Russia

“Do you know what I hear, when someone says ‘I have a family to feed’, comrade? I hear that I have to kill a family, just to get what’s rightfully mine.”

Petr Vlasov wiped his forehead, and wondered why this was happening to him. He was just a superintendant, charged with keeping the pipes warm and the power flowing.

But now he was forced to deal with one of Russia’s worse Mafia bosses. Sitting in his favorite chair at his dinner table, was a man known as KGBastard, and three of his ‘body guards’, not that the man couldn’t provide his own protection.

KGBastard hardly did the man justice, Petr thought. KGBastard didn’t look overly remarkable, blond haired with a pony tail, six feet tall and average build. He wore a black turtle neck with gray pants and jacket, not the single hint of a ‘costume’ to be seen. The only thing odd about him were the black glasses he wore over what looked to be empty sockets.

But despite the fact the man had no eyes, Petr could feel KGBastard look right through him.

“Please, you don’t understand,” Petr pleaded, “I’ve raised the rent as much as I can! I’ve given you every last dollar we have! We simply don’t have any more to give!”

“But you do have more to lose,” KGBastard stood up, “you would do well to remember that. I’ll be back in a week. Have my money, or kill your family with a spoon and save me the time.”

Petr sighed in relief as the villain walked out. And then went to his room to pack. He knew that if he didn’t leave tonight, they just might make it far enough to survive.

KGBastard and his entourage stopped outside on the street, as the crime boss felt a sudden need to examine his nails.

“He thinks he can run away. They always think that.”

“Well,” KGBastard reached into his pocket and removed a remote detonator, “maybe if he’s in hell, he might be safe from me.”

The villain’s bodyguards nearly jumped out of their skin as the entire block shook from the explosion. The heat from the fireball washed over them, raising the hair on the back of their necks.

“The safety of the grave, vastly underrated,” KGBastard remarked, as his own bodyguards stared at him in horror.

“Sir, we should be going,” remarked Jacob Edward, the bravest of KGBastard’s men present. He nodded towards the mob of people who were gathering, watching in horror as the tenement began to crumble.

“I suppose,” KGBastard sighed, “oh, Jacob?”

The bodyguard froze. His boss was as unpredictable as the weather, and human life and dignity meant nothing to him.

“Down the street,” KGBastard pointed towards a woman who had her camera aimed not at the burning apartment building, but at them. The crime-lord reached into his jacket, and handed Jacob a serrated knife, “someone seems to think that they are allowed to take pictures of me. Kindly teach her what Russia does to rats.”

“…understood sir.”

“Wonderful weather, don’t you think?” KGBastard asked his remaining men casually. Still reeling from two casual acts of brutality, his men nodded numbly, and fought back the bile rising in their throats.

Avalon, Excalibur headquarters

“I’m not going to lie to you,” Chapman began, “our next mission is going to be…distasteful. But it should be easier than the last few ones we’ve had tossed in our lap.”

“If the job stinks, buy breath mints,” Commando said with a shrug, “we ain’t your average spandex idiots, Chapman. Just spit it out already.”

“Fine. We’re going to be protecting an ‘honest businessman’, by the name of Colonel-General Valentin Shatalov”, Chapman didn’t even bother with finger quotes, “from a crime-lord calling himself KGBastard.”

He clicked the remote in his hand, and an image of KGBastard, dressed in a military uniform standing in front of a blue background came up on the screen behind him.

“Okay, I take it back. No amount of breath mints is going to save this mission,” Commando replied.

“Why are we handling this?” Silverclaw asked, “I mean, Russia’s got its own superheroes, right? And no way are all of them corrupt…uh, right Darkstar? No offense…”

Darkstar winced as she felt her teammates glance towards her, “There are some as noble and dedicated as Captain America, but KGBastard has been planning his coup for some time. When he started, he went after a high level file clerk inside the Kremlin, and…”

“Went after a file clerk?” Hellios asked, “how does that matter?”

“This is how,” Chapman clicked his remote, and the image of an average kitchen came up. The room was splattered with crimson, and three heads and maybe enough organs to equal one whole person.

Excalibur was staffed by experienced heroes had seen their fair share of blood and horror. And yet still, their stomachs rebelled.

“Those bodies belong to a friend of the file clerk responsible for maintaining the files that contained the identities of Russian super heroes and powered operatives,” Chapman explained, “KGBastard has said that he’ll go after anyone remotely connected to any Russian hero that stands in his way. Not just friends, but friends of friends, second cousins…the man is beyond ruthless.”

“I do not feel comfortable removing one criminal for the sake of another,” Scarlet Scarab scowled.

“Good news there then, mate,” Chapman replied, “because you won’t be joining the team on this. The UN’s gotten a little concerned about excessive force, and is concerned about escalating conflicts. You and Hellios will be sitting this one out, I’m afraid.”

“…good,” Scarlet Scarab crossed his arms indignantly, but spared a glance at Silverclaw. He wasn’t entirely keen on the idea of her being on the battlefield without him there to lend assistance.

“What about the advance team?” Union Jack asked. He wasn’t fond of most of them, but he wasn’t about to turn down any possible help on a mission. To a former spy, the idea of a fair fight ranked right up there with a root canal.

“Junta and Shiva are on a different assignment,” Chapman replied, “as are Persona Grata and Guishen.”

“So I have to leave my most powerful at home and have no advance team,” Union Jack sighed, “why are pencil pushers dictating my combat terms?”

“Because escalating with superhumans means a burned husk of a planet,” Chapman countered, “now get a move on. The sooner we get this mission finished, the sooner we can move into actually doing some good in the world.”

“I heard that,” Commando grunted as he stood up.

All of Excalibur filed out, save for Darkstar. She couldn’t bear to look at her teammates, knowing they were heading to her homeland to deal with a menace, without her at their side. It cut the Russian mutant to her core, and she couldn’t bring herself to even look in her teammates direction.

Darkstar thought she might die of shame, when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“I know what it’s like to have loved ones targeted,” Chapman said reassuringly, “go be with your husband. We’ll have this bastard sorted out, no problem.”

Burma

Danny Vincent, AKA Junta of Excalibur’s forward team, whistled a tune as he waited atop a Burmese hotel. Early on in his training, his trainers explained that at least ninety percent of espionage was simply waiting. Whether you were waiting on an informant to arrive, readying an ambush or waiting for an opportunity to plant a bug, long stretches of nothing were unavoidable.

“It’s done.”

Danny turned his head and saw his teammate, the Indian killer known as Shiva, just appear out of a cloud of smoke. With blue skin, white hair and more blades than any sane person should carry, along with the ability to secrete poison and turn into any gas of her choosing, she was easily one of the most dangerous killers on the planet.

Danny was already planning contingencies for when she slipped her nano-chain restraints and went after those she thought wronged her. That, he knew, would be a bloody day.

But that wouldn’t be today.

“What room?” Danny asked

“Third floor, towards the alley. Name on the passport reads Danny Trejo.”

“Everyone’s a comedian,” Danny sighed, “alright, through the door, back me up and remember the plan.”

“Hey, accidents happen,” Shiva examined her reflection in one of her throwing blades.

“For amateurs, maybe,” Junta countered, “do this right, and maybe you won’t have an accident.”

Mariano Lopez, known better in law enforcement circles as Machete, examined his weapons as he placed them inside a sealed crate, to be mailed to a friend of a friend who had an interest in bladed weapons.

While most people in his profession preferred to keep their tools of the trade elsewhere, Machete operated on level well above ‘average’. Any law enforcement that thought about approaching him would assume that he was armed and would shoot first and never even bother with questions. It was one of the perils of being a costumed mercenary. The average pay was better, but the reaction from law enforcement was often akin to swatting a fly with a rocket launcher.

Better to carry weapons to fight your way out, than to be shot down in a hail of nervous gunfire, Zartan once said and Machete took his friend’s advice to heart.

“Machete!”

The door exploded inward, and Junta and Shiva walked in, chests puffed out righteously.

“Case in point,” Machete muttered, as he drew two of his signature weapons, “Never saw you as the law enforcement type, Danny!”

Machete leapt forward, sweeping one blade towards Danny’s neck, and another at Shiva’s. Danny blocked the blade with his staff, while Shiva vanished in a puff of smoke.

“What can I say?” Danny smirked, “I like the steady pay and easy work.”

Machete head-butted the spy, knocking him on his rear. Junta saw double as Machete raised his weapons over his head, ready to cleave Danny’s throbbing skull in two.

“You were always weak in the field,” Machete chided.

“And you always had tunnel vision in a fight,” Junta countered.

Shiva came up from behind Machete, and slammed her foot into his knee. The villain screamed in pain, and Shiva grabbed him around the collar, spun him around and threw him through a nearby window.

“Oops,” Shiva smiled.

“After him!” Junta shouted at the top of his lungs, though he remained seated on the floor.

“Poor man, limping away on a popped joint for no reason,” Shiva chuckled, “oh my, this reminds me of this one contract. The guy twisted his ankle, and…”

“And he lived happily ever after,” Junta interrupted, “I don’t give a damn about your fetishes. We need to confirm that the trackers are working. He’s only a stalking house, after all.”

Sheremetyevo International Airport, Moscow.

“…it just feels wrong, Darkstar not being here.”

Silverclaw could almost feel a weight fall on her shoulders as she finally broke the uncomfortable silence.

“What?” Silverclaw defended, “this is her country! Feels like we’re in someone else’s house and they’re not even there. It’s just weird!”

“It’s just as well,” Union Jack replied, “I’ve seen the files on KGBastard. He’s a brutal one. I doubt Darkstar would have been very effective if she had to worry about her husband, her family. This way, we have everyone focused on the mission. We’ll crush this little tick, and…”

Union Jack’s last words were overshadowed by the rear of the plane exploding.

“What the hell?”

“Holy crap!”

“Ladies, out!” Union Jack snapped, “intercept, but hold back!”

Cybermancer and Sabra tore through the straps keeping them in their chairs and were outside in seconds. Silverclaw was a little more skillful, shifting into snake form, slipping through her straps and to the floor. From there, she slithered out the hatch and into the open air, where she assumed her bird form, catching the air in her wings effortlessly.

“Jesus our savior…”

When she assumed the abilities of an animal, Silverclaw acquired more than just their superficial abilities. The form of a bird didn’t give her just wings and talons, but eyesight a hundred times better than any human could imagine.

So she could literally see in perfect detail the two dozen RPGs blasting towards them like a wall of death.

“Sabra, pull back!” Cybermancer shouted as energy lanced from her gauntlet. Bright blue bursts lanced outwards, exploding missile after missile harmlessly.

“Silverclaw, eyes on the attackers!” Sabra shouted as she darted towards Excalibur’s falling aircraft.

The young heroine stumbled for only a second, and then turned her attention towards the mob of armed men on the tarmac. The sheer number of armed men was staggering, two dozen men had been holding rocket launchers, and they were intermingled with men of colorful costumes and what looked like walking corpses with spikes on their shoulders and a cannon grafted onto their left arm. There were at least fifty men, some even in costumes (which always meant some combination of powers, training or insanity).

Silverclaw felt sick to her stomach, knowing that KGBastard had the ability and sheer audacity to assemble a small army at an airport for an attack like this. If his attention wasn’t focused on them, he could have easily slaughtered hundreds before anyone could stop him. Any doubts about this mission, about removing one criminal for the sake of another, vanished.

The young South American heroine felt bullets begin to pass by, and realized that she was spotted. Her blood pumped, but she remained calm as she arced backwards, towards the wreckage of Excalibur’s plane, where Kamau, Commando and Union Jack were just climbing out of.

“Glad I always use the backroom before riding these things,” Union Jack muttered as he brushed himself off. The –pak-pak-pak!- of automatic gunfire on metal could be heard in the background, but the Englishman paid it no mind as Sabra, Cybermancer and Silverclaw touched down.

“What are we looking at?” asked Union Jack.

“Video play back indicates a group of fifty armed men plus superhumans,” Cybermancer’s summary was punctuated by a massive explosion that rocked the wreckage they were hunkered behind.

“We need to make our move quickly,” Kamau hissed, “I can sense them beginning to surround us.”

“They got some heavy muscle too,” Commando peaked around the edge of the craft, “those zombie things out there are called warborgs. ‘Bout as strong as Sabra here, and armed with lasers and poison barbs. Dumb as logs, though.”

“Alright, here’s how we play it…” Union Jack said calmly.

Vladimir Orekhov, AKA Doctor Volkh and leader of the small hard-line breakaway team known as Bogatyri (Valiant Champions), ordered the men forward, convinced that they had Excalibur right where they wanted them. With fifty heavily armed men, six warborgs and his two other teammates, he simply didn’t see failure as a possibility.

And that was why he was so slow to react when Commando lobbed two grenades in the midst of his soldiers.

Uncertain of what to do, as a man of science and not action, Dr. Volkh froze. The grenades exploded in a plume of smoke, enveloping them in smoke and confusion. Only the cyborg corpses, the Warborgs, were indifferent to the smoke.

“Stay calm!” Dr. Volkh shouted, reassuring absolutely no one, “we still have them out-numbered!”

Cybermancer, Sabra and Kamau then slammed through their superior numbers like bowling bowls through glass. Men flew every which way, and Dr. Volkh gulped when he saw Sabra turn in midair.

“Come on, then!” Dr. Volkh growled defiantly, limbs outstretched, “your strength means nothing to my elastic powers!”

Sabra said nothing as she careened into the boastful scientist, noting only that slamming into him felt little different than landing in mud. Without preamble, Sabra clapped the man’s head between her palms, not even wincing at the sonic boom that was created.

Dr. Volkh slid through her hands like water. Even though his brain was like rubber, it still wasn’t capable of being flattened like a pancake, or being at the epicenter of a small but powerful sonic boom.

“I always wondered if that would work on you elastic types,” Sabra mused.

“Enjoy that victory, for it will be your last!”

Sabra turned to the remaining members of Bogatyri. The first was a medium sized man, dark haired with a metal brace around his neck, with antennas protruding from the front. The second was a blond man, large as a Humvee with a cybernetic right arm.

“Golubev, hold her!” shouted the large man.

“Understood, Svyator!”

The telekinetic reached out with his powers, and Sabra found herself struggling to move. Simply moving her arms was like moving through sand. All Sabra could do was tuck her head when Svyator landed his first blow.

“Surrender! We only need one of you alive!” Svyator hissed.

Sabra filed that information away for later examination as she pointed her wrist blaster towards Golubev and pressed the trigger. Almost instantly a special needles laced with sedatives were sent flying towards the telekinetic.

With a smirk, Golubev raised his hand and stopped the needles in midair.

“You’ll need to do better than that!”

“Agreed,” said Sabra as her fist smashed into Svyator’s jaw. The mountain of a man staggered, and Sabra raised both arms and unleashed another wave of needles.

Golubev caught them as easily as the first, though he was baffled why an Israeli agent would try the same tactic that had failed moments before. The confusion ended when Sabra swung her foot, and punted a chunk of dirt like it was a football. The Russian telekinetic saw the earth missile careening towards him, but in the time it took the drop the needles and focus his concentration on the dirt clod, it had smashed into his stomach and knocked him out.

All the same, Sabra hit him with a sedative needle, better safe than sorry, and turned her attention to his recovering, and final, teammate.

Sabra wiped a small speck of blood from her mouth, and then, in perfect Russian, said, “You rely on your powers too much. I don’t. That’s why this fight is already over.”

Main Airport

After they broke up the first wave, Kamau turned towards the warborgs. According to Commando, they were the most dangerous weapons in their enemy’s arsenal.

They were every bit the monsters the super soldier said they were. Grey rotted flesh, exposed muscles, spikes on their shoulder, flesh pulled back from their mouth and a cannon that ran the length of their right arm.

There was no mistaking these creatures purpose as anything other than terror, death and destruction. Shambling mockeries of life who spread only death and misery.

Kamau almost felt a kinship with them.

But that wasn’t about to stop the African warrior.

He weaved between bursts of energy, and leapt through the air at the nearest creature, trench knives. He slammed into its midsection, and tore through rotted flesh mixed with plastic and metal like a cannon ball through wood.

The Warborg was bisected, and Kamau rolled to his feet, now only surrounded by five lethal soldiers over twenty years dead.

Kamau stomped his foot, and the ground came up underneath the two behind him, pitching them through the air like footballs.

His back now clear, Kamau was able to turn his full attention to the three in front of him.

The Mutant Warrior leaped into the air, and swung his elbow into the monster’s face, sending rotted flesh and bone flying.

“Arrgh!”

Kamau fell to one knee as energy slammed into his back. As pain burned through his skull, Kamau felt like he finally understood Commando’s fear of these creatures. Every nerve felt as if it was dipped in molten steel.

The Warborg took aim again, but Kamau rolled out of the way on instinct. As he came up, he pulled his arm back and launched it through the air like an arrow at the moving corpse. The diamond trench knife sank in up to the hilt, and Kamau began to concentrate.

Having used the diamond knife for years now, Kamau had perfect control over every aspect. Whereas his ability to control the earth was crude and lacking finesse, his power over his own blades was like that of a surgeon with a scalpel.

With the same mental effort one associated with closing their hand, Kamau reached out to the blade diamond and had it form two hooks on each side, and willed it back to his hand. Grey and purple blood exploded out of the warborg’s head as Kamau reclaimed his weapon.

“Even the dead can die again,” Kamau muttered as he turned towards the remaining two warborgs. He had just formed a strategy when he felt a searing pain in his leg.

Kamau glanced down, and saw the first Warborg that he’d attacked, the one he’d sliced in half, with its single hand wrapped around his thigh, nails sunk into his flesh.

The Soldier Mutant reacted instinctively, pulling free as he leapt high into the air. He then flipped head over heels, and tucked his legs in, and came down on the Warborg’s back knees first and then brought his trench knife down on the warborg’s neck and removed it with a clean slice.

Kamau didn’t have a second to enjoy the victory, as his vision began to swim. Though he’d destroyed the machine, he still had to purge the toxins from his body before they stopped his heart.

Slamming his fist into the ground, Kamau reached out with his powers and began to draw minerals and energy from the ground. As he saw the two remaining Warborgs beginning to stalk towards him, Kamau began to envy those with automatic healing factors, as he found himself rooted in place, trying to draw enough power from the ground to clean his body of the toxins before the warborgs got within striking distance.

“This is a little harder than Union Jack implied…” Kamau mused.

This is too easy, Union Jack thought to himself as he swept his energy dagger outwards, disabling the half dozen men who’d thought they could box him in. But even as over combined eight hundred pounds of muscle went down, five more men, armed with knives and brass knuckles, stepped forward to fill the void.

Union Jack held them off easily enough, but he couldn’t help but feel he was missing something. KGBastard had military training and experience, and the first thing any officer learned was that no plan survived contact with the enemy.

So the British hero was certain that there was a back-up plan just lurking somewhere. And he was right, because the ‘back-up plan’ had Union Jack’s head cited in his rifle.

Viktor Rezun, a disgraced Spetsnaz veteran of the first Afganistan War, sighted Union Jack through his scope, and sighed. Though he loved his country, he had long since realized that loving your own country did not mean hating all others.

But Viktor knew that so long as he worked for KGBastard, his life was no longer his own. He didn’t make the decisions anymore, and the orders were clear. They only needed one alive, and in any battle the best strategy was always to kill those in command.

Viktor resigned himself to a place in infamy as the murderer of Britain’s patriotic hero, when he heard someone clear their throat.

“Don’t shoot…” Viktor held his hands up and away from his rifle. This was the first time he’d ever been spotted in his sniper’s nest, but the procedure was common sense. Move slowly and do nothing that might be construed as threatening.

Viktor slowly rolled on his back, and was a little surprised to see that the person who’d managed to effortlessly sneak up on him was a brunette of average height, pretty face wearing a business suit with a black tie that…had a red dot on it.

The Sharpshooter’s instincts took over, and for some reason he found himself drawn to the red dot more than the silenced pistol in her had, which under closer inspection he saw was shaped like an hour glass.

Red hourglass symbol, surrounded by black.

“The Red Room…” Viktor stammered, his mind now consumed with fear.

“Not quite,” she pulled the trigger once, and a dart lodged itself in Vitkor’s neck, “but my employer does not believe in wasted talent. Consider yourself lucky.”

“Alright, who wants to be another notch in my belt?”

Commando stood atop a pile of a dozen men (that he personally stacked up for intimidation value), surrounded by tattooed thugs. All of them were outcasts from their own organizations, deemed too brutal for the Russian mob, and as such, simply weren’t impressed by the fact that Commando had already beaten so many of their number with just his bare hands.

“Not gonna have a belt when this is all over,” Commando grunted. He was seconds away from throwing himself at them, when he heard a whistling sound. He looked up just in time to see an energy blast strike the ground between him and his assailants.

Commando looked up, and saw five different sets of the same armor, the infamous Crimson Dynamo armor, swooping down from the sky like angels of vengeance. They unleashed fire every which way that didn’t include a member of Excalibur and if they showed any restraint, Commando couldn’t see it.

“Russian Calvary. Dad would spit nails…”

Sabra rubbed her sore fists, and watched as men in Kevlar and carrying automatics calmly marched down the tarmac. Their aim was excellent, hesitation non-existent and calm was absolutely perfect.

“Who are these guys?” Cybermancer landed next to Sabra, and scanned the battlefield. Men in suits too nice to be worn on the battlefield were mowing down the thugs who’d ambushed Excalibur like they were cardboard cut outs.

“I suspect they’re with the man we’re supposed to be protecting,” Sabra mused.

“If he’s got all this, why’s he need our help?”

Sabra said nothing.

Minutes later

KGBastard’s men broke into a full run, and no one bothered to chase them.

Excalibur gathered together on the tarmac, while their ‘reinforcements’ started to patrol the area, making sure the area was secure.

“Where are the police?” asked Silverclaw.

“Probably the same place Darkstar is,” Kamau remarked.

Sabra and Union Jack glared daggers.

“We got incomin’,” Commando called over his shoulder.

A well polished limo drove down the tarmac, and stopped several feet away from the UN heroes.

“Not quite the welcome I wanted to extend,” A man in a well tailored business suit, with countless Russian metals stepped out of the limo, “but I hope you can see why you were asked to protect me.”

“Colonel-General Valentin Shatalov, I presume?” Union Jack stated.

“At your service. Tell me, besides the murder attempt, how was your flight?”

Next Issue: Excalibur’s in Russia to take down KGBastard, and protect their current crime lord! But their target isn’t about to roll over and die, and one member of Excalibur may pay the ultimate price!