The Guardian #1 (of 8): "Brand New Day"

Three months later:

The whole city was in lock down. Invisible, high intensity force-fields had been erected during the invasion, and anyone who hoped to escape crackled and popped as their bodies were run through with electricity. This was the master plan. The final solution to the Guardian's existence. The floating kill-drones floated over head, disintegrating any unlucky civilians caught out in the darkness. This wasn't even war-- it was over within hours. The city was not theirs anymore. A new occupier had taken a seat here. There was no hope left.

Finally, after the city fell silent, as the army was all but defeated, the voice rang out through the speakers on the kill-drone's chests. The voice was metallic, not just in the way that voices are after they've been pulled through chest-mounted speakers, but in the way that this thing-- perhaps a person, but no one could truly be sure-- was not entirely there.

"Hello, world," the voice intoned slowly. "Hello, Mr Harper," it then said, the voice rising an octave. Those who heard it knew that this man, 'Mr Harper', was not a friend of this thing. This brutal enemy. "I hope you realise that everything you have ever fought for, everything you ever believed-- is dead or dying. I'm here now. Your greatest foe, the one you thought you'd never face again. Ha. It's fantastic, isn't it? Everything you built, everything you fought for, and it's crumbling and scorched because you forgot how dangerous I could be. Well, Mr Harper, what do you have to say to that?"

There came no reply. The city was silent.

"...Shame on you, Mr Harper. Shame, shame, shame on you."



[/b]

Metropolis had been Jim Harper's home for a long time. He hid here-- in plain sight-- for nearly a year. Worked as part of the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit, spearheading their anti-meta-human defense team. It was a good year, for the most part. Barring, of course, the fact that he was hiding from the American government, becoming a prominent face in the city so he wasn't stolen away in the night. The Guardian was always the President's man. He was built to be a weapon, and he was deployed on the battlefields of France during World War Two. He did so on the President's order. So when the President asked him to take part in a special project involving Cadmus and whole different realms of existence-- well, Jim Harper didn't expect to be hunted because of it. He didn't expect to go a little bit insane because of his experiences. Regardless, a new administration had been elected, he'd been cleared of bogus charges, and Cadmus had shifted into a whole different establishment entirely. Things change.

Jim smiled to himself. He, a man who had lived through six decades of America, watching the world change all around because of war, because of peace, because of so many things. "O brave new world, That has such people in't."

"Hey, James." He turned to the doorway, where Captain Maggie Sawyer stood in full uniform. He had loved her, when he had lived here. he had given her his heart. Things change.

"I'm fine," he answered. "Shipping out on new assignment."

"Yeah? How'd the last one go?"

The Guardian's last assignment went as follows-- he went deep undercover as 'the Ravager', a high-tech, highly dangerous cyborg suited assassin. This was all to infiltrate the secret criminal organisation known only as 'the Society'. As 'the Ravager', he had robbed numerous banks in Metropolis, all thanks to an agreement with Superman to be 'occupied' at the time, and then when the timing was right, when 'the Society's' interest was piqued, The Guardian died. The Guardian in this case being Nemo Jones, Maggie Sawyer's second-in-command, trained specifically to 'die' when the time was right. 'The Ravager' had murdered him with his own shield, and then Deathstroke, the Terminator and Catman had whisked him away, and there he was, Jim Harper, in the belly of the beast, surrounded by the enemy. Things had gone from bad to a hell of a lot worse within a matter of weeks, but he had gotten out. Not without injury, not without damage. He healed though. he always healed.

"I got out alive," Harper said, as he finished packing. "That's what's important, right?"

"Right, right," Sawyer replied. "How's the hand?"

The Guardian's hand had been sliced open by Deathstroke during one hell of a brutal battle that took place in Hub City. The flesh had knitted itself back together, but was currently bandaged. Not worth the risk of infection, at his age. "Good. Healing up."

"Good. Right." He heaved his bag over his shoulder, and passed her in the doorway. He was taller than her by three heads, and he looked down and smiled. Little bits of remembrance bled into his mind, but he tried his best to dismiss them. He remembered hot, sticky, Metropolis nights when they were both off duty. He remembered fighting side-by-side with her and the rest of the SCU. He remembered when she told him that things had changed, that she had changed, and that they weren't working. Alive for what, nearly ninety years? And that still hurt more than a punch from a super-freak. "You'll call when you get settled?"

Ninety years. He was old enough to be Maggie's grandfather. Her great-grandfather. Back in his day...

... but it wasn't his day anymore. "Sure," he leaned over to her, and kissed her softly on the cheek. "I'll do my best."

"You better," Maggie had replied, as he vanished down the stairwell and headed out of Metropolis. "...Damn."

[/b]

James Harper carried his satchel out onto the bustling streets, and took in the gleaming sights one last time. He didn't know when he'd back here, but it was a place very close to his heart. Back before the war, he'd been a cop, walking the beat when Metropolis didn't have to concern itself with super-villains and [mad-]science-gone-awry. He'd been good at his job. He wanted to be better. So when there was a call for able-bodied men, with experience in such things as he was experienced in, to step forward, he did so willingly, for his country, for the world.

The process was hard work.

He'd leave it at that, when asked.

Jim was walking down the street, lost in the past, when he accidentally bumped into someone. He looked down at the young man whose shoulder had found his own, and apologized. The boy went pale, and shook his head. "S'fine, sorry, sir, sorry." Then he was off, back into the hustle-and-bustle.

"Strange," Harper had said slowly, before a car pulled up next to the sidewalk beside him. The window was already wound down, and he saw two men inside.

"Colonel James Harper?" the driver had asked, tipping his black sunglasses down to the tip of his nose. Colonel. It was always strange to hear that. He'd been in the military longer than he'd been in the police force, and he'd gone up the ranks sufficiently enough. But to hear his proper rank... it was a foreign feeling to him. The man in the driver's seat was dressed in an old suit, his dishevelled beard and hair belied something steely that Harper noticed behind his eyes. This was man was a killer. He could tell that with a glance. "Bluejay." There it was, the DEO clearance code that had been assigned to this project. They were legit then, he could tell that. If they weren't, he calculated his ability to disarm and disarm them from the back seat of the car.

Harper smiled. "You must be my DEO entourage?"

"Indeed we are," said the man riding shotgun. Whilst his partner was dishevelled and wearing a suit that hadn't been ironed for apparent months, he was smoother, longish blond hair swept back, a moustache touching the corners of his mouth. He wore a suit-jacket, but beneath that Harper saw something that made him smile. "You like my shirt? I have a habit of wearing these things. Big fan of super-hero pop culture." He looked down at the Superman-insignia on his shirt, and then back to Harper. "Helps me blend in when I'm visiting places like this, anyways."

The back seat opened, and Harper threw in his satchel. He took his place in the back of the car, and then closed the door after him. "So, where are we headed?"

"Airport, and then out of here," replied the driver. "I'm Nodell. The gentleman sporting the classy moustache beside me is Clevenger."

"Good to know. And you know me."

"Yes, Colonel," nodded Clevenger. "We're well aware."

Harper put up his hands, and grinned. "Call me Jim, please."

Clevenger turned, and put out his hand awkwardly. Harper noticed the man's size then. As tall as him, maybe a few inches taller. Strange. "Then call me Travis."

"I'm still Nodell," said the driver, as he took a right hand turn.

"He's Bill." Nodell shook his head, and then Clevenger continued. "You're aware of the project then?"

"Global operations agency out from the ashes of the DEO, UN-sanctioned. Yes, indeed I am." The Guardian leaned back in his seat. "It'll be good to get out of this place for a while. Feel like I've been laying down roots. Not always smart for a military man like myself. Makes it harder each and every time."

"Understandable," replied Nodell. "Do you mind if I smoke?"

"As long as you don't mind keeping the window open."

"Acceptable terms," said Nodell, as he took a cigarette from his inside breast pocket, and sparked up his lighter.



They flashed their identification, and drove straight onto the tarmac. Nodell seemed to know where he was going, but Harper heard him mutter something under his breathe and double back. "I hate this clandestine stuff, airports always look the same to me."

"No problem," replied Harper.

Jim had memorised the layout of the airport back when he had returned to Metropolis that first time. He reacquainted himself happily until they came to a stop outside a huge warehouse. The doors buzzed themselves open, and they drove inside. When they were in, the doors buzzed back close, and the three of them climbed out of the black car. The warehouse was massive-- there was a gaggle of activity all over the place, and talking to a member of the flight crew was the former Director of the DEO, Chloe Sullivan. They approached her, she dismissed the flight crew, and then smiled broadly.

"Colonel Harper, it's wonderful to finally meet you in the flesh."

"Likewise, Madame Director," said Harper, as he took her outstretched hand and nodded in recognition.

"Chloe, please. You're a very important fellow, and I like to keep things on a first name basis with my special operatives. Walk with me." Nodell and Clevenger looked at each other as Harper and Sullivan began to walk away, and then followed, keeping a distance, but staying within ear-shot. "You three--" at that mention, they took a quick step forward, and kept up with the pace. "--are part of a special operations team that the UN has put together. With the restructuring of Checkmate in the light of the so-called 'Justice League versus America' incident, we've had to reassess our own position in the world of international politics and operations."

"I'm aware, yes," nodded Harper.

"It was partly your proposal that helped get us to where we are today, Colonel," she smiled. "A commission made up of some of the best and brightest the international agencies have to offer, tasked solely to take down threats to world security. Not the super-villains, no, but something else entirely. There are numerous criminal organisations that exist, and we're taking the fight to them. Cutting off their 'limbs' and rendering them impotent to their cause."

"A Global Peace Agency," said Harper, nodding. "So what's our first op?"

Sullivan smiled again, this time like the Cheshire Cat, mischievous, sneaky.. "One of our sources inside Japan has got word of a monster-making factory being powered up in Tokyo."

"I haven't been in Tokyo for years," said Harper, "I had to put down an atomic powered lizard that was levelling whole city blocks. Very interesting case."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that, but we've got to start somewhere. We're still working on setting up the bulk transporters, so you're going to have to fly there-- intel will be fed into the on-board computers throughout your flight."

"Brilliant," said Nodell. "Is there room for my car in the hold?"

Sullivan sighed. "Yes, Agent Nodell. Yes there is."

"Faaantastic," said Nodell. "Right, I'm ready, are you ready?" Clevenger nodded, and Harper held his satchel bag high.

"I'll get changed on the way there."

Above Tokyo//Seven Hours Later:

"Let me stretch my legs." The hatch at the back of the plane opened slowly, and the wind rushed into James Harper's face. The plane flew faster than any craft he'd ever been inside-- barring one escapade above Rann, about thirty years ago-- and so they'd made good time, getting here nearly four, five hours earlier than actually possible. That being said, being cramped in a 'metal coffin', as Harper sometimes allowed himself to say, was something he didn't enjoy. But at least he wasn't 20,000 leagues under the sea. That was a whole different kettle of fish.

"Stretch your legs?!" Clevenger was lying on his back in a makeshift hammock, book over his eyes, when he heard Harper say the words. He spasmed out of his comfortable position, and saw Harper grin. And without a moment's hesitation, Harper leaped out of the hold, and into the night sky.

"Did he just leap out of the plane?" asked Nodell, as he stubbed a cigarette out in his plastic cup.

"Yeah."

"Fantastic," said Nodell, as he took another cigarette out, and lit it up. The pilot frowned, but said nothing.

[/b]

From this high up, Tokyo was beautiful-- it was a beautiful city in the day, but at night, with the neon lights shining, the hundreds of signs and lights glistening perpetually, the cars lined up in streaks of glowing colour, it was something else entirely. Harper was dressed in his full uniform, his shield on his back. The plane had come in low, and he only had a couple of hundred feet of free fall to contend with. "Child's play."

He spread himself wide for a few seconds, and drifted, a blue and yellow blur, toward a mess of clothes lines. He was going fast, and they snapped as easy as a knife going through butter, but his momentum shifted, and he grabbed a fire-escape, which exploded down under his sudden landing, and sprang down, his feet firmly in place on the ladder. As that jutted to the concrete below, he sprang up, and landed on another fire escape, and there, as simple as simple could be, he had landed.

The Guardian was in Tokyo.

Harper was an urban thing-- filled with technology and war-appropriate implants-- built to leap over ruined, gutted buildings, footfall after footfall, until he reached the other side. He was no Superman. He couldn't fly, but he was a human thing, and walking, running, foot to dirt, was his way. His heavy boots creaked under his weight as he began to run across the rooftops. He didn't know the layout as well as he should have-- new buildings had gone up in his time away from the place-- but he made do with what he did know. His brain could hardly be considered normal these days, anyway. His mind was almost an organic super-computer, capable of learning new things and remembering data at an incredible rate. He would sit, sometimes, in the dark, and consider what this meant for him. But then he ignored the urge to brood, or be bitter, and threw himself into life. There were better things to do than become a twisted, sad, shell of a human being. It's when that happens that you really do lose part of yours.

Know that although in the eternal scheme of things you are small, thought Harper, leaping from one ledge over to another, landing hard, bending his knees and springing right back up again, you are also unique and irreplaceable as are your fellow humans everywhere in the world.

<"Colonel Harper?"> A voice buzzed in his head, and he realised that his radio-transceiver had been accessed. The only people with the new frequency were his DEO comrades. <"Do you read?">

"I've got my helm on, soldier, it's Guardian when in costume." He came to a stop on a ledge that overlooked the tourist heavy Shibuya ward of the city, and then put his finger to his ear. "What's the good word? Who am I talking to?"

The man on the other side of the line cleared his throat. <"Hideo Fujimoto, Colonel Guardian, sir."> His English was great, but the accent was all wrong. Nice try, though. <"We have your location on GPS, and, um, we were wondering if you wanted to proceed to the monster factory tonight--?">

"I'm coming in," Harper said, "I know where the home-office of the city is, I assume I'll meet you there. have all the documents ready for review. Inform Nodell and Clevenger that we'll be reconvening there."

<"Yes sir, Colonel Guardian, sir,"> said the voice, before going off-line. Harper took in the sights for a few more seconds, before diving down to an alley, and simply walking out into the street. He headed north, to where the home-office was located, and he caught nary a look from the locals. He decided, then and there, that he loved this city. It had been too long.

[/b]

"Could you not smoke in here, please, Mr Nodell?" Hideo was arranging files and dossiers on a large table, and as soon as they were put there, Clevenger began perusing them. Meanwhile, Nodell leaned in the shadows of the corner, sparking his lighter, and trying to get his latest cigarette to light.

Nodell took the cigarette from his mouth, and looked at it for a second. He looked at Hideo, weighed his options, and placed it back in his breast pocket.

"...Ketsunoana..." mumbled Hideo, before resuming his work.

"Konnichiwa, Hideo," The Guardian finally entered the office, a smile on his face. His helm was under his arm, and he unzipped his upper-torso body armour to reveal a blue shirt. "O-genki desu ka?"

Hideo smiled, and nodded. "Genki desu, Colonel Guardian."

"Jim, please," said Harper, before placing his helmet and shield on a hook on the wall. "Is this the intel?"

"Sure is," said Clevenger. "I've been reviewing it as we go, and I gotta say, it's very interesting. Looks to be an offshoot of Intergang. They're taking things to a whole new level of creepy. Remember Aum Shinrikyo, and the sarin gas attacks in '95? This group, 'Yoakenomyoujou'--"

"'Morning Star'?" interrupted Harper, "they call themselves 'Morning Star'?"

Clevenger nodded. "Yeah, weird doomsday cult sonsofbitches. Anyways, and here's the scary bit... they want to take that '95 sarin attack on the subways... and piss all over it. I've been reading their manifesto, underground tripe with allusions to greatness, and their plans involve mutant hybrid fetuses acquired from their time as a subsidiary of Intergang. Monster of mass destruction."

"Shit," whispered Nodell.

"Kuso," agreed Hideo.

The Guardian said nothing. For three minutes, he paced the floor of the office, and thoughts things through. "Do they have a planned time of attack?"

Hideo shook his head. "Not that we know."

"Right, I know we're still not at full operating power. i know that all our home offices aren't full manned. But I need heavy duty explosives, I need the trust of the local government, in fact, i need a secure line, i need to talk to the Director. She can get us what we want." Hideo nodded, and vanished for a few moments, before returning with a cellphone. "Dōmo arigatō."

"Dō itashi mashite, Colonel Guardian."

Harper dialled a special number, and within a few moments, Chloe Sullivan was on the line. "How can I help you, Jim?"

"We have a situation here that could go from bad to worse. I need to know if you can pull some political strings and get us permission to, well..." Harper took a moment. "To potentially blow some stuff up."

Chloe laughed quietly. "As an absolute last course of action, I suppose?"

"... Potentially."

"I'll talk to the Prime Minister, I'll see what I can do." The tone of her voice shifted. "This is our first show, Jim, we can't be gung-ho about it. Tread careful, you hear? I'll get back to you ASAP."

The line went dead, and Harper stared at the phone, before looking up at the others assembled. "Alright boys, lock and load. We need guns. Hideo-- where do you keep your explosives?"

Hideo pointed to a room beyond the office, and the Guardian headed there, opened the door wide, and grinned. "Well, I'll be." The room was covered in guns. Automatics, shotguns, grenades and high explosives. "We may not be fully staffed, but there's enough munitions here to kill a god."

"I call dibs on the shotgun...s." said Clevenger, as he grabbed a weapon.

The phone in Harper's hand went off, and Jim answered immediately. "Harper."

"You've got the green light." Sullivan said. "The Public Security Bureau will be on hand to help with clean-up and arrests, but you've got lead on this."

"That was fast," replied Harper.

"Well, I laid it out for the PM. Massive terrorist attack on his soil or allow us a bit of leeway if it comes to some explosions going off in Tokyo. He was very amenable."

"Good to know, the operation is a go."

"You're on your own, Jim. We can't re-task personnel in time, and this mission is of the utmost importance. Can you handle it?"

"I wouldn't be here if I couldn't, Director."

"Good man," and then again, the line went dead, and Harper was stood staring at the phone. "We'll take all the explosives you can handle. Hideo, are you active operation trained?"

"Yes, yes, I was with the DEO when King Faraday was Director, he ensured that all operatives were weapons and munitions trained."

"Poor bastard," said Nodell, patting Hideo on his back.

"Good man, you grab yourself a gun, and we'll pile into the car. Nodell, you're parked out?"

"Indeed I am," nodded the agent, as he strapped two holsters to his body, and then chose two of the biggest pistols he could find. "I love that we have our priorities in order. Bring peace. With a big gun."

"When needs must," replied Clevenger. The four of them funnelled out of the Office, and closed the door behind them.

[/b]

Hideo talked as Nodell drove, GPS directing him to the location of the Yoakenomyoujou's monster-factory. Clevenger had his shotgun on his lap, the Guardian stared ahead at the road, and Nodell sucked on his last, unlit, cigarette. "Under the city are these warehouses. In case of emergency kind of places, where supplies are stored until earthquakes strike. When the Black Sun rose, civilians were ushered underground, to safety. They double as bomb shelters. Fascinating places. Thing is, there are whole sites that have been lost due to clerical error. We don't know where they are, simply because someone didn't keep the right documentation. Yoakenomyoujou operate out of one of these places. They're linked to the Oedo line, one of the cities deepest subway, and as such, you can get to anywhere from there. We've handed the keys to a military stronghold to these bastards, and they've converted them into a veritable, eh, 'bomb' making factory. Horrible, horrible."

"Well, we're going to shut them down," said Clevenger, patting the shotgun.

"Forever," the Guardian said.



The plan was simple. Harper made sure of that-- simple but effective, and there was no room for error. He would go in first, creep through the shadows of the underground tunnels and plant surprises, while Clevenger, Fujimoto and Nodell would wait in reserve. If they went in guns blazing, then the monsters might be activated, mutated fetuses growing to enormous sizes within minutes, capable of wreaking havoc previously only seen during the atomic rampages of the 1950s. That was not an option.

The Guardian stayed low, every now and then closed his eyes and listened intently for any other nearby... he could hear the rustle of activity up ahead, and his grip on the shield he bore tightened. There was the chatter of awkward, manic anticipation, the sound of madmen. Harper continued down the access tunnel, until he came to a grate that overlooked the whole bunker. He would have cursed, then and there, if it wouldn't have revealed his position to the men down below. Dozens of football-sized spheres were being pumped full of a strange, green gas. Floating inside the spheres were horrific, malformed shapes, barely resembling a reptile, a moth, all kinds of strange creatures. A clicking sound went off in Harper's ear, the sound of his helmet's inbuilt Geiger counter starting to go off. These bastards were closer to their target attack time than ever, and they were going for the nostalgia trip. Atomic-mutant-fetuses created beneath the city, ready to be distributed across the city of Tokyo and grown to full size.

This would not do.

The Guardian pulled a trigger from the back of his shield, and then spoke into the open communication channel that he had open between the team and himself. "Go."

Harper pulled the trigger, and the surprises he had set for the men down in the bunker, the high explosives, began to go off all around. Tunnels collapsed down, trapping them inside, and then, as dust and smoke billowed up, the Guardian kicked open the grate between him and them, and dropped down. At that exact moment, a metal grate above the bomb shelter was blown open by Fujimoto, and ropes were thrown down for infiltration.

Harper hit the ground hard, and careened into the armed guards caught unawares by the chaos all around. Nodell and Clevenger used his vantage point from the open grate above to fire explosive rounds into the spheres, causing the mutated fetuses to spray across the bomb shelter as the Guardian fought. He had taken down two thirds of the force below before a man began to shriek behind him. Harper spun around, and he saw the man held a sphere high, still being pumped full of atomic radiation. "<You are nothing but a speck!>" he screamed in Japanese. The man was covered in black tattoos that wrapped themselves around his limbs and up to his neck, culminating in two dagger shaped marks crossing over his eyes and down toward his mouth. "<And the city shall know-->" The Guardian's shield was thrown before the man even had a chance to finish his sentence, and his limbs-- and the sphere-- were on the floor in a bloody pile. "--NEEEEEARRGHHHHHH!"

"<Listen up!>" shouted the Guardian, as his shield returned to him in one swift, arching motion, "<You are all under arrest! This monster-making factory is no longer open for business!>" More zip-lines fell from above, and, whilst Nodell and Clevenger covered them, the Public Security Bureau poured down, ready to make arrests, ready to shut this place down for good.

"Well played, Mr Harper," said a voice. It tickled at Harper's memory, something familiar yet so distant from recognition. "How effortlessly awesome of you. Such bravado, such masculinity. When the American government build something right, they build something right."

The Guardian couldn't see anyone-- the smoke cleared, the red mist of the fetuses settled, and he couldn't see anyone talking. "...Who's there?"

"You'll see, Mr Harper," said the voice again, but this time slowly growing more distant, like it was fading away into the distance. "You'll see..."

"Colonel Harper?" Hideo Fujimoto was by Harper's side now, ordering the Public Security Bureau where to go, what not to touch, "good work, sir. We've got--"

A voice sparked up over the radio, and Harper jumped to attention <"--Mother£$%^er! We've got someone on the street with one of those spheres! Clevenger and I are in pursuit, Jesus that guy's fast... he's got one of the spheres, Jim! He's got one of the spheres!">

"No!" Harper leaped into the air impossibly high, his reinforced muscles taking the strain with ease, and he climbed up one of the empty zip-lines in seconds. He was on the street, and he could see Clevenger and Nodell sprinting away in the distance. The street was nearly empty but for the Security Bureau, but there was a cordon that held back swelling masses of onlookers, tourists and residents, and he could see them disperse through the commotion unwinding amongst them.

Harper began to run. He was at the cordon in seconds, powered past the dizzied onlookers. "Come on," he grunted to himself. "Come on." He caught up with Nodell a few seconds after that, much to the agent's surprise.

"Whoa, Jesus-- he's in and out of the crowds, we can't get a clear shot--" Nodell's voice was drowned out by Harper's own footfalls. "--mother--!"

Harper was now next to Clevenger, who aimed his pistol but grimaced as the man zigged and zagged into the crowds. Clevenger looked to Harper, who was then ten footfalls ahead of him, and looked back Nodell, who shrugged as he tried to keep up. "...He's fast."

"<Stop!>" shouted the Guardian, and then, as if he was following orders, the runner did, and grinned a grin that sent shivers down Harper's spine. The sphere was open. And something was climbing out. "Oh, no." The thing's tentacles spread over the man's hands, long, thick things that began to wrap around his limbs. The tips of the tentacles were covered in rows of teeth, and as the man reeled back his head to laugh, his neck was punctured by the tentacle, and he shrieked in pain, unable to drop the sphere because of the thing wrapping itself around him. "What is that..."

The thing wrenched out of the sphere, and it crashed to the ground, covered in a thick ichor. Harper slammed his shield into the centre mass of the creature, but the man who was being overtaken looked at him with pale, dead eyes. "Nuuuuuarrrr."

"What... is... this..."

Harper wrenched at the tentacles with his hands, but was unable to pull it off. The center mass pushed the shield back out of the wound, and sealed near-instantaneously, and then a single eye popped out of the gouge. Harper recognised the thing, then. It was mutated, twisted and changed, but the eye, the tentacles, the way it was wrapping itself around a host. It was a Starro, a mutated version of the mind-control alien that had nearly dragged the United States of America into chaos two years before. How had Intergang got their hands on such a thing? And how was it so changed? Yoakenomyoujou must have been experimenting with radiation to bring out the destructive potential in these things... but how did they get their hands on them?

"Clevenger!" shouted Harper-- the thing burrowed inside the host, tentacles burst out of the flesh of the dead man. "Head-shot!"

"Yessir!" Clevenger aimed the shotgun at the host's head, and an explosion of red flew out of where the head should have been. The Starro shrieked from a tiny mouth, and the body began to shake. Harper drew up his shield, and began to slice at the tentacles, until he could wrench the central mass away from the limbs. He took a small spray from his belt and thrust the thing back into the sphere, and began to seal it up with the contents of the can.

"Sealant. You won't believe how many times I've had to use this." The sphere was now opaque, covered in a thick crust that the twisted Starro couldn't climb out of. <"We need containment. We need this locked up."> He put his fingers to his helmet, and spoke slowly. <"Hideo, we need flamethrowers at my location yesterday. Clean up."> The body was still seizing, and the once green tentacles were withering into grey. <"Get to it, man.">



"...We set up a dome over the scene, and incinerated the host body then and there. This... Starro entity, labelled 'Starro-3' by the imaginative lab-boys, is en-route to the US for forensic examination. Well, for killing really. They need to figure out how to kill it before they autopsy it. That's how we do it, I hear."

"Before this moment in time, James, there were only two recorded Starro-types that we knew off. I think Starro-3 is apt, though you aren't wrong. It does lack a certain finesse and excitement..." Chloe Sullivan smiled, and James wasn't sure if it was at all comforting. "Anything else?" The two of them sat in the Global Peace Agency Home Office-- location: classified-- and she debriefed him over the operation. Hideo Fujimoto, Travis Clevenger and Bill Nodell sat outside, waiting their turn.

Harper wasn't in uniform. He waited for the Starro to be cleaned off, and as such, wore a white shirt and black trousers. "One more thing." Harper thought back to the monster-making factory. "There was a voice in the bunker. I couldn't see the origin point, but I know it wasn't being sent through a radio, and my head is still pretty psychic proof. It was weird."

Chloe nodded. "Good. Honesty. I was going to ask you about that. We recorded everything on the channel you had open between your team and yourself. 'Who's there?' according to the transcripts. Did you recognise the voice?"

Harper thought back for a moment, to his near-century of living. He thought about every case he'd undertaken, every voice he'd ever heard, and then he looked up at Sullivan. "...No."

Chloe wrote something down on the file. "Thank you, James."

"My pleasure, Director." He stood, and nodded politely. "I assume I have quarters set up for me here?"

"I'll have one of the aides show you. Get some sleep, James, you did good work today."



James didn't need much by way of home comforts. He was used to moving around the country, moving about the world when the mission demanded it. To be perfectly honest, he always felt that a mattress was a luxury, and sometimes, when he was feeling a bit dark by way of the brain, he'd sleep on the floor. He was lying on the cool metal that made up the floor of his room, when he realised he wasn't going to get any sleep that night. He was trained to sleep through firefights, through bombings, through alien-interdimensional-incursions. But for some reason, he couldn't shut his brain off. He stared at the ceiling, and though back to Tokyo.

"'Well played, Mr Harper'," he said slowly, playing out the words and possibilities in his mind, "'How effortlessly awesome of you. Such bravado, such masculinity. When the American government build something right, they build something right.'" Harper rolled onto his side, and looked at his shield, propped up against the wall. He looked at his reflection, and then rolled back on his spine. "What's going on...?" he asked no one in particular. "What's going to happen...?"

'You'll see, Mr Harper...'