---

That was the first question to come out of the commanding mouth of the alien with the moth like antenna hair. Her eyes quickly scanned over the various tubes of liquid and gadgets that filled the lab to the brim. Every color of liquid, tubes, vials, and computers were all over the place to be used, including what appeared to be a random junk pile.

Monsternancy was a fairly...inexact science. It tried a lot on trial and error and had some, mystical elements to it which added to the random factor. Data, chemicals, lab grown flesh, a lot of power, and even a foundational piece were all part of the 'recipe' process of Monsternancy. Various combinations were mixed together for a wide range of results.

The lead scientist, a somewhat, grasshopperish looking individual in what appeared to be a white, hazmat suit with no helmet, quickly walked over to one of the tubes with a fully grown specimen inside, tapping on the outside. The creature inside stirred in response to the knock.



The scientist rubbed its hands together as if they were furiously washing their hands.









The alien female commander squinted their eyes as if they had a headache as the scientist explained their creation.









As the commander left the scientist gleefully rubbed their hands even faster, rather imitating the habits of a fly pondering their next flight path. With the push of a button the liquid was draining from the holding tube and the monster could be more easily seen.

It was a rather interesting monster, rather humanoid but with what appeared to be muscles made from metal rope, as if it had been made in a construction site. It was rather bulky, like a small gorilla and appeared to be wearing a welding helmet with very tinted lens. In one hand was a blank sign like one you might find on the side of the road.



As soon as the name was given, the 'glass' cracked and splintered into a thousand pieces as the monster burst forth from the tube.



One of the more unique side effects of monsternancy was the monsters tended to gain strange personalities as soon as they were activated, and Sign Master was no exception.





The Head Monsternancer wasn't so sure about that last example but monsters would be monsters. Soon enough, Sign Master was being shoved into the laser beam transporter and was being directed at Earth with enough power to smash through the barrier. It would be mere moments before the monster would appear as close to the source of the barrier as they could pinpoint from so far away.

---

The laser transporter broke through the invisible barrier and the Sign Master materialized on Earth, on a road just outside of a coastal city. The city was of moderate size, no metropolis to be sure but large enough to perhaps have a sizable tourism industry with its beautiful location. The area had lush vegetation further inland and nice, white beaches for the masses to enjoy.

The Sign Master looked down at a little wrist scanner that had been implanted during its germination stages. A little blip appeared further into the city but it was hard for it to get an exact lock on the barrier creation site. Sign Master shook its arm a bit but of course that didn't really help at all.



Suddenly a large blaring sound could be heard behind him and Sign Master turned to see a large semi-truck baring down on him at high speeds. Without a second thought his sign transformed into a 'Right Lane Closed' sign and he slammed it on the side of the road. As soon as the truck got closer it suddenly veered over into the other lane, straight into oncoming traffic. Sign Master laughed as the semi truck tried to correct course but for some reason was unable to get back into the other lane, even after passing the road sign and the monster. Vehicles quickly veered out of the way as the truck slammed the brakes as hard as possible.

Sign master started walking toward the city and when he got to the now halted semi, he stopped for a moment to glare at the pale driver.



Another sign materialized in Sign Master's hands, this one being a truck tipping over warning sign. Slamming the sign in the ground it then tilted it over so the truck in the sign was on the ground, and the truck itself quickly followed suit, and rolled over on its side blocking both lanes of traffic. With a big belly laugh, the Sign Master created another road sign, this one being a 75 mph sign. This one he held in his hands and started running down the road, instantly reaching 75 miles per hour.



As the monster rushed down the road the previous signs disappeared, their uses having been expired they returned to mere energy.

---

Warning klaxons blared and red emergency lights flashed on and off throughout an underground facility hidden beneath the peaceful Coral City. Dozens upon dozens of staff ran to and fro through the dull grey halls, some even stumbling over one another as they desperately tried to go to their respective posts during this emergency. Never had the city -nay- the world managed to face such an emergency of this magnitude. Aliens were invading the planet Earth. Humanity had always believed that they were not alone in this universe, but they hadn't expected their first contact with other intelligent life forms would be such an openly hostile one!

But the secretive Federal Department of Normality was always prepared.

From the spillage of information regarding the existence of the paranormal to the very extinction of humanity as a whole, the FDN had plans A to Z ready for each situation...not that Earth needed any of them since the creation of the Department. An excuse that nearly de-funded the FDN several times in the past four decades. But now...now they knew that they weren't a waste of tax payer's money. In the command room there was a clamor of voices ranging from information of the attack to the current location and actions of the invader. Screens were showing the flow of data and live video feeds of the city, news broadcasts, social media, and even the strange metallic creature itself.

Everyone was in a panic, all but one. The current department head and founder of the FDN. Retired Field Marshal Titus Ross. Hardened by years of experience both on and of the battlefield, the news barely phased the old man. Hell it didn't even stop him from smoking his pipe. With a simple wave of his hand, an intern handed him all relevant documents and records of the incident that occurred no longer than ten minutes ago. "Hmm. A humanoid creature with the ability to use road signs to predetermine actions of things...we don't know the full capacity of this monster. We'll just have to send some of our best." A number of the staff paused and looked back to Titus. He couldn't have meant sending that. Lumps formed in their throats as they waited for the words to come out of their leader's mouth. "Sound for an evacuation order for the immediate vicinity of the monster. Send Grizzly-1 to the scene." A collective sigh of relief was shared throughout the command room. They weren't using that…yet.

---

Just as Sign Master reached the outskirts of Coral City proper, a looming figure roughly five meters tall stood in its path forward.

"Greetings, hostile xeno-lifeform. Prepare for termination." its synthesized 'voice' blared, uncaring and monotonous, before raising an arm and emitting a focused nova of searing energy at the alien.

The Last Gas~P was a small gas station on the outskirts of Coral City, situated right on the main road. It was named such because it was the last chance for busy tourists to top off and get a few snacks before leaving the confines of the city and setting out for home. Popcorn, snack cakes, jerky, extra large bags of chips, even a slurpee machine hummed along in the back corner. The only noises in the place were hums now. The hum of the machine, the hum of the electric lights, the humming of the woman as she pulled down the lever on the machine and filled a big cup with blue raspberry.

She moved to the front of the store, slurping up the frozen drink as she fiddled around in her pocket and threw a couple of dollars onto the counter. There was no one there to take it thanks to that general evacuation order. Most people had been eager enough to get out of dodge when they had the chance, but not Luna Delphina. She considered it lucky that she had been out here.

She picked up her oar from where she had laid it on the counter and walked to the door, pushing it open and leaning on the doorframe to get the best possible view of whatever was about to happen. She didn't have to wait long as a monster came zooming down the roadway toward it. The robot called out a salutation to the monster in its own killer robot sort of way before raising it's arm and firing a laser at the thing.

She eagerly sipped on her slurpee as she started moving closer, oar slung across her shoulders, a gleam in her eye and a bounce in her step. She wanted to know what the alien was going to do. Was it about to get obliterated? Dodge out of the way? Take the attack unscathed? What if it had some other trick? She prayed it did. Even if the robot had first dibs she didn't want the monster to go down before she had a go at it.

Butterflies of various shapes, sizes, and colors fluttered around the room. Minimalistic furniture sporadically inhabited specific places. A beautiful expensive curtain draped over the window to keep those who were unable to mind their business out of his. A dim light from the overhead lamp illuminated the center of the room, but left the edges dark and filled with mystery. In the center of the room, directly underneath the light was what looked to be a book. It levitated above a podium flipping through pages as if an invisible hand playfully ran through it. A man stood in the corner enrobed in the shadows. On the adjacent wall was what looked to be a mirror, beautiful and carved like a butterfly at the bottom and in the top right and left corner. The man stepped toward the mirror and reached out touching it gently with softly tanned hands and fingers that were elegant and betrayed the years of training he'd undergone.

With his touch, the mirror rippled showing all that was happening with the new threat to this world he called home. Yuri, born in a plane far away from this one, had come to call it home. He'd come here after being orphaned here. His parents were killed by someone who wanted him dead because of his gifts, but with the guidance of the Lan Sect, his parents made the best decision by leaving him in this plane of existence. Earth is what the natives called it, and it is what he called it as he learned who he was and where he'd come from. He trained day in and out in his younger years hoping to one day avenge his parents, but the day never came, instead, Earth was the home in which he had to protect from various threats, this time was no different. The news media named him the Butterfly Ninja because of his powers and agility. There were others like him with the unique gifts to protect Earth, and he'd gotten to know a few of them, but the job of protecting something comes with a price and sadly death ended the journey for many warriors of light.

He smirked as the creature displayed its abilities before speeding off toward its destination. He knew only that the creature had some sort of affinity with signs, but other than that he was going into this blind. He didn't have an arsenal at his disposal, but he was a weapon, fine-tuned with years of experience ready to jump in when needed. A large robot entered the scene and Yuri recognized the craftsmanship immediately. The old man was still alive it seemed. Another entered the fray, only this one was more youthful and seemed ready to take over if the robot failed. Yuri sighed and stretched.

"No time like the present," he said before transforming into a swarm of butterflies.

The swarm surged straight into the mirror leaving the room void of life. As the mech prepared to completely obliterate the alien threat, Yuri appeared in mid-air, the swarm of butterflies combining. He sat down in the air and watched.

"This is a little dangerous don't you think," Yuri said out loud, "perhaps a change in scenery. Besides, we don't want any harm to come to bystanders, now do we?"

Yuri drew a cube with his fingers and as he drew walls began to jut up from the ground and surrounded all those who had come to intercept the monster. The cube closed overhead and Yuri smiled.

"That should do it, a perfect cube. Now have at it."

---

The first road block to appear was that of a giant robot blocking the way, forcing Sign Master to grind to a halt to prevent a head-on collision. The giant robot greeted it with tried and true killer-robot fashion, essentially announcing the monster's imminent destruction. The robot was actually fairly impressive, given the average technological level of the primitive Earthlings.



Sign Master taunted as the massive machine raised an arm to fire a laser. Sensing the oncoming attack, sign master quickly spun his sign around and it quickly transformed into a round-about sign, with the lack arrows starting at one end, going around in a circle and flowing out the other end. Due to the sign, normal physics was completely ignored as the laser got within a few yards, then was forced to bend around, like a car getting into a round-about, and exit out the other side, smashing into a newly constructed perfect cube.

Three other humans appeared and soon it was a 4-1 in somewhat cramped conditions. Sign Master whistled at how the perfect cube seemed unfazed by the powerful laser.



The builder was of course the newly arrived butterfly mage and the two weirdo's being the oar girl and manhole man. They were unknown factors at the moment, but what was quite apparent was butterfly guy's attempt to limit the battlefield. This was a decent strategy, however not against Sign Master.



With a laugh, he spun his sign around again, changing it to a 'no trespassing' sign he planted it in the ground in front of him, easily piercing through the asphalt of the road. The 'no trespassing' sign had the very strong effect of preventing anything from going past it however the area was limited but because of the cube that limit wouldn't really be a factor. With a step back a new sign materialized in hand, a 'falling rock' warning sign. The 'no trespassing' sign wouldn't last long, but as long as the cube remained there would be nowhere to dodge.



Sign Master chuckled as rocks suddenly started to materialize above the everyone's heads, from small pebbles to giant boulders, the rocks started to come down like an avalanche, threatening to crush them all.

As the robot fired its laser three things happened in rapid succession. First the monster held up the...sign? Yeah, that's what it looked like. Like a crossing guard ferrying a bunch of school kids across the road it held up a sign to block the laser. From the angle she was approaching from she couldn't see what was on it.

The second was that a swarm of butterflies appeared out of thin air and coalesced into the butterfly guy. You know, that guy? From the news? She didn't watch the news a lot, admittedly, but every other time she had caught it he'd been there being up some bad dude or helping out with some disaster. So that meant the robot was right, this really was some kind of evil alien. She doubted butterfly guy would have shown up to help with some kind of ordinary misunderstood alien. With a wave of his fingers he threw up a magic box to keep the alien, the robot, and them contained. Which was a good thing, as the robots laser swerved around the alien to hit the cube behind it.

The third was that a black robed kung-fu boy popped up out the sewers and drew his blade, also here to fight the monster. Thankfully, it seemed like besides declaring their intentions both were content to wait their turn. She started running at the alien, ready to take her shot now that the robot had whiffed, but as she got closer the alien swung that sign around towards her and jammed in into the ground. She ran headfirst into something invisible and bounced off a step. She looked confused for a moment, taking up her oar and tapping the air in front of her in three different and surprisingly solid spots before looking at the actual symbol printed on the sign. "Oh, that's your power?" She said as it clicked, more impressed than anything. "Neat technique."

She leaned a shoulder casually against the invisible barrier between them as the alien stepped back, like she was talking to a friend in a school stairwell. "So my names Luna, nice to meet'cha. You're, like, an alien construction worker? That's cool. That's cool." She took another long drag from her slurpee, licking her lips before continuing. "You got a name? You're supposed to introduce yourself before you fight somebody. Earth custom."

The aliens answer seemed to be in the form of another sign, one anyone that had ever been hiking in the mountains should recognize. She glanced up just as a pebble glanced off boulders plummeting toward her. "Is that a no?" She asked. She threw the remains of her slurpee into the air, the cup tumbling end over end in the air between her and the rock aimed right at her. At least it was before she took he oar in both hands and swung right through the plastic cup. The contents, however, didn't spray everywhere like you would expect. Inside as the oar traced its way through the air the liquid that hand been smashed out of the cup adhered to the oar, fluttering like a sail as she brought the oar around again at the boulder. "Wavebreaker Style: Sailfish."

The liquid coating the end of her oar began to flow around it in a torrential current as she swung. By the time she impacted the boulder it was moving with enough speed and force that, with her single swing, she was able to cleave a boulder the size of herself clean in half. The two piece of the boulder slammed into the ground on either side of her, but her motion didn't stop. There were still, after all, more rocks. Her oar flowed cleanly from one to the other, weathering the storm of rocks and leaving piles of them bisected all around her. She didn't get all of them, the smaller of the rocks knocking into her head and shoulders as she danced, but she had to focus on the bigger ones.

Amid the oppressive noise of the avalanche, though, he voice still managed to right out across the cube. "Okay, somebody else's turn now." If there was any distress over the current situation present in the woman her voice did not betray it. She said it as though passing the controller to a video game.

---

A good deal of other participants joined in the fray. The Butterfly Ninja, The Hydromancer, and a member of the Yuheng Sect. All individuals that the FDN had kept close tabs on. He was very pleased that they managed to keep the paranormal away from the normalcy of Earth, but he guesses that they couldn't keep the secret any longer. Titus smirked at the sight. Then a light chuckle followed. Not long after, it turned into a hearty laugh. The sight of the usually cold and stoic head of the FDN unsettled those in the command room slightly. "Apologies...heh...I just thought I'd never see the day that Operation Burning Cover would actually be used. Protocols A through G are in effect. Let's hop to it ladies and gentlemen." With a singular chorus of 'Yes sir' the staff redoubled their efforts and focus. Titus couldn't have asked for a better workforce than those of his employees.

Meanwhile...

---

"Spacial anomaly detected. Recalculating plans..." Grizzly-1 said as Sign Master nearly effortlessly redirected the blast of energy. Harmlessly impacting...an invisible force? His sensors then picked up three new life signatures in the combat zone. The mech's AI recalculated the current strategy into prioritizing the safety of the organics present. What better way to keep them safe by keeping the hostile xeno-lifeform focused on it? But before it could act, the creature caused two more anomalies. One to prevent them from getting into melee range and another had summoned boulders the size of people crashing down upon them!

But with the intervention of the strange oar wielding woman, the waters she controlled reduced the boulders to a nearly harmless shower of stone. Merely doing superficial damage to the paint job of the mech. Raising a hand to give the woman a thumbs up as a sign of appreciation, it warned them of its attack. "Please cover your ears." If sound was still able to bypass the anomaly caused by the 'no trespassing' sign, then a concussive force created by sound will as well. Rerouting the energy meant for the arm lasers to its voice module, it modulated the volume to the maximum limit. Turning the somewhat mundane voice module of the machine into an impromptu one shot sonic cannon. Lunging forward and aiming its head at Sign Master, Grizzly-1 unleashed a powerful roar.

It was key that he observed his opponent before engaging in any sort of fight. Yuri never underestimated an opponent. All the cultivation efforts he did with the clans of the west and those of the east had built him to remain calm even in the face of imminent danger. The creature displayed an affinity with using everyday signs as a means of protecting itself and attacking others. The way the beam of energy from the Grizzly-1 bent in response to the sign the creature held was impressive. Not only that, but Yuri couldn't help but chuckle at the response the alien gave to all of them arriving to stop it from doing whatever it was it intended to do.

Yuri watched as his fellow guardian of Earth stepped forward to face the menacing sign-wielding creature. It was no secret that warriors of light either knew each other or knew of each other. Yuri knew of nearly all of the saviors of Earth realm, and he kept the information safe in his Grimoire, but he knew not everyone knew of his existence, even though he didn't make it any less obvious who he was. Known as the Butterfly Ninja or Monarch by the public, Yuri did all he could to keep the world safe from various supernatural threats, and today was no different.

He watched Gou enter in through the manhole cover that led to the sewer and shook his head. He vanished and appeared next to him.

"The Yuheng Sect you say? I know your master, quite a lovely man. I also know the Lan Sect masters and a few others," Yuri said with a smirk, "I dated a few of them, but that's a different story. Anyways..."

Yuri's conversation was cut short when the boulders started to fall. He watched as the oar-wielding heroine smashed the boulders to bits, but there were still a few that had managed to escape her oar of destruction. Yuri muttered under his breath and held his hand in front of him in a Buddhist Monk way. The boulders that neared him and Gou shattered instantly without being touched, but if one were to look closely they would notice butterflies striking the boulders and causing another pebble shower. Not a single pebble touched Yuri as he turned his attention back to the sign-wielding maniac. There had to be a weakness to his power. Clearly, it was sign-based, and whatever was on the sign was what happened, but was there a time limit?

By this point, Grizzly-1 was preparing another attack, this one sound-based.

"This might hurt," Yuri said surrounding himself, Gou, and Luna in a soundproof barrier. He then extended his hand and watched as a butterfly fluttered swiftly over to the mechanized machine, affixing itself to the cold metal. The purpose of the butterfly was to increase the power of the machine. Instead of the sonic attack being a normal one, the butterfly amplified it to incredible levels. Thankfully the perfect cube would keep all of it inside and Yuri's soundproof barriers would keep them safe.

---

The boulder attacks were proving not to be all that effective. The main problem was the water gal cut down all the big one's little bits, turning what could have been a crushing defeat into a small nuisance for everyone involved. The problem with the falling rocks sign was Sign Master couldn't actually make all the rocks big ones, it was completely random and therefore just didn't have enough...'gravity' power to do much with all the big rocks being chipped down by water.



That was as far as Sign Master got as the giant mech did something very unexpected, it roared like the loudest, most obnoxious bear you could imagine which itself become a sonic cannon. Sound was not something that a no trespassing sign could stop, while a person was not supposed to cross past it, you could still yell at someone across the way, like the machine was doing right now. The Sonic blast smashed into Sign Master, his helmet head not really helping matter, causing it to fall backwards, holding its head.



Sign Master grumbled as he forced himself up, but the disorientation from the sonics caused him to miss the approaching shockwaves from Gou. The three shockwaves slammed into him, forcing the monster back and making it grunt in pain. Sign Master glared at the group in anger.



As the 'no trespassing' sign started to disappear he materialized his next sign, this time an 'Ice Warning' sign with a blinking light included. Slamming it into the ground instantly the ground was covered in a layer of ice. Next he materialized an 85 mph sign, ripped off the sign part while leaving the pole in hand. He slapped the 85 on his chest and instantly bolted forward, skating across the ice with ease while wielding the metal pole like a club as he passed Gou to knock him out of commission, as soon as he passed he materialized a U-turn sign with his free hand, instantly turning around for another strike, intent on fully paying him back for the earlier shockwaves.

Once past him again, another sign would appear such as a left or right turn, allowing Sign Master to effortless skate across the icy ground at breakneck speeds. As he sped around he mostly aimed for Gou and Luna, trying to knock them out first before turning on the butterfly man and the robot; while the butterfly guy was a little hard to target, the robot was a big target and so Sign Master threw a sign plate like a shuriken onto one of its legs.

The sign that attached itself to the Grizzly-1 was yet another ice-warning sign, this time instead of freezing the ground tried to freeze the Grizzly-1 from the left-leg up. In the meantime Sign Master continued its assault on the 'ground troops' with its vehicular speed and deadly metal pole.

The sonic wave crashed into the barriers he'd placed around his allies and Yuri could feel the potency. Such a roar would have been adequate enough, but with the enhancement provided by the butterfly, it proved to be enough to rattle the sign-wielding maniac. To add to it, Gou had launched a wind-based attack as well which collided with the alien and proved very useful. Yuri was impressed. The Yuheng Sect was known for their intense training, much like the Lan Sect and those of the Silver Moon Sect. Being a part of the same world made Yuri feel some sort of responsibility for Gou as if he were his guardian or something. He knew of Gou's master and his mind reminisced to the day he first met him. Talented. Strong, and very rash. His disciples often laughed at Yuri when he would say that their master was kind. Apparently, he was known for having a cold exterior, but when the man trained Yuri, he had a warm approach and everything flowed better. There was no sexual attraction there, but Yuri knew he could also reach out to the man if needed. There was one from the Yuheng Sect that he missed terribly, but he dare not go back, he couldn't not now, not after what he'd done.

He left that lifestyle for a reason because he wanted to prevent fighting, but he knew he'd hurt them, he knew they would probably never forgive him. Meeting Gou was bringing back memories he didn't expect and it unnerved him slightly to think that there could be a possibility of returning just to visit, only to visit. His mind had left the battlefield, if only temporarily, but when it returned he saw that ice now covered the ground and the lifeform now had a speed limit sign attached to his chest with a metal pole in hand. His body reacted on instinct and when he heard the clang of metal striking metal, he looked at Gou and quickly located the Sign Master. The blade of the beautiful sword Yuri held pulsed with energy. Letters etched in the blade began to glow. He didn't have time to wonder why as the Sign Master came charging again and again his body reacted, protecting Gou as if he had sworn to do so. The sword's edge collided with the pipe in a shower of sparks littered the iced ground.

"This has gone on long enough," Yuri said as he cut his hand and ran it across the blade.

The letters engorged with power and Yuri's form brightened slightly as he flipped away elegantly on the ice before spinning around to unleash his attack.

"Blood Omen: Spirit Swarm!"

Yuri's aura fluxed as several portals within the cube opened releasing a swarm of spiritually charged butterflies before closing swiftly. Each butterfly was packed with arcane energy, resistant to manipulation, and controlled only by Yuri. He would need to be knocked unconscious for the swarm not to attack their target. The swarm of butterflies gathered around Yuri, Yuri's eyes having changed with the power of the spell. Holding the blade of the sword, the swarm waited until Yuri made one slashing motion in the direction of the Sign Master. The swarm surged forth like a bright line of destructive energy.

Luna twirled her oar and set the thing across her shoulders again as the last of the rocks stopped raining down on them, the torrent of water on the end still raging but slightly diminished. From the looks of it she had gotten a few more rocks that she had intended judging by the clean cuts in the rubble around the robot. Sailfish did have a habit of throwing off blades of water when swung at that speed, so she had been careful to only swing at angles that went above the heads of the others.

The robot surprised her with a thumbs up, which she returned. It just went to show you couldn't judge of robot by the lack of tonality in its voice or the array of extremely deadly weapons in carried, even as it prepared to unleash one of those deadly weapons in a wide area. She went to cover her ears like it said, but a voice and a bubble that suddenly appeared over them stopped her. The voice was clear, because every other sound had suddenly been muted. "This might hurt."

She turned to spot The Butterfly Guy and The You Hang guy inside the bubble with her. She turned her thumbs up into a wave. "'Sup?" She greeted them. She had been two busy smashing rocks to hear what they had been talking about, but she did get to witness You Hang Guy taking his turn. Her eyebrows perked up as she watched him draw his weapon, taking in all the details like you would a painting on a relaxing trip to an art gallery. The concentration, the form, the subtle way the air distorted around the blade as it was gathered together. She cupped her chin in interest. He moved air like she moved water. "Cool." She said, graciously bowing out of the way as the the three shockwaves left her poncho fluttering as they sped past.

Whatever noise the mecha made she couldn't hear, but she could feel it vibrating through the ground. The alien certainly felt it, the noise rattling him enough to send him onto the ground. He had just barely climbed back to his feet when the shockwaves threw him back but didn't cut him. Either he was real tough or those had just been pure concussive force, no blade at all. Regardless, as the sound barrier came down both man and robot were greeted to the sound of Luna whistling at them in applause.

Before she knew it, though, the next phase of the battle had begun. Ice spread out across the floor as far as she could see. She took her oar back off her shoulders and readied in the alien's direction, but the alien wasn't there anymore. She caught a flicker of movement in the corner of her eye, tracking it to spot the alien going after Hang Guy. The black robed man pushed his hand in her direction and she felt a gust of wind push her across the ice even as it propelled him away from the aliens first strike.

She skidded backwards, spreading her stance and using the oar as a third leg to keep herself balanced. She watched, nearly calling out a warning as she saw the alien come around for another go at Hang Guy but stopping as Butterfly guy deflected the blow before it could reach him. That was when the alien changed it's target, skating across the ice right for her. It raised its pole, and she twirled her oar and swung as it came into striking distance. The two clashed, but Luna had no leverage on this ice and was sent flying like a hockey puck across the cube. She couldn't help but think it was kind of fun, even as her arms started to ache from the clumsy way she had tried to deflect that blow.

Luckily, her salvation had been provided by he alien himself. She saw something brown out of the corner of her eye and reached out, grabbing onto the cleanly bisected edge of one of the boulders from earlier. As the Alien went in for a follow up blow Luna disappeared, her momentum transferring to the boulder and causing it to spin like a merry-go-round on the icy floor. As she held on she flipped her oar over and dragged the head along the ground, the rotation of the water still attached to it melting the ice it came in contact with and collecting it into the torrent.

As the makeshift top completed its rotation she saw the alien again. "Wavebreaker Style: Greenland Shark!" She swung the oar forward, launching the water across the ice. It kept going, a cutting blade rolling across the top of the ice like a deep sea predator lurking just below the surface. As it sped across the ice toward its prey it only got bigger and more powerful, melting the ice and gathering the water into itself as it went.

The use of a sonic attack was effective!

Sign Master was directly hit by the concussive force but, with the butterfly ninja's magics empowering the blast even further, was even disoriented to a degree. Even managing to cause the alien to disorient it and allow the Yuheng agent's attack to hit without any chance of defense. But this progress came at the cost of utterly frying the voice module, rendering the mech mute. A few of the armor plates on the robot's chest slid back as a cube of semi-solidified meld of plastic and copper was ejected to the asphalt before it could do any damage to the Exoframe's other systems. In the time that Grizzly-1 ejected the slag, Sign Master realized that a hands on approach would yield better results than being passive about its attackers.

The signs switched out, one to freeze the asphalt and another to enhance its speed significantly. So fast that that Grizz-1 failed to react fast enough to defend Gou or Luna. But the mech didn't have to do anything by that point. Yuri and Gou's competencies were enough to protect the Hydromancer and the young Yuheng agent. As its AI calculated the chances of hitting Sign Master with one of its combat claws, a system warning alerted the unnatural decrease in temperature to the left leg and the imminent immobilization of said leg. A quick system diagnostic revealed that Sign Master had embedded a sign similar to the one that caused the road to freeze into the knee joint. The frost was growing quickly as ice began to encase the entirety of the leg. Yuri then utilized his magics to summon spectral butterfly projectiles and Luna performed her hydromancy to make a cutting blade of water, both aiming at Sign Master and likely occupying the alien bioweapon's attention. Allowing Gou to provide support to Grizzly-1.

The mech wished to reply to the young man but with the voice module missing the only gesture it was able to give to him was a thumbs up. But with the combined efforts of Gou and the brute strength of the Advanced Exoframe, Grizzly-1 broke through the ice binding it down...but the damage had been done. A number of armor plates had grown brittle from the instant freeze and broke into pieces as the mech marched forward. The Exoframe of the mech was by no means weak, but having its only layer of defense stripped was definitely a bad situation. Straddling into a form similar to a sumo wrestler, it unleashed a pod's worth of Hornet missiles aimed at the hostile alien.

The Hornet missile did not function similar to more mundane and simplistic missiles used by the military. Rather than being launched and guided to the target and detonate the payload, the Hornets functioned as autonomous weapon platform that surround targets and launch attacks from multiple angles. Grizzly-1's Hornets were equipped with the fully charged direct energy weapons that focused more on quantity over quality of the attacks. With six of the Hornet missiles locked onto Sign Master, a barrage of light was unleashed.
(Warning: Link GIF contains flashing lights. Individuals with a Photosensitive trigger to seizures, do not click.)

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The alien commander tapped a finger on her armrest in annoyance as she watched the battle unfold on the screen. Was the monster strong? Yes, it's abilities to ignore physics and bend reality to its will through the use of signs was quite the ability; however, the monster had some severe limits. The signs were useful to be sure but they were also quite limited: First, they could only be used with a sign that actually existed. Second, the signs were limited to ones that one might actually see on the road that were used to inform traffic, third, the range was limited and the time was limited. The monster made good use of its options but there was really only so much it could do.

Every monster was equipped with a microchip at conception that gave a direct line back to the ship, meaning they could view what the monster was viewing, plus their telescoptics could easily view anything on Earth from above with perfect clarity. The monster had done some clever maneuvering and achieved some success on the battlefield, but it was nowhere close to taking out even one of its assailants as of yet. It had knocked the woman around a bit and iced the mech's leg but it was painfully obvious the monster was getting cornered. It was boxed in and despite its speed would soon lose the area needed to dodge.

With a click of holographic touch screen, an electric impulse was sent to the monster, to prioritize finding the barrier's source over combat. She had seen enough of the monster to know that this first one was indeed a failure. There was a reason this planet had yet to be conquered, clearly sign master was not up to the task but it could still prove to be of some worth if they could narrow down the barrier's location in the meantime.

---

For a moment it seemed like Sign Master had been making some progress in the fight, but the butterfly guy had started taking direction action and had prevented him from getting a clean hit on the manhole man. The water lady was also proving to be rather slippery and suddenly everyone had decided to counterattack all at once! It wasn't fair!

An electric jolt later and Sign Master suddenly knew what he had to do, continue the mission and abandon the fight if he could, but how? He was currently cubed, a water strike was coming in, the butterflies suddenly turned into a swarm of killer locusts, and Mech had a bunch of nasty missiles getting into position to turn him into a slab of metal! Sign Master was in quite the pinch! Then he realized something, manhole man had come up through the ground which meant the 'perfect cube' was not so perfect.



Creating a tunnel sign, he angled it down and instantly a tunnel appeared for him to slip down into. He quickly jetting down into it as narrowly missing the water strike and the barrage of light threatening to cut him down to size, unfortunately the butterflies kept coming.



Sign Master complained as he made sure to tilt the sign back up, changing the trajectory of the tunnel ahead to make into into a sort of U-shaped tunnel to slip out from under the cube's wall. As soon as he exited the tunnel he quickly got rid of the tunnel sign , causing it to vanish, trapping most of the butterflies underground, but a few managed to get through in time and strike him in the back.



His chest sign having given out he fashioned a new one and put the plate on his chest for extra speed and bolted for the city. He needed to get some better readings and fast before he was intercepted again!

Despite their best efforts, the xeno was a persistent and slippery one. Realizing that he was cornered, it opted to avoid any further confrontation and decided that getting past us is the priority. Utilizing how the young Yuheng agent entered the fight was quite creative of the creature but now that it was dashing away and growing more distant by the second, one thing was made apparent. It won't be able to catch up with the hostile before it could reach Coral City proper. Someone else needed to stop or intercept Sign Master before he could inflict any harm to the civilian populace or infrastructure.

With the energy cells depleted on the Hornet missiles, they promptly fell out of the air and plonked down onto the pavement. Slowly turning into a molten slag. A fail-safe to prevent the missiles to be reverse engineered by the wrong hands. Grizzly-1's AI reported the incident back to FDN facility in Coral City and a request for redeployment. The request was quickly approved by Titus and the mech promptly deactivated itself for preparation. Back in the FDN facility, a room the size of a football field contained a massive machine that roared to life as it accumulated the necessary energy required to recall the mech via displacing the space around it and replacing it with another space located within the machine. In other words, this football field sized machine was a teleporter. Titus' greatest achievement and his greatest failure...but that was a story for another time.

The recall of the massive mech would take at least ten minutes, and another ten to redeploy it on field. More than ample time for Sign Master to wreak havoc on the city. Thus the limitation of the FDN stuck out like a sore thumb. It was severely incapable of the deploying multiple assets on field in rapid succession, leaving it near incapable of dealing with multiple attacks. Regardless, Grizzly-1 would be temporarily neutralized and it was up to Gou, Yuri, and Luna to catch up and slay Sign Master.

Or perhaps another defender of Earth would be able intercept the metallic monster?

Luna drove the tip of her oar into the ice, cracking it and bringing her spin to a stop so she could watch as her attack was joined by two others, two raging swarms of light. Hornets and butterflies and sharks all sped after the same prey, cutting off the aliens options of escape. At least, that was what she thought. Like lots of clever prey species he had a burrow he could slip down into for safety.

Luna sighed as she watched her Greenland Shark hit the edge of the aliens hole and launched into the air, being scattered apart by its own rotation into a harmless splash. The butterflies are the only ones that kept hunting, but as her eye caught movement outside the cube she saw that only a few reached the alien before it closed up the tunnel it had created and started sprinting off toward the city.

She let herself drop back down, scratching her head. "So, I guess we win huh?" She said. The alien had run off, that was definitely a sign you were winning even if it didn't feel like it. Maybe it was because she hadn't gotten the proper punch up she wanted, or that they'd gone four on one with the thing, but there was a lack of catharsis to the fight that was starting to eat away at her relaxed state of mind as Yuri dropped the cube.

At least one of them was as unsatisfied with things as she was. Hang Guy stripping off his top earned him a pair of raised eyebrows, but dramatic transformation sent a wide smile across her face. A werewolf. Like, an actual werewolf! The newly christened Werewolf Guy set his nose to the ground, picking up the scent of the alien, before howling and taking off down the road after it. The hunt wasn't over yet!

Luna sprinted, not after the wolf and the alien, but across the road to the gas station parking lot. There was only one vehicle left there since the evacuation and it didn't take a genius to figure out who it's owner was. A motor scooter painted navy blue, a duffel bag sticking up out of the attached sidecar. On the side of the sidecar the words "Wave Body" were printed in black under a depiction of a cartoon dolphin mid jump. The dolphin had its fin extended, giving anyone who passed it on the road an entirely anatomically incorrect thumbs up.

She leaped, clearing the sidecar and landing right on the seat before turning the key and putting the pedal to the metal. She turned out of the parking lot, zoomed between the robots legs, and set off after the alien and Werewolf Guy. With how fast the alien was moving she wasn't sure she would be able to catch up, but that didn't really matter. She was caught up in the current now, and she would only sap her strength fighting against it. It was like her Guru had said: when you're caught in a current like this the only thing to do was relax your body and let it carry you to where it terminates. Whether that was an island paradise or a barren rock surrounded by sharks, trust in the Wavebreaker Style to see you through safely.

It actually surprised her when she spotted them running along the road, but as she got closer she saw that Werewolf Guy had clamped his jaws around the aliens hand. No wonder she had caught up. Though the aliens' gorilla-like body was undoubtedly strong, the Werewolf Guy was wrenching and tearing and jerking him around. It threw off his running form, not to mention the fact that he practically had to drag the giant wolf as he went. That would slow anyone down.

She spun her oar up, holding it up and facing the broad side forward as she approached. As she did a glossy sheen of water began to cover the paddle, her chi grabbing and knitting together the moisture in the air into a thin glove of water for it. It wasn't a lot, but it began to spin all the same like before. A weaker version of Sailfish. She didn't have time to gather more before she was pulling up beside him.

"Hey!" She shouted at the alien. "Remember me? We met in the cube? I'd still really like to get your name." The alien's only answer was to lash out with its sign pole, an attack that was met with her oar. The two weapons clashed, the muscles on Luna's arms bulging with the strain, but this time with the two on relatively equal footing there was no clear winner. The two broke off, Luna's oar coming for the aliens helmet, but he spun his own pole up to block her swing again before sliding his sign pole down the shaft of her oar towards her. Luna was forced the retreat to get out of the way, breaking slightly to slip out of range but was still only saved from a braining by a well timed wrench by Werewolf guy pulling the alien aside just enough so that the pole only scraped the tip of her nose.

She couldn't do this only one hand free. Luna kicked off her sandals, letting them bounce away behind her. She kept one foot on the accelerator and brought the up onto the steering wheel, gripping the brake plunger with her toes getting two hands on her weapon she steered back towards him. "Wavebreaker Style: Swordfish!" She said, striking at the monster with a series of swings and thrusts. The alien, to its credit, did its best with one arm and a gothic horror monster doing its best to disrupt its offence. It blocked or deflected one out of every three attacks Luna threw its way, always striking the shaft of the oar to avoid its weapon being eaten through by the water saw on the oars end that opened up a new scar on his body every time it struck. It was a losing battle though, and the alien knew it. Luna was having the time of her life, finally getting the kind of insane clash of weapons she had been dreaming of since the fight began, but to the Alien she was only an annoying and dangerous obstruction that had to be dealt with. It cared nothing for the fight itself, so it changed tactics.

Deflecting one last strike it banished its weapon end summoned up a new sign that it presented to Luna. It took her a moment to process, but in that moment she found herself flying through the air carried forward only by her previous momentum. The scooter was nowhere to be found. All Motor Vehicles had been Prohibited. Her duffle bag fell to the road, flipping end over end as it struck the asphalt and fell behind them in a morbid preview of what was about to happen to her. She was not dressed to deal with road rash, and so in a hail Mary effort she swung her Oar down at the road. The oar pushed her just enough, but she was forced to drop it as she wrapped both her arms around the aliens neck and held on tight. She locked her legs around the aliens torso and started punching him in the side of the helmet, doing almost nothing damage wise but really making an annoyance of herself.