WARNING: This title contains graphic violence, graphic language and adult situations. Reader discretion is advised.

The villagers looked fearful. A few had weapons, beat up Kalashnikov’s mostly, but they were careful not to point them at any of the strangers. Most of the villagers just stayed indoors. Curiously enough, the border post manned by Azerbaijani militiamen didn’t seem curious in the least and acted as if the strangers weren’t even there.

The two converti-plane’s, that had brought Forceworks to this village, were in a hide site, a couple of miles away, waiting for the team to finish their business and then withdrawal. They remained ready in case close-air support or emergency extraction was required.

They had approached the village cautiously, and after Blindside and Morelli had reported that the village appeared to be clear of any significant military presence, the members of Forceworks had deployed into their assigned positions.

The Ex-Resistants, Occult, Quill and Meteorite supervised by Tork were watching the north road, the avenue of approach that the latest satellite intell indicated that the targeted convoy of truck was heading down. In addition, they were keeping an eye on the border post in case they tried to interfere.

Watching the road to the southwest were Blindside and Captain Ultra. No trouble was expected from that direction, but Stone wanted to ensure there were no surprises coming from the Iranian side of the border.

Near the center of the village, yet widely dispersed watching for trouble were Trapster, Bullet, Lifeline, Morelli and Trickshot. In addition, Blue Shield was escorting Eugene Strausser, Forcework’s Director of Engineering and Research (and resident genius) in his assigned responsibility as the middle-aged scientist’s bodyguard. Strausser was by no stretch of the word a field man, yet his presence on the mission was crucial. If any technical work had to be performed on the nuclear devices they were intending to take, then he was going to be the most valuable man in Eastern Azerbaijan.

In a small barn on the edge of the village, Marcus Stone, the teams Mission Commander, escorted by Iron Maiden and Bushwacker (Stone didn’t want him out of his sight), were meeting with the team’s Russian contact.

Stone had brought Iron Maiden and Bushwacker to pull security for the meeting and to translate, if needed, but it clearly wasn’t necessary. Father Alexi Garnoff spoke fluent English.

"I understand you provided us the intelligence information about this shipment," Stone said. "And I am instructed to extend our thanks to you and to accept the package you want us to take back with us." Father Alexi smiled and shook Stone’s proffered hand.

"The package…oh yes." Father Alexi motioned into the darkness and a bizarre looking teenage girl, with a rifle slung over her shoulder, stepped out of the shadows. "She must be undergoing chemotherapy for cancer," Stone thought as he looked at her nearly bald head with a few bristly hairs growing out of it. Garnoff introduced her.

"This is Stencil. She is the package you are here to retrieve."

Stone numbly offered his hand to the girl, but she angrily ignored it. She began jabbering to Garnoff in Russian.

Garnoff replied to her in English, "Now, now…we have already talked this over Stencil. You need help that only the Americans can provide. You must trust me, it is really for the best."

That’s when Stone heard Tork’s voice over his headset, "The convoy is in sight Marcus."

Stone quickly said to Garnoff," Sorry Father, its time." Garnoff gave the girl a big hug and handed a thick envelope to Stone. "These are my notes on Stencil. They may come in handy, and Mr. Stone…please take good care of her."

Stone, Stencil and the other two members of Forceworks, ran out of the barn and towards the ambush position.

"What is that firing!" the Grigori Andreivitch AKA Firefox demanded in Russian.

"Well sir, our scouts have just reported that a gun battle has erupted in the village," the quaking Russian Army signals officer answered.

"Order the attack and I want prisoners!" Firefox screamed in the man’s face.

As the signal officer ran off to send the message, Firefox pounded the side of the oversized specially designed helicopter and screamed at the pilot. "Go! Get into position!" Then he climbed aboard his command chopper waiting nearby.

The oversized helicopter headed off towards its assigned position.

Camouflage nets, specially designed to prevent detection by radar, were swiftly thrown off the row of Hind-D helicopters as the troops clambered inside. The rotors began to turn as soon as the nets were cleared.

The fully loaded helicopters were on the way to the village within three minutes.

The two figures, which had been waiting with the troops and helicopters, one in green armor and the other in red, launched as soon as the call came in.

Forceworks had waited until the three trucks had entered the village proper (restricting their mobility) before springing the ambush and it had been a complete success. Stone looked over their handiwork.

Occult had hit the first truck, filled with ragged hired soldiers, with his eye beams as it trundled through the village totally obliterating the front end and bringing it to a dead stop. The other trucks bunched up behind it and the convoy was forced to come to a halt

The last vehicle in the convoy, also filled with hired guards, had been hit simultaneously as the first truck (coordinated by Stone using the radio) but by a different type of force. Meteorite, using his gravity control, had made the truck light and then Bullet had charged in a flipped it on its side. At this point the convoy was stuck. They couldn’t move forward or backward.

The Trapster had immobilized the middle truck. It was still sitting, mired to the road with some of his trademark super adhesive paste.

Then the gun-toting members of Forceworks had sprung into action. One team composed of Morelli (with his MAC-10), Stone (with his M16/M203) and Tork (with his Mossberg pump action 12-gauge shotgun) had hit the surviving guards in the first truck. Another team composed of Lifeline and Blindside (using MP-5’s) and Bushwacker (using his prosthetic gun-arm) had shot up the third truck.

A special team had been handpicked by Stone to neutralize any opposition in the middle vehicle. Operating under the theory that it was not a good idea to fire guns at a truck carrying nuclear weapons, Stone had assigned Quill and Trickshot to kill the people in the middle truck. The bodies filled with organic spikes and arrows attested to the two men’s accuracy.

None of those in the kill zone had managed to fire a shot in return.

As planned, the appointed people entered the middle truck to recover the nuclear weapons. Captain Ultra, using his super strength, ripped off the heavy metal tailgate and lifted Strausser and his equipment into the back of the truck. Blue Shield, declining Captain Ultra’s offer of assistance, clambered up on his own. Captain Ultra followed them in. The remaining Forceworks members returned to assume security positions with the exception of Lifeline, who at Stone’s request was rendering medical assistance to some injured villagers. Stone looked over and noticed the riddled shack that had once been the border post. He started to ask what had happened, but then noticed Bushwacker’s smiling face.

"Better to play it safe boss," the grinning Bushwacker replied to Stone’s unasked question.

Stone glanced over at Stencil, who appeared to be utterly at home among the carnage, for a reaction. Her face was expressionless. He hit the switch on his throat mike and called up Mother. "We’ll be ready to go in about ten minutes, so be ready to pick us up."

"Just waiting for your call, Marcus. Engines are running and guns are manned," Mother Majowski replied.

Stone signed off and wondered impatiently how much longer the team in the truck was going to take. Then he heard the sound of the jets.

"Dang, that’s awful!" Captain Ultra exclaimed in his best comic opera voice. He was stepping out of the back of the vehicle, to pass on the bad news to Stone, when the green armored figured knocked him back. Captain Ultra was hurtled over the heads of Blue Shield and Strausser, through the cab of the truck and into the remains of the first truck in the convoy.

The red armored figure, which Stone recognized from intell reports as Crimson Dynamo, stood before him in the street. Next to him, Stencil gasped. The armored figure spat out some kind of order in Russian and raised his arms. "Oh man," Stone thought. That’s when Bullet hit Dynamo in the back at full speed sending both men crashing into a nearby house.

The REAL battle for the village had begun.

A massive green armored man landed at the south end of the road and stood there impassively as the storm of bullets from the vastly overmatched Blindside bounced off his armor. He extended one arm at the now fleeing Blindside and fired. Metal rings flew out of the end of his suit and looped around Blindside effectively binding and dropping her. "Firefox has his prisoner," Nikolas Federov thought as he left her lying bound in the road and began to walk up the street looking for new targets.

Firefox looked out at the dozen Hind-D helicopters flying in formation around his command chopper. They were rapidly approaching the village, so he issued the command, "Cordon and Secure." Immediately the formation began to break up as the helicopters headed for their designated landing zones. His command copter continued straight towards the village.

Two men had entered the house; only one came out and he was madder than hell. As he came out he fired flame from his gauntlets. Captain Ultra, who had just emerged from the wreckage of the truck he had been embedded in, saw the flames and promptly passed out.

Nikolas Federov laughed inside his armor at his opposition. The arrows and bullets continued to bounce off of his armor. "Arrows!" He laughed. "It’s like being in one of those decadent American Imperialist and Indian movies!" he thought. The Titanium Man then casually fired a double blast of energy into the road surface just to see them scatter.

Trickshot knew his was in big trouble. "Cripes! I can’t do anything to this guy!" then he joined Iron Maiden and Morelli in diving for cover just as fast as his old legs would go.

Out of all of the members of Forceworks, who had come to this end of town to fight the Titanium Man, only one remained facing him.

Crimson Dynamo fired electrical bursts of energy towards the houses that he had just seen the interlopers enter. He would have killed Stone, the last person to enter, if the man sheathed in blue had not stepped in front of the discharged energy and taken the brunt of the attack.

Bushwacker looked out the window and then said, "It’s really hit the fan boss, take a gander at this."

Stone looked out and saw the helicopters disgorging troops into the field. It’s funny; he hadn’t noticed the firing on the North end of town and sounds of the rotors until that moment. Suddenly, Stencil, pushed in between the two men and knocked the glass from the window with the barrel of her rifle. A moment later she began to fire in controlled bursts at the approaching Russian soldiers.

"Seems like a pretty good idea," Bushwacker said as he knocked out the panes in another window and began to fire also. Within moments Stone joined him.

Titanium Man laughed and then said in passable English. "You are much braver than your comrades. Give me your name. I simply must know who it is I am about to kill."

Trapster looked at him a moment and then spoke with his paste-shooters. In seconds, the Titanium Man was covered in the super-adhesive from the shoulders down. Federov looked at himself in shock; "You have fouled my armor with that nasty goo."

Federov was enraged! He would swat this man like a bug! The signal from Federov’s brain sped to his armor’s control net in a fraction of a second. In another fraction of a second, the control net sent a signal to the actuators and servomotors to make the armor move in accordance with Federov’s impulses. The servomotors whined and growled as his armored arms refused to move. Next, he tried his legs, but they also refused to move. That’s when the reality of the situation sunk in; the armor was immobilized. Federov briefly thought of attempting to burn his way out, but he wasn’t sure what the goo was composed of and what reaction might be set off.

Trapster, standing squarely in front of the massive suit of armor, was the happiest he had ever been. He felt like a real hero for the very first time.

Crimson Dynamo, unlike his compatriot Titanium Man, didn’t bother to say at word. He just began firing at the man with the blue aura.

Blue Shield thought as he dodged, "What the hell am I going to do with him now that I have his attention?"

Ned Lathrop AKA Meteorite was enraged. They had shot another of his friends and they would pay. As two hovering helicopters were beginning to unload their troops, Meteorite lightened the gravitational forces around the aircraft. The helicopters soared up several hundred feet in less than a second and the disembarking soldiers fell screaming to their deaths. Nearby and behind cover, the others fired at the enemy soldiers and helicopters.

Occult, at Tork’s suggestion, concentrated his efforts on the helicopters. The wreckage of one flaming Hind-D, burning men leaping from it, bore testimony to the effectiveness of his mutant power as he knocked another helicopter from the sky.

Quill was dying despite Lifeline’s efforts to save him. Quill’s early fire had been ineffective because the enemy soldiers were still out of his range; frustrated, Quill had stood up and exposed himself (against Tork’s orders to the contrary) because he thought that would increase his range. Now he was bleeding to death and there was little anyone could do.

"It’s hopeless", Deacon AKA Lifeline, the team’s medic, decided. It was obvious that Quill had lost too much blood. Lifeline gave him a morphine injection for the pain, dropped the syringe, picked back up his rifle and began firing.

Tork held his fire and observed the battle. His weapons had been chosen based on his experience as a police officer. Officer-involved shootouts were generally fought at ranges of thirty yards or less. Armed with a shotgun and a revolver, he was pretty useless until the troops got closer, so he keyed his mike and spoke.

Trapster loved the taste of victory. He turned his back to the paste-encrusted Titanium statue and yelled for his teammates to come back. They still had the Russian Army to deal with. He saw Trickshot, Morelli and Iron Maiden coming out of nearby houses to join him. That’s when Federov came to a realization. Trapster heard metal clacking behind him and then saw the look of alarm on Morelli’s face.

Trapster spun around, paste-shooters at ready, and never felt the rounds from Titanium Man’s shoulder mounted chain gun shred his body into pieces.

Inside a house

As Bushwacker and Stencil continued to fire at the soldiers trying to approach from the Northwest, Marcus Stone paused to listen to Tork’s report on the radio. It was clear that the entire village had been encircled. It was clearly time for some desperate measures. His decision could very likely leave them trapped in Azerbaijan if they survived, but without close-air support they were finished. He seriously doubted that the converti-planes could survive for long in the Hind-controlled sky. He called Mother and gave the order.

The pilots, gunners and crew chiefs on the converti-planes had listened to the raging battle for the last several minutes. It was everything that Genji Odashu and Mother Majowski could do to keep them from rushing to their comrade’s aid. Piston was especially jumpy, Mother noted.

"I bet he’s worried about the other two former Harriers," Mother thought. "Considering the fact that most were killed on our first mission."

Mother’s thoughts were interrupted by the call from Stone, requesting close-air support and warning them of the Russian’s air-superiority.

The pair of converti-planes, one flown by Odashu and the other flown by Piston (with U.S. military co-pilots), lifted off and sped towards the battlefield. Odashu’s aircraft was armed in the standard configuration for the experimental converti-plane: a single mini-gun mounted out the left passenger compartment door. However, Piston’s aircraft was different. It possessed the left side mini-gun just like it’s sister craft, but it had been modified, by Strausser and his technicians, to carry an extra gun mounted on the right side of the aircraft; a very special gun. Mother, strapped into the gunner’s seat, patted the weapon lovingly as the helicopters orbiting the village came into view.

Center of the village

The enraged Crimson Dynamo, tired of his blue opponent’s evasive maneuvers, sprang forward and impacted the Blue Shield with the full power of his boot rockets firing. The force of the attack threw him hard against the brick wall of the house. His shield held, but unfortunately, the wall didn’t.

Huddled next to a rickety wooden porch with his two companions, Morelli knew they had mere seconds to live. That’s when the idea struck him. He hastily explained the plan and they went with it.

Titanium Man’s shoulder mounted chain gun tracked their first distraction, the running Iron Maiden, and fired. Her armor absorbed the brunt of the repeated impacts, but it slammed her to the ground. She wasn’t moving. The other two didn’t waste the opportunity.

Morelli emptied his magazine at the Titanium Man’s armor, as he dove behind the wretched looking automobile parked in the street. He attempted to burrow himself into the hard-packed road surface as the rounds from Bullski’s chain gun riddled the car.

Trickshot, as soon as he saw that the Titanium Man’s attention was diverted, tumbled towards the item lying next to the pieces of the Trapster’s body. He scooped it up, hit the activation switch and threw it. With his characteristically accurate eye the device Trickshot had thrown hit the chain gun directly on the side of its rotating barrel assembly.

Firefox looked down out the battlefield from his perch in the passenger compartment. Five of the twelve heavily armored Hind-D helicopters under his command had been reduced to piles of burning wreckage to the north and northeast of the village. A couple of the helicopters had been destroyed before they could unload the troops they were carrying, so the soldiers had died still in their seats. Two other helicopters had mysteriously accelerated upward while the troops they were carrying had been jumping out of the craft resulting in the deaths of more of his troops. These factors, combined with the sporadic gunfire from the north end of the village directed against the unprotected troops in the open field, had reduced his offensives in those areas to a dozen or so men hugging the ground and crawling slowly towards the village and trying to stay alive.

There were also some problems in the west and northwest portions of his mobile perimeter as the dismounted troops, exposed to a withering fire from the village, were forced to advance against the enemy on their bellies. However, there was a bright spot here; it appeared that Crimson Dynamo had just torn a hole in the house that the fire was emanating from, so Firefox imagined that the fighters within would soon be dead.

To the South and East, things were looking much better. His troops had advanced rapidly and were in the process of entering the village itself. They had already begun to clear the houses one by one, but had encountered no resistance yet. So far, they had only encountered unarmed civilians (whom they promptly shot as per Firefox’s orders. There could be no witnesses).

To the Southwest, it appeared that the Titanium Man had things well in hand. He was stationary and firing his shoulder-mounted chain gun at a few moving persons. Firefox was so convinced that the area was secure that he had rerouted the soldiers assigned to be inserted in that area and had sent them to reinforce the weak northern offensive (where the survivors were trying desperately to stay alive).

He chose to keep the ban on the Hind-D’s firing their weapons into the village. He had no idea whether or not the nuclear devices had been moved out of the trucks and into a different part of the village, so he was going to play it safe for now. "It didn’t really matter anyway," he thought. "The battle is as good as won and I didn’t even have to use our secret weapon."

Firefox was looking the wrong direction when Genji Odashu’s converti-plane flew within a few yards of the command helicopter and as she ordered her gunner to fire. The side-mounted mini-gun, spewing armor-piercing shells at a rate of 3000 rounds per minute, blew out the bubble windows in the cockpit and killed both pilots.

The copter plummeted to the ground.

Blue Shield came crashing through the wall of the house and landed in a heap on the floor. The rest of the wall came apart as Crimson Dynamo ripped what little remained to pieces with his super strong hands.

Stone, Stencil and Bushwacker spun around and knew they were looking at certain death as the red armored figure raised his hands to fire. Stencil started to break her oath to Father Garnoff when Crimson Dynamo briefly turned yellow and fell on his face with his armor smoking.

Mother released the triggers and looked through the targeting system of the S.H.A.P.E.R. cannon hanging out the right side of Piston’s converti-plane. He saw Crimson Dynamo fall on his face outside the demolished cottage. He thought to himself, "I guess someone owes Strausser and his boys a keg," as he searched for another target.

The small box, taken from the Trapster’s dead body, exploded as it struck the rotating barrel assembly on his shoulder-mounted chain gun. It didn’t explode like a bomb exactly, but exploded nonetheless. Within moments the entire gun was mired in the same super-adhesive that had rendered the rest of the Titanium Man inert, a few seconds later the gun went silent as the paste hardened.

Morelli and Trickshot quickly helped a dazed Iron Maiden to her feet and ran off to fight elsewhere.

The last thing, that Nikolas Federov saw through his eye slits right before the trio went out of sight, was Morelli momentarily pause, turn and then give him the finger. Then they were gone.

Firefox was filled with rage as he pulled himself out of the wreckage. He quickly surveyed his body to assess the damage. Grigori began with his mechanical parts.

His mangled cybernetic right forearm was non-operational and sticking out at an awkward angle from his body and his optical system was fuzzy and making it difficult to see out of his right eye. After completing the non-organic evaluation, he examined his organic parts.

His left leg was broken in at least two places and probably three and he definitely had some broken ribs. In addition, it was likely that he had some internal injuries.

Finally, he checked to see if the single most important item he possessed at that moment still functioned. With cold satisfaction he saw that it did.

He keyed the mike on his personal radio and sent the dreaded words over the net: "Lenin’s Ghost." He repeated it twice more, crawled a few more feet away from the wreckage, then turned himself over and laid back on the ground. He was watching the surviving Russian Army helicopters begin to withdraw (just like his emergency plan instructed) when he passed into unconsciousness.

Behind a nearby hill

The oversized specially designed helicopter left its hover, flew over the top of the hill and moved towards the village with its very deadly cargo.

Stone discovered Strausser's trembling form hiding in the bed of the truck "Thank God," Stone said. "It’s a miracle you survived."

"What was Captain Ultra talking about when he was exiting the truck while ago?" Stone asked.

Strausser replied, "There is only one nuclear weapon here. There were supposed to be three. Were there any in the other two trucks?"

"No, I checked them out personally," Stone responded. "Well, we can’t worry about that right now. We’ll just grab this one and get the hell out of here."

Bushwacker’s voice interrupted them from outside the truck. "Hey Stone, the enemy helicopters are leaving and the troops appear to be pulling back!"

Stone stepped to the rear of the truck and looked. "Maybe they’ve given up," he said.

He noticed the intense look that Bushwacker was giving him and thought, "He doesn’t believe that any more than I do."

"Corral everyone up and get me a status report ASAP. Take Stencil with you. I don’t like the feel of this."

Bushwacker left, Stencil in tow, without a word.

Mother Majowski was the first to see the awkward looking oversized helicopter pop up over the hill. He quickly reported it over the radio net then tried to fire the S.H.A.P.E.R cannon at it. Nothing happened. He peered at the power level indicator through his goggles and saw that the weapon was not sufficiently recharged to fire yet. He growled that information to the pilot, Piston, who began to turn the aircraft, so the mini-gun, mounted on the left side, could engage the enemy craft.

The U.S.A.F. gunner on Odashu’s craft, lit the odd looking Russian copter up as soon as Mother’s warning came over the net. The armor-piercing rounds appeared to do very little damage to the heavily armored helicopter as it continued its beeline for the village.

Mother, seeing the ineffectiveness of their sister craft’s fire, felt a strange feeling in his gut; a feeling that screamed that something was about to happen. He called down a warning to Stone on the ground.

Stone heard the worry in Mother’s voice as the warning burst through his earphone. Using his throat mike, he immediately warned everyone to take cover where they were, sit tight and wait for further instructions.

Mother watched as a round door opened on the bottom of the specially designed helicopter. He screamed, "Incoming!" over his radio, as he saw a large cylinder drop towards the southwest end of the village and the enemy helicopter accelerating away.

The cylinder crashed through the tiled roof of the cottage, splintering the rough wooden floorboards and making a deep indention in the ground as it came to a stop. A few seconds later the stasis chamber exploded, demolishing what remained of the house, as the creature bound within came out to play.

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NEXT ISSUE: What is this mysterious creature? Where are the missing nukes? Just how high will the body count go?