1.16 Devil Part 1

His upgraded halberd in his left hand, Gears strides out of the portal into the midst of an ongoing battle. He looks up to see a thin man with torn black leather wings in the middle of the sky. Red energy emits from the crevices in his body and his entire body is bathed in a crimson glow.

A Harbinger...                                                            

That must have been what Drakvar was talking about.

Yes, Niltoc must be what he calls the Harbinger.

Speaking of which, which one is this one?

Apocalypse is beheld before us.

What can he do again?

Fast A Class flyer with a relative weak physical prowess at C- levels. Telekinesis and regeneration both at B Class.

Doesn’t sound that tough. Somebody like somebody like Atlas, Lightbringer or Darkness could take this guy down. What’s the catch?

He is an Infinity Class Spawner.

Wait, Infinity Class? I thought that class was still theoretical.

Officially it is, but we have access to data otherwise.

Such as Guardian’s data on the Dozen Harbingers of the End Times.

Yeah. So what does he spawn?

Organic life. Generally brutes up to A Class levels, but he produce specialists at B Class. Intelligence can be up to sentient levels, but he generally sticks at the borderline between a smart animal to barely sentient at most.

And once he has spawned a creature, Apocalypse can’t unspawn them.

Sounds tough. So what do we do?

The best tactic would to be to try and drive off Apocalypse whilst fending off the creatures that he spawns. Then once he is gone, finish off any remaining creatures.

Trying to take out the creatures won’t work as Apocalypse has no upper limit on how many he can spawn and will just continuously make more as you take them out.

Okay. Let us get a handle on the situation and then try and drive off Apocalypse with whatever forces we can muster.

Gears runs forward through the ruins of a destroyed building as he charges towards the shore. He does his best to ignore the bodies, both those of civilians and those of two massive dog-like beasts, both of them having been frozen to death.

Must have been a powerful cryokinetic to do that.

Could have been a Tinker or Magician.

Gears spots a hydra-like creature fighting a figure on the beach. The hydra is a roughly ten metres tall with a scaly lizard-like body, two barbed tails and five fanged heads.

The figure on the hand is obviously a parahuman, but he is a superhero, a supervillain or vigilante is not so clear. He also appears to be in his late teens at a glance, but with the Enhance rating and shapeshifting, that could easily be wrong as well.

The parahuman is wearing black clothing with some plates of armour. Furthermore, he appears to be wearing an exoskeleton suit and has a pair of grey swords in his hands.

The parahuman jumps at the hydra and it snaps one head at the boy. The boy blocks with a sword and is forced away. As he lands, another head fires a beam of concentrated fire at his feet.

The parahuman moves fast, his feet barely touching the ground before he leaps away again. But the hydra is also swift, firing at the boy with another two heads.

At this point Gears decides to intervene. He jumps forward at the distracted hydra, flying forward with his KEPs.

In a series of rapid motions, Gears flies past the front of the hydra, hacking away at the heads. He easily cuts off the first two before slicing off the third and fourth, but the fifth jerks back, avoiding the fate of the others.

Landing on his feet with a slight skid, Gears steadies himself with a slight blast of his KEPs before aiming his halberd at the hydra. He feels the blade charging up and unleashes it, just enough to take out the hydra.

The beam of black energy strikes forth from the spike of is halberd and tears through the neck of the fifth head and into the body. Seizing the moment, Gears stabs forward with his halberd, piercing the hydra and draining its dying body of its energy.

Yanking his halberd out of the corpses, Gears turns to face the parahuman.

The boy looks impressed and starts to say something in what Gears assumes is Norwegian, but Gears cuts him off with a wave of his hand.

“I don’t speak Norwegian,” states Gears bluntly.

“Lucky I speak English then,” replies the boy with an abnormal cheerfulness given their current situation, “I am Beowulf.”

“Gears,” replies Gears, “I’m an American vigilante who just came out of a transdimensional portal. At the moment, I’m not even sure I’m sure on my Earth because the portal home got mucked around with by someone else.”

“So do you know this guy?” asks Beowulf, indicating Apocalypse with a wave of his hands.

“I know of him,” answers Gears, “And I fought another.”

“So can he do then?” inquires Beowulf.

“A Class flyer and C Class physical prowess,” replies Gears, “Telekinesis and Regeneration at B Cla-”

Gears falls silent as he and Beowulf turn to face a massive centipede that rises out of the ocean. Covered in shiny black plates of chitin with a flurry of barbed legs, the monster rushes at Beowulf and Gears.