3Heroes Legion: Year Two: "Knightfall"
By Maskedhero100
Chapter 2: Turning Point
Mystic Mansion, Manhattan Island: March 14, 2015: 8:40 PM
"Where the HELL have you guys been?" Marty Osmond asked as the Heroes Legion emerged from the Mystic Mansion's teleportation door, "I've been looking for you guys for months! You just vanished after Crystal Peak!"
"You wouldn't believe us if we told you Marty" Shadow Knight assured him, "But we don't have time to give you the whole crazy story. We need to get to Washington, or else all hell is going to break loose!"
"They aren't kidding" Stephanie Walker assured the confused Marty Osmond.
"Stephanie? You're here as well? How did you survive what happened in Manhattan? Wait a minute, what are you talking about?" Marty Osmond asked in confusion, "what's going to happen in Washington?"
But the Heroes Legion didn't answer their friend and ally, there wasn't any time to waste.
Raven quickly adjusted the dials of the Mystic Mansions transportation gate doors to lock onto the inside of the senate building in Washington and opened a portal to that destination.
"Father, stay here with Stephanie and Marty" M-Leader ordered, "We'll be back. Let's go my Heroes Legion!"
The Heroes Legion leapt through the magical door…and found themselves standing in a vacant hallway corridor inside the senate building.
"Which way to the debate chamber?" Ravager asked.
"This way, I should remember the way" M-Leader said, "I was here last year."
With their founder and teacher leading the way, the Heroes Legion made their way down the halls of the senate building towards the debate room.
As the did so, Raven took notice of something strange, "Does anyone else think it's strange there seems to be no one here, no guards, no bystanders, secretaires, nothing."
"I agree…" Shadow Knight acknowledged Raven's insight, "It's far too quiet. The telltale sound of danger…or a trap. Thank goodness I've got my powers back; nothing should take us by surprise again."
"What does your danger sense tell you about this strangely empty building then spooky?" Velocity asked, looking over his shoulder warily, expecting for something or someone to jump at him and his teammates from behind.
"Nothing…" Shadow Knight answered, "No danger at all…wait…I sense something, movement, coming down the hallway up ahead!"
"He's right…" Cyber-29 said through the Robo-Warrior suit, "my sensors detect movement coming from that direction as well."
Motioning to the others silently to stay still, Shadow Knight gave the go ahead for Velocity to ambush and restrain whoever it was approaching them in the adjacent hallway.
Understanding what his team leader was telling him to do silently, Velocity then zipped away down the hall, into the adjacent hallway leading to the left side of the building…and came back in a flash with whoever it had been walking down the hallway in tow.
"What?" Atlanta declared in shock upon seeing who it was, "Commander Hardcastle?"
"What the hell is she doing here?" Silicon asked in disbelief.
"Well, whatever she is doing here, she's not alone, before I grabbed her, I did a bit of recon" Velocity explained, "there is a small platoon of what look to be SLEET soldiers patrolling the hallways and guarding the doors. I guess she managed to take back SLEET or something. All these soldiers and her being here…It's like they've placed the building on lockdown, as if they are expecting an attack…like the one we're here to prevent. But that doesn't make any sense, how would they know about the attack on the senate building without being told about it by us?"
"What's going on Commander, what are you doing here? What's more, how did you learn to turn yourself back into flesh and blood form. Last time I saw you, you were like a living human diamond!" M-Leader telepathically questioned the now metahuman commander of SLEET.
But she just stayed silent, staring ahead with a stoic look, as if M-Leader and the others didn't even exist in her field of vision.
"Commander?" Techne asked in concerned confusion, "What's wrong with her?"
"I don't know, she didn't say anything or even react to being zoomed back here, usually that elicits some kind of unpleasant emotional response whenever I zoom people around. I get that she and the SLEET soldiers are hardcore professionals, but this is just creepy. Like…Invasion of the body snatchers kind of creepy!" Velocity said warily.
"Never mind that, look at her, look at her eyes!" Shadow Knight pointed out, "We've seen this before!"
They Heroes Legion looked at Commander Hardcastle's eyes to see what Shadow Knight was referring to, and they saw that the irises of Commander Hardcastle were tainted with a familiar pulsing pattern of color.
"Spellbinder!" Atlanta declared, "She's been hypnotized!"
"I'll bet they all have been. The soldiers AND her, just like the Titans were…or rather they still are…wherever they are. No doubt since STRIPE has taken over SLEET, they have access to all metahuman prisoners captured by us or any who escaped from Manhattan before its decimation that were rounded up by their stormtroopers" Shadow Knight added, "This is all part of STRIPE's sordid scheme to turn people against anyone who has or can develop superpowers. Unfortunately for them, they didn't count on their brainwashed pawns running into someone who knows how to counteract this hypnotic spell."
Stepping in front of the hypnotized Commander Hardcastle, making eye contact with her, Shadow Knight's glowing red eyes began to pulse his own hypnotic pattern.
After a moment of staring into Commander Hardcastle's eyes, the woman began to show signs of cognitive response, and she put a hand against her head and blinked drowsily as if she had both woken up from a deep sleep and was experiencing a small headache.
"What…?" Commander Hardcastle said in a daze, before recognizing the Heroes Legion "kids, M-Leader, what's going on? The last thing I remember is Crystal Peak and…oh my head!"
The former commander of SLEET grabbed her head in pain and nearly fell down due to her legs feeling like jelly as the unpleasant aftereffects of breaking free of Spellbinders mind control took effect.
"Take it easy Commander" M-Leader said to her, "You were hypnotized by Spellbinder…again."
"It would be safe to assume based on certain facts presented to us" Shadow Knight added, "That sometime during our escape from Crystal Peak, you got captured by the enemy and turned into their puppet…and it would also be safe to assume that whatever little insurrection your blowing the whistle on the infiltration and corruption of SLEET by STRIPE caused…didn't amount to anything."
"Yes…" Commander Hardcastle confirmed, a sad expression on her face "Some fought back, but we were outnumbered by the majority who thought that after the siege of Manhattan that Metahumans were a clear and present threat that couldn't be handled with 'kid gloves' anymore…and welcomed the STRIPE takeover with open arms. Those who tried to arrest and resist STRIPE's infiltrators were either dealt with or they went into hiding."
"I knew that wasn't going to work" Shadow Knight said cynically, "People are always quick to fear what they don't understand and label the unknown as an enemy that needs to be controlled, contained or eliminated…of course the majority would choose to stand with the very people who are the 'best defence' against 'our kind' despite them being the cause of the disaster they used to seize power and make people afraid of metahumans. People are a dumb, panicking, dangerous, gullible herd that will always choose to believe what they want to believe, even if it's false and morally wrong, and right now they believe anything being told to them that metahumans are dangerous terrorists waiting to happen…is fact, and not engineered fiction."
"I can't believe all of STRIPE would turn against us like that, after all the good we did together with each other against Meta-Master and the Dark Elite!" Ravager said in dismay.
"Neither do I…That's why I'm not so sure it's that simple. They used Spellbinder to turn the Titans against us, maybe they used her power to do more than just that. Commander, do you think it's possible that they might have also used Spellbinders power to get the members of SLEET who didn't come to our aid at Crystal Peak onto their side and let them takeover SLEET?" M-Leader asked hopefully.
Commander Hardcastle thought about it, "It…might be possible. But even if it is, this still means the whole organization has potentially been compromised. We can't trust anyone in SLEET anymore."
"So, the worldwide organization that was founded to circumvent bad Government decisions and politics to do the right thing and keep the terrible mistakes of mankind's history like Nazi Germany from happening again…has become a willing tool for what it always fought against. How typical." Shadow Knight said bitterly, "Commander Arcane is NOT going to like this when he finds out."
"What?" Commander Hardcastle asked in shocked disbelief, "What are you talking about?"
"Commander Arcane is alive…" M-Leader explained, "But unfortunately, he's not here right now."
"Arcane is alive?" Commander Hardcastle said in disbelief, she could barely contain her happiness upon hearing that.
"That doesn't matter" Shadow Knight pressed, "Whatever is going to go down here today, nothing about brainwashed SLEET soldiers being present at the Senate attack was ever mentioned by the Heroes Resistance. That means we can't really be sure what's going to happen today, we need to know what STRIPE's actual plans are if we are going to have a chance at changing the future. Think hard Hardcastle, you must remember something."
Commander Hardcastle thought very hard, trying to remember something…anything.
The drawback to Spellbinders power was that anything a person did or remembered while under her power was that their memory would be wiped clear upon regaining control of their mind save for a few brief flashes.
It was like trying to solve a puzzle with the missing pieces and not the whole puzzle.
"Wait…" She said thoughtfully, and then her eyes widened as she recalled something important "I do remember something. The Senators and the Presidential family! They are all here, they are being held in the debate chamber by my men and…and the Titans! We must hurry, follow me!"
As they made their way in haste towards the debate room, Cyber-29 suddenly spoke through the Robo-Warrior suit, "I just ran a scan of the building with my long-range sensors, I've detected the distinctive energy signature of slipstream energy, there are multiple sources of the stuff all over the building. This must have been how Commander Hardcastle and her squad infiltrated the Senate Building. The security system has been disabled, which explains the lack of response to this attack on a government building…but it's strange."
"What's strange?" Raven Ducard asked.
"The strongest one is in the debate room." Cyber-29 answered, and if I'm reading it correctly it's only been an hour at most since it was formed. It would seem to me that someone has used slipstream travel to either enter or leave the debate room recently."
They soon found themselves standing in front of the debate room's entrance door, "Then we'd better prepare ourselves for whatever is awaiting us inside that room." M-Leader said, activating his psychic powers to put up a defensive shield around himself and his students before ripping the door off its hinges with his mind.
The Heroes Legion and M-Leader gawked in horror at what they saw inside the debate room.
Bodies, everywhere, dead senators and a few dead SLEET soldiers…the aftermath of a massacre.
"My god! We were too late!" Techne declared in horror at the sight of the carnage.
"Oh no…" Raven said in silent horror before running to the middle of the room, Shadow Knight followed her, the rest of them followed soon after when they realized why Raven Ducard was running to the middle of the debate room.
There, lying on the ground dead…were the Titans.
"NO!" Velocity declared in dismay, "It can't be! They aren't dead, they can't be! What happened to them?"
"…Judging from the…wounds present in their bodies…they were…shot…self inflicted. They committed suicide" Shadow Knight swallowed, barely masking his fury and distraught emotions upon seeing the innocent dead all around him and the superhuman teens who had helped them save New York and win the Battle-Island Tournament now dead as well.
"No…" Commander Hardcastle said, her eyes barely holding back tears as she stared at the dead metahuman heroes on the ground.
Shadow Knight stared at the bodies of his fallen comrades, and the dead senators, his glowing red eyes showing absolute contempt for the machinations of the people who were behind this massacre of the Senate and murder of the Titans.
"They were here debating on whether STRIPE and its martial law regime were needed now that the 'metahuman problem' was under control with the registration act and the registrant program underway. STRIPE obviously didn't take that well, and once again set up a scenario to make Metahumans look like terrorists to keep people afraid of another Metahuman takeover, martial law remains in effect, and they remain in power. What's worse, they people will happily embrace whatever neo-fascist policies, laws, or decree's they put forward…so long as the 'normal' people are protected from the 'metahuman menace' that 'threatens' society. No wonder the world went to hell in the future. It wasn't superpowers or rogue Artificial Intelligence that ultimately doomed that world. It was Mankind. We have no one else to blame but ourselves for what kind of terrible future awaits us, because we do it to ourselves by not doing the right thing: Calm down and question what's being told to us, to think about the facts and get both sides of the story before passing any judgement! Now once again good people have died, and we could tell them about the apocalypse waiting in store for them that STRIPE will bring about, and they will still cheer them on and support them…because they believe whatever they are told by, because humanity is flawed!"
"Shadow Knight!" Raven scolded. She was shocked to hear such words coming from her friend and team leader.
"…I'm sorry" Shadow Knight apologized, realizing he was going to far with his rant "I'm just…tired of good people, friends even, dying all because of STRIPE and the fact that very the people we swore to protect are too stupid to realize what STRIPE is doing to this country, this hatred and fear of metahumans, all of it…is wrong. If SLEET is against us, then we have no way of fighting the infection of STRIPE's xenophobic evil in the hearts of mankind. These were good kids, they had their whole lives ahead of them, and now…the world will only see them as they see us as now: Terrorists."
"I remember back in Manhattan, when they threw junk at my head" Silicon reminded his team leader, equally concerned as Raven to hear Shadow Knight act this way, "This wasn't the tune you were singing to me when you kept me from retaliation on those people. What happened to that guy?"
"Even I have limits with my faith in the best of people as well as my patience with the worst aspects of human nature and the collective stupidity of mankind, kiddo. Too many times, the guilty thrive while the innocent suffer their machinations. This can not go unpunished!" Shadow Knight acknowledged.
"Oh, they wont. I assure you; STRIPE will pay for this!" M-Leader declared, his golden eyes glowing with hot fury "This is horrible. The citizens of New York, these senators and now these children? How many more innocent lives must die before this madness can end!?"
"I'm afraid the only way this can end M-Leader" Shadow Knight said, "Is to eliminate STRIPE…once and for all. If we have failed to prevent the assassination of the senate and the president, then our only option to avoid the HUNTER controlled future is to remove STRIPE from the story of history entirely. We find out where they are based, and strike back."
"I agree with spooky" Velocity agreed, "Lets go find and blow-up Cyberdyne before it creates SKYNET and dooms us all!"
"Here, here!" Ravager added in total agreement.
Raven Ducard and Murdoch solemnly and respectively closed the open eyes of their fallen friends.
"We should take them and bury them first. They deserve a proper burial instead of being left here to rot or whatever it is that STRIPE would do with their bodies" Raven Ducard insisted.
"Yes…" M-Leader agreed, "We shall. They will be given the proper respect heroes like them deserve."
"Hold on. Were not alone, someone else is in the room. I'm detecting signs of life!" Cyber-29 declared.
"I sense it as well…" Shadow Knight added.
"As do I…" M-Leader also put in, and then turned to look in the direction they sensed the unknown presence was coming from, beneath a pile of overturned chairs and the speaker podium.
Using his telekinetic powers, M-Leader gently lifted the debris up and placed them away from the spot he had picked them up from.
The Heroes Legion and Commander Hardcastle were taken by surprise to find that underneath that pile of debris…was a young 8-year-old girl.
"It's a kid" Velocity said in surprise.
"I know her, that's the first daughter…Tara Huston!" Commander Hardcastle declared in recognition.
"Who are you? Where am I? What am I doing here…" the young girl asked, completely terrified as she saw all the dead bodies around the room, "how in the world did I get here?"
"Easy little one" M-Leader said to her, "We're not going to hurt you."
"I…can hear you…your voice…" Tara Huston said in disbelief, starring right at M-Leader "but your lips aren't moving. How is that possible?"
"Are you okay?" Raven asked with genuine concern.
"I think so" Tara Huston said warily.
She didn't know any of these strange looking teenagers, but something about Raven Ducard's face and voice made her feel like she could trust her.
"What happened here? Did you see it?" Shadow Knight inquired.
"Shadow Knight!" Raven Ducard scolded, "Can't you see the poor girl is scarred out of her wits. Asking her such questions isn't helping things."
"It's okay little one" Commander Hardcastle assured her, "We're not going to hurt you, we're the good guys. What's the last thing you remember?"
"Some kind of…monster made out of darkness…was attacking my home" Tara answered. And then warily pointed at Shadow Knight, "It…looked like THAT guy! Only…scarier looking. Way more scarier looking! It was like…a ghost!"
"Something was attacking The White House?" M-Leader asked her concerned.
"A monster? Made of Darkness?" Shadow Knight repeated in disbelief.
"Black Knight?" Silicon suggested, "You think it was him?"
"Impossible. He committed suicide during the Battle of New York by jumping off the GW Bridge when he realized he had been rendered powerless. I saw him do it." Shadow Knight dismissed.
Murdoch tilted his cat head in thought, "…Or did you only see what he wanted you to see. The guy is as devious with shadows and manipulation as you. No offense."
"None taken" Shadow Knight assured, "But if he did fake his death, I want to know how…since I saw and examined the body personally following the clean up efforts after the Battle."
"Guys…" Silicon said in disbelief, pointing at her hands "Look what she's holding in her hand!"
The Heroes Legion following Silicon's suggestion looked to see what was in the first daughter's hands and gawked in stunned disbelief at what they saw.
In Tara Huston's hand, was a glowing green crystal…or a stone.
They all recognized it in an instant.
The Destiny Stone of Time.
"What is that in her hand?" Commander Hardcastle asked, eyeing the cosmic gem in awed disbelief.
Was that a vortex of swirling energy contained inside that strange emerald stone the president's daughter had in her hand.
How was that even possible?
"The Destiny Stone of time! But…don't we still have that with us" Robo-Warrior asked warily, "We didn't loose it somewhere along the way, did we?"
"We do" Shadow Knight confirmed, "I stored the two stones we won in the Battle Island Tournament in the shadow realm for safe keeping. I have no idea how she has possession of one of them. Let alone why there are two of the same cosmic gem here. One in our possession, and the one with Tara Huston here. Where did you get this young lady?"
"I don't know. A man in a black cloak showed it to me…in my dreams. He said when the monster came to attack my home, to protect my parents, I needed to go 'borrow' this stone from my father's Oval Office. I woke up when the monster attacked and did what he told me to do…" Tara answered, "Then…this rock glowed. I couldn't see it was so bright, but I remember feeling like I was falling for a few minutes. Then I woke up here. In this room. With all these dead monsters all around me. I hid under that overturned desk when I heard people coming back into the room."
"Time Travel! The Destiny Stone of Time! She must have activated it three days from now in the Oval Office and it sent her back here, to this point in time, in the here and now for us!" M-Leader said telepathically to the others.
"I was back here, where the monsters attacked my mother and me. When my mother and I came here to the senate building to see him because he forgot some important papers at breakfast for when he was working with the Senators that day. These soldiers came in and rescued us, but as we tried to leave, another monster appeared and began attacking the soldiers. One of them got shot and was left behind…"
Tara Huston looked over in the corner, and pointed in that direction "That one, over there!"
The Heroes Legion and Commander Hardcastle looked in the direction the president's daughter was pointing towards and found that there was indeed a fallen soldier there in armor like those worn by SLEET soldiers strewn out on the ground not to far from the deceased Roulette.
"That is not a SLEET uniform" Commander Hardcastle said, eyeing the corpse with narrowed eyes of suspicion, "What is it? Who is this, Guy? It's not any of my men, and it's certainly not anyone in SLEET. I know everyone in SLEET, a Commander is supposed to know every soldier, every unit. This isn't one of SLEET's soldiers."
Shadow Knight's eyes, heightened senses, and keen detective skills were quicker to scan and analyze the fallen armored soldier for clues to his identity. He figured out that it was a STRIPE soldier before Hardcastle, and the others could even make their first deductions.
But that wouldn't have clued them in to the hidden meaning behind the reason why Shadow Knights glowing red eyes were nearly bugging out of his mask's eyeholes in shock upon seeing the Emblem of STRIPE emblemized on the soldier's shoulder armor.
For the first time since learning about this conspiracy in the United States Government and SLEET, he had finally seen the emblem of STRIPE with his own eyes.
And everything began to click, and he realized just how dangerous this conspiracy really was and who was responsible for this whole disaster.
"No…It can't be!" Shadow Knight whispered, frozen in place by a mixture of horror, disbelief and terror, "It's THEM!"
"Them? What do you mean by 'them' Shadow Knight? You know who this guy belongs to?" Atlanta asked, looking at her teammate with great concern "Are you all right. You look like you just saw a ghost. You don't scare so easily!"
"A terror from the past" Shadow Knight answered, "From my past. A nightmare I thought had died when I dropped the Brain of Crime off the side of a building. It's them! The guys I told you all about in the woods!"
That was when he sensed it.
A sense of imminent danger.
It started small, but almost in an instant grew to become a scream of dread and approaching doom that seemed to be coming in from all sides.
It made it difficult to decide what to do in that instant as Shadow Knight couldn't and didn't have enough time to figure out where the danger was coming from and react accordingly.
What Shadow Knight didn't know at the time was that his Danger Sense had initially detected the radio signal of a remote detonator, that was attached to a series of bombs laid in wait in key areas around the Senate building.
Set up there by the STRIPE conspirators as part of their plot to eliminate any pro-Metahuman sympathizers in the Senate who might survive the initial attack in a 'suicide bombing" in order to further paint metahumans like the Heroes Legion and the murdered Titan's as dangerous terrorists that needed to be dealt with, by blowing up the senate building and blaming it on the 'seditious terrorists' who they would no doubt label a clear and present danger that need to be stopped at all costs.
They had been inactive, and therefore un-noticeable to his danger sense.
But someone had just switched them to active and had pulled the trigger.
The last thought that hit Shadow Knight's mind before a blinding flash struck his eyes and a loud boom burst his ear drums, was to cloak himself and his friends in the shadows to protect them from whatever was about to happen.
KABOOOM!
Shadow Knight had no idea how long he had been out.
All he knew was that he had awoken to find himself nearly buried alive in what felt to him to be a huge pile of debris.
For a moment, he couldn't see.
His eyesight soon returned to him, and he found to his astonishment that he had been blown out from the debate room and was now somewhere several floors under that spot.
Something had blown its way from the basement below and straight up through several floors of the building, and he and the others had clearly tumbled down into the basement through the resulting void and hole left behind by the blast.
Shadow Knight saw from the corner of his eye three sources of light glowing nearby which allowed him to see a bit more in the dusty darkness as his vision slowly returned to normal.
He realized that the sources of light were the Destiny Stones of Power and Time…as well as the Time Stone's future counterpart previously held by President Huston's daughter a moment ago.
Those stones had been stored for safe keeping/retrieval in the shadow realm by him, and now they were back in the physical plane.
Whatever had torn through here had made him lose concentration and subconsciously pull them back into physical reality from the shadow realm, and in his experience, only one thing could force him to do such a thing: An explosion.
Which could only mean one thing.
"It WAS a bomb!" Shadow Knight declared, pulling himself out of the rubble with his strength and his shadow powers "I should have known there was further fowl play at work here. If I hadn't sensed it any quicker than I did, we'd all be dead now. Blast me for a…fool? Guys?"
Shadow Knight suddenly noticed that he was all alone in the basement crater.
No one else was there with him in the place in the ruined Senate Building that the explosion had blown him to.
"Raven? Guys?" Shadow Knight called out.
There was no answer.
What's worse, he couldn't sense them.
"Guys? Raven?" he called out, "Where are you!?"
The dust around him began to settle, and clear away enough for him to see the rest of the crater.
His heart stopped when he saw the sight of the Heroes Legion and Tara Huston.
They were strewn around the area, with him standing in the middle.
They were roughed up bad, but still intact.
But they weren't moving.
They didn't appear to be breathing either.
What was worse was that the explosion had messed his super senses up, so he couldn't hear any heartbeats coming from any of them…and right now, he feared that there wasn't any to find.
He saw Raven Ducard and quickly ran over to check her.
She didn't appear to be breathing.
"No. No, no, no, no, Not again!" Shadow Knight declared, starting to panic "She's not gone. They're not gone, they can't be gone! I can't be the only survivor again! Not again!"
He grabbed Raven and began shaking her still body to wake her up, "Raven, wake up! Please…wake up!"
But as much as he was trying to convince himself that Raven and the others were okay, his fears of history repeating itself override his rational mind…and he realized to his horror that it wasn't a case of Raven and the others being knocked out by the blast like he had been.
They were dead.
Just like the Titans.
Killed by STRIPE's bomb plot.
For the first time in a long time, not since the murder of his sister Mariko and his traumatic transformation into the Dark Avenger to avenge it, Shadow Knight's glowing red eyes began to shed tears of remorse.
He held the still form of Raven Ducard close to his chest, and began to weep for her, for his fallen friends.
It had happened.
He had failed her.
He had failed them all.
The thing he had feared would happen when he first joined the Heroes Legion had indeed happened.
They had died, and he wasn't able to stop it from happening, even with his powers.
What's worse, he had survived.
This was all his fault.
That damn STRIPE emblem!
If he had seen this exact emblem symbol that STRIPE and their forces used to identify themselves to the public earlier, maybe this whole mess could have been avoided.
For Shadow Knight knew it, he knew it very well and recognized the emblem of STRIPE for what it was, what it truly was, the horrors seen and done to him by the men and women behind that symbol, the pain it had caused him so many years ago…and it filled him with an unimaginable fury to know that the monsters who had tortured and experimented on him on that Island had indeed survived.
That STRIPE who had just murdered an innocent little girl and his friends the Heroes Legion, as well as the Titans…were one and the same.
STRIPE pretended to be an American government shadow cabinet, but it was really a branch of the worldwide terrorism, subterfuge and world domination seeking organization known as FEIND…and FEIND's genetic and biological weapons division…was the identity of STRIPE!
The White House/ PCCOC: March 14, 2015: 9:00 PM
The President was alive and well.
His family, the only survivors to what the press would soon call the "Senate Massacre" had been 'rescued' by STRIPE forces who working in tandem with SLEET managed to get them to safety before the 'terrorists' blew up the Senate Building.
Killing themselves and all others inside, including a few 'brave' men and women of both STRIPE and SLEET who had tried to retake the building and rescue the hostages from the rogue SLEET agents and Metahuman terrorists.
At least, that was the story that Malcom Talbot, Senator Garth Ennis, and Commander the rest of their co-conspirators wanted and had written out for the gullible and fearful eyes of the American people and the worlds population to see, hear…and unfortunately, believe to be reality without question.
As the President and his men who were manning the PCCOC bunkers computers looked on at video feed showing the sight of SLEET and STRIPE soldiers approaching the ruined Senate Building.
On one of the monitors was Senator Ennis, and on another was STRIPE commander Col Malcom Talbot.
"You see sir, these so called 'Heroes Legion' metahuman terrorists and the rogue elements inside SLEET we discovered following the attack on Crystal Peak prison months ago, they tried to kill you in order to cause chaos and destabilize the nation, no doubt as part of a larger terrorist attack and takeover of our country akin to what happened in New York City. But STRIPE beat them to the punch, came to your rescue and stopped the metahuman terrorists instead…who only succeeded in destroying our senate building and taking their own lives in a suicide bombing!" Senator Ennis said proudly, with a smug look on his face.
"I hope you can see now that there will always be a need for STRIPE and that the Metahuman threat has NOT been dealt with by way of simple politics and the signing of papers. It needs a more…direct approach to end the clear and present danger presented to our country and its people…let alone the entire human race. It needs STRIPE to counteract it." Malcom Talbot said over the PCCOC's communication monitor from his office at STRIPE command.
"Yes, indeed Gentlemen. I see that I was indeed wrong, maybe we need to handle this clear and present threat with more effective measures to prevent such attacks from happening. This cant be allowed to go without punishment, or else more of these super powered terrorist groups will be attacking our infrastructure, our homes, our families…" President Huston said in agreement, believing he had just dodged a bullet, "…they came after me and My family."
"How is the first family?" Malcom Talbot asked with false concern.
"A little shaken up, but Maria and Tara are okay…thank God! If they had been caught up in that…" President Huston said, barely holding in his relief and fearful realization that he had almost lost his family to the super powered menace that was threatening society.
He had tried to be fair and diplomatic about this problem, especially after New York when a small group of heroic metahumans had saved Manhattan Island from occupation, but right now, the good deeds of those individuals couldn't outweigh the current terrorist actions that had been taken by this group that had attacked the heart of this nation's government.
This couldn't be allowed to continue, super powered individuals had to be shown there was consequences for such abominable and subversive actions…otherwise more attacks like this would continue.
"Get me the pentagon and the joint chiefs on the line, we need to debrief everyone about what has happened…and contact the senators' families and inform them of what has happened, send our condolences. We must decide on what steps we are going to take to ensure this does not go unpunished." President Huston declared.
"One of them is still alive!" the STRIPE/SLEET soldier said on the PCCOC's live video feed.
"Then deal with it!" Malcom Talbot shouted, almost rabidly, "Detain it or kill it! I don't care which you do, we're not tolerating this anymore!"
"Wait, on the monitor! Is that…? No, it can't be!" President Huston said in horrified disbelief as he saw the sight of his daughter Tara among the dead on the video feed from a SCARE soldier's helmet camera displayed on the monitor.
But that was impossible, Tara was safe with her mom down here in the bunker with the best Secret Service bodyguards he had.
There was no way the girl in the video camera feed from a STRIPE soldiers helmet camera was Tara.
But it looked like her, it REALLY looked like her.
It was uncanny how much the girl in the video feed looked like her.
His thoughts on the subject were put aside when the soldiers on the video feed all opened fire on the sole survivor of the Senate Terrorist attack.
What interested President Huston was that the terrorist survivor in question was just lying there in the middle of the crater surrounded by bodies and appeared to be holding something…or maybe even someone.
The President was about to order a cease fire, as he wanted this Metahuman alive in order to question him about the reason behind this attack and maybe even learn about further attacks, but it was too late.
Bullets riddled the back of this masked Metahuman, ripping new holes and tearing new pieces of his already ruined and tattered overcoat.
The Metahuman threw his head back in pain and agony.
President Huston wasn't sure, but it sounded more like the sound one would make when his heart had been broken than the sound of someone being shot at.
Suddenly something glowed bright blue in the background, and suddenly, the glowing red eyes of the Metahuman changed into ghostly white color and glowed as bright as a halogen search light!
The masked Metahuman then screamed in fury and turned to face the SLEET/STRIPE Soldiers.
The President and the STRIPE conspirators watched in shock as the right hand of the metahuman transformed into a…demonic looking state that seemed to be made of pure animated darkness. It was photonegative in appearance and color. It was also crackling with ghostly energy…or some kind of electricity.
The furious Metahuman then aimed his transformed hand right at the soldiers, and the video feed cut off and began displaying nothing but static.
They could still hear what was happening.
They heard the Soldiers screams, what sounded like an explosion, and then a secondary scream of fury that belonged to the voice of the masked metahuman.
On another monitor screen, one showing the point of view of the SLEET/STRIPE forces who were positioned outside the ruined Senate building…showed what seemed to be a jet or maybe even a pilar of darkness shooting up from inside the epicenter of the blast.
It glowed brightly and was photonegative in color. It lit up the night sky, it was simply amazing how bright it was despite being made of pure darkness.
"What the HELL was that?" Senator Ennis declared on his video monitor.
They were soon about to find out.
In the next state, in the middle of a large, forested area was the official HQ of STRIPE, built within a repurposed SLEET Base.
As strange events were unfolding in Washington, even stranger events were happening in the Pennsylvania state.
As Col. Malcom Talbot watched the live feed of what appeared to be the onset of a strange Metahuman attack by one of the members of the Heroes Legion, for the first time since he and his compatriots launched this conspiracy against Metahumans after infiltrating the highest and best possible positions of power in the US Government AND SLEET by order of the FEIND High Council…he had no idea what the hell was going on and what to do about it.
"THANATOS!" Malcom Talbot declared, "Explain this to me. This isn't the outcome you calculated would happen!"
"Indeed. It would appear…" the renegade AI Program responded, "That there has been a shift, in the course of destiny."
There was suddenly a blinding flash erupted through the closed blinds of his office window, followed by a loud sonic boom that came from outside the building.
The windows shattered, and the drapes flew off, ripped from their moorings…and tumbled onto the floor.
Some of them smacked right into the xenophobic and corrupt founder and leader of STRIPE, who was cut by a few of them and knocked back onto his ass by the blast.
But he was too stunned by what had happened…and what he now saw…to care about having been cut by being struck by debris.
"Holy Shit!" Col. Malcom Talbot declared, as he got up off his chair at STRIPE HQ and looked out his window at something outside the building.
Floating just a few feet outside his office, which was twelfth story on the 14th story building, was Shadow Knight.
But he no longer looked like himself.
His costume, hell, his whole body…it was crackling with ghostly energy.
His skin and his costume both appeared to have become pure photonegative energy.
His face…it was almost impossible to tell if he was still wearing his trademark metal mask or not.
What Col. Malcom Talbot COULD make out was a within that swirling maelstrom of ghostly energy and animated darkness…was a pair of glowing ghostly white eyes.
White eyes that had no sings of pupils.
Just Ghostly white eyes burning with ghostly energy.
"Col. Malcom Talbot…THANATOS…Justice…" the transformed Shadow Knight said, his voice now was both metallic and demonic, but also dripping with vengeful fury, "has come…for you both!"
"Launch HUNTER Wave 1!" Col. Malcom Talbot declared in terror at the sight of the transformed Shadow Knight.
"They are only 120, 000 of them on base ready to go, the rest are still in production, and most of them are only in the prototype stage. They might not be enough to stop him" THANATOS warned.
"Just do it, you stupid machine! Do it, or we die!" Col. Malcom Talbot snapped.
Outside STRIPE HQ, in the surrounding fields, the ground opened…revealing underground elevator shafts.
These elevators began to lift the first generation of HUNTERS, the metahuman killing robots that dominated the future, up to be deployed to do what they were programed to do…defend 'normal' humans like Col. Malcom Talbot from Metahumans…by killing said Metahumans.
The command to execute their mission had been given, their on-board M-Gene scanners instantly locked on to the offending Metahuman, and their weapons systems started to come online just as they reached ground level.
They weren't as titanic or even as monstrous as the ones he had seen in the future, but towering at least 12 stories, they were still very formidable looking for what was to be the first generation of HUNTERS.
The transformed Shadow Knight just floated there.
His glowing ghostly eyes still trained on Col. Malcom Talbot.
He acknowledged the presence of the HUNTER wave 1 series the same way one would acknowledge the existence of an insignificant annoyance in their presence…with apathetic indifference.
The HUNTERS then fired their arsenal at the Transformed Shadow Knight, a combination of high-powered weaponry and blasters.
As a unit of 120,000 fully armed HUNTER prototypes, there was enough firepower in this assault to level Mt Everest to a small hill.
Shadow Knight didn't even flinch, let alone do anything but float there while eyeing the attacking HUNTERS and the approaching heavy ordinance and blaster beams heading straight for him.
But they never touched him.
They never even exploded.
They just vanished into nothing when they struck his body, they just vanished INTO his body, he just absorbed them…the same way he would bullets while in his Shadow form.
As the HUNTERS continued their relentless attack on Shadow Knight, he then turned slowly in midair to face them.
Reaching for a Katana sword that no longer was there attached to his hip by a scabbard, Shadow Knight made a dueling stance.
From out of nowhere, starting from out of the area above his right hand and moving out until it had grown ten feet in length, a 'sword blade' made entirely out of miasmic energy formed itself under the transformed Shadow Knight's command.
With a single stroke, Shadow Knight carved the HUNTERs in two.
They collapsed one by one and exploded into pieces of metal scrap and slag, lighting up the area with their explosions.
Col. Malcom Talbot, frozen to the spot in fear, watched as not only did the first and only available wave of HUNTERS robots crash and burn after being carved in two by a metahuman's energy blade…that same Metahuman who had destroyed STRIPE ultimate weapons against Metahumans that they had worked so hard to create…now had turned his attention back towards him.
His first instinct was to run and figure out how to fight this new ultimate foe that scared him even more than Meta-Master had.
But he soon realized there was nowhere to run to.
Nowhere where the transformed Shadow Knight wouldn't find him.
He was Death itself!
All the fear he and his comrades had towards Metahuman kind as a threat not only to humanity, but to FEIND's destined dominance of the planet, and the efforts they had taken to get hold of this superpowered threat…by either subjugating it into useful tools or outright eliminating the species entirely.
It had all been for nothing.
Because out of the people they had tricked humanity into hating and fearing, came the avatar of the proverbial sleeping giant…and they had filled him with a terrible resolve.
"We believed we were meant to defend Humanity from Metahumans in order to ensure that it's rightful masters would inherit the earth for humanity's own good" Col. Malcom Talbot said with silent regret as he stared out at what his and his comrades' actions had ultimately unleashed, "All we ended up doing…was ensure our extinction."
He just stood there in his office, looking out the shattered window, as the transformed Shadow Knight unleashed the entire arsenal of weaponry, he had absorbed from the HUNTERS attack from the Shadow Realm he had sent it all to…and unloaded it upon Col. Malcom Talbot, THANATOS, and the entirety of STRIPE HQ.
The light from the resulting fireball was bright enough to turn night into day, and the shockwave leveled the entire forest surrounding STRIPE HQ…and the tremors from such an assault could be felt from New York to Washington DC.
The fireball soon faded, replaced by a small mushroom cloud.
A photonegative light shone inside that cloud.
It then vanished in a flash, leaving the site of destruction behind as a symbol of what was in store for those who had unleashed his wrath.
He was going to find them.
All of them.
STRIPE, Anti-Metahuman sympathizers, opportunists…anyone who had helped, or benefited from STRIPE's takeover of SLEET, the murder of innocent people set in motion to add to the cause of the persecution and attempted genocide of Metahumans…the cowardly inept members of the Government who had allowed this to happen…FEIND…he was going to punish everyone of them!
He was going to find this weed of evil and burn it to the ground!
The entire scene had been seen by President Huston from the safety of the PCCOC with an orbital satellite.
Both the oblivious President Huston and the remaining members of the STRIPE conspiracy were floored and terrified by what they had seen.
"Mr. President, we must face facts. We need to go on the offensive. This is a deliberate attack on us, on our nation and its infrastructure. A new enemy has emerged…a new war is upon us. We must act quickly if we are to defeat it and win this war!" Senator Ennis declared on the monitor screen.
"I'm afraid your right Garth…we must act and prepare for what's coming our way." President Huston agreed with a heavy heart, increased Martial Law and a declaration of war was the last thing he wanted for his country, but he saw no other choice after seeing such destructive actions and power by rogue metahuman elements in his home state and his country.
"Call our allies, they need to be notified of the situation. Get me the pentagon…tell them that the latest threat to our nation takes us from Defcon 3 to Defcon 4. And tell them to be prepared for the worst. It seems the Metahuman war we've all be fearing…has begun."
Meanwhile…back in the crater of the ruined Senate building.
The dead Titans and Heroes Legion were still there, next to Tara Huston.
The commotion caused by Shadow Knight's rampage had kept anyone from the authorities in finding them as search and rescue efforts refused to enter the building after what had happened to the SLEET/STRIPE soldiers who had entered and been attacked by some metahuman force inside.
This proved to be beneficiary for the cloaked individual with the glowing yellow eyes who was surveying the scene of the pivotal moment in history he had traveled to.
He held his hand out towards the dead Titans and spoke in a kind grandfather like voice as he irradiated the Titans as well as the Heroes Legion with some kind of golden energy.
"You were lucky your friend was quick enough to save you from the explosion, Heroes Legion. You're merely near death than actually dead. Now you must save him from himself."
He then picked up the extra Destiny Stone of time from where it landed, leaving the original and the Destiny Stone of Power behind with the Heroes Legion, "I'll take this back now. The girl is here now, she has seen what I wanted her to see. Cant have TWO of the same gem in the same point in the timestream ending up bouncing around between ignorant and unscrupulous hands and cause some nasty time paradoxes now can we?"
The mysterious figure eyed the Titans.
"As for you...Atlas, Shelia, Roulette, John and Maya Thunderhawk. This world still needs the Heroes Legion, but it no longer has a use for the rest of you. But don't worry…there are more worlds than this one in need of Heroes of your group and the Heroes Legions Caliber. We shall go to whatever world in our universe or beyond needs our help. Off we go…my Titans."
Suddenly, the mysterious hooded figure AND the dead Titans, who had now started to breath again, began to flicker in and out of existence…before vanishing entirely.
The place and the Heroes Legions bodies were left abandoned once more and the area grew quiet still.
It wasn't quiet and abandoned for long.
That was when a magical door appeared.
Stephanie Walker, Vincent Masters and Marty Osmond appeared from within it, exiting out into the crater via one of the Mystic Mansions teleportation doors to look for them.
"MARCUS!" Stephanie screamed when she saw M-Leader amongst the rubble and dead bodies.
She headed over to him and began to check him over.
She prayed that he wasn't dead.
And she thanked God when she found that he had a pulse.