Byrd Man

The Uncanny X-men; The Next Evolution.

I'm down.

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

was dis UwU

I have now posted twice in the IC and have therefor participated more in this game than I have in any other of it's kind.

@Hillan

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

Remember how last time they dealt with the scepter/tesseract all of them needed to work together, parts of NYC ended up destroyed and the entire city was almost nuked? Going out on a limb, so hear me out, but maybe that's why they decided to work together again?

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

Elysian Fields Trailer Park
10 PM

Little Walter could hear his heartbeat in his ears. For the first time in a long time, the big man was scared. He hadn’t truly felt fear since he was thirteen. He hit a growth spurt that summer and towered over all the boys in junior high. Even when he was a prospect for the Crusaders, low man on the goddamn totem pole, he was still the biggest and meanest son of a bitch in the room. He’d stared down Mexican cartel bosses, survived shootouts with rival MCs, been backed into a dark prison corner by a group of black power gangs. But through it all Walter never lost his cool.

But now?

Whoever or whatever the fuck it was that was out here was unlike anything Little Walter had ever seen. Motherfucker tore through their convoy like it was tissue paper, blew up their haul, and disappeared into the night like a goddamn ghost. He didn't think the bat was supernatural like some of the other morons in the MC. But that didn't mean the bat wasn't a serious son of a bitch. Walter double checked the assault rifle he was carrying before taking a few hesitant steps forward. He started down the small alley between two trailers.

He stopped when he heard a thump and a crash from somewhere nearby. Walter squinted and tried to make out any movement in the darkness. He flinched when gunfire erupted. It was the rapid fire of an automatic weapon firing off just a few rounds. Someone yelled in pain as the gunfire stopped.

And that was when the music started. It was coming from somewhere close, but Walter couldn't’ figure out where. It dawned on him and he pulled his phone out of his pocket. It was the source of the music.

“The fuck?”

---

The surprised biker got three shots off with his gun as Bruce rushed towards him. He felt the slugs whiz past his head and cape as he knocked the gun away with his left hand, his right hand punching the biker in the temple. His arm was wrapped around the dazed Crusader’s throat in a chokehold. The man tried to claw at Bruce’s face and eyes but his hands slid off the slick leather and body armor of Bruce’s cowl. The biker's struggling slowed before stopping altogether. He let the unconscious man’s body crumple to the ground. before he took off into the darkness.

“Thermal vision,” he whispered as he climbed on top of a dilapidated single wide. His lenses flickered before switching to the eerie blue hue. He could see heat signatures of over twelve figures in the immediate area. Some cradled guns, others were unarmed. Overhead drone surveillance showed that there were a few more people near the entrance of the trailer park standing guard around the Crusaders' motorcycles.

The closets armed man was just below him in the alley between two trailers. He was taller than Bruce by at least six inches, larger than even Blackwood, and he carried an assault rifle in his large hands. Bruce pressed a few buttons mounted on his left wrist gauntlet. In his HUD, he saw notifications confirming that every biker and a few of the junkies had cellphones. After a few quick taps, he connected with the phones and queued up Sinatra.

Mood Music

He watched as the big man fished the phone from his pocket and tried in vain to turn off the music. He watched the drone footage as the rest of the men with phones tried the same. A smirk appeared on Bruce’s face as he pressed a button. He sent out a signal to the phones that sent an electrical pulse to the batteries, turning each mobile device into a 50,000 volt taser.

Bodies dropped across the trailer park and writhed in pain. He made his move quickly. He leapt from the trailer and hurried through the dark towards the exit. Those he could sneak past he did. Those he had to fight, he fought. One tweaker charged him with a rusty knife. He countered the attack before striking the heel of his boot into the man’s kneecap and driving his face into the ground. Another biker he landed on and spun him to the ground, an armbar breaking his left humerus and shoulder. He was now less than fifty yards from the exit of the trailer park. The only thing standing in his way: Blackwood himself.

“C’mon on out,” Blackwood screamed into the dark. “You done took down everyone else, you son of a bitch.”

Bruce stepped out of the dark. A smile appeared on Blackwood’s face when he saw him. The burly biker held up his shotgun and twisted it into a bow with his bare hands.

“I don’t need no fucking shotgun to take your ass out.”

---

Camden & Young Industrial Electroplating
Gotham Industrial Park
10:15 PM

Selina felt the lock give a millisecond before it made the click. The hinges on the fire door squealed as she pushed it open. Through the door was a giant cavern of space. Selina slowly closed the door behind her as she entered. She imagined the space had once been filled with the machines of Camden & Young, machines that ran around the clock and manned by workers doing their part to keep the wheels of American industry turning.

But that was a long time ago. The machines were long gone and only the sad, empty husk of the building remained. Across the open space was a flight of stairs that led up to a room thirty or so feet above the floor. Back in the day that was the supervisor’s office. Even from this far away she could see the soft glow of light from the door’s window.

Whiz kid Stephanie was able to locate the source of the hacker to the industrial park, but even she was limited by technology. The closest she could narrow it down to was within a six block radius. That was when Selina turned to the riddle left after the hack.

How do you spell candy with two letters?

C and Y.

Camden & Young.

Selina pulled the snubnosed pistol from her purse as she approached the stairs leading up to the office.

---

Elysian Fields Trailer Park
10:20 PM

Blackwood roared as he threw a heavy metal burn barrel at Bruce. The barrel tumbled through the air, fire and ash spilling from it. Bruce rolled out of the way just as the barrel crashed into the ground and exploded in a ball of fire.

“Come on, motherfucker,” Blackwood yelled. He slowly strutted towards Bruce. “Show me what you got!”

Bruce pressed a few buttons on his wrist and the drone swooped in from above, firing off missiles at Blackwood. They hit the biker flush and flew him backwards into a trailer. Bruce pulled a small disk from his utility belt and rushed forward. Blackwood pulled himself out of the wreck of the trailer and shakily got back to his feet. The drone buzzed near him and he reached out. He grabbed it and ripped it apart in a shower of sparks and metal.

“Enough of this bullshit,” he roared.

He ran towards Bruce as Bruce ran towards him. At the last second, Bruce dipped low as Blackwood tried to wrap his arms around him. He slid under Blackwood’s legs and popped up. He scaled the large man’s back and slapped the metal disk on Blackwood’s temple. It let out a high-pitched whine and Blackwood tried to reach it. He froze in place and collapsed to his knees in a spasming wreck.

“Make it stop!”

Bruce ignored Blackwood’s pleas. The disk was designed to send electrical impulses through the body. Low-grade impulses that stimulated the muscles in the body at such high speed and frequency that it incapacitated the person wearing it. For all Blackwood’s metahuman strength, he was still limited by human physiology as everyone else. Same nerves and same nerve endings.

Sirens were beginning to ring out through the area. Bruce could see a fire truck on the overpass where the cargo van had exploded. Off in the distance a chopper was approaching. He saw the spotlight sweeping over the expressway. Bruce mounted Blackwood’s motorcycle, started it with a kick, and sped off into the night.

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

I'm making the Question as my secondary next season and no one can fucking stop me

@Simple Unicycle

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

The East End
9:34 PM

Selina walked up the rickety stairwell to the apartment building’s fourth floor. She didn’t venture to the East End if she could help it. It brought back… memories, that was the word for it. They were memories she would rather forget. Looking at the sad, faded blue paint on the corridor walls reminded her of the building she grew up in. She wondered if her mom still lived in that little one bedroom apartment. It wasn’t that far from here, just a block or two away, and it would be easy to swing by after she was done here.

But she’d left for a reason. Twelve years ago Selina walked out the door and never looked back. Her mom had been passed out on the couch with that needle still stuck in her arm. She was a husk of the woman Selina had once known her as. It would be a small miracle if her mom still had that apartment. It would be an even bigger miracle if she was still alive. Either way, Selina decided to let the past stay in the past as she knocked on the door of 4C.

“What’s the password?” a voice asked from behind the door.

“I brought a burrito,” Selina said, holding a plastic takeout bag up to the peephole.

She heard a series of locks disengaging. The door opened and a dainty, pale hand snatched the burrito out of Selina’s grasp. She smiled as she watched the teenage girl disappear into the apartment. She was amazed that the girl never gained weight. For as much garbage as she packed in, she was still rail thin.

“Don’t forget to take the foil off this time,” Selina said. She entered the apartment and closed the door behind her. “And chew, please.”

“Mmfhfmf,” the girl said with a mouth full of food.

“What did I say?” Selina asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Sorry,” she said sheepishly after swallowing. “It just hits the spot, you know?”

Selina nodded and looked around the studio apartment. It was spartan to say the least. The walls were bare, a single mattress rested on the hardwood floor and a naked lightbulb dangled from the ceiling. The only other furniture in the room was an overturned plastic milk crate upon which sat a laptop worth more than a place twice as big as this apartment.

You wouldn’t think it to look at the surroundings, but sixteen year old Stephanie Brown was worth almost a million dollars. And every bit of those gains had been ill gotten.

“What’s your latest scam,” Selina asked as she tested the mattress.

“You’re gonna love this.”

Stephanie sat the wreckage of her burrito down on the floor and scooted up to the computer. A few clicks on the keyboard and mouse and she pulled up a site. Selina leaned in to look at the screen. She furrowed her brow at the very basic webpage that seemed to be straight from 2003.

“South Dakota state probate?” she asked.

“You betcha,” Stephanie said in her best faux midwestern accent. “In almost every state there’s a law that if you die without an heir, your assets are turned over to the state government after a certain amount of time. When the time comes to transfer to the state it’s just a simple movement of money from bank account A to bank account B. I’ve got a program that intercepts that transfer and skims off of it. Not much, mind you. Not enough to really go noticed. If it is noticed they chalk it up to accounting errors. So far I’ve gotten about fifty grand from the unmourned dead of South Dakota.”

“Jesus,” Selina sighed. She shook her head. “What happened to the days when thieves used to have to work for it?”

“I am working,” Stephanie said, taking another bite from her burrito. “Work smarter, not harder. Isn’t that what people who actually work say?”

“I’ll take your word for it. I just know I actually like to feel like I'm stealing something instead of just looking at numbers on a screen.”

"How very analogue of you," Stephanie laughed.

Selina reached into her purse and pulled out her cellphone while Stephanie finished off the already mortally wounded burrito.

“I do need your help with something though,” she said as she typed out a message on her phone. “I'm trying to track a blackmailer and fellow hacker.”

“A white hat job?” Stephanie asked.

“Not exactly. More of a gray area.”

Selina held up her phone. She had written a message in the memo section, but hadn’t saved it.

"PRETTY SURE I AM BEING MONITORED. B-MAN IS LISTENING AND TRACKING MVMENTS"

Stephanie nodded slowly as she read the screen.

“Okay…,” she said slowly before turning to her computer. “Let’s see what we can do.”

---

Unincorporated Gotham
9:40 PM

Bruce weaved in and out of traffic as he raced down the expressway on the bike. The cargo van ahead of him was going much faster than it should have been capable of. After all, it was loaded down with illegal weapons. Buckshot pellets whizzed by his head and he looked back to see Blackwood and a few Crusaders riding up close behind him, each man with a weapon at the ready. The bike roared as he hit the throttle. The biker posse faded away and the van came rushing ahead. He leaned forward and swerved left to avoid a minivan tottering along at a much slower pace.

“Drone view,” Bruce said into the mic mounted inside his cowl.

The lenses in his mask flashed and he saw a split screen at the bottom of his peripheral vision. The overhead drone was keeping ahead of the traffic showed him traffic was coming up along with the van, himself, and the pursuing pack of bikers. From the view above, he could see Blackwood was beginning to gain on him.

The bike jerked suddenly, and from the overhead view Bruce could see Blackwood had opened fire again with his shotgun. The bike groaned and began to shake. Bruce had to fight to keep it straight. Wherever Blackwood had hit it, the damage was about to tear the bike apart. He punched the throttle and made a beeline for the fleeing cargo van. Still holding on to the handlebars, he pushed himself up onto the seat and jumped at the back of the speeding van as the motorcycle began to twist. From the drone, he saw the bouncing wreck of his bike catch one of the Crusaders flush and knock him from his motorcycle. Bruce caught the edge of the van and started to slide backwards. He reached for purchase, but his gloves and boots kept sliding against the slick surface as he fell. He could hear the sound of his cape rubbing against the rapidly passing pavement.

“Magnetics,” he said. The powerful electromagnets in his gloves and boots kicked on and he stuck against the surface. He climbed up to the roof of the van and ran towards the front. To his right Blackwood rode beside the van and slowly reloaded his shotgun one-handed.

“You’re fucking dead,” the big man shouted over the noise.

Bruce knew Blackwood was right. His only escape path had been the now destroyed motorcycle. Soon Blackwood would have all the ammunition he needed to take potshots at him. And he wouldn’t be the only one. The van was now slowing and the other Crusaders were catching up. Pretty soon Bruce would be caught in a crossfire. He had to do something drastic fast. He crouched low on the van and let his cape blow into the breeze as he watched the footage from the drone. Their convoy was coming towards a bend on the expressway and on an overpass section. Bruce saw something at that overpass. A cluster of homes down below. They looked like mobile homes.

He chuckled quietly to himself as he pulled an orb from his belt and stuck it to the top of the truck. He set the charge as the truck drove across the overpass and jumped. He held on to his cape and let the electric currents in his gloves stiffen the fabric into a gliding wing. He heard the surprise of the bikers. Followed by the explosion.

With a loud and jarring crash landing, Bruce rolled to the ground and came to a stop against the underpinning of a trailer. Another explosion rocked the expressway above. He could see flames licking the concrete barriers of the road. Another round of explosions went off. This time, it was the rapid pop of bullets exploding from the heat of the fire.

He stood up and did a quick inventory. Nothing on him was broken or misplaced. He now had to figure out his next move. Whatever it was, he had to keep moving. The longer he stayed here, the more he risked the Crusaders cornering him. With a deep breath, he ventured into the night.

---

“He has fucked up,” Blackwood said with a humorless smile. “Royally fucked up.”

He and what was left of his gang, all four of them, were on their bikes at the trailer park entrance. A rotting wooden sign proclaimed the place “Elysian Fields” in what had once been gold lettering. Some smartass had written in spray paint beneath it “Methsylvania.”

Blackwood propped his motorcycle up on its kickstand and lead the group into the trailer park. A group of about twelve tweakers stood around a fiery trashcan passing a glass pipe. Even in the dim lighting, Blackwood could see open facial sores and mouths with missing and roten teeth.

“Here’s the deal,” Blackwood said as he pointed the shotgun at the group. “You know the Bat? He's is in this trailer park somewhere. Two hundred bucks worth of crank to the first motherfucker who brings me his head.”

The tweakers eyes lit up. They all whooped and started through the trailer park. Blackwood motioned for his men to follow. The Cursaders followed the methheads into the darkness, like hunters following bloodhounds.

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

Replies are going to take longer than I thought now... I can't write at all in work :( Something about a sackable offence

@EldarionI

We need a worker's revolution.

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

I'm kicking myself for this, but I'm out. Just tried to file my taxes, and the wonderful results of going from a regular w-2 employee to a 1099 means I now have to go get a second job in order to afford to keep working at my first job. Which means my spare time just dropped to less than zero. Sorry guys.

@AndyC

Fuck, I feel you on that front. I did only three months as a 1099 last year and it is the greatest con American employers ever devised.

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

No trade necessary. I just want a Sinister Six with that team.

Absolute Comics - Season Two: The Monster Within

If anyone wants to use Egghead, then by all means go for it. In fact, it would be... eggcellent