-1 minute earlier-
Bravo One ran his fingers over the pouches on his plate carrier as he slid to a stop behind a row of rusting train wheels 50 meters from the killbox. The awkward, hurried hobble all the way from the front of the warehouse to here had been a painful one, made even more so by not being able to move swiftly and silently on his injured leg, but he’d made it without alerting his prey.
All the work they’d done to get to this point seemed to be paying off. The three prisoners were gagged, the bodies stashed, the blood covered in trash and debris, and the explosives primed.
Now, their bird was here, in the cage they’d built.
The morning sun loomed overhead, slowly shrinking the shadows that had been his ally thus far in Las Almas, but the time for stealth was very nearly over.
Ducking down behind his cover, he patted his pouches again, deriving some comfort in knowing they were there. He tried to control his breathing, consciously making his intake deep and his exhalation slow. Things were in motion now, and there was nothing for him to do but watch.
Focus on the now.
What could he do now? He reached up and depressed a tiny pin on the top of his goggles to run a systems check.
“Patching in the feed,” Overwatch stated over the radio, clinical like this was just another day at the office.
Going through their test cycle, Joseph’s goggles clicked and whirred, focusing and refocusing, a list of green and yellow status text scrolling over the right eye too fast to read. He paid it no mind, however. Over his left eye, a grainy, black and white video feed blinked into view.
The focus and resolution left a lot to the imagination, of course. No one put the rare and expensive equipment in the rafters of a building they were planning to essentially detonate, and anything the forensic teams were likely to find in the rubble needed to be cheap and untraceable. Joseph understood that, but he couldn't help but feel frustration at just how little detail he could make out. He squinted at the feed futilely as his hands went through the practiced motions of tightening his straps and checking his equipment over and over again.
Gull, though out of focus and under billowing white robes, cut a hard and commanding figure as he marched up to the shipping container’s door. The man moved like a jungle cat, all coiled muscle and barely restrained deadly potential, but there was a manic need to his actions as well that was hard to describe, like he wasn’t entirely in control of himself. The way his head jerked this way and that, the constant flexing of his hands and arms, he was like a junky catching a whiff of his preferred poison. Disturbingly, through the blur, Joseph thought he could just make out a toothy, face-splitting grin as Gull ripped metal door off its hinges.
Bravo One heard the hollow whistling of the VLAD’s rockets a full second before witnessing the trap being sprung on the video feed, the delay making the situation feel disjointed and unreal despite its proximity. The rocket exhaust didn’t do the picture quality any favors, but, twice, Joseph glimpsed a humanoid silhouette writhing on the ground within the cloud.
Joseph held his breath and forced his hands to stay still.
“Here we go,” Overwatch buzzed. “Looks like he took it in the side. Partial penetration.”
Considering the amount of power behind the harpoon, that was pretty incredible. Bravo One reached up to disengage the hook that kept his rifle on its sling. “Can’t see it from here. Did we get unlucky or is there a bigger problem?” He asked.
“Stand by. Playing it back,” Overwatch replied, the line going silent at the same time as the rockets, leaving Gull laying on the floor some distance away from the container. When Overwatch came back, there was a tension to his voice that spoke volumes. “Unknown. Could just be hung up on bone, but still...”
Doubt seeped deeper into Bravo One’s mind. He let the rifle fall to the ground.. Any time spent shooting at a man that could stop a VLAD would be better spent some other way. He patted his pockets again. Still there.
Overwatch kept at it, analyzing the situation blow by blow. “He’s pulling on the leash. Barrier held up just fine. Looks like he’s gonna try a vertical.”
Again, Joseph heard and felt the explosion before it showed up on the feed. There was a *BOOM*, then Gull was on the ground again, rolling to cradle his injured side.
“He tanked an EFP, and he’s still kicking, Overwatch.”
“I see it. The framerate ain’t good enough to see where it hit, but he’s favoring that side. Hang on. Alright, he’s starting to get the picture. Think we’re about to lose a perfectly good VLAD.”
Though Overwatch couldn't see it, Joseph found himself nodding in agreement as Gull tested the cable. They’d planned for this, angling a good number of the charges toward the center of the room. The idea was that even if the VLAD didn’t reel in their bird, they could slag the thing with high explosives if they had to leave in a hurry, a strategy Wilhelm employed with a concerning amount of frequency even at home.
With growing desperation, their target threw himself into the container and was gone.
“Alright, get low. I’m about to start the fireworks,” Overwatch said, the clicking of detonator safeties being disengaged audible through the radio.
The planned series of explosions ripped through the train yard. Steel ball bearings, shrapnel, and shredded tin zipped and pinged off of every surface in the area in staccato bursts, the tight grouping of shockwaves rattling Joseph’s insides so it felt like his body had become home to a swarm of fluttering moths. More than once, Joseph could feel the solid impact of metal on metal even through the tons of iron that sheltered him. They lost the video feed somewhere between the third and fourth detonation.
When it was over, Bravo One rose to his feet and turned toward the building, the stiff and swollen muscles in his injured leg protesting at being extended again. He was almost surprised that the warehouse still stood, knowing just how nasty Wilhelm’s homemade ordinance could be. Frustratingly, the walls still blocked his view. They were still largely intact, albeit with lots and lots of raged holes torn through them.
He found himself taking a step forward, accidentally leading with the injured leg which he immediately regretted. His body was practically begging him to lie in bed in a drug induced coma until the bone could sort itself out, but that could happen after the job was done.
He needed to see what happened to Gull, to make sure the target was down.
“Wait,” Overwatch commanded. “Camera’s done, but I’m getting audio.”
Joseph froze mid-step, tilting his head to listen. Rapidly cooling metal creaked and pinged. The wind whistled eerily through the newly porous tin. Something solid fell to the concrete floor with a heavy *crack.*
Silence. Heart stopping silence that stretched over seconds.
Then there was a cough.
Followed by another.
A wet hiss.
A groan.
Gritting his teeth against the pain, Joseph sprint-limped toward the ruined corner of the warehouse, the one he’d used last night to exit the building and come around behind the 44 Reapers. Earlier this morning, he’d stacked discarded roofing tin and splintered plywood to obscure the hole and block the light, but now he needed it.
“Where are you going, kid?”
“In.” Bravo One huffed. The pain of moving like this with his leg in a splint already gnawed away at his stamina.
“Like hell you are. If he lived through that, we got some bad intel on just what kind of monster we’re dealing with.”
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“Can’t let him get back on his feet,” Joseph growled, trying to keep his voice low as he flung material away from his patch job. “Got to finish him.” He cursed himself for using so much junk to cover the hole.
“Stay outside, and I’ll finish him with the LEP.”
There. A bent sheet of precariously balanced tin was all that kept him out of the building.
“We can’t see him.” Joseph whispered harsly as he wrapped his hands around the sharp corner of the corrugated metal, preparing to peel it back. “We’ll do a hit and run. Get the LEP angled, and I’ll clear a shot for you.”
There was a long pause on Wilhelm’s end, presumably as he entered targeting data into the computer. “Fine. Shit. Just don’t let him speak. Hit him, clear my shot, and get the hell out.”
“I’ll hit him hard,” Joseph acknowledged as peeled the false walls away from the building.
“Don't mess around in there, Bravo One. Hit him. Get me a shot. Disengage.”
As Joseph stepped inside the building, the air was thick with unexpended propellant and dirty black smoke, choking him even through his mask. Everywhere, countless tiny white feathers drifted lazily downward, and as they reached the floor, they seemed to fade away into nothingness like melting snow flurries.
First generation super weirdness.
The man of the hour laid there on his stomach in a pool of his own blood, one hand cradling the bent harpoon still hanging out of his body, the other outstretched to support himself as he tried to bring himself up on his side. He looked battered and bloody but remarkably good considering what he’d just gone through. His robes hung in scorched tatters around him, showing a muscular frame that put professional athletes to shame, and aside from the bloody puncture where the VLAD had done its work, the worst mark on him was a scalp wound that bled freely down the front of his face and trickled to the floor. Then there were countless angry purple bruises where he’d been struck by Wilhelm’s homemade claymores and EFPs.
Even without the wings, Gull looked like a damned angel. His face was the picture of classical masculinity, angular and strong, protruding chin, blonde hair, and almond shaped eyes, although one of the sclerae was red with burst blood vessels.
Bravo One dug into the pouches on his chest and palmed workings in either hand, igniting them instantly.
It didn’t take long for Gull to notice his new visitor, his slightly dazed eyes coming to lock on Joseph's as he drew closer.
The look on Gull's face shifted quickly from anger, to recognition, and then to something like fear.
Good.
Apparently sensing the presence of another predator, Gull sprang into action, letting go of his wounded side and pushing himself up in a half crouch. Time stretched out, extending one second into many as the air seemed to be drawn to the downed super, rushing in to fill his lungs, his mouth contorting to form a word. A disturbance shimmered into being around him, the sort of susurrus humming vibration that was intimately familiar to Joseph but also distinctly alien in its tenor.
Bravo One wasn't having any of it. In a flash, he hurled his workings at his foe, one after the other.
The first was a sticky fireball with lots of juice behind it, the kind that didn’t need oxygen or mundane fuel to burn. The angry orange orb left his hand with an angry *whoosh,* its ethereal shrieks an otherworldly twin to the VLAD’s rockets. The construct flew across the warehouse in a straight line and detonated against the floor, directly under Gull’s chest. There was no significant kinetic force behind the blast, but the crackling pop of the failing containment shell was enough to disperse its payload.
Whatever Gull had planned to say died in his throat as the fireball burst under him. Sputtering as they encountered open air, thin ropes of scorching death shot in all directions, their forms elastic as they wrapped around Gull and bound him in magma hot yellow webs. Flash fried concrete cracked underneath him.
Gull shrank in on himself and rolled in an attempt to put out the blaze, his voice an animalistic shriek devoid of any meaning other than the desire to not be on fire.
Half a second later, Joseph’s second working, an expanding barrier construct, flared and materialized directly above Gull’s head, forming a ten foot by ten foot containment dome that encapsulated the burning super along with the fire that was consuming him. As the barrier materialized, Gull’s screams took on a hollow, echoing quality like a siren behind thick glass. The barrier quivered in concert with the super's powerful voice and the flicker of the flames.
First task done.
Reaching up to his shoulder pocket, Bravo One felt for the next working he’d need, an explosive one, but he froze.
He was- What was he doing?
His thoughts felt fuzzy and disjointed, like they were tenuously connected strands of filament floating in front of his face, close enough to touch but so fragile that attempting to reach for them would disperse any meaning they held. They felt, at once, apart from him and incontrovertibly his.
He thought about Wilhelm, out there right now hunching over a dim computer screen, tired from two nights on the road and running ops, a man still fighting a war that ended years ago. Joseph imagined the 20mm bullet in the LEP's chamber that would bring about the finale to this horror show.
He thought about how Wilhelm chose to take the burden of the kill onto himself. How he would do it to spare his nephew the extra weight, not that he would ever admit that fact.
No. This is on you.
Joseph turned to face the flames, his jaw clenched, hands balled into fists at his sides. Blood rushed through his ears in time with his pounding heart. The radio in his ear seemed to squawk at him from so very far away.
Barely visible hands slapped desperately at the inside of the barrier.
You're the super. This is on you.
Bravo One forced himself to look on, to watch the flames do their work behind the gentle blue glow of the barrier. This was a technique he’d used before on some of the particularly nasty monsters in the Scar, and it was effective as hell. Inside the dome, the heat would be compounding over and over as the fireball expended its charge in the confined space, and in the end, there would be nothing left other than glowing crumbled clumps of concrete and a smattering of ash that was once one of the world’s heroes.
He was vaguely aware of Gull’s panicked screams and the wordless agonized plea in his voice as he clawed frantically at the enclosure, but all Joseph could do was watch with a feeling of terrible finality as the psychotic super got the only version of justice Bravo One could dispense.
Bile rose in his throat.
That was the tragedy of it, wasn’t it? This was all he could do.
In a world that made sense, they wouldn’t need someone like him. They’d have a big, strong hero like Tyrannis come down from the sky and drag Gull to a prison on Mars or some supermax version of psychotherapy with padded rooms and oil drums full of thorazine.
Instead, the strong had gone off to fight their wars, colonize the stars, or explore parallel dimensions, and they left the weak to fend for themselves. The allowed terrors like Gull to inflict themselves upon regular folks like a disease.
Inevitably, that disease provoked an immune response. It just sucked that all the metaphorical body could muster was an old green beret and a super nobody wanted.
You made this happen. This is on you.
Joseph wished he could do it like the heroes, but that wasn’t really an option for him. He didn’t have the power to subdue someone like Gull.
No, he had just enough power to compel him to intervene but not enough to do it right. So, that left him here, doing what he could with what he had, horrifying as it was.
He hated the world for creating things like Gull. He hated the heroes and their wars, their high minded causes. He hated that it came down to this.
Most of all, Joseph hated that it had to be him.
This is on you.
Joseph wanted to rage. He wanted to raise his hands to the sky and split the heavens with his power, to call down the new gods of the Earth and show them the cost of their absentee approach to justice, a town of hollowed out human beings and an ex-hero burning to death inside a shitty rust box.
No one would come, though. It was just him and his stupid exploding spells. He’d taken offense at Johansen comparing his powers to Warlord’s, but if he were honest with himself, Joseph knew the comparison was more true than not. All he could do was destroy. The only difference between Warlord and himself was who they chose to kill.
They are all on you.
All of them from the dregs like Gull to the insane geniuses like Chronivorous, they were Joseph's to kill.
Because he was too weak or too simple to do it any other way.
Unworthy.
The least he could do was watch as this sad chapter came to a close.
No need to make Wilhelm finish things for him.
Long seconds later, the screaming died away, leaving the warehouse mercifully quiet. The licking flames and the wind moaning through the walls were the only sounds that remained. Clarity returned to Joseph's mind. He blinked and shook his head. Maybe his barrier workings weren't as effective at countering mesmer mojo as he'd hoped.
Damned first generation weirdness.
Forcing his fists to unclench and closing his eyes, Joseph drew in and re-internalized the cloying smog of his anger, banishing it back to whatever part of his psyche was in charge of that kind of thing.
“Kid! How copy? I don’t have a shot!” came Wilhelm’s furious voice over the comms. He sounded hoarse like he’d been shouting into the mic for hours. "Where are you, kid?"
Bravo One let out a shaky breath, swallowing painfully as he turned his back on the still burning crematorium and limped slowly toward the exit. He needed a shower and another trip to the ER, not to mention a straight week of sleep.
“Sorry, Overwatch. We’re good. I took-”
*FWOOMP*
A microsecond of blinding light painted the walls of the warehouse blue, so bright Joseph’s goggle apertures were forced to shrink down to pinpricks, and even then it left him seeing spots. Joseph spun, eyes wide, pulse quickening.
*FWOOMP*
Something powerful slammed against the containment dome, the energy transfer bleeding off as blue light while the membrane rippled and flickered. A diluted breeze of superheated air puffed against Joseph’s face.
*FWOOMP*