My World My Justice Ch. 42: ...It's sometimes not enough (Patreon)

Leviathan drops onto four legs.

And the transition is instant, no wind-up, no warning, as the moment that body hits the water it explodes outward from its body in gallons, sheeting off every surface in cascades that crash across the beach like a secondary wave. That’s when I finally recognized the afterimage, the infamous one that Legend told me about almost an hour ago.

“Get ready!” Alexandria’s voice cuts through the storm as she pulls away with Dragon.

Leviathan moves.

I have a split second to register how completely, obscenely fast it is before instinct takes over and my hands come up. The claw connects with my palms with a crack that I feel in my shoulder sockets, and the shockwave punches outward in a ring, flattening the shallow water around me in every direction.

Then the afterimage hits a second later, a wall of pressurized water following the exact path, and my feet slide back through the sand.

I blink.

I actually felt that. Not pain exactly, but it reverberated up through my forearms and into my chest, giving me some discomfort.

That has never happened before, but if I hadn’t sparred so many times with Armsmaster’s new suit. If I hadn’t put in that work, that first strike would have sent me spinning across the beach before I even processed it was coming. Because something THAT big shouldn’t be THAT fast.

Leviathan has noticed this too, especially that I blocked one of its attacks.

And this close, I can see those four green eyes clearly through the spray, and what I find in them is not what I expected. They were narrowed moments ago

Now they’re open wide. Would that be surprise?

‘Good.’

Using that small opportunity, I grab the claw with both hands before it can pull back, fingers locking around it, and yank forward hard, throwing my entire weight into pulling the limb toward me and keeping it exactly where I want it.

Leviathan lurches for a moment, but for something that size, even a slight loss of balance is a lot.

And Alexandria uses that window perfectly.

She flies in from the right in a tight arc, and the uppercut she drives into Leviathan’s face connects like a thunderclap, snapping its head back. Dragon is already descending onto its back in the same instant, all mechanical limbs latching on, and releases a plasma beam directly into the base of its neck from point-blank range. The smell of burning flesh hits my nose even through the heavy rain.

Then from behind me I hear a rising whistle that builds fast.

And then the ‘artillery’ barrage starts.

Energy beams, force lances, fire, ice, a dozen different types of ranged attack all converging on the same target, and where they land, the flesh starts turning red and then orange. The sheer volume of damage is staggering that would raze a building in seconds. Legend is leading it, I can tell by his laser beam that cuts through the middle of the formation, threading between the others with surgical precision and hitting a better spot.

And Alexandria comes for another free hit.

Realizing its bad position Leviathan tries to yank its arm back.

But I hold it back.

The endbringer switches tactics immediately, and the free arm comes around in a sweep aimed directly at my head. I lean into it as the golden glow emanates from my body and take the blow on my shoulder and the impact rattles through me but I do not let go of the claw. So it tries again. Then again. Straight punches, each one landing with enough force to crater the ground beside me, but thanks to my ‘justice’ shield I can now tank them with little problem.

It cannot shake me loose. 

Leviathan uses its large hand and grabs my head instead, trying to crush me, but it does nothing besides being uncomfortable.

However, I feel something close around my ankles.

I glance down for a split second.

The 40 ft tail.

‘Damn…’

My feet leave the ground cleanly and the beach beneath me detonates in a geyser of water and churned sand that sends me flying upward, spinning, and for a second I find myself at eye level with Leviathan’s face.

We are looking directly into each other’s eyes. Four green eyes locked onto mine through the spray and the rain, completely and pointedly ignoring the fact that Alexandria is currently driving her fist into the flat of its face from the other side with everything she has. 

The endbringer cocks its arm back.

The uppercut lands square on my chest and sends me higher, much higher, the city dropping away below me fast as the rain hammers my face, and I have just enough time to register that this crash landing is going to be very messy. 

Until my body stops abruptly. 

I glance back to find Alexandria and Legend have caught me mid-air, one on each side, hands locked around my arms. I don’t thank them because I’m already looking down to assess the situation. 

Leviathan has wrenched Dragon loose from its back and drives the suit into the beach hard enough to throw up a spray of debris and water that spreads in every direction. I even heard the metal cracking.

“THROW ME WITH ALL YOUR JUSTICE!”

The two Triumvirate members exchange a single look and nod. 

They start spinning, building momentum, faster and faster until the let go.

I come down like a comet with both fists leading, trailing golden light, aimed directly at the back of Leviathan’s skull. 

Leviathan’s head snaps in my direction…

And the monster sidesteps.

I can only mentally curse as I crash land like a meteor, causing an explosion of earth and water in every direction once more. I’m back on my feet in under a second, shaking wet sand out of my face, and I barely get my arms up before the punch arrives. 

But I caught it.

The afterimage hits immediately after, a compressed wall of water following the exact same direction without mercy, and this time it doesn’t just slide my feet back. It buries them to the knee in churned sand and standing water. 

Leviathan is already winding up the follow-through. 

The ranged barrage is still hammering its back, dozens of strikes per second pouring in from the city, and the monster is ignoring every single one of them. Because those four green eyes are fixed entirely on me now, and the initial surprise is gone. 

It has decided I am a problem.

But I can see the punches coming now.

I break my feet free from the ground and coil everything I have into my legs. When the fist comes down, I drive upward to meet it with everything I have. 

“JUSTICE PUNCH!”

Leviathan’s fist detonates on contact, chunks of dark, dense material spraying outward with black ichor that hisses and steams where it touches the standing water. The shockwave rolls across the beach in a visible ring that flattens everything around us. Yet my entire arm rattles from wrist to shoulder, a deep resonant vibration that travels all the way into my back teeth and settles in my chest. 

That hurt. Not badly, but still hurt.

So this is what it feels to fight a Tier 9 as Tier 8.

The endbringer goes still for a moment.

It raises what remains of its hand and looks at it with those four green eyes, almost contemplative, and I notice with a cold drop in my stomach that I’ve only taken the endbringer’s hand. Not the arm, not the shoulder, just the hand. When I hit Lung that hard, I took the entire limb. 

Legend was right it’s way tougher than it looks.

Dragon drops into view from directly above. 

She latches with all mechanical limbs onto Leviathan’s head, and then she glows for a second as the suit detonates at point-blank range in a massive explosion that consumes both of them momentarily in fire.

Dragon just sacrificed one of her suits, which must have been badly damaged. Losing one of her suits this early on… It’s not good.

However, not enough time to think as Alexandria hits the chest in the same instant, a perfectly timed punch that catches the monster while the explosion is still processing, and Leviathan goes down.

The ranged barrage intensifies immediately, capes across the city finding their moment and pouring everything into the downed target. Yet most of the strikes dissolve against a sudden torrent of water that shoots upward from around the body, a defensive wall that intercepts anything coming in on a straight line. Except Legend’s beam, which curves, bending around the water wall in a tight zigzag before finding Leviathan’s torso. 

Then the tail moves.

It whips sideways in a single brutal arc, and Alexandria is hit on the stomach. The impact sends her into the coastal buildings behind us, and the crunch of concrete collapsing on top of her.

The tail continues its arc and comes straight for me.

I quickly get my arms up, grab it, and get a good hold of it to keep it trapped in my grip. Which works as it won’t move an inch.

The smoke from Dragon’s sacrifice clears out thanks to the downpour.

It reveals that Leviathan has lost half its head. The upper left quarter is simply gone, ragged at the edges, dark fluid pouring from the cavity. One of the four green eyes remains, half-lidded and tracking me through the rain and the haze with an expression I can only describe as… irritated. 

And then it narrows dangerously.

The tail yanks upward before I can brace, breaking my stance, and I go airborne again, much to my surprise. This time there’s no Alexandria and Legend waiting to catch me. The following punch comes while I’m still flying and it drives me straight back down and the world becomes white for a second as I grit my teeth and hear another explosion all over me.

I can only groan as I try to dislodge before the water fills the crater.

That one definitely hurt.

My eyes catch Levithan fist rising again, so I roll out of the way. The follow-up craters the ground further where I was a half second ago and the shockwave from it throws me sideways. Yet the tail connects with my stomach before I can find my footing, and I go back into the hole, and the third punch lands on me before I can roll away.

I grit my teeth, haul myself out of the broken earth, and get my hands up in time to catch the fourth punch.. 

I look up.

‘What?’

The hand I’m holding is the one I destroyed moments ago.

Almost good as new even as I can see a spot still bleeding that ichor.

I drag my gaze upward to the face and find the missing quarter of the skull rebuilding itself in real time, dark material knitting back together at a speed that is unpleasant to look at. 

And as if that isn’t enough, my armband screams the alarm.

WARNING: TIDAL WAVE INCOMING!

‘Oh, you motherfucker….’

The ocean answers before I can even finish the thought. The water rises behind Leviathan ridiculously fast, and then the wave hits both of us, and the world goes white and cold and roaring in every direction at once.

-----------------------------------------------------

-Taylor Hebert, Buzzwing-

“The shelter in the southwest commercial district is reporting severe leakage. They’re requesting evacuation assistance, priority status.”

“On it!” Gallant was already moving before he finished the sentence, flagging down Kid Win and pointing toward the hoverboard. Kid Win tossed it over without hesitation, and they were airborne in seconds, cutting through the rain-lashed air and disappearing between the buildings.

Taylor watched them go, then sat down cross-legged on the rooftop and closed her eyes to focus as much as possible.

Her power reached out.

The downpour put it at a serious disadvantage. She relied heavily on flying insects, and rain didn’t kill them outright but it drove them into cracks and crevices, and trying to force them out into the open got them waterlogged almost immediately and made them useless. So she worked with whatever she could find. 

Cockroaches, mostly.

It took longer than she would have liked, but eventually she found the marked shelter.

“Gallant,” she said into the comm, “I’ve got eyes on the shelter. Northeast corner of the building, ground floor, the wall adjacent to the drainage channel. Block 34.”

“Copy that. Good work, Buzzwing.”

She kept the cockroaches in place as a relay and let her attention drift outward to other parts of the city where her power could still reach. Through fragments of insect perception, she caught glimpses of capes working across the flooded streets below, some of them digging channels into the road to redirect the water flow, others hauling sandbags into position to form more rough, impromptu barriers.

She couldn’t find Vista or Aegis anywhere in range, which meant they were far west helping with civilian evacuation. And that was also a good thing. farther the civilians stayed from the Endbringer, the safer they were.

Her mood soured slightly when she remembered Scribe working alongside them.

Rune. Or Tammi. Honestly, she wasn’t sure which name fit worse right now.

The blonde had volunteered to join the fight under the new alias, and Taylor hadn’t liked it when she heard, and she still didn’t like it now. But she had to admit, grudgingly and with some effort, that the girl was working. Whatever her reasons for being here, she was here, and she was pulling her weight, and in the middle of an Endbringer fight that was probably the most honest thing anyone could offer.

Taylor let out a slow breath and pulled her attention back to the rooftop.

She sat there for a moment, just listening to the rain hammering everywhere around her. So many capes were down there fighting and helping and doing extraordinary things with amazing powers. And she was sitting on a rooftop sending cockroaches to find things… 

She felt too…

She shook her head firmly and pushed the thought back down.

‘I am still helping, and that’s what matters because every ember counts.’

True Might had told her that. ‘The greatest flames of justice start from the smallest of embers, young Taylor’ Or well, something among those lines.

She was grateful for it.

A small smile formed despite everything, and she raised her eyes toward the beach.

Her hero had stopped the first tsunami and now he was going toe to toe with the Endbringer at the beach. Even from here she could hear and see flashes and explosions going off, showing that the battle was still ongoing strong.

She found Kaede standing at the edge of the rooftop, perfectly still for once. And that looked so wrong on someone like her.

“WARNING. TIDAL WAVE INCOMING.”

The armband alarm cut through everything.

Taylor was on her feet before the automated voice finished the sentence, spinning toward the ocean. She saw a wall of water building with terrifying speed on the horizon, and then it crested and came down.

She hit the comm. “Guys?!”

“We are fine!” Kid Win’s voice came back fast and slightly breathless. “Strider already got the civilians out of the shelter, everyone’s clear before the wave!”

Taylor let out a small breath of relief.

Then she turned back to the edge of the rooftop and watched with a grim expression as the streets below were swallowed and pulling everything loose in its wake.

Kaede hadn’t moved from the railing. Her hands had tightened around it until her knuckles showed, and the usual brightness was gone.

Taylor walked over and stood beside her without saying anything, close enough that their shoulders were touching. They watched the streets flood together.

‘Why hadn’t True Might stopped this wave too?’

--------------------------------------------------- 

-Daniel, True Might-

My vision comes back in pieces.

When I open my eyes, or more accurately when I finally manage to clear them, I blink through the murk until the reality of my situation finally comes into view and one thing becomes immediately clear.

I’m underwater with Leviathan’s claw pinning me to the ground.

Those four glowing green eyes stare down harshly at me from just above the waterline, watching through the churning dark with unnerving calm of something that has done this before and knows how it ends.

It takes me a full second to understand that this bastard is trying to drown me.

Panic surges before I can stop it, and bubbles burst from my mouth as I thrash hard against the claw, trying to find any grip, any angle, any leverage at all. My fists connect with the limb, but the position is terrible, and I can’t get any actual weight behind the strikes. Leviathan responds by increasing the pressure, pressing me deeper.

Because why would this monster hurry? I’m the one running out of air!

I can only struggle and thrash harder. Punching, twisting, trying to wedge my fingers underneath the claw and pry it up. Yet more pressure answers me, burying me deeper, and more bubbles spiral upward toward the surface while those four green eyes stay absolutely fixed on me, the only clear thing visible through the murk.

‘Fuck!’

This cannot end like this. 

Especially when I know there are still people up there depending on me!

‘Wait…’

I blink once and stop my struggles.

Because I just noticed something.

My lungs aren’t screaming in pain.

I’ve been underwater long enough that they should be burning by now feeling how my head and eyes explode from the lack of oxygen yet there is nothing.

I don’t remember being capable of this…

Uiho Jeong.

The original has been thrown into the crushing pressure of the deep ocean. Thrown into the vacuum of space itself and survived both without any apparent difficulty. Not because he just powered through it, but because his body has been perfected to the point that it has no need for things such as breathing, among other things.

And I share that perfect body.

The endbringer presses me deeper again, trying to crush my chest and dragging me back to the present.

The bastard has no idea, thinking that it got me for good.

I almost laugh, and a few bubbles escape my mouth from the effort of suppressing it. 

Okay. Let’s play along.

I resume my struggles, putting effort into making it look desperate and increasingly weak, arms flailing less with each passing second and the same goes for my legs. 

For the final touch, I release one long stream of bubbles, watching them rise toward the surface in a slow column, and then I let my hands fall.

And go completely limp for dramatic effect.

The silence that follows is strange. Just the muffled roar of the storm above the surface and the distantram, percussion of ongoing combat, flashes of light filtering down through the churning water as capes above pour everything they have into the endbringer, trying to help me. 

I count the passing seconds.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

And the claw loosens up.

‘Now!’

I move before the claw is fully clear, coiling everything I have into my legs and driving upward off the floor with everything in me making water resistance means nothing. I clear the surface in an explosion and don’t slow down, targeting the nearest leg and leading with both fists locked together.

The hit lands like a battering ram and Leviathan lurches hard to the side, the leg buckling under the enormous body tilting. I don’t give it a half second to think and I’m already pulling back, driving into the other leg with everything I have.

The other leg breaks.

Leviathan goes down, crashing into the flooded street with an impact that creates waves in every direction, and for one brief moment it looks like I have control of this fight, but the water under my feet violently erupts.

Just like before, it sends me airborne, and then that stupid tail connects mid-flight, a full sweep that catches me across the stomach and sends me flying sideways.

I barely get a glance at what’s behind me before I hit the building.

I crash through the outer wall and keep going, through plaster and partition walls and scattered furniture, momentum bleeding off with every barrier I pass through until I finally stop somewhere in the interior when I finally orient myself and punch the floor to stop my body.

I lie still for a moment in the wreckage.

I blink up at the tiles of the ceiling and the occasional piece of flying paper passing through.

‘That hurt, just a little.’

I haul myself upright and check my new surroundings, which is an office building. Mid-floor by the look of it, and empty. I don’t waste time on the interior design since I cross the ruined floor to the broken outer wall and leap, catching the face of the building and hanging there with both hands, fingers buried deep in the masonry, and I look for the walking disaster.

However, the damn downpour is doing everything it can to hinder my visibility.

But after a short moment, I found the cursed monster.

It’s wall-hanging on a building directly across the flooded street, both claws buried deep in the masonry. We stare at each other through the downpour.

I let out a breath.

It’s completely fixated on me. Not the capes behind the line, much less those who are still attacking it from a relatively safe distance. Just me, and as long as that’s true, nobody else is dying to this thing today. 

That was the plan, and even with a few setbacks, it’s still working so far.

I merely flash a grin at the bastard and I push off the wall to launch myself across the gap.

Leviathan pushes off at the same time, but the distance between us is too great for either of us to reach the other, and we land at street level almost simultaneously, displacing water. However, I don’t wait for its next move. The moment my feet hit the flooded road I’m already running, pulling everything into my legs, water spraying sideways with every step, and I come up under it with a leaping uppercut that drives from the ground all the way through my hips and shoulder and into my fist.

Leviathan might be faster than it has any right to be.

But I can be fast too.

“RISING CREED!”

My fist connects through the body of water with a deafening crash, punching the afterimage apart, and then the real hit lands against the chin with a crack that snaps the head back hard enough that I hear the impact echo off the surrounding buildings.

‘Huh, that felt good.’

Yet I don’t let the momentum die. I lock both hands together overhead and bring them down on the top of the skull with a roar, putting every bit of strength in my body into the downward slam, causing the head to compress and bury into the shoulders.

And the claws rapidly close around me, locking around my midsection and upper arms before I can pull back, trapping me completely, and I’m hauled in close until I’m at eye level with the endbringer’s face. The head is already reforming, knitting back together and rising to its full shape, and those four green eyes return one by one.

What I find in them this time is not surprise or confusion.

They are angry.

I burst out laughing.

Because I made an Endbringer furious. Me. 

And the best part, the beautiful part, is that it’s clearly intelligent enough to understand that I’m laughing at it specifically, which only makes the anger worse.

The claws try to crush me.

I laugh harder.

“THIS BODY IS BLESSED BY LADY JUSTICE!” I declare directly into its face, grinning wide. “AND NO FORCE UPON THIS UNIVERSE SHALL CRUSH MY WILL OF JUSTICE!”

The claws tighten further in response.

I hold the grin and meet those furious eyes without blinking.

There’s a slight twitch in those eyes before Leviathan begins slamming me into the ground like an angry child slamming a toy in an angry fit. 

I laugh harder with every impact.

Because this hurts much less than the actual punches did. Compared to taking those past punches, this is like tickles at worst.

So I make sure it knows.

“IS THAT ALL?!” I boom between crashes. “JUSTICE HAS ENDURED FAR WORSE THAN THIS!”

I get slammed even harder, rearranging the terrain with each hit.

“MY JUSTICE ENDURES!” I shout back, and dissolve into laughter again because I simply cannot help it.

After being used as a ragdoll, I notice the grip has loosened enough, and I twist my body, finding the weakest point in the grip, and drive both arms outward. The hand tears open and I get one hand locked around the arm before it can fully retract, the same grip I used on the beach.

“FOR JUSTICE!”

And from somewhere above and to my left, somebody roars back.

Chevalier drops from a nearby rooftop like a falling star, his cannon blade leading the fall.

Leviathan reacts fast. A water barrier erupts from the standing flood around us, building into a defensive curtain between Chevalier and the trapped arm.

But I yank the arm toward me and punch through the barrier with my free hand.

It shatters and Chevalier comes through clean, the cannon blade connecting with the arm at the joint and driving through it with the full propulsive force behind the swing. Leviathan recoils hard from the combined attack, stumbling backward.

I let go of the severed arm immediately and spin toward the other arm to lock it down before the monster can recover or back away.

Then I catch a familiar flash from the corner of my eye.

I turn my head just enough to lock eyes with Armsmaster in the same second, his nanothorn leading the charge, as he is cutting through.

And the arm is sliced off.

Leviathan falls back hard, stumbling in the flooded street, and in that stumbling moment Rebecca comes down from above like an arrow, arms wrapping around the neck from behind, and drives the endbringer into the road with an impact that causes a mini-earthquake and shattering all windows around us.

Legend arrives in the same instant and does not waste a single second, raining down from above with everything he has. The rest of the flying capes arrive behind him, blasters and ranged capes raining hell from every angle they can find, and for a brief moment Leviathan is buried under so much damage that turns the surrounding water into steam and creates a crater.

“WARNING: TIDAL WAVE INCOMING.”

Are you serious right now?!

And as if the timing weren’t already bad enough, geysers erupt simultaneously across the street, torrents of water shooting upward from every available source at once, forming a chaotic defensive curtain that intercepts the incoming fire before.

I quickly charge because I need to get a hold of it before the wave hits.

The other capes pull back fast.

But Alexandria is not as lucky.

One of the geysers catches her mid-retreat, sending her spinning off course. But before she can crash against a building, Leviathan’s tail loops around her neck, slamming her into the flooded road. In the same motion, Leviathan comes back to its deformed feet, with arms almost fully regenerated, which pins her down as water continues pouring from its body in sheets, rising around her fast.

Unlike me, Rebecca will drown.

“JUSTICE RUSH!”

Every step detonates the road beneath me, asphalt cracking and water spraying sideways from the sheer force of it, going as fast as I can.

However, Leviathan sends a wall of water at me without turning.

I headbutt it without slowing down.

“JUSTICE STRIKE!”

Using the momentum, I leap and strike the claw, pulverizing half, which forces the hand to let go of the woman. With the new opening, I grab Alexandria by the collar and throw her straight up.

But before she can recover, Eidolon and Legend catch her, not before Legend puts another beam directly into Leviathan’s face on the way out. Followed by a weaker beam which comes from Eidolon.

She is safe for now, she is very useful in the fight so cannot go down.

However, the same stupid tail wraps around my ankles once again, and it yanks me clean off my feet with a single motion.

And it throws me straight towards the oncoming wave.

‘I’m getting really tired of this…’

The world goes white and cold in every direction at once.

Again.

I cannot tell which way is up or down because everything is up and everything is down at the same time. Something crashes against my shoulder and spins me sideways into something else that hits my ribs. However, the most problematic are the countless smaller objects hitting my face and eyes.

Nevertheless,moment I reach out blindly, trying to find something solid, and my hands close on nothing but churning water.

Then another large object crashes against my back and drives me downward.

Which turns out to be a lucky moment because something solid scrapes across my palm. My hand clenches on pure instinct and finally gets a hold of something strong.

I don’t think twice. With the new hold, I finally orient myself and punch the ground with my free hand, burying my fist deep, and drive the other fist straight down after it. 

The current tears at everything else but my arms hold true, and I wait for a chance to leave.

I count the seconds until I feel the tide slow down.

The moment it does, I’m back on my feet, jumping, catching the nearest rooftop edge with both hands and hauling myself up in one motion.

Once up there, I do a quick check-up on myself.

A few spots have been torn, and my armband is gone.

I reach for my earpiece next.

Also gone.

Right. Getting hit by two separate tsunamis and an Endbringer is a little too overkill to pulverize equipment. 

I reach into my pocket space and pull out the spare armband, which is already synced to the network, so I simply fasten it to my wrist.

Dragon lands beside me on the rooftop with a heavy thud, and the visor turns toward me immediately.

“Are you alright, True Might?”

“JUSTICE STANDS UNBROKEN!” I boom, thumping my chest once. “WHERE IS OUR ENEMY, MY FRIEND? THE FORCES OF EVIL HAVE DISAPPEARED FROM MY SIGHT!”

“From everyone’s sight.” She turns briefly to scan the flooded city below us. “It went under with the last wave and we lost track. Everyone is on high alert. It could surface anywhere in the flood zone.” She pauses for a moment. “But I’m glad you’re in one piece.”

I nod with a simple smile.

Below us the flooding has spread further than I wanted, swallowing most of the barriers I set up. I can only hope the ones the other capes reinforced have held better or that mine have helped to a degree. As for Leviathan, it must be thinking about its next move since I have been a massive wild card against it. That bastard must have expected to have killed or cripple dozens of capes by now.

“Then we find it before it finds us!”

Then the armband makes an announcement.

Eidolon down, CD-3. Mouse Protector down, CD-3. Frenetic down, CD-3.

I go completely still, only for my head to snap toward Dragon.

“QUICK!” She yells as she starts her thrusters.

I hop onto her back before she finishes the sentence, and we accelerate hard toward the coordinates, arriving in seconds.

And Leviathan erupts from the surface in the middle of a cluster of capes, catching everyone by surprise, who scatter. Except one in white costume that was a lot slower than the rest, and that one is who the endbringers catch with its claw.

“NO!”

The bastard throws him into the ground and the man disappears into the water.

Apotheosis, deceased. CD-4.

I don’t think after that.

I jump off Dragon’s suit.

“JUSTICE CRUSH!”

And this time my feet connect with the back of Leviathan and the impact explodes outward through the endbringer’s upper body, dark material spraying in every direction as it crashes down into the street hard, water and debris detonating outward from the impact zone. But I don’t give it a single second to process what just happened.

I grab the tail.

Both hands locked around it, and I stomp my foot forward as I lift with my entire body behind the motion, the fire in my chest burning hot, and I slam it into the ground on the opposite side and crater the road. Then again. Then I start pulling back for a third because I want to tear this damn tail off.

A torrent of water hits me from the side and forces me to loosen my grip, and the tail tries to swat me away.

I don’t let it take me this time. I plant my feet and force through it on pure brute force, one grinding step at a time. The moment I’m clear I stomp the road hard, wrenching a chunk of asphalt free with both hands, and hold it up as a barrier just in time for the second torrent to break against it.

The second it drops, I spin and launch the chunk directly at Leviathan’s head.

It shatters across the head.

That’s the moment the missiles hit.

Dragon’s suit screams past overhead, and the salvo detonates across Leviathan’s chest in a chain of explosions. The suit banks hard and comes around for another pass without losing a single beat of momentum, and I’m already charging.

“JUSTICE PUNCH!”

Leviathan crashes backward into the building, the wall collapsing inward under the combined force, concrete and glass raining down. I don’t give it the breath to recover and I’m in the air before the debris settles, and my fist buries into the chest on the follow-up, punching deep into the dense dark material with enough force that I feel the resistance all the way up my shoulder.

I pull back the other.

Drive the other fist in beside the first.

And I start tearing its flesh. Chunk after chunk of that dark, dense scaly flesh ripping free with both hands, black ichor spraying with every pull and staining my suit, and I keep going because I am going to tear this thing apart piece by piece if that’s what it takes. 

However, a body of water crashes into me from the side and tears me loose, but I recover fast.

Leviathan rises back to its feel, its torn chest mending back. It drops to four legs and every incoming strike from the capes behind the line dissolves against the rising water currents around its body, a constant churning defensive field that intercepts anything traveling in a straight line.

Four green eyes lock onto me through the rain.

I look back at it and narrow my eyes as I make a decision.

I don’t care about using my card too early. Plans have changed, people have gone down, and the fight has gone sideways way too many times. If I have advantages, this is exactly when I use them.

I pump both fists together and tap into my Dragon heritage.

My body grows and changes until the human form is gone, replaced by a true dragonborn, and all my senses become even sharper.

Leviathan disappears.

My nostrils flare, and I pull back my arm and meet the monster head-on.

I throw the punch with no declaration this time. 

The second our fists connect, it sounds like an explosion.

Because it is one.

Leviathan’s entire arm explodes, dark material and black ichor spraying outward in every direction, the limb turned into tiny bits in a single impact and the impact force pushes the endbringer sideways and drives it into the nearest building.

Only then I lower my fist.

I look at it through the rain and the settling spray, breathing slow and steady, every part of me burning like something that hasn’t had a name yet.

Leviathan begins to rise from the rubble with that arm regenerating

“Round two, you monster.”