Nexus: Heroes Will Rise

by tmb1112

Universal borders have been erased and beings from thousands of universes now live on the same world: Nexus. In the first Saga of Nexus, Awul was saved, but the mysteries of Nexus remain. Now our heroes sail across the sea to Aebrith to search for lost loved ones and save the world. MCs from DBZ, KH, Soul Eater, FT, Blue Exorcist, Bleach, 7DS, OP, Ben 10, SAO, HxH, and many more!

96. Nexus HWR 13-9 The Spire

Nexus HWR 13.9 The Spire:

Two Miles Beneath Metropolis

In a deep dark tunnel a boy walked on his own. There were no artificial lights around him, only his flashlight guiding his way down the path. He was shivering, as even in his puffy orange jacket, it was cold in the tunnels without any heating. The kid walking down the tunnel was looking at the floor, watching every step he took, and he had to slow down and maneuver around a pile of rocks in front of him.

The boy pointed his flashlight at the wall on his right and saw a large crater in it with cracks going from the edges of the hole all the way up into the ceiling. He pointed his light up and followed the crack around the ceiling as it branched around. As he was looking up, a few pebbles fell through the cracks and he could swear he saw the cracks widening. Imagining the roof coming down on top of him made the boy point his flashlight down and pick up his pace. He had short spiky hair the same color as his bright yellow skin, but his hair was covered by a black beanie at the moment as an attempt to try and keep warm.

It's still snowing up there, he thought as he shivered again. He lifted his light seeing a wall up ahead and there was a left turn and a right he could make. What was it again? Two lefts and then a right? So, this way… or, he looked the other way down the intersection and no longer had to wonder which way to go. He shone the light in his hand at the collapsed tunnel on his left. There was a twelve foot tall pile of rubble there, large boulders and rocks, shattered glass of what could have been the old artificial lights down here. He looked below the rocks and pointed his light down as he saw the shadow of something strange, and he gulped at the silhouette of a hand sticking out from beneath the closest boulder.

His look of anxiety faded though once he got a better look at the hand. It glistened in his light even covered in the dirt it was. A steel hand. A robot hand. He turned away with a look of disgust on his face and started walking the other way down the hallway. Bart Simpson shivered and he crossed his arms in front of his body, rubbing his hands along his opposite arms' biceps over the coat. He steeled his face as he heard a voice down the tunnel, and despite how serious he looked, he could not help but gulp again as he walked. You have to do this.

He got closer and a light shone his direction as someone must have seen his flashlight. He turned off the flashlight, then turned it on, off, and on again before he kept walking. The light pointed at him turned back off, and Bart approached without anyone bothering him. He walked past a man as tall as the twelve foot ceiling and ignored the heavyset man's gaze. As he got closer to his destination, he heard hushed voices coming from around the final bend. "…still don't like it. Being so close. We should be far from here."

"Coordinating an attack from that far would be impossible. Besides, we're deep enough. If they didn't find this place already, they never will."

Bart walked around the corner and a high-pitched voice called over to him, "Bart, come here." The boy frowning deeply marched down the dark path towards the figures ahead of him. "Here, take this and turn off your light." Bart grabbed the goggles the short figure in front of him held out and he put them on over his head. His vision became tinted green, but he was suddenly able to see all around the tunnel and the people in front of him distinctively.

There were others far in front of him and a few more that he had walked past at the last intersection, but there were only four in front of him at the moment. He looked around at the four of them, the two taller men who were just talking, the small boy who handed him the goggles, and the white dog leaning against the wall on his left. The dog had no clothes on, using only his fur to stay warm like one of the taller figures of the group who wore a pair of purple pants but nothing else over his gray fur. The dog looked at Bart through the one eye not covered by an eyepatch and asked, "How was home?"

Bart ignored him. All of them were wearing silver bracelets on their wrists to mask their energies from the surface world. Bart wished they did not work at the moment. Three Underlords in the same place, Bart thought nervously, but tried not to let it show on his face. "Hey Stewie," Bart began, looking down at the boy with the football-shaped head in front of him. The four year old looked up into Bart's eyes through his own goggles and could see an incredibly serious look on his older friend's face.

"What's up?" Stewie questioned, tilting his head to the side.

Bart ground his teeth and his eyes darted to the older men behind the kid. "Can we talk in private?" Bart asked him.

"Whatever you have to say," a deep voice growled and all of Bart's hair stood on end. He looked up at the snow leopard that bared its sharp teeth at him. Tai Lung finished, "You can say in front of me as well."

Stewie frowned but did not say anything against that and he had a bead of sweat coming down the side of his face. We have the same rank, but he's been here longer. Damn martial artists and telepathic-blocking. Why are you being secretive Bart? Stewie nodded at Bart and said, "Go ahead. We're listening."

Bart clenched his teeth hard and he did not know what to do. He looked into Stewie's eyes, then to his left at Brian who had goggles on as well, though through both of their goggles he could see the eyepatches on their right eyes. The dog's scarred face did not mask that it was not as hardened as it appeared, at least to Bart it couldn't. The torn left ear, the missing fur and scar across his nose and right cheek, it all just made Bart think the animal looked more, sad.

The kid darted his gaze behind him where the closest people to his back were out of earshot, then past Tai Lung and the other man to see the people behind them were also decently far away. "Stewie," Bart began, looking down at the kid as he spoke. "That's enough."

Two full miles over Bart's head, the surface of the world of Nexus was getting coated in snow. It fell slowly, but it was cold enough and the snowflakes were heavy so it was really piling up. In the last two hours since the snowfall began, the snow had already accumulated three inches high.

A car speeding down a road had its windshield wipers on to keep snow out of the driver's sight, but besides that, the snow had little effect on driving conditions. The roads below were being heated and grates on the sides where the roads dipped down allowed for water to drain off the streets. The cars did not even drive on the roads anyway, hovering several inches to feet off the ground as they moved. It was the middle of the week, officially a Tuesday now that a calendar had been created. People had been using days of the week the entire time they were there, but it was never agreed on universally what day it was. Now, all of Awul had the same calendar, the same dating system, many things had become standardized in the recent weeks.

The world was stable. Despite certain events on Awul and around the world, there was very little to complain about in the city of Metropolis. School had just gotten out and students were walking around the city, heading home or to the outskirts of the city to play in the snow.

"Come on Zushi!" Chester called back towards the sidewalk directly in front of the middle school. "We're having a snowball fight with the fifth graders! Those little twerps are going down!"

Zushi turned his head and looked towards a few of his friends who were all heading the same direction. Two of them stopped, the blond boy in a green coat calling to him and a bald boy behind him in a dark blue one. "Um, not today Chester. You and A.J. go, I'll, talk to you guys tomorrow!"

He looked a little nervous, but Chester didn't pick up on it and just shrugged his shoulders back towards his friend. He turned and started running after the rest of the group of sixth graders, while A.J. watched Zushi for a few more seconds in confusion. Then, the short sixth grader with a shaved head looked towards the school and spotted someone walking out that made him grin and snicker under his breath. A.J. turned away and chased after his other guy friends, while Zushi turned towards the school and his face lit up at the person walking out with two of her friends.

His cheeks were already red from the cold, but they got redder at the sight of the girl who walked out with a friend on either side of her. The blonde girl noticed her friend next to her with long dreadlocks smirk, then Libby nudged her with an elbow and motioned towards the sidewalk. "Have fun girl," Libby said, and Cindy turned to see the boy in a puffy red coat and matching beanie waiting for her awkwardly at the edge of the path.

Cindy's cheeks matched his, and she grumbled in annoyance as she moved fast away from her giggling friends. "Hey Zushi," she said as she reached the end of the path. The girl's annoyed look went away and she gave him a small smile as she asked, "You ready?"

"Y-Yeah," he replied.

"Then let's go," she said.

The two started walking the opposite direction as most of the other students. Libby and Cindy's other friend, Chimney, watched as their friends walked away. Chimney had two green pigtails that seemed to stay perpetually sticking up and out to her sides. The girls wore jackets like everyone else though Libby had a dark purple one on and Chimney's was bright green like her hair. They watched Cindy and Zushi walk away, side by side, with Zushi's hand that was closer to Cindy twitching nervously. Finally, Cindy's hand moved over and she put it in his and both kids kept walking and smiling without mentioning it, though Cindy's friends snickered some more behind her before turning themselves and running down the sidewalk after the boys of their class.

The two sixth graders holding hands walked across the street and started heading towards the center of the city. In the center of Metropolis, there was one building taller than all of the others by a good thirty stories. Many large buildings were under construction around it, but this tallest building was completed first and for good reason. At the top of the tall, thin building, was a wider round section with windows all around the outside and a point sticking off the top. The Spire of the Renewed Nexus Government, the tallest building in Metropolis, it stood over a hundred stories tall right in the center of the RNG's capital. It truly was a centralized government.

At the base of this huge building, a man came to a stop and looked straight up. He had tan skin, and much of it was visible through the rips and tears in his shirt. There was a white Marine officer's jacket draped over his shoulders, though it was too long and the bottom of it dragged on the snow behind him. The reason the coat was too long was because it was not his own, but the tall young man's on his left. The cold figure in torn clothes had fresh wounds on his face, bloody and infected by the looks of it. He did not shiver though as his cold breath lingered in the air over his face, he just stared up at the protruding section of the building.

"Vice Admiral Maynard," the young coat-less man on his left began softly. Maynard lowered his gaze to the boy with long scraggly pink hair pushed back over his head by a pair of green-tinted goggles he had resting up at the top of his forehead. Coby looked into the man's tired eyes and continued, "We must get inside. Aokiji Gensei is waiting."

The older Vice Admiral said nothing in response and his teeth clenched hard. The other eighteen year old on his other side as Coby looked down at the man shorter than both him and his best friend. Helmeppo had a black visor over his eyes, and his blond hair was slicked back behind him and tied into a ponytail. He wore a white Marine's coat like Coby's only without the shoulder pads, and had two sword hilts sticking out of sheaths at his right side unlike Coby who had no weapons. There were three people around the ragged man at the base of the tower, and the tallest and most muscular of them pushed on Maynard's back as the older Vice Admiral hesitated.

"Get moving," Basque Grand growled at the shorter man's back. Maynard darted a glare behind him, but the taller man by a few feet who had a menacing, thick, black handlebar mustache on his face did not get deterred by the glare. "The Fuhrer is waiting to hear your report."

Coby grimaced and glared towards the older man behind his fellow Marine, wearing a heavy blue coat that showed his was an officer in the State Military. "Captain Grand," Coby began, his grimace raising a little as he saw the frustrated flinch of the older officer. "I get that you want to regain favor with the Fuhrer, since Mustang demoted you after you disobeyed him in the Battle of Metropolis. But don't overstep your current position, Vice Admiral Maynard outranks you."

Basque Grand's face was red with anger but all he could do was clench his teeth in fury and try hard to stop himself from speaking against his superior officer. "Well," Grand began and the corners of his lips curled up a small bit to show his grinding teeth that he was seething through. "I doubt he will be keeping that position, seeing as he let Port Maple get burned to ash, and doesn't seem like he tried stopping it too hard."

Maynard glared into Basque Grand's eyes with a hateful fury like he wanted the larger man dead. "I fought to the last breath-"

"Doesn't look like it," Grand snapped back, lowering his face down and glaring as hard back into Maynard's eyes.

"Enough," Coby snapped at the men behind him. They looked forward at the young Vice Admiral who turned away from them and started for the doors of the Spire, "Follow me. There is a council meeting going on at this moment, but they will want to hear what you have to report." Coby glanced out the corner of his eyes as he walked and continued, "I do not know why what you have to say can only be reported directly to the council, but I assume it has to do with the Underlords?"

Maynard said nothing in response and the top half of his face darkened. They entered the building and a few men and women in white and blue uniforms walking around the lobby turned their direction. The sight of Maynard's cut-up face made even those who were not shocked to see the missing Vice Admiral lower their bottom lips. Coby continued as they moved forward, "I do not know about Captain Grand, but you can trust Rear Admiral Helmeppo and myself. If this report is-"

"He can trust me as well," Basque Grand snapped, the impetuous man not letting that remark slide even if it was from his superior. Brat, Grand thought, unable to say that out loud and expect to still be able to bring up the Vice Admiral. I was the first to arrive when he was reported at the gates. You kids have no right to take him to the council!

"See?" Coby questioned and looked back at the man behind him with a friendly look.

Maynard stared into Coby's eyes and he hesitated, his face losing its hardened look. He opened his mouth, then shut it and shook his head, "I need to report directly to the council." He clenched his teeth and finished, "I'm sorry."

"It's fine," Coby replied.

They reached the elevators across the lobby from the front entrance, and Coby pressed a button with an up-arrow on it. As he did, the injured man next to him lifted an arm and started coughing violently into it. Once he did, a look of pain spread across his face and he reached up and scratched his side. Coby looked down at the man's side he was scratching, and a piece of his black shirt was ripped off right there, letting Coby see a long jagged scar that looked infected like many of his other injuries.

"After you make your report," Coby said while the elevator came down to them. Maynard turned to the boy and saw where he was looking, making the older man lower his arm to show it was nothing. Coby looked into his eyes and continued, "Get yourself over to the military hospital."

"Yeah, you look like you've been through Hell," Helmeppo agreed with his friend. Helmeppo said it and saw the older man's face wince so he closed his mouth. Whatever happened to him in Port Maple and afterwards, he must have some details we don't know already. Where has he been? Where did he get all those scars?

At the top of the Spire, two dozen people gathered around the round table where the RNG made decisions as a democracy. Only ten people had seats at this table, but many of the representatives at the table had subordinates with them at the meeting. General Alex Louis Armstrong and Colonel Hawkeye stood behind the Fuhrer, the Grim Reaper stood behind Mandy, and Griamore, the Holy Knight with only one arm thanks to the Battle of Metropolis, stood behind his father Dreyfus. Tsuna's old friend and a newly-promoted Colonel of the Marines, Kyoya Hibari, stood on his left side right up next to the table instead of standing behind him like most other advisors.

Another figure who had advisors with him, was the man currently speaking, the Arbiter of the Covenant, who had two tall figures standing behind him. One was the white-plated Special Operations Commander of the Covenant forces, the best fighter the Covenant had other than their leader in the Arbiter's opinion. The other figure was one who had never been in the council tower before, and was a different species of alien than the two Sangheili Elites, being a Jiralhanae, more commonly known as the Brutes. The Arbiter continued speaking to the council as he had their complete attention, "The dissent in the Covenant forces has been resolved with this upheaval of our military. With this however, the majority of my men are still highly against merging the Covenant army with that of the Marines and State Military."

"They don't like humans?" Mustang questioned the purple-plated Elite across the table from him.

The Arbiter narrowed his eyes over at the short man, "They don't trust humans," he corrected the Fuhrer.

The two men continued to glare into each other's eyes for a few moments, until a woman with white hair in between them on Roy's right and the Arbiter's left began, "Boys." They turned to the old woman in a white coat, an Admiral of the Marines, sitting in a chair next to the Fleet Admiral. Tsuru continued, "The need to merge the militaries is not urgent, and it will not be a quick matter. However, at the moment the council has little control over RNG forces, and until we successfully break down the barriers between our armies, another mess like Metropolis may happen again." The leaders of the old New Earth Government in the room grimaced thinking about the Battle of Metropolis. When they looked back on how they handled that day, how Marines fought State Alchemists fighting Covenant aliens in the streets of Metropolis, they all realized how jumbled it all was. Even with the crooked leaders of the old government, there needed to be checks and balances, and as it was, the Arbiter controlled a giant force of aliens who would not listen to other leaders if he were to rebel.

Tsuru's calm attitude lowered the tension of the room a little, and Mustang and the Arbiter broke eye contact. Roy had already reluctantly agreed to making one centralized military, and Fleet Admiral Aokiji had proposed it in the first place. Even Great Holy Knight Dreyfus did not take long to agree to enter the Holy Knights into a centralized military, but the Covenant were taking a while. The Arbiter began again and looked around the room as he spoke, "My people may have the same rights as everyone else in this city, but many humans are still afraid of us. We have separate schools set up for Covenant children, and-"

"Your children are allowed at the same schools all the other kids go to," Dreyfus interrupted. "It is your own people's choices to segregate themselves. You build separate communities and send your kids to separate schools-"

"Would you want to live with people who look at you like you're monsters?" The Arbiter growled over. Dreyfus looked back and saw all three of the scary aliens snarling his way with sharp teeth and faces that would make normal men afraid, not to mention children. Arbiter continued, "Integration is not a fast process. I thought on Nexus, things might go smoother because of how strange this world is, but I was wrong to think the people of the multiverse were any different than the ones from my own."

No one said anything for a few seconds, then a quiet voice spoke up and everyone looked across the table from the Gensei of the Marines, to a young man with spiky brown hair who immediately looked like he regretted speaking when everyone looked his way. The Elites and Brute who turned his way were still frowning deeply and looked pretty menacing, but Tsuna did not look away when they growled towards him. "I think," he repeated, then continued this time, "it's not just up to us, to humans, to have to learn to get used to your people." Everyone looked at the boy confusedly and he continued with a more steady voice, "King Thrall, of Durotar, made it so that only orcs, and trolls, and other creatures like them could live in his capital- Orgrimmar. I heard that he said at the Summit that it was because of humans, and how we are intolerant, that he did it, but that's not fixing the problem. Now, his people won't be able to interact with humans, and humans won't see his people and get used to them, like I have with Sangheilis, and Jiralhanae." He gulped after saying it as he was looking straight into the Arbiter's eyes, and though he was not afraid because the man was a scary-looking alien, he was intimidated by the man being the leader of a military and a known hero of his own universe.

"Well said," Aokiji mentioned. The boy looked directly across the table at the tallest amongst them who gave the boy a small smile. "I have to agree with Tsunayoshi Sawada. It is a two way street Arbiter," he looked towards the purple-plated alien. "We made the first step, opening up human schools to your people. Now it's your people's turn to send your children there. Children don't have the same prejudices as their parents, and if we start at the schools, they'll never grow up to be as wary of people who don't look like them. It's difficult for us who lived entire lives before arriving on this world," Aokiji admitted. "I know that in my world, creatures that looked like you, Arbiter, would have been considered monsters, so I have no right to pretend that I was not wary when we first met." The Covenant officers glared at him, and Aokiji finished, "But it doesn't need to be the same for our children. They've lived two years of their short lives in close vicinity of each other, and by keeping them apart they're going to start thinking that there is something very different between our peoples, when there really isn't."

The Brute behind the Arbiter opened his mouth, but the Arbiter could see his remark coming and clenched a fist over the table. His subordinate closed his mouth but grumbled something racist against humans under his breath anyway. The Arbiter sighed deeply and thought about what they were saying for a few moments. "You may be right," he began. "I will speak to my people, tell them it is our responsibility to integrate, as much as it is yours to support it. I believe this will work out."

"Let's move on," Mandy stated out of nowhere. Everyone looked towards the blonde-haired girl whose hair was spiked up on either side of her forehead to look like horns. She had a pink jacket on over her black cloak that she constantly kept on no matter where she was, and her scythe rested over the table in front of her. Mandy did not want to dwell on the subject any longer and as it seemed they might have reached a resolution, she moved them to their next topic, "Sinbad." She said the word and the look of distaste on her face was clear. "He is making moves on lands between Magnoshutatt and Sindria. He has been talking to mayors of cities in that area, telling them the benefits of allowing trade between Sindria and his other holdings, telling them that it would benefit them even more if they would join him so they could receive taxes from their traded goods…"

Ding!

Far below the base of the Spire, and a few miles away from the center of Metropolis, Bart Simpson looked into the left eye of his old friend. Stewie's eye opened huge and he questioned, "What's enough? What do you mean?"

The top half of Bart's face was dark, shadowed over even though they could see it well with the night-vision goggles they had on. "That's enough, Stewie." He lifted his gaze and stared straight into the younger kid's eyes. "I never meant to be a real member of the Underlords."

"Bart stop-" Brian began.

Bart continued as if he were uninterrupted, "I wanted to break it apart from the inside."

"I know that, obviously," Stewie said, his voice higher pitched than usual. The kid's eyes darted behind him for a second and then back to Bart. "You knew I knew that though. I-"

"I wanted to make you change your mind," Bart said, his face looking so angry as he spoke, keeping his voice low so that the ones in front of him would still be the only ones to hear him. "Brian tried too, and he was right. Stewie," Bart shook his head, so many emotions rushing over it. He clenched his eyes shut for a few seconds, then opened them and whispered, "I'm sorry, about what happened to your family."

"Enough of this," Tai Lung growled.

The snow leopard took a step forward, but a currently-shocked Stewie turned to him and said, "Wait."

"I don't take orders from you, baby," Tai Lung snarled at him, baring his teeth at the toddler. He stepped forward another step, then reached up both hands to his neck and grabbed it in pain. He dropped to his knees while Bart stared forward in shock. "Ack, ugh," Tai Lung darted his eyes to the side and saw a shadow looming over him. The green haired teenager standing behind him pulled his hands that were crossed over each other higher up, tightening the thin golden strings wrapped around Tai Lung's neck.

Stewie turned to the leopard whose face was turning red as it struggled for air. "But he does," Stewie said with a sadistic smirk, right before the Underlord in front of him's eyes rolled into his head. Bart looked past Stewie at the green haired man who did not say a word as he choked out another Underlord.

Bart stepped towards the younger boy who turned back to him again. "Stewie, let's destroy this organization," Bart told the younger boy.

"Why would I want to do such a thing?" Stewie questioned back. He noticed some people jogging their way from down the hall and he glared their way. The men stopped, thoughts entering their heads telling them to turn around and forget what they just saw, then Stewie turned and did the same thing to the men coming at him from the other direction. The young boy started panting deeply as sending out that many commands to several people was tiring on his mind. He smirked again though and lifted his gaze to Bart's, "I helped make this what it is. I am an Underlord."

"I know," Bart snapped. "I know," he repeated, shaking his head and catching his breath as he was panting hard too. "I know what happened to your family sucked," Bart said, and Stewie's eye opened wider at the older boy. "I know because it happened to mine that same day. Our families died with each other, and I have no right to tell you that what you're doing is bad, because I channeled my anger the same way! I, for years now, I graffitied all over Metropolis. I got in fights at school. I stole, just to feel the thrill, the rush, of being alive!"

Bart's fists clenched hard at his sides. "And when they came to me telling me to join them against the NEG, to be a rebel with them, I didn't do it to rescue Eren from prison, or to free Bender, or to get off Killua's nullifier! I did it because it was against the law, because I would get a thrill from it. At least, at first… Then, all of them died." His voice cracked at the end as he said it. "And I realized, that it was happening, again. Just like when my dad, and mom, and sisters, all died that first day. The people I came to care for all died again. That pain, is the worst thing imaginable, and I know you feel it." Bart reached forward and grabbed Stewie by a shoulder, "And what you've done- no, what we've done, is put so many people through that same pain."

"I don't know what you're talking about-"

"Did you see Port Maple?" Bart asked, tears in the corners of his eyes. Stewie looked away and Bart continued, "I know you did, because I saw you that day. I saw you at the edge of the city, and you looked just like me, horrified. All those people who died, all the kids, who became orphans just like us because of what we did to them!"

Stewie's head bowed and the young boy stared at the floor. Bart clenched his shoulder tighter and continued in a quiet whisper, "I know, it was hard on you. But I wish, you didn't run away. Astrid and Hiccup were good to me, no matter how many times I screwed up, no matter how many times I broke the law. They would have been good to you and Brian too. They still can be."

Stewie looked up into Bart's eyes and snapped, "I am an Underlord. I run a criminal organization. Don't think that-"

"Stewie," a voice said on his right. He turned his head and saw Brian standing there, head bowed, water in his eyes. "Please, listen to him," the boy's best friend, the dog with white fur, begged the four year old.

"You," Stewie began, then turned his head to Bart, "you both, want to go back?" Brian nodded his head, but Bart shook his 'no.' Stewie's one good eye opened wide, and he turned to the man next to him, confusing Bart who knew Stewie just read his mind. Stewie opened his mouth, then froze and shut it fast. He spun to the yellow-skinned boy next to him, opened his mouth to say something, then froze as the image of Port Maple filled his mind. He did not know if it was he himself thinking about it, or either of the two next to him whose minds he was reading, but the emotions in the memory he was feeling were ones that all three of them had: regret, anger, guilt.

The younger boy sighed and he turned to Lubbock again. "Just like you," Stewie began, "this man came here to destroy the Underlords." Bart looked at Lubba in surprise, and Stewie continued, "I turned him against those he was spying for right before the attack on Port Maple. I put constraints on his mind so now he only thinks what I want him to."

"Loosen those constraints," Bart said. Stewie spun to the older boy, and Bart continued softly, "I didn't know what I was doing. Port Maple happened and I couldn't do a thing. Him though, he's got other people who can help us right?" Stewie frowned as that was true, and Bart let go of Stewie's shoulder to step towards Lubba instead, the slightly older man looking down at him with a blank look. "We need to move fast," Bart whispered.

Stewie looked to Bart, then Lubba, then the boy sighed and whispered under his breath, "Even if we were to do something, it is already too late." Bart's eyes snapped open wide and he spun back to the younger kid who even Brian was looking at confusedly now. Stewie continued softly, "The Joker's plan will work without fail."

Two miles up and a little to the east, two kids sat at a table drinking frozen lemonades at an outdoor dining area. They had an umbrella over their table to keep the snow out, and most of the other tables around them had people sitting at them. Those people were mostly older than the two twelve year olds, though the majority were high schoolers who got out of school around the same time. This was a more grown-up hang-out spot, but neither Zushi nor Cindy cared.

The spot was close to the center of Metropolis, so close in fact that on the same road, only two intersections down on the street next to the table the sixth graders were eating at, stood the Spire that touched the clouds. "So," Cindy began. She lowered her glass after taking another sip from her straw, then looked at the nervous boy in front of her in the eyes, "What do you want to do after this?"

After this?! I didn't think that far ahead! I didn't even think she was going to say yes when I asked her to come. Oh man, Zushi's face stayed only semi-nervous even while his mind raced in anxiety. "Umm," he paused and took another sip from his lemonade slushy to give himself a few more seconds. "We could always-" Zushi stopped mid-sentence as Cindy's eyes popped open the size of saucers. He turned his head around fast, then let out a sigh of relief at the sight of a group of four penguins waddling down the road, talking to each other by the looks of it.

"So cute," Cindy whispered, looking at the adorable little creatures with starry eyes as they waddled their way.

At the top of the Spire only two blocks away from the hip hang-out spot for teenagers, the elevator doors of the council room opened up with a Ding. Mandy stopped talking about Sinbad and gained an even angrier look on her face as she was interrupted. Everyone in the room turned towards the elevators and watched as a man with dark tan skin stepped in. Aokiji's eyes opened wide as did Tsuru's, and Smoker and Momonga's, both of whom stood behind the Fleet Admiral and veteran female Admiral.

"Vice Admiral Maynard," Aokiji called from across the room, leaving his seat as he did. "You are alive," he sounded surprised as he made the statement.

Basque Grand stepped out of the elevator and looked towards Mustang who frowned back at him, though with slight confusion in his gaze. "I found him at the western entrance. I told him to tell me what happened in Port Maple but he said he would only speak to the council."

Mustang tried to hold in his apprehension against the officer in front of him. Grand's trying to make a move for his old position. Idiot can't take the hint already. "Very good, Captain," he said, emphasizing his subordinate's low rank. He thought about sending Grand away, but something more pertinent was on his mind and he turned to Maynard, "Vice Admiral Maynard, you were in Port Maple the day of the attack, were you not?" Mustang looked up and down the man's body and it sure appeared like he was in an attack.

Tsuna turned right to Mustang in surprise, then spun back around to the man who just got out of the elevator so he was standing closest to Tsuna's seat. "You were in Port Maple? What happened?"

"Where have you been?" Tsuru questioned, narrowing her eyes as this seemed to be the most important question at the moment. Why is he here now? If he survived, he should have returned immediately. Even if he was on foot, it should not have taken this long.

Mandy was thinking along similar lines and she eyed the Marine warily. Maynard stepped forward while Coby and Helmeppo walked in on his left side, as Basque Grand took up all the space on Maynard's right. The three of them all looked in towards Maynard as well though, as they were anticipating what he was going to say for a while now. Maynard looked around at all of them, and he clenched his teeth hard before opening his mouth, "I have a message, that I am supposed to deliver."

"A message?" Dreyfus questioned. "From whom?"

Maynard looked towards the Great Holy Knight, and he replied darkly, "The Joker." Everyone in the room opened their eyes wide, but before any of them could shout questions at him, Maynard continued loudly, "I am an agent of chaos." The room became quiet as Maynard sounded like he was reading off a script, as he stood there shaking in rage. "You think, you can rebuild a system so broken, without starting from scratch? Your great city will burn again."

Aokiji stared at this Vice Admiral, a Marine more proud than most men he knew, and he had no idea how the Joker could have gotten this man to say this out loud in such a manner. Unless, he's being forced to. Maynard's family lived in Port Maple with him. What if, are they making him say this? Aokiji's eyes narrowed as he looked straight into Maynard's eyes. How would they know though? Unless, they have cameras in this very room? Aokiji's eyes darted around to all corners of the room but he did not see anything. He looked back towards Maynard, looked closer, right into Maynard's eyes, Are those-

Contact lenses. Tsuru thought, a bead of sweat rolling down the left side of her face. That Joker is watching us right now. Using Vegapunk's technology no doubt. Tsuru's eyes lowered from Maynard's eyes, the eyes with contacts in them that showed the entire room in front of him to some very nasty people. Her eyes lowered to his left side, to his arm that was against his side, to his left index finger that was tapping on his cloak. Is that, Morse code?

"Chaos will take over in place of 'the plan.' Port Maple was just the beginning," Maynard stopped, he hesitated for a moment, gulped, and then turned sideways. He reached down his right hand towards the hem of his shirt, everyone tensed up, some people got out of their seats, and those with Observational Haki glared at Maynard as they felt very nervous all of a sudden. He lifted up the hem of his shirt though, a shirt that everyone could see his muscles on the other side of, that they could see his skin through because it was already so torn up.

Coby looked at the man next to him closely, nervously, and he looked down at the side that Maynard was scratching before as it became fully revealed from under the shirt. Maynard continued tapping his finger on his side, and the very few people in the room who were watching him tap opened their eyes huge. Maynard clenched his eyes shut as everyone stared at the massive gash on his side, and he shouted, "You wanna know, how I got these scars?!" Click. A red light flashed on the inside of Maynard's skin.

BOOOOOOOOOM

Outside of the Spire, on the streets of Metropolis, a couple of kids who just left the slushy-shop and were walking down the road snapped their heads up in fear as a massive explosion occurred directly above them. A hundred stories up above Zushi and Cindy, flames billowed out every shattering window of the Spire's top floor. The thin part of the building right below the larger round part had a chunk blown out of it, and as soon as the initial explosion's sound faded, loud creaking replaced it.

Everyone in the city who turned towards the Spire in horror at the sound and feeling of an explosion, dropped their jaws even more as the explosion caused the top of the Spire to start tilting to the north. Loud cracks echoed through the city, and then one extra loud one preceded the toppling of the tower. The round section fell off the hundredth story, then skid down the side of the building smashing every window on its way down.

"Oh my G-" Cindy was interrupted by Zushi grabbing her by the arm and running as fast as he could the way they came. Cindy's eyes snapped open wide and she yelped in pain as the jolt on her arm was so strong.

Zushi slowed for a second, turned and lifted Cindy to put her on his back, then turned again and sprinted even faster away from the Spire. He had sweat all over his face as he sprinted seventy miles per hour away from the falling building. "Zushi slow down!" Cindy yelled at the boy carrying her.

He slowed, looked over his shoulder to see if it was safe, then stopped completely. Cindy gasped and then started taking deep breaths as she barely could breathe at all while being carried so fast. She turned herself and shouted, "What is going on?!" All the people on the street running away like them, slowed and came to stops as well as they all looked back towards the Spire.

Everyone stared at the wide top section of the tower, the round section that skid down ten stories of the building, before stopping out of nowhere. The entire top part of the Spire had suddenly jolted to a stop right on the edge of the building it was skidding down, as a thick coating of ice surrounded the bottom of their floor as well as the wall of the building behind it.

"It's the Fleet Admiral's power!" Someone shouted on the side of the road.

Zushi let out a sigh of relief and he lowered Cindy to the ground next to him. He quickly realized that his relief was coming way too soon and his eyes started darting around with a dangerous, distrusting look to them. Cindy turned to the boy next to her, "Thanks Zu-" she stopped as she saw him, looking around at everyone on the road individually, examining them, narrowing his eyes and frowning deeply at a few of them. Then, his eyes darted hard to the left and Cindy followed his gaze down the street they were both standing on.

There were several vehicles stopped on the street, their drivers and passengers all getting out to look towards the Spire. Then, there was a black van, twenty cars away from them, facing the other way, and driving. Zushi glanced to his left at the girl next to him, "Cindy, stay here."

"What?" She questioned, then her eyes snapped open huge as he started sprinting down the road. He hopped up on the hood of a hovercar then started leaping one car to the next down the road. "Zushi! Where are you going?!"

Behind Cindy, up the side of the Spire and inside the top section that was no longer falling, moans and screams filled the room with a destroyed round table in it. Coby opened up his eyes and everything above him was red and blurry. He lifted an arm and wiped some of the red off of his face, only to wince in pain from moving his bloody arm, and wince in disgust as the red over his eyes felt mushy, like guts. He wiped it away anyway though and put his hand down below him on the floor, only to feel cold and look down to see he was sitting on ice.

Coby stared at the floor, only it was not the floor he was looking at. He was sitting on the side of the room he was just in, right in a window that all the glass had shattered out of and now had a pane of ice replacing it. Coby looked straight up from the wall he was sitting on, and across the floor that was now at an eighty-degree angle, he saw Fleet Admiral Aokiji sitting down, panting, with one hand jammed in the floor so hard that it ripped right through steel, and the other hand lifted up forming more ice around the room to encase flames, to make the building more sturdy, and to hold falling people in place.

Aokiji looked down at his own right leg that had a deep gash on the thigh. There was a lot of blood coming out of his leg, and he grimaced thinking about why it took him so long to freeze the building in place. As soon as the explosion went off he had tried to use his powers, but the pain he felt in his thigh was very real, and it kept him from making any ice at all until he ripped out the shrapnel from inside him. He had to drop it fast, as just touching the Sea Stone with his fingers made him even weaker.

Now that the building was no longer falling, Aokiji could get a good look around to check the damage. He looked straight down into Coby's shocked eyes, then next to the boy before frowning deeply in anger, and in pity. Coby saw that look of pity directed his way, and he turned his head to the side in confusion, and his shell-shock doubled at the sight of the face staring at him, half of it melted off, the other half wide-eyed and staring at him in horror. "H-H-Hel-Helme-"

Roy Mustang opened his eyes and everything was foggy. His ears were ringing and he heard muffled coughing, only to realize it was his own. He tried leaning forward, but he was on almost a straight slant, and his back was frozen to the ground. He was still able to move his head and arms though, and he turned to the side to look at a woman next to him, bleeding badly, leaning partially over him so she was looking down at his face. Blood dripped off her chin and down on his face, and she mouthed words that looked like she was saying, 'Thank goodness you're alright.' There were loud yells of pain coming from Roy's other side, and he turned his head slowly to look at the Strong Arm Alchemist.

Alex Louis Armstrong was grabbing his left elbow with his right hand, screaming in agony as he lost one of his Strong Arms. Blood splashed out of the wound violently, until suddenly his entire left arm from where his lower arm was ripped off, halfway up his muscular bicep, froze solid. Armstrong was still in excruciating pain, but he stopped losing so much blood as his ripped blood vessels, veins, and arteries all froze shut.

Mustang looked the direction of the final member of the State Military who was in the room during the explosion, but he saw no remains of the Iron Blood Alchemist anywhere. Grand was a bastard, but he didn't deserve to go out like that. Not again.

Great Holy Knight Dreyfus lowered the arm he rose to cover his face. He lowered it and looked at his red armor on the side closer to the elevators when the explosion went off. He did not even have any burns, but he could thank the near-invisible purple barrier in front of him for that. We were foolish to let our guards down here. As soon as that man arrived, I knew something was wrong with him. To think though, he would be a suicide bomber! "Rrgg, Griamore."

His son standing behind him had his arm raised to keep up the purple bubble forcefield he only managed to get around himself and his father during the explosion. Griamore looked down at his father who got up to his feet so they were both standing on an almost straight angle now. Their feet were pressed down hard into the ground and they had enough leg muscle strength to hold themselves and their heavy armor up like that. "Yes father?" Griamore questioned.

"They will pay for this," Dreyfus snarled. He turned to his son, then looked back with wide eyes as he saw Aokiji leaning down next to an older woman next to him.

"Tsuru-san," Aokiji said, his voice deep and apologetic. "Let me get you to the hospital-"

Tsuru lifted an open palm and Aokiji's eyes widened at the clear indication of the motion. Smoker and Momonga were grabbing onto the ground just above Aokiji and Tsuru, and the two of their faces darkened at the look of resignation on Tsuru's face, and the thick shard of wood sticking out of the left side of her chest. The hand she had open as a palm though, she curled the fingers in to motion for Aokiji to come closer.

The Fleet Admiral leaned in, ignoring the shouts and cries and moans around him. He leaned down so his left ear, the one that was ringing the less of his two, was right over her mouth. Her voice was raspy and gargled, but Aokiji could still make out what she said. He leaned back and looked down to tell her he understood, but stopped with his mouth open as he saw the woman's eyes, still open, but no longer looking at anything in particular.

Aokiji stood up, and he looked around the room. He spotted the Arbiter's second-in-command trying to patch up his leader's bloody leg, while the Brute they brought with them to the meeting lay dead and covered in burns halfway down the slant where Aokiji had froze him. He had still felt a presence with his Haki when he first froze the Brute there, but now he no longer felt it and figured the alien must have succumbed to his wounds. He looked straight across the table, and saw a man he promoted himself after seeing him fight against Luthor with everything he had, shaking around another young man the same age who was not responding to him.

Hibari shook Tsuna violently, but the other boy was not opening up his eyes. Hibari could feel his heartbeat though, he could feel his presence with his Haki. Hibari lifted up and ripped Tsuna out of the ice, then turned sideways to look at the wall on his left which was actually the ceiling. Hibari leapt at the ceiling and his right fist turned black with Armament Haki that he used to punch a hole straight through it. Anyone who could move just stared up in shock as Hibari leapt out of the building at the ninetieth story they were stuck to, not because he was leaping out at such a high height, but because of all the blood coming off of Hibari's own body as he did this. The jet-black-haired man had huge gashes on his back that those he was leaving behind watched splash blood all over the edge of the hole Hibari leapt out of.

Once Hibari was gone with Tsuna, Aokiji announced loudly, "Maynard tapped a message in Morse Code that Tsuru-san caught. He only said, 'Short-range.' I can assume he meant the range of the trigger for the bomb they put inside him." Aokiji's face was full of rage that none in the room had ever seen him have before. His face darkened and he continued darkly, "That means that whoever forced Maynard to do this, is nearby. I do not know if they have Maynard's family with them, but if they do, saving his wife and daughters is a priority. Other than them, anyone else is fair game."

Everyone listening to Aokiji became confused at what he was saying that for, then they heard the growls coming from one side of the table. The injured leaders of the government looked over and watched as a form floated up in the air, holding a scythe in her right hand, snarling furiously as blood came down her head from the gash in her forehead and on her left cheek. A dark green aura surrounded the girl, then two black wings shot out of her back and spread to have a twenty foot wingspan.

Mandy ignored Grim's skull on the floor that complained at her to put him together first before leaving. Mandy shot towards the ceiling and before she even touched it, the steel was melting and pushing out away from her. She left a much larger hole in the vertical ceiling than Hibari did, and everyone in the city looking up towards the Spire dropped their jaws at the sight of the girl flying out. Mandy had twisting black horns over her long flowing blonde hair, her teeth sharpened and she darted her glowing green eyes around furiously. They put Kairoseki shards in the bomb to kill Aokiji. They almost killed me! If I didn't raise my arms- if I didn't have this cloak you made me Timmy- I- I am going to DESTROY them!

The girl dipped out of the sky, then flew back up and roared at the top of her lungs. "This is Mandy, representative of Timmy Turner on the council of the Renewed Nexus Government." Her voice seemed to lag behind itself, sounding twice as if there was an echo. It was deep, and dark, and two men in a hover-van driving away at high speeds heard the voice in their very souls, making them shiver in terror. Mandy continued bellowing, "I hereby declare a state of emergency. Return to your homes. I am locking down Metropolis until I find the bombers." Mandy rose the scythe in her right hand, eyed it with a deep snarl, then slammed the shaft down on midair in front of her below where her feet were. The tap from her shaft on the air sent dark dark ripples around the sky.

A bunch of little kids running towards the city from the outskirts of Metropolis stopped running to lift up their gazes to the ripples in the sky. Chester pointed and all his friends looked, then they screamed and spun around at the sight of massive green flames rising up behind them. A wall of green fire flew up out of the ground from beneath the snow, a wall that stretched from behind them, to as far as they could see in either direction before curving inwards to wrap around the city. The hover-van reaching close to the edge of the city screeched to a stop as the driver dropped his jaw and slammed his foot on the brakes. A huge wall of green fire was blocking the exit, and the guards at the exit heard the voice echoing around the city and tried to keep calm, turning away from the fire and instead stepping into the entranceway with weapons raised.

"A lockdown?!" one of the men in the van shouted. He turned to the driver and yelled, "We weren't told anything about this!"

The thinner man in the driver's seat was trying to keep calm and think of a way out of this. "Listen," he began. "If we can find a way below the city inside the flames, we can make our way back to the staging area. Phase two-" Clank. The two men broke eye-contact and snapped their gazes to the hood of their van through the windshield. Standing there was a four and a half foot tall twelve year old, a boy with short brown hair who glared at the men inside the vehicle angrily.

"Underlords?" The kid questioned, and the two people inside panicked, reaching down for their weapons. The kid standing in a puffy red jacket on top of the van frowned even deeper at their reactions. Zushi clenched his right fist, then he slammed it down between his feet into the hood of the black van. The entire front of the vehicle crumpled and the back of it snapped up in the air.

Guards at the nearby guard post started running down the street shouting, as smoke came out of the broken engine inside the vehicle. The van's hover-capabilities failed and it dropped down on the pavement below. The men whose heads slammed into the dashboard when their vehicle jolted, slowly lifted back up their heads to look out the cracked windshield at the boy. Zushi reached forward and grabbed the glass though, his hand that he grabbed it with covered in a thin white veil. Zushi ripped out the windshield and tossed it aside, but when he looked back inside, his eyes opened huge and he leapt backwards. It was just in time too, as the man in the passenger seat holding a pistol with a very wide barrel pulled the trigger.

A fat round shot out of the barrel, missing Zushi, but hitting a car behind him that exploded in a ball of flames. Zushi landed back near the guards who were running his way, and the boy dove to the side behind another vehicle to give him some cover as the driver stood up in his seat, blood covering his face, but lifted up an assault rifle anyway and started firing yellow beams all over the street in front of him.

The passenger who fired the explosive round started loading another round into his gun, while at the same time lifting up a radio and twisting the knob on it a few times. "Hey! We've got a problem up here! The city's boxed in and-" The man stopped shouting as he suddenly felt very light. Him and his partner froze, and they stared out the windshield at the city getting progressively farther below them.

The van finally stopped moving, and the two men lifted their heads slowly to the ceiling where they could feel heat radiating down on them. Staring down at them was a terrifying monster, one that reached down with a hand that had sharp nails at the end of her fingers, and she used that hand to grab the driver's face and lift him out of the car. She looked back at the man in the passenger seat, one hand wrapped around his partner, the other holding the scythe that was jammed into the roof farther back in the van and allowed her to keep hovering while holding it. "Tell me," Mandy said, and the two men almost pissed themselves at the sound of the same voice as the one they heard in their souls a minute ago. "Where are the people that you are trying to contact?"

Said people stared at the radio in Lubba's hand with huge eyes at the sound of such a menacing voice. The green-haired assassin who was shaking in rage, turned his head to Stewie and spat out, "It's Mandy." The four of them stared at the radio Lubba was holding, until the man crushed it in his hand and dropped the remains on the floor. Lubba glowered furiously at Stewie and took a step towards the kid, but Bart stepped in between them.

"Listen, I know you're mad," Bart began to the older teen.

"I betrayed everyone," Lubba snarled. The nineteen year old assassin could not hold in how mad he was. "I told them, Balbadd City, and then stood by and watched as we massacred Port Maple. I helped…" He glared into Stewie's eyes, "And you made me."

"And now I've released you," Stewie said, shrugging his shoulders. "Looks like we're even."

Lubba twitched his hands, but Stewie glared right back at him and said, "I could put you back under my control at any time. Do you really want to fight me? When I just let you go?" The toddler Underlord with a British accent asked incredulously.

"Stewie stop," Bart growled at the younger kid. "And you," he turned back to Lubbock. "Lubba right? I convinced Stewie to switch sides, so-"

"I heard you," Lubba snarled. "I could hear everything, while I was under his control." He shook in even more rage and he growled, "I have friends on that council. Comrades." Mandy's still alive, but Kuzan, and that Tsuna kid seemed great. God damn it!

Two men were running down the hall towards the four of them, and Stewie looked behind Lubba to mentally tell them to turn around. Before he could however, Lubba's fists opened up and strings shot out of his Perfect Cross-Tail. The Imperial Arms released so much golden wire that the other three next to Lubba, looking over at those men through their night-vision goggles, watched wide-eyed as those men became completely surrounded in gold in an instant, before Lubba clenched his fists again and his strings pulled so taut that the bodies inside were shredded. The strings pulled back inside his weapon, no longer gold but a deep red.

Bart winced at the action, Brian looked away, but Stewie managed to keep full composure as he looked up into Lubba's eyes again. "The four of us," Lubba growled, his eyes shadowed over. He thought about Takao, I told him that I told Najenda we were going to Balbadd City. He teleported away, but help never came. I don't know what happened to him, but since help didn't come for the port, I really did betray everyone. They won't trust me anymore. "No outside help," Lubba continued, looking away from Stewie to Bart instead. This kid was part of the rebels in Metropolis, a very small group that took on an entire government. He's the one who saved me here, so he's even more impressive than I thought. "We can do this, if," he continued and glared back at Stewie, "if you really are on our side now. You aren't going to betray us? Like you're betraying them right now?"

"Hey," Bart snapped, making Lubba look back to the twelve year old. "Lay off him. Stewie's my friend," Stewie looked at Bart with a wide eye that the older boy would say that considering what he had done. The little boy's left eye opened even wider as Bart continued, "But he's more than that. Stewie is, family." He turned to the four year old and looked into the boy's eyes, "Our families are gone, so we'll be family now. You're my brother." Stewie's eyes were getting a little watery, and Bart saw this so he pointed a thumb at himself and in a less serious tone stated, "And as the older brother, that means you have to do what I say."

Stewie's bottom lip dropped. The kid started complaining in a logical way about how he has more powers and was in the Underlords longer, while the glare Lubba was giving him was fading. This kid really is four years old. He's smart, he's a psychopath, but he's just four. His hands that were still twitching like he was going to wrap the kid up in strings and squeeze him to death stopped moving and came to rest at his sides.

"Well," Brian began, getting the three others to look to the dog who had a very small smile on his face for the first time since he stood outside Port Maple, watching it burn. "Should we start with this base here?"

Bart thought it was a good idea, but Stewie shook his head and began, "No Brian, we cannot just destroy our own base if we intend to keep our positions as Underlords."

That's right, I'm an Underlord now. At least the brat did something good. Lubba saw Stewie shoot him a glare, and Lubba growled deeply, "If we're going to do this, then you have to get out of my fucking head." He glared into Stewie's eyes, and the kid looking back took a few seconds then finally conceded and stopped reading Lubba's mind. Lubba thought something that he knew would get a reaction out of the kid, then humphed as it seemed like Stewie really wasn't reading his mind anymore.

Stewie started back up, "If we plan on taking out this base, which is an important strategic outpost for the Underlords and imperative for the second stage of our current plans, we need someone to put the fall on."

"That's not an issue," Lubba said, though his voice was dark as he said it. The others looked at him confusedly, then they heard the screams. The other three with Lubba spun around, while the man was already looking the direction the screams were coming from. People started running down the tunnel towards them, but Lubba lifted up his hands and out from his Cross Tails flew a web of strings that filled up the entire hallway in front of him. The men running away found themselves all getting caught in strings, and then they screamed in fear as the air behind them ripped open with a huge circular green portal.

Demonic hands reached out of the portal and grabbed men of the Underlords, dragging them back into the portal. I thought it wouldn't take long, but damn she's fast. Faster than me, Lubba thought, admiring how quickly the girl found out their location from hardened criminals specifically picked for the mission because they were supposed to be able to hold out during torture.

The portal closed, but green flames rose on the floor and burned the walls, filling the hallway with a green glow. The three boys and dog took off their night-vision goggles, and Bart did not need to pick back up his flashlight that he was using to check out the tunnel system earlier. They stared forward at a figure moving through the dimly-lit hallway, black wings behind her back, every footstep echoing around the halls as the cries of her burning victims died down. Brian stepped back and Bart gulped, and even Stewie had beads of sweat coming down the sides of his face.

"Mandy," Lubba began as the girl's face came within eyesight.

"You," Mandy snarled, her teeth baring at the older man. She looked like a true demon in front of them with her horns, sharp claws and teeth, menacing wings, and flaming green aura. "You tried to kill me."

"No," Lubba started. "I wasn't-"

She did not want to hear his explanation. Mandy's eyes glowed dark green with black swirls moving around inside them, "You were my spy in the Underlords. I suggested it to Najenda, and the two of us worked to put you there. We only told one other, the Batman. Everyone else thought you were just going to look for them, but you became a member. Your secret was so well-kept, that I knew you were still alive. I knew, you had betrayed me!" Flames rose all around Mandy at that final roar.

"I didn't betray you," Lubba said, shaking his head as he did. "Didn't Takao tell anyone? What happened to him?"

"He's in a coma," Mandy replied. "His brain got friend." Lubba turned and glared down at the kid next to him who shrugged his shoulders like it was no big deal. Mandy saw the dart of Lubba's eyes, but she continued glaring straight at him, not the children and dog in front of him. "He did say some things before he collapsed though. I heard that he told the people of Pao, 'Port Maple, not Balbadd.' And he also said, 'Lubba lied.'"

Lubba's teeth clenched hard and he could only imagine how that looked to every person he knew and became friends with over the last two years. "He didn't lie," a voice started on his right. Mandy looked down at the kid who looked even younger than her, and she glared into his eyes with her demonic ones. Stewie Griffin looked right back in her eyes and said, "I took over his mind and made him report that we would be attacking Balbadd City." Mandy's eyes narrowed and she looked back at Lubba, to see the man snarling down at the kid with his fists clenched tightly as he tried to keep himself from killing the boy.

"Yet, he is not under your control anymore?" Mandy mentioned, lifting her pitch at the end of the sentence to show she wanted an explanation.

Bart stepped forward now, and though scared, he began, "We're all on the same side now."

"Who are you?" Mandy snapped at the kid who leaned back a little in surprise at how scary and mean she looked.

He gulped but replied, "I'm Bart Simpson. I live in Metropolis, and I joined the Underlords so I could destroy it from within." He tried to make himself look as serious as he could while he spoke, but his face still looked mostly just afraid. She glared at him without saying a word in response, but Bart continued anyway, "I, got Stewie to chill, and now we're going to take on the rest of the Underlords."

"Why don't," Mandy began, "I just kill you all right here? After I learn where the other Underlord bases are of course." She turned to Stewie with eyes that showed she intended to torture him.

"The Underlords are not the Underworld," Lubba started in a deep voice. "They don't want what happened to the Underworld to happen to them, so the forces are constantly moving, creating new bases, leaving old ones behind. Even this place here, we just had twenty soldiers to make this plan work, and none of them know where we're heading next. Myself, Stewie there, and one other know where we were supposed to go next, but you won't find other Underlords there. There's a very good system in place to keep us from all getting caught. The Joker got a lot of good ideas through his time with Vegapunk."

Mandy started growling and she did not know what she wanted to do. She rose an arm and rubbed her forearm over her eyes, getting some of the blood coming down from her forehead out of the way. "So what then?" She snapped. "I'm supposed to just accept that you attacked the council? Killed members of the government? You want me to go back empty-handed? So that you can what? Go to another base, plan another attack, and carry it out, only to say afterwards that you're good guys now and want to take down the organization on your own?"

Bart sweatdropped as that was exactly what this sounded like now that he thought about it. Lubba grimaced deeply, and Brian looked away ashamed that it was already too late. Mandy glared back at Stewie, because the kid was the only one still looking calm. Stewie had a plan though. His oval-shaped head pulsed and Mandy could swear she saw his brain through his skull. "You will not go back empty-handed. You will leave here with an Underlord in your possession." Lubba and the others turned to him in surprise, then all turned their heads to the wall next to them where an unconscious snow-leopard was lying. Mandy looked at the creature in the darkness, then her eyes opened wider and she created more flames around him to make sure.

Stewie continued as it seemed the girl in front of him recognized who this was already and did not need an introduction. "Take him. We need him out of the way if we are to continue the infiltration as he may now know of our intentions. I have searched the surrounding area, and it seems you and Lubba have taken down all of our men." Mandy darted her gaze behind them to where she saw some limbs, chunks of bone, and a lot of blood splattered around on the walls which she realized must have been Lubba's doing. Stewie finished, "So us four will be able to fabricate our own story and have each other back it up, while you can return to the city with your prize. However, do not let other Government leaders speak to him. If he tells them anything about us, the information will reach our enemies."

Mandy waited a few seconds, then nodded her head and looked back into Lubba's eyes. "I don't trust him," she said. Her voice started echoing again and it was deep and dark as she spoke. "I'll accept, that he used you to trick us. You are free from guilt there, but now that you know he can turn you, do not let it happen again. It will be your fault next time." She glared back at Stewie who opened his mouth to protest what she was saying, and suddenly her darkness took on a whole new meaning. A green portal opened up behind Mandy, but it did not just open on this side. Inside the portal was not just a green void with monsters swirling around inside of it. All four of those in front of her stared into the portal and looked deeper to where they saw another hole, another portal leading out somewhere else. That other portal was getting larger almost like the other side was getting closer to theirs, and the four looking towards that other portal behind Mandy's back felt themselves tense up in fear and shivers go down their spines.

Through the portal on the other side of Mandy's portal, they could see a realm of red, full of pits of flaming lava, of islands covered in skulls, pools of blood with demons inside them, ripping apart every person they found and adding their blood to the mix. There was a castle in the far distance of the lava fields, and the screams that got louder as that portal approached were heart-wrenching. "I will accept your help destroying the Underlords, and since you four won't be able to do anything personally to destroy your bases without being discovered, you!" She pointed at Stewie who found it hard to tear his eyes off the portals behind her. "Create a telepathic connection with me. Let me know locations, let me know how many people are there, how strong they are, how well fortified the base is. Be smart about it, and the five of us will destroy the Underlords on our own."

Lubba nodded his head as this seemed like a better idea than just the four of them without Mandy like he suggested earlier. Mandy was not finished yet though, as Stewie who started nodding his head was about to find out. "But if you ever," she continued, glaring into Stewie's eyes, into his soul. "If you EVER try taking me over, I will know. And I will have demons rip your eyes out, and devour you, and then I will have them drag your soul to the deepest pits of Hell." Her wings flapped behind her and fanned the green flames all around. Her body seemed to triple in height and she towered over them, glaring down with eyes that were pure green but with small flaming red pupils in the centers. Even the threat about bringing his soul to Hell seemed so real while she held up a massive Grim Reaper's scythe, while a portal behind her that she created showed the exact place she was speaking of.

Stewie started nodding quickly, for the first time, in a very long time, feeling very afraid. He connected a mental link to Mandy, "This is it. I'll tell you how it works-"

"I know how it works," Mandy snapped back at him through the mental link. I had enough conversations with Timmy through one of these.

This girl knows Timmy Turner? She is his representative in the council, I should have known she would be crazy strong like this. I could still take over her mind though… he stopped thinking along those lines in the off chance that she could also read his mind, and he tried his hardest to think about anything else. His mind wandered back though and he thought, But she could be like Tai Lung and have mental protection. He was a martial artist though… and she's a bat-shit crazy demon lady. Don't try it. Don't, go to that place. He looked back through the portal, but the green portal suddenly closed and Mandy dropped back down to her normal height.

The five of them stood in a dark hallway as the green flames flickered smaller and smaller. "It's up to us then," Bart said to the comrades around him. "Let's do it. Let's take down the Underlords."

"Alright," Mandy replied. She took a step to her left and rose up her scythe. Three of the others opened their eyes wide, while Lubba just watched calmly, already expecting this. Mandy rose her scythe, and brought it down on the still-unconscious snow leopard he choked out not long ago.

High above the tunnel and two miles away near the western gates of Metropolis, a boy sitting on the side of the road surrounded by Marines turned left as he heard his name called. He looked over and saw some friends jogging towards him, but frowned disappointedly as Cindy was not one of them. "Whoa Zushi! What's going on man?!" Chester shouted as he neared his friend.

Zushi stood up and he looked at the Marine Captain next to him. The man in an officer's coat frowned, but he nodded his head away, "I got your statement. You're free to go." Zushi started jogging away, but the man called after him, "Next time, don't be so rash. You could have been killed."

The young kid gulped but nodded his head back at the man. He turned and jogged over to Chester and A.J., Kenny, Libby, Chimney, and a half dozen others who were with them outside the city near the flames when they all rose up. The kids all looked spooked, and Zushi asked, "Are you guys alright?"

"Yeah, we're fine," A.J. replied.

Kenny walked up in front of all his other friends, and though wearing an orange parka that made it hard for some people to understand him, Zushi nodded along as the boy asked, "What happened here? What's wrong with that van?"

Kenny McCormick was frowning deeply, not that any of his friends could tell when his mouth was hidden behind the bottom of his orange hood. I shouldn't have went snowball-fighting after school. The city needs me. Batman's away, and Mysterion is the only hero left the roam the streets. As Zushi started talking, Kenny's eyes opened wide and he thought, Or maybe not.

"You caught the bombers?!" Chester exclaimed in shock.

"Well, I just stopped their van," Zushi repeated what he just said. "That girl on the council, Mandy, was the one who came and…" Zushi faded off as he thought about what he saw when he looked up in the sky. He glanced back at the van behind him, the van that was mostly melted, with entire chunks torn off of it leaving behind teeth marks. He shivered imagining what became of the two men who the council member threw in the portal full of demons when she was done with them.

All of the Marines near Zushi were also talking about what they saw in hushed, terrified voices. They only stopped, when a voice echoed around the city and everyone snapped their gazes up again. The Marines, the children, all the citizens of the city, and the council members in their destroyed council room, looked out into the sky above the center of Metropolis where a green portal emerged. The portal was not large, but when the voice spoke, everyone looked up, so they all saw it appear.

"People of Metropolis," Mandy began. She floated out of the portal, no longer looking like a demon. This time she was sitting atop her scythe with the hood down, revealing her human-like face with yellow hair pointed up on either side of her forehead. Those who saw her before had a hard time picturing the two as the same person. They only couldn't picture it for a few seconds though, until the girl who looked like a human did a completely demonic thing, by lifting up her right hand and raising a head in the air in front of her.

Roy Mustang had just climbed through a hole in the ceiling thanks to a set of ice stairs Aokiji made for the council members who were able to walk, and the Fuhrer stared out into the sky with wide eyes at a sight to behold. The others who could see what this girl was holding dropped their jaws or gasped, but many people also recognized the head in her hands. "This, is Tai Lung!" Mandy shouted. Blood dripped out the bottom of Lung's decapitated head as she held it there in the air. "He was a prisoner here before the Battle of Metropolis, when he broke free and became an Underlord!" Everyone staring up in the sky gasped, while Mandy held his head even higher. "He was not one of the pawns. He was not just a soldier. He was one of the leaders of this despicable organization. To all those killed in Port Maple, and here today in the Spire, I promise you this. His head will not be the last. My name, is Mandy. I will protect the people of the RNG. And I will destroy the Underlords with my own two hands."

She threw Tai Lung's head up in the air, then pointed her scythe at it and a red beam shot out of the end and incinerated the head. A huge red explosion filled the air, and then, the city filled with noise. Cheers, war cries, roars, howls, applause, whistles, shouts of her name, and Roy Mustang looked around with huge eyes as he saw this happening. In the very building whose roof he was standing on, he could hear the cheers coming inside from Marines, and State Military, and even Covenant aliens who heard what she had to say.

The Fuhrer looked back into the sky and up at the girl floating there on her scythe. He thought about her at the Summit, how she challenged Sinbad, how she took so much power at council meetings using the name of Timmy Turner. This time though, she was not using Timmy's name, but her own. She's amassing power. This, girl, is ruthless, and smart, and she might just hold the most power in Metropolis. Which would mean she holds the most power in the entire RNG, no. All of Awul. Roy Mustang gulped and he clenched his hands to find that his palms were sweaty. Why do I have a terrible feeling about this? Mustang stared nervously at the girl in the sky, the girl whose face was smeared with blood, the girl who was always frowning, the girl who turned his way, and smirked.

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A/N Hope you enjoyed. I'm going to put a list below of all the characters in case anyone forgot who they were or where they came from (it has been a few chapters since we've seen anything from Awul). The Underlords attack the Spire using a bomb they planted inside of Vice Admiral Maynard. Mandy takes down Tai Lung, and now the insurgence into the Underlords is greater than ever as it seems Stewie may have switched sides. Mandy takes more power, some of the council are killed or injured, a lot of characters died. What will this attack mean for the people of Awul, and how will they respond? Thanks for reading!

Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy: Mandy, Grim

World of Warcraft: Thrall, Ogrimmar

Halo: Arbiter, Covenant, Elites, Brutes

Fullmetal Alchemist (Brotherhood): Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye, Alex Louis Armstrong, Basque Grand.

One Piece: Tsuru, Helmeppo, Coby, Maynard, Aokiji, Chimney, Smoker, Momonga, Vegapunk.

Fairly Oddparents: Timmy Turner, Chester, A.J.

DC Comics: Joker, Luthor, Metropolis, Batman

Kung Fu Panda: Tai Lung

Family Guy: Stewie, Brian

The Simpsons: Bart

Akame ga Kill: Najenda, Lubba

Magi: Balbadd (City), Magnoshutatt, Sindria, Sinbad

Towa no Quon: Takao

Katekyo Hitman Reborn: Tsuna, Hibari

Hunter x Hunter: Zushi

Jimmy Neutron: Cindy, Libby

South Park: Kenny (Mysterion)

7 Deadly Sins: Dreyfus, Griamore

How to Train Your Dragon: Hiccup, Astrid

-Whew that was a whole lot of them. (Let me know if I missed any who you wanted to know where they were from). Alright, review responses:

Limit-Breaking chapter 95 . 13h ago

Well the only question you didn't answer i think is goku getting blue or god, you probably won't answer it, but i felt like asking that cause vegeta got blue first as far as we know, Also not that i don't care about goku, timmy and the rest but can we see how other charcters are doing now especially with this declared war and stewie attacking pao i guess in a way. I really want to see how that is going.

Answer this if you can

(Also did i hit the nail on the wall for the reason goku can't use instant transmission, was i close or no.)
Also im kinda curious why update your other stories after like two years i got the notice for that and i was like What's this.
Either wayNice chapter i look forward to the next one.

Lot of stuff about future DB characters/questions which I'm not going to answer rn, as you probably thought ;). Won't confirm the I.T. theory either, since it will come up again in the story so no spoilers. Bam! Right as you ask about Stewie and the Awul stuff we get a chapter full of it! Lol glad that worked out the way it did. I know it wasn't your fav chapter in total, but hope you enjoyed the way I finished it. As for updating other stories, really Nexus isn't my only project, it's just the one I'm most dedicated too. Broken Log Pose, LOST, any of my unfinished works can always be updated if I reread them and find that I've got some new ideas fresh in my head, or find old chapters that had almost been finished when I lost interest so I finish those up with hopes I might continue it more some day. Thanks for the review, hope you enjoyed the chapter!

joebob323 chapter 95 . 5h ago

Nice, we finally get to see some flashbacks. I wonder, would Cartman be able to overpower Juandissimo if he truly wanted to take away all the wishes Cartman made? Cause i'm pretty sure there was an episode of FairyGodParents where Timmy got his wishes undone, without having to wish for it first...

Glad you enjoyed! You made an interesting point with Cartman and Juandissimo that got to me as I thought on it. Fairies probably can wish all the wishes undone, but I don't know if that would be the case with Cartman. I think it might take too much for Juandissimo to undo everything he's done, since Cartman has made him use his power to the point of exhaustion so many times, just to wait for his power to recharge and use even more of it. If getting rid of those wishes is as hard as making them in the first place, Juandissimo might have a hard time with it at this point. Anyway, thanks for the review!

asdf chapter 95 . 2h ago

I guess Sariel isn't as powerful as angels like Whis because I would have been confused if Cartman could defeat opponents on Whis' level because not even Complete Ultra Instinct Goku can do that.

You know wishing for money is against Da Rules as well right?

Haha no way Sariel is anywhere close. The angels from Supernatural, DBS, and Devil is a Part Timer are very different power-wise. Shingeki no Bahamut too, though I haven't watched in a while and I forget whether they were Gods or angels that took up a big portion of the beginning of the first episode. And I do know about that rule, don't worry I did my research. That's why soon after Cartman makes the wish, in think in the next flashback he asked Juandissimo how he was able to make it considering he read the full Da Rules book and saw a rule against wishing for it. Juandissimo then told him that on this world where money did not count for anything (back in the first weeks), that the money Cartman wished for had no value. So Cartman was pretty much wishing for useless pieces of paper, and the rule was meant against counterfeiting so he was in the clear for it. Alright, hope you enjoyed the chapter, and thanks for reviewing! Thanks again to everyone for reading and reviewing, faving and following! 'Till next time!