Alright everyone here it is hope you enjoy. Next week is the end of this Arc, however things are only heating up :) tell me what you think.

Arc 5, Chapter 7, Interlude Stalemate

It had been a while since all six of the Bronson City Team Captains met up, just about two months, if only it was under better circumstances. During their last meeting Captain Metal had been demoted and Dreamer had taken his place as the Captain of the City Central team. It had been a long time coming and not really a surprise to anyone. The situation looked bad to say the least and it called for the attention of all the Teams to work together to solve it. Though the Mad Dogs were a threat there was something far more pressing than their illicit activities.

Enforcer stood to the side of Neon Nurse, in full battle gear the same as everyone else. They were all suited up and ready to go. A smooth chromed out face plate that merged into the thick side covering helmet. His suit was a deep blue color with black highlights. The shoulders were domed glass with siren lights contained within. Enforcer was sort of an oddball here, he did not actually have super powers at the least not by himself. What he did have though was Neon Nurse's cyborg enhancements, a suit personally made by Fire Chief and gadgets for just about every occasion.

His gloves could deliver enough of a shock to incapacitate most people save the more resilient Supers, this unfortunately included the Subhumans. The grenade launcher strapped to his back had different ammo including frozen, incendiary, electric, adhesive, tear gas, tranquilizer, net, flash bang and grappling hook. He had a shield built into the left arm that could be folded out at a moment's notice. He even had a souped up stun baton for if things got rough, it had been used on a few rabid activists just the other week. The robo enhancements combined with his suit landed him as a solid rank 6 cyborg.

Crimson Sweeper leaned against the wall, his trademarked red trench coat loosely worn over an armored chest plate. Thick aviator sunglasses covered his eyes and a black, wide brimmed fedora was tilted forward slightly. Around his neck a red scarf drooped loosely. Now one might think that is not really going to hide your identity, but they would be wrong when it came to Sweeper. No one has yet been able to identify him, the other heroes included. Sure he stuck out like a sore thumb, but if you saw him, he already saw you and decided he wanted to let you see him.

His power was to see through just about everything and he could control it to such a degree that he could pick and choose what was omitted. This made him a nightmare for criminals since he could drink coffee across the street and watch their illicit activities, then when they were most vulnerable he and his team would pounce. His trusty Beretta was specially augmented to use armor piercing rounds if need be. If things got real dicey he would pull out a gauss rifle and shoot through walls. He was not known for orthodox take downs and was no stranger to the less legal side of investigating.

His arch rival was Fold who had thus far eluded capture due to his portal jumping. It is astoundingly hard to pin down a guy who can connect two points, sometimes miles away from each other and cross over then open another portal and repeat the process until he feels safe. The other problem was he could close the portal at any point, so following him was a bad idea unless you wanted to lose an arm or be cut in half.

Fold was not the only troublesome member of the Scarlet Souls. In truth the gang had five Super Villains and a near army of goons. Second in command was a woman named Shadow who could phase out of reality, which allowed her to levitate, walk through walls and dodge bullets. She usually scouted out the jobs before they came in force. If she touched people she could take them with her. They had been a little too quiet lately, which never boded well.

Dreamer looked over the room from her seat at the head of the table. Her melted opera mask covering down to her cheeks. The sanguine lips pressed into a tight frown. Blue gloved hands folded over one another and her chin rested on them. To her left by three empty seats was Medavac in his white bulky armor and standing behind him was Fire Chief in his rusty red under suit. Opposite them was Neon Nurse, who looked like she was ready to storm into the Slums guns blazing. From his positioning Enforcer was on her side and Crimson Sweeper was staying out of the fray so to say. This was not looking good, the teams were squabbling, which was rather unusual. Of course she knew exactly why they were so disjointed. It was that little freak Vespidian.

Medavac sat at the thick hard wood table, cupping his face. A chemical burn mark ran up the side of his face. “She just slipped through my fingers.”

“Stop beating yourself up over it. You literally got in a fist fight with Atomic Knight, alone in the sewers and almost caught him. She is alive. The chip in her head is still sending out signals. All the feeds on the suit are trashed though.” Fire Chief stood by his side with crossed arms.

“She should have been able to rely on me. I was the fucking senior here. She was my responsibility and I let her down when it mattered most. I am getting too old for this shit.”

“Damn straight you fucked up!” yelled Neon Nurse the visor on her battle suit was down. Mechanical arms twitched irritated and bulky form paced the room.

“Stop it. Fighting among ourselves will not change this one bit,” said Chief. “You want to blame somebody then blame me. I assigned her to guard duty. I was not expecting Den Mother and Nibbles.”

“Don't you take the high road on this. It makes it hard to be mad,” she glared at him.

“We are all adults here. So start acting like it,” said Dreamer, standing abruptly. “We have city wide problems to deal with and here we are arguing over who is to blame.”

“This isn't just about her. It will affect us all. If we lose Mecha Fairy not even two weeks into her deployment it is going to make the public very nervous. It is going to make us look bad and they might start questioning our viability. Especially after what happened in LA, even you can understand that, Dreamer,” said Fire Chief.

“That is bad. However I have considered this as well. As I am sure you have all seen the news. Glitter Kitten has made it rather clear that she wants us to stay out of the Slums for two days. Which means she is doing something in that time,” replied Dreamer, pacing for a moment. “But we have bigger fish to fry than some little freak being held captive.”

Neon Nurse fumed and the robo hands were clamping the air with snaps. “Don't you fucking call her a freak! She is a wonderful and beautiful individual.”

“What does she mean freak?” asked Medavac looking between them.

Dreamer shifted, “You don't know? I thought we were all in on this monster that against my wishes was set loose on the streets. It is a miracle she has not eaten her team yet. Vesper, Vespidian, Mecha Fairy whatever the hell you want to call that thing does not change what it is.”

“For your information she is getting along perfectly fine with her team. In fact she has already made friends with most of them,” growled Chief.

“She is a monster plain and simple. I have seen her eat a whole watermelon in one bite. A mouth should not stretch that far. Don't even get me started with her feeding patterns when it pertains to meat. We all know that Mecha Fairy unless ripped to pieces and separated will recover in less than a day. In other words she is fine.”

“Oh for the love of Pete you are still on about that?” Fire Chief rolled his eyes. “She is not some animal that we have to make virgin sacrifices to in order to appease.”

“Seriously though what is she?” asked Medavac. “Stop being vague and show me some pictures or something. I know she is a Subhuman, but what is making you guys freak out?”

Neon Nurse nodded and put a little cord from her suit into the screen at the back of the room. Images appeared, little folders with labels. She moved so fast through the assorted files it was nearly impossible to read it clearly. Her eyes glowed shifting back and forth as though she were reading. It took a moment longer then she entered a folder titled “My Little Alien” within this there were several other folders and she quickly opened the first one. She opened it so fast in fact that one might think she was trying to cover something up. The first image was a long black haired girl with bright blue eyes, a slightly large nose and a genuine smile. She looked like she was ready to take on the world.

“Well that is not bad at all. Jesus she looks normal as hell, so why is everybody acting like she is some kind of monster? Although I take it that was here when she was human, that is certainly not what her face looks like now,” said Medavac.

Neon Nurse replied. “That was her seven years ago, right before she went to college. Me and her father were looking around through photo albums. It was the last one where she actually looked happy. After this it looks like her soul got sucked out, so I won't be showing those. This is a picture of her last week during her check up.”

The screen blinked for a moment. A bone etched face appeared, it was as though it had been sculpted and hardened. The crease of her mouth spread to the sides of the face, a crack in the mask. All four of her inky eyes were larger than a human's. Her elongated head reached back and formed a crescent moon at the back. There was no skin only a black and in the right light incandescent blue exoskeleton with muscles at the joints connecting her segmented body. Four arms were crossed over her lap and and the bulging abdomen lay to the side. Orange membranes were neatly spread behind her, her wings. Beyond the initial shock of the difference between the two pictures she looked rather bored, sitting there on a cold metal slab.

“Well that is certainly different,” said Medavac eyeing the picture. “Not that bad though. Seen way worse. Hey you got nudes of her? Wasn't one of those folders called sexy time or something?”

“Oh yeah I got all sorts of... wait a minute. I ain't sharing that with you. Those are for research purposes only!” glared Neon Nurse.

“Don't be such a tight ass I want to know what I am getting into. She wants my nuts.”

“She wants to, to... to breed with you?” she looked aghast.

“I think she just wants the dick,” he smirked.

“When the hell did this happen?!” She pointed at him boiling with jealousy.

“Earlier today. Hey you been in there, what does her cunt look like? Is it crazy?” he asked.

“You would actually have sex with that?” cringed Dreamer. “I have to wonder about your mental state Medavac. Maybe you need to have your head looked at.”

“Oh please. You are just a prude. You are never going to get a man like that you know, Dreamer,” he smirked. “So anyway Neon Nurse show me some of the goods.”

“You have no idea-” started Neon Nurse before she was interrupted by Fire Chief, “Damn it you guys take this shit seriously! She might be killed.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Dreamer shifted, “Good to see someone has their head on straight. Now look she is more likely to turn traitor on us than be killed. Glitter Kitten is notorious for her aggressive recruitment of subhumans and she has a way of making them feel accepted. She finds their insecurities and lulls them into a false sense of security. At times I wonder if she is a cult leader or not.”

“Vesper would not turn on us,” said Chief.

“She would. Think about it,” she said, letting it sink in for a moment. “If she was suddenly surrounded by beings similar to herself, that did not judge her based on appearances and truly accepted her rather than trying to conceal what she is. And make no mistake, that is exactly what we are doing to her. It is not hard to realize which side she would take. She seeks a place to call her own that much is obvious. I don't even need to look through her head to know that.”

“She has a place right here, with us,” scoffed Neon Nurse. “She would not go Villain on us.”

“I know all of you here are more or less taken in by her. Even you Sweeper, don't think I over looked that request to have her transferred to your team. Still trying to figure that out, at any rate. Now look it is commendable what all of you are doing for her, but she needs serious, professional help.”

Crimson Sweeper tilted his hat up, “It seems to me that you are the one obsessed with her. Why can't you just leave her alone? If this blows up in our face so be it.”

“None of you can even understand what is going on in her head. Since none of you are even going to take me seriously let's just drop the topic. If we can finally get back to what really matters right now I would appreciate it.”

“NO,” said Medavac, slamming his hands on the table. “Tell us.”

“I could literally spend hours explaining why it would be bad to allow her outside. You want the truth? Let me make it simple. She has a parasitical split personality that is slowly taking over and eating her main personality. She calls it Sub and it is leading her around by the nose. Vesper might not be a menace, in fact she is a rather gullible and malleable individual, but that thing is a monster. I should have killed it the moment I found it, when it was weak. But now it is so ingrained in there I would have to kill Vesper to get to it. It is using her as a shield. I don't expect you to believe me.”

“How do you even know all this? I thought that you were only in her head that one time.” asked Chief.

“I check up on her once a week. It is pretty easy when she is sedated,” she said, all of them were glaring at her. “Before you start pointing fingers I have done nothing to her, just monitoring her psychosis. Sub has grown like a cancer since her inception. They are more or less inseparable at this point and that is why I am worried over what might happen. I have seen this sort of thing before. If Sub were to decide that Vesper was no longer needed, I fear it would not be hard for her to take over.”

“You are nuts,” laughed Neon Nurse. “Look she talks to herself some times, but who doesn't? I personally talk to myself sometimes because I need a professional opinion. This one time I walked in on her arguing with herself over which Moon Sailor she wanted to fuck. Rear Admiral Uranus in case you were wondering. As for Sub, I know about her. Since you seem to think otherwise she is not some foreign intruder she is literally the Subconscious of Vesper. Due to the enlarged brain and activity, she became self aware. Let me tell you if your brain was the size of a large watermelon you would be capable of some rather crazy shit that to be frank we don't understand yet. We have not even figured out if she is psychic or not yet, but that is beside the point. They get along very well together and work together on just about everything.”

“She told you about it?” asked Dreamer in disbelief.

“Yes. She tells me about everything,” smirked Neon Nurse. “It is what happens when you actually listen to her. Something you don't seem to understand.”

“We both know you only want her for her body. You want her to fill you with eggs.”

“What does my sexual preference have anything to do with this? I consider her my friend and yes, I would enjoy being an incubator for her brood. It is not like I can have kids of my own. Is there a problem with that?”

“Your self interests are impairing your judgment here.”

“Just drop it,” said Chief, shaking his head. “I don't care if she lays eggs or what ever else she might do. She is an adult and as such her sexual relations are not our concerns. From what I have seen she is just a traumatized young woman trying to fit in.”

“You are way too optimistic on this. Imagine if she started breeding, little monsters scurrying around all over the place and if they got loose... It would be far worse than the Mad Dogs. I don't even want to consider it. I was looking over some of that data that Dr. Arbor had and do you realize there were plans to ship her off to Russia, start a breeding colony and release her children upon the world as a scourge to wipe out humanity?”

“Those were abandoned,” dismissively said Neon Nurse. “Can we stop this witch hunt already and just get back to business?”

“Gladly,” nodded Dreamer, grasping the opportunity to change subjects. “How did we even get stuck on talking about her? What this meeting involves has nothing to do with her.”

“Then what the hell is this meeting about?” asked Enforcer's deep robotic voice. He crossed his arms. “Look I got way better shit to do than stand around here. In case you have not noticed the Sixes and Sevens are at war with the Diablo De Chillar. They are murdering each other in the streets. Are we doing a rescue op or not?”

“Let me finish. Or hell even begin, stop interrupting me,” said Dreamer, shaking her head. “We have way bigger problems than the Mad Dogs.”

“You have our attention,” shifted Sweeper.

“Someone or some organization is attempting to unite the varied gangs. As we all know Kraken is spreading their tendrils around the globe, it is concerning to say the least. It might be an agent sent here to see the worth of our local Super Villains and see if any of them make the cut. I am not sure on this though it is just conjecture. Usually my estimates are spot on though.”

All of them looked flustered, “How did you find this out?”

“Well, while I was sifting through the most recent captured henchmens' heads, I started noticing things. There is someone referred to as the Boss. At first I thought they meant their leaders, but when I asked they did not know who this Boss was only that orders were being given out to the gang bosses.”

“IS that all you have?” Asked Neon Nurse, sighing uninterested. “It might just be some rich guy paying them for a job.”

“Do you realize the ramifications if they united against us? We would lose the city in less than a month if every criminal element in the city turned on us in an organized manor. Need I remind you this is exactly what happened in LA! That is not even counting if the Diablos get full reinforcements from LA or if it is just supplementary. If a Kraken merc shows up we are going to have serious problems! Nitro is still running loose in LA so we should be fine, but we need to be prepared. The only reason we even hold order is because they are splintered and divided. Their infighting is to our advantage. Enforcer you know this is true.”

He nodded, “It is. Currently we are taking advantage of the Sixes and Sevens attacking the Diablo De Chillar on one side while we raid the drug supply lines and outer lying operations. We have Pico on the run, but gang reinforcements are streaming in from LA to bulk up their forces. These have been intercepted by the Mad Dogs on several occasions. As much as I hate to admit it I am thankful that the Railroad Union shipped in their pet gang and of course the unusual help from the Mad Dogs, usually it is the other way around. Also the Angels of Hell are up to something, they might be planning to break Blaze Runner out.”

Neon Nurse mulled it over for a moment. “So you want me to believe that there is some shadowy individual, who can actually get the Angels of Hell to work with the Diablos? Or for that matter the Mad Dogs with anybody else save the Atomic Raiders, which they have a very dicey relationship as is. These people would fight over what toppings to put on a pizza just to spite one another. Honestly I don't see it happening.”

“That is what my snooping is pointing towards. We would have to capture a high ranking member of either the Scarlet Souls, the Mad Dogs, or the Angels of Hell. If this is true they have formed a coalition.”

Crimson Sweeper shook his head. “Scarlet Souls has been acting a little weird, but that has more to do with the Cyber Sirens encroaching in on them lately. Although it might be that they are gearing up for something big.”

Dreamer covered her mouth. “Oh right, I had almost forgotten about them. It is pretty easy when there are only two members. Neon Nurse I am sure you know your former gang very well.”

She eyed her, “I quit that shit five years ago. Sparky was a total bitch and Vira was always fucking with my Robos. Your point is?”

“You did not quit. You got caught and took a plea deal. You are still on probation for another five years might I remind you. So if they get captured you will have no hard feelings if I were to go digging around in their heads?”

“Feel free.”

“No need to drag up the past. I trust Neon Nurse, in fact just about everybody does. She has reformed rather nicely,” coughed Fire Chief. “So what are we going to do?”

“I was not done yet. I learned something very interesting from our friend Mr. Richard. He is a member of the Angels of Hell and appeared to have been brokering a deal between them and the Mad Dogs. For reasons I honestly can't figure out he double crossed Glitter Kitten and got us in this mess. In the Slums there is a massive stash of Cocaine, hidden inside of a cargo container. I know the general area where it is.”

“So if you know where it is lets go blow it sky high,” said Enforcer.

“Not so fast. I have a better idea. In a couple days there is going to be a little transaction between the two. Which is why Glitter Kitten does not want us in the Slums until after it has been done. We are going to catch them red handed and cut the heads off of both gangs.”

“You want to pick a fight with not only Glitter Kitten, but Burnout as well?” asked Neon Nurse exasperated. “What the hell are we going to do when the Subhumans riot? Glitter Kitten is the only thing keeping them from rampaging through the city. Let alone if we get those junkies riled up. You have a death wish?”

“No, I have a plan. A very good one too,” chuckled Dreamer. “They won't know what hit them.”

_____

Next week Vesper gets down and dirty with Glitter Kitten and the gang.