Dark Waters!
Cecil's eyes narrowed into pinpoints as he examined the satellite images contained within the folder he held, depicting a covert military base hidden deep within the wilderness surrounding Chicago.
"This is definitely not good," he muttered.
Sliding a cigarette between his lips, Cecil began searching his pockets for a lighter. Before he could find it, Damien casually snapped his fingers, causing the tip of the cigarette to ignite instantly. Cecil took a slow, deliberate inhale, letting the tension ease momentarily.
"Thanks for the light!"
Cecil flung the folder onto the desk and pinched the bridge of his nose, the relentless weight of mounting responsibilities was beginning to wear him down.
One image, in particular, lingered in his mind, a dark-skinned man transforming into pure water as he fled the facility. The satellites had monitored him closely until he reached Lake Michigan, where he vanished beneath its surface, leaving no trace behind.
"Well, shit, this is going to be a whole thing, isn't it?" He asked in a rhetorical tone, and sensing this, Damien simply ignored him and began puffing on a cigar with a distinct, sulfuric aroma.
In the aftermath of the confrontation with Battle Beast and the Order, life gradually returned to normal for most of the heroes as they recovered and regained their strength. While many quickly found themselves back on their feet, Rex required ongoing physical therapy, a necessity that Shrinking Rae eagerly volunteered to assist with, her unusually enthusiastic demeanor causing Rex to shudder visibly within his cast.
"MMMMM...."
He tried to cry out despite his immobilization, but his muffled protests were drowned out as she wheeled him into a private area.
Atom Eve managed to function despite her injuries by using her pink constructs to create a full-body suit, allowing her to move more comfortably and effectively ignore her pain.
Kate clung to a sleeping William like a baby koala. Though William had healed from the physical effects of the battle almost immediately, his mind, like Kate's, still required time to recover from the trauma. Strangely, their proximity seemed to have a soothing, psychologically restorative effect on Kate, baffling both doctors and scientists.
War Woman and Glory faced extended recovery periods, needing several weeks to heal before they could resume their roles as heroes.
Meanwhile, Conor and Marie had vanished shortly after their rather quick recovery, leaving their whereabouts a mystery to everyone at the base.
Deep within the depths of the base, a pair of pods opened up, revealing one preteen young man who looked similar to William and a lump of misshapen and deformed meat that was once the true form of Robot.
Robot in his new body struggled to his feet and nearly collapsed as he neared the other pod, his eyes tearing up as he witnessed his former body writhing in pain as he choked on his blood as he was now longer being kept alive by his machines.
"I'm so sorry... Truly, I am sorry!" Tears streamed from Robot's newly formed eyes as he watched the last vestiges of life leave his former vessel.
Hours passed like minutes as he sat there clutching his old body, but eventually, he came out of his sad reverie and stood with grim resolve.
He then approached a device and placed his body on top of a flat surface before closing a thick metal door with the pull of a lever, and with a push of an adjacent button, he activated the machine.
WHOOSH!
The machine suddenly began to produce fire that immediately began charring his now dead body until it was nothing more than the finest of ashes.
As the machine deactivated, a drone of his began walking directly behind him before opening up and allowing him to fit perfectly inside its protective casing.
Using this drone, Robot gathered the ashes from his former body and placed them in an urn that had a mechanical flair to it and placed it on his desk in where he sat down in a chair that was designed to accommodate a large robotic frame.
In several places throughout Chicago, three people each donned in holy vestments of differing design, each activated a circular device which connected all three of them to the Vatican itself, and in particular, a certain high-level member was answering their call with a grim expression on his aged face.
"WHAT HAPPENED!"
The man in red silk robes glared at them through the strange projection as he demanded his answers as to why one of the sigils for the Knights of the Order had gone completely dark.
"Sir, if I may!"
The bow-wielding Knight of the Order asked humbly before receiving a serious nod from the cardinal on the other side.
"What have you to say, Knight of the Order Apollo!"
After being allowed to speak, Knight of the Order Apollo began recounting what he had seen from where he was at the time.
"I was doing my due diligence and scouting around as I do when suddenly Knight of the Order Perun suddenly attacked with the vast majority of his men!"
The cardinal nodded with a grim expression, but the anger was ever present in his eyes and burned into Knight Apollo like lasers.
"I will not stand for any further failure on your Order's part, if you cannot do this task..." The cardinal trailed off, but the threat lingered like a guillotine over the Knights' necks as the link in the devices in their hands suddenly cut out.
The sword-wielding knight gripped the device, but the material, despite its seemingly magical properties, began to crack.
Apollo set down the device in his hand with a quiet anger as he glared into the distant facility where his companion had died.
The spear-wielding knight simply sighed before putting his away and standing tall.
CRACK!
He stretched so hard his joints popped like distant thunder before the young knight crouched down, causing the muscles in his legs to bulge to the maximum, and with what can only be described as angelic grace, he leaped into the air and seemingly vanished into the city.
All three knights began to converge in their secluded base, where their men were stationed, and began running through plans before it devolved into a pissing match between Apollo, who suggested going after people they love, friends, family and the like while the sword wielding knight fiercely refused this option entirely as he felt it to be the thoughts of a coward.
"I think our best bet is to wait for the opportune moment to present itself!" The spear-wielder cut through the noise with a voice that brooked no more nonsense before he closed his eyes once again.
The other two could not say anything to go against this, so while glaring at each other, they silently agreed to wait for an opportunity to act without the church being potentially liable for great damages.
On the far side of Lake Michigan, a figure made entirely of water suddenly erupted from the lake, its form resembling a man. It staggered across the ground before solidifying into a tangible body. With newfound stability, the figure sprinted into the woods, moving swiftly in the direction of the distant city lights.
As Rain ran through the woods, he could not help but notice that he was not clothed, but as if responding to his desires, the water that made up his body suddenly took on the form of a blue t-shirt and off-black jeans.
"Oh, thank goodness I don't have a wallet on me, and I doubt stores around here are particularly welcoming to nudists!" Rain let out a sigh before continuing his dash towards the city.
He had crossed the road and was in the brush on the other side when he heard a scream and suddenly skidded to a stop.
Rain's head snapped this way and that way, trying to get a feel for the direction the sound had come from.
"Get in the car, you bitch!"
He heard a voice coming from just right of the direction he was heading and decided to move closer when he saw a rough-looking couple attempting to force a schoolgirl into a busted old car that looked a few days short of a scrapyard.
She clawed and scratched but was unable to resist both attackers and eventually found herself trapped in the backseat and handcuffed to a metal bar that appeared to be welded into the middle of the car itself.
"OH, quite the catch this time, daddy!" The woman's broken voice whispered into her partner's ear, who had a smile as he glared hungrily at the young girl struggling helplessly in the backseat cage.
"Mama, tell me we get to have fun with her first, she is awfully pretty, it would be a shame not to give her a taste!" The man gripped his privates through his jeans as he said this and licked his chapped lips.
The woman shook her head.
"No, no, we can't sell her if you soil her; it would be an issue if we were forced to dispose of another teenager!"
Rain, having heard all this, stepped closer and happened to step onto a twig, which alerted the two to his presence.
"Who the fuck?" The man shouted before pulling out a firearm and pointing it in Rain's direction with killing intent flaring in his bloodshot eyes.
"Is it the cops?" The woman turned around and pointed what seemed to be a shotgun in Rain's direction, aiming directly at his torso.
Rain put his hands into the air and stopped moving, but as he did so, a sliver of water from the back of his foot began to worm its way through the ground.
"Who the hell are you? Answer now or die, you choose!" The man approached a few feet and cocked the gun sideways while aiming it at Rain's head.
The woman continued to stand in place with her weapon trained on Rain, but she did not notice the tendril of water working its way towards the shotgun.
Suddenly, the tendril shot out and grabbed the gun, pulling it to the right towards the man holding the gun to Rain's head, and she accidentally pulled the trigger.
BANGx2
Rain closed his eyes as the gun in front of him flashed, but all he felt was a pressure that disappeared as quickly as it came.
Opening his eyes, Rain saw a hole in his head that was steadily closing with what appeared to be water rather than blood, and in a sight that caused his eyes to narrow into pinholes, the wound completely sealed.
"So fucking cool, hahahaha!" He muttered to himself before letting out a loud, drawn-out laugh.
BANG!
Another bang roared out, and he looked over to find the woman pointing her shotgun in his direction, and looked down to see, to his shock, that the pellets were not even strong enough to go all the way through him and floated in the water inside of him.
Suddenly, a light bulb appeared over Rain's head as he had an epiphany.
Rain lifted his hand and made a gun with his fingers and used his thumb as the hammer, grabbing onto his thumb with his other hand, he pointed the finger gun directly at the now deeply confused woman kidnapper who was fumbling to reload her shotgun.
The pellets within his liquid-like body began to move in formation towards his hand and began spinning in what would normally be the place where the magazine would be in a handgun.
The speed of these pellets began to reach such levels that they appeared practically invisible to the naked eye, and before the woman could point her newly reloaded shotgun at Rain, he fired, causing several pellets to shoot towards her at once.
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
BANG!
The woman stood no chance as a barrage of metal pellets tore through her body like scissors through wet tissue paper, leaving behind a grotesque display of blood, bone, and organs that could rival a horror movie set.
Rain stared at his finger in disbelief, his eyes wide, before sheepishly lowering it. "Well... that might've been overkill," he muttered.
He turned his attention to the beat-up car, now gloriously accessorized with an abstract splatter art of human remains. Casually, he approached the door, reaching out with an air of nonchalance.
"AAAAAHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" The young woman inside was mid-operatic meltdown, her mind completely short-circuiting as reality slapped her in the face. Her screams hit a crescendo before she passed out, oxygen officially abandoning the chaos.
Rain scratched the back of his head, releasing a resigned sigh. "Ah, great," he grumbled. With a fluid motion, his finger morphed into liquid, slipping into the lock like a key made of water. A satisfying click followed, and he pulled it back with a triumphant nod.
As Rain was about to leave, he noticed the male kidnapper struggling to hold the blood in his body and approached.
"You... You are done, you hear me DONE!"
The man screamed out the last word before Rain pressed his foot on the man's neck, and with a satisfied smile, he applied his full weight until he heard the sound of the man's throat collapsing in on itself.