83 RIO. (III )

In Rio De Janeiro, chaos reigned. When the earthquake hit, no one was expecting it. Rio wasn't Japan or California, it wasn't a place where earthquakes happened. And not just an earthquake, but one of the biggest to ever hit, with readings from different parts of the world ranging between 9.1 to 9.6 on the Richter scale. The devastation caused a death toll in the thousands, with more buried in the rubble.

But the aftermath was even worse. In normal cases, the dangers of the earthquake would have been followed by aftershocks, possibly looting and violence as resources were fought over.

Instead, monsters appeared in the street, men in strange clothes with advanced weapons attacked people, and wild animals from prehistory or science fiction attacked in droves. Brazilian soldiers and Rio police fought back, emergency services rushing to aid people. Even gangsters and criminals helped. Rio became a warzone and a disaster all at once.

Then BRIDGE came down from the sky. The Enterprisewas first, the enhanced ship arriving ahead of any other. The enormous vessel floated over the bay of Rio, turning to aim its guns at the beach. As it did, Quinjets flew from the ship like bees leaving a hive, flying down towards the beach. The jets landed in a spray of water and sand, their hatches opening. That was when the blurs began.

The second the Quinjet landed I was ready. The back door hit the sand, my palm pushed down on the Omnitrix, and I rushed forward in Fasttrack form, ignoring the people behind me..

I had a single task. Clean the beach. Hostiles, debris, civilians that needed help, they all had a location. For just one moment, my feet touched the beach. Then I was running. As I did, Quicksilver came out of the Quinjet next to mine. Together we briefly surveyed the beach. Then we began.

We had maps drilled into our head, and each had a task. As Fasttrack, I had some advantages and disadvantages Pietro didn't. For one, I was stronger than he was, comparable to bodybuilders in muscle. But I couldn't quite stop and turn on a dime as easily as he could. Pietro also was faster than I was in getting to his top speed, while I needed a bit of build up, and he had more finesse over all.

So we each had our tasks, and we got to them. In seconds, I grabbed sections of building that had fallen on the beach and ran them to the sides, creating makeshift barriers along the beach. Pietro grabbed civilians and moved them out of the way or brought them to where the tents would be made. People were just taking foot out of the Quinjets when we'd finished that.

I ran back into a Quinjet and bit back a curse when I bounced off a wall of the jet at my speed, then ignored that in favor of grabbing a pair of bags. Rushing out, I tossed them to Pietro. The speedster grabbed them out of the air and opened them up, revealing tent poles and white tarp. Rushing around, he quickly set up the tent until the glowing red symbol of a cross appeared. I rushed in and set up beds as fast as I could while he made another tent. More and more people slowly joined us, while the two of us worked at high speed to get everything together.

In slow motion, the heavy hitters landed on the beach. Davida, Marion, Hulk, Thor, Helen, Jen, and Creel. The muscular heroes cleared the rubble I hadn't been able to, and started setting up barriers, grabbing the metal ones we'd brought on the Quinjets and stabbing the ground..

Far off, I could see the Iliad come in to join us from the sea, while a normal helicarrier moved to join the Enterprise.

And Pietro and I continued to run.

Wanda and Mimi came out of their jets. The Songbird took to the skies in a flutter of pink wings and let out an aria, her beautiful voice filling the air as pink constructs flowed out from her, adding to the barriers to further defend the beach. Wanda waved her hands, red energy flowing out from her before touching upon the civilians. The once panicking people calmed in an instant, allowing BRIDGE soldiers to guide them to safety.

Frank Castle, Steve Rogers, Davida, and Sam Wilson joined the BRIDGE soldiers, shouting as they guided the defense and rescue teams. Iron Man flew in with four Iron Legion drones joining him, Tony wearing his new red and silver Excalibur suit. With a wave of his hand, Iron Man seemed to summon dozens of metal constructs that fell from the sky. Catoms flowed, the metal constructs becoming large walls and towers. Castle roared, and his men took to the towers, moving up to take gunners positions.

Rio police and Brazilian soldiers coordinated with us, moving the civilians in.

And the fighting followed them.

Even when I'd been told, I was still surprised when I found myself moving at high speed to help a group of five running towards the barriers, trying to leave Rio and reach the safety of the beach.

They were running away from a bear. Like, a legit, American grizzly.

I didn't have time to think about the ridiculousness of a grizzly bear in the middle of Rio De Janeiro. I moved around the screaming civilians and reeled back to punch the bear in the face. The bear, who had been running full tilt, slammed into my fist and was sent to the ground.

I ignored the bear to quickly grab two of the civilians and run to the beach, then back once more for the other three. By the time I'd finished, the gunners in the tower had poured a few ICER bullets into the grizzly, knocking it out.

"Have we figured out why the hell bears are showing up in Rio!?" I asked as soon as I came to a stop.

"We're still working on that, Dial," Falcon said back over my headset. "Bill and Fitz are doing some research. Our only job is to help people. Focus on that and let the scientists do their thing. The beach head has been created. Get ready for stage two."

"Okay, let me just run around and grab some more people from the-"

"Dial," Falcon cut me off. "I know you want to help more people. But running around randomly is going to waste time and your Omnitrix energy. Come back, let the Omnitrix recharge, let Fitz send out the searchers, then we move out."

I stopped, my lightning fast brain working. Damn it. He was right... I me

"...Fine, I'm coming back."

In a burst, I ran back to my position. Still. None of this would have been a problem if I had unlocked the Master Control...

Bruce Banner/Hulk

Hulk picked up a section of stone that had once been the floor of a skyscraper and spun to toss it into the ocean. Nodding slightly in satisfaction as the multi-ton rock skipped across the ocean, he looked around.

Marian was nearby, moving a concrete divider on top of some other ones to make the wall around the beach taller. She place it gently, then turned to look at Hulk, giving him a nod. Hulk felt himself smiling. The large man looked around.

"Hulk!" someone called out from a nearby command tent. When he turned, Jemma Simmons was standing there, looking at Hulk without fear.

"We need Doctor Banner for just a moment! Can we speak with him?"

Hulk stopped, his face twisting. He opened his mouth, closed it, then sighed a heavy earth shaking sigh.

"Hulk... Hulk get Banner."

Marion frowned, walking up to look at her fellow giant. Jemma smiled and walked back into her tent. Marion didn't say anything while Hulk growled in irritation. He shufled his feet, shrugged, then sighed in annoyance.

Slowly, he started to shrink inward, his purple armor flowing to form around him. Marion blinked as she watched the titanic being become a small, if physically fit, man. When he finished, he looked over at Marion. He frowned slightly. "I um, suppose we haven't met yet. I'm Bruce Banner."

Marion nodded, still giving him an odd look. Bruce shuffled his feet, then turned and walked away very quickly, leaving Marion to stare after him with an unreadable look on her face.

When he entered the tent, Bruce walked up to those surrounded a holotable. Bill Foster, Fitz-Simmons, and some BRIDGE scientists Bruce didn't recognize surrounded it. Jemma gave him a smile, then gestured to the table. "Come look at this! AIM sent us something interesting."

Bruce blinked. "AIM? I thought they were shut down."

"They were," Bill said, the pudgy older man crossing his arms. "But recently they've made a few waves. Apparently their scientists have made some big breathroughs in the study of dimensional physics and nanotechnology, using the research from the Extremis."

"Good idea, using technology that blew people up," Fitz said, rolling his eyes. "But they sent some equations, and now one of their scientists says they may have an explanation. We wanted you to look it-"

The holotable blinked. Bruce scowled, eyes flashing green, as Monica Rappaccini appeared on the screen, looking as regal as he remembered. She looked around, almost sneering.

"So, these are BRIDGE..." she flipped her hair. "No wonder you need AIM's help."

"Monica," Bruce said, crossing his arms and shoving forward to face her.

She looked at him, then smiled. "Oh... Bruce. How are you?"

"Better," he narrowed his eyes. "Still stealing ideas from your boyfriends?"

Jemma gasped in the background while Monica chuckled. "Bruce, are you still making those accusations? It's beneath you to be so petty just because we had similar ideas."

Bruce leaned down, eyeing the holographic image of Monica. Within him, he felt a green monster press. For just a moment, Bruce worried that he was about to transform. Instead, Hulk simply pressed against him. It took a moment for Bruce to realize the green monster was simply watching, a wall to lean on. Strength to be used.

"You stole my thesis. I don't care if that holds up in court. I know it. You know it."

Monica scoffed. She flipped her hair once more. "Well, if you're done with this foolishness, we do have work to do. AIM has some ideas on the terrible tragedy that recently struck Rio. On studying the energy signatures that were resonating at the time of the earthquake, we realized they were... well, see for yourself."

She nodded to someone off-screen. A series of equations were sent over, popping up on the holotable. Bruce looked over them. They were... brilliant. Insanely so. Incomplete in odd ways, but it was easy enough for Bruce to put everything in place...

"Who did this equation?" Bruce asked at last.

"I did," Monica's eyes drifted slightly down and to the left as she spoke, before eyeing Bruce.

He chuckled. "You did... interesting, how a biochemist with no real ideas of her, can somehow come up with an explanation to a question on astro and quantum physics."

Monica bristled, then calmed. "Think what you want, Bruce. I've changed. Learned things you can barely understand."

Bruce put his arms behind his back, feeling compelled to by the beast within."Please, don't try to compete with me on who has changed these last few years. Because if you think, for one second, I really believe you came up with this on your own... well, it won't take much to prove otherwise."

Her face froze, for just a second, before becoming imperious once more. Too late. Bruce had seen it, and he simply turned around, dismissing the connection with an admittedly jerky wave. He turned to the others. "Bill-"

"I got it," he said, looking over the equation that Monica had sent. "I'll have this finished up so we can get to work on tracking where all of these anomalies... well, at least to finding someway of tracking where they came from, or if we can stop them from happening again."

Bruce nodded, thinking furiously. Monica... she'd always been the type to show off, to try and stand out. AIM had been on the knifes edge of being taken apart. Now they were not only back on track but also somehow thriving. This sudden gift, flashily giving a majestic equation out of thin air, screamed of Monica's style.

As Bruce thought to himself, Jemma bit her lip, then turned to look at Fitz, who simply sighed.

Bob of BRIDGE

At one of the gates, a tower had been set up to defend the makeshift base created on the beach. One of several, Bob the BRIDGE agent stood within it watching as people poured. News was still spreading about BRIDGE's arrival had spread. Even now, behind Bob, food, water, medical aid, and shelter was being passed out.

Bob was bored. Despite all the tension, all he was doing was holding a gun and watching a destroyed city. Sad, but really damn boring. Nothing but gray rocks and dust. He didn't even get to wear the cool armor the BRIDGE Elites got, just some standard stuff SHIELD already had.

He sighed, annoyed, still watching. He brought up his gun slightly and stepped over to the left, then shifted to his right, grunting. He watched as a group of five people came running toward the gate near his tower. He didn't really register the odd brown clothes they were wearing, like something out of an old fantasy film.

Bob only found himself surprised when the knight in dull armor riding a horse came around the corner.

He stared, uncomprehending, as the knight rushed toward the people on a horse that looked like it had seen better days. Hell, the knight looked dusty as hell to boot, with dented armor. He only raised his gun when he heard the knight shouting something in German. He aimed his gun at the knight, hesitating for the briefest second. The armor was crap, but it was still armor. So...

He flicked off from ICER to normal bullets. Then he unleashed hell.

Bob missed his first few bullets, the bouncing of the knight making it tough to draw a bead on him. Bob's next bullets slammed into the knight when the man stopped, as though surprised by the loud sound of the gunfire. He only got the guy in the arm though, so as he fell to the ground with a scream, Bob waited until the knight was dragging himself away.

Then he shot the knight in the head with cold ease.

"Hey command," Bob said, ignoring the civvies rushing into the camp. "We got knights in shining armor. And no, I ain't kidding."

Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

I stood in a tent in my armor, sans helmet, going over my gear while waiting to be assigned. Creel was off on his own, while Ghost hadn't told me where she was going, leaving me alone with Wanda. It was sort of awkward, just waiting with her. She'd surprised me in a lot of ways. For one, she wasn't as... regal, as I'd expected. She carried herself like my aunt actually. My aunt had been living in Afghanistan for most of her life, had seen war and strife every day before she came to live in America. Wanda looked around the way she did, eyes panning, hands moments from rising up. She was leaning against a table, watching silently as I worked on my gun.

"So um," I said hesitantly. "How've you been?"

"Hm? Oh um... I've been good... How are you?" Wanda said awkwardly.

"Good. I've been..." I chuckled suddenly. "Oh man. Two superheroes and we can't even have a conversation."

Wanda looked surprised, then chuckled. "I suppose I'm not very good at making conversation with people. I've been working on it."

"You're fine," I admitted. "It's just a bit tense."

We both looked out of the tent. Outside, we could see the refugees pouring in. People covered in wounds, faces soaked in dust and blood. One woman was staring aimlessly out toward the ocean when she noticed us. She looked into my eyes. I looked at Wanda. She didn't seem surprised.

"We need to help them," I said quietly, putting my Model 2 together and slapping it to my back.

"Yes," her voice seemed to echo in the tent.

One of the tent flaps moved aside, and a Jade Giantess strode in, crouching slightly in the cramped confines of the tent. "Geese, can't they make these Hulk-sized?" Jen grumbled.

"Not enough Hulk's yet," I said, walking over to her. "Sup, Jen?"

"Some of the people they're rescuing aren't Brazilian," Jen seemed perturbed. She gestured outside.

When Wanda and I looked, we both realized she was right. And not in a tourist way. There was a small family dressed in medieval peasant garb, all speaking in German with tearful eyes and fear as they looked around at the Quinjets flying in and out. One man in clothes out of Star Trek was now helping the medical team, desperately working to heal people despite his own clear confusion.

"There are a few people they found on missing persons reports going back decades," Jen mumbled. "But some of them are from way beyond that."

"Time travel?" I asked, stunned. "What the hell is going on?"

This had never happened in the comics, as far as I knew. Time travel did, but not a... time quake, I guess it might be called.

"Yeah, it's weird," Jen tapped my shoulder. "Hey, be careful Mahmoud. You're a tiny guy when you aren't in fight mode."

"You're eight feet tall, Shaquille O'Neal is tiny compared to you," I grumbled. She smirked. But only for a moment. She sighed.

"Seriously, just be careful. Whatever is happening is just so freaky. Don't get dropped into another century or something."

Knowing my luck, that would be the moment I would unlock Clockwork. Still, couldn't really say that, so instead I nodded. She frowned, but when I was about to add to that, Sam came in.

"We're going," he said briskly, though he managed a smile. "Fitz sent out the drones, so they'll be marking anyone they come across, but we're the main search teams. Dial, Wanda."

"Right," Wanda and I strode towards the tent flap. As we exited, leaving Jen behind, I was thinking furiously.

Time travel. Who could do time travel in Mar- Crap. That's a big ass list in my head. Kang, Reed, Doom, Modok. Time travel was so common as a sci-fi feature that EVERYONE had encountered it, even the mystical heroes like Doc Strange and Blade.

But this was a question of scale, I thought to myself as Wanda and I walked past a group of refugees being wheeled onto a Quinjet. Who had the POWER to do this?

For just one moment, a purple faced death lover popped into mind. I dismissed him.

Tony and I had already discussed Thanos, come up with some designs for armor to take him. But this wasn't him. It was too random, if that made sense, or maybe the better word was Unfocused. Just Rio, instead of half the planet. And if he had the gauntlet and was collecting the stones, why do anything to Rio.

Still had to work on finding the damn things, but at least this wasn't him.

"Hey," Wanda pulled at my arm. I looked up, realizing I'd been so deep in thought I'd almost walked past Creel and Ava. Ava scowled at me, but gave me a nod, while Creel grinned.

We turned towards the city beyond, and the four of us began to walk out there while I tapped the Omnitrix. Orange fur rippled over my body, and I went from biped to quadreped with a snarl, taking a deep whiff of the air. Above, I could hear the familiar whines of Iron Man, War Machine, and Falcon taking flight, along with the unusual ozone smell of Thor's flight. With a snarl, I ran forward.

"How the hell is he supposed to talk to us like this!?" Ghost asked. To my senses she was a red and blue blur following me, while Creel was a more 'normal' red. Wanda was strangely yellow to my radar sense. Granted, I wasn't really 'seeing' them, but it worked.

"Just follow him, he'll bark if he sense anyone, and we save them," Creel said steadily. "Doesn't take language to say 'people' are here."

"Like Lassie," Wanda said sagely.

I guided them down a street, stopping when I smelled something. Humans and coffee. I listened. Not a lot of noise, but someone was weeping. It saved their lives.

Barking, I led them to some rubble. Ghost dived in, phasing through concrete. I could here her speaking Spanish later, getting a response from a panicked man, and she popped her head out. "Five people, two dead."

"How steady is the rubble?" Creel asked softly.

"Not a lot," Ghost looked over at Wanda, as did Creel.

Wanda spoke, though I couldn't see what her expression looked like. "...Okay, if Creel and Dial can take some off while I lift it and you guide me, Ava, I can pick it up."

"Then let's get started," Creel grabbed a rock, his form in my radar becoming exactly like the concrete around us. "These are just the first."

I grabbed a block, lifted it, and tossed it aside, starting the rescue.

We dug down, Ghost telling us to stop or continue where the rubble was steadiest. Creel and I tossed the stones while Wanda surrounded them in big red bubbles, bringing them up in bunches. In a couple minutes, we found our people, a young man with an elderly guy and teenage girl buried with two dead... fuck.

I couldn't even recognize them. I sighed, a low growly sound, as Ghost spoke to the group in Portuguese. Despite my Wildmutt form, the Omnitrix still translated for me.

Head that way, Ghost said as gently as she could. There's help.

- baby! the woman screamed, wailing. My daughter! Help her please!

She was pulling on one of the bodies. We shared a look. She seemed to realize what it meant instantly, a piercing cry with inhuman power coming from her throat as she clutched at her dead daughter, pulling her close. The young and elderly men started to wail as well.

We had to leave them.

But it happened several times after. More and more sons, daughters, fathers, people in need of help. Kids. Digging through to save people.

Fitz's drones helped. Little golden lights, they flew around the city, tracking down people. But, they weren't super advanced. They knew alive and dead, but they didn't know how to perform triage, to figure out who was in need of the most help. So at times we'd dig someone out with minor scratches, then someone with more grievous wounds who had died while we tried to save them. It was...

I mean, sometimes we got everyone. But after three hours, I was becoming numb to the bodies we found. I found myself ashamed at the thought, but I was also getting annoyed at how disgusting they were, covered in blood and their own... waste. It was a thought I admonished myself for. At some point it almost became sickeningly routine. I'd track someone living, Ghost dove in, Creel, Wanda, and I would dig them out, we'd send them to the beach, then we'd move on. Stone of gray and red colors, metal, glass, sometimes someones table or dresser, constantly lifting and moving the weight out of the way.

It was rewarding, saving people. Reaching a claw down to pull a child out of the rubble and see them join their family with happy cries. The looks on their faces as EMT's revived people, Wanda smiling joyously.

But the pain when someone realized their loved one was gone, the feel of blood on my claws from someone I couldn't save, Ghost wiping filth off her outfit from where she'd had to pull a corpse out of the way.

I'm not sure it's possible to describe the horror and joy in rescuing people.

The brave ones made it worth it. There was a group we digged out of a bar. When the building fell, it had left everyone trapped, the ceiling about to fall. Left with nothing but death coming, the bartender had done the insane.

He'd caught it, capturing a roof on his shoulders in the middle of an earthquake. And so did three others.

With our flight, setting up base, then actually traveling out to find them, it took us five hours to get there. They held it for twenty minutes. Then they switched. Five hours where the Brazilian men and women inside that bar had switched off holding the ceiling, desperately straining with impossible weight. They had held until we got there, keeping each other alive. Incredible.

Just one story among many.

And still, we kept digging. Over and over, until my paws were getting rubbed raw, only my tough fur and skin keeping me from getting cut by glass or sharp metal.

Finally the Omnitrix began to beep. I tossed aside a cinder block I'd been holding and growled low in my throat before the watch timed out, leaving me in human form.

"I need a break," I said to the others.

"Same," Wanda said throatily. She hadn't done any physical stuff, but her powers had been in use all day. Ghost was similarly exhausted. I couldn't see her face since, you know, mask, but she looked more flickery than usual. Creel just sat down on a metal beam and shifted to human form. I sat next to him, the two of us sharing a look of exhaustion.

All the ones we'd saved. And the ones we hadn't. So much more to do as well.

What had done all of this?

Up in the sky, Fitz's gold drones flew past. One came down to us, scanned us briefly, then moved on, presumably realizing we were BRIDGE.

With a blue sky above, we rested for just one moment.

X

X the AI flew in from the sky, piloting two drones. Jarvis, his friend and ally, joined him with two of his own.

The two AI had been practicing together for sometime, the older guiding the younger in how to use the Iron Legion drones. It was tougher than it seemed, constantly controlling every aspect of the robots, but X found himself enjoying it.

X and Jarvis flew down towards a figure similar in shape to themselves, if more ornate and colored red and silver rather than the white and blue of themselves. As they joined the figure, yet another flew up to join him, then another and another. Soon, they surrounded the floating figure.

"Skye, Rhodey, Sam," Iron Man said, greeting three of the figures. His armor was the latest model, the first to date to take full advantage of caton technology and the various advancements Tony and Mahmoud had begun to create. He turned to look at the four figures of X and Jarvis, then cocked his head, face hidden by a silver mask. "I uh... which of you is which."

"I am X," two of the robots he was piloting said, the lights on him glowing blue.

"And I'm Jarvis, sir," the other drones glowed orange as they spoke.

"That is so cool and freaky," Skye opened her facemask as though to take a better look. Her suit had gone through some changes, now colored a dark silver with some red highlights. She floated slightly unsteadily, not as graceful as the others. X found that interesting actually. While the suits were based of the same design, all of them were floating very differently, as though their personalities informed their use of the suit. Skye raised a hand and hologram floated out of the emitter in her palm. "Okay, I have all the info I could get. Fitz's babies are working with them, but I thought we should all have it too."

"Where did you get all this, anyway?" Tony asked curiously.

"I've been hacking every phone and camera that was on in the city during the earthquake," Skye answered easily. "I'm using it to-"

"Wait," Sam said as he floated next to Rhodey. "You hacked a cities worth of phones and cameras?"

Skye shrugged. "Well, I've got alien and Stark tech helping me. Not exactly running on my laptop anymore."

Rhodey let out a heavy sigh. "Just... don't do it again please, except in cases like this."

Information flooded into their systems, X comparing the footage and signals from cell phones with lightning speed to begin tracking people.

"Skye, nice work," Tony said simply. "Also, Jarvis is still going to make sure to delete my internet history, so don't even try. Head out guys. We got lives to save."

Everyone nodded, all humor gone. In an instant, all of them spun off to their sectors. X guided each of his drones to one location each and started scanning for life signs immediately.

Frank Castle/Punisher

As one of the teams involved in the rescue effort, Frank was following the instructions given to him over the radio to find everyone. As of then, he was investigating the destruction of one of the drones being used to coordinate the effort. The last image it had seen had apparently been a poster from one of those fantasy games, some big red guy waving a sword, so it was his job to find out what happened.

He walked with a group of five, the soldiers moving through the city at a quick pace, not quite running.

They're just moved over a tall set of rocks when a woman came screaming around the corner. Dark skinned and wearing half-ripped clothing, she almost got shot in the heart for running towards them.

Frank watched as she ran towards one of the men, screaming out in Portuguese.

"What's she saying," he asked one of his guys, a young soldier by the name of Sam Lee, his teams translator.

The young BRIDGE officer frowned. "Something about... demons? Attacking people and..." he hesitated. "Sacrificing them."

Frank scowled. "This job is so fucking weird. Let's go! Sam, take her to the beach, the rest of you, on me!"

The barking orders were immediately followed, Sam guiding her away as the others went towards the section the woman had come from. The same section where the drone had fallen.

Frank took a corner into a street, ducking behind rubble and eyeing the section from his cover.

That was when he realized the drone hadn't taken an image from a poster. It had taken a photo of it's attacker. Or one of them.

Giant monsters like misshapen humans, eight of them, roamed the street, dragging crying people around. They spoke to each other in a guttural language Frank didn't recognize. He activated the remote imagine from his HUD. "Command, you seeing this?"

It was quiet for a moment before a BRIDGE officer responded. "Punisher, are those... demons?"

"Apparently," Frank responded, looking at his HUD to confirm their size. The smallest of them was listed as seven feet. Their skin was varying hues of red, and despite their height, they all stood almost stooped over. They wore leather loinclothes and little else, and carried massive swords, axes, and clubs that looked they had been made by the worlds worst blacksmiths, with scratched and dull edges. Still covered in blood however. "Aren't I supposed to be asking that?"

"Our knowledge base isn't pulling anything up on them," the woman on the other end answered. "But they're attacking civilians. Should we send the Avengers to assist?"

"Anyone you can send will help," Punisher replied, lifting his rifle and flicking a switch on the side. In an instant, it went from semi to auto. He flicked another switch, changing it from a rifle to a shotgun. His armor shifted, shoulders becoming more protected, sections on his back and arms reinforced to take recoil better. "But right now," Frank said softly as he watched one of the red beings pull a man from under a rock, laughing as he raised a sword. Frank indicated him on his HUD, hightlighting him for his team as well. "We need to fight. Rodriguez, that one."

"On it," the woman on his team raised her rifle and fired on the demon. Her first bullet slammed into the things arm, forcing it to scream and back away. Frank was surprised to realize the bullet wasn't producing a lot of blood, as though the demon had skin too tough to pierce through. Probably wasn't 'divine' enough to really cause damage.

But then, Frank hadn't been the type to put a lot of faith in religion. Rodriguez apparently wasn't either, because she started pouring bullets into the demon, ignoring the others spinning around with loud roars as they heard the sound of gunfire. The rest of Frank's team rose out of cover to join her, Frank pouring automatic shotgun fire into his demon, one with a shaved head and ponytail. The thing roared again when Frank's bullets slammed into it's chest... and did nothing but make the thing pissed.

Seriously, nothing on Earth should ever treat the massive shotgun bullets he was pouring into the thing like annoying pinpricks.

"Fuck!" Frank rose to his feet when the creature began to rush toward him, shouting.

A blue bolt of fire flew past him, sending one of the demons flying. "Woot! I love this gun!" one of the men, probably the one who had fired the repulsor shot, shouted.

Frank didn't have enough time to check on the soldier who'd fired. His opponent was closing in. Cursing, Frank snapped a hand up to block the sword slashing toward him. The giant sword bounced off his forearm armor. Frank scowled at the sudden pain at the heavy impact of the sword, but he raised his gun in his other hand and stabbed it into the creatures abdomen, barrel digging into a hole created by his previous shots. Frank flipped another switch on his weapon, his arms quaking. The creature roared in his face, spittle landing on his helmet.

Frank's gun sprouted a bayonet, blade slicing deep into the monster. The damned thing raised another arm and punched Frank in the face, his HUD sending warnings to him. Frank pulled the trigger again. Point-blank, auto-shotgun fire poured into the demon. It screamed, this time in pain. Frank ignored the fact his HUD had been cracked by the monsters punch, the blood from a cut above his eye, instead pulling his bayonet out and stabbing it deeper again.

"RAAAGGHHH!" Frank let out an inhuman sound, one that dwarfed the monsters earlier roars, as he forced it to the ground. The monster had enough time to look up at him in shock and horror. Then Frank raised his gun high and stabbed it in the mouth. The monster gurgled, still alive. So Frank pulled the trigger again.

By the time he ran out of bullets, the monster had lost the skin on it's face, it's tough bones left with deep scratches.

Frank looked up. One of the demons had been killed by Rodriguez, while the one sent flying by a repulsor shot was getting up. That left five. Who were staring at him in horror. Then they seemed to rally, roaring in rage. Frank pulled his gun out of the corpse and aimed it at the bunch, shooting one carrying an ax in the face. The thing screeched, but seemed to ignore the bullets and blood, rushing him.

Out of the sky, an armored figure landed on top of one of the demons. "I am here to render assistance," the robotic figure said, wrestling with the demon. The robot and demon spun around each other, demon roaring, robot glowing blue. The demon ripped off an arm. The robot responded with a repulsor shot to the face that sent the demon to the ground. It fired again, slicing deep into the demon. Frank and his team joined in, shooting the hell out of those left.

One demon managed to ignore the bullets long enough to leap onto one of Frank's team, axe first. It died, but not without slashing down with a massive blow, axe digging deep into the soldiers chest. He didn't even have time to scream as he died.

Frank scowled when it was over, staring at his dead soldier. He'd never gotten the man's full name. James something. Then he looked around. "What the fuck were these things?"

The one armed robot came over. "I believe those were some form extradimensional being. We may need to speak with Thor to see if he knows what exactly they are."

Asking a God of Thunder if he knew what demons were... Fuck.

Frank scoffed with a bit of anger and frustration. "Okay. If there are more of these things, we need to know how to kill them a hell of a lot faster," he looked at his dead soldier, then leaned down. As the others watched, soldiers and robot, Frank lifted the man into his arms, ignoring the blood pouring across the white skull on his chest as he carried the soldier away. He breathed deeply, the scent of blood and gunpowder in his nose, and very deliberately stepped on one of the demons chest, boot digging deep into the skin. Under his cracked helmet, his eye stared out with dark intensity.