Spaceship Nebiru, orbital headquarter of the Strikeforce1
Dozens of grey and silver garbed men and women entered the ample, dim lit room, and took seat in the five rows of eleven chairs each. The only light came from a spot-beam that illuminated a little portion of the space in front of the auditorium.
When all the members of the Strikeforce one occupied their place, the elite members in the front row, the others behind, slowly coming out of the darkness behind the silvery beam of light, Jack Merlin, The Walker appeared floiating two meters above the floor.
A wicked smile on his long face, the long, white hairs floating and glowing, the true, secret leader of the Strikeforce gave a long, inquisitive look at his powerful squadron.
"We have a strange report regarding the metahumans of Vanguard International. It results that they have given allegiance to Mandelovia's dictator General D'Goon. Tenant Digigirl, you have found more about this?"
A young woman, with short, spiky platinum hairs, stood up from her chair on the front line. She walked to the beam of light, and then turned to face the assembly.
"I... we hacked the Mandelovian satellite network long ago, even before the creation of the Strikeforce. We found a stream of constant feeding from the headquarter of vanguard. It resulted that D'Goon somehow fitted some spying tech inside the cat of one of the Vanguardians..."
A general laugh erupted from the assembled metahumans. The woman smiled in return, and continued: "... we gathered plentiful of information about those metas in the last year and a half. But early this morning, we found that D'Goon has convinced Vanguard to act as personal bodyguard for himself. The deal is that they will not be used in the war... but it seems that as they entered disguised in the country, their identity has been publicly revealed, and tricked into appearing to have embraced D'Goon cause."
This time it was Merlin to laugh. Then, he hovered out of the light beam and above the assembly. "We have killed all the Alphabet agents of Mandelovia, minus two, that we have been not able to track. And right when it was the time to take D'Goon like a ripen apple from the tree, now we have these... Vanguardians... to face. I know some of them. I have met some of them. I have fought with some of them. Some of you have faced others. They seems unprepared, unskilled, undisciplined... yet they seems always able to outperform skillful professional. Many of their faces are new. Some of their powerful members are not in Mandelovia. They don't seem to pose a harder threat than the Elite agents. Well, don't underestimate Vanguard: I know that you thinks yourself the best of the world, but you are just shit compared to them.
Prove me wrong!"
A roar raised from the crowd.
"Tenants Digigirl, who knows perfectly Mandelovia, The Rose, who has met the Vanguardians before, and ACK will be the Elitist in charge of the hunt for D'Goon. They will choose tree agents each for the mission. The meeting is adjourned. I expect to meet Captain Ekorre and Tenants Albino and Darkstar in the War Room in ten minutes."
As the crowd was leaving the Meeting Room, ACK went by the side of Shadow and Had, who were talking closely. "You two bastards are with me" said the fake robot, while looking around at all the faces, to find the other one that could suit him best.
