Apocalyptic Rebirth: With a repairman system space, she rises again.-Chapter 721: Not on the radar.

Hunter was confused; she stood on the riverbank with its metallic ears twitching in a frantic circle. The robot dog’s internal processors were whirring so loud they sounded like a tea kettle. How had it missed them? Its sensors were designed to pick up a heartbeats and heat senses from miles away_ both visible and invisible, but these things had been ghosts until they started splitting people in half.

"Hunter! Snap out of it and get to barbecuing!" Poncho yelled, a slashing tongue as a mutated fish leaped at his head.

Hunter quickly analyzed the ongoing situation. It realized this wasn’t the time for a system diagnostic. The robot dog sprinted toward the ledge and dived into the toxic water. While underwater, a hatch on its side slid open. Instead of a laser or a claw, it released a high-pressure stream of thick, flammable oil. A second later, a spark ignited.

FOOM!

A massive section of the river turned into a watery furnace. The oil floated on the surface, trapped between the banks, turning the toxic sludge into a literal river of fire. The mutated fish, which looked like metallic piranhas with long slicing tongues, started popping like corn kernels in the heat.

Up above, the Fortress Four squads in exo suits arrived like a swarm of angry hornets. Some soldiers carried the screaming tourists and toxic absorbers off the ground and out of the water and flying them to the safety of the vans. Others were hovering just feet above the flames, using dragonoids to torch any mutated fish that tried to jump out of the fire and onto the riverbanks.

"Burn, you ugly sushi rolls!" Phillip yelled over the radio, unleashing a gout of white-hot flame on a cluster of fish trying to walk onto the riverbank.

The fight was intense but short. The fire squads were fast, and Hunter was efficient. However, the victory felt hollow. By the time the last fish was charred to a crisp, the riverbank was stained with more than just charred mutated fish. A few of the Toxin-absorbers hadn’t made it to the shore in time. Five in total, bodies ripped apart. Three more had been injured, they were crying out in pain.

"This is a total fucked up situation." Elio said, retracting his helmet. "Sunshine is going to kill us, you know she hates to lose even one superhuman."

O’Toole, fists clenched and jaw tight, replied, "But this was not our fault. We used sensors and your vision to kill the mutated monsters we saw down there. Hunter declared that section clean. What the hell happened?"

Elio shook his head. He could not believe that his eyes had failed to detect the fish. He could almost see into the rifts which were far in the sky. How had he missed fish in the river?

"She is probably going to freeze it all now, isn’t she?" O’Toole whispered.

Elio shook his head. "No, she will just find another way to clear it." Silently, in his mind, he added, while blaming herself for the botched job.

As the squads began escorting the survivors back, the mood was funeral-dark. The Toxin-absorbers, who had been laughing and playing just twenty minutes ago, walked with their heads down. The glow in their veins was fading, replaced by a cold, numb shock. They had watched their friends_ people they considered family_ get torn apart in seconds.

The river did not seem like fun anymore. Those who had never experienced the cruelty of the apocalypse were feeling it personally, now.

Tracy Kingsley, however, was in a different kind of mood. She wasn’t crying; she was fuming. "This is a disaster!" She hissed as she marched out of her van, stepping over a piece of charred fin. "Do you have any idea what this does to my company reviews? It’s bad for business! This is a PR nightmare!"

"We might have to give out free tours to get people to trust us again," Her assistant suggested.

Vicente paused mid step and looked at them, "How are you already planning for the next one? Are you insane? Tracy, people died!" He snapped, his voice trembling with a mix of rage and exhaustion.

"And survivors want refunds!" she shot back. "I heard three people say they’re never coming back on any of my tours. That’s lost revenue!"

The tourists behind her weren’t listening. They were huddled together, some throwing up, others just staring blankly at the sky. They didn’t care about refunds; they just wanted to go home and pretend the ’great wastelands’ didn’t exist.

Back at the river, the fire was still roaring, sending thick black smoke into the afternoon sky. Hades arrived in a blur of motion, his face a mask of cold fury. "How the hell did this happen?" He bellowed.

Poncho approached and stood by the water’s edge, soot-covered and tired, and gave him the rundown.

"The squads were fast, sir," Poncho said. "But these things... they were the ones that I encountered back then, they are ruthless and have the ability to walk on two feet or tails....I don’t know what to call it."

Hades looked at Hunter, who was currently shaking water and oil off its titanium fur. "Hunter. Explain. How did we get blindsided? This is not like you....to miss something like this."

The robot dog’s glowing eyes dimmed to a somber amber. "The creatures did not appear on my radar. They have no heat signatures. I have scanned what remained of the ones that have been killed. Their bodies are somehow made of a cold-blooded composite that matches the surrounding water temperature perfectly. I fear the mutations in some of these creatures are evolving. They are learning how to avoid detection by heat, there is no other explanation that I can think of."

The silence that followed was heavy. If the mutated animals outside the walls were learning how to avoid heat detection, then that made humans prey because they could be hunted and killed without ever seeing the beasts coming for them.

"They might be in other parts of the river too," Hunter added. "The current flows from the north."

Hades didn’t hesitate. "Set the whole damn river on fire. From here to the border. I don’t care if the smoke blocks out the sun for a week, there is no sun anyway. Burn it all."

"Sir," Raydon spoke, "Perhaps we should let those from Iron wood city know."

Hades waved his hand in a dismissive manner, "We will explain to them later, when we take their city."

As the soldiers moved to carry out the grim order, Hades turned to go. "I have to go talk to the families of the fallen and then deliver the bad news to my wife," he muttered. "These are the parts of the job I hate the most."