Somewhere in West Virginia, the ruins of a long since ended battle.
At the location of a battle between a once great superhero and an even greater group of supervillains, Axel was paying his respects to the dead. With a bouquet of flowers and a soft prayer, he sat there in front of the grave with one hand draped over his knee. A loaf of bread in the other. "I wonder what it was like to be a hero during that age, musta been some kind of wild ride, eh? Heck, I don't even know your name. The grave's been vandalized, I can only make out a couple E's here and there." Taking a bite of the bread he leaned forward, tucking his leg underneath him to get a better reach. He tried to wipe off some of the spraypaint with his bare hand, but that was obviously fruitless. Axel swallowed the mouthful of bread and immediately stuffed his face again. Sitting there in silence, just staring at the grave.
There was a long moment of raw untainted silence, some off connection between a man of the modern day and a man of day's past. Hard to explain the feeling to those who haven't experienced it, but it's something along the lines of daydreaming. But your daydreams portray the life of the one you're thinking about, only by chance. It's truly serendipitous to experience.
With the sound of shoes crunching on gravel and dry earth, the silence broke. Axel laid his half eaten loaf of bread on the gravestone and gave a little nod to it, standing up and brushing himself off. The sound of footsteps grew into the sound of a group of footsteps, sounding like at least five men were nearby. A voice called out, deep and raspy, obviously a facade to make him sound more intimidating. "Looks like you came to the wrooong neighborhood buddy. Ain't nobody cares about that corpse's tombstone anymore, what're you doing around these parts?"
Turning around, he found that his estimates were not only widly incorrect, but comically hopeful. What was the sound of five pairs of feet was actually the sound of nine very orderly men, wearing ridiculous clothing that was apparently indicative of their abilities. This sort of peacocking was frustrating to Axel, who pressed his hands together. The handle of a blade forming between them. "Why do heroes and villains do that? Wear your crest but don't ruin your garb with gaudy colors." The handle erupted into a massive sword, and a suit of armor clasped around his body with numerous clanks and screeches of metal scraping against metal. "I am Axel Legrand, and you have decidedly stepped towards a man of great passion and prowess. I shall give you to the count of exactly twelve before I unleash hell upon you."
The group of men and one woman, began powering up. "One." Pleasant, they're supers. "Two." Two men's hands burst into flames, one was blue flame and the other was a conventional albeit more violent red flame. "Three." Another man started shaking violently, spines growing out of his shoulders and his mucles growing more noticeable. "Four." The girl floated upwards and sparks of electricity arced from her eyes. "Five." Three men withdrew handguns, another withdrew a katana. "Six." Cliche. "Seven." The final man did nothing, he was the one who had taunted him. "Eight." As a whole they seemed like a respectable team, for street levels. "Nine." The largest one, adorned with spines and powerful muscles rushed him, bursting into a sprint and slamming his fist into the side of his helmet. Forcing Axel to turn his head slightly to the right, though he did not move from his stance. "Ten."
The obviously shocked metahuman staggered backwards, Axel slid his sword over his back and into the cloth band that wrapped around him. He realized that he would kill them if he used his sword. "Eleven." The spiked man brought back another punch and aimed it towards his face once again, a resounding thud of flesh and bone striking metal echoed across the field. Again, to no avail. "Twelve." Mr. Spikey's eyes widened and his pupils shrunk to pinpricks, he too realized something.
He realized just how badly he's fucked up.
With a wide haymaker, Axel slammed his clenched fist into the side of the spiked man's head. A colossal thud boomed from the collision, followed shortly by a much softer thump. The sound of the spiked man falling to the ground unconscious. "I gave you a chance, and you refused." Axel leaned down on one knee and placed his hand just above the spiked man's mouth, raising it back up for a moment. There was a bit of fog on the hand, good, he hadn't killed him. "Must have been at least one quarter my strength, I actually felt that second punch." The twin fire slingers loosed a wall of fire in his direction, Axel grabbed the first of the fallen and broke into sprint. "Disgraceful! You were about to kill your comrade!" There was obviously no cooperation between them as a whole, they didn't hesitate. Axel spun and threw the now spikeless man away a few yards, not stopping his sprint for but a second. The two flamecasters did not let up, continuing their scalding assault.
It was comically obvious their strategy, but it was also poor. Attacking him in their most coordinated pairs, as the remainder stayed behind. Axel's not brilliant, but he's educated enough to realize simple battle strategy when he sees it. The flames wrapped around his body and blinded him for a moment, he covered his face with his hands and made a sharp turn towards the burning pair. Hoping that his idea would work, he turned his head downwards and brought his hands out to the side. Bursting through the flames he clotheslined the pair of them, slamming his forearms into their respective throats. This laid both of them out in the dirt.
"So, who's next? I'm assuming the man with the katana?" The sound of gunfire filled the air and he spun around, realizing that he had put his back to the three men with guns. He ducked down and grappled the ankles of the two fire users, one of them groaned slightly. "Hey, you, catch." With little effort on his part he threw the two of them at the trio of gunmen, the one on the right dodged with a roll but the other two were caught quite off guard. The four of them flopped onto the ground in a cloud of dust.
From behind he actually felt pain, like he had been cut. "What?" Twisting around with a spinning backhand he tried to knock away the one who had attacked him. It was the katana user, his blade was wrapped with lightning from the woman. She had superheated his sword? He cut through Axel's armor as though it were butter, he hadn't even noticed until he felt a wound on his back. If his sword hadn't been on his back, that attack might have severed his spine."By my name, what kind of strategy is this?"
A bullet sailed past his head, the katana weilder brought his blade up sideways and stopped it dead. "Glorious." Axel withdrew his blade from the cloth and waved it around a bit, noticing there were no chinks in the blade. The gunman stopped firing, a nod from their apparent leader made sure of that. The katana weilder and his lightning assistant made a bullrush towards Axel, who turned his blade flat and brought it in a wide arc. Turning it from a cutting edge into an effective club, the katana weilder was apparently not expecting the weight, as he lost his stance immediately from the strike. Though he had blocked it, his sword bent from the force. "Heating up a blade may work for strikes, but you'll find that a heated barrier only crumbles faster."
Axel released the grip on his blade and caught it with his left hand, bringing his right hand upwards and his left arm backards. Making it look like he was going to swing the sword. The swordsman focused his attention on the sword and was struck in the side of the head with Axel's right hand cross. "Keep your guard u- Oh, there you go. Another one out cold." The three gunmen were all on their feet again, Axel grinned and spun around. At this point he was sweating pretty profusely, the wound on his back was not noticeably deep, but it was deep enough to cause significant blood loss.
"Just a few to go!" He spun the sword around and lodged it in the cloth again, barreling forward at the trio of gunmen who were panicking at this point. Firing haphazardly in his direction, a couple stray bullets actually struck him and dented his armor. Just before he reached the trio he dipped down and brought his right leg forward, sliding a bit on his left leg. With a bit of effort he slammed his foot into the middle man's chest, sending him flying and heaving with pain. He dropped his leg and leaped at the left one, using his weight as a battering ram. Finally, he threw the left man at the right man, finishing off the trio by knocking him out with his companion.
Now it was just the lightning woman and the man.
Legrand stood up straight and rolled his arms in their sockets, loosening up slightly. "I can't jump, but you're going to have a real big problem real quick missy." He dropped down and dug his hands into the ground, lifting up a huge slab of dirt and gravel from the ground. Slightly moist, it held its shape pretty well. "Duck." She did not take heed, as Axel hurled a slab of dirt in her general direction. It slammed into her full force, knocking her to the ground and halfway burying her in itself. "I warned you."
The last man was all that stood, his costume included a cloth face mask that hid all emotion from view. "Now, you're all that's left. Right?"
Comically, he fainted. Not even in a respectable way, as though he had been hit with a stray bullet or something. No, he just fell face first into the dirt. Apparently overwhelmed with the idea that his companions were defeated, or perhaps it was a ruse, so he wouldn't have to fight Axel. Either way, he fainted, and Axel began laughing. He laughed so hard that he started to cough, and he himself fell forward. Not all the way to the ground, but to his knees. Axel clapped his hands, removing his armor. A large quantity of blood splashed out, his wound was pretty bad. That was more than enough excitement for one day, he stood back up and ripped off his shirt. He flattened it out and wrapped it around his body to properly cover the wound, deciding at this point that a hospital visit would not be unreasonable.
