You Call Us Leviathans

“After you,” Chaoyi gestured for Johnny to lead as he took off after to the human rocket. No, Human Torch. Cold wind curled around him and trailed vapor away from his cloud, but his spell kept it collected, steadily carrying him along, unbothered by the chill.

Invisibility, plasticity, unnatural strength, and fire. Yes, Johnny was definitely the same ones his sister had talked about. The Fantastic Four. “You were considered heroes before right? That name has traveled. What happened to the rest of your group?” The question may have been a bit too frank to be sensitive, but surely Johnny knew it was bound to come up at some point.

“I’d be honored.” Johnny says with a smile, and a wink as he’s flying toward the area he had been talking about. It shouldn’t be to far, but it was good to get away from the compound. He didn’t like to be confined for too long, needed to be able to stretch his wings so to speak a little bit sometimes.

“Other worlds?” Chaoyi turned to look at the flaming human with a raised brow. “Do you mean other planets?” He’s heard of the many lifeforms that were out there and their interactions with the surface worlders, but to think that some of the surfacers had gotten so brazen as to take on the challenges of such distance places...well, he knows some have, but it made their efforts no less ridiculous. Especially considering the withering state of their own world.

Isaac

“I am pleased to meet you too Isaac,” she walked over to offer him her hand for a shake. “It’s not everyday we meet a human willing to work with us to evaluated or magic.” Her eyes glided back over to her brother. “Especially not willing to work with my brother.” Chaoyi darted a glare at her but didn’t respond, instead choosing to address Isaac.

“I’m honestly impressed that you managed to get all this together in the few short hours I was out Isaac,” he said, humming as he exammined all the testing equipment. “And on a limited resource supply too.” Xingyi raised an eyebrow at him, clearly still amused by his unexpected tact with the kid, but he ignored her until she gave up and moved on to examine the testing equipment. “So, where would you like to start?”

He shook the hand offered to him.  Interesting that they followed that human convention.   Which either indicated a close association or familiarity with human practices.   Isaac tucked that observation away with the other information he gathered.  Additionally sibling dynamics added a layer to inter-personal relationships.

He’s heard a similar story before. From some news article his sister told him about or something. He wondered if Johnny was from the same story. “Cosmic radiation can do that to a human? Fascinating. And what about your sister? Did she acquired an ability the self-ignite as well?” From the way that he’s seen human ‘mutations’ work, that was probably not the case, but there wasn’t the only answer he was banking on getting out of that question.

“Seems so,” he took a fews steps away from Johnny in case the flying involved for burning, then summoned up a small cloud from the groud that then lifted him until he was floating in the air. Not his favourite means of air travel, but the most preferable one when he was in human form.

“Yeah I feel like it must have been like winning the lottery. Most would have died, right? Not us. All four of us got an ability. My sister can turn invisible, and produce force fields.” Johnny nods at that, a grin as he’s talking about his family. “Reed can stretch himself – plasticity. Ben got rock-like skin out of it and super-strength. You know all about me already, but we called ourselves the Fantastic Four before the infection started.”

And Mr. Not-Quite-Wolverine kept talking. As if he was saying anything novel each time he opened his mouth. Chaoyi would’ve been bored having to listen to him repeat the same drivel if he wasn’t already supremely annoyed at being intruded on by the unrelenting hominid. His patience was really running out, and his left fingers were already dancing in incantation. “Yeah, you’ve made that abundantly clear enough times, thanks.” The words were gritted out with the slow wrenching of molasses through hinges. “I remain unimpressed.”

Pulling himself back in together so the burgenings of his scales weren’t dancing across mimicked skin anymore, Chaoyi checked the obsidian claws that have taken residence at the tips of his right fingers now as if they were fingernails. He could just morph them into finely black glossed fingernails again, but he was really itching to sink them into the annoying prattler’s skin and this at least kept his hands idle while he forced himself to keep listening. “I am the one here from the ocean,” no sense of denying that now, “But you are the soft one here, soft one.” The mention of eating him, brought a genuine hollar of laughter from the dragon. Oh, if only you knew, you tiny pathetic creature, how many times I’ve thought of crushing you between my teeth. The laughter carried on for a solid few seconds before subsiding into a snorted snide. “Whatever you say soft one.”

Their eyes were locked for a long time. Chaoyi could practically feel the electricity bursting out from his skin as he listened to the other man talk for longer. He was railing, and while that would’ve been so much fun just about any other time, he was out of patience, and he wanted the asshole out of the picture now. “In case you haven’t been paying attention. This place is far from paradise.” He straightened then and retracted his claws as he held his right fingers up in a pinch above his face as the incantation spun in his hanging left hand finally sprung into light. “But no, I don’t care for the advice of petty children, and we’re done here. Let me inform you now, I also don’t make empty threats.” Golden eyes immediately snapped back to coal black again as a single snap rang through the air. As that happened a shimmering puddle sprang up under the other man swallowed him before disappearing back into the still grass.

Chaoyi nodded once at Johnny in agreement. “I’d be grateful for that.” He then raised an inquisitive eyebrow at the blond’s statement. “What sort of accident was this exactly?” Over the years he’s learned that humans were a particularly mutable species. Any small number of unnatural phenomena can cause drastic changes to their abilities and appearance. And it was seldom ever a repeatable circumstance. All the more fascinating.

“Aright, lead the way then.” He then pulled a thread of water out of the air and held it between floating above his palm. “And it it’s far, I have means of transportation.” He then side glanced at Johnny again. “Though, you do too don’t you?”

“I’ll give you the quick version of the story. When I was younger, I followed my sister on an unauthorized space flight with two other guys. Cosmic radiation from the experience turned me into the flame monster you’ve seen a little of. They called me the human torch before all of this, but I suppose that doesn’t matter anymore.” Johnny shrugs his shoulders. 

“I am pleased to meet you too Isaac,” she walked over to offer him her hand for a shake. “It’s not everyday we meet a human willing to work with us to evaluated or magic.” Her eyes glided back over to her brother. “Especially not willing to work with my brother.” Chaoyi darted a glare at her but didn’t respond, instead choosing to address Isaac.

Chaoyi side-eyed Thor then. They must’ve gotten better at feigning humaness in the last couple thousand years. Actually, yes they did. His grandparents walked around with antlers on their head so he probably shouldn’t blame the Asgardian for not magically recognizing his kind instantly. “The ocean.” To further explain, he flashed the pair with a glimps of his real eyes for a second before letting the glamour settle back into place.

“And you? Coming here to ‘save the day’ again?” He nodded towards the gear in to indicate his point.

Thor took in the change in Chaoyi’s eyes, though he offered little reaction, Aslaug was a little more surprised, she was young and had seen less of the universe.  He gave a small nod, “There are many creatures who live in Midgard’s oceans, though not all are so skilled at disguising themselves among the humans.”

« I am…not the most fond of it, » Chaoyi admitted reluctantly. « But I won’t hold that against you. It’s your ability, and you have every reason to be proud of it. Human Torch is a fitting name. » Normally, he’d have been a lot of more sour about such an incident, but it was an honest mistake, a hardly severe one at that, so he could let it go. Johnny had earnest enough of his trust for that much at least.

He flicked his wrist dismissively. « Alright, were to? I believe I still had a couple of cars to fix up for this little race of ours. »

“I won’t turn it on around you unless we need it, how about that? I do appreciate that you don’t hold it against me. It was truly an accident that made me like this, but I think it’s cool.”  Johnny chuckles a bit, but keeps a smile flashes toward the other. His eyes lighting up that they were still interested in a race.

blackscalesofmiracles:

Oooh, lighting! How lovely! He could help with that too, so Chaoyi opened his maw and used his magic to funnel in a large torrent of vapour. He then ripped the elections off to generate a giant ball of plasma, which he the shot at the giant after Thor’s lightning blast. He’d heard that a lot of things could heal at ridiculous speeds, so hopefully that combo wasn’t quite a kill strike just yet. Otherwise, this’ll get awfully boring. Ok, maybe not cause people are screaming and running and getting hurt and my stupid brain hates that, but still.

@notaskingforacceptance

He watched the lightening and plasma strike the behemoth.  The creature roared a complaint and staggered.  Slowed but not stopped.  Obvious to Erik that it would take far more than mere raw power to take down a creature like that.  There was a way to guarantee to take out one of those creatures.  The difficulty would be how think its skulls or spine.   

“Focus on the head,” Erik called out as he used his power to grab on to more rebar.   Flinging it hard at the behemoth’s head.

@nogodofhammers

Thor agreed with the man’s idea, the head was the best target.  He repeated the same action as before, firing lightning strikes to augment the impact of the metal rods soaring through the air at the creature.  It was times like these that he missed his hammer most.  Mjolnir could have burst this creature’s head like a plump tomato.

As the dragon’s eyes glowed a bright amber, the creature howled in pain as steam started coming out of it’s ears. The blood in it’s own veins bubbling quickly to a literal boil. Outside in, inside out. This thing better die now or I’m not going to be able to sleep for weeks.

Ah the god conceded. Huh. He’d heard that Thor was not so caught up with his own ego as some of the other proported ‘superheroes’ people like to gossip so much about, so it was nice that his little game managed to confirm that for him as well. He smiled and straightened his sleeve before using his thumb to flick his middle finger directly at the center of Thor’s head, the result of which should be an irritable but not damaging amount of pain.

Immediately, his entire arm screamed out a him in pain, and he had to step back and grasp onto it to keep himself from spasming. Smiling through a grimace, he dipped his head in thanks to let Thor know he was done. “Well, that was a fun little experiment. Let’s carry on now, shaw we?”

He frowned a little as the flick was struck.  Nothing worse than the bite of an insect, but it seemed to effect the man.  Unusual, to say the least, but he was clearly testing something out.  What that might be was entirely a mystery to him.  Chaoyi also clearly did not want any attention drawn to his pain, his businesslike demeanour was evidence enough of that.  “We shall carry on, of course.”  Thor smiled, and put a placating hand on Aslaug’s shoulder, that she should not maintain this hostile stance.  

“You are most welcome little curious one. But while you go set that up, I’m going to go back in my little shed and finished my sleep. The sun and I aren’t the best friends if you recall.“ Chaoyi then gave the kid and pleasant wave and sauntered back to the door of the cordoned off swimming pool. He paused at the door though, and pivotted back around to face him with an index finger raised in the air. 

“I might also be bringing along a guest, if you don’t mind.” He wrinkled his nose in a weird look of contemplation before he explained, “She’s also very keen on studying our magic. Might never forgive me if I didn’t.”

“Acceptable,” Isaac inclined his head at the request.  “While I am used to working alone this is a new field for me.  Others wishing to study it may prove helpful.”  While he had no doubts his intelligence would be up to the challenge.   Perspectives from other people may provide additional insight.

“Enjoy your rest.”   Light could absolutely interfere with sleep patterns.   While he didn’t require much himself he did go for the more typical nocturnal choice.  If someone slept during the day he could understand the desire to block out the sun.   

Chaoyi inhaled deeply before flicking his wrist and drawing up what appeared to be a small watery mirror from the group. And huge golden eye peered at him through it.

“Wu-ge, what a nice surprise,” came a deep rumble through the viewer. “Are you bored out of your mind already?”

“Very much so,” Chaoyi sighed, but quickly waved it off. “But that’s not why I’m calling. I may have found someone who could help shed some more light on the mechanisms behind our magic.”

The portal immediately collapsed back onto the ground then in a splash and Chaoyi raised an amused but unsurprised eyebrow as another larger one formed on ground next to him. Out of it, the figure of a young woman emerger, clad in a red nigh necked halter and black genes with equally black combat boots laced at her feet. She was a little shorter than Chaoyi, but just by an inch or so, that difference almost made up for by the high ponytail her inky black locks where pulled into by a red ribbon.

Chaoyi smirked at her. “Well someone’s excited.” The woman narrowed in on him with coal black eyes that were menancingly lined with a deep red on the bottom. She smirked back at him with equal bemusement.

“Well I can hardly pass up the chance to see what

friends

you made.” That made him frown and he rollwed his eyes before dismissively waving for her to follow him as he led them towards the labs.

“He’s not a friend. Just an interested kid with some brains on him.” The woman made an incredulous face and crossed her arms but said nothing, choosing instead to study the compound as they passed through. Chaoyi supposed he could’ve just ported them straight to the lab but they got there soon enough. Plus it probably would’ve been counterproductive to make such a surprised entrace like that. He peered around until he found the familiar brown mop that was Isaac’s and made his way over.

“Oh when you said kid, you meant kid.” Chaoyi waved her off.