Greg Arc 8, Chapter 12 Outline: Blood In the Water II (Patreon)

Greg snarls as he watches Leviathan tumble through three buildings from Menja's wild punch

"The fuck are you doing?!" - his rage isn't just at the Endbringer now, but at the "help"

Leviathan crashes into an apartment complex eight blocks closer to the harbor - exactly where they DON'T want it

Greg's dragon-enhanced senses track the Endbringer's movement through the debris cloud

Other capes hesitate, uncertain - Menja looks confused, realizing she screwed up containment

Greg doesn't hesitate - he launches after Leviathan, using his aerokinesis to rocket through the destruction path

"Kid, wait!" Alexandria shouts, but Greg is already three blocks away and accelerating

Greg's pursuit tears through Menja's destruction corridor - shattered glass, collapsed walls, screaming civilians

He spots evacuation teams pulling people from rubble - Menja's "help" created more victims

His rage spikes higher - Stupid fucking airhead Nazi bitch!

Behind him, other capes struggle to keep up - the Triumvirate forming a loose pursuit formation

Eidolon tries to coordinate things, sounding off on Greg's armband: "Converge on Leviathan's position, maintain containment protocols"

Greg ignores all radio chatter - he was going to make this lizard pay

His enhanced senses lets him spot Leviathan first, rising from the apartment wreckage like a nightmare

Leviathan emerges from the collapsed building, scanning the area with those alien green eyes

It's closer to deep water now - Menja's interference doing it favors it didn't need

The Endbringer's posture shifts, more calculating than before - it's learning from the chaotic fighting

Greg sees water beginning to surge up from storm drains, manholes, broken pipes

"Oh hell no" - he realizes Leviathan is setting up a hydrokinetic zone of control

The Endbringer turns those glowing eyes directly on Greg - recognition, assessment, threat evaluation

For the first time, Greg feels like prey being studied by a predator

Water erupts upward around Greg like living walls, forty feet high, closing in from all sides

Not just a trap - it's a tactical arena, Leviathan controlling every drop

His danger sense screams as the water compresses to near-solid density, pressure building exponentially

Leviathan's hydrokinetic clamp forms a perfect sphere around Greg, like being inside a crushing fist

Greg feels the weight pressing against his Reinforcement, bones creaking under impossible strain

Outside the water sphere, other capes attack desperately - Legend's lasers, Alexandria's punches

Nothing penetrates - this is Endbringer-level hydrokinesis

Greg spins midair, dragon-blood surging, flame jetting from his boots and sword

His fire tornado is hot, hot enough to flash-boil seawater on contact

Water hisses, screams, steams away - the sphere shatters in a cascade of superheated vapor

Steam cloud engulfs whole blocks, visibility dropping even as Greg blasts it away with Aerokinesis

Through the steam, Greg sees Leviathan's silhouette - and it's moving wrong, too fast

This isn't the speed from previous fights - Leviathan was holding back, testing everyone

The Endbringer launches toward the bay at velocities that blur even to Greg's enhanced vision, even when he was literally burning his life away trying to keep up with it

"Shit, shit, SHIT!" Greg realizes this thing had been holding back.

He pushes his aerokinesis beyond safe limits, creating thrust cones of compressed air and flame

Dragon-blood burns hotter in his veins, muscles bulging as he forces his body to keep pace with Reinforcement

Greg launches after him, using building debris as stepping stones

Each leap covers 100+ meters - wreckage of cars, lamp posts, even floating corpses become his pathway

Behind him, other capes struggle to keep up - only Alexandria and Legend can match this speed

Eidolon tries gravity manipulation to slow Leviathan down, but the Endbringer adapts, using water jets for propulsion

Greg realizes Leviathan was holding back before, moving faster than anyone expected

Behind him, other capes are already falling behind - only Alexandria and Legend can match this speed

Armsmaster's voice crackles through comms: "Endbringer velocity exceeding all recorded parameters!"

"We never saw its real speed," Eidolon's voice, tight and hard

Greg creates successive mana platforms, each one blazing with blue light as He leaps higher and further, taunting Leviathan as he chases after it: "Come back here, you chicken-shit of the sea"

Fireballs spiral down behind him, each one whistling before erupting like mini-bombs

The explosions create a trail of destruction - steam geysers, flash-melted asphalt, secondary fires

Other capes scatter as Greg's attacks threaten to hit allies

Miss Militia barely dodges a fireball: "Goddammit, watch your fire!"

Greg doesn't care - tunnel vision locks onto Leviathan, everything else is obstacles

Leviathan leaps up from a flooded intersectionr, claws first, moving faster than anything that massive should

Greg realizes too late - the Endbringer was baiting him into a trap

They meet 200 feet above the city - sword meets claw in a collision that splits the air itself

The shockwave shatters windows two blocks away and shakes a dozen fliers out of the sky - Purity spins out of control, Dauntless drops altitude

Greg's dragon-enhanced strength lets him match Leviathan's strike - for exactly two seconds

Then physics reasserts itself and he's flung backward like a missile

He catches himself with an air-burst, ribs cracked but still functional

"Is that all you got?" he snarls, but blood runs from his nose, his mouth

Alexandria and Eidolon race forward to provide cover, but Greg ignores them completely

"Stay out of my way!" he snarls, voice inhuman

Legend's lasers weave between them, trying to find clean shots that won't hit Greg

Each laser strike creates explosion clouds of steam where they hit water-soaked Endbringer hide

Greg presses his attack, using his speed to stay ahead of Leviathan's counters

Instinct guides his strikes - targeting joints, areas he's been hit before, anywhere the hide looks softer

His combo chains together: slash, thrust, spin-cut, flame-burst, repeat

15 hits, 25, 40 - each strike guided by inhuman combat intuition

For the first time, Greg's attacks leave visible gouges across Leviathan's torso

Not deep—maybe three inches into that impossible hide—but persistent, accumulating

Pieces of Endbringer flesh actually fall away

Armsmaster's voice coming from his armband: "Confirmed damage to Endbringer armor layer. Repeat, confirmed penetration."

Alexandria arrives first, flanking Leviathan from the right as Greg attacks from above

Her punch lands like a freight train, striking where Greg alreay hit

Eidolon broadcasts on all channels: "All units, converge on White Knight's position!"

"Major coordinated assault - support the damage dealer!"

Legend positions for maximum laser convergence, building up a massive photonic charge

Alexandria builds speed for synchronized impact, her flight path calculated for perfect timing

Every Blaster cape in range focuses fire - Purity's light beams, one of the brightest among them

The sky lights up like a fireworks display as dozens of powers converge on one target

Greg doesn't coordinate with any of it - just charges through the center of the chaos

Somehow his reckless assault creates openings for everyone else's more precise attacks

Leviathan suddenly accelerates, moving at speeds that blur even to Greg's enhanced vision

This is faster than any recorded Endbringer movement - Leviathan was sandbagging

Greg pushes his aerokinesis to the limit, creating thrust cones of compressed air

His blood burns hotter, veins bulging and muscle expanding under skin as he forces his body beyond safe limits

HP drain increases to 60/second, but he almost matches Leviathan's pace stride for stride

Other capes can only watch in shock - Alexandria herself is struggling to keep up

"How is that kid moving so fast?" someone shouts over comms

The two combatants become blurs of motion, their fight taking them across miles of waterfront

The Endbringer stops treating Greg as a pest, starts focusing lethal intent on him alone

Hydrokinetic attacks target him while ignoring other heroes entirely; Water constructs become more complex - spears, nets, pressure waves

Greg realizes he's been marked - Leviathan now considers him the primary threat

"Yeah, that's right, you ugly bastard. Look at me." His grin is feral, inhuman

Other capes notice the shift with growing alarm - the teenager has an Endbringer's full attention

Greg lands on Leviathan's arm, claws digging into Endbringer hide for purchase

His muscles are swelling so big it's actually making it hard for him to be as agile, fangs elongating and claws digging into his flesh as he grips his sword

"Weapon Charge! Dash Straight!" Power floods through Gram until the blade screams with energy

He drives the sword at Leviathan's face, aiming for the glowing green eye socket

The blade penetrates deeper than before - six inches into armored flesh near the orbital ridge

For one impossible moment, Leviathan's eye flickers, dims, cracks spider-web across its surface

The Endbringer's head snaps toward Greg with deliberate, focused malice on an expressionless face

Greg's breathing becomes ragged, each breath tasting of copper and burning ozone

HP drops below 2500, falling faster as dragon-blood burns through his system like acid

Muscles twitching, skin cracking under forces his human frame wasn't meant to contain

Blood leaks from his eyes, nose, ears - his healing factor can't keep pace with the damage

But the pain only feeds his rage, dragon-blood surging stronger in response to injury

Other capes watch in horror as he visibly tears himself apart for the power to fight

Alexandria tries to intervene: "Kid, pull back!"

Greg doesn't even hear her - there's only Leviathan, only the need to hurt it more

He raises Gram overhead, channeling everything into one final technique

Max Reinforcement × 6. 1800% boost. Health cascades downward in red numbers

His body begins glowing white-hot, heat distortion warping the air around him

Gram transforms from golden blade to incandescent plasma, too bright to look at directly

Wind collapses inward like a forming black hole, debris spiraling toward Greg's position

Every cape feels the atmospheric pressure change, ears popping from the sudden vacuum

"DRAGON! SLAYING! SHOCKWAVE!" His voice tears reality, windows shattering from the sound alone

The technique's name rips from his throat: "GRAM!"

Greg dives from 300 feet up, faster than terminal velocity, blazing like a falling star

Leviathan meets him head-on, fist raised, water swirling around its arm like liquid armor

The collision happens faster than thought - Gram bites deep into Endbringer flesh

For one crystalline moment, the impossible blade holds, cutting through legendary durability

Then Gram shatters, fragments of transcendent metal scattering like dying stars

But the shockwave still erupts outward with enough force to level city blocks

The explosion echoes across Brockton Bay, a sound like the world ending

Leviathan is blasted backward through three buildings, each structure giving way entirely on impact

A pressure wave wipes out floodwater for an entire block, revealing cracked bedrock beneath

Every cape in the sky is knocked aside and sent tumbling, even Alexandria (who was the closest) hurtling through the air like a doll

Windows shatter for miles, car alarms shrieking across the entire city

Recoil hits Greg in the most physical way possible as air tears itself from his lungs, ribs snapping from internal pressure differential

Everything goes sideways as gravity reclaims him with compound interest

He blacks out before hitting the ground