Greg Arc 8, Chapter 11 Outline: Blood In the Water I (Patreon)

Greg screams himself out of the half-demolished apartment crater in an explosion of red light, rebar and building materials, body glowing bright red.

Water rushes past his boots and thick rain falls atop him, steam rising where it touches him.

Blood clings to him. Inside his mouth, on his tongue. Thick and salty. Not his.

His breathing is slow, unstable—too steady to be natural, too quiet for the fury rising in his gut.

The memory is fresh.

"M-my name is Angie." 

He doesn't want to remember. His head throbs with the pressure of it.

The world blurs at the edges. Everything's red now.

Leviathan looms three hundred meters away, thirty feet of living nightmare. Greg's rage falters for one heartbeat. The sheer scale of the thing—like looking up at a moving skyscraper.

Angie's face flashes behind his eyes, terrified. Fury returns tenfold.

Reinforcement snaps on. Not maxed. Surpassed.

Boost × 3 active (900% stat increase).

(Health drain: 40 HP/sec. His current HP: 4710.) Bleed rate irrelevant.

Transformation hits second layer: (Dragonblood state inherited from Lung).

Muscles thicken. Heart rate spikes.

His canines elongate into fangs. Claws punch through glove leather. Eyes narrow into vertical reptilian slits.

A 25% stat buff stacks on top of Reinforcement. Greg is now a humanoid warhead.

He growls and the street boils beneath him.

He bursts.

Kinetic launch off the shattered building around. Ground shatters in a crater.

0 to 120 mph in under two seconds, FASTER, FASTER, FASTER

Air compresses around him, his aerokinesis smoothing the drag as fire flares from his hands and feet, propelling him further. “LEVIAAAAAATHAAAAAN!!”

Capes part instinctively, barely registering the white blur until he's already past them.

Legend's head snaps toward the approaching heat signature. "What the hell—" Alexandria hovers, analyzing threat vectors. "That's Armsmaster’s little pet project. He's alive." Eidolon's powers shift, mirrored distortion forming around his hands. "Not for long." 

Greg flips into the air above a flood-slicked boulevard. His hand stretches into nothing. Inventory flickers. Gram forms in his grip, his sword pulled from a flash of blue pixels.

Normally golden. Now? Scarlet. Jagged light crawls along the blade.

Eyes lock on Leviathan—distant but closing.

“Let’s fucking go, fishstick.”

He hurls a dense fireball with his free hand, the size of a medicine ball wrapped in cyclone-tight wind.

It strikes Leviathan's flank and detonates like a shaped charge.

Steam and flame billow upward. Visibility zero for a moment.

He follows it in.

Leaps from car to streetlight to airborne, using aerokinesis bursts as springboards.

Greg meets Leviathan mid-dash.

Leviathan pivots faster than he should—tail whips out.

Greg ducks, fire belching from his mouth into a horizontal spray. The water flash-steams.

He slashes.

Gram cuts deep. A red blur streaks across Leviathan’s thigh.

The blade bites—barely—scoring through the outermost layer of Endbringer flesh. First blood. 

Except there is no blood. Just superheated tissue and the smell of ozone.

Leviathan retaliates—claw swipe.

Greg blocks with crossed forearms. Reinforcement holds, but he skids back fifty feet.

He stops himself with a burst of air from his heels and counters with “Dash Straight! Weapon Charge!”

Slams into Leviathan’s chest like a freight train with a sword.

The blow makes the monster stumble. For one heartbeat.

Legend's follow-up lasers punch through the opening Greg created. Eidolon's gravity spikes slam down. Leviathan rights itself, but slower than before.

Angie's voice echoes: "I can't hear my sisters anymore." 

Greg's attack pattern falters. The dragon-state wavers. 

Leviathan's tail lash catches him across the ribs. Reinforcement cracks. HP drops 400 points. 

But the pain brings clarity. Not tactical clarity—pure, crystalline hatred. The dragon-blood surges stronger. Muscles expand. Claws lengthen. 

His next roar actually makes nearby capes stumble.

“Raging Combo!”

Greg vanishes in a storm of motion.

Slashes, stabs, strikes —over 72 hits in under a second.

Sparks and steam explode from every impact point. Capes nearby freeze to watch.

Leviathan reels—but doesn’t fall. Its wounds don’t slow it.

Metal spears erupt from flooded streets, pinning Leviathan's feet for precious seconds.

A giant fist in the form of Menja, one of the blond giants in Valkyrie armor, punches Leviathan in the face and sends the Endbringer flying, all 40 feet of the Neo-Nazi’s villain muscles doing nothing but pushing it back but not hurting it.

Greg snarls at her: The fuck are you doing?!

White Knight leaps after Leviathan