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Footsteps became harder and harder to take. Bulletproof tried to force his uncooperative armor into obedience, but his speed dropped from a fast walk to a slow pace, and then to a crawl. Every step became a battle, and he could feel a spot of heat between his shoulderblades as the batteries inside his backpack began showing the strain. He flipped through the User-Hostile Interface and his backpack gasoline generator chattered into life.The altar was ten feet away, now, and Bulletproof could feel the flow of energy into it, even against the resistance. He overrode safety limits, channeled every erg he had in the suit into his hydraulics, and strove to conquer the last eight feet...six feet...the head's-up display dimmed as the hydraulic pumps began to burn at Bulletproof's joints...four feet.
Bulletproof could smell burnt flesh inside his suit, now.
Two feet, and the agony of his hips, his knees, his ankles almost made him fall. Almost. He was Bulletproof, and he would not fall. Even though he could feel the charred skin crumble away, even though he could smell burnt insulation as well as skin, even though his batteries were low and his generator failing, he would not fall.
He was close enough to touch the altar now, and he let his protesting pumps stop driving his legs and cool. Now, all the energy of the suit was driving his arm. His hand had to cover barely a foot to touch the altar. Millimeter by millimeter, one sixty-fourth of an inch at a time, the revving shoulderblade motors began to creep ever closer to the point where they would fly apart.
Six inches, and the muscles of Bulletproof's arm were straining to their utmost.
The gathering energies of the otherworldly creature above him thrummed. In the waves of coruscating light, Bulletproof could hear words. "Give up, human," it said.
Bulletproof gritted his teeth.
"Give up. You are making me waste my energies on you."
Bulletproof strove to conquer the last, impassible inch.
"Give up, human. Give up. Give up." The pusating energy became a buffeting storm against the hard shell of Bulletproof's armor.
"Never." stated Bulletproof, his eyes fixated on the greenish stone.
"You cannot stop me. I will devour this world."
"Never." stated Bulletproof again.
"You cannot stop a god, human. I will devour this world."
The hard metal of Bulletproof's fingers was mere microns away from the surface of the altar.
"Give up, human." The storm that raged outside the armor doubled in intensity. Sheets of flickering blue shrouded Bulletproof, blocking his vision of the outside world.
And then, with the lightest of clicks, Bulletproof's fingers touched the stone.
Bulletproof let the motors spin down, as he inhaled heavily. And then he spoke.
"I cannot stop a god?" Bulletproof stood motionless as his gasoline generator pumped fresh energy into his tired batteries.
"I am of godkiller's blood, 'god.' I am the son of steam, and the offspring of iron. The power that drives me brought the night to its knees, and the stars within my reach. The lightnings of Zeus and the fire of Prometheus are nothing compared to the might of my hand and the light of my mind. I am the forge and the hammer, the gun and the bullet, the circuit and the wire. I am the son of man, and there are no gods before me."
"I am human, and I am godkiller!"
And Bulletproof sent the complete contents of his batteries through his armor, out through his glove, and into the altar.
Which exploded quite nicely, thank you.
Main Characters:
The Saga opened with the astonishing revelation that Bulletproof cheats at Trivial Pursuit. It went downhill rapidly from there. Within seconds of Sam and Bert entering the story, the Extreme Team's apartment building was blown up, encasing all of the Team (save for Captain Non Sequitor and Sam and Bert) under twenty tons of rubble.
This did not make our heroes terribly happy, and they were even less thrilled with life when Pinky (aka Death Knight 3000) was forced to use his power to summon kudzu. After managing to fight off the kudzu and escape from beneath the rubble, the team discovered that the individuals responsible for blowing up their apartment building were the Fabulous Boomer Brothers, who, coincidentally enough, showed up at that point.
Considering that it was Bulletproof's apartment, their actions may not have been entirely wise. A chase ensued, during which it was revealed that the Boomer Brothers were luring the Team in general, and Bulletproof in specific, to the Land North of Bob, where the town of Nameless Horrors lay.
We say "lay," because (*gasp*) the inhabitants of Nameless Horrors were actually Deep Ones who were trying to summon Cthulhu or a relative at an altar near a building known as 'The Tomb,' or 'The Library,' as it contained both dead people and a lot of books, one of which was the Necronomicon. The Boomer Brothers lured Bulletproof and Pinky up to the Tomb, got Bulletproof to blast it open, thus releasing an awful lot of mystic energy, and ran inside to steal 'the Rope.' Bulletproof remained outside to combat whatever horror from beyond space that the Deep Ones had managed to summon, and Pinky ran inside the Tomb to try and stop the Boomer Brothers. Bulletproof managed to fight off the Lovecraftian baddie, getting blasted into another dimension as he did so, and Pinky managed to a: get trapped by the power of the Library, and b: escape, by checking out a book.
Meanwhile, it was revealed that the Boomer Brothers were the employees of one Count Fitzpatrick, who was collecting mystic objects from a variety of places around the world. The Boomer Brothers brought him the Rope, the Five Guy Team brought him the Candlestick, a team of European terrorists brought him the Knife (facing the awesome might of the Gun Avenger in the process, as well as blowing up the Spitz Tower) and so on.
The remnants of the Extreme Team, having misplaced two of its members, headed back to Bob, where they met up with Thieftaker (who was investigating the century-old murder of the Count) and Battlewagon(who had been ordered up by the nefarious Doctor Fu Manchu to cheer them up. After Mister Safety defeated Battlewagon, the team headed back to Nameless Horrors.
Eventually, Pinky managed to escape (with the indirect assistance of Radio Free Hero and Faith), and Bulletproof, after facing the inhabitants of the dimension where he had been thrust, scared the various Lovecraftian horrors to the point where he was thrust back out into 'reality' (thus providing the basis for the allergic reaction that many creatures that go Bump In The Night have to cold iron.) This would have been good, save for the fact that Bulletproof had been thrust back into reality about five hundred miles above the surface of the Earth.
He managed to survive and reenter, but heavily damaged his armor in the process. He also suffered a wide variety of burns and bruises, and both he and his armor were taken to England, where his grandfather owns and operates the arms company that had built the suit in the first place. The armor was left for repairs, and the Extreme Team set off for Reichenbach Falls, where the book that Pinky had checked out indicated that the various weapons that the Count had stolen might be used.
The weapons were in fact used, in a ritual allowing the Count to discover who had murdered him a hundred years before. It turned out that the Count had been murdered by Colonel Moran at the order of Professor Moriarty. The Count, thus satisfied, went off to face the dawn, and his assistant, Igor, was left with the keys to the castle. Nothing further has been heard from either.
(As a side note: it's a much better series than the summary would indicate. Honest.)