Canon Fodder

CHAPTER 383 TOWERS

Augustus held Last Heroine by the throat. The golden statue of the Emperor below, they were about 20 feet in the air. I could almost hear final boss music playing in the background, but it was really Justice keeping the mind controlled ex-heroes at bay with her ice. Giga too was fighting with all she had, swatting at the geriatric people with a large pillar she had broken  from the structure under the resort. 

“5 years it took me!” August yelled. “5 years to rebuild my body into what you see today.” 

“Finally,” I mumbled. I had been waiting for the villain monologue for a while. 

“All to leech off the strength of those that wronged me in the past. I wasn’t hurting any of them! Despite all the bad these supposed heroes brought down on me. Just a little of their powers. Given to me. And they could live here in peace for the rest of their lives.”

“You were blinding them, Emperor! Making sure they didn’t leave. I found the bodies!” I yelled, LH kicking as she fought to stay conscious. 

“Yes, the early ones,” Emperor said, acting like he was hurt by the fact. “I didn’t understand how to control it in the beginning. I took too much of their power. But now, we can expand. Live in peace on my island. Let it grow and flourish as more are-” He stopped talking as Brimstone teleported behind him. I began to fly upward as she cracked her whip at him. 

Emperor let Last Heroine go. She didn’t scream in fear, but she was scared. Speeding up my flight I grabbed her before she had dropped 10 feet. “Miss me?” I asked.

She caught her breath. “Maybe,” she said, giving me a smile as we flew up to the golden statue. Brimstone continued to crack her whip at Augustus/Emperor. 

The drama of the island had quickly unfolded as soon as night fell. A few of the ex-heroes tried to grab us and take us to the underground lair we were currently at. After fighting our way through we found the huge golden statue of the man called Augustus, and had been fighting him or his lackeys since. 

Augustus had been hinting at some secret power that brought him back to life and restored his youth. Having fought his final battle here ages ago it took him a long time to come back, but he had started bringing people to his island as a way to get revenge and turn himself into a god. However he planned to do that, I didn’t know. Like some episode of Lost this island had a lot of secrets. Too bad I planned to kill the bad guy so I doubted I would uncover all of them. 

Last Heroine and I attacked Emperor from the back. He wore a thick toga that somehow reflected my Sparks away from him. LH began firing her futuristic pulse plasma gun thing at him, to the same effect. Cursing, the guy was a lot stronger than I assumed. This was my first mission with my new team. I couldn’t let it end this way. 

Running on the golden arm of his statue toward him I activated my Timeflow. Slowing down time I began to gather power in my palm. Pouring as much Nen in my hand as possible I could really tell the Handicap was there, but I didn’t want to end it just yet. Punching him in the side over and over on the 6th hit his armor or whatever broke and I met flesh. Thrown toward Brimstone she slashed across his face with long nails causing him to cry out. 

Thrown off the statue he hit the ground hard. When he did the Spiritual Energy links to the other heroes flickered and died as he was knocked out. I turned back to a bloody Giga and Justice. The older heroes around them stopped attacking the girls. Flames in their hands, ice melting, many getting up from being knocked down by Giga it appeared the spell they were under was fading. 

“Did we do it?” Last Heroine asked. 

“I doubt it,” I said. Wrapping my hand under her arms I lifted up and began to descend downward. 

“Hey,” Brimstone hissed. I looked over to her as she frowned. Rolling my eyes I floated over to her. 

“You can teleport,” I said, annoyed. 

“Doesn’t mean I like to,” she said, tsking. Grabbing her under the arms as well I carried all 3 of us down to Emperor. He was still alive of course. His Spiritual Energy was there, but he was very much…catatonic almost. As if he wasn’t quite there. 

As we touched down I walked over to the toga covered man and turned him over. The young face had aged slightly showing that whatever had made him younger wasn’t infinite. As I felt his Spiritual Energy begin to brighten I noticed something on his body. Reaching down I opened up his toga to find a small necklace on his chest. The necklace was of a small metallic rectangle. Only about the size of a finger it glowed with lifeforce and Spiritual Energy. 

Ripping it off the Spiritual Energy moving into him ebbed and died down and Emperor cried out. His hand reaching up to me I jumped back, holding the necklace in my hand. 

“Give it back!” He rasped, his eyes wide as he quickly began to age. 

“No,” I said moving backwards with the others. His long nails dug into the metal floor under him, breaking away as his skin turned from tan to gray to black. His eyes hollowing, teeth and hair falling out, I about gave him back the necklace as I continued my way backward. 

But after a few more paces and screams from Emperor he dropped to the ground. His skin continuing to shrink and disappear until he was only a husk. Letting out one final breath his shriveled up body disappeared into the toga and disintegrated. 

“What’d you do?” LH asked, looking to the necklace in my hand. 

“No idea,” I said, doing the same. “Is this like the One Ring?” 

“It’s obviously a necklace,” Brimstone said. 

“I get that but…nevermind,” I said, raising it up. 

“It’s a Tower,” someone said. I turned to see the Brooks family walking up. Hancock was helping Justice walk, she wasn’t terribly hurt, but obviously tired by the ordeal of keeping everyone at bay. 

“What’s a Tower?” I asked Mr. Brooks. 

“It’s the whole point,” he said as other ex-heroes walked up. “I thought they were lost, but Emperor must have found one.” 

“Yeah, why don’t you start at the beginning,” I said. “Guess I didn’t give that idiot enough time to go on a long spiel about whatever this is.” I shook the necklace. I could see that a few more heroes recognized the non-descript rectangle. 

“It’s why our home is called New Castle,” Mr. Brooks said. “The founder of the city was one of the strongest heroes ever recorded in history. He created 9 Towers for New Castle. But they weren’t buildings, they were unimaginably strong necklaces like that one. Centered on ideals. Like the old saying for the Sentries goes. The 9 towers stand strong. Courage to fight cowardice. Faith to push back mistrust. Honesty to battle lies. Hope to divert from despair. Devotion challenges hate. Mercy to blind the cruelty. Generosity to push back the greed. And loyalty to avert treachery. Sentries one and all. Each to guard against those that would tear down the home we were guided to. Chivalry only dies when the last tower crumbles. All is right with the Sentries, when all is right with the Towers.” 

“I sure as shit never heard that saying when I was in the Sentries,” I admitted. 

“Most don’t learn it all,” Mrs. Brooks said. “My guess is that is the tower for Devotion.” She studied the small rectangle. “He was able to control our devotion, making him and the Tower stronger.” 

“And there are another 8 of these out there?” I asked, annoyed by my own search for the Infinity Stones. Yet again a Smut World had turned into something annoying. I tried putting the rectangle in my Status Screen but was blocked because of the tier requirements yet again. 

Grumbling I let out an annoyed sigh. I decided I had had enough distractions. Passing the Tower to Last Heroine I said, “World Escape.” 

—

Back in the Red Room I moved my hand over my face. Annoyed and tired. “Guess I finally got to one of the main stories of a side world,” I said. Whatever had been done to those people really did make them devoted to the guy. I could probably use it with my Item Choice, but I didn’t want to play with something I had no idea about. Happy with the gains I received I studied my status screen. 

My Viltrumite Form had risen to 2%, which I assumed was a big jump, but I didn’t feel any different. I could fly which was a welcome upgrade in itself. I had an Item Choice and 2 Bonus Copies. There were plenty of people to copy bonuses from in Marvel. I decided I had enough sex for now and headed back to the main Comic Hall. Walking up to the Marvel door I was done hesitating so I stepped in. 

Back in my room at the Xavier School of Teenage Mutant Assassin Fighters I sat up. I had just received a quest to try to join the X-Men. Xavier had warned of an academic test that would probably be used to justify my inability to join. Once I passed that I was sure there would be something equivalent to the entrance exam in My Hero Academia or hero test in One Punch Man. 

Getting off the bed I summoned Tabi to me. She looked around and jumped to my shoulder as I walked out of my room. 

“Finally decided to end the vacation?” My 2-tailed beast asked. 

“It wasn’t a vacation,” I said. “I got some quests done.” 

“Right, and because you aren’t crying about your balls being about ready to explode every 2 seconds just happens to coincide with your exit from the smut halls.” 

“Got me there,” I said. “They do feel rather full though.”

“Shut up,” she grumbled as I walked out of the hall of the senior boy’s dorm. A camera outside she knew not to talk in front of it. When we were out of range she asked, “Where are we going?” 

“To train,” I said. “I got more Viltrumite blood.” 

“Did this happen to be a fight you left me out of?” She asked, annoyed. 

“Perhaps,” I said, cursing myself. “Sorry, I’ll remember next time. There was a lot going on.”

“Fine,” she said as we stepped into the weight lifting room. There were mats and pretty much exercise machine possible. During the day there were usually a few kids that used it, but late at night no one was bothering. 

“What are you working on now?” Tabi asked, the blue/black cat leaping to a mat and curling up. 

“Strength. I need to gauge how much the new Viltrumite form and my own foray into multiple times gravity helped,” I said. Moving to a bench press I loaded it with the most weight possible. 405 pounds total I laid on the bench. Struggling at first then slowly able to do it more and more I began to bench the huge weight that made the bar bend slightly. It was time to get serious. 

Getting up I grabbed 2 plates of 45 pound weights. Fusing them together into 1 weight I put them on the end was able to add more. It wasn’t too long until I had fused a lot of them, trying as hard as I could to find my full strength. I thought in the Invincible comic that the main character had been able to bench 500 tons or some huge amount. I needed to get that strong if I wanted to go far in that world. I had a lot of work ahead of me, but plenty of time to get to it.