Shadow slapped in a fresh clip and resumed shooting. "Talk to me, Mute. I’ve only got one more clip left and I’m low on grenades."

"I’m doin’ the best I can! This encryption is a bit more difficult than I’d anticipated." Mute hadn’t stopped typing since the shooting started and he leaned in close to the screen. "Who are those guys? I thought we took out all the techs."

"We did. These guys are new and armored. They seem to be crawling out of the walls." The M4 stuttered its deadly song and another armored attacker dropped. By Shadow’s count, that made three down but there were three more still peppering the doorway with incoming fire.

Koschei leaned over Whispering Knife and laid a glowing hand on his neck. Color returned to his face and some of his wounds faded as the healing energies poured over him.

"Why are you doing that? He was not fit. He was not worthy, like me. Like you were." Nova vaulted the desk, landing in a fighting stance.

Koschei rose to her feet. "I don’t leave my friends behind to rot."

"We weren’t friends, we were rivals. You were the one who was chosen to be one of our Lady’s Valkyrie, you were the one who had our mistress’ favor and you were the one ended up the traitor."

"Jealous much?"

"Dead much?" Nova snarled and she produced a wickedly sharp kris and lunged.

Koschei rolled past her and retrieved her spear in one fluid motion. "I’ve been dead before. Didn’t much enjoy it and I don’t care to go back."

"We can’t all have what we want."

The fireaxe whistled, sailing in a deadly arc, and split the cement support column in half. Mouthymerc laughed in amazement, knowing it would have done the same to him if he hadn’t dodged just moments before. He took a step back and fired an eighteen-round burst into the villain’s chest that sent the armored foe staggering backwards. Eris followed up with a line of fire that spit up chunks of cement in the ground between Mouthymerc and his foe.

"Watch your fire, girl!"

"Quit getting into melee with him!"

Mouthymerc grunted and hopped backwards fifteen feet, propelled by his jump jets. "He’s not giving me many options." He fired several bursts at the target that seemed to ricochet ineffectually and continued to retreat to another column.

Their enemy shook his head, clearing it of cobwebs and retrieved the axe, only to be knocked to his feet again by a blast from Eris’ grenade launcher. She tried to trap him with an immobilizing foam grenade but the plate armor’s servos screamed to life and ripped the rapidly solidifying polymer apart. His hand flared brightly and he launched a stead stream of fire that engulfed Eris’ 40mm cannon.

Inside the suit, dozens of alarms screamed at her in protest and warning, so she reluctantly toggled the eject button, sending the damaged cannon high into the air, accompanied by the ammunition. The case exploded seconds afterwards and her regret turned to relief. "This one has teeth."

"You didn’t think it was going to be easy, did you?"

"Gamma’s still not moving and we’re getting some radio interference. Alpha’s not reporting either," Avatar reported. "It’s time to bring in the reserves."

"We knew it was inevitable," Equinox said. He reached down and pulled on his coat.

Hephaestus looked up at Equinox and shook his head in wonder. "Here we are in the middle of a battle taking potshots at the enemy and you’re still wearing a suit. Amazing!"

Equinox shrugged. "Some people use Kevlar for armor; I use Armani."

"Asshole! I’ll peel you like an apple!" Mouthymerc shouted. The remnants of his chaingun lay on the ground beside him, courtesy of his opponent’s axe. It had taken three solid hits, but the villain finally dislodged the chaingun from the mooring on the merc’s arm as he lay trapped beneath the concrete block.

Eris’s boosters flared to life and she rammed the villain; he bounced three times before screeching to a halt. The villain’s once-pristine armor was a jagged and cracked caricature of mismatched plating and sparking electricity. Here and there, raw circuitry was exposed and leaking fluid but he staggered to his feet, assisted by the axe. Eris lifted the concrete slab and Mouthymerc scrambled from beneath it.

A reinforced baton sprung from a recess on Mouthymerc’s armor. "Let’s do this." Eris launched another grenade that exploded behind the villain, tossing him forward – right into Mouthymerc’s charge. The first blow caught the enemy in the head and the second, in the middle of the stomach. The villain returned a deadly stroke that would have disemboweled Mouthymerc were it not for the armor, and followed through with a forward kick.

Eris stepped into the melee and threw two strength-enhanced punches that rocked the villain and he was trapped between the two agents. Mouthymerc swung his baton again; the first blow was low and the second, a wild overhand swing that would have felled a lesser man.

Their opponent was not a lesser man.

He caught the baton in an armored fist, inches from his head, and swung his axe at Mouthymerc, who caught the weapon. The two struggled against each other like maddened Olympians and, by all appearances, the deadlock would go on for days. The villain was the first to change tactics; he broke the baton from its anchor point and tossed it to the side. Mouthymerc took the axe in both hands, planted his boot on the villain’s chest and pulled, activating the attached rocket simultaneously.

The villain careened backwards and bounced off Eris’s armor and she brought both fists down in a titanic blow that dropped the villain to his knees.

"Hats off to you, sir. You fought well." Mouthymerc swung with all his might and the fireaxe cleaved through the armored neck with ease. The head clattered to the ground unceremoniously, followed shortly by the rest of the body.

The kris seemed to be everywhere at once, first high, then low, then left, then right, and Koschei could barely keep the spear in between herself and the deadly knife. She hadn’t taken any serious blows, but it was only a matter of time.

Koschei swept the spear’s butt low but Nova leapt over it and shoulder-blocked the agent, slamming her against the wall. She dodged Nova’s follow-through knife thrust and it took a chunk of plaster out of the wall.

"Quit running, coward! Die like the dog you are," Nova snarled. She caught Koschei by the sholder again and flipped her onto the security desk. The kris stabbed downward and Koschei rolled left, right, then left again and flipped backwards, barely retaining her spear.

Taking advantage of the longer reach, she thrust across the desk, attempting to impale Nova. The blade barely grazed Nova’s side but left a bleeding line in its passing. "Isn’t that where you drove that kris into me the last time?" Koschei’s taunting grin faded quickly and she cart-wheeled to the side in order to avoid Nova’s flying kick.

"Keep hopping, bitch. Too bad your boyfriends downstairs are going to pay for your incompetence."

"The Aleph protocol?" Koschei lunged with the spear, tearing another hole in Nova’s shirt.

"Exactly. Even now my shocktroopers are wiping out your people downstairs, while upstairs, they’re collecting samples and data. You thought to limit our access to the measly tokens you would throw at our feet. Instead, we will have it ALL!" Koschei barely blocked the flurry and the spear was starting to show wear from the kris’s blows.

"You were going to betray us all along. You agreed to this just so you could have access to the Shop’s weapons and armor."

"Of course. And once we have it, we’ll be the dominant military power in Africa. We’ll level the Alliance and afterwards, we’ll crush the entire Conspiracy and all thanks to you and that Consortium pansy you call a leader."

On the floor, Whispering Knife groaned and bled, oblivious to the rest of the world.

Behind the armored attackers, the six shocktroopers crept forwards, keeping to the walls. Shadow’s shots were deadly accurate, but an occasional bullet whistled past them. Finally, they came to the room just behind the Shop agents.

"Shall we take them from behind?" Minion #1 asked.

"Why should we? Perhaps we should let them do our dirty work for us." Minion #2 replied.

"That would not be honorable." Minion #1 responded.

"Piss on your honor and piss on you. I say we wait." Minion #2 snarled.

"I say we attack!" Minion #1 shouted.

"I say you’re both morons," Minion #6 sighed. He pushed his way forward and flicked the safety off his weapon, starting a sweeping attack that took all three Shop attackers from behind. The other shocktroopers responded reflexively, firing on full auto at the unprepared victims. Minion #2 shouldered #6 to the side and they streamed into the room, checking the bodies (and shooting them several times to be certain the job was done.

"Thanks for the rescue," Shadow said, relaxing. "I was beginning to think we were done for."

"You still are," Minion #1 said and the rifles snapped up, locking onto Shadow. The look of shock on his face would have been funny in most other circumstances; in this case, it was tragic.

*KRAKA-THOOM*

The explosion was loud – too loud, Avatar though. "Where did that come from?" he asked.

"It sounded like it came from Beta team’s position." They looked at each other for a moment then Hephaestus scrambled for the microphone. "Delta to Beta: please report."

Static was their only response.

Mouthymerc started to revel in his victory, but his brain latched onto several inconsistencies. There was no blood leaking from the corpse, the armor sounded strangely hollow and he’d seen enough decapitated bodies to know that they tended to twitch a little afterwards, unlike this one.

And then there was the whine that had started seconds after the body had hit the ground. He thought it was his imagination at first, but it was definitely there and it was definitely growing louder and it was definitely coming from the apparently empty shell that he and Eris were fighting moments earlier.

"Is this normal?" Eris asked. "This isn’t normal, is it?"

"No! RUN!" Mouthymerc turned on his heel and ran, using his boosters to speed his retreat. There was a loud noise and everything went dark.

Leopard, Trinity and Equinox landed on the roof, the ladies with all the grace of a cat leaping from windowsill, he with all the grace of a sack of potatoes dropping to the floor. He shrugged out of the jetpack and dumped it to the ground, twirling his cane all the while.

"Nice landing," Trinity said. Leopard laughed and piled up the jetpacks.

"Hey, I’m a bureaucrat. I don’t do acrobatics." He strolled towards the door as if on a leisurely walk; Trinity was only a few steps behind. That’s why she almost tripped over Equinox when the door suddenly burst open, slamming against the wall. The shattered remnants of the lock clattered to the roof.

Trinity let out a small gasp and reflexively retreated a few steps as the monstrous, armored form of Villain X emerged from the darkened stairwell like a nightmare. "Hello, Equinox. I hear you’ve been looking for me."