The Saint and the Sinner (Atlas)

Since New York’s destruction he found himself wandering.

Washing up on a sandy shore of a distant nation, leaving him confused for the first few days before he gathered his bearings. Getting clothes from there wasn’t too hard, a traveling archaeologist seeing him and feeling sorry enough for him to supply some clothes. They worked for a while and weeks passed until he was able to get a small collection of clothes he could wear on his travels.  Time passed from there with him not returning to the public eye. Too much was keeping him from acting out in the ways that he normally did, flying around and doing what he thought was saving them.

Of course the world didn’t stop spinning because a star fell and so he found himself being dragged into fringe groups fractured from prior phantoms. The organization had told him about Dominus, and what they had wanted. Mostly with sneers and expressions of disgust that were clear they looked down upon such idiotic ideals. Metahuman repression had been as some thought was impossible. These rogue agents found themselves following him, especially after scanning him for his gene. Apparently they didn’t expect him to be beyond their means to contain, far beyond anything they could deal with.

Looking down at the blinking green screen, his mismatched eyes blinked couple times and he licked his chapped lips. Flakes of white snow brushed across his face, and winds lashed against the tall form. Bound in a thick jacket with a fur inline and some pants he was told were good for mountain hiking. Even then they didn’t keep him warm, which meant drawing upon the solar energy within him to warm the rest of his body. Maybe some thermal sensors would catch him but that didn’t mean much to him.  Unless they had something greater to support them, he was likely going to be able to outdo whatever security was working about.

Men with guns and a few metahumans they had managed to engineer or just draw into their immoral crusade. Each of his steps crunched in the thick snow, leaving their prints as he moved along the white and rocky expanse. Built in the mountainside was a facility, or so he assumed by the short flashes of metal that appeared from his quick appraisals of the rock. High mountain sides that were likely obscured by the veil of fast falling snow. He’d been drawn here through a ditress signal, one this device had been able to  catch onto despite it not being meant for him. These Dominus people had captured someone and his own heroic spirit had been enough to get him following this signal.

Pulling down the hood to keep it from being blown away, he sighed and took a step forward. One second there and the next gone, a great whoosh of wind that was him slamming shoulder first into the outer wall. Metal buckled and wall burst inwards, leading to him slamming further into the room beyond. Barely able to stop himself from slamming through the entire building and sending it collapsing. Now snow and wind was blowing into the ruined room, and his hood had blown down.

Now his face was fully revealed, darkened by sun and a thick beard growing along his chin. Men were rushing him in their proper military looking clothing, weapons raised with a those beams of red light flashing over him. ”I’m looking for someone here. I assume you have her here,” His eyes glowed an orange red as he looked them over.

The men turned their guns on him and he could hear the cacophony of  their heartbeats. Rapid sounds as if showing they weren’t the most confident that they could take him with those little guns. Bullets never made him worry anyway. ”Making it sound like there’s something for me here,” He responded, eyeing the one who spoke and cocking his head to the side.  Lights danced around the room, and he turned fully towards the group of men before him to consider them. Did they have any weapons that could actually hurt him? Atlas hadn’t met many people with something that could cut his skin, so he found himself overconfident at times.

The building was expansive. Enough to keep this number of people comfortably, food and everything. Well they were the kind of people likely to kidnap someone so destroying a few things didn’t seem wrong to him. Not like the government was funding this. Well he hoped they weren’t.

A gunshot rang out. Without even thinking his hand moved faster than the human eye, appearing as if he were standing still until  the ring of shots finished. ”Looks like you weren’t willing to do any talking,” He frowned slightly, releasing the vice grip with his right hand and letting the crushed rounds clatter to the ground. ”not very smart though. So let me say it again. I’m looking for someone here and I assume you have her. Doctor Karma I think the name was, ” The name sounded interesting, though an alias he could easily guess.

Glowing eyes ignited into beams of hit that hit two guns and turned them into molten slag. ”None of you could stop me anyway. How many of your squads do I have to punch through?” With no concern for the weapons still pointed at him, Atlas stepped up to the most important looking person and lifted him up by his armor. ”Take me to her or I’ll see how you like being thrown three thousand feet into the air,”

He wasn’t sure he would do it but he was considering it.

Atlas could guess the man now within his grasp was terrified. No one needed to tell him when he could hear his heart hammering like it was. Anyone would when they were in the same position like this man, who was considering if he were going to be falling at terminal velocity soon. That was when someone else joined them, a man with a voice dripping in malice. Was it one of the metahumans they had around here to keep the operations going smoothly. Laughing turned to coughing then to the sound of wings. Insectile wings flapping at the rapid rate that they tended to.

It grated at his ears. ”You don’t seem to know who you’re dealing with,” Was all he said, a deluge of bugs coming to claim his flesh. Against any human it would have been a horror. Spindly legs, crawling over him with pincer jaws meant to rend and sheer flesh but they weren’t dealing with average. He’d been created to withstand more than just the pinches and pokes of insects. Even still, he casually tossed to man aside. Away from the swam that threatened to swallow him, not expecting him to be spared because he was a moderately ranked officer.

Even still he could feel them crawling on his clothes and even under them. ”That’s just gross. Never thought I’d be smothered in bugs and cold,” The voice complained beneath the sheath of insects. Light and heat broke through, followed by an outward explosion of energy that splattered insect guts  across the wall and people close enough to see it. His jacket had a few good holes in it, alongside his pants which annoyed him more than anything else. ”you seem like you’re in charge. Bring me to Dr. Karma. I’m not exactly in the mood to play, so I don’t mind doing a little punching if you keep it up with the bugs,”

This time he took a step forward and to the others he was suddenly standing before the bug person. A large gust throwing most of the soldiers to the ground. ”If falling out of orbit couldn’t kill me, nothing you people have would be able to either,” He wondered if that would tell them who he was but it didn’t matter. They were kidnapping people and he would save this woman anyway.

He felt the bugs attempt their futile gnawing against his flesh, brushed away with a few casual motions of the hand. He had to have some kind of plan beyond just sending his bugs on him. That alone was enough to make him keep a few steps away from him. Waiting for what felt like the right moment to knock him out, if he were that easy. Human frailty was something he always found himself worrying over.

A question broke through. Why would they send him to save her, though he wasn’t sure what the man meant by that. Maybe it was the people he worked for or maybe someone else entirely. Even those he allied himself had their own purity put into question. For now, all he knew was that he heard something was up, a small distress signal and had come here of his own volition. Not that sketchy men with bug powers would believe that.

The bugs were all retreating to him now, forming a massive wriggling mass. As they did, a few began to grow in mass as they separated themselves from the great horde. They looked to be as large as a chihuahua, maybe even a little larger but he didn’t know.  Larger things with pincers and violence in their soulless bug eyes.  He let out a small sigh,  wondering what these were about.

Some kind of strain of super powered beetle? Possible but he didn’t know anything about the guy who created them. He wasn’t even the tactics guy back when he went about saving New York.

The insects attack, one seeming to aim for his throat, though all he did was snap a hand forward as the jaws closed around that hand. A stinging pain radiating from the places where the jagged, chitinous edge bit into flesh. It chattered as more latched onto him, pushing from what he could tell. He curled his fingers around the shell, feeling the cracking before it gave way within his hand. More force, enough to render it rigid.

”You think your little bugs can slow me down?” A small amount of irritation wormed into his voice, focusing some energy onto healing the surface cuts on his hand. They were basically not there now. That same energy well up within his hands, like small burning stars as he unleashed the heat in little bursts.  Melting the many smaller, and weaker insects like tar and throwing the larger ones into the walls as they left massive cracks there. One twitched, leaking what he assumed was blood while another tried to right itself from the sudden force. He had the feeling they wouldn’t be down forever.

He scanned the facility around him, brows furrowed. ”I don’t really know what you’re doing here. I’m just here to save someone, and you’re in the way right now,” if there was one thing he knew, it was that people always prepared for him but they did it wrong. As he looked through the facility, he could see the many shapes and then one spots that blanked out compared to the rest. Some kind of basement he assumed.

With a sigh, he raised a fist and propelled himself through the floor. Walls gave way like fragile styrofoam, until he stopped before the wall he could see through. Alarms blaring now as he pushed his form through the wall and suddenly it was no longer a blank spot. ”You the one they holding here?” He spoke amidst the darkness and wall rubble sprayed around the room.