Maeve Butler's Story

Street gravel crunched under steel-soled boots, barely visible under the wails of sirens and honking cars. A heavy cloak rustled against tight kevlar body armor as someone leaned down to pick up an abandoned grocery bag full of lightly bruised fruit, and a moment later a large hand grabbed Vicki Vortex by the back of her shirt and lifted her up, setting her back on her feet.

You'll die if ye stay here," said the looming giant of a woman, her words barely at the volume of a normal speaking voice despite the tinny crackle of a microphone. Dark, listless eyes were barely visible between her wide, flat hat and heavy cloak. The irish woman took Vicki's hand gently and placed the handles of the bag inside it, then placed two fingers against Vicki's forehead and pushed lightly against it, in the playful way one might dismiss a child. "Leg it."

She turned and strolled down the street toward the beach, the cannon she carried clinking softly against the chemical tank on her back as she propped it against one shoulder.

Vic was enjoying warding away the bad thoughts with music and not considering how soon her life was going to be taken from her, the sensation of her body already slipping away from her - when her heart suddenly jumped and reminded her of its existence, as a hand came out of nowhere and lifted her by her jacket. One of her earphones fell out, and her dying cigarette butt nearly toppled from her mouth. She was frozen with shock as her body was manipulated by the gentle giant, and booped on the forehead. Then they were walking back out the automatic sliding doors.

"Th... That was the point!" Vic came out of her stupor to shout after them with exasperation. She felt like she had just woken from a dream, which she'd had during a nap, that took place somewhere in the mid-afternoon and now it was dark and she didn't know what day it was or who she was anymore. She wandered out of the store and watched the goliath keep clanking on towards the beach. Vic's brow twitched, in annoyance for her sudden clarity. "I'm not going to change my plans because a hero told me to!" She called over, much more to herself and less for the person who could barely hear her over the panicked public. Vic's eyes trailed down to the shopping bag she still held, and she tossed it away unceremoniously. "And this isn't even mine," she grumbled.

And so Vic was in the middle of the street, amidst evacuating citizens, and staring back up at the endtimes. This time, entirely lucid.

"Goddammit," she grunted, blinking her stinging eyes. She flicked her cigarette butt on the pavement and ground her heel over it. Heroes. Condescending pricks that could never let you just lay down and die. "God. Dammit. Fuck you. Fuck you." One for the hero who'd brought her out of blissful hopelessness, one directed towards the city-crushing monster, along with a pointed finger. It was not happening today. It was not happening today. It could go pick another nemesis and kill their hook-up - manager - not-girlfriend for all she cared. The only thing that was going to come of this day if she lived, was that she was gonna get a killer song from it. Vic's face darkened as she looked up at the monster, and the music faded out for her, the rush of her blood growing louder in her ears.

She was a rockstar, not a hero. She was a rockstar, not a hero. So she dragged her sneaker across the ground, and started to leg it - And then a curse exploded from her mouth, and she disappeared. Bamfing back into being in the shadow of the super with a cannon, walking beside them while looking straight ahead with a death-stare and hands in her pockets.

March 12th, 2045, 9:40am: Atlas City, North Carolina, USA

Day 2

On the beach of Atlas City, further North, and more comfortably away from the Beast of Decay, an old facility once used for oil drilling and research now housed a new, more ambitious owner.

A sumptuous, elegant office room, with dark oak for near almost everything, including the large desk Maxwell Landon was seated at. Book shelves lined the sides of the room, but behind him sat a large, black marble statue of a panther, with thin veins of gold scattered throughout it. Before him sat another table, a long conference one, made of similar materials, with oak chairs with red leather seating surrounding. Ulysses, Willoughby, Kiran, and several others sat at the table currently, waiting quietly for Maxwell to speak.

“For the time being, I’ve sent Maeve to test out some weaponry at the front line. It’s a good time to prove herself, and to see what exactly this creature is capable of. Kiran, I need you to keep in contact with her, collect as much information as you can and try to figure out some ways we can kill this thing. The rest of you, I need you geared up and masked. I want you to take to the streets and help with evacuation. Now’s a good chance to build some PR with the city, and hopefully make it easier to kill this thing before it gets to us.”

Those in the room nodded along silently. “Ulysses, you stay here with some of the men, make sure the base is secure, and that Kiran can work on a solution in peace. Willoughby, you head to Shapeless, make sure it stays secure as well, and try to get as much product onto trucks and out of the city as you can. As for me, I’ll be joining some of you at the front lines to provide support, and hopefully add to that good PR.”

Maxwell rose from his seat, with the others soon following suit, as was tradition. He rapped his knuckle on his desk twice. “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s go save a city.”



The Beast of Decay stood as a strange, dynamic statue in the midst of Atlas City’s coastal waters. While people scattered about in horror and panic, it made no moves closer to the city, it’s movements being restricted to the strange pulsing through its body, producing more foul liquids and lumps of unknown materials into the water below.

At one point, a small, shapeshifting ant of a being tried roaring. The Beast of Decay was entirely disinterested in any form of communication. The foul mist, the aerosol essence of its body, devoured organic and inorganic material before it without prejudice, leaving behind liquefied remains, which soon after turned into strange, blackened, mold like patches of fur. Veins grew across these patches, throbbing as unknown liquid passed through them, and shuddering as tiny needles of black began to pierce through and grow upward. They weren’t particularly long, about an inch in length, but they were indeed sharp as needles, and far more dangerous.

A moment later a light pierced through the sky, purple and white in color, and racing towards the Beast of Decay.

The burning substance quickly tore through the outside of the beast, forming a hole approximately 10 feet in diameter, and quickly exploding to be even larger as the charge inside went off. A torrent of brown, black, and orange sludge poured forth from the creature’s mouth, with hefty large chunks close in size to small cars plummeting into the waters below.

More explosions sounded off around the beast, as the sound of a strange man-bird announced an attack from the air. While the damage was mainly superficial at first, one well placed explosion forced a geyser of foul decay fluids to shoot up into the air, 50 foot spray that spread out into a fine mist in the direction of Man-Hawk.



Peter and several other SINS employees looked out the windows of their rented office building as the sky was lit up by a thin beam of light, aimed at the monster in the waters. Several of them looked shocked, confused by what happened. Peter seemed mostly unmoved, beyond a little smirk as he looked over at the NAHLA headquarters.

“What… Was that?” One of them asked.

Just as those words had finished being spoken, several people looked solemnly at TV screens that had been set up, reporting live news coverage of the attack. From around the world.

British, French, German, nearly every language known to man, all speaking in rapid unison as footage of the laser was marched across their screens. But the news coverage most concerning to everyone was that of the Soviets and Chinese.

“That was someone earning themselves a free visit from the Department of Defense.” Peter responded neutrally. “Try not to worry about it boys and girls, we’ve got a lot of work left to do. Hop to it.”



Richard weaved through traffic as quickly as he could, having luckily found streets that were considerably less crowded by vehicles, though that was likely due to them being side roads that led more easily to the beach, as opposed to away from it. The light in the sky that seemed to come from the direction of the NAHLA building had momentarily stunned him, as did the boom that followed it.

Had that been the end of the monster? No time to get hopeful, had to assume worst case and keep going. Richard sped up as he wound his way through suburbs and emptied streets, coming screeching around a corner as he found a relatively quiet street. People were pouring out of an alley it looked like, with one of them stepping over towards one of those self-driving limos.

Wait… Was that someone he recognized? Was that… The super with the shorts from yesterday getting into that car? Seemed they had places to go that weren’t the beach. Whatever. Wasn’t much good in a super that was only super for a show.

He drove over to the alley as the self-driving car pulled away, and once the narrow area had become clear of escaping civilians, he began to back up down the alley. If he was right about the roads, this should get him pretty close to the beach.

Once the back end of the SUV had pulled out into the other street connected to the alley, Richard had a pretty good view of the beach. There was still space between him and other vehicles, enough to shoot over, and create a battleground of his choosing.

Richard stepped out of the SUV, locking the steering wheel in place so the vehicle wouldn’t be going off anywhere he wasn’t, particularly with his equipment. He stared up at the monster in front of him a few moments, taking some time to comprehend just what was before him. A couple deep breaths. A nod of affirmation. He began marching forward, now with Hrunting firmly in hand.



The Beast of Decay finally moved. Just subtly at first, but enough to indicate it was looking directly at where the shot that had hit it had come from. It’s mouth fell open, more chunks dropping out and into the water, the hole in it’s body now visible.

And now visible too was the fact it was putting itself back together. Thin ropes of some kind of organic, fleshy material strung themselves up between the two sides of the wound, pulling the hole closed as more organic material poured in to coagulate the hole.

While this happened, and the beast’s mouth was open, a sound began to emanate from it. Quietly at first, but it soon grew to a volume that was audible across a large part of the city. Not painful to the ears, and all the more eerie that it was audible, the sounds of "I Think We`re Alone Now" by Tommy James & The Shondells carrying across the city.

It was clear where it came from, the Beast of Decay, but soon radios began to crackle to life across the city, phones and computers, all echoing the sounds of the song in unison with the monster. Something else too came to life, but not in the city.

In the sea.

The chunks that had been falling into the water were now crawling up onto the land. They still maintained their amorphous shapes at first, but soon they began take on new shapes, more recognizable, but nonsensical. Strange spikey protrusions poked through their decaying surfaces, looking like thick, broken bones, or bit of dead tree root, some even looked like large spider legs. These strange appendages allowed them to begin moving, slowly at first, but quickly picking up pace. Thin veins began to extend out of their bodies too, a dark, red and brown color, lined with singular rows of some sort of pulsating, stinger looking barbs.

As they made their way up the beach, the throbbing circles in their own external flesh became noticeable, more foul fluids spilling out around them as they moved. Once they’d gotten properly situated, their main weapons began to awaken; mouth like structures in the center of their bodies, equipped with insect like mandibles, and rows of teeth, broken boy, root, and other bizarre materials. The mouths opened and closed in deep, heavy breaths, anticipating their next meals…

“I think we’re alone now, there doesn’t seem to be anyone around - ”

The music cut off, replaced now by the sound of a voice, one all too familiar to many. While it couldn’t be understood by non-German speakers, it was the very recognizable voice of Adolf Hitler. The speech repeated his famous words, “Wir wissen vor uns, dass Deutschland liegt, in uns brennt Deutschland und hinter uns folgt Deutschland.” We know before us Germany lies, in us Germany burns, and behind us Germany follows.

More static cut through, and the voice of the long dead dictator was replaced by yet another, this one with the sound of a distressed English woman.

“This is Doctor Heather Wright! If you’re seeing this, I may already be dead, but I pray not. The date is March 5th, Nineteen Seventy - *static* I’m currently in the South Ge- *static* We must find a way to destroy this thing! It can’t continue to exist! All of humankind dep- *static*”

And with that, all voices and sounds from the Beast of Decay ceased.



A steady stream of civilians ran through the streets, scrambling to get away from the beach as fast as possible as the strange offspring of the monster quickly made chase. One man slammed into a car, desperately scrambling to get over, though not quickly enough. He turned to see one of the grotesque monstrosities closing in, now less than 20 feet away.

A loud gunshot rang out, and what appeared to be the offspring’s head was turned into a fine mist, dropping it to the ground. For now. The fleeing man turned in time to see the shooter, a man dressed in an all black military fatigue.

“MOVE!” Richard shouted, firing off several more rounds, finding their way into the heads and bodies of the monstrous targets heading this way. The fleeing man gave a simple, frightened nod and was up over the car, and bolting.

He fired off several more shots, having taken down most of the offspring that were coming down this street, but looking further down the beach he could see there were far more trying to make their way up every other avenue, to break through to the city center.

Another gunshot rang out, almost as loud as Richard’s, but not from him. He turned to see another one of the offspring dead on the ground not 8 feet away from him, and looking up he finally noticed a man, dressed in clothing from at least the early 20th century, holding a smoking shotgun.

Richard looked confused at the man, but gave an appreciative nod. “Thanks for that-“ He was cut off when he noticed the man was limping, and his left leg finally came into view. It was decaying already, bits of flesh falling off, the brown pant leg a tatter of what it was before. Richard rushed over to him. “Come with me, we need to get you medical-“ This time he was cut off by the shotgun being aimed at his face.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” The man shouted in a startling manner. “Don’t come near me, or my body, understand! I’m already dead! I probably have an hour left of my life, maybe less. The last thing I need or want is someone going down with me!”

Richard took a nervous step back from the man, hands raised slightly so as to prevent him from shooting again. “You… Know something about that thing? What was with all the music? And the talking?”

The man let out an agitated sigh as he leaned against a car, pulling out two solid shotgun slugs that he placed into the gun. This was a man intent on hunting something. “I know that this thing is not alone! You must listen to me; I don’t know who or what you are, but I need you to talk to your leaders, or someone, anyone in command. A President, Prime Minister, King or Queen, even a general. Just tell them they will need everything they can muster to destroy these things!”

“These… Things?”

The man in tweed nodded. “Yes, there is far more than you could ever imagine, this? It’s an infant compared to what horrors lurk… And they… Are… Legion…” He began to cough and hack uncontrollably, a spatter of blood exiting his mouth. “It’s inside me even… In my body, killing me from within… I… I don’t understand enough about this creature, or the others. I don’t even know where I am right now… I was hunting these things in a bog. But now… I think I’m a very, very far way off from home.”



March 12th, 2045, 2:40pm: Scottish Highlands

It was a pleasant afternoon, typically cool for Scotland this early in the year, but the snow was in mere patches right now. New Tantallon Castle had a gorgeous view of the sea from the back end of the estate, and it’s brilliant, vibrant gardens from the front. The stone architecture, and dark wood made the place truly magnificent to behold. George Carlisle Hughes, a man well aged and into his 90’s, sat quietly at his desk, finishing up on some paperwork before being interrupted by the phone ringing. He cocked an eyebrow at the thing, before picking it up.

“Hughes here, what is it?” The man spoke in an elegant English accent, though some Scottish tints could be detected.

“Sir, you need to look at the news. Now.”

George pursed his lips, a little off put by the tone as he exited his office to head for the conference room. He quickly turned on the television, and was immediately greeted by the sight of the monster from Atlas City. His face was stony with resolve as he watched the beast work. “Do we know for sure it’s one of-“

“This is Doctor Heather Wright! If you’re seeing this, I may already be dead, but I pray not.”

His mouth dropped as the woman’s voice continued to echo through the television. They were capable of this even? How?

“Ready the jet for me immediately. And do we have anyone close to North Carolina right now? George asked in a stoic voice, trying to hide his true, much more fearful emotions.

“We have a sub out there sir. They can likely be at Atlas City in 5 hours, give or take.”

George nodded remorsefully. “Get it done. I’m leaving for the airstrip in 15.” As he hung up the phone, he looked back to the TV, feeling his whole body shake and go weak from the sight of this creature. He’d never thought in his life he’d actually see something like this take form. But here it was, mocking all of humanity, and their hubris for thinking nothing could be more powerful than them.

Things certainly looked to be picking up quite a bit; A purple streak of light screeching across the sky, the distant sound of bombs, and the sudden decision by every radio device in the city to start blasting old recordings- including her comm link, Maeve noted with annoyance as she pulled the tiny device from her ear.

"-an't continue to exist! All of hu-" Maeve grunted distastefully at it as the tinny voice carrying from the city gradually faded out. Her eyes slid over her shoulder to the small woman who had shadowed her steps from the grocery store.

"I think ye'd find more success running the opposite direction," she remarked, sticking her comm back in her ear.

Vic sped up her steps to walk beside her, glare fixed straight ahead. "I'm not running," she grunted, "I'm here to hurt it."

"Oh-hoh?" A note of amused approval slipped into her quiet voice. Maeve quickened her pace slightly as soon as the woman caught up. "Angry, are ye? Good. Won't be dying any time soon, then."

A breath escaped Vic, kind of a laugh, almost an exasperated sigh, definitely miffed. "Well, shit," she said, right as she was outpaced by the giantess and back to trailing behind in her shadow.

The seabreeze carried the distant sound of gunshots and screaming to Maeve's ears, and her eyes took on an intense, feral gaze without her face seeming to move at all. Events on the beach were rising to a pitch, and Maeve could smell the blood that had been spilled and was yet to come. She felt a hunger pang that wasn't in her stomach, and a thin, predatory grin split her lips.

"Let's crack on then, eh?" she said, stopping suddenly and turning toward her momentary companion. "Be a shame if we were late and ye'd have nothing to hurt."

Maeve grabbed the back of the woman's jacket and haled her up over her shoulder as if the woman weighed nothing at all. Vic sat atop her, hand gripping the woman's hat, stunned and blinking with a mildly perterbed expression. "... What the he-" Maeve broke into a sprint toward the beach, bits of blacktop and gravel flying up behind her. Her cloak behind her like a hurricane as she counted down the distance from the beach. One kilometer. Two thirds. Half. Stalled cars and buildings with shattered windows flew past in an instant, and then the ground beneath her feet shattered into a crater as she launched herself into the air.

The two of them flew in a tall arc over the Atlas City boardwalk and first stretches of seaside real estate. "Clench your teeth," she instructed at the top of their dive. Vic's hanging jaw snapped shut. Gravity pulled the two of them back down like a meteor, splattering one of many monsters crawling up from the water's edge under Maeve's massive boots and sending a storm cloud of sand and viscera exploding up around them, filling the air with a second fog entirely unlike the green mist extruded from the massive beast and knocking the hat off her head. Maeve skidded several yards after impact before finally coming to a halt, a sparse handful of meters from the edge of the monster's noxious cloud.

Maeve set the woman down gently behind her, then patted her lightly on the back. "We have arrived safely at your destination," she said, mimicking the crisp intonation of an airline pilot, pulling the end of a long tube out from the bottom of her back-mounted chemical tank and affixing it to the back of her cannon. "Thank ye for flying Air Fomóraigh. Air Shapeless? Whatever, I'm gonna go have fun."

Vic swayed on her feet, hair in complete disarray. She turned her head slowly to Maeve, nodded with the pretense that she knew what that string of words meant, then jerked her head the other way, cracking her neck. Her joints popped and crackled like crinkling plastic as she stretched out her arms.

"Right. Yeah, OK - that was gnarly," she interrupted herself to compliment, then looked up at the big gas cloud and the towering creature beyond it. "Me too."

March 12th, 2045, 9:40am: Atlas City, North Carolina, USA

Day 2

Albert's comms crackled to life as a reply came through. "HQ here Albert. Not certain on that ETA yet, government is supposed to be filling us in on that soon. Sounds like the weapon is some sort of canon, or artillery, not sure. They're going to level the residential area close to the beach, they want civvies moved to the West as much as possible to avoid any collateral."



As Vicki and Maeve arrived on scene to help defeat the Beast of Decay, close to a dozen of its offspring rushed up onto the beach, with 3 targeting Maeve, 2 targeting Vicki, and the remaining others charged towards where Yue, Jericho, and Alex were operating. The sand behind these creatures darkened, as patches of dark mold grew.



And explosion of noise erupted from the entrance of one of the roads leading to the beach, as several of the Beast's offspring were torn to shreds, some bursting into bits of flame. The massive .50 caliber machine gun Richard had was making quick work of the offspring, but this was little more than a temporary measure. The man in tweed too had fired off shots, taking out two more of the dark beasts before needing to reload.

Down another adjacent street, explosions could be heard as offspring got blasted into gory, misty messes. Richard and the man in tweed looked over to see Man-Hawk working to keep his own street cleared of monsters, and allowing more innocents to escape.



Three more offspring landed around Man-Hawk, heavy, wet breathing audible all around him as they all lashed out with their veins, and malformed, claw equipped arms. So far he was managing to dodge the attacks, but another distraction had cropped up, now bursting from... His coms? His phone?

The sound was blaring from phones, radios, TVs, and everything else across the city.



Across the city, supers and humans alike, both heroes, villains, and average folk, got the startling, hopeless tone of a National Emergency Alert coming through on whatever speakers were close by. Even the heroes on the beach, the NAHLA heroes, ACHI, and SINS were getting the same message.

"This message is being transmitted at the request of the United States Government. This is not a test. An existential threat against the United States of America has appeared on the coast of Atlas City, North Carolina. The United States Government has commenced preparations for a counter offensive against the threat. A forward assault base will be established in the residential area of Atlas City closest to beach front. All homes and buildings in this area will be demolished in 20 minutes to create space for this counter offensive. Please evacuate the area immediately and retreat to safe zones set up by emergency and government services, as well as hero organizations. Safe Zones will be located in the following locations."

The message continued by listing various locations across the city to be retreated to. 20 minutes. The city had 20 minutes to ensure all living civilians were out of the front line before the military did whatever it was they had planned.

Vic looked over her shoulder, and swung out her arm, waving away the creatures borne from the dark one's vomit. An unseen wave knocked those slimy, lumpy corn kernels off their feet and hurtling back.

"Be a champ and watch them," she said to her current companion, whose mention of her terrorist organization affiliations was pushed alllllll the way back in Vic's head. Vic gestured back at the grotesque soon-to-be-orphans with a nod, then turned back to the beach and began to walk into the green gas.

Well, except she didn't.

As Vic walked out towards the water, the green clouds before her billowed out, back towards the creature and rolled across the ocean, clearing the majority of the beach and unveiling the scattered rotting husks it concealed. Vic didn't look, but the simple blur of them in her peripherals was raking at her heart. Her eyes fluttered between open and shut as they rolled up, towards the sky... where clouds were gathering. She could see the giant man through her flitting eyelashes, hear the fist connect, the explosions going off... and amidst that, a barely audible whistle of wind surging high up in the atmosphere.

Her head was a mess. Searching through every molecule around her for water vapor, feeling sick from the unnatural gas that felt as if it was even infecting the air. After a while of her brain darting around her skull like a pinball machine, her thoughts were moving so fast, she couldn't register them. The clouds swirled above the beach, growing darker. She could feel the friction. Her hairs floated up, her particles lifted from her back. The charge built from above until -

CRACK-BOOOM.

Vic shouted as lighting shot down from the sky in a blinding arc, completely missing its target and hitting the beach, spraying sand into the sky. Vic's ears flat-lined. The only thing she could hear was that monotonous, un-ending ringing. Vic may have created this storm... but she didn't control it. It was pissed off, directionless and lashing out. Just like her! She took in a shuddering breath, struggling to hold back the mist and keep generating the storm. Then came the next flash.

This one, striking down like a viper, directly atop the beast.

Manhawk's wrist-mounted gatling gun shot off into the monster's thralls. Their spiked, flaky, rotten bodies blasted away in chunks- and liquid gushed out of their forms when they were shot. Suddenly a large thrall crawled forward, sending a spider leg down at Manhawk like a spear. Manhawk leapt to his side and aimed his gauntlet up at the creature. A grenade launched forward, smashing into it's flaky shape, and exploding. The legs of the creature fell off as it's burning central carcass fell to the street.

Manhawk rose to see the civilians fleeing around him. He turned to the beach: the soon to be bombed zone. More supers had arrived, though few he recognized. He didn't mind though. Beggars could not be choosers.

Manhawk leapt into the air, flying over the concrete divide between the street and the beach, and landed with a thud on the sand beside the gold and white form of the alchemist. "Liz Baker!" He shouted in jerseyish, a large smile on his face. This was one super Manhawk did recognize, hell the Alchemist was one of his heroes.

Out over the water a floating Titan appeared to confront the Boss Slime. Manhawk gritted his teeth as lightning came down on the creature. He turned down the beach and viewed a grouping of others fighting. With a grunt he flapped his wings and began to raise into the air. "Ey', we gotta get that fog out of the way, it burns ya'!" Manhawk called out to the supers as he hovered above the beach. "Then we can hit it where it hurts!"

Jericho jolted away from the man that they were reaching for, their voice having been repeating calmly, “Do not panic, I am not here to harm you. You must leave… and similar statements. Most listened, those who didn’t received a most terrifying snarl in their faces to really get them going on their way. Others were gently nudged, and yet more were gently lifted up and leaning on Jericho’s flanks and shoulders as the shapeshifter ferried civilians off the beach.

It was the noise of cracking flesh that caught their attention first, so solely focused on ‘rescue’ that they didn’t really… hear the abrupt change to the very energy of the battlefield, if it could be called that. But they did feel it, this bone deep sensation of electrical anticipation. Alex was working with the lightning woman, someone that Jericho still thought was familiar to them, when the Decay began … moving.

Chunks of it fell, and when the monsters rose up, Jericho’s mind shifted and clicked. They watched a super with a cowboy hat turn and flick his wrists, watched as gold-green flames sparked up and wholly consumed one of the ‘minions’.
They watched as ‘heads’ exploded and burnt away, as some civilians were decayed and preyed upon…
They watched for a long time.

And felt, oddly, a pang of fury? Anger? Wrath? … An emotion so wreathed in a burst of aggression, that they didn’t think before moving.
A furious shriek leapt from their maw, their form shrinking down, and down, until they were but a ‘human male’. Just barely two meters tall. Their mouth was wide open, and removed were the teeth and tongue, the eyes in the face were eight in total. From them came the howling sound of some great beast heaving air inwards. They felt their arms lengthening, stretching down to their thighs… and their torso bulking up with muscle upon muscle, upon muscle. Their shoulders swelled with meat, more muscle and tendons… and they felt their bones changing.

There was a brief moment of silence from the shapeshifter, where they stood still and silent before they abruptly SNAPPED! their torso in a spin that shattered and displaced many a bone and joint, respectively. Their long arms were slung forward, whipping through the air with a speed that moved the limbs faster than a human blink.

A horrific crack echoed through the chaotic beach front, and a minion that otherwise would have had itself another victim… Instead had a dense, spiky ball of bone and metal rip through its ‘head’ and down its ‘back’. The ‘ball’ slammed into another abomination, and sent the thing skidding as yet another ‘ball’ went flying through the air and slamming into yet another minion. A riotous scream ripped across the distance, deafened by the abrupt crack and thunderous boom of the super speedy woman moving faster than sight, and then a secondary crack as lightning crashed from the sky.

Jericho caught the scent of the red-haired woman. Along with the sight of an Amazonian super, who briefly frightened them. They could feel the malice and shark-like determination that the tall super gave off. It was awful… and awesome to behold.
Another spike-ball was slung forth, and a hobbling abomination fell as Jericho let out yet another screeching call, this one filled with the sort of righteous fury that would have put a Witchfinder to shame.

They could see out of their periphery, Alex quickly escorting the previously speedy woman away. She looked injured, and appeared to be just partially conscious… But they had no time to lose focus. Once more did they send a spike-ball rocketing outward. Once more did they swarm their ‘broken’ body with ink and repair themselves for yet another throw. Hate-fueled and furious, for reasons they simply couldn’t understand, they let their limbs whip forth again, though a trio of sickle blades whipped through the air and made short work of yet another minion.

How long can I do this for…? I don’t have enough mass… I need food. But I can’t eat these things, can I? Alex said no… hm.
The thoughts arose unbidden, and unwanted, but acknowledged nonetheless. They needed more mass, and soon. The feeling of losing mass to the projectiles was nearly overwhelmingly agonizing.

But they pushed on, another scream of agonized fury pushing out of them as they felt the spike balls and sickle-blades flash through the air.
To the outside eye, Jericho’s limbs were hardly ever out of motion, and their hips and shoulders were obscured by blurring ink, their ‘hands’ were swirling with ink as well, constantly forming blades, and balls, and eventually disks. They were thrown with a precision that was almost otherworldly, and the noises that accompanied their source certainly were.

But the feeling of being ‘tapped out’ was on the horizon, creeping forward ever slowly. And there were many more targets to hinder or disable.

“Fuck.”

Maeve was quick to throw herself into the melee, striding deep into the oncoming swarm of ugly beasts. She fired her cannon at a bulbous, spider-legged thing as it lunged toward her, only for it to fall back as a packet of Kiran’s special alkaline formula encased in a field of plasma exploded against its face, causing it to shriek in the closest thing it could experience to agony as its flesh withered away.

She targeted the monsters seemingly at random, without discrimination for distance, wielding the chemical launcher in one hand as she rotated slowly in a circle, leaving the sand strewn with the screeching, smoking remains of her targets. The concoction loaded in her tank released incendiary fumes as it ate away at its victims, which burst violently alight as a small humanoid figure wreathed in flames shot across the beach like an asteroid, igniting several of the creatures along with the bubbling chemical steam. The entire beach around Maeve exploded into flame, reducing many more of the beasts to burning viscera and eating away at the black moss which grew in their wake.

Maeve stood within the flames and sonic booms and lightning, completely within her element. This rage of violence and destruction was like a song to her, and she gave herself to its music willingly. ”Your bleach works,” she said into her earpiece, disconnecting the feeding tube as the tank ran dry.

Maeve strode through the intermixing walls of red and green fire, toward the water’s edge. She flipped the cannon end-over-end and caught it by the barrel, then used it as a hammer to bat away another of the creatures as it crawled up from the sea, cleaving the top of it away from the rest of its body. She brought it down on another that had some sort of dead tree growing out of it, then planted one giant boot on the closest thing it had to a back and forced it into the sand, wrapping her fingers around the bleached white bark of its growth and ripping, drawing an unholy shriek from somewhere deep inside it as the tree came away with a chunk of the creature’s foul flesh. It shuddered violently, then fell still, and Maeve left it.

She dual-wielded the cannon and tree against the fiends, wading out into the surf, toward the very edge of the rotting green mist, sending flesh and polluted salt spray flying out in every direction as she had her fun with the creatures. The tree branch snapped in half at one point, and she plunged its jagged point through the top of one beast before chucking her cannon at another, ripping straight through its body as it leapt at her only to come to a rest floating limply in the waves.

Steam rose off her suit where the monsters’ blood and acid spit ate away at the kevlar, mixing with an unnatural, acrid black smoke as it made contact with her skin. She paid no heed to it, far too interested in continuing her train of carnage. Her hands were bare now, bone showing through her knuckles. A creature with a maw like a shark lunged at her, and she forced her arm down its throat, using it as leverage as her left hand clamped down on its lower jaw and tore the entire creature in half along its full length. Her right arm came away as raw bone dripping the thick, black bile of her blood.

She continued on with one arm, needing more. More. More! MORE!!

Maeve was surrounded, dozens of the great beast’s spawn abandoning their march up the beach and turning on her. She stood amidst the filthy waves, gazing around at them all, covered in viscera and nearly naked, the closest thing she could get to a smile on her face. They rushed her as one, and she disappeared beneath the swarm.

Manhawk smashed into a rising sludge creature on the beach. It exploded beneath his iron boots and he rose to stare out at the Irish giant, who'd marched forward to confront the creature. "She's outta her' goddamn mind! It'll burn her skin righ' off 'er!"

He began to run forward to try and save her, leaping into the air and taking flight over the water...

"Come back, we need to regroup!" Manhawk called out to Maeve as he began to fly toward her. "We're superhero-"

Before he could finish his words he was struck from the sky. Lightning blasted through the man's body, and his suit short-circuited. His eyes closed and he drifted off into a land of senseless. For a moment, he was free-gliding, over the choppy waves across Atlas City, going lower and lower until at last his body collided with the waters. It flung him up on impact before submerging him again, deep beneath the waves.

Manhawk awoke to the sensation of water rushing into his lungs. His eyes snapped open and he began to struggle in the water. Parts of his skin were burning, the fog from the creature brushing against his form as he tried to swim to the surface. With a gasp he emerged only to see before him the true size of the beast before him. Bigger than a skyscrapper. Manhawk looked up at the beast, treading water as his skin burnt, before turning and beginning to swim away rapidly. His arms began to flap, the metal shelling breaking off and revealing the flesh-coloured wings underneath. With a grunt the injured Manhawk escaped the water, beginning to fly back toward the beach. The creature let out a roar and a mantis-arm like appendage swiped at Manhawk, colliding with him in the air.

Manhawk screamed but continued to fly on course. He glided above Maeve before smashing onto the beach, the sand building up to his knees as he came to a stop in front of Vicki. Manhawk looked up at Vicki for a moment, his mouth spouting blood as he tried to speak. And then his torso slowly began to slide off the rest of his body. Manhawk's fell to two from the creature's slice, right before Vicki's eyes. A pool of blood consumed her feet.

A pulse radiated down on Vic from above, making the air feel charged and the hair on her arms stand on end.

"Ionic... BURST!" A voice shouted, and a jet stream of air slammed into the beach around Vic, blasting outward and pushing the mist back out to sea. The air only tousled Vic's hair from where she was standing, but the sheer force of it was sending creatures tumbling away like loose grass clippings. A muscular figure in blue and white tights made a dramatic three point landing in front of her.

He held up his hands and the charge in the air began to build up intensely until Vic's hair was literally standing on end. Just when it seemed like he might erupt, hundreds of bolts of lightning coiled out of the storm and struck him, flashing the sand at his feet into glass. The hero leapt back into the air, flying up to... he guessed it was eye level with the creature as the lightning chased him.

"Did somebody order... Crowd control?!"

"Ugh. Save the showboating for your live stream, Ion," Sairyn chided over the radio. All at once the lightning stopped, and there was a dramatic pause indicating that he was indeed not done showboating before hundreds of tendrils of lightning exploded from his hands and raked the beach. The lightning stretched across nearly the entire beachfront, seeking out creatures in the open and turning them into charred husks. The bolts curved unnaturally around the other heroes on the beach, as if repelled by their bodies, allowing them to move freely through the storm.

"Always have to look good for the fans, Sai-Guy," he replied, with a huge grin on his masked face.

Maeve found herself on an empty street in Derry. It was one she knew intimately. The fading summer light cast long shadows across the pavement, and the muggy evening air sang with insects. A breeze played with her dark hair and the hem of her school uniform, and as she looked around she was relieved to find there was nothing of note here. Until she looked up, and saw that what should have been a pale orange sky was an inky, pitch black. The black of oil. The black of her thick, foul blood.

----

The water churned and crashed over the mob of beastspawn as the creatures clambered over one another, scrabbling for a piece of the super who had waded out into the sea to play with them. The sea was thick with the viscera of their cohorts, splashing chunks of rotten flesh onto the beach and their still living - for a given definition of living - counterparts.

A number of their ilk turned and began the march up the shoreline, abandoning the dogpile in the surf. A number of other supers still held the line up on the sand, countless more prey hiding behind them. They would make for better sport. They did not notice the ripples growing in the water behind them, splashing at their retreating limbs or the faces of yet more of their kind emerging from further in the depths.

The creatures were suddenly thrown in all direction as a great, skeletal tail lashed out from beneath the waves, scattering their kind to and fro. Two massive arms lifted itself up as yet more of its frame started to form, the muscle and sinew spreading over it quickly outpacing the rotting mist which tried to eat away at the form. Great, black scales sprouted from the muscle, joined by two vast leathery wings whose girth spanned the entirety of the fog cloud from end to end. A massive head with four forward-curving horns and teeth the length of a man’s arm rose into the sky, above the top of the beast’s unholy mist, hateful red eyes staring at the entity’s massive, shapeless form for a brief moment as if judging an adversary, ignoring the smaller creatures which attempted to claw at its immovable armored hide.

Then it roared, loud enough to shake the earth and rupture the forms of those vile beastlings nearest to it, an explosion of sound like a cannon to the chest which was both a challenge and a wrathful accusation. Its great wings rose up and then beat back down, lifting the dragon into the air and blasting the beast of decay’s mist into nothingness beneath it. As its wings rose back up for the second beat, the great displacement of air sucked dozens of the creature’s spawn up in their wake, scattering them over the land and sea alike when the serpent ascended skyward, its massive form tearing a hole through the storm cover.

The dragon turned over end and dove back toward the city, banking back toward the beach as it got low. Its tail tore through the side of several buildings, sending rubble crashing to the streets below as it charged headlong toward the great monster from the deep.

March 12th, 2045, 9:50am: Atlas City, North Carolina, USA

Day 2

A fist slamming. Lighting crackling. Extensions of itself being destroyed by the ants that scurried around before it. And now a beast of the skies, a dragon, heading headlong towards the Beast of Decay in pure defiance.

The time to find these things tiresome had passed. If this creature could feel rage, now was certainly the time it would feel it.

As Maeve drew closer, speed picking up, two clusters of veins burst from the beach, shooting up into the air with incredible speed, right into the path of each of the dragon’s wings. The two collided before anything else could be done, and in the briefest of moments, the great flying beast was brought crashing into the beach, a cascade of sand bursting into the air on impact.

Following this, two more clusters of veins sprouted from the creatures back, reaching far into the air, and colliding down into the beach, digging deep into the sand. Anchoring the creature. The veins tensed up as it began a slow, but steady crawl through the shallow waters, inching its way along until it finally planted a monstrous looking appendage upon the dry sands of the beach for the first time.

It would no longer be confined to the waters.

And in consideration of that, of the defiant confinement these insects tried to command against the Beast of Decay, it responded in kind. Its body constricted, tightened and pulled in on itself, causing more chunks of its abominable offspring to pour forth from its body, a number equal to those that the heroes had already fought, and growing larger by the second.



An explosion went off at Maeve’s wing, a corrosive chemical substance latching onto and eating away at the veins trying to bind her down.

Maxwell Landon, or in this moment The Shape, stood at the boardwalk on the edge of the beach, near one of the roads that would lead back into the city. His mask was like a mirror, covering his entire head in a gleaming, reflective surface, and his suit was finely tailored and black, with a navy blue dress shirt and black tie to accompany. Around him, or close by, were several dozen men in black suits as well, all finely tailored to their shapes, and wearing masks of their own unique creations.

“Keep up the work with those chemicals gentlemen, can’t have our winged associate being held down by this thing.” He smiled softly as several of his men fired off more explosive and chemical filled rounds at the veins, slowly eating away at it as they attempted to free Maeve. Others had been hard at work trying to get the streets cleared, or moving other straggling survivors further away and towards the emergency response areas.

The Shape rose a hand at some of the offspring of the Beast that got close, and after a few moments of confusion, several turned and started attacking their brethren. Some, however, seemed to shake off whatever strangeness was affecting the others. Maxwell furrowed his brow. “Some of them are… Resisting? They might be more intelligent than I presumed. Or stronger.”

Behind him the streets grew to be noisier, as those who’d been fighting at the front lines finally received the support they’d been waiting far too long for. Heroes from NAHLA, ACHI, and a myriad of other hero groups (both private and government operated) came to join the fray. Even some villains had decided to set aside their usual troublesome antics to come and fight the mutual enemy of all Atlasians.

The cavalry had arrived, and looking overhead, jaws would drop in awe as they witnessed just who was being sent in to save the day. Leading the charge: Lone Star and Captain Valor, two of the most powerful supers in America. Both had superhuman strength, speed, the ability to fly, and were nearly invulnerable to all forms of damage. America’s supermen.

It was hard to say who was the stronger of the two, but there was a constant rivalry to prove it between them, though they were a deadly effective team together. They both connected to the boardwalk with a terrific crash, shattering the pavement underneath them and sending out a small shock wave around. Cheers could be heard from around as they gazed up at the hulking monster before them.

Valor turned to look to the crowds, and to those on the beach. “Attention everyone:” his voice boomed dramatically. “This area is about to become ground zero for the response to this monster. You all need to evacuate the beach immediately. Those of you who wish to continue fighting, join us here on the boardwalk. We’re to set up a frontline here until Uncle Sam is able to arrive with the means to kill this thing completely. Those of you who cannot fight, please head to the emergency centers, your help will be needed there.” As he finished speaking, other supers rushed up to the boardwalk to join in the defensive, others helped quickly clear the beach of survivors, and those still on the beach began to make there way around, either to the boardwalk, or out of the way so the fight could continue in earnest.

The Shape signaled his men to move up to the boardwalk to provide support, but also to keep working on freeing Maeve. The veins were nearly totally disintegrated, so she’d be free in a moment. Maxwell pulled out his phone to try to check for updates, only to notice that there was no service. No service, no data, no wifi connections, nothing. And a few others could be heard making the same remarks. The government had cut off all forms of communication in the city, likely outside of what the military and NAHLA had, which was undoubtedly being heavily monitored anyways. They clearly wanted to keep whatever this was under wraps now.

Having looked over a little ways away, The Shape finally noticed another familiar face had joined them all. Liz Baker.

She had caught a glimpse of him, out of the corner of her eye, just in time to watch him give a little wave. Seemed everyone was turning out for this.



Peter watched as the Beast fought back against the heroes assailing it. They made a valiant effort to be sure, and might even win in the end, but he frankly had little hope beyond that for them. This whole thing had been a disaster. A stress test that had already put a clean slice right down the middle of the foundation of American National Security. Maybe even global security. He let out a breath of cigarette smoke, watching it billow against the glass of the office building, a small smirk on his face.

“The warm sun is falling, the bleak wind is wailing, the bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying. And the Year on the earth is her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead, is lying.”

He stepped away from the glass, and exited from the offices.



Outside the last SINS van sat ready to go, Nina having already hopped in as they waited for Peter. He stepped outside, enjoying the fresh air that filled his lungs. Before he could join his subordinates in the van, he noticed someone slumped over in the alleyway. With an effortless, emotionless swish of his hand, he was holding a pistol, walking over to the body. They still seemed to be alive, but dressed as what seemed like a Witchfinder General. The gun hung casually in his hand as he looked the person over.

His face was empty of any signs of emotion or intent. He looked at the unconscious man in a bizarre, apathetic way, in a way that could truthfully only be compared to one looking at a fast food menu as they tried to make a decision. Finally in the end… He simply shrugged, and returned his pistol to its holster. “Maybe some other time.” He muttered absently as he began to walk up to the van. He opened the sliding door open to see Nina inside, as well as a great deal of equipment taking up room. Without saying anything he simply picked things up and moved them around till a seat was free for him again, and he closed the door.

“Friend of yours Nina?” He asked with a strange, almost sinister grin. There was something to the way he smiled sometimes that was hard to place…



An ear piercing booming had been ringing off for several minutes now, Richard having and the man in tweed having mounted their own defensive strategy in keeping this street offspring free. He’d had little trouble tearing the offspring apart with Hrunting, but it appeared more were coming as the Beast of Decay continued to be fought with. The damage it sustained only seemed to encourage it to produce more miniature monsters.

The man in tweed buckled at one point, falling over onto a car next to them, a thin trickle of blood working its way down the corner of his mouth. His leg was far worse though, and Richard could see it wouldn’t be long before bone was showing. “This isn’t sustainable. We need help to destroy this thing! All these people… All these strange powers… And yet nothing seems to be doing anything to it.”

Before Richard could respond, he heard the orders of Captain Valor being barked out, sending a small sense of relief through him. ”Cavalry’s here, let’s get to the front line.” Richard began to run back over to his car, signaling to the man in tweed to join him.

He simply shook his head and placed the butt of his shotgun on the ground, deciding to use it as a crutch as he hobbled towards the beach. “I’ll walk. It’s for your own good.” he called out.

Richard drove slowly next to the man in tweed to ensure he was safe, but once they found a good vantage point along the boardwalk, he backed up the SUV and dropped the tailgate. He gazed out at the battle on the beach as heroes quickly fell back to the boardwalk, their new line in the sand. Though he couldn’t be sure, he was feeling like he recognized several of the people out there. Was Sasha there too? Rather than simply hoping so, he quickly sent out a text to him, and to everyone else he had as a contact.

At the boardwalk. Guess this is where we hold the line.



As Sairyn continued his work on top of NAHLA HQ, he had not noticed a brief flash of light from behind him. By the time he took another look up and out at the ocean, towards the Beast of Decay, he noticed a light mist of steam passing by his head out of his peripheral vision. Then he felt a hand clasp on his shoulder.

Once he’d managed to spin around to face the intruder, he was met by the smug smirk of a man who knew something Sairyn didn’t. Yet. But it was also the grin of a man who was in charge, or rather was taking charge. “You must be Sairyn. Pleasure to finally meet you. Colonel Van Graft, United States Military. I’m sure you can guess what I’m doing here.” He placed something in Sairyn’s hands as he walked over to the railing, looking out to the ocean. A paper cup of coffee was now in Sairyn’s grip.

A woman followed behind the Colonel, dressed in military fatigues herself, but wearing a mask to hide her identity. A teleporter. “I’m here to oversee that the city is saved. Which is to say, we’re sitting back here safe and sound while our big toy evaporates whatever that thing is. Speaking of, you got any theories there Mr. Pendrake?”



The Beast of Decay's body stilled for a moment, it's form taught and strained. It remained this way for a few moments, perhaps a minute.

And then, an explosive, concussive blast of air erupted out of it, and a thick cloud of black and green mist launched into the air. Some of it floated gingerly through the air, slowly falling towards the ground. But some of the mist... Was homing in towards the boardwalk. It was flying towards the heroes.

The mist wasn't just a gas or fungi, now it was filled with millions of tiny, corrosive, flying parasites.

After a good bit of sprinting and the occasional barrier bounce to vault over abandoned vehicles, Alex finally found one of the sites that had emergency services tending to civilians and doing their best to ferry them further into the city. Alex hadn’t gone at his top speed for “Luna’s” sake. He looked down at the heroine. She hadn’t given much protest during the trip other then a grunt here or there from being jostled too much. ” Gomen-nasai. Tried to make the trip as smooth as I could, here’s where we part ways though.”

It took a second to spot one of the paramedic teams that wasn’t completely swamped. His thundering steps came to a halt nearly two feet in front of a suddenly startled trio of medical professionals. Alex took no time getting their focus. ”Got a tapped out hero here and I need to head back towards the beach. Can you tend to her?”
Roughly three seconds passed before the three went into action. Two grabbing their supplies while the third wheeled over a stretcher. Alex set Luna down as carefully as he could and took a step back to let the medics do their thing. The oldest one of the three, a sort of gruff looking African American woman getting on in her years gave a nod to the blue armored hero. ”We’ll take it from here, get back out there and give that thing hell for the rest of us. Alex gave a two fingered salute before taking off back towards the boardwalk. Luna was in good hands now and he didn’t have precious cargo to worry about now. A headlight pillar jetted out at an angle form under him, and once again he was rocketing through the air.

---

---

Alex had arrived at the boardwalk a tad dizzy from his own speed just in time to hear the speech given from Captain Valor. He looked around and couldn’t help feel a bit intimidated for a moment at all the big name hero’s and villains present and-was that a god damn dragon??! So we have roughly two kaiju present and most of the entire cities super population wailing on this monster and it was still alive somehow? The thought made Alex clench his fists and shudder. What even was this thing? More importantly, what could he do to something that big if all of this wasn’t even slowing it down much?

That was about the time the beast of Decay decided to let loose another cloud of death into the air. More of that damn mist, and a lot of it was falling towards all of the supers fast. How were they even going to- wait a minute. Alex nearly slapped himself. He could do something about THIS if not the beast itself. ”We can’t let that gas touch anything!” he yelled out as loud as he could before throwing his arms out towards the billowing death cloud. Alex’s entire body was glowing now as wall after wall of hardlight manifested to meet the cloud, each only about 2 inches thick. The sheets quickly founded themselves around massive chucks of the cloud and began to isolate it in large bubbles. Alex kept his focus towards the cloud and continues to manifest field after field to contain as much of the cloud as possible until the words most deadly collection of bubbles in all sorts of sizes hung high above the beach and boardwalk. There was still so much left of the cloud left falling past everything he had just held back. He grit his teeth as images of people melting alive flashed through his head and horrible screaming rang in his ears. ”Damnit! I can’t hold it all back! He was making a good attempt to contain the cloud, but trapping that much of a gaseous substance was proving too difficult.

Vic was sprawled across the sand, her wispy frame blown over by the powerful beats of a dragon's wings. Her ears rang as she curled back up, squinting over as the dragon confronted the rot mountain. A dragon and a giant. This was becoming more of a Greek odyssey by the second. She managed to crawl to her knees as the battle raged on, and she heard Valor's booming instructions. And did not once for a moment consider following them.

Her fists clenched the sand, which seeped between her fingers, which was a fitting representation of how much control she held over this situation. The gas was being held back by another and the storm was somehow even more out of her hands - and it hadn't hurt it. It hadn't done anything. Except for kill a hero.

"-amnit! I can’t hold it all back!"

Vic lifted her weary head to take in the threat. The creature's abominations shambled towards her and green gas weaved between holographic blue bubbles, hurtling down towards the gathering on the boardwalk. She tossed a little look over her shoulder towards the shouts, took in their numbers, and muttered a little bitter, "Fine."

Two hundred mph winds burst into being along the beach, forming before the boardwalk and parting for Vic, whipping her hair into a frenzy. Sand was ripped up from the ground and bit into the bodies of the abominations she slowed and blew back. The gas stood no chance, being blown away along with anything (or anyone) else in the way. Pressure slammed into Macroman and Maeve. The winds grew stronger, struggling to give the beast something to contest against. Vic hunkered down and glared at the beast, narrowing her focus. Winds concentrated at the beast's center, the pressure building against at a small, meter-in-diameter focus point. Then she increased it. More. More! What was it going to take to hurt it?!

Bwoooom. Vic blasted through the other side. Her head went light, and a breath of relief passed her lips. The winds assaulting the beach carried on.

On the outskirts of the city, where the beach met concrete, a gigantic dump truck rolled into the scene. Its yellow hull was blackened with grime and grease, its labels long faded into patchy, barely legible gibberish. Upon its bed were crates upon crates upon crates, stacked and pressed together, olive green with telltale warning labels. 'DANGER.' 'MILITARY GRADE EXPLOSIVES.' 'NOT FOR CIVILIAN USE'.

Tiny orange specks came to rest around the hull of the truck, like embers nestling in a furnace. They glided and floated from the window, where a pair of crimson goggles glowed in the shade. A leather-gloved hand pressed a button on the radio.

"This is Pyromancer. I'm in position," a voice announced. Masculine, rough and raspy, muffled through the filters of his gas mask. His hand balled into a fist, then slammed into the radio. Glass and plastic shattered. Electricity sputtered. No evidence will be left behind.

Pyromancer stomped on the pedal. The truck's engines kicked into high gear. Smoke sputtered from the exhaust. And where there was smoke, there was fire, blasting out of the pipe and bringing the truck faster and louder than it was built for. Sand scattered into the wind under heavy offroad tires. Ahead, three colossal beings clashed under the grey skies. An eldritch beast, a titan made of stars, and Pyromancer's comrade, Maeve, or Lig-na-Paiste - the last serpent of Ireland, nearly freed from her binds.

The embers hovering around the truck multiplied fivefold. As the truck rolled closer and closer, Pyromancer felt the gusts of wind raging in the vicinity, too strong to be natural. The sand tossed and scattered against his window, and to his right, he saw a multitude of figures on the boardwalk. Supers. No doubt one of them was handling this wind. He bowed his head, light glinting across his goggles.

Perfect.

Pyromancer rode the truck into the wind. Several tonnes of iron floated upwards, as light and easy as a feather. Embers converged underneath his truck, away from the explosives. He kicked the door off its hinge and dived.

He brought his thumb and index finger together, and snapped.

Boom!

The truck flipped up high, once, twice, over and over, launched by fire and propelled by the wind - straight towards the Beast of Decay's face. The impact ignited the explosives in an instant. Flames roiled and shrapnel mangled the Beast. Pyromancer rolled across the sand, then recovered into a three-point landing. He directed his gaze towards the beach, where one of the supers, a redheaded twig of a person, was stuck staring and being enveloped by its… strange mass.

Pyromancer straightened to a stand... only to stumble, then roll across the sand. He let out a garbled curse. This wind aided him, but it was a double-edged sword. A two hundred miles per hour death typhoon. He rolled and rolled, his midnight blue suit turned beige with layers of thick sand, until he let out a furious bellow, and blasted streams of flames from his palms. The fire burnt bright against the cold winds, melting the sand into patches of white-hot glass. Pyromancer flipped to his feet and steadied himself. He bent his knees into a crouch, keeping his centre of gravity low. He did not think this through.

Even with the flames holding his ground, the wind was too strong. His boots dug into the sand, pushing him further and further. He wouldn't last long like this.

It continued to be a day of surprises. Chief among them, a Dragon?! One around his size, if not bigger. It pelted the Beast with a mystic flame, more violent than hellfire! Macroman assumed it was either summoned or shifted into by one of the many heroes present before monster. Perhaps the dragon would deliver enough force to break through the creature's nigh-instantaneously rejuvenating gelatinous hide! There were many other heroes fighting this beast as well on Atlas City's sandy shores, but he recognized sparse few. The one's he did transcended fame, such as The Alchemist. He'd thought she'd retired. Lone Star, no longer the loner it seemed and Captain Valor, leading the front lines as he would the troops in NAHLA.

But it wasn't the two chief heroes of America's presence that surprised him the most, but what they said;

This area is about to become ground zero for the response to this monster. You all need to evacuate the beach immediately. Those of you who wish to continue fighting, join us here on the boardwalk. We’re to set up a frontline here until Uncle Sam is able to arrive with the means to kill this thing completely.

A ground zero response?! What could that even mean? What could the military have for this Beast's that the greatest heroes in the country couldn't hope to stop? Macroman followed the others to the boardwalk, watching another super enact encase a part of the Beast's swarm of mist that descended towards the heroes.

He thought to all that had transpired before this moment. What was used against the beast thus far. What it's defenses were. There were once immortals that walked the stars and the planets inbetween. Servants of the Old gods and the New. But even they could fall. Evil always would.

"We need the wind!" he spoke, so all the heroes below him could hear, cosmic soundwaves, allowing him to speak without bursting the eardrums of the heroes of smaller stature. He didn't speak much in this form, but it seemed necessary in this case. "The wind to funnel the mist and the Alchemist to snare it! To keep it away from us and back towards the beast!"

Macroman had a plan...one he wasn't sure would work, but better that than waiting for the military to decimate half the city. And with another salvo in the form of an exploding truck being launched at the Beast, perhaps there was an opening.

Sasha strode up the beach towards the other heroes, unconcerned by the strong winds as his feet left heavy dents in the sand. As he traversed the treacherous shore, his arms flashed, striking the encroaching offspring of the Decayer with a flurry of strikes that gave the heroes a brief moment of reprieve.

"Interesting morning, yes?" Sasha chuckled, his fists still glowing white hot. "Whatever you're planning, I suggest we do it quickly."

***

"SHIT," Albert snapped as the cloud burst above the sky. Shoving the plane outwards, Albert managed to avoid the oncoming burst. Forcing his plane higher, Albert looked down on the massive beast and clenched his fists. Things were getting more out of hand as things progressed. Albert's power was growing, but he still needed more time to gather enough to burn that much mass in a single shot.

As the beast rose from the ocean, Albert was struck with the sinking feeling he wasn't good enough to win this fight.

As the fighting progressed two of the US's greatest heroes joined the fray immediately rallying the heroes into a defensive line on the boardwalk and the monstrosity changed tactics to a more active one, it seemed like a good moment to press on. Devon was sure those heroes would have been properly briefed about what was going to be dropped upon the foe and what distance was appropriate for a defensive line, not to mention there seemed to be chaos nearing the boardwalk and he didn't have vision of it rendering him unable to help.

A plan surfaced trying to employ his newfound power to jump between the rooftops around him, it hadn't seemed like he was restricted to moving over the ground in his prior tests and triggering the power was becoming a bit more stable. Besides this was the perfect time to put the theory to the test, he was in his suit after all so even if he dropped from the roof to the ground it should matter that much. Taking a moment to ready himself mentally he took a deep breath before running to the edge and jumping, gravity took over and the sickening feeling of falling to ones death ran through his body as the smoke trails behind him grew and more of his body dissipated into the smoke. It had only been a second until his mind registered he was no longer falling, rather he felt more like he was floating. As his mind adjusted to this rather odd sensation the smoke began to move, consciously moving the smoke through the air was a rather odd sensation, it felt like whatever direction he focused his mind on his 'body' would move forward in that direction without his senses turning along into the direction as if his body had turned 90 degrees to the right without his head ever turning the slightest in that direction.

As much as he would have liked to explore these sensations and this power more, there simply wasn't any time, there was a giant sentient blob of acidic gelatin attacking the city after all. He turned his attention towards the boardwalk and moved in the direction staying near the rooftops while in his wispy new form afraid it might be undone at any moment. Though there were a few shaky moments where he could feel his form temporarily dissipating with no warning whatsoever, Devon managed to land himself on one of the rooftops adjacent to the boardwalk. From here he could easily see the monster and all he was spewing at the heroes on the boardwalk, the aggressive mist, the tendrils and it's minions. Also... Where did that dragon come from... Well at the very least it would be on their side for the moment seeing it was currently entangled in combat with the main body of the monster.

Devon slung the rifle onto his back and drew his pistols from the pockets within the trenchcoat, sheer firepower wouldn't solve this problem and that mist would be far safer to dispatch with cryogenics rather than turning it into a massive fireball with incendiary attacks, fuel air mixtures should never be underestimated after all. With the barriers and the wind managing to contain most of the mist Devon placed his attention on the clouds that managed to slip past these defenses and the tendrils that attempted to assail and entrap the heroes. Volleys of gunfire rung from the rooftop as clouds of mist turned into tiny crystals dropping to the ground among a mist of frozen compounds(mostly water and carbondioxide) sublimated out of the sky. As the foul green black crystals hit the ground and other few shots were fired at them until they were securely held under a thin layer of supercooled and partially liquefied air.

While he had been busy with the little bits that had escaped it seemed like a couple others had managed to create another temporary prison for the main quantity of the mist by trapping it in a massive spherical glass container consisting of some rather thick panes. If someone were to make a small hole and quickly patch it up after he reckoned the panes would be strong enough to survive the fireball that igniting all that mist would result in, but that would be a risky scenario if it went wrong lethal glass shards would be thrown everywhere so it would probably be best to not even suggest it to any of the others.