Victor Stone wasn't usually one for playing well with others, despite being an important member of two of the biggest metahuman teams in the world. Those teams felt more like families to him. He never went home from his work; he didn't have a secret ID to hide behind. Because of that, he had plenty of alone time once everyone else went home. Now though, he found himself scanning local transmission streams for any irregular energy patterns. In other words, he was expecting someone.

He had selected this vantage point overlooking the H.I.V.E outpost in the clearing ahead. The position provided adequate visual cover, and Victor's own electronic countermeasures would ensure that he wouldn't be detected by any instruments in the area. This was meant to be a low-profile infiltration job. Data retrieval from an isolated server. What was different however, was that this was a joint operation with an Australian special forces splinter, designated 'Group 6'.

Vic hated the code names and secrecy, but the intel and resources behind this operation were made apparent when he was contacted by the Pentagon. The coordinates and bearing of this place were withheld until Vic agreed to the mission...so he had little choice in the matter. He said yes to this joint proposal because H.I.V.E had somehow managed to obtain a piece of technological data known as the Amazo Algorithm. If someone didn't relieve them of that layout, they'd be able to use the data to encode androids with the ability to replicate any super-powers they came into contact with, and anyone could tell you how dangerous that would be.

The other reason was because his partner was described as 'someone of similar talents and personal circumstances'. The most he managed to mine from the encrypted files on the Group 6 servers was a data packet about an asset called 'Hyperion'. Again, Vic wanted to scrub the stupid codename and replace it with 'Nonsensical Bullshit' for laughs.

This 'Hyperion' was noted as being an experimental chassis that contained organic material, but apart from that was entirely mechanical in nature. Some part of Victor, buried deep within the grim, jaded shell, hoped that this would be a person who would understand. He knew it was a stupid hope to have...but he had it, nonetheless.

Suddenly, his scans spiked. He grimaced. Whoever this was, they didn't seem to care about being detected. Their energy signature was immense. Vic did his best to wipe the signature and mask it with background emissions from radio and cell phone signals, expecting to get a thank you later from whatever this was.

Before too long, he began to hear, and feel, immense footsteps shaking the ground. He turned to the rock pass behind him and sifted through various spectral filters to see what was coming. Whatever it was...it was massive and incredibly dense. It must have been the source of the energy spike.

It soon came into visual contact and Victor found himself sighing in disbelief. "I was informed that this was an infiltration op..."

His partner was an eight-foot-tall mechanical being, lined with glowing purple inlets and exposed circuitry. Its head bore a pair of matching purple optical sensors, which gazed up and down at Victor's cybernetic body. "What makes you think that I need to be small to infiltrate? Isn't that sort of narrow-minded?" The Australian accented voice of a young woman responded sharply. It was slightly digitized, but possessed human emotion.

"I heard you coming and I had to mask your energy sig since it was so damn big."

"Oh, I flooded their sensors with noise so... yeah."

Victor, whilst somewhat irked by this person's attitude, was pleasantly surprised by her caution. "Huh..."

The massive machine, what Victor assumed was the Hyperion from the data, stomped forward towards the clearing and stopped just shy of it. "How do you want to do this?" She asked considerately.

"Those electromagnetic pulse turret emplacements gotta go first. One hit from any of those and we're both down for the count. Seems like they were expecting us."

"I detect...four?"

"Verified, same here."

"We should split up and disable two each, then reconvene once the base is on alert."

With a nod, Victor agreed. "One last thing though."

Hyperion turned to face him, head cocking curiously.

Victor continued "I know you're special forces, but me being here automatically makes this a Justice League operation. And that means non-lethal methods of attack only. We clear on that?"

She paused for about 5.2 seconds according to Victor's internal clock, then responded remarkably cheerfully "...Only because I like you. But if I need to choose between killing a terrorist and letting them get away with that data, I want you to know that I'll choose killing a terrorist."

Vic wasn't ready for how smoothly that went. Even the Titans, his friends since he was a teenager, couldn't go five seconds without arguing about something. Maybe...he found someone who was on the same page as he was, well, almost at least? He dismissed the thought and pushed through the brush.

This Hyperion character seemed capable enough to Victor, and he didn't have the lowest standards. That said, she was military, and if Victor learned anything from his time as Cyborg, it was that they either couldn't be trusted to do the right thing all the time, or they always had their own hidden agendas. He'd have to keep an eye on her to make sure she adheres to his recommendation.

Minutes went by, and Vic waded through the surrounding forest with his eye peeled. He peered upwards at the supporting structure of one of the watchtowers. At its peak was a large turret, glowing with electricity. On this platform were two H.I.V.E soldiers, keeping an eager eye out.

The tower itself fed into a perimeter fence that ran around the entire facility. From where Victor stood, the only way to go was up.

With a thought, Vic propelled himself into the air with a burst of jet thrust from boosters installed in his feet. Mid-air, he set his sights onto the two guards and prepared to strike quickly and quietly. Half a ton of machinery landed on the tower with a thud, and Vic launched a startling jab at the nearest soldier. The unexpected blow instantly rendered the man unconscious, dropping him like a brick.

After this attack, Vic simply backhanded the other soldier, sending him crashing into the EMP turret face first. He then quickly scanned their vitals, ensuring that both were knocked out but otherwise fine. Immediately, he turned to the weapon emplacement and laid a hand onto it. The components that made up his hand shifted and morphed into several different input cables. One by one, they carved their own paths into the circuity and patched Vic into the turret's systems.

Feeding the coordinates of the other turret into its firing processor, Vic took a step back to watch the fireworks.

The massive weapon whirled as it turned to face its new target and flashed white hot for a split second. A crack of thunder filled the air as the opposing turret tower was engulfed in lightning, sparking and permanently disabled from the electronic damage.

Satisfied with his handiwork, Vic morphed his right hand into his signature white-noise cannon. The cybernetic arm clinked and clacked as it transformed, folding and unfolding itself into a much larger cannon.

Vic pointed, sent a thought through his system and eviscerated the EMP turret with a blast of vicious energy, ensuring that both guns were out of play.

As he took it out, he saw two bright blue flashes as the two others imploded with bright crimson explosions. Vic took that as a signal to leap off of the tower and land loudly on the concrete below. The barking and howling of more H.I.V.E soldiers answered his arrival, and he promptly replied with fire from his cannon as they came pouring out of a nearby guard station.

As the soldiers ran towards the Cyborg, they were knocked off of their feet by a wave of blue energy and thrown onto the floor like dolls.

On the other side of the facility, Vic spotted Hyperion's gigantic frame making her way over to him. A massive cannon sat on her shoulder; undoubtedly what she used to destroy her two EMP turrets. It dwarfed them in size. Victor noticed that its barrel was covered in coil-shaped formations, and deduced that it was some kind of mass driver. Hyperion turned away and braced. Two clamps flipped out of her calves and secured her into the ground as her gargantuan weapon groaned to life.

The flash of its fire came without sound, and so did the orange trail it blazed through the air and into a nearby warehouse building. Almost a second later, the sound came and washed out anything else that Victor could hear. It was like a mechanical scream, followed by the sure explosion of the building. H.I.V.E personnel threw themselves from the wreckage, fearful and desperate.

Vic jogged up to Hyperion and cocked and eyebrow. "Was that necessary?"

Hyperion turned her metal head to Vic, and chirped "If you had a focused plasma gauss rifle I'm sure you'd find any excuse to use it."

"I do." Vic responded, forming said weapon and firing off a shot at an unmanned tank before any troopers could get to it. The machine exploded and rained shrapnel down upon the rest of the base. He pushed himself to move towards the destination; a room in the main complex. "But it's reserved for heavy armour...like it should be." Vic scalded.

"No way... that small? Amazing! Is that even possible?" Hyperion gushed, seemingly glazing over his passive-aggressive remark.

"It's not small, yours is a little big. Compensating for something?"

"Maybe I just like 'em big."

Vic shook his head in disbelief.

Weapons fire lanced off of the pavement as Vic's overdriven pistons drove him faster than any human could run, and Hyperion did her best to keep up despite her size. Her palm split open and she pointed it at the group of soldiers, behind the cover of several titanium crates. As she ran, she slowly raised her aim, adjusting for the projectile's arc under gravity, and fired.

A small orb came roaring out of her palm, arced over the soldiers' cover and bounced once before retracting its outer layer. A targeting laser painted the bodies of each soldier within a millisecond, and one taser dart per man shot outward from the device.

The guards were shocked into unconsciousness as Hyperion and Cyborg continued on their way to the complex. As they reached the main entrance, Vic pressed his hand against the keypad by the door. "You might need to stay outside. Pretty sure they didn't account for your height when they built this place."

He glanced at her, and was taken off guard when bursts of air were vented from various hardpoints on her structure. Suddenly, and most surprisingly, Hyperion's chassis split open, and out stepped a similar but more slender and shorter mech. It shared the same design language as the larger unit, but vaguely resembled the shape of a female body, opposed to the golem-esque physique of the main suit.

"What are you, a babushka doll?" Vic quipped bluntly.

"Cute. I'll send the shell to the other end of the facility and make a mess; that'll give us some room to breathe."

Automatically, the larger suit marched off, firing its secondary weapons randomly at the ground, in order to draw attention to itself.

Vic, whilst still not smiling, wore an amused look on his face as he stepped back. The door to the complex split open as he said "I'm impressed."

"I try my best."

Cyborg sealed the door as he and Hyperion slipped inside. As he did, he mapped out the building using an ultra-sonic scan pulse, beyond the hearing ability of normal people. The scan revealed that they were several hallways away from the objective. "This way. I'm detecting a mass of heat signatures in front of the server room."

Hyperion shook her head as she followed Cyborg. "Even if we get through them, I don't think we'll have enough time to crack their system before more hostiles arrive."

"Leave it to me."

The pair secured themselves outside the locked bulkhead to a corridor intersection. The entrance to the server room was in that intersection, but so were ten armed guards, according to Victor's scans. As he braced for a firefight, he automatically initiated an intrusion protocol to chip through the security walls to the giant metal door's mechanism.

He muttered "I'm almost through."

"Woah...you're hacking right now? As you're talking to me?"

"Yeah."

"Cool. I mean, I'm pretty good at multitasking, but I still need to concentrate on that kind of thing. That's pretty amazing."

"Focus now, small talk later." Victor sighed, frowning.

Hyperion leant casually by the bulkhead, not at all seeming ready for a fight. "Yeah, sorry. It's a nervous tick. Seriously though...you need to tell me how you do it."

As Cyborg's mind bypassed the last wave of counter-intrusion software protecting the door, he snapped "Now!"

The bulkhead sprung open like a jack in the box, and Victor popped out with his right arm outstretched. Opening fire at the heat signatures that he tagged, his energy fire struck three soldiers and sent the rest diving for cover behind a series of barricades they set up to fortify the room.

Hyperion didn't emerge from cover, rather she lined up her arm-mounted weapon with the heat signatures that Victor overlayed on her display whilst still in cover. Despite this, whatever the weapon fired still managed to penetrate the walls, as confirmed by the pained screams of the H.I.V.E troopers.

Victor realised that her weapon was a non-lethal directed energy weapon, most likely some kind of microwave emitter that pacifies hostiles with extreme pain caused by heating water inside a subject's skin. If that was it, he didn't have much time.

He sprinted into the room like a madman, keeping the positions of his targets in mind. As quickly as it all started, it was over once Victor knocked each man out with a single, well-calculated blow to the head.

Hyperion swiftly entered afterwards, fiddling with a series of holograms over her left arm. "Okay...more guys are inbound. Do you have an exfiltration plan?"

"We're taking the base." Victor answered as he barged through the sever room door. He quickly uplinked to the designated server stack with his left hand.

"Oh...okay. Command kind of said it was a drop in, drop out."

"You have a problem with that?"

Victor continued busting through the dense security protecting the Amazo data as Hyperion paused. "No. Of course not. I usually just do what they ask." She said, not sounding offended at all by Victor's stand-offish behaviour. "You know much about what they have stashed in there?"

He was already sick of all this talking...but if she was asking, she probably didn't know...and it annoyed Victor that these military types could trust their superior officers so much to be told to march into a place, kill people, and not ask questions. "This data is a core component of Amazo. Anyone with access to this information can produce metahuman-mimicking technology."

"Amazo...as in the giant super-powered android? Right..."

"Your people didn't tell you any of this?"

"No."

"And you're okay with that?"

"Yeah. I have a job, and they have theirs."

"And I'm betting they told you to return with the data." She said nothing in response, and that was enough for Victor to say what he said next. "I'm sorry, but I can't let it leave this server. One Amazo was enough trouble."

Victor heard Hyperion's digitized voice sigh before she replied. "...I didn't sign up for this shit. I am so noting this in my report."

"Go ahead. Maybe it's about time you thought for yourself for a change."

Hyperion fell silent after Victor's comment, and at that point he made a decent dent in the firewall. If he just smashed the server, a talented enough computer expert or a technopath would be able to recover the info from the carcass. Victor needed to scrub it completely from the drive to ensure that no one could replicate it, and he was pleased that Hyperion understood this, since she didn't question his connection to the stack.

Without warning, Hyperion spun, discharged her energy weapon six separate times, and turned back. "Yeah, they're starting to catch onto our little stunt. They're not hitting the Atlas shell as hard as they were before."

"Almost there."

In order to buy some more time, Vic plugged static into the H.I.V.E trooper communications channel. It would take perhaps a few seconds for them to recover from the disorientation and remove their helmets, but any measure of time was worth the effort.

He inserted his purging program into the sever; it was coded to automatically purge the system before scrubbing itself and inducing a system overload, frying the hardware beyond repair as a precaution. Now that it was loaded onto the stack, he could disengage from the direct connection and leave a wireless transmitter in order to keep tabs on progress.

"Okay, virus is running. Time to focus on the goons." Victor snapped, heading back into the corridor.

Hyperion quickly answered with "Oh. Oh...we got incoming. Surface launched missiles."

Victor grimaced as they sprung through the facility once more. It seemed that Hyperion and himself were worth destroying this base, killing their own soldiers and sacrificing that Amazo data.

"They're shielded so we'll have to use microscopic waves on them, and the Atlas is armed with ballistics only. We have to get out there to take them out; no way we're bugging out in time." Hyperion briefed as she fiddled with the circuity of her directed energy weapon.

Victor's reason for destroying the missiles would be to save lives, but as long as Hyperion didn't stand in his way, he was complacent. He was glad that Hyperion picked up on the incoming fire while he was busy though.

As they came skidding to a halt at the entrance, which had been blown open by that last wave of soldiers, gunfire came pouring in from outside like hail. Hyperion dove behind cover as she cursed. Victor engaged his arm cannon once again and fired rapidly as he kept charging forward.

The enemy rounds bounced off of his promethium plating as the soldiers were blown off of their feet by Victor's energy waves. "Get a lock on the missiles; I'll keep 'em busy." Victor said to Hyperion on their comm channel.

"Sure thing. You're probably best suited for that."

Victor's scanner informed him that Hyperion slinked out of the hallway after his distraction, and took cover behind a fleet of trucks parked by the base.

His heat levels were beginning to spike...all of the fire he was taking and the physical exertion was taking its toll. The last handful of soldiers were positioned opposite the courtyard, peeking out from the cover of a concrete guardhouse. They were trying to get shots off at Hyperion, and Victor was assuming that her core form wasn't as indestructible as he was.

Morphing his hand into a controlled electromagnet, Victor concentrated the it at the four standing soldiers. They jolted and wrestled with their weapons, which suddenly were compelled to soar towards Victor like the bullets they fired. Fruitlessly they fought the magnet, until they were ultimately relieved of their rifles.

One by one, the weapons clanked stiffly against Victor's magnetic fist. "Stand down. You've lost." Victor barked dryly. The soldiers hesitantly raised their hands in surrender as Victor kept his cannon fixed on them.

On the horizon, Victor detected the two warheads on their way to the base. "How's it going on the missiles?" He asked.

Almost as if she was waiting for him to ask, two blossoms of fire appeared in the distance, where Victor's scans pegged the missiles.

The two secured the area after they dealt with the threat of imminent destruction, and rounded up the H.I.V.E troopers. Hyperion posted her Atlas shell to watch over the prisoners, as she and Victor spoke in confidence on the other side of the grounds.

"Well...for one thing, I think my superiors will at least appreciate that we have a gold mine of H.I.V.E resources to repurpose and potential intel opportunities from the staff. A team is incoming to mop up." Hyperion said to Victor.

Victor didn't waste any time in preparing a boom tube to take him back to the Watchtower. Although he enjoyed this jaunt, he still wanted to leave before the Australian military arrived. It took some internal argument, but Victor eventually looked into Hyperion's optics and said "The data's been wiped too. And...look, despite my attitude, I think we did well together."

"Me too. Well, because of you, I have a lot of explaining to do...but I'm okay with that."

The boom tube materialised behind Victor and he nodded curtly to Hyperion before he turned and strode through it, without a word.

Victor thought the H.I.V.E base takeover was done and dealt with for the next week or so, but he received a communique from Group 6 about a meeting they wanted to set up with him. They were shy with details, but Victor was expecting a lecture. He wasn't going to even bother with it, but Diana made a point that maintaining a relationship with international governments was beneficial to the Justice League's efficiency and reach, so Victor reluctantly boom tubed to the Group 6 headquarters in New South Wales. The rest of the League were generally rather stand-offish towards military organisations, but Diana saw the benefits in having their resources and backing.

Currently, Victor stood in a waiting room as a secretary sat behind a desk, staring at him as he bided his time by monitoring local environments. Obviously, to an observer, he was doing nothing. The ability to process data organically was one of his key strengths. And about the stares, Victor no longer cared. There would've been a time years ago when he'd get angry, sad or frustrated at it, but he accepted it now...and he didn't know whether that was good or bad.

The door to the office was pushed open by a middle-aged man with blonde hair, light facial scarring and deep chestnut eyes. "Come on in, mate." He said casually.

Victor heeded his instructions and drove his mechanical body through the doorway, as the man pulled the door shut behind him.

He was surprised to see a woman in the room as well, seated at one of the two chairs in front of the main desk. She looked at him with a pair of bright, eager eyes, that seemed to take in every single detail on his chassis. Her hair was longer than military regulation length; perhaps she wasn't your ordinary soldier. She didn't look afraid or surprised at all...almost like she had seen him before. She was dressed in a freshly pressed uniform that looked like it hadn't been worn before, ever.

The man walked back behind the desk and slumped into his chair. "Have a seat, son."

"I'm fine. Sir." Victor replied.

The officer simply nodded in recognition. "I'm General Hanson, head of Group 6. I just wanted to have a...word with you after the Amazo mission." He began, as he fiddled with an unlit cigarette. "Everybody else wants me to have a yell at you two, but I think you made a good call. You saved lives by sticking around. We tracked the missiles to a hidden battery that we missed on the last recon flight. They could've opened fire on any major Australian, Vietnamese or New Zealand city without our knowledge. But now, we raided the place and disabled those artillery placements."

Victor's brow furrowed when Hanson said 'you two'. He sighed as his eyes fell onto the woman. She was just a human, then. He suddenly felt like a fool for expecting Hyperion to be someone like him...someone who was different in such a way that no counselling could fix them.

"Despite what the rest of command is saying, I think this could be the start of a good relationship between Group 6 and the Justice League. I'd like to keep communications with you open, Mr. Stone. I'll be able to send any assignments through to you that could benefit from your technical expertise and talents. Anything you do will save the lives of the men I'd have to send in your place."

Victor nodded. It sounded nice, but it always did on face value. With that open channel, he'd be able to plant a bug. If Group 6 was up to anything fishy, he'd know before they did. For the time being, he'd cooperate. "Thank you, General. But know that I'm not a puppet."

Hanson finally placed his cigarette onto the table. "Of course. I admire what you and your colleagues do; you have to remain impartial to politics, I understand. As for Specialist Reid, I hear that you worked efficiently together."

"You could say that." Victor answered coldly.

Reid shot Victor a confused glance.

"These assignments will be overseen and managed by her. I'm a fan of the unconventional methods you two used in your last outing, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of it."

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