No more Mr. Nice Guy.

The Gigatron leapt at the surfer Endbringer, carefully avoiding the panicking parahumans below, only to be thrown back by and invisible force, crashing into the time bubble, the forcefields clashing and sparking against each other, sending thunderous bellows throughout the Bay.

The Gigatron got back on it's feet as I took in the perpetrator and found a man in green, floating in the sky, his face featureless, a prismatic shifting array of shapes.

Eidolon!

Looks like his shard has completely consumed his consciousness, and taken over his body.

He raised a hand and pointed a finger at the Gigatron, a silent shriek emanating from his non existent mouth.

The Crystal Lion shook, letting out a roar in response.

Okay! So he can literally command the Endbringers now huh?

Then he has to die!

But first, lets expose that.

I turned one of the drones to me and fed it's view to the livestream, playing the video of Eidolon commanding the Endbringer.

"Look at that! Further proof of Eidolon controlling the Endbringers!" I said, as the Lion charged straight at the Gigatron, every step it took, growing the same candy colored crystals beneath it's footfalls.

Gaining speed it slashed across the Gigatrons legs, but I blocked it with the sword.

The sword let out a burst of rainbow light, chipping into it's feet, slicing through it's fingers.

The inertia of the swing though pushed the Gigatron to spread it's feet to regain balance, a chance the Lion didn't miss.

It slammed it's spiked tail into the Gigatron's legs, even as the forcefield on the robo activated and blocked the blow.

But the real problem showed itself when the forcefield didn't reflexively disengage.

Accessing the cameras around the Gigatron, I saw something that caused me to furrow my brows.

The forcefield that had blocked the Crystal Lion's blow had begun to crystallize itself, forming snowflake-like patterns.

My blood ran cold as I realised the implications.

Just to be sure, I quickly checked the other crystals where the Lion had stepped foot, and found them growing.

A clump of crystal, I saw touching a building, turning the point of contact into crystal, further propagating it's spread.

Fuck! Everything the Lion touches turns to crystal. And then the crystal turns more things it touches to crystal!

It's a grey goo scenario.

The longer the Lion lives, the harder it will become to fight as it gains control of the battlefield, shaping it to it's preference.

I slammed the sword into the ground shattering the crystals growing on it before pulling it back out, leveling it at the Lion.

"Paige!" I called out.

"On it!" She replied, letting loose a scream that pushed back the Lion further, scattering it's crystals, sending the fragments flying back into the rubble of the hill he had emerged from like shrapnel.

No. This won't do!

I pressed a button on my desk, and a port opened up on the Gigatron's chest.

A light glimmered within it, gathering energy to fire off a blast.

"Take this! The ultimate move of the Super Gigatron! Surprise Friendship Canno-"

Creaaak!

Something tore into the Gigatron's back.

Alarms began to blare on my screen, and I switched to the perimeter cameras to find the Surfer Endbringer behind the Gigatron, it's form stuck in my gaze, frozen, like the wave beneath it's feet, it's creepy smile still sending chills down my spine.

How did it get so far inland!?

What are the other heroes doing?

Goddamn useless bastards!

"Computer! Display the status of the heroes by the docks!"

A small window opened up in my vision displaying multiple locations in the docks.

Keeping my eyes on the Surfer Endbringer stuck behind the Gigatron, I looked at the window from the corner of my eye.

Oh right. I forgot to kill Eidolon!

The heroes were running around disoriented, like a headless chicken or trying to fight off Eidolon.

Well, trying to survive Eidolon would be more like it. He wasn't someone to be beaten. Not by them at least.

Me on the other hand?

I connected to my nano swarm in Eidolon's brain and gave the command.

"Puree that shitstick!" I said over the speaker, pointing at Eidolon.

Instantly, the nanobots dug into Eidolon's brain, churning it like butter, turning it to mush.

Eidolon fell from the sky like a rock, and through a portal into my ship's containment cell.

With Eidolon down, the Endbringers paused for the briefest moments, as a sense of relief flooded me.

Behind the Gigatron, under Paige's assault, the Crystal Lion's outer shell began to crack.

Someone cheered in the streets below.

It seemed for a minute that everything was going to be just fine.

Only for it to be replaced with sheer terror as the Surfer's smile widened even more and he ripped out the Gigatron's battery pack, crushing it in his hands.

"What?!" I gasped, the Gigatron's power dying out as the backup generator filled the gap.

I tried to get the Gigatron to get back to it's feet.

But I wasn't even given time to react before the Surfer ripped through the legs, sending us crashing to the floor.

The Crystal Lion, no longer pinned by Paige, yelped and jumped away, setting some distance between us as he regenerated his body.

Looks like now that Eidolon wasn't controlling them, instead of disappearing, their limits had been released.

Before they were sandbagging it, but now?

Now they weren't willing to play around. They were coming at me with their full power.

I took a deep breath.

"Alright then." I said, "No more mister nice guy."

I pulled out the flask of mega seed juice and gulped it all down in one swig.

The Surfer dug it's hands into the head.

The cognitive boost of the elixir kicked in, the world dissolved into formulas and equations.

Time slowed down for me and the grand cosmic structure became as apparent to me as sight and smell, breath and voice.

Paige's terrified screams echoed in my ears and the my power zipped outward, reaching deep into the Endbringer, unraveling it's grasp on it's own psyche.

It's shard shuddered, it's power broke, it's grip loosened, and the head of the Gigatron slipped from it.

I on the other hand flexed my muscles and felt the myotatic fluid ripple through the suit, condensing into raw physical musculature.

Silently, I ticked on the sound system in my earpiece, and the Blue Danube Waltz began to play.

Then, it began.

I pushed off the cabin, and disappeared from the seat in one move.

The cabin crushed into itself from the force my movement, and the subsequent vacuum bubble that formed within.

I watched the screen shatter, shards of fiberglass flying by idly in slow motion, as I flipped through the air landing on the still wave.

Immediately, I leveraged my forcefield beneath me, forming a momentary platform before my feet could touch the still wave and distort my body. That was the power of the wave.

It could distort and warp anything it touched on a conceptual level, turning it into a free flowing existential clay in the hands of a bratty 3 year old at the doctor's office.

I looked up at the head of the Gigatron, falling through the air, and I could see Paige hanging from it, her hair flying wild in the fall, her feathers twitching anxiously.

I looked into her eyes with a comforting smile and before her brain could even process it, jumped.

A subsonic boom broke beneath my feet, and I tore through the head like butter, grabbing Paige in the process, wrapping my suit's inertial dampener around her to shield her from injury.

By the time we landed three blocks away, the Surfer was back to consciousness, the thrall of my power waning from it.

No matter. He would be dealt with, just like the rest.

"My hero~" She said, heaving a sigh of relief, before her playful demeanor returned.

But I did not play along.

I looked down at her, meeting her happy....no, lovestruck look with my own cold and distant one.

I could feel the joy drain from her, peering into my eyes clouded with clear rationality and sublime logic, and confusion took over, followed closely by fear. The fear of the unknown, my mind supplied.

"Go." I said, opening a portal behind her.

One word. A command. One I expect not to be followed. It was her nature.

"No-" She attempted to speak, but I did not allow her.

I bent down and kissed her on the lips, sealing her power behind the guise of norm and politeness, as I gently pushed her through the portal.

An easy way to stop her from using her power and keep her safe.

Some part of me felt greatly incensed at it, to abuse her feelings for me as such.

But ultimately, it was to be done. To preserve her optimal utility to me in the coming future.

That was all. Methodically, I closed the portal and spread out my technokinesis to it's fullest extent.

My suit and gadgets buzzed to life in it's wake.

Let's do this.

I turned around to see the Surfer close in on me, his wave wading through the street like a slug. A slug that moves at 300 miles per minute.

I jumped back, spotting the Crystal Lion change paces to my side, as it's focus zoned in on me.

I smiled.

Come. I taunted the Lion with my power, smoothly pulling out my antimatter gun in one hand and explosion gun in another.

I twisted mid air, turning to the Surfer and watched it slide towards the one building left standing in the street. Well one building tall enough for my purposes.

I aimed the explosion gun at his body, and shot out three shots.

It's body twisted unnaturally, avoiding all three, a deep feeling of smugness oozing off of it.

But it was never my target.

The explosions hit the building behind it, at the same place, turning the apartment into a pressure bomb.

The building blew up, sending the building blocks of cement flying like shrapnel, tearing through the wave, distorting in it's effect.

Or it was supposed to.

Instead, the debris slowly bounced off the wave before a force gently pulled it through the wave distorting it's shape and property, leaving behind odd geometries lying around on the floor

It is as I suspected then.

It didn't hurt him, of course, but that was not the intention either.

What it did do was slow him down, of only marginally so, to the point that it allowed me to grasp the wave in it's true form.

I had had my suspicions about this, but peering into the wave with my contacts, revealed what I had realised.

The Surfer wasn't the true body of the Endbringer. It was just a decoy. It was the wave that was the crucial part, the one that hid it's core.

And it did a damn good job of it.

Anything that touched the wave 'appeared' to slowly pass through it, to give the illusion to others that it's power was controlling the wave when in actuality, the wave was the true body with an invisible core.

That's some smart design right there.

I couldn't help but admire it.

It wouldn't take a genius to realise this, but it wouldn't be noticeable mid combat. No. Any combatants would be too busy dealing with it's esoteric ability to play peekaboo and trying to escape it's stilling wave to notice it.

Fear clouding rational judgement.

Not so for me.

The mega seed juice worked wonders there.

As I descended from the air, and the Surfer came ever closer, now only meters from me, I leveled the antimatter gun at the wave, much to the Surfer's surprise, and pressed the trigger.

Fear appeared in it's soulless black eyes for the first time and it tried to move away, out of the way, it's instincts screaming at it to run.

But it was too late. It was mere meters from me now.

7 meters, I counted.

It leaned back, trying retreat, only to find the street collapsed behind it from my explosions earlier.

It had fallen into a trap.

It screamed shrill, and stretched a hand at me, trying to take me down.

I laughed, and caught it's hand, crushing it till it's outer shell cracked, holding him in place with it as the antimatter beam hit it.

Now stuck in my grasp, I fired another two antimatter beams into it, disintegrating it's core.

It's decoy body inflated suddenly like a tube man float, blowing up with a deafening pop as the stop motion wave began to crack and flake away beneath me, turning to ash.

I holstered the guns once more and pulled out a handful of disintegration boms from my pocket.

Just to be sure.

I threw them onto the body as well as the street, destroying it thoroughly till no traced remained.

Though, this was far from over.

I could hear it in the thumping and cracking behind me.

I turned and grabbed the oncoming Crystal Lion by the jaw, tossing the last of my disintegration bombs into it's mouth before snapping it shut with brute force.

Using it's own momentum, I grabbed it, and used a judo throw to fling it across the street, just as the bombs exploded within it's mouth, turning it to ash.

The suit was ruined though, as crystals started to bloom on my gloves, penetrating further.

Nothing I wasn't prepared for.

Immediately, I popped my spare canister of nanobots and ripped through my own arms, severing them at the wrist, all the while staring sown the Crystal Lion with a dog daring glare.

Under the influence of my power, the myotatic fluid stemmed the blood flow, clasping around my wrist stumps while the nano swarm adminsiered a dose of CodeRed to me.

The Crystal Lion, seeing me regenerate, took a step back, still waiting for it's own mouth to do the same.

I smiled something sinister and stepped forward.

"Where do you think you're going, you damn mongrel?!" I asked, unfurling my spinal module, it's iron spider like legs extending out, each with their own unique armaments.

The Lion took another step back, sending a wave of crystal at me.

I laughed, carving out a boundary on the ground with my freeze ray, halting the wave in it's place.

Another hypothesis I had just tested.

It can't turn what is already crystalline into crystals, just as I had thought.

The frozen concrete dust and soaked with water, now crystallized under my freeze ray became a barrier to the candy colored crystal's path.

I looked down as my hands finished regenerating, the skin growing back over them, clenching and unclenching them, and looked back at the Lion.

"You're next." I said, and jumped, pulling out the stasis beacons from my coat.

The Lion yelped and jumped back, turning to run.

"There.Is.No.Escape!" I grinned, throwing out stasis beacons, trapping him in place.

I flew over to him with my jetpack as I prepped the matter annihilation cannons in orbit.

"You can't just leave now, little pupper. Not after all the mess you've made.

No. Today, you die!" I said.

Beams of yellow orange light rained down from the heavens, striking down the Crystal Lion, burning through his body, shell by shell, layer by layer, even as it thrashed in captivity, till it's core lay bare before my eyes.

I raised the antimatter gun at the core and looked into the fearful, pleading eyes of the Crystal Lion one last time, relishing it's pain and existential dread.

Only minutes into it's life and it was already on it's deathbed.

I grinned evilly.

Such a shame.

"Bang!" I intoned, pressing the trigger, destroying the Endbringer once and for all.