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Welcome to Sverdlovsk...in 1870. In the future, this city's name changes to Yekaterinburg. Now, though, it's under siege...by the Sultan's Syndicate.
Now one again, they attack every white man, woman, and child in the city. Le Zèbre is their air support. Every now and then, he catches some of Boomerang's boomerangs, and throws them better, where Boomerang's usually too busy to.
Rhino charges through the crowds, destroying everything. He turns many blocks into rubble. He bulldozes several bronze statues of tsars...both past and present.
The Russian cavalry arrives. Mercs from non-Russian lands conquered by Russia arrive. Lever-action rifles go off, as do cannons. Alas, if Rhino doesn't splinter or pancake most of them, the other Syndicate members do.
In the square, Shocker hangs several women by their hands. Only a fraction of a meter separates their feet from the ground. With an electricity-armed gauntlet, Shocker shocks each one...on their bare asses. They all scream. So predictable; like an actual marimba. A Russian one, but a marimba nonetheless...
Too bad Shocker lacks the tech to program their voices, to where they'll each scream a different note when he shocks them. He could practically put on a concert...
Hydro-Man is up in the Urals. He freezes, and interacts with the snowcaps. He controls them...and causes an avalanche to come down.
It enters the city, and bulldozes more targets than Rhino does. Nobody can escape it.
From above, le Zèbre lays a barrage to the innocents of the city. He may never be a French imperialist...but at least he can live his dream while traveling among Turkish imperialists. He's just sorry that neither he nor his comrades will live long enough to participate in Turkey's involvement in WWI, in over forty years...
From everywhere, Boomerang's boomerangs stab many Russian innocents in the back...literally. Many dodge them...only to have the hazards literally come back to haunt them...from behind. In many cases, it impales them, right through the chest. After this, they're all lucky to fall over on their sides while dying.
Some of the boomerangs blow up, as soon as they've impaled their targets. A bit excessive...but then, so is imperialism.
Never before, in Russia's history, has the Tsar forsaken its people more. But then, as far as most Russian patriots are probably concerned, the Tsars stopped coming to Russia's aid on the day Catherine the Great bit the dust.
From behind a cloud, the sun peeks. Whether the Syndicate is ready for it or not, the battle is about to take a turn...against them...
From above, robotic eyes scan the surface of the city...like a robotic hawk. They land on Rhino...and home in on him...
Below, Rhino loses control of the mecha suit. This wouldn't be the first time...except this time, it runs away from him. He's still in it, of course; alas, it leaves the city, and takes off in a high lope. It doesn't look like he's coming back...
From high above, Vostok, a synthezoid, follows him. He's the one who's hijacked the Rhino mecha...
From behind, what feels like a snow leopard pounces on Boomerang, from behind. It's Sibercat. With a long tail, he flicks it here and there, deflecting many of Boomerang's attempted boomerang attacks from behind. He hisses, several times, while grappling with poor Boomerang.
A glowing man in an exosuit wanders into a street, and stands in the middle of it. He turns, and faces one of Hydro-Man's impending avalanches. It's coming on fast. All around, everyone's running as fast as their too-little legs can carry them, away from the oncoming onslaught...
From his exosuit, Powersurge generates much of his own radiation. He becomes his own green-glowing sun...melting the snow, as it reaches him. One evaporated water molecule at a time, he exhausts the overpowered Hydro-Man, with his own over-powered condition...which he needs an exosuit to contain...
Fantasia, a Dire Wraith, lowers herself into the midst of a crowd. She generates a force field around it, and causes stray innocents to teleport into it. She protects them, as the battle outside rages...
Across town, Darkstar uses Darkforce magic, and creates a force field of her own, around another crowd. She also helps stray innocents teleport into here, with her.
Clad in a red costume, Anton Ivanov leaps into the square. He raises his arm, and catches a red discus-shaped shield, as it flies into his grasp. He sees Shocker, and charges him. Outside the square, the duo fight.
With his electro-gauntlets, Shocker punches Red Guardian in the shield. Alas, the vibranium that the shield's made of absorbs Shocker's shocks. None of the power gets to the other side, or weakens Red Guardian...
Interminably, Red Guardian and Shocker fight. Alas, it looks like the Russian has got this under control...
Through the air, one of Boomerang's boomerangs flies. From out of nowhere, an electrified whip flies, and lassos around that boomerang. The boomerang stops spinning in midair. Electricity channels through the whip, and fries the boomerang's gadgetry, rendering it useless.
On the ground, Crimson Whiplash takes down several of Boomerang's rogue boomerangs, while Sibercat tackles him. Soon, the skies over Sverdlovsk will be clear...
Aloft, le Zèbre is still airborne. Below, he sees his teammates suffering. He does what he can to liberate them...
From the sky, a portal opens. There's darkness on the other side. From it, a devil flies into this world. He broadsides le Zèbre in midair, and starts brawling with him...
It's Chernobog. He's here to protect his homeland...as unlikely as it seems that a devil would do anything good for any human...Slav or otherwise.
Soon, Powersurge exhausts Hydro-Man. The avalanche disappears, and Hydro-Man falls to the pavement, exhausted.
In his exosuit, Powersurge stands over him. Between his two feet, Hydro-Man lies, and pants...
Desperate, Hydro-Man reaches out his arm, and tries to summon a raincloud. Powersurge retaliates by blowing himself up...leaving a miniature mushroom cloud in his wake.
Hydro-Man is dead...killed in self-defense.
Soon, Red Guardian's got Shocker exhausted, too. He finishes him off, by punching him in the head and knocking him out.
Once that's done, Red Guardian throws his shield one last time. It slices the ropes, causing every tied-up bare-assed woman to fall from their captive bonds. They then vanish, and join Fantasia and Darkstar in their respective magical force-fielded domes.
Crimson Whiplash summons one of his suits. It arrives. It's unarmed. It surrounds Boomerang, after he's been overwhelmed. With mechanical arms, it sorts through his effects, removing every last stashed and cached boomerang from his person. Alas, with that many boomerangs, Sibercat and Crimson Whiplash have both got a feeling that they will NEVER completely disarm Boomerang...
At some point, though, the search is complete, and the exosuit encloses itself. It then stands, becomes android-like, turns on its thrusters, and flies back to the Winter Guard's HQ...to seek out austere accommodations for its apprehended captive.
Out there, in the Ural Mountains, the Rhino mecha suit has been abandoned. It resembles an actual rhino's skeleton, as it lies in the canyons between the Ural Mountains...
Atop a peak, Altay Sevim lies, tied up, having been disarmed of the Rhino mecha. He thrashes...but these are Vostok bonds. He can't get free. As strong as he is as the Rhino, he can't wiggle free as Sevim...
Victorious from his last fight, Powersurge arrives, flying. He hovers, and summons one of his own exosuits. It arrives, and encloses itself around Sevim, the same way Crimson Whiplash's did around Vural Melen. Now, Powersurge sends the exosuit away, with a captive aboard. With luck, it'll find a cell for Sevim far from Melen's...
The Sultan's Syndicate are a team. And therefore, sending them to separate prisons makes more sense than sending them to the same spot, where they can conspire and escape more easily. Without Speed Demon or Hydro-Man, though, their chances are smaller... Even so, Winter Guard's going to incarcerate the four survivors in separate prisons...just as soon as all four of them ARE wrangled...
Still in the sky, Chernobog and le Zèbre fight. Le Zèbre is unlike any human, exosuit-clad or otherwise, that Chernobog has ever fought...
He kicks le Zèbre across the sky. Behind le Zèbre, a portal opens. The French exosuit-wearing villain flies through this portal, and vanishes. Chernobog roars, and chases him through it. Behind both of them, the portal seals itself...
With the bulk of the danger past at last, the two witches lower their respective force-fields, and set the locals free. It's done; the Sultan's Syndicate has been overpowered, and captured. And even better, Hydro-Man is dead; he was the biggest bitch of the five, as scary as Rhino already was...
Through the air, alas, one last more of Boomerang's boomerangs flies, rogue. It's spinning right towards the bare back of a hot Russian chick...
The chick screams, as an energy blast flies from out of nowhere, destroying the boomerang. That blast did NOT come from le Zèbre...
Straggling, Crimson Dynamo finally arrives. She lands among her assembled team. They all look at her with critical eyes.
"You're late," Darkstar tells her. "You seem to be setting a new trend with that, as well..."
"I had some business," she says, through a voice-scrambler, "in North America. It took a while, but...I think we're finally through."
"Good," Red Guardian assures her. "Because you're needed here much more in Russia. Other than emigration, we have no business in North America."
"Yeah," Crimson Dynamo nods. "Yeah. Yeah, THAT'S what my business was; an emigrant..."
Red Guardian surveys her...and shakes his head. All around, the other Winter Guard members seem to share the same unsettled looks...
Tonight, the Winter Guard has a feast at their HQ. They celebrate, drink may vodka cocktails, and gobble much borscht and beef stroganoff. At last, the Sultan's Syndicate has been vanquished. Other than his army, the Turkish Sultan has no better threat to pose against Russia...or any non-Turkic peoples that Turkey shares the Eurasian continent with...
In her quarters, Crimson Dynamo winds down. She stops, takes a breather, and removes her exosuit's helmet.
Hers isn't the face of Galina Nemirovsky, as her teammates currently expect. Poor souls; they still don't know that Nemirovsky's dead. This is the face of Morgan Stark, her killer. Filled with wrath, and envy that the Avengers would rather have a dirty Russian whore on their team than the daughter of the late Iron Man, Ms. Stark has infiltrated the Winter Guard.
She's...not quite sure how to deal with this. She knows she can only dodge so many scales before her team discovers that she's not Ms. Nemirovsky. And few will be too pleased, she imagines, to find out that the real Nemirovsky is dead, and that she killed her...
Ms. Stark has no idea how the Pinkertons do it. Being a spy is SO scary...