Greg Vs Raid 9-41 - Introspections VII: Gravity of the Situation (Patreon)

A car went flying, a gray sedan rocked apart by a glowing green grenade launched at speed; the sound of gravel-baked laughter somehow louder than the explosion.“MORE!” The words were chest-deep, bass-filled and wet with growls beneath the syllables, three different speakers playing over each other at full volume. “AGAIN!”

Thirty feet above it all, Theo’s oversized silver hoodie snapped in the wind, his stomach rolling and pitching as he hovered in the air; a problem on its own. Not so much the explosions, or the monster-man with six legs and too many eyes, but his inner ear was still suffering from keeping himself in the air like this.

Over a month of practice and lying to his own equilibrium about which way was down was still the best way he could manage flight; tilting and overcorrecting and still costing himself energy to stay aloft. Fantastic.

He’d already been on the run, Crawler having picked him out of so many others to chase down for some reason. Fleeing around the corner of the PRT HQ, he’d been hoping he could make his way up to a nearby roof and get even higher than the monster could hope to follow.Insteady, he’d gotten to watch Miss Militia, Lady Photon and Dauntless launch themselves into the fight — all three of them taking on the six-limbed nightmare like the heroes they were and attacking immediately.

The correct decision, sure.

Also the worst one.Purple came off Lady Photon’s palms in an unwavering beam, armor plating beside Crawler’s head boiling almost immediately with the red meat below it sloughing off. Something thick and heavy-calibered took another chunk of jawbone with it, Miss Militia’s oversized rifle shimmering in green-black with each anti-material round. Dauntless didn’t waste a moment either, the hero hoplite coming in quick with his lance — a crackling swipe from the energy spear driving Crawler clean through a parked sedan.

The car folded in a screech of metal, Crawler coming out the other side laughing loud. “TRY THE JOINT!” A shattered jaw was already knitting back together with denser plating in that spot, and new armor over the shoulder, matte where the old had been almost glossy.Of course. As much as it would make sense to, though, none of the three heroes stopped their blasting and bashing, because the alternative was…“COME ON! YOU ALMOST HAD SOMETHING!”Well, that.

So, the limits were what they were.

Silver eyes narrowed behind his mask as that monstrous head swung toward Dauntless and Theo took the window.His flight cut, a controlled drop more than a landing until the last two feet. Knees bent as he finally hit the ground, Theo’s gray gloves immediately went for the pre-cracked asphalt; one of many deep fissures splitting the blacktop.

Free material.Limits were what made people what they were, constraints and boundaries the only defining aspect of personality and identity. A man with twenty million in his checking account (stupid as that was) was not and could not be the same as one with twenty. Even if they had the same personality, as unlikely as that was, the nature of their lives and the reactions of others as well as what they could simply do with their resources defined them just as strictly as their idiosyncrasies.

In many ways, cousin Greg was flush; with wealth as much as power. He pretended not to understand or notice it, but he knew exactly where he stood. In a situation like this, Greg would have done something unbelievable or insane like grabbing the rampaging monster and suplexing him into the ocean or launching a fireball the size of a school bus.

“PURPLE LADY! YOU CAN DO BETTER!”Whatever he did, Theo knew it would have blanketed the street in tons of raw mana and he’d be back to normal in at most an hour. Maddening, sure, but less so because Theo had long decided to stop estimating Greg’s reserves.

Especially when they could jump if the other blond felt like simply ‘tweaking’ some numbers.

Right now, Theo could only approximate his godbrother as something like a lake; enough energy to drown you if he felt like it and easily replenished when he did spend it.

Theo was… sadly, a pond.A good-sized pond.A well-managed pond, but still… a pond.

Better than the simple bowl that was Sparky, but neither of them could move Crawler with their own raw energies any time soon. That was something Theo had made peace with.

Fortunately, he had other ways to wage war."Erde.” The German felt clean on his tongue, years of lessons ingrained deep into his mind nearly as smoothly as English. “Ziel: Asphalt.” The blacktop under his gloved fingers began to loosen the way wet sand did. 

Not melting, or liquefying exactly; just a little nudge into something other than what it had settled into. “Ändern.”Two fingers — index and middle — dragged a groove into the black mineral aggregate, barely three inches deep as he drew a shape meant to stay.It only took a second after removing his touch before the material found itself firm again, Theo staring down at the first anchor rune.

ᛟ. Othala.

Theo knew the irony, well aware of who else shared the name. But still… can’t be helped, can it? No, it really couldn’t. He’d been developing new ways to use what he couldn’t deny was outright ‘magic’ anymore, the last month full of sleepless nights and a dozen notebooks filled with his scribbled notes.

Runes were a new trick, one he would be a lot more smug about if he could get anything but Elder Futhark to work right. The Younger Futhark, though… He clicked his tongue, well aware that the Younger Futhark working only added another data point he didn’t like. Regardless of their origin, runes were helpful.

Executing spoken magic in any form executed once and took something every time, the cost way higher than he would like. A rune held its shape and required far less mana, a portion of the instruction in the material itself without him carrying the whole thing or paying the whole bill.

After a few seconds of feeding, the ᛟ took mana and stopped; shining a dull white in the groove before fading to nothing again.

As soon as the rune caught, Theo kicked off the ground, his own powerful legs carrying him a half-dozen feet high before mana caught him and reduced gravity’s hold. Next one. Without wasting a moment, the mage in the smiley-face mask took off for the next fracture just a few dozen feet away where a fallen light pole had split the surf-“FAT BOY!”

Mm.He didn’t need to see it to know that the LED’s on his mask mimicked his expression, an eyebrow raised on that white face as he turned toward the Nine member who suddenly recalled his existence.Crawler took off across the lot in leaps, wrecked cars becoming ruined ones as the van-sized cape used them as stepping stones. The third leap got interrupted, a bloom of force and heat from a green rocket knocked the monster off-course and took out another chunk of biological body armor.Once again, that gravel-blender laugh was already out and loud before Crawler even touched down again, the sound blasted out through what had to be several sets of vocal cords. “JACK SAYS YOU GOTTA DIE, FAT BOY!” Another laugh burst out, volume higher and sound somehow deeper. “YOU AND THE OTHER ONE!”

Theo almost dropped six feet, his altitude nearly cut down by a fourth as those words hit him as hard as one of Miss Militia’s grenades. “TO GET YOUR FRIEND RIGHT ON THE EDGE!”

Greg.Theo doubted that Crawler was a master of the psychological, but it was as if the masochistic monster-cape had chosen the perfect words. Not kill the strong one. 

Not even ‘that one’s a threat’.

No, Mouse Protector had already made the interest clear enough back in the conference room and Theo hadn’t really blinked at that. When someone punched an Endbringer, people were going to have an interest.

Get your friend on the edge… That was something different.

Purple slammed down on the lot again, Crawler crashing headfirst into Lady Photon’s field hard enough to make it bow for a full second. “Move, son!”Theo didn’t need a second command, already in motion even if his destination wasn’t quite as far as the leader of New Wave would have liked. The light pole fracture met him in seconds, and gloves down — ᚷ. Gebo — Theo was already done in seconds.

Nine, to be exact. 

A bit long, sure, but that was the working figure and he was making it work. Nine seconds per stop before he was airborne again, looking for another crack on the edges of the lot. Anything undamaged cost almost four times what routing through an existing crack did, and his pond was already running a little lower than he’d like so no to that.Logically, Theo followed the damage; Crawler’s old landings, Miss Militia’s bullet holes, Lady Photon’s blasts — that was all he needed.

Thankfully, the fight kept giving him plenty of exactly what he needed, the shape of the next several minutes building as Theo placed several layers of the same rune set. Three was a strong number in Norse culture, and so was nine; so three sets of three… 

Well, he was still studying numerology but Theo had good feelings about that.Under the nausea and noise, explosions and ear-shattering laughter, the three heroes moved Crawler and Theo landed where Crawler wasn’t; the process of carve, bind, and rise almost a simple one. Every crater in the ground and every broken seam was a shortcut he wouldn’t have to pay for — the fight wrecking his canvas and handing him more material to work with.

“Oh, come o—” Theo bit down a mouthful of anger as something explosive dropped on the southeast corner, courtesy of the most patriotic heroine present, another rocket from Miss Militia vaporizing a good twelve feet of runework he’d already finished. I’m fine. It’s fine.

It wasn’t but he’d live.

Still, it didn’t take long before the second layer closed, and everyone noticed.

The heroes — who’d definitely been wondering what he’d been up to — blinked his way as the parking lot center lit up and Crawler’s claws punched deep into asphalt instead of skidding across the surface. “WHA-” 

The monster’s next leap barely got him a few feet off the ground, a whole car length shorter as the sedan he landed on itself became a whole car length shorter — all that metal flattening from roof to floor in one second.“OH!” A hundred pitch-black empty eyes turned onto Theo. “THAT’S YOU!”Wow, smarter than you look. Two fingers saluted off his forehead as Crawler laughed his way again.

Crawler charged forward, far slower than before; a two-sided assault from Miss Militia and Lady Photon stumbling Crawler as Dauntless extended the end of his lance. Whatever physical force in it far outpaced the effect of the lightning, Crawler suddenly knocked back a few steps as the tip of the telescoping weapon gouged his side.

Even hampered as he was, Crawler pulverized the ground with every step; mass that could already hit like a collapsing building multiplied ninefold. Another ray of purple took out a half-dozen eyes at once, Crawler cheering as one of those front limbs found itself stuck in a sedan roof.“COME ON! YOU CAN DO BETTE-!”A pillar of red from the east took the words right out of Crawler’s mouth, the cape sent through two more cars that would never know an insurance claim.“Crystal!” Lady Photon’s shout cut across the parking lot, as panicked as any mother could sound in a situation like this. “Crystal, what are you doing h-!”

“Helping out, mom!” Crystal Pelham lived up to her cape name, Laserdream hammering a laughing Crawler from above with spear after spear of rippling red sent out in curving paths from her palms. “Being a hero!”“Crystal, this fight’s a bit too much f-”“Photon.”The mother turned around as Theo came in low over her shoulder. “Can I help you, honey? I’m a little busy right now.”Theo blinked at the pet name, mouth open for a second before he pushed it aside for something more pertinent. “... your next barrier, leave the north lane open.” He pointed at the exact spot he was referring to. “And on my order, no one should be in range. Understand?”Lady Photon looked at him for a half second at most, almost like she wanted to argue, but a single glance toward the far slower Crawler seemed to help her gather her thoughts. “Got it.”The barrier came up as three purple panels instead of one, the monster cape going for the gap as Crystal blasted a beam right into his hindquarters. Crawler didn’t need the push but Theo wasn’t going to complain as the killer ran straight into the center of the array.“NOW!”

Both Miss Militia and Dauntless ran in the opposite direction as Theo’s hands clapped together with a burst of white light. Erwecke!

The parking lot flashed again, six different marked locations coming to life and connecting together as Crawler slowed to a crawl. His van-sized body sunk an inch into the surface, six limbs suddenly wide at his side. Claws dragged trenches through the asphalt where they’d been leaving prints, the lumbering villain spending every bit of strength he had on managing himself against the ground.“HAHA! I LIKE THIS! MORE!”…damnit.

Unfortunately, Crawler was still Crawler.

The change wasn’t as obvious this time, not in plating or regeneration but it was there in the movement. Crawler’s stance was lower, the base of his body even wider as he began looking more like a giant monstrous caterpillar than he already did. Four limbs planted into the ground as his two front ones dragged himself forward, muscle density growing more visible in those two forelimbs by the second.

“FAT BOY!” That head came around one more time. “YOU’RE A GOOD ONE! I’LL REMEMBER YOU!”Theo held back a sigh. “Could you forget me now?”“NOPE!”Crawler pushed forward and everything hit him at once.

A blast of red caught one of those fresh forelimbs, a spray of black blood melting asphalt as Crawler stumbled forward. Mother added to daughter, purple on top of red as Miss Militia shifted her rifle into something like a barrel with a drainpipe; another set of eyes engulfed in an explosion.

The Nine member just kept laughing, limbs digging deeper into the ground as he hauled himself forward through all that bubbling blood; forelimb already halfway to pristine and thicker than the one he’d been lumbering around with before.

Fine.“EVERYONE!” Theo’s voice nearly matched Crawler’s for a moment, Greg’s trick with aerokinesis not so costly that he couldn’t mimic it. “MOVE!”No one argued as gray gloved hands slapped together, Lady Photon going diagonal with Crystal while Dauntless blasted sideways with Miss Militia in his arms on a jet of gold. Theo executed with another flare of white. Erwecke!The third layer came active, three sets of three runes active as gravity rose to ninety times normal in the heart of the lot.

Concrete pulverized to powder as Crawler went into the ground, asphalt suddenly rising in a ring under the masochist’s multiplied mass. Limbs split open against the surface, plating folded in with a crunch almost as sickening as the sound of superhuman bone audibly breaking under folded flattened flesh.

For almost two seconds, there was stillness in the crater.

Then something twitched.

Bone came in sideways as Theo stared, blinking through black spots fighting past the edge of his vision. Black armor broadened, reddish flesh spreading across whatever part of the monster could take the load, the fifteen-year old stunned as the shape in the hole started flattening, Theo finding it hard to believe that Crawler was actually rebuilding.

A laugh bubbled out from that shape, the regenerator’s body actively workshopping a new form in a state wider and lower and clearly built specifically to handle 90 gs. “OHHHHH. DON’T STOP NOW. THAT FELT GOOD.”Those black spots fought even harder to take up space in his eyeline, Theo nearly dropping out of the air as he felt the drain. You… you idiot. The gall to think he could actually kill Crawler, that was the sort of ego he would expect from Greg or… or…

Well, mostly Greg.

Theo shook his head, well aware that he couldn’t simply keep Crawler restrained like this; the array was only making him more of a problem and every second was another second of escalation he didn’t have a counter for. I… I can’t even hold this until he dies.

Not even because he doubted Crawler could die, but the simple fact that he didn’t have the energy to even try.

Greg could have, though.

If Greg bothered to attempt this formation, his godbrother could have held it and only gotten stronger from it. ‘My numbers only go up!’ Greg always said that, the little brag every time Theo asked him exactly what it meant to live like he did. ‘Number. Go. Up. Theo.’

Silver eyes blinked behind his mask, the sound of Crawler’s laughter suddenly fading to the background. Number go up…

It was a dumb idea, so dumb it was genius.

An idea worthy of his godbrother that had him smiling behind the mask.“...uh, Magi?” Dauntless called up to him, the hero’s eyes on Crawler like everyone else’s. “Hey, kid. Your… uh, your glowy things are getting brighter, that supposed t-”Theo’s hands came together as he changed two instructions.

Direction. Magnitude.

“Whatever he's doing, back, everybody b—!"

"Magi, what are y—!?"“Zwanzigfach!” Everything he had left in him, Theo forced it through the anchor runes, vision a tunnel of nothing but white. "Raum: Umkehrung!"For one instant, all nine runes flared bright, the whole boundary enough to match the sun for an instant as the crushing force increased by twenty. Crawler vanished beneath the earth, the lot giving way under him.

Then all nine anchors exploded and the vector flipped.

The parking lot tore free from the ground, Crawler and everything else with it as the entire bounded section tore free in one compacted mass. Asphalt, concret, wrecked cars and whatever was unlucky to be at the heart of it.The pressure wave took Theo out of the air, screams all around him by the time he landed on the ground, eyes up toward the sky. By the time he found himself on his knees, the missing rectangle of parking lot was over a thousand feet up and still going as debris peeled off like a meteor tail.

Nobody spoke for a long while, eyes still aimed skyward.“...Magi?” It was Dauntless that broke it, the hero lowering the shield from his face. “What… what was that?”“...s-sent him to…” Theo stumbled forward, already on his knees but barely able to stay upright even still. “...to…”Dauntless blinked his way. “Space?”Theo’s head bobbed as jerkily as his hands trembled.“H-holy shit!” Laserdream’s voice sputtered out in a gasp, as breathless as he felt, from somewhere to the left. “Space?”There was a version of this where he got to stand and be as smug as he’d like, basking in all the reactions from what he did and nodding like he’d planned all this from the start. Theo felt like he would have really enjoyed that.

More than anything else right now, it sounded nice.

Instead, the tunnel closed up and Theo barely got his mask up over his mouth before the blood came rushing out of his mouth; enough of it to splatter the pavement and the front of his costume.

Four different voices shouted over one another, Theo unable to track who was speaking and he doubted he could even if they were speaking in a reasonable and orderly manner. A hand on his shoulder shook him hard as someone yelled even louder in his ear. None of them were as loud as the single voice in his head, Crawler’s voice.

‘Jack says you and the other one gotta die. To get your friend on the edge.’Theo only had time for one more thought before he slumped forward. Greg.