BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
The alarm shrieked across Quantico Military Base, a piercing, gut-wrenching sound that tore through the disciplined quiet of the night. In the barracks, soldiers tumbled from their bunks, their minds still clouded with sleep, fumbling for weapons in the flashing red emergency lights. In the officers' quarters, men and women in various states of undress reacted with stunned disbelief before their training kicked in.
"Holy sh*t! Combat alert!"
"Enemy attack! This is not a drill!"
"Jesus Christ, what's happening? Is this an attack?"
"Are the Russians here? No, wait, this is Quantico, not the coast."
The initial shock gave way to a surge of adrenaline and disciplined action. This was Quantico, the heart of the Marine Corps, a stone's throw from the FBI Academy and Langley. An attack here was not just an attack; it was an act of impossible audacity.
Three seconds after the alarm sounded, the first heavily armed soldiers were sprinting across the lawns. A second later, they were a flood.
"Where's the breach?"
"Gamma Lab! The old Gamma Lab!"
"F*ck!" a Lieutenant Colonel cursed, pulling on his uniform as he ran. He yanked out his encrypted phone and made a call to a number reserved for the highest-level emergencies.
The call connected almost instantly. "Hello!" A low, gravelly voice answered.
"General! The Gamma Lab has been invaded!"
On the other end of the line, General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, his car having just pulled away from the Pentagon, went rigid. The words didn't compute. Gamma Lab? Invaded? The lab was a ghost, a fenced-off tomb inside one of the most secure military installations on the planet. How could it possibly be invaded?
His disbelief was so profound that he had to ask again, his voice dangerously low. "Say that again, Colonel. Where was invaded?"
"The Gamma Lab, General."
"Sh*t!" The last vestiges of a calm evening shattered. Ross's heart, a hardened piece of military hardware, sank into his gut. "What's the situation?"
"The base's Emergency Response Team is en route. I'm heading there now."
Ross took a deep breath, his mind already calculating threat levels and response protocols. He loosened his tie, which suddenly felt like a noose, and slammed his hand on the back of the driver's seat. "Quantico! Fast as this car will go!"
The driver nodded, and the black sedan shot forward, blowing past two bewildered Capitol Police officers without a second thought.
By the time the base's ERT arrived at the Gamma Lab, the scene was chaos. The outer corrugated iron fence had been torn open as if by a giant can opener. From within the perimeter, they could hear loud, booming impacts and the sporadic, panicked crackle of gunfire. A stream of terrified, lab-coat-wearing personnel were fleeing the building, their faces pale with terror.
The ERT captain grabbed one of them, his grip like a vise. "What's the situation inside? How many invaders? What are their objectives?"
"I-I don't know! I don't know anything!" the scientist stammered, his eyes wide with hysteria.
Another, more lucid researcher, gasped out the truth. "One! There's only one! He's after the gamma stones!"
A stunned silence fell over the heavily armed soldiers. The captain stared at the man, his mind refusing to process the information. "You just said… one?"
"Yes! Just one!" the man cried, his voice breaking. "But he's not human! He punched through a reinforced concrete wall! Bullets… the bullets can't hit him! The soldiers who shot at him… they're all dead!"
As if to confirm his words, an injured Marine, supported by two scientists, stumbled out of the darkness. "He's telling the truth," the soldier gasped, his face ashen. "There's only one of him."
The captain's gaze snapped to the Marine. "Soldier, report!"
"It's a phantom, sir," the soldier said, his voice trembling on the verge of a breakdown. "He moves too fast. Our bullets passed right through him. He's after the stones in the sublevel. He killed… he killed everyone who fired on him. Instantly."
"Then what about you?" the captain demanded.
The injured soldier's control finally broke. He roared, his voice filled with a survivor's frantic terror. "Didn't you hear what I said? He killed all the soldiers who shot at him!" He had raised his rifle. He had pulled the trigger. But in that split-second of life and death, his weapon had jammed. The phantom, in the midst of its supersonic killing spree, had perceived his non-threat, and in a moment of impossible, terrifying mercy, had simply shattered his leg instead of taking his life. The others were not so lucky.
The valve of slaughter was open, but Hawk was still, in his own cold way, exercising restraint.
At that very moment, Hawk landed with a soft thud in the underground chamber of the Gamma Lab. He had punched his way through three floors of reinforced concrete to get here. At the center of the room was a crudely excavated hole, leading down into the earth. Primitive, he thought. Or intentional. A sign, perhaps, that he wasn't the first to covet what lay beneath.
He jumped down. The passage was narrow, the walls glowing with a faint, sickly green light. It was the stone. It was Gammanian.
A silent, exultant cry from the nascent Phoenix constellation echoed in his soul, and with it came a flood of new information.
Devour.
He didn't need to mine it. He didn't need to carry it. He simply needed to place his hands upon the veins of solidified energy and burn his Cosmo. The Phoenix, a creature of fire and rebirth, would absorb the Gammanian, refining it and making it a part of him.
"Fantastic," he whispered, a grin spreading across his face.
But just as he was about to begin, his enhanced senses picked up the heavy, thudding footsteps of the ERT approaching on the floor above. He couldn't be disturbed.
He turned, aimed a fist at the ceiling of the passage, and unleashed an "empty punch"—a pure, invisible shockwave of kinetic force.
BOOM!
The ceiling of the tunnel collapsed, tons of earth and concrete sealing the passage completely. He was now buried alive, entombed with his prize. The dust and smoke were irrelevant. He was safe. He was alone.
Without another moment's hesitation, he turned and placed his hands flat against the cool, humming stone walls on either side of him.
The next second, his Cosmo burst forth.
A brilliant, golden aura exploded from his body, slamming into the glowing green walls of the cavern. The Gammanian reacted instantly, its internal light flaring from a soft pulse to a blinding, violent incandescence.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The cavern filled with the sound of roaring, untamed energy as the absorption began.