Emily dove to the ground landing on her stomach as the bus exploded. She covered her head with her arms and closed her eyes. After a few seconds, she looked up. The bus was gone and in its place was a thick black and blue smoke that was rising upwards.

“Well, that was weird.” Someone said. It took a few seconds for Emily to realized that she said it.

Emily looked over to see Val laying beside her looking at the bus. “Premature explosion. It happens.” Val said turning to wink at Emily.

Emily looked at Val for a few seconds stupidly then smiled. “Val is awesome.” She thought to herself.

“Anyone else thinks that smoke is acting weird,” David said from behind Emily. Looking behind her Emily saw David laying with his arm around Rags. It looked like he had protected Rags from the explosion with his own body.

“That's my guy.” Emily thought to herself as she looked away from him and back to what was left of the bus.

At first, Emily didn't see it but after a few seconds, she noticed that there was something wrong with the smoke. There was some smoke coming from what was left of the bus but about maybe ten feet above the bus there was some smoke was pouring out nowhere. It looked like it was spinning.

“What the hell is that?” Emily asked herself.

They all watched more smoke poured out of nothing in the sky silently for a few seconds. The smoke was starting to spread as well, becoming almost cloud-like. Emily looked at her fellow supers and seeing no one reporting on what happened and what was still happening. She grabbed her radio and keyed up.

“Usher post one....” Emily started to say but looked down at her radio frowning. There was no beep that usually followed her keying up or the burst of static when she let go of the talk button. She cursed. “Hey, I think I broke my radio broke can someone else report this in.”

David shook his head and looked away from the smoke. He keyed up his radio with the same result. “That blast must have taken out my radio. Anyone one have Coms?” He asked putting his radio back on his belt.

“We lost coms when they blew that thing in the sky,” Val said shaking her head looking away from the cloud. “I tried to get someone on the radio when Miss. Ultimate here decided to take on the entire squad of supers.”

Embarrassed Emily said, “We had to stop them long enough for everyone to get away.”

“Good way to get dead,” Val said shaking her head.

“She's right though, we had to force them to focus on us." Rags said holding his arm to his chest. "They were ignoring us and shooting into the crowd. I think they knew we were there. They were aiming at the people in the seats.”

Val cursed. “Enough,” David said raising his hand. “Anyone know why the EXO's are just sitting there behind the stage? They should have engaged by now. Either to protect the crowd or moved up with us.”

Emily and the group turned to look at the EXO's that were sitting there on their knees. Emily's mouth dropped open in surprise. No one said anything for a few seconds before Val cursed again. “This thing is not over,” she said turning back towards the smoke.

“Rags we need someone to let them know what happened here. I need you to head to security and report in. While you’re there get your arm looked at. Emily, check out those EXO's. Even if that thing took out all the electricity in the area trapping them, they are all strong enough to just rip the suits off themselves.” David said while looking around what was left of the ceremony. He was searching for anything else that looked off.

Rags and Emily nodded. She turned to the frozen EXO's but stopped in pain when there was a loud noise. It was like someone strummed a really loud cord on a guitar wrong. Holding her ears Emily turned around to find out what made the noise. Huge amounts of smoke were now pouring out the swirling thing in the sky. The world around her was getting noticeably darker. Inside the swirling center, small little arcs of lighting were shooting around.

As she watched something fell from the darkest part of the smoke to land beside the bus. It looked wrong. It was standing on two legs but those two legs were bent backward. It was skinny and its skin looked wet even from a distance. It saw them standing there and screamed high pitched scream like a woman who was dying in unimaginable pain. It dropped to on all fours then started running towards them. In the background more were dropping from the hole in the sky.

Emily walked back to David and Val and crouched in a fighting position. She spun Righteous in her hands. Rags stepped up beside her. “Rags I need you….” David started to say when the thing jumped insanely high and fast towards him. He was completely unprepared for the attack but Val stepped forward and smashed the thing out of the sky. It landed with a hard thump in front of David not moving. Its friends behind it started to jump.

Emily stepped to the side avoiding one that was going to land on her. She lashed out with her little Black knife sliding it through the thing's side. Before she had a chance to finish it off another landed just behind her. She spun around swinging her tomahawk low in a wide circle taking out the second things legs. Another thing just missed her when it landed next to her head. Emily stabbed it with her knife.

“Move,” She told herself as they began to drop all around her. “I have to move faster.”

She spun and kept moving always attacking with both her weapons never stopping. Everywhere she looked the things were dropping all around her. The things had huge claws on the bottom of there large feet. They kept trying to land on her with their claws extended. Once they landed they tried to bite her or slice her with their shorted skinner arms. She lost all contact with the others as she fought. Panic and fear gave her strength and speed that she didn't know she had.

“Move Faster!” She yelled at herself as one of the things grazed her back. She felt the sting as it broke her skin. She spun around slicing anything in range with Righteous. She swung Righteous upwards as a thing landed in front of her. She stepped around it and brought Righteous down on another thing. She spun around again slashing out with her little black knife catching another thing across its face leaving a deep gouge just above its snout-like mouth. She spun around again slashing out with Righteous.

Time seemed to fade away. All that matter was the things dropping all around her. Slash upwards with Righteous. Slash downwards with Righteous. Spin. Anything that got too close met her little black knife. She moved randomly so none of the things could predict where she would be. They just kept landing all around her.

One second she was desperately fighting for her life and the next was she killing the last of the jumping things. She brought Righteous down on a thing she had previously sliced off one of its large legs before finishing it. She looked up in panic and saw nothing. No more of those things were in the sky. She looked frantically towards the hole in the sky. It was getting bigger and falling from the hole in the sky were three-legged things with two arms.

They ran like a cheetah with their back legs giving them almost all the power to run. The single front leg steered the thing delicately. As Emily watched the three-legged things run towards her a small part of her watched the thing in wonder. The three-legged things were really beautiful to watch as they ran. Their arms were not really arms but were odd tentacle looking things with sharp claw-like ends. They were all pointed at Emily and seem to wiggle.

Behind the three-legged things was a swarm of large four-foot wide stingray looking things descended from the hole in the sky flying towards Emily. The stingray looking things had really long and thick tails that ended in three sharp grasping claws like things. They were being outpaced by the three-legged things and didn't look all that fast.

Emily cursed and started to bargain with the universe hoping to make it out alive. She threw herself in a somersault avoid a tentacle-like arm and slashed out Righteous at its first leg as it passed. The thing went down with a deep bellow. It landed face first. She went on to dodging the things and lashing out at all the three-legged things she could see. Some jumped and dodged her but more fell than dodge her. She had to watch her back as the ones who dodged her quickly turned around to attack her. The first time that happened she felt something stab her in the back. She rolled under the thing slashing upwards with her little black knife opening its stomach open and all sort of foul things fell out just missing hitting her. Ignoring the pain she kept going.

The flight things stabbed at her with their tails and Emily really had to move to dodge them. She found that once she cut the tails off of they flying monsters the other stingray looking things attacked the one without a tail giving her a much-needed break to fight off the three-legged things. Sometimes a jumper would land near her and the three-legged things would kill it before Emily had the chance. She got hit a few times but she ignored it and kept moving. Stopping meant dying.

Emily was starting to slow down when there was a trumpet sound that went off. Everything immediately backed off. Staggering Emily dropped to her knees in exhaustion. She looked up at the hole in the sky and nearly cried. Coming through the hole in the sky was a lizard looking thing that was the size of a whale. It had four feet each the size of a really large sized truck. Its head was sort of triangle that got fatter towards the back where it had a bunch of eyes in a loose row. It spotted Emily and charged towards her.

It was fast. Really fast. It lowered its head and opened its mouth wide showing Emily a lot of teeth the size of small swords. They were all pointy. “Carnivore. Sharp teeth mean carnivore” Emily thought to herself giggling slightly as she leaned forward on her toes.

As it got close it lowered it's head more and tried to eat Emily. She jumped at the last second clearing a good ten feet as she jumped sideways away from the things head. She landed and rolled by past its front left foot. She slashed it as she went by. While Righteous dug in as deeply as it could it was simply too shallow of a cut to do anything more than to give the huge thing a small scratch. It spun towards her faster than she thought possible and tried to eat her again but she jumped backward. She turned her landing into a rolling somersault.

She stopped her somersault and saw the head of the beast moving towards her alarmingly fast. She jumped again this time she put in a lot of power into her jump and tried to jump over the things head. She misjudged how fast the thing was as it snapped its head up just as Emily cleared the snout. The head slammed into her nearly sending her flying before she slammed her little black knife into its head just past its eyes.

The thing immediately went wild, swinging its head back and forth trying to dislodge her. She held onto her knife in desperation. Her body swung wildly about but her knife held and her grip did not slip. She hung on. She had no idea how long the thing tried to throw her but it seemed like an eternity. Finally, the thing started to slow down. Emily got her knees and grasping Righteous tightly in her hand, while she held onto her little black knife to steady herself, she brought Righteous down on the things head. She got two whacks in before the thing started going crazy again.

Emily hung on for dear life again and the thing thrashed about. This time she was able to jam her boot into the cut she had made and use it to stabilize herself. She buried Righteous into its skull and used it to hang on as well. As it started to slow down again she pulled Righteous free of its skull and slammed it back down as hard as she could. The thing thrashed about one last time. Slower this time. She was able to get a few more whacks in before she felt the skull give under her tomahawk. The beast stumbled and she started to beat its skull in a frenzy. Each strike of her tomahawk landed deeper into its skull until the thing wobbled and fell forward face first towards the ground.

Emily leaped off the falling head and landed into a roll. She paused on all fours to get her breath back. Her head hanging low with her hair falling forward covering her face. She breathed deeply trying to keep from passing out. She was more tired than she had ever been before. Her body ached everywhere and she had a headache from being tossed around like a rag doll.

“Shaking adult syndrome.” Emily thought tiredly. “Wait where's my knife.” She thought panicky looking at her bare hand. Righteous was in her right hand but her little black knife was missing. She stood up grunting in pain and turned towards the huge dead thing. Still sitting in the big things head was her knife. Emily swore.

Emily cursed as she realized that she was alone. Desperately she looked around for anyone else dreading seeing their bodies. “David please be alive.” She whispered out loud. She looked around frantically but aside from a lot of dead things she didn't see any human bodies. “They retreated.” She whispered to herself hoping that she wasn't wrong.

Behind the huge beast thing, there was an army of things. Some of the things were new species that she had not seen before. They were bunched up before the hole in the sky not moving from it. Emily looked at her little black knife and thought about getting it. “I have time. Grab it and make a run for it.” She thought to herself seeing the knife buried in the huge thing's skull. “Screw it.” She thought as she pulled out her pistol with her left hand. She paused to switch the safety off and started to run. “This is stupid. This is stupid.” She said over and over in her head. She started to fire into the teeming mass of things as she ran. None of the things went down.

What it did do was make them angry. The whole group seemed to lean back as a one then explode forward running as a group towards Emily. Emily jumped onto the huge dead things head thinking “This is stupid.” She reached down and grabbed her knife letting her empty pistol drop from her fingers. “Time to run.”

She turned to run but a jumper landed just in front of her. She lashed out taking the things head clean off. Just as she was killing the jumper another landed nearly onto of her. She felt its talons on its feet graze her right arm. Cursing Emily spun cutting its foot off. As she finishing her spin like the rest of the army of strange beast-like things caught up to her. Unable to run she fought them on top of the big dead thing.

One advantage she found was that the three-legged beast had a hard time getting on top of the huge dead thing and an even harder time finding steady footing on the thing. Some of the things fell off the huge dead thing before she could even move towards them. The others moved in and she killed them. Some she hit them hard enough to send flying from the huge dead thing. She fought on the huge dead thing like some kind of demented king of the hill game. A never-ending king of the hill game.

She dodged a big car-sized worm thing with a huge open mouth that had little tentacles in it. She kicked a dead jumper in its path and it snatched the dead jumper into its mouth. While it was eating the jumper and its mouth was closed Emily ran down its length opening its side with her little black knife. The thing rolled away from Emily and rolled right off the Huge dead thing. Emily hoped it would go splat once it landed.

She was just turning towards an unsteady Three legged thing when she felt something run through her back and out her stomach. Screaming she reached back and cut the wet warm thing. She turned to look to see one of the stingray-looking-things flapped away. The tip of its tail was gone. Looking down she saw the tip of the thing's tail hanging limply out of the right side of her stomach.

The pain was incredible. Every time she moved she felt a sharp excruciating pain in her stomach. “Move. Got to move.” She thought to herself as she struggled to stand up. She was able to stand up on shaking legs but she could not bring herself completely upright. She almost puked in pain and fear because she could feel the tail like thing move around inside her.

She looked up and saw the three-legged thing almost on top of her. It raised its tentacle arms over its head as it race towards her. Shaking she grabbed her stomach with her left hand and raise her Righteous up in defense. Thing brought its arms down and Emily raced forward slamming Righteous into its chest in a backhanded swing moving inside the thing's arms. The arms came down behind her missing her by inches. The thing screeched and Emily pulled Righteous out and slammed the hammer side of her tomahawk down on its head. The thing fell down and slid off the huge dead thing. She hoped she killed it.

With the Three-legged thing dead Emily was given a slight respite. She looked out to the army of things in front of her. The army had grown again but it was attacking each other as much as it was attacking her. The things were surrounding the back side of the big dead thing making a wide and erratic path of them leading right back to the hole in the sky. It was like looking at a bunch of ant all following the same trail. The only good thing was that they weren't running off.

She knew she would never survive if she left the huge dead thing not as hurt as she was. She dropped to her knees as a jumper landed by the middle of the bid dead things back. “This is it.” She thought to herself. Strangely enough, she did not feel fear. She looked at the jumper as it tried to keep itself from sliding off as it walked to her. All she felt was a strange feeling of acceptance. This was it. It was time to go. She took a small breath and the pain flared in her belly. “I am going to take you out. You might take me out but you will sure as hell will die right along with me.” She thought while looking at the jumper, forcing herself to her feet again.

“Come on!” She screamed at the jumper. She raised Righteous grimacing in pain she took a step forward and yelled: “I'm your end.”