The Black Cross VS. The Steel Talons

[viruswithshoes]

On the scrap metal throne inside the base of The Steel Talons there were grooves carved into the arms and legs from the irritated scraping of fingers and heels from the man who sat upon it.

Talon's physical tics grew steadily as his gang shrank. The armored leader of Funkyard's largest and most influential gang began to avoid looking at his own throne. Each metal shaving that littered his throne room floor was inconsequential, like losing a member of his gang, but they began to add up.
After three weeks of inconsequential loses, a Steel Talon gone here, a few million beri stolen there...it was nothing.
Then Talon thought about how the local marines were attacked by a tall, red-headed woman wielding two swords. His most trusted lieutenant and hostage was also red of hair and long of body.

There was some awkward clanking from Talon's twitching left hand as a women with a bright red swept up hairdo with a nodachi resting on her shoulder entered his room.
"Duchess?"

The statuesque woman with the half-lidded green eyes and matching cheongsam dress sighed out a stream of smoke from the right side of her mouth while an ornate kiseru pipe dangled from the left side.
"Yes?"
"The idiot with the candy...what was his name?"
"I don't recall. I know his face, though."
Talon clanked a bit as he nodded his helmeted head.
"I'd like his head."
The seven foot swordswoman bent her knees in something of a curtsy.
Before she could fully leave The Duchess heard the armored man clear his throat in a passive aggressive manner that she almost found amusing.
"Thy will be done, milord," She said with a fixed expression before she could roll her eyes and groan when not in her leader's presence.

*****

Even if Toulon Kuroko didn't avoid sleep whenever possible, he still would not have slept the previous night. The surgeon with the four cybernetic arms straightened his slim, black tie with two of them while holding up a long white medical coat with the others while staring at the embroidered black cross and white electrocardiogram waves on the back. It looked like something a Captain would wear and that gave the man with the twin-braided beard pause.
He didn't feel like someone who should be in charge.
With a sigh, the Captain of The Black Cross donned his new white coat bearing his jolly roger and walked up to a railing where Pan, Funkyard's most respected inventor and his disciples waited to be addressed.

After a deep breath the nervous doctor opened his eyes and looked over the dozen inventors and technologists that had hosted The Black Cross over the past month and been nothing but gracious and patient hosts.
"Mister Pan...ladies and gentlemen of science, I regret to inform all of you that you are hostages of The Black Cross. Please excuse our clumsiness, as we are not experienced in these matters. I thank you for your time and patience. "
There were a lot of bewildered faces among the crowd of scientists.

The minor success Toulon had in taking a marine brain in the jar hostage prior gave the awkward cybernetic surgeon a false sense of how easy it would be.
Questions started to flood from his hostages.
"Are you stupid?"
"Don't you know Pan has a warehouse full of murderbots? You're going to die."
"Will you tell your doctors to stop making out in public? It's weird."

The conversation soon turned to gossip regarding which doctor on Toulon's crew was hooking up with which inventor working under Pan and never found it's way back to the subject of hostages.

The exasperated Captain of the Black Cross decided it would be a good time to take a walk and dug through his coat pocket for a one of the many pieces of candy it contained. The tall and gangling cyborg tried to focus on something good, like finally attaining funds from selling the unused cargo from the ship his crew had stolen from a marine shipyard.

The fence that his former crewman Constantine introduced him to before leaving the crew waited for Toulon at an empty table in a busy bar looking almost as tense as the bespectacled man who entered.

"You are extremely stupid, Mister Toulon."
It wasn't the fence who spoke when Toulon stepped over the threshold of the door. A tall women seven feet in height sporting a red crown braid hairstyle and rested her nodachi on Toulon's shoulder in a manner that was somehow both casual and threatening, as if his murder was a mildly annoying chore.
"I hope you washed your neck."

[dazbreaker]

Khali grunted and hefted a massive wooden beam onto her shoulder.  It had proven difficult to find the right materials here on Funkyard.  Most of the good stuff had long since been salvaged, and was available for purchase for criminal prices by the islands shipyard.  

But Khali was quite strong.  And she was determined.  She'd been spending a few days since she captured the smugglers ship working in a scrapyard a short walk from the Black Cross' new base of operations.  It had been a slow process, but she was steadily building up a stock of materials to begin building Toulon a boat.  It was an interesting area too.  Old ships broken and half buried created a strange, rolling set of valleys and hills in the scrap.  They weren't too far from the original spot she fought Toulon and Andromeda.

It was still difficult talking to Andromeda.  Though she wanted to badly, everything still felt somehow tense even now.  

"Hello Red!"  Khali heard the metallic twang of familiar wires before the voice.  In a moment, Marcelle of the Night Stand was gracefully lighting on the giant's opposite shoulder.  It was strange how the woman did that.  As though it was simply expected that Khali didn't mind someone using her as a ladder.  Truthfully she did not mind.  Marcelle was soft, and beautiful.  So as the woman settled down, resting her posterior on Khali's shoulder the giant couldn't help but smile.  

"Hello Marcelle.  How are your new wires?"  Khali referred to the work Toulon had done in getting the Night Stand upgraded.  Their old tactics, which had been mostly show with no teeth, had been made reality by the good doctor.  Marcelle grinned and raised her arms in a flexing pose.  It was then that Khali noticed she was wearing a knee length sweater dress that left her back extremely exposed.  Marcelle was interesting.  She was beautiful, but she wasn't vain.  The implants Toulon gave her left small metal ports positioned around her body where wires retracted, but she didn't hide them.  If anything the purple haired femme fatale seemed to love them.

"Wonderful!  It's strange, but very freeing."  Marcelle reached out, giving Khali a pat on her cheek.  The little woman's hand was very small, but warm.  "Thank you for giving us a chance.  Granddad may not be able to fight anymore, but now I can make a real difference!"  

Khali nodded, enjoying the physical proximity of the woman as she headed towards her stockpile.  It was then that she saw the smoke.  Her face turned to a scowl as she started to worry.

"What's this?  I'll check it out!"  Marcelle exclaimed.  Before Khali could speak, a pair of wires shot out of her shoulder, latching onto a mast jutting up from a wreckage.  She shot off, as her wires retracted, sending her soaring through the air at high speed.  The view as she whisked away was refreshing as well.

Khali picked up her pace, and rounded a wreckage just after Marcelle disappeared from view.  When she did, her chest immediately tightened with anger.  "BASTARDS!"  Khali roared.  Her stockpile was currently burning.  Days worth of work and salvage going up in flames as a group of six men stood around it laughing.  They were all wearing dark suits and bowler caps, with metal hands.  One taller man, nearly three times the height of the others, but dressed identically, stood with arms crossed, a cigar burning in his mouth.  Marcelle was waiting nearby with a grim expression on her face, balancing on a bit of bracing attached to the aforementioned mast.

"So good to finally meet you Miss TRASH MONSTER."  The tall man spoke.  He then raised his hand and pointed at the red woman.  "Talon bids you death.  So just relax, and think of hell!"  Khali smirked as his men started to walk towards her.  The half giant lifted the colossal beam of wood from her shoulder, gripping it with both hands.

"You KNOW NOTHING OF HELL."  Khali's body tightened up, and she threw the beam of wood like a huge spear directly at the leader.  He twisted, his hand suddenly producing a long curved blade.  There was a series of rapid flashes, and the beam split into a dozen pieces that flew past him harmlessly, landing in the blaze behind him.  Khali reached for her new weapon, named Hana no Miku.  "But I will teach you of monsters."

[Blitzfrieg]

"Alright Captain.....let's see what your upgrades can do."  Andromeda flexed her fingers.  It was interesting, some minor tuning of the pressure system in her HITMAN system combined with a reinforced layer to compensate for removing her synthetic sleeves changed the weight of her arms.  This required getting used to, but more important was the reactivity.  That little upgrade, something Toulon had improved on a whim, had vastly increased the speed at which her system pressurized steam.  

She was standing in front of a set of double doors.  Based on intel her captain had discovered, this building in front of her was a front for Talon's mercenaries.  It was a busy street, and the warehouse blended right into all the other buildings on Funkyard, just a bit bigger.  Andromeda planted her metal palms against the door, and built up steam in her forearms.  As she pushed the doors open, steam vented in large amounts, obscuring her form as the massive wooden beam barring the door shut snapped like kindling.  With the object barring it out of the way, the doors slammed into the walls with considerable force.

"OI!" Came a shout from one of the men inside.  "You must be some kind of idiot!  You know who's building this is?!"  Half the warehouse was basically a barracks.  Men poured from every door, swords in arms, guns at the ready.  These were not the slaves Talon typically employed.  No bomb collars here.  Just greed and evil hearts.  Before Andromeda made ten paces into the warehouse, she was surrounded at every side but her back.  Wind ripped through the building, yanking the steam away from her and causing her coat to fly wildly for a few moments.

Andromeda hit a fighting pose, feet spread wide, one hand on the ground.  It was a low, predatory stance, and if any of these men thought she could survive the onslaught to come, they might have recognized that this was no ordinary fighter.  "Doesn't matter who owns it.  All I see are dead men."  The mercenaries didn't know what happened.  One moment she was there, the next she was catapulting straight from her position on the ground to the second floor balcony.  

"Assassins LINE!"  Her outstretched metal arms caught two men just beneath the jaw, carrying them right off their feet and through a wooden wall where they were thrown with incredible force into yet another wall.  The burst of linear speed was astonishing, and as all present turned their guns on the hole she created and opened fire, she did it again.  As they unloaded several dozen rifles on the room, Andromeda smashed through another wall, catching another man with her arm.  This time she spun around, transferring her momentum into him and hurling him straight up through the roof.  

"Chainlock!"  While the mercenaries were still firing blindly at where they believed her to be, she ejected the chains in her arms outward, lashing them around the midsection of a particularly large brute.  "CARE TO DANCE?!"  Andromeda laughed, dragging the man through the air into a wild spin, smashing him through balconies, stairs, walls, and his own comrades.  

"ANDROMEDA RHEX!  REMEMBER THE NAME!"  Letting her chains fall away, the now unconscious man went flying.  The warehouse was in chaos, between the confusion she was causing, and people firing blindly at the fast moving woman, for the next few minutes it might sound to the outside as if a small war was being fought within.

[viruswithshoes]

Toulon Kuroko raised two of his four cybernetic arms but kept the other two hidden beneath his long white coat.
"All four arms if you please," The Duchess said while putting pressure against Toulon's neck with the edge of her unsheathed nodachi.
Toulon's two extra arms of black metal rose and a slight glint of light flashed off off the wires extending from the tips of the fingers of his bottom left hand.

The Duchess severed those threads with one stroke of her long sword resulting in the sound of one of Toulon's wooden puppet falling to the ground. Toulon's second puppet, the white snake filled with anesthetics he called Glycon was coiled at his back but inaccessible with all four of his hands in the air. He knew that if he could attach the strings from his cyberntic fingers onto it if only he could get one of his raised hands beneath his new coat.
The sword of The Duchess was far too close to his neck to take such a risk.

"Let's take this some place a little more public," The Duchess said as she moved her weapon from Toulon's neck to poking him in the back.
"Unfortunately, I have to make a public example of you. You damaged Talon's trust in me, thanks to your idiotic puppet attack. That trust is what is keeping the people I love safe."

The bespectacled man with the black beard and glasses walked at a pace to keep The Duchess' sword at his back and not through his spine.
"Misters Frankrugger and Dougan are safe, Miss Duchess. As is your wife, Marcelle."
"Sod it," The Duchess said, in a tone that said that Toulon's murder time table had just been moved up.

Toulon was just quick enough to sprint away from the sudden thrust of the sword that threatened the integrity of his internal organs. There was merely one more fresh slash across Toulon's back to add with the others.

The puppeteer finally had the second he needed to attach the wires from the fingers of his left hand to a bone white snake puppet with red eyes that uncoiled from his back and slithered next to him in time with the twitching of Toulon's fingers.

A plume of purple smoke sprang from the snake's mouth which was blown away by one stroke of The Duchess's sword. The resulting air slash cut through part of the doctor's white coat as Toulon ran away to hide using the leftover purple haze as cover.
"Your brother, Mister Frankrugger will surely be vexed at having to re-sew this."

"Better vexed than dead," The woman with the bright red updo hairstyle said after rushing to the source of the voice only to slash at the remnants of an old ship's figurehead that sprung up from the ground like much of the junk in The Funkyard.

Toulon wasted no time in running away from the swordswoman.
He couldn't honestly claim to have any natural talent as a pirate. His attempts at taking hostages and fencing stolen goods were hardly met with fear and awe. The tall, black-haired man kept in a black bun atop his head could run, though. Long legs and a history of playing tag with children awarded him the means to run away from battle even if it was the least pirate-like thing possible.

Nearly half a mile away from the bar where he attempted to fence his goods stolen from The Steel Talons, Toulon stopped and donned a metal and wood half-mask covering the lower half of his face.

The closer Toulon got to the nearest town the denser the population grew and expanded his hiding places. Soon The Duchess would get her wish of fighting Toulon in full public view. Toulon as well wished for a public battle in order to officially declare hostilities with The Steel Talons and their leader...even if he would not have picked that particular time.

"Bold and bombastic," The fledgling pirate said to himself out loud to remind himself of the kind of attitudes that other pirates respected. It wasn't his way, but Funkyard and other places full of strife had taught Toulon that the quiet ones were usually the first to be victimized.
It annoyed him greatly that people were most likely to listen to a violent jerk like Talon and not a well-meaning person that was too meek.
Perhaps more Steel Talons would leave their abusive leader if someone like himself built a reputation as a person of strength. Defeating Talon's number two seemed like a nice reputation enhancer.

The wobbling puppeteer meant to stand tall and proud, but his lungs burned and legs ached from running away from battle. If The Duchess was half as tired as he was Toulon knew that he could get in close and exploit the weaknesses that Henry and Marcelle told him of.

Not only was The Duchess not as tired as Toulon shen she caught up, but barely a hair was out of place in her immaculate swept up hairdo. Toulon's own pile of black hair kept in place by a soldering iron and a scalpel had turned into a chaotic mess which made the unkempt doctor want to even the score.
The Duchess held her nodachi at the ready to cleave the cyborg doctor in two. He sighed and tried to have faith in the crewman who spoke of the swords-woman's weaknesses.

"Your Queen commands you to stop!" To his surprise The Duchess paused and favored him with a quizzical look. During that short pause Toulon had the time to seize the opportunity to take The Duchess' brother's advice to stop his sister. Toulon dashed towards his opponent as fast as he could and plucked two specific hairpins in the red pile of perfection that was the hair of The Duchess.
The perfection tumbled down, no longer supported by those load bearing hairpins.

The Duchess raged. Her long sword clashed against Toulon's four metal arms leading to a shower of sparks leading to even more crowds of people to spectate the battle. What they saw was Talon's top lieutenant struggling to hit an unknown enemy. It didn't dawn on them that Toulon was barely keeping up the now sloppy and enraged strikes.

Toulon could fully dodge only one blow, but that was all that was needed to run past The Duchess in the direction of where he originally fled.

At the end of his stamina Toulon couldn't run even the length of three of the junk buildings around. Not enough to get out of range of the red haired sword wielder's air slashes, but far enough.
He could hear the steps from someone running towards him.
"Let's stop this. We can protect your family and fight Talon together."
"You can't even defeat ME, you simpleton! Talon is stronger than you. More ruthless. Better equipped. He is better. You're a guy who carries around pocket-fulls of candy and always wants to negotiate. You two don't even operate on the same plane of reality."

The Duchess stopped heading toward him but Toulon still heard footsteps approaching and that comforted him.
The footsteps stopped behind the tall puppeteer in the gas mask. Purple smoke from his anesthetic spewing snake puppet Glycon still permeated the area, some of his affecting The Duchess as she began to take deeper breaths as the fight dragged on.
"My reality is better. I'll show you."

Toulon hit the ground revealing his white clad geisha puppet Kuchisake and her the four katana blades extending from her limbs. The sword-puppet with the previously cut strings swung her bladed arms and two air slashes crackling with electricity hurtled toward a not only fatigued but drugged Duchess whose woozy mind could not make her numb limbs react fast enough. Pressurized air tore through her green dress, sliced her torso and electrocuted her.

The former Lieutenant of The Steel Talons eyes grew heavy while on the verge of passing out but she was not afraid. It was obvious the Doctor towering over would not let her die. He was the same man that almost begged for a peaceful way out and carried around candy to motivate people. He'd also beaten her in a fair fight which told her something she didn't know about his strength and resolve. She was still sure about one thing about this man her wife and brother and now she had decided to put her faith in:
"You're an idiot, Mister Toulon."

Toulon leaned his tired body on the free standing puppet that saved his life. "You'll get no argument from me, Miss Duchess."

[Blitzfrieg]

Gogo Muricas had worked for Talon for a very long time.  He was among his most trusted lieutenants, and while he lacked the subtlety of the Duchess.....he made up for that with brutal efficiency.  The enormous cybernetic arms hanging from his shoulders gave him a gorilla-like appearance, and were a gift from the boss for his excellent service.  They were the main reason he was known in Funkyard as Talon's Fist.

When Gogo got a report that one of their most important warehouses stopped checking in he knew it was no coincidence.  The Duchess and Agent Warro were on the hunt for members of this annoying Black Cross outfit.  Despite the underwhelming nature of it's pesky captain, the unit had proven to be a problem that needed handled.  After everything, there was no way this was a random hit on a building that had thirty hardened bodyguards and mercenaries protecting it.

The cyborg approached the building with four Fingermen at his side, and threw open the main doors with his enormous hands.  As he did, the warehouse became illuminated so brightly that for a moment he had to shield his eyes.

"About time you losers showed up."  He recognized that voice.  "Like what I've done with the place?"  As his eyes adjusted he took in the scene.  

"Holy crap."  One of the Fingermen exclaimed.  Gogo kept silent, but was grinning.  The warehouse had been decimated on the inside, walkways had been smashed, walls ripped apart, and almost all the debris had been arranged in the center like some kind of raised dias or.....a ring?  He noticed that rope had been wrapped and run between the support beams of the building.  While it wasn't a perfect circle, multiple passes with what must have been hundreds of feet of rope made a rough cage.  The more interesting thing, was that all the mercenaries and bodyguards had been beaten, tied up, and arranged against the walls like....spectators.

"Eh.  Interesting choices.  I might have gone another way."  Gogo said, raising his hands in the air and shrugging.  His tone was quite relaxed.  Andromeda was seated on the second floor balcony, or what remained of it, overlooking her arena.  

"Oh? Like what?"  She asked, her legs kicking playfully over the edge.  Gogo grinned in response, and leveled his hands at the tied up guards on both sides of the building.  

"For starters I'd have taken out the trash."  The tips of Gogo's fingers popped open, revealing a small rocket in each digit.  Without warning, smoke erupted from his elbows and the rockets swarmed outward, engulfing the prisoners in explosions that collapsed what was left of the balcony on top of them.  Andromeda lept from her position as her seat fell away, and lighted gracefully in the center of her arena. "Useless vermin."  Gogo spat.  Andromeda crossed her arms, looking down from her arena, which was still perhaps twice the cyborgs height.

"Classy.  But be honest.  You just didn't want anyone watching me kick your ass right?"  She was already angry.  But she wasn't going to let his ruthlessness make her careless.  She wasn't going to lose to this monster again.

"Funny.  But I have no need for either spectators or useless fodder."  He pointed at Andromeda, speaking to his Fingermen.  "Kill her."  His voice was full of venom, his expression one of glee.....for about half a second.

"Hitman Repeater!"  Andromeda crouched low, her Wapolmetal arm segmenting into it's extendable form and lashing out via the chains within.  Three strikes each, a knife edge chop to the jaw, a backhand across the temple, and a palm to the cheek.  Each Fingerman was systematically rendered unconscious by a viscously precise series of whipping strikes at high speed.  And Gogo was left alone, barely aware of what had even happened.  "There.  Now you can lose and no one will say a word.  Now....stop stalling and come get your shit wrecked."  Andromeda lathered on the attitude on that last line, making certain she sounded as bored as possible to further antagonize her prey.

"Damn you!"  He slammed his fists into the ground, launching himself through the air at Andromeda, who crouched low in preparation.  Gogo raised his arms up, his heavy body tearing through the ropes with ease, massive fists prepared to deliver a crushing overhead blow as he came down on her.  But as he did, Andromeda threw off her coat with a flourish.  While her right arm had been lashing, her left was building pressure discretely.  For a moment her eyes flashed with a dangerous light.  And her voice came with a low growl.

"Hitman ERASER!"  At this point in time, with Toulon's upgrades this was the strongest strike she could produce.  Pressure pushed to the max, her hand ripped through the air like a bolt of steaming lightning.  Almost nothing could be seen.  One moment she struck, then there was a flash of steam and movement, and the sound of metal being blown apart.  One of Gogo's arms simply blew apart from the force of her strike, and the enormous man howled in pain as he landed awkwardly, rolling across the arena.

Again, Andromeda didn't let up.  As he struggled to stop himself, she was there, catching him around his strangely small midsection.  Pressure went to her legs and spine, and she hauled him in an arc through the air.  "Kiloton Slam!"  She shouted, smashing his head through the floor with an incredible impact.  "Not done yet!"  She laughed, using Gogo's momentum to literally flip over him, transferring that momentum into another, far more powerful Suplex.  This one took a moment, as she once again, for her own satisfaction, pushed the pressure in her legs and back to the max.  "MEGATON...."  She ripped him free of the floor, this time dragging him in an arc with such speed and force that his face was distorted by the air pressure.  "....SLAM!!!"  This impact collapsed her entire arena, a mixture of steam and smoke exploding out from the epicenter as she slammed him facefirst through the debris and into the warehouse ground below.  

[viruswithshoes]

For the first time ever one of Toulon's puppets carried him. The wounded and exhausted cyborg manipulated his scarred, geisha puppet via remote control and subtle finger movements that made it look like a tall, beautiful geisha was transporting him on her back. To some it made him look incredibly weak, to others it made the geisha look incredibly strong.

People gave the Captain of The Black Cross and the defeated lieutenant of The Steel Talons a wide berth on their way out of town. All but four men and women who followed. When Toulon looked back to look at them he lost his concentration and lost control of Kuchisake, the sword wielding puppet that carried him.
Metal glinted off of their necks and Toulon smiled an exhausted smile. His first thought wasn't that these Steel Talons had come to kill him, but to ask for his aide and for once his optimism didn't fail him.

By then news had spread of The Black Cross and it's bomb defusing Captain among the crew of explosively collared individuals. Wordlessly, they picked up the four armed cyborg three at a time as if in a life and death cavalry battle that involved the rider dismantling complicated explosives rather than taking off an opposing team's bandanna.

By then Toulon had dismantled enough of his enemy's explosive collars that he could do so while semi-conscious and being held aloft by three people.
One by one Toulon silently removed and defused the explosives as they changed places. Doing so while looking at his geisha puppet brought back nostalgia for the beautiful, tall, and scarred woman that taught him the art of dismantling explosives.

The Duchess while walking beside the tired surgeon reminded him of that same woman. Toulon never confessed his love to that woman and left her thinking that he was saving her from a dangerous life. The Duchess also abandoned her family for their safety. Now that the doctor had experienced both sides of the dilemma it seemed arrogant to abandon loved ones for their safety.
The fact that he had earlier abandoned Andromeda for his own personal safety led Toulon to a revelation.
"Abandonment is..." a multitude of swears came to mind, but as someone who spent a lot of time with children Toulon tried not to swear. "It's not right. I won't abandon anyone."

Nearly half the day had passed from Toulon's mocked attempt at taking Pan and his group of scientists and engineers hostage. The glasses and black suit sporting man straightened his twin-braided beard along with his black tie. Henry, now his personal assistant and tailor provided him with another long white coat in order to look presentable on the catwalk as the Captain of The Black Cross.

Pan, the island's leading inventor, along with his crew of scientists once more gathered listlessly for another of Toulon's pathetic speeches.
Judging just by body language, they were not dealing with the same man. Toulon was too tired, too frustrated and too resolved to be self-conscious.

With a group of hardened fighters behind him, including The Duchess, The Steel Talons, The Night Stand and his own crew in tow, Toulon suddenly looked like someone to take seriously.
"Thank you for meeting with me. You are now hostages of The Black Cross. Please feel free to voice any complaints to the hardened killers behind me."
Silence.
"Thank you for your patience."

In the strange depths of Toulon's mind he knew that not taking Pan and his people hostage would be as good as abandoning them. Under his breath Toulon muttered the same revelation he made before, only this time with the word he had censored before.
"Abandonment is bullshit."

[Blitzfrieg]

She was going to show them all.  Toulon, Khali, Talon, Frankrugger, all of them.  Andromeda Rhexx was not someone to be left behind.  She was stronger than them all.  She DESERVED to be remembered!

The goon from earlier drug behind her as she walked.  It was a tad brazen, to stroll so casually through the streets of Funkyard, heading in as straight a line as she could to Talon's headquarters.  As she did, most people frantically cleared the way for her as soon as they saw one of Talon's inner circle dragging behind her.  Word traveled fast, and barely halfway into her 'walk' everyone between she and Talon had evacuated into their houses or to a different part of the city entirely.  

This was exactly what she wanted.  They were all safe and inside, but every eye in Funkyard was now trained on her.  Talon would hear without a doubt.  But that didn't matter either.  He.....didn't matter.  He was just another goon with delusions of grandeur.  More importantly, he was a point for her to make.  When she dragged his body back to Toulon the man would know exactly what he left behind, and he would never do it again.  Once he knew how valuable she was.  How strong she really was.....everything would be ok.  

She was worth remembering.  

She had to be.

And this was the only way she could think to prove it.

"You've got a lot of guts kid!  But this is as far as you go!"  A gang of thugs....maybe thirty?  The leader was very tall, and carried a long blade.....but they weren't even Fingermen.  Just mercenaries and goons.  Probably the first wave, the weakest and most disposable of Talon's fighters meant to test her strength.  Andromeda never stopped walking.  The mercenaries formed a line, several men with rifles coming to the front of the formation.  In an instant the cyborg dropped her trophy and dashed forward, leaping up into the air and over the riflemen into the thickest mass of fighters.

What came next was exactly thirty seconds of brutality none of the mercenaries were ready for.  Their plain iron and steel weapons shattered against her wapolmetal arms, their bullets missed their mark at such close range against her impressive speed.  One, two, three at a time she beat them down without using a single technique. 

They didn't deserve her effort.  And she might actually kill them if she went all out.  No.  This was a lesson they badly needed.  Her fists broke ribs, her knees cracked skulls, her feet dislocated knees.  Half a minute after she made her move, the street was strewn with the moaning bodies of Talon's first wave.  Casually, she cracked her neck, adjusted her coat, and walked back to pick up Talon's lieutenant again.  Quietly, she continued her stoic march on Talon's headquarters.

[viruswithshoes]

Toulon finally ran out of soda and other caffeinated beverages and ended up falling asleep sitting at a workbench. When he woke his long, twin-braided beard was stuck in some sort of killing machine cobbled together by a different mechanic with a different sleeping disorder. Pan's tendency to build death machines in his sleep put Toulon's night terrors and insomnia into perspective.

Pan himself, several of his inventors, a few doctors of The Black Cross and a group of thugs formerly under a gang leader's control merely stood and gawked at the man that was supposed to lead them took apart a complex machine that snagged his beard.
"Did anything happen while I was asleep?"
Toulon's question was answered by the sound of a room full of people wincing and grinding their teeth.

When Toulon heard that Andromeda had left to wage a one woman war on The Steel Talons the Captain of The Black Cross maintained his dignity by adjourning to a different room to ball up his four metal fists and stomp his feet in anger.

The black haired Captain exited his tantrum room to find a green-eyed cyborg whose body was dotted with several small tesla coils crackling with electricy. Several long white pieces of cloth were draped over Henry Frankrugger's shoulder.
"Wanna see?" The raven haired cyborg tailor unfurled a white cloth sewn with a unilateral black cross inlayed with the sign waves of a heartbeat.

It was odd, but seeing his jolly roger for the first time finally convinced Toulon Kuroko that he was now a pirate. The passing weeks of raids on marines and Steel Talons were what he considered pirate-like but he knew that no one took a group seriously unless they had a flag.
"Hoist it up, Mister Frankrugger, and let the Marines know that we are here."

The Captain of The Black Cross extended one of his four cybernetic hands to Pan, Funkyard's most famous inventor with a wistful sigh. "I apologize for the beard hair in your machine and the, uh, you know, taking you hostage thing. Be well, Pan."
The old inventor cracked a warm smile and patted Toulon on the shoulder.
"It's a shame that The Steel Talons are going to kill you, Toulon."
Toulon's wrinkling nose made his black facial hair bounce before deciding to smile. "I'm an optimist so I'm anticipating merely being horribly maimed."

After their jolly roger was raised on Pan's workshop the doctors, former gang members and overly dramatic cyborgs of The Black Cross set off towards Talon's mansion an anonymous call was placed to the local Marines that Pan and his workers had been taken captive by a newly emerged group of pirates.

Toulon spent nearly a month setting up false flag strikes against both The Marines and The Steel Talons to weaken both sides. Henry and the others had fun cosplaying both sides of the law but Andromeda had done the heavy lifting for which Toulon was grateful.
"That poor woman practically carried the entire crew on her back. No wonder she-"
He cut himself off right there lest he recite his entire book of self-pity.

Mercenaries and Steel Talon gang members littered the street to Talon's headquarters like cobblestones, some more broken than others. The human cobblestones turned into piles and soon it was hard to differentiate between the unconscious thugs and piles of junk that dotted the landscape of Funkyard.

Due to Toulon's hobby of disarming explosives man of the Steel Talons failed to show up to work that day. Between Andromeda's one woman war and Toulon's deactivation of the explosive collars used to motivate the Steel Talons, not to mention the random fights with marines, Funkyard's largest gang was a shadow of it's former self.
There were still at least fifty men guarding the entrance to Talon's mansion.

Toulon stopped to gain his bearings while his paltry collection of doctors and low level gang members looked at the hardened men and women that outnumbered them.
"The loud thing, please, Doctor Sax."
The middle-aged non combatant doctor fulfilled his duty to his crew by bearing a megaphone made by Pan and handing it to Toulon.

"Attention, members of the Steel Talon and..." The bespectacled doctor in the long white coat searched for a nice way to refer to mercenaries. "And, uh, subsidiaries. We are The Black Cross. We mean no harm."
To illustrate just how dedicated to diplomacy he was Toulon threw a handful of candy at the fifty fighters in front of him.
It despaired Toulon to hear the majority of his crew sigh in disappointment.

With a wholly unearned pride Henry Frankrugger, tailor and orderly of The Black Cross laid a leather clad glove on Toulon's shoulder with a look of phony stoicism.
"O' Captain, my Captain. This is a time of blood stained hands and savage hearts. I will give my life for your cause."
Toulon's rimless glasses bounced from the twitches in his cheeks while he cringed at Henry Frankrugger. The electrically powered chunyibou cyborg shouted and ran into the mass of puzzled mercenaries.

Despite having limited experience in war as a battlefield medic and zero experience as a pirate the doctor and puppeteer DID have a plan. Pit The Steel Talons and Marines against one another through false flag attacks and then strike on Talon's mansion when it was vulnerable.
That was before Khali felt the call of the warrior beckon her elsewhere.

Without Khali to act as a friendly go-between for Toulon and Andromeda ammends could not be made. Khali and Andromeda were the only part of The Black Cross that Toulon had any confidence in and neither were by his side at that moment. He was left with non-fighting doctors, a few errant gang members, and a melodramatic cyborg that believed more in self-sacrifice than thoughtful action.

Henry Frankrugger, the cyborg cracking with green electricity, who made the white coat hanging off of Toulon's shoulders spun in a top-like fashion managed a few knockouts through surprise alone.
The fifty-odd mercenaries no longer seemed intimidating. Even the pacifist Doctors drew closer to the crowd. The former members of The Steel Talons were even more confident and charged into the fight, swinging clubs and chains.

It was utter chaos and Toloun could not fight well in close quarters. He could however add to the chaos.
"Masks! Masks, everyone! Please! Thank you!"

As the few fighters that could hear the leader of the medical pirates donned their gas masks, Toulon donned his own black gas mask with two of his cybernetic arms and used his other two to uncoil the white snake puppet from his back.

Metallic strings snapped taught from five of Toulon's twenty fingertips and launched the wooden snake filled with anesthetic mixtures at the crowd followed by a large plume of purple gas that caused dizziness and loss of feeling. Those wearing masks were unaffected. The ones that didn't hear the command at least knew what to do in case of clouds of purple gas.

The mercenaries' breathing began to slow and their eyelids grew heavy. It wasn't the heavy sedation of surgery but more of of dizziness and sleepiness of a long bender.
As weak of a fighter as he was compared to the average pirate, Toulon Kuroko finally felt comfortable enough to wade into the fight.

Manipulated by five steel wires spooling out of the five fingertips of his upper right hand, a tall, pretty geisha with scars by her lips ran at the crowd. Four katana blades extended from her hands and feet, making her much taller and much more spider-like. The sword-limbed puppet slashed through the Talons with surgical precision due to it's operator being an actual surgeon.
Deep, but non-fatal cuts and punctures.

When the purple haze was dispersed in the wind the only people remaining standing were in The Black Cross, minus a few wounds while the mercenaries hired by The Steel Talons were remained horizontal and defeated.

Toulon had no idea where the gang's leader Talon had placed his forces but felt confident enough to stroll over the bodies of the unconscious and stop at the two large steel doors of the mansion where the enemy and possibly one captured ally dwelled.

When the black steel of Toulon's fist met the gray steel of Talon's door there was a loud ring that reverberated through the awkward silence. The bearded doctor in the black suit and white coat casually shifted from foot to foot honestly hoping for an answer.
After a shrug, Toulon looked up at the towering structure, reached out his hand then found the handheld loud speaker in it.

"Hi! Excuse me, Mister Talon. This is Doctor Toulon Kuroko. We met before...you cut off my arms, remember? Anyway...uh, if you'd please return my friend Andromeda I promise that we will peacefully ransack your beautiful home and no one else will be hurt. Thank you for your time."

Toulon looked around and shrugged. "Let's knock again."
There was a thunderous cacophony of sound as borrowed machines from Pan and his followers dashed themselves against the braced doors as if they were mid-afternoon thunderclaps.

After the loud crack of the wooden beams barring the door breaking Toulon stayed still and let the dust settle, lest any of it settle on his new coat before he stepped into his enemy's mansion.
The same two burly men that forbade the bespectacled cyborg's entry the first time he met Talon stood in front of Toulon looking significantly less authoritative.
"I'd like to see Mister Talon. Tell him it's Doctor Toulon. Yes, I'm aware of how similar our names are."

[Blitzfrieg]

Walls couldn't stop her.  She could climb them, or smash through them.  Either way, she kept going along her planned route.  A straight line.  At some point his soldiers stopped coming.  They followed, in the shadows, in alleys, they kept up with her.  But by this time she'd made it clear it was going to take their big guns to slow her down.  

She felt a little pride swell inside her when they literally opened the doors.  Talon must have realized she'd just smash it.  Of course it was a trap.  But Andromeda wasn't in a playing mood.  He wasn't going to catch her off guard this time.  And she wasn't going to do anything stupid counting on other people either.  Her reserves were topped off, and she had several canteens on her hip with more water for an emergency.

Andromeda strolled through the gates with a grim expression.  Talon's fortress was massive, and if it wasn't made out of scrap and surrounded by garbage it might actually be impressive.  

"I have to admit you leave an impression."  Came a thundering voice.  She recognized it from before.  The colossal, armored man that was the leader of the Steel Talons.  He lumbered into the entry chamber of his throne room.  Andromeda felt a twinge of anger here, remembering how she'd been left behind.  It only served to reinforce her determination to win here.  "I don't suppose it's too late to ask you to join me is it?"  He was enormous, but Andromeda wasn't afraid.  Not of this chump.

"Way too late.  My name is Andromeda Rhexx.  I'm the woman who's going to fucking annihilate you."  She stated it so plainly, so factually.  Without an ounce of venom or resentment.  Right now, Talon was less than nothing.  He wasn't a crimelord.  He wasn't a monster.  He wasn't even a man.

He was a target.  A thing to destroy.  She was going to do what wrestlers do best.  Break stuff.  Breaking into a dead sprint, Andromeda poured the steam into her limbs, maximizing their pressure in a split second.  Her acceleration was perfect, from zero to a yellow haired streak aimed straight for Talon.

"BLITZ TORPEDO!"  She leapt into the air, tucking herself up into an almost fetal position as she pushed the pressure in her legs into the red.  Talon raised his enormous arm to block her with a mechanical hand five times her size.  However when she struck his oustretched palm, a growl of rage preceded her kicking forward.  For a moment it seemed like her momentum stopped.  "HHHAAAAAAAAUUGGGH!"  She howled, kicking her legs out, and Talon's arm exploded in fantastic fashion as the frame holding it up with shattered from the impact.  

"BITCH!"  Talon shouted, being thrown around by the force of the impact and the complete destruction of his right arm.  As he spun, he wheeled his left arm into her as she was still falling from her aerial attack.  That massive hand slapped her out of the air, sending her flying backwards with such speed and force that she slammed into the doors of the throne room.  They blasted open, and she was sent careening out across the ground, coming to a rolling stop at Toulon's feet.  Groaning, she struggled to sit up.

[viruswithshoes]

For some reason he could not fathom, Toulon found many of the members of the Steel Talons much less intimidating than they were a month ago. The same two men that confidently mocked him earlier now stood in his way but didn't seem like real obstacles. Like clothes to be cut away before he started his actual surgery on a patient.
The inexperienced fighter credited that to wearing them down over the past weeks rather than any increased strength of his own.

One of the men lunged at Toulon only to be outsped by an immaculately dressed geisha puppet with red scars at the creases of her mouth. The wires used to control the puppet it's weilder named Kuchisake looped around one of the sentries tightly enough to ensnare him but enough slack to still puncture the second man a few feet away.

The wires loosened with a few gestures of Toulon's bottom right hand and the blood-splattered geisha puppet returned standing by her creator's side. After the soft pull of a string the head of the wood and metal doll split open to reveal a first aid kit and knelt down so the operator of the taller puppet could retrieve a stack of absorbant medical pads.

"You can fight me or you can help your friend."
Toulon's glasses flew across the room due to the guard making the wrong choice.
The surgeon's left eye swelled and bled from his cracked glasses.

Awkwardly crawling around for his glasses was nothing new for the bespectacled cyborg, but doing so while trying to manipulate a sword wielding puppet was a first time experience.

Before he could find the cracked, rectangular glasses the tall, bearded man felt a powerful kick to his ribs. Suddenly, it seemed like a good idea to integrate his vision prescription into his gasmask. Like many ideas, it arrived at the worst time possible.

The Talon flunkie not bleeding on the floor of the mansion stopped kicking and flew black. Through his astigmatism, the doctor with the twin braided beard could only make out a cloud of dust, a green blur and the crackling of green electricity.
"Good work, Mister Frankrugger."
"Feel my mechanical might and it's mysterious demonic energy! Lighting has been stolen from the heavens and tainted with impure, green, demonic energy. I am the mechanical monstrosity built by Captain Toulon to strike down his enemies. Justice strikes like lighting!"

No sooner than Toulon found his glasses, did he find himself hiding his face due to his embarassing subordinate.

The location of Talon's throne room was ingrained in the invading Toulon's mind due it being the location where his remaining flesh and blood arm was unwilling severed. Phantom pain crept up his shoulder at the memory of it.
A geisha flanked his right side, katana blades extending from her arms and legs rising to an intimidating (to Toulon) nine feet tall. The man of steel that the puppet using surgeon intended to face was well above that height.

The medical maruader with long black hair and beard nervously fiddled with the soldering iron and scalpel pinning his bun into place while with his other free hand making sure his twin beard braids were not loose or frayed. He then brushed any dust off off the new white coat resting on his shoulders with a heavy sigh and the realization that he was taking his enemy's criticism about looking like a Captain seriously.

Toulon finally managed one light knock...which was met by a large crash and Andromeda flying past him into.
He offered one of his two free hands to help her up while the other two were tensed and ready to unleash puppeted fury.
Instead, to preserve her dignity and partially make up for abandoning her earlier, Toulon lightly patted his metallic hand onto her metallic shoulder and produced a clang.
"Thank you, Miss Andromeda. I will take it from here. Please help the others with any lingering fights and take anything you can."

Unlike the first time they fought, Toulon was wiser even if he wasn't any stronger. He brought a gas mask this time, courtesy of the marine he had knocked unconscious some time back who insisted on calling himself 'The Gasface Killer'.

Hello, Mister Talon. I came to negotiate an armistice but then you threw my friend through a door." In an attempt to further mock the large steel armored man Toulon reached into his coat pocket and placed a single piece of candy on the floor.
"You could have had an entire pocketful of candy, but you blew it."
Talon still did not move from leaning against his throne.

When Talon's head jerked suddenly the doctor jumped, spilling a few pieces of his candy onto the floor. When the head came off Toulon war medic instincts kicked in and he rushed to the severed head but was kicked in the chest instead and slid several feet back.

"You have been a month long pain in my ass, Puppet Man," came a voice, oddly enough from the armored lower half of the man struggling to get up from the floor with a missing head.
"Not mention my aching back," came another voice from the armor.
The doctor could only watch in captivated horror as the armored pieces of detached legs, arms and torso argued.
"You'll get no sympathy from me. You've been farting into my back for years."

The legs of Talon stood to reveal a man from the long legged tribe sticking awkwardly out of his part of the armor. When he noticed bare legs and a fundoshi sticking out of the torso armor Toulon smiled behind his gas mask. As a man who spent a great deal of time in orphanages Toulon Kuroko had seen the 'Three Kids In A Trench Coat' trick before, but it it never failed to make him laugh.

The Long Leg part of Talon stepped out of his armor to reveal a pair of metal shin guards. The Long Arm third of the man struggled to get his arms out of the armor, grunting in pain from his broken arm, courtesy of Andromeda.

A steel leg greave clacked against one of Toulon's four black steel arms making a sound less fit for a battle and more for a terrible percussion band. Kuchisake's bladed arms thrust at the long leg's stomach, but missed the attempted appendectomy.
All the while Toulon did not remove his mask and the air took on a purple hue.
"Go find that snake, you idiot!"
The Long Arm still struggled out of the armor made an unsavory suggestion about his partner's mother, but complied with the order.

Glycon, Toulon's anesthetic carrying snake puppet responsible for the purple haze of sense-numbing gas hid on one of the many beams across the ceiling which the puppeteer had previously noted as a good hiding place, for puppetry, not warfare.

Toulon ran from the Long Arm with his sword puppet Kuchisake trailing, stopped, pivoted and promptly fell to the ground, but managed to send an electrified slash of air towards the man with the long legs chasing him. Suddenly, he was less proud of his record at playing tag. Children were easier to flee than long legs with killing intent.

The electrified air slash cut a large gash in the long legged man's torso which didn't seem to bother him as much as the electricity that came with it. The Long Leg was temporarily down. The Long Arm emerged from purple smoke Toulon had released through his white snake puppet Glycon.

Toulon had difficulty manipulating Kuchisake, his sword geisha puppet while in front of it but managed to send an electrified air slash to counter the attack but also surpass it. His Flying Arc Slash broke through his enemy's flying slash and for a peaceful few moments all three of the men that made up Talon were unresponsive.

Heightened fear response made Toulon feel the need to anesthetize the two men even more by having his anesthetic puppet pump purple pain killers via it's syringe fangs.

To anyone who hadn't seen Toulon constantly run away and attack, it might have looked as if the surgeon and puppeteer had not only won against Talon, but also cut the man into three pieces.

Toulon wasted no time in binding the unconscious men together and stacking them back onto one another to one again look like the Talon everyone knew...minus his head, which Toulon treated as an afterthought.

His smooth black hair fell past his shoulders when Toulon pulled the soldering iron he used to keep his hair bun in place. Solder wire spilled out of his pocket along with candy while reaching for the former to mend some of his enemy's armor.
"I need a small welding torch for this,"
Toulon moaned to himself.
"I got a welding torch, Chief," Said a tiny voice that simultaneously made his bowels freeze and orifices clench tight enough to crush stone.

Something with a large outcrop of white and red hair crawled out of Talon's helmet and looked up at Toulon.
The dwarf with the two tone hair picked up a piece of Toulon's dropped candy that was the size of the little person's fist.
The little woman tilted her tiny, bushy head towards the weapons and armor that decorated the throne room as well as the helmet she hid inside. Each were lined with red cracks.
"Kintsugi is my hobby. I can fix the armor in exchange for my safety. Also candy."

Toulon sat down and smiled. "Finally! Someone willing to negotiate."
"I can't afford risking prison. I'm too small and adorable. These guys told me I'd get shoved into a prison pocket if we got caught. I don't know what that is but that sounds terrible."

There was shouting from two thirds of the man known as Talon when Toulon and his new ally welded the two men back into their old armor permanently. It took breaking the long arm's long katana to weld shut any holes they might speak through. After the soundproofing the screaming sounded like muffled mumbling coming from a headless suit of armor.

Toulon wondered by no one had bothered to come in and help.
"You can do it, Captain! Your stamina is amazing!"
Could The Black Cross and Steel Talons seriously think the two had been fighting for hours instead of bonding over metal working while repairing Talon's armor and adding some extra features?

"Looks like we're both going to have to lie convincingly. Are you ready, Massive?"
The dwarf inside the helmet nodded, then pulled at the same metallic strings Toulon used to control his puppets in order to manipulate the limbs of the two men in the armor. Massive the dwarf was easily twice as strong as both the long arm and long leg put together, especially with them still woozy from inhaling anesthetic.
There was a clang when Massive awkwardly banged his right hand into his head in a comical salute. Toulon smiled and there was another clang when their two metal fists collided in solidarity.

The three people known as Talon stepped onto the balcony, nanipulated by Toulon's strings and he addressed what little there was left conscious of The Steel Talons.
"I...that is Talon," Massive said nervously, "Hereby declare a nonaggression pact with The Black Cross."

Toulon appeared from behind Talon's armor and took a deep breath. He wanted to talk of a less authoritarian leadership style and doing some good to the world.
This was before when he wasn't wounded, tired and jaded about forming alliances. Instead he made things plain and simple for the remnants of The Steel Talons.
"We are The Black Cross. Do not fuck with us...please." Politeness never hurt, nor did throwing candy into the crowd.

Toulon Kuroko wanted to heal people, he didn't want notoriety. He used to wonder how someone like Buggy the Clown balanced a large reputation and heroism.
The tired and wounded puppeteer made himself a vow that he would follow in the footsteps of his fellow entertainer of children and join the Daibukai. As much as Toulon hated to admit that Talon was right, a title and projecting some strength would make his life much easier.

The black haired man in the rectangular glasses tapped the shoulder of his green-haired tailor.
"Let's go, Henry. I have a bounty to increase and people to help."