Steel and glass rained through the sky like lethal hail after the unseen spiral signal exploded in a shower of sparks and twisted metal, shaking the streets of downtown Chicago with devastating force.
Mark's enormous form shifted violently underwater before he emerged from the river into broken streets, each step an immense distortion that shattered sidewalks and uprooted vehicles as the great beast lurching onto land fought to catch each ragged breath.
Every inhale burned in his lungs with a hot, metallic aftertaste, as though the atmosphere itself had become poison; an alien environment not meant for creatures born beneath crushing ocean pressure.
George, the albino ape towering over twenty feet tall, now stumbled across collapsed cars and bleeding bystanders in a chaotic rage, his roar battling the thunder of collapsing buildings. Beside him, the porcupine wolf; fused with winged muscle and armoured quills, screeched high-pitched orders of aggression, pivoting on clawed feet while preparing to rend Mark's massive limbs with bone-crushing force.
They both lunged simultaneously, the wolf lunging along the riverbank to strike Mark's flank while George slammed a reinforced support beam into Mark's mantle, punching a hole in achingly slow increments.
Mark's vision flashed with pain and frustration as the beam rammed into his massive cartilage shell, each blow reverberating through his body. His tentacles snapped outward in retaliation, wrapping around the wolf's winged shoulders in a storm of sinew and bone, crushing quills into its muscles with poisoned barbs until the creature cried out in a mix of metallic echo and bestial agony.
Red mist clouded the air as Mark used the wolf's own momentum against it, slamming the creature into a collapsing billboard that collapsed like paper under its weight. George pressed the attack without caution, muscles bulging like steam engines as he pressed down on Mark's tentacles with crushing force.
Each breath Mark tried to take became slower and shallower, numbed by gravity and burning with strain as his lungs resisted the heavy air.
Mark admitted silently, 'I am choking in air… this body is truly strange.'
Every pulse hammered in his neck as Mark flexed reinforced suckers and barbed hooks to tear into George's thigh muscle, drawing up blackened ichor that spattered across shattered pavement.
Amid the carnage, human military forces converged on the carnage like ants swarming over a broken beast, launching heavy ordinance into the three creatures; including tanks, mortars, and air strikes, but every round simply glanced off toughened hide or smashed into fracturing buildings where innocent lives cowered in dust and terror.
Davis Okoye, was coordinating civilians through a makeshift evacuation toward the south side when the highest tower support column collapsed directly through the street. The steel-reinforced concrete struggled to bend, then broke free in a monolithic slab that fell toward the fleeing lines, catching Davis mid-stride. He raised his hand to shield others but had no time to scream before the slab crushed him into the asphalt in a single, brutal moment.
George released his grip on Mark and spun toward Davis's imploded form, eyes going wild with sudden horror and rage.
*Groooooowwl*
His roar ripped through the air, deafening even the soldiers and civilians ten blocks away. He flipped a nearby SUV like a child tossing aside a toy, stamping the glass shards under his feet as he beat his chest, staggered with grief.
Mark watched, breath heaving and throat constricted, but he recognized the turning point. The spiral signal tower swayed dramatically under each monstrous impact, beams groaning before Mark hurled a massive tentacle upward and smashed into the base, dismantling the speaker array inch by inch until it finally collapsed in on itself.
Electricity sparked, concrete crumbled, and the high-pitched beacon shut down silently mid-shake. At that moment, the tugging within Mark's mind weakened dramatically; the compulsion that had brought him here dissipated like smoke.
He sank into the crater of a broken street, gasping as every breath continued to prick his lungs painfully. His tentacles whipped forward again, seeking the remaining threats now that the signal had ceased.
George lunged back into the fray with primal fury, blind rage fuelling his fists as he targeted Mark's behemoth form without strategy. Mark braced each tentacle, barbed hooks locking into his flesh, as he fought to hold the ape at bay.
The porcupine wolf recovered from Mark's earlier assault and launched across the cracked pavement with quills raised like a living grenade launcher, embedding razor spikes into Mark's flank.
Pain scorched across Mark's nerve endings, but he held his position through desperate willpower and sheer leverage. Mark's thoughts flickered between strategy and agony.
'I can't breathe under this gravity,' he acknowledged through ragged mental strain, 'But I shall not die here, not this day!'
He drove a tentacle under the wolf's torso, lifting the creature off the ground, shaking it violently enough to dislodge bone from muscle. As it tried to thrash free, Mark used its winded motion to slam it into the base of a shattered building, where it left the wolf mangled but alive.
The beast whimpered, quills sliding from broken sinews as it attempted to crawl away in shame. Meanwhile George's arms had wrapped themselves around one of Mark's massive limbs, pulling the kraken closer so he could strike directly at Mark's face.
The ape's hands tightened as rage and grief mixed into raw violence. Mark focused just enough to tear one of his wounded tentacles free from George's grasp with a savage ripping motion. Barbed hooks cut deep into George's hide, drawing frothy blood that ran down in red ad black streams pooling at George's feet.
George screamed an inhuman wail and then retreated three steps. His eyes wild and unfocused, he shook his head back and forth as though trying to clear a terrible hallucination, grip loose and confused.
Mark watched him stumble on the broken street, chest caving as George's blood began to spread across torn concrete. Though he had no sympathy for the enraged monster, for he recognized George's broken mind.
The wolf crawled toward him with shattered limbs, quills removed from flesh, body convulsing with small spasms of defiance and poisoned reluctance. Mark's tentacles snaked closer, not out of mercy but need.
He recognized that those two monsters were no longer threats; they were wounded creatures, soaked with the same confusion and violence that had birthed him, drenched in poison that was already killing them.
He could stand on rubble, lungs rasping with each strained breath. His form towered, his mantle scratched from debris, tentacles flayed in victory.
He had succeeded. He had broken the calling signal. The surface world had nearly died for it, but it mattered not to him, for he had his prize.
Mark took a final, ragged breath, before dragging the two dying creature into the ocean, where he could finally breath and regain his full strength.
'The poison is less effective on the surface… I need something stronger.'