Beta Read by: Name of Love and Axiomatict

Alexandria

Makima Deceased

Rosary Down

Battery Down

Sun Dancer Down

Apotheosis Deceased

Rebound Deceased

Cricket Deceased

Lady Photon Down

Velocity Deceased

Narwhal down

Assault Down

Manpower Deceased

Glory Girl Down

Stratos Down

Cinereal Deceased

Legend Down

Scarlet rage adding to her already earth-shattering strength, the Greatest Superheroine cursed even as she buried her fist deep into the Second Child's gut with enough power to bend the nine-ton monstrosity at his waist. Shockwave after shockwave erupted in the air, dissipating any after echo and shattering windows a city block away as his skin splintered and his flesh crumbled.

Not a thing made by man could withstand her strength and the number of parahumans that could survive her could be counted on one hand. Despite his immense durability, Leviathan was slowly but surely being chipped away.

While the scaled bastard would never show something so human as a flinch, he defended his wounds almost in desperation. A sure sign that he was in pain and evidence that his kind could be hurt.

Alexandria was not delusional enough to believe this city would be his grave. But she took grim pleasure at the Endbringer's sufferings even though it did little to abate her anger.

Twisting around a clumsy swing of a clawed hand, she returned the failed attack with a successful one, smashing him through any structure that had the misfortune of being in the way.

He's slowing down.

The difference was barely noticeable, but every attack was just a millisecond slower than the previous. Leviathan seemed to be damaged to the point that his wounds were hampering his movements.

"Who do we have left?" Alexandria asked through her armband.

"It's just us, Chevalier and Armsmaster. Dragon's suit was destroyed, but a backup will arrive within 6 minutes from Boston." Myyrdin answered.

She winced—five parahumans against an Endbringer with only one among the Triumvirate. Legend was severely hurt and Eidolon was occupied with holding back the waves.

The odds were terrible, and fighting would have been an elaborate suicide if they weren't the cream of the crop within the Protectorate. But while she was confident in their strength, chances of mortality were sky-high even if all they had to do was buy time for the defenders and PRT personnel to evacuate.

"Good, rendezvous at the Medhall building. We will hold there," said Alexandria, without hinting at her thoughts.

"Understood… Just be safe. We don't know what Leviathan will do next."

Instead of responding, Alexandria nodded in agreement, although no one other than Leviathan was around to see her. She was uncertain how long she could keep her inner turmoil out of her voice.

This battle was an absolute disaster, although not for the reasons one may suspect.

The city was doomed the moment the morale of the defenders broke. Leviathan's overwhelming offense had rattled their hearts and his ambush had shattered them. Alexandria was only here to defend until the PRT and Protectorate could finish salvaging whatever resources remained from this failure. Beyond that, nothing else mattered, whether it was the civilians or the city itself.

Brockton Bay was the ground for a social experiment conducted by Cauldron to analyze the effects of parahuman feudalism. But besides that, this shit hole of a city had little value beyond the powered residents that resided in it.

The massive casualties incurred among the defenders from Leviathan's rampage were harder to swallow. So many had been wounded or killed in such a short amount of time that Dragon was still listing off names.

But those losses would soon be replenished. Millions would die from this defeat, but she did not doubt that it would serve as the trigger event for the birth of many more parahumans.

Legend… Her mood somehow soured even further.

His powers allowed him to instinctively enter his breaker state in which he could avoid injury. But Leviathan's ambush had caught him unprepared.

She only hoped he survived long enough to be brought to Panacea. The premature end of a million lives was a triviality to someone so accustomed to death and destruction but even she could not bear the thought of losing another friend.

But even his life mattered little in the endgame despite her feelings.

The only things of consequence were the changes in Leviathan's behavior. It was an utter nightmare of unimaginable proportions. At this point, the only way the situation could become even direr was if its siblings followed suit or if Scion decided to continue the cycle early.

She was not one for wishful thinking or even an optimistic individual, but she desperately hoped this would be an isolated event.

Because if it wasn't…

Cauldron and even some within the Protectorate had theorized that Endbringers were holding back. Or at least not fighting with their full potential.

Leviathan could create tidal waves from miles underwater where it was invincible, yet it rose to the surface to enter a battle where it could be hurt.

Behemoth could create earthquake after earthquake deep beneath the crust and there would be nothing humanity could do.

Simurgh could ruin cities with her telekinesis or drop a tinker tech bomb that would make nuclear warheads seem like firecrackers long before any hero could respond but she didn't.

Other than speculations, nobody understood the motives of Endbringers. Why did they take turns attacking at intervals every three months if they wished to destroy humanity? Why did they give humanity a fighting chance?

That woman named Makima was most likely the cause of the escalation, but Alexandria still did not understand why. Without a doubt, the newcomer was strong. Very few could stand toe to toe with an Endbringer and come out on top and none, not even Eidolon, could stop Leviathan's waves so easily.

If she had survived, she could have been a valuable piece on the board that could have turned the tide in future Endbringer battles. But her appearance had heralded this disaster and she had died after leaving the world covered in shit.

It was cruel and unkind to speak of a person who had died a hero. But the moment Alexandria laid eyes upon her; she was struck with a wave of indescribable displeasure.

Makima was beautiful and akin to a piece of art dedicated to something beyond mortality. But while others may have seen perfection, Alexandria could only see the Simurgh.

It was not well known; it was in fact something she kept secret from the public, but she possessed multiple minor Thinker powers such as accelerated learning. Chief among them was the ability to read human micro-expressions, something she used extensively as Alexandria and Rebecca Costa-Brown.

Micro-expressions occur in a fraction of a second and convey involuntary emotional leakage of a person's true thoughts. To control them was impossible.

Yet, Alexandria could not read Makima's. Or rather, there was nothing to read.

Even when she collapsed to the ground in pain and even when she fought Leviathan, her visage was like a waxen doll.

Oh, she showed emotion all right.

She smiled, frowned, and went through the steps like any normal person, but there was nothing in between. She wore expressions like a person would wear a mask and watching her was like viewing an animation. Something that was drawn on a film rather than made of flesh and blood.

But powers were diverse. Her lack of micro-expressions could be the result of her ability. But even if that was true, Alexandria found her smile to be even more disturbing.

She was a veteran of countless battles, but she had yet to see anyone smile when under attack by an Endbringer, much less possess that level of calm. Anyone who would smile during a battle of life and death were those who had multiple screws loose. The type that was better off dead than in the bird-cage.

In a way, she was glad that the woman had died. The world was terrible as it was; it did not need another Jack Slash.

Alexandria's knee cut deeply through Leviathan's eyes, causing its head to snap back from the sheer impact. It swiped at her flying form with its talons, but she twisted, twirling in the air and adding momentum to a spinning kick that crashed into its already ulcerated chest. Leviathan tumbled through the air, spinning multiple times before coming to a stop after slamming into Medhall in an explosion of dust and bricks.

With another burst of speed, Alexandria flew straight, winding up her arm for a right hook aimed at its temple. However, the dust obscured her vision and she failed to spot the tail above her until it slammed her into the ground. She grunted, in surprise rather than pain. Before she could regain her bearings, a webbed foot buried her further, crushing through the gravel and dirt with the same efficiency as a powered drill.

Alexandria struggled, trying to break free. In terms of raw strength, Leviathan was her inferior. She should have easily been able to dislodge the foot.

But to her horror, her arms and legs were pinned in positions where she could not leverage her vaunted strength. An alien sensation of panic filled her heart as she screamed in exertion, trying to escape to no avail. While brute force alone was not enough to harm her, drowning was a realistic fear and the tomb Leviathan had dug for her rapidly filled with water.

She was forced to watch helplessly as the water level rose from the bottom of her head to her ears, and then her nose.

With the heavy rainfall, it was only a matter of seconds before Alexandria was completely submerged.

Panic evolved into full-blown terror as she thrashed, desperation overriding her sense of reason as she resisted with all her strength as the specter of death came ever closer. But her struggles only hastened her ending as what little air she had left was spent.

She did know how much time had passed, but her lungs began to scream.

When the need became too great, Alexandria reflexively gasped for air, only for her lungs to be filled with water and dirt. When the fluids passed through her bronchial, unfamiliar pain exploded across her chest as if it was torn to shreds and burned like a hot coal.

Even as her strength waned, the pain steadily climbed in a crescendo as the moments passed, reaching a point where she tittered on the edge of blacking out from the suffering, increasing in intensity until…

Nothing.

The pain vanished as a sense of tranquility took her. She had forgotten the last time she had felt such peace. The pool she had desperately fought to leave now felt like a warm blanket, comforting her from her worst fears and sorrows.

And she just felt so… tired…

Part of her knew instinctively that she must not sleep. But she could not bring herself to care.

Just for a moment, she promised herself. Just a short rest…

Her vision faded into darkness.

A hand gripped her by the collar, roughly pulling her up, and shoved a cylindrical tube deep down her throat.

Alexandria coughed and spluttered as the tube forcefully emptied her lungs of fluid, allowing her to take a greedy gasp of air.

"Are you all right?" Myyrdin asked, kneeling by her. His voice was tinged with worry.

She did not answer and glared.

"Right… Stupid question."

Moving to stand, she shoved him out of the way. But her legs felt weak as the days before she met Doctor Mother and collapsed onto her knees.

A pair of arms caught her.

"Take a break for a minute. Get back your bearings before you join back in; we will hold for as long as we need to," he promised before flying away to join the clash above the pharmaceutical company that was slowly becoming a ruin.

Her vision was blurred, and her mind felt blank. But with every breath, her senses and cognition refocused as oxygen again enriched her veins. Her limbs rapidly regained strength, but it was still a far cry from her peak.

Every inch of her burned with the desire to repay Leviathan for this offense a hundredfold. But as she was now, with her strength sapped and her mind fogged, she was a liability. One that could lead to a fatal error for herself and her team.

With her hands so thoroughly stained during her time in Cauldron, she had thought there was nothing left to take pride in. But being forced to watch on the sidelines reminded her too closely of her earlier years—the time before Alexandria when Rebecca Costa-Brown was nothing more than a dying teenager.

This was no time to be distracted, but the near-death experience had triggered unpleasant memories of her past. She quickly shook herself out of her thoughts and focused on the battle. Even as she rested, her body was coiled like a spring, ready to enter combat at the slightest signs of things going south.

Leviathan lashed his tail at Armsmaster's head with the crack of a whip, only for Chevalier to impose himself in between. He caught the offending tail with the blade's edge that dug shallowly into Leviathan's skin. Despite the immense difference in size, Chevalier held his ground, only skidding back a few feet from absorbing the impact.

Armsmaster waved around Chevalier, halberd in each hand and retaliated with a slash of its own, aiming for the most damaged portion of the tail. Leviathan snapped his appendage back almost in panic and the blade hit nothing but rain. Unhindered by his failure, Armsmaster continued to advance.

As Chevalier swung left, his cannon blade expanding many times in size, Armsmaster flanked right.

When Leviathan raised his arms to block the massive blade from cutting into his torso, Armsmaster plunged his halberd into the Endbringer's leg. The head of his halberd crackled with static. It sank deep into the limb and heavily lacerated his flesh even as he brought up the second shorter halberd to parry the retaliatory strike.

The Endbringer reared back in pain, placing the damaged leg behind the other protectively before leaping away from his assailants.

But from his rear flew Myyrdin. A trail of light flowed behind his staff, and with a flourish, lines made of white formed into a symbol directly in the path of Leviathan's retreat. The second Leviathan came close to the simmering fractured light; the symbol detonated into a shockwave that launched it directly into the course of a fifteen-foot-long blade that clotheslined the Endbringer at his throat and slammed him into the ground.

Even on his back, Leviathan moved with predatory instinct as he flipped back onto his hind legs and lashed out with both talons at both Knights.

While Chevalier absorbed the blow with his blade and armor, Armsmaster had been in motion long before the attack had even begun. He jumped multiple meters over the slice with superhuman strength and landed behind Leviathan's leg.

Armsmaster crouched low, knees touching the ground as a massive limb swung clean past his head. He twisted, spinning with the grace of a ballet dancer and swung his halberd at the same area he had previously stabbed with inhuman precision.

The blow connected.

The crackling energy from the spearhead expunged a large mass of flesh as it entered and exited the Endbringer's body forming a cloud of dust in its wake. The stab and the slice from the halberd had removed nearly a fifth of his flesh around the leg. Leviathan retreated as black blood poured from his wounds.

"You stupid beast," Armsmaster taunted. "There is nothing you can do against me. I studied every fight you've been in and put it through my programs. I've already completed the algorithm of your every move, and my sensors can read every change in the terrain a city block away. I know what you will do even before you do."

Sneering, he crossed his halberds together and thrust them to the side, deflecting the claws that came with a vengeance and pivoted to his right as a stream of water shot past his head.

Armsmaster laughed, "What did I say, you scaled reptile? You can't touch me."

"What are you doing?" Chevalier hissed. "This is no time to be fooling around!"

Without bothering to glance at his ally, Armsmaster answered. "Winning."

The Bearded Knight twirled both his halberds, the ends facing the wary monster. From his long spear fired a grappling hook aimed not at Leviathan but at the empty space at his side. The moment it passed the Endbringer, a miniature propellant fired at its side, changing the hook's trajectory mid-air as it circled Leviathan before tightly wrapping around his legs.

Leviathan slashed at its bindings, but the rope held without a mark to everyone's surprise.

"It's time locked. Do you think I would try to hold you with something you can break out of?" Armsmaster mocked as he fired a second grappling hook from his short spear that crunched into a wall behind Leviathan.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"No Armsmaster, don't!" Chevalier warned to no avail.

Armsmaster shot forward, skidding across the water as the grappling hook pulled him towards Leviathan at astonishing speeds. Several tons of water shot at his side, seeking to flatten his flesh. But Armsmaster spun his halberd with the tip pointing at the incoming wave and flipped a switch. White flame erupted from the spearhead and crashed into the water, turning the attack into vapor as he continued his course unmolested.

"Damn it, Myyrdin support him!" Chevalier shouted as he ran in pursuit of his comrade, albeit far slower.

As soon as Armsmaster was within reach, Leviathan wasted no time slamming down both fists. But it hit nothing but dirt.

With the burst of a rocket, Armsmaster propelled himself into the air and flew over the massive fists. Releasing the shorter halberd, he held his remaining spear in a reverse grip in both hands.

Roaring in fury and exertion, Armsmaster plunged his halberd deep into Leviathan's head and allowed gravity to do its work. As he fell to the ground, the halberd remained embedded within the flesh and cut a long vertical line from head to groin as blood burst out in gallons.

Leviathan tried to escape, but his bindings held firm, and he fell onto his knees. Armsmaster wasted no time cutting down with a downward sweep onto the same leg once more. The nano-thorn cut even deeper as its blade carved more flesh away by the microsecond.

"Victory is mine, abomination. Know the name Armsmaster because it will be the last name you will ever hear." He boasted.

"I don't know Chevalier. He seems to be doing fine," said Myyrdin, his voice colored with awe. "If I interfere, it may disturb whatever he is doing."

"He's using the bloody prediction algorithm he and Dragon built. But the data he used to create that was from before Leviathan started throwing waves by the dozen. The algorithm is based on outdated information and has too high of a chance for failure!"

"Leave him," Alexandria ordered.

"What?" Chevalier asked in surprise.

"With his tech and the rest of our allies, we could have driven off Leviathan with certainty. But that fucking glory hound neglected to mention that he had a weapon that could seriously hurt an Endbringer and we called a retreat, putting this entire city and millions at risk," Alexandria growled in evident anger. "We now have a chance to save this city and while letting Armsmaster fight alone is dangerous, it is a risk we must take. If he wins, good. If he loses, then he got what was coming for him."

"But he's the one who built that weapon! If he dies, then we lose his tech!" Chevalier protested.

Alexandria shook her head. "I've spoken with Dragon. She possesses the schematics of the nano-thorn and can replicate it herself along with his prediction algorithm. If things start to go badly, we will intervene. But until then, watch."

Chevalier began to protest but was silenced when Dragon spoke from his armband. Alexandria could not hear what was said but was satisfied when Chevalier made no move to assist.

In the meanwhile, the battle between man and monster raged. Armsmaster was a whirlwind, slashing and stabbing at every given opportunity. Leviathan had managed to untangle himself from the cord but was in no better position than before. Every one of his attacks was dodged, parried, or even negated while it suffered wound after wound. As blood splashed across the floor, Leviathan began to back away in fear.

"Running, are you? Can't take on someone take can fight back? Someone that can hurt you? Coward!" He spat as he ducked under the tail while simultaneously slicing near its tip. Where the halberd connected, flesh turned to dust as several feet of Leviathan's tail was amputated and sent flying into the ruins.

"You won't escape. I will not allow it. Not until your head is mine to collect!"

As Leviathan turned to run, Armsmaster pointed his halberd at the fleeing beast and the tip expanded into a barrel. With the crack of a gunshot, a grenade was expelled and sailed past Leviathan before detonating into a black hole.

With the birth of a singularity, Leviathan was dragged in even as he tried to resist by stabbing its talons into the ground.

As the rain, air, and even light were sucked in, so was Armsmaster.

Unlike his opponent, he did not attempt to resist and willingly allowed himself to be pulled in. But before he could be ripped to shreds, the black hole ceased to exist.

While the singularity had failed to damage Leviathan, it had held the Endbringer in place. And more important, accelerated Armsmaster into speeds he could not have achieved alone.

"Hah!" He roared as he swung his halberd, mid-flight, at the same leg he had cut half a dozen times before.

Momentum adding to Armsmaster's strength, the nano-thorn almost instantaneously dusted half of the remaining flesh and… came to a stop.

"What?" Armsmaster asked, stunned.

He pulled back with all his strength, but the halberd remained firmly lodged within Leviathan's leg.

"How..." Muttered Armsmaster, almost in a whisper.

Something flashed, and both arms fell to the ground along with the two halves of his halberd. Armsmaster screamed in agony as he dropped to his knees, his blood mixing with the rain and the Endbringer's own. A clawed hand almost gently seized the fallen knight and slowly brought him up a mere meter away from his eyes.

For a moment, Armsmaster stilled. His own eyes met the gaze of the enemy he had believed he could kill. Whatever he saw within those glowing green eyes, he did not like it. Not one bit.

Armsmaster screamed and kicked his feet, desperately trying to break free from the hand that had bound him. But it was a fruitless task.

Leviathan squeezed.

Armsmaster was silenced.

But the Knight of the Halberd was not dead. Leviathan's grip had shattered his ribs and expelled whatever air he had in his lungs. Armsmaster's armor should not have lasted a second, yet the man remained alive despite being in obvious pain. His mouth was open as if to scream, but his lungs were empty. It seemed that the Endbringer had a bit of a vengeful streak and wished to return every torment to the tormentor.

And while Alexandria wished for the same, there were more important things than her satisfaction.

She dropped from the sky, axe kicking Leviathan so that his head smashed against the ground. The moment he was immobilized, Myyrdin captured Armsmaster and stored him away in his pocket dimension before hastily flying away from the reach of a set of talons.

"Take the fool to safety," Alexandria ordered as she soccer-kicked Leviathan into the ruins of the Medhall building.

Myyrdin merely nodded before taking flight.

"Well, that went well…" Chevalier snarked as he took the position below her.

"Yes, it did."

"What?" Chevalier exclaimed in confusion.

"As stupid and arrogant as he was, Armsmaster has done well." She admitted, albeit with hesitance. "Leviathan has never been this hurt before and his movements are becoming sluggish. His injuries must be hurting him. At this rate, we should be able to drive him off before the waves become too much for Eidolon to handle."

"And Armsmaster survived in the end, so I guess it works out," said Chevalier.

Alexandria did not reply.

Chevalier sighed. "Look I know that Armsmaster messed up. He'll be appropriately punished for his idiocy but he's not that bad and things are turning for the better."

"As he should. But enough of that for now, the man will be dealt with once this is over. We still have a battle to win."

In an explosion of dust and bricks, Leviathan burst from the ruins and charged, throwing a full-bodied after-echo at both heroes before moving to the flank. The 30-foot tall after-echoes, each weighing multiple tons crushed through any cars or debris as they made their way. Despite being made of water, their collective mass and momentum would be enough to scatter anyone regardless of durability. Most parahumans, even villains still had to obey some laws of physics.

If the law of physics was a judicial law, Chevalier would have a life sentence.

Chevalier swung his blade, the large lump of metal growing several times its size and several meters in length. The sudden increase in size should have thrown the man off balance, yet the sword remained as light as a feather and moved with the same ease. But right before metal met water, the blade that could have been held in a toddler's finger suddenly weighed as much as a train while moving at the same initial speed.

The blade, moving with enough power to cut through buildings instantly dissipated both after-echoes one after the other upon contact. Holding on to something with that much momentum would have sent anyone flying at the end of the swing regardless of their strength. But fortunately, the blade's weight became that of a feather once more.

Shrinking his weapon to a much more manageable size, the sword became a cannon. Chevalier flicked the tip and fired.

Too clumsy to dodge, Leviathan had his leg was penetrated by the shell. Black blood burst out as his gait was rattled, sending him toppling over and crashing into the ground. But to his credit, he immediately rolled to a stop as his after-echoes generated multiple tons of water with every movement. Water that he fired in a wave at the incoming Superheroine.

While the wave could have killed most parahumans, it was far too pitiful of an attack for someone like Alexandria. Without bothering to dodge, she crashed into the water with such speed that her slipstream changed the direction of the wave. Her fingers plunged into the gapping caverns that had formed on his face due to the courtesy of a certain halberd-wielding knight. With a grunt of strength, she flipped the Endbringer over her hand and smashed it down head-first into the hard pavement.

Leviathan stood upside down, his head planted deep within the concrete as his limbs were sprawled limply in the air. Alexandria stomped down on his exposed chin as it had done to her, rooting him further into the ground. He was not the only one with a vengeful streak.

He's slow.

It was one thing to observe and another to experience firsthand. Attacks that Leviathan could have easily dodged earlier today were now landing with room to spare. The predatory grace was gone and he moved like wounded prey, favoring his one relatively intact leg over the badly mauled one. Despite her misgivings, Alexandria could admit that Armsmaster was competent at his work.

Things were going astonishingly well. Never had beating down an Endbringer been this easy. Yet, her visage was marred by a frown.

Leviathan was a mass of blood and gaping wounds from one end to the other. There was not an inch of him that had not been broken and his body was missing massive chunks of flesh in every nook and cranny. Rather than a nightmare, he resembled a holocaust survivor.

But…

By observation, Leviathan had lost nearly a third of its mass so by logic, he should have also lost a third of his weight. Yet, when she threw him, he weighed almost exactly the same as before.

Now that she thought about it, there were a number of factors that seemed contradictory. But analyzing intelligence was the job of Thinkers and not something she should be doing during a fight. For now, she would make do with beating the living daylights out of Leviathan.

A tail whipped around her neck, trying to grab it like a strangling cord. But instead of her neck, he caught an arm. Latching on top of the tail with her other arm, she heaved, plucking the Endbringer from the soil like a farmer would do to a radish. Twisting in the air, she slammed him into walls of one of the few standing buildings in the vicinity, then down into the ground, and back to another wall, over and over again until Leviathan wisely released his grip over her.

When he tried to stand, her fist greeted him. When he tried to attack, she answered with her fist. When he tried to escape, her fist kept him in place.

Chevalier stood beside her, cutting down any wave that sought to interrupt.

Every blow shattered his flesh, and through him, the ground. The vibrations from the impact could be felt from miles away. Leviathan's blood splattered across her helm and stained her clothes, some even splashing through the exposed openings in her mask and reaching her eyes. The knuckles of her glove have long been worn away and whatever black fabric that remained was dyed even darker as bits of his skin found themselves lodged within.

Alexandria found herself adopting a pattern. The deafening boom generated from each punch rang in the city's remains like the rhythmic beating of war drums. She found the melody oddly satisfying as her stress and frustrations melted away into something she had not felt in many years.

Hope.

Leviathan was dying.

Even as she pummeled the Endbringer several dozen meters underground, shattering every stone foundation in a quarter-mile radius, Leviathan panickily tried to retaliate. But he was too slow and weak. She easily dodged his desperate attempts and whatever blows he managed to land were too soft to turn the tables.

Alexandria lost track of how long she had been hammering away but Leviathan's face was a broken mess and entirely unrecognizable. Every eye was gouged and his face was covered in cracks and empty pits.

Her surroundings were in even greater disrepair. Whatever buildings that had survived the initial fight had now collapsed. Brockton bay was built to weather storms and disasters, but it could not survive the series of continuous Earthquakes that Alexandria had generated. Most of the stone pavement and the road of what was once a populous center of business was more sand than stone and she doubted that there would be anything solid larger than a foot within her vicinity.

Leviathan flapped weakly, getting slower and weaker with every blow that landed until he ceased resisting at all.

The Sinker of Cities… laid still.

"Is… Is he…?" Chevalier began but the words died before they left his lips. Disbelief and excitement colored his voice. He stared at the unmoving body of the creature that had been responsible for the deaths of millions and the fall of nations.

Alexandria did not respond. But while she did not show it, she was certain she felt no different than her once protégé.

But her years of devastation and hopelessness had built more than a healthy amount of skepticism. While she prayed that Leviathan was indeed dead, she could not bring herself to truly believe until he was ripped into pieces that could be stored in Tupper wear containers.

She knocked her hand back for another blow. Taking a deep breath, she clenched her teeth and struck down with all her strength. An impact that could shatter mountains and alter landscapes descended on Leviathan's head…

…and hit nothing but dirt.

"What?!" Alexandria only had time to exclaim before something assaulted the back of her skull, faceplanting the superheroine into the same ground that Leviathan had resided in moments before.

Coughing up mounts of dirt, Alexandria turned to the sky.

Leviathan stood above her.

His body was a sad fractured mess, a miserable sight to behold.

Yet, all Alexandria could feel was fear.

She exploded into action as her liftoff flung every piece of loose dust and stone into the air. Shooting straight into the sky, she threw an uppercut that would send Leviathan fly-.

Huh?

With her back to the dirt, she stared at the sky.

Why am I on the ground?

A fist slammed into her body, far too fast to see and far too strong to block. Leviathan was a hammer to her nail that splintered the wood called Earth.

A colossal blade sliced at Leviathan's head, but with impossible speed and grace, the Endbringer flipped over the steel before slamming his foot down on Alexandria as he fell.

And with his fall, the Earth shattered and the water rose.

From every gap in the crumbling stone, from every crevice in the fallen bricks, a hundred thousand gallons of water exploded into the air and engulfed the ruins in a dome.

For the second time that day, Alexandria was drowning.

Panic and adrenaline cleansed her fatigue and gave her strength. She wasted no time grabbing Chevalier and flew with all her speed to whatever exit there was. As long as she went on a straight path, she should be able to escape this prison.

She briefly spotted something massive from the corner of her eyes before a tail connected against her abdomen. With a sonic boom, Alexandria slammed into the pavement as the ground exploded in a bomb of dust.

Alexandria could have sworn that she had never been hit that hard in her life. Even the hits from Behemoth seemed paltry in comparison. Leviathan had never been capable of hitting anyone hard enough to break the sound barrier but he had done so in the water where it required five times the velocity than in the air.

Even if they were underwater, Leviathan's body was crippled. He should not have been able to move much less generate that kind of force unless…

She shook herself out of her thoughts. This was no time to contemplate. Alexandria cursed as she flew in the other direction away from Leviathan with her fellow hero before she noticed something was off.

The greatest superheroine looked down.

Only an arm remained in her grasp.

Alexandria reeled back in shock and horror. Before she could begin to process what had happened, Leviathan hammered her once again into the ground. The water did little to reduce her speed and she hit the ground in another explosion of dust. She immediately took to the water as if she were shot from a cannon. She had no time to search for Chevalier's body or mourn his death. Every second was precious.

But no matter how fast she flew, Leviathan out-sped her by miles. He moved with both fluidity and power as if his damaged form was but an illusion. No matter where she went, Leviathan was there ahead of her as if teleporting and slapped her to the side as if she was a pinball. When speed did not work, she contested with strength. But to her shock and surprise, she was weaker.

For the Nth time, an explosion of dust dyed the water.

She did not get up.

What was the point?

Alexandria laid on the ground, surrounded by a practical ocean. But it had none of the ocean's beauty—only trash and filth. Leviathan floated above her motionlessly, seemingly content with letting her drown.

An armored corpse; twisted and bent, passed by her eyes. She closed them in sorrow.

Only after giving up did she accept reality.

Rebecca knew that Alexandria would die here.

And with acceptance came understanding, paving the way for realization.

It was all a lie.

Leviathan had played them like fools.

Those movements… That strength… It should not have been possible as broken as he was. At the moment before she was trapped, Leviathan had displayed physical abilities that were far beyond that of his prime.

Then why?

Why did he let me-

A bitter laugh escaped her throat, wasting invaluable oxygen and shortening her life. But Rebecca could not bring herself to care.

He was using me to break the ground's foundation, allowing him to bring water underneath to the surface.

Strangely enough, she found it rather amusing that she was the instrument of her own demise.

Now that she thought about it, it was strange that Armsmaster's halberd remained stuck inside Leviathan's body when it had easily disintegrated everything it touched. She had previously dismissed it as a malfunction, but now she wasn't so sure.

While she was not a tinker, she understood the principles of the weapon that had bled Leviathan. Rather than an actual blade, the nano-thorn was a cloud of nanoparticles that cleaved away at the subatomic bonds of atoms, thus separating matter into individual nanoscopic bits. If the weapon failed to harm Leviathan's inner body, then that would mean the subatomic bonds were too short for even the nanoparticles to cut.

In conclusion, his interior was denser than the exterior.

That would explain why Leviathan lost so little weight despite losing so much of his body. If the interior was that much denser, then it would have far more mass than the exterior, thus retaining most of his weight even when he lost volume.

If she had stopped for a moment to think, she would have quickly realized something was wrong. But even with her experience, it looked like she was still vulnerable to tunnel vision. The possibility of slaying an Endbringer overrode her sense of judgment and now she would die with the rest of Brockton City for the error.

Her approaching death did not bother her as much as she thought it would. Dying was too good for someone like her.

While she acted with the singular purpose of preserving humanity across every dimension, her intentions did not wash away her sins.

But she did not regret what she did, only that she had to do it.

Rebecca Costa-Brown closed her eyes for the last time…

And opened them again at the sound of a whirring engine.

Snapping her head to the side, she was greeted with the sight of Myyrdin riding on top of a Dragon suit.

Fool!

She cursed his idiocy. This was suicide!

Rebec-… No… Alexandria shot to meet her rescuers. While she made peace with her death, she could not allow one of her few remaining friends to die in vain.

But Leviathan disagreed.

At near teleporting speeds, the Warden met the intruders, talons sharp and ready.

However, neither Myyrdin nor Dragon were sheep to be slaughtered.

Dragon unleashed a full salvo of missiles in every direction. A light blue glow colored the water as hypersonic projectiles saturated every inch, making dodging an impossibility.

But Leviathan dodged anyways.

With astonishing agility, the Endbringer twisted and turned around each and every missile, avoiding them often by a hair's breadth. But the missiles bent mid-flight, changing directions and rapidly surrounding their target.

With a deafening boom, they detonated, creating currents so powerful that Alexandria who had been the furthest away was almost knocked off course.

Powering through the explosions, Leviathan continued. He was slowed, but not stopped.

Dragon charged, meeting the Endbringer head-on as she fired a beam of plasma. While her attack cut through the water like a hot knife to butter, it didn't do more than splash across Leviathan's skin like water.

Unfazed, it struck, far faster than the eye could track.

As its talons cut through metal, Dragon exploded into a ball of blue fire so intense that the space around the explosion was emptied. Even Leviathan, despite his home-ground advantage, was forced back.

But it was still not enough. With one intruder down, Leviathan changed his target to the second.

However, while Dragon could not inflict damage, she had bought invaluable time.

Time for Myyrdin to act.

Simultaneously, two massive cracks half the size of Leviathan opened in the water.

One shone in brilliant white that illuminated the murky waters.

The other glowed a sinister black.

Right before claws could dice the Wizard into four, the white symbol detonated into a shockwave that repelled the Endbringer as the black symbol opened a dimensional tear into a vacuum so strong that Leviathan could not escape its pull.

With the Warden momentarily immobilized, Myyrdin and Alexandria drew closer.

As their hands extended towards the other, fingertips touched.

*****

Alexandria gasped, taking in the air as she breathed in deeply and rapidly, awakening to the world outside. It was a shitty world, but it was better than where she was earlier. It was the second time that day she had been so close to death since the Siberian. Hopefully, this would not become a habit.

How long had I been gone?

Myyrdin's pocket dimension could only store humans for five minutes. It was conventionally a short time, but practically an eternity in an Endbringer fight.

She glanced at her surroundings and saw nothing but water other than parts of buildings sticking out of the surface. Leviathan's last attack had flooded the city's outskirts to the point that that it was more sea than land. But more importantly, there was no sign of Leviathan.

Gravel crunched behind her.

"Thanks Myyrdin, you really saved me the-." Alexandria paused, her words dying as she spoke. Myyrdin lay face down with a long deep gash running from his shoulder to the opposite hip on his back. Even from here, she could see that his spine was severed. She did not need to check his pulse to see that he was dead.

"I'm sorry…" A familiar voice spoke to her side. "Leviathan got to him before he could escape. By the time I arrived, he was already dead."

Alexandria felt nothing. Just emptiness.

She stared at the corpse of her friend as memories of Chevalier and Legend played in her mind like a broken recorder. Her breath was still as her body, showing no emotion or movement. Seconds passed into minutes as she remained as she was, kneeling on the remains of a broken building as rain thudded against her exposed skin.

She was invincible, yet the raindrops were painful.

Like the storm that comes after the calm, red-hot anger flooded her heart like a torrent, drowning her thought and reasons in a chaotic sea of emotions.

Rising to her feet, she asked, "Where?"

Eidolon did not need to ask who.

"Don't," he warned.

"Do not stop me."

She shot into the air. If Eidolon refused to help her, fine. She would find that fucker herself.

Part of her knew that it would be a fruitless endeavor. But she could not bring herself to care. She could still remember the time when she had mentored Chevalier. She could recall the day Myyrdin became one of her few friends.

She was no longer sure if Endbringers could feel pain. But even if they couldn't, she would teach them anyways.

A gloved hand grasped her shoulder. As if she had struck something immovable, she halted in the air, frozen.

"Don't." Eidolon warned again.

"We have a job to do."

"The job is over. We have finished evacuations. There is nothing else to do but retreat."

"He's badly wounded. It should not take much more to drive him off."

Eidolon shook his head. "Things have changed so much that we will need to revisit what we thought we knew about Endbringers. Leviathan will destroy the city's reservoirs within the next minute. The next wave will hit in a minute and a half. If you fight him as he is now, you will die. We will die. All of humanity will die. You swore that you would do whatever is necessary to preserve the world… Please Rebecca."

Alexandria was sorely tempted to throw off his hand.

"Legend is alive."

She paused.

"He was taken to Panacea in time to be stabilized."

The greatest superhero and heroine floated in the air, motionless.

"Let's go," she finally whispered after a long pause.

"Yeah let-." Eidolon snapped to the side, throwing up a shield just in time to catch a 30-foot tall humanoid lizard crashing into the barrier like a bird to a window.

Alexandria and Eidolon stared in astonishment as Leviathan stared back, its limbs and body splattered against the translucent wall before slowly sliding down like a turd on a windshield and falling to the earth below. She would have thought that it was an attack if he did not look so pathetic.

Endbringers did not show emotion in the conventional sense. Yet, Alexandria could have sworn he looked as confused as they were.

For a moment, the world was still.

"What the fuck?"

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

Armsmaster: "This is where you die Monster!"

Leviathan: 'Doesn't die'

Armsmaster: "Nani!"

-

Alexandria: "Leviathan is dead!"

Leviathan: "Wakes up"

Alexandria: "Nani!"

--