How could they have said no to such a blatantly obvious offer? Of course they wanted to join the Sentinel ONE Squad, why else would they be there in the first place?
Idiots. Total idiots.
Mulholland sat on top of the little rocky out-cropping. Five minutes had passed, and she'd continued to watch the Sentinel's battle against the monstrous forms of Gorgolla and The Growing man. She ran a hand through her short hair and let loose a long sigh.
Phasto's was dead, and she'd not been here to see it. She'd been...on a stupid boat, trying to be cooler than she was, and now, a great battle was happening and this outfit she was supposed to be a part of? It had crumbled, and she was sat watching. There’s nothing you can do, she thought.
Or was there?
The bandaged form of the White Tiger crossed the verge, as a couple of Dreadnaught's shot down into burning balls of flame towards the ocean.
“We're almost ready to go on, Mulholland. Are you sure you want to do this?” She asked, removing her white mask, while he first tightened around the Jade amulet in her hands.
“More'n sure, Tiger.” She got to her feet, and stared across the expanse.
“Show me. I want to do some damage. I want to find who killed...Him..” She said, a tear rolling from the corner of her eye.
As the two walked down the verge, the Latino woman looking carefully across her shoulder at Mulholland.
“He mentioned you, you know? Said you were the first mortal woman he'd cared for. He said you were lovers.”
“It was more than that.” Mulholland said, with more than a little defence in her voice.
“It was more than just sex, you know? He was good, I'll tell you that, but it was more than that. He noticed me, and he noticed more than just my powers.” She shook her head, and wiped her eyes, anger bubbling from her cheeks.
“I need to hurt the ones that killed him, Tiger.” She said, through gritted teeth.
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New York City, was a big place. A chasm of sounds of feelings for Mulholland. She had fallen in with an all lesbian gang called the Black Dhalia's, a group of powered rebels who gave her refugee because of her powers, and because, she was angry.
And anger could be manipulated and harnessed, especially by this group.
Mulholland had spent a lot of long months with the group, initiation, violence, domestic terrorism. If it involved anarchy, Mulholland had done it.
The Dhalia's were tough on rules, they lived by them, and they were simple. Do as the leader says, do not sleep with men. Two simple rules.
Two rules, and one the day Mulholland met Phasto's, she broke them both. Her leader, Slice, had ordered her to cut down Phasto's, the man who stood before them, his large hammer in hand, sunlight shining off his bald head, as he called Mulholland too him.
“You're better than this, Alice Mulholland. You're destined for greatness, not wasting time with these children.” He said, his voice filled with arrogance, but something else as well. Something that made Alice listen to him.
“Who're you calling Children, asshole?” Slice spat, pointing towards him, she cracked a deadly black smile over her features.
“Brite; Wall; Alice. Kill him.” She directed. Mulholland had hung back as her two “sisters” charged forwards. Brite wielded powerful energy bursts from her hands, and as she leapt forwards, her hands releasing bursts of energy that cored the sides of the buildings beside her, Phasto's whirled his hammer, and shot a burst of energy from his eyes, knocking her underneath the chin and twisting her 180 degree's onto her front on the floor.
Wall charged past her fallen team-mate, fist's coming down either side of the unnaturally agile Phasto's. He threw his hammer up, breaking her jaw, nose and sending a cascade of crimson over his front.
Mulholland faltered, looking over her shoulder at the increasingly more angry Slice. The large Hammer, twice the size of Mulholland, felt even heavier than normal in her hands. She coughed, moving forwards slowly.
“I..I don't want too, Slice.” She said finally, dropping her hammer on the ground.
Slice scowled, and looked from Phasto's to her fallen sisters, and Mulholland.
“You're dead.” She screamed, before cutting her way through space to teleport out of the situation.
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The Sentinel stumbled, it’s head barely hanging on to it’s large and dented metallic body. It turned, hoping to look up, it’s palms open and facing the monstrous attacker of Gorilla and the Growing man. The tactical planning from it’s weakness availed it not as Gorgolla’s fist hurtled through it’s chest, crushing the sphere that held the pilot and jettisoning the contents into the ocean below, flames licking through the sentinel as it collapsed onto the shore.
Gorgolla let off a monstrous roar, before turning it’s attention to the other Sentinel, now attempting to back away from the two beasts.
As Mulholland watched, something snapped inside of her. Tears rolled down her cheeks, as she tore out her mp3 player and threw it at the ground in front of Tiger.
“Mulholland…Wait!” Tiger reached out, but she was already sprinting away. With every footfall on the surface of the island, she cast out her awareness net, grabbing onto whatever she could find, mentally creating a blueprint of the island within her mind, as well as calculating the over all density and structure of the artificial nature of it.
As she reached the mouth of the great cave, shaped like a demons head, she closed her eyes and slammed her palms together, muttering a soft prayer and apology to Phastos.
“This was your home, baby. I am an sorry that it had to end this way. I miss you and I love you, and I hope, god, I really, really hope that I see you again soon.”
The remaining Sentinel listed to the side, as Gorgollas fist collided with it’s shoulder. The Growing man had manoeuvred behind the robot, sliding it’s arms behind it, and looping them over it’s shoulders, pinning it in place as the giant stone gargoyle continued to land punches on it’s body.
Mulholland wasn’t paying attention, as the others rushed up behind her. Ruby skidded to a halt, stretching her arms out wide to prevent the others from racing past.
“Don’t.” She said, as David leaned over her arm to watch. The Reptilian woman from before pointed to the sky. The Ultimo was leaving, the dreadnaughts that had surrounded it were no longer in the sky, and the member of the Squad who had been fighting them was nowhere to be see. White Tiger crossed herself, as she glanced over her shoulder to the Blue Diamond.
“Don’t worry.” He said with a curt nod, as Mulholland began to glow with energy. Forming around her was a small layer of energy, an aura of urban power.
“Whazzz…She..D-d-oing…God, She’s..” Scanner’s astral form began to dance, the right side of her body went from the smooth mental interpretation of herself into jagged peaks and troughs, as though her body was being pulled towards Mulholland.
“Shes…using electromagnetism..” Scanner managed, before shaking her head and shooting away from the gathered group.
“What happened there?” Ruby asked, turning to the Tiger.
“Scanners a mutant. Her powers are electromagnetic in nature, I would imagine whatever Mulholland is doing is interfering with her power, and she didn’t want to be caught in whatever was happening.” Blue Diamond answered. Tiger said nothing, and just stared at the situation above. Ultimo was leaving, sinking deeper into the ocean, as the final Sentinel took a devastating beating.
The rubble around the group began to come together, at first tiny fragments of glass and metal and brickwork hurtled through the air, forming up around Mulholland. Screws, nuts, bolts and nails all seemed to bounce off her body and rebound, coming back towards her and orbiting her body.
“What exactly is she doing?” Ruby asked again, as Kraken and Prodigy looked at each other.
“At a guess I’d say she was using her power.” Kraken said, with more than a little hint of sarcasm in her voice. Ruby sighed, and looked back to Prodigy.
“I don’t know her file really, but I think she’s using her abilities to draw a lot of matter her to give herself…Oh. Oh I see.” David answered, a sudden realisation dawning on his features.
“We should step back, Ruby.” David said, slowly backing away from Mulholland.
“Why?” Blue Diamond asked, his theory of electromagnetic attraction was sound. What did David know that he didn’t?
The pieces clicked into place for the Blue Diamond as well, as chunks of metal, of increasing size shot passed their heads. Keeping himself low, he gestured for the rest to follow him into the cave mouth.
“Into the cave, it should be safe to watch from there!” He yelled, pushing the tiger before him. It was clear to David that there was something going on between the pair of them.
As the grouping thrust themselves into the cave, they started to see a shape forming on Mulholland. A framework almost.
She began to move towards the three giants in the distance. With every step more pieces of metal, glass and brick stuck to her frame, giving her more height, and more power. Upon her final steps towards them she was nearly twenty metres taller than the Sentinel and the Gargoyle.
Bringing her massive brickwork arms down on either side of the Growing man’s shoulders, she wrenched upwards, tearing the super-sized androids arms off, and allowing the Sentinel to drop to the floor. The pilot inside scrabbled around to try and get the Sentinel upright again, as Gorgolla back-peddled, lashing out with it’s massive feet.
As the ball of the creatures foot hit the Sentinel in the face, it rolled over, knocking Mulholland off balance as she put her fist through the growing mans face. All that could heard from her was the sound of anger fuelled crying. A wail of injustice as she stumbled into the ocean, and Gorgolla took to the sky’s, bellowing a cry of victory and retreat.
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“Hi.” Ruby said, sitting down on the beach next to Mulholland. She was soaking wet, her hair tousled and sticking to her face in wet layers.
“Yo.” She said, staring up at the sky.
“So…”
“He was my soul mate, Ruby.” She said, her face emotionless and focused on the clouds above.
“I’ve had sex. Sex is great. Sex makes me feel better and it’s addictive and good. Phasto was better than sex, even when we weren’t doing it. He helped rebuild me.” Ruby nodded, drawing her knees up into her chest.
“I had a boyfriend like that once. He didn’t leave me, but we sort of…drifted apart. He moved to a different state and we went from seeing each other to talking every day to just…one day we missed each other. One week we didn’t talk, then it became months.”
Mulholland rolled onto her front, and looked up at Ruby, her face still without feeling.
“He brought me into this, and I need to avenge him, Ruby. I need to find that monster and fuck it up. I’m going to rip it’s fucking head off.” Ruby arced an eyebrow and leaned to the side, away from Mulholland a little.
“Right.”
“We should find the others.”
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As the two girls padded back towards the “Makeshift” camp inside the mouth of the Cave, the rest of the Squad were busying themselves. Silence was the most prevalent noise in the cave mouth, as they went about their work without saying a word.
Five bodies lay on the ground, blankets over their forms. Mulholland knew instantly which one was Phastos and sat down next to him. Drawing her legs into her chest, she just watched, waiting for the breath to rise and fall in his chest.
It never came.
“What’s the damage then?” Ruby asked, hands now planted firmly on her hips.
“S.O.S headquarters are wrecked. We’ve got five dead, one injured pilot, and a deactivated member, plus we have two missing. Mecha-mage and Druid are gone.” The Tiger answered. She hadn’t let go of the jade pendant in her hand.
Ruby sighed and looked over the immolate form of the Omega Sentinel. There were no blinking lights, no internal noises, nothing.
“Dreadnaughts did a number on her, right?” Ruby asked, pointing to the large dents and burn marks all over her body. She was missing her right knee, and her left arm was barely hanging on.
“She’s going to need some extensive work, definitely. You’ve not met Athena yet have you?” Tiger asked, pointing towards the Blue skinned female. As she turned to face Ruby, it was obvious she was some kind of cybernetic creature, as white lights trickled down her face like a bad special effect from a matrix movie.
“Sorry we couldn’t meet in better circumstances, but I’ve confirmed all the bodies now. Bloodstone, Black Box, Phastos, Bronze Tiger and Mortigan.”
“Even Mortigan? I thought he was immortal?” Tiger asked, looking at the manifest of injuries before her. Ruby just looked confused.
“We was by all accounts, but…well, I think we had more than just mega-scale fauna here, didn’t we? I saw Ultimo, so we’ve covered technology and organism. Why couldn’t magic be present?” Athena asked, looking down at Blue Diamond who was trying to tend to the wounds Scanner had sustained during the battle.
“Seen Armoury anywhere?” Kraken asked, glancing around the cave mouth.
“AWOL like Mecha-Mage and Druid.” Athena said, shaking her head. She paused for a moment, standing bolt upright like something had slid down her spine.
“I’ve got a report that Gorgolla’s been spotted headed towards Japan. We should follow. We have operatives there.”
“We have an operative there, Athena, and we’re still about six Sentinel’s down, missing all our magic users, our islands destroyed and we’ve got five dead here.” Tiger shook as her anger took the last few words from her throat. She choked back and turned away from them.
“Here’s what we’re going to do - Get the black box’s files from the Library link, and then purge the system. We need to talk to Physique and make sure she wasn’t targeted. Last thing we want is for all that DNA to fall into the wrong hands.” Tiger barked orders at Athena.
“I want all the information we have about every operative we have world wide downloaded to my tablet, and I want new costumes for everyone. Including the newbie’s. If we’re travelling around the world we’re going to need to look presentable.” She turned to Kraken, gesturing for her to get on it, by rolling her hands over one another.
“Diamond, Dig some graves. We’re going to have a funeral.” She finished with, walking further towards the back of the cave, where he ground began to slope away at a more violent angle.
“Tiger?” David walked after her, reaching out for the woman. “Are you alright?”
“No, David, I am most certainly not alright. I’ve got to lead these people to try and find who destroyed our island, killed our friends and shit all over out technology. I am definitely less than alright.” She hung her head as David put his hand on her shoulder.
“What are we going to do?” He asked, as she turned to him and put her hand on his shoulder.
“We’re going to rebuild, but first we’re going to beat the crap out of the bastard who did this. We need to touch base with every member of the group, and gather our missing. I want Armoury, Druid and Mecha-Mage found. I want my friends Avenged, and I want the Squad to be back to what It used to be…before this.” She looked up at him, blinking furiously to try and prevent the tears from falling out of her eyes.
There was a pause for a few moments before David spoke up.
“We saw Druid, when we were on the beach. He was snatched by this…giant burning demon thing. I think it called itself…Satanna, Satanosh?”
“Satannish. I remember Druid mentioning him before. God, this is worse than I thought. Okay, Okay. Give me a second.” She held her temples, and stared at the ground.
“Come on…What would Bloodstone do?”
David stood watching her for a moment and then raised his hand slightly.
“Uhm, Tiger. I think we should go to Japan first, I don’t think we should bury our dead here either. If whatever is targeting us is after US rather than the technology, we shouldn’t leave them here in case they get pinched, you know?”
Tiger smiled, and put her finger and thumb against Davids chin, cupping his face.
“You were most definitely a good choice, David Alleyene.” She smiled keeping his gaze for a moment too long. Tiger had always been attracted to intelligent men.
“Okay, so, we’re going to Japan. Simple. We’ll load up the remaining two Sentinel’s and contact Mary and Physique on the way. Sound alright?”
David smiled, a blush pushing its way through his skin. “Yeah, It does,” His smiled brightened as she released his face, and walked towards the cave mouth.
“Listen up, People! Here’s what we’re going to do…”
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She stood on the shores, her team behind her. The cool wind whipped from the north, pushing her red locks from her face. Looking down at her thin wrists she is pulled back to the first monster she killed.
With her bare hands.
She works with the Squad now, their division head to try and prevent that from ever happening again, but something was whipping the monsters up into a frenzy. Hits from all over the world, monsters pulling themselves from their caves, their homes and their spaceships. Giant creatures, miniature creatures and beasts from the stars.
They came from the water, the skies, space and the Earth. The crawled from volcanoes and from faults in the earth, wrapping their tentacles around boats, and grabbing planes from the sky as though they were insects.
When they decommissioned the Japanese monster squad in the late ‘80’s she’d been there, watching from a distance. She’d wept while the heroes were given medels and forced into retirement. She’d raged against herself for letting them do it, for letting them melt down her “brother”, for letting them take him apart bolt by bolt and dropping him into a slag heap.
They’d pay for that one day, but now, her duty was to protect and serve. It was to be part of the Sentinel ONE Squad, the Squad that used to number so many, that stood before her now. Three newbies, five dead, and a medical emergency. The squad had seen better days. The only member she’d met before was currently offline, so she stepped forward to introduce herself.
“Sentinel ONE Squad, I am UJ-RR6 - The Red Ronin. Welcome to Japan.”
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