Steelsoul/Rampage
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
“They’re all dead, sir. No survivors.”
The patrol officer’s words reached into the mind of Detective Junkers, as a surge of hot coffee flooded his mouth. The seasoned cop looked over the wreckage with a grim, cynical stare. Another damned villain from the Isles had swept into his city, brought down some hell on his city. The bank was robbed, a scientist kidnapped, a building burned to the ground, and worst of all… this. An entire lot full of cars, all reduced to scrap and rubble. Junker’s walked slowly, calmly through the cordoned off sections, examining the scene. Some of the cars were flipped, either from explosions or the massive tremors that had been caused. Others were ripped into savage halves, as if by some angry child with unholy strength. Stopping and turning to the officer reporting to him, Junker’s noticed what may be a slight clue. A partial palm print in an engine block. “Get the CSI over here to cast that. And Reynolds, you mean to tell me that every longbow officer dispatched was KIA?” the detective probed. Villains usually only used enough force to make a speedy escape, not stay around and cause a slaughter that could get them arrested. “That’s right, Detective. All the Longbow, our own men. A lot of good people…” Emphasizing the officer’s words was the fact that as they spoke, a tow truck was pulling the remains of a PPD Hardsuit out of a brick wall, it’s occupant still partially inside the suit, his torso crushed like a canned ham, liquids dripping down the once polished chrome. “Christ. Get Simpson on this. I want her analysis yesterday!” It was nearly midnight when Lieutenant Alice Simpson, PPD Psi-Division arrived on the scene. A post-cognitive specialist, Alice’s abilities were a bitch to use, legislatively speaking. Every time she deployed her reading powers, 2 other psychics from the PPD (one of them from Internal Affairs), and another selected by the Paragon District Attorney’s Office, had to be employed to read her mind to check for factualness. However, with this many Law Enforcement officers slain, no expense was to be spared. “I’m ready, Detective.” Lieutenant Simpson’s voice was calm, cool, emotionless. She had to empty her head in order to take in the scene, to understand what happened before. As she walked the lot, her eyes closed, she began to fold back time in her mind’s eye…
“Just fucking die already!” snarled the man with the blonde hair, his fist impacting with the PPD Hardsuit, shattering it’s steel and titanium armor. All he had wanted was to rob the bank quickly, but he was not in a good mood. Ever since his temporal adventures, his anger had grown more and more. And now he was unleashing it on Paragon City. Around the two combatants was blood and fire, smoke and steel. Shattered husks of automobiles burned, their fuel adding to growing fires around the area. Amongst the wrecks, spread about as if an afterthought, were the quickly cooling corpses of a longbow assault squad, their weapons broken and scattered. A jetpack spun in circles, it’s stabilizers damaged, a morbid sort of child’s firework in the scene. As for the battle, the man with the blonde hair was winning. The Hardsuit’s laser cannon fired a barrage of energy, which was mostly absorbed by the dark, swirling aura around the man, but it did cause him to spit, possibly in anger, possibly in pain. Then his hand reached behind him, through the hood of a car, and he grabbed the engine. A brief yank, and a swing of superhuman force sent the heavy piece of machinery crashing through not only the Armor, but it’s pilot as well, his face being crushed, erased before his assailant’s unblinking eye. “Fuckers should have left me alone…”
Detective Junker’s watched with shock as his Psi-Operative fell over, leaning against one of the cars that had just been burning in her mind’s eye. The woman was screaming, howling almost incomprehensibly. As Junker’s ran to her, he saw her sobbing, afraid.
“So much anger, Detective. So much Hate. How can we fight something so evil?”
