Thunotun
The city rises north of London. A hundred kilometres by rail, less than an hour by flight. It was like a living dream sculpted in stones, glass and metals, strange shapes they were. The low chalk hills of Hertfordshire and the mist bound river plants that led towards the north sea, Thunoton laid between them. It spread outward in a near–circular sprawl almost a thousand kilometers wide, an unbridled municipal land of all manner of shapes and colours. The air carried that familiar cool, damp breath as southern England — silver light, and that steady northern wind and rain that left every balcony dangerously wet.
The city's skyline was with short, ornate spireworks and curved walls, a land of Art Nouveau marvels that seem to breathe rather than stand still. Every archway seemed like an art piece themselves. Like they would be a landmark anywhere else. But in Thunotun, you'd see hundreds more. Every balustrade was like a stair case in an alien ship that led to a fairy tale of building meshes and cobblestone promenade. As if the city were caught mid-gesture — restless.
And when he came to Thunotun. He said:
" I hate this place ".
For, There's this sound, the sound of steady rain drops bouncing off the windows would keep a man sad. The zephyr bellowed almost enraged yet calm at the same time, it would cause the large windows to rattle aggressively. Each time they shook, a cold wind crept in through crevices of steel and concrete right into the apartment.
It was a sweet defect in the windows that Theodore Vaughn Gunes appreciated, both in sleep and consciousness.
Each time the windows creaked and it got cold inside he was forced to seek warmth in his blanket, it only served to deepen his slumber further.
The man sleeping on the white sheets: his bare pale back faced the air while his stomach and chest are pressed deep into the bed, sunken in a repose. His weight caused a heavy depression in the white mattress.
His disheveled long hair spreads out like a spider's web. It is a light brown colour and it's texture is like a wave. Each strand is soft and curled and wild.
He is a large man. His back is wide with flabs of fat as well as muscle.
Yet we cannot see his face.
Heroes possess more muscle mass than regular people.
Even though, Heroes still need to keep themselves in tip top condition through intense physical activity and painful training. Otherwise they end up like Theodore.
Certainly, Theodore does not do any such intensive training which resulted in his large body being more of fat than muscle.
The end result was the man on the white sheets. A dad bod.
The cursed alarm activates. The sound of the bells contrasts with the sounds of the rain.
The time is 6:00 am. That's when he set it.
Superheroes have to wake up early.
Crime and Fiends had a habit of popping up when you least expect them to. So you should be ready.
When hundreds of people have been killed no one's going to listen to," I over slept. I'm sorry ".
But Theo. Even if he was awake, nothing would change. Maybe he would even hold back the real heroes.
" You're not helping ", they'd say.
" Focus on evacuating the civilians ", they'd say.
" What are you doing? Get out of here ", they'd say.
'Bunch of self worshiping Jerks', that's what he thought of most superheroes. But they were right. Whether he got out and about or wallowed in his bed till the night came. It wouldn't change anything. Not a thing. He didn't have the power to save anyone from a true threat. From a fiend.
His Arcane specialised in regeneration. Theodore's Arcane had no talent so Theodore himself had no true dominion.
His identity was nonexistent. And his willpower, the absolute low. What could he do against a monstrous genociding beast when he would struggle to defeat a mere 40 grown men.
But.
But—his regeneration was at the level of captains and sentinels. It was automatic and though it had a great flaw, it is the only reason he was still alive.
You could say he couldn't be killed by physical means. He'd just regenerate torn limbs, a head or a whole lower body. And verily, that great flaw was still there.
But Theodore was not truly immortal, for god said Oh, you'll regenerate, you can't be killed easily and you can't get sick but you're still going to die of age eventually.
What bull shit.
The only plus side to being unkillable is the part where Theo drinks his life away and still not completely drink his life away.
He can get high as many times as he wants and not worry about cancer. That's the only good thing about this cursed superpower. If you could even call it a superpower.
And yet, Theodore never took drugs. He was just a hopeless drifter forced to live an unpleasant life. So pathetic he couldn't even enjoy the only positive he himself acknowledged of his powers. What a scared weakling he was.
"Huuuh", did he let out a weak groan as he realised he had to get up. Get up and walk the spiral. The most grim hopeless spiral that is his life.
He placed his hands at the side of his body then raised himself, sitting up. Slowly emerging from the blankets like the hung over human abomination that he was.
Almost slumping down back to the bed. His limbs were heavy and he was infected with a hollow exhaustion.
He had no idea how the prior night unfolded, and not in the ' He finds a girl asleep next to him ' way.
That never happens.
He can't even remember the last time he was interested in stuff like that. You could even tell, the other side of his bed was as cold as fuck.
He'd given up on romance a long time ago. A sad fact considering he was just 23. But_one thing he was used to was sad facts.
The only thing he loved that ever loved him back was his beer, whisky and wine. Whatever made him forget about reality. Anything other than that was just...bleak.
He basically emptied a bar he thinks back, cause that's how it always goes when he's this hung over.
And most probably his wallets also. Wine in Thunotun was never cheap. But it had a strong taste, he'd give them that at least.
Across his bed is a brown oak wood counter with what, you could count like 10 empty bottles there. Heavy drinking didn't get heavier than this.
His room is a damp space with large windows to the left where he gets a nice view of the aristocratic wine heads, the world calls civilians. 'god, I hate Thunoton'.
It's disgusting art and over civilised artistic dwellers made him sick. Always looking at him as if their gazes said,' be refined. Grab your life by the reigns'. When he didn't ask.
People and Theo never mixed. The worst thing was that there were billions of them. And they were everywhere. People were everywhere.
" Aaaagh "
He clings to his forehead. There's a sting at his temples, like a long thick rusted needle was wedged into his ear opening and left there. His brain tries to recall hopelessly forgotten memories.
Shit. Having a hangover sucks. His mother did always say drinking is enjoy now and wish you hadn't later. Advising a son you'd eventually disown. Well it was good advice.
Theo moves to the side of his white sheet bed. His muscles are weak enough to lose an arm wrestling match with an old lady. He looks to the windows and then rubs his eyes.
His long strands of hair ( bangs ) block our view. But one thing's clear.
He has very very blue eyes. They almost looked beastial.
He pulls himself up to his feet. They're so weak he can feel them shake. Kinda like being crippled. To the right of his room are five doors and at the other side of each of them is a hall.
Real weird home. Not bad, compared to the even weirder apartment buildings across the streets.
Each hall leads to every other part of the apartment.
He can feel each hair of his grey rug under his tender feet. Each step sends a pulsating jolt through him, reviving his lost strength in his legs.
Hey I'm no model but at least I have beautiful feet.
And he was right. His feet were beautiful. They were long and large but weirdly slender.
He had a foot fetish. A narcissistic foot fetish.
Theo's room was a cess pool of stinky clothes, emptied beer bottles, fashion magazines and half eaten pizzas.
The best thing about it is his large TV and his pc.
He takes off his pajamas and walks through his hallway half naked. He's walking slowly while putting his hands on the wall so he doesn't fall.
His long brown hair is very messy. The bedroom effect was weakening and now they were getting spread out around his wide neck.
He washes his face or at least does something close and puts his toothpaste on his...,
Wait where is it. Ah there.
He grabs his toothbrush and applies the paste on it. He holds the paste to his mouth and presses hard.
Then he just brushes away till it all dissolves and turns white.
When he's done he dips his hand in the cold water and splashes his face.
He holds the sink staring at his reflection in the mirror.
His eyes are baggy, he hasn't shaved, he's probably going to get mortally injured today, maybe twice. Enduring all that pain for 5000 dollars a month. He's currently posted in Thunotun but he works under one of the worst superhero cooperations in America stationed in Miami.
And everyday they get closer to laying him off.
Why did he even become a superhero in the first place.
All because of his family name? Maybe that was an excuse.
They disowned him, he wasn't required by anyone to stay a superhero. He was smart so why is he still doing this, He had a degree in Quantitative Economics. He could get a job. Any other job. It wasn't just to spite his family was it....to prove he was worth_keeping. Even though he was so weak. 'Surely I'm not that pathetic'......'surely'.
10 years, a third of his life thrown away into this and for what.
" How the fuck did I get he_
BOOM.
A violent BURST of red arcane flames.
Its eruption blows the entire top side of the skyscraper.
Happened faster than any body could react. The explosion was loud and violent. A cascade of flames turning metal and concrete to molten.
The sound was defining. Not deafening but defining. Defining the chaos that was about to ensue. The fire rapidly surged. And it caused large smoke fumes that could be seen if only Theodore wasn't in the burning building.
Within minutes the smoke rose high and could be spotted from miles. The screams of the wine heads as Theodore called them rang out in fear.
In the blink of an eye all of Theo's apartment was gone and so was his upper body. An eyeball on the floor rolls down concrete dust to see. Theo could still operate lost parts of his body for at most 2 seconds.
Thank god his room wasn't a floor higher. Surely he'd be but a mesh of blood.
His whole apartment was reduced to debris and dust so easily. And he really likes this apartment.
He had lost half his upper body. When's the last time that happened. Usually he was just cut in half. Ohhh this was going to hurt.
That fleshy grotesque sound began.
Slowly he regenerated from under the rubble.
Veins pulling out of and into each other, his bone marrow
growing, his muscles reappearing, tendons clinging, arteries being made. His blood forming pools, slapping against his raw flesh to enter into the arteries.
The Skelton forms first and then the nerves and arteries cling, the muscle grows itself on the nerves. The body makes adjustments as it regenerates ( sometimes it doesn't get it on the first try ).
The hair forms just as it was before being disintegrated and then his eyeballs are usually the last thing to form. But the nerve and tendons were always the most painful part.
He pushed the rubble from his top and the first thought that came to his mind was to scream. Ah, this was the defect he so detested.
Even though Theodore regenerates he still feels all the pain of losing half his upper body. If you decapitate him it would take a few seconds or even less for his head to come back but it'll come back screaming because Theo feels the pain of being decapitated for about an hour. It goes on for a week but it's not that intense anymore.
The shitty part is sleeping on a pillow or having a kid tap your neck.
He holds onto his mouth, he hopes to stop himself from screaming. Whatever caused this was close by. He'd never seen any Fiend capable of causing this much destruction. Half an apartment tower blown away in seconds.
Dear god he has a long way to go. Who could actually fight these things.
The tears flow and there's just nothing he can do but hide and not scream. The pain is so severe he's biting deep into his hand. Regenerating and biting harder to the bone.
A counter strategy he developed to hide his screaming.
But at this moment, It was barely working.
Whatever monster hit this building. To cause this amount of damage, It had to be a Behemoth or higher. And he couldn't stand a chance against a wraith class last week.
Then he heard it. Growling that had an echo. A voice that was so primal and sinister he could lose his mind and drift into insanity any second.
The voice grew louder and louder. A roaring bent on mayhem as it was getting closer and closer. Now the only smart thing to do was run.
Run and run quickly. Theo scurried to the rubble that used to be his bedroom and hid there behind a large stone wall.
He tried to be as quiet as he could.
Even if it couldn't kill him. People don't realise how much it hurts to be killed cause they die. They don't endure fatal injuries again and again and again and again.
The fear of knowing and feeling your body experience life ending injuries over and over and over, that's something he has never gotten used to.
And he's been a superhero for so long. So so long. He doesn't deserve this. He doesn't deserve anything good and he won't hope and wait for it to come his way.
So why does it always have to be so bad? Why does his life have to be so unfortunate? What did he do to deserve all this...,all this....Pain?
The growl grew ever louder at the passing seconds. Footsteps hitting the concrete in tandem with the ashen bellows. And each frantic effort to stifle his gasps only drew more ash and smoke into his sinuses.
A harsh acrid stench hung thick around Theodore, biting at his senses and settling bitterly at the back of his throat. At that moment he felt very thirsty.
Now he needed to find a way to esca_
His sharp ears picked up the sounds of broken concrete, cracking and giving way to heavy beastly steps. And those steps were getting louder.
Theo didn't know if he was just freaking out but he could swear that thing was looking for him, following him. He did run and he was sure it didn't hear him. Maybe smell. He hadn't showered after all. This was just really unfortunate.
The steps stopped. Sensing it's prey and preparing to attack. Circling or maybe teasing. Torment. Surely his hiding place had been found out.
His breathing grew desperate, his heart on the verge of leaping out of his chest. They were long deep frantic beats.
What is this thing?
He had to know what it looked like. Even just a peak. To defeat an enemy one has to know the enemy.
Not knowing what was looking to kill him seemed to make it worse.
He leaned to the side of the wall, one of his blue eyes moving forward from behind the rock and saw the creature in a 4000 full on pixel view.
Why did he bullshit himself. It's way worse now.
" Why god, why did you create these things ". Fiends. Yes that was the question.
It was like a Fiend on steroids. Its muscles, they looked like they wouldn't budge if hit by a homing missile or a torpedo. At least 7 feet tall. Blue glowing horns and eyes. Muscles big and overlapping over each other in ways they definitely shouldn't. Dark reptilian scales covered its entire body from its crown down to its ugly nails, each scale maybe three inches long.
It had large white claws maybe 11,13 inches. A swallow laid lodged in his throat, would erupt as a mad scream before he forced it down sweating.
The thought of getting flayed and gutted by those white claws_the thought of it spread out in his head. Like a day dream, you couldn't help it.
A bisoms neck.
Its spine grew out as spikes from its back and ran all through to its tail. A tail much longer than itself.
What is this, godzilla's son?
The air around it was heavy and seemed to be distorted. Warped in a way by Archaic energy
So this is what a titan class looked like up close. It's the second he's ever seen.
The first he'd,?. He remembers seeing a glimpse of the 100 metre long dragon that attacked new York just before it died. If he had to guess this one was much stronger.
This shit, this fucking sadistic joke that was his life. It's like every so often life was trying to deliver a dark humour punch line at his expense.
You'll live but it is going to hurt and you are going to shit your pants.
Theo was this close, this close to a no. 2.
But the only thing in him was fear. Sickening fear.
The fiend turned to the haggard breathing
Theo directly made eye contact with it. Terrible, terrible glowing blue eyes. Reminded him of the eyes of his father.
He hid behind the rubble. Covering his mouth trying to reduce the sound of his tears and panic but he knew very well what was coming. This Fiend heard him long ago.
The sound of the beast footsteps began. Heavy footsteps that were quickly growing louder. So it was running.
" I am so fuc_
It's roar was the last thing Theo heard as it punched him and a reality shattering explosion erupted. Destroying almost
all of whatever remained in the whole building. Theo was reduced to a_
Yeah whatever you could call that.
Remnants was the word I believe.
Yes Theo was now just Remnants
There were pieces of his ribs, spine and a leg. Half of a leg
Like the first explosion but this one was a direct hit. The force of the blow sent Theo flying straight into the Thunotun skyscraper across.
The shock waves broke all the glass windows of the second building before he even crashed into it.
Hitting the floor and bouncing off the ceiling in line debris. Stopping about 20 metres away from the broken glass which he entered through.
His leg was on a car wind shield, and his head was now a mesh of blood and brain cells.
His body regenerated again just as fast but this time he was butt naked. His pants and shirt were burned to ash and something it burned into his skin
He screamed very loudly. Felt like his whole body was ripped to shreds.
No.
It WAS ripped to shreds.
He started crying, wailing in pain even after he was fully regenerated and then held his mouth again but he couldn't stop. It's just so painful to feel pain that you can't see.
" So pathetic ", he said panting and shaking with pain.
When the pain subsided.
( Scratch that )
When it was mild enough that he could walk, Theo took a big breath. He didn't know why the titan fiend wanted to kill him.
This wasn't the first time a Fiend took interest in killing him. But not a Titan and not with this much terrifying determination.
Whatever this things deal was with him, It hated him like it was personal. It was a goal, like he needed to die.
Heh good luck with that. It can make him experience hell on earth but it can't actually send him to hell.
Theo got up from the white office floor—now red with his own blood, naked. He started removing the shards of glass stabbing into his back and torso. A slow regenerating sound came after the bloody glass shards hit the floor.
He gasped relishing the fact that the intense pain was going away.
He looked up and around. Then he turned to the hole he was sent through.
He could see the other building. He could see the melting structure of it.
Surely enough, he also saw two bright twinkles shrouded in darkness and magma
The titan fiend was still there.
The titan was glaring at him.
So he ran.