Wrecking Shop

Clad in spec-ops "black owl" Kevlar-armored fatigues and skull face-shields attached to their helmets, the members of the ex-special operations mercenary unit known as "Hostile Intent" looked across the airplane hangar as the shuttered doors pulled open. They were heavily armed, most of them carrying souped-up desert tan SOPMOD M4 5.56mm assault rifles and short-barrelled M249 Bravo machine guns,  along with Mk.25 9mm sidearms and a variety of grenades. A few sharpshooters of HI had short-barrelled Barrett M107A1 .50 cal. sniper rifles hidden with them in the rafters. They weren't taking any chances with what was already going to be a dicey negotiation. HI's leader, Adam Sears, a former SEAL team captain and veteran of the War on Terror, was a tall man with close cropped hair, greying at the temples. He had a thin goatee and matching mustache which he was currently stroking, assessing the situation. The woman to the right of him was almost as tall as he was with long, curly black hair that fell in ringlets around her face and she possessed a killer set of curves. Melinda Banks was his personal assistant as well as a founding commander of the unit. Like Sears, she was also a career soldier before going rogue during a weapons testing exercise. Sears glanced over at her before speaking into his handheld radio to make sure his team was in position. After they replied to the affirmative he glanced down at the heavy briefcase Banks was holding with both hands. He grit his teeth, his attention now directed at the figures approaching from the far side of the hangar. It was a squadron entirely comprised of women, just like he had expected. They were all wearing TTSKo urban Kevlar-weave uniforms with leather jackboots and like his unit, they were all heavily armed: XM25 grenade launchers, Mk. 17 SCAR's and what looked like a pair of HK21E machine guns. Again, also expected. The swastika emblems on their shoulders and death's head on their collars marked them as working for the Fourth Reich. The leader was a muscular, butch looking woman with short, spikey platinum hair and pale blue eyes. Like an older, tougher Miley Cyrus. Sears frowned. She wasn't who he had been expecting.


"I thought I was dealing with Anna Holt." he asked in a tone that didn't bother to hide his irritation.

"Obersturmbannführer Holt has been called away on urgent matters." the woman said in an accent it took him a moment to place - Afrikaner. He’d worked with white South African mercs before in Angola and the Congo, they were tough sons of bitches. "I am acting on the direct authority of Oberscharführer Henriette Gerber, acting head of the Angel Falls division of the Reich."

Sears gave Banks a surreptitious glance. "Right, and you are?"

"Scharführer Janet van Sadler."

"Fine, did you bring the merchandise?"

The Scharführer arched an eyebrow. "Of course. They are all outside. Five Basilisk model V suits of combat armor with all the standard armaments as you requested. Did you bring your side of the transaction Mr. Sears?"

Sears motioned to the suitcase, which Banks lifted with a grunt. The ex-soldier popped it open on both sides to reveal two heavy-looking, leather bound tomes nestled between protective materials.

"De Vermis Mysteriis and Cultes des Ghoules, both first editions and neither of which were easy to obtain."

"Well that is why you are the best, ja?" van Sadler remarked, "And now I assume you want to try out your new toys, possibly repaint them. They are yours when I have possession of that case."

"After I inspect them personally." Sears added sternly. van Sadler nodded in agreement.


"Of course, I would expect nothing less in a transaction of this size and importance."


Sears was about to respond when a loud thud from the roof echoed through the chamber, cutting him off. There was a short burst of automatic gunfire from outside followed by an eerie silence. Both the Reich and Hostile Intent looked upwards and readied their weapons. Sears cursed under his breath as he pulled his long-barreled Desert Eagle chambered in .50AE. It had to be a cape and the God-damned Reich had probably led them right to the exchange. A quick glance to van Sadler, seeing the panic in her eyes as she barked orders to her own troops told him that at least it wasn't the double-cross he had also been half-expecting. Suddenly the roof collapsed in the center as one of the Reich suits of power armor came flying through in a mass of sheared metal before hitting the ground in-between the two gangs hard. Crouched on top of the battle armor (and its now unconscious pilot from the tremendous impact) was an Amazonian proportioned woman with long blonde hair and a smile like the Cheshire cat on her lips. Angel Falls knew her as Prodigy, or formerly as the American Hero. Sears’ heart sank a little as his adrenaline kicked in. She was known to be impervious to harm, super-strong and more than all that, she wasn't afraid to kill.

‘Screw that, we’re operators, cape or no cape she’s going down!’ Sears thought. “Hostile Intent, light ‘er up! Aim for her eyes!” he screamed at his troops, his voice quivering a little from the adrenal dump. Already the Reich soldiers were falling back and opening fire. Sears was about to do the same when Banks spun around and hit him with a palm strike to the teeth, knocking the two in the front out clean. The powerfully built man stumbled backwards more than a few feet, cradling his now broken jaw as all eyes from Hostile Intent shifted from Prodigy to their field commander. Banks grabbed a hold of the side of her face and ripped off the prosthetic mask as well as most of her HI uniform. Underneath was a gorgeous dark-skinned woman with long black hair, her magnificent shapely body clad in a costume similar to Prodigy's, with the colors of the American flag.


"Took you long enough Mom!" Jane shouted as she leapt off the downed power armor, covered in a hail of bullets to land on one of the Reich. Prodigy punched the desperate woman in the side of the face and spun her around like a top. She was still firing her weapon and managed to hit the Reich soldier next to her who also went down.


"Well I had to get the entire exchange on video." American Mom began as she twisted backwards, lashing out at one of stunned the mercenaries with a high-kick that sent him off the ground a few feet before he came down on his face. "I would have liked the actual hand-off, but this should hold up in court."


Jane nodded as she grabbed the arm of the nearest Reich soldier and pulled her in close, bringing up her knee. She crushed the smaller woman's solar plexus down on it and smiled as she could physically feel the wind knocked completely out of her. There was a commotion and lots of noise at the other end of the hangar as the remaining four Basilisk mechs burst inside. Sears pointed at them as he stumbled, shouting something about those being his. The mechs opened fire with a blistering amount of firepower, each one armed with a M134 minigun mounted on the right arm. Prodigy and Mom both took off towards them, obviously they were now the greatest threat. Jane reached hers first and crashed into it, tackling the heavy suit of titanium plated armor. The suit was knocked off balance and crashed over backwards with Jane on top of it, pummelling it with both fists. Ablative armor plates were broken off in all directions as she punched her way down through to the actual body of the combat armor.

"Skop, skiet en donner!! Feuer frei!!" van Sander shouted to her troops. As if they needed her to tell them what to do with two high-level metahumans already tearing into them.

Carol bobbed and weaved in the direction of the one nearest to Jane, clotheslining a Reich operative that charged at her spraying bullets. When she reached it, she flew up and over the battle suit, coming down behind it. The American Mom then quickly shoulder checked it forward, knocking her opponent over as well before smashing into it with a series of punches more than capable of piercing its reinforced armored exterior.


"Never thought I would still in this day and age be fighting Nazi death machines!" Mom commented as she grabbed a hold of the now screaming pilot and ripped her free from the controls, tossing her backwards into the wall of the hangar.


"Well they were mostly gone when I was working for the government so let me enjoy this." Jane smiled as she also reached her pilot, knocking her out with a savage strike to the back of the head that smashed her face into the controls. "I was in the Cold War, not WWII, remember old lady?" Jane winked at her.


"You kids today." Carol chuckled as she dove under a steady stream of minigun fire. The mecha she advanced towards lifted its left arm and opened up with a blast of jellied napalm. The jet of liquid fire missed, leaving a burning line in the floor next to her as she rushed towards it. Mom batted the arm out of the way and took hold of the helmet assembly. As she made contact with it thousands of volts of electricity began to course through her body, arcing across the front of the armored mecha in flickering blue sparks, a last-ditch defensive weapon! Carol dug her fingers into the helmet and with an angry bellow, tearing it free from its housing. The pilot had just enough time to give a surprised gasp before Mom smacked her dead in the face, knocking her out. She glanced over at Jane as her opponent was powered down, smoke billowing from its hull. Prodigy had taken out the last mecha as well and Mom breathed a sigh of relief. She and Jane had no problems with the Reich weapons, but if they had been used by Hostile Intent they could have surfaced anywhere in the world and local law enforcement or even most militaries weren't equipped to deal with firepower of their magnitude.


Jane waved at her, catching her glance. As she did a 12.7mm AP round slammed into her head. The bullet didn't have any effect on her other than causing her to scowl and look up into the rafters. Mom nodded and pointed at them before taking to the air again.


"I got the snipers, you wrap up the ground forces!" she stated as she took off towards their positions. Already large caliber rounds were striking and richocheting off her shapely invulnerable form.

Jane looked around at what remained of the opposition. Reich soldiers were falling back towards the exit on their side under bursts of covering fire from the HK21E machine guns. The Hostile Intent mercs were doing pretty much the same with their weapons, only they were also deploying smoke grenades to help assist in their escape from the hangar, falling back in pairs and still continuing to pour fire at American Mom and Prodigy. Even though they were fighting capes and were hopelessly outclassed, they were still highly trained special operators and they’d be damned if they were about to go down to a pair of superpowered bimbos without a fight!

Jane took off towards the fleeing Reich operatives, leaving behind a pile of smoking battle armor in her wake. She crossed the distance in a matter of seconds, running directly into the path of the machine guns as they chattered and spit an almost endless wave of bullets at her. The tall, muscular blonde grabbed one of the HK's and broke it in half as easily as a child snapping a twig. She then kicked the operator of same weapon hard in the chest, sending her coughing and sprawling.


Carol dove in under one of the snipers and came up fast, catching him in the face with a hard right cross, which if she hadn’t delivered it with supreme control would’ve cracked open a battleship’s armor plating. The unconscious soldier tipped backwards and began to fall from the rafters. Mom continued to move, catching him as she did. Despite what she thought of these mercenary scum, men who had forsaken their oaths of service to their nation for money and participated in terrorist acts against their own countrymen; especially after spending three days with them as they began to set up operations in the city, she didn't want to see any of them dead, nor miss their day in court. As she came upon the next sniper, she swung the unconscious one around towards him like a human battering ram. It knocked him out of his perch and he fell screaming towards the ground. The raven-haired woman caught him by the leg and spun in the air. The sniper's body twisted upwards giving her the opportunity to knock him unconscious as well. She dove down low and dropped both men from a safe height, letting them land in a crumpled heap in the smoke covered room.


Sears looked around in horror at the sheer bedlam this operation had become. Most of his unit was disabled and down, the rest were hightailing it for their designated safe houses. His own assistant had been compromised and his organization infiltrated. How much information on his global activities had this woman managed to learn?! Already he could hear sirens as well from outside. Angel Falls’ finest were arriving on the scene, probably tipped off by those damned capes. Prodigy was busy with the Fourth Reich as they scurried to escape like rats from a sinking ship. He looked over at the shattered remains of the Basilisk power armor and cursed out loud, his broken and bloodied jaw slurring the words. This entire operation had become one giant Mongolian clusterfuck. He'd be lucky to escape on his own, let alone salvage anything from this debacle. He looked around for his Desert Eagle, he would need it to escape past any kind of dragnet, even if it was useless against those capes. When he found it, to his dismay it was pressed against the back of his head and the trigger pulled.

van Sadler stepped over Sears’ ruined head and picked up the suitcase, dropping his pistol next to his twitching body. She activated the cloaking technology present in her uniform, the same kind that was utilized first with Grendel and later by Jörmungandr. Oberscharführer Gerber would not be without her prize and van Sadler was not going back to report failure. Not to her.

….

Carol looked down at the Hostile Intent mercs slumped unconscious at her feet. Jane was busy tending to the injured Reich and HI members they’d captured, even to the extent of applying first aid to some of them. There was one casualty, though- Sears, she frowned, shot by his own ‘business partner’. The man was the lynchpin of HI’s operations; even if they could get Banks to testify against her own organization, even she didn’t know the full extent of the terror group’s operations or its connections. He may have been a scumbag, but it was still a tragic loss of life.

But Carol had to smile; Jane had definitely come a long way from the ‘maim first, ask questions never’ style of vigilante-ism American Hero was famous for. She'd initially planned on using her Voice to stun the bad guys into submission during the takedown, but Jane had talked her into using fisticuffs, saying that she wouldn't hurt them too badly. Jane had kept her word, and Carol was proud of how much she'd changed.

The cops would arrive at any moment and she was already preparing her statement, mentally checking her timetable for future court appearances. Fighting bad guys wasn’t just about beating them up, there was always lots of paperwork and legal entanglements after the fact. And evidence, you had to make sure it would hold up in court. Even if you thought you had a watertight case, any number of variables and technicalities could enable perps to walk free. Still, even bad guys had to have their day in court, or else it would be the law of the jungle out there. She sighed. 

Looking around at the carnage she’d caused, Carol continued to muse- usually she’d use modified aikido moves against her hand-to-hand opponents, rather than straightforward punching and kicking;  there was always a risk that she might severely injure her normal human foes that way.  Maybe a bit of Jane was rubbing off on her, she thought worriedly, or maybe it was just being undercover too long with unsavory five-percenter underworld types that was getting to her. She needed to be more careful around her family… Still, it felt good to cut loose against bad guys after being confined in a disguise for so long, especially scumbags like these whom she knew had innocent blood from across the world on their hands, and if allowed to run free in Angel Falls, would take even more lives. She’d infiltrated HI some time ago, replacing Sears’ right hand woman Banks and getting the lowdown on this elusive black ops group. From what she’d uncovered so far, they appeared to be part of a top-secret government operation that was keeping tabs on Angel Falls’ metahuman community. HI had been sent to test their capabilities while its shadowy handlers prepared countermeasures to deal with the capes in the event all-out war broke out between mankind and their self-appointed ‘superheroic’ protectors- hence the Operation ‘Gladio’-esque false flag terrorist operations Sears was planning on carrying out, with the help of the Fourth Reich no less. The deeper you dug, the more dirt you uncovered, and the good guys started looking exactly like the bad guys they claimed they were fighting. Just how much of that was the public prepared to accept, she thought. Or even Jane for that matter...

Carol brightened up a little as Jane appeared by her side, grinning broadly with a Basilisk right arm slung over her shoulder. A souvenir.

“Why so serious, Mom?” she asked jokingly.

Carol smiled.

“Nothing hun, let’s  get a cup of coffee after the cops are done with us,” she winked at Jane.

“Just another day in Angel Falls, Mom!”