Jacqueline's vision swam into focus. She sniffed, coughing, the noise reverberating through her voice synthesizer. She stumbled slightly, slightly disoriented. She tried to scratch her scalp on instinct but again, her gauntleted fingers clang off her helmet. She groaned, the letting her hand fall to her side, her thoughts clearing slightly as she realized she was still inside of her suit.
"Of course I am..." Jacqueline said aloud to herself to herself, looking around her office. "I...didn't take this thing off...did I?" It was hard to think. The last thing she remembered was defiantly crushing her bottle of anti-psychotic pills. Then...then...what had she done next? She gritted her teeth, trying desperately to think, but it was like trying to peel back fog. God, she couldn't remember. All that was fresh was what she had just seen.
Afghanistan. Jacqueline teeth tightened at the memory. So long ago and yet, she had just witnessed it like it was yesterday. Had she blacked out and had a flashback to that time, the time when she was young and building the Skeleton Crew, piece by piece, in that war torn land? She must have...it seemed the only logical explanation. But how did she suffer a blackout like that? It was...disturbing that her mind had simply shut down and she had suffered memory loss. She felt cold sweat gathering at her neck. She desperately wished to scratch at it, flick them away, but of course, being inside the suit made that impossible.
She wondered if she should exit the suit. But no...no. Somehow that thought disgusted her. She couldn't step out of it. In her prime invention, she was strength, power, and she was feared. She needed to be all those things right now, to promote her image at its most fearsome, especially with apparent insubordination in her ranks.
Jacqueline smirked as she recalled what she had done to that foolish lieteunant who had dared to question her. Idiot should have kept his mouth shut. Now he was dead, reduced to a greasy smear on the floor, and she felt nothing but pride at that. Any attempts to question her command should be met with a similar response from now on. For she could see clearly now how her organization, how her incompetent men were bringing the Skeleton Crew down, like a collection of warts. And she'd pop any she found, any mercenaries out of place, especially now.
With San Francisco looming...
She could feel it. This was going to be the end. One way or another, this final assault would bring an absolute end to her goals. Her sister was dead. The Agency was dead. America feared her. The Skeleton Crew was being whipped into shape, at the price of a few morons who had undermined her operation at every turn, only undone by her brilliance in outfoxing them. Now...now all that remained were the stupid kids who refused to die. And the bad memories of her past that lingered in that blasted city. All would be cleansed soon enough. They would feel the true wrath of the Skeleton Crew upon them. Jacqueline smiled gleefully, giggling to herself as she rubbed her fingers together, producing a most wonderful scraping noise.
Her gaze traveled around her office, settling on the painting of her father. Since the construction of the Inferno, that piece of filthy artwork had hung there. Ever reminding her of her past, ever inspiring her to move forward, defying the bastard's frozen glare with each act she committed.
She had acquired the painting upon learning through her information network that her father had passed away. The painting had been commissioned to honor him. She sneered. She had secured it and now, it hung there, trying to judge her as he always had but failing.
Jacqueline raised her gatling gun and aimed it at the painting. Her father's gaze stared back at her, lifeless yet still possessing that same damned expression he had always held in life. Even dead, he judged her, but at last she could defy him.
"I'm going to finally put you behind me," Jacqueline said. She smiled to herself. "What do you think of that? Are you shaking your impotent fist from Heaven? Mmm? What will you and Amanda do when you see me lay waste to the city you both loved so much? Pity I could never experience it...since you decided to cage me! You treated me like a prisoner, shoving doctors and pills at me after a simple outburst!"
"That boy..." She jabbed a finger at the air, feeling her skin prickle, her words crack with her own anger. "...The one I attacked deserved it! And you...you sided with him! A stranger over your own daughter! I should've killed you that night...but I was...weak then. But the years have made me strong. And you? You're dead. You and Amanda. All that remains is to destroy where I came from. And of course, the metahuman brats your daughter raised like a bunch of inbred dogs. I admit, they're more troublesome than I expected. I made mistakes dealing with them. But no longer. I feel liberated now. This operation...the destruction of San Francisco...will be the end."
The painting, of course, said nothing. Jacqueline's lips trembled as she continued to aim her gun. "I hated you. I always hated you, father. The feeling was mutual, wasn't it? You gave all your time, your effort, all that shit to her! DIDN'T YOU?" She started yelling, spewing spittle inside of her helmet.
"I've had...dreams...fantasies...about killing you," She hissed, her gauntleted hand shaking slightly. "I guess this will have to suffice."
She opened fire. Her gatling gun roared inside the enclosed space, spewing bullets into the painting. Jacqueline screamed as she fired, watching as her bullets torn the painting to shreds. Her father's cold visage was there one moment and the next, it was utterly annihilated. Parts of the painting exploded and it fell from the wall, smashing hard against the floor.
Jacqueline spot firing, her gatling gun spinning to a abrupt halt. She gasped, panting, feeling as if she'd just ran a marathon. But it was a pleasurable sensation. It was as if she'd just received an injection of adrenaline. She felt renewed and above all, good.
Taking a moment to recover her breath, Jacqueline then turned and stomped through her office, moving through the now door less entrance. She briefly noted a bloodstain on the floor. The mercenary she'd killed must've been dragged off, cleaned up. Good. Then the crew knew she wouldn't tolerate more failures.
She strutted through the corridors and emerged onto the bridge. Technicians are their stations immediately stood at attention. Jacqueline was pleased to see the fear in their eyes when they looked upon her, the silent trepidation in their faces. She stomped to the center of the bridge, finally recovering her breath and snarled, "Put out an announcement. Summon everyone. It is time..."
The Skeleton Crew's forces assembled in moments. Mercenaries stood wall to wall in formation around the bridge, standing at attention and waiting. Jacqueline stood at the head of the bridge, her arms folded behind her as she stood tall before the bridge's massive window. Surrounding her were the metahumans. Incisor stood with his arms crossed, his injured eye stitched shut, jagged claw marks covering the ruined flesh. Scream silently stood near the elephant's foot, her uninjured arm dangling at her side as her silent gaze watched the crowd. Web sat on top of a computer station, giggling and muttering to herself as she picked crud out of her dirty hair. Wormhole sat in a nearby chair, quietly sipping a cup of coffee, his gaze irritable. The only missing face was Akihiro and Jacqueline didn't care to find him. He was probably listening anyway from the paint all around them.
Jacqueline let the silence linger for several long moments before she spoke. "Our operation..." She began, concentrating hard to focus through the fog that still lingered in her mind, her lips smacking together as she pressed herself for the right words. "...In Quincy ended as a failure. Yes, a failure. I'm disappointed. Quite disappointed. To know that the metahumans we've fought so hard to kill are still scurrying around our there, like a particularly troublesome pack of rats, is annoying." She mimicked a rat's movements with her fingers, her suit making clanging noises that echoed around the room. "I ask you...its bad for moral when my supposed elite mercenary group can't eliminate them! Its even worse knowing the deeds we've accomplished together. What's happened to all of you? Did you balls drop off? All your training, your conviction, did it just go straight down the crapper? Six children have become much more of an enemy to us than any rival PMC group, militia, or even the fucking UNITED STATES!" She roared the last words, her cry slamming across the room. Several of the mercenaries visibly flinched as it they had been struck.
Jacqueline took a sharp breath, blinking away some droplets of sweat trickling down her eyelid. She was about to continue when a voice spoke up from the crowd. "But ma'am..." Multiple heads turned and Jacqueline saw one of her masked troopers speaking. "They have-"
"I AM TALKING!" Jacqueline screamed in response. Her words drowned out whatever idiotic response the dissenter's voice would have said. "You something to say?! KEEP IT TO YOURSELF! The only voice in this room that matters now is mine! Do you know why?! DO YOU KNOW WHY?!"
Wisely, no one responded to her question. Jacqueline drew in another sharp intake of breath, twisting her head around inside her helmet. "Its because..." She hissed through clenched teeth. "Its because of me. I can clearly see now I am one of the few cogs in this machine working properly. Me and the metahumans." Incisor sniffed and Web giggled at her words.
"I am the force that built this group," Jacqueline tapped her chest with one finger. "I am the will that binds it together! But until recently, I did not realize that I was truly one of the only people in this whole unit who knows how to do her job! Oh, it shouldn't be surprising. I am gifted with an intelligence this miserable world has only seen every few lifetimes. I am to the field of engineering what Einstein was to physics! But truly, you all have surprised me by being stupid!"
Jacqueline paused again for breath, panting hard. The crowd was silent, staring at her with shocked expressions even as they tried to remain stoic. Good. Let her words rattle them. Let them be terrified of her. She liked it. She truly loved the sensation of being in the center of attention and seeing her minions standing at attention while she verbally thrashed them was a sensation like no other. It was wonderful. Some part of her wished this could go on forever.
"You want to know how I arrived at this remarkable conclusion?" She sneered. "Oh, it wasn't hard. After withdrawing to my quarters in an attempt to process the startling losses at Quincy, I arrived at an epiphany! Oh yes, you vagrants, an epiphany. I bet you morons couldn't even spell that. But yes...do you know what I realized? I put too much faith in you all. Far too much faith. I let you all handle the hunt for the metahumans without my guidance. Did acting on your own initiative produce results? No! Even running ragged from the ruins of their base, those whelps outran and outfought you at every turn. What's more, they freed the bug, one of their own, despite MY successful capture of her!"
"Those were bad incidents," Jacqueline continued. "But in the heat of things, I didn't have time to sit down and consider what went wrong. Why, I even gave you all the benefit of the doubt. But then came the catastrophic loss at Quincy. Our greatest triumph turned into abysmal failure. And all for the world to see..." Jacqueline shook her head, waving a finger at her mercenaries like they were a bunch of school children. "That was the moment. The tipping point. I had criticized you lot for stupid moves before but this...this proved to me you all weren't simply having a string of bad luck but you were all were incompetent to the highest order. And all because I wasn't there."
"it was then I realized our greatest successes always came when I was present," Jacqueline said with a gleeful snarl. She pointed at herself again, stabbing her clawed metallic finger through the air like a hot poker. "Me! I was there personally to oversee the destruction of the Metahuman Agency. And it was a resounding success. The target eliminated, our enemy reduced to ashes, the metahumans scattered and on the run...I made that possible! Without me, you all run around like a bunch of chickens with your heads off. I can see now that my presence truly makes a difference. You all cannot be trusted to finish our enemy without me. Because you lot are stupid. Incompetent. And above all, STAGGERINGLY BAD AT KILLING!"
Jacqueline paused again and swallowed. She hissed and exhaled sharply before gesturing at the assembled metahuman troops. "I and the metahuman team have come up with a strategy to eliminate our enemy. We will attack San Francisco." A few gasps and cries of alarm went up from the crowd. Jacqueline's eyes narrowed.
"What was that?!" She bellowed angrily, taking a step forward. The voices immediately went quiet. "Voices of dissent?! Oh dear me, you still think your opinions matter. Allow me to correct that mistake."
Jacqueline stood up straight again, folding her arms behind her back in an authoritative posture. "From here on out, the only voices I want to hear are 'Yes ma'am', 'Of course,' 'Copy,' and similar words. Your stupidity has meant your free will, so to speak, has been revoked. Your jobs are to follow orders. My orders. You will carry them out efficiently and without question. You are not men any more. You are cogs. Cogs who can be replaced at a moment's notice."
Jacqueline brandished one hand and unsheathed her claws. She smiled as she rubbed the blades together, making a satisfying scratching noise. "From this moment on, your voices will not be tolerated beyond what I want to hear. Any man or woman who thinks of themselves as an individual is sorely mistaken. You exist to fulfill what I want. And what I want is an end to the metahumans. The destruction of San Francisco will bring me that. Do your jobs, do what I say, and be good little cogs in my machine. If you think you handle that, you'll be well rewarded at the end of this. Fail to do that? Well..." Jacqueline laughed and slashed her claws through the air. "I'll eliminate you. There is no more room for mistakes and any man who makes them is no longer fit to serve the will of the Skeleton Crew. Is that clear?"
There was a moment's pause. Jacqueline narrowed her eyes, thinking for a moment these thick brain fools didn't get the message. Perhaps she should kill a few here and now to make her whims truly clear.
But then, the mercenaries said: "Yes ma'am!" Their words were a resounding shout. Jacqueline lowered her claw, grinning sharply at their words. They understood. Good. With that, she chuckled and raised up a hand.
"I'm glad you all understand the situation," She said before pointing over their heads to the exit. "Now go! To your stations. We will be attacking san Francisco with our full might! All ground and aerial vehicles are to be prepped! Equip yourselves with gear! And prep the coilgun..." She grinned, clenching a fist tightly. "The Inferno will carry us to victory. Its time this puny, worthless country learned of our full might! Quincy was but a taste of the power we have at our fingertips! The metahumans will be eliminated with our full might and more importantly, ME at the personal helm of this final operation!"
The mercenaries dispersed, leaving the room empty. Jacqueline turned back to her gathered crew. The metahumans seemed largely indifferent to her speech as usual but she felt too good to care. Instead, she turned to a nearby technician.
"Hack the satellite grid," She demanded. "And get me a camera. I'm going to make my intentions public to the world..."
"Announcing your intention ahead of time?!" Wormhole barked from behind her. Jacqueline turned to him, an amused grin on her face. He looked at her, rapping his cane on the floor. "On national television? That seems an exceptionally foolish move. What are you, some kind of comic book supervillain?"
Jacqueline's grin grew wider. She laughed, her entire suit reverberating it. She gestured to herself and said, barely holding back her laughter, "Why yes. I suppose I am."