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CHAPTER START---
Walking to the edge of a forest area, Horizon and Great Hound stop at the treeline and look toward the massive open field ahead.
The entire clearing was cut low with only one structure in the middle, a five-story armored building with large hangar doors on the front.
"So this is where the scent is leading?" Horizon asks. "You sure?"
"Yeah this is it," Great Hound says. "It's strong in the building but...there," he points to the far end of the field. "It's too to the air over there, the bad weather recently scattered it too much but if we get far enough in that direction I can pick it up again."
"Hmm, yeah they'd likely be in the direction they took off in, this clearing isn't long enough for a plane, so they used a helicopter," Horizon says. "It's just a shame the guy in there wasn't the target, would have made this a lot easier."
Great Hound follows Horizon as he steps into the clearing and begins walking to the building.
"I only smell one person inside, but, this faint," Great Hound takes a long sniff of the air as they continue walking, and draws both his knife, and pistol. "It's faint, and smells...metallic.""Yeah, I can sense him, whatever the hell it is," Horizon says as they stand a hundred feet away from the building.
"How does that work anyway?"
"My sensory ability is Scan, think of it like echolocation, but it works for a few dozen miles around me at once," Horizon says.
"Damn, and I thought my nose was impressive."
"It is, but I can effectively 'see' everything all at once, in fact, when we arrived here I immediately sensed him, but he's got nowhere to go---"
"And you were hoping for him to call for help so we could track the call, since we must have triggered their alarm system in the forest."
"Yeah, but he didn't call for him, weird."
"He probably knew it wouldn't matter," Great Hound says.
"Yeah that's fair, after all," the large hangar doors begin to creak and crumple as they're ripped off their supports by Takt, "I am here..."
"ARHHH!" leaping out of the building is a 15ft -5m- tall robot, aiming a punch directly at Horizon.
ANTIBACTERIAL CURTAIN!
A dome barrier forms around him and Graet Hound, and the large humanoid robots slams into it and comes to a stop.
"ARGH!" the robot continues to slam its hammer-like fists into the barrier while both men simply look up at it.
"My god, he's in there," Great Hound says. "But why do I smell, blood?"
"Not a robot, or a exosuit," Horizon says. "It's connected to him, he's a cyborg."
"Like you? Do you know him?"
While the villain is hammering at the barrier Horizno turns toward Great Hound, "Firstly, I'm not a cyborg, and secondly, that must have been racist. Do you think all people in wheelchairs know each other?"
"Well, no..."
"Whatever, let's just deal with this guy," Horizon says.
"Warp him out of there."
"Can't, he's fused to it, so they're one being right now," Horizon says. "Warping him out is like trying to warp only your leg off your body."
"Well?"
"I'm just making sure I don't accidentally rip away any life support systems," Horizon says. "I'm not very tech inclined so I'm double-checking the components."
Great Hound puts his weapons away as the barrier drops.
The villain brings both hands down to crush the heroes, but neither man reacts as the limbs freeze.
The sound of metal tearing and creaking echoes through the clearing before the limbs of the cyborg shatter into pieces and are launched to either side, held in the air.
Great Hound flinches as the blood-curdling scream of the man within the chest rings out, and a moment later the chest plate is torn away and crumpled to the side.
And now only the torso area hovers before them, with a man who has no limbs and much of his organs, along with a piece of his head, replaced by metal components.
"Power Cell." Great Hound says. "What happened to you?"
The cyborg just groans and twitches as pain wracks his body.
"You know him?" Horizon asks.
"He was a pro hero a while back, but a bad run-in with a villain left him in pieces, I haven't heard about him in years."
"Well looks like someone promised him a chance to get back into the action in escape for his loyalty," Horizon says. "We need to get info from him."
"Maybe he has some kind of data drive?"
"No," Horizon says. "I recognize this tech, it's from Tech."
"Tech? Those people are real?"
"Yeah, that shadow group sent someone to attempt stealing a device from Japan a year ago, they also made the Faux Nuclear Football that Sentinel had, and now this suit."
"This tech also looks similar to what's been popping up a lot more in Brazil, Chile, some parts of Europe, and India, what the hell is going on?"
"That's what I've been trying to figure out," Horizon says. "But since these things auto-burn data before conflicts, we'll have to do this the old-fashioned way."
Great Hound is confused for a moment, until Horizon reaches forward and Power Cell's heart is quickly extracted.
Great Hound stumbles back and Power Cell takes a while to register exactly what just happened.
"Power Cell, I need to know who you're working for, and who did this to you."
Power Cell glares at Horizon, "I'd be dead without them, so do what you must."
"Yeah, talks tough at the start," Horizon says. "But you'd be amazed at how much suffering humans can withstand."
Then to the horror of both men, Horizon crushes the heart in his hand, all while releasing Booster Shot to repair it immediately.
---10 Minutes Later...
While Horizon and Great Hound were searching the building and scouring all the data stored there, Star' lands softly outside and lets herself in.
Both men glance over to her as they continue piecing together supply routes, finding clues as to where exactly Kelvin could have been transported to.
"Is that a cyborg outside?" Star' asks as she waves around a folder. "I thought you were the only one?"
"I'm not a cyborg, but he is."
"It's Power Cell," Great Hound says.
"Damn, they made him so ugly I didn't even recognize him, any progress?"
"Some," Horizon says. "This facility was used to assemble and distribute drones, not that we could find any schematics for them or even some spare parts here."
"They cleaned up good," Great Hound says. "But some of the shipping manifests to overseas are here, probably as blackmail against Tech, or whatever other group was using the drones."
"How many countries?" Star' asks.
"Damn near all of them," Horizon says. "Seems like they've probably got a way to get Kelvin across the border a lot easier than we expected, we're checking records and the new intel to narrow down the search, and we're waiting for a report of helicopters that were in this area lately."
"So Tech is real, and they commissioned a swarm of drones," Star' wonders as she taps her chin. "Or did they manufacture the drones for sale overseas, either way, it is a problem."
"Yeah, and what'd you get?" Horizon asks.
"Classified CIA files," Star' hands him the folder. "Or more accurately, files that don't even exist. Kelvin wasn't just a powerful hitman, he was the guy they used to train the current generation of specialist agents they have, he even trained some army special forces too."
"Damn, so why'd he turn," Horizon asks as he reads the file, then gets to the latest pages, "Ohh, damn..."
"Yeah, they did experiments to amplify his Quirk, but they had the unfortunate effect of making him damn near living energy."
"Which is why he had no scent," Great Hound says. "It also means he must be wearing some kind of suit to contain himself, that'll be hard to hide."
"It would be, if they didn't destroy all evidence of his existence, including pictures," Star' says. "But I did get a lead, retired army General Birch."
"What about him?" Great Hound asks.
"He was head of the military lad that ran the experiment, Kelvin tried to kill him when he realized what the side effect was."
"So he'll probably try again, where is Birch now?" Horizon asks.
"The Bahamas, family vacation," Star' says. "He'll be back in a few days, and I'm sure Kelvin already knows that and will be waiting."
"So we have our bait, now we just need to figure out where to spring the trap," Horizon says.
"I think we should alert the Colonel first, that way we can avoid this conflict happening somewhere populated like the airport."
"It doesn't matter where it happens if both of us are there," Horizon says. "We shouldn't contact Birch, just in case Kelvin is listening in somehow."
"We can't just use a person as bait, risking their life and the lives of everyone around them like that."
"It's the best course of action we have," Horizon says. "We just have to watch and wait for Kelvin to get impatient."
"Assuming we're right about him wanting revenge," Great Hound says.
"He'll come for Birch," Horizon says. "The man cost him his body, he wants him dead more than anything, and that'll make him sloppy."
"I still think we should contact the colonel," Star' says before looking to Great Hound. "Well?"
"Me?" he asks.
"Break the tie, I'm sure either way we can keep civilians safe, but it simply doesn't morally sit right with me to use a person as bait like this."
"Uh, well," Great Hound considers it for a moment. "I think Horizon is right, but it is super dangerous."
"Then it's a good time both of us are here..."
END CHAPTER---