The
problem with Mr. Bunny part 2
Half an hour later, and after much reassurances
by Hormesis that radiation healing wouldn’t affect the general area
of the wound permanently, Cavalier was finally getting his temper
under control. Given the fact that Hormesis had made some joke, about
male organs being known to have fallen clean off the body, after being
irradiated like that, Cavalier was in a good mood. For fifteen minutes,
he lectured Cymbaline about using her powers inside HQ, on safe grounds,
while Icy Heart sat amused on the old leather couch, sometimes making
funny faces behind Cavalier’s back. The vein in his face throbbed
a few times, while spit showed up on his lips, and his throat was
getting raw from yelling at her.
“And what do you have to say for
yourself?” Finally voiced Cavalier at Cymbaline whose face was sad
and flushed.
“Can we just pretend that I already feel awful about
this?” She simply replied in a broken voice. Cavalier looked her down,
then straight in the eyes, and remembered that she was his friend,
foremost in all of Paragon. He turned around, and walked straight
for his desk, pulling out two pieces of paper.
“I have summoned you
two here for a special assignment. These papers are your ECPC permits
for this mission. That means you could level a city district girls,
but there better damn well be an explanation for it in the end.” And
whit that, he went to Icy Heart and handed her the two sheets, that
amongst other things stated: Mandate of Arrest.
“Great, so you call
me here to go hunt down ten Hellions, ten Skulls, then twenty Thorns
and twenty Freaks?” Simply replied Icy Heart as she stood up, and
walked for the door uninterested by the details of this mission. She
had gone out on too many of them, had given up too much of her time
for this city, and she felt in her heart of heart that she deserved
more from this super group than simple tasks.
“Jade Rade.” Simply
said Cavalier as he looked at Icy Heart walk away. She stopped with
her hand on the door handle, and looked over her shoulder. “I want
you two to capture Jade Rade and bring her into custody.”
“Jade Rade
has been sitting in prison for the past few months Cavalier, did she
escape recently?” Icy Heart was the hero who had put a stop to Jade
Rade about a year ago, when it was found out that Rade had irradiated
the water supply of an entire district, to exact revenge on the Tsoos
for the murder of an innocent bystander, her brother. The Tsoos paid
with their lives for that action, along with thirty innocent civilians,
and several more had to spend some time in the hospital to recover
from the radiation sickness. During her trial, Jade Rade had remained
silent as she was sentenced to life in the Ziggurat, where she was
supposed to be at this very moment.
“Look at this.” Cavalier held
out a pair of photographs for the women to look at. Wearing an eye
patch, and what looked like Rularuu skins for clothing, Jade Rade
and two others were standing on the ramp, in front of the blue shimmering
surface of the dimensional door, at Portal Corps.
“What is she doing
free, and who are these two clowns with her?” Asked Icy heart at the
famous scrapper.
“The big one is called Metal Core, the small hairy
one, I have no clue, we’re searching the database in the hopes of
getting an answer. Bottom line, I want her arrested and brought in
for questioning. These three look like they have been away for a long
time, and if you look closely at Jade Rade’s features on the second
picture, I think she is happy about being back home.” Cavalier pointed
his index at Jade Rade’s face.
“A tear.” Said Icy Heart as she looked
more closely at the pictures. The three people on them looked weathered
and tired, combat weary and disoriented, as if they had been fighting
for too long. But how could that be, since she was supposed to be
sitting in prison for the rest of her life?
“How did they get passed
General Hammond and his forces on Firebase Zulu?” Asked Cymbaline,
who had been standing there, listening intently to what had been said.
“Hammond watches that portal like a dog, no one goes through it without
authorization.”
“That’s another problem we have to deal with today,
but it’s none of your concerns.” Replied Cavalier sharply to the ladies.
“What I need from you two, is Jade Rade and whoever else is with her,
to be brought in, can you handle it?”
“Yes.” Replied Icy Heart, while
Cymbaline acquiesced.
“Go get ‘em girls. Send Hormesis back in will
you, please?” The girls left the office, heading out into the city,
debating where to look first for the infamous defender turned bad.
Hormesis walked in and threw himself on the couch, resting a leg across
the arm chair, he looked around the room and said:
“Smells like burnt
hair in here.” And he smiled a taunting smile at Cavalier.
“Shaddup.
I have a special assignment for you, a personal favour.” Cavalier
leaned both elbows on his desk and hushed his voice as he waited for
Hormesis to reply.
“Name it, you’re the boos.” Hormesis was always
one to laugh, and with his pronounced southern accent, some words
did sound strange when he spoke.
“Earlier this morning, Firebase Zulu
was overrun by the Rularuu and the military forces present there were
defeated. General Hammond is dead and the losses are heavy on our
side.” Cavalier spoke seriously, with a low voice that carried meaning.
Hormesis eyebrows shot up as he heard the news, and his features went
from careless to intent, instantly.
“The Rularuu host sits now at
the entrance of the zone, and they are not coming through or attacking.
But if they wanted to, they could gain access to our world.” Went
on the famous scrapper, who then stood up to walk to the window, looking
over Steel Canyon.
“The city wants Apocalypse to track down someone
that came through the portal this morning. It won’t be easy, and I
have specific orders concerning that. Given the fact that you are
radiation based and that he is radiation created, I think you are
the best choice to find him. But understand this, your orders are
to locate him, not to try and arrest him. Once you have found him,
I want you to call me. Under no circumstances are you to challenge
him, if he sees you, run.”
Hormesis didn’t like what he was hearing
at all, it sounded as if Cavalier was trying to cover up something.
His tone, his demeanour told the defender something was hidden here,
something that shouldn’t be brought to light.
“I can find anyone or
anything irradiated, you know that. But why am I not allowed to arrest
him, and who is it?” The radiation defender felt intrigued, this task
was getting mysterious and exciting.
“Understand me well Hormesis,
under no circumstances are you to get near him. Just find him and
call me, I will take care of the rest.” Cavalier turned around and
looked straight into the eyes of the radiation defender, dead serious
look on his face.
“Understood boos. Who is it?” Replied Hormesis with
a twinkle in his eyes.
“Voyager.” And with that, Hormesis face went
from happy go lucky, to flat serious.
Pressing the record button on
the video camera, Moon Psyche came to sit across the table from the
huge man that had just been brought in from Brickstown Infirmary.
Taking off his fedora hat and putting it gently on the left corner
of the table, he looked around the interrogation room. Much like any
room built for that purpose, it had the tell tale two sided window,
through which observers on the other side could witness the process.
Cement walls and floor, with a single ceiling light, it was located
in the basement of the Apocalypse HQ.
“Please state your name and
affiliation for the record please.” Spoke Moon Psyche softly while
he pushed forward a small microphone, to rest it in the middle of
the table. The huge man leaned forward, looked at Moon Psyche, then
at the camera and said:
“Bunny, Bugs Bunny. No affiliation.” Bear
Cat was beginning to feel annoyed at answering this all the time,
but better that, than the truth. Moon Psyche looked him straight in
the eyes, smiling gently.
“You can tell me the truth, or I can pry
it out of you, your choice.”
Bear Cat remained silent, a few seconds
went by, then he felt it. Tendrils of a presence, probing his mind,
brushing the edges of his consciousness. Clenching his teeth, recognizing
a psychic touch inside his head, he knew what to do. His training
had included painful sessions of psychic attacks and how to resist
them. Scattering his thoughts from subject to subject, never thinking
long enough about one object then moving on to the next, he was hoping
to hide his memories from Moon Psyche.
But, Moon wasn’t just any other
psychic, he was probably the best psychic this city had ever seen,
all walks of life included. Smiling gently still, Moon’s eyebrows
creased at the effort he was exerting. Bear Cat suddenly felt jarred,
and his thought pattern froze on the picture of a horse. Then, a throbbing
headache began to pound inside his head, making him grunt.
“I can
have you tell me everything I want to know, including the maiden name
of your great grandmother if I want to. What is your name?”
Silence
occupied the space between the two men, it filled the room as if the
world had hushed itself for a minute. Bear Cat’s nose had begun to
bleed, veins on his forehead and temples were pulsating to the rhythm
of his heartbeat. He stood straight up, throwing the table against
the far wall, crushing Moon Psyche’s fedora hat in the process. The
controller stood up as well, facing the huge tanker directly, he came
to stand a few inches from his face, looking straight into his eyes,
unblinking and resolute.
“Tell me your name.”
Bear Cat’s body was
shaking, held in position by an unseen force, he was trying to regain
control of his body, so he could crush the small man in front of him.
All Bear Cat wanted, was to get him out of his head, out of his thoughts.
“Bear Cat.”
He heard himself muttering, while he tasted the blood
that had trickled into his mouth. Another sharp, almost unbearable
pain, had him fall to his knees. He moaned heavily while a more important
blood vessel imploded inside his nose, letting free a flow of red
liquid that fell in heavy drops on the floor, in front of him.
“Tell
me, who do you work for, Mr. Bear Cat.” Asked Moon Psyche as he was
looking down at the huge helpless man, hoping he was not pushing it
too hard. Bear Cat's fists clenched, and his whole body was shaking,
from anger and from the psychic bombardment Moon was exerting on him.
He had been faced by mind attacks before, but never of this magnitude.
Steeling himself, resolved that he wouldn’t answer the question, he
decided to accept the pain instead.
“I will not!” Screaming, he fell
to the side, body shaking and twitching.
“Tell me!” Yelled Moon Psyche
as he kneeled down next to him. “Tell me and I will make the pain
stop.”
Bear Cat let out a long scream, his ears began to bleed now.
Moon Psyche looked at the mirror, knowing that X-ecutioner was on
the other side, waiting and ready to oppose the prisoner if the need
arose. X was shaken to the core by what he was seeing, he knew Moon
psyche was powerful but he had never thought such a frail looking
man could subdue a tanker so easily. When the phone rang, it took
him some time to answer, so enthralled he was by the scene he was
witnessing.
“Are you related with the Hunters of Apocalypse?”
Moon
had carried a lot of interrogations in his time with Apocalypse, and
many of those he had to do exactly what he was doing now. It was a
merciless task, gathering information from the enemy, but today felt
different. Somehow, this man didn’t register as a threat. Moon had
researched the entire data that Machine had provided, and according
to it, Bear Cat should register as a super-villain. But after probing
his mind, and shaking the man to his core, Moon Psyche couldn’t think
of him as one. Bear Cat could be qualified as a vigilante, but a villain
he wasn’t. For the first time in his career, Moon was interrogating
someone that wasn’t a criminal per say. He felt strange and oddly
ashamed at his conduct, but on the other hand, this issue needed to
be resolved. The knock on the door brought him back to reality. He
stood up and went outside, in the corridor, to talk with X-ecutioner.
“A lawyer is upstairs, with papers that sets him free, Moon.”
“And
those papers check out?” Replied Moon who suddenly let his hold on
Bear Cat vanish. A moan and coughing were heard coming from the room.
“Apparently, they are official, the five hundred thousand dollar bail
has been paid, and Bear Cat his free, until his trial.”
“Interesting
outcome. It would appear Mr. Bunny has friends in high places. Ok,
call in a healer, get him cleaned up, and let him go. I think that
lawyer’s name will help more than he will. Get all the information
you can on who hired the lawyer, and report back to me in two hours.”
Moon opened the interrogation room door, and looked in on Bear Cat,
who was still curled up in a ball on the floor. Reaching for his cell
phone, he flipped it opened and auto dialled a number.
“Calling Cavalier?”
Asked X-ecutioner as he bent down to help Bear Cat stand up.
“No,
more important than that.” Replied Moon Psyche as he looked at the
two tankers leave, one almost carrying the other. Alone, standing
in the room and looking down at this crushed hat, Moon swallowed with
difficulty. He felt ashamed of what he had just done.
“Hello Serge?”
Said Moon as a male voice with a heavy French accent answered a the
other end. “I need a new hat.”