An Ancient Force Returns (Jeisen)

An ancient being roamed the earth. At various times believed to be the first beasts, a boogeyman, gods, monsters. Worshipped and feared, hunted and hunter. But he doesn't know all that. All he knows is the desire for freedom. The feel of freedom beneath him as his paws pound the earth below him. The feel of it flowing through his feathers as he lifts into the sky. And the feel of it as it cools and washes over his scales. The place he searched for his freedom changed daily, but the drive was always there. And when that drive was satisfied and he was fulfilled, he slept. He slept for a long time.

Eventually, he awoke. But things were different. For starters, they had always left him a meal when they expected him to rise from his slumber, and they were good at predicting when he awoke, but this time no food awaited him. Sleep still clouded his thoughts though, or maybe it was the hunger. Something prevented him from transforming. It looked like he would have to fend for himself in this form for the time being. He left the familiar cave where he always slumbered and entered a world that had changed. A world that had moved on, a world that had forgotten him, a world not ready to remember this force of nature.

Bright lights and loud noises fill the night air in a bustling metropolitan downtown. For the first time, Hiss face appears to be confused, worried, almost as if in pain. This was nothing like the landscapes or the vast seas that were captured in the dream-like pictures of his clouded memory. Too much noise, too many people, too little space. He could barely even see the horizon behind the buildings that surrounded him in every direction. Eventually, it is too much for him and he closes his eyes and covers his ears. Someone bumps into him hard as he tries to flee from the chaos. "Watch where you're going!!!" Knocked to his knees and losing control, he doesn't even hear the man. As he looks up, his eyes are glowing red. Patches of fur sprout from his face and his hands turn to claws as the Behemoth took control…

A icon popped up on a screen, lightning up an already pale face in a blue light. Security camera footage from downtown London. One of the many observation programs flagged something. After taking a look over it, it became quite obvious. A man was transforming into something. Something quite large it would seem. With a frown, Jeisen grabbed his helm from the desk and stood up. He paused as his did though, however. Nolan hovered by.

"So we really are doing this again? Back not a week and you are throwing yourself into the fire once again? You know if you have to get involved with something like this, everyone will know you're back. You could really take a second right now. Its been two years without you and the city..." Nolan began a passioned plea but was cut off by a sudden tsk by Jeisen

"Enough." Jeisen forced the words out has he gripped his helm. "Nolan, I... I don't think I can rest. This is just something I.. Something I have to do."

Now that sounded corney to even his own ears, but he didn't have another way to voice the issue. This wasn't a job for him. It wasn't a game or a hobby. This was his life. Jeisen put the helm on and took off from his safe house's hidden entrance. There was trouble brewing and he needed to stop it.

The hard part about moving at superspeed wasn't actually the whole moving part. People could either do that bit or not. No, the hard part was not leaving a sonic boom everywhere you went. People tended to not like the whole exploding sound waves when you passed by nor most of the exploding glass if you got to close to a window. So most of the time Jeisen simply went subsonic speeds. And by moving on the rooftops with a grappling hook, he could bypass most of that pesky London traffic.

It did mean, however, that he was a smidgen late to the party.

"Now that is a big boy." Nolan gave a wolf whistle as he materialized from underneath Jeisen's cloak. Jeisen hated the fact that he couldn't help but agree with that statement. This.. thing was at least 30 feet tall. The intrepid hero crouched down low, gun instinctively forming in his hand. Big things like this were not his speciality. Maybe he could talk the person inside there down? Needed to figure out what he was dealing with first.

"Nolan, give me a full scan. Give me estimated muscle density and layout, how much extra energy is moving around, all of it." Jeisen had the rough estimates already in his head, but his paranoia demanded he double check. That's what he had Nolan for after all.

Sarah thought it was going to be a normal day. She had returned to London just a few hours earlier, hadn’t even made it too far from the airport. Her intentions were the same as they always were. Perhaps see if Jeisen had returned, and if not she would make sure the place was still cleaned if he were to return while she was out searching. She had too many memories here in London. She remembered facing down the penitent machine, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember his name. The only one whose name she could remember now was the bane of her existence. The man in the mechanical mask, who moves at blinding speeds and quintessentially cuts her off at every avenue for progress.

She knew that he followed her here. He had to of. She only ever felt her essence react this way when in the presence of danger, and when it came to danger she had faced perhaps one one person she would consider more dangerous than her nemesis. She looked to all of the people on the bus. Any one of them could be him. If it even ewas a him. She always had just assumed. Her attention was cut off and suddenly she looked to her phone to see a pressing news alert. Her jaw dropped slightly as she realized what was happening. A small smile crept to her face as she shook her head. She didn’t actually believe this would ever happen. She heard the voice and knew immediately that it was him. He was back. That was such a relief, that was only rivaled by her desire to slap the man for making everyone worry about him.

"Let me off here. Emergency! Excuse me, Pardon me. Sorry. I’m so sorry. My water broke, my house is on fire, my dad died. EXCUSE ME!” She said as she tried to politely navigate the crowded bus, only to get incredibly angry by the time she had exited it. The native people were so pleasant sometimes, but she owned the fact she was an impatient American all the way to her cryocore.  With a flick of her wrist her brown leather-like jacket was reinforced with frozen sharks, her tight jeans following suit. Her skin paled slightly as she started to walk, a frosty wisp escaped with every breath as the ground beneath her left a faint, frosty trail of bootprints.

  "I'm on my way Jeisen." She said to herself as she walked across the street. A Black Cadillac with tainted windows turned down the way, almost running into the woman and honking it's horn loudly. Sarah gasped and gave an apologetic wave as she rushed across. "If I don't end up in a Carrie Underwood song first..."

A disoriented Calvin crawled away from the crowd weaving around him. Kneeling next to a parked car, he looked up and noticed the fur sprouting all over and bumps forming on his forehead. His muscles tensed and he let out a primal roar as the growing horns broke through the skin.

Calvin slowly realized that things really were different this awakening. The transformation was out of his control. Earlier he had willed it, but it didn't happen. Now it was happening, and he could feel his consciousness fading away into red. This had never happened to him before. Or at least he didn't think it had. When he had first awoken, his memories were hazy, more like feelings and intuitions. He had assumed he was just groggy, but clarity still eluded him. And as the fur finished sprouting and his body began growing, his mind completely faded away.

A horn hooked under the car as it grew and the behemoth sent it flying as the beast threw his head back in a guttural roar. An easy feat for the beast as he was already growing larger than the car itself. The crowd that formerly surrounded him dispersed in screams and fear at the sound of the roar and the sight of the beast throwing the car. Feeling alive but cramped on the sidewalk, he muscled his way out into traffic causing cars to swerve or lock the brakes. A few unlucky cars were brushed to the side as the massive horns cleared a path for the beast to run.

The rampage carried on for hours, or maybe only minutes. His mind was no longer clear enough to measure time. All he thought about was running and getting out of the cramped corridors of the city streets. His run continued until he faced his first real challenge, a roadblock setup ahead unleashed a barrage of small arms fire at the beast as he rounded a corner coming directly at him. Many of the bullets only seemed to irritate and annoy the beast, like bees stinging a bear. In his annoyance, the beast skidded to a stop. He stomped down on the ground in front of him. Cracks spread out around the paw and formed a circle in the concrete before him. With a roar, the land itself seemed to heed his command and a large boulder of earth and concrete broke from the circle and flew towards the roadblock.

"Nolan, Anything on the face recognition scans?" Jeisen said as slid down the side of the building. That thing was rapidly gaining size and strength as the hero closed the distance on the two. A brief display of the creatures body filled up the lower right corner of his hud. Possible weak spots were highlighted in red.

"Not a peep. He's not from the greater england area nor on interpol. Going through some more, but it's going to take forever without me stopping the other scans." Nolan said in his ears inside the helm.

Suddenly the creature picked up speed, roaring as it thru car with people still inside of it. Not good. It was times like this Jeisen wished that he had super strength or something. Would make his life so much easier most days. He whipped his arm forward, throwing a knife faster than most bullets. It shattered the windshield of the car flipping thru the air. The knifes handle quivered next a fat middle age man with too large a mustache was holding onto the steering wheel with all of his might. Jeisen was lucky this man was alone in the car.

Like a flash of lightning, the armored man was inside the cramped sedan as it made its second revolution. Jeisen glanced around as the car seemed to hover for him. A quick calculation in his head later and he punched the door off the side of the car. He grabbed the knife, cutting the seat belt as his did so and pushed the man out of the side. A grappling hook shoot out of his gauntlet, latching onto the side of the nearby building. The fat man and him swung to the ground as the car crashed into the pavement behind them.

It was chaos now as the... behemoth charged through a street full of cars. As luck would have it though, it only pushed these ones out of the way. Suddenly Nolan started yelling in his ear "Sir! Blockade ahead! The creature is heading right for it. And its doing... something to the ground?"

Ah shit, so not only was this thing big and strong, it had a power as well? Well at least the day was going to be an interesting one. Jeisen took off after the creature, using his grappling hook to pull himself forward rapidly. Blue electricity danced over his armor as he zoomed past the beast. He dropped a small device in front of the creature as he slipped by. Wasn't sure if it would work, but hey at least it might get its attention.

The sonic grenade wailed like a banshee at the things feet, but Jeisen didn't have time to see if it would work. There was a giant boulder heading straight for the cops.

"Modify two missiles! .02 second delay on the blast!" Jeisen called out as he slide in front of the cops, body low to the ground as the lightning still sparked over his armor. Without waiting for comermation, Jeisen launched the two rockets at the bolder. They sunk in deep, like armor piercing warheads before detonating. Jeisen tossed down his bubble shield as rocks rained down on the barricade. The bubble shield absorbed the worst of it though.

"Nolan, put out the warning. We need Becket through Forest street cleared. All signals!" Jeisen issued another command as he stepped forward from the rubble, one pistol forming in his hand as the dust settled around them.

________________________________________________________________________

Throughout the London area, multiple signals went out. They hijacked T.V., radio, and phone signals with an almost cheeky ease. All versions played the same message through T.V got to see the old Guardian symbol.

"Alert! Behemoth creature causing a bit of a mess in lower London. Evacuate everything from Becket to Forest Street if you would be so kind. We are trying to lead it away from the hospital, but it might be close. Thanks!" Said Nolan in his cheery voice. Almost as if it was an afterthought, he popped up again, "Oh by the way, we are back. Guardian Angel out!"

With that incredibly cheesy line, Nolan left a stunned London population bewildered. A figure had been missing for just over two years shows up just like that? The rumors had been true?!? Some people were caught in a conflict of emotions, but most of London felt the same thing. Relief that their Guardian was back.

Jeisen would have killed Nolan if had time to spare once he heard the damn machine had used that terrible title.

Hospital? Looks like I’m headed there. She thought to herself, realizing that the nature of monsters were to press forward. Even if you attempted to divert them, they tended to be stubborn. With enough time, she would even have time to prepare for an attack that even her mentor would have difficulty penetrating. Considering everything, she looked forward to the chance of stretching her powers a bit, and activating into her curse a bit more.

She was able to get a good clean route to the hospital that lay beyond the roadblock a good distance. She found it quite impressive that the humans managed to establish a blockade so quickly after the attack had begun. She brought herself to the road where the attack was supposedly coming from, closing her eyes for a moment. When they opened they were frosting prismatic colors as they absorbed the refracting light casting her vision through her crystal cornea (spell) sending her sight through the skies up and fifty meters over, causing her to gasp as she saw the large beast from a safe distance. She watched as with a single roar it uplifted the earth and sent a boulder hurling it through the barricade.

“Oh great. It has the Tigrex roar...” She muttered to herself, the streets were being evacuated piece by piece. She closed her eyes and felt the glowing core of her frozen soul glow from inside her chest. She felt her soul bleeding out as the frost covered her body even further, the small shards still providing a nice layer of protection, but now the ice seeming to fuse into the fabric turning the entire outfit into a more recognizable teal colored coat and sleek leggings familiar to the Snow Siren’s more modern look. “Alright big boy, You’d better turn around.” She muttered to herself as a great frosty wind pulsed from her, sweeping a wide area. The clouds above began to drop small, flakes of frosted water, seeming to defy the conventions of the time of year. A black car pulled up into the parking lot upon the right side of the road. Soon it was in the hospital lot, the lights turning off and the engine dying down. Though she disregarded it, she could feel that with the presence of snow and the curse of her soul pulsing, she may inadvertently draw attention she didn’t want.

A small blanket of snow surrounded the hospital quite quickly, and Sarah sighed as she calmed her nerves. She needed to remain calm. No matter what. If she could save even one person, then she would gladly sacrifice a piece of herself to drive back a beast…

...even if it was more than twenty times her size.

After flinging the boulder that bounces and rolls towards the barricade, the Behemoth continued its run straight forward. Blue sparks flashed beneath him and the beast barely noticed the blur pass beneath his feet. Caught off guard by the appearance of the speedster, he skidded to a stop without noticing the present left in front of him until it exploded in a loud screech. Distracted by the noise, the beast attacked at the ball slamming down repeatedly with his massive paws while the speedster attacked the boulder. Between the screeching and the explosion, the beast lost his balance and stumbled to the side. He caught himself, but not before he bashed into the side of a building causing brick, mortar, and glass to rain down on the street below. Shaking off the debris, the Behemoth charged towards the barricade and vaulted over it. As he landed, his tail slammed down crushing the engine of a police car while narrowly, and luckily, missing any officers. The Behemoth left the destruction behind as it continued fleeing in search of less claustrophobic space.

The streets were noticeably, or noticeable to others besides the Behemoth who couldn't care less about the streets, more empty now. The beast picked up his pace as he had less obstacles in front of him now. Some combination of the barricade, emergency broadcast, and his own roars seemed to have cleared the streets. A commotion behind him drew his attention momentarily and he looked behind him briefly. As he turned his head back forwards, he noticed an opening before him as the road ended in front of the hospital. He also noticed the familiar chill as snow accumulated on his fur and crunched beneath the pads of his feet. His run slowed to a trot and he turned his head up. He paused briefly and took in the sight of flakes falling from the sky and ancient memories of mountaintop roars, flights through clouds, and breaks coiled around massive icebergs flashed through his mind. A voice cut through the memories and he looked down at the girl standing before him. Hunkering down, a low, guttural growl escaped from behind his lips before he let out a roar. Unlike the officers who opened fire on sight, this one seemed to stare he down with some amount of calmness that caused the beast to instinctively hold his ground with his eyes locked on her. The hairs on his back stood up straight causing him to look even larger than he did before. A giant paw scraped at the snow in front of him, but he doesn't charge yet.