Topic: The Defector

Wolvinator

Date: 2011-09-26 10:33 EST
Left, right. Left right.

It wasn't even a thought as much as it was instinct at this point. One fist, then the other, slammed into the canvas of the heavy bag. Each punch was executed with perfectly timed, short, quick exhales. The combinations, the art of the warrior were engraved into the very fiber of his being. Training was just as much of a necessity as it had been a ritual. Technique was as important as a razor sharp edge " never let it dull and always keep it sharp.

Beads of sweat ran down the tip of Wolvinator's nose. His body was almost shiny with perspiration. His bare knuckle slammed into the punching back again, followed up by another as sprinkles of sweat jumped from his body with each impact. Despite the look of determination on his face, his mind was heavy in thought. He bounced around on bare feet momentarily, hitting the bag two more times before he paused and stepped away, moving over to a small console in the middle of the Danger Room.

"Computer," he began, as he wiped his palms on his sweatpants. "Replay from time index twenty-fifty."

The audio had been already queued up and the voices began to speak as they had once before. The first was a female, whom sounded younger than her previous incarnations. Her voice was thick with anger and hatred, sprinkled with delight over the latest developments.

"I've never known you to be so angry, and it just....Fills me with this, feeling of?"

Renna, the Betrayer.

Wolvinator had encountered her on many occasions. She was a seemingly immortal being, enveloped by both light and dark energies, and always hell bent on destroying the known realm. He had played a role in her 'death? twice, the most recent roughly six months ago.

However, she came to him well over a year ago seeking help. She had asked the Admiral for Medical supplies as her people were in danger. She was beaten, broken and begging for help. He couldn't allow innocent people to die an excruciating death. Giving her the medical supplies plagued his mind ever since.

"You don't know what it means to me to see you like this. A satisfaction - a goddamn victory knowing you've submitted to the same desires I once did when I was but a child!"

There was a sound of a thud against a wooden table over the audio just as Wolvie had returned to the heavy bag. He listened intently as his workout continued.

"Brian....You can't do this by yourself. I need you - we, need you.

"There are many in this realm who band together, to defeat evil. To defeat what they think is evil. Why not we" Why can't we do it' Brian. I'm not looking to make an ally out of you for what I want to happen. I....Want you, by my side."

"Brian. This is the you, I have always wanted....I always want you to be, so full of hatred. I love you deeply, and you know that. We made a daughter so #$%^&* powerful she locked me up in my own #$%^&* prison!"

A second voice responded to her now. This caused Wolvie to pause again and focus only on the audio. It was a man who he had worked side by side before on many occasions, a fellow council member and a person who knew Renna better than anyone.

"Ren...You've always had me."

Brian Ravenlock.

"You know, where I stand, and more so, what I can do. I have everything on each and every one of them. Files, data, estimates, and— You know what I have, Ren, and they do too. That is why they are so fearful now. She knows, that I know exactly what lay in the heart of each of them, or lack there of. Couple that, with what we share, Ren."

The man who had personally stood shoulder to shoulder with Wolvinator on his first encounter with the Betrayer. They worked together as a team to bring her down. He knew her secrets. He knew her strengths. He knew her weaknesses; and now, he was her ally.

"This has ended long before they even assumed it began, love. It's time, to show them exactly what accompanied me, when I returned from the other realm, after my year or so away."

"It ends soon," Renna continues, "when I begin once again. They thought me a trouble before" But now....Bloods" Immortals" Primordials" I've done a lot more than just sit on my ass for four years. I've fought tooth and nail to get what I've wanted and now, all that stands in the way is one whole day. And then, I'm back....My Undead army - my new army, my new project - the virus - The Black Flame - everything, Brian. I've done for this moment, and I need to know, you are with me...."

"I am with you, Ren...Of that, there is no question. My Ebon Blade, is yours...As is my Gauntlet. Tommorow, Ren, I will be waiting, and readied." WHAM!

"Computer," Wolvinator interrupted now, sand pouring from the canvas onto the duranium floor "end playback."

Wolvinator's fist had cleared straight through the canvas nearly splitting it in half. Anger was consuming him. This hadn't been the first or the thirteenth time he had listened to this time index play out. His mind had darted back between ruse and truth.

Was Brian Ravenlock actually defecting to help Renna"

Was this a ploy to draw her in closer for the final kill"

There wasn't enough evidence to tell. One thing was evident however.

"Computer, open a channel to Edward Batten, priority one. I need to assemble the Avengers.?

Race Bannen

Date: 2011-09-27 19:12 EST
Drifting calmly up to the gate of Wolvinator's Rhydin estate comes a figure dressed expensively in a tailored suit with a briefcase inhand. A cleared throat, then a breath test as the man looks up from under the brim of his fedora at the closest surveilance lense.

"Admiral...I have something you're going to want." Eyes with a white iris look deep into the feed. Whether it was audio capabable or not, he didn't know but took a guess anyhow.

Meanwhile...in a world of his own creation...Race is getting reamed

Arms crossed over his moobs, Race looked at the circle of small blue men with white hair with a troubled brow. For the last hour he listened to them. Listened as they brought up every indescretion he'd made in the last six months. Most of them were minor...save the one that brought on this judicuary meeting.

"You were reckless. Green Lantern of Sector 0001. On purpose you endangered the lives of others simply to create an illlusion." Hovering above him in a circle, the Guardians watched with grim features.

"Though I know so little about the adversaries in this fight, it is clear they follow no set of rules or code. Therefore, I cannot afford to display one that could be exploited." His tone rang defiantly despite his defensive posture. In reality, Race knew that attacking Mr. Mitocondrea at light-speed had been boneheaded. After the fact of course. No one ever accused him of being smart. Intelligent yes, smart' Not so much.

"We will convene at a later date. There is much we must consider with what you have all ready told us. Rest well Green Lantern of Secor 0001." As one the Guardians disappeared leaving their representative within the Nexus to his own thoughts.

Turning on his heel, the mogul moved to the edge of the spire and looked out over the replica of Oa he'd willed to life within his assigned ring. He couldn't afford to think about what decision the Guardians would come to. For the immediate future he needed to get back up and physically mobile. The message to Raye had cost him dearly, but the information balanced everything out. He'd know better now. For him, knowledge was the ultimate power.

With a single step off the edge he fell like a stone through the winding passages leading to the place normally occupied by the Central Battery. Hovering there, pulling on particles from the replicated world rested his body in an unfinished mass. "Just a little longer....Marcello should be at Wolvinator's by now. That'll speed this up even more...."

Edward Batten

Date: 2011-10-05 15:59 EST
Batten Manor - basement level

"Yeah...yeah, y'got it. Ya can count me in, Admiral, o'course...an' Ah got a couple friends dat'll be int'rested too. Right. See ya den."

He cut the commline off and sat back in his chair, frowning a bit. He knew of the defection of Raven - he'd been there when it happened, albeit in a rather different guise. He still had trouble believing it, somewhat - it didn't make much sense to him, really, simply because the man had been such a close ally to so many and a good friend of the city and the Scathachians, whose methods he questioned, but whose intentions were pure and righteous.

He'd always thought of death as a waste of material, a last resort. A dead person, after all, could learn little, and contributed nothing to the world.

It was why he'd saved Renna's life. Well, one of the reasons, anyway.

"Diana...pull up de Vindicator conflict records fer me, if ya don' mind. Chronological order."

Without a word, the monitors on his desk flare to life. On one there's a POV view from his suit's recording devices...on another there appears a three-dimensional, computer-generated image of the area, generated from multiple, miniature ultrasonic transceivers emitting a mapping pulse.

He started the playback and watched, remembering this first fight. Despite his shock at the sleek feminine figure's assault and her obviously advanced level of technology, he'd found himself far more intrigued than fearful or angry. There was a certain attraction there that couldn't be denied, and it wasn't just something physical - it had been more cerebral than that. And the fact that this new enemy had chosen him to attempt to emulate and to test herself against had made it even more appealing.

But she had not been equal to the task - he'd had seven years at that point to perfect his technology, to test it against everything that his mind and imagination could come up with, and she hadn't been ready for him then.

The next time they met she had been much improved, though still lacking in some areas. Tougher, of course, and by far faster and more prepared, and she hadn't caught him in the on-demand suit this time, but the more powerful modular system with some more advanced weaponry.

He remembered being pinned at the edge of the roof, more or less at her mercy as she sat astride him in that skintight body armor, her sleek lines and curves clearly visible beneath it. That had been their first kiss, as well, even if they hadn't quite had a meeting of the lips - even if there was attraction, he didn't trust her at all, given that for the second time she had tried to access his suit and infect it with her virus - and he had simply let her go.

A smile pulled at his lips as he moved to the next file. Between encounters of the Vindicator and the Ranger there had been one other time they had met, and she had been in a much more human guise then, a curvaceous redhead in a flamboyantly appealing outfit or running shorts and a tight tanktop, and then there had been no furious fight - they had simply...talked.

There hadn't been an encounter between them in some time after that, until she showed up at the Inn unexpectedly, and when she had appeared behind him on the porch and picked up his scotch, taking a long swig and insulting his taste, he already knew it was going to be an interesting night.

Apparently she'd taken some time to make some further improvements. She'd shot some kind of extrusions from her suit into the Inn, targeting the Scathachian's own Isuelt DeRomiano. In the ensuing fight he'd put a halt to an attack on her, and later he'd convince himself it was his interest in preserving any and all life that made him do it...but the second stopping of an attack on her from the dragon had been less easy to pass off as the same thing.

There had been a part of him that had been curious, fascinated...that had sought out her motivations, her reasoning. Because she wasn't like the villains that had come before - you don't see tenderness in the eyes of someone bent on your destruction. Someone who wanted you simply for what you have could care less for you...someone who wanted you dead wouldn't ask you why you saved them from harm - they'd simply laugh at you for your foolishness and smash you into the dirt.

There was something more there, something that drove her beyond simple, random destruction. Her methods were questionable, raw and primal and even terrible at times...but there was a purpose.

The next file showed their first real, terrible encounter. Her new, improved Vindicator virus, that made her into a near-bestial, macabre distortion of herself. That had been a most memorable encounter, and she had by turns attacked him, then begged him to help her, to get it off of her...to destroy her, to free her from the agony she had inflicted upon herself.

He'd thought her foolish, to the point of utter stupidity...but he had cared for her, as well. Attraction was there, chemistry, and intelligence - key ingredients. While he had thought her stupid, he admired her willingness to test herself even further - he could completely understand, had done the same thing himself many times...though admittedly with greater success than she had.

And so he had done the only thing he could - using the impact generated by their bodies meeting the earth at well over the speed of sound, he had generated a pulse of electromagnetic and sonic energy at specific frequencies calculated from an analysis of her suit on the fly to destroy it by means of harmonic resonance.

It had nearly killed her - had killed her, in fact, and he had been forced to use the suit's systems to jump-start her heart, before moving her to his private room in the Inn so she could recover.

It was there he uncovered a secret that had surprised him, and yet had not - that Francine Renton, the Vindicator, was in fact Renna, also known as the Betrayer.

While she had slept he had taken the time to pull up his record on Renna. To most everyone she was a destructive whirlwind, a terrible force of evil that seemed to want nothing more than to lay waste to everything she came across.

He saw something else, that he did not fully understand, and yet it pointed to someone who couldn't be wholly, irrevocably evil. There was more, much more to her, than met the eye.

True, she did destroy. She taunted those who were her enemies, killed so many that it seemed life was meaningless to her. Wherever she went there was blood flowing in the streets like a river. Innocent lives claimed along with those that opposed her openly. Terror reigned, and her name was spoken in tones of fear...

...and yet, there was more.

Icer, whom she called 'sister,' she had helped numerous times out of predicaments. She had faced an evil down on the side of the heroes, an evil man who called himself Travanix who sought nothing more than to crush everyone under his boot heels. She and Brian Ravenlock had conceived a daughter together. And there were other, smaller things.

She did love, albeit in a hard and often strangely twisted way.

But she was capable.

To him, it pointed to someone with purpose. The phrase that someone might not be evil but rather misunderstood, while somewhat cliche, made sense here. And while he didn't understand her motivations at the time, he could feel there was something more there.

His own feelings aside...Renna challenged him, and everyone else, just by her mere presence. She brought out the worst, and the best, in everyone around her. She was a catalyst for change, a rare gem in a world - in a universe - that oo often would fall into stagnation, halting the process by which people could evolve...and this place, this world, desperately needed such a thing.

So when she had come to him for help in being freed from her prison, it had not just been feelings and desire that had driven him...but his want for something greater, a challenge to pit himself against.

Now she was loose again, and it was both glorious and dreadful, heaven and hell rolled into one. And already the ripples of her return were being felt. Good massing against evil, evil working to undermine good. People who had been sitting on their heels for too long were now rising to their feet, and soon it would be time to see if they could learn to push themselves beyond the envelope, to climb out of the rut they had been in for too long.

Turning away from the monitors, he tapped at the virtual keyboard displayed on his desktop, punching in a number to connect him to Pont. When the deep, cultured voice at the other end answered, he spoke with a grin. "Yo, Pont. We're gon' need t'get Leo up an' on his feet as fast as possible...de storm's brewin', an' she's gon' give us a helluva ride."