Monsters within Men

He sat, staring rather vaguely into the window with his chin rested on his fist and one leg crossed atop the other. His mind, outside of the plane he sat in and within the world at large, as he sat in contemplation of how things were. Heroes, vigilantes, mercenaries, PMCs. No matter who entered the fray, or who helped, the world and potentially the universe seemed fervent in remaining in a constant state of chaos. But, what can one expect when power is given so liberally to any individual by none other than seemingly, nature itself. The world never seemed to know safety, to know a semblance of order that he'd so craved to bring it. Perhaps by an iron fist, but in actuality how would that make him much different than those who came before him? These were not things that could be forced, and shouldn't be forced. If it was to happen, it would happen. One step at a time.

Terrorists run amuck, extra-normal and human relations were once again on the rise in the face of seemingly individuals who had an unregulated genetic code. There was too much morality, and at the same time there was too little. He compared it to a paradox of how we live in a world where starvation and obesity in unison. No one had the common sense to lack or have it where it made sense. A new continent literally dropped out the sky and few people actually batted an eye at it. Seemingly, at any moment, anything at all could happen. A world where anything possible may seem like something unto a dream, but as it turns, he and the ones who often get trampled by it, see it as unto something of a nightmare.

His eyes wandered about the plane and fell upon his unused ashtray. Seemingly out of previous habit, he reached for a cigar, only to recall the lack of it's ability to generate any sensation within his body. For him to feel the nicotine, his body would have to actually undergo chemical reactions, like things made of conventional matter would.

Slowly, he reclined back in his seat eyes going about the plane as he looked at the pass angers, all of which he was assured of were M.O.R.S. Indeed, the only human on that plane was the pilot, due to the fact that none of the synthetic organisms possessed a mental capacity to learn to perform such tasks beyond infantry and combating large numbers of opponents in situations where cold war tactics weren't effective and raw numbers were needed. (Such as zombie like infections.) Despite being consisted of organic material, contrary to what many people believed, they were completely expendable.

His mind ceased to wander as the plane flew over a seemingly lifeless portion of they Libya-Algeria border. He waited for what was to happen next, looking downwards at his watch.

Seems about that time.

(@satar)

-Libya-Algeria Border-

It was dark, the air, warm and dry, was kept from escaping by the earthen roof above them. Reminiscent of the underground base they'd established in Madrid during the Spanish Wars, the Brahma Brotherhood had come together in the Libya-Algeria border, burrowed underground, and erected an informal settlement. Striding forward, a militant swagger dripping from his every step, Satar's cold gravitas commanded the respect of his cronies, of every Mad Dog, Kamikaze King, Black Reaper, and Konite rebel fighter. His peculiar mask, smokey black in shade, veiled his features, and his armored vest, carrying many a grenade, covered the swollen patch of red on his chest.

Unable to recover in due time from his battle with Kelly 'Lady Liberty' Coltaine, the World Eater searched and found different... more exotic means of healing from his wounds. Empowered by biophysical energies conjured by the healers of his Konite rebel army, Satar felt his wounds and scars disappear. He was unscathed, fully healed, and would be so for the coming hour. Their initial objective was simple; seize control of the border as a step towards wrestling territory from both Libya and Algeria, and claiming Libya's invaluable oil reserves. But then came their secondary objective, born from observations made by their intelligence activities. There was a prediction of sorts. By the Kamikaze Kings no less. That Jonathan Bold, the CEO of Maverick Incorporated, would be a passenger in a plane scheduled to fly by their North African base.

To cut the head of the dragon was an opportunity that the World Eater was eager to capitalize on. He rolled his neck, and gave his command, "تحطم ذلك/tahattum dhlk (Crash it)". Their minds burning with the echoes of Satar's guttural Arabic, a squad of his super-powered rebels, psionics and telekinetics, sought to seize the metal bird with an invisible grip, and force it into an impact with the ground. Was Bold dead then? Satar did not believe it. Many a rumor and conspiracy theory lurked in the internet's darkest corners, many pointing to Bold's tendency to miraculously survive the most violent of catastrophes. 'If there is no body, he is not dead'. Satar held suspicions, that Bold was in possession of technology beyond Maverick's standard equipment, that with said technology he could survive the impossible. But Satar, he was not impossible. He was unstoppable.

He was certain. Bold wielded supernatural technology, and surrounded himself with cronies beyond the capabilities of ordinary Maverick troops. To confront him, the Baabda Beast took no chances. He laid out his instructions. The psionics were to use their powers to augment him. To shield his mind, to telekinetically strengthen the binding forces responsible for his physical durability and resistance, to erect a protective telekinetic film over his flesh, and to attack his foes from the Brotherhood's deep, underground base. In his person, Satar kept Connor O'Hara's power ring, to be used if need be. Expecting an army, he emerged from beneath the ground, the sun's scalding touch failing to penetrate his telekinetic film. Rendered freakishly durable, even by his standards, and with an underground army ready to attack on his behalf, allowing him to simulate powers he did not possess, the World Eater's eyes searched.

He strode forward, an air of taciturn aggression hanging all about his mountainous, armored frame. His eyes of icy blue were quick. The moment Bold and his presumed army appeared, the Baabda Beast's unblinking gaze would hold the CEO in sight. The way a predator should.

He stared at his watch, his seemingly supernatural sense of intuition keen as the craft began to experience a violent turbulence. It's source unnatural and unseen, he already knew it's source from what intelligence Maverick of the Terrorist organization, the Brahma Brotherhood, easily one of the most active and dangerous terrorist organizations known. Two presidents assaulted in one election, who could feel safe? Who felt as though "everything was under control." The world was in a state of chaos and uncertainty, in his eyes. Anything could strike from anywhere at anytime, and people seemed helpless to at all stop it. New powers had made themselves known and yet, the world did not adapt. Attempts were made to become stricter, to bring about the iron fist than the unruly planet seemed to so desperately need.

He remained calm, stoic in the face of the violent, earth-quake like conditions, not even attempting to grip the seat, or anything at all, as the M.O.R.S struggled to keep their balance. Soon, the pilot came, climbing up past the seats, a para-shoot already equipped. He looked towards his CEO as he remained, the M.O.R.S. clinging to objects to prevent any impediment to the pilot's own escape. He'd little time to waste to escape the craft, but he took a few moments to exchange.

"Good luck! Sir!" He shouts at his boss. A man whom he did not respect because of his position, but because of who he was. Who few people actually knew.

"You as well, son." He replied, leaning in so that he could hear.

The pilot proceeded, as Bold and the rest of the Synthetic-Organic Army remained on the craft destined to crash. Utterly idle in the face of what was inevitably going to occur next. As he looked out the window, he saw that the plane was rapidly diving with no real attempt to prevent it from landing with some semblance of safety to it. The impact was as catastrophic, if not more so, than one would expect.

The frictional forces were hard on the craft, skidding against it tearing the nose and cockpit right off, the rest of the plane soon to come apart at the seams. Engines had blown up and torn off, the impact had well enough force to fling the man forward despite his current weight. He was tossed forward and made to tumble as the wreckage buried him and all aboard under heaps of metal. The plane had stopped, rested and soon something was heard rummaging through the wreckage. Steel debris was propelled into the air as soon none other than Maverick's CEO emerged from remains, his suit torn, but body, utterly unscathed. His M.O.R.S, few of them having survived the impact and none of them in fighting condition.

There was a moment of silence, before Bold snapped his fingers, and the things simply detonated upon hearing the noise. Leaving no remains of their synthetic DNA for the enemy to potentially study as incendiaries broke apart the fibers of any salvageable genetic material. Casually he picked up a cigar as he walked towards one of their burning bodies, using the fire to light it as he strolled outside of the wreckage. Once more, he'd come to realize he didn't feel a thing from it. This state of body, at it's most ideal for something of combat, was not the most enjoyable to him. Since his previous fight with Adrian Hastings in the defense of Nebraska, he'd come to be reminded of his own mortality. He found the prospect of speaking face to face with the Shogun before his body recovered exciting. Back then, she could have killed him in a straight up, one on one fight. The powered he'd come to gain. Political influence, corporate tendrils and his own might, he was determined to let none of it change who he was at his core. No matter how much or how little of it he possessed. He exhaled the smoke from his nose for aesthetic purposes. Might as well, before he'd flick the cigar away and trod off.

Not too soon after, he squinted underneath his glasses at a lone figure in the distance oas the Brahma Brotherhood's newfound beast. Satar had expected an army. There was none. Only Bold. He walked as one with a contained. A stoic gaze meant to anger, a hidden anger. Muscles that desired to tense and reveal pulsing veins. His air stiff and stoic as he stopped at approximately ten feet away from Satar. His frame apparently that of a 325 pound man, and only two inches short of Satar's. He had no armor. Only a suit that was miraculously devoid of any scratch it'd had previously.

"Satar." He began, a smile slowly creeping onto his face. "Also known as The Beast, Baabda Beast, The Phenom, Black House Beast, Gothic Warlord, Black House Warlord, Lebanese Warlord, Baabda Warlord, Baabda Phenom, Last Emperor and most recently, The World Eater. You've a base in Gothic, are in the midst of installing yourself in Andalusia and even here. You're a terrorist to the highest degree and on our scale of negative one to seven, you rank at approximately a class four based on what we've seen of you." He held little doubt of his feeding of the man's clearly enormous ego. Bold himself had honed his mind to be able to humiliate a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of various worldly figures, and clearly Satar was one of them.

"You've attacked the Spanish government during a time of vulnerability, attacked myself and recently assaulted one of the more capable presidential candidates. Needless to say, you've been a pain in my ass for quite a while now. And now you've interrupted my flight to bring me down here face to face with you. Because you rightfully believed I was going to survive that crash. I have a curious question for you, if you wanna answer it..." His head tilted, out a genuine curiosity as his smile waned.

"What do you think is going to happen next?"

Unfazed. Satar remained unfazed. His features welcomed no surprise and were instead held in earnest. To be fazed by something one had anticipated is nonsensical. And Satar had anticipated and was certain of Bold's survival. For his eyes, cold in intensity, to gaze upon the CEO of the globe's greatest military force and see that he was well alive, unscathed and strong, was something the Baabda Beast had expected. And whereas Bold stopped, bringing his own footsteps to a pause, Satar did not. No, the Baabda Beast continued, the frame of an ox moving with an aggressive swagger, a gelid and psychopathic self-certainty that burned into the phenom's mind the notion that he could not be stopped. He could be beaten, but never stopped.

His hands, right one gloved, left one bare, clutched the collar of his armored vest, his tree trunk arms twitching, their muscle fibers home to physical power that was monstrous and knew no limits. Sand burned at the touch of the sun's rays, dust and flaming debris from the crashed plane buzzing all about, just as telekinetic energy buzzed all about the World Eater's biophysical makeup, strengthening him beyond what even his 'Gamma Effect' enabled him to accomplish. He had expected an army, and little did he know that he'd found one, in the form of a man. Jonathan Bold, or the Modern Man's Ares as Satar called him. Why? Because in Satar's mind, 'Only Greek mythology has more f*ggots than Maverick'. Because despite everything that Bold has accomplished, despite the power he wielded, the forces at his command, the influence he conjured, Satar did not respect him.

The Baabda Beast did not believe in respect. So he respected no man, woman or god. No, the Baabda Beast valued only fear, but as a tool. The tool with which he intends to shape the entire cultures, beliefs and lives of future generations. And in his way stood Bold. For Satar to move forward, Bold would have to die. And so he continued, striding forward, unconcerned by the absence of an army. The coldest of psychopaths, Satar's emotions were nonexistent. Bold spoke, smiled his smiles, but Satar pressed forward, gradually closing the distance, all but ignoring Bold's words until the World Eater's footsteps came to a halt and he was no more than inches from his greatest enemy, his eyes, empty and ruthless, piercing into Bold's while his posture was kept global and domineering. This was psychological warfare. Bold, like many men who wielded great power, like Satar himself, had an ego. A large one.

By challenging him, sizing him up in such a manner, squaring up against him, daring him to match the icy intensity of his eye contact as both men stood some few inches from each other, Satar played the role of a snake, a deceiver. He closed the distance even further. An inch more and he'd be pressing his forehead against Bold's. It was a distraction. To bruise Bold's ego, to distract him with thoughts of 'How dare this man walk up to me without fear of consequence?'. And if only for a second Bold fell prey to it, to the trickery, Satar would pounce, because a second was all a man of his blitzing reflexes needed. He'd have pulled the pins on several grenades, which would then detonate a mere inch or so from Bold to unleash violent explosions of fluoroantimonic acid; the strongest corrosive agent in the world. Satar would have already established distance by then, remaining beyond the reach of the superacid.

A superacid that was 10,000,000,000,000,000 times stronger than sulfuric acid. A superacid whose vapors could kill. A superacid that sought to explode when touched by the water in Bold's body. It's fluorine and antimony atoms would come together and work to tear through everything that made up Bold's body, intent on ripping the electrons off his molecules, dissolving his flesh, muscle tissues, organs, cleaving the amide bonds of the CEO's proteins and the ester groups in whatever fats remained in his body. The acid sought to corrode and reduce Bold to no more than a hot soup of organic goo. And should his bones remain, the fluorine in the acid would bond with their calcium and scorch them to dust in the most violent and destructive of rampages.

But Bold would survive. Satar knew. In fact, the Baabda Beast half expected his foe to be unharmed. Why? Internet rumors claim he's survived worst. How? Satar did not know. But he intended to find out. He would test, asses Bold's capabilities before devoting himself to a proper attack. Meters behind him stood the World Eater, who finally, by the echo of an authoritative, Lebanese accent, replied.

"Dead men need no answers".

@satar:

Well then...

Bold stared into Satar's eyes as he stopped an essential inch away from him. He didn't stutter, pause or show any signs of being deterred by his approach as he kept talking as he would have if he continued Much as Bold had expected, Satar held the gaze of a beast that he had been named. A monster. Bold's gaze, was something else entirely. It was the stare of a determined man, who'd a will forged hardship and now ambition. Men were never satisfied with what they had and always strived for more. They were greedy, and greed has gotten men where they are today. If there is anything evolution had shown...

It was that men were above beasts.

The first attack came as Bold was lost within a mist of acid, easily enough to dissolve glass and eat through the silicates within the sandy ground. Though he didn't actually flinch from the explosion, it moved him back slightly as the fluid splattered all over him. Had he actually been truly human, it would eaten through his body and clothing. Boiled the water molecules off his body and melted his very bones. The results of Satar's attacks had seemingly shown that he was not human, as his stood there completely unaffected by the world's strongest acid. The reason being that Bold's body did not undergo chemical reactions in it's most "ideal" state. He did not need to eat as his body had no chemical means of breaking down food. No need to breath as his body was not supplement by oxygen. He walked through the gas cloud, taking a deep breath and whiffing it all inside of himself, before he'd breath out the acid's gases without so much as a hack.

Now he walked towards Satar. His ego unbruised as from this point on, Bold's intent was to show this man approximately the same level of mercy to all those he'd killed, terrorized and even of his own forces he'd allowed to die. He stood in the way, the path to betterment for mankind. One of many internal affairs of the earth that sought to ruin it, standing for most all of what Bold hated in a man. A social Darwinist who believed in a world for the strongest to rule. Where as Bold simply believed in improving people left behind, building them up, rather than giving one chance and allowing them to die. This man who'd stood before him should not be allowed to live by the world at large.

The acid ceased at eating his suit's trousers and shoes. The acid spared him of having to rip off the top of his suit. Revealing the dense mass of muscle than had lied beneath of seemingly bodybuilder like proportions. Along his chiseled chest that'd seen much over the spanse of his life time that'd told a story with the scars it had held. Circular bullet scars, knife slashes and most prominently, remnants of numerous cancers that perpetually plagued his form. A body intricately engineered, but imperfect.

The remnants of the flouroantimonic acid burst into helium, transmuted with a thought as the once deadly acid turned into a gas used for making balloons as it soon floated of harmlessly to eventually leaving the earth's atmosphere. The transmutation was then taken, and he applied it with greater easy and effectiveness to himself from his chest to his arm, a black discoloration that flowed like water along his body. Nearly half a century, but it was worth it, to be able to effortlessly transmute one's own body into Adamantium, among other things.

The metal took the form of both of bold's arms, as spread them out, quite a distance away from Satar. His hands outspread and muscle still composed of whatever it was that composed his seemingly unearthly body reared back. Only his hands remained composed of the indestructible metal as composing his entire body of it would slow him down substantially and decrease his strength. Seemingly, one of the world's greatest tacticians with the power of the very thing his own creation had been infamous for engaging. Irony at it's finest. He attacked. Not by going near Satar and seeking to engage him in hand to hand yet, as it might not be necessary.

He attacked, by clapping his hands together.

This simple clap, carried some 32 Terajoules of energy. An arbitrary amount of energy compared to what he was actually capable of doing with tremendous effort, the clap had functionally half the energy of the little boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The energy of it went straight into the air as at ground zero, it was ripped apart. The ground quaked with rushing air, sand serving to absorb some of the blast from his impact as the area roared. Though kinetic in nature, the impact was enough to disintegrate the sand close to him. In the end, Bold stood in a large, molten crater as sand had flown out from all around him. But he chose this area for a reason. A practically non existent populace. One could go a hundred miles and not see a single soul.

A small dot appeared from the air, as the walking WMD appeared 320 meters up before landing outside the crater he'd created. Currently the six foot two man had weighed around 793.7 kilograms. Just under a ton, and he'd be abe to allow his body to undergo a full matter to energy conversion to fuel it. Seemingly an ample amount to engage his opponent. Indeed, such an amount of energy, even a fraction of it could be used to ravage far more than one being. He'd think it would be more than enough.

And the price would be worth it.

His eyes scanned the landscape, as he sought to see if there was anything left of one of the corporation's most dangerous enemies.

Again, the World Eater was unfazed. Meters behind Bold, Satar watched, his air was knowing, his gaze cool yet intense. Indeed, the World Eater had no questions, only a victim, prey. Striding forward, hands clutching his armored vest's collar, his swagger was wicked and militaristic, his aura was commanding and seemed to seize their surroundings by the throat, intimidating nature into playing the role of his spectator, to watch him beast on another dead man. The fluoroantimonic acid vanished, offering Satar greater insight into Bold's abilities. And Satar now knew, against an opponent of the Modern Man's Ares' power, against this god among men, his gameplan, his approach, it would have to be nothing less than perfect.

Against this man, mistakes could prove fatal. Even with his attributes augmented above and beyond what his 'Gamma Effect' offered him, the World Eater knew, he had to be calculating and perfect, or he would be killed. Then came Bold's first attack. And with it, gusts of scorching air reddened and turned to plasma, a storm of energy ravaging everything in sight, superheating sand into radioactive glass, and leaving trails of burnt oxygen as this blast of nuclear proportions marched across the lifeless Libya-Algeria border, scorching the ground, drying it of it's moisture, and scarring the Earth. Atoms were struck with so much energy that they came together in nuclear fusion, generating even more energy, energy that sped across the air.

Deep in their underground settlement, the Brahma Brotherhood and Konite rebel fighters felt the Earth rumble above them, the rocky ceiling cracking and sprinkling it's dust. They did not panic. Under the instructions of the Kamikaze Kings, the scientists, the tacticians and strategists of the Brahma Brotherhood, the Konite rebel fighters harnessed their collective telekinetic energy and conjured secondary barriers around the World Eater above them. The attack, while purely kinetic, flaunted it's destructive power, and then, as Satar looked on in cool certainty, it swallowed him whole. The first, hastily erected barrier was shattered, but absorbed bits of the blast's energy. And the second barrier, the telekinetic film around the Baabda Beast, it stood true and did not falter. But the force of it, of the blast, it flung the Beast back, blasting him off his feet and into the distance.

Until, by the will of telekinetic flight, he was returned to the battlefield with haste. All of which seemed to be products of his own power. On the surface, his body featured no wounds, and his garments remained unscathed. But internally? Internally he was hurt. Momentum and inertia were bitches. When he was blasted into the distance, propelled to blitzing velocities like an atom in a particle accelerator, his organs slammed against his bones, against whatever structures contained them. They were bruised and pain swarmed across his upper body, but he did not bleed. Augmented at the subatomic level, he survived and could continue. But under ordinary circumstances, his ability to withstand more and do battle would have suffered a sharp decline. Bold was powerful. More so than he'd imagined. And yet, he still favored his chances. And through the technology of his mask, mentally transmitted his instructions to his army below. 'يأمره أن يلتفت دماغه الخاصة في أدمنتيوم/yamuruh 'ann yaltafit dimaghuh alkhassat fi 'admintium (Order him to turn his own brain into adamantium)'.

Breathing grew more difficult, his chest aching with every heave, his wounds worsening by the minute. Below, Satar's super-powered army worked, bringing their psionic power together and conjuring the kind of telepathic might that an Omega-level mutant could only fantasize about. And through the power of telepathy, they sought to reach Bold's consciousness, his mind, seize it by the throat with the strength of a god, and plant poisonous seeds so that they may command the man to accomplish but a simple, to use his powers on himself, to do to his brain what he had his arms, to turn his brain into a clump of adamantium, a dead rock. With no knowledge on whether or not Bold possessed some kind of resistance to telepathy, Satar issued his second instruction, and his army followed. Again they harnessed their psionic power, and from this nearly never-ending pool of raw power, their second attack was born. And it was subtle. With it, the Konite rebels sought to telekinetically seize every major in Bold's body, including his skin.

And from this collective psionic power that, like Bold's own power, mirrored that of a god, Satar's rebels sought to crush Bold's internal organs into organic paste. With his own internal organs yelping in agony, with his body internally wounded by Bold's first attack, Satar watched on. 'When Thor's hammer strikes his organs.. will he bleed?'.

"Back for more, eh?"

His body reared back for only fractions of a second. His plan wasn't to walk toward imposingly or for any semblance of drama or theatrics. If he hadn't been prevented, he would have moved toward Satar at speeds well into the realm of speedsters. From which point, if Satar was at all physically lesser, which he seemed to be, he'd have simply held him down and beat the shit out of him.

However, he felt something grip him. Mind, body and soul. He yelled. Not a cry. A roar with a combination of anger and agony in tandem, bringing about mixed emotion. Bold knew exactly what was happening, as he felt himself assault by beyond Omega level Telepathy. Potentially, Telepathy that would simply make entire populations kneel before this man without a second thought and perhaps more over, nearly the entire world might have knelt before him. Nearly any man then, would have the cognitive ability a piece of cabbage.

But not Bold.

He'd the training, and that helped him fight it. But, his status as something of an "Imperfect God" attributed nothing to this adamant attribute. It was nothing smore than sheer force of will through which he'd staved off. Perhaps Sixty years ago? Seventy? He would have yielded, because back then, he was nothing more than an ordinary man. But the Artificially Engineered Adonis had a will crafted by age and hardship. He knew what it meant to struggle, and he knew what it meant to know pain, difficulty, hardship. To push one's limits and come close to death. He reveled in it, not just enduring the pain, but doing as he'd shown Jackal and Nemaz to do, and he enjoyed the pain. The man had fallen to the ground, his fingers buried into his temple as he lashed out, mistaking Satar's presence. While, it failed to utterly dominate him, it clearly took tremendous effort for him to resist and he could hardly be active with it's full effect on.

The complex action of trying to form his body into Adamantium at the cost of mobility, speed and strength, denied as portions of his body were sent into a state of a flux, turning into other materials such as steels, vanadium, bismuth and other such non-reactive metals. A few small portions of him even shifted and turned into oxygen as some of his mass bled away from him, thus ultimately reducing the amount of energy he had access to. Considering that he could turn a few grams of matter into seemingly kiloton yields, and he possessed hundreds of kilograms of matter, all fuel he could use would be vital.

And so, he ceased his functioning of two of his arguably greatest powers, the manipulation of strong and weak forces. Simply, the ability to manipulate matter at the atomic level. Not only could he create Adamantium, but he could also destroy it with such energy he had access to. Indeed, a lack of destructive capacity in comparision to some beings was remedied by the fact that he'd yet to meet any material or object he could not simply touch and decay, or break apart with his bare hands.

Pain is just weakness leaving the body.

He relied only on his physical capacity. Immediately after, he'd felt his body gripped too, via telekinesis. His organs themselves, his heart, liver, testicles, all subject to crushing pressures that would have outright killed many a metahuman. But Bold was durable enough to withstand pressures and rigors beyond what conventional matter and many a metahuman were capable of. His durability decreased with exertion, but as it stood, Bold can and has withstood glancing hits from a man who could shatter planets and still survived.

And so he staggered to his feet, flashing a masochistic smile towards his opponent, prodigious amounts of waste heat leaving his body. All actions require energy, and all energy generates heat. Bold was no exception, as his radiant temperature caused his body to have a hot glow to it. All that power in one small man, with only so much mass in a given space. His footsteps turned the glass molten as he walked haphazardly towards Satar and soon, to up a position as if to charge at him, alerting him to this next attack.

His body flared and legs then immediately exploded off the sand. Nuclear-plasma emanated from his back as he charged towards Satar at maddening speed. Most speedsters, had abilities that completely ignored or mitigated destructive effects of their moving at blatantly hypersonic speeds. He seemed to teleport, not aimed towards Satar as he was out of mind to properly disorient himself but irregardless, the destruction of his attack would be enough, as he moved some mach 9000, a little more than 1% of lightspeed. The air was impacted once more with such force as it to undergo fusion as it roared once more. But, the attack wasn't aimed towards Satar. He knew the men were here. He was not sure where, but they were here and he knew this. And so he sought to destroy him. As functionally hopped forward and moved at such speeds that made him seem as though he teleported, he seemed to generate a continuous nuclear explosion wherever he went, as he soon, became functionally a massive particle beam that seared everything in it's path. As he rammed into a mountain, a giant gaping hole formed where he impacted as plasma filled it's caverns, such a thing able to easily clear it if anyone was there.

However, unlike many speedsters, he had to break. The ramifications of moving at such massive speeds meant that he was overtly commit ed to an attack, able to only truly go in a straight line and having to take more energy to break himself as he went. A jet of plasma went in the opposite direction practically instantly as the air aided in opposing him. Gradually he'd come into a break, leaving behind a molten stream of magma and a continuous fiery trail where he went.

"Where the fuck are your boys at, huh?"

He looked towards the nearest formations in the area, anything at all that looked as though it did not indicate civilization, and dashed towards them, rapidly blitzing to and fro as the earth quaked, seeking to destroy Satar's support if ever he could figure out where they were, perhaps inadvertently.

It seemed then that psionic power was the most effective against Bold. The fruits of the assault where there for the World Eater's eyes to recognize, and unknown to him, the attack had stripped his foe of bits of his power. Satar stood, hands clutching his vest's collar, the eyes of a heartless beast gazing upon it's chosen prey. Sand, marred by radioactive glass, began to melt, and wherever Bold walked, he left a trail of molten earth in his wake. He seemed ready to charge at the World Eater. Satar did not believe so. He did not believe that Bold would be so reckless as to telegraph an attack from such a distance, not against one of the World Eater's deceptive reflexes. Bold was too smart an individual.

Still, Satar braced himself, readied his senses to detect the surge of any electric fields conjured by the movement of Bold's muscle fibers. It offered him a degree of precognition. The slightest move, and Satar felt it. Combined with his alarming quickness, his unnatural reflexes, he could react to nearly any situation. Bold moved, and so did Satar. The Baabda Beast's leg muscles flexed, the power to kick through nearly any physical barrier coursing through them, and with the twitch of a muscle fiber, he jumped, over his speeding foe, avoiding the charge but not the torrent of energy that came with it. Bold accelerated, colliding with the particles in the air with such force, such energy, that he left them energized, excited and eager to share their disposition... through an explosion.

A shock-wave rippled through the air, then in a moment when even time itself seemed to stop in fear of the Maverick CEO's brute force and speed, a wave of energy consumed all, scorching the sand and turning it into plasma while it's light, even if for but a moment, challenged the sun in a contest of brightness and won. And once the light dimmed and a cratered well of superheated plasma lied in the aftermath, Satar felt his feet touch the scalding ground and skid for meters more till he stopped. His telekinetic augmentations were proving their worth, but he was wounded before, and he was wounded once more. Patches of his flesh had reddened and were hot at the touch. His internal organs however, had suffered the most. A lung of his had been flattened. If not for his body having adapted to a similar injury suffered during his battles against Gothic's Finest, he would have retreated, far too injured to continue.

But he didn't. His body had adapted. He was not at the peak of his powers, his body had accumulated injuries from his assault on Maverick, his attacks in Gothic, his role in the Spanish Wars, the battle in Black House, and his battle against Kelly. But with the supporting hand of his Konite rebels' psionic powers, he was in prime condition for conflict. Non-vital organs leaked blood, and had been marred by bruises. His body ached now, but his will was strong. He paid no attention to the mountain destroyed by Bold's attack. The Baabda Beast's cronies lied many, many, many meters underground. They were deep in the Earth's heart, and safe. The rocky ceiling above them cracked and broke, and instead of dust, rocks and pebbles rained, but they were fine. Any danger could be dealt with by their collective telekinesis. But for now, their priority was to deal with the danger of Bold.

Satar's mind gave it's instructions, and his cronies down below followed. It seemed that Bold's mind was weakened, as was his body. How long could an iron will last against an endless pool of psionic might? They attacked again. But instead of telepathic persuasion, of issuing out psychic orders, they seized their copious amounts of psionic energy, pooled it together, then added more and more as the psychic plane was drawn into a frenzy, it's lakes and rivers bleeding dry for these militant drug addicts to drink. Then they attacked. Commanding a blast of psionic energy, vicious in intent, and otherworldly in power. Their goal was simple; to blast Bold's mind into oblivion with the kind of psychic power that blew brains apart from the psionic shock-waves of the blast. And if his mind survived, the Konite rebels expected to find a weaker mind, vulnerable to what would be their attempt to erase from Bold's brain the knowledge with which he accesses his own powers.

Successful or not, the World Eater opted to issue another command, buying himself more time to recover from the effects of Bold's previous attacks before engaging him on the inside where Satar believed his in-fighting was superior to anyone's. Telekinetically, the rebels sought to seize Bold's muscles. Why? Because muscles are actively on and inactively off. When muscles flex, muscle cells contract. When muscles relax, muscle cells stop contracting. A cycle that happens every time one blinks, every time one's heart beats, any time one moves in even the subtlest way... period. The Konite rebels' attack was cruel. They hoped to seize Bold's muscle cells, and contract them nonstop, forcing him to flex and flex and flex and flex. Should they succeed, everything from his pupils to his fingers would cramp, completely rigid. His muscles would burn with exhaustion. His diaphragm would cramp and lock his lungs in place. And his heart, a muscle, would be flexing to the point of death.

From this, he did not believe Bold would die. But Satar hoped it would weaken him. Whereas Bold had weakened Satar. Satar sought to cripple him. And finally, the eyes of a ruthless warlord met Bold's, and his Lebanese accented words answered his foe's question.

"Standing on the grave they have dug for you".

Bold still felt it, Satar's men prying into the man's mind in their endless attempt at assaulting the man's still mortal mind. Bold thought nothing indestructible, that everything could be broken, but that his body was something close to beyond being destroyed by many of the things of this earth. His mind attributing his defense against things that would have made many a god kneel to simply age and something to fight for beyond his own ego. Raw willpower.

"You think I walked this earth for four years short of a century" His fists clenches, thermal radiation from raw power his body generating causing his body to illuminate. "Just to get put down by you?"

The air rippled from his presence, his body glowing. Eyes furious and plasma eminating from them. This was not because he willed it, but because of the telepathic attack of Satar's men. His body was produced prodigious amounts of waste heat as his muscles contracted with seemingly unfathomable force. While it sought to paralyze and blind him, it only slowed him down, as he walked forward from Satar. The exertion of his body bleeding off his energy due to his body being fueled by matter to energy conversion, minor amounts of the energy that made up all of matter bled out of. The air went from rippling to being set ablaze. Bold had no enhanced senses for his body to sift through the fire nor reflexes proportionate to his speed. Slowly, he watched as Satar to disappear into fire.

And then, he felt himself struck by something of such force that it to sought to end him and his existence. He had no idea what had struck him, nor did even possess the current mental capacity to process much of what was going on around him. All he simply knew, was to fight. Pain was nothing. He only remember that he wanted to pummel Satar. To punch him hard enough to reduce him to molecules. To reduce those molecules to atoms. To reduce those atoms to quarks. Then reduce those quarks to pure, unadulterated gamma rays.

But, it was not enough to prevent him from falling.

The fire around him dulled as laid into molten sand as he began to bleed from his muscle as it began to tear itself, it's own prodigious use igniting radioactive decay in Bold's own body. Muscle soon began to tear, as his "true" invulnerability was soon lost. Slowly, his eyes closed.

"Ares is down. Repeat, Ares is down."

"You have gotta be fucking shitting me."

Bold how in in the fuck are you down

High from the earth's heavens, they'd watched the fight, logically believing that there was no need for them, no practical reason for them to be directly involved. Bradshaw was hunched over, looking into a screen, barely able to sift through the fire to see Bold's figure laying flat out on the ground. Frankly, the group was baffled by the fact that Satar had been able to last greater than two minutes in an engagement with Bold directly, let alone down him. After all he has seen and gone through, it was simply. Astonishing to see someone like Satar manage to seemingly knock him unconcious. Little to anyone known, Satar exploited something that was one of the more effective means of assaulting a being of his power, someone who had the durability, skill and power to fight someone capable of unleashing sufficient levels of energy to bust a planet with a single strike. After seeing such a prospect, they'd thought their CEO invincible. Until today.

Ever analytical, Bradshaw hadn't just paid attentioned to the sensors, but to the aspects of the fight itself. The mannerisms of both Bold and Satar. The lack of any visible attack or physical strike. The plane being wrenched from the sky. The CEO's pained expressions was capable of being seen by Maverick's satellite, precise enough to read a text message off someone's phone. No disease known could harm Bold, as he could reduce most external material from his body in his base form, to radioactive particles or simply transmute them with a touch. Not only this, but his body was chemically inert. Beyond attack from such substances which simply lacked ability to survive the conditions of Bold's body. No, it had to be something else. This, the Maverick mutant

Telepathy.

To assault their CEO's mind in such a way as to not being simply an inconvenience would require obscene telepathic power. Enough to down Bold, but not anything of seemingly the same scale of other telepaths who had potential of dominating the entire earth, such as the chancellor. Though perhaps, it may been more focused, more directed. Even then, it seemed clear that if they were using telepathy. But where could they be hiding? Underground was a common tactic of most areas, and Bold's attack would have simply cleared most mountains outright. But, he was in no condition to assault it or to even grasp the concept of tactics, his mind already encumbered with the telepathic onslaught launched towards him. Bradshaw rose, looking at the area.

Guess this time I get to save you, old man.

"Drop all of the rods..." He leaned over, typing in several coordinates for them to target, a rough estimate of where the targets may be hiding, to the amazement of the man next to him. "Here. And then, drop a B61-11 Fissionless on top their heads. See how they like it. All we got but we're not standing idle. Not now."

"Sir, yes sir."

He rolls his eyes.

I'm not an officer, damn it.

On the ground, Bold had lied, his mind and body growing more and more wounded by the moment. However, even unconsciousness he'd fight. Against the force that had sought to penetrate his mind. He would sooner die, than allow something like that to happen. Unleash an explosion of such magnitude.

From the sky above, Maverick sought to rain seemingly literal fire down onto their foes. Rods sought to pummel the ground with raw kinetic impact energies equal 120 tons of TNT. Which in itself, equaled to approximately 187,000,000 ton impacts with each meteor like collision. All 6 of them. The seventh, a bunker buster traveling not too far behind, it's tungsten tip sought to burrow beneath the ground and detonate with the equivalent of a 1 megaton bomb. No radioactive fallout, no evidence. All of this, attributable to only metahumans.

His eyes twitched as he heard it through the air, a sound always familiar to him. Successful or not, it stirred him. The prospect of his army coming to his aid, to know that they would carry on without him. He had no device that could survive conditions within or outside of him in the midst of combat, that allowed him to communicate with them. All of this was of their own accord and with a lack of signal on Bold's part to forwarn such an attack. He smiled in his sleep, before he began to feel himself seemingly suffocate within the magma. The decay had taken it's toll. He had to breath now.

A molten figure rose from the liquid quartz.

Bold glowed. The air sizzled. And the sand melted. The scent of burnt oxygen hung thick in the air. And their surroundings were scorched into a vacuum. The air held a glow, it was red, it was the plasma. Bold spoke through his teeth, indignation dripping from every word, defiance burning as clear as day in his eyes. His will to power was strong. The kind that allowed man to reach higher and transcend the limits that nature had imposed on them. And yet, Satar still believed his will to power was stronger. That there existed no man, no god, no thing, that held the kind of ambition, the kind of superhuman desire to do as he had done. Striding forward, the World Eater's features were earnest. His eyes were cold. Blue gems of icy aggression that contrasted Bold's fiery fury.

Telekinetic films and augmentations kept his towering, muscled frame from collapsing under his foe's power. It kept his armored garments from being torn apart, from being burned by the forces Bold controlled. But his internal wounds and injuries were there. His body ached from within, the pain swarming through him every time his chest heaved, every time he moved. But of the two, it was Bold who could continue no more, or so it seemed. Satar rolled his neck, and his eyes felt the glow of Bold's body intensify. He glowed white like the sun, and spoke his words of defiance. Unfazed, the World Eater replied, his feet mere inches from the Modern Man's Ares, his gloved hand closing into a fist and twitching with the intention to end Bold's life. "Your compliance isn't a factor", Satar paused, his Lebanese accent echoing all about.

Before the World Eater, the head of Maverick had fallen, his face slamming into a puddle of molten sand, his body expelling heat and radiation for days. Though as Satar sought to deliver what was the final blow; a cruel fist through the skull of his greatest enemy, a telepathic assault whose psychic shock-wave sought to shred Bold's brain to fundamental particles, a succession of shock-waves bullied him away from the Modern Man's Ares. The air was now unbelievably hot, and the ground had been pummeled. The ground lumbered and the sky was blinded by a flash of light brighter than the sun. This was an explosion. One with shock-waves so powerful that faraway people kilometers away were knocked off their feet, and their windows were shattered. The ground was inspired into an earthquake, shaking and trembling with violence, while the nearest trees were blasted from their very foundations.

There were fluctuations in atmospheric pressure, strong enough to be detected in neighboring countries. This explosion was a soldier's nightmare. The kind that made one wonder if over the coming days the sky would be aglow. In the air, superheated dust particles were suspended, and what of the ground was not molten, was cratered. Underground, Satar's Konite rebels suffered. Half of them had perished, and the other half had been grievously wounded, surviving only by erecting telekinetic shields faster than their dead colleagues could. And Satar? His barriers had broken. His shields had died with half his men, his flesh was scorched, superheated so much it bubbled and sizzled. His bones were broken by the shock-waves, and his internal organs bled, while some were even liquefied. The severity of his condition was great. He'd survived only through a combination of his abnormal will to power and his power ring's constructs, it's shields.

The heat didn't allow for his blood to spill. It evaporated. Though he was the farthest from fighting condition, he could still fight. And he was confident that even with half his men remaining, and a power ring at his disposal, he held the power to kill Bold once and for all. But then... as his eyes surveyed their barren surroundings, and caught sight of whatever scrap metal from Maverick's bombs remained, the World Eater's mind welcomed a new plan. His power ring glowed green, and emerald constructs gathered whichever remains they could. From his mask, he transmitted a command to his remaining men; for them to depart for their other Libyan base. And in a streak of emerald light, Satar too had departed. Though he'd failed in slaying Bold, by reducing the man to an unconscious body, Satar had made his message clear; he was far more dangerous than Maverick or anyone knew, and now with a new plan in mind, he would truly eat the world.

He rose for the bubbling magma, yelling, his eyes clear, his muscles now under more of his control. His fiery gaze able to sift through for what was Satar's figure half dazed, his body and mind fought this unconsciousness. The Telepathic rouse had been broken and he was reawakened. And his foe stood before him, burning and heated. He was vulnerable. His muscle acked and felt pain unknown to most any being from being exert to the point of tearing itself apart, and yet, Bold had been able to push himself further. Not only enduring the pain, but enjoying it. His body cooled, as for a moment, it relaxed.

"Funny. I feel the same way."

His fist clenched, and reared back, however, as he was about to throw his first punch, his opponent, left. Immediately, magma and molten rock that had buried him. Sand washed over him as the explosions effect made itself imminent, rock and magma washing over him in the aftermath of their fight.

It infuriated him, the sound of his roar blotted by the burst of power unleashed from his body as kilitons of rock was blasted from his body. His chest heaving not from effort, such energy to move thousands of tons of rock. It was minuscule to him. He was heaving from injury, most of it, as a matter a fact, self inflicted via Telepath control that used his own muscle against him. All this power he had in his body. This raw power that, if he so desired, he could wipe out the earth. He could overcome the durability of things thought indestructible. Destroy objects that could survive supernovas. Things that could survive the essence and stuff of a black hole itself. Indeed, perhaps a black hole was one of the few things he could not unmake, that he could not destroy with but a touch. He could ravage continents at a time if he had whim and reason to, then disappear before inevitable retaliation. But he'd failed here at killing this one man who troubled him so. How could he possibly have lost to him? Not too many beings were capable of fighting him. He'd fought someone who could break the planet in two with nothing more than his bare hands. Even further back than that, he had fought others who could kill him. Local authorities would soon come, and he couldn't allow himself to be recorded, or revealed.

No one could know.

He coughed, and spat blood onto his arm, wiping it from his mouth. Taking a few moments, he stares at it, his own blood drawn. And it brings him to smile before he continues. Authorities were well on their way, perhaps to observe with satellites and even, from people to report the earthquakes as a result of the blows he'd thrown, let alone the megaton yield nuclear bunker buster Maverick sent to be detonated under ground. Evidence left would be minimal, buried deep within the sand, thousands of feet deep. There would be no shrapnel from any megaton yield bomb, as no normal material that they could use would survive such a thing at ground zero, bar Adamantium and other such physics defying material. The rods? Tungsten, the impact was however, well enough for them to eventually be vaporized upon impact.

Bold crouched down, taking a stance not unlike an Olympic longjumper to optimize himself, as he leaped from from the earth and departed the area. Not only leaving the city. Not even the country, but clearing practically the entire continent. While perhaps, most superhumans may shatter the ground when they leap, his jump destroyed the entire landscape, causing an immense gust of sand in his wake as he left at massively hypersonic speeds, becoming something of a meteor as he soared over the countries in seemingly moments somewhere high up in the earth's atmosphere, steering himself with nuclear propulsion to prevent himself from accidentally slingshotting off the curvature of the earth, landing somewhere with a giant boiling splash in the earth's Atlantic Ocean as he came to a halt.

Three Hours later...

Fish floated from the top for miles in the area, they knew he was here, burning off energy and cooling off. Bradshaw sat in the helicopter, embracing the seemingly tropical air the local area had taken. He scanned along the ocean's surface, his unncanny attention to detail enabling him to spot one detail, one figure not unlike the others, their CEO.

He laid on his back in constant motion, his body builder like frame and ultra high density, despite decreased mass, still of inhuman proportion. However, he was not concerned with it, nor did it cause him great strain. Indeed, he was rather content to be able to actually swim at all, instead of just sinking straight down to the bottom of the ocean. As the helicopter appeared, he greeted it with an wave in the midst of his backstroke.

The Maverick Mutant Hunter watched, his exoskeleton designed to bring his artificially aged body closer towards his peak when he was a younger, approximately a few months ago. The helicopter lowered itself towards the water, bringing it closer as it hovered along the water, he extended his hand towards his CEO, who took it. Despite his mass of perhaps roughly 680 lbs, he'd managed to haul him aboard after gripping his arm as he pulled him aboard.

"Guess this time I got to actually save your ass old man." Bradshaw says.

"Guess your right." Bold snickers, not embarrassed, but out of amusement at the irony. This corporation had proven to be well worth every penny, and in seeing this, he'd been reinforced of the idea of it living to surpass him.

"So...." Bradshaw begins, as he takes out a cigar and hands it to Bold. "Was it worth it?" He offers a light while the helicopter ascends, one that Bold accepts as he smokes the cigar. His body weakened, ravaged and injured, it falls back to a state more towards his default self. His body is no longer seemingly invulnerable and begins undergoing chemical reactions as normal organisms do. Radiation his body producing, growing dormant as a grevious cancer spreads through him as a result. However, he can feel the smoke, the nicotine in his brain, fresh. Almost as if he hadn't smoked in years. The helicopter departed, cloaking from view the doors were shut by other men, distance from the area opening.

The Imperfect God answered.

"Without a doubt, son."