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Christopher Arthur III

Lost Haven, ME

From the roof of the Chambers Building, Zeus beheld the events of the assault on the Purifier unfold. After Radiance’s sacrifice had rendered the Arlaaekan doomsday device inactive and the heroes had reduced it to rubble, the clay figures representing the fallen heroine and the alien spire on Zeus’ golden scales crumbled into a pile of dust and scattered to the wind. Despite this victory for the heroes, the golden scales still teetered, with the fates of humanity and the Arlaaekans in the balance.

While Zeus contemplated the potential outcomes of the Arlaaekan invasion, Maia’s son zoomed to the top of the Chambers Building to bring tidings to his royal father.

“Zeus, the Father of Gods and Men, I have ill news to report, and my heart grows heavy with each passing moment these words have yet to reach your ears.”

“Take heart, my son, and speak up. For a messenger should have no fear of the Lord of Olympus, as my vengeance shall only smite the wrongdoer.”

“Kronides, the hubris of the Arlaaekans knows no bounds. The extraterrestrials have turned one of their weapons against your daughter, motherless Pallas Athena, born from your knowledgeable head. Although it is a fool’s errand to try to destroy an immortal, an Arlaaekan weapon of mass destruction has temporarily stripped your daughter of her physical form. Surely you shall not allow such outrage, against an immortal no less, to go unpunished!”

Upon hearing this dreadful news from Hermes, Zeus beat his breast and bellowed with rage. The pounding of his hand and the roar of his voice resounded across the city.

“Bring me my thunderbolts,” Zeus demanded. His eyes began to glow while sparks of electricity sparked from his eyes.



When the monolith collapsed and sent dust and debris in all directions, Chris instinctively activated his armor’s defensive energy bubble. However, he discovered he would not need them, as all the heroes assembled in Sherman Square marveled at all the rubble striking against a force field that was not standing there a moment before. The protection was courtesy of Flux, of course.

“Stay sharp, everyone. I doubt breaking the aliens' little toy will send them packing.”

Before Chris could say anything else, a peculiar-sounding crackle of thunder roared above the city. Looking up, he noticed the sky above Lost Haven had grown dark. Before the invasion, Mother Nature had graced the Mainer metropolis with a pleasant summer day. One could easily blame the smoke rising from Lost Haven’s destruction for blocking the sun, but storm clouds definitely were filling the sky.

Chris swore the thunderclap sounded like a man’s bellow, but he just chalked it up to his imagination. Yet, he still could not explain why there was no lightning strike before the thunder.

Well, that was the case until the light show started. Bolts of lightning repeatedly rained down from the heavens and struck various Arlaaekan spacecraft zooming around Lost Haven’s skyline. While this divine retribution did not eliminate the Arlaaekan forces, it at least helped thin the herd and lighten the burden on the heroes.

“I hope that’s you helping us, Radiance,” Chris muttered. It was quite the coincidence the lightning storm showed up and wrecked some of the Arlaaekans right after the electricity-based heroine, Radiance, had just sacrificed herself to save humanity. But how else could Chris reconcile what had happened besides Radiance’s final gift to her allies, the Guardians?


Pallas Athena | Odysseus Laërtiades | Miyamoto Musashi | Joel Vaughan

Day of the Arlaaekan Invasion

Pacific Point, CA

While the heroes of Pacific Point were storming the Arlaaekan capital ship’s bridge and threatening to capture Captain Tri’Karda, the officers and engineers on the communication deck were blissfully ignorant about the ship’s current predicament. They had been tasked with overseeing the powering and discharging of the Psionic Inducer. Although these Arlaaekans had received news about the Purifier, they were ordered to continue preparing the Psionic Inducer, just in case they needed it if their other plans happened to fall through.

So attentively were these Arlaaekans at their work, almost none of them noticed the blast doors slide open. One poor soul just so happened to glance up at the room’s entrance. But when he took a few steps in that direction, he only saw an empty hall. Befuddled, the junior officer turned to go back to his position, only to have a magical arrow pierce straight through his chest. With a thud, did he crumble to the ground.

Almost as if he had come out of nowhere, Kensei rushed into the communication deck and began cutting down the Arlaaekans. His sudden appearance, along with arrows and laser beams flying this way and that, hurled the room into chaos. The remaining Arlaaekans scrambled to put up any sort of defense against the heroes, but only in vain.

Amidst the carnage, an Arlaaekan engineer crawled towards the control panel. Silver blood poured down her forehead. The console display revealed the progress of the Psionic Inducer’s charge: only 72%. Although it was not nearly enough to reach its max potential, it was still enough to cause mass casualties. She reached out her hand towards the switch for activating the Psionic Inducer.

“Odysseus!” Kensei shouted after slaying another Arlaaekan. He pointed towards the Arlaaekan engineer at the control panel with his sword to indicate what should be his next target. Odysseus drew his bow and launched a well-aimed arrow at the engineer. However, even though the arrow struck the Arlaaekan in the head, the forward momentum of her body caused her corpse to land on the switch and activated the Psionic Inducer.

The three heroes hurried to the console panel and pulled the Arlaaekan’s body from the controls. As none of them could read the alien script displayed on the panels, all they could do is wonder what she had activated.




Athena watched Captain Tri’Karda gloat about the futility of the heroes’ surprise counterstrike against the Pacific Point capital ship and the inevitability of Arlaaekan victory. However, before anyone could take any sort of action, the entire ship lurched.

Fear is normally an alien concept for gods. While not entirely unknown to them, immortals normally have little to fear. But now a chill ran down Athena’s spine as she deduced what had happened. She immediately and effortlessly teleported outside the capital ship, where she beheld the Psionic Inducer: a purple light began to swirl around the exterior frame of the spire and then loop straight up into a giant spherical conduit situated at the base of the spire. As this sphere slowly produced an ever brighter purple glow, the Psionic Inducer threatened to destroy the city below.

Still invisible to the mortal eye, Athena zipped up to the spire that housed the Psionic Inducer. Right when she arrived there, the weapon fired and had Athena not been an immortal goddess with superhuman reflexes, the Psionic Inducer would have blasted her point blank. Instead, she whipped out her aegis and hurled it into the weapon’s path. The force of the weapon’s blast nearly dislodged Athena from her foothold on the spire. Nonetheless, she stood strong.

While Athena knew that she could probably hold this position indefinitely, she noticed some of the energy from the Psionic Inducer was beginning to overflow beyond the seams of her magical aegis. Therefore, she realized that she needed to destroy the conduit while also preventing the beam the Psionic Inducer was emitting.

She needed to reveal her true form.

Athena rotated around the aegis and placed herself in front of the Psionic Inducer’s laser. Her pale skin began to crack, much like a porcelain doll. A radiant light began pouring forth from these cracks. Piece by piece, these shards crumbled off her body until she appeared like a being of pure energy, glowing like the sun.

An explosion of divine energy, much like a nuclear detonation but without the deadly radiation, erupted from Athena’s true form, vaporizing the neighboring structure of the spire. With the Psionic Inducer’s conduit now destroyed, the entire system short-circuited, causing another explosion that signaled the end of this weapon’s threat towards the city of Pacific Point.

With her work done, Athena returned to Olympus, where she could regenerate her physical form. Without it, she could not aid the mortals without putting them in harm’s way. Now, it was up to the heroes to defeat the Arlaaekans.


Aubrey Adkins | Ross Barber | Odysseus Laërtiades | Kyra Muller | Miyamoto Musashi | Emily Prichert | Joel Vaughan | Jeffery Zimmerman

Day of the Arlaaekan Invasion

Pacific Point, CA

“I suggest that while we still have a moment before anything else detects our presence and the element of surprise is gone, we’ll need to split the group up into two teams. One of the groups will fight our way to wherever they control the ship so we can get full control of the ship. Another group, possibly smaller, should try and find the place where they communicate with the rest of their forces and disable their communications. No point in trying to take control of their ship when their allies get word of what is happening and respond to our boarding party. Sound like a plan?”

“Wait, split the party?” Talus interjected at the Wanderer’s suggestion for tactics. “That’s a terrible idea! Anyone knows splitting the party is just asking for a TPK.”

Sounds like a potential tactic, although we shouldn’t devote too many of our numbers to it. While we might be able to delay reinforcements, it won’t take them long before they figure out something is wrong, especially because of the language barrier between them and us. The Son of Osiris mentally communicated with us, clearly ignoring Talus’ protests.

“Odysseus and I can head towards their communications center. This task calls for stealth and we’re the right men for the job,” Kensei told the group.

“And we should bring Talus with us. Someone has to tell the computer what to do,” Odysseus suggested.

“What? In my condition, I can’t even remotely control a PC. How am I supposed to interface with alien technology?”

“We’ll figure that out once we get there,” Kensei suggested.

“Do you think you can handle this stealth mission, Mr. Loud-mouth?” Odysseus taunted his teammate.

“None of you will have an issue with my aid,” Athena declared as she conjured a mist with a blue shimmer. This mystical shroud began to encircle us. “This should hide you all from the Arlaaekans’ vision, but it will not last forever, so you better hurry.”

Talus grumbled as Odysseus dragged him along with Kensei as they headed in the direction from where we initially landed on this ship. Athena had posited the Arlaaekan communications was probably located in that direction. I have no idea how she came to this conclusion, but considering she’s a goddess of wisdom, I suppose she knows what she’s talking about.

The rest of us hurried down the corridor in search of the bridge. Under Athena’s protection, we were able to dodge any patrols aboard the ship, although I had to skitter up the wall and onto the ceiling so I wouldn’t bump into any of them on accident. After a moment of bustling, we finally stumbled upon a large and important-looking blast doors.

While we were still hidden by Athena’s powers, we waited outside the doors until a group of Arlaaekan officers boarded the bridge. This provided us a small opening for springing our trap. Each of us picked a target and took our shot.

I yanked one of the Arlaaekan soldiers towards me and smashed his helmet with my fist. Despite my superhuman strength, I could still feel the pain from the impact with the incredible durable material used in his armor. Yet, I pushed through the pain, as the planet I called home was at risk.

Once the soldier had been knocked out from the unexpected and sudden blow to the face, I whipped the webline around, with the alien still attached and hurled him at another enemy before any of them could notice my presence, although with the entire brawl going down on the bridge, it would be pretty hard to not go unnoticed at this rate.

We made short work of the forces who manned the bridge. The only Arlaaekan left standing was a man who looked like the commanding officer of the ship. He remained unusually calm, considering he was surrounded by several superhumans aided by a goddess. After a short moment of silence, the alien started to speak, but none of us could understand him, as he spoke an alien language. A few seconds after he spoke, a mechanical sound began to click on his officer uniform, until he started to speak in English. Probably some sort of translator.

“Do you think you have won, Earthlings?” The captain declared in English, although we could still barely hear his alien tongue, as if whatever device that was translating his words was ‘talking' over him. “Even though you have gotten the jump upon my men, this is merely a [TRANSLATION ERROR – CULTURAL IDIOM, SEARCHING FOR APPROXIMATION, ‘Pyrrhic Victory’].”

A hologram of Lost Haven was projected in the center of the room. A gigantic spire had descended upon the city and made landfall, causing mass destruction.

“It is your doom,” the captain declared with a cruel smile on his face.


Aubrey Adkins | Ross Barber | Odysseus Laërtiades | Kyra Muller | Miyamoto Musashi | Emily Prichert | Joel Vaughan | Jeffery Zimmerman

Day of the Arlaaekan Invasion

Pacific Point, CA


”So… Does anyone have any suggestions?”

“Well, Athena could teleport us onto that giant UFO in the sky. Pretty sure that was her plan, but she wanted to gather up a few more heroes, as a single spider girl probably wouldn’t cut it.”

“Wait, we’re doing that again?” Emily whispered to me, keeping her voice down as if trying to keep her word about not mentioning the little teleportation debacle she, Kyra, and I experienced just a few moments ago.

“Don’t worry. Athena has been teleporting me hundreds of times ever since I became a superhero and that had never happened before.”

While Emily and I were having that quick side conversation, something else caught the attention of the other heroes standing around us. A swirling portal spontaneously manifested near us, starting out as just a barely visible speck and eventually expanding to a size even taller than any of us.

Because I have been a member of the Immortals almost ever since I moved to Pacific Point, I recognized the portal as the Son of Osiris’ magic. Sure, the Immortals usually relied on Kyra’s portal creation powers for transportation, but we would use Son of Osiris’ powers from time to time, especially when she wasn't present. Since Kyra lost those abilities due to the whole alternates problem that’s been affecting not only most of the team, but also many other people across the country, we couldn’t rely on them now. And my suspicions were proven correct when not only the Son of Osiris stepped out of the portal, but also Gajana and Talus, the last two Immortals not accounted for as of yet.

“Well, this is quite the surprise. It is the future man!” Gajana said when he saw the only person here I did not recognize. However, as soon as Gajana mentioned the so-called “future man,” I suddenly recalled a story from my fellow Immortals teammates about how Gajana and Kyra had run into someone that matched the future man’s description back when the Hounds of Humanity were a threat.

I’m sure you have questions about why some of us don’t look like we normally do, but unfortunately, we do not have the time to run through a PowerPoint presentation. I could get us onto that ship, but it would consume most of my magical energy and I would have to retreat to regenerate it back. The Son of Osiris communicated specifically to the “future man” via a telepathic message, although all of us could nonetheless hear him. Except for Odysseus and the Son of Osiris, the rest of the Immortals, along with Emily, had our normal appearances replaced by those belonging to other versions of ourselves originating from alternate universes.

“Don’t worry. Athena has our ride covered,” I reassured our team’s leader, as he wasn’t present when I first mentioned Athena’s original plan.

I see. He answered via telepathy to all the heroes assembled here. As the avatar of the Egyptian god Osiris 'spoke' (so as we are told, although considering Athena chaperons me around all the time this definitely is in the realm of possibility), he looked towards the direction where Athena was standing, indicating he could see her, too.

“Seriously? Am I really the only one who can’t see this Greek goddess?”

“Well, that does explain why everybody has been staring at a whole bunch of empty space,” Gajana interjected, indicating that he couldn’t see Athena. Of the four of us Immortals who have been turned into alternates, Gajana fared the best. Although he normally looked like a really buff Babar the elephant, his alternate looked pretty much how he did before he was turned into a metahuman by the Pax Metahumana domes, but with his non-alternate’s musculature. So, not quite incredible Hulk buff, but he was still a walking brick, so to speak.

“I’m not picking up anything on my scanners, but what do I know. This chassis doesn’t even have the technology to read floppy discs, let alone use USB-compatible devices!” Talus complained as a way to get a word in on the conversation.

“See, you’re not the only one,” I told Emily as I tapped her shoulder with a fist. I made sure I wasn’t touching the arm she had injured before Athena teleported us to our current location.

“I’m in such great company,” Emily responded while rolling her eyes.

Since all of us are present, we better execute this plan now. Delaying for any other stragglers will unfortunately shrink our window of opportunity to surprise these invaders. The Son of Osiris communicated in his usual manner.

I turned to Athena, who was already way ahead of us. She slammed the butt of her spear against the asphalt street and in a blink of an eye, the lot of us were no longer standing in the warzone the Arlaaekans had transformed Pacific Point into. Instead, we beheld the sleek interior of the Arlaaekan battleship. The corridor where Athena had brought us stretched out for hundreds of yards in either direction. The lights emitted a green glow that, although providing enough brightness inside the hallway to see, gave off an eerie and ominous mood.

Our best bet is to utilize the element of surprise while we still have it, as they shouldn’t expect a boarding party. The Son of Osiris told the entire group. However, as soon as we all heard those words in our heads, a set of double doors slid open and out walked two Arlaaekan soldiers. These two enemies, while not as decked out as the power-armored assault troops that had been deployed against Pacific Point, were still outfitted with advanced protective armor and energy weapons.

Instinctively, Odysseus let the cord of his bow sing, planting one of the arrows Kensei had lent to him into the chest of one of the Arlaaekans. It took the alien a moment for the arrow’s impact to register in his foreign brain, as he certainly would not have expected a primitive shaft to penetrate their far-advanced armor.

“Might be a little too late for that,” Odysseus declared as the wounded Arlaaekan slumped to the floor and his partner directing his weapon towards us.

I guess it is time to rumble on an alien spacecraft.

Christopher Arthur III

Lost Haven, ME

”Iron Knight, I’m not sure of the range of this, so try and get back as far as you can. Other than that, I need some cover to not get hit. Don’t have the fancy armor or superpowers to take a hit.”

“Then I guess I’ll be back in a moment. Just don’t miss,” Chris said before jetting to the sky. He definitely did not want his armor to become a giant paperweight, especially one that would be exploding.

When his armor’s propulsion jets would no longer place anyone in danger, Chris put the pedal to the metal, accelerating faster and faster. The advanced computer built into his armor had already estimated the blast radius of the archer’s EMP arrow, a little over the length of a regulation football field, and when it would impact the alien tank. His suit was ready to eject Chris if the arrow would hit while he was still in the affected zone. What is worse than a giant paperweight is a free falling one.

Chris was just thankful this battle was not taking place on the doorsteps of the Sherman Center. Otherwise, not only would he have to pay for any damage the building sustained during the invasion, but he would also have to replace all the electronics throughout the Guardians’ headquarters. And much of the tech Chris had installed there is not the kind of thing you would find in the standard high-rise in Lost Haven.

Once the ID cards belonging to the Guardians who had rallied just a couple hundred yards away dropped their connection to his network, Chris knew that EMP had gone off. And since he was still airborne, Chris knew he had been far enough not to be affected by the archer’s device. Therefore, he made a u-turn and darted back towards the battle.

Chris landed just a few feet away from Icon, just where the fractured remains of the Arlaaekan tank scattered about the street. It was at this moment when Chris realized there was some strange dragon entity flying overhead. Considering the havoc the Arlaaekans were causing, the presence of the eldritch beast, and the surprise arrival of S.T.R.I.K.E., one could easily overlook another unusual sight. Plus, because of all the strange things he had seen, Chris was not even surprised by it.

“So, what did I miss?” Chris asked his fellow Guardians as he landed. “I’ll have to get you all new communication cards because of that EMP once we've dealt with this crisis.”

Then something massive entered the atmosphere and impacted the ground. Because the quake caused by its landing almost knocked Chris off of his feet, he knew that whatever the Arlaaekans had sent against them, it was even bigger and more dangerous than the tank they had just destroyed. What the cyan-skinned girl said merely confirmed Chris’ suspicions.

“Terra Firma, stop playing with the eldritch horror. We have a job to do.”

Chris then departed, flying towards the impact zone of whatever doomsday weapon the Arlaaekans had sent against them


Aubrey Adkins | Odysseus Laërtiades | Kyra Muller | Miyamoto Musashi | Emily Prichert

Day of the Arlaaekan Invasion

Pacific Point, CA


Odysseus and Kensei, despite hailing from cultures worlds apart, were warriors in heart. Many an Arlaaekan scoffed at what they believed were neanderthals pelting them with primitive weapons. Yet the aliens’ arrogance could not protect them from the divine arrows the two heroes were launching from their bows. Even Kensei’s sword, the Kusanagi, ripped through the advanced exo-suits the Arlaaekans wore into battle.

But it did not take the Arlaaekans long to reevaluate the threat level of these two individuals. Ever since the onset of the invasion, the Arlaaekans had established air superiority and, when these two heroes became troublesome for them, they could utilize that advantage to eliminate them. Or at least that was their intention, as they had not expected an entirely different metahuman to jump to the rescue at just the right moment.

Once Odysseus and Kensei were safe, the mysterious metahuman inquired about whether they actually possessed a plan for taking down the newly arrived Arlaaekan reinforcements. The Japanese samurai was the first to answer.

“Our primary objective has been to thin the crowd on the ground so they wouldn’t pose as much of a threat to the civilians. But I can see the danger that warship poses.”

“If we’re going to have any chance to taking that spaceship down, we’re going to need some reinforcements,” Odysseus suggested as he notched one of his own arrows onto his bow instead of those he had borrowed from Kensei. “Considering they just tried to vaporize us, being discrete does not really matter anymore.”

Aiming his bow skyward, Odysseus drew back the bowstring and released the arrow. Once the shaft had reached the apex of its arc, the arrowhead detached and launched forward, propelled by a miniaturized rocket. Specifically designed for this purpose, the arrowhead began spitting out flares profusely. With the signal sent, now all the three men could do was wait.



These Arlaaekans just seem to keep on coming (that’s what Emily said her alternate came from called their universe’s counterpart). No matter how many of them Emily and I had beat up and took out of commission, there were just as many soldiers ready to take their place. I’m pretty sure Athena made some obscure metaphor about them being like the Lernaean Hydra. I hope she wasn’t insinuating that fire was the key to stopping them. I’m not the type of gal who liked to torch things.

“Wow, it’s felt like we’ve already fought off a small army,” Emily wiped the sweat from her brow after she tossed an unconscious Arlaaekan onto a pile of already knocked out aliens.

“Hey, is your arm okay? You’re bleeding.”

Emily peered down at her arm and saw what I had spotted: there was a cut on her arm, which was bleeding way more than an injury that size should.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Just web it up. It’ll be fine,” Emily answered, although I could tell from the tone of her voice that she was holding something back. But since we were in the middle of an alien invasion, I didn’t want to press her on it. Instead, I just made a make-shift bandage on her arm and left it at that.

“So, what’s our next move?”

As soon as she had spoken up again, my spider-sense began to buzz. Before I could turn my head, an energy bolt flew over my shoulder and landed harmlessly against the pavement. Up on the roof, another Arlaaekan soldier had taken up a position as a sniper. Under normal circumstances, I would have been amazed at how the Arlaaekan missed his shot, but because Athena was at our side stuff like that tended to happen.

The Arlaaekan sniper was readying another shot when a winged figure swooped down and hoisted him up by his shoulders with her talonlike feet. The initial shock of the sneak attack had caused the alien soldier to drop his weapon and before he could draw a sidearm or anything, she dropped him into the pile of unconscious Arlaaekans that we had already made a bit before.

“It’s looking like you ladies could use a hand,” Kyra told me and Emily once she landed next to us.

“Against these guys, we could use all the—look out behind you!” I shouted as I noticed the sniper Kyra had surprised and dropped was stumbling back to his feet and drawing another weapon. With a flick of my wrist, I shot a webline at the gun and yanked it out of his grasp. Meanwhile, Kyra’s hair and the feathers on her winged arms burst into flames as she extended her hand towards the alien. A fire blast launched from her palm and impacted the Arlaaekan’s chest. He was tossed backwards by the force of the blow until he hit a lamppost with a thud and crumbled to the ground unconscious.

“I guess we all could use a hand,” Kyra quipped as the flames on her hair and feathers died down, revealing no damage to herself whatsoever.

It was at this moment when I noticed Kyra peering over towards where Athena was standing. Even Athena looked a little perplexed that someone besides me could see her. At first I was too surprised until I remembered that Kyra’s alternate would have undoubtedly encountered her world’s Athena at some point, which would explain how she could see the Goddess of Wisdom now.

“Um, what are you too looking at?” Emily asked, since she obviously couldn’t see Athena.

Luckily (or unfortunately, mattering on how you view the situation), right when Emily asked that, the Arlaaekan capital ship fired a green energy beam at a target all the way on the other side of the town. The three of us stood there in shock until we barely spotted an arrow fly into the sky, only because of the flares it was setting off. I’ve been a member of the Immortals for long enough to recognize one of Odysseus’ arrows. Since the arrow originated from approximately the same area as the blast had hit, he had somehow survived it. With that crazy dude, you can’t ever count him out.

After seeing this, I turned to Emily and Kyra. Without saying a word, we all knew where we all had to go, even though we couldn’t see any of our eyes, since we were all wearing masks or some eyewear. But before I could turn back, I felt the goddess’ hand grasp my shoulder. We had been working solo together for much of my superhero career that old habits must have caused her only to try to teleport me and forget about my two friends and allies. Well, good thing for my spider-sense and my enhanced reflexes, as before Athena teleported me to Odysseus’ location, I was able to hit both Emily and Kyra with a webline and drag them towards me. I would soon find out that might not have been the smartest idea.

I’m not an expert at teleportation and such, but this is how Athena tried to explain it to me a while ago (and how much I remembered from said conversation). Since the teleportation was nearly instantaneous, there was a fraction of a moment where you both present at your starting and end points simultaneously. Plus, with Athena warping space around you throughout the process, you’re even stretched out between the two spots (Athena explained you couldn't interact with anything in this state, so you can't trip someone or anything). This process even makes you feel like your body was being twisted like a Twizzler. Honestly, it sometimes feels pretty great on the old back.

Well, that’s how it was supposed to work. But what actually happened was, well, weird to say the least and I definitely didn't foresee it happening. Because Athena was only warping enough space to teleport me, Emily, Kyra, and I found ourselves being forced into this space intended only for a single individual. And remember that Twizzler effect? It was still there and made much worse by the presence of two too many people. Instead of just being turned into a spiral, the three of us were twisted around each other like a freshly woven piece of rope, our bodies awkwardly squished together. Let's just say we were pretty uncomfortable in this situation. And that's an understatement.

Once the teleportation had completed, by some miracle we arrived without any further complications. Thank God we didn’t pop out of there as a three-headed, six-armed, twelve-legged monstrosity. For a few seconds, we didn’t speak a word, but only traded glances, until I piped up.

“We are definitely never mentioning this ever again.”

“Don’t have to ask me twice,” Kyra agreed, and Emily nodded, too.

“See, what did I say? I told you this was going to work,” Odysseus told Kensei and another metahuman I didn’t quite recognize.

“I will admit, I did not expect your plan to bring us the aid of an Olympian deity.”

“In our line of work, you should always expect the unexpected. We need all the help we can ge—"

“Wait, am I the only one who can’t see this person everyone has been interacting with for the past hour?” Emily exclaimed when she interrupted Odysseus.

“Maybe, unless he’s not blessed by the immortal gods,” Kensei answered Emily as he pointed towards the third individual standing next to Odysseus and Kensei.

“And why would you guys even be on first-name basis with a god?” Emily asked.

“Really? You’re really asking people named Odysseus and Arachne how they know Athena?”

“Then what about her?” She pointed towards Kyra.

“My alternate went by the alias Phoenix and—” Kyra began to explain, but I quickly interrupted.

“And that’s a story we don’t have time to tell. Shouldn’t we focus on the problem at hand, namely the aliens trying to cause an extinction event on our planet?”

“Agreed. Do you have any insights into our situation?” Kensei asked the one man whom I couldn’t quite place my finger on his name.

Christopher Arthur III

Lost Haven, ME

Everything had been going according to plan: he had dodged the tank’s explosive rounds and caused them to land near the eldritch beast in the distance. It had gone almost too perfectly, as the tank’s main turret had turned elsewhere and seemed to have targeted a group of civilians who had taken shelter far outside of the range Chris had scanned. He was prepared to try to get the tank’s attention again, but the unnerving tentacle creature had beaten Chris to the punch. The tank would now have some more pressing concerns than targeting civilians.

”Iron Knight, I don’t know what’s going on here, but do you think that tank is mostly electronic?!” Chris heard Fletch, the archer who had aided the heroes against the Hounds of Humanity, a few yards away from his position. He jetted in her direction and touched down near her.

“While it is possible these aliens are using some sort of energy source that’s beyond our own comprehension, it wouldn’t hurt to—”

Chris dropped to a knee as an excruciating voice had penetrated his suit’s internal speakers, which immediately started to lecture him about placing its host in danger. His suit’s onboard AI reacted to this intrusion by muting the voice to protect Chris’ hearing. Yet even though he wasn’t in pain anymore, the term ‘host’ stuck with him. What type of person would allow this entity into their world? Sure, there was an alien invasion underway, but surely there were other options.

“Remind me never to ruffle Cthulhu’s cousin’s feathers again. This city just keeps getting weirder and weirder,” Chris muttered to Fletch as she continued to prepare the arrow intended for the Arlaaekan tank.

Meanwhile, the unexpected arrival of S.T.R.I.K.E. was a bittersweet moment. Chris knew that the heroes needed all the help they could muster, even if it came from the shadowy spy organization that was known as S.T.R.I.K.E. Yet, ever since what had been thought to have been the fall of S.T.R.I.K.E. at the hands of the Hounds of Humanity, Chris had been free from their meddling. The only positive thought that came across his mind was whether he had a claim for the director of S.T.R.I.K.E., as he was technically one of the last remaining people was was active with S.T.R.I.K.E. at the time of its supposed demise. Not that he really wanted to run such an organization, but it was a thought nonetheless.

But Chris pushed those thoughts out of his head. For there were far more pressing matters at hand, namely the Arlaaekan invaders. Chris scanned the giant Arkaaelan tank with the advanced technology built into his suit. After mere seconds, he identified the smallest of a breach in the tank’s armor, no doubt caused by the person possessed by the eldritch monstrosity.

“If you’re looking for a target, you might want to aim for that tiny imperfection in the tank’s armor,” Chris suggested before turning his attention back to the other Arlaaekans, making sure none of them would interrupt Fletch’s marksmanship.
D U O S

TARIQ IBN HAKEEM AL-BARIQI B R I C K M A L E H E R O ?
"Your race are a collective of interesting creatures, Human."

//SPEECH:
Olivedrab


@SgtEasy I am so sorry. I totally forgot to review your CS. I'll take a look at it this afternoon. If you haven't already done so, we have a discord. Just follow the link in the first post of the OOC.
@SgtEasy I'll take a look at your application as soon as I can get around to it.
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