Two Hundred feet underground

Bobby Greggs, known to the world as Arsenal, watched in horror as metric tons of rubble had just settled where only seconds before his leader, Danielle Moonstar and possibly more, had just been. The wall of dirty and stone came down like a wall, as if Mother Earth herself had swallowed them whole.

He stood in absolute disbelief, as the rubble settled and dust blew past his face. Then, acting purely on instinct, threw himself at the wall of earth and dirt, transformed himself into solid steel, and began tearing away at it.

“Hey! Hey, stop!” The Defense Force member known as Geomaster grabbed Arsenal’s shoulder, trying to pull him back.

Without a second thought, Arsenal blasted the man away with his optics blasts and went back to digging.

“Oh, it’s gonna be like that, huh?”

Geomaster let loose a burst of fire that forced Arsenal to take a step back from the wall of debris.

“I’ll turn you to slag boy, you take one more step towards that rubble.”

A blast of green energy just missed Geomaster’s head.

“And I’ll turn you into space debris, if you even think of lighting a cigarette,” Nova snarled.

“And I could turn you into methane,” warned Goldreign as he approached, “it certainly would be fitting.”

That threat was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Instantly, members of Force Works and Defense Force who could picked a target and aimed themselves at them. X-Treme had two poison tipped darts at the ready, Twilight created energy spiked pointed every which way, and Wiz Kid, not to be outdone, created three weapons for each member of Defense Force.

Tarene, the only person present who hadn’t chosen a target, gaped at the scene in disbelief.

“…how is this going to help our friends?” she asked aloud.

The two teams look at one another, dumbfounded and quite frankly, a little embarrassed.

“She’s got a point,” Nova conceded. He looked towards Geomaster, “mind telling me why you tried to stop Arsenal from trying to find Mirage?”

“Your leader isn’t the only one buried alive,” Geomaster answered, “and they are still alive. I’m not called Geomaster for nothin’. I saw them about to be crushed, and created a bubble around them when the floor caved in. In theory, they should be okay.”

“If they have enough air, and it they weren’t crushed by falling rubble,” Taki added.

“Until we see otherwise, we assume they’re alive,” said Nova, “stand down, everyone. Beating the crap out of anyone won’t solve this mess.”

Reluctantly, Force Works lowered their weapons, and Defense Force did likewise.

“You said you could control earth, does that mean you can move that rubble?” Taki asked.

Geomaster shook his head no, “My control isn’t what you’d call delicate. I’m not even certain that I managed to create a bubble over them in time. If I try to move it, I might crush...”

Nova rubbed the bridge of his nose, “Of course. Never the easy way.”

“You, with the solid light structures, can’t you make anything?”

“The name’s Twilight,” growled the member of Defense Force, “and yeah, I could do that. But I thought you were the smart one, Wiz Kid. What do you think will happen if we take a drill to a house of cards?”

“He’s got a good point,” mumbled X-Treme.

“Can’t we do anything?” asked Tarene, the conversation making her more and more fearful that Rahne and Dani had been killed.

“We will have to use other resources,” said Savant, “The Undertow used teleporters and even if they didn’t have one here, they would have kept material here for maintenance. We can use that to save our friends.”

“Create our own teleporter? It’s possible,” Wiz Kid said carefully, “we should explore others options. Teleportation’s a risky science…”

“We’ve not asking for perfection,” Nova snapped, “just to get three people out. Just because you didn’t suggest it doesn’t mean it won’t work.”

“Lets see what material we have at hand before we start promising miracles,” groused Taki, “if they’re still alive.”

---

For a moment, Danielle didn’t know if she was alive nor not. As she opened her eyes, she remembered tackling the leader of Defense Force out of the way of descending rubble on an impulse. A second before darkness consumed her, Dani realized that all she might have accomplished was killing herself along with her friends and their mystery woman.

“…hear me?”

Dani squinted her eyes, trying to adjust to the light. The woman she’d rescued (Dani realized she didn’t even know her name) was holding a small glow stick, allowing her to see their predicament.

A quick glance around was not reassuring at all, Moonstar found. They appeared to be trapped in a dome of rock with the walls cracked, like drying clay. The bubble barely had a height of five feet, and Dani didn’t think she had the courage to even try to stand up.

It was like being trapped in a house of cards, Mirage thought. One wrong move, one misstep and the entire thing would come tumbling down.

But when she saw Wolfsbane lying in the corner unconscious, Dani gasped and was about to throw caution to the wind, when the older woman placed her hand on Dani’s shoulder, and said, “Ease up. It was just a mild concussion. She’ll be fine.”

Knowing the woman had no reason to lie, Dani nodded, “Thanks for saving her…?”

“Flashblade,” answered the woman, “or Sam, if you prefer our real names. Given how you saved me from becoming a pancake, I’d say we’re even.”

Dani, moving slowly so as not to disturb their surroundings, crawled over to her friend’s side. Wolfsbane was in her human form, unconscious with a serious bruise above her right head.

“It’s actually a good thing she’s unconscious,” Flashblade remarked, “she’s using less air. Gives our team more time to dig us out.”

A light bulb went off in Dani’s head, “You guys can call in backup, right? Maybe get some equipment here, dig us out?”

“…not exactly.”

Thought so, Dani said to herself, “So you just decommission secret bases for fun? Isn’t that something you should leave to the proper authorities?”

Sam smiled, “Why didn’t you? The only way you could have known we were here is if you were monitoring the base. The Undertow’s been gone for almost a year and we only just started taking their bases out.”

“The uniforms, the scrub job, no backup, you’re off the books, aren’t you?”

Flashblade looked at Moonstar with a raised eye brow, “You’re a curious one, aren’t you?”

“Information’s a great weapon,” Moonstar retorted evenly, “you don’t have to worry about me panicking, though. I’ve handled my fair of black ops people.”

“Buried under tons of rubble, with limited air and still you press for information,” Flashblade shook her head, “I don’t know if I should be impressed or terrified. And for the record, we’re as official as your team.”

“Funny, I’ve never seen your team before today.”

“Well, you assume that because no one tells you no… that what you do is sanctioned,” Sam explained with a guarded look, “so why can’t we?”

“Our actions can stand public scrutiny. Somehow, I don’t think the same can be said of your people?”

“And can you say that of all your actions?” Sam’s tone was a little more knowing than Mirage preferred, and though she hated to admit it, the older woman had a point.

“So…”

“So…”

“Do you think they’re getting along well enough to actually save us, or will egos get in the way?”

---

Introductions were quick. Codenames were rattled off before both teams started scouring the base for useable material to rescue their trapped teammates. For the most part, there was a sense of camaraderie, albeit a desperate one, amongst the team

For the most part.

“…do you even know what a matrix recoil wire is, do you?” Taki shook his head in obvious disgust, “it will be nothing short of a miracle!”

“Our teleporter is designed for one time use only,” Savant answered smoothly, with more respect than Wiz Kid likely deserved, “I’ve studied the development and principles of the HERMES teleporter, have you?”

“You’d be amazed what I’ve studied.”

“But, respectfully, I doubt you’ve not studied related papers like I have. I ask that you trust me, with this at least.”

“Trust you?” Taki’s voice was now overflowing with both contempt and disbelief, “after we discovered you destroying a base that only we and our enemies would know about? I think…”

“That’s enough ‘Kid!” Nova broke in quickly. Last thing they needed right now was another battle, verbal or otherwise. In his gut, Nova trusted these people for now, and that was enough for him, “play nice. Just because you didn’t think up this idea up don’t mean it won’t work. We don’t have time to save our friends and deal with your ego, understand?”

Taki mumbled to himself, but wisely kept any further complaints to himself.

“Excuse me, Nova?” Nova turned his head to see Defense Force member Meteor standing there, hands at his side, “can I have a second?”

“Don’t think we’re going anywhere for a while. What’s on your mind, Meteor?”

“I…I’m not really sure how to ask, so I’ll just come out and say it,” Meteor seemed to swallow hard, “My name’s Barry Moore. You knew my father, sir.”

Nova searched his memory for a moment, trying to recall the name ‘Moore’. He came up blank.

“Are you sure about…”

“You knew him as ‘The Comet’,” Barry explained, “he…he was my father. Sir.”

Nova didn’t bother to hide the surprise in his eyes. He knew that his old friend had been a father of two, but from what Rider remembered, one of the boys had been killed in a fire started by the old hero’s enemies.

But looking at the man before him, Nova could see the resemblance without too much imagination.

“Yeah, that I did. Your brother too. They were pretty sure you died, come to think of it.”

“My powers manifested of the night of the fire,” explained Barry, remorse creeping into his voice, “I just flew away as far as possible. When I finally came down, the cops thought I was on drugs, and it got worse from there. By the time I was old enough to really look for him, he’d left earth with you.”

Please tell me this guy isn’t a fruitcake looking for revenge, Nova prayed to himself and then carefully said, “Yeah, me and Comet were tight way back when.”

“Then sir, if it’s not too much trouble…” Meteor’s tone of voice was anything but threatening, in Nova’s opinion, “Could you tell me about him, sir? Please?”

---

For reasons neither could explain, both Tarene and Geomaster gravitated towards the far wall, away from their teammates. Neither knew which one began talking, but in the end it really didn’t matter.

“They act like it’s so easy to control all this power,” Geomaster griped, “like I can balance the entire power of earth on a soda can. I got fine tune control over my powers, when you consider I’m hijacking a billion tons plus of earth like play dough!”

“And they act like controlling your strength is so easy!” Tarene added, “I’m not clumsy, and I am holding back! I didn’t ask to be this powerful!”

“That never stops them from putting us on the front lines,” Geomaster observed, “point us at a target, they really ought to know what to expect by now!”

“Yeah, seriously. It’s not as if we pretend to be any less powerful than we actually are…”

Seasoned, trained operative and neophyte goddess, the two of them simply stood off to the side, the most powerful of their respective teams but, for now, both ignored and useless without a battle raging.

---

X-Treme swung his axe towards his opponent’s neck, and Shadow Wind just barely brought his sword up in time to block it.

“Four kids? That’s insane!” X-Treme declared.

Shadow Wind released a snap kick, aimed at X-Treme’s kidney that the alien warrior just barely managed to side step.

“Insane? Some days, sure. But I manage.”

X-Treme flipped backwards, lost in thought. With his girl friend trapped and her fate resting in the hands of two geniuses, he desperately needed to work off some nervous energy, and had suggested a simple spar. And from there, the two started talking about their training, and somewhere along the line, Shadow Wind commented that he hoped his kids would grow up to be as good as X-Treme.

“What we do takes discipline, dedication and repetition. That’s how we both became great fighters,” Shadow Wind observed as he just barely side-stepped a punch.

“I…I never thought of it like that,” X-Treme confessed. Unlike his teammates, Adam was all too aware of his own morality. Brutal, close quarters combat had that effect, “but isn’t that…dangerous? I mean, look at our jobs.”

The two dove at one another, their metal swords clanging sharply.

“In a way, I guess. That’s why I make damn sure to spend as much time with them as possible,” answered Shadow Wind, “it might be a little selfish, but who wants to live a life defined by fear? And believe me, my kids justify the risk.”

X-Treme nodded in agreement, and as they sparred, Adam couldn’t remember a time when he envied another man more.

---

As he and Savant worked on their abortion of a teleporter (to the untrained eye, it looked like a deformed metal square with wires running every which way), Taki worked on a separate project with a slightly different agenda in mind.

Simply put, he didn’t trust their current allies. Yes, they were friendly. But all told, he and his teammates didn’t have enough information for his liking. For all they knew, Defense Force was destroying this base for the people who created the Undertow in the first place.

So while he and Savant were working on their teleporter, Taki was building with his tech pack a special communicator that would, secretly, work in conjunction with the teleporter and enable him to pierce the rock to contact Dani and hopefully turn this debacle around.

---

“…so after demon bears, spending time in another plane of reality and infiltrating a terrorist organization, normal life just didn’t have the same appeal,” Dani said casually.

“Yeah, regular life isn’t as appealing when you’re used to larger than life,” Sam mused, “I still can’t watch an action movie without thinking of all the mistakes the hero’s making.”

“Plus, I never really had a chance to bone up on my job skills,” admitted Dani with a little embarrassment.

Sam nodded sympathetically, “Yeah, I know how that is. I was in the army for the longest time. Once I retired, I had a hard time not responding to stress with violence. Thank God for my pension.”

“Pension?”

Damn it, Sam couldn’t believe she’d let that slip. She was trying to be friendly, personal…without letting slip any information about herself and her organization. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done, “I’ve been doing this job a long time, covert of course.”

“It’s just that you don’t look old enough to retire,” Dani sounded genuinely flattering, but Flashblade wondered.

“Back when I was starting out, superhumans were a rare commodity. So they did what they could to keep them around.” Explained Flashblade, then she grumbled, “didn’t do a damn thing to hold back menopause.”

“Damn, don’t know if I could fight that long.”

“Yeah you do. It’s in your blood, just like mine.”

“I guess you read my jacket.”

“Of course.”

“If you retired, why’d you start up again? I’d think that you’d have done your duty by then.”

“…very personal reasons,” Flashblade said finally.

Dani had heard that tone of voice, the combination of hurt and finality so heavy you could almost feel it, and naturally decided against pressing the matter.

Of course, that was when she heard a slight whisper in her communicator. She listened intently, when it was over she all but screamed profanities most sailors hadn’t even heard of.

“…and what the hell is wrong with you?” Flashblade inquired with a raised eye brow.

“I got a teammate planning a double cross!” Dani hissed, “Wiz Kid is working together with your team genius to make a teleporter to get us out of here. The thing is, he plans to leave you here as a bargaining chip.”

“Sneaky little bastard.”

“…if I had a nickel for everyone who’s said that,” Mirage sighed, “you know where the open area is, in relation to here?”

Flashblade pointed behind Mirage, “Does it matter? There’s a couple of tons between us and our team.”

“I know, but I think that I can project an illusion outside of the rubble. If I can do that, I can alert the others.”

“Did he say if they were having any trouble reaching us?” Flashblade asked, “there’s a lot of mass between us and them. I know enough about teleporters to know that’s trouble.”

“He said the signal strength was weak. I think that might be why he’s planning on just teleporting me and Wolfsbane.”

“I see.”

As Mirage closed her eyes and placed her hands on her temple to concentrate, Flashblade inched her hand towards the knife she kept concealed in her boot.

---

“I think we’re nearly complete,” Savant wiped her brow, uncaring of the grease streak that resulted.

“I think the most we can hope for out of this abortion of a machine is two teleports,” said Wiz Kid, “anything more than that is pushing it.”

“…you’ve got some explaining to do, ‘Kid,” Nova seemingly appeared out of nowhere in front Taki. The air around the Human Rocket was hot and smelled of ozone, speaking of power that was ready to release at any second.

It was an intimidation tactic, Taki knew that almost instantly. And though he refused to be intimidated, nevertheless, the tactic did impress upon Wiz Kid the seriousness of what his teammate intended to say.

“I have no idea what on earth you’re…” Nova pointed towards the rubble…where a warning sign with his face upon it was hovering over the tons of dirt.

“She’s not terribly subtle at times, is she?”

“I don’t need much to know you’re up to somethin’,” Nova countered, “explain, Wiz Kid, or I’ll hand you over to them myself!”

“He sought to use the teleporter to only rescue your two teammates and not our leader,” Savant said quickly, “I detected his radio transmission, but rather than tell someone and incite a battle, I simply removed a key component.”

Savant handed the piece over to Nova.

“Now that we are near completion, your man can inspect the devise and we can finish. I apologize for my deception.”

“Man, she’s like the anti-Wiz Kid,” Speedball observed, “can we trade?”

“Hell no!” Arrowsmith answered, “she’s easier on the eyes, man!”

---

“…muh head,” Wolfsbane moaned softly and blinked, her sensitive eyes trying to adjust to the limited amount of light, “what happened? Where are we?”

“It’s a long story, but ‘buried alive’ just about covers it,” Mirage explained, “we should be out of here soon, you just missed out on us bonding.”

“What are ye…behind you!”

Dani turned her head to see Flashblade holding a bladed that was too sharp to be used for anything other than inflicting bodily harm. Acting on instinct, Mirage spun around and tackled Flashblade, grabbing both her wrists.

“And here I thought we were getting along so well!”

“Why do you think I’m doing this?!” Flashblade snapped. She head butted Mirage, and then kicked the younger heroine off. Without hesitating, she then drove the knife into her leg.

Both Wolfsbane and Mirage gasped as they saw the blood shooting down Flashblade’s leg, illustrating that she’s struck a vein.

“Two…two for one…,” Flashblade felt a creeping darkness, “sounds… like a fair trade to me.”

---

“Just another scan or two and we should be ready,” Wiz Kid reassured them.

Savant kept a close eye on the young man, watchful for any deception. She was saying such close attention to Taki, that she didn’t notice a tell tale beep emulating from her belt.

“Excuse me, I think someone’s trying to call you,” Tarene said politely.

Savant glanced at her belt, and paled.

“Get out of the way!” Savant grabbed Taki and threw him aside.

“Hey, what the hell!” Arsenal and X-Treme took a step forward, but weren’t about to attack

“Geomaster, explain Failsafe L!” Savant snapped as she manipulated several knobs on the ad-hoc teleporter.

“Savant implanted special sensors in each of us,” Geomaster held his arms up, trying to placate Force Works and began explaining, “they basically monitor our life signs. If our vitals drop, it sends out a powerful signal that cuts through just about anything, and gives a sit-rep of their situation.”

“That’s pretty handy for taking revenge on anyone who kills your people,” observed Taki.

“You idiot!” snapped Goldreign, “it’s to give us information when a teammate’s in danger!”

There was no time for further argument. There was a burst of light, and then Wolfsbane, Mirage and Flashblade were standing before them. Both sides gasped when they saw the bloody knife in Flashblade’s hand, and the sheer amount of blood that soaked her legs.

“No, no, no!” Savant rushed to her leader’s side and slapped what looked like a metal band-aid over the side. The devise seemed to expand instantly upon contact with the wound, quickly sealing it.

“I’ve stopped the bleeding, but she’s lost too much blood!” Savant and the rest of Defense Force looked towards Force Works, the unasked question lingering in the air.

“Go,” Danielle said without hesitation.

Defense Force didn’t waste a second, tearing out of the base to…wherever they stashed their aircraft, Dani supposed.

Mirage stood up and brushed herself off while her team gathered around, thankful she was still alive. After Dani assured them she was uninjured, Arsenal finally asked the question that was floating in their heads.

“So what’s the final verdict? Friend, ally, what’s their deal?”

“I think they could be allies,” Mirage answered finally, “but something tells me that won’t be how we’ll meet in the future.”

The End.

Afterwords: Okay, I’ll admit this isn’t my finest work but I hope you enjoyed it. I was midway plotting through the arc that led up to issue 25 when I was struck with an impulse. I wanted Force Works to have their own opposing team that acted as foils as opposed to enemies. Hellions to their New Mutants, would be the best comparison. But I didn’t have any space with my current plotting, so I dumped it on Max, as I have in the past. If you enjoyed this issue, I recommend you follow the current FW arc, because Defense Force is about to make themselves known there!

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