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The Last Hope


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#1 H K

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Posted 12 April 2008 - 07:23 PM

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Edited by Coca Cola King, 10 September 2008 - 08:21 PM.


#2 H K

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Posted 16 April 2008 - 09:08 PM

"Its June again. . . . Every year in June, I remember...everything... everything about that horrible night."

---2 Years Ago---

It was raining that night, but it was a hot, stifling rain. Sarah and I were on a routine patrol, searching the city for any signs of trouble. Around 2 A. M., near the end of our patrol, we both heard an explosion. Thanks to Tony’s Armor, we reached the site of the explosion in less than a minute. We figured it was just another wannabe bank robber trying to get into a vault. We were wrong. To this day, I don’t know why The Joker was in Indianapolis, Gotham is much closer to New York, hundreds of miles away. When we landed, The Joker was standing at the epicenter of the explosion, bodies littered around him, his insane cackling echoing down the street. I tried to talk to him, tried to make him give himself up, but, he wasn’t going for it. My first thought was, “Where’s Batman?” I knew Bruce keeps tabs on anyone who has ever crossed his path, so he had to show up soon. Not soon enough, as The Joker began to speak to us, I don’t know why, maybe he’s so used to taunting Batman.

“I know you. . . You’re two of Iron mans cronies! Well, welcome to Uncle Jays big town roundup! I was bored with batman and Gotham, so I decided to travel a bit, and, lucky you, I chose here. Figure I’d make my introduction a big bang!”

Just as he finished explaining himself, Joker pulled out one of his pistols, black with an orange tip, and shot it at Sarah. Figuring that the black bar would just bounce off of her armor, I just stood there, waiting for Jokers next move. What I didn’t know is that whatever Joker shot was armor piercing. It slammed right into her torso, just above her heart, knocking her backwards to the ground. As soon as she hit the ground, Joker began to chuckle, his insanity making his mind see everything as funny. I ran over to Sarah and pulled her helmet off, threw it aside. I threw my helmet off as well. I picked Sarah up off the ground, before grasping the black bar that had impaled her. I pulled it out of her as easy as I could, only to watch the blood spurt out. I held her close to me as she died, Joker now talking once again.

“Aww. . . I’m so sorry. . . This is too sad to be funny. . . . Ah what the hell, Ill laugh anyway!”

He laughs harder than he had before, a loud and screeching sound, echoing into the night. Sarah’s body went limp as he laughed. I set her gently on the ground and stood back up anger coursing through my veins. I turned back to the Jokers laughing form and began to walk towards him, Joker too wrapped up in his laughter to notice me. I stepped up to him and grabbed him by his collar, lifting his shorter frame to eye level, cutting off his laughter. He faked being afraid, and began to taunt me again.

“Uh-oh. . . Iron Lung looks angry. What are you gonna do, arrest me? That’s what batman always did, it never worked. You heroes are all the same, you don’t have the stones to do what needs to be done. ”

I narrowed by eyes, pulling him closer to me, we were almost nose to nose.

“Two things wrong with your theory. One: I’m not Batman. Two: I’m not a hero!”

As soon as I said that, I head butted him, letting go as I did, knocking him to the ground. I picked him back up, before punching him back down with a right hand to his jaw, my anger guiding my actions. He began to try to scramble away, but I picked him up once more, this time by the throat. He made one final plea to me.

“This isn’t how it’s supposed to work! I’m the bad guy, I injure a good guy, another good guy tries to arrest me; you’re that good guy! You’re supposed to take me to jail, not try to kill me! You’re acting more like a bad guy!”

I only had one response to that, as I materialized one of my pistols and pointed it at his face.

“Good. Bad. I’m the guy with the gun. ”

I waited a few seconds, allowing him to realize what was about to happen. When I pulled the trigger, the bullet shattered his skull, nearly blew his head clean off. I let his body fall to the ground, his blood mixing with the rain. As I out my gun away, I heard sirens rapidly approaching. Always too late. I called my helmet back to me, retracting it into my armor, not bothering with it, since I was wet as it was. I walked back to Sarah’s body and put her helmet back on her body, not knowing how to work her armor. I picked her up off the ground before activating my armors jets, lifting up of the ground just as the many police cars pulled up to the small crater the Jokers explosion made. I took her back to our house, hoping that Jamie wasn’t awake, ;she’s a night owl like me. We still hadn’t told her about our armor, or what we do every night. We wanted to wait until she turned 18.I took Sarah to the Armory, in a hidden room on the second floor. Once I got her out of her armor and got her cleaned up and dry, it looked like she was sleeping, if you didn’t notice the gaping wound. I made sure to grab the black bar that killed her as I picked her up, wanting to examine it. The next day, I told Jamie that Sarah was killed after we came out of a movie theatre. Someone tried to mug us, they had a gun. I tried to take it from them, and, in the struggle, Sarah was shot. She bled out before I could do anything, and the mugger got away. Jamie accepted it, I think she blames me for her death. That’s Ok, I blame myself too.

We buried her the same day, in a cemetery near the house. There were only a few people there. Me, Jamie, my parents, Tony, and the Minister. No one said a word during the service; the weather matched our moods, dark and dreary. When we lowered Sarah into the ground, everyone threw in a shovel full of dirt, saying their final goodbyes. I was last. I decided that, since it was my fault, I would take the burden of filling the hole the rest of the way. It took me just about fifteen minutes, only Jamie and my parents stuck around, Tony had a business to run, after all. When I was finished laying Sarah to rest, Jamie told me that she thought she should stay with my parents, living in our house would remind her too much of Sarah. Hard to blame her, really. When I got back home, I took off my wristband for the first time in over ten years and stored it with Sarah’s own wristband, vowing to never use it again, lest I get someone else I love killed.



#3 H K

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Posted 19 April 2008 - 07:08 PM

June 20th, 2030, the day The Joker came to town, the worst day of James; life. Now, on June 22nd, 2034, James is preparing to head to his parents’ house for his daughters 18th birthday. Hopefully, his bad luck wouldn’t decide to bitchslap him today. Luckily, his parents’ home is only about five minutes away by vehicle. He hadn’t picked up a weapon in over two years, nor has he even opened the Armory, where his wristband, as well as the Iron Rider sit, coated with dust. James is nearly ready to leave, so, he grabs the shoe box sized gift he had for Jamie, grabs his car keys, and heads to his garage. He pushes the auto-start button on the key ring remote, which immediately revs up the engine on his 1968 solid black Camaro. He opens the drivers’ side door and climbs in, setting the gift on the passenger seat. He closes the door and buckles his seat belt, before pushing the key ring remote button that opens the garage door. He puts the car in reverse, before backing out of the garage, the door closing as soon as the car is fully outside. James puts the car in drive, before stepping on the gas pedal, his tires screeching on the asphalt road, before catching, speeding away, smoke trailing from his tires.

Just about five minutes later, James pulls to the side of the road, parking across the street from his parents’ house. He shuts off the engine, before climbing out of the car, slamming the door behind him. As he pockets his keys, his enhanced hearing picks up the sound of voices from a nearby car. He sees the car moving a bit and walks over to it, his saving-people-thing not letting him ignore it, just in case. As he nears the car, he can pick up his daughters voice, a bit erratic. She mumbles something, and then gets a bit louder. “Stop it! Let go of me!” James, being the hands-on kind of person that he is, darts forwards and wrenches the car door open, nearly ripping it off the hinges. He reaches in and grabs the teenager by his collar, forcing him out of the car. He grabs him by the throat and rears back his other hand, preparing to knock some sense into him. Before he can hit him, Jamie speaks up.

“Dad! Stop it! You can’t go around beating people up!”

“But it’s so much fun…”

“Damnit Dad, let him go!”

James reluctantly releases the teenager, who quickly wiggles away from James, basically hiding behind Jamie.

“This guys your dad? You told me he was dead!”

James stares incredulously at Jamie.

“You told this fucknut I was dead?!?”

“I may have over exaggerated…”

“Yeah, no shit. You, fucknut, hit the bricks. Don’t let me see you around here again.”

James slaps the teen on the back of his head, sending him off. James and Jamie walk up the driveway to the front door of James’ parents’ home, with Jamie trailing behind, arms crossed across her chest, clearly a bit angry at her father. James opens the door, allowing Jamie to enter before him, quickly following behind her, shutting the door as he does. James walks into the living room, hugging his mom as Jamie throws herself down on the couch, her posture still letting her anger be visibly detected. James’ mom picks up on this and asks her what’s wrong, but, before Jamie can answer, James beats her to it.

“I found her in some guys’ car, pulled the guy out of it, nearly put a hurtlock on him, ‘til she stopped me. Embarrassed the hell out of her, you know, my job as Dad and all. ”

Jamie glares at him, whilst her grandmother chuckles. James takes a seat across from Jamie, in a chair. He remembers the present, and hands it to Jamie.

“Happy birthday. Jamie, before you open that, you need to know a few things…”

Before James can say another word, every light in the house suddenly goes out, plunging them into darkness. Seconds later, everything begins to shake, the ground begins to quake, knocking many things to the floor, shattering as they did. James quickly gets up from his seat and begins to rush around the house, looking out the windows, trying to find the cause of the shaking. When he sees nothing, he braces himself in a doorframe, until the shaking stops. As it does, sirens start to go off from the many cars that were jarred around.

“What the hell was that?”

“I think it was an earthquake, but, all the way out here? We’ve never had an earthquake that big in Indiana. You three stay here, I’m gonna go have a look around, see what’s up.”

James leaves the house, stepping over the broken dishes as he does. He climbs into his car, which has shifted ten feet to the left, thanks to the quake, and starts it up. He puts the car in drive and speeds off, dodging fallen trees and other various debris as he drives along. James looks around at the various levels of destruction, nearly all of the trees have cracked and fallen down, some houses have even been completely destroyed. As he continues back to his home, James sees an explosion off in the distance, and watches as most of the downtown area of Indianapolis is demolished. A giant beast rises from the smoke. Standing at 300 feet tall, with horns on its head, extremely muscled body, demonic face, and blood red skin, this creature was the most horrifying thing James had ever laid eyes on. James slows to a stop, gaping at the monstrosity destroying his city, before speeding off, nearly slamming into a fallen tree.

Moments later, he pulls into his driveway, driving right through his garage door, not really caring at the moment. He rushes into his house and up to the second floor. He slams his fist against a wall and watches as a section of it slides away, revealing a room he hadn’t been in for two years. He walks into the Armory, turning on the lights as he does. He stops where is he, looking on at what is in the room. In the center is his Wristband, setting on a countertop. He slowly walks to the counter. He picks up the wristband and straps it onto his wrist once more, feeling the connection as soon as he does. The computer updates itself to match his new age, as well as any other changes that may have occurred. James switches the wrist computer fully on, and receives a message.

Updates available from Stark Database. Download updates?

Yes
No


James pushes the Yes button and watches as the Computer connects to Stark Database. It informs him that it will take at least fifteen minutes to finish updating. James curses the computer, before leaving the Armory, heading back downstairs, jumping down the stairs, nearly slamming into the wall as he does. He heads back out to his garage, raising the destroyed door. He gets back into his car and starts it back up, before backing out of the garage. He puts the car in drive once more, before stepping on the gas, heading back to his parents’ house. Five minutes later, he screeches to a stop outside the house. He rushes inside, slamming his car door as he does. He walks back into the living room, finding Jamie still on the couch, her anger now forgotten, while James’ mother cleans up the mess created by the quake.

“Everyone, stop what you’re doing, you’re all coming with me. ”

“Dad, what’s going on?”

“Bad things Jamie, bad things…”

Jamie gets up off the couch, unconsciously grabbing the gift wrapped box James had given her. The four people, James, Jamie, and his parents, leave the house and pile into James’ Camaro. He starts the car and steps on the gas pedal, telling everyone to hang on as he does. As they speed off, going somewhere that only James knows of, the creature he saw is still demolishing the downtown area, visible in the background. Jamie looks out the back window of the car, seeing the monster for the first time, her face contorting in fear.

“Dad, what the fuck is that?!?”

“Don’t know. ”

“Where’d it come from?!”

“Don’t know. ”

“Well what the hell do you know?!?”

“I know that whatever it is, I wanna be as afar away from it as humanly possible, or, at least, as safe as humanly possible. I’m taking all of you to an underground bunker I had built just incase bad shit went down, and, it looks like bad shits goin’ down, doesn’t it? We’ll be there in a few minutes. ”

And, just as he said, James slams on the brakes, stopping in front of a run-down looking building. He gets out of the car, rushing everyone out into the building. As he shuts the buildings door behind them, James quickly heads over to a wall and touches a portion of it, which flips to reveal a panel of buttons. He types in the password, which happens to be ‘Stunner’, and the wall slides into the ceiling, revealing a set of stairs. James leads the three down the stairs and into a bunker. Jamie and her grandparents sit down on provided chairs, marveling at the amount of stuff in the room. James stands by the door and begins to explain things.

“This bunker is impenetrable to anyone who doesn’t know the password. Its bulletproof, radiation can’t affect anyone inside it, this is basically the safest place on the planet. It has food and water to last you three years, maybe longer. Do not leave this bunker, no matter what. I’ll come get you when it’s safe. ”

“What do you mean you’ll come get us, you’re not going out there!”

“I have to. Jamie, open your present, you’ll understand everything soon after that. Trust me, this is better for all of us. Hopefully, I’ll see you soon. ”

James leaves the room and punches a button, which slides a door in place, immediately locking the bunker down tight, with five or six locking mechanisms activating at the same time. James leaves the building with a heavy heart, hating to lock up his family, but it would keep them safe. His wrist computer informs him that it has nearly finished updating, and to finish, he must expand his full armor. James takes a deep breath, before pushing the Expand button, a bit curious as to what updates there were. As his armor expands over him, the familiar electronic connection enters his mind, ready to do his bidding. As it finishes expanding, James takes a look at his armor, quickly finding the updates the computer told him about. Where his Power Supply was, now rests a Flux Capacitor. James punches a few buttons on his wrist computer, wanting to get some info on the Flux Capacitor. What he gets, is this.

“James, I designed this just for you. I was browsing around California one day, when I stumbled across a Doctor Emmet Browns findings. I tweaked them a little bit, and was able to integrate his designs into your armor. The Time Circuits are in the wrist computer itself. The top level is where you were, the middle row is where you are, and the bottom row is where you’ll be going, and is the only one you can change. Be careful James, if you change too much, you’ll cause serious changes to the future. ”

James closes the window down, before switching to his Riding Armor, not wanting to be weighed down with his bulky armor at the moment. He gets back in his car and out of nowhere, his wrist computer sprouts a USB cord which slams into the cars dashboard. The wristband reads: “Connecting to Vehicle. Integrating Stark Technology. Please Wait” A few seconds later, the USB Cord retracts, and a mechanical wave washes over the car, changing its color scheme to match James’ Riding Armor, as well as adding a few other advances, making it essentially, the Iron Rider in car form. James decides to test out the new changes and slams his foot on the gas. The car rockets forwards, running at twice its normal speed., heading towards the downtown area, ready to take on the monster.



#4 H K

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Posted 29 April 2008 - 06:43 PM

James’ car speeds closer and closer to the monster, now that James is closer, he can make out more details, such as the creatures scaly texture, as well as its demonic face, and its blood red eyes. James skids to a stop, his car rotating sideways as he does, now in mere feet from the creatures’ massive foot, which is twice the size of his car. James exit’s the Camaro, activating his full armor as he does, the metal washing over him, covering him in its cocoon-like circuitry. He stares up at the creature, which has yet to notice him, before activating the boosters in his boots, sending him flying off of the ground, rocketing into the air. After a few seconds, James stops himself, hovering in front of the creatures’ face, the monsters eyes now focused on solely him. Its eyes narrow, as its massive hands swing upwards and close around James, clenching its fists around him. It tries to crush him, using its superior size and strength, but, just as it appears as if it has crushed him, James forces the creatures hands open, using his own enhanced strength, as well as the Armors own power. He flies out of the creatures grasp, before firing an energy blast, which strikes the creature square in the eye, sending the creature staggering back into a skyscraper it hadn’t knocked down yet, clutching at its eye in pain. It falls into the rubble, slowly shrinking down, until it is now normal man-sized, the horns have disappeared, save for two markings on its head, its skin has fades to a peach color, normal human skin color. James lands near what appears to be a man now, retracting his face mask to get a better look at the man, who is now stirring, climbing up from the rubble. Dressed in all black, a billowing cape surrounding him, a long blade in a dark red scabbard attached to his belt.

“Who, or what, the hell are you and why are you trying to destroy my city?!?”

The man shakes off the leftover pain from James’ energy blast, his right eye still a bit closed. He looks up at James, before narrowing his eyes, waving his arm in James’ general direction. Out of nowhere, James is lifted off the ground and hurled against a building, shattering the glass front, while James slides along the floor, stopping as he slams into a wall. Finding himself unable to move, James is forced to watch as the man enters the building through the hole his body made. The man walks over to James, stopping in front of him, looking down at him, eyes still narrowed, until he hears a shout from a security guard, who is pointing a gun at the man.

“Get down on the ground and put your hands in the air!”

The man looks at the guard, before waving his left arm at the guard, sending him flying backwards into a wall, severing his spine on impact, cracking the wall. The man uses his powers to lift James off the ground, bringing him up to eye level, his feet off the ground. The man, who is roughly seven feet tall, grabs James by the throat and backs him up against the wall behind him, using his own formidable strength to keep him there, instead of his powers. A moment later, the man speaks.

“You dare strike me. . . Insolent being. You asked me earlier, who the hell am I? You came very close to answering your own question. I am the one known as Hades, Master of the Underworld, King of the Damned. I have returned to your surface world to reclaim all of the souls that were restored to life by Mephesto. He over stepped his boundaries by using his powers in my realm, and I intend to reverse his changes. When confronted with my accusations, Mephesto claimed that He was acting on the orders of another, a mortal. I have decided that you surface dwellers must feel my wrath once more. I shall take back my souls, and you shall all perish beneath me!”

Hades uses his hellish powers to lift James higher into the air, holding his own right arm up as he does, guiding James’ body. Hades begins to slowly clench his fist, squeezing the life out of James. Just as James is nearly dead, an energy blast slams into the back of Hades’ head, sending him slamming into the wall in front of him, releasing James from his control, allowing him to fall to the ground. James slowly gets back to his feet, regaining his breath, looking around for his savior. Now walking through the door is James’ formerly evil clone, Jaymz Wyte, his old gauntlets encasing his forearms and hands.

“You, my friend, are a sight for sore eyes. What’s say we kick this guy’s ass and send him back to hell?”

Jaymz slams his gauntlets together, a resounding clang echoing from the building, before replying.

“Lets do it!”

Jaymz & James line up, side by side, against Hades, who has just gotten back to his feet, facing the wall. With his head ducked low, Hades begins to chuckle, softly at first, before his laugh begins to rise, both in volume and pitch, until it is a full blown evil laugh. His laughter dies down as he turns towards the two formerly identical men, their own lifestyles having changed their looks a bit, with Jaymz having shorter hair, spiked up, and James sporting a longer hairstyle. The two men quickly step into their fighting stances, ready to take on Hades, who is simply standing there, a dark smirk on his face. He raises both of his arms to his sides, his hands palm-up.

“I sense a great darkness in one of you. . . I believe it is time for that Darkness to reign supreme once again!”

Hades thrusts his arms towards Jaymz, his fists clenching as he does, and immediately, Jaymz’ body goes rigid as he is quickly snatched into the air. His eyes roll into the back of his head as the gauntlets drop off of his arms, his entire body now limp. A few seconds later, Jaymz’ eyes begin to glow a deep yellow, his fists clenching, arms flexing, body now taut. Several cuts open upon his face as his body lowers to the ground, a foreboding wind swirling around him, creating a vortex-like environment, papers from the building swirling around him. In mere seconds, the papers are incinerated and the wind suddenly stops. Jaymz looks at Hades, his eyes now soulless, before speaking, his voice reminiscent of his time in the past.

“I live. . . Again! Thank you. . . Master. ”

“Welcome back. . . Hardcore King. Now, kill that peon who has dared to defy me!”

Hardcore King now restored to his evil self, turns towards James, who is still standing in the same place, in shock at the events that have unfolded before him. Hardcore King begins to walk towards him, evil evident in every step he takes. Just as he is nearly in front of James. James expands his face plate closed once more, before making a statement about the situation.

“Oh, fuck this. ”

He activates his boosters, rocketing out of the room and away from Hardcore King and Hades. Hardcore King turns back to Hades, before asking him a question.

“Shall I follow him, Master?”

Hades shakes his head in the negative, before answering.

“No, leave him be, he is of no threat to us. Now, we begin to reclaim my stolen souls!”

Hades stalks out of the building, with Hardcore King trailing behind him, as the two begin to destroy everything around them, killing everyone in their path.

---Elsewhere---

James is flying at top speed, trying to put as much distance as physically possible between himself and Hades, and his new lackey, Hardcore King. James curses his still-horrible luck, before redirecting his flight path, now heading to an old secluded spot that he found as a teenager, where he used to go to get away from people. A few seconds later, James lands, retracting his armor, leaving him in his street clothes. He sits down on a big boulder, torso bent over, head in his hands, elbows resting on his knees. He begins to reflect on what exactly happened, trying to get a handle on the situation. Getting an idea, he attempts to contact Mephesto, but receives no reply. He tries several more times, each one receiving no reply. Deciding to use the techniques he learned in the past, James puts himself into a deep meditative state, relaxing his breathing, as well as his hear rate, before sending his subconscious mind into the Realm of the Gods, his former connection to Mephesto still allowing him temporary access to the Realm. He quickly begins to look around, searching for any sign of Mephesto, when he stumbles upon a room, and, on the door, reads ‘Mephesto’ James quickly opens the door and steps inside, only to be greeted by the lifeless body of Mephesto, lying in a pool of his own blood. James curses loudly, before returning to his body. He gets up from the rock and begins to pace back and forth, now extremely nervous, seeing the true reach of Hades’ power.

“I think I might be in a bit of trouble this time around. . . . “



#5 H K

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Posted 11 May 2008 - 01:18 AM

As James ponders the situation, Jamie is nervously pacing the small bunker; the box James had given her still unopened. Her grandparents however, are calmly sitting, patiently waiting for James to return, not even the slightest bit worried. Jamie notices this and snaps at them.

“How can you be so fucking calm!?! My father, your son, just went out to try and stop whatever the fuck that thing was that’s destroying the city!”

After a few seconds, her grandfather, James White Senior, responds.

“Open the box he gave you. Once you see what’s in it, you’ll understand. ”

Jamie turns towards the box, slowly walking to it. She sits down on the same ledge the box is on, pulling it onto her lap as she does. She grasps the lid of the box, biting her lip, a bit nervous at what she would find inside it, before prying it open. She sets the lid down beside her, now peering into the box. She reaches into it; her hand closes on a metal cylinder, about forearm length. She pulls it out, looking at it, inspecting it, trying to figure out what it is. She sees that it is completely hollow, and that two ends of it are made to disconnect, and snap together. She sets it down on the lid of the box, before pulling a sheet of paper out of the box. She begins to read the neat handwriting of her father.

Jamie,

If you’re reading this, it’s either your 18th birthday, I’m dead, or even both. The metal object inside the box is a piece of advanced technology developed by your Uncle Tony. When place around your right forearm, it will expand into an exoskeleton around you, enhancing your every ability, as well as providing you with very destructive weaponry. I hope you never have to use it, but, just in case you do, know that it served your mother well. If it’s ever damaged, contact Uncle Tony, he made it, after all. If you’re reading this because of something stupid I did, do not, and I repeat, DO NOT come after me. Read the rest of the papers in the box, you’ll come to understand. Know this, I will always love you. Goodbye.

Your father,
James “Iron Savior” White


Jamie sets the letter down, wiping a stray tear from her eye, before picking the wristband back up, turning it over in her hands, examining it further. She figures out how to open it, and immediately places it on her right forearm, as stated in the letter, and snaps it closed. It immediately powers up, the LCD screen lighting up, flashing a message.

“New User Detected. Scanning Now. ”

The wristband slowly begins to expand over Jamie’s body, reading and inputting her measurements as it does. Soon, the helmet closes over her head, fully encompassing her in the Armored Exoskeleton. A few seconds after that, Jamie hears a mechanical sounding voice in her ear.

“Settings updated. New User, state your name. “

Jamie tells the voice her name, a bit distracted; now checking out the armor. While she inspects the armor, the voice speaks once more.

“Jamie, prepare for Neurological and Nerve links. ”

As son as the voice finishes, Jamie feels the armor enter her mind, virtually melding with her subconscious, as well as all of the nerves in her body, allowing her to control every aspect of the armor with ease. When the armor has finished connecting with her, Jamie cycles through the armors databases, getting a feel for the connection, when she stumbles on a video file labeled “Play Me”. She activates the file and, a few seconds later, a beam of light expands from the Power Center of her armor, showing a video image on the wall. The mechanical voice speaks, while various clips of Sarah using the armor, James using his own armor, and Tony Stark building both sets of armor are played.

“Jamie, your mother used this very suit of armor every day for over a decade. Your father used an even greater suit of armor for even longer. Your capabilities are now limitless. Use the armor well. ”

A few seconds later, the image fades out, only to be replaced by another. Jamie gasps after she sees what is now projected on the wall. Staring back at her is her own mother, Sarah. Sarah, knowing that only Jamie could be viewing the video, begins to speak to her.

“Jamie, since you’re seeing this, I can only assume that I’ve passed on. If you’re getting this earlier than we planned, I’m sorry for leaving you, but I can only hope that I died an old woman. Since you’re watching this, I know you’re inside my old armor. The armor will do whatever you command it to, by using the neurological link it creates, you can control it with a mere thought. Now, about the large cannon on your right arm. Never charge it up all the way, the blast will overload the armor, making it useless, it might even kill you. Good luck Jamie, I know you’ll use my armor well. ”

The video fades out, leaving Jamie and her grandparents alone. Jamie finds the armors Retract option and activates it, pulling the armor back into the wristband. She sits back down, before pulling a notebook out of the box, which is labeled “The Hell Wars” She flips it open to page 1 and begins to read.

---Back with James---

James, now standing, is staring at his helmet, which is sitting on the rock he was previously on, the face mask facing him. James begins to talk to the helmet, actually only talking to himself, but it helps to talk to something you can see.

“I don’t know how I can beat him now. I don’t have the Medallion, nor the means of absorbing him again. Mephesto’s dead, Tony cant help me, he’s never dealt with this kind of power before. Jeff’s off doing who knows what as the Green Lantern, and I haven’t heard from Rashaad or Hicks in years. I’m by myself on this one, gotta think of a plan. . . ”

A few minutes later, James gets an idea and puts his helmet back on. He begins to cycle through his armors settings, before finally finding the Armor Modes settings. He selects the Hulk Buster Model and watches as his armor warps around him, changing into a modified version of Tony Starks Hulk Buster Armor. Nearly ten times stronger than his previous model, the Hulk Buster model should have more than enough power to take down Hardcore King. James tries to move forwards in the Hulk Buster armor, only to find it much more difficult than he’s used to. He activates the armors rockets, which lift him into the air. He blasts off, going at a slower speed than normal, but still going at a decent pace. He raises himself above the trees and searches for any signs of destruction. He quickly spots smoke trailing from an area not too far away. He blasts off towards it, ready to fight Hardcore King once more.

Five minutes later, James touches down in front of Hades & King, the resounding clang of his Hulk Buster armor landing echoing throughout the empty city. Hades motions for King to take him on, and King gladly walks forwards, shortening the gap that separates him from James. He stops about 20 feet away from James, and starts to talk to James, taunting him, really.

“New toy I see. No matter, you still cant beat me. I’ve got to tell you, I’ve really enjoyed this day. Hades showing up is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I had forgotten just how much I loved being evil. Now, I finally get to kill you, after years of hoping, dreaming, and fantasizing about this day. ”

James takes one giant step forwards, before speaking back.

“Bring it on. ”

Hardcore King charges at James, while James begins to slowly march towards King. The two meet seconds later, with King leaping towards James, and James swinging a massive metal fist at King. It slams into him, sending him flying backwards, skidding on the ground, finally stopping at Hades’ feet. Hardcore King stands up, shaking off the attack.

“Your new toy has made you much stronger. . . Lets see how fast you can go in it!”

Hardcore King, using his unnatural abilities, speeds towards James, landing blow after supercharged blow on the metal frame, knocking James off balance, going so fast that James cant keep up with his heavy armor. Hardcore King slams his fist into Kings juggernaut-like helmet, sending him flying backwards, landing on his back. James tries to get up, but finds he cant maneuver in his heavy armor. Hardcore King flies into the air above James, hovering 30 feet above him, before speeding down towards him, feet first. He slams into James’ gut, crushing the armor a bit. James reaches for King, but Hardcore dodges away from his slow movements. James decides that he needs to be able to move, so, he quickly changes the Armor Mode from Hulk Buster to Hardcore, wondering what this style was.

The armor warps around him, and, when it finished, James finds himself able to move with ease. He stands back up, glancing at the armor, which is mostly silver, with patches of dark red and black here and there. He notices that the armor is bulkier than his Savior Model, but not as bulky as the Hulk Buster model. He activates the Armors weapons system and fires a rocket from his forearm at King. It slams into him, exploding on contact, knocking him back a few feet, but he stays standing this time.

“When are you going to realize, you cant beat me?”

Hardcore King rushes forwards again, only this time, James grabs him by the neck and hoists him into the air.

“Let me show you just how much of a beating I can put on you!”

James slams his right fist into Kings face, holding him with the left. He slams his fist into Kings face again and again, attempting to pulverize it, but Hardcore King uses his demonic powers to keep that from happening. He freezes James’ fist mere inches from his face, before forcing James to release him. King lowers himself to the ground, before pulling his fist back, charging it with evil energy. He slams his fist into James’ torso, right where the flux Capacitor is, sending him flying backwards, also activating the Flux Capacitor. James gets back to his feet, having regained control of his armor. Out of nowhere, the Flux Capacitor begins to shoot out energy all around him. Suddenly, a flash of white light and twin patches of flames where he used to be, and James has been transported to another point in time.

Hardcore King chuckles to himself, knowing that whenever James was sent, he wouldn’t be coming back any time soon.

---Back At The Bunker---

Jamie has finished reading James’ accounts of everything that has occurred from the start of the hell Wars to Sarah’s death. She is now in full armor once more, and is now used to it. She has been practicing with it for around 20 minutes, and has made much progress in using the armor. She is nearly at the same level that Sarah was at before she was killed. She has figured out how to retract the cannon on her right arm, leaving it in a gauntlet matching her left arm. She walks over to the keypad near the door and punches in the code James used to lock it, which unlocks it. The door opens and she turns towards her grandparents.

“Stay here. Don’t worry, Ill find Dad. If he hasn’t killed that thing yet, Ill do it myself. ”

Jamie leaves the bunker, locking the door behind her. She leaves the building and activates the rockets in her boots, heading towards the rising smoke, similar to how James found Hades & Hardcore King. Nearly ten minutes later, she touches down behind King and Hades, much softer than James did, but Hades & King notice her anyways, and turn to face her. Hardcore King recognizes the armor and comments on it.

“I know that armor. . . Sarah used it. Since she’s dead, that must be you, Jamie. Welcome to the party, have you come to join us?”

Jamie expands the cannon over her right arm and aims it at King, before retaliating.

“Fuck You!”

Hardcore King shakes his head at her anger.

“So eager to join your father. . . . pity, you would’ve made a good queen, but now, you die!”

Hardcore King rushes at Jamie, while Jamie charges her cannon, the energy ball growing at its tip the longer she charges it.



#6 H K

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Posted 13 May 2008 - 08:45 PM

As Hardcore King rushes closer and closer to her, Jamie fires the energy ball. It quickly speeds towards King, finally slamming into his chest, cutting off his momentum completely, knocking him back a good fifty feet. A few seconds later, he gets back to his feet, the energy balls point of impact on his chest smoking, an angry look plastered on his face as he glares at Jamie. Jamie starts to charge up another energy blast, but suddenly finds that she cannot move a muscle. She begins to lift off of the ground and starts to drift towards Hardcore King. A few seconds later, King lowers her to the ground directly in front of him, before he begins to look her armor over.

He finally sees the Power Core on her chest for what it is, before plunging his fist into it. Massive sparks of electricity begin to expunge from the Power Core, effectively draining every bit of the armors energy, forcing it to withdraw back into the wristband on her arm, leaving Jamie in her street clothes. Hardcore King raises her right arm up to him, before removing the wristband itself, stashing it in his pocket for safe keeping. He grabs Jamie by the throat, pulling her in close so that only she can hear him.

"You should be happy that I haven’t killed you yet, as you can see, it would be infinitely easy, especially since Daddy isn’t around to save you anymore. Join me, and you shall rule at my side as my Queen, this is the last time I will offer you such a reward"

In response to his request, Jamie rears back, before spitting in his face, replying as he wipes the spit away.

"Kiss My A-mhphmhpm!"

Before she can finish her sentence, Hardcore King slams his mouth onto hers, forcing his tongue into her mouth. Jamie tries to struggle away, but Hardcore King is too strong for her. He finally breaks his kiss, before raising her into the air, using his powers to keep her aloft. He raises his right hand into the air, next to her, before swinging wildly, the back of his hand connecting with her face, the force of the blow, as well as King releasing his hold on her, knocks her to the ground a few feet away, unconscious. Hades, having seen all this, speaks up.

“Do you still desire her to be your Queen?”

Hardcore King surveys the damage he has caused, before replying.

“No. She is tainted with His blood. She would never join our cause, He has taught her well. It matters not, she is now powerless. Let us continue to gather your souls. ”

---Somewhere In the ‘70‘s---

James’ eyes slowly open, having been knocked out by the time travel process. He looks around, wondering just when he is. Out of nowhere, an explosion goes off a few feet from him, knocking him back to reality. He gets to his feet, a bit shakily, before finding his helmet, which was knocked off of him. He picks it up, before putting it back on. The HUD in the helmet screen is flashing a message, which reads:

“Connection to Stark Database lost. Unable to recharge Power Supply. ”

James closes the message, before hearing gunshots and screams of pain off in the distance. He materializes an SMG, before rushing off towards the sounds. He comes to a low cliff, where he spots several Vietnamese soldiers torturing a man who is strung up on a cross, cutting him up with a Bowie knife. James leaps off of the cliff, already starting to fire shots into the Vietnamese, and, as soon as he lands, every one of them drops dead. James holsters his gun on the back of his armor, using its magnetism to keep it in place. He walks up to the man crucified, before picking up the very knife he was being cut with, using it to cut him down from the cross. James hands him the knife, taking notice of the red headband he is wearing.

“What’s your name, soldier?”

“Rambo. John Rambo. How did. . ?”

James cuts him off before he can even ask.

“Don’t ask. Too long a story. Are there any more prisoners here?”

When Rambo nods in the affirmative, James materializes up a chaingun. He hands the massive gun to Rambo, before asking a redundant question.

“You know how to use one of those things?”

Rambo glances down at the gun, before smiling a dark smile.

“I’ll manage. ”

James grabs his gun, pulling it from his armor once more, ready to fight, before replying.

“Damn good. Let’s go kick some ass. ”

But, before James & Rambo can take off and kill some more Charlie, The Flux Capacitor begins shooting out energy all around James once more, before a bright flash of light expands over his general area, taking him to another time, leaving twin patches of fire where he stood. Rambo shrugs it off, chocking it up to a hallucination, before heading off to free the rest of the POWs.

---Back in the Present---

Hardcore King & Hades have left Indianapolis, moving on to the bigger cities where there were higher death tolls during the Hell Wars, with Hades quite eager to reclaim his Lost Souls. Nearly 30 minutes after the two have flown off, Jamie reawakens, shaking her head, trying to clear the cobwebs out of her head from Hardcore Kings blow. She rubs her jaw, a purple bruise already forming, nearly covering her entire jaw. She gets back to her feet, most of her body sore from landing as hard as she did on the cement. She looks around, awaiting another attack from Hardcore King, but finally realizes that he is gone. She lets out a breath of relief, knowing that she would be no match for him without her armor. She spots a familiar looking car and notices that it’s her father’s car, the one he was restoring all those years ago. She rushes over to it, hoping for some sign of life, maybe he was inside it.

She rushes to the car, a bit woozy, stumbling a bit, but finally reaches the car. She looks in, hoping to see James, but only sees an empty seat. She sees that the keys are still in the car and climbs in the drivers side door. She turns the keys in the ignition, starting the car up. An LCD Screen on the dash lights up, text on the screen showing a message.

“Welcome To The Iron Rider 2.0. Daughter of James, State Your Destination. ”

Jamie raises her eyebrow, a habit she picked up from her dad, before responding.

“Take me to the Secret Bunker. ”

The Iron Rider 2.0 takes a moment to process the location, before putting itself in Drive, speeding towards the Bunker. Jamie leans back in her seat, closing her eyes as the car goes at a steady 40 miles per hour. She nods off to sleep, still worn out from her fight, and subsequent beating. While she sleeps, she has horrible nightmares, filled with her parents being brutally killed before her eyes, while she is unable to do anything but watch and cry for help. Suddenly, her dreams stop cold, and there is only black. In that blackness, Hardcore King fades into existence, his eyes glowing an evil red, a dark smile on his face. He says only four words.

“Darkness Shall Consume You. ”

She snaps awake, the car having stopped in front of the building nearly ten minutes ago. She unstraps her seatbelt, before turning the key back to the off position, and getting out of the car. She walks into the bunker, holding her head, her vision is a little blurry. She has trouble typing in the proper code to unlock the doors, but finally does, on the fifth try. As the doors slide open, she stumbles through them, her grandparents rushing forwards, shocked at the massive bruise on her face, as well as her seeming lack of energy. Jamie sits down on one of the benches, trying to straighten her head out. Her grandmother notices her out of focus state quickly.

“Jamie, what’s wrong dear? Were you able to stop him? Where’s your father?”

Jamie shakes her head, trying to focus yet again, finding it difficult. She finally is able to answer.

“Don’t know, No, and Dead. . . ”

“What do you mean, Dead? He can’t be dead. . . ”

Jamie leans back against the wall, sighing at having to convince her grandmother that her son was dead.

“I don’t like it any more than you do, but he’s dead. I didn’t see his body, but he wasn’t around either, and you know he’d never abandon a fight. Come on, we’re going back to his house. He should have some weapons stored there, if what he wrote in that box is up to date. Hopefully Ill be able to contact Uncle Tony there. I’m glad the car can drive itself, I’m still seeing double. . . . ”

Jamie gets up, a bit wobbly still, before leading them out to the car, her grandparents steadying her on both sides. She lets them get in first, before climbing into the drivers’ seat. She starts the car, before inputting her destination. She leans back in the seat again and falls asleep once more, having the same nightmarish dreams. Instead of watching her parents being murdered, she’s the one doing the murdering, her eyes glowing the same evil red as Hardcore Kings. She sits bolt upright in the seat, nearly slamming into the steering wheel, but catches herself, noticing that her vision has finally cleared. She grabs the keys, intending to turn the ignition off, but notices that her skin is extremely pale. She looks at herself in the rear view mirror, finding not what she was expecting. Instead of her normal dirty blond hair and tan skin, she finds pitch black hair, her skin a bit more pale, with her eyes, normally brown, are now a dark yellow. She shakes her head, closing her eyes, hoping that she is hallucinating. She reopens her eyes and finds that her reflection has turned back to normal. A bit freaked out, she turns the car off and climbs out, heading into James’ house, her grandparents following behind her.

Jamie unlocks the front door using the keys from the car. She opens the door, not knowing what to expect, but what she finds makes her stop cold, fear beginning to flow through her veins. The house has been ransacked, virtually everything has been overturned or destroyed. She rushes up the stairs to the room that James described in his writings as his Armory. She finds the wall panel to the room wide open. She walks into the room and finds it in the same condition as the rest of the house, with every computer panel and weapon completely ruined. Written on the ceiling in what appears to be blood, is a message for her.

“NO HELP HERE”

She walks further into the room, looking all over for something that could’ve survived, but finds nothing. She notices a face down picture frame lying on a counter. She picks it up, curiosity overwhelming her other emotions at the moment. She sees that it is a picture of her mother, taken years ago, probably before she had been born. Sarah is standing in a park, holding up the Rock On hand sign, a smile on her face. Peaceful times, Happy Times. She sets the picture back down, a few stray tears falling from her eyes as the thought that she is now utterly alone, besides her grandparents. Her mother is dead, her father is dead, she has no way to contact Tony, nor any weapons, there is no hope left for the planet. She leans against a wall, the tears now flowing freely. She sinks to the ground, scrunched into a ball, before slamming her fist against the wall, hitting a hidden panel. Another wall panel slides open, revealing a secret room within the secret room. She gets up, wiping the tears from her eyes, hoping that, since the room was closed, that it hadn’t been torn up too.

She enters the room, cautiously at first, but relaxes when she sees no sign of danger. She sees something on a pedestal in the center of the room, a spotlight shining upon it. She moves closer to the pedestal, noticing a panel in front of the pedestal with words written on it. She steps up to the panel and reads the inscription.

“Jamie’s Iron Armor.

Painstakingly created by James White, in the hope that she will never have to use it. ”


Jamie reaches for the wristband on the pedestal, grabbing hold of it, the smooth metal cool in her hand. She snaps it open, before closing it over her right forearm. It immediately boots up, quickly covering her with armor, already having the proper measurements, thanks to James constantly updating it. This armor is completely different from her Mothers, resembling James’, but with hints of the Yautja style thrown in. Jamie flexes in the armor, reveling in the new power she has.

“Time to kick some ass!”



#7 H K

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Posted 17 May 2008 - 01:16 AM

As Jamie prepares to leave the room, a message flashes on her HUD.

“UNKNOWN USER DETECTED. UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS. SECURITY SYSTEM ACTIVATED. ”

Suddenly, the Armor delivers 10,000 volts of energy into her every pore, a terrible scream of pain escaping from her, echoing thorough the house. Jamie drops to the floor, easily knocked unconscious by the armor. The armor retracts back into the wristband, which removes itself from her wrist. Jamie’s body lay on the ground, smoke trailing from places that were severely burned. Her grandparents rush into the room, spurred on by her horrific scream. Both of them skid to a stop, kneeling next to her body. James Senior picks her up off the ground, before rushing out of the room. He bounds down the stairs, his energy betraying his age. He leaves the house and heads out to his sons car. He pops the door open and gently sets Jamie down on the passenger seat, before closing the door, rushing to the other side. He climbs into the drivers’ side and starts the car. He puts it in reverse and backs out of the driveway at a reckless speed. He spins the car around and steps on the gas pedal, nearly hitting a light post, but missing it by inches. As he speeds off, Jamie’s grandmother, Patricia White, runs out of the house and watches the car fade away into the distance. She turns and starts to go back into the house, but a voice from behind her stops her cold. It sounds like James, but, it couldn’t be, Jamie said he was dead. . . .

“Hello. . . Mother. ”

Patricia turns around and she sees who she thinks is James standing in front of her, another man standing a few feet away, smaller in stature, but more menacing in body language. ‘James’ takes a step forwards, and Patricia suddenly finds herself unable to move a muscle. She slowly rises into the air. Hardcore King holds out his right hand, and, out of nowhere, a Scythe, with blood red designs along the blade. He raises the scythe into the air, before sweeping it through Patricia’s body, not cutting her, but ripping her soul from her body. Her soul is impaled on the blade, a mass of white energy. King shakes it off, before Hades summons it to him. It melts into his body, as he grows stronger, fueled by its life force. Patricia’s lifeless body drops to the ground, still living, but a hellish sort of living, unaware of anything going on around her, no thoughts in her mind. Dead would have been better than that.

“Another one bites the dust.. . ”

---The Future---

A sudden flash of light and James drops to the ground, sticking his landing this time, now a bit used to the time travel process. He looks around, trying to figure out just when the hell he is, when, out of nowhere, a feminine voice tainted with evil speaks up from behind him.

“Puny Human! You dare walk upon my street! What's your name?”

James turns around, hoping that he wouldn’t find what he just knows is there. He sees the demonic look on the teens face and turns away from her, his head and shoulders drooping, fore looking up towards the sky.

"Why? Why me? Why do I always have to run into the crazy possessed people? Why couldn’t it have been a normal person for a change?"

“You’re going to be my 24th victim!”

“Damn it all,not another psycho bitch...”

James turns back towards the possessed teen and begins to pop his knuckles, hoping that he wouldn’t have to fight her, but wanting to be ready just in case. She, however, doesn’t seem intimidated by his size, or armor. As she lunges towards him, the Flux Capacitor activates yet again, ripping James from that time period and away from a fight he probably wouldn’t have won.

---Present Day(2034)---

James Senior has successfully gotten Jamie admitted to a nearby hospital, and She is currently being treated for severe electrical shock and burns, but the Doctors are having a difficult time trying to treat her, due to an unknown force keeping everyone at least six feet away from her body. As the doctors, nurses, janitors, and James Senior look on, Jamie’s body rises off of the hospital bed, her hospital gown hanging off her frame, barely keeping her covered. Her body floats about a foot and a half off the bed, while her injuries slowly begin to heal, right before everyone’s eyes. As the burns and blood begin to fade into smooth skin, her body lowers back onto the bed. She seems completely normal. . . Except for the now-black hair and slightly pale skin. Her eyes suddenly pop open and she climbs off of the hospital bed, looking over her body for any sign of injury. Finding none, she looks at her surroundings, trying to find out just where she is. She finally notices the twenty or thirty people in the room and looks at them, a perplexed look on her face, wondering why they were all looking at her so strangely.

“What? Why’s everyone looking at me so funny?”

James senior snaps out of his stupor long enough to answer her.

“Look in a mirror. . . . Plus, you were floating a moment ago. . . ”

Jamie walks over to a nearby mirror, not even realizing that she’s giving everyone a good view of her backside, thanks to the hospital gown. She gazes into the mirror and gasps as she sees the changes that have come over her. She recognizes them from her hallucination in the car earlier that day, but feels no different from normal. She continues to look at herself, and realizes that she looks good with black hair anyways. She looks down and notices that she is in a paper thin hospital gown and decides that she doesn’t want to be in it anymore. With a simple thought, the hospital gown disappears, having been replaced by a pair of black jeans, black leather boots, and a black sleeveless shirt, midriff length, with a skull & crossbones on it. She turns back towards everyone, who have barely moved a muscle.

“There we go, much better. Now, who wants to point me to the exit?”

The only person that responds is James Senior, having been exposed to strange things ever since the Hell Wars, recovers faster than the average person.

“Follow me. . . I swear, you and your father will be the death of me if strange things keep happening around the two of you. ”

James Senior leads Jamie out of the room, down a hallway, down an elevator, and out of the building. He tosses her the keys to the Iron Rider, heading around to the passenger side, while Jamie opens the drivers side door. She climbs into the car, shutting the door behind her. She starts the ignition and puts it in Drive, before stepping on the gas, speeding away from the hospital.

“Okay, just what happened to me that I required a visit to the hospital?”

“Well, I’m not too positive. Me and your grandmother heard you scream, so, we ran up to check on you. When we got into the room, some sort of armor was removing itself from you, and you were laying there, parts of you smoking. You were badly burned, we thought you were going to die. I don’t know how you did what you did, but, you floated almost two feet over the bed and you just sort of healed up. ”

Jamie takes a moment to process this new information, before responding.

“Hmmm. . . . Maybe dad passed down some of his healing prowess. . . don’t know about the other stuff. Doesn’t matter though. I’ve gotta get that armor to work somehow, don’t know if I can stop whoever I fought without it. ”

The two ride the rest of the way in silence, until they arrive at James’ house. Jamie slows to a stop, parking in the driveway. They climb out of the car and notice Patricia’s body lying face down on the ground. They both rush over to her, checking to see if she is alive. When the confirm that she is, they try to get her to respond to them, but to no avail. Her eyes remain glazed over, her face expressionless. With no brain function to support the rest of her body, she finally dies, and, seconds after she stops breathing, her body dissolves into nothing, a side effect of having her soul ripped from her body by Hardcore Kings Scythe.

“Damnit. . . Not again. . . This cant keep happening. Grandpa, you stay here, I’m going to end this, once and for all, armor or no armor. ”

Jamie stands up and closes her eyes, focusing on the same power she used to change her clothing back in the hospital. As she tries to control it, she slowly lifts off of the ground, hovering there for a bit. She clenches her fists at her side as her hair begins to move, as if flowing in the wind, but the wind isn’t blowing. Tiny bits of rock begin to lift off the ground, Jamie’s power expanding exponentially, effecting things around her. A voice from behind her causes her to drop back to the ground, the rocks to fall, and her hair to lay back down as well.

“Jamie, stop. You’re not going anywhere without me. ”



#8 H K

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Posted 22 May 2008 - 01:11 AM

Jamie quickly turns around, easily recognizing the voice that stopped her from doing something incredibly stupid.

“Dad! Where were. . !”

James interrupts her before she can continue, speaking very quickly while walking towards the Iron Rider 2.0.

“Long story. Get in, ill explain on the way. Dad, go back inside my house, to the Armory, there should still be a weapon that I hid in there, same room where Jamie’s armor was. Stay inside the house, if I did it right, no one with an ill will towards anyone inside should be able to get in, but I wouldn’t rely on that alone, so keep the weapon within reach. ”

James climbs into his car, before fully activating his armor, which has drastically been modified. Its Power Core has been restored to normal, no sign of a Flux Capacitor anywhere. On its left forearm is a protrusion of metal, wrapped entirely around the forearm, appearing to be some sort of storage device. The armors boots, have been plated with a heavy metal, unrecognizable at the moment. James’ armor connects itself to the car once more as Jamie slams her door shut. The car, reading his neurological patterns, starts itself and begins to speed off to where James wants to go.

“Okay, we have almost no time, so, here’s the short version of what happened. Hardcore King fucked up my Flux Capacitor, used to allow me to travel through time to wherever I want, but when he hit it, it just started taking me any time it wanted to, without my consent or knowledge of when it would happen. I landed in Vietnam first, helped out a soldier who ended up rescuing about 30 American Prisoners. I would’ve helped him too, but the damn thing sent me to the future, not really sure where or when I was, but I met up with some psycho bitch who talked about a 24th victim. Lucky for me, the Flux Capacitor got me out of there pretty quick. On my third jump, I finally turned my armors power supply off, cutting the power to the Capacitor, which stopped it from taking me anywhere. It took me a bit, but I finally figured out that I was back to the time where I met your mother, only, I was there about 5 years before I originally went there in the first place. I made my way back to Paradigm City and explained what was up to the Elementalists there. That’s why they seemed to know me before I even got there. I trained with them for all of those 5 years. They helped me fix my armor so that I could control the Flux Capacitor again, I had been training without my armor the entire time, as it was. So, once I saw myself walking up to the front gates, I activated the Flux Capacitor and came back here. Since I was able to train for as long as I was, I was able to keep my powers in this time, hopefully, that will be enough to stop Hardcore King and Hades. If it isn’t, I was able to pick up a few. . . Special weapons during my time jumps. You though, are our greatest weapon. ”

Jamie looks a bit confused, James has given her a lot of information to digest at once, but her mind finally catches up with his last sentence.

“Me? What can I do? The last time I tried anything, your armor shocked the hell out of me!”

“Yes, and that’s why you’re our greatest weapon. While I was in the past for the second time, I learned how to look into the future, and by future, I mean the present. I saw everything that’s been happening to you, as well as the rest of the world. When Hardcore King forced himself upon you, he unwittingly transferred some of his own powers into you, same thing that happened to me when Mephesto forced me into a contract. Why d’you think your hairs changed? The powers have been subtly changing you, basing you off of his appearance. You got that blonde hair from your mothers side of the family, she was blonde too Y’know, she always dyed her hair. You’ll start to notice more drastic changes, you’ll get angrier easier, oh, and that God-Like power thing is nice too. I miss that. We’re almost there, get ready. ”

Jamie looks out the windows of the car, but sees nothing of great importance.

“Almost where?”

James slams on the brakes, immediately halting the car, pitching the both of them forwards, luckily, the Cars automatic seatbelts stop them from going through the windshield.

“Here. ”

James unstraps himself, as does Jamie, and the two of them step out of the car, James’ armor disconnecting itself as he does. James looks up at a building, around 4 stories high, nearly in ruin, but still barely standing. He walks up to the door, with Jamie trailing behind him. He steps to the side of the door, motioning for Jamie to move to the other side, which she does, pressing against the wall. James slams his fist against the door, slamming it open and immediately a green bust of flames explodes out the doors. Once the flames stop, James calmly walks inside, with Jamie warily following him, hoping that he knew what he was doing. James steps into the building, looking all around for any sign of danger, when, out of nowhere, he retracts his armor completely, leaving him in civilian clothes, completely unprotected. Jamie looks at him like he’s insane, before expressing herself verbally.

“What the hell are you doing? Put your armor back on, you don’t know what could be hidden in here!”

“That’s exactly why I’m doing this. I want to get what’s in here the right way, with no assistance from any sort of armor, otherwise, once I do get to it, it wont work for me. You’ll understand soon enough, but for now, stay here, guard the door. ”

James leaves Jamie near the door and enters another room, the door slamming shut behind him. Jamie begins to nervously pace the floor and look around the room she is in, just knowing that nothing good would come of this place. As she paces the floor, James looks around in the second room, not seeing any visible threats, but wary nonetheless. He notices a dark green button on the wall to his left and pushes it, before crouching low, just incase something flies at his head. When nothing attacks him, James gets back up, before a Green light washes over him, apparently scanning him, testing him. A few seconds later, a deep voice, a bit mechanical sounding, begins to speak.

“James White, You wish to obtain the Power Coin. To do so, you must pass three tests, each test designed to measure your strength of will, purity, and decision making skills. Prepare yourself, for your first test begins. . . now. ”

The room suddenly fades out of existence, before being replaced with the top of a building, nearly fifty stories high, flames shooting out of the windows. James quickly assesses the situation, coming up with the fact that he is trapped on the top of the building. The mechanical voice speaks again, informing him of what he must do in order to pass.

“To pass this test, you must rescue the woman on the 31st floor. You only have a short amount of time before the building collapses, killing both you and the woman. ”

James curses to himself, knowing that, at the rate the building is burning, and where he is in relation to where the woman is, he would be able to spare not even a second in order to keep the both of them alive. He attempts to expand his armor, but finds that his Wristband is gone. He doesn’t let this affect him too much, adrenaline giving him much needed confidence. He rushes over to the stairwell door, before kicking it in. he rushes down the steps, nearly skipping entire flights, the white number painted on the wall reading ‘Floor 50’. James jumps down several more flights of stairs, finding that he is running out of breath and feeling quite a bit of pain in his feet and legs. He notices a cut on his arm that would’ve normally healed by now, and, taken with the pain in his lungs, as well as in his legs, he assumes that the Predatorial enhancements have been removed from him as well. Whoever made up this test sure wasn’t making it easy.

James takes a few seconds to catch his breath and think, trying to come up with a better way to get down the stairs. He spots a piece of sheet metal leaning up against a wall and grabs it, tossing it down in front of him. He kneels down on it, before pushing himself down the stairs, the curve of the sheet metal allowing him to easily slide down the stairs. As he reaches the bottom, he grabs hold of the railing and uses it to turn himself and the sheet metal, sending him down the other set of steps. He quickly makes his way to the 31st floor, jumping off of the metal as he does, but this slams him into a wall, and, unfortunately for him, the wall wins this round. James shakes his head, trying to clear his vision, not used to having to try to fight through pain, but, he gets to his feet and pushes on. He looks all around the hallway he landed in, the several doors along the walls, knowing that he wouldn’t have an easy time of things. He begins to open door after door, finding dead bodies in every room, most of them burned to death, their skin dark red, blood everywhere. The very last door, however, James cant get to budge. He begins to kick it, but it still wont move, something on the other side is blocking it. Hoping that the plaster on the walls isn’t as thick as the door, James begins to kick at the walls next, his foot easily breaking through the plaster. He makes a hole big enough for him to fit through and climbs into the room, noticing that there is a huge boulder sized pile of rubble blocking the door.

He looks all over the room and sees a woman pinned down by more rubble and quickly rushes over to her, not really noticing what she looks like, and begins to throw the rubble off of her as fast as he can, and, with his reduced strength, that’s not very fast. He finally struggles and pulls the last piece of rubble off of her, tossing it aside. He finally looks at who she is, but cant believe his eyes.

“It. . . It cant be. . . Its not you. . . You’re dead, you cant be here, you cant be real. . . . . ”

James drops to his knees in front of the woman, overcome with emotion at seeing her with his own two eyes after such a long time.

“I’m very real James, come on, we have to go-ugh. . . “

James looks down and sees a patch of dark red on her abdomen, before spotting the six inch long slit going horizontally across the center of the blood. He peels her shirt away from her body, inspecting the wound. He sees a piece of glass barely sticking out of the wound. He grips the edge of the glass, before taking Sarah’s hand, trying to get her to focus on him, and not the pain she was about to feel. He slowly begins to ease the glass out of her, not wanting to further injure. He finally slips the glass out, the piece is six inches wide and eight inches long, it had cut her pretty deep. James tosses the shard aside and attempts to help Sarah up. She struggles to stand, so, James lifts her off the ground, supporting her with his right arm under her back just below her arms, his left under her kneecaps. He climbs out through his homemade door, careful so that he doesn’t hit her head on the walls. He begins to walk down the steps at a quick pace, but realizes that he doesn’t have enough time to do that once the building starts to shake around him. He climbs down the last step to the floor and looks around for a way out as the building leans over, starting to collapse sideways. He rushes to a window, bracing himself, before kicking it out with his foot, keeping himself balanced so as not to drop Sarah.

He maneuvers the both of them out of the window, keeping himself steady by sitting on the ledge of the window as the building begins to fall farther. Seeing the angle of the building, James stands up outside the window, hoping that he had enough leverage to stay standing. When he doesn’t fall to his death, James begins to run towards the ground, which is coming closer and closer. James dodges flames from the windows, as well as power lines, getting closer and closer the ground, both from the falling building, and from his running. With his footing nearly level with the ground now, James jumps off of the rest of the building, falling around fifteen feet, slamming to the ground, but forcing himself not to roll with the landing, to keep Sarah safe. The building crashes to the ground behind him, raising a massive cloud of dust, as well as sending debris into the air.

James sets Sarah down on the ground and looks up, seeing debris heading straight for them. He leans over Sarah, using his body as a shield, hoping to protect her from most of the damage. The debris rains down on James’ back, mostly bricks, which bounce off of him, but cause him immense pain. As the debris and dust finally settles down, James raises up and looks down at Sarah, who has her eyes closed. He tries to wake her, but, she doesn’t respond. He looks down at his clothes and sees that they are soaked in blood, but it cant be his. He sees that Sarah’s shirt is entirely red now, and that blood is still seeping out of her, a pool forming around her.

“No. . . Please don’t do this to me. . . Not again. . . ”

As James rambles on, hoping against hope that what he knew was true couldn’t possibly happen twice. He checks her pulse, but finds nothing. He begins to administer CPR, breathing air into her and then compressing it out of her. He continues to try and revive her for nearly ten minutes, but it does no good. James checks her pulse once more and still finds nothing. Tears begin to fall from his eyes, dropping onto her body, when everything fades away around him, returning him to the room, Sarah’s body gone with everything else. James looks down at himself, finding that he is how he was before the whole test started. The mechanical voice speaks to James once more.

“James, you have proven that you have the strength of will that is needed to wield the weapon you seek, you have shown that you have the ability to make tough decisions when called upon, and, most of all, by doing everything in your power to rescue an unknown woman in the face of death itself, you have proven that you are pure of heart. Congratulations, you may now wield the weapon you seek. ”

James climbs back to his feet, breathing heavily, a look of quiet fury on his face, severely regretting coming to the building at all. A door in front of him melts away, revealing a room shrouded in darkness, until a pillar of light flashes on, showing a pedestal, similar to the one James had used to store Jamie’s custom wristband on. On this pedestal is something gold encased in a glass box. James enters the room and walks up to the pedestal. He removes the glass box from around the golden object, anxious to finally possess the weapon he had been seeking for such a long time. He picks the object up, immediately feeling a rush of power from it. He brings it up to eye level, studying the object.

It is a golden coin, flames embossed on the side of it. James closes his fist around the coin, when, out of nowhere, his armor expands itself around him. The coin remains outside his armor, in his hand. A cord shoots out from his armors power core, attaching itself to the coin. The cord retracts into the power supply, virtually melting into it, changing the light of the core from a soft blue-white to a vibrant golden color. James’ armor suddenly overflows with energy, the Power Coin supercharging it. A golden aura surrounds him as a wave of gold washes over his armor, creating a golden shield extending over his shoulders down to the middle of his torso, a diamond covering his chest. At his hip in a new holster is a Dagger, green running along the silver blade. James clenches his fists, enjoying his new power levels, before leaving the room. He walks back through the Testing room and into the area where he left Jamie. She gets up from a creaky wooden chair. She walks up to James, noticing the new features to his armor.

‘I take it you got your weapon then?”

“Oh yes. . . I Am Complete!”



#9 H K

H K

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Posted 02 June 2008 - 03:38 PM

As James continues to peruse the bookcases that line the walls, Jamie asks an obvious question.

“How did you know your Power Coin would be here?”

James pulls out a book and flips through it, but immediately puts it back, it being the wrong book, but continues his search, while explaining his knowledge of the Coin to Jamie.

“Well, I first heard of the Coin from your Uncle Tony, of all people, where he learned about it, I don’t know. I had planned to come get it before this whole thing started, was gonna use it to power your armor. Now, originally, the Power Coin was used by a superhero in the early 90’s, Tommy Oliver. His original Power Coin was destroyed during a battle, but, when he was cloned, the Power Coin was too, as well as the Mecha it fueled, the Dragonzord. The Clone brought himself and the Original Tommy back to the 1800’s, and tried to kill him there. After a while, the Original Tommy made the Clone see the error of his ways and fight for the side of good, similar to how Hardcore King originally did. The clone sent Tommy back to the future, deciding to stay in the 1800’s, using the Power Coin until his death. Before he died, he sent the Coin back to its original creator, who stashed it here. I had this whole area mapped out, knew exactly what to do and how to do it, and then the shitstorm started. But now, with the Coin, I think I can finally kill Hardcore King and send Hades back to Hell. See this golden shield? This thing absorbs enough energy from anyone around me that, if I get close enough to him and activate it, I can weaken Hardcore King enough so that we’re on an equal playing field, it also recharges my own armor, keeping it at optimum strength. This Dagger, if played properly, will summon a great Dragon Mecha, as I said before. Hopefully, I wont have to call it, but I know how, just in case. Here, take a look at this, it shows the Mecha in greater detail, explains it better than I can. ”

James, having finally found the right book, hands it to Jamie, who holds it open to the page James pointed out and begins to read, while James removes the Dagger from its holster on his hip. He looks at it up and down, noticing how, instead of the Green that it should be, there are red streaks running along the blade. Tony’s technology must’ve changed it to match his armor. He puts the Dagger back in place, before retracting his armor. Now back in civilian clothing, James looks down at his wristband and sees that, next to the LCD screen, the Power Coin has embedded itself. Just as James is about to say something, the book Jamie had drops to the floor, making a loud smack, which echoes throughout the house. James turns around, wondering what caused her to drop the book. What he sees makes him fear the worst. Jamie is standing, head lowered, hair hanging in front of her face, almost completely covering it, breathing heavily, her eyes glowing a dark red, instead of their former yellow color. When she speaks, her voice has become deeper, darker, reminiscent of Hardcore Kings.

“You have lost, James. Your Last Hope. . . Is Mine! You believe my transfer of power was an accident. . . You are mistaken! I knew exactly what I was doing, I knew that, with one Kiss, she would be mine to control, to funnel myself through, and now, You shall die by your own daughters hands!”

With that final word, Jamie launches herself at James, intent on ripping him limb from limb. Jamie pulls her fist back, a dark glow surrounding it, before throwing a punch at James, who holds up his arms to block it. Her fist slams into his forearms, which sends him skidding backwards into a wall. Jamie lunges forwards, sending punch after punch into his now exposed torso. James catches one of her punches, stopping her momentarily. He spits out a bit of blood, before catching her other fist, rendering her immobile. He quickly throws her fists down, before wrapping his arms around her in a bear hug, pinning her arms at her sides. He lifts her off the ground, keeping her in place so she cant attack him again. He looks into her eyes, which are still the blood red that they were. He begins to speak to her, to try to get her to regain control.

“Jamie! Listen to me, you can fight him, you can take your body back! Fight Him Jamie, Fight Him! He isn’t as strong as you, I know you can do it! FIGHT HIM!”

As James coaches Jamie, she begins to shake her head, her expression a mixture of pain and anger. Her head stops moving, now glaring back at James.

“She cannot defeat me, I hold too much Power over her!”

James closes his eyes, sighing to himself, knowing that he will hate himself for what he is about to do. He pulls Jamie’s body in close, while she struggles to get away from him, and whispers into her ear.

“I’m sorry. I love you. ”

James pulls back, tilting his head backwards, before slamming into Jamie’s own head, using brute force to knock her unconscious, at least temporarily stopping Kings control of her. James gently sets Jamie down on a dilapidated sofa, not wanting to cause her anymore pain, since she’ll have a monster headache when she wakes up. He punches in a combination on his wristband, and a Medallion materializes before him. He snatches it out of the air before it can fall, before putting the string its on around Jamie’s neck. James grabs the Medallion, closing his fist around it, before sending a wave of Energy into it, activating its powers. Hopefully it will keep Hardcore King at bay for her, like his old one did for him. Once the Medallion begins to work, Jamie’s skin returns to its normal shade, her hair turns blonde once more, and, though unseen, her eyes turn back to their dazzling shade of green. James walks over to where the Book explaining the Dragonzord landed and picks it up. He starts to close it, but a page catches his eye, near the end of the book. The title of the page reads: “Demon Expulsion”. James fully opens the book and glances at the page, quickly taking in the main information. He closes the book, pocketing it, and walks back to Jamie’s near-lifeless body. He picks her up, holding her with one arm supporting her upper body, his other under her knees. He exit’s the house, the door slamming shut behind him. He maneuvers his arm and pushes a button on his wristband, which starts his car, and also opens the doors. He sets Jamie down on the passenger side, shutting the door once she’s fully inside. He walks around to the other side and climbs in, shutting his own door. He puts the car in reverse, before backing out and away from the curb, before putting it in drive. He steps on the gas and speeds away from the building.

---Elsewhere---

Hardcore King opens his eyes, an evil grin on his face. He turns towards Hades, who has just finished harvesting another soul, the body of the victim lying at his feet. He absorbs the soul into himself before glancing at King.

“Have you made it known that we now control his child?”

“Oh yes, in a very big way. I forced him to knock her out before I stopped possessing her. With any luck, he won’t be able to keep his mind focused on us long enough to properly fight. I did find out a new piece of information while I was controlling her though. He has a new attachment to his armor, a Golden shield that covers most of his torso and extends out over his shoulders, as well as a silver and red Dagger. They didn’t look all that impressive to me, though. How many more souls are we harvesting?”

Hades closes his eyes, calculating the numbers in his head, before responding.

“Nine Million, Seven Hundred Forty-Two Thousand out of Ten Million are left. At this rate, I’ll have all of my souls back within the week. Come, we must move on to another city, this one is empty. ”

Hades disappears in a bust of black smoke, with Hardcore King right behind him, moving on to another location.

---Back With James---

As the Iron Rider speeds down an empty street, James begins to look around for some sign of people, but he finds none. Nearly ten minutes later, just as he stops the car in his driveway, Jamie begins to stir, her eyes flutter open, and a low moan emits from her. She puts her hand to her head, trying to stave off the pain as she looks around, trying to figure out where she is. Her eyes finally settle on James, then down at the medallion hanging around her neck. She grabs it and brings it closer to her face, so she can get a better look at it. After a second of studying it, Jamie looks back to James.

“Why does my head feel like it was hit with a sledgehammer?”

James turns the car off, removing his keys as he does.

“I have bad news. . . When Hardcore King kissed you, he knew exactly what he was doing. He infected you with a little bit of himself, he possessed you back there, made you try to kill me. I had to knock you out to stop his control. No worries now though, that Medallion is similar to the one I used to keep him at bay in my own mind, it should be enough to keep him out of your head, I hope, he’s stronger now, after all. Come on, I’ll reprogram your armor so it doesn’t shock the hell out of you. I need to get a few things from inside anyway. Your grandfather should be upstairs waiting for us. ”

James & Jamie exit the car, the latter wincing as the doors slam, irritating her headache. They enter the house and find it shrouded in darkness. James attempts to turn on a light, but it is unresponsive. He snaps his fingers and a flame sparks to life in his hand, emitting enough light to allow them to see. James looks all around the house, searching for anything that shouldn’t be there, but finds nothing. He heads upstairs, Jamie trailing behind him, and walks into his Armory. Expecting to find his father waiting patiently for him, weapon in hand, James is unpleasantly surprised to find his father on the ground, weapon beside him, very dead. James angrily slams his fist against the wall, which subsequently puts out their only light, as well as denting the wall.

“Damnit. . . I was afraid of this. Since Hardcore King came from my DNA, the security system registered him as being me, it let him right in. Fuck. . . Fuck. . . FUCK!”

James finishes his sentence off with a yell, slamming his fist into the wall again, in the same spot as before, this time punching all the way through the plaster. He shakes his hand, feeling the pain for a few seconds until his enhanced healing attribute fixes him up. He sighs to himself, before bending down, picking his fathers body up. He heaves it over his shoulder and carries him downstairs, leaving Jamie in the Armory to gather up anything that was left of his weaponry. James sets his fathers body on the grass outside, before taking a few steps back. James stomps his right foot on the ground, using his Elemental Powers at the moment. A slight shockwave jolts through the ground, emitting from his right foot. The earth around his father begins to rise, bringing the body up off of the ground. It stops once the body is at waist level. James snaps his fingers once again, flames sparking around them. He aims his hands at his fathers corpse, before firing twin busts of flames at the body, which quickly catches fire. James watches as the last remnants of his past is reduced to ashes. Once his fathers corpse has stopped burning, nothing left now but ashes, James punches a few buttons on his storage unit, which is on his left forearm, and an Urn materializes in front of him. Originally, it was the Urn where the ashes of Captain America were held, but, James had taken it, along with Caps ashes. James opens the Urn and looks into it, where Captain Americas ashes should be, but finds that the Urn is strangely empty. Suddenly, a voice behind him makes James turn around in surprise’

“Looking for me?”



#10 H K

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Posted 05 June 2008 - 01:55 AM

Upon hearing those words, James quickly turns towards the voice, his eyes landing on a figure clad in blue, with red and white stripes around his abdomen. James starts to smile, recognizing the figure as Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America, thought to be dead, but, here he is. James takes a few step towards Steve, extending his hand, which Steve grasps, a strong grip, even to James’ enhanced body.

“I thought you were dead. Matter of fact, I had your ashes. How are you here and alive?”

Steve looks around the area, trying to get his bearings straight, being dead for over twenty years tends to make a persons inner clock and compass a bit off.

“I don’t really know myself. Last thing I remember is seeing a split in the dimension that I was in, I can only assume it was a Heaven of sorts, didn’t see anything on fire or anything like that. I walked into the split and, here I am. Guess my ashes rematerialized me, although, I haven’t been able to locate my shield. You wouldn’t happen to know where it is, would you?”

James presses a few buttons on his storage unit, before a round object, roughly two feet in diameter materializes in front of him. James catches the object by its strap on the back of it. He spins the object around, revealing it to be Captain Americas shield. With a White Star in the center, a blue circle around the star, and bred & white stripes echoing around it, it is a formidable weapon, suited for an American hero. James tosses Steve the shield, who deftly catches it with his right hand. He straps the shield to his left forearm, easily keeping hold of the surprisingly heavy Shield.

“Thanks. Now, fill me, in. What year is it and whats been going on in the world since I died, and who are you?”

James takes a deep breath, knowing that this might take a while, before beginning.

“Where to start. . . . , My name is James White, and, damn near right after you died, a great war broke out. With your death, the Islamic terrorists figured that America would be weakened enough to where they could come in and bum rush us and take over. They succeeded. I spent years trying to reclaim the country, and finally succeeded in the year 2015.I was then sent back in time, where I met my wife and conceived our child. I came back here and found out that George Bush had made himself King in my absence, so, I killed him, righted the country, and we had peace for a good ten years or so. Now, in the year 2034, out of nowhere, this big monster claiming to be Hades showed up and started tearing shit up. I had a short conflict with him, but, he kicked my ass pretty bad, and contaminated a close friend, turned him against me. I got out of there pretty quick, but went back, had to try and stop them. He broke my Flux Capacitor, it sent me all over time and space. While I was traveling, I gathered up a ton of different weapons to use against them, your Shield being one of them. I finally fixed the Flux Capacitor and came back here, only to find out that my daughter was contaminated with the same evil. I was able to stop the person that contaminated her from taking control, but I don’t know for how long. That about sums it up, really. ”

Captain America takes a few seconds to absorb the new information, before replying.

“Wow. . . The world has really gone to hell since I died. ”

“You have no idea. Since you're back now, is there anything you can do to help me kill Hades?”

Steve looks down at his Shield, thinking about his options, before speaking.

“If everyone’s still alive, I could call the Avengers back together. I know some other people that would help us out too. I’ll see what I can do and get back to you. ”

“Good. Before you do anything, go see Tony Stark, he still blames himself for your death. He also knows how to reach me if need be. Take care, Steve. ”

“You too James. ”

James salutes Steve, and Steve returns it, before rushing off, attempting to find a way to get to New York. Being Captain America, he should have no trouble at all. James watches him rush off, before gathering his fathers ashes, placing them into Captain Americas old Urn. James seals the Urn tightly, before taking it back inside his home. He sets it on his coffee table, before looking around for Jamie. He spots her sitting in a recliner, eyes closed, breathing regular and deep, clearly sleeping. James smiles a bit, happy to see her so peaceful, instead of a murderous look. James gently picks her up, making sure to not wake her, before carrying her upstairs. He nudges the door to her old room open, before walking in with her. He lays her down on her old bed, covering her up as he does. He leaves the room as she gets comfortable again. He shuts the door, before heading off to his won room, feeling a bit tired himself. He opens the door to his room and climbs into his bed, not even bothering to take his boots off, and quickly falls asleep.

---The Next Day---

James slowly opens his eyes, the sunlight flooding into his room nearly blinding him. He climbs out of bed, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the light. Once he can finally see, he gets up and leaves his room, heading down the hall. He opens Jamie’s door, expecting to see her sleeping peacefully, but, instead finds an empty bed, and, sitting on that bed are the broken remnants of the Medallion James put on her. Scrawled on the ceiling in what looks to be blood are the words: “She’s Mine!” James drops to his knees, knowing that he failed to keep his only child safe, and losing her felt even worse that losing Sarah did. As James kneels there on the floor, his eyes never moving from a spot on the floor, a deep rage wells up inside of him. His eyes spark to life as he gets back to his feet. He retracts his armor with a thought, interacting with his armor on a deeper level than ever before. He activates the GPS Locator and searches for the chip he implanted in the skin on the back of Jamie’s neck long, long ago. His armor quickly finds the chip and brings up her location on James’ HUD, showing a world map, but narrowing it down to the exact location of Jamie. The screen reads: Anchorage, Alaska, United States. Latitude 61,13 Longitude 149,54.Travel Time: Five Hours At Top Speed. James activates his armors propulsion system and launches himself into the air, through his roof, now heading towards Anchorage, Alaska.

---In Alaska---

Where Anchorage, Alaska once was, is now a fortress made of stone and ice, created mere hours ago by one of the darkest entities to have ever set foot on this earth, borne from the bodies of hundreds of thousands of people, struck down in a flash, only to be used as fodder in creation of a fortress. In this fortress sits Hardcore King on a throne made up of human skulls, all which were killed by his hand. Chained to a wall is his most prized possession, the daughter of his sworn enemy, James White. Hardcore King watches as the woman struggles against her bonds, futile though it may be. With the temperature of the fortress being substantially lowered with each passing minute, thanks to the thick coating of ice surrounding the walls, it has dropped to nearly 25 degrees below zero. Jamie’s chains have become coated with ice as well, causing her skin, which has become moist due to her sweating while trying to escape, to stick to the ice, ripping slivers of her skin off as she struggles to escape. With blood now running down her arms, Jamie begins to shout and curse at Hardcore King.

“Motherfucker! Let me out of these chains, I’ll kick your Fuckin ass! Come on you piece of shit cocksucker!”

Hardcore King closes his eyes, rubbing his temples, trying to stave off the headache Jamie’s yells were causing. Maybe stone wasn’t such a great idea, it reverbs sound too well. Hardcore King suddenly slams his fist on the armrest of his throne, his last nerve having been stepped on.

“Shut The Fuck Up!”

Hardcore King uses his dark powers to silence Jamie, although she keeps yelling at him, no sound comes out. Hardcore King relaxes in his throne, reveling in the sweet silence. That is, until a loud Thump begins to echo from where Jamie is chained. Since she can no longer yell at him, she has begin slamming the bottom of her boot into the wall, which, thanks to the stone, is echoing all over the place. Hardcore Kings face falls at the sound. He bows is head, sighing in both frustration and anger, before rising off of his throne. He walks around to where he can see Jamie and stops, now looking at her, while she continues to slam her boot against the wall. Hardcore King turns down the hallway and starts to walk towards her, his footsteps masked by the loud banging sounds coming from Jamie. Hardcore King finally stops a few feet from Jamie, who is now lashing out, kicking her legs out at Hardcore King, as well as trying to get loose, blood now dripping on the floor. With a snap of his fingers, Hardcore King returns the use of her voice to Jamie, and she immediately begins to yell at him once more. Before she can get very far though, he suddenly lashes out and smacks her with the back of his right hand, knocking her back, the force of his blow slamming the back of her head against the stone, knocking her for a loop, as well as stopping her screams.

“That’s more like it. If you want to live to see twenty, you’ll wanna keep quiet, other wise, you’ll become a sex slave for one of my minions, and believe me, I’ve seen what they do to a woman, it isn’t pretty. ”

Jamie shakes her head, trying to clear her double vision, before finally getting out a reply.

“You would never do that to me. I see it in your eyes. You’re more like my father than you think. You could never put your own daughter through such hell. Deep down inside you’re a good person, just like my dad. You let me go and help us stop Hades, I’ll convince my dad not to kill you. ”

Hardcore King turns his back on Jamie, a slight chuckle escaping from him, before it becomes a full blown maniacal laugh, reminiscent of The Jokers laugh, from years ago. He suddenly turns around and slams his hand next to Jamie’s head against the wall, stepping close to her, his face nearly touching her own, an insane look in his eyes. He begins to speak, this time in a low whisper.

“You think I’m like James? Oh no. . . no no no no no. I am nothing, NOTHING, like James! Help you stop Hades? I don’t think so. . . I like what he’s done to me, I feel whole again. All those years I spent as a mortal. . . I kept hoping, praying that something would come along and kill me, because I just knew that I would never get my powers back, but, lo and behold, Hades shows up and that happens. Why would I give up my powers for a second time? Oh, and if you think James can kill me. . . you’ve got another thing coming. You’ll be getting a first hand view of what I can do, as soon as James gets here, because he is undoubtedly heading this way now, thanks to that little chip he put on the back of your neck. Until he arrives, however, I think its time we had a little fun. . . ”

Hardcore King draws away from Jamie, before extending his arms out towards her, palms forwards. He closes his eyes, focusing his full power on her. A burst of energy ripples away from King and speeds towards Jamie, slamming into her, but not causing an impact. Her chains bust from the wall, but she finds that she still cannot move. Hardcore King begins to walk backwards out of the hallway, all the while keeping his focus on Jamie. Once he has reached the room where his throne is located, he sets Jamie down, but still keeps her restrained. Another bust of energy and Jamie’s clothing has vanished; instead of her black jeans and t shirt, she is now in thigh high black leather boots, a black thong, and a black armored sleeveless top. Another burst of energy later, and a demon, a bit shorter than Jamie, mostly skeletal, with flames trailing on it in some places, materializes in front of her. One final burst of energy and Hardcore King has taken full control of Jamie. Her skin has become much more pale, her hair is black yet again, her eyes are a dark yellow once again, this time with blood red markings around them. Jamie turns towards Hardcore King, taking two steps towards him, before getting down on her knees, bowing before him. She begins to speak, her voice now has an evil, sensual ring to it.

“What is your bidding. . . Master?”

Hardcore King sits back in his throne, an evil smirk on his face. He takes a moment to enjoy the sight before him, before answering.

“Rise. . . Now, my minion, kill that pitiful creature behind you. Do it quickly though, your father is nearly here. ”



#11 H K

H K

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Posted 08 June 2008 - 03:23 AM

As James flies through the air, following the trail of a decade-old tracking device, he hears a voice in his ear. His HUD confirms that Tony Stark is trying to contact him. James opens up the lines of communication, allowing him to hear Tony.

“James, where are you?”

James takes a second to pinpoint his location, before responding.

“Somewhere over Lake Michigan, why?”

“What the hell are you doing over Lake Michigan?”

“Before someone interrupted, I was on my way to get my daughter back!”

After a few seconds of silence, Tony finally responds.

“Come to Stark Towers., I have something that will help. Matter of fact, I have something that might be able to stop this entire thing altogether. ”

“Damnit, I don’t have time, Tony! He could be doing anything to her!”

“Trust me James, He won’t be able to lay a hand on her, just get here as fast as you can. ”

Tony closes off the communication lines, as James reluctantly redirects himself, now heading towards New York. On his way there, He happens to look down and sees the massive form of Hades destroying another city and drawing in an array of colored spectral trails, leaving the people they were flowing from lifeless. James, knowing He cant do anything but get himself killed, flies higher, hoping Hades wont notice him, continuing on to New York, and whatever solution Tony might have.

---Back at Hardcore Kings Stronghold---

As Jamie stares down the flaming skeleton, it suddenly charges at her, wailing a horrible screeching sound, the flames growing higher. Jamie sidesteps the creature, slamming her elbow into the back of its head as it flies by her. This sends the creature slamming to the ground, nearly extinguishing the flames around it. The creature quickly gets up, screeching the sound again, causing the flames to go higher than before. Instead of charging at Jamie, it rips one of its own arms off and hurls the bones at her. Jamie ducks under the arm, allowing it to fly harmlessly over her head. She rises back up and narrows her eyes at the creature. . . Until the arm flies back towards her, acting like a boomerang, slamming into the back of her head, knocking her forwards. The arm flies back to the skeleton, who catches it in his remaining arm, before reattaching it to himself. The skeleton stomps over to Jamie’s body, which has yet to move after the blow, and grabs her by the hair, trying to force her to her feet. It eventually succeeds, before grabbing her by the shoulders. It forces her to look into its eye sockets, her eyes glazed over from the blow to the back of her head. Its eye sockets begin to glow, flames building up inside of them, until finally, it growls something out.

“Look into my eyes. . . Feel the pain you’ve caused!”

Jamie’s eyes finally focus on the creature and just before the creature finishes its attack, she raises her arm into the air, before bringing it down on the creatures’ collarbone, sending it crashing to the ground, collarbone shattered. Jamie grabs the skeleton by its spine and hoists it back up, before ripping its spine away from the rest of its bones. With its spine gone, the rest of the bones drop to the ground, the flames completely extinguished. Jamie drops the spine onto the pile of bones. She turns back to Hardcore King, who applauds her skillful kill. He dematerializes the pile of bones, before getting up from his throne. He walks up to Jamie, who is standing there patiently, like a good slave.

Hardcore King slowly walks around her in a circle, surveying her shapely form in the battle attire he had provided her with. He finally stops, now standing in front of her as she looks up at him, still awaiting orders. He trails his fingers along the side of her face as she leans into his touch, like a kitten. He smirks at this, reveling in the amount of control he had over her. He turns his back to her and starts to walk back to his throne, before looking down at himself, noticing that, amidst all the commotion, he had forgotten to give himself a more intimidating wardrobe. With the snap of his fingers, his mortal clothing is reshaped into clothing fit for a god. A black cape trails the floor behind him, dark leather boots, black slacks, and a black undershirt, with blood red medieval armor over it complete the look. What Hardcore King doesn’t see, is that, as soon as he snapped his fingers, activating his powers, Jamie returned back to normal for a split second. Her hair reverted back to its former golden sheen, her eyes reverted back to emerald, and her skin regained its color. She attempts to clear her head, but finds herself back under Kings Control not three seconds later, the changes he made to her back in place. Hardcore King, now satisfied with his attire, sits back upon his throne, motioning Jamie forwards. She stops about two feet from him and gets down on all fours, bowing her head low, until it touches the ground. Kneeling before her Master. Hardcore King surveys this sight for a few seconds, before commanding her.

“Rise. You have served me well today, slave. For that, I have a treat for you. Instead of locking you back up in that big drafty hallway, you will have the pleasure of my company instead. ”

Hardcore King snaps his fingers once more, which breaks his control over her, putting her back in her black t shirt with a skull & crossbones on it and black jeans, but also materializes chains around her ankles, which are rooted within the floor, anchoring her to a spot two feet from Hardcore King. With her body back in her control, Jamie attempts to free herself, but quickly sees the futility of the situation. She turns her back on King, still sitting on the floor, the chains clanking around her. Hardcore King looks down at her distastefully, not really liking the chains anymore. He thinks about what to do for a few seconds, before coming up with another idea. He snaps his fingers again, dematerializing the chains, and, in their place is a dark red beam of light surrounding her right ankle. Hardcore King clenches his fist and the beam tightens around her, as well as sending a jolt of electricity through her.

“I don’t think you’ll be going anywhere any time soon. If you don’t want that to happen again, you’ll do everything I tell you to. Is that clear?”

Jamie keeps her gaze on the ground, breathing a bit hard due to the shock, ignoring King. Hardcore King clenches his fist again, sending another wave of electricity through her, this time a slight hissing escapes from her.

“I said, is that clear?”

Reluctantly, Jamie looks up at him, defiance in her eyes, before submitting to his will.

“Yes. . . that’s very clear. ”

“Good, you’re learning. Now, on your feet. ”

Jamie slowly climbs to her feet, her muscles aching after the double dosage of electricity. Hardcore King snaps his fingers once more and a steel pole materializes next to Jamie.

“Now, strip for me, and be sure to keep it sexy, don’t want to have to shock you again. ”

Jamie gives him a look and hesitates, but, with one motion from King, she quickly begins to do as he says.

---Stark Towers---

James, now back in his street clothing, exit’s the elevator of the Tower and marches up to the door that leads to Tony’s main office. He looks over at Stark's secretary, Pepper Potts, who makes no motion to buzz him in. James closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, trying to calm himself, but fails quite easily.

“Fine. You wont open the door, Ill open the damn thing myself!”

With those words, he rears back and slams both of his hands against the door, sending it flying off the hinges and into the room, narrowly missing slamming into Frank Castle, also known as The Punisher. Castle rolls away from the path of the door and pulls out one of his many guns, aiming it at James. He fires a single shot at James’ head, but James snatches the bullet out of the air just before it hits him, tossing it to the ground. James marches forwards as Castle aims again, only to be kicked in the chest before he can fire off another shot. The kick sends him crashing into a glass table as many other superheroes flood into the area, having just left Tony’s Armory. Stark himself steps out of the crowd and begins to address the situation ever so eloquently.

“What the fuck is going on here!?!”

James takes a deep breath, finally calming himself down enough to speak.

“First off, get a new door, Pepper out there wouldn’t let me in, so I had to bust it down. Guess I almost hit the gun nut over here, he decides to shoot at me, and so, I put him down for a bit of quiet time. ”

Stark steps forward and looks down at Frank Castle, who is picking shards of glass out of his arms.

“Damnit Frank, when are you gonna learn to ask first, shoot second? If he wanted to, James could’ve killed you without a thought. Think before you act Frank, think before you act. ”

Tony turns back to James, motioning him closer to the group of heroes, most of whom are out of costume.

“James, let me introduce you to The Avengers. I believe you know Steve Rogers, Captain America. The skinny guy in the lab coat is Dr. Bruce Banner, The Hulk, though you know him already. The shapely woman to my left is Carol Danvers, Ms. Marvel. The big blonde guy with the war hammer is Thor, God of Thunder and all that. The guy you put one hell of a beat down on is Frank Castle, also known as The Punisher. Finally, we have. . . . You. Everybody, this is James White, or, The Iron Savior. He has taken it upon himself to keep the planet safe while we are otherwise occupied, either by being dead, or retired. With him as the newest member of The Avengers, we’ll be able to put a stop to this thing that’s destroying everything and killing everyone. James, I know that you’ve had contact with this thing, even spoken with it, what can you tell us about it?”

James looks around at The Avengers, who are now staring at him, awaiting a response.

“You guys better take a seat, this might take a while. . . ”

---Hardcore Kings Stronghold---

While James was meeting The Avengers, Jamie had gotten down to her bra and panties, and didn’t want to go any further, but, was forced to, under threat of electroshock. She turns her back to King and slowly unclasps her bra. She slides the straps off of her shoulders, holding the cups to her chest, still keeping herself covered. She turns back to King, who is still riveted with her performance. So riveted, in fact, that his concentration slips and the beam of light around Jamie’s ankle fades out of existence, leaving her free. Jamie quickly picks up on this, but King remains oblivious. Thinking quickly, she saunters up to King on his throne, lowering the bra with each step, revealing a great amount of cleavage. She climbs onto his throne, a knee on each side of him, now straddling him. She finally throws the bra over her shoulder, releasing her ample breasts. With Hardcore King now transfixed, Jamie lowers herself onto his chest, slowly running her hands all over his body, very repulsed by what she is doing, after all, he looks exactly like her father. She reaches inside his pockets, rubbing all over, until her hand touches a metal cylinder. She slips the cylinder onto her forearm, which activates it. She expands the armor over her and quickly fires two pulse blasts into Kings Chest, which sends her flying backwards away from him, as well as blowing twin holes in his armor. King attempts to shock her, but finds that he can no longer expand the energy over her. He repairs the damage done to his chest and summons up a suit of armor of his own, but, instead of a full suit, he summons gauntlets, leg guards, and a helmet, as well as a sword. He holds the sword out in front of him, now fully recovered from her sneak attack.

“I should’ve known you’d try something like this, never thought you’d do it like that though. I’ve gotta give it to you, you’ve got nice tits, but, Now you have to die!”

---Back at Stark Towers---

The reunited Avengers have begun to prepare themselves to go to war, now that they know what they are up against. Bruce Banner is at one of Tony’s supercomputers, trying to locate Hades, while Captain America and Tony Stark are drawing up plans for several different attack formations, to keep Hades off balance. James White, however, is sitting by himself, looking down at his wedding band. He still hadn’t taken it off, even though Sarah was taken away from him years ago. He begins to twist it around his finger, a nervous habit he had developed over the years. He closes his eyes, relaxing back into the comfortable chair. He hears soft footsteps coming closer, and senses someone has taken a seat across from him. He opens his eyes, a bit curious as to who it is, he didn’t really know too many people there, after all. He sees a blonde woman sitting in front of him, and his extensive knowledge of the many superheroes on the planet, as well as the previous introduction, quickly informs him that it is Ms. Marvel, sans costume, making her Carol Danvers. James closes his eyes once more, leaning his head back on the back of the chair, having slouched down far enough to do such a thing. He starts to speak, softly, not feeling like talking much at the moment.

“What do you want Carol?”

Carol takes a second to gather her thought, and quickly finds the words she is searching for.

“James, I know we don’t know each other very well, but I can tell that something is bothering you. I know for a fact that you’ve never spoken with Tony, or anyone else, about that night with The Joker. The only reason we even know what happened is because Batman, Bruce, saw it for himself. Talking about things like this usually helps. I’m here if you ever need an ear to listen. ”

James doesn’t move a muscle, nor does he respond, so, Carol starts to get up, until James suddenly starts to speak, taking her up on her offer.

“It still hurts. . . Even after all these years. I can still feel it inside. Every day I expect to walk downstairs and see her in the kitchen, waiting for me. I wake up alone, though, an empty house keeping me company. When you’re used to living with two other people, your daughter and wife no less, and one dies in your arms and the other willfully leaves, it eats at you. It changes you. Y’know, I’m almost glad Hades showed up, its given me a chance to bond with Jamie again. I think that I’ve spent more time with her in the past two days, than I have in the past two years. When I woke up today and went into her room, expecting to find her still asleep, only to find a message written in blood, and an empty bed, it was like I lost them both all over again. I know she’s still alive, Hardcore King couldn’t kill her, he’s too much like me. I know I’ll see Jamie again, but Sarah, I’ll never get a chance to talk to her again, to kiss her, I barely got to say goodbye. . . I would give anything, anything just to hear her voice one more time. . . ”

Out of nowhere, a sharp BUZZ interrupts James. The voice of Tony Stark’s personal assistant, Pepper Potts, echoes into the room.

“Mr. Stark, there’s a woman here claiming to be a friend of yours. ”

Tony raises an eyebrow at this, before replying.

“I know a lot of women who would claim to be my ‘friend’. What’s she look like?”

A few seconds later, and Pepper begins to describe her.

“Dark hair, fairly tan, green eyes, my height, says her name is Sarah. ”



#12 H K

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Posted 13 June 2008 - 06:41 AM

A few seconds after Peppers voice fades away, James launches himself out of his chair and rushes to where the door used to be. He skids to a stop, grabbing onto the doorframe to keep himself from sliding past it. What he sees makes his blood run cold. Standing in front of him, looking exactly as she had the morning of the day she died, is his formerly deceased wife, Sarah White, nee Williams. Her eyes light up with joy as soon as she spots him, and she runs up to him, wrapping her arms around him, attempting to squeeze the life out of him. After a few seconds, James recovers from his shock and returns the hug. Sarah finally releases him and steps into Tony’s main office, with James trailing behind her. Tony sees that it is in fact, the only woman that he had ever come into contact with that he hadn’t later slept with. Her arrival, even though she had been dead for over two years, barely fazes him.

“Hey, welcome back. Safe to say you got here the same way most everyone in this room did?”

Sarah looks around the room, easily recognizing the many superheroes, before responding.

“If you mean that I was minding my own business when I rift opened up in front of me, then yes. James, I’m seeing a few people missing here, Where’s Jamie? Shouldn’t Jaymz be here? He usually shows up wherever you do after too long. ”

James walks up to Sarah and puts his hands on her shoulders, before guiding her over to what used to be his chair. He puts pressure on her shoulders, and, she sits down, getting the hint. James walks around so that he’s facing her and kneels down, now at eye level with her. He looks into her eyes, before explaining things.

“First, let me explain exactly what’s happening. Hades has somehow risen from Hell in an effort to reclaim the millions of souls he lost during the Hell Wars. I tried to stop him, but he royally kicked my ass. He was about to kill me when Jaymz showed up and saved my ass. Just as we were about to double team him, Hades discovered the roots of evil in Jaymz, and tapped them. He restored Jaymz’ powers, as well as his lust for control, and hatred of me. Hardcore King is back, and stronger than ever. He broke one of the devices Tony made for me, sent me through time, and, while I was gone, he contaminated Jamie with his evil. When I escaped the time warp, Jamie tried to kill me. I tried to use a Medallion on her, the same kind I used to keep him at bay inside my head, but it wasn’t strong enough. He took her right out from under my nose, and now, He has her, somewhere in Alaska. I was on my way there before I got called here by Tony. Now that the Avengers have been reassembled, we have a chance to actually stop Hades & Hardcore King from killing everyone. If we hurry, we can make it to Alaska in a matter of hours. One thing though, Jamie had your armor, but King stole it from her. We’ll get it back once we get there though, I have Jamie’s own set with me, already had Tony remove the security feature I put on it, so Jamie can use it now. Whenever you feel up to it, we‘ll head off. ”

Sarah quickly stands up, forcing James to fall backwards, quickly getting back to his feet as well. Jamie turns to Frank Castle, who was able to get back to his feet, albeit, a bloody mess.

“Give me a gun or three. ”

Frank tosses her two pistols, the Jericho models, as well as an Uzi. Sarah easily catches the weaponry, she stores the twin pistols in the pockets on her jeans, keeping the Uzi in her right hand. She turns back to James, who has expanded his armor, save for his helmet, in anticipation of her next words.

“Lets go. ”

James expands his helmet and grabs Sarah around the waist, pulling her in close, before activating the rockets on his boots, which lift him into the air. He fires a pulse blast through a nearby window, shattering it, before jetting through the hole, keeping Sarah close so as not to drop her. Back in the office, Tony sighs, shaking his head.

“Great. . . Now I need a new door AND a new window. . . ”

---Hardcore Kings Stronghold---

Hardcore King rushes at Jamie, sword drawn. He swipes at her, and she raises the cannon on her right arm to block it, the sword slams into it, but slides off, sparks flying. He slashes again, this time at her head, but she ducks, the sword flying harmlessly above her. Jamie slams the cannon into Kings gut and fires off a quick blast of energy, sending him sliding backwards across the ground, doubled over, and slightly smoking. He looks up at her, his face twisted in an angry snarl, before suddenly stabbing his sword into the ground below him. The crack created by the blade quickly spreads towards Jamie. It widens at it creeps closer and closer, until it is a gaping hole, which tries to swallow up Jamie, but, she uses the jets on her boots to blast herself away, rolling on the ground as she turns the jets off. She rolls onto a knee, aiming her cannon at where Hardcore King was, but, sees him nowhere. She climbs back to her feet, assuming that he retreated out of fear.

“Guess who?”

Just as his voice fades out, Hardcore King slams into Jamie’s back, sending her crashing to the stone below, skidding a few feet, before rolling with the move, using her momentum to flip into her back, hopping to her feet as she does. Just as she turns back to King, she is met with an energy blast to the torso, which knocks her back, slamming her into the wall, her head hitting hard, but, is protected by her helmet, although the visor cracks slightly. With her vision distorted by the crack, a message pops up on her HUD, blinding her even more. It reads: Armor Repairing. Please Stand By. With that message, the armor locks itself up, reverting every ounce of power to fixing the damage done to the armor. Hardcore King uses his powers to warp himself right in front of Jamie and slashes at her with his sword, and, in her locked up state, she can only watch as the sword slices into her armor, creating a deep gash down the front, the armors shield having powered down. He slashes again, crisscrossing his other slash, an X now cut deep into the armor. King lowers his sword, noticing that she seems to have given up. He steps up to her, looking into the visor, before slamming his fist against it, completely shattering it, revealing Jamie’s strained face, struggling to move the heavy armor.

“Aww. . . Is someone having trouble with their toy? Here, let me help you out of that thing. . . ”

He grabs hold of the helmet, gripping the broken shards of the visor, before violently ripping it away from the rest of her armor, tossing it aside. He grabs hold of the cannon on her right arm next, before tearing it off in the same way he had the helmet. With the wristband now shattered, the armor retracts itself into what is left of it, the pieces falling off her wrist, leaving her in her panties once more, bare breasts exposed once more. Hardcore King uses his powers, finding that, without the armor, he can apply them to her once more. He pins her to the wall, before roughly grabbing her left breast, squeezing it in his hand, causing her much discomfort. He presses up against her, throwing his sword on the ground as he does. He leans in close, sliding his tongue along her cheek, causing her to flinch away from him. He lowers himself, his tongue trailing down her body, while she is unable to move. He stops when he reaches her nipple, swirling his tongue around it, before roughly beginning to suck on it. Just as he begins to lower himself again, the ceiling behind him explodes, rubble raining down on the floor. A figure clad in armor drops to the ground, releasing another armor-less figure as he lands. Hardcore King turns away from Jamie, rising back to his full height, while still keeping her pinned to the wall. He takes a few steps towards the armored figure, before speaking to him, arrogance evident in his stance and voice.

“I was wondering when you would show up. I see you’ve even brought your wife back to life. Good., I wasn’t able to have my way with her in the past, I shall soon remedy that. ”

James retracts his armor, surprisingly, before striding past Hardcore King like he wasn’t even there. Hardcore King stands rooted to the spot, surprised at the level of calmness James is showing. Just as James passes by King, King lashes out with a right hook, attempting to take out James with the single attack. James doesn’t even turn around, but ducks under the punch, slamming his elbow into Kings gut as he ducks, doubling him over. James summons up a ball of flames in his hand, before whipping around, thrusting his flaming hand out at King, a bust of flames exploding from the central ball, billowing around King, igniting him. This of course, breaks his concentration, freeing Jamie from his control. Sarah, who had been edging herself closer to Jamie while James distracted King, grabs Jamie in a hug, comforting her, knowing that what she had experienced would haunt her nightmares for quite some time.

James finally releases the flames, the small ones on hardcore King quickly burning out, leaving his eyebrows singed off, his face showing black burn marks. King clenches his fists, before slamming them together in front of him, a shockwave echoing from them, speeding towards James. James expands a Red, White, and Blue Shield with a Star emblazoned in the center from the storage band on his left forearm, using it to block the shockwave. It ricochets back to King, slamming into him, opening up dozens of cuts on his chest and arms, his dark powers unable to heal them. James hefts Captain America’s Shield, glad that he had thought to borrow it from Cap before he had left. He spins a full 360 degrees, releasing the Shield. It flies towards King, quickly plowing into his gut, the momentum sending him flying backwards and against a wall. The Shield clatters to the ground as hardcore King attempts to regain his breath. Hardcore King spits out a bit of blood, before raising himself back up. He glares down at the shield, before raising his boot into the air, bringing it down hard on the Shield. When his boot harmlessly clangs against it, he grunts in frustration, before kicking it back at James. The Shield rises off the ground, heading straight for James’ head. Just as its about to hit him, James’ arm lashes out and catches the Shield, retracting it back into his storage unit as he does.

Hardcore King yells in frustration, before calling his sword back to him, catching it deftly in his hand. He sprints across the ground, his sword ready in front of him as before. James expands his own sword from his storage unit, using it to parry Kings blow. They begin to slash and hack at each other, each time their blades meet in a spray of sparks, matching each other blow for blow. James gets in the first hit, slipping his sword past Kings defenses, cutting him on the arm. King draws back, holding his arm in pain. He warps his sword into a battleaxe, before lunging at James once more. James quickly retracts his blade, replacing it with the Hammer of Thor that he discovered during his jumps through time. He swings the Hammer mightily, slamming it against Kings axe, which shatters into a thousand pieces. James kicks King in the chest, knocking him back about ten feet, before retracting Thor’s Hammer. He begins to mock Hardcore King, trying to goad him into attacking blindly.

“Is that all you’ve got? I really expected more. You used to be such a challenge, I guess Hades’ powers are nothing compared to Mephesto’s. Now come on, fight me like a man!”

Hardcore King looks up at the ceiling, an idea forming within his head. He begins to channel his energy into the ceiling just above James, talking back to him, trying to keep him from noticing his doings.

“You see me as weaker, do you? On the contrary, I now know your every secret, I’m stronger than ever! Now. . . Take a look to the sky just before you die, it’s the last time you will!”

Kings final word echoes throughout the building, as the ceiling above James crumbles, huge pieces of rubble falling towards James, who is a bit distracted, having recognized Kings words. He looks towards the sky, finally seeing the huge pieces of rock falling straight at him. He throws himself to the side as the rocks slam to the ground, nearly catching his legs. James gets back to his feet, looking around for King, who has disappeared once again. As he searches, he starts to speak once more.

“Trying to distract me with a Metallica quote, eh? Nice try. ”

With those words, James expands his armor and blocks a blow from hardcore King, who attempted to repeat his earlier actions with Jamie on James. As the two nearly identical men struggle in pitched combat, Sarah & Jamie have begun to formulate a plan on how to kill King once and for all, Jamie having recovered from her earlier ordeal, still, however, bare chested, not the least bit embarrassed.

“If I can get your father to throw your wristband over here, you two could double team Hardcore King, since it appears that my armor has been destroyed. Here, you take my hoodie, stay here, I’ll try to distract them. ”

Sarah removes her hooded sweatshirt and hands it to Jamie, who slips it on, glad to have something to warm her up in the icy building. Sarah creeps closer to the two fighting men, removing one of the pistols from her pockets.She wiats for the proper time,before taking aim,firing off a shot,which clips Kings ear,allowing James to land a punch,which distracts King long enough for James to follow Sarah s next instructions.

“James! Throw Me Jamie’s wristband!”

James quickly expands Jamie’s wristband from his storage unit and tosses it to Sarah, before resuming the fight. Sarah rushes back to Jamie, strapping the wristband onto her as she reaches her. The armor expands over her, updating its settings to match her current state. Now feeling a supercharge of energy, Jamie rushes forwards, eager to jump into the fight. She expands a cannon, similar to the one on Sarah’s armor, over her right arm, charging it up to the fullest extent, hoping that it wouldn’t destroy the armor. She aims it at Hardcore King, before yelling out to James.

“Dad! Get out of the way, I’ve got a clear shot!”

James looks towards Jamie, seeing that she has the massive cannon aimed at him and King. He fires a pulse blast at King, distracting him long enough for James to dive out of the way,. As he dives towards the ground, he yells out to Jamie.

“Do it now! Shoot Him!”

Jamie fires the cannon, releasing a massive ball of energy, nearly ten feet in diameter. It speeds towards hardcore King, who turns around just in time to see it slam into him. The ball of energy completely envelops him, finally exploding in a shower of light, a shockwave blowing out from it, knocking Jamie off her feet, as well as pushing James back. Once the smoke clears, Hardcore King is revealed to be lying flat o the ground, his armor completely dissolved, some of it melted to his skin. James gets back to his feet, retracting his armor as he does. He walks to Jamie, who is still down, before grabbing her arm, pulling her to her feet. She retracts her armor as James pulls her into a hug. Sarah walks up to the two, and is quickly pulled into the hug as well.

“Its over. . . Its finally over. He can never hurt any of us ever again. ”

“Wrong Again!”

James forces Sarah & Jamie to the ground as soon as he hears the voice and is barely able to dodge a bust of energy in time. He looks towards what should’ve been hardcore Kings dead body, but is instead a badly burned hardcore King, now unrecognizable. Just as Hardcore King is about to unleash another attack, Hades appears in front of him, in human form this time. Hardcore King stops his attack, a confused look on his face.

“Master. . I was just about to finish the annoyances off for good. ”

“You have failed me. . . You have been defeated by a mere mortal. For this, you will pay the ultimate price.

Hades suddenly lashes out with his arm, plunging it into King’s chest. A second later, he pulls his arm out, with Kings still-beating heart clutched in his hand. Hades crushes Kings Heart in his hand, as Kings Body lurches to the ground, blood pouring out of his open wound. Hades summons up his Soul Reaper Scythe, slashing it through Kings fallen body, drawing his soul out of it, before absorbing it into himself. He turns towards James, who has his family behind him, hoping to protect them as much as he can. Hades dissipates his Scythe, taking a few steps towards James. He stops about ten feet away from him, before speaking to James.

“You need not worry. Your souls are not on my list. . . yet. If you stay out of my way and allow me to collect the rest of my souls, I shall allow you to live. Try and stop me, and you will meet the same fate as that pathetic waste of flesh. If you will excuse me, I have many more souls to harvest. ”

With those words, Hades flashes away from the area, moving on to another location.



#13 H K

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Posted 19 June 2008 - 08:28 AM

With Hades’ departure comes an uneasy silence. James retracts his armor, as does Jamie. James turns towards his daughter and reborn wife.

“You two stay here, I’m gonna go see if there’s anyone else alive in here. ”

James starts towards a winding staircase, his footfalls echoing loudly throughout the stone chamber. As he starts down the steps, he looks back to see Jamie and Sarah walking around the chamber, looking for anything that could lead to another area. James continues his trek down the massive staircase, finally stopping after nearly two hundred steps. Now standing at the base of a hallway, He snaps his fingers, a small flame sprouting from them lighting the hallway, revealing a set of doors, one on each side of the hallway, as well as a third, at the very end of the hall. James walks up to the first door, standing to the side of it. He turns the handle with his free hand and pushes it inward. When nothing leaps out to attack him, he enters the room, his flames lighting it up. The fire reveals. . . An empty room.

“How anticlimactic. . . ”

James grabs a torch off of its place and lights the tip, setting it back in the ring on the wall. He extinguishes his own flames, before expanding something from his storage wristband. He places the object into the center of the room and pushes a few buttons on it, activating the LCD screen, which flashes 15:00 in red numbers. He leaves the room, taking the torch with him. He opens the door on the opposite side, but finds, instead of nothing, dozens of dead bodies piled on top of one another, with various body parts removed or ripped off. James shudders at the smell, still not used to it after his many years fighting hordes of reanimated corpses in the Hell Wars. He expands another object from his storage wristband, setting its time for fifteen minutes as well, tossing it on the pile of bodies afterwards. He shuts the door, cutting off the smell, and continues down the hallway to the final door. He grabs the handle, turning it slowly, not knowing what to expect anymore. The door is suddenly ripped off its hinges, the handle yanked out of his grasp.

As the door flies across the room, James rolls into the same room, throwing the torch to the side as does, ducking to the side as he stops. He looks around the room, trying to find whatever ripped the door out of his hand. He spots a creature, nearly nine feet tall, as wide as a van and twice as heavy. Its skin is a muddy brown, muscles in places most people don’t have places. The creature lurches towards James, its footfalls cracking the stone floor below it. James gets back to his feet, expanding his armor just before the creature lashes out and smashes him with its massive fist, sending him flying into a wall, nearly caving it in. He slams to the ground, shaking his head, seeing double at the moment. He looks to the side and sees the thing charging at him, its footfalls shaking the ground around him. Just as its about to slam into him, the creature is tackled to the side by a green blur.

“What the hell?”

James gets back to his feet, quickly looking towards the direction the two things flew. What he sees makes him sigh in relief. Standing tall over the monstrous creature is the also-monstrous Green Giant, The Hulk. Hulk looks back to James, before asking a question.

“James okay?”

James steps closer, retracting his armor, popping the bones in his neck as he does, before answering him.

“Yeah Bruce, I’m okay. ”

Hulk looks back at the brown monster, before looking at James again.

“Hulk Smash?”

“Smash away. ”

Hulk growls, turning back to the creature as he does. Hulk grabs the things legs, before beginning to swing him, spinning to add to the momentum. Round and round they go, when they stop, only the big green thing knows. After about a dozen spins, Hulk releases the creature, and it flies to the opposite end of the room, slamming into the wall with a thud, crumbling the wall to bits, revealing the dirt it was founded under. The creature falls to the ground, dirt piling around it, as well as its blood, which drains in a puddle around it. Hulk stomps over to James, staggering a bit due to dizziness. He looks down at James, before grunting out a few words.

“Hulk Smash thing good. ”

James looks over at the pile of flesh, before responding.

“Damn good, as a matter of fact. Come on Bruce, we’ve gotta get out of here, I set some very strong explosives to go off, they cant have but a few minutes left. ”

James walks to the door and finds the frame, as well as most of the stone around it, completely destroyed, a Hulk-Shaped hole in their place. James shakes his head, chuckling a bit, before walking down the hall. He begins to climb the steps, skipping every other one, so as to go faster, with Hulk hot on his trail, taking one step for every ten of James’. James bounds up to the top of the staircase to find Sarah & Jamie with the rest of the Avengers. Captain America, minus his Shield, is currently inspecting Hardcore Kings extra crispy body. He stands back up and turns to James, before catching his Shield, which James threw to him, before asking him a question.

“What did this to him?”

James looks down at Kings body, before answering Cap.

“Jamie’s cannon, thing packs quite a punch. That didn’t kill him though, Hades showed up and ripped his heart out, then took his soul. For some reason, he spared us, said we were on his list, yet. I thought I had him pegged too, guess he’s not the one dimensional kill ‘em all bad guy that I thought he was. Now, if you all don’t mind. . . Cancel the inspection, we need to get the hell out of here there’s a big ass BOMB in the basement!”

With those words, everyone in the room responds with a loud yell.

“WHAT?!?”

Just as James expands his armor, Captain America leads the rest of the Avengers out of the building through the Hulk-Sized hold in the wall. Jamie expands her armor and activates her rockets, quickly following suit, flying out of the hole in the ceiling that Hardcore King created. James grabs Sarah around the waist, allowing her time to grab hold of him, before following behind Jamie. The three family members head towards the rest of the Avengers, flying at maximum speed, trailing behind them. James suddenly shoots towards the ground, with Jamie following behind him. He ducks behind a slight hill and yells out to everyone.

“GET BEHIND SOMETHING!”

Jamie lands beside him a few seconds later and the three huddle together, with Jamie & James protecting Sarah, the only one of them without armor. Captain America ducks behind his own Shield, with Hulk standing behind him for support in case he should go flying. The rest of the Avengers have crowded around Iron Man, who has deployed an electromagnetic force field around them. A few seconds after everyone is in place, Hardcore Kings stronghold explodes into a billion pieces, a mushroom cloud expanding over it as flames engulf every inch of it. Rocks begin to rain down on the Avengers, ranging from as small as a pebble, to as large as a boulder, with James & Jamie blasting the larger pieces away. As the stones stop falling, the groups come out of hiding, while Hulk throws the boulders that had piled on him and Cap off of them. Captain America bashes away a boulder with his Shield before asking a question, anger evident in his voice.

“Who’s bright idea was it to blow the building up with us STILL INSIDE?!”

James steps forwards, retracting his armor as he does.

“That was my idea. I didn’t know any of you were inside when I started the bombs though. My original plan was to get out of there with Jamie & Sarah with plenty of time left and let it blow up, we don’t want something like that around anymore after all. You guys complicated things though. I do appreciate Bruce’s timely arrival though, He saved me from some giant brown monster, looked similar to The Hulk, but more unnatural, an Abomination. now, I admit, I may have overdid it with the explosives, but I wanted to be sure that there would be nothing left of the place. How did you guys get here anyways? It took me quite a while to get here with just my armor, and I don’t see a jet or anything like that. ”

Iron Man pushes a button on his armor and from nowhere, a massive jet materializes. Tony retracts his helmet so he could be understood better.

“Borrowed Professor Xavier’s X-Jet. Nifty thing that is, might have to have one of my own. Everybody on board, we’ll be back at Stark Towers in no time. ”

The group slowly walks into the jet, with Hulk reverting back to Bruce Banner. The X Jet quickly lifts off of the ground and, in a flash, speeds off towards New York.



#14 H K

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Posted 27 June 2008 - 09:10 AM

As the X-Jet flies through the air, its inhabitants are in various stages of debriefing. Tony has retracted his armor, while Captain America has removed his mask, setting it on his Shield. James is lying down on an extension from the wall, trying to regain some energy; fighting a Godlike being takes quite a bit out of you. Jamie is sitting in a corner, trying to separate herself from the rest of the Avengers, with her mother sitting next to her. The two of them are discussing the events that Sarah had missed.

“Tell me, how did your father handle my death? Did he destroy anything or hurt anyone?”

Jamie is silent for a moment, biting her bottom lip, knowing that Sarah won’t like what She’s about to tell her.

“I. . I don’t know. Right after your funeral, I went to live with grandma & grandpa, I didn’t even call Dad on the phone, and when he came over, I stayed in my room. He told me that you two were coming out of a movie theatre and someone pulled a gun on you both. He said that he made a move and you were shot because of it. I blamed him for your death. . . Bet that made him feel real fucking great, knowing his daughter hated him and losing you at the same time. ”

Sarah’s face falls at Jamie’s words, she turns away from Jamie, her head down, looking at the floor of the Jet, before getting to her feet, leaving Jamie sitting there. Sarah quickly walks to James’ motionless form, sitting down as James makes room for her, sitting up himself. She takes his arm and wraps it around her shoulders, snuggling in close to him. A few seconds later, James sighs and begins to speak.

“Y’know. . . After you died, and Jamie left the house. . . . I tried to kill myself. I had everything ready, even wrote a suicide note. I was in the bathroom, had the gun to my head, but when I looked in the mirror at myself, I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t pull the fucking trigger. I’ve killed hundreds of people, done terrible things, but, I couldn’t kill myself. I wanted to die so much right then, just so I could see you again. It just seemed like living wasn’t worth it anymore. You were gone, Jamie wouldn’t even look at me any more, I thought I had nothing left to live for. Even though you were gone. . . You saved me. I knew that if I killed myself, I would never be able to see you again, Mephesto and the other Gods wouldn’t allow it. I eventually found the strength to keep on keeping on, finally got Jamie to open up to me again, but only after I told her the truth about everything. And now. . . You’re back. My life is damn near perfect again. As soon as I take care of Hades, all shall be right again. ”

Just as James finishes speaking, the X-Jet lands on Stark Tower, and the Avengers begin to exit the jet, heading down into Tony’s office.

---Elsewhere---

On a darkened street walks Hades, in human form this time, stalking the last Soul in the area. The person holding the soul is a little girl, no older than ten. She is attempting to run away from Hades, but, he uses his hellish powers to drag her back to him. Hades manifests his Soul Reaper and raises it into the air, preparing to slice into the girl and remove her soul, when, suddenly, a green beam of light slams into his back, making him wince, freeing the child from his control. He turns around to see a figure, a green glow surrounding him, land twenty feet from him.

“Playtimes over asshole, lets leave the kid alone. ”

As the green glow fades away, revealing the figure to be Earths Green Lantern, Jeff Simms, Hades clenches his fists, his right hand tightening around his Scythe, before responding to Jeff.

“You dare strike the Lord of the Underworld. . . . You, Jeff Simms are not on any of my lists, but, I shall make an exception. Prepare yourself, for your Soul is mine!”

Hades lashes out with his dark energy, wrapping Jeff in its tendrils, pulling him closer. Jeff activates his Power Ring, using sheer Force of Will to break Hades’ hold over him. Jeff flips backwards to his original spot, before firing a dozen busts of green energy at Hades, all of which are blocked by Hades’ Scythe, becoming a blur as he blocks Jeff’s shots. As Jeff prepares another attack, Hades vanishes from sight. Jeff looks around, trying to spot him, only to have the blade of Hades’ Scythe slash through his chest, spraying blood everywhere. Hades slashes at Jeff again, this time using the blade to remove his soul, Jeff’s body falling to the ground as he does, the Power Ring deactivating, slipping off of his finger. Hades absorbs Jeff’s soul into his body, before bending down, picking up Jeff’s ring. Hades slips the ring onto his right ring finger and turns towards where the little girl ran. He closes his eyes, sensing the energy of her soul, before flashing to her location. Seconds later, he appears in front of her, lashing out with his Scythe as he does, ripping her soul from her body and absorbing it into himself, her body now lifeless on the ground. He dematerializes his Scythe and begins to speak to no one in particular.

“Just one left now. ”

---Back At Stark Tower---

James and the rest of the Avengers have gathered in Tony’s main office, discussing various tactics and final thoughts on stopping Mephesto, when Frank Castle, The Punisher, chimes in with an idea.

“Lets just let him take the souls he’s after, he’ll go back to Hell then. He probably just wants the assholes anyways. ”

The group falls silent, before James gets up and steps towards Frank, who, still jumpy from his last encounter with James, rolls backwards out of his chair, quickly getting to his feet, starting to back towards the windows as James advances towards him. James stops as Frank presses against the window, and begins to speak.

“Frank. . . I’ve only known you for a few hours, but, it’s become painfully obvious that you are no hero. You’ve shot at me, you’ve been giving my just turned 18 year old daughter a look like you’d rape her if you got the chance, plus, you’re just an all around dickhead. Bearing all this in mind, you came to my aid in Hardcore Kings stronghold. Even so, you’ve done too many things against me, so, I dub thee unforgiven. ”

James materializes one of his pistols from his storage unit, taking careful aim, while Frank stares down the barrel of the gun, not really thinking that James would kill him right there in cold blood. He thought wrong. James pulls the trigger, which slams the hammer down, causing a chain reaction, firing the bullet out of the barrel. The bullet slams into Frank’s torso, right between the eyes of the skull on his t-shirt, which sends him slamming through the glass, falling the many floors to the ground below, splattering his blood on impact. James dematerializes his pistol, before turning back to the crowd of people that witnessed Frank’s execution.

“Anybody else got a stupid suggestion?”

No one says anything, but Tony Stark steps forward and begins to speak with James.

“I’ve got a suggestion. . . Stop breaking my windows! They’re not cheap to fix y’know, even if I am extremely wealthy. One more thing. . . Did you really have to kill Frank? He talked a big game, but he was always a wimp in most situations. He wouldn’t have done anything to Jamie. ”

James looks back towards the shattered window, before answering Tony.

“Now it’s guaranteed that he won’t do anything to anyone ever again. Frank was a waste of blood, skin, and organs. Now, I know most of you don’t know this, but, I was temporarily connected with the God Mephesto. Even though my connection with him has been severed, I can still use some of the abilities I could before, one of them being Soul Sensing. I know that Hades just drained two souls within 30 seconds of each other. I also know that there’s only one soul he has yet to absorb. . . Mine. Before Mephesto interfered, I was supposed to be killed in the White house, he showed me what would happen if he didn’t intervene, and now, Hades is coming for me. Since we now know where he is going next, we have the element of surprise, and we can plan for him. I know of a way to stop him, but it will require all of us. We somehow have to force him to transform into his true body, the giant one. If you guys can do that, I’ll take it from there. Here’s what I want all of you to do: Those of you that can fly, wait until He transforms, then, hit him with everything you’ve got, Aim for his horns. Those of you that are grounded, you are to focus on getting him to Transform. Once he Changes, I want you to stay away from him, you won’t be able to hurt him once he’s huge. He could show up at any moment, we should really be outside, there’s no room in here for a battle the size of this one. ”

James heads for the elevators, before remembering his armor. He expands it over himself, before walking to Sarah. She wraps her arms around him as he grabs her around the waist. He jumps out the shattered window and activates his jets, with Jamie following right behind him. The three land on the streets a few minutes later, just as the Avengers exit Stark Tower, with Tony in Full Armor, and Bruce transformed into The Hulk. Just as everyone prepares for the worst, the sky darkens, the sun disappearing behind a group of nearly black clouds. A few seconds later, Hades materializes about thirty feet away from the group, Scythe in-hand.

“I see you’ve been waiting for me. Good. Soon, you shall all be where you belong, back with me in hell. James, I’m giving you the option to come with me without a fight. If you do so, I shall let your daughter live, since she was never placed on my lists, having been borne out of my realm of control. If you choose to fight me, I shall have to kill everyone here. You do not want this, I do not want this, make it easy on all of us. ”

James steps forwards, fists clenched in his armor, prepared to fight Hades until the end. . . Until his mind turns to Jamie. He knows that if he fights Hades, he stands a pretty good chance of dying, and that would mean everyone else would die as well. James decides to make the tough choice. He retracts his armor, instructing everyone to stay back, and walks closer to Hades, stopping a few feet away from him. James, head ducked low, begins t speak to Hades, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Do it. Get it over with, but don’t hurt them. ”

Hades raises his Scythe and speaks a few final words to James.

“Good man. ”

Hades slashes at James with his Scythe, slicing into him, ripping his soul from his body, causing no physical damage. James’ body drops to its knees, before falling on its face, lifeless. The Avengers, knowing what James was doing, have shielded Jamie & Sarah from the scene, not letting them see James’ soul being ripped from his body. Jamie, however, is having none of it. She has fought her way to the front of the group, looking all over for James.

“Get the fuck out of my way, I wanna see what he’s doing! Dad! Dad? Where the hell did you go!?”

She finally spots his body on the ground, motionless. She lets out a high pitched yell, before starting to sprint towards Hades, intent on making him pay, but is quickly restrained by her mother.

“Jamie, your father knew what he was doing. He sacrificed himself so that we could live on. This is what he wanted, now calm down. We’re safe now, Hades has all of his souls back, he’ll leave us alone now. ”

Hades dematerializes his Soul Reaper, finally feeling complete again, now that every soul that he had lost, thanks to Mephesto, had been returned to him. Hearing Jamie’s cries of anger, demanding that she be released so she can inflict much bodily harm on Hades, his head snaps over to her, and evil smirk evident on his face. He uses his dark powers to force Jamie away from Sarah, pulling Jamie towards him. He stops her in front of him, keeping her arms pinned to her sides, as she yells expletives at him. He begins to circle her, all the while talking to her.

“Quite a temper you have there. You got that from your father no doubt. He knew when to keep it in check though. He also knew his place in the world. He accepted that he was destined to perish at my hands, just before I finished him, he begged me to not harm any of you. I was originally going to leave all of you alone, but. . . I don’t think I will now. James’ soul has returned me to my full power, and I want to have fun with it. You shall be my first victim. You should feel honored. ”

Just as Hades begins to summon his Hellish Powers, a voice echoes up and down the street.

“Darkness. . . . . Imprisoning Me. . . . All That I See. . . Absolute Horror. . . How Can I Live. . How Can I Die. . . Dragging Myself. . . . Back To Reality. . . Light Destroys Darkness. . . . Beckoning My Return. . . . Never Free. . . . Never Made. . . . Never Forgiving. . . Flames. . . . Fuel For My Fire. . . . My Desire. . . .Your Reign. . . . It Ends. . . NOW!”

As the voice fades away, Hades chuckles to himself, turning towards the Avengers.

“Cute trick. ”

He materializes his Scythe and is about to slash Jamie, when the Scythe is suddenly ripped from his hands, thrown into the distance by an unseen force. Hades attempts to summon it back to him, but finds that he is unable to. Jamie suddenly drops to the ground, the unseen force severing Hades’ control over her. Hades begins to frantically search for whatever was screwing with his powers, but finds nothing. He looks over to where James’ body was laying, but finds that his body has disappeared, and, in its place is a pile of ashes. Hades disregards the ashes, knowing that He had James’ soul and everything was fine. As he continues searching for the unseen force, the ashes begin to stir, and something begins to rise from them. Quick as a flash, the thing, shrouded in a white cloak, has rose to the top of the ashes, standing in them now. The cloak falls to the ground, revealing a man, six feet six inches tall, muscular, dark hair, wearing white pants, a white sleeveless shirt, and white boots, with the white hood of the cloak covering his face still. The man clenches his fist and, seconds later, the Golden Dragon Shield materializes over his clothing, as do the Golden Arm Bands, the Dragon Dagger now around his waist. He removes the hood, revealing to the world that, like the Phoenix, James has risen from the ashes.



#15 H K

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Posted 06 July 2008 - 12:59 AM

James throws the cloak the rest of the way off of him and clenches his fists, the new bones popping, the sound echoing down the empty street. He pops the bones in his neck as well, before walking over to Jamie, passing by Hades like he wasn’t there, treating him in a similar manner as he did Hardcore King. James pulls Jamie back to her feet, before walking her back to the Avengers. Once she is safe with the group, James turns back to Hades., who has summoned his Soul Reaper yet again. Hades rushes James, swinging his Scythe as he does. He slashes it at James, but James stops his swing, grabbing the scythe by the handle. He jerks the Scythe out of Hades’ grasp and breaks it in two over his knee, throwing the pieces aside. With Hades temporarily immobilized by shock, James sends an uppercut flying into Hades’ jaw, which knocks him into the air, landing a few feet away flat on his back. James lets Hades get back to his feet, now allowing Hades to make the first move. Hades quickly sends out a burst of his dark energy towards James. As it speeds towards him, James whips out the Dragon Dagger and brings it to his lips. He begins to play note after note, expelling green energy bolts from the Power Coin embedded in the handle of the Dagger. These bolts disperse Hades’ energy, as well as slamming into Hades himself. As the energy courses through him, James continues to play note after note, pouring more of his power into Hades’ body.

Hades has dropped to his knees now, a loud roar of pain expelling from him as the green energy bolts rip into his skin. Hades finally expends a massive amount of Dark Energy, destroying everything within six feet of him, finally shattering the connection he had with the energy bolts. James stops playing the Dagger and sheaths it, once again awaiting Hades’ next move. Just as James is about to make his own move, tired of waiting for Hades, Hades disappears from view, before reappearing at James’ left side, sending a kick at James’ head. His kick connects solidly with the back of James’ head, pitching him forwards. James catches himself, staying on his feet, before sending a kick back at Hades, who vanishes yet again, this time reappearing at James’ right side. He kicks at James again with the opposite foot, smashing it into James’ face, pitching him backwards this time. Yet again, James catches himself, wiping away a bit of blood from his mouth. He sends a kick back at Hades again, but, once more, he vanishes. He reappears, this time behind James, and tries to kick his legs out from under him, but James jumps Hades’ kick, spins around, and lands a roundhouse kick to Hades’ head, sending him to the ground. James attempts to slam his boot on the back of Hades’ neck, but Hades disappears again, this time reappearing back in his original spot away from James, breathing heavily. Hades straightens up, a dark and angry look on his face. He begins to speak to James, an aggravated tone to his voice.

“It seems that, with your Resurrection, however you did it, you’ve become quite powerful. No matter, for I am not fighting at my full strength. Now you die. ”

As Hades finishes speaking, He begins to grow, larger and larger, with the protrusions on his forehead growing larger, his skin becoming splotches with red patches. While he is changing, James calmly walks back to the group, his back to Hades. He begins to check up on everyone, while still ignoring Hades.

“Everybody okay? Good. Any questions real quick?”

Captain America steps forwards and asks the question on everyone’s mind.

“Oh yeah, I’ve got a question. . . I saw you have your soul ripped from your body, and then your body was reduced to ashes. How the hell did you come back?”

“Easy. When Hades came to Earth and started taking peoples’ souls, I just knew that he would come for mine, cause that’s how my luck is. I anchored my soul to the Power Coin once I got it. What Hades ripped out of my body wasn’t my soul, it was the last bit of the connection I had with Mephesto. When that was ripped out of me, my body was destroyed, leaving just ashes. The Power Coin, however, remained whole, keeping my soul inside of it. It used the ashes that were my body to reconstruct this body for me. That’s also why I can use the Dragon Shield and Dagger without having some sort of Power Suit. Speaking of Power Suits, Tony, when my body was destroyed, it took my armor with me. Don’t build me any more, I appreciated it, but, I don’t like relying on technology like that. Now, if you will excuse me, I think Hades is finished. ”

James turns back to where Hades had been before, and then looks up. Up and up his gaze goes, finally stopping at Hades’ monstrous new form. Hades looks down at the, to him, ant sized James, before raising a massive foot into the air, sending it crashing down towards James. James dives out of the way, barely missing being crushed by Hades’ scaly red foot. James quickly finds his footing, before looking up at Hades once more.

“You wanna go big? Fine! I can go big too!”

James grabs the Dragon Dagger from its holster and brings it to his lips, playing a more powerful tune than before this time. As the notes fade out, a deep rumbling begins to shake the ground beneath them, a massive split in the ground forming behind Hades. As the split grows, a metallic creature begins to rise from it, though no real features can be made out, due to the black smoke billowing out around it. As the metallic creature climbs out of the crevice, James plays the same notes again, and the creature climbs faster, clearly being fueled by the sound. With the creature now fully out of the crevice, it closes, cutting off the smoke, revealing the creature to be a green, black, and silver Dragonesque Mecha. With the high powered drill on its tail, rockets at its fingertips and chest, the Dragon Zord has risen again. As James begins to play the Dagger again, the Dragon lets out a mighty roar, before charging at Hades, moving at speeds that betray its size. It whips its tail around and smashes it into Hades, knocking him back into a building, which crumbles behind him. The Dragon fires off the rockets from its hands, all eight of which slam into the smoking wreckage that Hades had been thrown into. The missiles explode on impact, destroying more of the surrounding area as well as kicking up even more smoke and dust, clouding the area over. The Dragon lets out another mighty roar and whips its tail around to clear the smoke. Finally, the skyline is clear enough to see the results. Nothing is left of any of the surrounding buildings, save for piles of rubble, with no sign of Hades.

Suddenly, the rubble begins to shake, before being violently thrown into the air, Hades having blown his way out, several minor cuts decorating his body. He lets out a mighty yell of his own, charging at the Dragon this time. He slams into it, lifting it into the air as he does. He holds the Mecha high over his head, before hurling it away, the opposite direction as the rubble. The Dragon slams hard on its side, skidding into a building, which is knocked over backwards due to the impact. James plays a different set of notes on the Dagger, and the Dragon quickly gets back to its feet. Hades materializes another scythe, this time, a black handled shorter version, with a blood red blade. He slashes at the Dragon, sparks flying from the impact, knocking the Dragon back down.

“Damnit. . . He’s no match for Hades. . . Time for Battle Mode!”

With those words, James plays a new set of notes on the Dagger. The Dragon rises into the air, its mechanical parts twisting, turning, and reshaping it into a more human form, with only a few of its Dragonesque features left. Its tail detaches and reforms into a massive blade, to match Hades’ Scythe. The new form of the Dragon swings its sword around to parry another blow from Hades’ scythe, knocking it away. The former Dragon slashes at Hades, cutting deep into his torso, blood spurting onto the Blade. The Dragon takes another swing at Hades, this time connecting with one of Hades horns, slicing most of it off. The chunk of horn slams to the ground, a minor shockwave echoing from the impact. James seizes the moment, holstering the Dagger and beginning the start of his plan.

“Ex unde vos venit vos vadum subsisto insquequo vos es universa iterum!”

With those ancient Latin words, a split begins to form in the fabric of time and space, near James, since he invoked the spell. This split opens up to form a swirling vortex of red and black, twisting and turning, a massive amount of suction exhuming from it. James braces himself against a light post and grabs the Dagger once more. He plays several more notes, and the Dragon grabs Hades, ditching its sword, and forces him closer to the Portal. Once near the Portal, Hades slowly begins to be pulled towards it, the suction growing stronger by the second. With its job done, the Dragon Zord reopens the split in the Earth, lowering itself back into the depths, the split closing up behind it. As Hades is pulled off of his feet, being dragged closer and closer to the Portal, James is still trying to hold on to the light post. Hades’ feet disappear into the portal as it grows larger to accommodate his size. More and more of Hades is pulled into the portal, until just his torso is left. The Portal executes one final , massive pull and sucks Hades the rest of the way into the Portal. Before the pull, however, Hades lashes out and grabs the light post James is holding on to, as well as James himself, dragging him into the portal with him. As the Portal seals itself shut, the Avengers, Jamie, and Sarah, all climb out from the piles of rubble created from the two battling monsters, with no sign of James, nor the two giants anywhere.

---Elsewhere---

From the screaming darkness, James falls. Mile after mile, yelling the whole way. Hades has seemingly vanished. After nearly an hour, James slams into the ground, dust rising from his point of impact. James slowly gets back to his feet, noticing that his Dragon Shield, Dagger, and Power Coin have vanished. He looks around, rubbing the back of his head, trying to stave off the headache that he knew would be coming.

“Where the Hell am I. . . . ”

Suddenly, a deep voice responds from behind him.

“Exactly. Welcome to Hell!”



#16 H K

H K

    Code X Join Date: Jul 7, 2004

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Posted 13 July 2008 - 01:57 PM

James turns to face the voice quick as a flash,ready to fight. His eyes focus on a man,average height,average build,dark hair,skin a dark shade of gray. James relaxes once he sees that the man isn't looking for a fight. He takes a look around wherever he is. The walls are a dark shade of gray,very similar to the man before James. The room is relatively small,only ten by ten. James refocuses on the Man,only to see a massive three headed dog with a snake for a tail,and snakes down his back,like a mane. The dog takes a step forwards and looks down at James,before speaking,its voice matching the one previously heard.

“As I said before,welcome to Hell. I am Cerberus. You may wonder why you have yet to be set alight,or stabbed repeatedly. There is a simple answer to that. Hades grew tired of simply torturing people. Instead,he created a Coliseum,much like Caesar had,and now forces every soul in Hell to fight to the death. The losers go to a form of Purgatory,while the winners move on to the next level of competition and hell. There are Nine levels,with each level housing stronger opponents. Since you were brought here with your body,you have the advantage over most of the other wretches sent here. They only have a soul to work with,which means that they are forced to inhabit the bodies of anything they can find. Only when they advance to the lower levels can their bodies be taken from their graves and brought here for them to inhabit yet again. You will be allowed to choose a single weapon for you to use in the Coliseum,as well as a few simple pieces of armor. You will be given one hundred Hell Credits. Hell Credits are our form of money. You gain a certain amount for each battle you win,with the amount raising for every level you move on to. Hell Credits can be used to purchase virtually anything you humans have ever created. Your first weapon and pieces of armor will cost you nothing.”

Cerberus moves away from one of the walls and it slides into the ceiling,revealing a vast array of weapons from various time periods on Earth. There are swords,guns,various blunt weapons,and many more unfamiliar looking weapons. James steps up to the wall and begins looking over the weapons. He picks up a broadsword similar to the one he got in the past,but quickly puts it down,moving on to the firearms. He picks up a familiar looking shotgun,pump action style,and looks at the side of it. Engraved in the black wood are the words 'Kick Ass,Take Names.' James hefts the gun,knowing that it was his gun from years ago,before the Hell Wars began. He steps away from the wall and watches at the wall slides back into place. The wall to the left of the weapons cache slides into the ceiling,revealing various pieces of armor. James steps up to the armor cache,once more seeing pieces of armor from different time periods. James grabs a Kevlar vest,from his own time period,and slips it over his head,securing it in place. He grabs a metal gauntlet,slipping it onto his arm. It fits over his fingerless gloves and forearm as if it was made for him. He grabs the second gauntlet and puts it on as well. James spots what looks like an arrow quiver and,having created a similar thing many times before,fashions a shotgun holster. He straps the quiver over the Kevlar vest and slips the shotgun into it. Satisfied with his selections,James steps away from the cache,and the wall slides back into place.

“Good. Prepare yourself,you are about to move into Level One of Hell. Level One houses the petty thieves,miscreants,bullies,and tax attorneys. You have 24 hours to acclimate yourself to Hell before your first battle. If you win,you move on to Level 2.If you manage to make it to Level nine,and no many do,you will be facing the greatest of evil. If you become the Champion of Level Nine,and you will have to defeat at least ten other people to do so,you will have a chance to win your freedom. Good luck,you'll need it.”

Cerberus slowly fades into nothing,and a third wall slides into the ceiling,revealing Level One of Hell. James steps out of the room and begins to look around. He sees a golden arena in the distance,a blood red glow surrounding it. The rocks beneath his feet,too small for gravel,shift under his weight. He steps forwards,the dark red rocks crunching under his boots. He spies a building about thirty feet away from him and walks over to it,not seeing another person anywhere. The sign nailed to the building reads 'Wait and Bleed Bar' James,not having anything better to do,walks into the bar,the door slamming shut behind him. Everyone in the bar turns towards him,various looks of surprise on their faces,mainly because he is the only human looking one in the entire bar,save for the bar tender himself. The rest of the patrons are demons,some with wings,horns,tails,and various other appendages. James ignores the stares and walks up to the bar,the bartender walking to him.

“What can I get you,stranger?”

James looks around the bar,taking in its run down and sleazy nature,before answering.

“You wouldn't happen to have a Coke back there,would you?”

The bartender disappears behind the counter,bending down to retrieve something. When he returns,he is holding a 24 ounce bottle of Coke. He sets it on the bar in front of James. James grabs the bottle,quickly opening it and takes a sip.

“That'll be 3 credits. You got lucky by the way. Thats the last bottle of Coke that'll be here for about ten years. We don't get too many chances to restock our supplies here.”

James plunks down 3 of the Coins Cerberus gave him,taking them from a brown sack. The bartender quickly sweeps the coins up,while James slips the bag back into his pocket,not noticing several of the patrons eying it greedily. James continues drinking his Coke,taking a seat on a bar stool,turning to face the room,noticing as the rest of the room quickly averts their eyes. The bartender speaks up from behind him,making James turn back to him.

“Quick question. Just how is it that you've got a body? Everyone in here used to be a human,but they didn't have a body when they got here,they had to hijack a demons body,but,you walk in here with a clearly human body.”

“Long story. Now,let me ask you a question in return. You know a place I can hang around til tomorrow? Cerberus gave me 24 hours to get ready for my fight,and I don't feel like sleeping out there.”

“Tell you what,since you're new here,you can hang out here until sunrise. The rest of the people in here usually leave in about ten minutes,so you'll have the place to yourself. Until then,you should go check out that terminal over there. It'll give you a list of anything and everything thats for sell here. If you move on to another level,whatever you bought is automatically transferred to the new level.”

“Thanks. I'll go take a look. Actually,dyou know of an easier way to pay for stuff besides these heavy ass coins?”

The bartender ducks behind the counter again,this time coming back up with a piece of plastic,dark red in color. It has the words '100 Credits' on it.

“You give me the 97 Credits you've got left,I'll give you this. This Card here has 100 Credits on it,you just swipe it in the machine over there,it'll remove the Credits from the card,and the number will change to reflect the amount left. If you win some fights,the card can have Credits added to it,instead of you having to carry all those coins around.”

James immediately pulls out the bag of coins and hands them to the bartender,accepting the Card in exchange.

“Thanks.”

James grabs his Coke and turns away from the bartender,getting up from the bar stool as he does. He walks towards the terminal,threading his way through the crowd of people seated in rough wooden chairs. He dodges a set of bat like wings,finally in front of the terminal,which is labeled Hel-Mart. He looks down at it,the screen panel being a bit above waist height. He pushes the Start button and the screen changes. It tells him to swipe his card,and he follows its instructions,and the screen changes yet again. It shows several buttons,more options for James to choose from. James looks over them,noticing the ones labeled Weapons,Housing,Armor,and,most notable,Deviant Activities. James pushes the Housing button,and the screen changes yet again,showing many different styles of housing. James scrolls down to the bottom of the list. He looks at the most expensive house,which costs One Million credits. James scrolls back up and stops at the least expensive choice,which is one thousand credits. James sighs,knowing that it might take a while until he has a place to stay. James leaves the housing portion of the Hel-Mart,entering the Weapons portion. He scrolls down to the Ammunition portion,seeing that shotgun shells are 5 credits per box. James selects three boxes and watches as they materialize next to the Hel-Mart terminal. James leaves the Weapons portion of the Hel-Mart,clicking on an Accessories button. He scrolls down the list and stops on a device labeled Storage Sphere. The sphere,about two inches in diameter and a dull gold in color,is listed at 50 credits. The description proclaims that it houses a 12 x 12 storage space,guaranteed to be feather light. James clicks the Buy button and the dull gold ball materializes on top of his ammo boxes.

James shuts down the terminal,removing his card as he does,which now reads 35 Credits. He slips the card in his pocket and picks up the gold ball. He pushes the only button on it and the ball drops to the ground,before a laser shoots up from it,creating a rip in time and space. The rip remains,so,James sticks his hand in,and pulls it back out,noting that nothing happened. He sticks his head in,looking all around,understanding that this was the 12 x 12 storage that the terminal promised. James pulls his head back out of the rip,before grabbing the three boxes. He leans into the rip and sets the three boxes down inside. He leaves the rip and shuts down the ball. He picks the ball up and tosses it into the air,catching it easily,the ball still feather light. James pockets the ball and walks away from the terminal,noticing that the bar had cleared out some since he started using the Hel-Mart. James leaves the bar,stepping out into the harsh world that is Hell. He looks up at the sky,noticing that there didn't seem to be a source of light. He looks towards the ground,studying the rocks for a bit,before coming to the conclusion that the light was emanating from the ground itself. James bends down and grabs a rock,a bit bigger than a triple a battery,deciding that it was time to see if he was still a good shot. James removes the shotgun from his quiver and takes out the few shells he removed from the ammo boxes he purchased. He loads up the shotgun,before hurling the rock into the air. As the red rock soars through the air,James takes aim and fires. Within seconds,the shot catches up to the rock,shattering it into pieces,red rust and rock fragments falling to the ground. James spins the shotgun around his finger by the trigger guard,slipping it back into his quiver as it completed a second revolution. Just as James begins to turn back to the bar,he feels a metal cylinder press into his back. Using his peripheral vision,he looks behind him as far as he can,and sees that one of the things inside the bar had followed him out,and had a weapon of their own drawn on him. The thing begins to speak to him,its voice raspy,unnatural sounding,and very fast.

“YourCredits!Givethemtome,allofthem!”

“You do not know who you are Fucking with!”

Without warning,James spins around,away from the weapon the thing had drawn on him. He grabs the things wrist and twists,shattering the frail demon bones easily,forcing the demon to drop the weapon. James grabs the creature by its thin red throat and lifts it into the air. James slams it against the wall of the bar,holding it there. James squeezes,tighter and tighter,cutting off the creatures air supply. Having no qualms about killing this thing,James grips as tight as he can,before ripping his hand away,tearing most of the creatures throat away from its body. James hurls the piece of flesh away from him and lets the creature fall to the ground. As its blood pools out onto the rocks,quickly flowing down into the cracks,the body dissolves into nothing,leaving the weapon,as well as a bag of Credits,on the rocks. James picks up the bag,slipping the Card out of his pocket. He looks on the card and spots instructions for adding Credits to it. He slips the card into the bag of Credits and watches as the gold coins are absorbed into the Card. The numbers on the card scroll up ad up,finally stopping at 115 Credits. James removes his Card from the bag and tosses the bag away. James picks up the weapon,which is a .44 Magnum,and slips it into his pocket,deciding to get a holster for it later. James heads back into the bar,the door slamming shut behind him yet again. He whips out his shotgun,holding it loosely at his side,as all eyes focus on him. He looks around the room,locking eyes with anyone who looked at him.

“Who else wants some? Come On! Every single one of you at the same time,Lets Go!”

Almost immediately,everyone in the bar turns back to their tables,obviously not wanting a confrontation with James. James holsters his shotgun,before heading back to the bar,where he had set his Coke before going outside. He picks the bottle up,opens it,and drains the last bit out,setting the empty bottle back on the counter.

“Fucking demons....”



#17 H K

H K

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Posted 19 July 2008 - 06:33 AM

Nearly 12 hours later,James has managed to make it to the door of the arena. Now running on no sleep,James opens the massive doors and walks onto the field. He looks around,the seating already filled to the brim with hundreds of thousands of demons,hellspawn,and other assorted creatures. He looks straight in front of him and spots Hades in his demon form,but not at its usual height. Instead,it is only about nine feet tall. Yeah,only nine feet. James closes the door behind him and walks into the center of the arena. He removes his shotgun from its quiver and begins to search for his opponent. As he looks around,Hades stands up from his throne and begins to speak,his deep voice echoing all over the arena.

“This,like all arena battles,shall consist of 15 5-minute rounds,with each round continuing until someone is dead,or otherwise incapacitated. The winner shall move on to Level 2. Fighters,prepare yourselves. Round 1.....FIGHT!”

James,while listening to Hades' speech,has finally found his opponent,who is cowering behind a rock. James walks up to the rock,shotgun held loosely at his side. He leans over the rock and looks down at the creature huddled near it. James grabs the creature by its hair and pulls it out from behind the rock,before tossing it to the center of the arena. James looks up at Hades,motioning to the creature,before yelling up to Hades.

“You call this an opponent? I'm almost ashamed to kill the thing.”

James turns back to the creature,only to quickly move aside. The creature suddenly leapt towards him,a blade drawn,ready to slice him up. James regains his balance and aims his shotgun at the creature,eyes narrowed,finger on the trigger. James finds himself unable to pull the trigger,because,even though the creature attacked him,it was still a very unfair fight. Hades,spotting this,yells at James from his throne.

“FINISH HIM!”

With that yell,the crowd begins to chant something,unintelligible at first,but James quickly deciphers their yells.

“DIE!
DIE!
DIE!
DIE!
DIE!
DIE!
DIE!
DIE!
DIE!
MOTHERF
UCKER
DIE!”


James pulls the trigger,sending his shotgun round slamming into the pitiful creature,the impact and close range nearly liquefying it. Seconds later,the remnants dissolve into nothing,leaving only a charred black spot where the body once was. James holsters his shotgun and begins to head for the doors. A shout from Hades causes him to stop and turn back.

“You're forgetting your reward. Don't want you to get nothing for killing that pitiful waste of flesh,now do we?”

James face twists in anger,a silent rage brewing deep within him. He ignores his feelings,pushing them down,before catching the bag of Credits hurled at him by Hades. James pulls out his Card and exits the arena,absorbing the coins into the card. He notices that the card now reads Level 2 Warrior, 215 Credits. James pockets the Card,tossing the bag the credits were originally in. James looks around,noticing several differences between Levels 1 and 2. For instance,there are more demons in Level 2.A lot more. Too many,in fact. James continues down the road leading to and from the Arena,shoving several demons out of his way as he does,in no mood for pleasantries. After several outbursts of anger,James turns around,whips out his shotgun and aims it at the ones that complained. He fires off several rounds,virtually vaporizing the demons. Feeling better,James reloads his shotgun,before holstering it once more. James begins to head towards where the tavern was in Level 1,looking down at his wardrobe change that suddenly occurred when he was upgraded to Level 2. His armor seemed thicker,his gauntlets made of a more dense material. Even his shotgun fired stronger rounds.

“If I didn't know any better,I'd swear I was in an RPG...”

Ignoring his nerd detecting sense,James continues down the street,the demons now staying well away from him,after witnessing him casually decimate three of them without even blinking. James stops in front of the Wait And Bleed Bar,noting that it remained the same as Level 1.He enters the bar,and,once again,all eyes are on him,thanks to his possession of a human body. James gives all who keep his gaze a dirty look,which makes the rest of them look away. James steps up to the bar and orders the strongest drink that they have in stock. A few minutes later,the bartender returns with a bottle and a shot glass. He uncorks the bottle and pours a bit of its contents into the shot glass,filling it up. The bartender starts to remove the bottle,but James takes it from him,obviously wanting to finish whatever it is. James looks at the bottle,and it reads 'HelveteLager'. James sets the bottle down on the bar and grabs his shot glass. He quickly downs the liquid,which burns his throat on the way down,inducing a coughing fit,which,in turn,causes the bartender to chuckle. James recovers from his coughing fit and refills the shot glass,throwing the second one back as quickly as the first,this time though,no coughing. James drinks the night away,finally happy that he can actually feel it now,instead of before,when he had his enhancements. It might not be so bad in Hell after all....

---Several Months Later---

James has risen through the ranks of Battle Warrior,and has gained entry to Level 5.He has defeated three of the required ten needed to move on to Level 6.He has obtained a substantial amount of Credits,and has gained what could be called a home. His hatred of people and people-like things forced him to keep his domicile far far away from the main strip of activity,out in the barren wasteland that is Hell. Along with the various armor and health upgrades,James has acquired several new weapons and enjoys testing them out on the various creatures along the main strip,with no complaints from Hades,nor anyone else. Currently,James is lying down on a couch he recently bought from a Hel-Mart that was conveniently included with his home. He grabs a bottle of HelveteLager that was sitting on the floor and takes a swig of it,not even noticing the burning sensation anymore. Lately,he had a constant buzz,on a good day,he could barely walk straight. James sets the bottle back down,before sitting up himself. He reaches out and grabs a cigarette pack from the coffee table in front of the couch,as well as a black zippo lighter. The cigarette package reads 'Marlboro: Extra Crispy'. James removes a nearly black cylinder from the package,tossing it back on the table once hes done with it. He sticks an end of the cylinder in his mouth and with a flick,opens and lights the zippo, brings the blue flame to the tip of the cylinder and inhales as the cigarette lights up. Bad habits come easy in Hell. James closes the lighter,tossing it on the table as well. He takes a deep drag from his cigarette,holding the smoke in,releasing it as he rises from the couch. Deciding to head out to the main strip,James grabs his Level 5 Body Armor and buckles it over his shirt. He picks up one of his many guns,this time the .44 Magnum he got off of the first demon he killed,back in Level 1. He holsters the gun at his hip,before grabbing a black leather jacket and matching sunglasses. He pulls the jacket on over the body armor,leaving it unzipped and puts the glasses on. He grabs a set of keys from his coffee table and heads out the door,not bothering to lock it behind him. With all the security features he added,no one would be able to get in anyways,lock or no lock.

James walks around to the side of his house,pushing the autostart button on the tiny remote attached to his key chain. He hears an engine roar to life as he rounds the corner,the cause of said sound appears before him. The motorcycle has been custom tailored to resemble the Iron Rider version one as close as possible,minus all of the technological enhancements. The people running Hel-Mart are good,but Tony Stark they are not. James climbs onto the bike,pocketing his keys and tossing his cigarette away as he does. He revs the engine up a few times,before pulling his feet off the ground,revving the engine to its top speed,rocks flying under the back tire,before finally speeding away from the house,heading towards the main strip.

A few minutes later,James skids to a stop,showering several rocks onto the unsuspecting demons,and a few people who were lucky enough to buy their bodies back. James looks down at his watch,which reads 2:00 PM. Nearly time to kick some more ass. James revs his Bikes motor up once more,before peeling out,sending several creatures flying. He speeds towards the Arena,nearly glowing a blood red. Thanks to the speed of his motorcycle,he quickly pulls up to the massive doors. He pushes the kill button on his key chain and climbs off of his bike as the motor dies. James pushes a third button on his key chain,and from inside the arena, a loud guitar riff begins to play,the sound echoing all across the barren wasteland that is hell. A gravelly voice begins to speak,the crowd chanting along with the voice.

“Bow Down To The,Bow Down To The King!”

The song begins to pick up and James kicks the doors open,the crowd cheering even louder as he walks into the arena,the doors shutting behind him. James walks to the center of the arena and pushes a second kill button,immediately silencing the music. James takes out his pistol,holding it loosely at his side,not too worried about this fight,his previous ones had been simple enough. Just as he begins to look around for his opponent,a baseball sized rock slams into the back of his head,making him stumble forwards. He reaches for the back of his head and pulls his hand away,covered in blood. James turns towards where the rock came from and spots his opponent. A man,standing at about six feet,two inches,is crouching,perched on a rock,surrounded by shadows,some shooting out from him in tentacle form. The man,who looks as though he was formed from the Shadows he is sitting in,leaps off the rock,gliding through the air as if he weighed nothing,and drops to the ground,about ten feet from James. James wipes the blood off of his hand,before speaking to the man of shadows.

“You killed my buzz....I don't like it when people kill my buzz.”

James aims his pistol at the man and pulls the trigger. Expecting a splash of blood from the impact,James is surprised when the bullet passes through the man as if he wasn't even there. The Shadow Demon smirks at this,before whipping one of his shadow tentacles towards James,wrapping it around the gun,ripping it out of James grasp and tossing it aside. The Shadow Demon lashes out with a second tentacle,wrapping it around James wrist,his first tentacle having already wrapped around the wrist that previously held the gun. With James restrained,the Shadow Demon chuckles softly,stepping closer to James,stopping about four feet from him. The Shadow Demon begins to speak as he tightens the tentacles around James' wrists.

“I know you...Just about thirteen years ago,you broke into the White House to rescue your daughter. I know,because I was assigned to guard her. I remember,she had a bit of fight in her. I liked that.”

“Then you're gonna love me!”

With those words,James activates his dormant elementalist powers,sprouting flames along his forearms and hands,quickly expelling the Shadows. James forms the flames into a ball,hurling it at the Shadow Demon. As the ball speeds towards him,the Shadow Demon seemingly melts into the ground,the ball flying harmlessly into a rock. The Demon rises from the ground behind James and attempts to entangle him with his tentacles again,but James is able to swipe them away,landing a flaming punch on the Demons jaw,which knocks the Demon to the ground,a portion of his face eaten away by he flames,revealing a nearly black jawbone. James launches another burst of flames at the Demon,but it melts into the ground once more. Getting an idea,James begins to cover the ground with flames,leaving a single strip of land alone. With the flames controlling the ground,the Demon is forced to materialize in the barren strip of land. With the flames closing in on him,the Shadow Demon attempts to douse the flames by smothering them with his shadows,but the flames prove too strong,trapping the Demon in the space. James steps through the flames,not even being singed by them,stopping once hes reached the empty space. James releases the flames from his body,leaving the flames surrounding him up,and approaches the Demon. James can see that the flames have weakened the Demon substantially,so,he forces the Demon to its feet,grabbing it by the collar of its shirt and lifting it into the air. He hurls the Demon into the flames and listens as the Demons screams of pain and terror echo throughout the arena. They finally die out,and James douses the flames,drawing the energy back inside him. The only thing left of the Demon are its charred bones,and even those dissolve away. James locates his pistol,lucky for him it wasn't crispy,and holsters it,before catching the bag of credits that had been hurled at him by Hades. He loads the Credits onto his card,which now reads 'Level 5 Warrior. 650,000 Credits'.

James exits the arena to a stunned silence from the crowd. They had never seen such brutality from James before. James pushes the Start button on his key chain and climbs onto his Bike,revving the engine up,before speeding back towards the main strip. A few minutes later,he slams to a stop in front of his favorite bar,nearly launching himself off of the bike in the process. He pushes the Home button on his key chain and the Bike speeds off,heading back to James' house on its own. Say what you want about Hell,but its got some cool stuff. James begins to head into the bar,but a shout from a voice stops him.

“Wheres my Credits,Bitch!?”

James,being the oh so nice guy that he is,searches for the source of the voice,and quickly finds it,right around the corner from the bar. He sees a man,who is clearly a man,if the human body was anything to go buy,glaring at a woman,who is cowering at his feet. The man raises his hand to strike her,but James,who had been fast-approaching the two,grabs his wrist,pulling him around to face him. The man quickly rips his wrist out of James' grasp and draws a knife. He swipes at James,who attempts to block it with his hand,only succeeding in getting a cut on his hand,quickly drawing blood. James snatches the knife away,hurling it to the side,before landing a hard kick straight to the mans throat,which ends the fight for him. The throat kick always works,especially when the heel of your boot is made of steel. James looks down at the woman the man was yelling at and offers his hand,the one that was cut. She slowly reaches out and grasps his hand with her own,which is sporting a similar cut to James. As their blood mixes,a slight burning sensation engulfs James' right hand. As he pulls the woman to her feet,the burning sensation subsides. James looks at his hand to find the cut healed. He looks up at the woman,expecting to see her battered and bruised features,as he did before,but instead finds that she hasn't a scratch on her. And shes smiling at him. Oh how he hates it when women smile at him,bad things tend to happen when women smile at him.



#18 H K

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Posted 25 July 2008 - 10:29 PM

James slowly backs away,getting a bad feeling from the general feeling radiating off of the woman.

“Right.....have a good day....I'm gonna leave now....”

As James turns to leave,the woman follows him,sticking close,the smile still present on her face. James can sense that she is following him,but,ignores it for now,not wanting to have anything to do with her. He climbs onto his bike and starts it up,when he feels the woman climb on behind him. James kills the engine and begins to speak to the woman,still not facing her.

“Just what do you think you're doing? Get the hell off my bike!”

She giggles at his words,before responding.

“Cant.”

James runs his hand through his hair and sighs,before responding.

“And why,pray tell,cant you?”

Almost immediately,James hears her voice in his head.

“Cause you bonded yourself to me. I go where you go now.”

James,having not experienced voices in his head since his separation from Hardcore King,immediately jumps off of his bike,landing nearly on his back,scooting himself away from the woman,who is still sitting on his bike,looking down at him with a bemused look on her face. James stops propelling himself backwards long enough to form a question.

“Bonded? What the hell'd I do to bond with you? And just what does that mean?”

Once more,the womans voice echoes in his head.

“My name is Serenity, and I'm a Succubus. When you mixed your blood with mine,you freed me from that dickhead in the alley. Now that you've bonded myself to you,I'm linked to your soul,which means,as I said before,where you go,I go. The bonding also lets us communicate by thought. You humans always freak out the first time it happens, its quite funny. You really should get back on your motorcycle,you never know what could happen to it around here.”

James slowly gets back to his feet,brushing the dust off of him. He walks back to his bike,keeping his eyes on Serenity,who once again has a smile on her face. James climbs back onto his bike and starts it back up,revving the engine as he does. Serenity wraps her around around James' midsection to keep from falling off as James cranks the throttle to the max,the back tire peels out,spraying red rocks and dust into the air,finally catching on the ground,propelling the motorcycle forwards. James steers it towards his house,and,as they leave the main strip,Serenity's voice echoes in his head once more.

“Your house is far from the arena...I take it you don't care for people?”

James decides to try out the mental link they share and attempts to project his thoughts to Serenity.

“No. The people here piss me off. Come to think of it,the people on Earth piss me off too...guess I just don't like people.”

“Good thing I'm not people then.”

James just shakes his head,knowing that nothing good could possibly come of this. A few minutes later,He skids the Bike to a stop,just to the side of his house. He kills the engine and climbs off the Bike,Serenity doing the same. James deactivates the security measures on his house and enters,with Serenity following him,shutting the door behind her. She begins to walk around his house,looking at the dozens and dozens of HelveteLager scattered around the house. James throws himself back on his couch and picks up a nearby bottle of HelveteLager and drains the rest of the nearly black liquid,tossing the bottle down once hes finished with it. Worn out from the days Arena Battle,as well as the booze,James lays down,using an armrest on the couch for a pillow,quickly falling asleep. Serenity walks back into the front room,having just explored James' bedroom,finding it in a similar state as the rest of the house. She puts her hands on her hips and stares down at James,before deciding that it was time James got his act together.

---Several Hours Later---

James slowly opens his eyes,immediately closing them back,the harsh light causing him great pain. Funny,he didn't remember leaving the lights on. After a few minutes,James,opens his eyes again and sits up,covering his face with his hands,trying to wake himself up. After a few seconds,he lowers his hands to find that his house has completely changed. Gone are the dozens of empty bottles,even the furniture had been rearranged. Where his coffee table once stood there was nothing,his television had been replaced by a window bigger than the TV. James gets up and begins to look around,finding that just about everything was different. He quickly walks to the refrigerator,opening the door once he gets there. Instead of the many bottles of HelveteLager,he sees nothing but empty space. He quickly checks where the booze should be,but comes up short. He turns towards his room,intent on finding Serenity,but jumps back in surprise,as shes sitting on the counter across from him,and James is quite paranoid.

“Hello! Have a nice nap?”

James bypasses her question with another question.

“What the fuck did you do to my house!?!”

She hops down off the counter,turning towards the rest of the house,surveying her work,before replying.

“I think it looks better this way. The way you had it,it was so gloomy in here.”

“But.....but....why is the booze gone?”

Serenity turns back to him,his Credit Card in her right hand.

“I got rid of it. You need to have a clear head from now on. That stuff was doing you nothing but harm. I'm surprised you made it as far as you have here,the way you drank it. I also got rid of your cigarettes,you're lucky enough to have a body here,you shouldn't kill it. Oh,while you were asleep,I bought a few things for myself,I knew you wouldn't mind,seeing as you had tons of Credits. I also looked into your mind,just so I would know how to deal with you and your personality.”

“You threw out my cigarettes too? Damnit,I needed those! That and my booze were the only things keeping me even slightly happy in this nightmare. Wait,what? You used my Card? Wonderful...please tell me you didn't spend them all.”

She tosses his Card back to him and he catches it,pocketing it.

“Of course not,i only bought a few things,like food,which you had none of. Check under the sink,you might find something you like.”

James,who has resigned himself to his fate,slowly opens the cabinet under the sink. He spots bottles with red and white labels on them,filled with a dark liquid. He grabs one of the 24 ounce bottles and stands back up,closing the cabinet as he does. He looks down at the bottle,and back up at Serenity.

“I haven't had one of these in more than six months....”

James twists open the bottle,before chugging the drink,downing more than half of it in one go.He sets the bottle back on the counter as the Coca Cola clears away the remnants of the effects from the HelveteLager.

“I actually feel better,I'll be damned. Now,what else did you spend my Credits on?”

Serenity begins to walk around the house,showing James just what she had purchased.

“Lets see....I moved the television into your room,got this window installed,you didn't have one before,I got better looking carpet,different counter tops,oh,and a bigger bed,now that theres two of us,you'll be glad I did.”

“Come again? I thought I heard something crazy in my ear. I believe you're under the impression that we'll be sleeping in the same bed. Nuh uh,we're not even sleeping in the same room. Now,if you will excuse me,I'm going back to sleep.”

James walks away from Serenity and into his bedroom,slamming the door behind him. Serenity crosses her arms and shakes her head. She walks to the now closed door and,without another thought,walks through it as if it wasn't there. James,who had just layed down,looks as if he is about to say something,but Serenity cuts him off.

“Sleep.”

As she finishes the single word,James collapses on his bed,now sound asleep. Serenity chuckles,human minds were far too easy to command. Serenity strips down to nothing and slips into the much larger bed,wrapping herself in the covers,quickly falling asleep,with James snoring peacefully next to her.


Edited by Coca Cola King, 25 July 2008 - 10:35 PM.


#19 H K

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Posted 10 August 2008 - 04:45 AM

“And I can feel it coming in the air tonight, Oh Lord.....
Ive been waiting for this moment for all my life, Oh Lord.....
I can feel it in the air tonight, Oh Lord, Oh Lord......
And Ive been waiting for this moment all my life, Oh Lord, Oh Lord .....”


What the hell? Phil Collins? Why is there Phil Collins playing....James snaps his eyes open,immediately awakening himself from his dreams. His ears confirm that Phil Collins' In The Air Tonight is playing somewhere in his house. James climbs out of his bed,leaving it a rumpled mess. He leaves his room,and the song grows louder. He attempts to clear his head,still slightly cloudy after being asleep. He walks into his kitchen and finds the source of the music. On the counter is a stereo with the volume cranked all the way up, In The Air Tonight blaring from its speakers. James walks over to the stereo and ejects the CD,before grabbing the case to one of his own CDs. He pops the disc into the stereo,skips to Track 3. A few seconds later, a deep ringing bell echoes from the speakers,followed by another,signaling the beginning of the song.

“Hey! I was listening to that!”

James quickly turns around,forgetting that Serenity even existed. As the memories come rushing back,he responds to her outburst.

“Too bad,my house,my music. Get used to it,you'll hear this band a lot from now on.”

James opens the cabinet under the sing and grabs a bottle of Coke,twisting the cap off as he does. He takes a long drink,the caffeine quickly waking him up.

“Theres breakfast on the table,you've got to be hungry,you didn't eat anything yesterday.”

James walks over to the kitchen table,not expecting too much,but is pleasantly surprised when he sees scrambled eggs,bacon,and several links of sausage. He sits at the table,setting his Coke on it as he does. James picks up a fork and begins to eat with gusto,having not had a breakfast like it since his arrival in Hell.

“Now that you've got some food in you,I'm going to go shower,don't even think about buying more of that awful beer.”

As Serenity turns to leave the room,James finishes the rest of his meal,taking another drink of Coke after he does. James gets up from his seat,grabs the dishes and sets them in the sink,before moving into the living room. He flops down on the couch and grabs the remote,flipping his television on. Hell actually picked up channels from Earth,strange thing really. James switches the channel to World News,leaving the channel there in surprise as he stares at his own face. The anchorman begins to speak as James listens in stunned silence.

“James White,known to many as the Iron Savior,after many months of searching,has been declared dead. His body has yet to be discovered,but, as there have been no withdrawals from his credit account,nor have there been any sightings, authorities were left with no choice. His memorial service will take place on the 14th of July,and will only be open to family and friends, as well as a select few reporters. Moving on to sports....”

As the news anchor discusses the latest sporting event,James turns the television off,surprised at how long it took his world to decide that he was no longer alive. Searches for missing persons usually only last about a week,maybe two,and he got several months. Now he has even more motivation to return to Earth,just to prove the news anchors wrong,and maybe to incite a little zombie scare. James looks down at himself,realizing that he is still wearing what he slept in, a black sleeveless shirt and matching pajama bottoms. He gets up from the couch and heads into his room,intent on changing into something a bit more battle friendly. James searches through his repertoire of armor and weaponry,but finds none that suit his mood,so,he boots up the Hel-Mart terminal located in the corner if his bedroom. He quickly makes his way to the Battle Gear section of the terminal and begins to scan through his choices. After a few minutes of searching,James has noticed that he owns just about every one of the pieces of equipment. Just as he is about to shut down the Terminal,a new window pops up on his screen. It reads “UPDATE: New Battle Gear Available” James clicks on the provided link,which takes him to this new armor. He begins to read the specs of the armor,thoroughly impressed with what it said.

This new body armor,developed by RealTime Industries offers its wearer a variety of abilities and enhancements,including,but not limited to:

-Enhanced Strength,allowing the Wearer to lift anywhere from two hundred pounds to two tons.
-Enhanced Speed,allowing the Wearer to reach speeds of up to ninety miles per hour.
-Enhanced Agility,allowing the Wearer to jump up to 30 feet in the air,as well as giving the wearer a greater capacity for movement.
-Limited Endurance,while wearing the Armor,damage to the Wearer is kept at a minimum. If enough damage is taken,however,the armor temporarily shuts down,forcing a system reboot which lasts roughly three minutes.
-Unlimited Battery Life. Battery lasts for 24 Hours,based on the amount of usage. Is to be recharged on a nightly basis,guaranteed to hold its charge.
-Comes equipped with 9mm Jericho Pistol,as well as an SMG with Auto Targeting technology

Price: One time offer,lasting just ten minutes, 350,000 Credits.
Regular Price: Two Million Credits.

Purchase?

After seeing the deal he was being offered,James quickly pushes the Yes button,and,seconds later,his card is 350,000 Credits lighter,and his armor is sitting in several boxes next to the Hel-Mart Terminal. James quickly opens the boxes,pulling out the separate pieces of armor. He quickly suits up,finding that the armor came in three major pieces,the Gloves with gauntlet attachments,the Boots with built in knee pads,and the chest piece. Under the armor he has on a body suit provided with the armor,made to enhance the connection between the User and the Armor. James sits down on the bed,extremely weighed down by the heavy armor. He picks up the sheet of paper provided with the armor and begins to read the instructions. After a few minutes,James stands up off his bed and pushes the panel on the chest piece that starts the armor. With the whir of electronics booting up,several lights on the gauntlets,chest piece,and legs light up,displaying the yellow glow that signals the armor is using the least amount of power,therefore putting James at its lowest level of enhancement.

James immediately feels the armor lighten up to the point of it seemingly not being there. Wanting to test out his strength,he turns towards the bed,bends down,and grabs it at the base. He begins to lift and feels the armor assisting him,easily allowing him to lift his bed high over his head. He sets the bed down,before exiting his room. In doing so,he nearly runs headlong into a woman with black hair,and red highlights in her bangs. She turns around,a white towel barely covering her. She gives him an odd look,due to his armor. James takes a step back,ready for an attack.

“Who are you and how'd you get in my house?”

The woman looks down at herself and rolls her eyes,before answering.

“Its me you idiot,Serenity. This is my true form. That other one you saw was what my previous Master forced me to wear. Interesting armor you have there. Gonna go play with it?”

James,having eased up,recognizing Serenity's voice,looks her up and down,before responding.

“Yeah. You look better like this. I'll be back in a bit.”

James steps past Serenity,who moves into James' room to get dressed. James heads outside and walks a few feet away from his house. He looks down at the armor,making sure that its turned on,before bending his knees. He feels the armor activate,and he leaps into the air,the armor propelling him a good twenty feet,before he begins to descend. As he drops,faster and faster,James draws his arms close to his sides,clenching his legs together,causing him to fall faster. Seconds later,his feet slam into the ground,dropping him to a knee,creating a small crater around his point of impact. James stands back up to his full height,looking down at his armor,the lights still glowing a safe yellow.

“Oh hell yeah.”



#20 H K

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Posted 12 August 2008 - 01:11 PM

---Several Months Later---

Now,with a Year of Arena battles under his belt,James has made it to the 9th and final level of Hell. After extensive upgrades to his armor,James has become the most dominant soul,human or otherwise,in Hell. If he can defeat his final opponent,he gets the opportunity to fight Hades for his freedom. James is currently outside the Arena with Serenity,prepping himself for whoever his opponent is. Speaking of Serenity,James' relationship with her has grown to borderline love. The only thing keeping James from saying his newfound feelings aloud is the fact that he might never see her again,if he can defeat his next opponent.

James climbs off of his motorcycle,as does Serenity. James removes his helmet,hanging it on his bikes handlebars. He looks down at his armor,which he painted to a dark reddish hue. He powers it up,lighting up the now-blue lights,signifying that he had it set to its Medium setting,which doubled the armors previous power level,while sacrificing its usage time. James looks up at the wooden doors,the entrance to the Arena,before turning back to Serenity. He pulls her in close to him,before leaning down,kissing her softly on the lips. When he pulls away,she looks up at hi in confusion.

“What was that for?”

James turns back to the arena,clenching his fists,before answering.

“In case I don't come back.”

With those final words,James begins his walk to the heavy doors. He stops in front of them,turning his head one last time,for a last look at Serenity,before swinging the doors open,choosing to go in without his usual theme song or fanfare. Nonetheless,a massive cheer erupts from the crowd as he makes his way into the arena. James looks all around the arena at the crowd,littered with humans,demons,and assorted creatures,all cheering for him. In his year of Arena Battles,He gained quite a following. As the doors close behind him,James walks to the center of the arena,looking up at Hades,who has stood up from his throne,looking down at James.

“Congratulations James. You are the first person to ever make it this far. I had to search through the depths of my realm to find a suitable opponent,but,I found one. I believe you have met him before. He was once a God,I put an end to that. He disobeyed the laws set down upon all Gods,he interfered in your world,for that,he payed the ultimate price. When I killed him,he was sent here,without his powers. Unfortunately for you,I've restored most of those powers,and,in doing so,I was able to turn his mind to my side,much like I did with your former friend,Hardcore King. Prepare yourself,for you will not win!”

Hades sits back down as the lights in the arena go dim. A door,just under Hades' throne,swings open,a bright light spilling out from it. A silhouette appears in the doorway,walking closer and closer. As he enters the arena,the doors slam shut and the lights fade back up,revealing the man to be Mephesto. James stands in stunned silence,not wanting to believe that he must now fight a God,the same God that helped him save his planet several times,the same God who bestowed him with Godlike powers. There was no way he could win,but he damn sure is going to try. Mephesto stares at him,a blank look upon his face,not moving or making a sound. James leaps into the air,his armor propelling him a good fifty feet. Whilst in the air,James removes his SMG from the back of his armor and begins to open fire on Mephesto,who has still yet to move. As the bullets speed closer and closer,they seem to bounce off from an invisible force surrounding Mephesto. James stops firing and begins to fall back to the ground,he moves himself so that he is heading towards Mephesto,feet first,intent on dropping on Mephesto. Just as James is about to slam down on Mephesto,he is jerked to a stop,floating in mid-air. Mephesto now has his arm outstretched towards James' prone form. Mephesto slams his arm down,dragging James with it,dropping him like a stone into the ground,creating a small crater at his point of impact. Mephesto walks up to the crater,the same blank look still on his face,his eyes glazed over.

James slowly pulls himself out of the crater,the armor having taken most of the impact. James quickly draws his Jericho pistol and begins to fire it at Mephesto's head,hoping that at such point blank range,Mephesto wont be able to block the shots. As before,the bullets simply bounce off of an unseen force. James throws his pistol aside as he leaps towards Mephesto,his armor putting more force behind him than he could on his own. This time,he is able to tackle Mephesto,driving his shoulder into Mephesto's gut,knocking the both of them to the ground. James quickly rights himself and begins reigning down blow after blow on Mephesto,pulverizing him with all of the strength his armor has. After a minute,James feels something take hold of him,and he is suddenly hurled off to the side. As he slides to a stop,he sees Mephesto get back to his feet,his face mashed into a pulp. Right before his eyes,Mephesto's head slowly begins to rearrange itself,until it is back to normal,with no sign that it had ever been crushed. As James pulls himself back to his feet for the second time,Mephesto makes his way over to him.

Mephesto,quick as lightning,throws a punch at James. James' armor moves James' arm in time to catch the punch,stopping it short of hitting him. James tightens his grip on Mephesto's fist,and launches his won fist at Mephesto. Mephesto catches James' fist,and the two of them are now locked in a test of strength,each one trying to break the others hand. As Mephesto clamps down on his fist,James drops to a knee,attempting to keep his leverage up. James feels a rush of strength as his armor switches to full capacity,the blue lights flashing to red. James tightens his grip on Mephesto's fist,getting back to his feet,this time pushing Mephesto down. With a jerk and a snap,James tears Mephesto's arm clean off his shoulder,blood spurting out of the severed limb,as well as Mephesto's shoulder. James hurls the limb away from him and kicks Mephesto in the chest,knocking him back,slamming his body against the stone wall of the arena. James sprints over to Mephesto,grabbing him by the hair and forcing him to his feet. James grabs Mephesto by the throat and lifts him into the air,pinning him against the wall. He begins to apply as much force as he can to Mephesto,intent on choking the life out of him. Just as Mephesto begins to fade away, a mechanical voice from his armor dashes James' chance at winning.

“Power Supply Low. Shutting Down. System Will Reboot In Ten Minutes”

James looks down at his armor as he feels his strength slipping away.

“What? NO!”

Mephesto snaps back to life and breaks James' grip on him,before sending his fist into James' chest,this time knocking James back into the opposite wall. Without the armor to cushion the blow,James feels the impact completely. James feels something warm inside him and suddenly coughs up a bit of blood. James attempts to get to his feet,but finds himself unable to move. As he lays in the dirt,he is able to see Mephesto out of the corner of his eye. Mephesto points his arm towards his severed limb and it flies to him,reattaching itself once it reaches Mephesto. As Mephesto walks towards him,face still a mask of nothing,James hears his armor spout out the remaining time until it Reboots.

“Six Minutes Until System Reboot”

James decides that there was no way he could survive for six more minutes,especially with Mephesto having his powers back. James closes his eyes in defeat,until he hears a voice in his head.

“Come on James,Get Up, I didn't hear no Bell!”

Serenity. Up until now,James had drowned the crowd out,but now,he looks towards the stands and spots Serenity in the front row,on her feet,yelling for him to get up. He listens to the rest of the crowd,who are also cheering him on. After a few seconds,he feels a hand grab the back of his neck,the grip tightening. He is lifted into the air and planted on his feet,only remaining standing due to the sheer weight of his boots. As Mephesto rears back to deliver the killing blow,James forces his arms up,palms aimed at Mephesto's face. Seconds later,James ignites his palms,using his long-forgotten elemental abilities. He sends twin bursts of flames straight into Mephesto's face,forcing Mephesto backwards as his face burned. Mephesto quickly douses the flames,fixing his face as he does,before turning back to James.

“30 Seconds To System Reboot.”

James smirks after hearing the update and charges up another burst of flames,firing them at Mephesto once more,though Mephesto blocks the flames this time. James lets the flames die while Mephesto approaches him,buying him just enough time to hear one final message from his armor.

“System Reboot in 3...2...1.”

With those words,James' armor switches back to full power,the lights flashing to red as soon as it activates. James lunges towards Mephesto again,this time blasting him with Flames,distracting him long enough to allow James to grab him by the throat yet again. Now fully powered,James squeezes Mephesto yet again. Tighter and Tighter his grip gets,until Mephesto's eyes roll into the back of his head and his body goes limp. James releases his unconscious body,allowing it to fall to the dirt. James stares down at the body as he hears a yell from Hades.

“FINISH HIM!”

James,who isn't feeling very sympathetic at the moment,due to Mephesto repeatedly trying to kill him,walks up to Mephesto's head and lifts his boot into the air,before bringing down all of his strength,crushing Mephesto's skull under its weight. For good measure,James sets the body alight,leaving only ashes,with no chance of Mephesto resurrecting himself again. James shuts his armor down to its lowest setting,before turning to Hades.

“There,I've done it,Ive beaten them all!”

Hades gets up from his throne,staring down at James,hatred in his demonic eyes.

“All....but Me. As per the agreement,you now must defeat me to be sent back to Earth. Oh look,we're both already here,might as well make the fight right now!”

Hades leaps off of the wall where his throne is located,landing square in the arena,the ground shaking as he lands. James doesn't bother to mention just how unfair that decision was,after all,he just fought and killed a God. Hades wouldn't have cared anyways. James doesn't bother to charge his armor up to its full potential,knowing that he stands about as much chance at its highest as he does with it at its lowest. Suddenly....


Edited by Coca Cola King, 12 August 2008 - 01:14 PM.


#21 H K

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Posted 13 August 2008 - 06:16 PM

---Flashback---

James is currently sitting on his couch,trying to decide how he would go about returning to his dimension. He had little faith that Hades would hold on to his end of the deal,even if James was able to beat him.

“Wish I still had my Power Coin,I could use it to teleport me out of here in a heartbeat. Too bad it disappeared when I got dropped into this cesspool.”

Serenity walks into the room,hearing what James said.

“If you had it on you when you got here,its still here,in Hades' store room,in a room just behind his throne. He confiscates anything anyone brings and throws it in there.”

James looks up at her,an idea already formulating.

“I think I've got a plan....”

Serenity shakes her head,knowing that James getting ideas was never a good thing for anybody.

---End Flashback---

Just as James is preparing to lunge at Hades,Serenity appears in front of him,suspended in the air,in a flash of white light. She speeds towards Hades,landing a supercharged punch to his jaw,knocking him down for a few seconds. She turns to James and yells to him.

“NOW!”

James,taking his cue,sprints around Hades' now-stirring body,heading towards his throne. Hades climbs back to his feet,now stomping towards James,catching up to him at an alarming pace. Just as Hades reaches out to grab James,Serenity lands on his back,grabbing him around the throat,attempting to cut off his air supply. As Hades struggles to remove her,James leaps up onto the ledge that holds the throne. He grabs the legs of the throne and hoists it into the air,ripping it from the concrete. He tosses the throne over the ledge and looks back,where there is now a doorway. He runs into the doorway,making a left turn,continuing down a well lit hallway. He breaks into a full on run as he sees a closed door at the end of the hallway,hoping that he can make it there before Hades rids himself of Serenity.

Back in the Arena,Serenity seems to be keeping Hades occupied,until He finally grasps her hair,yanking her off of him. He holds her in the air by her hair,glaring at her,before hurling her into the crowd. The various audience members rush out of her way as she slams into the concrete benches,nearly shattering her spine. Hades,deciding that she is no longer a threat to him,turns to look for James,only to spot his throne on the arena floor. He quickly puts together what James is doing,and rushes to the doorway. He leaps up onto the ledge and enters the doorway. He sees James kick open the door at the end and starts to rush towards him.

James looks around the room frantically,hearing Hades rushing towards him. He sees many things,guns,armor,knives,explosives,remnants of what used to be his armor,but no Power Coin. He begins to hurl things out of his way,hoping to find it buried,when a glimpse of gold out of the corner of his eye catches his attention. He whirls around and spots the Coin lying on the floor. He picks it up off the ground,gripping it tight in his fist,just as Hades smashes through the doorway. Concentrating as hard as he can,James disappears in a blur of green light,leaving a very pissed off Hades behind. Hades bashes his way out of the room,destroying the wall in the process,now back in the arena. He decides to take his anger out on someone who was involved in the plan,Serenity. He leaps into the crowd,landing her her still-prone body. As he reaches for her,a green blur flashes next to her,materializing James. He picks her up,grabbing her around the waist,before tossing something at Hades as the both of them disappear in another green blur. Hades catches the item thrown at him,its an egg shaped dark green object. Scrawled on it in dark red are the words “Why So Serious?” Seconds later,the grenade explodes,knocking Hades back,adding injury to insult.

---Earth---

In a dark room just outside the border of Indianapolis,a green blur flashes into existence,brining with it James and Serenity. James sets down Serenity so as not to further injure her,before shutting his armor down,feeling the full weight of his injuries,as well as the drain from using the Power Coin to travel between dimensions. He lies down near Serenity's body,quickly falling asleep.

The next day,James opens his eyes,expecting to see the darkness of the room he was previously in. Instead,he is greeted with white walls,a white bed,white everything. He looks down and finds his armor missing,having been replaces by white clothing,reminiscent of scrubs. He looks all around the room,noticing that the door,which was also white,had bars on the only window. James jumps out of the bed he was on and rushes towards the door. He attempts to open it,but finds it locked. He looks out the window through the bars and sees a white hallway,with more doors lining the walls. He begins to yell,demanding to know where he was and what he was doing there. A few seconds later,a man with grayish hair and glasses walks up to the door,wearing a white lab coat of sorts.

“My my my,Mr. White,haven't seen you like this in a very long time.”

“What the fuck are you talking about,I've never seen you before in my life,now let me out of here you old *******!”

“'Fraid I cant do that Mr. White. Just relax,someone will be in to speak with you momentarily.



#22 H K

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Posted 15 August 2008 - 06:38 PM

James attempts to break the door to his room down,but finds that he cannot. Deciding to do as the man said and relax,he sits back down on the bed in the room. He looks around the room once more,trying to find anything out of the ordinary,spotting a clock on the wall that reads 9:00 PM . After finding nothing,he glances down at the uniform he is wearing,disliking it mainly for its color. A few seconds later,the locks on his door unlatch,the door swings open,and a woman dressed in similar attire to the man he previously spoke with enters his room. She is trailed by two large muscular men wearing the uniform of a guard. Dark green fatigues,with needles at their belts instead of handcuffs or tazers. She shuts the door behind her and the locks relatch themselves. The woman brings the clipboard she is carrying closer to her face and begins to flip through the pages,before lowering it once more,looking at James now.

“Mr. White,good to see you coherent for a change. How are you feeling?”

James takes a moment to study the woman,as well as the two guards,contemplating if he could take down the two of them before using the woman as a bargaining chip to escape. He decides against it,however,opting to gain some information before he attempts his escape.

“I feel fine. What do you mean,Coherent? Where the hell am I and how did I get here?”

The woman glances back at the clipboard,shaking her head,before answering.

“Coherent,as in aware of your surroundings. You are currently residing in the Washington Asylum for the Criminally Insane. You were committed here just under two years ago. Shortly after the terrorist attack that destroyed the Washington Monument,which you were buried under,you clawed your way out yelling about aliens,government conspiracies,and time travel. No one could get through to you,not even your wife and child. It was established that it would be best for everyone,as well as yourself,for you to be placed in our care. That was two years ago. Since then,you have been constantly speaking of those same aliens,time travel,and government conspiracies. We've been trying out various methods to attempt to bring you back to a sane state,but have yet failed,until now,that is. We'll have to run a few tests to assure that you have no chance of returning to your former state,if they come back and tell us you're fine,we'll release you and give you some medication to make sure you stay with us. Any questions?”

James sits in stunned silence,not believing a word the woman says. He finally snaps out of his stupor,angrily responding.

“You're damn right Ive got questions! I was in Hell,literally,Hell,not 24 hours ago,I wake up here and you tell me I've been locked up in this place for 2 years? How stupid do you think I am? You think I don't know that its the year 2035,you think that I don't know that the world was nearly lost to terrorism? I single handedly saved the planet from Al Quiada,as well as fucked up aliens from who knows where! You either let me out of here,or bad things are gonna happen to you and your guards.”

The woman makes for the door,just as James bounds off his bed,heading right for her. The two guards grab James' arms,hurling him backwards onto the bed One of the guards holds him down,dodging kicks,as the other sticks one of the needles from his belt into James' neck. He injects him with the green liquid in the syringe,the drug quickly taking effect. James' eyes begin to droop as he struggles less and less,finally stopping altogether,unconscious.

---Later---

James slowly opens his eyes,struggling to wake up. Expecting to see nothing but white,James is surprised to find the blackness that is the house he teleported to from Hell. He looks around and finds Serenity sitting on the couch,barely moving,so as not to aggravate her back. Hades throws pretty hard,after all.James gets up off the floor and sits down next to Serenity,holding his hands over his eyes,trying to wake himself up.

“I just had the craziest dream.”

Serenity looks over to him,interest clear on her face.

“Oh yeah? What about?”

James looks back at her,waking up more now,before responding.

“I dreamt that I was in a mental institution. They told me that I was in a terrorist attack that destroyed the Washington Monument,they said I was delirious,they couldn't bring me back to coherence. Fuckin weird. Glad it was just a dream.”

Just as James finishes his sentence,his eyes roll back into his head as his world goes dark yet again.

---Even Later---

James' eyes slowly open,the drugs finally wearing off. He looks around the white room,surprised to be back in it. He must be dreaming again. He pinches himself a few times,trying to wake himself up,but to no avail. Next,he attempts to use lucid dreaming,hoping to control his dream, by imagining a Coke Bottle in his hand. Nothing appears though,and James starts to worry. Maybe the woman was right. Maybe the world he thinks is real is just a fabrication,made up in his own mind. He looks up at the clock on the wall,noticing that the time changed from 9 PM,it now reads 11 AM. If this world was real,he had been asleep for 22 hours. James gets up off the bed and heads back to the door. He looks out through the bars,hoping to see either the woman,or the man that first spoke to him. He spots the man just off to the side and begins to try and get his attention.

“Hey! Hey,buddy,come here!”

noticing that James is finally awake,the man walks up to the door.

“Good to see you awake. I'm sorry that we had to drug you,can't have you trying to harm my staff.”

“Yeah,whatever. Go get whoever that woman was,send her back in here,I wanna talk some more.”

“We'll have to make it quick. Now that you're awake,we'll need to run those tests. Cant have a sane person staying in a place like this,after all.”

The man walks away from James' door,presumably to fetch the woman James previously spoke with. James moves away from the door,pacing the floor,trying to get things straight in his mind. Since he was back here,that either means that his world is fake,or that hes having a recurring dream. Having rarely dreamt at all,James begins to believe that his world is false,a fabrication. The sudden realization of what that means suddenly dawns on him. That means that Jamie doesn't exist,Sarah doesn't exist,he was never in Hell,he never killed hundreds of people. All at once,James feels a rush of sadness,anger,happiness,and relief. Just for the simple fact that he never killed anyone would make up for the fact that his loved ones weren't real. Just as James is getting a handle on things,his door swings open again. The woman and the same two guards walk into the room,shutting the door behind them. James steps a bit closer to the trio,before suddenly lashing out,slamming his fist into the guard that stuck him with the needle,knocking the guard against the door.

“That was for the syringe. I don't like needles.”

As the two guards make a move towards James,the woman stops them,seeing that James hadn't made another move. The guards back off,allowing James to take a seat on his bed again.

“Now that that's out of the way,tell me,what year is it,who did you mean when you said my wife and child,and who's running the country?”

The woman takes a breath,crossing her arms,before responding.

“In order, its 2009,your wifes name is Ivy,your daughters name is Jamie,and Stephen Colbert surprisingly won the election,after running as a joke. He's done a spectacular job. He discovered Bin Ladin's hiding place within his first week in office,he was in the same hole they found Saddam in. Anything else?”

James takes a moment to process this new info. A few things carried over into the real world then. Jamie is still his daughter,don't know if its the same girl or not though,Colbert is still President,the year and wife are different though. In his version,Ivy left him after he told her he would be traveling through time. As soon as they let him out,he would get his life back together,maybe this time things would be different. He finally responds to her questioning.

“I think that covers everything. Now,how about those tests? I don't feel like staying here any longer.”

The woman nods and turns back to the door,knocking on it. Seconds later,it unlocks. The two guards move towards James,the guard he punched pulls out a set of handcuffs.

“Standard procedure Mr. White,we need to cuff you,just to make sure you don't do anything we'll regret later.”

James allows the guards to cuff him,though the guard clamps them on tighter than he needed to,obviously displeased with James' earlier punch. The woman opens the door and leads James to the testing area.



#23 H K

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Posted 18 August 2008 - 10:30 AM

After finishing the tests,the guards release James into the main area of the Asylum,informing that he will have to remain here until the results of his tests come back..He walks around for a bit,dodging the other inmates,finally stopping when he sees a clock,intent on keeping an eye on it. After fifteen minutes,James is starting to grow a bit anxious. The tests weren't difficult,how hard could it be to process the results? After 35 minutes,James' eyes never leave the clock. A voice off to his side brings him out of his focus.

“Got somewhere to be?”

James looks around,not seeing the source of the voice,finally looking down. He spots a woman with reddish hair hanging down,nearly to her knees,sitting on the floor,dressed in an outfit identical to James'. She has her knees drawn up to her chest,arms wrapped around them. She isn't looking at James,but at the opposite wall,a slight smirk on her face. James notices that she seems...different,than the rest of the inmates,more like him,and not so much out of her mind. James responds quickly.

“Yeah,out of here. Soon as these slow people process my test results,I'm gone.”

The woman laughs a short laugh at this,finally looking up at James,revealing her golden eyes.

“You might as well sit here with me,they've been processing my results for six months. These tests are just their way of sedating us when we build up a tolerance to the medication they give us. I'm never leaving here,and neither are you.”

---Elsewhere----

The woman who escorted James to the testing room, Dr. Marleena Trujillo, is currently meeting with the CEO of Weyland Industries, Charles Bishop Weyland.

“Charles,you need to fix the Soleon. More and more of the inmates are building up an immunity to it.”

Charles just shakes his head.

“Thats because you use it too much. The way I designed it was so that it is to be injected once every six months. It stays in the bloodstream for the entire time. The way you're using it,injecting it once a week,its a miracle you haven't overdosed someone yet. I'll see what I can do to create a more potent form of Soleon,but you tone down the dosage,otherwise you'll trap someone in the world you've made for them.”

“Don't lecture me. These are my patients,I'll do with them what I want.”

Charles shakes his head again as he leaves the room.

---Back with James---

James has indeed taken a seat next to the woman,who previously introduced herself as Lizzie Bates. James is currently attempting to find out anything she knows about where they are,as well as the people that work there.

“See that big guy behind the medicine counter? He's the nice guy here.A couple times,some of the other guards tried to rape a few of the inmates,he stopped them,nearly killed them too. Saved me once.”

“I see. Guy sounds kinda like me. Earlier,they shot some green stuff into my neck,you know what that was?”

“Oh yeah. That was Soleon. I've been able to sneak out of my room a few times,having a friend in one of the guards helps,I took a look at the Soleon containers,found out what it does. They say its supposed to be a suppressant,something to keep you here,but the label says otherwise. It says it causes hallucinations,severe exhaustion,and,if given too much,permanent departure from the sane world. I hate it when they inject us with it,I don't go to a very friendly place.”

“Shits getting crazier and crazier. A supposed Insane Asylum,a place thats supposed to help people get better,is purposely injecting them with something to force them to see things. I need to do some exploring tonight,I need to see just when,how,and why I was brought here.”

“I'll get Kenny to let you out of your room,but you've got to be back in it before the sun comes up. Be happy that there are no cameras in the rooms,they do a daily bed check at sun up,its the only way they keep track of us. The guards will be in here any minute to escort everyone back to their rooms. Don't try anything stupid,most of them are on super steroids,made by the same guys that make the Soleon. Used to be for military purposes,but was rejected once they found out it can cause severe aggression spikes.”

“How the hell do you know all this stuff?”

“I told you,I sneak out of my room. I know these halls like the back of my hand. The only place I haven't been able to get to is the storage room,where they keep all of our things.”

“In that case,you're coming with me tonight. Since you know where everything is,it only makes sense. If you don't mind me asking,what reason did they give you for putting you in here?”

“They fed me some bullshit story that I was recovered from a terrorist attack that destroyed the Washington Monument. Said I was seeing things that weren't there,lashing out at people.”

“They told me the same thing....”

“I'm not surprised. You're the first person I've seen,besides me,thats been able to build up an immunity to the Soleon. They figure they can just tell us the same thing and it wont matter. Bet they told you it was the year 2009,right?”

“Yeah,why,its not?”

“Of course not. Its 2020. In the past few weeks,my memory has started to come back. I think the Soleon is finally out of my bloodstream. I remember explosions...lots of explosions. I see creatures from another world,unlike anything ever seen here before. I remember a man leading us all,he had a plan,something to do with the White House. I can see his outline,but thats it,no distinguishing features.”

James,thinking that her story sounds very familiar,says nothing,until the two guards that took him to the testing area walk through the door. The search for a moment,before spotting him. James gets to his feet,knowing that if he doesn't cooperate,things wont be good. Before the guards get to him,He looks back down at Lizzie,saying one final thing to her.

“See you tonight.”



#24 H K

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Posted 21 August 2008 - 10:15 PM

Later that night,as James is lying on his bed,the locks on his door unhinge themselves. His door swings open and just visible in the low light is the guard,Kenny. He ushers James out of his room,locking the door behind him. Kenny begins to walk further down the hallway,with James trailing behind him. He stops at another door and lets Lizzie out,locking it behind her.

“You two make sure you're back here before sunup,otherwise its all three of our asses.”

Kenny leaves the two alone as Lizzie leads James towards the filing room. After a close call with another guard,forcing the two of them to duck into a tight enclosure to dodge him,they finally reach the room. Lizzie easily unlocks the door using a bobby pin. James enters first,just to be safe. Lizzie locks the door behind the both of them. James sits down behind a computer,the only thing in the office. He boots it up and,after a few seconds of searching,finds the files on the inmates. He scrolls down until he finds his file. He opens it,scanning what it says. He finally reaches the point that describes why he was committed there. It reads:

“Subject,known as James White, has been confined to Westin Hills Asylum to keep information regarding the fall of mankind a secret. Doses of Soleon have been applied on a regular basis to keep Subject sedated. Subject assisted in bringing down the alien creatures masquerading as terrorists. Somehow restored the planet to its original glory. Subject attempted to gain access to the White house after the initial restoration. Subject was immediately detained and sedated. The world must never know it was nearly destroyed,and subsequently saved by someone with no military background. Subject appears to be building up a resistance to Soleon,his periods of sedation are growing shorter,though his hallucinations appear to be growing stranger every day. He must never be allowed to regain full lucidity,lest he come into contact with Lizzie Bates. For more information regarding her connection with Subject,see Lizzie Bates' File.”

The file seems to contain a scan of a letter,administering James to Westin Hills,signed by President George W. Bush and Ivy White. James closes his file,piecing together the information he gained,before opening Lizzie's file. As he begins to scan it,Lizzie also reads it over his shoulders.

“Subject,known as Lizzie Bates,has been confined to Westin Hills Asylum to keep information regarding the fall of mankind a secret. Doses of Soleon have been applied on a regular basis to keep Subject sedated. Subject assisted in bringing down the alien creatures masquerading as terrorists. Somehow restored the planet to its original glory. Subject was found just outside the border of Washington DC amidst several piles of rubble that weren't restored. Subject is believed to be a part of the same group of people assisting James White. Subject attempted to contact the media,demanding that the truth be known. Subject was immediately detained and sedated. Subject appears to be building up a resistance to Soleon,her periods of sedation are growing shorter,though her hallucinations appear to be growing more horrific every day. She must never be allowed to regain full lucidity,lest she come into contact with James White.”

Lizzie's file also contains a letter of admittance,signed by President Bush,as well as a Mr. Weyland..James shuts down the computer,having gained the information he had been seeking. The two sit in silence,piecing together the final clues. James finally speaks up.

“It was real. The Hell Wars,the invasion of the White House,all of it was real. You were in the group with me. I thought everyone was killed when one of our own betrayed us. I'm so sorry Lizzie,we didn't even look for survivors.”

Lizzie takes a minute to respond,her memories finally clearing up.

“Don't worry about it. My memory has finally cleared up. I see that the man was you,we were going to follow you to the White House that day. I was just outside our base,looking for something,when the bombs hit. I was thrown to the ground,only had minor burns. I was out for most of the time anyways. When I woke up,I was sent here,its all clear to me now.”

After another minute of silence,James speaks up again.

“Now that we know the deal,you know what we have to do,right?”

“I've got a pretty good idea.”

“We've gotta get the hell out of here. You said they took our stuff and stashed it somewhere here. If thats the case,then all we need to do is get it,and we're out of here,no one could stop us.”

“Yeah,but I've never been able to get into the storage room.”

“You've never had me here to help.”

“Fine,but I get to say I told you so if you cant get us in.”

James and Lizzie exit the room,locking the door behind them. Lizzie begins to lead the way to the storage room,but before they can get there,they run into the two guards that James first met. James moves in front of Lizzie and prepares for a fight. The two guards rush them,only to have James duck under their attacks. He sweeps one guards legs out from under him,knocking him to the marble floor. The second guard takes out his nightstick and activates its electrical charge. James recognizes it from his hallucinations,guess a few things were real in them after all. With that thought in mind,James decides to try something else from his hallucinations. He begins to focus his energy,remembering the training he underwent in the past. Just as he prepares to give up and fight the old fashioned way,his forearm and hand explode in a burst of flames. He hurls the fireball at the guard,which quickly envelops him. Within seconds,nothing but bones are left.

“Guess my hallucinations weren't so crazy after all.”

James kicks the bones off to the side and Lizzie leads the rest of the way to the storage room. James attempts to open the door,but cant. He tries slamming his shoulder against the door,but it wont budge. Just as Lizzie begins to say something,James backs up and summons the flames once more. He begins shooting a constant stream of flames at the door,finally burning through it,choking the flames out,before kicking the rest of the door in. He walks down aisle,ignoring the rows and rows of clothing and weapons. He sees a door marked “White” and kicks it open. He enters and sees something he hadn't seen in what felt like a lifetime. He walks over to the shelf and begins removing the pieces of his Yautja armor,looking over them. He removes his Asylum issued clothing,not giving a damn what Lizzie saw,and suits up in the body suit provided. He straps the armor on,except for the Mask. He searches the whole room,but cannot find the mask. He begins to fear the worst,the armor doesn't work right without the mask.

“Looking for this?”

James whips around and sees Dr. Trujillo standing in the doorway,dressed in a skintight red and black outfit. In her left hand,she holds James' Yautja mask. In her right hand,she holds a gun,but not an ordinary gun. This gun has a chamber filled with a neon green liquid,much brighter than Soleon. She points the gun at James,before speaking again.

“Don't move. This gun is loaded with the newest batch of Soleon Extra Strength. Doesn't need to be injected,just needs to touch your skin. One blast of this,and you're in a permanent coma. I overheard your little plan; the two of you aren't going anywhere.”

“Calm down,no need to get testy. We have to leave,people need to know what happened,just in case it starts to happen again,people will be prepared this time. Just give me my mask,and no one has to do something they might regret later.”

“If you tell anyone about what happened,they'll panic,there will be riots,people will start killing each other in a panic,chaos will reign free. I cant let you leave.”

“Then you give me no choice.”

Just as Trujillo fires her gun,James dodges to the right,bringing his right arm up,before triggering the shuriken,firing out one of the circular bone spikes at her. The shuriken slices into the arm Trujillo has the gun in,forcing her to drop it. James fires another shuriken at the gun,smashing it to bits. Trujillo looks up at James,knowing what was coming next.

“Go ahead,kill me! I know what your kind are like,nothing but cavemen who can only solve problems with mindless violence!”

“Kill you? Oh no,I'm not going to kill you. Lizzie,on the other hand....”

James turns around to find Lizzie,who,the entire time,had been changing into her own gear. She is now wearing black leather short shorts,only six inches long,a black leather bra with flames on the cups,black ankle length boots with flames up the sides,and pink stockings,coming up to her mid thigh. Two black gloves are on her hands,the left glove extending up to just below her shoulder. He red hair is tied back with twin yellow ribbons,with a small skull attached to them,as well as a pink and white striped scarf around her neck. Lizzie is brandishing two Heckler & Koch MP5 Submachine guns,one in each hand. As James picks up his mask,fastening it into place,Lizzie steps up to Trujillo. She points one of the guns at her head,setting the barrel against her skin. Instead of pulling the trigger,she rears back and slams the butt of the gun against one of Trujillo's temples,knocking her sideways,as well as unconscious.

“Nice outfit.”

“Yeah,you too. Whats with the dreadlocks?”

“Dunno,part of the look,supposed to intimidate or something. You ready?”

“Oh yeah,lets go.”

The eyes of James' mask flash white as the two of them exit the storage room,leaving Trujillo there. Lucky for the two of them,they don't run into any more guards and are able to exit the building peacefully.

“So,what now?”

“Now I have to see something,just to make sure. We're going to New York.”



#25 H K

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Posted 28 August 2008 - 09:51 PM

---New York---

A city bus pulls to a stop at one of the bus stops lining the streets. Several people exit the bus,including Lizzie and James,dressed in civilian clothing now,Lizzie is wearing her battle gear under her clothing,while James has his cloaked to be invisible. James looks around,trying to remember the layout of the city. Finally getting his bearings,he begins to walk down the street with Lizzie following him,looking all around them,having never been to New York before. After several turns,James stops in front of a building. He looks up at the massive piece of construction,hoping to see the name Stark,but is disappointed to find that the building reads Bank of America. He sighs,before turning his back to the building.

“ Damnit all....I was hoping that,since I can still control the elements,that Tony would actually exist....”

James turns back towards the building,walking up to one of its walls. He sits down on the ground and lens his back against it,closing his eyes,thinking of what to do next.

“I need to quit thinking that what I saw was real....I know it was all one big hallucination,but it felt so real. I wanted it to be real so bad...”

Lizzie sits down next to James,not knowing what to say,since she had come to terms with her hallucinations not really happening long ago. Just as she is about to say something,a disheveled looking man with a beard shuffles up to them,his clothing tattered and old. He looks down at James and Lizzie,noticing their new clothing,before speaking to them.

“Spare some change for a war veteran?”

James looks up at the man and notices that he cant be any older than himself,and decides to call him on it.

“Just what war are you a veteran of? You look to be about my age,and the only war that happened in my time is one you don't know about.”

The man looks taken back to hear James say such things.

“A war I don't know about? If anything,you shouldn't know about it....you look familiar...whats your name?”

James,after hearing these words,takes a hard look at the man. He looks past the tattered clothing,past the beard,and sees an old friend.

“Tony? Is that you? Its me,James!”

James hops up from the ground,extremely happy that more of his hallucinations were coming true.

“James? Holy shit,it really is you! Where the hell have you been?”

“I was locked up in the crazy house,they were pumping me full of drugs,I saw some crazy shit under that stuff,i thought you might not exist. When I got here and didn't see Stark Towers,i was afraid I was right,but seeing you,here and now,its too good to be true. What happened man? Why are you out here bumming change,and not in there building me some armor or something?”

Tony takes a moment to think back,his memory having been clouded by time and quite a bit of booze. He finally remembers everything.

“When everything was fixed,The government took all my money from me. They said I had a lot of unpaid taxes,which is bullshit in itself. I think they just wanted to make sure I couldn't tell anyone what really happened and have them believe me,after all,who believes a bum about anything?”

“They seem to have covered all their bases. Well,If we're going to stop them,we'll need money,weapons,and a place to stay. Ive got the money covered,Tony,I'm hoping you're still a badass when it comes to building things,and we'll worry about the place later. What happened to your old armor,Tony?”

“What do you mean,what happened to it? Ive still got it.”

Tony looks around,making sure no one is paying any attention to them,before rolling up his sleeve,revealing to James a familiar looking wristband.

“Why haven't you stopped them yourself then,or at least tried to make some money as Iron Man?”

“Like you said,they covered their bases. They've made him into Public Enemy Number One. They said He instigated the terrorist attack that destroyed the Washington Monument,when in reality,they destroyed it themselves,to use as a reason to take total control,as well as to involve anyone who got in their way with its destruction. I guarantee that,if I expanded my armor here in the street,at least nine people would try to kill me on sight alone. You said you had the money covered,how is it you have anything left at all?”

“Well,back in my hallucination world,I had set up an account when I got back from the past,so,I'm hoping that,with all the other connections,that is true here too. We need to acquire a vehicle,the Bank is back in Indianapolis,doubt I could get the money transferred here without notifying someone. I'll explain about the hallucinations on the way.”


James begins to speak with Tony about what he saw as the three of them head to a nearby car dealership.

---Elsewhere---

Dr. Trujillo is currently standing in front of a desk. On the floor is the Presidential Seal. Behind the aforementioned desk sits Still-President George W. Bush. Years ago,the public had decided that he would remain in office until the War in the Middle East was resolved. Before the alien invasion,Osama Bin Ladin was nearly captured,but,once the planet was restored,he was successfully able to go back into hiding,and has thus eluded capture,hence Bush still being President. As Trujillo nervously awaits Dubya,he begins to speak.

“You have failed me,Trujillo.”

“Mr. President,I'm So so-”

“Save it. When was he last administered Soleon?”

“A day before his escape. Add that to his previous dose,which had been applied just under a week before he broke free from its effects,and it will be in his system for more than a year.”

“Good. And What about Miss Bates?”

“We stopped giving her anything months ago,we figured it was a waste,since it didn't work on her anymore.”

“Another failure on your part. No matter,we still have Mr. White in our circle of power. As long as he has the drug in his system,he will never remember the events as they actually happened. If he knew that I practically handed the planet over to the aliens...I'm not sure what he would do.”

“Come again? You handed the planet over?”

“More or less. They convinced me that they were peaceful,I never thought that they could be lying. Once we allowed them here without any sort of resistance plan,it was all too easy for them to take control. Once they did,they launched our nuclear missiles at other countries,they,in turn,launched their own. In the confusion and destruction,they easily took control. Barely anyone was left after the missiles,the military was in tatters,they simply killed anything that moved. How they missed James and his little group I'll never know. That is why we must find James,so we can keep Soleon in his system. The armor he took back from us,we examined it,it holds enough destructive force to level most of the country,if properly programmed. We were unable to deactivate it,hence his imprisonment and drugging. Leave me be,you know enough. Locate the two of them as quickly as possible,or you will be a trophy on my wall.”

Dr. Trujillo quickly leaves George's office,assimilating the new information.

---Back In New York---

James has finally found a car dealership that had been shut down for the day. He is currently walking through the car lot,searching for a vehicle he likes. When he looks down at the license plate for a Ferrari Scuderia,which reads 'B4D455 1', he decides that this was the car. He calls over Tony and Lizzie,before opening the drivers side door,surprised that it wasn't locked. He starts to pop open the panel under the steering wheel to hot wire it,but first folds down the front visor,dropping the keys into his hand. The people of this reality are really too trusting. James climbs into the car,shutting the door behind him. Tony and Lizzie climb in the passengers side,with Tony sitting in the back,Lizzie in the front. James starts the car and backs them out of the parking space. As he drives out of the lot,he switches on the radio,tuning it to the All-Metallica Station,which is currently playing My Apocalypse,from their Death magnetic album. Such a fitting song,after all. As James steers the car towards his home city,unknown to him,a tracer had been planted on the car just as he exited the lot. After all,the government has eyes and ears everywhere,and everyone has a price.