"Geez. I know I look like a child, but you can't just send a bunch of B-listers to kill me off."
Pueris' ironically childish voice called out through the soliciting winds of London.
His figure waded through a small collection of 12 shriveled-up bodies of various sizes, genders, and color schemes.
The faces of Pueris' victims were those of extremely old men and women and even a dried blue fish man.
The slightly more terrifying side of Pueris had been revealed. The reason Pueris had such a high rank was also due to the offensive side of his time manipulation.
Time manipulation on a human being could make them far older or younger. All it needed was the smallest of contact.
For Pueris who could slow his enemies down, the B-listers sent to him were a walk in the park.
One touch and their life flashed before their eyes.
Ironically literally.
Pueris turned around in a flutter before resting his back upon a metal mound.
They hadn't even warmed him up as he found his arms shivering due to the light grey layers he was wearing.
London was still being doused by a golden haze, slightly healing the derelict environment that had been terraformed overnight.
Pueris sighed as a small line formed on his brow.
"Reta should be back by now."
Pueris did not doubt in his mind that Reta had lost.
Reta.
Reta who he had seen overwhelm Herculainz, the second strongest member of Beta in a one-on-one.
Even in the most recent clash, Reta was damaging and picking apart Justice 7 like a mechanic. Although Pueris had helped, Reta was the glass cannon in the scenario.
That's why Pueris was relaxing, his back comforted by a clunky metallic shore as he completely ignored the 12 blue-white helicopters and lime spotlights scouring the lands.
Pueris abruptly began a tune through humming.
The mood felt just right.
Although Pueris was quite the amateur, he could get a bit of a rhythm going.
As he continued, he felt that layers were forming and that his hums were getting louder and heavier.
It was then that Pueris realized that someone was humming with him.
Swerving his strained neck to the right instantly, he found a figure bathing next to him.
A figure in a tattered blue suit, with disheveled and balding black hair. Faint and aged red rubber gloves and socks.
A cape that was battling against the metal mound behind it.
There was no puffed-out J symbol. Just a bloody hollow hole.
Pueris felt his eyes wander and realized that Justice 7 did not have a heart.
A repulsing bloody mouth opened from a pink face stained by even more audacious crimson-red blood.
"Hey."
Pueris' figure leaped up right away, sprinting as fast as he could.
His leg muscles pulled to the extreme with every urge forwards, but it was all futile.
"What's wrong? I just want to talk."
Pueris found his 8th step halted.
Not by a supernatural ability or any kind of force technique.
But by pure and blinding fear. The kind that gripped you in your dreams. The kind that talked to you when you were alone.
This fear stopped him. It yanked his head violently back, causing him to meet Justice 7's maroon eyes.
Pueris could not blink, so his eyes itched and burned. But he dared not raise a hand to rub his eyes.
It felt like Goliath was standing far above him, yet they were of similar heights. The gold of the environment now seemed like the inside of the sun as Pueris felt his entire body heat up drastically.
Justice 7 rubbed his semi-balded head.
"Ah."
"It must be because of my appearance."
"Sorry, I'll fix that right away!"
With a semi-psychotic and childish smile, Justice 7 stood still as his body did the wonders for him.
His hair regrow at an ungodly rate, the hair strands were of the perfect lengths, giving him a perfect level of hair to maintain.
His chest flesh instantly curled over itself and new flesh grew like mold from within.
All the blood present was absorbed into the pink tinge of Justice 7, leaving light red-make-up marks.
His clothes also repaired themselves.
And any sign of Reta's futile efforts was now gone.
"Better now?"
Justice 7 gave an encouraging smile.
Pueris then looked at his buttocks. As if Justice 7 had fallen into a well of red paint, his bottom was covered in a gruesome mix of stomach fluids and blood.
The color was that of a murky green and discouraging red transfusion.
Justice 7's cloth fibers soon absorbed the mess on his buttocks.
Pueris felt his life unknowingly slipping from within him.
Straight into the grotesquely gaping mouth of Justice 7.
Pueris had just noticed but Justice 7 was a mouth breather.
He breathed with an extremely wide mouth and it was quite disfiguring.
His breath smelled of nature and bricks.
Well, who knows what that meant?
Pueris was having his last moments in dull silence.
"I'll end this quick."
A low mutter squeezed itself out of Justice 7's gaping mouth.
Swoo-ush.
A blue-red blur stopped just before Pueris' chest.
It wasn't trying to crush his heart.
Rather it seemed that Justice 7 was just going to smash Pueris in half by driving his left hand through him.
Pueris felt his vision blur significantly as his grim reaper lay just a few centimeters before his pumping heart.
Deafeningly, Pueris almost dropped down from fear.
Justice 7's left arm was shaking within the stopped time zone.
As if it was ignoring every feature of Pueris' ability it shook as metal did when bashed upon fellow metal.
Pueris knew that he could not hold this position for long. So he did all that he wished to do.
Die at peace.
"What happened to Reta?"
Pueris spoke like a madman with such speed and unclarity that even Justice 7's super-ears struggled to grasp what he had said.
"Pardon?"
Justice 7 tilted his head slyly to the right.
"I said. What happened to... Reta."
Pueris could already assume what had happened due to the freakish levels of blood previously on Justice 7.
But a small hole in his heart shrieked and bartered that Reta had just been left in some unknown land to fight another day.
"Gone."
A small hole that soon burst and squealed.
"That guy went out the way he deserved. I'd do it again if I wasn't on a tight schedule. Most fun I've had in a while, to be entirely honest with you."
A demonic and wicked smile had sprung on Justice 7's yellow-lit face.
"So."
"May I end this?"
Appearing shockingly gentlemanly, Justice 7 almost bowed.
Pueris didn't want to die.
It was as simple as that.
And that was why his last-life sputter came out the way it did.
"Do it."
"Hmm?" Justice 7 batted his eyelids blankly.
"Just know that every major city around the world goes down with me."
"Hmm?" Justice 7 continued batting his eyelids humorously.
Pueris' mind worked like a robot. Naming anything he could think of.
"And just know that all your little friends at Beta are going to bleed."
"Bleed die and shit themselves twice before falling under a world of debris."
"And in that world, they'll be suffocated. They'll be crushed by their own desires. And under your foolish actions."
Pueris' eyes concentrated and almost diluted as he kept his eye contact with Justice 7 firm.
"Well?"
"What are you waiting for Justice 7?"
Pueris felt uneasy.
The reverberations from Justice 7's arm were getting dangerously tenacious.
"Pathetic."
Justice 7 had an uncharacteristic look of revolt.
"I was going to send you off quietly but I just realized that they're here."
Justice 7 pointed two fingers toward all the helicopters and camera lights behind the two.
"So, I'll give you an ending that you don't deserve."
Justice 7 heaved his arm out of the time-space in one slow gritty and deafening movement.
He grinned sadistically.
"Enjoy."
Pueris' figure reached out and stumbled desperately and weakly. Wildly jabbering whatever his mind pushed forwards for survival.
"WAIT."
"NO."
"PLEASE."
His voice cracked from overuse.
"PLE-ase."
"Please..."
"I'll do anything-."
Boom.
Justice 7's figure rose to the sky, at the perfect angle for the helicopter cameras.
Surrounded by the gold of the world, Justice 7 announced yet another success for Hero Association Beta gloriously.
His cloak flapped insanely.
"Powers are strong."
"But without Justice."
"We are weak."
"With powers or without."
"That is why we shall rule the skies with justice."
"We are all the people in the sky with justice."
"You, me, and all those who fell with justice."
"So, I beckon you to let me show you..."
"Justice."
Giving a fashionable wink to the closest flashing camera, the world roared.
Tofusafety: Justice
Rion2: Justice
Delvingswans: Justice
Burgo: Justice
Flamingroads: Justice
Jumanji: Justice
Def123: Justice
Justice.
Although Justice was in the world, there was currently only one man in the sky.
Justice. 7.
He was the true dark side of the world as his black silhouette crushed the sky.
The sun hid from him as most did.
And it was Justice 7 who descended, not with an outward fist clenched but like a prince.
As if he was walking on air, Justice 7 descended heavenly.
Pueris looked at the descending figure of Justice in spite.
"If only I could go back."
His mutter was bitter and sour.
Pueris had no tears.
Just salty eyes.
And so Justice fell.
Pueris had no energy to release another time-stop or time-slow.
And Justice did not fall before Pueris, but by his side.
"May justice save you now."
Squelch.
A hand grasped and squeezed Pueris' heart.
It inflated and was pumped vigorously.
Pwert.
A small leak appeared, air burst out, and a bit of blood spat out.
Bang.
The hand did not tighten but blasted right through the back of Pueris, blowing half his back out.
Blood erupted in a shower behind Pueris.
In one abrupt instant, Pueris' heart exploded into hundreds of flabby red pieces.
All over the ground. Like a light rainfall.
Pueris had died.
Justice.
Only Justice had prevailed.