Pride and Punishment.

"Now where were we, Mr.Tagg?" I asked in a chilling yet playful tone.

But he remained silent, his eyes glued to the man dying slowly on the floor.

"Ah, yes! I remember now!

Your plan. Yes. What was it again? You come in here dicks out, threatening me with the power of a crippled little agency from a tiny little impotent nation, and expect me, the guy that killed the Endbringers and the Alien God that was running a planetary experiment on your world, the guy with a freaking moon sized spaceship, to just bow down to you and lick your boots? Is that it?

Let me be the first to enlighten you.

Not a great plan." I wagged my finger at him.

"Tell me, what does the PRT guideline suggest you do when you face a parahuman with a rating of 12 or more? Weld? How about you tell us what you're supposed to do?"

Weld stepped forward, glaring at the Director.

"We are supposed to avoid antagonizing the parahuman and assist in immediate evacuation of the surroundings. We are to not engage them until sufficiently strong reinforcements arrive." He chanted.

"Exactly. Now I am not a parahuman but if I were to be categorised on your little power scaling chart, I would be an easy Brute 9, Thinker 10, Mover 8, Shaker 12, Striker 12, Blaster 10, Trump 12 and Tinker 40. And that's me being generous.

Suffice to say, you didn't just carry the idiot ball here, you clutched it so hard you fused with it via quantum tunneling.

You fucked up. Big time. Especially when you tried to goddamn master me!

You don't seem to understand what that means either so let me show you exactly how powerful I am."

I raised my hand high in the air, and snapped my fingers, mentally activating the dimension anchors I had hidden in the planet's crust at max capacity.

With a flash, the entire planet teleported and a bevy of large heads appeared in space all around it.

The holo screen switched channels and a blue red logo spun on it.

"Welcome back to Planet Music!

Our first contenders, Arbolian Mentirososians!"

"Show us what you go-!" One head demanded, when he noticed us.

"Who dares to intrude on the most sacred intergalactic musical competition!

Annihilate that planet!"

"Cromulons, ladies and gentlemen. They kidnap entire planets every once in a while to hold musical competitions. Six planets enter, one planet leaves. But enough of that! Let's skip worlds again, shall we?" I said, just as the planet annihilation beam was fired and we teleported again, this time near a giant black hole looking thing.

"See that? That's a mass shadow anomaly, a gravitational phenomenon used to trap an eldritch entity. It's massive gravity field pulls in a crushes everything it catches, including entire planets. See how we're being pulled in? I'd say, we're three hours from complete destruction. But, there's more! So let's skip to the main course!" I snapped my fingers again, and the planet teleported, this time in the butthole dimension.

"See this unending plane? Buttholes. All the way to infinity. It's one of those concept based dimensions. This one's concept? Buttholes and accessories." I said, snapping my fingers one last time as Earth returned to reality Bet again.

"Do you see my point now, Tagg? Do you understand my true power? If I wanted to destroy this planet, I could do it as easy as breathing.

If I wanted to collapse your reality on itself? I could do it like this." I snapped my fingers again as everyone flinched.

"It would barely take me any effort to wipe out not just your reality but all realities even remotely resembling yours. I could wipe out your entire multiversal cluster in a matter of hours.

That's the difference in our power.

You need to know where you stand Tagg. You are an amoeba, and I am the guy viewing you on a microscope.

I am a god of creation. Literally. I made a universe in a fish tank remember?

And I'm not saying this out of some god complex or anything. I'm just stating the facts. The cold hard truth.

And that is, that you just fucked up on a multiversal scale.

You're lucky that moon sized ship up there is a research station and not a war machine. You are lucky that I am a researcher and not a multiversal warlord or eldritch god. Existences that eat realities for breakfast! Because those exist, out there, in the vast multiverse and if you had ever been so rude to any of them?

Well let's just say death would be a mercy, a paradise lost forever to you, as you were slowly digested over infinity, never alive, never dead, always in unimaginable agony, forever.

So take this lesson to heart, all of you, especially you guys back there, from the Yangban and Red Gauntlet. I know you guys came here with the same intentions as Tagg. To take what was mine, if not by words, then by force.

Take this a warning.

Do not fuck with me.

Do not mistake my kindness and curiousity for weakness. And remember this, carve it into your very heart and soul. You exist because I allow it. On my whim.

I came to this world, not because it was special or because I wanted to save it.

I came here because those shards of yours mildly interested me. I came here to research those.

Me exposing Cauldron and the Triumvirate? Just a side quest. Something I did for fun.

The reason I fought to kill Scion? Because he wouldn't have let me mess with his planetary experiment.

So he had to go. Don't take this the wrong way. All those things I said about them? All true.

But that doesn't mean my motivations need to be heroic or noble. I'm just curious about those shards of yours and I would like to see what makes them tick.

Now I could have done it like Cauldron and just killed you and ripped them out of your heads.

But I promised my wife, that I would try to find non violent solutions to problems. To only apply violence when all other options were exhausted or unviable.

And I kept that promise.

So here's my solution.

The easiest way I can do that without hurting anyone is by removing them from you, and studying them in isolation.

It's a win-win for both parties though. You get to be free of brain parasites, and live your life free of mind control, while I get to check out some cool new organisms, with little effort.

It's a great offer. So take it while I'm being polite. Because when I'm not?

You don't want to know what happens then."

"You're evil!" Tagg sputtered, stepping back.

"I'm honest. And I'm offering an honest trade. Their brain parasites for my services. More than I can say about you.

And as for good and evil?

When you get to my level, good and evil become arbitrary lines you draw across the sands of time. Heroes, villains, good and evil. In time it all washes away, leaving behind only your hypocrisy.

And I think that is apparent to everyone here. You kidnapped them, tortured them, turned them into monsters and threw them out like day old garbage.

I'm offering them a cure to their condition, a return to normalcy, the freedom to choose their own path in life and a way back home.

Does it matter than I'm doing it out of a selfish motivation rather than the goodness of my heart?

Does the butcher give you meat out of the goodness of his heart? Or do you pay for his services like a normal fucking person?

Does the doctor save your life because he's just such a noble soul? Or does he do it because he gets paid a six figure salary to do it?

The world runs on trade not rainbows and unicorn farts, Mr. Tagg.

But I wouldn't expect you to know that, given what the PRT's first choice of action was. You would rather I leave this world, and let these people suffer?

You would steal away their one chance at getting their normal life back?

Because I will leave. If I have to fight and kill millions for what is objectively a passing fancy, I will just pack up and leave you guys to it." I lied.

I would leave yes, but not before ripping their shards out of their heads, and leaving a trail of blood in my wake. And I'd rather avoid that much work if possible.

"Just know this. There are two Endbringers still out there. Active. And there are fourteen more Endbringers that Cauldron created that are inactive, in hibernation. When they sense a conflict rising, which they will eventually, if I don't deal with it now, they will awaken, with or without Eidolon to manually control them.

And when that happens, you know just as well as I, exactly how your chances of survival look.

And I won't be here this time to save your hides.

Trust me, there are better versions of this reality out there, where I can do this far easier. If it weren't for the fact that finding them requires more work than I'm willing to put in, I wouldn't even be here.

So choose. Show of hands everyone. You want me to leave? Raise your hands."

No one raised their hands as pleas broke out, begging me to stay.

"Yeah, thought so." I said, taking a sip of mega seed juice, before narrowing my eyes at Tagg.

"Now for your punishment, Tagg. And for those who ordered it too. Computer, crush the pentagon." I said.

The holoscreen switched channels and began to display an image of the Pentagon crumbling under an invisible force, before being pulled into a tight packed ball of cement.

"Now for you Tagg...." I smiled, as Tagg cowered in fear, pissing his pants, and crawled back.

"I was just following orders! Please...I didn't want to...I have a family!" He begged.

"Oh! Great idea, Tagg. Computer, target Tagg's family with the Morphizer XE, setting reversal."

"Noo! Anything but that! Not my family!" Tagg said, lunging at my legs, only to be kicked away.

"Too little too late, Tagg. I was following orders didn't save the Nazis, and it won't save you. But your family? They can be saved. At a price." I said.

"Anything!" He cried, smashing his head onto the ground, "I'll do anything!"

"Now that's the spirit!" I smiled.

"You see that Pentagon? I want you to go there. On foot. Butt naked. And I want you to pull it apart, brick by brick. Pull out the corpses of the people within. Then I want you to take them to a cemetery, one by one, and give them a proper burial. And you have to do this without stopping. At all. No water. No food. No toilet breaks. You will work to remedy your mistake till you die or complete the task. And then, I'll turn your family back. But remember. You stop once, just once, and one family member dies a gruesome death. Think Vlad The Impaler meets The Shrike. But bound in an immortality field, suffering without death, forever. Or at least for the month I'm still here in this world.

Horrible way to go. And you'll have to watch it. Without stopping. Or else another one dies." I said, adjusting a dial on my laser gun.

"Yes. Please. Just don't kill them." He nodded, tears flowing down his cheeks, getting back to his feet.

I raised the gun at him and shot once burning his clothes off.

"Now go. Clock's ticking. How long until their minds break, I wonder?" I laughed.

He looked at me aghast, realizing the meaning of my words and broke into a run.

"Isn't that too cruel?" Panacea asked, shocked.

"He was trying to master me. Remember what I told you when we first met. If I get mastered, my ship has been programmed to wipe out all life on the planet. And I told you this on a live worldwide broadcast, so everyone knew this. And yet, despite knowing this, he still tried to master me, risking the lives of everyone in the world. Your lives included. And you want him to go unpunished for that? For risking the future of humanity? Are you seriously that big of a bleeding heart or just a masochist? Do you get off to people treating you like sh-

Nevermind. I think the answer to that is too obvious to even be a question." I said, rubbing my temples.

I had already left a bad impression on these people. At this rate, convincing them to voluntarily give in was going to be tough.

But I had a choice.

I sighed.

I looked up and saw Tagg get out of earshot.

And all media devices in Brockton Bay had been destroyed in the fight against Scion.

So there was no way he was going to hear this.

"Alright. Computer, turn Tagg's family back to normal. But trap them in place for the next three days. And prepare some holograms to substitute. I want Tagg to suffer. But I'm not pure evil."

"As for the rest of you..... who's up for some surgery?" I asked.