It felt like time had stopped and everything was moving in slow motion. Santos was tired, so tired. Her breath came in gasps, and her legs protested vehemently as she kept moving. The only thing giving life to her leaded limbs was the knowledge that if she didn't keep moving, didn't keep fighting, she was going to die.
"No..What? No, the national guard, the army, someone! No, YOU need to understand, the NATIONAL GUARD! No, not a SWAT team, we are not equipped to handle this….Hello? Hello? Dammit, the connection's gone!" Santos was in a complete panic at this point. Medics had managed to rush off with Lou, and she'd called everyone she could reach with her radio. Now she was cowering behind an overturned car in downtown Fairview as she tried to calm herself down. It was still about 4 a.m. and luckily, this meant the streets were mostly deserted, but they were littered with overturned and damaged police vehicles and bodies in the wake of Krewe's rampage. Almost all the officers on the scene were unconscious or worse, and the surviving officers had desperately called for reinforcements. The Special Weapons and Tactics had responded like champions, as always, managing to rally the SWAT team and even an urban pacification truck at short notice. Add to that they heard one of their own was down, only added fuel to their vigour. That was until they actually arrived on the scene. Things had gone from bad to worse in what felt like five seconds.
What was once Jake Krewe seemed to be acclimatizing to its new form, having spontaneously mutated into a hulking for that was barely human anymore. It was nearly eight feet tall, one shoulder larger than the other giving it a hunchback like figure, and scale-like growths all over its frame. Krewe only needed a tail to play the perfect reptilian nightmare in any horror movie. Add to that, Krewe now had superhuman strength and speed, as Fairview's police department were finding out. The SWAT team barely had time to bail out of the back of their van as Krewe went barreling into it, denting the side and sending the entire van, driver and all, into a nearby storefront. The now terrified, and disorganized, Fairview SWAT team tried to rally, with Santos' help, but it was no use. They hadn't signed up for this. They weren't nearly ready to deal with a situation quite like this one. What hope did they have against something that could throw a van built to withstand a tank aside like a child's toy? "Line! Get into line!" Santos tried helping the officers into line, to no avail. The few that managed to make it out of the overturned SWAT van were busy emptying their clips into Krewe, who wasn't scathed at all, which only angered Krewe and added to the danger. Even as Santos called for them to form up, some were already dropping their guns and fleeing the scene, screaming, in all directions, anywhere to escape this nightmare. Santos picked up one of the fallen assault rifles, herself knowing it would be no use, and tried to retreat. Krewe noticed and bore down on her faster than anything she'd had ever seen. Rachel Santos felt her heart in her mouth and her life flash before her eyes as she tried to raise the gun. In half a second her vision was filled with Krewe. She could see his eyes. Like an animal's eyes, she could sense the rage, the intent to destroy. All she could hear was her heartbeat in her ears. The rest of the world seemed deafeningly silent. Even as her breath caught in her throat, the vision changed. Suddenly she had moved 200metres. She realized she wasn't on her feet anymore, and felt arms around her. As Santos' feet touched the ground, her brain struggled to keep up with her senses and she began panting, hard as she realized just how close she had come to death. She saw blond hair and sighed, the girls must have got her message. She looked up, had Bubbles suddenly hit a growth spurt? Boomer put Santos down and smiled, "That's a good way to get you killed officer".
"Oh my God, thank you, thank you, I was so scared I didn't know what to do, I…." Santos' eyes suddenly clouded and tears started running down her face.
"Well, don't thank me, thank her." Santos looked up at Boomer, and whirled around to see Krewe attacking a new target in the middle of the street, one that, incredibly, was keeping up if not even faster than Krewe. Santos had to strain her eyes past the wreckage of the cars and bodies of officers, and thought she caught a glimpse of long red hair.
"Mr Banner, the Board is not pleased with your progress, or rather the lack thereof"
"My …'lack of progress' as you so put it, has already yielded a viable sample"
"Under the circumstances, 'viable' is stretching the truth, wouldn't you say Mr Banner? Reports are that you have already lost control of the sample, and it has already cost the board a fortune to keep the media out of the loop"
"You paid me to create a super soldier, a task most would call impossible, and yes, we have had setbacks, but there is a workable sample, and even better, we have the perfect testing ground and zero accountability. I don't know about all of you, but I would call this a victory. Now,my applied sciences division and I are going to use this as a learning experience, and start working on the next batch. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I wish you a good night". Banner turned off the screen in his office. He turned on the news. All the channels said the same thing, some kind of gas leak in downtown Fairview, all citizens advised to stay in their homes. The board's pockets ran deep it seemed. Hunching over on his desk, he sighed and clenched his fists to stop his hands shaking. Somewhere between rage and terror he cursed the board for their lack of faith in him, and remembered the stories of what happened to his predecessors who had talked to the board that way. Banner took a deep breath and straightened up. Meighan, he told himself. It was time to find Meighan and decide on the next course of action.
Meanwhile, Meighan was busy appraising his samples. To a man like Meighan, his samples were everything. Meighan found a perverse beauty in what he did. Creating something so seemingly insignificant as a vial of this, a compressed gas canister of that, and watching how the insignificant ceased to be so. Whether it was a virus capable of wiping out a city, a chemical capable of changing a man's very essence, and, well, the Kajain and Townsville project, Meighan was particularly proud of what he created. In the wreckage of his lab, he had looked through Hector's notes, poor Hector, and believed he had found the key to Krewe's mutation. Meighan held up what was left of the blood sample from Banner's intern. While it seemed that she and her sisters had lost their powers, data from this test would suggest they instead lay dormant, rather than nonexistent. Meighan stuck a grubby finger into his eye and fiddled with his contact lens. It was time to see Banner. They needed more.
Mojo was somewhat of a light sleeper. Doing stints in and out of prison had left him with the habit of napping instead of getting full nights. After sleeping for a couple of hours, he scrawled down notes on what he and Utonium had been working on. After tiring of this, he went to check on the boys. Boomer was gone, but from what Brick had told him, since Kajain Boomer had never slept an entire night without waking up screaming or in a cold sweat. Mojo stopped and looked at the other two as they slept. Brick and Butch were still out on the floor of the room, Butch, as always, snoring like he'd been paid to do so. Mojo stepped into the kitchen, intending to make coffee but stopped upon seeing something a little strange. A basin of what looked like water on the kitchen floor, wait, no, ice. It was full of ice. Mojo was distracted by the flashing phone, showing there was a message on it, strange to get one at such an hour. Mojo set it on speaker as he set about making coffee, but abandoned that and hustled upstairs upon hearing the first part of the message.
"B, girls, anyone! It's Ray, I'm downtown, I was answering a call with Lou and….we were attacked by this..this THING. Lou, Oh my God Lou, he saved be but now this thing is going on a rampage and…..I could really use some help right about now. B, if you get this, please…..help".