I counted on people staying away from me. The only ones I’ve ever tolerated have been my teammates of the stupidly named Resistance. Not even fond of the doctor that supposedly saved me, Daichi. 

And speaking of tolerance, I was not a fan of the gunfight we were in the middle of. We could have easily let the car drive by our place without needing to get involved, but I guess that’s not why I joined with them. I had nowhere else to go once the programming was broken from whatever Daichi needed Sidewind and me to do. The Nobles brought us to them, mentioning how Sidewind had the memories and personality of a fallen friend of Arid, Raven, and Dexter. 

And speaking of my moronic partner Sidewind, he stood still while mainly Arid and Raven laid down suppressing fire. I could have grabbed a gun from the van like they did, but guns weren’t for me. In addition, I actually enjoyed doing the one thing I was created to do: shoot sound from my cybernetic palms. 

“Looks like the number on the other side of the barricade is dwindling,” Arid said, retreating behind the full cover of the van. He looked to me. “Ready?”

I said nothing, and exited cover not even giving him so much as a look. Such a stupid question. I was always ready. 

As I stepped out, the bullets of the soldiers ricocheted off my mostly metal body, I rushed at a few bunched together. I palmed one in the stomach, lifting him before shooting him into a building with an extra burst of sound. I turned and kicked another before leaping at him, grabbing the back of his head and sending his face into my metal kneecap. His body flopped to the floor, his face now caved in as I super-punched another before reenacting that same motion sending a sound wave into his face, removing his head. 

Arid and Raven joined me, taking out the rest with their guns…and bullets. Only one remained. He was preoccupied with staring down another soldier dressed like him that came from the wreck with the girl. We would come to know the remaining soldier from the convoy by the name “Kingsnake”. The one from the wreck was Agent Seal. The girl with Seal was known by the codename “Voidclaw”, even though Seal referred to her by her real name “Jessica”. 

Arid and Raven fired their weapons at Kingsnake, but he absorbed the bullets as they ricocheted off his body like they did mine, though he didn’t have any cybernetic enhancements. I, at first, assumed it could have been something in the black turtleneck he was wearing. 

Kingsnake turned to Arid and Raven, giving them his full attention. I saw Voidclaw help Seal stand up straight and attempt to flee, but Kingsnake turned right back around on cue and halted their escape.

“No, no, no. You don’t get away that easily, you two,” he said. He turned back to us. “Listen, you killed my men, but I’m willing to let it slide and let you live as long as you forget what you saw here tonight and go on about your business. I’ve got something to handle.”

He turned back towards the other two and began walking towards them. Another bullet bounced off him and he stopped in his tracks, clearly annoyed. It was Arid that fired the bullet, but Raven wasn’t willing to let him fight alone as she fired as well. 

Though their attempts at harming Kingsnake were pitiful, I admired the commitment and I even believed my sound canons would do something. I fired at full power and the soldier remained unmoved. 

“That won’t work,” Voidclaw called out to us. “He’s bulletproof. And once he sets his feet, he has the choice to be completely unmovable.”

Kingsnake chuckled. “Girly, you could’ve still tried sneaking away, but you had to go and give away my abilities. That’s gonna cost you your freedom. And Seal’s life.”

Kingsnake sprinted at them at an abnormal speed with a knife drawn. Voidclaw slashed at the air carried both her and Seal through it. They appeared out of a portal that formed next to us. Kingsnake chuckled manically and spun around to face us.

“And now that I’ve got you all together…” he began, while getting into a sprinting stance. “It’s time to go to work.”

His eyes widened and he didn’t move. To my teammates’ surprise, he stood straight up and glared at us intensely, but he didn’t move from his spot. Raven cocked her head to the side.

“Uh, so are we gonna take advantage of this and get the fuck outta here…or?”

We all climbed into the van with the two newcomers and as Dexter started up the vehicle, I heard Kingsnake speak to seemingly no soul in particular. 

“Yeah. It’s him…I’m unsure of his connection to them, but they were lucky he was here…I agree…Let’s be more covert.”

I looked in the side mirror of the van and saw a hooded figure with a glint of a green-shaded sword: Titon was watching over us for some reason.

Seal peaked through the back door of the van, slightly cracking it open as Dexter continued to drive.

“Please refrain from doing that,” Dexter instructed.

“Sorry,” Seal said, sighing and closing the door. “Just making sure we’re not being followed.”

He looked at Voidclaw then the rest of us.

“Hey, uh, thanks for saving us,” he said with a smile on his face. “Now who the fuck are you?”

“Relax, you’re in good hands,” Arid told him. “We’re ex-soldiers. We recognize those outfits you all are wearing, but I thought the Omega Squadron was disbanded. And destroyed.”

“Omega Squadron?” Seal echoed. “No, you’re mistaken. We’re from the Alpha Squadron.”

Silence filled the back of the van. Of course, Sidewind broke that.

“Well, that’s convenient.”

“So, we’re your lesser counterparts,” Arid said, leaning forward on the bench. Seal shook his head.

“I wouldn’t go as far as to say that,” he denied. “I believe both organizations had their own reason for being created. Whatever the reason for yours’ creation most likely led to its downfall.”

“And what was the purpose of the Alpha Squadron being created?” Arid pried. 

“Listen no offense, I know you people saved us, but forgive me if I’m not entirely that trusting,” Seal said. 

“Well, as payment for saving your asses,” Arid said. Raven shot him a look from the passenger seat, but he ignored it. “How about you at least tell us if the Alpha Squadron and Alpha Corps are connected?”

Seal paused, obviously thinking about his answer and choosing his words carefully.

“I’ve never seen or heard the higher-ups communicate with anyone from the Alpha Corps,” he said. Arid sighed, visible disappointment on his mask. “But, I wouldn’t put it out of the realm of possibility.”

“Who’s the adorable little killer?” Sidewind questioned. Voidclaw frowned at him. Seal shook his head.

“Not here,” he said. “Speaking of, where’re you taking us?”

“We’re here,” Dexter said as the van slowed to a stop. We all stepped out and looked at the bright red sign of The Bloodbath, Erza Scarlet’s place of operations and business. She knew almost everything there was to know about the underground. 

For once, she was trying to stop us from entering as she saw us approach with the two refugees. 

“No, no. This is not a refugee camp, Arid,” Erza said, a few bodyguards of hers following her out. “There is no business in this. This is not a shelter.”

“Could you come up with any more asshole-ish clichés, Erza?” Arid asked, not really aiding the situation further. She just glared at him. Appropriate. “Tell you what, I’ll make a deal with you if we can hide out here.”

The word "deal" triggered a smile. A guard handed her a document on a clipboard and a pen. Arid signed it without reading and the document disappeared, disintegrating into a blood-colored smoke. 

“One more thing: I need to be in on the conversation. I’d like to know why you’ve brought them and who they are,” Erza added. Arid sighed. “Well, knowledge is one of my most powerful assets, hun. Can you blame me?”

We all entered the bar receiving looks from the female patrons. So, all the patrons. Erza followed us to a back room alone where my four teammates, the two soldiers, Erza and myself stood around a pool table. 

“So, first question, who’s the kid?” Arid asked. “She can’t be one of you, can she?”

“She’s not. Though she was created to be,” Seal explained. “They started creating and training kids like her which is what made me leave in the first place.”

“So I’m guessing you weren’t born with your superpowers?” Raven surmised. Voidclaw shook her head. 

“That’s okay, kid. Most of the Nobles weren’t either,” Sidewind said. Seal exhaled then eyed every one of us.

“Before I tell you everything I know about what’s going on, I need you to do something so I know I can trust you,” he said. “Give me your real full names. I’m aware of who the Omega Squadron soldiers were. Not what you look like now.”

Arid squinted at the request, but the rest didn’t make a face. Instead, they almost immediately abided by it.

“Raven Knight.” 

“Dexter Kingston.”

“I was John Armstrong. Now I go by ‘Sidewind’.” Seal furrowed his brow at Sidewind’s statement. Before he could ask his question, Sidewind answered. “The body of John Armstrong was temporarily preserved after the fall of the Omega Squadron and his personality and memories were uploaded to the body of a dead robot alien.”

“That sounds too specific to be made up,” Seal responded. “I’ll go with it. For now.” 

He looked to me. I did not wish to speak. Thankfully, my team spoke for me.

“We honestly don’t know where Desolate comes from,” Raven said. “We just know he was supposedly saved from death by Daichi and turned into…what you see. No memories or name.”

Seal turned to Erza.

“Erza Scarlet. You’re in my bar. That’s all you need to know,” she said.

“Fair enough.”

Seal finally turned to Arid, who appeared to be pondering Seal’s request since he made it. I was aware of how he felt about his mask. Raven had told us. His identity was sacred. The leader looked to us with sadness in the white eyes of the mask.

“Alexander Young.”

“Good,” Seal said. “Now, I was told we were created to keep the Nobles--when they would eventually be created--in line should they get out of hand, but they didn’t want to rely on Daichi’s faulty formula--or rather it was way more faulty than it was at the time the Alpha Squadron was formed--to make soldiers capable of taking down superheroes.”

“Who’s they?” Raven asked.

“The government. The shadow organization. Whatever you want to call it,” Seal answered. “But they began to think greedily and even more heartless, saying that we had lives before we joined the squadron, people we knew. They wanted to see if it was possible to train mindless, order-following soldiers from a young age.

So what did they do? What else but kidnap kids with no families? ‘Street urchin’. Jessica here was one of the first…successful experiments. We bonded during my remaining days there. But, once I learned exactly what they were doing to her, I grabbed her and bolted. They gave chase of course. And that’s how we ended up in that car wreck.”

“Lucky you,” Arid said.

“Truth be told, I wanted to let you all serve as a distraction as Kingsnake drove his knife through each of your helpless bodies, and give Jessica and me time to slink away,” Seal snapped. He then looked at the girl. “But, she has a good heart. And vicious instincts.”

“So, if your squadron was created to keep Nobles in line, what the hell was the Omega Squadron for?” Raven pondered. “We did seemingly pointless missions that any normal soldier could do.”

“Perhaps, they were training you for something,” Seal said. “But I can’t answer that. Is there any higher up that was there that is alive now? Perhaps they know.”

“Daichi, but he claims to know nothing. And we weren’t about to beat it out of him,” Arid said. “There’d likely be consequences we couldn’t fathom. And with his connections to a Cosmic Council member, I figured it best to let the information surface on its own.”

“How many of you are there?” Dexter asked. Seal shrugged.

“I’m not sure. When I left, there were around eight I was familiar with: Kingsnake, Lynx, Fox, Krow, Gator, Cat, and Lizard,” Seal listed. 

“Animal themed code names. Cool,” Sidewind said. 

“They’re also all animals that can be found with black skin, fur, and scales,” Raven mentioned. 

Swooning and sighs came from outside the door, in the bar. The females were reacting to someone entering. Erza opened the door to see two more soldiers in similar clothing to Seal and Kingsnake. They stood at the door and looked around the room we stood in.

“Speaking of,” Seal began. “Fox and Lynx.”

“Hi, Seal!” Lynx shouted, smiling so widely her eyes closed.

“You don’t look like you're here to attack us,” Seal added. 

“That’s ‘cause we’re not,” Fox said. She was the one the women were swooning over. I understood why. Her face, I will admit, was objectively beautiful. Yellow irises, brown hair in a ponytail that looked violet in certain light, fair skin, slightly slim figure. Lynx was not terrible looking either. Dark skin, white hair, amber eyes, and a figure similar to Fox’s but shorter and thicker. “And I go by ‘Rose’ now, Seal.”

“Your OG name, huh?” Seal said. 

“You gonna ask for her full name too?” Arid snapped. It would make sense that Seal would already know her full name. I don’t think he cared. 

“I don’t have a last name, asshole,” she responded. “Who are these pricks?”

“Your lesser counterparts,” Sidewind chimed. Rose looked at his LED screen with a “(:” spread across it. 

“We’re from the Omega Squadron,” Dexter explained. Rose raised an eyebrow.

“Am I supposed to know what that means?”

“They’re from an organization like the Alpha Squadron--”

“Only Omega,” my idiotic partner added. Seal glanced at him then back at Rose.

“Right, only Omega,” he finished. Rose squinted her eyes, clearly confused.

“The fuck does that mean?” Rose continued. 

“We’re soldiers like you. Only trained for a different purpose,” I said. The room was stunned when I spoke. Maybe people assume I don’t have vocal chords. Rose kept her eyebrow raised.

“Why didn’t you just say that?” She exhales and looks at Seal, then the child. “So, you had the guts to defect from the psychos at Alpha, huh?”

“Why’re you here, Rose?” Seal questioned. Rose smirked.

“Simple,” she said. “We defected, too. Right around the same time you left actually.”

Arid squints at both the women standing in the doorway, Rose still receiving longing looks from the women in the bar and dining area.

“How do we know we can trust you?” Arid asks. Rose, with a smile still on her face, goes to speak when a black bird smacked against a high, small window in the room. Everyone turned to it

“How often do birds do that here?” Rose asked Erza. Erza shook her head.

“I’ve never seen that happen before,” the woman clad in scarlet responded. Rose looked to Seal with a concerned look on her face, a frown coming over it.

“You think--”

“There’s no way. He’d have no way of tracking us,” Seal said, then he paused. “Unless you--”

“Oh, please, Seal. If I was here to kill you,” she began, her yellow eyes losing the light in them as she said her next words. “I would’ve done so already.”

A chill shot through the room. Figuratively, as I cannot feel cold. 

“That’s hot,” Sidewind said.

“Speakin’ of hot,” Lynx spoke to Erza. “Do ya mind if we get a lil more privacy?”

She was referring to the gathering women outside the door, still staring at Rose. Erza simply walked to it and shut it, causing groans and whines to rise on the other side. 

“How did you escape?” Voidclaw asked, seemingly genuinely curious for Rose and Lynx’s tale.

“Saying we were going out for a walk,” Rose started.

“Then killin’ a few guards and stealing as many weapons as possible before bolting!” Lynx finished. Arid stepped in the middle of the room to make himself the center of attention.

“So, if we’re going to work together to take down Kingsnake…” He paused, waiting for objections. They never came. “Then we need to know your superpowers and available arsenal.”

“All of us Alphas have variations of the same powers. Some substantially stronger than others with certain abilities,” Seal informed.

“We’re all pretty much advanced humans,” Lynx added. “But some of us can regenerate really fast and some of us are bulletproof.”

“Some got the short end of the stick though. Instead of being overall superpowered, they just received one or two abilities. Normally something strange like one can see through the eyes of a mechanical crow he controls,” Seal said. Arid paused before he spoke, most likely calculating how this information could be of use to the team.

“Right…And weapons--”

Cutting Arid off was a bullet that pierced through the same window the bird crashed into. It bounced of Seal’s skin and ricocheted into Voidclaw’s neck. It felt as if it happened in slow motion. 

“My window!” Erza shouted, clearly not affected by the fact a child was just shot in her bar. Possibly dead.

And as dead as I was inside, this was not the case with me. In fact, Rose, Lynx and I crashed through a different, bigger window and chased after the source of the bullet. We saw a hooded figure sprinting across low rooftops of storefronts. 

As we sped closer to them, I shouted.

“Grab onto me!”

Both did so and I faced my palms at the ground and pulse sound through them. The force from the waves sent us upwards onto the sniper’s rooftop level. Before we could come up with a tactic to stop him, another hooded figure dropped in from above and landed on the shooter’s back. I saw the glint of a green sword and recognized the one that assisted us.

“Titon?” Rose asked. The cyber ninja turned around and said the only words assigned to him for the job.

“Madame Maker wants to speak with you and Neema, Rose,” he said before his body flickered and disappeared. I looked at the other two, but they said nothing. 

We returned to the room we originally gathered in with the sniper tied to a chair. Erza informed us that Seal, Raven, Sidewind, and Dex had taken Voidclaw to Dr. Daichi, leaving Rose, Lynx, Arid, and me to question the sniper. The sniper was dressed in a navy blue and black hoodie with an intricate mask on his face. Rose didn’t immediately remove it, so I assumed it had to be part of him, much like my half-mask. 

“Don’t make me start asking questions,” Rose began. “I think it’s best for you if you just start giving me answers.”
“I can’t give you answers if I don’t know what you’re looking for,” the sniper said, his voice soft and at the tone of a whisper. 

“Why, Krow?!” Lynx shouted, flicking a playing card out from her sleeve and aiming it at the sniper called “Krow”. 

“The bullet was meant for Agent Seal,” he answered. “Did none of you see the bullet bounce off his body?”

“I’ll be askin’ the questions here, buddy!” Lynx shouted.

“But you know Seal’s skin can’t be pierced,” Rose said. “So why would you even attempt something so pointless?”

“The bullet Kingsnake gave me…he said it was specially crafted to take him and Seal down,” Krow explained. “Our orders were to keep her alive. I didn’t mean to hit the kid.” 

Krow hung his head low. He seemed genuinely upset that he nearly killed Voidclaw. He could have also been lying. Or he could have been genuinely upset that he failed his mission and could care less about the kid. It was hard to read him through his mask. Rose was sharpening her combat knife for more answers. Lynx just mean-mugged him. And Arid and I exchanged looks, shaking our heads at the mess their organization was. 

Krow sat up suddenly. 

“I’m bait,” he said. Rose turned to him with her knife still in hand.

“What?” 

“I’m bait. I was bait,” he repeated. “He’s probably tracking my location. Maybe the tracker is on the sniper rifle itself.”

On cue, there was the sound of guns clicking and cocking in the bar area. Erza opened the door and Rose, Arid, and I filtered in, leaving Lynx to watch Krow. In hindsight, it most likely wasn’t the best idea, logically speaking. 

The man of the night, Kingsnake, entered the bar with his hands up. 

“How do your people know it’s even him?” Arid asked Erza. A valid question. For once. 

“Before they left, Seal briefly showed me a picture and I took a picture of the picture and posted it up on that bulletboard,” Erza explained, pointing at a bulletin board in the bar with Kingsnake’s picture under it. Above the picture was a word photoshopped in blood: “WANTED”. 

“Relax,” Kingsnake said to the entire bar. “Just wanted to know where Seal and the kid went. No biggie. Just gimme what I want and I’ll be outta of your hair.”

“Like fuck we’re gonna tell you, asshat,” Rose said. “Pretty fuckin’ dumb of you to just give yourself up to us. Some plan using Krow as bait.”

“So…you won’t tell me what I wanna know?” Kingsnake asked. Rose squinted at him, wondering what he meant. All would be explained as a smoke grenade was thrown through the hole in the back room, lowering visibility to zero for that room. And as everyone turned to see what the noise was, Kingsnake himself released a few onto the floor or the bar area. 

Erza’s soldiers fired at where Kingsnake stood before the smoke rose, but he was already gone. In his place stood a mountain of a human, larger than any of us in the bar. He began to walk around chopping the soldiers in the neck, knocking them unconscious. They weren’t firing their weapons at him because they didn’t see him before he appeared before them. Rose and Arid fished through the smoke for either Kingsnake or the mountainous one. I knew where Kingsnake was headed. 

“You guys good?” Lynx asked, coughing on the smoke. She was pushing forward into the bar, away from Krow.

“Lynx!” I shouted. “Don’t leave Krow alone!”
My warning had been too late. Through a gap in the smoke, we all turned to see Kingsnake staring back at us from behind Krow with a knife to the sniper’s throat. He stared at us as he brought the knife across his neck and let Krow bleed like the child did before the smoke came back over him, allowing him to vanish. 

We all turned back around and the mountainous man did not repeat the same vanishing act. Arid and I rushed at him simultaneously. As I extended my palm to attack, he grabbed my arm and twisted my wrist. He did the same to Arid. I was ready to twist around and hit him with the other palm, but his leader spoke.

“Gator, we did what we came to do. Let’s go.”

I was unable to pinpoint his voice. And as the mountain called “Gator” dropped us, he disappeared like his leader.

As the smoke dissipated, I saw Rose with her guns drawn wiping her eyes with the back of her hands. Lynx was bent over coughing. Arid stood up after me and we both looked to Krow, who was bleeding out, but not yet dead. Erza was standing right outside the door he was dying in with her arms folded, eyes closed, head down. Her brow was furrowed, so she was clearly frustrated. 

Arid and I stepped into the room as Krow choked on his own blood. 

“There’s no time to take him to Daichi,” Arid said, with no urgency. I didn’t feel the need to save him either, but it was possible for him to provide further information on who we were up against.

“I can heal him,” Erza said, stepping into the doorway. Her eyes had changed. Her irises blood red and her sclera pitch black. 

“If that’s the case, why didn’t you heal the kid?” Arid questioned. 

“I have my reasons,” Erza said. Her face was completely unchanged by Arid’s question, if not more frustrated. It was as she was daring him to ask why. Arid wisely did not. She walked up to the choking and dying Krow and stared him in his eyes.

“Listen. You’re going to have to sign your name on this document in order for me to save you,” she said. We did not know what she was referring to until she made a document that looked exactly like Arid’s from thin air. She handed Krow a pen and he signed his name as legibly as possible for someone about to die. She took the pen back and both it and the document disappeared like they appeared. 

Erza then held out her hand at Krow’s throat and red mist appeared around her hand, extending to his throat. Krow’s coughs became less and less frequent as he was brought back from the brink right in front of us. 

Krow held his throat and gave us a thumbs up. Arid and I both turned to Erza with Arid asking a valid question.

“What the fuck are you, exactly?”

“Now is not the time for you to know,” she responded while walking out and tending to her soldiers in the bar area. We both followed her out, leaving Krow to come to on his own, while we stopped Rose and Lynx from leaving.

“I think we should temporarily team up,” Arid called out. “We’d like to know more about the enemy. And with you two, Seal, the kid, and possibly Krow, we might be able to figure out how to beat this fucker.”

Lynx looked to Rose for an answer. Rose shrugged.

“Sure. Whatever.”

“Where are you two headed?” Arid asked.

“Relax. We’re just going to see someone,” Rose responded. “We’ll be back.”