[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/NUrv0w8.jpg [/img][/center]
[center][Color=#334768]IN: MIDNIGHTER V.  THE PEOPLE OF ATLANTIS[/Color][/center]
[Color=#334768][INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3]M E T R O P O L I S / U S A :[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][INDENT][sup][COLOR=SILVER]June 2[SUP]nd[/SUP], 2019 - 12:35 | Metropolis Streets[/COLOR][/sup][/INDENT][/COLOR]

War was something familiar to Midnighter. He was bred for it, molded by it. In some ways, the world was only war. Wars of culture, ideas, and of personality. It never stopped, and it never would. It was all the League and all the Peace Corps of the world could do to just slow the cycle down. But goddamn it if those Atlantean sons of bitches wouldn’t try their best to cock up the process.

Midnighter would’ve liked to think he was knee deep in the dead. Instead he was knee deep in a pile of people with profound spinal cord injuries, who’d need major corrective surgery. Didn’t have the same ring to it. By now Midnighter had taken to uprooting parking meters and lobbing them like spears. Bonus points for headshots. The Atlanteans fell easier than expected. He might’ve assumed them to be stronger, for a people that survive under immense pressures day in and day out. But that didn’t change the fact that they had shit unit tactics and had to contend with every available branch of the US Military shelling the ever loving crap out of them, in the city with the greatest Superhero-Per-Capita rating in the world. Not exactly ideal invasion conditions.

There was something… Off about this invasion. The Atlanteans were a proud people, incredibly powerful and commanded with impeccable military structure. But this invasion was just… Off. Were it up to Midnighter he’d have started by takeover of small, defenseless port towns. Atlanteans were damned near indistinguishable from humans -- they could’ve set up Forward Operating Bases anywhere in America and no one would be the wiser. Instead they charged gung-ho into major population centers that had capes falling out of every orifice. Not to say Midnighter was complaining -- it made them so much easier to mop up.

In the past hour they’d made a lot of surprising progress, mostly locking down beachheads in all the ports, and dismantling whatever Navy presence there was. But by then surface resistance had gotten a little thicker and that posed problems. Turns out Atlanteans that didn’t really know what surface-land looks like were easily surprised by landmines. Midnighter had also taken the liberty of rounding up the fancy-schmancy energy weapons of any Atlanteans he dropped and mass-teleporting them to HQ for distribution. The surprise on an Atlanteans face at seeing their armor being boiled away by [i]their own weapons[/i] brought Midnighter a special kind of satisfaction.

Still, he couldn’t help but feel almost useless up here. In between stacking up car barricades with his super strength, he was just shooting fish in a barrel that’d get taken out by another Leaguer or a lucky Cop with an Atlantis-gun. All of the cities should be more of less effectively covered -- Titans could handle SanFran, old guard Leaguers could take Coast City, current and reservist Leaguers could handle Metropolis, and hopefully the solo heroes would remove their heads from their own asses long enough to marshal a defense for Hub City.

He ripped the door off of a nearby car and wrapped it around his latest Atlantean takedown. He added him to his slowly growing pyramid of soldiers. That left Midnighter as a foot soldier, cutting down any infantry who took a wrong turn and ended up in his neighborhood. It was fun, sure, cracking skulls and making interesting pretzels out of Atlantean body parts, but it was somehow unfulfilling.

Midnighter looked into the horizon, past his latest car barricade, waiting for the next wave to roll in with the tide. He could see out into the sparkling ocean beyond. If he put the fire and the smoke and the steady rat-tat-tat of gunfire out of his mind, the water was almost beautiful… A great, blue-green jewel hiding the greatest city the world had ever known. Then, it hit him. He keyed his comms.

[Color=#334768]“League channels, this is Midnighter. I’m abandoning position -- I’m going to give those Atlantean sons-of-bitches a taste of their own medicine.”[/Color]