Imbalance 4.D
This won't be enough.
He let the matter transmutation power go, and felt a new power swell. Lances of negative energy, drawing power from the environment and the target.
He shifted to another telepoint, the power's built-in danger sense alerting him, and sent the beam-like power drainers at the monster. They absorbed even the light around them, giving the impression of a red-hot brand cloaked in shadow. He barely spared it a glance; decades of using his power had shown him far more exotic effects.
The beam struck Behemoth, and stole some energy, but it was too weak, growing so slowly.
My power is too weak.
He decided to keep it, though. It may have other, more defensive applications. He cast off the danger sense/telepoint combo, reaching for something that could improve the effectiveness of the weak gravity manipulation he had.
Another flight power grew, so he discarded the old, less worthwhile power. This one was more akin to Legend: a wrecking ball, rapid acceleration and escalating invulnerability. One of his older powers, now slow to grow, but versatile.
The other power came a few moments later. A thinker power, identifying weak points. He looked to Behemoth, but the power barely worked on it. He discarded it as well, and flew away for a ramming run.
His new senses unfolded, designating portions of the battlefield as high and low danger, in clearly defined areas of 'red' and 'green'. Eidolon spun, already near the edge of the expanse of volcanic, jagged wasteland, and began accelerating towards his target. An area was designated 'red' in his path, so he swerved out of its range, weaving past a ball of lava in his mad dash towards Behemoth.
He reached the kill aura, already invincible to its effect; he slammed bodily into the monster, knocking him into a stumble, and accelerated away, working to keep his invulnerability, looping around for another run. This time, he used an array of the antienergy beams, now thin as the lead of a pencil, to leech the energy from Behemoth's attacks, temporarily stopping his destruction, then went to slam into him once more.
The danger sense flashed red moments before he impacted, and he made the split decision to swerve and avoid whatever could still endanger him in this state. A massive blast of thunder nearly deafened him a moment later.
Years ago, I would have been able to take that, using this power, he thought to himself. Now, it merely helps me dodge.
He landed, discarding the flight power in search of something more. After a few tries, he got a power that wrapped him in forcefields and used them for mobility and defense. Like the others, it was slow to increase, forcing him to stay grounded for a bit.
He took a moment to study the landscape while he waited. A ruined, jagged landscape, like coarse gravel on a macroscale, with occasional spires of an iridescent golden material which drew stray lightning bolts to it. It was hard to believe that all of this was controlled by a child.
I didn't have his kind of power, even in my prime. It was a sobering thought, an admittance that he couldn't do literally everything, even if he was strong. There were always limits, always shortfalls. Gaps in his powers, constantly having to sacrifice in order to fight.
He shook his head, clearing the thoughts, and took to the air. His armband chirped, and Alexandria's voice came over the speaker. "Flyers, get ready. The trap closes in thirty seconds." Moments later, a second message; "Stand by. Possible change of plans." What the heck was going on? No time, he would be needed to hold off Behemoth regardless.
He flew back to the fight, coated in an armor of translucent white panels of force. His danger sense let him project shields to save other artillery capes from lethal attacks, his lances of red-hot vampiric light cooling the area so other fliers wouldn't be roasted from rising heat. He wasn't doing any damage, but he was helping.
It wasn't enough. People were still dying, still getting injured, collapsing from the heat, or exhaustion. Always the same, with these fights. Less people were dying, but that was because Alexandria had decided to send all the grounded capes away. Mandala had proposed a plan, and his longtime ally had turned it from a disorganized mess that might have simply made people panic and gotten them killed, into a prepared strike that might actually achieve something.
Legend's voice came over the wristband. "Mandala's okay, the plan is still on. Stand by, don't panic, and good luck."
Eidolon let go of his beam attack, reaching deep, begging for something strong. For once, he got his wish. A charging blast, with physics-warping effects that increased with the intensity of the attack. He could only hope that it could hurt the First.
His first attempt missed; the shot went wild, striking the ground in the distance, causing everything within a few meters to shift to a liquid for exactly ten seconds. His second shot was interrupted by a collective cry of shock, awe, and fear from across the battlefield, throwing off his aim as he searched for the source, then sputtering as he saw it.
The entire area was liquefying.
For a moment, Eidolon was horrified – It finally happened. I got a power that broke something primal. Then he realized that this wasn't his power. Mandala had finally come through, and it was a sight to behold, even to the eyes of a man who had every power.
The ground flowed into globes, leaving stars and void behind, an asteroid field of near-perfect spheres. A blue sun shone through the field – no, it was a twin set of blue stars, looking oblong from this angle, only viewable thanks to the sheer number of intervening asteroids. Utterly alien, in a way Doormaker could only dream of accessing.
With some catharsis, he noted Behemoth as he fell, plummeting uncontrollably. Abruptly, the Endbringer came to a stop, bounced a bit, like hitting an elastic barrier of some sort, and slid down into the depths of the mile-wide hole in reality Mandala had formed in midtown Johannesburg.
Such power, and so young. Why has Contessa let him be a simple Ward? A stupid question, he mused, given her power, but one he'd like the answer to. He set about charging a massive blast, relying on his danger sense to dodge the occasional attack. A maelstrom of effects clouded Behemoth from sight, but it wasn't as if he could dodge, so Eidolon would make this blast count.
Bigger.
Bigger.
Bigger!
Perfect. He set about launching the massive, house-sized, crackling, deep violet orb of physics-disruption at the form of the Endbringer far below. Several things happened, almost simultaneous, in the moment it left his control.
First, the flying bricks flew upward and the other blasters stopped shooting, clearing the area in preparation of his blast. They obviously didn't know what it would do, but they knew it couldn't be safe.
Second, Eidolon's danger sense exploded, painting the entire area red, and the void a red so deep it was almost black. He immediately burst into action, using forcefields to pull as many upward as he could, yelling for them to fall back, but failing to express how much danger they were in. He himself barely made it high enough to escape what happened next.
Third, Behemoth, now unobscured save Eidolon's eminent attack, was revealed to be curled into a ball. He was glowing, not the color of radiation; a blinding white light emanated from every inch of skin on his body, outlining the obsidian claws and horns. In that moment, that image was seared into everyone's memory; in the next, everything was light and sound, heat and pain, for a vast majority of the capes on the battlefield.
Then, a moment after all of that, Eidolon watched as the planetoids winked out of existence, the ground appeared, and the armband on his wrist blithely chirped, "Heavy losses. Please wait."
Their entire force, decimated. He'd had a good idea of how many now lay dead under the city, or worse. At least a dozen, maybe more. Many of whom he'd known, and more he wished he'd had a chance to. Others fell from the sky, close enough to the blast to be seriously hurt or blinded. He noted that his physics-warper had been swapped for a basic regeneration power while he'd been in shock, healing his own injuries somewhat.
As if mocking him, the ground began to sink inward, buildings shattering as a massive sinkhole began to form above Behemoth's last known location. His last shot, doing whatever exotic effect the power had decided upon, or perhaps the Endbringer surfacing. He didn't much care; either way, it was a nail in their coffins, and it was his fault for not being strong enough to save them.
Behemoth did indeed surface a moment later, a few blocks south of the sinkhole. He seemed slimmer, but looked just as menacing as before; had the blast taken something out of him? Almost immediately after standing, he was beset by a series of fireballs and boulders. Someone was fighting, and they were doing it alone. He needed to help.
"Losses are as follows: Mavis, Bliksem, Dragon, Donderweer…"
He tuned it out, casting off his regeneration in search of something offensive. The armbands were rather ambiguous; there was a chance that they could still be alive. Eidolon pushed aside his emotions for now, focusing on the fight once more.
"…Alexandria, Flitter, Poesklap, Exalt …"
No - She would be alive, as would Exalt, he told himself. Focus. His new power was blooming, and whoever was fighting Behemoth couldn't do it alone for long. A point-blank telekinesis ability; useless without invulnerability. He cast it off, swooping into the fight.
"…Fjord, Breaker, Shinedown, Braai…"
A power to create intense sonic vibrations in a direct line to the target; It could work. He swooped in, firing a blast, and caught a glimpse of the only other fighter engaging Behemoth.
It was Mandala... if he had glowing eyes, and was exhibiting far more power than expected. He was flying, putting out aerokinetic blasts that rivaled Exalt – a brief pang of loss – while flinging buildings and spears of water, while casually batting aside car-sized fireballs. Eidolon's danger sense could see the paths of the attacks in advance, but Mandala moved like he saw them too.
No time to consider it – he needed to draw attention. Two more sonic waves warped the air, striking Behemoth, cracking his rock-hard skin and spilling ichor, eliciting a flinch. Mandala sent him stumbling a moment later, a massive blast of wind sending parked cars flipping end over end. Eidolon cast off the sonic power in frustration, seeking something effective.
Mandala tore a massive chunk of street out of the ground, and made a clenching motion with his hands. The chunk shrank - not destroyed, but condensed - until it was the size of a beach ball, and then was disintegrated to form a cloud of dense projectiles around the bright-eyed child. Eidolon's danger sense painted the entire cloud as a danger zone for him, moments before the boy spun in midair, kicking the stones into a blurred storm of debris.
Was he holding back this whole time? Why?
His power gave him something to work with; his newest ability was an energy redirection shield that stayed just beyond his skin, nullifying incoming momentum, heat, and other forms of energy past a certain point, and turning them into attacking power. It also gave him flight. While he didn't want to give up the Narwhal-esque forcefields, he needed more power, so it was allowed to go.
He used his new power to dive into the kill aura, baiting Behemoth to use his power in an attempt to incinerate him. The bait worked, supplying his shield with a massive amount of energy, which immediately went into firing transparent, refractive lances of kinetic force, scoring deep marks into the Endbringer's back. His newest power, a Brute power, let him tank the leftover momentum from his retaliatory swipe, the rest being turned into even more energy to fuel attacks.
Legend appeared, firing an array of blue-white lasers which turned the target's skin red-hot, scouring lines into it. Mandala dodged a bolt of lightning, then pulled water from a nearby hydrant, freezing Behemoth in place just long enough for his next massive chunk of street to slam into him, while Eidolon used the opportunity to score more hits with his force-lances. They were actually hurting him, bit by bit.
Behemoth retaliated by roaring. His roar was normally loud enough to liquefy organs in a few hundred feet, and it caused Eidolon some pain from the sound even with his power dampening its sheer kinetic force. Legend shifted to living energy, barely missing a beat. Mandala – was doubled over in pain, clutching at his stomach, with no sign of his debris shield or glowing eyes. Shit!
He motioned to Legend, pointed to the boy, and mouthed, "I'll hold him off. You get him help." Legend, nodded, and swooped down to grab the now limp child's form before accelerating away.
Eidolon turned to face his adversary, and thought of his fellow capes. Let himself feel their deaths and injuries, and turned that into anger. He roared, small in comparison to Behemoth's, but far more defiant.
"Come and get me, you fucking monster! I'll make you pay!"