Cal hovered above the ground, masked by an invisibility spell as he followed Captain America toward the Hydra base. Kara was long gone, but so far the night was still silent. A marvel, considering her preference for combat over cooperation.
“It’s about time I introduce myself, or we’ll be inside and I’ll still be in this human’s shadow,” Cal drifted down and cancelled his spell, while the unaware Captain took stock of the base from the edge of the treeline. He settled silently at the man’s side and joined his observation of the troops and vehicles. “...If you’re looking to sneak inside, I’d suggest we move together and commandeer a vehicle…”
“Who the HELL are you?” Steve jerked away from Cal’s sudden appearance, fists raised as he looked the teen up and down. “What is a kid doing in a place like this?”
“I’m just following my orders to help you free your friends, but we’d better hurry,” Cal squinted at the sky and shook his head. Far above, Kara floated within the lower reaches of the clouds, her hands raised to encourage him to get on with his part of the mission. “My allies are getting impatient… come on!”
Cal grabbed the Captain’s wrist and dragged him into the back of an armoured truck as its convoy crept past. A flick of his wrists and the two soldiers in the back dropped, lifeless into the bed of the vehicle. Steve eyed him with raised brows, his voice hushed as he glanced between Cal and the unaware driver in the front.
“I thought I was the only super-soldier they had… are you here with the U.S. army?” Steve shifted deeper into the shadows, focused on the checkpoint that approached. “Did Peggy send you to help?”
“Peggy… ah, you mean the woman who was with you on the plane,” Cal shook his head as their truck trundled into the base and pulled into an oversized vehicle dock. “No, I’m a member of the Order of Krypton, sent here by our Master… you can think of us as watchmen, we seek out and help people in need.”
“Well the prisoners in this base qualify as the needy, that’s for sure,” Steve braced himself as a pair of footsteps approached, shield held at the ready. “It’s good to meet you, I’m Steve Rodgers…”
“I’m Cal,” a Hydra soldier pulled open the tarp on the back of their truck and Cal lashed out with a silent blow. The man’s neck snapped as he was hauled into the bed, where Cal rooted through his equipment. “This pass should help us get to where we’re going, but we need to stay quiet… as soon as the alarms sound, things are going to get very noisy around here.”
Kara didn’t play well with others, and her entrance was likely to kick up a massive stink with the locals. They needed to free the captured allied troops before she got impatient and took action ahead of schedule.
“Since you seem to know where we’re going, you can lead the way,” Steve waved Cal toward the entrance, just visible beyond the hatch of their truck. “All I know is that my friend Bucky is in there somewhere…”
“Bucky Barnes,” Cal nodded as they darted from within the vehicle and through the open doorway, twin blurs that went unnoticed by the armed men within the square. “I can see him and the others, a few hundred metres beyond these walls… most of the guardsmen are outside, we shouldn’t run into problems until we’ve freed the prisoners.”
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“You can see them?” Steve raised his eyebrows and shook his head, close on Cal’s tail as they sprinted through the cool, stone corridors. “It looks like you’re a bit more super than I am…”
Cal blitzed into an open space, filled with half a dozen soldiers. His body flashed from man to man, a series of dull snaps that dropped the humans to the ground. The Captain charged in at his back, but found no targets left to fight.
“Most of my people could do this mission, I actually consider myself to be more of a scholar,” Cal shrugged and waved them toward a service hall, just large enough for a grown man to pass through. He glanced at the sky through the concrete ceiling and sighed, Kara’s face had that look, the one that meant she was nearly out of patients. “This way, we’re running out of time… hold on!”
Cal reached out and took hold of the Captain’s coat. The world blurred around them as he took flight and dragged Steve forward, close to the speed of sound. A few twists and turns brought them to an expansive warehouse, filled with rusted iron cages and the smell of unwashed men.
“You get them free,” Cal set a wind tousled Steve back onto his feet and scanned their surroundings. “I’ll keep an eye out for the guards… now hurry!”
Cal gave the Captain a gentle shove that got the man into motion. He darted towards the imprisoned men, shield raised to cleave apart the locks on their cages. Once the men were free, they would need to make a beeline for the edge of the base. Kara had a dark look in her eyes, one that Cal recognised as a desire for scorched earth.
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“They’re close enough…” Kara cracked her neck as she positioned herself directly above her red-faced target. The man was inside a fortified control room, in conversation with a squat human scientist. “It looks like he’s even got the cube that Master Dan-EL wanted us to find.”
Kara drew in an expansive breath, an inrush of air that disturbed the clouds. This would be an easy mission, one she planned to overcomplete. If Master Dan-EL saw how much her strength was wasted on these weak opponents, maybe he would give her the challenge she desired.
Her body lanced downward, heralded by the hurricane she expelled from her lungs. Super-cooled air blanketed the base, frigid winds that dropped the men who were directly exposed.
Fists in the lead, she slammed through layer after layer of metal and stone, until she burst into the central control station next to a wide eyed Red. His scientist friend spun on his heels and ran, ignored as Kara floated forward toward her target.
“Hand over the cube, Skinless, or I’ll have to get violent!” Kara flashed the bewildered super soldier a grin and slammed her fists together. “You’ve got five seconds to comply!”
The red-faced man shook off his shock and darted back, towards the power station that held the cube. He flipped a switch that began its extraction and turned back to face Kara.
“It seems the Americans have improved upon the serum, more than I ever dreamed…” He flashed a macabre grin and waved to kara from head to toe. “Have you ever considered joining a different cause? People like you and I stand above the rest of humanity, perfect creations that deserve to rule, not serve.”
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Red-Face,” Kara rolled her eyes at his terrible pitch as they filled with crimson light. “I’m not a Human, and you’re so far from perfection it's laughable!”
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“Kara seems to be having fun,” Dan shook his head, a smile on his lips as he withdrew the All-Spark from his suit. His laboratory would need far more power than the Earth’s core could provide. “I hope she keeps the mission objectives in mind…”
Dan shrugged and socketed the Spark into A crystal spire, deep within the centre of the Fortress. Electric-blue energy surged through from the mechanical cube and into the walls, a rush that illuminated the entire base from within.
“Shaw is already under Venom’s control, and Eric is on his way to safety with Stormy and his mother,” a flick of his fingers withdrew several crystal data-chips from his belt and floated them into different sockets around the core. “Once the space stone is in the right hands, things will be well on their way.”
Most of the time, Dan intended to be in orbit around a secluded o-class star. This lab would be for the research he had planned for his spare time. If he was going to be in the universe for years on his own, he might as well devote some effort to completing a few projects.
“Now, I think I’ll start with the serums, both the Superman serum and the Compound V are close to where they need to be…”