AOMR 29

Hero had wondered if he was too late already from the moment he got the priority message sent from PRT Brockton Bay. There were only two messages that had enough priority to get past his tinker fugue and his DND on steroids, a countermeasure he activated whenever he was set to work. The first was all things related to Cauldron and their meetings. The second was a more recent one.

...

Alert. Alert. Alert. Incoming transmission on subject with classification: Walking Calamity.

Old Man Yama.

The classification had been a joke between him and Legend. Yet somehow, he had never expected to ever get a priority message on this level. His hands immediately left the prototype weapon he was working on, discarding the plates and panels of the cannon as he jerked to his feet in a hurry. He briefly searched for his helmet before finding it somewhere under his work desk, then slipped it on in one smooth movement.

Then he turned back to the screen and pressed receive. There was a brief stutter as his network received and decrypted the ping before the call came through. On the other end of the screen was an old man that Hero hardly recognized. He was plain in every way that mattered, with his most distinctive feature being his age, wrinkles along his face making that clear, and his ethnicity, which put him as Asian judging by his eyes. The man had not bothered with a mask, and that was enough to tell Hero how urgent this was.

The man’s eyes widened a bit as he saw who was on the call, and then he briefly nodded before speaking. “This is PRT Hero. Kudzu, reporting from Brockton Bay.”

Hero gave a curt nod in reply as he tried to remember where he had heard that particular name before. It didn’t take him long until the memory clicked. He was the senior cape that confronted the old man alongside his brash student, who had taken to calling himself Armsmaster.

According to the reports he had gotten about the man, he was composed, experienced, generally flexible, and cool under pressure. But that was not what Hero saw on his screen. There was a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead, as if he had run all the way to the terminal, alongside the harsher breaths he took in. It told a story of worry.

“I recognize you. Kindly report on the message you have.” Hero tried his best to sound controlled and calm, but the next few words he heard broke that facade instantly.

“We believe that Old Man is on his way to China or has most likely gotten there already.”

Hero stared back at the screen, mouth agape and eyes wide. What the hell was he going to do there? Kudzu continued his report, mistaking his surprised silence for approval, and Hero was not inclined to correct him.

“There was an attack here at the Bay. A child was kidnapped, a child we believe to be related to him.”

This time, Hero nodded along to the words because he remembered her. He had been one of the first to get the recordings of the girl as she walked alongside the old man. Yet unlike Old Man Yama, his facial recognition program had immediately pinged her as Mimi Heisenberg, a child that had triggered early and one with a problematic power set that had required her to be sent into a parahuman correctional center.

The child had broken out a few months ago alongside another girl, and the duo had been missing since then, or at least until light reconnaissance proved that they now lived beneath the old man’s wings. So Cauldron had decided to let the lie and misunderstanding fly by wiping out pre-existing knowledge of her.

An easy thing for an organization with their resources. The misunderstanding would make sure no one was stupid enough to target the child, while also acting as a leverage against the old man. They also had recordings of him training the child to control her power better than the correctional center had ever done, an act that signified investment in the child's well being. It was a win-win situation and one that he had prided himself on, until now.

“Somebody decided to be stupid enough, didn’t they?” he muttered to himself as he let out a sigh, which Kudzu heard clearly judging from his response.

“Yes, sir. We believe it was the Yangban.”

At this point, Hero was growing numb to the surprising revelations that were coming one after another, so he dragged a chair hidden to the side and sat down on it with a heavy sigh. “Those stupid fools,” he muttered again.

He had pushed for their interference with the fast-growing organization a year ago. This was after they had kidnapped a promising Thinker he found, and the only reason he did nothing further than rant and throw a tantrum was because Contessa gave him well-reasoned and grounded explanations for why they could not interfere with them, at least not this early.

Curse her and her infuriating power.

“When was this?” he began. “How long—” His question was cut short a heartbeat later.

Half the monitoring equipment in his room went haywire at once. Mundane satellites and exotic wavelength analyzers shrieked to life, the discordant wail rattling his bones. For a split second, he almost mistook it for an attack, some unseen shaker managing to attack him this deep into their base and crashing through his defenses.

With a deft motion, he was on his feet, crossing the room in a hurry. He slammed a hand against the controls, shutting down the sensors before the cacophony could shred his eardrums. The silence that followed was almost worse, thick with the hum of machines winding down.

And then he saw it.

Another screen on the wall feeding him information he refused to believe.

The data on his screen made his breath hitch. His stomach twisted. His fingers curled so tightly around the edge of the table that his gloves creaked under the strain.

The readings were undeniable. Satellite imagery, infrared scans, seismic activity reports, and every metric confirmed the same impossible truth.

Beijing was gone.

Not attacked. Not bombed. Not razed to the ground in some cataclysmic battle.

No.

The Iron Fortress of Imperial China had been wiped from existence, reduced to little more than an expanse of molten slag and drifting cinders. The very earth where it once stood had been scoured clean.

A numb, distant part of him wondered if this was what the aftermath of an Endbringer's rampage would look like if they never managed to drive back one of the inhuman monsters.

A sharp inhale nearly turned into a shudder. He forced it down. When he turned back toward the older hero watching him, his movements were stiff, and mechanical, like a man struggling against the weight of something crushing him from all sides.

“Anything wrong, sir?” Kudzu asked, voice tinged with concern.

Hero didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Instead, he checked again. And again. As if willing the numbers to change, the images to be different. But no matter how many times he looked, the conclusion remained the same.

He was too late. They were too late.

A bitter chuckle slipped from his lips, dry as static, as he remembered Contessa’s words to him about how the Yangban had a mysterious purpose to play in the future. He very much doubted this was what she had seen in her Path.

With sharp and hurried movements, he began donning his armor. Every buckle, every clasp secured in record time. Instead of giving the older man the damning news, he cut the call immediately and sent out an immediate emergency call to the others, yet he knew he was too late. They were too late.

His screen lit up, then split into three.

Rebbeca. Arthur. David. The trio were in civilian wear, with David looking like he just woke up from a nap. Which meant that he had an unfortunate head start on them.

"There you are. Surprised you're the one making a priority call considering you've been hunkered down in your man cave for the past couple of months working on your Endbringer killers." Legend spoke up first. Breaking the tense atmosphe with a withy quip. Ever the diplomat. There was a light chuckle from Alexandria while Eidolon remained silent.

Then Hero turned to them, his suit halfway worn, and the expression on his face killed Alexandria's chuckle as well as forced Legend to get serious.

"What's wrong?" Alexandria asked, her voice hard as her body. So Hero told them the horrifying truth.

“Beijing is gone." He ignored their looks of confusion and horror as he continued to dress up, "And if we don’t get there fast enough, the whole of China, or Asia, might follow in it's wake.”

There was a brief silence as they processed his words. Alexandria was the first to ask, “An Endbringer?”  

Before Hero could reply, Eidolon interjected.  

“No.”  

His eyes had a faraway look. The previous strongest cape in the world had calmed down remarkably since his last showing at the Behemoth fight. He had disappeared for a month, and when he returned, he had lost a significant amount of his pride.  

“It was him. Old Man Yama.”  

A Thinker power, Hero realized as he deciphered the distant look in his teammate’s eyes.  

By now, he was fully dressed in his armor. He turned back to the group.  

“We don't have the time to chatter, Suit up. I'm going ahead so I’ll meet the rest of you there.”  

Then he cut the video call.  

...

That had been minutes ago. A quick message to Doormaker had placed him at the outskirts of the ruined city, hundreds of meters in the air, prototype cannon in hand.  

Gravity seized him instantly, and he plummeted, free-falling for a second before his thrusters roared to life. The ones beneath his feet arrested his fall, slamming against the air with enough force to send him surging upward. At the same time, the wing-like constructs on his back unfurled, unleashing a controlled burst that sent him streaking forward, leaving a burning trail across the sky.  

Beijing's ruins rushed toward him.  

His HUD flared, rapidly processing the devastation below. Scorched earth. Slag heaps where steel towers once stood. Roads melted into blackened veins running through an ocean of ash. He had seen cities torn apart before. He had fought in the heart of a dying city as it crumbled in the wake of Behemoth’s rampage, during their near-decade-long war against the Endbringers.  

But this was something else.  

There had been no battle here. Not enough to even call it a war.  That would've meant they Yagaban somehow managed to fight back.

This was execution. A display of power even beyond the fight against Behemoth, because it showed another side of the old man.  

His systems locked onto movement—something other than the shifting heat currents and smoldering debris. His eyes snapped to the alert, breath caught tight in his chest.  

And then he saw them.  

People.  

A mass exodus stretched below—men, women, and children moving like a river of flesh and dust, spilling outward from the ruined husk of their home.  

Millions.  

He couldn’t count them all, but he didn’t need to. Their sheer numbers stretched far past the limits of his sight. Beijing had burned, but its people had not perished with it. At least not all of them.  

Somehow, against all logic, they had been allowed to evacuate first. No doubt a mix of the Yàngban or the Imperial family initiating the evacuations before the old man’s arrival, and the old man’s restraint.  

Hero’s grip on his canon tightened. His breath, ragged moments ago, smoothed ever so slightly. The raw, choking horror of the last few minutes dimmed. Not much. But enough. Because it was clear that the old man had restrained himself somewhat, a small mercy that meant they might not have to fight him. A weight lifted from his shoulders, and his grip on the cannon eased.

Then, without warning, his sensors flared again.  

New movement.  

The ground at the center of the devastation cracked, then exploded upward in a blast of debris, exposing foundations and layers of earth that had not seen sunlight since the Paleolithic era. A dust cloud hung over the hole for a second. Then a glow shone from beneath, followed by a massive thump that sent the dust flying and revealed the figure that had broken the earth like some biblical monster.  

A dragon.  

Hero stared, incredulous, forced to slow down as he watched it tear its way out of the ground. Heavy silver scales covered its massive frame.  

Another thump. The sound came from the wings growing out of its shoulders, swinging down and blasting their owner away from the hole, sending it in a beeline toward the sky.  

The semi-perfect representation of a Western dragon was enormous. At least as large as an Endbringer, from its horned head to its long, reptilian tail swishing through the air. Its jaws were slightly unhinged, smoke flowing easily from them. Hero hovered, wondering if this was a new Endbringer before his HUD blared an alarm—and he saw something.  

Cradled in the dragon’s arms, pressed against its scale-covered chest, was a child. Small. Unconscious. Held close like fragile cargo.  

The dragon cleared the dust in mere heartbeats, its wings driving it higher—until it violently jerked to a stop. Like a rope that had been pulled tight.

Something had caught it.  

Not something. Someone.  

An old hand snaked out of the dust.  

Even from a distance, Hero saw the effect. A single grip, and the silver scales beneath those fingers deformed, then cracked.  

The dragon thrashed and screeched, wings hammering downward in a desperate bid for freedom. The sheer force of the motion shredded the last remnants of the dust cloud, fully exposing the one who held its tail fast.  

Hero saw him again.  

Suspended midair. Unmoving. Unshaken. A man who stood in the sky as if gravity had no dominion over him. His white haori and long beard fluttered from the backdraft of the dragon’s struggle, but that was all the beast had accomplished—merely ruffling his robes. He had not budged. And the dragon, immense as it was, hung there, tethered and helpless.  

Beneath those voluminous robes, there was the slightest flex of motion, barely perceptible. But Hero knew what came next.  

So he braced.  

And he watched.  

A jerk. A twist. A pull.  

The old man wrenched the dragon from the sky.  

The air roared as the massive beast was ripped from its flight, and flung toward the earth like the judgment of a vengeful god.  

Yet, in the sliver of a second before the beast was wholly cast down, that same withered hand lashed out once more, seizing the child from the dragon’s grasp.  

The dragon slammed into the shattered city below, and the land buckled beneath its sheer mass. The impact obliterated miles of terrain, sending shockwaves rippling outward in jagged cracks. A seismic explosion of dust and debris erupted skyward, and a tortured, ear-splitting screech tore from the creature’s throat as its serpentine neck twisted in agony.  

Above it all, the old man stood unbothered.  

Midair and Unmoved. Gazing down at the fallen titan with nothing but quiet, dispassionate judgment. And in his arms, cradled securely, was the still unconscious child.  

Hero halted his flight, reached for his helmet, and sent a broadcast message to his teammates.  

"Where the hell are you guys?"  

Because brave as he was, the scene before him reminded him why they had called this man a walking calamity. Prototype Endbringer weapon or not, there was no fighting that, at least not alone.  

The dust settled, revealing the silver-scaled dragon clawing its way out of the crater. Its body mended as Hero watched. Cracked scales knitting back together, torn flesh sealing shut, and leaking blood clumping into place before drying and flaking. The dragon rose onto its hind legs, its slit pupils narrowing as it unleashed a roar that threatened to split the air itself.

The old man responded with a single motion. He tilted his head to the side, and the crack of his neck echoed. Sharp and deafening, matching the dragon’s challenge easily. He didn't stop there. Without ceremony, he shrugged his shoulders, letting the upper half of his kimono slip down to his waist.

Hero hadn’t expected what lay beneath.

A body carved from war—thick muscle and sinew wrapped in scars, each a mark of violence that spoke of war on a scale beyond him. But it wasn’t just the sight of his sleeper physique that sent a chill down Hero’s spine. It was the realization that something had managed to wound the man that had manhandled Behemoth in the first place. Multiple times.

Old Man Yama locked eyes with the dragon. His voice carried no weight, no fury. Just a single word.

“Come.”

Hero found himself wondering where the hell were his teammates for the second time in seconds, and what would be left of China by the time they got here.