"Did you get a time, beyond, tonight?" I asked slowly, now that I had thought about it. Could exactly show up for something not knowing the time.

"Uh, No. The time that was given was tonight." Dauntless kicked a stray pebble with his boots. "This may be a problem."

I shrugged, "Nah, we just head there now. We'll make it in plenty of time, if we're early, we just wait."

"Wait a moment while I pull up the directions. I've only been there a couple of times." Dauntless stuck his hand in a pouch on his left side. I never would have seen it if he hadn't used it. The hero grunted as he fished around in the pouch, it wasn't long before he pulled out his phone.

Dauntless muttered to himself something about a cracked screen as he played around with the phone.

"It isn't fair. Only several miles south."

So the way we came, out of ABB territory.

Silence overcame us, only to be broken by a faint beeping coming from Dauntless' phone.

Dauntless seemed alarmed for a second before his face reset to its usual stoicness.

"I have to take this." the hero left me his hand at the side of his helmet.

I shrugged, I didn't care if he took calls.

I bent down, replaying my fight with Lung. In that fight, it was the first time I showed that I wasn't limited to human appendages. But before that, in my cell, I perfectly replicated a human body from my understanding. Even down to the cells, could I do that on a whim? I looked at my hand. With a single thought, the hand transformed in that of a human. Curious I shifted my other hand into a blade. Running it along my human hand caused the human hand to bleed. But just as the blood appeared it disappeared, the self-inflicted wound healed.

I stood up satisfied if there was a way to stop the regeneration. I could mimic a human if I needed to.

Once again I thought back to my fights, in my second fight with ABB I changed what I was made of. In that fight, I had made myself more solid. If I remembered correctly I had also bled in my first fight. I could revert back, but was being more solid a bad thing?

If I made myself lighter would I be able to fly with the wings I had in the fight with Lung? Of course, I was going to shelve that idea for now. It was not the time to test if I could fly.

I glanced at Dauntless, he was a ways away. Even over the distance, I could hear him talk adamantly into the phone. Wonder who he is talking to?

Still, no one had responded to the obvious destruction of a building in the city. Granted, this thing may be going on around the city.

I shrugged and continued rethinking my fights. Before my latest escape, I had been restricting myself to a mostly humanoid shape. Wings and four arms were still humanoid. I could probably turn into some horrible monster on whim alone.

But why didn't I? Because I was comfortable with what I was. One day I knew I would be forced to turn into something monstrous. Then again why restrict me to sentient shapes? I could turn into a cube, imagine it, killer demon cube from hell!

No, that was stupid, no killer cube.

I still need to find a way to be more combat efficient. Throwing the spears were good and all but they were big and bulky. Using a shield as a frisbee was good, maybe if I downsized that?

My mental stream of thought was interrupted by Dauntless throwing his phone across the road. That's one way of hanging up, I guess.

I settled for raising a nonexistent eyebrow, "what was that?" One day I need to get actual eyebrows.

"My team leader."

I frowned, he must have a very bad working relationship with his team leader. "And?"

Dauntless expression soured even more, "And the PRT director."

The PRT was the ones that sprayed me with that sickly yellow stuff and stuck me in the cell. "What did they want?"

"Me, they want me to step out of the field." Dauntless shook his head, "They want all the heroes to do nothing while they formulate a plan."

While I could see the intelligence in doing that. I didn't believe that now was the time for the heroes to step back. Really they need to be out here hit the problem head-on, formulating while on the offensive.

I knew his answer but I wanted to hear him say it. "What did you say?"

"No, that I was working on getting rid of the villain already." he chuckled, "They didn't like that."

"So, no changes to the plan?" I asked, hopefully, nothing would have changed.

The hero shook his head, "No, the plan will stay the same. We may be approached by my team leader though." He gave me a look, "If that happens I'll do the talking."

What did he have against me doing the talking? "Sure, can do."

Dauntless grunted in acceptance, "Now we need to get to Somer's Rock."

With that, the hoplite walked off down the street. I followed after a moment, in comfortable silence we walked.

As Dauntless lead, I followed close behind. The path we took still didn't make sense to me.

It wasn't long before we meet our first roadblock, quite literally.

Blocking the road was a group of ABB members. A couple of cars had been pushed out, forming an impromptu roadblock. Surprisingly it wasn't a very large group, only five or six. Once again surprisingly none of them had hatchets. Maybe they had learned of my distaste for the weapon. Every one of them had some form of a firearm ranging from pistols to semi-automatic rifles. One of them had a revolver, didn't why he was using such a primitive weapon.

If Dauntless had not pulled me into an alleyway I may have walked right up to them.

"More." I groaned when I saw them. "When will they take the hint?"

The hero chuckled lightly, "We'll face them head-on. With two capes they won't be able to hold their ground. After that, we can move along."

I nodded, guess I was going to be a bullet sponge again.

Walking into a fight gave me the same feeling every time. Nothing, I felt nothing, no fear, no glee, just straight up nothing. That was probably one of the first red flags that something was wrong.

This fight began like any other fight. Bullets glanced off my invulnerable body, there was some yelling. Nothing that I understood, it all being said in some Asian dialect mixed with some English words.

When the ABB goons realized that their weapons were useless against me, they tried to turn tail and run. Key word tried.

I tensed my legs before launching myself through the air. I land with a thunderous crash, with a glancing kick I sent one the rolling cars across the road.

Skidding and rolling over the asphalt the car left a shower of sparks behind it. The compact car weighing a little over a ton crushed one of the thugs. I hardly let it phase me when his screams were silenced. He was just another number.

I raised my hand and created a metal disc. With a diameter of 6 inches and a razor-sharp edge, it was created for one thing.

Detaching the disc from my body I backhand threw it at one of the ABB goons. The piece of metal whistled through the air. The fleeing thug screamed out when it made contact with his back. Blood cascading from his back the thug fell to the ground.

I turned to the last thug that was still in the area. The poor idiot had fallen, scrambling across he made for a poor sight. He moved towards his rifle, which lay a few yards from him.

Should I tell him to leave, or kill him? Might as well kill him he was going for his weapon after all.

Before I could even create another disc, I was stopped. One word spoke by Dauntless stopped me in my tracks.

"No!" Dauntless spoke the word that made me pause.

Why was he stopping me now? Slowly I turned around to see him, shield and spear raised ready to fight.

"Why?" the word flew from me without thought.

The hero shifted in his stance, "Because that's not what we do. We are the not the judge, nor the jury, or executioner. We are heroes, we save lives not end them."

The hero swallowed, given my silence, he seemed a little more confident. "Everyone deserves a second, third, or as many more chances as they need."

"Tell me, could they have harmed you?"
His words made me think, could they have harmed me? No, nothing they had could harm me. I had shrugged off everything, even a bomb.

"No," I answered, "They could not have."

"So why? Why kill them if they could not even harm you? Because you're stuck on an endless loop of getting rid of anything that intends you harm. Just before, you were only going to kill him because he was reaching for his gun, not he could harm you with his gun."

I heard the thug behind me runoff. His heavy footfalls echoing across the asphalt.

Dauntless planted the butt of his spear into the ground. "There is a difference between the heroes and the police. As heroes we can stand up to more, makes us more forgiving of actions. Police, they are just like the people they are arresting, makes them less forgiving when one resists. But you. You're acting like neither. When you fight you have decided that you are judge, jury, and executioner."

"When we first meet you said you wanted to be a hero. Right now you are not acting like a hero. You have decided that everyone is guilty if they fight you, that they all deserve death, and you will be the one to carry out that sentence!"

Had I already strayed so far from being a hero? Maybe I was still a shapeshifting-demon-killer-murder-thing, but that wasn't who I wanted to be.

Dauntless take a breath, "That is what I say no to. And is that what you want to be?"

"No," I was still confused though. Why was I so fine with killing, even now as I thought about could I even remember how many I had killed?

"By all means, I should walk away from you. But I won't. I will continue to help you given one thing." The hero's shield fell away from where it had been protecting his body. "Guarantee me you will not kill anymore. Not without good reason."

I could do that, or at least I think I could do that. "I can guarantee that. No more killing."

"Good." huffed Dauntless, "We should keep moving."

I took a moment to look at the bodies of those I had killed. The one gang member, crushed beneath the car. Only his mangled lower legs could be seen. His crimson blood spilled over the asphalt covering the ground.

The other corpses, with the disc sticking out of his back. Fingers outstretched seeking to grasp something that wasn't there. His blood too covered the ground.

I didn't need to see their faces to know the terror that would surely be there.

But even then I knew, they would not be the last. I would kill more and more likely than not I wouldn't think twice about.

We would have continued on our way to the meeting at Somer's Rock. Dauntless stopped mid-step, his head inclined slightly as if listening to something. I opened my non-existent ears to also listen to whatever had got his attention.

When I opened my ears, I opened my ears.

Instantly I was flooded with sounds, ranging from Dauntless' blood rushing through his veins and someone talking not far from here. I sorted through the sounds, filtering through the ones that I knew Dauntless couldn't hear. Guns shots across the city? Too far. Another explosion? No, we had been hearing those all night. Ah, there it was, the deep rumble of a car, wait no, more like a truck. It was a distinctive enough sound, not stock, definitely custom. Someone had put a lot of time into reducing the sound of the engine. It did little good to the supernatural hearing I now had. Most likely it was only outfitted with so many sound reduction systems so it didn't blow someone eardrums out.

I brought my hearing back down. No use to have a supernatural hearing if you were being bombarded with so much information.

Dauntless recognized the sound, "Armsmaster." He whispered under his breath. He glanced around at the dead bodies of the gang members. "This isn't going to look good."

"Armsmaster? And what isn't going to look good." surely the bodies were not that much of a problem. Actually, given Dauntless' strong opinion on killing maybe they were.

"Armsmaster is the leader of the Protectorate team here in Brockton Bay. good man… A bit strange though." he muttered the last part under his breath.

I nodded, this was his team leader that he had a problem with. Hopefully, we would not have as much as a problem with me killing.

Soon Armsmaster came rolling around the corner. I would say he was driving a motorcycle, but the thing was more akin to a tank, tankacycle. The thing was massive riding at least a foot off the ground. With tires as tall as my leg, I mean seriously where did he buy those? The frame of the bike was equally massive, the handlebar came up to my chest. It was painted blue with steel accents.

Stick some guns on it and it would be a full-fledged tank.

The Tankacycle rumbled across the asphalt. I say rumbled because of that's what the ground was doing, the ground was shaking. Loose pieces of asphalt bounced across the ground.

Armsmaster pulled up not twenty feet from me and my guide. The bass rumbling ceased as the newcomer swung his leg over the bike.

Armsmaster easily stood a little over six feet, decked out in full midnight blue power armor. Interlocking armor plates shifted as he twisted his arm behind his back. From his back, he brought forth a halberd. The wicked-looking polearm looked like someone tried to combine medieval tech with tomorrow's tech.

So, in the end, they ended up with something that really only looked cool.

His upper lip curled ever so slightly beneath his trimmed bread, "Dauntless."

Dauntless inclined his head slightly in response. Armsmaster turned to me, there was a flash of something that I couldn't quite place; or flashes of multiple things. Fear, curiosity, anger, and finally resting on a face of contained anger. What did this guy know about me? I don't think he liked me. Did you not approve of my methods? Dauntless didn't.

"You must be Mr. Harper." It was spoken without a hint of emotion, this guy was good.

I answered as if it was a question, "Yup that's me."

Armsmaster didn't have a response he just turned back to Dauntless. "Suppose I should be detaining you and bringing you back to the Rig. Running off and disregarding your orders." He sneered to the other hero, "No less with him!" he pointed an armored finger at me. "A parahuman that right now is known for committing homicide. I should be arresting him, maybe even you, for working with him." the hero grimaced like he had taken a bite of something sour. "But I have been ordered not too."

"Self-defence?" I tried to butt in. I didn't want to be arrested.

Dauntless and Armsmaster ignored me. "It is better to be out here trying to fix the problem than holed up in Rig or the PRT headquarters!" Fired back Dauntless.

"We have to find a course of action!" Armsamster had now lost his cool.

My guide threw his hands up in the air, "We have to find a course of action?" he mocked his fellow hero. "Well guess what! I found one, go out and there find Bakuda! And make it so that she will never ever harm another person!"

"You plan to kill her!?"

Dauntless take the accusation in stride, "YES! Her right to live was forfeit the moment she started sticking bombs in people!"

And here I thought Dauntless was against killing people. Not that I was complaining, and hey if Dauntless didn't kill I would.

"What about the Unwritten Rules?" Armsmaster questioned. this guy was a stickler for the rules, wasn't he? I was going to have to ask Dauntless about the Unwritten Rules. Now that I think about it rules that are unwritten aren't really rules more like guidelines. Why did they sound so binding?

"Unwritten Rules be damned" I raised my non-existent eyebrows at that. "She has killed enough to have a kill order!" stated Dauntless with a huff. "I don't care if she doesn't have one yet she will soon." Dauntless' word takes a darker turn. "She won't need one soon."

Armsmaster swallowed hard, I didn't expect that.

"Thomas, let's get to that meeting." Dauntless strode off.

Armsmaster left moments later, the sour look still on his face.

With a shrug, I followed after Dauntless' fleeing from. That interaction made zero sense to me.

I quick-paced jog brought me up beside my guide. As silent as a grave, I walked along with him, silent because of how angry he seemed. Crossed a couple of empty streets, went through some alleys. All the while Dauntless stewed with barely contained fury.

After what felt like an eternity I broke the silence, "What are the unwritten rules?" I was truly curious, what were these rules that seemed to bind people.

Dauntless swallowed hard, "They guidelines that became rules and eventually were made law." he kicked a loose piece of asphalt, "The name, confuses people, they are not unwritten, they are written. In almost every country. Most of these rules already followed under a law or two."

I nodded along, learning about the not so unwritten rules. "The first of these rules is to respect the secret identities of others. This one means that when you are out of your cape persona they are supposed to leave you to allow."

I nodded again, seemed like a good rule; one that I would probably end up breaking. "Next, is no violence or power usage during meetings of multiple groups." Dauntless had stopped walking now. "This is why we should be fine at the meeting," he added.

"Try not to use lethal force." He was now counting them with his fingers.

Who made up these rules?

"No attacking civilians at large." Something told me that most of these rules were not followed.

Dauntless continued unaware of my thoughts. "No mind control; that one's self-explanatory. No sexual violence already falls under a law. Don't use guns-"

I held up my hands in a hold-up gesture, "No guns? Wouldn't that be the most effective way of stopping people?"

The hero shrugged, "They are considered too lethal, more death seems to happen when they are involved in a cape fight."

Ok, there is a reason police officers carry them. But I didn't voice this, I just nodded sparingly for him to continue.

"Then there is the Endbringer Truce. These ones are not written down."

Endbringer Truce? What would warrant something called that? "Endbringer Truce?" I asked confused.

"Yes, a set of rules that are followed when fighting an Endbringer."

Now I was more confused. "Endbringer?"

Dauntless looked momentarily confused for a second before it passed. "That's right, no memory… Endbringers are monstrous unkillable beings of destruction. They usually appear once every couple of months."

"Plural?"

"Yeah, there is three of them."

"Three monstrous unkillable beings of destruction?" I asked rhetorically. "What kind of destruction?"

Dauntless looked off down the road, "Cities, they usually destroy a city."

Cities! "And no one has killed one?"

Dauntless looked a little pained, "I said unkillable. Capes gather in massive numbers every time one is sighted. Hundreds if not thousands of parahumans, and we can't do a thing. Sometimes we think we've won, but we never really do."Dauntless turned back to me, most of his face was obscured by his helmet. His lips were stretched into a tight line. "I have fought them a couple of times."

I know a conversation killer when I hear one, but nonetheless, I tried to keep the conversation going. "How long have they been around?"

Dauntless was silent for a moment, "Around Eighteen years."

"Are they all the same? And like how monstrous are we talking?"

"The first of the Enbringers to appear was Behemoth. Over forty feet tall, with gray skin." I was rethinking my skin color. Unaware of my thoughts the hero continued to describe the city-destroying monster. "With what I can only describe as rock spikes coming out of him. His most memorable feature is his single giant red eye." Dauntless shuddered. "His mouth is also pretty memorable with an orange glow coming from deep within his throat constantly."

"Does he breathe fire?"

"Kind of. We think he's a dynakinetic, controls energy." A very powerful power, given that everything has energy, I mused silently, "Makes people burn up from the inside. They kind of just pop." Dauntless made a face I couldn't quite place the meaning of. "Of course, we can't forget the lightning, either."

"Lightning?" I asked slowly.

"From his fingertips. Set fires, and hits people. Destroys things." then he muttered under his breath. "Doesn't behave as lightning should."

"Is there more?"

"Yeah there more, but I'll only touch on one more feature then we'll move on to the next Endbringer." state the hero plainly. "Heat generation, he usually heats up the area around himself. All around he's pretty horrible to fight."

"Then there's his younger brother, Leviathan. A thirty-foot tall monster that has hydrokinesis. A wicked tail and super speed. Always comes from the sea. Sunk a couple islands, Newfoundland, Kyushu. It's regarded as the weakest of the Endbringers."

This Endbringer didn't sound as bad as the first. "Who's the final one?"

"The worst one." Dauntless looked straight at were my eyes would be if I had any. "When she first appeared we thought she was an angel. She sang a beautiful song." my guide now looked very disturbed. "We now know that once you hear her song for too long you go mad." I raised a nonexistent eyebrow. "We have to quarantine entire cities after she hits them. And that's when we don't drive her off soon enough."

"How often are you able to drive her off?"

Dauntless was once again silent for a long moment, "I'd say one out of three times we drive her off fast enough."

That sounded pretty bad, "What's she called?"

"The Simurgh." I could hear the capitalization of the.

"What's she look like?" he did say they thought she was an angel.

"Fifteen-foot tall naked marble woman with wings sprouting everywhere willy nilly."

"Naked?"

"Well, she covers herself with some of her wings."

I nodded, I would have laughed but I felt it would be inappropriate.

Dauntless looked around, "It's getting late we need to get to that meeting." I could see the sun had already begun its descent. "I'll tell you more about the Endbringers another time." He paused, "And the world situation in general." he added.

I nodded in acknowledgment, just having the conversation told me about how much I need to learn about this place.

"But before we head to the meeting you need a cape name."

A cape name? Had he mentioned something like this before? "Cape name?"

"Yes, an alias. Something that you will be called. A name that is yours but not your real name."

"What's wrong with my real name." I worked hard to recover that memory.

Dauntless must have noticed my tone, "Nothing, it's just you're a cape, and capes go by their cape name. Going by your real name is sure to attract trouble."

The hero sighed, "Just pick something that is memorable and doesn't sound… stupid." I felt like he was going to say a different word. "You can change it later if you want." He added.

I stood there, something memorable but not stupid. That could mean a lot of things. A list of names came to mind, Sculpture, a name based on my current appearance. Effigy, a fancy word for a sculpture. neither of those names stood out.

Rhodes, or more specifically the Colossus of Rhodes. A name that would certainly fit, looking like a statue and having the ability to become a colossus like being. Not bad, I thought, that one doesn't sound stupid.

But it wasn't the perfect fit, I felt like it didn't portray myself to the fullest. There was another name that came to mind. Usurper, a name that did not just say who I was but what I was. A being that could take on the shaper of another thing or person.

Well, it was either that or demon-hunter-killer-thing from hell.

"I thought of a name," I announced.

Dauntless looked over to me and gestured for me to continue.

"Usurper," I state the name simply.

"Why that?" Had he even thought about it for a second?

I opened my metaphorical mouth to answer but stopped, I still had not told him about my full capabilities. Should I or should I not, the answer was easy, there was no reason not to tell him.

"It describes my power."

Dauntless was confused, "I thought you said you were a brute? What does that have to do with being a usurper?"

I ignored his strange choice of words to describe my previous known powers. "That was before I knew about my full capabilities." I lied, "And there didn't seem like a good time to tell you about it." I shrugged, "I'm a mass creating shapeshifter." that was the simplest way to describe what my power was.

The hero looked at me warily, "It makes sense now that I look back at it." he placed the butt of his spear into the ground, "Especially the metal discs in the ABB member's back."

"How far can you shapeshift."

"Pretty far." I shifted my left hand into a blade, before changing it back. "I can get rid of my current appearance." A ripple across my skin and I had shifted to look human. This time I had clothes on. "Pretty perfect." I shifted back to my original appearance.

Dauntless look terrified, "Glad you're on my side." He swallowed, "Let's get to the meeting."

I followed as my guide stiffly walked out of the alley. Why was he terrified of my shapeshifting, I can understand being unnerved but terrified?