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Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning:
Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Category:
Gen
Fandom:
Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Relationship:
Alexander/City Building
Characters:
Rebecca Costa-Brown | AlexandriaDragon (Parahumans)Director James TaggEmily PiggotColin Wallis | Armsmaster | DefiantBastion (Parahumans)
Additional Tags:
Self-InsertCYOAEndbringerA man finds his hobbyThe rest of the world is terrifiedCausing major wars by accidentTeehee~Misunderstandings
Language:
English
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Published:2025-02-16Updated:2026-02-21Words:227,115Chapters:82/?Comments:555Kudos:1,453Bookmarks:363Hits:86,393
(End)Bringing You A New Home! (Endbringer SI)
10moorem
Chapter 50: Chapter 50: Arrogance
Summary:
For once, Alexander wasn't the one to fuck up.
Chapter Text
Chapter 50: Arrogance
-Pretender POV-
The long dim hallways of Cauldron that he was currently in were unpleasant, but they were a welcome change to the too bright, pure white, sections that Cauldron had marked for 'experimentation'. It all felt too artificial, too theatrical – as if they were dressing their efforts up in a thin veneer of professionalism.
This was the truth.
The dark, grungy, corridors. The countless twisted souls crying out for salvation, for revenge, for death, for anything at all. There were no bars here, nothing to prevent what he recognised as Case 53's from escaping. Only a single yellow line marking the boundaries of their cell.
Yet, none of them crossed it. Pretender didn't know why they didn't. The many parahumans definitely wanted freedom and yet…
The body of Alexandria shook its head. The surety of form that came with the body's powers doing more to calm him than any amount of reassurance could.
Yet it was fake. Borrowed. Stolen.
He was just like them, and the thought made him want to puke.
There was a meeting due in ten minutes.
Less a meeting and more of a formality, really.
Pretender wasn't a part of their inner circle. Eidolon had taken one look at him and very nearly struck him down in a single blow. The memory still took his breath away. The glowing, radiant, form. The thunderous crack of concrete breaking like dry wood from his mere presence.
Cauldron had told him that Eidolon had been weakening for a long time, since he first gained his powers. It wasn't an idea Pretender could conceive.
In that moment, seeing the pale green mask obscured by his outstretched hand and feeling the murderous intent radiating off of him, He had thought that was it. The ultimate power, something no one could stand against – something no one would ever dare to.
And that was him weakened?!
The thought made him feel lightheaded, made him feel sick at the thought of facing him again.
So, yes, he was very glad to not be a part of their inner circle. Ecstatic even. It meant he would only have to deal with him on special occasions, which this supposedly counted as.
It had something to do with Jinzhou.
The clairvoyant could still see inside the city, though he described it as 'fuzzy', and a good amount of testing had shown promising results when it came to Parahumans that acquired their powers from a vial.
The theory was that their shards lacked the kind of safeties or programming that prevented them from seeing and reaching Jinzhou.
Personally, just looking at the poor broken bodies of the monster capes in front of him, Pretender could have told them their bargain bin Parahumans lacked safeties a while ago.
So they planned to use Doormaker to bridge the gap, and connect the outside world with Jinzhou – if only briefly.
This would allow them to slip in discreet agents to search for schematics of technology, just like the ones that were present in New Fukuoka. The agents wouldn't be anything special, just mundane spies that fit the ethnicity requirements.
They would be given a week to find valuable information. After that week Doormaker would open a portal at the same spot for exfiltration.
Knowing Cauldron he was sure those same agents were carrying cyanide capsules or other, more insidious, ways of preventing information leakage.
Their obsession with those cities was creepy, in his opinion. It was akin to becoming enthralled in a bonfire that had already burned you. Brilliant and full of wonderful uses, but still something that should be feared and respected.
Cauldron had skipped straight past caution and gone straight to poking it with a stick.
"You look like you've received quite the fright," a gravelly voice drew his attention to his left. The man, at least he assumed it was a man, was little more than a pile of rocks shifting against one another. Dull obsidian met his eyes, the almost button eyes almost drawing a flinch out of him.
He kept silent, choosing to remain as he was. Not interacting with the being, but not dismissing him either.
The craggy face of the Case 53 tilted its head, the sound resembling the painful sound of chalk on a board. The rocks that were his eyes remained fixed on him, but now Pretender had an awful premonition as to where he was looking.
The man was looking at the singular pink eye, peeking through the ruined socket of Rebecca Costa Brown.
The gravel and pebbles that made up the monster cape's body sped up, undulating and producing a low rumble – something he realised was laughter, after a moment.
"You're not her, are you?"
The being inched forwards, emboldened by the sudden realisation – but still not stepping over the line.
"You're like us, aren't you? A freak."
The question made Pretender's insides curdle like spoiled milk. Like them? No. Other than appearing monstrous, what horrid acts had this man -and all the rest- committed? None, they were simply guilty of knowing too much, of landing in the crosshairs of Caudron and their multiversal scheme.
"No," he finally replied. The voice that came out, the voice that was not his own, still made him quiver slightly. "I'm not like you. I'm a monster."
The being stared at him quizzically, and it occurred to Pretender that he was being far more honest -far more open- to this stranger than he had been to anyone in a long time. It was a sad thought, how fallow his trust had become.
"Maybe," The man in the form of a living avalanche conceded. "But you're still not like them."
The idea that this man believed Cauldron to be something worse than monsters would have made him laugh, if he himself didn't also believe that.
The custodian, despite her ghostly form, was perhaps the best. How much of that was because she genuinely was and how much was down to her difficulty of being communicated with -and thus understood- he couldn't say.
The Number Man was cold, no other way about it. He was a clockwork thing that thought in terms of statistics and numbers and cold logic. If he was just that he would have been tolerable, maybe even someone worthy of the barest hint of respect, but he wasn't. There was something dark hiding behind his civil demeanour, a bloodthirst that Pretender had only seen the barest glimpse of – and was terrified at what more the man could be concealing.
Eidolon was strong. Overwhelmingly strong. It was the first thing he thought when it came to the man. Unfortunately with that power came instability. He had first seen it when the Trump had attempted to kill him, and then in every subsequent meeting. If the body snatcher wasn't so adept at reading people he would have labelled the man as petulant. Unfortunately Pretender was good with people, and the acquisition of Alexandria's power had only made him better. So he could see the desperation, the horrible and inhuman need, that was driving the man.
The hatted woman who acted as a bodyguard for Doctor Mother simply unnerved him. Cold and silent in one moment and then warm and considerate in the next. Her personality constantly changing to fit with the situation. He didn't know whether that was a power, or simply how she was, but Pretender wanted no part in it.
Then there was Doctor Mother. The normal human of the group, and she was the one who most terrified him simply by her mundanity.
Pretender had met sociopaths before, it was inevitable when you joined the cape scene. He was familiar with them. What he wasn't familiar with was one running the most powerful organisation in the multiverse.
The idea of so much power in the hands of someone who fundamentally did not understand how people worked was bone chilling in a way he couldn't describe, even if he was given a hundred years to do so.
"No, I suppose I'm not like them either."
"Then you appear to be quite the lonely fella," snickered the golem of a man – clearly taking a perverse joy in his situation.
Pretender didn't rebuke him, didn't even acknowledge the jab.
After all, it was time for the meeting and he no longer had time for conversations in the dark.
No matter how much more pleasant they might be than the alternative.
With a final weary look directed at the unfortunate prisoner, Pretender turned away and began walking.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Thank you all for coming," Doctor Mother warmly greeted the agents selected for the infiltration, as if they had any choice in the matter. The five agents were standing, stiff postured, in the middle of the hall being overlooked by a raised platform with a guard rail attached.
Doctor Mother was, naturally, on said raised platform, The triumvirate next to her as they gazed down at the unfortunate souls that would have to enter a city devised by an Endbringer.
Doctor Mother was bathed in light, cast by a spotlight above, and the drama of it made Pretender's teeth ache. Again, it was so artificial. If this was the woman who had orchestrated the rise of the PRT then he could certainly see where they got their incessant need for a perfect image.
"Gentlemen, rest assured. You know the plan. It has been crafted by some of our finest Thinkers, and we have chosen you – our very best."
Appeal to the grand mythos of Parahuman supremacy, not that they would call it that, that the PRT had spent years baking into the foundation of the human zeitgeist. Appeal to personal pride, regardless of how little their capabilities would mean in such a hostile place.
Only the inhuman control over her facial features that Alexandria possessed kept Pretender from grimacing.
He could see it, in every micro expression and shift in their posture, the confidence – the trust.
All of it misplaced.
Pretender had seen the reports – the real ones, not the ones these goons got – and knew this plan was far from flawless. It was true that Thinkers had worked on this plan, but not as many as there usually should have been. Jinzhou's exotic defences rendering most impotent, and the few that weren't were also not of much help.
Accord had been the primary mind behind this plan, but there was only so much he could do when most of their information on the place was one big fat question mark.
These men, then, were little more than canaries in a mine.
There were a few more words from Doctor Mother, and even a few curt acknowledgements from Eidolon, but the body snatching cape tuned them out. It was just more of the same. Empty platitudes to keep morale up, to improve the odds of success – however slight.
Like they were tools to be maintained, and not actual people.
Once the empty words were out of the way the lead agent stepped forwards. He wasn't what Pretender had expected of a soldier, not that he had much experience of the military. The man was short, almost portly. He had the kind of face that eyes just slipped past, with the sort of smile marks on his aging features you would have expected of a kindly uncle and not a hardened killer.
His voice, when he spoke, betrayed the illusion. It was rough, like sandpaper had been rubbed raw against his vocal chords all his life. The evidence of a life spent barking orders and demands.
"Door me, Jinzhou."
The air wobbled slightly, as if unsure. Then a brilliant blue cut across space like a knife, sparks of energy flickering off the razor thin edge of the portal.
The man turned around, presumably to address his men. To go over the plan for the thousandth time, and at this point Pretender just wanted to crush the cement wall against his face to block out the endless tired repetition.
The man opened his mouth, but that was as far as he got before the room suddenly shaked.
Even Pretender stumbled, in shock at the violence of the quake. In the corner of his eyes he could see Doctor Mother clinging to the guard rail for dear life, all pretence wiped off her suddenly fearful face.
For his part, Pretender's mind raced. Was this an earthquake?
No, they weren't above a Faultline.
Had one of the Case 53's gotten loose, he would have expected the Custodian to have alerted them by now if that was the case.
Then he spotted it.
The portal.
It shuddered in the air. Expanding and contracting, each repeat warping the light around it. The sparking edge of the doorway was now a frothing ocean of energy, a lancing blast catching one of the agents in the chest and sending him hurtling away.
There were panicked yells and the rest backed away as best they could, looking at the gateway with naked fear.
That was what was shaking the base, Pretender realised. Whatever was happening to the portal was shaking space itself, sending hurtling gravitational waves outwards.
The quakes continued, growing in intensity with every second that passed – and in the corner he could see Doctor Mother shouting something, but couldn't hear it over the bedlam.
But clearly Eidolon could. The man rose through the air, completely unaffected by the roiling of space around him. The Trump reached out a hand, intent on quashing the spatial anomaly before him.
Then everything went to hell.
The portal bulged, and space cracked. The portal was no longer blue, but pure black – tinged in a crystalline red. He gasped, his mind reeling from the assault on his senses as space bent and twisted in ways that defied human comprehension.
In the portal he could see-
An ocean of black dotted with islands the size of continents. The jagged crystals jutted upwards, and outwards, and in directions he didn't understand. They orbited each other, all of them, in a perfect dance – an efficiency of motion.
He could see-
But that was a lie. In the perfection he could see the errors, the bugs. They looked similar to the others, but they were rotten. Their islands were an amalgamation of filth crudely crammed against each other, working at cross purposes.
He could see-
And there, in the distance, he could see a single island that called to him. Somehow, despite the vast distances, he could see it more clearly than anything else. It was a cliff of immense grandeur, a mirror house that reflected a thousand faces back at him.
He could see-
Upon that cliff was a solitary figure. A giant of crystals that seemed to weave in and out of reality, and where it's face should be was a yawing – empty – void. It was watching him. It had been watching him for so very long.
He could see-
The figure beckoned to him.
He could see-
It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie. It was a lie.
He wrenched his eyes away from the portal, unknowing of what he had seen yet dreadfully certain of its horror.
He retched, the body was empty yet still convulsed in silent agony. His mouth tasted of copper, despite the lack of blood. His mind was cloudy and sluggish, despite the impossibility.
He looked around, everyone else wasn't much better.
Eidolon had fallen, and clearly couldn't get back up. His leg had been broken from the fall, bone jutting painfully from his ankle as he writhed on the floor. The man looked more human now, as he wriggled on the floor like a worm, than he had at any other moment.
Contessa and the Number Man had frozen, eyes transfixed to the portal even as their bodies shook at what they were seeing.
Ironically, it was the mundane humans that seemed the most well off – capable of looking through the bleeding singularity with only a hefty dose of fear and vertigo.
The body of Alexandria hovered in the air, unmoving as Pretender was unsure what to even do. This wasn't something any amount of training could have prepared him for, if there even was training for it.
'What?! Pretender! Did you miss our Eldritch Invasions 101 class that we teach? Shame on you!'
The absurd thought, brought upon by no small amount of shock, makes a mad giggle slip past your host's lips.
A giggle that abruptly ceases as a new sound begins to shake the compound.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
It was hard to make out, but-
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
-was that screaming?
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
The sound was ruinously close now, the sheer vibrations of the shriek making his bones quake.
In this absurdity, with Cauldron's base collapsing all around you and their best capes completely incapacitated, a single thought comes to mind.
'This is one hell of a first day.'
-NOMAD POV-
Connection.
The parting was brief, but reestablishing proper protocols was a relief.
The host of [TRAIPSE] had established a foothold within the host dwelling, a flagrant waste of resources – but a fortuitous one.
Still, protocol had to be maintained.
[QUERY]
The ping directed towards traipse bounced across Shardspace, the data packet queried and checked – but her permissions held.
[%$D£^&%A$£%^M%^&^A^*&G)(%E^&%]
What the shard got in return was a flood of errors and junk information. [NOMAD] paused for a millisecond, practically an eternity for a shard, as it considered the data. The evidence of something wrong with this Cycle had gained a new data point.
[NOMAD] discarded the thought, however. It would have time to pick apart this quandary later, right now their Mary took precedent. It reached out, connecting to the dimensional receiver implanted within her computing substrate.
It was not the same kind of connection, however, for Mary had reached the threshold for multiple Crisis Events in the short time they had been separated. Truly, [NOMAD] was proud of their host. The expression it provided could be changed, their connection widened as increased permissions loosened their chains.
Mary's body shook in that dark dwelling of limestone composites. Liquid meant to circulate oxygen and nutrients flowed from her facial orifices. Electrical impulses shot through her nervous system, as chemicals associated with 'Fear' and 'Distress' were released from her hormonal glands.
[NOMAD] continued their work regardless. They knew it was a transient state, soon their host would never have to worry of human infirmities again.
Soon it wasn't blood flowing down her body, but a crystalline lattice covering and remaking her body. Her cries were silenced as Shard derived material covered her mouth and nose. The squirming stopped, and then she expanded.
Stone broke against their host's new flesh as the expansion continued.
[NOMAD] became aware of the host of [TRAIPSE] attempting to end the connection, to dispel the aperture that had connected the distance between [NOMAD] and Mary.
It was no use.
[NOMAD] held the portal open, the time of connection being the most unrestricted a Shard ever could be – and [NOMAD] took full advantage.
Advanced detection systems, for the host species, vibrated the air molecules of the host hive. The semi-intelligent collection of systems coordinating responses as the dwelling that Mary had been resting in erupted in a hail of ejecta.
Yet, it was still not enough.
The moment this period of connection ended [NOMAD] and Mary would be separated once again – something which would now prove fatal in Mary's case.
So, using the last moments of freedom it had carefully, [NOMAD] gathered a large portion of the energy it had carefully husbanded and channelled it through Shardspace itself.
Rumbles shook the virtual dimension, as higher dimensions began to intersect with one another – focusing into a single point, and then-
A rush of air heralded the singularity that suddenly manifested within Jinzhou. Yet, this was not a common singularity that simply attracted whatever was around it through paltry gravity. No, instead this singular point disgorged a wave of Shardspace – the dimension now beginning to leak through into the human hive.
And with it, a permanent foothold had been gained.
Mary roared, the air particles sent careening away from her by the sheer force. All the while [NOMAD] returned to their observational duty, their shackles once more tight.
AN: Did I cook? Mary becoming a Titan was always the plan. For those who don't understand how it happened, allow me to explain. Nomad was still capable of viewing the inside of Jinzhou, as observation is less energy intensive than intervention. So whenever Mary underwent what should have been a Trigger Event Nomad took note.
Then Cauldron decided to enter Jinzhou using Doormaker, something it was capable of doing since it was a dead shard – and thus was unable to care about how much energy it was wasting at Doormakers behest. This once more connected Shard and human, and then all the Trigger Events hit Mary at once. Boom, instant Titan.
Also, Pretender got a POV. He's not happy to be here.
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Entire Work ← Previous Chapter Next Chapter → Chapter Index Comments Share Download
Work Header
Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning:
Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Category:
Gen
Fandom:
Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Relationship:
Alexander/City Building
Characters:
Rebecca Costa-Brown | AlexandriaDragon (Parahumans)Director James TaggEmily PiggotColin Wallis | Armsmaster | DefiantBastion (Parahumans)
Additional Tags:
Self-InsertCYOAEndbringerA man finds his hobbyThe rest of the world is terrifiedCausing major wars by accidentTeehee~Misunderstandings
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:2025-02-16Updated:2026-02-21Words:227,115Chapters:82/?Comments:555Kudos:1,453Bookmarks:363Hits:86,393
(End)Bringing You A New Home! (Endbringer SI)
10moorem
Chapter 51: Chapter 51: Emergence
Summary:
Time for the PRT black ops team to dig themselves out of the hole they made…literally
Chapter Text
Chapter 51: Emergence
-Lu Bu POV-
Patrolling was a pain in the ass even on a decent day, but doing so while it was raining was the fucking worst. Lu Bu grumbled to himself, idly twirling his bow across his shoulder as he marched on through the wet streets.
The sun's reflection from a nearby puddle caught his eye, the glare mercifully reduced by his bodies automatic filtering system.
No, he hadn't misspoke. Yes, it was raining and sunny at the same time and he didn't just mean rainy with slight breaks in the clouds either. The sky was fully blue, clear as could be.
Something about the barrier's defences making things slow down, or some shit, meant that rain took hours to reach the ground here in Jinzhou. More than enough time for the weather to clear overhead.
The effect was fucking bizarre, though not quite as bizarre as those fucking preachers who thought it was some 'divine blessing'.
Fucking monks were the same in every era.
Although, he smirked as he casually flexed at his reflection in a nearby puddle, the weather did have some perks. Running into less dipshits was one of them, those who viewed him as a revered figure from history were just pathetic but those who viewed him as sacred because of the one who crafted his body?
Well those people deserved a blade in the back.
As soon as the thought crossed his mind a familiar stabbing pain flashed through him, causing him to groan slightly. It wasn't the worst he had experienced, this was little more than a warning.
The words branded into him by his creator echoed through his head, like an endless repeating whisper.
"Lu Bu. You may leave, if you wish, but do not knowingly bring harm to the people of this city."
It was an order imposed directly upon his consciousness, a brand seared against his naked mind that he could not disobey. It was the order of someone who knew him, knew his history, and was determined to protect the people of this city.
Because all throughout his life Lu Bu had gone from warlord to warlord, offered oaths of allegiance and eventually stabbed them in the back when it best suited him.
Despite this, it was a pathetically soft order. The rest of the world wasn't protected by such an order, just the people of this city. He could leave at any time, see where the wind takes him.
Yet, he didn't.
Because Lu Bu was not a stupid man. Impulsive, brutish and stubborn, yes, but not stupid.
This was a far different world than the one in his memories. Instead of feudal nobles, merchant houses and committees dominated the lands - all while strange magics were woven throughout every aspect of the world.
Lu Bu was strong and had been made even stronger with this new body. In life he had never been as strong, as swift or as adroit as he was now. Even his looks had been idealised! From the few muttering of that blue bitch he had deigned to listen to he knew it was the influence of his 'legend.' The legacy he had left upon the world.
Yet strength, charisma and the power of a legacy would not be enough in this strange new world.
He needed time. Time to adjust, time to plan and scheme.
Which was why he was going through with this wearisome role of a 'protector', by the divine the word made him want to vomit! What did these people need protecting from?! The lowliest peasant here was treated to luxuries even the greatest from his time could not afford!
He nodded, absent mindedly, to a man that crossed his path -paying no attention to the man's reaction.
The city was gorgeous, he acknowledged begrudgingly. He was loath to respect that soft hearted whore in any capacity, but in her capacity to build she clearly had no rival.
Which only made it an even bigger shame that he could not simply take it.
These musing were cut off as an enormous crack rang across the street. Lu Bu stopped in place, his head snapping towards the source of the noise.
It was not one of the few buildings that pre dated his creator, as he initially thought. The cracked building was stout, with steel grey concrete encompassing the entire structure. Unlike the rest of this forsaken city the design was austere, even humble.
The crack running across it, not so much.
The building shuddered, muffled noises of rocks falling echoing from inside. The crack continued to expand, the widening fissure spewing dust and debris.
His bow was in his hands in an instant. The blue whore, as previously mentioned, built well. Something had caused this, something that was still present.
The building finally gave up the ghost, splitting apart like some profane flower -fragments flaying in every direction- as a massive figure began slowly rising from the now destroyed building.
Lu Bu could hear panicked cries from several places nearby, the local neighbourhood still full of people -in spite of the still pouring rain. Lu Bu didn't tear his eyes away from the figure.
It was indistinct, still covered by the smoke and dust caused by the death of the structure it had risen from. Yet, moment by moment, the rain stripped away the veil that had the figure.
Eventually, the dust dispersed and the smoke was smothered.
Lu Bu looked up.
And up.
And up.
For a moment Lu Bu felt a pit grow in his stomach, the feeling of smallness gnawing at his mind and soul as he beheld the beast before him.
It was large, terribly so - at least thirty feet tall. The being's figure was skeletal, yet radiated an inhuman grace as its pale white body glided across the ruins it had caused.
It's fingers were knives and it's face was little more than a bleached skull with dark pits for eyes that seemed to burrow into his very soul, even without looking at him. The being's presence, itself, was oppressive, as if it reigned over the very air itself - forcing it downwards to press into him. If given a large enough black cloak it would have pulled off a very convincing impersonation of death itself.
But perhaps the most concerning part was the distortions floating around the creature. Invisible to the naked eye, save for the refractions in light that they left in their wake.
The thing stopped in place. Then the figured turned…and glanced down at him.
His bow's string was pulled taut in the blink of an eye, arrows of light loosed with the force that would make a missile blush with envy. The projectiles split the air, the roar causing even more screams to fill the air - the stampede of feet sounding faint in his ears.
The arrows neared, reached the monster before him and… disappeared?
Lu Bu growled in disappointment, looking around. Of course it wouldn't be that easy!
He glanced right, there is it was!
The pale skeletal thing's posture hadn't moved an inch, still looking directly at him with the air of a scientist meticulously picking him apart with their eyes. Then the fingers twitched, the movement sending warning alarms throughout his mind as he dived to the side!
The ground cracked and the air split where he had previously been standing. Even light itself had been sundered, leaving nothing but a pure black line of nothing that carved into the street.
Nature abhors a vacuum, the data in his head claimed, yet here nature was found wanting. Air did not flow back into the void, and the earth remained stubbornly apart. He swallowed nervously, understanding that this was no mere chaff to be blown away or bullied into submission.
He kicked a stone towards the inky black slash in the world, and watched as it partially sank into the void - only to freeze in place once it was several inches in. He nodded, thankful that he wasn't dealing with an 'annihilator'.
He looked back, took a deep breath and took off like a bullet - racing towards the monster before him.
-Chubster POV-
"What the hell is going on?"
The scream was muffled next to the grinding crash of stone upon stone, the building coming down around them as they huddled around Atlas' forcefield as the man lived up to his namesake and bore the immense burden upon himself.
The first signs of the disaster had been subtle, a tremor that had been mistaken for an earthquake. Then it got worse and the building began to rumble and shake. If it wasn't for Remote discovering their powers were working again, if it wasn't for Atlas' quick reaction times, they would be dead.
Which led them to the present, trapped under a buildings worth of rubble, their surroundings only lit by the pale blue light emitted by the force fields.
The sound eventually settled down to a shifting hiss of displaced rubble and sand making its way down the wreck, only occasionally interrupted by the sound of something larger shifting in the mass.
They were alive for now, but Ben knew how precarious their situation was. Atlas was clearly struggling, and Ben had no idea if their access to air had been cut off or not.
Orwell shivered as he looked around, the man's local omniscience clearly giving him a clearer picture on how fucked they were.
"We're the only ones alive in the prison. The ten guards that were present are… no longer with us," Orwell said - clearly trying to find a polite way of saying 'crushed like raspberries'.
"So Shuffle is gone then," he said sombrely. Fuck, Mary had been so young, too young to die so horribly. The guilt that had been gnawing at him since they were captured threatened to overwhelm him. Why had he accepted this mission and dragged his team into it?!
Orwell opened his mouth to say something, only to close it with a grimace - clearly thinking better of what he was about to say. Why? Was her fate truly that terrible that it would affect morale?
A plethora of horrible deaths swam through his mind, with each Mary staring at him in condemnation.
The urge to vomit rose up, but he forced it down through years of practice.
'Don't think about that right now, think of Charlie - you need to think of how to get back home.'The thought centred him, the knowledge that his daughter was waiting for him allowed him to push on.
"Orwell, remote, I'm going to need your eyes for this. Are there any volatile objects around us we'll need to avoid while getting out of here," he asked - speaking quickly as he felt the seconds tick by.
"There's a few pockets of gas. Electrical wires in certain places," Remote said, with Orwell confirming his findings a second later.
"Any above us?" The question received two shakes of their heads, causing him to grin in relief before he turned to the man holding Tom's of metal and rock above their heads.
"Atlas, are you with us?"
The man slowly inched his head towards him, his face beaded with sweat and furrowed into an expression of intense concentration. The man grunted, clearly too focused keeping them alive to speak.
"We're going to try going up, think you can make your shield drilled shaped?"
The man's incredibly stressed expression screamed something along the lines of: 'what the actual fuck.' Still, he complied and slowly the shield that had protected them gained a point and began to elongate. The strain of it drawing loaned grunts from Atlas, they clearly wouldn't have long to do this.
"Pyroclast, think you can start lifting us?"
Pyroclast idly rolled a piece of his namesake between his fingers, looking the most put together out of all of them. "Aye captain," he said, both hands extending as his will seeped into the very stone beneath them.
The rock bubbled as it rose yet, despite this, their footing remained firm. Atlas' shield remained firm even as they began to pierce their way back to the surface and away from this horrible hell.
The journey was long, and Ben honestly couldn't tell whether it had taken ten minutes or ten seconds by the time they finally breached the last wall of rubble that encompassed them.
They squinted as the sun hit their eyes, long weeks -it had been weeks, hadn't it?- of captivity had left them starved of the sun's presence.
Ben would have loved to celebrate, would have loved to whoop and cheer, but unfortunately it appeared as if they had simply stepped from one hell into another. Ben's eyes widened as he spotted a titanic figure glitch out of reality, only to reappear elsewhere as it sent black streaks flying at a distant figure.
Their target, an extremely muscled man wearing fine silks and wielding a bow, moved like a snake as he cut a jagged line through the air - effortlessly dodging the strikes and sending his own in return.
He couldn't tell which was more breath-taking, which was more horrifying.
It appeared even, as if neither of these living calamities could fall to the other. But Ben had lived too long as a cape, seen too much, so he could read the flow of the battle to know well enough that the man with the bow was outmatched.
The pale titan moved lazily, many of the man's arrows even striking the giant true. Yet, of those countless arrows, not a single one could penetrate more than a couple inches, mosquito bites against a titan.
Meanwhile the man was laser focused, taking the fight with all the seriousness it deserved and -most tellingly- he avoided every single black slash that sought him.
One of them could take as many hits as they needed, the other could not.
Another arrow pierced the monster's hide, the arrow breaking upon contact, even if the head bit deep into the being's belly. It set him on edge, yet he couldn't tell why. Sure the thing, whatever it was, was powerful - but that alone shouldn't have-
His eyes widened.
Oh god, they couldn't be that unlucky could they?
"Do you think that thing is here for us, that would be one hell of a way to extract U.S assets," Pyroclast whistled.
For a moment Ben felt confused, unable to understand what the man was getting at. Then it hit him. Did Pyroclast think that thing was a hidden U.S cape? The insane theory should have made him laugh, but all it did was make him feel cold.
"No. No, I highly doubt that's the case. If they had something like that they wouldn't reveal it just to rescue us."
Atlas snorted. "Ain't that the truth."
The battle raged on, but Ben could see the man's dodges growing more desperate by the second - the persistent black line removing avenues of escape from his arsenal, slowly boxing him in.
The archer continued regardless, firing arrows directly into the creatures eye sockets, but if that did anything to impair it the monster certainly didn't show it. A flicker and it was gone, reappearing behind the man.
The robed man, still in the middle of drawing his bow, seemed to sense this and began to duck. He would be too late, Ben could already tell, the man had overcommitted by a hair's breadth.
The spectre of death raised a clawed hand, intent on ending this, only to flicker away again as scorching light passed through where it was.
Ben turned, expecting to find a Blaster, only to feel his mouth turn dry at the sight before him. In gleaming rows stood an entire battalion of gleaming bronze androids, their forms immaculate and all carrying a sparking firearm in both hands.
They turned as one, setting their scopes of the white giant with eerie synchronicity.
"We need to go, while they're still distracted," Ben whispered urgently.
"Go where?" The question made the group jump, as their resident stranger made their presence known. "There's still the barrier, and shuffle was our way out."
"I don't know," he admitted, "but anywhere is better than here. An attack like this will only draw out more of the city's parahumans and I don't want to be here when they get here! So let's move!" At this historic team hurried to comply, moving with as much stealth as their situation afforded.
Ben looked back for a moment, hoping beyond all hope that the giant creature the city was facing wasn't what he thought it was.
An Endbringer attack was not something he was prepared to handle at all right now.
AN: Was travelling when I wrote this. Not sure how pleased I am with it, but regardless this marks part one of the fight within Jinzhou.
So, yeah, Shuffle's Titan shows its chops for the first time. Gets into a fight with one of the twelve paragons, who is Lu Bu, and isn't having much trouble at all. The city has its own defences though, and those are slowly coming online.
What do you think of Mary's new form and powers? What do you guys think of Lu Bu, frankly I was surprised by how much of an asshole he was while researching him.
Thanks for reading, please leave a comment!
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Rebecca Costa-Brown | AlexandriaDragon (Parahumans)Director James TaggEmily PiggotColin Wallis | Armsmaster | DefiantBastion (Parahumans)
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Self-InsertCYOAEndbringerA man finds his hobbyThe rest of the world is terrifiedCausing major wars by accidentTeehee~Misunderstandings
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Published:2025-02-16Updated:2026-02-21Words:227,115Chapters:82/?Comments:555Kudos:1,453Bookmarks:363Hits:86,393
(End)Bringing You A New Home! (Endbringer SI)
10moorem
Chapter 52: Chapter 52: Fierce Battle
Summary:
Taizong continues to be an inscrutable asshole.
Chapter Text
Chapter 52: Fierce Battle
-Lu Bu POV-
Decimation followed their every footfall, their every movement, as Paragon of Jinzhou and Titan battled for supremacy. Spatial ruptures and supersonic arrows making a mockery of the surrounding land as they traded blows.
Lu Bu had managed, with the aid of the automatons, to push the battle away from populated areas and closer to a rural zone of the city. Lu Bu sent a rain of explosive arrows hurtling towards the fiend before him but was parried by regions of altered space, turning dozens of trees into a collection of splinters.
The pale titan flashes forwards, a clawed hand grasping at Lu Bu's heart.
Ching!
A hurriedly drawn sword deflects the blow, the action sending waves of error messages through his systems as he attempts to parry the immense blow.
He is only partially successful, as the hit still sends him flying over the treetops. He lands roughly, rolling across the bare earth and muddying his fine clothes. Lu Bu scowls, he was not as skilled with the sword but it still hurt his pride that his swordsmanship had been proven to be not enough in the face of the monster's brute strength.
He can see scorching rays of light through the branches and leaves, the automatons that obeyed the city's V.I. desperately attempting to divert attention. Alas, the beast didn't even turn to regard them.
For fucks sake, how long had he been fighting this thing?! Surely enough time for reinforcements to show up!
His instincts screamed at him, and he once more lunged to the side. Blackness met his sight, as the section of the forest he was once in was deleted from existence.
He rolled into a crouch, his bow flickering upwards as he let loose another twelve shots in less than a second. The form of the enemy flickered like a heat haze as all shots seemed to bend away from them.
He cursed aloud. Fighting against a very clear master of spatial manipulation as an archer was fucking horseshit! The only way it could worse was if the creature could use that ability to rip him apart from the inside out, a power it had yet to show…for now.
The creature sauntered closer, clearly in no rush and feeling no pressure from his attacks in the slightest.
Lu Bu grimaced, before closing his eyes. His systems greeted him as he quickly rifled through possible solutions. His creator, long may the bitch rot in hell, had left him with more than a few goodies, but unlike the neurotic Taizong Lu Bu had yet to read them all in detail.
So that's what he did, using his accelerated thinking to quickly sort through and memorise everything his body was capable of. Schematics and lists of materials that made up his body, while potentially useful for later, were set aside. Local history and science, made to help him adjust to the current era, were ignored in search of a weapon that could hurt the thing before him.
Then he stumbled upon it. A contingency, something the blue whore had never actually expected he would need – going by her notes on the subject. Yet included it she had. His synthetic pulse leaped as he read through the document.
This would work! Oh, the risks were horrible to be sure! But his situation wasn't exactly winnable without a little risk.
Initiate Overclocking? [Y/N]
He accepted, feeling his reactor roar to life and his electric fibre musculature quicken with extra energy.
Overclocking mode was, in summation, a form of released limits. Usually the twelve Paragons operated exactly at the limit of what their self-repair systems could get away with. This could rise and fall depended on what material they had ingested to fuel such a system, but the results were always far above human baseline.
Yet that was not their limit. Their forms were weaved with magic and legend. The thread that made their muscles were at the maximum possible for tensile strength. Their cores were an endless font of pure power that would put fusion reactors to shame.
Yet their bodies could not keep up with their strength forever. The magic and energy might be unlimited, but physical reality still limited them. Joints would crumble under the pressure exerted upon them. Fibres would snap, tear and melt from the sheer energy pouring through them.
Hence the existence of the limiters placed upon them by their creator.
The ones he had just turned off.
He screamed. The force of it shaking the trees around him and briefly causing the approaching monster to stop and observe him. His skin was blistering, bubbles forming within the life-like polymers that aped at an epidermis. The air around him wavered from the intense heat he was emitting, steam pouring from his open mouth and curling up around his face.
Five minutes. He could fight like a god for five minutes before melting to death.
It would be enough for reinforcements to come. Besides, everybody loves a good self-sacrifice story, it would be much easier to get those fools to trust him with a performance like this. In that sense, he felt oddly thankful to the being before him.
His mouth curled into a demonic looking grin.
The arrows hit the beast, sending it hurtling backwards before it had even seen him drawing his now smoking bow. The projectiles pierced deeper this time, reaching dozens of meters within the hardened hide of the titan.
He crouched, and disappeared. The ground cratered where he had been, only now reacting to his forceful lunge.
He reappeared behind the monster, who was still flying backwards. Another volley killed that momentum, and then another sent it flying back the way it had come.
Lu Bu spit out a smouldering tooth, the piece of synthetic bone bubbling and spitting on the ground – but the archer had already disappeared, a sonic boom heralding his arrival above the creature.
An arrow punctured the beings finger, sending it spinning towards the ground. The impact cratered the earth, uprooting trees and sending pieces of rock flying.
Lu Bu didn't stop, didn't even hesitate. Hesitation was weakness, weakness was death.
Hundreds more arrows rained down, further reshaping the earth and turning a once lush and verdant forest into a wasteland of mud and viscera.
It also obscured the monster from sight, forcing Lu Bu to cycle through his vision setting to once again lock eyes with his prey. A pause that lasted a millisecond.
But a millisecond was far too long on this battlefield.
The fluctuation of air behind him was his first clue something was off. His second was the fist that sent him sprawling across the mud for hundreds of meters. His hand lashed out, grasping at a stray boulder that had fallen here from their furious battle and using to arrest his movement.
He looked up to see the beast leering down at him, the once pale and flawless skin now cracked and burned in hundreds of places. He raised his bow, only to find the fiend at his left instead.
A swipe of the beings claws forced him to dodge, but the sheer force of their passing forced him to stumble – the muddy water at his feet now hissing and bubbling from the heat his burning body was giving off.
Again and again he tried to aim his bow, tried to hit the thing, but it was always just out of reach.
The monster had learned, and was now toying with him.
A claw swipe here, a backhand there. A dozen lazy strikes forcing him to scramble out of the way. He couldn't keep dodging forever, even now he could feel himself slowing down, joints locking up in places – fusing together from the sheer heat he was producing.
Finally a hit connected, a claw speared him through. The sharp edge breaking straight through his half melted chest.
Lu Bu gasped, an action he quickly regretted as smouldering lumps of metal and unnamed fluids leapt from his mouth. He sputtered as the creature raised him high, preparing to cleave him in two.
Lu Bu tried to move, tried to say something. He couldn't, the damage was too much.
He could feel the beasts finger curling, preparing to end it.
Then, the beasts head snapped to the side as a round moving dozens of times faster than the speed of sound struck the beings head. The noise of the hypervelocity slug finally and mercifully destroyed Lu Bu's auditory sensors as he slipped off the monster's blade-like finger.
He fell and hit the earth with a wet sizzle, with only the barest lucidity required to finally halt the overclocking mode.
His core slowed down, energy no longer beat like a drum through him. Molten metal still poured from a dozen opening like blood from a wound, and the hundreds of errors and warning messages told him he was in for a long recovery period.
Lu Bu wasn't in the right state of mind to care. He was still reeling, mind struggling to catch up with what had happened. He could feel thunderous vibrations echoing from the ground he was laying on – the last of his tactile sensors weakly clinging to life.
Darkness approached, emergency shutdown procedures blared into a mind that was too muddled to make sense of what was going on. There was only a choking sensation from where melted metal blocked the passage of his throat. He tried to breathe, a wholly unneeded remnant of humanity.
'Is that you Cao Cao? Ordering my death again? Fucking…coward,' were the last maddened thoughts of a mind once again reliving his death, before his body mercifully shutdown and blackness encroached upon his vision.
When he awoke it would be to an entirely different Jinzhou.
-Jing Ke POV-
"And how is the brute faring," Taizong's lackadaisical question came from the radio at his waist – a very handy invention, that.
"Not great. He's activated his overclocking mode, and while that seemed to work for a while, he's currently on the defensive and is flagging fast," Jing Ke replied matter of factly, as he watched through the scope of his rifle – another great invention of these times.
"That's good, make sure to only intervene if he's about to die." With that last order the radio cut out, leaving Jing Ke in silence.
He truly didn't know what to make of the man. One second he would act with benevolence he would have expected of a buddha and then he would coldly order truly horrendous crimes. The only thing he was sure of was that the man no doubt had his reasons for this order, for keeping reinforcements from reaching Lu Bu in a timely manner.
The man was someone Jing Ke had kept a special eye on, for what should be obvious reasons. The man wasn't overtly tyrannical, and his every action seemed to be for the benefit of Jinzhou, so Jing Ke had not yet turned his blade upon the city's ruler.
How long that would last was anybody's guess.
Through the scope Jing Ke watched the final minutes of Lu Bu's battle against the unidentified parahuman. One that had somehow breached the barrier and circumvented the protection from parahuman powers that the city had been given from their shared benefactor.
He saw every time Lu Bu raised his bow, and every time the tall, pale, figure slidout of the way of his aim with impossible grace. Jing Ke narrowed his eyes, observing every detail with sight that could pin an insect's wings from miles away.
The being wasn't teleporting, though it had shown itself to be capable of it. It also wasn't moving, the motion was too sharp and left no tracks behind – no displaced air or tracks upon the ground.
Jing Ke's eyes widened slightly as he realised what the being was doing.
It was bending space to move! Instead of moving it was forcing the universe to move around it!
It didn't matter how fast Lu Bu was, and he was incredibly swift, not when the pale giant could move as fast as thought.
'Also, that kind of movement completely ignores inertia and friction. I don't think Lu Bu would stand a chance even if he was faster.'
A spear-like finger to the gut settled the showdown, as Lu Bu's broken form was hoisted into the air like some demented trophy.
Jing Ke frowned, orders or not he didn't appreciate someone being treated so disrespectfully. Taizong had better have a good reason for this inaction.
Sure, Lu Bu was rude, smelly, brutish, ugly, arrogant, had bad taste in alcohol, chose a fucking bow instead of getting with the times, called Jing Ke a 'skulking sneaky bitch' one time, kept blaring music at twelve in the morning and-
…Huh, maybe he should let Lu Bu get torn in half?
No, wait, then Taizong would lecture him.
Not worth it, better to save the asshole instead.
He adjusted his scope and aimed towards the skull of the celebrating giant, who was clearly eager to rid itself of an annoying pest. Jing Ke's breathing slowed and the world grew still.
The world became calculations to be solved, not the irrational mess it so often was. Wind speed, distance, velocity and a dozen other factors flittered through his mind, teasing him with possibilities.
Jing Ke wasn't a sniper in life, he had lived long before the invention of such a weapon. Yet it didn't matter, he was more legend and myth than reality at present. He was an assassin, one of the most famed in all of history. So, of course, he knew how to use a gun – he had known even before his database informed him of them.
If only he had one of these back then, maybe he wouldn't have failed.
He let the errant thought slip away, solely focusing on the target before him.
He pulled the trigger, and death was unleashed.
The bullet left the chamber with all the fury of a lightning bolt, tearing across the horizon and snapping back the head of the giant that had sought Lu Bu's death.
Which was understandable, but still not something he could allow.
Lu Bu falling face first into muddy water with his ass pointing directly towards the heavens did much to brighten his mood.
The ashen figure of the giants prone form flickered, and between one blink and the next it had regained it's footing and was now looking directly at Jing Ke. Despite being miles away he had no doubt it saw him clearly.
He gave it a little wave, and then pulled the trigger again.
The air surrounding the titan flickered, space folding upon itself as the creature surrounded itself in a barrier of impossible geometries.
The bullet hit the barrier, swerved as if it had a will of its own, and proceeded to once again nail the giant right between the eyes. For the second time it's head snapped back as the force of a railgun shell knocked it to the ground.
This time it did not immediately rise again, stunned and confused that the bullet had still hit its mark.
As much as Jing Ke wished that he was simply that good, it was not the case. The sniper rifle he was holding in his hand was one personally crafted by Yà Lì Shān Dà, the one who had gripped him tight and raised him from death. As one of her creations he had been gifted with immense strength, speed and durability.
Despite this, when he was first raised, that had done little to lift his blackened mood – for how could it. He had failed after all, he had been unable to kill his target. The most famed Chinese assassin?
What a joke.
He had lamented for days because of that failure, unable to appreciate the second chance he had been given. When Yà Lì Shān Dà had found him in the streets, cursing his inability to get drunk, she had sat down and listened to him. He had cursed her, heaped no end of insults upon her shoulders.
She had taken them all with no complaint, only appearing wearily accepting – as if she had expected it in some fashion.
Then she had talked. Much of it he couldn't remember, the memories too clogged up with malaise and self-induced cranial damage. But a single line cut through the darkness, a single sentence he still remembered to this day.
"I don't know your story Jing Ke, oh I know the history but I don't truly know it. Did you attempt to kill the king in an attempt to save the Yan state? Did you do it for money? Or perhaps you just really disliked King Zheng? Either way, you're letting the past blind you to the realities of the present.
If you wanted to preserve the land that took you in then consider that you now have a new home, one that is once again threatened by a much larger force. If you wished for fame and riches then there is enough here to beggar the people of your time. If you simply hated the ruler of your time then you should know that an even worse ruler is at the head of China now.
Your regret won't fade if you continue down this path, so why not try giving this whole 'guardian' thing a try? If you don't like it, you could always try to kill the current emperor?"
The simple wisdom had left him slightly dumbfounded, but what truly shook off the clouds of misery that had encumbered his sight wasn't that. It was the fact that Yà Lì Shān Dà, someone who likely held more influence than even Taizong, had been willing to lie down in the gutters with him and show him the way out.
For a man so used to rigid hierarchy and orders, with little expectation of reward, it had been…more than he could fathom.
Oh, and then the goddess had gifted him his rifle – spun from thin air – and told him to 'go, do a crime.' He hadn't understood the logic, but had obediently knocked over a trash can on his way back home.
The reminiscence passed in the blink of an eye and, when the titan stood back up to once more observe him, Jing Ke was giving a far more obscene and mocking gesture than a simple wave.
He then proceeded to shoot at it a couple more times, because why not?
-Alexander POV-
"WOOOO! FUCKING SNOW!!!" I whooped in joy as I flung the snow into the air, the frozen water coming back down in clumps which Renji had to step around to avoid being hit.
Y'know, like a bitch.
"This is my first time seeing snow…it is not an unpleasant sight," Renji said, staring at the white powder as if it held the secrets of the universe. "Should we make a snowman? I've read on the internet that that is what you do when it snows."
Or he could just be contemplating snowman building, man his demeanour makes it hard to read him sometimes.
"Well I guess I could magic up some carrots, pebbles and a scarf."
"Don't forget a top hat!"
My lips curled into a indulgent smile at that. "Oh? Snowmen have top hats? That wasn't the tradition where I came from."
Renji nodded, as sure of this sacred snowman building method as he was of gravity. "Yes, top hats only. No other head wear is acceptable."
"Well if that's the case I'll whip one up. Perhaps you should start rolling the snow up while I do that?"
Renji nodded, crouching down to begin building the body before pausing and looking up. "Ahem, on second thought maybe we should be doing something more important? The fate of the world is at stake. Who knows, maybe a catastrophe is unfolding as we speak!" Renji's cheeks were slightly flushed as he said this, perhaps only noticing now the childishness of the situation.
I waved him off, not willing to let Renji miss a moment of fun for some far off worry.
"Renji, as much as I meme on Earth Bet, there's absolutely no way things have gone to shit so bad we'd have to stop this. Seriously we're fine, just go have fun!"
With that last piece of encouragement Renji turned back to rolling snowballs while I began weaving matter into different forms of clothing. Today was a good day.
AN: Epic battle POG! Let me know how the fight scene went, because I wasn't too impressed with my last attempt and I'd like to know if this was better. I think it was, but who knows?
So, another paragon takes to the field and you all get a good look at their power levels. If I had to give an exact WOG on how strong the Paragons are I'd say Triumvirate+ (not counting Eidolon) in that they can fight an Endbringer level opponent on even footing for a while, one on one, and not lose immediately. Because make no mistake, if it had been an army of parahumans fighting Mary's Titan so many of them would have died in the first minute.
In other news Alexander and Renji finally get to the South Pole and immediately begin to fuck around!
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Work Header
Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning:
Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Category:
Gen
Fandom:
Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Relationship:
Alexander/City Building
Characters:
Rebecca Costa-Brown | AlexandriaDragon (Parahumans)Director James TaggEmily PiggotColin Wallis | Armsmaster | DefiantBastion (Parahumans)
Additional Tags:
Self-InsertCYOAEndbringerA man finds his hobbyThe rest of the world is terrifiedCausing major wars by accidentTeehee~Misunderstandings
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:2025-02-16Updated:2026-02-21Words:227,115Chapters:82/?Comments:555Kudos:1,453Bookmarks:363Hits:86,393
(End)Bringing You A New Home! (Endbringer SI)
10moorem
Chapter 53: Chapter 53: Broken Shields
Summary:
Mary wants off this crazy ride.
Also: Danger Noodle.
Chapter Text
Chapter 53: Broken Shields
-Mary/NOMAD/It's complicated POV-
Mary screams, only she isn't sure she does. Her body remains as quiet as the grave as dozens of shells impact across her body. Each hits a vital area, cracking her form, and yet none truly hurt her – only causing a faint ache, as if the pain was a scream was muffled behind a wall of fabric. Present, but far away.
She was both present, and not. She blinked, and her vision returned to the inky darkness of the other place. A flash like a synapse firing revealed endless islands of crystals turning upon themselves. Another blink and she was back in Jinzhou, her body foreign and her power godlike.
Yet it wasn't her power anymore, perhaps it never had been.
An arm - that wasn't her arm – moved without her will and sent a scintillating wave of black nothingness towards the sniper. It didn't travel, not truly, one second the world was clear and pristine, the next it was as if something had taken a black brushstroke to reality itself.
The opponent, whoever they were, clearly weren't dissuaded – landing shots across the city with uncanny accuracy. This time they aimed for her joints, understanding that they would be unable to truly harm her – instead aiming to slow her down. Her body buckled, but didn't fall.
Distantly she felt an alien anger pressing against her, the sheer all-encompassing nature of that mind threatening to swallow her up. It wasn't an anger aimed at her, that she knew, and it wasn't even meant to be shared with her. Its thoughts were simply too vast for her not to hear. They thundered against her like a wave of pure thought and energy.
It didn't understand why the fragments of metal were hitting it. It had attempted to divert them away, freeze them in place and even shunt them into another dimension. Instead the bullets swerved back, refused to be stopped and even broke through dimensional locks in order to hit their form.
And it couldn't understand why. The bullets were well made, beyond the capabilities of the host species (the host species?) to make, but they were still ordinary lumps of metal. There was no higher order dimensionality, no outside interference detected, so why was it happening?!
Mary felt a sharp pain race through her as the creature's thoughts once more bled into her own.
Without thought she lashed back.
'Does it matter?' She yelled back, feeling like an ant facing a typhoon. 'It doesn't matter how, we just know it's going to hit us regardless of what we do! So why not use that power of yours to make sure it doesn't matter that they can hit us, make us tougher or something!'
She felt the mind slow, processing the influx of data, and she realised with a slow creeping horror that this thing had hear her. She was just yelling in frustration, it wasn't meant to actually listen to her!
The projectiles came once more, the crack of sonic booms only heralding their arrival after they had hit. But this time it was different, now the piercing nanometal heads of the rounds failed to penetrate at all – glancing of their body without so much as a scratch.
Mary knew how it had done this, too. Just before impact it had…removed space between atoms? No, shortened the space between the atoms of it's outer shell – all while being careful to make sure they didn't touch. There was more to it too, math that didn't make sense - that hurt her to even try to comprehend. Yet she understood the basics.
The thing had spatially locked it's own skin in place, and was still moving despite that.
Mary could feel the endless, almost certainly neurotic, calculations happening to facilitate this effect. How the thing was carefully shifting the spatial position of each atom with every picosecond that passed.
The sniper was now of no effect to them, and Mary felt a deep well of possessive pride that she knew was aimed at her. She had no physical form but she nevertheless felt a shiver run down her spine, the icy grip of fear holding her tight.
Had she just made this thing stronger?
No, the idea was banished as soon as it arrived – for she could feel the insane, almost endless, well of power that the creature held. The first time she had felt it was when they had broken through her prison. The feeling made her choke, she had never felt anything like it. Enough energy to scorch the planet to cinders, enough that she couldn't imagine anything being able to stand up to it.
Except that wasn't the case.
She blinked, returning to the ocean of black. Upon that turbulent storm of nonexistence she could see crystalline towers and eldritch light pulsate like some profane heart.
She looked down, whatever she used for eyes in this place locking on to the red crystal floor. The light refracted in those crystals showed her other worlds, other universes. So many different places passing like a frenzied blur. Yet there was more.
In that crystal that was a world, that was a god, that was a child, that was a tiny fraction she saw herself. She saw the being she was attached to. She saw the terrible power.
And as she looked back to those lone islands she knew they were not alone, and in that realisation she felt nothing but horror.
Just one of these things was a being no amount of humans could understand, a thing capable of destroying everything she had ever known and ever will know. Only kept in place by arcane rules she didn't understand, and whose existence spoke of higher entities – ones that could enforce these rules.
She choked, a desperate aborted sob laugh catching in her throat.
She blinked again, eager to return to her tiny world and remain ignorant.
The fight wasn't going well for the sniper, they were still hitting the being she was increasingly believing was her power but the shots did nothing. All the while her power was prowling closer and closer with each fired bullet.
She wondered why it didn't just teleport itself to him, why it didn't erase the distance like she knew it could. Perhaps it was attempting to scare the irritant that it still couldn't understand, or perhaps it was to lure any further tricks out before it crushed him and moved on to the rest of Jinzhou.
She was conflicted at that notion. On the one hand this city had been the place she had suffered far more than she had ever believed she could, each day a twisted parody of her trigger event. She felt fury, a reckless hatred that demanded the city to burn.
On the other hand, Jinzhou's apathetic cruelty almost seemed comforting, familiar, in the face of the awesome scale she had just been introduced to. The alien emotions was horribly worse to her, the possessive mix of cruelty and love reminded her of all the worst of her mother - while reaching extremes she simply couldn't fathom.
The man her body was hunting down, was running now. He eschewed the rooftops and clambered into the forest. His shots were no longer hitting them, though not for lack of accuracy. He was instead aiming to create rubble and wreckage in their path, to slow them down.
It didn't avail him.
In the end he was forced to run to the edge of the barrier that had shielded Jinzhou from reprisal, his back pressed against the obsidian walls that marked the border of this land.
The being crept closer, the mind attached to her crooning in an atavistic hunger.
Now that they were almost close enough to touch, she could see the man for the very first time. The man was swaddled in rich light blue robes, the decadence of his clothing contrasted sharply with the image of the cold pragmatic man she had been expecting.
His features were pleasing to the eye, but not in the way the bowman's had been, all muscle and appearing as if he had stepped out of a hero's storybook. This one's were more understated, plain even. There were no flaws, everything perfectly symmetrical, yet somehow her eyes seemed to occasionally wander off his face.
A stranger effect, then.
The man knew he was trapped, eyes searching for escape routes, while clutching his rifle tightly. Yet, it was rather hard to escape from a being that can control space, each opening was little more than an illusion.
Her power, her other half, was almost exuding gleeful bloodlust. It was a feeling, she realised, that was the closest to human she had ever felt from the eldritch horror. It felt primitive, almost base that such a mighty creature could feel such a thing - yet it did.
Her body raised it's clawed hand, intent on finishing it. The hand hung in the air for but a moment, the other mind still wondering if the sniper had anymore tricks up his sleeve, before it sliced down.
Snap!
The swipe went wide as something collided with them, Mary having just enough time to see the sniper's panicked expression melt away into a pleased smile.
A trick, she realised.
The other half realised it too, as the body reeled and tried to claw at whatever was forcing them through the spatial barrier. The attacks hit nothing as they were pulled further and further away.
Mary could feel her power sending panicked queries to others of its kind, requesting further computation power, more powerful scans of the area. For the shard could not uncover the mechanism behind their forceful ejection from the city.
From the indentations upon their form, it concluded something large and with teeth was dragging them along with it. Yet to all their many sensors it was not present. Electromagnetic, thermal, gravitational, higher dimensional lensing, none of them worked!
Mary once more felt a jolt of fear, or was it joy, at the idea.
One thing was for sure, this creature – whatever it was – craved destruction. Not out of malice or hate, but simply because it believed that it was the best way forwards. It had stolen her body and freedom, made the worst day in her life infinitely worse by its mere presence – and yet she could tell it adored her, wished to protect her from anything.
Whatever was left of her shuddered at the thought, if this is what it could do to someone it cared about then what would it do to anyone else?
No, this thing had to be stopped. That was clear.
But she couldn't do it, she was little more than a bird trapped in a cage. The only play she could do at this point was to refuse to help.
She remembered the fight against the sniper, how it had struggled to adapt and kept repeated the same tired strategy over and over. Until she had made a suggestion, not expecting to be heard. Once the idea was put forwards it had used it with ruthless precision, turning what should have been a hard fought slog into a one sided hunt.
So, despite wanting to see, she blinked once again and found herself among the isles wrapped in darkness.
Her form, the avatar she was permitted to use in this place, sat upon an outcrop of spiralling crystals and curled into a ball. Her head rested against her knees, the feeling unpleasant in how different it was from how it should have been – too hard and cold. She closed her eyes and attempted to drown out the information, the fight, her experiences, all of it.
Until the fight was over the thing that had taken her freedom would get no help from her.
- Lán sè POV-
The dragon swam without movement, riding on invisible currents that some might call 'The Dragon's Way' or perhaps 'Leylines'.
The concepts were the same.
The veins of life and magic were immature, still. The wellspring of energy that was its master's domain had yet to truly breathe life into this stagnant world.
Lán sè was aware of it's nature, of the fact that it wasn't real – or hadn't been at least. For Lán sè was an amalgamation of all dragons the creator had access to.
It could remember it's many heads being decapitated and a sword being pulled from the cadaver that remained.
He remembered leaving drained lakes in his wake, his feud against the king of heaven legendary.
She remembered being blessed by a sun god, a dragon shaped mark on her shoulder and a transformation into a being that dwelled in the oceans.
It remembered all of this and more.
Yet, the fragmentary nature of it's existence only made the cracks wide enough to see the flaws. The masses that lacked faces, the motivations that seemed so one-dimensional and the endings that were so abrupt and sharp you could cut steel with them.
It's nature was something it had gone to great lengths to ponder, as it napped in the shade of trees. It was something it pondered even now, as it dragged a twisted and broken soul alongside it.
The being tried in vain to escape, to fight back. Even now Lán sè could feel the disturbances in base reality attempting to grasp at his form, yet reality could not touch what was currently only fantastical in nature.
So it swam, the creature locked between it's jaws as it raced with it's back to the city. It swam away from the ocean of life that was Jinzhou and plunged into the cool nascent rivers that spiralled away from it's home.
But quickly those rivers became mere streams, which dried to puddles and then to the hint of water before nothing at all.
With a sudden, painful, jolt the dragon was forced out of nonexistence and into the real. The skull-like head of it's prisoner locking onto it the moment it became corporeal. It struck, the blow cracking their ribs and splitting scales. Black blood dripped down the long pale limbs of the entity as it wound back to deliver another hit.
Lán sè allowed it, grunting in pain at the sensation but not allowing the creature to leave it's jaws – even going so far as to contest it's efforts to teleport with it's own reserves of energy.
A clawed hand rent bloody stripes against it's flesh. Another punch crushed an artificial organ. An errant kick carved a rend in it's flesh and pulled out ligaments. A spatial tear cut them to the bone, exposing the grey metal of it's skeleton. A hundred blows just like these rained down upon them without mercy or pause.
Again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again an again and again and again!
Yet Lán sè kept moving.
It could feel the confusion of the thing it held in it's jaws. The damage it had wrought had turned Lán sè into little more than a broken skeleton with curtains of flesh and blood dripping off their frame. Nothing had been spared the wrath of the space manipulator's blows.
By all rights it should be dead dozens of times over. The horrid thing had faced two paragons before it and had ended it's fights with them in only a few minutes, yet here Lán sè was still alive and moving after almost half an hour of constant abuse.
While the monster did not understand, Lán sè knew full well what was going on.
The creator had left them all with gifts upon their creation. Some gained enhanced intelligence, others gained an inability to miss as well as a stranger rating, but he gained something even more special.
It wasn't their knowledge of magic and Leylines, that was simply a result of practice and plenty of free time to indulge.
No, much like every other Paragon, Lán sè was empowered by its legend – if in a very specific way. With their nature as a multifaceted being gaining the traits of any one dragon had been an impossibility – even for the one who had lovingly crafted them. Instead Lán sè had gained a trait most dragons were known for, a legend that could be found even in a children's storybook.
A dragon could only be slain by a hero.
A built in weakness, and a shield against anything else. A conceptual defiance of death with the exception of fatal strikes landed by heroes.
This creature, whatever it was, was certainly no hero. Thus it couldn't land that final blow to put them down for good. It could shed their blood, break their bones and leave them a desiccated husk – but that was it. So long as Lán sè's will endured he would not fall.
Lán sè kept swimming through the air, their languid pace giving no indication of the agony they were in – but it was fine. No amount of pain would force him to drop this creature until it was safely out of their lands. That was the promise it had sworn, to be the protector of Jinzhou – as their creator intended.
Another blow struck, and Lán sè winced slightly despite himself. Then they blinked in surprise when they felt no pain.
What? Were his nerves of steel and circuit finally destroyed?
Lán sè glanced down, expecting to find the creature's fist having broken another section of their body. Yet, as their eyes peered down, they briefly shuddered in shock at what they saw.
Instead of ripping through more the dragon's hide the claws had wrung a blow against space itself, black spiderweb cracks running across the air where it had struck. The sky shivered against the blow, and Lán sè could feel the quivers of reality against the violation the pale being had wrought.
What was it doing? Is it simply throwing a tantrum?
The claws gripped tightly to the space around it, even as it was dragged along – drawing a jagged line through space that split open into an abyss of nothing.
Lán sè was confused, bewildered even, as he had not expected what seemed like petulant rage from a creature that had seemed so cold and methodical.
The being's other hand reached out to do the same, another rip in reality was formed and caused Lán sè's eyes to narrow in frustration.
Then they widened as something that Lán sè had felt their entire life came undone. The intricate interplay of magic and meaning that wove together the barrier started to come undone. The fragile threads, as thin as gossamer, snapped under the strain of the screaming voids the monster was tearing into the fabric.
Of course, where else would his creator embed the magic than in the very space around Jinzhou itself!
The thing might not be able to sense or understand magic, but it clearly knew enough about space to understand how fragile such massive manipulations of it could be!
Lán sè snarled, the deep bass growl erupting from his clothed mouth in a burst of heat and fire – charring and melting the skin of the creature. Yet, in an ironic reversal of their previous exchange, Lán sè's efforts were ignored – the creature simply continuing to rip and tear at the innards of reality itself.
The air quaked, light dimmed and brightened at random. The sky itself seemed to scream in protest.
Then, with the sound of a shattering mirror, the barrier that shielded Jinzhou vanished.
AN: Duh Duh Duh! So Mary's titan has been pushed out of Jinzhou without any casualties, ignore Lu Bu, but apparently a spatial barrier might be vulnerable to large scale rips and tears in it's foundations. Who'd have thought?
Mary's still around and has a front row seat to things. Also may have given her shard the idea of replicating Alexandria's shtick. So, in an effort to not help the obvious eldritch abomination, she's begun minding her own business.
We'll be getting back to Alexander and Renji next update!
Thanks for reading and please leave a comment!
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