The new monster didn't have a name, but it had a memory.
Minutes ago, it had been Major Glenn Talbot, a man broken in body and spirit after the first Abomination, Emil Blonsky, had swatted his strike team aside like flies.
Crushed and bleeding out in the ruins of the laboratory, Talbot had crawled toward the frantic, babbling Dr. Samuel Sterns.
"Make me strong," he had rasped, blood bubbling on his lips. "Like him."
Sterns, his mind already unhinged by the chaos of the evening, had obliged. He'd injected the dying man with the remaining synthesized sample, the last of the serum, pumped directly into Talbot's failing heart.
Now, Talbot was gone. There was only the hunger.
And the rage.
The second Abomination looked down at Blonsky with eyes that burned with newborn malice. He remembered this creature. He remembered watching it tear through his men. He remembered the humiliation of helplessness.
"Weak," the new monster growled, his voice like the grinding of tectonic plates. He kicked Blonsky in the ribs with enough force to send the smaller monster skidding across the asphalt. "Get up. We kill the bugs together. Then..." A terrible smile crossed his mutated features. "Then I break you."
Blonsky, blinded by pain and the burning Chi in his wounds, didn't argue. He hissed, forcing his battered body upright. He recognized the hierarchy. The new one was fresh, larger, and radiating a level of gamma energy that made the air taste like metal.
For now, survival meant compliance.
"Great," Tony Stark muttered from above, his repulsors whining as he adjusted his hovering position. "They're teaming up. Because one wasn't bad enough."
"Focus, Stark," Ariadne snapped.
She was exhausted. Her Chi reserves were dangerously low, the white aura around her fists flickering like a dying bulb. She let it fade completely, conserving the last dregs for a single, decisive strike if an opening presented itself. She gripped her twin blades, relying purely on her physical conditioning and the enchantments woven into the steel.
"Melina," Ariadne called out, her voice carrying across the battlefield. "Left flank. Stark, suppress the big one. I'll find an opportunity to finish off Blonsky while he's weakened."
"On it." Tony's thrusters flared. "JARVIS, tactical assessment!"
"The new hostile appears approximately fifteen percent larger than the original, sir. Bone density readings suggest significantly enhanced durability. Gamma radiation output is also considerably higher." A pause. "I would advise extreme caution."
"Caution. Great. Love caution." Tony barrel-rolled away from a thrown chunk of concrete that would have crushed a car. "Any other helpful suggestions?"
"Don't get hit, sir."
"Thanks. Very helpful. Remind me to update your humor subroutines."
The battle resumed, but the momentum had shifted violently.
The new Abomination was a juggernaut. He ignored Tony's repulsor blasts entirely, swatting the energy beams out of the air like they were annoying flies. When Melina tried to close the distance for a blade strike, he stomped the ground with enough force to crack the pavement in a twenty-foot radius, disrupting her footing and sending her tumbling.
Blonsky, energized by the arrival of backup, pressed Ariadne with renewed fury. Without her chi to punish his wounds, her blades merely cut his skin. Painful, yes, but nothing he couldn't endure. Nothing that would slow him down.
"You're slowing down!" Blonsky taunted, swinging a jagged piece of rebar like a spear. "Getting tired? Running out of tricks?"
Ariadne parried, the impact jarring her shoulders hard enough to make her teeth ache. She slid backward, panting.
They were losing.
—
Behind the shimmering blue wall, Eileen watched with mounting dread.
Her hand drifted toward Winky's shoulder.
"Winky," she whispered. "Get ready to—"
Then something fell from the sky.
It came down like a meteor - a streak of motion too fast to track, impacting the street barely ten feet from the dome with enough force to crater the asphalt and send shockwaves rippling outward in all directions.
Eileen's heart seized. Someone had fallen from the sky.
But that was impossible.
Right?
Winky's barrier held, the energy washing over them harmlessly, but the three fighters weren't so lucky.
The impact shook them, disrupted their concentration, broke their formations.
But the Abominations didn't care about the mysterious arrival. They saw only opportunity.
Blonsky moved first, closing the distance with Ariadne while she was still recovering her footing. A massive uppercut caught her in the midsection.
She managed to throw up a chi-powered block at the last second, absorbing most of the damage. But she still flew.
Thirty feet through the air, ragdolling, before crashing into a parked delivery truck hard enough to flip it onto its side.
The second Abomination had found Melina. His massive fist was already descending, ready to crush her into paste—
Tony came screaming in, placing himself between the monster and the fallen Widow. The blow caught his armor square in the chest.
Both of them went flying through the window of a nearby office, glass exploding inward, disappearing into the darkness of the building.
Silence fell over the battlefield.
The heroes were down.
But the monsters were still standing.
The first one, Blonsky, was covered in wounds that wept dark blood, his regeneration struggling against the lingering chi damage.
The second was barely scratched, the brief battle having done nothing to slow him down.
They turned, almost in unison, toward the only people still standing.
The shimmering wall.
The woman holding two children and the woman guarding them.
"Winky," Eileen breathed, pulling Elena's unconscious form closer, feeling Tristan press against her side. "Get ready."
Winky's fingers twitched, magic gathering for a strike that would end both creatures in an instant.
But before she could act, Tristan made a sound.
A small sound. A broken sound.
"Uncle Tony..."
His voice cracked. Tears streamed down his face, cutting tracks through the dust on his cheeks. His small hands clenched into fists at his sides.
He had watched from behind the barrier, helpless, as the monsters hurt everyone he loved. Auntie Ari, sent flying like a broken doll. Aunt Melina, nearly crushed. Uncle Tony, who always made him laugh, disappearing through a wall of shattering glass.
And his sister. His big sister who always protected him, she was unconscious in his mother's arms because of these things.
Because of these monsters.
Something cracked inside Tristan Hayes.
Something opened.
"They hurt them," he whispered.
The air around him began to shimmer.
"Tristan?" Eileen's voice was sharp with sudden alarm. "Tristan, sweetheart—"
"THEY HURT EVERYONE!"
The scream tore from his throat with a force that had nothing to do with volume.
And the world moved.
—-
The Abominations felt it first.
One moment they were stalking toward the barrier, confident in their invincibility, ready to tear through whatever magic protected these insignificant humans.
The next, their feet left the ground.
Not jumping. Not leaping.
Lifted.
Blonsky roared in confusion, clawing at empty air. The second abomination twisted and thrashed, trying to find purchase on something, anything, that would let him regain control.
There was nothing.
They rose. Ten feet. Twenty. Fifty.
Around them, debris began to float. Cars. Chunks of concrete. Twisted lampposts. Shattered glass. Everything within a hundred-foot radius that wasn't bolted to bedrock simply... lifted.
At the center of it all, a two-and-a-half-year-old boy hovered three feet off the ground.
Tears streamed down his face. His eyes blazed with power he didn't understand and couldn't control.
"They hurt everyone," Tristan said again, his voice eerily calm now, echoing with something vast. "They have to stop."
Higher.
The Abominations rose higher, flailing helplessly against forces they couldn't comprehend. A hundred feet. Two hundred. The debris followed them, a swirling vortex of destruction ascending into the night sky.
The monsters screamed.
Not in pain, not yet, but in something they had never experienced before.
Helplessness.
True, absolute, inescapable helplessness.
They could bench press tanks. They could shrug off missiles.
And a crying toddler had rendered them as powerless as insects.
"STOP!" Blonsky bellowed, his voice growing distant as he rose. "STOP THIS! PUT ME DOWN!"
Tristan looked up at them.
His tear-streaked face twisted into something that might have been a smile.
"Okay."
He threw his hands down.
—
The abominations fell.
Not gently. Not slowly.
They plummeted, accelerating beyond terminal velocity, dragged down by the same force that had lifted them.
They hit the ground with the force of twin meteorites.
The impact cratered the street, sending shockwaves that cracked foundations for blocks in every direction.
But Tristan wasn't done.
The debris followed.
Cars crashed down on top of the monsters. Concrete slabs. Steel beams. Tons upon tons of wreckage, piling higher and higher, burying the creatures beneath an artificial mountain of destruction.
Tristan directed it all with the unconscious precision of a conductor leading a symphony of devastation.
More. More. More.
Until there was nothing left floating.
Until the street was buried under a hill of twisted metal and shattered stone.
Until the only sound was the settling of debris and the distant wail of sirens.
Tristan blinked.
The glow faded from his eyes.
"Mommy," he said softly, his voice small and confused again, just a tired little boy. "I don't feel good."
He dropped.
—-
Eileen caught him before he hit the ground.
She sank to her knees, effectively pinned by the weight of two unconscious, overpowered children. Elena in her left arm, Tristan in her right. Both of them breathing softly, peacefully, as if they hadn't just humiliated beings that had terrorized the entire United States military.
She looked down at them, at their innocent faces, their small hands, the gentle rise and fall of their chests.
A laugh bubbled up in her throat - hysterical, relieved, and filled with disbelief.
"My children," Eileen whispered, pressing kisses to both their foreheads. "My impossible, wonderful children."
The heroes limped over.
Tony came flying back through the shattered window, Melina cradled in his arms. His suit sparked and smoked from a dozen points of damage, one arm hanging at an angle that suggested the servo was completely shot. Ariadne limped behind them, one hand pressed against her ribs, her white suit torn and bloodied.
But they were alive.
"Okay," Tony said, flipping his faceplate up. He looked shell-shocked. "I have questions. Starting with: what the hell just happened?"
"Eileen." Ariadne's voice was rough with pain. "The children—"
"They're fine. Both of them. Just exhausted."
Tony stumbled closer, staring at Tristan's unconscious form with an expression of complete incomprehension. "Did little Tris just...?"
"Yes."
"The flying. The... the everything flying. The monsters. The—" Tony gestured helplessly at the debris mountain that now dominated the street.
"Yes."
"How?"
Eileen looked down at her son's peaceful face. "He's his father's child."
Ariadne knelt beside her, wincing at the movement. "I've trained with Arthur for years," she said quietly, wonder and something like fear mingling in her voice. "I've seen him do things that should be impossible. But this..."
She shook her head slowly.
"These children might surpass him one day. Both of them."
"We need to get them out of here," Melina said, her trained eyes scanning the perimeter. Already, the sounds of approaching vehicles were growing louder. "The military will be swarming this position in minutes. I don't want them seeing any of this."
"Agreed," Tony said, shaking off his shock and shifting into problem-solving mode. "I'll call Happy. We can—"
RUMBLE.
The mountain of debris shifted.
Every smile vanished. Every moment of relief evaporated.
A massive gray hand burst through the twisted metal of a crushed car. Then another.
With a roar that sounded less like rage and more like pain-fueled insanity, the debris pile exploded outward.
The two Abominations dragged themselves free.
They were battered. Broken. Blonsky's left arm hung at a grotesque angle, bones visibly shattered beneath the skin. The new monster was limping badly, one of his eyes swollen completely shut, his bone-armor cracked in a dozen places, dark blood streaming from wounds that refused to close.
Tristan's attack had hurt them. Hurt them badly.
But it hadn't killed them.
They stood in the crater, heaving breaths rattling in their chests, bleeding black blood onto the shattered pavement.
They looked at the group.
"Is..." Blonsky wheezed, spitting out a glob of blood and something that might have been a tooth. "Is that all?"
"Winky," Eileen said quietly, her voice carrying absolute authority. "Enough games. End this."
Winky smiled.
It was not a nice smile. It was the smile of something ancient and powerful that had been holding back out of politeness, now given permission to stop pretending.
She raised her hand, fingers poised to snap.
But before she could act, a voice came from everywhere and nowhere, smooth and cultured, dripping with theatrical malice.
"Not so fast, little elf."