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Fate's Intervention

By Corvus no Genmu

A Matter of Life & Death

Terror roamed the streets, tickling upon the spines of passerby and urged them to quicken their pace lest careful touches become much more worrying. Horror ran upon the winds, carrying forth a wintry chill that pierced through stone and steel alike. Nightmare stalked the alleyways and whispered dread to life amidst the shadows.

Fear ruled with an iron grip and the Assassin bore the crown with regal geniality upon His masked visage.

It had been many eons since last He played upon the World. Oh, what delights He had forgotten in those long ago ages, when dreaming nightmares and bittersweet reality were one and the same to the eyes of mankind. In an age where dragons lay in waiting upon unwritten borders, and when gods still roamed the Earth.

Time, never a friend to Man, was at least cordial to a fellow Embodiment. Especially one bound to the mortal conception of Servitude. Seconds became Minutes and Minutes became Hours. A solitary Night became like an everlasting Nightmare in the tangled skeins that wove between the Assassin's fingers. Every strand a Figment, and together woven into a Dream. He was a puppeteer in every sense of the word and from the heart of this most wretched of cities, He was connected to them all.

The Terrors, the Horrors, and the Nightmares. Each and every one of them a Creation of Himself, a Fragment of the Whole, and as the city became rampant with fear, so too did the Assassin's power grow even as His physical form waned. Did this stop Him from delighting in His own merriments?

NEVER.

Head tilting back and arms outstretched in a wide, welcoming embrace to the Moon above, the Assassin's eyes shone with a violet hued ferocity. His mask bore a perpetual smile but what geniality that once lay upon its ivory surface was gone. It had become warped and morphed to be both impossibly wide and quite clearly born of rage instead of mirth.

Strings, thin and nearly invisible even to the sharpest of eyes, spooled forth from the clawed tips of the Assassin's spindly fingers. They whirled, contorted, and danced to the tiniest of motions and were slowly conforming into a new shape, a fresh existence.

A Terror.

By the time He had finished, the smile still permeated His mask but the violet tears had thinned and were flaking away like ashes on an unfelt wind. Claws long and thin, tapered into dulled tips that couldn't even pierce mere paper let alone flesh and bone. Moonlight draped across His shoulders and the Assassin found a renewed surge of strength as He gazed upon His Creation.

Another of His had been Made.

Now it needed to be Born.

He held out a hand, bony fingers delicately touching upon the chin and raising the face upwards so that buttoned eyes met shadowed violet. A long, soft sigh flowed between them and what was fabric and cotton fluff became flesh and blood. What was once an innocent, if not slightly demented looking, toy became a living, breathing Terror.

The Terror would have been called a mutated cousin to a flamingo though never straight to her face and only by sheer dumb coincidence. True, hers was a body covered in fine, vibrant feathers but what little pink that gleamed was few and far between the splatters of ichor that covered her from head to clawed toes. She bore no wings but extended forelimbs that ended in thick, leathery claws. Her eyes gleamed with friendly warmth that did nothing to hide the blood that dribbled from her open and panting beak as she waved in greeting to—

"Papa!"

He did not outwardly react to the Terror's greeting but inwardly the Assassin had many choice words to say in regards to that. This was why He preferred to Horrors and Nightmares to Horrors. Nightmares were far too brutish, too animalistic, to obey anything more than solidary commands whereas Horrors could think and plan with nigh robotic efficiency but that was all that differentiated them from their beastly Nightmare brethren. Horrors however are Sentient Creations. They can think with all the intelligence of a mortal mind and have primordial instincts to put the fiercest of predators to shame, but that pales in comparison to what truly separates them from Nightmares and Horrors.

They can feel Emotion, just as their Maker can.

And Terrors, even more so than their Maker, derive no greater feeling of Pleasure than to inflict their namesake upon any poor soul that crosses their path. It was why they called their Maker such titles as "Father." Because they, more than Horrors and Nightmares, are the truest and most favored of His Creations.

And they knew it.

More than that, they reveled in it.

And the Assassin could not be more proud of them for it.

Because He had grown just human enough to comprehend that which was the Deadliest Sin of Mankind and what felled the Morning Star to the Blackened Ice of Hell's Heart…

Pride.

However, He could not allow even the Deadliest Sin to distract Him from His Task. He raised a clawed finger and pointed out into the city. The Terror followed it and smiled and all that was alive and all that knew Fear trembled. For a Terror alone is bad enough but one that feels Joy, a feeling that none born of Fear or associated with it should know let alone experience?

There is nothing more wretched.

The Terror's mouth slowly grew to be impossibly wide, the bloodied spittle flowing like crimson rivers from her fangs, and her vibrant pink coloration darkening underneath the ichor that spread like a vile pestilence across her feathers. Her panting grew to a fevered pitch, clawed hands twitching to grasp and strangle. Her whole body was trembling, pink feathers falling and ichor splattering but not once did her eyes stray from where the Assassin had pointed and the soul whom He commanded that she terrorize.

The Assassin snapped His fingers and the Terror was gone in an explosion of feathers and blood, her distorted laughter echoing on the wind that followed in her wake with a chorus of frightened shrieks a mere step behind.

The Assassin shook His head ruefully before He turned and looked to whom He had set His latest Terror upon and the small smile of His mask grew maddeningly wide once more.

"People say that it is better to lose Love than to never know Love at all."

The Assassin was no stranger to His fellow Emotions, and while He delighted in testing the fortitude of Will and Hope, He was no stranger to the strongest of Emotion of them all for He and She worked together quite frequently, particular when one of Hers came to an end.

"Will you agree with that sentiment, child?"

What is it like to die?

Is it silence and stillness, the final resting of the mind as the body that houses it shuts down completely? Could it really be that simple?

Is it hellfire and heavenly light, the first step to the grandest of adventures that no living soul could hope to describe though many have tried? Is it truly so extravagant?

Is it a recollection of the forgotten and remembrance of treasured moments, to see and experience everything anew from the painful regrets to the bittersweet experiences of the heart? Would it be so kind and yet so cruel?

"We know your name!"

"We have always known it."

To those who knew him for the soldier he had been, they would say that he had become familiar with Death. To they who feared him for the villain he is and the man who held no quarter in displaying his wickedness to allies and enemies alike, they would say that he was intimate with Death. Yet, the man himself, he who was a soldier and a villain, a man of his word and a silver-tongued snake, he would claim otherwise.

By his own experience firsthand in more ways than he cared to learn, Thomas Calvert would say that he knew nothing of Death despite the number of times that he had died.

True his deaths were of no substantial amount. It was hardly into the double digits range and he had ceased keeping track somewhere past the seventh, but he remembered them with perfect clarity save for one thing. Each and every time that he had died, he would immediately snap back to the timeline where he still lived and breathed.

"Do others come back?"

"Those who do, wish they hadn't."

The first few, it had been a careful and meticulous experimentation of his powers and, admittedly, the extent that he could allow of his ego. Those that followed were further examples that served to only temper his hubris but there was a smidgeon of curiosity to them. He was no masochist so he cared little for the agonies that his body could endure before death, though that did not stop him from testing those limits on anyone else, but there was something that always teased at him in the back of his mind.

Since the first time he had died, it had been nothing more than a half-forgotten dream. A faint whisper of discontent that only tickled lightly upon his consciousness when other, far more important, thoughts clouded and overpower it. Once, he had come close to being told upfront what these near nonexistent signs meant but the object of his pleasures and the venting of his frustrations had passed before she could do anything more than give one last vulpine grin in triumph.

He had dismissed the timeline and the untouched Tattletale in the same breath that day.

Thomas Calvert had, in his greatest pinnacle of pride when he had survived yet another inescapable demise, come to the conclusion that he was the World's first true Immortal. Being born a human and thus with a human conception of Time, Life, and Death, Thomas could not have known that Immortality is Creation's Greatest Lie. He could not know but soon, he would and be all the more wretchedly twisted for it.

"It thinks it can beat us!"

"This is called… denial."

Thomas Calvert could not have known what Tattletale had meant. Of the White Lamb and the Black Wolf. She had perished to an unseen arrow before she had chance to reveal the Truth of her words, the Truth that she realized with her dying breath and welcomed gladly.

Death is not a singular entity, even as an Embodiment for Death is too great, too powerful, to be so confined. It, like Life, is fractured into countless pieces spread across a multitude of lifetimes.

"Long have we shadowed your deeds woven across countless almost-lives, Thomas Calvert."

"Turn and face us now, Coil!"

Merciful Death shadowed Thomas Calvert.

Hungering Death hunted Coil.

The arrows that pierced its way into his heart and straight through to his very soul told him so as he slipped away peacefully into a soft and welcoming embrace of ivory.

So too did the fangs of ebony, great and jagged and biting and gnawing and clawing and ripping and tearing his life from him with as much agony as could be inflicted on the soul which, as any denizen of the Circles of Hell could attest, can withstand more than any mortal could ever beget even in the worst of their nightmares.

But of course…

"All things, great and small…"

"DIE."

It is a common misconception that the best place to hold a private conversation is somewhere hidden, out of sight and thus out of mind. Someplace where not even the sharpest of senses can penetrate and gather whatever words are spoken. This is wrong simply for the fact that it is within the nature of all living things, human or otherwise, to make the unknown known, to see what is invisible to the eyes, and to hear what is not spoken.

As such, there is no better place than the middle of a crowd of people, where such things as "quiet" and "hushed" are completely nonexistent, where there is far too much to see and little time to witness it all, and what little is left to mystery is barely worth a second's contemplation.

Such a place was where Dinah Alcott had found him.

At a glance, he was a boy no older than herself and looking like he hadn't a care in the world. He leaned back in his chair outside the ice cream parlor, clearing enjoying his triple scoop special and completely heedless of the occasional questioning stare thrown his way. To be fair, such stares were warranted not for the fact that he was a kid out on his own, for Dinah herself had barely earned a second glance as she traversed the city, but for how blatantly he wore a necklace of gold carved into massive reptilian fangs around his neck.

The wind tousled his golden hair gently and his gleaming red eyes turned to Dinah and he wordlessly gestured at the seat across from him where another cup of ice cream sat, her favorite flavor no less.

The urge to utilize her powers rose again but she stamped down hard on it with only a minor twitch of annoyance as she took her seat and started on her ice cream. "You were expecting me?"

In answer, the boy took out a stopwatch and clicked it with a teasing smirk. "Five days, seven hours, and four minutes ago but yeah, we've been waiting for you to show up."

"We?"

"What, you thought that any one of us would wait for you that long? Please, we've got our Tasks to do and speaking to you isn't one of them. It's merely… oh, how did Assassin put it…? Professional courtesy. He sends His regards by the way and is glad that He was of service."

The twitch was back and the desire grew exponentially more but Dinah held strong. It had taken her that long because four of those five days were spent in near coma from overtaxing her powers beyond what she knew was safe. One nostril was still plugged with a piece of bloodied cotton and she had more waiting to be used in her pocket.

And imagine, all it took was asking just who, or rather what, one of the Messenger's Servants was. It was pure misfortune that she chose to learn of the most inhuman one of the lot…

When she awoke, she had been surprised to find that her parents hadn't brought her to a hospital and frightened that the worst had happened only to find them perfectly fine save for the assumption that she had been in bed due to a bad case of the flu and not in a coma-like state. She had been concerned and had been about to use her powers again, consequences be damned, when her father suddenly handed her a letter addressed to her with only two solitary words as a return address.

The Messenger.

The letter was short, sweet and to the point and she was here as a result

"So what did the boss have to say about you using your powers to try and find out more about him?" asked the boy.

"… Don't." She grumbled. "Not if I don't want to go into a coma again…"

"Ah-ah! No lying!" The boy wagged his finger at her. "You died, Miss Alcott! You would have stayed dead too if the risk of your power ending up in the wrong hands, so to speak, wasn't so great!"

Her eyes narrowed. There were few capes out there capable of utilizing the powers of dead parahumans though many required certain circumstances in order to work and, more to the point, they had to be aware that she had powers in the first place. She had made that mistake once already and had been pursued relentlessly as a result at least until…

Her eyes widened. Until the Messenger appeared…

"Now then!" The young boy clapped his hands. "I have my Task still left to fulfill so I'll be brief with you and you can even use your powers to verify what I have to say. Deal?"

"… Deal."

"Alright then, first's things first, you and your family are safe from any harm be it direct or indirect. Of that you have my solemn word." The boy promised.

What is the likelihood of my family and I being purposefully injured or killed in the next year?

0.00000%

… Huh. Dinah relaxed, her shoulders sagging as though the weight of the World had at last been taken off her—

"The World is still going to end in a year though."

… And there it was again and with interest.

Likelihood of the World ending within a year?

100.0000%

The timetable that she had was thrown out the window. Every morning when she awoke, she would ask the same questions, trying to narrow down the cause and effect of the answers she received. Dinah Alcott knew that the world was going to end in two years. Knew this with absolute certainty. She'd waste precious questions to try and find ways of pushing it back.

She never bothered to see if the timetable had been moved forward.

Oh God…!

The boy shrugged carelessly. "It's part of the bargain between the Messenger and his boss, so to speak. Your earlier predication was accurate and could be prevented but it was deemed that the costs were too high. Now at least we have a fifty-fifty chance."

"A fifty-fifty chance?" She asked incredulously. "To save the World?"

"To save Humanity and the World." The boy chuckled but it was an empty sound and for a moment, Dinah could swear she saw the shadow of the boy, older and with far more disdain in his crimson gaze sneering at her in clear revulsion.

"There's a clear difference between the two that most fail to realize. We succeed at our tasks and the World keeps on turning and Humanity gets a second chance." He shrugged. "We fail… well, either way the World as Humanity knows it to be will end. It'll just end on Her own terms that's all and Humanity will just be another bookmark lost amidst the countless pages of Destiny's Book."

Dinah's eyes narrowed at the boy's words. … Likelihood of the World having a con—

"Oops, hold that thought!" The boy tapped her on the nose. "Trust me, you do not want the answer to that question. You'll sleep a lot better at night not knowing it. Well, better than you do now I'm sure. Now if you want to help our odds, focus on everyone but the Boss and my fellow Servants alright? We're doing our part in this with the least amount of bloodshed that we can but make no mistake, if sacrifices need to be made it will be swift and without prejudice. Got it?"

There it was again, that feeling like there was more than what he was saying. "So that's it then? Does the Messenger even have a plan to stop this?"

"Oh gods, like you wouldn't believe." The boy bemoaned with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. "Plans with plans, agendas within agendas… If it makes you feel any better though… Do you remember the likelihood of an S-Class parahuman threat occurring in Brockton Bay within a few months?"

She did. She had checked just this morning along with a few other odds, including the chances of the World ending in two years. One year now… "98.16000%."

He blinked but kept his teasing smile. "What is it now?"

At his question, her powers provided the answer and Dinah's jaw dropped.

"Zero percent."

"Now comes the million dollar question. Having been aware that there was an S-Class parahuman threatening the city, would you have utilized your powers to find a way to neutralize it or stop it?"

"Neutralize." Her powers bid her to answer and Dinah cocked her head in confusion. "But they're the same thing."

"Nope. Not in the way powers work. Conflict breeds powers and powers breed conflict. Try as you would to help in any way that you could, your answers would always point towards the one that results in the highest amount of conflict possible while still fitting in the parameters to your question."

She looked at him in clear disbelief.

He sighed, "Alright then, answer me this Dinah Alcott. What is the likelihood that your powers would provide you with an answer that ensures the highest amount of conflict possible while fitting to the parameters of your question?"

"One Hundred Percent." She blinked. … No… No, it's not possible…!

But the boy was far from done.

"What is the likelihood that your powers are derived from one of two possible alien sources, both having existed long before this humanity in its present form?"

"One Hundred Percent." Her eyes widened. Oh no way…!

"What is the likelihood that your powers, and those of other parahumans, are sapient with a sense of will on their own?"

"One Hundred Percent." And now her mouth was hanging loose in a stunned gape. Wha-?

"What is—?"

"Stop!" Dinah pleaded, hand pressing against her temple to stave off the migraine that battered at her skull like a herd of rams. "I… I get it, alright?"

"… Yeah, I suppose that you do. At least in part." He drank the remains of his ice cream and stood up from his seat. "Listen, I get that you want to help us but the fact is that we know more of what's at stake than you could possibly begin to fathom. If you want to make a difference, and I mean a real difference, then why don't you start somewhere small and starting working up from there? Take it from a former Archer, Miss Alcott, sometimes you got to aim for the smaller weak spots to take down the bigger threat."

With that he turned and walked away, vanishing into the passing crowd near instantly. Dinah swallowed and took up her cup of ice cream, somewhat surprised to find it hardly melted. She glanced down at the magazine that the boy, the Archer, had been reading before her arrival. A tabloid magazine about the latest court case involving a parahuman, Paige Mcabee, and from the doodles that Archer had drawn on the faces of everyone but the defendant herself, a kangaroo court case if ever there was one.

Aim somewhere small to take down something big huh…

To anyone that knew him, Trickster was not one to trust easily or freely. Not without the right button being pressed. It did not take a genius to see what it was that Trickster, or Francis Krouse outside of the mask, had one weakness above all others. One thing that could allow him to hurt, and perhaps even kill, without a moment's hesitation. Not even those whom he considered as friends or allies were safe from him should this one weakness of his be exploited.

But then, what greater weakness is there than Love?

For his love, for his Noelle, he would do anything that was within his power to accomplish. He had become a villain for her. He had all but forced their friends to do the same, and had denied and ignored the truth of what his love had unwillingly become even when the evidence was lying splattered on the ground, the walls, and even the ceiling.

Noelle had become a monster, but it was as much a physical transformation as it was a psychological one and Francis Kruse, the Trickster, would move Heaven and Hell alike to find a cure, to restore the woman he loved from the monster that she had become.

It was for that reason and that reason alone that he allowed the strange young woman's presence at Noelle's door, deep within the bowels of Coil's headquarters. He kidded himself in believing that the door was there for Noelle's protection. His friends knew that it was more for them than anyone else, Noelle included. For though she tried and tried, her monstrous form was ensnared deeply by an insatiable need for consumption. She had to be fed at an hourly basis and with ever increasing quantities or what little of her human side that remained would be lost to the ravenous rampages of a hellion beast.

The Travelers knew this. So did Francis no matter how deep he buried the knowledge.

This young woman, who couldn't have been much older than Francis himself now that he was really looking at her, stood outside a monster's door and had claimed to know it too. Had spoken outright of the long list of Noelle's deeds and all the names attributed to those few instances of lost control like she was reciting a grocery list. She knew all that Noelle had done, could do, and what the Travellers had done, would do, to protect her and yet…

She was not afraid.

Rather, she was amused. Of what little they could see of her face beneath her hood, her lips, painted a viscous purple, were quirked in a half smile that was equal parts condescending sneer and cruel bemusement.

She knew the dangers behind the door and found them lacking.

Francis steadfastly ignored the cold shiver that traveled down his spine and focused on the one whom he claimed would solve all of their problems.

Whoever she was, she was distinctly of the upper class. The way she walked, the way that she had looked at them, Francis could see it. Had seen it, in those teams that consisted of kids that had more money than experience in the art of gaming, especially in a team. Her robes and dress, or what little of it that he could see, brought to mind the mages from one of the few roleplaying games that Noelle had introduced him back… Back before everything went to Hell.

"You can really do it? You can help Noelle?" He asked her. He steadfastly ignored the shivers that traversed down his spine as her gaze left him for Noelle's door.

The young woman seemed amused at the question, "I wish to speak with her first."

"… Why do you need to speak to her?" Francis asked.

She smiled and Francis felt his heart clench at the sight. It was as beautiful as it was terrifying, heartwarming as it was heartbreaking. It was the smile of one who had lost more than she had love, whom had her trust rewarded with betrayal again and again until it was all that she knew.

"I want to see how long your resolve towards her welfare will remain when she betrays you all. μαγευτική κύκλο."

Whatever response he had to that statement was caught tightly in Francis' throat as he and his fellow Travelers became as stone in almost every sense of the word. Their hearts still beat beneath their chests, their lungs still expanded and contracted with every breath, but no more and no less. Their muscles were locked tight, their powers all but dead in the ether, and their eyes…

"Ξίφη της αποκάλυψης Φωτός."

Well, their eyes were trapped, simple as that.

For hovering in the air before and around them, were Swords. Not mere blades of steel and iron, for such things may bring one to a halt, deathly so at that, blades such as these knew no such thing as harm or death.

Only Truth.

Ξίφη της αποκάλυψης Φωτός… Xífi tis apokálypsis Fotós in the Grecian dialect and loosely translated into the English language it means Swords of Revealing Light. A spell that can hold anything short of a minor god or nature spirit and where nothing but Time is allowed to move. However, Time is a fickle thing and the spell, while arguably one of the most powerful binding invocations known to mortals, has a lifespan of exactly three minutes.

Not much time for anything some would say, especially when faced with such adversaries that could throw miniaturized suns like softballs and turn pebbles into ballistic missiles with a flick of the wrist. To those who know of the immeasurable preciousness that is a mere sliver of Time however, three minutes is enough. For while great lengths of Time can bring about change, all it takes is a single moment for that change to be enacted.

Three minutes was all it took for the Travellers to see who they are in truth and not in the lies and falsehoods they set upon themselves. For some, it was a strangely reassuring thing. They saw that even with all the power to cause irrevocable harm to others and even to themselves they were not cruel, vicious, or even monstrous.

Save one.

Francis Krouse did not trust. Not fully or freely, and to those that earned it that trust was tenuous at best. He knew at the slightest hint of betrayal that he too would betray in kind with greater intensity. He would make them hurt and would gladly kill without a moment's hesitation. What were friends? What are allies?

Nothing.

Nothing at all compared to the one that mattered most to him, the source of his great weakness.

For his heart, for his Noelle, he would hurt the innocent and the guilty alike. He would betray his closest friends and dearest of allies. He would even kill anyone and everyone that stood between him and her, from newborn child to elderly adult. He would do it all and gladly if it meant her safety and her happiness.

Because for all that Noelle Meinhardt was a monster in form, Francis Krouse was twice so in his heart of hearts.

Were it not for the Swords, bile would have arisen in his throat, hot tears pouring ceaselessly from his eyes, and his voice a constant repetition of weakening denial as the Truth of Francis Krouse was presented in all of its unedited glory.

Because for all that he was a monster, horrible and terrible to the core, Noelle was still there.

And she loved him still when others would have condemned him.

Love was his weakness, but so too was it his strength.

For without it, Francis would have been broken beyond repair the moment the Swords dissipated into the ether and the circle of mystical runes beneath his and the others' feet faded into the Nothingness once more. He collapsed to his knees, a state that was similarly shared by his family —not friends not allies FAMILY— but Francis swiftly found his gaze upon the open door to Noelle's room and he remembered then the words that were spoken as the Truth was shown into his eyes with steely brilliance.

"Do it. Open the door. And make sure that one shot counts…"

"No…" His knees trembled, legs refusing to cooperate as he dredged up all of his slowly returning strength.

"Can you hear me? … Kill me… KILL ME!"

"Noelle…" Hands clenched tightly, fingernails piercing through cloth and flesh alike to the sound of grinding teeth.

"KILLMEKILLMEKILLMEKILLME!"

"NOELLE!" He roared, his voice echoing throughout the vast underground facility. Even closed tightly as they are, did not stop the rivulets of tears.

"I love you… all of you… Remember that… please…"

And the Trickster was gone with a whoosh of displaced air and in the darkness where his shadow once resided, a Horror passed from this World, her Task complete.

Her Design was what had granted him the First. Pure chance had rewarded him with the Second. Meticulous planning had called upon the Third. A daring question of possibility made the improbably impossibility of the Fourth. Unprecedented conviction had bestowed upon him the Fifth. Undeniable foolishness had allowed him two in the price of one for the Sixth.

Six of the Seven had been called, three of who were never meant to be, not in accordance to the Rules of the War. However, he was not bound by those Rules but by Her Decree, Her Task to him and to the People of this World and so he was given some leeway.

Some.

He had bound an Emotion into a corporeal form and limited it down to a degree of Human sapience that rightfully should have left him unconscious for weeks from the strain. Yet he remained standing albeit on shaken legs before Fear as He stood and smiled beneath a tear-stained mask of ivory white and whispered lowly in Her Voice that Assassin made for a fine choice.

He had taken an Aspect of Creation, a sliver if even that much, and would have died outright if it hadn't been for Caster's spells that made put him on equal grounds to a Servant in fortitude. As it was, he still nearly died from the strain and it wasn't until several days had come and gone, wasted in his hidden corners away from those who sought him for good and ill both.

Now, here he was attempting to call forth the Seventh, the Last, of the Servants.

He had a hero without peer in this world. He had a knight of great renown. He had a king of treasures immeasurable. He had an aspect of Fear Itself. He had an enchantress betrayed by gods and men alike. He even had a sliver of Death so minute as to be divided in twain, and still he wanted—he needed more.

No. Not he.

Humanity.

So it was that he allowed not his will or Hers to guide the summoning but that of Humanity itself.

What A Fool.

He stiffened, the words still escaping through his lips, his body going through the ritualistic motions even as Her Voice murmured gently upon his very soul.

You Forget What It Is That Humanity Craves Above Everything.

She had not spoken to him for so long that, were it not for the Assassin's own vindictiveness, he'd have forgotten the sound of it and be all the gladder for it.

What Humanity Desires More Than Even Its Own Preservation.

Her Will coursed through him and for once, he fought Her Will with his own, a droplet of rain against an ocean but a single drop was all that is needed to cause a cup to overflow. She had what She, what Humanity Itself, Desired. The Messenger had what Humanity Needed.

An Ending.

Across the World, from deep beneath the crust to the recesses of space, those whom rightfully earned the title of Endbringer flinched. From her orbiting roost opposite of the moon, the Simurgh turned her gaze downwards to the World she encircled first with interest and then with an emotion that she did not realize she was capable of feeling.

Fear.

The fire is dwindling, hoarfrost flowing in the veins like a mountainous avalanche. The poison pouring down into the gullet, enticing the blood to harden like steel and burn like ice. Too much, too cold, too fast, dying… Breaths shallow, fire dwindling, heat fading… Burn! Loose what little is left at the World, burn it all to stave away the deathly chill. It's not enough. The ice rushes faster, predators upon a weakened prey. Death is coming, darkness encroaching from all around, the fire fading to embers…

The King is dying.

The Heirs are dying with it.

They scream and claw and scratch and howl. They pull at each other, struggling to wrench themselves free even as their flesh tears asunder to leave bare bones and fraying muscles beneath, pushing down their brothers and their sisters if it means Life. The First rises, using the last of its great and terrible power to loose one final howl upon the World that birthed it and forsook it and dies on its feet, the Offspring frozen solid in their deathly bid for freedom.

They are dead. The King and most of the Heirs…

Most, but not all…

One Heir to the Crown still lives.

Just not in the same World as the King or the Predecessors to the Throne.

This is what he knows, not what he remembers. He knows a life not his own but a life lived regardless.

He remembers sunshine, blue skies and green grass … a life that once was his but a lifetime ago when the World was Wild and Untamed.

He crashes down, feet crumbling the asphalt, claws gouging the concrete and masonry, eyes wide and horrific in their blank intensity as the World suddenly begins to make sense again. He stumbles into the darkness of an alleyway, his weak and trembling form small enough to be well out of sight of any prying eyes. He shuffles into the furthest corner, massive tail dragging like dead weight and every step the sound of thunder on the horizon. He hunkers down low, clawed hands grasping at an alien visage, neither wholly human nor reptilian but a sick amalgamation of both.

It comes to him then, the horrible and undeniable truth.

He isn't Alive.

Not anymore.

Nor is he Dead.

Not truly.

His head rises upwards, wide and unblinking eyes looking heavenward with jaw dropping low to loose a howl only to pause as another sound is made amidst the night. He smells the same stench that perpetrated the nostrils of the First.

Iron. Smoke. Ash.

Blood, fire, and something else… He realizes. Death, he concludes.

The gunshots though do not compare to another sound. A sound very much like a call, a declaration…

A challenge.

His bony fingers clench into a pair of tight fists before he rises to his feet.

The night is illuminated in great bursts of flame, and he walks towards it, welcoming its familiar and welcoming heat. He arrives at the edge of the alleyway and looks out from the shadows with wide and focused eyes. What he sees, he would not believe if he were in his former state.

A dragon, alien in shape and design but clearly a beast of legend brought to life and bound in the mortal coil with man's flesh, and there, trying to fight its ensuing wrath, a group consisting of extraordinary teenagers and though he could hardly make them out, there was one in the group that brought his train of thought to a crashing halt.

A girl garbed in spiders silk surrounded in a swarm of insects.

He vaguely recognizes the dragon, but he knows the girl.

His mouth moves soundlessly to her name. There is no tongue there, not yet. Like the flesh of his body, it is still forming, still growing, into its new shape and function. He recognizes where he is now though he doesn't comprehend the how or why. For a moment, he considers a notion that he is like her, in essence, but the dragon —Lung— looses another roar, flames gushing forward and incarnating the swarm that flies at her beck and call.

Fire… Don't I have fire?

He did. He could feel it, thumping within the reactor of a heart but to the likes of Lung, it was an ember if even that much. The call to Fight is strong but the rumble in his innards is stronger. The need, the desire, to feed is a great and terrible beast and its claw gouge deep though he has no true stomach or any kind of organ resembling one. He feels it all around him, the minute traces of the Power that he hungers for and those few places where larger quantities of it are stored in wait but he cannot go to them.

To do so would mean to retreat from the challenge.

And even now when he was weak and pathetic, he hardly knew the word.

Above, a rumble of thunder echoes. A storm is on the horizon but by the feel of the wind upon his naked and ripped flesh, it will not make landfall. Yet, the stinging cry of lightning, far though it is, brings to mind a memory not his own and with it, an idea.

His skeletal hand reach out along the wall of the nearest building, finding and tracing a thick cord to a small box. With nary a twitch, his claw pierced through the metal and cables beneath and lightning coursed through his body. His mouth hung low in a soundless moan as sinew began to knit over bare and empty bones, flesh flowing over bleeding muscles. Across the district, each and every lit light flashed brightly before the box overloaded with a soft sound of exploding sparks and several lights falling still and dark. He removed his hand from the transformer and clenched both of his hands open and close, open and close.

They were not a human's hands. These hands were thin, wiry even, but were of a reptilian hide to put the strongest of steels to shame. They were not the hands of the First, weak in their grasping and useless in their strength. These were big, strong hands. At his weakest, he tore through stone and steel like tissue paper. What would it mean then if he were at his strongest? He did not know and did not care enough to learn. For now, the Thirst had been quenched, the Hunger silenced.

Now I can fight.

Tattletale was not one to consider herself a hero by any means. She was far too selfish for that. Yet, she never really thought herself a straight up villain either for though her moral fiber was a bit bent and maybe even a smidge twisted, there were lines that she wouldn't cross and concerns that no matter how hopeless, she'd never back down from. The new cape on the block, a rookie out on her first night no less, getting involved in a fight against Lung simply because of a simple, yet not entirely untrue, misunderstanding that Lung and his gang were gunning after a group of kids.

That said kids consisted of the Undersiders might have changed the rookie's plan somewhat but in the end, what did it matter? She took out Lung's gang faster than they could react and was going against Lung, freaking Lung, on her own.

Tattletale might think that the rookie was a complete and utter idiot… but she had guts.

Now to guarantee that those guts didn't end up splattered all over the place alongside the rest of the Undersiders' that would be really—

The ground trembled and for the briefest microsecond, Tattletale passed it off as a result of Lung who was already well over thirty feet in height, minus his serpentine tail, and growing larger when her powers provided the answer.

Impact tremor. Footsteps. BIG footsteps.

Tattletale turned her head just slightly to catch sight of the source and what she saw stole her breath away. Her powers spoke to her, whispered at the back of her mind and for the first time since she had gotten them, gave conflicting results to what she was seeing.

Is a MonsterHuman. Was AliveDead now DeadAlive again. Is PowerfulWeak, It CanNot Be Stopped.

Conflicting save for one solid and indisputable fact.

The King Has Come To Reclaim His Throne.

Even when she began this delusional escapade, this foolish notion of becoming a hero, Taylor Hebert had not expected to meet such a being so soon into her career never mind having her first true team-up escapade. For a moment, she wondered if perhaps an Endbringer would appear on the scene next, perhaps in the company of one of the Triumvirate, but passed such a notion aside as adrenaline fueled thinking. Her luck was bad but it could not possibly be that bad.

The earth trembling beneath her feet to the tread of one several magnitudes larger than Lung bade Taylor to curse at her luck with every foul word she had ever heard drew her attention. Her insects were next, and though their eyes are far from ideal even in the darkness of an ill-lit city street, what they saw so too could she.

And what Taylor saw stole her breath away to such degree that she had all but frozen on the spot, an opportunity that Lung took with gusto. He snapped her up in his great and terrible claws as his fanged maw opened wide to roast or devour, he was torn as to which, when the Dragon who thought himself a King came fist to face with the Monster who was the True Heir to the Crown.

The force of the blow was great enough to shatter even a dragon's bones, and Lung was sent reeling head over tail before slamming into and through a building as the resulting explosion of noise shattered every glass window within a mile. Taylor screamed as the world spun around her before she was caught deftly in another clawed and monstrous hand. She looked up into wide and lidless eyes that stared down at her with a strangely human intensity before she was carefully set down upon a nearby rooftop. The monster stepped back from the building, the earth shaking with every step he took, and turned to face the rising and snarling Lung.

The draconic parahuman wondered at this new opponent as his jaw snapped back into proper formation and he swelled larger in size and form. He entertained the notion that he was facing a parahuman whose powers were akin to his own but just as swiftly dismissed it. His animalistic instincts, which only grew sharper as he became more and more his True Self, were all but screaming at him in a manner he had only felt once before. When he had faced the Leviathan on his own and won. Looking at this strange amalgamation of saurian and human, of living and decay, Lung felt his blood burn with something he had not felt for a long, long time.

Excitement.

With a roar to make the heavens tremble down to their foundations, Lung charged at the titanic beast—

SNAP!

Only to fall to the ground once more as the monster's great and terrible tail struck him low with another blow to his face. A casual turn by the creature and Lung was tossed aside like a ragdoll, neck twisting and breaking from the strike, fangs scattering like hail and pieces of his jaw falling in meaty chunks. Lung growled low in his throat, waiting in eager and mounting fury for his body to regenerate into a more powerful form when the beast's foot came down upon his torso with a force of several magnitudes.

Lung's ribs shattered to kindling, his bones piercing into every major organ and more besides beneath the creature's grinding heel as it reach down and grasped ahold of his broken jaw and held it open. Lung glared up into the monster's eyes and to his surprise saw a thin, almost metallic, nictitating membrane slide over the creature's eyes before its own mouth opened impossibly wide with the lower jaw spreading out like that of a serpent. A violet light began to shine in the back of the beast's throat and Lung's eyes widened in horrified realization before a rushing wave of fire erupted from the creature's mouth and down into his own.

It's too easy…

The Heir's hellish assault stopped when reptilian scales started to fall away, revealing pale and burned human flesh. His flames died in a puff of acrid, discolored smoke before he threw Lung's head, miraculously attached to his now shrinking neck, to the ground.

Far too easy to lose control…

Of the flames that burned beneath his torn but slowly healing flesh that could annihilate the entire city in a massive explosion of radiation to make the atom bombs that twice touched upon the Earth pale by comparison.

Of the animalistic instincts arisen from a body that was all of several minutes old.

Of the memories that still lay within his grasp but were as water in his malformed hands if he was not careful in how he clutched them to his heart.

Still… it was rather fun wasn't it…?

The rush in his veins was slowly starting to fade, his breathing not even the slightest bit ragged and yet he felt so exhilarated, like he'd run a hundred miles and could go another hundred more. He had not even loosed the full force of his power, using only just enough to produce mere, if not extraordinarily hot, flames down Lung's gullet. Fireproof the gang leader might be on the outside the dragon-man's insides were another matter entirely.

He huffed, silently cursing at his lack of an actual—No, wait there was the sensation of meat in his mouth where there once was none. The slab of muscle in his mouth moved as his old tongue did… Perhaps…?

"YOU… ALRIGHT?" His voice rumbled like stones tumbling from a mountainous peak and it grated against his ears and tore at his throat with every word but it hardly bothered him. It was odd that he wasn't having a massive mental breakdown but then, he was focusing more on the moment rather than himself.

He turned to the rooftop where he had placed Taylor, ignoring the Undersiders as they made a slow but rushed retreat, and found her standing perfectly still midway down a fire escape. He saw her head bob in an almost boneless nod, which admittedly amused him somewhat. Here she had faced one of the sole parahumans that had stood against a living apocalypse and survived only to be awed by a man-turned-monster that could still speak in a somewhat sensible fashion.

She cupped her hands to her mouth and called up to him, "Who are you?"

Who. Not what. He… appreciated that. Yet, the question remained.

Who am I now?

He had a name but could not remember it. The King from whence his body had been born from had a name but was it right for him to take it as his own? Perhaps someday, when he had earned the crown that rested unseen upon his brow but here, now, with all but a lone victory?

"… I AM…" A pause of consideration before resignation took the reigns and he loosed a loud, rumbling sigh. "BERSERKER…"

To Be Continued...