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vulkan -> RE: (HS) Project Ascendant (6/24/2012 15:52:28)
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Part 1: Arrival
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It was almost midday in the market street of super city; countless citizens of super city were doing their daily/weekly/monthly/yearly shopping here. It was one of the few districts relatively untouched by the daily wars that raged between heroes and villains there. At least, in the daytime.
Tom Clark is a middle aged businessman, currently investing in teleportation technology being developed by several companies. He was only going to Market Street to pick up some groceries for his wife, who was currently in bed with flu. Unfortunately, he was lost.
He takes out his mobile.
"Hello? Alice, are you there?"
A nasally woman's voice sounds at on the line
"Tom, where are you?"
"Sorry Alice, I got lost. Which shop am I going to again?"
"It’s the bzzzt…wha...bzzzt."
Clark looks at his mobile, it’s a new model, with almost perfect reception, and it was brand new.
"Sorry, breaking up, call you later!"
Clark puts his phone in his pocket, wondering what is going on.
The air in front of him flickers.
Clark takes a step back, wondering if he imagined it.
It flickers again. This time with blue energy.
Other people have seen it too. They begin to step back, muttering, some with amazement, some with fear. Clark takes several steps back again, in fear. Then the air begins to crackle violently, arcs of lightning whipping in all directions like flails. Clark and many people begin to run, several people are screaming, other people dialling into their phones to the police, little knowing that the lightning is disrupting their signal. The tendrils widen, covering an area of the street about 20 metres squared.
The onlookers watch, jaws slack at the display happening before them. The sound of patrolman sirens begin to sound in the distance. The lightning stretches out, and then is sucked into the crackling maelstrom of energy in the middle of the street, which flashes, temporarily blinding everyone who is gazing upon it.
DC-14 is on his knees, gasping for breath. Around him, one hundred and twenty-one are doing the same. The people watching them gasp and point, and several cry out when some of them rise, revealing them to be holding their blades and firearms. DC-14 swears loudly. He couldn’t afford to draw attention to himself now. And he couldn’t think of anything more likely to do so than landing in the market street at midday. He turns around to his soldiers. Most of them are sporting minor wounds, but nothing their enhanced body structure couldn’t handle. There is a noise to his left, and DC-14 spots several patrolmen. Armed patrolmen.
"Split into respective squads!" he yells. "Regroup at the base!"
It works. The loyalists jump to their feet and run, splitting into squads and making off in different directions. DC-14 is left on his own, having joined no squad. He sighs, and begins to run.
He runs towards the crowd at full speed, they cry out again, thinking he is attempting to attack; instead he barges into them, throwing several people aside in order to mix with the crowd.
He risks a glance back, and spots several jetpack patrolmen following him, correctly guessing that he must be the leader. He ducks out of the crowd, into a narrow alleyway. Unfortunately, the patrolmen see him and fly into the alleyway, aiming their rifles.
DC-14 thinks. They don’t know if he is dangerous yet, so they shouldn’t use…
There is a burst of gunfire, and a dumpster next to DC-14 has several holes blown in it, the surprise almost making DC-14 trip over.
He breathes, alright; maybe they would use live ammo. He supposed he would have an L.O.C.K.D.O.W.N file somewhere…
He reaches the end of the alleyway, and grasps hold of a ladder. The patrolmen yell at him to stop, but their shots miss. DC-14 gets to the top of the building. He guessed it must be a small apartment or something. He runs to the side, and looks down. There is no ladder this side.
DC-14 groaned. "Why do I have to always choose between certain death and probable death?"
He jumps. He now knew how Thundersmite must have felt when he blew up sigma's conference building. As he fell, he hoped he would survive.
His fall is broken by a parked car. It absorbs most of the momentum energy from the fall, but it doesn't stop him breaking two ribs and possibly his foot. As he catches his breath, he looks up, and sees the patrolmen flying towards him once again.
"Oh god…haven’t I suffered enough?" he moans.
He had to get away from these three patrolmen before he got any innocents hurt. If he did that, he would draw even more attention to himself, including…he gulped. Thundersmite. Above all Thundersmite must not know.
He looks around, and sees some scaffolding dead ahead.
"Perfect."
He whirls around, pistol in hand, and fires a shot at the oncoming patrolman. It didn’t go anywhere near, but it served its purpose in making him go into a steep dive on his jetpack, making him unable to fire with his rifle.
Meanwhile, DC-14 is able to limp to the scaffolding, grabbing hold of it, ignoring the roaring pain in his leg and ribs; he pulls himself up, and climbs up a ladder, approaching the top. He hides behind a box, waiting for the patrolmen to come closer. He then takes a grenade from his belt and puts it on the floor.
If he didn’t time this right, he would have his leg blown off. If he was lucky. He takes one deep breath, and sees the patrolmen come within ten metres. Already regretting the decision, he pulls the pin from the grenade, and stands up with his hands up.
Ten…
"I surrender!"
Nine…
The patrolmen keep their rifles trained on him.
"Hold it DC-14! You aren’t going anywhere!"
Eight…
They fly a few metres closer.
Seven…
Closer.
Six…
DC-14 is sweating now.
Five…
"Please let this work…"
Four…
DC-14 moves his foot forward, gently pushing the grenade over the side. The patrolmen are too wrapped up in their capture to notice.
Three…
The grenade lands on the pavement, and bounces back under the scaffolding.
Two…
DC-14 moves, he throws himself off the edge of the scaffolding. The patrolmen take aim…
One.
The grenade explodes. DC-14 had placed it perfectly, blowing the entire structure to pieces and throwing in towards the three patrolmen. They try to dodge, but are far too slow. They are violently pummelled by piece of wood and pipe that formed the makeshift structure. One pipe hits a patrolman's jetpack, causing it to splutter and fail. He falls, and unfortunately for him, does not have a car to break his fall. He survives, but from what DC-14 can see, he won't be patrolling again for a while. The other two patrolmen are simply pummelled to the floor in a similar way.
DC-14 smiles, before realising he jumped off the scaffolding.
"Not agai…"
DC-research facility.
DC-14 looks round. The last thing he remembered was falling from the scaffolding. He felt it was familiar…the white walls, the blue carpet, the large armchair in the corner, the space on the wall that looked like it used to hold a TV…
"Glad to see you awake."
DC-14 turns, and sees beta-five.
"Is this…"
"…the DC research facility. Try not to overexert yourself."
DC-14 sits back. "Why?"
"Well, I would advise not landing on your head next time you blow up the thing you are standing on."
"Thanks beta-five, you certainly know how to comfort someone who feels like someone has caved his head in with a mace."
"I'm not a nurse. I kill people. What do you expect when I draw the short straw and become your little carer while your head pops back into place?"
DC-14 laughs, but the action brings another sensation of pain to his head.
"Did we all get back?"
Beta-Fives smile disappears.
"No, seven of us haven’t arrived yet. We can only assume that they have been captured or killed."
DC-14 moans in pain. His head feels unbearable.
Beta-Five pulls a syringe from her pocket.
"Better put you to sleep, hopefully you will feel better tomorrow."
The needle pricks DC-14's wrist, and he is asleep in seconds.
The shade walks on the dusty path towards the small bunker. He was flanked by several guards, each sporting weapons varying from handheld machine guns to short blades. He looked at the bunker. He was surprised that it didn’t have any sensors of any kind. He expected that alpha-ten would be more cautious
He turned to his men. Speaking though their private comlink so not to make any noise.
"Break him, and ill break you."
The guards nodded. The shade was no stranger to killing his own soldiers; after all, it had happened before.
"Ready?"
Each one of the soldiers looked at each other. They were nervous and it showed.
"This operation is critical to the success of project ascendant. Do well and you will be one of the first to benefit from it."
The signs of nervousness on the faces of the undying soldiers disappears. they don’t know the full details of the project, but they know perfectly well that it is something big.
One of the soldiers steps forward, the shade recognises him as Rho-twelve, one of the highest ranking officers of the undying.
"Sir, if you don’t mind me saying…how does finding the last loyalist in this city help with the project? Do we need a test subject or something?"
The shade laughs.
"I have all the test subjects I need. But question my judgement again and I blow your head off."
Rho-twelve takes a step back, his face becoming recognisably pale again.
"Now then…"
The shade raises his hand, and a small ball of blue light solidifies in his palm. Then it stretches like elastic towards the door and buries itself in like a harpoon. Then another ball of light in his palm does the same, and another, and another.
Soon there are seven energy tendrils buried in the door.
"Try not to die."
The shade pulls his arm back, and the door is ripped off its hinges, as soon as the door is down, Rho-Twelve pulls a pin from a stun grenade and throws it in. There is a cry from the inside, and the shade smiles.
He steps in. The interior of the bunker is untidy to say the least, with weapons, empty ammunition cartridges, and several strange inventions lying everywhere, a large bunk bed is at one side, and a worktable at the other. When the shade looks in, he notices the inside is considerably smaller than it looks on the outside, he supposes that it must be due to the armour of the bunker being so thick.
In the middle of the mess of gadgets and weapons there is a man lying on the floor, wearing a red suit.
"Well…" says Rho twelve, "at least we know we got the right bunker."
The shade and his men laugh.
"Heh…that’s true. Anyway, wake him up please."
One of the soldiers draws a small syringe and injects it into the mans arm, his eyes flick open with confusion in them, only to turn to terror when he lays eyes on the shade.
"Evening."
The loyalist's fear turns to hatred.
"What the hell do you want?"
"Ha… don’t think your little experiments haven’t gone unnoticed. I've seen what you have been doing. And you have something I want."
Alpha-ten was virtually gritting his teeth at him.
"I…know what project ascendant is… and for gods sake…you cant!"
"You were once a loyal officer of mine, but then you learned the truth, and you defect to the other side."
"All for a good reason!"
The undying soldiers look at him with hatred in their eyes. Rho-twelve even spits on the floor. Unfortunately, in his anger he forgot to pull up his visor before doing so.
"Where is it?"
"What?"
"You know perfectly well. You are a scientist."
"…go to hell!"
The shade smirks.
"Been there."
The shade raises his hand, and like when he took the door down, several tendrils of energy snake from his hand. This time, they impale themselves in alpha-tens flesh, who screams in pain.
Rho-Twelve blackens his visor, as do the rest of his team. This was the shades preferred method of execution, and it wasn’t pretty.
"NO!!! YOU MUSTN'T!!! I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE PLANNING, AND IT IS INSANITY!!!"
Sigma holds his clenched fist close to his face, a dozen tendrils connecting it to Alpha-tens body.
"And you think I'M not insane?"
The shade opens his fist, and the tendrils move out in different directions at speed, ripping alpha-ten into several dozen bloody pieces, all flying in different directions, splattering the messy bunker with blood.
The shade lowers his hand, and turns around to the squad.
"Sorry to make it messier than it had to be, but habits are hard to break."
"What now sir?"
The shade glances down at a small brass box under the late alpha-tens bed.
He walks over and picks it up, and opens it.
"What is it?"
The shades eyes brighten, he reaches into the box and produces a small blaster pistol. Knowing what it is, he weighs it in his hand, and much to the shock of his squad smashes it against the bunker wall, making it shatter into several pieces. He watches it fall to the floor.
"Erm…is that what we came to do?"
The shade ignores his soldiers as they ask their questions. He bends down and picks up a piece of the weapon partially submerged in a small puddle of alpha-tens blood. Despite this, the piece he picks up remains clean of any bloodstains. He slips it into a small sandwich bag, deliberately preventing his squad from seeing it, and turns to Rho-twelve.
"Contact your men, order several warp jumps. Search planets that have dormant legions under them, all we need now are DC-14 and the project can be put into place." He pauses.
"And I want him alive."
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