Chapter 95: Sea And Life
Utter chaos...
That was really the only way she could describe what was happening. It had already been pretty crazy when Wish stole Paragon away, and they all had to fight Casey, Kevin, and Hannah. She was still trying to process the fact that not only was Kevin a very dangerous Super, but Hannah had also changed into one. All of the Kevin clones pulled themselves back together, and so the number of villains lowered, but with Green Wolf and the others here, it still wasn't looking good.
She hadn't even gotten to speak to Battery before he was suddenly dragged off by Fairy Queen.
Then Ocean Empress suddenly pulled up in the boat that belonged to the Watch Dogs, with the Sub Enforcers right behind her.
There were twelve villains and sixteen heroes, but they'd only keep the numerical advantage until Kevin split himself.
She had been expecting it to turn into a weird standoff. In the movies, this would be the part where all the good guys and bad guys stop to stare down and go into a debate. This wasn't a movie, though. Golden God was making a beeline for the tower where Paragon and Wish were. Fairy Queen was a dot on the horizon, dragging Battery off, and Green Wolf wasted no time slashing his sword out and firing a wave of kinetic force, not caring who he was aiming at. Demonica did the same, smashing her arm into the ground and erupting the floor with a massive purple explosion.
She countered the blast by hopping back and raising her foot, using all of her power to send it crashing down into the ground. She hit it hard enough to kick up a massive wave of dust, and most of the Supers around her were blown back. No one was able to see, and attacks flung out wildly. Green Wolf and Demonica were seemingly trying to catch each other in the crossfire, and the Wandering Coin kids didn't need to worry about damaging each other since they all healed, so they didn't hold back and unleashed the most destructive attacks they could muster.
As the battle broke out, beams of blood and water, shards of ice, and waves of energy were unleashed through the thick dust. She jumped away and felt herself go back-to-back with someone.
"Nice shield." Metal Ronin called out. He was in his larger suit—the one he had built after his battle with Wish.
"Thanks. Battery gave it to me." She raised her shield just in time, blocking a stray blast of bone spears.
"Ocean Empress came straight to Money Tree and got him," Metal Ronin stated. His shoulder opened up and locked onto a powerful heat source, likely Demonica, firing dozens of rockets into the air. "Wasp Nest is still down and hasn't woken up yet. We wanted to wait for him to fully recover, but it turns out you guys really needed our help."
"Yeah, things didn't exactly go according to plan. I'm confident we'll make it work some way, though!" She announced.
Metal Ronin nodded his head. "From what I was told, that Pretty Face guy stayed behind and, with the help of the Hero Branch members, is going to put several members of Zoo behind bars. You guys did pretty well. All that's left now is to take out the boss!"
She pushed off of Metal Ronin and weaved through the dust cloud, dodging stray attacks from all directions. Her super senses were cranked up to the max, and it allowed her to find the person she needed. She wrapped her arm around Poseidon and practically dragged the girl out of the cloud.
"Where's Paragon?" Poseidon shouted out.
"Working on that. Can you make us lighter with your gravity?" She yelled back.
Poseidon looked down at her, and she could tell the girl was debating several things. She knew Poseidon didn't like her much, not after that first incident with Paragon. The girl cared more about her sister than her hatred, though, and eventually, Poseidon sighed and nodded. "Okay."
She gasped a bit as she felt her feet rise off the ground. It wasn't flying—not really—more like swimming through the air. She and Poseidon were slowly rising off the ground. She held onto the girl's arm tightly and used her other hand to send off a powerful stream of fire. She felt like an actual rocket this time as she shot them into the air and began to steer with her fire, sending them after Golden God.
"She's in that tower! The one Golden God is heading to! We need to stop him-"
From down below, Green Wolf seemed to spot them and sent up a wave of his energy, but it didn't get very far before it was blocked by a block of ice created by Ocean Empress. The woman stood on one of her boards and surfed in the air, flying next to them. "You leave Golden God to me. I'll keep him stuck and make sure he doesn't get to the tower." The woman announced.
"Can you beat him, mom?" Poseidon questioned.
"I'm going to try!" Ocean Empress raised her arm, and water began to form in the air, swirling around and freezing into a giant spear of ice that rammed forward. Golden God's body stopped in the air, and his head completely spun around. He was bigger than the tower, and his many arms easily allowed him to block the ice spear. "This might be harder than I thought..."
Golden God's hands pointed out, and a grayish light began to blast out of them. "Don't let those touch us, or we're instantly dead!" Poseidon yelled. "It distorts and ages things it hits!"
"I wasn't planning on it!" She shot fire out of her feet and held onto Poseidon tighter as their gravity twisted and changed, and they literally began to fly through the air. She had to admit that she was a little annoyed that Poseidon didn't like her anymore because this was one of the coolest things she had ever done. "It's like a real-life bullet hell!"
"Why do you sound excited?!"
"Sorry! I can't help it! It's the way I cope with things!"
She steered them up, under, and past any of the orbs of gray energy that Golden God blasted at him. Ocean Empress also easily dodged them all, and a wall of metal bullets blasted back into the orbs as Roulette joined them. The old man stood on an ocean of bullets, surfing on it just like Ocean Empress.
"I'll back you up," the old man grunted. "Give the kids an opening to get past him."
His bullets turned to dust anytime they hit the light, but just like Money Tree, who could create cash, and Ocean Empress, who birthed new water into existence, Roulette simply willed new ammunition to appear and launched it. "We'll need some way to ground him," Ocean Empress yelled.
"I don't think you guys will have to worry about that," She shouted over all the combat.
"What?"
"My enhanced senses heard him digging."
The entire tower began to shake, and part of it started to lean over and almost fall. Luckily, it stayed put. Something was pulling itself out of the ground. The sand broke away, and lava gushed out as the body of the giant monster worm was thrown out. Its corpse smashed into Golden God, and the massive robot actually shook a bit. Myth's form was still enormous. A mass of dragon heads, each one spewing a river of lava, wrapped around Golden God's legs, which stayed cross-legged the entire time. The robot was pulled down into the giant crater in the ground that had formed, half his body being dunked in lava.
"That's Myth's strongest form!" Ocean Empress said in shock when she saw it. "The last time he went into that was during the Beast attack, two years ago."
"I thought he was told he wasn't allowed to do that!" Poseidon shouted.
"He was..."
Despite his massive form, Myth was still just a mere Super, whereas Golden God was a perfected Super, one turned into a grand monster of destruction by the Emperor fifteen years ago. His hundreds of arms wrapped around Myth's waist, and despite Myth being bigger than him, Golden God easily lifted Typhon out of the ground and threw him away from the tower.
As Myth flew through the air, his body shrank and twisted back into his human form. He crashed into the arms of Ocean Empress, who caught him. "Why'd you change back?"
"Hard to control that form." He grunted. "Didn't want to risk hurting anyone now that I was back on the surface."
"Well, we kind of needed that giant monster form to deal with Golden God!" She yelled out.
"Don't worry." Myth gave a sly smirk. "I made some friends."
The lava around Golden God bubbled and exploded before the machine could lift itself up. Another one of the giant worm monsters pulled itself out, letting out an air-rippling roar. It was followed by a second, a third, and even a fourth. All of them began to slam themselves down onto Golden God, biting into his golden metal flesh, denting it, and dragging him further into the lava pool.
Ocean Empress, Myth, and Roulette all landed on the ground and stared down into the massive crater Myth had created. Both Ocean Empress and Roulette wasted no time and began to open fire onto Golden God's back as the robot's many arms wrestled with the worm-like monsters.
"Cinder!" Myth shouted. "Things didn't seem to go the way we wanted. Go get Paragon and get out of there!"
"Right!" She nodded and flew over the pit, heading for the hole in the tower. "Are you ready?" She asked Poseidon.
The girl just nodded. "Let's save my sister."
Back in the dust cloud, it was beginning to break apart and come undone. Demonica created a ring of purple fire around her body, using it as a makeshift shield. The woman used the ring to quickly block a blade of cash that was swung at her. Money Tree was already decked out in his diamond armor and wielding his sword.
He let out a low whistle when he saw Demonica. "Looks like I'm not the only one missing a limb, huh?" His arm, which was taken by Wish, was still gone. Learning to use only one limb had been a bit of a struggle, but he was finally back up and moving after all this time.
Demonica hissed at him and blasted out a wave of purple fire, but the attack was consumed and turned into a large diamond from his dust. "You're one of the heroes that were at the mall." The villain growled.
"That's right." He leaned his head forward and allowed his hat to tip down a bit. "You went toe-to-toe with Myth, right? I guess that explains your missing limb. He's pretty good at what he does when he stops holding back. Just like the Lord of the Sun, if he really tries, he can even leave a wound not even you monsters can heal from. Maybe it's due to the blood of previous Lords that flow through his veins."
"When I'm done with you, I'm taking him out next, and then I'll kill Battery!" The woman howled. "All of you heroes will pay!"
"You don't have a good track record when it comes to men, do you?" Money Tree dodged her fire with ease and swung out, cutting into her body with his blade. "That's fine, though. I don't mind sloppy seconds, or maybe you're more like third or fourth."
He wasn't the only member of the Sub Enforcers who decided to get up close and personal with a villain. On the other side of the makeshift arena they had created, Metal Ronin swung out with his sword and tried to cut into the red armor around Casey. The armor flowed and twisted like the surface of a pond, deflecting the laser sword off of him.
Metal Ronin's armor hummed and let out a mechanical roar as its large side was blasted back with a wave of powerful thrusters, allowing him to dodge Casey's counterattack.
Casey reminded him a little of Red Panda. Red Panda had been a member of Zoo and also had blood-based powers. People who could control the elements, like Ocean Empress, were typically able to generate their element out of thin air. People who could control their own biology to an extent, like Red Panda or Casey, could only use their own bodies and resources. Because of this, something like blood-based powers usually wouldn't be that big of a threat. The user would likely die of blood loss before they got off a bunch of significant attacks.
Not Casey, though. The man-made Super fired off massive beams of compressed blood out of the tips of his fingers as if he had an infinite amount of the resource. In a way, he did. All his damage was being healed faster than Metal Ronin could cause it, and the young man's body was creating more blood than it knew what to do with. With the endless amount of liquid he was able to create, he was almost like a lesser version of Ocean Empress.
Unlike her, though, he wasn't nearly as skilled, nor did he have control over her power's inverting effect. Casey rammed his arm up into the air, and a thick blood blade fired out, ripping the ground apart. Metal Ronin's armor glowed with bright blue energy as a powerful barrier twirled around him, blocking most of the damage. His armor was strong enough to hold him in place as he shrugged off the attack.
Duplicity stood behind him, her arms folded over her chest. She looked like a young girl again, and she was no longer glowing. "Sorry, but I burned up all my energy earlier. It'll take me a bit to recover, so just hold him until then, okay? I'll merge with more of my clones and take them out for good this time."
"Easier said than done." Metal Ronin grunted, blocking another series of attacks with his force field. "Damn it! If only Wasp Nest was here. This would be so much easier!"
"He's not, though, so you'll just have to manage." Duplicity shrugged. "Sorry."
"Just because you look like a kid doesn't mean you have to act like one, you hag!"
The girl ignored his remark and stared out across the battlefield at her other two teammates. Bad Wolf and Backup had decided to have a rematch with Hannah. The last time they fought the bone-user, Old Dog had still been with them.
Backup was dodging past blades of bone that stabbed out of the floor, and he used his great shield to block hammer swings from Hannah. On the other hand, Bad Wolf was sending wisps of clouds that fired small bolts of lightning, or shards of ice, into Hannah, denting the girl's armor. Although she was able to heal, the two heroes were overwhelming her.
The only other big fight she could see happening was smack dab in the middle. Things didn't seem to be going too well for Snowdawn.
The ice-based hero jumped back, barely dodging a punch from Kevin, but Kevin's arm grew in size, getting longer. Snowdawn tried to throw up a makeshift barrier quickly, but between the heat and the number of times he had spammed his unique ability without rest, his ice was having a hard time keeping up, and the wall he had created was broken through with ease.
The hero was shoved back and grunted, with several of his ribs likely breaking from the punch. "This is the second time we've fought, isn't it?" Kevin hummed, cracking his muscles and bones as his body shifted. He looked more and more like Mars King with every passing second. "Things haven't seemed to really change for you, haven't they?"
"I'm a lot stronger than I was then." Snowdawn slowly pushed himself to a standing position and reformed his ice armor. "Not only did I figure out how to use ice, but I've also unlocked a new power."
"That lame-ass teleporting, right? Boring. So many people seem to be appearing with that-"
"It isn't teleporting." Snowdawn formed large knuckle dusters over his fists and raised his arms weakly. "I really don't like you. I think it's because you remind me a bit of myself. Or maybe it's the other way around, and you're more like me than I am like you."
"Huh? What the hell does that even mean?" Kevin grunted out.
Snowdawn tried to give a cheeky smile but was too tired to even twitch his lips. "You were left behind. The people on the football team were getting better and better drugs, and soon you weren't at the top. Though you were never actually at the top to begin with, were you? You never could, not in this world. You were just a normal human. I think that's why you did it, huh."
"I sold my soul to become a Super," Kevin growled. "There isn't anything else to it. I was in a position where I could have either died or gained power."
"I get it. Honestly, I do." Snowdawn said sadly. "I think I'd do the same if I never had my powers. Even with my powers, I feel like I've fallen behind. Not just 'her' but everyone on Team Pantheon. They're all simply amazing. More than I'll ever be. It makes me so mad sometimes. Like I'm totally useless. So that's why I worked to better myself. I spent a whole lot of time getting beat into the dirt by Poseidon!" Snowdawn announced, punching his palm. "I trained my butt off, and even if I am still left in the dirt, I'm still happy to see how much progress I made and how much further I can go! That's what makes us different, isn't it? You're still unhappy. You know that deep down, even after becoming a Super, you're still nowhere near the top. Nothing's changed; you've just found yourself in an even bigger pond!"
Kevin threw out a punch, but Snowdawn dodged the strike and kicked out with his leg, sending out sharp blades of ice that impaled into the villain's throat. Kevin quickly broke past them, and his body was already fully healed. He had reabsorbed his clones earlier, so he was back in top shape. The villain managed to take a single step forward and suddenly became blind as something covered his face.
"You were wrong about another thing also," Snowdawn stated in a relaxed tone. "This fight isn't anything like last time. Last time, I was alone. This time, I have help. I'm not the only one here who is angry about your choice. The first thing my dad ever taught me was that you never piss a girl off lest you face her wrath."
A whip forged from solid metal wrapped around Kevin's head, squeezing down hard enough to crack the boy's skull. He grunted and grabbed at it, trying to rip it off, but the metal rubbed together and glowed red hot, burning his fingers off. "I know this metal." He grunted and began to walk forward. The metal tore into his head, but he ignored it and shoved his way forward, literally tearing the top half of his head clean off. Now free from the metal, he turned his body and spoke without a brain. "So, you've come here as well."
The top half of his head was already growing back. His eyes formed and blinked as sight came back to him. The look of utter disappointment on Oxide's face actually made him flinch back.
"Ashley-"
"Oxide." She cut him off. "When I'm out in costume, I don't want my cover blown by a villain."
"Ah. So that's how it is."
"I didn't want to believe them when they said you turned into a villain." Oxide said, shaking her head. Her dress had grown larger and formed more into actual armor. Half her face was covered, but the look in her eyes was as clear as day. "I never wanted anything like this to happen."
"Yet you did nothing."
"Yeah." Her shoulders slumped slightly. "You're right. That's why I'm going to do something now. Snowdawn..." Metal began twirling around her arms, forming a pair of large blades. "If you wouldn't mind, I know that we're on different teams, but could you please help me defeat this bad guy?!"
"Things seem to be going well, I think." Whisper hummed. She was practically in her own little world off to the side, fighting the only two ordinary people here. Even without the ability to see the Paths, Ocean Empress trained her at a young age. This allowed her to easily block or dodge the knife swings that Mr. Brenner and the mayor launched at her.
"I- I wouldn't get so cocky if I were you." The mayor grunted. He was breathing heavily, and his arms shook as he gripped his knife. It was clear that he either had no training or very little training.
Brenner was the real issue. The man stood in front of the mayor and had the perfect guard stance. His eyes never left Whisper, and even when she tried to go invisible, he was able to use the dirt, or dust, to find her. He was likely ex-military or a cop who took his training very seriously. Maybe even a former member of the Hero Branch.
Her tonfas buzzed with lightning as she backed away from both of them. There wasn't really anything she could do to help with the others. Every other Super here was either able to recover from her shocks or would kill her the instant she got close to them. So, she was fine, keeping herself content with these two.
"So, since I'm winning, do you mind telling me who was up in that tower or what it is exactly?" She called out.
"Don't get cocky," Brenner grunted. He twirled his knife a bit. "This could go any way."
"Nah. You guys lose."
"What makes you say that?"
Whisper held her finger out and cocked her head to the side. "I have this little cutie with me."
From up above, a tiny flying person no bigger than a small wasp landed on the tip of Whisper's finger. BB's wings folded in, and the little hero folded her arms and smirked. "You guys are screwed!" Though she was so small, no one actually heard her.
Brenner didn't even have time to figure out what was going on. The wind around him surged and twisted, and he was sent flying into the air. He didn't go too high up, but his fall was another thing that made him gasp as he hit the ground, back first.
Mayor Grove looked down at Brenner and then made up his mind. He tossed his knife at Whisper, but the blade was suddenly deflected by a wind barrier created by BB. "Did you really think that would—wait, what's he doing?" Both girls stood there blinking as they watched Grove make a mad dash, running for his life in the direction of the tower. "He knows I can just blast him with air, right?" BB asked, floating up and landing on Whisper's shoulder so the girl could hear her.
"L- Luck has a way of helping him out." Both girls looked down when they heard Brenner's voice. The older man was struggling to push himself up to a standing position and held something up in his other arm—a jar of black liquid. "I didn't want to do this, but-"
Blood splashed down his body, and the officer screamed as his hand was sliced off. The jar dropped to the floor, and Whisper felt a chill go up her spine. She didn't need the Paths to tell her who did that. Green Wolf stalked forward and picked up the jar, his barrier quickly blocking any stray attack sent his way.
For a second, his gaze made it over to the two girls, who were frozen in shock. He shrugged lazily and walked past them, not bothering to attack.
Whisper was the first to recover and ran towards Mr. Brenner. "Not good. BB, my backpack has some supplies in it. We need to stop the bleeding."
"Right!" BB jumped off the girl and grew back to full size. "I can grow a bit and try to get us out of here. I can get to about twenty feet tall, so I should be able to carry you and him out of the Wasteland."
Whisper shook her head. "No." Her eyes flickered back up to the tower. "I want to... Never mind. It's best to stay. Cinder will get Paragon, and she can heal this guy. We can at least stop the bleeding for now and make sure he doesn't bleed out."
"Alright. If you're sure."
She really wasn't. The right thing, the heroic thing, would be to leave with him. But BB could be needed on the battlefield, and she really wanted to know just what was up with that tower.
Over with Doc, the man had remained face down in the sand since the fighting had started. Somewhere along the line, his cane had fallen out of his hands, and he had been praying a stray attack wouldn't hit him. He hated these wastelands. After the attack with the Emperor, he fled to them to escape the Hero Branch.
Slowly, Doc lifted himself up and managed to take a few steps, but suddenly yelped in pain as rope wrapped tightly around him. Then the rope began to twitch and buzz, and he realized it wasn't actually rope.
"I know who you are." Red Ape stood behind Doc, his centipedes tightly around the man. You're Doctor Blue. You and Professor Nicholas were healers back in the day. I've read up on you. You're like me—a Super with Mental-based powers that don't involve technology but instead biology."
"Well, I'm afraid I don't know who you are."
"Oh. I'm Red Ape!"
"Red Ape? Oh. You're that dumbass that is always messing with animals, right?"
Red Ape's eye twitched a bit, and he huffed. "I'm a genius! I'll have you know that I've figured out how to make animals useful in combat!"
"Ah. So, the same skill level as a military dog handler?" Doc mocked. "What even is this thing, anyway?" He twitched a bit, feeling the bugs around him.
"Centipedes!"
"That's gross."
Red Ape growled a bit. "I modified my own body. My sweat attracts them. They latch onto my arm and feed off of it. After a while, it causes the chemicals in their body to go haywire, and they rapidly grow and twist together, creating this rope. I'm pretty good at making animals bigger than normal. I'm also getting better at controlling them, even without Avalon's tech. Most of it is thanks to your drug. I'm guessing you made them with the DNA of that Lord of Life, right? It causes a spontaneous evolution to go off in the body, giving it the same body as a Super. I haven't been able to fully recreate it, but I got close."
"Why are we chatting exactly?" Doc asked, letting out a sigh. "I hate fanboys."
"We wanted to make you an offer," a new voice announced. White Lamb sat cross-legged in front of the man, her legs folded over one another. She held onto her TV and had taken her mask off, resting her head lazily against it.
Doc hummed. "What do you mean by that? You two want to make me an offer, or your 'boss' wants to make me an offer."
White Lamb just smiled. She didn't say anything else, turning off her sound-canceling field right as Green Wolf walked up. The man tossed a jar of black liquid over to Red Ape, who barely caught it with his free hand. "What's with this?" Red Ape asked.
Green Wolf shrugged and dropped to a sitting position. He rested on his side and lazily watched the battle in the distance, his eyes roaming over all the heroes and villains. "I thought it would be funny."
"Giving me this drug or watching the battles?"
"Still, no big boss." Green Wolf rolled onto his back and placed his arms behind his head, staring up at the blue sky above. "Battery got taken off by that fairy bitch, so I can't fight him. All the Lords are fighting each other and will likely take each other out, so no good fight there. Golden God is busy with the last remaining strong people, and that glowing girl turned back into a kid. I haven't even gotten to see the Lord of Life; worse yet, my teleportation is still gone. Figured I'll just wait until the Victorian or something shows up and fight them."
"You guys are strange." Doc hummed, also slowly falling into a sitting position.
Green Wolf seemed to take note of the man and cocked his head to the side. "Why are we keeping him?"
"I figured I could use him!" Red Ape said excitedly. The man was already staring at the new drug with stars in his eyes. "Just think about what I could create with his help. I might even make a monster able to slay you and give me the title of Green."
"That'll never happen." Green Wolf snorted. He closed his eyes, listening to the sound of fighting. "I was having fun earlier. Maybe I should have busted my full power out against that Duplicity girl, or maybe when Battery glowed all blue. I kind of wish Polaron was still here. I could go a few rounds with him. Things were more interesting when he was around. Oh! Good idea. Let's wait to see who is the winner in this big clash and take them all out!"
"You really think the three of us can?" White Lamb sighed and slipped her mask back on. "I mean, you're the only fighter here."
"I'm here, though?" Red Ape frowned.
"Just you, Green Wolf. You're the only member of Zoo left that can still fight."
Green Wolf sat up and stared out in the distance across the makeshift battlefield. Fairy Queen had practically left the area, dragging Battery with her. Even from where he was, he could still make out the waves of golden light and twists in the air as the two battled. And despite how intense it should have been, it was still nothing compared to the feeling he got in his gut as he turned to look at the tower.
"I wonder. Just what's happening in there?"
Paragon barely had time to hit the floor and roll. Her bird shrieked the entire time, and she almost cut herself open with her sword. Bone-like bullets blasted out of Wish's fingertips and tore the metal wall where Paragon had been, the rusted metal falling to bits.
"Keep dancing!" The girl cheered.
"Screw you!" Paragon barely had time to raise her sword and block one of the bullets. The force of it caused the blade to go flying out of her hand and slam into the roof above. Destiny screamed once again, and it was thanks to his enhanced sight that she was able to duck down and avoid the massive fist Wish threw at her. The villain's limbs would grow in size just like Kevin's. "Crap-"
The sheer strength of the attack lifted Paragon off her feet and sent her painfully over the floor. She groaned, and Destiny hissed, looking up. Wish stalked forward and lazily raised her arm. It reached ten feet in the air, and a large blade made out of her blood appeared in her palm. The villain smashed her hand down, ready to split Paragon in two.
"Paragon! Catch!" A familiar voice yelled.
On instinct, Paragon raised her hand and caught something. She lifted the thing in front of her, and the blade was deflected off of it. She held a shield—Cinder's shield.
Wish grunted when she saw the thing and turned to look at the entrance. Poseidon and Cinder floated through the large hole in the wall and came down slowly towards them, landing on the ground. "Is that her?" Poseidon asked, staring at Wish.
"Yeah." Cinder nodded.
Wish's lips twisted into a large grin. "Oh. You're the Lord of the Sea, aren't you-" The gravity around her grew stronger, but she fought through it. The muscles beneath her flesh twisted and came to life, following her commands and molding over her, ripping their way out of her body and forming armor as she stood up and folded her arms over her chest. "Trying to crush me the moment you see me."
"Can you blame me?" Poseidon asked, cocking her head to the side and walking steadily towards Wish. "You've really pissed me off."
Wish giggled and also walked forward, both girls only an arm's distance from each other. "Oh." Wish placed both her hands on her face and stared up at Poseidon. "Can you bring yourself to harm me? After all, I look just like your little sister-"
Poseidon's trident rammed through Wish's face, and the girl casually lifted the Lord of Life, impaling her with the weapon. "Don't flatter yourself." Poseidon twisted her weapon and used her gravity to drag Wish's face further onto her weapon. "My sister is way better looking than you, you ugly bitch."
Wish ripped her way off of the weapon and giggled. "Aw. I guess the rumors are true, you do have a sister fetish." Wish's body began to grow, largely bubbling up and twisting in odd shapes. "I'll kill you last. First I'll kill your baby sister, then I'll take out that Cindy girl, then I'll kill your mom and that stupid bug boy. I'll take my time, hunting them all down slowly, then finally I'll rip you to bits!"
Poseidon took a deep breath, quietly calming her nerves as her Lord form flickered back on. "You really need to shut up, you forty-ton sack of worthless meat. I would kill you and bury you, but part of me would feel bad for the bugs that have to eat your disgusting corpse. I'm not shocked you made yourself look like my sister; if your personality is anything to go by, then you likely had the face not even a dead mother could love. It's an actual nightmare that the rest of us have to exist in the same era as you. I wouldn't be shocked if the mere sight of you is what killed Full Monarch. You're a disgrace even among the evil Lords, because at least the Emperor could only be described as a disappointment at his worst."
Silence rang out in the tower as everyone processed Poseidon's rant. "God damn." Cinder said softly. "She really doesn't like Wish."
Wish opened her mouth after she finished processing what she just heard but never got to say anything as Poseidon rammed her weapon through the girl's face.
The Lord of the Sea was about to fight the Lord of the Land.
Chapter 96: The Ball Went Back And Forth
One week earlier...
The ball went back and forth.
"How is the house suiting you? I know I tried to make it match how it used to look." Jack asked, pulling his arm back and tossing the ball as hard as he could.
Hope raised her hand and caught the baseball. Mr. Larison hadn't held back in the throw, and she had to press her heels into the floor to stop herself from being flung back. They had only just started, and already the ball was covered in scratches, and part of it was peeling off from how intensely they threw it.
"It's fine, I guess." She shrugged. He had been referring to the incident with Polaron. The villain had shown up and destroyed most of her home, and it had been Mr. Larison who fixed it. She looked down at the ball, and her fingers dug tightly into it. She pulled her hand back and threw it right back at him as hard as she could. "I don't want to talk about that, though! Why are we doing this exactly?"
They were on the roof of Pantheon's base. The others were away when Mr. Larison got the idea. He practically dragged her up with him after buying a new baseball. Because they were out of sight, he didn't bother hiding his powers. He held his hand up, and his golden light shimmered out and formed a web that caught the ball. The force of it still managed to push him back a few inches, though.
"What do you want to talk about, then?" Jack asked. His golden threading wrapped itself around the ball and began to move on its own, spinning it so fast that part of it caught fire. Then, all at once, the webbing vanished, and the baseball was launched like a rocket directly at her.
"I don't know what I want to talk about!" She said, frustrated. She slammed her hand out and used the thing she had learned from Wyvern to absorb the fire on the ball, putting it out and slowing it down, allowing her to easily catch it. Her 'training session,' the one that ended with the Victorian appearing, had happened just two days ago. "I don't know what I want to talk about or what I want to do. I- I just really don't get it." She looked back down at the ball in her hand and thought about crushing it, but instead, she lazily tossed it to Mr. Larison, not bothering to use any powers. "I just don't know what to do."
Jack didn't even need to use any powers to catch it this time. He held the ball and ran his fingers over the damage. "Do you remember what I first told you the day you decided to be a hero?"
"I know what you said. I- I just never thought someone like Wish would ever appear. She was like the Emperor, wasn't she... A Lord of Life who used their power for evil. Despite being as old as I am, she somehow beat me, crippled Money Tree for life, and might have killed Wasp Nest. It wasn't supposed to go like this. I was supposed to find the Lord of Life and save my dad! Why didn't anyone tell me the Lord of Life would be evil? Why didn't you tell me any of this? What am I supposed to think, Mr. Larison? I want to trust you, but this is... I just don't know what is happening anymore."
Jack listened to her rambling before he nodded his head. "There was a game that involved a baseball I saw once. A lot of kids would play it with their parents where I grew up. When a child had a question and the adult had the answer, they would use a ball to keep track of who was allowed to speak. When the adult tossed the ball to the child, the child was allowed to ask a question. When the child tossed the ball to the adult, the adult was allowed to answer the question or ask a question of their own. The child could then answer the question or ask their own as well. It was due to this ruling that some questions would be deemed inappropriate, not ready to be answered, and skipped. I always thought the concept was nice. The world would be a lot better if we all took turns answering each other's questions or asking someone a question of our own, don't you think?"
"Huh-" She barely had time to catch the ball that he threw. "Whoa! Were you aiming for my face!" She tossed it back at him just as hard.
Jack waited for the ball to reach him before he caught it. "Yes."
He tossed it back at her, and her eye twitched. "Do you think this is funny or something?"
"Yes." He answered back once he had the ball again.
She caught it once more, making it her turn again. She sighed and looked down at it, feeling her nerves calm down a bit. It was strangely soothing in a way. She never tossed a ball back and forth with her father, but she knew some kids would. Her dad was always the kind of guy who would take her to the library instead. A lot had happened recently. She had time traveled, found out she was a Lord, discovered she had a connection with the man she hated most in life, discovered that the Lord of Life was the girl she hated most in life, trained under Wyvern and Boy Genius for a single night, met the Victorian, and got rejected by the Victorian. It was almost calming in a way to not be dealing with any of it and just stand up on the roof, throwing the ball back and forth.
"Did you do this with your dad?" She finally asked, tossing the ball back toward him.
Jack didn't answer right away this time. When he caught the ball, he stared down at it in silence for several seconds. "No... My dad and I didn't really get along. I ended up running away from home around the time I turned twelve, after my mom died. My folks were just regular humans. Had no powers. They weren't really good people, either. I guess it was around that time that I was adopted by my second dad. If I'm being honest, he wasn't any better and was always too busy to do something like this." He chucked the ball back at her with an underhand throw.
"I didn't know you were adopted!" she said, catching the ball. "What else don't I know about you, Mr. Larison?"
"I dunno?" He shrugged as he caught the ball. "I used to be married." He shrugged.
"You said you used to be married at one point, right? What was that like?" She had a hard time believing he could tolerate a person long enough to get engaged. Sometimes she wondered how he put up with that Nick guy, his roommate.
Jack lazily shrugged as he tossed the ball up and down to himself for a bit. "I was a fresh adult once with no idea how the world truly worked. She randomly asked me out of the blue if I wanted to get married one day, and I figured I had nothing to lose. That would have been about fifteen years ago during the Emperor's reign, so I guess I thought living life in the fast lane was cool. We never even went on a single date. Just got married on the spot and got a random pastor to make us official. Don't even got a ring or anything like that."
"Why did you never mention this person?"
For a moment, he thought back to what Avalon had forced him to see: that calming beach with its waves, a child that never existed, a timeline that never was, the place where 'she' rested waiting for him, the place he would someday end up at. "I don't like talking about it."
Hope closed her mouth as she stared at Mr. Larison. It was pretty clear what that meant—the state of this woman she had never heard of. Mr. Larison 'had' been married.
The red-haired man shook his head and tossed the ball back into the air. His leg came up, and he kicked it toward her. She decided to try and style it as well and clapped both her hands around the ball, using only her middle finger to catch it between her hands and stop it. "If you don't mind me asking, back when you saved me from Wish, you told me what your name was. Do you remember?" The man nodded. "You said that your name was Alpha. That's kind of a weird name, isn't it? What's up with that?" She took a deep breath and blew as hard as she could, shooting a small current of air into the ball and firing it out between her fingers like a makeshift railgun.
Jack snorted as he processed her question and casually caught the ball. He gripped it and hummed. "That's kind of a loaded question. I guess I'll need to really break it down into who Alpha is and who I am, won't I? Alpha wasn't precisely my name. It was more of a code name, I guess. Like how Wish is called Wish or Sky is called Paragon. A Super name. It was given to me by the Emperor."
"Whoa! Seriously? I knew you had a connection to him, but it was like that!"
"Yeah." Jack nodded, looking down at the ball he held. "It was him. I don't really remember the name my parents gave me. The Emperor started his army. Turned people into monsters. Most people lose themselves and forget who they used to be. I guess I'm no exception. A lot of my previous life was blurry at best. All the monsters needed new names and would turn to the Princess of Life. She was a child of a previous Lord of Life and the wife of the Emperor."
"The one that died and was brought back as something else, right..."
"Yeah. That one. I was never given a name by her, though. The Emperor gave me a name. I was sort of one of the first people put onto the project, in a way. Alpha testing is what you do before beta testing. So, I was Alpha, the first of his experiments." He glanced back down at the ball and sighed. "I met Nier before I met the Emperor."
"You make it sound like they're different people."
"To those who met the man, you'd think so as well. It wasn't until the Beast appeared on Earth for the first time and wiped out everything Nier had that the man collapsed and turned to darkness. Maybe he could have still been saved, but no one ever reached for him. I guess the abyss swallowed him whole. I can still remember the day I first met him. It's blurry, but I remember it as clear as day."
He didn't know how long it had been by now—twenty years, or maybe even thirty. It had been a city that was no longer on the map, turned to dust during the great attack. The weather was terrible—maybe hail or rain. It was all so blurry. What he did recall, though, was the name.
Heavy bags rested under Nier's eyes. The man's shoulders were slumped, and his clothes were soaked down to the bone. The Lord stared past the glass of a store selling various different TVs. They were all on and played the same thing.
"-the newest sidekick of the number one Hero has made her appearance! The one and only Ruby Admiral!" The image on the TV showed Full Monarch saving a city that was burning to the ground. Joining him in the air was a young child who flew alongside him and helped save the day with a smile on her face. Dressed in her red costume. The girl that would one day take up the mantle of the Victorian.
Nier's eyes were hollow and sunken as he stared at the screen in complete silence. "So instead of trying to permanently stop the Beast, this is what you've decided to do, Jackson. I see where your priorities lie."
From a nearby alleyway, Nier heard the sound of a can being kicked. He turned his head and raised an eyebrow when he saw someone standing in front of him. The boy was dressed in baggy clothes and had shaggy red hair. He was shivering from the cold, but there was a look in his eyes. The same look Nier had seen in dozens of soldiers during the war with Lucifer so many years ago. People died so someone like this kid could live.
One of the child's arms was wrapped under the body of a small puppy. The animal was barking and growling as it glared at Nier. In the child's other hand, he clutched an old, rusted switchblade. "E—Everything in your pockets," the child announced, and his stomach growled loudly. "Your wallet and everything. Now!"
A large snort escaped Nier before the man totally lost it. He threw his head back and laughed, causing the child to step away.
"I- I'm serious-"
Nier crouched down and allowed the blade to stab into his chest. He ignored the gasps of the child or the puppy, which began to bite at his hand as he got too close. He grabbed the boy by his chin and stared into his eyes. "That's a good look in your eyes. What's your name?"
"I—I don't know." The boy grunted out and tried to thrash around, but Nier's strength easily overpowered the child.
"Well, Mr. No name. I'm really delighted I ran into you. Maybe this is fate. Nah. Nothing so cheap. Still..." Nier smiled as he stared at his reflection in the child's eyes. He really did look so tired. "How would you like to help me save the world?"
Jack shook his head as the blurry memory faded away. He quietly tossed the ball back and forth with Hope and rubbed his chin. "And the rest was history, I guess. I was adopted by Nier and soon after became the son of the Emperor once he finally snapped and went insane. After it all ended, I was given the name Jack by the number one hero. It's kind of funny, in a way. I can't honestly remember the name my mother gave me, yet the names given by the number one villain and number one hero seem to have stuck with me. Some nights, I wonder if maybe I could have stopped him myself. It keeps me up sometimes."
"You were just a kid." Hope shook her head as she caught the ball he threw at her. "What did he mean by save the world, though?"
Jack caught the ball and sighed once again. "Again. You need to remember that Nier wasn't born evil. In a way, it was this world that changed him. He didn't instantly snap when the Beast first came. There was a point where he made an effort to keep a hold of his sanity. He had a goal in mind. The Beast. It always targets areas that hold the most humans. It tends to ignore Supers unless they get in the way of its rampage. Nier's goal was simple. Create a world of only Supers. Perfect Supers that could either evolve to the point of taking the Beast out or simply by existing would cause the Beast to avoid them. It wasn't until he discovered his process of manufacturing Supers tends to drive them insane and mess with their heads that he truly became a villain. I guess that was the straw that finally broke him. Even I have some moments where I think I lost my mind."
'You tell her.' The voice of Full Monarch just behind his ear caused Jack to let out yet another sigh.
Hope frowned and caught the ball that Jack tossed at her. "I think I'm starting to get it. You were turned back into a human by Full Monarch during the final battle, right? At least that's the story that you told the others."
Jack caught the fastball special she threw at him with ease and toyed around with it in his hands. "The Emperor turned most people into monsters without a care in the world. He would place some of his cells into their bodies and let them go wild. If they were a human, then they would be turned into a Super. Most either exploded or turned into mindless beasts. A few, though, ended up like that Kevin kid. Keeping most of their sanity and becoming a brand-new Super. Most of the Supers he tried to change into monsters went insane. Only Fairy Queen and Golden God were able to keep most of their minds. The others became the giant monsters that roam around the Wasteland today. A lot of the monsters called themselves his sons or daughters. However, the Emperor only ever considered a few of his best creations worthy of that title. Hell Hound was one. She had been the corpse of his first daughter, who died. Sky was another. Grown from nothing; they weren't like me or the others. They never had a life of their own before they were invented. One was meant to be a backup. A way for the Emperor's legacy to live on if something ever happened to him or the Princess of Life. Then you have me."
"I'm guessing you were one of those people given the title of his child?"
"That's what they called it. What I really was, though, was a weapon. The Emperor knew that his biggest obstacle was the child he raised all those years ago. If he wanted to win the war, he would need to get rid of Full Monarch—the only Super who could defeat the Beast all by himself. That's where I came in. A random street urchin became the solution."
"Full Monarch died fifteen years ago... Mr. Larison, were you..."
"After the battle, I watched the life fade from his eyes. The number-one hero was dead. I almost couldn't believe it. Of course, by then, the Emperor was also long gone. Maybe he died, or maybe he escaped. Not even I know. I was attacked from behind. A shard of metal rammed right through me. I would have been a dead man if not for Nick. Of course, the shard still won in the end. Poisoned my heart—a sliver of light with the express order to bring death on me. Anytime I try to use the energy my body naturally creates, it grows worse. It also stops the damage to my heart from being healed, and if pushed too far, I could blow up. I guess there is some silver lining, though. I absorb different forms of energy, and this light is no exception."
"You're a changed person now," Hope said, shaking her head. "We could tell the Victorian or something, and maybe she can take back the order and fix your heart?"
Mr. Larison just shook his head. "Hatred that deep isn't something that can be fixed with a few good actions and words. I'm alive and have fought through it, so it doesn't really matter too much in the grand scheme of things." He tossed the ball back to her, giving her a sly smirk. "I think the only reason I'm actually alive is due to her cocky nature. She's the kind of woman who would refuse to even entertain the possibility of me being alive. She'll do everything to convince herself that it isn't her power. That would mean admitting how badly she failed. In a way, she's like myself. I'd also hate to lose."
Hope frowned as she clutched the ball he threw at her. "Is there any way we could fix it?"
"Maybe the Lord of Life could."
Her heart sank at that. It all came back to her failure. Her fingers dug into the surface of the ball, leaving dents on it. She'd just need to get stronger. A lot stronger.
"You okay?"
"Huh?" She looked up when she heard Mr. Larison speak. She nodded her head. "Yeah. I'm fine." She tossed the ball back at him. It went back and forth a few more times as the two of them silently played.
It was nice.
***
Present Day...
He wasn't really sure why that memory went through his mind at that moment. Maybe because, at that moment, he felt like the ball.
Battery hit the ground so hard that he bounced into the air, where he would then slam back down into the sand, only to bounce back up. He kept getting further and further away from the others, struggling to stop. Everything about the situation was wrong. Reality had changed and twisted to paint its own story.
With a simple wave of her hand, Fairy Queen changed his friction and the properties of the ground, causing it to bend like a trampoline.
Beams of golden light fired out of Battery's fingertips, forming into large hooks that stabbed into the ground. He came to a sliding stop and nearly broke both his arms as the threading pulled to its max. He breathed heavily as he felt reality settle around him, and everything went back to normal.
'Think you can beat her?' The voice asked him.
"You shut up. I'm not in the mood to look crazy in front of her."
Fairy Queen stood before him, walking slowly. Her skin was pale, and she always insisted on wearing very little clothing—just a few simple branches and plants covering her modest areas. She might have looked pretty if not for the look on her face—one of rage and disgust.
"I honestly had been praying you died all those years ago." The woman hummed. "Then again, cockroaches are always good at escaping death."
"That's a little harsh..."
Fairy Queen looked him up and down. "I always knew you were a traitor. You turned on your own master and bit the hand that fed you. Instead of doing your job like a good pet, you helped Full Monarch defeat the Emperor. Still, I never thought you would fall so low as to join the society that broke the world. Heroes are the reason the Beast still exists. They are the reason this planet is dying. They are the reason he lost his family. The reason we had to be made! You're not just some traitorous runt; you're an enemy who's spitting in the face of everything he believed in!"
"And what did he believe in?" Battery wiped the blood from his nose and mouth and ignored the pain in his chest. Golden energy crackled off of him, and he slammed his hand out. His entire palm was used, not just a finger, as he unleashed a massive golden beam of energy that burned so hot it transformed the sand around them into molten glass. "As far as I'm concerned, he was just as bad as the Beast!"
Fairy Queen slapped the air, and reality twisted around her, the beam breaking like a river stream going around her form. She stalked forward, walking through the energy, and flicked her finger out. All at once, the energy died out as a small golf ball-sized hole was blasted through Battery's stomach.
Blood poured down the front of his chest, and he gasped but was forced to ignore the pain. He raised his arms up just in time to block a punch from the villain. His bones snapped and twisted as his limbs were turned the other way and shattered. She wasn't holding back. Every blow, every attack—all of it was at her maximum force. One of the few people in the world who was ever able to go a few rounds with Full Monarch.
Battery was shoved back from the force of the attack, with more blasts of reality smashing into him from all sides. His golden light grew stronger, reaching its peak, and his arms snapped back in place as he forcefully healed them. The energy began to charge up once more, and he skated forward across the ground, moving at his top speed. He was on Fairy Queen faster than she could react, and he rammed a fist directly into her face. His energy fired into her body, and he did his best to either fry her brain or at least damage her nervous system.
Neither worked. The woman took the punch directly to her face like it was nothing and rammed her fingers into Battery's stomach, impaling him on her hand. Blood poured down Battery's chin, and she forcefully raised him up and threw her arm out, tossing him away and sending out another blast of reality. It slammed into Battery, and his limbs began to twist and distort, his neck nearly snapping as he was almost folded in two.
His body struggled to heal and repair itself, snapping limbs back into place and plugging up holes, but it was quickly becoming a losing battle. As soon as his feet touched the ground once again, he held two of his fingers out and fired out his beams. The beams launched forward and separated into other beams, which then further separated. They wrapped Fairy Queen's body tightly, and he formed a lasso around her. He spun his body, dragging her with him, and threw her directly into one of the many rays of sunlight that stabbed down.
She was buried up to her waist in molten glass, and from above, fire poured down onto her as radiation bombed her cells. The golden lasso changed and formed a net of sorts over her, stopping her from flying out. She twitched her finger, and reality changed once again. Instead of molten glass, she now stood in cold water. A mirror appeared in the air above her and angled itself just right to bounce the harsh ray off of her and toward Battery.
Battery dodged out of the way just in time, and Fairy Queen used that as her chance to escape. Her wings fully unfolded, and she shattered the energy around her. Then she flew up and out of the death ray. "Do you really think you can beat me in the sorry state you're in? Besides Full Monarch's daughter, there isn't a Super alive who can match up to me now!"
Her main power was illusion. However, through the concept of inversion, it allowed her to twist and alter her abilities. She was second only to the Victorian when it came to this. Her power to alter reality was one of the strongest powers, not falling under those of the Lords. She could attack you by twisting space itself to collapse in on you or even change matter temporarily into another form and alter its natural rules. She couldn't affect people with her power, though. That was the trade-off. Whereas her illusions would target a person's mind, her inverted power could only target the world. That wasn't that bad, though. That just stopped her from transmuting someone into something else. She could still alter the space a person stood in and cause it to collapse in on itself, crushing her target.
"I really have lost most of my power." Battery hummed. "In this state, I'm only around the level of Myth or Green Wolf. Guys like you and Golden God are simply far beyond the level of your normal baddies. Even most members of the Enforcers would struggle or lose. I used to be a freak of nature, like Boy Genius or the Victorian. Guess time has been cruel to me, though."
"Aw. Is the poor little baby getting emotional?"
"Do you know why you're alive?" Battery asked.
"Huh?"
"After the battle with the Emperor, the Victorian went on a killing spree. She murdered almost every member of his army she could get her hands on. Only left a few of the kids alive, like your son, Polaron. Guys like Alien and the like, though, Demonica's and Mars King's parents, were fair game; she went out of her way to slaughter them. She even killed the Princess of Life."
"You're not one to speak. After all, your actions got Hell Hound killed!" Fairy Queen hissed out. "You brought death to us all and even killed your own lover."
Battery ignored her remark and kept talking. "It was always odd, though, how she left you alive, right?" He folded his arms, looking her up and down. "Golden God is alive because he got away. As soon as it looked like the Organization lost, he ran with his tail tucked in between his legs and fled to space. "But you... You were thrown into Nightshade. It makes me wonder. You've always been tough. Most Supers can't even get past your skin. Your durability was second only to Hell Hound or the Lords. The Victorian should be strong enough, though. Of course, like me, you can also heal. Repair your damaged body with wisps of reality. That was when it hit me." Battery looked down at his fist and clenched it slightly. "Nightshade exists to keep villains that are hard to keep dead locked up, or just as a means of throwing villains away without killing them. Most people don't truly understand how disturbing a place it really is. The Branch doesn't want it to come out that it's basically a death pit where villains either rot or die instantly. You're one of the ones that are hard to kill. So, it makes sense that you'd be thrown into the pit. Even so, what doesn't make sense is the fact that the Victorian would seemingly be fine with that. Unless she wasn't. When I hit you earlier, I didn't actually touch you, did I?"
"What are you trying to say?" Fairy Queen growled out.
"You've gone out of your way to stop yourself from taking any damage. Even minor attacks that wouldn't actually hurt you, you've blocked by forming a thin barrier of solid reality around your body, sort of like my own barrier. You're doing everything to avoid taking damage. On top of that, though, you're not over with Golden God. I found it odd how you didn't just go kill Wish yourself. Also, you didn't kill Ocean Empress or Poseidon. You tried, but the old you would have gotten the job done. The old you would have killed me in one attack. You guys went out of your way to heal Golden God and get him in working order, though. It's pretty obvious when you think about it-"
"Shut up!"
Battery ignored her and pointed directly at her heart. "The Victorian didn't just throw you in jail. Like me, you have a little present left behind. One that is blocking most of your power. You can't heal your body as well as you can, or else the shard will dig deeper. She couldn't kill you herself, so she left it behind. Your healing is better than mine, and you can heal most of the damage, but the pain is something you can't stop, right? Blinding agony that courses through you. Even if it won't kill you, it's enough to stop you from going all out for fear of it hitting you again. You're a wolf that's been leashed and tamed, the same as me-"
"I said shut up!"
"That's why you haven't done anything about your son, right? Polaron's death. You haven't even thought about it because you know you'll be filled with blinding rage and want to use your full power, but that pain has you shaking in your boots. I guess you were locked away, so you don't actually know who killed Polaron, do you?" Battery threw his arms out. "I killed Mars King and Polaron." He lied. "I'm going to finish what the Victorian started!"
"You're dead, you fucking traitor!"
Fairy Queen screamed out as loud as she could and threw her hands out. Reality broke and twisted, unleashing waves of destruction. Battery dodged past them with ease. They were massive in size but fired blindly out of rage. Even so, that still wasn't the woman's full power. She really was scared of feeling the biting pain of the shard in her heart and was forced to hold back. That was his win condition, though.
Battery was on her in a single moment as he weaved through broken reality. Space twisted and changed, and color distorted as he reached her. Her barrier was strong. It was too strong for him to break through. He didn't need to, though. He rammed his hand into her and focused all of his energy. It was the same as when Paragon was nearby. The shard wouldn't let its host heal the damaged heart.
Battery unleashed his energy as a wave of healing aura focused directly on the shard in her heart. Fairy Queen screamed out in pain as the healing took effect, and her chest began to glow. Battery rammed his hand forward and upped the power of his healing aura. Golden light seeped out of Fairy Queen's chest, bright enough to rival the sun, and her flesh began to burn and break as the shard began to eat away at her. It was the same thing inside of him. The same curse he had. She was just like him.
She tried to thrash out of his grasp, but he held onto her, golden chains wrapping around them both. He ignored the pain that coursed through him, and his scream matched hers as he pushed forward, ramming his hand through her and grabbing her heart. He used everything and, in a single instance, switched from healing to destruction. The shard in her chest was already breaking her to bits, and he just copied what it was doing, attacking the very atoms that made her up with his golden light.
Fairy Queen's screams died out, and her body broke away as Battery shoved his way through her. She began to change into golden dust. As he stepped past her, he breathed heavily and stared down at the small metal shard he held in his hand now. It hummed and burned—the same thing that was in his own heart. Fairy Queen was dead. Her body was reduced to less than ash.
He did it. He saved the day.
"Mr. Larison!" A voice cried out. He turned and saw Cinder quickly running toward him. She wasn't alone. She was dragging Paragon over with her, and behind the two girls were the other members of Pantheon. "Are you okay?" She asked.
"Yeah. I'm fine- Wait, what about you? What happened with Wish?" Battery asked.
"We dealt with it." Myth called out. He walked forward and looked down at the shard that Battery held. "Is that it?"
"Yeah." Battery nodded. "Fairy Queen's dead."
Myth nodded. "We beat Golden God. Cinder was also able to stop Wish for good. It looks like you were worried for nothing." Myth held his hand out to Battery. "You did good."
Battery stared at the hand before silently taking it and shaking it. "Thanks..."
"What's with that pitiful thanks!" Whisper appeared next to him, suddenly leaning on his shoulder. "We couldn't have done it without you, Battery!"
"I wasn't even there at the battle, though?"
"Doesn't matter!" Snowdawn called out, pointing at Battery. "I just thought, what would Battery do? And in that moment, I figured out how to beat my bad guy! They never stood a chance."
"Just take the compliment," Paragon called out. Her arms were folded, and she stood next to Cinder, letting out a huff. "If it's anything like my sister, they won't stop until you take it," she said.
Battery stared at her quietly for a moment. "And Wish is... really gone?"
"Yeah." Paragon nodded. I don't sense her. I think she's gone for good." Paragon quietly looked down at the shard in his hands and took it suddenly. "This is the thing in your heart?" she asked, looking at it.
"Yeah- Wait, aren't you blind?"
"Now that I'm looking at it closer, it really isn't that strong. Maybe after beating Wish, I became stronger. My power feels different anyway. I think I could be the new Lord of Life even-"
"Really? If that were the case, you should be able to maybe heal my heart then." Battery shrugged. "I'd rather not try it without being certain. Luckily, there is a way we can try it."
"There is?" Snowdawn asked.
"My dad!" Cinder said with wide eyes. "If Paragon can heal him, then that means when we killed Wish, she became the next Lord of Life!"
"That's right, kid." Battery couldn't help the small smile that came onto his lips.
"And if she can heal him, she can heal you?" Cinder let out a relieved sigh. "So, then it's over, right? We actually won."
"Yeah, I think so. It's a little strange, but yeah, it's a happy ending." Battery stared at the girl in silence. She had a large smile on her face. For a moment, she almost reminded him of... The image of the sandy beach came back to him. His wife and a child that never existed. A timeline that could never be. "Oh, shit, this a-"
Blood splattered onto the ground as a hand rammed its way through his back and out of his gut. He practically vomited up blood and felt his eyes go wide. Pain coursed through, and everyone was gone. Team Pantheon wasn't here anymore, and the sounds of fighting in the distance picked back up. They hadn't actually finished their battles yet. Wish wasn't dead yet. There was no happy ending. It had all been an illusion.
Fairy Queen stood behind him, panting. Her eyes were filled with utter rage as she glared at him and twisted the hand she had rammed through him. Part of her body was burned, and some of her flesh had dropped off her body. The golden glow in her chest was slowly dying down.
"You really almost got me there for a moment." She hissed through gritted teeth. "I was forced to actually drop my powers over reality and catch you in my illusion. Fuck you! You know I hate that worthless power, you scumbag!"
Battery barely pulled himself off the hand and nearly collapsed. He clutched at his stomach, struggling to keep his guts inside his body. His healing power wasn't good enough to fully restore organs. He whipped his body around and fired out a wave of his healing aura, but it bounced off of the girl.
Fairy Queen rammed her fist into his face and slammed him headfirst back onto the sandy floor. She ground her knuckles into him and began to dig his head deeper into the earth. "That won't ever work on me again, you little bastard. I've already figured out how to twist the reality of that power. It'll never reach me again." Battery grunted as her fingers wrapped around his face, and she lifted him up. "Die."
She smashed his head into the ground, then raised him up again. She smashed his head back down. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth-
That ball came back to him for a moment. His head smashed into the ground, and suddenly he was back on the rooftops with Hope, tossing the ball back and forth. The sun was already setting. They had been there for a while now.
Hope caught the ball and looked down at it. "Do... Do you think I can actually save my dad?" She asked quietly. "Be honest. Am I doing all of this for nothing?"
Jack caught the ball that she threw back at him. He tried to think of an answer for a few moments. "Do you trust me?"
She caught the ball and shrugged. "Should I not?"
"Aren't you mad at the secrets I've kept?"
"I mean, to an extent, I guess I was a little annoyed." She shrugged. But you've told me now. I still kind of wish you mentioned the fact that I was a Lord from the very start. I get why you did it, though. Fifteen years is a long time to be by yourself." She looked back down at the ball in her hands after he tossed it to her. It was badly damaged by now and barely hanging on. "All that time with so many secrets. It'd be hard to ever talk to anyone the same way again."
Jack caught the ball once more. "I think... I think that if you didn't try to save your father, succeed or fail, you'd hate yourself for the rest of your life. That said, I'm here to do everything I can. I made a promise that I would help the Lord of the Sun out any way I could."
"That's why you're doing all of this, right?" Hope sighed.
"No."
"Huh?"
Jack tossed the ball back to her, and she caught it. "Even before I truly knew you were a Lord of the Sun, I think that you..." That beach was back. That timeline. Something that could have been. "You reminded me of someone."
"You mean Full Monarch."
"No. Someone that I wish could have been." He rubbed his neck awkwardly. It would have been nice, in another timeline where Super's didn't exist, to just go to the beach and relax. A future that could never exist in this world, a wife gone, and a child never born. "Never mind. I'm just rambling."
Hope smiled and nodded. "Thanks, Mr. Larison."
"What for?"
"I was freaking out a bit earlier. I felt like the whole world was going to cave in on me. I guess... I don't know, but this has been a lot of fun." She threw the ball one more time, but it finally gave out. It broke to bits and crumbled right as Jack caught it. He stared down at it in his hands in silence, watching it fall apart. "Aw! It's over already!" Hope whined.
"I can always get a new one." Jack shrugged.
"So, we can do this again sometime?"
"Sure, kid. As many times as you want." That was a lie, though. He honestly didn't know if he'd be able to do this ever again. "Kid..."
"Yeah?"
"Nah. Never mind."
"What is it? No more secrets!"
Jack snorted. "I just wanted to say. I had fun."
She smiled and looked at him. "I trust." She said quietly. "I think… You're a good person."
Battery's eyes snapped open as his head slammed into the floor. Sand was feeling his lungs, and his vision was turning red. Fairy Queen's fingers were clawing into his face, and her reality was forcing its way past his face, trying to blow his skull to bits.
'Jack.' Full Monarch's voice came from above him. He couldn't see the man, but he could feel the eyes.
"Die. Die. Die. Die!" Her grip grew tighter, and blood covered his eyes, or maybe his eyes blew up. He honestly wasn't sure anymore. "I'm going to kill you! Then I'm going to kill every member of that stupid team of yours! I won't let a Lord of the Sun ever reach its full power ever again!" Her other hand grabbed at Battery's throat and began to crush it as her reality twisted and bore down on him. "Die. Be gone, you traitor."
"I- I won't let you hurt them." Battery's golden light began to flicker, and he gasped as he felt his body giving out. His heart was pounding like it was about to blow. He tried to grab at her, but he was quickly losing strength.
'Get up Jack.'
Fairy Queen's hand was about to fully crush Battery's head. Her lips twisted into a dark smirk, and she practically howled with joy. "This is it! This is where you-"
'Stand up and fight, Jack!'
Battery's hand finally came up and managed to wrap itself around her face. She put up her barrier to keep herself safe from his golden light. It wasn't the golden light that came out, though. Battery's eyes lit up with a blue glow, and the lines along his costume shifted and changed. She felt reality itself cracking and burning as his fingers dug into her face, and, in a burst of bright blue, Battery blasted her off of him.
'Don't ever give up. Don't ever stop fighting. Don't let your story reach an end like that. Not with the life that I gave you. Fight. Save them all, Jack Larison.'
Fairy Queen hit the floor and rolled across it. Her eyes stared up at Battery as he stood up, all his damage instantly repaired. Blue energy crackled all across his form. "Sorry, Nick. I'll be burning through the last of my energy." His power. Not the Victorian's light, but his own. This wasn't solar energy that crackled around him. It was something else. A power that could distort and break through anything. The strength of a Giant swelled out. It went by many names. It was Creation and Destruction itself. He preferred to just call it Imaginary Energy. The ability to imprint his will upon the world in the desired shape he wanted.
"A- Alpha." Fairy Queen scooted back as she stared up at Battery. The blue light was crackling and growing stronger. This wasn't the hero Battery that she was looking at. It was the monster created by the Emperor. The Emperor's son, the Emperor's Giant, the tool of the Emperor, created to wipe out the Lord of the Sun. The enemy of Man.
Alpha was back.
And yet...
Battery felt it in his heart—a pain unlike anything else. The golden light was seeping out—the power of the Victorian. It was melting a hole into his heart, turning itself into a mini-star, one able to destroy the entire universe that was his body. Death was crawling toward him before. Now, though, it was sprinting.
"I've made my choice." Battery's energy grew around his fingertips and expanded. The air above him took shape as energy was birthed into existence and formed into the fist of a Giant. Fairy Queen tried to block it, but it simply destroyed the reality she had twisted and broke through toward her. "I'll die. But I'm taking you to hell with me."
The Ruler of Giants had returned.
Weekly Power Status
200+ Power
Ranking 
0 Power
stone You may also Like
Paragraph comment