Icon had wanted to get a better look at exactly what it was they were facing, so he took to the sky and circled above the advancing horde of alien invaders. Aside from the massive war machine that led the way, Icon saw thousands of the teal skinned marauders that flanked it on either side. Looking down at the massive tank and the dozens of armaments that adorned it, Icon knew that stopping that thing was priority number one. However, it would be impossible to take it out without first thinning out the ranks of the army of aliens that marched along side it. Icon began to circle around the invaders again, but did an immediate quarter turn in the sky and accelerated toward the ground. He impacted the ground with a thunderous crash, knocking dozens of the invaders from their feet. Without hesitation, Icon again left his feet, lifting only a few feet off the ground. He lowered his shoulder and rammed into the nearest alien warrior, sending him flying into the next. Then he hit the next, and then another after that, picking up speed as he flew through the alien ranks, knocking them out of his way as he cut a swath through the alien army.

“On your left, Flyboy.” Radiance’s voice called to him over the Guardians' communication channel.

Following Radiance's warning, Icon looked to his left, toward the massive battle tank. He saw that several small, single pilot speeders, which looked something like flying motorcycles were racing toward him.

“I got it.” Icon said as his eyes began to take on a reddish glow. In an instant, he fired an optic blast which struck the lead speeder, causing it to erupt into a fireball, which engulfed the second speeder, which was traveling just behind it. Without missing a beat, Icon reached down and grabbed one of the alien invaders. He held the murderous thug in midair for a moment, almost as if contemplating what to do with him. Then, Icon ripped the black armored helmet off the alien's head, and in on fluid motion, flung the alien back to the ground while spinning in midair, hurling the alien's helmet as if he were a Major League pitcher, sending it on a collision course with the third speeder.

The impact of the helmet caused the speeder to rock hard to the left, then it listed to the right, just before the pilot lost complete control, and the speeder crashed down; rolling end over end through a crowd of invaders until it finally came to a stop. Several beats passed, and the speeder exploded- sending the surrounding invaders, and pieces of invaders, scattering for dozens of yards in every direction.

"Keep your head in the game, Icon. You can play for the Red Sox when we're done here." Iron Knight's voice came through over the comlink.

“More of a Dodger's guy myself.” Icon replied as he dove headlong back into the ranks of the invading forces.

***

From high atop the Arlaaekan war machine, the being known as The Outsider watched as Earth's heroes fought valiantly to fend off the mighty Arlaaekan invasion force. However, he knew that no matter how bravely they fought, the Earthlings were doomed. It was a scene that The Outsider had seen played out time after time all across the cosmos. The Autocrat's armada would descend upon a world. Then the forces of Arlaaek's Grand Army would decimate any resistance, and then the planet would be stripped of its natural resources in order to fuel the Arlaaekan war machine.

This was something that The Outsider had seen and participated in more times than he could count. However, this assault was different. To The Outsider, this siege was personal. Earth after all, had once been his home. As he stood atop the war machine and watched the battle unfold below him, he couldn't help but to wonder, if there had been heroes on Earth when he had last been there, so many years ago, would they have saved him before he was lost to the stars? Would his life been different? Could it be possible that instead of the state of constant warfare that he had found himself in since he was rescued by the Autocrat, could he have found peace at home on Earth?

As soon as the invasive thought had penetrated his psyche, The Outsider pushed it from his mind. It was too late to play a game of “What if?” The truth was, there hadn't been heroes to save him from his fate, and now he had returned to the planet that he had once called home, not as a returning hero, a man who had seen the horrors of the galaxy and returned home to prepare his people for what may come.

He returned AS one of those horrors, and he would personally see that every man, woman, and child on the planet would be burned from the face of the Earth, and that the whole of humanity would be forgotten by the rest of the galaxy, just as the Earthlings had forgotten him.

And he would finally have his revenge...

***

Icon cut through the ranks of invaders. He met them with a combination of fists, elbows, shoulders and optic blasts, until there was barely an alien standing within 50 yards of him. Just up ahead, he saw Lyger going toe to toe with what could only be described as some sort of alien brute. This teal skinned monstrosity was much larger than the others, standing at what Icon figured was about eight feet tall and as his father would say, “was built like a brick shit house.”

Lyger used his superior speed to stay just out of the behemoth's reach. Flipping and diving out of the way, avoiding the alien's wild attacks. In fact, the black clad feline hero was using the massive alien against its allies, getting close enough that when it missed him with one of its wild swings, instead striking the aliens who were unfortunate enough to be within arms length. Lyger moved in on his larger foe, bounding and striking with quick punches and kicks, before dodging out of the way before the alien brute could muster up a counter attack.

Lyger dodged a wild swing from the massive alien, then connected with a jumping wheel kick to the invader's jaw, which staggered it, knocking it right back into Icon, who connected with an uppercut the the midsection, which doubled the alien enforcer over. Icon then joined his hands together in an upwards motion, he hit the alien with a double ax handle to the chin, which sent the invader several stories in the air, before crashing down in a heap on the pavement.

“Show off.” Lyger said over his shoulder before striking out at the alien soldiers within reach.

Icon was about to respond to his friend, but something else had caught his attention. At the edge of the battlefield was a lone figure riding what as far as he could tell was a giant alien cat, nearly as tall as he was.

Now what? Icon thought to himself as he noticed the green haired woman and the dozens of petrified alien invaders that she had left standing in her wake.


“We made it!” He heard her proclaim through the chaos of battle. Icon looked toward her and made eye contact, then gave a nod welcoming her to the fray before finally turning his attention to the giant tank, and the man standing atop of it.

The tires on her Mercedes-Benz screeched as Alison Sparks raced through the streets of Lost Haven, the pristine pearl white exterior covered in a slight layer of dirt and grime as debris rained down from above.

“Shit.” She said as she swerved to avoid a burnt out car that was sitting in the middle of the street, one that she almost didn't see until it was too late. In her time in Midas' employ, Sparks had seen a lot. She saw a man catch a falling space station. She was in Lost Haven to witness a demonic insurrection, and she saw a terrorist organization level entire cities with a weaponized satellite.
But never in her wildest dreams did she ever dream that she would see this. An actual alien invasion. This was the stuff of comic books and bad science fiction movies. Yet this was not a bad movie, this was really happening, and she was in the thick of it.

“You know Midas, when we get back we're going to have a serious discussion about how much you're paying me.” She said as she saw an alien fighter craft explode overhead. “-because it's not nearly enough.” She stepped on the gas and accelerated toward her destination. She pressed a button on her steering wheel, which activated the screen on the dashboard. The screen showed a 3-D layout of Lost Haven, and on the map she was able to see a small dot.

“There you are.” She said as she noted the dot's location, just a short distance from Racheli's apartment. Without hesitation, she pressed the gas pedal to the floor and made her way towards to dot on her screen.

Air whipped about her form. It tugged at her clothes and ruffled her short hair, her eyes narrowed on the landing point. She bent her legs when she impacted on the street below. It buckled underneath her. The concrete spiderwebbed from her contact as she straightened herself back up. She had felt her bones shatter then repair themselves shortly. A small black stream of nanites oozed from her nose, eyes, and ears onto her skin. A skull-like vision replaced her face when the dust cleared.

Screams of people echoed in the background. Some noted her strange appearance and others merely fled in panic, their focus set on survival. The leather didn't bother her since she couldn't produce heat.

You might want to be mindful of your surroundings... The virus hissed in her mind as the sound of tires screeching echoed in the air.

Racheli's eyes widened as her head whipped about, her body twisted midway to shoot out her arm. A magnetic force rippled through the air and the car thumped against it. She slapped the dented hood with a shout.

"Watch where the hell you're going, fucker!"

Sparks’ car came to a sudden stop. At first, she thought she had hit someone, or something, yet she realized that the only person that she could have hit was standing too far away for her to have possibly hit them. She sat behind the wheel staring at the woman in the skull mask. She didn’t recognize this woman, and assumed that it was yet another super that had been forced into action by the current apocalypse.

Then she heard the woman speak.

"Watch where the hell you're going, fucker!"

It was then that she knew exactly who this person was. It was the only person that she had ever heard speak to her with that much animosity and venom, and oddly, she suddenly felt better about their chances.

“Racheli?” She said, still questioning the woman’s sudden change in appearance.

“Of all the people to try and run me over…” The costumed woman snapped under her breath.
She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her front. Sparks… that only meant one thing. The asshole wanted her for something. A deep sigh escaped her lungs as she walked over to the passenger’s side and jerked the door open, her figure plopped onto the seat. She slammed the door shut.

Immediately her mask began to skitter off her face in a big reveal.

“I’m not stupid enough to run around without protecting my personal life. Do you know how many freaks in this city have a fetish for superheroes? Icon literally has his own dedicated fan club.” She smartmouthed then leaned back.

“I doubt you’re here for a casual visit. Invasions don’t really encourage stuff like that. Does it have something to do with our asshole of a boss?” Getting to the point was better than beating around the bush.

“Yeah,” Sparks started. “He sent me to bring you back to Midas Industries. He wants you to help protect the tower.” Sparks finally said before a smile crossed her face as if a better idea had struck her.

“But fuck him. We can do more good here. Midas has plenty of assets to protect the company. There’s a big battle going on between here and there...it would be a shame if we got caught up in that and weren’t able to make it back, wouldn’t it?” Sparks said with a grin.

“Choose another turn of phrase. I rather not even have that image stuck in my head.” Racheli shot back and shuddered.

She took a moment to digest what Sparks had encouraged. A smirk creased across her lips as her mask began to stretch across her face, her image hidden underneath the demonic scold.

“I like your line of thought. I was aiming at blowing off some frustration anyways. So, where do we start?”

“There’s a big fight brewing not too far from Sherman Square. All the big guns are assembling over there. We could go there…” Sparks began as she saw one of the troop transports streak across the sky, then slow its descent and disappear behind the skyscrapers just south of their position. “Or we could kick a little ass closer to home.” She said as a slight smirk creased her lips.

Racheli glanced outside the windshield. The crowds outside grew more chaotic and larger, their desperation clear in their actions. She glanced upward toward the apartment she jumped down from. A few frightened individuals recoiled back inside their curtains. She wetted down her tongue then spoke.

“I think closer to home is better. I’m not sure I can handle any superegos today.”

“Oh, I hear that.” Sparks said with a slight laugh as she put the car into drive. “According to my intel, there’s some trouble over in Chinatown. Let’s head there, I think those folks have had enough to deal with recently, don’t you?”

Racheli frowned at the mention of Chinatown, her eyes threatened to roll in her skull. It was the first part of Lost Haven she ended up turning into rubble when she clashed with some bizarre guy intent on capturing her. If only the asshole had backed off and left her, she wouldn’t be Midas’ lapdog now. A small sigh exited her lungs before she replied to Sparks’ attempt to be funny.

“Hahaa, very funny. Let’s just hope half of them don’t go running and screaming from the sight of me. If you recall right, I did turn main street into rubble the last time I visited.” Racheli’s sarcasm thickened her comments.

“Yeah, I mean...that wasn’t totally your fault. That was as much on War-Pulse as it was on you.” Sparks said.

Then she drove in silence for several moments toward Chinatown before she spoke up again. “I’m serious, you have to let that go, it wasn’t your fault. Hell, as far as I’m concerned Midas was just as responsible as either of you. But none of that will matter if these alien bastards burn the entire world down.”

Racheli didn’t answer as she let their conversation fade into silence. Punching something might help her mood right now. Her arms just leaned against the window still and watched the buildings dart past. People continued to flee or hide in what they suspected was safety. After a few moments passed, she answered.

“Yeah, it doesn’t change anything.” She accepted the fact, making a mental note to once again lay another flower at the gravesite.

“I know.-” Sparks said with a pause as she jerked the wheel hard to avoid debris in the road.

Racheli let fly another curse as her arms snapped out and braced herself within her seat. She doubted she would suffer any brain damage, but the pain was an annoyance to deal with. Her eyes flickered back to Sparks alongside her scorn.

“-And on the off chance that you ever need to talk about it, I’m here for you. But let’s get through this first.”Sparks said while keeping her eyes on the road as she drove as fast as she could through the streets toward Chinatown. Avoiding abandoned cars and the occasional fleeing civilian, they reached their destination in relatively good time, and as they entered Chinatown, Sparks realized that her sources were indeed spot on, as she saw squads of alien troops going door to door, leaving nothing but charred corpses in their wake.

Racheli flinched at the screech of rubber ground over the pavement as Sparks avoided another vehicle. Farther ahead they cluttered tightly together to form a small barrier that people flooded around to continue their escape. Her head turned to Sparks and she demanded one thing.

“Keep driving.” She popped open the door.

A loud screech erupted into her ears. The outside left a bright red smear on a black truck, the impact threatened to take it off. Ignoring the painful ringing in her ears, Racheli’s arm fought the whirlwind of air racing past. Her hand immediately magnetized itself onto the metal surface.

“About fucking time something went my way!” Racheli snapped as she raised her other arm, both her hands fastened to the roof. Using her unnatural strength, she pulled herself on top of the car.

Her nanites immediately formed her mask on her exit. Rach held up her arms to balance herself while her nanites began to weigh down her structure. She focused on the nearest car then whipped her arm to the right. It slid to the side. The front smashed into another parked vehicle and crumpled. Not thinking about the destruction she would be leaving behind, she motioned the various obstructions out of her way. Some flipped into stacks while others slid to the side, the twisting mental fill the air. Any alien in the way suddenly found themselves either pinned or crushed underneath the flying debris.

“Midas won’t be happy about that.” Sparks said under her breath as her car made contact with a parked truck. Then, she pushed the gas pedal to the floor when Racheli told her to keep driving. The car’s speed increased, even as Racheli climbed from the passenger seat to the roof. Sparks held her breath as debris flew past her car, crushing the invading aliens even as they scattered to get out of the way.

She swerved to the left, and back to the right as pieces of vehicles, street signs, and even pedestrians seemingly jumped out in front of her speeding car. Then, just up ahead, she saw several of the aliens standing together, standing over a group of teenagers with their weapons drawn.

“Oh no you don’t.” Sparks said as she turned the wheel in the aliens’ direction, sending the car speeding toward them. The screeching of the tires got their attention, as the four invaders turned their attention from the teens, who took advantage of the sudden distraction and took off running from the aliens to the approaching vehicle. There was a thud, as the front of the car made contact with the first alien, then another, and another, and another as sparks drove through the murderous extraterrestrials.

That’s what you get, motherf-!!” she was cut off as a crimson-white laser blast struck the car, sending it careening out of control, where it hit a parked minivan, the impact causing the car to flip on its side, where it then rolled over half a dozen times, before finally coming to a stop fifty yards down the street.

Sparks opened her eyes, her head was ringing as she tried to free herself from the driver’s seat. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she was able to pull herself from the wreckage, and to her simultaneous relief and horror, she didn’t see Racheli anywhere. However, what she did see, was a group of angry, teal-skinned aliens making their way toward her.

When Sparks kicked the car into overdrive, Racheli’s hands lifted and shielded her mask. Its durable metal protected her skin from being ripped off by the ferocity as the wind continued to slash past her. Her eyes widened when her foot began to slip, the magnetism struggled to fasten into the roof. Humanoid bodies hit the car front then flowed over it. Their mass nearly hit Rach with each new target that met the speed demon known as Sparks.

“God damn it, watch where-” Rach didn’t get a chance to finish her cursing.

The car veered to avoid the white ray of energy from an alien weapon. Her knee crumbled into the roof. She lifted up her head in time to spot the minivan. It rushed close as she prepared to brace herself. Too late, she thought with a curse. Her magnetism failed and her feet lifted from the roof. She went flying past the van then through a string of paper lanterns. The string snapped before she crashed into a cheap table in front of a market. It crumbled into the sideway leaving her breathless. With a heaving breath, Rach jerked upright and bit back a scream.

Every bone in her body had fractured or broke on impact then began to heal. It would take some time until they were back to their original condition. For now, she had to grit through the pain and used it to fuel her fury.

“Fuck… fuck…You’re all going to regret that.” She spat out a few droplets of black blood onto the sideway while she proceeded to crawl
back onto her feet.

With the back of her hand, she wiped it from her mask’s lips.

“Sparks, I told you…” The name caused her to immediately whirl about, her eyes spotted the mangled car a way down the street.

Racheli’s heart stopped for a moment. An ice-cold fury buried into her chest and spread across her form. The metal around her began to vibrate, dent, and threatened to crash into the ground. A few aliens began to advance on her. Racheli’s right hand rose to her side, her magnetism extended to the large street lamp nearby. With a slicing hand gesture forward, it ripped from the concrete then splintered into pieces. Each one-shot forward into the center of the group.

Several of the Arlaaekan warriors fell like shards of the street light struck them in the chest. However, no sooner than they fell, did another take their place. Surprised by the human’s attack, but not deterred, they marched forward with their weapons drawn, ready for anything that the Earth woman could throw at them. There was a sudden movement on the left side of the street, perhaps it was the humans readying an attack, or someone trying to run for cover...but whatever it was, it didn’t matter. One of the Arlaaekans leveled his weapon in the direction of the commotion and fired, disintegrating the small Earthling where she stood, leaving nothing but a child’s shoe where she had been.

Once the distraction had been dealt with, the Arlaaekans continued their march toward the armored Earthling. Though she had proven to be a formidable threat, she would soon learn that she was no match for the Sons of Arlaaek, who would soon make the Autocrat proud by delivering to this woman a swift death. They made their way toward the woman, stopping short just in front of her...and raised their weapons.

Racheli’s lips curled into a cocky smirk. Her powers began to reach down underneath the concrete and street, to the metal pipe maze lurking there. They vibrated as they snaked their way to the surface. Adrenaline-like energy pulsed through her very veins, each muscle ready for the fight’s build-up. Suddenly one of the aliens shot into an alleyway causing a woman to scream out and realization slapped Racheli in the face.

It echoed in her mind, her wicked grin fell into horror then twisted into pure wrath. Her gloved hands tightened into fists. The fury of what she witnessed rooted into her heart and rolled off into power, the magnetism started to shove deep into the fissures underneath her feet.

“That was a mistake.” Before the words fully left her mouth, Rach’s powers reacted.

Sections of the ground heaved and metal shot out of the ground. Like snakes, they curled and crushed any slow victims leaving bloody pulp smeared across their surfaces. Bloodlust started to fill her as she rushed the nearest victim. Her fingers molded into blades, the edges sliced the flesh then cleaved through the bone. Blood spattered across her black jacket, but it didn’t slow her. Her other hand encased the alien’s head before she crushed it. She tossed the limp body away to move onto the next one.

Juri, the head of the elite Royal Guard who had been tasked with subduing any resistance in this section of the city watched as the madwoman ripped through his men like a crazed T’kurra Hound. Man after man fell, men that he had served with for years. Men who had stood at his side as they razed countless worlds together.

And this woman simply slaughtered them where they stood.

She ran through his unit, cutting down each man as she came to them, and as he watched this he found a strange sense of respect for the Earthlings. Never before had the Grand Army of Arlaaek faced an opponent who had been able to put up such a fight, and as he looked at the corpses of his brothers in arms Juri felt burning anger in the pit of his soul. However, as he saw the wild woman rushing straight towards him, he felt something that up to that point had been completely foreign to him:
He felt fear.

There were only a few times in her life that her love of violence ever fully consumed her. For someone looking in, she looked less than human as she ripped through the aliens. Her mind justified it as self-defense, but deep down she knew it was more than that. She missed the rush. The blades on her fingers grew long and wickedly sharp. It flashed through flesh turning it into thick confetti.

Alien blood splattered across her leather jacket, staining it green.

A wild grin widened across her lips as her legs moved, her arms whipped out at any of the aliens standing still. Their weapons fell from crushed hands or severed stubs. The only warning came in the form of a steely glint from her knives.

The last alien, wearing a distinct uniform, had turned to face her. Before his weapon came up, she got in close and punched into his chest. Green made a new splash upon the crushed hood of a car. Racheli's fingers stretched into eagle spread after it exited out the alien's back.

His body shuddered then went slack, dangling from her forearm. Asshole was heavy, she noted, then tried to shake him off. It didn’t work so she lowered it against the hood. Her knee pulled up to pin the pelvis area against the car and pushed. With a little effort, it came off with a squelched sound. Strange organs and fluids flowed from the gaping hole just under what she guessed to be the ribcage.

“Fucking gross…” While she watched the body slump down in front of it.

Racheli shook her arm clean as she turned back to the last place she saw Sparks.

"Sparks, where the hell are you?" Her boot smashed something thick and wet. She dared not glance down, uninterested to discover the cause. A ropy string of organs stuck to her boot heel and trailed after as she navigated through the field of corpses.

Alison Sparks’ body slammed hard into the side of what had once been Mercedes, leaving a perfect impression of her frame in the door. She staggered away from the wrecked vehicle and wiped a trickle of blood from her chin and raised her right hand to the three aliens as they approached her, then she motioned with her fingers for her attackers to “bring it.”

The first of the aliens was met with a hard right hand which shattered the bones in his face, followed by a swift kick which sent him tumbling backwards, landing in a heap on the ground. The second alien rushed her, only to be met with a spinning backhand which snapped the invader’s neck back violently, the sound of the attacker’s vertebrae breaking filled the air just as the last of the invaders moved in on her. The dead alien’s body had barely hit the ground when Sparks spun around and grabbed the door to what had been her car. The metal screeched as she pulled the door from its hinges, and spun around again, caving in the rushing alien’s head with it.

"Sparks, where the hell are you?" came Racheli’s voice sounding more annoyed than usual.

Sparks turned in the direction of her frenemy’s voice and saw Racheli coming toward her, dragging alien entrails behind her. Racheli was wearing an expression of equal parts disgust and surprise when she saw the scene that had unfolded before her.

“What? You didn’t think I was some sort of damsel in distress, did you?” Sparks said with a grin.

Racheli raised her head a bit, her expression hidden underneath her mask. “I was hoping not, but I couldn’t find you. I’m pessimistic by nature. We should consider getting out of here. I rather not test my limits unless I have to.”

Abigail shrieked as bricks were blown out from the wall above her, stumbling as she made her way down an alley with a few other people. Dust choked the air, which was probably all for the better, as it might obscure the invaders aim at their little group. She couldn't believe her luck in this shit hole of a city. First she ran into the Hannelore, then she's sent to find some source of fucking zombies or some shit, and then she finds freshly murdered thugs and a damn monster butchering people. And now, here she was, being chased through the city by goddamned alien invaders.

Another burst of something flew through the air, impacting somewhere ahead of them. She gripped the arm of a little girl who was still with them, keeping the child on her feet instead of falling into whatever they were stumbling through. Abigail's head swam with ringing terror and confusion and anger, the results of an entire city being suddenly invaded and people being murdered in the hundreds. Worse was what she was fairly certain were the invaders emotions, cold and slimy in her brain and making her feel like reality wasn't where it should be.

She had woken up today thinking she was going to at least find either a paying job in the city or, failing that, start investigative work on what the Psychopomp Queen wanted her to do. She hadn't even had her morning whiskey, in what she tried to convince herself at the time was a positive step even though the lack of substances in her blood meant she was more open than ever to this damned combat zone of a city. So of course, mid morning when the whole city suddenly seized up in terror, she had fallen to the floor and hadn't been able to get her thoughts straight since. She was barely even conscious at this point, mindlessly running with others in groups that were being picked off a little at a time. That disturbing thought crossed her mind, that she was just a rabbit in a trap, right as the building at the end of the alley collapsed from another blast, though she couldn't tell where that one had come from.

She felt the horrible wave of terror and death from in front of her, and stared wide-eyed as she realised that her and the little girl where the only ones left alive. She scurried, dragging the child with her, behind a pile of rubble and crouched down, hugging the girl below her and weeping uncontrollably in panic, gasping to try and catch her breath and silence it. The girl wasn't too much better, and it was probably that which led the alien trooper to walk over to their terrible hiding place. She couldn't read the facial expression as she looked up, but she could feel the cold menace as the shoulders moved, lifting its weapon to aim at them.

In her horror, her mind called out, across the realms she had access to, pleading for someone, anyone to come help her, not for herself, but for everyone who shouldn't have died today. And a chilling silence dropped into her mind, terror and pain washed away. Time seemed to stand still, in her eyes, as slowly the Veil dropped and she was looking at... something. Her mind refused on all levels to recognise whatever it was in front of her, for its own sake.

It spoke in the sounds of stone grinding together, of tidal waves and earthquakes, the crumbling of burning timbers, the whispering fall of ashes in a burning city, but her mind translated well enough. “YOU HAVE CALLED. WE HAVE COME.” She shuddered under the mental weight of the presence.

“Please,” she asked, knowing what she might be doing. “These people are going to die, and I don't think they're supposed to. Something's wrong here.”

The image in front of her shook. She could almost feel...amusement? “YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF FATE IS FLAWED, MORTAL CREATURE, BUT HERE YOU MAY BE CORRECT. WHAT DO YOU SEEK FROM US, THE ONLY ANSWER TO YOUR CALL IN TIME ENOUGH TO DO SOMETHING?”

“I don't know. I've always been a bridge, never a fighter. Even here, while I have fought, it was to make or break connections. I can't fight, I don't know how in my own world.”

“AHHH. YOU SEEK POWER FROM US. THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME ONE SUCH AS YOU HAS COME. WHAT DO YOU OFFER TO US?”

Abigail froze. Things like this were dangerous even when she was in a position of strength. Here, desperate and needing help, she was so much worse off. But she couldn't do nothing. If for no other reason than she didn't want to die quite yet. She could guide others but she wasn't ready for this side of the veil yet. She could feel other things, other beings, coming to her call, but they were far off, too far to help, much as the thing had said.

“Give me your name, and I will act as a conduit for you, though not permanently. I will let you through me into my world, to fight this menace, and in return I will grant you the same bridging thrice more in my life. I can refuse any time, but I must grant you three.”

The entity in front of her paused, suddenly stopping any and all motion. She could almost make out the edges of what her mind did not want to understand.

“THIS IS ACCEPTABLE, MORTAL. GRANT US PASSAGE NOW AND WE SHALL USE YOU TO REMOVE THIS STAIN FROM THE TIMELINE WHERE WE FIND IT. THE DEAL IS STRUCK.”

---

Time unfroze, but now Abigail found herself only watching through her own eyes. And, through whatever mechanisms governed her power, she didn't even feel the waves of terror anymore, as if she had earmuffs over her mind. The girl under her screamed, the alien raised its weapon, she could almost imagine she could see the energy building to wipe the pair out of existence...

And then she felt it. All along her skin, in her bones, though she had no physical control over her body, the thing was coming through. A tentacle, a real fucking tentacle oh god a fucking tentacle rose out of her now upraised hand, shedding black drops of something as it moved. It lashed out, wrapping around the weapon and tugging it out of line to blast down the street. The alien's face registered shock just before another writhing limb, and another and another oh god how many poured out from her sleeve and her fingers, lashing and wrapping the alien and suddenly ripping him apart in a shower of gore. Another three of the things grabbed the girl and dumped her, screaming, into a dumpster to hide, as Abigail was lifted up, standing, amidst a roiling ball of tentacles that seemed almost to absorb the light that touched them.

The entity in control of her body paused, grinning to itself. Abigail was suddenly outside of her own body, looking at her own face, which had horrifically sharpened teeth and was crying wispy motes of darkness from space-black eyes. It spoke directly to her immaterial presence in its voice from the other side.

“IT HAS BEEN SO LONG SINCE WE HAVE EXPERIENCED THIS SIDE OF REALITY. YOU ARE A BLESSING, YOUNG MORTAL SHAMAN. AS AGREED, WE WILL END THIS THREAT OR AID IN ITS END, AND THEN WE SHALL RETREAT. YOU KNOW THE THINGS YOU WILL SUFFER SHOULD YOU TRY AND RENEGE ON OUR AGREEMENT.”

And she did. Sudden knowledge of unspeakable things stretching into eternity dropped into her mind with no warning, as her body was born along , half walking and half being thrust along the alley by the seemingly endless multitude of tentacles. They seemed to disappear into her sleeves and skin and reappear as needed. And amongst them she felt bony spurs and claws, beaks, and eyes, all hidden in a shadowy mist of some sort. She regretted immensely her choice, now, but it was too late for regrets. She was just along for the ride at this point.

The tide of formless mayhem slammed through a group of aliens with shuddering glee, bodies being ripped apart, chewed, or flung away in no discernible pattern. Through that group was some sort of vehicle, which was seized by it's parts and ripped asunder with deafening shrieks of metal. And then her body and it's “escort” smashed through three walls, what she thought might be an apartment or something else, and then they were through to a street. Her body was raised onto a platform of limbs, leaving her relatively exposed except for the shadows dripping off of her like rain, and the black eyes looked about for targets. Several shots flew past her, and with a jerk of motion she was moving down the street. Tentacles seemed to stretch however far they needed to to grab a lightpost, car, or other heavy object to pull the mass along, while clawed limbs and spiked talons sheared into the asphalt and nearby building to move her. She crossed two hundred yards in less than ten seconds and fell upon another group of invaders. Their shrieks of terror rang in her ears, but she felt the creature possessing her shudder with joy at the sounds. What the hell had she let into her world!?

Whatever had been shielding her reception broke away, though unlike when she had control of it, it was directed. She could feel the thing using her senses to track across the city, though she wasn't sure what it was looking for until it found it. A spot where the invaders were scared and hurt. Somewhere there was fighting. So it as being attracted to conflict. She had let loose a nightmare, and one far more powerful than she had bet on answering her. While that was a risk, she hadn't exactly had a whole lot of choice in the matter. She wished a psychopomp would show up. Maybe Hannelore could tell her what she had just agreed to.

She felt her body get hauled out and along the streets, smashing through or throwing away any obstacles with contemptuous ease. The worst was that she could feel all of the extra bits as if they were also a part of her, and they were revolting, but at the same time she could feel the sensuous joy the thing was having as it romped through the city. They crossed some sort of university grounds, and it leapt high through the air, catching a passing Star Wars looking thing like a dog with a frisbee, only in a massive set of razor-barbed spider-like legs and crushing it to pieces before they hit the ground and continued smoothly along the green grass.

Through two more alleys, over a building ,and across an intersection, limbs always seeking and finding things blindly but unerringly accurately. Eyes opened in the mass that surrounded her, which she was shocked to find wasn't all that large. She had been trying to keep herself separate, but it was like trying to ignore her own hand. Her initial horror had stopped her from analysing exactly what she was dealing with, and her mind had filled in blanks, but now her perceptions were growing uncomfortably accustomed to her new state of being.

The tentacles were long, or short as needed, and insanely strong, but except when used for locomotion, they weren't exceptionally thick, and while many were rapidly spinning in and out of existence round her, there only seemed to be a few solidly in the world at a time, the rest fading in or our at the moment. They seemed mostly to gather at her wrists, or her sleeves. She was disturbed to find that she could feel the shadows in her own clothes as acutely as the limbs that weren't hers, and was unaware of whether they emerged from her own human flesh or the darkness. Two to six stayed near her waist, and the clawed limbs and other bits seemed to gather near her legs, giving a vague humanoid shape to what she realised was her own human body, just wrapped in shadows like a thick cloak that drifted and dripped behind her now. Her face was still revealed, and the thing piloting her was grinning like an idiot, with a mouth that seemed far too wide with too many teeth, despite still fitting on her face just fine.

Ripping through a store from back to front, her new limbs snaked out onto another street, this one filled with invaders. Some seemed petrified, others scattered from other attacks. It didn't matter to her possessor. All of them were rent into parts in a shockingly short time, the rear of the column wiped in less than a minute in the same way a cat might assault a fragile toy, or a dog a pillow. As the screams died away, the thing in her body raised itself up again, laughing in its horrible voice as Abigail saw though her own eyes down the street to where some of the world's most notable heroes stood against a giant machine like the finale of some movie.

The world was strange. She could not make sense of it since she had been born a day ago.

It was filled with strange shapes and colours. She liked the black and the blue and the green, which was what most of the landscape was made up of. Vaguely she could see what she knew somehow were trees. And rocks. Those were nice.

But as she walked, she moved towards the thing that drove her. It infuriated her by its mere existence. A towering column of light, yellows and whites, spearing up in the distance. She wanted it to stop being, so she moved towards it.

Lots of times, there were things that flared orange or red in her vision. Typically, they were brighter when they made noises at her. She would raise her hand and her warmth would go and make them stop, turning them back to blues and blacks. Her warmth was a lovely mix of blue and purple, and she found she could walk between it if she wanted, as if any spot of it was right next to each other. But it took a bit to do, and she wasn't sure about it, so she just walked.

She wasn't tired. She knew, somewhere, that was strange, that the orange things would need to lay down after exerting themselves, but she was fine. She was just so angry she couldn't sleep. She couldn't rest. She had to kill the tower. It was the only thing that mattered.

So she walked on. Lots of things flared oranges at her, so she made them stop before they made her more angry. Sometimes they were small. Other times they were bigger than her and made of things that glowed bright green when she made them stop moving. Her whole world was a swirl of colours and lights and noise, most of the noise being her warmth keeping her safe.

Somewhere, somewhere deep, she felt like there was more to the world, but the need, the drive, the desire and rage and burning passion to kill the tower drowned whatever part of her that was until it was quiet.

Another swarm of red came up over the horizon in front of her. She screamed at it, trying to make it go away, her warmth extending out in front of her in a wash that left green in its wake. More red flared on it's edges, shapes falling away. The sharp edges of what she knew were buildings gave way to the more pleasing crumbled shapes of nature reclaiming them through her warmth.

The sharp edges were red sometimes, when she grew close enough to see them. None of them lasted long. She longed to paint the whole world in greens and blues, but first the tower must fall. So she continued, left of where the glowing green ball in the sky had come up, always heading for the line of the tower in her vision.

---

Schmidt watched in awe as the metahuman continued her path of destruction. They had left the outskirts of Phoenix, ruined and blazing, and somehow their little train of followers had grown rather than shrunk. Some were media hounds, reporting. Others were like the ones that had rescued her, fanatics wrapped up in whatever madness or religious fervour had convinced them to do so. The majority, it seemed, were merely curious or hopeless, following the trail of destruction as though it was some sort of signal for a change they didn't know they needed.

Schmidt herself wasn't sure what camp she was in, as the fires ahead reflected off her eyes. She should have radioed in, tried to do something. Her training screamed at her to. But she was captivated by the form ahead of them. Glimpses through heat haze, ash, and flames had let her see what looked to be a girl no more than sixteen, naked except for the destruction around her and the glow of the heat. She seemed to have some sort of path, one that was pushed aside by concentrations of emergency services, though not without massive casualties. She winced as she watched another group of state patrol veer off from a fireball the girl had screamed at them. More National Guard scattered from in front of her as she did so, having hidden in cover.

They were fighting her, Schmidt could tell. She could hear the reports of gunfire all around. But it was scattered and not concentrated, not since last night after the path had avoided the main areas of Phoenix. The suburbs had suffered significantly, but the city itself was spared a trail of destruction through its heart. But every time a gun broke the silence, the FBI agent could see the flare around the girl, where the lead flash-melted in the heat more than twenty yards away. That alone was enough to keep her from trying anything. She had watched a tank shell disintegrate in that heat.

So she watched, from atop the RV she had woken up in. They had given her some painkillers, and she knew she needed medical attention, but she was stable, and she told herself that she might be the only person trying to understand what the hell was happening, rather than just watching. Her concentration was broken by something she had almost forgotten about, a streak of light....no, five of them, in the sky above. That's right, the Earth had been invaded. She shook the sense of being in a movie out of her head and watched, rapt, to see what the response was as the lights swept down towards the burning figure a few miles ahead of her.

---

More red....no, orange...yellow. Above her. They circled, and she flung her purple and blue warmth with a backhand to ward it off. One erupted into greens, flaring to blue as it fell. The rest came around, and white flares shot at her. The wall of her warmth rose, but some snuck through, and touched the ground near her. She screamed. How dare they do this near her!?

A hand shot forward, bright purple spilling from it in a line like a laser, striking one of the yellow shapes and latching onto it. She stepped through it, onto the yellow shape, and while her warmth reached and begin to bubble through it, she lashed it out to strike two more, knocking them from the sky in a fit of rage, stomping her foot through the molten purple, yellow, and green beneath her. She plummeted down back to the ground, only to step through again, landing on one shape careening downward. The last had veered, fleeing from her, and her power could not reach it, so she tumbled with this one she stood on until it erupted into green and blue against the black ground. She rolled several times, then stood. It took her a moment to find the tower again, and then she walked forward again, intent upon her goal.

---

Schmidt stared as the last of the aliens sped away into the night. The whole episode had taken less than a few seconds. She thought at first the burning girl had been hurt in the crash, but there she was, standing up and marching onward like a golem. This was the first time she thought that she had no idea where her cell phone was after the crash.

[Interlude: For Answer]





[Interlude: Predators in the Dark]

“More of a Dodger's guy myself,” Icon had responded to Chris’ little quip.

“Hmm, I would have never pegged you for a West Coaster, as you don’t look old enough to have been arou— ” Chris said before he was so rudely interrupted by one of Arlaaekan energy weapons. If it wasn’t for his high-tech armor, the alien soldier would have knocked the Iron Knight off his feet, if not worse. But he easily side-stepped the blast and returned fire with a wrist rocket. While the missile was not powerful enough to incapacitate the alien, it did nonetheless give Chris an opportunity to take to the air.

”Huh, we? Is she a Guardian too?” Chris heard Terra Firma call out. He turned his head and saw the metahuman he was referring to: a green haired woman who was turning some of the aliens into stone. All this girl was missing was hair made of snakes to complement this petrification power.

“She wasn’t on my recruitment list. Maybe she’s one of Icon’s?”

Terra Firma dove straight into the action. After Terra Firma unleashed his metahuman powers against the massive machine, the nearby Arlaaekans focused their attention on the elemental hero. While the Arlaaekans were momentarily distracted by Terra Firma, Chris decided to say hello to the mysterious man atop the alien tank. He launched himself into the air and rocketed skyward until he was face-to-face with the combatant on top of the Arlaaekan tank.

“I’ve got a message from my fellow inhabitants of this rock that we call home: pack up your army of E.T.’s back onto your flying saucers and go bully a different planet. We really don’t like bullies here on Earth,” Chris declared to the man standing atop the giant war machine. While this individual wore armor similar to the other Arlaaekan soldiers, something felt different about this guy to Chris, something almost human.

Before either Chris or the mysterious man standing before him could move a muscle, something had burst through one of the nearby storefronts. The crash immediately drew Chris’ attention. The first thing Chris noticed, besides the property damage, was the tentacles, the main feature of this entity. Between the tentacles and the shadowy shroud, Chris could not tell whether this thing was man or beast, only that it existed. Although this thing was focusing its wrath on the alien invaders, Chris was nonetheless still concerned about the potential collateral damage.

“Guardians, is anybody going to do anything about the tentacle monster rampaging through the streets?”

High Command Underground Bunker, Below Washington D.C.

President Jefferson Blake found himself sitting in the center of the oversized round table that was situated in the center of an underground bunker that until today, he didn't know existed. He knew that there were underground tunnels beneath the capitol city, which various government personnel could access in the event of an enemy attack or another emergency, however, until the alien ships arrived over Earth, he had no idea just how elaborate the underground bunker was. The bunker itself had been inspired by long forgotten plans for an expansive underground network that the government could operate from in the event of a direct nuclear attack. The Deep Underground Command Center was supposed to be the perfect fail safe for the government should the city above be destroyed. However, plans for the complex had been abandoned in 1965 when President Johnson dismissed the idea the most idiotic thing he had ever heard in his life.

However, the idea had been revived in the mid 1970's, and President Blake was thankful for that. He sat at the table, looking at the vast monitor arrays which showed satellite images of the sheer destruction that the invaders had wrought upon the world. San Francisco was gone, Hawaii had been ravaged by a tsunami. All across the globe, from Germany to Japan, From Russia to North Korea, cities lay in ruins. Untold millions were dead, and from what he could see, those could be conservative estimates. Yet here he sat, at this large round table with high ranking members of his cabinet, the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as Congressional leadership, trying to figure out exactly what they were going to do next.

“What I don't understand is, why didn't they take out our satellites? They went to all this trouble to attack us, how could they have an oversight like that?” Senator Beth Lewis asked.

“It wasn't an oversight.-” General Hoskins, a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said bluntly. “-They didn't care if we had the satellites. They don't think we're a threat to them.”

“Be that as it may, we're not fighting blind. There's significant resistance in Pacific Point, as well as in Lost Haven.” Another general began.

“Which is expected, both cities have large metahuman populations. We can move forces from Point Loma in San Diego to Pacific Point to back up the Metas there, and we can mobilize from Fort Devens, air support could get to Lost Haven in under a half hour, ground support would take longer, but with the Guardians on the ground there, we may have more time.” Hoskins said.

President Blake listened as they talked strategy, and he honestly didn't like the options presented. Regardless of who was fighting on the front lines in Lost Haven, the President knew that they may not have hours. There had to be a better option, and the President believed that he may just have that option available.

“That's not good enough. We may not have a country, hell, a planet in a few hours. We need something that can deploy much faster, and with more firepower.-” President Blake spoke up. “-We need S.T.R.I.K.E.”

“With all do respect Mr President, S.T.R.I.K.E died with Anderson. We need to focus on what we still have, and how best to deploy it.” Hoskins shot back.

“Well General, that's not entirely true.-” President Blake said. “-Isn't that right, Director?” As the President finished speaking, a hidden door at the side of the subterranean conference room slid open, and into the room walked a ghost, a man thought to have been killed in an attack perpetrated by the terrorist organization, The Hounds of Humanity, Director Alexander Anderson himself.

“Oh General, as the old saying goes, the rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.” Anderson said as he took a seat next to the President.

Why wasn't the invasion over by now?

No self-respecting Arlaeekan dared to voice that question out loud, of course, but as the humans continued to resist and daily objectives were being held back further and further, it became inescapable as the invading armies were forced to take the city building by building, sometimes room by room. Still, though the advance was slow, it was still an advance, and with the help of their capital ship arriving to provide much needed fire support, this farce of a resistance could be put to a swift end.

Thus emboldened, the Arlaeekans began their advance into Downtown, throwing themselves against the defensive works hastily thrown together by the messy hodgepodge of civilians, law enforcement, and National Guardsmen making up the human resistance, a suicidal one that only held until the aliens brought their armor to bear. On Brook Street, a security guard popped up over the barricade with his shotgun, blasting the face off of an alien approaching and ducking under a flurry of heated plasma. Next to him, one of the teens throwing Molotovs over the wall collapsed screaming, his arm sizzling from a direct plasma shot. Swearing under his breath, he waited for the plasma fire to cease before jumping back up and unloading another round of buckshot. Before he could pull the trigger, the entire squadron, at least six of them, were suddenly surrounded in a purple haze before flying towards one another and colliding in a heap. The guard couldn't quite believe his eyes before a flash of purple appeared on the barricade next to him.

"Looks like I got here just in time!"

The security guard blinked, not recognizing the squid-like person crouching on the barricade, the third eye between the usual two glowing beneath her hair. After a moment though, he realized there was something oddly familiar about the strange purple...alien?

"...Voyager?" he asked cautiously. "Why you lookin' so different?"

"New jacket!" she declared brightly. "Not the only thing new I'm sporting either!" With a wave, a portal opened up on the wall and a bundle of alien plasma rifles tumbled out, ready to be used by the humans against their owners.

"Man, why don't we have more aliens on our side?" a burly biker guy said as he armed himself with his new weapon as a national guardsmen jumped up from his radio set.

"Hey, I just heard from one of our scouts," the guardsmen reported. "The xenos are setting up something on the roof of the Bailey Building. Could be an artillery piece."

"I'm on it!"

Voyager tumbled backwards into another portal on the ground, appearing out the other end on a rooftop overlooking the shorter Baily Building. Definitely five aliens setting up some big gun, they noticed. Should be easy, perfect chance to flex their muscles a little with these new powers. Which...didn't have anything to do with physical strength so the metaphor doesn't work, but whatever. Opening another portal, Voyager hopped through and landed on top of the cannon barrel. They probably should have used their stunned surprise at seeing them to take them down, but there was one choice line they heard from Jordan that Voyager was just itching to use since they saw this thing.

"I see we're compensating for something," Voyager snarked at the Arlaeekans. "Is this why you're invading this little blue planet? For the little blue pills?" Voyager had no idea what a little blue pill was, but the annoyed expression on the lead Arlaeekan's face was worth it.

"Kill her!" the lead alien sneered. Voyager effortless swung around to avoid the fire, hanging from the barrel by their legs.

"I kinda prefer 'they'," Voyager retorted, raising their hands and yanking the rifles out of their grip via Psionics. "I also prefer you didn't have these." Dropping off and popping out a portal behind them, Voyager dodged a sudden dagger swipe and flung two of them into a wall with a hard thump. "You on the other hand, can have this back!" Voyager said, flinging a discarded rifle and beaning one of the aliens right between the eyes. Turning around with a grin on their face, the one good alien on the planet found themselves staring down a heated plasma barrel.

"Vermin-loving filth!" the translator hissed at them as they pulled the-

*CLANK*

Voyager nearly flinched as the Arlaeekan trying to shoot them suddenly went limp, the gun slipping from his grip as it collapsed in front of the fifth Arlaeekan that struck him over the head with a cannon shell. Voyager stared at him in confusion as the Arlaeekan grinned at them.

"You...TREACHEROUS SCUM!"

Voyager spun around as an unseen Arlaeekan suddenly jumped out, blasting him in the chest with his plasma rifle. Voyager immediately grabbed him with their Psionics and threw him into the wall and turned around to see the traitor Arlaeekan still standing, but instead of a gaping wound or burn where the plasma bolt hit him, there was a silver colored hole punched straight through, which closed up and changed colors to match the Arlaeekan uniform. The traitor alien only looked a little stunned from the experience if that.

"Uh...owwww, that....hurt?" the Arlaeekan said awkwardly before shaking his head. "Bah, no need to blend in now I...HEY!"

The Arlaeekan shot an arm towards Voyager that suddenly transformed into a semi-translucent, metallic silver appendage. Shooting past them, it grabbed the alien trying to come up behind Voyager with his own knife and slammed them hard into the cannon, distorting the barrel fiercely. Voyager, utterly shocked, turned to watch the appendage shrink back into an arm as the Arlaeekan suddenly transformed, changing into a tall, silver-colored humanoid, featureless except for a pair of glowing eyes, dressed in some sort of blue jumpsuit.

"Who...what are you?" Voyager asked.

"Proto, GCSA," the silvery being said proudly, its natural metallic sounding voice coming through now. "Man it's nice to be back to normal again, I've been in deep cover so long on these guys that I think I was getting dumber."

Something seemed to click in Voyager's head at these words. "Wait...you're another alien! Like me!"

Proto blinked his glowing eyes. "I...yeah I guess so. Is that odd around here?"

"I'm the only other alien I know! Besides...you know..." Voyager kicked one of the fallen Arlaeekans in the crotch to prove her point. An explosion suddenly echoed from downtown, prompting Voyager's interest. "Crud, I need to get going, they're on the move again."

"Need an extra pair of hands?" Proto asked, splitting his two arms into pairs to demonstrate. "I'd love to crack a few Arlaeekan skulls to get the taste of fashy genocidal fruitcake out of my mouth."

Voyager grinned. "We could use all the help we can get right now."

Moments later, another Arlaeekan column was surprised by a portal suddenly opening in their midst, and a pair of aliens leaping out to confront them. Weaving through plasma fire, Voyager flung more aliens through the air as Proto flowed past them, landing jabs and stabs from his tentacle-like limbs. Taking a moment to breath after she pulled another Arlaeekan fighter from the sky, she turned to her new ally as he reformed, from a gelatinous mound into his usual form.

"So...you know about these Arlaeekans?" Voyager asked, ducking underneath a blast of plasma.

"Oh yeah, real dirtbags. Just love invading and conquering new worlds because they think they're better then you," Proto explained. "Kinda surprised you don't know, the Celesarans have always hated them more then anyone else, and that's saying something."

Voyager blinked in surprise before moving on to the important questions. "So, if nobody likes them, how come they're still around?"

"Because they're powerful and scared half the galaxy into letting them do their thing," Proto said with a hint of venom in his tone. "Even the Concord's too scared to take them on, they just send me to keep an eye on them and make sure they don't hurt us directly."

Voyager opened their mouth to respond but suddenly felt a strange sensation of dread as the street was cast into shadow. Glancing upwards, the two aliens saw the massive Arlaeekan ship emerging from the portal overhead.

"Well at least they know how to keep things interesting," Proto said.

"I've taken down things in space before," Voyager declared, rolling up the sleeves on their jacket. "Bring it on."

As the two pondered the momentous task of defeating this ship, a smaller portal suddenly opened up beneath the ship, then more popped open as they began spewing out smaller, fast moving ships.

"Those...aren't Arlaeekan," Voyager realized.

And on Brook Street, one of the dropships landed in the path of the approaching Arlaeekan squadrons. The humans holding the line watched in awe as the doors opened up and the sound of roaring metal and hissing steam filled the air. Over the din a voice could be heard.

"By infernal steel, they shall be destroyed! Onward!"

He stood atop the massive Arlaaekan tank, known to few outside of the grand Arlaaekan army as The Warbringer, continuing to watch in disdain as Earth's heroes fought with all they had against the relentless onslaught of the the Arlaaekans. He wanted nothing more than to jump into the fray and deal with the so called heroes himself, however, he had orders from the Autocrat himself:

“Stay the course, and observe. Only strike when you must.”

The Autocrat's words still echoed in his mind, and while he would never dare disobey a direct order from the leader of the Arlaaekan people, as he was well aware of the fates of the few who have, he still wanted nothing more than to get his hands dirty. And for a moment, he thought that his chance had finally arrived.

“I’ve got a message from my fellow inhabitants of this rock that we call home: pack up your army of E.T.’s back onto your flying saucers and go bully a different planet. We really don’t like bullies here on Earth,” the armored hero, “The Iron Knight,” told him.

Beneath the half mask covering the lower portion of his face, The Outsider's mouth curled into a sneering grin. Then, there was a commotion as a creature began rampaging nearby with tentacles reaching out, slaughtering some of his men while at the same time sending humans scurrying in every direction. The sudden appearance of the inhuman creature got the attention of the armored hero, who moved away from the Warbringer and toward the creature who was wreaking havoc on the ground below.

No sooner had the armored Guardian turned his attention to the bizarre entity below than had something else caught the Outsider's attention. On the street below, the silver and cobalt clad hero known as Icon fought off a legion of Arlaaekan soldiers. As the Outsider watched Icon in action, he began to scowl beneath his mask. To the Outsider, Icon represented everything about this world that he hated, a world that had left him to die and forgotten about him.

However, to the Outsider, that was another life, one that he had mostly put behind him. A life that he could finally put to rest with the destruction of his home world. However, before he could witness the destruction of Earth, he wanted to slaughter its heroes, starting with Icon.



They just kept coming.

No matter how many of the invaders they put down, more of the teal skinned marauders just arrived in what seemed like wave after never-ending wave. Only to be beaten back by the Guardians, as well as a number of other super powered beings, only the cycle to replay itself.
“Guardians, is anybody going to do anything about the tentacle monster rampaging through the streets?” Iron Knight's voice came through the Guardians' communicators.

“Tentacle monster? Wha-” Icon was cut off as a black and purple blur appeared before him, Icon recognized him as the man who had been standing on top of the gigantic tank. Before he could react, the figure grabbed him by the throat, and with one hand hoisted him into the air and then slammed him down onto the street, shattering the pavement beneath him. In a single motion, he picked Icon back up and connected with a wild round house right which staggered the hero, and then followed with a kick which struck Icon in the chest, sending him crashing through the front of a nearby storefront.

Icon lay among the rubble as he tried to get his bearings. He had been surprised by the ferocity of the sudden attack. He rolled over and slowly got to his feet, and when he did he found himself again face to face with the black and purple clad invader. The thing that struck Icon about this adversary wasn't the immense power that he seemed to possess, but that he was different from the others.

“You're human.” Icon said as his attacker moved closer to him.

“I was.-” the Outsider admitted. “-a long time ago.” He finished as he lunged for Icon who evaded the attack and countered with a right hand, which missed its mark. The Outsider hit Icon with a back hand and in one fluid motion reversed direction and followed up with an elbow to Icon's temple, the blow knocked the hero back. Staggered by the blow, Icon wasn't able to protect himself when his attacker unleashed an incredible energy attack which blew him back through the front of the storefront. Icon rolled several times before coming to a stop in the street. As Icon looked up, he saw that the store that he had just been thrown from was engulfed in flames, and the man who had so easily tossed him aside was striding toward him.

More soldiers continued to flow into the streets, one had to wonder if the rest of the world was really under attack with this many soldiers here.

David planted his feet, clenched his hands as if grabbing something, then brought up his arm, and circled it in a wide motion around himself. At the same time, a giant line of asphalt and cement sprung up. Bits of debris fell off as it emerged, hanging in the air for just a moment. Despite the cement being formerly rigid, completely solid. It now seemed like a liquid, enslaved to his will, slightly bending the other way just before David acted. The earthen 'limb' then lunged toward the hundred alien soldiers marching down towards them in a wide-long sweep, latching or merging onto their legs. As David swung his arm they all flung sideways, upside down, and then right down onto the floor in a hard crash.

"Deyah!" David shouted as he waved his construct toward a building, launching the unconscious bodies of the soldiers into the nearby buildings. Several of them made soft groans as they faded into a harsh sleep, the rest stayed peacefully at rest.

“Guardians, is anybody going to do anything about the tentacle monster rampaging through the streets?” Iron Knight's voice came through David's communicator, how he was physically hearing it though? He wasn't quite sure yet.

"Monster? Where?" David asked as he spun about, and found what Iron Knight was talking about. A very creepy looking and ominous feeling girl. Strange feelings accompanied the foreboding feeling he felt as he gazed at her, feelings like, a very vague form of recognition.

'Have I seen this before? Has... Gaia?' David thought to himself. It rarely occurred to him, but he never did find out what exactly exterminated the ancient humans, and for what reason his power existed.

The girl was making mincemeat of the aliens, a gruesome sight to be sure, but perhaps not unwarranted? David felt no love for these aliens, he wouldn't kill them, not yet anyways, but to defend them? It was a weird feeling to wrestle with morality now of all times, considering these invaders had commuted heinous warcrimes, but for now 'she' would get to have her fun, and if she was still here when it was all over. He would face her.

"Priorities right? I don't like it, but I'm staying focused on the aliens right now." He replied back, and hoped that the communicator was still functioning normally.

It was one thing after another today. The booming and crashing on the other side of the battlezone drew his attention, and he flew out towards it. Spotting Icon flying out of a building, David decided to land next to him.

"I'm backing you up! Are you hurt?" David shouted out, extending a hand to the fallen Hero. Then addressed the same foe that had done this to Icon.

"Iron Knight is right you know. Earth's closed right now."

“Captain, our sensors are picking up non-Earthling hostiles engaging our forces,” an Arlaaekan officer alerted Captain Tri’Karda as they manned the deck.

“Inform our forces of this development, not that it will matter much,” Captain Tri’Karda commanded.

While his words displayed blatant arrogance, the annuals of the Arlaaekans supported his confidence. For millenniums, the Arlaaekans had been sending out golden rods to the younger races of the galaxy. No matter whether each world had accepted the Great Concord, the Arlaaekans had always prevailed. Over two-thousand worlds had already fallen to the Arlaaekan armada and hundreds more still awaited their judgement day.

This was not the first time the recipients of the golden rods had tried to band together in vain to fend off the Arlaaekan scourge. Because the Full Disclosure reveals the inevitability of the Arlaaekan conquest, it was only natural for some of the newly enlightened civilizations to contact one another. Decades ago, one such alliance arose to face the Arlaaekans, the so-called “Great Coalition.” The Arlaaekan armada massacred the combined forces of the alliance, leaving their homeworlds nearly defenseless against their impending doom.

“Is the Psionic Inducer prepped and ready?” Captain Tri’Karda asked while he reviewed the latest status update for the invasion. The hard-light projection of the Earth displayed clear outlines of the various landmasses that dotted the oceans that covered much of the planet. It represented the areas under Arlaaekan occupation with a teal highlight. Considering that the invasion had only started a few hours ago, the invasion had gone relatively according to plan, with large swaths of the planet under their control and ever increasing. Only the isolated pockets of irregularly high metahuman population were throwing a wrench into their plans. But Tri’Karda was not concerned, as the rest of the armada would overwhelm these last holdouts once the rest of the planet was under Arlaaekan dominion.

“We just need to sap some psychic energy from the indigenous metahuman population,” the ship’s first officer reported on the status of the Psionic Inducer.

“Then proceed,” Tri’Karda ordered. Because not every species in the universe has the capacity for or have developed psionic abilities, the Arlaaekans did not always have to utilize the Psionic Inducer. The last time the world conquerors had employed the device was on Atyndro 5, a world that had been populated by a naturally psionic race. Those poor souls did not know what hit them before it was long too late. While the humans did not have the same psionic potential as the populace of Atyndro 5, there were enough psychic metahumans in Pacific Point for it to be effective.

“Any other orders, captain?”

“Reinforce the shields. There’re reports that the first invasion force took heavy damage from an unknown power source. I will not have my ship be taken out of the sky so easily,” Tri’Karda added to his commands. He paused for a moment before speaking up again, as another thought came to mind. “Also, take us over the city. The natives wouldn’t want us crash landing into their civilian sectors, now would they?”

---

This certainly wasn’t how I would have liked to have spent on the day I got married. Well, I guess nobody really expected aliens raining on everyone’s parade today. And the whole alien doomsday scenario might have been a factor that influenced Will’s and my decision to get married on a whim. But that doesn’t matter; let’s focus on the killer aliens who are not only tearing up Pacific Point, the town I now call home, but also the entire world. Nobody, and I mean nobody, likes freaking aliens invading. Heck, even the evil masterminds of the world are probably unhappy, even if it is only because they’re not the ones doing the whole world conquest thing.

Emily and I were catching our breaths atop a rooftop after we had fought off some alien invaders. No matter how many of these aliens we take down, they just keep on coming. We retreated onto this rooftop not only to get a respite, but also to get a better view of what we’re dealing with. Ever since that big spaceship drove through the giant wormhole in the sky, the attacks had intensified. What would aliens want with Pacific Point, anyways? Unless they want a tan, there’s not really anything strategic here. Maybe they’re trying to take out the resident superheroes?

“This certainly could have gone worse,” Emily said as she scanned the skyline of Pacific Point.

“What could be worse than an alien invasion?”

“Well, the world my alternate came from had a run-in with aliens like these. They apparently shattered our moon during the invasion. That’s kind of important for Earth functioning properly,” Emily explained the information she gleamed from the memories she inherited from the elseworld version of herself she and many others (including myself) had been transformed into as of late.

“I know you’re trying to be reassuring, but it’s not quite working.”

“Hey, I could have said that they cracked the Earth into a gazillion pieces.”

“Still not helping.”

While we continued to take our quick breather, I noticed the sound of boots and steel tracks marching down a nearby street. When I peered over the rooftop ledge, I saw mechanized infantry rushing towards the alien invaders. While I could clearly tell that these soldiers weren’t the US military from their uniforms and equipment, it took me a moment to connect the dots: S.T.R.I.K.E. Although I haven’t had too many interactions with this secretive organization, I could recognize their gear from the one time I was held in their custody after I first acquired my powers.

“I thought these guys went defunct after the Hounds attacked?” I stated to Emily. While we need all the help we can get to fight these aliens, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed to see these guys again. It is kind of problematic that a secret spy organization knows my secret identity.

“I guess their demise was greatly exaggerated,” Emily answered back.

“Well, we better get back out there. These aliens don’t look like the type to wait until we’re back at full strength.”

From the corner of my eye, I noticed the components of the giant spaceship’s lower section move and reorient itself. A spire descended from the center of the ship. Although the spaceship was too far away for me to see any details, I could tell there were some moving parts in that contraption.

“I really hope they’re not bringing out the bigger gun.”

I was expecting Emily to say something about the aliens were probably compensating for something if they had a ‘bigger gun,’ but she didn’t utter a single word. It wasn’t until I felt a buzzing sensation in my head when I turned and realized Emily had mysteriously fallen unconscious and was starting to tumble off the side of the rooftop. Thankfully, my spider reflexes allowed me to hit her with a webline and pull her away from the ledge. But what could have caused her to be knocked out cold, especially since I, nor any of the S.T.R.I.K.E. soldiers below had been affected? Luckily, Emily was only out of it for a mere moment before she started to come to.

“Please tell me you have a pouch on that costume with some Advil,” Emily told me as she struggled to her feet.

“What the heck happened to you?”

“The Arlaaekan capital ship seems to be siphoning off psionic energy. Her loss of consciousness must have been a side effect from the extraterrestrial technology,” Athena explained and thereby revealed her presence. “I cannot image anything good coming such a phenomenon.”

“So I’m guessing I wasn’t affected because I don’t have psychic powers.”

“Aubrey, who are you talking to? Please tell me you’re not going crazy.”

Oh great. Athena is staying invincible. We really need to figure out a way to distinguish when I’m the only person who can see her. I mean, I guess it should be obvious when people react to a Greek goddess standing in their midst. But we’re being invaded by aliens! Nobody has time to look for those cues while being shot at by aliens.

“Um, it’s kind of complicated. I’ll explain it after we’re no longer worrying about aliens destroying the world.”

“I would call BS on that, but you’re right about the aliens. We got bigger fish to fry. So, what’s our next play?”

“I guess we need to figure out a way to get on that ship.”

“I can easily sneak you onboard,” Athena spoke, although I was the only one who could hear her. “but I would recommend gathering up some allies before the infiltration.”

A Stellar Squad: Part 1

Pacific Point, California

The humans manning the barricade on Brook Street looked on in horror as an Arlaaekan heavy vehicle rolled onto the street, preparing to deal with the new threat arriving from the stars. No doubt some futile attempt to stall their inevitable victory, the invaders must have thought.

There was a roar like thunder, and the Arlaaekan tank was thrown back in a shower of fire and plasma as the soldiers scattered. Out of the transport rolled a machine, its great cannon smoking as it belched smoke and rolled effortlessly over the ruined streets, and in its wake...aliens. Not uniform and organized like the Arlaaekans, but rougher, visibly battle-hardened, and armed to the teeth. Some were furred, others coated in scales, many with extra limbs or eyes, even a handful of what were clearly machines of some sort. The new aliens moved forward, pushing back the Arlaaekans as their own vehicle rolled forward, resembling something out of black and white footage from the first world war. Some of them broke off and moved to join the humans in the barricade; the Security stepped aside as an avian-like creature rushed to the kid with the plasma burn and started treating the wound. He noticed for the first time the blue armband each had wrapped around one of their arms.

"W-who are you guys?" he asked, watching the new aliens handing out supplies and reinforcing the humans at their barricades. One of the aliens, a quiet, insectoid being, turned to look at him and a voice sounded out in his head.

"We're with the Coalition," the voice said. "And we're here to help."

---

"Eat shit, ET!"

Jordan Fletcher caught a glimpse of buckshot ripping through another alien before she ducked behind the barricade underneath a wave of plasma fire and loaded another shell.

"Always so eloquent," Dr. Martel commented, huddled in cover next to her with an old service pistol in hand. "And not to be an alarmist, but I think we're running low on ammo." He winced as a blast of plasma blew apart some of the desk they were taking cover behind.

"I'm aware," Fletcher shouted, closing the breach on her shotgun and jumping up. "Would be a great time for Riles to show up and AAGH!"

"JORDAN!"

Fletcher dropped hard to the ground, clutching at her plasma scorched hand. "Lucky shot, the bastard," she hissed through her teeth as Dr. Martel tore off one of his lab coat sleeves to wrap around it. "I'm starting to think we're fucked."

An alien shriek sounded from in front of the desk, prompting Martel to pop his head over. "I wouldn't be so sure of that hypothesis."

The front lobby had been overrun with the alien invaders, but now they weren't the only ones here. Slowly pushing through the front doors were heavily armored figures, sporting heavy two-handed guns he didn't recognize. Their faces were hidden behind glass, save for glowing orange eyes, and steam hissed from vents along their necks. The more hostile alien fired a burst of plasma, which burst across the chest of one of the armored aliens, throwing them back. The team responded with a hail of gunfire, mowing down several of the invading aliens.

Then a flash of brass, and something flew out of the ranks of the armored aliens, pulled along by a grappling hook of some sort as it slammed into and knocked down one of the aliens. It was similar to the strange armored beings, but lighter, a cloak draped across its shoulders which it immediately unfastened and tossed aside. Bandoliers and belts adorned the chest of the strange and oddly elegant being, but it quickly shot more hooks from its arms and flew out of the way of another blast of plasma. Landing in their midst, Jordan and Martel watched as the newcomer moved with shocking speed, aided by bursts of rocket propulsion on his hands and legs and more acrobatic stunts with the help of what were not one but two grappling hooks on either arm. One by one the aliens were struck down, until it was face to face with the leader. It spoke in an inhuman language neither Martel nor Jordan knew, and the alien charged the newcomer, drawing a knife. With a flash of steel, the armored figure parried the knife with an unseen blade and in one swift movement plunged the sword through the alien's chest. He pulled it out again with a flourish, holding it aloft before sheathing it to the cheers of the other armored beings in the room.

"Those were some slick moves, buddy," Jordan commented.

"You honor me greatly," the figure suddenly spoke, his voice tinny and distorted beneath his helmet and audibly struggling with some of the pronunciations. "One only hopes it will be enough against the Arlaaekan menace."

"Arlaaekan?" Martel asked. "Wait...you must be aliens as well!"

The commander of these aliens bowed regally. "Prince Wulfram, of Ogun," he announced. "Here to fight alongside my allies in the Grand Coalition."

"I guess these chumps aren't too popular then," Jordan commented, kicking one of the Arlaaekan corpses aside with her boot.

"Thousands of worlds lay desiccated and broken by their hand," Prince Wulfram declared, clenching his gloved fist. "But their empire of blood and ruin shall fall this day, until the last flame is extinguished."

Martel nodded sagely, unable to stop himself from thinking about what an excellent research paper this would all make for. "Well we certainly appreciate your help, but what drew you to come here."

"I seek the assistance of your companion," the prince explained. "I seek the Psion."

Jordan's eyes widened. "You mean...Riley?"

---

It seemed like an eternity since the mysterious man had left Pacific Point, but The Wanderer hadn’t noticed the short time since then when the aliens continued their onslaught. Voyager had been tasked to fight somewhere nearby and save any civilians in the area and get them to safety. For him, on the other hand, he was getting a sense that the aliens had identified that he was the one who decimated the initial invasion fleet and were gunning for him. While none of them were fatal or enough to put him down temporarily, but the injuries they were inflicting on him were growing. While his psionics were capable of dishing out more potent attacks the more damaged he was, he knew that if things were kept up like this then he would lose control of his psionics.

Another blast to his gut sent the wind out of him, the mutant sinking onto one knee. He instinctively blasted the offending alien, psionics strong enough now to send the alien into the wall in a watermelon-esque mess. As his body heaved for every ounce of air, he watched as another platoon of aliens fall to a hair of arrows as another set of heroes were engaging them with bows, arrows, and swords.

As the two heroes dealt with the small platoon of aliens, The Wanderer noticed the light coming from the sun above drastically go dim. He looked and looked in disbelief at the arrival of a much larger ship than the one that was brought down by the one who had attacked Voyager. He gritted his teeth at the sight as more of the fighter ships began their run down the street. Taking no chances and making sure that every hero had a chance to survive and fight back the threat, he lunged towards the two bow-wielding heroes.

When he got up to them, he raised one hand as the green beams of energy began to rain down on them to kill them. A familiar dome of psionic energy apparated as the beams struck the area with little effect. As the ships flew overhead, the mutant raised his other hand and sent two beams of psionic energy towards them, sending them up in flames in their direct hits, his eyes watching them as the balls of flaming wreckage crashed onto the street.

A moment passed. Once the area was secure enough, he lowered the barrier protecting the two heroes. He looked towards them, ”I suppose you guys have any sort of plan to get onto that thing there to try to bring it down?”

When Chris had turned his attention back to the mysterious man atop the tank, he was shocked to discover that the man had disappeared. While Chris was partially relieved that the man had not stabbed Chris in the back while his attention had been drawn elsewhere, he nonetheless scanned the area for the one individual who looked different from the rest of the alien invaders. It did not, however, take him long to find the man had now confronted Icon.

Of course he would go after Icon. Obviously no respect for us heroes who don’t have any powers, Chris initially thought upon seeing the mysterious man go after Icon. However, after the man had slammed Icon against the ground and then punted the blue and white garbed metahuman through a nearby storefront window, Chris was already counting his blessings that the man had attacked Icon instead of him. He was just a man in an exosuit, after all. Icon, on the other hand, could take it. Hopefully.

Since the man had abandoned his post, Chris immediately landed on the roof of the tank. At first, he tried to cut an opening through the tank’s armor with an on-suit laser, but his suit’s internal display in his helmet instantly alerted Chris that his suit would run out of charge before he would come anywhere close to pealing open this tin can. For the next few seconds, he desperately racked his brain for other possible solutions, until he landed on one specific one.

“Alright guys and girl, this might be a dumb idea, but I have a plan for taking out this tank. I would recommend staying clear of the straight line between this tank and that Cthulhu wannabe over there,” Chris remarked over the Guardians comms as he turned towards the unknown entity that was also attacking the Arlaaekans.

But Chris had to be careful about his next actions, as he did not want the tentacle creature attacking him instead of the tank. So, shooting at it and trying to lead it towards the tank was probably out of the question. Instead, he was going to have to draw the Arlaaekan fire towards the entity.

Before proceeding, however, Chris used the tech in his armor to scan the nearby buildings in the direction of the entity, just to ensure there were not any civilians in the crossfire. Once he knew the buildings were empty, he proceeded with his plan. After his onboard computers had calculated the precise angles he would have to fly at to get the tank’s shots to land near the tentacle entity, Chris leapt off the tank and zoomed through the air. Once he had drawn the tank’s attention by launching some of his suit’s armaments at the tank, Chris diverted power from his weapon systems to his shielding, just to make sure he would not be shot out of the sky.

Let’s hope this works, Chris thought as he kept narrowly dodging the blasts fired by the tank.

Richard Midas had watched the events unfold in Lost Haven from the massive picture window in his office. On a normal day, his office window provided him with an unrivaled view of the city, however, on this day it gave him a clear view of the battle that had been waged in the streets as well as in the skies above the city. However, as the battle raged on and he realized that the military, nor the city's population of meta humans would be able to end the alien incursion before it reached his doorstep, he decided that perhaps it was time to remove himself as well as a few of his more valuable assets away from the battleground. He had hoped that Sparks and Racheli would be back by now to assist in the relocation, however, the last he'd heard, they had decided to fight the threat head on in Chinatown, of all places. Their disobedience infuriated him, so much so that he had been tempted to use the kill switch implanted in Racheli's brain, however, he had decided against that course of action. He had decided that taking a power player like Ms Desdemona off the field while the fate of the world was very much at stake would be a bit...rash. Midas would deal with them at a later time, a time when hopefully the entire world was not burning.

Midas, flanked by Peter Jordan and a pair of bodyguards gifted to him from his new friends in the Eye of Osiris made their way through the long hallway several meters below Midas Industries. The bright lights and white tile gave it an almost sterile feel. Truth be told, Midas found the entire sub level uncomfortable, however, most of the time it did not bother him. Yet, with everything going on in the city above, and all over the globe in general, the space felt more claustrophobic than ever. However, at this moment, the most important thing to Midas was getting to them.

Though they were his creations, they were the closest thing he had to children of his own, at least that he was aware of. They may have been created artificially, but he had watched them grow from a vial of DNA and chemicals, into the smart and inquisitive children that they had become. However, his “affection” for the children was not his only motivation, although he saw them as his own children, a considerable fortune had gone into creating the children. And the fact that they had been created from the DNA of one of the most powerful beings on the planet made the twins invaluable to him and Midas Industries. Indeed, he had big plans for the twins. But first, he had to get them to safety. As powerful as they may be one day, at this moment, they were still powerless preteens.

The quartet had made their way along nearly the entire length of the long hallway until they finally reached a large magnetically sealed door. Midas made his way to a control console and placed his eye against a retina scanner, which triggered a green light above the door when it accepted his retinal scan, and the door hissed as it slowly slid open, revealing a child's bedroom. The room was colorfully decorated with pictures of cartoon characters and drawings, and was furnished with a small couch, a TV and a set of bunk beds. And inside the room, sitting on the floor surrounded by toys were a pair of children; a boy and a girl, who looked to be no more than ten or eleven years old, but in actuality were much, much younger.

“Children, grab your things. It's time to go.”

Keelan glowered sullenly as he stood in front of the displays. The resistance of these three had gone on for hours.

Frustration set in long ago, the high value nature of two of these targets had so far prevented him from taking off the kid gloves. Hard earned regimental discipline and spite was all that had prevented him from calling in bigger reinforcements so far. He refused to let his military opponents dictate terms.

<"You know it is not my way to second-guess, old friend. But murmurings from the top seem to bring your handling of a certain smaller resistence in Lost Haven into doubt."> Commodore Bayla spoke, breaking the silence and startling the Admiral, causing him to turn around.

<"Some view your maneuvers to be overly passive. It seems that many of their other forces have managed to re-group and take up effective positions due to the additional support you've been sending towards this suspected weapons factory.">

Admiral Keelan furrowed his brow in contemplation. The Commodore functioned well as a go-between who would keep the higher-ups out of his business, and also find and disseminate political information from rumours, innuendo and officers' meetings. Keelan considered his position and the unspoken nature of what Bayla was saying.

The Commodore needed more. A wry smile crossed the Admiral's face.

He'd give him more than he'd bargain for. He'd make him complicit.

<"Perhaps...">

Keelan turned the display around for Bayla to see. It showed the small rebellion battling Arlaaekans in the city street, with the focus being a certain teal fighter causing significant damage to their fighters and ground troops.

<"Is that--? The General's daughter..?> He turned and checked the Admiral for confirmation. His grin was all the confirmation he needed.

<"So when you said there was an 'additional piece of strategic value', you were talking politically...">

The Admiral went back to assigning troops and arranging formations.

<"I take it, you would take great interest in my finding out how much value this piece is? With subtlety being of paramount importance?">

<"What I like most about you Bayla, is how rarely you need to be given a direct order...">

With unspoken commands issued, Commodore Bayla took his leave to find out just how much the General's defector daughter would be worth to him.

---

At this point the trio had been fighting for hours, punishing wave by wave of precision strike-force teams hellbent on their defeat. By now they had discovered efficient methods of teamwork - the Aquilifer would target airborne craft, Flux would cut a swathe through any and all both in the air and on the ground, and the Vigilante would "play clean-up" and target predominantly ground-based targets.

So far they had proven to be devastatingly effective at each of their specific roles.

"They don't-- they don't let up! We've been going for hours!" The Aquilifer complained between gulping down lungfulls of air. "Exhausting!"

"My people are most relentless." Flux explained. "If they sense an objective is attainable towards achieving victory they will not cease in their willingness to pour men and ships until they seize victory."

"You can expend energy talking about how hard things are, or you can make the most of the few seconds break before the next wave and suck down more air."

The Aquilifer made a pained face in response to the Terrarian brawler before exhaling out a sigh.

"Hey! Wait a minute! Why am I the only one here who's gassed?! Aside from being teal, she looks like she just stepped out of a health spa, and you look like you've only just warmed up as well!"

Isaac shrugged. "I've been fighting and scrambling through sewers for thirty-six hours before, WITHOUT your grandfather's gravity gauntlets. I AM just getting warmed up."

"And I am Arlaaekan."

Dennis hunched over with a deep sigh and gulped in more air, before letting out a long groan as the trio saw another stream of aircraft bearing down on their position.

"I told you, you can expend energy whining about how hard things are, or you can make the most of the break before the next wave and get air..."

Dennis straightened up with another sigh, as he got ready to take to the sky.

"Yeah, something tells me you and my grandpa would get along great..."

---

Keelan's glower grew deeper with each passing failed wave. The trio had settled into a rhythm by now, with each insurgent knowing their role and tackling threats which their abilities were most effective at. Until he received further news though, this was all he had. Wave upon wave crashing upon them wearing away with fatigue like erosion upon solid rock. It was slow, it was tedious, it did not feel particularly rewarding, but he knew each attack brought them closer to inevitable success.

<"I have news."> Commodore Bayla announced before his presence was even known.

<"Good news?"> Keelan queried.

<"Unfortunately not. I have news of the value of... the unique strategic threat... in question.">

The Admiral didn't ask for a follow-up, his glower being all the interrogative required.

<"Unfortunately she has no value. She has been disavowed. The General has made no attempt to spare her officially, all paperwork has been lodged appropriately. If he has any desire for his daughter to survive her treachery he had made certain to cover his tracks in official channels.">

The Admiral growled out his frustration audibly. This complicated matters.

<"And unofficially?">

<"The few bits of information I've been able to glean from whispers throughout the armada seem to support this position. She fled. Her treachery is not to be forgiven merely because of his status, and he feels his status makes the shame greater still.">

The Admiral turned back to his screens, following the battle once again.

<"Keelan?">

<"Well, what else WOULD he say publicly?"> He snapped out his frustration. This complicated matters. It rose further questions of his handling of the situation in Downtown Lost Haven if the Arlaaekan traitor truly had no political value. A situation he should have crushed swiftly had been treated far too softly. It reflected poorly, and without justification the wolves would soon be at the door. <"Have you heard from the Zlaxon's mouth itself?">

<"And what if the answer remains the same?"> Commodore Bayla's sense for the political tensions as acute as ever. <"How shall you respond to criticisms?">

A wry grin crossed the Admiral's teal face. <"Why with spin seeded with truth, my friend."> A predatory tone of voice couched by his smirk. <"We found the General's traitorous daughter and were seeking out information on how we were to handle the situation. The delays were the result of my waiting for a subordinate trusted enough to properly carry the message without fear of exploiting the information for blackmail."> The wry grin apparently contagious as it now had been communicated to the Commodore.

<"In other words, it took time for you to get here. Now go. Go and bring me back my answer, one way or the other.">

Bayla turned on his heels and set about his mission. Keelan returned to his console.

Should the General not want his daughter back, that explanation would unlikely be believed by the Autocrat and the ruling class. They'd likely suspect his hesitation for the ranking officer he sent was as likely due to waiting for a trusted officer to carry out an intended attempt at blackmail - as was indeed the case - but such an accusation would be impossible to prove, with all evidence of any wrongdoing actually supporting his claim as to what occurred.

If the General did indeed want his daughter returned to him, their combined power would be enough to see off any internal political threats to his position. Waves would continue to wash against the human in black, the rod wielder and the traitor until their inevitable defeat. Should the General decline - well, the Destroyer-class DC Doomspear that was presently fulfilling a support role would make short work of the corner.

Sure, it would indeed be a shame to end things prematurely with this rod-wielder of what the locals called Earth - he indeed had come to enjoy the tradition of savouring in their destruction to conclude the invasion. He enjoyed the pomp of ceremonially delivering the rods to the Autocrat himself, who had even allowed him to keep a select few over the years. These rested in artisanly created cases of high quality which he kept in proud places within his quarters. But this preference he held could not be allowed to get in the way of the war effort. It would never be permitted.

Keelan despatched another wave upon the trio and awaited for Bayla to return with news of his answer.

An hour later, as the DC Doomspear edged closer to downtown Lost Haven, it's pulse cannon running preliminary diagnostics and being primed for firing, gave proof to the General's response.

---

Flux floated back down to the street as the three re-grouped after another wave's conquest. Isaac exhaled audibly through his voice modulator.

"So you're finally starting to get tired, huh?" Dennis said gleefully, pleased to see some cracks of humanity showing through in the black-garbed hero.

"That wasn't me sucking in air. It was a sigh. You're getting tired and you're starting to get sloppy. It was going to happen eventually, but I was hoping it'd take a bit longer. You were slower when you plowed through on those three up there, you left your backside unprotected. If it were earlier in the wave or they still had stragglers, one of them probably tags you."

"Oh come on!" He cried out in frustration, throwing his hands on his head and walking away shouting.

"I'm not being critical. It's fatigue. It's inevitable. I just hoped you'd last longer." The Vigilante glanced down towards the building which Dennis said his father used to work out of.

Flux looked at the Vigilante perplexed. She opened her mouth to speak and--

"Say anything and you doom us all." The Vigilante hissed, out of earshot of the ranting wielder of the Golden Rod.

Flux nodded glumly, not understanding, but believing him. This strange man who seemed to know more than anyone should about a great many things. The ranting hero re-joined the three, pointing at the one in black ready to sound off until...

Another swarm of small craft swept down towards them from the distance, with an ominous floating disc seemingly in tow.

"It's the Doomspear!" Chrissy cried out.

"Doom-SPEAR?? The thing's round. Who came up with that name?"

"The Doomspear was a mythical artefact from Ancient Arlaaekan legend. All of our largest ships are named after things from legend, our history, people or places. What are your ships named after?"

"..."

"...Well alright then." Dennis replied, avoiding the question.

Flux looked glumly down the street back to the familiar building, before casting another glance at the Vigilante.

"I know. Soon." He uttered opaquely.

"If the Doomspear's pulse cannon is allowed to go off, all of this shall be in a crater." Her brow uncharacteristically furrowed in an attempt to adequately explain the severity of their situation.

"How far?"

"About six of your city roads worth." The teal alien held her hands out and made three little 'jumps' further each way with her fingers.

"Six blocks?"

"That is what I said."

"Then we'd better make sure we're somewhere else by then..." Chrissy nodded in response. "What about their own small fighter craft and infantry? Surely they don't want to lose them to friendly fire. Will they withdraw, or what happens there?"

"They all receive an internal communications ping once the pulse cannon is charged and primed."

"So we wait until then and--"

"--and by then its too late. The ping happens seconds before it fires. Aerial manouevers are choreographed around it, then the ping aids with timing."

The black garbed vigilante stopped and considered what he was being told. So we need to be elsewhere. He thought to himself, watching the enormous disc and it's prominant weapon drift closer to their position. Pretty much now--

"So here they come again!" Exclaimed the Aquilifer, taking to the sky once more with the Golden Rod, before the Vigilante could get a word out. "I got these three!" He called his shot, as he soared into combat once more.

Flux looked on stunned, as the Vigilante watched Dennis once more take the fight to the invaders, before he was able to offer any order nor warning to the contrary.

---

The older man was surrounded by two soldiers in crisp Marine uniforms. They spoke in short bites, concise and to the point.

Or would have been if they had been instructed on exactly what was going on and were to actually convey the point...

He'd been separated from his home, his wife and plunged into a world equal parts as vaguely familiar as it was foreign.

Similar to the sensation you have when the world you know is invaded by aliens intent on conquest. But as much as that was related to this, that wasn't this. Whilst the soldiers did their utmost to convey the implied presence of control which lay in procedure, the tradition of the Marine Corps, and chain of command, the old man knew enough to know this was wrong. Which may have been the most deeply disquietening in and of itself.

No... that was still probably the alien craft and weaponry raining down outside above ground. But if you were at all familiar for how fond of procedure the Corps is... well, it was a close second.

"Retired Colonel Lewis 'Gunny' Bracken?" A voice in a different kind of suit spoke ahead of the trio.

The fact it seemed to be a question rather than a statement did not seem to put him at ease. Even when the man then commanded the other two to--

"At Ease!" Well... yeah. When he ordered the other two to do that...

Gunny nodded gently, his expression never changing from a squint.

"Dismissed! I believe we can handle it from here." The two younger Marines saluted, turned on their heels ad departed, leaving the older man with this strange man in his suit.

"I trust you and your wife are satisfied with the accommodations, given the situation?"

"And what situation is that?" Gunny replied. "Answers have seemed to be a scarce commodity today."

"Heh. They often are. I can see you probably have some reasonable questions, given everything that's--"

"Given that you had me dragged from my home by military escort. Yes, quite a few." His expression still hadn't changed.

"Perfectly fair." The suit eased. "Perfectly fair." He repeated, as if saying it twice would warm the frost from the older man's tone.

"They saluted you."

"Pardon?" Suit queried.

"They're Marines." Gunny clarified. "They saluted you. A civilian. Presumably you're the new Commander in Chief. So... we have a designated survivor situation here? The President's dead?"

"Nothing so morbid, fortunately." The suit smiled, pleased to actually have the opportunity to impart positive information. "No, I'm one of several people currently tasked to hold the power of Commander in Chief, as well as the Senate under special circumstances by proxy."

"To what ends?"

"How do you mean?" The Suit looked puzzled.

Gunny sighed. "I mean 'What am I doing here?'. You said 'tasked'. Presumably there's a task you're here to do."

"Ah. Well, today, you'll be pleased to know I'm tasked with restoring your career in the United States Marine Corps and with promoting you to the rank of Brigadier General. As you're well aware--"

"As I'm well aware, the rank of Generals can only be nominated by the Commander in Chief, namely the President, and confirmed by the Senate. Yeah, I see where this is going. My question is 'Why?' There's gotta be about--"

"In the first three hours of combat we lost eighty-fave to ninety percent of our Generals. As well as a significant number of obvious officers to be next to step into command. The President had the bright idea of re-commissioning past officers, beginning with those most recently retired - in order to prioritise more current and therefore more useful military knowledge."

Gunny's thoughts immediately went to his wife, currently being kept elsewhere in quarters within the vast underground facility. "Ninety percent in three hours?!?"

"Please remain calm, sir. The casualties already began to fall to a tickle in the last hour of those three hours, and further still since then. We believe the... unconventional nature... of this recent directive to find new high ranking officers has gone a long way to protect these officers. We suspect the invasion force had intel and targeted them early, to limit our ability to manouever and counter-strike."

Gunny remained introspective, soaking in everything he had been forced to absorb.

"In fact, sir. I suspect you and your wife may currently be in one of the safest facilities not only in the mainland United States, but the world entire."

"So the question is: Now, when that world needs you most, Brigadier General Bracken, will you serve once more?"

---

Rock encircled Flux and decimated any and all stray Arlaaekan forces that had the wrong idea. The Vigilante threw impossibly heavy blows repeatedly with the help of the gravity gauntlets of the original Aquilifer's design, and Dennis soared through the sky blasting and hammering different sized alien craft with the Golden Rod.

The trio could hear some kind of white noise emanating from directly above as the primary weapon of the Destroyer Class Doomspear took position and was primed for firing. It was almost completely over the building the original Aquilifer had worked out of for so many years at this point.

"HEY!" The Vigilante called out, trying desperately to be heard by the other two over the din of war.

"TOGETHER NOW!" He pointed to space between the three of them.

Dennis lifted his head, distracted almost took a plasma blast to the chest until he used the Golden Rod to safely deflect it into other Arlaaekan fighters, purely by accident. He nodded to the man in black and refocused, trying to find a way to free up time to get himself where he was needed, for reasons he didn't know.

But then this guy seemed to have a lot of reasons for various things he did which he felt he didn't need to tell anybody.

The Vigilante bounced over scattered infantry, punched a few stragglers and got to where he told the other two to meet. Only to find himself all alone.

The Aquilifer was distracted and being held up by aerial combatants, but Flux looked even more absorbed in her combat. It didn't look like he'd even heard her. She was battering ground force infantry with a fervour that showed she had precious little control over the rage she had absorbed from the Vigilante. He'd let it go too far. Let her feel too much. She had no way of dealing with the concentrated bitterness he functioned with on a daily basis.

She was the priority.

"GET THERE!" He called back to the Aquilifer, who nodded. He was free to now, as fighter forces began to withdraw. But for no positive reason. The Vigilante sensed something going on far above, but didn't dare take a peek.

He dove just beyond Flux, pulled by the added weight of the gravity gauntlets, before performing a roll to come to a stop. He quickly got to his feet and raced back to her. Pointing at the place where the Dennis now stood, and to the sky above.

She turned and saw the Aquilifer gazing at the ship directly above, completely aghast, as the primary weapon charged.

The Vigilante put an arm around Flux and threw a fist out in the direction of the Rod-Wielder, he tapped the gravity gauntlet and hoped it would be enough.

The Aquilifer fired up an energy construct in the form of a golden dome. Chrissy and Isaac flew under the dome just as it began to seal them off completely.

The pulse cannon fired and the force was felt by Dennis like nothing he'd ever felt before. He winced and shrunk the size of his energy shield in an attempt to keep it as strong as he could. Still the pulse cannon rained down on him with a crushing sensation, unparalleled by anything he'd experienced. A wince turned to a cry of anguish. Which turned into a silent scream in the cacophony of the pulse cannon's shriek.

The energy shield went from fifteen feet, to ten, to six, to protecting the trio as they crouched in its final refuge.

A bright pale blue light which echoed and painted everything a cleansing white even when you closed your eyelids enveloped everything.

And when their sight was restored they saw first that they were still alive, and second that their saviour the Aquilifer was left unconscious on the only untouched patch of asphalt that remained in the enormous crater that was previously the city streets.

Flux looked down at their fallen comrade and the desolate space where the building once stood. Before returning her view to the downed Aquilifer, her heart rapidly filling with sadness, anguish and despair.

"For-- for nothing..? He saved us all. And for-- nothing?"

She began to flicker once more. Her powers teleporting her away under the shear weight of emotion.

"No." The Vigilante corrected. "Not for nothing."

"For nothing!" Chrissy echoed, as she was whisked away by her teleportation abilities.

_{"What-- What's she talking about..?"} The battered and bruised Dennis Connolly murmured from the pavement.

Far above, the pulse rifle began to whirr as it was once again primed for firing, as the swirling swarm of alien fighter craft moved back in eager to clean up what little resistance remained.

---

"You're asking me to co-ordinate a force of... have you even got ten thousand to give me? And be in charge of tactical operations under the kind of duress you would see in the middle of a hurricane. With no notice whatsoever. I couldn't even brief my men?"

"Only by Zoom. That's correct. Given the loss of elite officer leaderhip we would expect you to command from your present location."

"How many?" Gunny sighed, feeling every year of his age.

"How many men?" The Suit clarified his question.

"Of course."

"About eight thousand, five hundred..."

"How? I was out there remember. It was chaos. How could you possibly have pulled together anything close to a Regiment in this chaos?"

The suit smiled a wry grin. "Well, there have been some interesting developments in the last few hours, Brigadier General..."

---

Urban sprawl had given way to an artificial wasteland. A cratered city street, and two remained.

No powers, mo metagene - alone before the might of an invasion force which had seized so many worlds just like theirs.

The Aquilifer, the grandson of the man who had sold out the world, gurgled and slowly rolled to one side.

The Vigilante, the paradoxical man born out of extreme agony who was incapable of experiencing pain, stood over him against the next Arlaaekan onslaught.

_{"Wh--what was she saying..? The alien girl..?"}

Isaac turned back to the laid out hero, and considered his situation. The force that opposed him, and the potential for others to be harmed. He sighed and bent over to try and help pick the younger man up.

The fighter craft screeched down. Far above the white noise of the pulse cannon gave way to a whirring, which gradually increased in pitch and volume.

The Aquilifer managed to get to a knee, the Vigilante hooked his arm around underneath the rod wielder's armpit. The fighters close enough that he could see finery of the detailing on the craft. Their plasma weapons fired, the Vigilante spied a building, and the boxer threw an uppercut to the heavens with all the hope of a punchdrunk shuffler on his last legs in the final round, down on all cards. He tapped the button on his gravity gauntlet and for a moment a man could fly.

The pair soared towards a distant apartment complex.

_{"Rod's... so gentle... I can barely feel it..."}

The Vigilante looked down at the battered hero and flashed a smile behind his black balaklava.

As their feet touched down on the roof, he looked up as the Doomspear's pulse weapon whirred louder in it's final throes. The Vigilante looked onwards and found another building and threw another flying uppercut.

As the pair flew further away the Aquilifer looked down and saw the crater where their last stand took place.

_{"So-- so whatdid she say..?"} He repeated. _{"Or did you think you wouldn't have to say..?"}

"She's an empath. She reads emotions. And in this case she could sense... how I felt about something, was inconsistent with what I told you."

_{"She knew you were full of shit..."} The Aquilifer said, laughing at the thought of other heroes being as - less than perfect - as he knew himself to be.

"She did.

_{"So... what was it..? You saved somebody's cat and gave it to the wrong little girl?"}

"That building, that corner, everything we've been fighting over for the last... Five or six hours..?" He said, not looking down at the battered hero, as they came to another landing, before another uppercut sent them sailing away again. "Yeah, that was all a bluff. It was for nothing. I was hoping they'd view it as having some kind of strategic value since your grandfather worked there. All of this. It was just about buying time, not for us, but for them. The people who are trying to organise, rally and fight this. The most valuable thing we can give them is time."

_"--what..?"

"It wasn't about us, or beating them here and now. I found ourselves a bottleneck where we could take a vast number of them with us, with a fake strategic point to draw them here, and just bought as many hours and dragged as many of them into the muck with us here."

_{"Wait-- how..? Why..?"}

"Three hundred Spartans once held back a seemingly insurmountable force two thousand, five hundred years ago at the Hot Gates of Thermopylae. Didn't have anything like that here, so I made my own."

_{"It was all-- for nothing?"}

"Not for nothing. For time. For them. The people. It's kind of what this hero business is all about... Now, I'm taking you home. Because that's also what it's about. And I happen to be pretty good at it."

The pair kept taking their gravity-affected leaps back towards the home of the Aquilifer.

_{"You fought-- for almost six hours, not knowing if you'd live or die... for no other reason but to buy people time..?"} The Aquilifer considered everything he'd just been told. The sacrifice that this man was prepared to make. Not even to save people, just to buy time.
_{"I'm not ready. I can't do this... I'm not ready."}

---

It was horrible, Dennis was muttering barely coherently. The Vigilante kicked the bottom of the door until the old man finally opened up. He carried the younger man with his torn flight jacket, who was covered in cuts and abbrasions.

_{"mmm-mmm mmm-oo mmm-t..."}

The Vigilante put the new Aquilifer down on the lounge in Alan's living room.

_{"mmm-mmm mmm-oo mmm-t..."} He muttered again.

"Sssh-ssh... It's alright. You rest for now, Dennis. You've been out there for hours." Coghlan said, his concern for his grandson shining through, before turning to the man in black. "You too, can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea?"

"I'm fine. My rest was carrying him here. You just watch him til he can get back out there. This is a long way from over." With alien ships still filling the Lost Haven skies, he stated the obvious. He stretched his back with a crack and then walked back out the front door.

_{"mmm can't mmm-oo it..."}

"What was that?" The old man rushed to his grandson's side. "What did you say, Dennis?"

A tear ran down a swollen eye that was lightly blackened. The younger man rolled gingerly away on to his side in shame, turning his back to his grandfather.

"I'm not ready. You were right. I can't do this... I'm not ready." He mumbled, giving voice to one of the older man's greatest fears. In a few moments he would pass out from exhaustion.

The Golden Rod would fall from the unconscious young man's grasp.

Alan Coghlan looked down at the rod which had caused so much anguish, but brought so much excitement into his life. He turned and looked at the television, and the devastation that was hammering humanity all around the globe.

One more time Alan Coghlan picked up the Golden Rod.

It had been an unwanted gift, but he was in a unique position to stick it to them personally.

With the noise of the alien craft whirring overhead and the all-encompassing sounds of terror in the streets of Lost Haven, Kayla had the right idea of being scared. On what was supposed to be another day at the office, looking at the new location Jeremy had in mind with Jai, it ended up being a case of the archer having to don on her outfit and began her attempts on defending the city. The words of War Pulse on that confrontation of fighting these threats with the pinnacle of the stone age going through her head, which brought her some comfort through all of this. Sure, she would have wanted to be with Jai to help ease herself a bit more, but she had made a good call with them separating to cover more ground and get to Racheli as well. In her mind, this was a perfect opportunity for Midas to do something nefarious and take her friend away again after fighting so hard to find her in the first place.

As she jogged through the streets, she took the opportunity to shoot arrows at anything that wasn’t human and hostile. Not knowing why the aliens were attacking and for how long, she grabbed every single arrow she had in her apartment to use against them. This included her competition arrows, which only had a bullet tip as per the competition regulations. With each shot, she made sure that with the aliens being down that she would pick them back up as to not leave a trail of arrow-riddled bodies to her apartment. The hour of running to get anywhere remotely towards the city center was getting to her. The archer could have made it easier on herself and drove her motorcycle, but that screamed a target on her back to the fighters above to attack. Her lungs burned, forcing her to breathe heavily as she pushed on. Archie remained in her pocket as to stay out of view.

Overhead, an alien craft began its approach to rain a hail of death from above. Fletch thumbed the button on her makeshift gauntlet as the quiver on her back whirred in place. When it stopped, she skidded to a stop and pulled the arrow out from the quiver. Compared to the ad-hoc design she had before, the arrow was a little sleeker in design, with the broadhead tip further extended than the regular arrows and the shaft of the arrow bulging to accommodate for the change of arrow tip. Knocking the arrow in place, she drew the compound bow back as the fighter continued bearing down on her. Her shoulder blades tense as the release aid snapped open. The arrow flew out from the bow and hit square in the center of the cockpit area.

Moments after impact, the ship was rocked with a ferocious fireball as Archie’s seeds were pierced by the bullet tip that was within the design of the arrowhead. The ship exploded over a group of aliens that seemed to be firing down a road perpendicular to the one she was on, them going up in the fire. The ship began swaying in the air as all control was lost inside, the lasers no longer firing. The archer watched as the ship sailed over her head as it crashed into the street behind her. The craft further exploded as it came to a rest, no doubt killing the alien invader inside. Pleased with one less ship in the air to harm the civilians, Kayla turned in the general direction of the Sherman Center and pressed onwards, using her grapple to speed up the process.

--------------


Since leaving the boat after his chance encounter with Terra Firma and the angelic hero he was with, Anhur limped his way through the city from where he was dropped off. He cursed his luck with the day’s events, where he stopped the Chinatown bridge from exploding due to some small-time terrorist organization and the resulting confrontation. His disappointment grew when he reached Rendezvous B was destroyed by the aliens that the boat took longer to get to the closest to where Dullahan could be. The throbbing in his leg and shoulder had surprisingly lessened since the events at the bridge, but they were still a hindrance to him, especially as he now relies on his close-quarters skills to fend off any attackers.

He darted into another alleyway as another squadron of aliens went by him, sticking close to the shadows as to not be spotted. Their weaponry was impressive, that he had to admit. Maybe I can get the information from the terrorist and grab some alien tech for us to reverse engineer? he thought to himself. That’ll certainly improve any sour mood Dullahan would have if the destruction of the bridges was a negative to The Eye’s operation in the city. All he needed to do was wait for a lone alien to walk on by and the weapon was his.

As he weaved through the streets of the city to get to his leader, it didn’t take long before his wish was granted. A lone alien had emerged from the wreckage of a long-downed ship, grabbing any salvageable weapons on board as it looked to find another squad to fall in line with. Unfortunately, that wish was short-lived as Anhur grabbed it from behind and plunged his dagger several times in its chest with deadly precision. He didn’t take long as he grabbed all the weapons and grenades that were on the corpse, making sure to keep some of the one-time use items stashed away as to get them back to the R&D section.

Content with everything, the skull-faced man turned the corner around the ship to continue with his newly obtained weapons. As he did, he watched as a small group of aliens was chasing a group of civilians away. Seeing an opportunity to blend in with everything that was going on, he raised the rifle and began firing at the group of aliens. They scrambled at the sudden barrage of their own weaponry being fired on them as they took cover behind destroyed cars at the junction. Getting into cover himself, he watched as the aliens now fired on him.

“Get to safety NOW!” he bellowed at the civilians as they ran past him. Some were killed by the barrage from the aliens as they try to get him, resorting to him to repay them in kind. While he was a good shot, he was only one person and did not like his odds against a militaristic alien force.

When he thought things couldn’t get any direr, a ship flying over the group erupted into flames. The fireball and shockwave of the blast instantly killed the group. A few moments later, another explosion as the ship seemed to crash further down the road. Satisfied with his change of fortune, the skull-faced man began to head to the junction. At that moment, he saw a grappling line zip across the sky as a familiar heroine began to cross the divide.

--------------


As she crossed the junction where the group of aliens had been, Kayla looked down both roads to see if there were any other threats in the immediate area. As she looked one way, she saw another group of aliens heading away from the junction to confront another band of heroes some distance away. As they were too far away for her arrows to reach, she was satisfied with the absence of aliens down one road. As she turned her head as she reached the halfway point of the junction, her eyes focused on the lone figure that was walking towards the junction. It didn’t take her long to see the skull tattoo that was on his face. Time slowed for her as she recalled the bus explosion that started her path to being Fletch. She recalled the man’s face as he was now standing right there in the middle of the street. Concerns for the safety of the world were replaced with the burning hatred of rage as her eyes glowered in his direction.

”YOU!” she screamed at the skull-faced man below. She unhooked the grapple from the wall it was embedded in. Hastily, while still in the air, she grabbed a regular arrow and shot it in his direction. She sailed down to the ground. The man, seeing the arrow, rolled out of the way of the arrow. She landed with a thud on the ground. As she rolled back onto her feet, she knocked and shot another arrow. Compared with before, he knocked the arrow away with the new rifle. By then, she closed the distance and began a barrage of punches and kicks. She wanted him to pay for all the hurt he caused that day.

Anhur stopped one hammer fist with the rifle. “I see that you can come out of that hole you seemed to have disappeared off to, Fletch.” he sneered as he pushed her back. Knowing that his day was going to get much better if he could knock the bitch out cold and drag her ass to the nearest Eye facility for Dullahan to question her. “It seemed such a shame that I couldn’t kill the bitch that no doubt sent you after me. I’m sure your head will suffice.”

He lunged forward with a kick at the side of her hip. Kayla yelped with the impact but pushed through. She drove the fish with her bow into his kidney. He winced with the pain. She planted another into his sternum. He reeled from the punch. She drove a left hook to his head. He was prepared for the hook and grabbed the bow hand. He drove his other into her stomach. The archer stumbled back seriously winded. Underneath her cowl, she scowled at him.

“Stop this!” Both fighters stopped as one of the civilians Anhur saved confronted them. “If you can’t tell, there’s fucking aliens attacking us. Focus on them instead of each other. Do your bitching another time.”

Still reeling from the punch and seething with hatred, Kayla saw the logic in the man’s argument. There was no point in trying to get any information from him if the world ends up getting enslaved or destroyed. Besides, there was the point of getting to Racheli in the first place. The archer slowly straightened herself up as she glowered at the skull-faced man.

”This is not over,” she growled.

Anhur followed suit, though his gaze never left hers. ”That, I can agree. Don’t lose your head in the meantime as that is mine.”

He began walking past her, full-on shoulder barging her as he went past. Fletch’s head followed him as he walked off into the distance, disappearing in the smoke of the wreckage throughout the street. While it was hard to see her quarry walk away like that, there were more pressing matters at hand. Turning away from the civilian, who then proceeded to run back to the group they were running with, she lifted her arm with the grapple and began her journey towards Sherman Center.

Lyger's heel connected with the jaw on one of the alien invaders, sending a mixture of blue/green blood, teeth and spit flying from the alien's mouth. He had barely reset his feet on the ground before leaping toward another of the teal skinned marauders. With a flurry of quick strikes, he felled his target before turning his attention to yet another.

“We can't keep this up all day, they just keep coming.” Lyger said into the communicator.

“Well, do you have any suggestions?” Radiance's voice came back through the device.

“At the moment, no. Just keep fighting.” Lyger said with resignation in his voice. It was all they could do. They had to fight, the entire world was counting on them. However, doubt crept into his mind, and he couldn't help but to wonder if this time, they were completely out of their depth.

“Right.” Radiance said in agreement, even as she watched even more of the teal skinned invaders pour into the battlefield. As the invaders attempted to overrun the square, Radiance dug her heels into the ground and braced herself for the incoming horde.



Icon rolled to a stop in the middle of the street. His head was ringing and though he wanted nothing more than to get up and get back into the fight, he just couldn't.

At least, not yet.

The strange being that had attacked him was different from the others. He had even hinted at being human, but regardless of where this man had come from, he had hit harder than the hero had ever been hit before.

Icon tried to get to his feet, however, his legs wouldn't cooperate. He mentally berated himself, tried to force himself up, but the fact was, for the first time in a long time, he was hurt- and he didn't know if he could do it.

I just need a minute to... he thought to himself, however, he realized that he wouldn't be getting the time he needed. His attacker had emerged through the hole that Icon had punched through the front of the building when the man had sent him crashing through store front. Icon dug down deep and forced himself up. He had gotten up to a knee when he became aware of an outstretched hand.

"I'm backing you up! Are you hurt?" Terra Firma said as he aided Icon to his feet.

“I'll live.- Icon said. “-Let's take him together. But be careful, he's stronger than he looks.”



They were running out of time. Earth, was running out of time. The Guardians knew that they were facing an uphill battle, a fact that made more clear by the sheer number of alien invaders that were rushing in, threatening to overtake the super team and those who stood beside them in battle.

“Icon's down.” Lyger's voice came over the Guardian's communicator.

“What?” Radiance gasped as she frantically looked around the battlefield, finally spotting him as he was helped to his feet by Terra Firma. Though she was relieved to see that her love was alright, she found a new resolve begin to form in the pit of her stomach. She turned her attention back to the waves of invaders that were rushing onto the scene, and she unleashed her power in a way that she had never done before, and in a way that she had not been aware that she was able to until that very moment.

The very ground shook as the sound of thunder clapped , nearly on top of all of the combatants in the square. Then what only could be described as a wall of living lightning came crashing down upon the alien invaders, moving throughout the battlefield as she commanded it, avoiding the Guardians and their allies, while decimating the alien hordes. The entire display only lasted for several moments, but when it finally subsided, the battlefield was littered with teal skinned bodies. Most were motionless, though some were writhing in pain from the massive jolt that they had just sustained.

“Holy Shit.” Lyger said into the communicator. “I didn't know you could do that.”

“Neither did I.” Radiance said as she saw that their victory was a fleeting one. “Get ready, we've got incoming.”