Necessity is the Mother of Invention

the same accident that caused the loss of his leg at age six also stimulated the latent genetics that ran in his family to trigger a mutation. Although becoming one of the ‘exo-humans’ the government monitored would prove to be the least of his worries once he stumbled upon his family’s secret.

Brought to you by the warped mind of Nuuan

Chapter Five

Releasing the button on the phone’s receiver, Wes punched in the number to their Kansas City office only to receive a busy signal, after several more tries he gave up and hung up the phone knowing that Sara had not been bluffing. Looking up the numbers on his computer, Wes then tried several numbers to the Kansas City police, both the Kansas and the Missouri sides with no luck.

Elbows on his desk, Wes cupped his forehead in his palms and sighed. Wes knew that Sara would do anything she had to for David and would have calculated every single scenario to the Nth degree until she found the best possible solution. But no matter how great her intelligence, she was still a machine. A cold calculating machine, that would never understand love or any other emotion for that matter. This was exactly the type of operation the DEHA was designed to handle, they had the training and the equipment, not to mention that such an action could help to restore public faith In the DEHA.

After the media coverage of that incident in Chicago years ago, many media outlets seemed all too willing to throw the DEHA under the bus to make their stories more sensational. While the Chicago office probably had it coming to them, not all their agents were like that, Wes firmly believed that the DEHA was a good organization that held the safety of the people, both baseline and mutant, at heart.

While Wes hated the one sided, sensationalized stories the media so often reported, he really couldn’t blame them. The news stations, papers and magazines were first and foremost businesses. The bottom line was that they were out to sell their papers and magazines or gain more viewers and those big sensational stories brought in more viewers and sold more magazines and papers even when those stories held so little truth they should be labeled fiction.

“Dammit Sara!” Wes mumbled, “Why would you tell me about this if you wanted to make sure I didn’t get involved?” What did she expect him to do? Sit and worry until she called back telling him that it was over and David was safe? Sara knew him better than that! Wes stood up suddenly, shoving his chair out of the way, “That conniving mechanical bitch!” Wes shouted as he grabbed the phone punching a few buttons, “This is agent Scythe. We have a go, get the drop ship powered up and team five loaded, be ready to launch as soon as I arrive.”

“Yes sir!” He heard from the receiver.

Ending the call We quickly punched in another number, “Al? We have a go.”

“You get that call you were expecting?”

“Yes but no exact location. It’s somewhere in close vicinity of Kansas City, so we’ll set geosynchronous orbit over the city until the fireworks start.”

“Take a HALO squad with you then.”

“Good idea, that will give us two insertion points if necessary.”

“Have you informed the Kansas City office?”

“Unreachable, seemed communications are cut off with them and the local police,” Wes hoped he didn’t have to explain further. While Al may have been his friend for more years than he dared to remember, he was still his boss.

“Do I want to know more?”

“Not if you wish to keep those two words you enjoy so much.”

“What words are that?”

“Plausible deniability,” Wes chuckled.

“Okaaay, Good hunting then,” and the line went dead. Wes made one more call to have whatever HALO team was on standby prepared then left his office.

~o~O~o~

“First and foremost, I want to make this perfectly clear,” Agent Scythe said as he walked down the center of the transport area in the rear of the dropship. “This is a search and rescue mission! We are not worried about possible arrests, that action will be covered by our reinforcements when they arrive. Your job is to locate the boy and extract him uninjured. DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?” Yelling the last part for emphasis.

“YES SIR!” the twelve men standing and sitting around various types of powered armor shouted in unison.

“We believe this to be a syndicate base of operations for the area, so treat it accordingly. Halo deployment will be immediate once we have confirmation of the LZ . At plus three mikes the drop ship will perform a full power military drop to the LZ. This LZ should be considered hostile. Hammer’s team will secure the LZ, then leave Slice and Gun-ho to defend the drop ship. Whoever locates the boy first call it in, all teams are to converge and provide cover for the extraction once located.”

“What if we spot any high profile targets sir?” One of the men asked.

“This S.A.R. has highest priority,” Agent Scythe glared, “Also you may sight a small furred creature with long ears,” He held his hand down about knee level to signify the height, “This is not a hostile and it may be able to provide support.”

“We have someone on the inside?” Someone asked.

One man sitting beside one of the older large military powered armor units gronned, “So who is this inside man, Bugs Bunny,” several laughed.

“Get the jokes out now,” Agent Scythe paused hoping that the men took the information seriously even as outlandish as it sounded, “It’s actually a fairly sophisticated robot. It only looks like a cartoon character. It alone is the reason we have as much information as we do.”

“No shit a frickin cartoon boss?” one of the Halo team questioned, “So it really is Bugs Bunny?”

“No, it's the coyote,” Scythe stated.

“The one that chases the Road Runner?” Another chuckled as the man sitting beside him thrust his elbow into his side hard. “What the fuck was that for?” he whispered to the one who had elbowed him as Agent Scythe began walking back toward the front of the craft and its cockpit.

“Scythe’s sister’s kid,” The one said low enough that he hoped Agent Scythe did not hear.

“What?” still rubbing his ribs

“I’ve seen that robot before, it belongs to his sister’s kid. And yes it is Wile E. Coyote.”

“They kidnapped Scythe’s nephew?” another who had overheard the two joined in.

“Worse than that,” The large muscular man who had been sitting beside his large power suit that had the name “MONGO” written across the left shoulder, “I know Scythe don’t want us to spread it around, but I think you should know, he’s the Reaper.”

“Holy shit!” another of the Halo armor slid in close, as he pointed toward the door Scythe went out, “Are you telling us that Chimera was real?”

“Hey I saw that movie,” The youngest member of the HALO team looked around at everyone then began to realize what they were saying, “Oh crap! I always wondered why you three had that old military powered armor, and not the newer stuff. I always thought you three just loved the movie…” The young agents eyes grew with his astonishment, “but, but where is Breach?”

The one sitting, one leg up on the bench, beside the heavy armor that had the name Anvil written on the shoulder spat on the floor, “Fucking bastard probably sitting on a beach somewhere sipping Mai Tais still collecting royalties off that damn movie.”

“Jesus Christ, you guys are friggn legends!” the younger man spouted off very excited, “My old man would shit if he knew I met Chimera!”

“Chimera don’t exist anymore kid,” Mongo sighed.

“But you still have the armor?”

“Back then they were forced to build the power armor around the man using it,” The man who piloted the powered armor known as Hammer said, “And they use the old style military neural interface, once one has a pilot, no one else can pilot it.”

“Yea,” Mongo explained, “Once the system learns your brain patterns, it won’t respond to anyone else’s.”

“So why leave the military and join the DEHA?”

Anvil answered this time hooking a thumb at his powered armor, “Our unit was disbanded, joining the DEHA was the only way I could keep Sally Ann.” The other ex-members of the military team all nodded.

Suddenly their discussion was cut by a speaker mounted to the wall of the compartment they waited in, “We have activity, every one suit up!” a voice came over the speaker.

~o~O~o~

Sixty thousand feet below the stationary drop ship David heard a sound of something dropping lightly against the floor in his cell. Looking over in the direction, David spotted two small screws lying near the sink that was mounted to the far wall of his cell. Looking up in the direction it would have fallen from he saw a ventilation grate.

Getting up from where he sat on the bed, David walked over and looked at the grate closely. It was held in place by four screws, only two were still holding it in place and one of those was slowly turning counter clockwise until it also fell to the floor. Four small claws held the grate in place as the last screw fell out, then the claws turned and maneuvered the grate so that it was pulled inside the ventilation shaft.

“Wiley is that you?” David asked softly.

Sticking its head out of the hole the coyote smiled at David, “Good afternoon master David!”

“How did you get here?”

“Unimportant, what is important is getting you out,” the coyote spoke as his head disappeared back into the ventilation shaft and a began shoving a small duffel bag through the opening. David helped by pulling the duffel from his side until it had cleared the small opening. The coyote followed the duffel out and jumped down to the floor.

“What’s this?” David asked holding the duffel.

“Tools,” The coyote’s grin broadened.

Motioning toward a single camera mounted behind a clear globe, “What about their camera?”

“It appears a small furred creature has chewed through the wiring rendering it useless,” snapping its jaws open and shut quickly several times in demonstration. Looking sternly as the coyote could at David, “I believe I saw what could have been your formula for aegisium on one of their computers, did you give them that?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” the concern in the coyote’s voice evident, “We can’t let them make Aegisium.”

David grinned, “They won’t.”

“And may I ask how you can be so sure?”

“They asked for the formula,” David's grin grew into a toothy smile, “They never asked about how to make it.”

“Some of my genius has rubbed off on you after all Young David.” The coyote chuckled, “Now sire, take those tools I brought you and get that door open so we may make haste with our escape.”

~o~O~o~

The security guard closed the door behind him then walked over to a small table that held a coffee pot. Reaching for the stack of Styrofoam cups he began pouring himself a cup, “Everything good here?” The man asked as he walked up behind another man who was kicked back in a chair with his feet up on a counter that held several monitors all of which appeared to have various images each of several hallways and rooms.

Taking a sip from his cup the man noticed that one of the images appeared snowy and out of focus, reminding him of a television set to a nonexistent channel. “What’s up with that one?” He motioned with his cup.

“That one started going out a couple hours ago. I called it in, but it's gotten steadily worse since,” Looking over his shoulder at his visitor from where he sat.

Taking another sip of coffee, “That's the kid’s room isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll check it out just to be safe. Damn brat already got out once, don’t need to give the boss a reason to come down on us,” After finishing his coffee the man left.

~o~O~o~

With the coyote’s help and the tools he had liberated, David had been working on the heavy steel door for over an hour when he heard the distinctive buzz followed by a heavy metallic click of someone unlocking the door. Quickly shuffling the tools and himself to the side out of the way, David watched the door as it began to open. The door stopped when it was slightly over 90 degrees in relation to the wall. “Kid?” David heard a man’s voice.

Stepping out so that most of his body was out from behind the door, “I’m right here.”

“What the hell ya doing back there?”

“I, I was trying to get the door open,” David lowered his eyes to the floor.

Chuckling as the man grinned at David, “These electronic locks can’t be opened from the inside.” The man got a strange look on his face when he noticed that it looked like something was pulling at the kid’s shirt from behind.

“That is why we removed the pins from the hinges,” The coyote showed a toothy grin as it appeared on David’s shoulder.

“What the fuc…” The man started to say as the coyote put its shoulder against the heavy steel door, which began to tip toward the guard. David and the coyote had been working on the last hinge pin when the guard had interrupted them, although the only one that they had yet to remove the pin from had been the lowest hinge which made an excellent pivot point for the heavy door as it began to swing down toward the guard.

The remaining hinge could not support the immense weight by itself and tore easily as the door began to fall toward the man. Instead of jumping out of the way, the man tried to push the door back into position. This was a mistake as the six hundred pound steel door drove the man to the floor, pinning him under its weight.

Reaching down, David picked up the small duffel then stepped over the door out of the room. The coyote on the other hand proudly walked up onto the door stopping in the middle of the large door to look over his shoulder at the pinned man, stuck out his tongue and blew a raspberry in the man’s direction, turned with his nose In the air, then wiped his feet against the door before joining David in the deserted hallway.

~o~O~o~

It was late afternoon and the sun a reddish orb to the right of the blue clad figure that stood in the middle of the road facing the complex. The reflection off the figure made it appear as if the dark blue armor was a liquid instead of solid. One guard, standing outside the long red and white striped arm that blocked the road saw him and only paused for a moment before dropping his weapon and running away from both the complex and the apparition of destruction. The guard inside the small booth was not so smart, stepping outside the small booth, while raising his rifle he began firing at Apocalypse. At least a dozen other men came pouring out of the larger building inside the fences and began firing through the fences at him.

Acting as if he had all the time in the world, Apocalypse raised his hand to the opposite side of his chest where the strange armor he wore formed a lump that quickly extended into his hand, the lump began to change color and form into a shiny black ball the size of a baseball in his hand. When the ball had finished forming he threw in an arc at the gate. Landing between the crossing arm of the first fence and the large electrified gate, the ball rolled a few feet until it stopped several yards in front of the large electrified gate.

“Grenade!” several men shouted that witnessed the strange black orb hit the ground, while they and several of their allies ran for cover.

Seconds after coming to a stop on the ground, the small black orb began throwing sparks and electrical arcs. The electrical discharge quickly grew until the small ball could not be seen within what now had become a ball of lightning that began to grown quickly to over nine feet in diameter destroying the roadway underneath as it expanded. The wind kicked up sucking everything not anchored down into the strange globe of lightning.

The weapon the first guard had dropped began skidding across the ground toward the strange anomaly until it shot up off the ground and into it. The large gate began shaking and with a violent sound of twisting metal tore free of its mountings and crumpled up as it was sucked into the weird lightning effect. One man who had stopped a few yards behind the gate, gawking at the unusual light show was sucked into it.

The wind howled with the force of tornado, a car two men had sought refuge behind was picked up and tossed into the anomaly right before it took the two men hiding behind it. The wooden structure of the small guard shack groaned as it was torn from its foundation and flew into the disturbance. Windows broke in the other building and items flew through the openings into the swirling vortex of lightning.

The crossing arm began to bend toward the anomaly until it was also ripped from its mountings to disappear into the swirling effects. Then even faster than it began, the strange anomaly winked out of existence. Everything that was in the air being sucked toward it fell to the ground, including one guard that if under others circumstance may have considered himself very lucky had he not known who the dark blue figure that was coming toward him was.

The aftermath resembled what it would look like if a high explosive artillery round had hit the ground with a large crater nearly twenty feet across at ground zero, except that everything was twisted in the direction of the explosion instead of away from it. Apocalypse quickly walked up to the edge of the crater, then easily jumped across the gaping hole in the road, landing several yards past on the other side.

Walking over to the man that lay on the ground Apocalypse grabbed the man by his shirt collar and lifted him off the ground. “Pl, please don’t kill me!” The man begged.

“Where’s the boy!”

“Some, somewhere in the sub levels,” the guard swallowed hard, “I, I’m not cleared for that area so I don’t know more.”

Seeing this was all the information this man had, Apocalypse tossed the man back in the direction of the gate, where he hit hard against the opposite crater wall and slid to the bottom. Taking long strides but continuing to walk, Apocalypse started toward the large building, knowing that somewhere inside he would locate stairs, an elevator, something that would take him to this sub-level the guard had mentioned.

Nearly half the distance transversed to the large main structure, the asphalt around Apocalypse began erupting in tiny explosions and he felt the impacts of several heavy caliber rounds. To his left he saw two Humvees had come around the far corner of the main building speeding toward him. Both vehicles having a large machine gun mounted on their roofs operated by a man behind it. The lead vehicle also had another man leaning out of the passenger side window with a machine gun. Apocalypse did not need to see the bright orange muzzle flashes to know where the round that hit him had come from.

Turning to face the approaching hostile vehicles, Apocalypse stopped, his right hand reaching over his shoulder to touch his back. Immediately a patch of the strange metallic armor that covered his body formed into a pistol grip in his hand. Swinging his arm forward, the now silver pistol grip in his hand quickly grew and formed into an unusual looking rifle. Aiming the strange weapon at the vehicle furthest away from him, Apocalypse pulled the trigger. No sound, no apparent recoil, the only sign that he used the weapon was the vehicle exploding in a large fireball, quickly targeting the closer vehicle, it too erupted in a large fireball.

With his attention back on the building, Apocalypse aimed at the taller glassed in structure that stood above the rest of the main building and fired again. The tower disintegrated in a fiery explosion showing the surrounding area in tiny glass and other debris.

Apocalypse staggered forward and dropped the strange rifle as something impacted his shoulder hard. Turning toward the new threat he paid no attention to the dropped weapon which even before it had hit the ground began reforming into a small silver ball not much larger than a golf ball, that rolled up to his foot and was absorbed into his armor. Reaching up to his chest as he stood to face the vehicle, this one having a much larger weapon mounted to its roof that two men were operating. Basketball sized holes exploded around him and every impact his armor took forced him to take a step back to keep his balance. Another of the black baseball sized grenades formed in his hand. Judging the time between the impacts to his armor Apocalypse threw the device at the vehicle, smashing thought the passenger side of its windshield.

Tire’s squealed in defiance as the driver slammed on the brakes and desperately fought to bring the vehicle to a stop before the grenade went off. The two men who had been operating the roof mounted weapon, climbed out and jumped before the vehicle had come to a stop. The passenger door was flung open and a man started to jump out, although before he could clear the vehicle it was engulfed in an expanding ball of swirling lightning. Continuing his steady walk toward the building while reaching down touching his hips with both hands. Strange silvery pistols formed out of the sides of his armor, one into each hand. Bringing up both pistols level with the large front entrance, Apocalypse began firing both pistols alternating between the two destroying the glass panels and riddling much of what lay behind with holes before walking into through the damage.

~o~O~o~

“Southern area clear… West side clear, some activity inside loading docks… North area clear, but looks like some heavy shit just rolled through here sir, do not, I repeat do not recommend for LZ…” The remaining agents heard each of the HALO team report in over their radios as the drop ship they were on plummeted towards the ground.

The radio crackled again, “Point team in position, sounds of small arms fire inside of target area.”

“Using west LZ, Down in one mike, advanced team GO!” Scythe shouted from inside his own power armor.

On top the flat roof, two of the HALO agents stood by an access hatch, after hearing the GO order one threw open the hatch while his partner covered him then rifle at ready looked down the open hatch, “Clear!” he spoke before pushing the rifle behind him on its sling and climbing down onto the ladder, then slid down quickly to the catwalk below.

“Firefight in north east section of warehouse. Single attacker, multiple defenders.” The first agent down on the catwalk said over the radio. “Attacker is Apocalypse, I repeat attacker is Apocalypse, over!”

“Stay on primary mission,” Scythe radioed back, “Overwatch split, one remain in position. The other shadow Apocalypse and keep the rest of the team informed of his position. His attention is on the syndicate, not us. Let's try to keep it that way for now.”

“This is Ayers sir, switching to shadow,” The other agent in the catwalk radioed as he took off running toward the end of the catwalk and a ladder down.

“This is striker, located stairs leading down, South east warehouse area, investigating.” The radio cracked, “Looked like they go a ways down may lose radio.”

“Affirmative Striker, Proceed,” Scythe replied as they exited the drop ship in their heavy armor, “All non-engaged Halo’s provide back up to Striker. Friendly heavies inbound West side. Mongo with me!”

“Mongo like Scythe,” Mongo did his best imitation of the voice of the character from the old Mel Brooks film, “Scythe nice to Mongo.”

“Knock it off Mongo!” Scythe scolded.

“Aye sir, got your six,” Mongo replied.

“Sir Overwatch here, my position is compromised. Apocalypse made me.”

“What happened?” Scythe asked.

“He looked right at me, it was like he could see right through the adaptive camo sir,” the agent stated, “Then he saluted me and went back to shooting up the place, and completely ignored me from there.”

“If he wanted to take you out he would have already tried, hold position,” Scythe responded.

~o~O~o~

At first David and his coyote had moved slowly through the underground halls and rooms to avoid detection, but soon they stopped this practice and were walking casually down yet another corridor in the maze-like underground facility. While David was grateful the place was so deserted, he also though it strange that he could wander around so freely without anyone noticing. David knew there was only two possible explanations, either this place was run by the bare minimum of people or something had them extremely busy somewhere else. David hoped it was the skeleton crew explanation, since the other could mean they had tried to make Aegisium.

David shuddered remembering what had happened to his work bench when he first discovered the unique material. David had been working on a science project that everyone in class had to participate in, everyone had to try to build a device that would protect an egg when dropped from the seconds floor of the school onto the parking lot. If the egg survived you got an “A”.

Partial successes and inventiveness would be graded accordingly with no one that actually tried receiving an “F”. Looking at the problem from different perspective, David had been trying for weeks to create a substance what would absorb kinetic energy when he stumbled on the formula. The compounds he had mixed started generating a chemical reaction and became very hot, it then began expanding at an alarming rate. The mere five ounces he had mixed expanded, covering his work bench quickly. Attempting to stop or slow the expansion David had grabbed one of the CO2 fire extinguishers. The CO2 had limited results and luckily the material finally stopped expanding and began too cool on its own, but not before coating the work bench and part of the floor in the substance.

Later when David went about cleaning up the mess it had made, he found the material brittle and easy to break apart with a hammer, that is until he tried breaking up the part he used the fire extinguisher on. Hitting this part with his hammer felt weird, no matter how hard he hit it, the hammer didn’t even bounce back from the blow. David then tried with a sledge hammer, and then finally brought his dad out to see it. David’s father and Uncle Wes experimented with it including shooting it with several different high powered rounds. Uncle Wes finally caused it to begin cracking after firing over a dozen of what he called “anti-brick” rounds at it.

Ahead of them David heard the first sounds other than his own footsteps since he had escaped from the room they held him in, over the yelling David heard was the distinct sound of gunfire.

“Where are you going?” The coyote said trying to keep his voice down when David began walking in the direction the noise was coming from.

“I just want to have a quick look.”

Grabbing hold of David’s pants the coyote tried to pull but found his large furry feet skidding along the floor as David walked quickly in that direction. “No! Not that way!”

Dragging the coyote behind him, David raced down the hall to a large open door. Peeking his head around he saw a large laboratory or what used to be one before the bullets began flying. Inside there was broken glass everywhere, overturned drums of who knows what spilled all over, a couple men lying on the floor not moving. On one side several men with machine guns were shooting, also a few men and one woman wearing lab coats hid behind various large objects. On the others side David saw the distinctive blue the DEHA wore. “Hey that’s one of the new HALO suits,” David whispered at the coyote, who was now peeking around to get a look himself, “That means that Uncle Wes is here!” David raced past the door to the end of the hall where a flight of stair led upward.

Halfway up the stairs David heard and felt a loud boom, had he not been holding onto the handrail the blast would have send him falling down the stairs. The coyote was not so lucky and had tumbled down. David waited on the coyote then they both reached the floor above. The hall doubled back in the same direction they had come from. Turning the corner David saw the unmistakable figure of Apocalypse halfway down this new passageway, kicking open a door.

“Crap!” David yelled.

“There you are!” Apocalypse turned his attention from the door he just kicked in toward David.

“Run David!” The coyote yelled as it stepped out in front of David and raised its fists while taking a boxing stance, “I’ll try to buy you some time.”

David flew back down the stairs and back down the hallway on the floor below. Running as fast as his youthful legs could take him, past the lab where he had seen the fighting earlier which in his panicked haste did not notice the fighting had stopped, or the substance that had already expanded to fill over half the large laboratory.

Bouncing on the balls of his oversized cartoonish feet while waving his fists in the imitation of a boxer the coyote watched as Apocalypse ran toward him closing the distance. Side stepping the small coyote at the last moment, Apocalypse grabbed it by the nape of the neck jerking the coyote off the ground as he skidded around the landing and down the stairs in pursuit of David. Apocalypse easily jumped the steaming hot material that was flowing quickly out of the open doorway and continued his pursuit.

David’s hopes were to circle around the other side of the lab he had seen the DEHA agents and get their attention, but his hopes were ruined when he rounded the last corner and saw it partially filled with the expanding substance. Sliding to a stop David quickly began backpedaling away from the substance.

“Is that what I think it is?” David heard a familiar voice behind him.

“Aegisium,” David gulped as he turned to find Apocalypse standing there holding the coyote by the scruff of the neck in one hand.

“Hold it there Apocalypse!” David saw a man seem to materialize behind Apocalypse as the man’s blue DEHA armor began to appear as the adaptive camouflage was switched off on his suit. “The boy is coming with me!”

“It appears no one is going anywhere without my help,” Apocalypse didn’t bother to turn toward the DEHA agent, “If you haven’t noticed num-nuts we are trapped by that shit.” pointing at the fast approaching Aegisium while reaching around the back of his waist where a greenish disk formed out of his armor into his hand.

“Hold it right there!” The DEHA agent raised his gun at Apocalypse.

“This is our way out, now quit waving that damn gun around before it goes off and hurts Davey, if that happens…” Apocalypse lowered his voice, “I’ll kill you.” Holding the green disk up it hovered in place for a moment before shooting off down the hallway the way they had come. “We have to follow that!” Apocalypse ordered as he grabbed David by the arm and forced him to run with him down the hall, the DEHA agent followed close behind.

“What does that thing do?” The Agent shouted as he ran.

“It will mark the location of the closet, safe crossing,” Apocalypse replied.

They followed the disk down a short side hall to a dead end where it hovered in place in front of a door. Opening the door, Apocalypse follow the green disk into the room where it stopped slightly off the center of the room. Holding out his hand, the disk landed and was reabsorbed into the strange armor once he placed it against his back. After standing there motionless for several minutes Apocalypse spoke, “This is not the most desirable crossing, but it beats staying here.”

“Whatever you gonna do, you best hurry!” The agent said while looking out the door down the hallway, “That stuff is already in the hall and coming pretty fast.”

“Any port in a storm, I say!” The coyote chuckled.

In front of Apocalypse a tiny ball of electricity appeared that quickly grew into a circular ring of lightning almost seven feet across inside it contained a swirling vortex of darkness. “OK, everyone in!” Apocalypse ordered.

“What the hell is that?” The DEHA agent stared at the portal.

“Think of it like a doorway to another place.” Apocalypse said as he grabbed the DEHA agent and threw him head first into the vortex. Looking at David, “You coming or do I have to throw you too!”

“I’m coming,” David said taking a step toward the vortex.