For those who believe it happened in February of 1939. This was under the cover of darkness with nobody around to see and so would be disbelieved by most who would hear; the Briscoe Incident. Briscoe County, Texas was largely empty with one of the lowest population densities in the state or, really, the Union. The County Seat, Silverton, had a population numbered in the hundreds and it's only gone down in all the years that came after. For the true believers the blame lay with the Incident.

Conspiracy theorists shouted about it for years; something stood up out of the oil rig, something huge that sent the rig toppling before it staggered out into the oil fields. The oil men scrambled to the job site, fearing their livelihoods were endangered and thinking nothing of the danger to their mortal lives.

Bristling with guns they stared it down in the moonlight, aghast and unwilling to believe their eyes. It walked on many legs and had a strange red glow in its center spire that highlighted the rock-like ridges that ran all the way to its top. One man cried out in the darkness “It’s a Martian! Like on the radio!” convinced it was an alien from H. G. Wells' novel War of the Worlds. From there a panic started, another man shouting about Cthulthu and hitting himself in the head, convinced that the words of H.P. Lovecraft had come to life.

Despite the fictional accounts presented by witnesses there was clearly something here that was all too real. Blank white spots, like eyes with no pupils, slowly gained in glow and became like spotlights, scanning the oilfield. Then the whole thing started to glow, the bulk of its mass becoming a silhouette ringed in red.

No one knew who fired the first shot but they soon regretted it. Rifle fire did little to the glowing mass but it did get the creature’s attention. Shots to the limbs did nothing at first but the first hit to the center of mass got a reaction as the creature grew angry and eager to swat the insect that had stung it. The tracks it left, giant post-holes in the parched earth, quickly contained more than a dozen dead, flat men.

The lone survivor, Casey Cunningham, drove home in a panic, snatched up his wife and their two sons then fled the county as National Guard troops descended on the area, nearly doubling the county's population in a day. Men in black made ever more aggressive inquiries as to the nature of the incident and little believed that nobody had seen anything.

Cunningham returned as the news reported that martial law had been declared, leaving his wife and children in Austin with his own parents. Seeking out the military personnel he swore to his God that he'd seen the devil himself erupt from beneath the earth to start judgment day. His statement was taken, he was given a pat on the head and quickly sent on his way. Surely this man was no danger, so erratic, nobody would believe anything he had to say.

Back in Austin things just got worse. "It's a cover up!" his wife would later quote him as saying. "They don't want people to know because it would cause a panic but they have to! The people have to repent their sins!" he would go on at length, raving to his wife, who quickly became frightened of him due to his erratic behavior.

Less than 24 hours after returning to his family Casey Cunningham's face was plastered all over the evening news. He was armed with a grainy photo snapped with a Kodak pocket camera typically used for site checks and to document potential spots to drill. The creature was there for all to see, surrounded by what they imagined to be as many as a dozen tentacle-like legs that propped up the creature's central cylinder that glowed like fire. Experts analyzed the image, comparing it to barely visible oil rigs in the background, attempting to judge the distance and determine its height.

Within 48 hours Casey Cunningham would disappear along with all the evidence he may have had. While his wife would appear in the news media one time, asked about her missing husband, she refused to make a statement and looked haggard, unkempt and some would say "haunted". By 1950 she would leave the country, seemingly falling off the edge of the world until 1954 when someone investigating the incident found that she'd gotten remarried to a man in Moosejaw, Saskatchewan Canada. He would approach her for comment. For a second time she refused to comment on the incident. Instead she shouted "That idiot should've kept his damned mouth shut!" and slammed the door.

And so that creature, dubbed "Fire Hydra", went the way of Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and so many others. A cryptid, seemingly too large to hide, but still spurring belief in much the same way as Scotland's Loch Ness. The official government line was that "Kaiju do not exist", Kaiju being a word borrowed from the Japanese who both filled their popular culture with the giant monsters and, among their populace, many believed they were real. It carried on like this for a time until, in 1989, a similar incident happened in the United States; specifically New Jersey.

People called this one "The New Jersey Devil" for lack of a better name but it bore little resemblance to the creature of colonial American legend. Roughly the shape of a bear but with antler-like protrusions above its eyes it rampaged along the Jersey Turnpike, swatting cars aside and crushing tractor-trailers with its bulk before tearing them asunder with its claws. Live news feeds from competing stations' helicopters caught the thing from every angle. It was more massive than an elephant, covered in shaggy fur and seemingly impervious to the flaming fuel that burned all around it; the result of a tanker having been smashed open and sent skidding across the pavement, sparks a-flying.

This time when the military rolled in there was no attempt at secrecy. If, half a century later, the conspiracy theorists still living believed that Casey Cunningham had been made the victim of a government conspiracy they weren't being vocal about it. Rather it was more likely they cheered on the troops as they fired bullets, shells and rockets at the creature. It was as a rain of fire scorching the earth and turning the asphalt into molten tar.

Nothing worked. Smoke and waves of heat obscured the creature's legs as it followed the road toward civilization, panicked drivers swinging U-turns up to a mile down the road and ignoring all but fatal collisions with other vehicles in their need to escape.

One local newscaster was heard to say "This thing's about 30-feet tall and walks like a man! It's like one of the many horned beasts foretold in Revelations suddenly escaped the depths of Hell!" He wasn't quite right; it walked like a bear which meant it could walk on four or two feet. Still, the important part was that, with nothing else that made sense, humanity turned to religion for explanation. It was then, perhaps, no great surprise when a "savior" arrived.

What people expected was a pitched battle with members of the New York Nine, heroes serving the Northeastern Megalopolis. In particular the Solar Scion, so called "the Son of the Sun", leader of the Nine had been operating for over 20 years and, with his power of flight, could get there quickly. But he was busy that day rescuing workers from a factory fire made unavoidable by a negligent capitalist. Instead, a stranger arrived, likewise flying on the wind, assumed to be the Scion until caught clearly on the telephoto lens of a television camera.

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Wearing blue sweatpants, black athletic shirt, ski mask and a rain poncho he looked ridiculous but very successfully concealed his identity. He landed amid the National Guard who'd arrived and been overrun quickly by the creature. With their trucks and personnel carriers crushed and countless troops slain they were in the midst of a strategic withdrawal. A straggler, Private First Class Nathan James, paused when he saw the newcomer, the sudden gust of wind from his arrival alerting him unlike his fleeing squadmates.

"Hey!" he shouted. Pausing, expecting a response, getting none. "Sir! You can't be here!" Staring, rubbing his hands together, the stranger seemed oblivious. "What the hell? Can't you hear me? You're in a disaster zone!"

Finally turning his head, James saw the newcomer's eyes. They screamed of a kind of strangeness that threw the soldier off; they looked at nothing.

"Dude. What?" and, laughing, he looked back to the distant creature.

"You, you can't be here! That creature is destroying everything and an airstrike is inbound to keep it from reaching the city! In less than five minutes the Jersey Turnpike will be a crater!" he shouted, desperately, sensing that his words still had no impact.

"Oh, dip? Bro, I gotta get on this quick then!" Calmly he walked, shouting at the creature. "Hey! Dumbass! You gotta get back in the forest, like, now!" Smoothly, he lifted into the air, rising about 20 feet up and flying at highway speeds towards the creature. "Hey! Asshole! You deaf!?"

Stopping at about eye level with the creature, heat, smoke and ash rising all around them, the stranger waited. Slowly the beast, shuddering in what looked like pain, turned and bared its teeth at the stranger. A lone news helicopter, the slowest to depart, wheeled about in the distance, returning to the scene, taking a risk to capture footage of what would now be an exclusive to Channel 2. With a confidence seen only in the most foolhardy of dead men he put his hands on his hips as the creature roared, the sound shattering every piece of glass left in every nearby abandoned vehicle. Hunkering forward the great horned bear seemed to sniff at him, creeping nearer with a mix of hunger and curiosity.

Confused by the tiny, hovering thing before it, the creature paused, staring, continuing to sniff in an effort to make sense of the situation. Without warning the stranger lashed out! Head snapping back the panicked confusion on the thing's face made it clear that this man, with the back of one bare hand, had done something that none of mankind's modern weapons had done; he'd hurt it. Lunging forward with a rabid bloodlust it snapped its jaws at the man who, without touching the ground, wrestled with it on equal terms.

A great gout of blood sprayed across 8 lanes of crushed vehicles as one of the beast's fangs was forcibly removed. Shakily the Devil lifted into the air before being upended and careening back down, headfirst, into the pavement. It looked for all the world like he'd been invisibly scooped up by a professional wrestler and slammed down for maximum drama.

Distantly behind him, the National Guard had stopped to watch, the Corporal in charge chattering on his radio the entire time. “I said cancel the airstrike! There’s a damned flying man whipping the tar out of the thing!” The commander on the other end roared, incredulous.

Through static the argument was made that it was safer to follow through, carpet the area with flame to be sure the threat was ended, and it was unclear if the message had even been understood. "You don't understand..." The newcomer laughed, playing with the beast, its paws doing nothing but pushing its much smaller quarry around in the air. "It's like a toy to him..."

Finally, however, the Jersey Devil got lucky, clamping its jaws down on the stranger's entire upper body. In what was otherwise silence, his screaming curses could be heard faintly over the roaring flames and the giant's growls, the creature dropping down to all fours to chew its elusive prey, pausing only to shake it violently.

This went on for perhaps 15 seconds as the world looked on. Though his words mostly couldn't be made out, the stranger's tone could be heard as he noisily argued his case. The newscasters were able to make out "not cool" being shouted. Finally, shakily, the Jersey Devil's jaws were forced open, a very human roar escaping illustrated the immense effort of the now enraged mysterious, altered individual.

What followed was a horrific show of brutality wherein a seeming human being spread a 20-ton mutant beast over half a mile of highway like a giant tub of jelly. He did so while paying none of the tolls that your average commuter was required to pay. That last part got a lot more media attention than it probably should have, which, really, is the only reason it's being mentioned. He started by fully extending his body and limbs, opening the beast's mouth too far and shattering its mandible. The piteous sound escaping could make anyone feel sorry for the creature; or almost anyone.

Ripping the jaw off entirely, the stranger stabbed the creature in its eye using its own teeth and its cries raised to a tone too high for something so large. As it staggered, struggling to remove its own bones from its own eye, the stranger flew away at top speed, then back, hitting dead center and blasting the monster's guts from its front and out the back of it, an explosion of gore that caused a burst of red rain hitting houses a mile away. At that moment it fell, clearly dead, but the stranger's attack continued. When he was done, about five minutes later, this mystery man had rendered the Jersey Devil into a red coat of paint coating miles of highway and the surrounding terrain.

Meanwhile, on the ground, he prodded at the upper torso, left arm and what was left of the creature's head, looking for all the world like a child unaware that his favorite toy was broken and not going to work ever again. His expression was one of worry as if he'd made a mistake in his rough handling of the genocidal beast. Overhead a flight of fighter jets buzzed by, their shock at the scene matched only by their lack of a target. The airstrike was called; the killing was already done.

Andrew Pyle of traffic chopper 2 was aghast, having watched the carnage from bell-to-bell, he scarcely reacted from the moment the stranger retaliated against the monster until he was done tearing it to shreds. Abruptly the stranger flew right up to him, his wake causing violent turbulence, before opening the door to the helicopter (and damaging it badly) before squeezing himself in. Between the reporter, the pilot and this lunatic the chopper was simply too full.

"I guess you'll be wanting an interview" he intoned with an overblown charisma. Pyle was agape at the man's appearance; his sweats were soaked a reddish-brown and, by the smell of him, the liquid wasn't all blood. His ski mask had become more of a muzzle with his chestnut hair poking out and his shirt and the rain poncho he'd used as a cape were gone completely, having been shredded during the fight.

"Y-you can't! We're one-thousand feet in the air!" he stammered towards this bizarre man-child demigod. The pilot had already started cursing and struggling with the controls. Catching himself and knowing better than to confront someone with power in a situation where that power can be used on you Andrew managed to state "Interviews do not take place in helicopters! How about you come with us, back to the station!? And we can talk!"

"The station?" he barked, apprehensively, "you mean like the police station? I just saved this city, you know!"

"We're not really in the city, I--" and sputtering, he caught himself again. "TV station. We're in a TV station's helicopter! Channel 2!"

"Oh. Oh yeah." he stated, pausing for entirely too long as if someone had pressed a button in him, placing his brain in stasis. "Okie-doke, citizen. I'll leave you to it. Maybe we'll talk later." he babbled, opening the door with a horrible rushing sound.

"What? Wait a second!" shouted Andrew, trying to prevent a catastrophe as his pilot struggled to descend, sensing that he was close to losing control of the whirly bird. "What should I tell the people? Who are you!?" he shouted over the rotors.

"Tell everybody that Megadude is here to protect 'em!" he shouted without pause, giving a crisp salute that sprayed gore all around the interior of the cabin, and turned away again. This time he simply leaped out without warning, the force of hism push-off sending the helicopter spiraling out of the sky. It was a wild, screaming crash landing with Andrew releasing all manner of bodily fluids involuntarily, into his clothing, onto the co-pilot seat and the poor unfortunate pilot of the 'copter. They ended their trip suspended in a copse of trees, utterly befuddled and lucky to be alive.

"Megadude!?" he exclaimed, suddenly angry at his near-death experience. "What the fuck kind of stupid name is Megadude!?"