Gunmetal Crusade 2 (Patreon)

Gunmetal Crusade
Chapter 2 - War

-VB-

The clone stared down at its crazy progenitor. Currently knocked out of his mind because of the anesthetic, he laid on the surgery table that Rune had died on after they extracted her power. The original had been shot by a Neo-Nazi before this, so he - and by extension, they - weren’t exactly merciful to any Nazi. 

But that still left what they were about to do an insane step to take. 

The Plan, however, was clear on the matter. 

Clones were permanent copies of the original, taking the form and state that the original was in at the time of the cloning power’s use. It was a clone of the original - moments after he landed in that meeting room of Neo-Nazis - and meant that he was as normal as his original had been sans the powers. 

Original knew that sticking to what he was, what he was familiar with, wouldn’t work out. He needed to get strong and he needed to get strong fast. 

And well, he did pick Bonesaw’s power for a reason.

So he laid between four clones, each equipped with surgery masks, scrubs, and tools. 

They got to work.

-VB-

Taylor stared in shock at the television screen. Her eyes were glued to the words yet her ears were disbelieving of what they heard. 

Her dad, on the other hand, spoke really gleefully.

“They get their just deserves,” he chortled to her left on the couch, a rare occurrence these days. It’s been a long time since they sat on the couch to just look at the TV…

She didn’t say anything to dad’s words. She felt just as much as he did on the matter. She knew the truth about the gangs in the town, how they played a game, as Lisa liked to put it. It was a disgusting thing, and to see one of those “players” get taken out made her feel better. 

One of the major cancers infecting her city was now gone.

Empire Eighty-Eight was gone. 

“ - clear that this was a retaliation of some kind. In gang-to-gang interactions, this kind of act is seen as a taboo; it opens them up to retaliation from all other gangs in the city. We’ve seen this kind of thing happen before, though on a much lesser scale, in New York City,” the expert on parahuman villain psychology, Dr. Mul-something, spoke passionately with wide eyes while leaning forward on the interview chair. “The New York branch of the Sinaloa gang removed their rival by doing what they usually do, assassinating, killing in broad daylight, and making examples of other capes. This was in the early days of parahumanism, and I think all of us kind of remember what happened to -”

It was here that Taylor decided that she’s heard enough. It was time for school, so she stood up. “Time for me to go, dad.”

“Stay safe,” he said, briefly looking at her before his face was glued to the screen again. 

Today was one of his rare “off” days, though she doubted that he would be here when she got back. He was incapable of staying inside the house for too long before his feet took back to the Docks and then to the Dockworkers union. 

She wondered how this abrupt change was going to impact her and her own heroic activities. She still intended to infiltrate the Undersiders and find out who was sponsoring them but...

Maybe Tattletale will know more. 

-VB-

“They’re crazy.”

Taylor didn’t expect that kind of statement. 

“Have they been out already?” she asked her teammate. “Did they do something again?”

Lisa glanced up at her for a moment, momentarily looking away from the screen before she looked back with a sigh.

“It’s not that. It’s … it's blatant disregard of the Unwritten Rules,” she replied with a bit of worry in her voice, which wasn’t the Lisa that Taylor was familiar with. “Unwritten Rule is what keeps the villains and heroes in their robbers-and-cops equilibrium, and the way they left the Empire’s capes just laying around screamed to my power that whoever killed them all didn’t care about the rules. They just wanted to kill and sacrificed so many of their clones to do so.”

“Clones? I haven’t heard anything about that,” Taylor mumbled. 

“PRT prevented the media from reporting that bit for the next two days.They couldn’t find out the … identity of the dead clones, and are mistaking it for a case of self-defense. But it isn’t a case of self-defense! The clone guy -!” she stopped.

“... Lisa?”

“I can’t find out any facts about him.”

“Lisa?”

“I’m looking at the face of the clone on PRT files, and my power isn’t telling me anything other than that the shit face I am looking at is a dead face!” Lisa began to panic. Taylor never saw Lisa panic before. 

“Lisa!” 

That seemed to snap her out of her panic, and Lisa turned to Taylor. Taylor realized that she hadn’t taken Lisa out of her panic, merely given her someone to panic to. “Taylor, he’s a Stranger! He’s a Stranger to Thinkers!” 

Taylor opened her mouth to respond, but didn’t know what to say to that. 

Then she froze.

In the corners of her maximum range control of her bugs, she felt a huge body of people moving. They were … big. 

Lisa stopped too, getting hints of what she was seeing from looking at her. 

Taylor frowned before she moved closer towards this movement of people and had more bugs looking towards them. At first, she saw nothing significant, which was a given considering that it was night, but then she got more bugs entering the scenes, ones suited for night vision, and she saw… 

“What the hell…” she uttered in shock.

Marching towards the Docks in great numbers were identical power armored figures, clanking quietly. Some of them had weird guns in their hands, but the majority of them had … well, the closest thing she could describe them were hand cannons, because how else was she supposed to describe barrels as wide as her fist? At least, that’s what she -

“A new group in the city? No, no, that’s too good of a coincidence. How many? A lot. You can’t tell because they are at the very edge of your vision,” Lisa listed off facts that Taylor herself just found out. 

“They have big guns. Like, bigger than shotgun.”

“... well equipped but how? I haven’t heard anything about-” she froze. “It’s them.”

“Lisa?”

“The Empire killer. The guys you are looking at with your bugs. They’re the same people!”

Taylor focused on the armored “soldiers” quickly. 

“They’re heading towards the Docks. Like Asian town Docks.”

Lisa paled.

“They intend to wipe out the ABB.”

Taylor looked at Lisa, shocked. “What?! But how, they still have Oni Lee!” Oni Lee wasn’t easy to hit, nevermind kill. Lung was the big Brute but Oni Lee made ABB’s enemies always look over their shoulders.

“They killed the Empire away on the same night you put Lung down. They spent the last two days preparing, but I can’t see anything more than that! I need to look at them directly-!”

“Lisa, they killed the Empire!”

That brought Lisa up short. “... Okay, maybe I shouldn’t chase after them when they are clearly geared and baying for war.” Lisa, who had stood up in her initial panic, slowly sat back down. “... Fuck, there’s going to be a gang war in town with someone that doesn’t give a shit about the Unwritten Rules.”

“... Lisa, what happens to us, then?”

Lisa paused. 

“I need to call the team. Alec!” Lisa shouted as she left her room in the hideout to its living room.

‘Maybe I should go to the Wards now,’ Taylor thought about it as she chased after Lisa.

-VB-

Robin was the first on the scene because of his speed, and what he was seeing was a city at war. 

He thought he’d seen it all in his combined experience as veteran soldier and Protectorate hero. 

Now, the world taunted at him with this, denying him his solace that he had seen the worst of humanity.

He watched for a single moment as hundreds of killers, equipped with what clearly looked like tinkertech armor and arms, marched down the streets, mercilessly killing anything that got in their way, breaking into businesses, and dragging out dead carcasses. 

They didn’t loot. They didn’t rape. They didn’t even declare some stupid ideology. 

They just killed.

“This is Velocity on Jenkins Avenue and 22nd Street. Unknown individuals, upwards to fifty, in what appears to be tinkertech armor and arms are engaging in first degree murder. I need backup.” But before the dispatch could respond to him, he saw one of the closest killers raise their gun at a screaming ABB gangster crawling on the ground.

He immediately sped down the street. “HALT RIGHT THERE!” he shouted as he came to a stop.

And surprisingly, the seven closest killers turned to him, and it was only then that Robin - standing before these killers as Velocity, Protectorate hero - thought that he might have acted too hastily. 

What had seemed like armored and armed killers from a distance were in fact giants, towering over Robin by at least two heads and armed with guns that looked like they shot artillery shells. 

“Protectorate,” the giant closest to him hissed. “What are you doing here?” 

“You are to stand down, now!” Robin shouted, despite his dwindling confidence in being able to handle the situation until backup arrived. “You are violating the law! Get on the ground now!” 

“Does the Protectorate not have anyone else to stop us that they sent someone who can’t even lift a rock while using his power?” the giant asked sardonically, and the rest of the giants paying attention to them laughed. Robin felt his face heat up in embarrassment, no matter how much he didn’t want it to. “Ah, this is fucking sad. We went out of our way to give them a great battle, and all we get is the boy in stripes?”

Robin’s eyes narrowed and he gritted his teeth. Obviously, these guys knew enough about the Protectorate ENE to feel competent. He didn’t want to know why they felt confident, though he knew that he would find out soon enough.

“At least the patriotic gunslinger would do us some damage. You? You can’t even fucking hit us properly.”

Robin knew that engaging enemies one to seven was not a smart idea, especially when they might turn people they were about to kill into hostages. 

(But secretly and perhaps not even known to himself, Robin didn’t care about the lives of those who profited from the suffering of others)

But even still, he was the fastest man alive. Even against seven tinkertech equipped capes, he would never lose, even if he would never win. He was already waiting for reinforcement. He would be doing justice in subduing them.

Determined to put a stop to this hell, Robin moved.

And immediately stopped as the giant he was suddenly sprouted four ghastly projections … like Crusader’s projections were. 

Robin paled as the implications set in. Then his eyes caught the sight of all seven giants raising their guns. Robin crouched to run… and then heard the screams behind him. His eyes widened as he threw a glance over his shoulder, and saw that in his haste to intervene, he had forgotten that there were still people in the shops. 

And these people weren’t the ABB gangsters but regular innocent people. 

Robin had no problem letting gangsters die.

Bystanders?

He knew that if he moved… they would die. He was right between them and these killers.

‘Oh.’

A realization.

‘This is where I die.’

The last thing he heard before darkness took him was the staccato of gunfire.