Cameras revealed what was happening near the coast of Los Angeles: monster sized dogs had appeared out of nowhere, breaking into a stampede that quickly spread outwards. At its center were a trio that looked like Bonesaw, Rachel and Jack, but I doubted it was actually them.How did they move such a large army without anyone knowing? Labyrinth?I would need to find out the answer. Later.Outside the headquarters, a mass of flies were gathering in the nearby buildings. They bit and stung the nearby passerbies: I watched as the victim's flesh warped, becoming covered in rows of gnashing teeth and additional limbs. Each person screamed in agony as they fell to their feet, crying and pleading for help.Soon after, something else connected to them. Increasing the speed of the transformation exponentially. Covering their warped flesh with layers of dead, armored skin. Rachel's powers, working on the people Bonesaw transformed with her plague. The streets became filled with canine abominations that bit at everything that moved, starting with each other.Smoke rose in the distance. Heroes fought in the street, desperately doing their best to fight against the tide of canine monsters and transformed humans.I watched as Rime flew in the air and created pillars of ice to fight against the monsters, trying to lead civilians to safety. She was too far away from me to do anything. One of Rachel's dogs jumped up, clearing two buildings in height, and bit at Rime's leg, bringing her down.It was clear.Los Angeles was already lost.I leapt across the city, cracking the concrete where I landed and breaking all of the glass around me as I moved. At the same time I sent a soundwave in the distance, relying on Shatterbird's power to begin the counteroffensive against the Nine. Electricity zapped around me as thousands and thousands of flies were struck dead.As more flies fell around me, a striped claw suddenly appeared from at my side, swinging for my head. The Siberian. William Manton. Using the same tactic that he had tried twice before.I ducked underneath the swing and stabbed with my black knife at the chest of the striped woman. The Siberian simply… disappeared. Without any sound. Damage accumulated on the knife as I watched cracks appear in the black glass in its center.All or Nothing.I sheathed the knife back into the scabbard, allowing the nanothorns inside to begin the repairs. I had multiple spare ones, but I hesitated to show my hand so quickly."Jack is immediately breaking all of his rules. Because of you, I suspect." Arsenal spoke calmly in my ear, but I could feel the undertone of tension that filled him. "Where is Panacea?" I asked.Dragon immediately marked her on my map. She had just come back to Earth Bet to rest with her friends in the Ward.Wielding the nanothorn blade, I fully engaged the particle reactor in my chest, becoming a red and black blur of lightning that cut through the city.
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Rachel's power had become significantly stronger. Or Bonesaw had done something to improve upon it.Heading every pack of mutated humans was one of Rachel's own dogs. Twice the size they had been back in Brockton Bay, and just as fast, if not faster. But that wasn't the most dangerous thing about them.As I rushed through the city, I crashed against the stampede of dogs, slashing at the legs of the closest one I passed by. Immediately their skin began to churn and change, regenerating.And adapting.From the point of contact with my nanothorns, pale purple nanothorns began appearing from the stumps of their legs.Crawler's power.I didn't let it finish its regeneration, instead turning my left arm into a firethrower that quickly burnt away the nanothorns. For my second slash, I left nothing to chance.I'm sorry, Rachel.I overcharged the nanothorn katana, the whole blade blurred as nanothorns continued to gather inside it, gathering within my crystalline body and channeled into the sword. I waited one second, as the last of the screaming civilians cleared out from the street.Then I swung the blade, sending a wave of nanothorns towards the pack of dogs.In an instant, everything across the street was erased. The dogs and abominations turned into fine red mist and the cars vapourized without any sound. A large section of the asphalt turned into a flat sheet of stone."Rachel's dogs have Crawler's powers. Be advised." I informed the city through the comms.Already the rest of the PRT was moving to intervene, gathering volunteers. Alexandria, Eidolon and Legend were preparing to move out. Weaver had already reached the city, our main defense against the swarm of flies that Bonesaw had released.But parahumans couldn't defeat Jack, no matter how much they tried.This was up to me.I continued my run towards Panacea.Bonesaw clearly hadn't been able to track Panacea's movement through the city, as I found her tucked away inside one of the Endbringer shelters, together with the rest of the LA Wards and multiple civilians. She was quickly administering first aid as I walked in. Inside the shelter was a strange fume in the air, striking down all the flies. None of the civilians inside had been affected by Bonesaw's plague.Immediately I walked across the shelter and spoke to the air: "Door me, north shelter."The rectangle gateway opened. The people around me immediately panicked and moved away, but Panacea instead approached me. I modulated my voice to increase the volume and then loudly spoke:"Go inside the portal. It's connected to the northern California shelter, outside the city. You will be safe there. Please enter in an orderly manner, but quickly."I looked towards Vantage, the Ward, who immediately got the message, beginning to instruct the crowd of people to more easily get in line to walk through."Get in line!" Vantage shouted, beginning to take point in moving the crowd.I turned back towards Panacea."You also need to go."Her face was pale, stricken with fear. "It's them, isn't it?"She didn't speak the name to avoid alarming the people in the shelter."It is." I confirmed her suspicion. "They're likely here for you. We can't afford to lose you, not at this juncture.""I could use my power to counteract hers… I saw what is happening outside."She was right, in a way. But unfortunately Bonesaw had already taken that into account."No. Your power doesn't work on Rachel's subjects," her power covered the dogs in layers of dead skin, which Panacea couldn't affect, meaning she could not turn back the transmuted humans as long as they were affected by Rachel, "and you can't be ready for everything Bonesaw could have prepared. Walk through the portal and-"Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.Something was wrong. The feedback from the portal wasn't right.I narrowed my eyes as the first person took a step towards the portal. My hand shot out and grabbed him by the shoulder, pulling him back.The shelter around us suddenly began to change. The concrete walls and ceiling began to grow moss and wooden roots, turning into a different material. The even ground below us shifted, new walls beginning to appear and raise towards the ceiling.Labyrinth. Did they follow me?Cariddi's power flowed through my body as suddenly I became a hyperdense mass of crystal. The ground below warped as I raised my arm and boosted myself to smash my fist against the ground, sending out a shockwave that fought against the changing world.I made an executive decision.Grabbing Panacea, I jumped towards the exit flying at high speed towards it. Labyrinth power accelerated in speed, seemingly focused on trying to capture Panacea. But it couldn't keep up with my own speed.I felt Panacea's muscles straining under the stress of the sudden acceleration, but nowadays we had access to enough healers that she'd be able to easily recover. As long as she got out."Door me, Eidolon."The gateway appeared in front of me, showing a confused Eidolon who was waiting for more info before acting. I threw Panacea towards him, and then slashed at the edge of the portal to quickly close it.Panacea was safe.Now to save everyone else.I turned around, watching as Labyrinth's power warped the world and overwrote the rules of reality. The shelter had changed again as Panacea left its borders. The wooden roots had turned red, bone began to grow where before there was steel and concrete.A tower made of sinew now stood where the shelter was just a moment ago. Acid fumes escaped from gaps in the red flesh exterior, melting the surrounding asphalt and buildings.The other Wards, plus a crowd of people, was still inside.At the entrance, the Siberian suddenly materialized. A feral smile wide on her face."It only makes sense that they would work with you."I was taken aback by her words. The Siberian had never spoken before, and even now that I knew who was behind the projection I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at her words.Still, I ignored her as I walked up to the entrance."You, too, are like me. Like Rachel. A caged animal, pretending. I can see it, in your restrained strength. But… unlike us, you are truly free of them. You choose to stand by them. Why is that?"Her… Manton's words washed over me without effect. I entered Labyrinth's domain.
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The inside of the tower looked no less grotesque than the outside: the ground under my feet shifted and moved like a living organism, 'veins' beating to a distant rhythm. Some sections of the ground had slight differences, spots where traps were laid underneath.The walls were similarly made of red bloodied flesh, with mouth-like openings that bit at the air with sharp canine teeth, and which breathed out noxious fumes that I immediately recognized as hallucinatory. Pillars of teeth and bone were strewn across the room. At the end of the room, on the other side, was a perfectly rectangular doorway, which led to another room just like the first.No matter how much I tuned my body, I couldn't make sense of the data that I was gathering. I was able to parse only direct eyesight and short-range echolocation, every other sensory tool rendered useless by the dimensional anomalies of the structure.I sheathed the nanothorn katana. I couldn't risk using it freely without a way to make sure I did not hurt the hostages. Not as long as there was the chance of getting them out of here alive. Even without my full repertoire, I instantly understood one thing: no matter how much it looked otherwise, the tower was not alive. Not in any real sense of the word. It was a grotesque machine that imitated life, but had no real rhyme or reason to its organism. It made sense, after all this had been meant to trap Panacea, and she would have been able to work with any kind of living tissue."Well well well, if it isn't our dear-" Jack's voice echoed from a hidden speaker in the wall. I didn't give it time to finish his first sentence as I simply shifted the crystal in my left arm, sending an electromagnetic blast in that direction. Burning out whatever device Jack had hid."It was a pre-recorded message," the Siberian said from behind me, her voice barely above a whisper, "he is far away from here, as am I. You… intimidate him. He rarely speaks of you, but when he does, it's to compare you to Gray Boy."I continued to ignore her as I walked to another room. The second I passed the doorway, a mechanism snapped as a sharp blade of bone shot out of the left wall. I barely had to move as I unsheathed the nanothorn blade, reduced the projectile to dust, and then sheathed it back in a single motion.The Siberian continued to follow me, seemingly unwilling to attack."Where are the hostages?" I simply asked the projection.She grinned at my question. Then pointed with her clawed index all around us."The walls. They're slowly suffocating inside them. Jack hoped that you'd take a more violent approach to silencing his message, killing hostages in the process."I immediately activated my speedware, the world slowing down around me as I dipped into my speedware. My hands shot out towards the closest wall, and I began to tear away at the flesh structure.I spotted an arm - one of the civilians that was in the shelter - but before I could pull the person out the wall simply reformed. Too quickly for me to pull out the civilian without hurting them.Without heavier firepower I wouldn't be able to free the people inside, but with my sensors messed up I couldn't be sure I wouldn't hurt civilians. There was no glass inside Labyrinth's domain, and any that I attempted to create simply turned into flesh and bone once they got too distant from my body.The Siberian simply walked up to the wall, shoved her hand through it without meeting any resistance, and pulled out the same person I had just seen. Effortlessly."Go that way!" I pointed to the exit door. The civilian quickly broke into a sprint and left the room of sinew. I looked back and glared at the Siberian, now finally realizing why Manton had not directed her to attack me.Manton wanted something from me."Will you help in my hunt, Blackwall?"