Elites Chapter III: New Empire Rising

IV

Port of Miami

March 9th

12:30am: Eastern Time

The port had been closed for hours, but there was one ship just docking. Seconds later, a truck pulled into the docks and began unloading crate. They were all wearing masks that looked like the Elites' masks. Individual colors, with silver or grey streaks along the eyes. One of them opened a crate and pulled out a rocket launcher. "New guys think they can move in, and run my business into the ground. Well I'm gonna show them who's boss around here. Miami's my b!tch." All of a sudden, a voice echoed along the pier "That makes you mine mafia." The men looked up, but there was nothing there. Suddenly, there were screams. When they turned around, one of them was on the ground, clutching his arm in pain. They then began to circle the man in black with assault rifles. They heard a footstep, and quickly unloaded rounds in that direction. As they did, more of them were being hit hard. Every time they heard a noise, they started shooting in that direction. And they began to pull grenade launchers and started shooting those too.

One by one, more men were getting taken down by a shadow. After a few moments, only the man in the black mask was left. He saw a shadow by one of the trucks, and shot a rocket at it. Only to get punched from behind and thrown to the ground. When he looked up, he saw a man in a black and silver suit. "I bet twenty-grand that you Elites wouldn't show this time." He said. The shadow grabbed him and said "You lost." He sounded pretty young, a teenager at most. The masked man then said "Yeah, well I've taken the initiative to prepare for these sorts of contingencies Stone." All of a sudden, men were on the catwalk above, raining down on Stone. He threw the masked man to the ground, and shot a grappling hook at the roof as he took down more of the thugs.

The masked man then yelled "Start the truck!" He then reached for the rocket launcher and aimed it at Stone's silhouette. But before he could launch, a blue tri-dagger was thrown at the rocket. When the man pulled the trigger, the rocket blew up in his face. Standing in front of him was Amber. "It's the girl! Somebody kill that f@ggot kid!" Men in the truck started shooting at her, but Amber dodged each bullet quickly before shooting orange bolts of energy at two of them. The other one uncovered a machine gun turret and started shooting at her. Amber ran and took cover behind and inside of crates as she pursued the truck. Stone looked down on the entire scene, and saw flashes of bright orange light. He then jumped down on top of the truck. When he did, bullets started piercing through the bottom of the roof. Stone grabbed onto the open end of the trailer and slid into the truck. He instantly went after the man on the turret. Amber took that opportunity to jump onto the side of the truck. As she got closer to the cab, she generated an energy sphere around her hand and punched the driver and grabbed the wheel. She turned the steering wheel until the truck began to tip over. She then launched a grappling hook and pulled herself away before the truck tipped over on its side. Stone was still in the back of the truck when it began to roll over on its side. He quickly jumped out of the truck before it fell. Stone then let out a groan as Amber walked back to him. "I had this under control... but thanks for coming. What do you want? I know you wouldn't come back directly to me unless you needed something because nobody else is home." Amber replied "Yeah, you're right. I'm not here just because. I've got some things to take care of." Stone and Amber walked towards a black and silver Dodge Challenger, and drove out of the pier, back to the city.

"So why did you come to me? If you're just passing through, you wouldn't have come by the port." Rob was curious. He knew his friend too well to know there was something wrong. Natalie was hesitant, but replied "Something new has come up, and The Elites are the only people with access to the situation. I went by the base, but nobody was home. I just decided then to tap into the tracker and you happened to be the only one in the city, so don't even think you were my first choice... turn left here." Robert replied "You've been extremely vague. What is the situation you're talking about? And where's Wade? And where are you leading me?" Nat eventually gave in and fessed up. "This morning, a mission went terribly wrong. Guardian and I were responding to criminal activity. But it was a trap. They caught Guardian. I ran a vocal scan and found a match to an Endgame field soldier. And since it's Endgame, we can't pursue them, nor do we have the experience or tech to do so." Rob replied "Wait, you said 'we'. Who are we meeting?" Rob pulled up in front of Bayside. When he did, a short girl with blonde hair walked towards the car. "Alright. Who is this Nat? A friend of yours?" The girl said "I'm Sam, Amber's honorary teammate." Rob replied "Robert, never heard of you." Sam replied "I'm Wade's girlfriend. Since he's gone missing, I need answers... I thought you would be taller." She squeezed into the back seat of the small car and said "Alright. Where do we start?" Rob replied "You can't be serious. Did you expect it to be that easy? To start, I'm the only person here right now. I can try to get you started, but the rest won't be back until early tomorrow morning. Perhaps it would be easier to wait until then." Nat interrupted "Every moment that we wait is a smaller chance that Wade is still alive. Do you really want to take that sort of risk because you want to wait?" Stone paused for a moment and said "Fine. I'll get you guys home, and we'll see what we can find. Right now, we don't have much to track him off of. We've looked for these guys for months and found nothing. Once Bluestone gets back, he'll know what to do."