Carlos Andres walked out onto the balcony of the Presidential Palace and pulled back the hood of his robe. A deep frown crossed his face as the crowd fell into silence. "It is with great sorrow that I address you all today. The President, the Vice President and much of his staff have been ruthlessly cut down by a nuclear weapon detonated under water several miles off our coast. The President and his people were on the Presidential yacht discussing affairs of state when a rogue assassin, using a weapon procured from a vile rogue nation, struck them down. Not only must we deal with this but also potential fall out. We have consistent, accurate information that suggests that terrible act was initiated by the very Drug Lords our bold President has been fighting these last few weeks."
He paused and looked at the international cameras. "Colombia bleeds today, it bleeds the blood of its bold leadership, it bleeds the blood of a frightened and wounded people...but we will not fall. Already the ladder of power is in motion, a new President has been appointed with emergency powers and he has ordered me to immediately move to establish nation wide martial law. Under his orders I will execute the destruction of the Drug Lords, once and for all. It is with great sadness that I initiate this order for Martial Law but I assure you it is both necessary and temporary. While we begin our assault on the Drug Lords, wherever they may be found, we are launching an investigation into where they procured the nuclear weapon...and where they have procured their other weapons as well. The acting President is sending requests to those foreign nations who have been kind to us in the past with calls for emergency aide."
Carlos Andres nodded a little and spoke once more after a brief pause. "We ask that you pray for us in this dire time." He said and walked back into the palace. He pulled the hood over his head, a slow smile growing over his face. Already his forces were sweeping across the country and securing vital elements of the nation's infrastructure to secure power...all in the name of ensuring security. It was now a matter of destroying the drug lords, eventually killing the emergency President and surviving the assault he knew was coming. Venezuela, heroes from around the world...they would all figure it out soon enough.
Good...
Battles began in the streets of Colombia's towns and villages and Colombia's armed forces, each individual equipped with a new black band around their right arm, unleashed their fury on the Drug Cartels. Simple raids became running gun battles in the streets. Colombia's military was not exceptionally powerful but nor was it incapable of defending the country either against Drug Lords or potential invasion. Of course The Shogun won't dare use a full military force, it would be too easy to turn the international community against her. She'll come with small private forces, plausible deniability. Others will come in the name of peace and justice. Let them all come, let everyone stand against me...so that I may learn their weaknesses.
"So it has begun," Cydrus said observing it from afar, "But the question remains. Who do I side with? I cannot reveal my true identity to them if it turns out I have misplaced my judgement. And surely this is a power grab, my resources tell me that it must be. And it makes sense. Although, perhaps more work should have been put into it. It was clever, but not enough. Now to make my decision. Who shall the Demon Faced side with? That's what they're going to call my alternate identity now. Demon faced."
Now wearing a lifelike demonic mask, a strange red suit, a katana and a wakizashi. Of course he had his usual hidden tricks but now he was a demon faced samurai like warrior. Looking into the distance he waited for a true opponent to arrive. Someone he could challenge fairly.
Carlos Andres walked out onto the balcony of the Presidential Palace and pulled back the hood of his robe. A deep frown crossed his face as the crowd fell into silence. "It is with great sorrow that I address you all today. The President, the Vice President and much of his staff have been ruthlessly cut down by a nuclear weapon detonated under water several miles off our coast. The President and his people were on the Presidential yacht discussing affairs of state when a rogue assassin, using a weapon procured from a vile rogue nation, struck them down. Not only must we deal with this but also potential fall out. We have consistent, accurate information that suggests that terrible act was initiated by the very Drug Lords our bold President has been fighting these last few weeks."
He paused and looked at the international cameras. "Colombia bleeds today, it bleeds the blood of its bold leadership, it bleeds the blood of a frightened and wounded people...but we will not fall. Already the ladder of power is in motion, a new President has been appointed with emergency powers and he has ordered me to immediately move to establish nation wide martial law. Under his orders I will execute the destruction of the Drug Lords, once and for all. It is with great sadness that I initiate this order for Martial Law but I assure you it is both necessary and temporary. While we begin our assault on the Drug Lords, wherever they may be found, we are launching an investigation into where they procured the nuclear weapon...and where they have procured their other weapons as well. The acting President is sending requests to those foreign nations who have been kind to us in the past with calls for emergency aide."
Carlos Andres nodded a little and spoke once more after a brief pause. "We ask that you pray for us in this dire time." He said and walked back into the palace. He pulled the hood over his head, a slow smile growing over his face. Already his forces were sweeping across the country and securing vital elements of the nation's infrastructure to secure power...all in the name of ensuring security. It was now a matter of destroying the drug lords, eventually killing the emergency President and surviving the assault he knew was coming. Venezuela, heroes from around the world...they would all figure it out soon enough.
Good...
Battles began in the streets of Colombia's towns and villages and Colombia's armed forces, each individual equipped with a new black band around their right arm, unleashed their fury on the Drug Cartels. Simple raids became running gun battles in the streets. Colombia's military was not exceptionally powerful but nor was it incapable of defending the country either against Drug Lords or potential invasion. Of course The Shogun won't dare use a full military force, it would be too easy to turn the international community against her. She'll come with small private forces, plausible deniability. Others will come in the name of peace and justice. Let them all come, let everyone stand against me...so that I may learn their weaknesses.
47 stood a few feet behind the Tyrant. He wore a heavy bulletproof jacket under his usual clothes, had a belt containing explosives and his signature weapons around his waist, and a lead-lined duffel bag containing ten items he was prepared to use in the event of an attack. His wizened charge was speaking, but 47 didn't need to hear it. Whatever his motives here are, it's not loyalty to Carlos Andres' cause. But assisting that cause he was, and would remain until the circumstances changed. Of course, that was not the only reason he was here. Where there was conflict, there was STRIKE. And they owed him a month or two's worth of pain.
"...satellite telemetry disrupted from 1400 hours until.."
Ivana set at the end of the long wooden table. Leaned back in her chair, boots resting on the table with her ankles crossed, she allowed the information from the advisers and chiefs of staff to wash over her until she had heard all she needed to hear.
Then she help up a hand. The room fell silent.
"We act now. Not wait for information. Nuke powerful weapon. If is more than one.. terrorist, supervillain, whoever, could use on Venezuela. Many mutant die. No. We attack fast. Attack quick. Not give time for second attack."
Her attention turned to a tall, balding man with a thick mustache.
"Charles. Deploy army. Prepare invasion. Skysword, begin Apollo. Take all computer, all radar, all electronic in Columbia." Her gaze swept to the next individual in line. "Alexander. Mobilize reserve. All of reserve."
"Ma'am, that's six hundred and twenty thousand mutants."
"Yes. And I wish them all. They take defensive posture. Dig in; prepare elastic defense. It begin at border with Columbia. They also prepare 'staging area'. Invasion force need logistics. Support. Dragon, it have long tail."
"And navy. I wish LCS in littoral waters. Arsenal ships off coast. Ready for alpha strike."
Alpha Strike
Within an hour the mutant dragon begin to rumble and growl as it awoke. One hundred and fifty thousand mutants gathered at staging points at the border between Colombia and Venezuela. Another six hundred and twenty thousand in reserves were mobilized, guarding bridges, moving supplies, driving tankers of fuel and loading cargo planes filled with munitions.
The Orochi were summoned from their jungle temples and the Doghouse was activated. Hangers filled with lines of red clad warriors and mutant killing machines while their stealth insertion jets were fueled.
Drones made great lines, like flocks of enormous birds as they were armed and fueled, programmed and given last minute modifications.
Artillery guns were rolled into position, satellite data streaming targeting data to their onboard computers constantly. Arsenal ships filled with stacks of cruise missiles and layered with the latest in Venezuela stealth technology cut deep wakes through the sea as they moved into position behind a screen of littoral combat ships.
Then, like a great spring, they uncoiled, driving into the heart of Colombia.
Apollo was first. A coven of technopaths, their minds linked by psychic nodes, struck the Colombian cyberworld. Radar feeds were hijacked and forged to make Shogunate aircraft invisible.. but direct any Colombian fire into their own units. Cellphone networks were crashed. Bandwidth was hijacked for Shogunate communications. Electronic orders were forged, to send Colombian units into chaos and re-deploy them in positions catastrophic for the defense. Orders of battle, command and control data and even personal files were streamed non-stop to the commanders of the Shogunate forces.
In this moment of blindness and chaos the Arsenal ships begin to unleash their payloads. Cruise missile after cruise missile tore from their holds in pillars of smoke and fire. They screamed low under radar and through blind spots created by Apollo. Vital communication hubs, command centers and most of all: aircraft and tanks which were still in the hangers. Missile after missile pounded the core structures of the Colombian army, aiming to leave them uncommandable by destroying their commanders and communications and unmaneuverable by destroying their tanks and planes.
Then came the drone fleet. Twenty five thousand feet in the sky, they made the clouds rain hellfire missiles. Roads. Bridges. Train tracks. Ports. Runways. Any and every method of transportation that could be destroyed, was destroyed. With the aim being to prevent the Colombian army from contesting the air or seas, and to isolate the various components of its military, so that each platoon or battalion would be forced to fend for itself with no knowledge of their enemy, no orders, and no reinforcements or ability to maneuver.
Then, and only then, the ground forces were unleashed. Roads were simply created through inhospitable terrain by a squadron of mutant terraformers. Storms were summoned from the sky to drown defensive fortifications in rain and lightning, while artillery shells pounded them in relentless barrages and a select group of psychics turned brother against brother. Then, at the height of the chaos squads of Venezuelan soldiers would poor forth, often lead by a Doghouse killing machine.
Oh dear, I seem to have over estimated your subtlety. The Tyrant smiled and turned to the mysterious assassin at his side as they walked through the hallways of the palace. Information was streaming to him through his mutant's Technopathic ability. Since his speech he had remained tapped into his command and control network hidden in a secret location in the jungle. The information provided to him alerted him of the ongoing assault as The Shogun launched her invasion. A smile played across his face, he enjoyed a good challenge. "I need you to travel to the boarder, track down their technopaths and execute them without delay."
New battle plans were already mapped out in his mind. His army would be in shambles but that was ok, he had planned for a potential military intervention though he hadn't expected it to be so large. No Tyrant would be complete without backup plans. He reached out with his mind, seeking out emergency lines of communication. These too had been tapped into by the technopaths but much of their attention was on the primary systems, the lines everyone was aware of existing. The mutant Carlos Andres had been a powerful technopath but he wasn't infallible. Rather than tap into everything at once like the Shogun's team, he simply wrestled control of one line at a time. Each time he took control he sent coded messages to men and women staged in towns and villages, near military positions but not actually inside of them. The commands were simple, step in, take control of units and prepare for Operation Jungle Phantom.
It was a slow process, one that cost him thousands of important soldiers and hundreds of tanks and aircraft...but it was a process that began to work. The military splintered, its forces vanishing into the jungles of Colombia and fading away like ghosts. Some shed their uniforms and blended into villages and cities but most dispersed into the jungles and began moving towards hidden way points they had been given two days prior. There the shattered battalions would begin be able to establish a physical network of communication. Colombia's forces were not as electronically savvy as those in the first world and Venezuela. The Tyrant had taken advantage of this in setting up his plan. He knew if The Shogunate did launch a military campaign it would rely on jamming communications and conquering electronic battlefronts. The chaos that ensued was devastating in the first hour of their attack but it was not so destructive as to reduce his military forces to complete shambles. Specially selected commanders had been instructed on what to do should their communications begin to act strangely or shut down entirely.
Over one third of The Tyrant's military was dead or dying in the first hour but the casualties began to plummet after that as his emergency plan was enacted. There were other people with instructions in each location as well, but these were not military personnel. Instead they were men and women armed with old Polaroid cameras. They took pictures of the invading forces of Venezuela, of the dead and dying and the broken bridges and ruined houses. These images were smuggled north into Panama where they were scanned and uploaded to sites all over the internet. They were also taken by boat to locations in North America but that would take several hours...the plan for when the Shogun invariably shut down the internet access enjoyed by Panama as well. Word would get out in the most devastating form, photographs. The world would know that in Colombia's darkest hour Venezuela launched an invasion.
Good Ivana...Good. The Tyrant motioned for one of his aides to join him as he walked towards the lower levels of the palace. He handed the aide a flash drive and the man scampered away. That man would take the one mode of transportation still available, a taxi. That taxi would take him north until he was able to follow trails into Panama. Many hours later he would deliver the device to a man already waiting for him. That man would in turn put the flash drive into the hands of The Organization. Though the Tyrant had escaped The Organization he still knew their usefulness. He knew for example of the support they could lend him.
Finally the forces of Colombia that had followed his plan and survived began to move and fight in small units, communicating by coded messages written by hand and delivered by boys and girls recruited from the country side. These forces would turn Colombia into Vietnam, seeking to kill, maim and withdraw and repeat the process over and over again. More forces would join them if he could drag the battle out long enough, enraged civilians seeking vengeance. There were other forces too, those not under his control. These were the Drug Cartels and they too fought like ghosts, though their tactics were less refined. They began to confront Venezuelan convoys and attempt to destroy supply trucks and depots.
The Tyrant knew all of this without need for information, his war mapping had adjusted to new information already and his plans were once again evolving. He didn't have to beat Venezuela, he had to not lose. It was a war played out over and over again throughout history. The invader had to win, all the defender had to do was make it bloody, politically difficult and not die. They will come for me next, assassins and the like. It shall be enjoyable.It's too bad about losing all of those forces though. Another third will die in the fighting but I will have what I need to delay it nearly indefinitely.
"Alright, listen up!" Dog shouted in order to make his rough voice carry above the noise of the engine, as the APC the team sat in bounced along a border road between Venezuela and Colombia. He eyed up his team; the Doghouse being an eclectic mix under the best of circumstances, and the shifting nature of its roster meaning one could never be entirely sure which members would participate in a given mission. This could make tactical planning something of a crap shoot, but Dog had always preferred instinct and adaptability to trying to plan every possible contingency out to the nth degree. Besides, that also meant that an enemy would have that much more trouble in planning to counter them.
"Ain't a lotta intel on this op," he continued, "all we know is that someone blew up somethin' big next door, and we don't appreciate inconsiderate neighbors. So the bad news is that we don't know who or what we're looking fer." He paused briefly, his trademark sadistic grin appearing. "Good news is that means we get to be creative. Split up, or travel in pairs, but cover as much ground as ya can. Enjoy yerselves, but don't get caught up in slaughterin' grunts; look fer folks who seem like they know the score, get what ya can outta 'em, and then put 'em down fer good. Any other nerve clusters ya wanna hit are fair game, too: roads, utilities, phone lines, the works."
He paused again, this time to adjust the strap that held a Kalashnikov in place across one thick shoulder. For all that Dog preferred doing his fighting up close and personal, this was a major military action, and that meant some allowances had to be made for pragmatism. To that end, he had added the aforementioned rifle and a hip-holstered Desert Eagle .45 to his usual brace of vibranium knives and his own natural weapons. His vibranium-weave bodysuit was now covered by camouflage combat fatigues, and a pair of steel-toed boots completed the ensemble.
"Worst comes to worst, ya just start makin' noise. Kick up the brush, try to draw attention. See if ya can lure one o' the big guns outta hidin', and then turn the tables and kick their butts. The Shogun's sendin' the whole army in with us, so don't be shy about usin' that to yer advantage; folks are more likely to miss ya sneaking by when there's a squad o' infantry unloadin' on 'em. Bottom line; get yer sorry hides out there and do what ya do best. Happy huntin'." With that, the feral mutant gave his team a lazy salute, then turned and leapt from the back of the transport, his preternaturally powerful legs propelling him beyond the road and into the thick foliage of the jungle.
He was headed for the capital. Fighting for its own sake was all well and good, but the most effective strikes had purpose behind them, and that was what he was after. Whoever these mysterious aggressors were, they were likely to strike the capital at one point or another, so Dog was headed to where the bullets and blood were hopefully going to be flowing the thickest.
47 nodded politely, silencing his objections to field work and obeying his boss. He'd be crushed by the Shogunate anyways. Exiting, he found a car, and signaled to the soldier to take him to the streets.
After a long drive, they found a lone APC, with markings indicating an allegiance with the Shogunate. and 47 stepped out of the car, retrieving a shoulder-mounted missile launcher from the duffel. A HEAT round waited in the barrel. "Wait behind that corner. Keep my things safe and don't die." The soldier drove quickly, grateful to get out of the barcoded assassin's way.
47 moved a sight over his eye, watching the Alpha Dog's vehicle from a safe distance. The explosive fred, powerful enough to take out a tank with one hit.
"Whaddaya think, boys?" Eureka's screechy voice called out from the back of the large tanker plane, as she walked out from behind a few large crates- clad in her finest beach-wear. Purposefully, the swimsuit had been bought two sizes too small, a purchase made by the girl so that her appearance would be a bit more... appealing. However, whereas it would've brought on catcalls from miles around in Gothic City, the girl was told- swiftly- that she needed to change. Huffing, Eureka went back behind the crates, slipping back into her 'work clothes' before coming back out. "Didn't know I was flyin' with a bunch o' Virgin Maries."
"<Ta gueule.>" (Shut up) Gaston moaned, hunched over in a corner of the ship and hurling with every slight bit of turbulence.
"Good point, Gaston. What is our objective?" Shift, in the co-pilot's seat, tilted his head towards Butch- the only man actually qualified to fly the plane. Furrowing his brow, Butch responded, Texan accent thick in his speech.
"We're gonna fly down there, and take on this new ruler. Simple."
"Fighting with all those druggies?"
"Fighting with all those druggies."
Gill, the monstrous reptilian man that was often times so quiet, now spoke up, stained red white teeth showing as he spoke. "Why?"
Butch sighed, as he put the plane into a descent towards the ground outside of Bogota. "I don't like it as much as you assholes do, but you are, uh... What's the word..." He snapped his fingers a couple times before the word popped into his head. "Villains. So you gotta do villainous stuff. Like taking on guys that're taking on drug lords. Don't worry, we'll be shooting at the druggies, too, but-"
"It's us versus everyone." Shift slammed his head back against his seat, wondering how many times they'd be sent on these types of missions. Butch was silent for several moments, before he reached down and grabbed a small flask tucked away in his boot. Taking a swig, he recapped the drink, and put it back down.
"Us versus everyone."
Twenty Minutes Later- Outside Bogota
"Alright, we're beelining to the Capital building. Head o' the snake." Butch stood up from his chair, the plane now landed comfortably on the ground outside. The team was now a hustle, everyone equipping themselves with weaponry and strapping on thick ammo belts for the long road ahead. "Same formation as always. Gill in front. Shift takes the back, Rev-" Butch was suddenly interrupted by Gaston.
"<Regarder dehors!>" (Look outside.)
"We're using this formation because it works, Boulet." Gill's growl, something that already sounded menacing, now held hints of impatience within it.
"<Non non non, REGARDER DEHORS!>"
"Might I remind you that you are in no place to give orders, soldier?" Butch snarled at the Frenchman, pushing him against the wall of the tanker threateningly and drawing his Desert Eagle. However, before their conversation could continue, a sharp rap came at the door. Every member of the B List whipped around, weapons of choice now drawn- gun, claw, fist. Angry Spanish could be heard outside, probably asking to open the door. Silently, Butch motioned to Eureka, not wanting his plans to be heard from those outside.
"What?" The Clown-Girl almost shouted her mockery of Butch, an innocent grin on her face. However, she did walk over to the door, raising her baseball bat and nodding. Scoffing, the leader of the team proceeded to wait. Soon enough, counting could be heard.
"Uno!"
"Dos!"
"Tres!" Upon the third number, the door was kicked open, bright sunlight pouring into the dark plane. Eureka swung her bat, and it made contact- the first Colombian soldier almost immediately crumpling to the floor with an echoing crack. As soon as he fell, Butch identified the partner right behind him, who was now in shock at the sudden loss of his partner. Raising his pistol with speed that'd make Clint Eastwood shed a tear, Butch promptly fired three rounds into the chest of the soldier, watching him fall to the ground outside. With a wide grin, he promptly reloaded his pistol and stepped outside into the warzone.
She heard it first among the citizens of Caracas in the mutant haven. In many circles she blended, and for most of those it was all they talked about. With an explosion so close-by and a statement about a dead president, it was no wonder. They'd probably be aware of it in America too. It was damn near grounds for an international incident—if not absolute grounds already. Jones would want a report.
He'd get one, most likely. But not from the Rose.
The moment she heard, Anastasia engaged her hyper-mind. In less than a minute she'd formulated several plans coinciding with immediate and distant goals, and an alibi for each. In less than three, she engaged the occult strengths of the esoteric Zadkhiau to patch any significant holes in each. Finally she selected the plan in which she judged the best risk-reward balance for herself. Antonia would've been proud. (Well, depending on how things worked out, most likely.)
Beyond the initial reports, intel required a more drastic sphere-shift. The military sphere. Fortunately the Doghouse also lie in the heart of Caracas. And while the particulars of their mission remained classified, the mobilization of the entirety of a nation's combative forces would've been nearly impossible to keep under wraps.
Once again she saw use of the obscure art of Shatterpoint. Like many before her, as an initiate Nastya saw little benefit to its non-combative facets. But, on achieving her level of mastery, its place as an invaluable piece of her arsenal was unmistakable. Every second, for any given person, countless moments of opportunity presented themselves in the environment. So many of varying degrees, most people could never begin to fathom it all. But not the Lazarus.
The Shogun's forces moved out. Anastasia sensed opportunity, and she seized.
She trailed the army and Doghouse transports on a motorcycle and at a distance, her body made intangible to light and the vibrations which would produce sound. Acute olfactory tracking compensated her deaf and blind state, allowing her to keep up in spite of the self-imposed handicaps. She followed until they moved no more, made most evident by the subtle strength in scent. Parking the bike at a distance, she returned to full-spectrum and fell in with the army.
She stopped and she waited. Waited and watched. Watched from a front-row seat as thousands upon thousands of mutants mobilized at once on an unfortunate foe on the border. For each with mundane or non-utility mutations back home, every man wielded power which, before that moment, seemed almost unfathomable. Nastya soaked it all in and adjusted her mental files on the Shogunate. Not long ago she harbored an inexplicable desire to slaughter every one. In that moment, she stood in awe and was glad she stood most closely as either ally or unknown. For the time being.
But, for the time being, the tactical avenue of best-yield remained unclear. Anastasia stayed put in the hopes that something might present itself directly or that she could discern more through listening.
"General, there are forces approaching from the roof and a Shogunate transport has been reported in the capital." An aide said, rushing to The Tyrant's side as he entered a code into the huge blast doors built into a wall deep beneath the palace. "Yes I know." The Tyrant said with a nod. "Everything is proceeding as it should." There was a heavy thunk and the door began to slide open.
"Sir, if you go in there you will not be able to escape if they should make it past security." The aide pointed out.
"Your concern is noted but you are mistaken." The Tyrant said and waved his aide away. He entered into the now open secret chamber and smiled. This had been a simple bomb shelter until two weeks ago when he had moved his Command Chair down here. The chair was a massive technopath amplifier and was wired directly into his command infrastructure...though not the infrastructure that lay at the most obvious layer but rather the hidden networks, the old signal cables and electronic pathways the government had decommissioned years ago. Each cable end point had a loyal servant waiting at the other end to hand deliver messages that would be typed onto note paper by old type writers with just enough electrical components to allow The Tyrant access to it.
The Tyrant strode to his chair and took his seat. Neural receptors in the back of the head rest connected to the back of his skull and prepared to receive direct neural net commands. He put his hands on the hand rests of the over sized chair, one finger hovering over an emergency disconnect button.
Old communication lines opened up like veins and The Tyrant closed his eyes as he focused his technopathic abilities, now amplified a hundred times by his specially built chair. There you are General.
"General." He said aloud, his words transmitted across the remnants of a by gone age to a type writer. "Begin Operation Slashing Knife. Activate the hit teams. Begin coordination at your earliest opportunity and seize control of my armed forces. I will not have my plans hampered further by the efforts of the Shogunate. Release the FUDRA, targets of your choosing."
The FUDRA was Colombia's special reactions force, designed specifically to fight counter insurgencies. This was the difficulty Ivana's forces would face as they plunged deeper into the country. The forces they would be fighting on the boarder were weak and inexperienced but the forces The Tyrant had held back? These had years even decades of experience fighting guerrilla style warfare and were indeed among the best and most experienced of such forces in the world. Here they would turn their experience to action and fight a bloody campaign across the center of the country. The FUDRA was the best of these forces and its black helicopters had been secured in underground facilities as a part of The Tyrant's reserve forces. He had taken great care to keep his best units hidden and away from any potential combat, well aware that circumstances would change and he would need them.
On the other side of the type writer a charismatic mutant general in a deep underground bunker was handed a message from one of the old type writers. He smiled a little and stood in the center of his command station, looking at a series of hand developed maps of Colombia. There was a big board in the middle of the room at which aides were positioning identified forces and moving them as data came in. He understood that most of his data would be old considering it had to come in by couriers and type writers but it was better than nothing. The mutant general closed his eyes and focused his mind. He was an extremely powerful but somewhat limited telepath. He could reach out to thousands perhaps millions of minds and speak to them but he had no ability to read them or probe them. There was a reason he had been hand chosen by The Tyrant though. As a powerful telepath he could command the army's broken and scattered units and reorganize the defense. It would take him hours, possibly even days to get everything organized again and he hated the ground he was losing in the process. At least now he had orders.
His mind reached out to people under water. When the attack had started two of Colombia's four submarines had been out at sea. The other two were destroyed by air strikes. Those at sea now heard his commands and turned their attention back to the mainland. The renovated 206A German Diesel Submarines moved through the water like ghosts. Although they were infinitely less complex than nuclear boats, the diesel electric could pose significant problems for a modern navy as it was much quieter on average. It was also, generally, unexpected. The boats had two targets given to them by telepathic command and traveled as a pair. When they were within striking range they unleashed their deadly German designed payload. Two submarines fired six torpedoes at three different ships. Each of the ships was one of the primary vessels launching cruise missiles into the country. The moment their payload was released into the water the submarines left the area and made way for the critical supply ships that would be able to resupply the ships firing missiles into Colombia. They once again released two torpedoes each at three supply ships and then attempted to escape the area. They would return later perhaps but for now things were about to get far too dangerous.
The good General turned his attention to the FUDRA. They were given specific targets and released from underground bases. Their targets? The highly prized technopaths of the Shogun's military. The general's orders were to try and completely destroy these particular invading units and compromise their ability to interfere with what was left of Colombia's electronic infrastructure. The best part of course was that the defense effort had been prepared with the potential for technopathic warfare in mind, the communications were slow and reorganization slower but it was not the chaos it could have been. A sure defeat was gradually turning into...well...existence, anyway.
The general wished to have air assets but there was nothing to be done, air superiority was not something they would be able to get back in this war. Ah well, you can't have everything. He mused. He turned to the table at the center of his command center and studied it as he prepared for the next phase of The Tyrant's plan. Many reserve forces were still being held back, Colombia's elite Guerrilla units would only gradually filter into the combat in hit and run raids meant to bloody The Shogun's nose.
Back in the Presidential Palace security forces swept towards the roof, elite commando teams were held back, the security forces sent to counter @the_b_list were just ordinary men and women with guns, nothing special and no particularly impressive training. They were determined though, their nation was under dramatic assault and they'd be damned if they let intruders kill what was left of their government. All told, four squads ran towards the roof with AK-47s at the ready. They were lead by a young man who's passion for his country knew no bounds. The first squad met The B List squadron at one of the primary entry ways to the rest of the palace. There he knelt down behind limited cover and opened fire. His compatriots did the same and then moved to fall back to other positions while a second squad arrived behind them and covered their retreat with another spray of AK-47 fire. The shooting was less than accurate but there was a lot of it.
The Tyrant began a mental assault on The Shogun's own technopaths in a specific region. He was seeking access to the internet. With his chair it was as if ten technopaths were making the attempted take over. He had a back up plan of course but it was much slower and he hoped not to need it. If he did, it was already active. The world was already gradually receiving word of the invasion but he intended to speak to the world at large for as long as he'd be able to gain internet access. The headlines gradually making their way out to the media were from "an ananymous source close to the Colombian government" and read as follows:
"The emergency President is missing and our Great General is distraught with grief. We first though the Drug Lords had used the nuclear device on their own accord but it now seems obvious, they were given the weapon by Venezuela and ordered to use it. The timing is too clear, they planned to cut off Colombia's head and conquer its dying body. Already mutant soldiers are rampaging across the south of the country, butchering innocent civilians and burning whole villages. Missiles rain from our skies like water, no where is safe from the Aggressor."
I guess it's time to join A portal formed from a piece of rock he threw into the air letting him leap through and into the the Tyrants forces. "Meet your maker!" He said bringout out both swords and lashing out at the soldiers. But normal forces could do that, all he was doing was risking his identity to do what a normal soldier could do.
"Bring me a challenger!" He yelled at them, "Or this will happen to more of you!" He looked one in the eyes and the man dropped down dead. Someone shot him in the back and he grunted as the bullet flew out his chest. Turning around in a flurry of blades he decapitated the man and vanished. A moment later he appeared in the sky falling towards the ground and then did it again, it appeared as though he was searching for something. Everytime he came down he tried to land on top of anyone causing damage to civilians and win or fail he'd go out again. But all the while he was searching, for someone who he could battle who really was a threat to big for normal forces.
"General, there are forces approaching from the roof and a Shogunate transport has been reported in the capital." An aide said, rushing to The Tyrant's side as he entered a code into the huge blast doors built into a wall deep beneath the palace. "Yes I know." The Tyrant said with a nod. "Everything is proceeding as it should." There was a heavy thunk and the door began to slide open.
"Sir, if you go in there you will not be able to escape if they should make it past security." The aide pointed out.
"Your concern is noted but you are mistaken." The Tyrant said and waved his aide away. He entered into the now open secret chamber and smiled. This had been a simple bomb shelter until two weeks ago when he had moved his Command Chair down here. The chair was a massive technopath amplifier and was wired directly into his command infrastructure...though not the infrastructure that lay at the most obvious layer but rather the hidden networks, the old signal cables and electronic pathways the government had decommissioned years ago. Each cable end point had a loyal servant waiting at the other end to hand deliver messages that would be typed onto note paper by old type writers with just enough electrical components to allow The Tyrant access to it.
The Tyrant strode to his chair and took his seat. Neural receptors in the back of the head rest connected to the back of his skull and prepared to receive direct neural net commands. He put his hands on the hand rests of the over sized chair, one finger hovering over an emergency disconnect button.
Old communication lines opened up like veins and The Tyrant closed his eyes as he focused his technopathic abilities, now amplified a hundred times by his specially built chair. There you are General.
"General." He said aloud, his words transmitted across the remnants of a by gone age to a type writer. "Begin Operation Slashing Knife. Activate the hit teams. Begin coordination at your earliest opportunity and seize control of my armed forces. I will not have my plans hampered further by the efforts of the Shogunate. Release the FUDRA, targets of your choosing."
The FUDRA was Colombia's special reactions force, designed specifically to fight counter insurgencies. This was the difficulty Ivana's forces would face as they plunged deeper into the country. The forces they would be fighting on the boarder were weak and inexperienced but the forces The Tyrant had held back? These had years even decades of experience fighting guerrilla style warfare and were indeed among the best and most experienced of such forces in the world. Here they would turn their experience to action and fight a bloody campaign across the center of the country. The FUDRA was the best of these forces and its black helicopters had been secured in underground facilities as a part of The Tyrant's reserve forces. He had taken great care to keep his best units hidden and away from any potential combat, well aware that circumstances would change and he would need them.
On the other side of the type writer a charismatic mutant general in a deep underground bunker was handed a message from one of the old type writers. He smiled a little and stood in the center of his command station, looking at a series of hand developed maps of Colombia. There was a big board in the middle of the room at which aides were positioning identified forces and moving them as data came in. He understood that most of his data would be old considering it had to come in by couriers and type writers but it was better than nothing. The mutant general closed his eyes and focused his mind. He was an extremely powerful but somewhat limited telepath. He could reach out to thousands perhaps millions of minds and speak to them but he had no ability to read them or probe them. There was a reason he had been hand chosen by The Tyrant though. As a powerful telepath he could command the army's broken and scattered units and reorganize the defense. It would take him hours, possibly even days to get everything organized again and he hated the ground he was losing in the process. At least now he had orders.
His mind reached out to people under water. When the attack had started two of Colombia's four submarines had been out at sea. The other two were destroyed by air strikes. Those at sea now heard his commands and turned their attention back to the mainland. The renovated 206A German Diesel Submarines moved through the water like ghosts. Although they were infinitely less complex than nuclear boats, the diesel electric could pose significant problems for a modern navy as it was much quieter on average. It was also, generally, unexpected. The boats had two targets given to them by telepathic command and traveled as a pair. When they were within striking range they unleashed their deadly German designed payload. Two submarines fired six torpedoes at three different ships. Each of the ships was one of the primary vessels launching cruise missiles into the country. The moment their payload was released into the water the submarines left the area and made way for the critical supply ships that would be able to resupply the ships firing missiles into Colombia. They once again released two torpedoes each at three supply ships and then attempted to escape the area. They would return later perhaps but for now things were about to get far too dangerous.
The good General turned his attention to the FUDRA. They were given specific targets and released from underground bases. Their targets? The highly prized technopaths of the Shogun's military. The general's orders were to try and completely destroy these particular invading units and compromise their ability to interfere with what was left of Colombia's electronic infrastructure. The best part of course was that the defense effort had been prepared with the potential for technopathic warfare in mind, the communications were slow and reorganization slower but it was not the chaos it could have been. A sure defeat was gradually turning into...well...existence, anyway.
The general wished to have air assets but there was nothing to be done, air superiority was not something they would be able to get back in this war. Ah well, you can't have everything. He mused. He turned to the table at the center of his command center and studied it as he prepared for the next phase of The Tyrant's plan. Many reserve forces were still being held back, Colombia's elite Guerrilla units would only gradually filter into the combat in hit and run raids meant to bloody The Shogun's nose.
Back in the Presidential Palace security forces swept towards the roof, elite commando teams were held back, the security forces sent to counter @the_b_list were just ordinary men and women with guns, nothing special and no particularly impressive training. They were determined though, their nation was under dramatic assault and they'd be damned if they let intruders kill what was left of their government. All told, four squads ran towards the roof with AK-47s at the ready. They were lead by a young man who's passion for his country knew no bounds. The first squad met The B List squadron at one of the primary entry ways to the rest of the palace. There he knelt down behind limited cover and opened fire. His compatriots did the same and then moved to fall back to other positions while a second squad arrived behind them and covered their retreat with another spray of AK-47 fire. The shooting was less than accurate but there was a lot of it.
The Tyrant began a mental assault on The Shogun's own technopaths in a specific region. He was seeking access to the internet. With his chair it was as if ten technopaths were making the attempted take over. He had a back up plan of course but it was much slower and he hoped not to need it. If he did, it was already active. The world was already gradually receiving word of the invasion but he intended to speak to the world at large for as long as he'd be able to gain internet access. The headlines gradually making their way out to the media were from "an ananymous source close to the Colombian government" and read as follows:
"The emergency President is missing and our Great General is distraught with grief. We first though the Drug Lords had used the nuclear device on their own accord but it now seems obvious, they were given the weapon by Venezuela and ordered to use it. The timing is too clear, they planned to cut off Colombia's head and conquer its dying body. Already mutant soldiers are rampaging across the south of the country, butchering innocent civilians and burning whole villages. Missiles rain from our skies like water, no where is safe from the Aggressor."
These creatures were attracted to darkness. Whether artificial, or simply from an abundance of evil intent, these dark souls knew where the darkest hearts were. And the Tyrant was one of them. Before the tyrant's command chair, a Ghoul and a few Elites appeared, originally intending to assault him, but they changed their minds when they noticed his tactical abilities. Desperate for a leader after not being taken along for Nero's latest endeavor, they decided they would follow the Tyrant instead. To sate their desire to follow, they submitted themselves to him, if only for the time being.
I'm gonna PM you with some details, but basically, I'm playing these guys as characters, and follow whatever command you give.
Time passed. Military matters were slow by necessity, as forces had to travel hundreds of miles and were frequently slowed by encounters with enemy forces, terrain difficulties and the general friction of war such as equipment failure or faulty maps.
Ivana simply went about her day. An hour after the Shogunate's deployment she spent forty five minutes sparring with her bodyguards in the bunker's gym. Arrachtach and Ivana would then spend an hour and a half dealing with a crisis in a secret research lab. Later, after lunch, Ivana would return.
"Update."
"Ma'am. Things are going well. Early estimates show a quarter to a third of the OPFOR has been destroyed. Our own losses are minimal, however several of our Arsenal ships were attacked by submarine earlier" Charles responded, tugging at the edge of his thick white mustache as he spoke.
"How is enemy respond?"
"Reports from on the ground HUMIT and aerial surveillance show the OPFOR has adopted a defensive posture. I would define their current posture as combat and logistical raiding Ma'am."
"What this mean, exactly?"
"It means they are avoiding head to head battles of annihilation in favor of engaging only in low level scrimmages where their casualties can be kept at a low level. It has been effective against our logistical chain; losses among some supply units have been severe. A few were even lost to a man. Like Vietnam, Ma'am."
"Mm. America lose Vietnam."
"That is correct. However I would like to make note of the fact the Vietnam War lasted from 1955 to 1975, with regular American military presence lasting from 1965 to 1973. This is still day one. Additionally I would like to add that over nine hundred and fifty thousand Vietcong perished to less than sixty thousand American casualties."
"You go somewhere with point, General?"
"Yes Ma'am I do. If you would allow me to make a suggestion."
Ivana shrugged. She liked suggestions. Though she was accomplished in the martial arts and had taken to the field of battle many times she was not a life long strategist the way many of the Shogunate's top military officials were. "Go ahead."
"Stay the course. Press on to the Capitol. Capture it. Then fortify your gains and harden your logistical train. We have a massive technological advantage Ma'am. And frankly, mutation is the most powerful weapon in this war. Between the two we can meet or exceed America's casualty ratio in Vietnam. A couple of years of that and our enemy will collapse. Colombia doesn't have the population and whoever is running the other side doesn't have a Soviet Union or Peoples Republic to bankroll them for decades. War is expensive. It costs lives, it costs money. They don't have enough of either."
It went against Ivana's instincts. Every fiber of her body screamed to go on the offensive. Her heart told her to go for the throat while the enemy was reeling from the initial blow.
She ignored it.
It was foolish to ignore her advisers. When Arrachtach spoke about science, she listened. When Skysword spoke about the cyber-realm, she listened. So when Charles spoke about military matters, she listened. She did not always follow their advice. But she always listened.
"Okay. Make this so." An armored knuckle rapped on the tabletop.
"But-" She set and tossed her feet onto the table. "-I make small change."
Upon the blue seas damaged boats were towed to shore and survivors from the sunk boats collected. An anti-submarine force was sent to scour the shores while a second anti-sub defensive screen was wrapped around the Arsenal ships.
Reserves were moved forward, guarding bridges and roads along their logistical routes with heavily armed enclaves of mutant soldiers, given orders to shoot on sight and recon by fire at the slightest provocation. Fortifications of sandbags, trenches, and steel reinforced bunkers were built using a combination of mutant labor and terraforming for the larger and more vital strategic points. Tree and vegetation cover near vital roads was cleared for hundreds of yards with napalm and thermobaric explosives. Brutally destructive to the environment, but quick and efficient.
Strategically significant towns and cities were also fortified by the same methods. Civilians were simply moved out of these areas and replaced by lines of trenches, bunkers, hardened command posts and communication nodes. With the capture of each city the technopathic squads that made up Apollo identified any hardware not under their control. Assuming it belonged to the mysterious enemy who had challenged their supremacy over the cyber-realm they simply had it destroyed. Hundreds of servers and thousands of electronic devices were simply blown up or crushed beneath the tracks of armored vehicles.
Soon large sections of Ivana's reserve forces had penetrated the territory conquered by the spear of the Shogunate's army. They had fortified with an eye toward protecting supply lines and creating vastly disproportionate casualties to any force that assaulted them.
All the while the drones circled overhead, picking and prodding Colombia's remaining forces, denying them the use of strategic highways, roads or rail lines, indiscriminately bombing suspected strongholds and providing overwhelming air-support to any Shogunate force engaged in combat.
The Arsenal ships divided into groups which would return to Venezuelan waters to rearm and groups which would continue to launch devastating precision guided missiles at any suspected Colombian target.. and act as bait for the Colombian submarines, enticing them to enter waters patrolled by a cordon of anti-submarine measures, including several hydrokinetic mutants who strained their abilities to the limit seeking to identify the profile of a submarine beneath the waters.
He sat back in his office chair, his multiple camera feeds coming in on three separate computer screens. Already, images of the sudden war in Colombia were pouring in, newsfeeds flooded with terrifying reports of nuclear detonation. Outside his re-purposed room, Central Intelligence kicked into overdrive, every last analyst already predicting the long-term effects of the conflict on foreign policy and global stability, whilst investigators were poring over the potential causes. The fact that the nuclear device had been used to kill only the Colombian head of state and his personal entourage had baffled scientists and security analysts alike, but most were simply thankful that the weapon hadn't been used in a more heavily populated area. Most deemed it a waste, figuring they were dealing with some sort of rogue agent who'd used the detonation merely out of sheer opportunity. To them, the coup had not been planned; it'd been a desperate move by someone whose only option was to activate some sort of superweapon in order to depose their enemy.
Klaus knew better. He knew the sort of man who'd drop a nuke on a boat just to show off.
And so he watched, secluded in his office as the rest of Langley attempted to reach the same conclusion he'd already come to.
We're not dealing with a terrorist. We're dealing with a supervillain, he thought, closing his eyes. He leaned back in the chair, touching the tips of his fingers together as he thought. Slowly, he reopened his eyes, turning around in his chair. Despite the flashing screens at his back, he instead looked into the darkness, into the back of his expanded office. And what did he look at so ponderously, the will to take action subtly taking hold in his subconscious?
Folded atop his bed was the magenta synth-fluid vest, mask clearly visible. To its right was the gleaming Gottschwert, and on its left, the menacing handheld Death Ray.
"Shhhhhhhhhit. They've got a welcoming party." Butch stopped his party early on as they entered Bogota's city limits, nodding his head towards the buildings up ahead- on top of which, Colombian soldiers were mobilizing swiftly. Gill snarled in frustration, and the others looked to Butch for instruction. Scratching his scruffy chin thoughtfully, Butch continued to think out loud. "Let's pick one o' those rooftops, see if we can scale it. Rev, that's your job." Nodding his head towards the Frenchman, he kept on. "Then we send Gill out, straight forward on the ground. Our tank."
Gill bared his teeth, whether to smile or to show how much he hated Butch remaining unknown. Nodding once more, Butch looked towards the parties of soldiers that were gathering. "And let's be quick about it, too." Gaston tipped his head towards Butch, before running towards the wall of the nearby building. Before actually hitting the building, though, he raised a foot and placed it on the first floor's window sill- using it to propel himself upward, as he leaped towards the third story window. Catching the sill neatly with one hand, he used this momentum to monkey his way upwards, before landing on the roof. Giving a thumbs-up to his team down below, Gaston turned towards the small pack of gunmen on his side of the rooftop, a pack that were just now reacting to the sudden arrival of the Frenchman.
Propelling himself forward, Gaston sent his foot flying towards the face of the nearest soldier before a single bullet could be fired, in turn sending the man crashing into the building's chimney- in turn, cracking the chimney. The others froze for a brief second, and in that one moment they locked eyes with the lone foe before them. And Gaston? Gaston answered this stare with a terrifying smile and a slight twirl of his moustache, before giving a sly chuckle. Without wasting another second, the troopers fired at the man, who also reacted- running straight towards them. Much to his luck, fear had driven the aim of the soldiers ahead of them down a dark road, and Gaston was able to leap up into the air- kicking out to both men at the same time, and knocking them off of the rooftop.
One splat later, and he knew he had done his deed. But before he could celebrate, he heard the footsteps of more coming up onto the roof, and prepared to continue fighting.
Meanwhile, down below, Gill had removed his black sweatshirt, revealing his polished scales and heavily muscled reptilian frame. A low growl coming from him, the monstrous creature turned his head towards the party that had gathered waiting on the ground. Slowly, he started jogging towards the group- but this jog grew in speed, until he outright sprinted towards them. A mighty roar now erupting from the behemoth, the crew ahead started to open fire, and the bullets did tear through the flesh of the playfully dubbed "Loch Ness"- however, whenever a wound opened, the skin around it would heal, almost instantaneously removing any sign of injury. Some realized what effect they were having on Gill (none) and ran, and others stayed to keep shooting.
Gill crashed through the small amount of cover that the party had, and smacked aside the soldiers as if they were dolls. Of course, they circled around the monster- firing at a safe range- but that only drove Gill to pick up the carcasses of his prey and toss them at the men that still lived, grotesque and disfigured bodies being used as projectiles.
While Eureka had stopped and started staring at that mess, Butch and Shift worked their way up the fire escape to the roof across from the one that Gaston was fighting on, and were now locked in a shootout using the small bits of cover available. Shift fired his gun towards the Colombians ahead of him, but in his mind he was looking out to the future. And, as he so often did, the Detective found something. Shifting his position ever so slightly and raising his hand to just the right place, he couldn't help but smile as a frag grenade landed directly into his open palm. Tossing it back, Shift called out to Butch, who proceeded to shoot the grenade while it was in mid-air. The bomb exploded directly over the heads of the enemy, a loud boom that attracted the attention of even the other members of the B List.
This conflict raged on, until the forces of Colombia started to thin out. Gill, panting, took a bite out of one of the arms he'd ripped off, chin crimson with the blood of his foes. Gaston, Butch, and Shift leaped down, taking a moment to rest before continuing. Eureka walked up to them and soon just right past them, a slight skip in her step as she did so. "C'mon, boys! The big bad is this way!" Breaking out into a song, the crazed young woman guided the tired fighters towards the palace, seeming not to care if any more soldiers appeared.
Deep below ground in the farthest reaches of Africa:
The flash drive arrived unimpeded in Panama. There it was uploaded and bounced around a hundred proxy servers until it arrived at one that activated only long enough to receive the encoded data and shut off again. At that end of the line the message was translated by a coding technician and then sent by courier to a remote area in the center of Africa. There the message was taken below ground to a series of huge man made caverns. These caverns had been carefully excavated over more than a decade by the forces that would eventually take over The Organization. This base and everything in it had been painstakingly hidden away from prying eyes...and for good reason. The courier was taken below ground and summarily executed. The message was taken deeper into the caverns by another courier. This one was allowed to live because he did not know how to get to the base, only where to go within the base. This man...was never allowed to leave. He was lucky.
The message arrived in the hands of a trusted general who then took it to the deepest recesses of the caverns. There he found his Lord and Commander, a towering monstrosity covered in white sheets that stood utterly silent. A palpable wave of dread permeated the air and caused the general's hand to shake even as he held the message tightly.
"S...sir...a message from the escaped Tyrant. He...he dares to seek aide, money and equipment for his war in Colombia." The general said. He waited...for five minutes of total silence.
Eventually the creature spoke in a raspy voice. "Then it has predicted failure without further aide."
"That seems likely." The general said. "We should let it die. My lord."
"No." The creature said. "We should aide it."
"But my Lord...it escaped, it betrayed The Organization, it should die for its betrayal." The general said, shocked.
"No. I wish to see its abilities in action. I wish to see if it can take on one of the world's greatest powers and survive. Take money and equipment, take elite soldiers but take only enough to ensure The Tyrant is able to manipulate events. Leave success or failure to his own abilities, simply provide the tools necessary for either."
"My lord I..."
"LEAVE!" The Creature said in a tone of voice so loud the walls of the cavern shook.
"Yes...yes my Lord...right away." The general turned on his heel and fled. He sent word through advisers to gather an elite force of The Organizations best genetically engineered soldiers as well as what equipment would be needed. They would leave in two hours time. The Shogun's adviser had been right about most things...but not all of them. Funding and equipment? The Tyrant had access to it. Eventually The Tyrant would build its own network of supplies and aide but for now it needed something more immediate...and it was coming. The general mounted a dais to speak to his men, preparing them for the war to come.
The Organization...its name was mocked openly and few seemed to fear it...but it was a sleeping dragon buried beneath Africa, a force of genetically engineered radicals led by a creature from Earth's distant past hell bent on one and only one objective...war for its own sake. Death and destruction, endless chaos and bloodshed for no particular reason. The mask was about to be torn away on The Organization. This reinforcement was but the beginning. Six thousand elite genetically engineered super soldiers would leave Africa and arrive momentarily in Colombia. They would travel by way of teleportation. Signs of their arrival, when it occurred, would be obvious to anyone with electronic scanning equipment as massive power surges.
(preparing for my next post directed at actual people, the arrival has not happened yet)
The Langley Knave multi-tasked his investigation with frenzied fingers, alternating between the three separate keyboards he'd provided himself with as he scoured newsfeeds for any pertinent information. This was the work of a single mastermind, as no group would ever deem the use of a nuclear weapon on a single seafaring vessel tactically viable. It would take the massive ego of one man (or woman) to determine that maneuver a suitable move in a game that required such subtlety, and so, that was his primary criterion in conducting his frenetic investigation. He investigated with the cowl over his features, gloved hands flying over his desk as he searched for more clues.
It's Carlos Andres, nagged the voice at the back of his head. Instinct kicked in the moment he saw the man's address to the country, his hastened deployment of the military coupled with his dramatic rhetoric indicating the sort of ego that would only arise from meticulous planning and calculated triumph. Andres was in the greatest position to profit, having obtained emergency powers as soon as the Head of State met their demise; studies indicated a prolonged leave of absence in recent time, and there was something about the way he spoke that mimed the same intonation Otto had often used in his frequent self-endorsing rants. But Klaus did not fear this man as he had Otto von Lichter.
I can't jump to conclusions, he thought, despite having already jumped to his first conclusion. It could be the Shogun.
He laughed to himself, continuing to type.
The Shogun would never waste a nuclear weapon on a boat.
Apparently, a drone fleet had devastated the infrastructure of the country, conspicuously hailing from bordering Venezuela. Yet, no apparent ties could link the Shogunate to the events that had transpired earlier that day. War had already torn its way across the desolated country, and that left only the surviving government to pick up the pieces. The only man with a clear motivation for bringing about such destruction was Andres. He couldn't report his findings without proof, however...
So proof was what he would seek. Standing up from his chair, he straightened the tactical synth-fluid vest, adjusting the magenta bodysuit so that it fit absolutely perfectly over his skinny body. He was heading into a warzone, yet somehow, he felt more confident than when he'd raided the very building he stood within. Colombia was nothing to be frightened by; their security would be positively lax, compared to what he'd grown accustomed to. And then there were his new capabilities, new strategies, all taken from his time within Langley. He'd learned much since then. And finally, there was the Death Ray. He'd taken his father's greatest instrument of destruction and re-purposed it into a device of safety, of usefulness, of saving lives; no weapon endowed him with more confidence than the handheld energy projector he'd holstered under his left arm. Clicking one of several buttons on his belt, he began his operations log. Holding his wicked knife with his customary reverse-grip, he pressed a switch on the hilt, the teletransportational matrix deconstructing his molecules and rematerializing him instantly in Colombia's palace, where he'd expected Andres to reside.
The Head of State's home
It was without sound or light that Lichter's body rebuilt itself in the topmost part of the Head of State's place of residence. Mapping out his landing zone via the Gottschwert's resonant energy frequencies, he'd programmed the machine to avoid placing him in any area that read as having consistently collected infrared data via advanced detectors of any sort. Ideally, this would prevent him from reappearing in the line of sight of any security camera; these days, the advanced ones would always have the latest in scanning technology, but he'd been able to turn that to his advantage. Soundlessly, he pressed his back to a column, dark magenta uniform blending perfectly with the shadows. Having spent his youth crawling about the prison that was his first home, he'd honed his dexterity to rather remarkable levels even without the formal gymnastic training he'd been afforded.
Indeed, as he had once crept about Castle Lichter stalking servants, he now traversed the Head of State's home with utmost caution, using his blade to teleport anywhere he could not reach through stealth. Measuring the angles of every possible camera, and scanning the area for unconventional detection methods, he remained undetected as he mapped out the palace. Crouching in shadow, he redrew his blade, pressing the edge against the wall. Adjusting the settings ever so subtly, he converted the blade's inherent energies to send out a vibrational pulse directly through the structural framework of the building. It would be imperceptible to any man's ear, with the bombs shaking the ground outside; to them, it would seem to be just another tremor, were they even to detect it at all. One would need to be leaning on one of the structure's very supports to feel this, he reassured himself, pressing the button.
The esoteric dagger's blade vibrated at intense speeds, sending a vibrational wave through the metal framework of the enormous building. It produced a sonar-like effect, the data computer within the infinitely complex weapon's hilt recording the precise vibrations and reconstructing an approximate map of his area. The Lichter Legacy glanced at his mobile device, viewing a three-dimensional approximate model of the building's design blueprint.
That's curious, he thought, a small smile playing on his lips as his eyes passed over the sublevel. A dungeon? he thought, remembering Castle Lichter's dank secret underground. No...a bomb shelter. But if this man is anything like Otto, he reasoned, that would be where he'd hide during this whole affair.
He put the coordinates of the room into his dagger's hilt, standing upright once more. He tossed the blade from his right hand to his left, catching it without even paying it thought as he drew the Death Ray from its holster with his emptied fingers. His plan was not to do anything rash, or to attack without thinking; instead, he would gamble on the element of surprise, discerning more of the villain's plot for Central Intelligence so they could send in the Equalizers to finish the job. Or...perhaps opportunity would present itself to finish the job now. It was possible many lives could be saved, were he to personally incapacitate the man responsible for this chain of events...
His next move would be a gamble, but were it to pay off, the reward would be so very sweet. He was filled with curious determination, reminiscing about his unusual childhood and his sixteen dealings with Otto. Every further meeting would leave him filled with rage, which had then itself grown into a drive to surpass his dubious parental figure. However capable he may be, the composer of this sinister sonata would pale beside the genius of any von Lichter. Besting him, a surrogate for the now-dead Otto, would have to do. And so it was with theatricality that he carried out his gamble, taking a deep breath as he pressed the button that would carry him to the underground level. Before departing from his hidden spot in the palace, he clicked a small button within his left glove.
He'd chosen to appear in the back of the far-left corner, away from the door; best to make a move that would be unexpected.
The Bomb Shelter
As always, it was without sound that he materialized, sliding into position as though he'd always been there. In front of him, he could see the back of an intricate chair, a collection of electronic interfaces and wiring trailing from within. He could not see the being sitting in the seat, but he'd gone all-in on this gamble. It was in the interest of theatricality that he announced his presence with unparalleled verbosity, practically parodying his own father (and likely the seated mastermind) with audible gusto.
"I'm not sure you've thought this out, Señor Andres."
Despite all instincts screaming to remain professional, the Langley Knave could not help the smirk filling his masked visage. All the while, he kept the Death Ray locked on the back of the chair from his hip, casually stepping forward as he continued his self-indulgent soliloquy.
"Whatever mastermind you may proclaim yourself to be...I've been the best since precisely one month and five days ago," he said, raising his sidearm to aim at the back of the chair, ever-vigilant, but awaiting the response of whatever force sat there.
"So...why don't we begin by...I don't know...negotiating the terms of your defeat?" he said innocently, cocking his head slightly to the side and pursing his lips as he awaited the response, still keeping the Ray's sights aimed on the back of the throne.
The Tyrant tapped into the powers of his chair, increasing his technopathic ability from one hundred times its former level to three hundred times. The energy required to do so shut down power throughout Bogota and flared up on every sensor array in the area for a brief moment as power was shifted to the mutant power amplifying chair. He reached out with his mind and began an assault he had been planning from the beginning. He had not expected the full invasion but he had always expected the drone fleet. His focus was crisp and his method excellent. His attack attempted to seize control of the entire fleet of drones in the sky over Colombia in one sudden push from a country that wasn't supposed to have any technopaths working for it. He didn't expect to seize control of the entire fleet but it would be extremely difficult for the technopathic warriors of The Shogun to keep control of every unit. The plan was to seize as many as possible, he only needed them for a few seconds and fully expected to lose control after roughly that time period anyway.
Any that he managed to control he turned on their operators, firing their deadly payloads at critical logistic points along the Venezuelan invasion route, especially any concentration of mutant labor. He didn't expect the attack to break their back but if it was successful on even a small level it should cause delays. The Tyrant shifted his focus once his effort was complete and powered the chair back down to its normal levels. He wouldn't be able to push so hard for long without burning out the chair or causing himself to fatigue, neither was an option at this point. Once the chair powered back down the lights all over Bogota returned.
His orders continued to be sent to his telepathic general who was still coordinating the defense. His forces shifted postures once again, they drew farther and farther into the rain forest and the mountains of Colombia where the drones would be hard pressed to pursue them. Whenever they could these forces struck out in the smallest of formations, fighting only at the squad level. Squads would pop out of dense terrain, launch a sudden and overwhelming storm of bullets, grenades and rockets and then fade back. They did everything they could to avoid anything one might call a "fight" and instead just hit and left. This wasn't possible to do flawlessly but it would make fighting them extremely frustrating and keep their casualties as low as possible. Squads were directed to target leadership and mutants of particularly useful powers, terraformers, technopaths...mutants who's abilities lent more to the effort than simple combat.
The Tyrant had one other trick up his sleeve that he planned for use in the event of an invasion. His airforce was a smoldering wreck but its aircraft had been stripped of their payloads and their smart missiles hidden away far from their airbases. He focused his technopathic will into these devices and activated them. Dozens of missiles launched from hidden locations across the country and aimed for the front line units penetrating towards the capital. Half of those weapons went for the front line, the other half, bunker busters and large bombs, went for supply depots and convoys.
The submarines nearly fell for the bait but were ordered away again by the telepath general. Instead the vessels were given a different task, they were told to attempt to skirt the coast of Venezuela and strike out at the port shipping of the country. The damage, if they managed to succeed, would be limited of course with only two submarines but it would force the enemy to wonder if there were more submarines in play than they knew of or at the very least shift their focus marginally. It was only a matter of time before the last vestige of the country's navy was destroyed.
It was then that the Heartless showed up. The Tyrant smiled slowly. "Good...rise my friends, rise...I want half of you to go out and follow Subject 47, he will be targeting an elite team and needs the reinforcements. @subject47@cvnuheartless See to it that his mission is successful. The other half and you my especially powerful friend..." he said with a gesture to the Ghoul. "You I want to find the squad of mercenaries @the_b_list heading this way and destroy them. When you have finished return here for further instructions."
Once they had departed The Tyrant felt a shift in the electronic signals of the room. Someone has teleported in here. Right on time. He had expected such an event and predicted its occurrence almost to the minute. He didn't bother turning his chair while Lichter spoke. He smiled a little under his hood. "Right on time." He told the man without turning around to face him. "My defeat you say? Heheh...defeat indeed. You give a good speech my friend, a very good speech. One month and five days, is that a long time? My comprehension of how the insignificant life forms of this world view time remains mildly distorted. I suppose now that I should be impressed with your intelligence...good job, you figured me out." He clapped slowly. "I had wondered which one would manage it first." He shifted his finger and tapped a button on the chair and finally swiveled around to face him.
"Unfortunately, you are sorely mistaken about your position." If Lichter could detect electrical signals he would be aware of the creation of a deflector shield around his chair when he pressed the button on his chair a few moments ago. "Perhaps you fail to see the benefits of mine. I'm afraid Carlos Andres is no longer among us..." He raised a hand, looking at his fingers with a slow and wicked smile. "Though I find his body most useful. Almost as useful as his innate abilities. Let us engage in a game of mental chess. Why do you suppose these events are taking place?"
@the_tyrant: Lichter grinned behind his mask as the hidden Tyrant began a slow clap. Any doubt that they were dealing with a "super-villain" had been dispelled with the enigmatic man's own counter-speech, the not-so-subtle inflections in his voice indicative of the self-perceived supremacy that all respectable masterminds seemed to have.
Right on time? Oh, but of course. I'm sure he would've said that even if Adolf Hitler himself had marched through a portal and mooned him.
He tensed as the chair turned, pointing the Ray directly at the head of Carlos Andres as he spun to meet his own masked gaze. Yet, while it was undeniably the face of one of Colombia's most decorated generals, it was simultaneously not Andres, the sunken eyes and wrinkled face suggesting something far more sinister had taken hold of the man. His speech suggested some sort of innate genetic superiority, what with his reference to Klaus as an "insignificant life form."
A game of chess is what he wants, but poker is what this really is. Gambles and bluffs.
"Please, Señor Andres...or, whatever you now call yourself...if what you desire is a chance to explain your masterfully-crafted plan, don't try to spice it up with the pretense of asking me what I think it is just so you can say I'm wrong," he said with a slight chuckle. He relaxed his stance, spreading his arms out with his palms facing the Tyrant, Ray still hanging loosely in his grip. "But if it's conversation you desire, I'll certainly oblige you," he said, returning the Death Ray to its holster. He clasped his hands behind his back, nodding towards his objective.
"Whenever you're ready. I hope you talk soon, or this little dialogue between us will soon grow rather awkward."
The drone commanders and pilots had not expected a technopathic attack. Many of the drones were lost completely and turned their weapons on the Shogunate's forces, often causing tremendous damage to various logistical routes and strategic points. The effect of surprise and betrayal on the reserve units had a shark effect on moral as well.
However a combination of self destruction protocols, the Shogunate's own technopaths and a simple depletion of munitions (as the drones had been flying missions for some time now) kept losses from spiraling out of control. Soon the Shogunate's own forces begin shooting down the drones they couldn't control. Their loss was regrettable, but unavailable.
All in all the technopathic attack damaged a great deal of the logistical routes and nearly crippled the drone fleet.
However the guerrilla attacks were another story. Because the Shogunate's troops were dug in and armed with heavy weapons, along with the occasional mutant power, they were nearly immune to sporadic attack by small arms. Very few casualties were taken.
The elite core of the Shogunate's forces continued to press toward the capitol until it lay under their guns. They pauses while communications were adjusted; vital orders were transmitted via telepathy and by the hand of a small number of speedsters. Fire control was re-routed and artillery was brought up to replace the drones.
Then the siege of Bogota begin. Artillery rained high explosive, fragmentation and incendiary shells on strong points and choke points- real or suspected. Telepaths scanned for hostiles and turned them against one another. Speedsters blitzed emplaced weapons. Regenerators lead the charges, followed by waves of psychically linked, heavily armed elite troops.
"Alex why the hell did you have us apply for this opp." Asked one of the many soldiers within the plane. Most of the mutants were sitting on edge knowing what was happening in Columbia and not being apart of it. Turbulence was plentiful from various exsplosions and the like that littered the skies. A mutant with the ability to generate shields was on the roof of the plane stopping any detonation from bringing the aircraft down. He called himself Barrier, a generic but fitting name for the protective nerd. Amongst the troops was Sam recently involved in Greece, Strength the burly mutant Alex had trained with and assaulted the Dog with as a final exam. Sitting on the floor were two of the more new members of the dog house a pair of girls known as the Requiem sisters, Amanda and Cassandra.
"Because Victor we know that these war games have their surprises. One second your side is gaining ground. And then there's a bunch of krakens. We're here for them." Alex remarked scanning a computer that provided satellite feed of the ongoing conflict. Two things had caught her attention and she knew she'd need to pick one soon. A fresh arival of troops had entered the scene from a rather mass teleportive effort. There were also submarines though active, and tracing them down was proving difficult. This wasn't the first time addressing submersible opposition however for the Maverick spy. She'd tried to stay brushed up on other models tactics and so on sense then.
Sam spoke up having been in communion with the various telepaths in play. "One of the kids fishing by the Shogun ports using his animal communication to score a better catch then his friends mentioned the fish were spooked to one of the old VLZ Elites." The elites were mutants mostly telepathic and telekinetic that had served Xenon. That to Alex sounded like the right move in a war, have the submarines a rather hard to track craft strike where the Shogun was vulnerable. Was it the craftiest move perhaps not but it was one of the smartest.
"Opening a portal. You heard her pilot." The pilot was someone who could create a single duplicate of himself that couldn't go more then a few yards from himself. He'd thought his power and dream to be a pilot useless but the Dog House had shown him that it allowed him to pilot air craft on his own. His role was small but major and though it meant he'd airstrike places carrying out potentially questionable orders the pilot was embracive as he got to live a dream while serving country. The plane entered Venezuela airspace within an instant and Alex opened the back hatch of the plane.
Drawing her bow Alex reached for a pair of her more controversial less used arrows. She'd only used them one other time against Asmodeus. They however would make good work against the targets of choice, having an exsplosive yield that'd split most submarines in two or at least leave them sinking from an oversized hole punched through several rooms and floors. Her studies told her where the weapon bays would be provided the design wasn't modified. If for some reason her exsplosion wasn't enough then perhaps triggering the other exsplosive to also detonate would do the trick. As for the arrows she'd fire as the vessels began to surface Alex would use a even older trick. As the arrows passed through the air they'd enter a portal designed to exit right beside the subs. Looking to imbed the tips in the thick hulls before detonating. Bullets weren't going to do much against a submarine and the shooter was from someone in a plane that's altitude barely even suggested bombing. Alex was curious to see if the arrows would do the trick or if the opposition had a unsuspected counter.
As for the arrows they consisted of a gram of hafnium detonating with a exsplosive force more akin to a nuke then anything else. Over thirteen hundred megajouls of force were released by that one exsplosive. "Listen up noobies if are resident marksman doesn't off them all we move in." Strength the brute of a man remarked with a raised fist and a minigun actually almost looking as if it was mini in his tree trunk like arms. Alex couldn't tell if the muscular man even wanted the archer to be successful. A sound of cocking firearms and mutant abilities prepping in whatever distinguishing ways they might being the answer from the soldiers.
The feral mutant didn't so much as pause to glance over his shoulder as he heard the now distant explosion. It didn't take a tactical genius to figure out that the APC had been spotted and taken out. Dog wasn't worried about his team; either they'd have already exited the vehicle and scattered into the jungle as he had, or he'd have less performance reviews to complete after the mission. Maybe some of them would even decide to follow the projectile that destroyed their transportation back to its source and make whoever fired it their first target.
The Alpha Dog, however, had his own objective in mind, and he wasn't about to let himself get sidetracked. He blended into the jungle surroundings like a jaguar, animal-like instincts combining with years of training and experience to allow him to all but disappear into the Colombian wilds. Aside from an occasional swig of water from a canteen, he didn't stop for rest or sustenance, pushing himself forward at a pace that would have exhausted a workhorse and covering a staggering amount of ground in short order, despite not possessing any kind of enhanced speed.
After about 15 hours of travel, he drew near the capital city of Bogota. Fighting still raged in the outskirts and back alleys; one more combatant would hardly be noticed...yet. Dog avoiding any ongoing skirmishes, slipping through city streets until he found what he was looking for: a manhole cover of sufficient size to accommodate his large frame, leading to the arteries that whisked the day-to-day waste from the homes of the local citizenry. A quick heave tore the covering from the aperture, and bracing himself against the pungent odor, the mutant marauder dropped into the darkness.
Once he took some time to familiarize himself with the subterranean tunnels, his mission began in earnest. He started slowly, choosing his targets carefully. Lone soldiers, stopping to enjoy a smoke of empty their bladder, small squads without the good sense to post a lookout while they ducked into a building to rest, and even the occasional unattended vehicle; its brake lines and fuel tank easy to sabotage. He took a victim here, and then another several hours later on the other side of the city. He always left signs of his handiwork: mangled bodies and burning wreckage told the tale of his passing atrocities, though he was always gone by the time reinforcements arrived to investigate the disturbances.
In this way, he hoped to slowly chip away at the morale of the enemy, letting fear and paranoia wear on them as heavily as the stresses of combat. Perhaps the elusive aggressor would eventually send out some elite troops for him to shred, or possibly respond himself. Either way, Dog was in his element, and giving his savage nature full reign.
She stood at the gates of the US capital her hair a vermillion mess from the constant fighting. Confident the mutant populace was small by now and that any allies caught in the blast would be worth it the energy in her body was unsealed. And in a flash of light Azrayne was gone, dispatched on an atomic level as she attempted to remove the head of parliament in a singular act. Heroes stopped that unwelcome end, sparring the U.S from falling. And sense then the nuclear archangel was gone. The world considered her dead be she a suicidal veteran, a martyr of the cause or a terrorist in ones eyes she was gone.
That was until a WMD fell upon the calm waves of the Columbian waters. A mushroom cloud blossomed into the sky and to many this was the moment a war had sparked. Already hours into a brutal confrontation, nobody had been paying any mind to where the bomb was dropped. No time to worry about the eco system or those blown away when all Columbia was being painted by war. However at ground zero of the strike an event did occur. As the radiation levels dropped as if a vacuum was drawing it in sparring the world of the toxic backlash.
As the energy was drawn away to a single point a body started to form constructed by the radiation and heat volatile to most. Azra was born again in nuclear fire her firey hair and nails long from over a year of being gone. It'd been like a coma for her simply drifting in slumber till now. Once the atomic bomb was used again however the nuclear elitist was allowed to wake up. Forest green eyes rapidly blinking in effort to readjust to the light. Using telekinesis to create a platform the woman began the walk to the beachs of the war torn state. She recognized one half of the armed forces, it was the side she'd been on for so long. Who led it, what was the soldiers like Azra didn't know and she didn't need to, she had a side.
Walking to a store, one of those little shops found selling surf boards and other beach contents. The shops were fewer then in say the states, Columbia had lush green life around the shores. It's water clear and blue, it's beauty picturesque and hard to rival to many. After a years worth of being asleep the soldier had to admit she liked the idea of treating herself well. And being abandoned from war there wasn't anyone to get in her way.
Grabbing a pair of clippers in the small store the mutant cut her nails to a more manageable state. Planting herself on a counter and using the window reflection as a mirror she brushed out her hair. Treating the store like a bathroom all while in the distance was the song of bombs and gunfire. Satisfied with her physical appears certain the radioactive princess finally bothered to dress herself taking a black swimsuit a pair of low cut shorts and a black tank top. The top bore a logo Azra didn't know but she couldn't be picky, relaxed as she was there was still a job to do. Grabbing a sports backpack the mutant bomb shell raided the coolers of various drinks. Lastly as she swung the backpack over a shoulder she grabbed a pair of sunglasses and a water bottle on her way out.
Exiting the shop sating dry lips with refreshing water a group of drug cartel based soldiers pulled up. A small patrol of the coast line was all it was however they knew the mutant the moment they saw her and opened fire. A turret mounted on the trucks back and two AK 47s spat rounds her way, to which Azrael simply swiped her hand aside. With that simple gesture the bullets riddled the side of the store instead of her. Her previous mirror of a window shattering instantly and the cash register sparked. A twitch of her index finger and suddenly there was a sound like thunder a roar familiar to those involved. A scorching flame danced along the brush and glassed crator of sand stood where a truck had just been. Nothing left but dust swirling in a miniature mushroom cloud. She took another sip of water as her flip flops patterned against her pavement her walk anything but rushed or concerned.
There was one front The Shogunate unwisely left undefended. This front wasn't a city or a port, nor a village or a road or a bridge...it was the internet. The Shogunate of Venezuela was not popular on the internet, not at least with the human half of the population. The crimes of country, the actions of intervention under Ivana, most had not been well received and most were well known. One could not hide the drone fleet that bombed Greece to the point of allowing civilians to die as well as they could hide Ivana seizing control of Gothic's black market. It was not as if The Tyrant's internet warriors, based in internet cafes in Panama had to do a great deal of work to stain Venezuela's image. They only needed to take an existing preconception and twist it to bring in money and volunteers...and maybe a foreign country or two (though probably not). The Internet War began even as military forces began the Siege of Bogota and it unleashed a flurry of photographs and hand held videos taken during the first day of the war and in ongoing events as they were smuggled out of the country. Hash tags were added to videos of slain men, women and children, of bombs falling on cities and towns and of people running in fear. To be fair, most of these civilian deaths were accidents...but with perception forming reality, it was easy to leave that out. Let the people already tempted to dislike and distrust Venezuela form their own opinions.
Each video of killings and bombings was accompanied with the hashtag #colombiableeds. It was not long before the support of groups like Humans First Foundation began to cause the hashtag to trend on Twitter and thus be talked about on cable news. The narrative was a twisted version of reality but to the militarily uneducated it was very easy to believe, especially if they already didn't trust Ivana and her country. It went like this: Venezuela used a nuclear bomb to decapitate Colombia with the hopes of sending it crashing into turmoil and stepping in as its saviors, an easy annexation. Instead through sheer luck or perhaps fate Carlos Andres survived as did a few other key members of the military and civilian government. Under Carlos's leadership the Colombian military immediately moved to control the country side and fight the initial target of blame...the Drug Lords. The truth was revealed for all to see when Venezuela mobilized in record time and launched its warmachine across a formerly peaceful border. Now it was taking everything they had to hold the country together against the Beast of Venezuela (also a hashtag).
Propaganda pictures began to circulate over the internet with the hashtag #savecolombia and physical copies circulated around the free parts of Colombia as well. They were based on old designs, striking imagery that stuck in the mind and the imagination.
In Colombia recruitment for the military hit record highs in mere hours, in part because of the propaganda effort but also because a large number of Colombia's population were refugees from Venezuela's Human genocide. Others were people who had lost friends and family in the first hours and the rest were patriots, desperate to defend their country against what they saw the naked aggression of a neighbor bent on the destruction of Humanity itself. The Tyrant's speeches were played on youtube and across the internet, snippets of audio broadcasts that he had been making during the attacks. The Tyrant was already a hero and now his image was growing larger than life in the borders of Colombia. As the war continued on a new development occurred. First, money began to trickle in from anonymous donors and a Go Fund Me campaign (not to mention the hundreds of millions given by The Organization when it teleported its troops over) and then something unexpected happened. Konite, the great equalizer. It came in from Panama and from boats moving along Colombia's opposite shore. The crates bore the mark of the Brahma Brotherhood. Speculation that the brotherhood had fallen apart and Satar was dead would slowly begin to face a new fact. Either the Brotherhood was alive and well or someone had found their stockpile.
The Konite Effect as it would be called did not happen over night and when it began to happen it did so gradually at first but it began to swell like a tsunami. The Konite gave desperate patriot citizens and over whelmed soldiers new powers to use against an enemy that smugly believed Colombia contained no mutants. They were sporadic and citizen attacks were uncoordinated but the basic soldiers began to receive it as well with the blessing of their government. Most refused at first but as the situation grew more desperate refusal became acceptance and the guerrilla's harassing Venezuela's invasion force began to show off powers of their own. True they lacked Venezuela's refinement and numbers but it was a new wrinkle none the less.
The Tyrant's instructions to his telepath general were clear and they continued even as he spoke to @lichter thanks to the technology of his chair. The genetically engieneered soldiers and their high tech weaponry and anti-mutant training were deployed. Not all six thousand of the initial reinforcements were deployed in one area nor at once. One thousand were deployed in defense of the Capital, along with some of but not all of Colombia's most elite guerrilla units. Their orders? Turn Bogota into a massive warzone and force Venezuela's numbers and equipment advantage to dwindle. Numbers and artillery meant little when attacking a city became a fight for every doorway, every street corner and every house. Soldiers fought from building to building in a rolling defense that saw them deploy and redeploy over and over again. Miniature teleportation units built into the armor of the thousand Organization soldiers gave them a different ability. They were able to teleport to an area in need of greater defense and help it, then suddenly appear elsewhere and so on. The weapons they carried made regenerating from wounds difficult thanks to large amounts of fragmentation and the deployment of incendiary rounds. Though many of the cities defenders fell at the initial attack the defense stiffened beyond its borders. Many fell to the telepathic assault but The Tyrant's general stepped in to help the cause. Unable to manipulate or implant thoughts he was none the less able to communicate to soldiers what was going on and either have manipulated traitors put down before they could do much more damage or try to talk people out of what they were doing. When the elite forces came in their specialized defenses and genetic structure made it very difficult to turn them.
Artillery rounds obliterated buildings and strong points fell but new ones were created. The entire city was becoming one massive fortress, houses, churches, businesses...everything that was a building was fortified and defended. Men (with increasing numbers of armed civilians joining them) began to move from house to house quickly, they began to learn to listen for the sound of artillery and notice patterns in the fire. It didn't prevent casualties but it did reduce them. They also moved much closer to Venezuela's forces, making it difficult to call in fire support by artillery for fear of striking their own positions. Finally, the city had been trapped before The Shogun's forces arrived. Men defended buildings just long enough for Venezuelan forces to storm in and then retreated and detonated bombs. Many of these bombs were homemade but some were unguided munitions stripped from aircraft before the war had begun. These bombs were most the powerful, up to five hundred pounders that rocked the city. Bogota was a fortress city, it was a city of trip wires, mines and bombs, of fighting from house to house and fighting entire wars over a single inch of road. Colombia should have lacked the man power to turn it into Stalingrad and may well prove to eventually but if it did, it was going to make Venezulea bleed...and that was really the point. An assault, no matter how well organized, could lose momentum even when it was victorious. If the city was taken, it would be taken in shambles and hopefully the Shogunate's forces would be left so badly bruised that pushing on and on would be foolhardy. The ultimate goal of course was to keep the fighting in the city going indefinitely. Unfortunately Colombia in its current state lacked the massive military forces that would have been needed to encircle the city. They did try though, elite anti-drug units (now backed by the drug lords themselves who had to defend their turf now as well) launched lightning assaults on the edges of the invasion cordon and apply pressure. When the fighting eventually turned their way to drive them off they fled back into the terrain immediately. Backed by drug lord weapons and money and the increasing presence of Konite, these assaults would hopefully prove more effective than the last round.
Even as he spoke to Lichter The Tyrant was aware of everything, data fed into his chair and his War Mapping updated constantly. Where Ivana had aides and a huge military machine to form strategies, The Tyrant needed only himself. The longer Ivana's forces pushed their supply lines the more his hidden units assaulted them, often far from the fighting. He still held much of his forces in reserve. Though Ivana held the city of Bogota as a strategic lynch pen, The Tyrant didn't care about it at all, he saw it only as a possible death trap to bleed and blunt the assault for as long as possible. Victory in holding the city, the ability to drag it out for days, weeks or even months? That would be icing if it happened.
The Tyrant smiled at @lichter. "I'm not asking to prove you wrong, I'm asking because I am curious, I wish to know your thought process. I do not believe people act without reason, everyone has a purpose behind their decisions, even if it is flawed. You have come here in person to stop me, I wish to know why. What are you stopping? Colombia is beset by a nation of raging mutants hell bent on being the top of the food chain and I am the villain? Perhaps I am guilty of a power grab but I am not dropping bombs on civilians, nor have I sent tens of thousands of troops into the borders of a peaceful neighbor. No, that is Venezuela. So why are you defending genocidal maniacs? That's what you're doing you know. IF you stop me, the defense of Colombia falls apart, the government sues for peace and who knows what horrors will be unleashed? Do you think The Shogun's people would accept their soldiers returning home bloodied and broken for nothing but keeping the status quo in an entirely human nation? Oh I doubt that very much. The government will have little military to speak of if I am stopped and Venezuela will have to stay in order to keep the Drug Lords from infecting their own borders." He shrugged. "Yet I am the villain?"
Elsewhere, two submarines full of people guilty of nothing but defending their country were destroyed without effort by an archer and the mutants with her. They died screaming. There was no contraband on their submarines, no secret weapons of war, just a couple of submarines who had the audacity to act against a nation invading their home. Men with families, men with honor. They died helpless and alone against a superior foe that thought it was ok to butcher people simply because they had a different genetic structure. There was no fight involved, the submarines were helpless against this type of warfare. The Tyrant's telepath let @apex_ know precisely what she had done when he felt the psychic backlash of their deaths.
Those men were acting in the defense of their country against naked aggression. They were not mutants or criminals or super villains...they were men. Men who had served in the Colombian navy before this ever started. When they left port four days ago Colombia was a peaceful nation. Today it is invaded by its neighbor. What will you have me tell their families? I would tell them they died valiantly for a cause but they did not. You cut them down without chance of a fight. If they had died fighting ships or planes or evading a patrol...but to be cut down? To be slaughtered like sheep? That is something very different and yet I see it happening all across my country, women and children killed by bombs falling on their houses. They ask what they have done to deserve such a fate.
As for @alpha_dog and @lord_knightfall they had a different sort of opposition...elite genetically engineered super soldiers trained to fight the world's best combat mutants. They appeared without warning, teleporting to each location. Each man was given six such foes to fight. Each foe activated an electrically charged combat weapon and prepared for a fight.
Although she was an outsider it wasn't difficult to convince a few others to support her campaign. While there was never a perfect reception, a large percentage of Shogunate mutants hailed from the global diaspora, in nations where they faced varying degrees of often life-threatening discrimination. It brought a sense of unity, and the prevailing idea in the field, just as in Caracas, and at home to an extent, was that they were family.
Furthermore, Anastasia boasted extreme potential as a utility from the moment she entered combat. During skirmishes with the enemy she was consistently several leagues above her peers. Most could hardly believe her when she professed to be a wandering immigrant with no combat credentials, not even in the reserve forces. Where she went losses were usually minimized and gains were always superior. And while she wouldn't speak on her mutation, most assumed that had something to do with it.
Finally, her target. She admitted upfront that she would be following impromptu tactics, but her strategy was sound and she had earned their trust. The target was consistent with the goal of securing or destroying important logistical points; and based on her understanding, implications of her campaign would play out over many avenues in both immediate and distant future, win or lose.
She began with a small regiment of willing soldiers pushing from the border. Occasionally they would happen across a group, offering aid to allies and dealing death to the otherwise. Some, who may have been having particular troubles on their own or had nothing better to do, volunteered to come along, pressing onward to the Lazarus's chosen destination. In all there were twenty of them before they stopped accepting. And they travelled, many often swapping stories and discussing their abilities to pass the time.
Always, Nastya led the charge. She moved at a grueling pace, often a hundred yards or more ahead of her comrades and hardly ever stopping, except to give the tech guy time to scavenge materials. She was an equally remarkable scout in both jungle and city, sensing enemies long before they were within traditional visual, auditory, and olfactory range. She could maneuver into advantageous positions and pick them off herself without risking much for the squad. And in the wake of her carnage, when the fighting was done, she would stop and wait. Listening for the sounds of beating hearts and rushing blood. Scenting for the increased presence of DMT in the brain indicating death.
No survivors. Ever.
They happened upon the remains of a crashed drone on the outskirts of Tunja, and there they camped for several hours. Most of them slept. Nastya kept watch. The tinkerer worked.
After thirty minutes his heart slowed and there was a shift in his brain activity.
An hour after that, she woke him.
"Up and at 'em Wide-Eyes. Is it done?"
He seemed almost appalled at the question. "You didn't listen back there? I told you, if I can think of it I can build it," he said, holding up a small disk-shaped device for her to see. That was all she needed.
A sharp whistle snapped the rest from their dreams. Anastasia addressed her troops.
"Oye! Listen up people! Best-case scenario, on foot we make the target in a few more hours. But since I've got you all slowing me down I'm thinking it'd take at least a day or more. So Park here's cobbled together a device that's gonna take us straight to the objective. I don't really have anything to say to you - I'm not a commander. Just be careful, be discreet and try not to give us away immediately. I could probably do this more easily on my own, so I don't want anybody feeling obligated to come along for my sake." She paused and waited a few seconds, but their stalwart silence said everything. She nodded and they returned the gesture. Then she continued.
"Actually, if you don't have any experience with or abilities that would be conducive to stealth, you are at best a diversion to allow the rest of us to do our job. Hopefully that doesn't cost your life, but if it does...well, these things happen." It hurt her to say, but as she concerned herself it was better to alienate them there than have anyone follow unprepared into what was likely a thick fortification.
"Don't cluster too much in one place but try not to get so separated that nobody can get to you if you're in extreme danger. But if you are, don't count on a rescue because it probably won't come. You'll have to be about your wits. But more than anything, I guess just try not to die. We don't need any martyrs here and honestly I doubt the Shogun gives a damn one way or another."
Silence.
...
"That's...That's all. Ready?"
"Th-there is one thing," the techie chimed in, staring in her general direction but avoiding eye contact. He looked at the empty space just left of her. It seemed almost to physically pain him managing that much. Social anxiety, she assumed. "I should probably say...it's only good for a one-and-done. One-way trip. Once we get there it's on us to get out. We could hike it or call for extraction, but we're not leaving the same way we came.
"Doesn't have to be awkward. If you're out you don't need to say anything. Just don't step on it...but I would recommend stepping back because it'll explode....untraceable." A half-apology, explanation and reassurance all in one.
"Wide-Eyes" activated the disk and tossed it on the ground, and the once-compact device expanded until it was large enough to fit the whole crew and then some.
One moment they were there on the outskirts of Tunja; the next, they were gone.
Orito, Putumayo
The oil field at Orito was a perfect target for many reasons, and for Nastya those reasons were at least twice what they would've been for any other Shogunate affiliate. Consistent with the logistical targets, it would likely prove instrumental as the conflict continued. And, if securing it went as planned, even after everything was over she would continue to reap the benefits.
To secure the oil field was to cut a crucial link in the chain that began transportation of the Transandino pipeline. It was to diminish enemy supplies and offer more options for the efforts of her allies. Even if the enemy succeeded in his power grab, the loss of that crucial station would mean less for him to grasp. Less resources to work with.
And, perhaps greatest of all, to attack the assets of Ecopetrol was to hit one of Colombia's most important exports. One of the 25 largest petroleum companies in the world. One of four principle companies in Latin America. Aside from the benefit to the war effort, it would mean pressure to change policies regarding oil and company stock. To remain afloat the state-owned enterprise would need to adjust—if they were smart in their adjustment, in ways that would allow Dain Industries to capitalize on the stock market.
"Secure the chamber, lay the eggs."
Most split into small teams, except Anastasia. Alone the Tiger's Cub struck out. Petroleum stung her nostrils, a briefly overpowering odor; but sensory adaptation was quick and she was soon able to focus a bit more on the scents people had. On those foreign scents identified as enemies by virtue of their unfamiliarity.
She operated as before. A master of stealth even without the use of her powers, she hunted singular men and groups alike, never detected for more than a second. Bodies thunked to the ground. Heads rolled. Blank expressions told of blissful unawareness; otherwise those of horror told of grim last-second realization.
She never stopped to think on the lives she took or the why of it all. It was not something she could afford, Dain would've said. But as she proceeded Anastasia came to realize, for once she felt truly free. Free from people. From any master and from public perception. Doing this thing that she was created for, which she both loved and hated, without any consequences.
A half-smirk crept unknowingly onto her face as she downed two more contacts.
@the_tyrant's speech was chilling enough that some may be petrified by it. But the souls these demons used for power couldn't feel the terror that would usually accompany such a tone, as the hearts they possessed were merely stolen property. With the command given by the Tyrant, the ghoul shrieked, and several more Elites appeared, in response to her summons. At the moment, they totaled forty, though more were likely to come. The Elites split up, and went out from the bomb shelter into Bogota to sate their desire for hearts and darkness, but the Ghoul lingered a bit. She slowly circled once around @lichter, floating just above the ground, and stopped in front of the CIA agent, staring into his eyes from no more than two inches away, breathing a chilling breath into his face. Not a breath intended to hurt him, only to make him feel uncomfortable, and to possibly linger in his mind. Ominously, she stroked his chin with her claws, and departed to face the adversaries the Tyrant had sent her to. She had no true reason to attack the agent at the moment, as his heart didn't appear to be a particularly appetizing one. Besides, the ghoul's master for the day wanted some quality time of his own with the agent.
The Elites each sunk their essences into the ground, and traversed the city of Bogota to find their marks. One found @subject47, and half of the group made their way to him. They rose from the ground in front of him, and they bowed to him, one hand on their chest, and the other to their side, to show their new-found allegiance to him. These Elites would then await his orders.
The Ghoul soared through the sky, searching for the mercenary group known as @the_b_list It was something of a difficult task for the Heartless to find their assignments in such a large city, as their natural attraction was to darkness, and there were so many hearts there, with so many evil desires inside them, effectively hiding the specific souls they were searching for in a sea of souls, some of them particularly enticing. Finally, the Ghoul found the mercenaries, and lo and behold, they were headed toward the palace all along. The Ghoul headed down to the group, and followed them a little ways from a distance, before quickly darting towards the rear of the group, and clawing at Shift and Gill as they followed the loopy girl, Eureka. This wouldn't do anything at all to their physical body. Instead, this would touch the dark parts of their souls, effectively waking up and lending an extreme amount of strength to any evil intent in them, making them, if for a moment, the darkest versions of themselves, whether that was a coward or a ruthless monster. Either way, the Ghoul wouldn't care. Darkness is darkness.
As that was happening, the remaining twenty Elites appeared in front of the band of mercenaries to halt their progress towards the Tyrant. They would wait for the group to make their first move, and retaliate in a manner they saw fit.
The Tyrant's forces had swept across the country before the invasion to secure critical junctures and important locations. The oil field at Orito was one of them. The forces here were pretty standard forces, nothing special. Their vehicles and equipment remained largely intact if for no other reason than the Shogun's attacks had not been directed to this area, at least not so far. A company of armed men spread across the field provided resistance but they were not Colombia's elite and had considered themselves lucky to be here and not somewhere with more active combat. Unfortunately for them that had all changed, so had their ability to just cut and run. When the elite forces of The Organization arrived and were dispersed the Tyrant sent one hundred of them here to fortify the oil field. What started out as an easy assault would soon change. The one hundred elite of The Organization fanned out as reports of attacks on the field came in. One or two of them teamed up with squads to provide discipline but the rest? The rest went hunting for the huntress.
It was a pattern that people like her left behind, dead bodies with certain kill marks on them. They knew a huntress when they saw one, the leader of the pack so to speak and they knew well enough that if they took out her clearing the oil field of the rest would become a simple process. In all ten of these elite troops went on the hunt. Their advanced sensory equipment helped them follow the trail of the dead by sensing the cooling bodies and the spilling of blood. Though none of them could smell like a predator their helmets could. They tracked the scent of blood, followed the trail of bodies and finally came upon the person they were after. She was a master of stealth and even with their equipment pin pointing her exact location was a difficult proposition. So...they didn't bother.
The ten soldiers tracking her isolated the area she was in and opened fire grenade launchers attached beneath the barrels of their weapons. Each fragmentation grenade would land in a specifically pre-calculated location designed to spread the most damage over the widest area. They didn't really need to hit her as much as force her to do something less than stealthy. The ten soldiers fanned out and moved so that each could cover the other and kept one hand ready to activate their close combat weaponry.
The Demon Faced cocked his head, "Welcome to your deaths." He whispered to the six surrounding him.
They weren't slow and weren't stupid either. In what would appear only a blur to human eyes they engaged in combat. A specialized attack meant to catch someone inside with no chance of escape. Three went first in a triangular fashion while the other three stood somewhat back ready to strike any chance they got. A club man came in with an overhead strike, a jian swordsman with an abdominal stab, and a ninja clawed man gave alternating strikes at his feet then head.
Even with their speed it all looked like slowmotion in Cydrus's eyes. Even his own moves. First he leaped to avoid the swiped at the legs while using the flat of his katana to shove the club into the swordsmans stab. Then a strong hack removed the right hand of the one with the ninja claws so he couldn't reach his head and a quick stab from the wakazashi to kill him before having to very narrowly dodge a jab from the club man, a generally unused move, and getting a cut across his arm as the swordsman sliced when Cydrus brought the wakazashi into the club mans throat. A sudden burst of smoke and Cydrus vanished and their vision blurred.
The first swordsman soon let out a cry of pain as a katana drove through his chest, "Told you," Cydrus hissed into his ear.
Three left. Much like the first three. The swordsman managed to get a mask on before the smoke clouded his vision and the club wielder just barely did.
The claw wielded wasn't so lucky. He was next. But he also had incredible hearing. The first overhead, side swipe, and stab, were blocked and dodged but he fell to the shaken that plunged through his heart.
The club wielders vision turned to his downfall as he blocked a swing but found himself staring into Cydrus's deadly gaze. His brain collapsed on itself and he toppled to the ground.
"You're alone swordsman," Came Cydrus's distorted voice from the swordsmans right, "Allll on your own." He hissed from his left.
In mere moments they enganged in a duel. Parry, stab, parry, parry, parry, stab, deflect, went the swordmans attacks and defenses. Cydrus was superior however and had superior technology. As the swordsman attempted an cut to the throat Cydrus vanished and appeared behind him slicing his throat.
"Apparantly your master is very resourcful," Cydrus said cocking his head and leaning next to the dead swordsmans head, "Wrong. But resourceful."
"Alright, so what's next?" Cydrus asked aloud standing up and looking around.
The two men, Shift and Gill, felt a wave of cold pass over them, as if the sun ceased to exist for a split second- but after the feeling passed, new thoughts popped into their heads, dark ideas that hadn't occurred since their first days on the team. Both of them turning their heads toward Butch simultaneously, for a long moment neither of them made an actual move. Then- slowly, carefully, with pinpoint accuracy, Shift raised his assault rifle and aimed it at the head of his leader. Cocking the gun, something slightly... Unexpected happened. A monkey wrench was thrown with equally deadly accuracy at the same time as the gun fired, knocking it off it's path and sending the bullet flying into Butch's arm.
As blood spurted onto the street, Butch whipped around, gun drawn, and Eureka was seen standing triumphantly with another wrench carefully balanced on one finger. "Ain't a good time to start a mutiny, hun." She snapped, and Butch started walking towards Shift with a dangerous look in his eye. Raising the gun once more, Shift attempted to fire another round into the leader of the B List, but by then the distance had been closed- the gun smacked away with a burly arm.
While Butch and Shift started swapping blows, Gill had charged at the careless Eureka, about to flatten the poor girl. But moments before contact was made, Gaston caught up with what exactly was going on, and seemingly flew towards the reptilian man, his steel toed shoe sending even the gargantuan creature flying backwards. Landing neatly on the ground, the Frenchman looked up with a snarl as Gill already started to react. "<I can't face him alone, woman. Help me!>" (Translated from French)
Eureka, eyes widened, nodded her head slowly. "Alright, if you're sure you got 'im..." Then, drawing her painted baseball bat, she cartwheeled over to where Butch and Shift were fighting, helping her leader take on the traitor.
Shift vs. Butch and Eureka
"About time you pulled some sh!t like this." Butch snarled, one finger lodged deep inside of his arm. Grunting in pain, he slid out a bullet from the hole, golden round reflected in the sunlight as it clattered to the ground. Sniffing, he drew a long, thin-bladed hunting knife from his boot, clutching it in one hand with the pommel facing towards him. Butch spat on the ground, but his opponent did nothing. Shift, now unarmed, was using his precognition to predict every single moment of the fight, from the first step that Butch took to the final moments. And Shift saw who would win.
"Come on, then." With a voice like ice, the faceless man raised his fists, and Butch charged him with surprising speed for a man about to reach seventy. Luckily, every blow was deflected, and at the end of the leader's wild combo, Shift whirled around to deal a devastating kick to Butch's ribs. Stumbling backwards, Butch coughed slightly, before charging again- another predictable combo, with a similar result- this time, a sharp jab from Shift to the wounded arm. Almost screaming in pain, Butch backed up slightly, almost stumbling to his knees. Shift advanced now to close off his kill, but before he could a blur of clown makeup swung a steel bat into his rib cage, threatening to break bone as Shift was knocked onto his back.
A move that he had seen coming. Angered (even beyond his altered state), Shift leaped up, only to know what was coming next. Raising an arm, he blocked the bat's second, overhead swing, the blow still harming his forearm- but saving his skull. Pushing the girl away, he spun in the opposite direction as a bullet flew towards him, narrowly dodging it with almost inhuman agility. Butch now had his pistol out, and was willing to use it- this was no longer a manner of talking sense, but one of putting down a rabid dog. Shift's mind was a whirlwind before him, darker emotions starting to fade away, and for the first time in the fight he asked himself.
"What the hell am I doing?"Dropping to his knees, the Detective slowly raised his hands above his head, conceding defeat to the two.
Gill vs. Gaston
"I'll kill you, punk!" Gill's deep, gravelly voice called out through the streets of Colombia as he charged straight for the Frenchman, intent on sending him flying. However, what Gaston lacked in size or strength, he made up for in speed. Waiting for his opportunity, the one who called himself Revolution found a mighty swing from the reptile to be a vital point of counter-attack. Ducking under the massive arm, Gaston dealt a swift one-two jab to the ribcage of the monster. With a grin, he looked up- only to find that the flawless counter had almost no effect on the hulking figure before him.
Time for a different approach.
"<You don't want to do this, Flenderson!>" (French) Gaston yelled, dodging another massive fist.
"Nobody knows what the $@!& you're saying!" Gill roared, continuing an unrelenting assault. The constant dips and dodges of the unfathomable Frenchman were annoying to say the least, and were starting to make the giant lose his stamina.
"Connard!" Gaston spat, and the two continued fighting in silence, Gaston deciding that this combat would be better than trying to talk to something that didn't speak his native tongue. However, after several minutes of prolonged duel, Gill's mind started to fade back into the docility it once held, and he stopped swinging all together- now with one thought in his mind.
"What the hell am I doing?"
After the fights, Gill and Shift both explained that they had no idea what came over them, and expressed their deep apologies. At least, Shift did. Gill merely grunted in slightly less aggressive tones. Butch sniffed, scratching at the bandage over his bullet wound, before deciding that their punishment would have to come later. At the moment, all of Colombia was going down the crapper. "... And them Maverick &*@#s aren't anywhere around to save the day. So it's up to us!"
A small cheer came from Eureka, but other than that, Butch was met with silence. Grunting, Butch guided his wounded party towards the palace- this time making sure he stayed in the back of the patrol- until they arrived at the door. Eureka walked up to the Palace door and knocked politely, before chanting out- "Girl scout cookies!"
Butch, tired of his team enough for one day, ignored this and kicked open the wooden door, raising his pistol and storming inside with his men. "Hullo?" He called out, unaware of what was proper to say in such a time. With luck, they'd find whoever was trying to take over Colombia, sell him for ransom money, meet a bunch of Colombian babes, and go sailing off into the sunset ready to retire. At least, that was Butch's fantasy.
Worst case scenario, whoever was in charge was actually prepared for five wackjobs to come busting into his palace.
Serene, the Legacy stood still, listening to the Tyrant's second tirade. Even as the aged enigma disparaged the Langley Knave even on the basis of his particular species, he remained silent, evoking an air of respect for the old man's words. In truth, there was nothing but contempt. He was either supremely insane or spectacularly confident, but obviously, whatever agenda he had planned could not come to pass. No matter how much he wanted to, he did not impatiently tap his foot, nor did he point out the glaringly obvious: the Tyrant had, by his own admission, killed a Head of State, his cabinet, and a top-ranking general, apparently possessing his corpse and seeking to rule Colombia.
And he's not the villain here, he thought, holding back a derisive snort. Manners, manners.
As he narrowed his eyes at the sneering Tyrant, he noticed the subtle shift in light detectable only to those standing within an Octarine veil. Small sparks carried up around his face, emanating from thin air as unknowable forces scraped against his anesoteric deflector shield. The change would be imperceptible to any and all outside him, for whatever attack had been made on his person would've been rather pitiful, were it even an attack at all; but nonetheless, it was noticeable, and it hastened his desire to leave. He had what he wanted.
He cocked his head to the side as the Tyrant finished his (probably rehearsed) speech, nodding as if in agreement. He gave a tiny bow, a small nod of the upper body only, spreading his hands before himself.
"Simply irrefutable. What rhetorical prowess you are endowed with, Señor Andres. I'll leave you be at once; I apologize wholeheartedly for my horrible intrusion," he said, returning to his standing position. Before another word could escape the Tyrant's wrinkled, cracked lips, Klaus flicked out his unique weapon, the dagger of the family line, and by means of its internal teletransportation circuitry, he vanished soundlessly from the room, reappearing back in the Central Intelligence building.
The CIA Headquarters
"The entity is located here, underneath the building," he said to the central team. "As you can no doubt deduce from my recording, General Andres is likely dead. His body has been subsumed by something else entirely. We might be dealing with an extraterrestrial, but I can't say for sure. The thing expressed disdain for, well, humanity in general."
He leaned over the table in the middle of the room, pointing to various holographically-generated diagrams of Bogotá.
"I could return with an explosive. Drop it in the room and leave. That's if we want something quick and clean...relatively speaking. Or...and I think this is our better option...we could make some new friends. Human-mutant relations have never been better. Strategically, well, I feel as though this is the better long-term choice. Let the Shogunate carry out their justice, and let us prevent any future human-mutant wars. If you'll consider this course of action, I recommend sending me. Plausible deniability and all. As a third party element, one fluent in Russian, and who is able to reach the Venezuelan front line at a moment's noice...well...there is no better choice than I," he said with an innocent grin. And while he wasn't exactly fluent in Russian, it was truly the opportunity of a lifetime.
It was uncommon knowledge that the President of the United States had access to a phone number that would enable him to immediately contact the notorious Shogun of Venezuela. Luckily for Klaus von Lichter, uncommon knowledge was the CIA's specialty, and within moments, he was fully prepared to enact his own unorthodox strategy. He retained his magenta facemask and combat vest, as it was likely he'd soon be embarking on another considerably perilous venture. When it came to playing with the big leagues, one couldn't go much bigger than the woman who'd brought an entire country underneath her heel, allegedly with the flick of a dagger (or something like that). Nervous energy coursed through his synapses as he drummed his fingers on his desk, one hand holding his phone up to his head.
The fact that he was calling from the emergency number would no doubt endear him to the Shogunate, and that was very much what he wanted. Ideally, they would meet face-to-face first, so he could make his case in person. There was much to be said for being able to gauge another's body language, and it was likely that once she realized he was himself more than a CIA agent, she would likely be willing to entertain his rather radical idea. He spun idly in his chair.
Klaus von Lichter. Engineer of peace between man and mutant.
I like the sound of that, he thought, going back over his prepared appeal in his head.
Ivana stood at the head of the table, leaning forward with her palms resting against the polished glass surface. Orange and sapphire holograms spiraled across the surface; logistical routes and strategic reserves and operational stacks. Generals and advisers engaged in heated discussion while she meditated upon their points and counter points.
A nervous aide approached. He cleared his throat. "Ahem. Ma'am? Its for you."
"Is it." She frowned as she turned her head to look at him.
"Umm, yes ma'am. It is important."
"....."
"It's America."
"Ah. Is it President?"
"No ma'am. But I thought you would like to know."
"You thought correct. Give me phone." She held out her hand and the aid laid the secure hard line into her armored palm.
America was important on the world stage. Doubly so for Venezuela, who had just re-established diplomatic ties following the election of an openly mutant president.
Ivana placed the phone to her ear. "Is Ivana. Speak."
"The average crew size of a submarine would imply that by taking out two vessels I am responsible for over two hundred sixty deaths in a single act." The archer began with a somber tone to her voice. It wasn't easy knowing what she'd just done with a single gesture. It's weight was heavy on her until today her fights were standard, sniping the only other angle used. Conventional warfare arguably had been her field, never anything grandiose like what she'd just done. However while her heart was heavy the words didn't cut as deep as desired.
"You tell their families the truth they were more then just men or women. They were soldiers." She truly believed in a distinction of the two, soldiers weren't just people or tally marks, and you couldn't just see them as the enemy. Beside Alex was soldiers, in the submarine were soldiers. Her enemy could have just as easily been a brother in arms. "They were given orders and they followed them, was the actions they'd have done justifiable it doesn't matter. We soldiers do what we are told. What we soldiers of the Shogunate did was just the same, followed orders. I'm not going to say which side is right, just that each side has to believe they are led by the side that is." War was so easy to say team B was right and team C the villain, it was hardly the case however usually. Each side had a vision of the outcome and the victor would tell which one was supposedly right. Questioning was fine but should be reserved for when the time was appropriate. Despite a not in her chest Alex wouldn't be broken by her actions, more would be carried out likely and it was apart of the job she had to take. "You know I joined for the rush, I love the adrenaline in my veins so you might think I'm young and fighting in a bad way. But believe me I know what I did and what I'm going to have to do. And if the tactic spares my team then I think I can accept what I've done."
Alex spoke out loud letting her companions here what she had to say as much as the telepath. They had started to cheer at first at the achievement of the body count, as Alex spoke though it sank in a bit more. Her unit had a understanding of what they were apart of past training in the Doghouse was good but it wasn't till now that many of them saw the spectrum of emotions their job brought. And in an infectious way her persona had slowly roped them into being her squad and her followers. Tightly weaving the team into something more then just a squad, it was possible that her own revolutionary force was being created. Maverick alone knew of Alex's position within the Shogunate to keep an eye on the worlds most known mutant warlord.
As Alex spoke however looking to hold a dialogue with the mutant leader she had her mind opened to a third party. Through training neither was likely to learn who she was it was simply communication. As Alex and the commander spoke however Samantha was listening in and using other telepaths in the field through the psychic communication. The various psionics briefly put an effort toward triangulating where the source was coming from. It was much like when tracing a phone call, the combined network of mutants seeking to pinpoint a valued location.
Lichter took measured breaths in between his conversation with the receiver of the call and the Shogun. He'd been working hard on his Russian in the past weeks in preparation for such an outcome, and to be fair, it'd been quite a while since he'd last had an opportunity to converse with another using the complicated native language of his contact. He practically froze as he heard her receive the call.
"<As you wish,>" he began in Russian, feeling his confidence return. "<My name is Klaus. I work for the CIA.>"
Or one could say they work for me, he thought happily, his wandering mind knocked into overdrive as he internally stumbled through his pre-prepared speech. Calm and collected over the phone, but a jumbled mess inside, he continued.
"<Colombia is gone, and it isn't coming back any time soon,"> he said matter-of-factly, sitting back down in his chair. "<The government has lost all power, probably forever. The people are living in fear, and a remarkably smug extra-normal entity has assassinated Carlos Andres and taken his position in their hierarchy. I have its own admission recorded; it'll soon be released to the world, meaning any so-called credibility it might shake in our faces will be entirely lost. I know this because I've spoken to it face-to-face; I was in Bogota about a half-hour ago. Should you desire, I can be by your side before you can so much as blink. This is a nice segue into my next point.>"
He swiveled over to his desk, squinting at a few translations he'd written down a few minutes back.
"<The Central Intelligence Agency has evolved. We are far more pragmatic nowadays, and far more willing to forgive any past international->"
He found the word he was looking for.
"<-complications. Human-mutant relations have never been better, what with diplomatic ties between your country and America reopened, and atop that, a homo superior in the Oval Office. Who are we to let minor transgressions stand in the way of peace? We see a rather bountiful silver lining to the dark cloud that is Bogota, and that would be covert cooperation between our little coalition and the Shogunate. Once this little crisis has been handled, the States and your Shogunate could collaborate in order to help aid relief in Colombia. Much of the infrastructure of the country has been devastated - no doubt by this alien entity now in control of their government - and it would fall to us to step in and lend a hand. I believe the term used by my superiors was "Colombian Protectorate," but the actual nomenclature for the state can be negotiated at your leisure,>" he said, pausing for breath again.
"<And in exchange, there is not only peace between the States and the Shogunate, but rather, collaboration. I myself have never seen a more->"
Another fast search.
"<-lucrative appeal. We're looking at a new frontier, madame. If you'd rather continue this conversation in person, allow me to trace the coordinates of the call. I'll arrive virtually unarmed,>" he said truthfully, tapping harder on his desk.
Only eighteen, he thought, almost laughing into the phone.
The generals and assorted advisers continued arguing. Their voices rising and almost drowning out the phone call. She considered motioning for silence, but did not. Conflict will sort the wheat from the chaff.
Instead she focused on Lichter's voice, cutting through the noise and commotion.
While he spoke she set and rested her feet upon the table. Head resting against the top of the chair, ponytail dangling behind it and her eyes closed she tried to absorb the feeling, the idea of Lichter's personality through the phone. Easier said than done. She would prefer a face to face meeting.
When she replied her Russian was crisp and clear. It exhibited the word selection and articulation of a soviet era intellectual, as a result of her upbringing.
"<I see. This is interesting information, if it is true. If the government has indeed been subverted by an outside force, this would explain a great deal about their behavior. And I concur with your analysis; the Colombians are on their last leg.>"
A pedestrian defensive strategy has doomed them.
"<There will be room for an aid mission. I have no desire to border a failed state; the security costs are too high. And it could prove an enticing staging ground for human extremists. And perhaps there is room for a certain level of.. influence.. in Colombia as well.>"
"<So, I accept your offer. Feel free to trace this call, and visit me. Though I recommend you make your arrival on the surface and descend through the usual method. This location has.. defenses.>"
Interesting. This didn't sound like Jean at all. Not unless she had critically mis-judged the man. It was possible. But it wasn't unknown for the CIA to strike out on its own either.
47 was crouched in the cellar of a blown-out house, a phone to his ear. "Andres was a bust, status unknown. Orders?"
"Abort."
"Understood." 47 ended the call, chucked the phone into the air, and put a bullet through it. Exiting the home, he found a VTOL awaiting him. He stepped inside, sliding the door shut an strapping in. As they rose, he contemplated the failure that had been Carlos Andres. "Where are we going?"
"Your next job. Get some rest, you have thirty-five hours before you kill again."
"<Wonderful. I'll arrive shortly,>" he said, clicking off his phone and lounging back in his chair with a sigh of relief. He fingered his mask, deactivating the small static threads that attached it to his collar and flipping it back over his head. Blinking, his nervous fingers grasped at a small pod of red pills on his desk, a collection of hyper-caffeinated capsules that would give him energy for up to seven hours. It'd been a while since he'd last slept, and it would be unbecoming to doze off on the Shogun's shoulder. Popping one into his mouth, he blinked hard, standing back up and shaking his head. Exhaling, he placed the Death Ray in its holster (he'd allow a guard to inspect it, of course) and drew his dagger from its sheath. Only forty minutes since Bogota, and he was already going back into the field. Rest is for the dull, after all.
Inputting the new coordinates through deft movements of his individual digits, he squeezed the grip in a highly particular way, the blade deconstructing his body and recreating it outside the Shogun's stronghold.
The Shogunate HQ
As expected, he'd been detained by guards the moment he'd arrived. He left the mask on, preferring the air of mystery it provided him with. Hands clasped behind his back, he was escorted through twisting hallway and down winding stair until he reached the Shogun's control room. A slight pause in the frenzy accompanied his entrance, which he at first thought he'd relish; instead, it was more than a little awkward. It occurred to him that he may have been the only homo sapien in the room, and that thought excited him terribly. Were there not more important matters to attend to, he'd personally interview every last mutant in the building to discern the nature of their abilities, and how they affected their lives.
I stand amidst the future, he thought, practically giddy. Perhaps it is merely the caffeine pills.
As the room returned to normal, he saw that the guards had left him. Presumably, he was in the company of far more capable men and women, those who would not require additional protection as those in the upper levels had. At first, he'd intended to scan the room for the Shogun herself, but there would be no need for that. Ivana stood tall among her allies, the queen bee in this mutant hive. Her apparel exhibited an equal measure of practicality and quiet elegance, and she exuded an aura that made the Langley Knave himself feel somewhat...deferential. It was very uncharacteristic of him.
"<Shogun Ivana,>" he said, keeping up with the Russian. "<It's an honor,>" he said, starting to extend his hand, stopping, then starting again.
First strike, he thought with a wince, remembering the Nationals in DC. It was a good thing he was wearing the mask.
"<My name is Klaus von Lichter, of the Central Intelligence Agency, League of Shadows, Maverick Incorporated...and others. We spoke over the phone.>"
He closed his eyes, for a second savoring the moment. He repeated the same words he'd told the Phantom in Gothic City only a week prior to the war.
When @lichter teleported away The Tyrant smiled...then his smile turned into a slow building laugh which eventually turned into a hideously evil cackling that last for almost ten minutes. It is completely unfathomable just how wildly off the mark they all are. They think this is about Colombia...The Shogun thinks its about Colombia, their allies think this is about Colombia, even The Organization thinks this is about Colombia. Ridiculous! What sniveling insignificant idiots! This world has never been more vulnerable. I look forward to its conquest. Now...let's see what more we can learn.
The Tyrant swiveled his chair back around and closed his eyes, focusing on the information is chair and general were feeding him. Bogota remained a death trap for the time being. There were a few options open to him that could lead to victory. So far his defense strategy had been relatively pedestrian, something a child of his species could have devised in its sleep. That was intentional, bleeding Venezuela while learning about their methods, their weapons and combat styles and how they approached an objective. He had learned a great deal and it was now time to learn about something else. How good were The Organization's troops? How would Venezuela and their allies respond to their presence? Konite, what a lovely accidental bonus.
The Tyrant finally ordered the deployment of his secret Organization troops but with a new twist. Konite was taken from citizens and soldiers alike and given to these elite warriors. Each of the genetically engineered warriors was already stronger and faster than a human but now they would have mutant powers. That they might become addicted or that it might kill them mattered not to The Tyrant. He smiled again and orders were sent to his telepath general. The forces defending Bogota were ordered to abandon its outer reaches and fall back deeper into the city where the pursuing Venezuelan forces would follow because their goal was to seize the capital and do so quickly. They were ordered to fall back as if their moral was breaking, flee the scene rather than strategically move back. It would get more of them killed than a planned fall back, but it would be more convincing. Once they fell back six miles into the city they regrouped behind squads of Organization troops who formed a new line of defense, once more fighting from house to house but now with the backing of the elite genetically engineered super soldiers...who were now empowered by Konite.
The Tyrant counted off time in his mind after the reforged line was formed and waited almost a full forty five minutes before he gave his next ordered...the deployment of five thousand super soldiers. The soldiers and their vehicles teleported behind Venezuelan lines in another massive teleport. It burned out their teleportation devices so if they had to fall back they would have to do so fighting...but The Tyrant didn't care. This move was bolder by far than anything he had done previously. He had been holding back so much to this point and even now in what was likely the defining moment of the war, he was holding back. His vast War Mapped mind could have tapped into so much more but he chose not to. Learning was paramount, everything else was secondary. His long game required knowing much more about the modern world than he did and he was learning it now...in the fires of Colombia, bleeding two nations on the altar of war because he did not care about the people fighting. To The Tyrant, there was only one other race beyond his own worth considering and there was only one of them left on the planet.
The five thousand troops and their APCs appeared well behind the Venezuelan front line in three different groups. The largest group, consisting of three thousand soldiers and their weapons appeared and began a rapid blitzkrieg of the command posts and logistical nodes with the intent of cutting the lines of command and leaving the forces in Bogota without orders. These troops unleashed a hail of well aimed weapons fire and a torrent of blazing fires shot from their hands. Troops with regenerative properties cloned the tactics of Venezuela, in fact if one looked closely, The Organization's soldiers cloned those tactics to a T. Regenerative soldiers formed the bunker breaching squads while new technopaths did what they could to disrupt communications and try to prevent a call for reinforcements from going out. A third class of newly powered super soldier made use of telekinetic powers to rip doors from buildings or crush the bones of their enemies.
Five hundred super soldiers deployed to raid the logistical arteries. They engaged only as long as they needed to while blowing bridges, destroying supply depots and generally causing as much havoc as possible. Their biggest focus was the lines of communication, land lines had to be laid, means of communicating established...all of these became targets and would be disrupted as much as possible.
The remaining soldiers, accounting for no less than 1,500 super soldiers deployed and launched a massive assault on the artillery support. They drove through the heart of the main artillery positions with the ultimate goal of clearing through them and driving on to Bogota where they would hopefully be able to catch the invading force from behind. Though each of these groups were limited in numbers their technology, genetics and superior training combined with Konite all acted as force multipliers.
The Colombians themselves had become increasingly enraged with the invasion and more and more joined up. They were armed, given orders and sent to the front. The city of Bogota had become war itself with a combination of elite armored Organization soldiers and elite Colombian forces fighting along side regular army forces and civilians. The last of the reserves were unleashed, the elite core of Colombia's anti-drug forces, they drove for the right flank of the invading forces within the city while unleashed drug lord forces went for the left. The drug lords lacked Konite but made up for it with powerful drugs that made men immune to the concept of pain. These drugs had been used for decades and would require high caliber weapons to actually bring down a man because mere injury was never enough, not when the soldier didn't feel pain or register the damage done to him.
The Tyrant wasn't done. Although he'd finally committed his reserves, not all of those reserves were fighters. Some of them operated in different ways to help fight for Colombia. The internet campaign continued and that would bring in money and foreign fighters but he needed something more and he needed it now. This piece of his forces that he unleashed now was different. The special forces were unleashed, commando teams with one goal and only one goal. They crossed into Venezuelan held Colombia and set up sniping stands in particularly dense and rough terrain. High caliber, accurate sniper rounds sought the heads of lead mutants, attempting to decapitate forces where ever they could. They also sought weak points in the fortified defenses and if found would raid them, killing as many as possible, planting explosives where they could and then withdrawing. They had no strategic or even tactical goal. Instead they sought to sow as much chaos as possible. They appeared in as many places as possible as well, often striking at the same time thanks to the mutant general's ability to coordinate. The goal was make it appear that a somewhat sizable army had managed to launch a counter offensive. On its own probably not convincing but when combined with The Organization's attacks? Much more likely to appear exactly as they wanted it to.
The telepath general was difficult to trace. Tracing his mental link was like trying to trace a highly skilled computer hacker, he was using minds like others used computer servers, bouncing his 'signal' from one person to another to another to another. He smiled in his bunker. Nice try attempting to track me but I'm not new to this. Colombia is dying and you speak of following orders. Ask yourself why this war started. WHY did you invade Colombia? Everyone knows it poses no threat to Venezuela. Lets follow events shall we? A nuclear weapon is detonated off the coast, the government is all be slain. Carlos Andres takes control and Venezuela marches to war. There's no legal provocation there, the weapon was detonated in Colombian waters, the Colombian military never even deployed close to its border with Venezuela and much of it was not even mobilized when your forces crossed our border. Your invasion is illegal. What you are doing is wrong. With that the connection was severed, just a few moments before the Venezuelan telepaths would have identified his location. The best she had out of it was a location somewhere in the mountains but that was a large chunk of territory.
The Shogun stood by two extremely large Orochi and a slender, young redheaded woman with a green costume. Both Orochi were kneeling on the floor as they cleaned their nodachi blades in graceful motions that spoke of ritual and clan honor. The redhead was chewing bubblegum and texting; her fingers a literal blur across the phone.
Ivana herself was cleaning one of her vibranium knives. It slipped into its sheath on the outside of her right boot, then she crossed her arms, completely ignoring his offer of a handshake.
"< Klaus von Lichter. Welcome to the Shogunate. Our discussion must wait; our enemy has launched a counter attack at last. This is our chance. One decisive battle of annihilation.>"
Laughter danced in her eyes. But her hands were all business. Checking gear. Tapping last minute orders into electronic pads. Cleaning her second knife.
She simply assumed Lichter was an impressive combatant. Virtually every costumed individual she met was some sort of martial arts master or possessed great power. Often both. There was no reason for her to suspect any different in Lichter's case.
"<If this Consortium is at my service then I call it to battle. This is the decisive battle of the war. Crush the enemy here and the war is all but won.>"
Truth be told she was relieved. The time for strategy had passed. It was the time for combat. And Ivana accepted no equals in personal combat.
"<Like Alexander on the fields of fields of Issus I go to lead my chosen in a direct assault. The Orochi and the Doghouse will join me. Join me. Let our first act be the destruction of our enemy on the fields of battle.>"
His hand all but shot back down to his side as the Shogun described the plan. He nodded as she made reference to archaic conflict and the legendary general Alexander, describing their final victory as though it would be as easy as a stroll through a park. The Venezuelan military could put any other to shame when it came to unpredictability and sheer power output, for most mutant soldiers were biological weapons of mass destruction. The Legacy was equipped for combat, of course, but that didn't mean he had much interest in it. Killing was not something he was entirely comfortable with, and while this was war, he preferred not to involve himself in directly ending the lives of other men.
The entity, of course, was another matter altogether.
"<A daring plan. While it will certainly provide quite the spectacle, I fear that in crushing its forces, the Andres-creature will take this opportunity to escape. Odds are it'll begin again somewhere else. Peru, maybe. I think we should kill it while we know where it is,>" he said, enunciating carefully. Slowly, he drew his dagger, holding it up for the Shogun to see.
"<This device permits me to go anywhere unhindered. I feel as though, with your permission, I could fill my own little niche as the Shogunate takes the main stage. I'd only be a liability in a ground battle,>" he said, flipping the knife over in the air and holding it by the blade between his fingertips. "<Here's what I have in mind. I already have authorization from the higher-ups,>" he said, replacing the knife.
A small nervous smile played across his obscured lips as his plan was accepted. Carefully, he'd grasped at the small metal tube, gingerly curling his fingers around the vibranium shell as he rearmed his dagger with his other hand. He disguised his nervousness through practiced confidence, relaxing his muscles and taking care to breathe casually. He bit his lip, inspecting the matte-silver device with a mixture of fascination, respect, and utter fear. Inhaling through his nose, he looked back to the Shogun.
<"You have my communications code. Message me if you need anything else handled surreptitiously,>" he murmured with a weak smirk of artificial confidence behind his mask. <"I'll be back in a few minutes. I'm sure you'll feel it, though, right before I return,>" he finished, flicking his dagger back into his palm. Once more, time seemed to slow for the Langley Knave, who suddenly felt very alone in this hectic room full of crowded mutants. Only those nearest to the Shogun and the Delver of Secrets would know of his suggestion, and would witness it unfold; the wisest among them quickly stepped backwards when the Shogun had handed him his requested tool from her quiver.
The future begins now.
Cracking his neck, he turned, squeezing the handle of his blade and teleporting back to the Tyrant's bunker.
The Bomb Shelter
Dust kicked up around the center of the room as Klaus rematerialized in the familiar room underneath the Palace. It was with the grace of a fencer that he sought to put an end to the war in one fell swoop, an utterly disastrous and demoralizing attack certain to annihilate the opposition by cutting off the head of the serpent. He had his qualms about killing, but whatever this creature was, it would have to die to keep humanity safe. But Klaus von Lichter was not one to take risks on the honor of single combat; he would not gamble with the lives of millions on the off-chance that he was a superior combatant to this mystery invader. No, if he were intent on protecting the innocent, then no chance could be allowed that his foe might survive. It could elude capture, or escape; it was inhuman, whatever it was, with no well-defined limitations to what it could do. It was absolutely his intention to utterly destroy the entity.
Less than a second had passed before he whipped his arm up in a practiced motion, as though he were drawing the Gottschwert from its sheath. But it was no saber that he held loosely in his hand, but rather, the silver metal rod the Shogun had gifted him mere seconds before. His fingers released his doomsday weapon like a conductor would throw his baton into the air at the end of a symphony, watching as it twirled across the dark room, reflecting the bright lights of the various wires and nodes within.
The object he'd thrown was one of the Shogun's vibranium one-kiloton nuclear-yield arrow shafts.
Vibranium is a unique element that had the power to absorb energy, but there would always be a limit to the amount of power it could absorb. When the esoteric metal collects its maximum amount of power, it violently disintegrates at an atomic level; unstable vibranium, however, was far more dangerous. The Shogun's vibranium arrows were designed to take in a specific amount of energy, a small rod of vibranium charged to instability sealed in another, carefully-molded shell. Upon armament, the arrowhead would activate detonation protocols on the protective shell surrounding the shaft, overloading it with a base electric charge. Seconds earlier, with instructions from the Shogun, Klaus had overridden these protocols, setting the arrow to explode upon contact with any energy. The unstable vibranium within would then disintegrate on an atomic level, releasing a massive wave of energy equivalent to one thousand tons of TNT. Hence, the designation One Kiloton Arrow.
As his coup de grâce twirled through the air towards the Tyrant's chair, he tossed his knife over to his other hand, his mastery of the art of prestidigitation enabling him to perform such a complex maneuver even under such stressful situations. He moved on muscle memory alone, without even thinking; as the knife landed in the fingers of his left hand, his right, which had been holding the arrow, had already drawn his Death Ray. He aimed it upwards, towards the shaft, already arcing down towards the chair. Leaning backwards, he jumped away, falling as though he were moving through slow motion. His lips moved in tandem with his finger on the trigger.
"Auf Wiedersehen,"he said, watching the red energy beam collide with the vibranium arrow, instantly overloading it. At that very moment, he clicked the handle once more, dematerializing himself before the arrow experienced violent nuclear detonation a mere half-second later.
That would have been a fairly accurate summary of Dog’s thought process, once one had gone through it and carefully pruned out the profanity that would have probably caused anyone hearing it to immediately burst into flames. The Tyrant’s elite troops had managed to track his location, using a grid of his previous attacks to find a pattern and predict his most likely location with a fair amount of accuracy. He had to give them credit for being smart, and judging from the way they quickly fanned out and deployed their weapons, they obviously had some skill, too.
Good. He was getting sick of killing amateurs; things looked like they were finally about to get fun.
“Alright, ya walkin’ ski boots,” he snarled, vibranium knives appearing both clawed hands, “ol’ Dog’s gonna shove those cattle prods where the sun don’t shine.” He tensed, preternaturally powerful muscles prepared to launch him forward, in an explosion of unfettered violence…
…and then the blast hit.
Unexpected really didn’t do it justice. Even with his enhanced hearing, Dog was being hurled through the air by a fiery blast of concussive force before his brain could register what was happening. His armor took some of the edge off of both the impact and the intense burst of radioactive energy that accompanied it, but he still experienced more than a few third-degree burns as he was hurled completely through one sewer wall and slammed against another.
After a few moments, he unsteadily pushed himself to his feet, growling against the pain as his healing factor kicked into overdrive to repair scorched tissue and cracked bones. His knives were gone, hurled off to who-knows-where by the blast, and his senses only slowly recovered, blurred vision and ringing ears gradually clearing enough for him to try to discern how his foes had fared in whatever that had been.
Before she ever set eyes on the forces of The Organization it was clear they were different. Air currents shifted as they arrived and the wind carried their scent, which alone said that they were...different. Geographical origin at least, likely more. A precise location she couldn't place, but they bore the stench of a place far from anywhere in Colombia; although they wore that in no small measure as well.
Imported troops. This isn't just an inside job. She catalogued the smell in her mental database and made a note to follow up later.
Nastya watched, bathed in shadow, the troops scouring the area. It didn't take much to deduce they'd noted the kills and were looking for her in particular. That alone suggested they were different from the common troops employed by the enemy. Experienced trackers. They'd marked her general location in short order and it wouldn't be long before she was made. Their funeral. She shrugged.
Shatterpoints flashed around her. Transient, physical and ethereal. Small windows of opportunity opened and closed every second. The world – time itself – was an endless series of precise moments. She sensed them in minute instants before they occurred.
Enemy soldiers raised their weapons to aim.
There.
Her moment had arrived. From the outside it would've been barely noticeable even if she were within sight. To the uninitiated, a slight shifting of her foot and nothing more. Applied to the shatterpoint at her feet, the ground broke beneath her. The resulting fissure sprung a gas leak an instant before the wall of grenades struck.
In less than a second the entire area set ablaze in an explosion far grander than grenades alone would've caused, encompassing the entire area Nastya shared with The Organization's troops. If all went as planned they would be caught in the blast radius of their own attack. And further, her own men elsewhere on the complex would take the signal and begin evacuating early.
They were smart. This kind of circumstance meant a few things, they knew. The operation as it had been planned was compromised. For that they were ready. No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force. Beyond that, remaining at the field as it was then meant they risked not only contact with the enemy, but a rapidly spreading fire and, when it met with the stores of oil, explosive eruptions that threatened all parties present. The most pragmatic option: maintain cover and pull out. Almost all of them obliged.
In the aftermath, anyone seeking the huntress would likely be hard-pressed to locate her among the carnage and flames; except, perhaps, for the distinguishing mark somewhere within the epicentral crater. Where once the predator stood, there lie a mass of charred flesh and bones.
(I scrapped the original concept for this character as part of its revamp. This new one is partially inspired by you Alpha Dog. Let's have some fun with this fight =) )
One of his enemies remained, a warrior clad in silvered armor that seemed almost completely untouched by the blast wave. The figure's cape billowed in the nuclear wind and a female voice emerged from its helmet. "Whoever did that killed my armor doing it, not appreciated." She said and strode forward towards the Alpha Dog even as he forced himself to his feet.
"Gene-Lock Super Strength...one ton. Gene-Lock, combat speed regeneration. Gene-Lock, enhanced durability level three. Skill-Lock martial combat, blades. Skill-Lock, martial combat, ninjitsu. Armor, shed." There was a series of hissing and clicking sounds within the armor and it began to fall away as she walked forward. She discarded the gun in the process and soon the warrior beneath the armor, or at least some of her, was reveled.
"Activate secondary armor, proto-development suit A-13." A new armored suit emerged from the remnants of the old and soon recovered most of her body.
The mysterious combatant flexed her fingers and claw blades emerged from her hands that were exact duplicates of the Alpha Dogs. She grinned, fangs showing in her mouth. "Oh...tingly. Come on big boy, let's have a little fun before someone interrupts us again." She dropped into a defensive stance and motioned for him to come at her. Unbeknownst to Alpha Dog he was facing a genetic experiment of The Organization's that had actually gone rogue along with The Tyrant. She was capable of duplicating mutant and meta-human properties with genetic alteration drugs built into her armor under clothing for a period of approximately two hours. At the end of those two hours she would suffer incredible nausea and agony usually including at least an hour of vomiting and debilitating pain in her muscular and bone structures. It was an unpleasant experience to say the least, but it gave her the ability to adapt to an opponent on the fly. In this case she'd chosen to essentially mirror her opponent as a sign of respect for what he'd done so far. Also because it amused her.
"You think she's okay" the jade haired mutant teen asked her sister as they sat in the plane watching the apex of archery. The marksmen's fists were clenched and shaking and despite talking in a hushed tone Amanda thought she might get punched from the frustration. When Cassandra didn't answer however Amanda looked over to the second in command the man known as Strength. "So what's the next move?" She asked a bit shaken up herself as she watched the archer's psychic oriented verbal smack down.
"Cass make a device that can assign a sent to psionic energy. After that boot up Requiem. You'll be moving to the shipping yards." The orders were blunt and sure enough the red head of the sisters mentioned what resources she'd need to craft such an item. Amanda had the mutation to conjure metals from nothing, a creationist power that cheated any concept of rarity. This worked well with Cassandra who could design whatever came to mind. If she could think it then she could construct it. Thanks to this the tool was made within twenty minutes, and with that Cass moved to the back of the jet climbing into a black box. The sisters hugged briefly before Cassandra sealed the cockpit and relinquished mag locks.
A tangerine sphere dropped from the heavens racing downward like a comet given its momentum. However do to its vibranium components the large machine showed no additional signs of its decent physically. A meteorites tail denied by absorbing vibranium. "And then comes the AA fire." Right on cue rockets heavy rounds and the occasional super powered attack came her way. Advanced heads up display guided the machine to shoot multiple rockets from the skies making it rain scorching metal in the theatric fall. As the crimson hand bucked from automatic fire however the silver appendage drew backwards and began to radiate with energy.
Requiem bucked and bounced as it was pelted by anti air weaponry. Dents and scratches aside however in the occasional area the iron and vibranium maiden continued to fall. Forces were likely realizing that conventional fire power and random powers wouldn't do. They'd need the right powers it was best to grab resources and move aside. However the time between the fall and landing wasn't a particularly elongated one. Soon enough the thirty five ton mech slammed into the earth dust and concrete shooting skyward as cracks raced about. And with a speed that created a sonic boom with its very movement the high octane machine stroked the dock with open glowing palm.
Dispensing from the silver arm was a shockwave of microwave energy. An intensity of heat designed to turn the entire port into bubbling matter that'd sink into the water. An intense heat that'd boil a good portion of the water of the immediate area be it containing salt or found in the bodies of the soldiers. With any luck the water and heat would also damage the ships and drugs in question. The vibranium maiden of a mech looking to dispose of hopefully everything of the opposing side in one swift motion. She'd rather not linger in a hot spot if it could be helped. "Soldiers shouldn't do drugs, your all terrible role models" the redhead teen remarked over the communication system.
Her clothes were a tattered mess her body bruised and bloodied from multiple skirmishes. This said a lot to be fair, Azrael after all was a phenomenally durable adversary. She had the capacity to endure nuclear level attacks directed her way, she could endure her own powers. Conventional fire power or a heavy back hand wasn't going to put the vixen down. However the genetically altered prey with konite backing had put up a fight. Still her small campaign went on.
Her journey was a simple one she moved casually and engaged anyone who dared fight her or who she stumbled upon. In her wake was a all to telling trail of haunting clouds. Apart of this was purely intentional. As a trail of nuclear fall out the siren figured she'd draw a crowd. That various soldiers would move to stop the thermonuclear juggernaut. Azra had contained the radiation, looking not to harm innocents, however with small clouds of the most welcome sort moral and expectation would likely be distorted to expect otherwise.
"Been some time A bomb. Got a portal coming your way. Cut lose once your out." The voice of Sam remarked ringing in the nuclear siren's mind. Sam was barely out of school when Az last saw her. Shame the siren thought that such a bright mind settled for war. It wasn't a bad living by any means but the bomb dropping threat to humanity wanted more for Sam. Following provided order Azra stepped through the portal, setting forth into a forested region of trees and mountains.
"Good to hear your voice Sam. Take a moment before coming this way, it'll take a sec to draw back the radiation." With that the palm of Azra pointed to the sky as her eyes set on the mountains around her, and with a thought a series of arching lights raced toward the peaks. An encasing of telekinetic energy encompassed the energy the mental force looking to break down matter to turn the atom bombs into bunker busters. They'd burrow into the mountains to a degree before setting off with a magnitude to likely bring the mountains to collapse internally. A second volley came to hit the open region, to create a larger area effect. With a simple action the mutant wanted to turn that segment of the Forrest into a region of scorched dead I radiated earth washed in a heate that would incinerate most individuals. The region had room to spare as the enemy was a skilled psychic who hid himself well. When the prey retreated to a fox hole however Azra sought to leave no region of land to go to.
A lone STRIKE plan flies through the sky, inside a handful of different men, hand soldiers, pilots, technicians, engineerings, etc. All being supervised by one of STRIKE's top Agents, Thomas Wilson. He is going over the papers, reading up on the so called "Tyrant" as they called him, how he was controlling Colombia with an Iron Fist, he needed to be stopped.
"How much more time until we're at the base?" Wilson bluntly asks the pilot.
"Should be five more minutes or so. I have to fly carefully, make sure not to have our plane be spotted by any of the Cartel's equipment. Even with the cloaking devices, they can be pretty powerful." He responds back.
The Tyrant's war mapping happened at a rate that would make most computers blush and so too did his battle mapping. He wasn't certain of the arrow's properties but a simple understanding of his situation quickly indicated to him it was likely some sort of large explosive. The reasoning was simple, Lichter was intelligent enough to have likely noticed his deflector shield which means there was no way he would have thrown an ordinary arrow, it would have to be something capable of producing a huge explosion that might over load the shield around his chair. The Tyrant's eyes narrowed in the moment between the arrow's release and the firing of the death ray. His neurological interface with the chair had already begun operating, receiving instructions from his brain in the seconds in took for the arrow to be released and for Lichter to fire his weapon. There was a sudden surge of power and the reactors powering the Bogota area suddenly surged and exploded, massive explosions that destroyed the remaining infrastructure powering the city and sent tremors through the ground. The power was consumed by the chair and there was a flash before the one kiloton flash. The mass teleportation device built into his chair was an emergency device, an item of last resort. The chair's other functions were fried in an instant and its sensitive circuitry destroyed but it and its occupant and every entity within the palace (and on top of it @the_b_list, @cvnuheartless) was teleported away, not out of any design by The Tyrant but because the chair didn't have enough time to pick and choose who it took. Lichter was gone a half second before the teleportation activated.
The Presidential Palace shuddered and then collapsed into a huge crater that had one been the bomb shelter. The entire building collapsed inside of it and a great cloud of dust was cast up into the air. Tremors shook the city, buildings shuddered and the soldiers in the streets could feel the ground quake beneath their feet. The one kiloton explosion was mostly focused downward thanks to bunker it exploded in but even so the blast wave simply moved the earth and concrete for nearly a mile around. Everything that stood in that circle collapsed into a cavernous hole in the ground that would forever mark the location where the war in Colombia took a turn for the worse.
Several miles outside of the city everyone teleported by the chair was unceremoniously deposited onto the ground. The Tyrant's chair was gone, fried in the explosion and unable to actually teleport itself. The Tyrant stood up slowly, dusting himself off and casting his gaze at those around him. He smiled slowly and removed the final neural connectors from the back of his head and tossed them to the ground. He reached into his robes and felt his persona teleportation device, it too had been fried. He shook his head and shrugged, tossing the useless device to the ground. His connection with his general was now lost which set into a motion a series of plans already put into place before the war had started. In keeping with his haggard and worn appearance The Tyrant moved slowly to crouch down and pick up a large stick to use as a cane. He turned to the members of The B List and the Heartless they had been fighting and nodded for a moment at some internal thought. "Keep fighting if you want." He told the super villains of the suicide squad. "But your friends just about killed you." They also ended any semblance of this being a war. I hope the general is able to gather data on how well those Organization troops fight, I very much want to know their worth.
He started laughing a little, the laugh turning for a few moments into a hideously evil cackle before he was able to gain control of his emotions. He grinned.
"Oh...oh I love how mistaken everyone has been to this point. They will come away from this war thinking they've won, but I've just forced Venezuela into spending blood and treasure on a war that didn't matter...and likely an ensuing occupation and rebuilding project. Ah well, every projection predicted a five percent chance of total victory if Venezuela invaded...that's the one surprise you know, the invasion. Sadly even my predictions can't be one hundred percent accurate without greater knowledge of my foes...and now I have it." He leaned on the cane, his sunken eyes fixing on Eureka and the others as he clasped one withered hand over the other. "So do we begin our own little fight, you with your curious assortment of former villains and me with my Heartless or shall we do something else? Your friends have won this war, my command and control center is destroyed and I suspect my general is in danger now as well. All that remains is a few more fights to learn more about my foes..." He smiled slowly and narrowed his sinister eyes. "So who's first?"
-----------------------------------------------
The Tyrant's telepath general found his bunker shaking as the mountains themselves were struck by the devastating Nuclear Mutant. He sighed, his communication with The Tyrant was cut off and his data feeds were at last beginning to fall. He finally reached down under his table and jerked a sensitive hard drive from the computer, it contained all the data gathered so far during their efforts, a backup to The Tyrant's own memory that could be reviewed by others later on. The entire data center went dark and the General pulled a pistol from its holster. "It's been fun boys and girls, but I have to go." He told the staff around him. The dedicated staff stood up and made for the exit, given permission now to surrender or run if they could. Another massive explosion shook the mountain and dirt and pavement fell from the ceiling. "So uncivilized." He muttered. He pressed a button on his belt and was teleported away just moments before the mountain came crashing down on the bunker. He materialized inside of a black ops helicopter hidden away in dense underbrush at the foot of the mountains. The helicopter soon lifted up out of the jungle and made for a predetermined destination. The all black, sleek vehicle engaged a cloaking device and vanished from view. IT flew low over tree tops to ensure that it's natural stealth abilities were further aided in hiding from radar by flying under most of it. The engines had been dampened to be nearly soundless and it banked hard to the east on its way to the emergency rendezvous point.
Inside of it the mutant General sat quietly with a hard drive in both hands. He leaned forward and closed his eyes, opening his mind to the sounds of war around him. He would be able to detect any impending attack on his helicopter in this way by detecting the very thoughts that would guide it. Well...here we are. Operation Colombia Bleeds is all but complete, The Tyrant has much of the information he wants...now it's a matter of getting out...though I suspect he's going to want to engage certain individuals first. I do hope he opts out of fighting The Shogun, that fight could take hours. He's going to want this data. He pulled an armored briefcase from beneath this seat and secured the hard drive inside of it and then handcuffed the briefcase to his left hand.
Back in the oil refinery two of the soldiers grabbed the body of the woman they had been tracking and supported its charred remains between the two of them. A third took a syringe and stuck it into her arm, using it to withdraw blood. The soldier put the syringe carefully into a case on his belt and looked around. The refinery was a loss, they had just been telepathically ordered to withdraw and most of his squad was now dead from the explosion the creative woman had caused. They would bring her body with them and withdraw to a secret rendevous point. They dared not use teleportation for such a job and instead packed themselves into an APC. There they secured the woman's body to a gurney and strapped her down.
"Why are you bothering with that?" One of the soldiers asked him.
"Never trust a mutant to stay dead." The more experienced soldier said with a smirk. "Keep an eye on her. and a gun too."
The APC took off through the jungle, crashing through dense terrain on its way to the evac point. Behind it the refinery exploded in a massive fireball that sent a blast-wave sweeping across the land. Oil and compressed gas would burn for days after the explosion and swathes of jungle had simply been brushed aside as if by a giant's hand. There was little left to collect there now and the environmental impact wouldn't be known fully for years.
Wilson and his STRIKE team were deposited near the border with Panama as Venezuela's forces swept into the middle areas of the country and turned back to fight The Tyrant's counter attack, the whole countryside embroiled in a bitter war. His assignment to keep Colombia stable would have to wait for the war to end at this point. There was another assignment though. He was to track The Tyrant's secret telepath general, try to find him and capture him if at all possible. A man of his caliber simply did not appear from no where and Tyrus wanted to know his story and deprive The Tyrant of his services in the future. First of course he'd have to find the man. STRIKE's sensory equipment was unable to pick up the cloaked helicopter but the agents with Wilson were able to find the fleeing APC that was speeding towards an area near the border with Panama. There was a chance the APC could lead him to the general's location.
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