The group looked a bit strange, sitting around the table; the setting; a picnic table outside a truck stop in the middle of nowhere, California in early winter. Eyeball himself looked fairly normal; a simple blue jacket, a cowboy hat with a bandanna under it, the boots to go with the hat... and across from him sat a massive, overweight Russian; at least three hundred pounds and less than six feet tall, the man was almost as large as Butch; but most of it was fat. His grey clothing sat over him like a tarp, strangely made for someone even more overweight than himself. Butch was his enormous weightlifter-looking self, of course; in the black carbon-fiber bodysuit and helmet, missing the armor plates that usually went on before a job... and there was 'Green Dragon'; a tall, lithe young woman in shorts and a grey t-shirt, with vivid green scales, wings, and a mohawk; she looked more human the closer to the torso she got, with her hands and bare feet heavily scaled and clawed, but her face almost normal.

"Look. I'm not green dragon. I'm Emerald. My bro was just being an asshole. The only ones that called me that were a few in the family back home. So. Bro told me that, even if the loot was shit, the payout was a quarter-mil minimum. I know you're the titanslayer, so I don't doubt your good for it. But whats the job?"

Jason set his tablet down on the table; one of the fancy, multi-thousand-dollar holographic units. "Alright. Our target is Wayson Medical Enterprises. A well-funded, secretive, lab about forty-five minutes from here. Its extremely heavily guarded; at least forty guards on site, all with body-armor and automatic weapons or fairly nice stun weapons, a few heavier ones that might be a threat to Butcher. Honestly, me and Butcher can handle all the fighting if we get the enemies all together. Four guard towers, twelve guards outside at any given time, at least a few patrolling each floor, and half a dozen on the top floor in the security room."

He tapped the hologram in spots; it was produced from pictures of the outside of the building, and when the inside appeared, it was only a vague structure; no map. "Right here is an extremely impressive refrigeration unit... and the server room, as well as another refrigerated room beside it. Whatever it is, it needs to be kept cold; there are backup generators for all of it. I'm thinking storage for some of the medications they produce here; extremely valuable medications that have to stay cold enough not to decay."

"That's the primary target. We want the hard drives from the servers, whatever medications are stored here, and if we can figure out which are the most valuable, we prioritize those. There are several labs in the place; various nice, high-end equipment in there, but if we can get it out undamaged the piece I want is this..."

He taps a button. The hologram switches views, showing a bright, shiny box; judging the size is impossible from the image. "I saw in one of the labs a GigaFac mark five. Absolute latest version of the fabricator; worth over a million on its own from the gold, platinum, and diamonds used in producing it if you melted it down; the actual sales price for one is closer to twenty. The damn thing could, if you got enough raw materials... again, over a million bucks worth... make you a copy of itself. If we get that out undamaged, I'll pay each of you that million dollar meltdown value instead of the quarter mil, even if we get absolutely nothing else of value from this."

He tapped the display again. The image came back up. "I sincerely doubt that, however. Whatever these guys are making? It might be a cure for some rare disease, it might be designer drugs for the wealthy to get a non-addictive cocaine high, hell, maybe the latest weight-loss drug... Or all of the above. Frankly, its difficult to put a price on what we get out of this, so we'll make a simple agreement. My work, my plan, I'll do however much killing needs to be done. Butcher and.. Clone.." He nodded at the Russian. "You two help me get the goods out, and to our storage in Vegas."

He turned to Emerald. "You get in through the roof, take out the guards in the security room, and provide overwatch. Help keep Butcher and Clone from taking many hits. I plan to take out all four elevators and stairwells; the only way in or out of that floor will be back out the roof."

"The power and phone lines are both buried right here.." He taps a spot on the map. "And Butcher already made us a hole... and we have a bomb planted on it. When I hit the button, the bomb goes off, the mortars launch to take out the stairs and elevators... and the cell jammer goes on. No alarms, no muss, no fuss. Just a bit of property damage."

"Nicky will take a 20% cut of whatever we give him to get it sold for us, and keep anyone from checking out the warehouse I'm renting. Its my plan, and I'll do the bulk of the killing it needs, so I take thirty percent. Emerald, Clone, you get twenty each, Butcher gets ten; he's tough, he's strong, but this is only his second mission so while he'll definitely be a help, we'll need to make sure he gets out of this okay."

The group looked at each other; each assessing the others. Clone tilted his head for a moment. "Hmm. I will bring twenty of my brothers. One will drive your van, two will drive the trucks. The rest will assist with finding valuables and bringing them outside. We can, of course, help take out the outside guards."

Jason gave a low chuckle. "No need. Remember, this is Eyeball you're working with. I'll clean up outside. You and Butcher can take a few stragglers, but if Emerald can get the main security office handled.." The dragon-girl gave a nod. "Then we shouldn't run into much. Even better, if we do this right, we can take hours to clean the place out."

The Russian frowned for a moment. "You seem very confident. You are so sure you can handle so many men without problem?"

"You can come watch, if you'd like."

***

The Russian sitting beside him in the van looked like a smaller, thinner version of the same man he'd dealt with before. Strong, healthy, capable. Looked younger, as well. Jason glanced over at him from time to dime as he drove.

"So... I couldn't help but notice. All of the... Brothers... look a bit different."

The driver remained focused on the road. One of the men behind him in the van spoke up instead. "It is not an exact process. When a split occurs, we both come out very close to how we looked when were sixteen first time. Over time, we get tan, we get muscle, we get fat, things change. Some of us get plastic surgery, so we operate business and not look so suspicious."

Jason gave a slow nod. "Huh. A... split?"

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"We keep one mind." Another was speaking now. The first one was eating a power bar. "When we get to, say, around three hundred and forty pounds, we start to split. We form... like a cocoon. We dissolve. We form new bodies. Cocoon splits. Two of us. One mind. Each around one hundred fifty pounds. Much is lost in process, but we good, young, strong. Healthy. If want more brothers, one of us starts to eat like pig. Other trains to be good for fight."

Jason nodded again. "That sounds disgusting, but incredibly useful. How many of you are there?"

"Is secret, american. Will say never all in same country at once. If you fuck us, we will kill you."

He turned the lights off; and activated a pair of night-vision goggles as they pulled off the road. "We three miles out. You go now?"

"Of course. Bring the trucks in close, but slow. Don't come in til me and Emerald have started things off."

***

It had started to rain; and Emerald hated the rain. She also hated working with new, untrusted people; she'd dealt with Clone before a few times; he was an old, reliable hand at this, generally keeping his word but not bound to any given crime boss or country. But this Eyeball guy... sure, he killed Lightning. But that might've just been luck. The TV just showed he'd had good timing tossing that grenade, or he'd have been done for.

Was that his power? Luck? Hopefully it extended to the people working with him. As she slowly glided down to the roof through the darkness, she tapped a button on her cheek. "This is Emerald. Coming up into view of the rooftop camera in ten seconds. I've got the cell jammer ready to turn on. Are we go?"

"Go when you hear the boom."

Could she even hear it over the rain? The downpour was steadily getting heavier, louder... it was gonna be apain to glide out of here under... She saw a flash. Another. At least a dozen in rapid sucession, explosions rocking the corners of the building. That was him hitting the stairwells? Perfect. She flipped the switch, turning on the cell jammer... and then gave the roof door a flying drop-kick; wings folding in precisely timed fashion as the metal slab slammed into another wall with a loud bang, and she settled on her feet.

This was exactly as Eyeball described it. Tiny shack on the roof, stairs down... and just down that hall would be security. She snapped on her mask; a custom bright green one, not the dull grey ones Eyeball had given the clones and Butcher.. and tossed the first grenade down the hallway.

A loud hiss as grey mist filled it... and she kept moving. Bulletproof glass seperated the main security room, its three desks and twelve monitors, from the hallway... but she simply scored a circle with her claws and a loud, irritating shriek, punched it through... and tossed two grenades through it, one after the other.

There was screaming. Chaos. Gunshots, tiny ripples appearing in the glass. But within a minute, it died down; everyone collapsed on the floor.

Well. Almost everyone. A solitary figure stood amidst the mist, wearing a suit rather than a simple white/grey security uniform. He took a deep breath, seemingly unconcerned with the gas, and tilted his head. "Gas grenades. Cell jammer. Lines already cut. Not too bad. Unfortunately, you're still going to die here."

***

Jason swept into the compound like living death; the red pinpricks of his helmet LEDs lit up for intimidation purposes as he steadily marched forward, his rifle in hand. Single neat, precise shots taking out each of the armored men in the towers and at the gate. One man fell before he knew what was going on. Another was drawing his handgun. Still another bringing an assault rifle to bear.

He could tell one of them was a meta before even firing; his bullets wouldn't hurt the man much at all; and simply pumped a single round from the underslung grenade launcher right at him. While his co-workers fell to the ground, bleeding and dying out around him, most suffering single gunshots to the face, this man; an enormous, powerfully built hispanic man with tattoos over his exposed arms, and certainly some colorful, interesting, history... was on the ground beside the tower, gripping his throat uselessly where an armor-piercing Burster grenade had crushed his wind-pipe.

One of the Clones accompanied Butcher and Eyeball as they entered the compound; he started to raise his rifle; a classic, cheap, AK-47, like the rest of his 'Brothers' carried. But the level of precision and lethality he witnessed was... remarkable. The explosives on the walls, the death... He turned to Eyeball. "So much chaos, so much destruction. But so precisely executed. I didn't see you miss a single shot. You are dangerous man, Eyeball."

Butcher laughed. For this mission, he had his full armor; and even a new addition; a 200-pound tungsten riot shield that he carried as easily as if it were made of cardboard. "Yeah. Titanslayer is a badass."

As the trio approached the main entrance of the building, 'Wayson' emblazoned clearly over the lobby door, the clone gave a chuckle. "I look forward to working with you in the future, Eyeball. You must tell me why the name, later."

Butcher simply kicked the armored door at the front; once; twice... the third time it went down, crumpling inwards rather than going flying; and leveled his new shield as he marched forward; the guards in the lobby opening fire as they tried to stop the intruders, unaware of how outclassed they were.

***

The suited figure started calmly walking towards Emerald, pulling a pair of dark grey metal blades from sheathes at his hips... he had handguns as well, but was ignoring them for now. "Since its just a sleeping gas, I'll make it quick. If you'd killed me friends, I'd have to make it slow, and painful."

Emerald gave a low hiss... and then made a sound. A hideous sound, somewhere between a dry heave and preparing to spit out a wad of phlegm. The enemy looked vaguely disgusted at it, actually grimacing... before a sudden spray of liquid jetted out at him; igniting as it came into contact with air, enveloping him in fire. He gave a low hiss of pain as he covered his face, marching on despite his suit catching aflame, hair and skin visibly burning, trying to close in to get a blade in.

Even when the ammunition in his handguns started to cook off as they melted, he was still moving forward, Emerald leaping back, wings spreading to give her a bit more distance as she took up a fighting stance, claws spread.

When the fire stopped, the man was still moving... and was visibly, actively, healing the damage. Each passing moment his hideous burns; and the bleeding shrapnel wounds in his hips and torso from the ammo going off; appeared less intense. The man couldn't just be a regenerator; he must have truly insane pain tolerance to accomplish this.

But he hadn't lifted his hands in time... and his eyes had been burned away along with most of his face.

Emerald took a quick side-step.. as quiet as possible, just in case the man's ears had already recovered.. and leapt on him from behind; claws digging into those healing eye-sockets from her left hand, while her right tore into his throat, ripping through burning skin to seek out and rend the arteries buried beneath.

He gave a gurgle; lashing out blindly at her with the knives, actually smacking into her scaled right arm... as he slammed face-first into the ground. Those blades were so sharp he actually cut through the scales, leaving an irritating gouge..

But between the pain, the blood loss, and the current lack of a throat, eyes... and maybe even a spine, considering how deeply her claws had gone... his struggles slowly faded. As the last blood pumped from his throat, her ear-piece crackled. With the jammer on, it was mostly static, but she could just make out the words. "Emerald, this is Eyeball. Didn't get a response on that last message, are you hearing me?"

After making sure the corpse had no heartbeat, and wasn't still trying to heal itself, she pulled to her feet; glancing down at her absolutely blood-soaked form. "Ugh. Sorry, had a security problem. Nothing I couldn't handle." Shaking the excess blood off, she headed to the consoles; checking the cameras... and seeing the devastation both in the surrounding compound, and down in the lobby "Ahh. I can see two guards approaching the lobby, and... Jesus, you guys don't fuck around, do you?"