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Episode 2 Part 2: "Is Black Mentis Losing?"
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New rifts tore open in the sky above the burning city, their edges crackling with purple electricity that made the air taste like copper and sulfur. The portals vomited Nightstalkers onto the pavement below, skinny black things with claws that screeched across the asphalt, leaving white scratches in the concrete. Their elongated limbs moved wrong, joints bending backward as they skittered between overturned cars and scattered debris.
CRASH.
Dreadnoughts smashed straight through storefronts, their massive shoulders splintering wooden beams and sending glass cascading down like deadly rain. Each step punched spider web cracks through the sidewalks, the concrete buckling under their weight. Loose bricks tumbled from the buildings that were still standing, bouncing off car hoods with metallic pings before rolling into storm drains clogged with ash.
Bloodfire Wraiths shot overhead in streaks of orange and red, their wings beating with the sound of tearing canvas. They dropped fire that swallowed whole blocks in seconds, the flames licking up the sides of apartment buildings and melting street signs into twisted metal sculptures.
THUD.
Mentis slammed his fist across Megalodon's jaw, knuckles connecting with bone. The demon king's head snapped sideways, spit and blood flying in an arc that splattered against a broken billboard. The hit sent Megalodon tumbling through the air, his massive frame spinning end over end before he twisted mid flight, planted his feet on empty air, and leveled a finger downward. His eyes glowed red as he spoke.
"Nightmares, finish off these fodders below me!"
The ground quaked as hundreds of demons obeyed, their roars echoing off the concrete walls of the urban canyon.
CRACK.
SPLAT.
Juggernaut bellowed, spittle flying from his mouth as rage consumed him. He swung both arms like wrecking balls, his fists connecting with demon skulls. Each punch shattered bone with wet cracks, sending brain matter splattering across nearby walls. When his right hook caved in a Dreadnought's ribcage, the creature's chest folded inward with a sickening crunch, ribs piercing its own lungs.
"How do you like being tossed around, huh?! Trash!"
He grabbed a demon by its face, fingers digging into its eye sockets until they popped, then ripped the entire head clean off. Skin peeled back like wet cloth, tendons snapping as the skull separated from the spine. Blood sprayed across his chest armor as he kicked another demon so hard its spine jutted out its back, vertebrae piercing through gray flesh.
But for every corpse he left on the ground, two more piled onto him from all sides. Claws raked across his arms, leaving deep gouges. One massive claw tore through his chest armor, ripping skin, muscle, and the metal plating in one devastating swipe.
Squelch.
Juggernaut staggered backward, boots slipping on blood slicked concrete. He coughed, red foam bubbling from his lips and dripping down his chin.
"Jeez... th... there's no... end to... them."
His voice came out ragged, each word a struggle. Another pack, ten demons strong, charged him from the left flank. Their claws scraped against asphalt as they bounded forward on all fours. He raised his arms to block, but they swarmed him, their combined weight dragging him down. Claws pierced his shoulders, his legs, his back.
"Damn it, wait! AAAGH!"
They buried him alive beneath a writhing mass of claws and snapping jaws. His screams grew muffled, then stopped.
Slice.
A Nightstalker lunged at a figure moving through the chaos. By the time its claws reached empty air, he was already somewhere else, shoulder dipping low, boots skidding sideways across broken glass that crunched under his weight. Another demon swung a claw where his head had been a heartbeat earlier. He was crouched now, blade whipping up in a tight arc that opened the thing from groin to throat before it finished its swing. Intestines spilled out in wet loops, hitting the ground with a splat.
His eyes flicked constantly, scanning spots that were still empty, cutting into space that hadn't been attacked yet. Every kill happened in the half second before the enemy even decided to move. When he passed through the crowd of panicking civilians, they didn't see him so much as feel the air pressure change, a brief wind that smelled like blood and ozone.
"Stay down, freaks! Hold on, Juggernaut! I'm rewinding you out of there!"
Rewinder extended both hands toward Juggernaut's motionless form, his fingers trembling as power gathered around them. A bubble of warped time began to form around the fallen hero's corpse, the air inside shimmering and bending.
But Megalodon flicked two fingers while trading blows with Mentis three hundred feet above them, not even looking down.
"Time manipulation isn't allowed in my presence."
Crash.
The bubble shattered like glass, its pieces dissolving into nothing before they hit the ground. Juggernaut stayed dead on the pavement, his eyes glassy and unfocused, chest split open.
Rewinder froze, his hands still outstretched, fingers curled as if he was still trying to shape time itself.
"W... what are you? H... How did you cancel my abil..."
A mistake. His eyes left the battlefield for one crucial second.
"Eyes forward, idiot! Never turn your back on the enemy!"
Mentis's voice boomed from above, but the warning came too late.
Whoosh.
Nightstalker tendrils coiled up Rewinder's legs like living ropes, wrapping around his arms and torso. They lifted him off the ground, his boots kicking frantically six feet above the concrete. The shadows tightened, and his bones began to creak under the pressure.
"A... ah... shit... s... stop! It... hurts!"
His voice cracked, high pitched and desperate. A demon's claw speared through his stomach from behind, the point emerging through his belly button. Blood poured down the black talon. Then another claw hooked under his ribs, piercing up through his lung.
RIP.
The Nightstalker pulled in opposite directions.
His body tore in two at the waist, spine snapping with a wet crack. Organs slipped out in wet ropes, his intestines unraveling as they fell. His upper half hit the pavement with a meaty splat, eyes still twitching in his skull. His lower half was flung away like garbage into burning wreckage thirty feet away, legs still spasming.
Blood sprayed across several heroes' faces in warm droplets.
"NO! F... fuck! Rewinder!"
Hydroblast stumbled backward, his voice breaking as he wiped brain matter from his cheek. His hands shook as he stared at the carnage.
"We lost our trump card! We need to retreat! We need to regroup!"
Mindstorm's jaw clenched so tight the muscle in his cheek twitched visibly. Sweat slid down his face in dirty streaks, mixing with ash and blood. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated, staring at nothing while his peripheral vision tracked dozens of moving threats. His hands shook until he balled them into fists, nails cutting into his palms just to make the trembling stop.
"We fall back there!"
He pointed with his whole arm toward two broken highway overpasses that were slowly collapsing into one another, concrete chunks the size of cars tumbling down in slow motion.
"We can flank both sides! Move!"
CLICK.
HISS.
Arsenal slammed a fresh magazine into his rifle, the metal clicking into place. His armor hissed from overheating, steam rising from the vents as the cooling systems struggled to keep up. Sweat poured down his face inside his helmet.
"Retreat?! Over my dead body! After what they just did?! Not a chance!"
Frostbite wiped blood from her split lips with the back of her hand, leaving a red smear across her pale skin. Her eyes glowed an unstable icy blue, the light flickering like a broken fluorescent bulb. Frost crawled up her arms in crystalline patterns, the ice cracking and reforming as her power spiked.
"They want a fight? I'll give these bastards a damn blizzard!"
Squelch.
Crack.
Mindstorm's powers erupted outward, blood dripping from both nostrils as he ripped dozens of demons up into the air. He smashed them against each other with such force that bones sprayed across the battlefield in white fragments. He grabbed control of the blood pooling at his feet, shaping it into hardened spikes that gleamed red in the firelight before launching them like missiles into more demons.
"This is for Juggernaut!"
Five spikes skewered a cluster of Nightstalkers, pinning them to a concrete wall. Their bodies convulsed as they died.
"And THIS..."
SQUELCH.
More spikes erupted through another group, bursting up from the ground and impaling them through their chests and heads.
"...is for Rewinder!"
"C'mon, let's run for it!"
Someone screamed from the crowd of heroes, but their voice was lost in the chaos.
BOOM.
CRASH.
Rock man slammed both fists into the ground, his knuckles splitting open against the concrete. The earth split open beneath him in jagged lines, swallowing demons whole as they fell into the cracks. He crushed others between collapsing slabs of concrete that came together with bone crushing force, the sound echoing off nearby buildings.
His chest heaved up and down, each breath a struggle. When he spoke, his voice was raw and thick with his South Side accent.
"Man, these muh'fuckas just keep comin'! We done dropped hundreds... hundreds, bruh... and they still pourin' out like roaches!"
He stumbled backward, his massive stone feet scraping against broken asphalt. His back hit a half standing wall, chunks of mortar crumbling off where his shoulder touched it. He clutched his chest with one hand, and dust rolled off his cracked stone shoulder like gray snow.
"I'm runnin' on fumes, fam... my core damn near dust!"
His breathing came in ragged gasps, each exhale releasing small clouds of stone dust that drifted away on the superheated air.
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