Max Elliston was tossed into the damp, dark cell by the herders. He heard the door bolt shut behind him, and his mind raced with thoughts and fears. He ran to the door, trying desperately to open it. He banged his tiny fists on it, hoping one of the herders may have sympathy on him. But it was no use. None would answer his call.

“Well well… what have we here?”

The hairs on the back of Max’s neck stood rigid at attention. He froze in place and grew very silent. The voice was high-pitched, almost like a wail. A foul odor, worse than that of spoiled eggs, invaded his nostrils. He tried not to smell it, but the scent continued to pervade his sense of smell. Hot breath fell upon his neck, like steam. It was rancid, and he could feel the presence of his tormentor. Still, he was too terrified to turn around.

“The Pig left you in here with me, hmm? That can only mean one thing… you’ve been a very bad boy, haven’t you?”

Max tried not to move, tried not to speak. But he could not control the whimpers that left his body. He thought of his parents, of his family he had lost, and he began to cry. Lanky, bony fingers wrapped around Max’s shoulders and pulled him away from the door. He was thrown across the room and he struck the ground hard. He groaned in pain as he tried to sit up, but felt something poke at his back. He sat up and pulled out the sharp object. When he looked at it, he saw it was a bone. Quickly, he tossed it away.

The bone struck the ground where what little light filtered in through the barred window high above the cell. A white, deformed foot stepped into the light. The foot was attached to an oddly-formed mass. It had chalk-white skin, whatever it was, and it seemed to be without any sort of form. Max’s eyes grew wide in horror when they locked with the beady yellow eyes of his captor.

The amorphous blob stepped closer. His mouth was extremely large, like a cavern. Past his lips were rows of jagged, crooked teeth. They were a pale green color, like snot. They were attached to dark blue gums. And saliva fell freely from his mouth like a leaky faucet.

“Do you know who I am, little boy?”

Max nodded his head quickly to indicate that he did.

“They call me the Boogeyman,” he said. “I eat disobedient little children like you for breakfast.”

Max Elliston’s screams were recorded and broadcast across the Pens.

FOR THE CHILDREN

Part III: Raid

By Dino Pollard

The War Chopper cut through the skies over the fields of midwestern America. Through the use of Spider-Woman’s psychic abilities, the New Warriors were able to discern the location of the Pig’s Pens. Until a more permanent pilot could be found, Dwayne Taylor privately hired a freelance pilot to control the Chopper.

“Someone wanna tell me why Patriot chickened out?” asked Gravity.

“He said he had something to take care of,” said Joystick. “Said it could help out the mission, but he wouldn’t say what it was.”

“So he chickened out,” said Gravity. “Some leader, huh?”

“The guy’s a lot like Thrash used to be, huh?” asked Speedball. The question was directed to Rage, who, along with Speedball, was the only veteran on the team.

“Just a little more intense,” said Rage. “Thrash was never as secretive as Patriot. We knew who he really was from the beginning.”

“Lay off him, he’s just doing what he thinks is right,” said Spider-Woman.

“You’re just saying that because he’s the only one on this team you haven’t annoyed the hell out of,” said Ricochet.

“Oh bite me,” said Spider-Woman.

“No thanks,” said Ricochet. “Sixteen’ll get me twenty.”

“Freak,” muttered Spider-Woman.

“What’s the plan?” asked Joystick. The question was directed at Speedball, who looked up at her in a bit of surprise.

“Huh? Why are you asking me?”

“Well, you’ve done this kind of thing before,” she said. “That kind of makes you the de facto leader.”

“Ohhh no,” said Speedball. “I’m definitely not the leader type. Just ask Rage.”

“Well… you’re not, but who else is gonna do it?” asked Rage.

“Oh for chrissakes…” said Gravity. He rubbed his forehead. “You guys are a bunch of amateurs.”

“Says the guy who’s been doing this for about two weeks,” said Ricochet.

“Hey, at least I can step up to the challenge,” said Gravity. “I don’t see you offering your great experience. After all, aren’t you the one who’s always bragging about how you went to Hell and fought Eclipso?”

“Mephisto!” said Ricochet.

“Whatever.”

“How about all of you shut up,” said Machine Teen. The entire team quieted at his remark. Ever since the team formed, Machine Teen had easily been the most silent among them. Most of the other Warriors assumed he wasn’t cut out for this kind of work, that he didn’t have enough self-confidence to be a superhero. Gravity and Joystick even had a bet going as to how long it would take him to quit the team.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” he said. “Ricochet and Spider-Woman will get the kids out. Meanwhile, the rest of us will be the distraction.”

“Distraction, huh?” asked Gravity.

“That’s right, a distraction,” said Machine Teen. “The kind that causes a lot of noise and property damage.”

Gravity smiled. “I like the way you think.”

The Pig was on the short end of the stick when it came to handing out mutant powers. Although his strength is great, his appearence is just what his name describes him as—an obese mutant with a distinctive snout and pointed ears. However, despite his repulsive appearence, the Pig’s intellect is extremely keen. For the past few decades, he has secretly been running his Pen, a location where various organizations can seek to purchase suitable henchmen for their cannon fodder.

The Pig’s Herders kidnap children and put them through an intensive re-education process. By the time they reach the age of eighteen, these young men and women have lost any sense of free will and will sign up for any cause set before them. Some of the Pig’s clients over the years have included various terrorist organizations and even independent supervillains who could afford the high fees charged by the Pig.

Seated before an array of computer monitors, an alarm alerted the Pig to a possible threat to his operation. His fingers quickly danced across the keyboard before him and on one of the monitors, he brought up the images from the perimeter cameras. Five young people, in their late teen years or perhaps early twenties, appeared on the monitor. Each of them wore distinctive costumes and they attacked the perimeter fence of the Pen.

The Pig held down another button. “We have intruders at the north perimeter. Dispose of them.” The computer’s microphone transmitted the Pig’s message to the Herders via the circuitry in the masks they were required to wear. He released the button. “Computer, freeze image. Scan through *HHORT* all known databases, find any matches for these intruders.”

The computer went to work and within a few moments, results were returned. The Pig tried his best to keep as up-to-date as possible on all known superhumans. Despite a run-in with X-Factor, his operation has remained relatively low-key, much to his pleasure. Several matches were returned on the heroes.

Three of them were readily identifiable. One was a slender man with short blond hair and another was a large black man with a mask that covered his face. The computer identified them as Speedball and Rage, both associated with the New Warriors and in Rage’s case, a former Avenger. The third one who was identified was a young woman with light brown hair. The computer tagged her as Joystick, a known criminal who dropped out of sight after her recent alliance with the Masters of Evil over a year earlier.

The other two were unidentifiable by name, but the computer had located a recent story in the papers with a photo featuring those two. One of them appeared to be a robot and the other was dressed in a white and blue costume. Also featured in the photographed attached to the story was Joystick and three other young heroes who weren’t present.

“Interesting…”

While the Herders rushed to investigate the security breach caused by five of the New Warriors, the remaining two made their way inside the Pig’s compound. Machine Teen’s scans of compound brought up an air shaft that allowed Ricochet and Spider-Woman to sneak in without detection. Or at least, without detection so long as their teammates kept the Pig’s forces occupied.

“You know what you’re doing?” asked Ricochet.

“Shh, I’m trying to concentrate,” replied Spider-Woman. She closed her eyes beneath the opaque lenses of her mask and focused her psychic abilities as best as she could. Her powers weren’t very developed, but she hoped she could use them to locate where most of the children were being kept.

“Well?”

“What part of ‘I’m trying to concentrate’ did you not understand?” she asked.

“Concentrate harder, then,” he said. “The last thing I want is to be stuck in this air shaft with you.”

“Okay… this way,” she said. She crawled carefully through the narrow passage and Ricochet followed. When they came to a T-junction, Spider-Woman turned left. She continued scanning, and she could pick up several stray thoughts. She felt emotions of fear, which she guessed correctly didn’t belong to the Herders. There was a vent up ahead, but she stopped a few hundred feet before it.

“Why are you stopping?” asked Ricochet.

“Because there’s something right below us,” said Spider-Woman. “Someone’s in trouble.”

“Now that you mention it, I’m starting to get that buzzing sense,” he said. “But how are we gonna get down there?”

“Stand back,” she said.

Spider-Woman placed her hands, palm-down, on the bottom of the air shaft. In addition to the powers she gained from the Gathering of the Five ceremony, Mattie Franklin also took on the powers of the previous Spider-Women, Jessica Drew and Julia Carpenter. She channeled her body’s bioelectric energy into her hands in the form of a “venom blast” as Jessica had called it. The blast punched a hole through the bottom of the shaft and below it was solid concrete.

Mits composed of psionic “webbing” formed over Spider-Woman’s hands, and she started to pound on the concrete. Combined with the assault of Spider-Woman’s psionic mits and superhuman strength, the ceiling gave way and she fell through. She flipped in the air and gracefully landed on her feet. Ricochet jumped down after her and landed similarly.

“Look,” said Ricochet. Spider-Woman turned and saw an amorphous, chalk-white figure before them. His smell was horrid and his teeth were green complete with glowing yellow eyes.

“Well, well, well,” he said in a high-pitched voice. “It seems I have some new playmates.”

“Behind him,” said Spider-Woman in a whisper. Ricochet glanced passed the creature and saw a young boy who cowered in fear. There were bones scattered about the cavernous room and the only light came from a barred window high above.

“I’m the Boogeyman,” said the creature.

“…and you’re in desperate need of a bath.” Ricochet flexed his wrist and two golden discs slipped out and expanded from beneath his sleeve. He hurled them both. The Boogeyman’s mouth expanded and the discs flew inside. He shut his mouth and began to chew. Ricochet and Spider-Woman could hear the sound of the metal discs being ground up by the Boogeyman’s teeth. He belched and smiled.

“Crunchy.”

“I dunno about you, but I’m all out of ideas,” said Ricochet.

Patriot knew it wasn’t the best idea nor the mark of a leader to abandon your team right before a mission. But time was of the essence and he knew the Warriors could handle at least some of the Pig’s security before he could arrive. He had a plan, one that would be a gamble, but could definitely pay off it it worked the way he hoped it would.

The compound he approached was once a prison facility in Virginia, but it had since been renovated. It was purchased through a dummy corporation, and through Patriot’s contacts, he was able to determine who really ran the facility and what its purpose was. He stayed low and reached into one of the brown pouches on his belt. He withdrew several shurikens in the shape of five-pointed stars and gripped them in his hand. He stood from his position and darted towards the fence. He leapt in the air and landed in a crouched position right before the fence. His legs straightened and he shot right up and flung himself over the barbed wire.

An alarm blared and spotlights fell on him. Beneath his mask, he smiled. This was exactly what he had wanted to do. Guards stormed out of the facility, armed with automatic rifles. Patriot surveyed the immediate area to see at least two dozen guards surrounding him. He leapt into the air and threw open his hands. The shurikens left his fingers and struck several of the guards. The guards quickly retaliated by opening fire on him.

Patriot dodged the gunfire as best he could. He kept his training in mind and relied on his enhanced reflexes as well as the other abilities given to him by his benefactors. The sixth sense they had given him seemed to enhance his perceptions and for Patriot, time almost slowed down enough for him to figure out where each bullet was going and where he should move to avoid being struck by one.

He reached into another pouch on his belt and pulled out several small orb-shaped objects. He hurled them at the ground and once they struck, a thick cloud of smoke emited from them, effectively blinding the guards. Patriot’s perceptions were enhanced, but not proficient enough to see through the smoke. He pressed a finger to the side of his mask, activating a hidden switch. The lenses built into his mask activated, switching to infrared vision.

Patriot moved quickly through the facility, avoiding guards whenever he could. He encountered a few that he had to make short work of. Most of the guards had been attracted to the alarm at the front gate, however, so he was given quite a bit of autonomy. He had a specific goal in mind and he had to reach it soon, before the guards picked up on his plan. But after studying the file of the man he was after, he was sure that his target would want to face the intruder one on one.

He stopped in his tracks when he heard the sound of someone clapping. Quickly, he spun on his heel and his hand went to the shurikens in his pouch. A man dressed in blue and white leaned against the wall. A sword hung from his belt, there was a bow and a quiver of arrows slung around each shoulder, a shield was strapped to one arm and firearms were strapped to his legs. There were two batons attached to each of his gauntlets. A blue hood covered most of his head and his face was covered by a mask that resembled a skull.

“Impressive,” he said. “Not many would have been able to get past security as easily as you did. So who are you, anyway? Captain America, the Sequel?”

“Patriot,” he said.

“And just what would make a young, strapping lad such as yourself risk life and limb to break into my school?”

“I came to speak to the Taskmaster,” said Patriot.

“Well, you’ve found me,” said Taskmaster. “Now tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.”

“Your schools have been losing funding lately, and I know why.”

“Oh?”

Patriot could tell he had captured the Taskmaster’s interest. The Taskmaster may have been immoral, but one thing he cared about was money. And by appealing to his capitalist nature, Patriot knew he had prevented the Taskmaster from attacking him outright. Although Patriot’s skills were impressive, he wouldn’t last long against the Taskmaster’s photographic reflexes. This was a man who had gone toe to toe with the likes of Captain America, the Swordsman and Hawkeye.

“The Pig,” said Patriot. “He’s been operating under the radar for quite some time, but his operation has recently been filling orders for henchmen. Orders that should have gone to you. I know you’ve heard of him and I know you’ve wanted to get rid of the competition, but you’ve never been able to locate him, have you?”

“What’s it to you?” asked the Taskmaster.

“I know where you can find him.”

NEXT: Can the Taskmaster really be trusted to help out Patriot and the New Warriors, or will he backstab everyone in the end? Plus, Diego Casseas is back!