Forged from Steel

Nolan: "Again with these meta human robbers... I swear this is the third time we have tracked them down and put a stop to their raids."

Jeisen put one foot up on the high raise building in Reno. He had a good view of the city below him right now, Nolan floating next to him. The pair had tracked down the meta human gang of robbers for the third time now. These guys were just terrible at covering their tracks when it came to their plans. Who seriously uses an unsecured chat like skype to talk over plans of knock over a casino bank? Or actually in this case Vault. After their last incident in washington where they had their asses handed to them due to hostages, they thought it would be better to strike directly into a casino vault to grab the cash. The whole gang was here, all six members fully recovered from their last fight.

Jeisen: "Have to stop them first now don't we?"

Nolan just stared at him with a bored look. Fair enough, if need be, Jeisen could take on all 6 members at once if he needed to. But Jeisen wasn't one to count his chickens before they hatched. He needed to be cautious and take the group seriously as they were fully capable of killing. They had before and would be sure to again unless Jeisen put a stop to them once more. The only problem was.... he didn't know which vault they were hitting. Right now there were three vaults that matched the admittedly vague description from their plans. He had a good view on two of the buildings, but the third was almost a mile away from his current spot. He crouched down , bring a hand up to his helm as he zoomed the optics in to get a better lock at the casinos below. All he could do right now was wait...

Or not.

Nolan: "Sir, a alarm has gone off at the Royal vault. Looks like they were hitting the third location."

Muttering curses under his breath, Jeisen turned around and began running across the roof. No hesitation as he reached the edge, just jumping for all his might and letting his momentum carry him. After a brief fall, Jeisen raised his wrist to shoot out a grappling hook. He swung down to the ground and took off at full speed, cloaking in at nearly 150 miles per hour. In less then five minutes, Jeisen was at the scene. It looked like the gang didn't bother trying to go through the front doors, they just dug a path straight to the vault. Jeisen peered down the gaping hole and compared it too the 3-D map Nolan had displayed for him. The vault its self was a wide area, full of security measures to deter meta humans while also being a labyrinth. Jeisen groaned at the thoughts of chasing the gang through a maze, but least it would be a nice change of pace. Nolan flicked on his light and Jeisen jumped down into the hole, using the sides to slow his fall.

Another week has gone by since the incident, another week since the Marine Daniel Mason left that testing facility that ripped away his humanity, and transformed him into a monster. The scientists wished for him to stay and perform more tests, but the Marine wasn’t interested. He was strong enough to walk, and that’s what he did. A found himself in the streets of Reno, some small city feeding off the fame of Las Vegas. It didn’t matter to Daniel, it was far enough away from that damn facility.

In the first few days of staying in the city, Daniel tried to reclaim his identity, get money from his band. He had ID on him, but when the bank manager asked for him to remove the dark brown hood from his head so that he could see his face, the Marine couldn’t do so. He wouldn’t look anything like the man on that plastic card, his once sun-tanned, caucasian skin, was now a shiny silvery metal. All he could do at this point was leave the bank.

Over the course of a few weeks, he lives the life of a transient, a homeless man huddling around a fire with others like him. And that’s what he was; a man who lost his way, a vagrant forced to live on the street. Yes, the Gen-Tech people offered to pay him for his testing over at the facility, but he couldn’t accept the money. Everything about that place was painful to him.

He ate at soup kitchens, and occasionally slept in the shelters, becoming known as a hooded man, never to show his face to the public. He didn’t know why he was hiding, it wasn’t like people would treat him poorly, they would just think of him as a metahuman. They wouldn’t hunt him down and put him on a chopping block. Deep down, Daniel knew he was only hiding from himself.

A few weeks of living as a vagrant, it was a sunny day as always in present day Reno. The hooded man walked along the busy street in the part of town that held a lot of high risk casinos. He was never a gambling man, even if he gambled with his life many times in the military. Plus, he had not the money to gamble with. His quiet day was interrupted with the sound of a large explosion, shaking the ground below him. Daniel’s military instincts kicked in and he hurried to the source of the noise, people were panicking and running in all directions, smoke was rising from a hole in the street in front of a large casino.

In the panic, the hooded man saw a group of armed men hop into the hole. They looked dangerous and menacing, the kind of people who wouldn’t think twice before putting innocent people in danger to get what they want. No, this isn’t going to happen, a Marine wouldn’t allow this, human or not. He thought to himself before following the terrorists into the hole, not noticing the heroes who arrived just before his descent.

They probably noticed him enter, hopefully they didn’t think he was behind the incident.

Switching to infared, Jeisen noticed something odd ahead of him in the darkness of the tunnel. He could hear the sounds of the gang's bruiser smashing away at the walls to remove the dirt, but that was much further down the tunnel then where he was right now. No right now, in front of him was what appeared to be a man wearing a hoodie of some sort. It looked rather beaten down and worn as if the man never took it of, but why the hell was the man here? Jeisen paused debating it in his head. If he had fallen down, a normal person would have been hurt by the drop. No this man was walking fine and towards the sounds further down the tunnel. No normal human would think about going further down the tunnel.

Jeisen squinted at the man, pausing in his stride. He followed him closely, quieter then a whisper just watching the man from his back. He was unsure weither he should reveal his presence to the man or stay hidden. Before Jeisen could make his mind up however, A loud crash came from further down the tunnel. A small light lite the darkness like a candle flame in the distance. They had broken through to the vault corridors. Jeisen paused giving one last look at Steel before taking off further down the tunnel. He passed by the walking man quiet as mouse, but moving swiftly enough to cause a small gust of wind as he passed by. He would have to deal with the man later it seems, if at all.

With a slide, Jeisen came out into the tunnel, both guns drawn.... to an empty hallway. It was a fork in the road that the group had come out right in front of. Behind Jeisen in the hallway, the way back through the vaults corridors had been sealed off by a large amount of rocks. To his right was one path, to his left was another. Activating his thermal scans, Jeisen could see the foot prints of two people heading down one path and the foot prints of three people heading down the the other. There was one set of foot prints of what would appear to be the speedster running all over the place. He was generally the forward scout so he might have been running back and forth down the sheer white hallways between the two groups. It seemed however... that he wasn't coming back now. Jeisen paused as he looked at both paths before heading to the one on his right as it had three sets of prints instead of two. He would have to track down the other two once they got into the main area

The Hooded Man continued his walk down the tunnel, at first going at a slow pace due to the lack of visibility.  It was pitch black in here, but he can hear the footsteps and banging coming from the men he followed.  Not being able to see didn’t scare him, he learned to use his other senses in the military, there were times in the war where enemies ambushed his camp at the dead of night, and he had to think in the dark.  This wasn’t the war, but it was close enough.

The was a louder crash down the tunnel, a light breeze to his side, and a small light coming from the end of the tunnel.  They probably made it to their destination, Daniel would guess the casino’s vault.  He didn’t waste any time, taking a fast run to the light.  He was no speedster, but the marine was pretty damn fast, Olympian fast.  He made it to the light rather quickly and looked around.  

There was a fork in the corridor, the sounds of movement coming from both ends.  He looked down at the ground and noticed trails of dirt from the tunnel present in both hallways.  The Hooded Man mentally flipped a coin and decided to take the corridor on his left, taking to a sprinting run to catch up to the men.

He’d soon make it to the end of the hall, some kind of room with two of the armed men inside.  He didn’t waste his time being stealthy, his loud footsteps probably gave him away seconds ago.  What the two bank robbers would probably see is just random vagrant who happened to follow them down the hole, either a drunk nut case or he’s just plain stupid.

“Whoever you guys are… whatever you’re trying to do.. it stops right now..”  The man says with a demanding tone in his voice.  Hearing this from a hobo must sound pretty hilarious.

The one man in front of steel rose up from a crouched position to a towering height. The juggernaut damn near touched the ceiling with his head. The other smaller man turned around, ice forming on his hands. Both of them looked at Steel with both surprise and hate for the would be hero. Well the smaller man did at least. The big guy looked like he was struggling to walk and think at the same time. The ice man gathered a look of disgust at the poorly dressed man before him, clashing with his own suave suit he was wearing.

Ice: "Look... I don't know where the fuck you came from mate, but I suggest you just turn around and head back that way. Hobo or not, Lenny here will rip your head off and shove it where the sun dont shine..."

Bruiser: "Rip his head off... got it."

The bruiser took a suggestion for an order. He dug his hands into the ground before him and ripped up a large boulder. With relative ease, the man through it down the hallway at Steel. Ice looked peeved at his compatriots actions, but not terribly surprised. He just gave a weary sigh and watched what would soon to be another small stain on the floor of the corridor.

**************

Jeisen walked along slowly the corridor, noticing the signs of left over robot defense droids. It appears who ever was ahead of him was taking down the defenses of the vault with relative ease. Not good, but not unexpected. They chose this vault because they knew they could handle these traps. He came to a stop though as he heard sounds of combat ahead. Gunfire rang out loudly along with a commanding voice giving orders. Jeisen ducked around a corner peering around it to see three metahumans taking on a larger robot. A speedster was rapidly moving around it while the regenerator tried to just be a meat shield for the gunman who was raining down accurate fire on the bots hinges.

The robot threw the speedster off and down the hallway at Jeisen just before the gunman brough it down with one more shot to the head. The speedster slide across the ground and towards Jeisen's feet. Jeisen stood up and crossed his arms, staring right down at the robber before him. The man looked up at him with a look of bewilderment then anger.

Speedy:"God fucken damnit mate... do you ever just fuck off somewhere else.??"

Jeisen didn't answer back and instead looked up at the other two. The reg coward away in fear from Jeisen while the gun man simply raised his guns at Jeisen instead of the downed robot.

Jeisen: "Surrender?"

The speedster tried to sweep Jeisen's legs out from under him, but was answered back with a swift kick to the gut that sent him skidding back across the ground thanks to the motors in the suit. A new addition since the last time they had fought. The gunman opened fire at Jeisen.

The Hooded Man looks up at the towering meta-human, not fully expecting to meet one of his size.  He then looked at the smaller, probably smarter companion to the brute who was cursing at him, threatening to have his big friend kill him.  Daniel didn’t give a damn about threats, or any sort of risk to his life.

The tall mass of flesh spoke, sounding like a stereotypical henchman in old cartoons, big, strong, but very stupid.  Now suddenly, the behemoth had a massive slab of concrete in his arms, looking more than willing to toss it at the vagrant.  That slab had to weigh a ton or two, any normal person should probably run in the opposite direction and hope to not get squashed by it.

But Daniel Mason was no longer a normal man.  The brute throws the slab, it hurls at him with the intention of crushing him.  The hooded man knew for a fact, that it wouldn’t.  Time to get started… he thought to himself as his legs were positioned in a grounding stance before he rears his head back and shoots it forward.  There was a collision between the slab of concrete and the head of this stranger, the force of his head-butt shattering the slab in a few pieces, leaving it only as a few piles of rubble around him.

The man’s posture returned to normal, he showed no sign of any damage.  The slab did not hurt this vagrant one bit.

“One last chance.. stop what you’re doing.”  He said to the two, his voice unchanged, and his body unmoved.

The brute frowned trying to figure out why the man with shiny skin wasn't squashed like all the others. The ice manipulator however, tightened his eyes as he glared at Steel. His hands hung by his side, slowly turning blue as a frost began to creep up his arms and on to his body. His features began to grow more angular as they were sharpened by a layer of ice. His voice became as crisp as a harsh winter wind.

Ice: "Hmph... If you think that we broke into a highly defended vault just to surrender to the first hero we run into. Not the first hero we've beaten.."

Bruiser: "Don't we usually get hit over the head by the cloak guy though?"

Ice: "Shut up! I think this metal head needs to chill..."

With that, the ice manipulator let out a long breath of frost down the narrow corridor at steel. The temp dropped like a stone as his breath rapidly made it's way up the hallway.

*******

Jeisen's fight would be going lovely if it wasn't for all the god damn traps that kept spring up underneath his feet. One minute saw blades were popping out if the wall like some bad action movie and and next the floor was shifting around like in an earthquake. The trio of robbers was activly running away from Jeisen but less out of fear and more out of a need to keep running to avoid the traps.

Who ever designed this had way to much time on their hands and to much access to crappy movies.

The vagrant threw down his hooded coat, no use of having it now that the two have seen his metallic appearance.  He’d now stand in front of the duo with only his pants and shoes covering his body, his silvery chest revealed to them.  The metal man quirks an eyebrow at the sudden transformation of the smaller man, he seems to be armoring himself with spikes and ice.  It doesn’t matter, whatever his skin is made of, its tougher than any kind of ice.

The frozen guy huffs and puffs, and blows out a strong cold wind and the walls around this new hero begin to cool down.  He’s not quite sure how his new body reacts to extreme temperatures, and he’s not going to wait to find out.

He quickly kneels down and lifts up a large concrete lump, rubble from the slab he destroyed, and stood up looking right at the snowman.  With a quick movement of his arm, he hurled the chunk of stone at the ice guy, it traveling at a great speed due to the power behind his through.  His accuracy was also very high, making it so that the rock will most likely hit its target, and pretty damn hard.

The burly giant of a man chose the wrong moment to charge Steel. With a mighty bellow he charged forward like a thundering rhino only to be struck down by the hard thrown slab. The rock struck him across the dome and sent him flying backwards into a near by wall. He dented it with his large size and momentum, stunned for a second.

The ice user blinked, realizing that the stone that floored the big man was meant for him. His ice tinted blue skin faded to a pale white as he relized what that would have done to him. He did the only sensible thing he could do. He blasted a wall f ice in front of him and took off running down the hallway at full speed, ignoring the distinct possibilities of traps ahead.

The big man laid there fairly stunned but would recover soonish.

******

The regen guy was just a sorry bastard. He currently hs a spear through his arm and had broken his right arm at least three times by now. Jeisen wasn't even fighting him at this point, he just had the worst luck in Reno right now. He somehow activated every trap he came across like some sort of bad Indiana Jones.

Jeisen kept on fendin off both the fun man (who had lost his guns) an the speedster (who keep slipping). It was like some bad circus act or kids tv show. He didn't even have to do much at this point, just avoid the worst of the traps and let the fools take themselves out. Seriously they had done more to hurt themselves then Jeisen had done. All he had to do was lightly jog after them at this point.

Daniel grinned, it wasn’t the target he wanted to hit, but the result of his throw was successful, at least the big guy was down. By the look on the smarter thug’s face, looking down at his comrade, Daniel feels as though he made his point. He won’t be easy to take down. The room got cold again as the snowman makes a wall of ice, as if that would stop him.

Daniel shakes his head slowly and charges at the ice, throwing his fist at it with great force, using his own momentum as well. The ice wall shattered like glass, spreading all over the hallway. The vagrant looked down at his clenched fist, no damage, the punch didn’t even tickle. This caused him to grin again, he may look like the Silver Surfer, but this whole indestructible thing was pretty nice when he needed it.

His eyes slowly move to the downed behemoth, slowly walking over to the groaning mass. Of course the guy was in pain, he was hit in the head with a rock moving at a speed that would make it feel like getting hit by a Mac truck. How he was still conscious, was a mystery. Oh well, Daniel will soon fix that.

He kneels next to the big guy’s head and with one great punch, holding back to not smash his skull in of course, he smashes his fist into the brute’s lower jaw. A knockout punch.

After taking care of the big guy he stands up tall, and takes a run down the hallway after the ice guy, not going to let him get away.

The big man went down like a sack of potatoes. He was stunned before, but now he was out cold. The two brain cells he had before were now cut down to just one. Steel punched him hard enough to make him stupider.

Kid frost might be a coward, but he was no fool. AS he ran forward, he coated the trapped with a very thin layer of ice. After a few seconds, the ice wore off, but he was long gone. Behind him the entire hallway was shifting shape now as the traps were triggered. There were a set of fairly durable looking robots (4 str, dur, fs). Then a row of saw blades (6 str) that came out in a fairly random pattern from the sides of the walls and ceilings, but in a manner that could be passable to the person who could figure it out. After that there was seemingly blank hallway... but in realitiy, the moment someone (steel) crossed its threshold, a terrifying illusion would appear. It would be harmless, but only if the person moved forward without fear through it.

(Feel free to complete this little chase however you feel like it. The results of each trap is whatever you want. After you get through the last trap, come through a doorway into a circular room.)

***********

Jeisen: "So he is doing alright then?"

Nolan: "Looks like it, just took down the big man easy"

Jeisen: "Hmm..."

Jeisen was causally strolling along, carrying the regenerator by the scruff of his collar as he "chased" the other two meta human robbers down the hallways further. The two were doing some crazy flips and kung fu action to avoid the traps while Jeisen simply waited for them to end before walking forward. It was quite entertaining to watch though.

Daniel stops in his tracks as he discovers the security drones, and from the looks of it, they discover him as well. There were two types of drones, one looking like a T-800 from the Terminator movies with a mini-gun for an arm, the other was a bulky humanoid with large hands.  Daniel marveled at the engineering for a moment, two different robots for two different attack strategies.  Diversity is optimal for dealing with metas afterall.  Unfortunately for these machines, the ex-marine they target is no meta-human.

The brutish machine moves towards him, “Attention Intruder: you will now be attained and kept in custody until the proper authorities are present.  Please do not resist, this is for your own safety.” it stated in a generic robot tone.  The machine came close and immediately attempted to wrap its massive hands around Daniel’s body, holding him tightly with the strength of a bodybuilder.  It was made out of pretty strong metal, probably some stainless steel alloy.  This wasn’t advantageous for the drone although, with one quick movement of his arms, Daniel pushes the hands off of him and steps back.  “Hostile actions detected: forceful tactics activates.” The machine declared as it threw a punch at the metal man, who at the same time sent his own fist directly into a collision course with the machines.  The mechanical arm could not withstand the strength of an object much harder, and stronger than itself colliding with it, which caused it to explode at the join and fall to the ground.  

The machine reacted with a second punch using its intact arm but the metal man reacted too quickly and held out his arm, stopping the punch dead and countering with a powerful strike to the chest.  The machine flew down the hall and slide a great distance with a massive hole in its chest, sparking.

This was when the mini-gun carrying machine sprung into action, “Deadly situation detected: deadly force required.” It would say as the six barrels of the minigun begin to spin.  Daniel knows he’s bulletproof, but he’s never been shot with a minigun before. “Ah well, first time for anything I guess..” He speaks quietly to himself as the machine begins to fire a torrent of lead bullets at him, firing 4,000 rounds a minute.  Daniel brought his arms over his face and felt the impact of the firing.  He felt it… it felt like.. sticking your hand out a window of a fast moving car when it rains.. and not much else.  He lets out a laugh at his own discovery and begins to run toward the machine, taking its bullets like a tank.

He gets up close to the minigun and places his hands around it, crushing the barrels and causing it to explode, and in a second motion Daniel throws his fist into the drone’s head, smashing it clean off.

Next step was the saw blades, something you’d see in a platformer video game.  The metal man grins, he just took a minigun to the chest and didn’t feel much at all, these blades are nothing.  He took to a running charge, a saw blade closed in on him, he uses elbow to collide with it, raining sparks on the floor but resulting in the destruction of the blade.  He continued this until he got through all the saw blades and looked at his arms.  There were a few scratches, the kind of scratches you’d get if you lightly dragged your fingernail across skin.  He laughs at this and looks on to the empty hallway, beginning to run down it to catch up with the ice man.  His first time in a dangerous situation gave him something he lacked since his accident, confidence.

When the device began to read the ice mans body for possible fears, it came up with fire for him. But when steel crossed the threshold for the hallways, the device didn't know what to put. It came up with fire again, but quickly changed to large magnets but then changed yet again to something else. It couldn't make up it's mind on what would strike fear more into steel. In doing so, it broke te illusion of the room and just shut down to wait for the next person.

Steel may have bypassed one trap easy but the ice man was just as fast as him. The pair quickly came up on a doorway. With an almighty blast, te leader blew a hole into the wall. He kept through with glee as he broke into the inner room of the vault where the money was.


And where Jeisen was waiting.

He stood there with one fun raised at the ice manipulator and the other one pointed at a limping gunman. Jeisen had one foot on the back of the regenerator, pinning him to the ground. The speedster was on one knee behind the gun man, out of breath and exhausted. Their route had been slightly shorter then steels it seems. Jeisen didn't take his eyes off the gunman, but he seemed to know exactly where ice was.

Jeisen: "oh good, everyone's here"