Hellrise Event

Homelanders

Mexican Military

United States Military

Other superheroes

The Hellrise Event is the name given to most prolific act of metahuman destruction ever witnessed. The rampage of the metahuman known simply as "El Diablo" by the people of Mexico saw numerous cities, including Parral, Delicias, Chihuahua, and Mexico City, where the attack began, wiped off the map, and the land between devastated by firestorm. The death toll of the event reached over thirty million, and included the wholesale slaughter of Mexico's premier superhero team, Los Centinelas, alongside numerous international superheroes and military assets. Following the Hellrise Event, global fear towards metahumans increased massively, resulting in numerous draconian laws being passed in nations around the world, a surge in anti-meta hate crimes, and a wash of religious fervor sweeping throughout Latin America.

## Description

The precise origins of the Hellrise Event are difficult to track, as there are no living witnesses to the early minutes of the Event, and many records were destroyed in the hours that followed. It would be months before a comprehensive report on the Event would be compiled.

What is known is that at approximately 7:19 A.M. on January 9th, 2028, local police received an anonymous vandalism tip to a sleepy neighborhood in Mexico City. Responding Officer Nina Monterero reported at 7:27 AM that her partner was down and there were several civilian casualties.

Officer Monterero’s description of the suspect provides the only known physical description of Diablo before he wreathed himself in flame; around six feet tall, muscular, with dark hair, light skin, and green eyes.

Local Police arrived in force at 7:32 AM, and quickly opened fire. Their efforts only agitated Diablo, beginning the exponential increase in his power. Heavily armed Federal Police were on the scene by 7:40, quickly followed by a Metahuman Response Team at 7:47.

Los Eterna, one of the Superhero teams of Mexico City, were the first Metahuman responders, arriving at 7:54 AM. By then, estimated casualties were at 21 Uniformed Officers, 34 Federal Police, and 28 MRT Agents.

Los Eterna member Emisario, a telepath and pyrokinetic, managed to extract some data from Diablo’s mind before it was closed off with rage, but was targeted in response and quickly killed, the first Metahuman casualty. Emisario was followed in death by several members of Los Eterna before they retreated at 8:06.

Diablo was left free to wreak havoc on the surrounding neighborhoods for over twenty minutes as Federal Agents and Metahuman Teams worked together to evacuate the area as a military response was mobilized.

At 8:29 elements of the National Guard entered the evacuated area, supported by air and armor. By this point, Diablo’s fire proved capable of easily melting steel, and the military response was all but annihilated by 8:44.

The premier Superheroes of Mexico City then went on the attack, led by Bastion of Liga Salvaje. Bastion was a potent opponent, possessing Class 4 Durability and Strength as well as Class 3 Regeneration and Electrokinesis.

Supported by an array of Metahumans, Bastion battled Diablo for the better part of an hour, before falling to horrific burns at 9:21.

Unfortunately, by the end of his first true test, the battle had considerably increased Diablo’s power. Airstrikes were sanctioned at 9:30, quickly followed by significant artillery barrages at 9:40, to little effect. The Mexican military threw everything it had at Diablo for over an hour, only managing to get significant amounts of military material and personnel destroyed in the effort.

By 10:45 Diablo had caused extensive damage to suburban Mexico City, and despite attempts at evacuation casualties were well into the thousands. When Diablo began to approach the Urban area, a counterattack was launched at 11:00.

Diablo’s tendency to target whatever had most recently attacked him had been noted, and the fastest speedsters available were sent in, in hopes of delaying Diablo or leading it away by presenting it with a target he could not destroy. At first, the team, led by El Relámpago Verde, failed to get Diablo’s attention. Diablo had started to grow in size, and the team struggled to approach him due to the heat radiating from it.

At 11:05, El Relámpago successfully impaled Diablo with a melting light pole, attracting Diablo’s notice. The group distracted Diablo for four minutes, before it unleashed a ring of fire that immolated everything within a quarter mile, including the speedsters.

The military attacked again, this time attempting to douse Diablo’s flame with Cryogenic Agent 131, dispersed by aircraft and mortar fire. This proved effective, and when Diablo was rendered sluggish enough Cryokinetic Metahumans approached to add their strength to the attack.

From 11:12 to 12:43 Diablo was thought to be on the verge of defeat. The military dumped hundreds of tons of sand, using conventional anti-fire tactics.

At 12:44 Diablo again burst into life, freeing himself with another wave of fire which killed many in the area, before pressing on towards the city proper, which he reached shortly before 1:15 PM. The Mexican Army had dug in along the line of his approach, though now only heavy airstrikes and similar levels of ordinance even seemed to register to Diablo.

Slowed by the sacrifice of hundreds of soldiers, Diablo entered Mexico City proper at 1:28 PM. Now limited by the urban cityscape, the Mexican Army asked for volunteers who would guide Diablo through mostly evacuated areas in order to buy time.

After several valuable Speedsters were killed by 1:51 PM, this task was continued by soldiers in Armored Personnel Carriers, who could only hope to fire on Diablo and drive at most a few blocks away before their tires melted from the heat and they burned in a melted cage. Dozens of heroes died in this manner, to save thousands.

At 2:26, Diablo reached Zocalo. The President and other VIPs had been evacuated by then of course, but this could not save the Metropolitan Cathedral, National Palace, or the Federal District Buildings.  Several brave Metahumans, some from national and others from religious fervor, attempted to protect these beloved buildings.

Galvanizar, el martillo de la ciudad, fell with them. A Class 5 Telekinetic, he struck Diablo with extreme concussive force and battered him with staggering attacks, disrupting his footing with local earthquakes and withstanding terrible fire until at last his shielding faltered before a torrential outpouring of flame that melted everything in its path for a full mile. Casualties rose into the tens of thousands with this blow.

The death toll quickly rose to the hundreds of thousands, as at 3:01 PM, at the heart of the city, Diablo sent a flood of fire in every direction; and as if inspired by Galvanizar Diablo began to break open the ground and let out molten magma until Mexico City began to resemble hell on earth.

For a brief time Diablo was idle. Most likely it was regathering its strength, though some argue it was held back by grief or confusion or some other emotion. None can say for sure, as by now only the most powerful telepaths in the world could hope to gleam anything beyond pure rage from Diablo’s mind.

At 4:13 PM, Diablo started moving again. Upon entering a second plaza at 4:21, the Military detonated extensive explosives littered throughout the area, burying Diablo beneath a pile of rubble. Momentarily hindered, Telekinetics were quickly rushed to the scene to surround the rubble with powerful barriers.

The hope was that Diablo, thus constricted and unable to see any targets, might eventually grow passive or otherwise exhaust itself. Diablo was successfully contained until 5:34 PM, though maintaining the barriers grew increasingly difficult as Diablo’s fires burned ever hotter and he writhed violently against the barriers.

At 5:36 PM Diablo burst free, burying a few of his former oppressors alive, though most escaped. One unfortunate Metahuman, a visiting German Class 2 Telekinetic named Lewis Hollander, became the first known foreign Metahuman to die fighting Diablo.

Hollander was a civilian and volunteer, only 22 years old, unaccustomed to his powers and believed to have collapsed and died simply from overusing his power. Another lost hero.

Their sacrifice, however, gave time for the military to deploy another countermeasure. The Superhero Fuego Azul, a Class 4 Pyrokinetic, was moved into a cleared area. The only being for miles, Azul unleashed his power, which successfully drew Diablo towards him. When Diablo got close enough for it to attack him, Fuego consumed a cyanide capsule and fell dead moments later.

The hope was, having not been attacked nor presented with anything to attack, with the last known target simply disappearing, Diablo would be reset to a ‘null’ state and go idle. The plan was suggested by a nearby powerful Telepath.

Conspiracy theorists like to claim to Fuego Azul was mind-controlled into suicide, but all evidence points towards his sacrifice being a genuine one. Regardless, it proved to be in vain. Diablo did remain immobile for a quarter hour, but soon continued to move.

Some storytellers claim that Diablo was enraged by something as minute as a fly, but prior examples (notably Diablo ignoring El Relámpago and his team) prove this very unlikely. The conclusion drawn by the official report is that Diablo simply sensed a distant concentration of life, most likely a refugee camp not far, and deemed it a target.

At any rate, Diablo moved towards said camp at 5:56, arriving at 6:18 PM as dusk fell. The military presence bought a few minutes, but most of the camp, which held tens of thousands of survivors, was killed. Thankfully, the other camps that had been formed were evacuated by bus before Diablo could attack them, thanks to the sacrifice of further military personnel.

Diablo began to move away from the ruins of Mexico City at 6:49 PM. Of the approximately 23 million living in the Metro Area, an estimated nine and a half million were killed by this point. Experts believe that without the swift and determined reaction by military and Metahuman personnel, casualties could have been as high as 16 million.

By 7 it was determined Diablo was moving towards Queretaro, and evacuation efforts were stepped up in that sector. At 7:42 PM, 65 miles from the city, the Mexican army and over 300 potent Metahumans from half a hundred Superhero teams launched an all-out attack deemed Operation Full Steam. Among them included a group of Superheroes who had rushed down from El Paso, named Impact Watch, who were the first American team to face Diablo.

Over the next 30 minutes, Diabo endured a frankly horrific amount of punishment, both conventional and superhuman. Now in a zone where the few civilians were acceptable losses, Diablo faced opponents who could now use every inch of their power, without buildings to hamper their strength in numbers.

It wasn’t enough. The onslaught only achieved superficial damage, at a terrible cost. Over two thirds of the attacking force was killed. Casualties were particularly high among the Metahumans, both because they drew more attention, and because they were found to be more likely to fight to the end.

The only surviving member of Impact Watch, Captain Defiance, later explained: “It’s easy to think you aren’t making a difference firing a rifle or-or even a rocket at a monster like Diablo. You can see your hardware doesn’t work, and know all you can do is pull out. It’s harder to admit that as a cape, easy to convince yourself if you could just … dig a little deeper … then you can stop it and save the day. That’s why so many of us died in the Event. We just kept digging deeper, until we were all gone.”

Once command deemed the attack a failure at 8:33, and that all personnel had been evacuated to a safe distance soon after, a nuclear strike was authorized. At 8:51 PM, Diablo was hit with a B83 Thermonuclear bomb, delivered by the US Air Force.

The attack proved ineffective, as after apparently being stunned for a short period, Diablo soon reappeared and continued on his way to Queretaro, destroying military and civilian installations and people as it went.

Diablo reached the outer edges of the city at 9:35. Exhausted by their efforts to defeat Diablo outside the city, the military could only provide limited support to the remaining local Metahuman teams which strived in vain to protect the city. At the time, military analysts predicted over two thirds of the population would be killed.

And then, like descending angels of war, Los Centinelas arrived. The Mexican government had wanted their premier Supers kept in reserve as a final resort, but the team had decided that they could not stand idly by and let the city die.

Diablo turned to face them, and for the first time since reaching nearly his full potential, the monster was put to the test. For almost two hours they fought, and when midnight fell, so did Los Centinelas.

As January 10th began, Diablo turned once more upon the city, but when Diablo had burnt all he could only half a million were dead, not the full million predicted by the military. Los Centinelas died saving a great few, but much hope died with them, and many began to proclaim the end of the world.

Having wreaked a line of destruction a hundred miles long through the countryside, Diablo had killed roughly ten thousand people for every kilometer he had traveled. Twelve million in total had fallen.

From Queretaro Diablo moved northwest towards Leon, arriving at 3:12 AM, again destroying much against stiff resistance along the way. There the military had adopted a new strategy. They had decided that while they could not create a cold powerful enough to subdue Diablo, they hoped they could at least surround Leon with a ring of ice displeasing enough to drive it away.

This was accomplished primarily through mass dumping of CG 131 along city limits, though some Cryokinetic Metahumans aided the effort, and would become invaluable later on by opening avenues through the ice.

Not unlike a horse which will not drive itself into a square of bayonets, Diablo turned away as he moved through the avenues deliberately left open to him which led away from the metro area.

But seemingly realizing he was growing further away from his target, Diablo turned at 3:22 AM. For the first time since he had grown to monolithic proportions, Diablo moved at speed. At approximately Mach 1 - the walking mountain hurled itself through the moat of frost laid around the city and pushed himself through.

“It was like it was pulling off a bandaid.” One surviving witness reported. “Moving fast to make a mild bother go away faster.”

With the perimeter breached, Diablo set about his monstrous work, and the ice around the city now proved a hindrance … slowly reinforcements and evacuation. Seeing this, the flyers from many Metahuman teams joined together, in conjunction with military aircraft, to place Diablo under assault from where he could not easily reach them.

Instead, Diablo began leaping into the air, swatting heroes away like flies, blasting them out of the air, and inadvertently starting earthquakes as it did. One unfortunate Metahuman, Agua Dulce, was caught in a humongous fist and roasted in its palm.

Since most of the population was trapped in the city, the death toll rose staggeringly, until by dawn three hours later, over eighty percent of the citizenry, almost 1.7 million people, were dead.

Oscar Tolentino, a local bookstore owner, recalled: “It was a hell of ice and fire. Burning men and women and children threw themselves onto the ice. Some I think were trying to get out, even then, most probably just … instinctually thought it would save them from the pyre. If they were lucky, they froze to death numb … most just stayed lit like candles. Watching a man burn to death surrounded by one of the coldest substances known to mankind … it was like watching  someone drown in a desert.”

At 7:14 AM, Diablo exited Leon and continued west towards Guadalajara, reaching it at 8:38. Its Rampage had lasted for over twenty four hours, with no signs of stopping and over twenty million dead, and Mexico clearly was incapable of handling the situation.

The US was planning its response - men in black were at Supreme’s door - the Homelanders assembled for duty. Reservists were brought back into duty, and requests for foreign assistance were made. Aleksandr Menshikov, partially retired, flew to Washington DC to offer assistance to those in need.

And all the while, Diablo continued to burn, until the Earth’s crust boiled and tore open. The military had anticipated Diablo would continue to move north from Leon, towards the closer city of Aguascalientes, and the attack on Guadalajara had wrongfooted them.

Fortunately, the first wave of foreign assistance arrived just in time. Landing at Puerto Vallarta at 8:50, the Los Angeles Guardians quickly moved east to relieve pressure from the beleaguered city. Making first contact at 9:08, the Guardians fought well, expertly striking and fading, forcing Diablo to continually halt his movements and hold the Guardians at bay, though few direct attacks were made. Once evacuation efforts were completed, the Guardians withdrew almost unbloodied at 9:55.

Some decry the Guardians for this, claiming that unlike previous Metahuman assaults, the Guardians prioritized saving their own lives over civilians. As evidence, they point towards the fact that all of the Guardians survived, whereas no other team so exposed had come away remotely as intact. Furthermore, they point towards the fact that while determined attacks by Metahumans saved the majority of the population in most other cities (with the notable exception of Leon, which of course was due to extenuating circumstances) the casualty rate was much higher in Guadalajara.The Guardians PR team argues against any and all such claims.

Be that as it may, it cannot be denied that the Guardians' arrival saved many hundreds of thousands of lives, though nearly 3 million still fell, due to delayed evacuation efforts. As had been previously expected, Diablo moved now upon Aguascalientes.

Some solace at least is offered that thanks to Diablo’s attack on Guadalajara Aguascalientes was almost entirely evacuated when Diablo arrived at 11:19 AM, though as a result the military largely decided to save its remaining strength for later cities, leaving almost a hundred thousand people to their fate.

Zacatecas beyond it was, as a smaller city, evacuated to the extent that Diablo bypassed it altogether and cut straight across towards Durango, arriving at 3:02 PM.

Previous Metahuman attack teams had been drawn primarily from Central and Southern Mexico. The Northern teams had been held in reserve, as Diablo had seemed from the start inclined towards heading north. At Durango these teams were deployed for the first time.

They threw themselves into battle eagerly, having been only able to watch and listen as many of the friends and colleagues had sacrificed themselves and their cities burned. Almost 500 Metahumans and a hundred times as many soldiers met Diablo outside Durango, determined he would go no further. The ancient El Colmillo, one of the few remaining great heroes, declared: “We might hope to be a bite that burns. But we must be one that takes long to chew.”

The monster would eventually break through their stalwart defense, but not before taking an hour and a half to chew. El Colmillo, fierce to the last, forced his way through unimaginable heat and buried his claws and his teeth so deep into Diablo’s flame that his charred corpse was dragged almost a hundred miles from the site of his death. A marker rests both where he died and where he fell.

A hundred and fifty thousand of Durango’s people joined him in death, but the greater portion of the city was saved. At 5:16 PM Diablo pressed on towards Culiacan, harried all the way by surviving Metahumans and regrouping military personnel.

Night was falling when it reached the city at 8:28 PM, and the Northern Metahumans, though greatly bloodied, rallied for another stand. Command promised that if they could buy time here, then they would be able to clear the cities in advance of Diablo’s march all the way to Nogales … where it was expected Diablo would cross the border and the US would meet the monster in force.

Believing that if they fought hard their deaths would be the very last, the Northern Metahumans battled Diablo ferociously. El Castillo, protege of Colmillo, declared that they would fight to the last. And it nearly came to that. Three and a half hours later as January 11th began, a few battered survivors dragged themselves to piles of mud to rest covered in ash … but only a small few. A quarter of a million of Culiacan’s people followed them to the rest of them to the grave.

According to legend, El Castillo was the last to fall. Supposedly he listened, gravely injured, with superhuman hearing for the last human heart to fade away into the distance before he allowed his great strength to give out … leaving the heartless Diablo in silence.

Though they died thinking they had saved their people from further harm, the military was wrong. Perhaps the cities before him had been evacuated too well, or perhaps they were simply too small to begin with, but for one reason or another Diablo cut diagonally towards Hidalgo del Parral and Delicias and Chihuahua beyond.

Thankfully, it would take Diablo almost six hours to reach Parral, giving the military at least some time to react to the new situation. The government scraped the barrel, and through great effort pulled together a last reserve of what few assets and superheroes remained. This final army was expected to hold the line at Parral, and reform to hold it again at Delicias. The Homelanders were to fly from Hermosillo to Chihuahua, and all prayed that they at least would be able to put the monster down for once and all.

The sun was a hellish red as it rose on the 11th, courtesy of all the burning Diablo had done. Reaching Hidalgo del Parral at 7:13 AM, Diablo was opposed by young boys and old men, raw soldiers and metahumans who had only recently discovered their powers. The slapdash army possessed little equipment and even less training. Most had no right being there at all, and they were expected to die like flies.

Fortunately, the city was comparatively small and already almost entirely evacuated, and they were not meant to hold back Diablo for long. In truth, command feared Diablo would be well rested, and planned that he would drain himself against the fodder so that he would have less energy with which to oppose the Homelanders.

Perhaps it is therefore thankful that Mexico’s final force broke after only brief contact with Diablo, allowing him entrance into the city by 7:34. They regrouped at Delicias soon thereafter, and made contact with Diablo again at 8:55, and broke again by 9:09. All told, casualties were mercifully light by comparison, with well under a hundred thousand total deaths on the 11th by the time Diablo reached Chihuahua at 9:39.

Finally - the Homelanders - the strongest standing force the world had were brought to bear at last. Of the seven, Tempest of course had command, while Starforge, Mystical and Wolfram (Also known as the Iron Colossus) represented the team veterans. Kaiju Girl and Luster were newer additions, and lastly came a rookie speedster named Breakneck.

Tempest’s plan was simple but effective. Breakneck would harass Diablo’s flanks from the ground while Tempest did the same from the air. Simultaneously Kaiju Girl and Wolfram were to make a direct assault, with Luster and Mystical and Starforge in support and attacking from afar.

The first of three legendary battles began then, though it began badly. Starforge and Mystical shielded their allies as best they could, but Breakneck simply didn’t have enough durability for sustained exposure to Diablo, even with shielding. As one of Diablo’s earthquakes rent open the ground, Breakneck stumbled into the newly created crevasse and was bathed in magma. He did not survive. Tempest briefly broke off his attack to retrieve the body, though it was unrecognizable by then.

Meanwhile Diablo seemed virtually immune to Luster’s plasma, possibly the strongest offensive asset available. Wolfram’s skin began to strain under the heat, and he and Kaiju Girl together were hardly a physical match for the titanic Diablo. After a long struggle, the monster took Wolfram between both hands and propelling flame from its face and hands left the Iron Colossus as nothing more than slagged metal. Kaiju Girl lasted only a short while longer before Diablo lifted her up and threw her against a nearby mountain, nearly breaking her back in so doing. Tempest, who had attacked ferociously as this was happening to try and save his compatriots, was simply ignored before being caught by the waist and slammed  and then stomped deep into the ground.

Diablo advanced on the remaining three, battering down Starforge’s constructed shield and Mystical’s psychic one, casting down both in a heap, so that Luster stood alone. Marshaling all her power, Luster sent forth a beam of plasma so sharp it pierced even Diablo. The recovering Starforge aided her, prying at the wound with constructs as Tempest added his lightning and Luster drove the beam deeper. The attack briefly leaving Diablo’s mind vulnerable, Mystical sent agony racing through its brain.

Roaring - Diablo channeled all his force into the ground, and truly brought the apocalypse to life. Perhaps not since the planet was a newborn was a patch of its surface rendered so anathema to anything that lived. Diablo reduced his pace to a crawl in order to maintain such a hellstorm, but it saved itself from the Homelanders, who were forced to retreat.

Kaiju Girl was only barely able to be dragged away in time by Tempest, and she would linger on the brink of death for many weeks. Starforge and Mystical were also gravely injured, though much less severely, with only Luster and Tempest escaping with only mild wounds.

Slowed, but still steady, Diablo continued on towards Juarez and El Paso, harried by Luster while Tempest moved the Homelanders to safety and regathered his strength.

It was nearly dusk when Diablo reached the place it would die. In a dry and dusty bit of badland Diablo met his second group of foes of the day. Hastily assembled and ironically, as they were the primary asset, dubbed ‘Alpha Squad’ the United States had brought three semi-retired Alpha Class Superheroes from the golden age of Caped Warriors to put Diablo down, joined by the recovered Tempest.

The new three were John and Miles Harrison, and Aleksandr Menshikov. AKA Captain Invincible, Argent, and his former cold war rival the Red Son. The masters of Atmokinesis, Ferrokinesis, Telekinesis, and a deathless had come.

Coming within 70 miles of Diablo was a death sentence now. Approaching Diablo to do battle required the adamantine shields of Argent and Menshikov, and the sheer fortitude of Tempest and Captain Invincible.

Having learned from the last, the second legendary battle began with Tempest softening the environment as much as he could, summoning a mighty storm to bathe the landscape in rain and wind to sap at Diablo’s strength and weaken the pressure applied to his allies' shields.

With that done, Tempest and Captain Invincible, the former bearing lightning and the latter only his fists, started towards the monster. Behind, Argent and Menshikov turned the demon’s own weapons against it. Argent took the molten metal Diablo had brought to the surface and Menshikov the ripped up earth, and together put them to good use.

The battle which followed proved to be a stalemate. Neither was able to bring enough force to bear to destroy the other. Mystical had cloaked the four’s minds so that their emotions could not give Diablo strength. Even so, stalemate favored Diablo, who could regather strength faster than some of his opponents.

But the four did not need to achieve victory, only to buy time for the fifth. After five and a half  hours of brutal impasse, the one came who would break it.

At 10:24 PM on the 11th, Victor Flynn, known as Supreme, stood upon the blood-stained soil. His predecessor, successor, son, and rival fell back. Convinced to come out of retirement when he learned the full scale of death Diablo had wreaked, and perhaps also the fact his son was in great danger, Supreme came to finish what a thousand Metahumans before him had failed to do. Slay the Devil.

Diablo was an incredibly dangerous entity, able to face whole groups of the most  dangerous Metahumans on the planet alone and win. But even Diablo was no match for Supreme. Diablo had withstood a nuke, but Supreme’s every strike was that and more.

The monster put up a good fight, holding Supreme at bay for well over an hour as he slowly blasted the mountain apart until at last, shortly before midnight, the increasingly drained Supreme marshaled his strength and struck Diablo with the largest energy attack yet. Hit with a hundred megatons, Diablo collapsed.

And the Devil’s Dance was done, and the rebuilding began. But the Hate remained.

## Impact

The aftermath saw a surge in religious fervor throughout Latin America and other parts of the world