ic [ArchEvil] Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit [IC]

[quotemyname]

Colt stood in silence, cradling his beloved pixie, Jack had done a good job in saying what needed to be said, so he didn't bother adding any more. When Thrude, Willow, and Ferros entered, he acknowledged them, but didn't bother with verbal greetings, as Jack likely didn't need anything else to have to shout over.

Finally, Colt added his own voice to Jack's, "I reckon'e's right, damn it." He cast a glance down at Grimalkin, "We're all hurtin' y'see."

"Thurde? Y'all tak'a 'nother step. Say 'nother damn word'n, so help me, you're gods, her's," He glanced at Willow, "Hers," He glanced at Willow, "'N Omega him damn self won't stop me from shootin' ya where ya stand." Colt fixed Thurde with a stare that was so hard and unmoving the very fact that it came from a cowboy, a man, made her stop and listen. For over a year, Colt along with Jack had been the rock the Interceptors had been built on. Their newest members were about to see why. "Tak'a minute'n think." He told her, "Them's't ferget history's the ones't're bound't repeat't. Yer own father had's mind dominated. Y'all don't think't if'n 'e could take all'a that back'e would? Well open yer eye. Same thing's happenen here. Somethin's got controll'a Doc. An'e Sure's hell don't need no electric shock therapy!"

Colt moved to stand in front of Archville with Fulcrum. "Naw I know yer th'type't shoot first'n ask questions later, but that ain't how we do things'n these parts. An' we sure's hell don't parade through the city streets carryin' severed heads. We. Are. Interceptors. We. Do. Not. Stand. For. This! An' Retired're not, I won't stand fer't neither."

Colt shot a glance at every person in the room, "First we find out what's goin' on. Then we make our move." He looked down at Grimalkin, "Before anyone else git's hurt."

[Dariusprime]

Fulcrum didn't have time to ponder Dynamo's or Jack's words, let alone Thrude's rant. She'd been busy ripping Archeville's armor off when the goddess arrived, and even crouching, rested at eye level with the goddess. The sudden lightning bolt wasn't completely unexpected, but how does one intercept a bolt of lightning? The answer came instinctively. She simply held her hand out above the prone mad scientist and let the electricity ground itself through her.

Standing to her full height, Fulcrum squared off with Thrude. Wisps of smoke trailed off of her costume as she sized up the Valkyrie. She inhaled deeply and roared so loudly a gale force wind washed over the gathered heroes and cracked undamaged windows of the Farettis' house.

"Enough!"

Dynamo was his ever reasonable self, and Jack seemed to be coming around now that Willow was present. Colt seemed to understand the situation, and the injuries to Grimalkin. The necessary course of action was being lost in the whirlwind. What they needed right now was leadership. Strong leadership. Fulcrum never considered herself a particularly good leader, but now was the time to rise to the occasion!

"No," she continued in a commanding voice that brooked no complaint. "He goes to Blackstone Prison for trial and punishment like any other supervillain."

"I know you're hurting, but the world needs the Interceptors now more than ever. Regardless of the real reasons Dr. Archeville assembled this team. No doubt a myriad nefarious plots have already been unleashed. You heard the man's ultimatum. Time to intercept every last one of these schemes, set the world right and clear our names."

"Dynamo, Thrude," she said, pointing at the two in turn, "Contact the Freedom League, AEGIS, anyone who will listen. Damn well persuade them that we were mind controlled, and that Dr. Archeville is now in custody and en route to Blackstone. Willow, Colt, Grim, Ferros connect with Geckoman and find out everything he has planned. I don't care if you have to bomb his office at ArcheTech. Jack, Jill, you're with me. Let's get him secured and transfered to a holding cell."

Sighing, she looked among her team mates and held out an open hand, "Okay, Interceptors, are you with me?"

[Heritage]

"Okay, Interceptors, are you with me?"

From the palm of Colt's hand came a small bleary voice. "So where do I go?" The pint-sized pixie took to the air, a little wobbly at first but then she was able to hover in place long enough to resume her normal size. Judging from her hobbled stance, Grim was still in a great deal of pain, and there was a thin trickle of blood from one nostril, her left eye was red from burst capillaries and the left side of her face was one massive blue-black bruise. The shapeshifter limped over to Colt's side and sagged against him. "I think I heard someone mention Blackstone, but I'm not sure; my ears are still ringing from the thunderclap."

[Dr Archeville]

Ah, faithful Mona, defending me-

What?

Who's there?

SHOW YOURSELF!

ArchEvil's eyes went wide, the pupils dilating all the way open until the eyes were nothing but orbs of black. Suddenly his body was jerked up, as if on an invisible rack, head and limbs pulled -- no, stretching! -- in all directions, joints popping as they went. Tongue lolling out, he let out a stream of gibberish, with two words repeating.

"He comes!"

---

Throughout Germany and surrounding countries, long-still graves shuddered and bulged as their occupants strained to escape. From stony crypts, from potter's fields, from lakebed depths, the earthly remains of the Archeville's stirred, rose, and took to the air, melding into one grotesque mass of unliving flesh and bone and ash as they were pulled by some arcane force towards one place: Freedom City.

[bg=#000000]He comes.[/bg]

[Dr Archeville]

In a well-hidden laboratory hidden deep in the South American rainforest, a man in shadows overlooked an assemblage of monsters. The forests here held such a delightful variety of organisms to study and experiment on, animal, vegetable -- and people.

The figure stepped forward, light gleaming off its bionic frame, a frame first build in the 1940s, and updated as time and whim permitted. Old and withered skin stretched taut over a bionic skull, giving the face a skeletal cast. Long, wispy tufts of white hair protruded from his pate. His right eye, one of his few original remaining organs, was magnified by the monocle over it to the size of a half dollar; the left eye, wholly bionic, scanned his handiwork through the visible, infrared, and ultraviolet spectrums. His audio filters tuned out the creaks and whines of some of his old SHADOW-tech parts which he was still waiting to get replaced, and bionic lungs drew in breath for the speech he was about to give.

"," he threw his bionic arms wide, encompassing the menagerie of mutations below his catwalk, "" the top of the cyborg's head irised open, exposing a brain under a glass dome filled with a pale purple fluid, "" his head irised close, ""

The cyborg body of Verrill Herman Archeville jerked back, as if on an invisible rack, as did all the beasts and monsters below him, for they all shared an imperfect copy of his pseudonaturally-tainted brain. All began to gibber -- some of the mutated creatures did so better than others -- as they were lifted up, crashed through the roof of the building, and flew through the air, their forms melding into a grotesque mass as they streaked through the sky at fantastic speeds.

""

[Dr Archeville]

In Ebersawalde, Germany, sits the Martin Gropius Krankenhaus, a neuro-psychiatric hospital which has stood since the 1860s. Originally commissioned by the Prussians as an insane asylum, an advisory board of psychiatrists was later installed, and the various tracts were built to the needs of patients with specific disorders and for specific therapies, mirroring the developing specialization of the medical fields. In 1945 the Red Army seized the main building and used it as an army hospital, pushing the psychiatric patients out to the auxiliary buildings until the Army's departure in 1994. Between 1997 and 2002 the main building underwent massive renovations, in part paid for by donations by Doktor Viktor Archeville, and now runs departments of neurology, sleep medicine, and various sub-specialized psychiatry centers, including child and adolescent psychiatry, psychosomatic medicine, geriatric psychiatry and forensic psychiatry. In 2006 it was renamed in honor of its original architect, Martin Carl Philipp Gropius of Berlin.

In 2002 it gained a new inmate of note, Varick Heinrich Archeville. Committed to the Anstalt Bethel (Bethel Institution, a Protestant-charitable hospital for the mentally ill in Bielefeld, Germany) in 1990 after he tried to kill his son, Varick suffered from a host of maladies -- progressive neurological deterioration, speech and swallowing difficulties, unsteadiness of gait, poor muscle control, cognitive decline, and schizophrenic-like psychosis, as well as verbal tics, involuntary writhing, and repetitive motions of his limbs -- pegged as "a unique combination of late-onset Tay-Sachs disease and something akin to Lesch-Nyhan syndrome." Since his failed attempt to murder his son, he had taken to self-mutilation (the most striking feature of Lesch-Nyan, which contributed to the diagnosis), cutting off parts that he saw were sprouting tentacles or mouths that would gibber ceaselessly; several fingers were gone from both hands, as was his left leg beneath the knee, and his whole body was riddled with scars and gouges. He was restrained in a straitjacket most of the time, for his own safety; the last time he was freed, in 2001 (following complaints of chest pains), he managed to fracture his own jaw, bite off his own tongue, and pry out one of his own eyes before the orderlies could restrain him. The EKG the nurse managed to hook to him before his rampage showed his pulse never got above 85.

But now his jacket lay on the floor, split as the growths only he had seen for years burst forth from him, and his body was hauled by some arcane force through the hospital's air ducts, out a vent, and across the ocean, towards Freedom.

"Er kommt."

[Dr Archeville]

In cities across the world, men, women and children -- all relatives of Doktor Archeville, and all sharing in the pseudonatural taint that was strongest in his immediate ancestors -- were seized by a madness, and began attacking everyone and everything around them. Many warped and mutated in some way, sprouting extra appendages (or loosing them as limbs fused) or growing chitinous carapaces, but just as many retained a wholly normal (if crazed) appearance. Some, too, were yanked into the sky and streaked towards Freedom, but most remained where they were, assaulting all around them as they gibbered, shouted, and sang praises as the Blood of Archeville surged forth.

"Hij komt!"

"Il vient!"

"Έρχεται!"

"Viene!"

"彼は来る!"

"그는 온다!"

"Vem!"

"Он приходит!"

"¡Él viene!"

[Dr Archeville]

The stretched-out form of Doktor Archeville -- or whatever he was now -- hung several feet in the air, suspended as a marionette on invisible strings. A mad roaring, whistling sound could be heard as masses streaked in, from Germany, from South America, from all over, slamming into him at hundreds of thousands of miles an hour, fusing into a Gigantosaur-sized mass of arms and legs, tentacles and pincers, eyes and antennae, reaching, stretching, grasping, flopping, gibbering with a dozen mouths and a score of tongues. Mentally it reached, too, as a chaotic swirl of images and sounds flooded into the minds of every sapient being within five miles, one phrase alone coherent among the maelstrom:

I AM

The air around and ground beneath it warped and buckled, and an eerie piping filled the air, accompanied by flashing lights of mad colours that never existed on Earth and a mad whirl of disconnected limbs and eyes and other organs (some identifiable, some not). This thing's mere presence was a cancer on reality.

[Geez3r]

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF----

...

"Interceptors! Kick the @#$% out of that thing, and we'll figure this out later!" roared Dynamo as he realized it was time for less talking, more hitting. He charged into the fray, trusting everyone to stop with their squabbles and instead turn their attention to beating on TheThingThatShouldNotBe, they were reliable like that.

Now usually Dynamo's main method of attack was vibrating his fists at super-speeds and then punching the enemy, effectively punching them several dozen times at super high speeds. But he could use a similar technique on any part of his body, in this case he used his feet. He ran up the... side? of Dokthulu, effectively kicking him several dozen times with every step he took, eliciting a noise reminiscent of machine gun fire. He circled Dokthulu over and over again, pummeling any part of him he could reach, before rocketing off down the street. He was going to need some momentum for his next trick, than and he wanted to get a proper scope of things, something he quite regretted when he saw the full size of Dokthulu.

[N/A]

As she listened to their withering criticisms and declarations of loyalty to Archeville, Thrude ground her teeth and glared at each of her teammates as though she were trying to set them on fire with her one good eye. Fury and uncertainty warred with each other in her heart and upon her face as she considered their indictments. Am I judging the son by the sins of the father, as I've feared others would me? Or are their words of mercy and redemption just honey masking the taste of poison?

Then Archeville transformed into a shifting mound of mouths and tentacles as tall as ten men, and The Princess of Asgard sighed.

She relaxed.

She smiled.

She laughed.

[N/A]

"Yes! No more discussion or debate! Just a beast to slay, and a world to save! A foe as great as Nidhogg or Jormungandr! This, I was trained for! This, I was born for!"

The goddess raised her massive battle axe over her head. Dark clouds rumbled and swirled across the sky above it like coffee spilling from a dropped mug. A sudden gust of wind sent her golden braids whipping around her as she grasped Vendrvapn's ebony haft and drove its rune-etched mithril blade into the ground before the protean monstrosity. As the axe split the earth before her in twain, a pillar of azure lightning burned a path straight down from the clouds onto the creature's back.

[N/A]

The bolt was deflected by an unseen barrier, rolling off the monster's back like raindrops. The lightning writhed to the ground, but did not dissipate. Determined to carry out the will of The Daughter of Storms, it forked and ricocheted and slithered back toward the creature. At some points, it bounced off the monster's hide, while at others, it passed through the monster as if it weren't there at all. But the bolt of lightning, still bent to the will of the goddess who summoned it, persisted in its efforts to find purchase in the beast's unholy flesh.

[Heritage]

I AM

"Oh...my...God." Lynn had to lean back just to take in the enormity of what Doctor Viktor Archeville had become; was it even possible to save him anymore? And should they even try?

"Interceptors! Kick the @#$% out of that thing, and we'll figure this out later!"

"I like the way you think, Eli! Best battle cry ever!" Grim closed her eyes in concentration as her entire body was wreathed in pale gray vapor; wherever it touched, torn skin was stitched closed, bruises faded and her clothing was repaired. In but a few seconds, she was completely unharmed and ready for action! Pumping a fist in the air, she shouted in triumph.

"Yes! Elfin f***ing Magic for the win!"

"Yes! No more discussion or debate! Just a beast to slay, and a world to save! A foe as great as Nidhogg or Jormungandr! This, I was trained for! This, I was born for!"

As lightening stuck the earth and the foul abomination (sadly, to little visible effect), the tiny changeling turned to call out to the rest of her team, shouting to be heard over the cacophony of Thrude's thunderous attacks. "Guys, I have a really bad idea I wanna try! Get ready to back me up!"

[quotemyname]

"Interceptors! Kick the @#$% out of that thing, and we'll figure this out later!" roared Dynamo as he realized it was time for less talking, more hitting.

"Reckon y'all don't haf't tell m'twice!" Colt practically ripped his pistol from the holster at his side. Not a quarter of a second after the gun left the pouch, he began firing bullets. Lots of bullets. He fired them in between every one of Dynamos' steps, around him, behind him, in front of him. Every point on the creature that looked weak, Colt zeroed in on and attacked. Those of the Interceptors that had ever had the time to examine Colt's signature firearm, knew that the gun had eight chambers. Strangely, he was firing a lot more than eight bullets. Either he was reloading so fast that they couldn't tell, or the gun had some sort of strange ability to preserve the ammunition inside of it. Either way, no one could deny the effectiveness of the hailstorm of bullets Colt now launched at the creature.

"This here town ain't big'nuff fer th'two'a us." Colt raised his gun and blow smoke from the barrels. He released the clip, and bullets poured from the gun, jangling on the ground at his feet. He replaced them with a new clip. "Y'all're just too damn big'n evil." He flicked his wrist and the moon clip on his gun closed with confident, practiced grace.

[Dr Archeville]

The beast roared under Dynamo's assaults, its multitude of arms straining to reach for the speedster, but failing to find purchase on his too-fast legs. It screamed at Colt's attack, mouths splitting open and rolling back to be absorbed by the greater mass of flesh as unidentified fluids and organs and writhing forms spilled out from the gaping holes the gunslinger's bullets tore in it. Yet already the holes closed over, filling in with necrotic flesh and bone, replacing the multicolored skin and scales from a panoply of mutated life with a gray, scabrous hide.

[Dr Archeville]

It shrieked again, more mouths (human and non) forming alongside rattlesnake tails and the chirping wings of crickets. The terrible cacophony resounded in both the ear and the mind, sending the hero's minds scrabbling back to the comfort of earlier, safer times. Dynamo alone was safe from the onslaught. The Espadas siblings recoiled to the nursery rhymes of their childhood, and theme songs from morning cartoons, as Mona recalled the lullabies she sang to them. Thrude, too, recalled the chants of her youth, songs sung in the mead halls of distant Asgard. Willow's recollections were far bloodier, her mind reverting to an almost atavistic state when she and her sisters culled vast swaths of life from the ecosphere at the behest of her masters the Preservers. Billy's mind did not travel as far back as his comrades, though the impact was as strong: he saw a gallery of Gillman's faces appearing on the beast, pushing out from its horrid flesh and taunting the bounty hunter with every crime and foul deed he had gotten away with. By contrast, Lynn was pushed the furthest back, remembering things not from her mortal past but from the past of the faerie courts, the bloodshed and intrigue and chaos of that distant land resonating with and, for the moment, shielding her from the brunt of the maddening assault. Geckoman, his Pitchoo on the very edge of it, sought solace in the innumerable quips and jibes he would typically hurl at a foe, but instead found himself stuck in an endless loop of snarky commentary.

[Gizmo]

Jack slid several steps backward as he watched the horrifying transformation of Archeville into the towering creature beyond all reason, royal blue greatcoat flung backward in the wake of the forces being unleashed. Staring up at the behemoth, he managed an articulate, "...uh." A beat later he recovered from near shutdown of his faculties just enough to shout to the others, "Okay, well, forget what I just said, then!" Casting about for somewhere to anchor his grappling line to, he was forced to his knees as the beast let loose a song of madness.

"A Pedro, como era calvo, le picaban los mosquitos," he choked out as words dropped uncontrollably from his lips, both hand pressed firmly over his ears as his feet kicked helplessly to right him. "Y su padre le decía, '¡Ponte el gorro, Periquito, que te pican los mosquitos'! Con el sonova...!" Slapping the ground beneath him with an open palm, the fencer shook his mind free of the loop with an effort that had his teeth grinding and his limbs aching as he stood shakily.

Staggering over to his sister, he found her curled up upon herself, rocking back and forth as she muttered in a rapid, singsong voice, "¡A Atocha va una niña, carabí! ¡A Atocha va una niña, carabí! ¡Hija de un capitán, carabí urí, carabí urá...!" The young medic had her face buried in her knees, but at the sound of her brother approaching, Jill looked up, her expression frozen in horror as she gulped for air between verses. "¡Hija d-de un capitán...! Carabí urí, car... carabí... O-oh, Dios, that was..." Stumbling slightly as she faltered to her feet, she ran a hand over her mouth. "I could hear it in my head, I couldn't, I-"

"I know," Jack interrupted simply, placing a hand on Jill's shoulder for mutual support, partly emotional and partly to keep the siblings from falling down again.

[Gizmo]

The pair looked upward for a long, unsteady beat, lightning and fury flashing above them, before Jill spoke. "So... do you have a plan?"

"Actually... yeah, I think I sort of do," her elder brother admitted, failing to completely suppress a wince as he contemplated, averting his eyes from the roiling chaos of the Archeville-Thing. "You remember that one big move we talked about?"

Jill gave him an uncomprehending look, frowning. "What? Which one?" she asked, struggling to clear her mind of the fog that sapped her courage and her concentration.

"The big big move," Jack clarified with a deep breath, rolling his shoulders as he willed strength back into his limbs.

His sister blinked at him a few times in response. "The... I thought you were kidding about that!" she cried in disbelief, surprise burning off some of the weariness that threatened to bring her down.

The fencer nodded in agreement. "Oh, I totally was. So. Think you can do it?"

One of Jill's eyes squinted slightly behind her crimson bandana mask as she looked up at the roiling engine of destruction and mind shattering wrongness. "...screw it," she decided finally, cracking her knuckles through her gloves. "Let's bash its faces in."

[Gizmo]

With a grin that had heralded the end of petty thugs and beings of unimagined power, Jack held out his hand. His sister took it, and the pair turned to look upward. A hemisphere of crackling blue light appeared around them, expanding into a complete globe as the energy lift them off of the ground, hovering just a few feet in the air. Jill's finger's tightened around her brother's as her brow furrowed, and the field of light grew, and as it grew it gained form and definition. Limbs protruded, reaching outward and smoothing into silhouettes of lean muscle, massive feet dug into the soil and expanding fingers pushed downward as the form of a crouching figure emerged. Still it grew, a face emerging into sharp relief as details solidified, the glow dimming to take on the sheen on polished steel lit from behind. Within moments, the Farettis' estate was cast in the crouching simulacrum's shadow.

Then, with the sound of creaking diamonds, the frame rose, standing to its full height, on par with the terrible monstrosity it faced. A helmet with a front cut in the shape of stylized spade framed a pale blue face suffused with a glow of power and an impassive countenance, and angular patterns seemed etched into its surfaces. Without warning the effigy brought its two mighty fists together and in a blinding flash fire erupted from within it, eyes transformed into twin novas even as ribbons of flame shot throughout its limbs, outlining muscle and armor. A great plume of embers adorned its head and a sheet of rolling inferno formed a cloak that unfurled from its shoulders to the ground dozens of feet bellow. And when those fists drew apart, a blazing sword formed between them, a weapon of fire and steel and fury and defiance.

The living statue, the titan of old made real once more hefted its weapon with a familiar grace and sureness to point it squarely at the unspeakable creature. In a voice like laughing thunder it spoke, "Why don't you pick on somebody your own size?"

[April]

The fog cleared and the barriers to the ancient guardian's memories were lifted, the innumerable gaps filled. And with this clarity came understanding and revulsion at the continued presence of Outsiders.

The four arms of Willow's armor shifted into tree trunk sized vines and she lashed out at Grimalkin with all four. The massive vines missed the pixie and slammed into the pavement spraying the area with chips of asphalt.

"You will be silent, filth," the dryad intoned her voice as cold as liquid helium as she glared at Lynne before glancing at Thrude. "Already I can see the corruption your kind inflict upon the Sourceworld and I grow weary of cleaning up the messes you leave in the wake of your passing."

"There is only one solution to such unprecedented systemic corruption, and I will fulfill my function, the system will be reset."

[Dariusprime]

Fulcrum staggered back in horror at the transformation overwhelming her beloved. Her face contorted in agony as she wailed his name but was drowned out by the roar of the monstrosity he had become. She stood there frozen, arms limply at her sides, her face uncomprehending at the revelation of not just witnessing the birth of some cosmic horror, but the simultaneous final torment of Viktor Archeville. Only the death of Centurion came close to the nightmare unfolding before her.

Which meant the obfuscating balm of lullabies washed over her without resistance. Her eyes slipped closed as the melodies drifted around inside her consciousness, and despite a strange, slimy undercurrent, the giantess felt a peace she'd missed for many years. Years when the world was simpler. When her much-loved unofficial siblings weren't heroes, they were children concerned with the games of children. When the swordsman fought imaginary pirates with a homemade sword, and his sister collected fireflies in a jar.

Something though, something tugged at her mind just as she felt ready to succumb utterly. Perhaps the light and power of Espadas' siblings transformation? Her own will reasserting itself? Who knew? All that mattered was something triggered her to think, to perceive the world around her in reality. And in that moment the illusion shattered. Her eyes snapped open. Viktor was dead, and the end of the world loomed before them. The glow of raw power illuminated the beast, and she quietly sized up the monstrosity, and she could only assume, the new power of her former charges.

Then she turned to gaze up the mass. Her eyes slowly began to glow an eerie red. Suddenly twin beams of power, Terminus energy, shot forth with light speed. Savagely they pierced clean through the abomination and streaked as beacons into the sky. The power unleashed wasn't so much laser beams, or heat vision, so much as blasts of concentrated Entropy unraveling the subatomic structure of the the beast, scattering its energy and elementary particles into the surrounding environment. The result? A clean, almost surgical wound.

[Geez3r]

After several careful moments of deliberation, Dynamo still had no idea what the heck was going on. It was abundantly clear however that things were getting worse and not better. Thanks to his increased sight, Dynamo was still able to keep tabs on what was going on, even at this distance. Not that the image wasn't terrifying, but you needed to shove those emotions down and beat that reptilian side of your brain into picking fight as a viable option. You could throw up later. But the fact that the creature seemed to be able to drive the others to temporary madness, getting tangled up in that mess would be counter productive at best. No someone needed to logic their way out of this. And after electing himself the president and only member of the "not crazy at the moment" club, that responsibility fell to Dynamo. But he needed to stall it while he thought, he ran up and down the nearby streets grabbing pretty much everything that wasn't bolted down and throwing it at the eldritch horror. When half of the items missed entirely and the other half left no visible impression, Dynamo was quite glad no one was able to make out the stream of words coming out of his mouth over the din of battle.

[Dr Archeville]

Fulcrum's torrent of Terminus energies had the most visible effect on the thing that had been her lover, flesh and bone boiling away, new mouths forming to shriek and hiss at the new sensation. As with that damage done by Dynamo and Colt, the flesh began to mend back, necrotic hides forming thick scabs over the wounds, but the process was slower with these injuries. Was it the nature of the attack? Or the nature of the attacker?

As the battle rage, Dokthulhu's new body underwent a plethora of hideous changes. Here, vents opened to spewed a vile goo that mutated trees into lashing barbed dervishes; there, pustules ripened and burst to release swarms of dog-sized cockroaches which wore Viktor's maddened face, whose bites carried a horrible (and horribly fast-acting) wasting disease. One mouth vomited forth dozens of hideous frog-men, that loped and leaped both at the heroes and towards the other homes in the neighborhood, sharing mad visions with those who touched their hallucinogenic skin. Once, when the beast seemed to suffer a heavy wound, it lashed out with a lightning-fast tentacle to ensnare Thrude, feeding on her divine blood and life force with the lamprey-like mouth concealed within; later, portions of its hide thickened to an insectoid carapace, reflecting back any attacks on it. The very air and ground around it continued to warp, colors and sounds running together like melting wax, as the heroes continued the dire battle with a thing from beyond reality.

[Dariusprime]

Fulcrum accepted that the thrill of battle held a certain appeal to her. She didn't seek battle like her comrade, Thrude, but when violence proved inevitable, she struck with finality. Doing so minimized the chances of collateral damage. Not to mention the guardian didn't like bullies, regardless of size.

This thing though proved different. Whether maddened by grief, the boiling chaos or horror unfolding, Mona fought like a woman possessed. Only a steely gaze and gritted teeth demonstrated her faculties. Not that sanity mattered much at this point. Instead of her typical hit-and-run tactics, she laid into the monstrosity with everything she had and more. If this battle proved her last stand, so be it.

Around the mass she flew at hypersonic speeds. Lances of Terminus rays seared and cauterized pulsing organs, almost recognizable, and lacerated sacs of vile fluids. Her punches exploded open flesh, driving even the carapace away as bones crunched inside her hands. Still she fought. The cockroaches wailed and pleaded in simulacrums of Viktor's own voice, and vaporization became their reward. She roared at Thrude's injuries and severed the offending tentacle with her bare fingers. Leveraging a massive hay maker, a gigantic, toothed maw opened before her, and its great tongue lashed around her neck, dragging her bodily inside the beast even as the maw slammed closed.

Yet every time the battle looked to turn their way, the great beast screamed back to life. And indeed it did scream, for the savagery of the assaults raining down upon it were more than mighty enough. Only the sheer reality-altering abnormality of the thing kept it held together as lightning fast speed machine, ancient earth servant, crackshot cowboy, energy-mastering titan and shapeshifting wonder laid siege against this mad entity, this vestige of ages unspeakable, when the universes were young and all gods yet waited for birth.

The beast nearly split in twine as she blasted loose from within the pulsating gullet. Acrid smoke mingled with red flame as the giantess burst forth. Dampeners long corroded, the full fury of Fulcrum was unleashed upon this deviance. Yet even now doubt clouded her mind. Its wounds...all of them...closed even as they opened. Its infection slithered away into houses, storm drains, even into electrical and telephone lines. It was everything and everywhere.

Even if we destroy it, it will remain. We must annihilate the thing in one fell swoop!

[quotemyname]

There had once been a gunfight in his own world. He had been acting as temporary sheriff in a small town at the time. There had been a lot of men with guns and black cowboy hats. Then, as now, something happened to Colt that he seldom let himself experience. He got lost in the fight.

He knew that he was firing his guns. He knew that the bullets were hitting their mark - they always hit their mark. He just wasn't processing what was going on around him.

One moment he was running for cover while firing pot shots with his pistol. He dove to avoid the creature's massive lashing tentacles...

Another moment, he was crouched behind a collapsed wall of a house. His rifle was propped up on a sturdier piece of rubble. Every time he saw an opening, a weak spot, or a chink in the creature's armor, he put a bullet there. Every time it grew an extra eye stalk, he shot it clean off. Every time one of the other interceptors opened a fresh wound, his bullets were like salt sprinkled on it. But the creature became wise to his tactics. More tentacles swept the building away whole.

Colt dug himself from the wreckage a moment later. Shakily, he stood. Reached deep into one of the pockets on his coat, and withdrew a single long rifle bullet with a red, blinking tip.

"Doggone creature's bigger'n Texas." He said, wiping blood from his mouth, and slipping his last bullet into the chamber. "Reckon I'd better make this here shot count. What's th'phrase? Freedom City jus' ain't big'nuff."

Colt lined up his shot. He exhaled calmly. He slowly depressed the trigger.

A beam of white hot energy shot from the end of his rifle. It was a good three feet wide at it's source, and seemed to grow more fearsome as it traveled. The energy from his rifle cut through the Eldritch monster like a hot knife through butter. It left an oozing, pussing, quaterized wound through the center of the beast that was the size of a large horse.

Colt was so concentrated on delivering the blow, he never saw that last tentacle...