---

Chaos.

A baneful cacophony sounded in every direction. The rapid whirring of rotating blades, heavy footfall of mechanistic wonders, and the all too familiar sound of discharging weapons made Madalena shutter, tightening her grip on Charlie’s hand. Taken aback to her first encounter with the Hounds, she struggled to remain focused. But Charlie’s presence centered her, kept her grounded. Still, it was hard to retain focus with the utter chaos that fell on all sides.

Chaos.

Madalena wondered if she were in the right place, if the heroes really needed her there. Afterall, her reasons were entirely selfish. Her concern was less with the whole of Lost Haven and more with herself, Charlie, Carrie, and her future charges. Curious, she thought, how only a week of truly practicing Puck’s craft had changed her so. However, she and Charlie were the only two really representing their community (aside from Pantheon, whom Maddi quickly disregarded), so perhaps it was exactly where she was needed.

Chaos.

Madalena shook off her self doubt, engaging her mind and searching for answers to the obvious questions. Each hero had their strong suit, but Charlie and Madalena were uniquely gifted at being good at many things at once. The Alchemyst’s quick transmutation skills could do wonders with all this flying metal, and Lady Hex’s litany of malefic charms would prove useful given the opportunity to use them. And just as the thought came into her mind, an opportunity presented itself.

Looking overhead, Maddi observed as the teal-skinned hero, Flux, surrounded the group in a field of light, repelling the Hound’s first wave of attacks. Not wanting to waste this valuable window, Madalena skirted closer to the center of the field, removing a large length of black cord from the inside of her coat, all tied up in a bulging sailor’s knot.

Sorry to use this so early, Boss, Maddi thought, noting how much Puck paid for this particular piece of magic. Smaller winds were much easier to come by, but a storm this large must have cost a fortune. But Lady Hex’s grand appearance called for something dramatic, she couldn’t hold back.

Maddi held the knot at arms length, beginning to tap rhythmically on the stone with her cane. She felt a calm wash over her, her power rising. She sped up, incanting the charm in the spaces between:



She then began to whistle. The sound was miniscule at first, low, drowned out by the sounds beyond the barrier. Quickly, however, it became an unnatural sound, piercing through the outside noise. The knot in her hand began to hover in front of her, loosening itself until it was nothing more than a length of rope. The tapping of Maddi’s cane sounded like thunder, her whistling like a heavy wind, and as soon as the barrier that surrounded them fell, Sherman Square was assaulted by an onslaught of wind and rain, knocking against the building with greater force than natural.

Madalena could see the effects of her spell grip the Hounds. Distant vehicles had difficulty closing the gap between themselves and the square. Helicopters would struggle to maintain their balance. It was all beautifully chaotic.

Maddi noted how the water beaded on the surface of her coat, running down the side without leaving a streak. This must have been the charms infused into the fabric, ensuring that it couldn’t be ruined.

She stopped herself from dwelling on trivial matters, turning her attention instead toward the armored vehicles fast approaching. Instinctively, she threw out a hand, feeling the cunning flame burn within her and lash out as a vile hex.

The first truck she spotted had its engine spark, thick, black smoke billowing out from under the hood. The next’s steering gave out, sending the vehicle hydroplaning past quickly enough for the group to get their bearings. The third vehicle she spotted stopped in its place completely, sliding forward and throwing a couple of Hounds off the back and into the street.

Madalena was delighted with herself, but her excitement would be short lived. With the barrier surrounding their group gone, Maddi would find difficulty in timing her more elaborate enchantments, and her lack of experience in the field would surely get the better of her.

From the corner of her eye, Maddi saw two armored Hounds fast approaching, flanking her while she was distracted. She couldn’t react quickly enough to halt their position. If no one intervened, she would be at the Hound’s mercy.

The pair of F-15C Eagle fighters remained in the sky. High above of the city of Lost Haven, one woman manned the lead F-15, while the second Eagle was piloted by a small combat AI pod that can act independently. However, the second Eagle was controlled by none other than Eagle Eye, the hyper-advanced sentient intelligence platform that has been nothing short of helpful to those within the organization very few know as Papa Sierra. The Dove Shield emblem, complete with PS initials, are plastered on the vertical stabilizers, as well as that of the wings. While normally F-15s would belong to the USAF in some capacity (or even the Israelis and Saudis), there was no clear distinction of nations on the plane, just a small amount of numbers, and a small silver dove plastered on the wings where the USAF emblem would be.

Both Eagles are armed with a large payload, with Dragonborn's F-15 armed with a dozen air-to-air missiles, two machine gun pods, and the large Anti-Satellite missile attached to the belly of the fighter. Eagle Eye's F-15, however, is similarly armed with some air-to-air missiles, as well as a very similar ASAT missile, but instead of machine gun pods, there were two circular modules with large batteries attached to them. Both fighters were upgraded with advanced avionics and powerful batteries, with a plethora of goodies that aren't seen mounted on the external hardpoints. While these planes were far from stealthy, they were the some of the fastest and sturdiest planes known on the planet.

Dragonborn waited quietly as she flew in formation with Eagle Eye. She sighed, taking off her mask as she relaxed in the cabin. "I swear to Christ, we're gonna run out of fuel before those bastards down there reveal the satellite."

"Patience, Dragonborn." Eagle Eye spoke through private comms. "We just learned that the enemy has been deploying captured STRIKE tech, and are in the hands of a vast array of classified advanced weaponry. I'm in the process of analyzing it all as I speak."

Dragonborn looked up to the dark sky again. "Well, if I'm gonna be honest with you, I'd love to just swoop down there and kill some time by flying close air support for the good guys in uhm... Sherman Square." Dragonborn said. "It'd be a whole lot of fun to destroy these mechs and helicopters." Dragonborn said, fantasizing the idea of just doing strafing runs on the Hounds.

"Unfortunately that is not an option right now. We are only armed for air-to-air and anti-satellite combat. Sit tight, okay? We got this."

Dragonborn sighed. "Righto..." She then looked at her radar, which displayed several blips. "Uhm... are you seeing this?"

"Indeed I am, Dragonborn. There's a large contingent of bogeys heading towards Lost Haven. Some of them are heading towards the city... though at least four appear to be on an intercept vector towards us." Eagle Eye explained. "So far none of them is attacking any Papa Sierra entities. They appear to be some prototype fighter design too, but a rather slow one armed with lots of weaponry."

Dragonborn sighed, turning the aircraft towards the source of radar blips, on an approach heading straight towards them at a slow speed. "Shouldn't the Air National Guard be here by now? I'd love to have some American F-16s fly by our side on this."

"There are two squadrons of USAF F-16s inbound to secure this airspace, and they will arrive in about an hour. They have just completed a sortie against a Hound contingent in Vermont." There was a brief pause before Eagle Eye spoke again. "FC targeting from the craft. They're bandits."

Dragonborn smirked. "Copy that~" Dragonborn sang, excited to finally get some action. She then flipped a few switches in her cockpit. "Arming AAMs hot." The 20mm rotary Vulcan Cannons began spinning in their machine gun pods, ready to fire. "Vulcan Cannon armed hot." Dragonborn smirked, activating the radar targeting system. "Eagle Eye, play that one song that I've been saving for this very moment." Dragonborn then brought her sun visor down, covering her entire face, and activating the HUD inside her helmet. "Awaiting your magic words~."



Eagle Eye pretended to clear his throat before speaking through the comms. "Cleared to engage."

"Komodo 1, engage!" Dragonborn activated her thrusters, and her fighter surged forward. There were only four hostile fighters on radar, and she was getting a light indicator warning her of FC targeting from said craft. She simply didn't care, she simply just armed her missiles hot, and waited for hostile aircraft to climb up to her level.

"Komodo 2 engage." Eagle Eye's craft broke formation and spread out, also arming anti-air weapons hot. They were heading straight towards the Hounds fighters head on, and they didn't seem to be afraid.

"We've been detected, and they are on approach to attack. Should be two Air Force F-16s. Destroy them before they become a hindrance to our operation in the city." The Hounds pilots said over the radio, and while their comms were encrypted, it was an easy break for Eagle Eye, who transmitted them to Dragonborn effortlessly.

Dragonborn snrked. "Air Force F-16s? Boy are you in for a surprise." A light went red and gave a sine buzz, and Dragonborn pressed a red button on her control stick, which let loose a radar-guided Anti-Air missile. It fired quickly, and sped off into the dark yonder. "Komodo 1, Fox 1."

"Missile, evade! Eva-" The enemy's transmissions was cut off by fuzz as a very distant explosion was spotted among the clouds.

"Splash one bandit, kill confirmed. Eagle Eye said before firing his missile from his F-15 into the cloudy yonder ahead. "Komodo 2, Fox 1." A few seconds later, another distant explosion. "Komodo 2, splash one."

"What the... they're using radar guided missiles! Two of ours have already went down!" A Hounds fighter groaned. "This is Red 3! Grey squadron, back us up!" "Roger that, Gray Squadron inbound to help."

"Sweet, this should get interesti-" Dragonborn then received a missile alert, where one of the two Hound fighters directly ahead of her launched a barrage of guided rockets her way. "I got this one..." Dragonborn immediately inverted and dove underneath the clouds, and immediately enabled her built-in ECM pod, making the flurry of rockets that went her way go stupid and just go screaming towards the Atlantic. Bringing her F-15 back above the clouds, she saw the two Hounds fighters pass her on either side of her and break formation.

The Hounds fighters appeared rather different, and they had some strange repaint jobs on them. They were armed to the teeth with rockets and missiles, and they appeared to be very threatening machines of war. Dragonborn got a good look at one of them, and wondered to herself why STRIKE would ever need such a silly thing when there are perfectly good F-15s laying around that need love. Oh well, prototype fighters such as that are probably still in the very first stages of deployment, so its most likely that the pilots are either green, or just don't know how to fly these things too well. Too bad Dragonborn and Eagle Eye were nearly the definition of Eagle Riders.

Dragonborn performed a sharp High-G turn, air being shattered within the wake of Komodo 1's jet. Dragonborn was nearly crushed by the force of the turn, but she was able to pull through. The Hound fighters had a hard time turning around, which made them easy prey from being hit in the back. Didn't help that they were slow too. It was almost as if they were dedicated ground-attack aircraft, which were perfect prey for a dedicated fighter. Instead of squandering a missile on her quarry, Dragonborn instead armed her Vulcan Cannons, and used her HUD to give her a firing solution. She aimed her gun pods at the spot ahead of the fighter that was banking, and let the guns spin.

BRRRRRTTTT! A long burst of fire from three 20mm machine guns fired and almost all of the bullets sunk into the fighter, tearing it to pieces, causing it to catch fire and fall. "Yeah! Splash one bandit!" And then it exploded. Dragonborn couldn't help but smirk at that.



"Grey Squadron, where are you!? We're getting torn to shreds he-" A Hound shouted over the radio before he was interrupted by a loud background noise. "Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is Red 4, I've been hit hard! I'm bailing o-" Then static.

"Komodo 2, splash one." Eagle Eye said calmly. "And before you ask, I didn't fire a second shot. The aircraft exploded on its own."

Dragonborn shrugged. "Not that I cared if you did. They all have it coming." Dragonborn said, turning her plane towards the wave of reinforcements, that came in the form of 8 aircraft in an even V formation. "I would've minded if it was just some dude doing his job at an enemy country but... this is a bit different." Dragonborn explained, arming her radar-guided missiles hot. "Ready to dive into the storm?" Dragonborn asked, grinning a little.

"Always happy to dive in with you." The AI said over the comms, Eagle Eye's F-15 quickly rejoining Dragonborn's side.

Dragonborn smirked, and looked ahead. She already got a lock-on, and enabling a multi-target lock, she decided to take on the two fighters that were grouped up next to each other. She locked onto them with both missiles, and while the radar-guided missiles needed her to keep them within a specific field, she kept her vector and fired two of them at one target each, letting the missiles soar ahead of her. "Komodo one, fox one double."



She still had a radar lock, and she waited. Boom. One down. Boom. Two down. Small smokey explosions in the distance indicated two destroyed fighters, as well as the panicked responses from some of the more inexperienced Hounds pilots. They promptly returned fire towards Dragonborn once she was in range of their smart rockets. There was a large flurry of them!

"Missile alert, break right." Eagle Eye warned.

Dragonborn immediately pulled up and towards the right, attempting to pull a High-G move in order to evade the plethora of smaller guided rockets fired from the six remaining Grey Squadron craft that flew to intercept them. They were quite smart, and using her built-in ECM pod, she was able to disable their guidance tech, and make them harmlessly fly away. Dragonborn had a hard time getting her plane back after jinking pretty hard, having slowed down a bit during that turn, loosing a lot of energy and speed. This made her quite vulnerable to a second attack, and once Dragonborn realized this, she engaged her thrusters and flew in a different direction. "Eagle Eye! How are you doing?"

"I'm doing excellently, I've already splashed a bandit using my laser defense system." Eagle Eye said, to which Dragonborn watched from afar. She saw the bright red beams shoot out from Eagle Eye's F-15, destroying any missile that came close to his jet, as well as destroying another jet by a well-placed laser shot towards an analyzed weak point, which caused the craft to burst into flames and lose power, falling towards the ocean. "Komodo 2, splash one."

"Kill confirmed. Nice work." Dragonborn said before she realized that she invited herself to attack from behind. "Oh shit, I got one on my six." Dragonborn said, engaging some automatic countermeasures and the thrust, pulling up to head straight into the sky. "Don't bother going after this asshole, I wanna try something out."

"It's only been a couple of minutes, how come we've lost so many planes!?" A Hounds fighter shouted over the radio. "It's just two fighters!"

"I got this one in my sights!" Another Hounds fighter said through the radio, chasing Dragonborn up into the sky.

Dragonborn focused on climbing before a red beam shot past her! "What the f- SHIT!" Another red beam shot past her, causing her to bank slightly. Some part of her left wing was burned from it, but it seemed to be working normally. "Komodo One, slight cosmetic damage! Doing fine though!"

"Are you sure you don't want me to go after him?" Eagle Eye asked, as he was in the process of being pursued by a Hounds fighter himself.

"Only after I reach the service cieling! I wanna see how high these STRIKE planes can go!" Dragonborn banked from side to side, making it more difficult for the slower aircraft behind her to get a killshot. It proceeded to fire several smart rockets at her, which again, went dumb from her ECM, which jammed the rockets and caused them to go every which way, anywhere else than Dragonborn.

"The Electronic Counter Measure Pods are making you lazy, Dragonborn." Eagle Eye teased.

"Better than dumping flares." Dragonborn chuckled before blinking, seeing the stars and space quite clearly at this point, and feeling her aircraft slow down. "Oh shit, I think I'm at the-" BUZZ! BUZZ! Stall Warning! "Yup."

Dragonborn's F-15 was very high up in the atmosphere, where there was barely any air at all. Dragonborn can clearly see space from here, but she didn't exactly leave Earth's gravitational pull. And with the freezing temperatures of space, the canopy and some of her plane has iced up, and her engines have stopped. However, at this point, she could see the Ex-STRIKE fighter having already stalled some time ago, desperately trying to get the engines running again. Both of them were at free fall at this point, and Dragonborn can see her altimeter going nuts from how fast she was falling. Dragonborn got her plane in an optimal position, and as air started to rush in and the plane started getting warmer, Dragonborn had a clear shot at the freefalling plane. The Eagle's engines soon went back online, and with a clear avenue of firing, Dragonborn let loose on the three Vulcan Cannons, a long BRRRTTTTT!!! to make sure that the Hound fighter below her was blown to bits. BOOOM!!! "Splash one!" Dragonborn called out as she gleefully flew past the shattered wreckage of the enemy fighter, before she pulled up and resumed flying normally. "Damn..." Dragonborn panted a little after experiencing all of the Gs involved in the manuevers she pulled, feeling a little lightheaded from all of that. "...Eagle Eye? What's our status?"



"All hostiles in the area have been neutralized." Eagle Eye said. "I would humbly suggest you to rejoin our formation... and take a breather? And stop doing manuevers like that?"

Dragonborn chuckled. "Well now we know how to take these fuckers out if we ever get cornered by 'em... emphasis on if." Dragonborn sighed. "That was fun... hadn't had fight like this in years. Been so used to flying the Strike Eagles." Dragonborn said with a soft smirk, raising her visor and taking off her oxygen mask, revealing her face. "Can't wait 'till those cowards reveal that damned satellite."

Eagle Eye flew right beside Dragonborn, joining her at her 'hip.' "I share that sentiment. The less innocent lives lost, the better."

Dragonborn thought about it. "But what if it isn't even here?" Dragonborn asked, thinking a little. "What if that blast radius was just a red herring?"

Eagle Eye moved up a little to be side-by-side with Dragonborn. "I sincerely doubt if that's the case. Lost Haven is an area well known to foster metahuman activity... and it has been the target of countless of Hounds attacks. If the satellite were to attack anywhere, it would be here." Eagle Eye explained. "If the satellite was not here, but was revealed elsewhere, I know just the right anti-satellite missile systems to hack."

Dragonborn nodded. "Yeah... maybe you're right. Fingers crossed that it doesn't have any bullshit defenses, other than that cloaking tech. Seriously, that's insanely stupid." Dragonborn sighed. "How are we on fuel reserves?"

Eagle Eye remained silent for just a moment. "We should be able to remain in the air for at least another few hours."

Dragonborn sighed. "Awesome. And now, we wait."

Firing the Hellbeast, and bisecting two HoH jets, and their pilots within, Equilibrium stood still as the the wreckage careened over the warehouse, slamming into the city behind him with a gigantic fireball. For the rest, however, Angel dragged to the ground with his power, forcing them down, slamming them through a block of warehouses and port offices. As for the pilots, they ejected from their jets, but Angel refused to let their parachutes open, letting them fall to their deaths, splatting on the city streets.

Turning, his work done, Angel was about to head back to the garage, when Sherlock's voice came over the comms, and his "face" appeared in the corner of Angel's synergized vision. "Angel, I think you might want to see this." Playing video feeds from security cameras, police cameras, and news cameras in Sherman Square, Sherlock said, "We've got a situation. The Hounds have started to attack Sherman Square, opposed by a large group of Metas, including Icon, of all people."

Equilibrium scoffed, jumping into the air, firing his Pegasus jumpjets. "And why should I help them, Sherlock? They've got Icon, they should have things handled." Sherlock said nothing, and his avatar didn't react in any way, but Angel could feel the disapproval radiating from his AI companion.

"Angel, you know as well as I do that the Hounds have constantly managed to subvert our expectations. Icon probably has it handled, but..." It was unspoken, but it was almost ceertain that without overwhelming force, some casualties would happen on the metas' side. While Equilibrium was certain that Icon counted as overwhelming force, Sherlock, apparently, was not so certain.

Sherlock changed the view to reveal several mechanized units about half the ATD's height. "Angel, there are several mechanized units involved with the assault, not counting the dozens of vans coming down on the square. Someone might get hurt."

Rolling his eyes, Angel adjusted his trajectory to put his path aiming towards Sherman Square by slamming into the ground, physically turning in the direction of the plaza, and boosting into the air once more. "I've got stuff to do, Sherlock, no less than 143 things that require my attention have tripped the security net I put around the city, but whatever, I suppose we can take care of the KKK rejects with bootlegged STRIKE gear."

Sherlock didn't reply, but Angel felt his presence leave the ATD. Sighing, Angel shook his head. Recently, Sherlock had been... distracting about their priorities. Asking him to be more careful about destroying city blocks, even when it'd allow him to attack with the element of surprise through a building. Whatever. It should feel good to kill these losers- AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

As he neared the Square, Angel saw something that made him laugh truly hard. The mechanized units that the Hounds of Humanity were using were developed by none other than Lost Haven's resident "genius inventor", Iron Knight. Who then proceeded to sell them to STRIKE. The irony was delicious. Shaking his head, Angel got his head into the game, and synthesized fully with the ATD, becoming Equilibrium once more.

Ending the boost, aimed directly at the bulk of the mechanized unit, Equilibrium crashed into a mech, landing on its' head, causing it to crumple, and fall to the ground, cracking the concrete. Almost immediately, the Hounds fired on him, but Angel lashed out, punting one into a building with his leg, and crushing another of the shorter mechs' cockpits' with his iron grip. As blood spurted from the suit, Equilibrium couldn't help but laugh, and send a message over the loudspeakers mounted on his suit.

"Really? This is all you bring to bear? I'm almost disappointed, Hounds. But hey, what can I expect from a group who had to steal from STRIKE to get half their shit?" Activating his chainsaw, he lunged towards the oncoming mechs, boosting with his jump jets as well, to make it a truly staggeringly fast rush, especially for something as large as the ATD.

This should be fun.

Attack on Sherman Square

---

Metal howled and crashed against concrete. Mechs, fighter jets, a sea of armored trucks with equally armored Hounds. Ground shook beneath his feet; he was still sitting in the movie theater chair he had procured for his conversation with Charlie. Disappointment washed down his face. Before he could see to the business of decimation, he had to return the stolen chairs to their rightful owners. Or… or he could use them as weapons.

In the footsteps of Icon, Pantheon burst from his seated position and into flight. With dwindling space between himself and the mammoth of technology, lust cradled the warrior. Battle. It was his purpose; open palms crushed into fists and locked the closer the compendium of mystic energy came to the mecha. The pull. Wretched boy and his squeaking pleas; muscles resisted advance.

”There is no time for this, child!”
“D-don’t make me hurt you!” Hassan squealed, the crack of thunder and cuts of wind a violent murder of his voice. Children were better silent, anyway. The mecha pilot trained the machine’s automatic mini guns and its rocket launchers directly at Pantheon; no warnings were heeded, especially not by those of an unconvincing child.

This child was the weakest yet. The boy’s great grandfather was a veteran of Korea and Vietnam; his great great grandmother a doctor and healer. His grandmother never realized her potential, but she was a teacher, one of the top students at her university. This one, Hassan, was nothing but a whiner: full of sarcasm, indecisive, quarrelsome, jealous. Resilience, that was the boy’s one redeeming quality. It alone did not constitute the warrior the child wished he was.

Still, there was a surprising amount of mental fortitude the child possessed. This much resistance Pantheon had yet to face in any of his ancestors, and they had died for it; it was too easy for Pantheon to assume control of their minds, wills, passions. Reckless was Pantheon’s nature. He would lead them all to their deaths naturally: for his grandmother and all her knowledge, a vascular carotid disease which onset dementia for her failure to realize the power she had at her disposal. For his great grandmother the healer and doctor, Aabidah , and her inquisitivity and greed, a necrotic disease for her failure to uphold a deal between herself and Iblis. For his grandfather, death on the frontlines.

Hassan was harder to repress, and Pantheon could not force unnatural demise on any of his inhabitants, nor could he forcibly interfere with their wills. A passive god who had yet to be conquered within or without. No man made machine would be the first to do it, either. Rain pellets clanged against the body of the mech in violent stoccato; Pantheon faired no better, arms crossed as he floated in front of the story tall machine. Elevating himself to the mech’s head, his rainbow colored orbs glared into the pilot’s pit. Pantheon was forefront with Hassan acting as the only tether of restraint

”I am in a generous mood, human. I will spare your life if you take the rest of these fools and return home. If not, you will die.”
Defiance abound, the pilot’s mech fired its machine gun rounds at Pantheon which--as they had with Icon--fell harmless from his body. The rockets followed, and Pantheon was too close to dodge them; atop the shock from the mech’s electrical defensive systems, impact from the first rocket sent him careening backwards. Black and gold shirt ripped to shreds, pants too. Pantheon himself unphased except for some black smoke which steamed from his mostly exposed torso and partially exposed legs.

Thunder boomed across the sky following the silent and soft arc of sea blue lightning rolling across the heavens. Hard contours of Pantheon’s face lit beneath the brief flash of aqua colored light, a sneer distorted itself into a smile, the sides of Pantheon’s mouth curling sinister. There were no words, only a blurred advance shrouded beneath the night sky and lashing rain.

A clenched fist plunged through the cockpit, but the pilot was steeled. The Hounds had trained these men not to wither in adversity, even if death was certain. One did not have to be a zealot in order to be willing to die for a cause; and not all of these men and women who donned black gear and Hounds insignias were evil or crazed. They fought for the same reasons the metas did; preserving their way of life, protecting those they loved. Ill knew no side, no ideology. So, it was no surprise when the mecha pilot continued to fight even when the protection he was assured (by his superior officers no less) would hold fast against metahuman onslaught was dismantled.

Pantheon had wedged his hands between the gaping hole of the glass which sat between himself and the presently nameless Hound. It was no wonder why Pantheon was surprised when his body was enveloped by a large mechanical hand and constricted--the harder the metal hand clenched, the more its screws popped and its gears whined against Pantheon’s otherworldly durable frame. The pilot wised up once he realized he couldn’t crush Pantheon to death and instead rose its metallic arm over its head slammed Pantheon into the pavement below. But the pilot knew he was fighting a losing battle; Pantheon admired the pilot’s resolve, and he may--he just may--not kill him for his insolence.

Dragging Pantheon along the concrete, the giant mecha hand tossed Pantheon aside. He blasted through a building’s walls and his trajectory only halted thanks to a display of mannequins inside of a store several blocks away. It never got less annoying. He only hoped people didn’t start billing him for collateral. After he had crashed through the window, skidded along the shopping mall’s floor and created a fissure, it took him a few seconds to rise to his feet. Horrified mothers screamed and lustful wives settled on him a second too long for their husbands’ likings. Children were wide eyed and had jaws ajar.

“Mommy, look!” a young boy wearing wearing an Icon shirt exclaimed, ‘It’s Icon!” Pantheon was fixing the mannequins he had knocked over, accessories and all. Twisting on his heels, he approached the kid; his mother maneuvered her son behind her where he had latched one arm around his mother’s leg. Pantheon stood and stared down the mother for a few seconds before he tore off a patch of what was left of the sheared shirt completely, a portion of the gold lightning bolt emblem visible on what was left of its stitching and handed it to the child.

”No, little one,” the underlying aggression typical in his voice gone, ”I am not. I am Pantheon, superior to Icon.” the store shook as the mechas moved in unison and were taken apart by Angel and Icon; Pantheon’s business was unfinished, he turned to the young boy again,

”Take your mother and leave, child. If you are ever in need, concentrate on that lightning bolt, and I will come to you.”

Pantheon took to the skies again. He bulleted himself into the side of the mech (who had begun unleashing his machine guns upon fleeing citizens, cutting them down without mercy) he was fighting before, the force of impact caused the mech to lose balance and begin to topple sideways. He would not let the mech or the pilot off that easy. Changing his flight path, he twisted around and used his blinding speed to fly to the opposite side of the mech which was upside toward the sky and wrap his arms around its arm. Generating enough resistance to pull the mech’s arm off while it was completely vertical was easy enough, but he had to make it harder for the pilot to react first.

Using the counterbalance, Pantheon created enough resistance to disarm the mech completely. He clasped the arm in both hands and maneuvered to the mech’s front.

Smack
Wham!
THWACK!

The mech’s cockpit was being compressed and crushed systematically. Critical system failure imminent. He tossed the arm aside. He’d done the same for the other arm with less restraint than before. Sparks flew from both sockets where the mech’s arms used to be. The pilot was busy trying to get the mech’s systems online. Meanwhile, Pantheon slapped both palms against the left leg of the mech and dug his fingers into its metal; audible groans from the mech’s stressed metal pierced the wind. Digging his feet into the concrete, Pantheon tore the leg from beneath the mech upon which it immediately began to collapse, the stress of bearing so much weight on one of its artificial legs too great. Before the mech could tilt sideways into any buildings, Pantheon flew to the opposite leg and wrapped his arms around it. He tore it from beneath the mech, leaving the massive torso to plummet to the ground.

Pantheon hurled the mecha leg a distance ahead of himself. Where it landed did not matter to him. The mecha’s other leg shared the same fate; the pilot was trapped in the compressed wreckage of the cockpit, for Pantheon knew he would attempt to run otherwise. Laying in a pool of wires and foiled scientific advancement, the pilot coughed violently. Panic wore on his face as Pantheon walked up the mecha’s torso to its head where the cockpit was, dug his hand in, and forcibly ripped the pilot from his deathtrap--for his vindication the pilot got a deep gash along both thighs, and cuts along his arms; metal lodged into his shoulder. Pantheon grabbed him by the collar and lifted him up, the pilot’s feet dangling in desperation. Death creeping upon him.

”I gave you a choice, Hound. Now you rot.” Pantheon tossed him aside and walked away. The Hounds had come with numbers, and this would be a long, gruesome fight--the kind of fight Pantheon was made for.

Things were now starting to make sense to Chris. The Hound’s attack on S.T.R.I.K.E. was not only a preemptive strike, but also a weapon’s run. This explained the vast arsenal that the Hounds possessed. They had the entire S.T.R.I.K.E. armory at their disposal. The most dangerous stolen property that had fallen into the Hound’s hands was in fact not even a weapon: S.T.R.I.K.E.’s entire database on superhuman and paranormal individuals. While Chris had purge the names of the individuals from the files when the Hounds launched their assault on S.T.R.I.K.E., the database still contained the research on the heroes’ powers. There was plenty of material there for the Hounds to formulate some sort of counter strategy.

The Hounds’ sneak attack on the heroes took them all by surprise. Without Flux’s timely intervention with her force field, who knows what would have happened to the gathered heroes. Once the first onslaught of weapons had ceased, the heroes had their chance to strike back. One of the witches brewed up a severe thunderstorm in an attempt to slow the Hounds down, while the flying bricks rushed ahead for some hand-to-hand combat. Even in the distance, someone or something was taking out some of the choppers before they had the chance to close the gap between them and the heroes.

“Maya,” Chris said while there was still a moment of peace, [color=c0c0c0c]“I’m going to need you to head into the basement in the Sherman Center so we can locate that satellite. Once you’re safe, I’ll guide you through the process.”[/color]

For a moment, Maya paused, probably because she was terrified due to the current circumstances. She was not used to all this fighting and danger. Nevertheless, she gave Chris a quick hug and raced inside, where she would be safe from the Hounds, unless the heroes were defeated. And if that would happen, no one would be safe in the entire world. Chris had made sure there was a defensible bunker underneath Sherman Center, so strong that not even the stolen S.T.R.I.K.E. weapons could not dint the structure.

Chris then turned his attention back to the Hounds. He tried to lock onto a target with his long-ranged weapons, but the mystical storm that Lady Hex had summoned was throwing off his targeting system. Although his weapons were still operational, Chris believed it was too risky to use them due to the odd chance of friendly fire.

Meanwhile, the Judicator had already made his approach. Even with the stormed that Lady Hex had conjured, the power-armor villain was not deterred by the winds or the thunder. He just plowed through the weather, as if he had nothing to fear. Once he was in a position just out of reach of any of the heroes, a red beam was fired from his armor and scanned the area, identifying which heroes were in the field.

“Use your silver armaments at these locations,” the Judicator radioed to the other Hounds. After he had sent this message, he shot out two flares, one landing near Pantheon, while the other in the direction of Lady Hex. He also launched several disc-like objects that were spraying a freezing coolant. Not only was this device transforming the rain into sharp icicles, but once they reached the ground, they would slowly cover the road with ice, preventing anyone, especially Slipstream, from moving quickly on foot.

“Foolish heroes,” the Judicator barked out while shouting over the rumble of the mystical storm behind him, “Your day of reckoning has come. Your fates sealed. Your sentence death.”

“Not unless I have anything to say about it,” Chris quipped back as he darted up into the air towards the Judicator. He drew his sword, the edge of which was crackling with the energy that lined its blade and aimed a targeted blow at the armored Hound. However, the Judicator effortlessly deflected Chris’ attack with the high-tech axe that he was wielding.

“You are pretty lively for a dead man,” the Judicator taunted Chris while they both faced each other in the sky.

“My demise was definitely highly exaggerated. But I think we have some unfinished business to conclude.”

“Indeed,” the Judicator agreed before launching a barrage of missiles at Chris. Now the ball was in Chris’ court. Would he use his shields to deflect the projectiles, or would evasive maneuvering be required to remain unscathed? And Chris only had a single moment to make the decision.

As Hound Dog found himself separated landing with a crackling thunder other Hounds were not pleased at his gradiouse display of power which in his mind was simply making good use of a situation and as the clear sky suddenly became overcast with wind and rain lighting gathered ”What a nice night, Youse all should be running. Though that’s not a choice.” Streaks of lighting charged the ground as Hound Dog strolled past snapping his fingers as he bobbed along to his head phones with lighting pooling up beneath his feet each strike piercing Hounds left and right bullets had a hard time even reaching him as a wild storm followed in his wake using not only the rain as a shield but the lighting around him allowed him to maintain somewhat of a barrier as the coiled pent up electricity began to focus around him. Hound Dog started to look less and less human even though physically he was still the same it was his energy the way it moved and danced about him; to his enemies and those observing him he looked like the last boss of some dungeon crawl, overwhelming power shrouded his human form and created exaggerated features. ”You lot fracture me, split me right down the ribs.”

“FU*& YOU MUTIE!” Firing rounds into the freaks’ barrier the hounds began retreating as a half mech soldier moved forward to cover their rear. Some sort of power suit frame adorned the black body armor as if they were hacked together holding some sort of weapon.

”What are you doing all chromed plated? Youse here to throw down because I don’t think youse understand how electricity works.” Inside Sinclair felt a need to release some of his pent up anger, and certainly not a single soul aside from maybe Voyager would complain about a few dead hounds.

As the Chrome Plated Hound fired; Hound Dog could see the way the weapon functioned and within an instant he had stopped the electrical field surrounding the projectile however a frozen shard jammed right into his shoulder a piece no larger than a chopstick, the pain sent him to his knees an unpleasant sensation that Sinclair had forgotten after soo long. His eyes crackled. Better dull my senses for this next one, might not be able to stand otherwise Sinclair couldn’t tell really if his nerves had stopped firing like he wanted them too. But he had little time to be entirely sure.

“What’s wrong freak, can’t take the pain.”

”You should be careful, lighting always strikes twice.” Standing as blood dripped and washed away in the heavy rain thunder clashed above him as streaks reached for the sky. Hound Dog could feel the immense heat and wondered Is this what I’ve always felt everytime I use my powers? Huh, no wonder. Doc’s improvements must have finally reached their limits. A bolt of lighting a powerful force of nature unlike anything man has ever seen striked not once but thrice each larger than the last leaving a completely charred corpse in it’s crater as the burnt metal hung barely on the former hound.

”That gun was something sure. But you were just some ankle bitter reaching for power you could never obtain.” Hound Dog could feel the sides of his shoulders aching as he removed his jacket seeing the damage the heat from lighting generated. ”Looks like it didn’t fully absorb the energy, gonna need to work with Martel to dampen the heat generated.” Opening his fingers and clenching his fist Sinclair felt off. Might need to test more but I feel like I lost some sensation in my finger tips. Maybe my body needs a few more seconds to adjust. Righty-O time to meet up with Voyager. Should be on the right track. Taking a step towards the building he last saw her land on feeling lighter with some weight brushed off his shoulders and hounds dispersed for now.

Far from home, whispered the spider, none of the beds in this city are familiar, are they? Even after two months.

... How could he answer that? A simple 'no' wouldn't suffice.

"I could afford something better," he whispered back, and imperceptibly the golden spider shook its head.

Selfish stupidity is not your nature, Mansa. I know that. You know that.

Of course he nodded along, the darkness cool and relaxing. In the weeks since his escape to the Bronx, he'd been spending a lot of time sleeping, thinking. Lying low gave him that opportunity, at least, but the aching in his bones was continuous.

This particular apartment had been 'home' for five weeks now, and mainly he had been keeping an eye on the British news. His own headlines had dropped, of course, though the theories on conspiracy sites were rampant.

"Protests in Parliament, 2 dead." they read now, the latest in a more brutal crackdown.

"Metas are human too," read one of the protestor's signs in the video, a black clad police officer striking the woman almost as soon as she stepped forward.

"Was it right to escape?" he asked the spider, "Shouldn't I be there to help?"

Your path is your own, Mansa, but your purpose is clear. If the world's wounds are better healed here, that is your choice... and you cannot heal anything from within a prison cell.

A murmur, a gentle pain in his chest, and the silence of his dreams starts to give way to the sights and smells and noises of the big city - the universals of trash and smog and fast cars, of grey upon grey.

But right now your path is hunger for... food, correct? That sandwich place, uh...

"Lil Pickles,"

Yes, that one. We enjoyed that one, right?

"Right, yeah..."

He rose up, bed still unmade, and placed the thin spectacles onto his nose, the soft yellow metal narrowing into the ridges of his nose from a lifetime of short-sightedness. He dressed in familiar attire, the universal attire of a man blending in - old (but not filthy) jeans and red t-shirt, a cheap and padded dark blue coat, a simple blue cap on his head, the brim just long enough to obscure his eyes without seeming suspicious.

But as he made his way from the apartment, door locked tight behind him, unseen eyes turned to glance at the radio in their hands.

"Target is on the move. Appears to be heading for his usual spot."

"Good to hear, you know what to do."

...



A humble sandwich joint, little known to most save those on the local few blocks, Lil Pickles had become a popular hotspot for those at the bottom of the Bronx.

The slightly smudged glass door, covered in cheaply printed or decade old adverts gave way to the humble tinkle of a doorbell as Everett pushed it open. He got a few glances here or there from patrons who had been eating there for years, and the black haired cutie - Aiko? Hikari? he wondered - behind the counter looked up from her phone to give him a warm smile. Though, something was... off.

What is it?

But the unease quickly passed.

Her smile had quickly become a familiar comfort so far from home. It wasn't a forced smile, the fixed and practised smile of corporate staff, but the subtle and good-natured welcome of someone who genuinely liked to see people's faces, whether familiar or not.

"Hey, Eddie, how're ya? You want the usual?"

He couldn't help but nervously smile at her greeting. Sure enough, she'd remembered the name he'd given her and had already picked up on his tea drinking habits, but for the life of him he couldn't seem to remember the specifics of anything she gave him.

"Yeah, uh, yes please, chamomile and a cheese toastie-"

He caught himself mid-sentence, but too late all the same.

"-you mean a grilled cheese 'n' onions?" she smirked.

With silent resignation he just nodded, hands opened and palms against the counter as he took a seat by the bar. He reached into his wallet and pulled out a 10 dollar note - the usual for the usual.

"HEY BENNY," she shouted over her shoulder to the kitchen beyond, "GRILLED CHEESE AND ONIONS FOR EDDIE THE BRIT!"

"OKAY!" he shouted back.

He twiddled his thumbs, glancing over to the newspaper on the counter, and it occurred to him that it was a different sort of "bad news" to what he'd been reading online from British sources. Less "the government is turning into a dictatorship" and more "city life sucks and people are scared of metas; in related news, hell is still hot and pigs still don't fly".

"Sooo," she said, the familiar, comforting smell of cheap instant tea starting to waft as she poured in the water, "Still outta luck on the job front? 'Spensive and risky movin' so far with still nothin' for it."

He gave a small smile.

The irony kills me. I'm actually going to die.

"Well, you know. The land of opportunity, some times you've just got to go with it. Sometimes there's not much to stay for, you know? Double or nothing."

She nodded.

"Dad was just the same - there's a guts to it, I respect that."

What was her dad's name? She's told you before.

"But you know," she whispered, leaning in a little as she pushed the tea over to him, "I don't blame you."

Her voice was barely perceptible, and the hair on his back went dead straight.

"Your name isn't Eddie, is it? And I know why you've still got enough money to live here when you haven't had a job yet."

She backed off a little, smirking as he gave her the weakest, palest grin he could muster, his hunger suddenly replaced by a sinking feeling. This was further worsened when the guy next to him at the counter nudged up to him with the barrel of a handgun buried in his coat.

"You're really bad at keeping a low profile, you know that? Mansa, right?"

Sarah Reeves had been through the shit more than once. A retired warrant officer, certified with several US attack helicopters, and five years with the FBI field office in Albuquerque afterwards had shown her plenty of the awful side of life. Those who had served with her in either capacity usually found her to be all business, but that was a facade, something she used to keep the bad stuff out of her mind. None of them had seen the long nights, when the memories became too much to handle, where her only comfort was a big bottle of anything that burned going down and as many happy, banal videos she could find on her laptop. If she survived tonight, she thought, she might need to start drinking Everclear.

It had started fine. Her and Broadway had been called to go meet a local metahuman who, uncomfortable with driving in the city due to the Hounds presence, was interested in helping out. So they had driven the hour out to Carver, Broadway bemoaning Tiamat's condition in the hospital, to meet this "Marionette". It had seemed a nice house, in a quiet suburb, quite close to the edge of the city. Reeves' internal danger sense alerted her to the unusual set up of the place, a single house at the end of a cul-de-sac, backed by a park that looked to run all the way to the woods. Plain looking exterior siding on a two-story home, but no lights on that they could see.

Broadway had knocked on the door, and a voice from inside told them it was unlocked and to see themselves to the kitchen. And as the entered the place, that was when her internal alarms started screaming, along with someone in the house. Her and Broadway glanced at each other and then split up, the metahuman taking the lower floor and beginning to glow while the special agent moved for the stairs. The smell reminded her of the lairs of serial killers, blood and cleaning fluids hanging thick in the air.

Two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs were all charnel houses once she turned her flashlight beam on them. Blood covered almost every available surface, including som arterial spray on the ceilings. Bones that had teeth marks, and not immediately identifiable ones, were scattered around. No skulls, though. Just as she was reaching for her radio, a short, cut-off cry came from down stairs, and she rushed to find the source, belatedly drawing out the Browning from her hip.

She reached the top of the stairs to see the glow fading from a hand that clutched weakly at the banister, before dropping in death. And around the corner came the worst thing Reeves' had ever seen. It stood on two legs, but was clearly not human. The legs and feet looked canines, covered in mangy fur and sores. The abdomen and waist looked more hominid, though also covered in thick belly hair. The chest and arms more resembled a horrifying cross between man and bear, though too-long by half and thin. The head, with glaring yellow cat's eyes focused on her, was some cross between alligator, dog, and human. It was grinning at her, and as it winked, the eye that opened again was obviously human, a clear blue, though crusted with mucus. It held up a chunk of meat and gurgled out the word "cheers", and it took Reeves' a moment to realise that it was a heart.

The Browning went off seven times in rapid succession, and she saw all the rounds on target plunge into flesh, but the .45 ACP rounds didn't even nudge the beast. The wounds closed almost as fast as they opened, and it ignored them as it placed the heart gingerly into it's overlong jaws. And as it bit down oh so slowly, blood spurting out from the ruptured organ, it never broke eye contact.

---

She had run several blocks before she realised it hadn't followed her. She leapt over a garden wall in front of someone's house, she didn't car, slamming her back into it and ass into the ground. She had dropped the flashlight on her way out of the second story window, probably somewhere in bushes she had landed in. One shoulder was definitely bruised, she noted as she finally reloaded her pistol. Reaching for her radio, she found it gone too, cursed vehemently, and closed her eyes. Apparently God was with her tonight, since she still had her cellphone, she found as she dug her hand into her coat pocket. She dialled the first number she could think of, and was surprised to find the voice on the other line wasn't dispatch.

"Agent Reeves? Hello, this is Tiamat. What can I do for you?"

The girl sounded slightly out of breath, but at this point, Reeves did too. "Tiamat, get everyone together and get out to Carver, right now."

"Agent Reeves? What's wrong?"

Reeves gasped, then sucked in a deep breath and let her mind focus. "There's some sort of fucking monster out here. It got Broadway, it probably ate the whole family of the person we were out here to meet. I have no fucking clue what it is. Dispatch and Faulkner know where I am, get out here with the whole team. We need to burn this thing out."

"I am sorry, Reeves. Faulkner is dead as well. But you say it killed Broadway?" Her voice had cracked. Of course, they're friends. Reeves squinted her eyes shut in regret. And Faulkner too. Could this night get any worse?

"Agent Reeves, we will be there as soon as we can, I have a SWAT unit with me right now anyway. Do you know what it is?"

"Fuck no. It didn't even notice me firing forty-fives into it, I have no clue what the fuck can ignore those that isn't made of metal." What the hell is that smell?

A voice growled from above her head, easily loud enough to be heard over the phone, at the same time a huge, sore-covered paw closed over her face. Her eyes went wide as she heard the word "Skinwalker". And then everything went dark.

---

Ethereal light filtered through the long corridors of the Lachance Stronghold, pulsing with the ebb and flow of the mysterious tree that sat at its center. Marie fluttered her eyes as thin wisps of white passed over her vision. She’d slept for maybe four hours, but any amount was enough to recover from the previous night’s bender (and not the fun kind). Her muscles were stiff, but she felt rejuvenated. Lady Lachance’s spells had worked to calm her nerves and restore her strength. In spite of her encounter with the Silver Sorceress, Marie felt well enough.

Holt took his place at the foot of her bed as a jet-black feline with bright eyes and hazy features. He turned to Marie once he felt he stir.

Feeling better? his subtle concern sounded in her mind.

Marie yawned, sitting up and edging herself to the bedside, running a few fingers through her hair to move it from her face.

”Mostly,” her response was curt, as if Holt had slighted her somehow. Perhaps it was a culmination of the past few days’ events that had soured her mood so.

Marie quiclky dressed herself from the bag she’d left the day prior. A simple black dress with a long, tied belt and a few minor trinkets on her arms. She looked a little cliche, but at this point she was used to it. Without saying another word to Holt, Marie made her way into the corridor, moving away from the collection of bedrooms and studies. She poked her head into the room housing Ben’s wolf to find it empty. He must have found his way to a bed, she thought, comforted in the fact that he had made it through his ordeal safely.

Rounding a corner, Marie found a large dining hall straight from a bygone era, fitted with a long table and several small booths and benches, adjacent to a kitchen with a wood burning oven. Almost nothing in the witches stronghold held any touch of modernity. It was there she found the young vampire in their company . . . well, she looked young, but Marie couldn’t be certain of her actual age. She moved slowly to a chair at her side.

”Another early riser?” Marie questioned in passing, helping herself to a pot of coffee that had been thoughtfully prepared by their hosts.

Katarina had heard the White Witch’s coming. She had slept uneasily, surrounded as she was by unfamiliar surroundings - a stronghold of witches, a concept most unfamiliar to the Prussian - the only strongholds she was truly used to were those raised by mortal men; festungs, schloesser and fortified burgs, homes of the cityfolk of the lands. Though, the more rustic, ‘old-fashioned’ surroundings suited her more easily than the polished steel, plastic and glass that dominated the modern construction projects of humanity. A wood-burning stove. A long table not unlike those used to hold great feasts of bounty in the days of yore, in her days, the days of her youth.

However, Kat had been able to anchor herself to one thing in the area; Benjamin. She had worried and fussed to herself over her actions earlier - he’d offered his own blood to heal herself, despite his own parlous state of health… was it simply to shut her up before she did something else? Or did he truly put her well-being before his own? She scoffed to herself - much like she had done for him, perhaps. She took out a cigarette from the inside pocket of her open jacket, and placed it between her lips, before taking out a lighter and striking a flame to light her guilty pleasure. She sucked in deeply, inhaling the toxic, yet soothing fumes. It would have little effect on her anyway. The dead did not suffer the illnesses of the living.

”It comes with the condition, fraulein. When the sun protests at one’s existence, you find ways of overcoming such difficulties.” She decided to tell it to the witch straight. She likely already knew Kat was a vampire, so there was no use trying to hide it. Kat just hoped that her presence had not been regarded with hostility. ”It has been an interesting twenty-four hours, hasn’t it? First we meet in strange circumstances, and then this… Ambassador shows up, and then all of a sudden, there we are, fighting for our lives against an imminent threat to our very existence. Fascinating… were it not happening to us.”

Marie chuckled, taking a timid sip of her coffee for fear of burning herself. The same thought had crossed her mind from the moment she met Benjamin and his strange group of friends. Had she not employed his help, had she instead chosen to pursue Gwyneth’s possessions on her own, how might things differ?

”I can’t say I’m thrilled with the current outcome, but I guess we should get used to it.” Marie turned from her mug to look at Kat, ”Such is our way, I suppose. The mortal world doesn’t take too kindly to any of us . . .” The words didn’t feel quite her own, but Marie agreed with the sentiment nonetheless.

Holt perked up at Marie’s comment before losing himself in thought.

”I’m in two minds about this mortal world. On the one, I look at how far humans have come in this time, and I marvel at what they can do, what they can create, what they have learned, all without the knowledge of that which lies beyond their grasp.” Kat chuckled and inhaled another lungful of smoke from her cigarette. The cheap and artificial taste of the smoke began to rankle with her refined tastes, but it would have to do nonetheless. It served to calm her nerves at least. ”And then, we have encounters with the other side of the mortal world, and I really think it can go fuck itself.”

Kat looked over at the witch. She was young, but something about her seemed… out of place, something ethereal, something not quite all there. As though something was attempting to re-manifest itself using her flesh as a mortal form. Katarina was no stranger to the concept of re-incarnation - indeed, as a vampire she was perhaps an example of the macabre abilities of the necromantic and the arcane - but she couldn’t quite pin down what made this woman tick. What drove her? And from whence had she drawn such power as she had done? ”Pardon my French… and if you’ll excuse me, might I have the pleasure of knowing your name, fraulein?” It wouldn’t do to ignore names.

”Marie,” she didn’t hesitate to respond. ”You can call me Marie. Time was that I would be more hesitant about giving away my name, if you can even call it my name.”

It is one of them, Holt spoke aloud, appearing on her shoulder as a large raven, and it is yours, regardless of when it was earned. Already he could feel the change Puck had warned him about. Holt wondered if there were anything he could do about it, or if it was all meant to happen exactly as it was.

”Marie, hm? A pretty name. One that evokes memories of playing in the fields, in the fresh spring of the world.” Kat shook her head and took a long drag on her cigarette. ”Well, then, well met, Marie. The name is Katarina, of the House of von Reisech. Formerly known by mortals as the Red Countess… though those days are long gone, and I hope will never return.” Kat shook her head, as dark memories flashed through her mind - she shuddered to think of herself rising to such power once more, though the allure was intoxicating as ever… The idea that she could rise like a phoenix from the ashes of her land, burnt to a cinder by the forces of God and his Son… and rule once more as absolute ruler of a vampiric paradise. The idea of rebuilding the Tower, and harnessing the magics of the lands into great edifices of vampiric might, to cloak the sun and rule a land of eternal night… all she needed to do was rebuild her strength...

No. She would not. The Fall happened for a reason. She would not make the same mistake twice, no matter what these humans did. If they revealed themselves to be the snivelling treacherous fools that they were in the 17th century, then more fool them for thinking themselves different. Kat would have no part in their downfall. She noted the appearance of the raven atop Marie’s shoulder with scarcely a passing interest. Witches needed their familiars, did they not? ”The familiar appears.” She snickered and finished her cigarette. ”I thought I was being watched.”

Holt nodded.

Naturally, Holt responded, the sound of his voice seeming to come from all directions.

Marie moved her shoulder a little to disrupt him.

”He’s mouthier than usual too, but I guess that’s part of his charm.” Marie turned away for a moment. Holt remained a constant reminder of an old tragedy, one that she wouldn’t soon forget given her new found alliance with the Ambassador.

”Red Countess?” she changed the subject, ”Exactly how long ago? I might have you beat. From what I can tell, Gwyneth was born somewhere in 1490, though I don’t know the exact year . . . oh that’s right,” Marie realized that Kat may not be completely up to date with the “pack’s” current dealings. Everything happened rather fast. ”Do you know why Ben and I are travelling together?”

”... No. But over time, I have developed a fairly comprehensive idea as to why you need Herr Reeves in particular. You, as a witch, are no doubt looking for artifacts of great magical power, and his abilities are invaluable for your search - after all, it’s not every day that you find someone so gifted, right? So you track him down and enlist his assistance on your journey… and in return you probably agree to protect him and help him learn his ways about that which he has to suffer. Cicero once said that man has to suffer to be wise - I never put much stock in Ancient Roman philosophy… but that one sticks out in my mind above all others.” Man must suffer to be wise… It struck closer to home than Kat would like to have admit.

Marie took another sip of her coffee, soothed by the warmth such a small comfort provided. Kat’s assessment was a testament to her analytical skills. She certainly looked wise beyond her years . . . but the youthfulness vampirism offers can be deceiving.

”A good effort,” Marie nodded in agreement to parts of Kat’s explanation. ”You’re right that I need his nose, but he found me . . . well, we sort of find each other. He bumped into me at a museum in New York. I accidentally triggered his transformation with a bit of magic. That’s when I found out about his gift. I was looking for this,” Marie held the hagstone around her neck. ”Ben . . . Benjamin led me to it even when I didn’t know what I was looking for. It had the same scent as me.”

Marie brought forth the small box collected from the Ambassador the night prior: an ornate jewelry box with natural carvings and a simple copper latch.

”As did this. They belonged to me once, a long time ago. You can call me Marie, it’s the only name I’d ever known until about three months ago, but really my name is Gwyneth Owens. And to make a long story short, these items hold pieces of my memory, the memories I lost when I died. I don’t know what sort of spell I did to make myself come back, but it came with a price. If I find all of my old possessions, I can figure out who I was, regain all the power I lost in death.”

Marie unlatched the box to reveal the many small bone, copper, and wooden coins etched with a variety of occult symbols. She hadn’t the slightest clue how to read any of them; Gwyneth must have created her own method of divination.

”I’m also not here to protect Benjamin . . . at least, that wasn’t my original intent. I had to make a deal with a particularly powerful demon to open the door in my mind that housed Gwyneth’s memory. It came at no consequence to me, but the same isn’t true for others. Ben’s trying to redeem me, I guess. Figured it might be the same with you.”

Katarina remained silent, and listened as the witch regaled her tale. It slid into place as a key would a lock - all of this explained quite what Katarina had seen when she first laid eyes on Marie. The sense of re-incarnation, the feeling that someone from the beyond was attempting to reach out and claw their way back into the material world. She watched as Marie opened the small box and revealed its contents. Sadly, like Marie, Kat had no idea what the symbols meant - her expertise was in the necromantic, not divination. Still, she at least understood where everything was going - and what Marie was doing in her quest. Her quest to… find herself, in a strange way. Kat remembered another quote by Cicero, one that perhaps was more pertaining to Marie’s, than her own, misfortunes.

”Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things. Cicero, De Oratore, chapter one, verse five. Perhaps there’s something to be learned in that for us both. Memories of who we were, what we once were, and what we are now. You seek to recover yours, to become that which you once called you. Whereas I seek to distance myself from my past. From that life I once led as the Countess. God and his faithful sought my undoing… but perhaps spared me for a second chance. Maybe it was fate that led us both to Benjamin Reeves. Maybe coincidence. Maybe a higher power than even fate itself.” Katarina fingered the iron cross hanging from the choker about her neck.  

”Wouldn’t have pinned you as the religious type,” Marie replied with the smallest amount of venom in her words. She didn’t mean to sound cross, just another instinct, a remnant of the memory she’d received the previous evening, chased by witch-hunters and men of the cloth.

It is a dangerous thing you hold, Holt commented on the cross around Kat’s neck. A relic of the past that should remain there. Take care that you do not draw the ire of they who crafted that cross.

Katarina narrowed her eyes and looked around. ”Draw the ire of they who crafted it? I was given this by my mother, fae, whilst she still walked this earth as a mortal human. I remember the magics that corrupted them, the craftwork of the devil’s own spawn, the craftwork of someone who tried to make me little more than a pawn in a Luciferian game of chess.” She resisted the urge to curse those who sought to bind her to their will… the lecherous old fool Revinskas and his minions of the Devil. In a way, Holt was right, of course. It was a relic of the past, but it was one that marked Katarina for whom she was. She was a vampire, yes, but one who could stand before the men of the faith and stand tall, stand defiant.

”... My mother always said to me… Gott liebt alle. God loves all. Some people forget that. I am... lucky that He did not.” Kat took out another cigarette and lit it. ”Do you smoke?”

Marie shook her head.

”No, my folks were pretty big on being a tobacco and alcohol free household. And sorry about that,” Marie apologized on Holt’s behalf. ”He mistook your cross for the ones used against us yesterday. Even so, dancing with devils is in my job description. Employed by an imp, in consort with dark spirits, once regular meetings with The Man in Black, the life of a witch. Though I can only imagine what it must have been like in my prime . . .”

Yes, the lives of witches in Gwyneth’s time were far different to now, Holt spoke up, A time I sorely miss. Forgive my assumptiveness, Katarina. I too have been scarred by self-righteous men and their ideals, as has every other witch I’ve served. We work best when we are as far from God’s light as possible.

Marie had never seen Holt so open to speech with strangers. Perhaps he saw something familiar in Kat, a memory of a time he enjoyed, if he were capable of the emotion.

”Things were simpler in the 16th century, weren’t they?” Katarina smiled and looked at the wall opposite them, from her chair. ”You asked after my… ‘nickname’, I recall. It was what the men of Europe had christened yours truly after news of my reign seeped forth from Neuhausen. Tell me, Marie, did you ever learn of the catastrophes of the Reformation? Did you ever, perchance, learn of a great terror that swept across the lands of the Baltic Sea during the late 16th century and early 17th century? Of a terror only stopped by a grand coalition of the Christian powers, only stopped when a knight strode forth to banish the great evil which had rooted itself in the lands of Prussia?”

Kat’s demeanour grew grave.

”Did you ever learn of what happened in the fields of Konigsberg? And why none live there to this day?”

Marie thought for a moment. It all sounded vaguely familiar, but despite having attended university in Boston, and despite her mother being a history professor, she was mostly unfamiliar with the finer details. Holt, however, was more familiar with the tragedies Kat was rattling off.

You mean to say that you were responsible for the crusades in that region? Holt inferred, There is a region entirely uninhabitable because of dark magic, is that your work?

”Yes. It was I who was responsible for the atrocities committed in the Baltics. It was I whom the kingdoms of mortal men despised, and it was my land they invaded and despoiled, throwing down all that I had sought to construct from Neuhausen. The ruins of my land still bear the scars of my work, the scars of my… my crimes. You may know the area by many names - Konigsberg, the old German name. Kaliningrad, the Russian area of occupation… to me, it is simply what I have lost, and what I shall never regain.” Kat lowered her head, seemingly ashamed of what she was about to say. Her lifeless cheeks blushed red, torpid veins filling with blood at the remembrance of what she had done, and how it had impacted on the world.

”They call it… the Maelstrom.” Kat looked up at Marie, and if Holt was there, at Holt, too. ”The Maelstrom was created, so I have read, from a dangerous overspill of necrotic energy that coalesced into the form of a great storm, a storm so terrible in its rage and fury that it blights the Baltic coast to this very day. I did not know of the Maelstrom’s formation… until recently. It had been born sometime in the 18th century, from what I have been able to read, in the very spot where Schloss Neuhausen once stood, a monument to my legacy. From there, its influence and effects have expanded, and now cover an area… I don’t know how large. It is guarded constantly by the Russian Federation… they used it in the 1970s as a nuclear testing site. As if they needed any more reason not to go there… but it was my fault. It is my magic. Without its creator, it has undergone a rampant rapid expansion of influence. I dread to think what it has done to the surrounding areas… Wouldst that I have known the effects of what my actions have done to the world...”

She looked back down at the floor. ”Nec scire fas est omnia. One cannot know everything.”

Marie offered a hand to Kat as comfort. There were subtle similarities between them that Marie could appreciate, despite their vastly different histories.

”This may sound cold, and I don’t mean for my words to undermine the path you’re currently seeking, but you . . .” Marie hesitated, slightly ashamed of what she was about to say. ”You did what was within your power to do. Magic offers us all that we want for a price, and if you can pay that price, what’s the harm? I don’t necessarily condone some of the horrors you hear from people in our line of work, infanticide and all that, but what I’ve come to realize is that we, those of us with this sort of power, can’t be held to the same standard as everyone else. Needs must, and in a time where your very existence is protested by a vast majority of the world, you’ll do whatever it takes.”

She could feel the words pouring from a place of understanding, some empathic link with Kat that came from the deep recesses of her mind, perhaps from a memory she didn’t know she had. It was a lesson Marie had learned several times over: witches are selfish, magic is selfish.

”I wish that Benjamin and every other misguided magical being would understand that sooner. By all means, if you’re seeking repentance then repent, but ask yourself why every now and again to make sure you agree with the answer.”

Kat frowned, and took the hand with a degree of reluctance… her skin would be icy to Marie’s touch, an unnatural chill that manifested only within the undead, within those afflicted with the Blood Kiss. Instinctively, Kat raised her body temperature to at least mitigate the effects - not to mention keep Marie comfortable - and looked back up at the witch.

”I suppose you’re right. Repentance without meaning is nothing more than empty words. I did what I thought I had to do… but I will not go back to that. Any man may make a mistake, but only an idiot persists in his error - Cicero again - and my errors are clear to see. But...  Magic is a weapon in our fight for survival, you’re right, and of course, with weapons come consequences. Those unwilling to accept the consequences should not invite weapons upon them. Right?” A convenient excuse… and a pleasant lie. Deflecting responsibility for your actions onto those who you argue provoked them. Kat smiled, though perhaps for not the reasons Marie would have thought. Hypocrisy was a powerful weapon to those well-versed in its utility.

”Initially, you know, I sought out Benjamin for the same reason as you. I wanted his help.” Kat withdrew her hand and shook her head, a sheepish - and sly - smile on her face. ”But the first time I laid eyes on him… I must confess, I felt a stirring in my heart I have not felt in centuries, Marie… Oh, it sounds ever so ridiculous, doesn’t it? But it’s true, it really is!” She laughed - a genuine, humoured laugh, a sound that had been long forgotten by mortal ears. ”Even now as I speak, I think, ‘Kat you must be crazy’. But I don’t know, Marie… I… I wouldn’t say I… loved him, I suppose, but… I… guess perhaps, part of me does feel that way inclined? I’ve barely met him, and already I feel as though I share a bond with him. Whether that will last is of course up for all to see, but… I look at him, and I feel as though he… makes everything worth it. That maybe I’ve been given a second chance for a reason.”

Marie laughed with her, glad to be having the type of chat she’d been missing over the last few months.

”No, I don’t think you’re crazy at all! And I know what you mean. I think Ben just has that effect on people. I’m drawn to him as well . . . in a younger brother sort of way. It’s called imprinting, but I didn’t think it worked both ways. But love’s like that, I guess. You never know when it’ll get you, or where, or from who . . .”

Marie looked up at Holt, who turned and cocked his head, sharing a look of remorseful remembrance, then joy.

”You’ve been around a while so I’m sure you know this, but hold on to whatever you two have. It’ll make his transition into our world and your transition into his much easier. Plus, love’s fun! Infuriating most of the time, but fun.” Marie paused for a moment, racking her brain for a pertinent addition.

”More happy happy love, forever warm and still to be enjoyed, forever painting and forever young. John Keats, since you like quotes so much.”

”I might have been around for a long time, Marie, but in some ways, I’m still just some teenaged girl trying to find her first steps through some areas of life. I sired - vampirised, that is - many of my own in my time, but I never loved any of them, really. I saw them as tools, weapons. Not the way I see Benjamin, far from it. I mean, I’m still worried for him, even though your friends’ rituals seem to have taken effect on his system - I would have helped if I was in a fit state. John Keats… hrm, not a familiar name. He must have been after my time… Though Aquinas did say that to love is to will the good of the other - and I do will good upon that man. Hopefully that silver won’t have too much of a lasting effect.”

She took another drag on her fresh cigarette and nodded. ”Makes what life I have worth living.” She picked up the assault rifle from the floor, the rifle that she had… ‘acquired’ from the Hounds earlier and used to such deadly effect. ”Part of me feels that Thirst is too outdated for modern times. Swords were all well and good in the days of yore, in the days of the clash of steel. Now it’s the bark of the powder and the flash of the gunfire.” Kat looked over at Marie. ”Remember one thing, Marie. Always stay one step ahead of your enemies. Like that Ambassador. We may have to work with her, but she’s still an enemy…” To emphasise her point, Kat pulled the charging handle on the rifle.

”I think I’ll also need new spells. My old repertoire can’t react fast enough.”

”Never been a big fan of guns,” Marie mumbled while finishing off her coffee, pouring herself a second mug. She fell silent for a few moments, mulling over Katarina’s remark about the Ambassador. Is she an enemy? Marie asked herself. While the Ambassador was no doubt looking after herself in whatever deal made between she and Gwyneth, it came at Marie’s benefit. She couldn’t help but look at the Ambassador as more of an ally . . . even with their history.

”She’s useful,” Marie finally spoke, ”whether or not I see her as an enemy will depend on how far she gets me to my goal, and what she does after . . .” Marie stopped again, collecting her thoughts.

”But I feel your pain on that last note, my witchcraft isn’t exactly suited for the heat of battle. Fortunately, Holt carries me through a lot of the more stressful moments.”

”She’s only as useful as long as her goals coincide with ours. Remember that. That’s probably how she works too… we shake hands, with a knife behind our backs.” Kat snickered and finished her cigarette. ”Typical French diplomacy, eh?”

---

The dying light of the late afternoon cast gold shadows through the light green of summer leaves, leaving an imprint of tranquility over the field where Leanna toiled. Birdsong filled the air as she stood up and winced at the pops in her back and hip, but the relief came flooding in after them. She had no idea how long she had been crouched over at this point, hauling weeds out of a patch of soil soon to be planted with autumn vegetables. Long enough, at least, that her muscles, powerful enough to break a vehicle in half in her hey day with little effort, were rebelling at the abuse. Yanking off soil crusted gloves and tossing them over the bag laying a few feet away, she put one hand over her eyebrows to shield against the sun and surveyed her land.

To the north, less than a few hundred yards away, was a thick copse of oak and ash, which thinned into a line going east to west and dividing her farm from her neighbour's. The trees met a stand of cottonwoods and willows to the east that ran south along the jagged edge of riverbank her land backed on to. She knew at least one family of ducks was there now, though the foxes may have chased them out by this late in the summer. To the west lay open fields for several acres, most of which were grass for her animals, before hitting the county road that ran north up to Jamesville and south to Tully. And south of her position now was the remainder of her three hundred and sixty acre farm, generously paid for by the government in return for her services to the country and the world. Situated roughly in the middle was a modest little farmhouse, grey slate roof over a single story of ivy covered walls and massive bay windows. Stretching out from almost every edge of that building was a complex, spiralling maze of vegetable gardens, flower beds, and play areas for the three dogs she was currently fostering. Slightly away from that was the barn for her two horses Applejack and Bourbon, the milk cow Fatty McGee, and the small herd of goats that kept her fallow areas mostly clear of overgrowth. Built into the side of that was the chicken coop, well armoured against the attentions of predators and with an opening that let the birds into their own enclosure inside the main structure.

The southern end of her property was a mass of orchard trees and grape vines, one her neighbours were constantly telling her she should organise into rows. But she always deflected, and noted privately that her fruit trees tended to do better than any others in the area. The drive up to the house from the road was simple dirt, bordered by thick masses of roses and jasmine that fought viciously for dominion over each other. Parked on that dusty path was her motorbike and a beaten down, barely functioning and well loved old Chevy Suburban of indeterminate age and colour. She never cleaned the thing, and did all the repairs herself, which left her with a mostly jury-rigged machine that nevertheless hauled what she wanted it to. Just outside the barn was the old flat bed trailer for supply runs and a horse caravan for vet visits.

All in all, she thought to herself, This ain't such a bad life. No more getting blown up, no more death and destruction to tear through trying to find what's left of little kids. And the world has left me alone to it. Her toes flexed inside the weather worn and muddy boots she wore and she stretched her arms out wide. Fingers splayed out as she breathed deep, inhaling the scents of the land: Soil and grass soaked by yesterday's rain, the cold, clear notes of the river, the blooms from the orchard and driveway drifting up on the sweet, gentle breeze that caressed her bared arms. The warmth of the sun, despite being dampened by the lateness of the hour, provided a nice counter-note to the slight chill of the breeze. She held that pose for several moments before the cell phone in her jeans pocket went off, breaking the spell.

She pulled out the offending device and examined the screen with a frown before hitting the green button and putting it up to her ear, wincing slightly in anticipation of the conversation.

”Tim, what can I do for you?” Her voice was carefully measured. It didn't do to infuriate the already on-edge neighbour across the road.

“Leanna! Thank God I got hold of you, girl!” The voice of Tim's wife, Faye, came as a surprise. They were only in their twenties, but already argued like an old, bitter couple, sometimes loud enough she could hear them from across almost a mile. Well, that could have been her imagination. But the slight panic in Faye's voice caught buried instincts in the retired heroine. ”What's wrong, Faye?”

“Well, Tim got into his drinkin' phase again, sugar, only this time he decided to take up his grievance with the city council about that expansion to the road on the other side of us from you. I don't think he'll make it past the bar, but if you could go stop him from doin' anythin' foolish, I'd sure be appreciative. I don't need him getting' arrested just now, ya know?”

Leanna certainly did. Faye was six months pregnant, and the couple were definitely in the “wife stays home” camp. ”Don't worry, Faye, I'll go get him back for you. How long ago did he leave?”

“Oh, just now, sugar. Not even ten minutes.”

”Alright, sit tight, we'll be back soon.” Leanna left her bag where it was, glancing up to see the sky was clear, and ran for the truck. She might be faster on the bike, but she didn't feel like riding in buggy weather with only a filthy tank-top on. Her boots splashed through a puddle as she ran, reminding her of the driving conditions until she got into Jamesville proper. One quick stop to reach inside the door and grab her keys, and then she was heading for the truck. For not the first time, she wished she could just fly, but none of her neighbours knew about her past and revealing it for a stupid reason like one of them being drunk was not a thing she relished.

---

Leanna sat in the waiting room of the local cop shop and stared at the ceiling. Thankfully Tim had been pulled over before he had managed to hurt anyone, himself included, but his usual aggressive manner meant that the officer, one Anne Bradbury, had hauled him in instead of escorting him home like they usually did with the farmers around here. After all, the farmers were a long shot better than the students coming down from Syracuse. Leanna knew that personally, having been one of those students once. But to get him out with only a warning meant using some of her credentials as an upstanding citizen and retired government official,. Even if her exact former occupation was obfuscated, it was not a comfortable conversation. She almost wished they had used her time helping the Army to give her veteran status, but that was almost certainly wrong somehow.

Sitting in the hard plastic bench, Leanna let her gaze drop down and scanned the room. Jamesville was a quiet town for the most part, but there were trouble makers everywhere, she knew. At least one other guy looked destined for the drunk tank, and a pair of teenagers sullenly staring at the floor looked like shoplifters. The background hum of a television tuned to local news and the conversation of the desk sergeant and another officer bled into one another somewhat, but everything stopped when the radios in the police area all went off with the same “alert” tone at the same time. The heroine perked up suddenly, glancing towards the door once before standing and walking over to the counter. The sergeant glanced at her, and then over her shoulder at the television. His eyes narrowed slightly, business-like, and she turned to see what it was that had caught his attention.

At the same time she saw the alarm system colors flash onto the screen, and the horrible tone go off from the tinny speakers, a red glow flared once in the window. Several shouts from the back alerted her to the police not knowing anything, and she raced to the window in time to see the fading line to the south. It was too far away to tell where or what, but she knew as her heart fell and stomach churned, trouble the likes of which she hadn't seen for ages was coming.

The reporter's voice came up, choked with emotion, and without images, she was left only describing what little they knew. A laser of some sort had struck in three places. Texas, Pennsylvania, and Massachusets. No word from anyone in the area. The Air Force scrambling. Leanna heard on the police comms behind her that everyone was to remain on high alert, and all off-duty officers were being called in.

It took half an hour, everyone in the station staring at the television, before they found out what the damage truly was. An island and a town wiped off the map, utterly gone. A smoking crater occupying much of Philadelphia, only a few hundred miles south of them. And these so called Hounds of Humanity claiming sole responsibility. Echoes of conversations with government officials rang in her ears as Leanna rushed out of the door, heedless of her surroundings.

She was allowed a generous pension, in secret, due to her service in several matters. They were sad to see her go. Would she like to be on call in case something truly bad happened? Of course she would, she had answered. She was a hero after all. She fumbled her cell phone out of her pocket, dialing Faye and only getting a voicemail. She briefly went over the instructions that Tim would have to be picked up, apologised, and climbed into her truck as she hung up. A decade of protecting her identity came back in a flash. Drive quickly, and with purpose. Can't leave the car here, it would cause questions. Back to the farm, get my gear, call in. Don't act to calm, be sure to be a little panicked, everyone else is.

The drive back was unbearably long, even though it only took half an hour. As soon as her engine was off, she slammed the truck door open, racing for her front door as fast as she would allow herself, which even as much as she was restraining might have looked a little blurred to a normal person. The closet in her room was tossed, clothes flying everywhere, until she uncovered the old military footlocker at the bottom. She didn't bother trying to find the key for the padlock, just ripped it off and flung the lid open. Inside, sitting there just like she left it, was her old costume. She stripped down as quickly as she could, tossing muddy clothes on top of clean, and dressed as fast as her joints would allow. They creaked in complaint, but she ignored them as she tugged her arms through the sleeves. The familiar feeling of the specialised armoured spandex felt oddly comforting. She tried a few punches and kicks to make sure no tears were likely to occur, then strapped the domino mask across her face and arranged her hair so the strap was hidden. An experimental thought and her strange black energy came crackling around her fist just as fast as it used to.

On her way back to the front door, thoughts raced furiously as her black leather knee high boots clacked ominously along the dark hardwood floors. Twice before now, Springheel had come to her, asking for her help against these Hounds of Humanity, but twice she had refused. It had seemed like just another hate group, one that who die off or be arrested in time without her intervention. Her doctor had also vetoed any activity, though he was sympathetic. And now? Now the guilt came welling up. What if she could have stopped these people before they had gotten this far? Or at least helped?

No, those thoughts were unhelpful now. Now was the time to formulate a plan. She thought of old companions, those who might know what the metahuman response was going to be. Springheel was too flighty, and operated outside of normal channels half the time. Denier, her only other frequent visitor, was in Asia and unlikely to be able to answer right now. That left Iron Knight and Icon of the old crew she could call on. Everyone else either wouldn't answer the phone or was dead. She hauled her phone out of her belt and dialled a number she hadn't had occasion too in almost two years, and hoped her old compatriot answered quickly.

“Hello! You have reached the voicemail of Christopher Arthur. Please leave a message after the tone and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.” For a moment, there was a silent pause and an anticipation of the recording tone. However, one did not sound and instead Chris got back on the line. “Just kidding! Young time no see, Long. What got you to crawl out of whatever hiding place you’ve been lying low in for these past years?”

“H’lo, Chris. You’re just as bad as ever, I see. But now’s not really time for banter. I just saw the news, figured we’d be gearing up for a response. Do you have any idea when or where? This is one of those…” her breath caught for a second as she thought. ”Come out of retirement moments, you know?”

“Doing a Jordan, I see,” Chris gave as his first response, despite Blacklight specifically telling him that the situation was dire. “I’m heading towards Sherman Square, where I’m hoping several other heroes will gather, assuming my message got through. Hopefully a united group of heroes can uproot these damn Hounds.”

”Sherman Square? In Lost Haven still, then? Alright, it’ll be a while before I can get there, but I’ll meet you there as soon as I can. These bastards are not getting away with this.”

“Since they could not even properly sideline me out with an orbital laser, I have no doubt they have no chance against the heroes of this country.”

She shook her head. ”You’ll have to tell me about that one later. See you in a few hours, Chris.”

Stepping out into the cooling night air, she let her powers build up. Rainbow streaks scattered the light around her, casting strange shadows around her in scintillating colours. From her back grew the two wing shapes of energy, each almost ten feet long. She stretched them experimentally, flapped them once and felt sure she could still fly, and then took off in a crackling roar, leaving a black trail behind her as she streaked east, towards Maine.

Location: Sherman Square, Lost Haven

Many would think most if not all police stations looked the same on the inside, or maybe some wouldn’t think about it at all. Richard had spent a good amount of his time in police stations, from his former station at Precinct 7, to the SCD’s building, and now Precinct 13. It was a police station all in the same, it has detective desks, interrogation rooms, and that familiar thick scent of fresh donuts and coffee constantly coming and going.

But the layout was alien to him, he had gotten lost a few times in the last few days, and it didn’t help that the leftovers of the SCD had to bunk in with Precinct 13. They were nice people, good men as far as he could, but there really was no space, luckily most of them got to share a temporary desk with their partners.

For the past few days the SCD had pooled their resources and information with their fellow officers to establish some overarching connection with the Hounds, they felt like they were making some progress, a few warehouses here and there, large movements of cash and arms, but it was all coming from somewhere, and they had no idea where that was from. It didn’t help that their Hound prisoners from the attack had all offed themselves; medical examination had found that they had hidden cyanide pills in their mouths, most likely to keep them out of police hands, or the hands of some ruthless vigilante.

Richard and his SCD officers did their best to maintain their standard quota, responding to several calls, although most of them were small to insignificant. Funny how a few terrorists put the fear of god into the troublemakers. The next chance he got Richard swore he was going to go over some of the older SCD case files again, the others mocked him for digging into the books so much, but there was one thing nobody ever talked about, the case where his predecessor died.

At least that’s what he planned to do, the loud hustle and bustle of officers coming and going made it that much harder to concentrate, and he had to give up all together when his partner Detective McMann grabbed his shoulder.

“Hunter, you really have to see this.” She said, her voice had something in it, and there was also a sudden air of urgency and fear coating the building. So he looked up to one of the few wall mounted TVs, and what he saw left him speechless. Several cities were just shot, no, obliterated by some kind of orbital weapon. It seemed like something out of some kind of sci-fi flick, but it was very real, and the Hounds quickly made it clear that they weren’t stopping anytime soon.

It didn’t take long for the building to get busy again, hundreds of people, including close friends and family of officers started calling in, or walking in, demanding answers, and answers were something they all wished they had. A couple hours later the president came out with a speech, a declaration that the Hounds were not welcome in the slightest, that the military would be moving against them soon, and that meant new orders for everyone.

And soon enough they had all been called to the briefing room by their respective chiefs, Captain Kelly from the LHSCD and Captain Brown. There was no time for comfort considering the situation, so every officer had to patiently wait their turn inside the cramped briefing room. Every single officer waited, hoping, that their orders would get them a chance to bring the Hounds in. But one by one they were all sent out to manage checkpoints or block off certain parts of the city. Finally, the only officers left were Richard and McMann, the both of which were counting on being able to do something useful with the armor.

“Detective Hunter and McMann, you and the rest of the Roadblock team are to remain on standby.”

“Sir, after everything we’ve been through you can’t sugg-” McMann was quick to announce her dissatisfaction, she wasn’t usually this volatile, but this outburst must be due to her longer connection to the team and the armor by extension. Richard had felt like he should have backed her up, but he simply didn’t have as much history with the group, and it turns out he didn’t need to.

The Captain made a loud 'throat clearing' noise to cut off McMann, he readjusted his tie and continued on.

“Official orders tell me to put you on standby, no armor, just like everyone else. But you should probably keep an eye out for Icon and Iron Knight. They’ve been seen at a few of these other events, including Pax Humana.” The Captain picked that particular day because he knew just how much of a history those two have with it, and that history showed as McMann regained her usual stern composure.



Because the Roadblock armor is incapable of flight, and running across the city just wasn’t feasible, it operates out of a special police trailer. This trailer serves as a mobile command base, and as a transport vehicle for the Roadblock armor. The trailer itself had the letters “LHSCD” painted onto the sides, with lights mounted on the roof. The inside had several mechanical arms in the back, along with other devices Richard couldn’t identify, all with the purpose of mobile maintenance and transportation of the suit.

“You may not like it, but Icon and Iron Knight have been at the center, watching for them is a good way to get to the bottom of this.” McMann said, currently she was the one driving the trailer, but to where she didn’t say.

“Even if it’s true, I don’t like it, it’s not detective work.” Richard, he was clearly uncomfortable, but if was related to what he said, or because he had been forced to sit in the passenger’s seat wasn’t clear.

“Just make sure to keep your eyes open for proper leads then, and besides, manning a checkpoint isn’t detective work either.” A voice said from one of the wall mounted screens, showing a simple smile emote made of dots and lines, representing Artemis.

Several minutes later a call came in from dispatch, the Roadblock team was a little more than surprised when details came in. Helicopters, robots, and dozens of trucks all converging on Sherman square; along with Icon and several other heroes turning up for an appearance too.

“Sounds like a mess, let’s get ready Richard, we’ll need the heavy load out.” The pixelated smile of Artemis’s avatar flattened out before the screen went completely blank, a moment later the back of the Roadblock suit opened up, allowing Richard to climb in. The suit booted up quickly with a soft ‘whirring’ noise, the armor panels closed and secured themselves behind him with a dulled hiss, and the manipulator arms around him quickly began attaching more equipment and armor to his body.



As they drove closer to Sherman Square the sounds of gunfire and explosions grew ever clearer, and more frequent, a sign that the fighting was only ramping up; followed by the sounds of helicopters swooping in and around the square. From their angle they could see just the top of some kind of blue dome, and only a moment later it was assaulted by a barrage of artillery.

“Just look at that, normal law enforcement doesn’t stand a chance.” Richard had absentmindedly said, although his circumstances had chanced, he couldn’t help but still picture himself as just a detective.

“Then luckily, we’re not normal.” Artemis said, using the suit’s speakers as her own; her pixel avatar appeared in the bottom center of Richard’s screen, giving him a small smile.

“Jen, open the doors please.” Artemis continued on. She was one of the only ones to address Detective McMann so casually, and it drove in further just how new he was to the unit.

“We can’t get any closer with the trailer?” Richard asked, although he started to position himself near the back anyways, being careful not to get stuck on an arm, or any of the shelves hanging from the walls.

“We’re armored sure, but this is far from a tank, we wouldn’t last very long in that.” As soon as McMann said that she furiously twisted the steering wheel, sending the trailer into a hard turn, the wheels screeched and the vehicle itself almost tipped over in the process. Richard started leaning the other way, and somehow the trailer slammed back down onto its tires. The rear doors opened up a few seconds later giving him a good look into the street in front of him, there were still cars parked on the side of the road, but he was glad to see it was emptier than usual. The trailer had to turn away from the square for its own safety, but they did their best to get as close as possible.

Richard leaned forward, and placed his arms on the edge of the doors, ready to push himself off. A wall of metal plating rose up from the floor to protect those behind him, the boosters on his suit burst to life with a thunderous boom, and a subtle whine from the boosters themselves. Richard shot out from the back of the trailer, doing his best to twist and turn himself towards the square, his jets cut off soon enough and he landed with a short skid, sliding into Sherman Square.

First thing he noticed was that it was incredibly windy and it was raining harder than it should have been according to projected weather reports, though that could have been due to those disks in the air shooting out ice. Those disks were shooting out some kind of coolant that quickly turned into icicles, coating the ground in a slick frozen surface. The ice might have been a problem if he was forced to run around on the ground, but he didn’t have to fight like that anymore, with the armor’s jets he could jump around, and if he did have to make tracks the heat from his rockets would most likely melt the ice enough for him.

There were also several story tall mechs running around, Icon and a couple others he couldn’t recognize were fighting some of these on their own.

“They made more of those suits, helicopters in the city, and that damn satellite in orbit. These Hounds are seriously backed, where in the hell did they get all this?” Richard started muttering his disbelief, it was obvious even before today that the terrorist organization was well equipped, but this was ridiculous. He also managed to spot Iron Knight in a fight with someone else, probably a Hound as well.

“That blade, it looks a lot like..” Richard had started to let his mind wander, but luckily for him he had someone to bring him right back.

“I saw it too Richard, but we need to focus.” Artemis said, shaking him out of his surprise, just in time to catch a couple of the helicopters turning their attention towards him. A hailstorm of bullets rained down on him, leaving only scratch marks and light dents, all thanks to their polarized plating. The jets on his armor fired up again, letting him dash around, avoiding most of the gunfire and the incoming missiles.

It didn’t take him long to return fire, he leveled his rifle upwards and fired off several rounds in response, the helicopters shook as they took fire, but their armor held up and they flew off to do another firing run. It only occurred to him now that the helicopters would be heavily armored, and bullet resistant, as expected of military craft.

“Ah, damn, I really need a stronger gun.” Richard said, chastising himself, along with giving himself a soft palm to the face.

“Lucky you, we have two.” Artemis cheerfully replied, and in response the guns over his shoulders began to hum to life.

“Aim your gun to the left, and I’ll take the one on the right.”

Richard aimed his gun up again and waited for the helicopters to come around for him again, and luckily it didn’t take long. The machine gun over his left shoulder spun to life in an instant and tore into the left helicopter, assisted by his own carbine. The helicopter shook again, except this time it couldn’t withstand the barrage, the armor crumpled under the combined fire of his mounted machine gun and his rifle, and it exploded in a fiery explosion.

The second helicopter hadn’t lasted even half as long, the gun on his right pointed itself up and over to the right, a red stream of energy shot out, and pierced through the helicopter, burning a bright red hole into it, ignoring the armor completely. It exploded not even a moment later, bringing a sudden and well deserved end to the Hounds pilots. The gun hissed as steam escaped the barrel, marking the end of that encounter.

But it wasn’t the end of the fight, there were still Hounds around, and they weren’t going to leave on their own.

A dozen hours had passed since his recent encounter with the Hounds and his subsequent time passed out, The Wanderer finally stirred from his position in the alleyway. Despite the amount of exertion that was taken out of him from detonating his psionic barrier, he had managed to be in a sitting position behind the dumpster as to conceal his presence. As he looked groggily over his body to check his injuries, his right hand propped himself up so he got back on his feet. His muscles still felt sore from being in the position they were in and his injuries, but he chalked it up as the norm from his past experiences. His eyes hovered over each of his bullet wounds he obtained. While they were still severe in appearances, the sharp pain he felt before was reduced to a dull throbbing. At least they’ve stopped bleeding, he thought, his hands making light work of checking if any of the bullets remained in his body. Satisfied with all his injuries having exit wounds, he limped out of the alleyway and carried on with his search for the person known as Voyager.

As he roamed the streets, disregarding the looks and the unusual chatter of the state he was in, he listened in on some of the gossips that were starting to become common to his ears. The Hounds had struck again and this time, they were using advanced technology that The Wanderer could only dream about. From the sounds of it, the places of Philadelphia, Nautica Island and Paris, TX were either decimated or obliterated off the face of the planet. He grits his teeth. While he had caused devastation near that park, it had been worth destroying that scum that wiped off thousands of innocent men, women, and children needlessly. In his mind, his thoughts turned back to the inexcusable actions The Officer had done which caused Settlement 149 to be completely cleansed of life. ”I’ll find these bastards and show them the meaning of the pain they’re causing,” he muttered under his breath, his hands curling into fists as he carried on limping through the streets.

Suddenly, he heard screams from a nearby street. Worried about The Hounds attacking innocent people in broad daylight, The Wanderer went into a jog to where the sound came from. As he reached the street, his eyes widened in horror at the sight he was seeing. In the streets, he saw a muscular being that towered over the people in the street. While the muscular 7’5” frame was something to see, it was another to see this being engulfed in a shiny, almost metallic surface. And at this moment, it was ripping through the cars that had gathered around it in a cocoon-like structure and attacking the people in the streets. Without thinking, he began walking towards it.

”Hey asshole! Pick on someone that’ll beat your ass!”

The monster looked up from what it was doing towards The Wanderer. Its metallic body turned to square off against the approaching mutant, a gurgling growl ringing out in a metallic tone. As he drew closer, the mutant’s body began to glow purple, the flames of his aura licking the air as hot and fiery as the look of determination in his eyes. With a sudden surge, the monster went into a full sprint towards him. With his hands already in a fist, The Wanderer ran towards the beast and began to throw his fist towards it, ready to clothesline it with the strength behind his fist.

Both of them collided with each other.

The next thing he knew, the mutant was launched back from the monster, the impact of his fist doing nought to affect it. He flew tens of feet from the point of impact as he ended up being sprawled all over the road. The aura he had around him was gone, his thoughts going about processing what just happened. As his mind gathered everything that had just happened, his left ankle was grabbed. A moment later, he was sprawled through the rubble of a clothes store near where he was as he was thrown from where he laid. Groaning from the impact of the two attacks, he got back up to his feet and walked through the broken wall that he went through. He looked at the creature growled at him. Again, he walked up to it as his fist launched another attack against it. Much like before, his attack connected dead centre of the monster’s chest, but it didn’t move a budge under the weight of the attack.

With his attack stopping dead in its tracks, his body was left open as he was swiped from the front. Unlike before, he was ready for the attack. Its splayed hand impacted the barrier with the groan of its metallic limbs. The impact of its attack was enough for him to be sent skidding a dozen feet along the street. It roared at The Wanderer as it was apparent that its attack was ineffective. With the anger now filling his face, his eyebrows furrowing as he gritted his teeth, the mutant lowered the barrier and allowed the psionic flames to envelop him again. The flames raged in tune with his anger, though more fiercely around both of his arms.

”Enough of this.”

The Wanderer raised one hand towards the beast and fired a beam at the monster. Unlike the previous attacks he threw before, the beam was effective. As if hit by a freight train, the metallic monster was sent flying tens of feet down the street. As the beast slowly gathered itself to get back up, the mutant was already on top of it through his teleportation. Without any chance of reacting, he began slamming his fist down across its head. As the barrage of psionic-enhanced strikes rained down in the creature’s head, he saw it slowly get weaker and weaker. With a last almighty swing, the creature was then rendered unconscious, all of its metallic muscles seemingly relax at once.

Panting a sigh of relief, The Wanderer collapsed to a sitting position next to it. As he heard the few cheers of those that remained to see the fight, he looked at the creature and the device that was on it. ”So,” he muttered, his breath slightly ragged from his exertions. ”These beasts are highly resistant to pure strength attacks. Guess I’ll have to stick with psionics for now until I can find a permanent way of putting these guys down.” While he didn’t know if the unconscious monster’s metallic skin was resistant to his psionic blades or not, he didn’t want to test it to make sure it wasn’t a success.

As he slowly got to his feet, The Wanderer looked up as two more creatures appeared. One of them was a similar size to the one he just fought, though it was engulfed in flames. The second was much smaller and had an appearance of something being made completely out of sand. Leaving the metallic monster where it was, his right hand flicked further to his right, his psionic blade now appearing around his arm. ”I don’t know about it, but I have a feeling that this will take a while.”

---

Time: Present Day - Day of Satellite Attack
Location: Lost Haven, Maine

Captain Dahl stood tall in worn leather boots, her long black hair tied into a ponytail, sunglasses perched on her nose, masking the bright green eyes. Lips; crimson red. She stepped out of the airport, quickly ushered into a black escalade with heavily tinted windows. Her luggage was loaded into the trunk, sinking easily into the leather seats. She checked her watch.

Sore from her loss in Las Vegas, Dahl was energized with anticipation to watch the reaction of their attack roll across the city. Lost Haven, Pacific Point, Vegas, they were cesspools for metas and magic. Hunting for the strange in this city was going to be easy, easier for redemption in the eyes of the Witchfinder General. Captain Dahl was in certain words; confident.

The operative driving the vehicle was one of the General’s people, new - fresh faced to the fold. Keeping up a visage of professionalism, local to Lost Haven Dahl guessed. There was a noticeable trend in the meta or magic tolerant cities. While there was large portions of the population happy to have the likes of them among them; a small, angry and buffeted sliver of people lived in direct proximity to them. They hated them, Dahl having heard plenty of stories from the people affected by their destruction or mischief. She was among the few not fuelled by passion but by leading a life of a soldier of fortune. There was some merit to staying in the Witchfinder General’s good graces, his vision for The Hounds of Humanity quietly splintered from the core. Using them as a vehicle to bring up numbers for The Winter Court.

Opportunity awaited the opportunists.

The escalade pulled away heading into eastern Lost Haven, for a discrete abandoned flower shop.

When they arrived Captain Dahl exited the SUV stepping ahead of the driver, entering with a push of the door to the greenhouse. Rows and rows of empty steel grate tables, dead vegetation and dark natural light filtering through the grubby windows.

Knowing better to his theatrics she called out, “Captain Dahl reporting in!”

“You’re wasting your time,” a voice called back, the subtle vibrations of footsteps upsetting the dust-laden floorboards. Captain Hawthorn rounded the corner, a couple of his men leaning against a decrepit checkout counter. His fair hair fell in messy curls over his ears. While his subordinates were in full Hound attire, Hawthorn dawned civilian dress, sporting a brown leather jacket, worn jeans, and dark boots with a pattern running along the side. He was a Pacific Point native recently converted to the General’s cause. No one was quite sure how or when he was promoted to captain, but Hawthorn’s skills spoke for themself . . . at least, they used to.

“General’s not here yet, probably wants to make an entrance. Fashionably late, I guess.” he crumbled a few dead vines in his hands as he walked over to Dahl.

“That hat of his is always fashionably late,” Hawthorn called back to his men, who chuckled before resuming whatever conversation they were having before.

“Captain Hawthorn.” Dahl grimaced. Smugly she commented, “Didn’t know you’d be here, how was hunting the casino overlord vampire? Heard it blew up in your face spectacularly. Ate a couple of your subordinates.”

She turned her head fast enough for her ponytail to wack Hawthorn in the face. “Vegas was a real shitshow.”

Hawthorn scoffed, putting a little more distance between he and Dahl.

“Well,” he replied, a thin smile appearing on his face, “it went about as well as your grocery store massacre. What were the numbers for that, again? Two witches, two metas, three werewolves, and a vampire, right? But sure, call the kettle black.”

He sighed, combing a hand through his hair and looking around.

“But you’re right about Vegas. I’m guessing the General told you the same thing he told me? Get your ass down here before I send wolves to rip you apart?”

Dahl curled her lip with distaste. “Something like that. If I were you,” She looked him up and down with judgmental eyes lifting her sunglasses. “I’d shut your mouth about fashion choices. The only ones that matter are the ones that do their job.” She lifted the iron cross, meaning another slight. “You’ve got a long way to go before you earn your cross and Sight.”

“Perhaps not as long as you might think,” a gruff voice echoed through the building followed by heavy steps. The Witchfinder General appeared in one of the entrances without his usual escort. He was a beast of a man, well over six feet tall, broad shouldered, yet there was no mistake that he could be as silent and nimble as he desired.

“Captain Dahl, Captain Hawthorn, thank you for your prompt arrival. I dread to think what I might have done had either of you been late.”

The General’s face was obscured by the collar of his cloak and the rim of his hat. His voice was low and grim. It was unclear if he was capable of conveying any emotion other than rage and indifference.

“But already you exceed my expectations, good show. Are you ready for your next assignment?”

Hawthorn nodded in agreement, standing up straighter and keeping his arms to his side.

“Yessir, I won’t disappoint.”

Dahl nodded, “Yes, sir.”

---

Time: Noon
Location: Southern Docks, Lost Haven

It was overcast, dark clouds rolling in off the bay threatening rain. Captain Dahl and Captain Hawthorn had their assignments directly from the Witchfinder General himself with added pressure of complete success. They were both working to get back into his good graces.

Dahl insisted on driving, of course. She parked in an alleyway off from a quiet warehouse, a black four door jeep loaded up with their equipment in the trunk. A large shipment was being unloaded, huge shipping containers were being lifted off with a crane. She lifted her sunglasses onto her head exiting the vehicle.

“C’mon Hawthorn, now I know you don’t have much experience. Especially compared to me.” She said her snark shamelessly apparent. “You ever deal with demons before? The ones that crawl up from the recesses of Hell, feed and use us mortals. They’re about as much of a handful as faerie. Don’t let your guard down.”

Dahl stepped around to the trunk, opening it up. Rifling through her duffle bag.

“The Church has been slackin’ real hard. Don’t believe anything until they have concrete proof.”

“You’re conveniently forgetting the ‘Captain’ in front of my name, Dahl,” Hawthorn snided back, slamming the jeep door with more force than intended as he followed Dahl to the trunk. “Give me a little more credit than that. I dealt with a succubus back in Pacific Point, one of my first missions under the General. I’ll watch my back.”

Hawthorn kept the General’s orders close in his mind, replaying them over and over again, filtering through the disappointed side comments he’d made at Dahl and Hawthorn’s expense. This was their last shot. If this demonologist, Phoebus, wasn’t dead by the day’s end, they would take his place.

“And I’ve got something extra with me this time,” Hawthorn said holding up a small stone with a hole through the center, hanging around his neck next to the Court’s customary iron crosses. “May not be proper Sight, but it’ll do.”

“You say conveniently, I say intentionally.” Dahl laughed. “Alright, Captain Hawthorn. I suppose that little stone donut will have to work. Hag’s Stones are reliable enough.”

She holstered her pistol to her hip. Slinging a rifle over her shoulder, slipping a couple extra magazines into her back pocket for easy access. Finally pulling her bible free of it’s pocket. “I ain’t much of a believer in the Son and the Holy Spirit but demons hate it. We see him we shoot him. If he’s got a familiar, or a demon has a grip on him we’ll need to find out it’s name to banish it.”

“Got it?”

Hawthorn nodded, sheathing a silver knife at his shin and pulling free a loose copy of the Dictionnaire Infernal, briefly skimming the pages for names and descriptions of demons that matched Phoebus’s MO.

“Got it.” He replied, a small team afforded to the Captains’ pulling up behind them, briefed and ready.

The warehouse in question was smaller than those surrounding it and suspiciously void of trucks, crates, or pallets around the perimeter. Old industrial equipment was stacked at one side, hinting at the building’s former use and suggesting recent renovations. One might expect the warehouse to be an empty, cobweb filled space waiting for new shipments, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Inside was a truly macabre display. Every wall was lined with a different occult seal, each drawn with mathematical precision in a mixture of ash and blood. Pews were arranged in rows on the open floor space, leading to a raised platform at the far end of the interior, surrounded by large, demonic banners, magical apparati, and sporting a massive stone altar at its center. Draped down over high support beams were more ritual items bearing strange insignia’s and glyphs, giving the space an almost regal appearance.

Scattered throughout the pews were dessicated corpses, nine in total, some dressed and almost recognizable, others wrapped in thin sheets and severely decayed. Small wisps of red and orange light collected above the altar and spun wildly elsewhere in the building, dancing to the music of chaos and disarray. Phoebus stood tall over the altar, dawning ritual garb that obscured every feature, all but a wicked grin. He was accompanied by another figure, a man dressed all in black with a long, black cloak and high collar, leather boots, dark breeches, and a black cloth that obscured his mouth.

“I’m not gonna ask you again, Gabriel,” the stranger spoke with hints of an accent that became thicker the more words he let out. “Where’s the fuckin’ brooch?”

“Phoebus,” the demonologist protested in a deep, raspy voice, “My name is Phoebus, and you know my terms. I’ll hand over the brooch when you bring me what I want, Orrin.”

Orrin sighed, turning his head and stomping a few feet away in a rage.

“Well you’re being right difficult in telling me what the fuck you want ‘Phoebus’.” he replied in anger, “I found you this place, didn’t I? And what’d ya give me in return? Fuck all! I haven’t got time to hear your creepy monologues, mate, just tell me what else you need and give me the brooch.”

“The Lover’s Coil.” Phoebus responded curtly, going about his work over the altar, pouring a viscous liquid onto a silver plate. “That’s my price.”

“The bloody Lover’s Coil?” Orrin responded in outrage. “Yeah, sure man, let me just walk up to the Ars Obscura and kindly ask them to hand it over, I’m sure that’ll work out nicely.” He walked away again, deep in thought. A small click caught his attention, something just beyond the doors of the warehouse. He was running out of time.

“Fine, you win. I’ll get my hands on the Coil for you, alright?” Orrin conceded. “Just . . . just tell me where the brooch is so I don’t waste a trip.”

Phoebus smiled, pleased with himself.

“Very well. I buried it in London. Grave of a famous witch, though you’ll have to bring me the Coil to find out which one.”

“Are you shitting me? I come all this way and it’s exactly where I’ve just left?” Orrin jumped up, carried by some supernatural force to a tall beam next to a small window at the height of the warehouse. “Y’know what, ‘Phoebus,’ it’s a bitch working with you, so I think I’ll find the brooch on my own. But I’ll do you one last favor.”

Orrin held a blackthorn cane, once fastened to his back. He tapped the end of it on the beams, sending a powerful hex through them that caused those nearest to the door to collapse.

“I’ll make it a little harder for your guests to come in.” With that, Orrin bolted through the window, fading from sight in an instant.

Phoebus shifted his focus on the warehouse doors and his unwelcome visitors.

With a line of trained men and women on both sides of the warehouse doors, it collapsed now rendered useless. Dahl signaled for them to hold, then spoke over the radio. “Alright we lost our element of surprise. Time to toss some of our surprises. Ready smoke grenades.”

Those closest to the door moved to give way for those who had the grenades. Simultaneously they pulled the pins and generously tossed through the wreckage. Smoke billowing out in several directions creating a screen to obscure their movements.

Dahl signaled them, pulling her mask up over her face. Rifle in her hands. They poured in climbing over the wreckage, taking up defensive positions to allow others to enter. From the otherside of the smokescreen, Dahl could see the set up well enough. Wall to wall, dark figures of the bodies in various states of decay were sending her skin crawling. The bastard’s decor was gruesome.

“Steady now. Use the smoke to your advantage. We’ve got ourselves a bastard’s church and the devil’s priest himself is at his altar.” Dahl spoke over the radio.

Phoebus jumped as the smoke started pouring in. The Hounds of Humanity. He’d managed to go unnoticed for quite some time, taking only drifters and the occasional dock worker for his experiments, but somehow, he’d been found outt.

“GO!” He commanded, pointing a gnarled dagger at the coming Hounds. Dark wisps of light began to descend from the rafts, taking residence in dead piled among the pews. To those with the Sight, the wisps were winged monstrosities with heads and bodies like bats, curved horns, and the tails of scorpions. Those who could not find residence in flesh began to swarm the Hounds, producing unholy sounds like dragging nails and discordant whines.

Meanwhile, nine decaying bodies lumbered over to their master’s assailant, slowly filling with supernatural speed and vigor. They began thrashing about in the smoke, forming a line between the Hounds and Phoebus.

“Incoming!” Captain Dahl pointed to the zombies and the demonic creatures. “Captain Hawthorn and I have the invisible bastards, you lot take on the zombies! Fire!”

The zombies came running into the first operative they found dogpiling them to the ground, his screams as he flailed at their strength and stench. Light from his rifle visible through the smoke. A pair of his teammates shot at the zombies dragging their bloody teammate back from their jaws.

Captain Dahl took shots at the winged demon flying close to one of their operatives, it screeched as it wheeled away, the blessed silver found spirit ripping through it’s back, “Don’t let them get close!” She took several more shots, they were quick and actively avoiding her line of sight.

Hawthorn tried to conserve ammo, swinging at the flying demons with his knife. Those he made contact with screeched in pain as the metal seared their flesh. Several began to fall around Dahl, their bodies bubbling and sizzling until they dissolved into nothing. They were making progress, but Phoebus was yet untouched.

Taking a chance, Hawthorn barreled through the fading smoke, readying his pistol at Phoebus, who was kneeled over the stone altar. He took a shot, his aim disrupted by a stray imp creature latching onto his shoulder with sharp fangs. Hawthorn buried his knife in its skull, wincing as the creature’s bite subsided with its death. His efforts hadn't been for nothing, however.

Phoebus clutched his left side, the blessed silver passing through his ribs, sapping his strength. The next shot wouldn’t likely miss, he needed to act fast. He whispered a single word in some chthonic tongue, its utterance spouting embers from his mouth. Dark shadows mixed with candle flame, coalescing into a massive being.

Before Phoebus stood a great, black wolf, three times the size of a man with an eagle’s wings and serpent tail. It turned its attention to the Hounds and let out a mighty growl that shook the warehouse’s very foundations. What few flying creatures remained scattered out of sight while the dead continued their onslaught and the wolf marched toward the Hounds.

“Boss, we’ve got a big bad wolf coming our way.” One of the operatives spoke.

Captain Dahl cursed, “Concentrate fire on the beast! Ready flashbangs, blind it!”

Plink! The sound of flashbang pins being pulled and similarly tossed at the beast exploding on impact. Bright light exploded forth in front of the beast’s snout. A direct hit.

“Captain Hawthorn, take the shot! We’ll distract the beast.” Captain Dahl said through the radio raising her rifle to the beast, both eyes on it and not paying attention to the zombies. She was confident they wouldn’t reach her.

A hearty laugh echoed through the warehouse as the flashbangs went off. The beast maintained its stance, unaffected by the Hound’s attack.

”Cease this pitiful assault and I will make your death swift.” The beast taunted them in an ominous voice that shook their cores.

Hawthorn knew this was no simple demon, but a Duke or Marquis. He nodded at Dahl’s command, lining up his shot a second time, but his movement was anticipated. The beast turned to Hawthorn and opened its mouth, a thick haze spewing forth and surrounding the Hound. Hawthorn took the shot, but his bullet turned to ash, the blessing unable to withstand the beast’s attack. Soon enough, more of Hawthorn’s equipment began to decay, dissolving in his hands. His black armor began to shift on his body as he let out a distressed scream, looking down to find his legs slowly turning ash.

There was no time, he hadn’t the resources left to attack Phoebus. Instead, Hawthorn chucked his knife at Dahl, striking an encroaching zombie in the head before it could latch on.

“Marchosias!” Hawthorn let out through his pain, “His name is Marchosias, ban . . .” his words were cut short by the dust filling up his lungs, no, his lungs were turning to dust. As the haze subsided, all that remained of Hawthorn was ash. Dahl had only herself and the men that remained.

Dahl was shocked to see his sacrifice, she figured him to be a runner but her respect for him shot up. Witchfinder General would be proud. Kneeling down to the zombie she pulled the knife free then stomped on it’s skull. Gore splashing outwards. Holding the knife before her she pulled her bible free, ready to recite the banishment. She stared down the Beast and her remaining operatives gathered behind her.

“In the name and authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, we command you - Marchosias to leave, we banish you back to pits of Hell with whence you came!” She shouted with conviction, removing the cross from her neck holding it with her blessed silver knife and holding it up with the bible open in her hand, “Begone! Leave this realm!”

Marchosias howled as the banishment echoed through the warehouse, forcing his retreat. His body was enveloped in smoke and ash, seeping through the stone floor back into the pit. Phoebus winced as the blessed silver began to travel through his veins. His wound was bleeding profusely and he was unable to stand without support.

As a final effort, he called the lesser demons from their dead hosts to carry him off, but his power had waned and they were unreceptive to his call, instead fading away, no longer bound to the service of their conjurer.

They moved forward cautiously, Captain Dahl stepped up to him. “You’re gonna have to repeat that line about ‘pitiful assault’ one more time. The big bad wolf wasn’t clear enough for me, Phoebus.” Pressing the end of her barrel against his head, “You were a blight, even the witches wanted nothing to do with you. Happy to rat you out to us. All of you are untrustworthy and slick as it gets.”

The remaining Hounds surrounded them, pointing their rifles at Phoebus.

“Got any final words?”

Phoebus looked up at Dahl, hand firmly clutched over his wound. He opened his mouth and let out a quiet whine, trying to find the words to say. Suddenly, he began to cough, a low gurgle sounding in the back of his throat. He keeled over, coughing aggressively. Water began to stream from his mouth, slowly at first, then a torrent. Phoebus was drowning. He seized up, water flowing endlessly from his mouth until his eyes went dark, his limbs cold. Dead.

”I suspect he won’t be saying much else,” a woman’s voice echoed through the warehouse. Near the ruined entrance stood a woman dressed in emerald green with auburn curls and gold ornaments, her skin pale and glowing in the strands of sunlight.

”But I have a few words to share. Your dear Witchfinder is at his end. The covens of Nevada have mobilized, as have those in New Orleans and Salem. The Witch-Mother plots against you as we speak, and believe me, she is more fearsome than a pitiful sorcerer and his pets. Tread carefully in the coming days, or you’ll meet a similar end as the first iteration of The Winter Court.”

She laughed, waving an arm and disappearing in the wind. At her feet lay a broken iron cross and silver ash.

Captain Dahl lowered her rifle, the witch left with ominous warnings. Dahl looked down to the dead body of Phoebus then swiftly kicked his head aside. She called out to the other Hounds, “Round this shit up, clear it out and let’s make a sign. Nobody can trust the other, let’s give the freaks a clear sign we’re looking for informants as much as we are for targets. Let them know they’re not safe even among their own.”

They nodded, dragging Phoebus’ body clear of the altar working to dismantle his work and the pews. Piling the broken pews into a pile at the center of the stone altar. Captain Dahl approached the spot where the witch had spoken picking up the broken cross and running a hand through the silvery ash.

“Hmph… I’d like to see them try to dismantle us.” She said to herself, shortly thereafter the Hounds make quick work of the pews and added kindling. Throwing the dead atop of the pyre. Captain Dahl lit it up, kerosene catching easily. Their work for the day complete, Dahl claiming success for herself, paying proper homage to Captain Hawthorn respectively. They left the burning warehouse behind.

“What the hell just happened,” Zac pondered aloud once he had regained his senses. When he saw the clods of dirt with rocks intermixed in the soil, things began to come back to him. The Silver Sorceress had used her magic to cause him, Kelly, and Sammy to sink down into the earth until they all were totally submerged. If Kelly had not been quick on her feet, the three metahumans would undoubtedly have suffocated from being buried alive. However, Kelly was able to conjurer up a small mystic bubble that carved a small capsule where the young heroes could regroup.

“How are we going to get out of this?” Kelly asked as she focused on keeping the magical capsule from collapsing on itself.

“Maybe we could tunnel our way out,” Sammy suggested. “Snakes are quite good at that.”

“If I were to open up a small enough hole in the bubble for you to try that plan out, we would be overrun by the soil around us. We can’t take that risk.”

“Then you need to teleport us back to the surface,” Zac told his girlfriend.

“But—we don’t know how far underground we are!” Kelly protested while she still concentrated on the bubble holding back the soil. “If I lowball it, then we’ll be in the same pickle, but without the bubble. But if I overcompensate, we’ll be plunging to our deaths!”

“I’m not science wiz,” Zac answered back, “but I doubt the oxygen down here will last for long, especially with the three of us.”

Kelly paused and took a deep breath. She was going to need her full concentration to cast this spell lest something go wrong. She then closed her eyes and held out her arm. Zac and Sammy, in turn, reached out and placed a hand in Kelly’s palm. They could feel her hand shaking, revealing how much pressure was on Kelly’s shoulders to not screw the spell up.

Zac suddenly felt a cold chill on his face. Since he was not stuck and drowning in hundreds of feet of soil, Zac knew that the teleportation spell must have worked. However, he soon knew that something was wrong. Due to the free-fall that he found himself in, Zac knew that Kelly must have overshot the appropriate altitude for them to safely land on the ground.

A bright red light then enveloped Zac. Before he could figure out what was happening, Zac saw that he was now much closer to the ground than he had been a moment ago. He could not have fallen that far already. Yet at the same time, he was not falling as fast as someone who had been dropped form the sky. Although he crashed down on the ground, the impact did not break any bones. It just momentarily dazed him.

Once Zac recovered from the fall, he discovered that he was back in Washington Park, where they had started before the Silver Sorceress sunk him and his friends under the earth. But when he only discovered Sammy next to him. Kelly was still missing.

“Oh, thank goodness you guys are alright! I was so worried!” Jeanette rushed over to Zac and Sammy. “I so sorry I could have done anything to help you!”

“Kelly,” Zac gasped, pointing up at the sky. “I think she’s still up there.”

Jeanette then turned towards the direction in which Zac had pointed and took to the air. Since it was summer, there was still a little sunlight still left. Therefore, Jeanette scanned the skies, keeping an eye peeled for Kelly. After she had circled the park for the third time, Jeanette finally saw Kelly. She then darted after Kelly. As Jeanette lined up behind her falling ally, she prepared to grapple onto her with her legs to steer her clear from becoming a splat on the ground. Once she had a hold of Kelly, Jeanette gradually shifted her wings so to change their course.

The ground kept approaching faster and faster as the two women approached the earth. But almost at the last moment, Jeanette had arched their course enough that they swooped back up towards the sky before they could crash into the dirt. After making one last loop overhead, Jeanette glided down to the ground and gently laid Kelly down.

Zac immediately rushed over to his girlfriend to check on her. Although she had become exhausted from the experience, Kelly was still alive and breathing. All she needed was some rest.

Lyger stood silently as the growing ensemble of characters fought with and mocked one another. How such a dysfunctional group of individuals could hope to put an end to the threat posed by the Hounds of Humanity was a mystery to him. If these people couldn’t get their act together, they were doomed to fail, after all, how could they hope to fight the Hounds if they were too busy fighting one another?

Just as he was about to voice his opinion on the matter, the ground began to shake. First he saw the massive mechs making their way into the square. It reminded him of a scene from an old science fiction movie. However, before he could even react, Icon and the loudmouth in black and gold had taken off to meet them head on. However, the walking tanks were far from their only problem. Overhead, what looked to be futuristic assault choppers were engaged with a group of fighter jets. This just left the dozen or so transport vehicles that came screeching to a halt around the parameter of the Square, which encircled the “heroes,” trapping them inside with no path for escape.

“Stay together.” Lyger said to the others that were still grouped together as the Hounds foot soldiers began to advance on them.

The first of the Hounds to reach the gathered heroes was greeted with Lyger’s fist to his jaw, shattering it on impact. A roundhouse right to the temple felled the Hound, taking him out of the fight. No sooner did the fallen Hound hit the pavement of Sherman Square than another launched himself at Lyger, only to be met with a swift kick in the chest, knocking the air out of his lungs. As this Hound lay on the ground gasping for breath, the others had drawn their weapons and slowed their advance. He looked over to the nearest Hound, who was a good couple of dozen feet away. If he leapt into the air and fired a grapple line, he should be able to reach him before he fired a shot. However, a pink and purplish blur made the move unnecessary. Before Lyger could even blink, Slipstream had raced among the Hounds and disarmed them.

With the Hounds disarmed; Lyger leapt into action taking on several Hounds at a time. After hitting the first with a stiff shot to the face, another of the Hounds grabbed him from behind and held him for the others to get their licks in. However, Lyger twisted and spun to the left, getting free from the Hound’s grip, then planted him with a reverse kick to the chin that snapped the man’s neck back and sent him reeling. Before the Hound could recover, an open hand chop to the throat left him writhing in pain as he struggled to get air into his lungs.

Suddenly another black clad man jumped into the fray right out of nowhere. The man was dressed differently than the rest of the Hounds, he didn’t appear to be wearing the body armor that the others had been wearing, and his face was covered by a balaclava. As the new arrival turned to face Lyger, the young hero it him with an open palm thrust to the chest, and as the man was knocked backward, a hard right hand that sent the man crashing to the pavement.

However, the distraction was all that the Hounds had needed. When Lyger turned to face his enemies, he found that several had been able to reclaim their assault rifles and were leveling them directly at the hero’s head.

Kayla kept up the relentless barrage of arrows down to the Hounds below. She knew at some point that she needed to get down and retrieve the arrows she was using before she ran out and had to find another way down the building. At least going through the building, I’d avoid the sights of the helicopters, she thought, her eyes glancing away between shots to keep a look on the helicopters that were around. She had been in relative shelter from the grunts and vehicles down below. The mechs would have been a problem for most of the gathered heroes, but Icon and the mouthy kid was dealing with them from the get-go. She even caught a glimpse of the firefight of the planes above them. But if any of the heroes didn’t deal with any of the helicopters, then what they were doing wouldn’t matter as their small numbers would be whittled down until the very durable ones are left.

Just as she thought about the helicopters, lightning struck two of the helicopters that fried every electrical component inside to send them crashing down. A moment later, she saw another meta arrive from the sky, seeing the fizzling arcs of electricity coming from him as he began to work on the flying menace. A moment later, another person arrived from the sky, cleaving through the tail of another. At first, Kayla was puzzled by the sudden appearance of the two heroes into this battle. However, she shrugged it off. ”Well, at least the helicopters are covered,” she muttered to herself, thinking that she wouldn’t be surprised by anything anymore. As she carried on raining down arrows, she watched from the corner of her eye as she watched the two new arrivals starting to take down the helicopters one by one.

As she focused on getting her next shot off, the whirring sounds of a falling helicopter grew louder and louder. Not taking any chances, she shot off the arrow and turned to the origin of the sound. As she faced it, her eyes looked on in terror as the falling helicopter was heading straight for her. With the speed of the helicopter’s fall and how close it was, she concluded that there was nowhere near enough time for her to make it out without getting hit by it. Not even an escape by jumping off the building and rappelling down to safety. Is this… how I die? she thought, fear now setting in and stopping her from moving. Her thoughts turned to the loved ones she was going to leave behind. Her mother. Her childhood friend, Mia. Her work colleagues at Taylor Garage. The archery club she shot regularly at. She was going to leave them all behind with her body being crushed under the twisting metal of the aircraft. It was then that a thought back to Jason filled her mind. With his face now filling her mind, her body relaxed. A wry smile came to her covered lips as she began to accept her fate. I’ve missed you, Jason. So much. I’m coming to you. She closed her eyes as she waited for the inevitable.

Except, it never came.

An explosion rocked above the archer as the hero that came with the lightning meta shot the tail off of the helicopter. Fletch’s eyes snapped open as she witnessed the two halves of the helicopter fell from either side of her down the sides of the building. She didn’t hide her surprise when the hero landed on the rooftop. I’m… alive? she thought, her mind as surprised about the turn of events as she was. She heard the hero call out to her, her eyes still showing their surprise as her gaze turned to them. A moment ago, she figured that she wouldn’t be surprised by anything that will happen in the future. Now, she was surprised again as an alien-looking woman spoke to her, mentioning how they’ve never fought a helicopter before. Shaking herself off from the surprise, her steely focus came back. Her purpose had been renewed after a brief moment of vulnerability in the face of death.

”I’ve only fought one once, earlier today,” Kayla responded, her voice filled with an unusual warmth in it from her stony body language. ”Taking it out by blowing up the tail with one of my arrows.” By this point, Archie was curious about the person his master was talking to. He crawled out from her trouser pocket and peered at the alien-looking woman from her right shoulder. The archer nodded towards him, ”Archie here helped out with providing the explosives.”

Regaining her composure, she wandered to the edge of the building to see what was happening since the crashing helicopter. Reaching for another arrow and nocking it to the string, she aimed at another Hound. Before she could shoot it off, the weather suddenly picked up for the worse. She snapped the bow back into its resting position As she braced herself against the sudden wind and rain that ravaged the scene in front of her. Unsure of who caused the weather to suddenly pick up, she could only watch as the Hounds began to struggle to do what it was that they’re doing. Looking through the wind and the rain, she could only watch as another mech turned up to the fight. However, instead of attacking the heroes, it began fighting the ones that were known to be with the Hounds.

Kayla’s eyes focused on the lightning meta that had helped take down a few of the helicopters. She watched in amazement as he took down Hounds left and right. However, when it came down to an armoured soldier, she watched as he took a hit from one of the Hound's rounds. With the wind and rain, it was hard enough to gauge the correct place to aim. But the archer attempted anyway as she drew up her compound bow. By now, every piece of clothing was completely saturated with water and her hair clung to her frame. She aimed at the Hound that was attacking and moved her sight to where she roughly should be aiming out to compensate for the weather. From out of her focused view, she watched as three lightning bolts struck the Hound, leaving only a charred body in its wake. With the threat eliminated, she began to relax and started the motion of releasing the energy from her bow safely.

However, she snapped the energy back into place as she saw another Hound appear behind the lightning meta and began raising a pistol towards them. Making a snap judgement, she aimed at roughly the same place she was going to use and allowed the muscles in her shoulder to increase the tension. Then, like the thousands of arrows she shot before, the arrow snapped into motion as the release aid snapped open. She watched as the arrow soared through the air, arcing through the air as the wind and rain affected its course. As a sudden gust breezed passed, the archer could only watch in horror as the arrow was suddenly affected by it, appearing to be going straight for the meta’s head. By some luck, the arrow sailed merely inches from the meta as the broadhead slammed into the eye socket of the attacking Hound, killing them instantly. Despite the deadly nature of what she was using, she’d never intentionally planned to kill someone even with the explosives provided by Archie. The pit in her stomach began to well up as she watched nauseously as the limp body fell to the floor. She wanted to throw up from it, but she couldn’t. Not in front of the heroes she was near. Kayla managed to bring all of her willpower to stop her from throwing up, but it didn’t stop her from the wrenching motions as she gagged from the sight.

As she composed herself once again, Kayla carried on watching as Iron Knight began fighting a Hound wearing a similar suit. Just before that, however, she did see that the Hound fired something into the sky. Moments later, the rain turned into ice as it rained down hard on them. While weather like that wouldn’t affect her, having shot on occasion in Russia, the cold seeped through her wet clothes, sending a chill through her body. The archer shrugged it off and watched the fight unfold as two more people began firing at the helicopters above. She finally turned to the alien woman on the rooftop. ”Tend to your friend,” she spoke, the steel returning to her voice. She rifled through one of the other pockets in her trousers and placed a first aid kit onto the ground. ”He’s been hit in the shoulder. Use that to treat the wound. We’ll need to start taking out more of these mechs that are attacking the city.” Fletch turned to look at her. ”Can you and your friend do that once he’s patched up?” She then began to focus down below. She needed to retrieve her arrows and return back to the fight. Before she rappelled down, she turned to the hero. ”The name’s Fletch, by the way. Nice meeting you. Oh… and thank you.” Using the line that got her up the building, she jumped off of the building, using the mechanism on her arm to ease her descent down onto the ground.

@KaiserElectric@VATROU

Somewhere in China

Alex would wave at the group who was seeing him off including Nicky. He was going to be gone for about a week in a special tournament for martial arts masters. He would hop in the cab at the bottom of the stairs and be off. His first thought was about Nicky, how was she going to react now that he was gone. He was worried, he knew his master would be harsh on any punishments but if she got into a fight she might wind up having to rebuild parts of the temple just do to the sheer fact of her condition. He would shake the thought from his head as he grinned while looking out the window at the mountain like area around them. "She will be fine." he said to himself as the cab driver looked back and raised an eyebrow at him.
-----
In Beijing

Not too long after that he would find himself back in Beijing and in a hotel. Throwing his stuff down he would sigh. From the moment he had gotten to the hotel he had been bombarded with reporters, most of which thinking that he did not understand Chinese, so most would try to give him some half-assed attempt at English. But that was to be expected; after all, this hotel was where he was going to be having the tournament.All fighters welcome, 3183600.13 Chinese Yuan for the winner of the whole thing. Roughly about 500,000 dollars if converted. Alex sighed as he thought about the tournament, this wouldn't be like the tournament in his dojo where people with close to no skill came in and got destroyed or people who had some type of power would come in. These were mostly masters of a martial arts. A few up and comers who thought themselves strong enough to try, but they would be weeded out in the first round. A few names were familiar to him but ultimately, Alex had been to tournaments like this. Everyone knew Chi; everyone was a master of it. This wasn't going to be a cakewalk at all. Not to mention he would be put on TV, something about that always made him nervous but he shook the image from his head as he checked his phone and saw the text I'm rooting for you, baby. Do well. smiling at that he chuckled, how she was willing to just let him go to China with a random teenage girl to train her was beyond him.
------------
(Flashback time!)
"Go ahead and take her darling. I think it would be good for you and from the sounds of it, it would be good for her.' Alyssa stood at about 5 foot 8 inches. She had long blonde hair and toned muscle at 24 she was definitely younger than Alex, but she was working on her Doctorate already to get into the medical field. She wore a long black dress that seemed just slightly too tight and showed off every inch of her curves. Alex sighed as he sat down on the couch. "What if I'm not the right person though? What if she literally gets nothing out of it."

Alyssa walked over to him, "Listen, you are a great young man. You have a good head on your shoulders, and you are the calmest person I know in the worst situations. She will get attached to you, even if she doesn't want to admit it. Besides, what teenager doesn't want to learn how to blast a hole in a wall?"

Alex grinned at the comment, "True enough, most people want to be able to do that even after they are a teenager. Well, I will need to go to a tournament since I won't be able to charge my students full price while I'm gone. Shit. That means I have to win.. for us."

Alyssa shook her head, 'Hush, you do your best. Just don't kill anyone.' Alyssa said before giving him a wink and then leaning down to grab at his hand. "Now come on, or we will be late for our reservation."
------------
Alex grinned and shook his head at how lucky he was. A knock on the door as a man spoke in broken English. Alex couldn't even hear what the guy was saying. But he knew what was being said, he was getting a 10 minute warning to his first round. Getting up he jumped up and down a couple times yelling at the door. "I'll be down in a moment." he would say before heading to the bathroom to wash his face. "First round is always easy." he said to himself.
--------------
(1 hour later)
The TV cameras were circling around the ring as Alexander looked across at his opponent. A smaller Chinese man who would charge at Alexander fists flying high in an open palm one coming for his face another coming for his ribs. Alex would throw one hand up to smack at the man's wrist, and the other down to hit at his other arm's forearm. Deflecting both away from him. Alex would follow up with a kick to the stomach, then to the hip , following it up once more with a kick to his chest. The man stumbled backwards he looked like he had been getting beaten up for awhile with bruises over his face and body. He would try to make a move but Alex leaping forward would plant a punch into the man's chest once more, causing him to stumble backwards. Grabbing at the man's hair Alex pulled him down and kneed him in the face. When the knee hit a few on lookers could see the little bit of chi release that Alex had allowed. The knee would send the small man off of his feet and hitting the ground hard on his back. The crowd roared as the ref blew a whistle and the cameras zoomed in on Alex who looked completely unscathed. The announcers were yelling something in Chinese, but to Alex it didn't matter he was just wanting to move on to an actual challenge.

---

Time: Afternoon - Day of the Satellite Attack
Location: Paris, France

The darkness of a stretching afternoon sunlight glowed over the statues of Sculpture garden of Musée Rodin. The Ambassador was called to the gardens to meet with one of the quieter creatures of Paris. Animals of various species found their homes in the ponds - toads most predominantly. Quite naturally they were all once human themselves, retaining some of their intelligence to avoid growing into pests. They watched from the water with the very same globulous eyes, silently pleading for help. The Ambassador had no control over the Fairy Lioness, simply gave her a quiet tourist destination. Luring the odd hapless human who may have disrespected the gardens, they now lived out their punishment and shortened lives as toads. If they lived out their lives they were among the lucky, the Lioness loved to save them for meals.

Of course, Bach followed at her side. Astutely eyes front and not paying much attention to the statues around them. His presence the least offensive but still so strongly associated with his mortal companion he was expected to show the same respect.

She walked with purpose today to see the very same spirit. Her long white romantic tutu style dress moved with her, a black heart shaped top with a large floppy yellow hat sat upon her head. A beautiful raw piece of amber hung at her neck on a gold necklace. She scanned along the statues knowing where the Lioness loved to hide. As she moved past a shadow imitating one of Rodin’s statues moved from the pose and followed The Ambassador.

She continued to walk finding her way down a rather unbeaten path, where grass grew more wild and she was barely within sight of the museum itself. Finally then did the Lioness reveal herself.

Her shadow gathered before the Ambassador, her head came first rising from the long shadow casted by The Ambassador, she towered above the likes of Odette. She was well over seven feet tall, draped in the skin of a lion. It’s jaw hung past the woman’s face casting it in shadow, her chin was dirty with bits of meat and dried blood. She neither smiled nor snarled. Her eyes averted, her hands clutched at the pelt covering herself shyly to remain somewhat modest. Native to France and among the wild spirits that did not approve of such meetings. She was rather happy to be left alone. Another family, light eating Sylphs wished for her presence down in the catacombs to hunt, they needed the glassy lenses of the rats, but they did not feel comfortable entering her den even as requests of favour.

The Sylphs liked playing with fractions of light, manipulating it through the lense of an animal’s eyeball or if they were lucky, a human’s. Unfortunately for them they weren’t proficient hunters. Odette didn’t inquire further but they asked for her to go on their behalf in exchange for a Soul Cleanse. A valuable little gift to lift veils, curses and hexes placed on the soul. Odette considered it would be useful in her work waiting with the White Witch. It sat as the crowning pearl on a circlet made of bones. Macabre as it could be.

The Fairy Lioness kept her eyes averted but was well aware of where The Ambassador’s attention was. One of the few faeries that did not pay favour to her for staying in Paris. She knew of The Ambassador’s protections, whispers told her of a mighty golem nowhere to be seen. The Lioness shifted on her feet, gripping her pelt.

“Mighty Lioness. I am here on behalf of the Catacomb Sylphs. They seek out your help in hunting for animal eyeballs. They are willing to meet in the Notre Dame’s bell tower to discuss terms. Neutral ground.” The Ambassador began in Common Fey, staying still and not taking her eyes away from the Fairy Lioness. “I am simply a messenger.”

“Messenger, they did not have the courage to see me Ambassador? They send our Mistress. We have only met this once.” She shifted a bit closer closing the gap of personal space, Odette could smell the foul sour odor of her body. She appeared human but the way she walked was too strange. She spoke quickly, quietly, with no accent. “You smell strange, perfumed and soft. They do not have a daughter to feed me instead?”

Odette shook her head, “Whatever terms they have to offer they did not inform me. They simply hoped the chance of a hunt would be incentive to meet with them.”

The Lioness considered that, shifting again. “What- what do you have to offer me for my time? I have plenty to hunt here. I see no reason to trust the word of a soft, clean human. I would as easily eat you.”

“If you are hungry then that is all you needed to say.” She knew what she had to do to get the Lioness to comply. Odette stepped away from the Lioness, going to the pond just beyond where they were speaking. She stopped at the edge, seeing toads by the dozens swimming, eyes were directly on The Ambassador. She raised her hand, blue mist coating falling gently into the pond. The toads darted at the sight but she caught one straggler. Pulling it up out of the water levitating between her hands, immobilized. She thought briefly of how Mandate would have enjoyed seeing what was to happen next.

Odette reversed the curse, the toad grew back into a human woman. She was terrified staring at Odette, pleading to be free.

Still levitating, she brought the woman back before the Lioness. She made eye contact with Odette, feeling a certain dread plucking at her will. The Lioness croaked, “You would so easily offer one of your own people to me?”

“What is she to me when you are hungry? She would have lived out the remainder of her life as a toad, now she has the honour of sustaining you.” She replied, cold in her offering. “Or does she not please you?”

The Lioness considered, averting her gaze once again. “You speak well, I accept. Lay her upon the ground.”

The woman whimpered, tears streaming down into her hair. Gently Odette placed her into the soft grass taking a few steps away. “I will speak with the Sylphs on one more condition, Ambassador.”

Odette waited. Watching the Lioness huddle over her meal.

“You are to watch while I eat. If it such an honour to provide my meal, you shall watch as my honourable guest.” She said locking Odette in her spot, unable to refuse. She grinned making eye contact once more, the full weight of the Lioness’ dreadful gaze upon Odette once again.

The Ambassador sighed, nodding. Bach sighed as well. “Very well.”

The Lioness tore into her meal, The Ambassador muffled the painful noise to their vicinity. While the Lioness was vicious she was not quick, hoping to get a reaction from the human mortal watching the gore with disinterest. Prodding for weakness as many have tried to do before, the fey native to Paris often were upfront with their distaste of The Ambassador’s mortality and her Sight. If she was to see, she was to watch.

It was well past an hour by the time the Lioness stood back up from her meal. She was covered in blood down the length of her body, no longer attempting to hide it with her pelt. The pelt itself seemed to brighten with life, fur standing on end, dull eyes watching Odette now where the Lioness averted her own. The mess she left behind was unrecognizable, the Lioness plucked the eyes from the dead woman’s skull and offered them.

“A guarantee for the Sylphs. I will meet them at dawn.”

Unflinchingly Odette gathered the eyes into her hand, passing them to Bach. They disappeared into his breast pocket inside his jacket. “I will relay the message. Good night, Lioness.”

The Lioness seeped back into her shadows, bright eyes followed The Ambassador - watching her exit the gardens. When the Ambassador was clear from watching eyes, they walked a short ways stopping into a cafe, Bach shifted his appearance - coming to appear as human. His horns and leaves disappeared, his eyes brightened from yellow to white with green iris. His suit trimmed to a tweed gray suit with a green tie, a small little cheeky green rose at his lapel. She sat easily ordering a cold drinks. Bach joined her, visible to the naked eye.

She slipped into French, “Truly, what a waste of time. Making me watch her eat, hmph.”

Bach shrugged, “It is in her nature to challenge. I am surprised you did not protest.”

“I seem to be surprising you a lot as of late.” She commented pointedly, shortly the waitress placed the iced coffees before them shyly blushing away from Bach’s heavy gaze. “I wasn’t in a position to complain. She named me a guest.”

“Butting heads, you mean.” He replied with a wryly grin. “Something has been on your mind, I know that much. This business with the Americans has shifted your priorities some. Shifted from what I usually understand of your wants.” Turning to a serious note, “Tell me, My Lady.”

She crossed her legs, looking out the window. “I am focused, I have a goal in mind and now more than ever does the prophecy really mean nothing to me. I don’t care if he was sincere or not.” She emphasized, meaning Puck. Bach relaxed at her disregard, perhaps finally able to put thoughts of it behind her. “I have always understood what we have now Bach, is not forever. My power will peak and then it will wane.”

He inclined his head, “True, but you are young and full of vitality. My Lady you have done what many thought was impossible. You’ve secured true power.” He argued. “I couldn’t be more proud.”

She was unconvinced. Losing patience she swiped her hand, blue light spreading quickly on the back of a few Words of Power, deafening the patrons in the cafe from their conversation. Growing sick of tip toeing around her words.

“There is no security! All the Fey I have control over will outlive me by lifetimes, yourself included Bach. It does not matter how much power I have right now, the likes of lowly spirits such as the Lioness will keep pushing their boundaries with me.” She snapped, removing her hat she placed it on the table. She sipped her coffee, calming down. “We butt heads because now more than ever what connections I have are important, maintaining my connection to my humanity and all it entails. I need them as I need you. It is frustrating how it is seen as a weakness but provides a source of strength, a grounding.”

He conceded, “We are as one.” Quietly adding, in a twinge of envy. “I am all you truly need.”

She leaned across the table taking his hands in hers. “You say they are dangerous.”

He bowed his head to their hands, frustrated as he was. “We operate better keeping our allies in the dark. Why you gave such access to Mandate and Silence, is beyond me. Now you are on the brink with White Witch.” He looked up, “Who is next? Forge? The closer they are - who is to say they will not be targeted by our rivals. Do you truly want a repeat of Thomas?” He said gripping her hands, “Titania is only the start of rivalries. She wants to stamp you out swiftly in an all consuming war if properly provoked.”

She averted her eyes, emotion welling up from the pits of her stomach at Thomas’ name. Uncontrollable. “Swiftly. She would not dream of such a tactic if I wasn’t mortal.” Odette insisted, not dwelling.

Understanding dawning on him. “You want immortality? We have discussed it before-”

She cut him off, “An apprentice would not be able to carry on my legacy. I am the only one suited for this work. The Fey need to have a stronger foothold here, not just in Paris. I need to see through building more permanent portals, more connections, more power and that ultimately takes time.”

“...Like Gwyneth?” He asked, guarding his expression. He withdrew his hands.

She shook her head, “After having some time to think of her life, I find myself admiring her. The sheer resolve, strength, and intellect it must have taken to attempt an immortality spell on her own. Storing shards of herself amongst her treasured items in a moment of surprise, able to exert control of illusionary worlds thereafter…” Odette said warmly, remembering her meeting with the witch. “I can only hope that my abilities grow to be strong as hers.” She squeezed his hands. “I want to be me...I want…” She gazed into his eyes, “I want these attachments to stay with me for as long as I can.”

“Immortality would be a start.”

He stood leaning over the table planting a kiss on her forehead, “You will have it on our terms. I will… Restrain myself and trust you understand the consequences.” He said, the weight of his words not going unnoticed by Odette.

They drank their coffees in comfortable silence, both mulling over what they spoke of. The radio playing in the background stopped suddenly for breaking news. The Hounds of Humanity destroyed three American cities with blasts from a satellite. News tracked the sudden gathering of metahumans in Lost Haven, following live updates of the ongoing fight there. Odette looked to Bach, “I suppose the Hounds will no longer be our problem very soon. Here’s hoping they take a few of our enemies with them.”

“Where did you drop Mandate off again? Surely not Lost Haven.” He asked.

“Oh goodness, no. She is in New York. She was quite cagey on where she wanted to go. My guess was to see where she was born, wherever that may be.” She replied.

“What of the potion ingredients from Vegas?” Bach asked, “Can’t keep our favourite criminal waiting for his miracle.” He said sarcastically.

“Erik has the ingredients and his instructions.” Odette ignored his tone. “I will drop it off when it is done. Bach, we need to be on the same page now. We can’t keep butting heads, understood?”

“Yes, My Lady. We are clear.”

“Bien.”

---

Blacklight stopped over the edge of Lost Haven, peering through the growing storm, trying to find her target location in the dimness. The echoing thump and flares of battle against the damp darkness of evening told her exactly what she needed to know. Hovering in place almost a thousand feet above the suburbs, her “wings” flapping to keep her aloft, she squinted, trying to gauge distance and numbers, but even as she squinted she remembered that that sort of reconnaissance was pointless with metahumans in the mix. Her wings flapped once, echoing thunder back at the rumbling storm, and took off towards the fight, her energy wake barely visible against the growing blackness of the stormy sky above.

She watched, horrorstruck, as the fight clarified in relation to the closing distance. Several fires picked out whre the wreckage of some machines had fallen into the city. She guessed helicopters until she spotted another fireball descending from above the clouds. She streaked over the fight as fast as possible, not caring at the moment about the sonic boom the followed her. At the extreme of her beam ranges, she targeted the falling wreckage and fire with everything the had. The sound of breaking light was like thunder and breaking glass, and the wide beam of black energy would be obvious, but thankfully the battle was already well past the point where stealth was required. The leading edge of the beam caught the falling wreck and obliterated it before it could do any harm. She peered at the area where it had been falling and growled to herself. That's residential. What the hell do these people think they're doing!?

Spinning in place a few hundred feet in the air, Leanna searched for any more of the jets, but failed to spot any. Another bloom of fire and roar of noise announced another helicopter going down near the square, and she rushed over, careful this time to avoid the glass-shattering speed she had moved with previously now that she was closer to the ground. Seeing an attack helicopter going down, spinning rapidly towards a building bordering the square, she generated a field of energy in a simple flat plane, big enough to bounce the thing back towards the street. As it bounced, she rushed forward, killing the field, and grabbed the thing by the wreckage of the tail. Hauling backwards, she halted it's fall, though the tail threatened to rip off at any moment. She guided its descent down to the street, blocking as much of the road as possible with the wreckage. She didn't see anyone getting out, so she landed and ran over to the cockpit. Only dead men sat in the seats.

Cursing, she launched back up into the sky, to hover near a rooftop and watch the battle, seeking a place where she would be most useful. On the roof near her a girl with a bow of all things was firing into hounds, providing cover for a greaser-looking kid who was wielding lightning. Nearby, a man in full body armour was standing over several unconscious combatants, multiple guns being raised at him from a few more of the enemy. She sent a beam to cut through their ranks, at minimum power, sending them into the pavement and skidding into a wall with what was sure to be multiple bone fractures. Scanning further, she glanced Icon and Iron Knight, together with a core group of people. Two of them looked like costumed civilians, and a third, some sort of blue woman. Well, if they were with Arthur and Chris they were fine. A streaking blur gave evidence to a speedster in the mix.

Some sort of mechanised suits were battling, as well. One looked as though it had police insignia on it. The other was nearly double the size of any other, using some sort of chainsaw weapon to cut into the opposing side. How the hell anyone had mechs at this point, Leanna didn't know, and without knowing what the power sources were, she couldn't reliably blast into them willy-nilly. And another flying brick type seemed to be giving them support, albeit in that way that melee types always seemed to. She knew the look on the big man's face all too well from personal experience. As that group tore into the enemy, however, she noted they weren't exactly being careful.

She turned to the girl with the bow, said, ”Keep up the good work! Try not to kill anyone!', and leapt off of the roof. Flying at a good clip, she swung out towards the mechs, batting a flying arm down into the pavement and blasting another chunk of machinery out of the air hard enough to vapourise it. Swooping past the brick as he dropped what she assumed to be a dead combatant, she fixed him with a scowl, but didn't take the time to admonish. Instead, she flew straight to the center of this mess, hovering a few feet from Icon just as the man finished up with a mech. Bullets pinged off of her skin as the enemy infantry decided she was enough of a threat, and she idly threw a low-power beam sweeping behind her near ground level, taking out their legs.

”Long time no see, old friend,” she said with a grin over the visible part of her lower face. She nodded at the rest nearby. ”I see you've gathered quite the party together. Where do you need me?”

With the Hounds disarmed; Lyger leapt into action taking on several Hounds at a time. After hitting the first with a stiff shot to the face, another of the Hounds grabbed him from behind and held him for the others to get their licks in. However, Lyger twisted and spun to the left, getting free from the Hound’s grip, then planted him with a reverse kick to the chin that snapped the man’s neck back and sent him reeling. Before the Hound could recover, an open hand chop to the throat left him writhing in pain as he struggled to get air into his lungs.

Suddenly another black clad man jumped into the fray right out of nowhere. The man was dressed differently than the rest of the Hounds, he didn’t appear to be wearing the body armor that the others had been wearing, and his face was covered by a balaclava. As the new arrival turned to face Lyger, the young hero it him with an open palm thrust to the chest, and as the man was knocked backward, a hard right hand that sent the man crashing to the pavement.

However, the distraction was all that the Hounds had needed. When Lyger turned to face his enemies, he found that several had been able to reclaim their assault rifles and were leveling them directly at the hero’s head.

...Suddenly the fallen man in black took Lyger down with a leg sweep and jumped on top of him.

The rifles remained silent. “Yeah! Kick his ass!” a sole Hound called out.

A grapple line shot out from between the pair, and before the pack of Hounds could realize what exactly was happening they had begun to swing away.

“Thanks for the cheap shot.” Grumbled the Vigilante’s voice synthesizer.

“How was I supposed to know it was you?”

“I’m sorry I don’t wear easily identifiable cat ears…”

The staccato of rifle fire began and Isaac felt the heat and pressure of a single shot embedding itself in the back of his shoulder. The Vigilante emitted a low growl as he suddenly found himself having to support his own weight as well as the feline hero’s with only one good arm, and dropped the black cat down an alleyway mid-swing.

“For the sake of his reputation I hope he lands on his feet…”

Isaac tucked his shoulder into the strap on his grapple gun and hit the button to Fast-retract and shot upwards rapidly towards a highrise building comprised of offices. Spotting the glass, the Vigilante tucked his body behind his good shoulder to brace for impact with the glass and clattered against the outside of the window.

Tempered impact resistant high rise glass.

Isaac swung back and jumped on the glass. Still nothing. He took a giant leap, and a volley of automatic rifle fire from below did the job for him and shattered the window, as he swung through the broken glass, hit the grapple release and landed flat on his back in the office on a floor covered with broken glass.

He rolled onto his front with a grunt and then the light hit him, brighter than the midday sun.

Searchlights from a helicopter as it hung just outside the window. Squinting around the helicopter he could make out armed personnel with automatic rifles.

He sighed and got to his feet, using a hand to avert the light.

How did it even come to this..?

---

Isaac steps back and looks at his pinboard, instant coffee in hand, in a sparsely decorated house. Paperwork containing locations of 4 different known S.T.R.I.K.E facilities - including schematics for two - newspaper articles on numerous attacks by this new group called the Hounds of Humanity all adorn the board.

“It’s ballsy. Even for me, it’s ballsy.” He mused whilst stirring. “I should tell someone what I’m doing. Maybe Big Blue?” He stirred whilst musing. And then talked the conversation through in his own head.

“You’re going to what..? I’m going to break into a classified government facility, devoted to this country’s defence and snoop around… What? Why..? Because I don’t trust that they’re really gone. I know they still exist later in the universe where I’m from and it doesn’t jive with me that they’re gone… Your universe..? Yes, don’t get sidetracked. I think they’ve either been taken over by an extremist splinter group within their own ranks or… Or..? Or they’ve faked their own destruction and are running a false flag operation against metahumans and the supernatural… Do you have any evidence..?”

And that’s what it always came back to.

“No. But it fits and it's exactly what I would have done. Fake my own death and attack when they think I’m gone.”

He took a big gulp of his rapidly cooling coffee.

“Shit.” He scowled. “I either implicate him in my own Federal crimes, or I risk getting myself killed and having nobody know why.”

He finished the mug.

“Guess I’d better not get dead then…”

---

The man in black kept to the walls, silently traversing the subterranean S.T.R.I.K.E facility looking for answers. Once again, navigating the darkness to find the light. It was abandoned, but that didn’t mean such a thing was safe. He’d have to be careful, but with any luck he might be able to turn up some kind of data point and…

...he felt a tug on his leg as he stumbled forward further into the darkness and into a wide room filled with office cubicles.

Little red lights winked alive, like the eyes of a beast. A beast that was protecting it’s home. First a half dozen, then ten, then a full score.

”Shit.”

Isaac quickly took three steps and darted into a cubicle. Grabbing a heavy table he turned it on it’s side just as everything seemed to burst into flame. Isaac was fired backwards into a wall along with the table, only the legs of which prevented him from getting crushed against the wall. He felt the air pressure change palpably and flicked a switch by his mouth, before the darkness engulfed him.

---

The light was blinding, but he couldn’t just stand here waiting to be shot. He ran forward in a serpentine fashion, expecting gunfire and leapt over the edge. He soared through the open helicopter and brought his boots up, kicking a robot out the other side and sending it plummeting to the street below. He found himself flat on his back in the helicopter - an increasingly common trend when he’d jump places - with a woman’s rather... robotic foot on his throat and looking down the business end of a large battle rifle.

"That wasn't exactly very nice of you to kick one of our passengers off our ride." The dark-skinned woman, complete with a robotic eye and a West African accent, glared angrily at him. "That robot cost more than your pitiful life’s worth, Houndshit.”

“Hound?” the Vigilante gurgled. “Oh thank fuck I landed in the one good guys chopper… I’m with the guy in the catsuit and the one with the pale blue cape flying around out there. They’ll vouch.”

They conferred for a moment before letting him up.

“I’ve got a supposed friendly with a gunshot wound to the shoulder, could use a hand patching him up.” The woman spoke to seemingly no one in particular, calling for morphine, which the black-clad hero waved off. "You know what to do. Quickly, now."

A robot soon rushed to the aid of the Vigilante, and worked on getting the bullet out from him. Metallic tines quickly found and extracted the bullet. The robot then applied the gauze than poured it on and taped it down.

“And I’ll grab one of those syrettes of adrenaline…” he said, as his eyelids had clearly started to fall heavy. He stuck himself and wheezed from the influence, his eyes widening immediately.

“Hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn! Sweetbabyjesusonajetski!”

“Cheers. And I’m off…” he grabbed a rope and swung out from the helicopter, neglecting to show any technique in fast-roping.

The woman looked out over the side, he was already gone. Back inside rested a roll of $5,000 in one hundred dollar bills, presumably for the robot.

"Well, nice knowing you.” The woman sighed, rolling her eyes before taking the cash wad and closing the doors of the Black Hawk.

---

Isaac stirred from the darkness seconds later to the scent of his own flesh cooking. He leant on the table to push it back and give him space only to be met with the sound of his flesh searing on the metal of the chair legs. He stopped in reaction to the sound and chose to push it forward with his shoes instead. Stepping out from behind the desks he could see that fire lit the underground office space. All of the tables were clear. Even if he hadn’t stumbled into the booby-trap rigging that had been left behind there was nothing here for him. What little air remained that could be funnelled into his lungs from his mask was hot. His skin was scorched and burned, for the most part it wouldn’t scar… eventually. This was due to his condition. But for now he was much the worse for wear. He hobbled away from the facility to consider his situation.

As he sucked fresh air when he reached the surface he was surprised to discover that there was no sign of the disturbance that had just occurred less than 3 minutes before.

---

Isaac stands in front of a pinboard again, a fresh mug of instant joe in his hands and his face full of more bitter disappointment than the tall mug contains.

What had he learned?

Since that day, another S.T.R.I.K.E facility had been looted by the Hounds who were growing in reputation and ranks. Who knows what they could have their hands on now. He’d gone on a “fact-finding mission” to the previous base and found it empty and booby-trapped.

Isaac furrowed his brow.

It wasn’t the first time Isaac had snooped around a S.T.R.I.K.E facility – abandoned or otherwise – and it occurred to him that there was a hell of a lot more explosive and security measures than he was used to seeing when he’d done this kind of thing before. Tripwires, numerous motion detectors, and quite frankly a ridiculous amount of explosive used to booby trap their abandoned facility.

Especially since it was empty. More than empty… completely cleaned out.

He scrawled on a fresh sheet of paper in an almost illegible, infantile script “Overkill in empty building” and began to think what it could mean. To him there was one of two conclusions, which he laid out with the next sheet.

“One: S.T.R.I.K.E used extreme defensive measure, Hounds disarmed, looted facility, then re-activated booby trap.”

He stepped back. It still felt incomplete. He added “And then added more explosive after looting”.

Then on a fresh sheet of paper he gave his alternate theory.

“Two: Inside job. Everything already looted. Extreme measures taken to ensure anybody snooping would tell no tales.”

He stepped back. He knew which theory he felt held more water.

Everything was happening so fast too. The second S.T.R.I.K.E raid, wide spread public acts of violence against magical and metahuman people and known places of interest, just this morning there’d been an attack on Lost Haven University – his own school. If not for the Hounds already being a problem he may well have been on campus, since he’d involved in a lot of classes with heavy online weighting which meant he seldom had to attend lectures and classes in person. So much was happening so fast. A bomb wouldn’t keep people out of S.T.R.I.K.E facilities forever… these were still crime scenes, even if the pandemonium left few people high ranking enough to investigate since the crimes involved the Government organization S.T.R.I.K.E.

He stepped back to his alternate theory sheet of paper and added on the end: “Until it’s too late to stop them.”

“I need intel. Not S.T.R.I.K.E, this group themselves. The Hounds. I need an ‘in’. And fast.”

He looked to the rest of his pinboard. He had articles and photos of raids from the past week. Targeted incidents. He noticed a recurring trend.

“Supporting vehicles.” He pulled a photo off the pinboard. “With serious antennaes.”

He returned the photo to the board and downed the coffee and sighed deeply.

He knew exactly what he had to do, but wished he had more time to plan it. This was the second time in only a few days that he’d have to act on very limited information. Too limited. The last time he went out this blind it left him with skin as crispy as a roast chicken and apparently somewhat scorched lungs. But he knew there was little choice. Time would be at a premium.

---

The Vigilante stood atop a roof and looked out on the mayhem below with a sullen expression. He hated this – prioritising the van over the poor bastard the Hounds were tormenting below, but that van could have answers which mean they’re the last people to suffer. After all, they’re doing this everywhere, even if he stopped them from this atrocity, countless more were happening in the city which he could do nothing about. He couldn’t be everywhere.

The justification sounded right in his head, but it still tasted like ash in his throat.

…or maybe his lungs still just hadn’t finished healing from last week yet.

He heard a scream, then a burst of rifle fire. He closed his eyes briefly in self-disgust and then it happened. The Hounds watching the van went to support the others in the building.

If nothing else he was in the right mood to deal with any resistance he found in the van…

He grapple-lined down and hugged the stayed close to the side of the van. The getaway driver was looking out the passenger side window in interest. It was the final opening Isaac needed.

The Vigilante went to open the door and found it locked, he swiftly shattered the window and grabbed the driver by the head and neck, dragging him out of the driver’s seat. The driver managed to fire off two aimless rounds, which got the attention of the others in the building, but he had time now. He disarmed the driver, flipped the lock and forced compliance from the two Hounds in the back of the van under threat of the pistol. He quickly turned the key in the ignition and got to work putting space between the other Hounds and the van. He took a right turn at the first intersection he came to and opened up the engine.

Starting to feel desperation, the Hounds tried to jump him at the next set of lights. Isaac kept the pedal down, and swerved violently to keep them off balance. The first attacker wound up in the passenger seat, where Isaac shot him in the shin, elbowed him in the face, before opening the passenger door and pushing him out. He glared at the remaining Hound in the back and levelled the gun sight on him. The Hound flinched and raised his arms instinctively to protect his face. Isaac quickly pulled over to the side of the road and jumped in the back, pistol-whipping the final Hound into unconsciousness and dumping him out onto the street.

“Must be a tech specialist,” he thought. “Soft.”

He quickly looked at the equipment and paperwork in the back of the van.

Undamaged and all present. He had the keys. Now he could see everything these lunatics had planned.

A smile finally crossed his face, for the first time in days. Things had gotten even worse in the last few days. It was spiralling, and building momentum. But finally he saw a patch of blue sky over the horizon.

He drove the van to the parking garage where he had a waiting car. He loaded paperwork and computer equipment into the car, taking care to copy down the URL of the dark web site that was jumbled across the top of the browser in case it didn’t survive the transit.

Less than an hour later the car was in the driveway of one of several safehouses he had scattered across Lost Haven. All rental properties paid by direct deposit accounts under numerous pseudonyms, the money filtered into those accounts by numerous tributaries set in countries with no extradition treaties to either the United States or his other home.

Isaac moved quickly, pulling reams of documentation and electronic equipment from the car and rushing it inside.

This was the vulnerable point… but it wouldn’t last long at that.

He grabbed the last of it and rushed it into a closet, with all of its walls painted orange.

He rushed out of the closet and into the kitchen pantry. He heaved a number of 20 kilogram sacks of sugar into a small walk floor-to-ceiling cupboard, sweat starting to bead on his brow.

This was the final precaution. Any tracking devices were about to be rendered moot by what would follow.

He walked back into the orange closet, checked one last time that he had everything, and feeling confident that he was indeed prepared he flicked the switch…

5 seconds later Isaac was taking the paper and computer gear out of a walk in robe – all its walls painted sky blue – halfway around the world at his large home in Cooktown, Terraria.

He sighed at the discovery that the laptop computer he brought was wiped, having not survived the transit, but felt reassured that it meant any little tricks or devices the Hounds may have hidden also wouldn’t have made the distance either.

Still… that’s why he brought the paper. And that’s why he wrote down the URL. Given enough time, he had some tech on-hand that could hack and crack fairly sophisticated encryption, and worst case scenario he even had some connections who could dig even deeper and further than that.

He had no idea if he had the time for that though…

Looking to waste no more than necessary he booted up his own computer and turned on his VPN scrambler.

Whilst he wasn’t the most tech savvy person himself, he had… confiscated… some high end gear from a rather pasty looking individual who called himself The White Rabbit. The White Rabbit laundered money electronically for many individuals of ill repute, not only in Terraria but in a surprisingly large number of nations right across the world.

The White Rabbit also didn’t like being punched in the face very much.

The two came to a mutually beneficial arrangement.

The White Rabbit “disappeared”, the Vigilante kept his name quiet – the man was a loose end for a LOT of dangerous people – the White Rabbit didn’t go to prison. And the Vigilante received a lot of wonderful new toys that could help keep an identity concealed over multiple countries.

Isaac was surprised to realise just how simple and user friendly a lot of these devices were to use, which just happened to use algorithms, electronic data transfers and concepts that he could barely wrap his head around. He had figured that in some ways the man must have his own kind of mental “superpower” which would allow him to operate such brilliant cutting edge technology…

…truth was the genius was in creating the technology in the first place and just simply letting it do the job it was designed to do.

Sometimes these things were just a whole lot simpler than you would think.

Having now finished booting up, Isaac opened the browser and clicked in the URL bar; pulling out the now wrinkled piece of paper with the website. Staring down at the paper and copying the URL digit-for-digit at a slow, methodical pace and hoped his VPN scrambler would be up for the task.

Even though he suspected the Hounds were indeed an off-shoot of S.T.R.I.K.E, they certainly weren’t operating as a Government based organization. As a result they may work off book and not care about numerous global treaties and information trading agreements he often relied upon to conceal himself. Would this organization care about encroaching on sovereign nation’s spaces in the virtual sphere?

He finished typing the URL and looked up. And a communication message board on the dark web for the hounds loaded before his eyes. He was now logged in.

He stood up and his chair flipped and crashed to the floor.

He was logged in. And not to the account that was in the van. The tech guy was logged in under some kind of registration number; H#18377. His computer had logged straight into the dark web site, and his name was apparently Vaccinator. His custom title claimed that he innoculated the people from the scourge of the unhuman and godless. His signature had a bible verse, and as he dug deeper into his own recent posts he became increasingly horrified.

This universe’s version of himself was something like a drill sergeant for these fundamentalist nutbags. Training them in combat. And maybe something even higher ranking than just a drill sergeant.

He stumbled onto schematics, layouts and concept-designs for the spires which were being planted in the attack at Lost Haven University. Suddenly he thought back a few months to when he first decided to enroll as an alibi for his “extracurricular activities”.

His friend and business advisor Tony Morris had told him he was already enrolled…

He dug deeper through the recent posts and stumbled upon a diagram for the blast radius on the attack on Philadelphia, a city he’d been to in just the last month! He remembered what the aliens had told him… about how he was pulled to this universe because despite his own lack of a destiny, he might find a pressure from this universe trying to force its own path. He remembered standing in the Dean’s office not understanding why he agreed to coach a new rugby program for the school.

A rugby program that would send him to the city that would be attacked for an annual tournament. A city where he would be given a device that would allow him to teleport between locations, which would give him the safe place to investigate these Hounds after he’d stolen their intel.

A Dean that wouldn’t survive the LHU attack…

Isaac felt he could almost see the invisible strings that bound this universe, pulling him this way and that to bring him to this exact point.

He looked around the house, the house so similar to his real home back in his own world and started to notice the small differences he’d skimmed over in his desire for a place to live his own life. He picked up a picture of this world’s version of him and his father. Smiling, happy. He looked closer and saw he was wearing a crucifix.

He’d never paid that much attention to the photos because the smiling faces reminded him of what he’d never have. Not only because his father was dead, but because he’d never had a good relationship with his old man even when he was alive.

When he first saw these pictures he’d felt pleasantly warmed by the thought that at least in this world his old man was a decent enough person that he wanted to be close to his son. Perhaps they’d bonded over religion. It was conceivable, Isaac himself had walked away from his father’s efforts to get the son to buy into religion. Because it seemed like it rested on a bed of guilt he should feel for his mother’s passing. Or perhaps father and son had bonded over shared beliefs of another kind. Perhaps they saw eye to eye in many of the ways that made Isaac feel his father was really a very cold man. Still photographic smiles could often mask that.

Then he noticed something else. The pair of them were in every photo in the house.

Isaac’s father had died when he was 18. That means he’d been living in a state of arrested development, where there was no image of the man since then. About a decade ago. Almost like he’d been trying to live in a memory. A boy who never grew up.

Isaac returned to the recent posts and saw lesson plans for training Hound soldiers. He saw his own styles and techniques being bastardized and taught to a fundamentalist army. He kept reading on and found it fortunate that this world’s version of himself did not seem to be as advanced as a fighter. Perhaps because he was a teacher? Maybe as a communicator he spent too long trying to figure out how to explain how to do what he learned that it hurt his own development as a natural fighter. It still bothered him to see his own methods being taught - he even saw blatant mimicry in the equipment they and gear they took and used, with similar clothing and flashbang ordnance, which he had always favoured.

He thought back to what gave him his initial hunch that S.T.R.I.K.E and the Hounds were related in the first place.

“It’s what I would have done.”

He hadn’t wanted to hit someone this badly for a long while. His hatred boiled over with the fervour that can only come when your anger is directed at the man looking back at you in the mirror.

“At least I’ll know what I’m walking into…”

Isaac spent the next two days scouring the dark web board for whatever Intel he had access to. He loaded up his pack, stuffed more sugar in the wardrobe and swapped his Cooktown home’s sky blue closet for a lime green one. He was in his French Quarter safehouse on Lafayette.

He now knew what he was fighting. He knew his enemy, and he was finally ready.

---

Isaac swung down from the helicopter with his one good arm. The light from the helicopter helping him find Lyger again.

“I trust you landed OK… Whaddid I miss?’

---

---

Lyger c-o- @nitemare shape
Cypher and Eagle Eye c-o- @AbandonedIntel