Vanguard: Seasons 1-3: A Superhero Adventure

by Percival Constantine

  “Can’t say I completely disagree with your logic,” said Thorne. “Okay, go up and find out what the story is. Then meet back at the trial as soon as you can.”

  “Of course.”

  ***

  Chloe Grant looked around the small room her crew had been gathered in. She was dressed all in white, with a matching coat draped over her body. Her short, blond hair reached down to her chin and the white helmet that completed her costume rested on the table in front of her.

  Two men sat at the table. One was bald, without even an eyebrow or eyelash. He wore a skintight red and yellow suit. The other was a good deal larger, with a thin beard and his hair buzzed short, dressed in black pants and a sleeveless shirt.

  One final man stood at the rear of the room, leaning against the wall. He wore a long cloak concealing his entire body, save his hands, and his head was bathed in the shadows cast by his hood. He held a staff out in front of him.

  “Today’s the day,” said Chloe. “I want to make sure you’re all up for this. Ferryman?”

  The cloaked man raised his head slightly and spoke in a raspy voice. “I owe the Exemplar my life. I’ll do whatever it takes to see that he’s safe.”

  “Good.” She turned her attention to the bald man. “And you?”

  Clarence Black didn’t even look at her. “I’ll do what you want.”

  Chloe folded her arms over her chest. “You’re not giving me a lot of confidence.

  Clarence glared at her, his eyes transforming and becoming like hot coals. “I hate your guts, Zephyr. You were the only one of us working for the Khagan willingly. But you come through on your end of the deal, then Pyre will come through on his.”

  “The Khagan’s gone now, we can move past that,” she said.

  Clarence held open his hand, flames appearing in his palm. “Easy for you to say. You’re lucky I don’t melt the flesh from your bones.”

  The big guy slammed his fist on the table. Clarence looked across at him, staring into the behemoth’s dark eyes.

  “Keep a lid on it,” said Desmond Caine. “We got a job to do. Wastin’ time fightin’ amongst ourselves.”

  Clarence closed his fist, extinguishing the flames. “Fine.”

  “Let’s get ready,” said Chloe.

  Clarence was the first to leave the room, followed by the Ferryman. Desmond rose from his seat and moved over to Chloe, his form towering over her and covering her in his shadow.

  “You know the deal, right?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Yeah, I do. The revolution’s coming.”

  “You sure we can trust these two?”

  “Pyre’s an idiot, but he has his uses. And as for the Ferryman, he’ll do whatever it takes to spring his precious savior.”

  “Funny to mock someone for their beliefs given yours in the Khagan.”

  She turned, looking up at him with a hard glare. His size didn’t intimidate her. “The Khagan promised a revolution. The Exemplar only ever promised a hiding place. If we’re going to pursue real change, we’ll need him.”

  “Glad you feel the same way.”

  “When will I see him again?”

  “Gotta be patient, Zephyr,” said Desmond. “When the time’s right, the Khagan will appear. The Red Fist is buildin’ up again, slowly but surely.”

  Chloe picked up the helmet and slid it over her head. “Good. Now let’s go start a riot."

  CHAPTER 7

  The Icarus came to a hover far above the courthouse in Washington, DC. Inside the cockpit, Zenith activated the auto-pilot and pushed his seat back from the controls, rising up. Erin did the same and the two moved from the cockpit into the passenger bay.

  “How’s it look down there?” asked Erin.

  Lee stood beside the monitor attached to the partition and pointed to it. On the screen were a series of feeds from outside the courthouse. They were pulled from the news feeds as well as the cameras located on the Icarus itself.

  “This is what we’re looking at.”

  The different screens all showed angles on the same image. Cerberus agents were down there, as well as local police, and barricades were set up. On one side was the pro-Exemplar crowd, people holding signs calling for his release, specials deserved the same rights as normal humans, and even some anti-Cerberus messages. The other side was vehemently opposed to the Exemplar, waving around placards of the Exemplar with a Hitler mustache, calling specials terrorists, and some even advocating for their outright extermination.

  “Things aren’t so better on the web,” said Koji. He sat in one of the chairs with a tablet in his hands, flicking through the messages on his screen. “Social media’s exploding. Trending hashtags include, ‘so not special,’ ‘Exemplar was right,’ ‘hail to the King,’ and… ‘specialcution.’”

  “Those are stupid,” said Erin, taking a seat beside Anita.

  “I dunno, I kinda like ‘hail to the King.’ Bruce Campbell even retweeted a few of them.”

  Dom chuckled at that but Erin just blinked.

  “Who’s Bruce Campbell?”

  Dom, Lee, and Koji all stared at Erin with a mixture of horror and surprise present in their gazes. She returned their looks with a questioning glance and a shrug.

  “What? What’d I say?”

  Dom shook his head. “How can you not know who Bruce Campbell is?”

  “Okay, give her a break,” said Anita. “It’s not like the Evil Dead movies were that great to begin with.”

  Lee gasped. He slowly raised his hand and pointed at Anita. “D-did she just say what I think she said?”

  Koji set the tablet down on the chair beside him and stood, approaching Lee and patting him on the back. “It’s okay, man. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

  Anita rolled her eyes. When Erin looked at her, she just flashed her a smile. “Ignore them. They’re just being guys.”

  “So we’ve established that there are protestors outside the courthouse and Anita’s got terrible taste in movies,” said Dom. “Anything else?”

  “I received a message from Gunsmith, his shuttle has departed for Olympus,” said Zenith. “But until something else happens, all we can do is wait. I’ve activated the Icarus’ new stealth mode, so we’ll remain hidden up here.”

  “Do we know what’s going on inside the courthouse?” asked Anita.

  “No cameras are permitted inside,” said Zenith. “We’ll have to wait until they recess.”

  Anita sighed and stood from her seat. She walked to the rear of the craft. Erin got up and followed her. Anita had gone to the med-bay and began opening compartments and then closing them again.

  “Everything good?” asked Erin.

  “Making sure of that right now.”

  “You do know you always do that, don’t you?”

  Anita looked at Erin and smiled innocently. “Always do what?”

  “When something’s on your mind and we’re flying somewhere, you come back here to the med-bay and you check to make sure all the supplies are there,” said Erin. “Even though you know we always restock once Icarus is back at Atlas.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just like to be prepared. Is there something wrong with that?”

  “You went to see J’Karra again, didn’t you?”

  Anita scoffed and shook her head. “Let me guess. Thorne put you up to this, right? Worried I might be in danger of snapping because everyone thinks I’m some ticking time-bomb?”

  “What? No, not at all! Thorne didn’t say anything to me!”

  Anita turned her back on Erin and rubbed her forehead. She sighed and lowered her hand. “I’m getting a little tired of the eggshell routine, okay? I know everyone’s scared. After what the Analyst…did to me. And then there’s J’Karra and what Chronos said…”

  “We’re worried, that’s all.” Erin moved closer, placing a hand on Anita’s shoulder. “No one thinks you’re a time-bomb.”

  “Tell that to Dom.”

  Erin sigh
ed. “Okay, so maybe Dom’s been out of line. But it’s nothing personal. He’s just…Dom.”

  Anita faced her teammate. “What is it you want me to say? That there’s no way Chronos could be right about me? That I’m not the least bit scared I’m being mind-controlled again?”

  “I-I just—”

  “I can’t say those things!” Her voice spiked for an instant.

  “Everything okay back here?” asked Lee, poking his head through the open door.

  Erin approached Lee and eased him back out. “It’s fine, just girl talk.”

  “You sure? Sounded—”

  “It’s fine.” Erin slid the door shut and locked it. She leaned against the door and looked back at Anita.

  “Of course I’m scared,” said Anita. “For a long time after what the Analyst did to me, I kept second-guessing every single decision I made, terrified that those weren’t my choices. And since J’Karra, that’s started happening again.”

  “So why do you keep meeting her?”

  Anita shook her head. “Hell if I know. I keep saying it’s to find out if these visions of mine are true. Maybe I’m trying to prove to myself that I don’t have to let her push me around.”

  “Did something happen?” asked Erin, moving closer. “The last time you saw her?”

  “We talked about Chronos. When I told her his story, she was surprised. She said that she implanted the visions in my mind. All meant to throw me off my game, make the rest of you distrust me.”

  “So that’s…good? I mean, that means there’s no invasion.”

  “Except we now know from Chronos that there is. So someone’s not telling the truth.”

  “Which one do you think it is?”

  Anita shrugged. “How should I know? I can barely tell what’s real anymore. If that vision was fake, then why was it so similar to what I saw in Chronos’ mind?”

  “Maybe she had the vision, too? Some sort of…I dunno, subconscious thing or something?”

  A knock came at the door. Erin looked over her shoulder but made no move to open it. “What’s up?”

  “You guys should come out here,” said Lee through the door. “It looks like we’ve got a situation."

  CHAPTER 8

  Gunsmith sat at the controls of the Cerberus shuttle, expertly maneuvering it towards the Olympus space station. When he checked the range, he furrowed his brow in confusion. Normally, Olympus would have hailed someone before getting this close. He activated his comms to send a message out to them.

  “Olympus, this is Agent James Ellis. Requesting permission to dock.”

  The sound of static was the only response he got. He tried again.

  “Olympus, do you copy?”

  Still nothing. Gunsmith sighed and tried a third and final time.

  “Hey Abram, since when did you institute a nap-time policy up there?”

  Again, only static. Gunsmith sighed and initiated the docking procedure. He flew the shuttle towards the docking bay. Normally, docking would have to be initiated from Olympus. But in the event of an emergency, there were failsafes in place. Gunsmith activated the override and the door slid open.

  The shuttle landed carefully and the mag-locks secured it to the floor. Gunsmith closed the hangar door and powered down the shuttle before rising from the controls. It was a small, four-man shuttle and he walked past the other seats to the now-open hatch and climbed out onto the hangar floor.

  “Gunsmith to Olympus, does anyone copy?” he asked, using his exoskeleton’s built-in comm-link to try and make a connection. “Guys, this is really not the time for jokes, okay?”

  His hands went to the teleforce blasters holstered to his thighs. Gunsmith drew them both and slowly moved through the hangar. The eyepiece he wore reported no life-signs in the area.

  “What kind of bullshit is this?” he muttered under his breath.

  Gunsmith almost took the elevator out of habit, but he decided it was better to take the stairs to the bridge. If something was wrong, he didn’t want the elevator to accidentally give his position away. Better to move as quietly as possible.

  The bridge was located at the uppermost level of the space station and the hangar at the lowest. There were thirteen levels between and Gunsmith would have to stick to the staircase for all of them.

  He opened the door to the stairwell, holding his blasters at the ready. Confident he was alone, he quickly bound up the steps, taking them two or three at a time. The exoskeleton provided him with the speed and endurance to move at a quicker pace and for a longer period than normal. As such, it only took a few minutes before he reached the top level.

  Gunsmith checked his scanner. The eyepiece still reported no life-signs. He slowly opened the door and peered into the corridor. A straight-shot from his position to the bridge. But he still wondered just what the hell was going on out here. Where did everyone go? Why hadn’t he picked up any traces of life on the entire station?

  He moved down the corridor, checking each room as he passed. Both guns were held out in front of him. Gunsmith approached the twin doors blocking his entrance to the bridge. But as soon as he came within range, the sensors detected him and the doors slid open.

  Gunsmith walked to the edge of the platform overlooking the rows of terminals. It was like a ghost town, not a single person—alive or dead—in sight. He stood still for a moment, just staring with incredulity.

  When he finally snapped himself out of it, he holstered the guns and went to one of the terminals. His hope was that the Olympus computers could give him some clue as to what happened. But every time he tried to input his credentials, he was met with an ACCESS DENIED message flashing across the monitor.

  “You won’t find anything in there.”

  Gunsmith spun at the sound of the voice, instantly drawing his weapons and opening fire. Before the blasts could tag him, the man vanished. Gunsmith scanned the area again. His exoskeleton briefly told him there was someone else, but the signature had gone just as quickly as it appeared. Much like the man himself.

  A blow came from behind and Gunsmith was thrown into one of the terminals, destroying the computer as he fell into it. Sparks flew and Gunsmith pulled himself up from the shattered monitor, but before he could fully stand, the attacker wrapped his hand around the soldier’s throat and hefted him into the air.

  Gunsmith’s eyes bulged when he saw the face of his opponent—the man looked exactly like J’Karra. “Y-you’re a Kotharian.”

  “Very astute,” he said. “I am General M’Lak. And you are Jim Ellis. Or do you prefer Gunsmith?”

  “How do you know who I am?”

  M’Lak smiled and hurled Gunsmith across the bridge. He struck another terminal, rolling over the desk and taking the computer with him before falling over the edge and hitting the ground.

  Gunsmith could feel the rage building inside him. He clenched his fists and shut his eyes tightly, struggling to try and contain his anger. The last time he felt like this, the result wasn’t pretty. “No…can’t be…”

  This was more than a craving. This was the change. And he had to fight to contain it. He controlled his breathing, trying to calm himself. But then he heard M’Lak’s voice and the scanner warned him the Kotharian was approaching.

  Gunsmith sprung up, opening fire with his blasters. M’Lak extended his energy blade, deflecting as many of the teleforce projectiles as he could. One got through and tagged his shoulder, then another hit him in the abdomen.

  “So it’s true, J’Karra’s people are planning to invade the Earth,” said Gunsmith.

  M’Lak chuckled. “Oh yes, it’s true. You’ll be our new slave race. And what’s more, one of your own has already sold you out.”

  “One of our own…?” Gunsmith barely whispered the words and they lingered at the forefront of his mind. Did that mean Chronos was right about Paragon? He’d tried to ignore it, but now the evidence seemed far too damning.

  “By the way, my condolences on the deaths of your compatriots,” sai
d M’Lak.

  “You killed them?” His hand tightened around the gun’s handle and the rage started to boil once more.

  “Oh yes. The stench was a bit much, so I made sure to dispose of the bodies before you arrived,” said M’Lak. “Most died quickly. Well…with one exception. Abram Zukov suffered excruciatingly before he expired. I understand the two of you were close?”

  The rage boiled over.

  Gunsmith screamed and dropped the weapons, his body changing as he charged at M’Lak. His muscles bulged, straining against the limitations of the exoskeleton before breaking right through them. M’Lak tried to react, but this new Gunsmith was far too quick. The behemoth slammed into M’Lak, the force throwing him against the glass overlooking the planet.

  M’Lak activated his energy sword, the blade going right through Gunsmith’s chest. Gunsmith stumbled back, his hands gripping his head in pain. M’Lak coughed, trying to catch his breath after having the beast’s massive hand wrapped around his throat.

  “Well…that was unexpected,” he said.

  Gunsmith shook his head and looked at M’Lak, growling through clenched teeth.

  “I knew from Zukov’s memories about what had been done to you,” said M’Lak. “But he thought it was gone from your system. Apparently he was wrong.”

  Gunsmith roared and took a leap at M’Lak. The Kotharian jumped from his path, taking one of the discarded teleforce blasters. M’Lak raised the weapon up, switching to lethal setting as he did so, and pulled the trigger just as Gunsmith was upon him.

  The teleforce blast slammed into Gunsmith’s chest, the impact strong enough to throw him up to the ceiling. He lingered for a moment before plummeting back to the ground. M’Lak jumped just as Gunsmith’s massive form struck the floor, generating a small tremor.

  M’Lak raised the teleforce gun, aiming it at his enemy. Gunsmith didn’t move, just laid there still. But M’Lak knew his opponent was still alive. He could still detect brain activity.