Overture 1.21

There really wasn't much to what happened next. All of me had coordination to a ludicrous degree, and the mooks had only a split second's worth of warning, if even that. Twenty-five simultaneous taps to the head put each of them down in a single blow, and they all collapsed to the ground like puppets with cut strings.

Except, I discovered as an angry roar rumbled across the street, for Lung.

I spun to face him as two of me were thrown back, then all of me started scrambling away — but in that short moment, two balls of fire burned the faces off of another two of me, and I felt them vanish, both from the world and from the ability of my Delusional Illusion.

That was the downside to it: I wasn't duplicating myself, so my power didn't increase by making more of me at full strength. Delusional Illusion split me, so the power of each of myself decreased with each new myself, even if our overall strength remained the same. We were all also the same, even if we were all separate, so each one of myself that died was stricken from the Delusional Illusion.

This wasn't going to be enough. I realized that as Lung incinerated a third me; the Hundred-Faced Hassan was too weak, too close to an ordinary human. He could beat normal gangers, probably most low level parahumans, and the numbers I could bring to bear with him might be enough to overwhelm even a few of the upper tiers — but it wasn't enough against Lung. I couldn't hope to beat him with Hassan.

The rest of myself did an about face, throwing myself against him and in his path while I, the true I, continued to back up. Lung roared again, and as he grabbed another two of me by my heads and roasted their faces off, I caught a glimpse of him, now six inches taller and starting to show more bulk on his chest and arms.

That was fine, though. I wasn't trying to beat him with Hassan, I was just making room.

The rest of myself appeared from the shadows, replacing and bolstering the previous numbers until I capped out. Several had already died, so I didn't have the full eighty, but there was enough of me to put in his way, even as he carved through more of them with flames and now brute strength. I kept backing up, running backwards so I could keep my eyes aimed in Lung's direction, and I only stopped once there was about sixty feet between us.

That should be enough.

I was about to let it go, let Hassan fade, but I hesitated and waited again, urged by some unknown instinct. The rest of myself piled on Lung, swarming him and slamming their fists and their dirks into him with as much strength as possible, but they might as well have been gnats for all the damage they seemed to do. If I tried, I could look through the eyes of one of my other selves and see Lung grow just a little bit, become just a little bit stronger, but every few seconds, another of myself was incinerated.

Sometimes, I was jarred out of my new perspective entirely, and sometimes, my sight just transferred to another of myself. For what felt like several minutes, but was probably only about thirty seconds, I was jostled and switched between more than a dozen of myself, trying to find something — anything — that would hint at a weakness, at a spot or trait of which I could take advantage. But Lung only grew stronger and more resilient, and every new attack was shrugged off and ignored more easily than the last.

I wasn't getting anywhere, I realized. All I was doing was throwing fodder at him to let him get stronger, and eventually, there'd come a point where he would have burned through all of my other selves and become too strong and fast for me to switch to a stronger Hero. At that point, I'd be done, dead, game over.

Right. While I still had time and room, then —

"Release."

The word wasn't really needed, but it helped me focus. I let go of the Hundred-Faced Hassan, and immediately, all of myself vanished, leaving just me. Lung, blazing bright with orange flames dancing around him, was suddenly clear of bodies and directly within sight. I could see the moment his eyes found me, the snarl that curled on his mouth. He had already grown another few inches, and his fingers were tipped with wicked-looking claws. Splotches of silver were starting to pop out atop his skin, small and shiny and shaped vaguely like —

Wait. Lung meant "dragon" in Chinese, didn't it? I couldn't remember where I'd heard that, maybe on PHO, but it was like a bolt of lightning struck my brain. Lung didn't just get bigger and stronger the longer he fought, he transformed. And what would a guy who named himself "dragon" transform into? A dragon.

It felt a little on-the-nose. I mean, it couldn't be that obvious, could it? Would anyone really give away the secret of their powers that easily? Maybe, maybe not — there was no way for famous capes to escape a certain notoriety about their powers and how they worked, so the effort to conceal them with a strange name wouldn't always work. That said, I would've thought you'd want to keep your powers' true nature a secret, so choosing a vague or unrelated cape name could help surprise your enemies. But the man wore a dragon-shaped mask, named himself "dragon" in Chinese, and had dragon tattoos all over his chest. I was starting to notice a pattern.

Right. Well then, what Hero was better suited to fighting a dragon than a dragonslayer?

I reached out with my power, and another time, a dozen or more Heroes might have offered themselves up for use. Each of them would have been a dragonslayer, each would have put down at least one dragon in his myth, and some might even have tamed them. But I had already chosen one, even before reaching out. I had already done the research to know that this was the one I wanted.

"Set. Install."

Power, more power than Hassan and even more than the Witch I had Installed on Friday, rushed through me. My body suddenly grew four inches, stretching out at the arms and legs. My muscles thickened, bulging, not like a bodybuilder, but lean and tightly corded, like a professional athlete. I felt my face change shape as my mask disappeared, and in my peripheral vision, I saw my hair turn silver and become wild and shaggy.

The costume that came with my base Breaker state changed, as well. I was covered in a maroon-trimmed black bodysuit, open in the center to show off the glowing green marking that covered my torso (though there was a single strap holding it together to protect my modesty). My shoulders were covered in heavy steel pauldrons, my hands and forearms by wicked-looking gauntlets, my upper thighs by tassets, and my feet and calves by matching greaves and sabatons.

But the truly impressive thing was the massive piece of steel I now held in my right hand. It was a greatsword as long as I was tall with a grip as long as my forearm and a blade that looked like it could chop down a thick oak tree with one swipe. It was a sword so large that most men would have struggled to use it with both hands, and yet I held it easily with one.

Ordinarily, the sparse armor would have been dangerous. It left too many parts open, too many places vulnerable. Any idiot could kill a guy who left his chest so wide open, and even against ordinary gangers, one lucky shot would mean death.

But the Hero I'd Installed was Siegfried, the Dragon-Blooded Knight. I'd researched his legend — in it, he'd slain the dragon, Fafnir, and by bathing in its blood, his body had become like steel. With flesh more like dragon scales than skin, he was nearly invincible, almost impervious to harm, but for the mark on his back where a linden leaf had stuck as he soaked in the dragon's blood.

And the sword in my hand was the sword that had dealt the fatal blow to Fafnir. Anything that called itself a dragon would be weakened by every blow.

As Lung charged towards me, I raced to meet him, shattering chunks of asphalt as I kicked off the ground. When we closed, he swiped at me with one clawed hand, wreathed in flame, but Siegfried's instincts now filled my head, and my arm swung around, cleaving through his bicep with Balmung.

Lung's arm went flying off into the night, but to his credit, he didn't flinch or retreat, he only howled, grabbed my wrist with his other hand, and pinned it to my chest. His flames tried to sear away my skin and melt my gauntlet, and even before my eyes, more and more silver scales were starting to bubble up from beneath his flesh, and he swelled and grew another four inches.

"GAH 'OO!"

But his grip felt weak, fragile, and his flames were like a sunbeam on a clear summer day. The Lung before me was probably a mid-tier Brute already, capable of splattering my base Breaker state across the pavement like a rotten tomato, but as strong as he was, as formidable as other heroes might have found him, I was stronger still.