The Five Evolution

『"No big deal. Just a tiny, imperceptible, barely existing hairline fracture."』

The Rift hadn’t even finished widening, but the Boots was already gone.

"Huh?" Hiro blinked. "...Did he just—"

BOOM!

The sonic boom reached them a heartbeat later as the air itself exploded. Leaves tore free from the trees below and a violent shockwave swept across the valley.

Before anyone could even process what had happened, Boots the first stood several hundred metres away, one hand carrying an enormous severed arm over his shoulder.

The limb, which was nearly the size of a cottage in width, was tossed aside, then he casually rolled his shoulder as though he’d merely taken a brisk walk.

Raj pointed immediately. "See?!" He looked at Hiro. "Why can’t you be more like him?"

Hiro looked between Raj and the Boots. "You know what?" He folded his arms and exhaled. "...Yeah, I got nothing."

The creature didn’t roar. It merely looked down at the missing arm. Then a writhing mass twisted and grew out before their eyes. Within seconds, the sixth arm had grown back.

Amara felt the hairs on her neck stand. Only now did she truly understand why the villagers had fled without hesitation.

This was going to be the sort of battle that required the First Five to cut loose without the worry of any collateral damage.

The Breastplate cracked her neck once, a grin spreading across her face. "Sweet." She slammed both fists together, and emerald light erupted around her body.

The instant the light enveloped her completely, she began to grow. Past the trees, past the hills, until she towered over the forest itself.

Raj’s jaw slowly dropped. "Holy—"

Hiro reached over without even looking and pushed his jaw shut. "Why can’t you be more like her?" He pointed with a satisfied smile on his face.

The giant lady planted one foot to take a stance, shattering the ground beneath her. Then she drove an uppercut beneath the creature’s jaw.

The impact launched the abomination clear across the valley. Entire forests flattened beneath its body before it finally crashed through a mountain ridge.

"..."

"..."

Nobody watching could speak.

Before the creature had even finished skidding to a halt, the Sword was already there.

He simply drew the blade from its sheathe, and a crescent of white pressure raced across the valley.

The mountain behind the creature split cleanly in half.

A heartbeat later...

One of the creature’s legs slid away from the rest of its body. Only then did the cut catch up.

Flat on its back, the Malice drove all six fisted hands into the earth, and the valley exploded as water tore upward in a single logic-defying wall.

It stretched so far that Amara couldn’t see where it began or where it ended, swallowing the horizon from east to west.

It rose higher and higher, until it seemed to scrape the heavens themselves.

"This takes natural disasters to a whole new level..." Hiro whispered.

The sword turned toward the Boots.

The Boots met his gaze with an understanding nod, then he disappeared. The familiar sonic boom arriving an instant later.

With each back and forth movement across the valley, the evacuated villagers were suddenly... farther away. Much farther.

The Boots had enveloped each person he carried with a friction aura to ensure they could be transported safely.

He scooped up three... sometimes four people at once before vanishing again, carrying them farther from the battlefield with every burst of speed.

Meanwhile, the Shield stepped forward and planted her feet.

The Breastplate had already shrunk back to human size and hurried to her side while the Sword joined them without taking his eyes off the approaching wall of water.

She raised her enormous tower shield over them like a canopy and braced for impact.

BOOOOOM!!

The impact shook the valley, and the ground beneath her feet split apart in jagged fractures as she stood her ground.

Ethan observed the creature responsible for the calamity. "If the Institute existed in this era..." he murmured. "That would probably be classified as a Rook-Class Malice."

Raj, for reasons known only to himself, frowned. "Is it weird that we understand what they’re saying?"

Everyone looked at him, Hiro most especially.

"Out of literally everything we’ve witnessed today..." Hiro gestured toward the battlefield. "...you’ve decided the weird part is understanding prehistoric people?"

Raj shrugged and looked at the Book, expecting an answer.

"Meh." The Book floated past them with an almost bored flutter of its pages. "Subtitles."

No one reacted. The Book had always spontaneously said crazy stuff.

Instead, they watched as the Malice regained its bearings while the Five weathered the tsunami.

One of its legs was still gone, simply unable to regenerate. Yet, it balanced effortlessly on the remaining limb and stretched one of its six hands toward them.

Dark energy spiraled into its palm, distorting the air as the ground beneath its feet began lifting in chunks before crumbling back into dust.

Amara felt every instinct in her body scream as she murmured, "Rook-Class..."

Suddenly, a deafening roar split the valley as an enormous Tyrannosaurus burst from the forest behind the Malice.

Nearly eighty feet from snout to tail, the ancient predator thundered across the landscape with astonishing speed before slamming shoulder-first into the abomination.

The impact twisted the Malice’s aim just as the beam fired. Instead of striking its intended target, the blast carved across the valley, obliterating the forest.

The earth peeled apart beneath the beam as mountains cracked in what felt like an earthquake powerful enough to split apart Pangaea.

The valley floor dropped hundreds of feet, and far beyond the horizon, the land continued breaking apart in a chain reaction that refused to stop.

Hiro stared and swallowed.

The Tyrannosaurus barely had time to roar again. The Malice casually turned, and without even looking, it backhanded the prehistoric titan.

"Hehehehe..." Sophia chuckled. "You don’t see that everyday."

The dinosaur disappeared into the distance before crashing through an entire mountain range several miles away.

Silence followed.

Then the Malice slowly looked back toward the Five and its hand rose once more as brown swirling energy gathered in its palm.

The Sword was already moving. He sprinted across the shattered landscape, weaving through ravines the previous blast had created. "We can’t let it fire off that thing again."

"I hear you!" the Breastplate shouted as she drove a fist into the fractured earth.

She generated a counter force that rippled outward beneath the surface and stopped the earthquake completely. "But it’s charging another one!" she yelled out.

The Sword looked up at the swirling mass of energy that had reached its limit. When the beam fired, he stepped directly into its path and swung.

Angel’s Bane connected with the beam and it bent as he deflected it toward the Shield. "Coming your way, Eida!"

Eida’s colossal shield met the beam head-on in a thunderous clash that enveloped the entire valley in blinding white light.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then the face of Eida’s shield began to glow. The beam wasn’t merely being blocked. It was being absorbed.

Ethan’s eyes narrowed.

The glow intensified, becoming brighter and brighter. And as the light continued climbing, the energy was being amplified, doubling it... tripling it...

The Shield smiled. "My turn."

The center of her shield blasted outward, and a pillar of energy vastly larger than the one she’d received detonated across the valley, racing toward the Malice with terrifying speed.

The creature reacted instantly. Its back split open, and great black wings unfurled as it leapt skyward.

"I-I got it!" The Helmet bearer stepped forward. Her hands lit up with golden light and the Malice stopped mid-flight.

Its entire body trembled violently as an invisible force seized every inch of it. The monster strained. Its wings beat desperately, but the golden glow surrounding its body only intensified.

"Now!" she cried.

The amplified beam tore through the Malice. And for one endless second, the world was completely illuminated.

When the brilliance finally faded, there was almost nothing left. Only fragments of black writhing flesh drifting away like ash.

The Boots returned at that exact moment, skidding to a stop. "Everyone’s clear!"

The Breastplate laughed. "We actually did it!"

Without warning, the Boots threw both arms around her before planting a kiss on her lips. The giant woman pulled him closer and deepened the kiss.

Raj slowly looked at Hiro and Hiro slowly looked back at Raj. Neither of them spoke. Then they each took one synchronized step away from the other.

Amara covered her mouth."Okay. I did not see that coming."

Back with the Five, Eida laughed softly before walking over to the Helmet bearer. She tapped her lightly on the shoulder. "Excellent job, Sand."

The Helmet bearer, Sand, lowered her head immediately. "I-I..." Her fingers fidgeted together. "...It—it was nothing."

Then—

Something black shot out from the drifting remains of the Malice.

A tail.

Nobody saw it until it was already there.

SCHLK!

It burst straight through Eida’s torso and her smile vanished as blood spilled from her lips. In that moment, it felt like time had stopped.

The Sword’s eyes widened. "...No."

The tail withdrew and Eida collapsed.

"No..." The Sword caught her before she hit the ground. "NO!!"

The fading remains of the Malice looked almost satisfied. Its broken face twisted into one final grin. Then it dissolved into nothing.

***

Amara didn’t realize she had moved until she felt Ethan’s hand beneath hers. Her fingers locked around his instinctively and she squeezed hard.

Ethan said nothing. His expression never changed. Only his thumb slowly brushed across the back of her hand.

Then the Book closed. "We’re done here."

The battlefield dissolved as light became white. Suddenly, they found themselves outside of everything. A place the Book simply referred to as the Outside of the Outside.

Before them stood El’s Cage. Absolute, unyielding, eternal, and inescapable.

It had endured since before Creation itself.

Then...

A crack appeared.