As the Engineer walked up to the top deck of the boat, looking out over the ocean, he considered his upcoming course of action. On the one hand, wiping out every navy on earth would be good for humanity as a whole in the end and since the overwhelming majority of shipping was done via boats rather than planes, he could likely put an amount of pressure onto bad actors in the world that was truly insurmountable.

He looked back at land; at the Chinese destroyer following closely behind; there were others coming from other directions. Very soon they would have him surrounded; and force him to either ram one of them or surrender. Further back; was the shore. Where by now, the neurotoxin had already gone off, everyone inside the building... all of the surrogates, made to suffer in darkness for so long, finally gone, and with them, the Chinese meta-breeding program. While Granite had claimed to have saved the last of the children, the Engineer highly doubted that; placed the odds at close to 83% that there were still children inside the facility. Still. Best not to mention that. There hadn't even been any reasonable way to save children from the other facilities, and the men involved were already worried enough about the navy.

Ascension had built a new shell for the purpose; one that was cosmetically altered to fit a now-dead hispanic man whose wife and daughter were among those who had been in Chinese custody; and were now dead. If someone were to pull up facial recognition of that shell, and find the source? Unless they grabbed the shell itself, the motivations would appear perfectly clear. As if he weren't going to spell it out. Of course... the only one who would know what was going on was Eyeball.

Raid leaned against the wall nearby, looking at the Engineer. "So, robot-man. Cyborg. Master of puppets. Whats the plan for that destroyer? Or the cruisers? I was told we had a solution for any navy problems we came across."

The Engineer smiled. He'd been working on his smiles; this one looked far more natural. "There's a man with power over water. A man who could sink every boat on the ocean where the water is deep enough, all at once. And that man asked the Family for help finding his wife and daughter."

Raid blinked, pulling his helmet off; revealing long, red-purple hair and a youthful face of clearly mixed ancestry; though just what sort would be impossible to tell without asking. "Wait. Every boat on the ocean at once? There's a Titan out there that can control water?"

"He isn't publicly known. Or, at least, wasn't until recently. He calls himself 'Oshe'. Sounds a bit like ocean. And his wife and daughter were both inside that facility. Mutilated. Lobotomized. Forcibly impregnated with a stranger's child. He just wanted confirmation before he revealed himself and... got to work."

They were far enough out to sea now. Far below, in crushing darkness that no manned craft could survive, machines got to work; precise calculations were made. Chemicals released. As they watched, the destroyer following the boat simply... sank into the water. There were no explosions; no flash of energy. Over a few seconds, the vessel steadily sank deeper; until... it was gone. Nothing but bubbles and a few sailors wearing vests to mark its passage; though a few more would surface; those lucky enough to escape before it got so deep as to be inescapable.

Ascension had dozens of such machines; and in preparation for this moment had been following the Chinese navy; watching them from orbit, machines steadily tracking them from below. Over the next several minutes, all of the larger Chinese naval vessels would simply... sink. Vanishing from the surface as if they never were. Then, the machines started to track the smaller patrol vessels; these would take hours; but in the end, there would not be a vessel afloat bearing the flag of the Chinese navy.

***

"I have grim news, viewers. This is Tina Lamarc, from headline news, reporting a great tragedy today; and a story of horrors we thought consigned to history. Minutes ago we received confirmed reports that seem to indicate contact has been lost with every vessel attached to the Chinese navy currently at sea; we have video recordings of several simply sinking into the ocean as if they'd suddenly turned to stone. While vessels of other nations are working to rescue as many of the crew as they can, the death toll will undoubtedly be in the thousands; and the perpetrator has already revealed himself, and given the following video to explain his actions."

The woman looked... angry. Sad. She glanced at the wall behind her, where the greenscreen was about to display the video. "I must warn viewers that the video we are about to watch will be disturbing, and have elements inappropriate for all audiences. We've received several hours worth of video, some of which overlap and seem to confirm each other... and were promised months or even years of surveillance camera footage will soon be available for confirmation. This will be provided to the public as it becomes available."

The woman disappeared. In her place stood a tall figure with dark, heavily scarred skin, wearing a dark green robe, standing in knee-deep water, the waves washing against his back. The hood of the robe mostly concealed his face, but it was just barely visible in the shadows.

"My name is Oshe. I am the blade of Shango, and the Master of the Oceans. Months ago, in the... North American Protectorate... my wife and daughter vanished. I requested help from the authorities, and was spurned by Chinese officials. I turned for help to an associate, who was able to track them down for me; and determine that they had been abducted by the very Chinese authorities who I had gone to for help. An individual General Zhou, and his master, Zhao Xi, had been abducting thousands of women, for use as breeders in their own private camps. I wanted proof. And for their rescue. This is what I learned of their fate."

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The video shifted. Revealing a long, metal hallway; and a Chinese man in a general's uniform bragging about their processes; as the video showed a woman with a visible lobotomy scar on her head, being operated on by a team of surgeons. The video swept across dozens of women; all mutilated, all lobotomized, laying on racks in a dark room; all while the man spoke about how efficient the process had become, the durations of the surrogate pregnancies, how they were able to achieve as many as three average children per delivery; all virtually guaranteed to be metahumans.

"I held my wrath back. Asked my associates to destroy these facilities, as my reach does not extend to the shores of this world. They agreed; and only asked, in exchange, that I protect them from the Chinese navy so they could make good their escape with any victims that had not yet been lobotomized."

A new clip appeared. Showing a Chinese aircraft carrier, sinking beneath the waves. A jet attempting to take off at the last moment, only to drag its landing gear in the water and end up sinking as well. Hundreds of tiny figures in uniforms swimming away from the bubbles that marked its descent. "I have gone beyond this. All military vessels with a Chinese flag will be sunk. Any civilian vessel associated with Zhao Xi and his vile associates will be allowed to return to the nearest port; tomorrow, I will sink any of them I find in the open waters."

The figure appeared once again. "Obviously, I cannot blame all of China for the acts of these few villains. What few smaller vessels are not friends of these monsters may freely traverse my waters. For the rest of you... Do not provoke my ire, or you will also be forbidden from my oceans."

Lamarc appeared back on the screen, visible unsettled. "So far, the reports appear to be accurate, however, the Chinese embassy has thus far categorically denied the allegations of these videos, as well as declared these claims that the navy has been sunk to be wishful dreams of the People's enemies."

***

Eyeball jerked awake in terrible pain at some sort of awful sound. He felt a sharp pressure in the back of his neck, his arms and legs were in terrible pain, his body sore... everything hurt. He was lying... behind a couch? In what looked like an apartment. He reached up to grab the back of the couch, to start to pull himself upright... only to flop back to the ground as he failed to get a grip.

He looked down at his left hand... and couldn't find it. His left arm seemed to end about eight inches past his elbow. He stared down at it, blinking. Started to reach for it with his right hand; which, while intensely painful, at least seemed intact; but stopped himself. What happened? Why was his hand missing? Why was he behind a couch!?

He struggled to his feet, feeling along the wall. His left leg hurt as well; it was absolutely terrible to put weight on, but didn't seem to be broken; he had unfortunate experience with broken bones.

He was in the helicopter... with Butch! Shit. Was Butch okay?

He reached down his leg, lifting up the special 40mm gun; the one whose ammunition, at this point, was monstrous in depth. It seemed fairly intact; the indicator lights reading 90% power. Looking down at his stump, he surveyed the area... and walked over to the hole in the wall, only to see... Butcher.

He didn't know what awoke him; but did know that Butcher had been a one-man army. He saw tanks, soldiers, helicopters, all scattered across the ruins of what had once been a normal city block. He watched Butcher dispatch a Chinese metahuman, tearing a ruined blade out of his torso; and then start his way.

Eyeball carefully stepped down through the rubble, looking around at the scene as Butcher approached; and suddenly stopped, shocked, looking at him. "Eyeball! Your arm! What happened!?"

He glanced down at the stump. "I think you'd probably know better than me. Last I remember I was dodging rockets in a helicopter." He grimaced.. and switched his gun to fire Controller rounds. Starting to casually shoot each of the more intact corpses he could see. "I don't suppose you know which one we were in? I'd like to get my hand back if I can."

Butcher turned.. and pointed to a pile of burning wreckage partially embedded in a nearby building. "That one. I... think its probably cooked by now."

"Ahhh, fuck. Alright. I can't run too fast. Or even really walk much at all. Only got one arm." His gun kept making the same soft 'shunk' sound of the rounds going off. One by one the former soldiers; all either dead or unconscious after Butcher's rampage; rose to their feet. Some clutching guns. Some without even both arms.

"If we can make it to the docks, we'll be okay. Got friends who can pick us up, and their navy is probably gone by now, if my clock's right. I hate to ask this... but could you carry me?"

Butcher nodded. "Sure thing. Whats the plan?"

"We send these things out to raise chaos. You jump us towards the coast as fast as you can. Its.... that way." He pointed, and grimaced. "Ahh, hell, the screen's cracked. Half the HUD is missing. I've got god-knows-what running through my system now and it won't even tell me."

Butcher reached down; gently lifting Eyeball up, settling him on his shoulder. "Alright then, boss."

Eyeball patted him on the shoulder with the butt of the gun. "Thanks, Butcher. By the way. You absolutely kicked ass back there. Pale Ones! Advance at random, attack anyone or any vehicles that have Chinese military logos on them!"

The shambling corpses all turned; Butcher had taken out dozens of enemies, and at least twenty were intact enough to be useful; and started walking off at random, weapons raised.

Butcher then leapt into the air; his powerful legs carrying him hundreds of meters in a single bound; not his mother's multi-kilometer leaps, but incredibly impressive; and actually leaving him smashed into one of the upper floors of another apartment building. Eyeball grunted in pain as his back slammed into the glass; but nothing new seemed to have broken. "Ahh... sorry boss. Let me get to the roof, and I'll have a better shot from there."