–Mikae’s Home,4:27 AM–
Mikae was bored. Being stuck at home all weekend and every day after school for the next two weeks didn’t appeal to the impulsive teen, but she at least had a lot of practice in cleaning her room well enough to hide her stockpile of sustenance. Ironically, she was less pissed when her mother disconnected her internet connection that when she had spilled a bowl of cereal all over her rattiest pair of jeans.
*Gawd, if I wanted to be a housewife sometime in the future, this’d be interesting. Too bad. I’m sooo fucking bored, I’d rather be stuck in that stunted little bastard’s little pit of debauchery than here, and that says a lot.* Sighing, Mikae turned from the window that let her look out to the natural harbour, having decided to sneak out anyways. Ten minutes later, a small black shadow detached itself from the cornice around the top floor’s window and jumped towards the police station.
The shadow stopped for a few seconds about five blocks away from the station, balancing easily on the arm of an old traffic lamppost. Below the shadow, two five-ton trucks roared through the intersection, belching out clouds of smoke and ashes as one sideswiped a small sedan, crushing the smaller vehicle into scraps of ruined metal and shreds of flesh as the two people in the car had the engine block relocated into their laps.
The shadow paused for a second, then jumped along the rooftops until it could hop onto the top of the closer truck. However, the truck split off from its undamaged clone, making the shadow overshoot and land in a pile of garbage cans. The response, after the echoing clatter of the filled cans landing on the form, was a volley of shouted swearing and other invective as the shadow, stepping out into the light of a street lamp revealed itself as Mikae.
"Well, dammit! I’d better get home before mom finds out I’ve been sneaking off again. I’d better have a shower as well..." Mikae trailed off, sniffing the immensely over-ripe remnants of a melon that had managed to slather itself over her left arm. "Yep. Definitely need a shower." With that comment, Mikae retreated to the shadows, then headed back to her home, wiping some of the sticky sludge off of her arms.
Behind her, on top of the trailing truck, a purple-clad form wearing a long cape landed quietly on top of the canvas covering the back of the truck. The truck slowed down in order to make a turn, but the form easily unlimbered a long gun as it hopped over the low-hanging traffic lights. Just as the truck finished its turn, the form aimed straight down, and opened up with the gun, riddling the entire cab of the truck with razor-sharp spikes that produced miniature thunderclaps as they punched through the inch-thick metal.
Seconds after the volley of high-speed death had torn through the driver and the Idea riding shotgun, the form had pulled off the driver’s door, grabbed the wheel, and sent the truck into a turn that strained the battered vehicle’s centre of gravity. Holding the angle for a few seconds longer than could be considered safe, the form jumped up into the air as the truck overbalanced and flipped, rolling end over end as it plowed through the almost-deserted street. Eventually, the severely abused vehicle came to a stop, only to burst into flame as the form, still in midair, raked the chassis with more supersonic spikes, puncturing the fuel tank.
The spikes burrowed into the frame of the truck, forcing the fast-moving slugs to transfer most of its kinetic energy to the metal frame, slagging it with a burst of superheated matter. The almost-full tank of diesel emptied most of its contents directly into a pool of the molten slag, which had explosive results. The truck, which was almost unrecognisable right before the blast, literally ceased to exist as its component parts were sent flying in about three thousand directions at once.
Most of the occupants of the truck had died in the rollover and subsequent strafing, but one extra-large and extremely bulky form managed to crawl out of the furiously burning wreckage. Ignoring the ammunition that was cooking off from the heat of the blaze behind it, and the fact that most of its torso was smoldering, the form raised its left hand, pointing a rocket launcher at the slowly descending person that had destroyed the truck.
The huge Idea fired the rocket, keeping the laser sight firmly locked on the person’s chest as the person let go of the edges of the long cape, letting gravity take over to accelerate under the guided rocket’s fast-moving payload. The rocket overshot, curving down and under the person before slamming into a building’s wall, shattering the mortar and sending about five tons of destroyed brick into the street.
The person being shot at, instead of running away, dropped the rifle and pulled out two handguns that were quickly pointed at the Idea’s forehead. The Idea, actually being smarter than the average brick, dropped the empty rocket launcher and raised its arms as twin red dots danced on the bridge of its nose.
"Smart boy. Now, come over here or I’ll punch a hole through your head." The Idea closed the distance to the person, arms still raised, and most likely in pain from the burns covering its chest and forearms. The person took a few steps towards the wounded Idea, then slowly circled around the hulking form.
"Huh. If I thought you were dangerous, you’d have twelve bullets in your head by now. You don’t want that, right?" The Idea nodded, but felt the cold metal of one of the pistols pushing against the back of its head anyhow. "Well tough. Good riddance."
The pistol produced a loud cracking noise as the bullet smacked into the back of the Idea’s neck, just below the skull. The bullet managed to worm its way into the Idea’s heavy skull by ricocheting off of the spinal column, bouncing upwards and through the poor being’s brain. The Idea swayed for a few seconds after its death, then crashed to the ground as it disintegrated, leaving only its singed pants and a full vial.
The killer stood there, breathing in the cool air for almost a minute, backlit by the secondary explosions and furiously burning blaze. Eventually, the person turned towards the dropped rifle, and picked up the dangerous weapon as she walked into the dim shadows beyond the illumination of the fire. Inside the blaze, an even larger form rose from the wreckage, and slowly clomped after the person who had nearly killed it.
–Jess’ Base, 5:35 AM–
Jess was more than slightly annoyed. First off, she had been forced to liquidate several curious security guards, which could probably bring the police down on her. Secondly, the truck was overdue by almost half an hour, and she was beginning to get concerned. Trying to put her fears to rest, she turned on the small TV she had in the corner of the office she had commandeered, but instead of seeing something restful, such as a dramatization of someone being murdered, Jess saw the truck Jose had sent, flipped over, and burning furiously.
"What in hell?" Jess turned up the volume on the TV, while scrambling for the cellular that she had set a speed-dial to Jose’s office. Punching the button, she let the connection go through, then started talking. "Boss, you’d better turn on the TV. It looks like your ‘covert’ transportation has been short-circuited about three kliks away from the police station. Guess who was credited with it? The new boss of that spec-ops team from hell." Jess paused, pulling the phone away from her head so she could avoid having an eardrum rupture from the excessive spate of swearing that erupted from the cell’s receiver. "Now that you’ve vented the current bit of anger, why don’t you send over some more Ideas as well as the rocket launchers and machine guns to arm them? I’m ten blocks away from a bank, and I want to make a withdrawal."
The response was slightly affirmative, so Jess just placed a few words into Jose’s mouth by forcing him to agree with what she wanted. After she hung up, she watched the reporter at the scene of the destruction run through what was known about what had happened, but Jess toned out the rest of the report as she began to figure out what she was going to do as part of her reinforcements had been shattered.
–Sentinel Hotel, 5:47 AM–
*If there’s one thing to be said about this stuff, At least I can get up to my room in about five good jumps.* Sel was about twenty stories up, holding onto a stanchion that protruded from the corner of the building. Using some momentum to swing on top of the stanchion, she then looked at the stanchion that was pointing out from the tall building’s far corner at the thirtieth floor. Gathering herself, she leaped for the metal bar, stretching her arms out so she could swing around the bar onto the penthouse balcony.
However, she had misjudged the distance, so instead of swinging around, she literally slammed into the bar just below her ribs, knocking the wind out of her before slowly rotating around to look down at the ground almost three hundred feet below. *That would sting if I fell. Well, time to get topside.* She took a deep breath, straightening her arms enough to get her knees underneath herself before bouncing over the four-foot high fence ringing the balcony.
After her feet were firmly planted on the solid rooftop, she deactivated the armour, and removed the cape, slowly walking into the room shared by herself and her daughter, but unmindful of the breeze on her mostly naked body. After getting inside, she put her weapons and armour in the open duffel bag that was resting on a chair, kissed Sebena on the cheek, and crawled into her own bed, falling asleep rather quickly.
Three hundred feet below, the hulking form looked up just in time to see the last flutter of the cape it had been tracking for almost an hour. Smiling to itself, it walked through the front doors of the tall hotel, looked at the night clerk, and pointed up. "Top floor, now."
Ten minutes later, the Hulk was squeezed into the elevator, looking exceptionally pissed off as the doors finally opened to the penthouse. Moving carefully, and rather stealthily for something so large, it entered the room, and slowly moved towards the two beds that were occupied. Just as it reached the first bed, and looked down at the tiny form sleeping peacefully, it felt something was wrong.
Turning towards the second bed, it saw an older person, pointing what looked like the infantile version of a heavy artillery cannon at its chest. The barrel of the cannon glowed blue as electricity seemed to crawl down to the person’s arm, and the hulk realized it was going to be sore.
"Get away from my daughter, you BASTARD!" The person squeezed the trigger, launching an azure bolt of pure energy directly into the being’s chest. The person didn’t let go until the batteries were dead, and after dropping the now-useless PPC, the person grabbed two guns from the bedside table, ran over to the fallen form of the AFI, and started pumping bullets into the base of its skull to make sure it was dead. After emptying both pistols of ammunition, the person looked at Sebena, who was sitting upright in bed, wide-eyed and scared out of her wits.
A sudden change seemed to come over the person, who dropped the pistols, moved over to Sebena, and hugged the scared child for a good twenty minutes. "There, there. It’s all over. I really didn’t want you to see that, but now you know what I’m up against." Behind the two, the AFI slowly staggered to its feet, gritting its teeth so heavily that chips flaked off. It stood up to its full height, looking quite imposing in the dim light as it swung its right fist forwards, catching the woman in the shoulder and making her fly through the window onto the balcony. Shards of glass punctured her back as she tumbled all the way to the edge of the balcony, where she was generously assisted over the edge by a vicious kick.
"Mom! Why did you do that? Why?" Sebena was crying, devastated as the AFI turned to walk back inside the building. Instead, it walked right into a hail of gauss spikes that slammed into its face, making the huge being stagger against the railing in surprise. The sheer momentum of the slugs overbalanced the AFI, which teetered over the railing for a few seconds before tilting backwards and falling headfirst towards the ground. Inside the damaged room, Sebena lowered her mother’s gauss rifle, still crying as she ran towards the balcony to see where her mom was.
Twenty stories below Sebena, Two people were firmly latched onto one of the many stanchions protruding from the hotel just as a massive form plummeted to the ground, hollering like a banshee as it hit the pavement with a decidedly final ‘Krrunch’. The person who was closer to the wall of the hotel winked at the impact crater, then carefully clambered over the railing to an unoccupied balcony.
Helping the person who had saved her over the rail, the woman looked into the black eyes of CyberSix. "Thanks. I thought I was a goner for sure. By the way, I’m Sel. What’s your name?"
Six looked undecided, but shrugged to herself and offered her hand. "I go by a few names, but I’m normally called CyberSix. Or Six, to be short."
"Huh. Well, it seems we have something in common other than our dislike of those things. Still, I wonder how it fell like that. The only other person upstairs was... Ohmigod! My daughter!" Six grabbed onto Sel’s upper arms, giving the thinner woman a shake.
"Look, if that thing fell, it’s a sure bet your daughter’s looking for you right about now. Why don’t we get to the top and reassure her?" Sel nodded, and allowed Six to help her to the top through some well-placed jumps.
After the two had managed to get to the top balcony, Sel instantly ran over to Sebena, who was sitting on the balcony, crying. "Hey, hey. I’m here. Someone managed to save me from a very unpleasant fate. You wanna meet her?"
Sebena looked up, thought she was seeing a ghost, but felt the warm arms encircling her and buried her face in the hollow between Sel’s collarbones, crying her heart out. After a few minutes, Sebena calmed down and looked at her mom.
"Wow. You look like you wanna visit the hospital." Sel winced as a shard of glass decided to dig a bit, but smiled anyhow.
"Yep. Well, here’s the person that saved me from being squished like a mosquito." Sebena turned from her bloodied and battered mother to look at Six, who was leaning, quite carefully, against the railing. Sebena walked over, ignoring the spatters of Sel’s blood that clung to her small hands, and hugged Six tightly around the legs.
Whispering quietly, Sebena clung to six with all the tenacity of a leech. "Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You saved my mommy, so you’ll get something the next time I see you."
Six gently disengaged Sebena from the bearhug that was keeping her from moving, and knelt down to look into the cerulean eyes of the small child. "Well, I don’t really need anything, because your gratitude is enough. But I think we should get your mommy to the hospital. After all, I saw what her back looked like when I caught her, and it wasn’t pretty."
Sel snorted in derision, then winced as she pulled a rather large piece of glass out of her right shoulder. "Well, I’ll go to the hospital, but only to get the glass out of my back. After all, I heal quickly."
Six frowned but agreed, and after Sel got more than just her skivvies
and a bloody tanktop on, the three went to the hospital so Sel could get
the pieces of glass out of her back and shoulders. After the short
visit at the hospital, with the nastier gashes being stitched closed, Six
took her leave
just as the sunlight crested over the ocean, bathing the city in liquid
gold. Sel and Sebena walked back to the hotel, with the elder avoiding
physical contact with anyone to avoid jarring her sore back and shoulders.
In less than half an hour, they had arrived at the front of the hotel, and looked into the small crater where a bio-hazard crew were scraping the remains of the large assailant out of the hole with squeegees and dustpans. *Now that's gross. Hmm, I think I'll go and visit one of those open-air markets with little S just so she feels better. Heck, if Jenny finds out what had just happened, she'd have the entire squad crawling all over the place to make sure it never happens again.* Looking down at Sebena, Sel got an idea, letting a smile break out over her face. "Hey, why don't we go to one of those open-air markets? I bet they have lots of nifty stuff."
Sebena agreed, grinning, and the two walked into the city, letting the sun bathe their faces in brightness.