“Well that was unexpected.” I muttered as I looked up at the now towering form of the Cult Leader. I wasn’t exactly sure how belief powers made him go from summoning minions to powering up to the point he could fist fight me to turning into a giant animated statue, but it certainly put me in a bit of a bind if I didn’t want to start throwing around attacks that would level the town.

But on the other hand, would anything less even do anything?

The Boosted Gear appeared on my arm and I started powering up. And not a second too soon because the Statue pointed one giant hand at me where a ball of light was gathering and every instinct I had screamed at me to move.

There was a flash of light and heat and suddenly I didn’t have to worry about wrecking the town. Not with a giant trench burned through half of it.

‘I recommend you don’t get hit by that.’

‘Thanks Ddraig, I never would have guessed that.’ I snarked mentally. ‘Any ideas on how to beat him?’

‘Do the same thing you did against that dinosaur thing’ Ddraig suggested. ‘Hit him hard until he gives up.’

‘So don’t get hit and hit him hard. You’re a certified master strategist.’ I sighed as I charged up a Dragon Shot. ‘Then again I did ask the dragon, so I guess that’s on me.’

‘I never needed anything else!’ Ddraig said somewhat defensively.

‘Fair enough.’ I replied. ‘This would be a lot easier if I could use Balance Breaker.’

‘Your close. You just need a trigger.’ My partner reassured me, not that it made my situation any better. I just hoped the rest of my Peerage was having a better time than I was.

-o-

Laserdream bit back a curse as she flew back behind one of her brother’s shields as another barrage of rocks launched through the air at her. She quickly responded by shooting an energy blast at the geokinetic but it was stopped when he stomped on the ground and a section of the floor turned into a wall.

“Stay still already!”

Glory Girl dropped on the robed man from above but unfortunately just like the last time she tried getting the drop on him it seemed like he had eyes in the back of his head, the ground sort of shifted around so that the villain was moved out of the way.

Laserdream’s cousin crashed into the floor, missing him entirely, and was quickly pinned as two more slabs of stone rose up out of the ground and smashed together. The villain shouted and made a punching motion which sent the entire block of stone shooting off into the distance and she could only hope Vicky was still okay.

She shot another blast at their opponent, this time followed by Shielder and even Amy adding their own attacks. A tiny voice in the back of Laserdream’s head was gibbering about how weird it was to have Amy joining in on a fight and wondering what her new Cape name was going to be. The rest of her mind was screaming to focus on the fight as the robed cape blocked all three attacks by forming a dome of earth over himself and then punch-ejecting sections off as projectiles.

“This struggle is only a waste of time and energy. You cannot defeat Sanctus, so all this amounts to is a refusal to submit to the inevitable. You will be defeated and you will become agents of my Dai Li where I, Long Fang, will direct you to bring order to this chaotic world!”

“Ya’know it doesn’t surprise me he’s in a cult.” Shielder muttered while Amy made her disagreement a little louder.

“Not going to happen, Slimeball! Rias is going to kick your boss’s ass and tear this whole place to the ground!”

There was a rumbling sound as – much to Laserdream’s relief – an uninjured Glory Girl flew out of the rubble to rejoin them in the air. Though judging from the angry scowl on her face, her cousin didn’t exactly enjoy the experience.

“Is that why you resist? Your belief that the redheaded girl will be victorious? Well then, let me show you just how mistaken you are.”

Long Fang pulled a small remote from a hidden pocket and pressed a button where two things happened.

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The first was a hidden projector turning on and a video beginning to play on a mostly undamaged wall, but the second thing was Long Fang wincing as though someone had just shouted in his ear.

Laserdream glanced at her family members to see if anyone else caught that.

Amy and Shielder didn’t seem to, distracted by the sudden projection but Glory Girl caught her eye and nodded. It looked like they figured out how the villain seemed to know where they were attacking from without looking sometimes. Long Fang had backup somewhere talking to him either through a power or an earpiece. Backup that wasn’t very happy with him and after Laserdream looked at the video she could see why.

A massive Simurgh-esque figure was fighting Rias in what little remained of the town they had come from. Massive beams of light that made Laserdream’s own blasts look like a matchstick next to a bonfire erased entire buildings as it fought her redheaded friend. The issue? At least from a deranged cult’s perspective?

It was losing.

There was no sound on the video, but she had no trouble imagining the ear-splitting boom as Rias smashed into the giant statue thing’s head causing a spider web of cracks to form all over and even over a third of one of the horns to break free. The statue staggered and another bright green energy blast caught it in the knee, ripping the giant’s leg out from under it and causing it to land on a building.

“Rias isn’t holding back, huh?” Vicky noted.

“Impossible! The Saviour form is Sanctus’ trump card, a single parahuman can’t possibly stand up to it!”

Honestly? Laserdream agreed with him. She didn’t think any Cape besides Triumvirate-tier ones could handle Rias once she started to escalate. Back home only Lung really had a chance of taking her one-on-one and he had fought Leviathan to a standstill. But then again, Rias and her group weren’t parahumans, were they?

“The broadcast should have given him enough power to swat an Endbringer like a fly. How could – interrupted? What do you mean the broadcast was interrupted?! You said it would reach Europe before anyone even had a clue what was happening!”

That was as good as confirmation Long Fang was working with someone else running things elsewhere.

There was a crackle of static from the few speakers in the room that hadn’t been broken in the fight and Laserdream was instantly on guard. Was this part of an attack? Some sort of sound based power?

“...Ah, hello? Testing…1…2…3? Is this thing on?” A familiar voice that made Laserdream straighten up said. That was Alex!

“Hi there, just wanted to let you know that we found that fancy broadcasting machine Mr. Emmerich showed us earlier. And, uh, we might have broken it a bit trying to swap out the video feed. Don’t worry we figured it out in the end! We even managed to upload a new one before we broke the whole thing!”

“And don’t worry we’re bringing everything back so you can fix it if you want!”

Laserdream very clearly heard Clover in the distance yelling ‘knock knock’ and the faint sound of an explosion. Going by the sudden wince from Long Fang as he clutched at his ear from the sudden loud noise, Rias’s three missing pawns had just invaded wherever his tech support was and hopefully captured them.

Which meant all they needed to do was beat this guy and head back and help take down their leader.

“Looks like you’re on your own, Big Tooth!” Glory Girl called out as she charged again, on the same page as Laserdream. “Let’s see how well you do without someone watching your back!”

The villain sneered at them and then the area was once again filled with flying rocks and energy beams.

-o-

I frowned as the giant crashed through another building, kicking up a good amount of dust in the process.

“This isn’t working.”

I’d lost track of how many times I’d hit the damned thing, but no matter what I did it still got up no worse for wear.

Unlike the town which was now pretty much a wasteland after all the fighting.

‘You are doing damage but it's simply healing too fast.’ Ddraig noted as we watched the latest impact crater fix itself. Even the horn I had snapped off was almost back to normal by now. ‘But I haven’t seen a twitch of pain yet.’

“Hope you have a point behind that, partner, cause I’m almost tapped out at this point.”

I flapped my wings as another beam of light shot through the space I had just been occupying. Only to run headfirst into a smaller weaker beam that had been shot half a second later. I barely managed to throw up a shield to tank most of the damage, but that was another hit to my magic and stamina. At this rate the statue was going to win just because of attrition.

‘I’ve fought all kinds of things. The only ones that didn’t react to pain were either automatons or constructs. We know this isn’t an automaton so there is probably a core creating the rest of the body somewhere.’

“Ddraig, I’ve hit the damn thing everywhere. If there was a core, don’t you think I would have gotten it by now?”

‘You just didn’t hit deep enough.’

It took me a second to figure out what he meant.

Penetrate – one of Ddraig’s abilities developed over the many years he and Albion spent trying to defeat each other that let him bypass any defense other than the target’s inherent durability. Which meant if I could find and hit the core, it didn’t matter how much stuff was in the way.

The problem was Penetrate wasn’t something I could use multiple times in a row. Not yet anyway.

“I’m only going to have one shot.”

‘Mn, it’s likely either the gem on the head or the chest. Make it count.’

I had thought the same thing. It was a risk assuming the Cult Leader’s powers worked anything like mine, but the gems that would appear on my Balance Breaker both stored and helped emit my power. One of them being the core would make sense.

While I flew around the giant to avoid getting blasted again I mentally went over the fight before deciding to target the gem on the chest. It made more sense for the core to be somewhere central, where the entire construct wouldn’t be rendered helpless if its neck somehow broke off.

Of course I could be completely wrong…let’s not think about that.

“Alright, let’s give it everything we got!”

[Explosion!]

New strength surged through my body as my stored up boosts were released. As tired as I was, I would only have a few moments to land a hit. Good thing it was a big target.

The air screamed as I flew forward, dodging a few more beams and ducking under a giant marble arm that tried to swat me out of the air.

But something that big wasn’t fast enough now that I was going all out. Before the statue could make a second attempt I was in front of the giant blue crystal, fist drawn back and a sphere of green aura in front of me.

[Dragon Shot – Penetrate!]

I punched the sphere and smiled when the resulting beam not only engulfed the gem but tore the whole thing from the rest of the body. The giant gave one final jerk as the power allowing it to move gave out and it collapsed to its knees.

Just in time too, as Ddraig announced a reset and my entire body suddenly felt like it had the strength and integrity of incredibly overcooked pasta.

But I couldn’t stop just yet.

Had to make sure I took the Cult Leader out so he didn’t slip away and start this whole mess up again somewhere else.