“Mike!” Agent Mast screamed as the helicopter sparked viciously and spun, rapidly descending. The others spread out as Zombress collided with her, sending the two to the rooftop as the plummeting scrap smashed into the roof, ripping itself to pieces and bursting into flames. Mast and Zombress gazed at the fire as they rose, the other, closer squad members scrambling away from the crash site.
“A few seconds earlier and I would have gotten the entire nest,” mused a woman’s voice. Mast whipped around and pointed her gun at the source, one of the three white-clad commanders of SERAPHIM striding forward from the stairwell. She brought her hand to her earpiece. “Zealot, confirmed villain coordination with neutral parties.”
Zealot’s smile grew even wider as the rumble of the explosion died away. He turned back toward Morant. “In case you didn’t figure it out, Arbiter stripped all heroes of their status pending loyalty tests. This more than confirms our suspicions about your sympathies.”
“But the BVH…”
“Can only get involved if there’s a request by heroes or villains.” The SERAPHIM around them began to shift menacingly. “Well… heroes, after those pesky laws were repealed.” He took a step forward. “And all I see here are newly minted villains acting in an unauthorized assault on the Super Heroes’ Guild and the BVH meddling in affairs they don’t understand.” He folded his arms across his chest.
“You bastard!” Morant roared.
Zealot turned and made his way toward the Heroes’ Guild. He brought his hand up to his earpiece. “This is Zealot. All villains are determined to be rogue elements.”
A pleasant note rung in his ear. Overseer chimed in. “This is Overseer. Lethal force is hereby authorized.” The clicks of rounds being chambered filled him with delight.
As the SERAPHIM surged forward, filling in the gap that Zealot had left behind, Colonel Morant grabbed his stun baton and raised the sparking weapon in the air. “Don’t! Hold! Back!” he ordered, the sound of crackling weapons behind him giving him some sense that maybe they could pull through this.
The first mercenary reached him, hands outstretched and smoking. Morant leapt forward and tackled him to the ground before smashing him across the face with the baton. Another, not confident in his abilities, leveled his rifle at Morant. With an upward arc, the baton struck home on the gun’s magazine, the electric charge detonating the stacked bullets’ gunpowder. The colonel dove backward as the gun exploded, taking a chunk of the offending mercenary’s hand. The soldier fell to his knees, clutching his mutilated appendage before Morant rushed him, knocking him square in the face with his fist.
“Hear that, Siren?” Athena asked. “We have ourselves some rogues.”
“How are we going to take care of that?” Thanatos inquired rhetorically.
“Like this!” shouted Siren. Two of the agents fell to their knees, covering their ears and screaming. Another two were blown backward, into the flaming wreckage of the helicopter, their shattered bodies falling limply to the ground as they wailed at the fires eating away at their flesh.
“Heart…” Zombress shouted as she summoned a sigil in the air. Immediately, she clasped her ears and grunted as Siren flicked her hand toward the villain, making the shimmering signs fade into nothingness. The remaining agents knelt and took aim at Siren, firing.
The bullets stopped and fell to the roof as Athena put up a telepathic wall. “Duck!” Mast shouted as the fallen rounds rose in the air and blasted off toward them. She hit the ground fast enough to dodge it, but her subordinates were not so lucky, catching the shrapnel at eye-level.
Zombress was recovering from Siren’s assault, a sneer spreading on her face. “You unbelievable trollop!” she shouted. Thanatos closed the distance between them and sent a fist smashing across her face. Zombress fell from the force of it, rolling up and into a crouch. Her face screamed at the touch, but she couldn’t resist the primal urge to leap forward and knock Thanatos to the rooftop with a body slam. She sprung up and onto her feet, running toward Siren when she was hit by a psychic shockwave and audio assault at the same time.
Mast rushed toward Athena, opening fire. The rounds slammed short of their target, but the distraction allowed Zombress to carry forward, toward Siren, only to be dragged down by Thanatos. Hands clasped around her neck, prompting Zombress to shout in agony as she drew a dimly flickering sign into the roof. “You’re mine, Queen of the Dead!” came the hoarsely whispered threat in her ear.
“Starburst!” Zombress roared. Immediately, the air around her flashed and burst in a white-hot display of phosphorescence. Thanatos was thrown off of her, and another ear-shattering blast smashed Zombress’s teeth together as she tried to rise.
The second Mast’s gun was out of ammo, Athena reared back and delivered a psychic blow to the agent’s mid-section, sending her flying backward as the two remaining members of her squad ran forward in an attempt to stop the SERAPHIM.
Ariana was trying to keep up with the ebb and flow of the onslaught, but the chaos of it all was making it too difficult. Stuck in the middle of the besieged heroes, all she could do was reinforce the bulwark of her side and push against them as they struggled to keep as many of their troops alive as they possibly could. Flashes of all different colors streaked into her vision, blinding in the variety and brilliance. A lot of it was bluster and adrenaline for all the lack of damage it was doing.
“Ariana!” Morgan shouted from close by.
“What?”
“We can help!” the hero shouted.
The Enforcer in front of her collapsed to the ground, nearly knocking Ariana over as she tripped up a step. She immediately offered an arm for support to prevent the man from getting trampled. “How?”
Morgan’s hand wrapped around Ariana’s free arm, grabbing her attention. The heroine pointed up, toward the Guild. Ariana thought her companion lost her mind until she realized exactly what Morgan was pointing at. For the first time in a long while, hope sparked inside her.
The four SERAPHIM posted at the door of the western entrance of the building went down quickly from Allison and Steven’s concentrated gunfire. Arthur rushed over their writhing forms and immediately went to the key panel, subconsciously adjusting the bulletproof vest he was forced to wear. “Losers would never have made it in my mob,” Allison mused as she kicked a downed mercenary.
“Mollie, we’re at the west entrance,” Arthur said, unconcerned with Allison’s appraisal of their foes
“Code is four, nine, zero, nine, seven,” Mollie sighed. “It relieves me to hear you are still alive.”
“Same here, Mol,” he muttered. He hit the buttons in sequence, and the door buzzed unlocked.
Steven stepped forward and pushed Arthur gently away as he grabbed the handle. Allison stepped through the doorway, gun up and at the ready. Arthur followed as Steven covered their movements. “The card maker is in the Security Office. It is all prepped and ready to go.”
The goon tapped his earpiece. “How’s the fight going, Mollie?” Steven asked.
A pause. “It is going… well… ish.”
Zombress knocked Thanatos off of her again, managed to carve a symbol in the air before one of the mercenary’s cohorts could defend her, and charged into the SERAPHIM. The sigil shattered as Zombress passed through it and she sped up catastrophically, smashing Thanatos through ventilation units, picking her up, and jumping into the air before slamming her on her back into the roof. Blood sprayed out of her victim’s mouth as Zombress sprung off the mercenary and flipped up and onto her feet. She quickly spun, brought her leg up, and swung it down, only to pulverize the rooftop as Thanatos rolled to her side and knees. The SERAPHIM bolted into her, picking Zombress up and throwing her downward.
Use me! the voice inside her head hissed as Thanatos straddled her temporarily stunned chest. Use me use me use me!
Thanatos brought her hands up and tried to plant them on Zombress’s face, the Queen of the Dead intercepting the movement with her own gloved hands. �
��I learned not to give you time to summon any of that bullshit artwork, oh exalted queen!”
Zombress flashed a smile. “You’re really getting off on this, aren’t you?” she choked.
“You have no fucking idea,” Thanatos whispered hoarsely.
Gunshots exploded near the SERAPHIM’s head, the bullets hitting an invisible wall much too close for comfort. Distracted, Thanatos’s hands slackened. “Sorry,” Zombress snapped, squeezing the mercenary’s hands hard enough to shatter the bones. As the woman screamed, Zombress’s legs snaked up and locked together around her opponent’s chest and squeezed, cutting off the sound with a gurgle. “But this is as close as you’ll get to being between my legs.” The villainess rolled over, pinning the wounded woman beneath her. Zombress latched onto Thanatos’s foot and stood, pulling the hero’s leg into the air.
Before she could rip Thanatos’s leg off, an air conditioning unit tore out of the rooftop and threw itself at her. She smirked and tossed the SERAPHIM at the flying object, deflecting it before she turned her attention to the others.
Zealot’s eyes flickered across the mass of fighting humanity, sparks of light raking across his sight. The guns only occasionally reported, their effectiveness limited by close quarters combat and the undesirables’ weapon of choice. On top of that, witnesses were now joining the fray, leaping toward the encircled rebels, knocking aside the white-suited defenders or falling to the same army. Despite the supposed chaos, he could see the numerically superior SERAPHIM forces maintaining rank, disciplined structure clashing against the Enforcer line. It was the influence of the costumed heroes which gave it a look of confusion. It will only be a matter of time…
The fountain erupted in a tidal wave, smashing into a column of SERAPHIM moments after turning a thick, oily black. Jets of steam gushed as the mercenaries disappeared beneath the water, screams of agony rising above the sounds of combat. His pulse quickened as more water sprayed upwards, coalesced into spears, and shot into the sky like mortars, raining down and pinning several of his men in place.
“Aquaria,” he said as a smile spread across his face. The girl would make an excellent prize for Arbiter. He strode toward the battle, reaching up to his headset. “Bring the search drones out of orbiting formation.”
Arthur was not nearly as patient as he could have been with the card maker, the ancient machine humming and clicking in what seemed to be an ever-increasing effort to get them caught and killed. Steven moved next to him and prodded Arthur with his foot. “Watching it isn’t going to make it work any faster.”
Arthur fought the urge to roll his eyes. “Thanks.”
“Looks like they’re having a lot of fun out there,” Allison grumbled disappointedly as she entered the room. Arthur whipped around at the sound of the door squeaking.
“What are you doing?” he asked pointedly.
“I was just…”
“Stay in here, for villains’ sake,” he grunted in annoyance.
Allison clicked her tongue with a similar tone of displeasure. “Just like Catalina.”
“Arthur!” Mollie squeaked in his ear.
He was grateful for the intrusion. “Yeah?”
“Search drones inbound,” she sighed quickly.
Mast dove for cover as Athena pulled together a swirling shield of debris in front of her before exploding it outward, the shrapnel from the explosion blasting one agent off his feet and making the other clasp his suddenly bleeding neck. Mast rolled onto her back to face the telekinetic when she was hit with an audio blast from Siren. She took aim, even though the bullet would be deflected by Athena.
“Haven’t you learned?” Athena laughed mockingly, not noticing Zombress running at her full-tilt. The Queen of Fear leapt and punched the SERAPHIM hard across the jaw, sending her rocketing to the rooftop.
Siren was distracted, the sudden takedown of her fellow commander drawing her attention toward Zombress. The villain winced and buckled but didn’t scream as Siren targeted her. Mast squeezed the trigger.
A plume of blood spurted from Siren’s neck. She hit the rooftop, clutching her throat. Mast tossed the expended rifle aside, leapt to her feet, and pulled out one of her sidearms.
“Diane!” Zombress shouted, and the agent spun toward the sound. Thanatos leapt at Mast, arm outstretched to strike her down. She got off a shot right as she was tackled, the bullet stopped by the mercenary’s vest. The hero continued the dive, pinning Mast beneath her.
The first fist to hit her burned, like someone had dumped acid on her cheek. Before she was struck again, Zombress smashed into the heroine, knocking her off and into a heap.
“Agent Mast,” her headset buzzed with Arthur’s voice as she got upright.
“Busy, Arthur!” she responded, yanking Thanatos up and off Zombress, pistol-whipping the SERAPHIM across the face. She slammed a fist against the hero’s exposed chin. On contact, Mast’s world flooded white. The mercenary crumpled as the agent staggered, suddenly nauseated.
“You’re going to have search drones in your location in thirty seconds!”
Before she could react, a telekinetic shove rocketed her backward, toward the smoldering wreck of the helicopter, leaving Zombress crumpling to her knees under a newly insistent attack from Siren.
“Keep it up!” one of the Enforcers shouted at Morgan and Ariana, the team working to knock down waves of SERAPHIM and keep them down as near-boiling liquid clung to their skins.
“We could do this all night!” Ariana shouted in response as a globe of water whipped by her. She held out her hand, and the sphere turned dark and steaming before slamming into a formation of mercenaries, exploding with a pop. Enforcers blocked their faces as the wall of coffee cascaded, reformed into a wave, and sprayed into the crowd of formerly white-suited attackers. Above their cries, the soft whipping of a helicopter could barely be heard, until it was rapidly overtaken by rifle reports.
“Ariana, over there!” Morgan shouted, throwing a curtain of water up and out of the fountain before slamming it down on the shooters to their flank.
Ariana whipped around and snapped her fingers for emphasis, feeling the small hairs of her arm stand on end as her power rolled off her and into the water, transmuting it into something more damaging. She bared her teeth, enjoying the feeling of the adrenaline, when her eyes fell on a calmly advancing hero throwing off his overcoat.
Sandy-blond hair, eyes filled with hate, wicked scar running up his face…
Erich Constantine.
Cold fear locked her in place as a helmet appeared from out of his armored suit, snaking up and covering his face. He pounded his gauntlets together, sending out tendrils of green energy, before knocking two Enforcers out of his way. He wasn’t intent on her, but on Morgan, who, in her frenzy, was focused elsewhere.
Colonel Morant brought his stun baton across a large mercenary’s face, but the man didn’t go down. He brought his rifle up, but the Enforcer was able to twist and catch the gun between his arm and torso. With his free hand, the SERAPHIM grabbed Morant by the throat and squeezed, lifting him off the ground. Panicked, the Enforcer dropped his weapon as he gripped his attacker’s wrist. The colonel brought his legs up and planted them on the chest of his opponent, pushing him off with one great burst of effort. Morant fell to the ground, back aching as he sprang upright.
The larger man brought his weapon to bear. Morant grabbed the barrel and shoved up with one hand while grasping for the other man’s trigger finger with his free hand. The gun cracked before the colonel managed to wrest the finger free of its position and break it. Screaming, the mercenary backed away as Morant let the gun fall to the ground. Darting forward, the colonel’s hands snaked around his opponent’s neck and pulled him down before stomping as hard as he could on the man’s kneecap. The bone cracked and sent the mercenary tumbling forward before a final blow, a quick uppercut, sent him reeling backward.
As Morant stooped to recover his weapon, bright lights flooded the battlefield. Somewhere above the
din, he heard the hum of the pair of search drones descending on them. One split from the other and sped toward the rooftop.
“Attention villains,” boomed the computerized voice over the thunder of combat. “You have been declared rogue elements. The High Consul has authorized the use of lethal…”
One of the engines on the side of the vehicle exploded, rocking it off balance. Before it could stabilize, a helicopter emblazoned with the VWN logo tore through the billowing smoke. The cheer that erupted from the combatants quickly returned to the cacophony of fighting.
“Looks like we hit the party just in time, Marsh!” Jack Cleese shouted over the headset. He laughed and took a swig from the bottle of cooking sherry he had come across in the hours earlier.
Marsh leaned back into the cabin of the craft, smirking. “We’re not out of the woods yet, you crazy motherfucker.”
“I’m the one piloting while you’re leaning out and shooting like a madman,” Cleese said. “I, sir, am not crazy.” The sky around them lit up with tracer fire, forcing Cleese to barrel roll the chopper before pulling up in a climb. “See?” he turned back to Marsh, the actor holding onto some crash webbing for dear life. “There’s nothing to these whirlybirds!” With another laugh, he angled the helicopter downward toward the Guild rooftop. Behind them, the search drone whipped past, continuing to climb.
“Taking out one of the turbines was one-in-a-million on a good day, you bastard!” Marsh screamed. “How can I shoot anything with you flying like this?”
“My boy, you’d never make a good villain,” Cleese said coolly, his eyes fixed on the search drone slowing to a crawl over the rooftop. “Where’s your imagination?”
The second Zombress saw the spotlight erupt and head to the roof, she panicked, even though she was still locked in combat with Thanatos. Mast had temporarily taken Siren out of play, but Athena was still batting the two of them around and making a general mess of things. With a surge of strength, Zombress shoved the SERAPHIM off of her and held her arms out. Thanatos recovered and leapt toward her as Zombress’s fingers carved red symbols in the air. The villain backflipped, sending a foot into Thanatos’s chin and sending her skyward.
Project Northwoods Page 67