This is a tale of a parallel world. It was written as a gift for a friend of mine on FurAffinity and combines two of my favorite things:  super-heroes and alternate realities. The main character, Geemo, is owned by his creator, and is used here by permission. Granted, I originally wrote the story without any names because the story needed to be told; I got permission, later. But permission was gained in the end. Any similarity to characters owned by Marvel Comics is strictly coincidental. Except where it’s not. In such cases, it’s parody.

Furvengers Assemble:  Ironwolf
©2013 Sylvan Scott

He wasn’t a biologist and he certainly wasn’t a surgeon. But as diagnostic after diagnostic flipped from red to green, Geemo knew he’d executed his handiwork well. The floor vibrated with heavy machinery and the re-built turbine he’d put together from the Mechanworks Salvage sale he’d gone to, four weeks ago. Both reminded him of the rising tide of chaos in the streets. But within the cinderblock walls, he couldn’t actually hear anything. The makerspace walls had been sufficiently soundproofed. And while “chaos” wasn’t precisely accurate, it wasn’t far off.
It was war.
The anesthetic Geemo had used kept the carefully-inserted leads from causing any pain. All he felt was a dull throb where they pierced his skin. Just to the right of his heart and nowhere near as deep, he had attached the six slender wires to the surface muscles of his pectoralis major. He checked the stent in his left subclavian:  it had stopped bleeding into his brown fur. Satisfied, he taped it in place and began fastening the protective, iron alloy cap over it. He had shaved a small circle of fur from the area to ensure a better seal. Once in place with surgical adhesive, he flipped the master switch.
He felt a tingle of electricity start to build, even through the codine. As he reached for another pair of tablets, the feeling intensified. He pulled his muzzle into a grimace. When the pain-killers wore off, he knew he would be in for a world of pain. He felt like howling.
Geemo was a wolf. He was a wolf in a world that had exploded into either a Greek myth or Greek tragedy. He wasn’t sure which. Like nearly a fifth of the human population, he had changed. Like so many comic book characters, he was something more. But the change meant that he couldn’t sit on the sidelines. He had to act.
His clothing had become painfully tight and he unwrapped another Hershey’s bar while waiting for the G-siphon to reach critical levels. He turned back to his suit of armor. The same brown as his fur, it had splashes of red and gold added for artistic flair. And although the world now had millions of humanoid russet-colored wolves in it, he had added a face-concealing helmet to hide his identity. Two gold-colored neoprene wings sprouted from a graphine armature on the upper back which, in theory, should allow steering if the thing could ever get off the ground.
It’ll fly, he thought. I’m about to power it with something close to one-point-twenty-one gigawatts; it’ll either fly or blow up half the Makerspace.
At least if the worst happened, Geemo was sure that almost no one would notice the Earth-shattering “ka-boom”. In the middle of an invasion by a cybernetic army of hoplite infantry, motorcycle-based centaurs, and spear-throwing satyrs under the command of a self-styled god, he could blow up half of Lake Michigan and no one would bat an eye.
Breezeblock windows shook as a boom from outside made his heart beat faster. Geemo quickly checked the power levels and unwrapped another candy bar. The flavanols in the chocolate were the best he could do to keep his blood pressure low and increase vascular function. Everything else needed for his project he had been able to acquire but getting drugs more powerful than pain-killers was beyond his meager contacts in the local hacker community. He wished he could have gotten some valium. Until then, the chocolate would have to do.
The tight binding of his belt made him wince and he unwrapped another bar.
The G-siphon began to ping. He smiled:  it had already filled thirty percent of his armor’s capacitors. He was literally a power-house. It was powering up faster than he’d anticipated. He had underestimated just how much energy was now created by his body’s stress reactions. As the windows shook again, he realized that none of that mattered:  he had to act ... now.
Figuring he could risk it, he turned the G-Siphon up to full and watched the power levels climb. He felt his clothing grow loose, again. He checked the live stream newsfeed on his laptop. Things in the city had only continued to get worse. But his suit was nearly charged. Soon, he’d be ready to do something about the carnage. Footage showed a break-in at the downtown museum, though, made him think twice. After a moment, he realized he couldn’t wait any longer. He watched a group of ancient Greek soldiers carry a giant, stone head through a loading dock, shrugging off guards and ignoring the journalists covering the mad god’s war. One of the guards was a wolf, like him. But the guard wasn’t like him. He knew that for a fact. Although nearly twenty percent of the world population had been changed into human-animal hybrids, he was the only one he knew who’d gotten a little something “extra”.
That “extra” was powering his armor and, hopefully, would make the difference in the coming fight.
Plate by plate, he winched the exploded-view pieces of his armor onto the small gantry he’d constructed. It wasn’t like in the comics or movies:  each piece was heavy and took time to assemble. Also, given that his baggy clothing was now fitting snugly, again, he had some trouble fitting into it as the siphon continued its work. He couldn’t feel the energy being drained from his body but he knew it was. All the indicators he’d attached to himself were still in the green. The armor was tight, especially over his muzzle as he attached the helmet, but it worked. Soon, clad in winged armor, he snapped the seams closed with a flex of his spine and activated the heads-up display inside the helmet’s visor. All but two of the sixteen pinhole cameras he’d mounted on his creation came on-line. He would have to fix those, later. Right now, he had a date with a god.
Hermes, the ancient Greek embodiment of lies and trickery, was behind the downtown assault.
Geemo had practiced with the suit, before, but still found it difficult to clomp across the concrete floor as the strength augmentation systems came online. It felt a lot lighter than he was used to. He stomped through the aluminum doors into the storm-tossed light of morning, gritted his teeth, and fired the armor’s jets. The Siphon, still doing its job, was sufficiently charged. The boot and back thrusters fired; he didn’t even have to cross his fingers as he rose. Elation blossomed not just from his engineering success but also because he was lifting off. He was flying!
Still, despite dozens of tests flight was difficult. But he had designed the suit, knew its every contour and feature, and quickly wrestled the machine to his will. The Siphon, fully opened-up, worked to replenish energy pulled by the thrusters and the armor suddenly didn’t feel quite as tight.
The invincible Ironwolf soared skyward. In the distance, columns of smoke rose from the heart of downtown Milwaukee.
Hermes, or whoever he really was, had first shown up at the Smithsonian four weeks ago. The armor was already under construction as a fun, personal project. Geemo hadn’t anticipated how crucial it would be. Even when the “god” had unleashed a luminescent wave of energy across the globe, he hadn’t known it would involve him, personally … certainly no more than the rest of The Transformed.
In the wake of the lightning-blue light, people changed. The papers said Hermes had shown up and stolen several items from a warehoused exhibit, sealed since the nineteen-thirties. Still pending classification and return as native antiquities to Greece, the crated objects had been gathering dust for years.  An amphora, a spear, an oscillum, an artist’s chisel, and a papyrus scroll had been the targets of the theft.
When Hermes then made a grand stand outside, shouting to the police that he was “the returned  Lord of Flesh on Earth”, someone shot him. Blood had gone everywhere; plenty of tourist-sourced smartphone footage had shown that. But while his blood had splattered on each of the five items, the ivory case holding the scroll had been shattered by the bullet allowing its contents to be stained. That was when the burst of light had gone off.
So maybe it hadn’t been Hermes’ intent.
The Smithsonian director said that the scroll had been a religious document called “the Declensions of Circe” from a temple excavation on Crete. He’d been a geek and lover of comics long enough to know that if you added the blood of a god to an allegedly ancient magical scroll, you’d get results. It was annoying that reality proved to be as predictable as fiction.
As he rocketed to his destination he saw centaurs, below.
A small cadre of the creatures, engines revving and extra-wide tires keeping them upright, raced out of an auto body shop dragging a man by chains. A small boy, one of those changed into a half-human, half-animal, ran after the cybernetic creatures crying for his father. The boy was tiny and resembled a ferret. His small size and plaintive cries ignited Geemo’s protective side. It was time for a field test.
Angling his trajectory with his wings, he rocketed down.
Some said up to a third of the Earth’s human population had been changed. Others said it was as low as a tenth. He didn’t care which number was right. Out of them, as far as he knew, he was the only one to get a so-called “super-power” in addition to the species change. It had already destroyed a car, put a hole in his home, and caused him to buy a completely new wardrobe beyond what had been required by his anthropomorphic transformation. The power needed controlling and, thanks to the G-Siphon, he had that covered.
He hoped.
He’d not tested the Siphon’s abilities in combat. His heart rate increased and his adrenaline spiked but the suit didn’t feel any tighter. In his heads-up display within the helm, though, he saw the energy he was draining out of his body had nearly recharged the energy he’d spent on flying. Hopefully, the power he’d expend would help offset the fact that he was coming in for a landing.
He shut off the jets and made a running stop in the street. His bat-like, neoprene wings folded against his back.
The ancient Greeks saw centaurs as monsters. It was a perspective completely at odds with the Hollywood culture that put visions of Narnia and Hogwarts on the big screen. Myths described them as drunks, rapists, and violent murderers. They were beasts despite their guises of men. There were a few exceptions but those were exceptions to drive home the rule. These, massive motorcycles from the waist down and humanoid horses from the waist up, represented that rule.
One raised his equine head to the sky and whinnied a booming challenge. It was deep and frightening. In his armor, though, Geemo didn’t hesitate. He had seen other things that frightened him more. His heart was racing as fast as it ever had and the flavinols in the chocolate had calmed him as much as any non-prescription solution could. His armor was growing tight and there was no other system for the Siphon to send energy into.
No system except his blasters and emergency floodgates. He’d never tested the latter.
He aimed his flattened palms at the cybernetic beasts. They spun their chassis to face him and bellowed half-horse challenges. His audio inputs, imperfect and made from off-the-shelf computer microphones, picked up a few shouted words through the clamor but it was all Greek to him. His armor creaked and strained; he felt it biting into his fur, packing it and pressing it into his flesh. The emergency floodgates were a last resort, so instead, he fired the blasters.
The batteries drained to ninety percent immediately. Red beams, tinged with yellow, arced from his palms and sliced into his foes. In seconds, the industrial-strength lasers cut off front axles and burst tires. Oil spilled to the street and several spurts of gasoline escaped ruptured fuel lines. Ambient heat licked the combustible liquid and caused several to burst into flame. The centaurs screamed in fury. He didn’t let up.
Surgical blast after surgical blast cut into his enemies.
Three of them carried guns but their bullets ricocheted off the Ironwolf armor. Another, disabled and on its side, used a strength Ironwolf didn’t know it had to rip into the base of a streetlamp. It toppled but the creature was able to grip it around the base and swing it like an oversized club:  two dozen feet in length.
Geemo took a blow that sent him flying back.
Impact-deadening foam burst into padded armor compartments, protecting him but making the armor even tighter. Debris erupted around the impact, mostly coming from the fragmented, aluminum housing of the post. Shrapnel scattered across the front of the auto shop. The boy, the little ferret, screamed in pain as some of the pieces cut his furry flesh.
Monsters.
He was fighting monsters.
Geemo, canine face hidden beneath his helm, narrowed his eyes.
In a second, the centaur’s arms were removed and cauterized.
The rest, for whatever it said about their motivations, did not surrender. But neither did they push the attack. Their wheeled lower halves disabled, they merely shouted what he could only assume were insults and hollow threats. The two burning centaurs had managed to put out the flames.
The human man staggered to his feet, having removed the chains. He ran to the boy who had called him father and cradled him. The boy’s sobbing turned from pain to relief.
“I’m sorry.” The speakers weren’t the best but his voice was magnified well enough for the man and his son to hear. “I should have—”
“You did fine,” the man said, curtly. His eyes were tinged with tears. “It’s those bastards who’ll be sorry.”
Geemo didn’t know if he had another problem on his hands. In the distance, he heard the sound of sirens.
“Look, I don’t know if these guys were turned into monsters by Hermes or what. Maybe they can still be saved. Don’t kill ‘em; got it?” A boom rocked the city; windows from several blocks around, shattered. Geemo dove forward and protected the man and boy with his armored body as glass rained into the streets. Standing, he looked in the direction of the explosion.
The harbor. He cursed under his breath. He had to go.
“Look, go,” the man said. “You’re the only one doing anything. Stop ‘em. Save people. Please.”
Ironwolf nodded but pointed at the distraught father. Indicating the cybernetic centaurs, he said, “I’m trusting you to do the right thing.” He hated having to say it but continued. “Don’t make me regret leaving.”
“I’m not a monster,” the man replied and held his son close.
Another boom rocked the streets. Ironwolf looked to the sky and grimaced. Without another word, he shifted the power back to the thrusters and launched himself into the air.
Being a super-hero, which he had to admit he now was, was surprisingly similar to the the comics. He had just come out of his first battle and, already, he was on his way to his next. His heart raced; his body pumped adrenaline and whatever that weird energy he’d dubbed “G-Energy” throughout his body. His Siphon worked as fast as it could to drain it off and keep his mass from accumulating too quickly. The fight had drained them to three-quarters capacity. Flying kept them at the same level.
He would have expected to feel fear but his armor protected him. There was nothing to be afraid of. Not yet, at any rate. He knew his work and was confident in it. He had protection. The centaurs and other servants of the would-be god only had guns and spears.
Okay, some of them might have also been super-strong but that was also addressable.
Just like in the comics, he didn’t feel fear … only excitement.
“Mortals:  heed me!”
The booming voice sounded like thunder, sculpted into words. Geemo didn’t have any ferrier mikes built into the armor so it was hard to pinpoint its source. Soon, though, he saw it. A column of water—a spinning, spiraling geyser a hundred feet across and reaching a thousand feet into the sky—was rushing up from Lake Michigan. Before it, seemingly standing in the air in violation of every law of aerodynamics, was Hermes.
Angling his flight, Ironwolf rocketed towards his quarry.
“For millennia you have been without us, but I forgive you your attacks upon my person.”
His voice didn’t sound in the least forgiving. It was imperious:  like a parent scolding an errant child. Geemo disabled the armor’s safeties and poured more energy into his propulsion.
“It must have been so frightening to you,” the god boomed. “It must have been a shock to see one of your Gods return! But I shall accept no more insolence! Your new life begins, today! Here, embedded within the center of this once unknown continent, my will shall spread outwards and return mortal-kind to the glory days of enlightenment and worship! So decrees the last of the old Gods; so decrees Hermes!”
Ironwolf hit him like a missile.
His power reserves dipped but his racing heart kept them from dropping too much.
Hermes, however, arced into the sky and then dropped like a stone. Far out in Lake Michigan, the god splashed down.
Geemo had not had time to install in any tracking software but he was pretty sure he knew where Hermes had landed. He was just about to rocket after him when a roar came from the swirling water spout. Turning in mid-air, barely keeping his armor hovering, he stared at what rose within the waters.
It was a man. It was a man made of stone. It was a towering statue, over a hundred feet high, and it stepped from the heart of the water spout to face the flying Ironwolf armor.
“So that’s where the museum’s head went,” he muttered to himself.
He suddenly had the realization that life was no comic book.
Fear paralyzed him while simultaneously ramping up his adrenaline to peak levels.
The colossus threw a punch.
The impact sent him sailing south east, further over the water. He tried to steady himself as system after system went off-line. The impact was only mitigated by emergency thrusters that had intercepted the incoming blow at the last minute, partially deflecting the stony fist. But the impact had still done incredible damage. One thruster was sputting, only providing propulsion in fits and starts. The others were at half power. He was going down.
As the water raced up, he managed to fire both boot jets at the same time and rocket towards shore. Lakeshore park broke his fall as he left a long, smoking divot in its grassy lawns. He felt his arm send sharp pains through his shoulder and knew it was at least dislocated, possibly broken. He tumbled head over heels; his neoprene wings were torn away as he rolled to a stop against a concrete park bench. An aged elm was set ablaze by one of his misfiring thrusters. Quickly, he shut them down. In the distance, he saw a fluttering banner advertising “The Colossus Has Come” … a traveling exhibit from Greece. At least he now knew why Hermes was in Wisconsin. First the Smithsonian and now, here.
Still, that didn’t matter. He had to stop it.
The giant, stone man craned his stolen head down to glare at Ironwolf. It acted with a sense of intelligence. It knew its foe was down but not out. It stepped out of the spiraling waters and started heading towards shore … towards Geemo.
Shakily, he stood to face the giant.
Power levels were at thirty percent. Adrenaline levels were through the roof. The leads in his chest were throbbing and he could feel something wet seeping through his fur around them. The G-Siphon was operating at maximum efficiency. All around, he could see people running away from shore. Police helped where they could and the National Guard was coming along Lincoln Drive, but what could they do against this? Possibly a lot but, still … this was his fight. Comic book or not, he had to finish it.
He flipped open the floodgates from the batteries and re-channeled the power-drain from the Siphon. Almost immediately he felt his armor grow tight.
“Here’s hoping this works,” he muttered.
The floodgates poured the strange energy from his body outwards. It poured it out through the leads into the contours of the metal armor. He’d barely been able to scratch the surface of what the energy was or why, when he grew agitated, it made him grow. But it seemed to work on a level that was fundamental:  not based on cellular structures. In short, it made every atom in his body, bigger. And, somehow, his larger body could still interact with the surrounding universe.
He’d discovered that low-mass items in contact with him would keep up with his growth. Some of them, at any rate. When his power first appeared, he’d stumbled and fallen on his car. His clothing had partially kept up with his size-increase. But it hadn’t affected his watch or change in his pocket. To effect denser objects, he had to channel the energy directly into them.
At least that was the theory.
Hopefully channeling it into his armor would save the day.
He stood and faced the giant as, slowly, he started to grow.
The colossus made landfall. It’s giant, stone feet crashed past the concrete wall at the water’s edge. Brick, asphalt, and rebar went flying. It crashed forward, stomping like some extinct monster as it closed in. Ironwolf stood his ground. Sparks few from exposed wires and dented hardware but he still got bigger.
Looming high above, the creature was still faster than it had any right to be. Each step it took was ponderous and lumbering but its gait spanned over thirty feet.
Echoes of old, bad Sci-Fi movies played in his head. “How can anything so huge, move so fast?”
Physics, bitches, he thought. But how much did physics apply to any of this? Hell, how did his growth when something seemingly magical was at work? Geemo didn’t believe in magic. Clearly, more research was needed.
He kept backing away, stumbling as the ground seemed to slide inwards beneath his feet. He watched as his power reserves climbed, but slowly. All of his energy was being fed into his suit to enlarge it.
The biggest he’d ever gotten, after that first night when he’d accidentally crushed his car, was twenty feet.
That height was ten feet ago.
The suit of armor got tight again and he re-calibrated the rate at which it was being fed by the emergency floodgates. It didn’t react well and he felt the suit loosen more than it should have. This was a shut, he’d built in, for safety’s sake … it was never intended to be an actual tactic.
The booming of the colossus’ feet shook the ground less and less but it got closer and closer.
Thirty-five feet came and went and he felt heavier. The world shrank away and the tree tops were at eye-level. But even at this rate, the creature would reach him long before they were the same height. The colossus was getting close.
Too close.
It opened its stony mouth and steam erupted in a howling fury. Its face contorted despite its stony composition and it glared with all the fury of Tartarus. It drew back its fist and drove forward, faster.
No choice. No time.
He closed the floodgates and redirected all power to the thrusters. He blasted them from both palms, sending a searing one-thousand-degree blast of heat surging into the stony monster. It billowed like flames even though it was a highly-combustible gas he’d concocted to simulate jet fuel. Funnelled through a powerful fan system, it acted more like a laser than a flame-thrower.
But unlike the metallic components of the centaurs, the colossus was stone.
For a second, he felt a flutter of hope as the sound of cracking ripped the air. But the creature didn’t stop; it didn’t even slow down. It threw a punch and, armor tightening around him, Ironwolf could only try to dive aside.
The blow struck just as he passed forty-feet tall.
Geemo had ducked, using his relatively smaller size as a defense, but felt his already injured arm take the brunt of the impact. He howled in pain and hit the ground again.
Frantically, he tried to rise. The shadow of his giant assailant fell over him.
Another blow landed and, this time, his internal systems went offline for several seconds. Two of his suit’s three central processors were down with the remainder struggling to keep up. The Siphon reported heavy damage.
Pain rocked him as he rolled to one side, his growth stalled at sixty feet.
Not only was his arm pincered within the armor but, now, all over he was slowly being crushed by his own growth. Warnings sparked across his field of vision:  all systems were failing.
The creature drew back its arm.
He couldn’t funnel any more energy into the armor and growing any further would kill him.
Not wasting time on prayers, he took a chance and with his last “Hail Mary” pushed the damaged G-Siphon past its design parameters.
The feeling was cold.
Where each lead touched him, he felt chilling cold and … weakness. Sparks, more than electrical, burst before his eyes. Dizziness took him and he faltered while trying to roll away. The armor felt loose … very loose.
In seconds, it seemed to expand around him like a room; a cracked, metal amphitheater. His wolven body shrank within it, the Siphon pulling all the energy it could from him. Delirious, he still knew he had to focus. He hoped that one of his armored suit’s palms was still aimed at the animate statue. Power levels were beyond his remaining sensors ability to measure.
He fired.
The suit emptied itself. The energy, G-whatever-it-was, filled its batteries and caused it to collapse down around him, too. He lost sight of his target. His internal screens only showed that the giant gloves of his armor had managed to keep their aim.
The colossus exploded out over Lake Michigan.
Power went to minimum.
Darkness consumed his eyes.
Bleary and exhausted, he fell back and lay on the ravaged grass of the park. The armor crushed in around him and he blacked out.

Days later, he managed to get the Ironwolf armor in to the Makerspace without anyone seeing. It hadn’t been easy but no harder than getting it away from the shell-shocked onlookers and frantic police who’d come up to him after the fight. On less than one percent power, he’d survived … he’d survived and been allowed to stagger away.
Despite the questions, despite the cheers, despite the demands to identify himself, he’d escaped. He’d even avoided further injury as his armor had shrunk around him. By what could only be described as sheer luck, his armor had managed to shrink around him in the same prone position as his fleshy body. maybe he’d been slightly conscious and moved to accommodate the constricting metal but he couldn’t remember. Either way, he was so wiped out after the fight, Geemo had not grown in days. He knew it was still there, waiting in him, but the size-energy, the G-energy, was dormant ... for now.
He remembered the most sobering part of the fight, though, as he’d left amidst the questions and cheers.
Hermes had been there.
As he’d gotten to his metal-clad feet and avoided the reporters and National Guard and bystanders and police, he’d seen Hermes watching from the ravaged shoreline. All eyes were on Ironwolf; no one but he saw the so-called “god”.
Hermes did not look happy.
The Greek’s eyes had locked with Ironwolf’s, even through the armor, and in that instant he knew that this was not over.
Maybe creating the colossus had drained most of Hermes’ power or maybe his minions, spread throughout the city, had been weaker than he’d hoped. He was holding off for now. The small army of cyborgs and servants had been defeated and rounded up by the authorities. But in their wake, as Ironwolf recovered, Hermes had just walked away.
Maybe Hermes’ servants weren’t normal humans changed by Hermes into monsters. Maybe they just had been created by magic or whatever super-science the Greek had access to. Probably they had been created by the same force that had animated the giant statue. Clearly, Geemo and the rest of the world had a lot to figure out. What he didn’t know about the world was bigger than what he did. But, the more he thought about it, the scientist in him felt pleased. A lack of knowledge only meant more challenges … more opportunities to discover. His growth was only one mystery. And as for him being the solitary individual amongst The Transformed with powers, the news was reporting on others who’d taken to the streets in the city’s defense.
He wasn’t entirely alone.
He dragged the last of the armor into the small, private workshop he’d set up in the back of the Makerspace for privacy and collapsed into his chair. His eyes wandered to the computer monitor he’d set up with “Version 1” clearly visible on the main CAD program’s window. His armor’s design glowed in blueprint blue lines and text. After a moment of staring at it, he leaned in and opened a new file and smiled.
On the screen, the new document read “Design 2.0”.

End