As I made my way east, I was forced to detour north of Flagstaff instead of going straight through by the Army. The whole section of Desert to the south and east of Flagstaff had been irradiated with Gamma Radiation, something about the Hulk having started to go critical mass at a nearby army installation. If I recalled correctly, that was the Savage Hulk doppelganger that had been left behind during Heroes Reborn and the whole Counter-Earth debacle that the Army had airlifted out of New York City after the Onslaught situation had been fixed. They'd brought him to a lab he'd then broke out of and headed for the East Coast again, getting back to New York City while on the run before Banner reasserted himself and the radiation stopped spiking. Or at least something like that. I wasn't a hundred percent on the timeline.
What that meant for me was that I had to detour through the Navajo Nation on the way to Albuquerque before proceeding to Oklahoma City. From there it was an uneventful trip through Tulsa, where I got a kick out of seeing a billboard advertising Doc Samson as a licensed psychologist, then through St. Louis, where I stopped to get a picture with the Bronze Statue of the Whizzer, noted Member of the World War Two-era Superteam the Invaders along with Captain America and the original, robotic, Human Torch, along with Namor before he began throwing violent tantrums every time someone so much as took a piss in the ocean.
I didn't have any trouble until I hit Chicago, where I planned to make the big turn East toward the East Coast. Chicago had been my Hometown in my Old Life, and as it turned out, was my Hometown in my life as Jan Kowalski as well. Go figure with a name like that, am I right? After all, Chicago had the largest population of Poles outside Poland, my Old Man in my previous life had been Polish, and it looked like the same held true here. Funnily enough, my Mom had been Italian in my old life and was still Italian here, though her maiden name had been Bocconcelli in my prior life and was Balsamo here. Still South Italian, though from Naples instead of Sicily. It was actually sort of funny how verisimilitudinous things could be.
It was as I was musing on that from the inside of the White Palace Grill on Canal Street and eating a skirt steak and eggs that I noticed that something was off. A group of three people were trying to hide that they were taking an interest in me. I could tell, however, thanks to the Dragon Pulse ability that I had from learning Alakhestry. Two of them were registering just fine to my Dragon's Pulse and I was able to grab their surface thoughts for a brief moment with my Psychic Abilities. They were Hellfire Knights, Mercenaries working for the Hellfire Club who were tasked with various jobs for the Hellfire Club's Inner Circle.
The third guy, I absolutely couldn't figure out. He was seated with his back to me and had his hair covered by a hat, but that wasn't the most suspicious part. Not, not only could I not see any distinguishing features, but I also wasn't getting any surface thoughts from him, plus he wasn't even registering to my Dragon Pulse ability. Normally you had to be a robot, or so heavily cyberized as to make no difference to not show up with the Dragon Pulse, either that or a hologram or astral projection. That in and of itself told me enough to make an educated guess based on metaknowledge that this was Donald Pierce, former White King of the Hellfire Club, who'd been demoted and then faked his death during the whole war between the Hellfire Club and the Upstarts a few years ago.
He was also so heavily cyberized that he barely had any organic tissue left along with having technology that could block psychic powers unless you were someone on Emma Frost's level or higher, hence the giveaway. He was strong, fast, and durable, had his eyes replaced with sensors that would see through any of my light-based illusions, and would have recently integrated technology from the Future that allowed him to turn his arms into weapons like razored nails or foldout plasma cannons. He shouldn't have integrated the adamantium carapace or rocket jets yet if I was right about the timeline, which meant he was still inferior to my capabilities in a physical fight if I buffed myself to my maximum capability.
The Hellfire Knights generally wore some form of adaptive powersuits that would adapt to opponents they were fighting, though those usually came with some sort of helmet and visor combination and these two were sitting there bare-faced. Granted it could be an illusion via Image Inducer, but the fact that I was able to get their surface thoughts with my telepathy indicated that the lack of helmet and visor was on the level. Thing is, if the fight that was absolutely coming dragged out long enough, their armor would start adapting to my offense, which put me in a time crunch here.
I would need to overwhelm them from the start, hit all of them hard and fast, and try not to get shot via a future-tech plasma cannon in the process. If I could take out the Hellfire Knights quickly enough that their armor didn't have time to adapt, I would have Pierce all to myself with no distractions, which drastically decreased the likelihood of getting shot by a plasma cannon from the future in the back. That would be my go-to strategy for this, and I could likely use some of the Hydromancy and Geomancy to help control the battlefield, though I shuddered to think about how wrecked the pavement would be from that approach.
As I finished my steak and eggs and paid the check, I got up to leave, heading for a nearby alleyway. A brief check with the Dragon Pulse revealed that yes, I was being tailed into the Alleyway. As I made my way into the alleyway, I buffed myself as best I could, drawing physical attributes from my Metalminds with Feruchemy, using my Chi to enhance my abilities, buffing my movements with Kineteomancy, and generally pushing my capabilities to their current maximum limits. No sooner had I started all of those, than the two Hellfire Knights and Donald Pierce rounded the corner into the alley.
"Huh. You know, I'm not sure what I was expecting when I saw you head for the alley. How'd you realize you were being tailed?" Questioned Pierce.
"I clocked you three back in the Diner. I picked up some interesting surface thoughts from those two, and while I couldn't get a read on you, that in and of itself says something." I pointed out.
"Shoulda let us wear the helmets, boss." Piped up one of the two Hellfire Knights.
"Did you just hear what he said? No surface thoughts is suspicious on their own. It wouldn't've worked." Scoffed the Other.
"Both of you shut up and let me introduce us to our prospective recruit!" Snapped Donald Pierce.
"No need. You're Donald Pierce, former White King of the Hellfire Club, those two are Hellfire Knights. What I don't get is why the inner circle has you doing gruntwork like this. Shouldn't you be a little more senior than a Knight?" I asked.
"You know of us? That's very interesting. I wonder who you've been talking to that you know about our ranks like that? Well, I'm sure once we get a chance for a thorough debriefing, we'll figure it out. There are quite a few psychics in the Hellfire Club, after all. As for why I'm leading field work like a Knight, you're right that I should be more senior, but I faked my death to escape the last problem I ran across. The Black King decided I should put in some work on a lower rung of the ladder to prove I wouldn't just up and vanish again. Besides, someone has to ensure that these two don't bungle another job." Shrugged Donald Pierce.
"Yeah, even if I was inclined to go along with whatever scheme the Hellfire Club has planned, Psychic Debriefing wouldn't work on me. Telepathy is only a secondary effect of my mutation. The primary effect gives me complete psionic immunity. Charles Xavier himself could try reading my mind and it wouldn't work. But like I said, I'm not inclined to go quietly along with your recruitment pitch." I scoffed.
"Unfortunately for you, it isn't optional, especially now that you've told us you're completely immune to psychic telepathy. That probably was something you would've wanted to keep under your hat. Now instead of trying to brainwash you after knocking you out, you get a bomb collar instead." Sneered Donald Pierce.
"You can certainly try, but I know something you don't know." I grinned.
"Oh? Do tell?" Smirked Donald Pierce.
"Terra Captio!" I snarled as I raised a hand in an arcane gesture. The concrete of the alley floor surged up across Donald Pierce's leg to the mid-calf, sticking him in place as the two Hellfire Knights lunged for me. That was;t great, if I'd been at my full power, I probably could have gotten it all the way of to his waist, or at least his thighs. Still, it would do, as I lashed out with a right cross at one of the charging Hellfire Knights. His gauntlets were sparking with electricity like some form of taser glove as he tried to grab me. My backfist struck him in the solar plexus hard enough to knock him into a steel dumpster, where his unprotected head bounced off the steel of the dumpster and knocked him out. The second Hellfire Knight paused to fire some kind of laser at me that I conjured a shield to deflect before launching him back at Donald Pierce with a Muay Thai-style front thrust kick.
"Imbeciles!" Insulted Pierce as he casually backhanded the flailing Hellfire Knight out of the air, smashing into his head and cracking his skull while avoiding the improvised human projectile. The Hellfire Knight skidded to a halt on the ground, blood leaking out of his ears and neck bent at an unnatural angle. I didn't have time to process that Donald Pierce had just slain his own minion before his arm folded out into a plasma cannon and he fired a beam that cut his leg free of the magically reshaped concrete. With a growl, he fired a second beam at me, which I blocked with a conjured shield, only for said shield to heat up cherry red, forcing me to move before it failed and the beam shot past where I was just moments ago to melt the nearby dumpster into hot slag that killed his other minion who'd been unconscious at the foot of the dumpster via molten steel.
"This! This is why I won't join you guys! You just kill off your own troops like that? What kind of psychos are you?" I scowled.
"Please, don't cry for the help, if they don't do their jobs, then what good are they?" Retorted Pierce.
I was suddenly struck by the fact that the Hellfire Club was full of rich assholes playing power games with their influence and who didn't care who they hurt so long as their goals were accomplished. Apparently, my trust fund had qualified me for junior, non-minion, membership in their minds and they weren't going to take no for an answer. Instead, the no had just downgraded me from potential officer to disposable agent as far as they were concerned. I didn't have much time to stew on that, though because Pierce had seemingly decided that the banter was done and fired another beam of plasma at me.
I leaped up, using aeromancy to double jump as the beam passed below me, exiting out the other end of the alley and slicing a parking meter in half before cutting out. With a mystic incantation and another gesture, a tendril of water coalesced out of the moisture in the air via Hydromancy and moved to pull Pierce's Arm Cannon out of place as he was about to fire off another beam at me while I was in mid-air. The off-target beam melted through a second dumpster, this one full, and set the trash inside on fire. I landed and directed the flames at Pierce with a mystic incantation and gesture via Pyromancy, even as he turned his arm canon into a blade to slice through my water tendril and free his arm.
He got hit with the plume of magically controlled flames right in the face, temporarily blinding even his cybernetic optics as I rocketed toward him with a lunging right hook. My fist met his metal skull and there was a screech of tortured metal and a scream of cybernetic fury as I felt something give. Withdrawing, I saw that his neck was bent at an odd angle, the metallic spine that had taken the place of his organic one had given way from the twenty-five tons of force I'd placed behind my lunging hook. To add to that fact, the synthetic flesh that covered his face was burned away, revealing a Terminator-like metallic skull.
"You're one ugly motherfucker, you know that?" I quipped. I'd always like Predator better, after all.
In response, Pierce just slammed his newly grown razored nails into my chest in a type of clawing motion. Fortunately, even with ten tons of force behind the blow, his claws were only capable of tearing through my shirt and cutting thin, small, lines into my chest that I could heal with Alakhestry easily enough and were entirely superficial. His plasma cannon was a lot more dangerous than any of his other weaponry. He seemed to know that too because he switched from claws to cannon and tried to shoot me point blank in the head. About the only thing that saved me was falling on my ass as the beam soared over my head and out the other end of the alley to melt a hole through the back of a mail truck and set the mail inside on fire.
"Hey! That's a felony, you know!" I shouted as I kicked out with both legs, knocking him to the ground in the process and denting the alloy plates of his cybernetic legs with a metallic crunching noise.
"Save your jokes for the Grim Reaper! I don't care if Shaw wants you recruited, You're dead!" Snarled Pierce as he pointed his cannon at me while we were both on the ground. I kicked his arm away, causing him to blow a hole in the concrete wall to the side of the alley instead, revealing the back room of a nearby clothing store where a shocked sixteen-year-old Goth Storeclerk was trying to finish her shift in quiet. Pierce smirked as he got to one knee, aiming his cannon at the store clerk only for me to tackle him back to the ground bodily, forcing the beam to shoot up and out of the alley mouth to destroy a traffic light instead. The Girl let out a scream and I assumed she ran away, but was too busy trying to wrestle the arm cannon out of position to kill anyone to check.
"Heh, gotcha!" Grinned Pierce as his other arm folded out into a monomolecular razorblade and he punched out at me. I was just able to twist aside to turn the blow into a glancing one, but the force behind it and the monomolecular edge was more dangerous than the razor claws he'd grown earlier, and a deep gash was cut into my side. He kicked me away and moved to point his arm cannon at my prone form when I decided enough was enough and drew on the Force deeply enough to try and tear his arm from its socket. Surprisingly, it worked, and with a screech of tortured metal, his arm cannon was torn off his body. Concentrating, I whipped the torn appendage at his face, cracking his optics and rendering him blind.
Unfortunately, I'd been given the Matukai package with the force, and Telekinesis was not one of their strong suits, so my focus turned toward using the Matukai techniques to push past pain and stop bleeding, even as Pierce's other arm turned into some kind of micro-rocket launcher. I didn't think I'd be able to dodge with the wound slowing me down and the area of effect blast that the rockets presumably had. Then I realized I didn't have to. I'd been going about this fight completely ass backward and had gotten pretty badly cut by a monoblade in the process. I had Ferromantic Capability, I just hadn't used it. I should be able to cause a minor glitch in his rocket arm to disable one function with it.
With a mystic incantation and a one-handed gesture, I disabled the launch rail on his rocket arm. When his micro-rocket failed to launch, even after arming the rocket, it exploded in the launcher. With a humming noise, his arm just vanished, dissolving into a cloud of dust that drifted to the ground, inert. Pierce Screamed in rage and anger at the loss of his weapons, even though I had no clue what exactly had just happened. I wasn't taking the opening for granted though, as I rushed forward and hit him with a flying knee. I lost hold of my Matukai technique that was forcing my blood to remain in my body for a second, causing the gash in my side to ooze and my vision to swim for a bit, but I quickly regained control of it as I landed, somewhat unsteadily, before grabbing his foot with one hand, placing my boot on his pelvis, and pulling. With an effort, I tore his right leg off his body.
"There. Try coming at me without being able to walk or stand." I growled before moving to focus on Alakhestry to heal my side as I walked away.
As I made my way back out of the Alley, I heard him call after me. "This round then, to you. Enjoy the taste of victory, because I guarantee it'll be your last!"
I didn't pay him any mind, focusing on healing myself with a combination of Alakhestry and Matukai Techniques. By the time I was fully healed around eight minutes later, I'd had just about enough excitement for one day. I got back in my Camaro, which had thankfully avoided getting caught in the scuffle, and drove off, heading once more for the highway. Not two minutes after that, I passed by a few police cruisers heading for the site of my fight with Pierce. I very much doubted the Hellfire Club would let him rot in jail, but you never knew with those kinds of people. Maybe failing meant they'd cut bait? He definitely wouldn't be escaping on one leg, anyway.
I got back on the highway five minutes after that and put the incident in the back of my mind for later. I would worry about Pierce's Revenge when it happened, but for now, I was pretty sure the Hellfire Club would lick their wounds and stick to scheming over actively sending operatives after me. After all, if I could dismantle Pierce and get away seemingly unscathed, and he'd been their White King, then it was unlikely any of their other operatives could handle me. Sebastian Shaw was cautious enough to recognize that having non-physical attack options like I'd shown against Pierce meant that he wouldn't be able to convert those attacks to strength and durability like he could with kinetic attacks. He wouldn't come himself if there was a chance he could die, which left one of the Queens, most of whom relied on Psychic abilities and thus could be no-sold by my primary mutation.
No, the Hellfire Club would sit back and wait for now. Even so, I wouldn't stop driving except to get gas and use transmutation to fix my clothes until I reached Boston. It was only prudent, after all. The fewer shenanigans I got into on the way to the East Coast, the better as far as I was concerned. With an effort of concentration, I tried tracking down the precise location of my Tower by using the mystical pull on my mind as a focus. I was close, but not close enough. My senses told me I had to go further north than this. I stopped for enough food to fill my stomach and time to sleep at a Hotel before getting back on the road.
Following the mystical pull of my Tower led me to a small colonial town at the mouth of the Merrimack River, where Newburyport would have been in my old life. The name of the town instantly brought a shiver to my spine, because of course my Tower would be in a Town like this, where a cult had once thrived a decade ago and had required the intervention of Doctor Strange to set things right. A Town where the dead spawn of an Elder God lay dreaming beneath the Bay, just waiting for anyone stupid enough to try and revive him to his former glory. A Town filled with Serpent-Men who may or may not still be here and may or may not have turned their scaly claws to less evil pursuits since the Cult had been defeated by the Sorcerer Supreme and its Serpentine God slain. A Town called Starkesboro.
That just figured. . .
XXXX
Meanwhile, in Morvania, two sentries were standing watch at their post, keeping the Cordon around the Mopuvar and Dinestrovsc Valleys in place. They were not the only ones, as a Carpasian Super-Agent with the power to Fire Bursts of Coherent Light was with them, all the better to burn away the dark things that called those valleys home now. In her red and white uniform, with her golden hair, she was the personification of the Dawn, which was likely why she had chosen the Codename she had, Zora. She had been joined by two other Carpasian Super-Agents.
One was a man capable of controlling the weather with his mind named Vetrovnjak, wearing a blue uniform like the sky, who would serve to keep the enemy's Lightning from striking down any of the Air Support they might call in. The other was a man with scaly black skin that was able to deflect gunshots, red eyes that could see in the dark, and the ability to breathe fire at an opponent. This was the Agent known as Zmaj, and like the Dragon of his Code Name, would surely prove to be a formidable fighter. Fortunately, the Super Agents did not come alone, a full Battalion of the Carpasian Army came with them, as did Serbian Troops.
The Serbs brought with them a full company of Twelve of their new advanced armored, railgun tanks. Something that apparently took a team of multiple Genius Engineers defecting to escape poverty in Nearby Symkaria to design. That had been another thing, that the Symkarians had been doing their best, but their Monarch's Personal Mercenary Company was still their main source of income. Symkaria had few natural resources, was landlocked, and its agricultural land was not bountiful enough to make up the difference. They had tried branching out into financial services, but most other Balkan Countries would rather bank with the more established Transians, who had set up an International Bank and a parallel Investment Bank, both of which used computing technology salvaged from the destroyed ruins of the High Evolutionary's Citadel on Mount Wundagore to ensure the unhackability of the accounts based there.
"I am telling you, with all this technology and these Super-Agents, plus the multiple battalions stationed here, the Drekavac will not survive any attempt to break out of the Valley." Boasted one of the Two Sentries, a Corporal Named Budimir Vlahović, taking a drag on a cigarette before passing it to his companion and exhaling.
"That may be so, but we should not even let him have the Valleys. Scum like that should be wiped clean from our lands, isn't that why we were removing the Albanian Cockaroaches in the first place?" Questioned the other sentry, a Private Vlatko Borisov as he took the cigarette and inhaled, taking a drag of his own before passing it back.
"We tried, you saw what happened. I for one, do not wish to die for the Premier's Ambitions of Greater Serbia." Shrugged Budimir, taking a drag.
"Careful of talk like that. It sounds more like something that an Albanian in disguise would say." Came a female voice from behind Budimir as he inhaled, causing him to choke on the smoke. Coughing, he turned to see that Zora was behind him with a satisfied smirk on her face.
"I didn't mean it like that, just that dying to those things means you're like as not to get turned into an abomination." Muttered Budimir between coughs.
"True, I still would be cautious about saying anything that the Military Police might find misinterprettable, just some friendly advice." Offered Zora.
"Besides, we won't die if we go in with all this equipment. Who could possibly stand against the might of three brother nations united as one?" Added Vlatko.
It was then that they found out. From within the Valleys, there were signs of movement. One moment it was a shadow upon a hill, the next some gigantic, twelve-foot, abomination emerged from behind the hill, all bulging musculature, bone plating, and pallid, corpse-pale skin. It wasn't alone either, as more of these monstrous beings emerged alongside it. Vlatko raised his rifle and fired off a three-round burst, but the troops had been issued with frangible rounds meant to more easily shred undead flesh and kill Zombies faster. They did less than nothing against mystically hardened bone plate armor. One of the Abominations reached for Vlatko, even as Zora let out a stream of bolts of coherent light that burned through first one, and then another of the hulking things. Vlatko was snatched up in a skillet-sized hand and his head was easily ripped off his neck.
Budimir himself had already made a mad dash for the sandbag emplacement and the machine gun and radio inside, the Machine Gun was already chattering away as Sergeant Milovan Tadić and Private Slobodan Pajić poured hot metal death at the oncoming abominations at seven hundred rounds per minute. The heavy-duty rounds used in the Zastava Machine Gun were useful against light vehicles like the Humvees used by NATO Forces. They were able to down the Giant Abominations with sustained fire. Budimir went for the radio to call for the Serbian Tanks. They were already on standby, with one platoon constantly ready to move out on this end of the two, connected, valleys, while one was ready to move out on the other end. They confirmed the Tanks were on the way and Budimir let out a relived sigh.
It was as yet more Giant Abominations appeared that two things happened. The first was that Sergeant Tadić received a bullet that went through his flak vest and out the other side of him as he switched targets from a kilometer away, something a bullet of that size wouldn't be able to naturally do. The second was that, while Budimir was pressed into taking Private Pajić's place as loader while Private Pajić took over the gunner position, the Drekavac himself appeared to do battle with Zora, warding off her light bolts with a shield that came from nowhere and firing back at her with bursts of flame and jagged spikes of rock. Without her help, the pressure on the Giant Abominations lessened and they surged forward.
Budimir did not wait for Zora's fight to finish, instead, he cracked open a wooden crate and pulled out an M-Ninety-Three Grenade Launcher, he loaded her up with the twenty-nine grenade belt and began firing at the abominations. As he did so, several of them went down under the weight of fire provided by him and Private Pajić on the machine gun, before Private Pajić too caught an impossibly powerful, impossibly accurate, impossibly long-ranged bullet that went through his steel helmet and splattered his brains all over the emplacement. At the same time, Zora was speared through the chest with a spike of rock that then melted into liquid hot lava, melting her from the inside out.
Budimir was forced to duck behind the sandbags as more long-ranged, accurate, powerful rifle fire came in, but thankfully, so too did Zmaj, leading two companies of Carpasian Reinforcements, this diverted the attention of the Abominations and the Drekavac as Zmaj engaged the killer of his comrade in battle, spewing a great gout of white-hot flames that the Drekevac countered with a torrent of conjured water, breathing the battlefield in steam even as the Abominations engaged the Carpasian Reinforcements. Flashes of gunfire rang out along the steam-shrouded battlefield even as the telltale rumble of engines pierced through the fog of war.
A wind blew in to wipe the steam cloud away in time for Budimir to see the Serbian Railgun Tank Platoon advancing. There was a smell of ozone as they charged the rails from their capacitors before suddenly, ferro-nickel slugs shot forth at hypersonic velocities beyond anything seen from a tank outside of Latveria. Each slug pierced through multiple giant abominations, even as the advanced alloy armor shrugged off the uncannily accurate, powerful, and long-ranged rifle fire from the hills. One railgun tank traversed its gun toward the hillside and fired, causing a landslide that caused the unnatural rifle fire to stop.
Budimir couldn't help himself from shouting with glee as he popped back up to continue firing his grenade launcher. They might just win this, after all, it was definitely possible now! With a grin, he fired his last grenade in the belt, growling in satisfaction as the explosion blew the legs off another giant abomination. Then, as the Tanks advanced further toward the Valleys, an odd sight greeted Budimir from the hillsides. A group of thirty skeletal riders, dressed in ancient armor, atop similarly skeletal steeds. A cavalry squadron from an era long since passed entered the battlefield, and Budimir could easily see the ones in front were Ottoman Turks of all things.
There was the groaning of a ghastly horn, and the cavalry charged, faster than any horse, faster even than any car, as they practically demolished the turf with their speed. The Skeletal Cavalry slammed into the Tank Platoon, and when unnatural bone met advanced alloys, it was the alloys that buckled. At the same time, Zmaj was finally caught out by the Drekevac, pinned down by the very ground which surged forth to swallow his legs, as the Drekevac conjured a tendril of water that he forced down Zmaj's mouth. Zmaj tried to counter with a plume of flame, but he needed to breathe in to breathe out flame. He inhaled conjured water and that was all that the Drekevac needed. The tendril forced its way down into Zmaj's lungs and drowned him on the spot.
When Budimir saw that, he radioed in for air support, only for Captain Lazar at headquarters to tell him that the planes were already en route along with Vetrovnjak and that they would arrive within seconds. Vetrovnjak announced his and the air support's arrival with a bolt of lightning from beyond the Horizon that struck out at the Drekevac, finally striking the fiend and seemingly causing it pain. Unfortunately, with an unearthly roar, the Drekovac shattered the bolt into sparks and conjured a gigantic cloud of dust that filled the air. The Jet Engines of the J-Twenty-Two Orao Ground Attack Aircraft sucked up the particulates as they came in for their attack runs and, by some dark miracle, the filters failed to do what they were meant to. The jet engines of each aircraft caught aflame, downing the air support without a single bolt of lightning thrown.
That was when Budimir knew this fight was lost. Even with Vetrovnjak still in play, even with the remnants of the Carpasian Companies and the still fighting, but losing Serbian Railgun Tanks. Against a force like this, there wasn't an army in the whole region capable of withstanding the onslaught. Perhaps Viktor Von Doom of Latveria, but certainly not Morvania or Carpasia. Not even Serbia could stand against such evil. Budimir threw down his weapons, turned his tail, and ran. It was the only thing he could do, the only sensible thing any of them could do. He did not stop until he was arrested for trying to illegally cross the Serbian Border a week later.
By that point, the Drekovac's Army of the Damned had swelled with the fallen and with Albanian Recruits, eager to repay the loss of their neighbor's lives and their property with blood. And that Army of the Damned was closing in on Morstrava, the Capital City of Morvania, where the leadership of three armies was situated. And the Drekovac did not intend to stop there. Budimir was taken into Serbia in custody as a deserter, but he did not feel pity for himself, even though the penalty for desertion was death. No, the ones he felt pity for were the poor bastards in the Capital.
God help them all. . .
XXXX
AN: So this one's a really long one. Jan has managed to defeat a Hellfire Club snatch-and-grab team led by one of the most persistent foes that certain X-Teams had ever faced. He's also managed to track down his Tower, which is on the coast just outside of Starkesboro in Northern Massachusetts, which is a particularly deep cut Marvel-wise, but I hope you dig it. Meanwhile, Mors Cruentia has literally converted the best hope the Serbian Nationalist Alliance had of stopping his march on Morstrava and taking the entire country of Morvania as his own. Literally converted them, as in he killed them all then raised them as Zombies to join his Army.
With the destruction of the Railgun Tanks, Serbia is actually considering negotiating a way out and leaving Morvania and Carpasia to their fates. Joining with them to form a version of Greater Serbia wouldn't actually be worth that much compared to the potential damage continuing to fight would do. After all, Mors Cruentia can kill Super-Agents and destroy their most advanced weapons systems, then Serbia would have to call on help from the European Union, or even worse, America, to win the war. Those are the only nations with the power to beat something like this. After all, it's the nineties, so Russia is still considered a Joke whose president is slowly drinking himself to death, while China hasn't yet become the power it would later.
At any rate, next chapter we'll see Jan in Starkesboro along with the fall of Morstrava.
Stay tuned. . .