### **POV: Civilian **
Jessica was mid-pour on a caramel macchiato when the world outside the café window *ripped apart*.
First came the *sound* a thunderclap so deep it vibrated her molars. Then the *light*, a jagged tear in the sky like God had taken a boxcutter to reality. Patrons screamed as the café's windows shattered inward, but Jessica couldn't look away from the *thing* emerging from the rift.
A *mountain* of corpses.
A six-eyed reptilian head the size of a subway car rolled past her window, leaking black ichor onto the pavement. Behind it, a towering humanoid figure with four charred arms lay twisted like a discarded action figure. And in the center-
**A man.**
Unmoving. Unscathed.
A jagged scar cut across his left eye, his golden irises glowing faintly in the debris-choked air. His black coat billowed despite the absence of wind.
"*Holy shit,*" whispered the customer beside her, latte forgotten. "*That guy's just… standing there.*"
Jessica's fingers trembled around her phone as she hit record.
---
### ** STREET INTERVIEW – "LUCAS_GONE_VIRAL" [LIVE STREAM]**
**Lucas (panting, camera shaky):** *"YO! WE JUST SAW A FINAL BOSS SPAWN IN TIMES SQUARE! THAT'S HIM! THAT'S THE GUY RIGHT THERE!"*
The phone camera zooms in on Man, standing amid monster corpses as police tape flutters around him. His coat is pristine despite the carnage-while behind him, paramedics vomit at the stench of dissolving Demon-level viscera.
**Random Bystander (screaming):** *"HE'S GOT NO SCRATCHES! HOW?!*"
**Lucas (whispering):** *"Chat, I'm risking my LIFE for these shots"*
🔴 **LIVE COMMENTS SPAM:**
▶ *"FAKE NEWS! CGI!"*
▶ *"Nah that's a new Hero X promo for Movie "*
▶ *"OMG HIS EYES GLOW?? SLAY! LITERALLY"*
▶ *"Government hologram!! Wake up sheeple!"*
Then-***BOOM.***
The **Engine** rumbles. The camera shakes. Lucas' scream pitches upward as viewers lose their minds.
**▶ #SOUNDENGINE trends in 7 countries within 4 minutes.**
---
---
### **UHT Analyst – Dr. Elias Voss**
*"Specimen 01 resembles no known Kaiju-class entity in our databases."*
The United Heroic Trust's Situation Room buzzed with panic as live feeds from Times Square splashed across every screen. Dr. Voss adjusted his glasses, zooming in on the reptilian corpse.
*"Note the carapace density."* His stylus circled a cracked scale on the image. *"Initial scans suggest tensile strength surpassing military-grade armor. Yet something, or someone, punched a hole clean through it."*
A junior analyst swallowed audibly. *"You think the guy in the coat did that?"*
Voss didn't answer. His attention locked onto the man's wrist-where a Hero X bracelet *should* have been. Instead, a pulsing blue hologram flickered to life:
**[TRUST VALUE: ⬆89,302]**
**[RANK: PROVISIONAL TOP 20]**
*"Impossible,"* breathed a technician. *"No one spikes that high on first contact."*
Voss tapped his earpiece. *"Director. We need containment teams and a media blackout. Now."*
Too late.
---
#Hero – "Bastion" (Rank #4)**
Bastion's armored boots cratered the asphalt as he landed at the disaster zone. Civilians cheered, but his sensors were screaming.
*"Multiple organic signatures. All deceased. Cause of death:…* ***Extreme blunt force trauma.*** *"*
His HUD zoomed in on the humanoid figure at the epicenter. No energy readings. No cybernetics. Just… a man.
Then the man *looked* at him.
***BOOM.***
Bastion's suit registered the vibration before his ears did, a subsonic pulse radiating from the stranger's chest. His systems flared warnings:
**>> PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSE DETECTED**
**>> HEART RATE: 32 BPM (CALIBRATING… ERROR. RE-CALIBRATING…)**
*"What the hell?"* His AI couldn't even process the man's vitals.
A rookie hero behind him gasped. *"That's the King Engine! I read about it in the old manga drafts!"*
Bastion's grip tightened on his plasma cannon. *"Explain. Now."*
*"They say… when the Strongest Man on Earth prepares to fight, his heartbeat sounds like war drums."*
The stranger hadn't moved. Hadn't spoken.
Yet the crowd was already chanting.
*"KING! KING! KING!"*
---
### **POV: News Anchor – Diane Sawyer, LIVE Broadcast**
*"-unprecedented event unfolding in Midtown Manhattan. Eyewitnesses claim a lone individual appeared alongside these… creatures, though authorities have yet to confirm-"*
The studio monitor cut to cellphone footage: The scarred man stepping over a monster's claw without breaking stride.
*"We're receiving reports that the UHT has designated this individual as 'Hero X: Monarch.' Viewers, I must emphasize- these images are *not* special effects."*
Her producer hissed in her earpiece: *"Diane, we've got a trending hashtag #KingVsTheWorld."*
Diane straightened her papers. *"To our audience watching at home… does this man truly hail from another world? And if so-"*
The screen split, showing a viral side-by-side comparison:
**[LEFT: Security footage of King "defeating" kaiju Centipede in Japan]**
**[RIGHT: Today's events]**
*"—why does our government already have records of him?"*
---
### ** WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM [CLASSIFIED]**
**President (rubbing temples):** *"Tell me again how a Japanese comic book character materialized on 5th Avenue."*
**Defense Secretary (grim):** *"Dimensional breach hypothesis. NSA's occult division flagged similar energy readings during the '87 Bermuda incident."*
**CIA Director (leaning in):** *"Sir, forget the 'how.' Focus on the corpse retrieval. That dragon-thing's blood melts concrete. Imagine weaponizing it."*
A junior aide coughs. *"And… the, uh, 'King' situation?"*
Silence. The President taps the table.
*"Two priorities. One: Get his bracelet synced to our surveillance grid. Two-"* He nods to the snarling General beside him.
**General:** *"Leak 'evidence' he's a rogue UHT experiment gone wrong. If he's adored today, we'll make him hated tomorrow."*
---
### ** TWITTER SPACES DEBATE – "IS KING EVIL?" [45K LISTENERS]**
**Conspiracy Podcast Host:** *"Open your eyes, people! No hero 'appears' with dead monsters unless THEY caused the massacre!"*
**Hero Fanboy (shrieking):** *"HE SAVED US!"*
**Random User:** *"Anyone else notice how SWAT hasn't touched him? SUS AF."*
**[CLIP PLAYS: The Man's dead-eyed stare as a cop reaches for him—and freezes mid-step, trembling.]**
**Host (dramatic whisper):** *"…Does this Man MURD people with his MIND?"*
**▶ #CancelKing starts trending in retaliation to #KINGENGINE.**
---
### ** 8-CHAN /X/ THREAD – "PROOF KING IS A DOPPELGÄNGER"**
**Anon1:**
>be me
>working morgue night shift
>govt trucks drop off "biocontainment waste"
>peek under tarp
>HOLY FUCKING SHIT IT'S THE CENTIPEDE HEAD
>guy in suit sees me
>"have a nice night" and winks
>tfw you realize you'll "disappear" by dawn
**Anon2 (reply):**
>post the GPS coordinates or fake
**Anon3 (reply):**
>OP's IP last active 3 hrs ago. RIP.
**[THREAD ARCHIVED BY MODS]**
---
### ** Shadow Broker – "The Librarian"**
The underground server farm hummed as encrypted data scrolled across The Librarian's screens.
*"Cross-referencing facial recognition with all known hero databases… No matches. Until-"*
A single file unlocked.
**[FILE: S-CLASS HERO #7 – "KING"**
**[ORIGIN: UNKNOWN**
**[POWER CLASSIFICATION: ~~OMEGA~~ ***REDACTED***]**
**[LAST SIGHTING: MONSTER ASSOCIATION HQ (DIMENSIONAL ANOMALY DETECTED)]**
He zoomed in on the attached image, a satellite photo of unknown City's ruins. At the center, a blurry figure with the same scar, same coat.
Monster *corpses*.
The Librarian's fingers flew across the keyboard.
*"Initiate Protocol Black Crown. Someone just dropped a god on our doorstep."*
---
## ** NYPD DISPATCH RADIO [ENCRYPTED CHANNEL]**
**Officer #1:** *"We've got 10-78s across 20 blocks, civilians trampling each other for 'better views.' Requesting ALL available-"*
**Dispatcher (staticky):** *"Orders from above: Contain the narrative. Anyone filming gets 'accidentally' shoved behind barricades."*
**Officer #2 (muffled):** *"Sir, the news choppers-"*
**Captain (growling):** *"FAA just grounded all media aircraft. 'Airspace hazard.' Play along."*
**Officer #3 (whispering, off-mic):** *"...They're bagging the monster parts. Black vans. No insignia."*
A wet *crunch* echoes over the radio. Then dead air.
_""""
King (Internal Monologue)
'This is bad. This is very, very bad.'
King's lungs burned, but he didn't dare breathe too loudly. Not when hundreds of cameras were pointed at him. Not when armored soldiers and spandex-clad heroes formed a perimeter around the *very real, very dead* monsters he'd *absolutely* not killed.
A child's voice pierced the noise: *"Mister! Did you beat all those monsters by yourself?"
The King Engine answered for him.
***BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.***
The crowd *erupted*.
'I'm going to die here.'
Then a holographic UHT badge materialized before him.
**[WELCOME, HERO: MONARCH]**
**[PLEASE ACCOMPANY US FOR DEBRIEFING.]**
King's legs moved on autopilot.