Vendetta: A New War

[Seer]

<< The multiverse of The Six is a place of endless attitudes and outcomes. What are such known truths to us in the mainstream might be different in the many interlocking and interweaving realities that make up the fabric of the multiverse. Every action, every word has a butterfly effect, and in some realities, the effects of those decisions come at a greater cost. There is no reality where this more is more evident than in Earth 620. Here, a brewing battle cost the members of The Six and many of their allies their lives, and brought about a frightening reality for the survivors. While The Six would no longer be the heroes in the battle against MysTech and The Inner Circle of The Hellfire Club, soon a new bunch of people, some of them familiar faces, would rise the occasion and continue the war, one that was far more brutal and horrifying than anything we have seen in the mainstream. And so we watch. >>

<< FLASH !! >>

Earth 620 – The Year 2025

<< Rain and Thunder crashes against the landscape of New York City, a place that appears to have undergone a vast technological improvement. A light rail circles the vicinity of the city as service robots roam up and down the streets, some of them acting as simple meter maids, others selling goods and handing out fliers for businesses. But something here seems to be lacking. The chaotic and effervescent energy that once permeated through the city streets seems to be no more. People seem to be moving in a more organized and less free fashion. There are also less people meandering about, and it isn't because of the rain. It is from fear of disappearing into the night. >>

<< Giant billboards and holographic banners fly through the city with advertisements from MysTech. Everything from personal home assistant robots to medications offering to cure any number of different ailments, it is clear that the company has developed a stronghold in the city. >>

<< We zoom up to see an eagle eye view of the city before zooming off quite a distance away, to a place just outside South Hampton. What appears to be a large and technologically advanced airplane hanger with a large sign that read – The Eden Facility – A holding of MysTech Inc.. We blur past the building and into the foyer, down the halls, up the stairs, through locked doors to see Amanda Soto AKA Cobra, The Black Knight of The Hellfire Club. A woman who is about the change the fate of this timeline, and put herself in danger the likes of which she may not be prepared for. >>

<< What is she up to? ?? >>

 

[Cobra]

Two Years Ago...

”Do it, Amanda.”

She was hesitating.

”Do it.”

It wasn't as simple as just doing, but that didn't stop her from unloading her sixth block of C4 in the upper levels of the MysTech Facility she had been overseeing for the last two years. She even helped build it, before she knew what it was going to be used for. The last two years of bad decisions and moral ambiguity flashed through body in an almost physical like manner. She was tired. Picking up her bag, she slung it over her shoulder and jetted through the vents with her snake like speed and ability to contort her body as she made her way towards the lab levels of the facility.

More than tired, Amanda was done being a prisoner to Dr. Shaw. The Black Queen had re-birthed Amanda and crafted her into an image that was to her liking. For a long time, Amanda was grateful, willing to do whatever it took to show Talisman that she was grateful. More than that, Amanda believed that Kelly was a brilliant woman, but just like the others, she became drunk with the idea of power without consequence. The decisions became more brutal, more widespread, and somewhere along the way, Amanda found herself having an identity crisis.

”You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it.”

The words of Alan Moore filled her head as she dropped into the main research lab which had been long empty for the night. She could have walked through the front door. Talisman trusted her enough to give her free reign over the facility, which was part of the reason she was taking the cloak and dagger approach – there was a part of her that was still shameful for what she was about to do. This facility contained a number of special projects for MysTech . In her lust to be a god, Talisman had named this the “Eden Research Facility” destined to create the step in her twisted vision of evolution. Amanda had watched as the flames of MysTech burned throughout the country, seeming to take over everything. They had their hands in the cookie jar of everything, including well placed agents within the government who served to push a political agenda in their favor. It was basically a call for genocide of the mutant race. She watched the news blurbs with headlines of the Mutant Registration Act passing, requiring all mutants to register with the government, give sensitive personal information, all so they could basically be tracked and monitored by MysTech. People disappeared. And Amanda was one of the people who unfortunately knew what happened to those people. Some of them, she had hand delivered to their graves.

She pressed a flash drive into the computer system and went to work and said a silent prayer for Elizabeth York, who had died in the inquisition that followed the events that killed The Six and many of their allies. It was Zizi who had been the first one to successfully plant seeds of doubt in Amanda's mind during her captivity at The Eden Facility. The original goal had been to coerce Zizi into working for the group, or rather, beating her into submission until she agreed. Amanda was fascinated by the woman. She had watched most of her friends die, she knew if she didn't agree she would be killed as well, but she never wavered. She never once looked at Amanda with anything other than compassion, no matter how loud she would end up screaming at Amanda's hands, and it was her death that changed Amanda. Confirmed to her that she was on the wrong side of history. As Elizabeth York faded from this world, her last words were to Amanda.

”I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish. Except one. An inch. It's small and its fragile and it's the only thing in the world that's worth having. We must never lose it, or sell it, or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.”

Amanda had thought about it every day since. What was she doing? How long would she have to be blindly loyal to The Hellfire Club? When would she ever be able to be her own woman again? In her original life, she had been a slave to drugs, and now, with her second chance, she had knowingly aligned herself with monsters because she was grateful to be powerful and alive. She began working her way through a number of screens, not exactly sure what she was looking for. Essentially she was data mining. There had to be SOMETHING in these archives she could use to cripple them further once she left. She wanted to play the long game, plan some intricate plot, see if she could find allies. But every second longer she stayed within The Inner Circle, she could feel her skin crawl, and her stomach sour, to the point of where her body couldn't give her anymore time. It was fight or flight and right now, Amanda had mustered the courage to do both. And she needed to act before she changed her mind again.

>> Data Extraction: 65%....

She looked around at the empty lab with several glass rooms in the hanger beyond the computer panel. Within these labs were mutants in stasis, under various level of treatment and experimentation. Cobra knew that torching this building would kill not only those she could see, but the hundreds of mutants downstairs with neutralizing collars on. Prisoners. It wouldn't have been the option Oracle would have chose, but Amanda knew that those downstairs were doomed to suffer fates far greater than an explosion that would likely kill them instantly. She couldn't save them, so she decided she would give them a death that was less humiliating. Or so she told herself.

>> Data Extraction: 90%...

”And so it begins...”

Amanda hit the button on the hand held device in her hands as the first round of explosives went off in the direction opposite to where she was. She wanted as many bodies on the other side of the facility as possible.

<< BOOM! >>

The building RATTLED and shook as Cobra braced her spiked boots into the cement underneath her.

>> Data Extraction: 95%...

Click.

Amanda pressed the button again as the second bricks exploded, this time a little closer. The power began to flicker in and out of the building as alarms began to sound with great volume and voracity. Amanda stood there for a moment. She was really doing this. She was defecting from The Hellfire Club. She was turning her back on the people who had given her a second life, and though, in this new and perfect body, she was not very emotional, a solitary tear began to fall from her eyes as they flickered into their snake like state for a moment, allowing her to track movement in the building through heat.

A sound notification alerted Amanda that the data extraction was complete. Instinctively, she moved towards the computer, grabbed the hard drive she had just copied and pulled it out of the computer system at the same exact second she heard a gun cock it's trigger from behind her.

Female Voice: “What on Earth are you doing, Cobra?”

Time seemed to stop around her. All she could focus on was her breathing and the beat of her heart. When she turned around, this would become real. She would make herself known as a traitor.

”Her name is anarchy! She has taught me that justice is meaningless without freedom. She is honest. She makes no promises and breaks none.”

She spun on her heels and came face to face with Vivica Lennox, The White Rook of The Hellfire Club, and personal herald of Diana. But Diana wasn't as big of a problem as she once was. Cobra's face remained stone cold yet simmering, something Talisman had taught her well.

“I'm drawing a line in the sand, Recall.”

She pressed the next button on her trigger as the room EXPLODED into flames around her and she the two women were CATAPULTED in opposite directions of the room. This was it. No more hesitation. No more questioning. Just action. Just more war.

 

[Recall]

The Parthenon Hotel - NYC

:: It was a peaceful night at The Parthenon, but that didn't stop Vivica from working. From the top floor of the hotel in her multi-room luxury penthouse suite, she stood in her office, a sterile all white room with random pieces of her art decorating the otherwise sterile and holographic set up of the office. All around her were screens of different levels of The Parthenon as well as several MysTech holdings that she was entrusted in watching over. All in all, Vivica was pleased with herself, and had swallowed whatever morality and humanity she once had years ago. ::

:: The death of The Six was not consequential to Vivica. She had turned her back on them when Cameron died. She was iced out. Left nothing but a warmest regards on legal paper. She was left with a mismanaged business thanks to his many disappearances and lack of concern. She was resolved to leave the situation alone, to just move on, until she found out that he had left The Parthenon to Erika. Vivica had poured her blood, sweat and tears into that building only to be put out of the spotlight by Cameron and Morgan. Enough was enough. ::

:: The details of her recruitment into The Inner Circle of The Hellfire Club were mysterious to everybody except The White, Red & Black Queens and that was exactly how Vivica intended to keep it. The benefits of her new found alliance was a particularly brutal corporate takeover of The Parthenon and it's subsidiary businesses and the live trial of Alycia Barnett who was taken into custody at Guantanamo Bay. Two birds. One stone. An ominous and familiar female voice filled the speakers. ::

Female Voice: “There appears to be a data breach in Eden. Assessment required.”

“Yes, White Queen.”

:: Vivica clicked a few buttons as she filtered through security feeds of The Eden Facility. For a few screens there was nothing, until she came across a screen with Amanda Soto in the middle of one of the facilities most important research labs, standing at a computer panel. Vivica narrowed her brows as her eyes focused on the screen behind Amanda. She was up to something. ::

“It just looks like The Black Knight...Nothing of concern..”

:: At that moment, there was an immediate distress signal triggered in the far west quadrant of the building. An explosion! ::

“Scratch that, Malice. We may have something on our hands. Feed Three Zoom.”

:: The cameras zoomed in on Amanda who looked oddly stoic. There had been something going on with the woman for months. When the two originally met, Vivica had been impressed with Amanda's prowess and ability to get whatever job done that needed to get done. She was willing to get her hands dirty and bloody. The death of The Six had changed all of them, but Amanda was seeming to cling onto something deeper that she wasn't letting on. Vivica's abilities were one of the many benefits she brought to the right court. She remembered everything, which included the minutia in the way that people talked when they were centered, excited, upset, pensive, abrasive. She could instantly cross reference those and look for inconsistencies. She was a human lie detector. The only problem was, she never had any reason to “detect” anything from Cobra. She was deeply in the pocket of Talisman. A big part of her plan. ::

”What are you getting into, Cobra?”

:: The screen showed Amanda downloading something onto a flash drive, and her hand movements appeared to be in exact rhythm with the explosions happening in the Eden Facility. Whatever was going on, Vivica needed to get there..and quickly. Thankfully, travel was a lot easier these days. ::

“Home port..set coordinates to the Eden Facility. Assemble Combat Gear Level II.”

:: Vivica stood from her desk and walked over to the teleportation pad in the corner of her office. A number of laser like rays in a grid moved up and down Vivica's body as she disappeared from her office like magick and reappeared at The Eden Facility, fully armed and prepared for battle, and she didn't bat an eyelash. ::

“I need two teams in the western quadrant. Delta team, you go to the epicenter of the third blast. I'm going in for number four. I'll be radio silent for a moment. I need the rest of you to evacuate essential staff..and leave the others. Wait for my command.”

:: Without missing a beat, Vivica barreled through the facilities main floor as security protocols opened doors as she went. Her mind was racing. Was Cobra really defecting? Or was this some kind of mistake or grand gesture? These days, Vivica didn't do much reconnaissance. Mostly, she pointed and pulled the trigger and didn't ask the big questions. It had kept her alive and very well protected. But this wasn't anybody. This was The Black Queen's closest ally and confidant. A friend even. This was something she was going to have to investigate. Malice current circumstances would cause her to have questions. ::

“Headed into Lab 2. Entering radio silence now. WAIT for my cue.”

:: She pressed a button on the side of her comm link and moved into the room undetected by Amanda, who seemed lost in whatever it was that she was doing. Vivica crept closer, able to make out the computer screen. Was she stealing information? What was she doing? And she asked as such. ::

“What on Earth are you doing. Cobra?”

:: Amanda spun around on her heels, her face clearly stained in tears. Vivica's eyes widened. It was true. Amanda was defecting. ::

Amanda: “I'm drawing a line in the sand, Recall.”

<< Boom! >>

The room EXPLODED into flames as Vivica was catapulted into the air, FLYING into the metal wall across from her with incredible speed and force. She hit the wall with a THUD as she slid down quickly.

”Ughhh!”

She grimaced in pain as she tried her best to jump to her feet and recover in the moment, squinting her eyes to see where Amanda had landed in the explosion. For whatever reason the all glass lab rooms were still in tact. In the distance, Vivica could make out a figure in the distance, just beyond the glass exam rooms. Vivica cocked her brow, gripped her utility belt and called out to the woman.

“A line in the sand, Cobra?! Don't you think it's a little late for that? You're responsible for half the people in this building being here! NOW you wanna grow a conscience?”

From her utlity belt she wielded her boomerangs in her hands as she entered an offensive pose.

“You're dirty, bitch. And NO act of contrition is gonna change that. You led these people to slaughter..and countless others. You are NEVER going to be able to repay that.”

With diamond like precision, Vivica threw her boomerangs as they weaved an intricate path, shattering EACH and every EXAM room immediately, sending THOUSANDS of shards of shattered glass to come spinning in Amanda's direction.

“I'm giving you a chance to be brought in, Amanda. This isn't you. Don't make me go any further.”

The boomerangs whizzed and vibrated as they made their way back to Vivica's hands.

“Seriously, Amanda. If you don't surrender right now I'm sending in The White Guard. They won't be as copacetic.”

 

[Cobra]

Amanda was a literary scholar, and a writer. If anybody had thought of this moment more than she did, she would like to meet them. In many diary entries, Amanda would try and imagine what her separation from Hellfire and more importantly Talisman, would look like..feel like. So when she heard Vivica's voice behind her, she did not waiver. In fact, it went about in an operatic like fashion that Cobra was known for. She made every kill noteworthy. She made SURE she would cement herself in Hellfire history for her work. She had kept her head down, made the right alliances, and had favor with all three courts. She couldn't have crafted a better position for herself. And tonight? She was going to make sure that if she was going to go down in history as a traitor, she was going to make sure they never forgot her or underestimated her.

The explosion throttled the room and sent the women flying. Cobra had carefully calculated this explosion and had selected the exact right moment for detonation, as she moved through the air on a path she had simulated many times before pulling the trigger. She was prepared. Pivoting her shoulder at the exact right spot, and her unique physiology to avoid injury, Cobra hit the ground and recoiled like the predator that she was. Vivica had been a friend. Somebody she had sought a moment of comfort or two in. In the biblical sense. And now, she was going to have to pretend that none of that mattered. Vivica wasn't there yet. She was too blinded by the trinkets the Inner Circle put before her. She was not lost, but Amanda would not allow Vivica to stand in her way, either.

Vivica: “A line in the sand, Cobra? Don't you think it's a little late for that? You're responsible for half the people being in this building being here! NOW you wanna grow a conscience?”

Cobra was across the room from Recall as she had anticipated. This would be a show off. Recall would not back down if she thought that Cobra's head was worthy of more loyalty in the club, and it was clear she thought it was. Amanda remained stone cold, scanning the room with her enhanced sight as to the best path out of here.

“Fair question, Vivica. But yes..I would like to grow a conscience. I mean, you haven't so disconnected from the world around you that you've forgotten what a conscience is, have you?”

Vivica brandished her boomerangs.

Vivica: “You're dirty, bitch. And NO act of contrition is gonna change that. You led these people to slaughter...and countless others. You are NEVER going to be able to repay that.”

“That doesn't mean I won't stop trying.”

Vivica's attack was beautiful and precise. Exactly like she was. The glass blasted Amanda brutally as she flexed her enhanced durability as the hood of a cobra while shifting her body to a small and perfect .05 inches in diameter.

Vivica: “I'm giving you a chance to be brought in, Amanda. This isn't you. Don't make me go any further.”

“Sorry, Recall. That's not an option tonight.”

Vivica: “Seriously, Amanda. If you don't surrender right now I'm sending in The White Guard. They won't be as copacetic.”

For a moment Amanda hesitated. She didn't want to fight Vivica. But she wasn't going to stay in Hellfire for another minute. Which was why she removed the machine gun to her holster, clipped in a magazine and opened fire like she was Rambo, in a circular pattern.

“I don't answer to The White Guard, or anyone for that matter. Not anymore.”

Amanda made some headway through the center of the room, using her fire to navigate. Vivica was closest to the only exit of the room, and while Amanda was fast, Vivica likely had the technology of the building on her side. Charging forward, she SLIPPED for a moment on a pile of broken glass, crunching down on broken shards as she writhed agony for a moment.

”Ugh..”

In that moment realized she was face to face with somebody's foot. Amanda immediately recoiled and shot herself up in the air, looking down at the man the foot belonged to. She looked at the code implanted on his chest. Patient 46428 – Simon Pratt. She remembered him, and his ability. If she wanted out of her, it would be better to have luck at her side. Amanda slithered and moved in a rapid, undetectable and silent way as she found a syringe of adrenaline in one of the crash kits. She opened fire for a few foments before ducking down, pulling the needle stop out with her teeth, spitting it to the side, and injecting straight into the heart of the once in stasis Simon Pratt, not knowing what was about to wake up. All she knew is that she had a better chance surviving it than Vivica, and if she was going to go out, it would be in a blaze of glory.

“You know, it doesn't have to be like this, Recall. You could join me...”

She jerked her eyes down as she Simon Pratt rise from what seemed like the dead.

 

[Longshot]

Simon had proposed to Ava the day before she died. She had said no like he knew she would. Sometimes, as cold as she could be sometimes, she liked dopey romantic gestures. He was happy. He didn't need a ring, or a baby in order to be happy with her. He just needed her. Simon never really knew what happened. All he knew was that an explosion hit New York City the likes of which he had never seen, and during an attempt to find Ava and get out of the city, Simon found himself captured and taken to The Eden Facility. For weeks he sat in some kind of processing center, his powers suppressed, not knowing what happened to Ava and wondering why The Six had not come to stop this. He remembered being treated like cattle, asked thousands of questions a day, was forced to perform precise and controlled manifestations of his powers. And then he woke up on an operating table. He had no more waking life. He was either trapped in his own mind or awake just long enough to feel the prick of a needle entering his arm. So when the adrenaline surged through Simon Pratt's heart, he woke up swinging.

“UGHH!”

Not being able to make out the person in front of him thanks to blurry vision, he blindly took a fierce swing, bashing Amanda in the head and knocking her over before jumping to his feet completely naked. He could hear a voice coming towards him.

Vivica: “You know we are BOTH in too deep to leave, Amanda. Now STOP this!”

He turned to his left where the woman he had just punched landed with a thud. She called out to him. He could recognize the voice calling out to her.

”Vivica?”

Amanda: [from the ground] “We need to get out of here.”

“And who the fuck says I can trust you?”

Amanda: “You can't. Simon..I know it's Vivica, but you can't trust her either. She'll kill me and put you back in stasis.”

The adrenaline coursing through his veins didn't give him much of a clear line. His body just knew he needed to keep moving and break everything in his path that stopped him. He probably couldn't trust Amanda, but he always had luck on his side. If he could just get out of this place, he could cut her throat and make a clean break for it, find Ava and figure this out.

“I..”

<< BANG! >>

Simon was hit in the back of the head with a great amount of brute force, but charged on adrenaline he did not fall back, he barely recoiled. Instead he turned on his heels to come face to face with Vivica. Her eyes widened as the two made eye contact for the first time in two years, unbeknownst to Simon.

“Vivica? What the hell is going on?!”

Vivica: “I'm sorry Simon, this is the way things are now.”

He saw an energy began to flicker in Vivica's hands as he could sense that she was channeling one hell of a synaptic blast into her hands.

”Is she really a part of all of this?”

She released. Guided by the bio-electric current that coursed through Simon's spines and guided his movements, he ducked at the last possible second, avoiding the blast before sweeping Vivica to the ground with his feet. The blast was headed towards Amanda with great speed. Simon was super juiced, incredibly confused and felt it hard to do anything but bolt for some kind of door, and half of him was hoping the blast barreled through Amanda and killed her.

”Two birds with one stone.”