When Jason arrived at Disaster's lab, deep beneath the DMA, he was surprised to see Director Rhodes inside; talking to the scientist as he tapped away at a keyboard. The room was filled with numerous transparent tanks, mostly just holding liquids, though a few had some of the giant spider corpses from Mexico floating suspended within. He almost started to approach one to examine it; he hadn't looked at the horrible things that closely down south; before Thomes called out. "Arakiel! Come on over. We won't take much of your time. Just have a question for you."

He shook his head for a moment. He generally tried to keep things separate; when he was wearing the armor in the field, it was Arakiel. At the moment, he was wearing a 'uniform'; simple black fabric with a rank badge and his last name and callsign... which was weird, in that it wasn't a rank he was familiar with... but it was his rank. He stepped up to the two men, glancing at the computer Disaster was working on; something about 'propagation', followed by about a thousand lines of text Jason didn't understand.

Thomes stared at the computer for a moment, frowning. "We haven't really talked much, have w, mister Bennet?"

"Ahh... no, sir. I believe they were avoiding contact to try not to contaminate test results?"

He nodded. "Well. To be honest, we're still not sure how your powers work. Not a hundred percent. But we've got enough data not to worry about the tests anymore; its pretty clear we're not going to get any more significant results until we've got a solution for the Jotun... and at the very least, you should be giving us reliable results out for the next few years. So."

Disaster was watching the director, frowning. The goggles on his face seemed to be blinking; was he watching some sort of read-out on the director himself?

Thomes glanced at Disaster. "Go for it."

The doctor sighed, and held up... a simple glass tube containing a murky liquid; like an oddly designed water bottle. "This cylinder of greenish liquid here. It contains a bacteria that's optimized to kill those crabs. Should spread across the ocean's surface, cling to the crabs, who all leave the ocean at some point during their life cycle, and return to shallow water to lay eggs. The Director is worried it might be able to mutate to humans, or cause dramatic environmental damage. I assured him, at worst, it would harm a handful of non-human species. He seems sure you can tell whether its a bad idea to release."

Arakiel extended a hand, taking the cylinder; and put a hand on the screw-on top. He could open it, easily enough. And it felt.... like a good idea. "Hmm. It feels like I should open it. If I imagine pouring it on you, or myself, it doesn't feel like a problem, but it does seem as if drinking it would be a bad idea."

"Oh, good lord, it would taste, and feel, horrifying. It's a base organic solution made to help the bacteria multiply. It wouldn't kill you, but you drink it down and it'll overwhelm your gut biome and put you in the bathroom for days."

Arakiel nodded. "Well. Pouring it on myself and you two, or even into my mouth and spitting it out, doesn't feel bad. So.. qualified yes. If we're right about my powers, if there'll be any negative consequences, they won't be until after my powers can't reach."

"Excellent." He sighed. "We're already getting reports of them washing up on beaches along the pacific coast. Thankfully only a few dozen casualties on the beaches, after god knows how many on the boats; these things aren't bullet-proof, and their abilities only extend at most a few hundred meters when they're in a swarm. Our people are going to be stretched thin for a few days, as are the Mexicans... so undoubtedly the Cartel will be making their move, soon. If they haven't already. Did they tell you what they wanted a distraction for?"

Disaster glanced up at Thomes's comment. "Ehh. I thought they were trying to setup a smuggling operation, burying some guide lines underwater, or maybe running some interference for a prison break. There weren't supposed to be this many crabs; just a few hundred, or a few thousand, and sterilized. This looks less like a criminal operation and more like one of those 'conquer the world' nutjobs took over a cartel. Or maybe just a 'conquer mexico'."

"Hmm. Well. Steven needs some practice with his new abilities... granted, from his perspective he might have already had weeks of practice. I'll see if the Mexican president would be fine with Lightning going down and clearing out the Cartels. He's been leery of that sort of thing in the past, but finding out they've unleashed a swarm of killer crabs and might be gearing up to take the country could be what it'd take to change his mind."

***

It would be days later before he trusted himself, and his mastery over his own abilities, enough to actually head out to the front lines. All down the Pacific coast, mostly along the California coast on both the US and Mexico sides, scattered attacks kept happening; crabs would emerge, swarm up the coast, and generally cause a few casualties before either simply collapsing, unable to keep moving, or being intercepted and shot.

When he finally flew out; against Excalibur's wishes, the veteran hero insisting that there's no way he could be ready in only three days; it would be to visit a temporary shelter not far from the coast; drones were constantly patrolling the shores and passing on notice that crabs were showing up; and quick response teams were heading out. Hundreds of national guardsmen with rifles were simply camped out in prefabbed towers with rifles, just watching the sand; while others were driving back and forth to deal with larger swarms.

The parking lot was... amusing. A long row of massive steel drums set on fires, with the smell of... crabs. They were cooking crabs. He laughed, and hopped down; carefully slowing himself to land easily before stepping up to one of the fires; Imperious and Silver both standing beside the drum, cracking open shells and dumping cooked lumps of crab meat onto platters; while, for the first time, he got to witness Terminal eat; the young woman speedster sitting down on a chair visibly stuffing crab into her mouth impossibly fast as the two team-mates worked on it.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Despite the ongoing catastrophe, the atmosphere was jovial. Imperious was wearing a bikini and sarong, seeming relaxed, looking as perfectly fit and tanned as only a shapeshifter or plastic surgery miracle could, while Silver was wearing a tank-top and shorts; the only one in uniform, aside from Arakiel himself, was Terminal.

"...Goddamn. I knew speedsters ate tons of calories, but that's impressive!"

Imperious blinked, glancing over at him. "Oh, hey!" She smiled, and leaned over to kiss his helmet, smoothly pop it off, and then kiss his cheek, before setting it down and turning back to the crabs. "She's got an accelerated metabolism in every way. If she were allowed into a hotdog eating contest, she'd join two at once and win them both. Help us shell these things. They're delicious, and have tons of meat in them, but the shells are just crazy tough."

He laughed, glancing down at his helmet. There was a crowd gathered round; some of them seeming somber and miserable, while others were also embracing the party atmosphere; he could see a man with a sledgehammer cracking open crab shells, and shrugged; lifting a 4-foot-long crab claw out of the drum of boiling water, and sliding one finger down its length; telekinetically cracking it from end to end, depositing the shell in a pile nearby. "So, what are we doing with the shells?" The meat looked... strange. The familiar white-red of cooked crab, but thicker than a child's arm and coming out in 2-foot-long strips. He added the meat to a pile, and kept going.

"Fertilizer. It all gets crushed and added in, Disaster is assuring us that they're fine, and the other scientists agree, so..... if they weren't breeding in such huge numbers, and didn't have the whole psi thing, they'd be a good thing. People are already getting sick of crab."

A soft chuckle as he picked up a good rhtythm, cracking and discarding shells. "So... where's Excalibur and Cascade?"

Silver glanced up. "We're on backup duty. The National Guard and the Navy have this, for the most part; we just go in when a swarm gets to big. Those two are dealing with a fairly nasty one right now, but really... its all Cascade. Excalibur just gets her in the general area... and the crabs just pop like firecrackers. The woman scares me sometimes, makes me glad she's on our side."

Arakiel shrugged. "She controls water. Unless you're a robot, everybody should be damn scared of her. How many people scarier than her are out there?"

Imperious tilted her head thoughtfully. "Well, the sun and moon twins, obviously. Lightning and Steven. Did you hear, he's considering going by Thunder now?"

Arakiel blinked. "Ahhh, hell. Thunder comes after Lightning? Didn't they say that in that Cars movie?"

"Everybody's tried to talk him out of it. Even Lightning; he's the one who can probably do it. Those two were already close, and its gotten even more intense since he was... cured. Speaking of which..." She set down her own most recent crustacean victim.

"How's the new you doing? Everything you wanted it to be?"

He looked down at his arm, focusing for a moment. He couldn't see them, but the fields were projecting out away from his hand; he could move and shift the air in a way that he couldn't feel or perceive unless he moved his other hand in. "Honestly, its crazy. The only reason I'm comfortable moving around is because of my... ESP. If I didn't have it... I have no clue how Excalibur was able to deal with it. But.... it's incredible. I can fly, without the jets. I can throw a baseball a few miles. Stop a bullet in midair. Just awesome. I feel like Neo."

She rolled her eyes. "Well. Excalibur didn't want you out here, but here you are. If we get another swarm, you can tag along. Just be careful. Don't overextend yourself."

He set an arm over her shoulder, giving her a brief squeeze. "No worries. I got this."

***

Arakiel had expected to meet a swarm in some exciting capacity. There would be an endless tide, they'd need to erect barricades, there would be a struggle, gunfire... but no.

A half hour ago, they'd been called in by a guardsman, and settled in on top of a cliff overlooking the ocean... and after a few minutes, the swarm had arrived. Imperious had flown up and started creating some sort of weird refractive light balls.... and then lasers had started to slide across the beach, leaving trails of molten glass and dead crabs; and the ones who followed were slowed or injured by the molten sections.

For his own purposes, he simply... grabbed a rock... crunched it into gravel... and launched it, shotgun-style, into any clusters that weren't being intercepted by lasers. One fist-sized rock would fragment... and leave dozens of dead crabs.

At first, there was a certain excitement to it. The crabs weren't slow, after all, and they were huge, and dangerous if allowed to get close... but after the first few minutes... it became dull. Boring.

Silver and a few squads of national guardsmen were sitting in camp chairs, rifles in hand, just watching, in case they missed any... but as the piles of dead crabs kept forming, it slowed down the others... making them walk into fewer, more narrow paths... making it even easier to kill them with the beams of death or scattered chunks of rock.

By the time the swarm ended, he'd defaced the cliff enormously, tearing off a piece at a time to use for ammunition... but the soldiers hadn't had to fire a shot, and there were thousands of crab corpses piled up.

He stared out over the field; if Disaster's bacteria was already at work, most of the crabs were already dead. This was as big a threat as the crabs would ever be. He glanced at the other soldiers, then up at Imperious, who settled down on the cliff beside him. "This... is somehow disappointing. I expected worse. Much, much worse. Didn't Disaster's projections show millions of the things, eating all the sea life, then pouring up the coast in a hideous brown-orange tide, until the bacteria started catching them, and they just collapsed? We should've been dealing with a swarm a mile wide, coming in like a wave and approaching us from every direction."

The silver armor gleamed as she settled in, and gave a low chuckle. "It should definitely be worse. Far, far worse. They mostly like to come ashore at night, and my powers aren't nearly as effective when I don't have sunlight to augment. But, well. We called in some backup, and we've been able to mostly relax at night while some friends handle most of the work. And its almost done, so even if they left now... it would all be good."

"....Backup? One of the other strike teams?"

"Oh, no. Extended family. Odin and Loki dropped by, while you were still learning your powers, and a handful of Valkyries. They and Terminal honestly got just about the whole thing handled; about the only thing we really needed Disaster's little mess for was to help keep them from wiping out all the sea life."

He blinked. "Wait. Odin was here? Like... Allfather Odin, norse god?"

"Sure. He's actually having a bit of a feast not too far north; not so much crabs, apparently he's not so fond of them; but he does a ritual at sunset each night. We can go say hi if you'd like."

"...I would love to. I mean... it's Odin! Who wouldn't want to meet him?"