Spectacular World-Chapter 226: A Bad Idea

His life was shit.

His life was a joke.

His life was worthless.

His life was meaningless.

His life was one that wasn’t worth living.

These are many of the thoughts that Legend had. Every day it was the same. He would wake up, he would feel so, so useless, and he would be forced to watch as that bitch usurped him. She never even had to try. Again and again and again and again and-

He would wake up at the crack of dawn, forced to hear his two sons fighting. Being underground really didn’t help either of them stay calm and in fact had made them way more hyper. Worse yet, he burned most of his good bridges with Mermaid after he badmouthed Ruby in front of her, and so Mermaid refused to take care of his kids, forcing him to do it all himself. At one point, his wife could have done it, but she was long dead and gone, so there was no use worrying about it now.

Besides, it all didn’t matter. He knew that Mermaid wouldn’t actually be able to raise his sons the right way. Not the way he did. She was way too soft and would treat them like children and not like the warriors they should be. It was best if he were the one who raised them because he knew exactly what they needed.

That was why he would beat them every day, making sure their bruised skin would recover and their bones would mend, in order to strengthen them and ensure they knew what pain was. He would also force their bodies to the limit, even though their powers hadn’t fully shown yet. All because he was a good man who was raising them for the real world. And yet, he knew deep down it still wouldn’t fucking matter. Why? Because people like Full Monarch existed.

That was all finally going to change, though. For the first time in a long time, humanity was about to have a proper savior that would pull them out of the rut that they were in. It wasn’t going to be a Lord or the child of a Lord that was going to save the day. No! It was going to be a proper human! It was going to be him!

He was number one.

"So, just so we’re all totally clear, if this kills him, I’m not in trouble, right?" Doc asked, letting out a nervous laugh. "Like, he signed the waiver? I can do it, and if he melts or explodes, I get the pass?"

Laps narrowed her eyes slightly, clearly not amused. "Legend, are you really sure you want to do this? Omega offered himself as—"

"No." Legend shook his head. "It has to be me." He growled. "I need to be the one to do this. Just get it over with."

Doc rubbed some sweat off the top of his forehead and gulped. "You know, now that we’re actually in the field, maybe we should wait and let me run a few more experiments—"

"Do it!" Legend hissed.

It wasn’t the underground bunker or a lab that this test was about to take place in. Instead, it was on a rapidly shaking airship. A small town out near the ocean was under attack. Like the other times, every person that had been there was zipped away, but the heroes remained behind, stuck. If an Enforcer got too close to a portal, it would swoop in and send them away. Ward decided now was the best time to do the test, and so he sent Legend out on his first mission. The war had been going on for over four years now, and yet this was the first time Legend was actually able to do anything. It seriously pissed him off.

The airship itself was high above the clouds and was just like the last one had been. This time the Branch made sure Polaron wasn’t on the scene so they could actually fly to the town without having to worry about him bringing the entire ship down. Inside of it were several Hero Branch officers, all led by Laps, as well as Doc and lastly Ruby Admiral.

The red-haired girl leaned against the wall and, for once, didn’t have her daughter Lois with her. Her arms were crossed, and she had a heavy frown on her face. "Just get it over with." She said, after a few moments passed and Doc still hadn’t moved. "If he wants to die so badly, he can."

Doctor Blue gave a slow nod of his head and gulped. He was really annoyed at the fact that Alma got to stay at the base while he was forced to come out to the battlefield. Slowly, he took a step toward Legend and pulled out a small bottle from his pocket. It was in a squirt bottle, the kind you’d use to punish a cat or water plants. The liquid inside was a bubbly blue that twitched and hissed, and the plastic looked slightly melted.

"That’s it?" Legend asked, shooting the bottle a nasty look. "That’s your big trump card?"

"Hey!" Doc huffed. "Don’t get so aggressive. My powers are Mental-based, and they involve messing with DNA. What’s inside of this bottle is a special mix that should seep into your cells and cause you to become stable. Those portals are sort of like universal doors and are holes in reality that get shattered and expand. It folds the universe itself and allows for rapid, instant movement. It’s highly unstable and only works since it is also made out of a type of energy that is constantly changing. That energy will rapidly flicker through and get a match with the energy that surrounds you and will then pull you through it and into the other side. The thing in this bottle will give you a stable structure and should cause your body to give off a type of energy that will negate the portal. Instead of you going through it, it’ll go through you, and you’ll remain in place. It won’t last forever, though, and will eventually wear off, so your best bet is to still find the portal creator and wipe him out. Oh, also, this shit might melt your skin off; I don’t really know."

Legend gritted his teeth and squeezed his hands into a tight fist. His muscles bulged slightly, and he nodded his head. "Do it. I can take it."

Doc lifted the bottle, and he sprayed it. As soon as the liquid touched Legend’s skin, Doc scooted back and practically threw himself behind Laps. Laps stared at Legend in silence, who stayed seated in the chair he had been provided. "How do you feel?"

Legend looked down at his hands. He felt... literally the same. "I don’t think it worked." He grunted. "Nothing’s changed." He had been expecting his flesh to burn or his skin to bubble or anything to happen, but instead he felt like he always did. Useless...

"Well, it looks like we’re about to find out," Ruby said. She stared out the window and saw a town next to a beach rapidly approaching. The entire place was filled with fire and burned mostly to ash. Now that they were near it, it was time for the portals to begin.

As if on cue, there was a flash of light, and two portals suddenly appeared in the airship. Ruby casually struck out at the portal that came near her, and her fist exploded and shattered it, sending shards of blue energy everywhere. Legend, on instinct, tried to dodge his, but he wasn’t fast enough, and it slammed into him! The blue portal swirled and hissed, and it opened up around him and—

The burning started. Legend could feel his flesh start to heat up. It felt like he was on fire, and utter pain exploded through him. His eyes shot wide open. He wasn’t being sent away like he normally did, but he also wasn’t straight up immune to the portal like Doc had made it sound. Instead, colors and lights seemed to swirl together in a great big flash, and the next thing Legend knew, he wasn’t on the airship anymore. He also was, though... He could feel his feet touching down on the floor of it, and he heard the officers yelling, but he was also seeing and hearing another location.

The portal had sent him and failed to send him at the same time. He was in two locations at once. Both in the airship and somewhere else at the same time. Not the place the portal would have normally sent him, though. This second location was different. It was ugly and wrong.

Legend saw himself standing in a gigantic black void. One that stretched out endlessly in all directions. Fog and mist bubbled up around him, lifting off the ground, and the air itself seemed to sing. Somehow, Legend knew that he was standing in the center of a palm. One that was trillions of times bigger than himself. He wasn’t alone either.

"Oh... How did you get here?"

Legend blinked and looked up. Someone else was in this place. Someone who stood across from him. He was startled to see that it was a young man. A human, and not a monster like he had come to associate with evil. The man wore a suit, the kind someone who worked at the bank would wear, and he had messy reddish-brown hair and a slight stubble that covered his chin. His eyes were blue and radiated a faint energy that seeped out of them, and in his hands, he was holding a faded and dirty book that was badly torn and barely holding together.

"Who are you?" Legend demanded, and he got several odd looks from the others who were on the airship, for they didn’t see what he did. To them, the portal had gone right through him, but to Legend, his body had remained, but his mind hadn’t.

"I asked you a question first." The man said, snapping his book shut. He cocked his head to the side and frowned. "My portal should have sent you away."

Legend’s eyes flashed with rage, and he growled. "So it’s you! You’re the one doing this! But why? You’re not a monster! You’re human! Why would you ever side with the Emperor?"

The man’s frown grew larger, and then a smirk crossed his lips. "Human?" He clicked his tongue and stared down his nose at Legend as if he were gazing upon shit. "No. You have it all wrong. I’m no human. I’m a giant. Now begone, you miserable ant."

There was a massive rumble, and Legend’s eyes bulged as something above him began to come down fast. He was right; he had been standing in one big hand, and it was now starting to close! He had nowhere to run and nowhere he could hide! He was trapped! He couldn’t dodge or move!

Legend attempted to use his power, but they didn’t come to him when he tried to draw upon them. They weren’t working. He screamed, and he roared, and he howled like a wounded beast, but it was too late.

The hand enclosed, and Legend’s body was crushed and blown to bits. Only, it wasn’t his body. It was his mind. A mind that had been torn to bits dozens of times already. He would be fine. Whoever that red-haired man was, he had failed.

The next thing Legend knew, he was gasping as his eyes shot open. He stared up at the concerned faces of Doctor Blue, Laps, and Ruby. "Legend?" Laps said quickly. Several medical Branch officers were also next to him, looking him over. "Are you okay?"

Legend groaned but nodded. "Yeah." He then looked around. He was still on the airship, and it wasn’t shaking anymore. "Did we make it to the town?"

"We did." Laps nodded. "You collapsed and were unconscious for a second, but we landed."

Legend forced a grin on his face, and he stood up. His legs wobbled and his muscles groaned, but he ignored them. "It worked." He glanced down at his hands, and his grin grew. "The portal wasn’t able to take me! More than that, though, I saw the face of the bastard that is doing it!" He hissed out. "We can do this. We can beat him and put an end to this!" Then he turned to Ruby, and, for the first time ever, he didn’t actually see her as an annoying bitch and instead saw her for what she truly was. A very useful weapon. "Want to help me kill the fuckers outside?"

Ruby gave a grin and snorted. "Sure. Let’s crush some skulls."

***

Thorn was having a very, very bad time.

First of all, the world was fucking ending! Monsters constantly rained from the sky, out of glowing blue portals, and every day it seemed like some town or city was torn to bits. He didn’t know why he thought it would be a good idea to sign up for a hero team, but he did. At first, he actually got lucky and was placed in some tiny, unnamed town that didn’t matter, away from the war.

This gave him plenty of time to train up his powers and be ready for an attack!

At least that’s what he thought, but instead of being ready, Thorn found himself hopelessly outclassed. His boss, Screentime, was already dead, having been literally torn to bits by large bat-looking monsters, and Thorn quickly found himself as the only hero left, fighting a literal army of monsters.

He wasn’t trained for this, but he did his best. His costume was a torn mess, and blood caked his flesh. He didn’t stop, though. Jagged vines ripped their way out of his shoulder and twisted and molded together, becoming giant fists, which came crashing down. They rammed directly into a bat monster and blew it to bits. The monsters were all the same, being large and covered in grey hide. They weren’t that strong or durable, but there were so many of them that they would just keep throwing themselves forward. Each one also had some sort of fire-based power, allowing them to launch jets of magma and fire forward.

This was because they were all created out of the Ego that had been ripped out of Flame Prince’s corpse. That was also why they were all bat-based monsters since they had the same vampiric Ego slammed into their bodies that Flame Prince had. None of them were as strong as the villain had been, but they were all just as crazy and would literally launch themselves forward and explode, without a care for what damage they did to themselves.

Their corpses littered the streets in the hundreds, and every building was on fire. Thorn himself was badly burning up, his flesh bubbling and turning black, and his poor vines were barely holding together.

Thorn let out another scream of rage, and his vines stabbed out, impaling dozens of the monsters. If he was going to die, he was going to die fighting. He had become a hero because he wanted to do good. He wanted to soar across the clouds. That wasn’t going to change. Even if he died, his dreams wouldn’t! Today, he was going to soar!

The vines shredded and sliced, tearing through buildings and streets in all directions. Jagged trees launched up and blew the monsters to bits, and more vines came from those, tearing through the ground. The street was rapidly replaced with grass, and a mini forest was starting to form around Thorn as he forced everything he had out.

In the end, it still wasn’t enough.

The bats kept coming, their fire getting hotter and hotter, and the grass and trees just spread their fire out even further. Thorn’s vines tried to form a barrier, but a flaming claw tore through them, and the monster launched itself at him. Thorn watched it come at him in slow motion, and he allowed his shoulders to sag a bit. A small smile forced its way onto his lips, and he sighed. He had accepted this. He was going to die, but that was okay. He was just glad all the civilians had been taken out, and he got to take hundreds of the monsters out. Hopefully Screentime would be proud of him—

Lightning smashed down from the sky, vaporizing the monster that was about to ram into him. Thorn felt the air leave his lungs, and he collapsed back onto his ass, his eyes filled with shock.

Then he heard it.

Laughter.

Thorn looked and saw someone rapidly approaching at high speed. Someone he thought he would never see on the battlefield. Legend blasted forward, already transformed. Lightning was crackling off his flesh and his eyes, and his muscles were bulging and thick. He had a long grey beard and wild hair. In his hands he clutched a jagged spear made of lightning, and every swing from it sent out a shock wave so powerful it vaporized hundreds of monsters on the spot. They were reduced to less than ash, shrieking and sobbing, as they burned away.

He wasn’t alone either. A red blur zipped forward, and Ruby laughed, her fist slamming through a wave of the beasts. The two heroes got to quick work mowing down the horde.

Thorn was completely stunned. He had taken down nearly two hundred after a full hour of fighting, yet in only a few moments Ruby and Legend casually took down a thousand. The bats kept pouring in, a literal sea of them, but just caused the heroes to laugh louder and throw out bigger attacks. Shock waves, lightning, fists, and spears—Legend and Ruby racked up a gigantic body count. Legend seemed to be having the time of his life, stomping through the horde. He grabbed one bat and pulled on its flesh so hard he skinned it alive. His other hand then swung his spear out in an arching way, sending jagged lightning that sliced the entire town to bits.

"Are you okay?" Thorn finally tore his gaze away from the massacre and saw Laps with the Hero Branch standing next to him. The woman offered her hand to him, and he took it, standing on shaking feet. She placed an arm behind his back and helped guide him toward the airship.

"I—Is that an Enforcer?" Thorn asked, gulping.

"Yep."

"He’s so strong!"

"Yep."

"Are they able to fight again?"

"That’s what we’re hoping for."

Thorn felt a smile appear on his face. A real one. "We’ve won?"

"Of course not." Laps scolded the young hero. "Not until we’ve taken the leader down. Gotta cut off the head of the snake before it’ll stop."

By the time the two of them reached the airship, the fighting was finally over. Legend and Ruby came walking toward them, the entire town nothing more than a wasteland, and the last of the bat monsters flying away. Legend had the biggest grin on his face and was still laughing and even gave Ruby a high five, the red-haired girl letting out a loud whoop.

"Yes, yes, it was very fun killing all the monsters," Laps said, rolling her eyes.

"It wasn’t just fun; it was epic." Legend’s smile got larger. "Finally! I’ve got to do something. Those monsters were nothing! No wonder that portal bastard refuses to let us fight! He knows we’d win in no time!"

Doc poked his head out of the airship. "Yeah, so a couple of things: that potion I sprayed you with is kind of hard to make, and I only got so much. I bring that up because I’m pretty sure that they’re going to be coming for us, more specifically me, now that they know we have a counter to their portal. So we’re also on a bit of a time limit."

That finally got Legend’s smile to fade. The dark-skinned man reverted to his normal form, his body sagging a bit. "I see. That does pose an issue, doesn’t it?" He rubbed his chin. "Do you have enough for every member of the Enforcer team?"

"Yeah, it only takes a few drops." Doc nodded. "I could get a lot of people, but if it gets destroyed, it’ll take me at least another three months before I can make another one."

Legend let out a soft snort. "Well, in that case, there’s no need to worry."

"There isn’t?" Ruby cocked her head to the side, the same way that red-haired man had. It actually made Legend pause and study her. He shook it off, though, and nodded.

"Yeah. That’s right." He grunted. "After all, if we have everything we need, then there isn’t anything stopping us from ending this fight, is there?" He pointed up toward the sky, and everyone looked up at the moon that hung above. "All we have to do is fly up there and kick his ass."

Ruby gave another shit-eating grin and laughed. "Hell yeah! That’s what my plan was also, but everyone called me stupid!"

"That’s because it is!" Laps face-palmed and grumbled. "Listen, even if we can get past the portals, any ship we have would just be shot down. Not to mention if you somehow did land on the moon, you’d have to fight the Emperor and his entire army on home turf. He fought Full Monarch. No one can match that."

Legend’s smile also faded, and he rubbed his chin once more. "That’s not true."

"What?"

"It’s not true that no one can match it. Someone can." He stated.

"Who?"

"Someone I’d also like dead."

***

It started long ago, all from a lone seed.

A single seed that would go on to sprout into a large tree. One that a man was born under. This man’s name was lost to time, but many agreed that he was the first of a brand-new species. What wasn’t lost to time, though, was the man’s stories. He had seemingly been born with only one purpose in life. To speak of those that came before.

This human, whose name has been forgotten by history, wandered the world and told his fellow men, women, and children the grand stories of the people who saved planet Earth. He spoke of the four Lords. He spoke of the first-ever beings with powers. He told the world of their abilities and of their sacrifice. And so the world would come to live in an era of peace, right? The four Lords died for our sins, keeping planet Earth safe from all disasters and slaying the Shadow. Therefore, humans had nothing to worry about, right?

That is incorrect.

The wandering man was simply the start of it all. He was the first Super born after the death of the Lords. Slowly but surely, rumors began to rise of people wielding dangerous abilities—powers mankind should have never seen. An outbreak that would sweep the planet, they possessed strength that was far beyond anything a kingdom or government could hope to match.

But what of this man? What became of him? Where did his story go, and what happened to him?

Well, this man found himself unable to die. The power that he had gotten, the one that was meant to allow him to keep walking forward and speaking of the legends before him, was actually a curse. That man watched as the people he loved and cared for died. He watched as they aged and faded away and became nothing to history. He watched as his wife turned grey and old while he was still youthful, and he buried child after child and lived through war after war, and yet it still wasn’t enough. He still didn’t die.

He prayed and he begged and he pleaded and he cried and he sobbed, but it still didn’t change the fact that they were gone and he was here. He would look at the vines that had grown and the dust that had settled, and he could feel their gazes on him from beyond the grave. This man lived. This man suffered. This man cried. This man died inside, his reflection no longer in his eyes.

And then he had an idea.

An idea...

One idea. An aim, a purpose, a concept. Ideas are what drive the human race forward. It is thanks to ideas that humans were able to rise from the Stone Age, and then once more thrive after their planet was nearly destroyed by the entity known as the Shadow.

Ideas were extremely important.

Not all ideas were good, however. Some concepts and goals that were thought of were ones that should never have been reached. Long, long ago, when humanity was just first starting to put itself back together after the loss they suffered from the Shadow, there was a single man. An immortal man. A man who lived alone. A man who watched death weave itself around him and crumble to dust while he remained untouched. A man who stood on top of a lone mountain. A man whose hands had been covered in an ocean of blood and tears.

"Cifer. Cifer! Cifer~ Cifer? Cifer... Are you there, Cifer?"

Lucifer silently stared at the dead tree. It was gray and withered, torn to bits, and smelling of ash. The entire mountain he stood on had long since been reduced to rubble, and nothing of his old life remained. Still, even after all this time, something inside of him stirred. Something he wished was long dead.

He was almost glad when he felt his hair stand up and the bolt of lightning smashed down behind him. He felt the eyes on him as well as the murderous intent.

"What?" was all he asked. Even without turning around, he knew who it was. Someone else who carried the shard of the Shadow.

Legend clenched his fist tightly around the bolt of lightning he held. "Hey." Slowly, a smirk crossed his face. "I have an idea."

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