Your New Hero

  “My name is Angellica, but you might recognise me better as the woman who extinguished the monster responsible for the New York Incident,” the heroine began her speech with a bomb, garnering an immediate reaction from everyone gathered at the colosseum as well as the worldwide population who were watching her through the World State mandated broadcast. Gasps of surprise and murmurs of disbelief swept through all those gathered, tiny voices and loud shouts interlocking. The momentous occasion had come as a great surprise, as the audience had all been expecting Kronos to be the one to step up to the podium and begin a grand speech. The Hero Association had repeatedly told all journalists and angry mobs that everything would be explained on that date, and that Kronos would soothe all their worries and qualms over the Incident - but instead they had been greeted by this innocuous girl that only the most avid of conspiracy theorists had been able to recognise at a glance in this de-powered stance. She had spoken with incredible confidence, her gaze sharp and piercing as her eyes scanned the audience with what could easily be confused for disdain.

  I smirked, sitting backstage with one leg over the other, my eyes fixated on the screen which was currently set on the World State channel where the speech was being broadcast. To my right was standing Empress, her intense purple irises glowing softly, one of her hands on her chin while the other rested on her hips, “If anything goes wrong, I’m cutting your head off where you stand,” she told me with such collected calmness that most would assume it was a joke. I merely chuckled and waved my hand disdainfully, “Sure. You do know that wouldn’t do anything, right?” Eight shook her head, “I’ll kill you over and over until you make sure this goes well,” she added matter-of-factly, although the tiniest of amused small smiles also appeared on her lips. Jessica, meanwhile, was sitting to my left with blown pupils and her own gaze flipping erratically between the two Celestials in the room and the one on the screen. Empress looked at her for a moment with a side-eye, raising an eyebrow as their eyes met, causing Love Love to slink back in embarrassment and for her cheeks to flush.

  “I…” Angellica hesitated to continue her proclamation, her voice cracking in what could only be described as stellar acting, “I lost my family in that attack. All of it. Every single relative I was close to perished, and in my grief and fury I awakened. THAT is why I believe I can say with confidence and a heavy heart that I share in the immense pain of everyone involved,” she continued, her voice expressing a deep grief and sadness that fooled everyone in the world except for two very particular individuals. The heroine pursed her lips and took a deep breath to calm her nerves before continuing, her grip on the microphone shifting slightly. I’m doing it right. She reassured herself, her eyes locking onto the sky above her for a few seconds. Kevin assured me that if I messed up he would wind the clock and make me start over, so everything must be going fine. Her expression then contorted from one of grief to one that was much softer and kinder, yet still radiating confidence and unbridled power, her gaze returning to the public before her, “And so, like everyone else, I asked myself; ‘Why didn’t Number One - why didn’t KRONOS stop this??’ Why, why didn’t he warn us all about it?! I confronted him myself, and all he could do was give me the lousy excuse that I would ‘understand it soon.’ I almost tried to kill him for those words, too,” she muttered in frustration, closing her eyes, her voice still resonating throughout the crowd - both for those physically present and those merely watching, causing muttering and discussions. “And all I can say is… I understand now,” Angellica suddenly stated after a few seconds of silence, her eyes opening to reveal a deep golden glow, “The declaration of war from four days ago made things abundantly clear, and I believe many people have already come to the same conclusion that the World State has reached.” The blonde woman turned around and motioned towards the massive screen that had spontaneously formed out of thin air behind her - courtesy of Maquineer - who was earnestly watching the entire procession from the concrete roof of a nearby building through a pair of binoculars.

  It wasn’t just her, however, since the majority of the Celestial Ten were standing in that very same roof as well; Immortalis, Warpbreaker, Breadman, Crusader, and Stalwart were all congregated behind Alice while looking on with their own binoculars at the grandiose speech below. “I’m bored as hell,” Immortalis grumbled loud enough for everyone to hear, sitting down on the floor with his binoculars on his lap while picking at his nails and watching with disinterest how they took five seconds to return to normal. Warpbreaker turned to look at him with a raised eyebrow, his body laid flat in the middle of the air as he was currently laying down on his bed, “Oh? I thought you’d be the most interested in being a lookout, though? With how badly you got your ass beat and all, I thought you’d be out for revenge and blood,” he wondered out loud with a shrug, really meaning no malice yet still striking at John’s heart like a masterful blade. Number Seven pursed his lips and looked up at him with narrowed eyes, “Wanna fight, fucker?? Is that it??” he threatened half-heartedly, pointing a finger at his own temple. Number Six answered the threat with a cocky grin, but turned away from his fellow hero and back towards the binoculars he had left floating mid-air instead of following through, “Normally I’d take that opportunity, but it’s really a shame that your power makes fights against you boring as all hell.” The other four Celestials simply ignored them, with only Crusader even bothering to raise an eyebrow and look at them with his pearly white irises glowing dimly, a dozen swords stabbed into the concrete ceiling around him in a circle. John tsk’d and went back to his nails, not bothering to do anything further.

  Angellica, unaware of the happenings in the far-off building, continued her speech as images of the destruction appeared on the screen behind her, “The monster responsible for the Incident was at that moment only a mindless, ruthless beast hellbent on destroying whatever it could find or see. The destruction was unlike any before seen, true, but that is where the realization I spoke of comes into play. What would have happened had I not slain that beast?” she asked slowly, savoring her words as her voice reached higher levels of emotion, appealing to everyone hearing to listen to her plea, “What would have happened if Kronos had evacuated everyone from New York, leaving the monster to its own devices and survival? The answer should be clear to the whole world; the monster would have gained a mind and joined the Savior, possibly as one of those so-called Apostles. And what then? What of the untold destruction such a creature could bring now that it has intelligence and the ability to coordinate? It’s incomparable!!” Angellica declared, the air around her beginning to shimmer and wave due to the intense energy beginning to radiate off of her, making it difficult to notice details around her person, “That situation would have been a disaster unlike any before seen. The damage caused by a beast like that coordinating intelligently is unthinkable.” The heroine paused once more to allow time for her words to sink in, but quickly seized the silence before it could extend any further, “I am not dumb enough to claim that merely defeating that monster could possibly ever make up for the horrible loss of life it created. I am not stupid enough to think that anyone in the world could possibly be happy with such a bad explanation. This is why I shall promise to the entire world here and now; I will forevermore dedicate my life to obliterating the enemies of humanity. I will use every single life lost in the incident as fuel for my fire, and I will ensure nothing of that caliber can ever hope to happen again!!! I will-” she stopped suddenly, her eyes narrowing and darting towards the sky as a brilliant golden light enveloped them. She hadn’t been the only one to notice it either, a certain navy-eyed hero also immediately locking eyes with the object in the sky, a broad grin spreading over his face.

  “Alice,” Warpbreaker hissed enthusiastically, getting up from his non-present bed and stretching his arms while humming to himself. The other five gathered Celestials turned to him in an instant, every single one of their eyes igniting with light as they instantly realised that something had happened because of his tone. He turned to Five and bit his thumb excitedly, the Austrian girl staring back with her dark green mechanical eyes, “Contact Michaela immediately. Tell her to communicate to our dear speech-giver to NOT engage. I’ll take care of this little problem myself!!” Six announced proudly, doing a short bow and waving goodbye with his hands before anyone could react or protest, “Bye-byeee~” and then he was gone. Just like that, Warpbreaker, Number Six of the Celestial Ten, had vanished. “How rash…” Stalwart muttered, his gray eyes dimming as he accepted he wouldn’t have to fight, clasping his fingers together as he manifested his barrier around the coliseum. He hadn’t had it there before due to the possibility of it causing panic or confusion - seeing as the mere presence of his barrier around the place was more of an immediate red flag signifying to everyone that the area was under attack. Immortalis clicked his tongue and stood up, his hands on his pockets as he approached the edge of the building, staring down at the ground thirty floors below, “I’ll be guarding the entrance, I guess. I’ll make sure my phone survives, so contact me if anything happens,” he grumbled before stepping off and towards the abyss. Crusader let out a deep breath as his swords unstuck themselves from the roof and molded together into a circle of metal which he promptly stood on, the amalgam carrying him up into the air as he turned to Maquineer, “I’ll keep a lookout in the sky, trying to keep a birds-eye view since our designated scout has just teleported away to god knows where,” he sighed, grabbing his binocular before being carried off into the air. Breadman extended tendrils of dough from his body and stabbed them into a nearby building, pulling himself towards it with incredible speed, leaving without another word. Alice, Number Five, sighed and shook her head, pressing against the microphone in her right ear as she spoke to Dreamstress who was concealing herself among the public in the coliseum, “Hello, Michaela. Y-Yeah, something’s happened. No, I don’t know what… look- just make sure Angellica doesn’t interfere, okay? …Please?”

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  Warpbreaker was now standing above the clouds on a seemingly nonexistent surface, his face contorted into a grin as he stared straight at the rapidly approaching new-gen stealth bomber, the driver’s eyes widening behind his helmet’s visor as the hero came into view. One thousand kilometers per hour. About a third the speed of sound. Warpbreaker thought to himself as he extended a hand out towards the plane, the very space in front of it elongating and stretching like it was rubber. Just like that, the bomber seemingly froze in place, only about ten meters away from the hero. Six chuckled and closed his fist, stepping to the side nonchalantly before approaching the plane from the right with slow, deliberate strides. The pilot was sweating cold, his eyes wide as he turned his head to follow the movements of the Celestial with intense fear in his eyes, fidgeting desperately with the controls of the machine and shaking his head vigorously. The stealth bomber hadn’t actually frozen in place, it was still flying at a thousand kilometers per hour; instead, the space in front of it had elongated to the point where the ten meter distance had become a thousand times longer. You could simply escape if you just turned, you know. I only manipulated the space directly in front of you, so getting out of this trap is rather easy... Although doing such a thing would still be futile~ The blue-eyed Japanese man thought leisurely as he finally stopped once he was about to touch the vehicle, tilting his head to look at the pilot with curiosity, “What’s up?” he asked casually.

  The pilot’s eyes widened as he slowly turned around in pure panic to look at the hero, his entire body trembling in intense fear. This ain’t right. Seven thought to himself as he rubbed his chin and furrowed his brow. Someone approaching the colosseum in something like this- they shouldn’t be this scared. This is the kind of thing only someone who is utterly confident in their own actions would do. The hero clapped his hands together and a blowtorch suddenly appeared in between them, his eyes glowing even more intensely as his smile vanished partially. “This is my first and last warning. Surrender and turn off the vehicle or I’ll have to get you out of there by force,” he hissed, a welding helmet appearing over his head while he flexed his fingers and ignited the blowtorch a couple of times as if to test that it was working right. The pilot looked from Warpbreaker to the open air before him and then down to his cockpit, his hands shaking as he approached the controls slowly. The hero huffed and placed the blowtorch against the bomber, getting to work despite the pilot seemingly following his orders. You never know for sure. He mumbled internally. He might still try something funny. Plus, I’m bored as hell!! At least blowtorching open such a high value piece of tech’s kinda fun. The helmeted man inside the vehicle turned to look at the Celestial with surprise and fear before quickly going back to the control panel, shutting down the plane in a rush, already the blowtorch cutting a small entrance into the cockpit and causing air to rush inside. After all, the stealth bomber was still flying at over a thousand kilometers per hour, so it's no wonder that even a small hole would cause a rush of air to flow inside. This was also why Seven wasn’t making any sort of direct contact with it, as even merely grazing it with a finger could completely blow it off on the spot. “Oh, you turned it off,” he muttered, noticing immediately with a distasteful grunt as he pulled the torch away and with a swish of his hands both it and his helmet vanished, “Eh, but now we gotta wait for this thing to slow down enough for me to get you out of there without one of us getting ripped in half.”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  The Celestial sighed and stretched his arms a little before yawning and turning back towards the cockpit, “What’s your name? Mine’s Eiken, but you already knew that,” the hero asked the petrified pilot with disinterest, sitting down in the middle of the air next to the cockpit and flicking his wrist to teleport a deck of UNO cards to his hand and placing them down in the air between himself and the jet. The helmeted man stared down blankly as a group of seven cards appeared in his hand at the same time as another group of seven cards appeared in Eiken’s. The hero smirked and reached out for the middle pile, grabbing the first card and flipping it over to reveal a yellow six, placing it next to the stacked deck. “I’ll go first~” Warpbreaker hummed, grabbing a red six from his hand and placing it down, “Don’t worry, just show me the card you want to put down and I’ll do it for you. Same if you need to grab some from the central pile.”

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  Meanwhile, all the way back down on the ground, in the colosseums backstage, I turned to look at Love Love with a raised eyebrow and a cocky half-smirk. She turned to look at me as well, her eyes widening slightly as she understood what I meant. Ehhh… Eiken’s doing the thing now, then… She thought in a slight panic, clearing her throat nervously while eyeing Empress. The heroine was staring straight at the screen with narrowed eyes and a furrowed brow, her teeth grit as she held her phone with a tight grip. She had already received Alice’s message as had Michaela, which was why the speech was now continuing without any issues. Of course, all that Empress could really do was hope that the mechanisms she had put in place to make sure no one realised that Stalwart had encased them all in a massive protective bubble would prove sufficient, and that the Celestials outside would be able to deal with whatever threat had arisen. There’s only two real possibilities of who could possibly be bold enough to attack us here and now. Number Eight thought to herself, her brow furrowed. It’s either the monsters breaking their truce… or it's the rebels. Again. Her eyes flashed in a purple light and turned swiftly towards me, doing nothing to hide the intense anger within them. I merely grinned back at her and shrugged, leaning back on my chair with a yawn. Why are you like this, Kronos?! You little shit, just tell us what’s happening instead of playing your ridiculous games… She thought to herself with a tsk of her tongue, turning back to the screen. And that pink-eyed woman next to him is also suspicious. A sidekick?? HIM?? As if. This reeks of shady business.

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  I had decided to let Love Love in on my plans the very same day of the declaration of war by the monsters. “We don’t want Warpbreaker to die,” I had told her plainly, shuffling a marker in my hand as I stared up at the whiteboard in my room, a concerningly detailed map of Rome drawn on it. Jessica stared up at the whiteboard as well, her brow furrowing as she sat on my bed, a hand to her chin and one leg over the other, her pink irises glowing dimly as she remained deep in thought. I turned towards her and tossed the marker her way while I continued my explanation, “But… we also don’t want his enemy to die, capiche?” Love Love snapped out of her thoughts due to me tossing her the marker, catching it mid-air with surprising speed and reflexes, causing me to smirk and turn back around. Jessica grumbled as she held the marker and flipped it in the air, rearing back her arm as pink energy flowed around her and suddenly throwed it at me like a javelin, only for me to catch it behind my back without even turning around, flipping it over and using it to scribble some x’s on the map. Show-off. My sidekick thought to herself in amusement yet also apprehension, standing up from the bed, “I get it. Same shenanigans as with the other three you’ve had the rebellion fight, right?”

  I nodded to her, scratching my chin pensively, “Yeah. The way I’ve made this next fight go for the last few… ahh…” I turned my head to look at Jessica nervously for a moment, turning back to look at the whiteboard when she returned my look with a raised eyebrow and a nod, “Well, my idea was to have John intervene to save Eiken, but I feel like that’s not the best way to go about it,” I muttered with pursed lips. Why am I getting nervous?? I thought with disdain. It’s as if I was talking with someone whom I couldn’t just erase any mistakes with. I haven’t felt this way since- let’s not think about that. My pink-eyed sidekick nodded, approaching the whiteboard and turning to look at me with a hand on her hip, “I’m guessing that having Immortalis get involved would soothe his ego and thus inhibit his desire to get stronger? By that logic, we shouldn’t rely on any of the other Celestials to participate either.” I half-smirked and placed a hand on top of her head, rubbing it slightly, “That’s exactly right. But I’ve experimented with many, many scenarios and nothing quite fits, either.” Love Love sighed and walked towards the other end of the room, standing on her tiptoes to reach as high up as she could and wrote in big bold letters ‘Attempted Strategies’ and then tossed the marker to me with a sly grin, “Let’s start by ruling out what you KNOW won’t work.” I blinked a couple of times before letting out a soft yet genuine chuckle as I approached her, catching the marker, “Of course.” Well, isn’t she quite the eager one. This timeline’s shaping up to be real fun~ Who knows, it might even be the one. I allowed myself to hope, even if only jokingly. But one thing’s for sure, I’ll be getting Jessica as my sidekick a lot more often from now on.

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  Back at the coliseum; the clock struck the agreed upon hour and I nodded to Jessica, causing her to turn to me with worry in her gaze, her eyes drifting towards my hand. I held up a single finger and gave her a blunt nod, causing her to give me a tiny nod back and turn back towards the screen, her eyes narrowing with renewed conviction. Strategy one, start. I thought, turning back to the screen as I fiddled with the cigarette in my pocket. But we only have twenty three strategies planned… such a small number… I sighed and took it out, casually lighting it with a lighter I took out from my other pocket. The two women in the room turned to look at me with wide eyes, their gazes crossing before once more locking unto me - too shocked to do anything but stare. I ignored them, taking in a deep breath of the smoke as I stared down at the floor, soon thereafter being struck by a violent fit of coughing and dropping the cigarette to the floor. “K-Kevin?!” Jessica asked nervously, one of her hands approaching me. I grit my teeth and swatted her hand away, my sidekick recoiling in confusion. Empress sighed and turned back to the screen, “Don’t bother. He’s going to go back any time now,” she muttered in dry acceptance - knowing full well I would never allow myself such humiliation. “W-What?? Kevin, is she being seri-?!” Love Love sputtered out incredulously, but it was too late. I merely smirked, closing my eyes as I wound the clock back by a few seconds and repeated them, with the only difference being that I didn’t pull the cigarette out from my pocket, instead going back to staring at the screen. Not today, either.

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  “Damn,” Eiken sighed with grit teeth, furrowing his brow as the pilot stared back at him with wide puppy eyes, no more cards in his hand while the hero was left with what could only be described as a comical amount, “What the hell’s with that luck??” he lamented. Number Six clasped his hands and with a bitter click of his tongue shuffled the deck once more, his eyes glowing softly as he remained sat in a criss-cross position, “Okay!! Third time’s the charm, as they say~” The Celestial cleared his throat and seven cards appeared in each player’s hands again, one card from the main pile being set aside and flipped over, “I start- Eh??” Warpbreaker was about to place a card down, when suddenly before his very eyes a pair of arms erupted from behind the pilot’s seat and gripped the man’s throat tightly. Eiken didn’t have time to even react before the pilot’s throat had completely vanished without a trace after a mere couple of seconds, his helmeted head falling onto the chair and the rest of his body slumping as the mysterious hands gripped around the seat and it too began to disappear into thin air. The Celestial jumped up from where he was standing in the middle of the air while his eyes narrowed and began to glow feverishly, a plasma cutter appearing in his hand and a welding helmet over his head. “Okay, so that’s how it is. Enough games,” the hero hissed, a grin spreading across his face behind his helmet, “I doubt you’d be up for a game of UNO, right?” The notable fact that Warpbreaker was using a plasma cutter instead of a blowtorch should be pointed out, since the blowtorch is a slow method that existed more to scare the pilot while the plasma cutter is an extremely efficient and fast tool that existed to actually cut open the plane and rip out whoever was inside out by force.

  The chair was eventually completely destroyed and a man emerged from it like a caterpillar from a cocoon. His eyes were an intense shade of chocolate brown, the intense light shining out of them permeating the cockpit as he turned to look at the hero currently cutting said cockpit open. The man snarled, his entire body covered in so many scars that his skin tone may as well have been a solid white, his expression contorting in anger and hatred, seemingly unphased by the plasma cutter currently breaking his vessel apart. “ENOUGH!!!” Oliver roared, placing a hand against the glass of the cockpit, the very substance withering away in his grip, causing intense winds over 200 km per hour to rush into the plane, “You are NOT the one I am looking for, EIKEN!!” he called loud enough that the hero heard him perfectly clear over the sound of the wind and the plasma cutter. Warpbreaker raised an eyebrow and with a swish of his hands the welding helmet and the plasma cutter vanished, his arms crossing as he continued to stand mid-air while staring directly at the screaming man with sheer contempt, “And you’re not the one I was playing UNO with, so I think fair’s fair,” he answered with a click of his tongue. Oliver snarled, his bloodshot eyes swivelling over to the hero as he grit his teeth in pure unfiltered rage, swiping his right hand in a wide arc in front of him and causing everything he touched to seemingly vanish instantly, cutting into the stealth bomber with incredible ease, “Shut up!! You ruined my plan to reach Breadman, so either take me to him or perish as an appetizer!!”