[b]IDRG Pyramid[/b]

Director Dyer peered over the city, wondering where the frogs were hiding. It had been too long since the subjects had escaped, and their patrols had yet to find even a sight of them. Not to say they haven’t seen signs, of course. IDRG more or less owned this city. It was an unsaid truth that what they said went in San Maria. They “liased” with the local law enforcement to ensure the citizenry were protected by cameras lining the streets, giving them a view of the entire city. 

At least they had a view of the entire city. In the weeks since the escape, cameras had been going down across Santa Maria. These cameras also happened to be going out at the site of crimes being stopped by an unknown force, with the criminals claiming they were apprehended by some sort of alien creatures. Dyer knew better, of course. He knew it was the Frogs, and they were taunting him. They were showing that they were here, and they were fighting. 

“You haven’t answered my question, Director,” Jeremy Jackson, the police commissioner of San Maria sat at the other end of Dyer’s desk. His hat was on his one knee, revealing the grey hair spreading from his temples, otherwise his follicles matched his jet black skin. Cracks from weary nights had begun to spread across the commissioner’s face, betraying the man’s recent struggles in holding the crime epidemic that consumed Pinebluff from doing the same to San Maria. “Did you have a containment breach of...something recently? We’ve been getting...reports.”

The fact that the authorities were starting to ask questions rubbed Dyer the wrong way. He had enough problems to deal with without the bureaucrats getting involved as well.

“Commissioner,” Dyer smiled at the man, “have I ever hidden something from you before?”

Jackson shook his head, “No. No you haven’t. But if what we’re hearing is correct, the Bay Cities have their first set of metahumans. We may need to work closely on this.”

“If that is true, expanded cooperation will be necessary to ensure our city remains peaceful, I agree,” Dyer extended his hand to the officer, who shook it. “San Maria is too stable to risk letting this kind of chaos engulf us as well.”

With a nod, the commissioner left, and Dyer went back to peering out the window.

[center]**********[/center]

“Guys,” Angel said through the special ear pieces Clara had designed for the team, “sounds like something’s going down in the Angel Grove section of the city. Local chatter, no police presence at this time.”

From her apartment, Angel had become their eyes and ears in the city. With a small police scanner and a...covert plug into the city’s goings on, she could feed them any disturbance that happened to come up. She was also invaluable during the day, as Art had decreed they needed to stay hidden. When she wasn’t at school or doing homework, Angel was watching the IDRG pyramid.

“Guys,” Mozart said to his siblings, “they’re playin’ our song.”

“Thanks, Angel,” Clara thanked their friend. “That’s where the Bandits have been trying to expand into the city.”

The Bayside Bandits basically ruled the neighboring city of Pinebluff. They were a gang with a penchant for creating chaos and corruption wherever they went. Their leader, known only as El Bandito, more or less ruled Pinebluff as a king, and the authorities there were fighting a fruitless campaign against his men. But he wasn’t the kind of guy who was content with having one city under his sway, and now San Maria was on his wish list. 

The Frogs had clashed with his men a few times in the time since they escaped from the scientists, and each time it ended with the Bandits behind bars. The last few weeks had seen increased movement from the gang, however, leading Art to believe something big was on its way.

“More Bandits?” Ludwig sighed. “They just don’t learn, do they?”

“I mean, we have constantly been giving them concussions,” Bach added in. “They can’t help being forgetful.”

“CTE is nothing to joke about, B,” Clara reprimanded her youngest brother.

“Whatever, they’re dirtbags,” the young frog shrugged. “Let’s go crack some skulls.”

“I like where your head’s at, bro,” Ludwig cracked his knuckles. “We doin’ this or not?”

“Yea, we’re doing this,” Mozart nodded. “Let’s move out.”

In unison the frogs took off towards their destination. In the time since their escape the city had become their domain. They learned its nooks and crannies, allowing them to traverse the city in surprising speed, even on their own. It was now their habitat, and everyone else was just living in them. It had boosted all their spirits near immediately knowing they finally had a home.

Mozart, Clara, and Bach could move easier over the rooftops. Ludwig, being by far the biggest of the four, was a bit more plodding, and made a bit more noise, but still did pretty well. He lagged behind, but sometimes that worked out to their advantage. The three smaller frogs would soften up the enemy forces before their tank of a brother showed up to clear out the rest.

Before long the frogs were outside the warehouse where the Bandits were setting up. Two tractor trailers were sitting outside, and the gang members were loading cargo from inside into them. Crate upon crate was loaded onto the truck, and each had a strange emblem of an eye painted in red on the top of them. 

“Well, this is new,” Clara said from over Mozart’s shoulder. “They’re moving someone else’s product. Usually they’re using their own dealers.”

“Who cares who they’re using?” Ludwig asked as he joined the others. “Let’s get in there.”

“Fine, but make sure someone gets some of the product,” Mozart commanded. “We need to find out what the hell they’re moving.”

The four nodded to one another, and Art took the lead, leaping off the roof and landing silently on the roof of one of the trucks. Bach landed next to him, and Clara on the other truck. He motioned for Ludwig to do his thing.

The large, hulking bullfrog kicked himself downward, and landed with a crash in the middle of the assembled gang members. Some of them yelled, some dropped the crates they were carrying and reached for their weapons, but none of them made it very far. Those within Ludwig’s grasp were quickly flying through the air, while the others were surprised by the other three frogs dropping down on top of them. 

“You know,” Bach said as he elbowed a gang member in the gut, “you’d think they’d realize this is our MO at this point.”

“You’d think,” Mozart shrugged as he sprung off his hands and drove his feet into the chest of one of the Bandits who emerged from the warehouse. The two of them tumbled back into the building, where Mozart had his breath stolen from him. The same boxes that the gangsters had been unloading outside were piled almost to the ceiling inside. “Holy shit.”

Art crouched and began making his way silently through the makeshift city of crates. The creaking of wood echoed through the cavernous space as the frog weaved in and out of the towering monoliths. As he made his way closer and closer to the center of the building, the sound of his siblings fighting outside was gradually replaced by the rhythmic chants of a lone voice at the maze’s end.

Mozart turned the final corner of boxes and found himself staring at a scene he didn’t totally understand. Red, jagged runes were painted in a swirling design, terminating in another one of the red eye symbols at its center. On top of the eye, an olive-skinned, dark haired woman stood with her hands raised, the chanting emanating from her mouth. As Art entered the circle, she spun, and glared at him with dead, black eyes. The chanting stopped and she stared into the frog’s eyes. For a brief moment, her visage appeared to change. Like a flash, the smooth, tan skin of her face shrunk in and greyed, her face becoming more of a skull than that of a human. The white robes that hung on her form transformed into soiled, ragged bandages, and her limbs atrophied to skeletal remains. But, as if it was a dream, it was gone.

“What are you?” the woman snarled at Mozart.

“Lady, I could be asking you the same thing,” Art shrugged,pulled the bowstaff off his back, and gave it a twirl. “All I know is you’ve got this stuff the Bandits were running, so that means you’ve gotta go down.”

“Creature,” the woman smiled deceptively at Mozart, “you have no idea what kind of powers I possess.”

Art didn’t really care, if he was being honest. He sprung off his powerful legs and raised the staff over his head. As he came down from the high jump, something odd happened. The air around the woman began to bend, almost if Art had been suddenly plunged underwater. When he landed, the woman was gone.

“As I told you,” her voice came from behind him, “you have no idea.”

He spun around and saw the witch floating fifteen feet above the ground, her hair and robes billowing from an unseen wind, “I don’t know what you are, but you cannot stop us. Our time has finally come, and those that dwell in the darkness between the universes will consume all.”

With that, the chanting started again, but this time it was unnatural. The woman’s voice morphed into a mess of gargles, screams, growls, and hisses. Words, unlike anything Mozart had ever heard, came forth, and the crates filling the warehouse began to shake violently.

Art jumped again, landing on the rafters above just as the crates exploded. From them flowed a torrent of foul-smelling black liquid. It took all of Mozart’s focus not to pass out from the rancid, decayed stench. The oil-like substance sloshed along the floor of the building. It bubbled and gurgled as it circled below the woman, and Art swore he saw viscera swirl through it. It began to reach up, surrounding the chanting witch in a grotesque bubble. It then broke apart, splashing to the ground and draining through the warehouse’s drainage system.

When it did, the witch was gone.

Mozart lept down, and was promptly joined by his siblings. He searched high and low for any sign of the rancid liquid or the woman, but found none.

“Art, we gotta get out of here,” Ludwig implored.

“Did you guys see that?” he responded, still obsessed with finding some sign of what he had witnessed. “That...ooze?”


“We did,” Clara nodded. “But we can talk about it later. Come on. The cops are coming.”

The frogs made their way back to their lair, all the while Mozart tried to make sense of his night.