Alright now when I have gotten my hype over I can read over this chapter again. I feel like many of us are so critic over March non confirmed death and the sudden competence of Lee so we are overlooking the work and effort Lord had made to make this possible. First its 2 pages of wow fight much epic reactions. Then its 1 page of constructive critic with some unneccesary cruel ones. Then its additional 5 pages that that has mixed ones. Maybe their meaning was for constructive critic however sometimes it felt unneccesary with lot of negative emotions to them.
So I wanted to begin with what I liked and leave it in the bottom what I didn't like.
-Chapter 41-
So Chen's dialogue and his thoughts were really good. It really shows how cape fight is in the ramplight and the faceless masses suffers in the background. Chen's suffering to 'unpowered members' is as real as cape fights.
Joe's move to dump tactical info to PRT-Police-National Police-PHO was good. It show that he's fighting against them. I hope that if Bakuda didn't include their oh shit moment in their stream his copy would have uploaded it too. Then they can get context that he only went along to track their site.
The result had been the most powerful attack I had managed to date
Final Slash makes a comeback. I could feel the tension in air as I read through the dialogue. I saw the devestation even though I should only be able to read it. This makes it really good piece of writting.
-March trap-
With so many chapters being built up for this battle. So much has been pumped up to this fight that the conclusion was made unsatisfactory. The built up was fantastic. Escalation, the stakes even higher with psychological warfare.
He simultaneously needs to limit himself so the PRT doesn't fuck him over after this while dealing with dealing with everyone (read everyone) that wants a piece of his technology or got their egos hurt.
Then the fall when he got hit by March combo with Oni Lee. Her death trap made especially made for him.
All hope almost lost. He only has something left because he purposly hid them. ABB postures against him; how the lone cape couldn't fight them, how much like dominos his fall was made. Then because of the villainess own cruelity, her own ego needed to posture and savor this victory, he realised an ally he had all along and could finally counterattack.
He counterattacked with a punch that should be lethal to his arch enemy and moved on against bulky ABB enforcer that happends to wear Lung's mask. He made sure to punch him outright. He needs to go to next priority. To take down Oni Lee before he reacts, take down Lung, and most importantly he needed to check on March. To do whats necessery. But alas.
He couldn't. Why? Because he was already fighting on his absolutely last legs. The agony has coursed through his body all this time. He knew he had a time limit and he absolutely had to finish off March before he ran out of time. But the real reason he didn't do it was because in his red haze of rage/adrealine/lifefiber adrealine he felt Tetra's rage against those who harmed Garment. He
knew but he didn't have the
will. He couldn't concentrate enough and thus as Tetra felt rage against Lung he got
swallowed in her rage. That's why he couldn't make sure March got finished off.
Lung got an epic finisher. its sure going to make all the headlines. Ziz is going to wonder who let FTL tech in this cycle. Cauldron if not already excited definitely noted mc and March existence.
-Why many became angry-
The reason is that this the conclusion didn't feel like an conclusion. We are unsure if March was alive or dead. The majority prefer her death, and I'm unsure if you wanted to have a cliffhanger or wanted to use her in coordination with either Coil or Cauldron.
The point is that maybe
LordRoustabout felt Joe is missing antagonists if he finished off her. However just because Worm didn't
show many parahuman to pose as an enemy to him doesn't mean there aren't any.
-how to solve no enemies left problem-
I mean a massive amount of people died off in the Golden Morning that just means that there might be capes that were incredible powerful got killed offscreen. Anyone of the already S-class threats might grow restless in response to The Celestial Forge. Nilbog, Machine Army, The Tower or any of the
unquaranined S-rank threats that died during Golden Morning.
"That's about it, for North American quarantines. A lot of the unquarantined Class-S threats died in the fight against Scion. Uh."
With additional to the ones that was already in
quarantine there are no shortage of enemies. Just with the ones in quarantine there are already 7 in North America. Throw in C.U.I, S-threats that Thanda fight against in India and Sleeper. Just because we doesn't hear about doesn't mean that some South America country under S-threat warlords doesn't got a colossal ego trip with just enough nudging from their passager to attack this super-new-guy-mad-scientist-tinker. As how to get there fast when we didn't see any other cape other than Doormaker and Strider, well maybe he just died before GM and thus didn't make himself known.
Maybe March death cry into the living Shard Network made all natural passangers take note of Apairon, and thus fixate on him. This could have made a lot of restlessness in the 'stable' quarantines.
Maybe Earth Shin somehow got dimensional breach to Earth Bet.
The point I'm trying to sell is don't let a single antagonist get infront of this fanfictions journey and enjoyment.
-Aftermath-
Right now Joe cannot deescalate, his enemies will react in kind to his new showdown. Even when an endbringer shows up, he must kill it if he got the chance. Even if his passanger warns him against it. An alternative would be that he manages to get close to zero casualties when it attacks. With his new tech out in the open and what he can do, he cannot do anything less or else let the press rip him apart. He cannot claim 'my thinker power said so.'
