<div class="floatleft">(http://i.imgur.com/XfHbD.jpg)</div><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: arial;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>  Name:</strong>Khutulan Karpitskaya<br/>  <strong>Title:</strong> Crimson Dynamo<br/>  <strong>Affiliation:</strong>  Resistance<br/>  <strong>Location:</strong>   Moscow<br/>  <strong>Tags:</strong>Open<br/></span></span><hr/><strong>Sixty Hours Ago – Muscovite Airspace</strong><br/><br/>Five Sukhoi SU-25 Attack Planes roared barely a hundred feet above the treetops, their powerful jet turbine engines sucking in the smoke laden air as they approached their target low and unseen. It had been only hours since the attacks began, with a full out superhuman assault upon Moscow itself. And it was worse, through the use of unknown technology, the enemy forces had used some of Russia's own nuclear arsenal against itself and neighbors, eliminating military bases with nuclear missile attacks. Before the first hour of the attack had finished, tens of thousands were dead, and the military and civilian leadership largely wiped out including every known airbase within quick striking range of Moscow proper.<br/><br/>But fortunately for these pilots, their airbase, named Sorge AFB after the famous WW2 spy, was still holding out solely because it was secret and thus by the time the enemy forces detected it, they were at full readiness. Leading the five plane strike package, Captain Khutulun 'Dynamo' Karpitskaya pushed out the thought of whether they would have a base to return to. An eight person force of enemy superhumans had attacked their base just an hour after the main attacks began. But an hour was all that Sorge Air Force Base needed to prepare its defenses. Normally tasked with testing and experimenting on cutting edge aeronautical engineering concepts and equipment, they were overlooked by the initial attacks. The bases garrison, albeit suffering considerable casualties of their own, had managed to kill five of the attackers and capture the other three who, as she scrambled to take off, were being 'interrogated.'<br/><br/>With most of the prototypes and advanced aircraft simply unavailable for the raid, they had to break out the comparatively ancient SU-25's once used as target and aggressor aircraft in test flights into action. The amazing mechanics, Khutulan among them, managed to get five of them combat ready and now here they were en route to attacking the main enemy holding and the skies were literally clear... at least of friendly aircraft.<br/><br/>The five planes were operating on radio silence, hoping that the low level flight would keep them off enemy sensors or radars or whatever they were using and so far it was working. Whoever these enemies were, mutants or superhumans or whatever, they were so assured of victory that nothing had challenged them yet. Khutulan knew it wasn't going to last all the way to Moscow. Fortunately, they didn't have to go into Moscow. There was a reason why air to surface missiles were invented.<br/><br/>Radar blips started to erratically appear on the screens just as the planes roared over the outlying suburbs of the once proud city and already the massive plumes of smoke could be seen. The once beautiful modern skyline of the Moscow Business Center was in shambles and flames, sending thick torrents of pitch black and gray smoke billowing out over the Moskva River. The same could be seen with the Kremlin and Russian government buildings. She found herself cursing underbreath. They were still kilometers away and the devastation was making her eyes water. But she stopped shedding them upon noticing the the small humanoid specks rising above the city as well as a motley array of helicopters and... strange hovering aircraft with no discernible wings. She checked her radar and then back on her HUD. They were being picked up by her radar... but only erratically.<br/><br/>And as they got closer to the city center, the electronics and sensor suite in her aircraft started to flicker out. Still, it was obvious what was going on. They were finally being alerted to the surprise raid. She broke radio silence. It would still be too late for them, she promised herself.<br/><br/>“Dynamo-2, switch to anti-radiation missiles. I'm picking up radar stations and SAM sites on the hill and along the river. Let's teach them a lesson. The rest of you, spread out and follow me!” she then said, as she led her talented pilots, the Dynamo Squadron, into their and her own first combat flight.<br/><br/>Her wingman gave an affirmative and as soon as she broke formation, a quartet of radar seeking, anti-radiation missiles suddenly flared to life as the thirty year old attack plane let loose with the first salvo. Following the tracking beams of the radars right back to their source, the powerful missiles specifically designed to hunt the hunters of airplanes slammed into a radar station and three enemy controlled surface to air missile batteries almost in unison. They might've been powerful, but they were also inexperienced in the modern operational art of war.<br/><br/>“Dynamo three and four, break off and take out the bridges. Dynamo-Five, get on my ass and follow me to the city center. We're taking out the metro stations!” Khutulan then stated, having heard the news reports of how tens of thousands of Moscovites were taking advantage of the deep and extensively built Moscow Metro to hide from these attackers. While wise, it was meant to protect the population from enemy bombers and missiles, not an actual ground invasion and if what the news reports were true, the enemy mutants were trying to round up the civilians for some unknown purpose and thus bunkering up and hiding out in the subways would allow the enemy to round them up at their leisure. By taking out the main metro, she would hinder their efforts.<br/><br/>The only downside would be that many civilians might die.<br/><br/>But she was Russian, she looked at the long term.<br/><br/><strong> Fifty Five Hours Ago - Moscow</strong><br/><br/>“AGGGHHHHHH!” she suddenly screamed, feeling an icy burn bubbling through her neck.<br/><br/>She remembered her last conscious moments. Her first combat mission. It put the Doolittle Raid to shame she felt. From ten kilometers out, her flight of five SU-25 attack planes against all odds had struck the first powerful counterblow for Mother Russia against their genocidal attackers. She felt the sharp jolt of pure excitement as she fired off all eight of her air to ground missiles, blowing up metro stations and watching them explode in the midst of whatever perverse operations these mutants were carrying out. She saw the seconds before impact, watching these humanoid monsters dragging people out of the subway stations kicking and screaming, executing people without mercy. Innocents died. But they were likely dead already. She killed the wicked, sinful monsters in human flesh who were waging this unprovoked genocide against her country and its people.<br/><br/>But they didn't stop there. As her squadron toppled bridges and blew up metro stations, the mutants scrambled their own response. They fired pulses of energy and beams of concussive force out of their eyes, thinking that the mark one eyeball was enough aim they needed to pluck her warriors from the sky.<br/><br/>It wasn't.<br/><br/>Other superhumans in armored suits leaped and flew into the air, and that's when the real butchers work began. These attackers were arrogant, they came right at them. She gave the order to plow the field and could feel her own plane throbbing under her legs as the thirty millimeter cannon rumbled, reducing airborne enemies to midst before kicking up the accelerators and flying through their enemies so they couldn't swarm them. One of her wingman sliced a mutant in twain upon his wing, and she personally saw Dynamo-Four literally plink a mutant off of the canopy of Dynamo-Two with his autocannon in a remarkable display of skilled flying and shooting.<br/><br/>But ultimately they were too many. And she was brought down, not by enemy fire but by something she didn't quite understand. She felt the sudden weakness overwhelm her and then glancing over to her side, she could literally see flying right off her wingtip one of those armored mutants staring right at her and seemingly robbing her of her life. One of her wingman was calling out to her and fired an air to air missile at the mutant vampire, blowing her up in midair but by then it was too late. She felt her body weakening, letting go of her stick and her plane plunging into the ground and then... all she remembered was darkness and a deep burn of something plunging into her neck.<br/><br/>Darkness, just like now. Her eyes suddenly flashed open to an utterly complete darkness and the sudden feeling of some great weight pressing down upon her.<br/><br/>Within seconds, she managed to regain her composure but found it almost impossible to breath as the few breaths she uttered suddenly made her face feel warm and almost humid. And she felt like she was being hemmed in. Almost crushed.<br/><br/>By dead weight. It was poking her, and prodding her body, cold icy protrusions jabbing into her ribs and crushing, trapping her legs. In the complete and total darkness she couldn't even see anything but pure darkness. Was this death? Was this the afterlife? Was it truly nothing? Oblivion. She tried to struggle only to feel something shift, and crunch, the unnatural sound echoing through whatever it was she was surrounded by. Almost futiley she tried to struggle, thrashing and twisting and turning until she finally extricated her hands from being entangled in the sleeves of her flight suit and then pressed her hands against whatever she was entombed or trapped within and a sudden shiver rippled through her body.<br/><br/>It was clothing... and cold, clammy skin underneath.<br/><br/>Bodies.<br/><br/>In one moment of pure abject fear she realized she was buried alive, in a mass of bodies.<br/><br/>She started to scream again.<br/><br/><strong> Fifty Two Hours Ago – Moscow</strong><br/><br/>Whoever the mutant was, he had his helmet off and for her, that was enough. She had no idea what powers he had, and honestly didn't care. She just hoped he could be killed by a rock to the head.<br/><br/>Smashing the rock against the side of the mutants temple, she felt the sickening crunch of the softest part of his skull caving in, compressing his brain, rendering him helpless within the fraction of a second as he toppled raggedly to the ground. The rock she was using was already soaked in crimson, but she was already pulling her arm back and bringing it down upon the man again and again and again until what she was striking was more soft then solid.<br/><br/>It had taken her three hours to dig herself out of the piles of bodies in this parking lot that was being used to dispose of small mountains of corpses and needless to say she was angry. And there was something else... off about her, she knew that. Her memory was hazy but she recalled an injection and then... nothing. Not sleeping. Not missed time. Not a blackout. Just nothing. Hours had passed before she woke up but it felt like empty time in her memory. Not lost memory or forgotten, just simply unreadable. She didn't understand that she had come back from death, that whatever she remembered when she was dead was decidedly... beyond mortal comprehension. All she knew was she was alive again and still burned with anger and hatred.<br/><br/>Using the corpses stacked like firewood as cover, she dragged the armored mutant to one of the piles and started to strip his armor off of him. She was a good pilot and was certain she could fly anything. As she worked the corpse of the man she had just beaten to death with a stone out of his power armor, she heard the rumbling of an engine. Not the bulldozers and dump trucks they were using to deposit the bodies here or dump them into the river, but lighter. Like a truck.<br/><br/>They were bringing in another load for their... injections.<br/><br/>She worked more quickly on removing the armor. She had killed plenty tonight. Now she was going to save some lives too, she promised herself.<br/><br/><strong> Forty Eight Hours Ago – Outskirts of Moscow</strong><br/><br/>Landing the Mil Mi-6 Heavy Transport Helicopter was easy compared to flying it but she didn't dare risk flying it any longer. The rotor wash of the helicopter was causing the lines of pristine new cars in the dealership parking lot she had landed in to started shaking violently, even triggering a few car alarms as she killed the engines and turned back to her human cargo. She had rescued almost a hundred people from the injections during her escape from the city park being used to store pyramid shaped piles of human corpses. And despite how big the helicopters cargo hold was, they were packed in there like sardines and she didn't want to risk their good fortune by flying this big massive radar signature of a helicopter any farther.<br/><br/>So the car dealership looked like a good place to stop.<br/><br/>As expected, it was abandoned and she opened the rear ramp for the refugees she had rescued before hopping out of the cockpit. There were a few police officers and civil servants amongst the group and slinging several carbines over her shoulder, she waved them over and handed them the rifles. “I can help you work those machine guns off their mounts, but you need to gather these people up and take them West, past the Urals. That's where the government is fleeing. There are safe zones there,” Khutulan half explained, half ordered the senior most police officer. “Stay off the main roads until your at least three hundred kilometers away then get there as quick as possible.”<br/><br/>“What about you?” one of the ragged looking police officers asked.<br/><br/>“These people are your responsibility now. They must live. I must fight,” Khutulan said with a grim nod to them before turning away. The plane flight confirmed one thing to her. She must have died, that is why she was disposed of.<br/><br/>But she came back.<br/><br/>Nothing occurred without purpose. The allegory wasn't lost on her. She was Russian after all. And like Russia, she would rise again and avenge those who wronged Russia and its people. And they would pay dearly.<br/><br/><strong>Forty Hours Ago – Sorge Air Force Base, Semi-Secret Aeronautical Testing Facility.</strong><br/><br/>Professor Gavrilov (http://imgur.com/UuE35) glanced back at her. “Are you sure you don't need to sleep?” the young, rough shaven engineer, still wearing a dirty labcoat, asked her.<br/><br/>“No,” Khutulan replied as she stepped forward and helped him open up the upright cargo container. Then stepping back, she watched as he reached up and pulled back the tarp.<br/><br/>“Here it is. The latest model,” Professor Gennady Gavrilov stated as the dust permeated the air.<br/><br/>Through the cloud of dust, Khutulan's eyes started to water. It was beautiful.<br/><br/><strong> Thirty Six Hours Ago – Sorge AFB Research Laboratory</strong><br/><br/>Deveraux and Damar weren't Russian. That much was obvious. In fact both of them were apparently from the Netherlands. They were also members of Advanced Ideas Mechanics, the worldwide terrorist group intent on world domination and the destruction of democracy and freedom and all that jazz as well as being a splinter off of the even more infamous HYDRA terrorist organization. Needless to say, their presence here was most unusual and truth was, the security at the airbase had almost gunned down the Dutchman and Dutchwoman as it was respectively as they wore their yellow Beekeeper uniforms and approached the base, but Professor Gavrilov had managed to dissuade them from that, at least until hearing them out.<br/><br/>“The possible extinction of the human race has given us time to reflect on our alliances. Having been stationed in Russia to monitor your military research, we were aware of your semi-secret base her for quite some time,” Damar, the female Beekeeper scientist, explained to Khutulan as she worked another leather strap. For being a mad scientist slash terrorist, Damar was rather affable, even likable. It turned out they even had a few things in common beyond mutant hatred. Waffles for example. And airplanes. And aeronautical mechanics.<br/><br/>“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Professor Gavrilov then asked, standing next to one of the four guards and several on base medical personnel also milling about prepping her for the surgery.<br/><br/>Khutulan just nodded as her arm was lashed and strapped to the table. She was facing down, her face looking through a circular headrest at the floor when she felt Damar's reassuring hand stroking her neck. “We can't use anesthetics Khutulan,” Damar said. “The injections... they'll be directed into your spine by an auto-injector. It will be extremely painful,” she warned.<br/><br/>“I'm ready,” Khutulan reiterated firmly. She took death. She could take the pain.<br/><br/>“You have to stay conscious while the cyberjack... mates... with your brain stem,” Damar then warned in a filtered, cooing voice.<br/><br/>“It won't be a problem,” Khutulan explained.<br/><br/>Damar slipped her hand into Khutulan's grasp. “If you feel like blacking out, keep talking to me and hold this hand. Crush it if you have to. If you can take the injection, I can take the pressure,” the AIM scientist then offered.<br/><br/>“You're a brave woman Khutulan,” Deveraux then stated as he prepared the auto-injector with the strange concoction the AIM duo and the Russian research team had concocted. “Unlike your traditional counterpart Iron Man, we don't have the fancy technology he can utilize to interface with the Iron Man suits of his. You'll be the first one to wield the Crimson Dynamo armor to its full potential with this surgery.”<br/><br/>Khutulan smiled grimly. Wielding that power... she could do great things.<br/><br/>“Are you ready honey?” Damar asked, her disarmingly concerned tone leaving everyone wondering how she of all people got caught up with AIM in the first place.<br/><br/>“Yes,” Khutulan stated icily.<br/><br/>She felt Deveraux place the cold auto-injector against the back of her neck and then pull the trigger.<br/><br/>Damar screamed.<br/><br/>There was a lot of pain to share.<br/><br/>It was a small price to pay for defense of the Motherland.<br/><br/>NPC's:<br/>Professor Gennady Gavrilov (http://imgur.com/UuE35) : Head Engineer of Crimson Dynamo Project<br/>AIM Scientist Deveraux<br/>AIM Scientist Damar (http://marvel.com/universe/A.I.M.)