Crow has only seen Doctor Yiva show tentative respect for one man, and that man is Doctor MacArthur. While Crow has never seen Doctor MacArthur disrespect anyone—mostly on account of Crow seeing doctor MacArthur speak three total times, he assumes that there are very few people above the man in this organization's hierarchy. Of those higher ups—given Doctor MacArthur’s vast intellect—it isn’t unreasonable to assume that there are few he actually respects in a capacity beyond what his station requires.
Doctor MacArthur strains, standing perfectly still, eyes locked straight ahead, finger twitching almost imperceptibly as a new man circles Vanguard. He inspects each of them with a careful gaze that occasionally flicks to the floating tablet filled with a scroll of numbers and diagrams. With each nearly silent exhale, or painfully minute shift in his expression, Doctor MacArthur's sweats just a little more. That fear alone has Crow far more curious in this individual
Beads of sweat build on Doctor MacArthur’s forehead, timed perfectly with a nearly audible gulp as the man with the tablet stands for a longer period of time in front of Sparrow, his eyes following the contours of his small body.
“Doctor MacArthur.”
“Yes sir!” Doctor MacArthur nearly flies from his skin at this man's voice, he picks and pulls at the edges of his nails and rubs the palms of his hands in the moments of silence between his far too enthusiastic response.
“Very good work. I am, honestly, impressed,” the man smiles. He looks young, far younger than Doctor MacArthur in fact, perhaps only in his late 40’s. His medium length black hair all brushed back to frame a charming face. The only thing that betrays his winning smile—is his eyes. Almost entirely gray, they twitch faintly in the corners, narrow at the middle in a look of well disguised indifference.
In Crow’s quick estimation, this is a man who cares only so much as it would ensure optimizing performance from his subordinates. The words sound genuine, but Doctor MacArthur is nothing more than a tiny spec in his man's eyes.
“R-really?”
“Of course!” The man stands a bit more straight, his eyes leaving Sparrow to finally fall on MacArthur himself. “The Harbingers gift was better than expected. A shame not all of them could teleport but I am working on something to fix this.”
“Ah.. yes... the Harbinger was very generous with our lot. The groups from the east coast branch and those on the Canadian border logged results that fell below our projections.”
Doctor MacArthur waits for the man to reply, but he doesn’t. He instead just watches as MacArthur fumbles around for more to say on the matter, struggling to come up with additional data points to share.
The man's eyes narrow slightly, and his lips curl up in a relaxed smile. “I read the reports, yes.”
“Of course. Yes of course you did.” Doctor MacArthur lowers his head and continues to pick at his fingers.
“And how is their recent performance? Better than that second batch I hope?” The man pinches the corners of his floating tablet and presses them together, folding the device into a small one inch by one inch square he puts in the front of his suit jacket pocket.
“I assure you, my Vanguard is ready for anything.” Doctor MacArthur tries to sound confident, but under the gaze of the man before him, he shrinks away.
“I would hope so.” The man chuckles, prompting MacArthur to join in on the laugh. After the laugh dies down, a silence so long it almost feels uncomfortable passes. He turns his undivided attention to James.
“Lieutenant Colonel James Matthews.”
James somehow manages to make his already square shoulders even more square. “Yes, Director Williams?”
“Your resume is impressive, are you prepared to launch your first mission?”
“Yes sir, I have been ready since signing onto the program.”
“Then why didn’t we launch the mission when you signed onto the program?”
Doctor MacArthur physically cringes away.
“Because the Vanguard wasn’t ready sir. I was not about to place assets in the field if it meant more risk than potential reward.”
Another long, uncomfortable silence stretches, though James never falters, and that appears to please Director Williams.
“Good, exactly what I wanted to hear. The Vanguard has been briefed about the missing Russian Asset?”
“They have everything we know, which is very little.”
Director Williams turns to Doctor MacArthur. “I look forward to the show. I pray for your sake, Doctor, they do not disappoint me.”
“Director, you have my word they will exceed your every expectation in the field.”
***
Shadows grip to the corners of the aircraft's interior, only to be pulled away by the flash of red light from just overhead every two seconds.
Six pure white masks reflect back with each flash, each one slightly contoured to fit the face of the person wearing them.
Crow looks down at the mask in his hand, staring at his feet through the eyeholes.
He can feel the others' eyes on him, some of them at least. Starling, Falcon, and Condor namely.
A hand rests on his shoulder—Falcon’s, his eyes only barely visible through the angular, avian like holes in the otherwise featureless shape.
“Drop in 10…” He says softly, as if speaking too loud it might hurt Crow.
“Yeah,” is all Crow can muster in response.
Normally they would just teleport in, but given the extreme distance, they didn’t want to exhaust Starling early in case they needed an emergency teleport out. This left them sitting in the back of a cramped aircraft for the better part of six hours.
Turning his eyes up, he catches Condor’s gaze, though he promptly looks away. His focus then turns to Starling, who instead of turning, holds his eyes for so long, Crow finally has to place his mask against his face to give himself an excuse to look away.
His breathing echoes hard around him as he sets the mask, and pulls the hood up over to cover his hair.
He continues to stare at his black shoes, letting the sound of his breathing echo in his ears, the sound of the heavy black clothes against his skin, barely audible even to his own enhanced hearing.
“Do you think we will be alright?” Sparrow asks, catching a half cocked look from Vulture in response.
“Nah, we are all going to die down there,” he cackles, shaking his head in some profound display of paternal disappointment that makes Crow's skin crawl.
It’s a shitty excuse for a sarcastic comment, but it still seemed to rattle the smaller boy.
“We will be fine, we’ve trained for this moment exactly, James wouldn’t send us out to our deaths,” Falcon counters, leaning across the small aisle to place a reassuring hand on Sparrows knee.
“There are far more efficient ways to decommission us, if it came to that.” Starling offers, this time catching a look from nearly everyone.
Crow knew from personal experience that Doctor MacArthur wasn’t one for efficiency in all things. Feeding the Vanguard to some supernatural entity wasn’t entirely off the table for the man, but then again if that was the goal James wouldn’t have briefed them on the mission for three days straight.
“Focus,” Condor grinds out, shifting in his seat.
“Who says we can’t have a little fun huh?” Vulture throws his hands behind his head and leans his face up to stare into the blinking red light.
“Me,” Condor and Falcon both echo in unison.
“Bah, and here I thought Starling was the one with the biggest stick up her ass.” Vulture waves a dismissing hand.
Crow works to unclench his hand as Vulture winks at him.
He wants to—
The noise prods at the back of his mind, and Crow quickly shuts the thought from his head, refocusing himself as he watches Falcon give Sparrow another firm pat on the shoulder before breaking contact.
When it came to mission preparedness, Sparrow was by and large the worst. Trying to force his mind to consider how he might have to go about saving the small boy from whatever predicament he got himself into was the only thing that kept the noise at bay now, as any other thought found its way back to making Vulture the villain in his mind.
A buzz sounds over the speakers of the aircraft, and with it comes the roar of wind as the rear doors open.
“Go for launch,” James' voice crackles in their ears.
Thunder cracks outsight, scattering blue light across the clouds they fly through at an incredible speed.
As often as Crow was reassured that their “uniforms” are properly insulated, he isn’t thrilled about the possibility of being struck by lightning on the way down.
“Come on team! Let's at least try to have a little fun? I know you’re with me.” Vulture smacks Condor on the shoulder and practically forces him to the front of the line overlooking the long drop to their infill location, obscured entirely by black clouds and a torrent of rain.
It takes no small amount of effort for Crow to focus his senses to hear the words of the team over the cacophony of the storm outside.
“Stick with me on the way down, I got you, alright?” Falcon keeps a hand on Sparrows shoulder as he nods his little head, pulling the hood up to cover his regrown curly hair.
“Don’t tell me you need a partner too, Star,” Vulture coo’s as he cranes his neck to leer at her.
Wordlessly she takes two long strides out the back of the transport, her body sucked out and away from the aircraft with a WOOSH, vanishing into the storm.
“Don’t worry, I'll go with you.” Condor grips Vulture by the high collar of his trench coat, and before he can protest, throws him from the aircraft.
Falcon rolls his eyes, and jumps out with Sparrow, Crow following quickly behind.
He catches the wind and enters a dive, wings folding out from his back to assist the supersonic descent.
Rain splashes hard against his mask, his clothes, his wings. The near deafening boom of thunder disguises their approach as they break the sound barrier, finally breaching the cloud layer.
Lightning arcs across the sky, illuminating flickering snapshots of the nightmare they are entering below.
The Estonian town bleeds from the dense forest from the north down to the southern coast, its features barely recognizable beneath a vast, suffocating corruption.
Streets are knotted and crushed with thick, sinuous growths that twist and coil like mold covered roots through asphalt. The almost alien growths glisten in the heavy sheets of rain, their surface slick and pulsating with a faint inner glow that flows just underneath the surface in the rhythm of a heartbeat. The structures of the city itself seem to have fused with the eldritch vegetation—their forms consumed and reshaped in web-like pseudo organic structures
According to James’s packets the town's been dealing with heightened anomalous activity for quite some time now, tastefully disguised and covered up by site-51 for weeks heading into months as Vanguard was getting prepared. In the past two weeks however it's been rapidly turning into this.
How site-51 is covering this up is beyond Crow, and despite his personal curiosity it’s not mission relevant, so he buries it.
Crows wings extend out wide, catching the air and slowing his descent, allowing him to land with the others atop the town's newest centerpiece—a web-like ‘tree’. Its massive gnarled branches stretch high into the stormy sky several dozen stories above anything else. The trunk is impossibly large, extending down in a webbed spiral somewhere between a strand of broken DNA and some ancient oak, its canopy of man sized flowers evidently unbothered by the torrential storm all around them.
“It's even worse in person.” Falcon mutters under his breath, barely audible over roaring winds and rush of rain.
Crow shudders his agreement, focusing his mind on the reality of the situation before them.
Below them, at the ‘tree’s’ base, the same mold covered roots grow larger and converge like arteries feeding a heart. Crow watches as that bioluminescent pulse spreads outward in a glowing network extending towards the north to disappear into the woods beyond.
To their south, the silhouette of an old historical castle turned museum breaks up the view of the coast, also consumed by the anomalous cancer.
The air around all of them is heavy, oppressive and damp, carrying the acrid stench of decay and something sickly sweet. The rain, instead of washing any of that away, seems to feed it. Each drop that falls from Crows coat leaves trails of iridescent light that lingers before seeping into the web.
“You hear that?” Sparrow asks, placing his ear to a twisted branch they rest on.
Vulture adjusts his trench coat against another huge rush of wind. “Can’t say I do.”
“Then shut up and pay attention,” Condor grunts, looking at Sparrow who holds up a tentative hand.
Several minutes pass in silence, each member of Vanguard remains as still as possible, and then Sparrow speaks.
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“It sounds like a pulse, a hum maybe? It's slow, in 3 minute intervals. There is also a skittering, like a big spider I think.”
“Sounds like a fun time,” Vulture smiles.
“Movement directly below us, big, maybe three or four anomalies, probably those spiders.” Falcon points out, eyes adjusting in the night.
“Movement south and north as well,” Sparrow points out, one hand tracing a line to the forests. “It's faint but I can pick it up, there is a lot more to the south though, hundreds of somethings maybe…” He shivers.
“We need to move,” Condor says in a low whisper,
Crow had an idea of what they were getting into, all of the details were in their three day brief, but seeing it in person is a lot different than seeing it on a screen. His stomach balls itself into knots, and he finds himself wondering if any of the others feel the same.
He watches the pulses flow through the tree, putting his own ear to the trunk he confirms Sparrows findings, though he also watches that sickly bruise flow through the city's arteries, its course plotting in his mind, timing it again, and then again, just to be sure.
“The way these roots glow… it isn’t a coincidence, we need to begin by—”
“Let’s go.” Condor grunts, and begins sliding down the nearest mass of web-like branches, descending deeper into the skyscraper sized growth.
“Wait!” Crow raises his voice ever so slightly. Condor must not have heard him over the rain, but they need to approach this carefully, they can’t afford to disappoint James on their first mission. Crow picked up on the patterns in the growth around them already and had deduced—
“We are wasting time.” Vulture winks, eager to follow the brute in their descent, quickly joined by the others.
“Shit—” Crow scrambles to follow after them, as they move in the wrong direction
There is no point, just like in their first test, no one is listening to him, and he doesn’t have Chris to help give his ideas a voice. The only thing he can do now is try and make sure he salvages this before whatever damage the others do becomes irreparable.
Condor stops at a balled ceiling of growths, the hum of the place pulsing at an almost steady rhythm. They are at the top of a mesh dome shape, suspended at the “trees” center, the view to the bottom entirely black for the tangle of it all, save for the faint glow of light that courses through the twisted veins.
“Contact below.” Condor mutters, his eyes tracking a shape that crawls between the webs. It is massive, the size of three school buses as its snake-like body shifts, like it is made out of all the wrong bones. It looks as though it has been split open from head to tail, its ribcage spread apart, shifting and clattering like the legs of a centipede. Spider-like arms spiral out around a head shaped like the skull of a wolf eel, its front row of teeth jagged, while its back row of teeth look human.
“Shit...” Falcons feathers gather on his skin, creating his armor as he shifts into position, watching with Crow as something flows from the anomalies mouth—a slick, viscous substance that plasters over the brutal webs.
“They are building this thing,” Crow confirms, watching the glow spread through the newly created webs.
“Get into position.” Condor calls, signaling for Crow and Falcon to remain, while gesturing for Starling and Sparrow to shift closer over top of it, while he and Vulture start to slide down to the inside of the mesh dome.
“We need to wait!” Crow tries to call out again, his eyes narrowed to the target, sword conjuring from his feathers. It wasn’t a good idea to fight this thing, not yet, it would ruin everything, but before he can finish his sentence, Condor drops down nearly right beside it, his own weapons summoned, muscles tensing, body primed to strike.
“I—I can’t.” Sparrow mutters from behind, wings shifting, ready to take off. His whole body is shaking in fact, eyes locked to the massive creatures, the anomalies below them.
“You can and you will,” Vulture hisses, his fingers cracking and talons growing from his nails, following after Condor.
“Listen to me!” Crow half screams, though it falls on deaf ears, again. Condor is already ready to strike, and when he does he will need all the help he could get. None of their weapons appear long enough to sever this creature's limbs, which means blunt force is their best open, for now.
But he also knows they shouldn’t kill this things, not yet
Condors fist crushes one of the anomalies spider legs, splattering black blood across the gnarled web it’s built
“We need to go!” Falcon shouts, his wings creating a sonic boom as he rockets down to drive a knee into the centipede's reeling eel skull head.
Vulture’s talons rip at another one of its legs, the creature finally realizing the damage, and emitting a piercing human scream in response.
Crow nearly follows them, his blood running cold as he notices Starling’s eyes flicker to the dark behind Sparrow.
Time slows to a crawl. A flash of lighting casts a long, irregular shadow on the eight, black, starry eyes behind Sparrow. Blue light lances off twisted flesh, as a set of jaws three times the size of the small boy, nearly close around him from behind as a second anomaly appears from the shadows to swallow them whole.
Starling teleports into the second anomalies clamping jaws, two short swords carving away at the slippery flesh and rotten bones.
The force of its broken jaws snapping shut stops the mist of rain around them, Sparrow spared from an abrupt death by only a fraction of an inch as Starling rips apart its mouth, but even she isn’t fast enough to counter its two spider like legs, tipped with elongated human hands, as they grasp at the both of them.
Adrenaline dumps through Crow, the world crawls almost to a halt for only a moment, a moment long enough for him to extend a hand, touch Sparrow, and teleport the both of them to the very top of the tree.
The rush of pouring rain finds them again, only to just as quickly be forced away by the concussive blast that radiates from the tree's center.
Crow grips to the twisted branches, one arm holding himself, the other holding Sparrow as the small boy vibrates with terror.
“You got this, come on!” Crow shouts, before entering a dive straight down back into the web.
He punches a line of holes through the knotted branches with his wings extended in front of him, only to be slowed for a moment as the slick, fleshy bark gives way to the exoskeletal crunch of one of the spider-centipede anomalies.
He tears through the creature's lower section, landing hard on the branches below him, shattering them almost entirely.
Another human screech raises up over the crash of thunder and roaring winds. He picks out the shape of Condor among the tangle just as one of the centipede's spider arms crush him down to the lower levels.
Crow barely has time to think, as its swiping tail section carves a path through the air aimed directly at him. He brings his sword up and swipes it down, carving apart the creature as it passes by him.
A single breath comes, and then he is thrown into the air, the world going white, his ears ringing.
His stomach flies into his throat as he spins head over heels over and over and over as he is sent airborne, his senses finally coming to him enough to see a rippling explosion of ultraviolet light sputtering out from the cracks in the web he made with his landing.
Crow gasps, crashing into a tangle of web above him as his body quickly punches a hole into its mass before he can fall, breathing hard, feeling the pulse of raw energy burn his hand like a hot iron as it sits buried in the nest, anchoring him there, suspending him.
“This isn’t the right place!” Crow calls out over the sound of the monsters screeching.
He rips his hand free moments before another gout of energy can blow him away.
Crow drops onto a spot near Falcon, who only just barely rolls out of the way of one of the centipedes gnashing teeth.
“What do you mean?!” Falcon asks, pivoting on his back foot and sending a supersonic kick into the centipede's now overextended body, the shockwave ripping apart its flesh as it is sent tumbling away.
“We need to hit them in order! The flow of energy is acting as a signal relay, a living body with lungs, a heart, and a brain. We need to destroy each piece in order before the next signal goes out!” Crow grinds the words out as a scrambling spider leg smashes into his wings for only a moment long enough to deflect it. It tears apart the air above him, sending it screeching in his ears. Crow spreads his stance wide and launches himself into the rest of the attack, his entire body spinning like a saw blade, allowing him to cut through the centipede's leg entirely, soaking him through in its thick, black blood.
Falcon lets out a grunt as he dodges another blow, tanks a third on the forearm, and then gasps as Crow dives to intercept, splitting the next leg down the middle, before grabbing Falcon and letting his body drop down several more levels through the nest to land in a denser portion, away from the anomalies.
“We need to regroup,” Crow grunts, struggling to wipe the blood from his eyes.
His breath catches, as the humid air of the nest is replaced with the cold wet of the outside. His mind races to figure out what's happened, though he is answered by the sight of Starling standing tall, the other members of vanguard saturated in black blood around her at her feet. She must have heard him and teleported them all out of the nest to somewhere else in the city.
“The hell is your problem, Star?” Vulture sneers, forcing himself up off the ground, almost getting in her face, before he sees her eyes turned to Crow.
“Ohhh, I see.” he mocks, swiping a hand at Crow dismissively. “The more things change the more they stay the same huh?”
“Crow says he has reason to believe we hit the wrong location first.” Starling responds in her usual monotone.
“I know we hit the wrong location first, I knew it was the wrong location 6 minutes after we landed, if you would just listen to me.” Crow keeps his voice low, trying not to let the anger show through. If they think he is too emotional, they won’t listen.
Falcon clears his throat, and picks up Crow’s train of thought. “We need to strike specific targets in sequence to maximize the time we have between targets.” Falcon offers. “if what Crow says is right, and the pulses of light are acting as a signal relay, then destroying one at the wrong time would cut off the signal, and our host anomaly will recognize that someone is interfering, or at the very least something has gone wrong.”
“If we can get them all done fast enough we don’t have to worry about it.” Condor shakes out his fists, dashing away the black blood and fragments of bone left there. “This mission is a matter of time. We are already delayed. James himself has said the 0-6 wanted this solved months ago. We do this quickly, we get rewarded.”
“If we do it sloppily, the anomaly will get away,” Crow bites back, scanning the space around them, watching as ultraviolet light flows through the knotted veins breaching through the buildings and ground around him on a path towards the tree they just left.
“We were already there, removing us from the fight when we were so close—”
“No, we can’t risk going out of order, if the anomaly knows we are capable of destroying them too early it will become a fight we can’t take.” Crow fluffs his wings and tries his best to chest up to Condor, though it doesn’t work as the much larger boy looks down on him, two full heads taller.
“Enough,” Falcon presses his hand between the two, forcing distance that he quickly occupies. “Crow is right, we need to do this properly. Speed means nothing if it gets us killed or injured.”
Crow looks to Falcon, and hopes his eyes convey the gratitude he feels. He isn’t good at dealing with people, but Falcon has a way of carrying himself that people respect. Even shorter than Crow, the confidence he holds in that frame makes even Condor back down.
Condor grumbles his dissatisfaction, but concedes regardless.
“Word of advice,” Vulture yawns, using the downpour to wash the blood from behind his ears, “If you want the team to listen to you, it might help to have the whole team present. Mentally at least.”
Crow clicks his tongue, realizing just a little too late that Sparrow is still standing paralyzed with fear, whole body shaking, eyes plastered to muddy earth.
Falcon’s hard expression drops at the sight of him, pulling every ounce of his attention
“Hey, it’s alright. Come on,” Falcon urges, taking a single step towards Sparrow, who shifts uncertainly, wings still cocked and poised to send him anywhere but here.
“Oh how wonderful, he’s broken.” Vulture mocks, rolling his neck back and forth. “All that training, for this.” He gestures to Sparrow with no small amount of disgust.
“Can it, Vulture,” Falcon snaps back, hand flexing into a fist.
“Yes, please, fight me for pointing out the obvious. This is our first mission, need I remind you? Safe to say the 0-6 won't be too pleased to see this.” He taps his eye.
“He said enough…” Crow tries, though he sounds far less intimidating even to himself, and serves to only make Vulture laugh.
“Just because you’re daddy's favorite doesn’t mean you can throw around your non-existent weight,” Vulture sneers, and takes a single step forward.
“I said enough!” Falcon grinds the words out, taking another step closer to Sparrow, who watches Falcons every move intently.
“This is pointless, he's going to be decommissioned when we get back after this. Trust me it will be better for all of us to just leave him.” Vulture raises his hands and jumps on top of a nearby roof, leaning over the far edge to look out at the coast to the south.
“I got you, you’ll be alright. Remember our training,” Falcon urges, bringing a hand to Sparrow's shoulder, which seems to calm him a fair amount.
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry I panicked, I couldn't do it.” Sparrow stutters out, finally meeting Falcon's eyes.
“It’s alright, we are all scared, you just need to rely on us, we won't let anything happen to you.” Falcon brings his mask's forehead against Sparrows with a faint click, and pats him on the back of the head. “We got you, trust us.”
Sparrow eyes flicker to Vultures back, but Falcon pulls his attention away. “Don’t worry about him, we can deal with him.”
Crow steps in to block Sparrows view of Vulture, bringing his own voice down to something softer.
“Remember the escape? The break room? When we pulled you from your cell? We have your back, always.” Crow means it too, though he can only hope he put enough of that sincerity into his voice. The truth is he’s terrified as well, but he can’t show it, not to Sparrow, not to any of them.
Sparrow nods his head almost feverishly, the tension breaking in his shoulders and his wings coming down a resting position.
“Time to leave,” Condor speaks up, watching Vulture's eyes track a number of shapes shifting on the outskirts of the town.
“Crow, which way are we headed?” Falcon cuts in, stopping Condor's advance towards whatever looks to be the next fight.
“Whatever artifact they uncovered and stored in that museum, that castle, is acting as the lungs.” He raises his voice as the wind picks up, sending the rain sideways. “From the structure of the ‘veins’ it looks like it's pulling energy in, and then sending it out in pulses towards the…tree.” He nods up to the spiraling web. “Whatever those things are, are maintaining its structure, filtering the energy somehow, and then it gets sent off north to the woods, the brain most likely. My bet is, that's where we will find the primary anomaly too.”
“Castle first then, got it!” Falcon too has to raise his voice over the roaring skies,
“So long as we do it quickly,” Condor urges.
“So long as we do it quickly, and at the proper time! We need to make sure it has just finished sending out a signal. That buys us a little less than three minutes before they realize something is wrong.”
Falcon nods, and looks to Starling, who holds up the number five. “Lets save those teleports for an emergency then, we head out on foot. Let's move.”
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