—223
—151
—119
—72
—39
+ 1 VIT
That didn't matter.
Despite dragging his bloody face across the wet ground, he caught himself in a hard kip-up on the second bounce. His knees barely bent enough to not snap under the impact, and even with Surface Adhesion, he skidded through half a block of cracked pavement before he got his footing back.
Golden light crackled around his joints, the power of Reinforcement keeping him together as he duct-taped his bones together to keep them from shattering with the strength of his own willpower.
He was already up, already moving, because stillness was the same as death right now and he wasn’t about to be one of the capes in that twenty-five percent statistic. No, he had a mom to get back home too.
If home is still standing after this...
A Roman soldier glowing half as bright as Scion and just as buff distracted him before his thoughts got worse, the cape right ahead, spear crackling with yellow electricity, but not pointed at Leviathan.
No—he was braced against a tipped-over bus, shielded arm digging into the asphalt as he pushed back against the vehicle, the thing nearly tipped over and half-submerged in a small water-filled sinkhole, windows underwater.
People inside were hammering on the glass, and Dauntless was outright glowing, the charge from his spear crackling like a caged storm as he used it like a lever against the bus to keep it from sinking.
Greg didn’t think.
That was the trick, right? Thinking was for people with time.
The knight-themed hero sprinted, calves lighting up with a familiar golden flare enough to outshine Brockton Bay's most famous centurion, and leapt forward, legs thrown out in front of him.
Another pair of blue eyes widened as his feet slammed into metal, denting it as he dropkicked the bus with enough force to knock it back to an upright position. The groan of metal wasn’t the most reassuring thing he’d ever heard, but at least it was standing.
Dauntless glanced at him, face hard but grateful as the man rose to his feet, breathing hard but not injured either. “That..." he swallowed, face drenched with what could have been sweat or water, "That was excessive.”
Greg shrugged, wiping rain out of his eyes, as he grinned back with teeth he knew were as bloody as they were white. He could taste the red honestly, and he felt more than a few missing in his mouth. “Tho’s drowning." Oh great, I have a lisp. “You’re welcome.” He didn’t stick around for a thank you, tongue rooting around in his mouth as he wondered if his teeth fell out or if he swallowed them.
He rushed up to the front door well aware that the side door wouldn’t open, not with it crumpled in and dented like hell from the impact, bu the main door was much less fucked up. Which meant he could do something about that.
White-gloved fingers grabbed tight to the crumpled metal that used to be the front door of the bus and, with a hard grunt, peeled the thing off like ripping the tab from a soda can.
Granted, it was a ton more effort, but you get the idea.
People spilled out, some coughing, some crying, almost all of them wide-eyed and definitely grateful. He gave them a quick thumbs-up and ignored the knot in his stomach when one of the kids looked like he wanted to hug him. Not now. Not safe.
He dashed back into the fray and almost instantly regretted it, half-wishing he could just run away from the fight the second he saw Leviathan again.
The Endbringer was a living nightmare and that was anything but an exaggeration. He didn’t barrel through the city so much as slice through it—water echoes rippling in his wake, tearing through brick and concrete like paper.
Greg didn’t think about it, unwilling to double-think his actions for a second. He could feel Gamer's Mind in the background, the slight mental chill covering him for the fear but fear wasn't the only thing that could let the fear catch up. He just moved, faster than he thought his legs could go, keeping his eyes fixed on the monstrous silhouette cutting through the city.
He didn’t get two steps forward before a shadow shot above him, two of them actually. His head snapped up and blue eyes went wide behind his torn bloody blue domino mask. A Ward and a Protectorate member, Aegis and Triumph, were airborne, flung like discarded action figures from a massive wave from a swipe of Leviathan's tail.
- Aegis (down)
- Triumph (down)
While one of them could fly, neither of them looked like they were in shape to have any sort of landing strategy.
Fuck me r- Before that thought could even finish, Greg leapt into the skyline, air beneath his feet at that same exact moment bursting with sound like huge twin air cannons, as it propelled him even higher in a sharp, awkward arc. He caught Triumph first—barely managing to hook an arm around his waist—then snagged Aegis by his shoulder strap before gravity caught up.
He gripped them both tight, just barely managing to save them both mid-arc, only for his eyes to widen. Shit... I still can't fly.
Momentum carried them forward, and Greg forced out a breath that tasted like copper. The air tasted sharp and wet, rain lancing his face.
Aerokinesis-assisted gliding was not flight and Greg realized that even more as he began a hard tumble fall from skyscraper height, unable to manage his usual balance with two unwieldy passengers both weighing him down and throwing him all the way off. "Guys, if any of you can wake up, that'd be really appreciated right now!"
Aegis grunted, apparently still conscious even through his glassy-eyed look and absolutely fucking shattered jaw, but Triumph was out cold, probably from the tail swipe wave blast that had sent them flying.
Water surged beneath, a spiked wave heading right for them, tons of water on a vector of death. Greg’s danger sense flared like an Endbringer siren and he did the only logical thing possible.
He screamed.
Not in fear—no, in pure, reckless defiance.
Fire poured from his mouth like a dragon with bronchitis, his throat scorching from the inside out as he pushed his pyrokinesis out from the only place possible with his hands occupied.
The flames weren't his strongest, and certainly weren't his biggest, but they were certainly enough as it struck the oncoming spear of a wave, steam filling the air. Said steam swallowed all three of them as they launched through it, the wave evaporating before it could slice them in half.
He landed hard, half-skidding, half-tumbling, coughing with his throat raw and burning. His hands were shaking, and his face felt like someone had taken a blowtorch to it but he came in clutch nevertheless.
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He dropped Triumph and Aegis onto the cracked asphalt, finally getting a good look at the damage. Aegis was trying to get up, one arm and leg hanging limp, the other bracing his ribs, even as blood flowed freely from his whole right side, half of the Ward's body nearly squashed flat
"Jesus, fuck, man, I get it, you're a hero but..." Greg did his best not to push the guy to the ground, gently nudging him back down instead. “Dude. Your whole right side is wrecked. Just... stay. Down.”
Aegis glared up at him with one good idea like that alone might fix his body somehow and Greg didn’t have the energy to argue. His armband kept buzzing, death logs scrolling across his vision:
- Miss Militia (down)
- Skidmark (down)
- Zhuyin (deceased)
- Inazuma (down)
- Dizhen (down)
- Mako (down)
Greg didn’t process the names. If he did, they’d turn into people, and if they were people, then they mattered, and right now, that wasn’t something he could handle.
He glanced down at the unconscious Triumph and the half-wrecked Aegis. Analyze
Aegis Lvl 35
Hero-in-Training: Wards ENE
Title: Implacable Teen
HP: ???/???
Power: Integrated Redundancy Optimization
Ever met a kid so stubborn he just refuses to stay down? That's Aegis. It's like puberty on steroids, only this guy became a superhero. Despite being the young leader of the Brockton Bay Wards, he never lets the weight of the world get to him. Actually, that's a lie. He just chooses to ignore it. Sound familiar?
Status: Hemodynamic Disruption — Severe trauma to left side including brain, disrupted blood flow and oxygenation, causing slowed recovery, impaired coordination, and difficulty breathing.
His eyes went wide and he flicked over to Triumph.
Triumph Lvl 35
Hero: Protectorate ENE
Title: Roaring Lion
HP: 315/725
Power: Sonokinetic Burst
A respected member of the Brockton Bay Protectorate and a great singer on his own merits, Triumph wasn’t going to let anything keep him from attempting to do his job in an Endbringer battle, not politics or family. No matter what the mayor said, he was a hero now, not a baseball player. Even though he kind of wishes he still was.
Status: Severe Cranial Trauma — Unconscious, unresponsive—brain bleed, critical.
"...fuuuuuuuck." The word stretched out of his mouth as he saw Triumph's health continue to drop and fast.
The blue glow in his eyes dulled as his Analyze turned off and Greg glanced over to Aegis, unsure of how to say this even as the other cape turned one still-functioning eye his way.
"...he's gonna die."
"Ngggghhh?" Said eye went wide even as a tooth fell out of his completely wrecked mouth, Aegis still unable to form words.
Greg nodded quickly. "Yeah, I can't understand you but Triumph is going to die. Like, seriously, like Panacea can't do anything." As he spoke, that one eye went even wider. "Yeah, like brain injury death."
The blond shook his head, unsure if what he was considering was the best idea right now. "I can try to do something but I don't... I'm not... I...FUCK!"
Without bothering to even explain it to Aegis or himself, Greg dropped to his knees on the flooded ground, Triumph's head in both hands, the cracked golden lion helm nearly falling off. "You better put in a good word for me."
Blue and yellow energies flooded out of his hands and into Triumph's body, Greg pulling back on his will and mana before it could seriously drain him but still letting enough go that the job was done. He wasn't risking another Emma-coma situation. With his luck, they'd blame him for that. Can't let a Protectorate hero die in front of me either, he groused. Already killed one of their PRT guys... even if he was a villain.
He knew his job was done when Triumph jerked in place and black bile poured out of his mouth, the cape shuddering and his eyelids fluttering even as they stayed closed. "Fuck yeah!" Blue eyes shot to his right where Aegis was getting to his feet, looking much less shaky as he held one hand up in a tight fist.
Greg blinked and stood up slowly, raising his own fist. He moved it forward and met it with Aegis' own. "... we're cool, compadre. Don't worry."
"Nnnnghhhh?"
White Knight blinked again and shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know what it is, but for some reason, I can't understand you." He pointed back at Triumph with one thumb over his shoulder. "Mufasa over there had a brain bleed, but I fixed that... probably."
Aegis' gaze trailed down to Triumph, the man still spitting up black blood.
"That means he's healing. Just... I don't know, you can fly, right? Like, right now even with all..." He gestured to Aegis' shattered right side and still fucked up jaw, "...that."
"Ngh."
I'mma take that as a yes. White Knight tilted his head in the direction he knew the medical area was. "Take him to Panacea and... just... get him checked out. Just in case. He should be fine, but, yeah."
He forced himself to move, legs trembling under him, heart pounding like it was trying to escape his chest.
A flash of light tore through the air—a spear of pure energy, aimed dead at Leviathan. Greg whipped around to see Purity floating, hands outstretched, raw power building between them. She was gearing up for something big.
Greg’s danger sense screamed at him, louder than his own thoughts. He didn’t stop to question it—just made a mana platform mid-air and vaulted off it, slamming into Purity with enough force to knock her off her flight path.
She rounded on him, eyes flaring with indignation. “What the hell?!”
She nearly turned on him with a blast only for her eyes to go wide as she spotted the lance of water tear through the building she had just been in front of, concrete and masonry shredded with much more resistance than glowing lady flesh would have offered. "...oh."
Greg gave her a once-over, not even bothering to hide his exasperation. “Hey.”
“...What?”
He managed a smirk, the kind that probably looked more like a grimace. “Don’t be racist. Seriously.”
She looked genuinely thrown for a second. “...HUH?!”
But Greg was already moving again, brain half-scrambled from adrenaline. The thing about surviving an Endbringer fight was that there was no time to think about surviving.
You just did, or you didn’t.
He caught sight of the giant water-beast again, the deep sea monster shifting through the flood, tail dragging water into coils behind him like a snake preparing to strike. Greg didn’t have a plan.
Not really.
Just a reckless, half-formed idea born out of panic and desperation.
Mana surged from his chest and down his limbs, a cold burn of pure power flooding him. Orange light burst to life as he gathered fire in his hands, a flood of actual heat that roiled and twisted as he pressed it tighter. Come on, c’mon… He was squeezing it like it owed him lunch money and he was a bully with more BO than brain cells.
Still pushing tight, he drew on the blue he could feel inside him again, all his focus on keeping the flames in front of him from getting loose. Seconds passed and sweat joined the water dripping down his face as whirling wind wrapped around the tight sphere of pure heat his hands, compressing the blaze into something dense, something roaring, biting, screaming, with potential energy. The air itself seemed to vibrate around the makeshift bomb, and Greg didn’t even bother holding it back as a manic grin spread across his face.
“God, I wish I had time to name you,” he muttered, before vaulting off a crumbling rooftop, fireball in hand. He got close—too close!—within spitting distance of Leviathan’s shifting bulk, and hurled the sphere with all the force he could muster as he jumped back at the same exact time.
It screamed through the air, outright roaring as it cut through the storm like a hot knife, a concentrated sphere of light and fury, and struck Leviathan’s side, right in the small of his back.
For a second, nothing.
Then, the wind shell collapsed inward, compressing the core even tighter.
Then it released.
It was an explosion worthy of Eidolon, a tiny tactical nuke of force and heat. Steam and mist blasted outward, hot enough to turn almost all the rain and water around Leviathan into vapor.
The damage wasn’t impressive; a thick blackened spot where it hit, a hole maybe the size of a basketball in the small of Leviathan’s back, but nothing worth it.
Not even a little.
Fu- The thought didn't even have a second to fully form as his Danger Sense flared loud and hard. He spun and tried to leap away — in what direction he didn't know — but it didn't matter anyway.
He didn’t even hear the wave coming as he felt the world go sideways as water hit him like a moving building. For a moment, all he could see was white—no air, no sky, just the weight of the ocean crashing down.
His vision tunneled. He hit something. Concrete? Steel? Didn’t matter. Breath knocked out, chest aching, limbs tangled. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t see.
And then—darkness.
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Coming Next Month – Shattered Ladder Book 1: Empty
A prison. A ladder. A promise.
isekai, cyberpunk ruins, brutal underdogs, and cultivation tower climbs, keep an eye out—Shattered Ladder: Empty begins posting here next month.