Hachichiyyin
Team Tron
- Location
- Earth
[X] Leviathan thinks it's safe in the ocean. That's because he's never fought an angry god. Use your secondary power pool to turn insubstantial, then follow him at hypersonic speed, unhindered by water.
A Champion in Earth Bet [Worm/Original Setting]
- Thread starter sun tzu
- Start date
- Location
- Israel
[X] Hit Leviathan with your absolute most powerful blast. Sacrifice accuracy for power, and hope you can compensate through luck manipulation.
I've got a general idea of how the scene will go if the vote selects that option.
I do not think you will be disappointed.
Whatever we do, there is a chance that it will not be enought to kill Leviathan in one shot, or at least not quicky enough for him not to set up a final, no-holds-barred "screw you" attack or self-destruct.
As such, I prefer to have that battle happen as far away from innocents as possible.
[X] Leviathan thinks it's safe in the ocean. That's because he's never fought an angry god. Use your secondary power pool to turn insubstantial, then follow him at hypersonic speed, unhindered by water.
As such, I prefer to have that battle happen as far away from innocents as possible.
[X] Leviathan thinks it's safe in the ocean. That's because he's never fought an angry god. Use your secondary power pool to turn insubstantial, then follow him at hypersonic speed, unhindered by water.
VOTE CLOSED
I know it's been less than 24 hours, but the leading option currently has almost twice as many votes as the runner-up. Seems safe enough for me to start writing.
Vote tally:
##### 3.21
[X] Leviathan thinks it's safe in the ocean. That's because he's never fought an angry god. Use your secondary power pool to turn insubstantial, then follow him at hypersonic speed, unhindered by water.
No. of votes: 15
AZATHOTHoth
Kelirapc
Sojiko
landcollector
LightMage
FunkyEntropy
Razauq
TheAzureKing
Lalzparty
Koden
Hachichiyyin
Broken25
Amberion
Nemonowan
Ac3Royale
[X] If he leaves, it's a victory - it means the city survives. Focus on helping people for now; there will be other opportunities to fight him.
No. of votes: 2
Zaratustra
Katsuragi
[X] Hit Leviathan with your absolute most powerful blast. Sacrifice accuracy for power, and hope you can compensate through luck manipulation.
No. of votes: 8
tenchifew
CatScannerDarkly
D King Hecht
kitsune9
munchkinomatic
veekie
makopaulo
moon-llama
[x] Your telekinesis isn't great at catching moving foes, but it's worth a shot. If you manage to throw him in the air for just a few seconds, that might give you the opening you need to win this.
No. of votes: 1
wingstrike96
I know it's been less than 24 hours, but the leading option currently has almost twice as many votes as the runner-up. Seems safe enough for me to start writing.
Vote tally:
##### 3.21
[X] Leviathan thinks it's safe in the ocean. That's because he's never fought an angry god. Use your secondary power pool to turn insubstantial, then follow him at hypersonic speed, unhindered by water.
No. of votes: 15
AZATHOTHoth
Kelirapc
Sojiko
landcollector
LightMage
FunkyEntropy
Razauq
TheAzureKing
Lalzparty
Koden
Hachichiyyin
Broken25
Amberion
Nemonowan
Ac3Royale
[X] If he leaves, it's a victory - it means the city survives. Focus on helping people for now; there will be other opportunities to fight him.
No. of votes: 2
Zaratustra
Katsuragi
[X] Hit Leviathan with your absolute most powerful blast. Sacrifice accuracy for power, and hope you can compensate through luck manipulation.
No. of votes: 8
tenchifew
CatScannerDarkly
D King Hecht
kitsune9
munchkinomatic
veekie
makopaulo
moon-llama
[x] Your telekinesis isn't great at catching moving foes, but it's worth a shot. If you manage to throw him in the air for just a few seconds, that might give you the opening you need to win this.
No. of votes: 1
wingstrike96
Long live the bandwagon 
munchkinomatic
Douchiest of Bags
- Location
- The land of Skepticism
Oh dear, here hoping thatt fighting him underwater is a good idea
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
munchkinomatic
Douchiest of Bags
- Location
- The land of Skepticism
Fate=tempted
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
Those words hold special meaning in Worm.
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
In case you're wondering, munchkinomatic...
Taylor/Skitter, the protagonist of Worm, had a tendency to win fights that many would have guessed were outside her league. It became a running gag in the comment section: whenever she would beat some character X, someone would post "X: Meh, I can take her."
It's become a meme, really. At one point, it even got uttered in-story.
Also, update almost done. Hold on to your hats...
munchkinomatic
Douchiest of Bags
- Location
- The land of Skepticism
Well, I'm certain that nothing can possibly go wrong, we are invincible, after all. I'm sure we'll be back by chrismas, now if only we have a family photo to look at and this is our last job
Thank, sun tzu, I though I've seen that somewhere
Thank, sun tzu, I though I've seen that somewhere
Last edited:
From Abyssal Depths, I Blast at Thee
FROM ABYSSAL DEPTHS, I BLAST AT THEE
Anger, as tends to be the case with emotions, is a double-edged sword. It can motivate one against injustice. It can make one stupid.
Leviathan is a mass-murderer on a scale that would give some true monsters pause. He tried to drown all the men, women and children at the shelter, just to distract you. He shot the medic. He tried to kill your teammates. And now that his power has proven insufficient to win, he's trying to escape justice so that he may return to kill again. You allow yourself anger against him, and focus it on pursuit. The monster will not escape.
Leviathan enters the water, and the hologram of Tattletale disappears as you switch your secondary power from communication to Intangibility - your material form vibrating at high frequency between hundreds of different planes of reality, to the point that it only barely has any interaction with anything in this one.
You have some experience with this, so you know how to vibrate at the right frequency so that you (and anything you carry, such as the armband) can still interact with electromagnetic waves on the frequency of radio - it would do you no good to completely cut yourself off from communication, after all.
And then, accelerating far, far past the speed of sound, you rush into the water. Right before you go, you see Dragon fire a missile into the sea. The underwater explosion apparently disturbs the artificial currents enough that Alexandria is able to free herself from her watery prison.
That's good, but you need to focus on your target. You're already several miles from the shore, and half a mile beneath the surface. There's little to no light here - not that this counters your cosmic perception.
Zipping by at mach 15, thinking as fast as you can without super-speed, you do your best to follow the trail of displaced water. For a moment, you think you've lost him, but veering slightly to the left you are once more in range.
You give Leviathan this much credit - he's fast, underwater. Close to the speeds you and Tracer Pulse are capable of. Still, you are definitely gaining on him, and…
The armband comes to life. "Avatar! Tattletale again. Did you just go intangible to pursue the watery jackass?"
You're actually a little impressed that she's figured it out. You'll have to ask about that. "Yes. I'm on his tail."
A short pause. "...He can't see you. His sense - his only sense - is knowing where water molecules are. Since you're intangible, you're not displacing them, and he can't see you!"
That makes sense. He certainly doesn't seem to be evading you, even though you're now only a few dozen feet behind him and gaining.
Since he doesn't know you're there… since he doesn't know you've been trailing him for all these miles… when you will show up to blast him, he might simply assume you can teleport to his location. If you can make him believe that, then you can bluff him into believing escape isn't an option at all, forcing him to stay here and fight you instead of trying to evade you in the oceanic depths.
As such, you bluff. Instead of aiming your hand at him, dephasing, and blasting, you dephase first, then aim and blast, as if you'd just teleported in range. Even with his speed, the advantage of surprise remains decisively on your side. And at this range - right behind him - it doesn't matter that you finally went for that "slow but powerful" attack.
Gasping for air, Alexandria flew up, Legend quickly reaching her.
"Is Leviathan-"
"Gone," Legend said without trying to hide his mirth. "We've never hurt him this much. We've never driven him off so quickly. Barely any casualties. Minor damage to the city. It's all thanks to…"
She noticed Strider porting in, grabbing Eidolon, then teleporting back with him to the hospital. Good - they needed Eidolon more than they needed anyone else they had. Although… that Ward from New York, Flechette, had actually managed to hurt the Endbringer's core with those two last shots. It was why she had prioritized rescuing her and Eidolon. And that newcomer, Avatar…
And then, there was a white light. Looking back, she saw the ocean glowing.
When the light clears, you can see the effect a serious blast can have on the Endbringer: The lower three quarters of his left leg have been annihilated; there are cracks all over his right leg.
If you had thought this would make him any slower, though, then you were very much in the wrong. In less than the blink of an eye, he is on you, his good arm lowering a cataclysmic hammer punch that sends you spiralling hundreds of feet down into the depths.
You haven't even had time to process the hit, and already Leviathan is diving down toward you, his fist punching you down. Again. And again. And again. All in less than a second.
You've only become aware of this, and already you've hit the ocean floor. The next punch hammers you into the ground, shockwaves pulverizing the basalt rock in a radius of at least 20 feet. Subsequent punches keep hammering you deeper and deeper, explosively digging a deep pit into the rock. The sheer energy of the unrelenting assault actually turns some of the basalt under your back into molten lava.
Taylor, still clutching her head - she hoped that concussion wasn't too dangerous, even Panacea couldn't heal brains - heard the words on her armband.
"Avatar deceased, East of area."
"No." The whisper escaping her lips wasn't loud enough for even her to hear it over the sound of the rain.
You are dimly aware of the loss of your armband, which got disintegrated by one of the first shockwaves. You are more keenly aware of how every one of the rapid-fire blows shatters another bone in your body.
Leviathan wasn't hitting you remotely as hard before. But here, deep beneath the waves, you are in the seat of his power. The multiple kilotons of water directly above him move in unison, acting like part of his body - rising with his fist, and coming down upon you with the full might of a macro-hydrokinesist. To compare what he does to you to a jackhammer is like comparing the Tsar Bomba to a hand grenade.
You briefly consider going intangible again to escape the blows. But that might give the trick away, or otherwise allow Leviathan to escape.
When you originally designed this form, you gave it the same capacity for pain as the human bodies you were emulating. Partly to help you quickly gauge damage in battle, and partly to occasionally remind you of the humans' perspective. You have never regretted that choice, not even now… but the pain of feeling your skeleton suffering dozens of fractures brings back memories of all your defeats.
And you have suffered defeats. Few compared to your thousands of victories, but you do not allow yourself to forget.
Tagton. The first to ever defeat your Avatar form, when none before had ever come close. The first alien to reach Earth, he had been a complete outside-context problem, even for you. He was also purely mercenary. In the build-up to WWII, Hitler had hired him to dispose of you - unsurprising, as you'd made your thoughts on bigotry abundantly clear when you'd destroyed the Ku Klux Klan. Tagton managed to trap you in the heart of the sun, your shackles maintaining you in place while ensuring you burned at the exact same rate you regenerated. For several years, you just kept burning alive nonstop. It was only in 1944 that you finally managed to wriggle enough to kill yourself, allowing you to self-resurrect outside the shackles. The public only learned of your return when you appeared on the frontlines of Operation Overlord.
Garzor. There had been no warning. The alien would-be conqueror put his ship in Earth's orbit, utterly destroyed Madagascar in a volley of energy cannons, and demanded every other nation's unconditional surrender. You and your allies were able to destroy his ship, but Garzor himself escaped to make another attempt decades later.
Nollius. The soulless archmage-tyrant of Avalon. Oh, you have foiled many of his plots, but you have never been able to drive him out of his seat of power. He has too much magic, too many minions, too many powerful artifacts and ancient rituals to entrench himself with.
Professor Cryo, both times. As with Nollius, you have at times ruined his schemes, but the archvillain still rules the Cryosphere with an iron fist, the closest thing supervillains in your world have to a unifying leader.
The Sydney Crisis. Global Might successfully ambushed your team. Without a speedster, you all struggled against the battlefield advantage Blitzkrieg constituted. Mordor managed to grab you and hold you in place long enough for Gatemaster to teleport an antimatter charge inside you. If Tracer Pulse hadn't saved the day, that might have been the Global Champions' end.
The Man of Might, perhaps the most bitter of all. He appeared one day in Jerusalem. Gave one interview. Casually blew up the entire city halfway through. And then he proceeded to annihilate the heroes (and to a smaller extent, villains) who rushed in to stop him from all over the world. Even you were killed by his insane power. You returned to life a week later, to a world still mourning the loss of a city and thousands of dead heroes - the heavy price of stopping the Man of Might.
That last one… is that what it's like for the people on this Earth, whenever Leviathan (and presumably any other being called "Endbringer") attacks?
Do they go through all that destruction, all that loss, all that despair, again and again and again?
What kind of nightmare world is this?
What kind of nightmare are these people living?
Are you going to allow it for one minute longer?
All four of your limbs are sprawled against the sea floor with multiple fractures each, water pinning them down. You don't have a single intact rib. Your face is a bloody mess. Every small fraction of a second, Leviathan's fist strikes you down at hypersonic speeds with the power of countless kilotons of water behind it. And none of it changes your answer one bit.
Actually, it does make one difference:
Inside the pit that he's dug up by repeatedly punching you, Leviathan has no room to dodge.
Your eyes light up. And then, cosmic energy pours through, blasting the monster half a mile upward.
Almost without thinking, you assign your secondary power to regeneration and gather your energy. Leviathan is still being pushed up by the blast, trapped in the ascending torrent of cosmic energy and unable to bring in water to himself. Before he can correct that, you send a second powerful blast.
Legend watched as the ocean turned white again. And then, a massive blast erupted from the waters. He managed to recognize Leviathan, propelled hundreds of feet into the air, looking even more damaged than before.
Then Avatar came above the surface like a missile.
As the second blast ejects Leviathan into the sky, and regeneration fixes much of the damage to your physical form, you fly up.
These last two blasts were focused less on outright damage, and more on pushing him out of his domain. On the ocean floor, he had too big an advantage. Now, however, he is falling through the air, far above the water. You actually have several seconds to line up your best shot without any fear of him dodging or counter-attacking. You need to make it count.
You give it your all. You aim without having to worry about defense. You sacrifice speed and accuracy for firepower, knowing he cannot dodge this time. You draw upon all your reserves of energy to make a far more powerful blast than at any other point in the battle.
And then, as you unleash your full might on the monster, you declare that his fate is to end now. You may not know exactly where his core is, but you make it so that by sheer luck, the blast hits there nonetheless.
A power greater than what even the Endbringer can bring to bear homes in on him, unstoppable, relentless. It strikes at the base of his tail. Lightning strikes in every direction, a mere side effect as this much energy ionized all the air anywhere near its path.
There is nothing left of the Endbringer but its torso, its head, and its useless broken right arm. It falls, limp like a ragdoll, when you telekinetically take hold of it.
Letting go of the enhanced regeneration for now - what injuries are left are minor anyway - you switch to improved cosmic awareness, getting a better scan of your foe. Every piece of data confirms your victory.
You do not make a habit of killing your opponents, but at times it is necessary. Leviathan was a mass-murderer, and with his exceptional range, he could very well have kept killing people while you tried to capture him alive - you don't even know what the limit on his range is.
A beam of light transforms into Legend. "You're alive," he says with some relief, his eyes quickly settling on Leviathan. "Is he…"
"Dead," you confirm. "I have scanned him thoroughly. The structure that controlled him is gone, and he isn't regenerating. Right now, he's just a hyperdense corpse."
Legend takes a moment to swallow your words. You don't need enhanced senses to recognize the flood of emotions he's experiencing right now. "This… changes everything," he says, somehow managing to keep his voice steady. "I hate asking you for anything more at this point, but we need his remains dropped somewhere safe inland. If only so the Thinkers can properly analyze them and confirm he won't be coming back."
"That is no trouble at all," you say with the best smile your injuries will allow you to pull, "Though we're making a stop by the city first."
Legend having no objection to that, the two of you fly a few dozen miles, returning to the rain-wracked city. Your enhanced senses actually manage to catch its name here and there - apparently, this is Brockton Bay. You remember the Brockton Bay of your Earth - a medium-sized city on the American East Coast. You've visited it on the job on a couple occasions over the decades.
Switching your secondary power to weather control - less impressive than Leviathan's, perhaps, but sufficient for a city this small - you take a minute to move the rain clouds out of the way, allowing the Sun to break through. Flying two hundred yards above the beach, the Endbringer's remains in evidence with you, you switch back to communication. Every man, woman and child in town sees the image of the dead Endbringer, next to your bruised-yet-cheerful, reassuring smile as you speak to them.
"Brockton Bay, this is the Avatar speaking. Doomsday is cancelled until further notice. Leviathan is dead and the city saved, thanks to the effort of the many who heroically stood in its defense."
Legend raises an eyebrow… then starts laughing. A few seconds later, he forces himself to stop and speaks into his armband. "Legend here. I confirm. Endbringer down."
There was a moment of doubt.
Then the Endbringer sirens stopped blaring.
And then, for thousands across the city, capes and civilians alike, a series of realizations sunk in.
They weren't going to die that day.
Brockton Bay was going to survive.
The Endbringers were not invincible.
The Endbringers could die.
Leviathan, murderer of millions and sunderer of nations, was gone forever.
Humanity had a chance to survive, to win.
In the shelters, in the streets, in the air, triumphant cheers erupted. So soon after the rain had stopped, tears of joy and relief were shed everywhere.
It only takes a few minutes for you to drop Leviathan's remains at an agreed-upon location to the West of Nebraska - far from both oceans, reasonably far from the Great Lakes. You fly back to Brockton Bay just as fast.
A part of you wants to just fly away and find another fire to put out. Force of habit. But you know, rationally, that this is the wrong time and place for it. You know almost nothing of this world. More than anything else, you need to learn about it so that you can make informed decisions (...though you do ask Legend if there is any other major crisis going on in the world at this very moment, just to be on the safe side).
The heroes are assembled in front of the battlefield hospital from earlier. Inside the hospital itself, you see Panacea at work healing people with an efficiency that, frankly, amazes you. The only person you've met who was more capable in that regard is Thermodynamic Miracle, who is a very special case.
Myrrdin, Bastion, Othala and Eidolon all seem back on their feet. Othala is being shown some frank affection from a costumed paramour who… actually, you find that man's costume somewhat disturbing. It reminds you of the Third Reich. Hopefully that isn't what it looks like. You check your armband's positioning grid to confirm the man's identity - his codename is apparently "Victor".
Another person in the room is the flyer with the emotion aura from earlier, which your armband identifies as "Glory Girl". Her emotion aura seems to be intimidating people right now and causing them to give her a wide berth as she stares daggers at Panacea's current patient, Skitter. For that matter, Panacea herself is glaring at the bug-costumed girl like she barbecued her puppy. You wonder what that's all about.
When Glory Girl spots you, however, she smiles wide and rockets toward you, giving you a super-strong hug. Other people are once again affected by her aura - you really ought to have a word with her about caution with superpowers.
"Thank you thank you thank you!" she gushes. "Sorry, I just didn't get to properly thank you earlier for saving my sister." She smiles at Panacea, who is only too happy to return the smile.
"You're welcome," you smile back, "though I'm not sure how much credit I deserve. There were other heroes struggling to get to her. I only got there a little faster."
"OK, for a guy who killed a fucking Endbringer, you are way too modest."
You chuckle. "I would not have fared nearly as well on my own. Legend and Dragon helped me coordinate with the others. Eidolon was the one holding him in place for a long while so the rest of us could blast at him. Armsmaster finished off his ablative armor. Vista enabled him to do just that. Tattletale provided useful information. Skitter made it possible to save the thousands at the shelter. And so on. My role may have been central, but everyone contributed. Everyone risked their lives to save the day."
You notice that both sisters' expressions darken at the mention of Tattletale, but despite that, you think you've raised the spirits in the room (and they were high to begin with, by the standards of battlefield hospitals). You then address Panacea: "What is the state of injuries and casualties?"
"By Endbringer standards? It's a miracle," she says. "Heck, Bakuda caused way more damage than this. Among capes, I've helped who I could. It just leaves Multishot, who was dead on arrival, Tsunami, who's in a coma, and Skitter here, who'll be fine but has a minor concussion. I can't help with brains."
"I can't heal brain damage and information loss," you admit, "and I couldn't hope to match you in sheer scale. Healing tires me quickly. But perhaps I can still assist with these two cases."
You step over to Tsunami's cot. You hadn't actually seen her during the battle. Asian girl, young, with a rather edgy costume. You focus your healing powers on her. Seconds later, her eyes blink, and she coughs. You're a bit winded from the effort if you're honest.
You then turn to Skitter. "If you'll allow me…" you smile reassuringly at her, your power working from across the room, mending physical damage. Her mask fully covers her face, but you can still see it via your cosmic perception. Her emotions appear to be in turmoil.
Some time later, the immense assembly of metahumans stands before Legend, Alexandria, Eidolon, and yourself. Legend is giving his speech. You notice a lot of red eyes - many tears have been shed after Leviathan died.
You also notice other things. With the battle over, people seem to be hanging with what you guess are their regular teams. Glory Girl and Panacea are hanging with a group of white-clad metahumans, several of whom bear some family resemblance to Glory Girl. Othalla and Victor are hanging with a large group of Caucasians, many of whom are bearing symbols of Nazism and American white supremacism. Tattletale is standing with a boy in a black skull mask, a boy in a renfaire costume, and a girl in a dog mask (accompanied by several gigantic creatures that make those outside her team nervous), who seem to be, respectively, "Grue", "Regent" and… actually, the last one has no armband. Tattletale also seems to be staring with concern at Skitter, dozens of feet away; Skitter looks like she wants (but doesn't dare) to get closer to the woman with the khaki uniform and American-flag scarf ("Miss Militia"), who is herself standing with Armsmaster and several others ("Triumph", "Velocity", "Dauntless", "Assault" and "Battery"... wait, seriously?).
"Less than two hours ago, I was giving you all a very different speech. I was explaining how dangerous Leviathan was. I was warning how, even if we played all our cards right, about one in four of us would die here. I was telling you that, while the Endbringer could not be killed or truly defeated, he could be driven back.
"It is amazing how quickly everything can change. Today has changed what the Endbringers mean. Leviathan has attacked, and only one cape died today. Civilian casualties barely entered the double digits, and most of those happened in the panic of evacuation before he even arrived. Property damage to the city is measured in millions of dollars - consider that anything less than a billion in damage, in fact anything less than the city's destruction, is normally considered a good day. And finally, Leviathan himself, after fifteen years of carnage, is finally gone for good. For the first time in years, an Endbringer is truly gone; it gives me hope that both of Leviathan's siblings may follow suite.
"There were several factors to this victory. The early warning from Dragon and Armsmaster allowed us to gather more forces and prepare better than we usually do. The heroic efforts of many of those present, of which some of the bravest were villains, did a lot to to prevent casualties. Better coordination than usual helped a lot. But, of course, the biggest factor was the presence of a newcomer who, in addition to an impressive array of powers, has also displayed the sort of courage, altruism and gallantry that we should all aspire too.
"Avatar, I don't believe any of those present have heard of you before. You appear to be a new cape, and yet you fight like a man experienced with his power. I don't know what to think of you except for this: You have our eternal gratitude, and I am honored and thankful that you fought by our side today."
He's deliberately setting things up so that you can give a speech, but don't have to give one. Smooth. Well, as it happens, this is actually a good opportunity. Your role as the Avatar isn't just to save people - it's to inspire heroes. You step forward, all eyes (and several cameras) on you as you open your mouth.
You have several themes you want to touch on, and you'll bring them all into this speech, but there's one you want to focus on:
[ ] Equality. Frankly, the presence of a large Nazi/white supremacist supergroup has disturbing implications. You're going to make it very clear that people of all ethnicities, genders, creeds, and more need to work past their differences and work together to make the world a better place, especially in the face of threats like the Endbringers.
[ ] Redemption. It's clear that a lot of the people here are villains, yet they came out to fight this monster - just like the villains who came to fight the Man of Might. You're going to appeal to their better nature, to the spark of heroism in their soul that yearns to be better than this.
[ ] Hope. This Leviathan has been running around for fifteen years, and there are apparently two other Endbringers. This is a world that clearly has convincing reasons to despair. You won't let it. You just killed an Endbringer, and you're going to tell them all: It gets better.
Anger, as tends to be the case with emotions, is a double-edged sword. It can motivate one against injustice. It can make one stupid.
Leviathan is a mass-murderer on a scale that would give some true monsters pause. He tried to drown all the men, women and children at the shelter, just to distract you. He shot the medic. He tried to kill your teammates. And now that his power has proven insufficient to win, he's trying to escape justice so that he may return to kill again. You allow yourself anger against him, and focus it on pursuit. The monster will not escape.
Leviathan enters the water, and the hologram of Tattletale disappears as you switch your secondary power from communication to Intangibility - your material form vibrating at high frequency between hundreds of different planes of reality, to the point that it only barely has any interaction with anything in this one.
You have some experience with this, so you know how to vibrate at the right frequency so that you (and anything you carry, such as the armband) can still interact with electromagnetic waves on the frequency of radio - it would do you no good to completely cut yourself off from communication, after all.
And then, accelerating far, far past the speed of sound, you rush into the water. Right before you go, you see Dragon fire a missile into the sea. The underwater explosion apparently disturbs the artificial currents enough that Alexandria is able to free herself from her watery prison.
That's good, but you need to focus on your target. You're already several miles from the shore, and half a mile beneath the surface. There's little to no light here - not that this counters your cosmic perception.
Zipping by at mach 15, thinking as fast as you can without super-speed, you do your best to follow the trail of displaced water. For a moment, you think you've lost him, but veering slightly to the left you are once more in range.
You give Leviathan this much credit - he's fast, underwater. Close to the speeds you and Tracer Pulse are capable of. Still, you are definitely gaining on him, and…
The armband comes to life. "Avatar! Tattletale again. Did you just go intangible to pursue the watery jackass?"
You're actually a little impressed that she's figured it out. You'll have to ask about that. "Yes. I'm on his tail."
A short pause. "...He can't see you. His sense - his only sense - is knowing where water molecules are. Since you're intangible, you're not displacing them, and he can't see you!"
That makes sense. He certainly doesn't seem to be evading you, even though you're now only a few dozen feet behind him and gaining.
Since he doesn't know you're there… since he doesn't know you've been trailing him for all these miles… when you will show up to blast him, he might simply assume you can teleport to his location. If you can make him believe that, then you can bluff him into believing escape isn't an option at all, forcing him to stay here and fight you instead of trying to evade you in the oceanic depths.
As such, you bluff. Instead of aiming your hand at him, dephasing, and blasting, you dephase first, then aim and blast, as if you'd just teleported in range. Even with his speed, the advantage of surprise remains decisively on your side. And at this range - right behind him - it doesn't matter that you finally went for that "slow but powerful" attack.
Gasping for air, Alexandria flew up, Legend quickly reaching her.
"Is Leviathan-"
"Gone," Legend said without trying to hide his mirth. "We've never hurt him this much. We've never driven him off so quickly. Barely any casualties. Minor damage to the city. It's all thanks to…"
She noticed Strider porting in, grabbing Eidolon, then teleporting back with him to the hospital. Good - they needed Eidolon more than they needed anyone else they had. Although… that Ward from New York, Flechette, had actually managed to hurt the Endbringer's core with those two last shots. It was why she had prioritized rescuing her and Eidolon. And that newcomer, Avatar…
And then, there was a white light. Looking back, she saw the ocean glowing.
When the light clears, you can see the effect a serious blast can have on the Endbringer: The lower three quarters of his left leg have been annihilated; there are cracks all over his right leg.
If you had thought this would make him any slower, though, then you were very much in the wrong. In less than the blink of an eye, he is on you, his good arm lowering a cataclysmic hammer punch that sends you spiralling hundreds of feet down into the depths.
You haven't even had time to process the hit, and already Leviathan is diving down toward you, his fist punching you down. Again. And again. And again. All in less than a second.
You've only become aware of this, and already you've hit the ocean floor. The next punch hammers you into the ground, shockwaves pulverizing the basalt rock in a radius of at least 20 feet. Subsequent punches keep hammering you deeper and deeper, explosively digging a deep pit into the rock. The sheer energy of the unrelenting assault actually turns some of the basalt under your back into molten lava.
Taylor, still clutching her head - she hoped that concussion wasn't too dangerous, even Panacea couldn't heal brains - heard the words on her armband.
"Avatar deceased, East of area."
"No." The whisper escaping her lips wasn't loud enough for even her to hear it over the sound of the rain.
You are dimly aware of the loss of your armband, which got disintegrated by one of the first shockwaves. You are more keenly aware of how every one of the rapid-fire blows shatters another bone in your body.
Leviathan wasn't hitting you remotely as hard before. But here, deep beneath the waves, you are in the seat of his power. The multiple kilotons of water directly above him move in unison, acting like part of his body - rising with his fist, and coming down upon you with the full might of a macro-hydrokinesist. To compare what he does to you to a jackhammer is like comparing the Tsar Bomba to a hand grenade.
You briefly consider going intangible again to escape the blows. But that might give the trick away, or otherwise allow Leviathan to escape.
When you originally designed this form, you gave it the same capacity for pain as the human bodies you were emulating. Partly to help you quickly gauge damage in battle, and partly to occasionally remind you of the humans' perspective. You have never regretted that choice, not even now… but the pain of feeling your skeleton suffering dozens of fractures brings back memories of all your defeats.
And you have suffered defeats. Few compared to your thousands of victories, but you do not allow yourself to forget.
Tagton. The first to ever defeat your Avatar form, when none before had ever come close. The first alien to reach Earth, he had been a complete outside-context problem, even for you. He was also purely mercenary. In the build-up to WWII, Hitler had hired him to dispose of you - unsurprising, as you'd made your thoughts on bigotry abundantly clear when you'd destroyed the Ku Klux Klan. Tagton managed to trap you in the heart of the sun, your shackles maintaining you in place while ensuring you burned at the exact same rate you regenerated. For several years, you just kept burning alive nonstop. It was only in 1944 that you finally managed to wriggle enough to kill yourself, allowing you to self-resurrect outside the shackles. The public only learned of your return when you appeared on the frontlines of Operation Overlord.
Garzor. There had been no warning. The alien would-be conqueror put his ship in Earth's orbit, utterly destroyed Madagascar in a volley of energy cannons, and demanded every other nation's unconditional surrender. You and your allies were able to destroy his ship, but Garzor himself escaped to make another attempt decades later.
Nollius. The soulless archmage-tyrant of Avalon. Oh, you have foiled many of his plots, but you have never been able to drive him out of his seat of power. He has too much magic, too many minions, too many powerful artifacts and ancient rituals to entrench himself with.
Professor Cryo, both times. As with Nollius, you have at times ruined his schemes, but the archvillain still rules the Cryosphere with an iron fist, the closest thing supervillains in your world have to a unifying leader.
The Sydney Crisis. Global Might successfully ambushed your team. Without a speedster, you all struggled against the battlefield advantage Blitzkrieg constituted. Mordor managed to grab you and hold you in place long enough for Gatemaster to teleport an antimatter charge inside you. If Tracer Pulse hadn't saved the day, that might have been the Global Champions' end.
The Man of Might, perhaps the most bitter of all. He appeared one day in Jerusalem. Gave one interview. Casually blew up the entire city halfway through. And then he proceeded to annihilate the heroes (and to a smaller extent, villains) who rushed in to stop him from all over the world. Even you were killed by his insane power. You returned to life a week later, to a world still mourning the loss of a city and thousands of dead heroes - the heavy price of stopping the Man of Might.
That last one… is that what it's like for the people on this Earth, whenever Leviathan (and presumably any other being called "Endbringer") attacks?
Do they go through all that destruction, all that loss, all that despair, again and again and again?
What kind of nightmare world is this?
What kind of nightmare are these people living?
Are you going to allow it for one minute longer?
All four of your limbs are sprawled against the sea floor with multiple fractures each, water pinning them down. You don't have a single intact rib. Your face is a bloody mess. Every small fraction of a second, Leviathan's fist strikes you down at hypersonic speeds with the power of countless kilotons of water behind it. And none of it changes your answer one bit.
Actually, it does make one difference:
Inside the pit that he's dug up by repeatedly punching you, Leviathan has no room to dodge.
Your eyes light up. And then, cosmic energy pours through, blasting the monster half a mile upward.
Almost without thinking, you assign your secondary power to regeneration and gather your energy. Leviathan is still being pushed up by the blast, trapped in the ascending torrent of cosmic energy and unable to bring in water to himself. Before he can correct that, you send a second powerful blast.
Legend watched as the ocean turned white again. And then, a massive blast erupted from the waters. He managed to recognize Leviathan, propelled hundreds of feet into the air, looking even more damaged than before.
Then Avatar came above the surface like a missile.
As the second blast ejects Leviathan into the sky, and regeneration fixes much of the damage to your physical form, you fly up.
These last two blasts were focused less on outright damage, and more on pushing him out of his domain. On the ocean floor, he had too big an advantage. Now, however, he is falling through the air, far above the water. You actually have several seconds to line up your best shot without any fear of him dodging or counter-attacking. You need to make it count.
You give it your all. You aim without having to worry about defense. You sacrifice speed and accuracy for firepower, knowing he cannot dodge this time. You draw upon all your reserves of energy to make a far more powerful blast than at any other point in the battle.
And then, as you unleash your full might on the monster, you declare that his fate is to end now. You may not know exactly where his core is, but you make it so that by sheer luck, the blast hits there nonetheless.
A power greater than what even the Endbringer can bring to bear homes in on him, unstoppable, relentless. It strikes at the base of his tail. Lightning strikes in every direction, a mere side effect as this much energy ionized all the air anywhere near its path.
There is nothing left of the Endbringer but its torso, its head, and its useless broken right arm. It falls, limp like a ragdoll, when you telekinetically take hold of it.
Letting go of the enhanced regeneration for now - what injuries are left are minor anyway - you switch to improved cosmic awareness, getting a better scan of your foe. Every piece of data confirms your victory.
You do not make a habit of killing your opponents, but at times it is necessary. Leviathan was a mass-murderer, and with his exceptional range, he could very well have kept killing people while you tried to capture him alive - you don't even know what the limit on his range is.
A beam of light transforms into Legend. "You're alive," he says with some relief, his eyes quickly settling on Leviathan. "Is he…"
"Dead," you confirm. "I have scanned him thoroughly. The structure that controlled him is gone, and he isn't regenerating. Right now, he's just a hyperdense corpse."
Legend takes a moment to swallow your words. You don't need enhanced senses to recognize the flood of emotions he's experiencing right now. "This… changes everything," he says, somehow managing to keep his voice steady. "I hate asking you for anything more at this point, but we need his remains dropped somewhere safe inland. If only so the Thinkers can properly analyze them and confirm he won't be coming back."
"That is no trouble at all," you say with the best smile your injuries will allow you to pull, "Though we're making a stop by the city first."
Legend having no objection to that, the two of you fly a few dozen miles, returning to the rain-wracked city. Your enhanced senses actually manage to catch its name here and there - apparently, this is Brockton Bay. You remember the Brockton Bay of your Earth - a medium-sized city on the American East Coast. You've visited it on the job on a couple occasions over the decades.
Switching your secondary power to weather control - less impressive than Leviathan's, perhaps, but sufficient for a city this small - you take a minute to move the rain clouds out of the way, allowing the Sun to break through. Flying two hundred yards above the beach, the Endbringer's remains in evidence with you, you switch back to communication. Every man, woman and child in town sees the image of the dead Endbringer, next to your bruised-yet-cheerful, reassuring smile as you speak to them.
"Brockton Bay, this is the Avatar speaking. Doomsday is cancelled until further notice. Leviathan is dead and the city saved, thanks to the effort of the many who heroically stood in its defense."
Legend raises an eyebrow… then starts laughing. A few seconds later, he forces himself to stop and speaks into his armband. "Legend here. I confirm. Endbringer down."
There was a moment of doubt.
Then the Endbringer sirens stopped blaring.
And then, for thousands across the city, capes and civilians alike, a series of realizations sunk in.
They weren't going to die that day.
Brockton Bay was going to survive.
The Endbringers were not invincible.
The Endbringers could die.
Leviathan, murderer of millions and sunderer of nations, was gone forever.
Humanity had a chance to survive, to win.
In the shelters, in the streets, in the air, triumphant cheers erupted. So soon after the rain had stopped, tears of joy and relief were shed everywhere.
It only takes a few minutes for you to drop Leviathan's remains at an agreed-upon location to the West of Nebraska - far from both oceans, reasonably far from the Great Lakes. You fly back to Brockton Bay just as fast.
A part of you wants to just fly away and find another fire to put out. Force of habit. But you know, rationally, that this is the wrong time and place for it. You know almost nothing of this world. More than anything else, you need to learn about it so that you can make informed decisions (...though you do ask Legend if there is any other major crisis going on in the world at this very moment, just to be on the safe side).
The heroes are assembled in front of the battlefield hospital from earlier. Inside the hospital itself, you see Panacea at work healing people with an efficiency that, frankly, amazes you. The only person you've met who was more capable in that regard is Thermodynamic Miracle, who is a very special case.
Myrrdin, Bastion, Othala and Eidolon all seem back on their feet. Othala is being shown some frank affection from a costumed paramour who… actually, you find that man's costume somewhat disturbing. It reminds you of the Third Reich. Hopefully that isn't what it looks like. You check your armband's positioning grid to confirm the man's identity - his codename is apparently "Victor".
Another person in the room is the flyer with the emotion aura from earlier, which your armband identifies as "Glory Girl". Her emotion aura seems to be intimidating people right now and causing them to give her a wide berth as she stares daggers at Panacea's current patient, Skitter. For that matter, Panacea herself is glaring at the bug-costumed girl like she barbecued her puppy. You wonder what that's all about.
When Glory Girl spots you, however, she smiles wide and rockets toward you, giving you a super-strong hug. Other people are once again affected by her aura - you really ought to have a word with her about caution with superpowers.
"Thank you thank you thank you!" she gushes. "Sorry, I just didn't get to properly thank you earlier for saving my sister." She smiles at Panacea, who is only too happy to return the smile.
"You're welcome," you smile back, "though I'm not sure how much credit I deserve. There were other heroes struggling to get to her. I only got there a little faster."
"OK, for a guy who killed a fucking Endbringer, you are way too modest."
You chuckle. "I would not have fared nearly as well on my own. Legend and Dragon helped me coordinate with the others. Eidolon was the one holding him in place for a long while so the rest of us could blast at him. Armsmaster finished off his ablative armor. Vista enabled him to do just that. Tattletale provided useful information. Skitter made it possible to save the thousands at the shelter. And so on. My role may have been central, but everyone contributed. Everyone risked their lives to save the day."
You notice that both sisters' expressions darken at the mention of Tattletale, but despite that, you think you've raised the spirits in the room (and they were high to begin with, by the standards of battlefield hospitals). You then address Panacea: "What is the state of injuries and casualties?"
"By Endbringer standards? It's a miracle," she says. "Heck, Bakuda caused way more damage than this. Among capes, I've helped who I could. It just leaves Multishot, who was dead on arrival, Tsunami, who's in a coma, and Skitter here, who'll be fine but has a minor concussion. I can't help with brains."
"I can't heal brain damage and information loss," you admit, "and I couldn't hope to match you in sheer scale. Healing tires me quickly. But perhaps I can still assist with these two cases."
You step over to Tsunami's cot. You hadn't actually seen her during the battle. Asian girl, young, with a rather edgy costume. You focus your healing powers on her. Seconds later, her eyes blink, and she coughs. You're a bit winded from the effort if you're honest.
You then turn to Skitter. "If you'll allow me…" you smile reassuringly at her, your power working from across the room, mending physical damage. Her mask fully covers her face, but you can still see it via your cosmic perception. Her emotions appear to be in turmoil.
Some time later, the immense assembly of metahumans stands before Legend, Alexandria, Eidolon, and yourself. Legend is giving his speech. You notice a lot of red eyes - many tears have been shed after Leviathan died.
You also notice other things. With the battle over, people seem to be hanging with what you guess are their regular teams. Glory Girl and Panacea are hanging with a group of white-clad metahumans, several of whom bear some family resemblance to Glory Girl. Othalla and Victor are hanging with a large group of Caucasians, many of whom are bearing symbols of Nazism and American white supremacism. Tattletale is standing with a boy in a black skull mask, a boy in a renfaire costume, and a girl in a dog mask (accompanied by several gigantic creatures that make those outside her team nervous), who seem to be, respectively, "Grue", "Regent" and… actually, the last one has no armband. Tattletale also seems to be staring with concern at Skitter, dozens of feet away; Skitter looks like she wants (but doesn't dare) to get closer to the woman with the khaki uniform and American-flag scarf ("Miss Militia"), who is herself standing with Armsmaster and several others ("Triumph", "Velocity", "Dauntless", "Assault" and "Battery"... wait, seriously?).
"Less than two hours ago, I was giving you all a very different speech. I was explaining how dangerous Leviathan was. I was warning how, even if we played all our cards right, about one in four of us would die here. I was telling you that, while the Endbringer could not be killed or truly defeated, he could be driven back.
"It is amazing how quickly everything can change. Today has changed what the Endbringers mean. Leviathan has attacked, and only one cape died today. Civilian casualties barely entered the double digits, and most of those happened in the panic of evacuation before he even arrived. Property damage to the city is measured in millions of dollars - consider that anything less than a billion in damage, in fact anything less than the city's destruction, is normally considered a good day. And finally, Leviathan himself, after fifteen years of carnage, is finally gone for good. For the first time in years, an Endbringer is truly gone; it gives me hope that both of Leviathan's siblings may follow suite.
"There were several factors to this victory. The early warning from Dragon and Armsmaster allowed us to gather more forces and prepare better than we usually do. The heroic efforts of many of those present, of which some of the bravest were villains, did a lot to to prevent casualties. Better coordination than usual helped a lot. But, of course, the biggest factor was the presence of a newcomer who, in addition to an impressive array of powers, has also displayed the sort of courage, altruism and gallantry that we should all aspire too.
"Avatar, I don't believe any of those present have heard of you before. You appear to be a new cape, and yet you fight like a man experienced with his power. I don't know what to think of you except for this: You have our eternal gratitude, and I am honored and thankful that you fought by our side today."
He's deliberately setting things up so that you can give a speech, but don't have to give one. Smooth. Well, as it happens, this is actually a good opportunity. Your role as the Avatar isn't just to save people - it's to inspire heroes. You step forward, all eyes (and several cameras) on you as you open your mouth.
You have several themes you want to touch on, and you'll bring them all into this speech, but there's one you want to focus on:
[ ] Equality. Frankly, the presence of a large Nazi/white supremacist supergroup has disturbing implications. You're going to make it very clear that people of all ethnicities, genders, creeds, and more need to work past their differences and work together to make the world a better place, especially in the face of threats like the Endbringers.
[ ] Redemption. It's clear that a lot of the people here are villains, yet they came out to fight this monster - just like the villains who came to fight the Man of Might. You're going to appeal to their better nature, to the spark of heroism in their soul that yearns to be better than this.
[ ] Hope. This Leviathan has been running around for fifteen years, and there are apparently two other Endbringers. This is a world that clearly has convincing reasons to despair. You won't let it. You just killed an Endbringer, and you're going to tell them all: It gets better.
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[X] Hope. This Leviathan has been running around for fifteen years, and there are apparently two other Endbringers. This is a world that clearly has convincing reasons to despair. You won't let it. You just killed an Endbringer, and you're going to tell them all: It gets better.
[X] Redemption. It's clear that a lot of the people here are villains, yet they came out to fight this monster - just like the villains who came to fight the Man of Might. You're going to appeal to their better nature, to the spark of heroism in their soul that yearns to be better than this.
Hope will backfire hella badly when the others show up.
Hope will backfire hella badly when the others show up.
Diomedea
A piece of the continent
- Location
- The interblag
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Redemption. It's clear that a lot of the people here are villains, yet they came out to fight this monster - just like the villains who came to fight the Man of Might. You're going to appeal to their better nature, to the spark of heroism in their soul that yearns to be better than this.
I would like Skitter to maybe come forward and tell us about a certain girl that has been taken from her parents...
Hope will backfire when the New Endbringers show up, particularly if we have a death against one.
Equality...we can make that point later, and in a more subtle manner (choose a new ethnicity/gender each time we appear?)
I would like Skitter to maybe come forward and tell us about a certain girl that has been taken from her parents...
Hope will backfire when the New Endbringers show up, particularly if we have a death against one.
Equality...we can make that point later, and in a more subtle manner (choose a new ethnicity/gender each time we appear?)
[X] Redemption. It's clear that a lot of the people here are villains, yet they came out to fight this monster - just like the villains who came to fight the Man of Might. You're going to appeal to their better nature, to the spark of heroism in their soul that yearns to be better than this.
Razauq
Dovie’andi se tovya sagain.
- Location
- Valinor
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Redemption. It's clear that a lot of the people here are villains, yet they came out to fight this monster - just like the villains who came to fight the Man of Might. You're going to appeal to their better nature, to the spark of heroism in their soul that yearns to be better than this.
munchkinomatic
Douchiest of Bags
- Location
- The land of Skepticism
[X] Hope. This Leviathan has been running around for fifteen years, and there are apparently two other Endbringers. This is a world that clearly has convincing reasons to despair. You won't let it. You just killed an Endbringer, and you're going to tell them all: It gets better.
Morale is always important, especially now that the other have realized that there are someone who can kill them and will come in like a drunken fat elephant through a Macdonald free-for all
Morale is always important, especially now that the other have realized that there are someone who can kill them and will come in like a drunken fat elephant through a Macdonald free-for all
Kelirapc
The Bright in your Night
- Location
- Kali-Forni
[X] Redemption. It's clear that a lot of the people here are villains, yet they came out to fight this monster - just like the villains who came to fight the Man of Might. You're going to appeal to their better nature, to the spark of heroism in their soul that yearns to be better than this.