"Where are you, little hero?" Jack's voice rang out in a sing-song tone from behind him, but Armsmaster ignored it as he dragged his partner alongside him.
Kudzu, the older man, had been hit hard by one of Jack Slash's blade projections, and it had torn him from chest to shoulder height.
What should have been an easy ambush against two of the physically weakest villains had been revealed to be a counter-ambush the moment Armsmaster and Kudzu had gotten the tip that the erstwhile leader of the band of marauders and their resident tinker were lurking at the edge of the docks.
Instead, they had been greeted by the presence of a blood-splattered Crimson, Winter, Psychosoma, and Jack. Four of the Nine. Seated in a blood-soaked room, with bodies and gore splattered around. All that remained of this group, judging by the flags hanging around, some of the Empire.
The fighting had been vicious but quick and had ended with Armsmaster and Kudzu making a retreat.
Yet Colin had not been too worried. They had requested backup, and it should not have taken more than five minutes for Challenger and Conduit to get there. At least he had been confident until he heard the explosion that shook the bay.
His eyes turned to the far distance, and his visor zoomed in on the oil rig that had been modified for the Protectorate heroes. A building that once had a shimmering force field, capable of tanking monstrous blows. A building that was now on fire, Colin realized with dread as he heard more than saw the structural pillars groan under the punishment it was taking.
"And down goes the bridge, so tell me, little hero. Why do you still run? Where do you plan on returning to when your home burns?"
He could hear the amusement in Jack's voice, even if he could not see the man. Was this counter not for him alone? Had they timed it to coincide with when the two teams reached out to hunt them? Colin was rapidly coming to the realization that they had been set up.
"Just lay down your halberd, leave the deadweight behind, and let us talk." And for some reason, Colin wanted to listen to what the madman had to say. Perhaps he would explain why they were here and what they were doing working for scum like the Teeth. His mind rationalized as he slowed down.
"T-the D-Docks…" Colin blinked at the words and looked down at Kudzu. All previous thoughts of Jack Slash were forgotten as the man stuttered out with a cough of blood that further stained his green robes red with meaty chunks.
The docks? And like a lightning bolt through his spine, he immediately figured out the veteran hero's plan. There was some risk to it—trying to wield a naked blade against a rabid dog. If it were any other time, Colin would have disagreed.
"Come now, little hero, are you not tired of always running? Why do you still try?" The voice was closer. When had he slowed down? He turned his head back but didn't see anything. He tuned the audio on his helmet and immediately picked up the sound of sniffing.
How were they tracking them so easily. He remembered the sight of the monsters hidden in the dark corners of the house. His night vision mode had picked them up even as they lurked in the shadows.
Humans that had been morphed into monstrous creatures, putrid fusions of man, beast, and something more alien. Each one was different from the other, the only similarities between them being the low groan of pain and torture they let out at their very existence. They were Psychosoma's work, no doubt.
That was how they were tracking them. One of those monsters must have some sort of enhanced ability to smell.
A projectile shot overhead and slammed into the building they stood close to. Judging by how crumpled it looked, at one point in time it had been a car. Colin's visor picked up massive handprints that had wrapped the car into its current shape. Crimson's work, which meant that If the red-skinned brute was so close, then Winter couldn't be too far behind, and if he was caught in her field, that was as good as a death sentence.
So instead of disagreeing, he changed their bearings and dragged the other hero down another narrow alleyway.
"Plot me the fastest route to the docks," he called out to his virtual AI in a hoarse voice, and like clockwork, a map appeared at the very edges of his vision alongside a line in front of him that led him further into the guts of Brockton Bay.
Five minutes. They were that close. All he had to do was survive the hunt for five minutes, and Colin Wallis would be damned if he could not achieve something as simple as that.
Yamamoto walked to the door with his usual languid steps. The door opened before he got there once more, this time accomplished by one of the youths that had remained outside.
It was only when he stepped past it that it suddenly occurred to him why. Why there was almost always someone positioned at the door. He was physically a disabled old man with a single hand. A single hand that was already too busy holding his cane.
He brushed aside the forming thoughts of his supposed weakness as his senses finally picked up on the interlopers.
They were still far away, a minute or two at most, so he stopped in front of the building. Cane pressed to the ground, posture stooped, with his white haori covering his form. Eyes closed while his beard and brows shifted gently with the wind.
He was the perfect picture of a seemingly frail old man. An image he had cultivated for the past three centuries. He slowly began to release his iron-clad grip on his reiatsu.
He could feel the nervousness of the youths behind him as they tightened their hands on whatever weapons they held in their hands. Ready to defend their home against what they knew were beings vastly stronger than them.
He admired their bravery, even if it was misplaced. Bravery without power against overwhelming odds was futile, even if it was admirable. Yet their fear wasn't formed from just the knowledge of the approaching capes.
The sweat that began to form on their brows, their increased heartbeats as they tightened their grip on their weapons—there was only so much reiatsu a mundane human could take. Even with his impeccable control, you could only hone it.
The closer the signatures got, the more he released his reiatsu until the air began to shimmer.
"Come back inside, you fools," Sachiko called out from her place in the window.
"But Granny—"
They began, but she cut off their resistance, her tone as sharp as a Shinigami's blade with her reply.
"If I have to come outside and drag you back in, I'll whip your behinds so badly that you dumb lot would be scared to sit for weeks. Now get back inside."
They ran back in.
Good. He tilted his head to the side and let out a barely perceptible nod at the woman, and she nodded back in reply. He was not certain on what exactly her ability was, and he had not cared to ask. But whatever it was, it allowed her a level of perception and insight that was beyond anything a human could achieve.
They were here.
He turned his attention to the two familiar reiatsu signatures. The respectful older man and the arrogant whelp who thought he could dictate what Yamamoto could and could not do.
He sensed the fluctuations in their reiatsu, noting they were hurt. Badly at that; the old man was at death's door. The cut he had taken had nearly bisected him, in a very similar fashion to what Yamamoto had done to the black-clad cape over a month ago. The only reason the man still breathed was owed to the vines that wrapped themselves around his frame.
The blue-armored whelp dragged the older man along as they got into his range and froze up. Ah, the whelp finally noticed. The moment they stepped into his range. The whelp had been in his range once and had been spared death by the presence of the older man.
"L-let me speak to him." He could hear the older man speak with a blood-speckled cough. He could also sense the armored whelp's hesitation at walking even deeper into the furnace that was his presence. But whatever the whelp lacked in survival instincts, wisdom, and experience, he made up for it with the bravery of the young.
Yamamoto did not deign to suddenly stop his slow release of his reiatsu as he tested the boundaries on how far was too far from the buildings that housed the fragile mortals that even now peeked from their windows in fear and anticipation. Neither did he bother to inform them that he could hear them clearly from that range.
So the armored whelp continued to walk in. He struggled with every step until his feet refused to lift from the ground. Yamamoto could feel the brat's defiant stare from his visor. If he was any younger, he would have smiled at the insolence before slaughtering the whelp.
But he was an old thing, burdened by experience and time. So instead, he simply watched even with closed eyes. The older green-robed man dropped to the floor and managed to contort his body into a seiza. His head pressed to the floor without a word.
Yamamoto ignored the four new and unfamiliar presences that were slowly making their way to them. Instead, his focus was on the man, on his knees, his head to the floor as he bled out before him.
"This one kindly requests the honored elder's assistance in defending the city."
Yamamoto's reply was silence.
"A favor from the protectorate is not a small thing honored elder. It would be a debt that would be repaid in interest."
Yamamoto did not budge, but the green-robed man continued, blood staining the ground as he coughed up meaty chunks.
"It would be a favor, a debt that would be placed on our necks for as long as you deem it unanswered for your help here, in protection of the weak. That is all I request. If we do not acknowledge the debt, I shall commit seppuku in front of you, this time tomorrow." The fact that the other man was not likely to survive the day was not unknown to both parties, but the conviction in his voice finally moved Yamamoto to crack open his eyes.
He observed the duo. The man still had his head pressed to the ground, a puddle growing wide beneath him, while the whelp had lost his defiance as he struggled to even stand.
"And what worth is that favor to one such as me?" The question was asked out of genuine curiosity.
"By itself? Nothing. But how many of those favors do you believe it would take to accomplish whatever it is you seek?"
Yet did Yamamoto truly seek anything other than to be left alone? Yamamoto let out a hum of acknowledgment. The old man wasn't dumb; but he assumed that Yamamoto had the same needs and wants that a human would have. The whelp beside him looked frustrated at the situation.
It was clear he had no idea what the older man was talking about. A brief moment of silence passed as Yamamoto's senses finally caught up to the distance. They were here.
Yamamoto replied, "I have heard your plea. Now leave my sight, before you're crushed beneath the weight of my reiatsu."
The whelp moved to help the older man up, but the green-robed man held a hand up as he struggled to stand under his own power. When he had finally accomplished the feat, so monumental that Yamamoto was forced to truly pay attention to him, the armored whelp lifted him up as he began to backtrack rapidly at an angle.
A clap echoed out, and Yamamoto turned his attention to the four that had stayed at the edge of his range. The clapping figure was a whelp with thin hair on his chin and jaw, a button-up shirt, and black trousers. He held a thin bloodstained blade in his hands as he clapped.
"That was not something I ever thought I would see a protectorate hero do. I had to sit back and watch for that. A matter of professional courtesy, of course."
Yamamoto ignored the words as both his reiatsu and his eyes drifted to the three visible intruders.
The first one in white and black still wore a grin on his face as he looked back at him. The second one was a muscular slab of a man, with skin the color of blood and a great sword in his arms. His words were intangible as all he let out were grunts and growls, while his eyes were hotspots of anger that were aimed solely at Yamamoto.
The third visible whelp was a tall and slender man in a black suit and tie. His bald head glistened under the sun. His spotted hand caressed the form of a monster beside him, a fusion of man and beast that let out growls from an unhinged, slavering maw.
Two other such beasts lurked behind the bald man—creatures of seeming hunger and madness—but Yamamoto possessed a sight beyond sight, and his reiatsu sense saw the truth of the seemingly feral beast under his control. Beneath its skin of fur, gristle, and bone, the outline of a true human soul could be seen.
Finally, Yamamoto turned his attention to the fourth figure. The last person was hidden further back, behind a vehicle, and had deemed it a fit enough place to hide, but it was a futile act against someone who could track you off the strength of your Reiryoku.
"Listen to me, for I will not repeat myself. Leave my sight or be consumed by the flames of your folly." A warning. More than he had given most people.
The reply he got was a laugh.
"Come on, old man, there has to be something stimulating about you other than threats and a grim face." The man that Yamamoto was rapidly coming to believe was the leader spoke up as he took a bold step into his sea of reiatsu, and his eyes widened in reply at the pressure that sent him to his knees immediately.
Yamamotomoved.
Obliterating the ground behind him with fire steps as he appeared in front of the leader, his cane trailed behind him as he swung it, aiming for the side of the man's head.
He had been too fast for them to even think, at least that was what he thought until he heard it. A crack in the air, a displacement of something small tearing its way through the air and towards him.
In less than a heartbeat, Yamamoto adjusted his stance, his cane sweeping through the air to deflect the bullet with effortless precision. The projectile was a mere nuisance, but instincts honed by fighting creatures and Shinigami greater than what could be found on this planet forced his hand. The fourth hidden member, his reiatsu noted as they began to sprint towards him from their former hidden location while trying to chamber in another bullet.
The three man-and-beast aberrations let out a howl as they all leaped toward him at the same time, their clawed hands and feet cracking the floor as they shot toward him from three angles. Yamamoto hardly acknowledged their presence. The moment they entered the sphere of his reiatsu, the sheer weight of his soul's pressure sent them crashing to the ground, their bodies unable to withstand the overwhelming force.
But the crimson-skinned brute was different. He seemed to shrug off the worst of his reiatsu's pressure with a snarl, grabbing the leader by the collar and hurling him out of Yamamoto's range. The brute then charged forward, his massive greatsword held in one hand. He swung the great sword at Yamamoto with a one-handed strike that aimed to take Yamamoto's head from his shoulders. Instead, the steel blade was met by a staff of wood.
The force of the strike followed, and the mad grin on the red-skinned brute's face died the moment steel met wood and steel broke. "What?" The recoil of his own blow shattered his hand and sent him flying back, but Yamamoto had moved on.
"Winter, get over here!" The leader screamed out in desperation as he was thrown out, and in that same instant, the pale slip of a woman with the gun entered his range, and he felt something he had not felt in a long time.
Reiatsu used like a Shinigami would, It was enough to slow his movements for a second as he felt the sensation of another person trying to overpower his reiatsu. and for a fleeting moment, Yamamoto toyed with the idea that this woman could challenge him.
But as he analyzed her power, he realized the truth. Her reiatsu was simply a dampening field, designed to lessen the overwhelming impact of his own. It was a clever trick, but it lacked the depth and power of true Shinigami arts or the reiatsu one of his kind could bring to bear.
The three prone beasts leaped up again, faster than they were without the weight of his soul crushing them, but like the first time, he had no interest in killing what seemed to be puppets, unwilling participants in what their bodies were doing.
He slammed his staff into the ground and called out without looking at them. Words of power uttered without bothering with the full chant or a gesture of trailing signs in the air. This was the purview of a Kido master, a rank he had dominated for centuries.
"Bakudō #61: Rikujōkōrō."
His reiatsu shifted and responded in accordance with his wishes. It started as a spark of yellow light that rapidly morphed into eighteen thin, wide beams of light that divided into six each. Slamming into each of the three man-beast amalgamations' midsections with such force they froze for a moment as the binding continued to take place, locking their hands to their sides and trapping them in place midair.
He shifted his attention back to the surprised group. The crimson one had begun to charge him again with a roar of anger, and unhampered by his reiatsu, the man tore his way towards Yamamoto, but Yamamoto focused on the black-suited man that stared in shock.
He had the weakest reiatsu among the group and was also the only one isolated on the other side without his monsters, and this close, Yamamoto couldfeelwhat the man had done. The man did not deserve the next breath he was about to draw, so Yamamoto deprived him of it.
"Hado #4: Byakurai."
It was a spell so deceptively simple, Yamamoto had made it an enlisting test. Even the weakest of the seated from the Court Guards could perform it, but in Yamamoto's hands, it was a death sentence.
His staff pointed at the man as blue light began to form at the tip. A split second later, there was a crack of lightning as a blue beam shot out of the end of the staff, coring and obliterating the man's chest and liquefying whatever organs he possessed.
The blast went on to obliterate the car, road, and was still going at full power and speed towards the house behind the now dead man when Yamamoto released his hold on the structure of the spell, allowing the beam of pure energy and lightning to dissolve into the air. Once again the sheer devastation he had wrought was a stark reminder of the gulf between him and these pitiful creatures.
Uncaring of the damage he had done, he spun back to face the charging brute again. Another wide swing was let out by the great sword, but since it was broken halfway, the brute was forced to come even closer.
Yamamoto frowned at the brute before he slammed his staff into the ground and caught the blade with a pinch of his finger. The brute's eyes widened in disbelief as Yamamoto held the blade's edge with ease, the sharp metal unable to so much as scratch him. He stared into the madness and rage that were the eyes of the crimson brute as he spoke.
"Your form is dreadful. That is no way to wield a blade."
With a single, fluid motion, Yamamoto drove his sandaled foot into the wide eyed brute's chest as he wrested the blade away from his hands. The strike obliterated his chest and sent the brute flying back so fast that a split second later he was simply a smear of red in a crater that was formed on the side of a building.
"Crimson!"
Yamamoto noted the roar of rage and pain. A sound that could only be let loose by someone who had lost everything to them, lost their most precious thing, and was ready to follow them to the depths of hell.
It was a familiar sound. One he had heard too many times to be moved by it.
He felt the shift in the woman's reiatsu as she truly focused on him. This time, in her rage, her power surged as she honed it solely on him, abandoning any effort to shield her comrades from the crushing weight of his reiatsu. For the second time, Yamamoto found himself forced to truly slow down.
It was a novel feeling, one that might have caught him off guard nine hundred years ago. Now, he merely shrugged it off by increasing his reiatsu output before batting away an invincible blade slash the leader had sent at him. Few things could slip past his reiatsu. For a supposed leader, the man was notably weak.
Behind them, he noticed more whelps charging towards the battlefield, led by a woman with a massive weapon strapped to her back as she rode one of those noisy contraptions humans were so fond of—this one two-wheeled instead of the usual four.
Bloodstained and battered, with visible dents in her armor, she didn't seem bothered by it. Instead, she brought the vehicle to a drifting stop just behind his opponents and let out a declaration.
"Fear not! Challenger is—"
She trailed off as she took in the scene: the line his Hadō had carved into the earth, the smear that used to be a person, and the two opponents panting ahead of him.
"Perhaps I'm not needed here," she admitted with a nervous chuckle, but Yamamoto's attention had already shifted back to the blonde woman with the novel ability.
He gave her a few seconds, watching and waiting, but she couldn't pull out anything more interesting. She kept trying to freeze his movements—a futile act—and he found himself feeling something unexpected:disappointment.
He flung the broken blade toward her, and if she hadn't been so focused on slowing him down, she could've stopped the impromptu projectile before it reached her. Instead, it found its mark with jaw-breaking speed, embedding itself in her skull and throwing the woman spinning back.
Yamamoto ignored the gasps of the other whelps standing behind the armored woman, their eyes wide as they took in the slaughter. His attention, however, drifted to the last person from the band of marauders.
The leader trembled under his gaze eyes wide with fear and terror, piss trickling down his legs. The man tried to speak but found himself unable to, silenced by the overwhelming force of Yamamoto's reiatsu.
"Skrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrkrrrrrrrkkrrrrrrr"
The sound of a siren tore through the air, freezing everyone in place. Yamamoto was no exception, though he didn't understand the significance of the noise. The way the city collectively held its breath puzzled him.
"An Endbringer siren?" he heard someone whisper, dread and fear filling the voice.
For a minute, everyone remained frozen, as if bracing for the worst. Then two minutes passed, and still, nothing happened. Yamamoto was the first to move again, retrieving his cane from where he'd driven it into the ground before turning back to the piss-stained man now lying flat before him. Head barely held up as his whole body was pressed to the ground.
Yamamoto felt disgusted at the sight. His expression remained as apathetic as ever as he looked down on the man that had gone from whelp to worm. At least the black-clad man from months ago had died on his feet.
He had barely taken a second step when a man appeared in their midst, dressed in a blue suit with oversized glasses that covered half his face and a cap that hid his messy hair.
The man's labored breathing as he dropped to his knees was the only thing that saved him from a reflexive strike as Yamamoto let his attention waver toward him.
"Strider?" the armored woman called out in surprise.
"There is no time," the man barked, and Yamamoto felt a pulling sensation alongside the rupture of space. In the next moment, he found himself standing in another city—a desolate one filled with people screaming and running.
Surrounded by people clad in an array of strange costumes, Yamamoto watched as they collapsed to the ground, gasping for air in his wake. Instinctively, he reined in his reiatsu, but the damage was already done. His presence had drawn unwanted attention, more so than that of the others who had arrived with him.
His surroundings were a calm sea in the midst of the turmoil of a rapidly evacuating city. Yet Yamamoto found it difficult to focus on them. Not when his eyes were forced to widen at the sight of the lumbering giant made of fire, stone and reiatsu in the far distance.
Finally, someone descended to meet him, and he would've groaned in annoyance if he was a younger man, the moment he spotted the bright smile.
"Hello, old man. Nice to see you again," the insufferable whelp known as Hero drifted to to the ground and towards him slowly, while the people around them struggled to pick themselves up.
"Welcome to Lyon," the whelp finished with a theatrical wave at the evacuating city with a grin.
AN: Finding out about Winter was nice. She doesn't exactly match the Old man, power-wise, but that's the interesting thing about powers in worm. There's almost always someone that can counter you. An exotic power that interacts with yours weirdly.
So about Mannequin, I realized too late that he was not supposed to be in the S9 this early. But the crazy train doesn't stop so this is straight up AU I guess.