It was well into the evening by the time Shiv’s cutter pulled into port in front of the T&R, and it was immediately apparent something was wrong. The boat was clearly limping along as it drifted into docking position with deep black scorch marks along the hull near the starboard engine. The hull itself was a wreck, with bullet holes and what appeared to be claw marks scything up the side of the ship to the deck.
As the cutter’s crew began to dismount Victor spotted the tell-tale signs of combat written across the ships crew, with many sporting bright red splotches that could only be fresh blood. Victor looked for Shiv as people continued to shuffle onto the dock, becoming increasingly concerned as more and more crew members passed him by with distant, hollow looks on their faces. With no answers immediately forthcoming Victor knew he needed to get a handle on the situation, pulling one of the more composed gang members aside to interrogate.
She was tall, at least a foot taller than Victor, with a long braided mohawk and a build that spoke of an experienced fighter. Based on the sledgehammer she was comfortably holding in a low grip with her right hand Victor suspected she had some meta abilities, although she may have just been exceptionally strong.
“I think I’ve got a good grip on what happened here already, but I’d appreciate a run down of the specifics of the situation.”
Normally Victor would have expected the gangster to bristle at his assumption of command, but in thanks to the current situation she skipped the usual posturing and got straight to the point. In a quite tone she quickly laid out the situation for Victor.
“Shiv’s dead. Gator’s crew managed to catch us in that block of flooded tenement buildings in the northwest end of the Stilts and hit our engines with some sorta beam cannon. They took pot shots down at us from the apartment windows while those fuckin monsters climbed up the side of the ship. Took us totally by surprise; they snatched Shiv right over the side and pulled him under, one of the guys in the cabin saw him get shredded.”
That was good and bad. Obviously, the damage to the ship was extensive, but it didn’t look like anything Victor couldn’t repair, and with Shiv removed from the equation Victor no longer needed to worry about being killed out of hand. Issue was Shiv’s death opened the door for a power struggle among his lackies, and the new leader may be less than willing to protecting Victor. The presence of that beam cannon also concerned Victor. It was probably just some half-baked black market tech Gator managed to pick up from some unscrupulous meta engineer looking for a quick score, but the idea that Gator’s crew had access to that level of tech was concerning.
As Victor was considering the current situation Lucas came over from speaking with some of his fellow gang members.
“Looks like most of the survivors got off relatively easy, but some of these guys are going to need to see a real doctor soon. You get Victor up to speed on the situation Reese?”
The woman, Reese, gave Lucas a simple nod before shifting her gaze to Victor and giving him an expectant look. As Victor looked around he finally realized just how young the people around him were. At twenty-five Victor wasn’t exactly old, but a few of these supposed gang members looked even younger than Lucas. This meant either Gator targeted the senior membership when he struck the cutter, or more likely Shiv liked to snatch up his flunkies while they were young. Even the Reese woman couldn’t have been older than twenty.
Victor knew someone had to take control of the situation soon before the shock and confusion of the attack wore off and anger took over, encouraging the thirty gang members in front of his store to fly off the handle and do something stupid. Victor breathed in, let out a hearty sigh, and then started to give orders.
“Alright looks like the current situation isn’t great, but things are far from hopeless. Right now we need to get the injured inside and off the docks and start getting them patched up. Looks like the shop will be closed for the time being, so go ahead and make some space on the shop floor for the wounded.”
There was a moment of hesitation on the docks as the survivors glanced around at each other, unsure if following Victor's orders would lead to accusations of treason from the gangs higher-ups or other unintended consequences. The world of gang politics was notoriously brutal, especially in Columbia, where it was usually easier to kill anyone you suspected of disloyalty than to do any sort of investigation. Sensing this hesitation Reese stepped forward.
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“Come on people, get your asses in gear and get the injured inside! We’ve got no clue when those fucking Godzilla fetuses might be back, and I sure as shit don’t want them to catch us out here with our dicks in our hands!”
Victor was thankful for Reese’s implied endorsement, no matter how crude it may have been. He had no clue what role she filled under Shiv and frankly, he didn’t really care; Victor was just glad to have someone around that understood the power dynamics of the group. He knew the odds were stacked heavily against them right now, and with little in the way of meta muscle or fighting experience, it would be up to whatever tech Victor could cobble together to pick up the slack.
“Lucas, I want you to connect with Reese and set up a rotating watch around the T&R. Have people with shotguns and other close-range weaponry on ground level in a circle around the docks, then put snipers on the roof with the rail rifles. I’m guessing those alligator mutants are impossible to see in the water after dark, so have someone pull the spotlights off the cutter and get them set up on the roof.”
Lucas and Reese both nodded in the affirmative and moved off to get the watch set up. Victor watched them for a moment before moving off towards his workshop, his mind whirling as he attempted to construct a scenario where they all didn’t end up dead.
Victor had originally wanted to keep a low profile, making weapons that were just good enough to get Shiv off his back without attracting the wrong kinds of attention. That plan was dead and buried the moment Gator tried to assassinate him and Lucas. It was time to go for the proverbial throat, consequences be damned.
With this strategic shift in mind, Victor began to make alterations to his armor. He had been disappointed with its offensive performance in his battle with the assassins. The armor had kept him safe, but it lacked the power to escape a hold from a physically stronger opponent. Victor eventually decided to replace servos in the joints with synth muscle left over from a few recalled cybernetic prostheses, dramatically increasing both physical strength and energy consumption. He also strengthened the suit's left hand, adding electrified pads to the palm and an extendable blade within the wrist.
With the smaller issues of his armor tackled it was time to move on to his deeper concerns, namely the power of his main weapon, and the internal heat produced by the suit during heavy use. Once again, the purpose of the suit had shifted. What had started life as a half-finished powered hazmat suit was being refitted for heavy combat duty, and that meant Victor needed to significantly increase the amount of firepower he could bring to bear.
Victor started by fitting a rack of micro-missile to the left shoulder of his armor, ensuring that he wouldn’t lack for ranged combat options in the event that his main weapon was disabled. The missiles themselves lacked any unique meta componentry, although did little to hamper their effectiveness. This specific missile design, named the Wasp by its Israeli creators, was outlawed by the Global Hero’s League due to its remarkable precision, high speed, and low cost. This allowed non-meta criminals to reliably target the traditional weak spots shared by most Capes, being the eyes, throat, and groin.
The Wasps would give Victor an option for dispatching a large number of combatants efficiently and simultaneously, but it failed to solve the armor's overall lack of offensive power when faced with abnormally durable foes. For that, Victor decided to replace his main armament with a weapon of his own creation, the Fusion Lance.
The lance could be considered his first real masterpiece in the world of weapons design, and it held a special place in his portfolio. Admittedly the Lance was more of a sledgehammer than a scalpel, but sometimes you just needed your enemies dead now, without having to worry about some complicated satellite targeting array*.* The Lance functioned similarly to a fusion reactor, using a laser array to ignite a pellet of fuel and then directing the sudden burst of energy along a plane using magnetic confinement. The result was a lance of super-heated plasma that punched through armor like it was tissue paper without the fear of radioactive debris coating the user or their allies.
His Fusion Lance had been deemed too risky to put into production when he first pitched the idea to the Board thanks to the ease with which it could be converted into a low-yield nuclear weapon. Despite his antipathy to the Board as an organization, Victor had to agree they were correct in their decision to can the project. He hadn’t taken the rejection well at the time, and it was what ultimately drove him to leave Thalrine Industries. Victor would often find himself looking back on how much of an insufferable asshole he had been, wondering how things may have gone if he had been able to accept his own shortcomings and work to move beyond them.
He banished the memories of his younger self and continued his work on the Fusion Lance. He had quite a bit of work to do, and dwelling on the past was simply too distracting. Victor expected to feel a deep wrongness while he was building the lance, like he was committing some sort of crime. Some part of Victor was afraid he might be filled with a sort of spiteful vindication in the knowledge that his creation had survived its death sentence and could finally see daylight. He briefly wondered if should cackle maniacally; evil scientist etiquette seemed to dictate an awful lot of ominous laughter based on the Cape fights he'd seen growing up. Victor decided most of all he felt hungry and wandered off to the kitchen.