Back to GatefoldIssue #9 by Daniel Ingram
June 2018 |
"The Prey"
AIM lab 231
“We have got to get out of here,” Peter Hall said, sweat beading down his face as his heart hammered, “have you seen the reports? You felt that explosion too! What does Drann expect us to do? For science’s sake, we’re researchers, I’ve never even pulled a trigger!”
“We’re not going anywhere,” replied Marcos Stone, his supervisor. He hated how much time he had to waste, ordering his fellow agents around when he could be performing research, “we have important experiments here.”
“Besides,” Marcos motioned towards the table in front of him, “We can’t just leave all these chemicals laying about, and besides, there’s nothing to worry about. The entrance to our lab is two inch think reinforced glass. Pretty damn hard to get through, and charged with negative ions, not even the Hulk could get through.”
“Yeah, but the generator’s been down for a week for a refit,” Peter said, “you wrote the memo, remember?”
Stone silently muttered something profane, just as he heard an explosion outside in the hall, followed by several loud grunts. Before he could react properly, something smashed through their front door, sending shards of reinforced glass everywhere.
Peter and Marcos saw a well built, African American man in combat fatigues laying on his back, a shotgun in one hand. And despite what must have been a painful journey that would have killed a normal human, the man was still conscious, still aware.
“Oh, we’re so dead,” Marco muttered, as he stared at the man laying on their floor in shock.
“Maybe, but it won’t be me who kills you,” Hurricane grunted. He forced himself to ignore the pain, the blood dripping down his arms from the glass embedded in his arms. He leveled his shotgun, and took aim down the hall, “he will.”
“You killed our boys!” screamed the sociopathic super soldier Nuke, as he raced at Hurricane like a mad bull.
Hurricane didn’t waste a second. He assumed a shooting stance, and pulled the trigger. With a trained ease, he pumped the stock perfectly, each time, ejecting the shell casing and clearing the chamber for the next shot.
Each bullet hit, a special solid slug with the stopping power of your average rifle, struck Nuke perfectly dead center.
Not a single one slowed him down.
Hurricane was seconds away from tossing the shotgun aside to shift tactics, but Nuke was on top of him faster than Hurricane expected.
“Not enough gun,” Nuke snatched the shotgun from Hurricane’s hands, crumbling the barrel as if it were made of eggshells, and smashed the butt across Hurricane’s face before tossing it aside.
Hurricane instinctively knew he wouldn’t survive this fight if he stayed on defense, so he swung his right foot into Nuke’s knee.
The blow was enough to throw the super soldier off balance for a second, and that was all the opening Hurricane needed. He stepped back, and dropped his right fist down.
Just as Nuke stumbled, Hurricane swung his fist upwards where it landed perfectly underneath Nuke’s jaw. The force of the blow lifted Nuke into the air, and he flew backwards into the work station of Peter and Marcos, shattering beakers and flasks as he skidded across the table like it was ice.
The two meek AIM scientists rushed past Hurricane to get out, and the merc paid them no mind. He knew that one lucky shot wouldn’t be enough to put down Nuke. This man was a legend among Special Forces circles, a crazed combination of Wolverine and Captain America who could tear through enemy forces as if they weren’t even there. And Hurricane’s aching body was a testament to a rep well deserved.
So that was why Hurricane wasn’t surprised when Nuke stood up, smoking rising from his body on account of the various acids he’d crashed through.
But it was a little surprising to see the flesh melted off the man’s face, revealing a metal skull underneath.
“That all you got?” Nuke cracked his knuckles, barely even seeming to notice the skin from his face melted off, “because I haven’t even gotten started, boy.”
The scream cut through Scorpion like a knife.
Mr. Raven was hanging from his wrists, an orange band of energy wrapped around them holding him aloft as the leader of the Kree Special forces team known as Special K, pressed a small metal wand against Mr. Raven’s chest. Energy leapt from the wand and went straight for Mr. Raven’s nervous system.
The screams that followed were unlike anything Scorpion had ever heard.
“Stop it!” Scorpion begged. She rose to her feet, but with her arms bound behind her with cuffs that seemed to put a dampener between her will power and muscles, she was forced back down to her knees by the second Kree soldier assigned to watch her, “at least ask him some damn questions! Why are you doing this?”
The second in command of Special K, Ku-var, turned towards Scorpion and shot her a baffled look.
“Why would I ask him any questions?” Ku-var said, “torture is counter-productive for interrogation, I thought even you humans knew that?”
“Then why are you torturing him?” Scorpion demanded, “stop, please!”
“Two reasons,” Ku-var said, “first, I intend to use the sound of his screams to draw in your comrades while my soldiers hunt them down, and two, because he pretends to be a soldier. We understand his equipment perfectly, human.”
Ku-var pressed the wand against Mr. Raven’s chest again. Scorpion could only turn her head in disgust.
“But don’t worry,” Ku-Var stopped for a moment, “we’ll give you a warrior’s death, swift and final.”
Sorry Scorpion, you’re on your own, Warcry thought to herself.
When her sonic abilities first emerged, Warcry had thrown herself into studying the possibilities, the applications of her abilities. She wanted to have her powers down to a science, as finely tuned and controlled as her body and mind. And among the first skills she had learned, was to use her sonics as radar.
It wasn’t as showy as a sonic scream that could destroy steel, but there were times when it was twice as useful.
And this was certainly one of those times. Drann had Hell’s Peak well defended against some of the most advanced scanners and sensors on the planet, but in doing so, he had neglected to defend against the simple things, radar being one of them. The fact that you had to be in the building itself, and as skilled as Warcry happened to be with sonics, likely meant it wasn’t much of a concern.
Anyone else would have been dead by now.
The African Mercenary pressed her back against a wall, hidden behind a column as she pressed her hands against her aching ribs. They didn’t feel broken, she knew that feeling all too well, but she wanted to make certain before she pressed on.
“Sir, Special K is sweeping nearby and insisting we clear the area. Orders?”
Can see anything but what’s right in front of my face, Warcry scolded herself. She couldn’t believe she’d made such a rookie mistake.
Six Piranhas were just down the hall. From their vantage point, Warcry knew that there was little risk of discovery, so long as they kept their distance.
“If they want the first shot, let them. We’ll just step over their corpses if they miss.”
Warcry felt a wave of pure terror shoot through her body. She recognized that voice, and realized her count was off.
Not six Piranhas, but five.
And the Solution.
This close, Warcry’s radar was actually less reliable than just eyeballing it. That was why, when she sensed a seventh something, and felt a nagging feeling in the back of her head, she felt compelled to investigate. It seemed like the Android, that Warcry knew she had no hope of defeating alone, was dragging something behind him like a bag of trash.
Warcry felt sick and scared, but she didn’t know why.
“I’m going to take this to Drann, then get back to the hunt,” said Solution, “you five need to meet back up with team six and start the sweeps on the next level.”
There was the universal ping of the elevator, and against her better judgment, Warcry peaked around the side as the men stepped inside.
And what she saw chilled her blood.
The Solution dragged the Shroud’s body into the elevator like it was an old carpet, his face a mess of bruises, his nose was a mess of dried blood and his body utterly still.
Warcry had seen enough dead bodies in her life to recognize one when she saw it.
She stepped back, as the elevator closed, and for a moment, she struggled to breathe.
She was not naïve. She knew that death was always a possibility. Hell, she all but expected this to be her last mission. She didn’t want to die, but that was the price she was always willing to pay, going in.
But failure? That was unacceptable. And seeing Shroud’s dead body drove home to Warcry how that was a very real outcome. Without help and on her own, she suspected her own mission of vengeance would be over before it began.
“I hope the others are doing better than me,” Warcry muttered.
Hurricane smashed through the cement wall, sending plaster, dust and metal rebar everywhere as he spilled to the floor, struggling to stay conscious.
“This is better than you deserve,” Nuke spat as he stepped through the hole, his eyes etched in a feral expression, “traitors like you don’t deserve a trial, just an execution.”
“I know,” Hurricane forced himself to his feet, and focused through his double vision, listening to Nuke’s footsteps. He swung his fist just in time to catch Nuke’s metal chin, and sent the cyborg staggering back.
His vision blurring, Nuke stumbled, pausing his attack. He wasn’t about to retreat, but he didn’t want to give Hurricane an opening by fighting impaired.
On a primal level, both men instinctively knew and respected, just how dangerous the other was.
“Then know I will never stop until I bring you to military justice, boy,” Nuke spat, “and I won’t stop until you’re in the ground.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re the perfect justice machine,” spat Hurricane. He took a split second to take in the surroundings. The two of them had smashed their way into an electrical relay room. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and he realized that he was trapped in a room as dangerous as the madman across from him.
Realizing that holding back in a situation like this would only get him killed, Hurricane reached over his shoulder for his vibranium machete, determined to slice Nuke in two, but gripped nothing but thin air.
Hurricane realized he must have dropped it, and the distraction was all Nuke needed to charge.
“Our boys!” Nuke roared.
Nuke slammed into Hurricane like a bull, and began pushing the merc backwards, towards the electrical lines humming with power.
Hurricane dug his heels in, stopping Nuke for a second.
The super soldier replied with a right hook that Hurricane barely ducked his head under. Hurricane snapped his elbow into Nuke’s chest.
The blow would have killed a normal man, but Nuke barely seemed to notice. Nuke’s left hand lunged for Hurricane’s throat, and he just barely caught Nuke’s wrist in time.
The two super soldiers grappled back and forth. Hurricane had the advantage in strength, but Nuke was utterly insane and relentless.
But Hurricane knew that insanity was hardly an advantage. Nuke didn’t seem to even notice the danger that surrounded them, too focused on killing Hurricane
“God damn it, not again,” Hurricane muttered under his breath.
He leaned back, and relaxed his grip for a split second.
Nuke, caught off guard, fell forward. Hurricane grabbed the madman by the wrist, spun on his heels and threw the soldier across the room.
Nuke slammed into a transformer, followed a blinding white light that consumed the entire room.
“Another one for the belt,” Hurricane muttered to himself. Even though Nuke was a racist sociopath, he was still a soldier, still a once brother at arms. And Hurricane knew that the man deserved to better than to die in this cesspool, so far from home.
“101010101.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” Hurricane reached into his belt and removed a small flashlight. He clicked it on, and was horrified by what he saw.
Bits and pieces of Nuke’s flesh had been melted away, revealing metal bone underneath.
But as far as Hurricane could see, the man was still alive, still breathing. But his eyes had a glazed, distant look about them.
Hurricane weighed his options. It went against his code to kill a helpless man, and besides, even trying might be enough to start the whole fight over again. Unable to see any better tactical decision, Hurricane decided just to run.
He had plenty of experience with that. And it wasn’t as if Nuke was the only dangerous bastard in this building. Nuke might have to literally have to get in line to kill him, next time around.
“Spread out and search the area!”
And of course, the hits just kept coming, Hurricane reflected.
More Piranhas, more problems.
“I wish the Commander had gotten those scanner updates like we requested,” muttered Joh-Ven. He turned a turned the corner, rifle pointed outward like a spear as he swept the corridor, “this place still plays havoc with our scanners.”
“Just shoot any human who might be our target and say they attacked you,” replied his partner, Miz-Zell. She held a laser pistol in each hand. She wore a targeting visor over her eyes, linked to the weapons in her hand. But even without them, she was an accomplished marksman, “the commander already activated the worm we placed in the human’s system when we were first stationed here. They’ll show anything we want.”
“Except our targets,” said Joh-Ven, “we need at least three times the manpower to search this place properly.”
More than that, Warcry thought to herself. She was literally just around the corner from the two Kree soldiers, close at hand while perfectly out of sight. She’d been using her radar for the last ten minutes, getting into position for the perfect ambush.
Even after seeing Shroud did, Warcry had contemplated forging ahead, going it alone.
But when they started torturing Mr. Raven, Warcry felt his screams.
And for a second that lasted far too long, Warcry felt like a helpless twelve year old again.
“Hell,” Warcry said to herself, “not like I can do what I need to do without them.”
Warcry removed several blades from her belt, and took a steadying breath.
“Lets do this.”
Hrist sniffed the air again, the scent of Asgardian unmistakable to her nose. But it smelled off, as if slightly rotten, spoiled. She knew she was following a creature of Asgard, but exactly what, she couldn’t say.
“This way,” Hrist motioned for Thrill Blade to follow, “I sense my kinsmen this way.”
“If this guy is from Asgard, why are we going towards him?” said Thrill Blade.
“Because Mr. Raven did not report any of my fellow Gods as taking refuge here,” said Hrist, “and I have reason to believe that they art here to kill me.”
“And we are going after them why now?”
“Because if they are here, they can breach the defenses with ease,” Hrist replied, “we kill them, we take their means of transport and then we’ll complete our mission. With relative ease.”
“Huh,” Thrill Blade said, “that’s actually a pretty decent plan.”
Hrist smiled, “Just because I have battle lust, boy, doth not an idiot make.”
“Guess we’ll see,” Thrill Blade said.
“Hush,” Hrist raised her arm, and stopped the two of them in their tracks, “I sense our quarry is just around this corner.”
“Just them?”
Hrist paused for a moment, trying to discern what her mystics senses were telling her. She felt only one presence touched by Asgard, but it had a taint to it unlike anything she had ever known.
“Only one from the Golden Realm,” Hrist said. She gripped her axes and smiled, “shall we introduce ourselves?”
Thrill Blade’s sword seemed to pulse.
“Lets.”
The two mercenaries stepped around the corner, ready to unleash their fantastic power.
Hrist expected to be met by a fellow Asgardian. Not Thor or Balder, but perhaps Loki or a fellow Valkyrie. Odin surely had someone to do his dirty work for him, Hrist reasoned.
But what she saw instead was a large man, dressed in a black trench-coat with a modified gas mask on his face. Hrist knew at just a glance the man was no Asgardian, but his power had the smell of Asgard.
Everything about the man seemed wrong to Hrist’s supernatural senses. He stank of death, yet not sin. He radiated power and strength, but when he cast his eyes towards her and Thril Blade, he was utterly docile. Hrist saw that the man’s left arm was metal, made of mortal science yet the power that resided inside of him seemed anything but.
“Who’s this Jason wanna-be?” Thrill Blade said.
“I doth not know.”
“So you two are the trouble makers Dran wants killed.”
A man stepped out from behind the first. He was thinner, wearing a full bodysuit and brown wings on his back. He had two guns strapped to his hip, and he regarded the two mercs with dispassion.
“We have no quarrel with you two. You keep walking, and we’ll pretend we never saw anything.”
“What is that thing?” Hrist pointed her axe at the larger man.
“We call him Butcher Grimm,” said the man, “we’re just here to deal with a loose end, an old associate. We don’t want any trouble.”
Hrist heard the whisper of the dead, and her entire body stiffened.
“Mr. Gray. You’ve destroyed his belongings, you’ve erased him entirely.”
The man gave smaller man gave Hrist a baffled look.
“How could you know that?”
“He just told me,” Hrist growled.
“Mr. Gray?” Thrill Blade said, “uhh, Hrist, we killed that guy, remember?”
“But we did not try to erase him,” Hrist countered, her voice dripping in rage, “not like they have.”
“Butcher Grimm,” the smaller man could literally feel the temperature rise with Hrist’s anger, “subdue the woman, then proceed to extraction point. We’re done here.”
“Abomination, I will burn you both to ash!”
Hrist leapt at Butcher Grimm, and swung a uru axe, intending cut Butcher Grimm in two.
Butcher Grimm caught the blade of the axe in his right hand, and Hrist gasped that the man’s hand was still in one piece. A thin trickle of blood slid down his wrist, but that was all.
“…how?”
Butcher Grimm said nothing. He simply swung his left fist and smashed it into Hrist’s jaw, sending her flying through the air like a rocket. She smashed into Thrill Blade, rendering the rookie unconscious.
“You caught my axe,” Hrist said, her voice filled with disbelief, “how?”
Butcher Grimm said nothing. He simply strode forward with all the passion of a tree.
“Well said,” Hrist wiped the blood from her mouth and smiled, “lets just kill each other in silence, eh?”
Elsewhere
“Soldier, you get your ass up! You think you’re on leave?”
Hurricane slapped Nuke upside the head. When the cyborg began blinking his eyes as consciousness returned, Hurricane felt a stab of fear shoot down his spine.
“What’s…what’s going on?” Nuke said. He struggled to think, to remember where he was, let alone what his mission was.
“Where are we? We are in the shit, soldier. Knee deep and getting higher,” Hurricane snapped, “we got us a wall of men between us and extraction, intel that has to get back and we are God damn pinned down because you had to be a God damn hothead!”
Hurricane watched as regret and remorse played across Nuke’s eyes. Nuke was a ruthless killing machine, but Hurricane gambled that the man also considered himself a soldier, and a good soldier knew their flaws. The man gave no mind to his missing flesh or exposed skull, only the fact that he might be the cause of mission failure concerned him.
Pushing those buttons would keep Nuke from assessing on the situation too much. The other half of his plan, the half that might save Hurricane’s life, was the fact that soldiers were trained to follow orders, conditioned to respond to authority.
Hurricane knew the life personally.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Nuke said reflexively, “orders?”
“Get past these bastards, and get to our separate extraction points,” Hurricane said, “is there any part of that you have trouble with, boy?”
“None sir,” Nuke snapped.
“Good,” Hurricane said, “now, we’re pinned down but …”
Nuke roared like a wild animal, and in two bounds, he was upon the men like a wolf on red meat.
Nuke punched his fist through a man’s rib cage before pitching the man’s now limp corpse at his comrades.
Hurricane moved to back up Nuke, but the super soldier cyborg went through the men like a thresher through wheat, and was done before Hurricane made it three paces.
“Orders, sir?”
Nuke was covered in blood, none of it his but he didn’t seem too much care either way.
“We each have different exfil points,” Hurricane said, “you need to get to yours, ASAP. Don’t let anyone stop you, is that understood?”
“Acknowledged,” Nuke said, “see you at the debrief, soldier. Beers are on me!”
Hurricane didn’t bother to watch Nuke leave instead taking off in the opposite direction. He suspected that Nuke would be half way to Fort Benning by the time he thought to question anything.
“One sociopath down, a hundred to go.”
Warcry ducked just as a burst of energy lanced above her head, scarring the cement behind it.
“We have the target known as Warcry cited,” reported Giz-Ell of the Special K, “converge on the south section of this level.”
Warcry could sense when she picked up two more members of the Special K. The Kree pinged her radar unlike anything else. She ducked around a corner, and came to a dead end. The Kree were only thirty feet behind her and closing, and now the African merc had nowhere to go.
She smiled.
Perfect.
“I’d recommend getting on your knees, human,” Nor-Pak aimed his sidearm right between Warcry’s eyes, “our armor can withstand your sonic screams easily.”
“Is that so?” Warcry placed three blades in each hand, “and bladed weapons?”
“As effective as rocks against your primitive tanks.”
“Lets see.”
Warcry screamed as she swept her arms out, and let her blades fly.
The blades were swept up in a wave of sonic energy, being funneled by the narrow hallway and shattered as they were designed to.
The smaller pieces caught the momentum of the sonic energy, and moving literally at the speed of sound, the blades pierced Kree armor almost effortlessly.
The four aliens lurched, trying to comprehend what had happened, how their technology had failed, as blood poured from their wounds.
“Hmm, look at that,” Warcry said, as the last Kree soldier bled out, “just took two primitive tactics to take down the mighty Kree. Just be glad that I didn’t use rocks.”
Hrist grabbed a length of rebar, sticking out of a chunk of concrete the size of a trashcan. She swung it like a baseball bat and smashed it into Butcher Grimm.
The man didn’t so much as flinch, and slammed a right hook into Hrist’s jaw, knocking the Asgardian backwards.
“Thou art made of tough stuff,” Hrist wiped the blood from her mouth, “let us see how tough.”
With a flick of her wrist, Hrist summoned her axes to her hands, and leapt at Butcher Grimm, arching both axes so that they would split the man in two.
Instead, the mystic axes made of indestructible uru metal, simply scrapped off him like nails on a chalk board.
Hrist paused in disbelief.
“No one is made of that stern of stuff!”
Butcher Grimm backhanded Hrist with his left, metal arm, and that was enough to remove Hrist from her stupor.
“Very well,” Hrist dropped her axes and swung her elbow into the man’s face, stunning him. Seeing her opportunity then stepped around behind him. Hrist wrapped her arms around his waist, and hoisted him u as she fell backwards.
Butcher Grimm’s back slammed into the ground with enough force to shake the entire.
Hrist was on her feet in the span of a breath. She grabbed Butcher Grimm by the sides of his head, and rammed her knee into his face.
“Whatever you are,” Hrist summoned an axe to her right hand, and then began slamming the pummel in Butcher Grimm’s face, “I will end you myself!”
Butch Grimm’s reply was a right cross to Hrist’s stomach, and then a left uppercut that sent Asgardian blood and teeth flying.
Hrist only took three steps back, but that was still enough to allow Butcher Grimm to climb to his feet.
Hrist unleashed a flurry of blows against Butcher Grimm, using enough force to demolish a city block.
Butcher Grimm didn’t butch an inch. Instead, he grabbed Hrist by the throat with his metal arm, squeezed, and then pitched her backwards, head over feet.
After she landed, Hrist reached into her pocket, and withdrew a sparking, red powder.
“I had hoped to save this for later,” said Hrist, “but a storm unleashed is a storm unleashed.”
Hrist blew a gentle breath on the powder, and then cast it into the air.
Butcher Grimm paused, hurricane force winds came out of nowhere and slammed into him like a freight train.
Butcher Grimm had just dug in his heels, when a dozen bolts of lightning lanced out from thin air and struck him with enough electricity to power Vegas for a year, followed by hail that flew sideways, faster than any bullet.
The hail evaporated seconds after striking Butcher Grimm, the heat of the cosmic radiation that followed turning it into mist quicker than even itself could measure. A tornado of cosmic winds and solar energy washed around the man like a magnet around metal.
Hrist stood up and brushed herself off. The amount of power required to enchant the dust had left her winded for a week, but seeing its majesty, an entire hybrid mystic and mortal typhoon focused entirely on one man, was reward enough. Not even the mighty Odin could have walked through such a thing unscathed.
“I salute thy effort,” said Hrist. She willed her axes to her hands, and dropped them down the loops on her belt, “but I am a Goddess. The result was never in doubt.”
Hrist turned to leave.
“Indeed.”
Hrist spun around, and was met with a metal fist.
“Oh crap.”
Hurricane turned the corner, and saw several men sporting Confederate flats, well sculpted muscles and way too many guns and ammunition belts.
“Minute Men!” one of them shouted, “target, dead ahead. Get him!”
Hurricane spun on his heels, and took off in the opposite as fast as his feet would carry him. He passed a floor marker, and a desperate idea came to him.
He was out of bullets and weapons, but if fate was on his side, he would soon have all the weapons he needed.
“Miz-Zell, I’ve lost comms. Go check to see what those fools are doing,” Ku-var ordered.
“Hopefully dying,” Scorpion observed.
“Unlikely,” Ku-Var scoffed, “and if they were, I’d kill you both on principle. Just know that.”
Scorpion waited until Ku-Var looked away before she flexed her fingers. It took Scorpion a moment to realize that she could still feel the mental connection to her gauntlet.
It had been created for her by Shield at the start of her recruitment, and acted as a stabilizer for her powers. Though her body could metabolize toxins, Camilla’s ability to control its release was shaky at best. So the gauntlet was designed, and could cover her entire arm at will.
And the cuffs were placed over the gauntlet.
Warcry pressed her back against the wall, as she sensed Miz-Zell approaching. She pulled her elbow back, and swung it just as Miz-Zell came around the corner.
Warcry felt her elbow stop, and before she realized that the Kree soldier had caught her swing in her hand, Miz-Zell yanked Warcry off her feet, and pitched the African merc through the air.
Warcry’s instincts took over, and she twisted in midair, and unleashed a short, narrow sonic scream as she came down, giving herself just enough lift to land on her feet.
“Your choices of ambush locations was rather obvious,” observed Miz-Zell. She removed a diamond blade from her belt, “please surrender. I’m fuzzy on where to stab humans to avoid the vitals.”
“God, is being cock just in the Kree genetics?” said Warcry.
“We’re confident, not cocky. Don’t feel insulted. Kree have been masters of warfare since before your kind discovered fire,” Miz-Zell replied.
Warcry smiled as she saw Miz-Zell’s diamond blade. She removed a special whistle from her belt, and took a few steps back.
“All that time,” Warcry said, “and you’ll die on a mud ball, killed by an IED. Bet your ancestors would be ashamed.”
Miz-Zell shot Warcry a curious look, just as the African merc blew on her whistle, focusing her sonic abilities through it. The whistle was one of many, each designed to allow Warcry to attack the resonance frequency of a certain material.
But as the sound was at too high a frequency, Miz-Zell had no idea what Warcry was doing, other than blowing on a whistle while her life was in danger.
“Idiots, all of them,” Mi-Zell remarked as she tightened her grip, and prepared to disembowel Warcry. But then she noticed her blade was shaking.
Warcry paused, for only a second, and whispered.
“Boom.”
When Scorpion heard the scream, saw Ku-Var snap his head to the side in shock, and knew she had only a split second to make a decision.
Scorpion retracted her gauntlet and slipped free. She pulled her fist back, and then swung her left fist for Ku-War’s neck.
A master of countless martial arts, the kree Special Forces soldier caught her wrist without even looking back.
But in his distraction, he had failed to notice Scorpion wasn’t wearing her gauntlet, the one that allowed her fine tune control and focus over her powers.
With a single thought, and no small amount of self loathing, Scorpion willed her toxic energy from her body, striking Ku-Var in the neck.
Ku-Var yanked his hand away, and clutched at his throat as the muscles began to expand and swell. The toxins made it all but impossible to think, so the Kree warrior could do nothing but claw at his throat, drawing blood as oxygen to his brain slowly dwindled to nothing.
“Impressive,” Warcry remarked as she strolled down the hall, “didn’t think you had it in you, to be perfectly honest.”
“If you don’t find a better topic of discussion than killing,” Scorpion said, “then I may just put you on the ground next to him. Hell, I may just do it on principle.”
“This is not the place for principle,” Warcry said. She glanced down and saw Mr. Raven, sprawled out on the floor, “he going to be okay?”
“I don’t know. They tortured him to lure the others to us, but not me,” Scorpion said, “guess I got lucky.”
“Yeah.”
Scorpion saw the blood drain from Warcry’s face.
Hrist flew through a wall of steel and concrete. With each breath she drew, she tasted blood, and every inch of her body burned in pain.
Butcher Grimm was barely scuffed.
“Finish it, you bastard,” Hrist gripped her axes, “I’ll never beg Odin’s forgiveness!”
“Who the hell is Odin?”
Butcher Grimm’s left arm shifted, his fingers melted into his wrist as his forearm shifted into a circular formation. He aimed it at Hrist, and the cannon smoldered with a familiar power.
Hrist brought her axes up, as the onslaught of energy she’d released on Butcher Grimm was returned to her in it’s entirety.
The force smashed Hrist backwards, through a reinforced wall and into a rack of vibranium stolen three years ago, and still entrusted to Drann’s care.
Butcher Grimm lost sight of Hrist, but he continued his deluge, until every last spark of power had been drained of his person.
Once he was done, Butcher Grimm willed his arm back to its natural shape, and stood ready for attack.
But long seconds past, and Butcher Grimm soon came to the conclusion there would be no attempt at revenge, no further battle.
Satisfied that his objective was completed, Butcher Grimm simply turned and walked away.
Underneath a pile of smoldering vibranium and concrete, a hand weakly twitched, but only for a moment, before becoming limp.
Hurricane turned a corner, and barely skidded to a stop before he hit the guardrail of the inner ring. He looked down some thirty stories, and saw at least a dozen men and women turn their attention towards him.
Hurricane threw himself backwards before the guardrail was destroyed in a barrage of energy blasts. Energy of every color struck around him, nipping at the merc’s heels.
“Not getting out that way,” Hurricane muttered as he picked himself up.
“There he is, come on, boys!”
Hurricane felt a surge of fear as he heard the Minutemen behind him. He knew he didn’t stand a chance against the crazy militia without firepower, and even then his chances didn’t look good.
Hurricane just hoped that his memory was as good as he thought it was, as he raced down a dead-end hallway. He was beginning to think he’d made a rookie mistake, forgotten the location of an asset, when he saw a steel, reinforced door sealed with a digital padlock.
“Come on, papa need a new boom stick,” Hurricane said.
He knew, beyond all doubt, that his codes had been deleted from the system. Drann would have been an idiot otherwise, and you didn’t build a place like this by being an idiot. From the beginning, Hurricane expected to lose access to the weapons caches that Drann had situated around Hell’s Peak, even as he memorized their locations..
And that was why he’d made a point to memorize Solution’s. He input the code perfectly.
The door never budged.
“No, no!” Hurricane slammed his fist against the door, but even with his strength, he didn’t leave a mark. He entered The Solution’s personal code again, and nothing happened.
Hurricane could hear men racing towards him. His training had taught him to remain calm, but there was a near thing.
“Come on, come on!”
Though Hurricane had correctly memorized it he failed to account for the sensors built into the padlock. When they detected flesh instead of plastic and steel, they knew it was an imposter.
“Hey, buddy.”
Hurricane released a resigned sigh, and turned towards the self proclaimed, heavily armed Minutemen militia.
There was only one way this could end.
“Goin’ somewhere?”
“Yeah.”
Scorpion saw the terrified expression on the merc’s face, and followed the woman’s eyes.
Weapon Chi was at the end of the hall, stalking towards them. She had a well worn katana in each hand, and an expression on her face that spelled her intent.
“Lucky, that’s how I feel.”
Next issue: Hurricane vs. the Minute Men and Warcry and Scorpion vs. Weapon Chi
“We have got to get out of here,” Peter Hall said, sweat beading down his face as his heart hammered, “have you seen the reports? You felt that explosion too! What does Drann expect us to do? For science’s sake, we’re researchers, I’ve never even pulled a trigger!”
“We’re not going anywhere,” replied Marcos Stone, his supervisor. He hated how much time he had to waste, ordering his fellow agents around when he could be performing research, “we have important experiments here.”
“Besides,” Marcos motioned towards the table in front of him, “We can’t just leave all these chemicals laying about, and besides, there’s nothing to worry about. The entrance to our lab is two inch think reinforced glass. Pretty damn hard to get through, and charged with negative ions, not even the Hulk could get through.”
“Yeah, but the generator’s been down for a week for a refit,” Peter said, “you wrote the memo, remember?”
Stone silently muttered something profane, just as he heard an explosion outside in the hall, followed by several loud grunts. Before he could react properly, something smashed through their front door, sending shards of reinforced glass everywhere.
Peter and Marcos saw a well built, African American man in combat fatigues laying on his back, a shotgun in one hand. And despite what must have been a painful journey that would have killed a normal human, the man was still conscious, still aware.
“Oh, we’re so dead,” Marco muttered, as he stared at the man laying on their floor in shock.
“Maybe, but it won’t be me who kills you,” Hurricane grunted. He forced himself to ignore the pain, the blood dripping down his arms from the glass embedded in his arms. He leveled his shotgun, and took aim down the hall, “he will.”
“You killed our boys!” screamed the sociopathic super soldier Nuke, as he raced at Hurricane like a mad bull.
Hurricane didn’t waste a second. He assumed a shooting stance, and pulled the trigger. With a trained ease, he pumped the stock perfectly, each time, ejecting the shell casing and clearing the chamber for the next shot.
Each bullet hit, a special solid slug with the stopping power of your average rifle, struck Nuke perfectly dead center.
Not a single one slowed him down.
Hurricane was seconds away from tossing the shotgun aside to shift tactics, but Nuke was on top of him faster than Hurricane expected.
“Not enough gun,” Nuke snatched the shotgun from Hurricane’s hands, crumbling the barrel as if it were made of eggshells, and smashed the butt across Hurricane’s face before tossing it aside.
Hurricane instinctively knew he wouldn’t survive this fight if he stayed on defense, so he swung his right foot into Nuke’s knee.
The blow was enough to throw the super soldier off balance for a second, and that was all the opening Hurricane needed. He stepped back, and dropped his right fist down.
Just as Nuke stumbled, Hurricane swung his fist upwards where it landed perfectly underneath Nuke’s jaw. The force of the blow lifted Nuke into the air, and he flew backwards into the work station of Peter and Marcos, shattering beakers and flasks as he skidded across the table like it was ice.
The two meek AIM scientists rushed past Hurricane to get out, and the merc paid them no mind. He knew that one lucky shot wouldn’t be enough to put down Nuke. This man was a legend among Special Forces circles, a crazed combination of Wolverine and Captain America who could tear through enemy forces as if they weren’t even there. And Hurricane’s aching body was a testament to a rep well deserved.
So that was why Hurricane wasn’t surprised when Nuke stood up, smoking rising from his body on account of the various acids he’d crashed through.
But it was a little surprising to see the flesh melted off the man’s face, revealing a metal skull underneath.
“That all you got?” Nuke cracked his knuckles, barely even seeming to notice the skin from his face melted off, “because I haven’t even gotten started, boy.”
The scream cut through Scorpion like a knife.
Mr. Raven was hanging from his wrists, an orange band of energy wrapped around them holding him aloft as the leader of the Kree Special forces team known as Special K, pressed a small metal wand against Mr. Raven’s chest. Energy leapt from the wand and went straight for Mr. Raven’s nervous system.
The screams that followed were unlike anything Scorpion had ever heard.
“Stop it!” Scorpion begged. She rose to her feet, but with her arms bound behind her with cuffs that seemed to put a dampener between her will power and muscles, she was forced back down to her knees by the second Kree soldier assigned to watch her, “at least ask him some damn questions! Why are you doing this?”
The second in command of Special K, Ku-var, turned towards Scorpion and shot her a baffled look.
“Why would I ask him any questions?” Ku-var said, “torture is counter-productive for interrogation, I thought even you humans knew that?”
“Then why are you torturing him?” Scorpion demanded, “stop, please!”
“Two reasons,” Ku-var said, “first, I intend to use the sound of his screams to draw in your comrades while my soldiers hunt them down, and two, because he pretends to be a soldier. We understand his equipment perfectly, human.”
Ku-var pressed the wand against Mr. Raven’s chest again. Scorpion could only turn her head in disgust.
“But don’t worry,” Ku-Var stopped for a moment, “we’ll give you a warrior’s death, swift and final.”
Sorry Scorpion, you’re on your own, Warcry thought to herself.
When her sonic abilities first emerged, Warcry had thrown herself into studying the possibilities, the applications of her abilities. She wanted to have her powers down to a science, as finely tuned and controlled as her body and mind. And among the first skills she had learned, was to use her sonics as radar.
It wasn’t as showy as a sonic scream that could destroy steel, but there were times when it was twice as useful.
And this was certainly one of those times. Drann had Hell’s Peak well defended against some of the most advanced scanners and sensors on the planet, but in doing so, he had neglected to defend against the simple things, radar being one of them. The fact that you had to be in the building itself, and as skilled as Warcry happened to be with sonics, likely meant it wasn’t much of a concern.
Anyone else would have been dead by now.
The African Mercenary pressed her back against a wall, hidden behind a column as she pressed her hands against her aching ribs. They didn’t feel broken, she knew that feeling all too well, but she wanted to make certain before she pressed on.
“Sir, Special K is sweeping nearby and insisting we clear the area. Orders?”
Can see anything but what’s right in front of my face, Warcry scolded herself. She couldn’t believe she’d made such a rookie mistake.
Six Piranhas were just down the hall. From their vantage point, Warcry knew that there was little risk of discovery, so long as they kept their distance.
“If they want the first shot, let them. We’ll just step over their corpses if they miss.”
Warcry felt a wave of pure terror shoot through her body. She recognized that voice, and realized her count was off.
Not six Piranhas, but five.
And the Solution.
This close, Warcry’s radar was actually less reliable than just eyeballing it. That was why, when she sensed a seventh something, and felt a nagging feeling in the back of her head, she felt compelled to investigate. It seemed like the Android, that Warcry knew she had no hope of defeating alone, was dragging something behind him like a bag of trash.
Warcry felt sick and scared, but she didn’t know why.
“I’m going to take this to Drann, then get back to the hunt,” said Solution, “you five need to meet back up with team six and start the sweeps on the next level.”
There was the universal ping of the elevator, and against her better judgment, Warcry peaked around the side as the men stepped inside.
And what she saw chilled her blood.
The Solution dragged the Shroud’s body into the elevator like it was an old carpet, his face a mess of bruises, his nose was a mess of dried blood and his body utterly still.
Warcry had seen enough dead bodies in her life to recognize one when she saw it.
She stepped back, as the elevator closed, and for a moment, she struggled to breathe.
She was not naïve. She knew that death was always a possibility. Hell, she all but expected this to be her last mission. She didn’t want to die, but that was the price she was always willing to pay, going in.
But failure? That was unacceptable. And seeing Shroud’s dead body drove home to Warcry how that was a very real outcome. Without help and on her own, she suspected her own mission of vengeance would be over before it began.
“I hope the others are doing better than me,” Warcry muttered.
Hurricane smashed through the cement wall, sending plaster, dust and metal rebar everywhere as he spilled to the floor, struggling to stay conscious.
“This is better than you deserve,” Nuke spat as he stepped through the hole, his eyes etched in a feral expression, “traitors like you don’t deserve a trial, just an execution.”
“I know,” Hurricane forced himself to his feet, and focused through his double vision, listening to Nuke’s footsteps. He swung his fist just in time to catch Nuke’s metal chin, and sent the cyborg staggering back.
His vision blurring, Nuke stumbled, pausing his attack. He wasn’t about to retreat, but he didn’t want to give Hurricane an opening by fighting impaired.
On a primal level, both men instinctively knew and respected, just how dangerous the other was.
“Then know I will never stop until I bring you to military justice, boy,” Nuke spat, “and I won’t stop until you’re in the ground.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re the perfect justice machine,” spat Hurricane. He took a split second to take in the surroundings. The two of them had smashed their way into an electrical relay room. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and he realized that he was trapped in a room as dangerous as the madman across from him.
Realizing that holding back in a situation like this would only get him killed, Hurricane reached over his shoulder for his vibranium machete, determined to slice Nuke in two, but gripped nothing but thin air.
Hurricane realized he must have dropped it, and the distraction was all Nuke needed to charge.
“Our boys!” Nuke roared.
Nuke slammed into Hurricane like a bull, and began pushing the merc backwards, towards the electrical lines humming with power.
Hurricane dug his heels in, stopping Nuke for a second.
The super soldier replied with a right hook that Hurricane barely ducked his head under. Hurricane snapped his elbow into Nuke’s chest.
The blow would have killed a normal man, but Nuke barely seemed to notice. Nuke’s left hand lunged for Hurricane’s throat, and he just barely caught Nuke’s wrist in time.
The two super soldiers grappled back and forth. Hurricane had the advantage in strength, but Nuke was utterly insane and relentless.
But Hurricane knew that insanity was hardly an advantage. Nuke didn’t seem to even notice the danger that surrounded them, too focused on killing Hurricane
“God damn it, not again,” Hurricane muttered under his breath.
He leaned back, and relaxed his grip for a split second.
Nuke, caught off guard, fell forward. Hurricane grabbed the madman by the wrist, spun on his heels and threw the soldier across the room.
Nuke slammed into a transformer, followed a blinding white light that consumed the entire room.
“Another one for the belt,” Hurricane muttered to himself. Even though Nuke was a racist sociopath, he was still a soldier, still a once brother at arms. And Hurricane knew that the man deserved to better than to die in this cesspool, so far from home.
“101010101.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” Hurricane reached into his belt and removed a small flashlight. He clicked it on, and was horrified by what he saw.
Bits and pieces of Nuke’s flesh had been melted away, revealing metal bone underneath.
But as far as Hurricane could see, the man was still alive, still breathing. But his eyes had a glazed, distant look about them.
Hurricane weighed his options. It went against his code to kill a helpless man, and besides, even trying might be enough to start the whole fight over again. Unable to see any better tactical decision, Hurricane decided just to run.
He had plenty of experience with that. And it wasn’t as if Nuke was the only dangerous bastard in this building. Nuke might have to literally have to get in line to kill him, next time around.
“Spread out and search the area!”
And of course, the hits just kept coming, Hurricane reflected.
More Piranhas, more problems.
“I wish the Commander had gotten those scanner updates like we requested,” muttered Joh-Ven. He turned a turned the corner, rifle pointed outward like a spear as he swept the corridor, “this place still plays havoc with our scanners.”
“Just shoot any human who might be our target and say they attacked you,” replied his partner, Miz-Zell. She held a laser pistol in each hand. She wore a targeting visor over her eyes, linked to the weapons in her hand. But even without them, she was an accomplished marksman, “the commander already activated the worm we placed in the human’s system when we were first stationed here. They’ll show anything we want.”
“Except our targets,” said Joh-Ven, “we need at least three times the manpower to search this place properly.”
More than that, Warcry thought to herself. She was literally just around the corner from the two Kree soldiers, close at hand while perfectly out of sight. She’d been using her radar for the last ten minutes, getting into position for the perfect ambush.
Even after seeing Shroud did, Warcry had contemplated forging ahead, going it alone.
But when they started torturing Mr. Raven, Warcry felt his screams.
And for a second that lasted far too long, Warcry felt like a helpless twelve year old again.
“Hell,” Warcry said to herself, “not like I can do what I need to do without them.”
Warcry removed several blades from her belt, and took a steadying breath.
“Lets do this.”
Hrist sniffed the air again, the scent of Asgardian unmistakable to her nose. But it smelled off, as if slightly rotten, spoiled. She knew she was following a creature of Asgard, but exactly what, she couldn’t say.
“This way,” Hrist motioned for Thrill Blade to follow, “I sense my kinsmen this way.”
“If this guy is from Asgard, why are we going towards him?” said Thrill Blade.
“Because Mr. Raven did not report any of my fellow Gods as taking refuge here,” said Hrist, “and I have reason to believe that they art here to kill me.”
“And we are going after them why now?”
“Because if they are here, they can breach the defenses with ease,” Hrist replied, “we kill them, we take their means of transport and then we’ll complete our mission. With relative ease.”
“Huh,” Thrill Blade said, “that’s actually a pretty decent plan.”
Hrist smiled, “Just because I have battle lust, boy, doth not an idiot make.”
“Guess we’ll see,” Thrill Blade said.
“Hush,” Hrist raised her arm, and stopped the two of them in their tracks, “I sense our quarry is just around this corner.”
“Just them?”
Hrist paused for a moment, trying to discern what her mystics senses were telling her. She felt only one presence touched by Asgard, but it had a taint to it unlike anything she had ever known.
“Only one from the Golden Realm,” Hrist said. She gripped her axes and smiled, “shall we introduce ourselves?”
Thrill Blade’s sword seemed to pulse.
“Lets.”
The two mercenaries stepped around the corner, ready to unleash their fantastic power.
Hrist expected to be met by a fellow Asgardian. Not Thor or Balder, but perhaps Loki or a fellow Valkyrie. Odin surely had someone to do his dirty work for him, Hrist reasoned.
But what she saw instead was a large man, dressed in a black trench-coat with a modified gas mask on his face. Hrist knew at just a glance the man was no Asgardian, but his power had the smell of Asgard.
Everything about the man seemed wrong to Hrist’s supernatural senses. He stank of death, yet not sin. He radiated power and strength, but when he cast his eyes towards her and Thril Blade, he was utterly docile. Hrist saw that the man’s left arm was metal, made of mortal science yet the power that resided inside of him seemed anything but.
“Who’s this Jason wanna-be?” Thrill Blade said.
“I doth not know.”
“So you two are the trouble makers Dran wants killed.”
A man stepped out from behind the first. He was thinner, wearing a full bodysuit and brown wings on his back. He had two guns strapped to his hip, and he regarded the two mercs with dispassion.
“We have no quarrel with you two. You keep walking, and we’ll pretend we never saw anything.”
“What is that thing?” Hrist pointed her axe at the larger man.
“We call him Butcher Grimm,” said the man, “we’re just here to deal with a loose end, an old associate. We don’t want any trouble.”
Hrist heard the whisper of the dead, and her entire body stiffened.
“Mr. Gray. You’ve destroyed his belongings, you’ve erased him entirely.”
The man gave smaller man gave Hrist a baffled look.
“How could you know that?”
“He just told me,” Hrist growled.
“Mr. Gray?” Thrill Blade said, “uhh, Hrist, we killed that guy, remember?”
“But we did not try to erase him,” Hrist countered, her voice dripping in rage, “not like they have.”
“Butcher Grimm,” the smaller man could literally feel the temperature rise with Hrist’s anger, “subdue the woman, then proceed to extraction point. We’re done here.”
“Abomination, I will burn you both to ash!”
Hrist leapt at Butcher Grimm, and swung a uru axe, intending cut Butcher Grimm in two.
Butcher Grimm caught the blade of the axe in his right hand, and Hrist gasped that the man’s hand was still in one piece. A thin trickle of blood slid down his wrist, but that was all.
“…how?”
Butcher Grimm said nothing. He simply swung his left fist and smashed it into Hrist’s jaw, sending her flying through the air like a rocket. She smashed into Thrill Blade, rendering the rookie unconscious.
“You caught my axe,” Hrist said, her voice filled with disbelief, “how?”
Butcher Grimm said nothing. He simply strode forward with all the passion of a tree.
“Well said,” Hrist wiped the blood from her mouth and smiled, “lets just kill each other in silence, eh?”
Elsewhere
“Soldier, you get your ass up! You think you’re on leave?”
Hurricane slapped Nuke upside the head. When the cyborg began blinking his eyes as consciousness returned, Hurricane felt a stab of fear shoot down his spine.
“What’s…what’s going on?” Nuke said. He struggled to think, to remember where he was, let alone what his mission was.
“Where are we? We are in the shit, soldier. Knee deep and getting higher,” Hurricane snapped, “we got us a wall of men between us and extraction, intel that has to get back and we are God damn pinned down because you had to be a God damn hothead!”
Hurricane watched as regret and remorse played across Nuke’s eyes. Nuke was a ruthless killing machine, but Hurricane gambled that the man also considered himself a soldier, and a good soldier knew their flaws. The man gave no mind to his missing flesh or exposed skull, only the fact that he might be the cause of mission failure concerned him.
Pushing those buttons would keep Nuke from assessing on the situation too much. The other half of his plan, the half that might save Hurricane’s life, was the fact that soldiers were trained to follow orders, conditioned to respond to authority.
Hurricane knew the life personally.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Nuke said reflexively, “orders?”
“Get past these bastards, and get to our separate extraction points,” Hurricane said, “is there any part of that you have trouble with, boy?”
“None sir,” Nuke snapped.
“Good,” Hurricane said, “now, we’re pinned down but …”
Nuke roared like a wild animal, and in two bounds, he was upon the men like a wolf on red meat.
Nuke punched his fist through a man’s rib cage before pitching the man’s now limp corpse at his comrades.
Hurricane moved to back up Nuke, but the super soldier cyborg went through the men like a thresher through wheat, and was done before Hurricane made it three paces.
“Orders, sir?”
Nuke was covered in blood, none of it his but he didn’t seem too much care either way.
“We each have different exfil points,” Hurricane said, “you need to get to yours, ASAP. Don’t let anyone stop you, is that understood?”
“Acknowledged,” Nuke said, “see you at the debrief, soldier. Beers are on me!”
Hurricane didn’t bother to watch Nuke leave instead taking off in the opposite direction. He suspected that Nuke would be half way to Fort Benning by the time he thought to question anything.
“One sociopath down, a hundred to go.”
Warcry ducked just as a burst of energy lanced above her head, scarring the cement behind it.
“We have the target known as Warcry cited,” reported Giz-Ell of the Special K, “converge on the south section of this level.”
Warcry could sense when she picked up two more members of the Special K. The Kree pinged her radar unlike anything else. She ducked around a corner, and came to a dead end. The Kree were only thirty feet behind her and closing, and now the African merc had nowhere to go.
She smiled.
Perfect.
“I’d recommend getting on your knees, human,” Nor-Pak aimed his sidearm right between Warcry’s eyes, “our armor can withstand your sonic screams easily.”
“Is that so?” Warcry placed three blades in each hand, “and bladed weapons?”
“As effective as rocks against your primitive tanks.”
“Lets see.”
Warcry screamed as she swept her arms out, and let her blades fly.
The blades were swept up in a wave of sonic energy, being funneled by the narrow hallway and shattered as they were designed to.
The smaller pieces caught the momentum of the sonic energy, and moving literally at the speed of sound, the blades pierced Kree armor almost effortlessly.
The four aliens lurched, trying to comprehend what had happened, how their technology had failed, as blood poured from their wounds.
“Hmm, look at that,” Warcry said, as the last Kree soldier bled out, “just took two primitive tactics to take down the mighty Kree. Just be glad that I didn’t use rocks.”
Hrist grabbed a length of rebar, sticking out of a chunk of concrete the size of a trashcan. She swung it like a baseball bat and smashed it into Butcher Grimm.
The man didn’t so much as flinch, and slammed a right hook into Hrist’s jaw, knocking the Asgardian backwards.
“Thou art made of tough stuff,” Hrist wiped the blood from her mouth, “let us see how tough.”
With a flick of her wrist, Hrist summoned her axes to her hands, and leapt at Butcher Grimm, arching both axes so that they would split the man in two.
Instead, the mystic axes made of indestructible uru metal, simply scrapped off him like nails on a chalk board.
Hrist paused in disbelief.
“No one is made of that stern of stuff!”
Butcher Grimm backhanded Hrist with his left, metal arm, and that was enough to remove Hrist from her stupor.
“Very well,” Hrist dropped her axes and swung her elbow into the man’s face, stunning him. Seeing her opportunity then stepped around behind him. Hrist wrapped her arms around his waist, and hoisted him u as she fell backwards.
Butcher Grimm’s back slammed into the ground with enough force to shake the entire.
Hrist was on her feet in the span of a breath. She grabbed Butcher Grimm by the sides of his head, and rammed her knee into his face.
“Whatever you are,” Hrist summoned an axe to her right hand, and then began slamming the pummel in Butcher Grimm’s face, “I will end you myself!”
Butch Grimm’s reply was a right cross to Hrist’s stomach, and then a left uppercut that sent Asgardian blood and teeth flying.
Hrist only took three steps back, but that was still enough to allow Butcher Grimm to climb to his feet.
Hrist unleashed a flurry of blows against Butcher Grimm, using enough force to demolish a city block.
Butcher Grimm didn’t butch an inch. Instead, he grabbed Hrist by the throat with his metal arm, squeezed, and then pitched her backwards, head over feet.
After she landed, Hrist reached into her pocket, and withdrew a sparking, red powder.
“I had hoped to save this for later,” said Hrist, “but a storm unleashed is a storm unleashed.”
Hrist blew a gentle breath on the powder, and then cast it into the air.
Butcher Grimm paused, hurricane force winds came out of nowhere and slammed into him like a freight train.
Butcher Grimm had just dug in his heels, when a dozen bolts of lightning lanced out from thin air and struck him with enough electricity to power Vegas for a year, followed by hail that flew sideways, faster than any bullet.
The hail evaporated seconds after striking Butcher Grimm, the heat of the cosmic radiation that followed turning it into mist quicker than even itself could measure. A tornado of cosmic winds and solar energy washed around the man like a magnet around metal.
Hrist stood up and brushed herself off. The amount of power required to enchant the dust had left her winded for a week, but seeing its majesty, an entire hybrid mystic and mortal typhoon focused entirely on one man, was reward enough. Not even the mighty Odin could have walked through such a thing unscathed.
“I salute thy effort,” said Hrist. She willed her axes to her hands, and dropped them down the loops on her belt, “but I am a Goddess. The result was never in doubt.”
Hrist turned to leave.
“Indeed.”
Hrist spun around, and was met with a metal fist.
“Oh crap.”
Hurricane turned the corner, and saw several men sporting Confederate flats, well sculpted muscles and way too many guns and ammunition belts.
“Minute Men!” one of them shouted, “target, dead ahead. Get him!”
Hurricane spun on his heels, and took off in the opposite as fast as his feet would carry him. He passed a floor marker, and a desperate idea came to him.
He was out of bullets and weapons, but if fate was on his side, he would soon have all the weapons he needed.
“Miz-Zell, I’ve lost comms. Go check to see what those fools are doing,” Ku-var ordered.
“Hopefully dying,” Scorpion observed.
“Unlikely,” Ku-Var scoffed, “and if they were, I’d kill you both on principle. Just know that.”
Scorpion waited until Ku-Var looked away before she flexed her fingers. It took Scorpion a moment to realize that she could still feel the mental connection to her gauntlet.
It had been created for her by Shield at the start of her recruitment, and acted as a stabilizer for her powers. Though her body could metabolize toxins, Camilla’s ability to control its release was shaky at best. So the gauntlet was designed, and could cover her entire arm at will.
And the cuffs were placed over the gauntlet.
Warcry pressed her back against the wall, as she sensed Miz-Zell approaching. She pulled her elbow back, and swung it just as Miz-Zell came around the corner.
Warcry felt her elbow stop, and before she realized that the Kree soldier had caught her swing in her hand, Miz-Zell yanked Warcry off her feet, and pitched the African merc through the air.
Warcry’s instincts took over, and she twisted in midair, and unleashed a short, narrow sonic scream as she came down, giving herself just enough lift to land on her feet.
“Your choices of ambush locations was rather obvious,” observed Miz-Zell. She removed a diamond blade from her belt, “please surrender. I’m fuzzy on where to stab humans to avoid the vitals.”
“God, is being cock just in the Kree genetics?” said Warcry.
“We’re confident, not cocky. Don’t feel insulted. Kree have been masters of warfare since before your kind discovered fire,” Miz-Zell replied.
Warcry smiled as she saw Miz-Zell’s diamond blade. She removed a special whistle from her belt, and took a few steps back.
“All that time,” Warcry said, “and you’ll die on a mud ball, killed by an IED. Bet your ancestors would be ashamed.”
Miz-Zell shot Warcry a curious look, just as the African merc blew on her whistle, focusing her sonic abilities through it. The whistle was one of many, each designed to allow Warcry to attack the resonance frequency of a certain material.
But as the sound was at too high a frequency, Miz-Zell had no idea what Warcry was doing, other than blowing on a whistle while her life was in danger.
“Idiots, all of them,” Mi-Zell remarked as she tightened her grip, and prepared to disembowel Warcry. But then she noticed her blade was shaking.
Warcry paused, for only a second, and whispered.
“Boom.”
When Scorpion heard the scream, saw Ku-Var snap his head to the side in shock, and knew she had only a split second to make a decision.
Scorpion retracted her gauntlet and slipped free. She pulled her fist back, and then swung her left fist for Ku-War’s neck.
A master of countless martial arts, the kree Special Forces soldier caught her wrist without even looking back.
But in his distraction, he had failed to notice Scorpion wasn’t wearing her gauntlet, the one that allowed her fine tune control and focus over her powers.
With a single thought, and no small amount of self loathing, Scorpion willed her toxic energy from her body, striking Ku-Var in the neck.
Ku-Var yanked his hand away, and clutched at his throat as the muscles began to expand and swell. The toxins made it all but impossible to think, so the Kree warrior could do nothing but claw at his throat, drawing blood as oxygen to his brain slowly dwindled to nothing.
“Impressive,” Warcry remarked as she strolled down the hall, “didn’t think you had it in you, to be perfectly honest.”
“If you don’t find a better topic of discussion than killing,” Scorpion said, “then I may just put you on the ground next to him. Hell, I may just do it on principle.”
“This is not the place for principle,” Warcry said. She glanced down and saw Mr. Raven, sprawled out on the floor, “he going to be okay?”
“I don’t know. They tortured him to lure the others to us, but not me,” Scorpion said, “guess I got lucky.”
“Yeah.”
Scorpion saw the blood drain from Warcry’s face.
Hrist flew through a wall of steel and concrete. With each breath she drew, she tasted blood, and every inch of her body burned in pain.
Butcher Grimm was barely scuffed.
“Finish it, you bastard,” Hrist gripped her axes, “I’ll never beg Odin’s forgiveness!”
“Who the hell is Odin?”
Butcher Grimm’s left arm shifted, his fingers melted into his wrist as his forearm shifted into a circular formation. He aimed it at Hrist, and the cannon smoldered with a familiar power.
Hrist brought her axes up, as the onslaught of energy she’d released on Butcher Grimm was returned to her in it’s entirety.
The force smashed Hrist backwards, through a reinforced wall and into a rack of vibranium stolen three years ago, and still entrusted to Drann’s care.
Butcher Grimm lost sight of Hrist, but he continued his deluge, until every last spark of power had been drained of his person.
Once he was done, Butcher Grimm willed his arm back to its natural shape, and stood ready for attack.
But long seconds past, and Butcher Grimm soon came to the conclusion there would be no attempt at revenge, no further battle.
Satisfied that his objective was completed, Butcher Grimm simply turned and walked away.
Underneath a pile of smoldering vibranium and concrete, a hand weakly twitched, but only for a moment, before becoming limp.
Hurricane turned a corner, and barely skidded to a stop before he hit the guardrail of the inner ring. He looked down some thirty stories, and saw at least a dozen men and women turn their attention towards him.
Hurricane threw himself backwards before the guardrail was destroyed in a barrage of energy blasts. Energy of every color struck around him, nipping at the merc’s heels.
“Not getting out that way,” Hurricane muttered as he picked himself up.
“There he is, come on, boys!”
Hurricane felt a surge of fear as he heard the Minutemen behind him. He knew he didn’t stand a chance against the crazy militia without firepower, and even then his chances didn’t look good.
Hurricane just hoped that his memory was as good as he thought it was, as he raced down a dead-end hallway. He was beginning to think he’d made a rookie mistake, forgotten the location of an asset, when he saw a steel, reinforced door sealed with a digital padlock.
“Come on, papa need a new boom stick,” Hurricane said.
He knew, beyond all doubt, that his codes had been deleted from the system. Drann would have been an idiot otherwise, and you didn’t build a place like this by being an idiot. From the beginning, Hurricane expected to lose access to the weapons caches that Drann had situated around Hell’s Peak, even as he memorized their locations..
And that was why he’d made a point to memorize Solution’s. He input the code perfectly.
The door never budged.
“No, no!” Hurricane slammed his fist against the door, but even with his strength, he didn’t leave a mark. He entered The Solution’s personal code again, and nothing happened.
Hurricane could hear men racing towards him. His training had taught him to remain calm, but there was a near thing.
“Come on, come on!”
Though Hurricane had correctly memorized it he failed to account for the sensors built into the padlock. When they detected flesh instead of plastic and steel, they knew it was an imposter.
“Hey, buddy.”
Hurricane released a resigned sigh, and turned towards the self proclaimed, heavily armed Minutemen militia.
There was only one way this could end.
“Goin’ somewhere?”
“Yeah.”
Scorpion saw the terrified expression on the merc’s face, and followed the woman’s eyes.
Weapon Chi was at the end of the hall, stalking towards them. She had a well worn katana in each hand, and an expression on her face that spelled her intent.
“Lucky, that’s how I feel.”
Next issue: Hurricane vs. the Minute Men and Warcry and Scorpion vs. Weapon Chi