They stood inside a small hovel on the far western edge of the Divide, only a few hundred yards from the Canadian border. The room was sparse: only a cot, a broken sink, and a portable television propped on a warped nightstand.

Cross inserted the DVD in to the drive. “This is a goddamned war, and we may be the only damn people that can stop it before this entire city gets blown off the face of the earth.”

Jack shook his head. “That’s all well and good, Cross. But none of this tells me why we need a damn disc recording of the first days after the Devastation. What good does it do us?”

“Just watch, my boy. Just watch.”

The video image was grainy and black and white. It looked like security footage from a building in downtown Detroit. The image sat on a city street, one that Jack couldn’t quite recognize. No one appeared to be around except for an occasional passing car. It looked to be either morning or afternoon from what he could tell from the lighting.

The scene stood silent for several seconds. Suddenly the camera started to shake. They watched as the shaking increase and forced the image to softly blur. The camera shook one last violent shake before the ground cracked open before it.

The street parted and fell away in to the sewers below. The hole started small but it expanded and expanded until most of the street itself was gone. The building across from the camera crumbled in to the growing hole as the shaking grew stronger once again.

The sky fell instantly dark. Not as if clouds had moved in. More like if suddenly the sun had been blotted from the sky. The first tentacles whipped out from beneath the earth. At first his mind turned to a squid or octopus, but as the creatures pulled themselves up from below he could tell they were nothing earthly.

Tiny feelings spread from the main tentacle even as two hook-tipped tentacles came up to pull them upward. Wings spread on the creatures’ backs.

A far larger tentacle whipped up from the ground. It filled most of the open chasm as it writhed around in view of the camera.

A creature’s attention turned towards the camera. It flew in to the air straight towards the camera. Jack could see two clawed appendages flash out from beneath the creature for just a moment before it struck the camera. The picture fuzzed away as the DVD rolled to an end.

“What was that?”

Double Cross spit another wad of tobacco. “That my boy is something ancient and evil. Something not of this earth, but older than humanity itself. It is death and insanity, and those critters are its pets.”

“It was a bomb!” Jack fell back on to the cot. His hands clutched at his temples. “They said it was a damned bomb!”

“It was no bomb,” Double Cross said. “It was a monster. A monster that still lurks under this city. A monster that the bastards in the Great Question are just the latest to worship as gods.”

“I don’t know. I- I- What do I say to something like this?”

“Tell me, kid. You ever hear of a fella named H.P. Lovecraft?”

“Some writer, right? I was never much of a reader.”

Cross nodded. “Lovecraft wrote a bunch of scary stories about strange critters from outer space. Most folks thought they were just stories. Weird tales just like the name of the magazine that published them. They weren’t. Lovecraft was clairvoyant. His mind was linked to these beasts somehow. Only by putting his visions to paper could he control them. Even so, they pushed him irreparably towards suicide. He couldn’t fight it. He could only escape from life before he lost his mind completely.”

Double Cross removed a notebook from his back pocket, opened it, and flipped past several pages. He dropped it in Jack Flash’s lap. A sketch of the creature was taped to the page. Under it was scrawled a name. “Mi-go?”

“That’s what Lovecraft called them. All I know is that they still live down there. I’ve seen them with my own eyes. Mean bastards, too.”

“So what of them? What are we going to do about them?”

Double Cross pulled the DVD from the player and waved it in the air. “This is the proof, Jack. If this ever gets to the media, the people up top in the States won’t let this city stand. The Divide will be a smoking nuclear crater for real.”

“So what do we do? How can we fight these monsters?”

“I don’t know if we can, but we can take down their minions. You, me, Johnny; we need to get Everyman, Ray, and Bob in on this too. ‘Cuz the Great Question needs to be eliminated. If we can take out Antagonist and his boys, we may have a chance to survive this mess.”

Jack looked at the picture of the mi-go. He sighed long and hard. He never signed up for this. All he ever wanted was answers. Answers to who he really was, where he got powers, how he ended up in Detroit after the Devastation. But war against unearthly monsters? It was almost past his ability to comprehend.

“I don’t have much choice, do I? It’s either us or them, isn’t it?”

Double Cross nodded.

“Then let’s get to work.” As they left the hovel, Jack silently hoped he could feel half as confident as he sounded. He realized never before in his life had he felt such terror.

*****

Matrix side-stepped an energy blast from his Asian attacker only to walk in to a strike by the mocha-skinned blond. Exposed wires shot electricity out of the wound, even as the woman turned to land the killing blow.

Matrix threw up his hand to block the throat thrust from the woman’s blade. The blade embedded in the titanium plating on his wrist. Matrix twisted his arm and sent the woman spinning away.

Moments later, Witchqueen appeared in a blast of smoke and brimstone. Mister Mayor dropped from her teleportation portal a moment later. His skin immediately hardened in to solid metal.

Witchqueen didn’t know what hit her, as the Asian attacker unleashed a burst of radiation straight at her head. She screamed in pain as her skin blistered and her hair burnt away. She fell to the ground and lay unmoving.

With a roar, Matrix charged the Asian. He threw two more radiation blasts towards the cyborg, but Matrix ignored the holes blasted in to his torso. Six inch blades shot from Matrix’s fingers. Even as a blast vaporized his entire chest, Matrix’s blades sliced in to the Asian man’s throat. Even as his frame fell to the ground in two smoking heaps, Matrix could only smile at the shocked expression permanently stuck on his attacker’s lifeless head.

Mister Mayor watched out the corner of his eye as his final ally fell to the floor. He turned his attention to the Amazon. She delivered a massive blow to his right shoulder. Mayor cried out in pain at the dent left behind. With a roar of fury, he hurled himself at the woman.

His blow caused her to stumble back, and he took his chance to strike. He drove his boot down hard on her knee. The cap dislocated moments before the bone shattered. The Amazon whimpered in pain. Mister Mayor ignored her mewling. He yanked her up by the head, yanked her close, and twisted. The Amazon’s neck broke with a sickening crack. Mayor let the lifeless body drop from his hands.

The blonde struck with her energy weapons. They sizzled as they caught his metal frame. Mayor could feel the heat even through his shell. He grabbed the girl by her long, flowing hair and hurled her across the room. She struck the far wall with a sickening thud and the sound of bones breaking. Her body slumped in an unnatural position, dead.

Mister Mayor dropped his metal form. He surveyed the massacre in the halls of the Seat of Power. He didn’t know who these dead metas could be, and their very presence could spell danger for his existence. This city gave him enough problems without fear of any kind of outsiders coming in to take him out.

The blonde in the corner moaned in pain as she rose to her feet. Mister Mayor could watch as her back quickly healed from the damage done to it. She’s a damn healer. This is all I need.

She charged at him. Mayor knew he couldn’t bring up his metal-skin in time so he launched himself in to the air. He flew up and over her. As he dropped back to the floor behind her, he resumed his metal frame.

He drove a fist hard in to her back. He felt her spine shatter beneath the blow, but he delivered another punch for good measure.

She again fell to the ground and did not move. Mayor knew this wasn’t over. He reached down and grabbed the mocha-skinned woman by the nape of the neck. He pulled her up and looked at her face to face.

“You’re another government spook, aren’t you?”

She said nothing.

“They fucking brainwashed you didn’t they? Well let me tell you what’s what, girlie. You ain’t nothing. You’re a piece of shit the government failed on and decided to send out in another attempt to assassinate my white ass. But you failed.”

He squeezed the neck in his grip and felt the bones snap. The woman’s head rolled on to shoulders as if something dead. But her eyes still moved, looked around at him.

“Tell your damn handlers to stop abusing fucks like you! Now get out of my damn site.”

Mayor hurled the limp body through the blasted opening at the other end of the hall. She crashed down on the stairway in the front of the building. The two guards outside looked at him aghast.

“Clean her up and drop her in the DMZ. Then put a few bullets in her back to teach those American pigs not to mess with the Mayor.”

The men only nodded as they rushed to fulfill their leader’s command.

Mayor turned back to the damage both to his home and his allies. He lifted Witchqueen and the remains of Matrix in each arm. He started for the infirmary.

He failed to see the wisp of blue-black smoke float across the wall behind him. Nor did he see it take human form and watch him leave.

*****

The Pisa district to the north of the city was one of the areas of the former Detroit in most disrepair. It didn’t suffer the wholesale destruction of much of the city center during the Day of Devastation, but under the rule of Venus De Milo, chaos reigned. Most buildings were now only blasted foundations with piles of rubble strewn about.

In the heart of the district stood the area’s only complete structure: a six-story edifice with titanium-plated walls. No noticeable entrance lined the structures walls, nor did any window or other means of egress. None were necessary for a teleporter like Venus.

No one quite knew where she or her cybernetic minion Wargod originated. They appeared shortly after the Devastation and carved their own private kingdom on the corner of the city. Token tributes to first Mister Mayor and later Antagonist allowed them to stay unharmed by the city ‘leadership’.

But nothing prepared her for the Crimson. The red-cloaked warriors came in the night. The cloaks and their wearers made no sound as they moved towards De Milo’s tower. The group numbered five in total. Their features were hidden behind Kevlar bodysuits and the shadows of their cowls. No one could look at the visage of the Crimson and survive. They did not plan on changing that rule tonight.

One Crimson, the largest, removed a pack of C4 from beneath his cloak. He attached it to the outside wall of the tower as the other Crimson watched on. He ran a few steps away and took cover around the side of the tower. A moment later, the front of the tower exploded in to a fiery inferno.

The five Crimson ran through the hole blasted in to the tower. They were immediately met by a trio of robotic security drones.

Blood red cloaks fell away as five serrated blades, all just over a foot in length, came from hidden sheathes. They shined with an almost holy light as the Crimson struck. Within seconds the drones were more rubbish strewn on the streets of Pisa.

Claude, the leader pulled his cloak away from his face. Beneath his dark goggles, he was a black man in his early fifties, bald except for a hint of gray stubble on his chin and around his ears. He looked to his four compatriots each in turn.

“Find De Milo, eliminate her, then find our charge. Everyone ready?”

Four almost imperceptible nods were his only reply.

“Fools.” The voice seemed to rise up out of the very tower itself. “You have entered my home and think to beat me? You will die here today.”

The tower rumbled around them. The sparse halls opened up to reveal a dozen more security drones. “Elke, Petra, dispose of them.”

The two females in the band leaped in to action. They moved with an animal’s grace as their blades lashed out across the drones. Each cut sliced through the drone’s steel skin as though it was merely paper.

“Percival, Toshiro, take my flank.” The two remaining Crimson flanked their leader. “We’re going to find De Milo and end this.”

The three male Crimson ran down the hall and disappeared up a flight of stairs. Elke and Petra continued their work on the primary floor. For every drone they cut down, another rose to take its place. Petra could feel the doubt rising in her spirit.

“We need to speed this up,” she said. “We can’t keep up this fight forever.”

“We have no room for doubt. We are warriors, daughters of the moon.”

“That doesn’t mean we have to be idiots.” Petra turned her blade outward, flipped past another drone, and sliced her blade in to the wall. She sprinted down the hallway. Sparks flew everywhere as she cut through wiring, unreleased droids, and who knew what else. The damage seemed to cut down on the production of security droids. As she continued down the hall, Petra could see her aunt Elke make short work of the surviving robots.

A minute later, the two women stood in the center of the hallway surrounded by bits and pieces of steel and circuitry. Elke lowered her blade and turned to her niece. “We need to find the target.”

“You will find nothing!” Two chalk white arms unattached from any torso flew through the air, one towards each of them. The rest of Venus De Milo appeared above them. The massive steel form of Wargod dropped to the ground behind her.

“Where did the men go if these two are here?”

Elke raised her blade and ignored Petra’s question. Petra took the meaning of her action. Mourn the fallen in their time, a Crimson proverb said. For the mournful in battle will only be mourned themselvess.

Petra leaped from the floor and towards Venus De Milo’s perch. De Milo looked shocked at the young woman’s nearly fifteen foot jump. Wargod moved to aid her, but Elke already moved to cut him off.

A crossbow emerged from beneath Elke’s cloak. She fired three bolts in rapid succession. Seemingly against all conventional wisdom, they cut through Wargod’s armored shell. His shoulder mounted cannon, the wrist joint that controlled his axe, and one optical receptor were all rendered useless. Elke closed to strike with her blade.

Petra felt the flying arms close behind her. She hurled herself in to a back flip and watched them pass harmlessly under her. She landed against a wall and sprung off of it.

De Milo’s eyes went wide as she saw the blade hurtling towards her chest. She frantically chanted her teleportation spell, but it was already too late.

Her eyes went wide as the blade struck her heart. Blood gushed in to her lungs and out through her mouth. Her lifeless corpse fell to the floor, Petra still attached by her blade arm with it.

Petra ripped the blade free from De Milo’s body. She pushed herself away from the lifeless corpse. She hit the ground hard but rolled in to a kneeling crouch. She rose to her feet in time to see Elke’s blade slice through the neck of Wargod. Sparks flew everywhere as the cyborg’s lifeless form dropped to the floor.

Elke turned to her niece. “What fools these mortals be.”

“Come on, auntie. We should find the boys.”

“No need.” Claude’s deep voice emerged from the stairs. He shoved another man in rags down on the floor in front of him. Though bloodied and beaten, Petra would recognize Bob Cat anywhere. Jean Philippe and Rambert followed them a few steps behind. “We didn’t find the Nephilim, but we did find our prey.”

Claude pulled Bob to his knees. He pressed his blade in to Bob’s throat.

Petra couldn’t help but worry as Elke’s face took on a broad grin. “Welcome back to the family,” Elke said. “My niece has missed you. And the Crimson awaited your commitment.”

She turned to Petra. “Are you prepared for the ceremony?”

“With your permission, aunt.”

Elke turned to Jean Philippe and Rambert. “Make preparations. These surroundings will have to do. In twelve hours, the runaway will fulfill his end of the bargain he made.” She turned back to Petra with a coy smile. “And you, my niece, will have a husband.”

*****

The Everyman coughed up a mouthful of brown bile. He spit it to the floor as he stumbled in to the bathroom in nothing but his boxers. He felt terrible. His entire body ached. His skin was pallid, drawn back. He hadn’t felt this sick for years. Not since the Devastation.

He didn’t remember much of the actual events of that week. He remembered the initial rumble, like the biggest earthquake could ever imagine. Then blackness. He awoke nearly a month later, in the aftermath of the order that made the city a no man’s land, with all the powers he now possessed.

Powers that didn’t seem to be doing their job in keeping him healthy.

Janice slipped in behind him and wrapped her arms around his slightly bulging stomach. He felt her naked breasts press in to his back. “Everything okay, babe?”

“Yeah, I think so. Just feel a little under the weather is all.”

Janice pulled him around. The councilwoman wore nothing. Her breasts sagged a little bit with age, but even so she could pass as a model. Despite his aches and pains he couldn’t help but marvel at the woman’s body.

“Hey, it’s not like you to feel sick. But maybe I can make you feel better.”

Her hand fell downwards over his manhood. Despite his illness, John could feel himself getting hard at her touch. He yanked her up face to face and kissed her hard. She gasped as he lifted her up, carried her to the bed, and threw her down. He reached his hand out for the battle of Jack at the bedside table. He consumed the final few ounces in one long swallow. With a smile, he dropped the bottle and his shorts on the floor.

He ignored any foreplay. He had enough of that a few hours ago. Now what he wanted was hard, rough sex. So did she from the satisfied moan she gave when he entered her.

For the next fifteen minutes, the pain and discomfort disappeared as he drove himself in to her with an animalistic rage. Janice squirmed and shuttered beneath him as he lifted her legs up on to his shoulders to push himself even deeper. With one final groan, he exploded inside her. As his orgasm waned, he dropped down next to her on the bed. His breath came in short bursts as he once again felt the pain of his apparent flu.

He drifted in to sleep momentarily. A knock at the door ended his blissful rest. He tired to ignore it and continue sleeping, but the knock returned again. And again. He covered his head with the pillow, but the knocker was persistent.

Angry, he rose from the bed and grabbed his baseball bat. He slipped on a pair of jeans and stumbled to the door. He raised the bat to strike as he nearly yanked the door from its hinges.

Double Cross stood on the other side. He held up both hands in front of him in mock fear. “No need for brutality, Simmons. We came for your help. It’s time.”

John looked past Double Cross to see his motorcycle as well as a beat up Trans Am on the street in front of the house. Jack Flash gave him a quick wave from behind the wheel of the car.

John shook his head. “Whatever it’s time for, I need sleep right now. Give me a call tomorrow.”

“It’s time we take the offense, John. We’re attacking the Great Question today. Antagonist is going down.”

John didn’t move or talk for several seconds. Of everything he expected Double Cross might say, that wasn’t it. But he knew he couldn’t turn down the challenge. He owed Antagonist a world of hurt.

He reached in to the back of his pants and pulled a flask from the pocket. He shifted the bat under his shoulder to unscrew the cap. “I’ll drink to that.”