ic Cold Cold War

[Supercape]

GM

 

The hunters looked shocked, to put it mildly. Jay could not quite make out the words, but they were of shock, surprise, and were not clean. 

 

Cord followed cue. He briefly broke cover, and let off a couple of shots without aiming. He wasn't trying to hit them, and he wasn't trying to get hit. He was providing a cause for the attack, a distraction. Despite the adrenaline of the situation he was in control. Either he was the coolest cucumber, or he had seen a fire fight or two before hand. 

 

Out of line of site from the hunters he bent forward slightly to give Jay the affirmative nod. 

[Supercape]

GM

 

The Hunters hit the snow, deep and hard, scrabbling for cover and their rifles. 

 

The leader, however, was more canny, signalling for them to stop, and scanning the horizon. 

 

"There ain't no cover from arrows, boys..." he said, looking closely and bringing out some binoculars to help him search. 

 

"Parabola. They fire over you, and onto you. Silent and deadly. Me, I prefer my Gun, but don't go mistaking an arrowhead for anything but a deadly weapon" he said, slowly and carefully. 

 

Then, he called out through the snow and cold, through the greenless trees and rugged terrain. He saw Cord well enough, as did his fellows, but he wasn't satisfied. 

 

"Nice, gun there! But it don't shoot arrows!" he shouted to Cord, before looking around again, at the empty cold terrain, not seeing the hidden Blue Jay. 

 

"You there! We ain't armed. Least, no now! Show yourself! We don't mean you no harm!!!" he said. 

[Raveled]

Tona snorted at the suggestion. Come out into the open, straight into the view of a trio packing whoever-knew how many secondary weapons. She'd rather creep up and take all three of them in hand-to-hand rather than trust their goodwill at this point. Still, Cord didn't seem eager to open up a conversation. Dammit, she was too used to working with people who were always ready to talk.

So that fell to Tona instead. She crept through the underbrush, crouched over to keep her profile from breaking the horizon. "Who are you working for?" she called out. "What are you doing out here?"

[Supercape]

GM

 

"We work for ourselves!" came the ambigious answer from the leader of the hunters, his voice carrying far and fair in the still cold air. 

 

"And we are hunting. Same as you, I guess. And I reckon we both know it ain't a bear or a deer. We are hunting a man" he said, as cold as the snow he stood in. 

 

"I wasn't expecting any competition. And I got to say, that's some shooting like I have never seen. And it takes some guts and skill to sneak up on me, I'll tell ya. I been hunting all my life, and I'm damn good at it. The best, or so I thought..." he said, with a trace of irritation. 

 

"So now you tell me, what's your story..." he said, trying to push some politeness into his voice, aware that he was at a significant disadvantage. Jay had the drop on him, and he was unarmed. And he did not, as yet, know the odds...

[Raveled]

Blue Jay was frustrated. Interrogating suspects was not her strong suit. Where had Cord disappeared to? If he couldn't track, sneak, or shoot, then he could at least take over when all that stuff was done, dammit! Whenever she needed answers she usually tried to scare someone into talking, but how could she do that when she was scared of showing herself, lest she get shot?

Of course, there was one chance to restrain her. The archer pulled all the white-fletched arrows from her quiver, placing them on the snow before her. She already had a good idea of the distance, so she estimated the wind and the angle. With quick, precise motions she sent the glue arrows flying, and they burst above the prone hunters, showering them in sticky, quick-hardening goo.

[Supercape]

GM

 

The hunters were a little slow in the snow, and in this bleak landscape, there was not much cover. The glue descended like a carpet, hardening on touch, and they were all soon bound like rats in a trap. 

 

Nearly all. 

 

The hunters seemed good, probably ex soldiers by their prattle and movements. But the leader was not your regular jar-head. He was quick, and quick-thinking. 

 

"Move!" he shouted to his troops when the glue rained. His orders did not help, but he was fast enough. He rolled in the snow, ducking behind a tree that was showered with the glue trap. 

 

There was a brief moment of silence. 

 

"Clever, my friend!" he shouted to Jay. "Do you know who we are tracking? I guessing that you are tracking him too, huh? Well, if you know what you are dealing with, then disarming him aint gonna work. Or snaring him in glue. This is serious! and it calls for a serious response! The target needs to be put down!"

 

Cord spoke up, voices carrying clear in the white crisp air. 

 

"Put down? You mean killed?" he asked. "Do you know what would happen if he died? Maybe he will explode. Might take half of Canada with him. Who knows? This is serious!" he demanded. 

 

There was no reply. The hunter leader ducked behind some rocks, quiet and stealthy, and was gone...

[Raveled]

Blue Jay huffed out a breath, slinging her bow behind her back. Cord makes his reappearance just to talk to this guy. She was beginning to seriously doubt UNISON's competency, sending an agent like him along on a mission like this. She couldn't draw a bead on the lead hunter, but there were other ways to engage him. She sprinted across the snow, running broken-field style to keep him from drawing a bead on her if he had a weapon in reserve.

The archer charged the tree the hunter was hiding behind. At the last moment, she made a leap and grabbed the trunk, managing to turn her momentum into upward motion. Quick as a wink she grabbed a branch, swung around the tree, and aimed a double-booted kick straight at the back of his neck.

[Supercape]

GM

 

The kick was accurate and formidable. At closer distance, Jay could see the man in more detail, hunched carefully. He was around fourty, but it was hard to tell. He had a beard, warm clothing, and sungoggles, with a hood pulled over his head. Something about him smelled military - something about his build, his movements, his skill and comfortable relationship with guns. 

 

He was a tough sort, but he got caught out. He went flying through the air, carving out a trench in the snow, rolling, then lying flat on his face, out cold. 

 

"Nice moves!" yelled Cord, keeping his gun out and aimed at the hunters. He wasnt taking chances, but grabbed his taser in the other hand. Lethal kills were not on the menu for him. 

 

"Whata we got here? another team after our man? not ours..." he shook his head. "I just hope this is the only competition we have...looks like this deal just gets worse and worse, huh?"

[Raveled]

"He blew up a lot of stuff," Blue Jay pointed out, considering the man she'd just knocked unconscious. She went through his pockets quickly and thoroughly, looking for identification; not that she expected to find any, but if this guy was wearing dog tags or had his wallet in his pocket and she just missed it, she'd feel like an idiot.

Finished with looking him over, the young archer rolled the man on his side and picked him up in a fireman's carry, grunting under the weight as she straightened. She took heavier steps, but handled the weight well, dumping him near the group of hunters she had pinned to the ground.

The young woman fished a spray bottle out of her pocket, the same shade of white as the fletching on her glue arrows. She knelt down where the hunters could see her. "We can't take you with us," she told them. "So I'm going to let you free. Against my better judgement." She fixed them all with her best glare. "I suggest you get back to town. Next time, I won't be so nice."

[Supercape]

GM

 

The hunter grumbled and moaned as Jay handled her. He had a wallet, with a debit card for "Cliff Fletcher". Maybe it was his real name, maybe not. Nothing else in it bar some loose change. He needed money, obviously, but everything else that might give a hint as to his identity was gone. All he had was a picture of their mutual target, Matt Golding. 

 

"Well it looks like you have me and the guys out gunned" he conceded. "Especially now, since we have no guns. We were  hired to...get... a guy, guess the same guy you were. But not even a name..." he said, a bit irritated, at both his position and the job. 

 

"All we know is this guy explodes. Can you believe that? what kind of crazy-ass superpower is that? exploding?" he shook his head. 

 

"Can't get too near him, too dangerous. Gotta track him, from far, then...pow! put him down, like a wounded beast. Least, that's what they told us..."

 

He frowned, and rubbed his temple. 

 

"Except...now I think about it...I can't remember who hired us..." he said, both scared and confused at the same time. 

[Raveled]

Jay turned her glare up a notch, but nod one else was talking. She rolled the bottle around in her hand, and eventually came to a decision. She uncapped it and sprinkled the solvent on the stuck hunters. "That should dissolve in an hour or so," she said, standing. "Get yourselves back to town and you can forget you were beaten by a teenage girl. Come back after us, and I'll make you walk back barefoot."

She led Cord away from the group, easily picking up the trail once more. She moved in silence for a while, before breaking. "I don't talk to many people," she said. "If we get any more prisoners like that, you should do the talking."

[Supercape]

GM

 

"You did pretty well" said Cord, smiling at her. "Especially for a kid. I won't put you in charge of an interrogation just yet, but you did well. And this is the field, kid. In the field, you often just got to do the best you can do" he explained, flicking his gun and his taser back into the holsters with a quick check on them. 

 

Cord looked back to the horizon. 

 

"If we got an hour before that glue melts, then we best get cracking. We can't be far off. Just got to hope that we are in time, and no other hunters are after our quarry"

 

A while later...

 

The terrain was getting more harsh, rock covered with snow, the trees thinning, and the flats turning to hills then ravines and mountains. It wasn't much harder going, but it was still hard. And cold. 

 

And then, an explosion. 

 

It was ahead, maybe a mile, maybe even less, on an elevated crag of rock that was neither big enough to be a mountain nor small enough to be a hill. But it was loud, loud and powerful. Cord clapped his ears as the deafening boom hit them. The air whipped past both of them, causing Cord to take a step back from the force of the explosion even at this distance. 

 

"Dear God, he is getting more powerful" he shouted through deafened ears. Up ahead, a cloud of debris and dust, that arced into the air, and started raining down on them. 

 

"Take Cover!" he yelled, as rocks started landing around them. Before he could move further, a rock the size of Jay's fist landed on him, a glancing blow to the head, which caused Cord to collapse backwards, his scalp bleeding and his body folding, unconscious. 

[Raveled]

Blue Jay wasn't expecting the explosion, but she reacted before Cord shouted his warning, dashing under the heavy bower of an evergreen. The branches caught most of the dirt and small rocks, while the bigger ones rained down outside -- and knocked the UNISON agent unconscious. The archer stayed under her over until the rain of debris stopped, then, against her own better judgement, darted out to grab Cord and drag him back underneath the tree's protection.

With the agent as safe as she could make him, Jay resettled her mask and zoomed in on the outcropping. If she could identify Gold, or even who or how many enemies he was facing, she would be much better prepared to handle the situation.

[Supercape]

GM

 

The explosion had left dust in the air and cracked earth. It was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the grit and debris obscured Jay's view, on the other hand, it also painted an arrow to the epicentre of the explosion. 

 

With her mask zooming in, she caught site of Gold. He was a sorry sight. Although apparently unharmed by the massive explosion he had caused, he had been on the run for several days now, and was looking all the worse for it. He was dishevelled, with dirty hair and a beard. His clothes were scuffed and torn, and hung off him. His eyes were sallow, and he looked hungry, tired, and thirsty. Not a well man. He looked a shadow of the pictures Cord had shown her on the airplane. He was small man, she noted, and the days of untrained survival in the cold Canadian wilderness did not help his slight figure. 

 

He sat down and put his head in his hands, shaking it left and right. For now at least, he was oblivious to Jay - it looked like he had other weightier problems in his mind. 

[Raveled]

Blue Jay waited and watched Gold, making sure he wasn't about to turn and see her. Sure that he was obsessed with his internal ruminations, she moved forward, still keeping her motions quiet. By a combination of her skill and his obliviousness, she managed to make it to a few arm's lengths away from Gold. Without a better idea of what to do, she coughed to get his attention. She was still holding her bow, but she made sure she wasn't holding any arrows. "Mr. Gold," she said, flicking her eyes around the hilltop. "My name is Blue Jay. I'm working with UNISON. I'm here to protect you."

[Supercape]

GM

 

Mr. Gold turned round, shocked at both the fact anyone was nearby, and the fact that someone had sneaked up on him quite as a mouse. 

 

"No! No! Get away! Run! Flee!" he jabbered, holding out his hands. 

 

"It's getting worse...every time...like a pressure inside me I can't control. Every time, bigger and bigger!" he said, almost screaming at Jay. "UNISON cant help me, nobody can! It's...like a damn, bursting...." he shouted, clawing his head in his hands. 

 

"Who am I? What am I? I have memories, coming back, and every time, with an unleash of power....I'm like the old testament!" he moaned, sweeping his arms around the crater that had formed around me. 

 

"Please! You have to run! I'm...here now, safe, nobody around! sooner or later, the cold will get me, and it will be the end of me..." he moaned. He did indeed look ill - thin, haggard, with signs of frostbite and exposure.

[Raveled]

Jay took a chance and approached, kneeling down to get a better look at Gold. He didn't look well, his face already pale and pinched by the cold. She stepped back and scanned the horizon, thinking. "Alright then," she said finally. "You want to die out here, alone? Fine. Just don't explode any caribou, they're more fun to hunt when they're not limping." She turned away from Gold and walked away, the snow crunching under her soles as she maneuvered back to where Cord was laying.

She stopped a good twenty feet or so from Gold, talking to him over her shoulder. "Que est what should your tombstone say?" she paused to let the question sink in. "You know, the one your wife and children will want to put up. Should it just say 'He Couldn't Handle Life'? Or should we go with the whole, 'Ran Away And Died Sobbing in the Forest'? How do you want your family to remember you?"

[Supercape]

GM

 

Although Gold didn't move, his voice grew as cold as the winter air. 

 

"My family? What do you know of my family?" he said in an even voice, sobbing stopped. 

 

"I don't know what's real or not any more. My whole life...a lie..." he said, bringing his head up to fix Jay with a stony gaze. 

 

"I remember, you see. Something has awoken the beast. I was born in Russia, I remember the training, the KGB...the experiments..." he shook his head. "There is a man, they call him the Sleeper. He ran the KGB like a maestro. He knows all the tricks. Brainwashing, mind control, false memories..."

 

He shook his head. 

 

"They may seem real, my family...but I remember Russia. I remember my mission. I am a living weapon!"

 

With the last shout he roared. 

 

"And you won't come here to make a fool of me!"

 

With that, he started rumbling deeply, eye's glowing a bright red...

[Raveled]

Blue Jay moved further away from Gold, nocking an arrow as she moved. "Life was a lie? That's a tough one," she said. "That changes everything, right? You didn't find a woman and fall in love. You didn't start a family and make a life. All of that's a lie?" She loosed the arrow, forcing Gold to duck; she didn't really want to hit him, just keep him ducking and unable to draw a bead on her. "Because you sound angry about it."

[Supercape]

GM

 

The Arrow was on target, as always, but Blonsky had got lucky, ducking down by luck more than judgement. Doubling over, in fact. 

 

His body crunched with the effort, perhaps with pain, perhaps with a perfusion of energetic bliss. It was hard to say. What one could say is that he burned with a bright orange-purple energy, and turned his now glowing eyes towards Blue Jay. 

 

"My mission is to destroy...My mission is to destroy..." he gasped, his very breath a glowing vapour of energy. "I have been holding back...so hard...so confused....you have no idea of my power...and now you seek to mock me? Seek to control me? To hell with you all!!!"

 

And with that he exploded. Jay had never seen or felt anything like it. A moment of inhalation, like everything around Gold, even the air, even herself was getting sucked into him. But only for a moment, before the exhalation, a vast power beyond comprehension, rending even the air and exploding with pure force. 

[Raveled]

Blue Jay had been preparing to avoid a beam of energy or bouncing spheres of destruction or even huge, glowing hands chopping at her. One again, though, this world had surprised her as the very air around her seemed to explode. It was impossible to avoid the effects of it, but Jay's body move on instinct, somehow finding a way to slide between the expanding pressure waves. It rattled her teeth, but she was still standing when the dust cleared. "You still have a lot of fight left in you," she hissed, nocking another arrow. "When I got here, you almost looked dead. Seems like you actually still care for your family." She loosed and was on the move, heading for an outcropping of rock that would at least get her out of Gold's line of sight. "Could have fooled me!"

[Supercape]

GM

 

Again, Gold was lucky, wobbling with his own power, pulsing like a pump, the arrow only nicked him as he swayed this way and that, only staying upright due to the huge surge of power in him. 

 

"A lot of fight, yes, crusader" he replied, steadily. "I care for my family, I care for everyone, and the mission too...what do you fight for? America?" he asked. He wasn't quite sneering, but he did look dismissive. 

 

"I admire the soldier, the commitment in you. But, ultimately, we are only unwitting tools to those higher up. Think for yourself, soldier. I have..."

 

Another sucking feeling, and another wave of power exploded forth from Gold, rending air, stone and snow as it flew from him. 

[Raveled]

Blue Jay crouched behind the outcropping as Gold exploded the world around her, flinging rocks and dirt and snow at her. She was sheltered on the lee side, though, and had time to carefully choose her next shot. Gold wasn’t coming along quietly, and her attempts to remind him about what he was leaving behind had backfired. His mention of someone from a Kay Bea Gee was something to follow up on, but right now she needed to put Gold down. Her first couple of shots hadn’t done it, so decided it was time to soften him up a little.

 

Jay dashed out into the open, nocking and loosing a green-fletched arrow in a blur of motion. It impact on Gold and the glass cylinder snapped, and the aid started hissing and smoking as it ate away at his shirt.

 

[Supercape]

GM

 

Mr Gold shrieked in pain and shock when the acid jumped onto him. There was a horrible corrosive smell in the air, and not just of burning cloth. 

 

"You dog!" he screamed, patting at the acid to no avail. "Not even Spetznas use acid! Not even the worst of the KGB interrogators!" he shouted, before his eyes focussed on Blue Jay with pure rage. 

 

"I was...holding back...I believed that there was something in America good, to protect. But to hell with that! I am Ground Zero. Agent of Russia! Pupil of the Sleeper! Long live Russia! Long live Russiiaaaa!"

 

And with that came the brief moment of sucking, stronger, chaotic, and unstable. This time, Gold foldied his arms out like a crucifix, and a massive detonation of energy streamed from him, his eye burning with energy, an impossible force gouging out the air and rock around him. 

[Raveled]

Blue Jay took cover behind a bare tree, but that gave no protection to Gold's cataclysmic outburst. Light and force streamed forth, and there was nowhere for the archer to hide; she felt herself being lifted in the air and she gave a sort scream as she was thrown back to the ground, then up and then down again. She tried to curl herself in a ball and was only partially successful. She squeezed her eyes shut against the glare as points of impact spread and melted in a single all-body bruise, and prayed that she wasn't about to be tossed off a cliff.