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Issue #45 by Daniel Ingram
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"FALLING SIDEWAYS – PART ONE”
Metro City
Mirage, Nova, Technocrat, Namorita and Bruce Hoffman sat in Force Works’ ‘secondary communication bay’. Normally the computers were processing dozens of files, sent in by secure contacts, old sources and resources from all over the world.
But today they were almost completely silent. In the last week, everything had slowed to a crawl. Informants clammed up, contacts didn’t return calls and computer systems that had been friendly only a few weeks before were locked down.
“Might as well be paperweights,” Nova sighed, as he tapped on one.
“They’ll stay that way unless we act fast,” Bruce Hoffman said.
“I’m still not sold on this plan,” Namorita said, “this information broker, what’s his name…?”
“Josh Eaton,” Mirage supplied.
“That hardly sounds like the name of a mover and shaker,” Nova muttered, “should have a respectable name like Dr. Octopus, or Kingpin.”
“Some of the most powerful people on the planet are people you’ve never heard of,” observed Technocrat, “this guy is a mediator for criminals. They trust him to settle their differences without violence, and I can’t begin to imagine the information he’s been privy to. If we hand him over to the CIA…”
“The stink of our last mission is wiped clean,” Bruce Hoffman finished.
“I think our eyes are getting bigger than our stomach,” said Nova, “we can hand this off to the X-Men, Excalibur…, the team isn’t ready for anything, even if it’s a cake walk. North Korea was a damn meat grinder on us.”
“I agree,” Mirage said, “that’s why it’s going to just me and Blink. Bag and tag, in and out.”
“I’m already working on the press release,” Namorita said, “this Eaton character is one the FBI’s wanted list, even if he’s not on their top ten.”
“Sounds like we got our ducks in a row,” Nova sighed, “I still got a bad feeling about this, just for the record.”
# # # # #
Italy, Rome
Kra’kar the Undertower smiled as the fifth ship in his fleet of vessels pulled into the docks. The locals were paid off, his merchandise had just arrived, and ten minutes ago his accountants confirmed that his clients had just sent their first down payment.
The Atlantean smuggler smiled like the cat who ate the canary. It had been seven years since he’d come to the surface world, seven years since he’d taken that job offer from the AIM agent who met with his former chief, Attuma.
He was awash in wealth, and felt absolutely nothing as two dozen women were marched past him, presold to brothels all over Europe. In addition to the women, the hold contained enough weapons to overthrow a small country, and a few banned materials that AIM needed transported past SHIELD and Interpol border scans.
In the world of international crime, Kra’kar would never be Dr. Doom, but he was still a rich and important man nonetheless, and he suffered far less beatings.
“I don’t know why so many supervillains don’t do this,” Kra’kar mused aloud. He then felt a sting at the back of his neck, and slapped it on reflex.
“I didn’t know this portion of the surface world had mosquitoes,” Kra’kar looked at his hand, and saw that the insect was unlike anything he’d ever encountered in the surface world. It was sleek silver, and before he could examine the thing further, it melted into his hand like ice melting into water.
“…and they shouldn’t do that,” Kra’kar said, with alarm. But before he even realized what was happening, he felt his heart seize, and what felt like concrete pour into his lungs.
# # # # #
Mandipoor
“So that’s our guy, huh?” Blink looked through the binoculars as Josh Eaton sat a block away, ordering breakfast, “doesn’t look like much.”
“Half the criminals I met in my undercover days didn’t look like criminals,” Mirage replied, “though those that did, wow…”
“He can’t see us, right?”
“Right, anyone looking this way just sees an empty rooftop,” said Mirage.
“We should grab him now,” Blink said, “I can get us over there and bam!”
“I want to wait until he’s as isolated as possible,” said Mirage, “after what happened in North Korea, I’d rather not take any chances.”
“About Korea, do you have any regrets?”
“Gotta narrow it down for me,” Mirage said, “because the mission went to shit, and we’re pariahs to all our sources. So do you mean that, or on top of that?”
“I mean, how everyone reacted,” Blink explained, “I mean yeah, things went south, but we didn’t lose anyone on our side, we set North Korea’s super science back at least a decade. Sure, some guys in an office got all mad about what we did, but so what? And instead of defending what we did, we’re in this armpit trying to fix what isn’t broken!”
“I’d be lying if I didn’t say you had a point,” Mirage said, “but this is the game we play. If we want people to pay attention to the things we say, to what this team represents, then we have to play by different rules than most superhero teams. And one of those rules is that we have to be at our best, all the time. So when we screw up, we have to make it right.”
Blink handed the binoculars to Mirage, “Wish this felt like that, and not covering our asses.”
# # # # #
“Hold up, hold up!”
Jake Byrd waved his blackboard as a caution flag to the transport pulled into the boat docks.
This dock was fairly unique, only twelve like it in the world. It was surrounded by walls, ten feet high of steel three. There were three guard towers staffed by four men manning a fifty caliber machine gun, and armed with enough ammunition to mow down a small army.
And all of that felt like it meant nothing to the people stationed there.
Byrd went up to the transport driver, a snarl on his face, “What the hell is the idea?”
“What?” said the Driver, “this drop-off’s been approved for a week! What’s the idea?”
“The idea is that we already have three transports here! That’s a direct violation of section three, article one!” Byrd snapped, “that’s eighteen super felons waiting for transport to Tartarus! That’s way too many!”
“Well, what do you expect me to do?” replied the Driver, “I don’t have enough juice in the power dampeners to make it back to lock up!”
“Shit…” Byrd muttered, “pull it around back, we’ll…work something out.”
Byrd had a half decent plan formed in his head, when another transport pulled in. His heart stopped, and he felt a chill travel down his spine.
“Tom?” Byrd radioed in, “have someone on stand-by. Thinks may get hairy, soon…”
# # # # #
Mandipoor
“Did Hoffman say when this guy’s appointment was supposed to show up?” Blink asked, “because this feels like it’s taking forever.”
“He didn’t,” Mirage said. She looked at Josh Eaton through the binoculars again, examining every inch of the man, yet unable to articulate what exactly he was looking for.
Mirage watched as the man sipped his tea with his left hand and read an international newspaper with his right.
“He’s left handed,” Mirage said, an alarm blaring in her head. Josh’s skin was smooth, completely unblemished, his hair was perfect and not a single nail on his hands was chipped. He looked too perfect, as if he’d just come off an assembly line, “that’s not our guy, it’s an LMD!”
Mirage spun around, and in the corner of her eye she caught a familiar glare. Acting on instinct, she tackled Blink to the ground just as she heard the crack of a pistol. Blink cried out as she felt a bullet slam into her shoulder, and could hear several more shots rang through the air, before silence reigned.
“Well,” Mirage rolled off of Blink, “good news. You were right.”
“Guess that’s the bad news too?” asked Blink.
“Yup,” said Mirage, “don’t suppose you can get us out of here?”
Blink shook her head, and only then did Mirage see that her teammate had small hole in her shoulder.
“There was something in the bullet,” Blink winced, “I don’t think I could teleport more than yards.”
“Mirage, Blink. We’ve been sanctioned to end you.”
Mirage looked up and did a double take, “Emma?”
The resemblance was so uncanny it took Mirage a moment to realize her mistake. The woman was blond, and just as stunning. She tore a tight brown leather plans, a brown leather top and a seamless leather coat, and in one hand was a sleek steel saber.
“Who?” said the woman, “address me as Duchess, thank you.”
Mirage felt a gun pressed to the back of her head and saw another one pointed at Blink, “Hollowpoint.”
“Charmed.”
“Goodbye,” Hollowpoint pulled the triggers without any ceremony. He took a step back, and Duchess moved in, decapitating both mutants with one swipe of her sword.
“That was easier than expected,” Duchess observed.
Hollowpoint gritted his teeth, “Really?”
Two of Blink’s javelins struck the assassin. It brought them both to their knees, but Mirage noted, they were still conscious, still a threat.
“Blink, take the teleporter,” Mirage drew a hunting knife from her belt, “I got the blond.”
“Got it,” Blink looked at Hollowpoint, and felt a flash of familiarity when she saw the Hispanic man, dressed in combat gear. A light bulb went off in her head, and she smirked, “this may sound odd, but I’ve killed you before. Don’t make me do it again.”
“Don’t care,” Hollowpoint said honestly.
Mirage pressed her knife to Duchess’ neck, “How’d you find us? How did you know to ambush us here? Say something interesting in the next two seconds, or I slit your throat!”
“I control my own mass.”
Mirage swept the knife across Duchess’ throat, but it was too late. It was like dragging a spoon across a metal plate, and just as effective. The hired gun grabbed her saber, and very nearly returned the favor, but Mirage leapt backwards, too quick for the hired killer.
“Oh crap,” Blink muttered. She’d only glanced aside for a split second, but that was all it took for Hollowpoint. He disappeared, only to appear behind her, gun drawn.
Blink acted on instinct and threw one of her javelins right at his heart, but the mercenary shot it out of the air like it was a clay pigeon. It exploded in a blinding burst of lavender light, and before Hollowpoint could clear his vision, Blink’s fist had a meeting with his jaw.
“Blink, we have to go!” Mirage shouted. She grabbed her teammate by the shoulder, and began pulling her towards the edge of the roof, “this place is has kill zone written all over it!”
“I can’t teleport more than a few yards,” Blink replied, “any ideas?”
“Yeah, I just need you to trust me,” Mirage grabbed Blink by the shoulder, and the two woman leapt off the edge of the roof.
Blink fought her instinct to shout ‘are you crazy?!’, and watched as Mirage removed a square box, little larger than a wallet with a bright red button in the center, and threw it towards the ground.
The device exploded into a sixteen by sixteen foot airbag, and both heroines knew enough to go limp before impact.
“Technocrat!” Mirage tapped her radio the second her feet touched the ground, “it was a set-up, we need back-up, now!”
# # # # #
A few minutes earlier, on the other side of the world
Nova was flipping through his Netflix account, when an alarm went off that seemed to shake the entire building. As one, every room on every floor was bathed in a red light as a bullhorn blared like the end of the world.
“Taki, what the hell?”
“There was a breakout on the transport ship to Tartarus!” Technocrat said, “we’ve got at least a dozen super-villains trying to escape custody!”
“…oh, damn it,” Nova breathed, “have everyone meet me in the hangar, and make sure no one leaves until everyone does.”
“On it,” replied Technocrat.
“Technocrat!” The line was filled with static, and that itself concerned him. Their communications were run through the latest state of the art equipment, not Radio Shack, for God’s sake, “…was a set-up, … back-up, now!”
Taki felt his blood run cold, and despite himself, and said, “Mirage, say again?”
“Trap!”
Of course, that was the perfect time for another alarm to begin blaring.
# # # # #
Mandipoor
“Did you get through?” Blink said. The two were running down the very busy Mandipoor street. They were still in the tourist section of the city, but Mirage knew that wouldn’t last. They were on a collision course with Low Town.
“Think so,” Mirage said, “but the signal’s dropping in and out.”
“Our comms were compromised again,” Blink growled, “great.”
The two mutants heard several loud screams behind them, and when they looked back they saw Duchess literally running through the crowd like a shadow.
“Crap,” Mirage muttered.
“Mirage, move!”
A bullet came within inches of Mirage’s skull, but Blink tackled her leader just in time. In one fluid motion, she reached behind her back, grabbed one of her signature javelins and threw it towards Hollowpoint.
Blink missed by only an inch before Hallowpoint vanished again.
“Man, this must be what fighting me is like,” Blink observed.
“Blink, move!”
Blink teleported blindly, ten feet into the air, though to her it felt as if she’d just run a marathon. She watched Duchess’ sword slice through the edge of a cab like it was tissue. Blink noticed how the swing of the blade was actually restrained. Duchess could have cut down two tourist who’d gotten too close to their fight, but controlled herself.
Blink teleported behind Mirage, as her leader unleashed a barrage of psychic arrows.
“They’re trying to pin us down,” Blink said, “Hollowpoint to herd us, and Duchess to finish us off. We need muscle, and we need it now.”
“Nova or Sabre would have been here by now, if they could,,” Mirage said, “there’s trouble in Metro City, and we’re half a world away.”
“That…is not the best information ever. What are the others dealing with?”
# # # # #
“Seven minutes, that’s all the time it three dozen madmen to take over the area.”
“Great way to start your term, huh Carver?” Nova said.
Marcus Carver, newly appointed police commissioner, nodded, “Not hard to see why Stone went back to New York.”
“Any chance we could follow him?” Sabre said.
“It’s only three dozen villains,” Nova said, “we’ll be done by lunch.”
“…that we’ll be eating through a straw,” Charcoal said.
“Our victory will be glorious!” Vibraxis declared.
“Do we have eyes in?” X-Treme glanced at the high steel walls. There was only one door to the facility, and it didn’t take a genius to know that most of their enemies would be waiting there for them.
“We’ve got some eyes in,” Commissioner Carver handed Nova an Ipad, “take a look.”
Nova scrolled through the screens quickly. Whirlwind had a dozen guards trapped in his personal tornado, while the Grey Gargoyle had just as many turned into stone, under his personal command. Bison, Quicksand and Blookstryke were pounding away at the walls with their fists, and Nova could see at least another dozen prisoners milling around aimlessly. The last screen was a disheveled man drumming his fingers across the camera.
“Warriors,” the man known as Unicorn smiled wickedly, “come out and play.”
“See any good news?” Carver asked.
“Well,” Nova said, “I don’t see Dr. Doom there.”
Inside
“Hostages are useless,” Grey Gargoyle muttered, “no way are they opening the door before there are a dozen Avengers out there.”
“Have some faith,” Whirlwind said, “you know these kids, thinking they can save anyone. They’ll open the door, you’ll see.”
The doors flew open, but before Whirlwind could say ‘I told you so’, Sabre cold-cocked him, while Nova brought Grey Gargoyle down with a super-sonic armbar.
“Move it, team!” Nova snapped. Nova and Arsenal moved to catch the guards that had been caught up in Whirlwind’s twister, while Sabre evacuated Grey Gargoyle’s stone army some twelve blocks away. Sabre wasn’t certain if that was outside of Grey Gargoyle’s range, but it was better than nothing.
“Okay,” Nova breathed out as the last hostage was evacuated, and turned to the gathering mob of villains, “two down, over a dozen to go.”
# # # # #
Technocrat was embedded in Force Works’ main computer hub, his fingers fling across his keyboard as his screens lit up with dozens of alarms.
“Taki,” Irene Basheda walked into the room with a furrow on her brow, “I’ve just received some very interesting calls…”
“From our accountants? Are they telling you that our accounts are being attacked?” said Technocrat, “because that’s exactly what’s happening. And yes, I’m working on it.”
“Actually,” Irene said, “I’ve received calls from several of my managers here. The traffic lights across the city have gone haywire, and there have been rolling black outs across the city.”
“What?” Technocrat called up several monitors connected to the outside world, and what he saw sent a chill down his spine. All it took was a glance to see how almost everything, large and small, was being affected.
Intersections were filled with accidents, choking the streets. Be they cabs, cops or ambulances, everyone struggled to move. Rolling black outs were striking at random. Rest homes lost heat, schools lost power and hospitals struggled to maintain their systems ancient systems flipped back and forth on emergency power and back again. Phone systems across the city were flooded, and soon Technocrat realized that it was almost entirely artificial induced. All the same, family members were cut off, and emergency response was non-existent.
“The entire city is under attack,” Technocrat breathed, “the coordination behind this is staggering!”
“Coordination?”
“This…this should be impossible,” Technocrat felt sick, “There was a break out at Tartarus’ mainland holding facility, and Blink and Mirage were just ambushed on their mission. And now the entire infrastructure’s under siege at the same time our bank accounts are being attacked.”
“I don’t mean to be blithe, but we’ve been under attack before…”
“This isn’t that simple. This isn’t just a strike on us…”
Mirage grunted as her back slammed up against the wall. Battle worn instincts were all that saved her life as she ducked underneath a fist as hard as a diamond smashed into the wall behind her.
The Duchess pulled her fist back, and was about to attack again when Blink teleported behind the villain, and swept her javelins across her back, but Duchess phased through the attack harmlessly.
“They’re going after our city…”
Nurse Bowen felt the sweat dripping down his brow as he dialed the phone again. They had a donor. They had a surgeon. But what they didn’t have was a patient, because the child’s father only had a cell-phone, and none of those were working.
“Mom, come on, please don’t leave me…”
Jenny Lethane did the standard twelve beats per minute as tears flooded from her eyes. Her foster mother had passed and her heart stopped. Jenny had called 911 minutes before everything went dead, but she had no idea if it was still coming.
In the back of her mind, a selfish part of her prayed for mother to survive. Because what other foster parent would take in a red skinned mutant?
“This isn’t just an attack…”
Charcoal brought his arms up to defend himself as Griffin fell on him like a wild animal.
“Ahh! Somebody get this guy off me!” Charcoal’s body was as hard as a diamond, but still the beast tore gashes in his stone flesh.
“Got your back!” Nova slammed into Griffin from behind, and grabbed the monster’s tail. With a harsh yank, he pulled the winged beast off his teammate, and threw him across the courtyard.
Across from Charcoal, X-Treme crossed his sword and axe in front of himself seconds before Crule slammed into him like a runaway car. Despite all his strength, X-Treme found himself thrown backwards until he was sandwiched between Crule and the armored transport.
“I smell warrior on you,” Crule said, “lets see if I can taste it as well.”
“This is annihilation.”
TO BE CONTINUED...
NEXT ISSUE: Force Works finds itself backed into a corner, and they fight to survive their greatest threat yet! But as Force Works finds themselves under attack in all corners, they don’t know that the greatest threat may be from within!
Mirage, Nova, Technocrat, Namorita and Bruce Hoffman sat in Force Works’ ‘secondary communication bay’. Normally the computers were processing dozens of files, sent in by secure contacts, old sources and resources from all over the world.
But today they were almost completely silent. In the last week, everything had slowed to a crawl. Informants clammed up, contacts didn’t return calls and computer systems that had been friendly only a few weeks before were locked down.
“Might as well be paperweights,” Nova sighed, as he tapped on one.
“They’ll stay that way unless we act fast,” Bruce Hoffman said.
“I’m still not sold on this plan,” Namorita said, “this information broker, what’s his name…?”
“Josh Eaton,” Mirage supplied.
“That hardly sounds like the name of a mover and shaker,” Nova muttered, “should have a respectable name like Dr. Octopus, or Kingpin.”
“Some of the most powerful people on the planet are people you’ve never heard of,” observed Technocrat, “this guy is a mediator for criminals. They trust him to settle their differences without violence, and I can’t begin to imagine the information he’s been privy to. If we hand him over to the CIA…”
“The stink of our last mission is wiped clean,” Bruce Hoffman finished.
“I think our eyes are getting bigger than our stomach,” said Nova, “we can hand this off to the X-Men, Excalibur…, the team isn’t ready for anything, even if it’s a cake walk. North Korea was a damn meat grinder on us.”
“I agree,” Mirage said, “that’s why it’s going to just me and Blink. Bag and tag, in and out.”
“I’m already working on the press release,” Namorita said, “this Eaton character is one the FBI’s wanted list, even if he’s not on their top ten.”
“Sounds like we got our ducks in a row,” Nova sighed, “I still got a bad feeling about this, just for the record.”
# # # # #
Italy, Rome
Kra’kar the Undertower smiled as the fifth ship in his fleet of vessels pulled into the docks. The locals were paid off, his merchandise had just arrived, and ten minutes ago his accountants confirmed that his clients had just sent their first down payment.
The Atlantean smuggler smiled like the cat who ate the canary. It had been seven years since he’d come to the surface world, seven years since he’d taken that job offer from the AIM agent who met with his former chief, Attuma.
He was awash in wealth, and felt absolutely nothing as two dozen women were marched past him, presold to brothels all over Europe. In addition to the women, the hold contained enough weapons to overthrow a small country, and a few banned materials that AIM needed transported past SHIELD and Interpol border scans.
In the world of international crime, Kra’kar would never be Dr. Doom, but he was still a rich and important man nonetheless, and he suffered far less beatings.
“I don’t know why so many supervillains don’t do this,” Kra’kar mused aloud. He then felt a sting at the back of his neck, and slapped it on reflex.
“I didn’t know this portion of the surface world had mosquitoes,” Kra’kar looked at his hand, and saw that the insect was unlike anything he’d ever encountered in the surface world. It was sleek silver, and before he could examine the thing further, it melted into his hand like ice melting into water.
“…and they shouldn’t do that,” Kra’kar said, with alarm. But before he even realized what was happening, he felt his heart seize, and what felt like concrete pour into his lungs.
# # # # #
Mandipoor
“So that’s our guy, huh?” Blink looked through the binoculars as Josh Eaton sat a block away, ordering breakfast, “doesn’t look like much.”
“Half the criminals I met in my undercover days didn’t look like criminals,” Mirage replied, “though those that did, wow…”
“He can’t see us, right?”
“Right, anyone looking this way just sees an empty rooftop,” said Mirage.
“We should grab him now,” Blink said, “I can get us over there and bam!”
“I want to wait until he’s as isolated as possible,” said Mirage, “after what happened in North Korea, I’d rather not take any chances.”
“About Korea, do you have any regrets?”
“Gotta narrow it down for me,” Mirage said, “because the mission went to shit, and we’re pariahs to all our sources. So do you mean that, or on top of that?”
“I mean, how everyone reacted,” Blink explained, “I mean yeah, things went south, but we didn’t lose anyone on our side, we set North Korea’s super science back at least a decade. Sure, some guys in an office got all mad about what we did, but so what? And instead of defending what we did, we’re in this armpit trying to fix what isn’t broken!”
“I’d be lying if I didn’t say you had a point,” Mirage said, “but this is the game we play. If we want people to pay attention to the things we say, to what this team represents, then we have to play by different rules than most superhero teams. And one of those rules is that we have to be at our best, all the time. So when we screw up, we have to make it right.”
Blink handed the binoculars to Mirage, “Wish this felt like that, and not covering our asses.”
# # # # #
“Hold up, hold up!”
Jake Byrd waved his blackboard as a caution flag to the transport pulled into the boat docks.
This dock was fairly unique, only twelve like it in the world. It was surrounded by walls, ten feet high of steel three. There were three guard towers staffed by four men manning a fifty caliber machine gun, and armed with enough ammunition to mow down a small army.
And all of that felt like it meant nothing to the people stationed there.
Byrd went up to the transport driver, a snarl on his face, “What the hell is the idea?”
“What?” said the Driver, “this drop-off’s been approved for a week! What’s the idea?”
“The idea is that we already have three transports here! That’s a direct violation of section three, article one!” Byrd snapped, “that’s eighteen super felons waiting for transport to Tartarus! That’s way too many!”
“Well, what do you expect me to do?” replied the Driver, “I don’t have enough juice in the power dampeners to make it back to lock up!”
“Shit…” Byrd muttered, “pull it around back, we’ll…work something out.”
Byrd had a half decent plan formed in his head, when another transport pulled in. His heart stopped, and he felt a chill travel down his spine.
“Tom?” Byrd radioed in, “have someone on stand-by. Thinks may get hairy, soon…”
# # # # #
Mandipoor
“Did Hoffman say when this guy’s appointment was supposed to show up?” Blink asked, “because this feels like it’s taking forever.”
“He didn’t,” Mirage said. She looked at Josh Eaton through the binoculars again, examining every inch of the man, yet unable to articulate what exactly he was looking for.
Mirage watched as the man sipped his tea with his left hand and read an international newspaper with his right.
“He’s left handed,” Mirage said, an alarm blaring in her head. Josh’s skin was smooth, completely unblemished, his hair was perfect and not a single nail on his hands was chipped. He looked too perfect, as if he’d just come off an assembly line, “that’s not our guy, it’s an LMD!”
Mirage spun around, and in the corner of her eye she caught a familiar glare. Acting on instinct, she tackled Blink to the ground just as she heard the crack of a pistol. Blink cried out as she felt a bullet slam into her shoulder, and could hear several more shots rang through the air, before silence reigned.
“Well,” Mirage rolled off of Blink, “good news. You were right.”
“Guess that’s the bad news too?” asked Blink.
“Yup,” said Mirage, “don’t suppose you can get us out of here?”
Blink shook her head, and only then did Mirage see that her teammate had small hole in her shoulder.
“There was something in the bullet,” Blink winced, “I don’t think I could teleport more than yards.”
“Mirage, Blink. We’ve been sanctioned to end you.”
Mirage looked up and did a double take, “Emma?”
The resemblance was so uncanny it took Mirage a moment to realize her mistake. The woman was blond, and just as stunning. She tore a tight brown leather plans, a brown leather top and a seamless leather coat, and in one hand was a sleek steel saber.
“Who?” said the woman, “address me as Duchess, thank you.”
Mirage felt a gun pressed to the back of her head and saw another one pointed at Blink, “Hollowpoint.”
“Charmed.”
“Goodbye,” Hollowpoint pulled the triggers without any ceremony. He took a step back, and Duchess moved in, decapitating both mutants with one swipe of her sword.
“That was easier than expected,” Duchess observed.
Hollowpoint gritted his teeth, “Really?”
Two of Blink’s javelins struck the assassin. It brought them both to their knees, but Mirage noted, they were still conscious, still a threat.
“Blink, take the teleporter,” Mirage drew a hunting knife from her belt, “I got the blond.”
“Got it,” Blink looked at Hollowpoint, and felt a flash of familiarity when she saw the Hispanic man, dressed in combat gear. A light bulb went off in her head, and she smirked, “this may sound odd, but I’ve killed you before. Don’t make me do it again.”
“Don’t care,” Hollowpoint said honestly.
Mirage pressed her knife to Duchess’ neck, “How’d you find us? How did you know to ambush us here? Say something interesting in the next two seconds, or I slit your throat!”
“I control my own mass.”
Mirage swept the knife across Duchess’ throat, but it was too late. It was like dragging a spoon across a metal plate, and just as effective. The hired gun grabbed her saber, and very nearly returned the favor, but Mirage leapt backwards, too quick for the hired killer.
“Oh crap,” Blink muttered. She’d only glanced aside for a split second, but that was all it took for Hollowpoint. He disappeared, only to appear behind her, gun drawn.
Blink acted on instinct and threw one of her javelins right at his heart, but the mercenary shot it out of the air like it was a clay pigeon. It exploded in a blinding burst of lavender light, and before Hollowpoint could clear his vision, Blink’s fist had a meeting with his jaw.
“Blink, we have to go!” Mirage shouted. She grabbed her teammate by the shoulder, and began pulling her towards the edge of the roof, “this place is has kill zone written all over it!”
“I can’t teleport more than a few yards,” Blink replied, “any ideas?”
“Yeah, I just need you to trust me,” Mirage grabbed Blink by the shoulder, and the two woman leapt off the edge of the roof.
Blink fought her instinct to shout ‘are you crazy?!’, and watched as Mirage removed a square box, little larger than a wallet with a bright red button in the center, and threw it towards the ground.
The device exploded into a sixteen by sixteen foot airbag, and both heroines knew enough to go limp before impact.
“Technocrat!” Mirage tapped her radio the second her feet touched the ground, “it was a set-up, we need back-up, now!”
# # # # #
A few minutes earlier, on the other side of the world
Nova was flipping through his Netflix account, when an alarm went off that seemed to shake the entire building. As one, every room on every floor was bathed in a red light as a bullhorn blared like the end of the world.
“Taki, what the hell?”
“There was a breakout on the transport ship to Tartarus!” Technocrat said, “we’ve got at least a dozen super-villains trying to escape custody!”
“…oh, damn it,” Nova breathed, “have everyone meet me in the hangar, and make sure no one leaves until everyone does.”
“On it,” replied Technocrat.
“Technocrat!” The line was filled with static, and that itself concerned him. Their communications were run through the latest state of the art equipment, not Radio Shack, for God’s sake, “…was a set-up, … back-up, now!”
Taki felt his blood run cold, and despite himself, and said, “Mirage, say again?”
“Trap!”
Of course, that was the perfect time for another alarm to begin blaring.
# # # # #
Mandipoor
“Did you get through?” Blink said. The two were running down the very busy Mandipoor street. They were still in the tourist section of the city, but Mirage knew that wouldn’t last. They were on a collision course with Low Town.
“Think so,” Mirage said, “but the signal’s dropping in and out.”
“Our comms were compromised again,” Blink growled, “great.”
The two mutants heard several loud screams behind them, and when they looked back they saw Duchess literally running through the crowd like a shadow.
“Crap,” Mirage muttered.
“Mirage, move!”
A bullet came within inches of Mirage’s skull, but Blink tackled her leader just in time. In one fluid motion, she reached behind her back, grabbed one of her signature javelins and threw it towards Hollowpoint.
Blink missed by only an inch before Hallowpoint vanished again.
“Man, this must be what fighting me is like,” Blink observed.
“Blink, move!”
Blink teleported blindly, ten feet into the air, though to her it felt as if she’d just run a marathon. She watched Duchess’ sword slice through the edge of a cab like it was tissue. Blink noticed how the swing of the blade was actually restrained. Duchess could have cut down two tourist who’d gotten too close to their fight, but controlled herself.
Blink teleported behind Mirage, as her leader unleashed a barrage of psychic arrows.
“They’re trying to pin us down,” Blink said, “Hollowpoint to herd us, and Duchess to finish us off. We need muscle, and we need it now.”
“Nova or Sabre would have been here by now, if they could,,” Mirage said, “there’s trouble in Metro City, and we’re half a world away.”
“That…is not the best information ever. What are the others dealing with?”
# # # # #
“Seven minutes, that’s all the time it three dozen madmen to take over the area.”
“Great way to start your term, huh Carver?” Nova said.
Marcus Carver, newly appointed police commissioner, nodded, “Not hard to see why Stone went back to New York.”
“Any chance we could follow him?” Sabre said.
“It’s only three dozen villains,” Nova said, “we’ll be done by lunch.”
“…that we’ll be eating through a straw,” Charcoal said.
“Our victory will be glorious!” Vibraxis declared.
“Do we have eyes in?” X-Treme glanced at the high steel walls. There was only one door to the facility, and it didn’t take a genius to know that most of their enemies would be waiting there for them.
“We’ve got some eyes in,” Commissioner Carver handed Nova an Ipad, “take a look.”
Nova scrolled through the screens quickly. Whirlwind had a dozen guards trapped in his personal tornado, while the Grey Gargoyle had just as many turned into stone, under his personal command. Bison, Quicksand and Blookstryke were pounding away at the walls with their fists, and Nova could see at least another dozen prisoners milling around aimlessly. The last screen was a disheveled man drumming his fingers across the camera.
“Warriors,” the man known as Unicorn smiled wickedly, “come out and play.”
“See any good news?” Carver asked.
“Well,” Nova said, “I don’t see Dr. Doom there.”
Inside
“Hostages are useless,” Grey Gargoyle muttered, “no way are they opening the door before there are a dozen Avengers out there.”
“Have some faith,” Whirlwind said, “you know these kids, thinking they can save anyone. They’ll open the door, you’ll see.”
The doors flew open, but before Whirlwind could say ‘I told you so’, Sabre cold-cocked him, while Nova brought Grey Gargoyle down with a super-sonic armbar.
“Move it, team!” Nova snapped. Nova and Arsenal moved to catch the guards that had been caught up in Whirlwind’s twister, while Sabre evacuated Grey Gargoyle’s stone army some twelve blocks away. Sabre wasn’t certain if that was outside of Grey Gargoyle’s range, but it was better than nothing.
“Okay,” Nova breathed out as the last hostage was evacuated, and turned to the gathering mob of villains, “two down, over a dozen to go.”
# # # # #
Technocrat was embedded in Force Works’ main computer hub, his fingers fling across his keyboard as his screens lit up with dozens of alarms.
“Taki,” Irene Basheda walked into the room with a furrow on her brow, “I’ve just received some very interesting calls…”
“From our accountants? Are they telling you that our accounts are being attacked?” said Technocrat, “because that’s exactly what’s happening. And yes, I’m working on it.”
“Actually,” Irene said, “I’ve received calls from several of my managers here. The traffic lights across the city have gone haywire, and there have been rolling black outs across the city.”
“What?” Technocrat called up several monitors connected to the outside world, and what he saw sent a chill down his spine. All it took was a glance to see how almost everything, large and small, was being affected.
Intersections were filled with accidents, choking the streets. Be they cabs, cops or ambulances, everyone struggled to move. Rolling black outs were striking at random. Rest homes lost heat, schools lost power and hospitals struggled to maintain their systems ancient systems flipped back and forth on emergency power and back again. Phone systems across the city were flooded, and soon Technocrat realized that it was almost entirely artificial induced. All the same, family members were cut off, and emergency response was non-existent.
“The entire city is under attack,” Technocrat breathed, “the coordination behind this is staggering!”
“Coordination?”
“This…this should be impossible,” Technocrat felt sick, “There was a break out at Tartarus’ mainland holding facility, and Blink and Mirage were just ambushed on their mission. And now the entire infrastructure’s under siege at the same time our bank accounts are being attacked.”
“I don’t mean to be blithe, but we’ve been under attack before…”
“This isn’t that simple. This isn’t just a strike on us…”
Mirage grunted as her back slammed up against the wall. Battle worn instincts were all that saved her life as she ducked underneath a fist as hard as a diamond smashed into the wall behind her.
The Duchess pulled her fist back, and was about to attack again when Blink teleported behind the villain, and swept her javelins across her back, but Duchess phased through the attack harmlessly.
“They’re going after our city…”
Nurse Bowen felt the sweat dripping down his brow as he dialed the phone again. They had a donor. They had a surgeon. But what they didn’t have was a patient, because the child’s father only had a cell-phone, and none of those were working.
“Mom, come on, please don’t leave me…”
Jenny Lethane did the standard twelve beats per minute as tears flooded from her eyes. Her foster mother had passed and her heart stopped. Jenny had called 911 minutes before everything went dead, but she had no idea if it was still coming.
In the back of her mind, a selfish part of her prayed for mother to survive. Because what other foster parent would take in a red skinned mutant?
“This isn’t just an attack…”
Charcoal brought his arms up to defend himself as Griffin fell on him like a wild animal.
“Ahh! Somebody get this guy off me!” Charcoal’s body was as hard as a diamond, but still the beast tore gashes in his stone flesh.
“Got your back!” Nova slammed into Griffin from behind, and grabbed the monster’s tail. With a harsh yank, he pulled the winged beast off his teammate, and threw him across the courtyard.
Across from Charcoal, X-Treme crossed his sword and axe in front of himself seconds before Crule slammed into him like a runaway car. Despite all his strength, X-Treme found himself thrown backwards until he was sandwiched between Crule and the armored transport.
“I smell warrior on you,” Crule said, “lets see if I can taste it as well.”
“This is annihilation.”
TO BE CONTINUED...
NEXT ISSUE: Force Works finds itself backed into a corner, and they fight to survive their greatest threat yet! But as Force Works finds themselves under attack in all corners, they don’t know that the greatest threat may be from within!