actual plan was.  But she doubted it involved being staked to the wall.  Based on his ideology it was of course supposed to be some tribute to the terminus.  

 

"I lack patience."  This part was stated openly in the room.  Keeping herself knelt besides Vector, Argonaut would take aim for the nearest terminus relic.   Then without warning sent a bolt of entropic energy form her blast blade to destroy, rather devour, the eyesore.  If there were indications inside the area as to what the man was planning, she'd set out to find it.  Threatening the 'Omega Boss' would be pointless.  A regular person might find fright from an Omegadrone.  But not a fellow drone, never. 

 

"...But why the sword?  He had no way of knowing we would be interested.  It is not as if we were drawn to a trap.  Our appearance was a coincidence.  So, why risk his notion of subterfuge when he was to act for it?