Snippet #2817338

Club Shapeless: Atlas City


Maxwell watched Vicki Vortex and Zeke have their little bout of bickering outside from the computer screen of his office. He chuckled slightly at the sight, finding the whole thing somewhat endearing. Zeke in particular was starting to grow on The Shape, much like Maeve and Kiran had. Spiderblood was still a slight enigma, but also still new and in need of some opportunities to really show off what they were capable of.


He stood up from his desk and walked over to one of the walls of the room, a mirror like floor to ceiling set of black marble slabs. Maxwell donned his mirror mask over his head, finished tying his black silk tie, and buttoned up his red dress shirt. Perhaps a black three-piece with a red shirt wasn’t the correct colors for mourning, but he had other, important matters to attend to.


Upon returning to his computer, Maxwell had noticed that Zeke and Vicki Vortex were taking an elevator? Down to Kiran’s floors. He sighed and frowned in mild annoyance. Shouldn’t Zeke have known better? Shouldn’t someone else have told them not to bother Kiran down there? Well… It’d be a test of their mettle to be sure. If they could survive all that, Maxwell would certainly respect them, though he wondered if Kiran would.


He left the office, heading in the direction of the conference room as guards and other employees scurried around. One of them seemed to be watching some Western movie or something? As soon as a fellow guard with him saw where The Shape’s gaze went, he slapped his coworker around, telling him to get back to work and not slack.


“Sir! SIR!” Shouting, from one of the guards that worked surveillance around the city.


“Yes, what is it?” Maxwell asked, a little taken aback by the panicked tone the guard had.


“Boss, I don’t want to alarm you, but we NEED to get a team together ASAP. Look at this!” He showed Maxwell the screen of his phone, images of a collapsed building glowing from it. “We thought this building was some kind of Witchfinder store house for a while, and it got ripped down today. But not just ripped down! There was gunfire coming from inside earlier, like a firefight! We didn’t have any people able to actually witness the thing, but we really should send some people to take a look quickly.”


The Shape nodded in agreement. “Yes, we should. I think I’ll send some of our heavy hitters out to take a look. Hopefully Maeve and Zeke at least, maybe even Spiderblood. But we need to do a meeting first. Get some vehicles and equipment ready in the meantime.” The guard nodded and was about to leave, but before he did he handed Maxwell one last thing.


“Just got this today. Some corpo called Menagerie Tech is looking for a high level shapeshifter. Part of me is wondering if it’s that one from the park…” After his boss took the notes, the guard gave a quick bow of his head and went off to get everything in order for the investigation.


Maxwell entered the conference room of Shapeless, quickly punching in a text message to Kiran.


Zeke and Vicki Vortex went down to the labs. Please take it easy on them. And we need to meet upstairs now, got business to take care of.


He sent the text, taking a seat at the head of a long table, with gorgeous black marble on top, and the familiar black jaguar statue illuminated behind him. Maxwell pressed down a PA system button on the table and spoke.


“Maeve, Kiran, Zeke, Spiderblood, and all executives, please join me in the Conference Room now to discuss some urgent business, thank you.” He sighed and leaned back in the chair as he punched out one last text message, the meeting almost ready to start.


Cousin, the meeting’s almost ready. Let me know when you’re ready to join.


Sent.





The Resort


George, still in his office, gazed into a gold framed mirror, with white marble shelf underneath it. On the shelf sat a small box containing a pair of platinum cufflinks, and in his hands was a soft, light blue silk tie. As he finished tying the Windsor knot, the sounds of some kind of explosions rang out from some other part of the property. He felt his heart race as he returned to his desk to quickly pick up a Walther P5, slipping it into a holster underneath his black suit jacket.


As he left his office, a staff member ran at full sprint towards him. “Sir! The ahh… Guests have been… Sparring outside.”


George took the information in quickly and stifled the need to sigh. That was relieving to know it was only that. But by the sounds of it…


“Thank you for letting me know. Could you please make a call through to one of our construction contractors? And spread word to the staff that we’re going to remain closed a little while longer, so that we can get these repairs finished. If we have to cancel guest stays, go ahead and do it. Tell them we had some ‘unruly super guests’.”


The staff member gave a hesitant nod and rushed off to begin the damage control process. George took another moment to let himself be eased out of that anxiety he had felt. Today almost sounded like it was going to be quite terrible, but not so terrible as some kind of attack on himself and the heroes. Before he got to comfortable though, he felt his phone buzz. George pulled it out and took a quick glance over the contents of a text, before yet another sense of anxiety hit him.


It was the Attorney General.


He made his way down the halls of the resort, trying to make sure he was able to gather all others he needed to see. During this journey, he came across one in particular that was littered with room service carts. Sheri’s, he believed. He knocked on the door to see if she was in, but with no response coming, he decided she may be out, or unavailable.


The little journey continued until he came to Liz’s door. It had been a while since they’d spoken, perhaps now would be a good chance to check in with her. He was about to knock on the door until he heard talking inside, and the sound of… Kokomo? George knocked before opening the door to peer inside, greeted by floors covered in sand, tropical heat, and the strong scent of drinks typical to vacation spots with these attributes.


George gazed at the two in the room, Sheri and Liz. The drinks, several of which had been clearly polished off and left around the makeshift beach, were alcoholic. At quite an early hour. While the old man’s face was pleasant enough, there was an ever so slight shift in his eyes, a tiny narrowing as he made eye contact with Liz.


“I see you’ve both made yourselves quite comfortable, I’m pleased to see. I hope you have been enjoying your stay at the resort thus far.” Before either could get in another word, he had indicated with his hands back to the hallway.


“If you both have time, I hope you’d be able to join me and the others in the library. There are some matters I wish to discuss shortly.” He was about to close the door to continue gathering the others, but stopped for another brief moment, turning his gaze to Liz once more. “And Ms. Baker, I believe you and I should also have a private chat soon, when it’s convenient.” His eyes had briefly lingered again over the drinks, both around the room and in the super’s hand, before he close the door and continued his search.





Seemed like just as soon as Richard reached the kitchen, everyone else had disappeared. ‘Jemma’ to go deal with… Something? Right around the time some explosions started happening (apparently the sparring between Alex and Silver Fang?), so he guessed it was related to that. Cannonade, everyone’s favorite gravity wielding super, had also disappeared to go to the memorial no doubt, though it seemed a bit early for that still.


In the end, only Richard and Klaus had remained, but the two soon parted ways as well, probably for the best since Klaus seemed to have a lot on his mind anyways. Richard was about to head back to his room, but ended up running into George on the way back. “Oh, Mr. Carlisle, good morning.” He spoke with a little surprise, though admittedly he felt glad to see the old man again, he still hoped to get more answers out of him soon.


“Good morning Richard, how has your day been so far?” George responded politely.


Richard shrugged slightly and gave a bemused nod. “The other guests are a little… Unique, but it’s been good otherwise. Are you ready to head to the memorial?”


George nodded with a sigh before responding. “Yes, but there’s some matters to attend to first. I’d like you to join me and the others in the library quickly. There’s matters we need to quickly discuss.”


Richard nodded hesitantly, a little offput by George’s rather… Unsettled reaction? “Ahh, sure thing! I’ll shoot a quick text to Klaus, I think he’s still here. The others are… I think in that NAHLA guy’s lab? Maybe?” He quickly typed up a message to Klaus, telling him to meet in the library, before hitting send.


George gave a slight bow of his head in gratitude. “I appreciate it Richard, see you shortly.”





Moments later, a knock came from outside of Sairyn’s lab, with George peering in to those gathered, not crossing the threshold himself. “Pardon the interruption, but I’d like if you could all join me in the library. We have a matter to discuss quickly. Something I’d like your help with.”


He was about to turn away and leave before he noticed something on the shapeshifter’s lips… Red.


It appeared like it might be blood. George’s eyes quickly came to meet both Sairyn’s and Alex’s. He said nothing further, hoping they knew well enough to not make him need to talk with them. Time would tell of course, for now his best choice with this collection of supers…


Was to help them grow into something even greater.





George sat quietly in the library, in a large, red chair next to a fire. He’d momentarily picked up a book to pass the few moments he needed till the others would arrive. Wuthering Heights, sort of a macabre, miserable tale if he was being honest. But he felt a strange familiarity with it, like something in the eerie atmosphere of the book was reflected in the real world.


Terrorist attack at a diner, complete with super drugs and Frankenstein’s monster. A towering behemoth of rot and decay attacking Atlas City. The brutal murder of a super on live stream. A Witchfinder warehouse collapsing on the inhabitants.


He believed he hadn’t seen the dead wandering any moors yet, but that could still be yet to come for all he knew.





Memorial, Atlas City Beach:


From all around Cannonade there was shouts and cheers of excitement, a mixture of people calling out the hero’s name, along with other heaping praise. The memorial had yet to start, but already people were getting worked up, though at this exact moment more because they could feel safe.


More cheers erupted as some activity near the stage caught the attention of others. Seemed some other big names were here too, including Captain Valor, and none other than Backlash, The Baron, and the other hero to have ‘saved’ Atlas City: Albrecht von Richthofen.


Before Cannonade truly had time to react though, there were men in black suits starting to make a perimeter around them, almost as if they were about to be arrested, until they could see who was running at them from the stage.


Gordon Ford. The President of the United States.


“Cannonade!!!” He shouted in glee. “Oh I’m so glad you came here to join us! Truly, Atlas City and America owe you a great debt!” Along with the overjoyed, yet still incredibly boring President, were several other figures. A woman of African American heritage, in about her 40’s or 50’s, with curly dark hair, and an olive green power suit on. She seemed serious, somber, perhaps a little cold, but there was a sense of sympathy and mourning about her. Claudia Burke, Attorney General of the USA.


There was also another man with them, much younger than either of them in only his 30’s. He was tall, quite handsome, and had blonde hair parted to one side and slicked back. He had a smile that could put a Kennedy to shame, but the air of a man who’d be comfortable in just about any setting that could exist. Calm, collected, and very much in control of himself. This was Victor Covistic, the Secretary of Defense of the United States.


“Cannonade, pleasure to meet you, and happier to see you made it today.” Victor spoke in a relaxed, but pleased tone as he offered a handshake to the gravity wielding hero.