She took a martial arts stance and waited for her opponent to come to her. As she expected, Lung charged in to attack with a punch that might as well have been telegraphed. With a simple step, Mantra avoided it, grabbed the ABB leader's arm and threw him into the air, swiftly leaping up in pursuit of him.
Channelling energy to her leg until it glowed blue, the Cape smashed it into Lung, snapping several ribs by the sound of it and sending the gang leader careening into a nearby warehouse.
Landing lithely on her feet, Mantra rolled her shoulders as she waited for Lung to re-emerge. She didn't have to wait long.
The enraged Parahuman smashed through the wall with a roar of fury. Flames coiled around his hands and he was even bigger than before. The metal mask that had covered his face had cracked, showing Lung's face twisted into a vicious snarl, even as scales formed on it as the dragon transformation overtook his body.
An image of a figure screaming its rage to the heavens, four large arms seemingly made of molten metal emerging from its back, flashed through Mantra's mind and she smirked. Compared to that monster, Lung's rage was a mere child's temper tantrum.
Loading her arms with energy, Mantra counter-charged Lung. She struck him across the chest, from left shoulder to right hip, leaving a white line of energy. Faster than Lung could react, the cape then struck from Lung's left hip to his right shoulder, leaving another white line before finally striking horizontally and unleashing all the pent-up energy of the two previous attacks at once.
With a flash of white light and an explosion of energy, Lung was sent flying back into the warehouse, blood streaming from the three cuts to his chest. Mantra glanced down at the back of her left hand and saw that the sunburst symbol was almost full.
'One more proper attack and I'll be ready to take care of Lung.' she thought.
The girl known as Taylor Hebert, currently in the body of Mantra, mused that this was the one thing she disliked about her powers. While her skills were very impressive and the fact she was a Changer that even Changed her clothes when she transformed meant she didn't have to worry about making a costume aside from a mask and hat, she was almost permanently on a third of her actual power.
It had been lower than that the first time, but training and fighting had improved it. To access her full power, she had to fight for a while, until the sunburst symbol glowed white with energy. Then she entered what she felt compelled to call 'Burst Mode,' when she had access to all of her potential needed for the situation.
Burst Mode wasn't something she wanted to use often, as it was exhausting to recover from using even a single time once she reverted to her real body. Last time she had stopped a truck from running made with a dead man at the wheel. The result afterwards had been her sleeping for almost fourteen hours and her Dad panicking like a loon.
Still, Lung was so powerful that she couldn't risk underestimating him or pulling her punches, short of killing him anyway. His boasts were not idle.
When Lung ripped his way through the wall again, he had his wings deployed and his tail lashing behind him. The Rage Dragon was almost fully draconic now, with armoured scales covering his body, which was now ten feet high. His eyes were glaring murderously at Mantra as fire spilled from his mouth and in a corona around his talon-tipped hands.
"'onna 'ill 'ou, mu'f'k'r!" he grunted out in horribly mangled English.
"Take a ticket and stand in line." She replied contemptuously, "There are plenty standing ahead of you."
'Like the entire population of Winslow.' Mantra thought wryly.
Before Lung could even move, Mantra was in motion, a blue streak of light following her as she sped by the ABB leader several times, landing powerful punches on him before on final blow sent him sprawling to the ground, stunned.
"'ill…'ou…!" he slurred as he staggered to his feet.
"So you've said." She replied dryly, "But now, I fear, it is time to finish this."
The ring floating behind her glowed with power as it lifted her up and with a cry, a blue aura exploded from her body, while the sunburst on her left hand blazed like a real sun with light.
In a flash, Mantra stood in front of Lung, her right arm loaded with power and cocked back to strike.
"Say goodnight." She hissed.
With a bang as loud as a cannon going off, Lung was sent flying faster than a bullet in the general direction of the Bay, crashing unrestrictedly through walls and buildings as if they were made of paper.
Mantra looked at her fist and said, "Err…oops. Doubt that killed him, but…I'll just leave now."
With that, she levitated off the ground and flew away hastily, leaving behind a bunch of semi-comatose gangers, who swore to themselves to never piss off the heroine called Mantra unless they wanted to be punted into the Bay.
Eventually, Taylor would gain forms equivalent to those of Asura, Mithra and the Seven Deities as well. She just got Yasha's first.
In the aftermath of the Sword Art Online and Alfheim Online incidents, numerous corporations made use of Kayaba Akihiko's [World Seed] Program in order to create various VR-MMORPG games.
Yet some, rightly, mistrusted the intentions of the man who had trapped ten thousand people in a Death Game for over two years. Thus, those companies who rivalled the companies that had used the [NerveGear] and [AmuSphere] VR headsets decided to branch out and created their own worlds and technology that was based on, but different than, the two headsets.