There is something really satisfying in unchained violence, especially when said violence is applied with joyful liberty against one of the many monsters that have invaded Earth.
The monsters hit first, cruelly, viciously, hard, long, and without lube, so, whenever there was a chance for payback, humanity did not miss it.
It was a day like any other, people doing their business, heroes, and villains bashing each other's heads, earth floating around in the cosmos, the supernatural plotting; business as usual, and out of nowhere, monsters of all kinds appeared and ruin everyone's day.
Entire packs of armored gorillas on nine meters reduced African cities to rubble, a kilometer-long worm claimed the Sahara desert as its feeding ground, hundred of whales with ice spikes attacked any ship that crossed their paths with viciousness, truck-sized dogs with lion heads unleashed carnage on China, a pack of giant bipedal Chameleons with enormous claws and horns invaded Central Park, Godzilla, and Kong duke it out on New York, Boston became infested with radioactive zombies, and the list went on and on.
Shit hit the fan with nuclear force, and the world collapsed.
The only reason why humanity did not go the way of the dodo, was because the superhero community was around, and carried enough brawn to punch the monsters and make them sod off. Temporarily at best, but it was enough to give time to any surviving power structures to lick their wounds and start rebuilding.
One week after the monsters came out of nowhere, a colossal thirty-kilometer long ship emerged from a hole in space, and burned through the atmosphere, before carving down a massive trench in the northern part of Greenland. The arrival of the ship was itself quite the happening, not to mention the dramatic entrance on the planet, however, the world had its hands full with the monsters, and any and all that wanted to take a look at the colossal wreckage had a different tale to tell about what they found.
From absurd tales about robotic hordes with an English accent to tales about werewolf packs roaming the ice, to tales about a black-skinned goddess that turned the weather around the place into a weather hell that would shoot any flyer down the skies. Also, most of the surviving explorers were part of the so called good factions, that were trying to rescue a semblance of stability in the apocalypse, on the other hand, those that belonged to obscure or straightforward evil organizations were never seen again.
All in all, it suited just fine to the people that called the massive space faring vessel, home. For the moment, they just wanted to be left alone, lick their wounds, grieve their losses, and sharpen the knives for the reckoning.
Most of the thirty kilometers long vessel were completely destroyed, yet, the gothic decoration of the ship still stood surprisingly proud and entire despite the catastrophic crash onto the snowy lands of Greenland. The trench that the ship has left behind was big enough to be seen even from the satellites above the earth, with the bow of the ship almost reaching the glacier-filled coasts near the Arctic waters.
The sudden arrival of the strange spaceship has called the attention of those that could still give a shit about something that was not immediate survival. Most of the government structures fell quickly, not to mention how the commerce between nations disappeared overnight, along with the vast majority of global communications. Only satellites, radio, and some well-protected hubs survived the monster onslaught, and even those were already at their limit.
It was not their fault, but none of the earth's governments were even remotely prepared for a monster apocalypse like the one they were experiencing. Too fast, too brutal, too precise, and overwhelming. The more analytic and paranoid minds soon reached the conclusion that someone was behind all these, that all happened way too conveniently to do not call it enemy action.
Surprisingly enough, the usual suspects had nothing to do with it, in fact, the entire universe was suffering from all kinds of disasters one after the other, and even Darkseid had his hands full with an unexpected invasion of a swarm of organic monstrosities that seemed hell-bent in chewing Apocolips into a barren rock. For the first time in forever, Darkseid found himself at the wrong end of overwhelming numbers, and he did not like it at all.
Earth was alone in these one, despite the presence of a couple of Lanterns, and several powerful alien and supernatural beings, it was painfully obvious that Earth was right in the middle of an extinction event, and there will be little outside assistance.
Yet, there was hope.
First of all, there were several powerful heroes on earth that could slap the monsters back, and the majority of the world governments had their own panic button to smash when the situation got really desperate. Some worked, some not, and some became worst than the threat they sought to eliminate.
Second, even if the monsters came in unnatural numbers, none of the invaders were capable of high cognitive functions; with the unusual exceptions of Godzilla, Kong, and other Titans that appeared and punch some of the most vicious monsters into a paste; and they seemed contempt with the most basic instincts of eat, reproduce, sleep, repeat.
Third, there were enough structures surviving to augur a possible survival of the human race, alas, and here came the biggest problem, under whose banner will humanity arise again?.
Sane minds were far more worried about how to survive another day, with monsters hounding them at every step, but there were those that had their own little safe corners; safe from the monster out there; from where they saw the planet collapse in less than a week, and instead of an apocalypse, they saw a beautiful chance to achieve world domination. Oh, there is the pesky little problem of the monsters chewing humanity's collective behind something fierce, but that's what the so-called heroes are for, isn't it?.
Said heroes were incredibly busy saving any and all that they can, already stretched thin, and with little hope of improving the situation for the better in the long term.
With a growing stress migraine, Bruce Wayne, the man under the cowl of Batman, was seeing his world being destroyed in real-time.
The caped crusader was standing in the control room of the Watchtower, the space station that the Justice League had in orbit around the planet, in order to monitor the deep space, and to have a neutral ground beyond where to prepare for any crisis. It was salt over the wound, that when the apocalypse came, they could barely do anything to stop it.
The first shot of the war was the sudden arrival of megafauna, erupting from their natural habitats and tearing apart any human structures on their way, the carnage that they unleashed would have been a black day for humanity on itself, but that was just the first shot.
The League received a distress call from Atlantis, the city was under siege by marine beasts that they have never seen before, and to make it worse, King Arthur, more commonly known as Aquaman, was unable to communicate with the monsters. The battle against the submarine monsters was taking a toll on Atlantis, as the monsters only grew numerous and more varied as time goes on.
Batman was keeping an eye on the dozens of holographic screens that show the ongoing disaster, barely a week and a half since the first monster rush, and the bad news only seems to multiply. The invasion was global, no part of the world was safe from the arrival of the megafauna, and the only thing that they have in common was their single mind purpose of eradicating humankind.
With a glance at a floating screen, Batman saw how a few of the more mystically oriented survivors of the League were trying to commune with Gaia, the supposed avatar of Earth, and ask her if this was some kind of punishment for humankind, sadly, all efforts are only answered with silence, and their bodies wracked in phantom pain for hours.
On another monitor, Batman stared at the improvised morgue that they were forced to install after the first days. Way too many heroes have already paid the ultimate sacrifice, even if Batman did not know them beyond their names, he did a conscious effort to memorize their names, and promise that he will see them honored for what they have done.
With cold rage drowning the migraine, Batman continued to monitor the situation, directing critical missions, sending supplies where it matters most, and coordinating all the efforts that he could to save as many people as possible. It was a commendable effort, still, Batman was a pragmatist at heart and knew that this was just a stop-gap measure, the monster did not seem to stop any time soon, and the biggest guns of humanity have proven quite inefficient.
With a glance at another screen, Batman's rage reached a new peak. On the screen, I could be seen the infirmary of the Watchtower, where Doctor Light and Doctor Mid-Nite were tirelessly working, attending to the many wounded among the League and any volunteer and staff that suffered wounds on the field.
Kimiyo Hoshi and Pieter Cross, the real names of the superheroes, were among the few League members that had actual medical knowledge beyond first aid, and that managed to survive the initial onslaught of the monsters. With their cities practically reduced to monster grounds, they did all they could on the field hospitals and moved into the Watchtower, where they have been working non-stop for the last two days.
Batman was savvy enough to recognize that the two of them were on the verge of collapsing, but only duty and spite keep them up and running. In a spark of morbid humor, Batman admitted that it was like staring into a mirror, however, Batman silently thanked them for their efforts, and let them be.
The image that inflamed Batman's rage was one of the special chambers of the infirmary, the empirical demonstration that when it rains, it pours.
When the monsters started to overwhelm humans, the League's heavy hitters went after the biggest monsters, Superman, Power Girl, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, and several others were more than capable to punch some of the worst monsters down, but they were few and the monsters many.
One of the most vicious monsters came from the Metropolis bay, a colossal hydra of some sort; nothing like the hydras that Diana knew from the Greek Myths; the beast started to devour Metropolis, the dragon-like monster of many heads was capable of breathing tremendous energy beams from their mouths, and had the unique capability of attacking the minds of the people around him, along producing EMP. It was a chore and a half to fight against the beast, not to mention its regeneration, and his telepathic attacks.
The heroes of Metropolis seemed to have the situation under control, slowly, but surely beating the blasted monster to pieces, but then everything went to hell in the worst possible way.
Luthor, as if can not be any other way, had several lairs under Metropolis, the CEO of LexCorp had an illustrious career as a supervillain and mad scientist, setting up several private lairs on Metropolis and beyond. One of those lairs, directly under the newest living block of Metropolis, was maintained by a Kryptonite fusion reactor, strong enough to provide energy to the entire city of Metropolis for decades.
When the Hydra fell, in its death throes, the remaining heads shot energy beams in all directions, randomly and savagely, putting all it had into taking down as many enemies as it could before its demise. Those beams were strong enough to hurt Kryptonians, so they have little problem piercing the walls of the underground lair and hitting the reactor chamber.
The reactor exploded creating a city block-sized crater in the middle of the Metropolis, and as if the explosion was not enough, the heat and radiation bathed the surrounding city, killing people in the millions and reducing Metropolis to a nuclear ruin. Once the dust settled, the world saw that the horror has just begun. Thousands upon thousands of the victims of the explosion were now back on their feet, shambling and groaning facsimiles of zombies, irradiated and hungry.
Steel, the power-armored hero that carried the symbol of Superman, managed to take both Superman and Power Girl out of the zone before they were reduced to zombie chew. The power armor of Steel had managed to save his life, but the heat and radiation has practically crippled the man, who now rested in the infirmary, along with Superman and Power Girl, isolated and under life support.
"It breaks my heart too, to see them like that", the melodic voice of Diana snapped Batman out of his trance.
Cursing himself to the high heavens, Batman turned around to see the floating form of Diana of Themyscira, also known as Wonder Woman. The Amazon was one of the remaining heavy hitters of the League, and the demigoddess did deliver, going above and beyond, alas, Batman was more than capable of seeing how this entire thing was weighing heavily on Diana as well.
"They will survive", said Batman with a neuter tone, yet, the mask could not cover the spike of fear that Bruce Wayne felt in his heart.
Diana sighed, and step on the metal floor of the control room, at this hour of the night; though, in space she could only know due to the digital clocks around, there was no personnel of the station in the control room, only Batman.
Diana wanted to slap Bruce and force him to take a shower, a good meal, and at least eight hours of sleep, but much to her frustration, Bruce was one of the few individuals around capable of taking care of the logistic of this operation with a great degree of success.
With a glance at the morgue, Diana felt the same frustration as Bruce, each day they were less heroes and more and more monsters. Also, don't make her start in the stupidity that several villains had started, any imbecile with half a brain believed that they were the knew Alexander the Great. Diana's last travel to Earth has been against a gigantic Komodo dragon that attacked an Australian evacuation camp.
In silence, both superheroes observed the apocalypse going on Earth, trying, with all their might to not let their frustration and despair conquer their hearts and minds.
"Diana, Batman", called their names a new voice, taking them out of their thoughts, "You have to see this".
Surrounded by a green light field, John Steward, one of the two remaining Green Lanterns on Earth, flew into the command room. John quickly reached the other two heroes and summoned a screen from his ring.
"What are we seeing John?", asked Diana.
"Remember the spaceship that crashed in Greenland?", Jhon manifested some holograms of the colossal and gothic space vessel.
"During an evacuation from Greenland to Canada, the capital of Greenland, Nuuk, was attacked by one of those big bears that have been popping around lately, although, white instead of the usual black". Explained John.
A hologram of the ten meters tall bear surged from the ring of John, like he said, the bear was a bipedal creature of ursine characteristics with bone armor over his shoulders and parts of his body, but whose fur was white instead of the usual black. That species of giant bears have appeared a lot lately, usually in places where there is a known population of bears, and usually, commanding smaller beasts.
"Starfire and I clashed against the thing", grumbled John, "but the bastard differs from the others, and when we expected their electric breath, instead he used a cryogenic beam of some sort, and showed the ability to freeze his surroundings".
Batman and Diana watched the footage presented to them. As John said, both he and the orange-skinned alien known as Starfire, hit the bear with all they have, and in normal circumstances, that should be more than enough, both the Green Lantern and the Tamaranean girl had a lot of firepower.
John was an engineer at heart, and his green constructs are incredibly detailed marvels of engineering, machines built to the smallest detail that provided John with almost unmatched versatility; at the same time, Starfire was a joyful orange sun that pelted the bear with green bolts that put the beast on the back foot, along delivering some physical punishment whenever she saw a chance.
During one of the strikes, Starfire was suddenly frozen in mid-air, caged into a humongous block of ice, as she fall to the floor, John flew down to destroy the ice, but he was blasted out of the skies by the cryogenic breath of the monster bear, John was able to summon a green sphere that protected him from the beam, but that pushed him with enough kinetic force to make him crash against a nearby building.
The bear was about to smash the ice that hold Starfire when a gold blade fly true and pierced the pawn of the bear with enough force to cause quite the exit wound. The roar of the bear was muted on the record, but it was easy for Diana and Batman to realize that it must have been deafening.
"John, show me the gold blade", asked Batman, curious about the weapon.
The record focused on the blade, it was thin and small, but as the record advanced at a slower time, the edge of the blade changed, turning into a wider blade that pierced the resilient flesh of the bear and caused quite grievous damage.
The blade quickly fly down and shattered the ice that trapped Starfire, the alien princess did not lose the chance to fly out of the reach of the bear, hissing due to the sudden freezing and with her lustrous mane of red hair erupting in flames at the ends.
The bear pawned around, sending debris and broken remains of the city all over the place, Starfire shot down the biggest chunks, soon accompanied by John, who returned to the fray, but to their surprise, a lot of the broken remains of the city floated on the hair, surrounded by a misty golden colored force field.
The record came mostly from John's perspective, along with all the recordings that the ring could connect around, so, from the Green Lantern perspective, it was easy to see, behind the bear and the floating debris, an armored green and gold human figure.
"Quite the imposing figure", commented Diana at the frozen picture of the newcomer. "I do not see any symbols on him, but I can recognize a warrior when I see one".
"Much taller than a human", added Batman, quickly doing all he could to analyze the image, "and a telekinetic of some sort, possible mystic".
"Yeah", nodded John to the words of his friends, before putting the record back on track.
The newcomer clenched a fist, and the floating pieces of the city slammed against the bear, despite how the concrete and stone shattered against the fur of the monster, the shrapnel and metallic bits and pieces chew on the body of the giant bear, who roared in a challenge, completely ignoring the floating heroes, and focusing his attention on the armored figured that has tossed all that debris at him.
Betraying his immense size, the bear moved at inhumanely fast speed, with his claws ready to lunge at the armored figure, and his jaw open and showing his fangs. Both John and Starfire flew in pursuit of the bear, but even if they were fast, they did not expect the bear to be able to move that fast and knew that they will not reach him before it reached the armored telekinetic.
Not a second later, and the astonishment of Starfire on the recording was shared by the other watchers, both flying heroes were forced to dodge the flying head of the monster bear. John even managed to catch the head on a green sphere, blinking at how clean was the cut, and how it was completely cauterized.
Standing in front of the beheaded white monster, the armored figure seem to store something on his back, before the golden blade that saved Starfire floated back onto a golden shield and fused with it, quickly resting on the back of the armored figure.
The record froze on the image of the armored newcomer, and the floating golden shield at his back.
"Allow me to make the introductions", smiled John, "I present you, Nikolai Gold, Primarch of the Night Sentinels".
"Charmed, I'm sure", smiled back Diana.
"Where is he now?", focused Batman to the task at hand, and mentally sighing at the new threat that has appeared out of nowhere, and to the eternal despair of Batman, this one is intelligent.
"Back on his ship", answered John, recovering the image of the space vessel.
"The name of the ship is the Dawnbreaker", informed John. "A Gloriana Class Battle Ship, and no, I don't know any known space-faring vessels of that category in the ring database, but the gothic architecture is quite the clue about how humans were involved in that".
"I like the name", Diana stared at the ship, "and even if I have never seen anything like it, again, I recognize a warship when I see one. This vessel is armed and armored for war, despite all its eccentric decorations".
"What does he want?", straightforwardly asked Batman, "there must be a reason why he has appeared now, why?".
"I can not say", waved the hand with the ring John, "He only presented himself, apologize for not being able to provide help until now, and give me this", John presented the other two with a data stick of some sort, "he called it a data shard, I have already scanned it with the ring, there is quite the amount of data about most of the monsters that we have found so far".
"The help is appreciated", Diana frowned, "but I take that such a gift have a cost".
"If that's the case, and if what I have seen so far is true", John took a seat on a nearby chair, showing that the exhaustion was widespread among the heroes, "We got it cheap".
"What do you mean?", Batman stared at the data shard, mentally taking note of connecting it to a computer outside of any of the networks of the League to study the information inside it.
"Remember the reports about robots, werewolves, etc?", John pointed out to the screens around them. "That's his crew, they have been setting up shop around their ship, and cleaning up the skies, that's why the skies have been clear so far, the ship has been targeting any big enough monster and blasting it out of the skies, but due to Earth's curvature they have a target limit".
Batman's paranoia blared all the alarms, if the ship still have long-range capabilities, then the Watchtower had to change its orbit asap, they have been on the target of the crashed ship all this time.
"A veiled threat then", stared Batman at the control rooms, ready to input the commands to change the orbit of the Watchtower, and already pondering if the plasma cannon on the Watchtower would be enough to pierce the crashed vessel.
"I don't think so", cut short Batman's plans, Diana.
"Neither do I", shrugged John. "We were in his sights all the time, he could have reduced us to stardust whenever the hell he wanted, the cannons on that ship are big enough to reduce this space station to slag in a single salvo".
"Then, I have to ask why are we still standing", replied Batman, "and what is he really after".
"Ask him yourself, "smiled John, "He invited us for a meeting in person whenever we want".
"That is going to be an interesting meeting", Diana crossed her arms, staring at floating screens with the image of the armored warrior and the warship.
Batman could not but agree with her.
Greenland
Dawnbreaker
Thirty kilometers of a space-faring ship, and a trench filled with metallic wreckage, charred ground, melted snow, and broken vegetation, along with some smears of unfortunate monsters that ended up squashed by the crashed spaceship.
Under the face plate of his armor, Nikolai winced, his baby was seriously hurt, and seeing her like this wounded him deeply.
Nikolai was floating over the main hull of the Dawnbreaker, his Gloriana class battleship, taking in the cold and clean air of northern Greenland. Even in the middle of spring, Greenland was a cold land, with abundant snow all year round, and after the last week, and the arrival of megafauna, the moment they stepped out of the crash, they found the surrounding grounds filled to the brim with beasts determined to chew their asses.
Much to Nikolai's pride, even in such a state, Dawnbreaker's defenses were more than up to the task, and shredded through the first invaders. Those that slipped past those defenses were quickly dealt with by the crew of the ship. Most of the ship crew were dimensional refugees, people that Nikolai has been taken in from collapsed worlds, worlds that were about to end, or in the process of being torn apart, but one thing that most of them had in common is that the majority of the crew were superhuman in some way, shape, or form.
Nikolai's senses picked up the incoming presence of a monster, a wyvern of red scales that had appeared all over the world, and that seemed to be able to use magic, judging from the barriers that materialized around the body of the wyvern whenever some of the smaller defenses of the ship shot at it.
The floating beast let several fireballs fly at the ship, before they could even get close, the void shield of the Dawnbreaker sucked the fireballs in. Seemingly enraged by the uselessness of his magic, the wyvern flew at the upper walls of the Dawnbreaker with its claws up and ready to tear the surface apart.
Nikolai raised an eyebrow and with a mental flex, he squished, hard.
With a strangled gurgle, the wyvern stiffened in mid-air and clumsily fell to the ground, about a hundred meters below. The flying lesser cousin of a real dragon, had his liquified brain matter dripping out his ears, along how his blank eyes were crying blood, and foam from his mouth.
Snuffing a mind like that is a difficult mind trick, however, the lesser the minds, the easier and greater the effect was. If Nikolai tried to pull that in a human, it will be far more difficult, on the other hand, a bestial mind like one of the wyverns was easy prey, it helped that the wyvern was enraged, and focusing on another task, instead of focusing at the floating giant about three hundred meters above him.
Meh, the wyvern meat would be a welcome addition to the automatic chef of the Dawnbreaker, and the magicians on board would be delighted to chop the scaly mongrel. It was a universal constant that dragons and their kin are like pigs, there is nothing to waste.
Expanding his consciousness, Nikolai felt the busy crews of robots working around the most glaring damages of the Dawnbreaker. Due to security needs, there were around three thousand robots working non-stop around the most urgent hull breaches, meanwhile, the rest of the twenty thousand robots that formed the maintenance staff of the ship were on the inside, dealing with the elephantine log of choruses that the ship needed, and with the logistic of keeping more than three thousand refugees safe and sound.
Slowly, Nikolai expanded his perception and reached all the individuals in a hundred-kilometer radius. Leaving apart a very annoying number of beasts of all kinds, especially the submarine species that were absurdly numerous, the constant raids that some of the survivors had done along Nikolai, had effectively cleaned up the surrounding terrain of any monster that could threaten them, or some uninvited guest snooping around.
Securing the zone was Nikolai's first priority, as soon as he recovered from the crash, and make sure that his crew was as safe as possible. They lost good people in the crash, something that should have not happened, the Dawnbreaker was more than capable of dealing with multidimensional travels. The sudden and abrupt fall of all the systems was very suspicious, along with how the entire ship shut down, and only got back online seconds after they passed the point of no return against the gravitational pull of the planet.
Someone wanted them here, and that someone was absurdly powerful.
A window opened on Nikolai's HUD, showing the face of Vera, the digital being that ruled over the systems of the Dawnbreaker and the network that the survivors of the Dawnbreaker had set up as they explored and set up defenses on this new world.
Vera was originally a Pokegirl, a mysterious digital and magical being that was born due to the madness of an insane warlock and biologist called Jimmy Sakamato, or Sukebe, as he was known later. After years of adventures with her master, Vera had evolved into something far beyond her origins, and now, she was a truly sentient digital being.
Vera's preferred form was of a blue-haired gorgeous woman of Caucasian and Asian heritage, with purple eyes, and sinfully feminine curves that could provoke accidents, wrapped in a leotard that made any hot-blooded imagination run wild. The only tribute to her artificial origin was metallic lines over her limbs and neck, showing the presence of cybernetic implants.
"Niko, my love", greet Vera her beloved master. "The thanes await you at the war room".
After all the trials and tribulations that they got together, calling them soulmates was not entirely untrue, and that would be without dealing with the strange and unique bonds that poke girls developed with their masters.
"I'm on my way", nodded Nikolai.
Flying into the innards of the ship, Nikolai saluted to the working crews and the refugees that were working on the diverse tasks on board, to make the Dawbreaker a secure and growing settlement for the time being. Most of the people saluted back, with even some of the youngest refugees chasing his flying form for a while, with the most daring of them, those with some flying capabilities, trying to chase him.
Such boldness amused Nikolai tremendously.
The innards of the Dawnbreaker were not at their best, but the original white and gold clean environment was still there. Here and there, small art pieces, most broken due to the crash, could be seen, and Nikolai was sad at their loss. Some of the art pieces were made by crew members during their spare time, and they really brighten up the insides of the Dawnbreaker, Nikolai rewarded the most beautiful and spectacular ones, which encouraged creativity among the more artistically inclined crew members.
Quickly bypassing the main hub of the ship, Nikolai fly up to the command deck of the ship and floated down to the metallic and plastic platform of the upper decks of the Dawnbreaker. Plasteel was one of the greatest materials ever, flexibility, malleability, and long-term durability of plastic mixed with the resilience of steel, and that is not counting how easily could it be put in alloys of all kinds for specific tasks.
The lights of the upper decks illuminated the long corridors for all the different command rooms of all the sections of the ship, proof that the energy core was up and running just fine.
The main energy core of the Dawnbreaker were three plasma generators, each one putting off the energy of a small sun, and designed to work on a rotation basis, so if one or two of them were shut down for whatever causes, the remaining one will still be able to cope up with the maximum necessities of the vessel until repairs are made. According to the latest report, one of the plasma generators was destroyed in the crash, and nearly three hundred robots were already patching it up.
Out of necessity, Nikolai shrunk his true form into a more fitting one.
From his real sixteen feet tall to an eight feet tall form. Thankfully, when the Dawnbreaker was designed, all of the internal hallways, corridors, and spaces were designed with eight feet tall superhumans in mind.
Along with shrinking into a smaller form, his armor receded as if it was a secondary skin into a ring on his left hand, allowing the real Nikolai Gold to feel the air inside of the ship.
Perhaps the most eye-catching detail of Nikolai was how fitting the surname Gold was. Nikolai's skin was of shadow gold, up to a point that any untrained eye would easily confound him with a Tamarean, something that his fully green eyes only reinforced, but the green eyes of the Tamareans are natural, and Nikolai's eyes had an artificial hue that made them look like the color of a computer screen. Carved in shadow gold, Nikolai was an eight feet tall figure of masculine strength, with the kind of muscles that one would see in strongman competitions, and a long mane of sunburn orange hair falling over his shoulder.
Under the armor, Nikolai just wore a comfortable blue toga, boxers of the same color, and some blue and white sneakers. It was quite the difference between the menacing armor and the cheerful gold man.
The door of the war room, one of the main strategic rooms of the ship, opened with a hydraulic hiss, allowing Nikolai to walk into the room, and salute the people already there, the moment Nikolai entered the room, they all stopped their conversation and turned to salute him, some in a more formal way, and other in a more sedated tone, but the respect was always there.
"At ease, thanes", waved back Nikolai, before taking a seat at the presiding chair, and joining the private Augmented Reality display that all the thanes were sharing at the moment.
In front of the HUD of Nikolai, a holographic representation of the Dawnbreaker and the nearby terrain was visible, along with reports from all kinds of sources about the state of the world, and the survivors of the ship. Nikolai felt a bit guilty about how hard their thanes worked, during all this time, Nikolai have been on salvage duty, recovering parts of the Dawnbreaker and dealing with the most annoying marine life around.
It was a bloody mess, so much Nikolai was absolutely certain.
"Bloody hell", snorted Nikolai, starting the digital reports.
If anyone entered the room, they would not listen to a single word, just people making faces, staring at the main console of the room, or gesturing in the air as if they were moving something.
"Hear, hear", huffed one of the oldest thanes around, the Garou known as Gol Gol First Fang. "The Moon packs have already settled up cairns in, London, Gotham, Kaznia, and Tokyo, they are hardly strong cairns, and with about thirty garous on them, having no loses so far is a bloody miracle".
"I told you Gol Gol", smiled Elder Nathan, former Sentinel of the Brotherhood of Steel, and now Thane of the Night Sentinels. "Ballistic weave and fetish energy weapons will win the day, even your kin and power armors do not mix".
Despite how Gol Gol was a Garou and Nathan only a human, the Sole Survivor of an overrun by zombies Boston Commonwealth, was more than able to give even Elder Ahrouns a run for their money, in and out of his power armor.
"Yeah, yeah", huffed Gol Gol, but there was no malice in him.
"Speaking of kindred and power armors", interjected Nikolai, "before all this mess, we opened the recruits for the Night Sentinels among the non-combat personnel, how did it go?".
"We have four hundred combat-ready Night Sentinels", quickly informed Nathan, "All with T-NS1 power armor, and the kindred of the Garou joined in masse the moment they knew that they had a chance to join the battlefield and the Astartes would not accept them".
"Nothing can be done about that", shrugged Barabas Dantioch, Thane Dantioch was the field commander of the Astartes Night Sentinels, around eight hundred of them. "Due to their unique biology, any Astartes upgrade is lethal for the Garou kin".
"And among the other refugees?", asked Nikolai, even if they have an entire world out there to pick up future new blood for the Legion, Nikolai preferred to recruit among the crew at the moment due to the bonds that already united them.
"Neither the X-gene, the kindred, or the Taimanin are suitable", neutrally reported Barabas, "well, some among the youngest of the X-gene and the Taimanin, but due to the unknown changes that they will experience as they grow up we preferred not to screw them, apart from that, the best numbers runs around fifty to a hundred new Astartes".
"About that", spoke the electronic voice of the only thane not physically present, Optimus Prime, due to obvious reasons.
"Arcee has been hounding me about Jack's decision to join the Astartes Night Sentinels, she is fiercely protective of the young man, and she is convinced that Jack will not make the cut, Thane Dantioch, could I ask for Jack's compatibility with the Night Sentinel's gene-seed?".
With a dry chuckle; Barabas dry voice was a byproduct of the wounds that Barabas suffered against a nightmare alien race known as the Hrud; Barabas quickly accessed the list of candidates and check out the name of the young man, relatively famous around for being the partner of one of the cybertronians onboard.
"Quite the mother hen, I take", dryly commented Barabas, before Optimus AR avatar nodded and sighed, for a mechanical race, the cybertronians were incredibly emotional, even more than a lot of humans that Barabas knew in the past.
"Well, this is a surprise", commented Barabas, "Young Jack compatibility number is ninety-two percent".
"Arcee is not going to like that", resigned Optimus to the inevitable.
"Optimus", called Nikolai to the leader of the cybertronians, "Jane Darby is among the deceased, is she not?".
"Aye", the sadness of the cybertronian was true and genuine."She was with Doctor Curie on the medical deck of the Dawnbreaker when all the systems went down, and she was tossed around like a ragdoll, Doctor Curie's nature as synth save her, Jane was human and died due to massive trauma".
"The kid is the worst possible mental place for Astartes upgrade right now", growled thane James Logan, Wolverine. "Either he fuck up during the implantation, or he will jump into the field seeking a bullet".
"Put him among the initiates, nonetheless", ordered Nikolai. "Before we even begin to consider the implantation, the initiates will be tested physically, mentally, and spiritually, the mental and spiritual care on the initiates' decks will do him good".
"On that note about trainees", spoke another Thane, Asagi Igawa, the leader of the Taimanin on board, "I would like to join in the explorations, being cropped in the ship is affecting the morale of the Taimanin Night Sentinels".
"Sounds good to me", approved Nathan. "It will take a while to recover and rearm the Night Sentinels, and the Astartes are going to be busy being deployed to the biggest warzones, having the Taimanin scouting and eliminating some monsters would be a great help".
"I would like to manifest my disapproval", interrupted another Thane, Commander White of YorHa droid forces, the blonde gynoid always feels uncomfortable with the idea of putting any humans in danger.
"I have four hundred combat-ready Yorha models", put White some numbers on the table, "Let us go first, Scout and Battle models would fill their duty and there will be no human lives at risk".
"I need YorHa elsewhere", sent Nikolai a data package to the shared war room. "More specifically, I need combat droids to suit up in your flight units and went on a global search and rescue".
"Oh", perused the data White, her inner programming was Glory to Mankind, and after seeing the peaks of mankind on the Primarch and the Night sentinels, the entire YorHa forces swore absolute loyalty to the Primarch.
The YorHa units will seek out any and all small settlements that may have been formed after the collapse of society, protect them, link them to the Night Sentinel network, and work on setting up defenses or evacuating them to a safe place, be it the Dawnbreaker, or another safe stop that are already being building by the twenty thousand robot workforce that the Dawnbreaker had on permanent duty.
"I have already made positive contact with the heroes in this world", footage of the battle with the armored bear played over the war table for all the thanes to see, "and asked them for a meeting, pretty sure that the meeting will be a tense one, and they will be on guard about any and all good intentions that we may show".
"I can not blame them", smiled Asagi, "the Night Sentinels offer way too much for very little, any competent enough leader paranoia will be at full alert".
"Agreed", rasped Barabas under his mask. "I take that you will take Thane White and the YorHa Night Sentinels to meet with the heroes".
"Not the entire contingent", pointed out Nikolai. "Commander White, 2P, a Scout unit, along with one representative from the Night Sentinels forces, I want to present a strong and varied front, show that we are the equals of this Justice League, and we have the brawn to conquer back Earth from those monsters".
"Namely", proceed Nikolai to name those that will accompany him, so his thanes could offer alternatives or corrections. "Thane White, 2P, 9S if he is not on the field, Elizabeth Genereader, Sentinel Danse, Jean Grey, Mizuki Shiranui, and Gavriel Lorken"
"A mixture of soldiers, scientists, and stealth operators", commented Nathan, "Danse would be delighted to join it".
"Justice League", repeated Logan. "It seems like their local Avengers to me".
"Top heroes of the world, aye", show Nikolai some data from all the known members of the League. "All in all, I respect them, and I want to help them in their efforts to conquer back Terra".
Barabas' massive mechanical body, something in between a terminator armor and a dreadnought platform stiffened at that last word. With a whirling noise and several servos cranking, Barabas turned to the Primarch, staring at him for a few seconds.
Most of the Thanes were savvy enough to recognize the tells of a telepathic conversation, even if Barabas was not a psyker, the Primarch was more than capable to communicate telepathically even at planetary distances.
The conversation took a minute way too longer than any of the Thanes expected, meaning that some serious business was going on. Despite how open the Primarch has been with all of them, everyone knew that the bigger-than-life figure had his own plans and secrets; pretty much like everybody else.
The laughter of Barabas startled them for a second, Thane Dantioch's laugh was raspy and cracked, and all of them have to make an effort to actually remember what was the last time any of them even ear the old transhuman soldier emit a sound that could, being very generous, be called laughter.
"Aye, Primarch, conquering Sacred Terra is going to be fun".
Everybody blinked and shared a single thought.
Wait, What?.