No matter how many times they performed this particular song and dance, it never got any easier – only more familiar.

Cambodia had a much higher per-capita Cape population than America, as most third-world countries did. So in that respect it was actually doing better than most American cities did in its fight against the Endbringer.

Of course, all that 'better' meant was that there were still Capes alive to fight by the time Capes from outside the country started to arrive on-scene.

Of all the languages that Alexandria spoke, Khmer was not one of them, and only a few of the local Capes spoke French, making coordination near-impossible.

Still, that hardly meant that they weren't at least going to try.

"Aaaaarrrrrrrgggggghhhhh!" Eidolon screamed as he manifested a hammer the size of a Double-decker bus, comprised of pure darkness. He swung it around himself twice to build up speed, before throwing it into Behemoth with a resounding crack. The only thing he got for his trouble however was to watch in dismay as the head of the hammer shattered on impact, the pieces disappearing quickly as the entire projection dissolved. He cursed vehemently, quickly extending blue strings from his fingers that wrapped around several other Capes and yanked them out of range before they could enter Behemoth's kill aura.

Legend was having slightly better luck swarming the Endbringer with an endless barrage of lasers – the ones on his torso cutting and burning, the ones on his legs trying to freeze them solid. It seemed to be mostly working, but he couldn't let himself fall into a pattern, or else Behemoth would be able to predict his lasers and start redirecting them into his allies.

Hold, hold, hold… Alexandria prayed as she wrapped her arms around a steel support strut, lifting it and the pile of rubble that used to be a second story up enough to create a hole just large enough for a grown man to crawl through. {Go go go!} She screamed in French, prompting the survivors trapped underneath to start crawling for their freedom.

The city of Phnom Penh had become a battleground. Behemoth was rampaging around wherever it pleased, silencing any objections with bolts of lightning from its claws. Most of the buildings for blocks around had become piles of flaming rubble, destroyed by Behemoth's sonic attack or sometimes by the Endbringer itself physically ramming itself though the structure of the building.

A scream prompted Alexandria to turn her head, regretting doing so almost immediately – someone had gotten too close to Behemoth and was now spewing fire from their mouth as they were cooked from the inside out.

But something else caught her eye while she was looking in that direction – behind the Endbringer, at the back of the loose pack of defenders still in the fray, there was a second inhuman figure – an old woman made out of intricate clockwork. It lifted up a pointed, lance-like arm and ran one of the defenders through from behind.

People were still crawling through the hole Alexandria was holding open, so to activate the radio in her helmet she had to press the side of it up against her shoulder, just managing to press down the activation button. "We've got a Truce-Breaker! South by south-west!"

An assortment of multi-lingual cursing was her reply as the assorted defenders expressed exactly how little time they had for this ****.

'Super vision' wasn't one of Alexandria's powers, so she couldn't see exactly what was going on on the other side of the battlefield, but it looked like the clockwork figure was morphing, changing as she watched into a woman made of gold. There was someone else with the figure, swinging around some kind of staff. As she watched, the monster threw some kind of projectile into another one of the def–

Wait. That wasn't one of the defenders. That was one of the local civilians trying to evacuate!

She keyed her mic again. "Truce-Breaker is attacking civilians! I repeat, we have a Truce-Breaker attacking civilians!"

She got another jumble of replies, but one cry stood out to her from the rest: "Wait, what? We have a Truce-Breaker? Where?"

"South by south-west!" Alexandria looked down at the hole she was keeping open. Someone was emerging from the destroyed building, holding both hands in a 'thumbs-up' pose while yelling {Out! Out! All out!} in French.

She waited for that person to be completely clear of the rubble before dropping the support strut.

Behemoth wasn't fast, especially not compared to Leviathan, but being fifty feet tall automatically meant that your walking pace was way faster than someone one-tenth your height. Alexandria screamed at the people she'd just rescued to run, then flew straight at Behemoth. She had to keep him from going after those who were still evacuating.

Punching the monster wouldn't help that much if he could see it coming – his energy-control ability included even kinetic energy – but what she could do was physically block its advance. As Behemoth made to jump up into a stomp attack, she swooped in, heedless of his kill aura, and pushed back down. Behemoth swiped her aside with ease, but his attack had been thwarted, the Capes that were his targets scrambling out of range.

She felt grim satisfaction at that right up until Behemoth killed them anyway with a lightning bolt.

She screamed in frustration, dashing back into range and punching a joint on one of its legs as hard as she could. The beast stumbled, letting Legend, Eidolon, and the local Blasters unload into it with as much energy as they could muster. Behemoth roared, the sound-wave visibly distorting the air as it blasted back everyone and everything around him, the surrounding buildings ripped apart and their pieces sent flying through the air.

By the time she'd righted herself, the Endbringer had dived into the earth like it was water, his tunnel collapsing behind him to make pursuit impossible instead of just suicidal.

"Thinkers!" Alexandria heard Legend call over the radio. "We need to know where he is and where he'll reappear! Don't let him get the drop on us!"

An atmosphere of tension smothered the assembled Capes, the only sounds the crackle of fire and the rumble of Behemoth burrowing under their feet. Alexandria scowled, about to fly upward to get a better view, when she spotted movement.

The shape-changing monster that she had spotted earlier had moved away from the assembled Capes, rampaging through the stranglers still trying to evacuate. It was still changing, morphing even as she watched. Now it was a girl in a Chinese dress resting in a chair that seemed to be made out of animal legs. The second person she'd seen before was following it, still swinging around the same staff.

Alexandria swore as she swooped down towards the figure. "Command, why the hell isn't someone intercepting the Truce-Breaker?"

"There's a Truce-Breaker?! Where?!" Came the reply.

Twice was a coincidence, three times was a pattern. "Command, activate Master/Stranger protocols. We've got a probable Stranger tearing through the evacuating civilians."

Before Command could respond, Alexandria had reached the figure. She announced her presence by punching the ground hard enough to send cracks radiating out for several meters. The shockwave that created knocked the civilians off their feet, and more importantly caused the shapeshifter's buddy to fumble their next attack.

The space surrounding the two was filled with red spheres the size of an apple, drifting aimlessly through the air. Every so often, they would change direction as though they had hit an invisible wall once they got a certain distance from the pair. Interspersed with the red spheres were larger, immobile black spheres. There were far more red spheres than black ones, but Alexandria didn't have time to start counting.

She also didn't have time for any length discussion, so she decided to be very to the point. "If you surrender now, I'll only send you to the Birdcage instead of killing you."

[Alexandria?!] The human of the pair spluttered, both he and the shape-changer (now a woman make of a liquid that glimmered like the surface of a CD) halting in their tracks. [Um… look out!] He cried out in German, pointing frantically to something over Alexandria's shoulder.

She kept her eyes on the two before her. [Is that how your power works? People forget about you when they look away?]

[Er…] The human of the pair didn't seem to know what to do now that he'd been caught. [Look, it's not what you – Adali, no!]

The shape-changer had surged forwards, spewing out some of her own substance out at the civilians who hadn't yet run. Alexandria kicked the ground so hard it shook, and the targeted civilians stumbled and fell, the attack sailing over their heads.

[That was your only warning.] She told them.

[We need to build up a chain!] The man begged her. [I don't think an Endbringer can be stopped with anything less than a high-level Unexplored-class, but there's no way we can summon one of those in the ten-minute duration of just one battle! We need to fight others to give us time to build up a powerful Material! Please!] He pleaded. [We're almost there!]

Alexandria was tempted. It was rare that the casualties of an Endbringer attack could be measured in numbers less than six digits. If this person could kill one with a dozen people as a sacrifice, then Alexandria would gladly let him send the metaphorical trolley down the other track.

However, she wasn't going to let someone do whatever they wanted just because they might be able to kill an Endbringer – the fact that String Theory was in the Birdcage was proof of that.

[I won't let you kill whoever you like just to test the limits of your power.]

She was a woman who had been forced to compromise her morals. Not a woman of no morals at all.

The man made a pained expression, but raised his staff.

Alexandria shot forward like a bullet, ready to slam a haymaker into his torso. Unfortunately, she hit some kind of forcefield before actually reaching him, the force of her punch dissipating uselessly.

Alexandria hadn't spotted them until just now, but there was at least one white sphere amongst the red and black ones. The man swung his staff around, hitting the white sphere, and having it hit the red spheres like a game of billiards.

The moment one of the red spheres collided with a black one, it was sucked inside. Alexandria heard a cracking noise come from behind her, and turned to see that 'Adali' had morphed once again. Now she was octopus from the waist down, tentacles reaching out to grab more victims from those who hadn't managed to run away yet.

Alexandria kicked the ground under the creature hard enough to send large chunks of it flying upwards, but the creature was ready for her. Rather than loose its 'footing', the individual tentacles wrapped themselves around the derbies, throwing them back with enough force that Alexandria swore that she could see the air around the pieces start to burn.

She tried to catch them out of reflex, but underestimated the force behind the pieces, and ended up getting blown backwards herself. The sensation of the wind getting knocked out of her was the strongest sensation, but she also felt herself fly backwards through one… two… six walls as she was blasted no less than three blocks away.

Offloading her mental processes to her Shard meant that most mind-affecting powers didn't work on her (something invaluable when fighting the Simurgh), so she remembered the pair she was fighting even after losing sight of them.

Of course, her simulated brain still believed that it needed to breathe, so she had to waste several precious seconds gulping down air into lungs that hadn't processed oxygen in over twenty years.

She could still hear the soft rumbling that meant that Behemoth was still underground, so there was still a chance she could resolve this before the Endbringer popped its head back above the surface. Alexandria really wasn't looking forward to having to choose between fighting the enemy that needed every fighter available and the enemy that only she seemed to be able to remember.

Skipping getting to her feet by virtue of full-body levitation, Alexandria rushed back towards the Stranger pair as fast as she could manage. In the seconds she'd been gone, the female of the pair had changed again, now a sickly-looking girl in a wheelchair.

Despite Alexandria flying in at well over the speed of sound, the girl's eyes flicked to her immediately, and the index finger on her left hand lifted up to point at her.

Unexpectedly, her partner somehow noticed and screamed [NO!]

At the last possible instant, the girl opened her hand instead to catch Alexandria's fist.

Despite her sickly appearance, and the fact that her punch had enough force behind it to crumple a tank like a discarded soft-drink can, the girl stopped Alexandria's attack dead in the air.

[Don't kill her, Adali.] The man begged. [She's important. The world needs her.]

She didn't know why those words invoked such a cold rage in her chest. It was hypocritical of her to feel this way – she'd used similar logic herself on more than one occasion when deciding who lived and who died.

Maybe that was it. Maybe her self-loathing was rejoicing at finally having found a target she felt no qualms about beating into the ground.

Regardless of why, Alexandria took those feelings and infused them all into a punch with her free hand. She didn't have as much space to build up speed, but it still managed to be three times as powerful as her first.

The sickly girl caught that one as well.

With the same lack of concern with which she blocked her follow-up kick.

And the headbutt.

Alexandria screamed once again, and pulled back – the girl making no attempt to hold onto her hands – eyes scanning furiously for a weak-point. At this point, she was pretty convinced that 'Adali' was a projection of some kind, which would explain her malleability, durability, and why she had a partner with her who was giving her orders. Of course, said partner was protected by something strong enough to take even her punches, making the obvious attack route non-viable.

The male of the pair swung his staff around again, knocking another white sphere into another red sphere, which in turn vanished upon contact with another black sphere. The form of the wheelchair girl rippled and changed, almost instantly becoming a girl in a kimono with horns and red hair that stretched behind her as far as one cared to look, entangled in gears that floated in the air behind her.

[We're nearly there.] The man said, to whom Alexandria couldn't tell.

To her slight surprise, the probably-a-projection turned her head. She would be looking her partner in the eye if it weren't that both of her eyes we closed.

[Foolish summoner.] The lady said. [This battle will not end in your glory.]

Alexandria's eyes narrowed in confusion as one partner suddenly started talking to the other as though she had just arrived.

[Shut up!] The man said. [If I can actually kill an Endbringer, everything it cost will have been worth it!]

[You currently have one of the Three who watch over mankind bound to your will. I am a creature that the gods themselves must fear and obey – and yet you hesitate to send me out into battle?]

[A-are you doubting my resolve?!]

[No. I can see quite plainly that your desire for the Strongest White completely eclipses your desire to slay the hero-killer.]

The lady turned back to face Alexandria. [Stand firm, librarian. Help is on its way.]

…it had been a long time since someone had recognised that she had named herself after a library.

Snarling, the man hit one more white sphere with his staff, and the Red Lady was gone.

{Ah~. I'm back, world~.}

Unlike the previous form, which had spoken the same German as their partner, this one was speaking in Japanese for some reason.

She was wearing something that was half wedding dress, half cutout swimsuit. Everything about her was white, from her skin tone and hair colour to her outfit.

Then the Queen looked Alexandria in the eyes, and she felt the same chill she did with the Sleeper.

[Y-your divine grace!] The man said, sounding as though he was amazed to have gotten this far. [Y-your humble servant –]

{Hmm? Is a cockroach trying to speak to me? What a perfect mix of adorable and disgusting.}

Alexandria suddenly realised that the rumbling of Behemoth's tunnelling was starting to get louder once again.

"Emergence coordinates identified!" One of the Thinkers working at the on-site command centre called out over the radio. "All forces, converge at" he rattled off the same street address where Alexandria was floating.

"Belay that!" She found herself barking back into the radio.

"A-alexandria…?" Eidolon's voice was confused, but she didn't have time to explain.

"All forces pull back to" she named a location ten blocks away "and prepare to move!"

By some miracle, nobody questioned her order. Which was fortunate, because Alexandria wouldn't have been able to give an explanation even if someone had asked her for one.

{Hmm?}

The girl in white finally took notice of Alexandria. {Are you trying to protect your comrades from me? That won't work. They wouldn't be safe even if they travelled to the other side of the universe.}

Powerful and crazy. Always a fantastic combination.

With a final roar, Behemoth finally burst out of the ground not ten metres from Alexandria. The Endbringer immediately turned to face the three 'humans' nearby, growling.

[P-please!] The man pleaded. [Y-your ma… maj…]

Suddenly, the man found himself gasping for breath. Before his terrified eyes, flame and smoke billowed out from his mouth and nose.

The girl in white laughed as the man collapsed in pain, sounding as though she didn't have a care in the world. {You thought that the protective circle would save you? It might be able to keep you alive until the ten minute limit expires, but ultimately it only functions as a perfect defence in three dimensions, so it's no good against an opponent that naturally operates above those. You shouldn't expect so much from a ceremony made with human hands!}

Alexandria noted that the girl in white, much like herself, seemed to be unaffected by the kill aura.

{Qqqquuuuuuueeeeeeeeeeeennnnn!}

A new voice, with a new figure approaching. An Asian teen, with black hair and a red-and-black jacket. He was running full pelt towards them, eyes focuses so strongly on the 'queen' that Alexandria wasn't sure he saw Behemoth at all.

{Stop!} She barked out. {Don't come any closer – you're getting too close to his kill aura!}

{Brother!} The Queen squealed in delight, making Alexandria blink. {You heard I was here, and came running? Ah! This must be love!} She clapped her hands to her face and blushed.

{Get away from her!} The boy yelled at Alexandria. {She'll kill you!}

{…Brother. What have I told you about looking at other women?!}

The Queen suddenly spun on the spot, full facing Alexandria for the first time. The kick came so fast that even she couldn't see it, but she felt the impact reverberate around her body as she was shoved metres deep into the concrete. There was a brief struggle to pull her head free before her simulated brain decided that she was suffocating.

{As for you…} The Queen turned her head to look at Behemoth, who had been unnaturally quiet and still while the Queen had been talking. {…anyone who tries to come between Brother and I should burn in Hell.}

Behemoth disappeared.

The was a sudden rush of wind as several thousand tonnes of monster rapidly departed at speed, forcing the approaching boy to stop running in the sudden gale-force winds.

The Queen shaded her eyes with a hand and looked straight up. {Aw, isn't that sweet?} She said to nobody in particular. {His sister was waiting to catch him before he could pass the moon… such a beautiful example of sisterly love is getting me all excited, Brother! I know! How about I kick you towards the sun, then catch you before you start to burn?}

There was an excited gabble of voices on the radio, all happily declaring that Behemoth was gone. Alexandria wished they'd shut up – they had no idea about the monster that was still here.

{How many minutes has it been since the last link in your Chain, Queen?} The boy asked, now walking towards them instead of running. {Five? Nine?}

{Ah, Brother~. You should know that time means nothing to love or to me~!} The Queen clasped her hands together, blushing like a schoolgirl.

The boy's eyes flicked back towards Alexandria. {My name is Kyousuke Shiroyama.} He said. {Say 'help me', and I'll definitely save you.}

{Thanks.} Alexandria said, standing up fully from the concrete crater and lifting the staff that had been blown around in the wind after the Queen's 'partner' had dropped it. {But I've got this.}

The Queen, who had been about to say something to Shiroyama, suddenly whirled around to face Alexandria. Once again, the blow came too fact for her to see, and the hand holding the staff was blown backwards, the rest of her body pulled along with the force of the blow.

However, all that did was knock the staff into the white sphere that had been behind Alexandria where the Queen couldn't see it.

The white sphere bounced off the ground and hit a red sphere.

The red sphere flew through the air to a black sphere.

Every time a red sphere entered a black one, the projection changed. The Red Lady called you the 'strongest' – so what happens if I change it once more?

Time seemed to slow as the red sphere neared the black one.

Actually, Alexandria realised with a start, that wasn't her – time actually was slowing.

{…you came between Brother and I.}

Alexandria slowly turned, feeling like she was moving through molasses. The White Queen was looking directly at her, an unreadable expression on her face.

{I protected this city from a monster.} Alexandria corrected, forcing the words out through the slowed time.

The Queen smirked, just a little. {Something like that deserves a thousand million painful deaths, but you aren't afraid at all, are you?}

{I've always been ready to give my life to stop monsters like you.}

{You say that only because you think it will stop the guilt inside.}

Alexandria felt her mouth open a little.

The Queen wagged a finger at her. {Really, what would be far more painful for you would be to watch the world crashing down around you, and knowing it was all your fault… ah, I know.}

Time began to flow normally again, the red sphere almost touching the black one…

{Next time you face a monster like this, call on me, and I will kill it. Don't, and you will die~!}

The two spheres touched, and the White Queen disappeared.

"…she offered her help?" Legend said, confused.

Alexandria shook her head. "That's what she said, but not what she meant. She just wants me to summon her again so she can go after Shiroyama."

"But…" Legend's face was agonised. For decades they'd been searching for someone with the power to kill an Endbringer, and now having found someone who might be able to do it, he was being told to forget about it? "Surely if Shiroyama asked her –"

"After that battle," Alexandria interrupted "I was contacted by a group called 'Government', a collection of Summoners who work alongside major world organisations. They were able to provide me with detailed information on humanity's interactions with the Queen."

Alexandria looked Legend straight in the eyes. "There have been thirty-seven serious attempts to command or control the White Queen, and six attempts to destroy her. She's laughed off each one. Shiroyama himself believes that any attempt to control the Queen will end with her controlling you instead, and wants no part of it."

Alexandria took no satisfaction at all in watching the hope in Legend's eyes die.

More sombrely, she continued. "She's not something you can direct or coerce, Legend. She might kill the Endbringers on a whim, then the next minute decide to wipe out the human race. She destroyed an entire dimension just so that she'll be able to visit the object of her obsession whenever she wants."

"Wait, what?!" Panic suddenly lit up Legend's eyes. "When did she do that?!"

"Just now." Alexandria sighed. "Earth Pe is gone, Legend. The lives of those inside it were worth nothing compared to her own desires in the Queen's eyes. And if we don't stop her now, she'll become a full-time resident in Earth Bet, for however long we last."

Legend staggered backwards, only catching himself from falling because he could levitate. He righted himself and started rubbing his face, swearing as he did so.

"Pretty much." Alexandria agreed.

"So there we are, Kars and I, stuck on a chunk of rock flying upwards at near escape velocity! I'm missing a hand, he's completely unkillable and a shapeshifter to boot! So what does old Joseph Joestar do next?"

{Did you make him become nothing?} Kumagawa said, spinning a giant screw on a fingertip.

"Seal him in another dimension?" Doctor Strange suggested.

"Pick him up and throw him to Venus?" Superman guessed.

Joseph stared back at the other faces in the room. "…you people are really hard to impress."

Batman snorted. "Maybe next time don't tell a story that doesn't consist of you winning through sheer dumb luck."

"I was fulfilling a prophecy!"

Batman smirked. "Same thing."

"Alright, wise guy." Joseph leaned back, pointing at Batman with both hands while keeping his elbows near his chest in an impressive but pointless display of balancing. "What would you have done? No, wait, let me guess – your next line will be 'I'm Batman'."

"I'm Batman." Batman said shamelessly.

"That is not an explanation!"

"Yes it is." He smirked.

"No, it really isn't!"

It was to this childish argument that Legend, Fate and Alexandria quietly popped back into existence.

"Welcome back." Wonder Woman greeted, glad to have something to focus on other that boyish posturing. "Did you discuss what you needed to?"

Alexandria glanced at Legend, who paused, then nodded. "Yes, we did."

"Good to hear." Doctor Pym grunted, slotting a chip into a mass of electronics with a final-sounding click. "We'll make a protective shell for these, but otherwise we're pretty much done here."

On cue, Access reappeared in the room with a slightly soot-caked Armsmaster, who in turn was carrying what looked to Alexandria's eyes like the central processor of a Dragon Suit. "Found another one." Access reported joylessly.

Armsmaster, for his part, scanned the room before striding to the workbench that the others were using. Without a word, he grabbed a discarded spanner and started gently removing the damaged casing from the processor.

"Good." Alexandria said. "Then we can get started."