1.9 Mad Beasts Part 5

“Alex,” I call over my communicator, “We have a problem.”

“Drones trying to break out Vengeance?” inquires Alex, “Because you wouldn’t be the only ones to have that problem.”

“Four squadrons of three,” I tell her, “Ten are down, but five officers are dead and Mad Dog has escaped. Two of the drones also got away, but they’re damaged. Robyn Hood lost her bow and is out of arrows. What happened to the others?”

“Another dozen tried to breakout Nightmare, but Narszara wiped out in a few seconds,” replies Alex, 

“She even complained it was too quick and easy. Another twelve tried to free Avenger, but Lantern and Bolt took them out. There was also an attack on Forsworn, but they fended it off. They did have trouble mind you and some of the drones got away. The Defenders guarding Mad Cat didn’t do well. Three police cars and the truck were destroyed, eight officers dead and the other two need to go to hospital, Mad Cat was freed and is on the loose like her sister. Controller is messed up pretty badly. Spectre is out cold and needs to medical attention. Powerbeam is getting the injured officers to hospital. My guess is that the Mad sisters are going to try and link up. The others have to continue to escorting their prisoners so you and Night Beast are the only ones free to go after them. I’ll try and track the Mad sisters for you. Good luck.”

This is not good. We basically got a pair of psycho killer werewolves on the loose and only Carrie and I are able to hunt them down.

“Robyn!” I call to the Defender, “Mad Cat and Mad Dog are freed and only Night Beast and I are able to hunt them down. Can you handle the situation here?”

“Sure Sentinel,” replies Robyn over my communicator, “I wouldn’t be much help to you anyway without my bow and arrows.”

I switch my communicator to a private League channel and call Carrie.

“Night Beast,” I say, “We got to bring in Mad Dog and then go after Mad Cat. You okay?”

“I’m fine,” answers Carrie, but she doesn’t sound fine.

“Sure?”

“Yeah, but it’s pretty bad down here. People are dead.”

“All the more reason to make sure the bad guys don’t win.”

“Okay.”

I land by Carrie. She is still transformed and trying to avoid looking at the wreckage of the police vehicles.

“Can you track which direction Mad Dog went?” I ask her.

“Give me a moment,” growls Carrie before sniffing the air, “I got her scent. She’s heading south.”

Carrie suddenly bounds off on all fours. Should I fly after her or converse rocket fuel and follow on foot? I decide on the latter option as I can keep up on foot and not being the air might help stop Mad Dog from spotting me too early.

I follow Carrie as she follows both Mad Dog’s scent and the trail of destruction that the crazed murderess has left in her wake. Nothing major, just things like paw print dents in the road, knocked over fences and broken branches.

“Sentinel,” calls Alex, “I got more information you might want to hear.”

“Go ahead,” I reply.

“Given their locations and the directions the Mad Sisters have gone in, it appears they are trying to link up with each other,” says Alex, “Whether that makes things easier or harder for you, I don’t know.”

“Thanks for the heads up.” I reply before ending the call.

Mad Dog and Mad Cat regrouping means we don’t have to track down each one separately, but if they’re together, they would much harder to take down. It comes down to it being quicker at the expense of winning being tougher.

“Sentinel!” shouts Carrie from in front of me, “Mad Dog is just ahead, but I faintly smell Mad Cat as well.”

“Alex just told me that they’re trying to meet up with each other,” I reply.

“Damn it,” curses Carrie, “So what do we do?”

“Same as usual, take them down with no civilian injures and minimal collateral damage,” I say, “We can take them so don’t worry. Just remember that they’re a lot worse than many of the villains and will happily across the line. Also, their claws and fangs can’t get through my armour and that means they can’t hurt me.”

“Got it Sentinel,” says Carrie.

Her earlier uneasiness seems to have turned into a burning determination to bring down the Mad Sisters. I can’t say I disapprove of that sort of attitude.

“One thing I don’t get is how the Mad Sisters lose control,” says Carrie, “Their powers are pretty much the same as mine, but I have complete control of my changed state while they seem to have none. I know I had some trouble early one, but I was barely ten at the time. By the time I started secondary school, I had pretty much total control over my transformation. Yet they lose it so easily.”

“Maybe they never got control in the first place?” I offer as we reach a village.

“I wonder if they even tried to bring it under control,” mutters Carrie.

I’m about to reply to that when something big and dark slams into Carrie.

1.9 Mad Beasts Part 4

We got a couple of police cars in front of the truck and another two behind it. In each of the five vehicles, there are two police officers armed with pistols. I’m flying overhead while Robyn and Carrie are following on Robyn’s motorcycle.

If all goes to plan, we’ll arrive at our destination in about an hour without any trouble. For some reason, I doubt everything will go according to plan. I call it paranoia.

It ends up going fine for the first half of the journey. Things only went to the pot when the scorpion drones decided showed up.

A dozen of them fly in, three from each corner of the compress. They’re sphere shaped with three legs on both sides and seem to fly using some sort of anti-gravity device. On their back is a set of nasty looking quad guns while on the front, they have pair of what appear to be energy cannons. And they’re moving fast.

Even at a first glance, I can tell they’re related to the Machine.

“Carrie!” I call over my League communicator, “Hostiles incoming from multiple directions. I’m engaging the ones closest to me.”

I break off from where I’m flying over the truck and head towards the western drones. At about thirty metres we exchange fire. Pink energy balls fly from the energy cannons while pink energy balls come out of the quad guns. I fire with my lasers.

I roll out of the line of fire as quickly as I can. I come out on top, only sustaining a single hit to the shoulder, burning the armour little and jolting me about, but nothing more. The drone I aim at explodes as one of my lasers gets a clean, direct hit.

One of the surviving drones turns to face me while the other remains on course to the truck containing Mad Dog. The drone’s quad gun spins around to face me, but I fire my lasers, blowing off the quad gun.

I zoom at the drone as it brings his energy cannons to bear, weaving and rolling to avoid its fire. I really don’t want to see what a direct hit will do to me.

I get in another clean hit, blowing up the second drone. I turn to pursue the third drone, now only about ten metres from the truck.

Robyn and Carrie have engaged the southern drone squadron while the other two are almost upon the police convoy. Robyn has been able to take down a couple of the drones like I have using explosive arrows.

I fire at the third drone in the western squadron, but it makes a sudden jerk to the right, coming back at me. I risk a look at the rest of the situation. Robyn is engaging her third drone, her cycle trashed, while Carrie has transformed and is dashing on all fours to catch up with the truck.

I turn by attention back to my opponent before I can look at the convoy. I am not making the mistake of getting distracted in battle again.

The drone zooms at me and I fire both lasers. It doesn’t dodge in time and both lasers blow it to pieces. I’m getting good with my laser aiming skills.

I look back at the convoy and freeze.

Good Lord! And I’m not taking His name in vain.

The first two police cars are burning wrecks while Carrie has grabbed a hold of the one of the drones. The other five are launching an attack run on the truck.

The truck driver barely leaps from his vehicle in time as the scorpion drones open fire. The front of the truck his blow away, passenger include while the back is torn open.

The rear drone swoops down and fires into the truck. I wonder whether it freed Mad Dog or just killed her.

I receive my answer as Mad Dog staggers out of the truck’s remains as Carrie brings her drone down. 

This is bad. Five officers dead, Mad Dog freed and five, maybe six drones on the loose.

I only installed some of the heavier firepower I’ve been meaning to into the Sentinel armour. Charlie and I have been focusing on the Bulk armour when adding better weaponry. But I do have a couple of mini-missile, each mounted on the shoulders.

Now seems like a good time to use them as the launcher pop out of the armour where they’re hidden. I fire both of them along with my lasers at the drones as they move into an attack run on the last two police cars.

Success, I smile grimly as both missiles blast a drone out of the sky and my lasers gain me another kill. Two drones left if Robyn has taken hers out.

I fly at the closest, only a few metres away. I slam into it, denting its side. I smack its quad gun off and punch it with my other hand. It struggles to stay in the air as my fist smashes through its insides.

I pull away and the drone falls out of the sky.

“Sentinel!” calls Carrie suddenly, “Roll!”

Trusting her judgement, I roll to the side. I’m barely in time to dodge several pink energy bolts.

As I turn to face my attacker, I hear gunfire, panicked shouting and a couple of animalistic howls below.

I fire at the final drone. It tries to dodge my lasers and is partially successful. Half of the quad gun and one of the energy guns are blown away and it zooms off.

Rather than pursue it, I decided to check of Robyn, to see if she needs any help. The Defender is okay despite her bow getting destroyed. She has also lost her hat as I expected. The scorpion drone she was fighting is flying away, apparently damaged

I look around. The five remaining police officers are still alive and Carrie is still on the ground.

Mad Dog is nowhere to be seen.

1.9 Mad Beasts Part 3

We’re sat around the table, all of the League plus Alex. The others are all in costume while Narszara and I are wearing our respective armours. Alex is wearing a white shirt and jeans and we all got food and drink. Mainly cola and margarita pizza.

“So what’s happening?” asks Sky, “I’m assuming there is a reason behind this meeting.”

“Let’s cover some simple things first,” says Sam, “For starters, nobody has a problem with the Rileys and Alex moving into the base?”

A smattering of agreement come from around the table. It seems some less of a problem than others.

“I sure everybody heard about out Oakley figured Sentinel’s identity out?” continues Sam.

“No,” says Stefan with a look at me while Vance shakes his head.

“Okay,” says Sam, “Let’s recap. Inspector Oakley and Constable Melville when to Daniel’s granddad’s house to get this statement about the fight on Sunday. Once there, Oakley figured Daniel’s identity using a variety of information, not just putting two and two together so we don’t need to worry about someone else figuring our identities in the same manner. Both agreed to keep our identities secret and it might be useful have a high ranking field member of the police on our side.”

“I’m not sure about it,” says Stefan nervously, “I had enough trouble with the police knowing I’m the grandson of Black Storm without them knowing I’m also Storm King.”

“We don’t need to worry about Oakley,” I reassure him, “He’s trustable and one of the good guys. While it may not be a good thing he’s figured out my identity, it doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. And we got more important matters to deal with.”

“Vengeance is being transported to secure locations tomorrow night following information about a breakout attempt,” says Sam, “Our MI9 liaison, Agent Lewis, has asked for our helped in escorting them as most of the Defenders are busy. That’s why we asked you to clear your Friday nights.”

“Who’s with who?” asks Lucy.

“Spectre, Powerbeam and Controller will be escorting Mad Cat,” says Sam, “Kevin, Werebeast and I will be with Avenger. Sky, James, Vance and Lucy, you’ll be guarding Forsworn. Charlie, Stefan, Helen and Narszara, you guys will be escorting Nightmare. Daniel and Carrie, you two will guard Mad Dog along with Robyn Hood. Any questions?”

“How long will it be?” asks Carrie, “I don’t want to be up too late.”

“It’ll start at seven, but we will have to be there in costume before then,” answers Sam, “It should last roughly an hour if everything goes according to plan.”

“So who’s trying to break them out?” inquires James.

“No clue,” answers Sam, “MI9 isn’t convinced it isn’t a trick to get Vengeance into the open, but can’t afford not to beef up Vengeance’s security.”

“I’ll look into it,” offers Alex, “And I can act as mission control.”

After that it, the topic turns to small talk.

***

“It’s cold,” says Robyn Hood as we watch Mad Dog get loaded up into an armoured police truck.

Robyn’s real name is Linda Pierce and is the only non-powered superhero in the Albion Defenders if you count owning power armour as a superpower. Her hair is short and brown while her eyes are covered by a large domino mask. The rest of her costume is a green cos-mat version of Robin’s hood, complete with a silly green hat that usually gets lost in the opening moments of battle. A leather quiver containing a dozen assorted arrows is strapped to her back.

I look at Mad Dog. In her untransformed state, she has muscular body, a feral look, a messy mane of tattered black hair. Her eyes have a crazed look to them. How on Earth could people have mistaken his madwoman for a hero? Especially when she maimed people in such a brutal manner.

“That’s why I’m morphed,” replies Carrie in a deep growl, “My fur is pretty thick.”

“My armour has internal air conditioning,” I say, “That scum looks as crazy as she is.”

“How the hell can she enjoy losing control of her beast side?” asks Carrie, a sicken look on her furry face, “I know at first it can be hard to tame, but it gets easier with time. A lot easier. The only way you lose it like she and her sister do if you’re forced into it or you choose to.”

“I wouldn’t know,” mutters Robyn.

“Is something wrong?” asks Carrie.

“No, I just don’t like powers that much, especially the ones people lose control of,” replies Robyn with a wave of her hand, “It’s hard being the only superhero in the nation without any superpowers and at times, it just gets to me. Especially when most of your friends and co-workers have hit the jackpot when it comes to powers.”

“I haven’t got any powers myself, but I can’t complain with all the other stuff I got,” I reply, “But do understand what’s like going up against supers with no powers and only training.”

“I believe you,” says Robyn, “I’ve worked with Narszara before you. She’s strange and scary to watch in battle, but seems nice and has a good heart.”

I’m about to reply that’s not what I meant when we receive the all clear. They’re ready to move out.