by Chewy Walrus and GoozX
The EPS:
Dr. Charles Walker tossed his gun into the air beside him. Two invisible hands caught it and closed around it. Walker strolled up to the fallen body, placing his index and middle fingers up to the neck.
"He's still alive," Walker noted, looking back to the floating guns. The doctor's hands reached up to the mid-back, just to the right of the brain stem, plucking out a small dart filled with a major sedative. "He should be out for a while, at least until we get this little rebellion of his tied down. Put him in Operating Room C. Restrain him with the atom-tight bolts. I wouldn't want him altering his density to get out until I'm ready, now would I?"
Will Tweed suddenly came into view, standing right behind Walker. The big man nodded, looking as solemn as possible. He was no stranger to warfare. He had been a mob boss. Granted, he was used to giving the orders, but he knew that, in a time of war, everyone had their parts. He holstered his gun and hoisted the unconscious Cicciotto over his shoulder, toting him down to the operating room.
Walker watched the man as he rounded the corner, then pulled a small headset out of his lab coat pocket and placed it on his head. "Lochlan, report."
"No problems," came the response of Cole Lochlan, the former John Doe. "Lochlan out."
Walker swore as the man in black switched off his communication link. Walker could just see him ripping it off of his head and tossing it to the ground. He decided to use a different tactic.
"I.G.O.R., report."
"The situation is well in hand, Doctor," the mechanical voice returned. "I.G.O.R. drones Alpha through Sigma applied throughout the city. Dispatching more as the need arises."
"Have you located this Rothman character?" Walker asked, beginning to walk down the hallway and into his office.
"Not as yet, Doctor," the robot responded.
"If you do, merely sedate him and procure him," Walker said, taking a seat behind his desk. "I want to witness what he can do personally."
"Aye, sir. This unit will relay the message to the remainder of the field team."
"Thank you, I.G.O.R. Walker out."
Pushing a button on the side of his desk, Walker watched as a wall of monitor screens lowered from the ceilings, each displaying a different newscast from around the city of Chicago. "Metahuman Storm," the anchors had dubbed it.
Carnage filled the streets as metahumans killed any and every human they could find. Meanwhile, Walker knew that his own men, the EPS, were doing whatever they could to put the metahuman mess to rest.
Walker's attention turned to his computer screen, where cameras mounted within the I.G.O.R. drones relayed information directly from the field onto Walker's desk. A tally at the bottom totalled the metahuman death toll at three-hundred twenty-five.
No. Wait.
Three-hundred and twenty-six.
They were dropping like flies. With men like Walker and Turner on the field, this insurrection was as good as over.
Minutes ago, on the streets of Chicago:
Two large metahumans crawled out of the sewers. They had received the call from Rothman to attack, and the two of them were more than ready. They had grown up together, actually. They had discovered they were metas around the same time, too.
Now they were trained killers, thanks to Rothman and his manipulation of that would-be metahuman savior, the Eurostar.
"C'mon, Charlie," said one metahuman, his eyes adapted for night vision and gills on his chest enabling him to breathe underwater. Unfortunately, the metagene had altered his lungs, rendering them useless, making his gills his primary means of respiration. For this reason, the amphibious metahuman toted a tank of water on his back, which cycled and purified itself through two small pouches, allowing him to breathe.
"Where are we going, Mort?" the second metahuman asked, replacing the manhole cover he had moved. Charlie was not too bright, but fortunately for him, his metagene allowed for slightly enhanced strength, which made breaking through a thick brick wall a relatively simple task. Who needs brains when you have brawn, anyway?
"We're revolting, Charlie!" Mort said, defiantly cupping his webbed hand into a fist. "We're not gonna take any o' this human bullshit any more, man! That Rothman guy's got it right! Those humans are gonna enslave us... and we don't have to take it any more!"
"Yeah!" Charlie said, nodding his head. "So... what do we do now?"
"We start by causing some trouble, man!" Mort said, slapping his damp hand across Charlie's thick head.
"Uh... how?" the big man said, looking over at his friend.
"See that hotel over there?" Mort said, pointing up at the famous Drake Hotel, which sat just a few blocks away.
"Yeah..." Charlie said.
"We go in there..." Mort began, seeing if Charlie would pick up on his lead. He didn't. "We go in there and kill people, ya moron!"
"That it?" Charlie asked, amazed at how simple the task was.
"That's it," Mort said, smiling menacingly. "Now, c'mon, let's go strangle us some--"
Mort's words were cut off as, just a few feet away, a door opened. Not a regular door, like a hinged door on a building or anything. No, this was different.
Charlie and Mort stood dumbfounded as an adolescent stepped out of a glowing doorway. He was somewhat dark-skinned, but his ethnicity, as near as the two metas could tell, was a total mystery. He wore a blue bodysuit with a black leather jacket and a blue bandana tied around his head. He sported a headset and mic on his head as well. In his hand, he held a gun.
"Howdy, boys," the teenager said, smirking. "Been drinking tonight?"
"Hey, back off, norm!" Mort said, slurring the last word like an insult. A webbed finger pointed at the young man. "Back off, or my muscle here is gonna tear you apart!"
"Yeah..." Charlie said, slamming his fist into his open palm with a THUD!
The kid just laughed a bit, raising his gun up to Charlie, who seemed to be concentrating now with punching his hand more than he was on watching his opponent.
"I don't think so," the boy said, all serious, as a bullet ripped out of the barrel of his gun, hitting Charlie square between the eyes. The lummox fell immediately to the ground, dead.
"Wh-wha...?" Mort stammered, lowering his accusing finger to his side.
The boy smirked again as from his skin a radiant light burst forth. Mort, whose eyes were at the moment adjusted for seeing in the dark, clamped his hands over them and turned away, running like a chicken with its head cut off.
"I'M BLIND!" the amphibian-like meta screamed. "I'M FREAKIN' BLIND!"
The young man in blue laughed again. "Not for long."
Another shot rang out. This time, the meta didn't fall, but the boy distinctly heard a sound, like a ricochet. He frowned and fired again. This time, the metahuman grabbed his leg and fell to the ground.
Andy Reynolds holstered his gun and walked over to the collapsed metahuman, who was groaning in pain, loudly.
Before Andy reached the body, however, he noticed a long puddle of liquid laying on the ground over where the meta was lying. Walking up, Andy noticed that the the liquid was running, quickly, out of a metal tank on the man's back.
"W-water!" Mort gasped, ripping the two now empty pouches from his chest as his gill slits opened and closed, requiring air. "Get me... water..."
Andy chuckled a bit as the water continued to run out of the meta's tank. "Ain't that a kick in the 'nads?" he quipped, pushing a button on his headset.
"I.G.O.R., give me transfer for two to the complex pool, stat."
"Doorway initiated," the metallic voice sounded. No more than a second later, a doorway opened. Andy grabbed the pathetic, gasping meta by the arm and dragged him through the portal.
"Must be getting soft," he muttered as he stepped through. "But, I'm with a new gang now... 'sides, we're in this game to 'procure,' ain't we?"
The sudden light caused by the portal on the deserted Chicago street faded as the doorway vanished. Seconds later, a loud roar filled the area as people came screaming from the Drake Hotel, metahumans chasing and killing them along the way.
It was a bloody night in the city.
Uprising was in the air.
Another part of town:
Uprising was in the air, and Vidalia Owens hated every minute of it. She stood now, poised atop a roof that sat just twelve feet above the spot where she used to stand to make money every single night of her life.
Owens had seen it all: gang bangs, drug busts... hell, she had even seen some time in jail herself. But this... this was chaos.
The murder and killing going on in the streets below was horrific, worse than anything she had ever seen before. Metahumans ripped apart normal men with their bare hands, incinerating people with just a wave of their hands.
Meanwhile, racing through her mind were the thoughts of hundreds of metahumans. The thoughts almost brought her to tears.
Rage. Hatred. Confusion.
"PLEASE, DON'T HURT ME! I'VE NEVER HURT A METAHUMAN, I SWEAR!"
"Why, God? WHY?!"
"No! Don't hurt my baby! NOOOOOOOO!"
Sobs. Cries of mercy going unanswered. It was more than this fragile creature could bear.
She clenched her teeth, tightened her hands into fists, and clamped her eyes shut, fighting the tears that now leaked through her closed eyelids. She opened her mind, sifting through the rubble of minds that lay around the muddle and violence around her.
Suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, metahumans within a one-block radius ceased all their activities. A bloody fist stopped inches from a woman's broken face. A gas station attendant looked over his hands, held up to protect his face, to see his attacker frozen in confusion. A car, held in place by an ultrastrong metahuman, was not flung at a bus full of children on a tour through Chicago.
Norms everywhere breathed a sigh of relief, rushing as fast as they could out of the grips of their now-frozen attackers. Atop the building on the corner, Vidalia panted heavily, beads of sweat mixing with the tears streaming down her face. One emotion then filled her mind, one overwhelming sense, which spread to the minds of every metahuman she was in contact with:
Grief.
The once-ferocious mob fell to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably, as their human victims seized their opportunity.
A bus full of children rammed into a sobbing metahuman as he tossed his Cadillac aside, sending the large beast over a bridge. A whimpering man held a Zippo lighter to a gas nozzle, creating a flamethrower that quickly burned his now-crying attacker. Wiping the blood from her face, a woman bashed her weeping, bloody-knuckled attacker with her purse, laden with bricks from a nearby collapsed building.
And, atop the building, Vidalia Owens continued to sob, helpless against the carnage that she knew, deep down, she could not stop.
Uprising was in the air, to say the least.
Turner levitated over the carnage, watching as metas slaughtered innocents left and right. A brute made of stone lifted a car off the ground, bringing it down on one of the norms. The person was crushed, murdered. Turner wiped his eyes clear. This was the exact reason he was made, the reason the MCCA was founded -- to STOP this kind of disaster. These normals could not even defend themselves. Turner sighed as a skinny young meta with tattoos all over his body and clear, almost transparent skin led a group of metas against a single cop armed with only a night stick.
I have nothing against a fight. A fair one, at least.
Turner lifted his hand and sent a shock wave over the group. The energy pulsated through the metas' bodies, popping their hearts like bags of chips. The tattooed meta stood alone and looked around. His platoon was dead. He turned toward the cop, who smiled, smiled with a recognition of his current superiority. He tilted his finger left and right and proceeded to beat the meta with the night stick. Through the meta's transparent skin, he watched as he broke bone after bone, keeping him alive as if to make him feel his race's faults. After a few minutes, the meta was dead.
Torture. Just as bad as the metas he was afraid of. Judgement should be served.
Turner sent another shock wave, this time killing the cop. Turner watched as another group of metas tortured a group of school-aged normals. These kids, if they lived, would live with hate. They would be forever changed and desire only vengeance.
I could save them, but for society I must do what I know I must.
Turner lifted both hands and sent waves of electricity over the whole group, killing everyone, a painless and quick death for both the metas and the normal kids.
I pity them. All of them.
Turner advanced to another part of the city, knowing what he must do.