The Metahuman Agency: The Superhuman War

Pushing Back

The Director watched the chaos unfold on the monitors. She had watched as enemy troops had appeared in the base after the missile strike. They had repelled down the walls of the hangar silo before, dozens of them. Technicians and other flight personnel were massacred by the mercenaries. The Director had watched, sickened, unable to do anything as she watched her own staff gunned down in the Hangar. It wasn't a feeling she was used to. Being so...helpless.

She had ordered gotten on the COM channel, barking orders to security forces to engage the invading troops. It was possibly redundant, considering her accouncment over the PA system but still...she needed to do something. Anything to save her people. But as the troops had fanned out from the Hangar, going into different entranes to the base and splitting off into smaller teams, more had suddenly appeared. In different sections of the base mercenaries had suddenly appeared out of thin air, seemingly erupting from the floors and walls. At first, the Director didn't know what was happening but when she saw Jason and the staff flee the cafteria, she had seen him. Akihiro Toranosuke. The demented metahuman artist was alive after all. He was probably sending in his troops through his paint, moving them through the paint and allowing him to 'teleport' them into different sections of the base. Effectively taking them by surprise, negating stopping the mercenaries near the Hangar. Damnit. She should have known. She should have sensed something was wrong after Akihiro had seemingly vanished after the fight with him in Chicago. He had been with her this whole and she was using him in this damn attack!

And then...

Then minutes later she had seen it. Admist all the chaos on the cameras, all the death and destruction in her own facility, something had caught her eye. The Director had seen Robertson with Jason, fleeing on one floor. Jason looked hurt. His arm was lathered in bandages but Robertson appeared to be guiding. The good doctor always did know how to keep a cool head, no matter the situation. Even in the midst of this invasion, he appeared unfazed.

Until Jason and him had ran into that woman. The woman who appeared to scream so loudly it made the two fall to their knees. The camera feed was knocked out for a moment but lukcily, one of the technicians got it back up. Just in time for the Director to see a mercernary fire into the elevator and gun down Robertson.

She had stared for a moment at the feed. Watching Jason cower next to the doctor's bloodstained, crumpled form. Robertson had reached up and grabbed the boy's arm. He had appeared to try to say something, blood oozing from his mouth. Then he had collapsed and fell still. The Director put a hand to her mouth. Her lips trembled. He...he was dead.

It took a moment for it to hit hom. Then she gritted her teeth, sucking in air, and staggered back. Falling into a chair. The technicians turned from their stations and looked at her. "...Director?" One asked. The Director didn't acknowledge him. She just stared down, at her hands. They looked...so old all of a sudden. Her fading skin, her wrinkled palms, almost brittle. Like branches of a dead tree.

She hadn't had many friends in life. What few she had picked up had faded away over the years. Oh, of course she knew many people. Allies, contacts, acquaintences. It was impossible to be isolated in her line of work. But all those people ultimately meant nothing to her besides what functions they could serve for her, what duties she could utilize them for.

Robertson had been the exception. She had met him a long time ago, when he was a simple field medic. For reasons she couldn't quite explain, they had forged a bond. They had become real friends, even if they couldn't quite express it, and she had shared much with him she wouldn't even share with her own family. That trust went far enough that they had served as equal partners in the construction of the Agency, even if Robertson's 'official' title was merely as the chief physician. Together, they had shared much and created much. He had been a constant for her for a long time, a rock she could always fall back upon.