Fall From Devil’s Rock
A Lancer story told by Titus, Trey, Josh, and Garrett
The Four Mile High Correctional Facility is an extranational floating facility created by the New Horizons PenalCorp. The Rock is designed to have a state of the art all inclusive societal reintegration program featuring a full battery of cutting edge psychological and pharmacological testing unfettered by outdated laws and regulations held over on various jurisdictions on the Terrafirma. After months of rigorous testing to determine the optimal height for prisoner wellbeing the prison is raised and there it has been held for over a decade. This is the highest security prison made, and so it houses the worst of the worst. From the earliest test prisoners like Tsavo Smith and the last of his posse Nathaniel De La Croix joining him soon after, to more recent villains like Chron Steelfangz, a horrible mechanic who has killed hundreds due to his negligence and had new laws written in place to counter his practices.
However every prison in Tsavo's experience in jailbreaks on Terrafirma assured him, and the rat who snuck by his high containment cell. "Every prison's got one oversight." This ones was Chron himself, and the cadre of rats in his family of peons. Each one identical to the eye of the common guard allowed Chron and the others to swap places with one another and accomplish goals unseen. Once he met Tsavo Smith the plan to escape began to form. Just as the ancient outlaw had warned Nathaniel De La Croix was indeed also in this prison, held under strict watch not by guards and restraints like him but under the watch of Dr. Heimlich Schmidt. While Tsavo was not allowed spoons to eat with, Nate wasn't allowed private thoughts with daily therapy sessions and treatment plans. The posse was split away from each other to reduce Tsavo's chances of escape, but now with Chron the link was reformed. The rats as messengers and Chron as the lead of the operation with his least limited position. They only had to plot it out and wait for their moment.
That moment came to them during a regular day, Chron and Tsavo were assigned to mining asteroids pulled in by the tractor beam. The rat featured much further down where he would refine the pieces mined by the walking coffin that was the outdated diesel powered mech they loaded Tsavo into. While those two would mine the stones, Nate of course would be kept far away in the safe hallways of the treatment ward. There were scary things in some of these rocks, the bounty foreign to many and powerful to few. Nate had uncovered an oil that functioned as nanomachines, with minimal training from Chron he soon had them following his command.
Chron's key to escape was made day by day as Tsavo's drill improperly lays against the large stone placed before him. Grinding parts off this already ramshackled device allowed rats to bring more and more scrap to Chron's hideout. A place he quickly swapped in RZA the ladies man of the rats to escape to. Tsavo would uncover one of those frightening finds for himself this time, the ichor spilling from the stone out onto his unsealed cockpit. Quickly flooding inside and filling his mouth, his laughter gargled out as the thick metal stuffed his lungs. The first one to see it wasn't even a staff member, but Timmy the free spirited dancing rat there to collect the scraps. Quickly he ran back to Chron to tell him the news, Tsavo was dead. Chron thought back curiously, "That guy can't die, remember last time?". Timmy still stirred him on earning Chron's curiosity. He barked at them to finish the mech he had to go confirm this. To the vents he took, all of the rat's main form of transportation.
Nate walked up the stairs towards the therapist's office, a path he had traced countless times already. Hands calloused from years of roughback riding and rifle firing scratching up the handrail leading towards that office. With the medication, his age, and his ability to act under pressure, this is where he knew he would hear the call.
Once the old man's hands scratched against the doorknob the familiar face of the very doctor that had him all figured out. Dr. Heimlich Schmidt proudly welcomed him back to his operating chair, a large dentist's light suped up above him glaring down. His questions picked off the old scabs of war that lined Nathaniel's mind. Even with the help of medication he was still so resistant. Answering back with confusion or an innocence that couldn't properly exist. Those above him were convinced that Nate was Tsavo's sidekick and had eagerly helped dismantle government structures for decades. However he was more convinced that this confused old man was just as much a victim as the bodies left in the Phantom's wake. Even as he played the part of a dead possum was cut short as the improved light cast down onto him.
Finally they would have a good conversation, one uninhibited by the years of toying around the old confederate turncoat had enjoyed. "What is your Connection to the Phantom, Tsavo Smith?"
"Oh, I rode with him a coupl'a years." The doctor damned his word choices as he struggled to find something more concrete.
"So he was your boss?" Remembering the age of his patient he softened, "Your commander?"
"My commander? I met him way back before I ever knew that other guy." The light's intensity forced more truth from him, like watering a stone, only a trickle came. "Tsavo."
"Before Tsavo?!" The doctor was shocked, his reports traced back well before they should on Tsavo's crimes. "Your Commander-"
"Oh sure, you've heard of him. We all called him Uncle Sam, the Ol' Unconditional Surrender Grant." A well timed interruption from Nate, which only came off as further rambling. That with the full weight of his words sinking into the Doctor was more than enough to buy just enough time. On the opposite end of the facility at this exact time, Chron was beholding the source of Tsavo's title.
As his rat hands silently pressed onto the cold metal just meters away two morticians hesitantly debated the time of Tsavo's death. One grabbing a medical saw from the tray only to realize it's not yet plugged in. The most hesitant to declare the time, lingered over his body. The last body of his native tribe, and how unlike him it was. Long ears, sickly gray skin, an almost hollow interior with how thin they've kept him. Even in death his face looked victorious, a smug smile despite his lungs being full of a thick ferrofluid. Worst of all his features, those horrible evil eyes shooting back open. The living rock inside him willed him upwards, however his own will wanted much more. Leaping up he grabbed the doctor with the saw and tore it from his hands, without power he took the rounded blade and swung it. The weight of the machine doing most of the cutting as he tore into the man's neck.
Chron exited the vent to find the opposite of what was reported to be true. Tsavo is very much alive, and these men with him here are not. Bloody saw in hand the wicked elf tested Chron's resolve, "Open the door for me." To do so he'd have to cross his violent path, the medical saw and a bloodied radio in hand would be enough to take him out if his back was turned. Chron walked forward, giving out a mostly sure "Uhh of course." The rat felt Tsavo's eyes on his back, boring through him even as he wondered, 'Would Tsavo turn on me?' Though before doubt would let him turn back to question it was answered. 'Nah! Without me there was never a plan, he would nevah!' The faith put into a man who has killed thousands by now, was not misplaced. The door opened without incident and Tsavo thanked him. "Grab the suits, this is indeed our signal." To which the brains of the operation gave back a snarky, "I was already on it!" Before skittering back into the vents to keep his movements shrouded from the wardens.
Now all that was left to do was to grab the rest of the crew.
However, the rest of the crew was only feeling the blinding weight of the light atop his head. The frantic scrambling of rats through the thin walls was completely lost on him, drowned out by the mad monologue he was enduring. The doctor had many things to clarify and now he would have all of his questions answered. "You first told me you didn't know your name. I even called you John until we remembered your name was Nathan. Why don't we start small, what is your full name?" Try as he might, he gave it up as honest as can be.
"Nathaniel De La Croix." The words leaving his mouth shocked both of them, though much more pleasantly the man scribbled onto his clipboard.
"What a strong start! You've got some unique scars Nathaniel, where did you start fighting?"
"I knew there needed change, I would've done anything to make my home safer."
"As any man would! However you took to some rather criminal ways didn't you? Who was the one who put you on this path?"
"My commander in chief, what we were doing wasn't a war to make things better. It was hell, and they wanted more." The first wrench into his plan, the military wasn't what he had expected at all.
"No not that, I mean when you started terrorizing America! You were reported to have-"
"That's EXACTLY what he planned. A brutal, dirty war to scare 'em into surrender. Every fight was three of them on one of us, but that oil and gas made a stink so foul not one of 'em didn't know we were comin'."
"Nathaniel we're getting a little bit distracted, I'd like to focus on your time in a Gang. Tell me about after the war." The brutal interrogation that was laying his past bare for the doctor to dissect was only slowed as the dancey music playing in the room stopped for the current Commander in Chief to announce the expansion of the Mojave. The voice of a ghost to Nate only further deepened this maddening feeling in his brain. Was his act of helplessness true after all these years trapped?
"We got that dam, not one fuckin' stone left. Did ya see it Eddie?" As his bound arm reached out, it seemed not every ghost was in attendance quite yet.
The gramophones report continued throughout the room where Nate was strapped into. Doing little to calm the running mind of the doctor who had finally achieved answers but was drowning in them now searching for the one he needs. "This damn machine, not precise enough. I'm asking you to tell me your activities after the war. your Crimes-" Sherman's report, and now...
"The Phantom... Rides again..." The voice in the room with them made the doctor turn in horror to that horn playing music, there beside it his walkie talkie said it. While the doctor's eyes widened with terror, Nate's filled with purpose regained as he finally revealed how much strength he had hidden in this damsel persona he had put on. "The truth is Doc." The light above him demanded his full body to comply truthfully, so now it broke free as simply as he always could have. "I'm the one you gotta worry about." Those brief words of warning were all that allowed the Doctor enough time to duck down below the meaty right hook thrown behind him. Scrambling back he growled out as his prized patient's hand smashed the bright light's stand. Knocking the heavy light down onto the ground between doctor and patient.
Wielding it like a great-hammer he raised it off the cracked tile and swung it wide towards his torturer. Heimlich taunted back,
"You are sick Nate! There is still much work to be done before you are ready!"
A roar of effort was his response, fully striking out against the door shutting behind Dr. Heimlich Schmidt. His office a bunker, he assured Nate, "This is pointless! No ONE escapes Devil's Rock!"
As if thumbing his nose towards that track record, Chron made his way towards the very room he knew he'd find Nate. Climbing down into the hallway he hacked the door open in no time at all allowing the final member to walk freely out. Knowing he'd have his chance, the patient left with Chron in tow.
"Nice work Nate! Where'd you leave your suit?"
"Right behind you."
Chron watched as something he had previously described as, 'Theoretically plausible I guess, under the right circumstances. Buuut you'd have to be fuckin' crazy to try it cause-' A horse whistle launched down the hallway, and with it a burst of force knocking up black ichor off the handrails like an ocean wave. Not from the power in his voice, but the tone that hummed inside each nanomachine matched to Nate's own voice. With every breath they would respond, but first they needed to be awoken. Flying towards him they began to form into steel and weapons. A ghost of his past made manifest with all the additions he would need to take out that Doctor too. The living machine brought under his will stood near completion when they stopped coming.
"There's supposed to be more." Nate mused aloud, "They're drawn to the sound, maybe..." A louder whistle earned a single drone to fly down the stairs into its place. "Oh well if that's what you need." A grunt of effort punctuated Chron's sentence as he clambered up into the vents once more. A swift tug and two cuts of his clawed fingers let him rappel down on a running power cable.
"We don't need more volume."
"More Juice."
The cable connected into that truth telling lamp and made it buzz loudly. The light growing ever brighter in the remaining bulbs, and the electric hum shaking even the bulletproof glass of Dr. Heimlich's office bunker. The email quickly drafted and sent seconds before the energy flickered. The subject was his patients name, and the contents all the assurance his superiors would need to confirm their own case. In those few moments of black the Regulator was assembled. Towering even in the massive Stalinist Architecture of the prison, its first act was to respect the weapon that earned Nate this much freedom. Absorbing it into its own mass, the nanomachines eating it down for its metal components. The prized technology that nearly made Nate confess everything, became a shotgun in his hands.
The two split, each having their respective members to get to. Tsavo still was in a hot situation, and the rats would be done putting together Chron's ride. The rat took the quiet way while the man took the loud way. Both narrowing the line of failure and victory with every hurried step they made. Further down the hall there was the man the facility was scrambling to recapture.
A sick confidence radiated from the room; whether he knew a rescue was coming or was simply indifferent, Tsavo busied himself with an ancient tune. Locked inside the morgue with fresh bodies and old alike, he set to work. Each movement is drawn out and elegant if it weren't so morbid as he shows the surveillance camera that even here, this far above the earth he could pray. Plugging the medical saw into the wall for the first time, it whirred to life spraying the room before him red. The camera could only hope to wonder what he would do next, as he slammed the saw into the wall. Only witnessing the blade cut through concrete and electric wires before... blackness. The wires snapping back up to the ceiling on the other end of this facility sent such a surge back towards him, how else could it be explained? The power shutting down just as the guards hack the door unlocked, just as those monitoring him would see his ritual take shape, they were all denied.
"Do you hear it?" The staff having been ordered to change their radio channels, it was likely only those in charge would hear... "The drums of the forgotten, the hooves of the betrayed! They come for you now! No bars, no chains, can hold back the fury of the oppressed! You thought you buried us, but we rise as an unstoppable storm. I am the reckoning, and you will be trampled beneath the weight of your sins!"
The muffled Cree language unintelligible to these guards would only serve to warn them of the coming doom. Perhaps that fear caused the sergeant outside to order. "Shoot it down!" The wall of lead knocking holes in the metal, another volley and they'd be through. The grisly scene inside opening up to them did not prepare them for what was coming down the hall.
For each bullet the squad of ten fired into the door, triple that fired back at them from their right side. The hulking beast of metal and murderous intent reborn through will and nanomachines The Regulator now moved without the stench of sulfurous oil, nor the symphony of stamping steel. They had no idea their doom was moving so quickly towards them, until the four survivors were knocked down by the gorey explosion of their comrades beside them. The train screeched to a halt as Nate wheeled it around, the very breath he drew an order to march, his words commands to each limb manifested.
As one of the crushed guards fought a pistol free from one of the fallen and aimed it towards the cockpit he fired. A direct hit to the swarm resembling a hull, the debris knocked free the same deadly material. Floating down onto his pistol arm and face they quickly went to work breaking down the matter for its components. Tearing rather than separating they brought back calcium, iron, sodium, potassium, magnesium, manganese, copper, zinc, cobalt, and chromium leaving behind the rest of the human alchemic soup in a state like sauce. The squadron behind him let loose shotgun shells, rifle rounds, and even a small grenade launcher. To their horror, each hit resulted in more parts of the Regulator destroyed for the briefest moments.
The commotion plenty to distract them from their original goal granted Tsavo all the time he needed. Bodies and blood, soul and sulfur all gathered. The walkie talkie placed at the center of it all relayed the screams of all those gathered here by body and by purpose. The roar of warriors long past, the cries of the innocent born to stolen land, and the shrieking of the regretful conquerors, all captured by that radio. What stood there when all the souls gathered together was a stallion of steel, and armor to wreath Tsavo further from death than he already was. Before the rider came into view, his scythe of souls screaming together appeared in the path.
Its purple hue manifested in a static haze on the ground like a portal opening up, only to deliver a blade longer than a man. Not just one blade but many, a swarm of pockets opened up and a blade for every warden's heart in that hallway. As they launched out, some cried out, others fired out at their murderer's weapon, but all were silent as Tsavo held them four feet from the ground on those blades. When they vanished they slammed onto the ground lifeless. Only as The Spirit of Vengeance used the physical scythe in his hands to tear down the destroyed door did those bodies stir. Those turned to paste and those hung to dry all twitched as their own colorful hues flew up into the hungry maw of the mechanical horse The Unraveller.
Nate and Tsavo finally reunited after over a decade of imprisonment and now stood across one another. Both wreathed in metal and the stench of death, duty tugged at them. The time for words would come later as now more guards descend upon them. "Guide me Nate, I will let no man take your life." To which Nathaniel De La Croix began his charge towards the cafeteria. It may have never been a place Tsavo was allowed to go to, but the others all knew its spot. The Spirit of Vengeance was more than twice as fast as Nate's machine, much truer to reality in its creation than his partner in crime. Tsavo used this additional speed to keep his word.
When a door would open up and guards would descend upon Nate, Tsavo would wave his hand and it would be undone. With his scythe hand the portals would appear and make the guards no more. With his free hand the hallway would slow under a tremendous force before the heat of the pressurized area would set off the ammunition in their weapons. Those that did break through to the Regulator would regret it as the defensive nanomachines and his shotgun worked to keep any would-be assailants at distance. With their impeccable defense they arrived at the cafeteria without any scratch unsealed on their chassis.
Distant echoes of violence; screams followed by the wet crunch or heavy blast of their source. bounced off the laminate walls of the cafeteria. That rampant, one-sided brutality echoing through the facility would soon find a matching crescendo, as Chron's rat pack diligently finished sealing the armor on the Ratpack. A mech without any tricky tech or ritual other than hard work to craft it here of all places. Tucked away in their corner Chron powered it up and began his march towards the core. Halfway to the reactor, sneaking in a hulk of metal. He couldn't resist musing aloud, "This is way too easy."
Any of the other rats would have taken a jolly step forward and found doom, where this ease stirred more paranoia in Chron. Kneeling down he ignited his secondary engine placed in the Ratpack's right arm, the heat burning off all the crushed rock and mineral stuck to each piece of its fingers creating dust. Filling the air with a wave of that hand upwards it revealed what he feared, laser wires. They'd bring him a lot more trouble than he was ready to handle without a proper battery in his system. So he'd have to disarm them, from his mech being his biggest issue. Placing that hand still warming to a hot glow onto the wall he pressed in. Burning the metal plates on the wall and as the smoke filled he pressed harder. Soon he was burning hot enough to press through the plating and cook the wiring in the wall leading towards the door at the end. The other rats following behind couldn't believe it!
Chron's expertise didn't extend to allowing this to unlock the door, but it opened the way to it. Marching forward they discovered that the reactor's door needed a retinal scan, it was time for Operation Jack Jenkins. The rat pack with the Ratpack commanding them moved to positions, rushing towards the barracks. Crying Henrique shouted out at their most constant tormentor. The only Warden to accuse correctly that there were more than five rats on the station. The saboteur of their food supplies, their metal heaps, their drawings of prison layout. It all would end here with a sentence he'd most hoped for,
"I found the other rat!"
Sergeant Jenkins gripped his rifle and charged from the barracks, his mind set on rooting out the rats causing chaos in the prison complex. Unfortunately for him, the ambush lay waiting right there. Chron wound back his still-smoldering clawed hand and, with a single powerful strike, crushed Jenkins’ body. As Jenkins’ life ebbed, his head was deftly snatched up by Cubert, Chron’s most loyal assistant, who grinned as he pocketed the valuable prize needed for the generator’s retinal scan.
Chron didn’t waste a moment. "Grab his gun," he ordered, dismissing the scuffle over it among his gang with a flick of his glowing claws. With that, they charged into the heart of the barracks, catching the guards mid-gear-up, their mech suits only half-powered and weapon safeties still on. Shells were being frantically loaded into shotguns as the guards scrambled, only to meet the searing grip of Chron's claws, which yanked one soldier directly out of his mech and into Chron's fiery grasp. The man didn’t even have a chance to scream, his body crushed and burned simultaneously.
A brave guard fired his shotgun directly at Chron, the bullets ricocheting harmlessly off the gang leader’s energized hand as Chron advanced undeterred. Meanwhile, another guard made a dash for the exit but was quickly gunned down by Bobbie, 8 years sober unwillingly, hoping to curry favor with the boss. Encouraged by the frenzy, the rest of the Ratpack swarmed in, eager to pick up weapons and assist Chron, so long as he led the charge.
By the end of the raid, any guards who hadn’t fled lay dead, and Chron now held the critical advantage over any reinforcements. With Jenkins’ eye in hand, they swiftly moved to the generator door, where Chron pressed the sergeant’s face to the scanner, unlocking it with a beep. Inside, six reactor cores pulsed with energy, enough to power the entire prison. It's only protectors being two lab technicians and an inactive mech being tested on. One more glowing hot grab, BOOM.
The smartest of the rats grouped together to start punching codes in to pop out the power cores they'd need. Those unable to figure that much out, knew that one of the remaining technicians would. A cowboy's interrogation left the last one the choice pick to launch out another two cores from the system. Chron barking orders and grabbing the batteries into his cold hand, the third was for him of course. A pit crew of rats following his orders under punishment of beratement in front of their peers worked dutifully. They tore out extraneous metal plating, unplugged key power chords, and plucked free circuitry to attach onto new homes. By the end of it the last technician couldn't believe his eyes, in less than two minutes these rats had been ordered to construct a power port for a core meant to power the most cutting edge aircraft.
"Let's get some grub." Their valiant leader commanded as his newfound power was put to the test, boosting his steps thrice what they crossed before. The Ratpack leaving a trail of destruction in its wake, tread upon by cheering rats who were starting to taste their freedom. All the more assured when they arrived to find Nate with his Regulator still intact, and Tsavo now rocking metal of his own. Laying down their batteries the far stranger mechs than his own scavenged suit of armor began to draw from them. While The Regulator's nanomachines siphoned down into a straw to draw the power through each of them like a blood's circulation system, The Spirit of Vengeance mimicked life as well. Leaning its head down into the battery like a trough of water the steed of souls and steel drank the power from the core. Tsavo prepared for the worst,
"We may have to split up again, my plan is to take their rock puller and set it to push. Should work like our metal legs, just a bit bigger."
"I think we got a lot betta' chances together Partner."
"Then who's gonna kill the engine to keep 'em from stopping our course?"
"What about the bridge?"
The two relics of the past turned their ancient gears 'round towards the meek rat who piped up. GZA simply thinking of the easiest solution surely couldn't be that easy. Cubert cuts in quick, "It does control the MC, Meteor Crane Mark-" Timmy sliding by him with a little sashay to fully interrupt him announces,
"It's even got the main engine controls. Turn it up or off!" His excitement causes a cartwheel giving Chron room to add. "It's got everything we need Tsavo. I work better with a team." The rats feeling their comradery peak, began to scramble towards the northern door.
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"Everything we got, against one point." The Regulator hissed as its fully powered nanomachines tightened their bond, a net of steel.
"We get to the bridge, we steer this rock back down stateside." Tsavo curses as his scythe hums the final protest of its most recent, now relying on a new stolen power.
"Then we take one of the escape shuttles. Surely there's plenty at the Bridge. It's where I'd put it." Chron says confidently as his Colossus Thermo-Unguis begins to glow with the heat of fission.
The mechs lead the course, the initial group of guards found a brief hell before their true afterlife. Their minds not comprehending their own destruction as Tsavo's wicked magic combined with the brutality of molten metal and living steel was too much for any mortal man. It would fall to steel and tactics to truly test this jailbreak. The first dirty trick, one of Tsavo's own. The long hallway branched off into many sections of the station, and all along this straight and narrow were vents. Opening up with the hiss of siphoning out from in, Nate felt his worry and acted. No words needed for this action his nanomachines flew out around them. Shaving down the upper 25% off his chassis, his legs would be more than enough to finish his own Pickett's Charge. He'd have shaved off even more had they not arrived at the large bay door that would allow a full sized mech suit through its maw.
Not even the most clever of rats could have known what was going to come from those vents, but everyone felt safer seeing the Regulator jam each vent with a swarm of nanomachines for each segment they passed. Much like the wars Nate had fought, this was victorious at a cost. The shotgun he had used so freely was now ten feet to his left scattered into a thick web.
What's the harm in a little more? He thought as those locusts of steel fled his legs just enough to support what load remained. Feasting on metal, cooking from above as Chron's hand made contact with the center. With a final flurry of blades screaming up at the hinges of the door it scattered out in a molten spray clearing any guards awaiting on the other side. However, they were far better prepared than a line of men with guns anymore.
Forty feet back stood the ever vigilant Doctor Heimlich Schmidt, behind him four mech suits. These four suits would put every riot squad and guard to shame with their technical power, but could it handle threats their own size? Their captor greeted them with a mock clapping,
"Ah, so you’ve made it this far! Quite impressive... Truly, I must offer my hearty congratulations. To evade my guards, disrupt my work, and yet- here you are, still clawing your way forward. Sehr beeindruckend!" He lets out a soft chuckle, the disdain all too apparent. "You’ve almost earned my respect… but not quite."
His tone sharpens, his voice lowering with a hint of something ominous. "Now, before you stumble any further, there is someone who would like to… have a word with you. You may recognize the voice." He pauses, as if relishing the suspense.
But before he can finish, the comm line sputters, interrupted by a burst of static. The Regulator still piecing back together its drones from the vents just outside has little defense compared to the scrapped together Ratpack. Their comms spinning to life with a face familiar to one, yet not the other. Both their hands flipping up to STOP them,
Chron's button found failure as what anti-theft systems were in the mining equipment were laughable already. Nate's own began with a sound he didn't understand nor have the time to. The revolving of metal gears rather than electric channels lead to the face of William T. Sherman.
“Well, well… look who clawed their way to the final gate. I’ll give you three credits; it takes a special kind of grit to make it this far." He looks towards Tsavo's monitor to find it blank, but his gaze does linger on the Regulator's signature on his screen. "You’ve run a good chase, and I can respect that. Most would’ve given up long ago. But not you, no… you had a goal in mind. A fire. And here we are.”
This bought time for Doctor and Posse alike to prepare themselves for what was coming. Heimlich Schmidt had his words ready, time to test Nate's years of conditioning here on the Devil's Rock. To show that old codger that it truly isn't Tsavo who controls him, but the good doctor instead. However the Regulator had also gathered up its own matter, and rather than waste anymore it raised its arm. The long barrel of his shotgun reformed as the vents behind them breathe freely once more.
BLAM The explosion of tiny machines swarmed out at the doctor dotting his upper body with vicious life.
"Shut up." The horrible little machines began burrowing and searching for the circuits that made this machine so noisy. The room erupted into violence immediately, every one of the mech suits targeting the Regulator. Nearly every caliber known to man in this year 1985 AD fired out at him, even the unmanned mech behind the doctor fired its guns wildly. Though none would reach him as The Stampede, a missile rack that fired spectral horses had a rider for every projectile coming his way. An explosion of life from death, the smoke giving time for Chron to fix his mech.
"Cubert! How do I get this guy off my screen?"
"On it boss!" The rats worked diligently, their smokescreen vanishing rapidly.
A long rifle twice the length of the men gathered there aimed at the Rattpack's legs, detecting a swarm of heat signatures. One shot would be more than enough to halve the target rich environment working on the loudest machine in the room. The only obstacle in the way is the one that appears in the bullet's path. Purple energy hardening into steel explodes with the bullet, as a twin blade jams into the rifle's side. Before the next seven could find their mark in the warden's metal frame it dashed back just in time. This scythe wielding mech with his bag of tricks has been a problem well before Dr. Heimlich was born, now he could try to do something about it.
If Tsavo would corrupt and mislead everyone, then perhaps it was best he tasted what betrayal really felt like! The Doctor put his plan into action as he raised the hand of the Witch. There were many strange materials at work in the mechs with the inner workings of the Frankenstein's Ratpack, Tsavo's mechanical horse almost breathing as it cycles back and forth from nuclear to other energy, Nate's nanomachine hivemind, and now Magnets.
The Colossus Thermo-Unguis rose up with a snap, Bobby flinging a whole eight feet into the air from the swift movement. Each long digit wrapped around the scythe arm of The Spirit of Vengeance, the heat scorching the metal immediately. However once the force was applied it was more than enough to completely overload the smaller frame. Heat and pressure combined to burst the arm and scythe it held into a prismatic purple plume of light and screams. Chron didn't even have time to realize just how catastrophic this would be for Tsavo nested somewhere right next to that arm. Ethereal... Rearm... the screams whispered around Chron as he finally had control enough to yank his arm back. Swallowing air with a loud shrill hiss, the hole where his arm had rested quickly filled and formed another scythe in its hand. Now even longer formed from both sources beating in its chest.
These Wardens were the best of the best and wouldn't wait around for Tsavo to conjure up some kind of biblical spell, they'd stop him now. The Sentinel fired out a half clip of shotgun shells, all finding small nanomachines instead of spectral steel. Nate charged forward, eating up all the lead with his massive frame, throwing his arm up into the air three strands of steel would form out. All the extra range he'd need calculated with a slam of his fist onto his free arm's mount control, providing him a brand new option. A bit of irony to show these drivers who are in control of this ship now, as a Heavy Nanobot Whip lashed out towards his tormenting doctor's mecha. Wrapping around it each machine fought with all its might to wrap, crush, and then yank the entire frame towards him.
As the steel feet were yanked from the ground and barely landed back upright adjacent to the Regulator it only found more pain. Standing this close was dangerous enough, but with all his nanomachines packed in this tight? What's the harm in a little less? The plates and cockpit protecting him thinned out to create a swarm of hyperactive buzzing nanites eager to feast on their captured quarry. Like a lord of flies Nate is obscured from view as the sounds of teeth crunching through plate muddled the frustrated cries of the Witch's pilot desperately trying to escape. The remaining Sentinel aimed its shotgun and tried to save his commanding officer, but his approach towards Nate even with this safe distance was the last mistake he could've made. Not as big but twice as loud the engine most akin to diesel buzzed forward. With the Witch immobilized all of his actions would be his own again.
The wheels in his heels propelled him quickly towards the guards trying to prevent Nate's revenge. The warmed hand reached out and grabbed the sentinel behind the approaching guard. The range shocked all as piston fired, axes rotated, and motorized joints shot out 10 meters to launch that hand.
Yanking the Sentinel close to how Nate had done to the Doctor in his witch, Chron drew a segmented knife made from fuel caps and mining heads layered over one another. Stabbing it out into the Sentinel adjacent to him he dragged the twin mecha together to nuke them both right here. However these two were trained to fight in a unit, each of them turning their shotguns into CQB quarterstaffs to fight off hand and blade. The lack of explosive finale only drives Chron's brutal nature on, the rat nature in his brain forcing out all these more modern worries as he focused on one thing. 'Kill before I'm killed.'
As the Witch whirred its engines to force all magnets away from him, he searched for words to pull at Nate's mind just as his metal. "This is your moment to choose right Nate! You can help us stop Tsav-" The confidence remained but his words couldn't as the nanites still in his body burrow deeper. The ones outside his hull trying to save their burrowing brethren eat at the metal and reinforced glass hungrily. Nate grabs the end of his whip and tightens it, just as the lawmen had done round his neck times before. What this doctor didn't realize, is that even if Nate could've been saved from this path of crime at one point...
"I'm just set in my ways Doc'." The Deck Sweeper Shotgun pressed against the glass barrel with a loud thud, cracking the glass and sucking up the nanomachines inside the barrel's eye. When the machines flew back out with the full explosive force they destroyed that thinned barrier and shred through the man inside. The Witch's final protocol activating it tries to launch every nanomachine away, but each motor working together forming a bridge like ants crossing water. Much like nature, this unity was stronger than the singular oppressor demanding they move. The whip tightened around the Witch split in every direction, tearing the remains asunder. Giving the Hive mech the window to fire another rifle round right into Nate's swarm.
The shot fires through the swarm, doing little damage and passing through towards its true target. The sniper mecha stationed on all four legs at the corner of the room had aimed directly for the humanoid head of The Spirit of Vengeance. A direct hit knocked that head back and a violet spray flew like blood, before both man, mech, and miasma snapped out of its sensors. The Hive turns quickly to find the missing mecha, but Tsavo is no longer in this room.
The Ratpack's brawl continues as both Sentinels try to shoot at him, only to be met with a CQB skill that only being a rat in prison could teach you. Throwing the massive clawed Thermo-Unguis out, the first Sentinel used his shotgun to deflect the super heated attack. However, the tricksiness ensured there is No Escape from his Executions. The claw keeps all its momentum slamming into the sentinel who has just slammed the barrel of his shotgun into the Ratpack's side. Before that trigger is pulled the entire upper body is turned red hot as Chron finds his mark. The Nuclear Cavalier bleeding heat aggressively between the trio brawling was cooking them all up. The shells in his shotgun just about to blast Chron erupt in their casings and obliterate the Sentinel. Chron's rat fur drenched wet with sweat is no deterrent as he throws his entire frame backwards.
A Backswing Cut made from a swan dive backwards into the dazed Sentinel left standing. Four claws jammed between the mech's shoulders and the thumb directly into the cockpit. This rat was no prey, but a predator. Immobilized but not destroyed he used that segmented knife to yank a knee out of its stable position. Both titans falling into the deck's floor with a loud thud, metal melting into a mercury like substance on the floor in the trail left under Chron's prey. All that was left was the Hive Sniper who went looking for an enemy, and found more troublingly a total lack of allies. Trying to even the field it launched out a swarm of flying drones armed to kill.
Sherman assured Nate and Chron, "Make your move, but know this: I’m not here to stop you. Just here to watch, and make sure you understand that the eyes of history are on you."
Even with each one containing armor piercing rounds loaded into an M249 Light Machine Gun. Every drone has a set of grenades set to EMP the two escaping criminals in their damn mechs. However it received an alert that made the pilot begin to panic, Target Found: T???h???e??? ???P???h???a???n???t???o~~m~~. The last warden pressed his silos to empty out the last of his drones, but found the button too hard to press down.
"I am the Righteous Surrender."
Perturbing to the general, but horrific to the pilot as all men heard his voice and the machines slowed down. Every drone slowed to a crawl before stopping, the Hive's rifle trigger frozen in place as well as the mechanisms squeezing it. No matter what he did, none of them were moving, nor falling..? His mind tried to comprehend how even the first spent casing from the foremost drone seemed to hover, frozen in time.
"The Banished Avenger."
The Ratpack and Regulator in unison moved forward, their movements nearly synchronized only askew from their differences in shape. Their bound quickening as the screaming aura that is Tsavo's magic wreaths their weapons in death. Segmented knife becoming a sword as thin as nanocarbon, three headed whip now seven. Tsavo spoke to every man alive and dead when he declared,
"I won't bow to the will of a mortal, feeble and normal. I am eternal immortal."
The weapons of killers and killed fly out, the sword piercing the most vital part of metal, the whips grabbing every drone and returning them to their sender. Pilot murdered by blade and mech by its own underlings as first they crash like boulders onto its frame before a flash of color sets them ablaze. Chron and Nate defeating the last of the forces of justice on this barge that would try to stop them. Only one more remained, safely in America.
Sherman watching on knew that they'd do something crazy, and while he was more than willing and able to let it just happen. It would look bad if he didn't try at least one more thing, looking at his monitor he pressed just one more button. "We didn't have to do this the hard way. I've heard a lot of good things about you Nate. I could've offered you two a job." The general says almost morosely as he turns the gears on his machine. The industrial power chamber that allowed him to hack two mechs from stateside all wired into a battery that looked like a man. It even had a name like one, and for the first time in over a decade it heard it.
"Tell your friends goodbye Lester." The revolving arms change again, cycling through to send another transmission. The vents Nate had worked so hard to keep closed did only produce air, until this transmission came through. Toxic gas sputtered up through the metal tubes and chambers, the first to notice being one of the posse not clad in steel. RZA began scratching at his throat, gagging and as Jonathan rushed over to help him he fell over. Spores in the air clinging to their lungs forced Bobby to his knees. Timmy stops his dance of victory to rush to Bobby's side. Chron sensing his pack crumbling looked to them and cried out, "No! Quit breathin' boys!" Jonathan coughed blood onto RZA's desiccating face, and Bobby screamed at Timmy to get back. Tossing his rifle to him instead, "Keep 'em safe Timmy-boy. My Son."
Chron wouldn't let his posse die, even if he was a villain worthy of the Devil's Rock he wouldn't let them suffer and die like this. The Ratpack rushed past towards the doors, hurriedly making his way to the monitor to shut the vents and the doors. They'd need all the time they could get, this gas was gonna kill them all. The wardens previously held off would be rallying here soon, so Chron would need every second to make this happen. Nate joins Tsavo at the bridge, looking down at their stolen home miles below them.
Nate stared down and wondered, did Barbury do more good smuggling slaves to freedom after he left the gang? Did Lester finally quit smoking after he left the posse? Sherman tried talking to him more, but he tuned him out in the way only an old dwarf could. These nostalgic thoughts welling up feelings inside of him, but despite what the doctor had seen, there wasn't one shred of regret. Every sheriff shot, every businessman hung, every confederate burned. Everyone he knew was a killer, it was how you survived in America, at least he'd made some true and genuine bonds along the way with those killers.
Tsavo's eyes were beaded with a flame like the devil's as he looked down and wondered, did Barbury die fighting? Did Lester get bought? Would Eddie be proud of them now? He Should Be. Those murderous hands clad in metal traced over the controls, it really was all here. The gas creeping into the room stirred him into action, he'd need to get this into position before any gas killed him. However as he tried to move its controls, they would not budge. Locked down stateside Sherman couldn't help but laugh. Tsavo had broken out of so many prisons, and now he thought it would be just that easy? Cursing he slams his fist into the controls, no response. Chron however does find success as the vents seal shut around them, keeping only three rats contaminated by this mutating toxin.
Nate turns from Tsavo raging at the computer to see the rat's skin sloughing off their bones. Stepping forward he delivered mercy through the dual barrels of his deck sweeper. Two problems solved, but the last one proved fatal. The doors remained open from their earlier destruction. Allowing the last of the wardens to arrive with guns loaded and primed. As the Ratpack knelt down over Bobby's body it felt a wall of lead make contact with its back. They'd run out of time sealing the vents, Tsavo slammed his fist down again.
"THIS IS NOT HOW WE ESCAPE!" He shouted out to the void beyond the glass.
Chron's body began to vibrate, and soon his shadow separated from him in a flickering glitch running away from him. The world around the rat dissolved until he saw the mutagen gas begin to take hold of his pack. Chron wouldn't let his posse die, even if- The Spirit's hand rested on his shoulder turning him to face the rider. "Get this rock on course." A moment of protest, cut off as that glitching shadow ran past his view.
Vertigo doesn't quite describe the tumbling sensation he felt in his brain as Tsavo insisted, "Now!" he moves past Chron twirling his scythe into a readied stance. The Regulator forming up with Tsavo beheld the rat's skin slip free from its place, their muscle tumbling out like severed strands, their eyes flashing between life and death. Rather than just a horrible flesh melting toxin, this was transforming them. Trapping their spirits within twisted flesh as every open wound filled with muscle too heavy for the bones to support. RZA unable to walk drags his newfound body towards the others, the muscle allowing it but the limp legs dragging slowed him.
Chron would have to trust the rest of his posse still standing to get this plan through. 'That guy can't die' his own words coming back to make him wonder if that immortality he preached about would extend to anyone else. Throwing his fists down in frustration he'd need both hands to pry this bridge free. Exiting the Regulator only made the cries of the rats more audible, he would have hesitated had he not heard mercy being dispensed. The humming of scythe blades, the buzzing of nanomachines, it would be the drum beat to keep his hands moving. Hands that had seen it all, forced all kinds of regulations into place, hacking was in his long resume of being the most prolific engineer in America. Despite his assured success, the fear of failure sets in as he begins to wheeze. A side of his face slumping as the controls flick back online, at the cost of every member. Not one left healthy.
Nate looked down to his hand, a spattering of coughed blood in his palm. A set of drones flying down to clean it free from him made him think. Gonna burn out every last drop, that'd make Eddie proud. Turning his self perpetuating swarm into overdrive he sent out all the swarm that wasn't needed to hold him upright. No matter how metalic their new sinews were, they were devoured by the metal locusts near instantly, the Rats expired. Those in their mechs still only afforded some time left, and the last of the wardens would arrive soon. The Rattpack knelt down around Chron to protect him best it could.
"It's done!" He tried to throw his hands up in victory, but they wouldn't move. Slamming forward his head collides into the desk. Even Tsavo, once drowned already, was finding his anatomy made even more foreign. Twisting his outside to better match the wicked heart inside. The Phantom slams his fist down into the vent controls furiously, destroying his wrist from the force.
"THIS IS NOT HOW WE ESCAPE!" He shouted to the void surrounding the falling rock.
Chron's near lifeless body fighting for control, began to vibrate and soon his shadow separated from him in a glitching flicker. Standing up from his body he rushed towards the vent controls. He's seen this all before, though he is far from the only witness to this reality warping. While two men were present, one the source of power glowing in a purple haze, the other both alive and dead. Somewhen nearby, Tsavo declared the same sentence at the same time regardless of their positions in that time. While America had its magic choked out of it viciously, there was still one final remnant riding atop a creature that held in its heart millions.
THE KHANNATE AGREES
Those willing, the chieftains, the braves, the betrayed. Even those unwilling, the victims, the lawmen, the peace talkers. All would make it so Chron was omnipresent, bilocal in a way. The one who could fix the vents, and the bridge, was him.
The vents seal shut, and the bridge turns direction before shutting down entirely. The sudden slingshot feeling of being on the controls on opposite ends of the room flying back to the center. Chron stood upright looking around his arms fully working, his face able to smile nervously, and his feet turning him to see...
RZA, Bobby, and Jonathan were all in a horrible state of mutation but thankfully no longer suffering from it. The nanomachines launched out by Nate now formed a wall in the long corridor, a strange premonition that more were coming. Tsavo put his hand on Chron's shoulder and spoke to him in a voice only grizzled by hatred and not muscle distortion. "I'll take the controls, it's still got the momentum."
Chron hadn't expected a full congratulations but it seemed Tsavo forgot a step of this plan, "Hey we still gotta figure out a way off this thing before it crashes."
"Get to it, we can't let this just fall anywhere." Even with a metal mask covering her face he could hear the sinister intent. Tsavo took control of the main bridge, with no more power left there was no resistance to the sticks. The rock turned slowly to his will, but it did listen to its new master taking the reins well enough for him. Cubert, the ever diligent points out the side window, "Boss! Boss! Look over there!"
Offering another blessing from whatever was overseeing this escape, a recommissioned c130 military ship. Carries supplies back and forth real nice and gentle like, with the Rattpack being able to make it with some good timing so would everyone else! The Rats explain this happily to Chron, the big happy ending now in sight. All of these outlaws are free again to terrorize the law and those protected by it. However, Tsavo wasn't budging from that saddle he'd found. Those hellish eyes focusing in it's likely he didn't even hear Chron try again,
"Alright we got an escape plan, lets get outta here boys."
It was Nate who spoke up for his partner, the pair that never split.
"Better catch your ride then. I'm gonna see this one through."
Chron was a rat at his core, he may stand as tall as this dwarf and have a degree in engineering. However he valued survival above most anything else at all, and when he looks to Tsavo that's not what he sees. These guys are something else, and perhaps it was better to let them be that way.
"Well good luck then." Trying to find more words to express was harder as Tsavo began his speech. "Thanks." Chron Steelfangz told Nathaniel De La Croix for the last time. Then taking his rat gang onto his mech, riding him like soldiers on a tank they speeded off down the side hallway. Leaving Nate alone with Tsavo Smith. What a run it had been, leaving the civil war only to find another outlaw with a hatred for the government. For a time there was talk over who hated them more, but it was settled then that Tsavo didn't have much else other than that hate.
As Tsavo Smith descends a blazing meteor upon America, his voice would seethe with righteous fury, echoing the raw hatred he holds for all those he sees as his enemies. His words would be a manifestation of his wrath, sharpened by centuries of betrayal and genocide. All with Nate there to support him, tuning out all the words of Sherman trying to dissuade them.
"I descend from the heavens, not as a savior, but as a judge. I have watched your cities rise on the bones of my people, your monuments gleam with the blood of the innocent. You build your empire on stolen land, thinking yourselves gods. But gods bleed. You bleed."
"You were one of my own De La Croix, there's really nothing I could say to convince you this is all pointless?"
"You think yourselves safe, sheltered by stone and steel, but no wall can hold back the judgment of the forgotten. I am the vengeance born from your crimes, the fire in the earth you sought to tame. Every brick in this White House, every drop of mortar, every splintered piece of wood soaked with our suffering!"
The Devil's rock cascaded down, roaring in flame as it broke through the atmosphere. The Ratpack with rats loaded in tight as they can, launch the Thermo-Unguis claw out like a grapple hook. All the rest of his nuclear drive in this motion, to disconnect the legs and have the body fly off with that hand. A loud SHUNT of force and they were all flying towards that shuttle.
"We've been planning some kind of stunt for years now. The economy depends on things like this to happen, you're undoing a lot of hard work Nate."
"Shut the hell up." Nate slams his monitor, cracking Sherman's arrogant face but not disrupting the feed.
"I am the one you feared, the nightmare you tried to bury with your lies. But I rise, unbound and eternal."
From the dark expanse of space, it hurls toward Earth, an ember turning wildfire, trailing a storm of flames and smoke. The East Coast stirs beneath it:
"I hate you. I hate the way your arrogance festers. I hate the way you hold yourselves above the spirits of the earth, mocking the forces you will never control. I hate every breath you draw, every word you utter, every life you dare to claim as your own. I am the end of your empire, the reckoning of centuries."
Maine sees its light first, a fiery streak slicing the night sky, blazing across New England, leaving rippling shockwaves in its wake. Cities below are bathed in a hellish glow, the ground trembling as the meteor roars overhead, unyielding, unstoppable.
"Doesn't matter, this should work well enough for us. I'd thank you boys, if either of you were listening."
Nate didn't have any words, he was a cynic and a murderer. If this is how he would go he was proud. Tsavo however was too focused to even realize his last partner, his huckleberry was here beside him. As their target was nearly in view now, there was nothing left but his hate. Chron was left to watch him and his gang looking on from their liferaft of steel and gasoline. All but three accounted for, they waited.
"As I fall upon you, feel the weight of every forgotten soul, every broken promise. Burn in the fires of your own creation, and know that in the ashes of your kingdom, I will stand, a testament to the vengeance of the earth!"
Washington D.C. braces, the nation's capital shadowed by its approaching doom. As it closes in, the air ripples with fury, the sheer pressure scorching everything in its path.
"You will scream! You will beg! And I will watch, unmoved, as your civilization crumbles into DUST!"
And then; the impact. Three-quarters of a mile from the White House, the earth convulses as the meteor strikes, gouging a monstrous crater into the cityscape. Fire bursts forth, cascading in waves, filling the air with heat and ash.
A silence descends, just for a breath a stillness as though even the world holds its breath in awe and terror. Then, the blast wave surges outward, sweeping over D.C., echoing the arrival of destruction, absolute and inevitable. Purple and Green, a confluence of vile colors that spelled the doom of all who dared call this their home.
Chron and the Ratpack clung tightly to the hull of the recommissioned C-130, their makeshift lifeboat bucking wildly as the prison asteroid struck earth. The impact tore deep into the ground, throwing up a shockwave that blasted the aircraft back, sending them reeling. Below, the city was a sea of ruin as fires raged, swallowing every structure in their path, devouring whatever dared to stand.
People staggered through the haze as far as Georgia, their faces smeared with soot, as they coughed and choked on air thick with dust and radiation. A faint green glow emanated from the heart of the impact, casting sickly light on the charred remains of buildings and the broken streets, and strange shadows danced within, as though spirits of the dead had risen to haunt the devastation. That darkness lingering for months, as war came back.
Only one person survived the Devil's Rock crashing down to America.
