Chapter 36: Bereavement

-Eidolon POV-

He roared, once again striking the beast. He put everything he had into the blow, straining against all reason as he tried to make up for his failing power with effort alone. But like every other time it was all for naught.

The monster still held Rebecca tightly. It gave no indication it even noticed him!

Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. Why?! Why had nothing changed?! Why was he still so useless?!

No, no, no!

He once more snarled, once more lit his hand with an aurora that bathed the surroundings in brilliant green light. It came weaker this time, it formed slower and took even less time for the Endbringer to shrug off.

All while it glared at his friend with an almost animalistic look in its eyes.

Eidolon’s body shuddered as he-

It was fast.

Whatever Manton had unleashed was darting through his shots with a disregard to physics that left him reeling. Shifts in gravity and friction were completely ignored. The disintegration rays he hit her with did nothing.

All while she continued to lunge at them! Her teeth were bared, and she was almost foaming at the mouth!

It was almost like they were fighting a wild animal!

David felt a rush of cold icy panic slip into his heart. For the very first time since receiving them his powers were useless! What good was he now?

God, Alexandria was bleeding so much blood! Wasn’t she supposed to be invincible?

“David!” The yell by Charles knocked him out of his panic, as he saw the striped woman getting closer to his friend.

‘NO, not again!’

The thought was sudden and clear as he shifted gravity, pulling Charles away. The thing had already proven it was unaffected by his powers so it wouldn’t be-

His eyes widened and his breath caught in his throat.

It was following Charles! Somehow the change in gravity was also affecting it, and it was speeding up!

“CHARLES!”

His scream was desperate, hoarse, as he tried to undo the effect.

His power surged, flickered and…faltered?

No, not faltered. But it had slowed down somehow, by just a hairs breath.

Unfortunately, that was more than enough, and the arm of the Siberian plunged through the head of one of his closest friends. All while her face was locked in a rictus of rage.

-Remembered the last time he had seen that look on another’s face.

This wasn’t working, he knew this wasn’t working! So with a flex of mental will his powers were discarded, and in their place came three new ones.

Eidolon grunted, as he fell upon the flooded concrete. His ribs burned with pain, but he didn’t care.

‘Come on, you piece of shit! Give me something! Anything!

Air manipulation, a metal breaker form and a trump effect that depowered beasts.

Useless!

With a snarl he once again discarded them, rising to his feet.

Musical mastering, a thinker power for rescue and flight.

He looked at Alexandria, at his friend. Her head was rolling bonelessly in the giants grip. His Thinker power found no way to save her, for she could no longer be saved.

‘No.’

He rejected that answer.

He once more discarded his powers.

Blood manipulation, a trump power that negated other powers, spatial warping-yes!

Reality stuttered and light distorted. In one moment Alexandria was held in the merciless grip of the blue giant and in the next she was in his arms. She slumped in his arms, and his moment of triumph was cut short when he realised she wasn’t breathing.

‘No!’

He grasped her hand in his as the trump power flared, bathing Rebecca in light. Her hand now felt warmer, her skin softened and no longer felt like smooth steel. Instead of being Invincible Rebbecca was now painfully human. His second power made itself known immediately after. Alexandria’s cheeks flushed as oxygenated blood flowed towards her brain.

She didn’t move.

‘NO!’

His powers were discarded again and again, but nothing changed.

A shadow fell over him, and he snarled as his new vector reversal power redirected a downwards stomp that would have crushed him into paste. If the Endbringer seemed bothered by the burst skin of their leg they didn’t show it. Instead they held up their hand and the wind howled in response.

The atmosphere screamed as it was beaten and abused, forced into a single spot. The screaming wind hit a fever pitch as it ignited into plasma, the mere proximity of it forcing him to wince as his cape burst into flames.

But David didn’t care about the pain. He didn’t care about the attack barrelling towards him. The only thing he cared about was the thing in front of him. The monster that had killed his friend.

His powers shifted yet again as he held up his hand.

The plasma met him and was stifled into nothingness.

Buoyancy, density manipulation and energy absorption.

It was the last one that he had used to absorb the plasma.

His glare remained fixed on the Endbringer, the curl of his lips and the bearing of his teeth matched the beast.

It was beautiful. Just like the Simurgh the image felt like a vicious mockery. The six arms once held serenely by their side were now balled into fists, wound up and ready to pulverise anything that came close. The smoky white hair was unkempt, hanging raggedly across their form.

He hated it.

He despised it.

He knew he would never rest easy until he had rid it from existence entirely.

As he looked upon the Endbringer he felt his view go past their physical form, and instead gazed upon a corona of blinding white light. A reservoir of untapped energy, enough to crack a planet and keep going. There was something…mesmerizing about it.

Some instinct urged him forwards, telling him to reach out and take.

Eidolon reached out and-

“DAVID!”

The scream broke him from his trance as Keith landed next to him, a barrage of lasers following I his wake and crashing down atop the Endbringer. The thing staggered back, forcing several of its arms in front of it – as if it could shield itself from the rain of light. The curving lasers that struck it from behind taught it otherwise.

“Keith…”

In any other circumstance David would have loathed how weak he sounded, how vulnerable. Now, kneeling in the muddy water with Rebecca’s corpse, he found he couldn’t care. The previous clarity his power had brought him quickly abandoned him. Now, as he looked down at the limp body of his friend he could see the same light, the same energy he had wished to take.

He looked up and saw Keith, the same light was present in him as well.

His breath hitched. The urge to take was still there. The need to reach and drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and-

Vomit rose in his throat and was expelled violently, the puke rapidly filling his mask and forcing him to discard it.

“David! We have to go!” The voice of his friend was desperate as he continued to fire. His eyes darting between him and the monster, still the hero after everything (unlike you). The Endbringer was no longer staggering, for now the beams were being intercepted by floating rubble, conjured steel and solid air.

David wanted to rise. Wanted to rise, but all he could do was stare vacantly at his friend – mind numb and limbs trembling.

“But, Rebecca is…” David let his words drift off as he continued to stare into the dead expression of the corpse lying in his lap. Her mouth was still parted in surprise, and her wide and glassy gaze was only hidden by her cracked mask.

An arm shook him violently. It was Keith.

“David! Snap out of it! We need to get Rebecca to the medics so we can regroup with our reinforcements!”

Medics.

Medics!

The word snapped him out of his stupor.

Yes. Rebecca could still be saved. Hundreds of parahumans attended these attacks, surely one of them would have the power to reverse this?!

Had David been paying attention he would have realised the lie for what it was, would have understood that the odds were slim to none.

Instead David rose to his feet, cradling Rebecca’s body in both hands.

He looked back to the wall of corpses, and true enough he could see the tell tale signs of teleportation, brief flashes and odd stretching’s of space as dozens of parahuman arrived in staggered reinforcements.

With a bound Eidolon left the ground behind, his density lightening as he manipulated the buoyancy of the air to speed him up. Behind him he could still hear the sounds of Legend furiously holding back the increasingly prepared monster.

He ignored it and looked ahead.

His grip on Alexandria tightened.

‘Faster!’

Taking inspiration from the monster behind him he began using his buoyancy power to create pockets of air with higher buoyancy. He twisted in the air, his feet becoming firmly planted on those spots of altered air. Then, with a mighty push, he leaped towards the wall.

A dull flame of hope flickered in his chest as he hoped he wasn’t too late this time.

-Legend POV-

He had gotten here too late.

His body broke down into light particles as he juked to the side, barely dodging the spear of stone lancing towards him.

Alexandria was dead.

He reformed, only to clutch his chest in pain as he coughed up blood. His hand grasped at his chest, yet he could feel no wound. Instead the Endbringer had used it’s power to crush his beating heart in his chest.

‘Ah, what a horrifying power’ Legend thought to himself.

He entered his breaker form once more, the pain and damage melting away as he short towards the many limbed monstrosity. A dozen lasers were spat out of his glowing form, all seeking out the form of the Endbringer with uncanny precision. But the Endbringer had learned his tricks, none reached their form as all were intercepted by various means.

‘Is it just me-’ Legend languidly pondered, his mind being affected by his breaker state, ‘-or is it getting faster at blocking my strikes?’

The next dozen engagements, all taking place within the span of a second or two, proved him correct. Each of his attacks were being stopped slightly faster. Just a minute ago, while David had still been here, his attacks had surprised the being – and even injured it. Barely half a minute later the Endbringer was confidently preventing all of his attacks from reaching them. Now his attack didn’t even get close, being destroyed the moment his lasers left his form.

To make matters worse every time he left his breaker state he incurred a fatal blow. If it wasn’t for his power automatically shifting his form into light he would be dead a dozen time over by now.

Legend’s mind struggled to come up with a solution. His mind slowing as his breaker form’s speed increased. His more direct attacks could no longer hurt it. Any indirect attacks, such as exploding the ground near its feet, did depressingly little.

All the while the beast was observing. Calculating. Learning.

The full teeth snarl was slowly melting away, leaving something colder and more calculating.

He couldn’t do this alone anymore. He was barely managing to distract it. If given anymore time it may start to march upon the rest before they were ready. He needed to-

A deafening roar cut him off as his sight was reduced to white.

He flailed, his breaker form darting randomly as he was rendered incapable of seeing past a searing white that enveloped all.

What was going on!?

The white shifted to orange, and then red before his sight began to clear.

The surrounding land, what had once been a run down and flooded residential district had been turned into a scene that wouldn’t be out of place in hell. Smoke was everywhere, all drifting upwards from a circular depression that had been seared into the city.

That bowl of earth glowed a cherry red, lava dripped downwards to collect at the bottom of the crater. There at the bottom was the Endbringer, a circular boundary of untouched ground marking where the firestorm had not been lit.

It spotted him, and he could have sworn he spotted annoyance flash across its face.

This was getting ridiculous. He turned his gaze to where the others were. The flashes of teleports had died down now. No doubt they were being briefed, and comms were being handed out. He was all but useless where he was now, at least there he could inspire morale. Then, once the rest of the parahumans were with him, he would see how adept the Endbringer was at stopping the attacks of hundreds of parahumans.

He turned back to the Endbringer, ready to retreat for the time being.

His blood froze in his veins.

The Endbringer was no longer looking at him. It had noticed where he was looking, and had turned their gaze upon the rest.

It turned back to him.

And smiled.

His eyes widened, but his realisation was too late.

He turned back to where the others were, where David was.

In an instant the wall that the defenders had bled and sacrificed so much for became white. A sphere of pure nothing etched upon the world that silently bloomed outwards. Nothing stopped it, no structure or parahuman even slowed down the expansion of that horrible white.

It crept further out, still horribly silent. That’s when the sound hit him, a scream of such magnitude that he was sent hurtling downwards. He couldn’t hear anything else. Not his screams. Not the wind rushing past. Not the sound of his impact as he finally reached the ground. Nothing except the scream of rent sky.

‘Oh God’ he thought, now fully panicking. ‘What has been unleashed upon the world?’

AN: Yeah, Alexander’s fully back! Those reinforcements sure would be good, huh bud? Whoops, they just got deleted. So that’s probably close to three hundred capes Alexander has killed in this fight alone, most of them being Protectorate capes. I’m sure that won’t have any wider effects on the world.

Beyond that, things weren’t easy for Alexander either. Legend is one of the few individuals that Alexander can’t easily kill as he’s super-fast and reforms any damage when he enters his breaker state. Then there’s Eidolon, who just came very close to potentially killing Alexander and regaining his full power.

How unfortunate that the potential realisation has been buried under massive amounts of trauma. Now whenever he sees that power he’s just going to be reminded of Alexandria’s death, as well as his inability to stop it, and discard it immediately.

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