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Message: <blockquote data-quote="megamania" data-source="post: 1280157" data-attributes="member: 9255">STRIKEFORCE: MORITURISEGMENT 014“Regroup”The site they find at the metal shell used as a hiding place sickens Jean.  The scene nauseates even Megamania.  Something has torn two armored men apart piece by piece.  The pieces were then discarded within a 500ft radius of the site.  Worst of all, a finger was used to mark the rocks to indicate how many pieces of each man worn torn free.  Megamania is beginning to think he is only now battling the being of purest evil he was thought to have battled before.Looking about, Megamania finds many metallic and ceramic flakes from the Captain’s scale armor.  Chipped chunks of plastics that covered his shield are found.  Pieces of Vander’s armor, the more decorative pieces any way, are found in the red sticky sand.  Something came in here hard and fast and torn apart the two.  No sign of Christina or her cat can be found.“What do you make of it?” asks Jean with a sour look still on her face.“In a word…. Hell.  In all seriousness, I think this Maestro guy was here.  See here- (points to large divots in the sand), those are footprints.  B-I-G footprints.  The…evidence suggests a strong, evil twisted mind also.  It’s hard to say with the activity that happened with the soldiers... but I think these tracks are Christina’s.  The metal skin guards dug into the harder packed sand and dirt.  She spun or dragged a prone figure around with her.  I’m guessing our fearless leader based on the pieces of armor and shield found.  She leaned heavily this way...perhaps to touch Vander.  This depression is his.  Something struck him so hard; he was driven into the hard earth.  The cat could have been here or ran away.  I'’ not sure.  The tracks it would leave would disappear quickly in this kind of conflict and environment."”Sighing and now standing upright to look at Jean, the Storm Wielder, eye to eye he shakes his head in confusion.  “What I don’t understand is where they went.  It’s as if they simply didn’t exist anymore.  Even the way the sand filled in Vander’s impact area.  He just didn’t exist anymore.  I’m lost.”“Teleportation”“Huh?  I don’t believe in that.  That’s science fiction.”“Science…fiction?   Is that how you call magic?”“Jean…you’ve bootylious and all that but don’t go into magic.  That’s insane.  I don’t believe in it and it doesn’t exist.”Getting over her first impression of what war must be like, she pulls out a feather.  “Magic is simple.  One only needs to believe, practice and understand.”Crossing his arms, he turns his back to her and looks for an evidence of mortar shells or explosives he may have overlooked before.  He feels Jean’s hand gently touch his shoulder.  “You need to learn…Jim.  You need to…. huh?”  Jean withdraws her hand and stares at it.  She turns it about as if looking for a flaw.  “Let’s hope for the best and go to the secondary meeting place.  Maybe they yet live and are waiting for us there.”“I…I agree.”  She says with her mind elsewhere.Several hours go by as they walk back towards the meeting place.  They climb the rocks and head for a downed jet airliner that still has a fuselage intact.  They had seen it before on the mountainside and figured it to be a good place to regroup if the need was there.    They get close then Megamania stops and inspects the ground.  A blue ceramic chip is in the crab grass.  “The Captain ...or at least his body, was here.” He says holding up the piece for Jean to see.They reach the downed aircraft and indeed find the three there.  The Captain has his armed in a splint.  Vander is out of his armor, heavily bandaged, and trying to repair his armor without much for a forge.  Christina watches over the Captain, still in armor.  As always, the cat glares at Megamania and waves it’s tail in disgust and displeasure.  Christina gets up and hugs both travelers and thanks her gods (and more) that they are alive.  “Hmmm?  Oh you’re correct Mom…it looks like you guys were in a fight.”Shaking his head in amazement at her mental delusions, he can only reply- “At least it wasn’t a war.  What happened?”“The single strongest creature I have ever seen.” Grunts Vander whom squints as his entire back and ribcage spasms in pain.  “He struck us down barehanded.”“One lone creature did this to you guys…bare-handed…. no guns, no bazookas…no laser guided missiles…just his hands…?”“….and his rage…” whispers the Captain.“You’re awake!”  yells Christina.  “Don’t move or dare attempt to get up.  That arm took 6 hours of divine reconstruction.  Any cleric with less skill would not have been able to save it.”Megamania follows the Captain’s defeated and horrified gaze.  Lying nearby is his once glorious shield.  It is now nothing but scrap metal.  Megamania walks over to it.  He thinks to himself about how this was done barehanded.  Indeed, there is one impact mark that clearly has the marks of four large knuckles.  The hand that did this was massive…the cubic span could be measured in feet!  This was no man…it was a monster.“Don’t…you have…no right to hold it” pleads the Captain while trying to get up.“Megamania- PLEASE…can’t you see how traumatic this is for him.  Put the shield down.  Nice and gently.” Asks Jean.Frowning but not unmoved by the rawness of his emotions, he looks once more at the shield.  It had about five layers of incredibly tough, strong alloys with ceramic components to absorb impact and heat.  A tough plastic he could not identify then surrounded this.  This shield was a piece of engineering art and craftsmanship.    It was more than that.  It was a symbol.  He could clearly remember the round circular rings of Red, White and Blue with a gray star.  The gray didn’t fit but it still reminded him of home.  And that reminded him of what his home met.  What it represented.  He walked over to the Captain and gently laid it next to him.  Flakes of red plastic flaked off onto the ground.  The Captain carefully picked them up and tried to place them back onto the shield.  Eyes flowed down both cheeks and dripped onto his neck and shoulder.Megamania stood up and saw not the defeated man before him that the others saw.  No.  He saw a father in mourning.  This father whom would kick some serious butt once he got off his butt.  With the thought done and over, Jim, the sarcastic spy with an attitude, turns to the others shrugs his shoulders and walks off to work off his own emotions.  Ones that he can no longer bury and fears can not hide.Vander has repaired the structural damage that he can.  It will need new detailing and smoothing but at least he can once more wear it.  Before, there was a dent large enough to push hard against his already crushed chest.  The removal of the chest plate caused nearly as much damage to him as the original strike.He then put his work aside and thought long and hard about his mental combat with the creature.  Was the green energy magical?  It clearly was not psionic in nature.  Perhaps something new.  This technology that he heard Megamania speak of.  If so, it was a dangerous power to leave unchecked.Christina and Jean went into another section of the plane to discuss what to do.  They compared notes and knew they could not combat this creature of hellish power and strength.  The Black Spider had told them of a place to enter the palace.  This place may even contain what they seek.  It was his trophy room.  Here he displayed the remains and broken artifacts of the heroes and would be competition.  It was a good place to return to.  He rarely went there anymore.  No one provided him with something to add to it anymore after all.The Black Spider would meet them at a prescribed place in three days.  She felt it would take that long for the guards to relax after their battle within the bar within the outer edge of the city.</blockquote>

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