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 Posted: Tue May 17, 2011 5:05 pm
Tangent Tropolis East Side
Despite the sky being clear, and despite the wind being calm, there was movement of the air. A faint ripple, shaped roughly like that of a humanoid, broke the stillness above one of the rooftops of the city.
He had been tracking this man for days. A superhuman that went by the alias "Scourge", but thanks to the data dug up by Heracles Corporation for him, he knew who the man really was... and he knew what he was up to.
"Nathan Arroyo..." Sentinel said to himself. "Thinks he's some sort of prophet or messiah... and he's got superpowers to boot. Not a good combination."
He leaped down off the rooftop and into a dark alley. The building before him was a run-down, former meat-packing plant that had been deserted and cleared out some time ago. Scourge was now using it as his base of operations. Sentinel leaped up to the top of the building, where there was a small hole in the roof, which Sentinel could use to gather intel on the man and the group of thugs he had gotten to do what he wanted. And what he wanted was to burn the world to a crisp and "remake" it.
It was Sentinel's job to stop this type of s**t from occurring.
So, with his cloaking still active and his HUD recording everything, he crouched down and watched... and listened.
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Posted: Tue May 17, 2011 5:25 pm
"Boss, we got the package!" cried out the voice of a female thug.
"Good, good," replied the voice of Scourge, the top criminal in this part of the city. "With this we shall make massive amounts of cash. God has foreseen this and told me he shall thank us all once the time comes!"
Scourge was more of a preacher leader than your typical low life crime boss. He had manipulated and brainwashed the minds of all of his henchman. They truly believe that this man would bring a new era to both the world and to humankind alike.
The woman then gave a whistle, signalling other thugs to bring in a dozen boxes of crates, each loaded with huge amounts of drugs. Smuggling and dealing was Scourge's top business making profit and it has never failed him in his career.
Scourge gave a large and menacing smile as he looked upon the crates. He ran his fingers slowly across the surface of one crate.
"Nice," he remarked as he took a whiff of one of them.
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Posted: Tue May 17, 2011 5:48 pm
Listening in on what the gang was saying, and then, cycling through his vision modes in the Sentinel Armor, he came upon X-Ray vision. He zoomed in on the crates, making mental notes of the contents.
Cocaine, heroin, meth... seems like simple drug-running. Gotta start small... Sentinel thought to himself. Time to have a little fun...
The Sentinel Armor had a specialized vocoder that enabled the user to mask their voice, and this was most often used to make Sentinel's voice a deep baritone that sounded inhuman. But it was also capable of vocal mimicry. And so, Sentinel decided to play some mind games-- that was, after all, one thing the suit could do very well in the right hands.
Interfacing with his HUD via neural networking, he changed his voice pitch, making the output sound like a raspy, ghostly figure, before projecting it towards Scourge himself.
"Blasphemer... God cares not for your doings... He cares not for your soul... Your fate is MINE..."
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Posted: Thu May 19, 2011 3:48 pm
Suddenly, the entire gang was silent. They all lifted their heads up, searching from where in the world this strange ghostly voice came from. They pulled out their firearms, standing defensively. Scourge, whom was unfazed by the voice's sudden appearance, spoke out.
"Blasphemer? Ha! Those are merely words from a heretic!" he cried out. "Show yourself! I do not fear you!"
The area around Scourge became increasingly warmer and warmer. His henchman began to sweat uncontrollably. Despite this, they raised their weapons, standing ready to face this entity.
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Posted: Thu May 19, 2011 4:47 pm
"Your words are as empty as your future. I am the vanguard of your destruction." Sentinel replied, unfazed by the heat; the suit he wore was designed to withstand all known weather extremes on Earth-- a daunting task for it's creator to have done, but Sentinel was confident.
And then he moved. He leaped down from his perch, moving with the speed and near-silence of a cat. Though his form rippled in the heat, so did the rest of the air, so he would go unnoticed. He had all fifteen thugs of Scourge's marked on his HUD, and he was moving faster than them. This would be easy.
He approached one of the men, tapped one of his shoulders, and as the man turned Sentinel gave him a hard chop to the neck, felling him. The others seemed to move in slow-motion it seemed to Sentinel... that was their normal human reaction time, inferior to his suit-enhanced perception, and in the time it took for the three nearest him to turn around in shock, he had felled them as well with well-placed shots to the skull.
He reached one of the females and grabbed her arm, dislocating her shoulder with a loud CRACK before sweeping his leg out and tripping her. After this he leaped over one of the crates and hid. The room was now simmering, and on his next run it'd be impossible for them to make out his cloaked form from the rest of the rippling air that they would see.
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Posted: Thu May 19, 2011 7:00 pm
Scourge could hear the bodies of his goons as they fell one by one. He growled viciously, baring his teeth as he can not see the man. He turned over to one of his remaining henchman.
"If this coward will not reveal himself to me, then I shall bring him out," he muttered as he looked behind him.
There, Scourge has placed over a dozen highly flammable oxygen tanks. He gave a devious smile. He lifted his hand and let out a stream of flames directly at them, igniting them and bursting them instantly.
The blast radius was extreme, the entire building and area around it, gone in flames. All of Scourge's remaining thugs were killed instantly, the drugs were destroyed, and his base of operations was gone. Though it mattered not to him. He gently wiped off the flames off his fire-proof trench coat, gazing at his own art work around him. He craned his head around, seeing if the mysterious man had died in the explosion.
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Posted: Thu May 19, 2011 7:19 pm
The fires raged as the building was destroyed, but nothing seemed to stir apart from the inferno itself. And then directly across from Scourge, a shadow within the flames emerged. It slowly got larger...
And then, out of the inferno came the form of a man, seeming to shimmer as the flames danced around his outline, just barely visible even as he stepped out...
Smiling inside his helmet, Sentinel marveled at just how well the Sentinel Armor had protected him; it had never been field-tested before for this sort of thing, and he was very happy that he had come off with nothing more than superficial burns on his armor that wouldn't even be detrimental to its durability.
"Look at me, Nathan Arroyo..." Sentinel said, now mixing his default baritone with the raspy voice from earlier, "You are standing before one who is infinitely your greater. BOW to me!"
He was certainly having fun pushing this maniacal zealot's berserk buttons, that was for sure. And he felt that he was going to have a lot of fun, especially since he was still cloaked.
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Posted: Thu May 19, 2011 7:45 pm
Nathan couldn't help but laugh at the man's remark. He then gave a heavy sigh, releasing a blackish steam from his mouth. He turned to the direction of the man, with a much more serious face.
"Bow? To you?" he said. "I bow to no MAN!" he shouted.
He then ignited flames around his hands, taking a defensive stand.
"Come, heretic!" he said. "Let's see what you can do..."
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Posted: Sat May 21, 2011 5:55 pm
Sentinel smiled to himself, even as the heat around him built up still further due to Scourge's agitation, giving him yet more concealment. But... where was the fun in that? It was time to see how the Sentinel Armor fared against direct contact with an element-controller like Scourge.
And with that thought in mind, Sentinel decloaked himself, walking slowly toward Scourge like a demon out of Hell itself. Then he moved with impossible speed, leaping up in the air and aiming a series of spinning kicks toward the villain's head.
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Posted: Sat May 21, 2011 7:10 pm
Scourge quickly reacted and rolled over to the side, evading Sentinel's kicks. A second later, he got back onto his feet, standing his ground. He then released hot steam from his nostrils, signifying his readiness. He then lifted his hands and launched a barrage of fireballs towards Sentinel.
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Posted: Sat May 21, 2011 7:31 pm
Sentinel didn't have time to think; he merely reacted, moving with superhuman speed as he flipped and cartwheeled away from the barrage f fireballs. He leaped up towards a nearby building and ducked into an open window, taking cover in the darkness.
He needed to think. How could he counter Scourge's projectile advantage successfully...?
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Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 3:54 pm
Scourge gave a laugh. "Ha! Is this the vanguard of my destruction hiding from me? Heretics these days!" he uttered.
Not knowing when Sentinel would strike, Nathan created a defensive barrier of fire around. He had quite the history facing down tough opponents, but this one was different. Like always though, he never underestimated his enemies.
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Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 6:10 pm
((Sorry, I got Writer's Block for this.))
Sentinel ignored the taunting of Scourge as he moved through the room he was in, thinking of a plan...
The most obvious thing to do would be dousing the man with water, or maybe freezing him... what could he do...?
He patched through a private comm channel, and contacted Mr. Banes, his employer.
"Sir, I've located Scourge. Things are... not going as well as I had hoped. I can't hope to get in close; he'll just blast fire at me."
"Of course," said the always-calm Banes, smoking a cigarette like always. "Do you need reinforcements?"
"No. I can handle him myself. I just need some sort of ranged weaponry to neutralize him," Sentinel replied.
"Hmm..." Banes said. "Keep him distracted. Use your stealth to throw him off. I'll get in touch with some of our boys and see what they've got for you."
"Thanks, Sir."
"I'll keep you updated."
The channel was cut, and Sentinel found his way to the roof of the building he was in. He cloaked himself once more, and grabbed a steel railing from the nearby fire escape. He ripped it off, and then hurled it like a spear at Scourge.
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Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 6:24 pm
Scourge could faintly hear the railing as it was coming directly for him with great accuracy, slicing through the air as it was going. He reacted quickly by raising a palm at its direction and then releasing a fire stream from it. The stream collided with the railing, melting it instantly due to its intense heat. Scourge, annoyed now, began to randomly launch fireballs at the nearby buildings around him. Steam released from his nostrils as he snarled.
"SHOW YOURSELF!" he growled.
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Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 6:40 pm
Sentinel observed quietly as Scourge seemed to become angry, unfocused in his attacks, attacking randomly. And Sentinel was enjoying this very much, actually, watching the idiotic zealot waste his own energy by attacking thin air-- none of the attacks even came close to him.
Chuckling to himself, he jumped toward another building and stopped. He needed to stay close, to keep the b*****d from going around the city in his blood rage.
He saw police cars approaching, but naturally a fire truck came first to... douse out the flames.
Sentinel leaped down onto the ground, making less noise than a cat, and he sped toward the truck's water cannon, which was on a swivel turret and could be operated manually. He leaped up onto it, and aimed it not for the fires, but for Scourge.
"Que se diviertan, Antorcha Humana ..." he hissed, using his visor's voice modulator as a translator, before firing the cannon, at full pressure, towards the villain.
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