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DLC I
The End of the World
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Taylor Hebert watched the world end in the arms of her father. Untouched Chinese takeout cartons sat on a nearby table, forgotten and ignored. The Endbringer sirens wailed in the distance—it had been doing so for the past hour, warning everyone to evacuate to the nearest shelter. But truthfully, it didn't matter.
What was the point?
The television cast a ghostly glow across their living room, flickering as scenes of devastation unfolded. Buildings crumbled into dust sending plumes of debris skyward. Roaring flames, vivid orange and red, licked the sky, casting a hellish light over the ruins of once-bustling cities. Every passing moment, millions upon millions of lives were lost, snuffed out like candles in the wind. And all of it, every devastating sight, broadcasted for the world to see.
No matter the channel, no matter the network, the same story played out: Scion, the golden savior turned harbinger of doom, was obliterating everything.
Taylor had always heard that Dragon was one of, if not, the world's greatest Tinker, but she had never truly grasped what that meant. A world-wide surveillance and tracking system. The ability to access any electronic device, anywhere. It seemed in the short period since the Canadian Tinker was supposedly mind-controlled, Dragon had been forced to reveal just how expansive and potent her abilities were.
Her mind reeled at the enormity of it all.
It wasn’t just the destruction that was overwhelming—it was the fact that it was all being broadcast. The apocalypse, live-streamed to every screen, every device. What once inspired hope in Dragon's technology now turned into a cruel reminder, forcing everyone to witness the world's final moments.
Taylor felt numb. The images on the screen seemed unreal, like scenes from a poorly-made disaster movie. She was watching the world die, yet it felt distant, as though it were happening to someone else, somewhere else.
It was almost laughable, really. There had been no warning... no sign of what was to come. One day the world was fine. Life was normal, peaceful. And then, within a few short hours, everything had crumbled into ruin.
There had been no time to prepare. No time to evacuate, to run and hide.
In barely a day, the most powerful figure in existence had decided to end it all.
Beams of golden light tore through the air, disintegrating anything in their path. She had already watched Australia, Asia, and most of Europe vanish from the map, the destruction only growing as what was once the world's greatest hero went on his rampage.
Her father held her close, his chest pressed against her back, his arms wrapped around her in a desperate embrace. Taylor could feel his heartbeat thudding wildly against her, and the sound was reassuring. As long as she could hear that, she could fool herself into thinking things would be okay. Still, she couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't do anything but stare at the screen.
Taylor's hands were clammy, her body cold and almost numb. Yet, knowing that time was running out, she felt oddly calm despite being paralyzed with fear. Perhaps it was shock, or maybe it was a coping mechanism, but there was a certain sense of serenity in the way she felt. It was almost... peaceful, in a way.
In her heart, she knew there was no escaping what was coming. That was made obvious when the Triumvirate turned against the swathes of Capes that had gathered in a rush to oppose Scion. Taylor didn't know much about the battle, but from the brief, horrific glimpse she caught on TV, it was a massacre. The three heroes had torn through the ranks of Capes, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake.
The reason for the betrayal wasn't clear, but in the end, it didn't matter. Not really. What were a handful of capes, compared to the sheer, overwhelming power that Scion wielded? She just simply mourned that Alexandria—her childhood idol—had fallen to a fate worse than death, her body twisted into a weapon by an unknown controller.
At least, she hoped Alexandria was controlled. Better that than believing her idol willingly betrayed the world.
Her father's grip tightened around her as the screen switched to a newscaster at a desk, the woman’s voice trembling with barely restrained fear.
“…This is it, everyone. I’m getting word from our producers that... that there is no more information coming in. We are going to go off-air. It has been an honor to report the news to you all for the past few hours. God be with us all, and I'm sure we'll all meet again someday. For those who are still with us, please, try to find shelter, and make peace with whatever higher powers you believe in. Goodbye, and may we all find solace in these final mome—”
The feed cut off, replaced by a relentless stream of static, before it switched back to the footage of Scion.
When it all started, a part of her, the part that hadn’t given up hope, told her that maybe this was a bad dream. That maybe, when she woke up, the world would be right side up again. But with every passing moment, as she watched the golden beams of light tear through city after city... as news of the world's greatest heroes being slaughtered was announced, she knew it was only a matter of time.
The only reason they weren't dead yet was because the rest of the world was dying first.
“Taylor,” her father's voice broke the silence, “I love you.”
He was trembling. His voice was hoarse, cracking at the edges, but it was full of emotion. Full of love.
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“I love you too,” she said, her words a whisper, a barely audible murmur.
How many times had she told him that? Since he said that to her?
Not nearly enough.
They didn't speak much anymore. Ever since her mom passed, a wall had formed between them. Her father had tried, he really had. But the grief and guilt he carried had weighed him down. It had weighed both of them down, dragging them further and further apart.
And now...
Now it was too late.
She had so much to say. So much left unsaid. She wanted to tell him how much she truly loved him, how much she appreciated him. How he was her rock, her hero. How, even at his lowest, she looked up to him. Despite everything—the past few years, the fights, the silence and tension—she forgave him.
That he was the best father she could have asked for.
But those words wouldn't come. It was as though there was something blocking them, preventing her from saying what she truly felt.
Her problems at school, with Emma, seemed so inconsequential now. She wished that she had listened more, that she had done more for her dad, and that she hadn't shut him out when he tried to talk to her. She wished that they could have spent more time together. She wished that they could have gone camping, fishing, to the park, anywhere. She wished they could have watched movies together. Wished they could have gone shopping. Or out to a restaurant. That they could have laughed and enjoyed life.
She wished that things were different.
A wave of nausea hit her as the building shook, dust falling from the ceiling. The ground beneath her quaked. Her father's grip tightened, almost painfully, but she didn't mind. It was the only thing she had left. The last bit of warmth.
“Dad,” she murmured, her voice cracking.
“It's going to be okay,” he whispered, his breath hot against her neck.
“Yeah,” she lied. “It's going to be okay.”
It wasn't, but that didn't stop her from pretending.
The world shook and trembled, a violent quake, as though it were a child's toy. The television fell to the ground, the screen shattering into a spider web of cracks. Pictures on the wall came crashing down, frames falling apart, glass breaking.
In the distance, a terrible sound rang out. Like the roaring of a thousand beasts, the screeching of a million screams, it rose above the chaos, drowning out everything.
“Close your eyes,” her father said, his voice soft. “It'll be over soon.”
She did.
The last thing she heard was her father's breathing. The last thing she felt was his arms around her. The last thing she smelled was the familiar scent of him—sweat and cologne. The last thing she saw was darkness.
An idle fantasy crossed her mind: if she had powers, would things have turned out differently? Could she have helped? Maybe she could have saved someone, fought back. At the very least, she could have died trying.
A pointless question, in the end. One that couldn't be answered.
Even with her eyes closed, there was a flash of golden light. And then, there was nothing.
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Nathan Greene watched the world end, controller gripped in one hand and a can of cold beer in the other. The curved, wide-screen monitor of his computer was his window into the apocalypse—one he personally had brought about. His avatar, an amorphous blob of purple goo, flew through the air, making sure to capture the scenes of destruction and ruin below.
The chaos unfolding on the screen was a spectacle. Skyscrapers crumbled like fragile sandcastles, engulfed in flames that roared and crackled. Streets, once bustling with life, now lay silent, littered with debris and shadowed by smoke plumes. The sky, a sickly orange, cast an eerie glow over the destruction, making it look like hell had spilled over onto Earth. Truly, the game developers were magicians; the graphics were so vivid, so lifelike, that it blew away any and all competition.
How the game managed to run smoothly even in old computers baffled him. But, damn, whoever wrote the code behind it must've been a genius.
Nathan took a swig of his beer, smacking his lips at the bitter aftertaste before setting the can on his cluttered desk. He hoped this upcoming video would match the success of his most recent uploads. His initial playthrough of the game had been... well, in the most charitable description, it had been okay. Nothing special, but not a failure. Yet when he started a new save file with the goal of rebuilding civilization from scratch? His viewership skyrocketed.
Of course, the lack of mods to easily destroy the world meant he had to do it the manual way, but given the game was—in his opinion—largely unbalanced, it wasn't terribly difficult.
Find a cache of Tinktertech bombs, use it to devastate a few cities. Gain ridiculous amounts of XP, spec into a Diplomancer build and then convince as many NPCs as he could to join his cause. It was straightforward, exploiting the game’s overpowered mechanics. While not the sole method to trigger an apocalypse—it was crazy how open-ended the game was, after all—it proved one of the the quickest, culminating in him persuading the so-called 'Final Boss' to just destroy the entire world for him.
As a dialogue skipper, he didn't really understand the hows and whys that option was available, but who cared? What mattered was the result—the world had been razed to the ground, leaving behind a wasteland ripe for development.
It was the perfect blank slate.
The last two episodes he'd uploaded was already set to break one million views. Each. The amount of attention his videos were getting was... insane. He'd gone from being an average Joe—one out of a million—to a content creator whose work had gone viral. It was flattering, exciting, and the rush of it all was dizzying.
And he hadn't even truly started his Let's Play properly yet... it was still all in the set-up stage. How far would this new series take him? Nathan couldn't help but wonder.
He leaned back in his chair, a soft smile pulled at his lips. A sense of satisfaction and accomplishment washed over him, and a chuckle escaped his throat.
He was doing it. He was finally going to do it.
Nathan would be able to quit his dead-end job at the mall, and pursue his passion full-time.