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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ledded" data-source="post: 1780491" data-attributes="member: 12744">[PLAIN]We were like gods once... [It ain't over till it's over][/PLAIN]… Meanwhile, back at the pub… The newcomer steps into the doorway, a muscular, square-jawed American in a well-fitting Army uniform and brown leather hip-length jacket. A hint of metal scales, like an undershirt made of tibranium painted dark green, peeks from under the uniform in places. He wears headgear similar to a tanker’s helmet, with dark goggles that rest above his forehead. Blonde hair peeks out from under it, and he moves easily despite a large backpack on his back. A large… shield? Yes, a shield, a long trapezoid-like shape of dark-painted tibranium, both the wider top and narrower bottom are convex curves so that they leave wicked points, a large American star with a circle is emblazoned into the center. John, still slowly, albeit brutally, punching down onto the prone and now visible der Unsichtbar Schwertfecter, stops with fist raised and turns toward the door. “Just who the hell are you?” he asks, wild ice chip eyes blazing, blood dripping off of his upraised hand and liberally speckling his face. Frogbot eyes the downed Eisenlord and turns, head cocked to the side like a dog as he performs a perfunctory scan. QUERY: Scan initiated. Target exhibiting high levels of talent ability. Eviscerate target? WARNING: Target displaying obvious allied markings and behavior. Disengage targeting. NOTE: Unit feels… disappointment. QUERY: Initiate self-repair protocols. Check on carbon-flesh entity Moose. Frogbot scurries off to where Moose is lying on the floor. The newcomer puts one foot on a chair, striking a quarterback-pose with both hands on his hips, chest out and back straight, chin up. He raises an eyebrow inquisitively, and gives a wide, lantern-jawed smile. “Me? I am Sergeant Mike Williams, also known as… the Bulwark… OF JUSTICE”, he finishes with a vocal flourish.  A slight clatter of broken wood and a rumbling comes from the direction of Eisenlord. “I am the LIGHT that staves off the DARK. I am the SHIELD that protects the innocent from the depredations of the STRONG. I am the star of America, shining into the void that…” John interrupts the tirade. “Yeah, whatever Bulldog. Hey, your guy is getting up, couldja take care of that already?” Bulwark turns, feet shifting with a hop into a fighting stance, shield up and right hand curled into a leather-gloved fist. Eisenlord shakily begins raising himself on all fours, sloughing off the wreckage of the bar. “Ho! You are right my blood-spattered friend, this Nazi is one ‘sticky wicket’, ahaha, to borrow a term from our esteemed British allies!” Bulwark crouches low and brings his shield forward. “Prepare to meet JUSTICE, Nazi fiend!” and with that pronouncement, leaps straight out while at the same time toggling some hidden switch.  His backpack ERUPTS with blue flame, propelling him horizontally with incredible speed across the room. Eisenlord just manages to stand, bleary eyes suddenly going wide, when Bulwark hurtles into him, shield-first, and both CRASH into the wall, then down in a tumble of flailing limbs and debris. Frogbot look up at John, smiling, as he crouches over Moose. “I have rendered assistance, mon ami! Ze Moose, he may yet survive!” he cheerily states, plugging the numerous holes in Moose’s flesh knuckle-deep with his fingers, like some eerie fairly tale Dutch-boy gone mad. John, still holding one of der Unsichtbar Schwertfecter’s now limp and impossibly-bent arms, just shakes his head, wiping his brow with his right hand. “gnade… bitte… please, mercy”, comes a small, painfully weak whimper from John’s feet. John look down, rolls his eyes, and lets his breath out with a sigh. “Jeezus… are you still moving?” and with that question raises his fist once more, bringing it down with a painfully loud and wet smack onto the badly broken nazi. Remembering Hank, he let’s the Nazi’s arm go, livid bruises the shape of John’s hand evident as the noodle-like appendage collapses back onto the mans chest with far more joints than nature intended him to have. John turns to go towards Moose and the jeep that used to be Hank. The Nazi squeaks and mewls some more. “Someone… bitte… make… him… stop… I’ll tell you… any-zing… bitte… please….” John snaps his fingers as if he forgot something, then turns back. “Oh, by the way, don’t go anywhere, I’ll be right back”, he casually speaks, then with no more thought than he’d give to splitting kindling, unceremoniously stomps the Nazi right at the knee-joint with a sickening wet crunching sound. Der Unsichtbar Schwertfecter merely makes a choked gurgling sound before his eyes roll up in his head. Sprinting over to where Frogbot is seeing to Moose, John examines the wounds. Frogbot has somehow produced a needle from the tip of one finger and scissors from another, the ends of his fingers hinging up disturbingly like little caps. He has sewn shut some of the larger rents in Moose, who is just barely alive, but stable. Even as John looks he sees that Moose’s ability to rapidly heal is slowly stopping the bleeding, the wounds beginning to knit on their own. Damn, but he is a hard nut to crack, John thought. “Hang in there buddy, help is on the way”, he says softly as he pats Moose’s blood-soaked back. “Um… Frogbot, buddy, ah… hey, come help me check on Hank” He looks over to the bar area, hears some dull thudding sounds from the pile behind it. The two of them step cautiously through the rubble to where the jeep is embedded in the back wall, stone and timbers broken under the impact. John was about to make some suggestion as to how to remove the jeep without collapsing the remainder of the building, when he noticed Frogbot’s eyes blinking rapidly, strange whirring sounds coming from his head.  Frogbot steps forward, making several neat cuts to the jeep and the wall materials, jamming a timber here and there, before stepping back. “Zere. Voila! We may now safely remove ze jeep.” John shrugs and takes one end, Frogbot the other, and peels the shattered vehicle away from the wall. To Frogbot’s credit, the wall trembles but holds under the strain. Hank is splayed out, embedded in the stone as if wallpapered there, his magnetic shield weak and barely functioning. “Ding dang ol’… ow” he weakly mumbles, then falls forward onto the floor. John and Frogbot kneel down and carefully turn Hank over, mindful of the numerous injuries he has suffered. “Aw dammit Hank, are you…”, John begins. “ ’bout ding-dang… ol’… time ya got here… aw dingdangit ‘at hurt like a bitch…” “It’s ok Hank, were gonna get you a doctor, just don’t move”, John comforts him. Hank coughs, blood flecking his lips. “Izze daid… the big dang ol’ Nazi feller… izze daid?” “I think so Hank”, John tells him, then motions Frogbot to go check on Bulwark and the nazi Eisenlord. Just then, several people, including Doctor Z, peer cautiously into the building. John motions them over and begins giving orders to help the wounded ESSes. Frogbot salutes him in the French style, and then pads over to where Bulwak is standing and wiping his brow with the back of his hand. “Hello there, French ally! Say, that was one tough Jerry, hey? I’ve subdued him for questioning so that…” Frogbot cocks his head to the side. “He is alive, no?” “No… I mean yes… I mean, he’s alive, of course”, Bulwark stammers, confused, then places his hands back on his hips and nods his smiling head, unsure of what else to say. As if to punctuate his statement, Eisenlord’s left arm twitches in his unconscious state. QUERY: Nazi configuration detected, talent signature detected. Movement detected… within thresholds for targeting action? ANSWER: Thresholds manually disabled. Movement Detected. Threat detected. Course of action: NaziNaziRendRendRENDRENDREND… Frogbot looks up at Bulwark, smiles, and raises his hands. His fingertips pop open, claws ejecting with a snikt, causing Bulwark to jump in startlement. He then leaps into the air and lands on the prone Eisenlord, rapidly plunging his claws one after the other into his back several times. Bulwark stands there, shocked into stillness, and several seconds later Frogbot leaps back to his feat to stand in front of him once again, claws held upright, dripping gore onto his wrists and the floor. Smiling. “Oui! Correction! He *was* alive. I have fixed heem for you. You are welcome”, Frogbot nods to him happily, dribbling bodily effluence off of his upraised tibranium talons. “But… but he was alive… I subdued him… for… *questioning*”, Bulwark barks at Frogbot, pointing at the gore-pile that was his prisoner. “He vas Nazi, no?”, Frogbot replies, an inquisitive look on his not-quite natural face. “Well, yes, yes he was…”, Bulwak begins to answer. “He moved, yes?” “Well yes, he did move, well it was more of a twitch, but I had it well in hand…” “He vas mine before you arrived, mon ami.” “I’m not so sure that…” “I *have* logs”, Frogbot replies defensively. “Um, that very well may be, but…” “I saw heem first.” “We might have been able to ques…” Frogbot juts his chin stubbornly, looking down his nose at Bulwark. “I had ‘Dibs’.” Bulwark, finally failing to find an appropriate response to Frogbot’s simple, yet iron-clad line of reasoning, just shrugged and smiled. Frogbot smiled back his toothy, false smile, flicking gore from his claws which then rapidly zipped back into his fingers. Bulwark audibly gulped, looking uncomfortable, then with some obvious hesitation gave Frogbot a soft chuck on the shoulder and a ‘thumbs up’. He then turned rapidly and strode away, noisily clearing his throat. John watched him approach. “So, well there Bulldog…” “Bulwark. Bul-WARK.” “Yeah, ok Bullpen, thanks anyway for dropping in. What I don’t get is why they wanted Dr Z so badly, and what else they might have been after. Plus what happened to that other one, the one that disappeared a minute ago. Well, we need to secure Hank and Moose, and it’s all pretty much over…” Just then, they quieted as their hearing picked up the rumbling of engines, and before John could continue, the wailing keen of an air raid siren filled the air, and the distant Booms of ordinance being dropped on the airfield and the city began. “Oh great…”, John began, then Hank grabbed his arm from where he lay on a stretcher. “John…” “Yes Hank?” “The… boy…” “What? What boy?” “Psi… meld… the boy… they’re… <cough>”, Hank weakly sputtered. “What about him, Hank? What?” “They’re after him too… I just know it… gotta help 'im... jus' a kid...” John looked up and cursed. He looked back to Frogbot, bedraggled and beaten up like he felt, and at Bulwark.  “C’mon boys, we need to get to the airfield. This aint over yet.” He spotted the nazi, der Unsichtbar Schwertfecter, whimpering and weakly trying to squirm under a table nearby. John stepped over and grabbed him by one pants leg.  “Hey, where ya goin’ pal. Why don’t you take a ride with us?” he asked him casually, then began dragging him out of the bar towards a jeep outside that Bulwark and Frogbot were already climbing into.  “oh bitte bitte please someone help me don’t let him ahahahhahahaaaaa”, the nazi cried softly as John dragged him outside, only getting a glance from one or two of the personnel inside before they turned back to tending the fallen ESSes. Oustide, John hoisted him up by the belt and tossed him casually in a boneless heap into the back of the jeep, then hopped in and sat on him. Bulwark turned back from the driver’s seat. “We will strike FEAR into the hearts of TYRANNY! This night, all that is GOOD and RIGHT shall stand…” John rolled his eyes and sighed. “Will you just stow that and start the damn jeep already.” Frogbot nodded his agreement from the passenger’s seat, smiling. Bulwark started the jeep, and they sped off towards the airstrip as the night sky lit up into a colorful canvas of exploding shells, searchlights, and streaming AA fire. ...</blockquote>

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