Resources are stretched thin for Shepard's Court as they move to deal with the hordes invading. Almost all their members are dispatched to the wall, but by the time they get there, the hole has already been breached. But they predicted that would be the case. So small teams of two and three are kept behind to dispatch as needed.
"We have three points that need our assistance. Crasher, go to Foodbank 1, there are multiple reports of monsters moving towards that direction. It's likely their target. You'll be on your own for this. Be careful." Ziba says over the radio. Every member of the group's leadership is listening in to his broadcast, receiving orders.
"Got it. On my way."
"Melodie, HotJack, reinforce the collapse. They have injuries and need backup. Some monsters are pouring through again."
"We're on it."
"Shepard Prince, a civilian shelter in Gezer Highschool is under attack. Are you close?"
"I'm not far. I'll head there." Marcel answered.
Marcel arrives at the shelter, and finds it surrounded. But all the emergency measures are in place. Police and local heroes are on top of the building, using firearms, aura pistols, and their gifts to keep the dozens of monsters at bay. But it isn't working. These are powerful monsters, each different, but alike in that they were powerful enough to push past the hundreds of heroes at the wall. They only thing keeping them from killing everyone in the school are the combined efforts of the heroes, the police, and the reinforced concrete that makes up the building. Being this area of the city's main civilian shelter, it is one of the few buildings constructed with the same materials as the walls around the city. Predominantly, blast resistant concrete and steel; albeit, much thinner. But those measures will not last much longer in the face of so many powerful monsters.
Taking in the dire situation of the shelter, Marcel pulls out his sling, charges it with aura, and launches his first shot. The ball bearing collides with the head of one of the monsters trying to pull down the blast doors of the shelter. It just manages to begin bending the steel when suddenly, its head explodes, and its body falls limp. A roaring echo like thunder fills the air, causing every monster, man, woman, and child to stop and look at what happened. Marcel however, does not stop. He has another shot loaded, charged, and launched by the time the first monster manages to find him less than a hundred meters away with its eyes. And then, another crack of thunder, and another monster falls. With that, the monsters forget the shelter, and focus on their new target.
At about one-hundred meters away, Marcel only has enough time to fire two more shots, but gets lucky and kills two with the first, and then a third with the second. He aims for the biggest ones first. Two ape like monsters, those were the targets of his opening shots. Then, his third kills a crimson fang and deflect into a wild horn, killing it too. His final shot hits a blood leaper, goes through it, and bounces off the armored scales of a water mauler. Marcel pulls out his staff and sword, fills his body with aura, and waits. He doesn't charge. Right now, he wants to put as much distance between the shelter and the monsters as he can, and charging wouldn't do that.
A fang filled muzzle snaps at his neck, but in a flash Marcel dodges and swings his staff with his left hand. It meets the back of the monster's head, and breaks its neck. He twists his body and lands a kick with his armored boot to the jaw of a monster that was trying to ram him with its spiked horns. The monster is flung to the side. Marcel lands and swings his sword, cutting off the head of the monster. Marcel is moving quickly. His sword and staff are faster than most of the people on the roof of the shelter can even see. When he dodges, for a moment he disappears, then reappears a short distance away.
"Who's that?" One of the police officers ask.
"Who cares? Just shoot. We gotta help him." A hero says and opens fire with his aura pistol into the mass of monsters.
Marcel leaps up, avoiding the nine whiplike tails of a whipcat, and lands on the back of a razortusk. He stabs the neck of the razortusk, then dodges the tails again. This time however, he slashes at them with his sword before they can pull back, and severs all nine at once. He lands and crushes the skull of a monster as he lands on it by filling his legs with aura to their limit and pushing down the moment he makes contact. This causes him to leap into the air. However, this isn't a good thing. For a split second, he is vulnerable, unable to dodge, and he will land exactly where he did before. A monster moves under him, and claws at him from below. Luckily, the claw hits his chest piece, a breastplate of bronze and reinforced with steel slats. It doesn't manage to break through, and Marcel lands, swings his sword, and kills the monster, reminding himself not to do that again.
On the roof, the heroes are amazed that Marcel has lasted so long, and managed to kill nine of the thirty-eight monsters in just a few seconds. They continue to fire, and manage to kill three more on the outskirts of the pack attacking Marcel.
The fight continues on for another minute and a half before Marcel, now covered in monster blood, begins to take out the rest of the monsters. However, there is one, the water mauler that his shot deflected off of earlier, that has proven difficult. His sword slides off its scales, leaving barely a scratch, and its hide is too thick to be bothered by strikes with his staff. In the end, all the other monsters were dead at Marcel's feet, leaving only it and him.
The mauler lunges, and Marcel dodges. Marcel tries to stab, but can't penetrate it with his sword. The monster rolls, trying to crush Marcel, but isn't heavy enough, and Marcel uses its momentum to toss it away, like he did when he was young and the sheep would buck and kick, upset they were being sheered. It was rare, but it happened, and when Marcel was a kid, it was hard to deal with them. He would have to use all his strength to keep them still so he didn't nick them with the razor.
When the monster rolled, Marcel relied on that old shepard's instinct. And then, he has an idea. He rushes towards the mauler, and hits its head to the side with his staff. He knows that won't hurt it, but that isn't his goal. He slips the staff under the mauler's neck. The mauler is dense, and very tough, but it isn't particularly big. Marcel grabs the other end of the staff, and squeezes, pulling the staff towards himself and choking the mauler. Its armored plates are nearly unbreakable, but it still has to breathe. The water mauler thrashes around, doing death rolls along the ground, and lashing its head back and forth to try and shake Marcel off. But he holds on. His aura filled body isn't as tough as the mauler's, but it is still tough enough to not be particularly bothered by a few bumps and scraps caused by the death throws of a suffocating monster. He is slammed against the ground, against nearby buildings, even against the shelter. To the people on the roof, this is a battle of life and death for both parties. To Marcel, this is just a far more aggressive form of what he's been doing since childhood. Eventually, the monster slows, stops, and slumps to the ground. Marcel keeps his pressure on the monster's throat. Actually, as it stops thrashing, the pressure increases, until Marcel hears a loud crunch; letting him know it is well and truly dead.
He lets go, picks up the sword he had to drop to grab the mauler, and yells to the people on the roof.
"Is that all of them?"
"Are you okay?" One of the officer's yells back.
"That's all of them." A hero yells back.
"I'm fine!" He calls back.
"What's your name, kid?" The hero asks.
"Mar… Shepard Prince!"
"Don't suppose you can stick around?" An officer calls out.
"No, there's more all over. I need to go." Marcel turns and pulls out his radio as the people on the roof shout out their thanks to him. "Ziba, Gezer is secure. Where next?"
"There's been no report on Foodbank 1 since Crasher arrived. It isn't too far. Check up on him."
"On the way." Marcel says. Still filled with aura, he bolts off towards Kevin's last known location.
Over half an hour earlier, Crasher arrives at Foodbank 1, only to find a massacre. Four massive monsters are eating the corpses of the heroes who tried to stop them, while the building is being torn open slowly by a fifth. Crasher charges his gift, swallows the lump in his throat, and rushes in. He's spotted a split second later by the closest monster, but too late to do anything about it. The impact of Crasher's body tears through the monster, through one side and out the other. To Crasher, it felt like hitting a slab of copper at full speed. For a moment, he was sure he'd bounce off or splatter against it. But his gift held up. And he maintained his momentum, targeting the one behind the first. Crasher knew one thing as he approached the second, he lacked the power needed to kill this one. It was larger, tougher, and he'd just burned through most of his initial speed killing the first. So he didn't aim to kill it. With a burst of aura, enough to flash melt the concrete beneath his feet, he changed direction and aimed at the second monster's legs. He barreled through, knocking it to the ground and breaking one of its knees.
The monster roared, in pain and very angry. This caught the other three's attention. The one trying to break into the building stopped only for a moment to see what caused the other to roar, then went back to what it was doing. Crasher saw this, and didn't know whether to be relieved that it wasn't joining the fight, or distressed that he now had a time limit to kill these remaining two monsters and the injured one. He pulled out his weapon, a single hammer with a spike on the opposite end. It isn't one of those overly big hammers one might see in legends or in books and TV. It is a one handed hammer made to crack bones and armor, perfect for Crasher whose gift is well suited for quick hard movements and surprise attacks, or when facing large groups of smaller monsters. But he'd already used his surprise attack, and these are not small monsters. Crasher is the fastest of the original five members of the team, but only in terms of raw speed, and lately Marcel has been his equal. But in terms of durability, even Marcel can't compare, at least, so long as Crasher's gift is in use.
He bursts back, dodging a swing from the injured monster. On instinct, he swings out with the spike of his hammer, and catches the palm of the monster. He hooks a bone, and tears the whole hand away as he flies back. He skids along the ground for a moment, but this is nothing new. He rights himself before he's even stopped moving, dislodges the monster's hand, and charges forward again. It tries to dodge, but gets its skull smashed by the blunt end of Crasher's hammer. Now the other two join the fray.
The biggest of all five monsters swings its tail, crushing the concrete where Crasher had been standing a split second ago. Crasher feels the wind coming off the tail as it barely misses him and knows that this will be an uphill battle. He glances at the one monster still trying to get into Foodbank 1, and sees it's unnervingly close. He doesn't know why it wants inside, but he knows that if it does, then all the food inside will have to be destroyed. Some monsters have deadly parasites, bacteria, or even poison on their skin, and it's hard to tell which ones sometimes. Heroes get inoculations and regular treatments, but food… all the food would be contaminated or spoiled. He needs to draw its attention right now.
He turns and bolts straight for the monster trying to make its way inside, building up speed all the way there. With each step, blasts of aura melt and shatter the concrete under his feet. He yells, drawing its attention for a moment, just before slamming into its back. But this monster is armored, like a hard segmented shell all over the top of its body. Crasher collides with the shell, and doesn't break through. He does, however, crack the shell so badly that large chunks of it fall off, pouring blood. The monster roars, and falls down stunned with pain. Crasher is in a similar state. He isn't injured, but his whole body is rattled from the impact. His ears ring so loudly that he doesn't hear the other two monsters running straight at him. Through the haze and double vision, he manages to catch a glimpse of one of them, raising two fists above their heads. He doesn't dodge, too dazed to think properly. Instead, he simply activates his gift and eats the strike. He is slammed into the ground, but barely feels it. Its dozens of times weaker than what he experiences from just attacking the way he normally does. He keeps his gift activated for a moment, making him nearly indestructible as far as this one monster is concerned. The monster wails on him with its massive fists, pinning Crasher to the ground. But those moments are enough for him to get his bearings. He releases a burst of aura underneath his feet, and jets off in the blink of an eye to safety.
He scrambles to his feet, and steadies himself. Realizing that he just used his gift as a suit of makeshift armor, he makes a personal note to remember that trick for the future. Taking a deep breath, Crasher charges back in. With both hands on his hammer, he flips it around so that the spike is facing into the swing. Charging up aura around his arms just as he gets close, he releases it, forcing the armor forward at the same speed of Crasher's charge. It digs into the monster's skull, and continues forward unimpeded, causing Crasher to spin violently and skid along the ground. The monster's head also spins, nearly one full turn around, and it falls to the ground dead.
Standing back up, only one monster moves to meet him. The one that slammed him into the ground earlier. The armored one is writhing on the ground near the door it was trying to break down, right where it had fallen earlier. Crasher charges aura all over his body, and waits for the monster to come to him. The wait isn't long. It pounces in the air, trying to slam him again with both fists like before. While he hadn't been hurt by that earlier, the monster had no way of knowing that. Crasher releases the aura in his chest just before the fists hit him, and he is thrown back. The fists miss, and he releases the aura in his back, launching him forward again. To anyone else, this would be enough g-forces to kill them ten times over. But to Crasher, this is just a dodge and a counterattack. He releases the aura in his arms just after spinning the hammer around to the blunt side again, and takes the top of the monster's head off in one blow.
Finally, it's time to deal with the armored monster. Crasher watches it closely as he approaches. It makes no move to escape, nor does it even seem to notice him. Not until his hammer is right above its head, and swinging down with explosive speed.
Kevin looks around, breathing hard, then sits on the ground. Nothing had managed to get inside, and all the monsters were dead. He counted ten heroes dead as well, all before he arrived.
"Kevin!" A voice calls out. He looks up to see Marcel rushing his way.
"Marcel!" He waves.
Marcel looks around. "Everything good here?"
"Yeah, just finished up."
"Sorry about these other heroes." Marcel says. They fought well, looks like."
"They must have. Bought enough time for me to arrive. But they were already gone when I got here."
"You beat these five yourself?"
"Yeah."
"Nice work." Marcel says, examining the monsters. He recognizes some of them as the same species he was fighting earlier. He even notes the cracked shell and smashed skull of a water mauler by the building's entrance. "Very nice."
"How's that shelter?"
"Everyone's fine. Looks like we both arrived in time." Marcel pulls his radio back out. "Ziba, Crasher is okay. Foodbank 1 is secure. Where to next?"
Elsewhere, at the start of the conflict, long before Crasher and Marcel's fights, HotJack and Melodie arrive as relief for the heroes at the collapsed section of the wall. All the monsters inside had either been driven out or killed, but the battle outside the wall was still raging.
A man in a simple set of light armor waves to the two of them as the transport drops them off. "You the backup from Shepard's Court?"
"That's us." Melodie says.
"I need one of you on Bravo Point and another on Chariel Point. We've got things covered inside the wall. Now we're just keeping them out. Someone will be by soon to relieve you. Make sure, if you can take it, that you do. We need everyone fresh for as long as possible. We've been changing people out as regularly as we could."
Injured people from outside the collapse are carried in by the drove. Medics and those with healing gifts rush in to provide aid. This sudden influx seems to surprise the man. He stops one of the people who was carrying casualties. "Hey, what happened?"
"Bravo was overrun. We're pushing back, but we got hit hard." The man says.
"That's my cue." HotJack says, heading north.
"Stay safe." Melodie says. "Guess I'm off to Chariel." She pulls out twin swords that are strapped to her hips, running east.
HotJack arrives at Brovo, and finds a bloodbath. Of the fifty heroes that were sent, twenty of them had to be carried off, and still the horde was pushing. He places his hands on the ground, and creates a wall of lava through the horde, killing several monsters and forming a barrier of fire and molten rock to protect the heroes from one side. But it isn't enough. HotJack runs up to a hero who had a monster jump on him. He pulls out a dagger from a leg holster and a firearm. Shooting the monster, he pulls it from the hero. But it's too late. The hero didn't have a face anymore, nor a throat. In his hand, he has a spear, loosely hanging from a slightly curled finger.
Shocked but undeterred, HotJack opens fire again into more monsters. But the bullets bounced off, useless. His dagger, bronze and sharp, snaps like a twig. A monster jumps on him, snapping repeatedly at his face. HotJack activates his gift, and burns the monster to a crisp.
Another jumps at him, and he flings himself back, landing beside the dead man. He scrabbles up, weaponless. The monster, an insect like creature, hisses and lunges. Thinking fast, he takes the spear from the dead man's hand, and juts it forward. The monster impales itself on the spear, twitches, and dies. HotJack, breathing heavily and wide eyed, uses his foot to push the monster's corpse off. All around him gifts and weapons are being used, creating a chaotic cacophony of shouts and roars. Another monster attacks a hero nearby. The hero is busy using her gift to regrow a man's arm, and doesn't see it. HotJack places his hand on the ground, and pushes forward. A wave of molten lava surges between the hero and the monster. She looks back, surprised by the heat, and sees that she'd been saved. The monster snaps its mandibles, impotent in its ability to reach her. Instead, it looks at what created the lava, and charges.
HotJack readies his spear, and uses his gift to heat it enough to burn anything it touches. He fights relentlessly, using his gift to create areas that the monsters can't reach. Using them as safe zones, the other heroes are able to treat the wounded. HotJack himself uses his spear to keep a distance, slashing and stabbing at any monsters that make their way through the newly created narrow corridor of fire that surrounds him. If they want to kill HotJack, they have to filter through his domain. And if they want to kill the heroes he protects, they have to be fire proof.
By the end, when all the monsters are dead and Bravo is retaken, HotJack has killed over eight-hundred monsters single-handedly, and allowed for the heroes to regroup in the area. He stands there, sweating from the effort and the fight, on top of a pile of monster corpses fifty feet high, spear still in hand. He climbs down the pile, slowly. Sore from muscle fatigue and a few injuries, and covered in ash from his gift burning everything it touched.
At Chariel, hours earlier. Melodie arrives, but finds she is one of only a few heroes left. "What happened?" She asks.
"This point is lost, we need to pull back." A man says.
"What?"
"We have too many wounded, and there are more coming. We barely fought them off last time. Just… pick up someone still alive and let's get out of here." The man says. He's bleeding from his head, and his arms, and even his ears.
"We can't. If this point falls, the horde will break past the collapse again." Melodie says.
"Well we can't fight anymore. So there's no choice."
"No." She says simply. "You go. I'll cover your retreat. But I'm staying. Just send backup when you can."
"You'll die." The man says, and looks at her like she's stupid.
"But I'll buy time doing it." Melodie places a small cord from her belt into her mouth, and plugs it into the hilts of both her swords. Her gift allows her to generate incredible sound from her mouth. She can maintain that sound for long periods of time too, without pain or worry. And she can interpret all sonic waves in her head like a map through a highly advanced form of echo location. She starts to hum a specific frequency, and her swords vibrate at unbelievable speeds.
"Monster incoming!" Someone shouts. By luck, good or bad, it targets Melodie first. She sidesteps the monster, not moving an inch more than she has too, and swings her sword upward. There's no resistance as the sword cuts through flesh, bone, shell, armor plates, everything. The monster lies on the ground in two pieces. She looks back at the man, and jerks her head forwards telling him to go. He looks at the monster, then her, grabs a wounded hero, and runs back towards the collapse.
Ten minutes; a horde arrives. Fifty in total. Small monsters, fodder as far as the hordes she's faced so far go. Thirty minutes; still alone, two hundred dead monsters at her feet. Her vocal cords aren't slowing down, but after thirty minutes of hard fighting, her hands are starting to cramp. The vibrations of the swords have numbed them. Another hour; three hundred monsters now. Her hands hurt more than she can stand. She doesn't stop though. Swings, cut, stab. Swing, cut, stab. Cramping… Another two hours, still no backup. She can't open her hands anymore. She hears the constant ring of the blades, but there's no feeling from her finger to her wrists. Five hours total now; five hundred monsters. Swing, cut, cramp, stab. At least they don't hurt anymore. But finally… she hears it. The nonstop roars of attacking monsters and ringing of blades is broken by a new sound.
"Move in! Back her up!" The moment the other heroes arrive, Melodie collapses from exhaustion. A medic rushes to her. She pulls the bit from Melodie's mouth, because her hands are still paralyzed around the hilts of her blades.
"Are you alright?" The medic asks.
"My hands." She says, holding them up. Each is covered in blood. Hers, and monsters.
"We'll get you fixed up. Open your hands."
"I can't move them." She answers. The medic uses a gift on her hands, and pain floods her brain as she yells in agony as they come alive again.
"Sorry, sorry. Just bear with it. It'll pass."
By the time the attack was over, what the four leaders of Shepard's Court did was spread around. But while Marcel's feats were impressive, he was already well known for his power. Kevin hadn't known it, but Foodbank 1 was filled with staff who'd seen everything through cameras. They'd been saved by the hero who beat five of the most powerful monsters most people will have ever heard of. Jackson saved three-hundred lives, and killed the equivalent of an entire horde by himself. In time, Melodie was carted back to the collapse. She was unable to stand anymore, and needed proper treatment for the nerves in her fingers. But she'd survived alone, on the front lines, for five hours. Everyone knew that if it hadn't been for her, collapse would have been overrun again. She bought them enough time to heal almost everyone from the original team who'd been hurt, and get new teams put together.
The three of them earned themselves a reputation as miracle workers that day. Each overcoming incredible odds. They became known, at least to those who were allowed to know of the severity of the attack and all that happened during it, as the big three.