The closer Ethan got to the destruction, the more he could see and hear what was happening at S.T.A.R labs. He could hear someone roaring in the building followed by loud thuds and another explosion that shook the ground.
In the back of his mind, Ethan thought of something like this happening in D.C comics, but he wasn't too sure as his memory was a bit fuzzy when it came to knowing comic history. However, it was strange that Superman was nowhere to be found when this was happening which meant he was probably preoccupied with something else.
"Can you take me to where the energy is coming from?" Ethan asked Raven as he landed in front of the burning research building. The fire and smoke were already at levels where normal people would have trouble breathing, but there was definitely movement inside.
Raven landed next to Ethan and closed her eyes while using her mystical powers to sense the location of the energy, "It's definitely on the move...and growing stronger."
"That means good for me right?" Ethan grinned as he charged into the burning building to look for the source. The place was a complete mess inside and almost immediately he could hear voices of people shouting deeper inside the lab.
'Should I save them as well..? I'm not completely heartless yet am I?' He thought, running through the flames without care which was a perk of being part dragon. Soon he'd spotted someone in some kind of containment suit under burning rubble.
"Someone please help!" The man shouted whilst struggling to move, but he was pretty much stuck. He was about to lose hope, however, he'd spot a shadow at the corner of his eye. "W-who are you?" He stammered out.
"I'm just a guy who's trying to profit." Ethan bluntly answered. He had his hood over his face so the man couldn't see who he was talking to, but it didn't quite matter as his life was in danger.
"Please h-"
He couldn't even finish his sentence before Ethan simply tossed the burning rubble aside like a mere rock and lifted the man over his shoulders.
"Who else is in here?" Ethan asked, dashing out of the burning building back to where Raven was standing to let the man down.
"W-we were doing an interview for the newspaper so we gave a lot of the staff a day off...Professor.Faulkner, Dr.Moyers...and Louis Lane are down there still..." The man said just before his face becomes one of terror. "You gotta get them out of there! The place could go nuclear anything minute now!"
"Raven? You afraid of a bit of fire and the threat of death?" Ethan asked, gazing at the cloaked woman as she started to float in the air.
"One can not escape from death....so why must I be afraid?" Raven coolly said before flying inside of the burning building to search for the missing people.
Ethan's eyes flashed with red light as he grinned before dashing back inside at this fastest speed leaving the man on the ground stunned.
"Are they new heroes?" The man thought out loud.
>>>>><<<<
The inside of the building was worsening by the minute, and hearing the loud warning noises wasn't helping the situation either, but still Ethan and Raven searched for the missing people. The two had split up not too long ago once they were inside.
Raven's breathing and vision took a dive with all the smoke in the air, but soon she'd come across an unconscious woman that had blood dripping down their forehead and a slight crack in the helmet of their containment suit. 'They must have had a concussion caused by the force of an explosion. ' She thought.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos!" Raven breathed using her control over the shadows to form hands that brushed off the burning rubble on top of her before gently lifting her off the ground. It's not good for someone to be unconscious with a concussion for long and so Raven made the decision to fly her to a nearby hospital after teleporting outside.
The situation was quite scary seeing someone just fly in with an inured person, but the hospital staff quickly went into action when they saw the injured woman.
After dropping the woman off, Raven would fly back to the place where Ethan had finally found the other guy whose situation wasn't that much better than the others, and in fact, it was probably worse as he was running away from a giant orange woman with torn clothes on her.
Ethan knew immediately who the person was after seeing her form as the color of their skin and red mohawk were pretty iconic if you were an avid reader or watcher of the D.C universe.
it was Rampage!
A genius professor turned genetically enhanced raging machine due to radiation!
The origin story had definitely been done before by someone in another universe, but the one thing that was different is the fact that the accident was done on purpose by a man who tried to sabotage her during their interview with Lois Lane.
Yes, that thing was a full-blown woman now outfitted with monstrous height increase and muscle growth that would scare men into hiding.
"Stop! Leave me alone!!! I'm sorry Lois!" The older man with a full-grown beard said, putting his hands up in front of his face as he had run out of places to hide from the behemoth of a lady.
"RAAAAGGH!!!" Rampage roared towards the air causing a small tremor before locking her eyes on the man that caused her glorious project to malfunction. 'It's all his fault! KILL KILL KILL!!' She gritted her teeth in anger, raising her right fist to smash the man into smithereens.
"Nooo!"
*BOOM!*
The man had closed his eyes preparing himself to feel massive amounts of pain as he saw this lady throw equipment several times his weight across the floor like they were playthings. However, instead of feeling anything he instead heard a noise of something solid colliding with another.
"Huh?..." He opened his eyes to see a hooded man holding the monster's fist in front of his face and if he was a second slower than that fist would have destroyed his face.
"I hate to break it to ya, but this isn't Lois Lane...it's Karen...Karen Faulker!" Ethan shouted, forcing the woman back with his strength.
"Rrraaah!!" Rampage lost her balance being pushed back by Ethan and fell on her back with a loud thud.
"And I should just let you die for causing this mess." Ethan glared at the man as the intensity of his glowing red eyes surged for a moment. 'This energy...'
"N-No! You can't! Please save me! I'll give you anything you want!"
"MOYERS!!!" Rampage roared, leaping back to her feet and charging towards Ethan. Each step she took caused the ground the shake as she prepared to knock Ethan out with a simple punch. Although it was simple, one from this enhanced science experiment was nothing but, and if it hit a normal person then everything it touched would break under the tremendous force.
*BOOM!* Ethan blocked it again, but this time Rampage didn't let up and sent another punch towards his face.
"RRRAAAH!! GET OUT OF MY WAY!!!" The crazed professor shouted.
Unfortunately, the fist didn't connect as Ethan summoned his strength once more and tossed her to the side again, throwing her into a wall.
*Crash!* The wall was obliterated by the force and covered Rampage in heavy amounts of burning rock.
"Let's go. I hope you remember what you said." Ethan grabbed the man and dashing out of the fastly collapsing building with him over his shoulder. It only took less than a minute to reach outside where everyone else was standing by as the firefighters and police started to show up.
"This place is about to explode! We need to get out of here!" Dr.Moyers shouted as he hopped out of Ethan's arms and started to run towards the response team. In the back of his mind, he thought that he'll get away without owing the hooded man anything, but he didn't know that there was nowhere he can hide as he already informed the others about him as they parked not too far away.
He won't be getting away.
As to why Ethan wants something from him? Although the man was a minor character he had his hands in a few dangerous experiments, but perhaps he could have a use in the future.
"So, Raven where is the source of energy now?" He asked as the half-demon as she floated to his side.
"It's on the move towards us.." She answered after using her powers again.
"That's what I thought.."Ethan smiled as the ground started to shake underneath them.
"RAAAAAAAAAAGGGH MOOOYEEEEERS!!!"
"What the hell was that?!" The man they saved earlier shouted as he was being looked over by the emergency response people.
During his short confrontation with Rampage, he could feel his blood beginning to boil as his fighting instinct started to kick in. Rampage had the strength to match with Superman and she was only growing stronger being close in the radiation.
Ethan gripped his fist tightly, cracking his knuckles as his smile shifted into a toothy grin that showed his growing canines. If one were to look closely at his hands then they would see that they were red as if they smashed by something heavy.
How strong would she be?
Could he overcome her?
His eyes flashed with red with ferocious light thinking about such things as he charged back inside to battle with the woman forgoing the undeniable fact that the place was going to experience an explosion far worse than the ones earlier.
"Ethan! What are you doing?!" Raven shouted, flying after him. She wasn't afraid of death but seeing someone stupidly going back inside for no reason rubbed her the wrong way. And she happened to see his facial expression which was similar to hers when she lets her demon half in control.
Ethan quickly found Rampage and slammed into her like a semi-truck, knocking the enranged woman over, destroying everything in her path. One wouldn't be able to get up after such a hit, but she got up to spit out blood and charged at him with her fist raised as if nothing happened.
*BOOM!* "Hahaha!!" Ethan laughed catching Rampage's fist that tried to go for his head, causing the ground underneath him to crack from him digging his heels in. His hood had already fallen back during their battle, showing a face full of excitement and ferocity belonging to that of a beast.
"Fight harder!!" He roared, tightening his grip on the orange monster's hand and lifting her up into the air only to slam her back down, creating a sizable crater with her body.
Rampage felt pain all over her body, but even so, she could also feel strength coursing through her veins as her mind becomes numb to all the warning signs. Her body would grow in height and body mass as she shot back up from the ground like a rocket, tackling Ethan through a wall.
*CRASH! BOOM!* The wall stood no chance under her strength.
("Stop playing around and do what you need to do boy!") Tydris shouted in his mind. The dragon had been silent for quite some time as he wanted to see the actions of his successor.
And he was greatly upset.
But how could he blame him completely?
The dragon knew what the boy's dragon half does to his brain, and he is one that advocates following instincts. However, with the state of Ethan's psyche, his instincts overpower his mind causing him to do things he normally wouldn't do.
"RAAAAAAAH!!" Ethan couldn't even hear Tydris as his body started to feel as if it was on fire, and that fire needed somewhere to go. After being tackled to the ground by Rampage, he would kick her off before slamming her into the ground, creating another crater with hairline cracks all around.
("ETHAN LISTEN TO ME! YOU NEED TO STOP!")
Tydris speculated that Ethan's instincts would become worse as days press on. Ethan would need to reach at least the 4th stage to get a reign in his instincts.
Pamela and Harley had tried to contact him mentally, but this entire time he had them tuned out as he threw down with the modified human.
"Azarath Metrion ZINTHOS!" Raven had enough of Ethan's behavior and used her powers to tie him up with tentacles made out of dark energy. 'What is going on-' Her thoughts halted as she immediately knew why the current Ethan was unresponsive to her calls.
It was the energy he was absorbing!
She could sense it moving through the air and disappearing into Ethan's body
'But why is it affecting him so much?!'
"DON'T GET IN THE WAY OF MY FIGHT!!" Ethan roared causing everyone in the vicinity to hear and wince from pain as they tried to cover their ears. He started to absorb the radiation through Rampage at their first confrontation and that was the start of the mistake. Dragons were able to absorb nearly any kind of energy, but some are more dangerous than others and if they are not treated correctly then get ready for a terrible time.
All Ethan could feel right now was pain, power, and the thought of completely obliterating the foe in front of him. Soon his body began to change under these circumstances as his skin started to turn golden before patches of diamond-like scales took its place.
The change didn't stop there as even his hair started to turn golden as his nails turned into claws belonging to a dragon.
>>>><<<<
"I'm going in!" Harley couldn't stay back any longer after hearing such noise and hopped out of the driver's seat of the RV while grabbing her bat.
Pamela frowned and stepped in front of Harley, "Are you crazy?! You are practically throwing your life away if you go in there! You're not even bulletproof what makes you think you'll be blast-proof! They said it was going to explode!"
"Out of my way Red! You know as much as I do when you heard Honeybun! He's in pain! I can feel it!" Harley replied, gripping her chest. Even after hearing Ethan, she could feel the brand on her chest burning with rage and agony.
Harley knew all too well about pain and she sure as hell didn't want the man she loved to suffer when there may be something that she could do for him.
"Don't you...DON'T YOU THINK I KNOW THAT!?" Pamela yelled as her eyes started to glow. "I-Myra! Get back here!!"
*BOOOOM*