Abomination

"Geez. I know I look like a child, but you can't just send a bunch of B-listers to kill me off."

Pueris' ironically childish voice called out through the soliciting winds of London.

But why am I even here? I'm not even in the main fight?

"At least I know for a fact those guys didn't kill off the rest of the group. They sent one S-Rank and 11 rookies? Such a joke."

His figure waded through a small collection of 12 shriveled-up bodies of various sizes, genders, and color schemes.

The faces of Pueris' victims were those of extremely old men and women and even a dried blue fish-man. The slightly more terrifying side of Pueris had been revealed. The reason Pueris had such a high rank was also due to the offensive side of his time manipulation.

Time manipulation on a human being could make them far older or younger. All it needed was the smallest of contact.

For Pueris, who could slow his enemies down, the B-listers sent to him were a walk in the park. They had little control over their own minimal energy, thus they had no way to break free from his weakened time field.

One touch and their life flashed before their eyes.

Ironically, literally.

Pueris turned around in a flutter before resting his back upon a metal mound. They hadn't even warmed him up as he found his arms shivering due to the light grey layers he was wearing. London was still being doused by a golden haze, slightly healing the derelict environment that had been terraformed overnight.

As he attempted to rest, a new helicopter flew by, and a singular hero jumped out from 300 feet above. As they landed, they announced themselves as all good heroes did.

"The Symbol of Hope has arrived!" Their figure slowly became apparent through a smokescreen of dust.

It was Heila, the S-Rank Hero who used hope to overpower any situation, no matter how hopeless. It seemed they had brought their own camera crew, who encircled the two from far away. Realizing he had no escape, and even if he beat a hundred heroes, a hundred more would come, Pueris reached into his pockets and injected himself with the Super-Serum. It was a needle that granted immense power at the cost of almost crippling oneself. It only gave him one minute of power-boosting. He wouldn't dare use it against Justice 7, as one minute wouldn't amount to much versus that monster, and when its backlash kicked in, he would be defenseless.

But here, in this situation, he felt confidence in his use of the Serum.

Heila began to speak out, completely ignorant of the needle slowly making its way into Pueris' skin.

Her glossy brown hair slowly unraveled in the wind, her adored face was pattered up for her fans, her outfit was cutesy as marketing required, but her powers were real, and Pueris felt a little fear from the outgoing lady.

"I am thankful to my allies for wearing down this villain! Although we share the same rank, I was slightly worried as there wasn't much hope around today. Luckily, he has no energy, and with most of the major villains down, there is lots of hope returning to the world."

"I will take him down gracefully. Are you ready, chat?"

The 20 camera crew members she had employed all desperately sprinted around, searching for the best angle. Meanwhile, her chat was flooded with new messages as another POV of the London disaster appeared online.

Reast_Jame: FINALLY FINISH THE VILLAINS

Kittenkrunch2: BURGEANCE

Katevol: Where is Reta? Where is Justice 7?

Busffs: This guy is cooked, no way he has energy now

Thirty messages a second passed through. Feeling the hope, Heila let out a squeal.

"Ahh. I can feel all of your hope, guys! Keep it coming. Camera crew, you guys are here with me, right? Send me your hope!"

She hugged herself tightly, and soon golden rays began to pour in. It was the essence of hope. The way Heila's powers worked was that when hope was generated in her vicinity, she could absorb it and store it. She could then release it later by empowering herself or releasing hope blasts.

"This one is for all of London!" She cupped her hands before unleashing a ray of hope so bright that it seemed to darken the sky.

Pueris dropped the needle, and before it could even hit the ground, he stood behind her in an instant. He reached his hand out, but her reaction speed was inhuman. Her neck snapped back, and they locked eyes. She instantly reabsorbed her ray of hope, and her body lit up like a human torch. She then released it all in a wide, blinding explosion.

The villain, Pueris, blinked in and out. Time bent to his will, and only he could move in the time field he controlled. When the time field deactivated, her explosion of hope had been wasted. He placed his hand on her nape, and soon the soft, model-like skin shriveled like grapes turning into raisins.

All the energy he burnt felt meaningless, this was the effects of the super-serum. For one minute, his energy merged with the world's, granting him an infinite amount, yet the drawbacks would be that his system would collapse at the end and his energy would plummet for several days.

Pueris had assumed it would end there, but she let out another explosion of hope. His chrono-eye barely caught on, and he blinked out instantaneously. She channeled once more, and 20 rays of light pulsed into her, each coming from the nearby hope sources in her surroundings. The aging on her nape that had slowly spread to her face instantly reversed, and she seemed to become even younger than before.

A gulp was all that Pueris could produce. He wasn't aware that her hope was this powerful—to the extent that it could reverse the effects of his time control. His veins pulsed, and they had all become violet-tinged. The super-serum would wear off; he had already spent 20 seconds messing around.

"You are strong, Pueris. You almost killed me in one attack. Luckily, I have the hope of all my fans. So, as always, hope must prevail!" Heila channeled in more hope through her camera crew, and soon she began glowing vibrantly like a firefly. She had become truly superhuman. Her new form made her faster than perhaps even Reta. A gleaming spherical barrier surrounded her, Pueris could tell it was of an extremely high quality, it's energy value must've been exhausting but in turn it was seemingly indesctructibe.

Pueris knew it would be foolish to go after her here, so he merely took out the sources of her power. The twenty nearby humans recording the two's fight, they were granting her a constant stream of energy through their hope alone, thus granting her such a powerful form.

Pueris' figure became a blink as time slowed to a tick and everything in his time-field became suscept to his doings.

One by one, stream by stream, the cameras went dark, leaving viewers in confusion and corpses on the ground. In one second, 20 died. Heila, who was on the high of her power surge, suddenly lost all her speed. She looked around and saw 20 corpses. Pueris had only flicked the back of their heads, but his time control had sent them each to the afterlife in such a swift manner that the twentieth man did not notice the death of the first. Her barrier slowly deteroriated alongside the grin that had been stuck to her face since her arrival.

Cuhdrel: EVERY CHANNEL IS DOWN WTF

Bateov: My internet is down what's going on

Aspa26X: Stream cut out?

Rage spiked through her. Tears ran down as she stared at the monster who had somehow instantly killed her 20 camera crew members. They were her employees. They had been with her since the start, since her father had rented them out. She felt like she had bonded with each one and that they were the reason she had gotten so far, and now they were all motionless and lifeless—just like the rest of London.

"What's wrong with you? They weren't even heroes! They were just-. Ah- I'm so pissed. I'm going to have to kill you now."

"Forgive me guys! I'm going to have to grant you peace in vengeance..."

Recklessly, all her stored hope was output into one attack. Her body lit up and the nearby surroundings were suddenly blasted by her aura of light, shadows sprawled far away and her new-found power caused the ground to shake and wince.

It was an attack so fast and thoughtless that even in Pueris' Chrono-Eye, it seemed unreactable. Pueris felt the super-serum pierce through his veins and solidify his plan. He blinked backward, but her speed was so unfathomable that she almost caught him, even with herself being slowed immensely under his strongest time field. The two merely locked eyes, and Pueris tilted his head in curiosity.

The power she had stored inside herself was released in a punch that sent a shockwave out that destroyed all the metal mounds in it's path, if Pueris hadn't just barely blinked out he might've been in trouble. She had accidently offloaded years of stored hope into one attack, and the carnage that spread out 500 meters from the break-off of her punch was proof of that. There now lay a huge tunnel through the landfill and wreckage that had become London, caused by the shockwave of her punch alone.