WARNING! SPOLIERS!

DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN INFINITY WAR!

Well, now that I got that out of the way.

I'm going to be honest, I didn't expect this to get as long as it had, but Infinity War was easily one of, if not the best superhero movies that I have ever seen.

I guess I should have expected this.

Enjoy!

Infinity

Parahumans.

They were lauded as people with amazing abilities that most people couldn't even dream of. About thirty years from their advent to the point where it would be completely alien to consider the world without them. They were the people that everyone wanted to be, after all, who wouldn't want superpowers?

Fools.

For all their praises, they didn't see what was happening. They couldn't tell that it was because of parahumans that civilization as they knew it was heading down the toilet. Everything that had been built up for hundreds of years, all the developments and hard-earned victories that made society what it was today were being chipped away by parahumans. People liked to blame Endbringers for the world collapsing around them, but the damage that they did, in the end, was minor compared to the constant and near irreparable damage that parahumans did simply by existing.

They didn't fix anything or build anything of value. There was nothing that they did that in any way could support society other than fighting with each other in idiotic costumes with foolish nicknames. They were held above the rest of society as if having powers somehow made you superior to others as if their contributions didn't matter and yours' did. Never mind the fact that said unpowered people had to work hard for their accomplishments and all parahumans had to do was be too psychologically weak to handle a little trauma.

No, they were a disease that needed to be cleansed, pulled out from the root and burned away. They couldn't be allowed to exist anymore, not when it would mean the eventual death of billions. It would mean the death of thousands, but that would be a small price to pay for the future of their species.

That was something Taylor Hebert knew as a fact.

In some ways, she had to thank Sophia Hess for opening her eyes to the truth of the world, or at the very least, she had been the one to open her up to the possibility of accepting the truth. It had been a long had hard struggle to reach this enlightenment and embrace it for what it was, but she understood now.

She had seen far too much to not understand.

She had witnessed the horrors that Bakuda had unleashed on the city during her attempted takeover of the ABB. Taking innocent men and women from the streets and implanting them with bombs, burying the firefighter station in a block of ice…the woman had been a madman of epic proportions, bringing nothing but death and chaos to the city.

She had hidden in her basement, shivering with fear when the gang war went off in full swing, hundreds if not thousands dying as the parahumans fought amongst themselves. To them it had all been a game of cat and mouse, fighting over blocks of land that at the end of the day, wouldn't change a thing of how the city was run.

She had seen the aftermath of Leviathan and the warlords that had risen to power. No longer content to be mere gangs they had carved out their own little fiefdoms and ruled them as if they were gods among men. The rule of law was cast aside in favor of the rule of power even as the Protectorate totted themselves as bastions of heroism, all while never leaving downtown.

Time and time again they had been told that this was just the way things were, that they had to learn to live with it. As if being forced to cower in your own home was supposed to be normal, ordinary.

She was done.

She was done with all of it.

There was a time in her past where she had been the same as the other bleating masses, unable to realize the inherent dangers of parahumans and the threat that they represented to society. Hess may have ruined her life and shattered her dreams, but she had opened her up to the possibility of creating a better future for the world.

Parahuman or not, her sacrifice would not be forgotten.

Sparks bounced off her welding mask as she fused the two pieces of metal together, her creation starting to take its shape. She knew that there was no way that she should know how to build something like this, and she knew she wasn't a parahuman, but she could feel the plans lurking in the back of her head. Almost as if they were memories of her own. She could feel her bracelet heat up a bit, and she glanced down towards the glowing sapphire stone embedded in the crudely made accessory.

For a solid year she had ignored it, thinking it nothing more than a somewhat interesting stone that had washed up on the river by her summer camp, but now she knew the truth. She could hear it whispering to her in her dreams, telling her what it was capable of accomplishing.

It had been quite satisfying dropping Sophia off in the depths of space. The wide-eyed expression of gibbering terror as she realized how badly she had screwed up had certainly lightened up her day. She idly wondered how long that Sophia would be able to keep herself alive in her Breaker state. Would she starve in that form, slowly degrading until nothing remained or would she simply float through space until she was pulled in by a gravity well, burning up on re-entry?

Admittedly it had been a pretty petty move on her part, but she was just done with parahumans. It had certainly been a risk, especially to do it in the middle of school and out herself, but she knew she was almost ready. Besides, if Sophia wanted to spend the first day back (which was a joke, trying to have school while half the city was dying) then she could enjoy the fruits of her labor.

Bam!

Taylor didn't turn from her work even as she heard the front door to her house shudder. She had already known she had been living on borrowed time, and she didn't think that the Protectorate was so idiotic that they wouldn't be able to put two and two together whenever the rats that lived at that school finished spinning their tale. Did they convince them that she was some sort of crazed psychopath that got off on hurting others, and they had merely been the helpless children too afraid to do anything?

She wouldn't put it past Emma to do something like that.

"This is the Protectorate! Open Up!"

Taylor ignored the order, putting all of her focus into finishing the device. It was almost done, she would only need a few more seconds…

There!

The last piece of the Gauntlet clicked into place even as she heard the door being torn from its hinges. The sound of footsteps echoed through the ceiling of the basement as they tore apart her house, looking for her. It would only be a few seconds before they found the basement, but it was already too late.

Taylor slipped the Gauntlet on, the cool metal fitting snuggly onto her hand. The gold colored metal gleamed even in the faint light of the basement, and Taylor could feel the power that it represented reverberate through her chest. Or rather, the power that it would represent.

The basement door shuddered once, no doubt whatever cape they had brought having finally figured out where she was. But even with super strength, it would take a few seconds to break through, the door was an old one, built back when the fear of a Soviet missile strike had run rampant across the States.

Plenty of time for her to finish what she needed to do.

Taylor plucked the glowing stone from her wrist, her fingers humming even through the gauntlet with the power that the stone possessed. She took a moment to take it in, enjoying the otherworldly nature of it as if someone had crystalized space itself into a single stone, an impossibility that her mortal mind couldn't even begin to comprehend. Idly, she wondered what would happen if she put this in front of a Thinker. Could they even begin to understand what was being presented to them or would their heads just explode?

Cracks broke out from the edges of the door, snapping Taylor back to attention. She could enjoy the sight of the stone all she wanted after she got it into the gauntlet. She rolled the singularity across her knuckles, moving it to its place. It was actually a surprisingly uneventful affair all things considered. The stone almost seemed to be pulled to the spot by some unseen force, snapping it into place.

A soft wave of power passed over her, and Taylor felt a smile cross her lips as the Gauntlet hummed like a content cat.

The door broke down an instant later, Armsmaster's iconic figure stepping through the wreckage of her door in all his glory. His halberd was extended, his mouth twisted into a firm line. A younger Taylor might have squee'd at the thought of meeting one of her heroes, but she was no longer that Taylor. She had been enlightened to the truth of parahumans. Instead, she turned around to face her, a smile nearly splitting her face in two. She was far from done, but this was the first step towards a glorious new future for mankind.

"Give up, villain!" He barked out, raising his halberd to strike her down. Taylor felt something inside of her harden at the dismissal, the demand that she stop what she was doing. Her smile faded in an instant, replaced by an unbreakable determination.

"Never."

A hook shot out from Armsmaster's halberd, homing in on the Gauntlet. In the instant that it took to cross the space, Taylor clenched her metal-laden fist and activated the power of the stone. Space around her bent and broke and twisted into a seething cauldron. Bluish smoke surrounded her, obscuring her from Armsmaster's vision and the rest of the world. She stepped forward, into the portal of her own making, the first steps on her mission.

And there was nothing that would stop her.

The African wasteland was a very dangerous place to be.

While not strictly a desert, years of constant warfare between various warlords had stripped many of the resources and wildlife away, leaving nothing behind but dust and rock. What few resources still remained were fought over by the nomadic tribes that roamed the region, often under the control of one or two parahumans, only able to maintain their independence from larger factions with the fact that there was little value in the land anymore. Certainly not enough to risk coming across one of the wasteland's more dangerous inhabitants.

The ground shook as the Ash Beast traveled across the landscape at a slow crawl. Rock melted underneath its weight as its flames licked the air around it, sand burning so hot that it turned to glass as it passed by. To the few people that lived inside the wastelands and the villages that surrounded it, the Ash Beast was not so much a parahuman was it was a natural disaster, something to be avoided and circumvented rather than be fought. Those that did tended to die.

Horribly.

Approximately a mile away from where the Ash Beast stood a hole in space tore open, revealing the inky blackness of nothingness, the space between space. The ground rumbled from the display of power even as Taylor stepped out, taking in the blighted landscape. Her lips pursed at the sight, the sheer devastation that had been wrought upon this land made Brockton Bay look like paradise in comparison.

Further evidence to support her knowledge that parahumans were, in fact, a detriment to society and the world as a whole. Africa might be ahead of the curve compared to other continents, but this was the fate that every nation was heading towards, whether they wanted to admit it or not.

The Ash Beast hadn't noticed her, still making its way across the wasteland at is ponderously slow pace. A group of birds flew off into the distance as the heat drew too near, starting to make the tree they had been standing on smoke and boil. A few seconds later it burst into flames, turning it to ash in less than a minute.

Taylor could see why people feared the Ash Beast even with its slow momentum. There was really nothing that could be done to stop it or slow it down that it couldn't just burn through. Even standing almost a mile away she could feel the heat, not uncomfortably so, but enough to recognize the folly of trying to fight it.

A good thing she didn't intend on fighting it.

With a clench of her Gauntlet, Taylor shifted the space surrounding her from another location, placing herself in a pocket of air. The heat that buffeted her face disappeared, siphoned off into the other space, which was acting as a buffer between her and the rest of the world. With another clench, she opened a portal, tearing a hole in space to her target.

The young man that made up the core of the Ash Beast froze in surprise. He looked gaunt and malnourished, his bones peeking underneath his skin. Idly Taylor wondered if that was what he had looked like before all of this and he was being sustained through sheer power or if he was slowly deteriorating, hungering for something to eat but never being able to bring something to his mouth without burning it to ash and dust.

But she wasn't concerned about that. No, her sole concern was the glowing purple stone lodged inside his chest.

The area of flesh that surrounded it was blackened and cracked as if someone had taken a blowtorch and lighting bolt to him. Purple veins of raw power extended outward from the point of origin, disappearing into his body where they were expelled in the form of his constant inferno.

His mouth moved to form words that she couldn't understand, but the pleading nature of his requests were unmistakable.

"Have heart," Taylor said, knowing that he wouldn't understand her but wanted to say it anyway. He deserved that much at the very least. "Today I grant you mercy."

Taylor reached out, shoving her Gauntlet covered hand through the portal and reaching towards his chest. The man seemed to realize what she was doing, but instead of resisting, he drew himself closer to her, as if he wanted to get the stone out of him. After several years of being like this Taylor couldn't exactly blame him for wanting to give it up.

Her glove wrapped around the stone, and despite the fact that she still had the pocket of other space surrounding her, taking the heat for her, she could still feel its thrum travel through her glove and up her arm. She could feel the sheer power that it wielded. What this man was doing with it was merely one very limited application of its power.

Purple sparks flew up from his body as she started to pull it out. He started screaming at some point, his mouth forming wordless sounds as she tried to tear it out of his skin with all her might. She could feel it coming out, but it was resisting, lodged inside of there pretty well. Her mouth twisted into a snarl, pulling even harder as the very last of it refused to budge. Her free hand shot out and wrapped itself around the man's face, pushing it back even as she pulled with her gauntlet. She could still hear him screaming, begging, whimpering –

Crack!

Taylor stumbled back as she suddenly lost the resistance she had been pulling against. Her hand wrapped around the stone, careful to not let it fall to the ground, lest she wanted something worse to happen to the wasteland. But once she was satisfied she wasn't about to fall over Taylor opened it up to take a look at it.

Like the Space Stone, it was quite beautiful to look at. But unlike its blue brethren, it was far more energetic, sparks of powers leaping from it, like a puppy that was eager to show off what it could do. Taylor snapped the stone into its place on the Gauntlet and looked up just in time to see the young man collapse into dust before her, a content smile etched onto his face.

The heat died down instantly as the Ash Beast was reduced to dust and smoke. The only evidence to his existence that remained was the trail of destruction that had followed in his wake. Taylor glanced back down at the Gauntlet, the two stones glowing in their sockets.

Two down.

Four to go.

Alexei Ivanov had a life that few men could even begin to dream about. Whatever he wanted was his. Whatever desire he held in his heart could be made reality with but a mere thought, reshaping the world in his image. The criminal syndicates of Russia continued to squabble like children all they wanted, but they all knew that he was the one in command. Now power they had could encompass his, and anyone that thought otherwise was quickly dealt with.

Yes, being the Sleeper had its perks, and it was all thanks to a glowing red rock that he had happened to find in the woods one day.

Alexei cracked his eye open in irritation as he felt something brush through his field of control. It was probably just another college hazing prank. He could have ended them anytime he wanted, but he found them amusing in his own way. He might kill the odd student or two, but he kept enough alive that it wasn't an entirely suicidal mission for them. But this one had interrupted his nap, so how was he going to kill them toda—

The Sleeper's thoughts were cut off as a blast of pure power slammed into his house. Wood and brick shattered and disintegrated as the earth cracked under the weight of the power. The universe itself seemed to scream in agony as an ungodly amount of energy was forced into its surface, glowing purple cracks spiderwebbing from the impact zone.

Sleeper shuddered as he rearranged reality, making it so that he had never been in the house during the attack despite the fact that he had been. The man could feel his heart pounding in his chest as for the first time in years he felt the cold grip of fear. He had felt that more than any ambusher or would be killer had come before. He had felt the power rip him apart, only his force of will keeping him alive long enough to use his power.

"You have made a grave mistake," he said, using his power to protect his voice across his domain. It came from everywhere and nowhere, from under every rock from behind every cloud in the sky, reverberating down to his very bones. Frightening level of power or not, this was still his domain, and here he was god.

A voice replied, but he couldn't understand what they were saying. It sounded like English, but it didn't seem to have the attitude of a defeated person looking to surrender, but rather a cold amusement of a cat playing with a mouse. Sleeper ground his teeth together in anger as he shifted his power out, looking for any signs of the interloper in his domain, even as he willed reality so that all speech could be understood by his ears.

"You will die," he growled out, eyes narrowing as he tried to find any ripples she had left behind. He knew where every speck of dust was in his domain, there should be no way that anyone could hide from hi—

Sleeper turned around just as space tore and broke, another beam of purple power shooting out from the portal. The liquid fire shot out towards him, the trees surrounding them catching aflame as they rushed on forwards. Sleeper tried to exert his power on them, but it felt like trying pin down a raging bull covered in oil.

In lieu of that, he forced the ground to rise up as a makeshift shield, but the instant before the beam struck another portal opened, and Sleeper found himself screaming as he was struck from behind. He could feel his flesh boil and char under the immense power being laid down on him, but with a single thought he repaired the damage and moved out of the line of attack.

Correction, he tried to move his way out of the line of fire.

Reality twisted as he demanded it, but a blue sheen overtook him, covering his entire form like a blanket. The Sleeper found himself rooted to the spot, unable to move even as the beam of white-hot energy burned away his form. It was only his power that was keeping him alive now, willing his body to repair itself into its previous state, but unable to do anything else.

"Surrender the stone, and I will grant you mercy," the voice said, and Sleeper snarled.

"Never," he growled out, even through the unrelenting pain. This stone was his power, his right. He would no more give it up than a mortal would breathing. This was his and his alone, and if this fool wanted it so badly she could take over his dead body – Urk!

Sleeper's train of thought cut off as a fist impeded itself in his stomach, purple lighting crackling off of it. He could feel it burning away at his insides as it reached around, searching for what he held. For the first time in years, Alexei felt true terror. He was immobilized, and even with his vast power, he was unable to do anything as this woman defiled his body and took what was his.

Urk!

Alexei looked down to see the crimson stone that he had wielded to his body so many years ago in the golden glove, a shimmering haze hanging over it like a fine mist. The man that had mere minutes ago been one of the most powerful men in Russia, if not the whole of Eurasia, could only look up from his wound towards the woman in the portal.

She was young, which was another slight against him, but there was fire and steel in her eyes. There was nothing of regret or hesitation, only a cold determination to see her goal through to the end, whatever it was.

"Hurak," he garbled out, half laughing and half choking on his own blood as it dripped down from his mouth. In the last moments of his life, Alexei realized that this was a fight that he had always been destined to lose. For all his power, he lacked the drive that this young woman had, the kind of drive that could bring down empires.

One last shuddering laugh escaped his form before he slumped forward – dead.

Nikos Vasil, or Heartbreaker as the mainstream media referred to him as, didn't consider himself a criminal. He wasn't interested in running organizations or trying to take over the underworld of his city. No, all he wanted to do was to be left alone so he could live with his women in peace. So long as his own safety was assured, he could care less what the Protectorate and various gangs in the city did with each other. He had better things to do than waste his time fighting battles that were ultimately meaningless.

He smiled as the woman currently walking by his side snuggled against him a bit more. She had once been a high-level accountant at one of the local law firms, but during a drinking session one night he had approached her and liberated her into his service. She was quite the looker, her talents wasted at her job. His smile turned into a smirk as he felt the bitter jealousy from various men as they walked down the street, no doubt wondering how someone like him managed to land a girl like her.

Vasil was willing to admit that he wasn't the most handsome of individuals. Oh, he tried his best to make himself look presentable, but there was only so much he could do with makeup. He had been born premature and had contacted multiple infections during his first few months of life that required a lot of surgery. While he had managed to survive, he hadn't done so without complications. Scars crisscrossed his face, doing no favors to his already rather brutish appearance. Few people had been capable of holding a conversation with him without averting his eyes, as if that was somehow better for him.

He had been prepared to live his life in relative solitude when he found his salvation.

The yellow stone wrapped around his necklace had given everything that he could have ever wanted and more, well beyond his wildest dreams. Who would have thought that a man who could barely speak to women for more than five minutes would be granted the ability to make them love him unconditionally?

It was a dream come true.

Nikos frowned as the stone pressed against his chest started to heat up. It wasn't uncomfortable, but it was a noticeable change compared to its normally inert state when he wasn't using it. It almost seemed to be pulsing against him as if it was a heart. In the back of his mind, he could hear some kind of garbled whisper, like static from the television on the lowest of volumes, too indistinct to make out.

"Something wrong, my love?" The woman clinging to his arm asked, concern and devotion the only things in her voice. Nikos only gave her a small smile, the kind that one would give to a child who happened to ask a rather stupid question. And really, it was a stupid question, for how could something be wrong so long as he had his power? Nobody would dare to attack him so long as he had his moles placed in various organizations.

"Nothing my dear. How about we go get a drink?" He asked, though in reality, he knew that it wasn't a question. She would do whatever he wanted her to do without question, even if he asked her to slit her throat. His power over her mind was absolute.

The bar was one of his more frequent hunting grounds, after all, nobody really paid any attention to a woman leaving with a man in a bar. They would just assume that he was either their designated driver or a one-night stand that she had just met. Nothing that would link his face to the identity of Heartbreaker.

Though to be honest, Nikos wasn't sure if he was in the mood for someone new to his brood today. He still had that new redhead that he hadn't finished having fun with yet and he hated having to let one of his women feel left out. He had been more than content just to have a few drinks and be done with it, but that was before she walked in.

Nikos knew that this was easily one of, if not the most beautiful women that he had ever seen. She even surpassed that movie star that he had taken a year or two ago. Her cheekbones were perfection, her dark hair cascading down her shoulders, curled just the right way to frame her heart-shaped face and her equally dark eyes. Her legs went on for miles and she had just the right amount of flesh in just the right places.

Forget the redhead, he wanted her.

He could have just bent her mind to his with a single thought, but he always liked to play the slow game. He waved his current woman to stay seated as he stood up the greet her. The angelic woman turned towards him, pursing her lips in disgust. That only made Nikos smile even more it was always more fun when the women in his life started out hating him. There was something just so amusing seeing them bend to him.

"Hello there gorgeous," he greeted, sending a wave of lust and devotion her way. It wasn't enough to make her blindly loyal to him, but it would be enough to make her more amiable to listening to his instructions. Certainly, enough to get her into a more isolated location. "Perhaps we could take this somewhere else?"

"Hm, no," she said, causing him to blink in surprise. That…that wasn't possible. Nikos pressed a little harder, throwing more devotion and love onto her, well more than enough to bend her mind to his. He hit her with enough that she would be willing to die for him, to kill for him. Even if it ended the fun of the hunt, this woman had no right to defy him. She was his.

"I think you'll find you've changed your mind," he said, not quite a growl but irritated all the same.

"Unfortunately, reality can be disappointing," the woman said with a sharp smile, and Nikos felt a shiver of fear travel up his spine. The unsettling feeling only intensified as the woman evaporated into red mist, the rest of the bar following suit. What had once been a quiet but relatively full location was reduced to him and his toy.

"Time to go," he barked to the woman, who immediately stood up to follow him. He didn't know what was going on, but whatever parahuman was trying to take him down was going to regret it. If it was a woman she would join the ranks of his collection, but he could deal with that once he was safe—

"AUGH!" Nikos Vasil screamed as golden fist shot out from a shimmering portal, wrapping around his head. He struggled against it, but he was stuck to his face well and good. The wind left his chest as he was slammed against the ground, and he was pretty sure he felt one of his ribs crack in two. He could hear his woman screaming, throwing herself against his attack as she should, but her screams quickly cut off with a crack.

Nikos tried to activate his power, but line of sight was one of the few requirements that he had for using his power, and right now he had nothing. He could feel the attacker's emotions, a mixture of anger and disgust that he was all too familiar with, but underneath it all there was a level of determination that Nikos had never encountered before. And in that instant, he knew that this wasn't some newbie who could be convinced to back off by the threat of his timebombs going off.

"The others I did quickly, so they couldn't hurt anyone. But you? I want you to feel this," a young woman's voice hissed, and Nikos felt his face heat up as she activated whatever power she had. A scream ripped from his throat as it burned into him. He struggled like a flailing fish with everything he had, but she wasn't budging, and the pain was growing worst. He could feel his insides twisting and screaming, writhing in agony. His fist slammed against her own, but there was no reaction, no hesitation. He could feel cracks in his skin forming, ripping himself open like an overinflated water balloon.

"I'd say that I'm not getting any enjoyment out of this, but that would be a lie," the young woman hissed. That was the last thing that Nikos heard before his brain was engulfed in liquid fire.

Taylor pulled her hand from Heartbreaker's face as his twitch stopped, his brain reduced to slag. His face looked like it had been dunked in lava, cracks covering his entire head with simmering purple power just underneath. After so many years of hearing how Heartbreaker had managed to elude authorities, seeing him dead felt…unsatisfying.

This was something that the PRT or police should have done years ago. Still, their loss was her gain. Taylor reached down, plucking the yellow stone from where it laid around the man's throat. She felt a brief spark of something as she touched it, almost a hint of dread. She frowned as she rolled the Mind Stone in her hand, eyeing it with a critical gaze.

Was it somehow aware of what she was going to do with it?

Doesn't matter. Because really, it didn't. There was no force on this planet that was going to stop her from completing her mission, no matter how much others pleaded her to stop. She didn't expect others to understand at first, but they would see that was she was doing was a mercy, salvation even.

"You killed him."

Taylor turned to see that the woman had recovered from where she had tossed her aside, looking down at Heartbreaker's corpse with a horrified expression. She looked broken and lost and disgust welled up inside of Taylor at the thought of what this monster had done to her for his own amusement.

With a flick of her fingers, Taylor set the stone in the Gauntlet, and it was then she could feel the connections that had been forcibly forged by the stone. Hundreds of threads extended from it, all of them connecting with Heartbreaker's smoking corpse. With the clenching of her fist, she severed them all, freeing the man's thralls from his control. The woman standing next to her stumbled, clutching her head as if she had the mother of all headaches.

"What? I…oh, god," the woman whispered, a horrified expression crossing her face. It lasted for a brief second before she started puking, her bile washing over Heartbreaker's corpse. "Oh, god!"

It was quite interesting, seeing fear turn to rage. Once her puking had stopped, the woman started kicking the man's corpse, screaming and wailing all the while. Taylor placed her hand on the woman's shoulder, her head snapping up to stare at her. Tracks of tears rolled down her face, a broken look hiding just behind her rage.

"Call the police," Taylor said simply, pointing to the pay phone attached to the wall. Taylor turned to leave, clenching her fist to open a portal, but not before she heard the woman whisper a barely audible sentence.

"Thank you."

Taylor knew that the last two stones would be the hardest to obtain. Their bearers weren't like the others, these ones had honed their fighting prowess for longer than she had been alive. They knew how their powers worked inside and out. They would fight her, and unlike the others, they would be able to put up some form of resistance.

Not that they would stop her.

The instant Taylor dropped herself near her next target, she wasted no time putting herself to work. Next to her, a man that looked remarkably like Johnny Depp blinked in surprise at her sudden appearance before an eerily calm smile danced across his lips. His fingers flipped open a blade, but Taylor was already clenching her fist.

Before he could even get a word out edgewise Jack Slash as turned to stone, frozen forever in a single spot, towering over the sobbing costumed boy that he had been tormenting before her arrival. She knew that he was a parahuman, but she couldn't help but feel sorry for him, at the very least she would make his death painless when the time came.

The Siberian lunged at her, her face contorted into an ugly snarl, flecks of blood and meat surrounding her mouth from were her still groaning victim laid. Taylor threw her Gauntlet covered fist up at her, activating the Mind Stone and shredding the cannibal's mind into pieces. Within seconds one of the most dangerous parahumans on the planet was reduced to a drooling heap, or rather, she would have been if she hadn't disappeared before she hit the ground.

The other Slaughterhouse 9 members tried to stop her, but their efforts were futile in the face of her power. Miasma was turned into glass statue, the various contours of his previously invisible form frozen in place for all to see. Winter was boiled alive as she was lit on fire, burning out her insides even as she removed the oxygen surrounding Crimson's head. She took command of Psychosoma creatures and forced them to turn on their master, ignoring his shrill orders as they ate him alive just like all of his victims before him. Mannequin tried to run away, but Taylor forced his skin and bones to grow back around his encased brain. The madman shuddered once before falling over, blood and flesh leaking out of his chassis as he grew too large for his creation.

One of the nearby building shattered as a mass of flesh and muscle pulled its way through, Crawler's nightmarish face contorted into a twisted grin. His body was something out of a Lovecraft novel, with too many limbs and eyes, with armored scales that made tank armor look like tissue paper.

"I'LL RIP THE FLESH FROM YO—" Crawler started to scream, his voice so deep that Taylor could feel the rumble in her chest even from dozens of feet away as if he had hooked himself up to a sound system. But instead of allowing him to finish his threat, Taylor opened a portal directly in front of him. The man's momentum was too great for him to turn or stop, so he quickly found himself flung into the surface of the Sun, no doubt burning up on impact as the portal closed behind him.

Now, where was he?

"Well, that was interesting," an almost bored sounding voice spoke up from behind her. Taylor turned around to face the speaker, only for a curse to escape her lips as she found herself looking back towards the space Crawler had just vacated, a grey mirage surrounding her. But instead of panicking, Taylor allowed herself to settle down and wait for Grey Boy to get within her line of sight. This was a setback, she would admit, but it was still fixable. She wasn't going to be stopped by this.

As he stepped into her field of view, the first thing she realized was that Grey Boy certainly lived up to his name. He honestly didn't look older than a middle schooler in age, wearing what appeared to be some kind of school uniform. His skin tone and clothing were all greyed out, making it look like he was some kind of bad photoshop on the rest of the world. Every few seconds his form would flicker like he was being rewound on a VCR. His expression was utterly placid despite the fact that she had killed most, if not all, members of the Slaughterhouse 9.

"I can't say I've seen many people kill so many of us in such a short among to time," he commented as if he was discussing the weather. He turned to look on the battlefield, eyeing the corpses of his former compatriots. "It almost makes me regret that I ended this so quickly. You might have been fun to fight."

"I'm not here to fight you," Taylor said, keeping her voice level despite the situation that she was in. This would not be her end, not while she still had to save the world. Grey Boy raised an eyebrow, looking almost interested in what she had to say as he flicked his switchblade open.

"Oh?"

"I'm here for your stone," Taylor growled out. Now that got a reaction.

Grey Boy froze as if he had just been caught in one of his own loops. A look of fear and surprise flashed over his face, his muscles contorting in strange ways as if he had almost forgotten what it was like to experience something as primal as fear. But a single reset was all that he needed to get himself back under control, giving her a rather bored expression instead. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh?" Taylor hummed. "Then let me enlighten you."

From what Taylor had found, her time loop ran on about a thirteen-second loop. Not enough time for her to turn around or move her body in any meaningful fashion, but that was more than enough time to close a fist.

Her Gauntlet covered hand clenched, and she could feel the power of the stones activate.

But even with the four stones she had right now, she couldn't break the time loop. No, that was firmly in the power of the Time Stone and beyond her reach at the moment. However, while Grey Boy was certainly capable of looping her in time, his power didn't extend all the way to space. The blue Space Stone glowed, as did the Reality Stone, with her willing them to force her out of the looped space and back into normal reality. From Grey Boy's perspective, it looked like she simply vanished from his loop, an impossibility that left him reeling by the expression of shock that covered his face.

Taylor appeared behind him and unleashes a barrage of power onto the young-looking cape, slamming bolts of pure energy into his back. She knew it wouldn't hurt him, not really, but it would throw him off balance enough for her to get what she wanted.

Grey Boy vanished for a few seconds as he was vaporized by the blasts, but quickly reformed a few feet away from where he had been previously standing. He moved his hand to trap her in another time loop, but Taylor didn't give him that chance. Instead, she used the Mind Stone to temporally stupefy him, convincing himself that he didn't have any powers. With her next thought, she opened a portal under his feet and opened up a second opening so that he landed right in front of her, face first into the dirt.

Reality twisted, and the dirt quickly turned to liquid metal before solidifying, just long enough that Grey Boy had sunk in, trapping him in solid titanium. Then Taylor started pulling.

She knew that any damage that she did to the murderer would reset itself, but she was willing to bet that loop didn't extend to the stone itself. She could feel it inside of him nestled inside his internal organs, just like Sleeper's had. It made her curious as to how they had managed to get them inside of them, but that was a mystery she didn't want to bother herself with right now.

She could feel the stone moving inside of his as he struggled, doing his best to free himself from his prison. But he didn't have a Brute rating aside from his reset, and although his power cleaned him of any metal directly contacting his skin, he was deep enough in the pool that it didn't matter, the emptiness merely forming a cocoon of air around him. There was no way that he would be able to get out before she was done.

Taylor felt a smile stretch across her face as the green glow of the stone started to inch its way out of his back. She intensified her telekinetic grip on it, ignoring the man's pained screams and muffled pleas for mercy. It was always amusing how people like him were so quick to cause other people pain because they could, but the moment anything came along that could actually harm them they folded like a wet blanket, unable to deal with anything that threatened their own mortality.

Pathetic.

With one last great tug, the stone was ripped from his back. He shuddered once before falling silent, and Taylor was pretty sure that she could hear sobbing from inside his metal prison. His skin had lost its grey tone, though really, she had to question how a green stone could turn someone grey, but whatever. Taylor pressed the stone into its place and stumbled for a brief moment as the power washed over her.

She clenched her fist and ripped the depowered Grey Boy from the ground, the hard way. The man screamed as she pulled him out of his metal prison, his flesh and bones shredding and cracking as he was torn through the metal casing. Blood leaked down his body, and for the first time in years, the man felt true pain, without his little time loop to keep him from being hurt.

"You're going to die anyway, but I want you to know what every single one of your victims felt like," Taylor growled out, closing his fist and activating the power of the Gauntlet. The man opened his mouth to protest, but his body rewound as the time loop began, trapping him inside the very prison he had used to hurt and torture so many others. Taylor could see the fear in his eyes, the terror of having his mortality threatened after so many decades of being invincible.

"Have heart, you will be granted mercy soon enough." Having fun wasn't something that one considered when bringing balance back to the world, but she had to admit this brought a smile to her face. Taylor turned around, moving towards the closest pay phone, but not before looking back and shouting, "Also, I want you to know I'm going to break all of your time loops. Whatever hope you had for keeping a legacy, it's over."

She was coming.

The woman that had once been known to the world as Ciara could only twist her hands in a bout of uncharacteristic nervousness. For years she had been certain of her goal, of the responsibility that the stone that thrust upon her. It had been the deciding factor in every action that she took, of every life she stole, all of them for the singular purpose of protecting the Soul Stone.

She had dozens of powers at her disposal, all of them chosen to combat this threat with everything that she had. She had never once wavered in her conviction that this would be the only way that she would be able to achieve victory. But now the moment had come, and what had been a looming, but intangible threat for years had suddenly become real, solid.

Despite the fact that the room was temperature controlled, Ciara let out a full body shudder. She knew all too well what someone could accomplish with even one Stone. What would someone be able to do with five?

"I don't like this," Marquis muttered as he pulled himself away from the now bone covered door, layers upon layers of the calcium substance spanning the wall, each one stronger than steel. Ciara doubted that it would hold for longer than a few seconds, but anything they could use to delay the Stone Seeker would be worth it.

Besides, it wasn't as if they had many options to work with.

"Neither do I Bone Shaper. But destiny does not call upon us at the time of our choosing. The Stone Seeker seeks to do battle with us now, and we must meet her in the field of fire. To not do so would mean death," Ciara said, her ethereal voice echoing through the sealed hallway. Several forcefields laid in the doorway behind them, courtesy of String Theory. The Tinker had boasted that the forcefields deployed by her generator could withstand a nuclear explosion, but Caria had her doubts they would be able to stand against an Infinity Stone, much less five.

Convincing her fellow inmates hadn't been that difficult to be honest, at least convincing them to follow her lead. She didn't need them to believe what she said about the Stones, she only needed them to fight for her. Those that hadn't agreed had been added to her collection, regardless of their status as cell-block leaders. It had been risky, tearing down the order of the Birdcage like that. She could have very well united them against her, but this was no time for half measures. The Stone whispered to her, communicating with its brethren, warning her of what would come to pass should the Seeker obtain it.

None of them would live to see the morning.

"If she is as powerful as you say," Lustrum cut in, sparks of energy flying around her body as she threatened to unleash her power. The woman had been reluctant to fight, but once Ciara had made it very clear what would happen to those who didn't fight, she had been all aboard. "Then what hope do we have against her?"

"None." The words tasted like ash on her lips, and the most powerful woman on the planet couldn't help but wonder if this was what her countless victims felt like. Each one of them knowing they had no chance against her but standing against her all the same. If it was, her respect for them grew, for if she did not know what was at stake, she was not certain she would be able to muster the courage that they had. "Nothing remains but sweet oblivion and an end to this nightmare."

Lustrum swallowed and looked about ready to speak up when the alarms blared to life. It was a sound that many of the older residents were familiar with, back when there had still been hope of escape from this cage. They were loud, almost unbearably so, a tactic that the Queen of Tinkers no doubt used to keep anyone from getting any ideas while the defenses were dealing with attempted escapees.

But this wasn't the result of someone wanting to get out.

This was someone that wanted to get in.

The floor shuddered as the various ordinances the Queen of Tinkers used to keep them in check went off. Containment foam dispensers and black hole bombs, guided maser beams and who knew what else. They could hear the rumbling echo through the hallway, shaking their very bones from the force of the vibrations.

Then silence.

Ciara clenched her fist, her three ghosts keeping close to her as they awaited the results of Dragon's barrage. Some small part of her hoped that it would be enough, that the Seeker would be overwhelmed by the defenses and be turned back. But as a blue mist gathered around the bone sealed door, she knew it to be a false hope.

She could feel her comrades tensing beside her, no doubt realizing that whatever they thought of her, this threat was real, and more than simply just a figment of her deluded mind.

Space ripped and tore, a black featureless void forming a few feet above the floor. Her hair and cloak twisted as air rushed in to fill the gap, the shrill shriek sounding as if it came out of hell itself.

Then she stepped through.

For one that filled her heart and mind with such fear, she was rather unassuming. She only looked a little bit older than Ciara, even with her body frozen as it was. Her frame was thin and weak, and looked like a stiff breeze would all that it would take to knock her over. She looked more akin to a lamb walking into a den of lions more than anything else, a little girl who didn't know enough to realize how the world worked or what monsters she was standing before.

But appearances could be deceiving.

Though she looked frail, there was a light in her eyes that would not be broken. Her face was contorted into a neutral expression, giving nothing away as she finished stepping through the portal, which quickly closed behind her with a snap. Ciara's eyes flickered down to the golden Gauntlet wrapped around her wrist, the source of what filled her with such dread. Besides her, she could feel Lustrum shift in surprise, as if recognizing something.

A moment of silence passed between the group before finally…

"You have something that I need."

"What you seek you cannot have, turn back Stone Seeker," the Faerie Queen said, her ethereal voice echoing in her ears. Taylor had to admit when one talked about the Faerie Queen, one usually didn't think of her as a little slip of a girl.

But there she was, looking even younger than Taylor did.

There was no doubting that it was her, several ghostly shadows twisting around her body, their features grossly exaggerating their human characteristics to the point of inhumanity. Childish form or not, this was one of the most powerful and dangerous parahumans on the planet, and she was certain that those that didn't learn that lesson quickly were likely to join her collection of souls.

Assuming they were even given the chance to learn their mistake.

Taylor was certain that if most people were given a chance to run away by one of the most dangerous beings on the planet they would take it in a heartbeat. There would be no hesitation in them as they turned around, booking it with everything that they had. But she was not one of those individuals, and she would not give up after coming so far, not when she was so close.

"I have not traveled into the bowels of hell itself to give up now," Taylor said, her voice resolute as she lifted up the Gauntlet. The Faerie Queen and her ghosts tensed, their movements still like sharks right before a strike. The man covered in bone armor similarly tensed, several of his spikes growing a few inches. "You will surrender the Stone, or I will take it from your cooling corpse."

"Hebert?"

Taylor's gaze tore itself from the Faerie Queen to stare at the other member of her group. Her long hair was pulled into a tight braid, her expression oddly concerned for someone that was about to engage in a fight to the death. "Yes?" Taylor asked, slowly and cautiously. Even with five Stones, she knew she wasn't invincible. This was most likely a trick concocted by some sort of Thinker power the Faerie Queen had. After all, what were the chances that her mother had actually known a Birdcage inmate?

"You're related to Annette Hebert, aren't you?" The woman asked, her gaze narrowing as if in contemplation. Taylor didn't relax, but she did nod her head ever so slightly in agreement. She kept the corner of her eye on the two other capes, still wary that this was some kind of trap.

"You knew her?"

"Not well, but yes. She took one my classes at New York. I heard she joined my movement but…" the woman trailed off, pursing her lips. Recognition clicked in Taylor's head as she finally put the pieces together.

"You're Lustrum," she said, and the woman nodded her head. Her mother had never gone into length about her time in Lustrum's movement, preferring to keep that part of her past separate from the rest of her life. But she had put enough pieces together to realize that her mother hadn't exactly left before the movement had gotten violent.

"Yes…how is she? She was a good student."

"Dead," Taylor said simply, doing her best to keep the agony out of her voice. Even after all these years that loss still stung deep, a gorge of pain that ran deep through her. Sophia's interference hadn't helped, taking one of the few reminders that she had of her and tarnishing it, defiling it.

But that was what parahumans did, wasn't it? They took something good and warped it for their own purposes, ruining it for everyone else.

"Ah," Lustrum said, her lips twisting in displeasure. "I'm sorry to hear that. Perhaps…"

"Enough Null Walker," the Faerie Queen interrupted her unearthly voice cutting through the conversation. "The Stone Seeker will not be swayed from her path. Not even for the memory of her mother."

"No, I won't," Taylor growled out. "So, either give up the Stone or die trying to defend it."

"Why are you doing this, sweetie?" Lustrum asked, her voice calm and compassionate. If Taylor didn't know any better she might have actually assumed that she was trying to help her out. But then again, Lustrum had been the leader of a national movement, it would be unsurprising that she had a level of charisma to her.

"I would think you of all people would understand what it's like, serving a cause greater than yourself," Taylor said. She knew that the woman was stalling, trying to keep her from her objective, but at the same time she couldn't help but answer. It wouldn't change her mind, but she wanted at least someone to understand why she was doing what she was doing. She didn't expect to be remembered fondly by anyone when this was done, but just having a single person understand her logic, to know that she wasn't doing this for senseless violence, but with reason…

"I'm doing this because I'm the only one with the will to see this through. Parahumans like you, maybe some of you have good intentions, but in the end, all you can do is break, destroy, tear down. How many lives did you ruin during your marches? How many buildings did you knock down, livelihoods ruined? How many innocent men were defaced by your followers, how many wives lost their husbands? How many daughters lost their fathers? Did you even consider them, or were they just helpless peons in your own personal war?" Taylor asked, anger coloring her voice.

"Sweetie," Lustrum said with a sickly-sweet voice that made Taylor want to rip her throat out. "Sacrifices had to be made so the world could be a better place. You can't make an omelet without cracking a few eggs."

"You're right about that," Taylor said, a smirk crossing her face. "But it isn't so fun when you're on the other side, is it?" She turned, making sure she could look all three parahumans in the eye. "I don't doubt that most of the people in this cage are monsters, you wouldn't be here otherwise. But I do want you to know that I'm not doing this because of some personal vengeance or anything like that. The only reason that I'm doing this is because parahumans have proved time and time again to be detrimental to society. Africa, South America, that is the path that all of western civilization is heading toward, whether they want to admit it or not. The PRT, the CUI, they're all just band-aids on a problem they refuse to fix. So, I'm going to exercise the virus."

"And how many will die because of your actions?" the man in the bone armor asked, crossing his arms. Taylor turned her gaze to him and gave him a dry look. She recognized him from some of the old news clippings her father had kept in the basement. Marquis, the "Gentleman Parahuman" of Brockton Bay.

"And how many died because of you, Marquis?" She asked, her voice biting, angry. The man seemed unperturbed by her anger, merely shrugging his shoulders.

"Only those that needed to die. No more, no less."

"Then I suppose you have your answer right there."

She turned her full focus back to the Faerie Queen, who had remained impassive throughout the conversation. Her shadows still kept close to her form, six eyes staring at her from indistinct shapes. Her face was expressionless, unreadable, her pale eyes seeing so much more than they should have.

"I'm ready to give everything for my cause, are you willing to give up everything for yours?"

"…Once, I thought myself the most powerful being on the planet, bar the Endbringers. I was certain that nothing would defeat me, that I would reign supreme," the woman turned her gaze to the glowing stone wrapped around her neck, and Taylor felt her hands twitch as the sight of her prize. So, close she could almost touch it, but beyond her reach all the same. "But then I received a vision of a monster. Flesh and blood and bone, but a monster nonetheless. They were power incarnate, and all that stood in their path was destroyed. I saw what they would do, what they would accomplish with that power, and I knew that as monstrous as I was, even I could not allow that. So, I made a vow, that I would be the one to stand against the monster, and that from then on, every kill I made was in service to that goal. Every power I took, it was all to stop that monster."

There was a long pause as the two stone wielders stared at each other, unbendable wills crashing against each other.

"…and that monster was you."

Her shadows leaped forward, howling and screaming even as Taylor brought the Gauntlet to bear. She clenched her fist closed and the hallway screamed.

Ciara felt one of her shadows melt under the shockwave that ripped down the hallway, shaking metal plating from the walls, but that was alright. He had been a particularly uninteresting Brute, meant to take the hit so the others could get in to make their moves.

Her second shadow lifted its arms, energy projections surrounding its fingers that acted as monomolecular blades, driving down towards the Seeker even as her third shadow rushed from the other end, using its sonic attack to try and disorient her opponent. From behind her, she could feel Lustrum gather the energy from the shockwave, leeching from it to fuel her power even as Marquis picked himself up from the ground before waving his hand. Blades of bone burst forth from the wall that he had set up, ready to impale everything in its path.

But it all meant nothing in the face of Infinity.

For a single instant, the girl no longer occupied the same space she had moments ago, her form turning intangible. A blade that could cut through tank armor passed right through her without pause, the bone spikes uselessly shooting through her. For a brief instant, she regained her tangibility and a wave of purple power shot out in a shockwave, disintegrating everything in a ten-foot radius around her. Ciara was already calling up more of her shadows even as she turned around to pull on the bone wall that had been meant to keep her out. She let out a bestial roar as she threw her arm towards them, the wall quickly following suit as it was ripped from its place in space, shooting towards them with deadly intent.

But it shattered as Lustrum rushed forward, her energy form already dense enough that the ground was bending around her, metal plating twisting as it was pulled along her personal gravity well. Ciara could feel the woman's power attempt to interfere with her own, but she brushed it aside. Marquis was not so lucky, stumbling as his mind and power were temporarily cut.

The woman rushed the teenager, brining her arms up to smash her into the ground. But with a twisting of her fist the woman was stopped short, the crackling energy that surrounded her body trailing form her form into the Power Stone, siphoning her powers. Within seconds Lustrum was without any energy to fuel her power, leaving her nothing more than a middle age woman.

And a few seconds later she wasn't even that.

A solid beam of power shot straight through her head, ripping it down to its molecular structure. Her neck was cauterized in an instant, leaving nothing but charred flesh as her body pitched backward, slumping against the ground. Ciara could feel the woman's power add itself to her to collection even as she brought forth more of her shadows.

"RAAH!" Marquis roared as he shot out bone shards towards the young woman, traveling faster than most bullets. But they were cut short as a wave of red washed over the room, and the once feared gang leader collapsed to the ground with a wet scream as all the bones on and in his body melted down to goo.

Ciara had one of her shadows rush the Seeker even as she called another to teleport her out. The lumbering brute of a shadow was quickly cut down as the space between the atoms that kept its shape was expanded, dissipating it into smoke. Ciara quickly jumped through the poral her shadow opened, tumbling though it before it closed with a snap.

"So, how'd it go?" String Theory asked, her face lacking its usual maniacal smile.

"Poorly. She comes, prepare yourself," Ciara commanded, the capes that they had been holding in reserve rousing themselves from their rest.

"Eh, I wouldn't worry too much. Theirs no way that she could get past…my…" The strongest Tinker on the planet paused, turning her gaze towards the door. Ciara followed her view and felt her gut drop.

The shields that String Theory had rated to withstand nuclear explosions were crackling with strain, the metal surrounding glowing so hot that they were starting to melt, despite the fact they had been designed to withstand heat. Even Cinderhand's powerful pyrokinetic abilities hadn't been enough to make a dent in the armor plating, and they were being vaporized.

The doorway held for a moment more before exploding outwards, flinging molten fragments of metal out into the assembled parahumans. Some of them brushed it off or deflected the blows, but others were not so lucky, falling to the ground screaming as their flesh burned and melted. String Theory was one of those unlucky few, clutching her arm as tears of pain ran down her cheeks.

The Stone Seeker stepped out from the smoke, her expression impassive as she stared down at some of the worst monsters and murderers that mankind had ever known. Despite that, there was nothing resembling fear or doubt on her face, only a cold determination to see things through to the end. She should have been a chicken entering the fox den. But Ciara knew the truth, she wasn't locked in here with them…

They were locked in here with her.

"KILL HER!" Someone screamed out from the crowd, a mix of pain and terror coating their words, lighting the spark that started the firestorm. The air screamed as various Blaster abilities shot toward her, from direct energy attacks to shards of metal being telekinetically lifted up and thrown towards. Ciara herself pulled up one of her shadows and fired at the girl, the beam meant to spatially twist her in half.

But before any of the attack struck her fist closed and glowed yellow for a brief moment before switching straight to blue. Dozens of portals opened up all around her, the attacks streaming straight into them, utterly failing to do any damage to her. The portals closed for a brief moment before reopening, and Ciara felt her eyes widen as the attacks were sent straight back to them.

Parahumans screamed in agony as their own powers were used against them, many of them dying outright before they could get out of the way. Her shadow twisted as its physical form was imploded, but she simply called up another one.

Acidbath's body collapsed into a wave of corrosive liquid, bearing down on the Seeker. Many had pit themselves against the man to no avail, the man's formidable Changer state preventing any long-term damage from being inflicted on him. He crackled as he rose up above the girl, intent on crushing her before melting the flesh from her bones. But the Seeker merely raised her hand and the man found himself frozen, his entire form turning to ice in an instant before shattering under its own weight.

In the corner of her eye, Ciara could see Black Kaze bringing her weapon in a downward arc before vanishing, using her teleportation to close the gap between her and the Seeker. She reappeared mere feet away from the young woman, her blade angled down to take her head off, only for the gauntlet to flash green and the woman to disappear from her spot in the few seconds it took Kaze's weapon to strike.

Ciara felt the woman's ghost join her as she slumped forward, bleeding profusely from a chest wound that hadn't been there mere seconds ago. The Faerie Queen growled as she regained her bearings, calling up some of her more dangerous shadows. She was no maiden, cowering behind the knights as they slayed the monster. One of her ghosts floated above her, and Ciara could feel its Shaker power activate, the gravity around them increasing tenfold.

Many capes stumbled, but so did the Seeker, nearly pitching forward even as she finished crushing an inmate's skull in-between her fist. She fell to the ground, only barely keeping herself from faceplanting, her arms straining against the weight being press down on her. Another one of her shadows opened a portal above the Seeker, and her third shadow rushed through it, increasing its density to the point that it would be able to shatter titanium just by standing on it.

But as it leaped through the portal with the intent to crush the Seeker's spine into dust, the woman managed to close her fist. Power flowed out from the Gauntlet, wrapping around her shadow, crushing and squeezing it to the point that it became impossibly dense. Ciara startled as she was almost dragged through the portal by the miniature black hole formed out of the remains of her shadow. Only by closing the portal was she able to avoid instant death, but a few of the Brutes that had been moving in to assist weren't so lucky.

Unable to change their forward momentum in time, they were pulled in, quickly crushed into pinpricks before being swallowed by the singularity. The Seeker stood up, murder written across her face as she pulled her arm back and threw it forward, the black hole quickly following suit. Everything in its path was fair game, from the poor parahumans in its path to the walls of the Birdcage as it was ripped apart bit by bit through the unimaginable gravitation force of the black hole.

"Eat this, bitch!" String Theory roared, still clutching her bleeding arm as she threw something towards the rapidly moving singularity. Ciara herself was already moving out of the way, exchanging her teleporter for a flier. As she pulled herself out of the path of oncoming doom, the small device that String Theory had thrown slammed against the singularity, and it fizzled out of existence like a bad television signal.

But even as the Seeker pulled her arm up for another attack, String Theory threw another object, small rockets on the box propelling it forwards. It crashed into the Seeker's Gauntlet covered arm, eliciting a scream from the young woman as arcs of electricity ran up and down her body while a pair of wires shot out from the device and dug into the ground, pulling her down and pinning her. "Not so tough now, are you!"

The Tinker's face had regained her normal maniacal smile, nearly splitting her face in two at the sight of the Stone Seeker twitching on the ground. "Try closing your hand to use your power now," she taunted, but her glee petered out a bit at the enraged look she got from the Seeker, even through all of the pain that she was no doubt experiencing. As she reached to her side to grab a fragment of metal, Ciara summoned one of her metalkinetic shadows and had it pull all of the metal shards towards it.

The blade twitched in her hand, drawing blood from her form, but she refused to let go of it, even as it dug all the way down into her bone, twisting and spasming for a way to escape her grip. She slammed the shard metal into the device, cracking the casing. If String Theory had had access to better materials to build her projects it might have survived the impact, but as it was most of what she made was jury rigged to some degree, and this was no exception. The Seeker screamed as she pulled her had up from the now fizzling device, sparks still flying up and down her arm as a pulse rang out form the Gauntlet, throwing everything within a hundred feet back. Ciara stumbled under the force of the blow, but String Theory was not so fortunate as she was sent flying back, slamming her head against the wall and breaking her neck instantly. Oddly enough Ciara didn't feel her shadow join her, and she glanced back to see the woman's eyes twitching in her skull, still alive but paralyzed from the neck down.

"Burn!" Cinderhands roared, azure fire erupting from his hands, greedily consuming the air around him with a roar as it was sent hurdling towards the Seeker. Several of the parahumans around him stumbled back from the sheer heat of the flames, sweat, and burns breaking out across their skin. Ciara quickly joined him, summoning up the three most powerful pyrokinetics she had. A rainbow of colors was flung towards the Seeker, engulfing her in a blaze that would have made Crawler hesitate.

But as the flames engulfed her, Ciara quickly realized that something was wrong. She could feel the fire being pulled in as if something was actively brining the fire closer to her. The Faerie Queen's fear was realized when the flames finally started to subside despite their combined efforts, the pillars erupting from their hands growing even larger in protest.

But it was all for nothing as the inferno cleared up, the Power Stone glowing with the energy contained within. The wearer of the Gauntlet smirked before shooting a small orb out from the stone, barely larger than a pea. Ciara felt a cold chill travel down her spine as she summoned the most powerful shields she had, overlapping forcefields surrounding in.

"That's all you got girly—" Cinderhands didn't get to finish his taunt as the tiny orb of energy detonated, engulfing everything in its path. The concussive force was a solid wall in of itself, plastering every cape that didn't have a Brute rating into a fine mist. This was only made worse as it bounced off the walls of the Birdcage, the near immovable metal amplifying the kinetic force of the wave. Those that survived the initial blast were quickly burned alive by fires that wouldn't have been out of place on the surface of the sun, their internal organs vaporizing almost instantly. Ciara felt her shields shudder under the impacts, and for a brief moment, she feared that they would shatter as tiny cracks started to form in them.

But her fear was short lived as the firestorm finally died down, but her gut rolled at the sight before her as the smoke started to clear. Bodies of her fellow prisoners were blasted all across the walls, many of them nothing more than red smears. Those that hadn't been instantly vaporized were charred and boiled, their skin cooked so well that it had blackened and cracked. A few groaned as they tried to stand up, but nothing came of it as they flopped back onto the floor.

In the center of it all the Seeker stood, untouched by the inferno. She glanced back towards the remains of a Stranger that had been sneaking up behind her, unnoticed by everyone. He had been a mere few feet from running a blade up the woman's back, which was probably the closest any of them had come to ending the battle in their favor. But now he was nothing more than another smoking corpse.

"You understand you cannot win," she said, approaching Ciara with slow and heavy footfalls. Ciara could feel her throat go dry even as she pulled up new shadows, hoping and praying that she would be able to do something to stop her. For the first time in so many years, she knew what it was like to be afraid, to feel the fear of defeat worm its way into one's head. Her fingers twitched, eager to strike, but her mind was conflicted on the matter. Self-doubt was an unusual experience for her, and to face it now after so long…

It wasn't an ideal experience.

"Your victory will mean our death, Stone Seeker. I cannot allow you to win," Ciara protested, trying to buy time for herself as she searched her archive of shadows for something that could get her out of this mess. The young woman only chuckled, but it lacked warmth or compassion, only an endless cold that chilled the murderous parahuman.

"My defeat would mean the death of everyone Faerie Queen," she hissed from between her teeth, her mouth barred into a sneer. "When my victory comes, I will have saved billions."

Ciara met the woman's eyes as she raised the Gauntlet, the stones glowing as she prepared to use its power. There was no hesitation or mercy in her gaze, only an unshakeable determination to see her self-proclaimed mission through to the end. She was more than ready to kill her and every other parahuman on the planet.

But Ciara wasn't going to go down without a fight.

The first of her shadows formed in front of her, the woman's eyes narrowing as she stared at the dark shape, moving her arm to deal with it before it vanished from view. It reappeared a foot behind her, clawed hand raised up to rip her spine from her back. But even as it swung down the woman activated the power of the Gauntlet and disappeared from the spot she had been occupying with a flash of blue.

Her shadow's attack missed, but that was alright, it had only been meant to buy her time. The Seeker reappeared a few feet away, and a blast of purple energy slammed into the ambusher, annihilating it from existence. The woman turned her attention back towards her even as the second shadow appeared behind her, wrapping its hand around her shoulder as it activated its power.

The world twisted.

Ciara only barely managed to keep herself from undergoing the rather undignified act of vomiting. The bile welled up in her throat before being choked back down as she tried to shakily regain her footing. Civilians around her started screaming, fleeing in every which way to escape from what they recognized as the boogeyman of the cape world, but she ignored them. She knew she only had a few seconds before the Seeker got here, so long as she had the Space Stone there would be nowhere in the universe that she wouldn't be able to reach. But it gave her time to think as she called up her more powerful shadows.

She had been hoping that the other inmates would have weakened her, but that had been a longshot anyway. She did get some new shadows out of the fight, but if they didn't work for the original wielders she doubted they would work much better for her.

Ciara jumped back and up into the air as space in front of her twisted and bent. Calling up her most powerful aerokinetic and cryokinetic shadows she blasted the rapidly forming tear in space. The air twisted around with such force and speed that a miniature tornado formed, picking up nearby cars and debris and flinging them like children's toys. She could hear the roar of the wind drown out everything else even as her cryokinetic shadow added its power to the mix, dropping the temperature of the air so low that not even a tardigrade would be able to survive.

Cement cracked and crumbled as frost formed over the nearby buildings, freezing windows solid. But as she pushed harder, Ciara felt something push back. She could feel it in the center of the cyclone, racing up like a missile despite the hurricane level headwinds. Ciara grunted, doing her best to increase the power of the vortex, but it was futile in the end. The missile shot up with such speed and force that a vacuum formed behind it, collapsing her cyclone as it was literally pulled apart from the inside out.

The Faerie Queen only barely managed to keep her head from being torn off as the shard of cement went flying past her head, but she was unable to keep herself from being pulled along for the ride, the force and spin of the shard proving to be powerful enough to rip her from her place in the air and sending her tumbling back towards the ground.

Ciara impacted the ground with a dull thud, hissing in pain as something in her chest snapped, pain radiating out from her lower sternum. But before she could consider doing anything, the Seeker tore from the smoke like a manwoman, her face barred into a twisted sneer. Ciara barely had time to call up one of her shadows, blasting the woman in the face. She was sent flying back with a roar of rage as the Trump called up the most powerful regenerator she had and sighed in relief as the pain subsided as her flesh knit itself back together.

"Do you really think you can stop me?" The Seeker asked eyes narrowed as she held up a force field to block her shadow's energy attack. Despite the fact that it was putting out enough energy to turn steel into slag the forcefield held on, aided by the weight of infinite power behind it.

"I must try," Ciara shot back, calling up another shadow that turned the ground beneath the woman's feet into quicksand. Her expression twisted in frustration as she started to sink, her struggling only making it worse. But before Ciara could capitalize on the woman's temporary imprisonment, the forcefield that was keeping her Blaster at bay shot forward so fast that it was nothing more than a blur, slamming into the shadow and sandwiching it in-between it and a brick wall.

Another wave of her hand and the liquid concrete was pushed back as if held away by an invisible wall. Ciara brought out one of her telekinetic shadows, and the concrete pulsed as she attempted to crush the girl with it, squeezing down on the invisible wall. But it was like trying to bend steel with leather, there was just no give to it.

The Seeker took a step forward, the invisible wall mirroring her movements as she made her way across the street. She was briefly delayed as something dropped out of the sky in-between them, cracking the asphalt and throwing up dust.

"Halt villains!" The hideously yellow clad cape announced, arm outstretched between them. He obviously didn't recognize who she was, or he would have started running in the opposite direction, or the worse possibility, he did recognize her but actually thought he was powerful enough to stop her. "You shall not -gurk!

The man's ham was cut off as he was temporarily turned intangible and lowered into the ground, desperately thrashing in some vain attempt to stop what was happening. Then he regained tangibility and started screaming, wads of blood rising up his mouth, staining his already awful costume.

Even Ciara had to wince as his lower body occupied the same space as the asphalt beneath him without any regard for his internal organs. But the temporary distraction gave her enough time to have her telekinetic shadow rip a building out of its foundation. The Seeker glanced up as a dark shadow passed over her, a flicker of surprise crossing her face as a Dunkin Donuts slammed into her with enough force that the street cracked beneath her and she and the remains of the building and people inside were sent underground.

Ciara then changed out her shadows, taking to the sky again while at the same time enthralling every person within a block radius. Panicking civilians came to a dead stop, their muscles clenching up as they lost control of their forms.

"Kill her," she ordered, her voice reverberating through the streets. Her thralls were quick to follow her commands, many of them grabbing makeshift weaponry as they made their way to the hole in the street. Even as they did that, Ciara used her telekinetic shadow to continue pushing down on the mound of slowly moving rubble, doing her best to crush the woman that was underneath it.

"Glaistig Uaine!"

Ciara looked up to see Alexandria herself flying above her. Close enough that she could engage it she had to, but not so close as that she would be in direct range of her killing touch. Her eyes flickered across the horizon, searching for any sign of Legend or Eidolon. She doubted that Alexandria would be willing to face her alone.

"The terms of your pact stated you would remain in the Birdcage," she said, and Ciara felt her lips curl. She had known that turning herself in to gain access to the Birdcage would have aroused suspicion towards her, so she had framed it within the confines of her insanity, convincing the local PRT Director that she would surrender for 300 years for a story. Were they all so blind that they had no consider the possibility that it had been a trick, or had she made them that desperate?

"The terms of my agreement are still in effect. However, I would prefer to see myself live until the end of it," Ciara said, frowning as she felt the debris push against her power even more. She could see that Alexandria was debating what she needed to do, either take her away from here or remove the civilians first, but her decision making was cut short as the debris disappeared from reality for a split second before reappearing right above them.

This is getting annoying.

The Faerie Queen had to know that she couldn't win. As powerful as she was, there was no way that she could stand against the combined power of five Infinity Stones. All of this was merely a delay, a bump in the path of her mission.

Taylor growled as she forced the rubble that was attempting to crush her into the sky, raining it back down on the earth. With little more than a gesture from her fist a staircase of brick formed along her path, bringing her up out of the sewer and into the daylight. As she scanned the battle field, her eyes tightened that the sight of the civilians, their gazes glassy and uncomprehending. At least those that still had eyes.

What a waste.

More lives irreversible ruined by conflict caused by parahumans. Taylor wasn't going to pretend that their deaths weren't at least in part her responsibly, but it had been the Faerie Queen that had put them at risk through her actions. Arguments could be made that she had been the one to provoke the cape, but a result of decades of being conditioned by popular culture. People seemed to keep on assuming that as bad as things were, they could get worse if they actually tried to solve the problem. Everyone knew that things were falling apart, but nobody wanted to be the one to knock it down if their recovery plans didn't work.

Taylor was tired of that.

This problem was getting solved, today.

She turned her gaze back towards her target, who had started engaging with several other parahumans. While not as famous as Alexandria, she could recognize Rime and Beat Box as they tagged teamed one of the most dangerous parahumans on the planet. But where was…

"Taylor Hebert."

Ah. Taylor glanced up at the dark clad woman, her expression twisted into a thin line. Her fingers seemed to snap every time one of the Faerie Queen's attack just barely missed her opponent.

"You know, when I was a kid I had always wanted to meet you," Taylor said with a slight shrug. She may have stopped believing in parahumans, but Alexandria had always been one of her favorites. She could afford her this much. "I'll be honest, I never expected that I would meet you like this."

"If you surrender now your sentencing will be lenient. While the death of a Ward and breaking into the Birdcage are both Federal offenses, you've done a lot of good this past week. I could make you a hero—"

"No."

Alexandria's jaw clicked shut, and Taylor was fairly certain that if she had possessed Legend's powers she would be nothing more than a pile of ash blowing in the wind. She doubted one of the most powerful and well-known parahumans in the world knew many people that would willingly interrupt her.

"I'm not playing your little game Alexandria. This all ends today," Taylor reached out with the Gauntlet and pushed. A rip in space opened behind the nigh-invincible woman, and she turned, her mouth hanging open a bit as an equally flabbergasted Simurgh stared back. With a casual shift of the Endbringer's gravity, Alexandria was sucked into the portal, leaving her to deal with a very confused but still very dangerous Endbringer.

Satisfied that she was at least out of the way for the moment, Taylor turned to see that Beat Box was on the ground, clutching his side as fluids leaked from his body. Rime was still fighting, to her credit, but it was clear that she was becoming more and more desperate. Her movements were more hurried, flinching as the Faerie Queen's attack came closer and closer to hitting their mark.

Taylor growled and bent space, folding two points spatial so that she was directly behind the Faerie Queen. The woman hadn't noticed her presence yet, still focused on not being impaled by the cryokinetic. Taylor lunged forward, hand outstretched to rip the necklace off the woman's throat. But in those short few seconds, the woman turned, her expression twisted in horror as her hand neared her target. From the corner of her eye, she could see one of her shadows turning around, raising its hand to impale itself through her skull and blow her brains out.

A wave of power washed over them, ripping them down to their molecular structures and scattering them into the wind. Taylor could feel her heart pounding in her chest as everything seemed to move in slow motion as if the entire world was holding its breath for this singular moment.

"NO!"

The Faerie Queen roared in defiance as a beam of amber shot out from the stone around her throat, slamming into the teen. She grunted as she felt part of herself ripped apart, her entire structure dissolving under the full power of an Infinity Stone. She would have screamed if it didn't hurt so much.

But she had come too far to let something as simple as pain stop her.

Besides, when had that ever stopped her before?

With a guttural roar, she closed her fist, putting a shield between her and the blast. She could still feel it thrumming against her protection, the energy eating away at it, breaking down even as she pushed forward. Taking but a single step forward felt like climbing a thousand feet, but each step drew her closer and closer to her prize.

She could see the beads of sweat on the Faerie Queen's face, the way her lips and finger's trembled as every second passed. Crackling lines of power were forming under her skin, blossoming out from her throat. The caustic smell of burning flesh assaulted her nostrils like an army unto itself.

She was so close now, close enough to make out every detail of the woman's iris, the bobbing of her throat as she swallowed. There was no bravado or confidence in that gaze, only a stark realization that after everything that she had done, all the deaths that had been made her in name, she was still going to fail.

All that she had built was for nothing.

Taylor roared as her Gauntlet covered hand pierced her shield, reaching out against the full force of the blast. Her hand wrapped around the necklace and ripped it off, the metal links snapping under the pressure. The Faerie Queen gasped, her mouth doing a rather good imitation of a fish as she fell to her knees. Her skin took on a lighter shade, almost plaster white as she stared up at her, horror flashing in her eyes.

Rime was still talking, telling her that she needed to surrender, but Taylor ignored her, idly freezing her in a block of ice. No, her full focus was set on the twisted metal in the palm of her hand, the Stone pulsing underneath. Her hand gripped around it and squeezed.

The insides of her Gauntlet flashed purple and the metal melted and slagged under the heat, dribbling out the side of her fist as a steaming liquid, revealing the amber glow from underneath. Taylor could feel her mouth stretch and grow, the first real smile in who knew how long crossing her face.

But now was not the time for celebration.

She still had a mission to finish.

In a single, swift motion Taylor Hebert shoved the last Infinity Stone into the Gauntlet. And in that single instant, the collective power of all six Stones flooded through her body. A noiseless scream escaped her lips as pure, unrelenting cosmic power ripped through her body, a veritable rainbow of colors running up from the Gauntlet as it burned away her insides.

She fell to a single knee, her body shudder as she struggled against the unyielding force. She could feel the howl of the universe against her skin as is charred and burned. She was nothing more than a minnow trapped in a storm that it could not even begin to comprehend. In some distant corner of her mind, she could feel oblivion approaching, a cold hand ready to snuff her out in a heartbeat.

No.

Taylor wiggled her fingers, an almost monumental effort given the circumstances. But she was not going to give in, not when she was so close. She could feel the taste of victory against her lips, beneath all the pain and agony that had consumed her.

No.

Her fingers twitched again, closing a little more, the metal of the Gauntlet screeching in protest. She was so close, she only needed a few more inches. But each second felt like an eternity and every inch a marathon. She could feel the pressure building up under her skin, like a pressure cooker that had been filled too full.

No.

With one last shuddering gasp Taylor closed her fist, and the power of the Gauntlet was her's to command, not the other way around.

Relief came so quickly that it left her gasping for air, the pain gone as soon as it started. Looking down she could see that parts of her flesh were charred, but that was inconsequential to what she had just accomplished.

The young woman swallowed as she stared at the assembled Stones, basking in the power that she had accumulated. Weeks and months of planning and working, all coming down to this single moment. The fate of the world rested on her shoulders.

Taylor raised her head, ready to fulfill her mission…but paused.

Perhaps it was a result of being in contact with the Space Stone for so long.

Perhaps it was simply a result of her newfound power.

Or perhaps it was just cosmic chance.

But whatever the reason, her head turned around just in time to see a portal rip open in the sky, unaided by the Space Stone. Taylor had a mere second to take in the sight before a thunderous crack rounded the air, and she felt herself go airborne.

His vision spun, everything blurring together so much she couldn't make out what was what other than a few odd colors. Her breath flew from her lips, making her insides twist. But as everything settled down, Taylor was greeted with a face to face meeting with Alexandria, her helmet cracked in the center, a snarl etched across her lips. The woman's fist was raised, muscles tougher than any metal twisted tight and ready. She could see the woman's lips starting to move, but she didn't care about that.

There was only the mission.

So as Alexandria started threatening her with the same kind of threats that had worked on so many unruly parahumans before her, Taylor simply raised the Gauntlet, her lips pressed into a thin line. Part of her gut twisted a little bit about doing this in front of her childhood hero, but perhaps there was no better way for this to end. Her fingers twisted, and recognition seemed to flash across the woman's mouth, but by then it was too late.

*SNAP*

A pulse of energy so bright that for a brief moment it outshined the sun erupted from the Gauntlet. Alexandria's fist was already traveling down at the moment of the snap, but even her inhuman speed was nothing compared to the instantaneous reaction of the Stones. So even as her skull shattered into a billion bits by the nearly unstoppable blow from the Brute to end all Brutes, Taylor died knowing that she had succeeded in her goal, even though she wouldn't live to see it.

Alexandria groaned as her vision finally started to clear, the bright glare that had blinded her having faded away. Dark spots still danced in her eyes, and probably would for the next few minutes, but she could see. She glanced down at the corpse that was now hanging from her hand, or rather, what was left of the corpse.

The girl's head had been turned into a fine mist by the force of her blow, leaving nothing behind but a bleeding stump. Whatever Tinker Tech device she had been using appeared to have backfired, her entire right side missing, blackened flesh and grim covering what little remained of her body. A few molten fragments of the gauntlet were lodged into her side, but there was no sign of the rest of it, nor those stones she had been wielding. With an irritated grunt, she dropped the body, letting it gravity take over everything else. She would probably get some flak for the death, but a few well-placed strings in the media would take care of that. Using Doormaker had been a risk in such a public place, but it was worth the risk given the fact that she had punted into the Simurgh's face and the Faerie Queen was loose in her city.

Speaking of which, she needed to go deal with that before…before…

Alexandria trailed off as her hands started to turn to dust. There was no pain or discomfort, only the odd feeling of having her molecular structure being pulled apart by some unknown effect. Before the woman's supercomputer of a brain could even really begin to process what was happening, she collapsed into nothing, errant dust scattered across the sky.

Legend grunted as he made a sharp turn, letting off another numbing ray to deal with the large gash in his side. He could hear the Butcher's mad crackles echo through the streets, the insane woman casually firing into the panicking crowds without a care in the world. There was no rhyme or reason to her actions, but then again there never was.

But as Legend prepped himself for another run at the mad woman something changed.

The Butcher froze, standing so still that for a moment Legend almost wondered if she had been frozen in time. But instead, she seemed to look around wildly, a crazed look in her eyes as she searched for something.

Was her danger sense warning her of an attack? Legend glanced around, but even with his perfect eyesight, he couldn't see anything. Protectorate reinforcements wouldn't be here for another five minutes and they were so far deep into Teeth territory that none of the other gangs would risk something here, so what…

Legend's thoughts trailed off at the sight of the mad woman collapsing in on herself, dust rising up from where she fell to the ground. He swallowed, wondering what poor parahuman had just consigned themselves to becoming the next Butcher when he realized that he was turning to dust too. In an instant he turned himself to near lightspeed, his cognitive functions slowing down as he raced back to headquarters, hoping to get out of the range of whatever was causing this.

But even in his pure energy form, he could feel himself collapsing, his very being ripped apart by some unknown and unseen force. Within seconds, the man that had been known to the world as Legend died, unaware of the true horror that was happening across the globe.

Moord Nag could feel that something was wrong.

She wasn't a precognitive by any means, but her life had taught her the value of instincts, and right now her's were screaming that something was wrong, that something important was happening.

Something big.

She ignored the useless prattle of her lackey as he droned on about an incursion from the north. He was lying for course; Simian knew better than to send his men into her territory. More likely her servant was trying to use this as an excuse to gain more territory and power for himself. She pressed her hands against Aasdier's currently crocodilian skull as his bones clicked together, feeling her unease.

That quickly turned to panic as she glanced down at her hand and found that it was dissolving before her. Aasdier roared, scattering her court as he searched for the one that dared to harm her in his presence. She could feel the buildings itself shake around them as he ripped through every wall, ready to rip apart everything apart for her.

Moord Nag tried to stand, but her legs gave out under her, and her face stung as is smacked the cold stone of her floor. From the corner of her eye, she could see the other parahumans in her service undergoing the same fate, their bodies being torn apart until nothing but dust remained behind. The pressure of a snout drew her attention, and she turned to see Aasdier staring at her, whimpering as she died.

"Don't worry little shadow," she murmured, petting him, consoling him. This wasn't his fault or his failure. He had done everything in his power to protect him, just as she had for him when he had been but a tiny shadow scurrying up and down her arm in the prison camp of a warlord whose name she refused to remember. "Everything is going to be oka—"

Shén Yù was in the middle of a meeting with Jiǎ when he saw the attack coming. One moment he was discussing the next set of upgrades for the Yangban's Tinker arsenal when his mind flashed to an image of Alexandria and a young woman in the sky, her gloved hand snapping even as her head shattered.

An odd vision to be certain, but Shén Yù trusted his power and hit the emergency button that would send every Yangban cape in a five-hundred-foot radius into a defensive frenzy. They would protect him, Jiǎ, and the Imperial family with their lives if need be. But even as they did that, he stood up alongside the Tinker and made his way to the hidden door that would lead to the saferoom.

But as he reached for the disguised number pad, the man froze as his hand dissolved in front of him, flakes of dust and dirt falling from his arms and shoulders. Grabbing his radio with what little stubs of his hand he had left, he roared into it. "Twelve!"

With a sharp crack, a woman appeared beside him, her eyes glazed over from years upon years of torture and brainwashing. She was little more than an automaton now, a hollowed-out husk that served the will of the Imperial family and nothing more. But more importantly, she was the most powerful healer that they had, capable of reversing time around a body to return it to its previous state. She could only push it back an hour at most, but often that was more than enough.

She reached out even as her own hand started to dissolve and pressed against him. But instead of the sudden vertigo that Shén Yù had been expecting as a side effect of her power, there was nothing but her churning gut, the coiled fear that ate away at his insides. His mind whirled as he tried to piece together something that might work in lieu of Twelve's powers, but his mind turned blank as the numbness spread up his body, until his head was cast away in the winds.

"Hey, Ames."

Victoria Dallon could only swallow at the comatose figure of her younger sister. The monitor attached to her heart continued to beat without care or pause, a horrible wrenching sound that assaulted the blonde's ears every second she forced herself into this room. Even after three weeks of this, it still didn't feel real, as if this was all a nightmare and she was just waiting up to wake up.

But this was far worse than any nightmare.

This was reality.

"I uh, hope you're doing better," she said, but even she could admit that had sounded lame, even in her head. It was alien, wrong, that Amy didn't shoot back with any of her usual snark or sarcasm. Despite the fact that she had always gotten irritated by it when her sister did it, now she wanted nothing more than to hear it again.

This was wrong.

She was supposed to be the one that bad guys went after. She was supposed to be the shield that stood in front of her little sister and weathered blow after blow for her.

It should have been her.

But Leviathan hadn't cared about any of that, he plowed through the defenders and wrecked every hospital in his path. Amy had been in there, treating the wounded so they could get back into the fight, saving so many more lives than she ever could.

Amy was the real hero.

"Mom visited the other day," Victoria carried on, doing her best not to let her throat close up. "Dad would have too, but he was having a bad day." Her father's moods had gotten worse since Ames' hospitalization, and it was getting to the point where they couldn't leave the house without someone present to watch over him.

"I…"

Whatever Victoria was about to say trailed off, swallowed by the mounting dread as her sister's body collapsed in on itself. She screamed her lungs off as bits and pieces of her turned to dust even as she scrambled forwards, hands outstretched as if she was going to hold her together with sheer willpower alone.

But her sister slipped through her even as her own legs went numb. In some distant corner of her mind, Victoria could recognize that she was dying, but she wasn't sure that she cared. What was life without her sister's surly attitude or ever-present exasperation?

So even as the doctors rushed in, asking her what was wrong, Victoria ignored them in favor of cradling her baby sister's remains even as the numbness spread up her neck. She knew that she should have felt some kind of fear at the knowledge that she was dying, but instead, all that Victoria felt in the last few seconds of her existence was the peace that she was joining Amy soon.

"Something's wrong."

Doctor Mother looked up from her paperwork to see Contessa staring at the wall, a faraway look in her eyes. Her body was utterly motionless in a way that humans simply weren't.

"What is it?" She asked, folding her hands to give Contessa her undivided attention. If the woman was choosing to bring this up now, then it meant that it was part of whatever Path she was taking. But instead of the usual confidence, the woman displayed with her power, her head merely shook, her lips curling in confusion. She looked lost, more lost than Doctor Mother could ever remember her being since that fateful day she handed the girl a knife to kill a god.

"I…I don't feel so good," Contessa said, bringing her hand up in front of her face. Doctor Mother felt her blood run cold as the sight of it being ripped apart, turned to dust. With a flip of a switch, she sent the base into lockdown. Custodian would search the entire premise for intruders while the Deviants on base would be gassed into unconsciousness.

But even as she did all that, the effect continued to spread, breaking apart the woman's body piece by piece. As if started to eat away at her torso she turned towards her, pools of liquid forming in the corner of her eyes. There was a broken and frightened look behind those orbs, the look of a lost girl looking for their parents.

"Momm—" Was the last thing to leave Contessa's lips before they collapsed into dust, leaving Doctor Mother on a dead world. In the small part of her that she hadn't quite given up for the mission of killing Scion, Doctor Mother felt a pang of loss towards the only daughter that she had ever known.

The Entity was picking one of the primitive felines out from a tree when it felt it.

A Fragment breaking.

It paused, ignoring the feline as it scrambled down his shoulders and onto the ground. For a brief moment, the Entity wondered if it was a fluke, a lost connection of sorts. But then it felt another and another. Within microseconds, it could feel all of its Fragments being torn apart, ripped up down to their molecular structure and tossed into the cosmic winds.

The Entity shot off into the sky, activating every analytic and precognitive power that it still had, searching for an answer to this growing problem. With each passing second, it burned more and more away of its remaining life, feeding it to the dying Fragments as they struggled to work with what little body they had left, searching for a solution.

A hundred years.

A thousand.

Ten thousand.

But as it burned more and more of its life away, the Entity realized that this problem didn't have a solution, at least not one it could see. The Counterpart had always taken care of things like that, leaving it free to deal with threats to their beings. This was a threat, but it wasn't one that it could fight or kill. There was nothing for it to do, nothing that it could do.

The Entity stopped the acceleration of its Avatar, and it stared out where the thinning atmosphere of this planet met the cold vacuum of space, even as said body started to crumble to dust.

It could have done something, it should have done something.

But in the end, what did it matter?

Its partner was dead and gone. The reason for its very being had been taken from it. What more did it have to live for, what could it accomplish? There was nothing more that it could do to save the Cycle, the very defining factor of its existence. What was broken was beyond its capacity to fix. For all these solar cycles it had merely been going through the motions, attempting to provide some semblance of a purpose in its existence. But what did it matter in the end if it saved a subject's life, it would die all the same.

As the effect traveled up the Avatar's torso, the Entity broadcasted a single thought across the cosmos, unheard by all but it. There would be no more fighting, no more long cycles of knowing that all was lost and that there was nothing that it could do. No, now it would be with the Thinker, joining her in oblivion.

RELIEF.

I failed.

That was the only thing that was running through Ciara's mind as she stared at the point in space that the light show had erupted, a light so bright that her eyes still danced with spots.

But that discomfort was such a small transient thing compared to the weight of her failure.

Ciara didn't cry, but a great shuddering wail erupted from her lips, a mournful sound that almost didn't sound human. As the parahumans that had gathered to oppose her faded into dust one by one, the woman recognized the magnitude of her failure. She tried to imagine this happening across the continent, across the world. Hundreds of thousands of people being slaughtered, unable to comprehend what was happening to them.

No way to fight back, not even the slightest chance for resistance. What could their power do that could stop the weight of Infinity?

The woman's gaze flickered over to the melted bits of metal that had once belonged to her necklace. Her shaking hand reached out, gently caressing the slagged material. It was the last thing that she had owned that had belonged to her mother. Her caring, loving, mother that had tried to help her work through all of the psychological issues that had kept her isolated from here peers. The same issues that had caused her to Trigger with the ability to track parahumans within a hundred-foot radius.

A power without teeth or protection, something that would eventually be forgotten in the annals of history. She would have been just another parahuman without her discovering of the Soul Stone and what it could do. And when she had found out what it took to gain its power…

Well, a soul for a Soul Stone.

It had seemed like a fair trade at the time.

Now, after all these years that trade tasted bitter to her lips. How much of this could have been avoided if she hadn't taken that trade? A snort escaped her lips. In her quest to gain everything, she had lost it all.

Destiny is a bitch.

Her eyes trailed downwards as a numbness covered her hands, and flakes of flesh turned to dust to be blown away in the winds. She knew that she should have been panicking at the sight and feeling of her very body being torn apart, but oddly enough, she didn't.

Instead, it almost as felt as if a great crushing weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She had already lost so much, what was here life in comparison to all of that?

So even as capes all over the world panicked and struggled to cease the inevitable, Ciara simply held her head high and accepted her death with all the dignity that she could muster. It was a small thing, but it was the last thing that she had left.

Within moments the effect devoured her, only leaving her head behind to gaze out into the horizon one last time before being utterly consumed, cast into the uncaring winds.

All around the world this process repeated, a dozen, a hundred, a thousand times over. Villains, heroes, rogues, none were spared from its wrath.

And so, not with a bang, but a whimper, the Age of Parahumans ended.

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