Brockton Domestic Airport.
I hovered over Brockton Domestic and observed the coming and going support vehicles and personnel. By now, Air Traffic Control had probably taken notice of the "Parahuman Flying Object". I wasn't really concerned if they did, it wasn't as if fighter jets were going to pop out of thin air. The pathetic heroes had checked out of the ongoing conflict a long time ago, so I just continued with what I was doing.
The lone airplane parked on the ramp was bound for New York, and my five targets were shuffling along with several civilians in a neat line up to the boarding stairs.
Max was quite the cunning fucker. He had made sure that he was ahead so that he got in first. Meanwhile, his toadies were spread out at certain points in the line, and not clumped together. Smart and ruthless but ultimately meaningless.
I don't know what made people like Max and Calvert think that making random civies their human shields against a monstrously strong vigilante was a good idea. Did they think that I'd play ball if they held a knife to a five year old's neck? That I wouldn't find a way to kill them and save the child all in the same breath?
If this was the Empire's last dying whimper, let it be so.
_______________
A blanket of fog rolled onto the ramp from all sides, so thick and cold that it made everyone shiver and their smoky breath join the greater whole.
It was unnatural was what it was. So vast and thick was the fog, that not only did it obscure the plane right ahead but made it hard for people to see what was right in front of them.
The fog also brought eerie silence and gasps of shock from the people. While in most cases those gasps would help figure out the closest person's general location, in this unnatural fog, it did not. The voices and mutterings seemed further and further away. Walking ahead got one nowhere. When looking up and around for any twinkle of the ATC tower lights, they were inevitably disappointed.
It caused a steady trickle of fear and panic to permeate their minds and there was only so long that people would be able to hold onto reason.
This state of affairs continued for three excruciatingly long minutes before the fog parted and shocked exclamations erupted in the boarding lobby inside the airport.
The airport guards and personnel were shocked and did not know what to do about a throng of sixty five passengers that they had just sent out to the ramp. When the individuals involved in the strange teleportation phenomenon looked around, they quickly found that they were not the only ones who were thrown back into the lobby. The support crew, maintenance crew, cabin crew and two older men in a pilot's uniform were furiously conversing with the airport staff.
"Mommy look, an angel!" A little girl wearing a pink frock cried out excitedly. Her mother turned her gaze to where her daughter was pointing at, and blanched.
A bright white light in the shape of a man hovered over a group of five people. Then the bright man fell like a small meteor. The ground shook and the large window pane rattled. Screams rose as more people saw what was really going on.
"For your own safety, move away from the windows!" A guard shouted. "Get away now!"
A wave of blades and spikes met the Bright Man and beams of light struck two giantesses in skimpy viking armour. The earth shook once more as they fell on their backs and that was all anyone had the guts to observe before their survival instincts, honed over the course of living in a world of parahumans, kicked in.
The staff had a field day guiding the panicked crowd away from the lobby and further in to safety.
_______________
Max looked around frantically as the only thing he hoped was keeping me from ripping him a new one, had escaped his grasp. Then he and his goons looked up and their already pale complexions turned chalk white.
"End of the line, Max." I dropped down onto the cemented ramp, and a spider web of cracks spread out. "It was amusing to see you run, but my patience is not infinite." I cut the solar glare and folded my arms behind my back. Steam and sulphurous smoke leaked out like wisps from between the gaps of my armour and helm- Lung's power was useful for many things. Yes, I just took a page out of Captain Blackbeard's guide to demoralising the enemy.
And from the looks of it, it was working. Stormtiger's eyes were so wide and bloodshot that I was worried they'd blow up or fall out of his big ass Humpty Dumpty-looking head.
The Biermann sisters were no better and looked like they were one "boo!" away from screaming their throats out.
Even Cricket, who I was expecting to be eager to fight me, looked like she wanted to go and crawl back into her mother.
"Why..." Max mumbled something.
"Speak clearly, cockroach." Max looked up with a demented look in his bloodshot eyes.
"Why?!" I cocked my head. "Why are you doing this? Hm?" Had he lost it? Now he was laughing.
"You came here and uprooted our lives! Killed husbands and fathers. Destroyed livelihoods. Oh and killed the mother of a blameless infant, can't forget that. And all for what, huh? Some sense of righteous accomplishment? You want a medal, Nemesis?!" He spat out. "You think the Protectorate'll thank you? Think Eidolon would pat you on the back, while Alexandria blows you? Fat chance! They'll spit on your efforts. All they see is another Fairy Queen, and in their eyes, someone like you only deserves two things- death or the Birdcage." He breathed heavily as he finished his cringey speech.
"You done?"
Max's right eye twitched violently. He breathed out and rolled his shoulders. "Yeah, I'm done. You want my life, you murderous psychopath? Come take it."
A steel-plated armour appeared over his body out of thin air. Behind him, his panicking side pieces completed their transformation into giants. Stormshitter threw out two sharp blades of condensed air, while Cricket directed a concentrated scream at me, hoping to disorient me. How annoying.
Kaiser stomped on the ground and jagged iron lances sprang up over the concrete like a rising wave. Ignoring the pathetic wind blades and the earth lances, I looked up to my right at the still running plane engine and smiled. With a touch of Technomancy, the engine picked up speed. By the time Kaiser had noticed the sudden whine, it was too late.
I stretched out my hand, gripped Cricket with telekinesis and chucked her at the engine. The giant twins tried to reach out for the flailing, scarred girl but two well-placed laser beams threw them on their ass. Cricket was sucked in by the roaring engine with a soft grinding whine. Out came a stream of lumpy red and pink, staining the side of the plane and the ramp with its startling hues.
The iron lances and whatever else they had thrown at me did as much damage as I expected, which was to say- none at all. Kaiser saw the bent and broken pieces of his lances and was probably realising why every Bay villain of note was under six feet in only three hours.
"Holyfuckholyfuckholyfuck...," Nessa Biermann muttered under her breath, while her sister helped her up.
Kaiser roared with rage and the metal on the plane groaned. It deformed under the hold of the tin can king, and a large heavy-looking lump of steel burst out of the crumpling carcass. It flew and hit me head on. There was a loud screech of steel and for a moment there was silence.
"Is- is he- " The eggheaded fool stuttered. His foolish question was soon answered when the steel surface shimmered like a rainbow. It warped and bubbled under the extreme heat and then exploded outwards, showering the combatants with lumps of molten steel.
While Jessica, Nessa and Max came out with little worse for wear, Stormtiger had none of their resilience or armour. A few small lumps went through his gut, roasting him from the inside, while others rained down on him. A large blob fell and lit his ugly mug on fire, he screamed as half of his face melted and drooped down like hot cheese. While Stormtiger was rolling on the ground and going through his Two-Face transformation, I went through a quick one of my own.
The ground shuddered under my footsteps and my muscles bulged obscenely. The gaps in my armour plates burned bright red and a cloud of rotten sulphur rose into the air. If there was anyone who wondered what a giant Balrog wearing armour looked like, they need not look elsewhere. Kaiser saw this and enclosed himself in a ball of steel. Pussy.
Ghosts, whom I granted minor super strength, surrounded the ball and began hammering at it. I wanted him busy.
In a single jump I was upon one of the twins. A whip of fire cracked and Nessa's arm was liberated from her body, the wound cauterised. The blonde beauty screamed and fell down cradling her shoulder stump, her twin tried her best to shield her but I would not have it. I did not care to hear her worthless pleas.
The punch Jessica expected did not come. Instead, I reached for both of her ankles and held them in one giant burning hand. Jessica screamed and tried to kick my hold off, I just laughed. I dragged the giant Jessica away from her sister and then spun on my heel.
Jessica's world turned upside down and before she knew it, her upper body smashed into her sweet sister.
I found it amusing, using one giant twin as a mace to bludgeon the other. So I swung my Jessica-bat and catapulted Nessa onto the runway. Jessica wept and pled for mercy, hearing her sister's bones snapping and her body thwacking against the asphalt. I jumped and raised my Jessica-bat mid-air. With another meaty thwack, sister met sister. Sibling blood and flesh mingled together in a display of mindless bloodlust.
It was beautiful and terrible.
I watched the sisters scream and weep until their model bodies were battered into disfigured lumps of meat. Only once both were gone, did I drop what was left of Jessica's charcoal-black ankles.
I turned back to look at an unconscious Stormtiger and a Kaiser who was doing his best to not get crushed by his own metal.
With slow lumbering steps, I walked up to Kaiser. Stormtiger had regained consciousness at the wrong moment, and the last thing he saw was a titanic steel boot.
The ghosts relented in their assault and vanished. I picked up the dented steel ball and held it.
Fun fact: suffocating, drowning and gradually burning to death are one of the worst ways to go on Earth.
I ramped up the heat, letting in sulphurous vapour through any gaps and holes.
Under his power, the red hot ball did an impression of an erratic hedgehog.
I'd wait for as long as this particular chicken needed till it was well-cooked. While I waited, I used my Technomancy to browse the internet. And what a treat it was.
The PHO boards were going insane. Someone had found a way to post a video of the battle as it happened via civilian drones. Tin Mother tried her best to remove any graphic videos from PHO but the internet was relentless. Shady boards and streaming websites couldn't bring the videos down soon enough.
The VS-Battlers of this universe were working overtime to gather every little scrap of info they could about me. "Could Eidolon beat Nemesis?" Was a frequently asked question and poll. To my amusement, there was an overwhelming majority who voted for Eidolon. I shook my head. These people had such confidence in their weak paragons, without even considering the fact that the Endbringers were still unbeaten.
I let them have their fun, the truth had a way of pissing on hopes and expectations.
After enough time had passed, I opened my hand, and with some nifty magnetokinesis, peeled open the metal ball. A charred black and gooey brown lump fused to the ball was all that remained of the prideful leader of the Empire. To be honest, there wasn't much left of him to identify, but that could also be said about the rest.
Oh well, this was a task for the PRT's coroners. I threw away the disgusting cracked egg and walked up the runway, burning the mountains of flesh into steam. Now back to human size, I warped away. My job here was done. It was time for some well deserved Fugly Bob's.
________________
Redmond Welding Factory, Brockton Bay.
Lisa Wilbourn's eyes flew wide open, and she scrambled up, sucking in breath like there was no tomorrow. In a way, it felt like so to Lisa. Her power had just sensed the most horrifying shit that she had ever come across in her seventeen years of life.
When Sarah Lisa was a nine year old that sought for her parent's fickle love, she faintly remembered seeing something about a Fairy Queen on the news. Then a year later, the mad cape had willingly gone into the Birdcage and that was that. Bad people went away. Bad people lost, right?
It would take the young Lisa many years before she understood the way the world worked. Good people were few and far between, power, money and fame was king, and deep down everyone was disgusting.
Capes were even more fucked up. The crapheap of unresolved trauma was a recipe for disaster when mixed with superpowers.
Which brought her to the cause of her headaches and despair. She had tried to look into the Bay's newest psycho upon Coil's orders. A serial killer that stole the powers of his victims, easy yeah? Fuck Coil! And fuck that insane power stealing bastard! Why do some people get such broken powers?! Ffffffff. Lisa was done! She was leaving this blasted city if it was last thing she ever did.
She closed her eyes tightly. She could feel her blood pressure rise and her migraine flair up. She pushed down the inner desire to find out what was going on in the Bay. Nope. She knew not to tempt her annoying power. Instead she tentatively asked if she was free of Coil's influence, as she usually did. Lisa smiled.
She felt her bed dip and peeked up to see Brain looking at her with concern.
"I'm fine, Brian. At least as much as I can be after getting a glimpse into him." She sighed, skillfully avoiding thinking about him.
"May I ask-" Lisa cut him off.
"No, please don't."
"Alllright then." He tapped his knee awkwardly.
"Brian?"
"Hm?"
"We're joining the Protectorate." Brian looked at her as if she had just told him that she was Alexandria's long lost daughter.
"Tats… we can't. We're working for a criminal boss remember? My sister, he'll…"
"Coil isn't going to stop us, he's left the Bay." Lisa tried to convince him, "Please, Brian, I know this isn't what we had expected but if you haven't noticed, Brockton Bay is changing. For good or ill is yet to be seen but… the Protectorate is the only safe option we have that wouldn't have Nemesis gunning for us." He shuddered at the name, and she couldn't blame him.
"Your power?" She nodded. He chewed his lips for a moment before sighing. "Fine. Let's sign up with an alphabet agency. If there's even a slight chance that working for Uncle Sam can get me that custody, then I'm in."
"I'll convince Rachel and Alec." He stood up.
"Good luck with that, I'll call Aisha, gotta make sure she's alright."
Lisa sighed for the hundredth time this morning and finally got up. She slid her pink Hello Kitty slippers on and marched down to convince the most difficult members of their villainous enterprise.
Then she felt the ground shake as if a minor earthquake had occurred. Her power begged to be let loose but she wisely refrained. The vibration lasted a while and then it stopped.
Brian came running in. "TV, now!" He barked at Alec. This time Alec gave no sarcastic remark and did as asked.
The TV lit up and Alec tuned in to the local news.
"Oh my God…" She numbly sat down on the sofa. Her power wanted to tell her so many interesting details about the smoking wreck at the Brockton Domestic runway, but then she heard the words "Nemesis", "battle" and "Empire". She refused and clamped down tightly on her power. The live drone footage made her want to curl up into a ball. Her heart thumped when she felt the towering titan stare at the drone camera through the smoke. It felt as if he knew that she had seen him. Then the feed cut and the news anchor was back on screen.
Brian met her eyes and nodded, more afraid than she had ever seen him. Alec wasn't smirking anymore and Rachel was disturbed.
At least she wouldn't have trouble convincing anyone.
Author Note: And we come to the climax of the Butcher of Brockton Arc. Nemesis has defeated anyone of any worth in the Bay, anyone still alive is now crawling into the woodworks, keeping their head down. While some locals may have gotten the memo, other... unstable... individuals may be hard of hearing or may wish to challenge the fragile peace. Stay tuned to watch the asshats of Earth Bet get a sharp hiding.