Once again, the boy’s voice echoed through the stadium, louder and clearer than the music. “Everyone, please. Get out. Now! We’re in danger. You n—”

The speakers cut off with a thump. Onstage, Rainer Drift waved and smiled, shrugging and shaking her head to show that she had no idea what was happening. She looked around, glaring at the techs and giving reassuring looks to the rest of the audience.

With a whine, Rainer Drift’s mic cut back on. “Hi, sorry about that! I have no idea what just happened. I guess we got hacked? So sorry, so sorry!”

The crowd booed, a few people shouting derogatives at the hackers.

Rainer Drift let it go for a few moments, then laughed and waved her arms. Stepping forward, she raised the mic to her lips. “Let’s get this concert back on track. What do you say?”

A resounding cheer from the audience.

Grinning, Rainer Drift did a little spin. The music fired up again, the backup dancers stepped forward, glitter cannons fired—

And all the lights went dark.

Boos rose from the crowd, but they’d barely escaped the stadium before they were replaced by shrill screams. White shapes bubbled up from the crowd, twisting and reforming into horrible monsters. Bony carapaces covered bodies the size of minivans, twisted and jagged. Claws and bone spurs scraped at the air. Black eyes opened seemingly at random, while the monsters landed on two, four, six legs, all misshapen and awkward.

As soon as they were born, the monsters whirled around and attacked the people around them. Blood flew. The screams grew louder. Panicked, the crowd shoved into one another, fighting their way toward the exit. People vanished, shoved underfoot and trampled. The monsters rampaged, tossing people left and right, biting and clawing indiscriminately.

Rainer Drift screamed and fled backstage, where her bodyguards instantly surrounded her and hurried her out of the stadium.

With a blast of red light, a hero appeared in the crowd. The woman wielded a pair of glowing red energy swords and carved into the nearest monster. Another hero jumped down from the lights overhead, spreading a membrane stretched between his arms and legs to slow his fall, then slamming feet-first into a monster’s crab-shaped head. The monsters fell, toppling into the crowd.

The man with the membrane raised his hands to his mouth. Using some kind of voice amplification skill that made his voice audible from where Levi and the others stood, he shouted, “An Outbreak! Evacuate in an orderly fashion! I’ve already notified the Alpha Hero Association. Heroes will be here soon!”

The ground cracked open beneath several of the monsters, and they fell into pits specifically sized to catch them. A few civilians toppled into the pits, quickly dispatched by the monsters.

Levi winced. “Ouch.”

In the midst of all the chaos, a figure stepped up to center stage. A familiar helmet, edged in red with two small horns, a red cape, a tabard with an alpha embroidered on the chest. The man took the mic.

Sighing, Levi nudged Jackof. “For the record, I told him not to do this.”

“You knew this was going to happen?” Jackof asked, startled.

Levi shook his head. “Nah, I just saw someone acting sketch with a homemade wire in his ear. I figured he was up to no good and told him to make better life decisions. As we can all see, he didn’t.”

“Understatement of the century,” Jackof muttered, folding his arms.

Around them, the crowd panicked. People ran to their cars and drove away, abandoning grills and merch alike. In a matter of moments, they stood almost alone in the parking lot, save a few parents struggling to wrangle their idiot children into their vans.

Fira frowned at Levi. “You hauled off and punched a guy for that? What if he was just a guy with a cheap earbud phone?”

“Then I socked him for dressing like Alpha, and he deserved it for being a simp for a total asshole,” Levi said determinedly.

Jackof looked at Fira. “I don’t know if you’ve figured it out yet, but you shouldn’t judge Levi by the constraints of normal human behavior. He’d do something like stabbing a man in a crowded parking lot without an ounce of hesitation.”

“I barely stabbed you. They were baby stabs. Quit your whining,” Levi said.

Fira blinked. “What? He… what?”

“You threatened to kill me,” Jackof said, giving Levi a look.

“I did, yes, but I knew that rationality would win out, and you’d choose life. Consider it mutually assured destruction.”

“So you would have stabbed me. Sorry, killed me, since you did stab me.”

“Well, yes, but it was my last option. I didn’t think you’d make me do it. You’re a very intelligent man, Jackof. A man who values his own life.” Levi shrugged. “My actions were entirely reasonable.”

Jackof raised his brows. “I’m just asking, but how many options did you come up with between asking nicely and killing me?”

Levi pursed his lips. He extended one finger, then hesitated a long time.

Jackof stared.

At last, Levi nodded. He held up a second finger. “Two. At least two.”

“And how many of those were stabbing me nonlethally?”

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want answered.”

Jackof turned, investigating his back. A red stain spread down the back of his shirt and soaked into his pants. He wrinkled his nose. “Fuck, man. You’re lucky my girlfriend’s a healer, or I’d charge you for the hospital bills.”

“And your girlfriend’s a healer. No harm, no foul,” Levi said.

Jackof shook his head.

“Should—should we go down there? Ethan’s down there,” Fira said, nervous.

Levi eyed the monsters. “I don’t want to go down there. You do you, though.”

Fira stepped forward, then hesitated, eyes turning to the heroes. “Will I get ability-hunted? If I go down there?”

Levi shrugged. “Dunno. Even chance that you’ll get ability-hunted as recruited to the Asshole Heroes’ Ass-ociation.”

“But Ethan—”

“Is probably the hell outta dodge already. You know what he’s good at, and it’s not fighting,” Levi pointed out. “I won’t stop you from running in, but you gotta know you’re basically doing it for your own self-satisfaction.”

Fira hesitated again. She bit her lip, looking down at the chaos. “If I don’t help, aren’t I no better than those heroes?”

He cut his eyes at her, tucking his hands behind his head. “What, you think clumsily getting in everyone’s way as an amateur is the best way to help those people? Besides, your powers aren’t suited to precision kills in the middle of a chaotic field. Set the people on fire, yeah, that’ll make things better.”

Fira took a step back. Her eyes grew cloudy. “I—”

“That’s how you heroes have always been. ‘Oh, I have strength, so I can make it better. Not true! Not true. I mean, look.” Levi pointed down at the stadium floor.

The crowd surged forward, pushing people into the holes one of the heroes had opened in the floor, where they all crushed together, slamming each other down with their own weight. The monsters had all scrambled out and ran rampant through the crowd, the energy-blade hero struggling to cut them down one at a time, while here and there new monsters burst out. Spikes of stone blasted up from the concrete floor, throwing civilians and monsters alike around.

“That stone guy should chill it. He’s causing as much harm as good,” Levi opined.

Fira scowled. She backed away. “But what are we doing? Standing here doing nothing? We’re not helping.”

“No. But neither are we hurting. Which is what you would do, if you suddenly started lobbing fireballs around in that fish barrel,” Levi said.

Her expression darkened, but she said nothing. Her eyes locked on the massacre below, hands curling into fists.

“Welcome,” the Alpha impersonator on the stage boomed.

Levi startled. “Whoa! I’d forgotten about that guy.”

“I was watching him. He was having technical difficulties. It was embarrassing, watching him struggle with the mic. Honestly, any self-respecting villain would have pivoted to their backup plan,” Jackof commentated.

“It’s really sad, what these modern villains have come to,” Levi said sadly.

The mic squealed. The crowd ran, avoiding the monsters, no one paying the man on the stage any attention. He ignored them in turn. “This is the beginning of the end. We, The Apostles of the End, will destroy this city and let loose the true force of the True End.”

“Ending on my end, gonna end my end,” Levi muttered to himself.

“Two out of ten, uninspiring, explains nothing of their rationale or cause, only two sentences. Barely even qualifies as a monologue,” Jackof said, pinching his chin.

Stepping forward, the man continued. “This corrupt city, tainted by gloom and consumerism, is a bastion of self-destruction. We will wipe that clean and replace it with true equality, true democracy. By our hand, by wiping out the filth of the current hero society and returning to the proper way, where Players are servants, who earnestly serve the people by destroying monsters, rather than so-called ‘heroes,’ who bask in their self-righteousness and self-aggrandizement from their ivory towers, enforcing unjust laws for an unjust king—a king!—then we can return to rationality! To a world that faces the future, rather than a world where we turn a blind eye to our so-called heroes delivering innocent children who have barely Awakened their skills to their king so he can slaughter them for pleasure and power!

“We control the Outbreak. We can bring monsters anywhere. Fear us, heroes! And fight, citizens! Battle for your freedom!”

“Four points. We’re getting somewhere,” Jackof said.

Levi nodded. “I’m intrigued. They’re almost certainly going to take a sharp left turn and sabotage themselves somehow, but right now, I’m kind of down. I mean, fuck Alpha, amirite? I think we can all get behind that.”

“That man is killing innocents,” Fira stressed, staring at him.

“I’m going to kill him,” Levi agreed.

She blinked. “What?”

He turned. A vein throbbed in his forehead, but a smile spread across his face. “If I don’t laugh, I’ll scream. You understand, don’t you? It’s easier to smile and laugh than scream and cry. But don’t get me wrong. I’m going to kill him if the heroes don’t.

“I know I’m just standing here, joking around, being useless, but trust me.” He lifted his hands. They trembled, curling into fists as if of their own volition. He clenched them tight, so tight the knuckles went white, then released them, opening his palms to the sky, nothing in his grasp. “At this point, the milk has been spilled. Even if I went down there and tried to help, I’d be a drop in the bucket, if not a hindrance. Better to watch quietly from up here and learn.

“Big picture, Fira, big picture. I need to figure out what his group’s goal is, so I can find them and destroy them for pulling this bullshit.”

Fira stared down at the stadium. “But right now, people are dying. Can you really ignore that?”

“No. Absolutely not. But neither is it useful for me to run in.” He pointed at her, then at himself. “You’re a broadside strike. I’m a scalpel. We’re both useless in this scenario, but in the right situation, we’re overwhelmingly powerful. Remember, Fira, skills are tools. It’s how you use the tool that matters.”

“Right. I guess you are a villain…” She paused, then furrowed her brows. “But you’re going to kill the villains? Huh?”

Jackof glanced at Fira. Leaning in, he whispered, “Levi isn’t really popular with either side. There’s a reason he had to vanish for the last decade or so.”

Lifting his head, he gave Levi a thumbs up. “Six points, could use some polish, but overall, it’s a passable monologue.”

Levi clicked his tongue. “Your standards are too high.”

The man threw his head back, raising his hands to the sky. “Let me remind you of your own strength. Remove your collars! Destroy your kings! We the people shall rise once more!”

A gunshot rang out. The man’s head snapped back. He staggered back a step, then went slack, toppling like a puppet with its strings cut. Blood pooled around his head.

Flying in, heroes of all colors and stripes descended upon the stadium. A woman in a lavender-and-violet leotard threw out her hands, long purple hair waving on the breeze. Purple light wrapped around the civilians and raised them into the air, pulling them out of the holes the other hero had cut in the ground and separating them so they all had enough room to breathe. Another, dressed in leather fringed chaps, a ten-gallon hat, and a leather vest with a gold star on the breast, pointed his finger like a gun and pulled the trigger. Another gunshot sounded out, and one of the monsters’ heads kicked back as it fell. Yet another, this one wearing a borderline fur suit, dropped onto a monster and ripped into it with bare hands, splattering blood and gore until the monster stopped moving.

Levi twisted his lips. “And there we go. Just as I thought, the heroes save the day, and we didn’t have to do a thing.”

“Gotta give him one thing: Alpha’s heroes are efficient,” Jackof muttered.

Fira looked around. “Wait. He said that they control the Outbreak.”

“Yeah? Some people can open portals to the monsters’ dimension,” Levi said, shrugging.

Fira shook her head. She pointed at the sky around the stadium, the ground, the walls. “No portals, no signs of a spatial distortion. If there was an Outbreak, there’d at least be cracks in space, and the world would be all pale and thin around them—you know what it looks like. This isn’t a true Outbreak. So, where did those monsters come from?”

“Why don’t we ask the ones responsible? Those Apostles of the End,” Levi murmured. Without another word, he turned and walked off.