(POV - Batman)
Night settled over Gotham like a curtain of wet ash, heavy and suffocating. The city's lights flickered against low clouds, reflecting off the smog that never truly cleared. Sirens cried from somewhere in the Narrows. Tires screeched on rain-slick pavement. The kind of night Gotham never stopped producing.
High above the streets, perched on the gargoyle of an old cathedral, Batman watched everything.
He always did.
The suit beneath his cloak absorbed the cold wind as he scanned the city block by block. His cowl displayed dozens of surveillance feeds, police channels, and encrypted military reports. Gotham was restless tonight, but not for the usual reasons.
Bruce could feel it. A shift, and a pressure building far from Gotham's rooftops.
He narrowed his eyes behind the mask. "Show me the latest reports from Mars."
The feed changed. His HUD filled with images he wished were fiction.
A burning colony dome.
A crater crawling with chitinous bodies.
Soldiers in improvised bio-armor firing into a swarm that moved like a single organism.
A Goliath walker half melted by acid, firebat team overwhelmed in seconds.
Bruce clenched his jaw. Gotham was sick, but the disease on Mars was something else entirely.
The Zerg.
A name created by terrified soldiers who needed something to call the monsters that tore apart the first three colonies. Everything about them was unnatural, efficient, horrifying. Creatures built for perfect adaptation and consumption. Monsters that learned what killed them and returned stronger.
And they were evolving faster.
Bruce replayed a short clip of a Terran armored soldier engulfed by a Zergling pack. He watched frame by frame. The speed. The coordination. The intelligence. He paused on a single image of an evolving strain that no longer matched earlier biological signatures.
This was not random. Someone put them there.
Behind him, lightning flashed. Gotham's skyline illuminated for a heartbeat. Bruce did not look away from the visor.
"Computer." His voice was gravel and exhaustion tied together. "Predict swarm spread if containment fails."
The computer paused.
"Containment probability decreasing at a measurable rate. If the swarm reaches orbital launch sites, evacuation time for Mars becomes zero."
Bruce exhaled slowly. "And Earth."
"Earth would encounter full infestation within five to seven weeks if Zerg biomass enters the atmosphere."
He lowered his head for a moment.
Five to seven weeks.
Gotham had endured monsters, gods, metahumans, and cosmic threats, but this was different. This was a species that ate planets. If it reached Earth, even Superman would struggle to protect entire continents.
…
A scream rose from an alley below. Batman leapt without hesitation, cape snapping behind him as he dove. He grappled onto a fire escape and landed silently behind the would-be mugger. A single strike ended the confrontation. The victim stumbled back, thanking him breathlessly before running off into the rain.
Batman watched her go. His jaw tightened.
Saving one life felt smaller tonight.
He opened a channel on his gauntlet. "Alfred. Put me through to Wayne Aerospace. I want full diagnostics on the experimental satellite grid. If the Zerg reach orbit, Earth needs advanced detection before the first breach."
Alfred answered with his usual calm. "Already in progress, sir. Should I also prepare a briefing for the League?"
Bruce paused on the rooftop.
The Justice League.
Superman would want to intervene. Wonder Woman would insist on unity. The Lanterns might treat it as interplanetary war. But Bruce understood something the rest did not.
Humanity had started this fight on Mars. Humanity had to understand how to finish it.
"Not yet," Batman said. "I want more data. And answers."
"Answers to what?"
Bruce looked out over Gotham, where thunder grumbled like the planet itself clearing its throat.
"Who brought the Zerg to Mars."
For a moment, the world was quiet aside from the rain.
Bruce returned to the cathedral roof. He pulled up another report: a seismic reading from the first recorded hive cluster. The signature was not natural. Not random. Not accidental.
Someone had opened a tear in reality.
Someone had invited the swarm.
Bruce's eyes narrowed. "There is always a mind behind a monster."
He watched the rain fall over Gotham. Streets glistened like veins in a living organism. Crime moved like a sickness through the alleys, constant and familiar. But Mars was a different kind of sickness. One Gotham could not punch or interrogate or frighten.
Across the city, a siren wailed. Batman turned, cape flowing behind him. He vaulted across a gap between buildings, movement precise and silent.
As he glided toward his next intervention, the thought gnawed at him again.
The Zerg were not on Earth. Not yet.
But Bruce Wayne, the man behind the mask, felt something he had not felt since childhood.
Fear.
Not for himself, but for a world that had no idea what was coming.
Earth trembled, not physically but spiritually. Its consciousness stirred faintly, sensing the storm building on the neighboring planet. If the Zerg ever reached its soil, Earth would have no choice but to awaken in ways it had not done since the ages before heroes.
Batman knew this. He felt it in his bones.
(A.N. its in the history books that earth is bigger than it should have been. And with gods roaming around they know the Earth is alive.)
And so, while Gotham needed him tonight, Earth would need him soon.
For now, Mars bled alone.
But Batman understood a simple truth.
If the Zerg reached Earth, no city, no hero, no continent would ever be the same again.
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(POV - Tony)
Tony Stark had spent his entire life solving problems no one else could. Reactors, weapons, clean energy, artificial intelligence, planetary defense. He had stared gods and aliens in the face and found something he could build to level the playing field.
But nothing prepared him for the images coming from Mars.
He watched the footage again from the center of his workshop. The hologram of a Zergling froze mid-jump above a fallen Firebat trooper. Its talons were already inches from the soldier's visor.
Tony zoomed in.
The creature's muscles were in the act of reshaping themselves. The carapace on its forearms thickened while its stance shifted to counter recoil from the trooper's flamethrower.
It was evolving in real time.
Tony exhaled slowly. "You have got to be kidding me. Shape shifting without nanobots. And people thought Ultron was bad."
He flicked his hand. The hologram dissolved and reformed into a rotating blueprint. The beginnings of something new. Something massive. Something no human had ever worn.
Prototype designation, CMC-1 Genesis Frame.
Not Iron Man, Warmachine, or Hulkbuster.
This was based on old simulations from the Firebat models, inspired by the Hulkbuster framework. Heavy, durable, hydraulic, and built to keep a soldier alive long enough to learn how to fight again. On Mars, survival time for inexperienced troopers was measured in minutes. Tony wanted hours. Days. Eventually, victory.
A robotic arm lowered another component onto the workbench, welding sparks dancing across the metal.
Tony leaned in, tapping the reinforced chestplate. "All right, big guy. Your job is to take hits that turn normal armor into soup. So please, for once in my life, let the math be right."
The armor plating was a blend of Stark alloys and Zerg carapace samples stolen off the battlefield. Biotech woven into ballistic steel. Vibranium mesh where he could source it. Shock absorption inspired by Wakandan kinetic redistribution tech. Power cores derived from miniaturized arc reactors.
The entire thing was a tank made wearable.
"Friday. Status on the neural-link interface."
The AI responded immediately. "Calibration is at ninety two percent. Neural backlash is reduced by fifty percent since the last test. The operator should retain full limb control."
"Operator. Yeah." Tony rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Someone is going to have to wear this thing. Someone brave, stupid, or both."
"Sir. You are both of those things."
"Thank you Friday. Truly inspiring confidence as always."
But Tony was not building only the CMC Genesis Frame.
He walked to a second platform. The system scanned him automatically, scattering blue light across his body. A sleek set of armor rose from the floor. Not bulky. Not heavy. But thicker than anything he had worn since the Mark I.
The plating was angular. Reinforced. Built to handle acid spray, claw strikes, and the bone crushing tactics of the Zerg.
This was the suit he would wear if Mars fell.
Prototype designation:
Iron Man Mark X Zergbuster.
He had not told the Avengers, or Rhodey, nor Pepper.
But the truth gnawed at him constantly.
If the Zerg jumped to Earth, Iron Man needed to be ready to fight an army that did not fear death. An army that could eat him alive, study the armor, and evolve to counter it.
His usual sleek models would not cut it.
Tony pressed his hand against the Mark X Prime and felt the low vibration of the arc core humming through the plating.
"Friday. Run the acid stress test again. I want to know if the new polymer holds."
"It did hold, sir. Then melted. Then held again after the self repair cycle."
"Good. Because I have no interest in getting digested. Once was enough with that giant space worm."
Another hologram lit up in front of him. A map of Mars. Red zones expanding slowly outward. Human bases shrinking. Strongholds flickering offline one by one.
Tony swallowed hard.
"Sir. Your heart rate is increasing."
"Because I am thinking, Friday. Which is dangerous when my head is full of worst case scenarios."
He stared at the spreading Zerg infestation.
"If they jump planets, we do not get a second chance. Earth will fall before we even understand how to fight them."
He paced the room, mind racing with calculations, supply chains, training curves, mortality rates. Tony had fought impossible odds before but this was different.
This enemy learned, adapted, never stopped advancing.
Friday broke the silence. "Sir, we received a message from Wayne Enterprises. Their satellite network is sending updated bioswarm telemetry."
Tony raised a brow. "Batman is watching this too. Figures. He probably already suspects the swarm is going to reach Earth eventually."
"Would you like to coordinate with him?"
"Not yet. I need data before paranoia turns into panic."
He turned toward the massive CMC frame again.
Even half finished, it had a presence. Hydraulic limbs thick as a car. Bombardment grade shoulder mounts. Reactor vents glowing faint blue. Humanity had never built something like this. Something meant for hundreds of soldiers, not just one genius in a suit.
This was humanity admitting it needed an army of Iron Men.
And Tony Stark knew exactly what that meant.
Someone had to lead the design.
Someone had to build the prototypes.
Someone had to make sure Earth survived.
He rested a hand against the cold metal plating.
"If Mars is the proving ground, then Earth is the prize. And I do not let people take my planet."
He looked at the Mark X Prime beside him.
"And I do not run from fights that matter."
The workshop lights dimmed as the reactors hummed louder. The future of warfare was being born here. Not in a cave. Nor tower.
But in a moment of fear turned into determination.
Tony Stark tightened his gloves.
"Friday. Clear my schedule. And cancel sleep for the next forty eight hours."
"Already done, sir."
"Good. Then let us build something that scares the Zerg for once."
He stepped forward, eyes burning with focus.
Mars bled. Earth trembled. And Tony Stark built.
Because if humanity was going to survive the swarm, it needed armor strong enough to stand in the jaws of monsters and still fire back.
And Tony Stark had never been more ready to create it.
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