[TheFightingSpirit]

Incursion Twenty Four: Oblivion

Thanks to the Trinity Clan powers, it didn’t take long to clear the Black Water away from the remains of the dome that had covered about a mile radius of downtown Fort Lowsdale, but no one could say exactly whether they’d got it all.

Catherine sent a task force to work with the local authorities to scour the water course and the sewers for remnant infections.

In trying to keep up with their lives in Fort Lowsdale, the rangers had come across a problem. They couldn’t be in residence at the base, and follow along with their jobs and lives.

Brad had his apartment, his university courses. Ken may have enrolled to keep up appearances, but as far as the university was concerned he was a real student. As much as she enjoyed having support from Catherine’s agency - which the captain had since officially named Strategic Command, or StratCom for short - she couldn’t leave her friends at the camps in the lurch.

Robert on the other hand had been more than overjoyed to forget about finding another job and move back to Steele city. Maria had not taken it well.

She cornered him in the base’s freshly outfitted ready room. “I heard you quit your jobsearch.”

“Yeah, but it was pretty pointless… and considering it takes a hour to get to FL…” He simply shrugged and went back to reading the random copy of national geographic he’d found on the chair.

She lost it. “Are you for real, Red!?”

“Come on Maria,” he said, slapping the magazine down. “I’m trying to focus on the job. Surely you understand that. Don’t see you with a day job.”

“It was only ever a cover, doofus. You amateurs should never have gotten so attached to that life.”

“We’ve been pussyfooting around this for weeks now,” He sighed. “The others look to me in the field for snap decisions, that’s what I’m good at, but if I’m being totally honest I don’t want to command. Not my thing.”

Maria narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s what you’re good at? I would never have guessed you’d have skill in something you’ve never trained for.”

“There is such thing as a natural leader, you know!”

They fell silent. Both stared at the other, trying their best to intimidate, to get them to back down.

Robert shook his head and looked away first. He could see Maria smirking out of the corner of his eye. “Maria, I couldn’t care less if you want to order me around, but in the field you need to give me space.”

She set her jaw and looked down her nose at him. When she spoke it was through her teeth. “I’ll concede to you the field commander position… but I expect you, all of you in fact, to join me for a crash course in basic military training.”

“I don’t want to sign up…”

“I know, Red, I know. You’ll be a civilian with special training. Consultant, special… whatever, I know you understand me.”

A smile spread across Robert’s face. “You’re not bad people, Austin. Not bad at all.”

She frowned, then realised how he’d played her, but by that time he’d already scarpered.

As she rushed to catch up, the bullhorn sounded the alarm. Cadet Ferris’ voice followed. <All rangers to the war room. I repeat, all rangers to the war room. This is not a drill.>

No time to rest around here… she smirked, changing direction for the lifts down the hall.

o0o

Maria arrived in the war room just as the others did. They found Captain Moses talking to Cadet Ferris, the central map blinking an incursion signal.

She turned to them. Her face was a picture of seriousness. “This is a big one, guys. It’s looking like No-one, but something’s different. We can’t pin-point exactly what.

“Your priority mission is to deal with No-one, but if you can figure out why his signal is pinging weirdly the way its then…” She looked at Ferris and winked. “Then our Cadet here will love you forever.”

Ferris blushed profusely, glad the rangers scrambled before anyone noticed her.

o0o

The signal pointed to a mile wide spread to the port side edge of Olympia park.

When they arrived they found the lake filled to burst with Black Water. If No-one was indeed around here somewhere he was hiding pretty well.

Robert shook his head. “He just doesn’t quit with the high level pollution stuff, does he.”

“Yeah, but thank god that lake is man made and not river fed,” added Allison.

“Speak of the devil…” said Ken.

As though he’d heard them talking about him, No-one rose from the very centre of the black lake and walked across the water to greet them. “It is becoming very easy to get you to come running whenever I fancy.”

Maria rolled her eyes. “If we didn’t, we wouldn’t exactly be doing our jobs.”

No-one stepped onto dry land. “There’s someone I want you five to meet.”

The way he emphasised someone sent a chill up Robert’s spine, this coming from the guy who had a fetish for ‘nobody’ and ‘nothing’.

A second figure rose from waters of the lake and had already made it to dry land before their features consolidated to any semblance of humanity. From a vaguely amorphous humanoid blob, the figure’s waist pinched in severely and it’s hips ballooned out.

The woman, as was clear now, was wrapped in the same bandages at No-one. Her hair hung lank down her back merging into the remains of a black prom dress. In her slender, long nailed hands she clutched a pendent, no a military dog tag, and a gnarled branch turned staff or walking stick.

“Is that...?”

“The lieutenant who tried to pull a gun on Catherine? Yeah...” said Allison.

Ken coughed loudly. “I think I remember saying something about this, like… oh I don’t know… seeing more of her again?”

“Don’t gloat, Ken. You know I hate that.”

No-one twitched and bellowed for silence. When he had their attention he continued, “This is my lovely bride. And unlike you, she is indeed someone. Say hello Oblivion.”

The newest Black Water general, who had once been their opponent as a pure, if ill-informed and bigoted, human being, smiled. Robert hadn’t seen it through the layers of combat fatigues before, but she was beautiful, truly beautiful. It made it all the more painful to know that woman no longer existed.

“But you insects can call me Lady Oblivion,” she said, casting the dog tags aside. Allison caught a glance at them, Lt. Celeste Hennings...

“Oh sure, mustn’t be rude.” Robert raised his eyebrow and twirled a finger by his ear.

“Shall I leave you to amuse yourself, dear?” No-one said to Lady Oblivion.

She twirled her hair, and batted her eyelashes. “If you have somewhere to be...”

“What ever do you mean? I have nowhere.”

“Of course, of course.” Oblivion let out a sigh. She turned her back on him. “Go on then... I have just the thing to squash these pests, anyway.”

“Have fun.” No-one dipped his head in a bow and dove backward into the lake.

Robert rubbed his eyes and blinked. He looked over at his comrades. “That’s... pretty sickening…”

“Oh?” said the ex-human. “I guess I can’t expect you to understand, can I.”

She held out her hand and a small bean shaped blob of Black Water rose out of the skin of her palm. The blob wriggled once, then leaped over her shoulder and somersaulted in the water. Almost instantly, a huge bubble broke the surface with a loud pop. Another joined it, and soon the entire lake looked as though it were boiling.

Lady Oblivion checked her work was done and melted away into the grass.

It didn’t take a genius to realise what came next. Where pools of Black Water were concerned, especially the energetic kind, a monster wouldn’t be far behind.

Sure enough a mass began to form in the centre of the lake. Though small and point like at first it continued to grow and grow straight passed Oblivion or even No-one in height.

Brad looked from the mass to his teammates and back. “We’re in trouble, aren’t we...” It can’t possibly get any bigger…

The mass continued to beyond all expectation until the totality of the lake had drained and it stood higher than the city’s tallest building. It shook it’s entire body to shed the shell of Black Water, revealing it’s true form; a mushroom covered, reptilian behemoth.

“We’re in trouble,” confirmed Ken. Then a thought hit him, a distant memory of his life before becoming a cross ranger. He switched on the comms unit in his helmet. “Base, come in. This is Blue Cross.”

<Ferris here, what’s your report?>

“No-one brought a friend along, and long story short we’re up against something way too big to handle alone.”

<Blue, this is Catherine. When you say big, how big do you mean?>

“Big enough to use a certain piece of equipment… the one that used to be stored under the community centre?”

<What are you talking about->

“Not the time to play dumb, uh, ma’am. Remember why the Agency originally capture me in the first place?”

<How do you know about that?>

“I’m smarter than I look.”

There was silence for a moment, before the radio crackled to life again. <I need you all to morph. I can sync the instructions to your helmet displays.>

“Roger.” Ken clipped the radio to his belt again. “Let’s do it.”

“Cross Form!” they called in unison. Their morphers appeared on their wrists, and shone with magi energy. They swung their arms in opposing arcs and recrossed them over their chests.

Once their helmets had formed over their heads, a stream of data ran across their visors detailing two top secret machines that would almost definitely level the playing field.

As if on cue, the rumbling of engines grew to over power the city’s background noise. A substantial flying machine, like a bulky flying fortress roared into view from the deserts beyond Steele City. It was codenamed the Challenger.

Red Cross, Blue Cross and White Cross followed the instructions they’d been sent and raised their hands as though reaching out to the Challenger. Three beams of light shot from them and connected with the machine. The energy streams lifted them off the ground and teleported them into a spacious cockpit, with space for two more besides the three of them.

“What about us?” said Green Cross.

From the direction of the community centre came the second machine, born through the air on powerful directional rockets. Unlike the Challenger, the Guardian was ground-based; a caterpillar tracked, tank-like vehicle with a pair of cannons along it’s back.

Yellow Cross chuckled and patted him on the head. “That better?”

They repeated the same gesture as their teammates and were transported into two cockpits. Green Cross took up position in the forward facing driving seat, while Yellow Cross found herself in the turret cockpit with the Guardian’s cannons on either side of her.

Just then, the fungus lizard clocked them as it’s opponent and let out an almighty roar.