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South River December 24, 2018 7:24 PM Henry 'Tug' Stacy whistled a carol to himself as he guided his tugboat back toward the Riverside docks for the night. His daughter was old enough this year to really understand what was going on and had gone ga-ga for Christmas so he'd rented a Santa suit and was eager to get back home by the time she'd be sneaking out of bed. It had been a quiet afternoon and evening, just cold enough for a light snowfall to fill the air but not enough to begin icing over the water. Tug lost the tune as his boat lurched abruptly. The experienced sailor quickly reoriented but frowned; he was far enough from the bay that there shouldn't have been much turbulence. Leaning out through the window of his cab he peered out into the gathering dark, with only his own runners and the distant lights of the docks illuminating shapes. He watched as a piece of driftwood bobbed by, a pile of birch branches clumped together and rising five or six feet above the surface. As Tug scratched idly at his bushy red beard there was another, more violent lurch and he rushed back to the wheel, wrenching to one side against the inexplicable wave. His jaw hung slack as the birch branches rose higher and higher out of the water until he could see whole trees lashed together. They were joined by curving shapes the size of city buses Tug gradually recognized as something like goat horns. His boat went into a spin as a massive form followed, skyscraper tall and covered in dark, matted fur that shed water in great sheets. Great iron chains hung from its wrists, clanging with the timbre of cannonballs and it gripped the birch trees in one clawed hand. The other held the thick strap of some massive thing slung over its back, some sort of great cylinder with an uneven, woven texture. The tugboat gradually slowed its spin as the behemoth strode up and out of the river, heading in the opposite direction: away from Riverside and toward Bayview.

For all its wonders, Freedom City could be a dangerous place and it was a sad fact that the metropolis was home to more than its fair share of orphaned children. Fitting for a city known for rebirth from the ashes and undying resolution, many of those orphans had grown to become wealthy industrialists, expose-writing journalists, well known photographers and so on. Their legacy meant that Freedom boasted one of the best developed and funded social services programs in the nation. Even so, there never seemed to be quite enough beds, food or cheer to go around, particularly during the holiday season. Keith LaMarr had first become aware of the Santa's Super Helpers charity through his friend Reverend Stone of Lincoln's Church of the Eternal Rock of Justice. The concept was elegant in its simplicity: local superheroes volunteered to dress up in the traditional red and white suit of the jolly elf and spend the day with underprivileged youths at Millennium Mall, bringing some cheer in their own right and drawing much needed attention to the cause at the same time. Jingling bells next to a hanging pot taken to the logical extreme - at least logical by Freedom's standards. Certain bylaws unfortunately made it prohibitively difficult to have heroes participate in their secret identities, so those who's true names were public knowledge were typically approached. It was thus that the earsplitting educator known as Wail stepped into the bustling shopping center from the temporary changing area with a fluffy brimmed hat atop his bald head and bright red across his broad chest, stroking his grey streaked beard through a black glove that matched his boots and wide, gold-buckled belt, looking at though he could shake considerably more than a bowlful of jelly with his super-dense footfalls. The other two heroes in attendance were no less eye catching. The presence of Amir Al-Misri, the high-profile billionaire playboy turned superhero, assured a substantial media presence. His reputation as an irresponsible fop and dilettante would have raised LaMarr's eyebrow more if not for the good things he'd heard about the man as Asad, the energy absorbing metahuman. Neither of them was much comeptition for sheer visual impact next to Louis Ross, the popular cartoonist who's transformation into one of his one, massive, four-armed creations was almost too fantastical to believe. Wail knew he'd seen stranger things than the genial artist's demonic appearance in his decades of experience, but he was hard pressed to name more than a few off hand.