Alex slowly looked up at Dante, trying desperately not to shit his pants. There sat the ramman himself, the person he indirectly blamed for changing his life. His fear quickly escalated when he saw the monster that Dante sat upon.
Hunched over them, blocking their way out of the small alleway was a GIANT of a creature, standing over 8ft.
"What the hell is that?!" He screamed.
'That thing has...Is that a unicorn horn? Elvish ears...huge muscles and….What the?! Boxing shorts and a champions belt? Just what the heck is going on?!' Before he had a chance to ask, Dante jumped off of it and bowed.
Alex looked over to Stefani who was glaring at the beast.
"So we meet again, Narwhal. You look different this time." She turned to the three animal men. "I'm guessing you all are responsible for this thing? Did'ja know I've already beat this guy?" She stood, helping Alex to his feet. He quickly grabbed her by the shoulder.
"Stefani, don't! These are the guys who were there that time!" She looked at him.
"That time? You mean.." He nodded. She grinned and cracked her knuckles. " 's no problem. Even more of a reason to kick their asses!"
At that Dante laughed. She looked right at him. "Oh ho? You've bested Dr Aurora's finest work? Well, let's see yo-" Before he could finish his monologue, Stefani sent him flying with a roundhouse kick to the jaw, powered by energy, right into his goons. Both Ronnie and Louis immediately dropped their cool guy act as they too were sent tumbling away with their boss. After they all scrambled to get up, Dante angrily grabbed an object from his pocket, aimed it at Narwhal man and furiously pressed it.
"You insolent woman!! Beat this!" He screamed.
Both Alex and Stefani watched as narhwalman let out a pained, guttural roar as his entire body began to shift and change, his being lit by a magenta colored aura.
"Uh.." Alex murmured as the beast began to grow in size. "Did this happen...Before?"
Stefani gulped. "Nope. This is new…" She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, quickly dialling someone. Alex looked at her in shock as the Narwhalman continued to grow.
"Just who the hell are you calling right now?!" He sputtered, shooting nervous glances between her and the evolving beast.
"The rest of our team, of course."
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Sam sat reading his book when he heard the phone ringing. Absent-mindedly he went over and picked it up, not at all surprised to hear his sister's panicked voice.
"Sam!!" He heard him say, followed by a roar in the background.
"Oh hey Stefani. What's up?"
"Sam!! I need you to get Jason or Hazel on the phone right now!!" Another roar followed by the sound of huffing. He guessed she was avoiding whatever monster she was trying to fight.
"Yeah sure, just hold on," He yawned. He ignored his sister yelling at him to hurry as he floated over to Hazel, who sat in the living room.
"For you," he handed it over.
"Hazel?! Get Jason and come down to Jes street! Now!!"
Hazel sat for a moment before she understood what was happening. She quickly jumped up and ran to get Jason.
"Are you sure?! Now??"
A roar followed by Alex's distant screaming rang on the phone. "Just get over here you two!"
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Stefani kneed and kicked Narwhalman to no avail. After she hung up, Narwhal had taken Alex by the leg and threw him at the nearby dumpster. At the last second Alex was able to grab onto a light pole and using his stretching, swung around and landed safely on his feet. Meanwhile, Stefani was desperately trying to injure the monster. No matter how hard she hit, nothing worked.
'Whatever that goat guy just gave him must be some sort of steroid, because this guys a total brick right now..'
She nervously eyed his horn.
'I just hope that thing won't be an issue..'
Narwhal let out an angry roar and aimed his head right at Stefani, letting out a barrage of horn shots.
"Of course." She grumbled, quickly moving to dodge them. As she ran, a trail of horns followed her, she was eventually able to get under him and land an uppercut right to his jaw, her elbow powered by energy like some sort of jet. The speed and acceleration of the blow was enough to actually affect the monster as he was sent tumbling back. In that instance Stefani was able to get behind him, climb onto him and lock her arms, entrapping his throat in a chokehold.
The monster sputtered and tried to gasp for air, opting to flail his arms around instead. This in turn caused Stefani to only tighten her grip, but the creature slammed his back against the nearest wall, crushing her and forcing her to let go.
She crumpled to the ground and coughed out a small amount of blood. Looking up, Narwhalman was smiling. At least he was attempting a smile, but because he lacked the necessary muscle to actually smile it was more like a creepy snarl. Stefani shivered.
"Freak.." She grumbled, wiping blood off of her mouth. She slowly rose to her feet, scanning the area for Alex, noting that he was safe.
Readying her stance, she put her hands up and faced Narwhal.
"Round 2, let's go!" The monster roared in response and began charging her, his hands outstretched. She tried to duck but wasn't quick enough, getting football tackled into the building behind them.
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Alex dodged a fist from Ronnie, as three animal people decided to jump him. He had no prior knowledge of fighting but so far he was doing good.
He threw his arm at the light pole that had saved him earlier, using it to propel him around and threw himself at Ronnie, kicking the pigman to the ground. He threw himself onto the goon, putting all his weight into his knee and landing straight into his chest. The man spat out blood and Alex knew he was down for the count.
Just then, Louis let out a roar and charged him, tackling him to the ground. Alex let out a pained grunt before dodging Louis snapping jaws. He pushed and kicked but that only caused the goon to push down harder, his muscular tail whipping around.
'Since when the hell did he have a tail?!'
After struggling for a while, Alex heard Louis yelp and suddenly he was lifted off of him. Alex stared as Stefani swung the man around by his tail and then threw him at the Narwhal Man. She huffed and looked down at Alex, grabbing him by the hand and hoisting him to his feet.
"We gotta work together if we're gonna take these three out!"
"Right!" Alex got into position, holding up his arms. He blinked.
"Uh..Wait. I don't know how to fight.." The woman waved her hand dismissively.
"Just do what you've been doing!"
"O-okay!!"
Side by side, the two lunged at the three men. Alex used his arms to wrap around Louis's tail, catching him off guard. He swung him around as Stefani had done, throwing him high into the air. Stefani followed it up by quickly meeting him mid air and kicking him somewhere off into the distant city streets.
They both paused to watch him fly off. Their attention was quickly brought back to their last remaining foes Dante and the Narwhal Man, who was...Cowering as Dante screamed at him.
"Is he...Scared? Of Dante?? Wait for that device he had earlier, it's controlling him!"
"Yeah, good idea."
"Volt you fucking idiot! Do you want to see your kid again?!"
"Narwhal!!"
"Then get them!!"
The beast let out another scream into the sky, almost as if he were in pain. He glared at the two heroes, eyes glowing with rage as he kicked his feet like a bull preparing to attack.
"Alex, I need you to get that controller from Dante! If we can figure out how to work it we can take this guy down!" Stefani managed to scream out, before catching the beast's hands in an all out power struggle.
Dante scowled at Alex, the younger turning to Stefani.
"What about you?! I can't just leave you here!"
She glared at him, giving him a look that read 'are you serious right now dude?!'
"Right!"
He faced Dante, who was staring right back at him. Alex gulped.
'Now or never, I guess..'
He let out a battle cry and ran right at Dante.
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"Can you fly any faster?!"
Hazel screamed, clutching onto Jason's side. After Stefani had called, Hazel had thrown on her suit and tracked down Jason, who had been standing around the backyard. When she yelled at him that they needed to go he initially wanted to decline. When she had mentioned that Alex was there too, he changed his mind.
It was for the team, he assured himself.
When Hazel had run around looking for a car or any sort of transport they could use, Jason had locked arms with her, told her to hold on tight, and then took off flying.
"If I go any faster you could get hurt!" He pointed out. "Where are we even supposed to go?!"
Hazel tightened her grip on Jason's side as she struggled to speak.
"Don't worry about me, we need to help them! To Jes street!"
He looked at her for a moment before picking up speed, heading for the other two. A flash of blue light trailed behind him as the citizens of Hollow City looked on.
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"YOU IMBECILE!!" Dante weaved and dodged out of the way of Alex's flying fists. "You dare use me as target practice?!"
Alex recoiled his arms, sending another barrage of hits.
"Just give me the controller!!" He yelled. Dante cursed, dodging another fist. "Please..?"
"This is supposed to be a last resort but.." Taking out a small tube, he shook the cartridge and began laughing like a madman.
He faced Alex and held the bottle above his mouth, cracking it in his hand and gulping down the liquid.
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"Dante, don't you want to be strong?"
Edgar Aurora looked down at the weak animal man. One of his many failed subjects in an attempt to create the perfect being.
In truth, Dante was created by Edgar Aurora, a man cast out by the Coalition for his...Less than savory "experiments". You see, the man who was once admired for his scientific genius was now seen as an outcast. A horrifying maniac who got so lost in his journey for perfection that it was rumored he had experimented on his own children.
He rummaged around the streets of Hollow City, a city so renowned for its glory and wonder that nobody stopped to acknowledge its many faults. One being the abundance of the homeless or the crooks, used mainly as fuel to encourage the superhero career.
Edgar Aurora despised the city and its inhabitants. If they refused to see it's true nature, then he decided he'd just show them instead.
That is when he happened upon Dante, Ronnie and Louis. The perfect subjects for his perfect dream.
Using his many years of experience and knowledge of the animal kingdom, he turned all three men into the first soldiers of his army.
And then, he happened upon Volt.
What happened next is obvious.
It wasn't enough, Edgar had craved more. He wasn't pleased with Dante nor Volt. So he upgraded his serum.
The Ram man looked up at Edgar's outstretched hand.
"Yes...I want to become the strongest."
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Dante curled over, his entire body glowing after ingesting the serum. His bones began cracking and reforming, every single one turning into mush before they quickly hardened and grew twice in size. He let out another bellow of agony as his teeth began to fall out one by one, being replaced quickly with sharper, deadlier fangs. He felt every inch of skin tear apart, leaner and sturdier muscle taking their place, leaving him in a mess of blood and clothes and bile.
Dante had caused so much of a stir that Stefani and Narwhal Man had stopped fighting and watched the entire scene unfold.
It got to the point where they even held each other in fear.
Alex had begun backing away, watching the entire metamorphosis go down. Dante now stood over 10ft tall, his two arms had become four, he had grown a large tail, and his feet had become hooves. His head was now replaced with something Alex could only describe as a cross between a bull, a goat and a man. His horns, now blood red, were sharper than any blade he had ever seen.
He slowly, very slowly, took another step back. He wanted to burst into tears as his foot landed on a very loud, very convenient, very crunchy leaf.
Dante snapped his head in his direction, draining all of the color out of Alex's face. Stefani, still in shock, realized she had been holding onto Narwhal man that whole time and pushed him away, the ruckus making Dante zone in on her instead.
She paused mid step as the monster began to smile, blood gushing from the teeth that hadn't properly grown in and from the sore gums of his jaw. She cringed at the sight. For a moment, all four of them were still, minus Dante. He had been too busy looking between Alex and Stefani to sense the incoming blue ball of electricity that was hurling his way.
He only had a split second to realize what was happening before Jason had crashed into his head with a lightning charged truck. Alex, Stefani, Narwhal Man and even Ronnie watched slack jawed on as Dante crumpled to the ground. Hazel landed superhero style in front of Alex as Jason dropped the truck onto Dantes body for good measure. He hovered over the entire scene for a moment before realizing that all eyes were on him, even the crowd of civilians who had gathered, and he quickly struck a pose.
"Heh, here to save the day!"
The crowd erupted into cheers as he flew over to Stefani and Narwhal. The two stared at each other before Narwhal promptly peeled it out of there, screaming his name and disappearing into the night.
"You just…" Stefani began, still pumped full of adrenaline. "The truck.." She pointed at Jason and then the crumpled vehicle.
"You..? How..?"
Her teammate just grinned at her, winking.
"All in a night's work, ey mighty leader-"
"RAHHHHHHH!! I WILL KILL YOU ALL!!"
Jason's eyes widened as all four heroes whipped around to face a very angry, very bloody Dante. He held the truck above him with all of his arms, crushing it. He compacted the truck into a large ball, and then threw it at the crowd.
Without thinking both Stefani and Jason flew up and cut it straight down the middle using their respective powers. They glared at each other before landing on the opposite side of the street. Hazel had casted a large force field, sheltering her and the surrounding citizens. Without facing him she yelled, "Alex! Get those people out of here!"
He didn't argue and did as he was told.
Once clearing the area he returned to Hazel, who had lowered her shield but now stood by Stefani and Jason. He ran to join them..
Dante roared into the night, stomping his way to them. Stefani/Liberty took a step forward, followed by Jason- "Jetfade", and "Lady Mana" Hazel.
To back them all up followed Livepink, Alex Lopez.
[ END OF VOLUME 1 : RISE OF PINK ]