The Strangers

[darkphoenixII]

     If anyone's at all interested, here's this thing that I started last year. It's a rewritten version of Dr. Mike's Freedom Force mod "The Strangers". Still love it, despite annoyances with the captions. It's not finished (the story, I mean), nor do I have any intention of doing so. Just a little light reading. :P

     Oh, and this is by no means an attempt to steal the idea for this mod, for it belongs to Dr. Mike, blah blah.

                     Written & Created by Dr. Mike
                     Rewritten by darkphoenixII


Prologue

   Sondra Strange was a very confident woman. Raised by loving parents, graduating from one of the most prestigious colleges in the United States, and becoming the mayor of New York, she knew that no obstacle could get in her way. As she walked down the hallway of City Hall to her office, she relished in her accomplishments. However, being mayor was, even for Sondra, a somewhat heavy burden. Crime was rampant in the city, and with each day the criminals seemed to grow stronger and more advanced.

   That will come to an end soon, Sondra reflected. She had already initiated plans to counter-act these nuisances, and when they were caught her punishments would be swift and merciless.

First things first, she thought, as she reached the large wooden double-doors of her office and turned the handle. As she stepped into her office, she routinely looked around and savored the sheer beauty of it. It was cleaned and polished from top to bottom, thanks to her finicky requests to the custodians who worked there. Sunlight shone through the large window directly behind her desk, large blue curtains hanging in its gorgeous oak frame. Her large bookshelf on the right side of the room was completely filled with all the books she'd ever read. Her desk was made of oak, and was immaculately polished to a mirror finish. On top lay her filled pencil container, a small stack of paperwork she had yet to complete; her laptop, which she always made sure was in top condition, and a picture of her parents. The blue carpeted floor quieted her footsteps as she made her way to her desk. Blue had always been her favorite color, and she never failed to arrive at work with her blue power suit, complete with a red tie. Even her eyes were blue. She brushed at an errant strand of her long, blonde hair and smoothed her blue skirt as she sat down at her desk and logged onto her computer.

Suddenly she stopped and looked immediately at the corner of the room which escaped the luminescence of sunlight. There stood a tall figure, which stepped forward at the sound of Sondra's gasp. When she saw who it was, she relaxed. "Gabriel, you scared me," she said, a little perturbed. Gabriel simply smiled and walked over to Sondra, who had stood up from her desk. When Gabriel reached Sondra, he wrapped his arm around her waist, pulled her in close and kissed her passionately. Sondra returned the gesture, and they remained there for what seemed like minutes. When they finally parted, the door opened. She immediately turned to see who it was, surprised at the sudden entrance. The head of her young male assistant poked through the cracked door.

"Miss Mayor?" He stepped in completely, adjusting the black tie underneath his gray suit. Sondra looked at her side, but no one was there, and swiftly her mood shifted. "Brian, how many times do I need to tell you to knock?!?" she almost yelled, angry with his interruption. Brian recoiled in response. "I'm sorry, ma'am," he said nervously. "I'm just giving you the files you requested." "Put them on the desk," she dismissively stated, wanting him to leave as soon as possible. Hurriedly, Brian put a manila folder on her desk and left. She sighed as she picked up the folder and opened it. When she looked at the papers within, a smile appeared on her lips, her bad mood evaporating. "It's almost time," said Sondra.



Chapter 1

   In hell, the generation gap is centuries wide...as above, so below. A teenage girl screams at her father, a door slams. Alone in her room, she swears the most forbidden oath in the nine circles, that good is the shadow cast by evil, and leaves for the material plane. This is her story...

   Earlier that day, everything was going normally outside the Radiant Labs building. Then a large black van arrived unexpectedly. The two men in the front were dressed rather casually for deliverymen, the driver in a dark teal pants and a brown jacket zipped up to his chest, covering the tasteless yellow turtleneck he had on underneath; the other in the passenger seat wore a white long-sleeved shirt under his green vest, which stopped just over the top of his dark blue pants. Both claimed a furniture delivery, and they had paperwork and ID's to act as confirmation. It was a mistake to trust them; once inside, they showed their true colors, and about ten of the men filed out of the back of the van and drew their guns, half of them staying downstairs to guard the ground floor and the van, the others making their way up to the lab. Within minutes they had returned, holding a briefcase containing chemicals from the lab, as well as other cumbersome equipment. Police officers arrived, but there were only a mere two of them; cannon fodder. The thugs, through with their objective, made their way back to the van. "They're getting away! Stop them, officer!" yelled Dr. Biff Bateman. The two police officers accompanying him shot at the thugs running to the van, which displayed the name "Club Lounges" garishly. Unfortunately, they missed, and were taken down in a hail of bullets. Bateman narrowly escaped as he ran behind a car parked behind the van.

"Haw haw, suckers!" laughed one of the thugs scornfully. "Don't mess with the House of Cards! You know we got this burg stitched up tight!" "You fools!" Dr. Bateman angrily screamed. "You don't know what those chemicals could do in the wrong hands! And as for the microwave coils..."

But it was too late. The van's engine turned over, and it sped out from in front of the building it was parked in front of and on to the highway. As the driver turned left, he thought to himself that nothing could possibly stop them now.

He couldn't have been more wrong. As the van was about speed past an intersection, the air exploded in a fireball, throwing the van up into the air, landing on its side. When the flames subsided, there was a girl. But a girl like no other; her skin was blood red, her eyes yellow like a panther's, her short hair was blacker than black, her leather outfit the same. It seemed to look like some sort of cat suit, the long sleeves hanging off her wrists, which were connected to hands that bore sharp claws. The zipper in between her breasts was what seemed to be responsible for the tight hold of the suit, which had cut off at her waist. The leather pants were quite short, and were tightly tied at the sides with three yellow strings. Her feet were bare, and protruding from the toes were nails as black and sharp as her claws. If this, let alone the fire explosion in which she had materialized in, didn't spell out "inhuman", the two horns that stuck out of her forehead did.

"So...this is the material plane....It's a bit dull," she said. When she caught sight of the pile-up that had occurred, surprise formed on her face. "Oops! Like, did I do that?" she said aloud. Miraculously, the driver and the other eleven passengers in the van had exited with little to no damage, and they were not pleased. "What the hell happened...?" one said, and suddenly they saw of the girl standing there. Some recoiled in disgust, the others stared in shock, until finally one of the thugs yelled, "Hey! Get that freak!" The thugs who had guns drew them, and the ones that didn't had armed themselves with bats, and dashed towards the girl. "Hey! Like, who're you calling 'freak'? The name's...Devil Doll!!" she yelled and lifted high into the air. Shock was evident once again the thugs' faces, and all bat wielding thugs immediately turned a fled from this unreachable demoness. The ones who remained took aim, but their inability to keep their shaking hands steady caused them to miss the girl. Devil Doll, in response to the attack, wasted no time in retaliation. She raised her hand above her head, and in doing so a flaring red hex symbol appeared beneath her hovering feet. She pointed to the gun thug, and another hex symbol appeared underneath the thug's feet. There emerged beside him an exact duplicate, and the sight of this feat expunged any and all bravery left in the remaining thugs. They all fled as this...whatever it was...blankly brought up its gun and took down two of the bat-wielding thugs that were still in view. That's all the action that it was able to take, as it fell after a gunshot sounded.

Devil Doll repeated this with two other thugs, and flew over to land on a building rooftop. And as the perps had their hands full with their duplicates, she took the oppurtunity to survey her surroundings and suddenly spotted a device of octagonal shape on another rooftop a block away. It was silver and black in color, with four purple triangles all on opposite sides pointing towards the black circular center. It was indeed small enough to escape notice, but certainly big enough for a person of exceptional size to fit within its area. Another device exactly like it was hidden in a back alley, and another in the alley on the other side of the street.  One of the cowardly criminals approached that device, bending down to do something with it, and then appeared a very strangely dressed man in a hail of yellow light. He wore a silver rubber suit, which holstered a large, red, complex looking gun, black boots, and a tall structured hat with a symbol of a club like those from playing cards.

"Two to deck," said the first flamboyantly dressed man, "I have landed. I'm assessing the situation now," and ran off. Afterwards, two of the thugs that previously fled had simultaneously reached the other teleporting devices. The same thing that happened before occurred.

"Two to deck," the second reported, "The men are reporting some kind of disturbance, sir," and did the same.

"Two to deck, commencing search for the...'superhero'. The situation is under control, repeat, under control," the third costumed man said and followed suit.

They all made their way to the rooftop that the mysterious girl of teenaged appearance observed them from. Taking to the air again, she flew to one of the costumed men, but a sharp whistle past her ear influenced her to turn down an alley. Sensing the approaching gun thug, she placed her hand on her temple and concentrated her thoughts on the him. A different colored hex symbol formed beneath her, flashing a brilliant white and purple. The pursuing thug abruptly stopped, twin white lights swirling up from his head into the sky, and he pointed his gun towards his partners in crime. "What're ya doin'!" they screamed as he shot down two of them before he himself was taken out. And so Devil Doll went, summoning and beguiling all who dared oppose her, and also terrifying the wits out of most passersby. There were a few spectators watched in awe, but they had sense enough to run whenever the action got too close. With all the ruffians subdued, she flew in front of the bank, thinking to catch one of the costumed men there. She sensed one of the costumed men rush up behind her, and before she could get out of the way, an energy beam fiercely flowed out of the red gun. It knocked her out of the air, and she fell hard into the pavement. When she got up, the expression on her face displayed her livid temperament.

"Feel the fire of a woman scorned!!!" her voiced echoed all through the air, and the telltale hex symbol was beneath the two of clubs feet, and he was staring at a duplicate, that promptly drew its large, red, complex looking gun and fired off the same energy beam. The original two-of-clubs flew back in the air and landed not unlike Devil Doll did before, and the summoned copy immediately disappeared like the others before. The remaining two were in sight, attempting to ambush her on both sides. Knowing that neither summoning nor beguiling could save her this time, she prepared herself for what she was adamant to avoid. Lowering her head and lifting her hands, Devil Doll chanted silently, and slowly lifted into the air a few inches. Both the clubs got close, but they knew she was definitely up to no good. Not knowing what they could expect, they dashed for cover behind cars, near lampposts and other objects. Devil Doll's body jolted upright and everything inanimate in the area exploded in a fireball, sending both the two-of-clubs flying. The explosions horrified everyone that witnessed it, and they all fled. One of the clubs somehow survived the blasts, and slowly struggled to stand back up. Bullet-proof vests, observed Devil Doll.

"No more!" he cried. "I will talk." Devil Doll went up to him without delay.

"OK, OK, don't hurt me lady. I'm just an innocent furniture salesman...," he started, but Devil Doll interrupted. "Yeah, right! I mean, dressed like that? I may be new here, but I wasn't born yesterday!" "Ahhh!" he screamed. "Whatever you say! Stop looking at me like that!"

"Hmmm...you're kinda evil, aren't you? Dad'll be totally embarrassed if I stop you and your gang..." Devil Doll thought for a moment, and then looked angrily at the weirdo. "Alright, pencil head, take me to your leader! NOW!" she ordered. "You got it, lady," he said resignedly, and he started walking, with Devil Doll hot on his heels.

Chapter 2

   Antarctica- the vast unclaimed continent. Uninhabited. Uninhabitable. Or so we thought...

"Well, lads, looks like this is it," said a tall, muscular, blue-skinned man, wearing a withered looking coat that barely hid the image of the British flag embalmed on his chest. "If what these old alarms are telling me is true..."
"Devils, sir?" asked another blue skinned man, who looked every inch a soldier. "You're going to go... up north?"
"Of course I'm going north, you ninny!" the first man angrily spouted. "We're at the bloody South Pole, where else am I going to go?" He began toward the large exit, and then realized no one was following. "Well don't stand around, get the zeppelin ready! There's a devil out there walking the earth..." he said to his underlings before he continued to the door. "And it's about to find out the meaning of a jolly good trouncing!"

   When Devil Doll and her hostage finally stopped walking, she found herself at the city park. There was just one problem; the whole park was frozen... and it was June!   

"Aww man, why's it so cold here?" whined the two of clubs. "Stop whining, pencil head," Devil Doll snapped sharply. "Or maybe a little hellfire would warm you up?"

On that note, the two of clubs started off again. Devil Doll did indeed wonder just what caused this sudden freeze in temperature, and, more importantly, why only in the limits of the park? She didn't have to wait long for the answer, though, as a tall, blue-skinned man with thick moustache and withered coat dashed toward her.

"I'm afraid I brought the cold with me, demon," he said in a thick British accent. "Cryogenic engines, you know? Now it's time to put a stop to you, what!" This was apparently more than the Clubs could handle. "Another costumed crazy!" he exclaimed. "I'm outta here!"

Making good on his word, he bolted away from both of the strange characters. Devil Doll just let him go; she had a feeling that this newcomer was a threat that had to be taken care of immediately.  She could feel the cold flow off of him, even in the current temperature and his distance away from her, and knew that just one blow would mean the end. The man stepped towards her with a livid expression. "Walking abroad in daylight like you own the place! Well trust me, Satan-spawn. I know how to deal with your kind!" Devil Doll had quickly bored of this man's slurs. "Satan-spawn?" she asked. "Oh, I'm, like, totally shaking, granddad... not! I'm trying to do some good over here, yeah, so get lost!"

The time for talk was over, as the man charged for her. She had already anticipated that, however, as she ascended out of reach. This man was obviously very determined, running toward a giant snowball that was right behind Devil Doll. Devil Doll moved away a few feet and started her silent chant, bringing her hands closer to her chest in concentration. By this time, the man had picked up the snowball and prepared to launch it at her. Devil Doll, in the nick of time, finished her incantation, and her body jolted. The resulting explosions that spurred all over scorched what didn't explode, including the man holding the snowball, which too had exploded in a fireball, throwing him nearly thirty feet away from Devil Doll. Unfortunately, she was caught in the snowball blaze, and was blasted out of the air. The blast itself left very little damage on her, but the same couldn't be said for her landing, and it really hurt. Slowly she made her way to her feet, rubbing at the bruises left from her fall. "BY GEORGE!!" the blue man yelled. "You pack quite a punch for a girl!" Already ticked from that almost suicidal attack, Devil Doll was ready to REALLY have at him. But when she saw him lying on the ground, she unexpectedly softened.

For an old geezer, she thought, he fights pretty good. I wonder...She approached the hardy man, who was meeting with difficulty in getting up, but he abruptly saw the powerful demon girl, and took his stance.

"That's enough!" Devil Doll yelled. "I told you, I'm one of the good guys! Now, you want to help me get rid of these playing card weirdoes?" "A good devil? Good lord, what'll they think of next??" he spouted, evidently bewildered at the idea. The blue man was shaken for a moment, but continued. "I'll say this though; you fight like a man, young lady! I'm going to have to keep an eye on you!" Devil Doll rolled her eyes and took to the air. "Yeah, whatever. Just don't get in my way, ok? ...What are you waiting for?"