"Now that's not something you see every day," Jack Slash said in a conversational tone to the two women that were still with him.
The Siberian just tilted her head, looking confused. Shatterbird was looking through the improvised spyglass she had created from glass shards. After it cooled down, it was fairly decent at about the strength of a good set of binoculars.
"That man and his people defeated an Endbringer. No, defeated is far too small of a word. He broke it to his will. I wonder what he said, because it looked like he pissed off almost everyone else there." Jack Slash started laughing. "I think I found my candidate."
"I don't think he wants to give up what he already has," the silicakinetic said in an amused tone as she floated up into the air.
"New player, probably bet everything in his organization on taking over Leviathan." Jack frowned to himself, feeling unsure about the armored villain. He shrugged, he was always winging it a bit as he went along. "So I need to dash him from the heights of hubris."
"And how are you going to do that?" Shatterbird asked. Her stained-glass armor shifted a bit about her body as wings extended.
"He likes his gadgets, so he probably made something that is controlling him." A piece of paper floated by his left, catching his attention. Trusting his instincts, he checked around to make sure the heroes were not about to jump them. "Oh, that's just phallic. A huge black tower with lights and glass bubbles? This guy really is too pretentious."
Siberian nodded as she spotted it off to the north. She tilted her head at her leader.
"No, no, lovely. I need you to go and distract them while Shatterbird and I visit the charming piece of breakable technology. Go be a dear and kill some of the heroes and villains down there," he asked, pointing at the gathered capes four blocks away.
The black and white woman just smiled, then leaped off the roof to land on a building a hundred feet away.
"Shall we, my lady?" Jack Slash asked the middle-eastern member of his team.
"It's not like they can give me another kill order," she replied.
"Everyone, quiet!" Armsmaster called out, letting helmet amplify his voice. He looked over all of the other parahumans. "The Endbringer Truce is still active. That includes Arachnos... for now."
"You are a fool, Armsmaster," Kaiser said with a sneer. "Lord Recluse has already broken the truce by using it to his own advantage."
Alexandria landed, her black cape billowing out behind her. "Only by defeating the Endbringer. This is a situation that we can not afford to jump to reckless actions. Leviathan may be tamed by Arachnos, but it is obvious their control of the Endbringer is uncertain."
That caused a grumble among all of the capes present.
Legend landed next to her, with Eidolon landing on the other side. The white and yellow clad blaster then spoke. "And if he can contain Leviathan, giving him Brockton Bay would be worth it." He held up his hand. "This Endbringer has killed millions. People can be relocated, if it stops this Endbringer once and for all."
"He's going to use it against you, you know," Insight said from the back where Futurias had been busy gathering the scattered heroes.
"You don't have to be a thinker to know that," Clockblocker shot right back.
"Will your President actually agree to this?" one of the Kings Men, Rook, called out.
"They have fifty-four minutes to decide," Armsmaster said. "But we still have an S-Class threat here. Everyone-"
The black and white form of The Siberian appeared behind Armsmaster and with a cross slice of both arms, cut him in half at the waist. She then licked her blood coated fingers suggestively.
Everyone was shocked, which gave her more than enough time to leap at the Triumvirate. One claw swung out in an arc, through Legend's left thigh in a spray of white energy. His whole form fuzzed white and then disappeared into the air in streak of light. Her other claw had ripped a deep furrow in Eidolon's pectoral muscles and his left forearm.
"Scatter!" Alexandria ordered as she flew up into the air. "Dragon, emergency evac to triage."
"The triage is still under attack by Burnscar , Bonesaw and her bio-zombies. Laserdreamer, Glory Girl and Panacea are holding them off." Dragon's mouth opened and fired her anti-Endbringer plasma cannon.
It might as well have been a laser pointer for all the effect it had, as the Siberian leaped through the beam. She started to carve right through Dragon's armor in a spray of metal splinters, hydraulic fluids and something darker red from the center.
"h໐ຟliຖງ tຟiliງht," Futurias intoned from where she was floating over the bisected Armsmaster.
Except nothing happened. Her glowing eyes blinked as her power failed to pull at of Siberian's life force. She barely teleported out of the way, gaining a gash on her cheek.
"Siberian is some sort of illusion or projection, it's not real," she called out in warning.
"What?" Kaiser called out as he tried to impale the naked, monochrome colored woman on metal spikes to no avail.
Heroes and villains had scattered even as the Siberian charged forward to engage Ms. Liberty.
"She can harm or kill most brutes!" Alexandria shouted in warning.
Siberian's face had a feral grin on her face, only to turn to surprise as Ms. Liberty deflected and pushed off of her forearm. Her face blanked out for a second and then she disappeared in a blink.
"Got her!" Insight shouted gleefully. "You do have her, right?"
Skitter nodded, as she had covered him in a swarm and ordered them to attack. "It was a guy in a minivan about a quarter of a mile away. It's moving away fast heading directly west."
"Ms. Liberty, Charged States! With me!" Alexandria ordered, then shot into the air.
Eidolon faded into visibility where he had been hidden next to Armsmaster. "I have... stabilized him on the cusp of death. But he needs real medical assistance. Battery, get your people over to the emergency triage station and take out Bonesaw and Burnscar."
She nodded and took off in a blur.
Triumph ran up to Armsmaster. "Futurias! Target me!"
Eidolon frowned, not that it was visible under his mask and hood.
"h໐ຟliຖງ tຟiliງht," Futurias called out as she pulled on his life force heavily. Necromantic energy suffused into Armsmaster, pulling form back together.
Triumph swayed and collapsed to one knee. He closed his eyes and then emptied his stomach on the ground.
"What happened?" the leader of the East-North-East asked in confusion as he awoke and landed on his feet.
"The Siberian ripped you in half. I thought she had killed you just like Hero," Eidolon said, putting his hand Armsmaster's shoulder.
Glory Girl kicked the last of Bonesaw's robots through a wall. She wiped her brow from the heat and flames, pushing her tiara askew. "Wack a mole is over! Now for the little bitch," she said to herself. She shot off into the air, hunting for the psycho medical tinker.
Laserdreamer flew through the air, weaving and swooping around balls of fire. She was trying desperately to ignore the itchy feeling of regrown skin on her stomach and back from where one of Bonesaw's spikes had skewered her. She started to one-two blast from each hand, trying to hit the teleporting pyrokinetic blaster. "Wow, you are nearly as annoying as One Lee."
Burnscar had a maniacal smile on her face. "Good! You're too slow. Gonna burn you up good, glow bug."
The flyer barely got a forcefield up that deflected the house-sized burst of fire. She then lanced out with a full power burst through the flames. The scream of pain told her that she had hit someone with that.
The pyro member of the Slaughterhouse Nine was giggling on the ground as she tried to crawl to her pretty flames. Her legs didn't even hurt even after being cut off at the knees!
The ground quaked as two feet landed on her back from over a thousand feet straight up.
"And she scores!" Gitanica shouted out. "Wow, she's tough. I only mostly crushed her."
Laserdreamer covered her mouth. "That's gross!"
"Kill order," the giantess noted as she slammed her fist into the back of Burnscar's head. Then hit her again just to make sure.
"She's naughty. Such a nasty big girl," Bonesaw said as she dragged the unconscious form of Panacea off into the sewers with care and silence. "But we're going to be bestest friends. I just have to show Jack that you're going to be a good friend that fits right in!"
Panacea did not respond, being still quite unconscious.
"Do you think we should start with a plague? Or making a replacement for Burnscar? I never could get her brain chemistry working quite right. I'm pretty sure her Passenger was messing with her head directly. Which wasn't fair," the young girl said as she trudged through the flooded sewers.
"Jack's going to love you death! Yes he is!"
Jack Slash was flipping a bowie knife in his right hand as he walked up to a guarded sewer entrance. "Hello, Slaughterhouse Nine call! I want to talk to your boss!" he called out.
The two wolf soldiers did not even miss a beat as they lifted up their rifles and fired. "Security breach at C-20," the senior soldier of arachnos radioed in.
"Now that's just unfriendly," Jack said without missing a beat as he beheaded both soldiers. Those red beams of energy hurt, but it wasn't anything that his cybernetic implants couldn't handle.
He walked over their bodies, whistling as he entered the sewer entrance. Flick-flick sent two drones to explode to the ground.
Fifteen minutes later he was fit to be tied and was starting to get a bit worried. Something was being odd. He normally had a feel for the rhythm of combat, but he'd been ambushed twice by the women in skin tight red or black armor. He would have died if Bonesaw hadn't made him damn near unkillable.
"Jack Slash. Lord Arachnos has deigned to allow your request for an audience," a ghostly figure said as the pale woman floated out of a side corridor.
"Finally. I thought I was going to have to kill someone important," Jack complained eve as he stroked his goatee with his free hand. He started to flip his bowie knife again. "You could use some sun. You look almost dead."
"I am a ghost. Fool." With that, she floated off, leading him into the labyrinth beneath the ship graveyard.
Jack just smirked as he followed along. They went further and further down, an eerie silence filling the void behind them. Finally, a long ramp and a bend that spanned a bottomless expanse that stretched out of sight off to the left. A round door unlocked and rotated out of the way.
The leader of the Slaughterhouse Nine took in the huge room. It was like some industrialist take on a massive throne room; made of grates, girders and high tech electronics in an almost pitch black shadows.
Lord Arachnos stood with his door to the entrance, staring into the inky darkness that used to house the Endbringer mind control tower.
Ghost Widow just faded away, leaving them alone to the sounds of low humming and the occasional beep in the background.
"Is this the part where I try to stab you in the back and you vaporize me with all the weapons in the ceiling?" Jack asked with a wide grin on his face even as he released a special nanobot swarm through the skin of his feet.
The only response for a long moment was the flexing of the four spider legs on his back and then the master of mayhem turned around. "Droll. At least you have a sense of humor. And no, Jack Slash, there are no weapons here other than the ones I would personally wield to crush my foes." His boots clanked down the short ramp from the balcony platform. "Speak."
"I understand you are new to this world, so I'd thought I'd extend an invitation-"
"-to you little, ineffectual band of misfits? Oh, you can murder and terrorize, but you do not improve this world. Even at the expense of your foes." Lord Recluse sneered in disgust at him. "At least I will bring order to chaos. Eventually I will lead humanity into the stars and claim them all in the name of Arachnos."
Totally fruitcake, Jack thought to himself. "You are soulless, a shadow of a man in a dark web of metal. There is no artistry-"
Lord Recluse started laughing, deep and resonating as he filled the throne room. "You think you can threaten me?"
"You require an army to do your work. I suspect you are weak in spirit and body," Jack said as he flicked his knife to cut his head in half.
The thin, paper cut on the master of Archnos's face was the only reaction.
"Fuck," Jack Slash said to himself. "You're a brute?"
"Your petty term do not encompass the whole that is my existence. I control the apex of Arachnos through power, intelligence, guile and treachery. I am no mere thinker that is afraid to get my hands dirty. As you are about to discover." With a quick crouch, Recluse charged the fifty feet between them in just a few seconds.
The leader of the Slaughterhouse Nine dove to the left, slicing the ground behind him. The Titan of Terror skidded to a halt behind him even as he flicked his knife in two more cuts. Ten feet of grating and girders broke free with a screech, letting Recluse fall down.
One hand, clad in impervium metal caught the edge and pulled Recluse up out of the hole and to land ten feet closer to Jack Slash. "Skilled, tactical... but weak."
"That's what a lot of people have said in the past," Jack Slash taunted as he slashed away at the ground while dodging the metal spider legs. "Check mate."
With a screech of metal, the whole end of the throne room that hung over the cavern broke off, falling into the depths.
"Damn, I thought I was tough. He just about took off my leg-" He stopped talking, seeing a flash of red light in the depths below. "Crap."
Lord Arachnos chuckled at the entrance to his throne room. "And this is the difference between you and I. You are a rabblerouser and I am master of all I hold domain over."
Flashes of red light filled the remaining open area around Jack Slash, as black armored Soldiers of Arachnos teleported in. A dozen Bane Spiders, the heavy assassins of the Soldiers of Arachnos had him surrounded.
"All for me? You shouldn't have," Jack taunted, two hunting knives out in his hands as he crouched down to fight.
A hypersonic scream struck and the lights went out. Silence filled the room.
Lord Recluse's eyes went wide, then flared brilliant red in his ire. "You fool!"
Jack's voice drifted from the darkness as crashes and the rending of metal was heard off in the distance. "I'm not the idiot that can't hold the power you desire against just two of us. Your power, your control is meaningless; just like life. Some day you will look back on this and realize I destroyed you."
Emergency lights flickered on, bathing everything in dim, red radiance.
"Bring me Jack Slash's head," Lord Recluse shouted.
[Moments ago]
Leviathan became self aware, finding himself in a large cage made of powerful force fields. It immediately charged forward and slammed into the nearest wall, only to rebound. Its head seemed to look around at everything even as the technicians screamed orders from outside.
"Something has shattered the life support modules. It's raining psychics off the tower," one of the Fortuna called out.
"Force fields to full," the old man with an eyepatch called out. It appeared they had erred correctly on the safe side, using this offsite security base.
"Operative Grillo, do you think it will stop the Endbringer?"
The old scientist put his hands behind his back as he considered the matter, looking just like any of the other soldiers in their black carapace armor sans the helmet. "Of course. Arachnos technology is capable of anything. Jasper, route emergency power from the submarine docks and the construction there."
Leviathan started spinning in a tight circle. The cage filled up with water and the pressure started to rise.
"Operative Grillo! The pressure is reaching critical levels!" The technician looked up, trying to spot the senior scientist.
The forcefield failed at two billion pascals of pressure and the water exploded with the force of a nuclear bomb. The geyser that was created soared for miles and caused a small earthquake.
Before the first drop had fallen back to the ground, the Endbringer was back in the Atlantic and disappearing into the depths. A golden beam shot out and dispersed the impending deluge back out to the Atlantic Ocean.
High up in lower Earth orbit, the Simurgh could finally see the humans from elsewhere. Even as it watched, it could feel its precognition sense being dulled by psionic shields that reactivated. Plans within plans were discarded as it sought a weakness it could exploit.