An Endbringer has shown up somewhere.
They aren't the 'an Endbringer is here' sirens, so it isn't nearby, they're just the 'an Endbringer has shown up somewhere' sirens.
They mostly exist for two reasons, one being so that anyone who is willing to join the fight against the monster knows to head for the nearest PRT building so that they can get teleported over, and the other reason is so that the villains all know that the Endbringer Truce is officially in effect.
Heh, nice, saved by the bell. How lame.
Eidolon doesn't say anything, or if he does he uses a power to stop me from hearing it, not like I can see his mouth to lip read. Instead he simply floats over to Alexandria, and I decide to follow.
When we make it there, Crawler is tilting his head confusedly at me, and I hop over to him with a smile.
"Heya!~ Looks like we're done here," I say, and before he can respond I ask him a question that makes him radiate happiness once he hears it, "tell me, Jack never let you fight any Endbringers, did he?~"
I can tell the exact moment that my words click in his head as the various tentacles around his body start wagging in excitement.
At the same time, I take the moment to observe him and I notice something.
He's changed again. He looks different to when we first met.
Seeing as my armour is still fully covering me, I rear back a fist and suddenly punch him as hard as I can.
His armoured body cracks slightly under the force of the blow as a soft booming sound echoes out from the impact, but naturally the crack is fixed in an instant, and a second punch doesn't do anything.
He doesn't do anything in response to me assaulting him, just giving me a curious look, to which I respond with a smile, "you've gotten stronger.~"
He probably won't die to an Endbringer.
Maybe.
It's hard to really know for sure. On one hand, he' is ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ข๐ญ๐ญ๐บ hard to kill, but on the other hand it's a fucking ๐๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ฃ๐ณ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ๐ฆ๐ณ we're talking about here.
Whatever, I'm sure he'll be fine.
With that thought, I turn back to the two heroes, who are talking quietly on the ground now, and I walk over to them.
Both of their heads snap to my direction and in a show of peace I dissolve my power, leaving me in half melted casual clothes, having not had the time to get a replacement costume.
They do nothing as I approach, Crawler not far behind me.
"Yo!~ I can hear the sirens y'know?~ I know we were just fighting and all, but Endbringers are a big deal, figured we could lend a hand if you're already on your way?~"
I can't see either of their eyes through their masks, but I imagine their squinting at me suspiciously.
"What? Just because you ripped me apart a couple times, and melted me at least once, that doesn't mean we have to be enemies?~ If anything, we could be frenemies!~"
An amused snort comes from behind me.
At least someone here has a sense of humour.
Alexandria chooses to response, her tone cold yet scathing and accusatory. "Your power benefits from consuming Parahumans. How can we be sure you will abide the Truce?"
Er, what?
Something must have shown on my face, as the skin at the back of her cheek, next to her ear, twitches in what I barely recognise to be a result of a raised eyebrow.
"You didn't know?" She asks, still sounding cold but less threatening and vaguely curious.
I just give her a careless shrug.
"Eh, I had my suspicions, but it's not like I'm Eidipie over there with a bunch of powers, and nothing really stood out. Wait, how did ๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ know?"
Her lip barely twitches, but I catch the hint of a smirk that she shows and my own brow twitches in response.
Then the bitch actually answers, presumably 'humouring' me as we wait for a porter, most likely Strider.
"When you first showed up, your.. additions were observed to be wispy and liquid like. Then, after you killed your first cape, Clay, I believe he was called, with the power to drag rocks to himself and compact them into a golem, your additions were shown to be more solid, still liquid like but less wispy and more condensed. Then there's Jason,-"
My face twitches minutely at that name, something that she evidently catches from how her tone changes just the slightest amount.
It's interesting to interact with someone who seems to be just as good at spotting barely noticeable micro expressions and tone changes as me.
"-so that was you then? We already knew of course, but there was no real way to get confirmation. Either way, his power enhanced his arms, enlarging and strengthening them. After getting away from him, presumably eating him in the process, your own power exhibited a pair of enlarged arms. Need I go on?"
Part of me wants to say yes, just to see how many of my hunts they actually know about, but the other part of me knows that she will both see through what I'm doing, and realises that I just don't want to have to hear her voice more than I have to.
Feeling petty and not being able to come up with anything on the spot, I just stick my tongue out at her and move on.
"What are we even waiting around for? Can't Eidipie just 'port us over or something?"
"Mass teleportation is a difficult power to find," answers the man himself, "Strider will be here in twenty seconds."
Huh, well that answers that then.
Still, while I've got two thirds of the Protectorate's leadership here with me, I have a pressing matter to discuss.
"Quick question, can someone with a kill order hand in another kill order bounty without getting unjustly murdered, and, follow up question, can a kill order be traded to rescind another kill order?"
Now that gets their attention, but I quickly clarify.
"Oh, no I'm totally cool with having a kill order, I think it's cool, but I'm pretty sure Lucy just wants to travel around, and a kill order kind of makes that difficult for her. But the Nine is officially dead, I'm disbanding the group, so surely you could cut her some slack? Same as Bonesaw and at least Burnscar? It's not like they had much of a choice, not like Crawler and I."
I think the fact that I'm actually taking this seriously for once is enough for them to properly consider my words, and I really do mean them.
Crawler and I won't have a problem with the orders. After all, the main reason they don't just slap kill orders on every old villain is because anyone with a kill order is already legally 'dead,' which means that they are exempt to all laws, and that you can do anything to us without punishment.
the problem is that people with kill orders no longer have a reason to hold back, because it really can't get worse, but Crawler and I aren't going to be holding back anyway, and people actually trying to kill us just makes the game more fun.
But Lucy doesn't deserve that, nor do any of the others for that matter.
Crap, I forgot about Queenie.
Before they can answer however, we are interrupted by the sound of a muffled thunderclap, and when we all turn to look at it's origin, we see a man in a blue and black suit, with a cloak of the same colours hiding his arm and a cap and goggles, reminiscent of a train conductors, on his head.
I want a teleporter so bad.~
He visibly stills at the sight of Crawler and I, so I give him a little wave and a smile, Crawler joining me in ineffectively calming him down.
Without a word, Eidolon and Alexandria stride forth, with us following behind, and seeing that they aren't stopping us, Strider simply gulps and says nothing.
Suddenly, my vision blurs, my stomach twists and with another, louder crack and boom, we are suddenly elsewhere.
The first thing to come to mind is that the sun is suddenly at it's peak, rather than freshly risen.
The second thing is how ๐ญ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ฅ it is, and it's only then that I actually look forward and see the smoke and fire.
Wherever we are, it looks like it was some homely country town not long ago, no skyscrapers in sight, just a whole lot of residential buildings.
Except that now at least half of them are on fire, the smoke clotting out the sky in front of me, making it seem as if daylight is simply not allowed to exist right there specifically.
That's when I actually look closer and take in the sight of the cause behind all this destruction, kilometres of land already reduced to a molten, irradiated wasteland.
Taking in the sight of the Endbringer, even as far from me as he is right now, has my heart pounding in my chest and blood rushing through my ears, drowning out the sounds of movement around me as hundreds of Parahumans hustle about through various tents set up for the injured and command centres.
But I don't care about any of them, all I can focus on is a single being.
Behemoth.
The first Endbringer. The 'big brother' of the bunch, and an unrestricted dynakinetic, with complete control over all forms of energy, even being able to bypass the Manton limit within his 'kill aura' of about 30 feet.
Meaning that if you get too close, you will suddenly find your insides boiling at temperatures upwards of 1400ยฐ.
Behemoth himself is certainly worthy of his title. Forty-five feet tall at the very least, his skin is crusted with black stone that might be obsidian if not for it's impossible durability, layers of what's probably cooled magma sloughing off of him as he stands straight.
'Straight' might be generous though. He's built like a caricature of a bodybuilder, or a bear-human hybrid, reminding me of Queenie slightly in that sense, though he is obviously infinitely more impressive. His body is rippled with muscle, his skin grey, thick and leathery like the hide of a rhinoceros or elephant.
His black obsidian horns are so heavy his head hangs down slightly. They aren't rooted in his forehead, but in the middle of his face, a half-dozen curved shafts of black crystal twisting their way out of his face and back over the top of his head, some ten feet long. A single red eye glows from between the gap in two horns, positioned too low to be normal. His mouth is just a jagged gap in his lower face, twisting up to a point near his temple and lined by jagged horn-like growths that were too irregular to be called teeth.
His claws are much of the same, not hands in the conventional sense, but mangled growths of the same material that made up his horns, many of the growths as large as a whole person. He could flex them, move them, but they were clearly weapons and nothing else.
Alexandria snaps me out of my admiring reverie with a single sentence.
"Trading one kill order to revoke another is fine. Nothing more." With that, she flies off to what I assume is a command tent of sort, and a quick glance shows that Eidolon is already nowhere to be seen.
Turning my eyes back to Behemoth, I watch as an ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ฐ๐ณ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ด spike of similarly obsidian black material suddenly appears in front of him, slamming into him with the force of a train and sending the gigantic being stumbling back a couple of steps.
Never mind then. I found him.
Before I can decide what to do, a robot suddenly lands beside us, and it's only then I notice the wide berth that everyone else has been giving Crawler and I.
"Are you aware of the Truce?" The robot says in a vaguely Canadian accent, though I couldn't identify where exactly just from that.
However, I know it's Newfoundland anyway, because I know exactly who I'm talking with.
"Don't know about Crawler, but yea, I know. It's not exactly complicated,~" I say, briefly turning to Crawler and wagging a finger at him, "don't kill anyone today, we're only allowed to fight the big guy, ok?~"
He rolls his many eyes but nods his head nonetheless, and I turn back to the robot.
"So, Dragon. This is my first time,~ how does this work exactly?~"
=================
A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
Y'know, this wasn't supposed to happen. I had a plan in mind for Lusia's first meeting with an Endbringer, and this sure as fuck wasn't it, but whatever, it's big B anyway, so the plan prolly wouldn't work anyway.
Also, you know how in fanfics the MC kicks the ass of the fandoms 'big bads' when they fight? Well, in case you haven't noticed, I don't like people winning fights they shouldn't be able to win, power scaling is important, and eidolon can kick lusia and crawlers ass with ease solo, yet he can't kill an endbringer(he can, he just doesn't know how) so naturally, don't expect Lusia to be able to do much against him lol
Also, now I'm going to have to reread bits of worm to remember how endbringer fights go, which is why the chap ended here lol
(5+)Advanced chapters with the links below!
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