River Monster (IC) (GM)

[Avenger Assembled]

Mid-November 2011

Continued from The Meaning of Torture

It was a quiet afternoon in Riverside, the pre-Thanksgiving season the last time that the area wouldn't be overrun with tourists and shoppers looking to avoid the various megamarts located outside the city: Freedom City was better than most American metropolises at keeping out big-box stores, but that meant that street-level commercial areas were very, very busy come the holidays. With the summer tourists mostly gone from the wharfside shops, and only a few hardy souls taking in a New Jersey beach in November, the commercial piers were quiet today.

Until suddenly, they came. A scuttling horde of green-tinted figures, their scaly bodies looking like piscine versions of human beings, came scampering up the sides of Pier 13, sending the occupants of the local pier shops and the tourists on the nearby boardwalk fleeing! The little fish-things hissed and chittered at each other as they overran a block of shops, a fishy invasion that soon had people fleeing the block.

"The Deep Ones are back!"

[Cube]

"Dad! Dad! Can we go in there?" The wide eyed little girl pointed excitedly at an enticingly decorated storefront as she tugged at her father's massive red mitt.

The four armed behemoth smiled as he led his daughter down the pier. "Maybe in a bit, sweetheart. We're supposed to meet mommy for lunch, remember?"

It had been a few months since Lou's transformation, and things were slowly returning to relative normalcy. Sure, he got the occasional horrified stare from a passerby, but the number of people fleeing in terror had dropped significantly since his initial change... Somewhat. One of the perks of trying to frequent the area, he guessed. Regardless, the walk was relatively uneventful, save for a few unnerved tourists.

It wasn't long before Lou and his daughter arrived at the little cafe on Pier 19 where Audrey Ross was waiting. She smiled as she saw her husband approach. "Hey, hot stuff."

"Aw, I told you to stop callin' me that." Lou chuckled as he kneeled down to give his wife a kiss. His daughter wrinkled her face in disgust at this brief public display of affection.

"So, been holding up the fort?" said Audrey, as she pulled away from the kiss.

"Yeah, but you know how hard it is to get any work done when Faye has the day off." Lou grinned, a pair of fangs peeking out from his lower lip. "How's the score coming?"

"Pretty good, need to get back to the studio to-" Audrey was cut off by a piercing scream.

"The Deep Ones are back!"

Hordes of fishy fiends scuttled up the sides of the pier, sending tourists fleeing in terror. Lou felt his stomach tie in a knot. "Aw, no..."

"...Faye. Come with mommy." Audrey whispered, as she took her daughter's hand.

"Aw, but I wanna see dad beat the fish people up!"

"I said come with mommy!" The woman shouted as she pulled her daughter away from the approaching horde. "And Lou?"

"Yeah?" Lou pulled off his jacket, revealing four pairs of muscular arms as he stared down the pier.

"Please don't die."

"Wasn't planning on it."

As his wife and daughter vanished into the terrified crowds, Pyre let out a mighty roar as his fists were wreathed in auras of flame.

"Alright fishies, if you want to take this pier, you're going to have to go through me!"

[Electra]

It felt strange to have a totally baby-free afternoon, but Stesha decided it was nice as well. It had been a melancholy decision not to go back to the florist shop after Amaryllis' birth, but between the baby, her hero work, and developing Sanctuary, she had no time to arrange a vase of flowers, much less plan and prep an entire wedding or party. She was lucky that Derrick brought in enough, even with his rather bizarre and very time consuming line of work, that her income was expendable. She'd rather have him around, but at least one of them could be there all the time.

As much as Stesha enjoyed being a work-from-home mother, sometimes grown-up interactions were necessary. With Ammy tucked up neatly in Chicago with her grandma, Stesha had time to hit all the adorable shops along the river and start her long, long Christmas list. She was just perusing a case of beautiful little blown-glass superheroes when she heard the screaming from outside. Hastening to the window, she saw the little green creatures racing over the pier. "Never a dull moment," she murmured regretfully, then opened a flower from a seed in the palm of her hand. Reaching into it, she drew out her cowl and mask. In moments, she was racing out the door as Fleur de Joie, hero of Freedom!

[Avenger Assembled]

The little fish monsters were very agitated by the sight of the four-armed demon, some of them tumbling over each other in their efforts to get away from the giant monster, others forming up into little hissing teams to scratch and bite at him. Up close, Pyre could see that the little Deep Ones were even smaller than they'd looked on first appearance. While they were menacing enough in a large, hostile group, upon a closer look they were about the size of a toothy, angry-faced toddler. The fish monsters hadn't shown much interest in the glasswares shop where Fleur de Joie had been shopping, but she could get a look at them outside as they stepped into action: while an isolated few had humans pinned down, a group was climbing all over a terrified hot dog stand guy and nipping to see if he tasted good, the majority were focused on a particular few stores: the taffy shop was being mobbed by tiny fish-monsters, as well as the hot dog cart and the street cafe, the little fish monsters devouring their way through the wares inside.

And then suddenly, just as Fleur stepped out, a black and red figure in power armor erupted from the ocean to land on the pier just by the edge, one of the fish monsters impaled on the tip of a giant speargun he wielded. "All right, you tasty little bastards, I'll show Orion who the mighty hunter is...oh hey, new guy!" he said, waving to the four-armed demon man. "If you were doing something here, my bad, my bad. You want in on this?"

[Cube]

"...Babies?" Pyre couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the hordes of baby deep ones scratching uselessly at his toughened hide. Why were babies attacking?

Fortunately for him, answers have a convenient way of presenting themselves in Freedom City, as the figure in black and red power armor burst forth from the ocean. Lou had drawn that distinctive set of power armor enough times to recognize it on sight.

"Do I want in on this?! You've got a child on the end of your speargun you freak! What is wrong with you!?"

[Electra]

"Devil Ray!" Fleur called, raising her gloved hands as though she were about to begin conducting an orchestra. "You and your fellows aren't welcome here. Leave now and you can just walk away from this." With that warning, she turned her hands palms up, and things began to grow. All along the pier, seedings sprouted up, going in moments from spindly stalks to thin trunks, then large trees with spreading branches. Fruit began to grow on the trees, branches bowing nearly to the ground with ripe pears and peaches as the delicious aroma filled the air.

As she supervised the growing process, Fleur caught a glimpse of the other player in the fight. "Atlas?" she asked in momentary surprise, before realizing this was another giant red man. "Who are you?" she called.

[Avenger Assembled]

The infant fish-monsters were very surprised at the suddenly growing trees, cowering away from them and hiding in the shadows before scampering up to investigate the fruit. They clearly weren't obligate herbivores by any means, and many of them still were eager to eat the hot dogs and sandwich meat they'd stolen, but others eagerly tore into the fruit. Fleur had at least distracted all of them, and was feeding many of the rest.

As for Devil Ray, he reacted fast at the sight of the Freedom League member on the scene, cursing and aiming his spear gun at Fleur instead of at the giant devil-man. "Oh, please! You know how many thousands of these things there are down there? Nits make lice, honey, and we all remember what these things do when they grow up. The way I see it, I was doing a little civil service till you and Four-Arms here decided to start something. Well, down where I come from, you don't start none if you ain't prepared to get none!" And then, he suddenly turned and fired a burst of spear-heads directly at Pyre as if out of a machine gun! The spears hit, scoring superficially across Pyre's tough hide while doing no real damage, while Devil Ray took to the air on a column of fire that erupted from the back of his armor!

[Electra]

Fleur tensed as Devil Ray raised his spear gun, then flinched when he shot it at the stranger hero. While no Atlas, the big red man was obviously made of strong stuff, since the spears bounced right off him. Relieved, Fleur spread her hands in a gesture that encompassed all her trees, even as she called to the villain. "Don't be inane, Ray! We can handle these creatures without slaughtering them, you're just doing it because you like to hurt things." Indeed, even as she spoke, the creatures who were frantically eating the fruit from the trees began to collapse one by one, settling to the ground and going to sleep.

[Cube]

Pyre was momentarily distracted when Fleur burst onto the scene. Just long enough for him to let his guard down.

The flurry of spears smacked him directly in the chest, but each one barely nicked his toughened flesh.

"Alright Ray, you just made a big mistake!" he said, as an orb of flame burst into being in one of his hands. "If you wanna prove your such a good hunter, why don't you try taking on some prey that isn't in diapers!"

Pyre lobbed the bolt of fire like a softball, as it took on a life of it's own in midair, darting and weaving in a wild corkscrew before slamming into Devil Ray's armor.

"If you're such a good hunter, why don't you come down here and show me what that armor of yours can do?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"That's chump talk, boy," fired back Devil Ray, his jets hissing in the air as they kept him aloft just out of jumping distance. "First rule of hunting, you never fight your prey on their terms. Second rule is, you never show weakness...hey, that reminds me!" He turned his attention to Fleur de Joie as she investigated the now-unconscious Deep Ones and yelled, "Fleur de Joie! So is your husband watching the brat today, or did he take her off to Planet X too? Ha-ha!" And with that, he fired another bombardment of spears at the green-clad heroine, knowing from previous experience that she was decidedly less bulletproof than the four-armed demon below him!

[Electra]

Despite herself, Fleur tensed at the mention of her husband and daughter. She wasn't much good at keeping a secret identity, but it was still a little terrifying to hear villians say things about her private life. "You leave my family out of this!" she shouted back, and in doing so nearly fell victim to another hail of spears. At the last moment, the nearest tree reached down its branches and wrapped them around her, absorbing the rain of weapons itself before they could impact flesh and bone.

As the fight went on, flowers began springing up underneath the trees full of drugged fruit. One by one they opened up and closed around groups of sleeping Deep One infants, then disappeared entirely into the ground.

[Cube]

"Well you just broke the first rule of supervillainy, buddy." Pyre growled, as his hand burnt with a brilliant orange flame. "Don't insult a lady in front of Pyre!"

He clenched his fist, as the flames in his hand were extinguished. Meanwhile, 50 feet in the air, in the fuel tanks of Devil Ray's jetpack, the very flames themselves began to rebel. The sparks igniting the fuel ceased to fly, as the villain's jets collectively decided they weren't going to hold up this jerk anymore. Pyre grinned as he watched the jets extinguish themselves in midair.

"Now, what was that about not fighting on your Prey's terms?"

[Avenger Assembled]

Devil Ray landed, hard, his armored bulk smashing a small crater into the dock beneath him. He cursed, loudly and violently, and didn't even bother getting up. "All right, playtime's over!" he snarled! He opened fire on Pyre, this time with a devastating bombardment of spears that struck home by the merest fraction, cutting deep across the vulnerable skin of Pyre's lower back: Lou was hurt, the smell of blood in the air and mixing with his fire! Devil Ray was still down, though, the effort of getting to his feet having kept him from reactivating his jetpack.

[Electra]

Fleur gave the new hero a look of concern as the spears found their mark, but he didn't seem to be hurt too grievously. She seized the opportunity, stepping towards the prone villain and throwing a handful of seeds from her belt pouch at him. The seeds sprouted in the air, turning into writhing vines that rooted into the ground as they landed, wrapping around Devil Ray until he was cocooned in a green and leafy prison, blind, deaf and helpless. "Are you all right?" she called to the red man.

[Cube]

Pyre barely even reactive as the spears slashed his lower back, blood staining his shirt. It hurt, but he wasn't going to show it in front of this jerk, even if he was blind for the moment.

"I'm fine!" he shouted, as he shut off his flame aura and charged toward the convenient

Pod o' Ray Fleur had created. "Thanks for setting him up!"

With two of his mighty fists, Pyre SLAMMED the pod directly where Ray's gut should be.

[Avenger Assembled]

Finding a opening in the pod, Pyre's blows struck home hard, landing a solid dent in Devil Ray's armor. "Ough!" said the Crime Leaguer, his armor pulling back from his face. "Fine! You got me, you four-armed (%(#, and your little Fleur, too," he added with a sneer. "I'll be out soon as I tell the jury about how I helped stop another Deep One invasion," he boasted. While Devil Ray was no kind of smart or good man, he was willing to stop a fight rather than risk getting a more profound beating. Shooting a glance at Pyre, he added with a sneer, "I didn't know the League was taking _freaks_ these days."

[Cube]

"One, you didn't stop a Deep One invasion, you caused it." said Pyre. "Two, you're the one who prances around dressed like a fish, so don't call me a freak. And three, if you say one more word I will go and get a can opener, so don't push it."

Without taking his eyes off the supervillain, Pyre called out. "You alright over there, Ms. Fleur? He didn't get you with those spears, did he? "

[Electra]

"No, no, I'm fine," Fleur assured him, approaching the bound villain. Around them, flowers were still opening up and picking up the few Deep One spawns still cowering in corners, while the trees she had raised began to wither and collapse into piles of mulch and ruined concrete. "How about you, are you all right? I saw him hit you with one of those spears. Do you need any patching up?"

Devil Ray groaned from within his plant cocoon, and Fleur spared him a single glance. "Later for you," she promised portentiously, waving a hand. Just like that, the cylinder of vines collapsed into a flat pile, empty.

[Cube]

"I'll be fine. It's only a scratch."

...admittedly it was a very nasty scratch, but Lou had been through worse.

"I'm glad you showed up, I had no idea how I was going to handle a bunch of baby deep ones... I'm Pyre, by the way. Or... Uh, Lou, if you prefer."

[Avenger Assembled]

With Devil Ray subdued, STAR Squad showed up: the armored and heavily-equipped cops who were supposed to be how Freedom City dealt with supercriminals. They were very grateful that a Leaguer had been on hand to deal with Devil Ray and the new Deep One threat, for all that the frightening-looking Pyre took some explanation. When his bona fides were sworn to, the cops went about securing the scene while Sergeant Carlson, the head officer on the scene, shook his head. "We've been getting reports of these things in the water for the last couple of weeks," he commented unhappily. "Winter's coming, and if they're being driven onto land by the cold, we're going to be seeing a lot more of them soon."

[Cube]

Fortunately for Pyre, he was prepared for such a situation. After all, he had to check in with AEGIS all the time for a reason.

"...Well, the kids are relatively harmless."

Pyre glanced over at the devastated hot dog stand. "...Relatively. But... I dunno if Deep Ones usually leave their kids this close to shore. If they're here, then that probably means they've got a settlement somewhere, right?"

[Electra]

"It does seem strange," Fleur agreed. "From what little I know, Deep Ones live many miles out to see and head to deeper waters when it gets cold, just like many aquatic species. In New Jersey in the winter, the water is still warmer than the air temperatures, so these little reptiles would be entirely out of luck. What do you plan on doing with them?" she asked Carlson curiously. "I have dozens of them captured, as well as Devil Ray himself. He can go to jail easily enough, but I'm not sure about the spawn."

[Avenger Assembled]

Carlton looked a little uncomfortable. "After the invasion in the summer, the department changed policy. Deep Ones are shoot-on-sight, no questions asked. As for their offspring, I don't know, we didn't encounter any during the invasion." He hmmed. "There were some on that sub, though. In fact, from what I heard after our lab boys got through analyzing that submarine, it looked like somebody had gone in and blasted open all the tanks where they kept their spawn, and blasted holes in the deck to let them out into the bay. We got a lot of weird reports out of that sub, though, so I dunno. Either of you know anything about the masks who were on board that day?"

[Cube]

"...Someone blasted holes in the sub and then released them into the bay? You mean Devil Ray didn't do this?"

Pyre scratched his head. "I dunno anything about who was on board that day, but ...I mean, these are just kids, right? I dunno a lot about Deep Ones, but... is it even remotely possible to rehabilitate them?"

He sighed as he glanced at the dead body of a deep one toddler, laying limp as the wound Devil Ray tore in it's chest oozed an inhuman ichor. "...I mean, all things considered, they didn't act that much different than normal toddlers. They were chased onto shore by someone scary, they probably haven't had much to eat, and this pier is full of restaurants and candy shops. And, if they came from tanks, I don't think they've had that great of an upbringing either. They probably wouldn't know any better." He shrugged. "I dunno. Do we really need to shoot the kids? Isn't there something else you could do?"

[Avenger Assembled]

Calling into the Freedom League for advice was helpful, at least in some respects. Deep Ones raised in their undersea colonies and exposed to the ancient sorcery there were potentially serious problems, corrupted from an early age and more vassals for their dark gods than people. Deep Ones raised away from their people, though, and particularly distant from their undersea kingdoms, were potentially independent thinkers. "Atlanteans have adopted orphan Deep Ones before," reported Nereid from the Lighthouse. "It's tough work, but they can be raised to think for themselves. I imagine they could survive on the surface with supervision, as much as any Atlantean child could."

It was about that time that a shining beacon of silvery light came roaring down from the sky; Caradoc the flying knight, his magic sword gleaming and dragonshead jetpack roaring, as he landed alongside Fleur de Joie, Pyre, and Officer Carlton. As ever, the man inside the suit sounded faintly uneasy, despite a false air of bravado. "What ho! I..." He fell silent at the sight of the dead ones, their bodies still being photographed by STAR Squad. "What happened here?" The bravado was gone, the voice of the man in the suit going flat.