Chapter 4

Through the eyes of the Strongest Esper

Whatever Tatsumaki was expecting to see when she entered the orange door a desolate and barren world was not what she expected. A chill ran across her entire body as she looked up and saw a pale red sky unlike any she had ever seen before. She desperately tried to keep her expression under wraps as she turned towards the man she had requested a spar with who casually sat upon one of the squat boulders that decorated this desolate land. King was an existence that she would never underestimate and it was for a good reason that people called him the The Strongest Man on Earth. The number of Mysterious Beings he killed was substantial and ever expanding and ever since he had killed that wolf creature years ago he was placed upon an almost unassailable podium as the most capable Hero and try as she might Tatsumaki had proved herself incapable of taking over that position from him.

And if what she was seeing here was real and not some twisted illusion then he had been hiding a lot of his power from the world. Before she had met him yesterday she was under the impression that he was a martial artist, but that impression faded when she saw the red strings and it had now completely disappeared, further as she felt his psychic power as soon as she found herself in this strange bleak land. Was this some form of psychic power or other esoteric power that she hadn't seen before? If it was caused by psychic power then she would have no idea how to even copy it.

"It is possible for an esper to enter and exit these places," King stated as if he was reading her mind and Tatsumaki immediately jumped to damage control clearing her thoughts and fixing the blank faced hero with a suspicious glance. "There are a few creatures in The Abandoned World that have learnt to utilise their psychic powers in order to teleport. They make the worst type of ambush predators," King admitted with a wry smile as he stood up from the rock and Tatsumaki couldn't help but read into that expression. Had he fought those creatures, studied them, and killed them? His words seemed to hint at that but she couldn't be sure. She must see if she could undertake the same learning.

"Shall we begin," the taller man said and in the next second Tatsumaki took to the skies as her opponent exploded with psychic energy; the psychic shackles that he wore removed in a display that cratered the ground for a hundred metres, reducing chunks of the earth into rubble and dust. Even despite the lack of visibility Tatsumaki could easily sense the man by his recently revealed vast psychic presence. Well the word 'vast' couldn't go without a qualifier. His powers were certainly less than hers, a mere fraction, of her total power, but they were far above her sisters and all of the other weaker espers. Just with his psychic powers alone he would qualify to become an S-Class.

Tatsumaki gestured and the rubble and dust reversed their motion pelting towards the dust cloaked figure and Tatsumaki watched in approval as his hands lashed out towards the pieces of debris crushing dozens of them per second. This much at least was expected for him to even be put in the same class and so Tatsumaki increased the size of the rubble sending larger and larger pieces faster and faster, tearing the ground apart to fuel her barrage of ammunition until small hills were flinging themselves towards the hero in order to bury him.

Once more the area around King exploded as his psychic powers exploded in a sphere of vibrations that disintegrated the matter around him to pieces. It was less of an involuntary explosion and more of a controlled disruption and Tatsumaki noted that the effects were far more pronounced. Everything within five hundred metres of him had been utterly vaporised. As the dust cleared away King stood on with his arms crossed on the air and Tatsumaki noticed with some interest that he was using Psychic footholds to stand on rather than just lifting himself up. It was an interesting idea that he must use to take advantage of his strength while still being able to move in the sky; a move that she wouldn't be able to take similar advantage of as she lacked comparable strength.

"Have you warmed up," King said looking relaxed as he shook his hands before clenching them into two fists. From her observations there were minor rips and tears in his shirt but no damage to his skin. Tatsumaki nodded in acknowledgement to his query and he promptly bent his knees against the platform of psychic energy and launched towards her. She reached forward with her psychokinesis and attempted grab directly onto him and for the first time in her life she felt herself countering resistance. This one person that she was fighting right now had more weight than any mountain she had previously lifted and in an unprecedented moment of panic she found herself unable to stop him completely. In desperation she summoned a tornado of cutting air with that drilled towards him at high speeds.

The sky exploded as fist met her esper powers and Tatsumaki found herself flying backwards a few dozen metres. Opposite her King was also thrown backwards about by an even further distance distance until he stabilized standing at ninety degrees in the degree in clear defiance of the law of gravity. That was unexpected and quite harrowing and Tatsumaki forced herself to keep her calm look. Never in all her years had had she ever run into an opponent that could resist her psychokinesis. She would have to take an entirely different approach in order to combat King.

Drawing deep into a her well of psychic power she took advantage of the numerous debris that was lying loose and with a slight exertion of her will the ground lifted up before launching itself towards King. The speed that she fired the ammunition was incomparable to her previous attacks and the bits of rubble alighted due to friction giving the appearance of a reverse meteor shower that filled up the sky.

"Amazing," King said with genuine appreciation and she watched as his skin split open revealing dozens of those red threads protruding out of his body like wriggling worms. Like some freakish puppet master he made gestures with his arms that whirled around those strings slicing through rock after rock grinding the landmass down into debris further. Tatsumaki smirked at that before she gathered the finally ground dust and in one motion buried the famed 'World's Strongest Man'. The sand, almost liquid in its consistency, managed to slip through his net and encase him. Tatsumaki could feel psychic feedback as his own energies collided with hers like a dam hastily built to contain a raging flood. Ultimately her floods would sweep away any futile resistance that he could muster and…

"What was that?" she said speaking out loud for the first time in the fight as the cocoon of dust exploded before it was vaporised. King's psychic powers hadn't increased by one iota but suddenly the dust was being repelled by his body. At the same time a chorus of thumping sounds resounded as if a dozen drums were beating simultaneously. A shockwave blew away most of the dust at that moment revealing what could only be King. She had to deliberately associate the being with King because under any other circumstance she would think that she was confronted by a Mysterious Being.

Thick blonde hair sprouted from every scrap of exposed skin and draped down to the ground like a golden robe. From beneath the fur a pair of bloodshot red eyes locked onto Tatsumaki and a single golden-clad clawed hand rose very slowly before it fell with equal alacrity. A sense of danger honed by well-trained instincts warned Tatsumak and she darted to the side a second before a wave of cutting air brushed past her leaving a cut on one of her sleeves before it impacted the ground scarring bottomless trenches into the surface.

"Wolf King Mode," King said and Tatsumaki became rapidly more alert as he closed the distance between her and him in an instant. That crescendo of drumbeats spike as he raised both of his hands into the air as if embracing the sky and then he brought his hands down causing the heavens to become turbulent. Cutting ripples sliced towards her and Tatsumaki retaliated with her psychic force in full quelling the deadly ripples.

For the first time in a long time she felt herself putting in actual effort to defeat a foe.

For the first time she felt her use her full power outside of training.

For the first time in a long time she felt that she may just lose.

A moment too slow in her movement and three long lines were carved into her psychic barrier and she forced herself to refocus the barricade. King's seemingly random movements honed onto her in that lapse of focus and she found herself besieged by a single blow that sent her hurtling to the ground below.

She rapidly controlled her descent and touched down gracefully before she steeled herself sent up three psychic tornadoes of cutting winds that converged into a single explosion of pressure greater than any place on earth. King was not idle when she attacked and his own force met against hers in the middle creating an area of absolute pressure before it exploded causing the sky to turn white for a long moment.

Despite King's impressive power up it came at the cost of the fact that he lost all ability to hide. In fact Tatsumaki could feel the energy pulse through his body in a manner that made his attacks obvious. A star fell to the ground and Tatsumaki thrust upwards at the same time with a wave of psychic power sending river after river of psychic power. Against the tremendous momentum downwards by King Tatsumaki was finally able to go all out and second by second she reinforced her psychic tornados until finally her power overcame that of her opponent.

King hit the ground over a dozen kilometres away and there was a brief moment of pause in which Tatsumaki could feel his Chi start to shift and she knew for certain that all his injuries were healed. It was likely that even if he lost a limb or was chopped in half he would be able to regenerate; maybe his healing factor could even approach that of the Zombie that they recently got on board. Knowing that she felt a bit of weight leave her shoulders as she realised that she could treat King as a monster that she held no restraint for rather than a human without fear of him dying.

That insight gave her a freeing feeling and she snapped to in time to realise that massive forces of energy were hurtling towards her beneath the ground. She leapt backwards immediately raising walls of psychic energy at the same time as a trio of red pillars composed of thousands of wriggling threads exploded through the surface. All three were blocked by the psychic walls and then Tatsumaki felt a brief burst of pain as an object collided with her chest, the psychic shield unable to bleed off all of its momentum. The resulting force chucked her backwards and she was forced to anchor herself on the ground. Her head cleared in time to see a severed hand connected to one of those red strings retract into the dust cloud.

The floodgates opened at this point and Tatsumaki dodged to the side in time to avoid a hand that missed her by a foot. She examined the red string briefly for a second wondering if she should cut it before she immediately broke off that thought and threw up the strongest shield she had created since the fight. Like some form of grappling hook that hand dug into the stone of the ground before the red string retracted pulling her opponent towards her at speeds belying belief. Fist met shield once more and it was a crunching sound as the shield cracked but held and Tatsumaki lashed out with hundreds javelins of psychic energy trying to force him into defence.

Spears of energy that could each obliterate were quashed by the hairs on his body causing light bruises and scratches that nearly instantly healed. Simultaneously King reached past the wall grabbing her psychic shield and slamming her into the already cratered ground. Desperately Tatsumaki reached out at him to do some damage and she felt his neck break before it snapped back into position as soon as she let go. She felt herself slammed down again and she grasped onto the hand and with all her energy stirred the chi in his body trying to disrupt that monstrous life force. That caused him visible discomfort and he released her stumbling backwards and clutching his hands.

Tatsumaki floated upwards simultaneously trying to regain her breath. She pointed at her foe raising the gravity to five hundred times normal and she noticed with some gratification that it caused King to stumble a bit. Instantly she created a fissure in the ground forcing him downwards before slamming shut the earth and forcing the ground to embrace King. Desperately she increased the force of gravity while condensing the ground over and over until all the air was forced out and the rocks went over their compressive strength fracturing and reducing to sand before they remerged due to the omnipresent pressure.

Under most circumstances this would be a certain kill but Tatsumaki would never be able to call it as such. Despite being buried under pressures that would burst a normal human she could only feel Kings life force stay steady and she could feel the hero was in no danger of dying soon. At most she could call this a stalemate and Tatsumaki didn't know if she was disappointed that she didn't win or disappointed that she didn't lose. She was about to release her psychic prison when she felt an ominous shift below the ground.

The closest thing she had ever felt to that menacing adjustment was when she had to stop an active volcano. She would never forget that horrific feeling of heat and pressure building before the inevitable explosion and she consciously flew upwards about a hundred metres before reinforcing her control over the ground.

Nothing helped and in the next second Tatsumaki saw as the ground start to steam as the massive life force that was King reached even greater heights and started to swim upwards through the now molten rock. The speed of ascent was comparatively slow but it was steady as if unaffected by all of Tatsumaki's efforts and in a scant few seconds Tatsumaki saw a pitch-black hand stretch out of the ground and push upwards. King ascended from the ground like a very well-muscled zombie; an exceptionally well-muscled zombie. It appeared that magma was a bit too hot for normal clothes to survive and all his clothes except for a pair of bright red shorts were ashes falling off his body.

His skin was now dark black with veins that glowed a molten red all over his body and there was a persistent steam released from his body that gave him a glossy look. All of the hair on his body from his previous transformation had disappeared, probably burnt off from the heat she could feel even now and two blood red eyes glowed menacingly at her, one adorned with three orange lines. This wasn't a transformation that he had used in public before and Tatsumaki easily understood why. Right now the World's Strongest Man looked like nothing more than the World's Most Terrifying Monster.

Without even speaking he raised his hand and Tatsumaki gasped as she felt the enormity of his energy condense into his closed fist and his psychic energy and chi begin to spin at different frequencies before merging. Dread spiked in her heart and she slammed up her psychic barriers to their maximum leaving nothing in reserve until a wall of psychic energy as tough as diamond and over a dozen metres materialised. Her senses, muffled by the presence of the wall, vaguely picked up his energy begin to spin faster and faster until it became deafening to her senses and it felt as if the entire world was turning and turning. This lurching sensation froze for one moment and Tatsumaki barely heard King speak.

"The World Burns," he said his voice bestial, he still managed to convey the capital letters behind that phrase. And it was an attack deserving of all the capital letters as an instant after she said it she felt her skin to start to dry out and her clothes beginning to dry. Her eyes widened even as she felt them begin to dehydrate and she immediately started using her psychic energy to cool herself down. It was a nifty trick that she had found necessary after the aforementioned volcano incident and it had already saved her many times before and again today.

She was debating whether she should just break the wall and focus entirely on heat prevention when an unstoppable force hit her defences. The world went white and the temperature soared until the air started to boil. She retreated backwards as fast as she could feeling the tidal wave of energy start to burn through her shield as if it was paper. Then she took to the skies racing upwards feeling the heat cool degree by degree. Finally when the temperature dropped to a manageable degree she just hung there panting. Her head ached and heart raced and even the act of holding herself aloft came at a price of her remaining energy.

Her barrier had collapsed some time during the fight and she didn't even notice it in all the panic. Slowly she turned herself downwards and what she saw nearly caused bile to rise in her throat. The ground for an untold amount of miles had turned to lava. Even flying so far up in the sky she couldn't see the end of it. The total area probably was greater than some of the smaller cities. From the ground a black speck appeared growing until it took the form of King still in his monster form.

"I surrender," Tatsumaki said with unwillingness in her voice. While she could probably tough it out and hope for a time limit to this transformation she knew her current limits and she was already approaching them at the end of the last form. At this point it was not possible for her to win. Honestly fighting King had been tiring and it felt less like fighting a specific fighter and more like fighting a horde of experts each with their own specialty. His speed, strength, durability, regeneration, techniques and even his psychic powers were individually enough to place him amongst the top of her associates and when he combined them then it lead to a truly monstrous individual.

"Are you sure," King said sounding an odd mix between happy and disappointed. When she nodded her ascent he seemed to relax before his body was enveloped in a wave of steam that spread outwards. A few seconds later that steam was blown away by psychic power revealing King standing there as per normal, in just short red pants and no shirt. His skin had returned to his normal tan although it was significantly more pink than usual. He looked incredibly tired but there was a strong determination still within his eyes that reaffirmed that Tatsumaki was not the winner.

"You are the Strongest Esper," King said his words solemn like he was conveying a title on her, but she heard the inevitable subtext beneath it 'but you're not stronger than me.' The worst part that she couldn't disagree. The distance between the two of them was by no means insurmountable but the cruel reality was that on this day she was simply the lesser. Not that it would dissuade her she thought as she crossed her arms over her chest. Now more than ever she was motivated to improve her strength. She would find a way to overcome the abilities of King and the next time she would be the victor.

"Keep that seat warm for me," she said brusquely before she turned to leave before freezing as she realised that the door out of this place wasn't visible.

"You're smiling," King said causing Tatsumaki to freeze dead almost raising her hand to her lips subconsciously. "I wonder why that is?"

"I'm not," Tatsumaki denied instantly trying to figure out just what caused her to briefly grin. For a fleeting moment she had felt joyful and she wasn't sure why. "Why would I smile for a loss?" she scoffed.

"I think a smile looks good on you," King said almost mockingly. "You should try to wear it more often."

"And you should try investing in proper clothes instead of walking around half-naked," Tatsumaki retorted instantly before immediately regretting it. "Just open the portal back to your house," she said through gritted teeth just wanting this humiliation to end.

"Okay," King agreed and Tatsumaki watched as another orange door appeared in front of him. "Since you can't teleport I'll give you a lift back," he generously offered before stepping into the portal before she could respond. Tatsumaki gritted her teeth before she wearily drifted up to the orange portal and followed him out of the barren landscape.

xxx

Six months after the fight through the eyes of the Strongest Hero

Being a part of the Hero Association was different then how I expected. I hadn't actually met any of the other heroes yet and no meeting had been called. Occasionally I got calls asking me very politely where I was and if I could perhaps take on this monster that had shown up and I usually acquiesced if they were anywhere nearby, but they were never more than demons. The only major change was that I had to report all my monster kills but I could tell they were deliberately not making a hassle of it for me and so I simply gave a location and a description before leaving the scene, no paperwork required.

There was a reward ceremony that I politely but firmly declined. The sum of my two lifetimes is almost fifty years old and that makes me far too old to worry about those circle-jerks. Instead I would rather jump into one of my instant dungeons and have a life or death fight or just watch something on my laptop. Still I had achieved one of the highest monster kill rates in the Hero Association as well as the highest rescue rate and the reason for that was mostly due to my business partner.

He/she/it hovered next to me invisible to anybody but myself. Its top half was three feet tall and composed of white and black lines that twisted downwards fused into a bowl shaped almost like an upside-down UFO. It sat hunched over and four large white eyes flickered as it gazed upon dozens of holographic images that surrounded its body. It had four thin bone-like arms with a plastic texture and two of those arms tapped down on a u-shaped keyboard that encircled it while one held a pen-taking notes and the last one held a tablet aloft eternally watched by at least one eye.

This was my stand that I had unlocked when I fully mastered my Spin and it was almost useless in direct combat but he had great utility for my job. Its power was quite close to telepathy but much stronger in that he could sense the subconscious thoughts of every creature in a massive radius. In other words every scrap of ill-formed belief, every half-forgotten experience, every skill and piece of engrained knowledge, every lofty achievement and paralysing fear and even the beings deepest sense of self and vision of reality was recorded by my overachieving business partner.

Of course I wouldn't take a scalpel to a person's mind without… Actually I just flat out wouldn't do it. That is a road I'm just not going to go down ever. What it did do was it allowed me to get a basic feeling of any monsters around as their thoughts tended to be on a whole different wave length. Strangely enough it also helped detect humans with monstrous powers as their subconscious also tended to differ greatly from the norm. The second thing I could pick up was if a large amount of humans were terrified, angered or any other strong emotion and I often used it to rescue people. Its third ability was the most powerful but I didn't really like and so seldom used its offensive ability only using its initial activation on unconscious or dead opponents.

was the reason I was here today in the Hottodorai Desert. I had been taking a day off of everything just in time to watch the latest blockbuster that had been receiving great reviews from critics. It sucked, honestly I don't quite know why I even read critics obviously we are on two very separate pages in two very separate books in two different libraries because they evidently did not watch the same fucking movie as me.

I was only mildly irritated but was over exaggerating it in my mind for my own amusement when my companion piped up with an announcement that there were a large but dwindling number of people in apparent distress. That was a distressingly common occurrence in everyday life and I took immediately left the city limits while simultaneously turning on my GPS and calculating the general area of the location; or I would have if I had remembered to charge my phone last night. Blushing slightly I placed the brick back in my pocket and I turned my head towards my stand who was looking at me judgingly before it pulled out its own phone; fused to its hands and showed me a location that sat comfortably in the middle of nowhere.

I picked up the pace striding easily through the hot sand and I was once again thankful that in this life I was practically fireproof and sunburn had never been a problem for me. If I was anything like my last life then I would have been a lobster by now. I briefly contemplated having a seafood day in my restaurant before I stopped briefly a moment before the ground opened and a spider the size of a bus appeared from the collapsing sand beneath me leaping up to try and impale me with fangs the size of my arm.

The spider looked like it was a wolf. That means that it was the disaster class wolf and not an actual wolf. Nor did it look like a Wolf Spider. In fact it looked closer to a Golden Wheel Spider. Its pale golden hue was rather beautiful to see and I took an appreciative look at it as I vaulted over its lunging jaws and swiftly severed its neck. took special notice of that and I saw the floating stand scribble a few notes as it typed out a report while taking pictures of the corpse with the phone that was fused to its hand. Ten seconds later the procedure stopped and it ignored the fallen corpse treating it like nothing but a discarded piece of trash.

Actually it was quite rare to see Mysterious Beings appear in such a remote wilderness. The majority of them tended to appear around cities in their eternal mission to ruin somebody's day; or maybe that was only because I was called to deal with them when they are ruining somebody's day and my perspective was skewed. Regardless of the situation I was pretty close to the area in which the signals of distress originated from and so I activated Supreme Awareness of the Natural World in an attempt to track down the source.

As soon as I extended my senses over the sands I immediately pinged onto the location of the distress and if it wasn't for Gamers Mind I wouldn't have been able to keep my stoic demeanour. Beneath the sands lay an enormous facility stretching almost a mile in width and a couple dozen stories in height composed of steel and concrete. I whistled in appreciation before heading to the a specific spot in the air that was occupied by a nearby cactus and with a flick of my hand a sent a wave of red threads towards the cactus skinning it of its flesh to reveal a vent probably just shy of two feet in diameter and covered with some kind of advanced filter to prevent the sand from getting in.

I ripped the filter off before using The Ultimate Lifeform to shrink my body down to my seven year old self before broadening my cheeks slightly, darkening my hair and slimming down my shoulders a bit more. Annoyingly enough my scars didn't disappear despite the process a testament to the power that caused them. In one movement I tore off the filter and darted down the vent with alacrity crawling through the tiny shaft with inhuman flexibility. As I descended into the bowels of the earth a somewhat familiar ringing hit my ears as the unmistakable sound of an emergency alarm rang out. The alarm only grew louder as I exited the vent dropping into the ground and relocating all my bones again to their proper place.

Flashing red lights illuminated a concrete corridor and one of the metal doors on my right had been crumpled outwards like tinfoil. More alarmingly to me a couple of mangled corpses in body armour decorated the floor. Around them spent ammo cases lay indicating that while they had put up a fight they had not been a match. I idly picked up a revolver of some kind from a pouch attached to a discarded leg before checking the clip, noticing it was still full and hadn't even been used yet. Lastly I gave a careful inspection of the most senior looking corpse. Ignoring the odour of viscera in the air I turned towards the smashed door and walked through it casually. I couldn't detect any humans on this floor but that didn't mean there were no other life forms.

In fact buzzing sounds like the sound of hundreds of flying insects announced the arrival of the same hundreds of flying insects that burst from grates in the floor. They looked like swollen bees but with two pairs of wings and a beetle torso and they immediately inverted their body pointing large needle-like stingers towards me before accelerating at bullet speeds. Unfortunately the danger that they possessed was minimal and I merely stretched out my hand and caught the swarm in a net of psychic power before crushing them and allow them to drop harmlessly to the ground their bodies bursting into an acid that devoured the metal floor.

I stepped over the minor distraction and finally found an elevator that looked to be in some state of working order, although from the looks of it a form of identification was required. When I first got here I had collected information on the corpse for this purpose but I didn't need it right now as I picked up my phone a second before it rang, quickly pushed accept and placed it on my ear.

"Hello, Metal Knight," I said feeling some slight joy at the sucking in of air on the other side of the phone. I seldom used my future sight for day to day matters but I would make an exception in order to troll people who randomly phoned me.

"Hello King," the elderly inventor said. "How did you find out it was me?"

"Your caller ID," I lied. "I assume that you have tracked all of the phones issued by the Hero Association."

"Which means that I know that my caller ID is not located anywhere on this phone," Metal Knight said. "Are you aware where you are?"

"Some form of secret lab," I said. "Seem to specialise in the study or creation of Mysterious Beings. The modus operandi doesn't fit the House of Evolution though."

"Why do you say that?" Metal Knight inquired.

"Please don't try to feel out my intelligence," I said. "Of the two that I've seen so far none had humanoid shapes. In addition the House of Evolution is not so incompetent as to get their entire base overrun with specimens."

"True," Metal Knight said. "I have been aware of them for a while. They are known as the Anti-Mystery Union and they specialise in the study of Mysterious Beings in order to fight against them."

"Who funds them?" I asked not really expecting an answer.

"I am not aware of their ultimate backers," Metal Knight lied, but I didn't bother calling him out on it. Instead I morphed my hand to that of the slain soldier and pressed down on the thumb scanner before morphing my eye and looking into the retinal scanner causing the elevator to let out a ding and slide open to reveal a mostly empty shaft.

"What is your goal here?" I asked as I leapt down into the elevator shaft. "I'm not buying that your goal is to rescue the people below or at least not without some recompense."

"That is correct," the robot summoning nominal hero said. "I want to obtain the fruits of their research."

"It's good to have dreams," I said as I crawled down to the floor below. I reached into the crack between the doors allowing the Life Fibers to slip in and with one swift movement I tore open the elevator doors.

"That's all you are going to say," Metal Knight said as I slipped through the doors and onto the floor below. A shuffling noise caught my attention and I turned to see a broken fleshy human torso started crawling out from around the corner.

"Give me a valid reason to allow you to do so," I said as I walked slowly towards the torso only to stop as I saw more and more flesh, bones and organs start shuffling around the corner. The creature looked like something dredged up from the mind of HP Lovecraft or more accurately now day's one of the really fucked up Dark Souls bosses. I could defeat the thing with just my esper abilities right; I didn't really want to touch it.

"The research could lead to breakthroughs on out studies of monster behaviour which could save lives," Metal Knight said immediately.

"You're treating me like an idiot," I said as I put the phone between my shoulder and ear and moved backwards. This thing of flesh looked as if at least twenty humans had melted together and it moved incredibly slowly. "Testing on monster behaviour wouldn't lead to this. In addition Mysterious Beings differ so greatly in attitude, temperament and goals that any research gained would not be universally applicable or even practical to implement in any situation. Would you like me to construct the narrative or would you like to actually treat me with some sincerity."

"Fine," Metal Knight said after a while as I backed up ignoring the shambling, shuffling, squirming bulk. "They were trying to work out how monsterification works and how to prevent or revert it. They were also trying to create allied Mysterious Beings that were devoted to humanity as soldiers," the last part was said reluctantly but firmly.

"They always do," I said. "Give me five minutes, there appear to be some humans close," my words were spoken as a door flung open and a swart hand frantically gestured for me to get inside the room. With one last look at the shuffling creature creeping slowly towards me I acquiesced and quickly snuck into the door a moment before it slammed shut behind me to be greeted by a shotgun pointed right at my face.

"Who are you," a pale thin glasses wearing redhead with bandages over half his face said as he pointed the gun at me. Despite his attempt at looking brave there was a noticeable shake to his hands which I couldn't help but take advantage of.

"Safety's on," I said and watched as he practically leapt back fumbling over the shotgun in a desperate attempt to switch a button that wasn't there. I didn't even think they made safety on a shotgun. After a long few seconds of him checking he once more redirected the shotgun towards him.

"What the hell do you think you are doing," the man said keeping a distance.

"Easy Egan," the other member of the room said as she came into view having locked and bolted the door behind me. "He's human." She was a woman of dark skin and frizzy hair.

"Then why have I never seen him before," the man said gesturing towards me with the shotgun.

"I'm new," I said giving a wave. "I just arrived at the facility yesterday. Do these types of things really happen a lot? I'm the Doctor."

"Doctor who," he said completing the reference as he eyed me up. "You look very young for a doctor."

"Doctor Tennant," I said lamenting at a world in which nobody would get the reference. "So who let the monsters out?"

"We don't know," the woman said after exchanging a look. "Neither of us worked on the fourth floor. I'm Liz by the way."

"Interesting so all the monsters are kept on the fourth floor and you have never worked on that part," I said. "Have you tried contacting anybody from the outside?"

"The base blocks all outside signals," the man said. "The base should have sent an emergency signal out to the Heads." Surprisingly enough he didn't sound eager about that and I wondered if the so-called Heads would be just as ferocious towards the survivors then the monsters. It didn't make sense to lose good talent but a lot of people didn't operate within the bounds of common sense.

"Well here's a piece of advice about contacting the outside world," I said. "Don't." In one fluid motion I picked up the phone before hitting return call. "They've let monsters run everywhere Chief," I said watching as the look on the faces of my companions morphed to apprehension and even fear. "Yeah we've still got people here. How many? I've only run across two so far. Evacuation comes in at second priority. Got it boss, I'll backup the data and dispose of the experiments."

"I will keep an eye out for incoming forces," Metal Knight said. "You are on the second floor and one below is the third floor where the server is. Just plug the phone into the server and I will have access to the facility. You can focus back on the civilians now."

"Okay, cheers boss," I said as I ended the call. Quite frankly it didn't surprise me that he could hear me even when the phone was closed. It was quite nice to have an ally that was incredibly competent. It allowed me to do stuff without worrying about people being on the wrong page.

"So you're working for the Heads," Liz said nervously. "Do you need our help?"

"Indeed," I replied. "You can just relax and stay safe. Don't let anybody else in until I get back." I walked towards the door, looking through the barred windows and noticing that the monstrous flesh was gone. I waved as I unbolted the door and stepped back into the corridor. I watched out of the corner of my eyes as the door was swiftly shut behind me and I walked around the corner and straight into the dozens of arms of the living flesh. Two seconds later as I walked past the mass of blood and guts on the floor I picked up the phone again and put it against my ear.

"Looks like there was some human experimentation going on," I said. "Still you can tell they weren't as concerned about the final result as the process. So since when did you get interested in the monster experimentation business Metal Knight?"

"I was observing its existence," Metal Knight said. "I am not one of the Heads."

"I have no doubt that your observations included whatever use you could obtain from them," I said. "While I can respect a go-getter attitude into examining future threats there is not one second that I believe that you weren't using them. If you have the influence then you should warn the assault team to stay back."

"I don't," Metal Knight admitted as I walked back to the elevator I had had broken out of. "The Heads are a secret organisation and while I have some influence within the group I am not a major contributor."

"I'll believe you for now," I said as I walked down the walls and tore through the doors of the third floor dropping down onto the floor of the server. "Do you have a map of the floor?"

A second later a beeping sound came from my phone announcing the arrival of a message. I opened up the message and looked into a map that was clearly labelling a path to the server room. Without another word I closed the phone and started walking in the direction required. Before I had even walked twenty metres down the corridor the walls collapsed inwards revealing a pair of massive bulky muscled lions that oozed black pus from every orifice.

They moved at one and I dodged backwards as their claws tore apart the air crushing the ground beneath them. I was starting to see a pattern in the madness and it was not one that I particularly liked. The spider and the swarm of insects were 'complete' and 'natural' Mysterious Beings while the melted humans and these lions were altered twisted monstrosities that came about as a result of the experimentations. Still I hadn't found a single one that was sapient so far. I briefly looked into the mind of the Oozing Lions to confirm but then I saw something that instantly changed my opinion. Like an insidious tentacle a foreign influence slipped into their minds forcing their bodies to act as puppets in order to assault me.

I whistled in appreciation at the situation before stepping forward and throwing forward one Spin infused punch. The air pressure soared before turning into an unstoppable wave that crushed the two Mysterious Beings without any rebuttal. Without any further consideration I stepped past them although was far more active in recording the details of their defeat.

Something was sitting on, in my guess, the fourth floor controlling a good number of the monsters in the facility. I drew a pair of knives that I had saved for this point and as I walked onwards the ground exploded and a dozen Venus Flytraps with human torsos emerged from the tiles and so I pruned them; then came about six pig-like creatures with over a dozen sharp mouths over their boy charged down the corridor and so I butchered them. Cut, slash, skewer, slice, fillet and skin; my hands moved at lightning speeds covering the ground with chunks of meat and blood. My knife skills weren't the best but when it came to fighting against a horde of enemies they were efficient and swift.

It didn't hurt that these beings consisted mostly of tigers and so far I hadn't even seen a single being that would qualify for demon class. I moved forward as hordes of weak enemies stepped in my way and I carved them up without any prejudice, never once slowing until finally I came to the server room. I pushed against the door breaking the lock and stepping into the room filled with monitors and other important looking paraphernalia. A sudden ringing disrupted my thoughts and I picked the phone up to hear an increasingly familiar voice.

"Just plug the phone into a USB drive and accept the transfer and I will be able to access all the files," Metal Knight said.

"You still haven't convinced me to let you have the research," I said. "I believe that if I were to give you this then you would be too tempted to continue the inhuman experimentation."

"And you think that if you hide the research then anything will change," Metal Knight said threateningly.

"Latitude 29 degrees, 31 minutes, 11 seconds south and Longitude 74 degrees, 2 minutes, 33 seconds west," I said with a ferocious grin. "How close am I Metal Knight?"

"How did you get my coordinates?" Metal Knight said his words were no longer as aggressive and there was a hint of serious caution.

"I'm not technologically adverse," I said. "I can trace a signal no matter how many relays you put it through. Whether it's 23 or 1023 I will be able to track you down Metal Knight." The hero paused at that moment and he only spoke again after a long while.

"The Heads?" Metal Knight asked after that time.

"I wouldn't underwrite their life insurance if I was you," I said tellingly with a hint of a grin on my face. "My definition of a monster has always been someone who brings harm to society. Species has never even come into it and there is only one outcome upon a monster meeting me."

"Understood," Metal Knight stated. "Let me withdraw my interests from the group and I will assist you."

"Very generous," I stated somewhat sardonically. "Now let's see what these researchers have been up to." While the computer was locked it wasn't very secure and it took me a scarce few minutes to hack into it. I calmly read over the results of the research and I could feel my face twist into a scowl even through my Gamer's Mind.

"They started off capturing Mysterious Beings and comparing it to likely pre-evolved forms in an attempt to isolate the mutating factor. Then they tried to induce artificial mutation. Then they tried to revert the mutation. Then they tried to do controlled mutation and get a different result," I stated summarising years and years of research in a few sentences.

"That doesn't sound like such a bad chain of thinking," Metal Knight said.

"The largest problem is that they didn't finish a step before they moved onto the next one," I stated with disappointment. "They came across a dozen different examples in hundreds of non-sapient monsters gathered from everywhere they could get their hands on. Then they decided to take those non-mutated monsters and subject them to stimuli to compare the mutated versions. While this was going on they were trying all these experiments to try to revert the monster in possibly the most scattershot approach I've ever seen. With all these rails running independently it's no wonder they got it wrong."

"They didn't start with a firm premise and they didn't properly control the proceedings," Metal Knight said.

"Still I believe there is more to this tale," I said. "There is an observed tendency for the director to aim for larger and grander experiments and trying to have greater and greater control over these experiments. This tendency experienced a marked increase over time since the experiments started."

"Growing megalomania," Metal Knight mused. "Obsessions are often one of the triggers to monsterification."

"I also noticed that a lot of the experiments are still under the control of a mysterious force," I stated. "I would give even odds that it is the director."

"Is the director's office on the fourth floor?" Metal Knight asked.

"Precisely," I said walking to the door to see a hallway filled with those crappy Mysterious Beings. "Not going through there," I said while slipping the phone back into my pocket. While they weren't that strong they were incredibly gross to fight and I had already expended enough concentration on not messing up my shirt. Actually my shirt mainly consisted of Life Fibers at this point otherwise it wouldn't have been able to shrink when I shrunk myself to fit in the grate.

In the end I was just getting lazy of fighting off all these monsters. They weren't even that fun. Most Mysterious beings that I fought would give some backstory and at least have some quirky nature or method of attack. Fighting these just felt like work. Disappointedly I reached down into the floor digging through the steel like sand and burrowing down a level. After a second of two or digging I dropped down into the fourth floor twisting around and landing on my feet in a prison cell.

Shuffling came from behind me and I turned to see a short black-haired child of about twelve to fourteen years scramble backwards from where I just landed. He was wearing those black and white prison pants but he had no shirt on and all four of his limbs were bound with silvery chains.

"Who… are you," the boy said scrambling backwards.

"Your rescuer," I said as I reached towards the chains. He tried to shuffle backwards further but his back was against the walls and he was barely able to move as I tore off the cuffs around his hands revealing angry looking burns. A second later I did the same thing to his feet letting the boy free. "What name do you go by?"

"T-Toby," the boy stammered and I turned ramming my fist into the cell door causing it to shoot outwards. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm doing hero work," I said giving him thumbs up. "Would you like to come with me? I'm going after the director of this institute."

"Uh," the boy hesitated. "I might just wait here." His words were immediately interrupted by the sounds of a rumbling coming in the distance. "Maybe I'll just stick with you."

"Cool," I said as I strolled out of the cell. The rumbling of monsters in the distance was slowly approaching and so I snapped my fingers firing out a spool of red strings that quickly formed into what looked like a laser grid. If anything below demon in rank were to touch a single one of the Life Fibers they would be stabbed through and drained of all their energy. I then turned and headed the opposite way towards the site director's office.

Even if I hadn't already looked at the map it was likely that I would have been able to find the office. I could practically sense the ominousness radiating out from the office ahead of me. It looked like the office in which the Legion of Doom would sit and plan to murder Superman or something. Next to me Toby gulped in apprehension and I gave him a reassuring look. I stopped at the door before I picked up the phone one last time.

"I'll pick up a new phone at the Hero Association later," I said to the unresponsive inventor before I crushed the device into shrapnel. I discarded the twisted and shattered mess behind me as I kicked the door open sending it flying off its hinges and into the floor of the room.

"Welcome foolish guest," a cackling voice greeted me. Sitting behind a massive desk was a wooden marionette with an iron mask that was half black and half white bearing a frozen look of glee on its face. It was dressed in a labcoat that was stained with bright and cheerful colours. To my unartistic eye it looked like a mix between a scientist and a clown and yet it was the first proper Mysterious Being I had seen since I had arrived.

"You must be the inmate running the asylum," I said dryly taking a look at the other occupants of the room. On either side of him were two large goat headed creatures with a human body from the chest down dressed in well-kept rags and carrying massive steel axes. The other crew were a motley fusion of humans and animals; chimeras of the ugliest sloppiest design possible.

"Yup, yup, yup, that correctaroo," the clown scientist said as his fixed mask shifted to show a laughing position. "Before I achieved my enlightenment I was just the head director of this institute and I laboured never realising I was as much a prisoner as the rest of my friends here," he pointed gesturing to the two hulking beasts next to him as his mask morphed to a crying image. "Day-in and day-out checking and checking and doing science to try and control the Mysterious Beings. Failure upon failure led me to the deepest depths of despair and it was there that I came across the truth that I had been so blind as not to see. These monsters are our superiors. They are freer, better versions of us that have abandoned the weakness of conformity and now live unrestricted by the society of the weak." The mask switched to a winking portrait. "After all my work I figured out that I was the one trapped while they, even in chains were unrestricted." He burst out laughing; a deep cackling that reverberated throughout the large office.

"You're mad," Toby said under his breath. But his words were picked up by everybody in the room.

"I wouldn't go with mad," the director said as if chewing over the words. "Unrestricted would be a better word. Chin up Toby, you already has a start on the rest of us. Just abandon your state of mind and allow yourself to go wild. If you don't then you will spend your entire life dancing like a puppet on a string." As he said those words he snapped his fingers causing the chimeric abominations to dance in an awkward shuffle.

"I would give your motivational speech a six out of ten at best," I said chuckling. "That's actually quite the compliment considering I've heard a lot of them. Maybe it speaks to the general lack of control that you Mysterious Beings exhibit but you never seem to be able to keep your words down to a reasonable number."

"Oh, I'm sorry," the clown said placing his hands on his mask in a mock shock expression. "I was so excited to share my realisations that I didn't give you a chance to speak."

"Its fine," I said smiling as I walked up the desk before pulling out a chair and sitting down. "Listening to my opponents motivations is probably the greatest joy I take out of my job. It's always nice to see people taking joy in their work."

"I know right," the monster said leaning forward in the manner of a gossipy housewife. "I don't think I've ever seen a monster that isn't having fun. It's not like these humans with their depression, mortgages and car loans."

"It all comes down to a focus on purpose," I admitted my hypothesis. "Humans are naturally creatures adrift in an uncaring universe trying to find some purpose to keep them afloat but every Mysterious Being that I've met has a purpose that they're normally in the process of trying to fulfil; often rather bombastically."

"Now you're getting it," the scientist-clown-puppet said raising his arms in apparent joy. "So whaddya say? Want to become a Mysterious Being?"

"Nah," I said leaning back into my chair. "I already provide a very important milestone in every monster's story. To be specific I provide the last one. If I wasn't there then who would provide a satisfying ending to their saga."

"I wouldn't call death a satisfying ending," the puppet clown said somewhat darkly.

"Every story ends with a death," I said flippantly with the experience of somebody who really knew what they were talking about. "Just because they might not show it in the epilogue doesn't mean that the characters don't end up in the ground shortly afterwards."

"And what about your companion," the puppet cackled. "Are you also going to put him into the ground?"

"Don't…" Toby said walking forward only to jump backwards as the chimeras shifted towards him.

"Do you know your little buddy is also a monster," the director said.

"A werewolf right," I said watching the two of them fall into silence. "The silver chains gave it away. I'd never met one of them before today. It was quite an experience."

"You knew," the said werewolf said quietly.

"I guessed," I said. "I knew that there were vampires around so there must have been werewolves too. I've kept my eyes open for a while and today it paid off."

"So then what are you going to do," the puppet said leaning forward in interest.

"Are you even asking that," I said, feeling that this was a bit clichéd. "I'm going to rescue him from this facility; I'm a hero remember. I even have a business card."

"And the fact that…" the young werewolf started.

"I'm just going to stop you right there," I said. "A monster is somebody who opposes humanity in some form; generally due to murder, mass destruction or some other method. I don't just kill people because they're born a different species. That's just racist."

"Hahahaha," the puppet laughed and its mouth morphed to a toothy grin. "Are you sure you don't want to become a monster. From what I've seen you're mostly there."

"Nah," I said smiling as we got to the inevitable outcome. The next second I pushed off the desk sliding backwards as an axe cut deeply into the floor. The next second tentacles from those chimeric beasts launched towards me in an attempt to wrap themselves around my body but I simply grabbed onto the tentacles with my two hands and swung the squid-human-gorilla chimera around like a flail that I managed to use to crush two more of the chimeras before the tentacles snapped allowing the bleeding mess to collapse boneless to the floor.

The remaining chimeras swarmed towards me in a futile attempt to lock down my movement as one of the goat headed monsters launched his axe towards me. I immediately countered the axe with one of my knives and with the other I weaved a storm of destruction chopping down half-a-dozen wolf level creatures in a second causing skin to shred and guts to collapse to the floor. With my last cut I stowed the knife before grabbing onto the axe and lifting myself up and onto the shaft of the axe with my now free hand.

The goat-man immediately took one of his hands off of the axe before throwing a punch towards me that I swayed to avoid before leaping forward over the head while reaching back and grasping onto the horns. In the next second the creature went flying towards the puppet director who sent the goat flying into the wall with a flick of its fingers. The other goat didn't even pause as it rushed towards me slashing sideways with the axe. I casually leapt upwards spring boarding off the axe and over its head before throwing a Spin punch towards its head. Its neck snapped before its skull crunched and I landed on the ground again facing against the marionette.

I was just about to step forward when my instincts kicked in and I stepped quickly to the side as a grey furred fist slammed into my previous position. I was momentarily stunned as two metres wolf-man lashed out at me again with dagger-like claws that missed my body by a scant few centimetres.

"I see," I said more to myself than anybody else as I saw his clouded eyes. "I forgot he could control minds." The young werewolf clearly had no form of consciousness remaining and I was about to just go and knock him out when I was forced backwards as a dozen strings lashed the space I was standing with a whip-like crack. The werewolf took advantage of this motion with pinpoint precision launching up like a missile towards me and I stepped off a platform in the air to avoid it while charging towards the director. Surprisingly enough the puppet didn't cower as I approached; instead throwing forward a fist. I met force with force and flesh met wood with a cracking sound. Surprisingly enough his fist didn't shatter with the impact and while I was applying nowhere near my full power it still should have given trouble to any average demon class creature. Discreetly I looked into the beings status and found myself reluctantly impressed.

The Institute Director

Scientist Puppet Master

Species – Monster (Unusual Type)

Health- 3 842 126/4 068 022

Mana – 0/0

STR – 186 145

VIT – 811 300

DEX – 741 778

INT – 984 531

WIS – 71 456

LUK – 5 999

Martial Arts Style: None

That brief moment of recoil caused my momentum to stall and I had to turn backwards blocking a set of canine claws that raked impressively into my skin. I casually looked at the former prisoner's status before I did a double-take almost taking a punch to the face as a consequence.

Toby (Mind Controlled)

The Last Werewolf?

Species – Monster (Natural Type)

Health- 845 314/1 245 347

Mana – 0/0

STR – 154 989

VIT – 556 879

DEX – 787 120

INT – 4 568

WIS – 6 814

LUK – N/A

Martial Arts Style: Brawling

'How shitty must your life be for luck to be non-applicable,' I wondered before I stepped backwards out of range of his claws. I immediately backflipped over a bunch of strings that tried to wrap around me before I slashed them to pieces with my knife, or at least attempted to. Despite sharpening my knife regularly they were just not able to cut through these strings naturally and I resolved to get a sharper knife in future. As a fix right now I summoned Shun Shun Rika around my knives causing them to glow bright orange and slashed down into the mess of strings easily causing them to fall to pieces around me.

Toby never relented in his attacks and I realised with some interest that he was healing surprisingly enough. As impressive as it was supposedly it was a massive pain in the ass to deal with and so I retreated firmly to the ground before dodging his lunge and stabbing Life Fibers into his body. They could operate autonomously in the short term and they did so to great effect burrowing into his body and restraining his muscles. Unless he was ten time stronger he would not be able to get out of that; but dammit if he didn't try. I kept my eye on the werewolf as I walked towards the puppet director who was the cause of all of these problems.

"I can't seem to get into your mind," the puppet director said as he raised his hand in a 'woe is me' gesture. "I guess that my willpower doesn't exceed your own."

"Sometimes I can't even get inside my head," I replied. "It's nothing shameful. Will the werewolf go back to normal once I defeat you?"

"How should I know," the director said as his mask morphed into a laughing face. "I've never been defeated before; but I should guess so." He stood up from his desk and for the first time I realised that he was only five feet tall. "You know you might have converted me earlier to your way of thinking; just a bit. You were right in that every story should end with a death." As he said that he lunged forward and his wooden body expanded to over eight feet high he lashed out with a single devastating punch and I was able to see the joy reflected in his mask. His expression reflected the immense sense of rightness as he carried out his purpose and his peace as to his true nature.

A second later he crumpled to the ground without a head. I stood over him flicking the splinters out of my hand as I reapplied my Power Sealing. I had sunk vast durations of practice lately on properly controlling my energy, being able to release and supress it at a moment's notice. Without proper control it would be fatally dangerous to try and obtain more power. It had always bugged me in some unnamed anime how world destroying lasers could be thrown about with the only collateral being a few destroyed patches of wilderness as if two beams that could destroy the entire solar system could clash and then cancel themselves out as if a magician stole away all the excess energy and thermal blooming didn't exist.

"I will remember you," I said to the corpse of my foe. Next to me was hurriedly taking notes in a burst of motion as it examined the fallen enemy. "How are you doing," I said to the werewolf who had currently ceased struggling and was slowly returning to human form.

"Better," the young boy said sheepishly and I nodded before summoning the Life Fibers back into my body. Actually that reminded me that I needed to go and retrieve the other Life Fibers and then I needed to go and rescue those other two employees. Then I needed to see if I could find any other survivors. After that I would need to go and clear out the rest of the rejects of this facility, and then I would have to fight off the clean-up squads sent by the pricks running this operation in the first place. Then I would have to go and take care of those scumbags. Lastly I would have to get a new phone and have a word with Metal Knight.

I looked towards my werewolf companion noting that while his stats were lower they were still at the rank of a demon and I mulled over an idea that was probably bad. Still most of human society was built on ideas that were probably bad.

"Hey kid," I said turning towards my new employee. "Would you like a job?" I thought about it for a moment before I added as an afterthought. "By the way how's your cooking?"

Brief Omake

The start of the fight from King's perspective

'Can Tatsumaki read minds,' I wondered as I saw the diminutive esper join me on the battlefield. I really didn't want her to ruin my sense of mystery. Besides if she knew that I came from a planet in which this world was fiction it would totally ruin the mood. Since I've arrived here I treated this world seriously taking it as reality and placing all my chips on the table. I have thoroughly gone all in with regards to the society and I didn't want to ruin my immersion.

Thus I really didn't want the esper peering into my brain if I could help it. Thankfully I had thought of one sure fire way to figure out if she could read minds, but this could go pretty poorly if that was the case.

'There is no evidence I can find that indicates that Tatsumaki wears anything beneath her dress,' I thought loudly and clearly and immediately held my breath. Long seconds passed with no reaction on her face before I managed to breathe again normally. Even compared to a few minutes later when I was being buried beneath a mountain that was still the most intense part of the fight.