AllFall
Confusion struck me when he said that, "Its not my birthday."
Then I got onto the chopper and saw it. Everyone came up behind me and gently guided me closer since I was standing stock still in surprise. It- it was a-
"AllFall," the Baron said with a mischievous smile, "I present to you: your birthday suit."
My hands clasped to my mouth to keep from laughing and crying at the same time. The suit was black, like the others, but the secondary color was crimson and on the arms were upgraded versions of the prototype shuriken throwers that Thread Walker used at the mall attack. It was beautiful.
"Well," Doug shoved me forward, "get in it! We'd all 'love' to see you in your birthday suit!"
"Which one?" I joked and everything seemed just right as my friends... my... family surrounded me. Are... are they really my family now? I've only had contact with the Angels once and my biological family is pretty much dead. I swiped at the tears building up in my eyes.
"Awww, she's getting all emotional." Alien commented.
"Why don't I have one?" Waya asked but by his expression it was some sort of inside joke.
Alien rolled his eyes, "You ask that at all of these 'birthdays'."
"''Tis my ritual." He said.
"We TRIED," the Baron said, "to make you three but your powers blew them all up. Now AllFall! C'mon! Don't mind him, he's just joking."
I went over to the pod that it was encased in and the back opened up for me. I slipped into the suit and then the front of the pod opened. I felt... well like bat man! I have been in Angel armor but the gear on this suit is probably closer to a Templar's gear in tech... not size though. There actually has never been a female Templar before that I can recall...
Once I got back to the group there was another man with a camera.
I gasped, "Where the hell was HE at?"
My filtered voice startled him and myself causing a laugh to escape my lips. Then it came out filtered and made me laugh even more.
"Alright!" The Baron said as he came up to me and helped unclip my hood and then take off my helmet, "Family picture! Hold that helmet high!"
We all bundled together and we all smiled for the picture. I held the helm high with one arm like it was a trophy. The camera flashed and then the Baron said, happier then I have ever seen him,
"Crazy pic!"
I held my arms out like I was about to cast a spell on the group below me, Walker stuck her tongue out and caused one eye to go to the side, MasterLock pretended to be on a saddle, Sara pretended to be scared of me, Obsidian blushed from Doug wrapping his arm around her and making a screamo face, Alien smirked evilly and Waya... wasn't going to do anything. The Baron grabbed Waya just before the shot and noogied him when the camera flashed.
Everyone congratulated me and then the Baron was helping me get the helmet back on.
"Now we just need to run you through some training exercises back at the mansion."
Alien's voice came into my ear, "That's my newest suit, equipped with the best gear I have developed thus far, and the helmet has a built in phone so we won't have that ONE situation again."
"Can you hear me?" The Baron said and I nodded.
"Can you hear me?" Alien purred on my com and I nodded.
Everything was if I weren't even wearing a helmet.
"Loud and clear guys."
"Alright!" The Baron said with a smile, "Now wear that suit proud!"
A co-pilot busted through the door, "Cuban AA! Get dow-"
"Obsidian!" The Baron said but to late.
Then metal screamed and a hole ripped through the helicopter. The sudden change in air pressure sucked at us in a vacuum. My heavy metal feet scratched the floor as everyone else was pulled off their feet. Those closest to the hole were Sarah and Walker. Waya electromagnetically made clefts in the metal floor for them to grab and Sarah found hers while Walker screamed as she tumbled out of the helicopter.
"WALKER!" The Baron screamed and he prepared to jump after her without a parachute and Alien tackled him, the pressure was equalized as the Baron tried to shake Alien off.
But, on impulse, my feet clomped over and I leapt over them both in the Cuban flak and sirens sounding in my ears from below. However there was something that alarmed me when I flipped over them...
The Baron's eyes were green...
****
Chapter 31
AllFall
The cape behind me fluttered as the air whistled past me. The computers in my suit locked onto Thread Walker as she fell but my mind was elsewhere. I felt that there was more to something I saw but I couldn't place it. Why were his eyes green? They're usually brown and-
"AllFall!" Alien chimed, "You idiot! The Cubans are moving in and instigating marshal law-"
"I HAD to get Walker!"
He didn't hide the disdain in his voice when he said, "Good riddance..."
-------------------------
The Black Baron
"So?" I said, "Did she respond?"
He sighed not hiding his annoyance, "She's gone."
"Give me the mic."
"That's not necessary." He said all to calmly.
"Alien," I gripped his shoulder, "a question. A rhetorical one..." I reered back and punched him from the chair he was sitting, "just how stupid do you think I am?! Why would you lie to me?!"
He spat and said, "Because AllFall can't be trusted!" He stood challengingly, "And I know Walker's dying, Baron!"
"W-what?" Sarah said in a small voice.
"Guys-" Doug tried.
Alien glared at him and he quieted.
"AllFall can't be trusted?" I scoffed and picked Alien up by the collar, "Who's the one lying to me just now!?"
"B-Baron," MasterLock said, "she's been talking to Salamay."
"Salamay snitched beef on me to AllFall and made it look like Alien did it!" Obsidian said.
"Shut your mouth Obsidian." Waya said threateningly, "I can go, make sure that they stay alive till you can come back."
I just looked at the others, rage threatening to unleash.
"W-we can't leave them!" Sarah said, "And what's wrong with Walker?!"
"Let's not forget about DeadLead trying to recruit her. I also went over the footage and Viral Taze let her live, I told Obsidian about it. What's their angle Baron?" Alien asked my vaporizing glare, "I'm just doing what I think will keep the group together."
Waya laughed, "By tearing it apart?"
The cockpit door open and the co-pilot tentatively looked in, "S-sir."
I turned an ear to him and he said,
"The bird needs to make an emergency landing."
I half glared at the group, my team, "Suit up, everyone."
I dropped Alien and he rubbed his neck as I told the co-pilot, glaring at Alien, "Tie Alien up," he looked at me with a start, "and get a speedboat for evac."
The co-pilot complied and Alien cried, "You're making a mistake Baron! They can't be trusted!"
"No Alien," I cast back with a glance as I tromped to my suit, "I can't trust ANYONE. You know how the world works, right?"
---------------
AllFall
"Alien?! Do you copy?!"
No reply came as my focus was forced onto Walker, backwards in a spread eagle to slow her decent. Once I got closer I noticed that her eyes were closed as she sobbed reluctantly accepting her fate. The Baron had disciplined her well, even in facing death she didn't panic but did the last thing that she could do to spite death, giving me plenty of time to reach her.
When I reached her my armored form knocked the breath from her lungs. Maneuvering the both of us to a nearby building but it wasn't going to be tall enough to stop our decent. Keeping Walker close my metal hand scraped against a building until I felt the heat from the friction and I turned my back to break Walker's fall. The cement cracked but my back didn't as our momentum tossed us into a roll so violent that when I collided with a fountain causing her and I to flip over the small wall and inside the fountain, Walker escaping from my grip as we made impact.
For a moment I was dazed, half-conscious and thinking that I was going to die. A seemingly giant figure trod over to me, blood dripping from the unidentifiable figure onto the water. Hands felt for my gauntlet and grapple and with familiarity yanked some of the lining free, hooked the grapple to the top of the fountain and pressed a button on my gauntlet. My grapple pulled me out of the water and I noted the blood trailing down half of Walker's body as she spat blood.
"Well, I thought the Baron was the impulsive one." Walker said with a smile in her voice.
I didn't answer and she grew concerned, "AllFall?"
I coughed croaking, "Where the hell are we?"
"Looks like the Plaza De San Francisco in Havana, capital of Cuba." She groaned, "Their military will be here any minute."
I stumbled out of the fountain and Walker and I carried each other to the nearest building. Once sure that we were safe inside I quickly took my helmet off and shook the water from my hair, pasting a strand into my mouth. I spat it out and combed my hair back.
"You're going to have some horrible helmet hair once this is all over." Walker commented as she paroosed the kitchen knives.
"Pfft," I said putting the helmet back on that filtered my voice, "Whatever."
Walker tucked blades into her shorts the best she could before she stumbled.
"Hey!" I gripped her shoulders as the sound of vehicles grew closer. I stood her up with shaking hands. This wasn't good, I could carry her-
She set a bloody hand on my helm.
"If they capture us, kill me."
Helicopter spotlights could be seen in the distance.
"What?! No-"
"They, like any country, will see that every bit of someone's power is ripped from them. That's how Waya and the Baron met-" she coughed and spat on the floor, "the Angel's were cracking down on a secret American super-soldier program." She groaned and I set her on the table as a spotlight filtered over the window, "Tried to draft him."
For a moment, I was at a loss for words. So all countries were trying to elude turning supers in to the Angels? Had I captured government experiments that failed to stay under the rug? I shook my head.
"L-look, I'm going to get you out of here."
She sighed and forced herself up, "I can fight a bit but I spent my life as a circus rat, don't let me become a lab one."
"I'm." I said in steel, "Getting. You. Out. Of. Here."
***
The Baron
The doors of a hotel elevator opened, I'm surprised that it held our weight. Waya peeked out and looked both ways before saying,
"Remember, no Russian."
I replied, no humor in my voice, "None of us know Russian Waya."
Obsidian Owl glanced at something and asked, "What do I do with him?"
I looked back at what she was talking about and realized I almost forgot the poor housekeeper of the hotel, shivering in fear in the corner. I snorted in disdain and looked into Obsidian's mask,
"You are doing nothing. Waya," I ordered, "knock him out."
I walked out and continued into the hall with Obsidian and Doug on my flanks as Waya poked the man and caught up in stride. Obsidian... to what degree can she be trusted? As long as I keep an eye on her she won't act carelessly but even with all my assets I can't watch her every second of every day. That and if she began to get worried about us watching her that could feed her bitterness and a villain's bitterness can grow big with only a little fuel.
"In position!" Sarah beamed on the COMM's.
"Good," I told my suit to 'call AllFall' and said, "AllFall, you copy?"
"Good god!" She exclaimed, surprised by the voice in her ear, I smirked, as the thought of prank calling her fluttered through my mind.
"Baron?!"
"What is your location?"
"They have the building surrounded."
"I mean," I said looking towards the Cuban military surrounding her hotel, "where are you in the building?"
"Ground floor."
I watched as a stealth chopper dropped troops on the roof atop the fifth floor. A squad also prepared to breach the ground floor. I put her on hold and ordered,
"Move fast team, fourth floor. Sarah, go."
"Got it Daddy!"
I sighed, "Don't call me that Sarah."
The seconds passed as Sarah limped out of a alley and towards the soldiers.
"Hey! Hey guys! Help!" She shouted then several soldiers spun on her and aimed their weapons at her. Sarah pretended to panic and ran off. A dozen soldiers chased after her on foot, the helicopter went into the air and tried to illuminate her in the spotlight.
"AllFall, get to the second floor. Team?" I glanced at all of them, Waya, Doug, Masterlock, Headsman and Obsidian, "Let's go."