The Leviathan
Taylor was sitting in her apartment, calmly sipping tea that was being served to her by Lung.
The man had been outfitted with a rather dapper grey suit. It had purple silk interior and he wore a blue tie and a green shirt underneath the jacket. Over his face he had a metal domino mask that he kept polished to a high shine.
"...In other news," the woman on the TV spoke, "the search for Maximillian Anders, CEO of Medhall, has turned up some unfortunate evidence of ties to the Neo Nazi gang, the Empire Eighty Eight. Wait a moment!" The anchor woman put a hand to her ear and her eyes widened, "This just in: Brockto-" the feed cut off when Taylor waved her hand.
"Lady Skitter," Lung spoke, standing at the ready with his hands behind his back, "I am curious."
"Do tell, Lung, what has sparked your inquisitiveness?"
"How do you afford…" he looked around the room, "All this? As far as I am aware, you have pulled no jobs since the bank heist, and that was before your transformation."
Taylor set aside her cup and said, "I'm actually running low on funds right now," she grinned at him, "You see, I was waiting for you to reach an acceptable level of competence before we started completing jobs. So tell me, Lung," she crossed one leg elegantly over the other, "Which would you rather pull? A bank heist? Or a demolitions order?"
The massive Asian man thought about that. He supposed that the demolition would be easier, given his power, but the heist might pay more. He put a hand to his chin, his bicep bulging against the suit, but not causing a tear.
"Which will pay more?" he asked.
"A good question, but not the best question," she stood up, summoning her cane and placing the miniature bowler hat on her head, "You should have asked me which will be more fun."
The man hummed, following his mistress around calmly. The last month had changed him greatly. He could barely remember the days where he had been one of the gang leaders in Brockton Bay. It was so far from what he was now that it wasn't even funny. The Lung of old had been so… weak. And that had been the least of his problems.
"Normally," Taylor went on, "I would say that the demolition order would be way more fun, but the heist has potential."
"May I ask why, Lady Skitter?"
"Simple, my man. The Protectorate knows I'm coming. I sent them a message a week ago, telling them we would be robbing the bank," Next she pulled on her long fingerless gloves, "Now, We've been laying low for quite a while, Lung. They will have made plans to deal with us. We can't go into this with the arrogance that we will automatically beat them, just because we have before. We need to decide which is more important. Do we focus on robbing the bank? Or putting these 'heroes' in their place?" she made air quotes with her fingers.
Again, Lung considered his answer. The old him would try to rob the bank first, then would be drawn into the conflict over pride. After all, how dare those lowly heroes challenge the Dragon of Kyushu?
"Perhaps," he began, "A bit of both. One of us will fight the heroes, crushing them, while the other makes off with our ill gotten gains."
"A splendid idea!" She exclaimed, "It will be a chance to prove yourself to me! I will rob the bank. When the heroes attempt to stop me, you will fight them all off. I will give you a bonus if you bring me three of them, alive."
Lung nodded severely, "It will be done, Lady Skitter."
"Good boy!"
She opened the door to her apartment, ready to get this show on the road.
The sky was dark, the wind blew unnaturally hard, rain pelted the two of them in sheets.
The Endbringer sirens were blaring.
"Of all the-!" Taylor almost started cursing, but reigned herself in, "Lung!"
"Yes, Lady Skitter!"
"I am going to the lair! Find out which of these insignificant pests is attacking my city, and stall them!"
"Of course, Lady Skitter!"
The teen exploded into a cloud of insects and flew away.
Lung made his way to the staging area. There were many capes he recognized, and more that he did not. At the lead was the Triumvirate, as usual.
Legend was doing the talking while Eidolon and Alexandria stood as silent sentinels. He went on and on about the likelihood of casualties and the necessity of working together.
"...And whether you are a Villain, Hero, Independant or Rogue, you are all heroes today."
Lung chuffed at that.
"We are lucky Lady Skitter is not here," he said under his breath.
"Holy shit, you're Lung!" He looked down to see one of the Wards. He had not bothered to learn the whelp's name, but it was one of the boys.
"I am," he agreed.
Kid Win. That was his name.
"You've, uh, grown…?" The Tinker boy said.
"I have. My mistress has seen to it that I have grown in many ways, height being the least among them," he turned his eyes back to the front of the room, alighting them on an image of the Leviathan.
Kid Win mouthed the word 'mistress', then leapt to the logical conclusion. Somehow, Skitter had either mastered Lung or convinced him to join up. If it was the latter, she had done so in such a fashion that the man had become a minion.
How the hell-?
"You should be paying attention," Lung scolded the boy.
"Huh? Oh, right?" the teen hero turned his eyes back to the stage, taking in the information about the Leviathan. Faster than sound, macrohydrokinesis, capable of leaving after images in the form of exploding water clones, would totally use tidal waves to destroy everything right on the coast. "How did you defeat him last time?" Kid win asked.
When he didn't receive a response he turned to look at the eight foot Asian man, only to find an empty space where he had been.
_
Taylor wanted to throw a hissy fit. She had a plan, damn it! She had sent the Protectorate the note saying that she would be robbing a bank, gave them a few vague hints about which one it would be, and the day it would be on. It was supposed to be a fun little confrontation where she could capture a few more capes to hand over to Lord Black Hat, not to mention add a little more coin to her coffers.
But no! The God damn Endbringers had to stick their noses in it!
She was at this moment, pacing back and forth in the main room of her lair, several levels beneath the training floor that she usually met Flug and Demencia on. In one hand was an old fashioned telephone. It even had one of the spinning dials, rather than a number pad. It was also not plugged in and occasionally made a sound like it was breathing when not in use.
Currently she was angrily pacing back and forth as she listened to the hold music. It was a rather pleasant tune, something that sounded vaguely like Green Sleeves, but with dark undertones.
"Bienvinidos!" the voice on the other end started in a heavily mechanized tone.
"I need to speak with Doctor Flug immediately," she cut it off before it could start the usual spiel, "Code: Aleph Seven Fifty Six."
Once more she was put on hold. She grumbled under her breath, but continued to otherwise pace back and forth.
"Doctor Flug speaking."
"Doctor," Taylor said, "The Special Kit I requested. Is it by chance ready?"
"Eh, no," she could hear the tapping of keys on his end, "It should be ready to go in the next week or so, but now it is completely useless. Why?"
Skitter sighed heavily and sat down, a giant beetle rushing beneath her so that she wasn't sitting on the floor.
"There is a powerful monster heading my way right now. It is not coming to smite me, specifically, but even with everything I've been given, this is a battle that will be costly for me. Unless I have an equalizer."
"Well-" Flug started to say something, make a pitch about a device he had, when the line started to freak out, the signal starting to come in and out. The girl had to pull her head away when a screech started blasting over the line. Three of her bugs exploded.
"Hello?" Taylor had cautiously put her back to the phone when the sound stopped.
"Hello, Skitter," the husky gargle of Lord Black Hat came through the line.
The teen girl had to fight her instinct to bow.
"Good afternoon, Lord Black Hat," she greeted cordially.
"I understand you are facing a threat. One of those Endbringers!" the monster of monsters hissed the final word as though it was a personal insult to him.
"Yes, sir. I can kill one, I think, but it will be a long, hard fought battle that will leave me weak before my enemies. Not something I can afford."
"Indeed," she could hear the grin stretch across his face now, "I am sending you something. Follow the instructions exactly, or you will face a fate far worse than death."
A portal opened in the floor and a sealed black box rose from the darkness.
"Understood, Lord Black Hat. I will expect to be given the bill, when next you deign me worthy of a visit." The monster simply laughed and hung up on her.
The girl set the phone on a bench that had hand drawn schematics of the bank she had been planning to rob. She walked over to the box with some amount of trepidation.
Much as she enjoyed the upgrade in… everything that the Basic Package had given her, it had not been a pleasant experience. According to Black Hat, if she didn't follow the instructions, she'd face something even worse, now.
Skitter took a deep breath, and opened the lid.
"Wear this," Armsmaster said with a growl. He was holding out a wristband to Lung.
"It is too small."
"It's Tinker Tech, it will resize itself to fit you," he thrust the device more insistently at the man, "We are all using these to better coordinate our assault on Leviathan. It will monitor your vitals and location, and relay priority orders."
"I already have the only orders I need to follow. Keep your toy," he crossed his massive arms over his chest and turned his gaze on the worsening storm.
"Listen here, you-"
"Armsmaster, enough," came a cold, feminine voice. It was Alexandria.
"Yes, ma'am," he backed down, but it was clear that he was still angry.
"The Endbringer Pact is in effect. If you work against us…" the woman let the threat hang in the air.
"Your pact is as flimsy and unimportant as your unwritten rules," he sneered, "My only interest is following the orders of my mistress. And just so you know," he leaned down so he could look her in the eye, "She has not ordered me to kill any of you puling weaklings."
The strongest Heroine in the world glared at him through her mask.
"We'd stop you."
"You would try."
"Leviathan has made landfall." It was the digitized voice that came through Alexandria's wrist band.
Before the woman's eyes Lung grew. He had been eight feet tall, seven hundred pounds of muscle. He was already nine feet and growing fast.
"You'll have to excuse me," he said, his voice getting even deeper, and he grinned at her, "I have my orders." He leapt into the air. From his back sprouted wings. Small wings. Appendages far too small to truthfully allow a man to fly, but, as they beat at the air as hard and fast as they could, they managed to keep the colossal Asian man airborne.
_
Above her, the city shook and boomed. She could feel it as the heroes and overpowered gang leaders were fighting for their lives against one of the Endbringers.
Skitter growled to herself, imagining all the plans she had that had been ruined. If that weren't enough, now she was deeper in debt to Black Hat.
The girl sighed. She'd just have to make do.
With that thought in mind, she turned her gaze back to the book in her hands. It was, itself, a horrible thing. Its cover was made of skin, it's pages were written in a language that caused her to have a nosebleed when she first glanced at it. The instructions were on two pages and, try as she might she couldn't get the book to show her anything else. Even if she turned the pages, they just showed the same information.
In other words, Taylor loved the thing. She needed to get one for herself.
"Alright," she held a stick bug and it turned into a paintbrush, "- - - - Lord Black Hat, - - - -! - - -, - - - -!"
The words she spoke had blood leaking from her ears and eyes. More was seeping between her lips. She gestured with a hand, and a pair of beetles came over. In their claws was a bucket. She vomited into it, nothing but blood coming out.
The first bucket filled in seconds. And the next three filled just as quickly. It was by the seventh bucket that the blood began to dwindle back to a trickle, then stop.
"Bloody son of a-" she bit her lip, looking at the many buckets, "Freaking magic." Using a washrag, she wiped the blood away from her eyes and off of her mouth. She dabbed at her ears as well.
When she looked at the rag, the blood writhed and wriggled, hissing and gurgling. Last she checked, her blood didn't naturally do that.
Taylor ignored this oddity as another of many of Black Hat's quirks, and lifted up the book again. The instructions started with a small circle. Then the unholy writing around it. Another circle. More evil runes. It went on like this for who knows how long.
The explosions and quakes kept getting worse as well. Closer, she assumed, to her location. Taylor ignored it and started painting.
One of her insects became a three legged stool. Another became a moving pedestal that she set the book upon. Together, they began to move around chamber.
The girl discovered another unfortunate side effect of the weird language she was using for this summoning circle. The moment she completed the first circle, all of her fingers bent backwards, broken bones poking through flesh, and the bug she was using as a brush went up in flames.
"Damn it," she grumbled, resetting the bones in her hand one by one, "If this happens everytime I complete a circle this is going to take forever!" She blew on her hand to ease the pain of it, not that it did much good, and summoned a new stick bug to hand to make into a brush. Regardless of the annoyance of this, she would complete it according to the instructions.
Leviathan was a monstrously tall, but lanky creature. Forty feet tall, another thirty feet with its tail added in.
It was everything the briefing said it was.
Fletchette, a Ward from New York, was breathing hard as she tried to keep her eyes on the monster. It was hard because of the wind and rain, and his god damn super speed, but she was doing her best.
It was made easier, kind of, when a massive metal dragon dropped out of the sky on it.
The dragon was, as mentioned, covered in metal scales, and that let her know this was the infamous Lung, leader of the ABB. The strange part, however, was what he was wearing.
Hell, the fact that a forty foot dragon, with a barrel chest you could hide a volvo in and biceps thicker than eight people put together was wearing anything was strange enough. This dragon was wearing a rather dapper grey suit with purple silk interior and a giant blue tie around its neck.
"Stay back!" Oh, yeah, and it spoke in fluent English, "He's mine!" The last Fletchette had heard, the Asian man could barely speak at all when in full dragon form.
Lung took a deep breath, his already massive chest inflating even more. Through the muscles, bones, scales and even his suit, the girl could see the white energy gathering in his lungs. He let loose with a beam of heat( it was not fire) that struck the beast of the seas like a tactical nuke. Anything within twenty feet of the beam began to melt. All the rain and water near it, Lung, or Leviathan instantly evaporated.
It was not enough to truly hurt Leviathan, however.
Many of its outer layers had been scoured away, but it still stood. It still moved.
"Lung!" Armsmaster called out, "Stand back! I can take him!"
The dragon turned its massive head around to look at the puny human in power armor. The man held a glowing halberd, there was a glow coming from under his visor, he looked ready to jump into the fight.
"Are you stupid?" A metal claw reached up without Lung looking and caught the Endbringer by the tail as it tried to pass him, "No, seriously. Are you stupid? You have less of a chance than I do. Go back to your workshop, boy."
Armsmaster growled menacingly and activated the predictive software. He'd just have to take them both down. Acceptable losses.
"I warned you," the ambitious Tinker said. He leapt into the fray, making the battle a three way.
Leviathan summoned an after image and swung its tail at Armsmaster. Lung neutralized the wave with another heat blast and pulled the Tinker out of the way of the attack. Armsmaster cut off Lung's grasping claw with a swing of his Nanothorn Halberd and leapt at Leviathan.
Lung's tail slammed the hero back to the ground, and with his already regenerated arm he grasped Leviathan and lifted him into a devastating body slam. Armsmaster had already gotten up and ran up the Dragon's back. He leapt into the air and fell towards the monster of the seas, weapon first.
Leviathan moved at sonic speed to get away, leaving only a water clone that exploded on contact. He tried to attack another portion of the city, but Lung caught him by the tail and drew him back into the fight.
"Get out of the way!" Armsmaster roared at Lung, swiping at both the dragon and the sea monster.
Lung actually roared, grew back his wing and leg in seconds and turned a heated glare on the hero.
"You want to help beat an Endbringer? Fine. You get to help," the metal dragon rumbled, "Be careful what you wish for."
_
The final rune was painted into the concrete, Taylor's hand shattered, the stick bug exploded.
"Finally," she said, petulantly kicking over the final empty bucket of cursed blood. She turned back to the book and studied the infernal language there for a few seconds. The girl took a deep breath and began to utter words that no mortal had ever before spoken on this world.
The cement cracked, the bugs nearest her died, and a dark flame started to seep out of the runes. They burned through the concrete, making themselves permanent features. Skitter was one hundred percent certain that this warehouse, and its many hidden levels had just become cursed and haunted.
"Great, another expense to add to the list," she growled to herself, "The worst part is," she said, watching the cracks spread into the air, writhing masses squelching beyond them, "I'm going to have to work really hard to prove I'm still a villain after this."
There was a sense of shattering. The air before her had opened into another world, a hellish place of suffering and violation. It was painful just to observe, so Taylor refused to look. She spoke in that language again, directing the beast that lived there. The world near her rumbled in an erratic sequence. Only Taylor would ever know that it was the laughter of a beast that only Lord Black Hat could control.
Black and green tentacles lashed out of the portal, opening others and going through those as well.
Unnoticed behind her, the book was covered in shadow and was taken back to Black Hat's domain.
_
The battle against Leviathan hadn't stopped, not really. The beast was still there, it was still trying to destroy the city, but it had come to a stalemate. Lung, with the aid of Armsmaster, had managed to keep the monster in one area.
Of course, by aid, one meant that Armsmaster had been grabbed in one massive talon of the dapper dragon, and used as a bludgeoning instrument against Leviathan. He had long ago passed out, thankfully, but the injuries were mounting.
"Enough!" Alexandria shouted, touching down like a meteor strike, "Lung, let him-wha?!" The dragon grabbed the strongest woman in the world in his other hand and started using her to bat Leviathan around as well.
"Jesus Christ!" Chevalier said, looking at the carnage, then up at Legend and Eidolon, "Aren't you going to help them?"
Legend gulped, then dived in. He was grasped by Lung's tail and the fight went up a notch. He performed a left jab with Armsmaster, an uppercut with Alexandria that sent the monster into the air. Then Lung performed a front flip that slammed Legend into Leviathan's head, forcing the monster back to the ground.
Chevalier then looked at Eidolon again.
The hero coughed into a fist and said, "They appear to have this handled."
Attention was drawn back to the fight when something odd happened.
The ground rumbled with the latest attack from Lung. Leviathan returned the punch with interest, ripping off his entire right arm and heaving it away. The sea beast then dashed forward, claws at the ready.
Suddenly it stopped.
More accurately, it was stopped by a black tendril that wrapped around its waist. It looked down at it, almost in confusion, one might say. Four more tentacles appeared out of the ground and lashed around its neck, arms and another around its waist. The tentacles were black and speckled with green and pink.
"What the actual fuck?"
More tentacles appeared, but instead of grabbing Leviathan, six of them streaked skywards and another four curved back into the earth. A final limb appeared from the ground and slammed into Eidolon. It wrapped around him, from head to toe.
The moment that he was grasped, all of the tentacles began to retract. First, Leviathan was pulled into the origin of the tentacles.
Seeing this, Legend and Alexandria streaked towards Eidolon, intent on saving him.
The Simurgh, wrapped in the speckled limbs was torn out of the sky. Her psychic scream was particularly shrill this day, but only until she too was swallowed by the darkness seeping out of the ground.
Legend tried firing his lasers at the tentacles, but they were completely unaffected. Alexandria locked her arms around Eidolon, and dug her heels in. The asphalt and concrete cracked and rumbled, and she ended up digging furrows with her feet. Still, the man continued to be pulled in.
The earth quaked suddenly. Behemoth erupted from the ground, roaring and blasting everything with lightning. More than a few capes died in the few seconds that the Hero Killer struggled helplessly against being dragged into the black.
"Let go," Eidolon told Alexandria.
"No! We need you to-"
"I'm not giving up," he told her, "But I need you out of the blast radius."
The woman looked into his faceplate. There was a long moment of silence between them, then she nodded. She let go, and he started moving a little quicker towards the blackness that was waiting.
"Everyone stay back!" Alexandria shouted, stopping anyone from getting close.
Eidolon focused as hard as he could. There were several abilities he had been saving for the direst of circumstances. This apparently qualified. First, he made himself completely indestructible. Then he added a shielding ability that nothing could get through. The range covered just to the other side of the portal. The final ability was a simple, but devastating ability. Antimatter.
When matter touches antimatter, it explodes. There was over six hundred tons of matter, which included the oxygen he was breathing, inside the shield. He activated the antimatter.
Outside of the shield, people had to look away, lest they be blinded by the advent of matter turning into pure energy. It was surprisingly silent. It seemed like only light passed through the shield, as even the sound of the chaining explosions was reduced to nothing. It went on for a full six minutes.
The light faded and there wasn't even smoke left from the explosions. The shield flickers off and air and rain rushed to fill in the empty sphere.
Well, not fully empty. There were only two things left.
Eidolon, gasping for air, and the tentacles, seeming completely unharmed and still dragging him into the void. Before anyone could act, the grasping, otherworldly limbs finished dragging him in.
The storm was lessening with the absence of Leviathan, and it was therefore easy to hear Assault say, "What the Fuck just happened?"
"My Mistress," Lung intoned before leaping into the air, the unconscious Armsmaster still in his claws. He was out of visible range in seconds.
"Dragon," Alexandria said into her armband, "Status on Eidolon."
"Status… Unknown. Attempts to retrieve the data just caused two of my server towers to implode…" she hesitated for a moment before adding, "A third just came to life and started chewing on the fourth. I must deal with this." The signal shut down from the armband, although it was still monitoring Alexandria's vitals.
The woman looked over at Legend, then they both looked to the gathered capes.
"The status of Leviathan is unknown. Keep on your guard," Alexandria told them, "We are pursuing a lead into the disappearance of Eidolon. For now, see to the injured and report any sightings of any Endbringers."
With that the remaining members of the Triumvirate lifted into the air, flying in the same direction as Lung.
"Lady Skitter!" Lung announced his presence, reverting to his more normal appearance.
He rushed to the elevator. Most would see him press a black space on a wall with no seams. Then the curtain of camouflaged insects would part to show an extravagant elevator. He stepped in and the wall closed again.
Seconds later Legend and Alexandria slammed through the roof.
A fair bit below them, Lung found Skitter sitting in front of an easel, painting something.
"Lady Skitter!" He rushed forward, but she did not acknowledge him, "Lady Skitter, I have returne-" he placed a hand on her shoulder.
Back on the ground floor of the wearhouse, the two heroes felt a massive shockwave reach them.
"Below us," Alexandria said and started punching the floor. Legend matched her efforts with his lasers. Together it took the two of them only a few seconds to reach the floor Skitter was on.
"Taylor Hebert, A.K.A. Skitter," the female superhero said, moving forward, "You are under arrest. Surrender peaceful-" she stopped when the hand she was reaching out with was caught by one several times the size of her own.
"Lung, what are you doing?" The woman asked calmly.
"If you touch her, she might kill you. She nearly did so to me, just a few minutes ago. Luckily, I merely hit your man," he pointed over his shoulder at the form of Armsmaster, his condition ever worsening. At this point he was halfway embedded in the concrete wall.
Legend had moved around the girl and noticed two things.
One, her eyes were fully rolled back in her skull, showing only the whites. She barely breathed, there was a steady drip of blood coming out of her nose and she moved nothing but her arm as she continued painting.
Two, the painting was of Eidolon and the Endbringers. There were the three that he recognized, but many others in a shadowed silhouette. They were all held by the tentacles that had taken them in the first place. In the foreground was a demon in a dapper suit and a black top hat. It had a wide, sharp toothed grin and a monocle over one eye.
"Alexandria, I think you should see this," as he moved, he could swear the eye of the monster in the black top hat followed him.
The woman shrugged off Lung and moved to Skitter's other side. Her eyes coldly scanned the canvas.
"Lung," the odd rumble in the tone had her looking at the girl that was formerly in some kind of trance, "Why are there heroes in my demesne?"
"I apologise, Lady Skitter," the man said, bowing low, "It was my own folly that led them here. I was too hasty in my desire to return to your side."
"Skitter, you are under arrest. Hrrk!" The last part was addition brought on by the teen girl reaching into Alexandria's mouth and applying an inhuman grip to her tongue.
"Lung," Taylor drawled with her eyes half lidded, "As punishment for leading these two, and perhaps others, to my lair, saw off your leg." She tossed him a bug with serrated edges.
"At once, Lady Skitter," he took a deep breath and grit his teeth so as not to scream as he started biting into his own flesh with the insect.
"As for you two…" the monster in the shape of a girl glared at the two heroes, and made a sharp jerking motion with her occupied hand. Alexandria's gargling scream would be but a footnote to the sounds that proceeded to fill her lair.
Every hero, villain, and rogue in the city paused in their actions when their bracelets spoke to them.
"Legend, zero-zero-three, deceased. Alexandria, zero-zero-two, deceased."
Dread filled the hearts of many, no matter their affiliation. People respected, and feared, the Triumvirate for good reasons. They were all monsters in their own rights. In a single night, they all fell.
"Okay, seriously," Clock Blocker said, "The fuck happened to Skitter?"
A/N: So, I have more in my head regarding this simulation, but no real plans to continue writing it. If it happens it happens.
