Turning on his heels, about-face style, a medium heighted, pudgy skinned man entered the door to an office, one with a 'Do not disturb' sign placed squarely on the small window that peered inside. He walked over to the liquor-ridden desk that sat at the far end of the room, and the man who sat behind it, near-sleep, and slammed a stack of papers down in front of him with a loud thwack! Rather than becoming startled, the scruffy, jet-haired man behind the desk simply rose his head to eye level with the veritable stack of shit that was just dumped on him.
"The hell is this crap?" he asked, sifting through it half-heartedly. "Last I heard I wouldn't have to deal with you people anymore. Can't I fucking wallow without you coming after me?"
"Come on now, Wolf. You know better than that. It's the curse of being the only man for the job." The other man said, circling behind Wolf and jerking the curtains open, flooding the otherwise dank and dark office with light, to which Wolf flinched, but didn't bother straining to see. "Jesus, you smell like shame and booze. Not quite the war hero I remember. Or well, maybe you're far too unchanged."
"Yeah well I have you to thank for that. And speaking of this shit, why the hell am I the only man for the job? Last I recall I wasn't the only member of Templar.... or has something changed that I haven't been informed of, Grey Fox?" The last two syllables flicked from his tongue like venom.
"I probably deserve to be called that more than you know. The past can never just stay the past, huh? Hell, it's the curse of all of our work. No one said protecting Mankind would be easy, you know." Fox said, fixing Wolf's disgruntled half-on, half-off tie. "As for Templar? The others are still with us, some more so than others, but with us regardless. And trust me, if they weren't all neck deep in their own cans of shit on the other side of the universe, we would have went to them first. They are far less of a hassle to find."
Wolf rose from his seat, padding off his psychoreflective exosuit and lighting a cigarette(albeit without a lighter), examining the paperwork closer.
"Well shit, I suppose you weren't kidding when you said I was the only man for the job. The Well, huh?"
"You've been there and come back more times than any of us, so obviously. The paperwork will fill you in on the exact details, but there is a 'mirror' planet there. A lot like Earth, though it's more out of whack than anything I've ever come across. We found it totally by accident, the damn thing didn't even have a designation in the multiversal database. We've detected everything from dragons to fucking trans-galactic warlords all vying for power there. Some of them are pretty dangerous. Templar dangerous. We need you to go act enforcer-investigator. Figure out why the planet never showed up in our database, and put down any immediate alien or inhuman threats you find. You already know we're not really asking, but we need you on this one, Gun. I wouldn't have come here personally if we didn't. If one of them gets through us, it would be a second war."
Gun cleared his throat and ran his hands through his hair before looking out of the window to the sprawling metropolis that stretched out before him, exhaling a pall of smoke. "Fine. I won't put up a fight about it. But you remember how this works, I'm going alone."
"Of course you are. You work how you want as long as the job gets done. Suit up, and keep us updated."
***
Hundreds of miles above Neo-Earth, a shooting star soared, though it wasn't one made of broken childrens dreams or space debris. It was agent Lone Wolf, moving at hyper-speeds on sails of psychic force aimed directly for landfall. While he may not have been a meteor, he sure hit the ground like one, crashing through the desert-canyons rock formations with virtually no resistance, the impact force buckling the earth beneath him, sending up fifteen feet high walls of debris and shrapnel, his fall cushioned by a mixture of his own enhanced physiology and the sudden influx of S Cells, forming the Earth Breaker.
Se.Ra.Ph. immediately initiated its protocol, expanding its metaphysical influence across the land, edifying all within its reach, only enhanced further by his own extrasensory faculties. Digital overlaying panels of techno jargain flashed in imaginative vectors before Earth Breakers aerodynamic helm, feeding him atmospheric and biological data as though he were a sink. And dammit if it Fox wasn't right. The dry-land practically reeked of metahumanity. If something wasn't already here, it was damn sure coming. He checked his loadout -his nanogun magnetically attached to a panel on his back, a particle beam sprayer atyached to the back of the waist the M.I.E holstered within a hidden compartment on his right leg, and various particle sabers set within hidden charging ducts within the wrist compartments.
He cracked his neck, mental impulses sifting through the veritable matrix of code that connected him to the Ecclesiarchy's Quantum Forge, and wrung his hands out sparingly before kneeling low so his armored digits could feel the earth. To an onlooker, it would be a scene straight out of a damn Quentin Terentino movie.
"Beware, beware, O' bastards of the cosmos. Of the arrival of the Gunslinger, the cock of his hammer, and the smell of gunpowder."
Like this, he waited
"The hell is this crap?" he asked, sifting through it half-heartedly. "Last I heard I wouldn't have to deal with you people anymore. Can't I fucking wallow without you coming after me?"
"Come on now, Wolf. You know better than that. It's the curse of being the only man for the job." The other man said, circling behind Wolf and jerking the curtains open, flooding the otherwise dank and dark office with light, to which Wolf flinched, but didn't bother straining to see. "Jesus, you smell like shame and booze. Not quite the war hero I remember. Or well, maybe you're far too unchanged."
"Yeah well I have you to thank for that. And speaking of this shit, why the hell am I the only man for the job? Last I recall I wasn't the only member of Templar.... or has something changed that I haven't been informed of, Grey Fox?" The last two syllables flicked from his tongue like venom.
"I probably deserve to be called that more than you know. The past can never just stay the past, huh? Hell, it's the curse of all of our work. No one said protecting Mankind would be easy, you know." Fox said, fixing Wolf's disgruntled half-on, half-off tie. "As for Templar? The others are still with us, some more so than others, but with us regardless. And trust me, if they weren't all neck deep in their own cans of shit on the other side of the universe, we would have went to them first. They are far less of a hassle to find."
Wolf rose from his seat, padding off his psychoreflective exosuit and lighting a cigarette(albeit without a lighter), examining the paperwork closer.
"Well shit, I suppose you weren't kidding when you said I was the only man for the job. The Well, huh?"
"You've been there and come back more times than any of us, so obviously. The paperwork will fill you in on the exact details, but there is a 'mirror' planet there. A lot like Earth, though it's more out of whack than anything I've ever come across. We found it totally by accident, the damn thing didn't even have a designation in the multiversal database. We've detected everything from dragons to fucking trans-galactic warlords all vying for power there. Some of them are pretty dangerous. Templar dangerous. We need you to go act enforcer-investigator. Figure out why the planet never showed up in our database, and put down any immediate alien or inhuman threats you find. You already know we're not really asking, but we need you on this one, Gun. I wouldn't have come here personally if we didn't. If one of them gets through us, it would be a second war."
Gun cleared his throat and ran his hands through his hair before looking out of the window to the sprawling metropolis that stretched out before him, exhaling a pall of smoke. "Fine. I won't put up a fight about it. But you remember how this works, I'm going alone."
"Of course you are. You work how you want as long as the job gets done. Suit up, and keep us updated."
***
Hundreds of miles above Neo-Earth, a shooting star soared, though it wasn't one made of broken childrens dreams or space debris. It was agent Lone Wolf, moving at hyper-speeds on sails of psychic force aimed directly for landfall. While he may not have been a meteor, he sure hit the ground like one, crashing through the desert-canyons rock formations with virtually no resistance, the impact force buckling the earth beneath him, sending up fifteen feet high walls of debris and shrapnel, his fall cushioned by a mixture of his own enhanced physiology and the sudden influx of S Cells, forming the Earth Breaker.
Se.Ra.Ph. immediately initiated its protocol, expanding its metaphysical influence across the land, edifying all within its reach, only enhanced further by his own extrasensory faculties. Digital overlaying panels of techno jargain flashed in imaginative vectors before Earth Breakers aerodynamic helm, feeding him atmospheric and biological data as though he were a sink. And dammit if it Fox wasn't right. The dry-land practically reeked of metahumanity. If something wasn't already here, it was damn sure coming. He checked his loadout -his nanogun magnetically attached to a panel on his back, a particle beam sprayer atyached to the back of the waist the M.I.E holstered within a hidden compartment on his right leg, and various particle sabers set within hidden charging ducts within the wrist compartments.
He cracked his neck, mental impulses sifting through the veritable matrix of code that connected him to the Ecclesiarchy's Quantum Forge, and wrung his hands out sparingly before kneeling low so his armored digits could feel the earth. To an onlooker, it would be a scene straight out of a damn Quentin Terentino movie.
"Beware, beware, O' bastards of the cosmos. Of the arrival of the Gunslinger, the cock of his hammer, and the smell of gunpowder."
Like this, he waited
