The Great Eight (Temporary Hiatus)

Chaos 101 III

Usually when a person goes to a trainyard they would expect the sounds of, gee I don't know, trains? Instead, as Theresa pulled the car into the heart of the bleary and industrialized lot, the teens were greeted with the sounds of a photoshoot and an overzealous photographer. Who, by the way, seemed just a little bit too into it.

"Ooh that's it baby, yeah!" The whacky, designer dressed photographer praised a blond model. Who was dressed in tailored jeans, a plain white t-shirt, a pair of silver sunglasses, and held a brand-name leather jacket over one of his shoulders. "Yeah, Neil! The camera loves ya' baby, yeah."

"Yeah, tell me something I don't know..." The model scoffed as he continued his series of poses in front of a cement construction guard. So glamorous. Unfortunately, Neil's photoshoot was halted as a group of familiar people came in and beat the ever living pith out of his entourage. Going so far as to wrap them in ropes and secure cloths around their heads. Just a tad bit unnecessary I would say, what would they do in retaliation? Blind you with a camera all the while trying not to dirty their expensive clothes? Pretty scary, but in any case-

"Neil! At last we meet!" Cronus spoke airily sweet even as he stood domineeringly above the poor, rich people. His own Giant entourage behind him like some demented turf war had just gone down.

"Big fan, huh?" Neil completely misread the situation and or was playing into his ego to the point of ignorance and aloofness. "I suppose you want an autographed picture." He pulls a prepared, black-and-white portrait of himself from his jacket pocket and had the red marker at the ready.

"Very kind of you dear boy, but, I have much bigger plans for you." Cronus, momentarily stunned at the mortal's lackadaisical response to the situation, was now pleased at the easy prey all but presenting his neck to be sliced at with his apparent lack of concern for the current events taking place.

"Plans? You some kind of agent? Big time mover and shaker?" Neil, who was exemplifying the dumb blond stereotype presently, had the courage to walk towards the manic God and even banter with him.

"Oh yes!" Cronus crooned, his chest puffing out a bit as if he were one of Hera's peacocks finally receiving much "deserved" recognition for its splendor. "Mover and shaker. Big time." Cronus tugged Neil close to him, bumping his shoulder in time with his response.

"Cronus!" Though all bad things come to an end, once the teenage heroes finally got to the scene. Jay in particular, living up to being the thorn in Cronus's side.

"And there's Neil!" Theresa tacked on after Jay.

"Ah, I thought this was a closed set?" Neil sighed indignantly before resigning himself to say hello to the little people. "Well, I gotta make time for fans that are that dedicated." Neil pulled out his personal hand mirror, gilded with gold and carved with his initials on the back. There was even another picture of himself stuck inside just to remind himself of his own beauty. He proceeded to look at himself from all angles, fluffing his hair, checking his teeth, the works. This even got Cronus's attention who, by watching Neil's self-absorbedness, was temporarily halted in his own lunacy to gawk at the mortal boy beside him.

"Oh, let my bodyguards take care of 'em." But since Cronus's attention was back on the boy, might as well pick while the picking is good. "We have more important things to do " And just like that, Cronus grabbed the model. Causing the blond boy to drop his precious mirror onto the ground as the two made their exit, the Giants stepping in between them to ensure their master's plan. Pay back was now coming in for round three, or was it four?

Jay launched himself up with his sword, ready to slice the Giant up. But now the Giant was wiser to his attacks and quickly grabbed the boy's arm mid-air. And using Jay's momentum, the Giant swung his arm back before powerfully launching the boy back the way he came. Effectively forcing the young hero to suffer hard blows to his back and head, leaving him stunned on the railroad track on which he landed.

The others were then left to deal with the two other Giants, who were also eager for some revenge, as they charged right for the rest of the teens. Herry decided to use his strength to propel a metal barrel at one of the Giants, but that too was met with a rebound as this Giant acted similarly to its own leader and sent the barrel right back. It left a sizeable dent in the box car behind Herry, and the nearby Theresa, as the two were quick to duck unless they wanted to become squashed like a bug.

"Tell you what," Theresa gasped to Herry, "let's not play catch with this guy." Herry only responded with a nervous smile.

Meanwhile, Jay was now in danger as a Giant sent a railroad cart sailing straight at him from some ways up the track which aimed to flatten him. And Jay, due to his acquired head injury, had no sense of anything and failed to see the inbound danger. But the Giant's attack was negated, however, as it did not count on Atlanta's tremendous capabilities of speed as she saw the incoming threat and raced there just in time to move Jay off the track. Archie was up next, it seemed, facing off against a Giant that straight up waddled over without attempting to attack long-distance but rather wanted a close-up brawl.

"You're too big to play with trains!" Archie, the ever sarcastic King, enraged the Giant standing against him and had to leap and dodge out of the way of the creature's fists. Nearby, Theresa slid into another battle with a Giant up against Jay and Atlanta. Forming a triangle around the looming humanoid, who decided to attack Jay first. We all know this particular Giant had a vendetta against the teen leader, so this was no surprise to anyone really. However, this only earned the creature a sword slice to the hand and num-chuks to the head by Theresa who took advantage of the Giants momentary pause. But she, in turn, was launched away towards a box car of coal. Atlanta then decided to launch her bola at the Giant which tied its legs together. Causing it to leap unsteadily towards Theresa's location and fall onto the coal cart, the mortal girl leaping away just in time to avoid the avalanche of coal now suffocating the Giant beneath it.

"Not bad, if only we had a whole train." Herry commented to Mel as they stood some yards away from the scene. Giving the blonde girl an idea.

"One train coming up!" She smiled and dashed as fast as she could towards a railroad juncture. But not before yelling back a quick, "Get the Giants to the middle of the round house!"

"Right. Sure. No problem."

By then, Archie had found his way onto his opponent's shoulders. Impressively holding his ground from being one-to-one fighting this entire time. But Archie was tiring, and after miraculously overhearing Mel and Herry's brief conversation, proceeded to use his whip and drive the Giant towards where Mel asked, in an almost comedic fashion.

Down the railyard, Mel arrived to a track switch, where she swiftly had to push the track handle forward in order to guide the train to where she needed it to go. Unfortunately for the train conductor, who was frantically laying on the horn, he had no time to stop or change the outcome of this new collision course and was forced to watch as the train raced towards a tipped over coal cart.

Archie, the amazing hero that he was, managed not only to get to the roundhouse with his Giant but also he forced his ride to collide with the remaining Giant left standing. Gracefully leaping off the Giant's shoulders as the two creatures collided roughly and landed atop their already fallen, coal-laden, fellow giant. And not a few seconds later, the blaring train smashed into the Giants with a concussive force. Fortunately, the train conductor had leapt out the window of the train engine before he was made a pancake and was laying some distance away, dazed and confused. But he did not stick around for very long and was seen sprinting away from the scene and theoretically somewhere safer.

"Nice train wreck, Mel!" Herry praised the blonde girl as they all gathered to observe the fallen Giants.

"Great work, guys-" Jay went to congratulate the team before he noted something amiss. "-Where's Cronus, where's Neil?!"

"A mirror?!" Archie called out, gathering everyone's attention as Jay came over to pick up the abandoned possession. "Are you sure Neil is the hero type?"

"He's one of us, Archie." Jay examined the mirror before ominously gazing at the asteroid rings still looming in the sky, "And if we're gonna stop Cronus from destroying the planet, we need all the help we can get "