Sophia's Private Penthouse — Rooftop
Butch stood on the edge of the helicopter and saw the open rooftop door close, watching Carmine descend into the building, before quickly turning to the pilot.
"Let's get out of here," Butch said. "Theres no point in hanging around."
The pilot did not answer.
Butch leaned forward. "Did you hear me? Don't tell me you're gonna stick around?"
The pilot still said nothing and turned his head slowly.
The turn went past ninety degrees until the man's neck rotated through a full one hundred and eighty degrees until the face looked directly backward at Butch. The man's eyes were cocky and amused.
Butch pressed himself back into his seat.
The man he thought was with started to change his facial features as they slowly rearranged into someone else entirely and the man in the pilot seat became a different man and Butch recognized it.
"Your one of the freaks Crane has…" Butch said. His voice handled the situation better than his face.
"That's rude," Basil said pleasantly.
"You people are genuinely good," Butch said, catching his breath from the surprise.
"The best," Basil said. "I specifically am the best."
Butch exhaled and settled deeper into the seat looking at the man Crane sent.
"You now how long I worked for Carmine?," Butch said while he looked out the window. "fifteen-fifteen years of placating that man, then his daughter Sophia, and then wants me to be Carmine's man inside her operation. I'm glad that white haired girl… Jaina right? told me what Crane could give me months ago and suddenly I'm also feeding everything I have to Crane. Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to spy for three separate parties simultaneously?"
"I can imagine it requires a tremendous amount of betrayal," Basil said.
"It's a skill," Butch said. "A professional skill, I assume you're taking me somewhere to relax and get my reward."
"Absolutely," Basil said. "You're going somewhere to be very well rewarded..."
Butch was distracted thinking of the massive payday he would get, turns out he was just a greedy coward this entire time. However he didn't catch the tone of the last word that sounded more like a threat…
"Good," Butch said.
Basil lifted the helicopter off the rooftop pad. The rotors cut through the air as they rose above the building and banked away from Sophia's penthouse picking up speed. Below them the city was still full of smoke still rising from several districts, and the fear and dread still filling the city.
Butch leaned back, a small, satisfied smile forming on his face not caring however he only cared about himself.
He had been playing this game for years. Now, at last, one side had seen his value clearly enough to pull him in.
The helicopter flew on across the bay to Narrows island.
Sophia's Private Penthouse — Balcony
"Where is my treacherous daughter?" Carmine said, his voice low and dangerous.
"She is somewhere far from here after doing exactly what I told her to do. She will run what remains of the Falcone organization but only as my puppet," the unknown man said to him.
Carmine's left eye shifted, the red-black energy beginning to bleed into it.
The man on the bench stood up and turned to face him.
"You, some young nobody…" Carmine said, the words heavy with realization, "are the architect of all this?"
The red-black energy flared brighter filling both of Carmine's eyes.
"Alberto is dead because of me, Maroni attacked because of me, your daughter betrayed you because of me..."
The windows behind Carmine began to crack, fractures spreading rapidly across the glass.
"This city belongs to me now," Crane said, he waved his arm out gesturing to it. "The Falcone family for all of its history, power, arrogance, and money..."
The pressure in the air became heavier and windows exploded outward and all the furniture inside the penthouse hurled against the walls and shattered.
"Your bloodline," Crane said, looking directly into Carmine's eyes, "its legacy will be remembered for being nothing but my toys!"
Carmine released everything.
The penthouse came apart as a massive red-black aura erupted around him like a demonic storm and the building disintegrated as the Crimson Monarch Quirk fully awakened. The energy swirled upward into the sky, forming the terrifying outline of a hellish figure with flaming wings and a bloody halo crown.
Crane stood in the air amid the destruction, surrounded by his own glowing yellow fear energy and standing on a platform.
Within a second the two opposing forces collided with a shockwave that shattered windows for blocks in every direction. The entire building collapsed beneath them as the battle between Gotham's past and its future truly began.
Crane had surrounded himself with fear energy managing to block Carmine's attacks in the air and the two landed on the street below, all while he released toxin onto the city below and a massive cloud through the streets and apartments below, finding the people hiding and fleeing. These people had already been terrified for days but Crane wanted more fear..
The entire city around him now had a red tint as Crane looked at the demonic monster across the street from him before it crossed the distance in a second.
The closing speed was faster than he expected and the barrier formed around Crane's body at the moment of impact but still sent him flying though multiple apartments down the street before he managed to anchor himself down and stopped.
He stepped back out through the wall seeing thousands around him feeling in terror of the fight before Carmine came through the wall at a different angle.
The second hit was worse and Crane went sideways through a skyscraper's lower floors out over to a traffic intersection, his barrier still held and was getting stronger, he managed to caught himself on a platform of energy before Carmine arrived.
Below him, he saw a large number of people sheltering in the parking garage who looked at Crane terrified and his power surged again.
He anchored his feet to the surface of the nearest building face with the energy and ran alongside it as the fear energy formed around his legs, allowing him to move along the vertical surface with unnatural speed before jumping over it hundreds of metres in the air. He created a giant sickle of condensed fear energy and hurled it at Carmine.
Carmine dodged, but the sickle sliced cleanly through three buildings behind him, cutting them in half.
Crane formed a whip of energy, wrapped it around Carmine's arm, and slammed him downward through a forty-story skyscraper, the building caught fire floor by floor before collapsing entirely, raining debris on the terrified civilians below.
Carmine rose again almost instantly, his demonic form growing even more monstrous. He unleashed a gigantic beam of flaming demonic energy directly at Crane.
Crane put everything into his barrier, redirecting the blast downward and carving a circular crater the size of two city blocks. Nothing remained but scorched, flat earth.
High above the destruction he could see the entire city, Crane looked across the island and saw a large cruise ship explode in the southeast harbor in a green and purple explosion? But in that moment of distraction he turned and Carmine charged again knocking him through the air onto the side of another building.
Running across a building's face with the energy anchoring the legs moving even faster now and saw Carmine flying towards him and created a gigantic scythe.
He built it from his fear energy but also had black fear toxin misting off the blade's edge moving along it seeping through the city below and threw it from the building face at an angle calculated for where Carmine would be.
As the scythe went through the air where it cut Carmine into two pieces and, the blade kept going passing through, the upper sections of any building over 30 floors and sent even more destruction onto the streets below and continued until it dissipated as Crane looked and saw Carmine was back together and already in front of him.
He managed to brace for impact, covering his body in a shell of fear energy as Carmine grabbed him and flying them both through a building into the surface below into a gas station.
The explosion was enormous as the ground shook nearby. The entire north end of the city was now terrified over a million and climbing.
Carmine came out of the debris with one wing torn slowly healing itself in fire and his crown's light flickered before restabilizing still at maximum output, the demonic red-black eyes found Crane across the debris field.
Carmine shrieked in rage and opened his hands, firing a huge beam of fire, energy, and pressure at Sugoru.
The buildings on either side of the beam's path were caught in the heat and steel and glass and concrete began catching fire and melting into the streets as many fled.
Crane breathed it all in and put a barrier up while moving simultaneously.
The barrier absorbed the beam as he started running, moving at a fast speed blocking it as he ran around the city, the beam destroying more around them meanwhile he released more toxin as he went. The pressure from Carmine's beam spread the cloud across Northern Gotham reaching people still hiding, making sure as many were terrified as possible, all feeding back to his Quirk.
So even while he was on the defense, he was the one getting stronger.
Carmine released the beam roaring then descended after him onto the street.
Crane was on the road and felt his Quirk at a level he had never felt before the war. He stopped on the street looking at all the destruction from the past week until this very moment.
Millions of people, full of fear across the islands.
It had been his true reason for orchestrating this war, controlling the mob was necessary but the war had been feeding his Quirk since the first shot was fired three days ago to gain the power needed for this fight.
He looked up at the demonic form descending toward him and started moving backwards to a street he had been leading this demonic monster too since the start.
45th Street - North Gotham
After 30 seconds of moving faster than he ever could before keeping Falcone in his sight he created 4 large blades and stabbed them into the street collapsing it.
Between him and Carmine the hole opened up and human drones came sprinting in a continuous stream that lasted forty seconds. Hundreds of them, emerging from the tunnels below all charging toward Carmine.
The Crimson Monarch's response to several hundred bodies charging at him was apocolyptic shredding them with energy, fire burning them in clusters, and brute force of the demonic king flattening the normal humans into paste but he couldent get them all and hundreds reached him and exploded.
Each Human drone was modified into a walking bomb and each time one exploded into a small blast and the demon started taking damage and charged not fully healed in its rage.
The last hundred drones at the back of the stream began running back to Crane and stacked, flailing themselves onto each other, and a massive wall of flesh was taking shape across the street in seconds. Carmine burned through the center of it then it exploded in a blast that rocked the city but Carmine still emerged, his crown flickering and skin rebuilding itself slower than earlier while it healed it didn't notice Crane come from an alley wrapping his leg in energy and toxin kicking him.
Carmine went upward as Suguro ran up a wrecked building and coated himself in energy and rose to meet the demonic form in the open air.
Above the City - North Gotham
They were above the waterfront, continuing their brutal fight with the city spread beneath them.
Crane absorbed a hit and went backward through the air, the barrier preventing any damage, and caught himself on a platform of energy above the harbor.
His mask had finally cracked and he took the broken thing off, tossing it below into the harbour before taking a deep breath running his hands through his dark hair.
He looked at Carmine and smiled.
"Every time you attack me and we continue this fight," Crane said, "the city gets more afraid, every second of this fight and all that terror they feel has been coming to me."
He looked at Carmine's form and a terrifying smile emerged on Suguro's face as he laughed out loud in a way he had never done before.
"AND IT FEELS SO AMAZING!!!."
Carmine's animalistic demonic form screamed and above Crane he rose while the young man stayed stationary on his energy platform.
Both hands and wings lit up and he released his full output of the Crimson Monarch directed at Crane's position. A massive beam of extremely bright red and black energy was flaming and crackling with lightning shot directly on top of Crane, illuminating the shadows of the Gotham skyline to the mainland.
The military, heroes and refugees all started panicking while a news crew that had replaced the crew who died earlier from the Gallavan bridge situation caught it.
The live stream crossed five million concurrent viewers.
Five million people watched a beam that looked like it came from hell itself as it fired into the city.
Crane, still silently chuckling like he was drunk on power, looked up and calmly made the shield.
It was the size of a small building and redirected the blast into the harbour then caught Carmine's punch and whipped the demon down to the surface.
He descended to the waterfront street seeing Carmine for the first time not being able to heal himself after that attack the demon was hunched over before struggling to straighten up to meet Crane and the two began to advance to each other once more
Carmine's body ripped itself apart as a sword grew from his flesh leaving a deep wound that wasn't healing anymore.
Crane saw this and made his energy scythe, deciding to match the monster.
Black fear toxin ran along the blade's edge as the energy formed, before the two weapons met in the centre of the street but the clash was short and underwhelming.
The scythe cut through Carmine's sword cleanly as Crane had been stronger the longer the fight lasted while the Crimson Monarch was declining.
Carmine screamed as the sword broke and his bloody halo crown faltered while the scythe then cut off one of his wings then looked to see Crane in front of him with the scythe gone.
Multiple energy tendrils from Suguro's back emerged, finding Carmine's four limbs and pulling them outward in all four directions as they rose back up in the air. The demonic form spread across the sky restrained.
Then a cloud of toxin surrounded them in a mist blocking out most of what Carmine could see.
Then the first Falcone manifested in the toxins mist.
North Gotham - Evening
The first Falcone looked at Carmine then the rest of his ancestors around him until finally his father appeared.
They looked at the form Carmine had become he had lost their city becoming nothing more than a demonic animal far from what a true wielder of their families power should look like.
Carmine had a flicker of recognition until he saw them turn their backs on him and walk into yellow blades that cut through them willingly rather than acknowledge him.
Carmine screamed and broke the tendrils and flew to the shadow figure behind them and headbutt it at full speed knocking the pair out of the nightmare sphere.
But they both then flew into a smaller building and Crane flooded it with toxin until the inside of the building seemingly disappeared and Carmine slowly looked around like he was in an empty void.
Void - North Gotham?
The area around Carmine seemed different and the fire coming off his demon skin was the only light source as the creature continued walking forward for minutes until he heard the voice.
The voice was his sons… and it managed to bring back pieces of his consciousness as he followed it.
The voice seemed to move in the dark coming from all around him until he finally saw a small orb of light.
After getting closer he saw it was his son.
Illuminated from below, his son's face looked at him and as he got closer he saw no body below it, only a rippling shadow.
"Dad is that you! Why haven't you come for me?" the head said with Alberto's voice.
Carmine moved toward it and saw his son's features slowly fade from what he once recognized; it continued pleading for him but each step revealed something wrong.
His eye was missing.
His skin was rotting.
The head looked like hollowy flesh.
And once he was very close the voice began to change.
A gradual shift from Alberto's to another he recognized…
He then saw what was truly in front of him.
Crane had his hand inside his son's head using it like a puppet.
"It hurts… It hurts so much" the head said now crying bloody tears from its eyesockets, in a voice that was a mix of both.
Carmine stared at it and his mind from the depths was pulled back for a few moments and he froze up.
"It hurts save me dad!," Crane said, dropping the Alberto voice entirely. He then raised his other hand and Sophia's head appeared on it, her expression bright with the specific and she was laughing.
Carmine reached for them.
His hand closed was close then the heads exploded and the void faded around them as he flew upward, out of the toxin filled building, into the air.
Where Crane was waiting with another scythe he created.
It stabbed him through the chest as he emerged impaling him as it slid deeper as it hooked through his body, then was flung downwards and couldn't get back up as Crane watched above before descending.
— The End Of An Era —
Carmine was now limping as he struggled to stand. The halo crowns light now dim, fading fast while his powers were barley active, and his body was so damaged he could barely move and limped towards Crane who landed on the far side of the street between them.
Crane was next to a bus stop that somehow remained standing through this fight while he looked at the demon and started to stretch getting ready to end this.
When he heard a quiet scream from a woman hiding under the bus stop bench.
She was in her 20's and had fled her building right before it crumbled to pieces from the fight outside, she had been running through the battlezone terrified and had inhaled lots of toxin Crane had spread through the area. She was now under the bolted down bench curled into the fetal position, now face to face with who had caused all this.
she saw as he reached down towards her but she couldn't run just tried to curl up tighter and hide.
His right hand had a bumby-fleshy look to it, this was the glove made from Overhaul and Crane placed it on her shoulder and the woman became a sphere of flesh in under two seconds eyes still darting around in horror.
He set it on then threw it across the street hitting the demon with it staggering Carmine.
Crane then put his right hand on the wreckage of a cargo truck beside creating dozens of large spears that fired outward in a spread covering the full distance between them, each one a meter of compressed steel.
They hit Carmine across the chest and shoulders and legs but he kept moving slowly almost at a snail's pace but refused to fall.
Crane's eyes narrowed and with his left hand manifested fear energy blades and began firing them alongside the physical spears.
But Carmine still continued forward, his body filling with dozens upon dozens of spears and blades impaling themselves in him.
His wings were now torn to shreds, his arms limp and severed, his chest so full he couldn't see forward and then finally…
The bloody halo crown was now extinguished, its light gone and it fell to the ground breaking into a thousand pieces.
Carmine limped the last ten meters without the crown before he finally came to a stop just a couple meters in front of Suguro and managed to look at Crane through everything.
"You are worthy, more than I ever was…"
The man uttered the final words in his last moments of clarity and hit the pavement face first and finally had met his death.
Crane turned and walked towards the wall of a building and sat on the rubble at the wall's base and looked at his hands.
He finally felt his Quirk declining now that his toxin was dissipating and the battle over the imminent fear felt across the city and beyond gradually began to decrease.
He looked at the city around him and the aftermath of this fight and only felt a hunger for more… this was just a–
He let the thought go, not everything needed to be figured out today.
He leaned back against the wall thinking upon the old mans final words.
"Worthy huh…" he said.