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Team Argos

Book 1: The Unveiling

Chapter 1: Origins

Part 1

By Jear77

My teammates are fallen all around me. It's just a matter of time before I need to slow down... and then it'll be the end. Shockwave Wolf thought as he blasted a lazily floating 'Angel of Destruction,' a "normal-sized" muscular anthro lion with wings in fancy armor and a cape named 'Abaddon' with waves of concussive force. Abaddon certainly lived up to his name; there was destruction everywhere he looked. The battle had only been going on for only a few minutes and many of the buildings around him were decimated, their frames twisted and windows gaping holes. The life lost was unimaginable. They saved whom they could, but they were limited in number and working against impossible odds. The concrete walkways of the plaza were cratered and burned and jagged pieces stuck up this way and that. All the vegetation was dead.

Abaddon casually waved a hand redirecting the blast and laughed, a sound that reverberated through the skyscrapers surrounding him "Do you really think that can stop me? You're more foolish than I thought!"

Shockwave went into analytic mode as he ran and saw everything as blueprints, mathematical symbols, and in terms of probability. From the corner of his eye he saw something that just might work. I've got one chance and I better make it work he thought. He zipped the opposite direction and shouted at Abaddon "Hey, are you so slow that you can't catch me?"

Abaddon laughed "Catch you? I don't need to catch you to destroy you" Abaddon made a cutting motion with his claw, sending a growing wave of destructive force as he cut the air itself with the motion. Shockwave sped ahead of the wave and with his peripheral vision checked to see where the wave was. He made a 180-degree turn and back the way he came, missing the wave by mere millimeters. He could feel his costume rip as he did so. No time to worry about that now. His analytic vision showed him where he needed to run up the building's side twenty, thirty, forty stories above where Abaddon hovered.

Abaddon turned around and said, "You can't escape that easily" and sent out another wave of destructive force to where Shockwave was.

Shockwave leaped off the building, using his concussive force to propel himself forward faster and further than he could have jumped otherwise. As he encountered the wave of destructive energy, he used his concussive force to "surf" on it to reach Abaddon. As Shockwave hung in the air next to Abaddon, caught in his personal anti-gravitational field midair, he blasted Abaddon with all he had. Abaddon's eyes widened in shock as he coughed blood and asked "how?" No longer able to keep himself aloft, Abaddon plummeted headfirst to the ground like a ton. Shockwave used Abaddon's falling to springboard himself back to the building, which he ran down again. Abaddon's fall created a yet another crater in the street, unmoving.

A moment went by, then two, and then Abaddon crawled out of the crater, leaning heavily on his left hand. As he straightened out with some difficulty, he wiped the blood from his mouth "You asked for it. Had you laid down and died like the dog you are, you would have been spared the horror you've just unleashed." Reaching behind his cape on his left side, he pulled out a trumpet and blew on it. Putting away the trumpet, he raised his right and summoned a jagged looking jeweled sword to his claw and pointed it at Shockwave.

The battle's just begun....

Shockwave Origins

Thomas 'Tom' Benjamin Hawking was child prodigy. He walked and talked well before other pups of his age. He played the piano, violin and flute beautifully. He played sports: baseball basketball, football, hockey, golf and pool and kept himself in pretty good shape doing so. He also ran track and swam, was involved in a back-to-nature program that had him camping and the like. Even though he was smart, skilled, and in very good shape, he was also sociable. He didn't lord his abilities over his classmates and had friends in every species he met. He was quick to smile and laugh and had a sparkle to his eyes that most other furs found irresistible.

But his true love and skill was for every science and math related. Anything that had a practical use scientifically or mathematically, he had the ability to look at and figure out how it worked, what it did, and so on, an ability which he would later term "analytic mode." He could look at something and estimate its size and dimensions. His ability allowed him to calculate how an object's mass, speed, trajectory, and wind speed and direction all interacted with each other. As time went on he was able to calculate probabilities just by looking around.

Tom graduated at the age of 12 with a doctorate in and bimolecular engineering and computer science. For the next four he years he enjoyed life, drifting from one thing to the next, experimenting with his analytic ability to find out exactly what he could do. He made money at sports, but his heart wasn't really in it and drifted from sport to sport to see if any of them was exciting enough to hold his attention. He tried his paw gambling and since it was too easy to win, he soon gave up. He became a bit of a pool shark to pick up the ladies at the bars, but didn't like the fact that because of his abilities, it was more or less impossible to loose. Yeah, the girls were good for a quick shag but after awhile, even that, ceased to excite him. Most girls were more than eager to fuck a good-looking wolf like him.

At 16 he decided to go back to his true love: science. He opened lab - or at least tried to. Despite being charismatic, few people wanted to fund an untested, independent lab. Investors wanted checks and balances, oversight, safety measures - the list went on and on. Further, despite his impressive academic achievements, the people he talked to didn't think he would make any discoveries of enough merit to warrant the types of monies he was asking. He couldn't explain how he saw things so, for in doing so people might be able to devise a machine to do the same and take away his edge - and that he was unwilling to do. The few monies he had acquired were quickly spent on equipment and a lab. Within a year he went bankrupt, and hired himself out as a lab assistant - what turned out to be a glorified lackey for the scientists at MegaCorp who weren't on the same level as he.

Since Tom had access to the building 24 hours a day, he converted one of the abandoned labs into an apartment and private laboratory that he cobbled together from his old equipment and stuff laying around the other labs that he knew wouldn't be missed. Among his equipment of various test tubes, and Bunsen burners, glass tubes and microscopes, he had a reasonably secure work area behind bullet and shatterproof glass. He also harnessed part of their security and computer system to respond to his voice commands even though he wasn't hired on as a full scientist - just in case. He set up force fields to contain anything that came from the lab and installed bulkhead doors so that any dangerous substances wouldn't have an opportunity to escape.

He had been working many late nights six months into his stint for MegaCorp so that he could still perform his job duties and his own research when quite by accident he stumbled upon an idea that would make him quite rich. The idea was one for an artificial molecule he named "Resonance." It was an idea that he was hoping would revolutionize the defense industry because it could absorb essentially an infinite amount of energy without loss of structure. It did so by "reversing polarity" in the type of energy that was directed at it, canceling the damage. Unfortunately the molecule was extremely unstable and volatile in its "natural" form. He was working on a method to stabilize the molecule, looking at a microscope in analytic mode, simultaneously controlling the robotic arms when suddenly a tremor shook the building, causing him to jerk the controls. The robotic hand that was gripping the glass tube that contained a sample of the molecule slipped from its grip. Before he could readjust the grip, the glass tube fell to the floor of the containment chamber and broke. The resulting explosion, which shattered the shatterproof glass, filled the air with a noxious thick yellow gas and threw him back into a set of bookshelves having scientific paraphernalia on it, which fell on top of him. The explosion also brought an iron support beam on top of the bookshelves as well as a good chunk of the ceiling.

Tom blacked out for a second and when he came to he commanded "Computer," he coughed through the fumes "emergency force field and lockdown of bulkhead. Seal off chamber and redirect airflow from lab out of the building." The bulkhead doors started closing noisily and he blacked out again for a second. When he came to there was a bear standing over him trying to clear off the ceiling debris off the bookshelves.

The bear coughed and continued to clear off the debris. He strained to lift the iron support beam, grunting and groaning, but in the end was finally able to do so. He then lifted the bookshelves off of Tom and half supported, half carried him to the bulkhead doors. "Computer," the bear said "end lockdown and open doors. As soon as we're through re-institute lockdown until my say."

The bear took Tom to his apartment and laid him down on his couch, covering him up. Tom tried to talk. The bear went over to him and shushed him, he was too tired to struggle more and darkness overtook him.

When he awoke, Tom found the bear had kept vigil over him to make sure he was all right, but must have recently fallen asleep because a book had tumbled from his hand.He started moving and the bear awoke with a start. "Who are you?" Tom asked "Where are we?"

"You may call me Art," the bear replied. "We're back at my place. Your injuries didn't seem life threatening at the moment and to take you to the medical center would have caused unnecessary headaches. You just seemed a bit bruised and shell shocked, but no worse for wear, that's why I brought you back here. As it is, there'll be enough questions regarding the explosion, the lab's lockdown and so on. Let's hope that by the time we get back there, that yellow haze has dissipated."

"How did you get into the lab? I had locked it down. What do you do that you were able to get in there?"

"You must have blacked out a moment before initiating it. I had been going through the area when I heard the explosion. I went to investigate and used my key. I'm maintenance, that's why I have all the keys, even to abandoned labs. Sometimes they tell me to open them to put a new scientist in there or get out equipment they might have stored there. You might not have seen me through the smoke that was present."

Tom tried moving and wincing said "Ow, I'm going to have to take it easy for a day or two." With some difficulty he sat up. Art said "no worries. I've already called off for you."

Tom tried to put his weight on his feet and collapsed saying "Art, I hate to ask... I'm going to need some help. I can't support my weight on my feet. I need to go to the bathroom."

Art reached down and half supported, half carried Tom to the bathroom to take care of his business. Art couldn't help seeing from the corner of his eye the nice piece of meat Tom was packing as struggled with his zipper. Tom finally gave up and unbuttoned his pants and let them fall to his knees and pissed in the toilet. Art preteneded that he didn't see anything.

Hiking his pants back up and refastening them Tom said "Thank you."

Over the next few days Art helped Tom get his mobility back, helping him go to the bathroom and taking care of his hygiene showering. Never once did the bear make a move on him, nor did he feel uncomfortable naked in the bear's presence. In fact, he felt comforted by it.

In a week Tom was back to his old self again and was back at work but he had nowhere to stay. Art was kind enough to let him stay there until the lab was fixed up again. After Tom's recovery he noticed he was able to do little things faster. As time went on, he found that he was able to do everything he was normally asked to do in half the time, then a quarter, then a tenth. With the fact that he was able to move so fast, what would have normally taken several months to complete the repairs to the lab, with heavy moving equipment, he was able to do in a few weeks, and get his normal job done besides. There was an inquiry concerning his in MegaCorp actions but it came back clean, as his paperwork showed that he had all the proper authorizations for everything he did. With some regret to having leave, he thanked Art for his hospitality and left.

Tom devised tests to see how fast he actually could go. At full speed he found he could run water, up the sides of buildings. He was moving so fast that it seemed that everyone else was standing still. As he ran faster and faster, a loud BOOM followed him that shook glass so violently it threatened to break and caused trees and other vegetation to lose their foliage.

The scientist in him knew the destructive power of the shockwaves could be harnessed and amplified into weapons as he ran. He studied their effect and learned how to control where he directed their destructive force.

He figured that with such powers that he could do some good in the world. He sewed himself a blue spandex costume with maroon trim a jagged gold lightning bolt on it and mask to conceal his identity.

Tom heard an alarm go off "Showtime!" _Now to test Shockwave out for real _