The plan was simple.
Search and destroy.
There was no pretense of containment anymore, no illusion of rescue. Whatever remained inside the mist was no longer a city. It was a battlefield, and Stars and Stripes would lead the charge straight through its heart.
She hovered above the runway as the jets lifted with her, engines screaming into the gray sky. The mist swallowed sound quickly, muting even the roar of afterburners once they crossed the threshold. Visibility dropped to almost nothing beyond a few dozen meters, the white swallowing light and depth alike.
Stars and Stripes closed her eyes for a brief moment.
"The Air," she said.
The air responded.
"The air hardens into my form but a thousand times bigger!"
Around her, space thickened, pressure compressing and shaping itself according to her will. An outline formed first, vast and humanoid, mirroring her stance exactly. Then mass followed. Not visible, not tangible in the conventional sense, but undeniably present.
A giant took shape.
"Ultimate Move: Fist Bump to Earth!"
An air construct in her image, standing upright within the mist, its proportions identical to her own but magnified a thousandfold. Every movement she made, it mimicked perfectly.
Her boots touched down atop the lead jet, magnetic locks snapping into place. The other jets flanked her in formation, tight and disciplined.
She raised one hand.
The giant raised its hand.
She clapped.
The sound did not echo.
It detonated.
A shockwave rippled outward, air compressed so violently that the mist was blown apart in a massive clearing, the white tearing away in all directions like fabric ripped by invisible hands. Buildings emerged from nothingness, hollow and dead, streets frozen in abandoned disarray.
The jets surged forward into the open corridor.
"Path's clear," one pilot reported over comms, voice strained. "No resistance."
They flew deeper.
Stars and Stripes maintained the construct with steady focus, clapping again and again, each motion tearing more space free from the mist. The city unfolded beneath them in broken fragments. Cars sat stalled mid-street. Trains rested motionless on tracks. Digital billboards flickered silently, looping advertisements to no one.
No movement.
No people.
One of the pilots spoke quietly. "there's no one down there..."
Another voice joined in. "I'm not picking up heat signatures. Not civilians. Not heroes. Nothing."
A pause followed, thick with disbelief.
"How can that be?" someone muttered. "Millions of people, gone in an instant..."
Stars and Stripes did not look down.
"Focus on the mission," she said. "Eyes forward."
They pushed on, the mist closing behind them the moment they passed, reclaiming everything they did not actively clear. The city felt like a corpse, preserved in white silence.
Then the air changed.
Pressure built ahead, heavy and oppressive, like standing beneath a storm that had not yet broken.
Stars and Stripes slowed the formation with a raised fist.
Her next clap tore away a massive section of mist.
And there it was.
The White Whale.
It hovered above the ruined skyline, immense beyond comprehension, its body stretching across multiple city blocks. Its pale mass blotted out what little light filtered through the mist, its single massive eye half-lidded as if in disinterest.
One of the pilots whispered, "It's... bigger than the footage."
No one contradicted him.
The thing was colossal. A presence rather than a creature, its scale warping perspective itself.
Stars and Stripes felt the weight of it press against her senses.
She clenched her jaw.
"We have permission to terminate," she said sharply. "Engage."
Her avatar moved first.
The giant air construct drew back its arm, motion mirrored perfectly by Stars and Stripes as she stepped forward atop the jet. The fist came down with overwhelming force, air compressed into a weapon of pure pressure.
The punch connected.
The impact shattered the surrounding mist in a violent explosion, a shockwave tearing outward as the White Whale was driven back for the first time since its appearance. Its massive body rippled, space distorting around it as it recoiled.
"Direct hit," a pilot shouted. "Target pushed back."
"Open fire," Stars ordered.
The jets screamed as they broke formation, raining bullets and missiles into the exposed mass. Tracers vanished into the creature's body, detonations blooming briefly before being swallowed by white flesh.
The White Whale shuddered.
Then it moved.
A low vibration rolled through the air, not a roar yet, but a warning. The mist churned violently around it, spiraling inward.
Stars and Stripes acted instantly.
"I am super strong" she said.
Power surged through her, muscles tightening, bones reinforced, her entire frame elevated beyond human limits. She leapt from the jet, soaring upward toward the construct.
"Laser," she barked.
One pilot hesitated only a fraction of a second before complying. "Copy."
A beam of concentrated energy fired toward her.
Midair, Stars and Stripes canceled her previous order.
"The Lasers" she said again, voice iron. "will form a single beam"
The energy struck her avatar's hand.
It did not pass through.
The giant air construct closed its fingers around the beam, gripping light itself as if it were solid. The laser bent, stabilized, transformed into a blazing blade stretching impossibly long.
Stars and Stripes swung.
"United hyper max output laser keuraunos!"
The blade plunged into the White Whale's body, carving deep into its mass. The creature screamed then, a deafening, mind-rending sound that shook the city and made the mist writhe violently in response.
But this time, the sound did not break her.
Stars and Stripes gritted her teeth, pushing harder, driving the blade deeper as the White Whale thrashed in the sky.
"This ends now," she said through clenched teeth.
The battle for New York had truly begun.