Back to Gatefold#11 - "Children of a Lesser God - Part VI"
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EDITOR'S NOTE: This story may contain scenes of graphic violence and sexual situations. It is recommended for mature readers.
In Case You're Just Joining Us: Magneto struck a deal with Siena Blaze upon her awakening, part-blackmail, part appeal to her darker nature. She agreed to pledge allegiance to him and Genosha. Meanwhile, the Angels prepare to launch an attack on a Chinese mutant abortion clinic, and China readies its response, in the form of their national hero, the Collective Man.
Defense Minstry, Taipei, China. 18 June. 1625L.
Colonel Mao Ju-Yin stared at the handset of the secure phone with a mixture of anger and stupefaction.
No, that wouldn't do. He couldn't let this man hear the confusion or desperation in his voice. He brought the phone back to his ear.
<"You will leave us defenseless then?">
<"Don't bother with theatrics, Colonel,"> the voice on the other end replied in stilted Cantonese, <"China is many things, but we both know 'defenseless' is not one of them. Under no circumstance will I allow Big Hero 6 to involve itself in this matter, and that is my final word.">
<"But Li assured me that...">
<"Mr. Li is a trusted employee of the Giri Corporation, but he is not in charge of metahuman operations. He can only advise, and as field leader I have taken his advisement under consideration. I find your position wanting both morally and strategically. I will not risk my team in such a scenario.">
<"Damn you Yoshida, listen to--">
<"No Colonel, you listen to me."> The voice on the other end, despite its harsh words, had been cordial up until this point. Now Colonel Mao felt the air go frigid around the earpiece, and wondered how a man that called himself 'Sunfire' could produce such cold. <"Big Hero 6 is currently short one member -- my cousin, the Silver Samurai, was killed some time ago. When Giri Corp. approached China and asked for the Collective Man to fill out our ranks, in an effort to make BH6 into a force for all of Eastern Asia instead of just Japan, China refused. I do not find much time for this team anymore, Colonel, I have affairs of my own to attend to. But I will not send them off to protect your mutant abattoir when you couldn't be bothered with us in our time of need.">
Another line began flashing on Mao's phone, a special line he used expressly for impending and possible emergencies. If it was ringing, he knew what the news would be.
<"Pardon me, Yoshida-san,"> Mao said sadly, reaching over to kill the connection, <"but it appears it is already too late. You have my gracious thanks for enforcing my lifelong belief that the Japanese are useless pigs.">
He hung up before Shiro Yoshida -- the man known as Sunfire -- could respond. Then he switched lines and listened to the bad news.
Fa Clinic, Beijing Landmark Towers. Beijing, China. 18 June. 1625L.
The Fallen Angels materialized in the reception area of the Fa Clinic. Their arrival caused, to put it mildly, a bit of an uproar. Nurses and doctors already on edge with anticipation, cried out and fled, causing those patients still waiting after Dr. Fa's cancellation of all non-critical appointments, to panic and run as well.
"You know what to do," Sunspot said, and then his skin slicked over with the bubbling energy effect he got his codename from. "Evacuate and destroy." He moved toward the reception desk as his team split away behind him. An admitting nurse ducked behind it at his approach.
"No, no hiding." Roberto reached down, crushed the edge of the counter in both hands, and tore the entire thing out of the floor and the wall. The nurse screamed and covered her head as Sunspot threw it to the side.
"Go," he said, pointing toward the door. The Chinese woman didn't need to understand English to get his meaning. She nodded and ran.
He watched her flee, then turned to finish the job on the waiting room. He never saw the fist coming until it had smashed into his middle, blasting all of the air out of his lungs and lifting him into the air. He came down hard on the wreckage of the receptionist's desk.
"You are under arrest," the Collective Man said in thickly-accented English. "Put your hands where I can see them. Do you understand?"
Roberto didn't answer, he was too busy keeping his lunch down. Whoever this guy was, he had to be metahuman. Chinamen just weren't made seven feet tall, and nobody normal could punch like that.
"This building is surrounded by military troops, your team will be subdued in minutes. Surrender."
That broke through the pain-induced fog.
"You want my hands, perdedor," Sunspot said, rolling over onto his back, "here you go."
Jet solar blasts flashed from his fists. The Collective Man sidestepped, the blast passing close enough to tear a swath out of his black tunic, then used one foot to pop a heavy coffee table up on its end, seized the edge of it, and brought it up as a shield.
Sunspot looked around. The others -- Tabby, Feral, Ric, Chance, Ariel, and Gomi -- had scattered before this Oriental Hulk had arrived. He had no doubt they could deal with any military opposition they met, but Sunspot had no idea what this guy's abilities may be.
Stupid. Stupid of him to think they wouldn't anticipate this attack.
Roberto took to the air, strafing the Chinaman with solar blasts. The makeshift shield took nearly all of them, and then he swung the table, trying to swat Roberto out of the air. Sunspot merely swung a fist and smashed the weapon to metal ribbons.
He hadn't realized he'd been suckered until he was facedown on the wrecked tile floor. The Chinaman had moved like lightning -- far faster than anyone of his size had any business moving -- and snatched Roberto out of the air by the ankle while he was bothering with the table. As Sunspot was still coming to grips with this, the Collective Man lifted him up by the collar of his black jumpsuit and backhanded him hard enough to make the world go gray.
Then manacles were being fitted around his hands, and his powers were suddenly gone. No! Negator cuffs...
The Collective Man dropped him, and Roberto crumpled weakly to the floor.
"Leave now!"
Julio Esteban Richter hardly spared a glance at the people fleeing as he moved down the corridor. Most of the orderlies and nurses on this floor were heading for the stairwell, but several were waiting for the elevator, each of them doing an anxious little pee-pee dance as the lights indicating the elevator's approach blinked slowly. When they realized Rictor was heading right for them, they all turned and bolted for the stairs instead.
Rictor barely paused as a vibratory wave radiated out from him and blew the elevator doors and part of the surrounding wall into the shaft. Alarms sounded and the elevator's failsafes set in, locking the car at a higher floor.
Rictor leapt across the empty shaft to the ladder running up the far side. Then he began to slide down it, using his powers to control the speed of his descent.
<"You heard me! We are under attack! Get your men in here now, curse you! No--!">
Dr. Fa, founder and director of the Fa Clinic, dropped the phone as an explosion took the heavy oak door of his office off the hinges. The shockwave smashed him back against the wall, and he slid down it bonelessly. Then he looked up dazedly into the face of a blonde American girl, her hair cropped severely and her eyes covered by a pair of silver goggles.
"Sorry 'bout that... wouldn't have needed such a big boom if you used cheaper doors. Guess killing dirty muties provides lots of extra money for the finer things, huh?"
Fa tried to melt back into the wall, but only succeeded in hunkering back closer to it. <"Stop! The military is on their way, you can't--">
Meltdown squatted down next to the man and very deliberately generated a glowing plasma bomb in the palm of her hand. "Sorry, doc... no speakee the lingo. I'm going to hazard a guess that you're the big boss around here, though. You've gotta come with--"
The windows facing out on the streets of Beijing blew inward, and Meltdown was immediately rolling backward, the plasma bomb fizzing out in her palm as she ducked behind Fa's heavy desk. A hail of gunfire chewed the desk to pieces around her as she ineffectually covered her head with her hands.
"Fuuuuuuucccckkkk!" she screamed over the roar of gunfire, and lobbed another bomb in the general direction of the window. The explosion slammed the desk back hard into her shoulder, but at least the gunfire stopped for a moment.
She didn't wait to count how many gunmen had come in through the window, or how many she may have actually taken out. She just got to her feet and ran for the open doorway.
Gomi had been checking out the patient rooms -- interrupting an illicit quickie between an orderly and a nurse had been the high point -- when he heard the commotion from the reception area. The others had already plunged farther into the clinic, and he didn't want to interrupt their work in any case. So he doubled back alone.
He came around the corner just as the Collective Man was dropping Sunspot to the floor, the negator cuffs locked around his hands and wrists. Gomi felt a brief moment of panic, where all the doubts he had about his place here came crashing home with a vengeance -- he wasn't a mutant after all -- but then he set his jaw and stepped out into the room.
The Collective Man had his back to him, and Gomi wasn't feeling sporting enough to give him fair warning. A pillar of psychokinetic power tore across the room from his forehead, slamming into the black-clad Asian giant right between the shoulder blades. The impact tossed the Collective Man the length of the room, and when he got up, he had fire in his eyes.
"Damn," Gomi breathed. "He can take a hit."
"You are under arrest..." the Collective Man barked.
"Oh shut up!"
Another burst of power and the man was slammed back into the wall again. Gomi kept the pressure up, hammering him over and over until the wall at the giant's back began to crack.
But then, astoundingly, the Collective Man began to press forward.
Gomi's mouth dropped open, even as he continued pounding the giant. He had little fine control over the powers granted him by his cybernetic implants, but he'd torn open tractor trailers with them before. Now this giant was simply walking through the barrage.
Gomi twisted his jaw, activating the headset he was wearing. "Big trouble in Little China! I repeat, Big Trouble in Little--"
<This one is mighty, brothers.>
<Yes... mighty enough to kill every person in this clinic before leveling the place. So why don't they do just that?>
<Does it matter, Han?>
<Of course it matters! Tell me you wouldn't like to demolish this place, Lin. They kill mutants here!>
<It is a health facility serving the people of China, I would never wish its destruction.>
<Are you suggesting that we should let them go about their business just because they're not going out of their way to kill anyone?>
<Not at all. I'm just suggesting that it broadens our options in dealing with them.>
<Ridiculous.>
<Why are we discussing this? Better we should worry what happened to that special forces backup we were promised.>
The Collective Man took another hit -- this one a little too high on his chest -- and put an arm up to protect his throat and face. With the other arm, he reached for the young, spike-haired blonde boy who was causing him so much trouble.
"What are you doing?"
The voice was low, feline, and the surgeon and two nurses who heard it didn't need to understand the words to hear the danger beneath them.
Crouching in the door of the treatment room, Feral took the scene in. The three medical personnel hovered over the prone, anesthetized body of a young Chinese woman. They had apparently just finished loading the woman onto the gurney, and were preparing to wheel her out of the room.
There was blood on the doctor's gloves. A yellow-brown amniotic stain colored the unconscious woman's hospital gown at the groin.
"Killed another one, huh?" Feral moved fluidly into the room, the lithe muscles along her back and shoulders rippling with adrenaline. The doctor and nurses backed away from her, putting the gurney behind them.
Feral sniffed the air. She could smell the death in here, just barely glossed over by the bitter scent of ammonia and sterility. She looked at the cowering doctors.
Don't kill anybody, 'Berto had said. Trash the place, hurt some people if you have to, but don't kill anybody.
"Fuck you, Bobby," Feral breathed, touching her own belly. "I don't play by those rules anymore. I decide who lives and who dies."
The doctor apparently understood a little English, because the color drained out of his face at these words. Feral moved closer to him.
"How do you do it?" she asked, slinking back and forth in front of him. He was older, his graying hair giving him a distinguished, patronly air. Feral had to fight the mad urge to rub her back against his leg like a housecat. "Paranoid fucks... you must have a neutralizer around here. Where is it?"
The doctor's eyes were wide. He shook his head, uncomprehending.
Feral lashed out so quickly the doctor hadn't even realized she'd moved until the nurse on his right gave a wet gurgle and went down to her knees. He turned and saw blood spurting rhythmically from the woman's throat. The world swam in front of his eyes -- he couldn't go into shock, not now -- and he was only dimly aware of the second nurse's scream. She tried to run for it, and Feral caught her and slammed her to the ground, squatting down on her back.
"Where is it?" Feral repeated, her claw hovering over the second nurse's wide eye.
His arm shaking, the doctor pointed at the bell-shaped projector positioned over the treatment table.
Feral smiled and nodded. And then she put the screaming nurse's eye out anyway.
Meltdown bolted out into the hall, a hail of gunfire chasing her out of the office.
"Run!" she shouted at Ariel, who was standing in the middle of the corridor with a slightly dumbstruck look on her face.
"Damnit, Ari, move your ass!" Tabby grabbed the willowy girl with the arm that hadn't been smashed by the desk and shoved her down the hall, away from the black-clad troops swarming out of Dr. Fa's office.
"They're shooting at us!" Ariel observed.
"Get us out of here, Ari! Now!"
Ariel changed direction suddenly and pushed through the door to her left. It should have opened onto a tiny office, but instead they found themselves stepping out into a subway tunnel.
Ariel was an alien. Though an ability to influence the thoughts of others made her a mutant among her people, everyone from her planet -- the Coconut Grove -- had the ability to bend space around doors. She could open a door and walk through it to literally anywhere, as long as there was a door on the other end for her to step through. From the looks of it, she'd deposited them through a service entrance into a New York subway.
"Next door, hurry!" Tabby shoved her down the narrow walkway on the subway's edge, leaving the door open behind her. It was about half a block to the next service door, and the two women sprinted there, just as the soldiers were filtering in behind them.
"Now pop us out across the hallway from the first door!"
Ariel pulled the service door open and they were now facing the very door in the clinic they'd just run through. They could see the last soldier disappearing into the subway through the open door. Meltdown bolted across the hallway and kicked the door closed. The Chinese soldiers were now trapped in a subway tunnel some 7,000 miles away.
Tabby nodded. "I almost forgot how much fun your powers are. C'mon, let's get the rest of this place emptied so we can get on with this."
"--in Little China!"
Chance came around the corner just as the Collective Man was about to grab Gomi's head and pop it like a zit. She didn't wait to check the scorecard, she simply focused her power on the Asian giant.
The girl Chance had the most potent mutation of the group -- the ability to either enhance or negate the metahuman abilities of others. When she turned that power on the giant, there was a strange tok sound, and where there had a moment ago been one 7-foot man, there were now 5 identical men of about 5-1/2 feet apiece.
Gomi's next burst scattered them like bowling pins, smacking them across the room with bone-shattering force. Not one of them got up.
"Jesus," Gomi breathed. "You want to cut that a little closer next time?"
"Christ, what was he... it... them?"
Gomi didn't reply. He was moving toward Sunspot, who was now stirring on the shattered linoleum floor. Gomi knelt down and examined the manacles covering his teammate's wrists and hands.
"Negator cuffs," Roberto said groggily, shaking his head to clear it.
"That's what I thought. Here... put them over the edge of this table."
Sunspot did as Gomi had asked, draping the connector over the edge of an upended table. Gomi's eyes narrowed.
"I thought you couldn't focus your blast that narrowly," Roberto said, suddenly uncertain.
"Guess we're gonna find out," Gomi replied, and blasted the cuffs. They snapped neatly in two, and with the power source destroyed, they slipped right off of Roberto's hands.
"Chance," Bobby said, standing and rubbing his wrists. "Keep an eye on that guy -- guys. He's strong as hell when his powers are active." Chance saluted with a smirk. "He said something about military troops..."
"I haven't seen any."
Bobby toggled his microphone. "Ric, you in position?"
"Yeah, Bobby. I'm in."
He stood in the sub-sub-basement of the building, little more than a damp, paved hole beneath the lowest parking garage, with support pillars driven into the ground every 20 feet or so. He put his hand on one of these pillars as he talked.
"You know there's a reason I usually like to do this sort of stuff from the top of the building, right? Or even better, from the ground and at a good, safe distance."
"I know," Sunspot replied simply. "Just standby, Ric. I promise I won't ask you to drop the building on your own head."
Rictor signed off and sighed. "Trust only goes so far, hermano," he breathed, and tried to ignore the sounds of the rats in the walls.
"Work," she hissed. "Work, you fucking piece of garbage..."
In Case You're Just Joining Us: Magneto struck a deal with Siena Blaze upon her awakening, part-blackmail, part appeal to her darker nature. She agreed to pledge allegiance to him and Genosha. Meanwhile, the Angels prepare to launch an attack on a Chinese mutant abortion clinic, and China readies its response, in the form of their national hero, the Collective Man.
Defense Minstry, Taipei, China. 18 June. 1625L.
Colonel Mao Ju-Yin stared at the handset of the secure phone with a mixture of anger and stupefaction.
No, that wouldn't do. He couldn't let this man hear the confusion or desperation in his voice. He brought the phone back to his ear.
<"You will leave us defenseless then?">
<"Don't bother with theatrics, Colonel,"> the voice on the other end replied in stilted Cantonese, <"China is many things, but we both know 'defenseless' is not one of them. Under no circumstance will I allow Big Hero 6 to involve itself in this matter, and that is my final word.">
<"But Li assured me that...">
<"Mr. Li is a trusted employee of the Giri Corporation, but he is not in charge of metahuman operations. He can only advise, and as field leader I have taken his advisement under consideration. I find your position wanting both morally and strategically. I will not risk my team in such a scenario.">
<"Damn you Yoshida, listen to--">
<"No Colonel, you listen to me."> The voice on the other end, despite its harsh words, had been cordial up until this point. Now Colonel Mao felt the air go frigid around the earpiece, and wondered how a man that called himself 'Sunfire' could produce such cold. <"Big Hero 6 is currently short one member -- my cousin, the Silver Samurai, was killed some time ago. When Giri Corp. approached China and asked for the Collective Man to fill out our ranks, in an effort to make BH6 into a force for all of Eastern Asia instead of just Japan, China refused. I do not find much time for this team anymore, Colonel, I have affairs of my own to attend to. But I will not send them off to protect your mutant abattoir when you couldn't be bothered with us in our time of need.">
Another line began flashing on Mao's phone, a special line he used expressly for impending and possible emergencies. If it was ringing, he knew what the news would be.
<"Pardon me, Yoshida-san,"> Mao said sadly, reaching over to kill the connection, <"but it appears it is already too late. You have my gracious thanks for enforcing my lifelong belief that the Japanese are useless pigs.">
He hung up before Shiro Yoshida -- the man known as Sunfire -- could respond. Then he switched lines and listened to the bad news.
Fa Clinic, Beijing Landmark Towers. Beijing, China. 18 June. 1625L.
The Fallen Angels materialized in the reception area of the Fa Clinic. Their arrival caused, to put it mildly, a bit of an uproar. Nurses and doctors already on edge with anticipation, cried out and fled, causing those patients still waiting after Dr. Fa's cancellation of all non-critical appointments, to panic and run as well.
"You know what to do," Sunspot said, and then his skin slicked over with the bubbling energy effect he got his codename from. "Evacuate and destroy." He moved toward the reception desk as his team split away behind him. An admitting nurse ducked behind it at his approach.
"No, no hiding." Roberto reached down, crushed the edge of the counter in both hands, and tore the entire thing out of the floor and the wall. The nurse screamed and covered her head as Sunspot threw it to the side.
"Go," he said, pointing toward the door. The Chinese woman didn't need to understand English to get his meaning. She nodded and ran.
He watched her flee, then turned to finish the job on the waiting room. He never saw the fist coming until it had smashed into his middle, blasting all of the air out of his lungs and lifting him into the air. He came down hard on the wreckage of the receptionist's desk.
"You are under arrest," the Collective Man said in thickly-accented English. "Put your hands where I can see them. Do you understand?"
Roberto didn't answer, he was too busy keeping his lunch down. Whoever this guy was, he had to be metahuman. Chinamen just weren't made seven feet tall, and nobody normal could punch like that.
"This building is surrounded by military troops, your team will be subdued in minutes. Surrender."
That broke through the pain-induced fog.
"You want my hands, perdedor," Sunspot said, rolling over onto his back, "here you go."
Jet solar blasts flashed from his fists. The Collective Man sidestepped, the blast passing close enough to tear a swath out of his black tunic, then used one foot to pop a heavy coffee table up on its end, seized the edge of it, and brought it up as a shield.
Sunspot looked around. The others -- Tabby, Feral, Ric, Chance, Ariel, and Gomi -- had scattered before this Oriental Hulk had arrived. He had no doubt they could deal with any military opposition they met, but Sunspot had no idea what this guy's abilities may be.
Stupid. Stupid of him to think they wouldn't anticipate this attack.
Roberto took to the air, strafing the Chinaman with solar blasts. The makeshift shield took nearly all of them, and then he swung the table, trying to swat Roberto out of the air. Sunspot merely swung a fist and smashed the weapon to metal ribbons.
He hadn't realized he'd been suckered until he was facedown on the wrecked tile floor. The Chinaman had moved like lightning -- far faster than anyone of his size had any business moving -- and snatched Roberto out of the air by the ankle while he was bothering with the table. As Sunspot was still coming to grips with this, the Collective Man lifted him up by the collar of his black jumpsuit and backhanded him hard enough to make the world go gray.
Then manacles were being fitted around his hands, and his powers were suddenly gone. No! Negator cuffs...
The Collective Man dropped him, and Roberto crumpled weakly to the floor.
"Leave now!"
Julio Esteban Richter hardly spared a glance at the people fleeing as he moved down the corridor. Most of the orderlies and nurses on this floor were heading for the stairwell, but several were waiting for the elevator, each of them doing an anxious little pee-pee dance as the lights indicating the elevator's approach blinked slowly. When they realized Rictor was heading right for them, they all turned and bolted for the stairs instead.
Rictor barely paused as a vibratory wave radiated out from him and blew the elevator doors and part of the surrounding wall into the shaft. Alarms sounded and the elevator's failsafes set in, locking the car at a higher floor.
Rictor leapt across the empty shaft to the ladder running up the far side. Then he began to slide down it, using his powers to control the speed of his descent.
<"You heard me! We are under attack! Get your men in here now, curse you! No--!">
Dr. Fa, founder and director of the Fa Clinic, dropped the phone as an explosion took the heavy oak door of his office off the hinges. The shockwave smashed him back against the wall, and he slid down it bonelessly. Then he looked up dazedly into the face of a blonde American girl, her hair cropped severely and her eyes covered by a pair of silver goggles.
"Sorry 'bout that... wouldn't have needed such a big boom if you used cheaper doors. Guess killing dirty muties provides lots of extra money for the finer things, huh?"
Fa tried to melt back into the wall, but only succeeded in hunkering back closer to it. <"Stop! The military is on their way, you can't--">
Meltdown squatted down next to the man and very deliberately generated a glowing plasma bomb in the palm of her hand. "Sorry, doc... no speakee the lingo. I'm going to hazard a guess that you're the big boss around here, though. You've gotta come with--"
The windows facing out on the streets of Beijing blew inward, and Meltdown was immediately rolling backward, the plasma bomb fizzing out in her palm as she ducked behind Fa's heavy desk. A hail of gunfire chewed the desk to pieces around her as she ineffectually covered her head with her hands.
"Fuuuuuuucccckkkk!" she screamed over the roar of gunfire, and lobbed another bomb in the general direction of the window. The explosion slammed the desk back hard into her shoulder, but at least the gunfire stopped for a moment.
She didn't wait to count how many gunmen had come in through the window, or how many she may have actually taken out. She just got to her feet and ran for the open doorway.
Gomi had been checking out the patient rooms -- interrupting an illicit quickie between an orderly and a nurse had been the high point -- when he heard the commotion from the reception area. The others had already plunged farther into the clinic, and he didn't want to interrupt their work in any case. So he doubled back alone.
He came around the corner just as the Collective Man was dropping Sunspot to the floor, the negator cuffs locked around his hands and wrists. Gomi felt a brief moment of panic, where all the doubts he had about his place here came crashing home with a vengeance -- he wasn't a mutant after all -- but then he set his jaw and stepped out into the room.
The Collective Man had his back to him, and Gomi wasn't feeling sporting enough to give him fair warning. A pillar of psychokinetic power tore across the room from his forehead, slamming into the black-clad Asian giant right between the shoulder blades. The impact tossed the Collective Man the length of the room, and when he got up, he had fire in his eyes.
"Damn," Gomi breathed. "He can take a hit."
"You are under arrest..." the Collective Man barked.
"Oh shut up!"
Another burst of power and the man was slammed back into the wall again. Gomi kept the pressure up, hammering him over and over until the wall at the giant's back began to crack.
But then, astoundingly, the Collective Man began to press forward.
Gomi's mouth dropped open, even as he continued pounding the giant. He had little fine control over the powers granted him by his cybernetic implants, but he'd torn open tractor trailers with them before. Now this giant was simply walking through the barrage.
Gomi twisted his jaw, activating the headset he was wearing. "Big trouble in Little China! I repeat, Big Trouble in Little--"
<This one is mighty, brothers.>
<Yes... mighty enough to kill every person in this clinic before leveling the place. So why don't they do just that?>
<Does it matter, Han?>
<Of course it matters! Tell me you wouldn't like to demolish this place, Lin. They kill mutants here!>
<It is a health facility serving the people of China, I would never wish its destruction.>
<Are you suggesting that we should let them go about their business just because they're not going out of their way to kill anyone?>
<Not at all. I'm just suggesting that it broadens our options in dealing with them.>
<Ridiculous.>
<Why are we discussing this? Better we should worry what happened to that special forces backup we were promised.>
The Collective Man took another hit -- this one a little too high on his chest -- and put an arm up to protect his throat and face. With the other arm, he reached for the young, spike-haired blonde boy who was causing him so much trouble.
"What are you doing?"
The voice was low, feline, and the surgeon and two nurses who heard it didn't need to understand the words to hear the danger beneath them.
Crouching in the door of the treatment room, Feral took the scene in. The three medical personnel hovered over the prone, anesthetized body of a young Chinese woman. They had apparently just finished loading the woman onto the gurney, and were preparing to wheel her out of the room.
There was blood on the doctor's gloves. A yellow-brown amniotic stain colored the unconscious woman's hospital gown at the groin.
"Killed another one, huh?" Feral moved fluidly into the room, the lithe muscles along her back and shoulders rippling with adrenaline. The doctor and nurses backed away from her, putting the gurney behind them.
Feral sniffed the air. She could smell the death in here, just barely glossed over by the bitter scent of ammonia and sterility. She looked at the cowering doctors.
Don't kill anybody, 'Berto had said. Trash the place, hurt some people if you have to, but don't kill anybody.
"Fuck you, Bobby," Feral breathed, touching her own belly. "I don't play by those rules anymore. I decide who lives and who dies."
The doctor apparently understood a little English, because the color drained out of his face at these words. Feral moved closer to him.
"How do you do it?" she asked, slinking back and forth in front of him. He was older, his graying hair giving him a distinguished, patronly air. Feral had to fight the mad urge to rub her back against his leg like a housecat. "Paranoid fucks... you must have a neutralizer around here. Where is it?"
The doctor's eyes were wide. He shook his head, uncomprehending.
Feral lashed out so quickly the doctor hadn't even realized she'd moved until the nurse on his right gave a wet gurgle and went down to her knees. He turned and saw blood spurting rhythmically from the woman's throat. The world swam in front of his eyes -- he couldn't go into shock, not now -- and he was only dimly aware of the second nurse's scream. She tried to run for it, and Feral caught her and slammed her to the ground, squatting down on her back.
"Where is it?" Feral repeated, her claw hovering over the second nurse's wide eye.
His arm shaking, the doctor pointed at the bell-shaped projector positioned over the treatment table.
Feral smiled and nodded. And then she put the screaming nurse's eye out anyway.
Meltdown bolted out into the hall, a hail of gunfire chasing her out of the office.
"Run!" she shouted at Ariel, who was standing in the middle of the corridor with a slightly dumbstruck look on her face.
"Damnit, Ari, move your ass!" Tabby grabbed the willowy girl with the arm that hadn't been smashed by the desk and shoved her down the hall, away from the black-clad troops swarming out of Dr. Fa's office.
"They're shooting at us!" Ariel observed.
"Get us out of here, Ari! Now!"
Ariel changed direction suddenly and pushed through the door to her left. It should have opened onto a tiny office, but instead they found themselves stepping out into a subway tunnel.
Ariel was an alien. Though an ability to influence the thoughts of others made her a mutant among her people, everyone from her planet -- the Coconut Grove -- had the ability to bend space around doors. She could open a door and walk through it to literally anywhere, as long as there was a door on the other end for her to step through. From the looks of it, she'd deposited them through a service entrance into a New York subway.
"Next door, hurry!" Tabby shoved her down the narrow walkway on the subway's edge, leaving the door open behind her. It was about half a block to the next service door, and the two women sprinted there, just as the soldiers were filtering in behind them.
"Now pop us out across the hallway from the first door!"
Ariel pulled the service door open and they were now facing the very door in the clinic they'd just run through. They could see the last soldier disappearing into the subway through the open door. Meltdown bolted across the hallway and kicked the door closed. The Chinese soldiers were now trapped in a subway tunnel some 7,000 miles away.
Tabby nodded. "I almost forgot how much fun your powers are. C'mon, let's get the rest of this place emptied so we can get on with this."
"--in Little China!"
Chance came around the corner just as the Collective Man was about to grab Gomi's head and pop it like a zit. She didn't wait to check the scorecard, she simply focused her power on the Asian giant.
The girl Chance had the most potent mutation of the group -- the ability to either enhance or negate the metahuman abilities of others. When she turned that power on the giant, there was a strange tok sound, and where there had a moment ago been one 7-foot man, there were now 5 identical men of about 5-1/2 feet apiece.
Gomi's next burst scattered them like bowling pins, smacking them across the room with bone-shattering force. Not one of them got up.
"Jesus," Gomi breathed. "You want to cut that a little closer next time?"
"Christ, what was he... it... them?"
Gomi didn't reply. He was moving toward Sunspot, who was now stirring on the shattered linoleum floor. Gomi knelt down and examined the manacles covering his teammate's wrists and hands.
"Negator cuffs," Roberto said groggily, shaking his head to clear it.
"That's what I thought. Here... put them over the edge of this table."
Sunspot did as Gomi had asked, draping the connector over the edge of an upended table. Gomi's eyes narrowed.
"I thought you couldn't focus your blast that narrowly," Roberto said, suddenly uncertain.
"Guess we're gonna find out," Gomi replied, and blasted the cuffs. They snapped neatly in two, and with the power source destroyed, they slipped right off of Roberto's hands.
"Chance," Bobby said, standing and rubbing his wrists. "Keep an eye on that guy -- guys. He's strong as hell when his powers are active." Chance saluted with a smirk. "He said something about military troops..."
"I haven't seen any."
Bobby toggled his microphone. "Ric, you in position?"
"Yeah, Bobby. I'm in."
He stood in the sub-sub-basement of the building, little more than a damp, paved hole beneath the lowest parking garage, with support pillars driven into the ground every 20 feet or so. He put his hand on one of these pillars as he talked.
"You know there's a reason I usually like to do this sort of stuff from the top of the building, right? Or even better, from the ground and at a good, safe distance."
"I know," Sunspot replied simply. "Just standby, Ric. I promise I won't ask you to drop the building on your own head."
Rictor signed off and sighed. "Trust only goes so far, hermano," he breathed, and tried to ignore the sounds of the rats in the walls.
"Work," she hissed. "Work, you fucking piece of garbage..."