Subdue and Capture

William was pulled with great force by a small army of Kate clones, along with Rex and Eve, by a chain wrapping around his neck, allowing War Woman to compose herself and summon her mace to her hand.

She watched in shock, however, that despite the effort of nearly fifty people, William was still slowly moving forward and was steadily increasing his pace, but before it could continue.

BOOM

Robot in a massive drone clearly designed for heavy lifting crashed through the ceiling and landed on the side of the Teen Team with its hands extended to the thick chains.

RATTLE

Robot's massive mechanical hands grabbed onto the taut chain, and suddenly, William was unable to move forward, his mechanical joints sparked in response to the force require to stall him.

"RAAAHHHHH!"

William thrashed wildly to the point that blood had begun leaking from within the chain, his constant jerky movement causing the chains to tighten around his neck.

Suddenly, William spun towards Robot's drone and lunged at it with ferocity and killing intent visible to the naked eye.

Robot dropped the chain to the ground in response to the sudden attack however, he was unable to move quickly enough to dodge the blows raining down on him.

BANG

Robot was sent tumbling backward on the third blow, and the fourth one sent him sliding towards the other members of Teen Team, who were forced to scatter or risk becoming crushed under Robot.

Rex and Eve each threw a series of explosives and fist-shaped constructs from either side, smashing into William repeatedly.

BANG

BOOM

BANG

BOOM

BANG

BOOM

Both William and the large drone of Robot were buried under cascading pink and yellow explosive lights as they continued to be bombarded.

Pink and orange flames intermingled and clashed together, creating a lovely display of lights that enveloped the center of the warehouse.

Suddenly, a massive object flew out of the flames and headed straight for Rex, whose eyes turned into pinholes as he saw what appeared to be Robot's chest heading straight for him.

Pink walls formed in front of Rex as Eve stood to the side with a look of deep exhaustion on her face as she has been doing most of the heavy lifting with her constructs and it was taking a mental toll on her.

SHATTER

BOOM

One by one, the large limbless torso tore through each barrier, and Eve was forced to put in extra effort building an extra thick suit of armor around Rex, however, he smashed through the wall and collided with an already destroyed car, which erupted into flames.

Thankfully, the armor, while cracked and splintered, held out and was more than strong enough to resist the flames.

Unfortunately, the collision knocked him unconscious, and he now lies limp in the flaming wreckage.

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"

William's screams rang out as the pink and orange flames died around him, and he appeared to be holding his head and was clearly in some kind of painful struggle.

A few seconds ago, when the explosions were going off, and just after he threw Robot's torso, William in his astral body felt the time was ripe to attempt to take back his body from his instincts and began digging his astral hands into his physical bodies back eliciting a scream of pure pain to echo out.

As William's astral hands entered his physical body, he began to dissolve into his nervous system and seep into his bones.

It felt to his physical body like someone was trying to wear him like a suit, but he was unable to do anything but scream in place, clawing at his own face and chest in a weak attempt to resist.

War Woman with blood still leaking from her nose bore a confused and concerned look on her face as she watched William stand there amidst the flames, his fingertips long gone and his fingerbones exposed, which he then used to pierce his chest.

SHNK

He repeatedly and madly stabbed himself in his chest and stomach as his red eye flickered between his normal green and red.

Eve and Kate regrouped with Rex and assisted him from the inside of the burning car before turning their heads back to William, who was pouring blood like a fountain as he repeatedly stabbed himself with his exposed finger bones.

SHNK

Even though they were fighting just a few seconds ago, both Eve and Kate couldn't help from tear up, through the sounds of tearing and ripping flesh was the desperate growls of a beast and tears of a man, causing them to feel a deep sadness in their chests as they still thought of William as a comrade.

William's astral form was nearly fully merged with his physical body, and as such had a greater level of control over his limbs and was now actively preventing his body from stabbing itself.

Now, all he could do was roar to the heavens.

"AAAAGGGHHH!"

A somewhat demonic growl mixed with a more human cry of pain echoed through the warehouse, and William finally fell backward with his eyes closed, unmoving as his astral body finally settled in place.

War Woman walks up while holding her ribs with one hand and kneels next to William before reaching out with her other hand and checking his pulse, only to sigh in relief.

She then turned towards Eve, "Build a stretcher construct and take him to the medical wing of your HQ immediately, make sure he is restrained in case he is still feral upon waking up as well!"

Nodding in affirmation, Eve began doing her work while War Woman activated her communication device in her ear and notified Cecil of the team's status as well as the mission status.

"Good work, War Woman, go get yourself checked out in medical and take a break for a few days, I'll send a team to collect samples from the battlefield so we can figure out exactly what happened!"

Eve soon wrapped William in a pink construct that acted as a floating bed, while to her anger, she sees two clones of Kate assisting Rex and turns her head with a huff.

Kate, seeing this, felt immense guilt deep in her chest and was unable to stop her tears from falling down her face, but continued to move forward while sending casual and cautious glances towards William's naked, unconscious body.

Her eyes trailed towards the area between his legs, but just as she was about to see it a pink wall suddenly covered his modesty, and Kate looked up to see Eve giving her a derisive look as if she was purely disgusted with her behavior.

They silently boarded the waiting Vertibird and left the smoke and crater-filled battlefield just as agents suddenly teleported in along with Cecil, who appeared sitting on a bit of rubble.

He silently waited for a few minutes with his hands pressed together before one of his agents suddenly approached, holding a stasis device with what appeared to be a spinal column.

"Sir, we have taken multiple scans and discovered it's the spine of William that Marie ripped out during the opening conflict!"

Cecil's eyes scanned the dark spinal column with interest before nodding towards the agent and saying, "Take it to the labs and see what you can discover, also take as many blood and flesh samples from the surroundings.

He pointed to a particularly large pool of blood where William had repeatedly stabbed himself.

The agent nearly turned green seeing the sheer amount of blood spilled here, "It's like a goddamn demonic ritual!" he said with shaking breath as he approached the pool of blood and began taking samples.

While this was going on, Conor returned to his home using the shadows to weave through the city like a phantom in the night and arriving merely ten minutes after the fight with William.

"Jesus, who was that guy? I don't remember that guy existing in the show!"

Conor lay on his couch, and his eyes grew somewhat heavy after the day that he had, but just before his eyes closed completely, he heard the sound of footsteps outside of his front door.

"...been watchin this.... all day... he is definitely not here!" A muffled voice emanated from the other side of the door, and Conor shot up from his position on the couch with slight surprise on his face, but suddenly a smile formed on his face, and the shadows in his house seemed to come to life before surrounding him and forming into a shadowy cloak that covered the lower half of his face leaving his eyes visible.

He suddenly sank into the darkness around him and disappeared just as the door was kicked open.

BANG

The door slammed open and crashed into the wall behind it before one of the hinges came off, leaving it hanging in an awkward way, three men entered with a handgun, a baseball bat, and a crowbar, respectively.

"Split up between the rooms and grab whatever you can carry, I hear this guy is an astronaut, so he has to be loaded!"

Nodding in agreement, the group split up with one heading for the bedroom, the other to the bathroom, and the last guy staying in the living room with his gun to his side.

The one in his bathroom was rifling through whatever drugs he could find when he felt a chill run down his spine, and sharp pain suddenly erupted through his chest as a shadowy, clawed hand erupted from the front of his chest with his still beating heart clasped roughly in its grasp.

SQUELCH

The robber only had enough time to witness the shadowy hand crush his heart into a spray of blood before he fell into the darkness and seemingly vanished from the room entirely.

Shadows swelled behind the second robber in the bedroom who was currently struggling uselessly to figure out the combination to a safe, he was so focused on the safe that he had not noticed the shadowy tendril approaching him from behind until it wrapped around his neck.

He struggled against the shadows but was unable to resist being dragged up into the air before a distinct snapping sound was heard, and his body went limp.

"Hey, what's taking everyone so long?"

The third robber in the living room felt something amiss and went to the bedroom to look just as his companion's body was dragged into the shadows, causing him to fall to the ground in a panic and return to the perceived safety of the living room.

He saw a shadow leaving the bedroom, and he fired his gun at it.

BANG

The shadow was left untouched, much to the robber's terror, and soon it approached the corner of the living room, and a hand holding a handgun slowly emerged before Conor stepped out of the shadows with a predatory look in his eyes.

BANG

Two more shots rang out from the robber and struck Conor in his shoulder and neck, but surprisingly, Conor only felt slight discomfort as the shadows around him slowly surged into his wounds and returned him to pristine condition.

Pure terror was visible in the face of the robber, whose face lost a few shades of pigment as the gun across from him lit up in an eerie glow, and suddenly.

BANG

A shadowy light blasted from the barrel of the handgun, and a dark projectile coursed through the air at speeds exceeding that of the typical handgun and approaching the speed of most sniper projectiles.

POP... BANG

The robber's eyes went wide, and the gun in his hand fell to the floor.

He looked down and saw a massive gaping hole where his chest used to be before he suddenly spat up a massive mouthful of blood and fell backwards.

Conor was incensed when he saw the amount of blood he would have to clean, but with a sigh, he grabbed a bunch of cleaning supplies and got to cleaning while the body itself seemed to vanish into the shadows.

He eventually finished cleaning, and after he somewhat fixed his door, he went back to his couch to rest after a long day and fell asleep nearly immediately

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