(Just a Warning: 9/11 does come up in this chapter, so be warned, and I hope I wrote that particular bit properly)
*Alex Breckton POV*
*Year: December 13th, 1992 (Endbringer Emerged)*
*Location: Underground Lab, Alaska*
I could feel my eyes twitch as I took my shoes off, watching sand fall out of them as yet another portal led to a random deserted island. The small kind, the kind you'd see in movies with only a few trees, grass, and, oh yeah, sand. I sighed as I shook my shoes a bit more before putting them on, still somehow feeling the gritty feeling you'd get when walking on sand.
"Gonna be dealing with that for a couple of years."
I saw to no one but myself as I felt myself slowly going stir-crazy a bit, eating nothing but a mixture of canned goods and random wildlife I could find. I think I talked to a few animal skulls once or twice...which was not fun, but I needed something to talk to. Anyway, right now I was in the big empty room just in case I accidentally opened a portal in the middle of the ocean.
Now, did I know for sure that the water would leak through the portal, no, I did not, and decided better safe than sorry. Right now, though, I went over to the side and grabbed a random notebook/pen I found while sorting through the remaining materials/unlabeled stuff. Well, the stuff I didn't burn, that is, I think I destroyed those test tubes before I filled in the guy's grave, in fact, I think I did it while his carcass was nearly untouched by the dirt.
Yeah, I definitely set him and his stuff on fire... not my brightest moment, I'll admit, but hey, not a tinker and definitely not a legitimate scientist. I had engineering and biological knowledge, which could possibly be replicated in the future, but that made me more of an Engineer with a possible connection to biology.
Either way, I sat on the ground and began typing in new coordinates, hoping I could find a town or city this time. Either way, I typed the coordinates in and opened up a new portal, and as the blue shimmering portal opened up, I decided to bring the notebook/pen this time, making sure to note down the home coordinates, so that I didn't forget where the lab was, and a mental note to get a map, hopefully with proper coordinates displayed on it.
Either way, as I stepped into the portal, I was greeted with tall buildings on the other side. I swear to every god and possibly goddess that I had a few tears in my eyes as I took the final step out, seeing human civilization for the first time in days with my mask and costume on, which admittedly was a bit...weird, but I didn't care as I nearly got on the ground and kissed it.
*Location: New York City, New York*
The streets were...empty, I mean, I didn't know for sure where I was, so that might be a regular thing here for one reason or another. It's a city, though, there must be people somewhere, but nothing...empty buildings, closed businesses, and well, anything else I could find was basically locked up tight. I scratched my head as I kept walking down the...well, not clean streets, but more so without people throwing their trash everywhere.
Either way, as I walked further into the city, I was finally able to figure out what city I was in. Apparently, I was in the Big Apple, the tourist trap of the world, and every other nickname you could think of for New York City. None of the buildings, though, were familiar to me, and well...there was the World Trade Center, undamaged and still fully in use. It was a bit jarring to see that, as someone who came from 2025, and knowing about 9/11 meant I knew it was well before 2002, although Earth Bet does heavily diverge from regular Earth timelines quite a bit before, so it's possible that never happened here.
Meaning that a whole lot of other stuff would be prevented as well, like the war in the Middle East, although, since Cape became a thing during the Cold War or near the end of it, I guess most countries have other things to worry about. I wouldn't be surprised if there were inmates in either prison or asylums from all over the world who developed their own abilties, either breaking out or causing untold mayhem during the initial chaos.
So much to think about and understand, so many events already changed by the sheer fact beings like Cape and Dragon exist, alongside the Endbringers. I'll come back to those thoughts later; right now, I need to figure out what year I'm in and what month. I may not remember much, but there are specific points in time when Endbringers attack and show themselves.
First was Behemoth, The Herokiller, due to his sheer destructive power and ability to kill/overpower the strongest of capes.
Second was Leviathan, The Citykiller, a being who changed Japan from a 1st world nation to a third-world pit due to his control over water and sheer widespread destructive power.
Third and finally, potentially the worst of all was The Simurgh, a being who turns one's own mind and hopes against themselves, an intelligent, emotionless machine that was far trickier than its...other family members.
I scratched my head just thinking about it all, and as I finally reached Times Square, or at least what I thought was it anyway. It had all those large TV screens, each showing the news for some reason...showing what the news was calling an oil field in Iran, only...it was showing an ever-growing forest with a distant view of some large creature at the center of it.
{MOTHER FUCKER!}
I mentally shouted, not wanting to draw the horrified people's ire or whatever emotion I'd be greeted with. Either way, this world's timeline was completly fucked beyond all repair, because right now a different Endbringer was attacking the oil field, and currently I could see black fluid flowing through the plants, well, at least from the angles the various news cameras gave, each one being used to fuel various elemental attacks. Meaning whatever this new Endbringer was, definitely woudl have a brute and blaster rating, alongside a tinker well bio-tinkerer, more specifically, each one a high number.
Several heroes were flying around, doing everything they could to stop the newly created plant matter from spreading. I saw heroes like...Hero flying around, burning the planets away as the plant Endbringer kept growing bigger and bigger, absorbing the energy and biomass during the fight.
Either way, I knew for sure this was going to be a shit show, both for this fight and this entire damn timeline in general.
*Tyrant POV*
*Location: Oil Fields, Iran*
Smashing the ground, I was able to rip several of the rapidly growing plant roots out, cutting them off from the oil they were somehow absorbing. Each time I let out a barrage of attacks, more plants replaced them as they kept on getting bigger. These damned things kept on blasting weird balls of black fire, water, and other nasty shit each time I had to tank it.
I could feel my body straining, my bones creaking as I kept throwing fist after fist at them, doing everything I could to protect my teammates, my friends who came with the big guys. We all thought it was some weird biotinkerer at first, some idiot testing something they shouldn't be, but I don't know, the more we all fought, the more this whole thing felt off. Either way, I moved forward and grabbed a gigantic emerald green vine that was shooting out a constant stream of fire. I basically hugged the damned thing, squeezing so tight that it'd kill most normal people.
Sure, I wasn't Alexandria in terms of my brute rating, which only went up to 6 at best, but damn it all, I was named Tyrant for a reason. I may only have two ratings, but my second one was where it all came together, I was a goddam rated 6 shaker, and when combined with my brute rating, I was an Emperor, a TYRANT!
I began focusing my physical strength outward, from how it was explained to me, I increased the air pressure around me, albeit I am unaffected, at the cost of my strength temporarily, although I could control how much I put into it, so right now I was a Brute 3 and Shaker 3 even though that's not what my official rating says. Gave me an edge when it came to villains, most of the time when I put all my strength into this area of effect, boons are broken and villains knocked out, well, the ones I normally encounter anyway.
Either way, I was forcing everything within 30 feet down, dragging the various planets to the Earth and weakening the stem I was holding onto, breaking it off from the roots. While my area of effect ability weakened the other blasters nearby, I took care of one annoyance. Cracking my knuckles, I charged at one of the ones spitting acid, ready to pummel it like the others, when-when something horrifying happened. I saw my teammates, people barely in their twenties, hanging high in the sky, each one with a horrified look on their faces.
I felt my eyes twinge, my face distorted in anger as I screamed out as tears flew down my face, and memories, horrible memories from when I triggered, flowed through my mind. I remember a pale, tall man wearing a tattered black suit had gently lifted his hand, killing a street full of people, each one full of fear, and I-I remember holding my mother's hand. I was fifteen at the time, but the fear, the absolute terror on my mother's face, I could never forget.
In that moment, I felt a wave of anger, rage, and fear rush through me all at once as physical pain coursed through my body. I felt blood dripping down my face as it came pouring out of my nose at a rapid pace. I could feel my strength increasing and the area of effect widening as every plant within, I think, 50 feet started being crushed. Then I felt it, I felt something rising out of my mouth as I puked up blood and stopped dead in my tracks, looking down, I saw that one of the plants was able to pierce my lungs.
I fell to my knees and smiled, as I began pouring all my newfound strength into my shaker power, doing everything I could to take or at least weaken as many of these damn things as I could. I fully went on all fours as the vine stabbing me was pulled straight to the ground. I didn't know what happened or how my power increased, but if it helped any other cape a little bit more, then damn it, I was willing to die to spare them a bit more time to figure out how to take this damned thing down.
I lifted my head as blood and air were quickly leaving my body, and saw that my shaker effect was now affecting further than I could see, bringing down several of those damn blaster plants. Then I felt it...the first sign I was near death and about to see what the afterlife had in store for us all. That's when I felt it, a pull, like something was grabbing hold of me in its hand, and I could feel it, I could feel my powers...weakening and my strength leaving me as my body went limp, my eyes half-shut.
I was forcibly turned over, and I saw it, the monster that caused all this, the thing killing so many capes, and I saw what it was doing. As my eyes closed and my consciousness faded, I saw that the thing was getting bigger, absorbing all the plants it created into its body for what purpose I couldn't tell. I felt my mouth form into a scowl as the last bit of life left me, and I hated myself for it.
I hated the fact I couldn't fight, that I couldn't do anything more as this thing did god knows what with my body. Then, with my last bits of strength as I grew ever closer to this thing's body, I grabbed my silver cross necklace, the last thing my mom gave me before she died, and held onto it tightly...hoping, hoping beyond all hope that there was indeed a heaven awaiting everyone who died here. At least I hoped a good afterlife awaited us all, that we got a good ending, even for the capes here labeled villains. Then I saw the darkness overtake my vision, as whatever came next greeted me with open arms.
*Alex Breckton POV*
*Location: New York City, New York*
On screen, everyone around me and even I looked on in horror as the thing grew so big that it nearly eclipsed everything in sight; hell, it might've even done that for the entire city. It had grown into a gigantic dark green pod, like a melon growing out of the ground, only this thing had a sinister feeling to it. That's when I saw several of the heroes retreating, I think...I think somewhere in their mind, the ancient part of it all, the buried animal instinct, they felt something horrible was about to happen.
At least that's what I think, either that or they had a precog not shown in the main story, nor mentioned anywhere in it. Or they just used common sense; any of the options worked either way, though, the next moment would be forever cemented in people's minds. It burst open, releasing a massive cloud of black powder that quickly spread over the oil field, covering the ground in this weird substance.
Then...then gigantic black spikes burst out of the ground like trees that stood tall and grew branches, each one bearing monstrous-looking fruit. This was the moment, this was the very first time I saw an Endbringer in action, a monstrous creature capable of reshaping how society functioned.
*Endbringer Profile*
Name: Gaia
Ratings: Brute 7: Basic Endbringer Brute level
Blaster: 7: Result of rapidly growing custom elemental plants capable of firing different energies
Shaker: 6: A result of its final attack, which forms a gigantic black forest that does not spread but does not die, not at least for a thousand years
Tinker: 8: Gaia's main ability, and her specialization is Plat Growth/Creation as he body/core is essentially a rapidly changing database for various custom-created plants, each one with a different function/purpose, created from nearby materials readily available to Gaia
[Image] {Basically, what the main form looks like, but feel free to imagine something different}