Endratox (alien) POV
Pain was a foreign concept. An inefficiency. My species had evolved beyond such crude biological feedback. Yet, here it was.
A searing, white-hot lattice of agony originating from the rent in my thorax where the primitive had struck me. My bio-regenerative systems were struggling, trying to knit together tissues that had been ruptured by a force far exceeding the target's physical parameters.
I watched, my multi-spectrum vision flickering, as the human insect, Julian Thorne, fired his crude projectile weapon. I saw the bullet leave the barrel in slow motion.
I saw it strike the female's chest. I saw her fall. And I saw her Raiment, the source of her impossible power, dissolve into nothingness, revealing the frail, bleeding form of the girl underneath.
Prey, cornered, can be dangerous, the old brood-sagas warned.
I had dismissed them as tales to frighten hatchlings. I had seen this species. They were soft, chaotic, driven by fleeting emotions.
They built gods of light and called them heroes, then tore them down over trivial scandals. They were not a threat.
I had been wrong.
This one… this 'Villainess'… she was different.
She did not fight like a hero, with grand pronouncements and wasted energy. She fought like a survivor. Her adaptability was horrifying.
She had absorbed and redirected kinetic force. She had enhanced her strength mid-combat. She had used spatial displacement with a tactical precision that suggested an intelligence far beyond her years.
She was an echo of the Old Ones, the true Villains my people's lore whispered about.
Not mere criminals, but conceptual singularities. Beings who rejected the universe's established order and imposed their own will upon it, shunned by the cosmos for their terrifying belief in their own absolute authority.
We had thought them long extinct.
I needed to eliminate her. Now.
Before she could recover. Before her potential could fully manifest.
My primary mission—the acquisition of specimens—was now secondary to neutralising this emergent threat.
I took a step forward, my damaged leg dragging, my internal systems screaming alerts.
But as I raised my hand to deliver the final, killing blow, the girl's hand twitched.
A scroll, made of some ancient-looking parchment, flared with a golden light.
A teleportation matrix. Primitive, but effective.
Before I could counter it, she vanished, leaving behind nothing but a fading golden afterimage and a spreading pool of crimson blood on the marble floor.
I stood there, stunned by the sheer audacity of her escape. And then, a series of sharp cracks echoed through the lobby.
The five devices she had planted on the walls detonated, not with explosive force, but with blinding flashes of light and showers of harmless, glittering sparks.
It was a final, parting insult.
A pyrotechnic display to mock the heroes and the police, a final act of theatre to punctuate her grand exit. The chaos outside erupted anew.
My mission here was a failure. My presence was compromised. And a threat I could not comprehend was now loose in this city.
The main doors of the Thorne Tower burst inward, not from an explosion, but from a wave of pure, invisible force.
A figure strode through the opening, his presence so immense it seemed to suck the very air out of the room. He was clad in immaculate, silver-and-white armour, his face hidden by a helmet that glowed with a soft, internal light.
The symbol on his chest, a balanced scale, was known to everyone in the city.
It was Praetor. The city's only S-rank hero. The Mayor's personal guard. The Strongest Man in the city.
He took in the scene with a single, sweeping glance: the dead bodies of the city's elite, the cowering form of Julian Thorne on the staircase, and me, the wounded alien invader.
At the same time, the V-Net broadcast, which was still playing on the lobby's main screen, shifted.
Maya's final, damning clip was playing. It showed a clear, stabilised view of the penthouse, of Mr. Kael transforming, of the massacre, of the alien's deal with Julian Thorne.
It showed my fight with the Villainess. It showed Julian shooting the bleeding girl in the back.
Anya's voiceover was cold and clear, explaining to the stunned city that the child kidnappings were not the work of the Villainess, but of an alien threat aided and abetted by the Mayor's own brother.
The narrative was lost. The frame-up was shattered. My mission was a catastrophic failure.
I had to escape. I phased through the nearest wall, my damaged body screaming in protest, leaving Julian Thorne to face the city's wrath alone.
Praetor watched me go, but made no move to follow. His sole focus was on the man whimpering on the stairs.
"Praetor! Thank god!" Julian cried, scrambling down the steps. "You have to help me! That thing… the Villainess… they ruined everything! You have to get me out of here! My brother will protect me!"
Praetor stood unmoving as Julian reached the bottom of the stairs.
"The Mayor sends his regrets," the hero said, his voice a perfectly modulated, dispassionate baritone.
"His regrets?" Julian stopped, confused. "What do you mean? He sent you to save me!"
"No," Praetor corrected, his voice devoid of any warmth.
"He sent me to contain the situation. Your actions have compromised the security of this city and threatened the stability of his administration.
You have committed treason, Julian. Not just against the city, but against your family."
Julian's face crumpled in disbelief.
"No… no, he wouldn't! I'm his brother! He loves me!"
"He does," Praetor said, and for the first time, a hint of something—pity, perhaps—entered his voice.
"Which is why this must be clean. A quiet end to a messy problem. He asked me to tell you that he is sorry."
Praetor raised a hand, his silver gauntlet humming with power. Julian stared at him, his mind finally comprehending the ultimate betrayal.
He opened his mouth to scream.
He never made a sound.
A single, pencil-thin beam of pure white energy shot from Praetor's finger, striking Julian directly in the forehead. He dropped to the floor, a neat, cauterised hole the only sign of the execution.
Praetor stood over the body of his master's brother for a long moment. Then, he turned and spoke into his comms. "Praetor to Mayor. The situation is contained. The asset has been neutralised."
Mayor's Office
Mayor Thomas Thorne sat in his soundproofed office high above the city, staring at the panoramic view of the skyline he controlled.
The glass reflected the face of a man hollowed out by grief and power. He had just listened to the live feed of his own brother's execution.
An execution he had ordered.
He had loved Julian. He had spent his entire political career cleaning up his younger brother's messes, covering his debts, burying his scandals.
But this… this was too much. Treason.
Alliance with an alien species that stole children. The political fallout would have been apocalyptic.
He had made a choice: the city over his blood. The power over the love.
A single, hot tear traced a path down his cheek. He wiped it away with a vicious, angry gesture.
This was not his fault. This was not Julian's fault. This was the fault of the creature who had brought this chaos to their doorstep.
The one who called herself the Evil Villainess.
She had exposed his brother. She had revealed the alien threat. She had, in her own twisted way, saved the city from a monster, only to create a new one in him.
She had forced his hand, made him a kinslayer to protect his legacy.
A cold, hard rage, purer and more potent than any grief, began to crystallise in his heart.
The hunt was no longer about a public menace. It was no longer about politics. It was personal.
He pressed a button on his desk.
"Get me Director Valerius at the Guild," he commanded, his voice a low, dangerous growl.
"And get me the budget for the 'Hero Enhancement Program.' I'm fast-tracking it. Effective immediately."
He would use the full power of the state, the full might of the Hero Guild, every credit in the city's treasury. He would build an army if he had to.
He would burn the entire city to the ground to find her.
He didn't know her name. He didn't know her face. But he would find the girl behind the shadows. And he would make her pay for the tears a Mayor was not allowed to cry.