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Void_Cowboy Rolls a Nat 20 on Chaos
- Thread starter Thegameaholic
- Start date
Thegameaholic
The Fun One
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2022
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They were all real the ones like portal creation and sadism i had to re-roll a few times because i kept getting WAY too Op stuff
LET'S GO GAMBLING STEP TO ME AND FIND OUT!
New
Thegameaholic
The Fun One
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2022
- Messages
- 88
- Likes received
- 485
A/N:Rewrote this chapter like 5 different times lmao hope you enjoyed
The world exploded into a blinding blur of shattering brick, twisting rebar, and pulverized concrete.
When Lung's massive, six-foot-wide tail struck Greg's side, it felt less like a physical blow and more like being broadsided by a runaway locomotive traveling at terminal velocity. The kinetic shockwave caved in his crimson dragon-scale chestplate, driving the jagged fragments of his own armor deep into his ribs. He blew straight through the reinforced exterior wall of a four-story apartment building, smashing through three interior structural columns before coming to a violent stop buried under a mountain of collapsing masonry.
Pain—pure, white-hot, agonizing pain—flooded every single nerve ending in Greg's body.
He lay crushed under hundreds of pounds of rubble, coughing up dark, metallic blood that hissed and bubbled as it hit the cold stone. His vision swam in and out of focus, flickering between dark gray shadow and blinding crimson light. Every breath felt like inhaling shattered glass; he could feel his shattered ribs scraping against his lungs with every ragged gasp.
Deep within his core, his half-drake physiology was working overtime, burning through his remaining reserves to knit shredded muscle and re-align fractured bones. But the damage was too severe. His body was trembling violently, trapped in a state of traumatic shock.
Monarch... Greg thought desperately, his mind swimming in a sea of agony. If I don't get up... Lung is going to tear her apart...
He tried to force his arms to push the heavy concrete slab off his chest, but his muscles refused to respond. He could activate his Full Drake form—tear through his human limits and expand into a massive, fire-breathing beast—but in his current ruined state, transforming right now would just spread the internal injuries across a larger frame. He'd be a gigantic, bleeding target for a thirty-foot tyrant who was escalating by the second.
I need time... Greg gritted his fangs, blood spilling over his lips. I just need a few minutes for my regeneration to fix my ribs so I can go Full Drake...
He reached into the absolute depths of his spirit, opening his Gacha system loadout and locking onto his highest-tier minion slot.
Aurelius... Greg mentally commanded, his soul roaring through the system link with absolute, frantic authority. Go! Protect Monarch! Show that fake, wannabe dragon what a REAL Elder Dragon looks like!
A golden, celestial crest flashed in the dark depths of his subconscious, answering his call with a resonant, booming pulse of pure, predatory energy.
Out on the ruined street, Taylor had never known true terror until this exact moment.
Not even the dark, suffocating nightmare of the biohazard locker—where she had been trapped amidst filthy, rotting waste—could compare to the sheer, existential horror looming over her right now.
High Roller was gone. He had been swatted away like a harmless fly, blasted straight through a brick building by a single, casual strike of Lung's massive tail. She was completely, utterly alone.
And standing in the center of the burning loading bay was a nightmare given physical form.
Lung had escalated far past the fifteen-foot mark. He was now a towering, thirty-foot tall engine of absolute apocalyptic destruction. His body was no longer remotely human; he was a bipedal behemoth clad in thick, overlapping plates of white-hot, gold-and-black metallic armor. Roaring jets of plasma shot out from every seam in his scales, melting the asphalt beneath his feet into a bubbling lake of glowing magma.
To make matters infinitely worse, a second pair of massive, fiery dragon wings had sprouted from his lower back, flaring outward alongside his primary wings like four roaring Promethean sails.
The grotesque dragon-man slowly turned his golden, glowing eyes toward Taylor. He took a heavy, deliberate step forward, his massive clawed feet cracking the bedrock.
STOMP.
The earth shook violently beneath Taylor's boots. Panic seized her entire body. Her mind went completely blank as raw, primal survival instinct took over.
Scrambling backward on her hands and knees across the sharp, broken concrete, Taylor tore open her power's range, seizing every single insect, spider, and fly remaining within three blocks. A dense, dark cloud of millions of bugs swarmed out of the night sky, descending upon the thirty-foot tyrant in a desperate, frenzied wave.
It did nothing.
Before the swarm could even get within ten feet of Lung's body, the sheer radiant heat bleeding off his metallic scales incinerated them instantly. Millions of tiny lives vanished in a fraction of a second, reduced to drifting clouds of fine white ash. The mental feedback snapped through Taylor's mind like a whip, burning her skull with phantom pain.
She dropped her head to the pavement, tears spilling freely behind her gray visor, washing tracks through the soot on her face.
She was going to die.
Why? her mind screamed in broken, hopeless anguish. Why is this happening?!
Her life had finally been looking up. The relentless, suffocating bullying at Winslow had finally stopped. She had made real friends. She had met Greg, and Sparky, and High Roller—people who actually looked at her, spoke to her, and treated her like a human being instead of a pathetic, miserable joke. For the first time in years, she had felt a tiny, flickering ember of hope in her chest. She had actually believed that she could step out into the night, wear a mask, and make a real difference in this dark, broken city.
Instead, on her very first night as a hero, she was going to be slaughtered on a dirty alley street, burnt to a crisp before anyone even knew her cape name.
I was so stupid... Taylor sobbed, her fingers digging hopelessly into the hot asphalt. Why did I ever think I could be a hero? Why did I think life would finally go my way? I'm nothing... I've always been nothing. Just a pathetic punching bag for the world to beat on...
She closed her eyes tightly, her voice cracking as she whispered her final, tearful goodbyes into the empty night air.
"I'm sorry, Dad... I'm sorry, High Roller... Greg... Sparky... I'm so sorry..."
She drew a shuddering, terrified breath, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
"I'm coming home to meet you, Mom..."
The radiant heat rolled over her like a blast furnace. Lung was standing directly in front of her now, his massive shadow blotting out the moon. The air was so hot it scorched the back of her throat just breathing it in.
Through her blurred vision, she watched as the towering dragon-god slowly raised a massive, four-clawed hand, the obsidian steel fingers glowing white-hot as he prepared to bring it down to crush her into a red smear on the pavement.
Taylor squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the end.
FLASH!
A blinding, heavenly flare of liquid gold light tore through the dark clouds overhead, illuminating the entire bay in a divine, iridescent glow!
Before Lung's claw could descend, a massive golden blur descended from the upper atmosphere like a divine thunderbolt, slamming directly into the thirty-foot tyrant's side with catastrophic kinetic force!
BOOOOOOM!
The impact shockwave sounded like a thunderclap, shattering every remaining piece of concrete for two blocks! Lung let out a shocked, strangled roar as his thirty-foot frame was violently hurled through the air, plowing through three heavy steel shipping containers before skidding two hundred feet down the street in a cloud of sparks and pulverized brick!
Taylor's jaw dropped open behind her mask. Her eyes widened in absolute, stunned disbelief as she sat frozen in the dust and debris, her mind struggling to process the sheer scale of the creature towering before her. It wasn't just big; it was regal. Where Lung was a crude, jagged furnace of molten iron and screaming metal, this beast was a divine, sculpted masterpiece of celestial war. Its scales were plates of polished white gold that reflected the ambient firelight in brilliant, shimmering hues. Its head, crowned with swept-back, elegant horns, exuded an aura of absolute, uncontested dominance.
And then there were the wing-arms.
Massive, double-jointed, and thick with dense muscle and spiked armor, they slammed down onto the cracked asphalt on either side of its golden chest. The sheer weight of the landing shattered the road for fifty feet in every direction, sending spiderwebbing fissures through the foundation of the surrounding warehouses.
From the creature's maw and the gaps between its gold-and-white hide, a dense, ethereal mist began to roll out. It wasn't smoke, nor was it steam. It was a swirling, pale-purple fog, drifting in lazy, heavy clouds across the alley floor. Where the purple mist touched the lingering embers of Lung's inferno, the flames didn't extinguish—they turned an eerie, dark violet, sputtering as if the very heat was being consumed from the inside out.
CRACK-SHATTER!
The golden Elder Dragon planted its titanic wing-arms heavily onto the ruined pavement, the sheer weight of its body cracking the concrete like thin ice. A dense, swirling cloud of shimmering pale-purple mist—the lethal, hyper-evolutionary Frenzy Virus—began to roll off its golden hide in thick, majestic waves, saturating the entire loading bay in an eerie, glowing violet fog.
The majestic beast threw its crown-horned head back toward the heavens, expanded its massive, golden wing-canvas to catch the wind, and let out an unearthly, deafening roar that vibrated through the very bedrock of Brockton Bay!
"ROOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"
The sheer sonic force of the roar blew away the smoke and flames, echoing for miles across the coast.
Aurelius—the Heavenly Revolving Dragon, Shagaru Magala—had arrived.
Three hundred feet down the street, inside the ruin of a steel shipping container he had been hurled through, a terrifying, guttural roar erupted.
BOOOM!
The corrugated steel exploded outward in a shower of white-hot shrapnel. Lung burst from the rubble, his thirty-foot frame surging forward in a frenzy of pure, unadulterated fury. His transformation had escalated even further under the threat—his dark, metallic hide was now studded with row upon row of jagged obsidian spires, and his second pair of wings flared out behind him, fanning an inferno that turned the night sky into a screaming orange hellscape.
"GGRRRRR... KKKK-LLLL... OUUUUU!"
Lung's voice was no longer human in any capacity. His mind had drowned entirely beneath the feral instincts of his power. He couldn't form words, only a garbled, wet distortion of iron grinding against molten rock—an incoherent, guttural screech of absolute kill-intent.
Lung sprinted forward, his massive, clawed feet tearing up chunk after chunk of bedrock. With a terrifying burst of speed that defied his thirty-foot scale, the warlord propelled himself into the air, his four flaming wings beating the atmosphere into a sonic boom as he plunged toward the golden dragon, both of his glowing, white-hot claws cocked back to disembowel the intruder.
Aurelius didn't flinch. The Heavenly Revolving Dragon, Shagaru Magala, simply narrowed its luminous, slit-pupiled eyes.
With a movement so fluid it seemed effortless, Aurelius executed a sudden, immense backward leap that cleared fifty yards in a heartbeat. The wind displacement from his wing-canvas caught Taylor's cape, shielding her completely from the incoming heat wave.
CRASH!
Lung's double-claw strike slammed directly into the spot where Aurelius had been standing a split second before. The impact cratered the street down to the sewer lines, sending a geyser of liquid pavement and shattered pipe thirty feet into the air.
Before Lung could even pull his clawed hands out of the molten earth, Aurelius answered.
Lowering his head near the ground, Aurelius let out a low, resonant growl and unleashed a Sliding Spit. Three compressed orbs of dense, dark-purple frenzy energy erupted from his maw in rapid succession. The energy balls skimmed along the shattered surface of the street, sliding across the asphalt like skipping stones of volatile plasma before detonating directly against Lung's chest and shoulders!
THOOM! THOOM! THOOM!
The triple blast didn't just knock the thirty-foot tyrant backward—it coated his upper body in a thick, sticky layer of dark purple fog.
Lung roared, a garbled, choking noise rising in his throat as he shook his massive head to clear his vision. He flexed his massive chest, expecting his hyper-accelerated, shard-driven regeneration to instantly knit the scorched, cracked scales where the purple energy had detonated.
Normally, a wound like that would heal in less than a second. Flesh would knit, scales would harden, and Lung would grow larger, stronger, and hotter in response to the pain.
Nothing happened.
The scorched scales remained cracked. The flesh beneath stayed dark, raw, and bleeding a strange, dark-violet ooze.
Deep within Lung's bloodstream, the Frenzy Virus had taken hold.
It was an absolute biological paradox to his power. The virus was not poison, nor was it thermal damage it was a hyper-evolutionary, cell-altering pathogen engineered by nature to turn Beasts into raving, self-destructive husks while forcibly overriding their cellular mechanics. The moment the virus entered Lung's bloodstream, it latched onto his rapidly dividing cells and paralyzed them. His natural regeneration was completely, utterly shut down.
Lung felt it instantly. For the first time since he had triggered his body was refusing to heal.
A look of genuine, chaotic confusion flashed in his glowing golden eyes. "RRR-RAGH?! KKK-HHH... N-NGHH!" he gurgled, his voice a broken, raspy mess as he clutched at his unhealing chest.
Aurelius gave him no time to comprehend his own mortality.
The Shagaru Magala raised its titanic frame onto its hind legs, spreading its colossal wing-arms until they blocked out the stars overhead. Sparkles of brilliant, pale-gold and dark-violet energy danced across its jaw as it unleashed a Ground Blast.
Aurelius slammed his head downward, spitting a massive, concentrated orb of pure Frenzy energy straight into the pavement directly at Lung's feet.
K-K-K-BOOOOOOM!
The energy orb didn't just explode upward; it detonated sideways, creating a cascading wall of vertical purple explosions that rippled outward in a devastating, linear shockwave! The blast tore beneath Lung's legs, throwing the thirty-foot beast entirely off balance and blasting off several large plates of his metallic hide.
Lung screamed—a wet, guttural howl of pain that echoed across the bay like tearing metal.
Inside the crumbling interior of the apartment building four hundred feet away, Greg lay pinned under a six-hundred-pound slab of reinforced concrete.
Blood dripped from his mouth, staining his chin, but his golden, reptilian eyes were wide open. He could feel everything Aurelius felt through their spiritual, system-forged bond. He could feel the cold, divine arrogance of the Shagaru Magala, the raw power humming through its gold-plated veins, and most importantly, he felt the exact moment Lung's regeneration failed.
It worked... Greg thought, a wet, bloody grin carving across his face. The Frenzy Virus... it completely neutralizes his regeneration... He's taking permanent damage now...
Greg gritted his teeth, his muscles twitching violently. His own Drake physiology was slowly fighting back against the trauma of his shattered ribs. The deep, burning ache in his chest was turning into a warm, thrumming heat as his draconic heart pumped fresh, empowered blood through his veins. Bones were popping back into alignment with sickening, muffled crunching sounds beneath his skin.
I just need a little more time... Greg forced himself to stay still, focusing his mind entirely on directing Aurelius through their link. Aurelius... don't let up for a single microsecond! Crush him!
Out on the street, Aurelius answered his master's intent with brutal, calculated perfection.
Lung, screaming in incoherent frustration—"SSS-RRRR... D-DIEEEE-GGGH!"—tried to force his body to ignite a massive, hundred-foot pillar of fire. He opened his jaws, drawing in a massive breath to unleash a localized supernova.
Aurelius didn't wait. The golden dragon swept forward in a lightning-fast Heavy Melee Attack. One of his massive, clawed wing-arms swiped across the sky like a falling guillotine, the blunt-force weight of the wing-arm striking Lung square across his snout before he could unleash the flame!
CRACK!
The force of the strike shattered Lung's lower jaw, driving his head violently into the asphalt and choking back the fire in a shower of black sparks. Utilizing the rare, lethal variation of the strike, Aurelius immediately followed through with a second, backhanded swing of his opposing wing-arm, catching Lung in the ribs and sending the thirty-foot titan tumbling across the concrete like a skipped stone!
Lung skidded to a halt, coughing up gouts of thick, dark blood that sputtered harmlessly on the street. He scrambled to his feet, his mind rapidly drowning in the maddening influence of the Frenzy Virus lingering in his system. His instincts screamed at him to fall back, to adapt, to heal—but his shard was screaming back in absolute panic as its cellular commands were repeatedly blocked by the viral corruption.
"GGRRRR-AAAAGH! ME... KIILLL! ALL... MEEEEE!" Lung gurgled
Lung lunged forward in a desperate, mad Charge, his remaining two wings flaring as he attempted to tackle the golden god and sink his white-hot teeth into Aurelius's neck.
Aurelius didn't even bother dodging. As Lung closed the distance, Aurelius executed a a sudden, brutally heavy sideways jump that slammed his entire armored shoulder directly into Lung's chest.
The kinetic differential was ludicrous. Lung felt as though he had run full-speed into a moving mountain. The collision halted his charge instantly, snapping his spine back with a sickening pop.
Before Lung could fall, Aurelius utilized his momentum Harnessing the rotational force of the shoulder-bump, Aurelius spun his long, heavy tail around in a sweeping, devastating arc. The spiked, golden tip of his tail struck Lung's knee joint like a wrecking ball!
SHATTER!
Lung's left knee gave way completely, the metallic joint crushed flat. The thirty-foot tyrant collapsed onto one knee, letting out a horrific, screeching gurgle of pain.
Taylor, watching from behind a fallen dumpster fifty feet away, held her breath in absolute, stunned silence. This wasn't a fight. This was an execution.
Aurelius spread his divine, gold-and-white wings wide, shifting his stance. He stood up on his hind legs, his head reaching forty feet into the night sky. The pale-purple light in his jaw deepened, shifting into a dark, blinding violet stream of raw, unadulterated energy.
Aurelius swept his head downward, firing a massive, continuous beam of screaming purple Frenzy energy directly into the earth in front of Lung. The beam ignited the asphalt, cutting through the ground like a hot knife through butter, before sweeping violently from side to side across Lung's body!
VRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMM!
The laser-like energy beam tore through Lung's obsidian armor, carving massive, glowing violet trenches across his chest, shoulders, and arms. Concrete, steel, and molten metal erupted into the air as the beam swept back and forth, dragging Lung across the ruined street like a ragdoll.
Lung shrieked, a high-pitched, metallic squeal of agony as his fiery aura sputtered wildly. The continuous bombardment of pure Frenzy energy saturated every single cell of his body.
Aurelius cut the beam, lowered his massive front wing-arms back to the earth, and took a deep, resonant breath. Then, he launched himself into the night sky.
With a single, mighty stroke of his golden wings, Aurelius ascended three hundred feet into the air in the blink of an eye. He hovered above the burning loading bay like a dark, golden sun, his shadow casting a pall of absolute doom over the entire district.
Deep within his chest, the Frenzy Virus reached a critical state of concentration. Aurelius opened his maw and threw his head back toward the moon, entering his fully enraged state.
Aurelius let out a prolonged, echoing roar that vibrated through the clouds. From his open jaw and the glowing seams of his wings, dozens upon dozens of dark, compressed orbs of pure Frenzy energy shot upward into the heavens before raining down across the entire neighborhood like an orbital artillery strike!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The night sky turned purple as the energy rain descended. Each drop that struck the ground exploded in a vertical pillar of violent, dark-violet energy. Lung was trapped in the absolute center of the barrage. Pillar after pillar of Frenzy energy slammed directly into his body, smashing him deeper and deeper into the earth until his metallic scales were stripped away piecemeal and his four fiery wings were shredded into useless tatters of burning ash.
Hovering amidst the dark clouds, Aurelius locked his eyes on the broken, smoking form of the tyrant below. The dragon folded his wings and dove.
Aurelius plummeted toward the earth like a falling star, trailing a massive comet-tail of dark purple energy. As he descended, he fired three rapid-fire energy bursts to the ground ahead of him before slamming his entire, multi-ton golden body directly onto Lung's chest upon landing!
THOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The force of the landing created a localized shockwave that blew away every scrap of smoke, dust, and fire within five blocks. The ground caved in fifteen feet deep, forming a colossal impact crater in the middle of the loading bay.
When the dust finally began to settle, Aurelius was standing proudly atop Lung's chest, his colossal, clawed wing-arms pinned firmly onto the tyrant's shoulders, crushing them into the dirt.
Lung was beaten. His body, once thirty feet of terrifying, unstoppable metallic muscle, had shrunk down to under twelve feet. His metallic scales were dull, rotted, and flaking off like rusted iron. His wounds were weeping dark purple fluid, completely unable to heal under the unrelenting oppression of the Frenzy Virus.
He couldn't move. He couldn't burn. He couldn't heal. His mouth opened, but all that came out was a pathetic, wet wheeze: "k-khhh... n-no..."
Aurelius lowered his crown-horned head until his glowing golden eyes were inches from Lung's ruined face. The dragon let out a low, vibrating growl, a cold, dark fog oozing from his jaw—a lingering Dark Fog that wrapped around Lung's head, smothering any remaining sparks.
BOOM!
A hundred feet away, the front wall of the crumbling apartment building exploded outward.
A tall, crimson-scaled figure stepped out from the dust and rubble, coughing slightly as he dusted off his gauntlets. Greg was back. His chest plate was still cracked, but his ribs had fully knit together under his half-drake regeneration.
"Monarch!" Greg called out, his voice strong and steady as he jogged over to her. "You okay?!"
Taylor spun around, her eyes widening behind her visor. "High Roller! You're... you're alive! I saw you get hit through a building!"
"Takes a lot more than an oversized tail to keep a dragon down," Greg grinned, rubbing his side. He turned toward the crater where Aurelius held the broken warlord down. "Told you I'd buy us some time."
"You... you KNOW that thing?!" Taylor gasped.
He didn't think. He didn't plan. In a fit of pure, suicidal, animalistic desperation, Lung ignited every remaining drop of thermal energy in his core all at once!
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH-KKKKKK!" Lung shrieked—a completely unintelligible roar of feral agony.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
A blinding, violent ring of white-hot plasma detonated directly off Lung's skin in a three-hundred-degree shockwave! The raw kinetic force and blistering heat melted the surrounding pavement into liquid glass instantly. Lung thrashed like a wounded, dying beast, swinging his heavy spiked tail and clawing madly in every direction.
One of his massive, flaming claws managed to catch Aurelius across the lower chest, while the explosive blast of superheated air slammed into the Elder Dragon's underbelly.
Aurelius let out a startled, deep growl, using his massive wings to catch the backdraft. The golden dragon was forced to leap backward a hundred feet, digging his wing-claws deep into the concrete to anchor himself as the blinding thermal wave dissipated.
Lung stood in the center of the molten crater, chest heaving, dark purple fog still clinging to his rotting, unhealing scales. His eyes were wild, bloodshot, and completely devoid of human thought—he was a mindless, cornered predator waiting to burn out.
BOOM!
A hundred feet away, the front wall of a crumbling apartment building exploded outward.
A tall figure stepped out from the dust and rubble. Blood dripped from his chin, but his golden, reptilian eyes were burning with raw, untamed power.
Greg pulled himself free from the debris. Through their spiritual bond, he had felt everything—Aurelius's assault, the lingering paralysis of Lung's regeneration, and the wild, desperate flame-burst that had momentarily pushed the Elder Dragon back.
He's at his limit... Greg thought, his heart thumping like a war drum in his chest. No more holding back. It's time to end this myself.
Greg gritted his teeth as his draconic bloodline surged into overdrive. The minor cracks in his ribs popped back into place as a deep, primal heat flooded his veins.
"Monarch! Stay back!" Greg shouted, his voice dropping several octaves, vibrating with a heavy, subterranean rumble that shook the loose glass in the surrounding streetlights.
Taylor, crouching behind a fallen dumpster, gasped. "High Roller... what are you doing?!"
Greg didn't answer with words. He threw his arms wide and opened the floodgates of his power, shedding the last remnants of his human constraints.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
Thick, crimson-and-black scales exploded across every inch of Greg's skin, layering over his body like heavy plate armor. His human frame expanded violently, swelling in height and width. His chest widened, his limbs thickened into dense, muscular, clawed dragon legs that smashed through his gauntlets and rooted deep into the cracked asphalt.
His spine extended with a wet, sickening crunch, a long, heavy crimson tail sweeping out behind him, studded with razor-sharp dorsal spikes that whipped through the air. His jaw split and elongated outward into a noble, terrifying draconian snout, lined with rows of serrated, ivory fangs. Sweeping back from his brow, two massive, jagged horns curled into a grand, menacing crown of crimson blood-steel.
ROAR!
With a deafening tear of expanding muscle and tissue, two colossal, leather-and-scale wings of deep, fiery scarlet erupted from Greg's shoulder blades! Spanning over forty feet from tip to tip, the massive crimson sails beat against the atmosphere, blowing away the lingering heat and purple ash in a violent gale!
Greg was no longer a half-drake. He was no longer a human wearing power.
He was a Full Drake.
Standing fifteen feet tall on four heavy, armored legs—a massive, magnificent, crimson dragon of pure destruction—Greg planted his front claws into the street, stepping directly beside Aurelius. His golden, slit-pupiled eyes burned with the fury of an ancient apex predator, locking onto the wounded, thrashing tyrant in the crater.
Beside him, Aurelius lowered his golden head, spreading his four massive wings wide, his golden scales gleaming under the moonlight as pale-purple Frenzy energy crackled between his horns once more.
Taylor pressed herself flat against the dumpster, her mouth open in absolute, stunned silence. Two massive dragons—one a divine, gold-and-white Elder Dragon, the other a terrifying, blood-red Drake—stood shoulder-to-shoulder, completely dwarfing the ruined street.
Side by side, Greg and Aurelius threw their heads back in unison, letting out a pair of twin, sky-shattering roars that shook the very foundations of Brockton Bay!
"ROAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"
Lung let out a garbled, incoherent screech—"GGRRRR-AAAAGH!"—and charged forward in a final, suicidal frenzy.
The sound that tore through the industrial district was not the voice of any human being, nor was it the mechanical whine of parahuman technology. It was a primordial, earth-shaking dissonance—a twin roar born from the darkest depths of ancient fantasy and the golden heights of celestial divinity.
The glass remaining in the surrounding warehouse windows shattered into dust. The lingering fog off the bay was blasted violently backward by the sheer kinetic weight of the soundwaves, leaving a barren, superheated void in the middle of Lord Street.
Taylor pressed herself into the dirt behind the melted carcass of an industrial dumpster, her hands clamped over her ears beneath her visor. Even with her senses dampened by her costume, her skull rattled against her spine. Her bugs—the few thousand that hadn't been vaporized by Lung's lingering heat waves—were dying by the hundreds every second, their tiny nervous systems overloaded by the sheer atmospheric pressure generated by the two leviathans standing before her.
To her left stood the Heavenly Revolving Dragon, Shagaru Magala. Aurelius's scales glistened like polished ivory and spun gold under the blood-moon sky, his swept-back horns radiating an ethereal, pale-purple aura. His massive wing-arms were anchored into the bedrock, five-toed claws sinking six inches into solid concrete like hot knives through butter.
To her right stood High Roller—or whatever Greg had become.
Through their shared mental link, Greg felt no fear. The human panic that usually cluttered his thoughts—the anxious chatter, the constant calculation of parahuman rankings, the worry of what his mother or his classmates would think—was drowned out by a roaring ocean of pure, unadulterated draconic instinct.
His vision had shifted. The world was no longer rendered in simple colors and shapes; it was an intricate matrix of thermal heat signatures, scent vectors, and pressure gradients. He could smell the burning copper of Lung's blood, the sweet, metallic ozone of Aurelius's Frenzy Virus, and the acrid stench of boiling ocean water wafting off the docks. He could feel the pulse of Aurelius's mind alongside his own—a cold, arrogant, beautiful intelligence that viewed the world not as a home, but as a territory to be dominated.
Crush him, Aurelius's presence whispered into Greg's consciousness—not in words, but in a wave of dark, absolute intent. The false drake dares to bleed in our presence. Scatter his ashes to the sea.
Together, Greg answered, his voice echoing in his own mind like a falling mountain.
Three hundred feet away, standing in the glowing, slag-filled crater of his own making, Lung looked up.
The warlord of the Brockton Bay ABB was barely recognizable as a parahuman. The Frenzy Virus coursing through his bloodstream had turned his inner biology into a warzone. His hyper-accelerated regeneration—the tool that had allowed him to fight the Endbringer Leviathan to a standstill in Kyushu—was screaming in absolute panic. Every time his shard attempted to knit his flesh, the dark purple viral particles latched onto the nascent cells, forcing them to mutate, burst, and decay before they could form solid tissue.
His body was a map of open, weeping horrors. His chest was carved with deep, purple-crusted trenches from Aurelius's energy sweeps. His lower jaw hung at a sickening angle, splintered by the Elder Dragon's wing-arm. His obsidian scales, normally an impenetrable armor, were flaking off in dull, grey sheets, exposing raw, black-red meat beneath.
Yet, he did not run.
Driven into an absolute corner by a threat it could not comprehend, the energy within him bypassed all biological preservation protocols. Lung's body began to force heat outward not as a weapon, but as a desperate, violent purge to burn the virus from his veins.
"GGRRRRRRRR-AAAAAAAGH!"
The sound that erupted from Lung's shattered maw was completely unintelligible. It was a wet, choked gurgle of pure, feral madness—a dying animal's promise to take the entire world down with it.
A column of roaring, blinding orange plasma launched Lung forward like an artillery shell. The ground beneath him didn't just crack—it vaporized, sending a shockwave of liquified dirt and white-hot air cascading outward in a fifty-foot ring.
"LOOK OUT!" Taylor screamed, though her voice was completely swallowed by the roar of the inferno.
Lung crossed the three hundred feet in less than a second, his glowing, three-pronged claws outstretched, aiming straight for Greg's throat. His intent was simple: tackle the crimson beast, sink his fangs into its neck, and detonate his core point-blank.
Greg didn't try to dodge. His new physiology screamed for close-quarters brutalization.
With a deep, guttural growl that rattled his own ribcage, Greg dropped his center of gravity, DIGGING his front ivory claws deep into the road. As Lung hit him, the collision sounded like two speeding freight trains slamming head-on into each other.
CRACK-BOOM!
The kinetic force blew out the foundations of the warehouse to their left, causing two thousand tons of corrugated steel and brick to collapse in a shower of sparks and dust.
Greg grunted as Lung's immense weight slammed into his chest. The superheated heat off Lung's scales scorched Greg's crimson hide, turning his outer armor black, but Greg's draconic resistance held the line. Instead of giving ground, Greg snapped his massive, jawed snout forward, his serrated ivory fangs locking onto Lung's left shoulder with the crushing force of a hydraulic press!
CRUNCH!
Black, superheated blood spurted from Lung's shoulder as Greg's teeth sheared through his remaining metallic scales, crunching straight into the bone beneath.
Lung shrieked—a terrifying, metallic gurgle—and swung his free right arm, his claws carving five deep, glowing red gouges across Greg's ribs. Heat flooded into the wounds, searing Greg's flesh, but the pain only fed the Drake's fury.
Greg whipped his heavy, spiked tail around in a blind, violent arc.
THWACK!
The serrated scythe at the tip of Greg's tail slammed directly into the side of Lung's unhealing knee joint. The joint buckled backward with a sickening snap. Lung roared in agony, his center of gravity collapsing.
Now! Greg communicated through the bond.
From above, a shadow fell over them.
Aurelius had launched himself twenty feet into the air the moment Lung had charged. Sweeping his golden wings downward, the Shagaru Magala descended like a divine anvil. His massive, three-jointed wing-arms slammed down onto Lung's back, driving the warlord violently into the molten street!
BOOM!
Lung was pinned flat against the asphalt, crushed beneath the combined weight of two multi-ton monsters. Aurelius sank his wing-claws deep into Lung's spine, anchoring him to the earth, while Greg maintained his vice-like bite on Lung's shoulder, tearing sideways with a violent jerk of his head.
SHRED!
A massive chunk of black flesh and metallic scale was ripped clean off Lung's torso. Greg spat the burning meat aside, his jaws dripping with smoking, dark blood, and threw his head back, letting out a roar of absolute dominance.
Lung thrashed beneath them like a harpooned leviathan. The ground shook as his tail whipped frantically, smashing through concrete and steel support beams. Driven past the point of sanity, Lung's shard attempted a violent counter-surge.
"KKK-HHH... BURN! BUUUUUURNNN!"
it was the broken, desperate echo of a human mind being erased by its own power.
The temperature beneath Aurelius and Greg spiked exponentially. 1,000 degrees. 2,000 degrees. 4,000 degrees.
The asphalt around them ceased to be solid or liquid; it turned into a boiling, bubbling sea of white-hot vapor. The metal beams of the fallen warehouse behind them softened, drooping like wet noodles before melting entirely into glowing puddles of iron.
Aurelius hissed, his gold-and-white scales singing as the superheated air threatened to cook his lower belly. The Elder Dragon raised his head, his luminous eyes flashing with cold, ruthless efficiency.
Aurelius didn't pull back. Instead, he opened his jaw, drawing in a massive breath of atmospheric air. The pale-purple energy dancing between his sweep-back horns flared into a blinding, violet star.
Point-Blank Frenzy Nova.
Aurelius shoved his entire snout down into the small gap between Lung's neck and shoulder, right into the open wound Greg had just torn open, and unleashed a continuous stream of pure, unadulterated Frenzy Virus energy directly into Lung's internal organs!
VRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-THOOM!
The detonation was contained entirely within Lung's body.
A muffled, terrifying THUD echoed from inside the warlord's chest cavity. Lung's entire body swelled like a balloon as dark purple light erupted from his eyes, his mouth, his ears, and the thousands of micro-cracks in his scales. The pure, concentrated viral load bypassed his skin entirely, flooding his heart, his lungs, and his nervous system.
Lung's internal heat died instantly.
The white-hot glow in his chest sputtered out, replaced by a sickly, pulsing violet light. His internal organs were being rewritten on a cellular level, turned into slurry by a biological force that cared nothing for his parahuman origin.
Lung's body went limp for a fraction of a second, his eyes rolling back into his head as his brain suffocated beneath the viral shock.
Aurelius lifted his wing-arms, stepping back from the crater, his chest heaving as he exhaled a thick cloud of purple fog. The Elder Dragon looked down at his victim with supreme, unfeeling disdain. He had rendered the beast helpless. Now, the execution belonged to his master.
Greg stepped forward into the center of the crater. His crimson scales were scorched black in places, smoke rising from his ribs, but his golden eyes burned brighter than ever.
Lung lay in the pit, his body reduced from thirty feet down to barely nine feet. He was shrinking rapidy, his power retreating as his physical form failed. His metallic scales were gone, replaced by raw, charred skin that bled dark, viral slime. His chest rose and fell in ragged, shallow hitches.
Yet, as Greg loomed over him, the dying warlord's eyelids twitched open.
A single, bloodshot golden eye locked onto Greg's snout. There was no intelligence left in that eye—no thoughts of the ABB, no thoughts of empire, no thoughts of parahuman supremacy. There was only the raw, miserable, endless rage of a dying predator that refused to bow.
Lung's remaining arm twitched, his clawed fingers feebly scraping against Greg's front leg, trying to scratch the crimson dragon one last time.
"k-khhh..." Lung gurgled, a thin stream of black blood leaking from his lips. "die..."
Greg looked down at the man who had terrorized Brockton Bay for years—the monster who burned children, destroyed families, and ruled the docks through absolute, brutal fear.
No more, Greg thought. The voice was his, but it carried the absolute weight of his Full Drake ascension. You don't get to burn anything ever again.
Greg raised his right front leg. His massive, ivory-tipped claws glistened under the moonlight, slick with Lung's blood.
With a swift, terrifying trajectory, Greg drove his four claws straight through Lung's chest.
THWACK-CRUNCH!
The sound was shockingly simple. Bones snapped. Tissue tore. Greg's claws pierced through Lung's sternum, driving deep into his heart and lung cavity, anchoring the warlord to the bedrock beneath the city.
Lung's body convulsed violently. A single, sharp gasp of air escaped his throat, accompanied by a heavy spray of dark blood that coated Greg's chest. Lung's legs twitched once, twice... and then went completely still.
The superheated aura surrounding his body collapsed entirely. The air cooled rapidly, dropping from a suffocating blast furnace back to the crisp, chilly night breeze off the Atlantic Ocean.
In the silence that followed, Greg flexed his jaws, leaned down, and bit down on Lung's throat.
CRUNCH.
With a single, brutal jerk of his crimson head, Greg severed the warlord's neck, ending any theoretical possibility of parahuman resurgence, shard-recovery, or miraculous survival.
The Dragon of Brockton Bay was dead.
Silence descended over the ruined loading bay like a heavy woolen blanket.
The contrast was staggering. Seconds ago, the district had been an apocalyptic hellscape of blinding light, screaming metal, and earth-shattering explosions. Now, there was only the gentle, rhythmic crackle of dying fires, the hiss of cooling asphalt, and the soft, rolling drift of purple fog settling into the crater.
Taylor slowly raised her head from behind the melted dumpster.
Her hands were shaking uncontrollably. Her knees felt like water. She pulled herself up, leaning heavily against the twisted metal frame of the dumpster, her eyes wide as she took in the scene before her.
The entire street was gone. Where Lord Street had been, there was now a sprawling, fifty-yard crater lined with glassified, black slag. The surrounding warehouses were ruined hulls, their roofs collapsed, their steel frames bent like plastic drinking straws.
And standing in the absolute center of the carnage were the two monsters.
Aurelius stood tall, his gold-and-white wings folded elegantly along his back. The pale-purple aura around his horns was slowly fading, his brilliant golden eyes watching the surrounding rooftops for any lingering threats.
Beside him, standing over the decapitated, smoking remains of Lung, was Greg.
The Full Drake lowered his head, his long, heavy tail resting on the ground behind him. Smoke curled lazily from his nostrils as he drew in a deep, shuddering breath. The crimson dragon looked vast, ancient, and terrifying—a creature that belonged in the dark pages of forgotten myth, not in a modern industrial city.
Taylor took a slow, hesitant step forward, her boots crunching on the shattered gravel.
"High... High Roller?" she whispered, her voice cracking with awe and sheer terror.
Greg's massive, horned head snapped toward her. His golden, slit-pupiled eyes locked onto her small, slender frame. For a horrifying second, Taylor wondered if the beast even recognized her—if the transformation had erased Greg completely and replaced him with a mindless monster.
Then, the Drake blinked.
A low, gentle rumble echoed from Greg's chest—a sound that vibrated softly through the ground beneath Taylor's boots. It wasn't a roar; it was a purr. A warm, reassuring sound that carried the unmistakable, goofy warmth of the boy she had sat next to in computer lab.
Greg nudged his massive snout toward her, stopping a few feet short, as if acutely aware of his own terrifying scale.
We did it, Monarch, his voice echoed softly in her mind—not through a system screen, but through the lingering, empathic spillover of his draconic presence. He's gone.
Taylor let out a breath she felt like she had been holding for an eternity. She sank onto one knee, resting her hand against the cool, glassified rim of the crater to steady herself. "You... you actually killed him. You killed Lung."
He wasn't going to stop, Greg's mental presence replied, carrying a heavy, somber weight. If we let him live, he would have come after you. He would have burned everything.
Beside them, Aurelius let out a low, musical growl. The Shagaru Magala raised its head toward the sky, spreading its golden wings one last time. As the pale-purple mist began to thin, the Elder Dragon's body began to shimmer, turning into millions of tiny, glowing golden particles that drifted upward into the night air, dissolving into the moonlight like falling stars.
Within ten seconds, the divine dragon was gone, leaving only Greg standing over the battlefield.
His fifteen-foot quadruped frame began to shift and condense. The massive extra bulk pulled inward, his extra weight receding as his skeleton realigned. His four heavy legs shifted back into a two-legged stance, his body straightening up to a towering seven feet tall. The massive dragon wings folded down, shrinking into sharp, armored crimson mantles over his shoulder blades.
When the transformation settled, Greg had shifted into his Hybrid Form.
He stood on two muscular, clawed legs, covered head-to-toe in glistening, crimson-and-black scale armor. Heavy dragon horns swept back from his brow like a dark crown, a thick, armored tail whipped lazily behind his legs, and his slit-pupiled golden eyes burned with quiet, controlled power. He was no longer a towering beast, but he was far from human—a terrifying, half-drake warrior standing proudly in the center of the carnage.
Beside him, Aurelius let out a low growl. The Shagaru Magala raised his head toward the sky, spreading his golden wings one last time before his body dissolved into millions of glowing, golden light particles that drifted into the night air.
Taylor slowly pulled herself out from behind the dumpster, stepping cautiously into the crater. Her visor reflected the ruined block and the crimson figure standing over the slain warlord.
"High Roller..." Taylor whispered, her voice trembling slightly. "Is it... is it really over?"
Greg turned his head toward her, his Hybrid Form's tall frame casting a long shadow across the ash. He flexed his clawed gauntlets, wiping a smear of dark blood from his crimson snout.
"Yeah," Greg said, his voice deep, gravelly, and echoing with a rich draconic rumble. "It's over. Lung is dead."
Taylor stopped beside him, looking down at the charred, silent remains. "I can't believe it. The PRT, the Protectorate... nobody could put him down. And you just... you completely destroyed him."
"We destroyed him," Greg corrected, his golden eyes softening as he looked down at her. "You held the line with me, Monarch. We did this together."
Taylor felt a lump form in her throat beneath her mask, a feeling of immense relief washing over her. "Together."
A sharp whistle echoed from above.
Greg's golden, slit-pupiled eyes snapped upward, his nostrils flaring as he caught a wave of strange, acrid scents wafting down from the roof of the adjacent three-story apartment building.
Standing on the edge of the roof were three monstrous beasts—the size of vans, resembling a nightmare cross between lizards and tigers, with tangles of exposed muscle and bone where skin and fur should have been.
And riding atop those monsters were four teenagers.
Taylor shrank back, her bugs swirling defensively around her head, while Greg stood his ground in his hybrid form, his tail lashing out in immediate, hostile irritation.
The tall guy in the middle, dressed in black motorcycle leathers with a stylized, jet-black skull visor, slid off the back of his beast and approached the edge of the roof, looking down at the ruined street.
"You really saved us a lot of trouble," he told them. His voice was deep, masculine, but muffled by his helmet. He jerked his thumb over one shoulder. "When we got word Lung was aiming to come after us tonight, we were pretty freaked. We were arguing strategy for the better part of the day. We eventually decided, fuck it, we'd meet him halfway. Wing it. Not my usual way of doing things, but yeah."
Behind him, one of the girls—wearing a tight black and pale-blue suit with long, windblown dark blond hair—leaned over the ledge, looking at Lung's headless corpse and the massive crater.
"Lung got completely creamed," she grinned, a sharp, fox-like smile turning up the corners of her mouth. "The fuck did you two do to him?"
"Wasp and bee stings, fire ants and spider bites," Taylor blurted out automatically before she could stop herself.
"He's not holding up too well," the blond girl chuckled. "Considering he's...you know."
Greg's golden eyes narrowed into thin slits. The heat rising off his crimson scales spiked as pure, unadulterated anger flared in his chest. His tail slammed into a piece of rubble, shattering it to dust.
"You sat up there?" Greg growled, his deep, hybrid voice vibrating through the concrete, making the giant beasts on the roof let out low, uneasy growls. "You assholes sat on the roof and watched us fight a thirty-foot fire demon while you chatted?!"
The guy in the skull mask paused, looking at Greg's half-dragon form with a hint of newfound caution. "Introductions. That's Tattletale. I'm Grue." He pointed to a girl wearing a plastic rottweiler mask and a plaid skirt. "The girl with the dogs—we call her Bitch, her preference, but in the interests of being P.G., the good guys and media decided to call her Hellhound instead. Last and certainly least, we have Regent."
"Fuck you, Grue," retorted the boy in the renaissance shirt and coronet with a light chuckle.
Grue looked down at Greg's towering, scaled frame and Taylor's small, insect-covered outfit. "Hey, you okay? You hurt?"
"The reason she's not introducing herself isn't because she's hurt," Tattletale chimed in, leaning further over the roof ledge, her eyes scanning Greg's hybrid scales and Taylor's visor with sharp, uncanny intensity. "It's because she's shy."
Greg took a heavy step toward the base of the apartment building, his clawed gauntlets clenching into fists. "We almost got turned to ash down here, and you guys were just waiting to see if we'd die for you?!"
Before Grue could reply, Tattletale's fox-like smile suddenly faded. She turned her head toward the north, listening to something in the distance.
"Heads up," Tattletale warned, her tone shifting instantly. "We've gotta scram."
Bitch didn't hesitate. She let out one short whistle followed by two long ones. The three massive, skinless dog-beasts bounded off the roof, their heavy impacts shaking the alleyway as they landed in the darkness below.
Grue glanced down at Taylor and Greg one last time. "Hey, want a ride?"
Taylor looked at the snarling, bloodied monsters in the alley and quickly shook her head. Greg just let out a low, hostile growl from his throat, his tail lashing out again. "Get out of here before I turn those dogs into boots."
Tattletale seated herself just behind Bitch on the lead monster, looking back at Taylor with glittering, mischievous eyes behind her black domino mask. "Well, Bug, a cape is gonna show up in less than a minute. You did us a solid by dealing with Lung, so take my advice. Someone from the Protectorate shows up, finds two bad guys duking it out, they're not going to let one walk away. You should get out of here."
With a screech of metal on metal, the three massive beasts leaped over the fire escape and bounded off into the shadows of the docks, disappearing as fast as they had arrived
Silence returned to the alley, leaving Greg and Taylor standing alone in the crater.
Greg let out a heavy gust of smoke from his snout, his hybrid form tensing as he stared at the empty roof. "Unbelievable. Absolute freeloaders."
Taylor stood frozen, her stomach dropping as the full weight of what had just happened settled over her. The 'children' Lung had been talking about—the ones he had threatened to murder, the ones she had risked her life to save tonight—were bad guys. The Undersiders.
And they had walked away thinking Taylor and Greg were villains just like them.
The screech of custom tires broke the lingering silence of the Docks as headlights cut through the thick fog and rising smoke.
Sprinting down the street on a dark blue, high-tech Tinker motorcycle with a roaring turbine engine was Armsmaster.
Right behind his bike, three heavy PRT transport vans slammed their brakes, doors flying open as tactical troopers in full body armor spilled out with containment foam sprayers and assault rifles raised.
Disembarking from his motorcycle with practiced, formidable grace, Armsmaster held his six-foot mechanical Halberd at the ready, flanked instantly by the rest of the local Protectorate response team: Miss Militia with her shifting weapon, Velocity vibrating in place, Assault and Battery adjusting their armor, and Triumph scanning the high ground.
Armsmaster's V-shaped visor swept across the scene, diagnostic HUD scanning the glassified crater... and locking onto the nine-foot, headless corpse leaking purple-tinted fluid onto the scorched concrete.
Behind Armsmaster, Assault let out a low whistle. "Holy shit... Tell me I'm hallucinating. Is that Lung?"
Miss Militia lowered her rifle by a fraction of an inch, her eyes wide beneath her green bandana mask. "He's dead."
Armsmaster's jaw tightened beneath his mask. Two unknown capes—rookies, by their complete lack of PRT records—had just done what the entire Brockton Bay Protectorate had failed to do for five years. They had put down the Warlord of the Docks. Permanently.
"You gonna fight us?" Armsmaster called out, his deep, synthesized voice cutting through the hum of idling van engines and his motorcycle's cooling turbine.
The bug-controlling cape—standing nervously beside the seven-foot, crimson-scaled hybrid drake—flinched slightly at the stern tone, her gloved hands tightening into fists at her sides. "we... we're good guys," she blurted out, her voice raspy from smoke inhalation.
Armsmaster stepped closer, his heavy armored boots crunching against the shattered glass. He tilted his head, his visor fixing on her dark, hand-stitched insect suit, then panning to the terrifying, scale-draped hybrid dragon form standing beside her, its massive crimson wings flared wide behind its back. "You don't look like one."
The words hit her like a physical blow. "That's... that's not intentional," she responded defensively, her voice trembling slightly. "I was more than halfway done putting the costume together when I realized it was already looking more edgy than I'd intended, and I couldn't do anything about it by then."
A three-second silence stretched across the alley. Armsmaster's visor flickered as his built-in lie-detector suit processed her vocal cadence and heart rate.
"You're telling the truth," Armsmaster said definitively, relaxing his stance just a fraction. He looked the bug cape over, taking in her posture. "You need a hospital?"
"No," she muttered. "Don't think so. I'm... as surprised as you are."
"You're a new face," Armsmaster observed, his voice smoothing out into a practiced, authoritative calm. "Both of you."
"My partner gave me a name tonight," she offered awkwardly, gesturing toward the giant dragon-man beside her. "Monarch."
Armsmaster gave a short, warm chuckle—the kind of practiced, approachable laugh he used for media interviews. "A solid name. Better than trying to come up with one under pressure."
Monarch shifted her feet, visibly easing under the hero's gentle tone. "I... I almost died out here."
"That's why we have the Ward program," Armsmaster said smoothly, stepping closer. The subtle shift in his posture was intentional—closing the distance, establishing himself as the authority figure, offering a steady hand to a traumatized teenager. "The Wards offer structure, support, and training. You wouldn't have to face monsters like Lung alone."
"I... I thought about applying," Monarch confessed softly.
Armsmaster nodded approvingly. He glanced at the headless body of Lung, then back to her. "Lung was a menace to this city. But you need to understand the situation you've just created. You're young, inexperienced, and you've just thrust yourself into the deep end."
He took another step, his shadow falling over her.
"Lung has an extensive gang throughout Brockton Bay," Armsmaster explained, his tone dropping into a serious, paternal advisory. "More than that, he has two superpowered flunkies: Oni Lee, and a new Tinker named Bakuda. Bakuda specializes in high-yield, exotic explosives. She ran a terrorism campaign against Cornell University before Lung recruited her."
Monarch swallowed hard, her shoulders drawing in. "Bombs...?"
"Decades ahead of anything conventional," Armsmaster confirmed, nodding solemnly. "Now, I want you to consider the danger involved in taking credit for Lung's demise. Without a doubt, Oni Lee and Bakuda will be looking for vengeance. They will hunt down whoever is responsible. They are scary people. Scarier, in some ways, than their boss."
Monarch shrank back slightly under his towering presence. "So... what are you saying?"
"I'm saying you have two options," Armsmaster said, his voice dripping with reasonable, unyielding logic. "Option one: you join the Wards immediately. Under PRT protection, we can shield you from retaliation and give you the resources you need. Option two: you keep your head down. You don't take the credit. You let the Protectorate handle the fallout, process the scene, and claim the capture. You fly under the radar while you learn the ropes."
Monarch stared at him. Her mind was racing, exhausted from the battle, battered by adrenaline withdrawal. Let the Protectorate take credit? Keep my head down? It made sense. It was safe. Armsmaster was a veteran. He knew what he was doing. If she took credit, Bakuda might come after her. Her family could get hurt.
She opened her mouth, about to cave to the subtle, overwhelming pressure of the top hero in the city—
"Yeah, how about 'Option Three'?"
A deep, rumbling voice vibrated through the concrete, so heavy it rattled the loose glass on the street.
Armsmaster paused, his visor snapping over.
The giant dragon-man, standing Nine feet tall in his crimson hybrid form with his leathery dragon wings held high, stepped directly into the space between Armsmaster and Monarch. His spiked tail whipped through the air, cracking against the asphalt with a sharp, explosive THWACK. Smoke curled from his nostrils as his glowing golden slit-pupils glared down at the veteran hero.
"Option Three," he rumbled, his hybrid voice carrying an edge of sharp, mocking amusement. "Is where you stop trying to intimidate a tired girl into handing over her hard-earned credit."
Armsmaster's jaw tightened. "I am explaining the realities of cape politics. This is about safety—"
"This is about you wanting a victory for the evening news," the dragon-cape cut him off cleanly, leaning forward until his sweeping blood-steel horns were just inches from Armsmaster's visor. "You roll up fifteen minutes late on your fancy motorcycle, see a dead dragon, and immediately start running your PR script. 'Join our junior corporate club, or let us take all the glory while you hide in the shadows.' Is that how the Protectorate operates?"
Behind Armsmaster, Assault let out a low, quiet whistle. "Damn. Kid's got no chill."
"Unsanctioned capes operating without oversight face massive legal liabilities," Armsmaster said, his tone turning frosty and rigid as he tried to regain control of the conversation. "If you aren't joining the Wards, you don't even have a team or a legal standing."
"Who says we don't have a team?" the dragon-cape challenged, puffing his heavy, scale-armored chest out.
Monarch blinked behind her visor, looking up at him in utter confusion. We have a team?! Since when?!
Armsmaster's visor flickered as he cross-referenced PRT databases. "You aren't registered under any official faction."
The dragon-cape didn't hesitate for a single microsecond. He declared it loudly, his booming voice echoing down the street with absolute, unshakeable confidence:
"The name's High Roller, she's Monarch, and together we are the Chaos Brigade."
A/N: YES THAT'S FROM DXD YES I AM NOT CREATIVE AT ALL
Silence fell over the alleyway.
Monarch visually withered where she stood, burying her gloved face in her hands. The CHAOS BRIGADE?! Are you serious?! We sound like cartoon villains! Why would you make that up on the spot?!
Even Armsmaster seemed momentarily stunned by the sheer absurdity of the name, delivered with such absolute conviction. "The... Chaos Brigade?"
"You heard me," High Roller growled, his golden eyes burning bright. "And as for the credit for putting Lung in the dirt? It belongs entirely to us. To me and Monarch. The Chaos Brigade. If Bakuda or Oni Lee want a piece of us, tell them to line up. And if I catch the PRT trying to claim our win tomorrow morning, I'll make sure every reporter in the bay knows Armsmaster showed up late to sweep the floor."
Armsmaster's expression hardened into pure, repressed annoyance. His subtle, master-class manipulation had just been completely smashed to pieces. He hated losing control of a narrative, and he clearly hated giving up the biggest victory Brockton Bay had seen in years.
"Taking credit for Lung's death will make you a target," Armsmaster warned, his voice icy. "The PRT will not extend official protection to unsanctioned groups."
"Let 'em come," High Roller snorted, smoke puffing from his snout. "Lung thought he was hot stuff too, and look at him now."
Armsmaster's hands tightened around his Halberd until the metal gauntlets squeaked under the pressure. For a second, it looked like he wanted to press the issue, but Miss Militia stepped up beside him, placing a gentle, restraining hand on his armored shoulder.
"Armsmaster," she said quietly. "That's enough."
Armsmaster took a slow, sharp breath, swallowing his pride. "Very well," he said coldly. "The official PRT record will state that Lung was neutralized by an independent duo operating as... the Chaos Brigade."
"Good," High Roller grunted. "Glad we got that sorted out."
Armsmaster turned sharply on his heel. "Secure the perimeter! Get the bio-containment unit! Load up the body!"
The PRT troopers scrambled to obey, rolling out a reinforced steel cage and hoisting Lung's heavy, cooling corpse inside. Meanwhile, secondary squads began cuffing the dozens of ABB gang members scattered across the alleyway.
"Surprisingly," Assault noted as he snapped power-dampeners on a tattooed thug, "none of these cronies died during the fight. Lung was throwing twenty-foot fireballs and these guys just got knocked out cold."
Within minutes, the PRT loaded up the corpse, rounded up the thugs, and prepped their vehicles. Armsmaster mounted his Tinker motorcycle, the high-tech turbine roaring to life with a high-pitched whine. He gave High Roller and Monarch one last stiff, unreadable glance before twisting the throttle and speeding off into the night, the transport vans following close behind.
The alleyway fell quiet once again.
Monarch let out a long, shuddering breath, her shoulders sagging. She turned to High Roller, her voice filled with a mixture of disbelief and gratitude. "The... Chaos Brigade? Really?"
"Hey, it sounds cool and imposing," High Roller said, rolling his heavy shoulders, his tail giving a satisfied thump. "Besides, Armsmaster was trying to bully you into giving away our win. I wasn't gonna let him step on us."
Monarch looked at him, surprised by his protectiveness. "Thank you... for standing up to him."
"We're a team, right?" High Roller grinned, his sharp dragon fangs gleaming.
Before Monarch could respond, a bright, golden light flashed directly in front of High Roller's eyes.
Monarch didn't notice—the screen was completely invisible to her. High Roller blinked as a massive, neon-gilded Gacha notification popped up in his vision, glowing with ridiculous, rainbow-tinted intensity.
[GACHA SYSTEM NOTIFICATION!] [HOLY SHIT, HOST! IMPRESSIVE WORK!]
[SYSTEM PERFORMANCE EVALUATION:]
High Roller's jaw nearly dropped.
Holy shit... FIVE LEGENDARY TICKETS?!
Last time he got a high-tier pull, he got Son Gōku and Aurelius. Five Legendary tickets at once was mind-boggling.
"Are you okay?" Monarch asked, noticing him staring blankly into space.
High Roller snapped back to reality, quickly dismissing the floating screen. "Yeah! Totally fine! Just... exhausted."
He was dead on his feet. As tempted as he was to roll those five tickets right now, doing it in an alleyway while completely drained was a terrible idea.
"Hey," High Roller offered, gesturing with one of his massive dragon wings flared beside him. "You look pretty beat too. Want a ride home? I can just fly us back, or summon Aurelius again."
Monarch froze. Behind her visor, her face flushed bright red with pure teenage panic and embarrassment. The thought of being bridal-carried through the sky by a guy in dragon armor—or riding a giant golden dragon—sent her social anxiety into overdrive. What if neighbors saw? What if she looked ridiculous?!
"N-No!" she squeaked out, taking two rapid steps backward while waving her hands frantically. "No, thank you! I... I can walk! I'm totally fine! I need to go! Chaos Brigade out!"
Before High Roller could even utter a word, she turned on her heel and practically sprinted down the street, disappearing into the dark shadows.
High Roller stood there, scratching his horned head with a goofy grin. "Chaos Brigade out...? Man, she's an awkward dork."
Minutes later, High Roller was soaring high above Brockton Bay, his crimson dragon wings catching the cool night currents. The breeze washed away the lingering heat and tension of the fight.
He glided down toward his neighborhood, spotting his second-story bedroom window. He hovered outside, unlatched the glass with a clawed finger, and slipped inside.
Once safely in his room, his hybrid dragon transformation receded completely. The scales compressed, the horns and wings absorbed back into his body, and High Roller faded away, leaving Greg Veder in his scuffed hoodie and jeans.
In the corner of his bedroom, his cardboard maze sat on the desk. Inside, four tiny, furry hamsters were snuggled together in a sleeping pile, snoring softly.
San-D, Jum-P, Maga-Z, and Cham-P.
The Four Dark Devas of Destruction.
Greg couldn't help but chuckle softly at the snoring rodents. "Sleep well, dark lords. The dragon has been slain."
He stripped off his clothes, stepped into a steaming shower to wash off the soot and grime, and finally collapsed face-first onto his mattress. With five Legendary tickets waiting in his system inventory, Greg closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
What a wild night.
The world exploded into a blinding blur of shattering brick, twisting rebar, and pulverized concrete.
When Lung's massive, six-foot-wide tail struck Greg's side, it felt less like a physical blow and more like being broadsided by a runaway locomotive traveling at terminal velocity. The kinetic shockwave caved in his crimson dragon-scale chestplate, driving the jagged fragments of his own armor deep into his ribs. He blew straight through the reinforced exterior wall of a four-story apartment building, smashing through three interior structural columns before coming to a violent stop buried under a mountain of collapsing masonry.
Pain—pure, white-hot, agonizing pain—flooded every single nerve ending in Greg's body.
He lay crushed under hundreds of pounds of rubble, coughing up dark, metallic blood that hissed and bubbled as it hit the cold stone. His vision swam in and out of focus, flickering between dark gray shadow and blinding crimson light. Every breath felt like inhaling shattered glass; he could feel his shattered ribs scraping against his lungs with every ragged gasp.
Deep within his core, his half-drake physiology was working overtime, burning through his remaining reserves to knit shredded muscle and re-align fractured bones. But the damage was too severe. His body was trembling violently, trapped in a state of traumatic shock.
Monarch... Greg thought desperately, his mind swimming in a sea of agony. If I don't get up... Lung is going to tear her apart...
He tried to force his arms to push the heavy concrete slab off his chest, but his muscles refused to respond. He could activate his Full Drake form—tear through his human limits and expand into a massive, fire-breathing beast—but in his current ruined state, transforming right now would just spread the internal injuries across a larger frame. He'd be a gigantic, bleeding target for a thirty-foot tyrant who was escalating by the second.
I need time... Greg gritted his fangs, blood spilling over his lips. I just need a few minutes for my regeneration to fix my ribs so I can go Full Drake...
He reached into the absolute depths of his spirit, opening his Gacha system loadout and locking onto his highest-tier minion slot.
Aurelius... Greg mentally commanded, his soul roaring through the system link with absolute, frantic authority. Go! Protect Monarch! Show that fake, wannabe dragon what a REAL Elder Dragon looks like!
A golden, celestial crest flashed in the dark depths of his subconscious, answering his call with a resonant, booming pulse of pure, predatory energy.
Out on the ruined street, Taylor had never known true terror until this exact moment.
Not even the dark, suffocating nightmare of the biohazard locker—where she had been trapped amidst filthy, rotting waste—could compare to the sheer, existential horror looming over her right now.
High Roller was gone. He had been swatted away like a harmless fly, blasted straight through a brick building by a single, casual strike of Lung's massive tail. She was completely, utterly alone.
And standing in the center of the burning loading bay was a nightmare given physical form.
Lung had escalated far past the fifteen-foot mark. He was now a towering, thirty-foot tall engine of absolute apocalyptic destruction. His body was no longer remotely human; he was a bipedal behemoth clad in thick, overlapping plates of white-hot, gold-and-black metallic armor. Roaring jets of plasma shot out from every seam in his scales, melting the asphalt beneath his feet into a bubbling lake of glowing magma.
To make matters infinitely worse, a second pair of massive, fiery dragon wings had sprouted from his lower back, flaring outward alongside his primary wings like four roaring Promethean sails.
The grotesque dragon-man slowly turned his golden, glowing eyes toward Taylor. He took a heavy, deliberate step forward, his massive clawed feet cracking the bedrock.
STOMP.
The earth shook violently beneath Taylor's boots. Panic seized her entire body. Her mind went completely blank as raw, primal survival instinct took over.
Scrambling backward on her hands and knees across the sharp, broken concrete, Taylor tore open her power's range, seizing every single insect, spider, and fly remaining within three blocks. A dense, dark cloud of millions of bugs swarmed out of the night sky, descending upon the thirty-foot tyrant in a desperate, frenzied wave.
It did nothing.
Before the swarm could even get within ten feet of Lung's body, the sheer radiant heat bleeding off his metallic scales incinerated them instantly. Millions of tiny lives vanished in a fraction of a second, reduced to drifting clouds of fine white ash. The mental feedback snapped through Taylor's mind like a whip, burning her skull with phantom pain.
She dropped her head to the pavement, tears spilling freely behind her gray visor, washing tracks through the soot on her face.
She was going to die.
Why? her mind screamed in broken, hopeless anguish. Why is this happening?!
Her life had finally been looking up. The relentless, suffocating bullying at Winslow had finally stopped. She had made real friends. She had met Greg, and Sparky, and High Roller—people who actually looked at her, spoke to her, and treated her like a human being instead of a pathetic, miserable joke. For the first time in years, she had felt a tiny, flickering ember of hope in her chest. She had actually believed that she could step out into the night, wear a mask, and make a real difference in this dark, broken city.
Instead, on her very first night as a hero, she was going to be slaughtered on a dirty alley street, burnt to a crisp before anyone even knew her cape name.
I was so stupid... Taylor sobbed, her fingers digging hopelessly into the hot asphalt. Why did I ever think I could be a hero? Why did I think life would finally go my way? I'm nothing... I've always been nothing. Just a pathetic punching bag for the world to beat on...
She closed her eyes tightly, her voice cracking as she whispered her final, tearful goodbyes into the empty night air.
"I'm sorry, Dad... I'm sorry, High Roller... Greg... Sparky... I'm so sorry..."
She drew a shuddering, terrified breath, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
"I'm coming home to meet you, Mom..."
The radiant heat rolled over her like a blast furnace. Lung was standing directly in front of her now, his massive shadow blotting out the moon. The air was so hot it scorched the back of her throat just breathing it in.
Through her blurred vision, she watched as the towering dragon-god slowly raised a massive, four-clawed hand, the obsidian steel fingers glowing white-hot as he prepared to bring it down to crush her into a red smear on the pavement.
Taylor squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the end.
FLASH!
A blinding, heavenly flare of liquid gold light tore through the dark clouds overhead, illuminating the entire bay in a divine, iridescent glow!
Before Lung's claw could descend, a massive golden blur descended from the upper atmosphere like a divine thunderbolt, slamming directly into the thirty-foot tyrant's side with catastrophic kinetic force!
BOOOOOOM!
The impact shockwave sounded like a thunderclap, shattering every remaining piece of concrete for two blocks! Lung let out a shocked, strangled roar as his thirty-foot frame was violently hurled through the air, plowing through three heavy steel shipping containers before skidding two hundred feet down the street in a cloud of sparks and pulverized brick!
Taylor's jaw dropped open behind her mask. Her eyes widened in absolute, stunned disbelief as she sat frozen in the dust and debris, her mind struggling to process the sheer scale of the creature towering before her. It wasn't just big; it was regal. Where Lung was a crude, jagged furnace of molten iron and screaming metal, this beast was a divine, sculpted masterpiece of celestial war. Its scales were plates of polished white gold that reflected the ambient firelight in brilliant, shimmering hues. Its head, crowned with swept-back, elegant horns, exuded an aura of absolute, uncontested dominance.
And then there were the wing-arms.
Massive, double-jointed, and thick with dense muscle and spiked armor, they slammed down onto the cracked asphalt on either side of its golden chest. The sheer weight of the landing shattered the road for fifty feet in every direction, sending spiderwebbing fissures through the foundation of the surrounding warehouses.
From the creature's maw and the gaps between its gold-and-white hide, a dense, ethereal mist began to roll out. It wasn't smoke, nor was it steam. It was a swirling, pale-purple fog, drifting in lazy, heavy clouds across the alley floor. Where the purple mist touched the lingering embers of Lung's inferno, the flames didn't extinguish—they turned an eerie, dark violet, sputtering as if the very heat was being consumed from the inside out.
CRACK-SHATTER!
The golden Elder Dragon planted its titanic wing-arms heavily onto the ruined pavement, the sheer weight of its body cracking the concrete like thin ice. A dense, swirling cloud of shimmering pale-purple mist—the lethal, hyper-evolutionary Frenzy Virus—began to roll off its golden hide in thick, majestic waves, saturating the entire loading bay in an eerie, glowing violet fog.
The majestic beast threw its crown-horned head back toward the heavens, expanded its massive, golden wing-canvas to catch the wind, and let out an unearthly, deafening roar that vibrated through the very bedrock of Brockton Bay!
"ROOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"
The sheer sonic force of the roar blew away the smoke and flames, echoing for miles across the coast.
Aurelius—the Heavenly Revolving Dragon, Shagaru Magala—had arrived.
Three hundred feet down the street, inside the ruin of a steel shipping container he had been hurled through, a terrifying, guttural roar erupted.
BOOOM!
The corrugated steel exploded outward in a shower of white-hot shrapnel. Lung burst from the rubble, his thirty-foot frame surging forward in a frenzy of pure, unadulterated fury. His transformation had escalated even further under the threat—his dark, metallic hide was now studded with row upon row of jagged obsidian spires, and his second pair of wings flared out behind him, fanning an inferno that turned the night sky into a screaming orange hellscape.
"GGRRRRR... KKKK-LLLL... OUUUUU!"
Lung's voice was no longer human in any capacity. His mind had drowned entirely beneath the feral instincts of his power. He couldn't form words, only a garbled, wet distortion of iron grinding against molten rock—an incoherent, guttural screech of absolute kill-intent.
Lung sprinted forward, his massive, clawed feet tearing up chunk after chunk of bedrock. With a terrifying burst of speed that defied his thirty-foot scale, the warlord propelled himself into the air, his four flaming wings beating the atmosphere into a sonic boom as he plunged toward the golden dragon, both of his glowing, white-hot claws cocked back to disembowel the intruder.
Aurelius didn't flinch. The Heavenly Revolving Dragon, Shagaru Magala, simply narrowed its luminous, slit-pupiled eyes.
With a movement so fluid it seemed effortless, Aurelius executed a sudden, immense backward leap that cleared fifty yards in a heartbeat. The wind displacement from his wing-canvas caught Taylor's cape, shielding her completely from the incoming heat wave.
CRASH!
Lung's double-claw strike slammed directly into the spot where Aurelius had been standing a split second before. The impact cratered the street down to the sewer lines, sending a geyser of liquid pavement and shattered pipe thirty feet into the air.
Before Lung could even pull his clawed hands out of the molten earth, Aurelius answered.
Lowering his head near the ground, Aurelius let out a low, resonant growl and unleashed a Sliding Spit. Three compressed orbs of dense, dark-purple frenzy energy erupted from his maw in rapid succession. The energy balls skimmed along the shattered surface of the street, sliding across the asphalt like skipping stones of volatile plasma before detonating directly against Lung's chest and shoulders!
THOOM! THOOM! THOOM!
The triple blast didn't just knock the thirty-foot tyrant backward—it coated his upper body in a thick, sticky layer of dark purple fog.
Lung roared, a garbled, choking noise rising in his throat as he shook his massive head to clear his vision. He flexed his massive chest, expecting his hyper-accelerated, shard-driven regeneration to instantly knit the scorched, cracked scales where the purple energy had detonated.
Normally, a wound like that would heal in less than a second. Flesh would knit, scales would harden, and Lung would grow larger, stronger, and hotter in response to the pain.
Nothing happened.
The scorched scales remained cracked. The flesh beneath stayed dark, raw, and bleeding a strange, dark-violet ooze.
Deep within Lung's bloodstream, the Frenzy Virus had taken hold.
It was an absolute biological paradox to his power. The virus was not poison, nor was it thermal damage it was a hyper-evolutionary, cell-altering pathogen engineered by nature to turn Beasts into raving, self-destructive husks while forcibly overriding their cellular mechanics. The moment the virus entered Lung's bloodstream, it latched onto his rapidly dividing cells and paralyzed them. His natural regeneration was completely, utterly shut down.
Lung felt it instantly. For the first time since he had triggered his body was refusing to heal.
A look of genuine, chaotic confusion flashed in his glowing golden eyes. "RRR-RAGH?! KKK-HHH... N-NGHH!" he gurgled, his voice a broken, raspy mess as he clutched at his unhealing chest.
Aurelius gave him no time to comprehend his own mortality.
The Shagaru Magala raised its titanic frame onto its hind legs, spreading its colossal wing-arms until they blocked out the stars overhead. Sparkles of brilliant, pale-gold and dark-violet energy danced across its jaw as it unleashed a Ground Blast.
Aurelius slammed his head downward, spitting a massive, concentrated orb of pure Frenzy energy straight into the pavement directly at Lung's feet.
K-K-K-BOOOOOOM!
The energy orb didn't just explode upward; it detonated sideways, creating a cascading wall of vertical purple explosions that rippled outward in a devastating, linear shockwave! The blast tore beneath Lung's legs, throwing the thirty-foot beast entirely off balance and blasting off several large plates of his metallic hide.
Lung screamed—a wet, guttural howl of pain that echoed across the bay like tearing metal.
Inside the crumbling interior of the apartment building four hundred feet away, Greg lay pinned under a six-hundred-pound slab of reinforced concrete.
Blood dripped from his mouth, staining his chin, but his golden, reptilian eyes were wide open. He could feel everything Aurelius felt through their spiritual, system-forged bond. He could feel the cold, divine arrogance of the Shagaru Magala, the raw power humming through its gold-plated veins, and most importantly, he felt the exact moment Lung's regeneration failed.
It worked... Greg thought, a wet, bloody grin carving across his face. The Frenzy Virus... it completely neutralizes his regeneration... He's taking permanent damage now...
Greg gritted his teeth, his muscles twitching violently. His own Drake physiology was slowly fighting back against the trauma of his shattered ribs. The deep, burning ache in his chest was turning into a warm, thrumming heat as his draconic heart pumped fresh, empowered blood through his veins. Bones were popping back into alignment with sickening, muffled crunching sounds beneath his skin.
I just need a little more time... Greg forced himself to stay still, focusing his mind entirely on directing Aurelius through their link. Aurelius... don't let up for a single microsecond! Crush him!
Out on the street, Aurelius answered his master's intent with brutal, calculated perfection.
Lung, screaming in incoherent frustration—"SSS-RRRR... D-DIEEEE-GGGH!"—tried to force his body to ignite a massive, hundred-foot pillar of fire. He opened his jaws, drawing in a massive breath to unleash a localized supernova.
Aurelius didn't wait. The golden dragon swept forward in a lightning-fast Heavy Melee Attack. One of his massive, clawed wing-arms swiped across the sky like a falling guillotine, the blunt-force weight of the wing-arm striking Lung square across his snout before he could unleash the flame!
CRACK!
The force of the strike shattered Lung's lower jaw, driving his head violently into the asphalt and choking back the fire in a shower of black sparks. Utilizing the rare, lethal variation of the strike, Aurelius immediately followed through with a second, backhanded swing of his opposing wing-arm, catching Lung in the ribs and sending the thirty-foot titan tumbling across the concrete like a skipped stone!
Lung skidded to a halt, coughing up gouts of thick, dark blood that sputtered harmlessly on the street. He scrambled to his feet, his mind rapidly drowning in the maddening influence of the Frenzy Virus lingering in his system. His instincts screamed at him to fall back, to adapt, to heal—but his shard was screaming back in absolute panic as its cellular commands were repeatedly blocked by the viral corruption.
"GGRRRR-AAAAGH! ME... KIILLL! ALL... MEEEEE!" Lung gurgled
Lung lunged forward in a desperate, mad Charge, his remaining two wings flaring as he attempted to tackle the golden god and sink his white-hot teeth into Aurelius's neck.
Aurelius didn't even bother dodging. As Lung closed the distance, Aurelius executed a a sudden, brutally heavy sideways jump that slammed his entire armored shoulder directly into Lung's chest.
The kinetic differential was ludicrous. Lung felt as though he had run full-speed into a moving mountain. The collision halted his charge instantly, snapping his spine back with a sickening pop.
Before Lung could fall, Aurelius utilized his momentum Harnessing the rotational force of the shoulder-bump, Aurelius spun his long, heavy tail around in a sweeping, devastating arc. The spiked, golden tip of his tail struck Lung's knee joint like a wrecking ball!
SHATTER!
Lung's left knee gave way completely, the metallic joint crushed flat. The thirty-foot tyrant collapsed onto one knee, letting out a horrific, screeching gurgle of pain.
Taylor, watching from behind a fallen dumpster fifty feet away, held her breath in absolute, stunned silence. This wasn't a fight. This was an execution.
Aurelius spread his divine, gold-and-white wings wide, shifting his stance. He stood up on his hind legs, his head reaching forty feet into the night sky. The pale-purple light in his jaw deepened, shifting into a dark, blinding violet stream of raw, unadulterated energy.
Aurelius swept his head downward, firing a massive, continuous beam of screaming purple Frenzy energy directly into the earth in front of Lung. The beam ignited the asphalt, cutting through the ground like a hot knife through butter, before sweeping violently from side to side across Lung's body!
VRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMM!
The laser-like energy beam tore through Lung's obsidian armor, carving massive, glowing violet trenches across his chest, shoulders, and arms. Concrete, steel, and molten metal erupted into the air as the beam swept back and forth, dragging Lung across the ruined street like a ragdoll.
Lung shrieked, a high-pitched, metallic squeal of agony as his fiery aura sputtered wildly. The continuous bombardment of pure Frenzy energy saturated every single cell of his body.
Aurelius cut the beam, lowered his massive front wing-arms back to the earth, and took a deep, resonant breath. Then, he launched himself into the night sky.
With a single, mighty stroke of his golden wings, Aurelius ascended three hundred feet into the air in the blink of an eye. He hovered above the burning loading bay like a dark, golden sun, his shadow casting a pall of absolute doom over the entire district.
Deep within his chest, the Frenzy Virus reached a critical state of concentration. Aurelius opened his maw and threw his head back toward the moon, entering his fully enraged state.
Aurelius let out a prolonged, echoing roar that vibrated through the clouds. From his open jaw and the glowing seams of his wings, dozens upon dozens of dark, compressed orbs of pure Frenzy energy shot upward into the heavens before raining down across the entire neighborhood like an orbital artillery strike!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The night sky turned purple as the energy rain descended. Each drop that struck the ground exploded in a vertical pillar of violent, dark-violet energy. Lung was trapped in the absolute center of the barrage. Pillar after pillar of Frenzy energy slammed directly into his body, smashing him deeper and deeper into the earth until his metallic scales were stripped away piecemeal and his four fiery wings were shredded into useless tatters of burning ash.
Hovering amidst the dark clouds, Aurelius locked his eyes on the broken, smoking form of the tyrant below. The dragon folded his wings and dove.
Aurelius plummeted toward the earth like a falling star, trailing a massive comet-tail of dark purple energy. As he descended, he fired three rapid-fire energy bursts to the ground ahead of him before slamming his entire, multi-ton golden body directly onto Lung's chest upon landing!
THOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The force of the landing created a localized shockwave that blew away every scrap of smoke, dust, and fire within five blocks. The ground caved in fifteen feet deep, forming a colossal impact crater in the middle of the loading bay.
When the dust finally began to settle, Aurelius was standing proudly atop Lung's chest, his colossal, clawed wing-arms pinned firmly onto the tyrant's shoulders, crushing them into the dirt.
Lung was beaten. His body, once thirty feet of terrifying, unstoppable metallic muscle, had shrunk down to under twelve feet. His metallic scales were dull, rotted, and flaking off like rusted iron. His wounds were weeping dark purple fluid, completely unable to heal under the unrelenting oppression of the Frenzy Virus.
He couldn't move. He couldn't burn. He couldn't heal. His mouth opened, but all that came out was a pathetic, wet wheeze: "k-khhh... n-no..."
Aurelius lowered his crown-horned head until his glowing golden eyes were inches from Lung's ruined face. The dragon let out a low, vibrating growl, a cold, dark fog oozing from his jaw—a lingering Dark Fog that wrapped around Lung's head, smothering any remaining sparks.
BOOM!
A hundred feet away, the front wall of the crumbling apartment building exploded outward.
A tall, crimson-scaled figure stepped out from the dust and rubble, coughing slightly as he dusted off his gauntlets. Greg was back. His chest plate was still cracked, but his ribs had fully knit together under his half-drake regeneration.
"Monarch!" Greg called out, his voice strong and steady as he jogged over to her. "You okay?!"
Taylor spun around, her eyes widening behind her visor. "High Roller! You're... you're alive! I saw you get hit through a building!"
"Takes a lot more than an oversized tail to keep a dragon down," Greg grinned, rubbing his side. He turned toward the crater where Aurelius held the broken warlord down. "Told you I'd buy us some time."
"You... you KNOW that thing?!" Taylor gasped.
He didn't think. He didn't plan. In a fit of pure, suicidal, animalistic desperation, Lung ignited every remaining drop of thermal energy in his core all at once!
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH-KKKKKK!" Lung shrieked—a completely unintelligible roar of feral agony.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
A blinding, violent ring of white-hot plasma detonated directly off Lung's skin in a three-hundred-degree shockwave! The raw kinetic force and blistering heat melted the surrounding pavement into liquid glass instantly. Lung thrashed like a wounded, dying beast, swinging his heavy spiked tail and clawing madly in every direction.
One of his massive, flaming claws managed to catch Aurelius across the lower chest, while the explosive blast of superheated air slammed into the Elder Dragon's underbelly.
Aurelius let out a startled, deep growl, using his massive wings to catch the backdraft. The golden dragon was forced to leap backward a hundred feet, digging his wing-claws deep into the concrete to anchor himself as the blinding thermal wave dissipated.
Lung stood in the center of the molten crater, chest heaving, dark purple fog still clinging to his rotting, unhealing scales. His eyes were wild, bloodshot, and completely devoid of human thought—he was a mindless, cornered predator waiting to burn out.
BOOM!
A hundred feet away, the front wall of a crumbling apartment building exploded outward.
A tall figure stepped out from the dust and rubble. Blood dripped from his chin, but his golden, reptilian eyes were burning with raw, untamed power.
Greg pulled himself free from the debris. Through their spiritual bond, he had felt everything—Aurelius's assault, the lingering paralysis of Lung's regeneration, and the wild, desperate flame-burst that had momentarily pushed the Elder Dragon back.
He's at his limit... Greg thought, his heart thumping like a war drum in his chest. No more holding back. It's time to end this myself.
Greg gritted his teeth as his draconic bloodline surged into overdrive. The minor cracks in his ribs popped back into place as a deep, primal heat flooded his veins.
"Monarch! Stay back!" Greg shouted, his voice dropping several octaves, vibrating with a heavy, subterranean rumble that shook the loose glass in the surrounding streetlights.
Taylor, crouching behind a fallen dumpster, gasped. "High Roller... what are you doing?!"
Greg didn't answer with words. He threw his arms wide and opened the floodgates of his power, shedding the last remnants of his human constraints.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
Thick, crimson-and-black scales exploded across every inch of Greg's skin, layering over his body like heavy plate armor. His human frame expanded violently, swelling in height and width. His chest widened, his limbs thickened into dense, muscular, clawed dragon legs that smashed through his gauntlets and rooted deep into the cracked asphalt.
His spine extended with a wet, sickening crunch, a long, heavy crimson tail sweeping out behind him, studded with razor-sharp dorsal spikes that whipped through the air. His jaw split and elongated outward into a noble, terrifying draconian snout, lined with rows of serrated, ivory fangs. Sweeping back from his brow, two massive, jagged horns curled into a grand, menacing crown of crimson blood-steel.
ROAR!
With a deafening tear of expanding muscle and tissue, two colossal, leather-and-scale wings of deep, fiery scarlet erupted from Greg's shoulder blades! Spanning over forty feet from tip to tip, the massive crimson sails beat against the atmosphere, blowing away the lingering heat and purple ash in a violent gale!
Greg was no longer a half-drake. He was no longer a human wearing power.
He was a Full Drake.
Standing fifteen feet tall on four heavy, armored legs—a massive, magnificent, crimson dragon of pure destruction—Greg planted his front claws into the street, stepping directly beside Aurelius. His golden, slit-pupiled eyes burned with the fury of an ancient apex predator, locking onto the wounded, thrashing tyrant in the crater.
Beside him, Aurelius lowered his golden head, spreading his four massive wings wide, his golden scales gleaming under the moonlight as pale-purple Frenzy energy crackled between his horns once more.
Taylor pressed herself flat against the dumpster, her mouth open in absolute, stunned silence. Two massive dragons—one a divine, gold-and-white Elder Dragon, the other a terrifying, blood-red Drake—stood shoulder-to-shoulder, completely dwarfing the ruined street.
Side by side, Greg and Aurelius threw their heads back in unison, letting out a pair of twin, sky-shattering roars that shook the very foundations of Brockton Bay!
"ROAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"
Lung let out a garbled, incoherent screech—"GGRRRR-AAAAGH!"—and charged forward in a final, suicidal frenzy.
The sound that tore through the industrial district was not the voice of any human being, nor was it the mechanical whine of parahuman technology. It was a primordial, earth-shaking dissonance—a twin roar born from the darkest depths of ancient fantasy and the golden heights of celestial divinity.
The glass remaining in the surrounding warehouse windows shattered into dust. The lingering fog off the bay was blasted violently backward by the sheer kinetic weight of the soundwaves, leaving a barren, superheated void in the middle of Lord Street.
Taylor pressed herself into the dirt behind the melted carcass of an industrial dumpster, her hands clamped over her ears beneath her visor. Even with her senses dampened by her costume, her skull rattled against her spine. Her bugs—the few thousand that hadn't been vaporized by Lung's lingering heat waves—were dying by the hundreds every second, their tiny nervous systems overloaded by the sheer atmospheric pressure generated by the two leviathans standing before her.
To her left stood the Heavenly Revolving Dragon, Shagaru Magala. Aurelius's scales glistened like polished ivory and spun gold under the blood-moon sky, his swept-back horns radiating an ethereal, pale-purple aura. His massive wing-arms were anchored into the bedrock, five-toed claws sinking six inches into solid concrete like hot knives through butter.
To her right stood High Roller—or whatever Greg had become.
Through their shared mental link, Greg felt no fear. The human panic that usually cluttered his thoughts—the anxious chatter, the constant calculation of parahuman rankings, the worry of what his mother or his classmates would think—was drowned out by a roaring ocean of pure, unadulterated draconic instinct.
His vision had shifted. The world was no longer rendered in simple colors and shapes; it was an intricate matrix of thermal heat signatures, scent vectors, and pressure gradients. He could smell the burning copper of Lung's blood, the sweet, metallic ozone of Aurelius's Frenzy Virus, and the acrid stench of boiling ocean water wafting off the docks. He could feel the pulse of Aurelius's mind alongside his own—a cold, arrogant, beautiful intelligence that viewed the world not as a home, but as a territory to be dominated.
Crush him, Aurelius's presence whispered into Greg's consciousness—not in words, but in a wave of dark, absolute intent. The false drake dares to bleed in our presence. Scatter his ashes to the sea.
Together, Greg answered, his voice echoing in his own mind like a falling mountain.
Three hundred feet away, standing in the glowing, slag-filled crater of his own making, Lung looked up.
The warlord of the Brockton Bay ABB was barely recognizable as a parahuman. The Frenzy Virus coursing through his bloodstream had turned his inner biology into a warzone. His hyper-accelerated regeneration—the tool that had allowed him to fight the Endbringer Leviathan to a standstill in Kyushu—was screaming in absolute panic. Every time his shard attempted to knit his flesh, the dark purple viral particles latched onto the nascent cells, forcing them to mutate, burst, and decay before they could form solid tissue.
His body was a map of open, weeping horrors. His chest was carved with deep, purple-crusted trenches from Aurelius's energy sweeps. His lower jaw hung at a sickening angle, splintered by the Elder Dragon's wing-arm. His obsidian scales, normally an impenetrable armor, were flaking off in dull, grey sheets, exposing raw, black-red meat beneath.
Yet, he did not run.
Driven into an absolute corner by a threat it could not comprehend, the energy within him bypassed all biological preservation protocols. Lung's body began to force heat outward not as a weapon, but as a desperate, violent purge to burn the virus from his veins.
"GGRRRRRRRR-AAAAAAAGH!"
The sound that erupted from Lung's shattered maw was completely unintelligible. It was a wet, choked gurgle of pure, feral madness—a dying animal's promise to take the entire world down with it.
A column of roaring, blinding orange plasma launched Lung forward like an artillery shell. The ground beneath him didn't just crack—it vaporized, sending a shockwave of liquified dirt and white-hot air cascading outward in a fifty-foot ring.
"LOOK OUT!" Taylor screamed, though her voice was completely swallowed by the roar of the inferno.
Lung crossed the three hundred feet in less than a second, his glowing, three-pronged claws outstretched, aiming straight for Greg's throat. His intent was simple: tackle the crimson beast, sink his fangs into its neck, and detonate his core point-blank.
Greg didn't try to dodge. His new physiology screamed for close-quarters brutalization.
With a deep, guttural growl that rattled his own ribcage, Greg dropped his center of gravity, DIGGING his front ivory claws deep into the road. As Lung hit him, the collision sounded like two speeding freight trains slamming head-on into each other.
CRACK-BOOM!
The kinetic force blew out the foundations of the warehouse to their left, causing two thousand tons of corrugated steel and brick to collapse in a shower of sparks and dust.
Greg grunted as Lung's immense weight slammed into his chest. The superheated heat off Lung's scales scorched Greg's crimson hide, turning his outer armor black, but Greg's draconic resistance held the line. Instead of giving ground, Greg snapped his massive, jawed snout forward, his serrated ivory fangs locking onto Lung's left shoulder with the crushing force of a hydraulic press!
CRUNCH!
Black, superheated blood spurted from Lung's shoulder as Greg's teeth sheared through his remaining metallic scales, crunching straight into the bone beneath.
Lung shrieked—a terrifying, metallic gurgle—and swung his free right arm, his claws carving five deep, glowing red gouges across Greg's ribs. Heat flooded into the wounds, searing Greg's flesh, but the pain only fed the Drake's fury.
Greg whipped his heavy, spiked tail around in a blind, violent arc.
THWACK!
The serrated scythe at the tip of Greg's tail slammed directly into the side of Lung's unhealing knee joint. The joint buckled backward with a sickening snap. Lung roared in agony, his center of gravity collapsing.
Now! Greg communicated through the bond.
From above, a shadow fell over them.
Aurelius had launched himself twenty feet into the air the moment Lung had charged. Sweeping his golden wings downward, the Shagaru Magala descended like a divine anvil. His massive, three-jointed wing-arms slammed down onto Lung's back, driving the warlord violently into the molten street!
BOOM!
Lung was pinned flat against the asphalt, crushed beneath the combined weight of two multi-ton monsters. Aurelius sank his wing-claws deep into Lung's spine, anchoring him to the earth, while Greg maintained his vice-like bite on Lung's shoulder, tearing sideways with a violent jerk of his head.
SHRED!
A massive chunk of black flesh and metallic scale was ripped clean off Lung's torso. Greg spat the burning meat aside, his jaws dripping with smoking, dark blood, and threw his head back, letting out a roar of absolute dominance.
Lung thrashed beneath them like a harpooned leviathan. The ground shook as his tail whipped frantically, smashing through concrete and steel support beams. Driven past the point of sanity, Lung's shard attempted a violent counter-surge.
"KKK-HHH... BURN! BUUUUUURNNN!"
it was the broken, desperate echo of a human mind being erased by its own power.
The temperature beneath Aurelius and Greg spiked exponentially. 1,000 degrees. 2,000 degrees. 4,000 degrees.
The asphalt around them ceased to be solid or liquid; it turned into a boiling, bubbling sea of white-hot vapor. The metal beams of the fallen warehouse behind them softened, drooping like wet noodles before melting entirely into glowing puddles of iron.
Aurelius hissed, his gold-and-white scales singing as the superheated air threatened to cook his lower belly. The Elder Dragon raised his head, his luminous eyes flashing with cold, ruthless efficiency.
Aurelius didn't pull back. Instead, he opened his jaw, drawing in a massive breath of atmospheric air. The pale-purple energy dancing between his sweep-back horns flared into a blinding, violet star.
Point-Blank Frenzy Nova.
Aurelius shoved his entire snout down into the small gap between Lung's neck and shoulder, right into the open wound Greg had just torn open, and unleashed a continuous stream of pure, unadulterated Frenzy Virus energy directly into Lung's internal organs!
VRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-THOOM!
The detonation was contained entirely within Lung's body.
A muffled, terrifying THUD echoed from inside the warlord's chest cavity. Lung's entire body swelled like a balloon as dark purple light erupted from his eyes, his mouth, his ears, and the thousands of micro-cracks in his scales. The pure, concentrated viral load bypassed his skin entirely, flooding his heart, his lungs, and his nervous system.
Lung's internal heat died instantly.
The white-hot glow in his chest sputtered out, replaced by a sickly, pulsing violet light. His internal organs were being rewritten on a cellular level, turned into slurry by a biological force that cared nothing for his parahuman origin.
Lung's body went limp for a fraction of a second, his eyes rolling back into his head as his brain suffocated beneath the viral shock.
Aurelius lifted his wing-arms, stepping back from the crater, his chest heaving as he exhaled a thick cloud of purple fog. The Elder Dragon looked down at his victim with supreme, unfeeling disdain. He had rendered the beast helpless. Now, the execution belonged to his master.
Greg stepped forward into the center of the crater. His crimson scales were scorched black in places, smoke rising from his ribs, but his golden eyes burned brighter than ever.
Lung lay in the pit, his body reduced from thirty feet down to barely nine feet. He was shrinking rapidy, his power retreating as his physical form failed. His metallic scales were gone, replaced by raw, charred skin that bled dark, viral slime. His chest rose and fell in ragged, shallow hitches.
Yet, as Greg loomed over him, the dying warlord's eyelids twitched open.
A single, bloodshot golden eye locked onto Greg's snout. There was no intelligence left in that eye—no thoughts of the ABB, no thoughts of empire, no thoughts of parahuman supremacy. There was only the raw, miserable, endless rage of a dying predator that refused to bow.
Lung's remaining arm twitched, his clawed fingers feebly scraping against Greg's front leg, trying to scratch the crimson dragon one last time.
"k-khhh..." Lung gurgled, a thin stream of black blood leaking from his lips. "die..."
Greg looked down at the man who had terrorized Brockton Bay for years—the monster who burned children, destroyed families, and ruled the docks through absolute, brutal fear.
No more, Greg thought. The voice was his, but it carried the absolute weight of his Full Drake ascension. You don't get to burn anything ever again.
Greg raised his right front leg. His massive, ivory-tipped claws glistened under the moonlight, slick with Lung's blood.
With a swift, terrifying trajectory, Greg drove his four claws straight through Lung's chest.
THWACK-CRUNCH!
The sound was shockingly simple. Bones snapped. Tissue tore. Greg's claws pierced through Lung's sternum, driving deep into his heart and lung cavity, anchoring the warlord to the bedrock beneath the city.
Lung's body convulsed violently. A single, sharp gasp of air escaped his throat, accompanied by a heavy spray of dark blood that coated Greg's chest. Lung's legs twitched once, twice... and then went completely still.
The superheated aura surrounding his body collapsed entirely. The air cooled rapidly, dropping from a suffocating blast furnace back to the crisp, chilly night breeze off the Atlantic Ocean.
In the silence that followed, Greg flexed his jaws, leaned down, and bit down on Lung's throat.
CRUNCH.
With a single, brutal jerk of his crimson head, Greg severed the warlord's neck, ending any theoretical possibility of parahuman resurgence, shard-recovery, or miraculous survival.
The Dragon of Brockton Bay was dead.
Silence descended over the ruined loading bay like a heavy woolen blanket.
The contrast was staggering. Seconds ago, the district had been an apocalyptic hellscape of blinding light, screaming metal, and earth-shattering explosions. Now, there was only the gentle, rhythmic crackle of dying fires, the hiss of cooling asphalt, and the soft, rolling drift of purple fog settling into the crater.
Taylor slowly raised her head from behind the melted dumpster.
Her hands were shaking uncontrollably. Her knees felt like water. She pulled herself up, leaning heavily against the twisted metal frame of the dumpster, her eyes wide as she took in the scene before her.
The entire street was gone. Where Lord Street had been, there was now a sprawling, fifty-yard crater lined with glassified, black slag. The surrounding warehouses were ruined hulls, their roofs collapsed, their steel frames bent like plastic drinking straws.
And standing in the absolute center of the carnage were the two monsters.
Aurelius stood tall, his gold-and-white wings folded elegantly along his back. The pale-purple aura around his horns was slowly fading, his brilliant golden eyes watching the surrounding rooftops for any lingering threats.
Beside him, standing over the decapitated, smoking remains of Lung, was Greg.
The Full Drake lowered his head, his long, heavy tail resting on the ground behind him. Smoke curled lazily from his nostrils as he drew in a deep, shuddering breath. The crimson dragon looked vast, ancient, and terrifying—a creature that belonged in the dark pages of forgotten myth, not in a modern industrial city.
Taylor took a slow, hesitant step forward, her boots crunching on the shattered gravel.
"High... High Roller?" she whispered, her voice cracking with awe and sheer terror.
Greg's massive, horned head snapped toward her. His golden, slit-pupiled eyes locked onto her small, slender frame. For a horrifying second, Taylor wondered if the beast even recognized her—if the transformation had erased Greg completely and replaced him with a mindless monster.
Then, the Drake blinked.
A low, gentle rumble echoed from Greg's chest—a sound that vibrated softly through the ground beneath Taylor's boots. It wasn't a roar; it was a purr. A warm, reassuring sound that carried the unmistakable, goofy warmth of the boy she had sat next to in computer lab.
Greg nudged his massive snout toward her, stopping a few feet short, as if acutely aware of his own terrifying scale.
We did it, Monarch, his voice echoed softly in her mind—not through a system screen, but through the lingering, empathic spillover of his draconic presence. He's gone.
Taylor let out a breath she felt like she had been holding for an eternity. She sank onto one knee, resting her hand against the cool, glassified rim of the crater to steady herself. "You... you actually killed him. You killed Lung."
He wasn't going to stop, Greg's mental presence replied, carrying a heavy, somber weight. If we let him live, he would have come after you. He would have burned everything.
Beside them, Aurelius let out a low, musical growl. The Shagaru Magala raised its head toward the sky, spreading its golden wings one last time. As the pale-purple mist began to thin, the Elder Dragon's body began to shimmer, turning into millions of tiny, glowing golden particles that drifted upward into the night air, dissolving into the moonlight like falling stars.
Within ten seconds, the divine dragon was gone, leaving only Greg standing over the battlefield.
His fifteen-foot quadruped frame began to shift and condense. The massive extra bulk pulled inward, his extra weight receding as his skeleton realigned. His four heavy legs shifted back into a two-legged stance, his body straightening up to a towering seven feet tall. The massive dragon wings folded down, shrinking into sharp, armored crimson mantles over his shoulder blades.
When the transformation settled, Greg had shifted into his Hybrid Form.
He stood on two muscular, clawed legs, covered head-to-toe in glistening, crimson-and-black scale armor. Heavy dragon horns swept back from his brow like a dark crown, a thick, armored tail whipped lazily behind his legs, and his slit-pupiled golden eyes burned with quiet, controlled power. He was no longer a towering beast, but he was far from human—a terrifying, half-drake warrior standing proudly in the center of the carnage.
Beside him, Aurelius let out a low growl. The Shagaru Magala raised his head toward the sky, spreading his golden wings one last time before his body dissolved into millions of glowing, golden light particles that drifted into the night air.
Taylor slowly pulled herself out from behind the dumpster, stepping cautiously into the crater. Her visor reflected the ruined block and the crimson figure standing over the slain warlord.
"High Roller..." Taylor whispered, her voice trembling slightly. "Is it... is it really over?"
Greg turned his head toward her, his Hybrid Form's tall frame casting a long shadow across the ash. He flexed his clawed gauntlets, wiping a smear of dark blood from his crimson snout.
"Yeah," Greg said, his voice deep, gravelly, and echoing with a rich draconic rumble. "It's over. Lung is dead."
Taylor stopped beside him, looking down at the charred, silent remains. "I can't believe it. The PRT, the Protectorate... nobody could put him down. And you just... you completely destroyed him."
"We destroyed him," Greg corrected, his golden eyes softening as he looked down at her. "You held the line with me, Monarch. We did this together."
Taylor felt a lump form in her throat beneath her mask, a feeling of immense relief washing over her. "Together."
A sharp whistle echoed from above.
Greg's golden, slit-pupiled eyes snapped upward, his nostrils flaring as he caught a wave of strange, acrid scents wafting down from the roof of the adjacent three-story apartment building.
Standing on the edge of the roof were three monstrous beasts—the size of vans, resembling a nightmare cross between lizards and tigers, with tangles of exposed muscle and bone where skin and fur should have been.
And riding atop those monsters were four teenagers.
Taylor shrank back, her bugs swirling defensively around her head, while Greg stood his ground in his hybrid form, his tail lashing out in immediate, hostile irritation.
The tall guy in the middle, dressed in black motorcycle leathers with a stylized, jet-black skull visor, slid off the back of his beast and approached the edge of the roof, looking down at the ruined street.
"You really saved us a lot of trouble," he told them. His voice was deep, masculine, but muffled by his helmet. He jerked his thumb over one shoulder. "When we got word Lung was aiming to come after us tonight, we were pretty freaked. We were arguing strategy for the better part of the day. We eventually decided, fuck it, we'd meet him halfway. Wing it. Not my usual way of doing things, but yeah."
Behind him, one of the girls—wearing a tight black and pale-blue suit with long, windblown dark blond hair—leaned over the ledge, looking at Lung's headless corpse and the massive crater.
"Lung got completely creamed," she grinned, a sharp, fox-like smile turning up the corners of her mouth. "The fuck did you two do to him?"
"Wasp and bee stings, fire ants and spider bites," Taylor blurted out automatically before she could stop herself.
"He's not holding up too well," the blond girl chuckled. "Considering he's...you know."
Greg's golden eyes narrowed into thin slits. The heat rising off his crimson scales spiked as pure, unadulterated anger flared in his chest. His tail slammed into a piece of rubble, shattering it to dust.
"You sat up there?" Greg growled, his deep, hybrid voice vibrating through the concrete, making the giant beasts on the roof let out low, uneasy growls. "You assholes sat on the roof and watched us fight a thirty-foot fire demon while you chatted?!"
The guy in the skull mask paused, looking at Greg's half-dragon form with a hint of newfound caution. "Introductions. That's Tattletale. I'm Grue." He pointed to a girl wearing a plastic rottweiler mask and a plaid skirt. "The girl with the dogs—we call her Bitch, her preference, but in the interests of being P.G., the good guys and media decided to call her Hellhound instead. Last and certainly least, we have Regent."
"Fuck you, Grue," retorted the boy in the renaissance shirt and coronet with a light chuckle.
Grue looked down at Greg's towering, scaled frame and Taylor's small, insect-covered outfit. "Hey, you okay? You hurt?"
"The reason she's not introducing herself isn't because she's hurt," Tattletale chimed in, leaning further over the roof ledge, her eyes scanning Greg's hybrid scales and Taylor's visor with sharp, uncanny intensity. "It's because she's shy."
Greg took a heavy step toward the base of the apartment building, his clawed gauntlets clenching into fists. "We almost got turned to ash down here, and you guys were just waiting to see if we'd die for you?!"
Before Grue could reply, Tattletale's fox-like smile suddenly faded. She turned her head toward the north, listening to something in the distance.
"Heads up," Tattletale warned, her tone shifting instantly. "We've gotta scram."
Bitch didn't hesitate. She let out one short whistle followed by two long ones. The three massive, skinless dog-beasts bounded off the roof, their heavy impacts shaking the alleyway as they landed in the darkness below.
Grue glanced down at Taylor and Greg one last time. "Hey, want a ride?"
Taylor looked at the snarling, bloodied monsters in the alley and quickly shook her head. Greg just let out a low, hostile growl from his throat, his tail lashing out again. "Get out of here before I turn those dogs into boots."
Tattletale seated herself just behind Bitch on the lead monster, looking back at Taylor with glittering, mischievous eyes behind her black domino mask. "Well, Bug, a cape is gonna show up in less than a minute. You did us a solid by dealing with Lung, so take my advice. Someone from the Protectorate shows up, finds two bad guys duking it out, they're not going to let one walk away. You should get out of here."
With a screech of metal on metal, the three massive beasts leaped over the fire escape and bounded off into the shadows of the docks, disappearing as fast as they had arrived
Silence returned to the alley, leaving Greg and Taylor standing alone in the crater.
Greg let out a heavy gust of smoke from his snout, his hybrid form tensing as he stared at the empty roof. "Unbelievable. Absolute freeloaders."
Taylor stood frozen, her stomach dropping as the full weight of what had just happened settled over her. The 'children' Lung had been talking about—the ones he had threatened to murder, the ones she had risked her life to save tonight—were bad guys. The Undersiders.
And they had walked away thinking Taylor and Greg were villains just like them.
The screech of custom tires broke the lingering silence of the Docks as headlights cut through the thick fog and rising smoke.
Sprinting down the street on a dark blue, high-tech Tinker motorcycle with a roaring turbine engine was Armsmaster.
Right behind his bike, three heavy PRT transport vans slammed their brakes, doors flying open as tactical troopers in full body armor spilled out with containment foam sprayers and assault rifles raised.
Disembarking from his motorcycle with practiced, formidable grace, Armsmaster held his six-foot mechanical Halberd at the ready, flanked instantly by the rest of the local Protectorate response team: Miss Militia with her shifting weapon, Velocity vibrating in place, Assault and Battery adjusting their armor, and Triumph scanning the high ground.
Armsmaster's V-shaped visor swept across the scene, diagnostic HUD scanning the glassified crater... and locking onto the nine-foot, headless corpse leaking purple-tinted fluid onto the scorched concrete.
Behind Armsmaster, Assault let out a low whistle. "Holy shit... Tell me I'm hallucinating. Is that Lung?"
Miss Militia lowered her rifle by a fraction of an inch, her eyes wide beneath her green bandana mask. "He's dead."
Armsmaster's jaw tightened beneath his mask. Two unknown capes—rookies, by their complete lack of PRT records—had just done what the entire Brockton Bay Protectorate had failed to do for five years. They had put down the Warlord of the Docks. Permanently.
"You gonna fight us?" Armsmaster called out, his deep, synthesized voice cutting through the hum of idling van engines and his motorcycle's cooling turbine.
The bug-controlling cape—standing nervously beside the seven-foot, crimson-scaled hybrid drake—flinched slightly at the stern tone, her gloved hands tightening into fists at her sides. "we... we're good guys," she blurted out, her voice raspy from smoke inhalation.
Armsmaster stepped closer, his heavy armored boots crunching against the shattered glass. He tilted his head, his visor fixing on her dark, hand-stitched insect suit, then panning to the terrifying, scale-draped hybrid dragon form standing beside her, its massive crimson wings flared wide behind its back. "You don't look like one."
The words hit her like a physical blow. "That's... that's not intentional," she responded defensively, her voice trembling slightly. "I was more than halfway done putting the costume together when I realized it was already looking more edgy than I'd intended, and I couldn't do anything about it by then."
A three-second silence stretched across the alley. Armsmaster's visor flickered as his built-in lie-detector suit processed her vocal cadence and heart rate.
"You're telling the truth," Armsmaster said definitively, relaxing his stance just a fraction. He looked the bug cape over, taking in her posture. "You need a hospital?"
"No," she muttered. "Don't think so. I'm... as surprised as you are."
"You're a new face," Armsmaster observed, his voice smoothing out into a practiced, authoritative calm. "Both of you."
"My partner gave me a name tonight," she offered awkwardly, gesturing toward the giant dragon-man beside her. "Monarch."
Armsmaster gave a short, warm chuckle—the kind of practiced, approachable laugh he used for media interviews. "A solid name. Better than trying to come up with one under pressure."
Monarch shifted her feet, visibly easing under the hero's gentle tone. "I... I almost died out here."
"That's why we have the Ward program," Armsmaster said smoothly, stepping closer. The subtle shift in his posture was intentional—closing the distance, establishing himself as the authority figure, offering a steady hand to a traumatized teenager. "The Wards offer structure, support, and training. You wouldn't have to face monsters like Lung alone."
"I... I thought about applying," Monarch confessed softly.
Armsmaster nodded approvingly. He glanced at the headless body of Lung, then back to her. "Lung was a menace to this city. But you need to understand the situation you've just created. You're young, inexperienced, and you've just thrust yourself into the deep end."
He took another step, his shadow falling over her.
"Lung has an extensive gang throughout Brockton Bay," Armsmaster explained, his tone dropping into a serious, paternal advisory. "More than that, he has two superpowered flunkies: Oni Lee, and a new Tinker named Bakuda. Bakuda specializes in high-yield, exotic explosives. She ran a terrorism campaign against Cornell University before Lung recruited her."
Monarch swallowed hard, her shoulders drawing in. "Bombs...?"
"Decades ahead of anything conventional," Armsmaster confirmed, nodding solemnly. "Now, I want you to consider the danger involved in taking credit for Lung's demise. Without a doubt, Oni Lee and Bakuda will be looking for vengeance. They will hunt down whoever is responsible. They are scary people. Scarier, in some ways, than their boss."
Monarch shrank back slightly under his towering presence. "So... what are you saying?"
"I'm saying you have two options," Armsmaster said, his voice dripping with reasonable, unyielding logic. "Option one: you join the Wards immediately. Under PRT protection, we can shield you from retaliation and give you the resources you need. Option two: you keep your head down. You don't take the credit. You let the Protectorate handle the fallout, process the scene, and claim the capture. You fly under the radar while you learn the ropes."
Monarch stared at him. Her mind was racing, exhausted from the battle, battered by adrenaline withdrawal. Let the Protectorate take credit? Keep my head down? It made sense. It was safe. Armsmaster was a veteran. He knew what he was doing. If she took credit, Bakuda might come after her. Her family could get hurt.
She opened her mouth, about to cave to the subtle, overwhelming pressure of the top hero in the city—
"Yeah, how about 'Option Three'?"
A deep, rumbling voice vibrated through the concrete, so heavy it rattled the loose glass on the street.
Armsmaster paused, his visor snapping over.
The giant dragon-man, standing Nine feet tall in his crimson hybrid form with his leathery dragon wings held high, stepped directly into the space between Armsmaster and Monarch. His spiked tail whipped through the air, cracking against the asphalt with a sharp, explosive THWACK. Smoke curled from his nostrils as his glowing golden slit-pupils glared down at the veteran hero.
"Option Three," he rumbled, his hybrid voice carrying an edge of sharp, mocking amusement. "Is where you stop trying to intimidate a tired girl into handing over her hard-earned credit."
Armsmaster's jaw tightened. "I am explaining the realities of cape politics. This is about safety—"
"This is about you wanting a victory for the evening news," the dragon-cape cut him off cleanly, leaning forward until his sweeping blood-steel horns were just inches from Armsmaster's visor. "You roll up fifteen minutes late on your fancy motorcycle, see a dead dragon, and immediately start running your PR script. 'Join our junior corporate club, or let us take all the glory while you hide in the shadows.' Is that how the Protectorate operates?"
Behind Armsmaster, Assault let out a low, quiet whistle. "Damn. Kid's got no chill."
"Unsanctioned capes operating without oversight face massive legal liabilities," Armsmaster said, his tone turning frosty and rigid as he tried to regain control of the conversation. "If you aren't joining the Wards, you don't even have a team or a legal standing."
"Who says we don't have a team?" the dragon-cape challenged, puffing his heavy, scale-armored chest out.
Monarch blinked behind her visor, looking up at him in utter confusion. We have a team?! Since when?!
Armsmaster's visor flickered as he cross-referenced PRT databases. "You aren't registered under any official faction."
The dragon-cape didn't hesitate for a single microsecond. He declared it loudly, his booming voice echoing down the street with absolute, unshakeable confidence:
"The name's High Roller, she's Monarch, and together we are the Chaos Brigade."
A/N: YES THAT'S FROM DXD YES I AM NOT CREATIVE AT ALL
Silence fell over the alleyway.
Monarch visually withered where she stood, burying her gloved face in her hands. The CHAOS BRIGADE?! Are you serious?! We sound like cartoon villains! Why would you make that up on the spot?!
Even Armsmaster seemed momentarily stunned by the sheer absurdity of the name, delivered with such absolute conviction. "The... Chaos Brigade?"
"You heard me," High Roller growled, his golden eyes burning bright. "And as for the credit for putting Lung in the dirt? It belongs entirely to us. To me and Monarch. The Chaos Brigade. If Bakuda or Oni Lee want a piece of us, tell them to line up. And if I catch the PRT trying to claim our win tomorrow morning, I'll make sure every reporter in the bay knows Armsmaster showed up late to sweep the floor."
Armsmaster's expression hardened into pure, repressed annoyance. His subtle, master-class manipulation had just been completely smashed to pieces. He hated losing control of a narrative, and he clearly hated giving up the biggest victory Brockton Bay had seen in years.
"Taking credit for Lung's death will make you a target," Armsmaster warned, his voice icy. "The PRT will not extend official protection to unsanctioned groups."
"Let 'em come," High Roller snorted, smoke puffing from his snout. "Lung thought he was hot stuff too, and look at him now."
Armsmaster's hands tightened around his Halberd until the metal gauntlets squeaked under the pressure. For a second, it looked like he wanted to press the issue, but Miss Militia stepped up beside him, placing a gentle, restraining hand on his armored shoulder.
"Armsmaster," she said quietly. "That's enough."
Armsmaster took a slow, sharp breath, swallowing his pride. "Very well," he said coldly. "The official PRT record will state that Lung was neutralized by an independent duo operating as... the Chaos Brigade."
"Good," High Roller grunted. "Glad we got that sorted out."
Armsmaster turned sharply on his heel. "Secure the perimeter! Get the bio-containment unit! Load up the body!"
The PRT troopers scrambled to obey, rolling out a reinforced steel cage and hoisting Lung's heavy, cooling corpse inside. Meanwhile, secondary squads began cuffing the dozens of ABB gang members scattered across the alleyway.
"Surprisingly," Assault noted as he snapped power-dampeners on a tattooed thug, "none of these cronies died during the fight. Lung was throwing twenty-foot fireballs and these guys just got knocked out cold."
Within minutes, the PRT loaded up the corpse, rounded up the thugs, and prepped their vehicles. Armsmaster mounted his Tinker motorcycle, the high-tech turbine roaring to life with a high-pitched whine. He gave High Roller and Monarch one last stiff, unreadable glance before twisting the throttle and speeding off into the night, the transport vans following close behind.
The alleyway fell quiet once again.
Monarch let out a long, shuddering breath, her shoulders sagging. She turned to High Roller, her voice filled with a mixture of disbelief and gratitude. "The... Chaos Brigade? Really?"
"Hey, it sounds cool and imposing," High Roller said, rolling his heavy shoulders, his tail giving a satisfied thump. "Besides, Armsmaster was trying to bully you into giving away our win. I wasn't gonna let him step on us."
Monarch looked at him, surprised by his protectiveness. "Thank you... for standing up to him."
"We're a team, right?" High Roller grinned, his sharp dragon fangs gleaming.
Before Monarch could respond, a bright, golden light flashed directly in front of High Roller's eyes.
Monarch didn't notice—the screen was completely invisible to her. High Roller blinked as a massive, neon-gilded Gacha notification popped up in his vision, glowing with ridiculous, rainbow-tinted intensity.
[GACHA SYSTEM NOTIFICATION!] [HOLY SHIT, HOST! IMPRESSIVE WORK!]
[SYSTEM PERFORMANCE EVALUATION:]
- Target Eliminated: LUNG (One of the strongest capes in the Bay! Permanently dead via a brutal 10/10 neck-snap! Who knew a socially awkward teenager had a spinal snap like that in him? Color me impressed!)
- Curse Status: SURVIVED [Horrible Night]! (Fought a boss-level nightmare threat on day one and somehow didn't end up as a greasy red smudge on the pavement! A literal statistical anomaly!)
- Limits Pushed: You threw literally EVERYTHING in your inventory at the wall, burned through your entire energy tank, and pushed past your absolute limits just to survive! Peak desperation turned victory!
- Partner Protection: Successfully shielded your partner, Monarch, using your familiar, Aurelius, while you played tank! Chivalry isn't dead, and luckily, neither is she!
- Gang Status: Severely crippled the ABB! Leaderless, broken, and currently running around like headless chickens! Great job ruining their weekend!
- Undersiders Status: Unintentionally saved their teenage villain asses! They currently view you with a healthy mix of awe, confusion, and absolute, pants-shitting dread!
- PRT Interaction: STOOD UP TO ARMSMASTER! Told the Bay's most insufferable corporate hero where to shove his PR script, refused to let him steal your kill, and named your team the "Chaos Brigade" with zero shame! (even if the team name is 100% pure, unadulterated cringe)!
- City Status: EVERYONE is gonna know you killed the big bad dragon by tomorrow morning! Hope you like having a giant, neon target painted on your back!
High Roller's jaw nearly dropped.
Holy shit... FIVE LEGENDARY TICKETS?!
Last time he got a high-tier pull, he got Son Gōku and Aurelius. Five Legendary tickets at once was mind-boggling.
"Are you okay?" Monarch asked, noticing him staring blankly into space.
High Roller snapped back to reality, quickly dismissing the floating screen. "Yeah! Totally fine! Just... exhausted."
He was dead on his feet. As tempted as he was to roll those five tickets right now, doing it in an alleyway while completely drained was a terrible idea.
"Hey," High Roller offered, gesturing with one of his massive dragon wings flared beside him. "You look pretty beat too. Want a ride home? I can just fly us back, or summon Aurelius again."
Monarch froze. Behind her visor, her face flushed bright red with pure teenage panic and embarrassment. The thought of being bridal-carried through the sky by a guy in dragon armor—or riding a giant golden dragon—sent her social anxiety into overdrive. What if neighbors saw? What if she looked ridiculous?!
"N-No!" she squeaked out, taking two rapid steps backward while waving her hands frantically. "No, thank you! I... I can walk! I'm totally fine! I need to go! Chaos Brigade out!"
Before High Roller could even utter a word, she turned on her heel and practically sprinted down the street, disappearing into the dark shadows.
High Roller stood there, scratching his horned head with a goofy grin. "Chaos Brigade out...? Man, she's an awkward dork."
Minutes later, High Roller was soaring high above Brockton Bay, his crimson dragon wings catching the cool night currents. The breeze washed away the lingering heat and tension of the fight.
He glided down toward his neighborhood, spotting his second-story bedroom window. He hovered outside, unlatched the glass with a clawed finger, and slipped inside.
Once safely in his room, his hybrid dragon transformation receded completely. The scales compressed, the horns and wings absorbed back into his body, and High Roller faded away, leaving Greg Veder in his scuffed hoodie and jeans.
In the corner of his bedroom, his cardboard maze sat on the desk. Inside, four tiny, furry hamsters were snuggled together in a sleeping pile, snoring softly.
San-D, Jum-P, Maga-Z, and Cham-P.
The Four Dark Devas of Destruction.
Greg couldn't help but chuckle softly at the snoring rodents. "Sleep well, dark lords. The dragon has been slain."
He stripped off his clothes, stepped into a steaming shower to wash off the soot and grime, and finally collapsed face-first onto his mattress. With five Legendary tickets waiting in his system inventory, Greg closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
What a wild night.
Last edited:
I CAN'T STOP WINNING! I THINK I KNOCKED HIS LIGHTS OUT LET'S GO!
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Thegameaholic
The Fun One
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The morning sun had barely begun to scrape against the gloomy horizon of Brockton Bay when the alarm on Greg Veder's phone blared its obnoxious, chirping chime.
It was 5:30 AM.
Most fifteen-year-old high school students who had spent the previous night fighting a nine-foot dragon-man—decapitating him, stopping Armsmaster from taking advantage of his new partner, and founding a ridiculously named cape duo—would have hit the snooze button and slept until noon.
Not Greg Veder.
The moment his eyelids fluttered open, his body moved on pure, system-enforced habit. Despite the lingering mental shock of last night's brutal rumble at the Docks, his physical form felt surprisingly rested. He was a Drake—a lesser dragon hybrid, far from some mythical god, but sturdy and resilient nonetheless. A solid four hours of sleep was more than enough to leave him feeling ready to go.
He swung his legs out of bed, took a deep breath, cracked his knuckles, and dropped straight into his daily grind. Last night's chaos didn't mean he got to skip out on his morning routine.
"One... two... three..."
He began his push-ups. Nose touching the carpet on every single repetition, elbows locked at the top, core tight.
"Ninety-eight... ninety-nine... one hundred."
Without pausing to catch his breath, he flipped over onto his back, locked his hands behind his head, and launched straight into sit-ups.
"Ninety-nine... one hundred."
He bounced up onto his feet instantly, widening his stance for squats.
"Ninety-eight... ninety-nine... one hundred."
Greg wiped a thin sheen of sweat from his forehead, threw on a dark grey hoodie, pulled on his running shoes, and slipped quietly out his bedroom window for the final leg of the daily grind: a full 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) run.
Greg took off down the pavement, his pace steady and brisk. He ran past quiet suburban streets, past boarded-up storefronts in the downtown sector, and along the perimeter roads overlooking the misty, industrial expanse of the Bay. He kept it at a natural, rhythmic jog that kept his lungs expanding and his blood pumping.
By the time he crossed his front lawn again, completing the loop, his watch read 6:40 AM. Exactly 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, and a 10-kilometer run. Completed without missing a beat.
He exhaled a long cloud of mist into the chilly morning air, feeling completely energized.
He slipped back inside through his window, grabbed a clean towel from his closet, ready to head straight to the bathroom for a hot shower and grab breakfast—
BAM.
It hit him like a physical jolt to his central nervous system. A sudden, overwhelming compulsion behind his eyes made his skin crawl. Greg froze mid-stride, his head snapping around to scan his bedroom.
His eyes locked onto his desk. An empty soda can sat near his keyboard. His blanket had a minor wrinkle. On his bookshelf, one volume of manga protruded roughly two millimeters farther than the rest.
The Neat Freak Curse.
"No... no, nonono, please," Greg whimpered, grabbing his head as the compulsion gripped his brainstem. "Not again! I cleaned yesterday!"
It didn't matter. The curse was absolute.
Before he could stop himself, Greg dropped his towel. He lunged for the empty soda can, throwing it into recycling. He grabbed a microfiber cloth and a bottle of spray, frantically wiping down his desk until the wood gleamed. He carefully aligned every single manga volume until the spines formed a straight line, then remade his bed with military precision, smoothing out every microscopic wrinkle.
"I hate this curse!" Greg hissed under his breath, vacuuming the carpet in precise, parallel rows while tears of sheer annoyance pricked the corners of his eyes. "Seriously! What kind of ridiculous drawback is this?!"
Twenty-five agonizing minutes later, Greg finally collapsed against his doorframe, panting, as the curse's mental grip finally receded. His room was so pristine it looked like a sterile surgical bay.
"Ugh... annoying..." Greg groaned, rubbing his temples.
He shook off the frustration and turned his attention to the desk corner, where a massive, multi-tiered cardboard maze sat beside a glass terrarium. He unlatched the top and carefully scooped up four tiny creatures.
San-D, Jum-P, Maga-Z, and Cham-P.
The Four Dark Devas of Destruction.
The four hamsters squeaked softly as Greg set them down at the entrance of their elaborate cardboard maze—a sprawling structure he had spent hours constructing, complete with tunnels, ramps, and obstacle courses.
"Alright, guys," Greg whispered, scattering sunflower seeds, dried papaya bits, and hamster pellets throughout the maze. "Breakfast time."
San-D darted through a cardboard tube toward the seed pile. Jum-P bounced over a small hurdle, while Maga-Z systematically stuffed three sunflower seeds into his cheeks at once. Cham-P marched through the center ramp, claiming the dried papaya bit for himself.
Greg watched them fondly for a few minutes, chuckling as they navigated the maze. Once the four little guys were happily munching away, Greg checked his watch.
7:48 AM.
"CRAP!" Greg gasped, his eyes going wide. "I spent way too much time cleaning!"
Winslow High School's first bell rang at 8:00 AM sharp. Taking the bus or running meant he'd be late.
Then, Greg blinked. He paused, raising a hand to his chin as a sudden realization hit him.
"...Wait a minute."
He raised his right hand and snapped his fingers. Space itself buckled and warped in the middle of his bedroom, tearing open a glowing tear in reality—a dimensional gateway that opened directly onto the flat roof of Winslow High School.
(A/N: I ALMOST FORGOT HE HAD THAT ABILITY)
"Man, having so many system perks makes you forget the easy stuff," Greg chuckled to himself.
Without wasting another second, he grabbed his backpack, stepped straight through the swirling rift, and pulled the portal shut behind him.
The cool morning wind on the roof of Winslow High School whipped through Greg's hair as the portal closed with a soft pop.
He adjusted his backpack straps, unlocked the roof access door, and slipped down the concrete stairwell into the hallways of the third floor.
The corridors were packed with students shouting and slamming locker doors. Greg walked down the hall with his hands buried in his hoodie pockets.
Because of his active Menace Curse, an intangible, unsettling aura radiated off him. Students didn't even realize why they were doing it, but as Greg walked down the hall, the crowd naturally parted like the Red Sea. Teenagers instinctively swerved around him, giving him a wide berth. Nobody bumped into him; nobody even dared to step too close.
Greg barely paid attention to the space around him. His mind was racing.
Today's the day, he thought. After school, I'm telling Taylor and Sparky I have powers. No more keeping them in the dark. Sparky and Taylor deserve to know. Taylor doesn't know I'm High Roller yet, but telling them both I triggered is a good start.
A grin spread across his face as he thought about last night.
Speaking of last night... man, I wonder how PHO is reacting right now!
Lung was an untouchable warlord who had ruled the Docks for five years. And last night, High Roller and Monarch had taken him down—High Roller decapitating him and both of them standing up to Armsmaster when he tried to take advantage of Monarch.
The forums must be losing their minds right now, Greg thought.
Greg froze dead in his tracks.
The crowd of students behind him instinctively swerved around his stationary body due to his Menace Curse, keeping several feet of distance.
"...Oh shit."
He swallowed hard, a cold sweat breaking out across the back of his neck.
"Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit OH SHIT!"
A wave of sheer panic slammed into Greg's brain.
GStringGirl.
He hadn't messaged GStringGirl. Not yesterday. Not last week. Not... not since he got his gacha powers.
THAT WAS ALMOST A MONTH AGO!
"No, no, no, tell me I didn't," Greg whimpered internally, grabbing his hair. "Please tell me I didn't just ghost her for an entire MONTH!"
GStringGirl wasn't just some random person on his friends list. Aside from Sparky and now Taylor, she was literally one of his only genuine friends. They had met on a gaming server two years ago, bonding over late-night matches, venting about life, and sharing hours of crazy conspiracy theories that she found endlessly amusing.
And he had completely ghosted her. For four straight weeks.
With trembling hands, Greg fumbled frantically through his hoodie pocket, whipping out his smartphone and pulling up the PHO app.
The moment the screen loaded, his heart plummeted.
There, sitting at the top of his direct messages, was her handle: GStringGirl.
Beside her name was a bright red counter: 47 Unread Messages.
"I am a monster," Greg whispered, his voice cracking.
He pressed her name, his eyes scanning down the messages she had sent him over the last month:
Reading that last message hit Greg like a ton of bricks. She genuinely thought he had abandoned her.
Before Greg could process his guilt, a blinding, neon-gold flash burst directly into his field of vision.
[GACHA SYSTEM NOTIFICATION!] [ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: EMOTIONAL DAMAGE!]
[SYSTEM PERFORMANCE EVALUATION:]
[CONSOLATION PRIZE FOR YOUR SHAMEFUL BEHAVIOR:] [REWARD GRANTED: 1x RANDOM GOLD GACHA TICKET!]
Greg's eye twitched violently.
"NOT THE TIME!" Greg snapped furiously in his mind, slapping the floating UI window out of his vision. "I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE TICKET RIGHT NOW! SHUT UP!"
His thumbs transformed into a blurred frenzy over his phone's touchscreen as he poured his soul into a long-winded apology:
[TO: GStringGirl] [FROM: XxVoid_CowboyxX]
G-STRING! I AM SO SO SO SO SORRY! PLEASE DON'T HATE ME! I PROMISE I WASN'T GHOSTING YOU OR IGNORING YOU! I DIDN'T GET MAD AT YOUR JOKE! YOU'RE LITERALLY ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS IN THE WORLD!
I know this sounds crazy, but I swear to God I am telling you 100% the truth: ALMOST A MONTH AGO, I TRIGGERED. I GOT PARAHUMAN POWERS.
Everything in my life went completely insane overnight. I had to lay low while I figured out how my powers worked. My brain was so scrambled and stressed that I completely lost track of time and didn't even check my PHO messages. I know that's not a valid excuse, and I feel like trash right now, but I swear I never wanted to make you feel unwanted!
If you saw the news about Lung getting decapitated at the Docks last night by High Roller and Monarch... G-string, I am High Roller.
I know telling you my cape identity is a huge risk, but I trust you. Instinctively, I just know I can trust you with this. Please forgive me. I'm back now. I'm so sorry.
Greg stared at the text, his heart hammering against his ribs. He took a deep breath and hit SEND.
There was no immediate reply, as she was likely offline. Greg sighed, pocketing his phone as the warning bell for homeroom chimed overhead.
"Focus," Greg muttered to himself. "School first."
The rest of the school day passed in a blur.
During third-period English, he caught sight of Taylor sitting two rows over. She looked exhausted, with dark circles under her eyes, staring blankly at her notebook. She had no idea that her awkward classmate Greg Veder was the crimson dragon hybrid who had fought beside her last night. To her, High Roller was a formidable cape partner, while Greg was just her awkward friend from school.
When the teacher turned to write on the board, Greg scribbled a note:
Hey. Meet me on the roof right after the final bell. - Greg
He passed the note down the row until it landed on Taylor's desk. Taylor blinked, read it, and looked over at Greg with a puzzled expression, wondering why he was calling a roof meeting. Greg gave her a simple, reassuring nod. Taylor nodded back slowly and tucked the note away.
At lunch, Greg met up with Sparky near the outdoor bleachers. Sparky was slouched back, munching peacefully on a turkey sandwich while balancing a wooden ruler on his nose.
Greg sat down beside him. "Sparky, after the final bell today, head up to the third-floor roof door. Meet me up there."
Sparky caught the ruler, looking amused. "The roof? Mystery meeting? Sure, man, I'm down."
RINGGGGGGGGGGG!
The final bell of the day rang. Greg packed his notebook and walked up to the third-floor roof access door. He unlocked the latch, pushed the heavy door open, and stepped out onto the gravel rooftop.
A minute later, the door creaked open behind him.
Taylor stepped out, pulling her jacket tightly around herself. "Hey, Greg. What's going on? Why the roof?"
Before Greg could answer, the door swung open again, and Sparky slouched out with a bag of chips in hand.
"Hey, guys," Sparky greeted them with a chill grin. "Nice day for a rooftop lounge."
Taylor blinked, surprised to see Sparky there, though her face quickly softened into a small smile. "Oh, hey Sparky. Greg invited you too?"
"Yeah," Sparky said, munching a chip. "Greg's running some secret agent operation up here apparently."
Taylor turned back to Greg, her curiosity piqued as she looked between her two friends. "Alright, Greg, you've got both of us up here. What's the big secret?"
Greg looked at Taylor and Sparky—his two actual friends in this place, standing side by side under the grey sky.
Greg took a deep breath, stepping forward with a confident, steady posture.
"Alright," Greg said softly. "No more secrets between us."
He raised his hand, letting a faint, crackling spark of raw power flicker across his fingertips.
"I have powers," Greg declared. "And I wanted you two to be the first to know."
The concrete floor of the Winslow High School rooftop was cold and dusted with fine sea-grit, but the air felt electrifying. Greg stood in the center, flanked by the old air conditioning units, looking between Taylor and Sparky.
"Alright," Greg said, his voice dropping into a steady, honest register. "No more secrets between us."
He raised his hand, letting a faint, crackling spark of raw blue and silver energy flicker across his fingertips.
"I have powers," Greg declared softly. "And I wanted you two to be the first to know."
Sparky paused mid-chew, a potato chip hovering inches from his mouth, while Taylor's eyes went wide behind her glasses. For the next fifteen minutes, the rooftop was silent save for Greg's voice. He spilled everything. He didn't hold back or sanitize it to make himself sound like some smooth, mysterious hero. He told them how he had literally walked into his bedroom almost a month ago and found a glowing, holographic slot machine floating near his closet—the Chaos Gacha.
He explained the mechanics: how he earned tickets from feats or daily tasks, how he drew randomized abilities, skills, items, and curses from across entirely different universes. He confessed that he was High Roller, the red-scaled dragon hybrid cape that had stormed the Docks last night. He described the frantic, bloody clash with Lung, how he had straight-up decapitated the nine-foot dragon-man with raw drake force, and how he had backed up his mysterious new cape partner, Monarch, when Armsmaster tried to pull a veteran-hero power move to claim all the credit.
When Greg finally finished, he took a deep breath, scratching the back of his neck nervously. "So... yeah. That's... that's basically it. That's why I've been acting like a lunatic for the past four weeks."
A heavy, absolute silence fell over the rooftop.
Sparky stared at Greg, his mouth slightly open, the potato chip completely forgotten. Taylor looked like her brain had halted, her hands clutched tightly against the front of her jacket, her lips parting as she tried to process the sheer, absurd magnitude of what she had just heard.
The endless silence stretched for five long seconds.
Then, Sparky broke it. He leaned back against the brick ledge, tossed the potato chip into his mouth, and looked at Greg with a deadpan grin.
"So... is Monarch hot?"
Taylor instantly choked on her own spit, letting out a loud, strangled sputtering sound. "W-What?!"
Greg cracked up, throwing his head back with a loud laugh. "Man, I don't even know her civilian identity! She was wearing this awesome, full-body spider-silk armor with a full helmet. But GODDAMN, she had to be something if her ass looked THAT fine in the suit!"
"Right?!" Sparky wheezed, clapping his hands together. "You gotta respect a cape with top-tier gear and top-tier aesthetic!"
The two boys broke into booming laughter, completely oblivious to the sudden, horrifying shift in atmospheric pressure taking place three feet away from them.
Taylor's face had gone from pale to a deep, nuclear, apocalyptic red. Her cheeks were burning so hot they could have melted lead. Her hands trembled, her eyes darting between Greg and Sparky in sheer, unadulterated humiliation.
Suddenly, a sharp, angry buzzing filled the air.
From the gaps in the roof tiles, from the air vents, and from the brickwork, a dense cloud of black beetles, yellowjackets, and biting flies erupted in a dark, swirling tornado. The swarm condensed into a menacing halo around Taylor's head, their wings vibrating with a low, menacing drone that sounded suspiciously like grinding teeth.
Greg and Sparky's laughter died instantly.
The two boys froze, their eyes slowly sliding toward Taylor.
Taylor stepped forward, her face practically glowing red, her teeth grit so hard her jaw ached. She raised one hand, and the dark cloud of insects instantly snapped to attention, hovering in perfect, militaristic formation around her fingers.
She glared at Greg with a look that could have stripped paint off a wall. She was not happy about the ass comment.
"I," Taylor choked out, her voice dangerously tight, "am Monarch."
Greg and Sparky stared into the absolute visage of death.
For three agonizing seconds, neither of them moved. The wind howled across the gravel. The bugs buzzed violently.
Greg's eyes were wide as saucers. Slowly, inch by inch, without moving the rest of his body, Greg turned his head toward Sparky.
"...I take it back," Greg said in a high-pitched, totally deadpan whisper. "Monarch is hot."
Sparky burst into a loud, frantic laugh, dropping his bag of chips, and Greg caved right after, both of them howling with laughter while clutching their stomachs.
"I'M GOING TO DIE!" Taylor shrieked, throwing her hands over her face and sinking straight down to her knees on the gravel, wishing the roof would open up and swallow her whole. "I am actually going to die of embarrassment! Right here! On the roof!"
"Taylor, I am so sorry!" Greg wheezed through his tears, trying desperately to catch his breath while waving his hands defensively. "I didn't know! I swear to God I didn't know!"
"You called my suit's ass fine!" Taylor groaned into her knees, her voice muffled by her sleeves as the bugs dispersed back into the shadows. "In front of Sparky!"
"Hey, to be fair, it was a compliment on your armor design!" Sparky offered helpfully, earning a violent glare from Taylor through her messy dark hair.
It took a solid five minutes for the roof to finally calm down. Taylor slowly stood back up, dusting off her jeans, her face still flushed a light pink, though the sheer panic had faded into a tired, amused resignation. Sparky wiped a tear of laughter from his eye, leaning back against the roof door.
Greg cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck, trying to steer the conversation back onto safer waters.
"Okay, okay, serious topic," Greg said, clearing his throat again. "So... after last night, did you start working on your costume like I recommended?"
Taylor blinked, looking up at him as Greg grinned, his teeth flashing in a brief memory of his High Roller form.
"Right?!" Greg recited with theatrical flair, mimicking his own voice from last night. "It's perfect! Regal, powerful, and total hero material! Man, you should totally tweak your suit a bit to match it later! Keep the black spider-silk armor—because that silk weave looks super tough and slick—but add some gold or bright orange accents! Maybe a light cape shaped like subtle butterfly wings or an imperial high collar! You'd look absolute grand, like a true queen of the night!"
Taylor let out a long, fond sigh, crossing her arms over her chest. "Yes, Greg, I started sketching out ideas during history class. But custom spider-silk tailoring takes time. My current armor took me ages to weave together. I can't just slap gold paint on it overnight."
"Fair enough," Greg chuckled. "Just saying, the high collar would go hard."
Sparky leaned forward, his curiosity thoroughly piqued. "Wait, so Greg... if you get system stuff for doing big, crazy cape feats, what kind of rewards did you get for taking down a boss like Lung last night?"
Greg's eyes lit up. "Oh! Dude, I got five Legendary tickets. Five!"
"Five Legendary tickets?" Sparky whistled. "That sounds absurd."
Greg was about to boast further when a sudden thought struck him like a bolt of lightning. His brain halted. He blinked, staring into empty air as an idea began to bloom in his head.
Wait a minute...
Greg closed his eyes, reaching out into the dimensional space of his mind to address the glowing, floating interface of the system.
Hey Gacha... if I were to give a ticket to someone else, what would happen?
The system interface flickered instantly, bold, glowing text appearing in his field of vision accompanied by its signature, snarky tone:
[GACHA SYSTEM INTERACTION:] "Oh, look at the big hero! Decided to share your shiny toys with your little playground friends? How quaint!"
"To answer your foolish query: If you wish to invite others into your inner fold, granting them a Gacha Ticket will bind them as Chaos Allies. Upon receiving a ticket, they will roll the Gacha directly for themselves! They will gain the ability to perceive the System interface, access their own inventory, and even roll the Curse Wheel if their sanity permits!"
"HOWEVER! Pay attention to the rules, mortal, and DO NOT attempt to cheat my system:"
Greg opened his eyes, a massive, wild grin spreading across his face. He held out his hands, palms up. With a bright, shimmering flash of golden light, four rectangular, intricately etched golden tickets materialized out of thin air, hovering just above his fingers like burning metallic playing cards.
Greg looked up at Sparky and Taylor, his eyes gleaming with mischievous excitement.
"Hey guys..." Greg grinned. "Wanna get Overpowered?"
Sparky's jaw hit the roof gravel. He stared at the glowing golden tickets, his eyes wider than saucers.
"HELL YEAH!" Sparky shouted, jumping forward without a second of hesitation. "I ALWAYS wanted powers! There's no way I'm letting you two have all the fun while I sit on the sidelines!" He paused, looking at Greg with a sudden, serious glint in his eye. "Wait... does this mean I'm officially in the Chaos Brigade?"
Greg chuckled, shaking his head. "Sparky, I'm insulted you even had to ask, man. You were in the moment you stepped onto this roof."
Taylor looked at the glowing tickets hovering in front of Greg. Her heart was hammering in her chest. A month ago, she would have been terrified of something like this. But after last night—after standing beside High Roller, after feeling the weight of the city pushing down on her—she looked at her two friends. For the first time in two years, she didn't feel alone. She felt safe.
Taylor stepped forward, a shy, hesitant, but deeply determined smile touching her lips. "Okay... let me in."
Greg nodded, separating the four glowing golden tickets. He handed two to Sparky and two to Taylor.
"Just tear them in half mentally or physically," Greg instructed. "The system will handle the rest."
Sparky didn't even wait for Greg to finish his sentence. He grabbed his two Legendary tickets and violently ripped them down the middle!
Instantly, two massive, holographic text screens burst into existence right in front of Sparky's face, illuminating the rooftop in vivid crimson and cosmic violet light:
[GACHA DRAW COMPLETE!]
[ITEM OBTAINED: Magu Magu no Mi]
[ABILITY OBTAINED: Lunarian Form]
"HOLY SHIT!" Sparky roared.
Before he could even process the text, a strange, swirl-patterned red fruit—looking like an oversized, jagged, fiery melon—materialized out of thin air and dropped straight into Sparky's hands.
"Eat it!" Greg cheered. "Bite the fruit!"
Sparky didn't hesitate. He opened his mouth wide and took a massive, greedy bite out of the Magu Magu no Mi.
The moment his teeth sank into the flesh of the fruit, Sparky's eyes bugged out of his head. His entire face contorted into a violent, horrific mask of pure agony. It tasted like rotten sewage mixed with battery acid, burnt rubber, dirt, and sour milk that had been sitting in the sun for three years.
"BLEGGGGHH!" Sparky gagged, forced to swallow the bite. "OH GOD! THAT TASTES LIKE A TRASH CAN'S TRASH CAN!"
WHOOSH!
Before Sparky could even spit, his entire body erupted into blinding heat!
His skin sloughed away into swirling, dripping streams of bright orange, molten magma! His clothes didn't burn—the system kept them intact—but his entire torso, arms, and face turned into a roaring, bubbling volcano of liquid rock! Drops of liquid fire dripped onto the rooftop concrete, sizzling and melting small divots into the gravel!
"WHOA! WHOA! I'M LAVA! GREG, TAYLOR, LOOK! I'M ACTUAL LAVA!" Sparky yelled, his voice echoing with a deep, rumbling volcanic resonance as he laughed in pure awe.
Without missing a beat, Sparky slotted his second pull—[Lunarian Form].
A brilliant burst of flame exploded from Sparky's upper back!
His physical structure shifted with terrifying, graceful elegance. His faded hoodie altered as two enormous, majestic black-feathered wings—each spanning nearly eight feet across—erupted from his shoulder blades, fanning out into the air with a heavy THWACK! His hair shifted from its dull tone into a striking, luminous silver-white, and his skin tone deepened into a rich, warm brown. Behind his head, a steady, immortal plume of bright orange fire burned continuously, casting a holy, draconic glow over his new form.
Sparky flapped his massive black wings once. The sheer draft knocked Greg's hoodie back and rattled the rooftop vents.
Sparky floated three feet off the ground, hovering effortlessly in the air, magma dripping from his hands, black wings beating against the sky, fire blazing behind his shoulders.
He looked down at his brown hands, then touched his silver hair, blinking.
"Oh wow," Sparky chuckled, floating higher into the air. "I am DEFINITELY gonna be Empire 88's prime target now with this skin tone and hair... but honestly? Whatever! THIS IS THE GREATEST DAY OF MY ENTIRE LIFE!"
"YOU LOOK BADASS, SPARKY!" Greg yelled, throwing his fists in the air. "FLY, YOU MAGMA ANGEL, FLY!"
Taylor watched Sparky hovering in the sky, her jaw completely slack. The sheer absurdity, the raw, beautiful magic of it all cleared away every single trace of her anxiety. Confidence, warm and unyielding, ignited in her chest.
Taylor looked down at her two golden tickets. She gripped them tightly, took a deep breath, and ripped them both open!
[GACHA DRAW COMPLETE!]
[ITEM OBTAINED: Kamui Senketsu]
[ABILITY OBTAINED: Archangel Form]
Suddenly, a dark, fiber-like clothing material exploded around Taylor's body, wrapping around her in a whirlwind of red thread!
In a fraction of a second, her normal school clothes were replaced as Senketsu synchronized with her. However, because Senketsu materialized in his default, unrefined combat state, Taylor suddenly found herself wearing an outrageously skimpy sailor uniform—a bare midriff, ultra-short skirt, and open collar!
Taylor looked down at herself, froze, and let out a blood-curdling shriek.
"AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH! WHAT IS THIS?! WHY AM I NAKED?!" Taylor screamed, throwing her arms over her chest and ducking behind an air conditioner!
Greg and Sparky instantly spun around 180 degrees, snapping their hands over their eyes!
"WE AREN'T LOOKING! WE AREN'T LOOKING!" Greg shouted frantically at the sky!
"I'M BLIND! I SEE NOTHING! I AM LOOKING AT THE CLOUDS!" Sparky yelled, flapping his wings in reverse!
"COVER ME UP! CHANGE! CHANGE NOW!" Taylor panicked, squeezing her eyes shut as she mentally pleaded with the uniform.
"Calm down, kid!" a deep, suave, gravelly voice echoed directly in Taylor's mind. "I can adjust the weave! Just breathe!"
The sentient Life Fibers of Senketsu responded instantly to Taylor's intense desire for protection and modesty. The skimpy fabric expanded, shifting and weaving at lightspeed, transforming into a sleek, full-body, high-collared combat suit of dense, dark armored silk, trimmed with bold red lines and sharp, elegant shoulder plating that hugged her form perfectly while providing absolute coverage!
Taylor gasped, feeling the instant shift. She looked down at her hands—she was fully covered in a slick, terrifyingly durable armored suit that felt lighter than air, yet stronger than solid titanium.
"O-Okay," Taylor stammered, her heart pounding. "It changed! You can look now!"
Greg and Sparky turned around, lowering their hands—and both of them gasped.
"Whoa..." Greg whispered. "Taylor... that looks insanely cool!"
Before Taylor could even thank him, she slotted her second draw—[Archangel Form].
BOOM!
A blinding pillar of pure, radiant, golden divine light descended straight from the heavens, engulfing Taylor!
The grey sky above Brockton Bay seemed to part for a split second. From Taylor's back, two glorious, luminous wings made of pure, sparkling golden light erupted outward! The golden wings fanned out, shedding brilliant, glowing feathers of pure holy energy that dissolved into light before touching the gravel.
Her physical presence exploded with divine authority. Her eyes glowed with a soft, warm golden radiance, and a subtle, shimmering halo of light hovered softly above her dark hair.
Taylor lifted off the ground, floating effortlessly into the sky right alongside Sparky.
She looked at her hands, feeling the sheer, unimaginable magnitude of holy power coursing through her veins. In her mind, hundreds of divine spells, healing incantations, protective barriers, and holy light attacks unlocked simultaneously, sitting at her fingertips like an infinite library of miracles.
She felt an overwhelming, profound urge to protect, to heal, to purge darkness from the city.
"Sparky... look!" Taylor laughed—a clear, musical sound of pure joy that she hadn't made in years.
She flapped her golden wings, soaring in a wide, graceful arc over the roof. Sparky laughed back, flapping his black Lunarian wings, and the two of them began swooping and looping around each other in the air, laughing like children under the cloudy sky!
"THIS IS UNREAL!" Taylor yelled, her voice echoed with divine harmony. "I CAN FLY! I CAN ACTUALLY FLY!"
Greg stood on the rooftop below, watching his two best friends laughing, flying, and glowing with godlike power under the grey sky. A warm, immense feeling of pride swelled in his chest. He grinned from ear to ear.
Suddenly, the Gacha system interface flashed into Greg's field of vision:
[GACHA SYSTEM NOTIFICATION!] [SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: THE PROMETHEUS EFFECT!]
"Nice!" Greg cheered softly, looking at the fresh golden ticket sitting in his inventory.
He now had 2 Legendary tickets left... but his eyes strayed toward the bottom of the screen, where the ominous, glowing red wheel of the Curse Wheel sat spinning slowly.
Greg's inner gambling addict twitched. His eye narrowed.
Just one roll... Greg thought to himself, a wild, dangerous smirk spreading across his lips. Just one little spin on the Curse Wheel to get another ticket... what's the absolute worst that could happen? I survived Neat Freak, didn't I?
Greg mentally slapped the spin button on the Curse Wheel!
The wheel spun in a violent, bloody frenzy before slamming to a halt on a deep, obsidian segment:
[CURSE OBTAINED: Honesty]
Greg's eyes widened in sheer, horror-stricken panic.
"NO! NO WAY!" Greg screamed mentally. "A SEVERITY 16 CURSE?! I CAN'T LIE AT ALL?! I'M A CAPE! MY ENTIRE LIFE IS A SECRET IDENTITY! IF SOMEONE ASKS ME MY NAME I'LL JUST BLURT IT OUT! THIS IS HELL!"
Desperate to fix his fatal mistake, Greg opened his ticket pouch instantly. He had 1 Platinum Ticket, 3 Legendary Tickets, and he was going to roll them ALL right now to save his own life!
"Roll them all! Roll everything!" Greg prayed mentally.
The Gacha machine roared to life, shooting four massive pillars of Platinum and Gold light into Greg's vision!
[GACHA DRAWS COMPLETE!]
[TRAIT OBTAINED: Chaos Response]
"YES! Anti-Thinker trait!" Greg cheered mentally. "Awesome! Next!"
[SKILL OBTAINED: King of All Trades]
Greg froze.
Adept Communication?! Adept Discipline?!
Instantly, the Gacha system interface went absolute haywire! Bright, neon-pink and emerald-green warning screens flashed rapidly across his eyes!
[CURSE RESOLUTION DETECTED!]
[INHERENT SKILL SYNERGY DETECTED!]
[ALL ACTIVE CURSES HAVE BEEN CLEARED!]
[SPECIAL SYSTEM ACHIEVEMENTS UNLOCKED!]
Greg stood on the roof, his jaw hanging open so wide it almost touched his chest.
"No... way..." Greg whispered in pure shock.
The Neat Freak Curse was gone. The Menace aura separating him from people was gone. The Honesty curse was gone before he even spoke a word. And in return, he had just been handed a Diamond Ticket, a Platinum Ticket, and he still had 2 Legendary Tickets left to roll!
"Gacha god... I love you," Greg whimpered with tears of joy in his eyes.
Without waiting another second, Greg slammed the roll button on his remaining 4 high-tier tickets!
The screen exploded into a cosmic display of Diamond, Platinum, and Gold light!
[GACHA DRAWS COMPLETE!]
[ABILITY OBTAINED: Unlock]
[ABILITY OBTAINED: Adamantine Sealing Chains]
[ABILITY OBTAINED: Creation]
[FAMILIAR OBTAINED: Nakime]
Greg's brain completely short-circuited.
He stared at the screen, his breathing halting entirely as the sheer, unbelievable synergy of his new pulls hit him.
Creation... unlimited physical funding! Gold bars! Technology! Custom armor materials! He could fund their entire cape team single-handedly without ever robbing a bank or needing PRT sponsorship!
Nakime's Infinity Castle... an INFINITE, totally unbreachable, hidden pocket dimension base! A headquarters that no villain, no hero, and no Endbringer could ever track or breach, accessible through any door on Earth!
"HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT!" Greg screamed at the top of his lungs, throwing his hands into the air! "ALL OUR PROBLEMS ARE SOLVED! WE ARE RICH AND WE HAVE A CASTLE!"
Up in the sky, Taylor and Sparky stopped their aerial acrobatics, blinking down at Greg in confusion.
Taylor flapped her golden wings, swooping down alongside Sparky, who touched down on the concrete, his magma turning back into solid skin as his Lunarian wings folded neatly behind his back.
"Greg?" Taylor asked, hovering a foot above the ground, her golden wings shedding light. "What happened?! What did you pull?!"
Greg slotted [Creation] instantly, feeling the magical structure of matter settling into his mind. He grinned at both of them, his eyes glowing with boundless excitement.
"GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!" Greg yelled, pointing at the roof floor. "YOU GUYS ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE WHAT I JUST GOT US!"
A/N: i should play lotta cause holy shit i promise NONE of these are singled out or picked or anything if i feel like it's way too OP i just spin again
"What do you mean, our problems are solved?" Taylor asked, her golden wings fluttering softly as she hovered a few inches above the roof gravel. "Greg, what did you draw?"
Sparky landed beside her, his silver hair catching the dull sunlight as his black wings settled against his back. "Yeah, man! You can't just yell that you got us a castle and a gold mine without showing the goods!"
Greg didn't say a word. He just stood there with a huge, downright illegal smirk plastered across his face.
Thanks to [King of All Trades], his brain was suddenly flooded with an absurd, hyper-dense library of information. He didn't just know how to swing a hammer or patch a tire—the skill had dumped master-level understanding of physical chemistry, metallurgy, atomic geometry, and thermodynamic synthesis straight into his head. He knew the exact electron configuration, crystal lattice structure, and atomic mass of pure elemental gold ($\text{Au}$, atomic number 79).
Greg raised his right hand.
Taylor and Sparky leaned in, expecting him to pull out another card or sumonn a glowing menu. Instead, golden energy crackled violently over Greg's forearm. His skin flickered with a strange, translucent aura, and right before their horrified, wide-open eyes, solid matter began to materialize straight out of his skin!
A heavy, gleaming, impossibly bright bar of solid 24-karat gold extruded from his palm like a 3D printer running on pure magic. It solidified instantly in his grasp with a heavy, dense metallic clink.
Greg caught the twelve-and-a-half-kilogram London Good Delivery gold bar in one hand, tossing it up a few inches and catching it like it was nothing more than a brick.
Silence slammed over the rooftop like a falling anvil.
Sparky's eyes went so wide they looked like they were about to pop out of his skull. Taylor's jaw dropped so low her mouth formed a perfect, speech-less 'O'.
"Holy shit!" Sparky finally yelled, grabbing his hair with both hands. "Did you just... did you just shit out a gold bar from your wrist?!"
"It was my palm, and no, I synthesized it!" Greg corrected with a laugh, tucking the heavy gold bar comfortably under his arm like a football. "Creation, baby! As long as I understand the molecular and structural makeup of something, I can manifest it directly out of energy!"
"That's... that's actual alchemy," Taylor stuttered, staring at the gleaming metal under Greg's arm, her brain visibly struggling to process the implications. "Greg, that bar alone is worth over seven hundred thousand dollars!"
"Which means we never have to worry about funding, gear materials, or money ever again," Greg grinned.
He looked at Taylor, his eyes softening slightly. He knew her situation. He knew her dad was drowning in union stress, struggling to pay bills, and that Taylor was running around Brockton Bay with a ancient, clunky burner phone that barely worked—when she even had one at all.
"Which brings me to step two," Greg said.
He closed his eyes for a split second. Thanks to the micro-engineering, electrical physics, and advanced computer architecture granted by [King of All Trades], the inner schematics of high-end consumer technology were crystal clear in his mind.
Greg held out his left hand. Blue nanite-like threads of pure magical force woven together in the air above his palm. In less than three seconds, three pristine, ultra-sleek, top-of-the-line Samsung Galaxy smartphones materialized out of thin air.
Greg grabbed the first phone and handed it straight to Sparky.
Sparky snatched it up with pure, unadulterated gusto, his eyes lighting up like a kid opening presents on Christmas morning. "NO WAY! Is this the flagship model?! Man, mine's had a cracked screen for six months!"
Greg then turned to Taylor, holding out the second sleek, charcoal-black phone toward her.
Taylor flinched, instinctively taking a step back, her hands coming up in a frantic, waving refusal. "W-Wait, Greg! No! I can't take that! That phone costs well over a thousand dollars! I can't just accept something like this from you, my dad would ask questions, and—"
"Taylor."
Greg stepped forward, closing the distance between them before she could finish sputtering her excuses. He didn't let her back away. He reached out and gently took her hand, placing the smooth, premium glass and metal of the smartphone directly into her palm, closing her fingers around it.
He looked her dead in the eye, his expression shifting from his usual goofy excitement into something intensely serious, warm, and grounded.
"Keep it," Greg said, his voice dropping into a calm, protective register. "I'm not letting my teammate run around this godforsaken city without a way to call for help. I'd much rather give you a phone than spend every single night worrying about what's happening to you out there. Please... just take it."
Taylor froze.
Her breath hitched in her throat. Greg was standing barely a foot away from her, his hand still gently wrapping around hers. Looking up at him, Taylor felt a sudden, violent wave of heat surge straight up her neck and flush into her face. Her cheeks turned a deep, nuclear, apocalyptic red.
Taylor's face turned beet red, her heart hammering against her ribs. When the hell... her mind screamed in high-voltage panic, ...did Greg get so annoyingly hot?!
Thanks to [Adept Communication], Greg was able to pick up on the subtle emotional intents of people like an open book—reading tone of voice, slight shakes, and nonverbal body language effortless. Combined with the passive perceptual side of [Adept Kama Sutra], which allowed him to spot subtle signs of attraction and physical arousal like flushed skin, a rapid pulse in her neck, and dilated pupils, the reality of the situation hit him like a freight train.
Wait... does Taylor like me? Greg thought, his brain short-circuiting for a second. He quickly shook his head mentally. No, that's ridiculous! Moving on!
Greg cleared his throat, smoothly stepping back while maintaining his confident, easygoing grin.
"Anyway!" Greg announced, patting his own pocketed phone. "Those aren't just normal phones. I preprogrammed all three of them using custom encrypted protocols I built into the software. Dragon or the PRT couldn't trace or tap these lines if they tried. They have unlimited data, talk, and text, completely untraceable, and all our numbers are already saved in the contacts."
Sparky, who was already eagerly tapping away at his vibrant, ultra-smooth touchscreen, let out a low whistle. "Nice."
"Oh, you think that's nice?" Greg smirked, adjusting the heavy gold bar tucked under his arm. "Sparky, Taylor... that wasn't even my best pull."
Taylor squeezed the smartphone in her hand, trying desperately to cool down her burning face as she forced herself to focus. "What... what else could you possibly have gotten?"
Greg grinned mischeviously. "Nakime. Come on out."
A dark, silky shadow pooled onto the rooftop concrete directly beside Greg.
From the shadow, a tall, impossibly elegant figure rose. She wore a deep black, traditional Japanese kimono with white trimmings. Long, lustrous raven hair fell forward, completely veiling the upper half of her face. Held securely in her arms was a beautifully carved, polished dark-wood four-stringed biwa.
Nakime bowed her head deeply toward Greg, her voice soft, cool, and smooth as silk. "My Lord."
She then turned slightly toward Sparky and Taylor, bowing with equal grace. "Honored Masters."
Sparky stared, his jaw working silently. "Is... is she a summon?"
"She's my new Familiar," Greg explained proudly. "And she holds the keys to our new home. Nakime... take us to the Infinity Castle."
Nakime raised her right hand, her pale, slender fingers striking the wooden plectrum against the strings of her biwa.
DON!
The sharp, resonant, echoing strum of the instrument vibrated through the very air of the rooftop.
Directly on the flat concrete floor between them, the roof seamlessly split open! A heavy, traditional wooden sliding door (shoji) materialized out of thin air, sliding open to reveal a flight of polished, dark wooden stairs leading straight DOWN into a brightly lit, endless abyss below the roof!
Sparky nearly jumped out of his skin. "WHAT THE?!"
Greg casually stepped over to the open trapdoor on the roof floor, walking down the first few steps of the wooden staircase. He paused, looking back up at his two paralyzed friends with a broad, inviting grin.
"You guys coming?" Greg asked.
Taylor and Sparky exchanged a glance, took a deep breath, and followed Greg straight down into the floor.
The moment they stepped through the wooden doorway, the shoji door slid shut behind them with a soft snap.
They were no longer on the cold, dreary rooftop of Winslow High School.
They were standing on a suspended wooden platform in the middle of a vast, impossible, mind-bending dimensional expanse. Endless architectural structures made of polished wood, tatami mats, and sliding paper doors stretched out infinitely in every direction—up, down, left, right. Entire rooms were inverted, hovering upside down in the distance; endless staircases crisscrossed through empty space; warm, ambient light radiated from paper lanterns floating in the void.
The sheer, monumental scale of the dimension took their breath away.
"HOLY SHIT!" Sparky roared, his voice echoing across the infinite expanse.
"Holy shit," Taylor echoed softly, completely abandoning any attempt at restraint. She realized with a sudden jolt that she had sworn more in the last ten minutes than she had in her entire life, but looking out over an infinite, shifting wooden dimension, she felt it was entirely justified.
"Pretty wild, right?" Greg laughed, leaning against the wooden railing. He turned to Nakime, who had appeared beside him on the landing. "Hey, Nakime? The endless shifting architecture is super cool for throwing off intruders, but can you manipulate a section of this place to give us a proper, modern living space? Like a cozy headquarters?"
Nakime inclined her head respectfully. "As you command, My Lord."
She struck her biwa twice.
DON! DON!
The massive wooden walls around their platform instantly began to shift! Heavy timber beams glided through the air with mechanical precision, tatami floors folded and expanded, and sliding doors rearranged themselves in a blur of motion.
In less than five seconds, the ancient Japanese architecture morphed seamlessly into a massive, luxurious, modern living lounge!
Thick, comfortable leather sectional couches materialized around a low-profile mahogany table. Warm, recess lighting glowed from high wooden ceiling beams. A state-of-the-art entertainment center and wall-mounted monitors aligned along one wall, while wide, open archways led into private living quarters, workshop spaces, and fully equipped training rooms.
The blend of classic, elegant woodwork and ultra-modern comfort was breathtaking.
Greg pumped his fist into the air with a triumphant laugh. He turned back to Taylor and Sparky, who were standing frozen in the middle of the luxurious lounge, their mouths hanging open for what felt like the hundredth time today.
Greg spread his arms wide, the golden light of the room reflecting off his grin.
"WELCOME TO THE LAIR OF THE CHAOS BRIGADE!"
A/N:Alright this story is going on the back burner for a bit i've Neglected Gears of Anarchy and my other stories enough
It was 5:30 AM.
Most fifteen-year-old high school students who had spent the previous night fighting a nine-foot dragon-man—decapitating him, stopping Armsmaster from taking advantage of his new partner, and founding a ridiculously named cape duo—would have hit the snooze button and slept until noon.
Not Greg Veder.
The moment his eyelids fluttered open, his body moved on pure, system-enforced habit. Despite the lingering mental shock of last night's brutal rumble at the Docks, his physical form felt surprisingly rested. He was a Drake—a lesser dragon hybrid, far from some mythical god, but sturdy and resilient nonetheless. A solid four hours of sleep was more than enough to leave him feeling ready to go.
He swung his legs out of bed, took a deep breath, cracked his knuckles, and dropped straight into his daily grind. Last night's chaos didn't mean he got to skip out on his morning routine.
"One... two... three..."
He began his push-ups. Nose touching the carpet on every single repetition, elbows locked at the top, core tight.
"Ninety-eight... ninety-nine... one hundred."
Without pausing to catch his breath, he flipped over onto his back, locked his hands behind his head, and launched straight into sit-ups.
"Ninety-nine... one hundred."
He bounced up onto his feet instantly, widening his stance for squats.
"Ninety-eight... ninety-nine... one hundred."
Greg wiped a thin sheen of sweat from his forehead, threw on a dark grey hoodie, pulled on his running shoes, and slipped quietly out his bedroom window for the final leg of the daily grind: a full 10-kilometer (6.2-mile) run.
Greg took off down the pavement, his pace steady and brisk. He ran past quiet suburban streets, past boarded-up storefronts in the downtown sector, and along the perimeter roads overlooking the misty, industrial expanse of the Bay. He kept it at a natural, rhythmic jog that kept his lungs expanding and his blood pumping.
By the time he crossed his front lawn again, completing the loop, his watch read 6:40 AM. Exactly 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, and a 10-kilometer run. Completed without missing a beat.
He exhaled a long cloud of mist into the chilly morning air, feeling completely energized.
He slipped back inside through his window, grabbed a clean towel from his closet, ready to head straight to the bathroom for a hot shower and grab breakfast—
BAM.
It hit him like a physical jolt to his central nervous system. A sudden, overwhelming compulsion behind his eyes made his skin crawl. Greg froze mid-stride, his head snapping around to scan his bedroom.
His eyes locked onto his desk. An empty soda can sat near his keyboard. His blanket had a minor wrinkle. On his bookshelf, one volume of manga protruded roughly two millimeters farther than the rest.
The Neat Freak Curse.
"No... no, nonono, please," Greg whimpered, grabbing his head as the compulsion gripped his brainstem. "Not again! I cleaned yesterday!"
It didn't matter. The curse was absolute.
Before he could stop himself, Greg dropped his towel. He lunged for the empty soda can, throwing it into recycling. He grabbed a microfiber cloth and a bottle of spray, frantically wiping down his desk until the wood gleamed. He carefully aligned every single manga volume until the spines formed a straight line, then remade his bed with military precision, smoothing out every microscopic wrinkle.
"I hate this curse!" Greg hissed under his breath, vacuuming the carpet in precise, parallel rows while tears of sheer annoyance pricked the corners of his eyes. "Seriously! What kind of ridiculous drawback is this?!"
Twenty-five agonizing minutes later, Greg finally collapsed against his doorframe, panting, as the curse's mental grip finally receded. His room was so pristine it looked like a sterile surgical bay.
"Ugh... annoying..." Greg groaned, rubbing his temples.
He shook off the frustration and turned his attention to the desk corner, where a massive, multi-tiered cardboard maze sat beside a glass terrarium. He unlatched the top and carefully scooped up four tiny creatures.
San-D, Jum-P, Maga-Z, and Cham-P.
The Four Dark Devas of Destruction.
The four hamsters squeaked softly as Greg set them down at the entrance of their elaborate cardboard maze—a sprawling structure he had spent hours constructing, complete with tunnels, ramps, and obstacle courses.
"Alright, guys," Greg whispered, scattering sunflower seeds, dried papaya bits, and hamster pellets throughout the maze. "Breakfast time."
San-D darted through a cardboard tube toward the seed pile. Jum-P bounced over a small hurdle, while Maga-Z systematically stuffed three sunflower seeds into his cheeks at once. Cham-P marched through the center ramp, claiming the dried papaya bit for himself.
Greg watched them fondly for a few minutes, chuckling as they navigated the maze. Once the four little guys were happily munching away, Greg checked his watch.
7:48 AM.
"CRAP!" Greg gasped, his eyes going wide. "I spent way too much time cleaning!"
Winslow High School's first bell rang at 8:00 AM sharp. Taking the bus or running meant he'd be late.
Then, Greg blinked. He paused, raising a hand to his chin as a sudden realization hit him.
"...Wait a minute."
He raised his right hand and snapped his fingers. Space itself buckled and warped in the middle of his bedroom, tearing open a glowing tear in reality—a dimensional gateway that opened directly onto the flat roof of Winslow High School.
(A/N: I ALMOST FORGOT HE HAD THAT ABILITY)
"Man, having so many system perks makes you forget the easy stuff," Greg chuckled to himself.
Without wasting another second, he grabbed his backpack, stepped straight through the swirling rift, and pulled the portal shut behind him.
The cool morning wind on the roof of Winslow High School whipped through Greg's hair as the portal closed with a soft pop.
He adjusted his backpack straps, unlocked the roof access door, and slipped down the concrete stairwell into the hallways of the third floor.
The corridors were packed with students shouting and slamming locker doors. Greg walked down the hall with his hands buried in his hoodie pockets.
Because of his active Menace Curse, an intangible, unsettling aura radiated off him. Students didn't even realize why they were doing it, but as Greg walked down the hall, the crowd naturally parted like the Red Sea. Teenagers instinctively swerved around him, giving him a wide berth. Nobody bumped into him; nobody even dared to step too close.
Greg barely paid attention to the space around him. His mind was racing.
Today's the day, he thought. After school, I'm telling Taylor and Sparky I have powers. No more keeping them in the dark. Sparky and Taylor deserve to know. Taylor doesn't know I'm High Roller yet, but telling them both I triggered is a good start.
A grin spread across his face as he thought about last night.
Speaking of last night... man, I wonder how PHO is reacting right now!
Lung was an untouchable warlord who had ruled the Docks for five years. And last night, High Roller and Monarch had taken him down—High Roller decapitating him and both of them standing up to Armsmaster when he tried to take advantage of Monarch.
The forums must be losing their minds right now, Greg thought.
Greg froze dead in his tracks.
The crowd of students behind him instinctively swerved around his stationary body due to his Menace Curse, keeping several feet of distance.
"...Oh shit."
He swallowed hard, a cold sweat breaking out across the back of his neck.
"Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit OH SHIT!"
A wave of sheer panic slammed into Greg's brain.
GStringGirl.
He hadn't messaged GStringGirl. Not yesterday. Not last week. Not... not since he got his gacha powers.
THAT WAS ALMOST A MONTH AGO!
"No, no, no, tell me I didn't," Greg whimpered internally, grabbing his hair. "Please tell me I didn't just ghost her for an entire MONTH!"
GStringGirl wasn't just some random person on his friends list. Aside from Sparky and now Taylor, she was literally one of his only genuine friends. They had met on a gaming server two years ago, bonding over late-night matches, venting about life, and sharing hours of crazy conspiracy theories that she found endlessly amusing.
And he had completely ghosted her. For four straight weeks.
With trembling hands, Greg fumbled frantically through his hoodie pocket, whipping out his smartphone and pulling up the PHO app.
The moment the screen loaded, his heart plummeted.
There, sitting at the top of his direct messages, was her handle: GStringGirl.
Beside her name was a bright red counter: 47 Unread Messages.
"I am a monster," Greg whispered, his voice cracking.
He pressed her name, his eyes scanning down the messages she had sent him over the last month:
- [3 Weeks Ago] GStringGirl: Hey, idiot. You up? Me and the guys need a fourth for squad games. Get online.
- [2.5 Weeks Ago] GStringGirl: Void? You haven't been online in three days. Did your weird conspiracy theories finally come true?
- [2 Weeks Ago] GStringGirl: Seriously, dude. Send a message so I know you didn't get eaten by a Leviathan tidal wave or something.
- [1.5 Weeks Ago] GStringGirl: Look, if you're mad about that joke I made, I was just messing with you. You don't have to ignore me.
- [1 Week Ago] GStringGirl: Are you okay? You haven't posted any conspiracy threads either. This isn't funny anymore, Void.
- [4 Days Ago] GStringGirl: I guess you moved on or deleted the app. Fine. Whatever.
- [Yesterday] GStringGirl: Hey... just checking in one last time. I hope you're okay out there, Void. Truly. I miss our chats.
Reading that last message hit Greg like a ton of bricks. She genuinely thought he had abandoned her.
Before Greg could process his guilt, a blinding, neon-gold flash burst directly into his field of vision.
[GACHA SYSTEM NOTIFICATION!] [ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: EMOTIONAL DAMAGE!]
[SYSTEM PERFORMANCE EVALUATION:]
- Target Neglected: GStringGirl (Your ride-or-die gamer buddy who actually tolerated your crazy ramblings!)
- Ghosting Duration: ALMOST A FULL MONTH! (27 days of radio silence!)
- Emotional Status: She thought you died, thought you hated her, and finally accepted that she was unwanted! Bravo, Host!
- Hypocrisy Level: OVER 9000! (Protected Monarch from Armsmaster, but left your best online friend out in the cold!)
[CONSOLATION PRIZE FOR YOUR SHAMEFUL BEHAVIOR:] [REWARD GRANTED: 1x RANDOM GOLD GACHA TICKET!]
Greg's eye twitched violently.
"NOT THE TIME!" Greg snapped furiously in his mind, slapping the floating UI window out of his vision. "I DON'T CARE ABOUT THE TICKET RIGHT NOW! SHUT UP!"
His thumbs transformed into a blurred frenzy over his phone's touchscreen as he poured his soul into a long-winded apology:
[TO: GStringGirl] [FROM: XxVoid_CowboyxX]
G-STRING! I AM SO SO SO SO SORRY! PLEASE DON'T HATE ME! I PROMISE I WASN'T GHOSTING YOU OR IGNORING YOU! I DIDN'T GET MAD AT YOUR JOKE! YOU'RE LITERALLY ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS IN THE WORLD!
I know this sounds crazy, but I swear to God I am telling you 100% the truth: ALMOST A MONTH AGO, I TRIGGERED. I GOT PARAHUMAN POWERS.
Everything in my life went completely insane overnight. I had to lay low while I figured out how my powers worked. My brain was so scrambled and stressed that I completely lost track of time and didn't even check my PHO messages. I know that's not a valid excuse, and I feel like trash right now, but I swear I never wanted to make you feel unwanted!
If you saw the news about Lung getting decapitated at the Docks last night by High Roller and Monarch... G-string, I am High Roller.
I know telling you my cape identity is a huge risk, but I trust you. Instinctively, I just know I can trust you with this. Please forgive me. I'm back now. I'm so sorry.
Greg stared at the text, his heart hammering against his ribs. He took a deep breath and hit SEND.
There was no immediate reply, as she was likely offline. Greg sighed, pocketing his phone as the warning bell for homeroom chimed overhead.
"Focus," Greg muttered to himself. "School first."
The rest of the school day passed in a blur.
During third-period English, he caught sight of Taylor sitting two rows over. She looked exhausted, with dark circles under her eyes, staring blankly at her notebook. She had no idea that her awkward classmate Greg Veder was the crimson dragon hybrid who had fought beside her last night. To her, High Roller was a formidable cape partner, while Greg was just her awkward friend from school.
When the teacher turned to write on the board, Greg scribbled a note:
Hey. Meet me on the roof right after the final bell. - Greg
He passed the note down the row until it landed on Taylor's desk. Taylor blinked, read it, and looked over at Greg with a puzzled expression, wondering why he was calling a roof meeting. Greg gave her a simple, reassuring nod. Taylor nodded back slowly and tucked the note away.
At lunch, Greg met up with Sparky near the outdoor bleachers. Sparky was slouched back, munching peacefully on a turkey sandwich while balancing a wooden ruler on his nose.
Greg sat down beside him. "Sparky, after the final bell today, head up to the third-floor roof door. Meet me up there."
Sparky caught the ruler, looking amused. "The roof? Mystery meeting? Sure, man, I'm down."
RINGGGGGGGGGGG!
The final bell of the day rang. Greg packed his notebook and walked up to the third-floor roof access door. He unlocked the latch, pushed the heavy door open, and stepped out onto the gravel rooftop.
A minute later, the door creaked open behind him.
Taylor stepped out, pulling her jacket tightly around herself. "Hey, Greg. What's going on? Why the roof?"
Before Greg could answer, the door swung open again, and Sparky slouched out with a bag of chips in hand.
"Hey, guys," Sparky greeted them with a chill grin. "Nice day for a rooftop lounge."
Taylor blinked, surprised to see Sparky there, though her face quickly softened into a small smile. "Oh, hey Sparky. Greg invited you too?"
"Yeah," Sparky said, munching a chip. "Greg's running some secret agent operation up here apparently."
Taylor turned back to Greg, her curiosity piqued as she looked between her two friends. "Alright, Greg, you've got both of us up here. What's the big secret?"
Greg looked at Taylor and Sparky—his two actual friends in this place, standing side by side under the grey sky.
Greg took a deep breath, stepping forward with a confident, steady posture.
"Alright," Greg said softly. "No more secrets between us."
He raised his hand, letting a faint, crackling spark of raw power flicker across his fingertips.
"I have powers," Greg declared. "And I wanted you two to be the first to know."
The concrete floor of the Winslow High School rooftop was cold and dusted with fine sea-grit, but the air felt electrifying. Greg stood in the center, flanked by the old air conditioning units, looking between Taylor and Sparky.
"Alright," Greg said, his voice dropping into a steady, honest register. "No more secrets between us."
He raised his hand, letting a faint, crackling spark of raw blue and silver energy flicker across his fingertips.
"I have powers," Greg declared softly. "And I wanted you two to be the first to know."
Sparky paused mid-chew, a potato chip hovering inches from his mouth, while Taylor's eyes went wide behind her glasses. For the next fifteen minutes, the rooftop was silent save for Greg's voice. He spilled everything. He didn't hold back or sanitize it to make himself sound like some smooth, mysterious hero. He told them how he had literally walked into his bedroom almost a month ago and found a glowing, holographic slot machine floating near his closet—the Chaos Gacha.
He explained the mechanics: how he earned tickets from feats or daily tasks, how he drew randomized abilities, skills, items, and curses from across entirely different universes. He confessed that he was High Roller, the red-scaled dragon hybrid cape that had stormed the Docks last night. He described the frantic, bloody clash with Lung, how he had straight-up decapitated the nine-foot dragon-man with raw drake force, and how he had backed up his mysterious new cape partner, Monarch, when Armsmaster tried to pull a veteran-hero power move to claim all the credit.
When Greg finally finished, he took a deep breath, scratching the back of his neck nervously. "So... yeah. That's... that's basically it. That's why I've been acting like a lunatic for the past four weeks."
A heavy, absolute silence fell over the rooftop.
Sparky stared at Greg, his mouth slightly open, the potato chip completely forgotten. Taylor looked like her brain had halted, her hands clutched tightly against the front of her jacket, her lips parting as she tried to process the sheer, absurd magnitude of what she had just heard.
The endless silence stretched for five long seconds.
Then, Sparky broke it. He leaned back against the brick ledge, tossed the potato chip into his mouth, and looked at Greg with a deadpan grin.
"So... is Monarch hot?"
Taylor instantly choked on her own spit, letting out a loud, strangled sputtering sound. "W-What?!"
Greg cracked up, throwing his head back with a loud laugh. "Man, I don't even know her civilian identity! She was wearing this awesome, full-body spider-silk armor with a full helmet. But GODDAMN, she had to be something if her ass looked THAT fine in the suit!"
"Right?!" Sparky wheezed, clapping his hands together. "You gotta respect a cape with top-tier gear and top-tier aesthetic!"
The two boys broke into booming laughter, completely oblivious to the sudden, horrifying shift in atmospheric pressure taking place three feet away from them.
Taylor's face had gone from pale to a deep, nuclear, apocalyptic red. Her cheeks were burning so hot they could have melted lead. Her hands trembled, her eyes darting between Greg and Sparky in sheer, unadulterated humiliation.
Suddenly, a sharp, angry buzzing filled the air.
From the gaps in the roof tiles, from the air vents, and from the brickwork, a dense cloud of black beetles, yellowjackets, and biting flies erupted in a dark, swirling tornado. The swarm condensed into a menacing halo around Taylor's head, their wings vibrating with a low, menacing drone that sounded suspiciously like grinding teeth.
Greg and Sparky's laughter died instantly.
The two boys froze, their eyes slowly sliding toward Taylor.
Taylor stepped forward, her face practically glowing red, her teeth grit so hard her jaw ached. She raised one hand, and the dark cloud of insects instantly snapped to attention, hovering in perfect, militaristic formation around her fingers.
She glared at Greg with a look that could have stripped paint off a wall. She was not happy about the ass comment.
"I," Taylor choked out, her voice dangerously tight, "am Monarch."
Greg and Sparky stared into the absolute visage of death.
For three agonizing seconds, neither of them moved. The wind howled across the gravel. The bugs buzzed violently.
Greg's eyes were wide as saucers. Slowly, inch by inch, without moving the rest of his body, Greg turned his head toward Sparky.
"...I take it back," Greg said in a high-pitched, totally deadpan whisper. "Monarch is hot."
Sparky burst into a loud, frantic laugh, dropping his bag of chips, and Greg caved right after, both of them howling with laughter while clutching their stomachs.
"I'M GOING TO DIE!" Taylor shrieked, throwing her hands over her face and sinking straight down to her knees on the gravel, wishing the roof would open up and swallow her whole. "I am actually going to die of embarrassment! Right here! On the roof!"
"Taylor, I am so sorry!" Greg wheezed through his tears, trying desperately to catch his breath while waving his hands defensively. "I didn't know! I swear to God I didn't know!"
"You called my suit's ass fine!" Taylor groaned into her knees, her voice muffled by her sleeves as the bugs dispersed back into the shadows. "In front of Sparky!"
"Hey, to be fair, it was a compliment on your armor design!" Sparky offered helpfully, earning a violent glare from Taylor through her messy dark hair.
It took a solid five minutes for the roof to finally calm down. Taylor slowly stood back up, dusting off her jeans, her face still flushed a light pink, though the sheer panic had faded into a tired, amused resignation. Sparky wiped a tear of laughter from his eye, leaning back against the roof door.
Greg cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck, trying to steer the conversation back onto safer waters.
"Okay, okay, serious topic," Greg said, clearing his throat again. "So... after last night, did you start working on your costume like I recommended?"
Taylor blinked, looking up at him as Greg grinned, his teeth flashing in a brief memory of his High Roller form.
"Right?!" Greg recited with theatrical flair, mimicking his own voice from last night. "It's perfect! Regal, powerful, and total hero material! Man, you should totally tweak your suit a bit to match it later! Keep the black spider-silk armor—because that silk weave looks super tough and slick—but add some gold or bright orange accents! Maybe a light cape shaped like subtle butterfly wings or an imperial high collar! You'd look absolute grand, like a true queen of the night!"
Taylor let out a long, fond sigh, crossing her arms over her chest. "Yes, Greg, I started sketching out ideas during history class. But custom spider-silk tailoring takes time. My current armor took me ages to weave together. I can't just slap gold paint on it overnight."
"Fair enough," Greg chuckled. "Just saying, the high collar would go hard."
Sparky leaned forward, his curiosity thoroughly piqued. "Wait, so Greg... if you get system stuff for doing big, crazy cape feats, what kind of rewards did you get for taking down a boss like Lung last night?"
Greg's eyes lit up. "Oh! Dude, I got five Legendary tickets. Five!"
"Five Legendary tickets?" Sparky whistled. "That sounds absurd."
Greg was about to boast further when a sudden thought struck him like a bolt of lightning. His brain halted. He blinked, staring into empty air as an idea began to bloom in his head.
Wait a minute...
Greg closed his eyes, reaching out into the dimensional space of his mind to address the glowing, floating interface of the system.
Hey Gacha... if I were to give a ticket to someone else, what would happen?
The system interface flickered instantly, bold, glowing text appearing in his field of vision accompanied by its signature, snarky tone:
[GACHA SYSTEM INTERACTION:] "Oh, look at the big hero! Decided to share your shiny toys with your little playground friends? How quaint!"
"To answer your foolish query: If you wish to invite others into your inner fold, granting them a Gacha Ticket will bind them as Chaos Allies. Upon receiving a ticket, they will roll the Gacha directly for themselves! They will gain the ability to perceive the System interface, access their own inventory, and even roll the Curse Wheel if their sanity permits!"
"HOWEVER! Pay attention to the rules, mortal, and DO NOT attempt to cheat my system:"
- Rule 1: Abilities, Skills, and Traits CANNOT be transferred or shared between hosts! What they roll is theirs, and what you roll is yours!
- Rule 2: Familiars WILL have shared ownership across fellow Chaos Allies! Any familiar summoned can be commanded by your bound team members!
- Rule 3: Physical Items CAN be gifted or traded freely once drawn!
- Rule 4: New Chaos Allies will start with 5 base Ability Slots, which will naturally expand as they accumulate more power! Do not push your luck!"
Greg opened his eyes, a massive, wild grin spreading across his face. He held out his hands, palms up. With a bright, shimmering flash of golden light, four rectangular, intricately etched golden tickets materialized out of thin air, hovering just above his fingers like burning metallic playing cards.
Greg looked up at Sparky and Taylor, his eyes gleaming with mischievous excitement.
"Hey guys..." Greg grinned. "Wanna get Overpowered?"
Sparky's jaw hit the roof gravel. He stared at the glowing golden tickets, his eyes wider than saucers.
"HELL YEAH!" Sparky shouted, jumping forward without a second of hesitation. "I ALWAYS wanted powers! There's no way I'm letting you two have all the fun while I sit on the sidelines!" He paused, looking at Greg with a sudden, serious glint in his eye. "Wait... does this mean I'm officially in the Chaos Brigade?"
Greg chuckled, shaking his head. "Sparky, I'm insulted you even had to ask, man. You were in the moment you stepped onto this roof."
Taylor looked at the glowing tickets hovering in front of Greg. Her heart was hammering in her chest. A month ago, she would have been terrified of something like this. But after last night—after standing beside High Roller, after feeling the weight of the city pushing down on her—she looked at her two friends. For the first time in two years, she didn't feel alone. She felt safe.
Taylor stepped forward, a shy, hesitant, but deeply determined smile touching her lips. "Okay... let me in."
Greg nodded, separating the four glowing golden tickets. He handed two to Sparky and two to Taylor.
"Just tear them in half mentally or physically," Greg instructed. "The system will handle the rest."
Sparky didn't even wait for Greg to finish his sentence. He grabbed his two Legendary tickets and violently ripped them down the middle!
Instantly, two massive, holographic text screens burst into existence right in front of Sparky's face, illuminating the rooftop in vivid crimson and cosmic violet light:
[GACHA DRAW COMPLETE!]
[ITEM OBTAINED: Magu Magu no Mi]
- Rarity: Mythical Item (One Piece)
- Description: The Magu Magu no Mi is a Devil Fruit that grants the eater the ability of the [Magma Logia]. Your body turns into living, molten magma, granting near-immunity to physical attacks, intense heat generation, and absolute elemental manipulation. INFLICTS: Curse of the Sea (Submersion in still water rapidly drains stamina and neutralizes active energy). Note: Tastes like absolute garbage. If two Devil Fruits are eaten by one person, they die instantly.
[ABILITY OBTAINED: Lunarian Form]
- Rarity: Epic Ability (One Piece)
- Description: Allows you to temporarily or permanently transform into a Lunarian, an ancient race of powerful sky-faring beings. Grants a pair of massive, black-feathered wings for high-speed flight, silver-white hair, brown skin, and a constant plume of fire burning upon your upper back. While your back-flame is lit, you gain near-indestructible durability; when extinguished, your durability lowers but your speed increases dramatically!
"HOLY SHIT!" Sparky roared.
Before he could even process the text, a strange, swirl-patterned red fruit—looking like an oversized, jagged, fiery melon—materialized out of thin air and dropped straight into Sparky's hands.
"Eat it!" Greg cheered. "Bite the fruit!"
Sparky didn't hesitate. He opened his mouth wide and took a massive, greedy bite out of the Magu Magu no Mi.
The moment his teeth sank into the flesh of the fruit, Sparky's eyes bugged out of his head. His entire face contorted into a violent, horrific mask of pure agony. It tasted like rotten sewage mixed with battery acid, burnt rubber, dirt, and sour milk that had been sitting in the sun for three years.
"BLEGGGGHH!" Sparky gagged, forced to swallow the bite. "OH GOD! THAT TASTES LIKE A TRASH CAN'S TRASH CAN!"
WHOOSH!
Before Sparky could even spit, his entire body erupted into blinding heat!
His skin sloughed away into swirling, dripping streams of bright orange, molten magma! His clothes didn't burn—the system kept them intact—but his entire torso, arms, and face turned into a roaring, bubbling volcano of liquid rock! Drops of liquid fire dripped onto the rooftop concrete, sizzling and melting small divots into the gravel!
"WHOA! WHOA! I'M LAVA! GREG, TAYLOR, LOOK! I'M ACTUAL LAVA!" Sparky yelled, his voice echoing with a deep, rumbling volcanic resonance as he laughed in pure awe.
Without missing a beat, Sparky slotted his second pull—[Lunarian Form].
A brilliant burst of flame exploded from Sparky's upper back!
His physical structure shifted with terrifying, graceful elegance. His faded hoodie altered as two enormous, majestic black-feathered wings—each spanning nearly eight feet across—erupted from his shoulder blades, fanning out into the air with a heavy THWACK! His hair shifted from its dull tone into a striking, luminous silver-white, and his skin tone deepened into a rich, warm brown. Behind his head, a steady, immortal plume of bright orange fire burned continuously, casting a holy, draconic glow over his new form.
Sparky flapped his massive black wings once. The sheer draft knocked Greg's hoodie back and rattled the rooftop vents.
Sparky floated three feet off the ground, hovering effortlessly in the air, magma dripping from his hands, black wings beating against the sky, fire blazing behind his shoulders.
He looked down at his brown hands, then touched his silver hair, blinking.
"Oh wow," Sparky chuckled, floating higher into the air. "I am DEFINITELY gonna be Empire 88's prime target now with this skin tone and hair... but honestly? Whatever! THIS IS THE GREATEST DAY OF MY ENTIRE LIFE!"
"YOU LOOK BADASS, SPARKY!" Greg yelled, throwing his fists in the air. "FLY, YOU MAGMA ANGEL, FLY!"
Taylor watched Sparky hovering in the sky, her jaw completely slack. The sheer absurdity, the raw, beautiful magic of it all cleared away every single trace of her anxiety. Confidence, warm and unyielding, ignited in her chest.
Taylor looked down at her two golden tickets. She gripped them tightly, took a deep breath, and ripped them both open!
[GACHA DRAW COMPLETE!]
[ITEM OBTAINED: Kamui Senketsu]
- Rarity: Mythical Item (Kill La Kill)
- Description: A sentient sailor uniform made entirely of Life Fibers. Synchronizes with its wearer to grant godlike physical strength, speed, durability, and flight while consuming small amounts of blood/vitality. Senketsu can independently shapeshift into various forms and possesses his own consciousness.
[ABILITY OBTAINED: Archangel Form]
- Rarity: Mythical Ability
- Description: Grants the power to transform into a high-tier Archangel Hybrid! Massively boosts all physical attributes and allows you to infuse attacks with pure Holy Energy. Grants intuitive mastery over all divine spells, healing arts, blessings, and holy protection barriers below Elite Rank!
Suddenly, a dark, fiber-like clothing material exploded around Taylor's body, wrapping around her in a whirlwind of red thread!
In a fraction of a second, her normal school clothes were replaced as Senketsu synchronized with her. However, because Senketsu materialized in his default, unrefined combat state, Taylor suddenly found herself wearing an outrageously skimpy sailor uniform—a bare midriff, ultra-short skirt, and open collar!
Taylor looked down at herself, froze, and let out a blood-curdling shriek.
"AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH! WHAT IS THIS?! WHY AM I NAKED?!" Taylor screamed, throwing her arms over her chest and ducking behind an air conditioner!
Greg and Sparky instantly spun around 180 degrees, snapping their hands over their eyes!
"WE AREN'T LOOKING! WE AREN'T LOOKING!" Greg shouted frantically at the sky!
"I'M BLIND! I SEE NOTHING! I AM LOOKING AT THE CLOUDS!" Sparky yelled, flapping his wings in reverse!
"COVER ME UP! CHANGE! CHANGE NOW!" Taylor panicked, squeezing her eyes shut as she mentally pleaded with the uniform.
"Calm down, kid!" a deep, suave, gravelly voice echoed directly in Taylor's mind. "I can adjust the weave! Just breathe!"
The sentient Life Fibers of Senketsu responded instantly to Taylor's intense desire for protection and modesty. The skimpy fabric expanded, shifting and weaving at lightspeed, transforming into a sleek, full-body, high-collared combat suit of dense, dark armored silk, trimmed with bold red lines and sharp, elegant shoulder plating that hugged her form perfectly while providing absolute coverage!
Taylor gasped, feeling the instant shift. She looked down at her hands—she was fully covered in a slick, terrifyingly durable armored suit that felt lighter than air, yet stronger than solid titanium.
"O-Okay," Taylor stammered, her heart pounding. "It changed! You can look now!"
Greg and Sparky turned around, lowering their hands—and both of them gasped.
"Whoa..." Greg whispered. "Taylor... that looks insanely cool!"
Before Taylor could even thank him, she slotted her second draw—[Archangel Form].
BOOM!
A blinding pillar of pure, radiant, golden divine light descended straight from the heavens, engulfing Taylor!
The grey sky above Brockton Bay seemed to part for a split second. From Taylor's back, two glorious, luminous wings made of pure, sparkling golden light erupted outward! The golden wings fanned out, shedding brilliant, glowing feathers of pure holy energy that dissolved into light before touching the gravel.
Her physical presence exploded with divine authority. Her eyes glowed with a soft, warm golden radiance, and a subtle, shimmering halo of light hovered softly above her dark hair.
Taylor lifted off the ground, floating effortlessly into the sky right alongside Sparky.
She looked at her hands, feeling the sheer, unimaginable magnitude of holy power coursing through her veins. In her mind, hundreds of divine spells, healing incantations, protective barriers, and holy light attacks unlocked simultaneously, sitting at her fingertips like an infinite library of miracles.
She felt an overwhelming, profound urge to protect, to heal, to purge darkness from the city.
"Sparky... look!" Taylor laughed—a clear, musical sound of pure joy that she hadn't made in years.
She flapped her golden wings, soaring in a wide, graceful arc over the roof. Sparky laughed back, flapping his black Lunarian wings, and the two of them began swooping and looping around each other in the air, laughing like children under the cloudy sky!
"THIS IS UNREAL!" Taylor yelled, her voice echoed with divine harmony. "I CAN FLY! I CAN ACTUALLY FLY!"
Greg stood on the rooftop below, watching his two best friends laughing, flying, and glowing with godlike power under the grey sky. A warm, immense feeling of pride swelled in his chest. He grinned from ear to ear.
Suddenly, the Gacha system interface flashed into Greg's field of vision:
[GACHA SYSTEM NOTIFICATION!] [SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: THE PROMETHEUS EFFECT!]
- Achievement: You shared the knowledge, truth, and power of the Chaos Gacha with those you truly trust! You have officially founded the Chaos Brigade and brought true, chaotic ascension to your allies!
- Reward Granted: 1x LEGENDARY GACHA TICKET!
"Nice!" Greg cheered softly, looking at the fresh golden ticket sitting in his inventory.
He now had 2 Legendary tickets left... but his eyes strayed toward the bottom of the screen, where the ominous, glowing red wheel of the Curse Wheel sat spinning slowly.
Greg's inner gambling addict twitched. His eye narrowed.
Just one roll... Greg thought to himself, a wild, dangerous smirk spreading across his lips. Just one little spin on the Curse Wheel to get another ticket... what's the absolute worst that could happen? I survived Neat Freak, didn't I?
Greg mentally slapped the spin button on the Curse Wheel!
The wheel spun in a violent, bloody frenzy before slamming to a halt on a deep, obsidian segment:
[CURSE OBTAINED: Honesty]
- Severity Level: 16
- Description: You are an honest person. Way too honest. You are physically and mentally incapable of communicating with the intent to deceive someone! No lies, no lies by omission, no clever wording, no misdirection! Whatever you say, you MUST say exactly what you mean! Either keep your mouth shut or tell the raw, absolute truth!
- Resolution Requirement: Acquire a Lie Detector ability, a Deception ability, OR acquire Adept-rank Communication/Persuasion.
- REWARD GRANTED FOR TAKING SEVERITY 16 CURSE: 1x PLATINUM GACHA TICKET!
Greg's eyes widened in sheer, horror-stricken panic.
"NO! NO WAY!" Greg screamed mentally. "A SEVERITY 16 CURSE?! I CAN'T LIE AT ALL?! I'M A CAPE! MY ENTIRE LIFE IS A SECRET IDENTITY! IF SOMEONE ASKS ME MY NAME I'LL JUST BLURT IT OUT! THIS IS HELL!"
Desperate to fix his fatal mistake, Greg opened his ticket pouch instantly. He had 1 Platinum Ticket, 3 Legendary Tickets, and he was going to roll them ALL right now to save his own life!
"Roll them all! Roll everything!" Greg prayed mentally.
The Gacha machine roared to life, shooting four massive pillars of Platinum and Gold light into Greg's vision!
[GACHA DRAWS COMPLETE!]
[TRAIT OBTAINED: Chaos Response]
- Rarity: Elite Trait (Platinum Roll)
- Description: Your very existence is defined by the Chaos Gacha, automatically causing violent feedback to anything that tries to peek into your reality! Future-sight and Precognition abilities get scrambled into incoherent noise, Thinker abilities trying to analyze you will malfunction, and anyone attempting to read your mind will suffer a massive, blinding migraine at minimum!
"YES! Anti-Thinker trait!" Greg cheered mentally. "Awesome! Next!"
[SKILL OBTAINED: King of All Trades]
- Rarity: Epic Skill (Legendary Roll)
- Description: Grants Adept-level expertise across ALL basic trades, including: Adept Blacksmithing, Adept Medicine, Adept Mechanics, Adept Cooking, Adept Interfacing, Adept Discipline, and ADEPT COMMUNICATION! You possess competence and talent comparable to a master veteran in every physical and social trade!
Greg froze.
Adept Communication?! Adept Discipline?!
Instantly, the Gacha system interface went absolute haywire! Bright, neon-pink and emerald-green warning screens flashed rapidly across his eyes!
[CURSE RESOLUTION DETECTED!]
- [Honesty Curse (Severity 16)] REQUIREMENT MET! You have acquired Adept Communication! CURSE PURGED!
[INHERENT SKILL SYNERGY DETECTED!]
- Your acquisition of [Adept Discipline] instantly purges your active [Sadism Curse] and [Neat Freak Curse]!
- Your acquisition of [Adept Communication] instantly purges your active [Menacing Curse]!
[ALL ACTIVE CURSES HAVE BEEN CLEARED!]
[SPECIAL SYSTEM ACHIEVEMENTS UNLOCKED!]
- [ACHIEVEMENT: TOTAL PURGE!] You successfully cleared 4 active curses from your body! Reward Granted: 1x DIAMOND GACHA TICKET!
- [ACHIEVEMENT: SPEEDRUNNER!] You resolved a Severity 16 Curse in under 60 seconds of acquiring it! Reward Granted: 1x PLATINUM GACHA TICKET!
Greg stood on the roof, his jaw hanging open so wide it almost touched his chest.
"No... way..." Greg whispered in pure shock.
The Neat Freak Curse was gone. The Menace aura separating him from people was gone. The Honesty curse was gone before he even spoke a word. And in return, he had just been handed a Diamond Ticket, a Platinum Ticket, and he still had 2 Legendary Tickets left to roll!
"Gacha god... I love you," Greg whimpered with tears of joy in his eyes.
Without waiting another second, Greg slammed the roll button on his remaining 4 high-tier tickets!
The screen exploded into a cosmic display of Diamond, Platinum, and Gold light!
[GACHA DRAWS COMPLETE!]
[ABILITY OBTAINED: Unlock]
- Rarity: Legendary Ability (Diamond Roll)
- Description: Allows you to conceptually 'unlock' entities, objects, and concepts! Range includes physical locks, door seals, energy blockages, structural limits, and even unlocking someone's hidden inner potential or suppressed power! Energy cost scales with the abstract nature and difficulty of the target.
[ABILITY OBTAINED: Adamantine Sealing Chains]
- Rarity: Epic Ability (Platinum Roll - Naruto)
- Description: Allows you to manifest and control the signature Adamantine Sealing Chains of the Uzumaki Clan! These indestructible golden chains can physically bind targets and completely suppress and seal their energy/powers. Chain density, range, and suppression power scale with energy expended!
[ABILITY OBTAINED: Creation]
- Rarity: Legendary Ability (Legendary Roll)
- Description: Allows you to create physical objects and matter directly out of magical energy, provided you understand their atomic or structural composition! From creating a smartphone or a bar of solid gold to forging magical weaponry! Energy cost scales with mass and magical properties.
[FAMILIAR OBTAINED: Nakime]
- Rarity: Epic Familiar (Legendary Roll - Demon Slayer)
- Description: Summons Nakime, the Kizuki biwa player! Her Blood Demon Art manifests the [Infinity Castle]—an infinite, shifting pocket dimension of a wooden medieval castle under her complete control. She can manifest wooden sliding door portals to this realm on ANY surface you or she can perceive!
Greg's brain completely short-circuited.
He stared at the screen, his breathing halting entirely as the sheer, unbelievable synergy of his new pulls hit him.
Creation... unlimited physical funding! Gold bars! Technology! Custom armor materials! He could fund their entire cape team single-handedly without ever robbing a bank or needing PRT sponsorship!
Nakime's Infinity Castle... an INFINITE, totally unbreachable, hidden pocket dimension base! A headquarters that no villain, no hero, and no Endbringer could ever track or breach, accessible through any door on Earth!
"HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT!" Greg screamed at the top of his lungs, throwing his hands into the air! "ALL OUR PROBLEMS ARE SOLVED! WE ARE RICH AND WE HAVE A CASTLE!"
Up in the sky, Taylor and Sparky stopped their aerial acrobatics, blinking down at Greg in confusion.
Taylor flapped her golden wings, swooping down alongside Sparky, who touched down on the concrete, his magma turning back into solid skin as his Lunarian wings folded neatly behind his back.
"Greg?" Taylor asked, hovering a foot above the ground, her golden wings shedding light. "What happened?! What did you pull?!"
Greg slotted [Creation] instantly, feeling the magical structure of matter settling into his mind. He grinned at both of them, his eyes glowing with boundless excitement.
"GET DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!" Greg yelled, pointing at the roof floor. "YOU GUYS ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE WHAT I JUST GOT US!"
A/N: i should play lotta cause holy shit i promise NONE of these are singled out or picked or anything if i feel like it's way too OP i just spin again
"What do you mean, our problems are solved?" Taylor asked, her golden wings fluttering softly as she hovered a few inches above the roof gravel. "Greg, what did you draw?"
Sparky landed beside her, his silver hair catching the dull sunlight as his black wings settled against his back. "Yeah, man! You can't just yell that you got us a castle and a gold mine without showing the goods!"
Greg didn't say a word. He just stood there with a huge, downright illegal smirk plastered across his face.
Thanks to [King of All Trades], his brain was suddenly flooded with an absurd, hyper-dense library of information. He didn't just know how to swing a hammer or patch a tire—the skill had dumped master-level understanding of physical chemistry, metallurgy, atomic geometry, and thermodynamic synthesis straight into his head. He knew the exact electron configuration, crystal lattice structure, and atomic mass of pure elemental gold ($\text{Au}$, atomic number 79).
Greg raised his right hand.
Taylor and Sparky leaned in, expecting him to pull out another card or sumonn a glowing menu. Instead, golden energy crackled violently over Greg's forearm. His skin flickered with a strange, translucent aura, and right before their horrified, wide-open eyes, solid matter began to materialize straight out of his skin!
A heavy, gleaming, impossibly bright bar of solid 24-karat gold extruded from his palm like a 3D printer running on pure magic. It solidified instantly in his grasp with a heavy, dense metallic clink.
Greg caught the twelve-and-a-half-kilogram London Good Delivery gold bar in one hand, tossing it up a few inches and catching it like it was nothing more than a brick.
Silence slammed over the rooftop like a falling anvil.
Sparky's eyes went so wide they looked like they were about to pop out of his skull. Taylor's jaw dropped so low her mouth formed a perfect, speech-less 'O'.
"Holy shit!" Sparky finally yelled, grabbing his hair with both hands. "Did you just... did you just shit out a gold bar from your wrist?!"
"It was my palm, and no, I synthesized it!" Greg corrected with a laugh, tucking the heavy gold bar comfortably under his arm like a football. "Creation, baby! As long as I understand the molecular and structural makeup of something, I can manifest it directly out of energy!"
"That's... that's actual alchemy," Taylor stuttered, staring at the gleaming metal under Greg's arm, her brain visibly struggling to process the implications. "Greg, that bar alone is worth over seven hundred thousand dollars!"
"Which means we never have to worry about funding, gear materials, or money ever again," Greg grinned.
He looked at Taylor, his eyes softening slightly. He knew her situation. He knew her dad was drowning in union stress, struggling to pay bills, and that Taylor was running around Brockton Bay with a ancient, clunky burner phone that barely worked—when she even had one at all.
"Which brings me to step two," Greg said.
He closed his eyes for a split second. Thanks to the micro-engineering, electrical physics, and advanced computer architecture granted by [King of All Trades], the inner schematics of high-end consumer technology were crystal clear in his mind.
Greg held out his left hand. Blue nanite-like threads of pure magical force woven together in the air above his palm. In less than three seconds, three pristine, ultra-sleek, top-of-the-line Samsung Galaxy smartphones materialized out of thin air.
Greg grabbed the first phone and handed it straight to Sparky.
Sparky snatched it up with pure, unadulterated gusto, his eyes lighting up like a kid opening presents on Christmas morning. "NO WAY! Is this the flagship model?! Man, mine's had a cracked screen for six months!"
Greg then turned to Taylor, holding out the second sleek, charcoal-black phone toward her.
Taylor flinched, instinctively taking a step back, her hands coming up in a frantic, waving refusal. "W-Wait, Greg! No! I can't take that! That phone costs well over a thousand dollars! I can't just accept something like this from you, my dad would ask questions, and—"
"Taylor."
Greg stepped forward, closing the distance between them before she could finish sputtering her excuses. He didn't let her back away. He reached out and gently took her hand, placing the smooth, premium glass and metal of the smartphone directly into her palm, closing her fingers around it.
He looked her dead in the eye, his expression shifting from his usual goofy excitement into something intensely serious, warm, and grounded.
"Keep it," Greg said, his voice dropping into a calm, protective register. "I'm not letting my teammate run around this godforsaken city without a way to call for help. I'd much rather give you a phone than spend every single night worrying about what's happening to you out there. Please... just take it."
Taylor froze.
Her breath hitched in her throat. Greg was standing barely a foot away from her, his hand still gently wrapping around hers. Looking up at him, Taylor felt a sudden, violent wave of heat surge straight up her neck and flush into her face. Her cheeks turned a deep, nuclear, apocalyptic red.
Taylor's face turned beet red, her heart hammering against her ribs. When the hell... her mind screamed in high-voltage panic, ...did Greg get so annoyingly hot?!
Thanks to [Adept Communication], Greg was able to pick up on the subtle emotional intents of people like an open book—reading tone of voice, slight shakes, and nonverbal body language effortless. Combined with the passive perceptual side of [Adept Kama Sutra], which allowed him to spot subtle signs of attraction and physical arousal like flushed skin, a rapid pulse in her neck, and dilated pupils, the reality of the situation hit him like a freight train.
Wait... does Taylor like me? Greg thought, his brain short-circuiting for a second. He quickly shook his head mentally. No, that's ridiculous! Moving on!
Greg cleared his throat, smoothly stepping back while maintaining his confident, easygoing grin.
"Anyway!" Greg announced, patting his own pocketed phone. "Those aren't just normal phones. I preprogrammed all three of them using custom encrypted protocols I built into the software. Dragon or the PRT couldn't trace or tap these lines if they tried. They have unlimited data, talk, and text, completely untraceable, and all our numbers are already saved in the contacts."
Sparky, who was already eagerly tapping away at his vibrant, ultra-smooth touchscreen, let out a low whistle. "Nice."
"Oh, you think that's nice?" Greg smirked, adjusting the heavy gold bar tucked under his arm. "Sparky, Taylor... that wasn't even my best pull."
Taylor squeezed the smartphone in her hand, trying desperately to cool down her burning face as she forced herself to focus. "What... what else could you possibly have gotten?"
Greg grinned mischeviously. "Nakime. Come on out."
A dark, silky shadow pooled onto the rooftop concrete directly beside Greg.
From the shadow, a tall, impossibly elegant figure rose. She wore a deep black, traditional Japanese kimono with white trimmings. Long, lustrous raven hair fell forward, completely veiling the upper half of her face. Held securely in her arms was a beautifully carved, polished dark-wood four-stringed biwa.
Nakime bowed her head deeply toward Greg, her voice soft, cool, and smooth as silk. "My Lord."
She then turned slightly toward Sparky and Taylor, bowing with equal grace. "Honored Masters."
Sparky stared, his jaw working silently. "Is... is she a summon?"
"She's my new Familiar," Greg explained proudly. "And she holds the keys to our new home. Nakime... take us to the Infinity Castle."
Nakime raised her right hand, her pale, slender fingers striking the wooden plectrum against the strings of her biwa.
DON!
The sharp, resonant, echoing strum of the instrument vibrated through the very air of the rooftop.
Directly on the flat concrete floor between them, the roof seamlessly split open! A heavy, traditional wooden sliding door (shoji) materialized out of thin air, sliding open to reveal a flight of polished, dark wooden stairs leading straight DOWN into a brightly lit, endless abyss below the roof!
Sparky nearly jumped out of his skin. "WHAT THE?!"
Greg casually stepped over to the open trapdoor on the roof floor, walking down the first few steps of the wooden staircase. He paused, looking back up at his two paralyzed friends with a broad, inviting grin.
"You guys coming?" Greg asked.
Taylor and Sparky exchanged a glance, took a deep breath, and followed Greg straight down into the floor.
The moment they stepped through the wooden doorway, the shoji door slid shut behind them with a soft snap.
They were no longer on the cold, dreary rooftop of Winslow High School.
They were standing on a suspended wooden platform in the middle of a vast, impossible, mind-bending dimensional expanse. Endless architectural structures made of polished wood, tatami mats, and sliding paper doors stretched out infinitely in every direction—up, down, left, right. Entire rooms were inverted, hovering upside down in the distance; endless staircases crisscrossed through empty space; warm, ambient light radiated from paper lanterns floating in the void.
The sheer, monumental scale of the dimension took their breath away.
"HOLY SHIT!" Sparky roared, his voice echoing across the infinite expanse.
"Holy shit," Taylor echoed softly, completely abandoning any attempt at restraint. She realized with a sudden jolt that she had sworn more in the last ten minutes than she had in her entire life, but looking out over an infinite, shifting wooden dimension, she felt it was entirely justified.
"Pretty wild, right?" Greg laughed, leaning against the wooden railing. He turned to Nakime, who had appeared beside him on the landing. "Hey, Nakime? The endless shifting architecture is super cool for throwing off intruders, but can you manipulate a section of this place to give us a proper, modern living space? Like a cozy headquarters?"
Nakime inclined her head respectfully. "As you command, My Lord."
She struck her biwa twice.
DON! DON!
The massive wooden walls around their platform instantly began to shift! Heavy timber beams glided through the air with mechanical precision, tatami floors folded and expanded, and sliding doors rearranged themselves in a blur of motion.
In less than five seconds, the ancient Japanese architecture morphed seamlessly into a massive, luxurious, modern living lounge!
Thick, comfortable leather sectional couches materialized around a low-profile mahogany table. Warm, recess lighting glowed from high wooden ceiling beams. A state-of-the-art entertainment center and wall-mounted monitors aligned along one wall, while wide, open archways led into private living quarters, workshop spaces, and fully equipped training rooms.
The blend of classic, elegant woodwork and ultra-modern comfort was breathtaking.
Greg pumped his fist into the air with a triumphant laugh. He turned back to Taylor and Sparky, who were standing frozen in the middle of the luxurious lounge, their mouths hanging open for what felt like the hundredth time today.
Greg spread his arms wide, the golden light of the room reflecting off his grin.
"WELCOME TO THE LAIR OF THE CHAOS BRIGADE!"
A/N:Alright this story is going on the back burner for a bit i've Neglected Gears of Anarchy and my other stories enough
Rolls so far
New
Thegameaholic
The Fun One
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2022
- Messages
- 88
- Likes received
- 485
List of Greg's Roles:
[Drake Form] | Rare Ability | Allows you to take on the form of a firebreathing drake or a hybrid at will. As a lesser dragon, becoming a drake grants you increased physical abilities and the ability to fly as well as breathe fire.
[Untraceable] | Rare Trait | You are very hard to track, cameras mysteriously stop recording when you step into the frame, your footprints get covered by the natural elements, and normal people just cannot remember which way you went when someone asks them. Very good for a serial killer or a paranoid.
[Necromancer] | Elite Trait | Specialization - You are a natural-born necromancer, dealing with death and souls is just your lane of business. Any death or soul-related ability is easier to master and costs less energy.
[Mimic]
|Uncommon Familiar|
A curious shapeshifting bloodthirsty creature, the Mimic can turn into the shape of any creature or object as well as being able to manipulate its texture and density. Being able to turn into a chest, or a woman with a large chest, or maybe even a mount. They also get larger and stronger the more you feed them flesh, especially human flesh, they may even get smarter if you feed them brains.
[Corpus Weapon] | Uncommon Ability | Allows you to imbue whatever weapon you are holding or your limbs with necrotic energy. This necrotic energy amplifies the power behind your attacks and makes them harder to heal while hurting the vitality of the enemy directly. Against living targets, it deals extra damage by exhausting their vitality. You can also channel the necrotic energy around your weapon or fist and throw it out as a projectile.
[Scholar] | Uncommon Trait | You are an expert at reading, learning, and retaining information; you could read 50 books in a day and still be able to retain all of the information from the individual books.
[Ryu's Shotokan] | Epic Skill | Street Fighter - You are a practitioner of the Shotokan, a school of special Karate created by Ryu. This school of martial arts focuses on direct, powerful strikes with a mix of kicks and punches, mixing aggression and defense. With enough practice, one may be able to tap into the [Kyoi no Hado] and harness Ki to enhance the power of their blows, perform special techniques, and use the Hadoken.
[Helltaker] | Rare Trait | "You wake up, dreaming of a harem of demon girls" Infernally aligned/Demonic beings find themeselves more attracted to you and it is easier to earn their affection.
[Mimic] | Uncommon Familiar | A curious shapeshifting bloodthirsty creature, the Mimic can turn into the shape of any creature or object as well as being able to manipulate its texture and density. Being able to turn into a chest, or a woman with a large chest, or maybe even a mount. They also get larger and stronger the more you feed them flesh, especially human flesh, they may even get smarter if you feed them brains.
[Son Gokū] | Legendary Familiar | Naruto - One of the tailed beasts, as the four tails, Son Gokū takes the form of a giant monkey with octopus tails. Son Gokū has strength befitting his massive frame with exceptional physical prowess. In addition, he is able to create and control fire and earth at will, often using them in tandem to create volcanic eruptions and spew lava. As a tailed beast, he is immortal and will revive upon death, he can also fuse with a person to grant them his abilities.
[Durable] | Common Trait | You are fairly tough, granting you a slight increase to your defense and letting you take more punishment.
[Horns] | Common Ability | Allows you to grow sturdy and pointy horns on your head.
[Impulse] | Uncommon Ability | Allows you to quicken the electrical signals in your body, increasing your reflexes and speed proportionally. Overusing may cause nerve damage.
[Venomous] | Uncommon Trait | You are venomous, and your bite contains paralyzing venom. The power of the paralysis scales with your physical abilities.
[The Camper] | Elite Ability | "I can stay here all day" - When standing still in a single place for over 10 seconds you gain increased energy, Stamina, and health regeneration as well as increased durability and resistance. If your feet are moved more than 10 centimeters from the initial position this effect fades.
[Iron Manipulation] | Rare Ability | Allows you to telekinetically control iron and iron-based objects in your perception. The level of control and strength is based on the level of focus and the amount of mana spent.
[Ripen] | Common Ability | Allows you to ripen and mature organic objects that cannot or do not resist.
[XII - The Hanged Man] | Common Item | Tarot Card - Allows you to absorb all of the wounds and ailments of a target while lessening their intensity by 20%. 120 Hour Cooldown.
[Tome of Rennala] | Elite Item | Elden Ring - A tome containing the research and magic of the Carian Royal family, allowing those who study it to learn and wield the Carian Sorceries. Spell List: Magic Glintblade, Glintblade Trio, Glintblade Phalanx, Carian Phalanx, Greatblade Phalanx, Magic Downpour, Loretta's Greatbow, Loretta's Mastery, Rennala's Full Moon, Ranni's Dark Moon, Rellana's Twin Moons, Carian Slicer, Carian Greatsword, Carian Piercer, Adula's Moonblade, Lucidity, Carian Retaliation, Miriam's Vanishing.
[Shagaru Magala] | Epic Familiar | Monster Hunter - Shagaru Magala is an Elder Dragon and the Mature Species of the Gore Magala. It has immense physical strength contained in its large frame and 6 limbs. The Shagaru Magala has the ability to scatter its minuscule scales like pollen to more accurately perceive its surroundings and inflict the Frenzy Virus, which it can also do with its breath attacks. The Frenzy Virus can induce Berserk in bestial creatures and render humanoid ones unable to heal naturally. The range of Shagaru's scales is large enough to cover the mountain it roosts in. In addition, if the host is compatible enough, the scales of a Shagaru Magala can act like eggs and use the host as a hatchery to spawn infants of its kind.
[Chameleon Hide] | Common Ability | As long as you stand still, you become invisible by bending light around yourself.
[Louden] | Trash Ability | Allows you to increase noises to non-destructive levels that, while obnoxiously loud won't cause damage.
[Sapling] | Uncommon Ability | You are able to create, communicate with, and control plants in your range. You can make grass grow on fertile dirt, make roots dig through concrete, ripen plants, change their shape slightly, make trees grow fast enough to create natural barriers, and harvest the bounty of nature.
[Bloom] | Rare Ability | You are a chlorokinetic, allowing you to create, communicate with, and control plants in your sensory range. You can make branches crawl out of the ground and snare your enemies, make trees break through concrete, create and grow plant life on fertile soil, manipulate vines as whips, or simply grow an apple tree to get a ripe apple.
[Kudoku] | Elite Ability | Kudoku allows you to expel a very weak poison from your body, either through your pores, your nails, or your mouth. While Kudoku is in an active slot, you can ingest and be inflicted with poisons, and as long as you survive those poisons, the potency of Kudoku will be increased proportionally to their potency and gain more effects that you can imbue into your own venom. Cultivate your poison from a mild paralytic to a godslaying Venom. Starting rating is Trash. Kudoku also provides poison resistance scaling with its own potency when slotted in.
[Gunpowder Manipulation] | Rare Ability | Allows you to conjure and manipulate Gunpowder and control it telekinetically, shaping it into constructs or detonating it on command. The higher volume of Gunpowder you control, the more energy you expend.
[Nothing Strange] | Uncommon Trait | There is nothing strange about you. People try to normalize your weirdness or oddities, like why you keep skipping out on class, how you speak weirdly, or how it's weird to kiss your relatives in the mouth. Just the normal stuff.
[Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring] | Rare Item | Dark Souls - A special ring granted to only the most accomplished sorcerers at the Vinheim Dragon School. The ring is engraved with an everlasting dragon and boosts the strength of magic cast by its wearer.
[Power of the Dragon Father] | Epic Item | Heroes of Might and Magic III - An armor crafted from the corpse of a mighty dragon. Wearing it imbues the wearer with great physical might and extreme resistance to magic, thanks to the everlasting scales of the dragon.
[Portal Creation] | Epic Ability | Allows you to create portals to anywhere in your sensory range or anywhere you have stepped foot into. The size of the portal can be altered, but the portal cannot be closed while something is inside of it.
[Chaos Response]
|Elite Trait|
Your existence is chaos as defined by the chaos gacha, automatically causing feedback to whatever tries to peek into your existence. Future seeing gets scrambled and incoherent, abilities that try to read into you will malfunction and trying to read your mind will cause them a great headache at minimum.
[Unlock]
|Legendary Ability|
Allows you to unlock entities, this ability is conceptual in nature. The things you can unlock range from locks to someone's inner potential. Imagination and energy costs are your limit, the more abstract and harder the target is to unlock, the more energy is spent
[Adamantine Sealing Chains]
|Epic Ability|
Naruto - Allows you to manifest and control the Adamantine Sealing Chains, the signature ability of the Uzumaki Clan. The Sealing Chains take the form of incredibly durable chains that ability to suppress and seal the energy of targets it binds, the suppression ability of the chains scales with the amount of energy you expend and the power difference between you and the target. The power of the chains and the number of chains you can create at once scales with the amount of energy you use.
[Creation]
|Legendary Ability|
You can create objects and matter through your magical energy as long as you remember how to make them. This can range from creating a phone, creating a bar of gold, or even creating a magical sword, provided you know exactly how to make one. The higher the mass and the more magical an object you create, the more energy you need to expend.
[Nakime]
|Epic Familiar|
Demon Slayer - As one of the Kizuku, Nakime has formidable physical strength and regeneration, although lacking compared to her peers. Her Blood Art manifests as a pocket dimension called the Infinity Castle under her control, Infinity Castle is an infinite realm of the inside of a wooden medieval Japanese castle. She can create portals to this realm in the form of sliding wooden doors she can manifest on any surface she can perceive.
Curses:
[Mortal Enemy] | Severity 18 | Someone REALLY strong is REALLY mad at you. The moment you awaken in your world, someone at least Epic Familiar in strength or a target closest to that level is going to be imbued with absolute hatred towards you and will stop at nothing to tear you apart. | Resolve: Kill or neutralize your mortal enemy. |
Severity 1 - [Infertile].
Whatever reproductive organs you have, they refuse to harbour life or help in the formation of life. You cannot impregnate anyone or be impregnated, no matter what. Resolve: Acquire a fertility boosting trait or an appropriate biokinetic ability.
List of Taylor's Role:
[Archangel Form]
|Mythical Ability|
Allows you to transform into an archangel or an archangel hybrid, massively boosting your physical stats and also allowing you to infuse your abilities and items with pure holy energy, as an archangel you can intuitively use abilities such as blessings, healing, and protection, allowing you to use all Holy Abilities below Elite Rank
[Kamui Senketsu]
|Mythical Item|
Kill La Kill - A piece of sentient clothing made exclusively out of liber that synchronizes with its wearer to augment their physical abilities to extreme levels while draining their vitality in exchange. Senketsu is more durable than any manmade material, can act independently and shapeshift into a variety of different forms.
Sparky's Roles:
[Magu Magu no Mi]
|Mythical Item|
One Piece - The Magu Magu no Mi is a Devil Fruit, a fruit with awful taste that, when eaten, grants the user the ability [Magma Logia](Mythical) in exchange for inflicting them with the Curse of the Sea, which makes them unable to use energy when submerged in still water and rapidly drains their stamina. The first person who digests a part of the fruit gets the ability, and the rest of the fruit is rendered inert. If two Curse of the Sea's are stacked together on one person, they will die instantly.
[Lunarian]
|Legendary Trait|
Race(One Piece) - You are a Lunarian, a being of a legendary race. As a Lunarian you have massively increased physical stats, wings and even natural fire manipulation, as long as the fire on your back is lit your durability is massiv
[Drake Form] | Rare Ability | Allows you to take on the form of a firebreathing drake or a hybrid at will. As a lesser dragon, becoming a drake grants you increased physical abilities and the ability to fly as well as breathe fire.
[Untraceable] | Rare Trait | You are very hard to track, cameras mysteriously stop recording when you step into the frame, your footprints get covered by the natural elements, and normal people just cannot remember which way you went when someone asks them. Very good for a serial killer or a paranoid.
[Necromancer] | Elite Trait | Specialization - You are a natural-born necromancer, dealing with death and souls is just your lane of business. Any death or soul-related ability is easier to master and costs less energy.
[Mimic]
|Uncommon Familiar|
A curious shapeshifting bloodthirsty creature, the Mimic can turn into the shape of any creature or object as well as being able to manipulate its texture and density. Being able to turn into a chest, or a woman with a large chest, or maybe even a mount. They also get larger and stronger the more you feed them flesh, especially human flesh, they may even get smarter if you feed them brains.
[Corpus Weapon] | Uncommon Ability | Allows you to imbue whatever weapon you are holding or your limbs with necrotic energy. This necrotic energy amplifies the power behind your attacks and makes them harder to heal while hurting the vitality of the enemy directly. Against living targets, it deals extra damage by exhausting their vitality. You can also channel the necrotic energy around your weapon or fist and throw it out as a projectile.
[Scholar] | Uncommon Trait | You are an expert at reading, learning, and retaining information; you could read 50 books in a day and still be able to retain all of the information from the individual books.
[Ryu's Shotokan] | Epic Skill | Street Fighter - You are a practitioner of the Shotokan, a school of special Karate created by Ryu. This school of martial arts focuses on direct, powerful strikes with a mix of kicks and punches, mixing aggression and defense. With enough practice, one may be able to tap into the [Kyoi no Hado] and harness Ki to enhance the power of their blows, perform special techniques, and use the Hadoken.
[Helltaker] | Rare Trait | "You wake up, dreaming of a harem of demon girls" Infernally aligned/Demonic beings find themeselves more attracted to you and it is easier to earn their affection.
[Mimic] | Uncommon Familiar | A curious shapeshifting bloodthirsty creature, the Mimic can turn into the shape of any creature or object as well as being able to manipulate its texture and density. Being able to turn into a chest, or a woman with a large chest, or maybe even a mount. They also get larger and stronger the more you feed them flesh, especially human flesh, they may even get smarter if you feed them brains.
[Son Gokū] | Legendary Familiar | Naruto - One of the tailed beasts, as the four tails, Son Gokū takes the form of a giant monkey with octopus tails. Son Gokū has strength befitting his massive frame with exceptional physical prowess. In addition, he is able to create and control fire and earth at will, often using them in tandem to create volcanic eruptions and spew lava. As a tailed beast, he is immortal and will revive upon death, he can also fuse with a person to grant them his abilities.
[Durable] | Common Trait | You are fairly tough, granting you a slight increase to your defense and letting you take more punishment.
[Horns] | Common Ability | Allows you to grow sturdy and pointy horns on your head.
[Impulse] | Uncommon Ability | Allows you to quicken the electrical signals in your body, increasing your reflexes and speed proportionally. Overusing may cause nerve damage.
[Venomous] | Uncommon Trait | You are venomous, and your bite contains paralyzing venom. The power of the paralysis scales with your physical abilities.
[The Camper] | Elite Ability | "I can stay here all day" - When standing still in a single place for over 10 seconds you gain increased energy, Stamina, and health regeneration as well as increased durability and resistance. If your feet are moved more than 10 centimeters from the initial position this effect fades.
[Iron Manipulation] | Rare Ability | Allows you to telekinetically control iron and iron-based objects in your perception. The level of control and strength is based on the level of focus and the amount of mana spent.
[Ripen] | Common Ability | Allows you to ripen and mature organic objects that cannot or do not resist.
[XII - The Hanged Man] | Common Item | Tarot Card - Allows you to absorb all of the wounds and ailments of a target while lessening their intensity by 20%. 120 Hour Cooldown.
[Tome of Rennala] | Elite Item | Elden Ring - A tome containing the research and magic of the Carian Royal family, allowing those who study it to learn and wield the Carian Sorceries. Spell List: Magic Glintblade, Glintblade Trio, Glintblade Phalanx, Carian Phalanx, Greatblade Phalanx, Magic Downpour, Loretta's Greatbow, Loretta's Mastery, Rennala's Full Moon, Ranni's Dark Moon, Rellana's Twin Moons, Carian Slicer, Carian Greatsword, Carian Piercer, Adula's Moonblade, Lucidity, Carian Retaliation, Miriam's Vanishing.
[Shagaru Magala] | Epic Familiar | Monster Hunter - Shagaru Magala is an Elder Dragon and the Mature Species of the Gore Magala. It has immense physical strength contained in its large frame and 6 limbs. The Shagaru Magala has the ability to scatter its minuscule scales like pollen to more accurately perceive its surroundings and inflict the Frenzy Virus, which it can also do with its breath attacks. The Frenzy Virus can induce Berserk in bestial creatures and render humanoid ones unable to heal naturally. The range of Shagaru's scales is large enough to cover the mountain it roosts in. In addition, if the host is compatible enough, the scales of a Shagaru Magala can act like eggs and use the host as a hatchery to spawn infants of its kind.
[Chameleon Hide] | Common Ability | As long as you stand still, you become invisible by bending light around yourself.
[Louden] | Trash Ability | Allows you to increase noises to non-destructive levels that, while obnoxiously loud won't cause damage.
[Sapling] | Uncommon Ability | You are able to create, communicate with, and control plants in your range. You can make grass grow on fertile dirt, make roots dig through concrete, ripen plants, change their shape slightly, make trees grow fast enough to create natural barriers, and harvest the bounty of nature.
[Bloom] | Rare Ability | You are a chlorokinetic, allowing you to create, communicate with, and control plants in your sensory range. You can make branches crawl out of the ground and snare your enemies, make trees break through concrete, create and grow plant life on fertile soil, manipulate vines as whips, or simply grow an apple tree to get a ripe apple.
[Kudoku] | Elite Ability | Kudoku allows you to expel a very weak poison from your body, either through your pores, your nails, or your mouth. While Kudoku is in an active slot, you can ingest and be inflicted with poisons, and as long as you survive those poisons, the potency of Kudoku will be increased proportionally to their potency and gain more effects that you can imbue into your own venom. Cultivate your poison from a mild paralytic to a godslaying Venom. Starting rating is Trash. Kudoku also provides poison resistance scaling with its own potency when slotted in.
[Gunpowder Manipulation] | Rare Ability | Allows you to conjure and manipulate Gunpowder and control it telekinetically, shaping it into constructs or detonating it on command. The higher volume of Gunpowder you control, the more energy you expend.
[Nothing Strange] | Uncommon Trait | There is nothing strange about you. People try to normalize your weirdness or oddities, like why you keep skipping out on class, how you speak weirdly, or how it's weird to kiss your relatives in the mouth. Just the normal stuff.
[Bellowing Dragoncrest Ring] | Rare Item | Dark Souls - A special ring granted to only the most accomplished sorcerers at the Vinheim Dragon School. The ring is engraved with an everlasting dragon and boosts the strength of magic cast by its wearer.
[Power of the Dragon Father] | Epic Item | Heroes of Might and Magic III - An armor crafted from the corpse of a mighty dragon. Wearing it imbues the wearer with great physical might and extreme resistance to magic, thanks to the everlasting scales of the dragon.
[Portal Creation] | Epic Ability | Allows you to create portals to anywhere in your sensory range or anywhere you have stepped foot into. The size of the portal can be altered, but the portal cannot be closed while something is inside of it.
[Chaos Response]
|Elite Trait|
Your existence is chaos as defined by the chaos gacha, automatically causing feedback to whatever tries to peek into your existence. Future seeing gets scrambled and incoherent, abilities that try to read into you will malfunction and trying to read your mind will cause them a great headache at minimum.
[Unlock]
|Legendary Ability|
Allows you to unlock entities, this ability is conceptual in nature. The things you can unlock range from locks to someone's inner potential. Imagination and energy costs are your limit, the more abstract and harder the target is to unlock, the more energy is spent
[Adamantine Sealing Chains]
|Epic Ability|
Naruto - Allows you to manifest and control the Adamantine Sealing Chains, the signature ability of the Uzumaki Clan. The Sealing Chains take the form of incredibly durable chains that ability to suppress and seal the energy of targets it binds, the suppression ability of the chains scales with the amount of energy you expend and the power difference between you and the target. The power of the chains and the number of chains you can create at once scales with the amount of energy you use.
[Creation]
|Legendary Ability|
You can create objects and matter through your magical energy as long as you remember how to make them. This can range from creating a phone, creating a bar of gold, or even creating a magical sword, provided you know exactly how to make one. The higher the mass and the more magical an object you create, the more energy you need to expend.
[Nakime]
|Epic Familiar|
Demon Slayer - As one of the Kizuku, Nakime has formidable physical strength and regeneration, although lacking compared to her peers. Her Blood Art manifests as a pocket dimension called the Infinity Castle under her control, Infinity Castle is an infinite realm of the inside of a wooden medieval Japanese castle. She can create portals to this realm in the form of sliding wooden doors she can manifest on any surface she can perceive.
Curses:
[Mortal Enemy] | Severity 18 | Someone REALLY strong is REALLY mad at you. The moment you awaken in your world, someone at least Epic Familiar in strength or a target closest to that level is going to be imbued with absolute hatred towards you and will stop at nothing to tear you apart. | Resolve: Kill or neutralize your mortal enemy. |
Severity 1 - [Infertile].
Whatever reproductive organs you have, they refuse to harbour life or help in the formation of life. You cannot impregnate anyone or be impregnated, no matter what. Resolve: Acquire a fertility boosting trait or an appropriate biokinetic ability.
List of Taylor's Role:
[Archangel Form]
|Mythical Ability|
Allows you to transform into an archangel or an archangel hybrid, massively boosting your physical stats and also allowing you to infuse your abilities and items with pure holy energy, as an archangel you can intuitively use abilities such as blessings, healing, and protection, allowing you to use all Holy Abilities below Elite Rank
[Kamui Senketsu]
|Mythical Item|
Kill La Kill - A piece of sentient clothing made exclusively out of liber that synchronizes with its wearer to augment their physical abilities to extreme levels while draining their vitality in exchange. Senketsu is more durable than any manmade material, can act independently and shapeshift into a variety of different forms.
Sparky's Roles:
[Magu Magu no Mi]
|Mythical Item|
One Piece - The Magu Magu no Mi is a Devil Fruit, a fruit with awful taste that, when eaten, grants the user the ability [Magma Logia](Mythical) in exchange for inflicting them with the Curse of the Sea, which makes them unable to use energy when submerged in still water and rapidly drains their stamina. The first person who digests a part of the fruit gets the ability, and the rest of the fruit is rendered inert. If two Curse of the Sea's are stacked together on one person, they will die instantly.
[Lunarian]
|Legendary Trait|
Race(One Piece) - You are a Lunarian, a being of a legendary race. As a Lunarian you have massively increased physical stats, wings and even natural fire manipulation, as long as the fire on your back is lit your durability is massiv