"I make... six ground vehicles coming in from the east, and two aircraft; look to be attack helicopters; coming in from the southeast. None of them official. All Cartel. Choppers will reach us first, then the ground vehicles."
Imperious's eyes lit up. "Yesssss." And started to skip as she ran out of the warehouse, clearly overjoyed at what was about to happen; as Arakiel and Disaster both watched her go. For her part, Cascade simply started walking out after, calm, relaxed; secretly rolling her eyes inside that pink helmet.
Disaster turned to him. "Uhm... there's going to be like twenty metahumans and another twenty or thirty gunmen out there. Or more.. The local military would call in an airstrike and an armored division for this if they even bothered. I know Excalibur is the heavy hitter for your team... can you do this without him? Should we run? Hide?"
Arakiel chuckled, shaking his head, and patted Disaster on the shoulder. "Pack up anything you want to take. Imperious can probably handle them all on her own. Cascade can definitely handle them all on her own. Hell; me and Silver might be able to... and as soon as Terminal runs down that second speedster, she'll be back, too. Don't worry about it." He studied the refrigerator. For some reason, he wanted to grab it. There was something in there that just... felt right.
But not now. Whatever it was, it could wait.
***
"I dunno what it is, boss, but our man in the locals says he hasn't heard a thing, the cameras are all out... and we've already got four not responding. Including the twins."
He held his hand against the earpiece for a moment, looking on at the men sitting in the chopper. Just like Hector, most of them were wearing a simple armored vest, holding an automatic rifle; some had grenades and machetes, some had sidearms; everyone was loaded for bear and ready to kick ass. The metas, aside from the two who could fly, were too important to ride up here; but they had some nice big guns strapped to the sides, and whoever had the audacity to come fuck with the cartel was about to have an awful day.
The only worrying bit was the twins. Hopefully they were busy doing something. If they'd just lost them both...
The sky suddenly lit up, painfully bright. He covered his eyes. "What the fuck? Johnny, what do we..."
A sudden crunch. Hector had one last view of a beautiful angel, with flowing golden hair... slamming a massive flail into the side of the helicopter so hard it crumpled and went flying... crashing into the other chopper.
As the two masses of hot metal and death hurtled towards the ground, one of the two flying soldiers managed to get free in time to avoid the explosion; hovering a few dozen feet above the ground, catching his breath, checking to make sure he was intact... before he heard the sound of wing-beats.
He turned, rifle raised towards whatever was oncoming; far too late. A spiked metal ball crushed his skull before he even had the rifle pointed in the right direction, the man barely able to catch a glimpse of the angel before she struck him down; and turned, heading for the group of trucks cruising down the road.
***
By the time Cascade had reached the road, Arakiel had caught up with her; and she covered her mouth with one hand, yawning, pointing her other at the oncoming vehicles; making a circular gesture. All of the vehicles sputtered to a stop; with the rear-most one slamming into the two in front of it, creating a pileup, and sending a man who'd been manning a heavy machinegun flying off into the night with a scream.
He glanced at her, then at the pile-up, checking the plasma rifle for a moment. Still over 95%. He watched through the scope; this was over a kilometer out, but he would till make everyone who climbed out regret living. "I honestly didn't know you could reach that far. Goddamn are you dangerous, Cass. What did you do to them?" He gave the trigger a quick tap. A man who had just started to climb out of a truck fell to the ground, a chunk of his skull flash-vaporized as he collapsed, smoking.
She looked back at him. "Hmm? Oh. I took all the water in the engines and just shoved it every which way. Made room for all the flammable stuff to meet fire in ways it wasn't supposed to. It takes effort; I can't do much to those guys right now til tthey get closer, or I get some rest. More effort the further away they are, and the more I try to do at once. It's far, far easier for me to explode a man's heart than it is to, say, make a wave not wash away my sandcastle."
Arakiel chuckled, shaking his head; before making two more quick shots. The blinding light of Imperious was starting to head this way, and the men inside the vehicles were in a panic; concerned about the sniper, but also about the oncoming angel of death.
Until... a figure emerged from the first vehicle. He looked like a walking junkyard, a pile of random metal parts making him at least seven feet tall, as the engine collapsed, seeming to be absorbed into his flesh as he started marching towards Arakiel and Cascade.
For the moment, Arakiel ignored him; firing quick shots into the men who fled the vehicle behind him. "This guy got enough blood to work with, or is he all metal?" The plasma rifle wouldn't be the best choice; it was amazing against fleshy targets, even ones in armor, but if this was one of those rare guys who actually turned into something inhuman... He frowned.
A crackle of static. "Focus on the others. I've got him. I've dealt with his kind before."
Arakiel studied the man; before taking another couple of shots, taking out two men who started to flee, screaming, as Imperious finally landed on one of the vehicles; crushing it, and the men inside, with her flail; the thing seemed to swell in size as well as glow with a vibrant light just before impact. "It'd take about three or four plasma rifles to the same spot to dig into the flesh. Maybe seven to decapitate. You sure?"
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A distant gunshot from above; a reminder of just how quiet the DMA's aircraft were. The man's forehead appeared to be dimpled, another random lump of metal added to it in the form of a bullet.
The man kept walking for a few more seconds. Arakiel lifted the rifle, aiming for the throat; but then.... he stumbled. Stopped. Clutching his head, the iron man fell to his knees, starting to scream, keening in agony. "Completely. This is probably going to be uncomfortable for a while."
Arakiel studied the man as he shivered and twitched, fingers scraping at his head; glanced up; and fired one last time at a man fleeing from the wreckage as Imperious gleefully lashed out with the flail, shattering already broken vehicles, ignoring a few stray bullets and what looked like some sort of strange beam of green energy.
Another radio crackle. "No further Speedsters spotted, no other enemies incoming within ten miles at least. The wreckage of another strike team is 3.6 miles down the road if you'd care to investigate; there are no survivors. This is Terminal returning to base."
Arakiel chuckled, shaking his head as he stepped up to the iron giant. He hadn't even seen her, but she might well have killed god knew how many enemies. "So... what's going on with this guy, Silver?"
A loud thunk. The uniformed figure in its silver breastplate had landed beside him, and walked up to the writhing figure. "I'm eating him from the inside at the moment. Not sure how much mass I'll keep... I haven't gone past two hundred pounds of silver since I got all fleshed up again. But... some more might be useful for a while. Good time to stock up."
He glanced around. "Oh, by the way. These criminal sorts have all sorts of fun gadgets. You should scout around. The lab, too. You have to document everything, but if its useful, and was either the proceeds of a crime or used to commit one, it goes into the armory back at the DMA; and the team that collected it gets first dibs. Not to sell, or take home, to be clear. Some folks have been fired for that. But to use in the field."
A soft chuckle. "If Canada doesn't call in and claim those three levers, Impy is probably gonna add them to her arsenal."
***
The inside of the lab was fairly calm, collected. Candy; wearing a laboat covering some sort of skimpy red dress; was sitting near the entrance, while Disaster was going down a checklist, muttering to himself; and glanced up when Arakiel stepped back inside. "Ahh, yes. The other angel. How much of my material am I allowed to take with me?"
Arakiel shrugged. "They're definitely going to want anything related to genetics research. For that, there's actually a second aircraft coming in, empty, that left the moment we gave the all clear. Only thing aboard are four workmen to help you load things. Anything else... if you can pretend its related, I'm sure you can get them to box it up for you."
"...Ugh." He sighed. "Just like the cartels, obsessed with creating more metahumans the unnatural way, I take it?"
"Well. We have it on good authority that your way could produce a Titan for us. So the boss-man is willing to give it an honest shot, pardon you, and probably help fund your other research if you give it an honest try."
Disaster shook his head. "I would need someone extremely genetically similar to an existing Titan, or it would be impossible. I... wait." He focused on Arakiel. "I've heard rumors.... is this about Valkyrie's son? If he inherited part of his mother's power...." He rubbed his chin between his fingers, looking thoughtful, until Arakiel opened the fridge; and started sorting through the syringes inside.
"What the hell are you doing? I would seriously not touch those things... Damn things are poison! Potentially useful for research, but deadlier than any plague!"
Arakiel nodded. "Sure enough." His hand settled on one of the syringes; and he slid it out of the fridge. Taking it just felt right. It was impossible to predict what would happen more than a few seconds out, exactly. But if this 'feeling' were true... "Tell me... who this sample came from." He held the syringe up; the letters on it were marked E-GW, which meant nothing to him.
Disaster blinked, and stepped up, examining the label. "Oh. I see what this is about. How did you know... look, I didn't retrieve these. It was the cartel. They wanted me to try to make copies of him, of anyone they could get samples of. I don't even know how they got it."
"That didn't sound like a name."
"Why do I need to say it? Obviously you know its Gary Weiss. Excalibur."
Thankfully, the doctor couldn't see his shock through the helmet. Well hell. Maybe that feeling meant something entirely different. "...We need to keep these samples. And, honestly... the 'how' they were obtained might be just as important as the samples themselves."
***
The Eagles; Mexico's premier metahuman team; had shown up during the clean-up phase; only to continue on elsewhere, seemingly just showing the flag; a gentle reminder that yes, Mexico could have handled this on its own, they just had bigger priorities. Arakiel felt a certain level of sympathy; they were highly capable people dealing with a situation where the best-payiing groups were the cartels; so they might not always be outgunned, but they always seemed to be outnumbered by the bad guys.
There were so many vigilante heroes and groups down here that he was half surprised they hadn't run into one while they were here; and when the police showed up, there was barely any comment about the equipment being loaded into the aircraft; only a blend of horror and shock at the dozens of bodies being dragged out of the wreckage, the sight of the silver-armored woman with her wings dripping with blood, and the state of the bodies themselves; ranging from the man who now simply seemed to be a hollow metal statue with various random engine parts attached, to bits of various bodies scattered for hundreds of yards around a crash site where two helicopters appeared to have attempted to mate with an overabundance of success.
As they loaded into the aircraft with Disaster for the last trip out; Candy had already flown north across the border; he stared at the lab, frowning. "You know. They might have kept me locked up there... sort-of. But I'm gonna miss this place. Should be interesting to see what they have setup for me up north."
Arakiel glanced at the man. He was wearing what seemed to be a classic supervillain, mad scientist outfit; a black bodysuit, bulky mechanical gauntlets with a variety of build-in devices, heavy eye-covering goggles; and with a white labcoat over them, which they all seemed to prefer. "Should be fun. Their budget is insane, and with what they want you to work on, I bet it'll be however high you need it to be to get the job done."
The doctor shook his head, watching the lab vanish in the distance. "Well. Genetic modification is a fool's errand when it comes to powers. Each power is too unique, each person's genetics too different from the next, to get meaningful large-scale results. They might not look as pretty, but the creatures I create are far better for large-scale tests. Though.... if there is in fact a way to create a Titan, it will have enormous ramifications on some of my other projects."
As the craft picked up speed, crossing the border, he shook his head. "Can't help but think that I missed something, though. We killed off the Hydra, your people killed all of the spiders, took all of the computer records with us..."
***
Hours later, as local police were sorting through the lab; some looking for evidence, others looking for something worth looting; the clean-up process began. The various corpses of the abominations Disaster had created were piled up and burned on a massive pyre alongside the victims of his experiments; and a hapless cleaning crew dumped various containers out down the drains... including one cylinder filled with a deep pile of glistening red marble-sized eggs.