July 21st, 2014
Noon (12:15 PM)
Jump City- Outskirts
Monday started off as just a regular day for the public works demolition experts. The local government had recently passed a new bill permitting a long overdue expansion for their crowded little city to make more room for the ever increasing population.
But before you could create, you had to destroy.
The area they were currently working in was something of an Old District, unused and unlived in except for vagrants and strays. These buildings were old and had recently taken a toll from an earthquake, many predictably collapsing in on themselves since they had not been up to code. It was their job to tear down these old buildings the rest of the way and rip out their foundation to make room for new industries and roads to be built. An easy enough task, routine even.
Unfortunately, the earthquake had shaken up more than just the foundations. Deep in the earth, below the clumsily erected buildings of a comparatively primitive civilization, a different kind of structure was beginning to stir. One that ran off natural energy, including the geothermal kind generated by shifting tectonic plates. Over the last week, the noise and vibrations of the demolition happening above were beginning to creep into its awareness, like a restless sleeper ready to awaken.
"'Ey, Jack! There's something buried here!" an excavator operator called out to his foreman. He had been scooping out the dirt and rubble to clear out a space for the soon to be basement of a multi-story parking structure when suddenly his bucket had caught against something with a distinctly metallic clang. He figured it might be a pipe of some sort (it wouldn't be the first time he accidentally punctured something on the job,) so he decided to wait for further instruction before digging any deeper.
A murmur went through the crew like a wave and they quickly consulted their blueprints and maps, trying to figure out what it might be.
"There are no active pipelines in this area," the foreman called back with a wave of his arm. "Just keep diggin' around it and we'll fish out whatever it is."
Somehow, this didn't reassure the operator much. He shook off the uneasy feeling and kept digging, pausing to readjust his bucket whenever he heard a clang. He must have rotated that thing 360 degrees trying to get around whatever this blockage was, but after he had gotten a few meters deeper he quickly realized that this was no pipe. The mounds rising out of the soil were caked in dirt, but had a distinctly humanoid shape.
Perhaps it was a massive sculpture of some kind? He communicated this to the foreman who, again, told him to keep digging. And so he did, and as he did, the jostling began to dislodge some of the dirt covering the structure, unveiling a rustic bronze surface and dusty blue panels that caught the afternoon light and seemed to shine. To the operator, at least.
Little did he know those panels literally were catching that light and converting it into solar energy. The shining wasn't a trick of the eye either, they were actually beginning to glow and flicker. With a metallic screech, the entire structure gave a sudden lurch and the operator paused again to adjust his bucket, thinking he had accidentally struck it again. Before he could dip his machine back into the dirt a massive hand-like thing burst out of the dirt and abruptly grabbed onto his bucket, stopping it in its tracks.
"Holy shit!" the operator yelped and scrambled for the door, flinging himself out of the house before the entire excavator was toppled onto its side. He witnessed in mute horror as the monster he had inadvertently unleashed swung his machine above its head like a lasso and sent it flying across the construction site, sending the other workers scattering like tiny screaming ants. Faintly, he could hear his foreman frantically calling the police on the radio, but it sounded so much farther away as he watched the massive structure pull itself out of the dirt and clamber to its full height.
That's as big as my house, was the operator's last thought, before the shining blue panel turned towards him and glowed a deep red.
It took half an hour for the police to mobilize, but by the time they arrived on the site most of the damage had already been done. The workers that could escape had already long since fled, and the ones that hadn't been quick enough- well. Let's just say they looked like roadkill. The threat that they had been called in to neutralize had already retreated back into the hole it had been found in and was pacing the perimeter of it, like a guard dog.
The chief of police took one look around him at the carnage and destruction. Toppled construction machines, two to three times the size of their measly little police cars. Crushed bodies, their hard hats completely caved in. The bullet proof vest he was wearing didn't feel so secure anymore.
A metallic ping jolted him out of his survey of the area. Someone, he didn't know who, had pulled out their pistol and taken a shot at the thing while its back was turned. Above the lip of the hole, what he presumed to be the creature's head quickly swiveled to face them. The shining beacon of its face shifted from a light blue to a glaring red, the luminescence spilling across the ground like blood.
Quickly, the rest of the force pulled out their guns and began firing, but the bullets weren't doing much beyond scraping the dirt off the monstrous thing. Its massive hands gripped the edge of the hole and it slowly pulled itself over the edge, lumbering towards them at a steady, but terrifying pace.
Hands trembling, the chief of police leaned into his car and picked up the radio.
"We need backup."