Chapter 5

I laid back on my bed, clutching my head. Communicating was far more taxing on the mind then I had anticipated, the only reason I was able to was because of the various mental powers I had bought. Even after gaining the processing power of a super computer, Zion still far outclassed me in terms of sheer intellect. It may not be creative but it was frighteningly smart.

I turned to the side, trying to find a good position to relieve the pain. However the migraine was extremely persistent. I promised myself a few days of rest to recover. I believed I had earned it after pre-emptively stopping a multiversal genocide. So, as I began to contribute nothing to society for a few days, I thought over what I had done and how close I had come to actually failing.

I had underestimated Zion, that much was obvious. If I had kept talking with it for any longer my mind would have shut down and I'm not sure my immortality could have prevented me becoming a vegetable. After all, in that state, I would still be living.

It truly bothered me how close I got to losing myself.

Thankfully I managed to bullshit my way out of that situation and succeed. I let a dumb grin stretch across my face as I considered this.

'Booyah, I'm a badass' I thought, giving myself a mental pat on the back.

I had tricked Zion into thinking that the device I had given him created energy ex nihilo. However that was not the purpose of that device. Using Divine Engineer I made it to sap energy out of another universe, one outside of Zion's range. Zion only had access to this section of the multiverse, while the machine drew power from a different section of the multiverse.

Zion would eventually figure this out... in a few billion years.

Still, that was one part of my plan done, Next would be dealing with Eidolon and the endbringers. I, once again, felt a spike of raw pain in my head and groaned.

'Not just yet' I thought to myself, as I closed my eyes.

/Line Break/

My cape persona Belial had gotten a lot more credibility after superheroes were understood by the General Public to be real. I realised this as soon as a common thug wet himself after I appeared in front of him, stopping his attempted mugging.

"OH GOD, PLEASE DON'T EAT ME" He screamed loudly, while trying to curl into a ball.

Understandably, I was disappointed and disgusted. I hadn't even invaded his mind yet, I sighed before telepathically ordering him to sleep. The man crumpled over into his own piss. 'Eww' I thought, while scrunching up my nose.

The sound of running feet, quickly alerted me to the fact that the victim had quickly left the alley. I suppose it wasn't surprising, the general opinion on me was that I was either an unstable child with too much power or a vigilante that had no problem holding back.

Either one was frightening to the Public, as it showed them how unstable this city truly was. The fact that I appeared to be a child also worried them.

Oh and the obvious fact that my name was associated with the Devil, that too.

The PRT, when they got me, would likely try to force me to join, due to my power and the multiple people I have left as vegetables in my wake. Of course the real reason was to give 'normal people' a sense of safety, even if that safety was horribly false and misplaced. I scoffed inwardly, though outwardly my smile never wavered.

'They can try' I thought vehemently to myself, I did not appreciate anyone attempting to control me. Besides it's not like they could hold me, after all to escape any situation all I had to do was die and I would eventually respawn somewhere else. Not even the Birdcage would hold me.

I quickly left the scene of the crime, The victim had likely already called the police about the situation. After all, the police wanted me to answer some 'questions', a nice way of saying they wanted to lock me up.

However before I could an honest to God dumpster hit me at what felt to be 70 miles per hour. I was flung out of the alley way and into the street. I stood up shakily and looked around for whoever did that.

Many people were pointing at me and speaking in hushed tones. One asshole even had a primitive camera out and was filming!

Because of that phone I couldn't use my Illusionist as my power only affected the senses not electronics. If I used my illusions the people would undoubtedly work out one of my powers.

I used Shapeshifter to turned my legs, which were stil hidden by my cloak, into many tentacles. This allowed me to get up extremely fast and gracefully, inhumanly so. I was really hoping the cameras picked that up, that bit of Shakespeare was for them after all.

I quickly determined the man who had thrown the dumpster, he was so out of place it wasn't even funny. He was dressed in what appeared to be the rags of a military uniform. Also he was buff, really buff. Not the good kind of buff , but the WTF kind of buff. He was also holding another dumpster.

"You messed with the wrong people, kid" the man threatened lowly.

'Wait, so Taylor got Lung as her first fight and I get this shitty excuse for a villain!' I thought indignantly.

Judging from the look of him he was a mid class Brute. 'Cute' I dryly thought to myself, still how was I going to deal with this joker. I could easily crush his mind or punch at Mach 1. But somehow these seemed inadequate to me. 'My flair for the dramatics is going to get me killed one day' I thought wryly to myself, oh well been there done that.

I mentally reached out to the points I had gotten from both war God and Ancient Mysteries and traded them in for a power that would help me waste this stupid son of a bitch.

Telekinesis.

The Brute heaved the dumpster at me at impressive speeds. It froze an instant before it would hit me and then shot back at the Brute twice as fast. He didn't have time to act before he was hurled of his feet and thrown into a building, leaving a pretty deep impression.

To someone without super fast reflexes it must have looked pretty impressive to see a child kicking a grown man's ass. To me, however, what was truly impressive was the lack of survival instincts some people had, why are they still here?

The man groaned and tried to get back up, before suddenly finding Gravity was twenty times heavier than it was before. I started to slowly float towards him, my smile still in place, while continually increasing the gravity around him. When I got to him I looked down and began to show him my displeasure by filling his mind with agonising pain. The sound of his pained screams were fairly interesting, but got boring soon. I stopped my attack on his mind and instead telekinetically grabbed him and held him aloft.

I stared at him for a while, before putting him to sleep. If these people were smart they would call the police to restrain him, if not the too bad. 'It's not my job to hold their hans and coddle them' I justified to myself.

/Line Break/

While there was no internet to speak of here, the news of my brutal takedown had become international thanks to newspapers. So now I was the poster child for ruthless vigilantes everywhere, yay.

There were talks going on about trying to stop such behaviour in the future when it came to Parahumans. They were using me as the justification they needed. 'Did I just start the PRT early?' I thought to myself confusedly. Was I just responsible for the creation of a corrupt organization, one that would allow villains to walk free and allow heroes to bully normal people?

'Nah' I thought to myself.

Cauldron was likely doing it and using my case to further their agendas. Zion may be gone now, but the world was still in danger of parahumans going wild. The PRT was their solution to this, an organization designed to control these superhumans.

Speaking of which, since I planned to deal with the Endbringers the unwritten rules will never happen. I could not see any way of stopping this, so I just decided to leave it to Contessa and her path to victory. It was her turn to save the world!

It was currently 1988 and in in 1992 Behemoth would appear and begin wrecking shit. So I had four years to execute my plan: Operation Epiphany! Yes, it's called that for a reason and no I won't tell you just yet.

However, right now, I had an infinitely more important task to do and I was determined to complete it. No matter the cost!

/Line Break/

I eventually found my prey on a boat, he was younger than expected. However this would not deter me, I muttered a quick prayer for the poor young boy before walking towards him.

"Daniel Hebert?" I asked him. The boy turned around and looked at me curiously.

"yes, sir?" He asked me. What a polite boy, it was a shame I had to do something so cruel to him. However I decided to have a little fun with him before I 'dealt' with him permanently.

"first things first, can you say kiddo for me?" I asked him with a grin

"Why?"

"Please, just do it"

"... Kiddo, there are you happy? Why did you make me say that anyway" He asked irritably at what appeared to be a nonsensical request, the poor fool.

I snickered a bit, before answering him.

"Well, you may as well say it once" I said to him solemnly

He opened his mouth before he froze and started to let out a high pitched whine before collapsing.

...That may or may not have been because I kicked him in the balls.

And again.

And again.

And again

And again.

At this point he was just silently crying while holding his ruined nutsack. I'm aware that I was going against the one true religion: 'thou shalt not kick another man in the scrotum' but... it's for a good reason, I swear!

Looking down at him I wondered if I had gone to far and let my fear of Taylor Hebert blind me to the sheer horror that I was committing. Where had my morals gone t-.

'Oh wait! I don't have morals. Silly Matthew'

I then began to telekinetically crush his balls further.

Then rip them off.

Then destroy them altogether with my Eldritch Abomination power.

...

I swear, there's nothing wrong with me.

/Line Break/

Finally, after the dirty deed was done, I looked down at the poor traumatised youth. He looked up at me and while he didn't speak I could understand the intent behind them.

'Why'

I solemnly clapped my hand onto his shoulder and said to him in a soft voice "It was for a good cause, the best cause".

I then, in all my mercy, began to erase this horrible meeting from his mind. I began to skip away, feeling much better. I even began to hum a quiet song to myself. I turned around and said the most encouraging thing I could, in this instance.

"Enjoy life as a eunuch, kiddo!"

/Line Break/

You know, superpowers are awesome. Everyone knows this. What isn't awesome is the price paid for them. My home is out of my reach forever, even with Divine Engineer. Without the dimensional coordinates of my home I would just be searching endlessly. Even if I found a universe that was exactly like my own, odds are that it would still not be where I came from.

And Mom and Dad would still be crying.

Thankfully it was getting easier to ignore the hollow feeling of regret. I often forced myself to forget. But not forever, never forever. Despite the pain that came with remembering them, I would reminisce on the memories. I would do this once a year, every year. On the date I had arrived in this world.

I had to do this now, in a few days I would be confronting Eidolon. I would need a clear head if I wanted to execute this right. After Hero died, which hasn't happened yet, Eidolon spent most of his time around Houston. At the moment he wasn't exactly in one fixed location, which meant tracking him was hard.

Fortunately I knew Eidolon was about to do a PR event in New York. This would take place in a few days.

Many people would call me crazy for going up against Eidolon in his prime. Hell, I would agree with them! Eidolon's power was insane even when he was 'weakened'. When he was at his best, during Golden Morning, he was able to force Zion to use his Path to Victory just to kill him. and, as we all know, Zion does not fuck around.

No, a full on fight with Eidolon would force me to use Eldritch Abomination, nobody wanted for that to happen.

However I was a cheating cheater who cheats, I had a special advantage that Eidolon lacked.

'Isn't that right, David' I thought to myself, with a grin.

/Line Break/

"Shit! Another wrong one" I muttered angrily to myself.

At the moment I was stalking the streets of New York, passively scanning people's minds to see if they were called David. If they were then I focused all my attention on them to see if they were Eidolon.

I had found 23 people who were called David and none of them were Eidolon. It was infuriating!

I could technically do this, since the unwritten rules didn't exist just yet. People were unsure of which laws should be in place for Parahumans, except the obvious ones. People being slow to accept change would work to my advantage here.

Except it wasn't, because I couldn't find him!

I breathed heavily through my nose, in an attempt to douse my anger. I suppose I had to go with plan B then, which was unfortunate as it would take a while longer. I started walking back to my Hotel, before stopping and looking around.

'Have I been here before?' I thought to myself, confused. I spent a few seconds contemplating this before shrugging. I had never been in New York before, it was likely the similar architecture that reminded me of something.

Either way it was odd that I was having a sense of Deja-Vu when I had Divine Memory, very odd indeed.

I continued walking.

/Line Break/

I had to wait for the PR event. I thought Worm fanfics had been wrong about how horrible it was. I was right.

It's worse!

They kept droning on about the same things: trust, responsibility, protecting the people, blah blah blah.

'Just get to the part where Eidolon comes out, for the love of God!' I thought. I was usually more patient than this, but it had already been going on for about an hour. I groaned softly before listening in, just in case the speaker said something useful amidst the usual rubbish.

"-nd so the Protectorate will be working hard to protect you, the public. In the short time that they have been ar-" I promptly stopped listening, I swear I had heard this at least five times before.

I jolted up in my seat for a second, a horrible feeling of incoming doom suddenly swept me up. The only way to describe it was intense. It was like I had just felt my own death. I waited, tense and ready to fight. I waited.

I must have waited for at least ten minutes before the feeling dissipated. I slumps into my seat, utterly confused. 'What the hell was that?' I thought to myself, but I could think of no explanation. The only thing I did know was that something was very wrong and I was out of the loop.

"-oud to ask Eidolon to come up and give a speech" The speaker said, while handing the microphone over to Eidolon. I looked up before sighing in relief. The sooner this was done, the sooner I could go home and try to discover the source of that feeling. Eidolon began to speak, without raising the microphone to his face once. Despite this,his voice was clearly heard by everyone. He had a calm yet powerful voice. I had to admit his speaking skills were impressive and made me wonder how good Legend was, since he was supposedly better.

I summoned up the points I had left from War God, a measly twelve points. However it was enough for my purposes.

Apex Predator.

This power drastically increased my senses to superhuman levels. Most notably my nose. I took a deep breath through my nose, taking in all the scents around me. Eventually I found Eidolon's.

Got You.

I quietly snuck away from the rest of the speech, that was an hour of my life I'm not going to waste.

/Line Break/

I stared down at Eidolon, or David, as he was sleeping. I gently reached out with a telepathic probe. David's life flashed before my eyes, it was it pitiable life. He was forever stuck in a wheelchair, suffering from random seizures and never once feeling in control. I shook my head and moved away from his memories. I was looking for something deeper, much deeper than memories.

I dived into his subconscious, the place was a mess. It was full of insecurities and inferiority complexes. I sighed and looked around. After a minute filing through his subconscious, I had found it.

Give me worthy opponents.

Yeah... Let's get rid of that.

I spent a full ten minutes destroying that small section of his mind, along with various complexes it was attached to. However my work wasn't done just yet, it would be dangerous to leave a hole in his mind. He could use said hole to regain what was lost. Or he could just shut down.

So I filled the hole with something else, something that came from me. One of the last shreds of innocence I had left. I filled his subconscious with the need of seeing a better tomorrow, of hope, of determination and of something I knew since I was a child.

This world needs more heroes.

Like that, I left him. Hopefully he would be a better person after this. I had wiped away the subconscious command for the Endbringers and replaced it with another one.

I grinned as I wondered what they would be called now, after all Endbringers wouldn't fit them. Boy, people were going to be surprised when they figure out that giant monsters are saving people instead of destroying cities like a regular Kaiju would.

Of course my real reasons for doing this was a bit more selfish.

'Now Leviathan will never stop anime' I cackled in my head.

Indeed after Kyushu, Japan had just kinda... fell apart.

But not anymore! No one could stop the rise of anime!

*Insert maniacal laughter here*

/Line Break/

When I finally got back to Brockton Bay I decided to celebrate, in the only way I knew how: beating the shit out of criminals while disguised as a child!

I started to laugh for no reason, as I telekinetically threw one grunt into another grunt. I kept using that same criminal to beat up the rest of them, it was very cathartic.

However I still hadn't discovered the reason behind that feeling of danger from New York. I didn't have Sixth Sense, so that couldn't be it. I had also used my Healing Hands on myself but I was perfectly fine. It was extremely vexing, hence why I was being a little more cruel and unusual today.

"I'll beat a motherfucker with another motherfucker" I laughed out loud, before promptly throwing my 'weapon thug' at one of his buddies

Did I just create that meme on Earth Bet?

I was not sorry.

END of chapter.

jdboss1 - thank you for that long review.

Creus - Thank you for your review, Telekinesis is terrifying huh?

Kolarthecool - You, my good man have just given me a great idea for an Omake.

The looming threat of the Hebert genes, part 1.

As Matthew was walking away, he didn't notice a change had occurred in Daniel Hebert. Stars exploded in his eyes and he had the vision of two creatures beyond imagination or scope. Fragments of these creatures were breaking off and one headed straight for Daniel Hebert.

Danny would later wake up covered in blood, but completely fine.

Shortly after that, he realised he had gained the ability to control his own cells to an astounding degree. This gave him a potent healing factor and superhuman strength and toughness.

The one who caused this skipped on, oblivious.

If he had hosted a shard as well, he may have realised what had happened (as he would be knocked out while in close proximity to someone triggering).

If he had been wiser, he would have thought to double tap.

Unfortunately, for him, he was both a Demigod and a fool, so neither of these occurred.

Stay tuned for part two!

END of chapter