Greg Vs Server 8-20 (Patreon)

He slapped on top of the shattered rooftop, wet flesh and bloody muscle splattering across cracked ground. His giant mech form fell apart around him, tons of weaponized scrap metal crumbling back into constituent parts while he lay there steaming, mana pouring off him in visible waves like a massive blue bonfire.

Steam rose from where his superheated body met the flooded roof, water hissing and bubbling around him like he was some kind of human-shaped hot plate. Debris from the remains of his dissolved mech rained down, metal hail that pinged and clanged against concrete, little more than hyper-violent wind chimes.

"Ow." A rusty, raggedy hoarse husk, that was all he could describe his voice as. And why wouldn’t it be? His throat was missing a chunk of it and his lungs were probably half-soup inside his chest. "That's gonna leave a mark."On what was the question, but he didn’t really have an answer either.

Still alive. Barely. He spit up a thick wad of something more than just blood, the chunk of gooey meat dribbling down his chin. …Great.

His limbs didn't respond to commands anymore, just dead weight attached to a fading core running on little more than spite and healing powers chugging along as best it could. Damage report? "Limbs are officially on strike... Can't say I blame them." 

If it had stopped there, it’d be one thing but noooo. “...why do my eyes hurt?”

Ocular pain aside, he was still conscious, still aware, still me which he wasn't sure was good or terrible because anybody who wasn't him wouldn't have cooked themselves alive the way he did. They would have been smart enough not too. His mouth turned down in a frown , pulling at exposed jaw muscles. I should add more points to WIS.+ 1 to WIS.

Ms. Game, if I didn't think you'd let me die, I'd call you a slur.

Through the static in his ears, Greg could hear the roar of approaching water, that sound like the ocean had decided to relocate to downtown Brockton Bay whether downtown Brockton Bay wanted it or not. The mega-tsunami towered over the city like a liquid mountain range, blocking out what was left of the sky.

"Oh right... The apocalypse wave. Almost forgot about that."

He tried to turn his head, managed maybe two degrees of movement before his neck muscles reminded him they'd quit this job about ten minutes ago. "Neck muscles have joined the strike. Union solidarity... yaaaaaay."

The water blocked out everything, a wall of destruction that made his sixty-foot mech look like a toy someone had left in the bathtub. "That's... that's a lot of water. Like, statistically improbable amounts of water. Where'd it all come from?"

He could see the edge of the shield line right in front of him on the shoreline, flickering barriers trying to hold back the ocean like the world's most optimistic umbrella in a hurricane. Each one unique, each one straining against pressure that shouldn't exist outside of textbook physics problems.

His brain jumped around, neurons firing slowly as he tried to do the math. Do I know any math even? Despite his brain feeling no different than a fresh smoothie right now, he was still doing his best. Infinite mana + Mana Shield + Help these guys? 

Not much of a plan, but once again, it was all he had. 

Now, would it work? Ehhh. 

He wasn’t in the mood or state to do analysis, but he knew it was better than zero, and worse than guaranteed at least. "Okay, Ms. Game…” Time for his usual strategy for life-or-death situations. “Throw everything at it and pray."

He reached for his mana, feeling it respond like molasses mixed with lightning, sluggish but still there, still burning through what was left of his nervous system. "Come on, power... One more miracle. Just one more."

The simple action of lifting one stump where his arm used to be cost him more than fighting Leviathan had, muscles screaming in protest, bones grinding against each other like broken glass in a cement mixer. "Lifting a stump shouldn't be this hard... Then again, arms aren't supposed to be this broken."

His stumpy limb shook with the effort of staying extended, trembling like a leaf in a hurricane but staying up. "Come on, lefty... We've been through everything together. Don't fail me now."

The stub stayed up, pointing toward the threatened city like the world's most pathetic victory pose, and Greg whispered through blood-filled lungs, "Mana Shield."

The shield didn't form all at once because apparently even his superpowers had learned subtlety, building in layers, section by section, starting small just a few meters across then expanding exponentially like someone had taught geometry to a nuclear explosion. Blue-white energy spread across the sky like aurora borealis, beautiful and terrible and probably visible from space.

He touched his other stub to the edge of the blue barrier that Shielder and the other capes had made, channeling his infinite mana into their collaborative effort because teamwork made the dream work, even when the dream was "not dying horribly in a tsunami."

The Shield Corps' flickering barriers solidified, synchronized with Greg's mana stream, a symphony of power all hitting the same note, and the mega-tsunami hit.

Not gradually, not with warning, it arrived like the end of the world had decided to make a personal appearance, hitting the massive city-sized shield with force that should've deleted Brockton Bay from the map.

The shield held.

Brockton Bay survived.

Leviathan, wounded and now denied his kill, disappeared beneath the waves like a very large, very angry fish having the worst day ever, leaving only disturbed water and a wrecked city of traumatized people behind. No one's going swimming this summer.

The mega-tsunami began to subside, returning to the ocean with the kind of reluctance that suggested it really wanted to finish the job.

Greg's body finally gave out, going limp on the rooftop as he rolled onto his back, the timer in his head still counting down, closer and closer to zero, numbers that meant his HP was about to hit rock bottom and take him with it.

He blinked, vision swimming as something landed hard on the concrete nearby, sending vibrations through the flooded roof, someone moving with that particular kind of energy that meant they punched things for a living.

"...hey there."