Gunmetal Crusade: 1 (Patreon)

Disclaimer: I don't own Worm. It's Wildbow's. 

-VB-

Kaiser

A stalemate. 

An uneasy ceasefire. 

A loss. 

That’s what described the situation for the whole of Empire Eighty-Eight under him once Lung came to be. He’s spent the last three years trying to break the dragon’s hold over the Asian town and the Docks, but to no avail so far. 

It was frustrating being forced to do nothing.

Oh, they fought. Their minions clashed every day, killing someone from the other side with impunity, but they never met to fight because both of them knew that fighting was not in either of their interests. Fighting led to collateral damage, and enough collateral damage involved not just the local authority but the regional and national authority. 

No, fighting wherever and whenever was foolish at best and damaging at worst. 

‘Which makes most of my minions … what? Dumber than most animals?’ Max thought sardonically as his lieutenants filtered into the meeting room at the fifth underground level beneath Medhall. They sat down around the round table in the middle of the room.

Medhall itself was a power that he loathed to give up, and had already killed to keep it in his hands. Technically speaking, the financial backings of his parahuman gang wasn’t even possible without Medhall to back it up. 

“We’re all here,” Krieg spoke up, bringing Max out of his reverie. 

Max looked around. Hookwolf, Stormtiger, and Cricket were together and on his left, Victor and Othala to the trio’s left, Rune to the duo’s left, Crusader to her left, and finally, Krieg came and sat down between Crusader and himself. 

“First thing first, is there anything to report from any of you?” he asked. 

“Yeah, that bitch wrecked my dogfighting ring. Again,” Hookwolf growled. Max thought that the arena fighter was grumbling and whining more than growling. Because of -

CRACK!

THUD

Max blinked, stunned by the sudden shockwave that erupted abruptly in the air above the table and then at the figure that dropped onto the table. 

“Oww…” the figure groaned as they slowly got up. “W-What the fuck…”

“And who might you be?” Max asked.

The figure froze and slowly turned around. 

Black haired, dark brown eyes, round-ish face and wider jaw. A Slav? Dressed in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, the man didn’t look like much. 

The man began to stand up… and Max misjudged his size. What looked like at first a teenager was actually someone closer to Manpower in size. His hunched form and glaring eyes - !

Hookwolf growled and lunged. The cape transformed mid-air - ignoring the fact that none of them had masks right now! - and hit the stranger. 

And did absolutely jackshit. 

The man stood there, withstanding the grinding force of Hookwolf’s several hundred grinding hooks, razors, and saws. He flinched and held his arms and hands up to defend himself, but that was about it. 

He took Hookwolf’s attack and stood there as if there was nothing wrong. 

The stranger picked out of his guard and saw Hookwolf.

“Oh shit.”

Oh shit, indeed. 

Whatever spell that had Max pinned to his chair was gone, and in its place was a need to remove this newfound threat. What kind of recruitment pitch could he give after Hookwolf blatantly assaulted the man?

Admittedly, most Movers - because that’s what the stranger had appeared to be at first by appearing out of thin air - weren’t Brutes. 

This man was both.

‘An Alexandria package!’ he thought urgently before the stranger grabbed Hookwolf and broke off a blade. Hookwolf, seeing that he wasn’t doing shit, pulled back. By now, everyone else in the room stood up and were ready to fight.

The man blinked and blinked, looking around. 

“Right, this is that … yes.” Instead of striking back, the man was rambling. “Right. So this is how I do it, right?”

He reached down for the broken blade. Crusader used this chance to summon two of his projections with spears and sent them at the stranger, speartips first. 

The stranger … split. Suddenly, there were four of him as the original fell apart into four of themselves. And all of them had the blade in hand. One of them split into more of himself while the other three jumped at them.

Without even moving or gesturing, Kaiser raised a blade out of the ground and struck the one who’d jumped at him. The blade punched into the projection’s abdomen, but only managed to break a barrier of some kind. Before it could strike again, the following blade punched through its neck, beheading it from underneath. Blood spewed and spilled everywhere, and Max grimaced as he got a face full of it. 

“You guys… you guys are Nazis!” the stranger roared and suddenly, he was bursting into dozens and dozens of himself, all armed with the broken blade. One of them latched onto Othala before Victor could stop them and stabbed her right in the head. Victor roared in anger before he was overwhelmed by five clones. 

Hookwolf tried to fight, but in this contained and enclosed space with two dozen enemies and more spawning, he had no room for maneuver. And even that was stopped when the clones stabbed him with now glowing broken blades, and Hookwolf screamed in pain before slumping over. 

Rune ran for the door, but was tackled by three clones. 

Max himself created a thousand blades, creating space around himself. 

He saw Krieg trying in vain to pull all kinetic energy out of the space around him, but there were just too many clones. Max grimaced as he met Krieg’s eyes before the man was overwhelmed and brutally stabbed to death, unable to even properly scream before the clones bashed his head in with obvious superhuman strength. 

Crusader laid dead somewhere; Max didn’t think the man could live without his head rolling away from a pile of moving clones. 

And then they all turned to him.

He grimaced. 

“Fuck.”

With a roar, he and they clashed with blades and bodies.

-VB-

Rune

She whimpered as the killer of the Empire - because what else could this be?! - dragged her away. They’d done something to the back of her neck, and she couldn’t feel anything. She could barely keep her head up right!

She watched one of them carry Justin’s head in front of her, and somehow, his head was still twitching and … alive. 

T-This was everything that they feared. Some minority lover was going to come and kill them all because they thought differently! Max was right!

“So what are we going to do about her power?” one of them dragging her to somewhere asked the other. 

“Probably harvest and sell it. I don’t know what the original’s thinking right now.”

Michelle felt her blood freeze. She wanted to scream and shout but couldn’t.

“And then the girl?”

“... We can have some fun with her?”

“Dude, she’s in high school.”

H-How did they know that? She always made sure to appear adult-like!

“So? She’s a Nazi.”

“And we aren’t. We don’t fuck children like some Nazi scum did in their camps.”

“You’re no fun.”

“You mean we’re no fun.”

“Bah.”

They slammed a door open, and as they dragged her through, Michelle saw the sign on top of the doorway.

Surgery room.

She felt tear gather and fall, but she could not scream for help.

They hauled her on top of the table. 

She screamed mentally as they clasped her wrists and shoulder onto the table. 

“Anaesthesia?” one of them asked. 

The other looked at him.

“... Sure. Not like we’re gonna let her live through this.”

The needle came down.

She begged but her lips made no movement. She begged but her eyes started to close. She begged.

But all was darkness.