Spectacular World

The Emperor's Army

In the streets of Rose City, a man in a chicken mascot suit hunkered down behind a hot dog stand, praying that the rampaging monsters wouldn't notice him. His prayers went unanswered though, as the hot dog stand was lifted from the ground and thrown by what looked like a towering snake-thing with dozens of arms.

A scream filled the mascot suit as he turned and tried to crawl away but was stopped by a twisted arm that grabbed onto the foot of his suit. As the snake-thing dragged the pleading suit toward its opened maw, ready to swallow the person whole, it suddenly froze in place. The person in the suit kicked at the arm, grabbing their leg, and ran without looking back. Behind them, the snake-thing fell apart in slices as an extremely thin blade collapsed into itself and reformed into a small sphere of black goo.

Ferros stood on the street with dozens of tiny pieces of that black goo surrounding her. She moved minimally, barely lifting a hand as her orbs shot out, piercing through monsters, severing tails before they could slam into screaming civilians, gouging through throats before a fire beam could blast out, stretching out into inky nets that caught people falling out of buildings or off of rooftops. The hero wobbled on her feet as she spoke to her earpiece. "Young Dog, Rook Street is under control. If you guys see someone in a chicken costume, could you ask them if they have a discount for heroes?" She asked in her typical dreamy tone.

In the nearby street, Young Dog leaped from monster to monster, throwing out what seemed like an almost limitless supply of daggers, grenades and gadgets from pockets covered in sponsor stickers. He rested for a moment on top of a crushed taxi before he responded, stabbing a dagger into the head of another monster, the m-shaped handle sticking out of the creature.

"Can do. Hands, mind giving a... Well, you know."

Hands sighed over the comms, walking into Young Dog's view. "Really? Low hanging fruit, man. Gods, I've got to rebrand."

People swarmed past the hero, pursued closely by a monster that resembled a fleshy lawnmower with whipping tentacles. Hands held up his metal, runed arm. It glowed, and the runes seemed to howl as the air shimmered and a pale ghostly hand formed into existence. It was the size of a large bus and easily tore into the monster, ripping chunks away until nothing was left. The civilian's cheering quickly died down and turned to screams when ash and paper gathered where the monster was, slowly reforming it back together.

"Golden Weaver, I can tear these things apart all day, but that's not going to accomplish much. You mind swinging by?" Hands grunted, a bone blade halting an inch away from his face, held in place by more of his ghostly hands.

He didn't have to hold it for long before threads wrapped around the blade. The monster screeched as it was pulled into the distance. Golden Weaver landed nimbly by Hands, his gold and white suit smudged with ash and bits of paper. "Seriously, these things are a pain. I'm telling you now, I'm not going to complain about fighting Yellow Kobold or Squid MD again." Golden Weaver stated, blasting out thread to pin a monster against a brick wall adorned with a poster of Full Monarch.

"I fink yor baddies are a jook, sun. No teef. We shuld swap citteez. Yoo fight System fer me, ye? I cud taek yor Mudman guy on." Omega called out over the comms, raining down blasts onto monsters that kept reforming and marching onward. He landed in a street and held his robotic hand forward, the palm opening out into a barrel. A massive purple beam of energy fired out, wide enough to cover the entire street, disintegrating any monster it hit. "Fawk ye, Iz da beef."

Golden Weaver and Hands looked at each other with blank stares.

"I only understood, like, two of those words." Weaver joked, leaping from the street to a nearby building, clinging onto the stone before leaping to another.