Gloryhound(Worm/Jujutsu Kaisen SI) Interlude: Aftermath

Taylor knew, objectively, that she should be happy.

Everyone was alive.

That was supposed to mean something. Hell, it should’ve meant everything. She’d lost count of how many times she’d heard her communicator crackle with Dragon’s monotone voice, declaring Woebegone down, or Manpower, Deceased, only for her voice to come back seconds later, retracting her statement, the Cape mentioned alive again thanks to Mahito’s flesh-rings doing their work. It was insane, unnatural… but it worked. Everyone survived.

She’d joined the Search and Recovery teams for that exact reason, not because she didn’t trust Mahito, but because nobody sane wanted to depend entirely on one person in a fight like this. Especially not against Leviathan. If Mahito got hit, if he lost focus, if his power cut out even for a second, then all those miraculous recoveries could’ve turned into a mass grave site. So Taylor had thrown herself into the field, scouring the wreckage, helping drag people out while Mahito did his miracle-healing thing.

And, honestly, she wasn’t ungrateful. She’d benefited from his power, too.

She could still remember it — the tidal wave slamming through the streets like a freight train made of saltwater and debris. It had swept her and three other rescuers into the front of a fancy Boardwalk hotel she’d never dared to step into before. The impact had hurt — her shoulder had felt like it’d been crushed, her lungs burning as if she were drowning even though she’d made it to air. She’d been sure she’d broken something. Then… the pain had just stopped.

One blink, and it was gone. Her shoulder was fine, her breathing was steady, and her body buzzing with this weird, electric strength that wasn’t entirely hers.

And despite the constant healing, her role in Search and Rescue wasn’t useless, either. When people got healed, they didn’t always get free. Some were trapped under collapsed concrete. Some had fallen into the gaping cracks Leviathan’s movements had carved through the city. A few had even been ripped in half — literally — their torsos dragging themselves through the mud while their legs grew back. For those few seconds, they were helpless, and that’s where Taylor came in. She and her group had pulled them out, covered them, dragged them to safety.

She should’ve been proud of her involvement, and grateful that the plan had worked. Everyone had survived, from the strongest Brute to the squishest Thinker. All the heroes, the good people who had protected the city, were alive. It was, by every account she’d heard, the best result of an Endbringer attack in history.

But…

Her city was gone.

Brockton Bay, the decaying, half-rotten, half-familiar mess she’d grown up in, was barely standing. And now, it was literally crumbling into the sea.

The Docks, her home turf, the place where she’d first started being Skitter, were obliterated. Not merely damaged or flooded like the other places, but it was virtually gone, reduced to little more than rubble. She’d be surprised if her house was still standing, considering how close they were to the Docks. Meanwhile, the nice parts of town — the Boardwalk, the tourist traps, the shiny façades where the rich went to pretend the rest of the city didn’t exist — they were still standing. Cracked and soggy, sure, but fixable.

Even the Endbringers weren’t impartial, apparently.

It’d take years to rebuild the city, to scrape together the funding, manpower and stability that was needed to help bring it back to it’s former glory. And that was assuming anyone even tried. The gangs were mostly dead — Fester’s bugs had seen to that — but all that meant was that new gangs, who might be worse than the ones she’d grown up with, would now see Brockton as an open playground. As much as her parents tried to shield her from the city’s darker history, she knew about the old groups, like the Marche and Teeth, who used to paint the streets red with blood. The Teeth were still alive, too, so it wasn’t unlikely that they would return. 

And if the government decided Brockton Bay wasn’t worth the trouble? If they condemned it, wrote it off as uninhabitable like they had with other ruined cities in the past, then this place, her home, would just… end.

Her swarm moved even as she sat still, her power acting on instinct. Midges, gnats, and tiny little flies drifted lazily in a twenty-foot halo around her, almost invisible sentries watching every direction. When one of them noticed movement at the edge of her awareness, she tensed automatically, only to relax as the prescence got closer.

It was familiar shape, with a distinct gait. He was one o fthe only three people at the fight who’d worn full on robes, and his were long enough the edges swished agasint the ground in a way that pancea’s and Myrridin’s didn’t.

“Hey,” said Mahito, voice light, almost teasing, as he came into view. His usual grin tugged faintly at the corners of his mouth. “What’s with the long face? We won, ya know?”

“How would you even know whta my face looks like?” she shot back. “You’re the one with the long face.”

He looked… different. Not bad. Not hurt. Just tired.

Not physically, at least; there were no bags under his eyes, no bruises, no limp(could he even get those, since he oculd heal himself?). It was deeper than that. It was the way his shoulders slumped, the way his steps dragged just slightly, like each one cost him a thought. The air around him felt heavy, like exhaustion was bleeding off him in waves.

It was strange, seeing him like that, the guy who could casually patch people back together like a puzzle, who never seemed to take anything seriously, looking so… human. 

Mahito sank down beside her on the cracked concrete steps of the hospital. The building loomed behind them; it was one of the structures still standing tall, though its front was spiderwebbed with fractures and scorch marks. The air here smelled like wet asphalt, salt, and antiseptic.

This was where everyone had gathered after the fight — heroes, medics, and PRT personnel, all of them packed together,  survivors of the living storm that had chewed through half the city. The hospital was acting as both triage and checkpoint. People were being examined again, not because they were dying — no, Mahito had seen to that — but because the PRT wanted to triple check that everyone was fine, so no one could say a bad word about Mahito after this. It was weird, hearing people sound so excited over the results of a disaster. Apparently, they were hoping that the success of this fight would get more and more people to sign up, people who normally would’ve been to scared to join in the fight.

It was also where everyone was returning the little pieces of him. The “flesh rings,” as people were calling them, the bits of Mahito that had kept them alive when Leviathan tore through the city.

Taylor had seen one of the Travelers — Trickster, she thought his name was — try to keep his, slipping it into his pocket and trying to walk out the door with it. 

That hadn’t gone over well. 

Narwhal had personally dragged him back by the collar and made him hand it over. No one tried that again after seeing her glare.

Taylor glanced sideways as Mahito sat, elbows resting on his knees, gaze distant as he looked out to the ruined landscape in front of them

“I’m glad everyone’s safe,” she said after a long moment. “I really am. And that we all made it out. But the city…”

“Yeah,” Mahito murmured, rubbing the back of his neck. “It got a little banged up.”

That was one way to put it. Half the goddamn coastline was gone.

He turned his head, offering a small, crooked grin. “It’ll take a lot of work to fix Brockton Bay,” he said, “but we’re lucky.”

She frowned. “We are?”

“Hell yeah,” he said, and for a second she caught a flicker of his usual energy. “This is the first Endbringer fight ever with zero casualties. Do you know how huge that is? Brockton’s where it happened — where we went up against Leviathan and actually tore chunks off him. Not enough to stop him, true, but enough to make him bleed and fuck him up, give him the same treatment that he gave us. That’s history right there.”

He leaned back, eyes half-lidded. “It wasn’t a win, not really. He still fucked up the city, and he got away in the. But it’s the first time we didn’t outright lose. Not a single cape, at least. And the city’s still standing. Consideirng the speech Legend gave at the beginning, about Brockton being a soft target, we’re super fucking lucky.”

He hesitated, glancing down the road where distant shouts echoed — rescue crews, actual professionals who were licensed to find people and get them to safety, had working, heavy equipment rumbling as they moved aside the debris. “The civilians, though…”

Her stomach twisted.

Dad…

“They’re still finding people,” Mahito said, quieter now. “Some shelters got flooded. A few…collapsed completely. Others are sealed tight, and the people inside can’t get out yet. We’ve got dig teams working around the clock. Some folks didn’t even make it to the shelters — they were out on the streets when the sirens went off, or stuck at home. And now the city’s half rubble. It’s gonna take days just to pull everyone out, and weeks to get power and food distribution working again.”

He sighed, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “The next few weeks are gonna be brutal.”

Taylor stared down at her boots, picking at the edge of her glove. “…Oh. Uh, sorry.”

Mahito gave her a questioning look.

“I just—” She rubbed at her arm, uncomfortable. “I didn’t think about it before. For healers… this must be hell. Doctors and surgeons, they take hours on one patient, but people expect you — and Panacea — they expect you guys to fix everyone right now. You’ll have lines out the door,with people screaming and begging. And when things like infections and food poisoning start up…”

She trailed off, her voice small. “…You’re not gonna get to rest, are you?”

Mahito didn’t answer right away. He just let out this short, tired laugh — the kind that wasn’t really funny, just… empty — and tilted his head back to stare at the sky. The clouds were still hanging low and heavy, colored that ugly gray-purple that comes after a storm. The air smelled like salt and blood, like the ocean had tried to eat the city and almost succeeded.

“Nah,” he said after a second, rubbing his neck. “Not for a while. But it’s fine, you know? This is the shit I signed up for. I mean, it’s what I said I was — the fastest healer on Earth. It’s my whole brand. Panacea’s probably better at all the detailed stuff, but if you’ve got a hole in your chest and you need it gone now, I’m the guy. And there’s probably gonna be a lot of injuries like that coming in soon.”

Taylor just listened, watching him talk. He looked exhausted, but in that calm, resigned way.

“Plus,” he went on, “I get paid stupid amounts of money for this. Like, more than I’ll ever need. So I guess that’s a nice trade-off. And I’ve got some people I can call — rich pricks who owe me favors, a few heroes I’ve patched up — I’ll get them to help with security and funding while we rebuild. Keep things from getting worse and maybe see if we can make things better than what they were.”

Then he turned his mismatched eyes toward her, and even though his tone stayed casual, there was something serious behind it.

“You know,” he said, “we could really use you out there.”

Taylor blinked. “Wait, me? Why? I’m just the bug girl.”

He grinned faintly. “Yeah, and that’s exactly why. Brockton’s gonna be crawling with vermin soon — rats, roaches, flies, termites, maggots, all the nasty little critters that want to spread diseases and generally make people’s lives harder. You could literally keep the city from rotting. Keep the bugs out of shelters, keep them off of wounds, and help maintain order. It’s not gonna be flashy work like the shit Armsmaster gets up to, but it’s necessary.”

He hesitated, then added, “Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but the PRT’s gonna put out a call soon. They wanna hire local independents and maybe some heroes from nearby cities to help us manage this. Protectorate’ll pitch in too, but they’re stretched thin; every hero we call over here will put a chink in theirown cities defenses. If people like you sign on, it’ll make a big difference.”

Taylor didn’t respond right away. She just stared down at her hands, thinking.

This… this was everything she’d wanted, wasn’t it? To be useful. To be more than the creepy bug girl who attacks people in the dark. This could be her chance — a real one — to do something that mattered on a massive scale. To be part of something bigger, with people who didn’t look at her like she was some freak crawling out of the cracks.

She wasn’t stupid. She knew not every hero was some perfect, shining example of goodness. Some were probably jerks. Some were undoubtedly selfish. But still… there had to be some good ones. 

Enough to make it worth trying.

“I’ll think about it,” she said finally. “But I’ve got stuff I need to do first. I need to go home, find my dad, make sure he’s okay. Check on the dockworkers I’ve been helping — the ones I kept safe from Squealer and Skidmark. I’ll help, but my people come first.”

Mahito shrugged. “Fair enough. Contact me on PHO when you can, or just call the PRT and tell them I sent you. I’ll make sure they know to expect you.”

“Thanks, Mahito,” she said quietly.

She stood, brushing the dirt and grime off her legs, and looked out toward what was left of Brockton Bay. The city was wrecked — drowned and broken — but somehow, standing there, she didn’t just see ruins.

She saw potential.

Hope.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough to light something small and stubborn inside her chest.

Brockton Bay would rise again.

And she’d make damn sure she was a part of it.

______________________________________________

Fester was bleeding.

It wasn’t much, just a thin red line across his brow, but Crystal couldn’t stop staring at it. It looked fresh, like something he’d picked up right after the fight ended. Which was weird, because as far as she knew, no one who’d worn one of Mahito’s flesh rings got hurt. So… had Fester even gotten one?

Probably not, now that she’d thought about it. 

He’d been one of the first out there, right in the thick of it, throwing himself at Leviathan with nothing but his monsters and Oni Lee backing him up. The guy probably didn’t even know about the rings.

And somehow, he’d survived.

That was the crazy part. This newcomer,  someone who’d barely been around three months, had managed to last minutes alone against something that could turn entire buildings into rubble and people into paste. And the worst he walked away with was wet clothes and a paper-cut on his eyebrow.

“You’re staring,” Fester said flatly, voice muffled slightly behind his mask. His eyes — cold, dark blue, and far too sharp — flicked toward her.

“Sorry,” Crystal muttered quickly, glancing away.

The two of them stood outside the hospital, guarding the entrance while the Wards patrolled nearby. With the truce still technically in effect and most of the Protectorate members heading back to their own cities, Brockton Bay suddenly felt… empty. Half the capes that had helped fight Leviathan were already on flights or had been teleported home, and the PRT was scrambling to plug holes in their defenses. They needed bodies, anyone who could fight or stand watch for more than ten minutes without collapsing.

So when Fester — Yuta, Crystal corrected herself automatically — offered his help, they could hardly turn him away. It wasn’t like the Protectorate had a surplus of muscle to throw around right now.

It also didn’t hurt that, technically speaking, Fester hadn’t harmed any heroes. Beyond repair, at least. Armsmaster argued that point so aggressively that he practically vibrated every time someone brought it up, insisting that “hitting me hard enough to collapse a vehicle absolutely counts as a murder attempt, it doesn't matter if he knew I could be healed or not.”

But the fact was: no hero had died by Fester’s hands.

Villains, sure. Lots of villains. But heroes? Not one.

And in a moment like this — with Brockton Bay shattered and Leviathan gone — that was enough for the PRT to put aside their principles, pinch their noses, and hesitantly decide that, yes, Fester was trustworthy enough to help defend the hospital.

Even if Crystal could practically hear Armsmaster grinding his teeth from three blocks away.

The Protectorate was still out in the city, pulling survivors from wreckage and ferrying them to safety. Inside, Mahito was working non-stop, healing anyone they could drag through the doors.

Amy wasn’t here; she’d been sent to another hospital. Which, in Crystal’s opinion, was idiotic. You had the two best healers on the planet, and instead of putting them together so they could tag-team the disaster zone, the higher-ups split them apart. Supposedly, it was for safety. “Putting both of them in the same building would paint a target,” Director Piggot said. “It’s too risky.”

Yeah, sure. Like there were any villains left in Brockton Bay.

Anyone stupid enough to show their face now would get eaten alive — literally — by the bug maniac who’d decided capes were his favorite snack food.

“You’re staring again,” Fester said suddenly, tone edged with irritation. “Do you have a problem or something?”

Crystal blinked, flustered. “No! No problem, it’s just—” She gestured vaguely toward his face. “You’re bleeding. On your brow. It’s small, but… it’s actually dripping a little. I’m just surprised you didn’t notice.”

“Huh?” He lifted a gloved hand, wiped at the spot, then stared at the smear of red on his fingers. “...Huh. Thanks.”

“Sure,” she said, shrugging awkwardly.

For a few minutes, neither of them said anything. The only sounds were distant sirens and the occasional rumble of construction vehicles clearing debris. The air between them felt… heavy. Not tense, exactly,  just weighed down by exhaustion and the kind of silence that followed too much death and noise.

And then, without meaning to, she asked:

“Why do you kill?”

The words slipped out before she even realized she’d said them.

Fester froze. Slowly, he turned his head toward her. She couldn’t see his full expression — the black-and-gold oni mask covered the lower half of his face — but his eyes… they gave her enough. They didn’t flare in anger or widen in surprise. They just… watched her, unreadable, calculating.

That mask hid more than his face, but in her case, it didn’t matter.

Crystal swallowed hard. 

She knew who he was. All of New Wave did. 

“Why do you care?” Fester asked, voice low and almost bored, though his eyes flicked toward her with something sharper underneath.

“It’s just…” Crystal exhaled, rubbing her hands together. “I can’t understand it. Actually—no, I can. I can understand wanting to kill someone in the moment. Lung, Bakuda, the Empire… yeah. I get that. After all the shit they’ve done to the city? After what they’ve done to people? I get wanting them gone.”

Her throat felt tight, and a little voice in her head kept telling her to stop speaking. 

The words tumbled out anyway.

“But I just can’t understand—can’t make myself understand—luring people into a trap, knowing you’re going to kill them, listening to them scream and beg and… and still doing it anyway.”

Her stomach twisted. God, what was she doing? Asking a serial killer for his philosophy like this she was his therapist? She should be grateful he didn’t turn and just slit her throat just for asking. Why the hell did she think he would give her some kind of reasonable, tidy answer? What was she expecting — a speech about trauma? Justice? Revenge?

He’d doomed dozens of people to a gruesome death — and here she was, asking the guy responsible to explain himself like he was in class, and she was a teacher expecting an answer to the question on the board.

Then Fester spoke.

“Do you,” he said slowly, “remember Saturday morning cartoons?”

Crystal blinked. Of all the answers…

“You mean like… Protectorate Pals? Or the Adventures of Mouse Protector?”

“...Sure,” he said, after a heartbeat. “Let’s go with that.”

He shifted his weight slightly, posture still rigid, still…predatory in a way that made her shiver.

“Now, do you remember how sometimes those cartoons had a villain that kept coming back? And every time they came back, they’d do worse stuff? First they rob a bank. Then they blow up a building. Then they’d take hostages. And the hero keeps catching them, but nothing changes. They go to jail, they escape, and they do something even worse next time.”

“Well, yeah, but that’s a cartoon. Real life isn’t like that. We have courts. Sentences. Systems—”

“Lung and Oni Lee were in charge of a gang that trafficked young girls,” Fester cut in, voice sharpening like broken glass. “Those two have killed hundreds — directly or indirectly — through gang wars, drugs, extortion, prostitution.

“The Empire requires recruits to kill or cripple a minority to get in. Hookwolf burned down mosques with people still inside. Crusader hunted queer people for sport. Night and Fog killed civilians when they were bored. Skidmark and Squealer? They weren’t big names, but Squealer’s killed dozens when she’s high and joyriding in those trash-heap monster trucks she builds. Uber and Leet beat up sex workers on livestream for views.”

Crystal froze. His tone wasn’t angry. It was cold and clinical, like he was reciting facts from a textbook he knew by heart.

Fester continued, eyes burning with something that wasn’t fury, but wasn’t calm either.

“I… hate villains,” he said simply. “I hate people who have power and use it to hurt others for fun. I hate people who get the chance to be something great and choose instead to be monsters. I hate people who are given the ability to change the world in some way and use it to make things worse.”

He shifted his gaze to the ruined city beyond the hospital, jaw tightening behind the oni mask.

“I don’t mind people who are greedy. Or ambitious. Or hungry for power. Hell, I respect that. Life is short; why shouldn’t people try to chase their dreams? Why shouldn’t someone who can be king try to be king? But you have to do more good than harm. You make sure the scales tilt the right way. You make sure your gifts outweigh your sins.

“Villains don’t care about that. Villains will drown the world in their sins if you give them even half a chance.”

He turned back to her.

“And if heroes won’t put them down,” he said quietly, “then I will.”

“And what gives you the right to take their lives?” Crystal asked. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it carried a tremor — not fear, exactly, but something close to anger. “Why do you get to be their judge, jury, and executioner? Why is you using your power to kill them any different than them using their powers to get what they want? You kill and maim just the same. You decide who lives. You decide who dies. You put your wants and desires above everyone else. So why shouldn’t we take you down with them?”

Fester didn’t flinch. His mask hid most of his expression, but the intensity behind his eyes didn’t waver.

“Why was Lung allowed to decide that a woman’s place was on her knees, working for him?” he asked, voice low but razor-sharp. “Why was Kaiser allowed to decide killing a man for his skin color, for who he loved, for what he prayed to was justice? Why was the Butcher allowed to build a roving band of monsters who leave death and destruction everywhere they go?”

His hands curled into fists.

“It’s because of power. They had power and wielded it however they wanted. I have power,” he said plainly, “and I will wield mine how I want.”

Crystal swallowed. “Then if power is all that matters to you… why do you even care what heroes think? Why didn’t you just kill New Wave after you killed Purity? Why show us your face?”

That was the real question. The one that had been eating at her since that day.

Why reveal his identity?

Why give up his name freely?

Why hand them something capes started wars over?

There were only two reasons for a cape to unmask voluntarily:

One: they believed they were too strong to be stopped.

Two: they didn’t care if they lived long enough to go home.

Both were terrifying in completely different ways.

Villains with nothing to lose — villains who were cornered — those were the nightmares the Protectorate whispered about behind closed doors. Jack Slash and the Slaughterhouse Nine never wore masks. They liked having nowhere to go. They liked the world knowing exactly who they were.

Fester breathed out slowly, his chest rising and falling under the oni mask.

“...I think it’s selfish of heroes,” he said finally, “to let certain villains live.”

Crystal blinked. That wasn’t the answer she expected.

“If a monster is hurting people, a hero’s duty is to kill it,” Fester continued, staring straight into her eyes, unblinking. “How many times do you think someone has watched Lung or Hookwolf get thrown behind bars and just… prayed this would finally be it? That today was the day justice stuck? Only for that hope to die the next time they broke out again.”

His voice didn’t rise or crack, but something hard lived beneath the words.

“I think heroes who don’t kill are the most selfish kind of heroes in the world,” he said softly.

Crystal’s breath hitched.

“But I love them for it.”

She stared at him. “What?”

“They keep an ideal alive,” Fester said. “The ideal that killing doesn’t have to be the first answer. Or the only answer. They keep that hope alive, for civilians… and for villains too.”

His voice dipped lower, almost thoughtful.

“I know not every villain is evil. Some people break because life pushes them too far. Some people fell because they had no way out. Those people deserve a chance to find their footing again. Deserve second, third, even fourth chances.”

His hands relaxed.

“But murderers and slavers? Butchers, rapists, people who build empires on suffering? People who choose cruelty? They don’t deserve forgiveness. They don’t deserve hope.”

He turned his gaze once more toward the ruined city, toward the cracked skyline and shattered windows.

“I don’t want heroes to have to stain themselves with blood if they don’t have to,” he said quietly. “So I decided I’d step in. I’d be the villain who hunts villains. I’d be the monster that monsters fear.”

He looked back at her, eyes burning.

“I’ll let heroes try first. I always do. But if I decide someone needs to die, I won’t hesitate to do what’s necessary.”

“And what’ll happen when there’s no more villains to kill?” Crystal asked, arms folded tight across her chest. “You gonna start going down the chain? Start killing drug dealers and carjackers next?”

“First off,” Fester said dryly, “you’re talking like heroes aren’t outnumbered five to one when it comes to villains. And second—if there comes a day when there aren’t any villains who actually need killing, then I’ll just go. There won’t be a place for me anymore.”

“And the fact that we know your name and face doesn’t bother you in the least?” Crystal shot back.

“I admire New Wave” he admitted. “I think you had a good idea; holding yourselves accountable, making sure heroes didn’t get to hide behind masks and do whatever they wanted. Though…” His head tilted slightly, that black-and-gold oni mask turning just enough for her to see one gold eye catch the light. “…I always wondered if it was right. What they did to you, the younger generations of New Wave.”

“What are you talking about? Everyone in New Wave supports its ideals wholeheartedly.”

“But did you ever get the chance to try and see if you wanted a mask?” Fester asked, voice quiet, almost gentle in a way. “You never got the choice. From the moment you were born, everyone knew exactly what you were going to be. Announcing themselves so early, when they knew they wanted children, that seemed… unwise. It also stifled New Wave’s growth. They could never hit back too hard at any villain. Any retaliation wouldn’t land on them. It’d land on you.”

…Crystal wouldn’t lie. That hit deeper than she wanted it to.

Because she had wondered. God, she’d wondered a lot.

What life would’ve been like if she hadn’t been born famous. If she’d had a normal childhood and then discovered her powers later, when she could actually choose what to do about it. If her family’s name hadn’t been a cage with glass walls; everyone could see her, talk about her, judge her, but she couldn’t actually leave.

Sleepovers had to be vetted. School friends had to be vetted. Every crush she’d had either treated her like a celebrity or like a walking hazard sign. And college? Forget leaving Brockton. New Wave “might need backup.” New Wave “needed a strong presence in the city.” New Wave “was counting on her.”

She’d asked herself more than once whether the whole thing had been worth it. Whether her parents should’ve just worn masks like everyone else.

But she’d never know. This was the only life she’d been allowed.

“Bit late for that kind of sentiment, don’t you think?” she said, bitterness bleeding through despite herself. “Besides, I got powers out of the whole thing. Most people don’t get anything for their misery. At least I got a consolation prize.”

The look Fester gave her was startlingly full of pity.

Soft, understanding pity.

“I think we both know what you had to go through to get that prize,” he said quietly. “Second gen or not.”

And for a solid minute, neither of them said anything. They just stood there on the roof, like two awkward sentries outside a half-collapsed hospital while more civilians poured through the doors. The Wards were doing their best to keep things calm — handing out blankets, guiding people to the triage stations, trying not to look overwhelmed themselves.

It wasn’t peaceful, exactly, but it was…quiet enough.

“You’re like…surprisingly easy to talk to,” Crystal said finally, her voice almost casual. “Y’know. For a mass murderer.”

“Thank…you?” Fester said, uncertainty dripping from every syllable.

She rolled one shoulder. “How long do you plan on helping us for?”

He shrugged, like she’d asked him how long he planned on standing in line at a grocery store. “For as long as you’ll deign to keep the truce, I suppose. Besides, this lets you keep an eye on me. And I don’t terribly mind not killing people. Kuroroushi will be upset that he won’t get to eat anyone, but he’ll be useful if we need to discourage anyone from doing something stupid.”

Crystal snorted before she could stop herself, and Fester turned toward her like she’d just made a weird bird noise.

“What?” he asked.

“Sorry,” she said quickly, rubbing her face. “It’s just… it’s so fucking weird realizing you’ve named your carnivorous roach monster. And that you’re talking about it like it’s some cranky dog you have to walk twice a day so it doesn’t tear up the furniture.”

“What? How is that weird?” he demanded, genuinely confused.

“How many Masters do you think name their projections? You think Crusader had cutesy names for his ghost clones?”

“That’s an unfair comparison. Those were literally just clones of himself,” Fester argued. “Agito, Rainbow Dragon—they all have different shapes, different behaviors—”

“Oh my god,” Crystal said, staring at him. “You named all of them, didn’t you.”

“Of course I did!” he said, like she was the ridiculous one here. “Why wouldn’t you name them? What am I supposed to say when I want them to do something? Go, giant cockroach demon! Attack, creepy ghost lady! The actual fuck did you want me to do?”

“How about not being a fucking nerd and acting like they’re goddamn pokemon?” she said, bursting into a full out laugh.

Crystal came to a starting realization the next day, when she finally went home.

It was…fun, talking to Fester. The most fun she’d had in quite a while. 

Which was actually a bit concerning when she thought about it.

But...she defintely wouldnt mind getting to know him a bit better.

Just to keep an eye on him. That was it.

_________________________________________________

Alexandria stormed back into the room, jaw tight, doing her best to hide the scowl tugging at her mouth. Eidolon was the only other person inside. He sat at the metal table with his hands steepled, his posture rigid and impeccably contained. His mask revealed nothing; his body language even less.

Aoi Todo was gone.

She had scoured Brockton Bay as thoroughly as she dared, from rooftop to broken sewer, block to broken block, balancing speed with discretion. But she hadn’t found a trace of him. Dragon insisted that, according to his armband telemetry, Todo was still alive… but the fool had torn it off moments after Scion forced Leviathan to retreat. He hadn’t returned to the hospital. He hadn’t spoken to anyone either. The last confirmed sighting was from Gallant and Velocity, who had watched him take on Leviathan alone to buy them time to evacuate civilians from the compromised shelter.

And then he vanished.

He’d run — and he’d run well. Annoyingly well. The kind of well that indicated experience disappearing in unfamiliar territory.

It irritated her more than she liked to admit. This wasn’t a high enough priority to bother calling Doctor Mother and request the Clairvoyant; they still hadn’t determined whether Todo’s warnings about Scion and Scion’s mate were paranoia, lies, or just some fairytale the boy had cooked up. And because he had refused Mahito’s flesh-rings, the healer couldn’t locate him either. His own regeneration meant he didn’t need help, so he had simply slipped away.

Which meant that a man with potentially world-altering intel — something that could influence Cauldron’s entire long-term plan to kill Scion and end the Endbringer cycle — had walked out of their reach. 

And there was nothing she could do about it.

“Were you able to find him?” she asked Eidolon.

“...no.” The answer came after a long pause. “I… didn’t see him.”

Her eyes narrowed behind her visor.

His posture had shifted — microscopically, but she had spent years studying him. A slight turn of the shoulders, the faint tension running down his spine. Something was wrong. Not enough to accuse him of anything. 

But enough.

“David,” she said softly, stepping closer, “is everything okay?”

She hated doing this, hated how easily it came to her now. There were ways to coax David into opening up. Nothing outright manipulative, just… guiding him. Nudging. Gentle touches on very old wounds.

Using his first name helped. 

Lowering her voice helped. 

Warmth helped. 

David had always associated softness and reassurance with his mother. It made him pliant, open. And as much as manipulating that trust made her stomach twist, sometimes the mission demanded it.

“Of course everything’s fine,” he said, too quickly. “We won today, didn’t we? First Endbringer fight in history with zero casualties. That Mahito kid… he’ll go far. I like him.”

“David,” she repeated, and she pulled out a chair — not across from him, never across. Across was interrogation, authority, and father-shaped shadows. No, she sat beside him, like an equal, a friend and an anchor. The one person he could trust wholeheartedly in this cold world of theirs.

“David, you know you can talk to me about anything.”

His fingers curled slightly. Another tiny tell.

“…It’s nothing,” he murmured.

“Is it about what Todo said?”

There; a minuscule freeze. So small any normal human would have missed it. Only Contessa or a very sharp Thinker would’ve caught the shift. But Alexandria caught it. 

She always caught it with David.

“There… there was a moment.”

David’s voice was thin, unsteady in a way she almost never heard from him. “In the fight,” he continued, slowly, like each word had to fight its way out of his throat. “When Leviathan was right in front of me.”

Rebecca felt an instinctive urge, the old, sharp part of her, to snap at him to get on with it. But she strangled that impulse down. If she rushed him, he’d retreat into himself, and she’d lose him. She had to let him unwind at his own pace.

“I was pushing him back,” David said, hands tightening where they rested. “And I remembered what the kid said. About the Crown. About how the Endbringers were still… tied to it.”

“And?” she asked quietly.

His head lifted then, slowly, like it weighed ten times what it should. The green lenses of his mask gleamed as he looked directly at her, and for a heartbeat she could almost imagine seeing his real eyes behind them, wide and confused.

“There was… just a moment,” David whispered, “when I told it to stop.”

Rebecca’s breath caught.

Not because she didn't believe him.

But because of the way he said it — like he was confessing a crime, or admitting he’d done something wrong.

“And…?” she prompted.

“And…” His throat bobbed. “I think it listened.”

____________________________________________

It happened in an instant.

One second, it was him, Myrrdin, and Narwhal working in perfect rhythm — three of the strongest capes on Earth fighting to keep the ocean itself from swallowing Brockton Bay. Myrddin was vaporizing entire walls of water into harmless mist, his staff being used as if it was a sword. Narwhal was carving glittering forcefield plates into the surf, shaping them into wavebreakers big enough to shatter tsunamis. And he, Eidolon, had taken a hydrokinesis power so vast and so deep that the entire shoreline trembled under his influence.

For a decent duration of the fight, they actually held back the sea.

And then, out of nowhere, he was there.

Leviathan. 

The monster of the deep. The walking apocalypse that had personally drowned more people than most wars. His arrival was like the world inhaling sharply in terror.

Eidolon froze,  just for a fraction of a breath, as old nightmares flared up. Nightmares he’d never admit to. 

Of Leviathan’s claws dragging him beneath the waves. 

Of Behemoth erupting from the ground to swallow him whole. 

Of Simurgh’s porcelain hand cupping his skull as she sang her mind-shredding Song straight into his bones.

He always felt fear when he faced them.

But along with the fear… was excitement.

A spark. A jolt. A thrill so electric it bordered on religious. He would never tell anyone, not Alexandria, not even Contessa, but in these moments, he felt alive in a way nothing else could match.

This was what he was born for.

This was what his powers were made for.

This was why he existed.

He lived for these battles. Dreamed about them. Studied every scrap of data until he could recite the Endbringers’ patterns in his sleep. Every three months he re-wrote his personal playbook on how to approach the next appearance — new strategies, new powers he could try, new contingencies. Other people trained their whole lives to throw a ball in the Superbowl. He trained to survive Leviathan’s tidal waves. These were his Superbowl, his Olympics, his World Cup… all wrapped in one nightmare.

And only here, only in these fights, did he truly feel the Well.

The Well; that impossible reservoir of power buried somewhere inside him. He’d always assumed it unlocked only when death looked him in the eye. A panic button. A last resort. A load of emergency powers waiting for his final breath to trigger them.

But after Todo… after the kid spoke of Scion, of their so-called Queen, of the Crown the Endbringers still served… something in Eidolon began to shift.

What if the Well wasn’t power?

What if it was a connection?

What if the reason he felt them — dreamed of them — was because, on some level, they were already his?

According to Todo, the Endbringers were rebelling because he had “desecrated the Queen’s crown.” But Todo also implied something else: that Eidolon might be able to take control of them if he could just push hard enough. Reach deep enough.

He had thought the idea insane.

But now?

Leviathan struck.

A blur of motion, a tsunami in the shape of a predator. His claw slammed into Narwhal first. She reacted instantly, pulling hundreds of tiny forcefields together around herself in a shimmering cocoon. The hit still sent her rocketing backwards like a fired shell, smashing through two ruined buildings in the distance.

Myrrdin dodged the primary swipe, but the water shadow hit him full-force, folding him into the façade of a hotel and burying him in debris.

And suddenly, it was just him.

Him and Leviathan.

Leviathan brought his clawed hand up into a fist and gestured with it—an oddly deliberate motion, almost like a signal. The street groaned. A deep rumble vibrated through the cracked pavement, and then—

FWOOM.

A geyser of filthy sewer water exploded upward like a pillar, wide enough to swallow a house and powerful enough to tear steel apart. It came straight for him, a towering column of brown-green force meant to crush him like an insect.

Eidolon’s hydrokinesis responded instantly.

He didn’t move his hands, he didn’t need to.

The geyser split mid-air with a sound like ripping fabric, water shearing into four spiraling plumes. They twisted around him, screaming past his body, slamming harmlessly into buildings on either side. Concrete shattered. Windows burst outward. 

But none of it touched him.

David raised his hands and pushed.

Two beams of raw kinetic force—white-hot, vibrating with momentum—lanced from his palms. They struck Leviathan square in the chest, hard enough to crater the monster’s chest and send it skidding backward. Its claws dug trenches in the ruined street as it struggled to stay upright.

Its tail lashed out.

A single whip-crack of motion—fast enough to blur—sent a crescent of compressed water scything through the air. It would have cut him in half.

But David’s mind snapped outward, and his hydrokinesis responded.

The deadly arc of water dissipated a foot from his torso, evaporating into harmless vapor as if reality itself obeyed him. 

He wanted to fight.

He wanted to test the Well.

He wanted to unleash everything he had and see if he could touch the unimaginable power he felt only in the presence of these monsters.

But then Todo’s words whispered through his skull.

Try ordering it.

Try making it obey.

Try making it bow.

His breath hitched.

He lowered his hands.

His cape fluttered in the storm-wind.

“Listen to me,” David began—

And Leviathan moved.

Not just fast—instant. It sidestepped the beams before he even fired them, its body blurring sideways in a streak of blue-green scales. It leapt onto a nearby office tower, the entire structure bending under its weight. Then it crouched, claws digging into steel and concrete like soft clay.

It pushed off.

The building collapsed from the force of its jump as Leviathan launched itself at him like a torpedo made of muscle and hatred.

David shot upward just in time, its claws slicing through the air where he had been a millisecond earlier. He retaliated with two more beams—clean, perfect lines of force—that hit Leviathan directly in the side of the head. The impact sounded like thunder. The beast reeled mid-air, lost its balance, and crashed back down into the flooded street, sending a wave of water high enough to wash over rooftops.

“Listen!” David shouted, voice cracking with desperation. “I—I know about the crown! I know that you have to listen to me! I want you to stop th—”

He saw Leviathan crouch.

He saw its arm tense.

But he didn’t process what it grabbed until too late.

A half-submerged truck, its frame twisted, its windows shattered, was suddenly airborne, thrown with such speed that it became nothing more than a dark smear against the rain-blurred sky.

David dodged the truck.

What he didn't dodge was the water shadow streaking behind it.

It struck like a battering ram.

His world snapped sideways. His teeth rattled in his skull. He felt the impact all through his spine as he was hurled downward, slammed into the submerged street with bone-cracking force. His mask scraped against concrete. His head rang. The water lapped inches below his lips, dark and filthy and trembling with Leviathan’s approach.

He pushed himself up, just barely, vision swimming.

And Leviathan was already there.

Towering over him.

Water cascading down its body.

Eyes glowing with cold, alien judgment.

Its claw reached for him—

And something in him broke.

A raw, ugly frustration burst open in his chest. A mix of rage and fear and something deeper, something wounded and furious and insulted.

Why wasn’t it listening?

It was supposed to listen to the Crown.

It was supposed to obey him.

He was supposed to save the world.

How could he save anyone if he couldn’t even command one creature that should have been under his authority?

What kind of king, a voice whispered into his ear, asks his servant to stop?

 A king doesn’t ask.

A king commands.

“I. SAID. STOP!” David roared.

And something answered.

He felt it—physically—like a sudden tug deep in his sternum, as if a thin, invisible thread shot outward from his chest and speared straight into Leviathan. For an instant he thought he was imagining it, but then—

Something pulsed.

A wave of…power? Authority? Ownership? It wasn’t like using a new power. It felt more primal. More biological, almost—like a heartbeat being echoed in something that wasn’t human.

It washed over him.

And through the thread, he knew Leviathan felt it too.

The monster froze.

Not stumbled.

Not paused.

Not hesitated.

It froze.

A statue of water and scale and hate, its claws inches from his face, its tail still halfway through a whip, every muscle locked in place as if someone had hit a cosmic pause button.

David froze too.

He didn’t breathe.

He didn’t blink.

He didn’t even dare to think too loudly.

Because he understood exactly what that moment meant.

“You…” he whispered. “You listened.”

Leviathan didn’t react.

“You—holy shit—” David’s voice cracked. “You listened to me. The kid wasn’t lying. You…you actually—”

A thunderous roar drowned him out—not from Leviathan, but from the ocean itself.

A tidal surge slammed through the destroyed street, a wall of black water and debris rushing straight for them. David snapped out of the trance and shoved outward with his hydrokinesis, splitting the wave at the last possible second. It parted around him in two massive arcs, crashing harmlessly into the ruined buildings on either side.

When the water fell—

Leviathan was gone.

__________________________________________

Alexandria stared at him in disbelief and awe, her breath catching.

“Are you saying,” she whispered, “that it listened to you?”

“I… I don’t know,” David said, voice strained. “I felt something—something weird, something I’ve never felt before—and when I told it to stop, it just… stopped. But only for a second. Then it went right back to trying to tear me in half and ran off. I didn’t get another chance to engage it solo after that.”

“David, this… this is huge.” Her heart thundered, excitement thrumming through her. She had filed Todo’s words under possible, but unlikely, because of course the boy’s powers were from Scion, and of course the so-called Faerie Queen had proved that triggers and powers could twist someone’s mind, so it was very possible he was just feeding them bullshit. But this? This was real.

 Eidolon had forced Leviathan to obey him.

Her world seemed to expand in an instant.

If David could truly do this—if he could command the Endbringers—then everything changed.

Their entire threat model changed.

The Final Battle changed.

If David could turn the Endbringers against Scion, or even just make them stand down permanently, then Cauldron suddenly had an actual, plan-shaped plan instead of desperate contingencies and crossed fingers. Even if the Endbringers refused to harm Scion, fine. They didn’t need to. All they had to do was not join him, not interfere, not tear apart cities during the final confrontation.

She had dreams—nightmares, really—about the Endbringers siding with Scion. 

About Behemoth marching at Scion’s flank. 

About Simurgh singing the last survivors to suicide. 

Preventing that alone would free decades of effort they’d poured into Endbringer defense planning. They could finally divert resources to other projects Cauldron had put on eternal pause.

“We need to call Doctor Mother and Contessa immediately,” Rebecca said, almost breathless. “We need a full Cauldron meeting. David, this is—”

“No.” David’s voice cut through her excitement like a blade.

She froze, part of her in shock, part of her suddenly, dangerously annoyed.

Why wasn’t he ecstatic? Why wasn’t he already standing up and pacing and planning? They had hunted for an answer like this for years, and now he was acting like she’d told him to hold off on celebrating a world-changing breakthrough because the weather looked a bit cloudy.

“David,” she said slowly, “why not?”

“Because we don’t know if it actually listened to me,” David said. “Maybe what I felt was… something else. Some kind of power spike that only worked on Leviathan. Maybe it didn’t kill me because the crown wouldn’t let it. Maybe it freezing was just part of its plan. I don’t know. We don’t know. And we can’t go to Doctor Mother and demand she drop everything and pull Contessa off-worldwide crisis triage based on a hunch.”

“Todo said—”

“We met that boy today,” David snapped. “Today. We don’t even know if he was telling the truth about the crown or the queen or any of it. I— we—need to verify this. We need to test it. We need to try it on all three Endbringers and see if they’ll follow any other order I give them. I’m not going to Cauldron without proof.”

“But David… why?” Rebecca pressed. “Even if we’re not sure about the source of the information, we should at least alert them. Why don’t you want to tell anyone?”

David didn’t answer at first. His shoulders hunched, his gloved hands knotting together on the table. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.

“We’ve tried hundreds of methods over the years to make me more effective,” he said. “Ever since we realized I was losing my powers, getting weaker over time. We tried more vials. We tried booster shots. We tried letting healers, Trumps, Thinkers, specialized bio-Tinkers all tear me apart looking for answers.”

His voice cracked, faint but audible.

“And every time it failed… every time it went nowhere… I watched it happen.” He swallowed. “I watched hope die a little more in each of them. Doctor Mother. Contessa. Even Number Man. And every time hope died, everyone became just a little more willing to justify the… the things we’ve done. The compromises. The shortcuts. The rationalizations.”

Rebecca flinched. He wasn’t…wrong in that analysis.

“I can’t do that again,” David said quietly. “I can’t make everyone think there’s hope, real hope, only to crush it if this turns out to be a fluke. We need to keep this a secret until we’re absolutely sure. I won’t put everyone through another false start.”

“But Contessa—”

“Contessa couldn’t help with this even if she wanted to,” David cut in. “She can’t Path me. And she definitely can’t Path the Endbringers. She’s blind to anything involving Scion and anything involving… whatever crown I’m supposedly tied to. This is something only I can test, and only I can verify.”

His head tilted toward her, the green lenses of his mask glowing faintly.

“I need to handle this myself, Rebecca. And only when I know it’s real—then we go to them. Okay? Please. Just… do that for me.”

She hated it.

She loathed it.

But he was right.

Cauldron was fraying. Their morale was fraying. And the knowledge that their strongest warrior was losing ground every year was a weight so heavy she could feel it even now pressing down on her ribs.

If they went to Doctor Mother with this—

If it turned out Todo was delusional—

If it turned out David’s moment of control was coincidence—

It would break them.

“…okay,” she said finally, exhaling. “You’re right. We should definitely test this first.”

David’s posture loosened, just barely.

“But,” she continued, “we should at least put out an APB on Aoi Todo. Legend can handle that. The boy has the answers we want, and considering how much he loves fighting capes, it won’t take long before he pops up again.”

“Yeah,” David murmured. “If he can tell me how to get my old strength back… and if the thing about the crown, and the Endbringers, if all of that’s real, then…”

He didn’t finish the sentence.

He didn’t need to.

Then everything would change.

“But… Becca,” he said quietly. “What do we tell Keith?”

Ah.

Legend.

The question she’d been avoiding. The question she couldn’t escape forever. Their friend now knew they’d been hiding massive secrets from him, and this time, she doubted he would accept half-truths.

“We… we’ll have to bring it to Doctor Mother,” Rebecca admitted. “But yes. We’ll have to tell him more. At least about the Enemy. About Scion. That much we can’t hide anymore.”

She looked away, jaw tightening.

“And maybe—maybe—a little bit about Cauldron’s purpose. The parts that will help us work together.”

They would simply have to omit the rest.

The parts Keith would never forgive.

The Terminus Project.

The Nemesis Program.

Selling powers to monsters.

Letting the Slaughterhouse Nine roam to manufacture triggers.

The creation—and enslavement—of the Case 53s.

“Listen… we’ll figure things out with Keith. But this—this is bigger than any of us,” Alexandria said. Her voice dropped, taking on that quiet gravity she reserved for the very rare moments she spoke from the heart rather than strategy. “Remember why we’re doing this. Not for fame. Not for money. Not for control. We’re doing this to save all Earths.”

Eidolon’s breathing steadied. His hands unclenched. Slowly—almost painfully slowly—he nodded.

“To save all Earths,” he echoed.

And that was the anchor.

The one thing that could drag her out of bed every morning, no matter how tired she was.

The thought that drifted through her mind every night before she slept, after whatever questionable decision she and Doctor Mother had agreed to that day.

The justification she whispered to herself in the dark, when the weight of what they had done pressed hardest against her ribs.

The mandate.

The mission.

The sacrifice.

It had always been the only thing that kept her going.

And now, with David’s revelation—this spark of possibility that could reshape everything—they had something they hadn’t had in a long time.

Not certainty.

Not victory.

But momentum.

Hope was still too dangerous a word to use. Hope got people killed. Hope broke people’s minds when it crumbled.

But momentum?

That, she could endure. That, she could wield.

“Then we keep going,” she said firmly. “We test. We verify. We keep this contained until we know what we have. And when the time is right… when we’re absolutely certain… then we bring it to Cauldron.”

David nodded again, firmer this time.

They sat in that quiet for a long moment, neither speaking, both lost in the same understanding—the same grim acceptance.

The path forward would be ugly. It always was.

There would be more secrets. More compromises. More blood on hands that had long stopped pretending they were clean.

But that was the price.

They didn’t do this for themselves.

They didn’t do this for reputation, or comfort, or forgiveness.

They did it because someone had to.

They did it because no one else could.

They did it for all Earths.

And with that silent promise binding them once more, Alexandria stood, straightened her shoulders, and prepared to dive back into the machinery of the PRT—into the venemous lies, the hard choices, the impossible tasks.

David rose as well, mask pointed toward the floor, as if he too felt the weight of what they were choosing.

It didn’t matter.

They would march forward anyway.

For all Earths.