The Crusaders -Volume 1

Everything in its right Place

Everything in Its Right Place

Los Angeles…

The lights on the Spearhead Platform shot into the clouds hovering in the night sky, and the Crusaders materialised on the roof of their penthouse base. As they tiredly stumbled forward to the entry hatch, an awkward silence hung over them all, like a pitch-black storm cloud that would burst into a flood of torrential rain should anybody dare to break it. The team shuffled down the staircase and reached the locker room, with Techsmith taking special care to not disturb the monster's heart she carried in its portable containment unit in her hands like a briefcase. One by one, they made it into the room, their varied thoughts filling their heads and keeping their mouths shut.

So is nobody going to address that phenomenal ass-kicking we just received?" Nocturne was the one to bring the rain. "Or does that responsibility fall to me once again?" Starbolt sighed, too tired to argue but unable to help himself.

"We managed."

"No, Andrew and Gunk 'managed.' All you 'managed' was breaking the world record for most walls destroyed by a single punch, and in turn, the destruction of several walls."

"I'd just like to take this opportunity to point out that this is the first time Thomas has said something nice about a teammate." Mind Master brightly interjected. "So if nothing else good comes out of any of this, at least we have that to hold on to."

"I was also…I did stuff…." Suzy mumbled with her hand raised slightly. Her comment fell on deaf ears as Techsmith intervened.

"As opposed to you, who stabbed the guy in the head and still failed to kill it?"

"Because all that laser and missile fire on your part was so effective." Thomas snidely retorted. She raised the metal case in her hand as she spoke.

"Don't toss the useless ball into my hands! Not when I was the one who figured out how to stop the son of a bitch to begin with!"

"And were you the one to put the big bastard on his back?" Gunk slammed his fist against the locker next to him in a bid to draw some attention.

"Stop it!" His face was morphed into an expression almost resembling a frown, but not quite. "Must you always bicker? Why can't we just regard each other with an inkling of respect?"

"There's that fighting spirit!" Nocturne's tone came off as insensitive to whatever constituted Gunk's ears. "The one who actually finished the fight for us, single-handedly. Good to finally see the strongman actually using his strength." Gunk's voice reverted to its standard tone, his calmness corrupted slightly by his lingering thoughts about his role in the battle.

"If that statement was meant to be complementary, it seems sharing a living space has not afforded you much clarity on my personality."

"And if you think what you did qualifies as getting your hands dirty, you're REALLY not cut out for this line of work."

"And what, you are?" Techsmith snapped in defence of Gunk. "With your lethal weaponry and your screw-everything-attitude, you think YOU'RE more qualified than he is?"

"I have experience. Experience in things that repulse him. So yes, Lizzy, I think I'm among the very few qualified people in this room." As the argument wore on, Starbolt grew increasingly irate. Truthfully, he was about as happy with the way his team's first mission went down as Thomas was. His disappointment at how the team performed only grew into aggravation as he was made to hear them bicker. In both cases, his control over the conflict was almost non-existent. But as he saw the venturing look on Andrew's face encouraging him to intervene, he found the will to step into the fray as a peacemaker. Sort of.

"Everybody stop!" Starbolt's demand was immediately met, as the off-put Crusaders turned their eyes to him. Suddenly, he realised he had to say something. His mind flickered, and he quickly formulated a shoddy speech to quell their agitation. His words were shaky, his tone uncertain, but he nevertheless did his best to project the kind of presence and authority his idols would have in the same position. "I-I know that this has been an especially hard hit to us all. It was our first mission, and we dropped the ball. But we saved lives tonight and obtained a major asset in the process of figuring out who was behind this attack. The DSA is sure to move out teams to protect Prometheus Innovations installations worldwide. We need to help out as well as we can with what we have at our disposal. Lizzy, get to work analysing that power core thing as soon as possible. It could give us a lead on where the monster came from. We might have botched our debut. But that means our comeback is gonna be that much better. We'll pull together, and we'll get…something."

Two days later…

"We haven't got crap." Kon declared.

"Maybe it's a problem with the satellite." Andrew considered. From her seat on the couch, Suzy shrugged, while Kon and Andrew stood befuddled by the TV as the screen blasted blue. Thomas walked out of his dorm to the sight.

"Good to see everyone is pitching in to help the search effort." His voice was as deep and deadpan as ever.

"We're taking a relaxation period." Kon cracked.

"Right. And you earned it. It's been a whole two hours since you got any sleep."

"Tell that to Lizzy." Andrew said. "She's been in the lab with that monster heart for a whole day now."

"Well, it's encouraging to know that 24 straight hours of work has brought about no significant breakthroughs whatsoever."

"I'm sure something will come out of it. Try not to be so pessimistic." Kon raised a confused eyebrow at his friend.

"You realise who you're talking to, don't you?" His confusion spread to his vocal chords.

"Hey, guys?" Suzy's low voice once again went unheard.

"If this guy wrote an autobiography, it'd be called '31 Flavours of Bigotry: 350 Years of Watching People Be Assholes.'" It seemed Kon had found a way to vent his annoyance with his vampiric teammate in a less physical manner.

"Guys, what about...?"

"The first page would be a disclaimer stating that he accepts no responsibility for any manic depression or suicide attempts as a result of intense pessimism." Thomas – who couldn't bring himself to care about the disparaging comments Kon was throwing his way – was the one to hear Suzy's call for attention. Andrew had heard it too but was too polite and too aware of how much Kon needed the outlet to stop his rant.

"Hey, SHUT UP!" Thomas' shout took Kon by surprise.

"Take it easy dude, it's a joke."

"Suzy wants to say something, wise guy." Everyone turned to look at her. It seemed finally receiving attention was a bit much for her to handle, and she struggled to articulate herself under her teammates' watching eyes.

"I just…do you guys…where's Gunk? He walked off before and, like, the TV went all weird, and he was here a second ago, but-" As if on cue, the TV regained its signal, and moments later Gunk came down from the locker room, drawing everyone's gaze and giving him cause to stop in his tracks at the open door.

"What is it?" He innocently inquired.

"Where'd you skip off to?" Thomas crossed his arms as the words dropped from his lips.

"The roof."

"Why?"

"I was turning the satellite back on."

"Did you turn it off?" Andrew queried.

"Yeah." Everyone let out sighs of varying tone, ranging from frustration to bemusement.

"Okay…" Kon began, sounding mildly exasperated. "…why?"

"I wanted to see what you would all do."

"Well, now you know, so maybe refrain from doing it again." Andrew kept his cool as Thomas pinched the area between his closed eyes and Kon shook his head. Suzy simply grinned, amused at Gunk's antics. It was then that the familiar laugh of a certain robotic monkey made its way down the hall. Dexter swiftly leapt through the doorway, landing between Gunk's legs before bounding to the closest stool at the kitchen bench, servos spinning as it hopped up and down in place.

"Little Timmy fall down the well, did he?" Nocturne asked in a high-pitched, patronising voice. Dexter tapped a button on his chest, and from it emitted the recorded and very excited voice of Lizzy. It went:

"Guys, come to the lab. I've got something."

Lizzy's lab was a mess of scrap metal and loose tools when Kon, Andrew and Thomas walked in. Lizzy herself was pacing, fingers to chin, in front of a wall of holographic projections detailing various articles, her crimson hair dishevelled and her white shirt hanging loose past her black shorts. The lights were dim, barely illuminating the silver metal walls that made up the room; the holograms did enough to keep everything visible, though. Her work table in the middle of the lab was strewn with open potato chip packets, crushed soda cans and the open, orb-like, robotic heart of the monster, no longer glowing with electric light, now with several tools sticking out of it and parts of its structure removed. Dexter played with a screwdriver in the middle of the table as the three men approached Lizzy.

"So, what've you got?" Andrew asked.

"Dr Andrew Arkin." She turned to face the two with crossed arms and a wide smile.

"I'm sorry?"

"You've never heard of him?" Kon and Andrew shrugged. "Good, neither have I. Surprising amount of info on him, though. Jack of all trades, this guy; about a dozen PhDs ranging from physics to biology to chemistry to technology. Apparently, he lived with a high-level case of obsessive-compulsive disorder that he got therapy for since he was 14. He was fixated on the organisation of the universe he inhabited, which is probably why he jumped onto the science boat. 10 years later he was declared cured, and three years after that he's an accomplished scientist, with a wife and a house and a lovely little dog, who's spearheading research into universal disease immunity. Uh, Arkin is, not the dog, just to clarify…anyway, up to this point, everything's in its right place, y'know? So get this: the wife divorces him due to the relationship strain after finding out she can't bear children, takes the house and leaves him with nothing but the dog and his life's work...which he promptly lost when the experiment that his life's work has built up to went down in flames. He fell off the map right around the Battle of the Supers. No one's seen or heard from him since."

"What does any of that have to do with the kidnapping?" Kon asked.

"Arkin was big on hybrid formatting; merging the best parts of everything to create the best possible result. The monster, the heart, all of it looks like his work."

"How do we know this isn't someone else using his designs?" Thomas asked, confused by Lizzy's implications.

"Well, considering his reported mental state following his last experiment and that there aren't any records of him working on living weapons, it's reasonable to assume he could've snapped and built it."

"So what, he slept on his supposed psychosis for 10 years before suddenly attacking a high-profile gathering via giant Frankenstein monster?"

"I don't know, but I think the AC-17 in engraved in said monster's heart really clenches it for me."

"AC-17?" Kon chimed back in.

"He indexed most of his designs with the code. Arkin Creation-insert number here. And as I said before, there were no known designs of this nature. So far, this guy is our only real chance at figuring out what the hell is going on and where Christos might be. Whether we do anything with all this is on you, I guess." Her eyes went in the direction of her words. Both were aimed at Kon.

"I say it's worth a shot trying to find him." Andrew proclaimed. Thomas shrugged apprehensively.

"Seems like too much of a longshot to me." He voiced. Kon stood in contemplation for a moment as he considered his choice.

"Send the information about the heart to Alderman and see if the DSA can figure out where the material or components might have come from." Kon's order towards Lizzy was a vocalisation of his choice to pursue the potential lead. "We might be able to use it to track this Arkin guy down. Good job, Lizzy."

"Yeah, I'm awesome." She claimed. Kon felt the urge to comment, but her smile of gratification kept him quiet.

"So what happened to his dog?" Andrew asked with a head tilt.

"Records show he was left to a small Hispanic family." Lizzy answered.

"He's probably dead." Thomas stated coldly. Lizzy's jaw dropped as Andrew face-palmed and Kon let out a noise of utter shock.

"That's a horrible thing to say!"

"What, I'm not saying I hope he's dead or anything! Do the math, Arkin had him for three years and disappeared for a decade. Average life expectancy for dogs is 13, so it'd be no surprise."

"I know, but…I just don't want to think about."

"Well, it's probably true. Everything dies." Andrew chuckled.

"Says the vampire." He said. Thomas paused.

"That's fair." Another pause hung above the four. "Arkin Creation? Really?"

Back out in the living room, Suzy and Gunk sat quietly and watched the reactivated TV. Suzy's posture was awkward and cramped, as she attempted to accommodate the rather bulbously proportioned Gunk on the couch they shared.

"Is there anything you'd like to converse over?" Gunk propositioned as he shifted his head to the startled Suzy.

------ Cliffhanger -------

I guess