"I doubt it, he's too stubborn to die." Regulus answered, picking his teeth with a stick. "And it's not even like we can contact him, that place has a jamming frequency up that we can't match in order to get through. He's on his own."
Cheryl was busy keeping an eye on the distractions keeping the security detail busy. "Uh, guys? I think we've got a situation."
Preacher snapped his head up in alarm. "What is it, Cher?"
"Part of those security goons are gone now, I think they went back inside."
"They had to have found out Wien's there. He's screwed."
"I don't think so, because they probably would have sent the entire building after him. Knowing Wien, he more than likely gave them something else to deal with." replied Cheryl.
"Well, I hate to bring this up, but I think the holo projectors are running low on batteries," Reg stated with a heavy heart. "Look."
As the trio watched on, the trio of holo images slightly flickered and faded every few seconds. The diversions wouldn't last out much longer. "Great, just what we DON'T need. Damnit Wien, hurry up..." Preacher said bitterly as he gazed upon the CorSec building, wondering what was going on inside.
Pulling his trenchcoat over his face, Wien dashed and leapt through the fire as best he could, heading towards the ventilation system again. He could hear the door kicked opened and people shouting orders to contain the blaze. Leaping up and bracing himself against the sides of the vent, Wien slowly moved upward.
"We're sitting ducks. If Wien's not here soon, we've got to leave without him," Preacher stated as he turned towards the shuttle. "I'm going to get us ready. If he shows up, we'll have to take off as soon as possible."
Cheryl watched the CorSec headquarters intently as she silently prayed for Wiendigo to hurry up. But as she was, an explosion on the northern corner of the building rocked the area. Flames shot out of the windows as CorSec people on fire fell to the ground. Cheryl could only watch in horror at the carnage unfolding. "Oh my God..."
Groaning, Wiendigo limped his way out of what appeared to be the cafeteria. No doubt the building would be evacuating soon, escape shouldn't be that big of a problem now.
After getting out into the hall, he looked down at the floor, only to notice his leg was bleeding profusely. Sliding off his trenchcoat, he wrapped it around his leg, above the wound, to stop it.
"I couldn't have just stayed in bed, could I? Nooo, I had to go off on some cocamaniy mission to save the world from a new Hell. And do you think I'm going to get any thanks for it? Nooo, of course not! That's damn gratitude for you," Wiendigo ranted, trying to dig past the pain emanating from his leg.
Tapping his helmet, he tried to open communications to his teammates outside.
A red flashing light on the control console lit up. Reacting, Preacher flipped on the communications network. "Preacher."
"Preacher, it's Wiendigo, listen closely-"
"Wiendigo? Dammit, where the hell are you? We need to get out of here, if we stay any longer-"
"SHUT THE HELL UP AND LISTEN TO ME! I need the three of you to fly to the old Hell's location and destroy any equipment they could hope to salvage. I'm going to grab a shuttle from here and go to the new location and take it out. Now, can you comprehend that, or do I have to speak in grunts for you to understand?"
"...How do you expect us to do that, the site's going to be covered with CorSec."
"Not after the fact that I just took out their central mainframe."
"That was you? Those people..."
"They'll have to regroup, figure out what they're going to do about losing everything, since I also introduced a computer virus that'll take out the rest of their stations. They'll stop all other activities to get back up and running, including stopping salvage and construction operations. It should be relatively simple for you idiots. There's some plastique in the shuttle, just don't blow yourselves up."
"I'm glad you care so much for our safety."
"Move out, you little shit.'
"Blow it out your ass." Preacher shut off the communications line. Going out the back of the shuttle, he called out to Regulus. "HEY REG! GET YOUR BUTT IN GEAR! WE'RE OUT OF HERE!"
Sighing, he set the controls on autopilot and went to the back. Since he was clear of the dampening field, Wiendigo could now use his powers to heal himself. Fading amongst some shadows, almost immediately he came back out, his injuries gone. Sliding his trenchcoat back on, he watched the scenery go by as the shuttle flew towards its next destination: the building site of the new Hell prison.
His mind drifted back to his days in the old Hell. He had been a stubborn hardass before he was sentenced there, but even his time in that place proved difficult for one such as himself. Many atrocities went on there, and the world was oblivious to the injustice and corruption that went on. Even though Wien wasn't the world's best moral example, he had deserved better, especially for the vindication of why he'd blown up that CorSec building in the first place.
After this latest incident, it was as if he'd come full circle. Once again he'd caused the explosion of a CorSec building in retaliation for a personal attack against him. It'd first happened with the Vixen Gate, and now for rebuilding Hell.
Crystal. HIS Crystal, had sold them all out in hopes that her and Wiendigo would be truncated from being forced to go to the Wastelands. But CorSec had other ideas.
They wiped out Vixen Gate, except for Wiendigo who was elsewhere at the time. Malice, a long dead foe, had been revived by CorSec to serve as their executioner. And he was successful. He'd duped Crystal into helping him. Once Wiendigo returned, he was shocked to what had transpired.
He refused to join Crystal, and would have rather died with his family. Scorned, she was more then happy to oblige. After a long, hard-fought out battle and some serious wounds, Wien had slain his lover. Then came Malice.
Malice beat Wiendigo to the brink of death. There had only been one other time Wien had been that close, it was later on, with the Hunters, but this first time, he came back on his own, and that's when the Wiendigo was born.
Reborn from the ashes of his former life, like the phoenix of lore, Wiendigo was released from all the cares, worries, fears, and responsibilities of his previous existence. Lashing out with unbelievable rage and hatred, he easily killed Malice, but not before making him suffer hours of torture. What came next was logical.
He marched across the frozen tundra of Canada towards the United States, towards the closest thing resembling CorSec. His intense hatred and burning desire for revenge had been the only thing fueling him for those weeks on end. Finally, he reached his destination.
Without so much as a word, he marched into the building and killed everyone in sight. Then, heading into their chemical lab, he set it ablaze, and through the explosion, walked off again in no particular direction, until the military subdued him.
His story didn't begin there, and it wouldn't end on that note, but CorSec was now a major impact on his life, and he would be constantly involved with them.
Rather then simply killing him, CorSec wanted to break his spirit, but make him willing to serve them. That day never came, and that's the only reason they sent him to the Hunters, because they knew it wouldn't. There, they could at least control him to some extent. Or so they thought.
Now, for the hellish place aptly named Hell prison, and it's rebuilding, Wiendigo once again extracted his revenge on CorSec, even upon those who may have been innocent. He didn't care, that was someone else, someone else long ago, in another life. His whole life was pain, he more then loved to dish it right back.
Redemption could wait, for now, he wanted only revenge. Snapping back awake from his slumber, Wiendigo could hear the autopilot's alarming beeping, indicating that he'd reached his destination. Taking over the controls again, Wiendigo set the shuttle down in the soft snow. He knew exactly where he was, he was in Canada, he was in the Rankin Inlet, he was home.
Cheryl came out next. Still shaken from the incident at the CorSec building, she solemnly leaned against some debris.
Regulus helped Preacher unload the shuttle. Setting down the main fuse connector, he turned to Preacher. "Think she's gonna be okay?"
"She should be, she just needs time to process it, what she saw was pretty traumatic. In fact, I'd saw she's holding up pretty well under the circumstances."
"Okay, how do we set these things?"
Preacher opened a small box and took out some climbing gear. "I'm climbing down one side of this cliff face to set the charges along the base on one side. You're going to take the shuttle down and do it on the other side. Then we're going to send the fuses up and Cheryl's going to connect them to the central fuse."
"Why don't we just use our powers?"
"Try it, see what happens."
As Regulus started to use his abilities, it came clearly apparent that he wasn't doing anything. Nothing was coming. "Huh?"
"Wiendigo sent me stats on the area before we left. The whole area's comprised of some mineral formation that negates special forms of energy projection. We'd use the shuttle's laser to do this, but they fall under the special forms."
"Well...yea..."
Cinching up the climbing harness, Preacher started securing the rope to some sturdy debris. "Alright, you know what to do."
"Gotcha."
"Cheryl, we're heading down, you've got your job."
"Right Preacher."
Preacher secured the equipment to his back and slowly descended over the cliffside. Looking down, he gulped nervously. The water was an extremely long way down, and even then it was slamming against the rock formation pretty rough. "Great, I just love this job, really I do..."
Regulus flew the shuttle closely to the side of the rock foundation. Setting it to hover, he opened the back of the shuttle and started placing the charges. Attaching the wires to twelve separate charges, he opened a channel to Cheryl. "Okay Cher, got things finished on my end, how's the central fuse coming?"
"It's coming along just fine Reg, how's Preacher doing?"
"I'm just about to head over there. Soon as he's done, we can literally blow this pop stand." He heard Cheryl laugh at that over the radio.
Good,he thought. Looks like she's feeling better.
Preacher finished the last charge as Regulus flew up right under him. "Nice timing, Mr. Regulus."
"Why thank you, Mr. Preacher."
Unbuckling himself from the climbing rope, Preacher dropped onto the top of the shuttle. Climbing through the hatch in the roof, he lowered himself in. "Alright, let's hit it."
Bringing the shuttle back up to the top of the cliff, Regulus held it in position near the ground as Cheryl set the timer on the central fuse. "Two minutes until it blows." She confirmed as she climbed in.
"Take us out Reg."
"Roger." Pulling out of the area, Regulus sped the craft away.
Two minutes later, the fuse's time expired and sent the electronic charge out to all of the charges. In a magnificent display of pyrotechnics, the formation broke apart and collapsed into the ocean, destroying any sunken or salvageable remains of the former Hell.
"Mission's complete gang, let's go home." Congratulated Preacher. With that, Regulus set the autopilot for the space station. They'd earned the rest.
A single reploid, a safe distance away, watched them go, a smirk on his face. The same one who brought this to Wiendigo's attention in the first place. Turning, he vanished into the night.
They'd no doubt used the area because of it's extreme isolation, but even besides that, because they knew it had been his home, thanks to Crystal's betrayal. It was another personal attack against him. And once again, Wiendigo was going to do some damage.
As he made his way across the tundra, the land that had once, long ago, been his home, he couldn't but help remember his old days, the days when he was still innocent.
Suddenly, he lost his footing and went face first into the snow. Growling, he jumped up with his katana ready. No one around. Brushing the snow off, he looked down. He'd tripped over a sizable piece of metal.
Lifting it out of the snow, he examined it. It took a few moments, but he'd finally recognized it. It had been part of the worktable he'd been created on. Dr. Cornelius had spent all those years on him, and CorSec single handily destroyed the lab. Probably without extending much effort either. A few months ago when Wien had been out here last, the lab had been in great condition. Now, it was gone. CorSec would pay dearly.
Reaching into the darkness of his trenchcoat, he pulled a great deal of plastique from the shadow realm. Activating all of it, he lobbed it into critical structural points of the building. For added insurance, he placed explosives around his section of the inlet. Luckily, because of his single handed caused downfall of CorSec, the site was empty. "As it should be."
Getting back into the shuttle, he looked out over the area once more. It was a peaceful place. Probably the only time in his creation duration he'd known peace. Now he had really come full circle. The wind swayed the hovering shuttle slightly. It was close enough to a funeral he could have for his former self, this was more then appropriate enough.
Clicking the detonator, the ice and snow instantly flew into the air, along with metal and frozen dirt. The major chunks of the building slid slowly into the icy waters. The bottom was far enough down to make retrieval practically impossible. Even if CorSec could get back on their feet, they wouldn't go after it, it wasn't worth it anymore.
He set the autopilot to take him home, his business was finished here. It was time to go back to the station.
Wiendigo collapsed into the copilot's seat and fell into a deep sleep. There, he dreamt of simple times, he dreamt of a time when he was someone else, someone who actually cared.
Johnson stood nearby, hunched over, looking upset that his projects had failed. Spade walked over to him. "Don't worry, there's always next time, isn't there?" he told the man.
"Yes, there is sir."
"And that time will soon come. But lets put aside what has happened the last few days. Whatever damage we've taken, the Hunters will take more when they go up against Infinity Inc." Spade informed him.
"They will indeed."
Gazing up at the sky, Spade looked at the place where the station was. I'll get you! I'll get you yet, Hunters. For I will play the last hand in this game he vowed.