Sever [Worm SI]

[Tobits]

1998, Belfast

"Is this really all the King's Men have to offer? I expected better!"

A final slash of the knife and the cape known as Nimue fell to the ground. The boy in grey pointed and the area around the woman desaturated, perfectly capturing her death throes.

"Now, the rules are clear. If you lose, one of the audience goes."

As Jack surveyed the hostages gathered beside Grey Boy, the silence was audible, the cut-flower sound of an execution.

The rest of the King's Men watched, their obedience to the madman's terms enforced by the threat of a fate worse than death. The loser of the duel would be caught in a loop - and if they interfered, Grey Boy already had his hands on Gawain and Uther.

"Ah, this one! Sorry but you look so ordinary and boring. I'm sure you won't be missed."

The man in question tightened his grip on the shard of asphalt.

Arthwys drew his sword, then pointed it at Jack, like some sort of king of old making a proclamation. "Stop! Lay down your weapons, Jack. The Slaughterhouse Nine are dead and this is a fight you can't win."

Jack rolled his eyes at that. "Oh heavens, the others are dead, whatever shall I do?" He gestured at Grey Boy. "Well, most of them. We're down to three, but I still like our chances. But don't make this about me! Remember, rules are rules. I'm sure you British can understand."

The hostage tasted blood in his mouth as Grey Boy turned, raising-

He found himself out of his body. He was an observer, an outside agent, without body or mind. He couldn't think. He could only exist, as a part of some sequence of events.

A lonely being in and of itself propelled through space. That great and grand thing had crossed paths with a pair of others.

Take my eye, it had said. Take my wings. Take my teeth. Take my ability to step between worlds. Take my Sting.

The pair, in turn, had made their own offerings, as much as they were in a hurry.

For they were the most distant of cousins, the most distant of things. If they did not share their stories and resources now then stars might be born and die before their individual family lines crossed paths and had opportunity to share again. And they were scholars, all of them, trying to answer an unanswerable riddle.

The pair took the Loner's eye, among millions of other parts and graces and favours. The Loner travelled away, taking care to leave a breadcrumb trail that would ensure he and his kind would not return back this way until galaxies had been born anew.
The capes were off-kilter, staggered. He tried to run left, but it was too late. The colours drained out of the world.

But the lines remained.

Even as time curved in on itself, the creeping black lines and dots remained. The ground, people, cars, the world. Everything was on the verge of crumbling. The way time folded itself around him. Even that will die.

His motion reset, and he sunk the chunk of road he carried into dot as he ran.

Colour flooded back.

A step and he was upon the boy.

The lines were thin, but they were there. Trace across the eyes. Cut it apart.

The injury causes the boy in grey to reset and reappear to the left, but he screams, the first time in years. His eyes remained cut, he remained blind. The feeling in Jack's gut roars back and he obeys, knife thrusting out. Invisible force is projected from the edge, but even it had lines. The man sliced and it dissipated.

Taking the opportunity, Arthwys took the sword up in both hands and slashed. Space was ruptured and torn apart, yet Jack Slash was already dodging and-

A thunderclap of collapsing air boomed in the direction of Gray Boy. The man fought against the force dragging at his body with invisible fingers. A black speck floated in mid-air, dust and shards of pavement flying towards it, collapsing, vanishing. The black speck shrank further, and he felt the pull lessen, and then it disappeared, leaving behind a sphere of destruction where Gray Boy, Uther, the hostages and Gawain had been.

In its place was a young girl, no older than fourteen. She wore a robe of green and black. Her shadow was three and flickered into distorted forms.

"What an unsightly display, Sculptor. You have disrupted the dance of the faerie for too long. Have you anything to say in your defense?"

Gray Boy rematerialized in the trench and continued to wail. He was immortal and unchanging, so why can't he see? That man, he had to kill that man, to drown him in grey to restore himself.

Pockets of monochrome formed as time was looped indiscriminately.

"Impudent."

Glaistig Uaine touched a loop and the boy collapsed, his shadow rising from the ground, flickering and seeping into the Faerie Queen. The man saw the lines thicken and engulf the corpse.

"What have you done to my comrades?" shouted Arthwys.

The girl turned green eyes upon the leader of the much-diminished King's Men. "I have claimed them for the collective. Worry not, Sir Knight, their shades will dance with the faerie for eternity."

Arthwys raised his blade and charged.

The girl in green gestured with her right hand, a simple downward motion, and a wave of invisible force crushed him to the dirt. She held her hand outstretched, palm down. "If you are so eager to join them, I will fulfil with your wish." she said.

She raised her left hand up, clapping it together with the right. Arthwys exploded in a shower of gore, blood and shards of bone rocketing out from beneath the thunderclap of force.

Jack waited as the Queen claimed his shade, then applauded. She turned to him, meeting his gaze for the first time.

She nodded. "Orator,"

He gave a courtly bow. "Faerie Queen."

"For what reason have you consorted with the Sculptor? His actions prevented some of the fae from renewing their roles."

Jack did not rise from his bow, did not dare meet her eyes again. "To find you, my Queen."

"Oh?" she answered, amusement and warmth colouring her tone.

"I was a member of a group led by the one known as King," I began.

"A title he did not deserve."

"As you say. I slew him for his perfidy, and took control of the group. We now seek new members, that we might spread the light of our power across this world."

She laughed, bright and clear as bell, amused by his obvious manipulation.

"Rise, Orator. I know your nature. You have already displayed it - you slew your liege and took his place. Do not think me so arrogant as to step into his place when I am aware of the dagger at my back. I will not join your group."

Jack nodded. "A wise decision, my Queen," he said. "I should have expected nothing less."

"You may leave. I wish to converse with Caesura in private."

Glaistig Uaine turned her full attention to the man.

"Solemn Severance... Your faerie does not belong to either court."

"W-What do you want?"

"Free the Faerie trapped by the Sculptor so that I may claim them."

 

[Tobits]

As I washed the blood and dirt off my hands, I realised that the situation I was in was a bit shitty.

There were two capes trapped by Grey Boy, and I had saved them. Cut the lines running across the loops, then cut the lines along their necks. It was better this way, to spare them from the decades of torture and transformation of titans. They were claimed by the Faerie Queen, so they can be revived later. Of course, those would just be copies of the original. It didn't changed the fact that I murdered them. I killed so that I wouldn't be killed. I could have tried to talk Glaistig Uaine into sparing them or tried-

My hands were shaking again.

I focused on the lines and dots criss-crossing the mirror I'm facing. The idea of perceiving death was ludicrous. The shard pulling the strings was probably playing with entropy or something to make it seem like I did. But that hardly mattered. The power looked and acted like death perception, and would be used as such.

I could use it to escape. The restroom of this cafe had a wall facing the street outside. If I'm fast enough, I can shatter a mirror and used a sharp piece to cut through the wall and run. But I do not fancy my chances with Glaistig Uaine seated outside.

And of course the biggest deterrent was the writing on the mirror.

Drawn with a black marker was an order.

Play Along

There was never any real choice in the matter.

I exhaled.

This is fine.

If I'm claimed, I would linger on as a shade. In a way, I would still exist.

I left the restroom and found Glaistig Uaine sitting where I had left her, three shades flickered around her. The lines shaded the framework above and around her, an interlocking tapestry of three. Despite my hopes, her child-like figure still didn't make her any less terrifying. Emerald green eyes accentuated her nearly inhuman paleness, as though she was a living doll, trapped forever in a single moment.

"Caesura. It gladdens my heart that you did not attempt to flee. I would have claimed your faerie if you had, and this quaint little establishment would have been levelled." Her voice echoed with a chorus of a dozen others.

"That would be the height of folly, noble Faerie. Though I advise that we should converse in a different location. The Orator's attack on this city has drawn much attention."

"Fear not, the King's Men are not in any position to mount an assault, and the Suits are rightfully wary after our last alteration. We have time."

"I see. You told me that their are roles we must play out? Is there a greater purpose to these conflicts?"

A pale-faced waitress appeared and moved to their table, plates trembling in hand. "...Your pancakes."

Glaistig Uaine barely spared her a glance and continued on.

"Of course, we all have our parts to play. Some roles are bigger, some smaller, but none are more important than the rest."

"All the world's a stage..."

"Precisely."

"And what of those without the boons granted by the faerie? What roles are the powerless and normal assigned?"

"They are living props, there to give context to the performance. Not unimportant, but it is the actors who define the play. We wear our human faces and harbour our dramas and fantasies, but it's the same individuals playing the parts, as the play starts anew on a different stage, with different faces and forms. " There was an undercurrent of light admonishment to her tone.

My mouth tasted of sugar and rust.

"My apologies. But to dismiss ideals, histories and suffering as mere-"

"Things become a great deal easier once you realize how temporary it all is. By themselves, these concepts are transient, devoid of greater purpose. Upon the stage however, death and war are meaningful. As for the play, the actors, they are everlasting."

"Even if the ending of the script remains the same?"

"Yes. I admit that the ending is unchanging. And yet every finale, the final gathering and clash of actors, their roles refined. It is beyond exquisite." A smile appeared on Glaistig Uaine's face. A youthful exuberance that curdled blood.

"I see. And what is my role in all this? What do you plan to do next?"

"You are Caesura, a break between lines, a jarring end, disconnection. I believe the nature of your faerie is disruption. Let conflict be your world, and your faerie will be nourished." she hummed.

"As for what I plan to do... I expected to have a brief reprieve from my wanderings. A mountain hall had been built in the north, and I desired to hold court there. However, this enjoyable conversation has given me a different perspective."

She reached up, placing a hand on the side of my face. Her thumb brushed along my cheekbone, the long nail coming dangerously close to my eye. I did not move.

"The malignant gaze of Balor... it would be a pleasure to add that to my collection. But I am patient, and it would be a shame to cut short your time on the stage. Instead, I ask for you to pledge yourself to me, to stay by my side in the times ahead. It is a decision of permanence and one you will not be allowed to take back. Should you accept, simply clasp my hand in solidarity. If not, you are free to leave," she said. The Faerie Queen looked expectantly at me as she held out her hand.

"I will accept this arrangement if you agree to meet the High Priest and his associates at a time of my choosing."

"That is acceptable. Then we have an accord."

I shook Glaistig Uaine's hand, and at that moment, hoped things will turn out alright.

 

[Tobits]

​

---

World News: Faerie Queen's Rampage Continues​

Notorious parahuman spree killer Glaistig Uaine continues her indiscriminate rampage across Europe.

UK-European parahuman organization 'The Suits' will be facing some restructuring to account for their losses, with the King of Hearts openly stating that she may reach out to the more beleaguered and understaffed King's Men, who are already suffering public backlash for their inability to contain the threat within the UK. The newly formed European Brigade has also voiced interest in an exchange of members between teams.

Members of The Guild have being deployed to Nice to assist Les Irréductibles in their containment of the surviving Blasphemy, while the Meisters of Germany are taking the opportunity to strike back at Gesellschaft, which sustained large parahuman casualties during their clash with Glaistig Uaine. Recordings of that battle has confirmed reports of a parahuman ally fighting alongside the murderer, with a suspected Striker/Trump ability.

They have being currently sighted in Penza, causing the Russian government to mobilise four squadrons of the Elitnaya Armiya in a show of force. Despite the fact that any possible engagements will take place in worrying proximity to the Mordovia Exclusion Zone, offers of assistance by The Protectorate have been summarily rejected.

In a statement, Rukavitsa, the current leader of prominent Russian mercenary company 'Red Gauntlet' said...

---

 

[Tobits]

The harvest was almost complete.

Gunfire ripped down the shattered street, bouncing off her hooded cloak harmlessly. The Faerie Queen recalled two shadows, returning them to the dark well within her, and drew forth two others.

Põletama, the firesinger.

Prolapse, the torturer's son.

P̄hū̂ comtī, rider in daylight.

The fox-faced shade tapped the other shades, granting enhanced movement and speed.

As she advanced, the smarter and more cowardly threw down their weapons and scattered. The dumber and braver ones died. Their flesh boiled and twisted, their internal organs rupturing from the forces pressing against them. Others collapsed into nothing more than dust and ash, their bodied disintegrating with nothing more than a passing caress.

A roaring inferno burst into existence in front of her. Flames that should have charred her flesh and melted her bones washed over her as so much rainwater. A gesture and the conflagration parted before her.

A blast and the fire starter died, skull melting into gray ooze. She felt his shadow settle into being and called him forth, raining destruction upon his former allies.

The fighting died down as more corpses piled up, those that weren't dead following the examples of their formers and fled. The precognitive, their leader, tried to run. A current of wind slammed him to the ground.

"Is this all you have to stand against me?"

The man cringed back as the voices of the dead echoed through her voice and fell to his knees. He began to plead for his life. Glaistig Uaine felt her lips twitch with amusement. She may not speak German, but she could guess at what was being offered. Men, money, power, everything he had earned through his power and effort in exchange for survival. Predictable.

"Your men lie dead on the ground around you, those that did not flee in the face of my wrath," she intoned, waving her arm out to the blanket of dead men and women that now covered the broken street. She twisted her wrist, and as one, the bodies rose into the air before joining, compressing down into a single point of flesh and bone.

The man puked as he was presented with a baseball-sized sphere of pulped flesh and shattered bone.

"Money? Something I do not covet. Power? That, I have no lack of. There is only one thing you can offer me."

A touch and she made contact with his faerie and the man slumped to the ground. Another shade emerged and was fed the ball of corpses, their power transmuting it into a flowing cyan fluid.

Two steps, and space folded to deposit her into a side street, where the fighting continued.

Caesura had performed admirably and finished off the stragglers. She could see the edges of his faerie blackening the air around him, guiding his movements. His opponent unfolded through the air like a graphical glitch, curving surfaces and jagged geometric shapes made out of a black, organic material. They didn't look connected, and with each movement, they shifted around, with some seeming to phase out of existence and others popping up.

Her companion was in constant motion, trying to close the distance. He kicked out to push himself to the left as an attack carved through the ground, letting it slide past him. A strike from above was ducked under, and he threw himself forward, rolling, finding his feet in the same motion. His eyes shifted, set on seeking something only he can see.

Two more strikes were avoided, and he hesitated. The sharp tip of a limb sunk into the soft flesh on the inside of his right elbow, and it cut a long, straight line up his forearm. The skin parted beneath it. Layer after layer, the arm along the cut unraveled, until it was all on display—skin, fat, blood vessels, and muscles, with bone beneath it.

A cry of pain, and he stumbled, but his other arm, the one that held the knife, surged forward and pierced a point in space.

An ear-shattering crack, and something unperceivable breaks apart above him. Glaistig Uaine could see the other faerie in her other sight, connections snapped. A man unfolded from the air with a scream, and Caesura was upon him. She could see his Faerie in synch, providing the acceleration.

A step, and it was over.

In an instant, his knife traced along the man's body.

Stab.

Cut.

Pierce.

A total of seventeen lines on the body.

Neck, back of head, right eye to lip, upper right arm, lower right arm, right ring finger, right wrist, left elbow, left thumb, middle finger, ribs to heart, stomach to abdomen in three places, left groin, left thigh, left shin, all of them.

Passing through each, he dismantled the body into seventeen pieces.

The scattering of blood under the moon. To Glaistig Uaine, it was a beautiful sight.

The knife dropped to the ground and he laughed and laughed.

"That is enough! Do not let remorse taint your performance, for it will reflect badly upon me." It had taken her second awakening for her to learn that lesson.

He winced as a shadow probes into the gash on his arm, stitching flesh together.

"Still adjusting to, well, all of this. It's just funny that I killed this man, but he isn't dead." He made a gesture with his free arm to the shades around her.

A few months ago, she would have considered killing someone who acted this casually to her. But there was no fear or wariness in his eyes when he addressed her, and that was different. And as powerful as she was, her opposition would only grow more intense as time went on. It was pleasing to have someone to call ally, to fight alongside her. Someone who offered no hostility and understood her perspective.

So, for now, she let it slide.

 

[Tobits]

Chapter removed for plagiarism.

 

[Tobits]

As the battle grew more and more desperate, Lung grew larger and burned hotter, forcing the attention of the axe headed Titan back. Legend and Valkyrie focused their assault on the immobile form of Titan Fortuna, carving fissures and craters into its flesh. An errant blast exploded and reality broke further. The dimensional crack spread, lancing up Titan Fortuna's body, and tracing the lines of damage before forking up and into the air.

It hit Valkyrie and extended into a fractal bloom. The titan that arose was shadowy and wrapped in what looked like a cloak of black and jade, had a winged helmet with only shadows beneath.

She was bent, hands out and cupped. Within those cupped hands was Eidolon. His colours had been changed around. A black hood with a reflective emerald face beneath, glowing with a white light. The shadow of Eidolon stepped down onto a fingertip and gestured.

Darkness pulsed as the other Titans moved, arranging themselves in a formation around their new centre. Things emerged from the dark. Endbringers. One tall and narrow, of a size to rival any Titan. One small, a knot of formlessness, with faces periodically flashing out. One with a great chrome orb for a midsection, a black, whiskered head, arms, and feet mounted at different positions around that orb. Others continued to take shape and emerge.

And the Simurgh, now perched on Titan Fortuna, the silver edges of its wounds bleeding away into black and gold.

It began with the women in the suit, and now it ended with her.

He scowled. On some level, he was afraid and his power sensed that. It knew that he couldn't win no matter how he escalated.

Even so, he fought, despite the odds, even as reality shattered and-

---

2/11/1999, Fukuoka

-there was no pain. No, that chaotic and peculiar feeling was vertigo, a churning of thoughts and half-remembered fragments forced through a blender and poured into one ear.

From his perch, Kenta could see the area beneath Fukuoka Tower fill up. Teams of heroes were teleporting in every few minutes. The area was perfectly positioned to give them a view of Leviathan when it rose from Hakata Bay, if the view wasn't being obscured by the rainstorm rolling in from the sea. The dense storm was penetrated in a dozen places by a battery of searchlights scanning the waves for any sign of the enemy.

The Protectorate, the Sentai, the Seongjwa, numbers depleted after the attack on Busan, and more. Fifty capes, a hundred capes, with all manners of powers and desires, united under a single banner to fight for a common cause. He blinked, forced himself to focus. There was little time before the battle began. He had to make the most of it.

The memory of a battle that never happened stirred to the forefront of his mind. When Leviathan arrived, he had to prepare for an hour, letting the anticipation of the fight build up his power. Most of the city had been destroyed by then. Once he joined the fray, it didn't take long to reach a critical point, and even as Leviathan tore him apart, he was healing faster, growing stronger, even prevented it from retreating. The beast could not kill him, but he too could not kill it. He had burnt and tore away the Endbringer's skin and muscle, and its blood had long since been boiled away. It wasn't even slowed by his assault. His attacks were ultimately meaningless.

Lung felt anger stirring inside his chest. Not the messy, obscuring wrath of his youth, but a cold, clear rage. He would do better this time. He may not be able to kill the beast, but he can hurt it, force it away before it drowned the entire island. He needed to fight differently, to experiment with his power and diversify. Advice from Marquis, a man he had begrudgingly come to respect.

Suddenly, there was a commotion as some of the gathered capes reacted to the appearance of two arrivals. A child-like figure cloaked in green and black, and a man in a rain poncho. Three spectres surrounded them, and Lung felt confused. This shouldn't have happened. Why was Valkyrie, no, Glaistig Uaine here and not locked in the Birdcage? Eidolon and Hero had moved closer, conversing with them. The madwoman gestured to a shade, and the raging waves of Tsushima Strait were being cut off by a great wall of metal that rose from the bay.

As if on cue, there was an abrupt disturbance in the sea. It struck the wall with an earth-shaking crash. Rivers of water spilled over the edge and flooded into the city.

Scaled hands gripped the top of the wall. Between them was a head with glowing green eyes staring out of four gashes in its flesh, three on the left side and one on the right. The head flicked back and forth in a rapid series of twitches, like an eye in a socket. Scanning the city, the defences, the capes who would soon be dead or dying in its claws.

A hail of lasers and tinkertech munitions rained down, not at Leviathan but at the water in a wide area around him. The receding wave, the thick rain falling through the air, the water echo he created with his body. The water boiled instantly, turned to a fine mist, and was pushed away from Leviathan by waves of air pressure and telekinetic force.
The lack of water around it momentarily reduced the Endbringer to a fraction of its normal speed and removing its ability to turn on a dime. A piercing screech, and a drilling blast was fired, detonating in Leviathan's face. It knocked Leviathan into the Faerie Queen's wall, which deformed like putty and tried to envelop the lizard. The sea poured around the Endbringer as it broke free, now with enough water gathered to be almost fully protected against water-boiling attacks.

Lung could feel the scales beneath his skin, just itching to be brought to the surface. The fire, too, was warm in the core of his body. Just a little longer until he's ramped up enough to not die before he got strong enough.

Another tidal wave rocked the area, washing away capes that lost their footing. This time, the water reached Lung, sweeping up to waist level and forcing him to hold the windowsill to avoid losing his footing. A flicker, and a woman in a yellow and black Sentai costume had appeared beside him.

"Why are you back here?" the woman that he once knew as Black Kaze asked. Lung remembered the aftermath of her rampage, how the streets were littered with corpses. Hoards of refugees cut down as they tried to escape. Dotted among the bodies were those of heroes, stragglers from the Sentai. He remembered the pain of been cut a thousand times in an instant, again and again by that sword of massacre.

"My power needs time." he answered. "And you should be fighting."

"I can't do anything. My power hurts people, but it doesn't hurt him."

"Then cut me. Injuries make my power grow stronger."

"You'll die from that!" Kenta couldn't help but laugh at that.

"I heal fast. Now, do it."

Black Kaze swung the tinkertech sword she held in a furious arc, and his world burned with pain. That was good. Fear and pain were fuel on the fire, and the flames surged higher and higher yet. His skin was on fire. His breath was scalding steam. The world burned, and at the centre, Lung burned the hottest of all.

He felt his power building and swelling and growing in waves with every slash and stab. This was it. Bit by bit, he directed that roaring river, controlled the direction of its flow. Spikes and scales spilled out from the gashes, stabbing through flesh and filling the gap, layering the surrounding area. Each layer denser and harder than the last. His flesh was made of stone, of steel, of adamant.

It was time.

Lung abandoned his perch and rushed through the flooded streets, towards Leviathan and the others.

As the battle continued, Eidolon's attacks intensified. The hero had manifested his own hydrokinesis, deflecting and disrupting the lizard's water, diverting them skyward or off to one side. He hurled globes of energy the size of small houses at Leviathan, and each one was sufficient to knock the creature away, flaying away the thing's skin and simultaneously slowing it.

The ground was shaking almost constantly, now. The tallest standing buildings were swaying, like fronds bending in the wind. The lasers, Eidolon's strikes, the very impacts of the blows Alexandria delivered, the Sentai's attacks, the barrages from assisting heroes and villains. A cacophony of noise, light and violence.

Another tidal wave struck, barely giving the defending forces time to recover from the last assault. Lung braced himself, felt the water collide with him with a force like a locomotive. His pyrokinesis grew stronger in response, boiled around him, disrupting the water's flow, rendering it to steam.

He struck Leviathan, and was struck in turn. The force of the blow sent him crashing into a storefront two blocks away. His bones broke, internal organs smashed to a pulp. His power did not allow him to die. As a Sentai in purple and green pulled him up, his injuries were already healed. Lung sent a stream of fire, now blue, at the water around Leviathan. The Sentai joined him, adding their ranged fire to his. They had a tinker, Masamune, who mass produced their armour and weapons, each with wrist-mounted laser guns, rifles at their hips. Sixteen or seventeen of them opened fire with both weapons at the same time.

Leviathan turned, claws swiping, and he intercepted the blow. The hit connected, and he noted one side of his chest cavity was torn open from sternum to lower rib. Water poured into his punctured lungs. Alexandria drove the monster back, bought Lung purchase. He rolled over, shaking, and reached armoured hands into his open chest cavity. He sunk clawed fingers into his flooded lungs without hesitation and ripped the organs out with an agonized jerking motion, allowing a new pair to grow. As the snapped spears of his ribcage reconfigured, he stood back up and charged back into the fray.

Flames, more plasma than fire, concentrated and expelled from the spear-like growths on his back, propelling him upwards. He found handholds in the wounds on Leviathan's back and shoulders. The abomination moved, and the watery echo that followed its movements crashed into Lung. Not enough to unseat him.

He was almost half the height of the Endbringer now. Leviathan was still hitting harder, but Lung healed faster. Every second the beast focused on him was a second spent not attacking a less durable cape. Lung roared, burning away the surrounding water as he clawed deeper still. He focused on the heat, on that aspect of his power as he kept it from spilling forth and burning the other capes.

His power expanded in tandem with his will. The heat and the cold became visible to him. It wasn't just sight, not really. He felt the temperature exactly in a way that was impossible to describe. Lung held on tightly to the heat, controlled its flow, guiding it even as Leviathan struggled. The heat compressed into a scorching star within his maw, now a blisteringly hot flower of sharpened scales than anything recognisable as a mouth.

He roared and a beam of blinding white shot out, burning through several layers of the Endbringer, revealing charred bone. More importantly, it also cleared the area of water for a moment. Glaistig Uaine appeared in a crack of displaced air beneath him and four massive, spike-studded, crystalline plates shot out of the ground, pressing against the four sides of Leviathan's lower body, their spikes digging into its flesh to anchor them in place in his legs and lower torso. Leviathan crouched despite the pressure of the plates and prepared to leap to escape its confinement, only for Alexandria to crash down from above, pining it down.

Eidolon glowed a brilliant blue, taking on the form of a living field of distorted space that dove into Leviathan's wounds, then expanded. Vast areas of flesh were erased. Other capes fired away, and the battlefield crumbled further into ruin. Zones of altered time, gravitational fields, lightning storms, projectiles so hyperdense their gravitational fields ripped up debris around it. Lung saw how heat warped and entwined with motion, and as Leviathan smashed through its restraints, he met it, leaching the motion of it's blows to strengthen his own. Heat gathered and detonated along his four limbs, acting like pile bunkers as they drove Leviathan into the ground.

Legend held up Hero as the tinker's armour shook, a keen sound ringing out as he charged an attack. Below, a monochrome shade was summoned, and bubbles of grey engulfed Leviathan's legs. Lung could sense that the end was near. A tsunami swept from the Endbringer, but he boiled it away just as quickly, wrapping all four arms around the beast. The cape in the raincoat, previously taking shots from the backlines, swept in. A loud crack, and the lizard's tail broke free from it's bodies, shattering along unseen lines. A beam of silver burst from Hero's gauntlets, and the Endbringer's torso flaked away, the blast drilling deeper and deeper, unveiling scattered patches of a black core.

A crack, and the ground parted, water rushing up from beneath to fill the void. Leviathan's speed multiplied, and it took off, retreating back into the bay. But Lung did not let go, and as he roared in defiance, his power burned like a star within him. The sea was boiling away around them, and as his taloned feet found purchase, Eidolon appeared on his shoulder. A wave and the sea was banished, water held back by massive wide range telekinesis. A storm of rainbow erupted from the torn ruins of a building, swelling as it subsumed the material. Legend and Alexandria battered the beast, and Lung joined their efforts, forcing it in that direction. Metre by metre, it was pushed into the storm. Flesh sloughed off, and the core of the beast ripped itself from the rest of its body. A lake's worth of water poured out in an instant, surrounding the core, and it became a blur, shooting out into the sea with an ear drum shattering boom.

The sea rushed into the remains of Fukuoka. Only a handful of buildings stood at their full height, where there had been a city only an hour ago. The rest of the island was safe. It still wasn't enough, he still wasn't enough. The fight was absent, and Lung now had nothing to fuel his power. He sank, too dense to float, growing wearier by the second as his power left him. Alexandria found him in the depths and brought him to the surface.