Hades turned at the sound of the knock. He knew he had been introduced at the meeting, and that in a few minutes people who were interested in gear would come.

*Hmm, someone’s early, always a good sign, he said as he made a few gestures with his hands and a section of his lab disappeared as if it had never been. He took of his gloves and went to the door.

Hades was wearing blue overalls, they were well used, but patched with care. One could plainly see that Hades took care of his equipment, though he was old, he was still strong. He opened the door, and peered at the person standing there through gold rimmed glasses.

*hmm, Big, Red, Probably Strong, yet he is early meaning that he will probably have exceptional intelligence for the normal super strong grunt. Then again he may have been directed here, anyhow I need to do some tests, I wonder what type of weapons he wants?*

“Hello, I am Dr Hades, please come in.”
Abyss was shown into an inventors dream, projects lined the walls, and in the middle of the room there was a car on jacks, it was not just any car, this car looked a word : SPEED DEMON. On one wall there were weapon racks and along the wall were various doors that lead to who knows where, some as big as barn doors.

Hades swept his hand around, including some chairs that had been placed there in case of visitors. “Welcome to my workshop, this is where I tinker with things. Anyway, what brings you here and what can I do for?”

Hades rubbed his hands together with semi-maniacal glee. This was just wonderful!
He noticed Abyss’s gaze on the Speed Demon, and smiled.
“Like it? When I test if wanna comefor a spin and maybe take the wheel for a bit?”
“Such are the perks for working for this Mr Hunter person, as I am discovering. Now back to what you were saying, if you tell me the mission, then I will gladly whip stuff up for you but for more interesting things such as high power/long range/extremely explosive stuff I will need to make a few measurements. For one I am interested in
a) your reflex speed
b) how much dead weight/recoil both your arms can take withouhg messing with your reflexes i.e to let me know how big I can go, believe me we can get quite big, QUITE big” He said with a twinkle in his eye
c) “how much dead weight you can carry on your back, i.e how many gizmoes/ weapons of horrible death and destruction and ammo I can pack on you
d) Your general measurements
e) Also your general strength and stuff

I would hate to load you up only to find that the gear that was intended for you to kill stalkers actually got you killed instead by weighing you down.

For that purpose I have few tests setup over here, please follow me.”

Hades led Abyss along a corridor and half way along it waved at the wall which promptly retracted to reveal a room with many large cool looking things.

“Ok firstly these pistol you can pickup and walk to the shooting range and targets will be projected in 3D in the room shoot them as accurately and as quickly as you can.”
He said handing Abyss a pistol.

When Abyss had complete the test and emerged Hades was already holding a copy of the results, (occ Abyss you can make them up) “Nice!” he said

“Now onto this machine.” He said motioning a team of techies over pulling two trollies containing what looked like a gun fused with a hollow cylinder of metal. It looked like a metal sleeve with a trigger hidden inside and a gun looking barrel mounted on the underside, but the outer surface was covered in nozzles, and the whole assembly was connected by one or two cables.
“This is a sample of that a typical heavy weapon may resemble, as the weapons I hope to make from you will be a lot bigger than handguns, it would be more practical to strap the gun barrel to your forearm, have you hold the trigger and have an ammo belt, if one is needed, running to your ammo containing backpack.

The nozzles will gradually exert a force to simulate heavier weapons and the ones in the front will also simulate recoil. You will repeat the last exercise with both the recoil and weight steadily increasing. The screen in the corner will be selections of weapons, to repeat the procedure for each of them simply use your gun as a mouse point and fire to confirm. You have selection from V Heavy machine gun, to rapid missile launchers, to cannons etc. Just point the guns downward to end the exercise when you can take no more weight and recoil”

Abyss promptly did that and later emerged from the room panting slightly, covered in a light sheen of sweat.

Again Hades was holding the printout of the results, “Nice” he showed them to Abyss.

“Now we will repeat the last procedure but with a backpack and body suite that does the same thing and you will be moving on a obstacle course which requires you to jump over, scramble under objects as well as shoot targets. The gear for this exercise is wireless, and you will notice that the gun barrels do not protrude too much so to allow you to use full use of your hands.”

After that, Hades asked Abyss to walk through a series of metallic airport-security-looking things. “These take your measurements.” Hades explained, Hades also asked for a sample of Abyss’s blood, to make user specific energy booster packs for maximum effectiveness during long battles.

“Alright, thanks Abyss I think given some time I will whip up something extra special for you, by the way do you have any type of destruction that you and your “clones”, if you don’t mind me calling them that, prefer, say explosives or hand held weapons etc. Otherwise I now have all the data I need, and if you are going on a mission after the briefing I will lead all those who need gear to the armory near here and we will get you suited up. It has been a pleasure working with you Abyss.”

And Hades truly had, he liked Abyss’s no nonsense lets-just-go-get-it-done-and-not-waste-time attitude. He showed Abyss to the door, on the way handing him a drink in a packet. “Drink this, it will kick in, in about a minute, and will give you enough energy for a full day’s workout. Please enjoy. See you around, take care.”

Hades sat musing over the results for a while, his mind spinning. Soon he went to work, opening a huge store room for some stuff that he would work on for now and some other general equipment that he would make for this Abyss. He also made mental note to make a second prototype of the bike he was designing. He was currently working on a series he named Speed Demon, this was the Speed Demon: Agility series, he had already made some of the Road Rage series, where as that series packed a punch, the SD:A series was built just for speed and agility, nothing more, he rubbed his and set to work.

A week or so later, Hades sent a tech assistant in search of Abyss to tell him to drop by when he was free, meanwhile waiting for Abyss he went to the vehicle bay to continue tinkering with the two SD:A bikes, XSDA 1 &2.

Hades was working on a bike when he was notified of a tap on the door, a command from him and the door automatically swung open and after Abyss had entered it swung shut again. Hades voice carried from an open door. “Im in here, the vehicle bay, come on through.”

A trip into Hades private section of the vehicle bay was like a trip into an inventors dream, there were vehicles here and there, some half build others in a state of restoration. All of the vehicles had their own separate garage, some of the doors were open, allowing people to gaze at the contents inside, others were securely fastened, along the wall on the far side there were a few vehicles covered in tarpaulin, some were obviousely cars of some description, and others had strange shapes. The range of vehicles was wide, they ranged from beautifully restored classic cars which would cost millions ( some of these belonged to the Labs, but Hades had offered to repair them, plus he was doing a general inspection and upgrade of some of the vehicles at the labs) to some very futuristic looking cars. Then there was the bike section, there were 5 bikes, with what looked like a few more suspended by chains and clamps, suspended above. The bikes… they were build for specific purposes, one was obviously a muscle bike, It was big, and reeked of strength, another was built for speed, all streamlines and a wicked looking engine, then there were some half built, including two off to one side that were also covered, and it was nest to one of the half built bikes that Dr Hades was working doing some delicate wielding and fitting. Upon seeing Abyss enter he stopped, rose and wiping his hands, turned to greet him.

“No, no I was actually wondering when you would pop in again.” Hades said wiping a greasy hand. He swept his hand around his section of the vehicle bay, including the machines that were obscured in shadows and suspended high above the ground, the cars, the tarpaulin covered shapes, and the bikes. “Well what do you think of this eh? By the way do remind me, I have something to show you here, but that comes later, now for some gear that I have made.” He led Abyss back through the door to the labs, speaking over his shoulder as he went “Sorry to disappoint you but I have not made you any big guns… Yet, this is just some general anti stalker stuff that may come in use, please tell me if you would like me to modify it in any way and I will try my best to do so.”

They arrived back in t he lab, and Hades reached over and pulled at what looked like a drawer, there was an almost audible “click!” and a large long and rather deep tray slid smoothly out.

To one side were a pair of gloves, they looked slightly chunkier than normal gloves, and then there were various assortment of what looked like really thick javelins. At the same time Hades rapidly punched a code into a number pad in the wall and a section opened to reveal a rack of heavy and large cylinder like objects with handles and a few big buttons.

“Here we go, first lets start with the gloves. The reasoning goes like this, firstly the stalkers are made mostly of metal, secondly you have the strength to probably hurl a stalker around, but you would need a good grip. These gloves are lined with flexible yet powerful electromagnets; they are powered by some mine hydrogen-fuel cells. Basically when you activate the field, with just the field from the tips of two fingers, you can suspend your whole body weight, so say you had a strong beam above you, if you activated the Mag field and jumped, and touched two fingers to the bottom of the metal beam you would not fall, that gives you some grip on stalkers.”

“Now for these.” Hades said as he hefted two of the thick metal javelins and handed one to Abyss. “Basically you ram these into the ground and upon impact the whole cylinder will extend a matrix network of “roots” into the ground, the bulbous head is a powerful MREM (Magnetic Retention Electro-Magnet) which means that even if the electricity is cut to it, it will still be a strong magnetic, and believe me when I say strong. SO what you can so is that you ram this into the ground, you pull out the mag-head and hurl it at a stalker, and the ultra-strong, titanium fiber woven cable should be able to hold a stalker for a while, but if all seven of you threw one each I would be surprised if that stalker could move much.”

Putting that down he indicated at the huge heavy cylindrical tank like objects.
“These are glorified grenades.” That was the understatement of the year as even the smallest was the size of a divers oxygen tank. “If restraint does not work, hit them where it hurts, these are again magnetic, so you push the green arming button, and throw it at a metal object and it sticks. It then detonates and I will damage and melt even titanium, so you may not destroy a stalker but I imagine that if you threw one at a limb, that afterwards that limb would not be much use to anyone.”

“I would advise you to practice the activation and deactivation of the mag-gloves and their use, there is a specially prepared training room through that door, the aim of the game is not to touch the floor or the walls, so after you start, you can only hold the ceiling, and it is an obstacle course, with weapons (stun lasers) firing at you, designed so that if you get hit there is a large chance that you will fall.”

“So, what do you think?”

“Those are great, I do have one question, will I have the one pair or will there be more? I just ask because it will make a difference for how I work tactically with the others.”

“Well Don’t worry about that one, usually I would try to outfit all of you with different gear that compliments each other, so one set would be short grange and another would be long range etc, but for this mission,” He pressed a button, and another drawer slid out, with six other pair of identical gloves. “These gloves took me some time, as I wanted to make sure that you would not get stuck to each other, and I have done that, well sort of. You will notice that there is another button besides the on/ off switch, and that is to reverse the polarity. To meta this makes not difference, you will still stick to metal like glue, but to each other if you find you are hurtling towards each other , hit the button and you will repel each other , and I can think of many was of using that feature. Say a group of stalkers was surrounding you and dropping on your from above, if everybody repels each other you will just fly apart and can get away, plus you could use that feature to spread around the stalker, so one big group target becomes suddenly 7 targets flying away from each other.”

“These MREM’s should be a definite help, though, I haven’t had any trouble getting one to stay close. Then again close and occupied would be nice.”

“I cannot guarantee that the MREM’s will trap a stalker definitely, but I think it will aid you. I don’t have any stats of the limits of stalker strength, but think of it as really sticky goo that will trap the stalker for a bit, but I don’t know how long the wires can hold out against plasma blasts.”

“The only concern that I have about the incendiaries is that I will be working with a large group and while an explosion will work well against them it might work well against us as well. It is the same reason, that while I would have had fun with a big gun, it wouldn’t be very useful with a large group. I will use those only if absolutely necessary.”

“I thought of that as well, I neglected to mention this one point, this limits the effectiveness of the grenade, but this particular version of the Magnades is a unidirectional one, so it will only blow in one direction, which is the direction that the magnet is. So you could be standing behind one and not be hit.”

Hades watched Abyss have fun on the obstacle course; somehow it looked somewhat like a scene out of the movies, and behind his beard he permitted himself a small smile for a second only.

“Now if you want to summon your clones, you could practice using the gloves as a team!”

Hades watched amusedly as they played. He then called Abyss over. “Abyss, when you have finished playing with that, here is something for you, and maybe Later something for your brothers, but for now just you.” Hades said. “Also sometime you really should tell me if your brothers have any preference for types of weapons, say if one prefers explosives, or one prefers snipers etc.”

Hades turned and walked back in the way of the vehicle bay, “Come.” He said tossing a set of keys to Abyss.

Hades, with Abyss in tow walked into the vehicle bay, and took another set of keys out of a pocket, he inserted the key into the matching numbered lock (the keys have numbers and the same nujbers are above the locks) turned it and waited. presently a hum of machines was heard and if one looked up once could see a rectangular patch of what looked like the ceiling slowly decending.

“You mentioned that you liked bikes, so I wanted to ask you to try one out with me.”
Hades said as he swiftly removed his overalls to reveal a dark blue biking outfit. The platform hit the floor and there on each of them was a bike. Not just any bike mind you, these were two shining black bikes, with “SPEED DEMON” graffitied on the sides in red and yellow.

“These are two prototypes of the Speed Demon series of vehicles I am making.” Hades explained
“I have made a few series so far, the chameleon series, which the vehicles can change appearance, Road Rage series, where the vehicles are loaded with powerful weapons, and The speed Demon series, where all vehicles are designed to be durable, agile and fast, I am about to start a new series called the Mirage series but that is later.”

Running his hands lovingly over the dashboard and engine of the bike Hades explained “This bike is durable but is built for speed, it has a form of self charging NOX, a modified and improved dragster style engine, there are mini thrusters all around for increased manoeuvrability in emergency situations or for self correcting measures if you make say a crocked jump. The aerodynamics of this bike is a bit like on a formula one racing car, get it fast enough and you can drive on the ceiling without falling down. However as you can see there is a switch with either “grounding” mode or “flighty” mode, the grounding mode is what I described above, the other mode is the opposite, so when the bike gets above a certain speed, it will start to make short hops in the air, hops which you can increase the length of by timing the use of the thrusters or NOX wisely. So in fact if you are going fast enough and you do a hop and throw the bike horizontal in midair you could probably clear a truck, if you use NOX and thrusters you can definitely clear and truck and maybe even a trailer as well.”

Hades took a helmet from the wall and threw one at Abyss as well. “I will go out “shopping” soone wanna come along? But for now there is a huge test track/obstacle course underground, im going to test out the bike now, feel free to come along.”
With that, Hades keyed a code in the wall and a steel door opened with a road leading down a well lit tunnel. Without waiting for an answer Hades put on his helmet, and in one smooth motion swung onto the bike while kicking back the stop and starting the ignition. He then glanced at Abyss and then roared off down the tunnel, showing off the Dragsters Kick ass power (MUST READ: fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/648600998/m/65110969321 )

The words “Program online” flashed somewhere in the tunnel in the darkness, but the words were small and easily missed.

Hades roared down the tunnel with Abyss on his tail, He nodded his approval as Abyss’s use of nox. They emerged into the busy, congested streets of New York? But there was no time to sight see as immediately a group of armed soldiers and three stalkers started to open fire on them.

Hades began to push his bike. Skidding around corners, dodging traffic, going the opposite way on a busy high speed motorway, in an effort to elude the perusing troops. Then he came to a road hemmed in by high walls either side and traffic solidly congested in front of it. It was the bottle neck at the entrance to a tunnel. Hades gunned his engine and roared towards it.

As the back end of a large truck filled his vision Hades flipped a switch from “Grounding mode” to “Float”. Immediately due to the reversal in the aerodynamics (think of the force that holds a grand Prix car down now reverse the direction of the thrust) his bike shot up in the air, at the apex of his flight Hades hit the Nox, propelling himself forward over the tops of the jam packed vehicles below him, he grinned an evil grin as the sounds of collision and explosions were heard behind him.

He kept his gaze on the thin strip of flat surface where he could land his bike. It seemed like he was going to crash into the roof of yet another lorry. Hades lent to one side and kicked the bike from under him so he and the bike were now horizontal. They just made it. Just before they landed, Hades twisted the bike so it was upright and landed in the seat just as the bike’s wheels touched the ground. He screeched to a stop again jumping of his seat to avoid being shot by a soldier in the tunnel. He kicked the soldier and grabbed his weapon before switching his bike back to grounding mode and zooming off … Along the side of the tunnel, picking off guards as he went.

Hades looked ahead in the tunnel, he could see the light. They were near the end. Suddenly the light was blocked by three stalkers entering the tunnel. Hades did some quick thinking and reached into his overalls, twisted a few things and flung them at the two LPG tankers before gunning the engine to max and hitting the Nox, he successfully shot past the stalkers due to the engines absolutely insane level of acceleration, at the same time he shouted into his helmet mike “Abyss get outa the tunnel it is gonna blow.”

Hades shot out of the tunnel as was relieved to see the other bike shot out with two? Riders, *where did the other.. oh! The clones*

Once out of the tunnel there was a road with a hight wall on the right side that curved round a corner and around that corner was a banner saying simulation complete.

Hades screeched his bike to a stop just before the corner and turned to watch as the two LPG tankers exploded with a vengeance bringing the whole tunnel down on the stalkers. He waited till Abyss pulled up next to him, pulled off his helmet and was about to speak when a piece of shrapnel, shaped like a jagged triangle, pinned Hades to the wall. It had punched in near the area of the heart.

Hades fingers moved in a strange pattern, immediately
“Medical Emergency Scan initiated
Status: Left Lung punctured, Heart wall integrity compromised, would will go critical in 60 seconds.
Stasis cell online, activating in
10
9
8
7
Countdown paused.”
The countdown down stopped when Hades made a rapid series of gestures.
Hades spoke with a slightly shaky voice due to the pain
“Abyss, promise me that no matter what happens next you will tell no one, even on pain of death, and if yes please say so and step back.”

In the back ground the computer voice intoned “Wound will go critical in 45seconds.”

(OCC BIG, important scene!! As Abyss is the first person who has lived to see Hades in his true form)
Hades whispered “I must break the mental barrier that I setup. Arghhh.” A look of intense concentration and agony appeared on Hades face, while blood was soaking his riding cloths and forming a pool on the floor.
With a final roar of pain, Hade’s body convulsed, and something inside him snapped, his body slumped, his head lolled forward. His breathing stopped and life seemed to leave his body as his skin seemed to wrinkle.

A few seconds later, SOMETHING emerged from Hade’s body, the thing that rose looked like a hooded figure, it gave off a fain green glow, but the shear texture and colour and they way it seemed to pulse mane your skin crawl. If ever there was a worst nightmare, the most terrifying creature from the depths of Hell, this would rank among the top few. Staring him like this was literally like seeing Old man death himself, staring into his terrible flaming green eyes was like staring your own death in the face. IT gave a roar that seemed to echo into ones very own soul.

The figure was hooded and dressed in a black cloak and what looked like armoured feet emerged from beneath the cloak, the armour of the feet was engraved with symbols and creatures associated with death. His voice, where before it was deep and booming was now low and whispery voice and clearly crept into your ear and echoed there. Hades slowly turned and gazed at Abyss.

“You are the first to see me for the true abomination that I am and live to tell the tale.” He rasped slowly.
“No need to be frightened. Come, I see many questions and uncertainties in your eyes, we have much to talk about.”

Hades turned his back to Abyss and the abomination slowly solidified into Dr Hades, in doing so it showed his true look. He looked about 25, handsome and good. He gestures for Abyss to follow and led the way up a flight of stairs back to the hanger. Back in the distance drones appeared from slits in the wall to repair the damage done.

Hades led the way to the top level of one of the buildings that made up Mondragon Labs. The windows were one way and tinted; from here one could see New York city sprawled before them.

“I see you have many questions on your mind, Please ask away.” Hades said to Abyss. They were alone. With the lights of the busy New York lighting up the darkness of the night.

Perhaps, they are not the questions you suspect, for instance why deny your natural form, with the appearance of humanity? I have heard you say that you are a human, but surely that is the result of your genes, not experimentations.You are no abomination, but simply another soul in a shell of a diffrent nature, there is no wrong in that.” Abyss walked to the window appreciating the lofty view of the city, it had been a bit since he had simply had time to enjoy scenery. " also I suggest on other simulations, with members of the resistance you take the danger level down a bit, we can't loose our people to training, can we?"


“Well, I suppose saying that my phased form is my true form would be lying, as both are my natural forms. Why do I usually choose the one that appears human? Well partly because in that form my touch does not mean death.”

Seeing a slightly puzzled look on Abyss’s face Hades said
“Let me explain to you the full extent of my powers, Then perhaps you will understand. In my other form, I can phase through matter, I have excellent night vision, and my shear essence is poisonous. The poison which my body naturally manufactures has no cure. It is impossible to produce a cure for it. If you had touched me just now, at best you would feel severely weak and drained for a week, at worst around a month. That is for people who have an active mutant X-gene. For normal humans, my touch spells certain death.”

Hades Sighed

“I gained this power at the cost of the lives of 6 of my brothers, and after I gained this power it has caused me nothing but trouble. One slip, one mistake is all it takes to kill someone you treasure, I found that out the hard way, the fact is that this power is not worth the lives of my friends, and had I been given a choice it would not have happened. Why do you think I am called Hades, I am the harbinger of death, the perfect assassin, sometimes even without trying, and it was never intended to be this way. As for that training course that was originally meant for me, as I cannot be killed that way and I did not realise that my new mini explosives would work quite that well. But yes I will tune it down a bit.”

Hades said nothing for a while, staring out at the peaceful night sights of New York City.
“Looks peaceful doesn’t it? Ever find it hard to believe that somewhere out there in that rather peaceful looking city there are a group of people who want to put us behind bars just because we are who we are?”

Hades sighed “I am touched by your offer, I will keep it in mind. To tell you the truth I accepted the job because of the resources and the challenge. I am not yet truly clear as to the underlying purpose of the Kabal. If I ever feel the need to, how do we say it, ‘relocate’ I’ll give you a call.”

Hades fell silent again. He was comfortable with the silence, one shared with two friends who looked as unlike as two people could get. How often does a 100 year old man who looks devilishly handsome and looks 25 chill with a giant red strong man with a tail?

It was a while before the silence was broken.
“I am a wanderer, I have been cooped up here in this laboratory for too long, soon I will leave on a mission, it is a covert one, one that will require stealth and mobility. You are welcome to join me if you wish. But enough about me, you seem to have much on your mind my friend, care to share some of that which burdens your mind?”